The Proving Grounds

The boy couldn't understand why the old man had left him in that cold and dark pen, surrounded by other frightened youths just like him.

Autelus, after bringing him to the city for some supplies, had him fed a simple meal and dressed in a roughspun pair of trousers. Having finished with that task, he brought him to a crowded and noisy building complex situated in the middle of the city. There, the old trader spoke with some other men, exchanged some shiny golden pieces amongst themselves and shook hands after coming upon some sort of agreement. Autelus then guided the confused child through the crush of bodies clamoring for some unknown event, pushed him through the open grated doors and vanished into the crowd.

He ended up in that cage before he even knew what was happening.

Frantically, the boy clutched at the bars and howled like a trapped animal, unable to utter any coherent words as he knew no other way to express himself. He was frightened of the dark, the dampness of the sweating bodies bumping against him, the acrid stench of death and decay. The noises outside faded into a dull throb as the cage was moved underground, lurching violently every now and then as the unseen machinery transported the youths through the maze below the complex.

In the grim darkness of the far future, nothing was sacred, for even the miracle of birth was profaned. Where a newborn should first taste of their mother's milk, this unfortunate one first tasted the blood of the hateful. Where once a babe would first know of love, this unfortunate one knew only of suffering and betrayal.

Such was his lot, as ordained by the gods who watched from beyond the veil.

"Be quiet, whelp!" One of the youths snarled, silencing his cries for a moment as he turned to look at the faint silhouette of the spiteful speaker. "Show some backbone!"

The darkness faded, retreating from the light as the cage was brought aloft. Peering through the bars, the boy could see that he'd been brought into the middle of the complex, which turned out to be an arena of sorts.

No ordinary arena, but a bloodstained ziggurat sitting in the middle of a deep pit.

The sides of the cage fell apart, plunging the unwilling contenders into the bottom floor, at the foot of the man-made mountain. There were more cages that popped out of the ground, releasing more and more captives until their number grew so large that they filled the entire first floor of the ziggurat. A loud screech drowned out the din of the crowd to silence, followed by the horrid bellow of an announcer on a blown-out speaker.

"AND HERE IT IS, YOU BLOODTHIRSTY BASTARDS! THE MAIN EVENT!" A woman's grizzled voice grated against the ears of every excited onlooker, "ONE HUNDRED SOULS AS TRIBUTE TO THE PROVING GROUNDS! MURDERERS, THIEVES, RUNAWAYS, FACELESS! PENANCE FOR THEIR OFFENSIVE BIRTHS!"

Around the rim of the wide basin that surrounded the pit were carved statues of men and women contorted with immeasurable agony, chained together to hold up several grated tubes on their shoulders that frothed with green goo. As if on cue, the tubes let loose the torrents of a green steaming sea that began to fill the pit around the ziggurat. The stinging smell of acid filled the air, and the crowd erupted in a mix of cheers, barbed taunts and whistles.

"ONE HUNDRED SOULS, ONLY ONE MAY LIVE! WRETCHES, START YOUR CLIMB!"

And climb, they did.

Up the steep walls into the next floor, they jostled, scaled and hoisted themselves aloft. The acid sea climbed up after them, gaining pace the higher they went. At first, the poor souls needn't have to fight their way through the harrowing trek up the ziggurat. But the higher they went, the smaller the platforms became, the less people it could hold.

Pretty soon, everyone was fighting for their lives. The weak, the old and faint of heart were the first to go. One by one, or two by two, the contenders found themselves plummeting down to the green sea. Their screams of agony joined in with the elated cries of the spectators.

It was a cruel game, and everyone in the crowd loved it. Bets were made, money pools gathered, stakes were raised.

When the contenders reached the middle, there were only less than fifty left of the original number. The boy was among them, the last of the faint of hearts. He did not remain so for long, as a bigger and brutish hulk of a man took hold of him, intent on throwing him off the pyramid.

"Sorry lad, nothing personal!" He said.

The boy screamed as he was dragged towards the edge of the platform. Instinct took over in an instant, and he was forced to grab the man by the neck. One savage pull was all it took for him to snap his assailant's spine, and the man uttered a loud gurgling gasp as his body failed him. He fell into the chasm below, joining the melted corpses in the green sea.

He did not have time to dwell on it, no matter how much he felt inclined to. A brawl broke out among the contenders, every one of them driven to thin the herd to make room. Like cornered animals, the whole lot of them, they began beating one another or wrestling each other off the ziggurat. It was madness, and the boy found himself hating the inconceivable sadistic mind that created that sport.

"Get off me!" He heard a familiar voice among the howling others, one that belonged to the same youth who snarled at him in the cage earlier.

The youth was bigger than he was, certainly older than he was, and was on his back beneath an aged and tattooed man. This man had his hands on his throat and was trying to strangle him, while the youth was trying to gouge his eyes out in turn. The youth had dark brown curly hair, and his eyes were inhumanly golden as though the sun's rays shone through them. Through the grime that mottled his skin, it wasn't at all difficult to see the scars that ran back and forth across his shoulders and arms.

They were the marks of a slave.

The boy could have seized the moment and climbed to the top of the ziggurat while all were still busy fighting. He would've held that spot easily, could've won the bloody match with one fell swoop. But he didn't, for within him, his heart was not of a naturally born killer. He was meant, first and foremost by his progenitor, to be a savior.

So where all others fought, scratched and clawed for self-preservation, the boy moved to save one that should have been his enemy.

He kicked the old man so hard in the ribs that his chest gave way, crushed as though a power-maul hit his body. He fell to the floor in a heap, freeing the bewildered youth, who stared wide-eyed at his unlikely ally as he gasped for air.

The boy extended his hand and helped him up.

"Thanks?" The taller, curly-haired one said.

He still could not entirely understand what the words were, but he knew what he meant. He replied with a grin, and a grunt as he pointed to the top of the ziggurat.

"Race you!" Curly announced, scrambling up the platforms ahead of the others with the boy savior not too far behind. Only about a dozen were left at the second-to-the-last platform, and the brawl that followed left even less.

Curly and the boy fought hard, brawled hard, and tossed away the other contenders until only the two of them were left. The acid sea kept climbing after them, consuming the corpses left behind like an insatiable beast. It climbed higher and higher, until it forced the pair to ascend to the very last floor.

The floor was small, but it was enough to hold the both of them should they stand back to back and try their damnest not to move, which they both did. Very rarely do wretches like them, cursed as they were to fight and die for the amusement of the masses, to feel the sense of camaraderie- of brotherhood.

Perhaps that would be too generous a term, for something that was simply a form of mutualism. Still, whatever it may be, it saved both their lives.

The sea stopped just shy of spilling over their feet, and the crowd's cheers changed to cries of dissatisfaction. For all the lives that were spent for their entertainment, the spectators were as bloodthirsty as ever.

"WELL, THIS IS QUITE THE DILEMMA! TWO SURVIVE THE PROVING GROUNDS, NOT ONE!"

"Hey, whatever happens, don't give them the satisfaction." Curly whispered to the boy who trembled behind him.

"YET THE RULES ARE RULES, ONLY ONE MAY LIVE!" The announcer said, "WRETCHES, WHO'S IT GOING TO BE? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PUSH!"

Curly was quick to give his answer, "Fuck you!"

It was an answer that the crowd did not at all find to their amusement, and the boos that followed spoke volumes on their displeasure. But Curly could care less about what they wanted.

"You want us dead? Come over here and kill us yourselves!" Curly raised both hands, flexing some fingers to leave a lasting impression through his obscene gestures.

Then, something changed in the crowd, as if both mirth and disdain gave way to fear and begrudging respect. The pair lifted their gaze to the top of the assembled masses and saw a sight that stood out from the wretches that made up the spectators of the Proving Grounds.

Soldiers, dressed in gold and silver armor, parted the sea of bodies with their weapons to let their lord through. A middle-aged man, carrying a heavy leather-bound tome, descended the stairs with an air of royalty about him. This influential figure, clad in purple silks and bright red velvet robes, was a high-rider. A member of Nuceria's elite, a lowly servant of House Thal'kyr. But even though he stood at the bottom of the hierarchy, the man carried the voice of his masters, and nonetheless held the authority of his house.

His hand gestured towards the pair condemned to die at the peak of the submerged ziggurat, "These two wretches, I deem fit to serve their sentence in a better arena! You lot wish to see blood? Come to the Colosseum Magnus in a year, and you shall see a blood spectacle the likes of which you've never seen before!"

Ever the capitalists, the servants of House Thal'kyr were ever watchful for opportunity and never wasted a chance to seize slaves they deemed possessed potential for greatness in their grand arena- the killing fields of the Colosseum Magnus, the largest and most famous arena in Nuceria.

Once again, the child of the mountain was sold, this time as a slave to House Thal'kyr.

Putting him for transportation, however, proved difficult. Neither he nor Curly were willing slaves, and they still fought against the slavedrivers attempting to drag them off to the heavy transporter sitting outside the Proving Grounds. The boy, much to their surprise, displayed a strength that rivaled even that of their strongest guards. Even when blessed with the power of their cybernetic enhancements, the new slaves were troublesome, and so certain measures had to be implemented in order for the boys to become docile.

The herald, who had first watched the slaves in the acid pit, took note of the traits shown by the new merchandise and inscribed them into his tome. With a nonchalance of a kennel keeper watching a pair of unruly hounds, the herald waited patiently for the boys to tire themselves out.

His guards, the gilded wardens, stared in silence as the slavedrivers were almost effortlessly tossed aside by the child of the mountain. Only when he started to bludgeon them to death did the herald motion the wardens to apprehend the defiant slaves. He was, after all, bound by a tight schedule. His masters would demand a punctual accounting, and he knew better than to show up late at the palace.

The wardens, armed with electro-staves, subjected the youths to indescribable agony with a simple thrust to the body. The staves made quick work of them, sending both boys to the dirt in a quivering heap.

Curly fainted, his newfound friend did not.

"Curious." The herald observed, "Such tenacity for one so small."

The boy screamed, his voice sounding like a shrill whistle rather than a lion's roar. Again, the electro-staves struck, finally robbing the slave of consciousness. Both were hauled off to the transporter, shackled with heavy manacles of star-metal and pulsating energy fields.

With his business at the Proving Grounds finished, the herald climbed aboard the cockpit with his entourage of guards in tow and headed for home.