Pain seared through the back of Zionist’s head as he awoke. Not at all surprising, considering he had decided to put up the valiant fight when they were capturing him. As he sat up one would notice all over him were bruises and bloodless cuts from being kicked around after capture, for his hand in the deaths of the three of the Sovonions sent after him. Zionist got the feeling he got off easy though, since, through the energy field that blocked his cell, he saw others beaten much more profoundly though.

The cell he was in was dimly lit, no doubt by the barrier the prevented him from leaving, and was very bare. Essentially, it was the inside of a steel box. All the sides were silvery and smooth, and all the edges were rigged and straight. The barrier itself glowed with a white, transparent hue. When Zionist touched it, the feel was near identical to that of the wall save for the fact that this emitted some amount of heat.

The outside of the cell was the same in the factor of charm. Sovonions in full body armor armed to the teeth stood at watch outside each of the cells, which extended down a long hallway and had many intersecting hallways, silent and as still as statues. Or that’s how it would have been, had they not been bored. They each lazily stood at their posts, weapons slung over their shoulders, and even some light snores coming through some of the air vents on their helmets.

The one guarding Zionist’s cell, a particularly large Sovonion with a weapon that looked brutal and a reflected visor, noticed him waking up and squawked to the other guards. The others responded by jerking upright with weapons up, their shrieks coming in response. His guard let out a low hiss and some squawks, no doubt telling them to keep attention or some other form of chewing them out. They all let out hisses of their own, but stood at better attention.

The large one then turned his head to look at Zionist in his cell and, with the fluency that was no doubt the work of a translator, said “May the Great Makers shine on you.”

Zionist titled his head, puzzled, but as he was about to ask what was going on, there was a loud screech that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. All the guards immediately stood at attention, moving in front of the cells they were assigned to. The barriers fell as each guard moved into position and they immediately started ushering they out in a variety of different languages. Some fought, but it was futile as they were beaten down and dragged. Zionist himself was escorted without trouble to wherever they might be taken.

_________________________

The arena was hot and dry. The scorching sun and the faint whisper of wind that sounded past reminded Sklar’lak of the days when Sovonions once battled on this arena themselves, brother against brother in an unstoppable bloodlust. He himself bore scars from when festivities would dictate that young Sovonions, not outsiders, be the ones to face in the ring against the devils and each other. Though his feathers and toga kept him relatively cool, the heat and rugged sand were still felt, making him somewhat jealous of the outsiders who would fight and lose their lives here. Sklar shook off the feeling of nostalgia and jealousy though as the large double doors on the end of the arena opened, revealing the new batch of captured outsiders being escorted by guards to where he stood at the center of the arena.

This assortment was made up mainly of the soft and bare fleshed ‘Humans’, with two or three being defined as unknown. Not the most impressive batch he’d seen from appearance, but with the trouble they’d given the Trappers with both their weapons and abilities, Sklar was told that they would suffice. When they reached him and the guards formed them into a line, he was pleased to see that most were in peak condition and not subjected to the higher aggressiveness of the Trappers.

“Welcome to the Verpax,” Sklar said spreading his arms, speaking in fluent English without the work of a translator. As he had been told from the Trappers, this entire batch spoke it. “I am Sklar’lak, your investor and practical owner. Here you will fight, and if necessary, die for all the pleasure of my fellow citizens. Not a great proposition to you, but I don’t intend to send you out there to die. In fact, I will be as necessary to your survival as the weapons that have been left on you until you either get yourself killed or secure your freedom and return to your home. To secure your freedom you have to do but two simple things: don’t get killed by the creatures you’re sent against, and be the best of the best. That is all that needs to be said, though I am open for questions before you all are put through your combat exercises. Anyone?”

Tyler Whitman stood, arms crossed in amused disbelief as he was informed he was 'owned' and would now be fighting for his life. A glance to his left, where Eva Cruz stood and Tyler raised his hand.

"Yeah, I got a question," he said. "What's to keep me and my friend here from leaving?" He turned to Eva and took her hand. "Let's go."

With that, the two Jumpers vanished, but they were only gone for half a second. No sooner had they fully vanished than they reappeared in the exact spots they'd been standing, both clutching their heads in intense pain.

"Collar," Eva gasped, brushing the collar around her neck with one hand. Now, Tyler was angry.

"What gives you the right?" he snarled. "You just... reach out and snatched us from where we were. Snatched us right... and held us against our..."

"Ty," Eva murmured softly, shaking her head. In a low voice, she pointed out, "If they had no issues with snatching us away..." She left the thought unfinished, but it was enough to calm Tyler down a little.

"Should be illegal," he muttered.

Marcus grimaced. Slick blood was running from a wound on his neck. Nothing serious - he'd taken more than that and kept fighting. This was different, though, he could feel the violent nausea associated with powerful sedatives.

He felt his gorge rising and bent over, bile and vomit streaming from his mouth. He coughed and wiped it off. He felt better, mostly, most of the drugs were being flushed out.

The Mutant straightened up. The cell was pretty standard, three walls and some kind of force-barrier. It was the figures on the other side that caught his attention - definitely not anything he was familiar with. If he couldn't hear them breathing, he'd guess they were some kind of robot.

Ugly, too. These must be the things that had ambushed him outside of NCR. He hadn't gotten a very good look before they had landed their darts.

With a loud screech, the field in front of him vanished, a large one of the monstrosities stepped in front of the door, waving some kind of strange, unfamiliar weapon. Without hesitating, he smashed his fist into the creature's face, dropping it like a sack of wet cement. Another one smashed him across the back, dropping him to his knees as an electrical shock raced through his body. The first one picked itself up, obviously in pain, and grabbed him. The pair of creatures frog-marched him out, half-conscious.

When Marcus came to, he was coming into some kind of ring-shaped structure, shoved into line with a brace of smooth-skin humans. Certainly no one he was familiar with.

One of the freaks, wearing what looked absurdly like a toga, began to speak. Marcus straightened and listened. Raw strength isn't going to get me out of here. I need to use my head, too.

He bristled at the suggestion that he was property, but didn't move. After the 'thing' finished talking, he spoke.

"Two questions, actually. What the hell are you, and where are we?"

“I’m a Sovonion, and though I won’t get into any specifics about our race, we have the ability to travel to different universes thanks to the ones before. As for where you are, you’re in our universe. To be more specific, since humans and their look-alikes seem to want all the answers, you’re on the artificial planet Vernoxia at the very center of our universe. To be even more specific you’re in the Verpax, a battleground for the most vicious creatures from all corners of existence against the best sentient creatures we can find in existence. Or at least we try to. These combat exercises will determine whether or not you’re up to par with what we have in store.” Sklar replied, sounding somewhat bored. He was more interested in seeing fighting, but those without answers weren’t the most cooperative bunch.

“Any others?” he asked.

((Exercising a hint of char control. Rex, hope you don't mind too much ;) ))

"Just one more," Tyler piped up. Eva saw his face and grimaced.

"Ty, no," she pleaded. Tyler grinned, slapped his baseball bat in his left palm, and charged. Halfway to Sklar, he jumped, landing half a foot from Sklar and bringing the bat down with both hands toward the alien's head. It was with a bored sigh that Sklar caught the bat in one hand and used it to hurl Tyler backward, and he landed beside Eva. Scrambling back to his feet, Tyler glared at Sklar.

"Okey doke," he muttered sheepishly. "That's all the questions from me..."

Eva rolled her eyes and muttered sarcastically, "Genius..."

Vash had woken up with a start. A pain coursed through his head, soon traveling to the rest of his body. He felt like he'd been hit by a Sandsteamer, his body ached, and he couldn't quite recollect what had happened.

Vash slowly pushed up from the floor he was lying face down on. He felt something heavy pressing on his back, but almost immediately recognize it as his - actually his friend, Wolfwood's - Cross Punisher. Vash got one leg up, putting his hand on his knee he pushed himself up completely, the weapon on his back falling to the floor with a loud thud, which caused the strange armored 'bird-thing' outside the white energy field to look in on him. It gave out a low clicking hiss, but said nothing.

"Uh, hi there, you wouldn't happen to know where my coat is, would you?" Vash asked, noticing he wasn't wearing his customary red long-coat, which had his guns with it. The 'bird-folk' only hissed, but it reluctantly motioned to the corner of his cell.

"Oh...Well thank you!" Vash replied kindly. He moved over to his coat, picking it up off of the floor, he slipped it on, buttoning it up quickly, and checking his holsters and guns. Vash looked around a little more until his eyes settled on a yellow glint in the shadows. He moved over there, picking the object up, which was found to be his yellow sunglasses, which he slipped into his coat pocket.

Moving over to the strange energy field, Vash stared out at what looked to be a futuristic version of a dungeon, or something close to that. But he noticed he wasn't alone in this dungeon, the opposite cells were filled with people too. Vash only rubbed his bloody, scarred, bruised, and slightly swollen face. After all, he did remember being beaten mercilessly while he lay prone on the ground by a bunch of 'bird-folk,' they had come after him and his brother, Knives. Yes, now he remembered.

Suddenly a loud shriek rent the air, the cells opened, the energy field deactivating. His guard moved in to herd him out, Vash simply backed away a bit, bending down, he lifted up the Cross Punisher, and then moved out of the cell without a fight, his guard keeping pace behind him. Vash looked around, noticing the vast assortment of people, most looked normal enough, though he could tell that they didn't come from the same place he did.
************

“Welcome to the Verpax,” said a different looking, and dressed, 'bird-folk.'

“I am Sklar’lak, your investor and practical owner. Here you will fight, and if necessary, die for all the pleasure of my fellow citizens. Not a great proposition to you, but I don’t intend to send you out there to die. In fact, I will be as necessary to your survival as the weapons that have been left on you until you either get yourself killed or secure your freedom and return to your home. To secure your freedom you have to do but two simple things: don’t get killed by the creatures you’re sent against, and be the best of the best. That is all that needs to be said, though I am open for questions before you all are put through your combat exercises. Anyone?”

Vash was silent, he was calculating what the strange creature had said, but outwardly, he was smiling, though to a trained eye, it was an empty smile.

A person to his right began asking questions, more like spouting sarcastic remarks, but then, he, and another, vanished! Vash raised a curious eyebrow, that was an interesting trick, but he'd seen something very similar before, when he had fought the 'Gung Ho Guns.'

"Should be illegal," he heard the fellow mutter as he had reapeared, the collars on the two's necks preventing them from doing anything. 'Can't be illegal if it's not your worlds,' Vash thought to himself.

"Two questions, actually. What the hell are you, and where are we?" Vash heard someone ask, looking around, he noticed it was a very large, green, and if he did say so, really ugly guy, whether he was human, Vash couldn't tell.

“I’m a Sovonion, and though I won’t get into any specifics about our race, we have the ability to travel to different universes thanks to the ones before. As for where you are, you’re in our universe. To be more specific, since humans and their look-alikes seem to want all the answers, you’re on the artificial planet Vernoxia at the very center of our universe. To be even more specific you’re in the Verpax, a battleground for the most vicious creatures from all corners of existence against the best sentient creatures we can find in existence. Or at least we try to. These combat exercises will determine whether or not you’re up to par with what we have in store.”

“Any others?” He heard the 'Sovonian,' or Sklar, as he called himself, answer.

"Just one more," came a reply from the person on his right again. But instead of a real question, the guy charged the Sovonian, dissapearing, and then reappearing in front of him by no more than half a foot, but the 'bird-folk' simply grabbed the mallet, and tossed the young man, though he had the maturity of a boy, back to where he had been standing, which was very impressive in Vash's book.

"Okey doke," the boy responded, seemingly defused of all his gusto [sp?], not to mention his pride, and dignity."That's all the questions from me..."

"Genius..." He heard the boy's ladyfriend say sarcastically.

Vash snickered, and then spoke to the boy, "I suggest you listen to your ladyfriend, sir. You'll live a lot longer. And it's not polite to ignore women." Vash grinned at the two, though, more primarily at the woman, his old lecher-like ways rearing it's head once again. But Vash turned back to the moment at hand, he himself did have a question, and it was a smart, non-violent one.

"Yeah, I've got a rather practical question," Vash spoke out to Sklar. "What will you do about our ammo? We will start running out, after all," Vash asked, he wanted to know how a super-advanced race of aliens would supply them with rudimentary stock, he imagined they didn't produce bullets themselves, or even used projectile weapons anymore.

“That question was simpler to answer than you think. Your weapons and the required ammunition were scanned while you were being captured and brought here, giving us enough information to simply replace the ammunition slots in your weapons with micro construction units that instantly replace the ammunition once it’s used. All energy for the generator comes remotely from another source, so if you survive to leave our universe then you’ll have to find ammunition as you normally would.” Sklar answered, with more enthusiasm than the last question. Still, the claw on his foot tapped, lightly on the sand. Patient Sklar was. However, he didn’t like to waste time.

Zionist on the other hand, while not necessarily satisfied. This all seemed familiar to him, like he’d seen it all before. The Sovonions, the Verpax, everything. Well, except for those in line with him. He had no idea who they were, but Zionist had the feeling he was going to get to know them a lot better. To him it seemed better to stay quiet for now though, considering the Sklar looked like he was already getting impatient.

Jasra hadn't had much time to think about how, or more importantly, why she was here. In the past few weeks, so many weird, strange, and odd things had happened in her life--Sith purges, time travel, death and rebirth, alternate realities--things just hadn't been normal. So, suddenly finding herself a chosen 'combatant' for the entertainment of an unknown alien species, in a place she had never been, surrounded by other people and beings that were quite obviously not from the same place she was, wasn't exactly frightening. It was par for the course.

She hadn't resisted, merely kept her mouth shut and her eyes open, sensing through the Force the feelings of her fellow 'gladiators' as they were ushered into the arena. Most were angry, which was understandable. Some were confused, which was expected. Jasra, on the otherhand, was just irritated. If they were here to fight, then the sooner they started, the sooner she could get out of here and back to her love, Brax.

As Sklar’lak, their self-professed investor and owner, seemed to be waiting for the rest of them to finish asking their questions, Jasra decided that she would ask one as well.

"So, are we doing this 'training' stuff any time soon, or are we just going to talk all day?" she asked him. She grinned as she ignited her lightsaber and gave it an easy flourish. "'Cause I figure the sooner we start this... whatever you want us to do, the sooner I can start figuring a way out of here."

Though one might’ve thought it impossible with the structure of his jaw, Sklar actually managed what could be called a smile.

“Well, answers won’t matter if you’re dead, so let’s begin.” He responded happily, looking down at the pad he held in his hands. Tapping a few apparent buttons on there with his long fingers, it appeared as if Sklar’s actions were doing nothing after a moment. That was, at least, until the ‘exercise’ began to emerge from the sand all over the arena.

The creatures were, as no proper classification had been given to them, Arachnids (http://www.starshiptroopersgame.com/images/bug_wallpaper1600.jpg). Four-legged creatures with what appeared to be a head for a body, a yellow tiger-strip color scheme, and two miniature legs meant for stabbing prodding from its head while standing at a full height of 8 to 9 feet. Not a very pleasant thing to look at, but Sklar looked overjoyed to finally have them out. He said “Say hello to your first combat exercise, the Arachnid. All the way from Klendathu, these creatures are just as deadly in scattered numbers as they are in the mass numbers their hives normally dictate they be in. Young Sovonions coming of age are required to work together to take down the creatures with but spears and swords, so let’s see how you fair.”

And with that the Arachnids, who were roughly 20 in number, charged the group of 8 ‘gladiators’, while the guards watching them backed off. Before anyone of the group could respond to this, an extra Arachnid chose the moment to surface from straight under them.

As it so happened, Zionist was the unfortunate soul directly it.
___________________________

Zionist stumbled and lost his footing as the emergence of another Arachnid took him by surprise, causing him to fall straight forward onto the upper jaw of the creature. He grasped for a hold and managed to grab part of its jaw for support, though he felt as though his fingers punctured something squishy. This seemed to aggravate the creature wildly as it fully exited the sand, as it suddenly charged forwards towards the other Arachnids and it actually ran straight into anther with such force that sent Zionist hurdling head over tail. Luckily, the sand was there to cushion his fall.

Rolling after hitting the ground, Zionist was back on his feet as the two Arachnids he’d met so soon recovered and turned ominously towards him, one of them missing its eye. Zionist looked at his sticky fingers and wiped them off on the sand as he realized what it was, and then proceeded to run straight at them as the two enraged Arachnids charged him. It was then Zionist thought to himself, What the hell are you doing?! You’re unarmed charging two Bugs who you’re only going to kill with a good hit to the nerve cluster! Of course, it was straight afterwards that one of the two parasites said to him, in its deep and mutilated voice, “Its lack of mind spares our life.”

Zionist barely noticed as two spikes, the condition and color of yellowish corroding flesh, emerged from the bottoms of his wrists as an assassin's retractable blade would, although in a much more disturbing manner since it was directly from his arm. And it seemed as though he became completely calm, even when he dove under the two charging Arachnids to avoid their fatal stabbing tools.

Marcus recoiled, combat reflexes dropping him into a suitable position and bringing his Super Sledge up from it's thigh brace and into his hand. Three of the bugs rushed him, their mandibles wide in hunger at their oversized prey. He grinned. They didn't look too tough. He flipped the power switch, bringing the built-in kinetic pulse weapon online.

The lead Bug leapt at him, bringing it's blade-like forelimbs to bear. One blade sliced into his left arm, cutting deep into the muscle. He gripped the arm, ignoring the pain as best he could, and swung the creature into it's left-side partner, knocking both of them over. His hammer came around, intercepting the vicious assault from the third standing bug, smashing it's mandible apart and driving fragments of it's exoskeleton through it's flesh into it's tiny brain.

That's one.

The two confused bugs were regaining their feet. He took the few moments he had to take a good look at the wound. It was knitting well enough - Forced Evolutionary Virus tended to do that. The bleeding had already stopped.

One of the bugs leapt at him. He sidestepped the clumsy lunge and brought his hammer around hard, smashing it into it's abdomen. The exoskeleton cracked as the hammer pulsed into it, flinging it across the arena and smashing into a wall, leaving a messy smear of yellow-black fluid. Surprisingly, it still seemed alive, despite the fact that it's exoskeleton was cracked in about thirty places.

The third bug had regained it's footing, and seemed to be wiser for it. It approached him slowly, cautiously prowling him waiting for a vulnerable opening. Marcus grinned and leaned his head down slightly and bit down on the leather strap that held the minigun on his back. The old leather parted, dropping the gun to the ground. Now, he just needed a moment to pick it up.

Nic had remained quiet and in the background of events while the others spoke to Sklar’lak, in truth he didn’t believe what was going on, he thought it was perhaps some force illusion his brother had a Dark Jedi perform or far more likely he had drank a large amount of a narcotic, he did like alcohol. The mercenary only truly began to believe what was happening after the 20 bug like creatures attacked and one had scratched his arm.

“Oh Krif me!” He expletived as he pulled out his blaster pistol and began to fire upon an on coming bug.

The first shot hit the creature in the leg causing to topple down to the ground, it was only a few moments before it pulled it’s self back up and began it’s charge again. “Krif me sideways!” he shouted as he fired off several shots at the rapidly enclosing creature.

Each blast of glowing blue energy impacted the alien beast on what appeared to be its head, at least the part with a mouth. The creature once again collapsed yelping in pain and skidded along the ground due to its quick momentum before it had fell, its skid halted just infront of the former republic assassin and still alive looked up with one of its eyes.

Nic looked down at the animal that had just tried to attack him an grimaced. “You are one ugly Schutta.” He exclaimed as he aimed his weapon and the eye and pulled the trigger.

((Joint post with SM))


Tyler and Eva went through a series of three jumps together, heading straight for the creature nearest to them. At the last moment, Eva broke off from Tyler, drew her sword, and jumped once more, landing directly in front of one of the Arachnids and with something like a warrior's cry, she heaved her sword around, hacking the beast's head entirely off.

On the other hand, Tyler was not faring so well. He had kept on his forward path, at the last moment jumping upward and coming down at the creature's head with his baseball bat. But the wooden bat was no match for the hard skull of the beast before him and it splintered, leaving barely more than the handle in his hands. For a moment of stunned silence, boy and beast stared at one another. Then, the beast roared, and the boy jumped, screaming, "Eva!" and somehow managing to keep the splintered bat's handle in his grip.

He landed just to Eva's left and she, expecting him, had her sword held out to him. He took the sword gratefully, and Eva drew her gun. They jumped again, with Tyler landing next to Nic just as he pulled the trigger of his weapon, effectively ending the beast's life.

"That's gotta hurt," Tyler observed, eying Nic's treatment of the creature. Then, he held out his hand in greeting. "Tyler Whitman."

"Nic White." The mercenary replied, taking the man's hand. "but you can call me Nic, everybody else does."

"Nice to meet you, Nic," Tyler said, shaking the other man's hand. At that moment, another of the Arachnid's charged them. Tyler's eyes widened for half a second and he murmured, "Hold your breath..."

... and then, the two men were standing directly behind the creature, which was immensely puzzled as to where they might have gone...

"What the..." Nic exclaimed, shocked, and then looked at Tyler. "Never do that again!"

Tyler was about to respond, when the creature whirled around and charged them again. At this, the young man dropped Nic's hand and jumped, landing on the beast's back and driving the sword downward into its head.

"Forgive me for saving our lives," he shot to Nic as he hopped over the lifeless beast's head, pulling the sword out as he went. And with that, he jumped once more, landing beside Eva.

"People in general seem rather displeased when you save their lives," he commented to her. Eva merely rolled her eyes and squeezed off a shot from her pistol.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Back across the arena, Nic looked around, wondering where the young man had gone, and finally spotted Tyler and Eva together. With a low growl of disgust, the mercenary faced the beast which Tyler had killed.

"Everywhere I go, someone's messing around with physics," he grumbled.. "I mean, why call them the laws of physics if no one obeys 'em?" With a frustrated grunt, he added, "And this is me, talking to a dead... thing..."

The ugly, bug-like critter that looked like a radscorpion with too many legs leapt at him, giving him the opportunity he had hoped for. He dropped into a roll forward, snatching his minigun up as he did and pulling the trigger, raking the beast with a earsplitting thunder of 7.62mm bullets that quickly turned it into a lump of paste on the dry sands.

"Too easy." He walked over to the third one, that was just now regaining it's feet, jammed the minigun into it's thorax, and pulled the trigger, slicing the beast apart.

The Bugs seemed to be dying pretty quickly, their numbers were about halved.. He slid the minigun back into it's backstrap, reattaching the strap as he did so, then replaced his sledgehammer in it's thigh brace and caught his breath. "I'm getting too old for this."

Resistance. Something Gray Fox would have done back when he was project Null. Now after being resurrected for a second time he really could care less who these people were or where they were taking them. The drug they gave him finally worked its magic and put the undead warrior to sleep...

"No no please don't....AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Gray Fox shot the man at point blank range. The woman began to run but did not get far. His next bullet caught her in the back of the head. Gray Fox quickly cleaned up the blood and placed the bodies in the closet. He then ran up the steps and into a little girl’s room. The girl was sitting on the floor playing with her doll. He pulled out his gun and aimed at her head. His hand began to twitch. The gun was rattling in his hand with no intention on stopping. He holstered the pistol realizing he could not kill the girl as well.

"Frank, are mommy and daddy ok?"

"Yes Naomi mom and dad are fine, now let your brother Frank get you out of here"...

Gray Fox awoke with a jolt, his heart pumping as hard as it could. He was still tormented by that nightmare almost every time he shut his eyes. He looked around and saw a very dry environment. He looked to his right to see 7 people with guards behind them as well. A man by the name of Sklar’lak introduced himself and stated that they had to fight in this arena in order to return back home. While the lizard like creature began answering questions, Gray Fox began to stretch to get his muscles ready. It was not until he began stretching that he noticed his left arm was back and looked the same as it did when he was first fitted into this suit. His heart began to pump, but then so did his feet. It was then he realized the ground was beginning to shake.

“Say hello to your first combat exercise, the Arachnid. All the way from Klendathu, these creatures are just as deadly in scattered numbers as they are in the mass numbers their hives normally dictate they be in. Young Sovonions coming of age are required to work together to take down the creatures with but spears and swords, so let’s see how you fair.”

20 giant buglike creatures emerged from the ground. Gray Fox reached for his High Frequency Blade and prepared to combat these monsters. He then turned to see one of the prisoners be thrown into the air as another monster emerged from its hiding spot. Moments later the man was being attacked by two "Arachnids".

The man had just dived under both Arachnids to avoid their attacks. When Gray Fox turned back around an Arachnid was staring him in the face. Gray Fox slashed at the bug’s face, cutting out one of its eyes. The Arachnid charged Gray Fox. He leapt into the air and brought his Blade down on the one eyed bug's back. It roared in pain as it threw Gray Fox off of it.


The Arachnid brought both its front legs down on Gray Fox, pinning him to the ground. He lifted the leg on his chest with ease and threw the monster to the ground. He jumped over the Arachnid and pulled his High Frequency Blade out of its back. The Arachnid Rose to its feet and tried to stab Gray Fox with one of its legs. He hoped onto the leg and sliced it off. It roared again and tried to pin him to the ground again. He dove under the leg and sliced off one of the back ones. The Arachnid kicked Gray Fox in the back throwing the Cyborg Ninja off balance. Gray Fox hit the ground hard and turned to see the Arachnid’s leg coming down on his face. He rolled to the left and leapt into the air. He grabbed the Arachnid’s "face” and stuck his High Frequency Blade right in between the monster's eyes. The Arachnid gave one last roar and fell to the ground. Gray Fox pulled the blade out of the beast. He had never seen such a strange creature before, he felt a little sorry for the thing that he just killed. This emotion passed rather quickly as he turned to see two more Arachnids charge him. He pulled out his gun and aimed at the one on the left.

“Young Sovonions coming of age are required to work together to take down the creatures with but spears and swords”

Gray Fox placed the gun on the ground.

If these young sovonians are forced take these things out without guns, then so will I Gray Fox thought to himself.

He took his HFB and threw it at the one on the left. His blade soared across the arena and hit the Arachnid right in between the eyes. The bug tripped over itself as it fell to the ground. Now weaponless Gray Fox charged the other Arachnid. The beast came at him head on and at the last second he jumped over it. He sprinted over to the Arachnid he had just killed and removed his HFB. He turned to see that the Arachnid was attempting another charge. He activated his stealth camouflage and stepped to the right. The beast came to a halt searching for its prey. The creature felt a sharp pain as Gray Fox stabbed the creature in the back. It roared in pain but it was not the only one screaming. It was happening again. The electrical shock ran up and down Gray Fox’s body, but he was waiting for this. He grabbed his HFB by the blade and held on to it. The electricity moved down the sword and went into the creature. The electricity killed the Arachnid from the inside, and it fell right where it stood. Gray Fox removed his blade and wiped the blood off of it. He turned waiting for another to attack.

Let the cowards come to you he thought to himself, waiting for one of the bugs to make a move.

"Young Sovonions coming of age are required to work together to take down the creatures with but spears and swords.”

As the Arachnids approached, Jasra's eyes narrowed. "I hate spiders...," she grumbled, then flourished her lightsaber and readied herself for the onslaught.

The first creature that reached her stabbed at her with its sharp, pointed chelicerae. With her Force-enhanced reactions, she easily dodged them and for a moment she thought she would just see what the creature would do next instead of immediately slicing it in two. It raised itself up on two legs, hissed threateningly, and then lunged at her again.

Once more she dodged the attack, but then she sensed another creature coming up behind her. "Two against one? Not fair." Without even looking, she slashed behind her back with her lightsaber, slicing the front legs of the creature behind her in half, then spinning around with a follow-through slash to the body of the creature in front of her.

"Ugh!" She grimaced at the smell of burnt arachnid carapace. "Kriffin' hell! Are these stink bugs or spiders?" She shivered, then proceeded to finish off the creature that was hobbling about on two legs behind her by slicing it vertically in two with her blade.

She looked around. There were still several arachnids approaching her as well as around the other 'gladiators'. She took a deep breath, concentrated for a second or two, and then....

A powerful Force wave scattered the arachnids as if they had been caught in a blast.

"There," Jasra said flatly to the rest of the gladiators. She gave a quick grin. "Thinned them out a bit for you."

Vash stood silently listening to the Sovonian, and then suddenly, as he was speaking about 'Young Sovonians' large Arachnids sprung up from the sand.

Vash simply looked around as the creatures charged everyone. He simply dropped the large cross shaped cloth wrapped weapon off of his back, which was held together by belts and buckle-straps. It hit the ground with a muffled thud, Vash put his hand on the top of it, the large device sinking into the sand a bit.

A menacing hissing shriek came from one of the enormous spider-like creatures as it had finally noticed him, and came charging at him. With amazing calm, Vash lifted his hand to his hip, pulling out a large, silver handgun, and with deft precision, he blew the creature's front two legs from under it.

It was Vash's idealistic belief that no one deserved to take the life of another living being, sentient or not, blood thirsty, or not.

Vash looked over at another of the large 'bugs' as it wheeled itself around in front of it's injured comrade, who lay on the ground shrieking and hissing at him, making desperate attempts to get up and disembowel him. The other one was staying away from Vash at the moment, standing ominously over the other while it struggled to get up.

'They've got strong kinship for simple minded creatures,' Vash thought to himself, looking around as the other combatants were dispatching their foes without mercy.

'In a normal situation I'm sure these things wouldn't think twice about trampling the other one, but their numbers are too small, and growing smaller. They're rather smart, despite what these other people may think,' Vash continued to think to himself, observing the merciless combat of the other people.

He was a very 'philosophical, and idealogical' person, believing that you should save both the butterfly, and the spider. But looking at the others around him, he wasn't too sure who the butterflies were, and who the spiders were.

Vash turned and saw the injured Arachnid stand up, only, it wasn't using it's legs, it was using it's front 'pointy-things.' And with a clumsy stride it charged him, the other one that had been watching over it also doing so. Vash simply lifted his gun once more, firing off his remaining rounds, all four.

In the end each one lay on the ground hissing, and scuffling around angrily. The already injured one had gotten one of it's 'pointy-things' shot clean off, preventing it from moving further, or at the least, not very fast. The second one had two of it's legs shot, and one of it's 'pointy-things' shot, but not off, like the other's. If humans could survive having their appendages shot, then so could these gigantic bugs.

Vash simply opened his empty gun, the bullet-less shells flying out of the chambers, and with a single fluid motion he took out a round reloader clip, placing the new bullets in the gun, and the replacing the clip, and closing the gun, and with a fancy twirl he holstered his gun.

Vash took out his yellow sunglasses and put them on, and leaned on his Cross Punisher, waiting for the fighting to cease. And surprisingly, he had been one of the few to remain in the same spot he had been standing in, since the beginning of this whole endeavor. Vash still heard the Arachnids hissing and scuffling around, but after awhile they grew quiet, and glancing over Vash saw that they were quite still, but with close inspection he saw that alert life was still in their strange alien eyes.

"Good boys, you two stay still now, you don't want the others slaughtering you too," he spoke out to the creatures, the only response was a low growling hiss from one, and what Vash could only make out as a kind of bark from the other, and then they were silent again. Vash simply smiled and waited.

Marcus leaned against the wall and caught his breath. He hadn't had a good fight against some giant bugs in months. He examined the gash on his arm. Not too bad, it was already clotted and should knit quickly.

The fight was more or less over, just a handful of straggling bugs still alive and kicking. He snorted and grinned. They weren't much of an enemy, especially when he had a minigun with infinite ammunition. He began heading back towards the center of the arena - there was no door visible as far as he could tell, but he hadn't been in the most lucid shape when he'd come in anyway.

Zionist's motion to dive at the last moment caused the two Arachnids charging him to collide yet again as he rolled to his feet behind them. He charged them in their disarray and made an inhuman leap to land on the side of one of the creatures, grasping at whatever holds its body offered. It did not take this very well and buckled like a rodeo bull, but Zionist held true as he tried to plunge his wrist-spike into the area between it's eyes, the nerve cluster.

Okay so I hit the nerve cluster, jump off as it hits the ground, and then deal with the-, Zionist thought to himself as he held on, though it was cut short as a pain seared across his back. The other Arachnid, who was still attempting to kill him, had gotten a clear opening and barely missed with one of its forelegs, leaving a gash on his back. Black blood seeped from the wound and the edge on the Arachnid's forearm was melted away. Despite the interruption though, Zionist at that moment plunged his wrist-spike into the one-eyed Arachnid's nerve cluster.

It dropped like a sack of bricks. That being said, once it happened the other was on him instantly. He dove to his right as a pair of still-deadly forearms logged themselves where his was not a second before. Zionist leaped to his feet as the Arachnid turned towards him again, letting out an alien screech of anger. Inside, Zionist could feel the seething irritation that the parasite and virus felt towards this creature.

The Arachnid screeched again and closed the gap between them, not a few feet, and attempted to impale him with the sharp hooks at the ends of its jaw. Zionist dove to the side again, though the creature learned from the the previous encounter and did an immediate shift to face him with all its momentum. This time he was barely getting to his feet when he was jaw-butted by the Arachnid into the air.

Zionist landed with a grunt, noting a sharp pain running from his chest where he had been hit. The area on his back where he had been gashed had been hidden by his advanced body suit stitching itself back together, though it still bled. He discarded these pains from his awareness and immediately jumped to his feet as the Arachnid attempted to take advantage of his toss, charging him for the kill this time. If things had gone the way Zionist would have wanted them to, it would have been fancy footwork and no damage on himself. However he did not count on an Arachnid coming up from behind and impaling his upper-right torso with one of its forearms. Nor did he expect for the creature to be knocked straight over him by a blast of some apparent invisible force and into the Arachnid charging him, leaving its forearm embedded in him and being incinerated by his blood.

Looking down at the sharp leg prodding from his shoulder and then to the two tangled Arachnids, Zionist wasn't sure what to be more surprised at: that the Arachnid who had done it had been flung into the one charging him, the fact that he wasn't feeling the pain of the shoulder impaling, or the nightmarish sight of the biomechancial virus now infecting both of the Arachnids.

The Arachnid that had stabbed him was changed first. Immediately crimson sparks began to course over its body and all of its coloration began to changed to a gore-ish red. A visible layer of what appeared to be gore itself began to grow on parts of the creatures exoskeleton, along with some form of circuitry or another. Where the forearm and been lost another grew in the very horrific sense into a sharper, much more intimidating and deadly weapon. This change was also applied to the jaws and other legs, and by the time the infection was complete, it looked like a monster sprung from hell itself. All of this while the creature infected let out wails of terror and agony, and even its partner showed fear as it turned in not a span of roughly 15 to 20 seconds. Even so this did not stop the partner from attacking, seeing this new abomination as no longer one of its own. Sadly, it did not even get to move forward a step before one of the infected Arachnid's head-arms turned and shot some sort of crimson particle beam at the partner, resulting in its infection as well.

Parts will join us, the virus stated with a delighted tone, the voice of a seductress who's venom was their tongue. Zionist on the other hand felt disgust at, but did nothing as his bodysuit stitched itself up once again, forcing the remaining limb still stuck in his shoulder out as it did. While it would treat Zionist's wounds, it wasn't an instant one. So, for the moment, he would have to pretend the infection was his doing and go along with it, unless he wanted a major mental battle this very moment. Don't infect the people, he said to it/her, and she agreed to this.

With this, the two infected Arachnids immediately charged the normal ones and began to tear them apart even as 7 more arose from the sands, Zionist keeping close to ensure the safety of the others.

An ear-splitting, alien scream rang across the arena, causing Marcus to spin around and pull his Super Sledge, seeing one of the Arachnids, it's forearm-blade buried in a Gladiator, undergo a mutation that can best be described as nightmarish.

Marcus doubled back. The Master's armies may have prided themselves on having no fear, but age and experience had taught Marcus caution. He dropped his sledge back in it's thigh brace and readied his minigun. If that monstrosity rushed him, well, he didn't want to be anywhere close - it only fired four thousand rounds per minute, and he'd want as many in that beast as possible.

Then it fired some kind of energy weapon at another Arachnid, causing the mutation to start again, and then they both headed for the Arachnid reinforcements coming out of the sands.

What the hell is going on here?

He didn't have time to debate the possibilities. They were unpredictable, but also devastating. He leveled his minigun at them, watching them carefully. If they turned on him or any of the others, they'd eat hot lead.