Chapter 1
"Shiro, where we going?" Lance asked in a bored tone. The blue paladin slumped back in his seat on the bridge, swishing his chair back and forth. Pidge was busy locking onto the coordinates she was given. Hunk was asleep in his seat. Keith remained quiet and stoic like always. Princess Allura stood at the helm with a determined look on her face. Coran was busy doing whatever in the engine room and Shiro was deep in thought as he gazed over his own console.
"We have a rescue mission Thace put us in charge of carrying out," he intentionally remained vague and distant in his response, hoping it would satisfy not only Lance's curiosity, but that of the others as well. It didn't.
"The whole universe is our rescue mission. What makes this one so urgent?"
"Because the longer we wait, the less time we have to save lives. Sit tight and we'll get there."
"Uh, Shiro? These coordinates Thace gave you leads really deep into Galra territory. Are you sure this is where we need to go?" Pidge asked. She looked over at him and lifted a concerned brow. Shiro nodded, a sense of surety in his eyes. He knew what he was doing and so did Thace. He trusted him. Pidge looked back at her virtual computer monitors when the coordinates pulled up a view of the destination. It didn't look pretty. A massive ship sat in orbit around a red looking planet, Galra in architecture. The dark color of the ship had a sinister contrast with the red and the sharp, angular edges didn't make it any less threatening.
Shiro glanced over at the view on Pidge's screen and a wave of anxiety rushed through him. Just the sight of that thing filled him with dread. If any of the paladins were focusing on him, he was sure they would see color drain from his face and cold sweat run down his neck. He took a deep, steady breath and looked ahead. Coran gave a vague order that it was clear for them to jump through a wormhole. Allura concentrated on her Altean energy that drew quintessence in to power the jump. The circlet on her forehead emitted a bluish glow and then a massive hole ripped through the spacetime in front of them. In what was only seconds they entered the wormhole and crossed who knows how many light years through space.
The red planet was the first thing that everyone saw. It was somewhere between the size of Earth and Neptune visually, made of gas by the looks of it. The stormy swirling patterns mimicked Jupiter, but not as violent and not as much variety in color. No distinguishable moons orbited the planet, instead just clumps of space debris took their place. The star that the planet circled was big and red in color up close, dwarfing the paladin's home star.
Shiro could feel a cold chill run up his spine. He never wanted to see this damned place again. There was a nag in the back of his throat that wanted his stomach to evacuate its contents and dizziness was settling in. Sparks of electricity made his skin crawl and he could feel the undying urge in his hands to grip onto the manual controls and turn away. He can't. Whatever horrendous memories his mind wanted to block, he can't turn back. The Blade of Marmora entrusted them with a mission. He was pulled from his thoughts when someone asked, "What…is this place?"
Shiro looked over to see Keith staring at him, obvious worry in his eyes. Leave it to Keith to know when he was not okay. He looked away; he had no room to show his team that he was anything less than a strong leader. "There's radio waves emitting from this base, I'm locking onto them now," Pidge said. She pressed a few buttons and slid her fingers across the screen in front of her. Altean texts displayed on the bigger computer screen for everyone to see, changing the code rapidly until it could translate the emission. Once deciphered, a visual monitor popped up showing what the base was broadcasting.
It looked to be viewing the inside like from a high tech camera. The scene showed a circular room with a deep circular stage in the middle. Around the stage sat a multitude of aliens, the majority of them being Galra. They cheered wildly like fans at a football stadium. The camera moved about the atrium, closer to the stage. For a brief moment the camera rested on the patron of this event, sitting in the front row in their one designated seat that would fit an Emperor of Rome. The patron was Galra, naturally, one that Shiro didn't recognize. By the way they were surrounded by guards and one or two mistresses, and the way they were dressed in opulent clothing said something about their high rank. They looked burly enough with a few scars and war paint on their face, a captain or commander maybe?
The camera switched viewpoints down to the interesting part, the stage. It was more like a pit really; dirt and rocky structures littered the ground. Traces of different colored slashes decorated the scenery, but not for decorative intentions. It was blood, alien blood. Battered and torn portions that looked like tissue were strewn about in obscure manner…organs of different species. Shiro could barely keep from vomiting at the sight as flashes of those same images from the past popped up into his head. He dared a glance at his other teammates to see their reactions; they were all similar in nature. In everyone's eyes was a mixture of sorrow, rage and mortified. Shiro looked back at the screen.
The camera panned over to show a massive looking alien. This one looked more like a body builder with all of the muscles that bulged tightly under what looked like fur in a greenish blue hue. The alien had 3 limbs and a tail, all massive in their own right. The only scrap of clothing they had were torn and ragged spandex type material around their legs and waist, the rest was just fur. Whatever race this alien was, it didn't look good. Multiple injuries and gashes were painted on the fur, matting it and tangling with other colors of blood. There was text at the bottom of the screen, something written in Galra. Shiro could read the language on a basic level from spending so much time around it. The top text was the name of the alien followed by a description on the bottom, usually saying something about the species and their combat ability.
Lastly the camera panned over to the opponent on the other side of the ring, and Shiro froze. He knew that opponent. He felt his heart stop when he saw them. The opponent, he's met him before, fought with him before. Determination to win was still a fire burning in their eyes. Survival was the only goal for Shiro and thanks to this opponent, he made it out alive. He watched as another display of text popped up on the screen, reading the name in Galra that he'd come to recognize: Ankary Blackwell.
Ankary appeared mostly human. He had pale white skin and long black hair that stopped at about mid-back, pulled into a loose ponytail behind him with a few rogue strands hanging around his shoulders. The front most part of his hair stemmed from a deep widows peak, framing his face into an 'M' shape. What didn't make him human was obvious. His ears came to a point, but that wasn't really the most unusual part about him. Two cream colored horns curled up from his temples into sharp points. Claws at the tips of his fingers were kept sharp and ready. Next to the long serpentine fangs embedded into his teeth, a black forked tongue could easily slip out when he hissed. A deep crimson red covered his eyes, hiding any sclera, iris or pupil, but he had better eye sight than most known creatures.
The most prominent part of him was his tail. It was one and a half times his height when it came to length and it was powerful, thick at the diamond shaped base and slender as it reached out to the end where a long half arrow shaped spade was his most deadly weapon. The black scales were tougher than any armor, nothing could cut through it. All together his inborn weapons juxtaposed the small frame he had, lithe and slender.
The body suit he wore did not show any traces of skin, but the form fitting did not make it any more comfortable. He wasn't the only one who wore a full body suit with a tattered, purplish loose over shirt that fit the whole ensemble that all of the other prisoners wore. The only differences were the white metal bands around his biceps, lined with two thick crimson stripes on the ends. For protective purposes, Shiro guess.
Based on his own uniform he wore in the past, Shiro knew how uncomfortable they were. He remembered feeling embarrassed when he had to wear it, like it was revealing everything without showing anything. By the way Ankary moved, the prisoner uniform seemed to suit him. Built for speed and agility, Shiro had witnessed just how flexible and agile he was when he was a prisoner, like a gymnast. He looked a little roughed up, but otherwise no incapacitating injuries were seen. This wasn't a fair fight. However, fighting here never was fair.
"Shiro?" The voice snapped him from his trance, looking at the screen. He turned his head to see Keith looking at him. "Is this…" He didn't need to finish the thought for the black paladin to understand. Instead of answering he looked back at the screen and just watched as Ankary stood firm in his stance, even if he looked ready to collapse. There was a cheer in the crowd, something that Shiro recognized and absolutely dreaded. It was the same chant he heard when he was stuck in that same position. VICTORY! VICTORY! VICTORY!
Ankary looked around at the audience, bearing his fangs in an angry snarl at them. He looked down at his opponent, who could not fight any longer. The paladins couldn't do anything but witness as he crouched down to look the burly alien in the eye. He pressed a gentle hand to the muzzle and the thing closed their eyes. Ankary raised his tail blade high and harshly struck it down right through the thing's throat. Blood sputtered out of the powerful blow and the audience's cry turned frantic. Seeing that only made Shiro's gut twist into a tight knot. Allura gasped at the sight and the others remained still. Shiro's voice was scarcely above a whisper, "Welcome to the Arena."
Author's note:
Thank you for taking time to read my story! To help give you a frame of reference here's some information you can use.
Ankary Blackwell and Mistress Amelia are my original characters. (c) If you want to learn more about them you can also find me on Deviant Art under TumiaArtStudio. Their profiles are right at the top of my gallery so feel free to browse so you can get to know them better. As always, feedback is very much welcome and my love goes out to you, my readers!