Its hard to remember. You seem to recall yourself sleeping, and then someone suddenly shooting you three times in the chest while you were dozing in a nap. Before you completely shook off shook off the hunh, whazzats? of being ripped awake, you were versed out.
Dreams of a long-toothed dragon conversing with a frantic Domino's Pizza delivery driver.
"But I thought you were the meal, and this pizza thing was the Phasers Set to Maximum"
But Captain Kirk comes in to save the day.
And you, watching this, collapse to the hard stone floor in relief.
And then you realize you are laying on a hard, cold, slightly wet, irregular stone floor. Scaly, feverish arms lift you up, and you can't help it, you open your eyes to a nightmare.
The face is four feet long, brown gold, scaled, slightly narrower at the base, and fringed with moving stalks at the top. It has a very bony structure under its scales which sit tight to the bones.
You're laying across his? upper arms.
"Hello, could you please put me down?"
"I'm supposed/compelled/desirous to carry/tote/move you to your/our/the room/cell/enclosure/resting area. My name is Glingl."
"Glingl, can you tell me the purpose of of taking me to the room?"
"So you can rest/relax/make ready for the event/fight/vigorous discussion." He's carried you outof the larger chamber and into a hallway that also looks to be carved from stone.
You see a foot high snailon the path which Glingl carefully steps around.
"What kind of event is it and what was that being you stepped around?"
After it answers,"I would like to walk to the rest area. If you put me down, I'll follow you to it."
"Entertainment/vigorous discussion/Display of skills." Glingl says and then adds. "That was a Sawwcuth, one of the Owners/Proprietors/Developers/Supervisors of this Nexus/Rest stop/Fortune Testing/Intersection of Interstellar Trade Routes/Gaudy Display of Conspicuous Consumption."
He puts you down, and you walk with him past a number of empty rooms that look more like cells with a bed and some furniture. You see one that is occupied by Arnold Schwarzanegger.
He looks at you flatly.
Huh, what is Arnold Schwarzanegger doing here?
"Arnold Schwarzanegger?"
"Do you know where Sarah Connor is? Can you release me by pressing the leftmost button twice, then the upper middle button once?" He nods his head stiffly toward the control panel outside of what you realize has to be a cell.
"Your a Terminator T-800, Aren't you? Why are you looking for Sarah Connor?"
"Yes. I need to kill her."
"It ask/require all new/novel/untested/tourists that." Glingl says.
"You might want to have your technical personnel look at it"
I follow the guy to my cell.
He takes you to your cell.
"It does all right/adequate/fine in demonstrating talent."
You cell is twenty feet square, and comes with an agrav bed so you can float as you sleep, and private bath facilities behind a superthin wall. It also has a holovid.
I play with the holovid to see what it can do.
It tries a half-dozen languages until it gets a drawl that sounds like Kentucky Colonel who's visited Australia.
After that...
1000 Gambling channels (half of them on-site).
200 shopping channels selling everything from slaves to starships.
100 'Alien Embassy Channels'
400 sports channels
200 news analysis channels
50 religious channels
And you see yourself on the holovid.
"Our newest competitor in the Multi-Dimensional Pan-Temporal Unarmed Combat Tournameant. This mean, and subtle competitor has vowed to destroy his enemies with his shocking attacks. He claims that in his own homeworld, he's murdered at least twenty-nine individuals of his own species, so he knows he's going to have no problem hurting aliens. Gentle beings, sophonts of all species, place your Before the Match bets now!"
The being that is talking looks like a squirming four foot tall green gourd with orange tentacles.
Subtle? No one ever called me that before. Being called a murderer doesn't sit well with me. I hope they're just doing that for show. I guess I'll give them a show. It's time to indulge the blood knight side of my personality.
You also find 500 more channels of pron, but since the most comprehensible form is of two octopi (green with a hundred arms) swimming around each other for sophoric effect while bizarre skitters, squeaks, and crashes go on in the background under the name of Full Contact Romance (Mature Sophonts only): Seabed Frenzy...to which you find yourself nodding off to sleep before realizing what it was supposed to be...
Roughly an hour later, a rolling ball, about four feet high stops in front of your cell, fusses with its clothes, and then speaks with a crackling noise and a tang in the air.
"All right, girl Prhsirto of the Makiul Clan Group. Your sisters sold you off to pay their debts to the Sawcuuth. Time to practise for the big fight tonight."
The robot, about a foot high, and with one long snaky arm, zips forward on its wheels.
"Greetings, honored sapient, I am pleased to announce that I am to be your personal assistant."
"Shut up, bot." The rolling ball says. "Come on, gym time."
is it talking to me?
If so, I follow it to the gym.
Both the sentient rolling ball and the robot are talking to you.
You trot along behind them to the gym as it seems the natural pace of a rolling ball is about seven mph. It has flippers all along its exterior which protrude from slots in its clothing for a half second, smack the ground, grip hard, and zip it along.
Inside the gym, you get a chance to talk to a cyborg lobsterene entity who takes over as the ball leaves. The bot stays with you. The CLE inquires as to what training you'd like to do to bring your fighting skills to the peak of perfection.
You see several hundred exercise machines being used by over two dozen different species, with the most similar to Terran being the ten foot tall, yellow skinned humanoid with eyes in its chest. Obviously, most of the machines you can't use. In fact, some of them look lethal.
"I want to get stronger, tougher and faster."
They start training you in a magnetic resistance suit. When you stand up, the magnets are pulling down with the force of 3 gravities. When you raise your arms over your head, you're pulling ten gravities.
As to being faster, they have something like a hopscotch board in the shape of an octagon. Failing to get to the right space quick enough means a painful electric shock.
You're working at this several days.
This should work. I think.
I'll continue with the training as long as I can.
You work for a week. In that time, you see several thousand sapients of about four dozen races, and perhaps eight humans.
And then a Sawcuuth speaks to you in your head.
*You will be fighting without weapons against another of your species, or a close parallel. You are not to kill it, nor to be killed yourself. If you defeat it, you will be given the freedom of the Casino for one day. If you do not try adequately, we will subject you to sensory deprivation for one day. Understand?*
I think at him.
*I don't care about the Casino. Can't you pay me with something else? Genetic Modifications maybe? Psychic Training? Equipment?*
"We know little about your species. Creating upgrades is very hard project. Its not a project you do for just one member of a species. Plus its illegal by galactic law, so that is more expense. And no, we do not wish to give you psi training. How stupid do you think we are, biped? Equipement tho'...is possible. WHat do you have in mind?"
*Power Armor*
I show him images of Samus Aran's(Metroid), master chief's(Halo), Space Marine(both Starship Troopers and Warhammer 40k) and Fallout power armor.
*or failing that weapons and equipment for exploring unknown areas*
There is a deeper thought running parallel to that
*Fine, I'll teach myself. It's your lose when I explode after messing up*
There is a small image of an explosion after I pushed a healing psi skill too far.
"Um, okay." The Sawcuuth then takes the next ten minutes to leave as it slowly progresses from in front of your cell to further down the alley.
You have no idea what it agreed to. And the mental feeling is roughly like talking to a used car salesman of the non reputable sort.
Later that day, you try to teach yourself psi skills, and you spend the next ten minutes throwing up.
Well, that was painful. I'll try again tomorrow and focus on telepathy. I should be able to do it by replicating the feeling of the mental talk with the Sawcuuth
The next day....more throwing up when you try the psi thing.
Now that I think about it, he could have put some sort of psi block on me...
This is going to be difficult.
I'm going to try to break though with shear willpower.
You push through with your will enough to realize its not a mental block or you'd have battered it down. Its something physical.
The next day, you're taken to an arena which is two stories deep before the glassine wall dome and the viewers on the other side.
"And here, we have a girl Prhistu fighter being, capable of mass slaughter. He will be sent up against another of his species in a digital manipulator to digital manipulator fight, no holds barred, save for killing blows to advance to the next level in the Grand Tourney. Let him choose his opponent."
Suddenly a dozen of the arches on the first level are lit, and behind glassine walls you can see...
1. Mike Tyson
2. A pudgy, but tall Englishman with a 17 ft. scarf. He's dozing.
3. Arnold Schwarzanegger
4. Spock who raises one eyebrow.
5. Kirk
6. Worf (although his name plate on the arch barrier between him and the next empty arch has him listed as 'Dock'.)
7. A skinny punk in a black and purple spandex with a gold 'M' on his suit.
8. A Victorian English gentleman looking guy.
9. A pair of green blobs about a foot high.
10. Jean Claude Van Damme
11. A scimitar laying on a bed.
12. Complete utter blackness radiating menace.
Wow. There's a lot of strong people there. let's go with number 8.
I do whatever action is necessary to pick number 8.
You touch his name plate, and the crowd of several thousand sapients above you smiles. So does the man.
"Hello, I'm Doctor Henry Millens." You realize its a deeply unpleasant smile. He pulls out a razor-edged shaving knife of silver with a singular ease. "I told the aliens who rescued me from the In Between that that pretentious moralizing coward, H.G. dumped me in, that this blade was a religious item. I needed it."
He laughs scornfully.
"And it is a religious item. I will now baptize you in blood."
Now he roars mockingly as he steps out into the arena.
"I'm called Magnus."
As I step into the arena, I attempt to draw in a large amount of chi and use it to boost the strength of my entire body.
I did something similar with Oak, except I used a ridiculously large amount of chi to boost just my legs to do a super jump
After that I will try to use 1@1 alter perception of time flow and charge him with a flying side kick.
If an action doesn't work, I'll ignore it and continue with the next action.
OOC:Sorry for my procrastination with writing the summery. I'll get on it soon.
You pull in the chi, and you start glittering. He looks frightened, and darts forward, his blade flashing as it snaps out, and cuts back slicing into your left thigh near your femoral artery, he shoves you, and you fly off your feet as he still rushes inward a maniacal look on his face.
In the background, you can hear the alien announcer remonstrating with the doctor about his deception.
I attempt to regain my footing and kiai at him.
I'm going to attempt to grab the arm with the knife and try to break the arm at the elbow with a chi charged elbow strike.
After that I use a round house kick to his torso.
You scramble to your feet, and he waits for the perfect moment, and then slices open your left cheek right under the eye with a grin of savage victory. Pain flashes through your mind, so that you don't remember breaking his elbow, and its only as your foot hits his ribs that you can see again.
He flies back, and gasps laying on the ground.
"Multiple ribs broken, elbow shattered." He diagnoses himself.
I keep my guard up
"I suggest that you give up, Unless you want more broken bones"
As I'm saying that, I focus the chi into my skin to attempt to harden it.
If he attacks me, I throw a round house kick to the thigh to break it.
I'm charging it with 1@2 Explosive kick.
"Of course, of course." He says.
Aliens swarm out, retrieve his weapon, scold him for his deception, and inform him he will be given truth drugs in his food from now on. They bundle him off.
Meanwhile, other aliens tend to your cuts. They do something with a glowing stick that stops the bleeding.
One of the raises the hair on top of your head, and yanks it a bit.
"In the best traditiions of your people." He gobbles in your ear. Then he turns and his voice echoes from the walls as he talks to the crowd.
"Uncontested WINNER! Magnus, the girl Prshiuto vs. Dr. Henry Millens Human aka Jack the Ripper with Magnus winning. Pay your bets, pay your bets."
He then turns to you and speaksin a softer voice which can still be heard around the arena.
"Well, Magnus, you can at this point, retire to a well earned several days off. Or you can attempt to jump in line. See, if you take on another o fthe contestants, and win, that win will count as two victories toward the Grand Tourney, and the Trillion Credit Prize. Why, if you beat everyone in the wait list today, you could jump straight to the Finals. I've seen it done...once. Kal-El, son of Jor-El. He did it. So Magnus, rest or glory?"
"Why are you calling my a girl Prshiuto?
I'm a male human.
I'm going for Glory.
I'll face number 5, Captain James T. Kirt."