Gods of Arena

"Halt!....."

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!", Dan muttered, thinking of every possibility. They had never stopped a fight halfway.

".... We are sorry for the minor inconvenience", the announcement continued. "The fight is obviously a mismatch and will be discontinued, immediately. The real contestants will resume the fight." Dan stood up and ran away from the Fighters' stand. "Where is Dan going?", Crane asked.

"Whoa. Looks like we guessed right. He must have seen something", Kang replied and stood up, going after Dan.

"Wait for me", Crane said and followed him.

The gate opened and Todd ran out. "Not you, Jae", a soldier said to Jae, as he approached.

"Alright", Jae replied, with a wry smile, and took a step back. "I can take on anyone, anyway"

******

"Dan?", Kang called, running after him. "Wait up! Where are you going?"

"Stay away, you idiot", Dan said, as he dashed into the hall, heading towards his room.

They watched him drift and stop, just a few meters to his door. He must have seen something. "Where are you going, Dan?"

"Who's that?", Crane asked, looking at the woman in front of Dan's door. She had four soldiers behind her.

"I- I wasn't going anywhere", Dan stuttered.

"The fight is going to start now. Your punishment for tampering with our system will be awarded after the fight", the woman said, as the soldiers walked up to him and seized him. "That's if you survive, anyway" Kang and Crane stared blankly at her. She looked a lot older than Ana and Dea. "I have never seen this one", Kang said. "She's a larger figure"

"What are you two doing here?", she asked. "You should get back to your stand, immediately. We will find out who tampered with our machine operations and if any of you is implicated in any way, you will be severely punished. Pass the message to your friends"

****

Dan approached him slowly with his sword and shield. The gamblers cheered, noisily. They probably believed he was a worthy match. He closed his eyes, taking one step after the other, and maintaining a defensive pose. 'this time, watch your back', Romeo's voice echoed in his head.

He turned, quickly, and took a low swing with his sword. The sword clanged with Jae's, like he had seen the attack coming. That was an instinctive move. He barely thought about it.

"Hey, Jae", Dan muttered and smiled, as he opened his eyes. He had just put his fear aside. He would rather die fighting and giving the gamblers the show they wanted than die like a coward.

"I bet you already saw this coming", Jae said and smirked back at him. "I hope you said your last prayers"

"Never said a prayer... but I'll learn❞

Jae flung a rock at him. Dan blocked the attack with his shield, drifting backwards from the impact of the hit. He ran towards Jae who had dropped the shield and sword. He leaped and swung the sword at Jae's head. Jae blocked it with a stone and swiped at Dan.

Dan bent backwards, avoiding the hit. Two wires jumped out of his chest and wrapped around Jae's arm, pulling it down immediately. He hit Jae's head with his shield and kicked Jae to the ground. Dan clenched his fist, watching Jae lay back on the ground. The cheers from the gamblers was a lot of hype for him.

He shot a wire out of his right fist. The wire wrapped around Jae's leg and he tugged it at himself. Jae was pulled on the ground, swiftly, towards Dan. Dan was about to jerk the wire up. His heart took a leap, as Jae's leg expanded, breaking the wire. Jae swiped his leg across, sweeping Dan off his feet.

"Urgh!", Dan groaned, as he fell on his side. "Fuck!"

Jae flipped on his feet and cracked his neck. He put his two arms together, enlarging it and dived at Dan on the ground. Dan rolled away and got up. He shot wires at Jae, wrapping around his neck. He swiftly jumped on his back, squeezing with all of his strength.

Jae's huge stone hand clawed at his neck, trying to get the wire off. He turned around, sporadically, jerking and trying to shake Dan off. He jumped and landed on his back, slamming Dan on the ground.

"You, asshole!", Jae spat and clenched his fist, increasing the size to a heavy rock.

Dan's heart skipped a beat. Jae already held him to the ground. For a split second, his mind tried to find a possible way out of the situation. Multiple wires shot out of his body and dived into the tiny holes behind Jae's back. The wires tugged, as Jae was about to drop his rock fist on his head, pulling Jae away and throwing him up into the air.

Dan sprung up quickly. More wires jumped out of his body and darted back into Jae's body, holding him up in the air and holding his limbs apart. "Die, asshole!", he screamed, as he tugged at the ropes, pulling Jae apart into heavy pieces of rock.

"To Dan!!!", a Gambler howled, raising a glass in the air. The gamblers joined, cheering him noisily, as they stood up and clapped.

Dan kept staring down at the rocks. He could barely hear a word from the Gamblers. He waited for the rocks to join together and form Jae again... like it happened in the dream.

"Why is he just standing there? He doesn't look happy", Crane said.

"I bet he didn't think he could win the fight", Kang replied.

Dan glanced at the bleachers and looked back down at the rocks. 'Watch your back, Dan!', a voice sprung into his head. He turned back quickly, his heart almost leaping out of his chest. He turned again and looked back at the rocks. He almost thought he had seen the rocks move, a second earlier.

He walked backwards, watching the rock. He could hear the gamblers cheer now. The rocks weren't moving. His dream wasn't real, after all.

****

"So Dan won the fight?"

"You having trouble sleeping?", Kang asked, with his eyes shut. The lights were out and he was pretty sleepy.

"Yea"

"That's the only time you ask a needless question", Kang replied and rolled on his back, staring up at the ceilings. He could barely see anything. "There must be something else on your mind keeping you awake. What is it?" "Ana", he said. "What she told you about me; about my ability"

"Yea, we should work on that, especially now that it's hard to hide from the spins", Kang said. "I'll be pretty jealous, though. You're the one with the ability.... Then you'll have the prettiest girl. There's nothing to worry about, Crane" "Thank you, Kang", Crane said. "Thank you for everything"

"I'm so sleepy, Crane... time flies. Once it's dawn, we might not get a chance to sleep well enough"

"Did you just use my full name as a pun?"

"Sleep,

Crane"

He could feel his chest go up and down slowly, like he was taking in more air than usual. He could hear the cheers of everyone, though the vision was quite blurry, he knew he was in the middle of the Arena. He felt consistent drops of liquid on his foot. He looked down at the sword on his hand. Blood dripped from the tip of the blade.

"Romeo!", a voice called his name.

He looked at the man on the ground, as his vision got clearer. The man looked huge and bald, dressed in the costume of the leading Larger Figures. That face was pretty familiar, though he wasn't sure who it was.

"Save us, Romeo", the man said. There was blood all over his neck, like he had a cut somewhere on the shoulder. "The Dergon Arena needs your help"

"Don't listen to him, Romeo", another voice retorted. Romeo turned and looked back. There was another Larger Figure, tied to a chair.

"Who are you?"

"That man is the enemy. Dergon Arena needs to go", the man replied. He wore a lab coat, like the doctors who created them. "You need to save us, Romeo"

The cheers continued loudly. The arena looked bloody, like he just finished fighting. He looked up at the gamblers. They were punching the air, aggressively. He could see weird creatures running through the doors into the Gamblers' bleachers. They were being attacked..... the noises were not chairs of excitement. The gamblers were trapped and ambushed....

Romeo's eyes blinked and he was staring at the ceilings. He felt numb and laid there for a minute more, without making a move. It was almost dawn. The lights were still pretty dim. He raised his back, slowly, and looked at Dan's bed. The dream made no sense to him, as he tried to make some meaning out of it. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Dan's bed again. It was empty. "Dan?", he called, gently.

The call was useless. If he wasn't on the bed, he definitely wasn't hiding under the bed. Dan had been acting weirdly for a while but Romeo cared less, anyway. He stood up from the bed and stretched. He looked at Dan's bed again.... No, he wasn't hallucinating. Dan wasn't in the room.

He walked out of the room and headed straight to the bathroom. He peed and washed his hand, staring into the mirror. "Save us, Romeo", he muttered and smiled at his reflection. "Funny".

He walked out of the bathroom. "... thought you wouldn't show up", a voice said, gently.

His ears caught that, pretty sharply. He wasn't sure whose voice it was but it seemed pretty sneaky and was definitely unusual. "I wasn't meant to", another voice replied. "I know-" "Stop it, Ana"

Romeo followed the sound. It was coming from up the stairs. 'Who's Ana?', he thought, as he walked stealthily.noveldrama