It was extremely rare for Torr to willingly participate in the Great Arenas. They were a prideful, cruel, powerful race that heralded from a strict, survival-of-the-fittest society and believed themselves to be better than everyone else. Not only were Torr muscular, athletic beings, but they were rather technologically advanced and wealthy as well. Well, some of them were. Most of the Torr’s collective riches came off the backs of their extremely poor working classes and a collection of anti-competitive treaties that kept their ‘allies’ down. The Rethavok and the Lanex were both stronger than the Torr, but the Torr outnumbered them both.
Really, the Torr didn’t see any other race as a threat. Even though they had lost their last few wars, and had forced to shut down their military, they had only lost because they’d pissed off the Vohra and backstabbed the Rethavok. Having either race on one’s side would normally ensure victory, but the Vohra were in the way and the Rethavok had taken back their support after the Torr had brutally subjugated the Lanex. These days, the Torr didn’t have a standing military, instead they had private armies that were hired by the Torrian government. They also didn’t have government-owned gladiators like most other races did, and if they ever needed to solve a conflict, normally they would just bribe their way out of things.
That being said, the Torr did enjoy watching arena battles, and, despite not having official teams, they had a stupidly high win rate, because of the artificially-created monsters they’d made to fight in their place. The monsters in question were Torr at one point, but most of them were former criminals that had subjected themselves to experimentation in order to escape much harsher and longer prison sentences. These mutants, combined with specially designed mechanical augments that upped their strength further, were a force to be reckoned with.
Normally, the Torr were content to just watch these days, mostly due to their near perfect win rate. The only gladiators that the Torr’s teams of monsters hadn’t beaten were the Divine Guardians, the Banikan house fighter team, and the Army of Four, the original, now retired Ksithan team run by the Raptor herself. However, there was a new team that currently had a perfect win rate, Xeno Dessaron One, and the Torr didn’t like that. Mostly because Xeno Dessaron One was a mixed race team, the first successful one, and three of its team members were from races the Torr hated. The Spasts were technological threats, the Temthans were numerical and population-based threats and, despite technically being allies, the Torr considered Rethavok to be worthless brutes that were only useful for protecting things and throwing at the Torr’s other enemies. They were fine with the Skyavok though, they were no real threat to the Torr, outside of their data gathering.
Because of this, the Torr Elite wanted to knock Xeno Dessaron One down a peg. And they’d brought back the team that had beaten the Temthans of Anarchy, the Painted Raptors, Retha Squad Two and the Fangs of the Whenvern. They’d never gotten around to beating Retha Squad One, a team that had been at the top for years, but that team was currently on break and retraining, so the Torr didn’t care about them.
This team in particular consisted of four no-longer-named individuals. Being former criminals and mutated past the point that they could no longer speak, they were now code-named Razor, Chaos, Tornado and Carbide, and their team was known as the Golden Charge. Carbide was the newest member of the team, after their original fourth member, Apollo, ended up losing an arm due to cancer, and Carbide was desperate to prove himself. Sure, Xeno Dessaron One were a powerful team, but they’d never fought Torr before.
As the Golden Charge and Xeno Dessaron One entered the Parthenon Arena, a large arena with an open but roofed middle and heavy stone pillars around the edge, the crowd seemed on edge. The Torr weren’t that popular, but their sparse arena appearances ensured a great turn out and a lot of curiosity. Each of the Golden Charge were armed with a large sword, a shoulder-mounted, arena-made rocket launcher and an arena-approved heavy assault rifle. They also had special mechanical braces around their legs to help them run faster, and blades built into the armour on their arms. The Torr’s tactics were always very simple: rain bullets on their enemies to weaken them, split up their prey and take them out one at a time.
However, as the bell rang and the match started, it was clear as day that Xeno Dessaron One had done their homework. Of course they had, they were lead by the Lightbearer, a notably strong Rethavok with an incredibly long win streak of its own. Tornado quickly noticed that something was off though. The Lightbearer was far, far more confident than normal. It was genuinely happy, especially as it used its heavy shield to form a barricade for its team mates, Shadowstalker and Spirithuntress, to fire from. Perhaps they could use that confidence against the Lightbearer.
Before Tornado could relay this information to his team, he felt something climb on his back. Amidst the carnage of the battle and the flying bullets, Tornado had lost track of Fluffyblade, the Spast member of Xeno Dessaron One. That was bad because-
“TORNADO IS DOWN!” the commentators screeched with joy as Fluffyblade forced a blade into the Torr gladiator’s neck, instantly taking them out. And thanks to Shadowstalker’s quick movements, he managed to shadowjump Fluffyblade to safety before the rest of the Golden Charge could turn on him. Sure, the Golden Charge had standardized plans to take on Rethavok and Temthans in the Great Arenas, but they hadn’t practised against Skyavok before, and Spasts were a complete unknown to them.
Carbide was the next to fall. As he tried to reload his rifle, he made the mistake of standing by a particularly dark shadow, not listening to Chaos’s warnings. Before he could say or do anything, Carbide found himself dragged through it. Spirithuntress wrapped her tail around Carbide’s neck and threw him to the ground, holding him in place while she emptied the clip of her gunstaff into Carbide’s chest.
Realizing that their plan of raining bullets wasn’t working, Razor and Chaos both switched to their rocket launchers in a bid to take down the Lightbearer’s barricade. While this did cause the Lightbearer to flinch and force it to back away, Shadowstalker was on hand to drag both Lightbearer and Spirithuntress away and reposition them elsewhere.
Before Razor and Chaos could also reposition, Chaos suddenly found that his rocket launcher and rifle had both stopped working. In fact, most of Chaos’s mechanical augmentations had stopped working. The cause of this was a furry pair of hands pressed against the power bank on Chaos’s back. Unbeknownst to the Torr (and to most races), some Spasts could actually make use of their elemental alignment, electricity, and Spasts of certain bloodlines were capable of disrupting anything electrical. And Fluffyblade was doing exactly that, leaving Chaos utterly helpless. He was swiftly taken out by a stab to the neck, the same way Fluffyblade had taken Tornado out.
Realizing he was completely outnumbered and completely screwed, Razor decided to try and make one crazy final assault. He extended the blades in his arms, emptied all his weaponry in the direction of the Lightbearer and Spirithuntress, then charged at them, swinging wildly. He never reached his intended targets though as Shadowstalker dragged him through a nearby shadow and directly into Lightbearer’s claws. Shadowstalker proceeded to finish the trapped Torr off with a bullet to the chest, instantly forcing Razor to be teleported to the medical bays.
“Well that was easier than expected!” Tenuk mused as the crowds erupted into cheers.
Retvik flicked some dirt off his armour and grunted. “It was, actually.”
“You never told us you could do electrical stuff!” Nyssi exclaimed as the team exited the arena, pausing only to wave at the crowds. While they’d had fun, Xeno Dessaron One all seemed a little underwhelmed.
Tenuk just shrugged. “I tend not to do it because most gladiators don’t have obvious batteries on their backs. These guys though sucked. And I’m saying that as a normally pacifist Spast.”
“But… you stabbed two people in the neck!” Nyssi blinked.
“I gotta live up to my new arena name!” Tenuk shrugged some more. “Plus, it’s all kinda fake and no one ever dies anyway. Still, that was… kinda too easy…”
“Oh well!” Kayel beamed. “We still won! Let’s go get something to eat, I’m fucking starving.”