“Alright… Deep breaths…”
Levik closed his eyes and controlled his breathing, settling down his heart rate before stepping out into the large, bland, sandy arena. After his (in his opinion, awful) battle against Ora Soundsheer, it had been decided to give Levik some easier matches against an array of Temthan, Vrekan and Ksithan open challengers, overly proud and excited members of the public who often challenged randomly-chosen house fighters in a bid to win large prizes.
The entire time though, Levik had remained shapeshifted into a single form, that of an odd, short, skinny dark green Ksithan with red eyes. The idea was for Levik to build up some proper gladiator skills before throwing his shapeshifting into the mix. But Levik had come across a small problem. It turned out, people liked Levik’s Ksithan persona. The crowds loved how this weird Ksithan dodged and weaved between attacks and seemed to strike far harder than he was supposed to be able to.
In fact, despite him having debuted without an official name or title, the crowds had given Levik a name of their own: The Raptoric Scythe. Because he used a scythe and Levik had realized, far too late, that he had accidentally made his Ksithan form look a bit like the permanently missing Ancient Warlord who used to run the arenas overall.
Today wasn’t too different, apart from the fact that he was fighting something new. A Torr. And Torr always fought wearing mech-like suits. This Torr, a somewhat regular open challenger by the name of Polemus, used a semi-mech, which supported his arms and legs, basically giving him both armour and super strength, as well as a much longer reach than normal. Polemus hadn’t done very well against the larger house fighters, and constantly got his ass kicked by Temthan, Lanex and Rethan gladiators, but for once, Polemus had used his brain and challenged someone smaller than himself, meaning he could make more use of his grappling and wrestling skills.
But as Levik faced the bright lights and the crowd, he found himself smiling. Rather swiftly, both gladiators were introduced, and the bell rang, starting the fight. This particular battle allowed victory by submission and immobilization, as well as the normal get-their-health-meter-to-zero victory path.
“Dunno why you’re smiling, you furry prick, you ain’t fought a Torr before, you don’t know the beating I’m gonna give you!” Polemus hissed as he immediately charged at Levik. The Torr’s weapon of choice in this melee-orientated fight was a large hammer, but really, Levik wasn’t concerned about that. Polemus didn’t know that Levik had rubber bones, that impact damage meant little to him.
“You haven’t fought someone like me before!” Levik continued to smile as he weaved between blows. Polemus was slow. Very slow. But Levik was aware that his power was in his grappling strength. Normally.
“I’ll still smash you to bits, you Ksithan bastard!”
Polemus used both hands to swing his hammer at Levik. Again, Levik dodged out of the way, ducked underneath the hammer then ran the edge of his scythe across Polemus’s stomach. Most of Polemus was covered in armour though, so Levik’s scythe wasn’t going to do much. That was fine, Levik had plans.
“Oh, you little cunt! You’ll pay for that!”
With a snarl, Polemus threw his hammer down with enough force to make Levik stumble, ever so slightly. Levik rolled out of another angered hammer swing, then darted around Polemus, hoping to get behind him.
However, Polemus had other ideas. Most Torr had short tails, but Polemus had a mechanical whip extension, meaning that his tail was very, very long. Levik hadn’t realized this, and again found himself stumbling as Polemus span around and tripped him up with his tail. Polemus immediately capitalized on that. He continued spinning and grabbed on to Levik’s tail. With a well-timed roll, Polemus pulled Levik close, then wrapped his arms around Levik, getting him in an arm lock.
“Got ya. Now scream.”
Levik didn’t scream though. He wasn’t in pain. And his arm wasn’t really locked. If he was an actual Ksithan, yes, he’d be in trouble. But Levik was a master shapeshifter. Really, Levik didn’t need any effort to break free, but he decided to do a little acting and pretend to struggle, to lure Polemus into a false sense of security.
“I don’t scream.”
“I’ll make ya!” Polemus snarled, tightening his grip around Levik’s arm.
“Good luck with that.”
Levik grinned, then allowed his rubbery bones to twist in a rather unnatural manner. By doing this, Levik managed to completely slip out of the arm lock and get back on his feet, ready to attack. At the same time, he also freaked Polemus out somewhat.
“H-h-how…”
Levik didn’t answer, and instead focused on depriving Polemus of his hammer, grabbing it off the ground and throwing it across the arena, out of Polemus’s reach. Feeling awkward, Polemus tried to do the same to Levik’s scythe, but didn’t get a chance to, as the Ksithan-shaped gladiator was far more nimble than he was.
Levik kept up his momentum, darting behind Polemus. He held his scythe tightly, then forced the sharpened tip into what looked like some sort of power bank. Polemus’s mech suit sparked briefly, then powered down for a moment. It did restart after a couple of seconds, but a couple of seconds was all Levik needed to rip the scythe (and some wires) out of the suit, jump on Polemus’s back and get Polemus into a headlock.
“ARGH!”
Polemus tried to flail, to get Levik off his back and loosen his grip, but Levik flexed his muscles and locked his own arms, making it impossible for Polemus to break free. Levik made sure to press his arm harder against Polemus’s throat in particular, tightening the Torr’s airways. After about twenty seconds, Polemus’s eyes slowly closed, and he fell first to his knees, then flat on his face.
Levik held on for a little longer, until Polemus stopped moving completely. He then let go and backed off, waiting for Polemus to get back up.
“Um…”
After a few moments, Polemus’s eyes flicked open, but closed again. The Torr’s health meter wristband beeped, and Polemus was teleported out of the arena.
As soon as he was gone, the crowd erupted into applause. Levik wondered for a moment if he’d blown his Ksithan disguise, but decided to just enjoy the crowd’s amusement. He waved to everyone, picked up his scythe and headed out of the arena.
Waiting for Levik though were his three (soon to be) team mates. Timik and Abius were both also applauding Levik, but Psiksi looked a tad concerned.
“Nearly blew your cover there, dude.”
“Eh, it’s fine. I’ll be going back to being the Mystery Spast again at some point anyway!” Levik smiled. “Am I allowed to choose a cool name for myself or do the crowds name me? Because “The Raptoric Scythe” will stop working once everyone realizes I’m not a Ksithan.”
Timik shrugged. “I kinda called myself the Great Blade after I beat Ct’Tack the Mighty, but Psiksi’s Happy Cold title was coined by the Ksithan house fighters like a week after he was hired. Kinda depends on what the crowds want to call you.”
“What about you, Abius?” Levik asked. “Do you… even have a cool gladiator name?”
Abius grunted. “Technically yes, but I do not use it myself.”
“And what do they call you?”
“The Bare Guard.”
Levik accidentally snorted. He didn’t mean to, but he found Abius’s gladiator name weirdly funny. But Levik didn’t want to upset Abius, so he quickly straightened himself out, turned back into his normal Spast self and rested his scythe across his shoulders. “Well, it does fit, I guess? But, like, for me, I was just thinking of calling myself the Shifting Scythe. After all, I’m weirdly happy with my choice of weapon.”
Timik patted Levik on the shoulder. “You use it pretty damn well too. Anyway, let’s go get you something to eat. You’re a Spast, you need your sugar.”
“I only need tons of sugar after shapeshifting a lot, but yeah, sure thing!” Levik beamed as everyone headed off. “I’m enjoying this gladiator stuff.”
“You’re doing great, kid!” Timik grinned back. “Keep it up, and you’ll be unbeatable.”