Disclaimer: I own nothing of the DC Universe.
The audience cheered when the announcer declared the start of the games.
I just stood there. The sheer craziness of my situation was ridiculous. I could see the rest of the people around me doing exactly what I was doing expect for Lokin. The man was honestly smiling at the crowd, his arms wide, embracing the crowd as if they were all his friends rather than spectators to his likely demise. His sword was right by him, stabbed into the sand. I walked over to him and pulled him around to face me.
"What are you doing?"
Lokin responded with a puzzled look "I'm enjoying the crowd, taking it all in."
Suddenly the same sound of the door we just came through filled the area drawing my attention to it. Looking back at the door we had come through was not the only one there. There were three additional ones, one on the left of the door I came went through and the other two on the right side. Each one of them was opening with enough darkness to hide what was inside from outside view.
"Our first creature is all the way from Krypton! It is a prehistoric animal called the Tripedal Curosiananium brought back by the Psion's for your entertainment."
The Tripedal whatever came out of the right most door and I got a good look at it.
The best analogy my mind could think about was a dragon with some hydra characteristics. The first thing stuck out was its sheer size. The thing had to be at least half a mile long. Its skin was a light purple with each of its three heads shaped almost like a five-pointed star colored brown with some white lines starting from the beak running up the other points of its star shaped head. It was standing on four legs that I could see were claws the length of a human being.
"Our second creature is-"
I could not hear what the announcer was saying as images of the giant dragon in front of me picking me up by its teeth, throwing me in the air and the last thing I would see would be its wide-open month swallowing me whole flooded my brain.
I immediately turned my back to the creature and started running toward the wall. There were a couple of fellow contestants just staring at the creatures as shocked as me, but I did not pay them my attention. I just ran right through them like it was football, mowing down anyone who got even remotely in my way. I even used my shield as a battering ram to push on the ground some big rock guy. I dropped the shield in the process. I did not bother stopping to pick it up and kept running as other people started running just like me. I distinctly heard Lokin behind him give an enthusiastic shout and scream over the cheers of the crowd
"This is going to be so much fun! Come and get me!"
I continued running leaving the lunatic to his fate.
Nothing else mattered in that moment. I pain no attention to the screams of other people, the words of the announcer, the fates of the other contestants, all I could think about was getting away from the giant monsters.
I held tightly to my katana just in case I was backed into a corner and needed to cut myself loose. Sand was one of the last things I wanted to run through as its lack of traction reduced my speed. The armor was not exactly a plus either. I soon reached the trees giving me some cover from the creatures and the other contestants. The trees were big ones preventing me from seeing the wall beyond the image of it being there. That at least gave a sense of direction.
I was tired but the roar of the creatures and screams of people being torn apart was a great motivator. Nothing back home had really prepared me for hearing people die nearby and in a less desperate situation I would respond differently. I ran around tree after tree hoping to reach the end but came up empty.
I ran around another tree and finally came to the wall with one of the ropes right in front of me. I could not help but let out a sigh of relief, simply happy to reach safety even if it were only temporary. I started walking toward the rope confident in my safety.
That was a mistake.
Right as I was about to grab the rope, I was slammed from the right side straight into the ground. My katana landing a few feet away from me. I immediately picked up my katana and swung it around just in time to meet my assailant's sword just before it struck me. There were sparks when our blades struck and a moment of mutual struggle trying to push back against each other before I started losing, understandable since my opponent appeared to be some sort of rock person. I kicked his leg with both my feet, but he held firm which gave the leverage I needed to push myself a few feet away. The rock man withdrew his blade giving me the chance to get on my feet again.
I kept my focus on him, but I could hear other contestants screaming as the creatures took them apart and they sounded close to my position. I needed to end this fast, or I was going to end up gator food.
I could not run because the rock man might chase after me and cut me down. The worst type of fight is the one on the run. I also did not know if I would reach another rope in time before one of the creatures got to me. My internal thoughts were cut short by rock man's sword thrust aimed at my chest. Luckly, he did not appear to be faster than a regular human as I was able to quickly shift to the left and parry with my blade forcing rock man forward to hang on to his blade or risk being disarmed. This gave me the opportunity to strike at his exposed side. I quickly took advantage and gave a downward slash to his side only to see no impact of any kind.
Rock man regained his footing and turned his body back toward me swinging his blade at me in the process. I narrowly avoided getting cut in half by throwing my katana up just in time to meet his blade. There is a brief stalemate until the rock man kicks up some sand causing me to falter to avoid getting it in eyes. Rock man took the opportunity to push back and caused me to fall and my katana to go flying somewhere. I regained my vision just as I saw him preparing to kill me.
Rock man raised his massive sword to deliver an overhead sword strike only to be cut in half horizontally by another sword from behind, splattered green blood all over me. Rock man stood completely still for a few seconds then the top half fell backwards while the front fell directly in front of me. I stared at the body for a few seconds.
I could see the bones sticking out and the blood coloring the sand around me.
He was dead.
A person just died in front of me. Intellectually I knew death was the most likely outcome and people were dying around me but having seen it in front of me was a different thing entirely.
A pale hand waved frantically in my face brought me out of my troubled thoughts.
"You still here? I don't want to rush you but if you stay here, you're going to get eaten really fast."
I looked up and say Lokin looking down on me. He had no shirt on, and his pale skin was covered in green and red blood. He had the biggest grin on his face.
"What?" I responded not fully brought back to reality.
"The Tripedal Curosiananium cornered a couple of people back that way." He pointed behind him "They didn't look like fighters as one of them was begging for his Gods to save him, so we don't have long before he shows up looking for fresh meat."
I nodded and pushed myself up from the sand and got back to the rope. I looked up and could see nothing but smooth wall. I was going to have to rely on nothing more than my own strength and I could not take my katana with me. I knew I was going to need it, but I would have to worry about that later. I looked back at Lokin only to see him gone. I turned my focus back to the rope and started going up.
Rock climbing was my favorite hobby back home but as I pulled myself up the wall it was starting to become my least favorite thing. My arms burned and the sweat rolled down my back as I grasped the rope and pulled up. I pinched the rope between mt feet and pushed them against each other, using my feet to push off and reach higher.
I repeated and again slowly but surely making my way up.
There was a certain point every person reaches when performing any task where they can go no further, and two options are presented for that person. They could either give up or find some deep pool of strength to continue.
Since giving up would result in my death either from a nasty fall or being eaten by the one of the creatures I pressed on climbing up the wall. Each pull upwards brought the top closer and closer. All rational thought left me as I moved up the wall to the top. Just as my vision was beginning to darken and my strength about to give out, I made topside.
When my hand finally hit the top of the wall I felt as I had reached the gates of heaven. I barely managed to pull myself up on the wall before my strength gave out and I landed on my back facing the sky. I inhaled and exhaled for a few minutes then turned my head to look around me. Lokin was standing nearby looking not in the least bit winded from everything we just did earlier.
What a jerk
It was an unfair thought, but I did not care at that moment.
Surprisingly Lokin and I were some of the first people to reach the wall. There were three others who looked like they had been a while, but I only recognized one of them as the woman with the green skin I saw early in the armory before I entered the arena.
"And another contestant has reached the safe zone ladies and gentlemen! It was a near miss there, but they made it! Three cheers for the Brute and Speedy!"
It took my exhausted mind a few minutes to realize the announcer was referring to Lokin and me. I had always been a fast runner and the adrenaline likely gave me an extra boost.
It was not long before I regained some resemblance of my strength and pushed myself up on my feet. There was not much on top of the wall, it was maybe ten feet wide but let me get a good look from above at my surroundings.
The area I was just in did not look much different from when I was on the ground floor aside from the bizarre mixture of trees and sand. I did see the corpses of two of the creatures that looked like a giant snake and a spider apparently dead. The Tripedal Curosiananium was still alive looking up the wall where its prey had fled beyond its reach. It jumped up presumably to get us but thankful it could not reach the top.
I walked toward the other end near the edge to look down at the next area. Strangely there was nothing that was visible expect a thick fog out of place in the bright sky. The announcer said the second circle would be a grand melee fight where everyone would be paired up with another person. How the pairs were decided was not stated but just in case I would stick near Lokin as he was the only ally I had at this point.
The sound of metal hitting turned my attention behind me to see a large humanoid bug come up the wall and practical throw his axe on the ground.
"That is the last contestant up the wall ladies and gentlemen! That was thrilling first act to the 500th slave games and you got see surprising champions such as the Brute and Speedy, the Slicer and Cutthroat rise above the much and show themselves for your entertainment! The betting pool is now open folks, and we will take a short break and resume the games shortly!"
The Tripedal Curosiananium is a creature in the DC universe. It appeared in the H'el on Earth storyline.
I forget to mention it earlier, but Michael is an average guy from earth. He is not a moron or a genius, just an average guy that knows some comic books. He is going to make horrible, bad, good, and excellent decisions and be forced to live with the consequences of all of them.