Inside the smooth, metallic walls of the holding area adjacent to the Gladitorium, Marquese Chriss waited for the current match to finish. He no longer felt anger towards his fate, only grim resignation.
The roar of the spectators was just audible enough for Marquese to surmise that the match had ended. One man lay dead upon the glowing composite floor of the arena, his crimes having earned him his death, and the other, lead victorious out of the tunnel and back to the outside world, absolved of all wrongdoings. Soon, the dead man would be converted into raw materials for the empire’s insatiable industrial complex, and it would be Marquese’s turn.
With a wry smile, Marquese fingered the trigger of his ion plasma gun, one of five weapons of which he had been allowed to choose from. Of course, he had done his research beforehand, and had deemed the gun to be the weapon most suited to his skill set, as opposed to the laser saber, the full-body Eidosuit, the arcane Hyperblade of Four Dimensions, or the pneumatotron. Each had strengths and weaknesses against the others, and, not being quite ready to face the endless black eternity of death, Marquese knew exactly what his strategy would be against any.
Suddenly, a section of wall began to lift up from the floor with a hissing noise. Across the arena floor, Marquese could see the door of his opponent’s chamber likewise opening. This was his cue: he walked to the edge of the arena, greeted by the frenzied screaming of the crowd. Peering through the strobing blue and white lights, he tried to discern any details of his opponent; when he saw who it was, he let out an involuntary gasp.
It was Kristaps Porzingis. Somehow, the mysterious intelligence which schemed tirelessly in the peripheries of the universe had, again, caused the two men’s destinies to intertwine.
Marquese was in such a state of shock that when the robotized female voice announced, “Begin,” he wasn’t prepared. Kristaps, meanwhile, charged directly across the arena floor towards his foe, wielding his laser saber in front of him to use as a shield in case Marquese fired a volley from his plasma gun.
Right before Kristaps reached him, Marquese instinctively threw his gun at Kristaps’ saber, knocking the weapon out of Kristaps’ hands and sending it clattering across the pulsating blue floor. He lunged at his disarmed opponent; the promise of brutal, primitive hand-to-hand combat like the gladiators of ancient times sent the crowd into an even more chaotic frenzy as the two locked arms. Now, a plan was forming in his mind, informed by his in-depth knowledge of the physical laws governing these high-tech instruments of battle.
“Keep pretending we’re fighting while I explain to you how I’m gonna get us both out of this,” Marquese said under his breath. Kristaps’ expression changed from one of violent intensity to one of confusion, but he gave a small nod before driving his forearm directly into Marquese’s chest.
Marquese made a show of being grievously injured by Kristaps’ powerful blow. He crawled towards his own weapon, which lay ten yards away; Kristaps jumped on him and they began to tussle on the ground. “If I fire an ion beam into your saber at exactly a sixty-degree angle, the saber’s radiation will amplify the neutronic plasma to the point where it will put a hole in anything in touches,” Marquese whispered while they punched each other.
Kristaps suddenly hopped up and dashed towards his weapon. Marquese, still feigning injury, proceeded on hands and knees towards his own. Kristaps brandished his saber just as Marquese aimed his gun and fired one shot of ionized plasma, which bounced off the saber, turned a vibrant green color, and blasted a twenty-foot hole in the glasslike paneling separating the audience from the fight. As burning shards of the material blasted out from the impact site, the cheers of the crowd turned into screams of terror, but this did not stop Marquese. Together, they continued to wreak destruction upon the arena, and now they were both laughing in triumph.
“Combatants, return to your holding areas,” commanded a different, male voice over the PA system. “Double forfei-AAAHHH!” The man, presumably the overseer of these sick exhibitions, had taken a direct hit from one of the amplified death-beams and tumbled from his seat in a skybox to the arena floor a hundred feet below. By now, there were almost no spectators left in the seats, except those who had been killed by the explosions.
The structural damage to the building was too much, and it began to collapse around them. Throwing their weapons to the floor for the last time, Marquese and Kristaps ran through one of the numerous new exits just as the entire ceiling fell.
“Just so you know, I still hate you,” Marquese commented.
“Same.”
“I don’t think there’s gonna be another Gladitorium match for a while.”
“Nope.”
They clasped hands, once, then, in the glow of the flaming wreckage, the two free men parted ways.