The Battle Begins

by Devon Hughes

  Castor turned his attention to the space outside his cell, but what he saw through the glass wasn’t much more exciting. All around him were empty rooms and eerie silence. He could no longer see the upper floors, but he remembered the animals he’d seen on his way in.

  “Hey!” he called out to them. “Can anybody hear me?”

  Castor waited, but the only reply was the echo of his own bark. The smell was still there, though—the stench of fear hung thick in the air.

  Defeated, Castor plopped back down on the bed and groaned—it was so limp that he could feel his bones pressing into the concrete. He tried to fall back asleep, but it was tough without the hum of the city or the warmth of his pack. Between the pain and the fear and the artificial light, there was no way he was going to get any rest.

  Castor tried to roll over to get more comfortable, but the protrusion of his new wings made lying on his back even more awkward. But looking up for that brief moment, he saw it.

  Near the ceiling of his cell, there was a wooden perch that jutted out of the wall. And on that perch, at least fifteen feet off the ground, sat a water dish.

  What was it doing up there?

  Castor scrambled to his feet, his eyes locked on the dish. He licked his parched lips and walked in a few circles, puzzling out how he could reach it. He stood on his hind legs and leaned against the wall. He even tried to jump a few times. Then, he had a revelation: You’re a mutant now, Castor! You can fly!

  But of course he couldn’t fly. Simply having feathers didn’t make you a bird, and after a few painful, frantic flaps of his wings, it was pretty clear they were more for decoration. It was just another one of the humans’ cruel tricks. He’d never be able to reach that water. Ignoring the useless cushion this time, Castor sprawled out on the cold floor and heaved a great sigh.

  “Gibbing up tho thoon?” a saliva-soaked voice asked.

  Castor looked up. His cell was in a corner, and from this angle, he could see the first three rooms along the perpendicular wall, but he hadn’t seen anyone in them. And he hadn’t realized anyone could see him.

  He stood up and peered through the glass into the cell closest to his, just around the corner. The room looked identical to his own, but from this angle, the back corner of it was concealed in darkness.

  “Hello?” he barked. “Who’s there?”

  “Me!” Two glowing, yellow eyes snapped open in the darkness, and when the beast stepped forward into the light, Castor instinctually stepped back, despite the glass that separated them.

  She was monstrous. Even standing on all fours, his neighbor was almost as tall as the humans, with a hulking body that seemed to fill up her whole cell.

  “Looks like water juth ithn’t your thing, huh, Cathtor?” Her eyes turned to slits as she smiled, and two thick, white tusks of bone curved down over her lips.

  Castor flattened his ears, suspicious. “How do you know my name?”

  “You don’t recognithe me?” she asked. She paraded back and forth behind the glass, amused. He didn’t recognize that furry, brown face, not at all, but Castor’s eyes lit on the long, switching tail. It was orange. And though her speech was made clumsy by those new tusks, Castor realized he recognized the velvety voice, too—a threatening purr. Castor’s eyes widened. “You’re . . .”

  “Enza.”

  The alpha female from that first day. The large, striped cat. Castor could hardly believe it.

  “You look so . . . different,” Castor marveled.

  She stalked the cell like a tiger would, and those golden eyes with their diamond-shaped pupils were definitely feline. But her stripes were gone, and her fur was now a coarse medium brown that barely verged on orange near her hindquarters.

  “What’th that thuppothed to mean?” Enza’s bear face hissed.

  “Nothing,” Castor said quickly. “I just meant your fangs.”

  Enza rolled her shoulders back and pressed her felted pink tongue against her incisors. “Saber teeth,” she corrected, and didn’t even stumble on the s. Castor wondered how many times she’d practiced saying it to herself. “Aren’t they perfect? One chomp and I could thkewer a mongrel like you. The only thing more pitiful than a dog is a bird. Especially a bird who can’t fly.”

  Castor looked down at the concrete floor. She was right. She was a ridiculous cat with a lisp, but she was still better than he was. Castor was an omega now, the lowest of the low. He couldn’t even manage to get food or water for himself, and he would probably be stuck in this cell for the rest of his life.

  Hearing a faint clanging, he and Enza both fell silent. Castor recognized the jingling keys and the squeak of sneakers, and he peered eagerly through the glass door. The man was coming back. Castor remembered his guilty expression. Maybe he had decided to set him free!

  But the footfalls were the wrong rhythm, and the smell was strange and clean, and the human who arrived in front of them was a short woman with stringy hair and a hard little line for a mouth.

  “Slop!” she announced brightly.

  Castor cocked his head at her, and across the hall, Enza glowered. Neither had the slightest idea what “slop” meant.

  Then, abruptly, Castor heard a loud, grinding sound. He froze, the hackles on his back rising defensively. It sounded like a Crusher Slusher was right in his room!

  He shut his eyes tight, convinced he was about to become squashed doggy. But then he heard snorting.

  “You thoulda theen your fayth!” Enza scoffed at him. “It’s justh a door, you big baby.”

  When he turned, Castor saw she was right. One of the square doors in the back of his room, the second from the left, was wide-open.

  At first, Castor was ecstatic. The one thing in the world he’d wanted was a way out of his prison, and now here was an easy escape, just waiting for him!

  But when the grinding sound started up again and a door in Enza’s own cell opened, Castor saw the shadow pass across her face—the unease beneath her teasing—and he saw his hope for what it was: naïve. The door was open because the humans wanted it open, and wherever it led was where the humans wanted them to go—nowhere good.

  “Slop!” the guard repeated, huffing with impatience, and Castor decided that maybe he wasn’t quite so curious about what that word meant anymore. Maybe, he decided, this cold, barren cell suited him just fine.

  As usual, though, he didn’t get to decide.

  The guard took a small gold object out of her pocket. She put it to her lips, puffed out her cheeks, and blew.

  “Make it stop!” he howled, pawing at his ears. Though it only lasted a second, the sound was so sharp, so piercing that it sounded like the end of the world.

  After the musical torture, he looked over at Enza for sympathy, only to find that her cell was empty. The giant tiger-bear was gone.

  “Slop!” the guard said again.

  “No,” Castor whimpered. She held up the whistle and started to bring it to her lips once more. “I’m going!” he barked, and bounded across his cell in two quick steps.

  He stood at the dark void of the open door and, trembling, Castor tucked his new, tender wings close and stepped across the threshold.

  12

  FROM INSIDE THE DARK, MUSTY TUNNEL, CASTOR COULD already hear the commotion. He tried not to panic—the tunnel was so narrow that there was no way to go but forward—but even though he steeled himself to face whatever might lie ahead, when Castor emerged into the light, he was still shocked at what he saw.

  The two creatures before him made Enza’s bear body seem like a mini’s. One was almost as tall as the ceiling, with legs that were thicker than the trees in Castor’s dreams. It was hairless, with gray skin stretched like a human’s and stuffed too tight, and instead of a nose, it had eight long, waving arms. This must be the elephant, but its trunk was now different.

  Castor recognized the other beast from its thick-plated armor—it was Rainner, the lizard from the cages that first day—but he’d doubled in size, and with a new s
pike of a horn jutting out of his face, he wasn’t someone you’d want to make angry. It looked like the other guy had done exactly that.

  “FIGHHHHT!” Enza roared beside Castor, as Rainner charged the gray giant. Her feline eyes were dilated with excitement.

  “What’s going on?” Castor barked in alarm. The hair on his back stood up and he assumed a defensive stance—who knew if he’d be next?

  “S-s-samken wanted s-s-some breakfast,” a familiar voice answered. “S-s-so did Rainner.”

  Deja, the snake Castor had met before, slithered past him. All he could do was stare—just as shocking as the other animals’ transformations was the fact that Deja hadn’t changed. From her pale, diamond-shaped head all the way to the black rattle at the end of her tail, she looked the same as she had before.

  Castor didn’t have time to ask her how she’d managed to escape the serum, though. The ground beneath his feet shook as the animal Deja had called Samken crashed around the room. Castor had to leap out of the way just before he was crushed.

  “Castor!” someone called to him. He spotted Jazlyn’s long, white ears under the food trough. It was the only shelter he could see in the room, and Castor ran to join her.

  Though Jazlyn now had a sleek, black cat’s body and claws to match, she was as frightened as she’d been before, and Castor could feel her trembling next to him.

  “We’re safe under here,” Castor said, though he wasn’t totally convinced of that himself.

  “I’m not worried about us,” she answered. “I’m worried about Samken!”

  Castor looked at the hulking giant across the room. “He looks like he can take care of himself.”

  Jazlyn shook her head. “He’d never want to hurt anyone. He’s way too sensitive.”

  Castor saw that the gray mammoth was on his knees now, cowering as the horned lizard loomed over him. He remembered what Rainner had said before: And others are destined to fall.

  “Please,” Samken blubbered. “I swear I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just hungry.” He looked longingly at the food trough, and Rainner slashed at the air with his horn. “Let’s be rational about this!” Samken squeaked, snapping his eyes back to his attacker. “You can eat first, and then I’ll eat.” He fluttered his huge ears hopefully.

  But Rainner wasn’t swayed. “Kings don’t share,” he snapped, and lunged for Samken’s big belly.

  Samken jutted his head forward, his tentacles waving in defense. He managed to wrap them around his attacker’s horn and keep from getting skewered, but Rainner grunted and pushed, and the spike inched ever closer to Samken.

  Castor’s muscles tensed—he should do something! But what good was he against these giants?

  “ENOUGH!” a voice boomed, and then there were more horns flying as someone butted his head into Rainner’s scaly side, sending him sprawling away from Samken.

  Everyone looked toward the new animal. He looked like a horse with stripes, but he had a different animal’s face, and two curved and pointed horns stuck out sideways from his forehead, a dark tuft of hair sprouting between them. His nostrils flared as he glowered at Rainner and Samken, sprawled on the floor.

  “Do you know who I am?” Rainner sputtered furiously as he got to his feet.

  Though the weird-looking horse hadn’t hesitated to break up the fight, now he looked wary and exhausted. Castor noticed that all of his ribs were visible beneath the stripes.

  The horned lizard didn’t wait for an answer. “I am Rainner, a dragon from the island of Komodo, where my family has ruled for centuries. I am the nephew of the Hellion, a fearsome fighter in the Dome. And I am your king!”

  “Hilarious,” the horned horse said dryly. “Well, Your Highness, my name is Moss. Some king you are to get kidnapped and dragged here just like your uncle.”

  Rainner lowered his horn as if to charge again, but Moss’s striped leg shot out behind him, and when his hoof slammed against the wall, the sound was so sharp and sudden that everyone froze.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that even kings have to play by the Whistlers’ rules,” Moss continued as if nothing had happened. “Since I’m the only one here who’s been through any of this before, if you want to survive longer than your uncle did, maybe you want to get a hold of your little temper and pay attention? There are only three rules, so even someone with a brain as small as yours should be able to remember them.”

  Rainner huffed angrily, but he didn’t move.

  “Great,” Moss said, and started to walk around the room, his tail swishing as he sized up the new animals. “Well, since you made it to the slop room, I guess you’ve all already figured out the first rule: when a door opens, you walk through it. Second rule: when a match begins, you fight. And third rule: when you’re not in the Dome, you play nice.”

  “And if we don’t?” Rainner grunted.

  Moss’s face was grave. “Let’s just say there are far worse things than a whistle. Understand?”

  “I don’t,” Castor spoke up. He scooted out from under the trough, climbed to his feet, and shook out his wings. “What’s a Whistler?”

  “Uh, the people with the whistles. The humans!” Moss said impatiently. “Scientists, guards, vets. The worst are the handlers—you’ll meet them soon enough. A word of warning: don’t let them think you’re weak.”

  Castor still didn’t understand. Not at all.

  “But why are they keeping us in this place? What is the Dome? And what’s a match?”

  The striped bull sighed. “You don’t even know why you’re here?” Moss walked past Castor toward the far end of the room, and the rest of the animals followed. “We’re here to compete in front of adoring fans,” he explained, nodding at the back wall.

  With all the commotion, no one had noticed the floor-to-ceiling posters. Now, they gawked up at the glossy paper and the bright images.

  “It’s us,” Jazlyn said breathlessly, hopping over to a poster that showed her mid-race, with her panther legs fully extended and her rabbit ears whipping back. “They’re all pictures of us.”

  “Look how big and tough I look!” Samken trumpeted. He used one gray tentacle to point. The picture’s perspective was from the ground looking up, so the octo-elephant seemed to tower even taller than usual.

  Everyone looked bigger, fiercer, and more impressive on the posters, though. Deja’s was an extreme close-up shot, but you couldn’t see the diamond pattern on her head or her pale reptilian eyes; her unhinged jaw and two long fangs took up all the space.

  Moss’s showed a younger, more defiant version of himself, with his striped legs spread wide, straighter horns poised to strike, and clouds of steam puffing out of his nostrils.

  “I look like a real hero, don’t I?” Moss asked, but his tone was bitter. He looked at Castor with red-rimmed eyes and asked gruffly, “Don’t you feel like a hero?”

  Castor gazed up at his own illustration. His chest was puffed out proudly, and strong, spectacular wings reached high above his head. Light shined on his face as he looked off into the distance, chin raised. He felt proud for a moment—maybe he didn’t have to be an omega after all—until he saw the writing.

  The text introduced him as THE UNDERDOG, which was depressing, but that wasn’t what worried Castor most. At the very top of the poster was a banner, and in fancy, slanty font, it read:

  THE UNNATURALS

  A memory came to Castor suddenly—a flash of the day he was taken. He saw Runt, blinking up at the neon advertisement in wonder.

  “We’re Unnaturals?” Castor whispered. “The game is . . . real?”

  “Real gruesome entertainment,” Moss confirmed.

  “Where’th Laringo?” Enza asked eagerly. “When do we meet the Invinthible?”

  In a sort of daze, Castor walked to the end of the row of posters, where the saber-toothed grizzly was standing. There it was: the white cat’s head, the strange scorpion tail—the same image that he’d seen on the building that day with Runt, with the intense, 3D eyes tha
t seemed to track you.

  “He doesn’t train with us. You don’t need to worry about Laringo,” Moss said. The bull was trying to sound confident, but Castor caught the defeat in his voice when he added, “At least not yet.”

  “I’m not worried,” Enza purred. “He’s the reathon I came here. All I had to do was thlash at a little girl during visiting hours, and I got a ticket to meet the Invinthible.”

  “You tried to scratch a child?” Samken was appalled.

  Enza flashed her toothy grin.

  Moss stared at her. “You . . . came here . . . on purpose?”

  “Better than staying in Lion’s Head Zoo.”

  This was too much for Moss. He crossed the room and walked in a slow, deliberate circle around Enza, studying her from every angle as if he were utterly baffled by her existence.

  “So let me get this straight,” he said, stopping in front of her. “You got yourself shipped out of a nice, cushy spot at the zoo so you could make friends with Laringo?” Moss started to snicker.

  “What? Just because he’s a thelebrity doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” Enza puffed out her chest. “I mean, we have a lot in common. We both started at a zoo. We both started as tigerth. . . .”

  Moss laughed harder, snorting through his nostrils, but to Castor, the laughter sounded strange—it sounded dark.

  At first, Enza looked uncomfortable, then annoyed. When Moss started stamping his hooves like he just couldn’t stand how funny it was, she got angry.

  “You’re scared of him, aren’t you?” Enza’s eyes smoldered and her tail switched. “I heard you didn’t even fight in the last match because you were thuch a coward. You’re afraid of the Invinthible.” The saber-toothed grizzly reared up on her hind legs, which made her almost ten feet tall. She loomed over Moss threateningly. “Are you afraid of me?”

  Moss finally stopped laughing, but he wasn’t looking at Enza. Castor followed the bull’s gaze back up to the poster of the scorpion-tiger. It said THE INVINCIBLE, but in his mind’s eye, Castor could picture other text. He saw the sentences scrolling across the advertisement that day in the Lion’s Head alley. He could see the words as he’d read them to Runt—two words, in particular, flickering in a capital shout: MURDEROUS MUTANTS.