Arena

That morning, our last at the arena we woke late.

The sun was strong and even penetrated through the bars of the lower
reaches of the caverns where we always stayed the days before a match.
It had brought with it a fierce heat, today was
Going to be hot, the arena on days such as this earned its more popular
name of the cauldron.

I had served here, in the Omega team for, how many years? I could not
even remember, but this is knew full well. If I can win today, then at
long last I can approach the president of the games and ask for, no not
ask, demand my freedom.

Seventeen of us had begun in Omega six long, battle scarred, violent
years ago. Few games people got this far and in those years I had seen
some fine men and women die. There was Praxicon, a tall, muscular
hermaphrodite captured at the long siege of Cycopolis. He was an
amazing athlete who had so nearly got to the magical, almost mystical
figure of 100 victories but had been killed on 97. Then there was the
beautiful Crynis, a semi arachnid, who had fought, as a team with her
daughter but she met her fate on a wet day at the games, when the
ground was too soggy for her legs.

All these seem far away now, I am one of the few left, and today in
what seems to be a typically hot, August Sunday, I will achieve my one
hundredth victory.
My first game was with Praxicon, when I was still a prisoner of war. We
were playing against a team from Hellines and against all expectations
we won, cutting down the opposition with surprising ease. At first the
crowd did not know how to react to this result and we were booed and
spat at by a few. How different that all seems now. We are now the
finest team that the games have seen. We have seen the graffiti outside
all the stadia stating 'Sixtus the great wolf being, loved by all young
girls' and my own favorite 'We all adore Estrahym, the hairy
Narian'.

'Now we are heroes' I thought when I first saw that chalk scrawled
message outside the Central stadium.

The sun is getting stronger, and here we are back at Central London,
the scene of the Omega team's great triumphs.

After eating we gather together and talk about tactics for the day
ahead for today we meet a team of ex-soldiers captured At Cyrus -8, a
windswept, dry planet that the World Federation have moved on to
colonize after Narius. That was a battle too, for four long years we
warred with the Federation and that is where I was taken. I know my
enemy today and what I will face.

The time soon passes and a burly human opens the gates, the sun is not
as strong as we fear as he gives the words
'Come on...all aliens out to die'

My fellow arachnids and I enter the arena built by these speciesist
humans, but today I shall win my freedom