The alien who entered the arena from the opposite door was of a species Gideon had never met before. He couldn't even tell whether it was male or female. Its face reminded him distantly of a Brakiri, but looked less human, with eyes of a vivid purple and no pupils at all, and dark blue hair growing in irregular patches around its scalp - and that was the most familiar part of the whole. The alien had long and thin arms and legs that seemed completely out of proportion. It also had the strangest way of moving about. When it slowly made its way towards Gideon, he got the impression that it didn't quite know where to put its long legs.
The alien had a mind-control device on its head, but Gideon didn't think that would answer for its walking problems. He kept his distance and observed. The alien didn't look like a very formidable opponent. Gideon's best guess was that it came from a world where the gravity was lighter than here, and the extra weight was hampering its movement. Probably its fighting skills would be equally disturbed by the circumstances.
Gideon edged away from the approaching alien, still eyeing it cautiously. There was always the chance that it was just faking this weird walk to get closer to him and take him by surprise. He could wait. Then again, Galen couldn't. Gideon tried not to think of it, but the image of Galen lying there among all those already forgotten corpses, about to become one of them, finally forced him to act.
He stepped closer and aimed a punch right at the alien's face – and hit it square on. It really was moving slowly. Its attempt to defend itself was so late that it only managed to scratch Gideon's hand when he was already pulling it away.
Gideon backed away again, considering his success. His blue opponent seemed even more dazed now. It had stopped moving, swaying on its feet. This would not be a long fight.
He attacked again, but this time, the alien was slightly more prepared. It dodged, and immediately returned his attack with a surprisingly quick slash of its long, sharp-nailed hand, which only grazed his thigh.
Something strange was going on. The lights around them, always uniformly bright, were going dimmer, and the floor was shaking.
When Gideon tried to step backwards, away from the alien, he realized that nothing was wrong with the arena. Something was wrong with him. He placed one involuntarily shivering foot down, but couldn't find his balance, and almost fell.
The alien hadn't moved a bit. On the contrary, it had sat down in an odd crouch, its hands resting on the floor. Gideon wasn't sure which way its purple eyes looked, but he was pretty certain it was staring at him. It had no need to do anything more. It was just waiting for him to go down. The long, bright blue nails had to be poisonous.
The arena was spinning wildly around him, and the sounds from the spectators above were distant, like an echo. He couldn't stand up straight anymore.
A second later he found himself lying on his back, without any memory of falling down. He felt like someone had just dropped a mountain on him, a huge weight was pressing him flat against the floor. He couldn't move at all, could hardly breathe.
Another second, and he blacked out.
Galen opened his eyes into complete darkness. He saw nothing at all. The floor against his cheek felt cold and sticky with what he knew was his own blood.
He felt better. Breathing was still painful, but not overwhelmingly so, and without the knife in him, he could take deeper breaths. Scanning himself, he noted that the injuries were mending well, but not as fast as he had hoped. He'd need to stay put for a good while if he wanted to have it all safely healed, and that was something he couldn't do.
It was already midnight, the end of the round, and he was sure the owners, whoever they were, would soon dispose of the bodies in this room. Galen had a strong guess on how they would do that. He scanned the blackness around him, concentrating on the walls and the ceiling, and found confirmation for his thoughts. There was machinery surrounding the room that could be used to generate a flash of extreme heat, efficiently disposing of all organic material inside the walls.
He sat up and turned his face and sensors to the room and those in it. The lights were off, so he switched to infrared. Most of the bodies were cold and lifeless, some showed lingering body heat that told they had died recently. And one was still alive, though barely. He had to be the loser of the very last fight. His vitals didn't look good – blood pressure too low, pulse too fast, hardly breathing at all. And he was a human. There had only been one human left in the game after Galen had lost.
With a horrible sinking feeling, made worse by the renewed agony in his chest, Galen made his way closer to the man. Things had certainly not gone the way he had planned. Looking back at it all, his plan had been flawed at best, and now, it seemed like a complete failure. It wasn't enough that he had almost got himself killed because he had not thought of everything. His failure might lead to Matthew's death as well. It was up to him to stop that from happening.
He was glad he still had his healing crystal. He might never have been a terribly skilled healer, but, as with most things, joining with the tech had helped quite a bit. He might not be an equal to Ing-Radi or other great master healers of the past, but he could heal many injuries. Continuing his scan of Matthew, Galen quickly noticed that he wasn't really dealing with an injury. There were slight scratches on Matthew's right hand and thigh, not nearly deep enough to cause significant blood loss. The reason he was dying was the poison coursing in his veins. Luckily it was a simple, natural venom, probably a characteristic of the winner's species.
The thought of the winner, combined with the distant sounds of someone approaching the door, reminded Galen of yet another important thing he had forgotten. Just like Matthew had come to loot him, now Matthew's winner was coming to search the loser's body for anything of value. Galen was fairly certain that Matthew had nothing valuable left. The owners, whoever they were, had probably taken away everything, not only weapons, but any means of communicating to the outside, and any signs of what he had been doing before he came here.
Someone was speaking right behind the door, the rough voice of a Drazi guard. Galen leaped away from Matthew and landed painfully on his left side. He felt something give in, another sharp stab in his chest. Still, he didn't scan to check what had happened, or how bad it was. It would change nothing. He stayed very still, tried to keep his breathing as silent as he could. His face was turned towards the door, and he kept his sensors on Matthew.
The lights went on, and the door opened. In stepped an alien of some race Galen couldn't recognize right now, and he didn't care enough to try and figure it out. It was blue, and both the build of its body and its way of walking suggested it came from a low gravity world. Despite the mind-control, it didn't seem too eager to loot Matthew. It stayed near the door, its hands placed under its chin in a gesture reminiscent of a praying mantis. Slowly and hesitantly it moved closer and folded its legs.
Galen wanted to shout at it, toss it with a fireball, tell it to move faster, or just go away and leave them alone. Of course, he would do no such thing. It was a maddening feeling, watching through his sensors how Matthew grew weaker with every passing moment, and the alien just sat there stupidly, poking him with long, venomous, clawed fingers.
Finally the alien stopped, having found nothing. It stood up and went away. The door closed behind it, and the lights went out, leaving Galen in the dark. He pushed himself up, doing his best to ignore the sting in his chest. Matthew needed help right now, or it would be too late. With a few quick steps Galen was by Matthew's side again. He placed his hands on Matthew's chest and sent in the first wave of organelles. Accessing them through the crystal, he set them to neutralize the venom, and found that it was indeed not a difficult task. Yet the venom had had time to spread all around Matthew's system, and it would take a lot of organelles to stop it in time.
Galen knew there was only one way to do this, and the tech was with him. They didn't like it, but both agreed that Matthew must be saved. After all, it was their fault that he was dying. The tech assured it would work. The organelles might not be very smart, but they could just spread along the circulation and keep neutralizing the poison on their own.
Closing his eyes with concentration, Galen sent more organelles into Matthew's body. As many as he could. More than he could afford. Almost sooner than he had expected, he felt the darkness closing in on him once again. As he felt himself falling, he only hoped he had managed to give enough.