Superman|GLADIATOR
—PROLOGUE—
It was a loud banging sound that roused him. His eyes flickered for a moment, everything was foggy, unfocused. It was only momentary and once his vision cleared, he found himself in a dark enclosed chamber of some sort, no bigger than the small cubical he had at the Daily Planet. He felt the faint sensation of movement from outside along with the grinding of gears turning.
Strange red lights lined the edges, and the walls, made of an even stranger metal that his clear blue orbs could not see through. Naturally he assumed it was made of lead, but after closer examination it didn't seem likely. He was more than familiar with periodic table, Brad used to give him shit for it in Smallville when he was a kid.
Where was he?
He got to his feet and looked around but there was no sign or indication of where he was. Looking around him he saw a murky reflection of himself on the smooth wall. To his surprise he wasn't wearing his usual blue suit with the House of El insignia on his chest and red cape. Instead he was in a white bodysuit from his neck down. He still had his S shield, shining silver on his chest. Clark tried to rack his brain, thinking back to the last thing he remembered. Trying to recall what had happened, how he got there, where 'there' actually was and who put him in these weird clothing. He was on Earth, he remembered being in the middle of the city. He was fighting a giant monster alongside his friends, there was death a destruction everywhere…his hands came to his chest, where then the monster flashed in front of him and with a monstrous roar it drove one giant claw right through his emblem.
Suddenly he felt a quick and powerful rush of pain spread throughout his body coming from wherever that claw had pierced him. Had he died?
He felt life leave him, felt the pain vanish and the emptiness overtake him. Now he could not recall when that feeling vanished or when he was brought back if he even was. If this indeed was the afterlife, he had a few things to say to Pastor Aaron.
He readied himself, a simple brawler's stance. If ten years knowing Batman had taught him anything, it was that one could never be too prepared for a fight. Next thing that he knew, the cube started to retract into smaller squares that disappeared into the ground. Clark Kent now found himself standing in the middle of what looked to be a giant arena. An explosion of roaring applause hit him like thunder as a crowd of billions sang and screeched. How the hell could even Batman prepare for this?
This colosseum was far bigger than he'd ever seen before on Earth. Definitely dwarfed Madison Square Garden, he could barely see the very top of the viewing stand. Pillars rose to support a ceiling of moving energy that his superior vision could see even from the distance. This was getting a thousand kinds of weird by that point. Suddenly things were beginning to remind him of scenes from Gladiator. All that was really missing were the other contestants…
Black cubes rose from the ground all around the oval arena and revealed more people, more alien races, even what looked to be a human woman with short and punk rocky hair and an eight pointed star on her chest. Each of them in fact were dressed in similar white and silver outfits, and very troubled expressions on their faces as they looked up at the unsteady crowd. Nine new people arranged in a circle in the middle of the colosseum.
Clark looked to that woman to his right. She furrowed at him, clearly the woman had been in this situation before.
A voice then boomed from the audience, echoing off the walls. "Greetings ladies and gentlemen of the Infinite Universes!" A colossal holographic man appeared in the centre of the arena above them. A Neanderthal looking man with pale orange skin and clad in dark purple armour that bore a black skull across his chest. "Welcome back to the Warworld Arena! To all you new comers, you may simply call me Mongul and this is our Contest of Champions!"
The crowd boomed, their roars echoed the ground at their feet like a cosmic earthquake.
Mongul raised his hand and the stadium became silent, waiting for their host to speak again. "But there appears to be too many contestants. Before we begin however, we must first welcome our new recruits into the ranks. Tell me, does anyone want to see these fresh meat broken?"
And on cue, more cheers broke out, and to Clark who possessed senses heightened beyond normal human capabilities, the sounds reverberated his eardrums like as though someone was banging a vibranium shield against the side of his head.
"Let me introduce our new combatants." Suddenly the ground began to light up around one big white humanoid alien with red eyes. "First we have a white amnesiac Martian. We all know what White Martians are here, you all know how we feel about them."
And if the booing were any indication, Clark had to assume they were not overly fond of their first contestant. Clark felt he couldn't clearly discern the Martian's expression which looked rather blank, just staring at the middle distance.
Next they introduced a combatant from Xandar of Universe 616. His name was apparently Rhomann Dey but Mongul called him Nova Prime.
After the Xandarian was a very weird being to say the least. Large, humanoid like alien with arthropod-like mandibles and long, dreadlock appendages set in its head like hair. It wore a mismatched assortment of armour. Its large hauntingly piercing eyes came to him and he felt the creature sizing him up. Their host called it a Yautja, a tribal head hunter he called the Predator.
This Predator seemed to have a whole lot of fans now judging by the amount of cheers it had gotten.
A large, bulky man with skin as red as blood was announced next. He was menacing, a disgruntled face contorted into a permanent scowl, and then, two horns reduced to stumps protruded from his forehead like he was the devil himself. To drive that point home was the fact his name was Hellboy even.
Then came a metallic skinned man from a planet called Zenn-La apparently, by the name of Norrin Radd; also known as the Silver Surfer.
"Next I give you a great warrior from our dimension…a New God….Valkyra the Commander!" the ground beneath a tall woman with a dark complexion and a complex warrior's grace radiated. She was only slightly surprised by it but her brief embaressment quickly turned to anger and she shouted at the crowd. Apparently she was from New Genesis, a planet that Clark was all too familiar with. He wondered if she knew Orion.
Then there were the other two which Mongul introduced as two warrior twins named Adam and Adora. It appeared to him that those two were the youngest members to be tested. Clark sighed at that, they must have been nineteen at the most, yet they possessed this aura of cool stoicism like this was nothing new to them. Then Mongul paused, his wicked smile widened a mile longer.
"Now a special treat here for we have in our midst a champion from Universe 199999, a hybrid of both Earth's Homo-sapient and the Kree. I give you the Avenger Car-Ell of Earth—Captain Marvel!" there were roars praising the golden haired woman. The audience loved her, but she didn't seem to take them to mind much.
Captain Marvel looked at him and for a brief moment he thought he'd saw a small fragment of fear in her blue eyes. That passed however, she didn't seem to all that impressed with what she saw in him after finishing her assessment.
"And now to add to this grand occasion, I finally have for you, a rarity in the vast Multiverse." Now it was Clark's turn, as the metallic floor below him began to glow white. "Most of you might actually already know him…and hate him. The last Kryptonian—Kal-El!" Clark saw the giant look right at him with a heavy dose of contempt and then finished with a sneer, "Superman!"
The stadium once again erupted, this time with very enthusiastic boos and taunts. He definitely did not have fans among the crowd. He felt a slight chill in the small tissues in his knees, a feeling of falling. As a proclaimed representative of metahumans on Earth he was no stranger to hatred geared towards him, he'd feel like a patronising dick if he complained about it now, but it did feel strange to be in the thick of that hatred before.
The young Kansas native looked up at the giant before him, somehow he just knew Mongul was looking directly at him. Suddenly the question of how he'd gotten there was farthest from his mind, replaced now by a growing dread, rising as the cheering crowd. "Now it's time for spectacle," his inhuman voice boomed. "Let there be blood!"
It began. The audience began to makes noises in a steady yet aggressive rhythm that Clark was rather familiar with.
Boom, boom, clap…
Boom, boom, clap…
BOOM, BOOM, CLAP…
The walls which had held giant gates at various intervals began to open up. Through instinct the other combatants started to move further into the centre until they were all huddled up. "I actually like Queen," Clark muttered to Car-Ell who just grunted, content in ignoring him.
BOOM, BOOM, CLAP…
BOOM, BOOM, CLAP…
BOOM, BOOM, CLAP…
'Buddy you're a boy, make a big noise
Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday
You goy mud on your face, you big disgrace
Kicking your can all over the place, singin'
We will, we will rock you
Several being came forth from the openings—giant being in full plated armour and brandishing a colourful array of deadly weapons.
"Anyone have any ideas?" Rhomann requested.
"I'm still trying to piece all of this together, sir," Clark replied.
"I suspect that you're going to be of great help," Car-Ell scoffed. She then held her hands forward and light started to emanate from them. "Everyone stay close, work together and we might just make it out of here alive."
"Aye aye, Captain," said the horned Hellboy, pounding his fists together in rhythm with the song.
Buddy, you're a young man, hard man
Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday
You got blood on your face, you big disgrace
Waving your banner all over the place
We will, we will rock you, sing it!
We will, we will rock you, yeah!
Captain Marvel started to hover in her place, her balled hands shooting out energy that danced about her. "Okay, people, power up!"
And to 'We Will Rock You' by Queen the combatants did just that, readied themselves as the encroaching threat marched towards them. The red devil man punched the ground with his stone fist and seemed to pull a giant flaming sword from nowhere. Both Nova Prime and the Martian seemed to be able to fly, levitating steadily off the ground. This left the Yautja, Silver Surfer, Valkyra and the two young warriors planted on the ground, their own fists balled, eyes zoning on a target to dispatch but Clark had one thing on his mind…escape.
With one powerful push, he burst into the air, fists guiding his way as he aimed for the very top of the stadium. Sound cracked at his speed, and he certainly thought he'd get through, whatever energy force met him.
Unsurprisingly, Clark hit a force field straight in the face, causing the energy to ripple over the arena. As for his body—falling down a thousand feet and picking up speed, like a stone. He was conscious, he couldn't move to stop the impact. He felt like his brain was being zapped repeatedly and he was finding it difficult to keep his eyes open. Soon however, he felt the hard ground approaching fast or rather he was…
We will, we will rock you, alright, louder!
We will, we will rock you, one more time
We will, we will rock you
Yeah!
Superman cursed under his breath…this was going to hurt…
—SUPERMAN/GLADIATOR—
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Every character in this does not belong to me but their respective publishers.