Nothing brought people together like good ol’ fashioned battles to the death. The pirate city of Miva was surging with activity, every road, street, and alley was filled with tourists, locals, and party goers celebrating the anniversary of the city’s founding. Usually on this day all bets were off; women paraded the streets almost nude, entire avenues were closed down to make way for street fairs and carnivals, food stalls of every kind imaginable dotted the city, in some places even warring crime syndicates took this chance to call a truce and celebrate together. Nothing quite like this could be seen in the galaxy, but in Miva, city of lights and opportunities, anything was possible. The star ports were filled to capacity with alien ships for weeks now as rumors began to spread of what this year’s celebration would hold: Gladiatorial games.
There were other arenas across the galaxies, but none had the allure of Miva’s epic, stone and marble colosseum. The place was absolutely exquisite; Large marble pillars circled the entry level, the most beautiful statues of both men and women gladiators stood guard over the entrance path, formidable and intimidating. The city’s arachno-bots circled the colosseum, ever watchful for any sign of disturbance that might interfere with the games. It was unknown to see armed guards in the city, most types of weaponry were banned from the city’s perimeter, but today an armada of human and alien guards wearing the Crimson Corsairs insignia were in charge of who came in or out of the colosseum.
The richest and most notorious members of the criminal underworld were present, even a few political and celebrity members of the more ‘wholesome’ galactic members were at the colosseum, though they were very quiet about their presence. This was the place to be, where anybody who was anybody had fought, bitten, bribed, shot, mutilated, and even attempted to teleport into the venue. There were several floating cameras broadcasting live what was going on to the rest of the city, where giant screens were projecting what was happening. Once the sun began to go down the first few shows began. First were the Zhoa Mai dancers, with their pyrotechnics and light show, then the galaxy wide musical star, Anulia Zev, performed a concert with a full orchestra. People loved this, it built up the tension and excitement, but this was not what people had come to see, even though it was very rare to see Anulia live.
After the starlet had finished and the sun had gone down, a single light shone at the center of the colosseum where a platform slowly rose out of the grown, in it stood the undisputed pirate king of Miva, Ryckert Crimson. People went wild, most didn’t know who the hell he was, but the pomp and showmanship of his entrance signaled he might be some one important.
Ryckert raised a single hand and the colosseum went quite.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first annual Miva blood games!” Ryckert yelled into the micro mic floating a few inches from his face.
The crowd went absolutely wild, everything they had heard was true. Miva was a city of decadence, and now they would sate their need for spilled blood.
Ryckert grinned, a wolfish grinned. This was exactly what he wanted, all the power, all the gate keepers of the galaxy in his home, eating out of his hand.
“We have quite the show for you today, from the exotic and dangerous Ordriey ,” Oohs and aahhs from the crowd,” to the blade masters of Korrinth 5, hell, we even have royal blood ready to smash some skulls, so, if you’re here to watch your sponsored team win or you just came from sad backwater hole to try your luck in my Arena, LET THE GAMES BEGIN!”
Ryckert’s stand floated upwards as the crowd cheered and hollered, these people of power brought down to their most animalistic as they awaited the fighters to rip each other apart. Ryckert floated up to a private viewing room where Raksha, Amanda, and his new Ordriey pups sat, waiting for him.
In the level down below the Colosseum, where the slaves, fighters, and criminals waited to go up, a small group was waiting in one of the rooms, hearing the muffled cheering of the crowd.
“A’right you useless maggots, I’m to be your coach, understand?” A rather intimidating varanus with dark red skin hissed at his charges.
“you five belong to mister Crimson and he put me in charge of making sure you finish this thing alive, though I don’t see why he thinks you pitiful creatures think you can make it,” Coach turned and spit at the ground, making sure there was no room to think that he respected the five unlikely team mates.
“This first game will be with hand weapons, swords, spears, clubs, hammers, hooks, even got a few nets in there, so make sure you get something you know you can use, and if you don’t, grab a shield and a sword and hope you die quickly,” The Varanus motioned over the wall behind him, which opened up to reveal a secret compartment with rows of weapons.
“Now, you can wear some basic armor, we got leather, chain mail, and plate, nothing fancy like plasteel, so make do. This fight will be between five teams, each one having five members, so it’s you five against fifteen gladiators ready to kill you, don’t fucking dawdle or you will get a spear through the gut, now get ready, you have fifteen minutes.” The red Varanus walked off, but turned back before exiting the room.
“You, dwarf thing, there’s a power suit being brought in for you, nothing special, mostly to make sure you don’t die right way, it should boost your strength and durability. Think about it as if you were a normal pink human with full plate armor. Try not to get yourself killed too quickly.”
And with that the Varanus stormed off, leaving the five gladiators to ponder just what the hell they had gotten themselves in.
Subject: The Colosseum of Miva 
