Age of Pokemon: Rome
Act I:
“Welcome, citizens and foreigners alike! Welcome. To the great Roman Colosseum! Here, we all have come to witness the sweat and toil, the redemption and trial, and of course the blood and carnage that this place has to offer! We’ve come to see men who must fight the greatest of beasts to prove their worth. Today! We have a special one for you! One that has just arrived with no experience! But we haven’t come for a speech. We came for action! Open the gates!”
The crowd roared with the voices of the Colosseum’s devoted patrons as the gates lowered, bright sunlight creeping into the darkness of the pitch-black and dungeon-like holding area. That was where the sole gladiator of the day, Erasmus, waited for his first participation in the arena’s sick and sadistic source of pleasure. Well, perhaps ‘participation’ was the wrong word to use, since it implied the simple farmer had a choice. Lead (or by Erasmus’s point of view, forced) out of the dark room by guards and into the bright light of Apollo’s handiwork, Erasmus made his way to the arena’s center. He looked around to get a better grasp of his surroundings. What he first noticed was the walls, or the size to be more precise: it must have been the height of two dozen men and its seats held thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands. Then he noticed the ground: a mixture of clay, dirt, and – most prominent of them all – blood.
“And now we shall spin the wheel to decide its fate!”
With a twinge of annoyance at being referred to as ‘it’, Erasmus noticed a small man in a toga standing next to a giant, painted wheel made of wood. It was evenly divided into 17 triangles, each with a picture. He spun the wheel, making it go quite fast, despite his small physique. After a half a minute or so, the wheel stopped, a metal needle resting on one of the many triangles that made up the colossal wheel; it was a black triangle with an orange-red flame. The crowd created a tremor with their screams of anticipation and excitement. The small man was then handed a crude wooden spear with a sharp metal end, who then handed it to Erasmus. With a grin, the small man walked off into the holding area Erasmus was confined to moments ago.
“His fate is chosen! He shall fight the beasts of fire and ash, these ones shipped all the way from China! Let the slaughter… commence!”
Suddenly, Erasmus heard the clattering of rusty metal gears. He looked towards the end of the arena opposite to the gate he entered through and watched as the second gate slowly opened. He inspected its interior to see its prisoners, expecting a group of men, ugly, strong, and accustomed to the bloody horrors of this hellhole. However, Erasmus’s assumption couldn’t have been more wrong. He almost fell to his knees when he saw his adversaries: two dogs. But these canines weren’t like the everyday companions Erasmus knew. They were twice the size of a tall man, their fur orange with black stripes, and pale yellow fur on their scalp, tail, and muzzle. He gaped at the two opponents in terror as one of them snorted fire from its coal-black nose.
But the worst part was not their size, nor their breath, but their eyes. Black and hollow as the void, but glowing of hunger and ruthlessness. Though he had never seen this look before, Erasmus knew it was the stare a predator gives its prey; the stare that says it’s hungry for human flesh and doesn’t care how it gets what it wants. It’s as though Pluto himself created his abode with these beasts’ eyes in mind. It was in that moment that Erasmus realized his first day of imprisonment may very well be his last.
In a flash, the large canine on the right charged at him with speed that was faster than Erasmus’s reaction time tenfold. The dog’s cranium collided with Erasmus’s stomach with enough force to make him cough up blood as he got back up. Luckily, he had a good grip on his spear. However, his spear was so crudely made it had splinters strewn across almost two thirds of the handle. Erasmus collected his thoughts, while snapping the spear into a dagger, as to get rid of the nuisance of splinters.
He realized it was for the most part one-on-one. The other canine was lying on the ground sleepily watching with a colossal amount of disinterest. The other – the one he was dealing with – was faking out Erasmus, lunging at him and suddenly stopping. To the dog’s bemusement, Erasmus was on to its trickery and didn’t flinch once.
Angered, the dog charged at him legitimately. Erasmus, in a panic, thrust his spear in the dog’s general direction. He felt his spear puncture something. He opened his eyes, having closed them in fear, to see he had stabbed the dog right beneath its shoulder. The seemingly-perpetual bellows of the crowd fell silent. Blood sputtered out at a normal rate at first. But after a few seconds, it poured out causing the shade of red on the sand beneath the beast to grow darker and darker. Little did Erasmus know, he had struck an artery, making fearful thrust fatal.
But Erasmus was a man in simpler times, and a plebian at that, so he simply shrugged at the blood, thankful it wasn’t his, and considered it a blessing from the Gods. The crowd made shouts of all kinds – surprise, joy, or disgust at the blood – and shook everything with their audibility in a manner that made Atlas almost drop the very sky. The beast’s partner was not as amused, and in fact was quite the opposite. With a simple exhale, a blast of fire struck Erasmus directly in his chest. Eyes widened with surprised, Erasmus felt searing pain erupt through his entire body as he fell to the ground.
One would think getting a fire blast to the chest would, at the very least be scorching hot, but Erasmus felt cold, chilling pain at first. It was when he hit the ground that he felt a hot surge run through him. But this was not simply a burning pain. It was something else. It was a whirlwind of emotions that overcame Erasmus as he just lay there. He clutched the ground furiously but it wasn’t of pain. Erasmus pondered what he was feeling and realized what it was… rage.
The worst part was that Erasmus wasn’t really sure what he was so angry at, but soon he was so umbrage, he didn’t care. He gritted his teeth and started to hyperventilate. He could feel Mars whispering the exact ways he could mutilate this beast, listing tactic after tactic. Erasmus picked one, picked up his dagger and charged forward, letting out a blood-curdling scream that left no spine in the arena warm. The large canine – who closed its eyes in pride thinking it had won – was shocked its adversary had recovered so quickly, if at all.
Before it could react, Erasmus tackled it, plunging his blade into the left side of its chest. The force of Erasmus’s tackle added to the shock of the beast, had caused it to fall on its back, all four legs in the air. It was already bleeding profusely, but Erasmus didn’t want to stop there…
Erasmus plunged his blade into the beast’s torso, making sure to position his makeshift knife horizontally so he’d get past its ribs, and exhaling an infuriated grunt at each plunge. Being a farmer, Erasmus couldn’t count high and he sure couldn’t count the amount of times he had heard the almost sickening sounds of blood splattering out of the now limp and motionless body. He had to stop himself, but there was one more thing he had to do.
He flipped his knife the other way so that its blade faced downward in his hand and went to work. He picked one of the many orifices he created, slid his knife underneath and proceeded to skin it. When a good portion of fur was his, he cut it off from the beast’s body. He wrapped it around his waist – only covered by a raggedy cloth –and let it hang down to the ground akin to a dress, but more masculine, like a kilt. He then looked directly at the short man, sitting in his throne on a high up balcony, and shouted.
“Is this what you wanted!? You have brought me here thinking me only as a meager man to be devoured for your recreation!? You see what has happened to your beloved pets… and I will do it a thousand times again, if I must do so to see my family again! These will be the last words I speak to you, for I only speak to those I respect, a title you can never claim! Throw as many beasts at me as you will – be they made of steel, flesh, or the ashes of Hercules himself – I WILL SEND THEM BACK IN PIECES!”
And with that, Erasmus pointed his blade to the sky and screamed a scream that made the Gods weep in pride. With every sentence of his speech that was spoken the crowds volume rose by the dozens of decibels. Two guards approached him, confiscated his blade but thankfully let him keep his kilt, and escorted him to his cell. As he walked in, he saw his handiwork – the beasts’ beautiful fur encrusted with blood – and wondered if his name was rightfully given.
Act II:
Erasmus was shocked to discover his next day in the coliseum would be one of leisure – or at least as leisurely as a damp dark coliseum filled with the screams of uncooperative gladiators can be. He was meant to stay in his cell while other gladiators face the arena. He saw them as they walked off: men who were hardened, broken, used to the carnage. Erasmus could easily tell they were criminals; murderers, rapists, people Pluto wouldn’t deign to spit on. They deserve this place, to fight for redemption or die trying, and the gruesome fate it usually brings.
Erasmus believed he didn’t deserve this. He was here for tax evasion, a term that implied he did so out of greed instead of inability. It made him damn the way his city had collected its fees: if taxes could not be paid, the men were taken first, sent to prison or here, if it wasn’t getting enough ‘volunteers’. It was a terribly flawed system that almost insured the entire family’s imprisonment and separation.
Erasmus certainly wasn’t the first to share this fate, but he’d make damn sure he’d be the first to survive. Thinking of why he’d been imprisoned made him think of something he didn’t want to think of until he was free: his family. He thought of his wife, beautiful brown hair in a ponytail that casually dangled to her swaying hips. He always loved her pure-white tunic and how it showed just enough shoulder and cleavage to be pleasing to him, but appropriate for their child.
Then he thought of his 5-year-old daughter, blonde like her father, always wearing a little cream colored tunic, always hugging her father’s leg when he was sharpening knives in the shed. Erasmus cracked a warm smile at these thoughts, glad he had a day to recollect. He thought of the lazy farming days in which his daughter and he would go out to gather crops and tend to their livestock… and how it was all ripped away from him when they came and tore him from his home.
Erasmus’s reminiscence was cut off by the infamous sound of the wheel turning in the center of the colosseum. He stood atop his poorly-made bed and looked out of his window and saw a large rabble of gladiators – 15, or so – creating a semicircle in front of the wheel, eyeing it with prayer. The fact they were implying the colosseum would cut them any slack due to prayer made Erasmus chuckle. Good fate was given to them and they mutilated it with their disgusting crimes. No god would dare help these forsaken misfits. The wheel finally stopped on a purple triangle with a picture of a brain on it.
Confused, Erasmus watched as a shackled humanoid figure walked out of the rusty gate to the left of the wheel. Erasmus studied their adversary: he had the appearance of a bipedal fox, but had golden fur instead of red-orange or brown, donned an odd mustache, and had brown padding all along his body, although whether it was part of its body or not, Erasmus didn’t know. He had a short and skinny stature, a little shorter than the average Roman and about a foot shorter than Erasmus. The most peculiar thing about it was that it carried a metal spoon in each hand.
The guards that escorted the creature were shaking and sweating profusely, making their desire to leave lucid. The moment the two guards unshackled the fox, they sprinted to the gates from whence they came. One of the guards made it safely, but the other had no such fortune. When the second guard was only a few feet away from the gate, the fox’s eyes glowed purple and in a flash and an audible splatter, his head split into pieces, blood and chunks of cranial matter scattered around the area.
Before the guard’s corpse even hit the ground, the fox turned its attention to its actual opponents. With a brief crack, the gladiators turned to see one of their fellow combatants twisted in a way that made Erasmus clutch his back in agonizing pity. While the gladiator’s lower body was planted on the ground, his upper body was bent backwards, so that his head touched the ground.
In a panic, another gladiator chucked his spear at it, aiming towards its chest. The fox extended its hand and stopped the spear in mid-air, shattered it into millions of slivers of wood and steel and launched the shards at the gladiators at a startling speed. Every last shard penetrated the flesh of a gladiator, leaving 5 of them standing.
He used one hand to launch a gladiator into the air, while using the other to bash two of them together, over and over and over again, making each sound of their impact more audible than the last. When the screaming stopped and their bodies went limp, the fox let them going, showing their crunched and bloodied faces. With little to know resemblance to what they once were, it was as if the fox rearranged their faces by crushing them.
The mammal briefly snapped a gladiator’s neck from a distance and telekinetically pinned the final gladiator to the wall, who was wailing and crying in protest. Until the day he died Erasmus recollected this moment as the most gruesome murder he had ever witnessed (that wasn’t caused by him, of course) and wondered why the gods would give something such power.
The fox started by breaking the man’s left arm at the elbow and then his hand at the wrist, causing the man to cry out and howl in excruciating pain. The fox then followed suit on the right arm, causing the poor man’s cries to rise in volume.
Tired of this disturbance, the fox ripped out the man’s tongue and made it so that it block his vocal box, turning screams into muffled grunts and yells. Afterwards, the man had both of his legs simultaneously broken before having his push against the wall loosen enough for him to hit the ground. Gasping and slowing his breath, the man got as much relief as he could in his situation.
But it would not last, as the fox slowly lifted him up for the coup de grace. The man was about 10 feet from the ground, black hair dangling in his face. From his cell, Erasmus could notice the look in his eyes: dead inside, waiting, longing, and wishing for an end. In that moment, Erasmus realized he was very wrong when he thought there were people that deserved to be here.
The end the man wished for slowly came, for the fox began to twist him, but nothing like the first gladiator. The arms, the legs, the neck, all of them, were twisted in haphazard ways, snaps and cracks happening by the second. All throughout the ‘fight’, the crowd made cheers of a satisfied bloodlust. However, ever since the last gladiator was pinned, the crowd fell silent, making every scream, rip, tear, and crack crystal clear. The fox dropped the corpse and stood with arms crossed waiting for something.
“There you have it ladies and gentlemen! Once again, the golden fox is the winne-”
A large voice boomed all across the arena, “No!”
Erasmus, shocked by this voice searched through the crowd, was looking for its owner and noticed that every eye was focused on the fox. Telepathically, he bellowed,
“One still lives. Just wait.”
Only seconds afterwards the true final gladiator fell from the sky he was launched into minutes ago, he landed on the marble railing that separated the stands and the arena, splitting his entire body open.
“Now your bloodlust has been quenched. I do hope you enjoy the nightmares this day shall give you and that you have them for the rest of your miserable, morbid lives.”
The fox paused and casually turned his head to the side and eyed Erasmus from the outside.
“And as for the ‘Champion’ that murdered Daedalus and Karlan…” the fox broke his stoic, never-changing face with a grin, “I look forward to rearranging his organs.”
With that, the fox walked back to his gate, as applause echoed around him. Erasmus went to bed immediately afterwards, wishing greatly that he had some alcohol.
Act III:
Erasmus awoke the next day, stretching his arms and making the corresponding groan that comes with it. He studied the light coming from his cell window: a dark purple, with a small mix of cerulean. Erasmus assumed he had around an hour and a half, before he’d be sent to the arena. “Good.” He murmured to himself. Gave him time to think and did he have a large queue of things to think of. He wished to know who he was fighting next or how long he would be here until his freedom – if such a goal exists; it wasn’t a large queue, but it would still be impossible to complete.
Erasmus looked up noticing the dim light from a lantern, about 20 paces from his cell door. ‘No way…‘ Erasmus thought to himself. It was far too early for the fights to begin. Usually they began an hour past sunrise, when all were awake and the sun beat down on the gods-forsaken combatants. Erasmus held his breath in nervousness, but quickly sighed as it was just a guard returning from his breakfast and sitting in his chair, keeping watch over Erasmus. However, this guard was a different one from the one Erasmus was usually given. The only reason he noticed was because his usual guard glared daggers at him. This one however simply leaned back in a nonchalant laze, wanting to sit and digest the food his job gave him for free. Perhaps…
“Excuse me, sir.”
The guard lifted his head up and looked at his captive questionably raising his eyebrows.
“Are the guards here not permitted to give information to their prisoners?”
“Information? I’m afraid I don’t follow…”
“Why we’re here, and how many beasts we must slay until we join the ranks of free men… are you allowed to answer any of these queries?”
“There is no rule forbidding so, simply the large ego the guards have. Ask your questions and, if they are within reason, I shall answer.”
“Thank you for your kindness. How long will it be until the shackles on my hands are broken?”
“You may have noticed the 17 sections on the wheel in the middle of the Colosseum. Each section represents an element. When the wheel chooses an element, the challenger must fight a paradigm of the element; horrid beasts that personify the cruelest nature of each sphere. For example, the dogs that you fought, their domain was of fire and brimstone, blessed by empowered by Vulcan. With their defeat, you have triumphed over the sphere of fire. You have 16 more spheres to conquer.”
Erasmus grimaced. If he had to fight every other day, that would mean he’d be here for a month.
“However!” said the guard, who read Erasmus’s face, “Some beasts are the masters of 2 domains, meaning you may not be here so long.”
“How have we obtained these beasts? Even the great tales - Hercules, Theseus, Oddyseus – the beasts they’ve slain seem like babes compared to these demons.”
“There is a far off land overgrown with wild and deadly forests where these beasts are commonplace. Our caeser wishes to use these beasts for the good of the Empire, not solely for entertainment. Military, commonplace events, to simple companions… our caeser wishes for them to be part of all aspects of our lives. He says they are ‘vital for us to understand the true meaning of life.’”
“So, the man on the balcony wishes for these beasts to roam the streets?”
The guard frowned, “No. the man who oversees the Colosseum battles is Senator Acuzio. He is filth. He constantly talks down to the people around him and even the emperor himself! And his insatiable bloodlust…” the guard looked down recollecting, “Only Nero himself has surpassed him in inhumanity.”
“One more query… What do you know of the golden fox that fought yesterday?”
“Only that he has never lost in the 278 fights he has taken part of… and only the first 7 fights had one gladiator. All the other fights were in groups, as you saw yesterday. t’Would be a futile cause to count the men he has smote. His greatest mystery is why he stays here. He could easily escape, with little to no resistance, whether we try to stop him or not. Perhaps he feels there’s something to gain here? I know not. However, what I do know is that he cares not for the lives of others.”
“… I see. You have my thanks. Unlike the other guards you are calm and polite. May I have the name of my kind captive?”
“No. My name is unimportant. I am merely a cuticle in the hands your fate. There are people much more important than I. Besides, dawn has long since approached. I hear my fellow guardsmen come to bring you to your fateful battle. Good luck. May Mars caress your shield and guide your blade. ”
…
Erasmus stood in front of the wheel studying the symbols more clearly, and noticed its change: the orange-red flame on the black triangle was covered with a black cloth to make it seem as though it is no longer an option. The man, this time large and muscular, spun the wheel with a bellowing grunt. The wheel spun for a good 2 minutes, until it fell upon a dark purple triangle with a blue drop of water on it.
“WONDERFUL! Ladies and gentlemen, plebians and aristocrats! We have ourselves a special challenge today! It will fight the beast under… special… conditions.” said the announcer, resulting in a heightening volume of the roaring crowd. The gates opened, revealing a somewhat dimwitted-looking sea creature. Its skin seemed akin to rubber, while its form was ovular with two large fins and a small, thin tailfin extending from three different ends.
“I-is this my enemy?” asked a befuddled Erasmus, almost scratching his head with confusion.
The overly- masculine man cackled and then snorted, “No, just the opposite. This guy’s you’re new best friend.”
With a self-inflicted cackle, the man walked towards the… fish? He was given a rope and a harpoon. He fastened the rope around the creature’s muzzle and tossed the harpoon at Erasmus, who flinched, but caught it.
“Get on.” he commanded, and Erasmus complied. The creature’s back was flat and rough enough to get good footing. That combined with the tightened rope assured Erasmus that he wouldn’t fall off. Although, he didn’t see why he need the creature since it was impossibly slow on land. It was able to glide, but it did so slowly, too slow to be useful in battle.
Then Erasmus noticed something in the arena he never noticed before: rusty, metal grates. The reason he noticed the grates was that he was alarmed at what was rapidly escaping them. Erasmus and his new companion rose higher and higher as the water lifted them up. When they were floating 20 feet above the ground, the large metal gate opened. Erasmus and his ‘best friend’ simultaneously gulped as they saw a large, dark-blue shark donning a large, yellow, X-shaped scar. His mouth brandished row upon row of jagged, teeth. The most salient feature of the beast was its size; it towered with a 30 foot height and 50 foot length. Erasmus knew this was going to be just as long a day as it had been the day before yesterday. He heard the whispers of Mars in his ear, how he could win, how he could be victorious. Brandishing his harpoon, Erasmus started the long arduous day that lay by whispering only one word to his only companion:
“Go.”
The seemingly sluggish sea creature zipped towards the shark’s maw. With a deafening roar roared, the beast’s teeth began to glow a bright blue. Erasmus noticed a large amount of frost and ice surrounding the beast’s ivories. Erasmus quickly and firmly jerked his reigns upward to the left, causing his mount to jump in the air to the left and rotate so that Erasmus’s body was parallel to the ground. His companion expertly slid past the biting shark, which had excreted a massive, blizzard-like beam shot out of the its shutting maw.
Erasmus and his friend were now at the side of the beast, where it could do no harm to them. Commanding the sea creature to go as fast as it can, he maneuvered his mount so that he was still facing the opposite direction the beast was while moving to the right so that they were right next to its right side. Erasmus jabbed his harpoon to the right, slashing the shark until his mount reached the end of the shark’s massive torso. Unfortunately, the rough exterior of the beast proved too much for the meager harpoon and with a snap, the harpoon became edgeless, causing Erasmus’s heart to sink as all he had to defend himself was a stick and a fast sea creature that, for all he knew, wasn’t offensive at all.
However, he had made a colossal gash in the beast’s side, one that was at least 20 feet in length. The monster clamored and writhed in agonizing pain as a rush of dark red blood ooze from its wound, giving Erasmus at least a minute to recollect his thoughts.
“Do you have any way to help slay this beast?” Erasmus said to his companion, to which it grinned and responded with a “Tine!”
His eyes turned a black-purple as he suddenly stopped to turn to its opponent, still jerking back in forth with malice. The creature then shot a sinister beam of black-purple smoke at the colossus, causing it to writhe even more, but in a much more reckless manner. In a confused daze, the great marine animal began to crash into walls, sending marble debris sinking into the waters’ depths. That’s when an idea hit Erasmus’s mind.
“Tine!” He said to his companion, “Can you take us to the bottom of these waters, so we can retrieve a piece of rubble?”
Nodding, while responding with a “Mantine!” he darted underwater and grabbed one of the pieces of marble with its light and feathery tail. Rising above the surface in a manner of seconds, Erasmus noticed that the beast was no longer confused and was charging at them, curling back what would be its lips and showing its blood-stained teeth. Perfect.
Erasmus whispered his plan to Tine, who immediately did as it was instructed. It raced towards the beast with a solemn look on its face, gaining speed by the second. When they were only a couple dozen feet away, their plan sprang into action. Allowing its master to go higher, Tine jumped in the air while Erasmus jumped when the jump reached the highest part of its arc. As soon as its master was no longer riding it, Tine dive-bombed into the water swimming underneath the shark and into safety. While Erasmus was in midair, he pulled his right hand, which was holding the chunk of marble, and lunged it forward when he believed he was in range of the beast’s mouth.
The marble hit the giant square in the teeth, as Erasmus hoped, and knocked one of them right out of the now bleeding red gums of the beast’s hideous jaw. In one motion, Erasmus used his left hand to grab the top edge of its mouth, while dropping the chunk of marble and replacing it with the tooth using his right. As Erasmus predicted, the shark tossed its head back as it moaned with pain, causing Erasmus to land square on the center of its X-shaped scar.
Lifting the tooth in the air, Erasmus plunged it into the center of the X, thrusting it as far into its flesh as his hands could allow. Then, grabbing the handle of the harpoon he had tied to his kilt, Erasmus jabbed it downward, causing the tooth even further penetrate the demon’s skull. Twisting it by using its edges, jabbing it further inward, Erasmus used every method possible to be sure the thing was dead. When the constant movement was stilled and the exploding shrieks were silenced, Erasmus stopped his probe in to the beast’s skull. He slowed his breath and rolled onto his back resting for a moment as he heard the sounds of the drainage diminishing the amount of water in the arena.
However, after only a few seconds, the shark touched the ground with a small rumble, causing Erasmus’s body to roll off the side for he was too fatigued to grab hold of anything. Luckily, before he hit the ground, his trusty steed Tine had caught him. Erasmus smiled and gave the creature a small scratch on the back of its head before passing out.
Erasmus awoke in the bed of his cell at around midnight. He lifted his head up, as that’s all he could do. His body was sore all over, bruised and cut from the rough skin of his now late foe. Even the simple act of raising his head was a painful one, so Erasmus lowered his head and rested it against his bed, trying to recollect what had happened.
“You’re awake. Good. For a moment I thought you were among the dead.”
Resting the right side of his face on his bed so he can face the cell door he saw the kind guard sitting at his chair grinning at Erasmus.
“Tell me, what happened? My memory is still hazy, somewhat… I passed out after I fell from the colossus’s body and then...?”
“The giant is no more. On the plus side, he was a paradigm of two spheres, leaving 14 for your conquering. You were carried back into your cell and your partner was returned to his holding area.”
Partner… that’s right, he had the aid of a sea creature during his fight. Until then, he thought all of the beasts as mere mindless and bloodthirsty animals, but Tine was different. He grinned the whole time and his barks were those of content, despite the situation before them. When he was asked to do something, he gladly did so. Why? Was it because if it hadn’t he would die just like Erasmus? That couldn’t be it. Tine would’ve silently obeyed the orders and almost absolutely not follow through on his last order. Then there’s the fact it caught Erasmus when he fell from the beast’s corpse.
“You are confused by the beast’s behavior, are you not?” Erasmus looked up, breaking from his thoughts as the guard continued, “Perhaps the emperor’s will to have the beasts as part of our society is not so haphazard.”
Erasmus nodded and looked up to his jailor, “What is the fate of my companion? Freedom? Further imprisonment?” He paused as he imagined the gentle creature going through the third option, “Slaughter?”
“He will be kept with the other monsters in our holding area. They have no chance for freedom, only the humans get such a chance and even that only exists for the entertainment of the crowd. But do not fret. The monsters get much better treatment than the gladiators.”
“Still, that isn’t fair at all! He did his duty and deserves his freedom.”
“I know…” the guard looked down, wishing there was something he could do to help both the humans and the monsters roam free, as they deserved. He pondered what to do, as Erasmus did the same.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll try to smuggle your friend to a safe place.”
“You don’t have to go through such a risk for-”
The guard held up his hand and shook his head as means to silence Erasmus, “It’s no bother. I would gladly put my life on the line for someone to be freed of eternal imprisonment. The only problem is I have no idea as of where to place him.”
“My home. You can take it - him – to my home. Tell my family the circumstances and they’ll understand. My house is in the outskirts of the city. Go around 2 miles west of the west gate and you’ll arrive there. Tell them Erasmus sent you and that the creature you bear is the savior of his life. They’ll take him under their wing. I’m certain.”
The guard nodded and walked off to contemplate, and later execute, his plan.
“Wait!” the guard stopped and turned to face the prisoner that called him, “You must tell me your name! You say you’re unimportant in my life. But don’t you think it is I who decides such things?”
The guard grinned and said simply said the last words he’d say to Erasmus, “Don’t you think it is I who decides who I tell my name to?”
After which he walked off into the hallway, fading from sight as his torchlight grew dimmer and dimmer. Erasmus still laid there, body still covered with agonizing cuts and bruises adorning his battle-weary body. He sighed at his captive’s stubborn nature and decided to sleep. The day after tomorrow he would have to fight yet another beast. At most, he would have to kill 13 more beasts until freedom was his. No. He can’t wait that long. He had to do something.