As much as Fletch was loath to face a fellow human, he knew that in this type of contest he had no choice. If he truly had been black marked, it was a fight to the death, the combatants going until only one was left. The survivor then ran the very real risk of getting executed anyway, punishment for running afoul of the game masters and their complex rules.
So, as soon as the wolf was down, he was looking for his final opponent. Before he could do anything more than lift his head, however, he felt powerful arms looping under his to cinch in a full Nelson hold. A surge of pain avalanched through him as the cro-mag used his power to both put pressure on Fletch's neck and to hoist him into the air.
"Sorry, Fletch," the powerful human variant said into his ear as Fletch desperately tried to wiggle out of the deadly hold. "But you know how these play."
Fighting to stay conscious, the psy variant didn't reply. He didn't have to. He did indeed know how these types of contests play out. That didn't mean he was about to roll over and give up, though.
Unfortunately the cro-mag had overwhelming strength on him. And, with the pressure on his neck and spine preventing him from repriming his neutral network, there wasn't much he could do to fight back.
"Just relax, little buddy, and I'll make it quick," the cro-mag promised, sounding like crushing out Fletch's life was taking almost no effort at all.
For some reason that sent a surge of anger stabbing through him. Just roll over and give up? Never!
Strangely the anger was enough to send a rush through his network, adrenaline and rage allowing him to somehow push past the pressure that was constricting the pathways. As soon as he felt his energies gather, he was using telekinesis to reinforce his neck and upper spine, bio-electricity dancing over his upper body.
Immediately the cro-mag grunted as the resistance to his pressure multiplied several fold. Then he was throwing everything he had into bending Fletch in half.
It was Fletch's turn to grunt as his vision blurred and began to go red with the dramatic increase in pressure despite everything he was doing to hold the cro-mag's power at bay. As he poured the fading embers of his energy into his telekinetic reinforcements, Fletch began to desperately cast about with his mind for a way out. If he could somehow twist out of the hold and get behind his opponent, he could use a telekinetic garrote to choke the cro-mag out.
But he had to twist out first. With hands big enough to engulf his entire head, the cro-mag had locked the hold in tight. It was impossible to squirm enough to free himself. However, if he didn't try, he was going to die, painfully.
Twist, turn, pull, push; no matter what he did, Fletch couldn't get free. In fact, the hold only got tighter, and tighter. He had to get free, no matter what! He ... had ... to ... get free ...
Fletch wasn't quite sure what happened next. Only that the overwhelming urge to get free filled him completely with a burning fire he had never felt before. Then, with a strange, stomach-churning twist, he was on the cro-mag's back, exactly how he envisioned just seconds ago. There, before he could do much more than marvel at his abrupt change in location, there was a flare of telekinetic energy and he was pulling a telekinetic garrote through the cro-mag's neck.
In one instant, he was being crushed to death. In the next, he was watching in astonishment as the cro-mag's head, now separated from his body, slowly fell from its perch to tumble to the ground. Then he was throwing himself free of the cro-mag's headless body as it followed its former top to the ground, the truncated neck fitfully spurting blood from the severed carotids.
For a long moment Fletch stood there and stared at the cro-mag's cooling corpse, his thoughts churning. The fact that he was the first human to kill another in over 20 years was foremost, followed by wondering how he had managed to free himself from the cro-mag's hold. Surprisingly next in line to be considered was what the pridelord had said about freedom.
He had just begun to ponder the cat's words when the door he had used to enter the arena, opened once again. Turning to look at the open exit, Fletch frowned in confusion. If this truly was a black mark match, then he should've been executed at it's conclusion.
Yet, here was the door he had used to enter the pit, opened once more to apparently let him leave instead, as if he had been in a normal match instead. Fletch looked down at the fallen cro-mag once more. 'Rest easy, brother,' he silently directed. 'Your watch is now ended.' Then he was quickly striding towards the open door, expecting a Peacekeeper shot in the back with each step he took.
It was with a strange mixture of elation and disappointment that Fletch felt as he stepped through the door and into the sloped corridor beyond. Was that a black mark match or not? If not, why had he faced the cro-mag from the enclave?
"Judging by your expression, I'd say you're confused by what just happened," a quiet voice said from the shadows.
Looking in that direction, Fletch found a slender, cloaked figure standing there. As his eyes fell onto it, the figure lifted it's hands up to pull back its voluminous hood. The variant's eyes immediately narrowed at what was revealed. With her oversized eyes, large braincase, small snout, and delicate build, she didn't look like a creature he would've expected to find outside of an armored power suit.
"Game master," he named the graceful reptilian creature in a hard, flat voice. "Come to execute me by your own hand?"
Turning their large, green-pupiled eyes to him, the creature cocked it's head to the side.
"Strange that you call me 'game master' yet neither fear nor respect me," the reptilian said in a soft, feminine voice.
"I just survived a black mark deathmatch, game master," Fletch retorted. "Since disrespecting a game master earns me a black mark, and you cannot be marked twice, there are no consequences inherent to my attitude. And since the game masters foster fear by threatening death and I've assumed that I'm already dead from being in that match, I have no fear."
The female reptilian's eyes widened as Fletch spoke until she was staring at him with open astonishment.
"Well, that was unexpectedly bold," she admitted before pushing the surprise off her fine boned features. "However I cannot fault your logic." She folded her long-fingered hands primly in front of her. "As much as I don't blame you for expecting me to perform some game master function, not all therapsids are game masters."
Fletch frowned in confusion. Not all therapsids are game masters? What did that even mean?? Of course they were!
"But I'm getting ahead of myself," the stranger said. "Perhaps an introduction is in order. My name is Chhon. I was once the research assistance for a famed therapsid scientist named Trahd."
Fletch's expression immediately darkened. Chhon he had never heard of. Trahd, however, was a different story. Every variant had heard of the crazed scientist that had discovered the multiverse and the original DNA stock from which the variants were derived. If this Chhon was in any way involved in their unwilling servitude to the game masters, she deserved to die ... horribly.
Chhon must've been watching for his reaction to her introduction because, as soon as his expression began to tighten, she began to explain.
"Ah, I see by the look on your face, you've heard of my former mentor. However, I can assure you that the infamous 'professor of doom' has benefitted little from the game masters' efforts to turn his greatest accomplishment into a horrifying blood sport. In fact, he has told me from his prison cell, that his single most pressing regret was discovering the multiverse and the dominant Earth-born races in each."
Fletch's eyes narrowed in confusion. A prison cell? No, every story had him living in the lap of luxury, his reward for creating mass entertainment for the therapsid government.
"If Trahd truly languishes in a cell, what was his crime?" the human wanted to know. "He failed to pay his taxes on time?"
"Endangering the federation," Chhon answered, anger coloring her words. It was the first real emotion Fletch had seen from any game master. "His arrest was a travesty, a mockery of a tradition of scientific achievement spanning 10,000 years. It only happened because of certain militant elements that took control over the central government. Once those elements controlled the halls of power, they promptly declared all projects, scientific or otherwise that questioned the nature of therapsid dominance over our universe a threat to our very existence." Her face hardened even further.
"A threat they felt needed to be immediately neutralized. So they arrested and imprisoned Trahd, and thousands like him."
"How could discovering the multiverse threaten the federation?" Fletch asked, his confusion growing.
"I think Professor Trahd said it best," Chhon said thoughtfully, her anger fading somewhat. "The discovery of the multiverse demonstrated that therapsid dominance extended to only our version of Reality. In every other universe, our kind failed to rise to dominance due to a combination of extinction events and competition from early protosaurians." She made a gesture with a hand. "The government felt that, if left unchecked, the species that Trahd brought from the other universes would out-compete us at every level, leading to our extinction."
"That's ridiculous," Fletch said with a snort. "Even if the populations of the faction species suddenly exploded, we'd never posses the numbers or the capability of displacing the therapsids as the dominant species in their own universe."
"I agree. The central government's stand on the issue is illogical at best, moronically paranoid at worst. Until Trahd found the multiverse, nobody questioned our evolutionary dominance of our reality. A handful of apex species from other realities shouldn't have challenged that. After all, bringing you all here didn't somehow change us."
A sound from further down the tunnel interrupted any further discussion.
"As you surmised, you have indeed been black marked for your involvement in the fracas at your enclave," the therapsid revealed even as she took a bemused Fletch by the arm and directed him across the arena floor towards the door the cro-mag had used to enter the arena.
"As per their practice, you were scheduled to be terminated at the end of the match." She paused to touch something on her wrist and the door in front of them swung open. "However, Trahd thinks you are the key to freeing the faction species from the game masters' enslavement. So I was directed to leave a corpse that was modified to look and scan like you."
"Why?" Fletch asked as he followed Chhon through the door.
"To buy us time enough to prepare you," she said, going down the sloped corridor without slowing.
"For what?"
"Why, to lead a Rebellion against the game masters and their Peacekeepers, of course!"