Ch. 5

"…Exactly three feet behind your owner as a sign of both submission and your inferiority. On the way here you both failed to maintain the correct distance several times, either getting too close, or falling too far behind. We will continue your training in this area now. In front of you are two holograms. You will follow these holograms until I am sure that you can do it correctly. Oh, and by the way, if you don't remember from our walk over here, if you fail to maintain the proper distance, you will be shocked by the computer that controls the holograms. I will return in thirty minutes to examine your progress."

With that, the rat/man, whose name Chloe had heard, but had been unable to pronounce, left to tend to unknown business. Fortunately for Chloe, and for Lana, they were expected to call him only Trainer, as to call him by his given name would be to imply that they were equals.

For the first time in six hours, Chloe and Lana finally had a chance to talk.

"How's you leg, Lana," Chloe asked as she carefully stayed three feet behind one of the holograms.

"It's not doing too well. If this keeps up it's going to start hurting a lot and it could become infected without medical treatment."

"He can't keep us going like this for much longer. No one can keep this up for much longer than this, at least, not after what we've been through." stated Chloe in what she hoped was a confident voice.

To be honest, she wasn't sure that that… thing was ever going to let them rest. He had pushed them as hard as they could go every second they had been with him, regardless of their injuries and their physical needs. She was sore, tired, thirsty, and hungry. She was also very worried about Lana. The injury to her leg wasn't all that bad by itself, but with all of the work that they had been doing, which didn't allow the wound to begin healing and also caused it to bleed a little, and the lack of food and water, the wound was sapping Lana's health and strength at an alarming rate. She also didn't seem to be doing very well emotionally. At first Lana seemed to be handling this situation as best as could be expected, but soon she began to wilt. As the hours passed by Lana's responses to orders became more and more robot like and the look in her eyes became more and more vacant, as if she wasn't even in her own body, but was someplace else. This, above everything else, worried Chloe. If Lana gave up in her head, it wouldn't be long before her body followed. Unfortunately, as Chloe continued to talk to her, trying her best to bolster Lana's flagging spirits, she could see that she wasn't reaching her. Nothing she could do was helping. After a while she ran out of things to say, and instead began to think. The Trainer had kept her so busy over the last six hours that she hadn't had any time to think. Now, as she was walking, she had plenty of time to think.

Chloe thought about escape and how hopeless it seemed, she thought about how they were going to survive in this new life of servitude, and she thought of Clark. Not just about him and the stones, or him and what had happened in the caves, but also about whether or not she would ever see him again. What did he think of her disappearance? Did he even know? Did he think she was dead? She didn't know. More than anything else, at that moment what Chloe wanted was to see Clark again, to be with him and to be able to talk to him, just about random stuff like they had so many times when they were younger. Would the Sharks win the Super Bowl? Debating over whether or not anyone who liked anchovies on their pizza need their heads examined, or if humans would ever colonize mars. Just random stuff, whatever they wanted to talk about. She missed that with him so much right now that she would have given almost anything just to be able to chat with him face to face for an hour. Little did she know that she would be seeing him again far sooner than she ever could have guessed.

Clark glanced over his shoulder as he heard someone enter the room. Looking back he saw a fat Ish-nith, and behind him, what many would consider to be an extremely beautiful Saru, a race that looked very human except for their pink skin and their lavender blood. Blood which he could see coursing down her face, running from a wound on her cheek. He knew instinctively that it must have been the fat Ish-nith that caused the injury. It was obvious that she was his slave by the manner in which she carried herself around him and by the look in her eyes whenever they strayed over to the Ish-nith.

Rage boiled up in Clark, not only for the disgusting way the woman was being treated, but also by the thought that Chloe and Lana could be on the receiving end of such treatment even now and there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. Not right now at least. It took a lot of self control for Clark not to let the rage he felt overwhelm him and coerce him into taking the weights that he was lifting and beat the corpulent rat into a bloody pulp with them. It took everything he had to turn around and face the overgrown rodent using his cover as a jaded Kryptonian out for a good time and a bit of entertainment. Jor-el's plan required that Clark cozy up to the owner so that he would be less suspicious of Clark.

"Hello, and what do we have here?" asked the Ish-nith, looking over Clark and clearly wondering why he was summoned to see what seemed to be a very average humanoid fighter.

"Owner, I have just finished testing this Kryptonian and he has passed all of the tests and is ready to fight as far as I can tell." stated Seir, in a deferential but clearly excited voice as he moved between the Owner and the seated Kryptonian.

It was easy to see The Owner's reaction. His eyes and his mouth swung open, if only for a brief second before he pulled himself together. In that brief instant, Clark could see every though that ran though the Ish-nith's mind. Every thought that the rodent had was centered on the incredible fortune he was about to make if he could insure that this Kryptonian would fight. Clark could virtually see the determination to make that happen written across his forehead.

Maybe this would be a little easier than he though, Clark mused.

"Well then, it is an honor to meet such a distinguished contestant such as yourself. If you would allow me to speak to my employee for but a moment I will personally show you the room in which you will be staying until the fight," The Owner stated, while grabbing a hold of the Seir's arm and nearly dragging him towards a door that lead into another room.

Clark decided he had better listen in to the conversation so that he could be better prepared if something went wrong.

"Are you sure he's a Kryptonian?"

"Positive. He passed through the spectral scanner when he crossed the room to attempt the first test. It showed him to be a Kryptonian."

"And he can fight?"

"He passed every test. In fact, he did better than most. If he performs in actual combat the way he did here, he stands a very good chance of winning this tournament."

Clark let out a small chuckle. They were buying it hook line and sinker. Even better, it seems that even though he had been holding back considerably during those tests, he had still placed near the top. If what he had done was near the top, than he shouldn't have any real trouble with the contest. What he heard next put a damper on his enthusiasm.

"Call up the PR department. Get them to order up a crash publicity campaign to get attention for the upcoming fight. Then call up the best fighters we have, current or retired, and get them here. I can see it now, 'The Best Fighter Ever Duke It Out.' Everyone will watch. Hurry while I give him a tour and then show him to his room. Oh, and by the time I'm done with the tour, I want everyone to know that whatever the Kryptonian wants, the Kryptonian gets. We have to keep him happy until the fight. Oh, and make sure that they get Kronus to come out of retirement."

"Understood, I'll get on it right away." Sier said before The Owner gave him anything else to do.

Clark listened as Seir left though a different entrance than the one he had just used to carry out his instructions. Very soon thereafter, The Owner walked back into the room.

Suddenly Clark wasn't so confident. Going up against a bunch of fellow contestants wouldn't be so bad, but going up against some of the best fighters in the galaxy was a different story. Could he defeat them?

Clark's thoughts were interrupted by The Owner.

"Thank you for waiting, I just needed to insure that your time here was as pleasant as possible. If you want, I could give you a tour of the ship and its facilities, beginning, of course, with the coliseum. It's very impressive and it might do you some good to look over where you will be competing."

"Quite right, I wouldn't mind a tour and I defiantly want to look over the coliseum," said Clark in the strange mix of personal friendliness and general superiority that was supposed to be his cover.

There were several reasons he had agreed to this tour. One was to get a better idea of the layout of the coliseum. Knowledge of the battlefield would give him a tactical advantage in combat. It might be a small one, but Clark wanted every advantage he could get. Another was to familiarize himself with the layout of the ship so that if he needed to escape with the girls, he could cut a few seconds off the time it would take to get out. But above all of that, what he really wanted, why he really agreed to the tour, was the chance to catch a glimpse of Chloe and Lana so that he could be sure that they were all right. Hopefully they wouldn't see him, as he didn't want them to see him being all chummy with this rodent, but he needed to be sure that they were all right, enough to overpower his concerns about that.

TBC