Hey! It's Monday, which means it's update day!

I gotta admit, I somewhat disturbed myself while writing this chapter. And that's saying something. I've written full-out torture scenes and didn't blink an eye, but I had to watch cat video's after writing this chapter to cleanse my soul.

That being said, this chapter will be somewhat heavy on the gore side, as well as some phycological torment. You have been warned. The character developement of Megatronus is a crucial one, and this chapter is all about his character.

And without further ado, on with the show!


Chapter 5


Of the 50 new boys that had been taken into the Gladiator pits, only seventeen survived the lions. Because of a rainstorm, the tournament was pushed back a week, giving the gladiators extra time to train. During the week building up to the tournament, the seventeen surviving boys, along with the veterans, underwent intense training intervals, bodily health rituals, and strategy reviews. The Trainer wanted the slaves in his company to be in peak condition, and if Megatronus was honest, he couldn't agree more. Any little bit helped. He wasn't going to die in the tournament the next day.

Megatronus had quickly became a favorite topic within the gossip of the company faculty, as well as the town community. Famous for standing over the corpses of lions and fellow slaves alike, and laughing. Talk of the new warrior flew around the town. He was Megatronus, the boy who laughed in the face of death, merciless and courageous, fearsome and sadistic. And yet the boy who used be nameless could say that more than half of the rumors spread about him were untrue.

So Megatronus sat quietly in the room he now shared with his new team members. The teams were made of four members, holding a mix of veterans and new boys alike. They had recently been assigned to each other and were given the night before the tournament to get to know each other, and discuss battle strategies.

The team Megatronus got himself stuck on consisted of the twins, Skyquake and Dreadwing, along with the veteran in the weird mask who had stood next to him in line the day he fought the lions. Through a varied number of sources, Megatronus figured out that the veteran's name was Soundwave. The irony of the name was that the man never talked. Ever. Whether it was because he was mute or just plain out refused to talk, Megatronus wasn't sure. Either way, it was certainly creepy, the way the tall and lanky man just stood there staring at them, with his eyes barely visible under the mask. So, with his team being made up of two thirteen-year-old's, and a man who never talked, leadership just sorta fell to him. Perfect, Megatronus grumbled inside his head. Because I'm so qualified for this job.

"I heard that some of the gladiators are fifteen feet tall!" Dreadwing spoke out, obviously terrified at the thought.

Megatronus simply rolled his eyes. Not like the twins were not good warriors or anything, but Megatronus was personally hoping he wouldn't have to deal with little kids on his team. "Nobody's that tall, kid," Megatronus assured him. "The worst we'd probably get is around 6'9,"

"I guess that's not as bad," Dreadwing hummed. "I was just hoping I'd live until adulthood,"

"If you don't mind me asking," Megatronus spoke up, "How did you end up at the Pit?"

"We were born slaves," Dreadwing hummed. "We worked on the farmlands out in the southern end of the island practically all our lives, then a storm destroyed the farm, and we took to the streets. But we were caught by slave hunters. They got a pretty big bounty for us too, considering our size,"

"And long story short, we were sold to this fraggin slag-house," Skyquake summed up.

"Well, that's fucked up," Megatronus hummed out loud.

"What the scrap is 'fuck'?" Skyquake questioned.

"Oh, it's a curse word from where I came from. Seems the people on this island use different shit,"

Dreadwing gave him a scrutinizing look. "And shit is?"

"Basically our waist," Megatronus explained.

"So it's pretty much 'slag'" Skyquake summed up.

"Yep. And 'fuck' is basically 'frag', but I have no clue what 'scrap' is supposed to mean," Megatronus elaborated.

"We just say it whenever something slag-sucking happens,"

Megatronus shrugged. "Different place, different curse words," He concluded. "I'm assuming you guys never had names,"

Skyquake laughed. "If Slave #62 counts as a name,"

"I guess you wouldn't know how to read then," Megatronus sighed, disappointed. He was hoping that maybe, since they were farmhands, there was a chance they were able to secretly teach themselves.

"Nope," Both twins said simultaneously. "But we always wanted to learn," Dreadwing continued, smiling.

"Maybe Soundwave knows how to read," Skyquake suggested hopefully.

All three boys turned their head to the one veteran in the room. The lanky man simply stared back at them, saying nothing, before slowly nodding his head.

"You read?!" Megatronus stood up in excitement. "You've got to teach us!"

The silent man shook his head.

"Why not!?" The teen shouted, trying to repress his anger. After all, his hope wasn't there for long, it wasn't worth getting upset over.

Soundwave said nothing, making no movements, or indicating that he was going to bother explaining. After a few seconds of sitting under Megatronus' angry glare and desperate plead, the man simply stood up, walked over to his bed, and laid down.

The three boys exchanged looks, before deciding that it would be in their best interest to get some sleep as well. They would be facing hell the next day.


There were approximately 367 gladiators currently in The Pit Gladiator company. Were. After the preliminary round, where the teams would face different animals, there where only 332 members left. Some of the people who died where new boys, but a surprising amount of veterans had also lost their lives. Lucky for Megatronus, no members of his team died. Their opponent was a large, and rather quick snake, but once the he and the twins managed to pin it down, Soundwave was able to cut it's head off. Fighting the lions had been harder. Through, the large amounts of screaming people in the crowd didn't help the gladiators focus.

The team, who had been dubbed Pit #5 by the Trainer, sat off in the wings, watching the first two teams go up to fight each other. Their fellow gladiators wore brass helmets, gauntlets, and boots, with leather kilts wrapped around their waist, as well as red fabric, indicating their company. The opposing team wore something similar, except they wore blue fabric.

The moment the bell rang, signaling them to fight, the gladiators took off from the dirt. Only moments after movement, waves of blood flew through the air, as metal pierced through flesh. The slaughter fest was grisly, but Megatronus didn't look away. If he couldn't take the gore now, how was he going to survive the battlefield?

Teams went in and out, and Megatronus was barely even able to keep track of who died and who didn't. He watched as a veteran he knew got his skull crushed by another player. At least his death was quick. His teammate spend a while running with an arm cut off before finally being beheaded and put out of his pain.

Dreadwing had thrown up. Skyquake was able to keep his stomach contents down, but he had his eyes covered the entire battle. Soundwave simply sat, unmoving. Megatronus assumed it was because, being a veteran, he had already seen these things. The boy himself was struggling to hold his meal down, but he was determined to save all the puking and sobbing that he felt like doing until after the tournament was done, when those things wouldn't be a risk to his life. He could only pray that the twins vivid reactions to the slaughter fest would not hinder their ability to fight. One mistake and their pitifully short lives would end.

For whatever reason, Megatronus began to wonder if Orion Pax was in a better situation than he was.

All too soon, his team was called up to the field.

Megatronus stood in a straight line with his team, the twins on one side, and Soundwave on another. He could feel his legs shake, staring at the opponents, who were all around his size and armed to the teeth. The carcases of the previous round had been cleaned up, though the metallic smell of blood and rotting fragrance of flesh still continued to linger. Not enough clean-up in the world could take the filth of death down from the air.

Three of the four members of the other team where the standard Gladiator type; tall, muscular, probably somewhere in their late twenties. However, Megatronus' attention was drawn to the fourth member.

He was considerably shorter than the rest of his team, and through the holes in his helmet, Megatronus was able to spot the features of a young face. He couldn't have been older than fourteen. The acid in Megatronus' stomach began to boil, threatening to pop out and spit up. He was a child. And they were going to have to kill him. And to top it all off, his pale skin, red hair, and freckled face reminded Megatronus too much of the young friend he met on the slave ship, what felt like a lifetime ago.

The bell rang.

Immediately, the child ran towards Megatronus to square up. It was a logical choice, seeing as both Soundwave and the twins were taller than him, though he still managed to tower over the kid. The ring of metal clashing against metal sounded as the little boy's sword clashed against his. For his youth, the kid managed to be a very capable fencer.

Megatronus knew he could beat the child easily if he tried. He had the highest advantage, and no matter how good this kid was at swordsmanship, he stood no chance against an opponent who was bigger than him in pretty much every way. But with each clank of the sword, the boy screamed out in a frightened voice of a boy who hadn't even reached puberty yet. How was Megatronus supposed to kill this little kid?

Soon enough, he found his back towards the wall. The little boy's sword shot forwards, and so did Megatronus'. The boys sword hit the wall, inches from the teens face. The boy himself however, found the sword stuck all the way through his gut, and out his back. His blood dropped in heaps, and his body simply slid off, landing on the dirt, while his eyes lost their life.

Megatronus killed him.

He killed this boy.

This poor, little boy, who stood no chance against him.

He killed him, because he could.

He could kill the boy, so he did.

The boy was trying to kill him. So he killed the boy. He could kill the boy, and the boy couldn't kill him. It was simple as that.

The boy had to die. If he didn't die, then Megatronus wouldn't have survived.

Yes. It was alright. So what he killed the little boy? He was alive. That was all that mattered.

Wasn't it?

Like he did the day he killed the lions, Megatronus started laughing. There was no joy in this laughter. Just pain. Pain, and the refusal to break down in tears. Pain, and the refusal to shut down. Pain, and the refusal to die.

And so he didn't.


The rest of the round went by in a blurr. Megatronus remembered that at some point, he might have killed someone else, but all he could really remember was the smell of the little boy's corpse, his dead stare, and the sound of Megatronus' own laughter. But the details didn't matter. He survived. And so did Soundwave. And so did the Twins. They all lived. And the members of the other team all died. It was him, or them. His life or their lives. They chose their lives, he chose his. They both battled for their own lives. He won.

It was all so incredibly, painfully, simple.

The moment the team exited the arena and into the waitroom, Skyquake immediately fell to his knees, the contents of his stomach shooting up his throat and splattering on the ground. The boy continued to heave, spitting up acid and bile, then continued to dry-heave when he had nothing left to vomit. He shook his head wildly, while he struggled to catch his breath. "I can't do this! I can't do this!" He shouted, before he continued to dry-heave some more.

His twin, on the other hand, had taken to leaning on the wall, his hands on his head, bracing it, his eyes wide with absolute terror. "The blood," He spoke out quietly, his voice pitched at an eerily high octave. "He had so much blood. I didn't mean to make it come out! I didn't mean to!"

Soundwave casually strolled over to the direction of the break room where the resting gladiators could have some refreshments, and wash themselves off.

"Come on," Megatronus hummed, calmly and quietly, as he picked Skyquake off the ground, supporting the large boy on his shoulder. "We should get washed off before the next round,"

Though it was a bit of a struggle, Megatronus managed to guide both the traumatized twins towards the showers.

Megatronus had been amazed that the island of Primus managed to make itself a plumbing system that actually sprayed water from shower heads. Even more amazing was that, unlike the water at the auction houses, the water at the pits was heated.

He watched the blood wash off his body and fell down the drain. The red liquid stank like iron, and made the surrounding air feel thick, and choking. Some of this blood belonged to the little boy he killed. The boy had to kill him, or he would've died. Megatronus had to kill the boy, or it would be him who died. He killed the boy. He lived. The little boy did not. The twins where traumatized. They had either killed or helped to kill their opponents. They would be wracked with guilt, and drowning in the horrors they saw. But they were alive too. Megatronus looked at the blood washing off his body, landing at his feet, and washed down the drain. The slave without a name; who was given the name Megatronus after a legendary war monger; who proved himself worthy of that name by surviving; let himself smile. Survival was a noble cause. He would have to kill more people; that was just the way his life was going to be. And he would kill those people so that he could live. And if they managed to kill him, they would live. But he couldn't let that happen. They had to die. They had to die so he could live. And he would live. He would live by taking the lives of others. He would live by giving up his soul.

They died. He lived. He could kill them, and they couldn't kill him.

After washing himself off, Megatronus met up with the twins at the lounge, and simply sat besides them. Soundwave was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't much of a surprise. For a while, the three boys said nothing. Finally, Skyquake spoke up;

"How are you so calm?" He asked his older teammate.

"What?" Megatronus questioned, hoping for clarification.

"How are you still ok?" The thirteen-year-old clarified. "You just killed someone. How are you acting as if nothing happened?"

Megatronus shrugged, not quite sure of his own reasoning, or if it would even make sense spoken out loud. "We lived, our opponents died. If our opponents lived, we would be the ones who died. By killing our enemies, we saved our own lives. And we're going to have to continue saving our own lives as long as we're gladiators. We're just gonna have to get used to this,"

Soundwave came and sat down with his team. He had an empty cup in his hands, so Megatronus assumed he had left to drink his water, apparently being concerned enough about people seeing beneath his mask that he went to drink alone. Megatronus began to wonder if the lanky man next to him had broken down the same way the twins did, and the same way that Megatronus was struggling not to, the first time he killed somebody. But the man was a veteran. He had probably long since learned to deal with it.


When the first round's where over, the members of Pit #5 where able to discover who lost and who won. The company had 18 teams left after the preliminary round, while the other company had 24. Due to having 6 teams without competitors, the opposing company got six extra points. Meanwhile, of the 18 teams, the Pit lost six teams, while the opposite team lost twelve. This left both teams with 12 points, leaving them all tied up, holding the same number of remaining teams.

The next round would be doubles. Each team would select two members to fight the next round. It cut the losses from each company, but often left team members bickering over who would go fight to their death next.

For Pit #5, or Pit #4 now, since Pit#2 was slaughtered, leaving all the teams to move up a number, the choice was obvious; the twins were still struggling to keep themselves together after their brawl with the previous team, and Megatronus knew better than to shove traumatized thirteen-year-olds into a fight to the death. As much as he hated the idea of going back out and fighting again, the seventeen-year-old knew he stood a much better chance at survival than the twins did. Besides, he had Soundwave; a veteran who had battled himself through more tournaments than Megatronus would ever want to fight through.

The first team lost miserably, their life leaving their bodies mere seconds after the bell rang. I guess we're now Pit #3. Megatronus thought to himself.

The second team managed to win, though the battle was close. The third team also won, but one of the two members was killed. Megatronus swallowed down the dread that threatened to spill out his throat and throughout his body, burying it someplace where it wouldn't disturb him. He grabbed the claymore he usually used as a weapon, along with a shield. Like he did last battle, Soundwave grabbed a barbed-wire whip, along with a small dagger. They stepped onto the battlefield.

Megatronus would live. His opponents would die. He would kill them. He would kill them so that he could live. They would die so he wouldn't have to.

Lucky for him, their opponents were just standard gladiators. Both where big, muscular, but they where both shorter than him. He saw them whisper to each other and point towards Soundwave, probably planning on targeting him. Soundwave may have been taller than Megatronus, but the man was lanky, and skinny, and it was obvious which of the two had more muscle.

Megatronus felt Soundwave place something into his hand. Curious, the teen looked down and saw two individual cotton balls. He turned towards his teammate in confusion, but the silent man simply pointed to his ears. Unsure what to do, Megatronus placed them inside his ears.

Everything was quite. The shouting of the crowds sounded like quiet whispers. A gentle ring sounded above the whispering, and his opponents began to run forwards. That must have been the bell.

Suddenly, a strange sound was heard above the crowds. It sounded like a scream. It was loud, and even with the cotton balls, it sounded irritating. For the people without shielding for their ears, the sound hit the pain level, and Megatronus watched the opposing teams double over in pain, holding their hands to their ears to block out the sound. After turning to his partner, it suddenly occurred to Megatronus where the sound was coming from.

So that's why they call him Soundwave.

A second occurance came to Megatronus, and that was the realization that he would have to kill the two men they were fighting. If only Soundwave actually bothered to tell him the strategy! Clearly he still had vocal cords, if he could scream like that! Why didn't he tell the team what he was planning to do? Megatronus was prepared to kill those men in a fight to the death, but to murder them while they were incapacitated seemed cruel.

The screams stopped for barely a second before Soundwave built up another gasp of breath and began to scream again. This would be an easy victory. But it was wrong, cruel even. It was one thing to kill an opponent in battle. But this…

If they were not incapacitated, their opponents would be trying to kill them. Megatronus would have to fight for his life. If he killed these men while they could barely stand due to the sheer strength of Soundwaves deadly vocal cords, he wouldn't be killing them without reason. Either they died, or Soundwave would run out of strength, allowing them to engage in propper battle. But Soundwave would be exhausted. He would likely die. And Megatronus couldn't beat two men on his own. Well, maybe he could, but he didn't want to risk it.

With a swift stab to the neck, the first man fell to the ground, his life fading away as his blood poured out. The teen spent a moment realizing that he made him die slowly. In order to make it quick, he stabbed him a second time, this time through the temple and out the other side of his head. He did the same movement for the other man, who was struggling to fight back, fighting through his pain to pick up his sword, but it was futile.

The moment the two men died, Soundwave stopped screaming, the only indication that he ever started screaming in the first place was the rapid up-and-down motion of his chest. Megatronus looked down at his bloodied sword, and the two dead bodies at his feet. He barely got a good look at their faces. One of them, the man he stabbed in the throat, looked only a little older than himself. Megatronus was alive. He was alive because they died. He could leave the battlefield now.


Megatronus wasn't sure how many hours he had spent puking up his guts, but it must have been awhile, since the twins had come in and told them that the tournament was over, the Pit won, and Soundwave survived the single's match. Megatronus nodded, wiping the bile off his chin, and walked out of the bathroom.

"There's a celebration in the common room," Skyquake told him, "But brother and I are going to our room,"

"I think I'm gonna join you two," Megatronus responded, and the three teens started walking away together.

The moment Megatronus' head his his pillow, he fell asleep, surprisingly enough. The entire day exhausted him. Both physically and emotionally. He was now a killer. Guilty for three deaths. One of a young boy. Two of men left defenseless. He wasn't surprised that he kept waking up from nightmares all throughout the night.

But the strangest dream he had was one where the little red haired boy he met on the slave ship. Little Orion Pax. In this dream, Megatronus was chasing Orion, the child frequently asking what he was. Not even who, but what. Megatronus tried to answer. Tried to tell the young friend of his that he was the unnamed boy who promised he would see him again. The boy would deny it, and continued to ask; "What are you? What are you?"

Megatronus stopped in front of what looked like a river, and caught his reflection. He barely recognize his own self. He felt like himself; normal Megatronus. Tall and muscular seventeen-year-old who was born a slave and didn't receive a name until he became a gladiator. But in the water reflection, he saw something else. A monster, covered in the blood and flesh of the people he killed.

"What are you?" Orion asked again, shaking with fear.

"What are you? What are you? What are you? What are you? What are you?"

Megatronus couldn't say. He didn't know. Looking down at his hands, he saw the hands he had always seen. But observing his hands in the reflection of the water, he saw the bloodied hands of a killer.

"What am I?"


Yep. Lovely chapter huh?

So, I guess review. I don't have much else to say. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. At least somewhat. But I guess that's it.

~MotherUniverse signing out!