For reasons unknown, neither Levik nor his opponent knew who they were fighting against until they entered the arena. And, admittedly, because Levik was currently shapeshifted into a short, green-plated Rethan with black skin and red eyes (just a Rethan in Levik’s default colours), his opponent had no idea who Levik was at all. But Levik felt more concerned, not less, that his opponent was Ora Soundsheer, the new top Lanex house fighter.
Ora was a rather tall but skinny Lanex who mostly wore very spiky white and silver armour, and he had a rather stylized mask with a pair of curved horns attached to it. He also well-known to be a very good gladiator, to the point that both Psiksi and Timik, Levik’s new best friends, were nervous of his skills. And the fact that Levik was already fighting someone the crowds were calling The Shatterer was…
Levik tried not to think about that, and just focused on his plan. Both of them were armed with a sword and shield. All Levik needed to do was make himself heavy and strong enough to knock Ora’s shield out of his hand, then make himself large enough to crush Ora before he could get stabbed too much.
The commentators announced the match, calling Levik a mystery gladiator, but the crowd went wild as they said Ora’s gladiator name. Lanex fighters in general were becoming more popular and Ora was proof that one didn’t need claws, fangs and a tail to be both successful, talented and genuinely interesting and enjoyable to watch.
With the ring of the bell, Levik slowly edged his way forward, keeping his shield close. In his training, he’d made himself much larger, but now he was aware he was fighting a Lanex, Levik realized maybe he didn’t need to be absolutely huge, and probably needed to be faster on his feet.
Ora on the other hand held his position, waiting for Levik to approach, twirling his sword around as he did so. Rather abruptly though, Ora scraped the edge of his blade against the ground, making an utterly awful noise that almost hurt. At least, it hurt Levik and caught him off guard, making him pause.
Immediately noticing the pause, Ora repeated his actions, scraping his sword again, this time more forcefully. Levik found himself stepping back, not liking the noise at all. Being a Spast, he had sensitive hearing. Ora knew he’d given himself an advantage and continued making the sounds as he approached Levik. Levik tried to counter that by blocking his ears somewhat, but that ended up being a bad idea as he narrowly avoided Ora’s sword swing. It turned out, blocking ears affected Levik’s balance while he was shapeshifted into a Rethan.
While he didn’t want to give away his shapeshifting advantage straight away, Levik found he had little choice since he couldn’t properly avoid Ora’s strikes. Already, Ora was unbalancing Levik and forcing him to play very defensively, having to block attacks rather than dodge and avoid them.
All of a sudden, Ora scraped his sword against Levik’s shield, causing a genuinely hideous sound that made Levik nearly cry out in pain. To counter the assault to his ears, Levik pushed Ora away then shapeshifted into a Torr, since they were known for their poor hearing.
“Hah. Knew something was up. I’ve fought Rethans before and they don’t normally react like this!” Ora smiled as Levik tried to grab hold of his shield. But since Levik was in an awkward position, he couldn’t get a good grip on it. Somehow, Ora managed to turn this around and used his shield as a wedge to knock Levik’s shield out of his hands and send it flying across the arena.
Levik was getting worried now, but he did manage to pull away and make some space for himself. That space though didn’t last, as Ora darted forward and slashed at him. The Lanex also now had a height and weight advantage, doubly so since some of Levik’s armour had slipped off his shoulder when he’d turned himself into an abnormally small Torr.
Again, Ora went on the offence, but Levik was genuinely struggling to not get hit. His Torr form wasn’t working for him, so Levik changed himself into something smaller and more nimble, but also with organic armour. An Athren would have been a stronger choice, but Levik knew Ora would just abuse the sword-grinding sounds again, so he turned himself into a Skyavok.
Levik then proceeded to nearly fall over as Ora slammed his shield into him. The weight difference was even worse now, and Levik stumbled but managed to stay standing. A second shield bash sent Levik flying, but he did manage to do a pretty cool roll and not fall on his butt properly. He also still had his-
In the time it had taken Levik to reorientate himself, Ora had marched over, ready to strike. Not thinking straight, Levik raised his arm to protect himself rather than using his own sword. But the armour he was wearing did nothing and he didn’t react fast enough to stop Ora from slicing both through his arm guard and his shapeshifted Skyan arm plating.
At that moment, Levik learned that Threanic beings did actually have nerve endings in their plating, they were just buried far deeper than he thought. And Ora’s attack had cut deep. There was blood everywhere. Levik’s blood. Even more of it, as Ora struck again, this time leaving a large gash on Levik’s elbow where his armour had fallen off, and then a third time, slicing through a weak spot in the now rather loose armour Levik was wearing on his stomach.
Levik’s prey-species panic instincts took over. He shapeshifted back into his normal Spast self, then shrank himself down and tried to run away, only to realize there wasn’t anywhere to really run. The arena exits were sealed off with heavy iron gates, but Levik continued to make himself smaller, to the point that he could just slip through the gaps.
Exiting the arena meant Levik forfeited the match, but he didn’t care. He curled up into a ball and took deep breaths, desperately trying to calm down. The panic briefly spiked as Levik noticed a shadow looming over him, but he slowly returned to his senses as he realized it was Abius. Despite literally towering over Levik, Abius glanced around then sat down on the floor next to him. It took a while for Levik to notice that Abius had brought some bandages and was trying to patch him up.
“It is alright, Levik. You are safe now.”
Levik sat up, then frowned, clarity suddenly returning to him. Now he had calmed down, he returned to a more reasonable size. “I messed up. And I lost.”
“It is fine. I lost my first three matches. Losing happens. Everyone loses occasionally.”
“But… Psiksi has a massive streak…”
“He does. He is aware he will be defeated one day. And Timik has lost multiple massive streaks. But we get back up and we try again, yes?”
Levik sighed, then glanced around. The gate behind him had opened up and his opponent was standing there. Levik couldn’t help but shudder as Ora approached.
“Hey, little guy. Are you alright?” Ora asked.
“Yeah… just… I panicked… Good fight, you beat me good and proper.”
Ora shrugged, then handed Levik back his weapons. “You fought better than you think you did. Maybe, after a bit of steady emotion training, we could have a rematch one day. Take care of yourself, little guy.”
“You too…” Levik muttered as Ora headed off, back to the training areas to clean himself up. However, before he could say anything, Abius patted him on the shoulder.
“You did good.”
“I lost.”
“You still did good!” Abius smiled as they lifted Levik to his feet. “Come on now. Let us go to the medical bay and get you healed.”
Levik hesitated, then smiled. “You’re right. I got a lot to learn, but I still did good…”