Tucson was hot in the summer; that wasn’t anything new, but today the heat coming off the pavement felt particularly nasty to Victor. He was walking home from summer school - fuck Mr. Briggs and his fucking bullshit plagiarism. Victor spat and shook his head. No, he couldn’t blame Briggs. He’d paid Tony for that essay; it wasn’t Brigg’s fault that Tony had got it off the internet. “Fucking pendejo,” Victor laughed. That asshole charged him twenty-five bucks and then just cut and pasted it off some website. “Why am I thinking about this shit again? Fuck.” He’d almost lost his chance to graduate and, along with it, his scholarship to Pima Community College. Yeah, big fucking deal, community college, right? But it was a start, and if he did well on the wrestling team there and kept his grades up, he’d maybe get to transfer to the U of A. Truthfully, he was fucking lucky Briggs had agreed to let him make up the missing credit through summer school. Well, Briggs, the Dean, and Ms. Marshal, the counselor. Damn, but she’d gone to bat for Victor.

“Look out, you fucking dipshit!” The shout accompanied a blaring horn and squealing tires. Victor stumbled back and realized he’d walked onto a crosswalk at a red light.

“Fuck you!” he shouted reflexively. The car was already speeding down Dodge Street, and Victor kicked some rocks waiting for the light to change. He almost dropped and did some pushups, but it was just too hot. He wiped some sweat off his brow, shoving it back into his short black hair. The hot wind blowing through the wet hair felt good for a couple of seconds, then it was just hot again. The light changed, and he jogged over Dodge back onto the sidewalk, following Grant Road west. His backpack bounced against his shoulder blades, sweat soaking the fabric of his shirt. The soles of his old Adidas tennies were worn so thin that the hot sidewalk made the rubber super malleable and almost uncomfortably warm. Impulsively, he picked up the pace, pushing himself into a jog, then a run, then a sprint as he came to Chrysler and took a left, his grandparent’s neighborhood opening up before him.

“C’mon, just like coach says, ‘always finish hard,’” Victor hissed. He sprinted past the Alvarez house, cutting the corner of their overgrown yard, into his grandparent’s front yard, diving between the two huge old Oleander bushes, hopped the little barrel cactus, and then slid onto the shaded front porch. He knew his Abuela would have some juice made, and after he downed a huge glass, he’d take a shower and go see Marcy. She’d been funny lately, kinda distant. He was starting to wonder if she was gonna ditch him when she went to ASU. He opened the screen door and called, “Abuela!” He stepped into the living room, and then everything went black.

At first, Victor thought he’d passed out, but he was still conscious, still thinking, while he drifted in darkness. Was he drifting? He supposed he didn’t know. He tried to wave his arms around, but he couldn't be sure they even moved. “What the fuck, man?” he tried to say, but no sound came out. He could think it, though, and he did. Just what the fuck was going on? Did he have a stroke? Sunstroke? No, man, he’d overheated before, and he knew what it felt like. He’d been fine, no headache, nothing. Some time passed while he contemplated his fate; he reflected on Marcy for a while, realizing he really didn’t think it would be such a bad thing for them to take a break. She had a lot going on, and he needed to focus on getting his shit together. He thought about his grandma and how he needed to make her proud, which made him think about his Abuelo and how he’d never really done anything to make him proud before he died. Well, that wasn’t entirely true: his grandpa saw him take second at state last year. Still, he’d wanted to do more. He’d always wanted to pay them back for taking him in when his parents died. His mom’s parents hadn’t given him the time of day.

A pinprick of light erupted in the vast expanse of darkness, and it jerked him out of his reverie. He watched as the pinprick expanded to a thumbnail, then a baseball, then a basketball, and then it rapidly widened to fill his vision, and Victor found himself standing in a big wooden room. Like everything was wood - the floor, the walls, the ceiling, everything. Four guys were standing in front of him wearing baggy brown robes with hoods, and they were all holding glowing metal rods. That’s not what made Victor say, “What the fuck?” though. No, it was the strangers’ blue skin and fucking fluorescent hair.

“Tshlanet!” one of the blue-skinned guys said.

***Integrating non-system entity***

***Human species recognized and integrated***

The messages flashed in front of Victor’s eyes, and he swiped a hand over his face, thinking he had on some VR goggles or something, but there was nothing there. “What the fuck?” he repeated.

“Silence!” the blue-skinned guy on the left said.

“Well?” A deep voice sounded from Victor’s left, and he looked to see a man leaning back against the wooden wall in the shadow of a support beam.

“I can sense a high Energy affinity in this one, but he’s of pitiful rank and racial advancement - I’d say he’s base zero. He must be from a dead world.” One of the blue guys said. This one stood out with his bright green hair and eyes.

“Bah, another. Sell him to the pits.”

“Hey, who are you, assholes? How’d you get me out of my Abuela’s house?” A yellow-haired blue guy stepped forward and swiftly tapped his metal rod on Victor’s forearm, and Victor felt cold wash over him. It was a deep, bitter cold that spread through his skin, into his bones, and down to the pit of his stomach. He felt like the life was being pulled out of him, but he couldn’t move; he didn’t even think he could breathe. The yellow-haired blue guy waved his rod again and uttered something, and then Victor felt himself lift up and float along, like how you might imagine Dracula would glide over the misty ground.

All the color in the world seemed drained, and Victor could mostly only see shades of gray as he floated along behind the blue man. He drifted through some doors, down a wooded forest path, and onto a wide dirt road. Victor panicked at first when he realized he wasn’t breathing, but then he noticed he didn't feel any burning in his chest, didn’t feel any shadows creeping in on his vision, and he figured something the blue guy had done was keeping his body in a sort of state of suspended animation. He vowed to take that fucker down if he got the chance, though. This was a bullshit way to treat someone.

They followed the road for a while, and eventually, they started passing other people going in different directions. People in wagons and on weird mounts - things that looked like giant lizard birds, one guy rode a big fucking elk, and a huge hay wagon was pulled along by a lizard the size of an elephant. They came to a tall stone-block wall with a gate in it, and the blue guy leading Victor was waved through, though one of the guards frowned and spat as he walked by. Victor floated along behind the asshole through busy streets filled with lots of different kinds of people. So many weird-looking people that Victor started to think he must be tripping on acid or something. There were tall, beautiful women with glistening, magical-looking wings. He saw an eagle-headed guy arguing with a huge dude that looked like an otter. And there were lots and lots of blue and red-skinned people. The red guys were a bit bigger and meaner looking than the blue guys, and some of them had wings - enormous red dragon-style wings.

They wended their way into back alleys, past very unsavory looking people, and deeper into the city still, where piled garbage was ubiquitous, and pools of questionable fluids had to be hopped by his blue-skinned escort. After more turns than Victor could keep track of, they finally entered a large wooden building with a giant wagon wheel hung over the barn-style doors. The blue man led Victor past men and women who sparred with fists and weapons. They were punching and wrestling all over the hay and sawdust-covered floors. They went to the back wall, through a small door, and into an office where an obese red-skinned man with black hair and black eyes sat at a small desk. He looked up, a wide grin splitting his thick lips and revealing long, gleaming white fangs. “What did you bring me today?”

“We got an item from a colleague at Fainhallow, he thought it might lead to an interesting summon, but we just got this base zero runt.” The blue guy waved a hand at Victor. “He has a high affinity, though. If you train him, he might be worth something someday.”

“Base zero, you say? He won’t make it through one Pit Night. I can’t pay much for fodder. I hope the summon wasn’t too costly.”

“Master ap’Gravin will take it out of his son’s hide; don’t you worry about that. Anyway, I’m late for dinner. What’ll you give us for him?”

“Oh, here’s five. More than that, and I’ll be losing money on his upkeep before Pit Night.” He pushed a little brown pouch toward the blue guy.

“Eh, it’s all the same to me; I didn’t put any money into his summon. I’m going to release him now; he’s your problem going forward. See you next time.” The blue asshole turned and walked past Victor, waving a hand as he went by. Victor felt warm tingles spread through his body, starting with his skin and progressing like a wave of ecstasy toward his stomach.

“Ah, Jesus, fucking pendejo!” Victor leaned forward and put his hands on his knees, gathering himself.

“Alright, boy. What’s your name?” The enormous red devil asked, standing up and shoving his chair back.

“Victor. Where the fuck am I?”

“You’re in my pit fighting hall, in a city called Persi Gables. You’re not from this world, just in case you were confused about that. Oh, and you’re my property now. Don’t make me exert dominance over you because I’d like you to be in one piece for Pit Night.”

“What? Assert dominance? The fuck are you talking about, man?”

“Did the language integration fail with you? Are you confused? Listen to my words, boy: you belong to me. You are no longer on your home planet. You will do as I say, or I will beat the piss out of you. Is the meaning of my words coming through?”

“Yes, fuck, man. How the….”

“Quiet now. I’m going to take you back to the pens, and one of the other fighters can play question and answer with you. I don’t have time for that nonsense. Follow me, and if you run, you’ll just follow me with a broken leg the next time.” Victor followed him. He didn’t like the idea of having to try to follow someone around with a broken leg, and the guy was big enough to do it; he had to weigh more than three hundred pounds. For all his size, the man walked briskly, passing over the sparring floor, through a side door, and into a long hallway lined with cages. Some of the cages were big with several people in them, and some were small and only held one occupant.

“Sir, what’s your name?” Victor asked, wondering if he could get anything out of the big man.

“You can call me Boss or Sir.” He chuckled to himself as he fumbled with a big keyring, opening the door to a medium-sized cage with two other occupants. “I’ll put you in here, Victor, because these are my two nicest fighters, and they might give you some pointers before Pit Night. You’re welcome.” He pulled the metal door open and gestured for Victor to enter. Not seeing any other option, Victor complied, stepping into the cage with a goat-man and a red-skinned woman with bright green-yellow eyes. “Vullu and Yrella, this is Victor. Victor’s new around here; where are you from, Victor?”

“Um, Tucson?”

“Hah, okay, this is Victor of Tucson. Show him how things work around here.” He slammed the metal door shut, and the two occupants went back to the dice game they’d been playing before Victor’s arrival. He sat down on the straw floor and looked out through the bars of his cage, watching the strange prisoners of the other cells pacing around or sleeping or muttering threats at each other. What the fuck had he gotten into?