One after the other, he opened all the gates leading out into the circular arena, dodging the many occupants trying to grab him from behind their own prisons. This dungeon was mostly contained by the use of electronic gates keeping everyone behind them in check. He didn’t doubt there would be enforcers down here too.
Just as the thought appeared, something thumped him on the back of the head.
Ace fell forward, using the momentum of the smack to flip over and turn around in time to face his attacker. He pushed off the dirt and raised both fists in front of his face as he faced the seven-foot giant holding a club adorned with metallic spikes.
The yells and jeers of the crowd outside mixed with those of the captives pressed up against the gates keeping them trapped.
The seven-foot monster had already swung the club and missed him only because he moved at the last moment.
Ace’s beast wanted to break free. It rose close to the surface, ready to tear out of his body and overcome him so that any damage he sustained wouldn’t be as bad. He would heal at a faster rate than most humans but would eventually scar no matter what. Still, he could take more of a beating in his Recast form.
“You shouldn’t be here, little man,” Seven Foot said with a grin displaying toothless gums. His skin was gray, splotchy with bits missing in several degrees of decay. The Lepers were notoriously violent creatures and could infect any race with their skin disease via a bite or scratch. Ace had never encountered one before. “I’m going to tear you limb from limb. And then I’m going to devour you.”
Seven Foot swung the club in front of him.
Ace moved too late. Several of the spiky bits collided with Ace’s side, tearing fabric and skin just as quickly. The odor of his blood filled the confines of the area, encouraging everyone into a bigger frenzy than they’d already been in. They shook the metal gates, still unaware they could lift them just as easily and run out into the arena.
Ace howled, ripping the hooded vest off his body. Every piece of clothing felt claustrophobic, keeping him rigid, but he hoped the jeans stayed on long enough to hold the bombs. The pain of his damaged skin was nothing compared to how hard the beast pushed him to get through.
Hurry up, press the button. If you don’t, the beast won’t give a shit about anyone but himself. With the last vestige of humanity left within his control, Ace threw out a hand and smacked the control panel with so much force it smashed off the wall.
The metal grille ascended as he turned to face Seven Foot.
Ace was almost transformed into the beast who wanted this prick dead. Blood gushed from his multiple wounds as he pounced on the brute. They both fell, with Ace landing on top. He pinned Seven Foot as a wave of fur swept over his body like a warm blanket, covering him entirely. All of his bones and joints stretched and reformed.
Still, he kept the giant trapped beneath him.
His face had changed into a snout and Ace looked out at the world through different eyes. Only shades of black and gray existed now. His mouth felt overcrowded with teeth but he didn’t shy away from the beast within.
I’m animal, once again.
He wasted no time lifting an already shifted paw and swiping it across the bulging expanse of Seven Foot’s belly. Back and forward, back and forward, until the taut skin tore apart. Ooze and innards slid out of the huge gash he’d made on Seven Foot’s torso.
Ace jumped off him with the intention of heading back the way he’d come so he could plant a few chippies along the way. He could still feel the torn jeans holding on to his hips. Instead, the influx of murderous enslaved fighters carried him backward in their rush to get out of their holding cells. They ran out from everywhere, making him lose all sense of direction.
He gathered up his strength, and being in Recast form, was able to rise above and over the thick wave of bodies, leaping off shoulders and heads, spindly backs, anything he could use as a springboard until he’d cleared enough room to find himself inside the actual fighting pit.
Dirt stuck between his paws when he landed on the ground.
Oh shit, this isn’t where I wanted to be.
Many of the gladiators had tumbled out into the middle of the show, so the crowd ohhhed and ahhhed in a chorus of fascination, clapping with excitement. Some sat forward, while others stood in a heady mix of confusion and wonder. For all they knew, this could be something new, all part of the show.
Ace tried to ignore them, didn’t want to suck in the mixed scents of clean clothes and sheer wealth radiating from the audience. Very powerful people from all around the galaxy were gathered here in the one spot, and they were all eager to enjoy a night of barbaric entertainment at the expense of others.
He threw his head back and growled. The excitement and anticipation thrumming in the air encouraged him. No wonder the gladiators wound up tearing each other apart. Who could resist the buzz accompanying the cheering?
As the arena filled with the previously concealed prisoners, the more agile fighters started to scale the sides, slowly making their way toward the crowd. Several reached high enough to climb into the stone stands, attacking whoever they could grab along the way. The cheers for violence mixed with those of brutality gone rampant.
Ace noticed a crazed Recast pass him by, its shaggy pelt swinging behind him. It took only seconds for Ace to shift into a man, grab a hold of the shaggy head and twist it. A claw swiped his back and he curved with the sting but just as quickly spun around and grabbed another Recast. He broke its neck too.
They seemed to recognize him, smelled him out from the others.
The ones in their feral shape, now resembling more vicious wolf than man, were already lost. He could see it in their mannerisms and the constant drool dribbling from the side of their mouths.
He pitied them, but not enough to let them go free. He’d known this would be a possibility. Killing his own served the purpose of freedom here, just as it had back in the caves.
The people in the stands were going crazy as more and more zealous gladiators made their way to the other side. Still, he spotted Colt in the shadows, motioning and calling out to the people who bothered to listen. Some were lucky and made it past him, hopefully to reach safety, but others either refused to move or were already captured by a rabid prisoner.
Ace reached into his pocket. His jeans were barely hanging around his hips, but he only needed them to hold the explosives. It took him seconds to run a lap around the edge of the arena walls, affixing chippies at random points.
Just as he turned on his heel with the intention of heading out of the dungeons, Ace noticed the bald man still fighting against the blond one. The blond held the bald guy in his arms, stealing the life out of him with his fanged mouth.
Is that a bloody vampire? They were nasty parasites and made him sick.
Without another thought, Ace changed back to Recast. He felt invincible when he charged at the vampire and smashed the head right off its shoulders, using a clawed paw. The bald man slumped to the ground, coughing and grabbing at his bleeding throat. Color slowly returned to his face as pandemonium continued around them.
Ace transformed back to human, still holding the head of the vampire. For the ease with which he could shift back and forward, he thanked his half heritage.
“Thanks, mate,” the bald man said. “I owe you.”
“I don’t need thanks. This place is going to blow.”
The man clawed at the ground until he righted himself enough to run toward one of the exits.
Ace took the first step to follow but someone knocked him on his ass and he sprawled out on the dirt. The vampire’s head rolled away, frozen with bloody fangs exposed, but Ace couldn’t move an inch.
His right shoulder was pinned to the ground by a shiny red pincer.
Ely hadn’t intended to head down into the chaos surrounding her, but now that she was running, she couldn’t stop. She wanted to see the situation in the dungeons. If every computerized system inside the Clash Arena had been af
fected, then the depraved beings downstairs would get loose and compromise the safety of everyone.
She didn’t blame them if they reacted to consequence and tried to escape—the situation Jenks had unwillingly cast them into was despicable. Every single one of those fighters had been brought here under duress. A large portion of them delivered personally by some guy called Marshall. For whatever reason, Jenks didn’t want to talk about the man he hired to wrangle these guys in, and he sure as hell never allowed him anywhere near the arena.
Ely stopped to glare at her left shoulder. If it wasn’t for the thick fabric of her cat suit, she’d have lost a layer of skin and the injury would have been a hell of a lot worse. As a result, the suit was scraped and her shoulder felt tender, probably bruised, but definitely not dislocated. She still felt a little dazed by her pace. The last thing she should be doing right now was running toward more danger, but she’d survived the explosion and had to help however she could.
The control room had been blown to smithereens. The usual pristine white room with all its monitors, keyboards and other electronic components was nothing more than a blackened mess now. She was lucky not to have joined it.
As she passed by one of the monitors with a constant feed focused on the Recast fights, she paused.
What the hell?
Several things struck her at once—why and how was the footage still streaming out of the planet to all of its subscribers? The insane scene made her pulse spike. People were running everywhere.
A bunch of warriors ran out from under several of the arches around the circular arena. Some were fighting amongst themselves, others running around as if they weren’t sure what to do, and some were even scaling the walls. How was she going to contain that?
She stumbled when another explosion rocked above her. If she wasn’t careful, this would become her tomb. She hoped Dakota had gotten as many people out as she could. By the looks of everyone running wild and screaming around her, it probably wasn’t enough.
Ely righted herself in time to watch the screen again. A shaggy, wolf-like animal charged toward another. She recognized it as one of those Recast dogs, with fur covering its body and outstretched limbs.
She’d heard them being referred to as nocturnal shape-shifters who could morph from man to wolf and back again, but they resembled rabid dogs to her. Their proportions were too elongated, they were too big. Although there seemed to be something a little different about this one, she couldn’t pinpoint what. He looked as fierce as any of the others housed in the dungeons, yet his fur glowed brighter, almost a shade lighter than usual and not as dirty. He also seemed to be wearing a torn pair of jeans.
As she stepped closer to the screen, the Recast ripped the head off someone’s shoulders with one swipe of its sharp claws. It stopped, wrapping a clawed hand around the long tangle of blond hair hanging off the severed head then shifted back to man.
Her heart stilled. The dazed sensation she’d felt after the explosion returned so violently she nearly collapsed. Instead, she took a step forward and touched the screen with her shaky fingertips.
It can’t be him.
No amount of denial would change the fact that, even with his loose hair matted together with sweat, blood staining his upper body, and the clothes almost absent from his lithe frame, she recognized him.
Ace had turned from a man into a beast.
He stood with the head still clutched in his hand for a few seconds, staring ahead. Almost as if he was looking directly into her soul. Her body chilled. When he was about to turn around, a Thropod knocked him over and stuck a pincer into his body.
The severed head rolled away and Ely gasped. The screaming and carrying on around her faded to nothing. There was only Ace on the screen, in the middle of the Clash Arena struggling to free himself from the clutches of the Thropod to no avail.
“No,” she whispered, spreading her hand over the screen.
A barrage of emotions and thoughts raced inside her mind. She wanted to be angry, enraged by what she’d just seen, but the crustacean had Ace pinned like a bug on display, and it made her gut tighten.
I don’t want him to die.
She could be angry later, confront him about why he’d lied and who he really was. But right now, she turned away from the screen and continued down the corridors leading into the dark and dank tunnel.
Before she knew it, she stood at the mouth of the arena proper. Torn bodies lay everywhere. The ones still standing were destroying each other and she didn’t know if it was a blessing or a shame. Sure, a lot of these races were violent by nature, but none were as brutal as they were now, after being held prisoner and tortured at every turn, with hardly enough food to survive. The bottom line was that all these creatures were forced to kill each other for entertainment.
The real scum here were all those trying to flee the stands.
Wrapping her cold fingers around the stun-gun strapped to her thigh, she took a deep breath of the soiled air and ran out into the wide open space in front of her, ready to point and shoot at whoever stood in her way or tried to attack. But no one did. It was almost as if they either chose to turn on each other, or decided to turn on the crowd and left her unnoticed. It made sense in a sick way.
When Ely was close enough, she lifted her right hand and kept it steady. She pointed the barrel of her weapon at the creature lifting its other pincer, ready to strike the helpless Ace.
She pulled the trigger but the Thropod embedded a second pincer into Ace, this time into his thigh. Ace howled in pain as the electric flash from her stun-gun cut through the air between them. When it struck the hard skin of the crustacean, its squeal echoed across the open space.
Ely fired a second time.
The Thropod shrieked another horrid, pained sound. It rattled her teeth, but she kept a tight hold on the gun’s handgrip. The pincers embedded into Ace’s flesh kept the creature anchored upright. She blasted it with another shot and another, until it eventually keeled over onto its back shell. The crustacean’s two front legs snapped off, leaving the pincers behind.
“Ace.” She ran toward him and stared down at the damage. Both pincers kept him stuck to the spot. She dropped to her knees, keeping the gun in her hand. “Can you get them out?”
Ace’s eyes snapped open and he looked at her for the first time. “Ely, what the hell are you doing here?” He yanked the torn pincer out of his shoulder, wincing. The gash seeped with a gush of viscous yellow liquid, followed by blood that blended into the other wounds bleeding along his torso.
He tossed the pincer aside.
“Can you get the other one out?” she yelled. Though what she really wanted to ask was What the hell are you doing here?
“It’s in too deep.” He yanked at it, twisting it side to side while biting down on his bottom lip. Beads of sweat dotted his brow. “Just get out of here, I can manage.”
“The hell you can,” she said with a stubborn shake of her head. Ely might want to throttle him until he told her why he omitted so many important details, but first she had to get him out of the arena. The extent of his injuries would soon attract the attention of the other creatures still causing havoc. The only reason none had taken any notice yet was because the Thropod’s still-squirming body kept them half-concealed from the action. “Move your hand.”
“What?”
“Here, hold this and shoot at anything that approaches.” Without hesitation she shoved the gun into his empty hand and wrapped her fingers around the sharp pincer. A line of spiky shell stuck out all over it and bit into her palm and fingers, but she ignored the pain. It couldn’t be as bad as what Ace had to be feeling with it impaled clear through his leg.
“Duck,” he whispered.
She lowered her shoulders, yanking and slightly twisting with all she had.
Ace pointed and shot something that cried out before falling motionless to the side.
Ely ground her teeth together, trying to drown out all the commotion and danger.
She drew up all the strength she possessed and yanked one last time until the ruined pincer cleared his thigh.
“Shit.” He growled again.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Ely dumped the pincer and dusted herself off as she rose to her feet. She held out her right hand.
Ace looked at her but didn’t make a move.
“Just take my hand. We’ve got to get out. I don’t know what’s going on but we’re under attack.” She forcibly grabbed his hand.
He paused, holding steady. “What do you mean by ‘we’?”
“Quit asking questions. Come on.”
The same shrieking she’d heard inside the control room echoed around her, and when she looked to the side, she noticed a multitude of different colored chippies stuck to the stone walls. They might be compact but the glow and the sound were undeniable. Who the hell had put them there? She couldn’t see the bandana guy anywhere as she frantically scanned the packed arena.
“Shit, the chippies. I forgot about them.” Suddenly Ace flew off the ground, running so fast she missed several steps and couldn’t understand how he could move so quickly with an injured thigh.
They cleared the open arena a second before the first explosion sent them crashing into the dungeons.
She sucked in a shallow breath, trying to get oxygen back into her lungs. Her knees ached from the impact of the fall but Ace was already on his feet.
“We have to keep moving.” He yanked on her hand, leading her up the darkened tunnel as the heat chased them and their palms slid against each other from their shared sweat and blood.
A cloud of dust followed close behind. She couldn’t stop coughing but continued to run close behind Ace as he raced up the empty tunnels. He didn’t stop until they’d distanced themselves enough from the blast and were actually very close to one of the entrances.
She pulled free of his grip. She doubled over, breathing hard while trying to control herself before saying, “How did you…know about those…bombs?” She coughed a few more times. Trying to clear her throat of the rancid stink the explosion had left inside her mouth.
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