The Arena

All around me from the stands of the great oval Colosseum I could hear the frenzied crowd of two thousand spectators screaming and yelling as if gripped by some kind of wild mania but there was something about it that gave me a sudden rush of adrenaline; a sort of high; my heart pounding like a hammer inside my chest as, automatically fanning the steel tail feathers at the back of my gladiators armour, I drew my electroblade from its sheathe and rushed towards my opponent, the towering, flaxen haired Thorgon.

Fanning the tail feathers at the back of his own armour, Thorgon let out an ear splitting battle cry, his blue eyes blazing madly as he lowered the visor on his ram horned helmet and prepared to meet me head on.

Our electroblades clashed with a crash of steel and the crackle of blue lightning but then I saw from the corner of my left eye, Thorgons large rectangular shield whirling round to strike me against the left side of my head.

Reaching up with my own smaller, round shield I blocked the blow before retaliating by head butting Thorgon in the face with my own steel ram horns.

Dazed, he paused for an instant, just long enough for me to follow up my head butt with a kick to the chest that had my opponent lying flat upon his back, the hot sun blazing in his eyes.

Suddenly, I was standing over him, a look of terror on his trembling bearded face as I raised my loudly humming electroblade and, from all around the arena, the cheering of the maddened mob reached fever pitch.

“Do you submit!”, I asked, placing the heel of my armoured boot upon Thorgons rippling, sweat- gleaming chest.

Thorgon nodded wearily.

All round about the Collusseum now, the crowd rose to their feet cheering and chanting my name ; hundreds of voluptuous beautiful young Capercalian women ripping off their bikinis of metal and leather and fur, while on loud speakers I heard ceremonial rams horns start to blare.

Then one of the head women of our community, now naked, stepped down from her seat and, entering the arena, made the announcement I had been fighting all spring long to hear.

“You have beaten all the other bucks”, she said, “You are the Alpha male. Through the process of Natural Selection you have won the mating rights for this, the mating season of our Species”.

I took her in my arms and she smiled approvingly.

The evening sky was growing darker and the two crescent moons of my planet were shining like two silver swords curving towards each other as more beautiful young women crowded round me eager to be the first.

It was a night I will never forget.