WoA - Chap 3 | Vor

  The ship took a great, shuddering breath beneath me and rumbled to life. The beastly thing was an abomination, and no matter how many times I rode in one on and off different planets, the journey from ground to space always made my stomach churn with discomfort and sent bile up my throat.
  I couldn't complain too much, however. My newest master had thus far kept every cage and cell I had stayed in impeccably clean. Compared to the arena pits, cramped cages, and rotten cells I'd spent most of my life in so far, this was luxury.
  Of the few gladiators the Master owned, I was the only one he chose to bring with him down to the ground. The rest had remained behind on the main cruiser, and yet he had not let me out of my cage in the cargo hold. I thought that he had planned to take me out for battle since he'd yet to do so since my acquisition, and yet here I sat hours later, alone in the bowels of this mechanical monstrosity.
  Why bring me at all, then? Why not leave me on The Avalon to continue training with the others? These questions rolled in my mind but I shoved them away. It was not my business. I was the Master's business. I was a gladiator. I lived to battle. It was my purpose and my whole existence. It was my honour to fight for my master, especially one who treated me so well when I had yet to win for him.
  But still ...
  I knew this planet. I recognised the putrid stench when the vents drafted through after landing. It was a sandy, foul, poignant stench that brought with it death, decay, and heat. This planet was all desert with little rain, and many, many slaves.
  It was also where the Master had bought me some months before after my previous one had died, and his children wanted nothing to do with me, so they'd cast me off here for a handful of credits.
  The arenas on this planet were for testing out new slaves to see if they were fit to be trained as gladiators. My old master would bring me here to battle prospective fighters for him. My new master did not hold this same view. He seemed to have a great many different views than all of my previous masters. One of which was feeding his fighters. My ribs had been far less pronounced these last few weeks, and it was the first time in as long as I could remember that my stomach did not pang and growl with hunger.
  Most masters I had come across preferred their fighters to be half-starved, believing it made them fight harder and more desperately for their rewards. I have found that I fight better without a raging belly. It made my mind clearer. Sharper.
  Good for killing.
  Good for winning.
  My stomach dropped suddenly and the room tilted. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my morning rations in my stomach. We were leaving. It was just as well. I did not like the smell here, and it brought back many memories I did not like to dwell on.
  Above me, a series of bangs and crashes echoed from the main floor of the shuttle, followed closely by the telltale zing of a collar.
  The very sound of it sent a shudder down my spine. Even after all of these years and the thousands of times I had gotten the shock, the very prospect of it made me react poorly inside. Weakness.
  A moment later, the doors to the cargo hold were flung open and a spread of false light illuminated the dark room and the two elder men who trained us entered. Bifur and Kimul. These men were once gladiators who had grown too old to fight. A rare feat, and an honourable one. Typically gladiators who made it that far were freed to live their lives, but these two were instead servants on The Avalon.
  Both were large and tall, though not as tall as I, and built wide and strong with many scars telling the story of hundreds of battles. I knew they could both hold their own in the arena even today, because I fought them in the training halls almost daily, and almost daily they continued to best me. Not always, though. I felt they would most likely prefer an honourable death rather than bowing and scraping here as they were. Where was the honour?
  It was cruel to reduce such great gladiators to this.
  One was the colour of wet sand with a thick pelt of fur across his body and a face reminiscent of one of the mountain cats I vaguely remembered from my childhood. This one was called Bifur, and I found him to be a good teacher thus far. Strict and impatient, quick to anger, but strong and smart. Wise.
  The other, Kimul, was similar in stature but the near opposite in appearance. His skin was a slick, smooth texture that was the green colour of the great salt waters I had seen on different planets. His odd face was wide with great, wide eyes that were glossy black and lacked the whites or coloured rings like mine.
  Neither of them had great horns atop their heads as I did, and neither of them had the bright glow of eyes as I did. Nor did either of them have the glow of the Heartfire in their chests or heads. Mine lay quiet, but of the few memories I had of my childhood and old home, I remember the glowing Heartfires of my parents. Orange, bright, and warm against their blue skin ... There was little I remembered, but that I did.
  The cat one, Bifur, did have a tail at least, though it was different to mine. It was completely covered with his pelt, and he did not have the tuft at the end as I did. I had found The Reach and its many planets to be full of many different kinds of people, but I had yet to come across one who looked like me. I wanted to know what these two were called, and what planet they came from, but I did not ask. I had always been curious about the men around me and the different creatures I had come across in my time working for different masters but speaking to others had always been a challenge.
  They all had their own tongue-speak, and there was never enough time to learn their words to ask such questions before we were in the arena, weapons drawn. The masters were the only ones I needed to understand, and they always made sure I could. I did not need to speak. I only needed to obey.
  This new master, though, had given me something he had called a noo-ral implant after he bought me, and since then I had been able to understand all of the tongues spoken around me. Bifur and Kimul carried between them another figure, this one different. Much smaller and covered in many layers of filth. It was nowhere near the size or bulk of any three of us. He lay limp and small between them as they both grasped an arm and dragged him to the cage beside mine. I didn't miss the long scratches on Bifur's chest that ran red with blood. They were deep, clean slices.
  They yanked open the cage and threw the unconscious figure in with a growl and a kick before slamming it shut again. The master hovered in the middle of the room, watching, his shock-staff in his hand.
  This held the button for the collars, and even now his fingers played near the glowing blue orb that activated the shock.
  I didn't move, unwilling to draw his attention. Despite the niceties he had shown towards us, once he shocked once, he tended to keep doing it for every perceived slight until he was distracted.
  He was still a Master, even if he fed us more. He wore long, elegant robes over neat trousers that were made of strange materials that I had no names for. The masters usually wore strange garments, while we typically wore very little. However, the Master had seen fit to give us new clothing to wear as well. The leggings he had given to me were strange but comfortable. They were tight around the hips but loose in the legs, and warm.
  I had found that I quite preferred the strange clothing over being nude all of the time. Usually, the only time we were clothed was before we went into the arena, and then we wore leathers and armour designed for us by our masters. A testament to them, and to us, for the spectators.
  The man they threw in the cage was nearly nude and had only a scrap of leather around his hips. This seemed like quite a lot considering where he'd just come from. I tried not to fault him for the small that cloaked him as it couldn't be helped, and the thought made me realise how accustomed I had become to being clean. Bifur kicked the metal cage and snarled down at the small man.
  "Enough, Bifur," the Master said and waved his hand. "Be gone, both of you. Clean yourselves up. She can't cause any more trouble at the moment." She?
  They both nodded and left, but Bifur sent one last angry glare at the scrawny figure before stomping away. Kimul didn't seem to care either way. But this one ... was female?
  I had seen only a few females in the arena before, and they were always significantly larger and more fearsome. Angry and brutal.
  Never before had I seen one so pitifully small. Why would the Master buy such a small female to fight in the arena? That was ridiculous. He wanted to win, as did all masters. That was the point, so I must have misheard him, but as I looked over at the creature next to me, it became more apparent that I had not misheard.
  Beneath the muck and shit, her build was muscled for her frame, but as she lay on her back I could not deny the soft swell of teats on her chest and the lack of a bulge between her legs, and I could see the apex of her thighs under the flimsy leather. My cock flexed at the thought of it.
  I had scarcely been around females, let alone a nude one, and my body responded harshly to the thought. I had spent many nights wondering what females were like, as many did. Doc-tor Ken-see was the only one I had spent a significant amount of time around, and she was the healer on the Master's ship, and human. Though my cock did not respond to her as it did to this filthy lump on the floor.
  But that was not the point.
  The master had bought a small, scrawny female to be a gladiator? This one was not built for fighting, male or female. It was obvious with a single glance. She had no claws on her hands or talons on her feet. She had no scales, thick hide, or armour plates to protect the vulnerable parts of her body. There were no sharp teeth that I could see in her mouth. No tusks or horns.
  Nothing.
  She looked ...
  Well, she looked like the master. Beneath the mess, her skin peeked out with the same lightish pink as his, and her face held the same smooth design and structure though very different at the same time.
  This was ... an earth woman?