by Ethan Bibile
Every single alien in the room looked like they had murdered someone recently. Most of them were huge, and if they weren’t huge they looked terrifying. And he had thought the crowd outside on the street had looked evil.
They all sat on benches, which creaked under most of their weight. It genuinely puzzled Quinn as to how the benches were not broken at this point. The six of them that sat in the room all looked at Quinn, most of them snickering in disbelief that Quinn was entering Nultagna.
Quinn sat down next to a huge alien, muscles popping out everywhere on his body, leading to Quinn thinking that they were not all natural. Quinn stared forward at the wall opposite him, ignoring the grunt he received from the muscled alien. Quinn suddenly remembered how he was told he would be competing against the previous winner of the previous match, and suddenly his stomach dropped. He doubted anyone could beat the guy next to him.
Slowly the line depleted until Quinn was the only one left on the bench. He sat there simply waiting for his turn to compete when a door opened at the end of the room opposite to the one he had entered.
“Just in here,” A small alien with a flat nose, large pointed ears, small, beady eyes and grey skin poked his head out from behind the door. He gestured for Quinn to come through, and once he had to give him the small paper slip with his details upon it. He asked for Quinn to hand over his belongings too, which ended up in a small locker in the corner of the room.
“Quinn Fenton,” He said, reading Quinn’s paper slip. “I’m Meliiun, chief engineer of weapons for Nultagna,” Even though he looked middle-aged, his voice seemed to say different, making Quinn guess he was very old.
“Now, this here is a shock gun,” Meliiun said, handing Quinn a handgun, no bigger than his father’s gun. It was pure black. “Once shot, it will send out a ball of electricity. Once this ball hits someone, it will only temporarily sting, before you will be fine. Depending on where it hits, it will do more damages in some places than others.”
Quinn looked at Meliiun with wide eyes.
“What about protective gear?” Quinn asked, already dreading the fact that there would probably be no protective gear allowed in Nultagna.
“Oh, no protective gear is needed,” Meliiun said, smiling politely at Quinn. Quinn did his best to smile back, but he was sure it turned out more like a grimace.
“You shall be entering the arena now, Mr Fenton,” Meliiun said as he led Quinn over to two large, metal double doors that undoubtedly lead into the arena.
“Now Mr Fenton, I must tell you that there is to be no physical contact in the arena. If there is any you will be disqualified from the competition. There will be an announcer, yet only for the audience to hear. You will be under one-way glass, so you can’t see out, but the audience can see in. You will also be followed by cameras for the audience’s benefit.”
Quinn nodded, taking deep breaths in. He held the gun at his side, telling himself that he could do it.
“Good luck,” Meliiun said. “You’re going up against one of the best in the competition.”
Quinn turned to him, shocked.
“What?” Quinn exclaimed, but as he said it the metal doors opened. Light streamed through into the room, bathing Quinn and Meliiun in its brightness. After shielding his eyes from the light for a moment, Quinn moved his hand away before stepping into the arena.
NULTAGNA
It was as if someone had taken the city of Nigellia and placed it in some huge circular dome. The dome itself was humongous. The roof of the dome was pure white, the light bathing down upon the city below it. It was simply incredible, yet Quinn realised he hadn’t seen a huge dome structure out upon the street. He didn’t know what was up, but some weird science was at play.
Quinn was shaken to his senses when he heard metal hitting metal. He spun around to see the doors slamming from where he had just exited.
Quinn turned around to face the interior of the arena, the gun held tight in his hand, his finger hovering over the trigger.
A sudden movement above him caught Quinn’s attention, but as his eyes flicked up to the roof he noticed that it was only two health bars appearing in the sky. Next to the one right above his head was his name. He looked across to the opposite side, and on the roof there, next to the health bar, was the name Laura Somers. The name obviously belonged to a female, Quinn having heard the name Laura before. It possibly belonged to a human too.
In the middle of the roof, a large symbol appeared. Quinn raised an eyebrow as the symbol changed continuously overhead. Quinn wasn’t sure, but he guessed it was something in the native language of Krezar. If only his translator hadn’t been taken away from him.
Suddenly the symbols stopped changing, and the entire glass sky turned a bright shade of green for a moment before turning white again. At this a white orb flew out from the wall behind Quinn, hovering above the ground. It was small with a camera in the middle. It flew next to Quinn, seemingly filming him. From these two things, Quinn guessed that the competition was on.
He cautiously stepped forward as if any movement would cause a sudden explosion. As he walked forward, the camera followed him.
Even though Quinn had only spent a few hours in Nigellia, it was strange seeing an identical city but completely void of people. The buildings and sandy paved streets simply stood there, not even the wind to disturb the silence.
Quinn continued walking through the city, glancing up and around at buildings, no sign at all of the elusive Laura Somers. Quinn entered a few buildings, some of them had things inside them, others were completely empty.
As Quinn walked along, he noticed that some of the walls were tainted with black scorch marks. Quinn looked down at the black gun he held in his hand somewhat nervously. Despite owning a gun, Quinn had never actually used a one before in his life. He remembered Meliiun telling him that Laura Somers was one of the best in the entire competition. Suddenly, Quinn began to reconsider his choice of entering Nultagna.
As Quinn continued to walk along, he practiced aiming and shooting the black gun. He surprised himself. His aim was better than he had anticipated. However, the bright yellow ball of electricity that shot out from the gun made a loud crackling noise when it hit something. Quinn stopped, not eager to meet his opponent just yet.
Up ahead stood a tall building, like one of the ones Quinn had seen in the distance upon arriving at Nigellia. The building was old and clearly a spot where many battles had taken place. Most of the windows had been destroyed. The building itself was oddly designed. It was as if huge boxes had been stacked on top of each other with a cylinder going through the middle of them all.
Quinn made his way up the sandy paved street that led right to the doors of the building. The arena had obviously been in use for years, as even the doors were missing from the building.
Quinn entered the dark foyer. On the roof were lights that had lost power many years ago. On the walls were many screens that had lost power too. Decayed couches and desks, scattered dying plants lay around. Scorch marks littered the walls and floors here too.
Quinn casually looked around, the gun now idly in his hand. He inspected the computers, some of them still having flickering screens.
The bottom floor of the building was box-shaped with the large cylinder going through the middle of it. An archway led through into a circular room. In the middle of that lay another cylinder, which turned out to be an elevator.
Quinn pressed the up button on the wall, and after a few seconds, the elevator doors creaked open ever so slowly. Inside the shaft was the elevator, with a light that was still working on the roof. Quinn hopped inside and took a glance at the buttons on the wall. Not having any specific destination in mind, Quinn pressed the button that would take him to the top floor.
As Quinn rode the elevator to the top of the building, some upbeat song started and stopped repetitively, coming from the speakers at the top of the elevator. Quinn looked up at it and raised his eyebrows.
Quinn had barely
noticed the orb camera which was still following him, but now that he was in a smaller space he noticed it watching him like a hawk.
The elevator stopped at the top of the building, the doors only opening a crack, meaning Quinn had to force them open the rest of the way.
The top floor of the building was the least damaged. Some of the power had managed to stay on, some lights still feebly going. To help them, however, light streamed through the glass-less windows.
Quinn wandered around aimlessly like he had when he was on the bottom floor, looking in and out of rooms. Most of the rooms were filled with machinery, somethings complete, others not. Quinn guessed this place was some sort of robotics lab, and Quinn felt at home instantly.
Quinn continued strolling around, fixing some of the machines that were incomplete. Quite a few of the machines involved simple mechanics. Being from the future, most of these machines involved basic principles that Quinn was familiar with, yet people from this time weren’t.
Quinn’s interest was piqued upon seeing a hoverboard in one of the rooms. It was a lot bigger and clunkier than his one back home had been, but it was still nice to see a familiar object. It was sitting on a table, a cord running from one end to a power source on the wall. It wasn’t painted, so it was simply grey.
Quinn was so caught up with being in the robotics lab that his senses seemed to have been turned off. He didn’t even notice someone sneaking up from behind. However, his senses were alerted when a sizzling ball of yellow electricity hit the wall next to his head.
Quinn spun around, pointing his gun at the attacker. He fumbled a bit, but eventually, his gun was pointed in the direction of the attacker.
Laura Somers was standing outside the room looking in, her gun pointed at Quinn’s chest.
Just as Quinn had predicted, she was human. She was shorter than Quinn, yet that came as no surprise to him. She had pure white skin that matched Quinn’s, along with thick red hair that went down past her shoulders. Quinn couldn’t help noticing she was pretty and seemed to be around his age.
“Hi,” Laura said, smiling politely at Quinn. Next to her head was her orb camera. Quinn tried to smile politely back, but he wasn’t too sure how it appeared on his face.
Quinn was nearly thrown off as another electric blast hit the wall, yet this time a lot closer to his head. He stumbled backwards and aimlessly pointed his gun in a random direction, firing it. It hit a shelf above the doorway that had been stacked with robotic projects. They all came tumbling down, blocking the doorway with a tremendous crash.
When Quinn recovered, he knew he had to leave, and he couldn’t leave out the door. Even if he managed to remove the debris, Laura was on the other side and she had the upper hand. Quinn frantically looked around the room for some other escape route. The only escape option was the window.
At first, Quinn brushed it off as a suicidal, absurd idea. Then his eyes found the hoverboard. He knew it was an insane idea, but it just might work. He unplugged the hoverboard from the power source and turned it on. He put it on the ground and to his delight, it hovered.
Quinn thought back to the instruction manual for his hoverboard at home upon Nespritia. The bottom of the hoverboard has sensors which locate the closest source of gravity and cling to it.
The closest source of gravity. Everything had gravity. Everything. Apply this basic principle and he should be able to ride down the side of the building. But would this one, simple principles apply to hoverboards from hundreds of years in the past?
Quinn quickly looked behind him as some of the debris shifted. Laura was making her way through to him. He knew it was a competition, but he did want to win. He had put his faith in science and robotics before. His mind was telling him in theory that this should work, but theory wasn’t everything.
Quinn put one foot onto the hoverboard. It had two rings on it that had suction to keep his feet attached to the board. With the one remaining foot that was on the floor, Quinn slowly pushed towards the glass-less window. He pushed the hoverboard right up to the edge and looked down at the ground.
It was a terribly long way down.
Quinn slowly put his other foot on the other suction ring on the hoverboard.
Just as he was about to fall down the edge of the building, the debris shifted some more, causing Quinn to turn his head.
Laura had managed to move enough of the rubble to make a hole where Quinn could see her head and a bit of her torso. Quinn pointed his gun at her and shot. He missed Laura and hit some of the debris instead, causing the hole to widen. However, the force of the ball of electricity shooting forward also pushed him back.
Right out the window.
As he fell, Quinn’s arms flailed around, trying to grab onto something. It had simply been a thought. He hadn’t been prepared to jump out a window for a game. As he fell he saw Laura’s shocked face and saw her pushing her way through the debris.
Suddenly his view of the room was completely gone, and Quinn braced himself for the free fall to his impending doom.
However, instead of falling to the ground aimlessly, the hoverboard had caught onto the gravity of the building, no matter how weak it was. He was now gliding gracefully down the wall at phenomenal speeds.
Slowly Quinn’s terrified expression turned into a grin of victory. The wind blew through his light brown hair, the orb camera flying next to him, barely able to keep up.
“Woohoo!” Quinn cried out as he flew towards the ground with style. He put his arms up, still holding the gun in one hand. Never had he ever done anything like this before. His heart was pounding, and he could feel butterflies fluttering around madly inside of his stomach.
Before he knew it though, the ground was closer than he would have liked it to be.
Quinn hadn’t prepared for a dismount, so when the edge of the hoverboard hit the ground, it simply rebounded off the wall, causing Quinn and the hoverboard to do a full somersault through the air, before colliding with the ground. The suction rings finally gave way and the hoverboard spun away from Quinn, who lay on the ground.
Quinn’s entire body ached with bruises, one or two cuts on his hand.
Groaning, Quinn pushed himself up and off the ground. He made it into a kneeling position first before standing all the way up. When he did, he was surprised the orb camera was still filming him. Quinn grinned to the crowd he could not see, the exhilaration overpowering his sore body.
“Did you see that?” Quinn said, grinning. He ran his hand through his messy hair. “I mean, I went down the wall of a building on a hoverboard!” Quinn cried out. He clapped his hands together happily.
However, after a few moments of celebrating, a ball of electricity hit the ground right next to where he was. He looked up. He could only see a tiny dot at the top of the tower, which he guessed was Laura. She must have to be a good shot if she managed to nearly shoot him from the top floor.
Quinn dived out of the way as another electrical shot nearly hit him. Quinn ran towards his gun which lay on the ground a few meters away. He clumsily dived for it and grabbed it, rolling around to point the gun at the top of the building.
However, he hesitated as he realised if he somehow managed to shoot Laura from where he was, she would take a very nasty fall, which would no doubt be fatal.
In his moment of hesitation though, he had failed to notice a ball of electricity coming straight for him. By the time that he noticed it, it was already too late.
When he was hit, his body went into an instant spasm, his limbs jerking uncontrollably. He was surrounded by yellow strings of electricity, his body cased in them. Meliiun certainly hadn’t been wrong. It did sting an awful lot. Despite his body convulsing, Quinn could make out his allocated health bar and to his dismay, it was completely drained of the red health points.
After a few moments, the electricity wore off, leaving Quinn’s body even sorer than it had previously been. He groaned as he lay flat on his back, breathing in quickly.
The roof of t
he arena suddenly began to disappear. The glass was made up of hundreds of tiny hexagons, all pushed together. First, the very centre one turned transparent, then all the rest of them followed.
Once the white roof had turned completely clear, Quinn got his first good look at the audience at the arena.
They sat in a ring of stands surrounding the arena were Quinn and Laura had fought. Considering this was an illegal activity, Quinn was surprised at the number of people watching them. Hundreds of people adorned the arena.
Quinn slowly pushed himself off the ground, rubbing sore spots on his body. He gave a small smile to the orb camera, which was still filming him. Quinn considered it to be quite an achievement that it had followed him through everything, including hoverboarding down the side of a building.
Quinn looked up and studied the stands a bit more. He noticed large screens placed around so the audience got a close look at the competitors. Right now, the orb cameras were broadcasting pictures of Quinn and Laura’s faces.
Suddenly an announcement came over the speakers, cutting off the blurred mash that was the cheers of the audience. Quinn couldn’t make out most of the language, but he did make out the remark, “Laura Somers!”
After this, the crowd burst into an even louder round of applause. Quinn guessed that Laura’s victory had been announced.
Sighing in relief that it was over, Quinn looked at the camera, smiled, and waved.
Quinn was escorted by several officials who led him out into some sort of medical room where he was checked for any serious injuries. Aside from the minor bruising and one or two cuts, he was completely fine.
The officials asked for Quinn to sign the hoverboard, which was then put on an immediate auction. He was surprised at how much it sold for, which seemed to be quite a bit. Most of the funds from the hoverboard went to the people who ran Nultagna, but a small portion of it was given to Quinn. He was incredibly relieved when he found out they were in galactic ioas.