“Hello, Levik.”
Tromos Polemistis was the new manager of the Great Arenas, taking over after the Ancient Warlord disappeared during the Sudden Darkness back in November. And despite most important folks thinking he was too fresh for the role, Tromos had actually slightly increased profits, and was genuinely doing a good job.
Sure, Tromos wasn’t immortal or as scary as the previous Raptor, but he was still very smart and competent, and, better still, he had the faith and trust of pretty much every single gladiator at the arenas, since he used to be one himself.
Levik though was a new hire, and he more feared Tromos than respected him. But Levik had, technically, just finished being a teenager. He’d just turned fifty years old, which was very, very young for a Spast. But at least Levik was now old enough to work properly.
“Hi, mister Tromos…” Levik stuttered somewhat. “Why have you asked me to come here?”
Tromos smiled. Ksithans like him weren’t particularly smiley, Levik had noticed, so he didn’t know if Tromos was happy or annoyed.
“I have some news for you.”
“Good or bad?”
“Good.”
“Oh, okay…” Levik felt a little better now. “What news?”
“Well, first off, now you are fifty, you get a full paycheck. Your internship has ended, and we are going to keep you on, permanently, as one of our house fighters.”
“That’d good!” Levik beamed. “Thank you!’
“Actually, you should be thanking yourself. Levik, you have genuinely proven yourself to be a worthy house fighter. If Tenuk was still with us, he would have been very proud.”
“I… I appreciate that.”
“Well, it is true. And because you have proven yourself AND the crowds love you, we can finally debut you as a proper house fighter, rather than having you pretend to be a Ksithan.”
“Wait, you want to make me a public figure now? Proper proper, same way Ta- uh, Tenuk was?”
“Yep. You will be given a proper name and some more unique armour. I actually managed to get in touch with a Spast costume designer from a movie studio, and they will help us design some armour that will allow you to shapeshift better. And will protect you better, of course.”
Levik tried to stay cool and professional, but he was clearly unable to control his excitement.
“I appreciate that, mister Tromos! Will I get to pick out colours or something or will I just get what I’m given?”
Tromos grunted. “You will continue to wear the traditional house fighter green, but you can pick an accent colour or style, if you want, because you are admittedly very green already.”
“Oh, I can change my colours though. I can be any colour I like.”
Tromos eyed Levik briefly. “Any colour?”
“Yeah! Honestly, the same stuff Tenuk did, I can do most of that.”
“How comes most Spasts don’t then?”
Levik shrugged. “Firstly, I have royal blood. Secondly, my mental health issues affect my shapeshifting, so if I believe I can do it, I will. The downside is that I sometimes start thinking that I’m a different species.”
“Has this been a problem with your work so far?”
“Not really. You gave me access to a psychiatrist which means I can get the anti-psychotic medication which reaffirms who I am… Kinda ironically, your doctors actually found better meds for me, with less side effects, meaning I’m even better than I used to be.”
Tromos shrugged. “That is good to hear. Although, going back to your new gear, after this meeting, I want you to go down to the forge and the armoury and sit down with Rouka, our head designer, and get a basic design worked out.”
“How comes Tenuk and the rest of Xeno Dessaron One took so long to get custom armour?” Levik asked.
“Phovos wanted to keep their identities somewhat secret, and wanted to heavily show that Xeno Dessaron One were a team that belonged to the Great Arenas. Since you are doing singles battles, you will get a more customized and unique look.”
“Huh… Okay… Question though, if I decided I wanted to branch out and maybe do duo matches or something, would I still wear green?”
“If your theoretical team is successful, yes. But your contract does state that you can only fight for the arenas themselves. And, admittedly, I don’t think we’ll ever get any Spast gladiators, and no one wants to do mixed race teams because Xeno Dessaron One were just too good and no one wants to even try and fill the colossal hole they left behind.”
“Oh. That’s a shame…” Levik frowned externally, but in his head, he was amused that Tromos still didn’t know about Timik’s team idea. “So… What about a gladiator name?”
“Your name has somewhat already been picked out for you.”
“But me being the Raptoric Scythe only makes sense if I continue being a Ksithan in the arenas. I don’t want to pretend that I am someone else forever.”
“So you want people to know your real name?” Tromos asked.
Levik hesitated. “Um… I… I don’t know. Like… other Spasts know I was disowned. I’m… a failure, according to everyone else. Tanos died a hero, Kohra also died a hero but got resurrected and turned into a deity. Me, I was just… doing evacuations.”
Tromos leaned forward. “You never said why you were disowned. It’s not public knowledge. People just know that the Lord King abandoned you.”
“Dad thought that I convinced Kohra to sacrifice himself. He blamed me for Tanos disappearing. He thought it was my fault they became too selfless. Which hurts a lot because I wanted to be selfish and hide away in a bunker, and Kohra needed my help, he wanted me to help with evacuations because he couldn’t really fly large ships. Kohra convinced me, not the other way around. And now, dad no longer has an heir to the throne.”
“Well, your dad is wrong.”
“I know. I did what I thought was best. Kohra was right, we needed to help every way we could. Be selfless for once. But dad’s just… erasing my entire existence now.”
Tromos grunted. “You did the right thing. You saved the lives of others. I do think you should… take advantage of that. People will ask who you are anyway, and, personally, I don’t want a repeat of what happened to Tenuk. He hid behind his team, hid his identity and the universe only ever saw Tenuk be a hero, not Tanos. You are a good person, Levik, and you are steadily improving as a gladiator too. Your fans will want to know you better.”
“I… I guess…” Levik sighed. “Still, if I’m going to have a cool arena name, my current one doesn’t work. Psiksi suggested I call myself the Shifting Scythe.”
“Psiksi is pretty good at names. And you do get on very well with him.”
“Every Skyavok who works here is friendly to me. The Rethan staff are all friendly too. I assume it’s because I’m closer to their size, but also fluffy and cute.”
“That does help, yes…” Tromos trailed off. “Either way, you’ve proven yourself. We’re going to slowly start giving you more single matches, and we’ll also be giving you beast matches, so you can be more experimental with your shapeshifting skills. But before any of that, we need to give you a debut match, against someone tough but also someone you can beat for certain. Do you have any preferences?”
Levik thought for a moment, back to previous matches he had done shapeshifted as a Ksithan. One battle in particular stood out, against a Torr in a mech suit.
“Can I fight a Torr maybe?” Levik eventually asked. “I think it might be cool if I showed off my shapeshifting into different sizes, and it would be a sort of nature vs machine thing or something?”
Tromos smiled. “That is a very good idea. I’ll make some arrangements. Thank you for the chat, Levik. Have a good day.”
Levik got up and bowed. “Thank you, mister Tromos. I appreciate the good news and kind words.”
“No worries. You ought to get back to training now.”
“Will do!” Levik beamed as he headed off. “Bye!”