Chapter 3
KARA
Kara woke up to darkness. The room smelled musky and faintly of gasoline. The room was jostling slightly, meaning they were probably in a ship or a car. Suddenly, jerked to the side and she was launched to the opposite wall where she fell back down to the ground. Kara groaned and pushed herself onto her knees.
"Kara is that you?" A familiar voice whispered. Of course it belonged to the Daxam prince, Mon-El.
"Who else would it be?" Kara replied, not really wanting to deal with Mon-El right now.
"Do you know where we are?" Kara saw the shadow stand somewhere to her left, the silhouette partially blocked by bars of a cell.
"How would I know? I just woke up less than a minute ago." Kara stood up as well, testing the bars of the cell, but they wouldn't budge.
"What's got you so upset?" Kara turned to see the shadow of the prince leaning against the cell door.
"What's got me upset?" Kara furrowed her eyebrows together. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the fact that we're on some weird foreign spaceship and it's all your fault!"
"Oh, it's my fault is it? Weren't you the one who brought us outside in the first place?" Mon-El fired in reply.
"Well, I wouldn't have had to bring us outside if you hadn't been so… so… self-centered!" Kara shouted.
"Self-centered? Me?" Mon-El laughed, "How bout you, huh? You Kryptonians think you're so much better than everyone else don't you?"
"We, Kryptonians?" Kara's voice dropped dangerously silent. "Daxamites really don't know when to stop, do they? My mother was right. Daxam is a foul place full of foul people."
"So that's it? Your opinion of everyone on the planet is set in stone?" Mon-El asked, clearly not willing to drop the subject.
"Clearly, everyone I've met is either blindly devoted to 'Her Majesty' or completely full of themselves just like you! So I think my opinion is fairly accurate!"
"And let me guess. You think you and your people are better than us?"
Kara was flustered at this. She did think so, but admitting so would only prove Mon-El's claim that Kryptonians thought they were above others. She took a moment to take a step back from her perspective. Perhaps, she shouldn't judge a planet by their ruler. After all, everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. She hasn't met everyone in Daxam, of course.
"Well?" Mon-El said, insisting on victory in the argument.
Kara took a deep breath. "You're wrong. I'm no better than anyone else. I'm no god, or some high being. I'm a Kryptonian, and you're a Daxamite. We have our differences, but that doesn't mean either of us are better than the other." She held her hand out through the bars. "Can we put aside our differences just until we can figure out this situation?"
Mon-El looked surprised at this sudden change in personality, but quickly regained his composure, realizing Kara was right once again. "Of course," he replied, shaking Kara's hand. Suddenly, the room ceased its movement and a door opened somewhere in front of them, causing the two of them to spring apart.
A figure approached the two, flipping a switch which turned on two fluorescent, flickering bulbs overtop the two cells. Kara and Mon-El squinted at the sudden intake of light to see a creature with horns and spikes growing out of his head, holding a notebook and a pen. Walking over to stand in front of Mon-El's cell, the creature glanced at him, seeming to examine him up and down.
"Hmm. Healthy. Male. Daxamite. Relatively attractive. Strong and eligible for manual labor. And, ooh, royalty. That should be interesting," the creature mumbled, taking notes on his clipboard as Mon-El raised an eyebrow.
"Hey! Who are you and where are we?" Kara shouted. The creature looked up at Kara with an amused look, but ignored her, moving on to her cell.
The creature scribbled on his clipboard, mumbling as before, "Healthy. Female. Kryptonian. Relatively attractive as well. Potential to be useful in bed. Seems strong enough for manual labor as well."
"Woah! What are you talking about?! What is this for?" Kara asked, widening her eyes.
The creature scribbled one last note, then slammed his notebook close. "Oh, sweetheart. You have no idea what a life you have ahead of you. All we can hope is that you are worth something." The creature walked to the door. "Enjoy your freedom while you can." With that, he left the room.
Kara turned to Mon-El who had been surprisingly quiet the whole time, his eyebrows furrowed. "Well? Care to share your thoughts?" Kara asked.
"Well, I've heard of slave trade planets before, but I never thought I'd ever be captured by them. I am prince after all. What should I have to worry about?" Mon-El scowled.
"Slave trade planets? So what? We're going to be sold off to the highest bidder now?" There's no way this was how her story ends.
"Yep. That is, if you're desirable. I have a feeling you will be in quite high demand. As will I of course." Mon-El winked. Kara rolled her eyes in disgust causing the prince to chuckle of course. "I am terrified though. Did you hear him? Manual labor? No way."
"That's at the top of your list of problems? Really? Not that we're never going to see our home or that we'll be prisoners our whole lives?"
"Well, that's pretty high up there as well. Relax, princess. We'll find a way out of this." Mon-El reassured her.
"I'm not a princess. Democracy remember?" Kara reminded him.
"Ah yes the mighty planet of Krypton. Although I do believe Princess Kara does have a nice ring to it." Mon-El smirked at Kara's flustered, frustrated expression before looking away. "Anyways. Get some rest, Kara. Something tells me we're going to need our energy for tomorrow."
"Uppity uppity up! Time for the auction! You must get ready, so wake up!" a cheery voice announced, startling Kara and Mon-El awake.
Groaning, Mon-El mumbled, "Whaaaa…? Time for the what now?
Kara, on the other hand, stood up immediately. "We're not going to be sold off like slaves!"
The figure, rather human looking in a pink dress, stepped closer to Kara. "And what makes you think you could do anything to stop that?"
Kara took a step closer as well. "There is no way in hell that I'm going to do this quietly."
The woman looked down at her clipboard, "Well the evaluator did say you were… high-spirited. And it seems he was quite right. Anyways! Guards! Prepare them for the auction in… half an hour. Chop chop!"
"You'll see just how 'high-spirited' I can be!" she shouted after the woman's retreating figure.
Two guards opened the two adjoining cells. "I take it you aren't going to go cooperatively?" Mon-El asked, looking over two Kara, who then shook her head with a determined smile. "Well then. It'd be a shame for you to be the only one."
Before the guards figured out what was going on, the two sprang onto them, tackling them to the ground. Kara got several strong punches in before the guard pulled out an electric baton. The guard shoved the baton into Kara's stomach. She screamed and fell to the ground beside the guard.
"Kara!" Mon-El looked over in concern, but this moment of confusion was enough for the other guard to do the same to Mon-El, who let out a cry of pain. Both guards slapped cuffs them both and hauled the prisoners up shoving them forward, uncharged batons threatening them from behind.
"I do appreciate you fighting back with me. It does mean a lot that I'm not alone," Kara said quietly.
"Even though we totally got our butts kicked?"
"Even though we got our butts kicked." Kara gave him a small smile that Mon-El couldn't help but stare at. "What?"
"It's just- nothing." Mon-El swallowed his intended words to tell her she was absolutely beautiful.
The guards unlocked the cuffs and quickly shoved them into two separate rooms on either side of the hallway.
Kara pounded on the door, yielding no response. She turned around to see a shower room with a small bar of soap and a towel and a stack of clean clothes. Although Kara wanted to defy them and refuse, she couldn't pass up the offer of trying to get clean.
She stepped into the shower and let the hot water flow down her arms. After she was clean she eyed the wheat colored t-shirt and matching sweatpants, then turned her gaze to her once beautiful and uncomfortable, now tattered and singed dress. Of course, she slipped the cotton attire on, which was surprisingly soft. Her first reaction was to try and surprise the guard from beside the door, but chose against it, for they would probably come more prepared this time around.
A few minutes later a guard opened the door, a taser gun in one hand and a pair of cuffs in the other.
"Turn and face the wall with your hands behind your head!" the guard barked. Kara complied, glaring back at him. The guard stepped forward and restrained Kara's arms behind her back.
"You're a pretty little creature," the guard whispered into Kara's ear, "it's a shame I'm unable to bid for you. We would have so much fun together." Kara scowled in disgust at the heat of the man's breath.
"Get your filthy hands off me." She whispered, wrenching her hands out of his grasp and elbowing him in his nose. The guard yelped in surprise.
"You little-"
"Don't we have an auction to attend? Someone would probably get rather angry at you if I were to be late," Kara said, never thinking she'd be glad to go to this vile event.
"Walk." The guard said simply.
When they arrived, it wasn't like what Kara expected an auction to be like. She had been expecting an auditorium with rows of bidders, but instead, a tag was tied onto her neck and she was shoved into a room with several other creatures from different planets. She scanned the small crowd and couldn't spot Mon-El. Perhaps he was in another room?
Her thoughts were cut short by a screen in the corner of the room lighting up with the same lady in the same pink dress.
"Let the auction begin!"
SORRY FOR THE VRY VRY LATE UPDATE! I was on vacation to Boston and this week I had several quizzes :(
Anyways, I was going to include the auction here, but that would've taken too long and I wanted to get this chapter out.
I know in the actual show Daxam owns the alien slave trade system, but for this story they do not. Not yet at least…