After hours of wandering around, Vorelando found himself walking out into an open field. Well, it wasn’t truly open, off in the distance and high above the clouds, he could still faintly see that it was enclosed by the jungle gym.

In the middle was a huge tree, underneath it sat 11 men, all shirtless, all beautiful. They were clearly together as a group. In fact, Vorelando recognized them as the people who had stood up immediately with him and Kobe, they were serious business.

Vorelando didn’t really want to fight 11 people at once, but he didn’t really have a choice. He required sustenance and right now he saw 11 bags of blood just waiting in front of him.

He approached them slowly, anticipating a quick attack but none of them moved.

“Stop!”

The absolutely gorgeous man sitting above the rest of the troupe raised his hand and commanded that Vorelando halt his advance, which he did. Expecting the leader to continue Vorelando waited but not another word was spoken for the next minute. Vorelando had to be the one to break the silence.

“You can see I stopped right.”

“I can.”

Silence. Vorelando was confused.

“You ain’t gonna say no more? Not gonna fight me? Something?”

“We have no intention of ganging up on you.”

It was now that Vorelando noticed that all these shirtless demigods had the same tattoo, an 11-legged scorpion with a number in the middle, each person's number seemed to be different. It looked very awkward with the odd number of legs but to each their own.

He wished now that he hadn’t been so stubborn and had taken up Kobe’s offer to scout out the competition with him. If he had he might be able to recognize such a distinctive tattoo.

“Can I at least have your name bro?”

“I do not have a name, only a number.”

He presented his magnificent pecs to Vorelando, underlining the number 1 in his scorpion.

“Alright, so you’re 1, got it. Everyone else the same?”

They all nodded in unison.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Mind if I ask y’all a question?”

“You may.” One allowed.

“You were all listening at the start right? Only 5 of us get to leave this place.”

“We understand that.”

They looked at him sexily, unblinking.

“So, what’s your plan? How do you get 11 into 5?”

“We don’t you dumba-“

“SILENCE.” One cut off four harshly as the latter had begun to rise to his feet. One then turned back to Vorelando and began to explain.

“We are the scorpion boys, the strongest vorers from the city over the horizon. We are not a cooperative group per se, everyone here wants to vore each other. But we’re all aware that in vore, your first loss is your last. We all love the game and we want that loss to be the match of our lives and so, we train together in the hopes that we will become each other's final opponents.”

Vorelando could sense the passion oozing from their perfect skin. He respected it.

“What are the numbers for?”

“They are much like a ranking, the number below can challenge the one above at any time, if they think they’ve grown strong enough to do so, except for 11, 11 is always there to fill into 10 when someone loses.”

“That’s an interesting system but why keep it going in here? You’ll have to duke it out eventually.”

“We understand that, we are merely waiting to see if a worthy challenger might pass by before we do anything rash, it wouldn’t do to miss out on the match of a lifetime because we were impatient.”

Vorelando saw his chance here. He didn’t know how powerful the scorpion boys were but he was confident he could vore their weakest member, even in the state he was in. If he could do that, he’d be refreshed and then he could take on anyone.

“Well, if you were looking for the match of a lifetime, you’ve found him.”

There was a pause and then all of the scorpion boys, except for One, burst out laughing. Vorelando put on an annoyed expression but he could barely contain his smile. This was perfect, they clearly didn’t know who he was.

“I apologize for the boys’ rudeness but I understand where their laughter comes from. You, sir, are in no more a position to fight a child than you are any of us.”

“You’d be surprised at what I can do when I get going. You’re not scared, are you? Come on, throw out your runt, I can take him.”

11 took offence to Vorelando’s remarks and stood up quickly but an outstretched arm from 1 prevented him from going any further.

“I suppose it is tiresome waiting for the competition to pass by, I’ll allow it.”

11 cracked his knuckles and walked out from under the tree to face Vorelando.

“This match between 11 and the newcomer shall begin on my count of 3.” said One.

“1, 2, 3!”

One clapped his hands together and 11 was off to the races. In an instant he had turned into a liquid form and rushed down Vorelando, engulfing his body. In a matter of moments, he had been fully dissolved inside the gorgeous liquid man’s body.

“Nothing but bluster, don’t know how he made it so far.”

11 turned back towards the tree but he only took 2 steps before he froze on the spot. He felt the same thing Clark had all those moons ago.

“Talking a lot of shit for someone within voring distance.”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

Starting in the right wrist, Vorelando’s mouth tore up 11’s arm, then through his torso, around the rest of his body before finally, replacing his head with his own.

Just as quickly as Vorelando had been dissolved, he was back and better than ever.

The remaining scorpion boys’ alluring eyes shot wide, all of them now fixated on Vorelando Jones.

“Alright, dickheads. Who’s next?”