Devil. That had to be Devil Dinosaur.

I was in the cages with Gresh, Demi, Winggirl, and German jerk. It was the middle of the night now. I’d slept for a good long while after filling my belly with whatever that meat-filled bread was and a lot of water that was kinda gross. I had woken up early, lying on the cold hard dirt. My right arm was feeling much better, oddly. The wonders of rest. I was still hurting, but my headache was gone.

I sat up against the cage bars and looked around. Demi the rock person was standing in the center of the room. I kept still other than my head. I’d been doing this consistently. Since we had entered the city, I’d compiled every bit of information I could get, creating a mental picture of the world around us.

My escape plan was simple. Anyone with even the slightest bit of knowledge on tactics knows the best plans are simple. It’s kind of like in a fight. You can build a crazy contraption that magically breaks someone's nose, or punch someone in the face as hard as possible. You get style points for one, but the other is not only easy but also has a good record for working.

The plan was first, survive the next day and figure out my weapons. In this case, the weapons I had available were simple. My brain, my allies, and time. I’d taken a good look at the locks on these cages. They were primitive things, made of crude iron. Any lockpicker worth a damn could open them. I was worth a damn. I could open them as long as I had the right tools.

Then there were the guards. Two guards, rotating shifts. I’d have to take them out of the proceedings. Once they were out of the way, I’d release the prisoners. With enough people, we could charge our way out. But that wasn’t the real goal. The real goal was to get to BRIDGE. Just one quinjet and a small squad with catom armor and weapons would help me take these guys apart, not to mention any Avenger’s helping.

But that was the plan. Unlock cage, take out guards, escape, get help. Simple, and subject to change. It had to be flexible, to be able to shift as new information and obstacles appeared.

As I was thinking this, three people entered the room. Both guards turned to face her.

A human woman, maybe a little younger than me, came up with two Anklyo-Lords. She looked caucasian, with a tan. She surprised me by speaking the language of the Saur-Lords to the guards, who moved to let her pass. She surprised me more when she walked up to my cage. She eyed everyone in the cage for a moment before facing me.

She was tall and muscular, with long pale brown hair and tanned skin. She had some scars around her wrists, and her eyes were brown. She met my eyes.

“Lord Stend wants you,” she said in English. She sounded British.

“I’m currently dating someone,” I said back, smirking at her. “And no offense to Stend, but he’s got stiff competition. Plus, she’ll kill him.”

I wondered what Jen was doing now. She should have been on a mission by now…

“Lord Stend has offered to heal your wounds,” the woman said in a monotone voice. “If you will answer his questions.”

“Awwww, he’s inviting me out on a date?” I rose to my feet, ignoring the pain that followed any kind of movement. I was still covered in bruises. “That’s adorable. Well, let's go. I’ll let the big lug down easy.”

The woman frowned at me. I grinned. Huh, I might be spending too much time with Tony and Nat if I was being this sarcastic.

“Well, I’m down,” I took a hold of the cage bars and grinned at her. “So. Take me to your leader.”

------

I sat as calmly as I could while the cuts on my body were cleaned by the woman. She’d brought me to a small room higher up the building we were in. I don’t think she or the two Saur-Lords with us noticed me carefully tracking my way through the building, noting the area around us through the windows, marking directions.

The room she’d brought me too was clean, well lit by torches, and had a large table in the center and some drawers made of wood. I’d been guided to sit on the table, after which the woman got to work. She cleaned out the two cuts I’d gotten from the raptors. The one on my hip was especially deep, and it stung as she used water to wipe it out before pouring something that smelled a lot like alcohol into the wound, pinprick stings following every motion. Once clean, she packed in some goopy green substance into the wound before wrapping it in a bandage. Then she removed the makeshift wraps around my broken arm. It looked red and slightly swollen, but not bad. She rewrapped it with expert precision, then put my arm into a leather sling.

I was starting to look pretty primitive when you took the leather sling in along with the rest of my clothes. My jeans and shirt were replaced by a leather vest and loincloth.

Yeah. A loincloth. I knew the Savage Land would get me into one sooner or later… Thank god I’d worked out for months so I looked more like Tarzan and less like… I don’t know, some fat caveman.

As soon as the woman was done, she stepped back from me. “You are healing well… Lord Stend. He is ready.”

“Good,” Stend stepped into the room. He’d been waiting for his moment. The Stego-Lord walked up to me. My sword was still bouncing at his hip. He came to a stop in front of me and smirked. “Leave. Now.”

“Yes, my lord,” the woman bowed and turned to leave.

“Hey,” I said. She stopped to look at me. “What’s your name?”

She stared at me. I think she was thinking about answering.

Right up until Stend turned and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her in a smooth motion. He grinned up at her as he squeezed on her throat.

“Oy!” I stepped forward, shocked. One of the guards snapped forward to bring his spear close to my chest, stopping me in my tracks.

“Her name,” Stend said smugly. “Is slave. Isn’t it?”

The girl was choking, clutching desperately at Stend. She nodded quickly, tears in her eyes.

“Then, slave. Follow my last order. Leave,” Stend spun around and tossed her out the door. She let out a pained gasp as she hit the floor. She didn’t say a word though. She just rose up as fast as possible and rushed away.

Stend turned towards me with a chuckle. “Now. You. I have questions.”

“What, you want me to teach you my advanced wedgie technique?” I snarled. “Because I’m pretty sure Biff Tannen and Draco Malfoy would be proud of that little stunt.”

Pathetic. That’s what it was. This roided up dino was throwing his weight around at people who couldn’t fight back. At that woman. At me. He was a bully. And the worst part of that was that I didn’t have a way to fight back.

I kept myself as calm as I could while staring at him, keeping a neutral expression on my face. Don’t show your feelings. Sarcasm and calm were my allies in this fight of wills.

“Ohhhh?” Stend smiled viciously. “No love for a fellow human?”

“I never fall in love on the first date,” I shrugged. “What do you want, Stend?”

“Answers, my dear Outsider. Answers,” he walked out. The guard poked at me, forcing me to follow. Stend strode through the halls with the calm demeanor of king in his castle. “Our civilization is young. Only twenty years old. I remember the old days. When we were but savages, running through the jungles like the others. But then, our Lord came. He taught us about forging steel, building the great structures around us. He taught us many things.”

Stend’s hands clenched into fists. “And yet… he never spoke of where such things came from. The source of his knowledge. And as we captured slaves, two groups stood out to me. The New Britannians and the Neu-Deutschlanders. Descendents of outsiders like you. Men who were at war landed on our shores and made a home here while continuing their war. They told stories to their descendents. And I listened to those stories. Stories of cities and civilizations far beyond ours. Of wars between vast armies, with medicine, culture, and people far advanced from our own. Twenty years of progress. And we were still primitive buffoons.”

We entered an office. I was beginning to get a sense for who Stend was, so I wasn't surprised to see that his office was ceiling to floor with books. Among them was a map, resting on a nearby wall. A map of the Earth, next to one of Antarctica. Except that the map of Earth was very rough, printed onto thick parchment, while the one of Antarctica was full of green and blue. Didn’t need to be a genius to know the map was depicting the Savage Land. It was far cleaner and more detailed than the other one was.

“I have some theories,” Stend strode around his desk to sit at a roughly hewn chair that was built with a long divide in the center so his stegosaur fins and tail would pop out the back. “Our Lord has been good to us. Or so I believed. But recently, I have begun to question just how good he truly is.”

Stend pulled out a journal. “He taught us the secrets of medicine… but then I enslaved a Britannian who taught me about antibiotics. He taught us about iron. A Deutschlander had a book describing steel. He taught us the rudimentary tactics of war, strategies we used to dominate the jungle. Then I discovered this,” he tossed the journal to me. I awkwardly caught it out of the air with one hand and looked at the cover.

“Art of War… pretty old too,” I mused to myself. “Looks handwritten. The cover's some sort of leather.”

“I’d surmise it was copied from the original,” Stend rested his elbows on his desk. “Our Lord is either not the wise and intelligent man he claims to be… or he is holding back. Refusing to give us more knowledge in an attempt to keep us under control,” Stend scowled. “I fought my way out of the arena to stop being a slave. I swore ever after to be a master. To have no one hold me back.”

He took out something and placed it on the table. I eyed it for a good long moment. A gun. My gun. Melted, but recognizable. I’d carried it with me mostly because you never know when a big chunk of metal will be useful in the jungle.

“Now, I find this. I find you,” Stend glared at the gun spitefully. “This weapon. Your armor. Your sword. They’re not just advanced. They are beyond anything I could have imagined. We aren’t just behind in technology. We’re behind in so much more, aren’t we? I fought my entire life to find freedom. But I’ve discovered my ignorance has shackled me all along.”

“...I’d sympathize more with you, if you weren’t enslaving me,” I said as bitingly as I could. “I don’t know man, it’s just tough to relate to a guy who does that kind of thing. Oh, and you promised to send me, a dude with a broken fucking arm, into an arena to fight to the death. Really feeling for Spartacus about now.”

Stend smirked. “How about if I propose a trade?” A trade? I didn’t say anything. Just waited. He seemed to take that as a reason to continue. “I want information. I have often made sure slaves who have value to me are kept from the arena. Men and women of all species who can aid me. Such as our weapons,” he nodded towards the guards.

Both of them stepped forward, holding out their weapons. After working with Tony and Fitz, as well as memories from my time as Jury Rigg, I recognized damascus steel on sight. Their swords had the swirling pattern of dark and light that I remembered. Nowadays, it was outclassed by many modern methods of forging. But around here, it might as well have been a lightsaber. Well, not quite as insane, but still stronger than the iron I’d seen everywhere by a wide margin.

“...A Saur-Lord slave, a young woman about to enter the pits, told me she had been trained in forging,” Stend said softly. “I took a chance. And she made me blades the like of which I have never seen. She works for me now.”

Stend rose to his feet. “I reward intelligence. I reward information and loyalty. And I can keep you from the arena. Keep you from dying. Just tell me about the world beyond,” Stend looked calm. But I noted the way he swallowed. “Tell me how it is grown. Is Rome standing? The Soviet Union? How far has science come? Tell me. And for the rest of your life, I will make sure you never go hungry. You can have women and men to sate your lusts upon, alcohol, sport. I cannot promise you everything. But you will have much in return for information.”

“...And if I just leave? Just turn my caramel brown ass around and head back home?”

Stend smirked. “Not possible. No one can escape the Savage Land. Not even me. You are stuck in our world. But if you work with me? Then you’ll never be uncomfortable.”

Yeah. Show’s how much you know.

Fact was, BRIDGE had managed to crack the entry/exit to the Savage Land. We hadn’t figured out how to do the whole communication thing yet, but we could at least do that.

But what Stend was offering was of strategic value, if not in the way he was thinking. His offer was time. Time to wait things out, survive, plan and escape. Maybe even time for the Omnitrix to repair itself if my increasing ability to understand Gresh was any proof. I could play along for a bit, pretend to work with the guy.

Gresh… the people that I’d been captured with.

“How about my little Breakfast Club down in the cage?” I asked cautiously. “You gonna help them out too?”

Stend quirked his head. “The other slaves? They’re worthless to me.”

“That’s not true,” I crossed one arm over the other. “You want what I know? I’d like my new best friends to be safe.”

Stend scowled. “That is not reasonable. I need fighters. The arena requires them. And these new slaves are useless as anything other than dying for the crowd.”

“Well yippee for them. I’m useful enough for all of them,” I leaned forward to look Stend in the eyes. “You want to know about smartphones, titanium and the invention of the dab as the world’s greatest dance move? That’s my deal. My fellow prisoners don’t go into your death games, and I will introduce you to anime. You seem like an Isekai kind of guy.”

Stend couldn’t have looked more pissed if he’d tried. “I will not put away everything I’ve worked for just to- No. You will work with me, alone. Or you will die.”

Shit. That wasn’t going to work.

“No deal.”

“You are being unreasonable,” Stend snarled.

“Good,” I glared at him. “I’m an Avenger. A hero. Unreasonable is what we’re about. We’re a greedy bunch. You offer us our lives, and we take the lives of everyone around us. Ask for surrender, we steal a victory.”

Stend snapped to his feet and raised a fist to punch me. I got ready to roll with the blow. It never came. Instead, he glared at me. “I’m giving you a chance to be logical. To realize that sacrificing yourself for men and women you’ve never met before is foolish. This is not some soft and cushy world. This is the Savage Land. We kill, survive and grow. Martyrdom is useless. Simply another log on an already blazing flame.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong. Doing this, sacrificing a good chance at survival for a few people, some of whom didn’t even like me, was dumb. Nat would have beaten me red and blue for it. Tony would have made a sarcastic comment while giving me a grin like he was half-proud, half-pissed. Steve would have stood right beside me. And if we’re being honest? I think they would have done the same thing I did.

“I told you. I’m an Avenger. We don’t adapt to cruelty,” I smiled. “We break it. My deal is, don’t put anyone into the arena that doesn’t want to go in, and I will tell you everything about the world you want to know. Otherwise, I’ll go into the arena and take my chances.”

Stend glared at me. Then he waved at the guards, who came up and grabbed me by each shoulder. “I should have realized how crazy you were when I first saw you. Fighting a suicidal battle against an army of velociraptors.”

“Yeah well,” I said quickly while I was dragged away. “You can’t blame the raptors. They didn’t know fighting me is always a suicidal battle.”

Hopefully, that sounded tough. Because I knew as I was dragged away that I’d done a very dumb thing.

------

We were all quiet later as we were led out of our cages. It was the middle of the day now, long after Stend and I had spoken, we were guided into a room full of weapons and armor. After a random Saur-Lord growled, everyone walked up and stared choosing something. I would have suggested going to for the escape then, but they locked the gates and raised some crude crossbows across the room, the guards watching all of us. With little choice, I got ready.

Weapons. There were all kinds, all of them were made of the same iron. Guess we didn’t get to play around with the damascus steel Stend had shown off. I took a longsword for myself, placing it off to the side. Gresh took a pair of daggers, Demi a big ax. The German guy took a short spear. The Winggirl took nothing. She sat in the corner and watched us all.

The others, the people with wings, other reptiles, and humans, crowded to each other, trying their best to show affection despite the guards glaring. One of the guards stepped forward to stop some of the winged people from going over to Winggirl, only for T-Rex guard to stop them. They came around her, touching her around the ripped out section her wing had once been, crying for her and singing softly.

I watched them for a while as I grabbed a piece of armor made of some sort of lacquered material. Then I looked around the room. I had a longsword. But I needed more weapons. The weapon that kept people alive for centuries.

Cooperation.

“Anybody here speak English?” I called out to the room around us.

Everyone looked over at me. After a moment, a few of the humans hesitantly raised their hands. Three of them. “You guys also speak the language the Saur-Lords are using?” One of them dropped their hands. “I need a translator. You mind?” One of the hands dropped like it was on fire. The last person, a short and skinny young man that looked like he was in his late teens, looked terrified. But he clenched his fist and nodded at me shakily.

“Good,” I walked up with my longsword and stood next to him. “Repeat after me. And if anyone has questions, translate, kay?”

The kid nodded nervously. He had blond hair covered in dirt, was wearing brown rags, and his blue eyes were shaky. He was a twitchy kid. But he was meeting my eyes.

“Okay. We’re about to go into that arena and fight something to the death,” the kid hesitated before he began to speak in that hissing and growling language that seemed to be the common language here. The other prisoners stared at me, then at him. “So we need a plan. I want to get in there and survive. More than that, I want all of you to survive too.”

German guy snapped to his feet and hissed. Some of the Saur-Lord prisoners joined him, a couple of humans shouting in German.

The kid looked scared as he turned to me. “They’re asking why they s-should listen to you. They um… also said something bloody mean.”

“Ah, they just have to get to know me first,” I grinned at him.

I was faking so much confidence. I had no idea if any of these guys would listen to me or not. But they had to. We had to coalesce, to work together as a team. I tried to mimic Steve, to stand the way Captain America did, to project my voice. I didn’t know if I was the best warrior here or anything, but no one else has stepped up to try and bring us together. Not to be arrogant but… none of these guys were likely to have seen what I had in terms of being outclassed in a fight. Hopefully.

God, please don’t let this be a mistake.

“Are any of you warriors?” I asked. The kid translated. Some of the group grumbled, looking at each other. “Then you know that those of our little Suicide Squad that aren’t fighters are going to die.”

German guy stilled at that.

“We have elderly, injured and kids in this little group,” I looked around at everyone. No time to be kind or subtle. Just lay it all on the table, Mahmoud. “People who will be first on the chopping block. But if we work together? We can have each other's backs, support each other. Keep each other safe.”

I took a step forward, then hopped up onto a table. I was trying to keep moving, to keep all eyes on me. “Some of you hate each other. Maybe it’s a generational grudge. Maybe you’ve been at war with each other,” I met eyes with German guy. “But is that going to matter when we’re all going to be trying to survive?”

A Saur-Lord spoke then. He was hissing at first. He stopped. When he spoke again, it was in English. Surprised the hell out of me, until I noticed the Omnitrix had begun to glow just a bit brighter.

“-know you won’t just hide behind us?” the Allosaurus Saur-Lord said. “You’ve got a broken arm. What good are you?”

“He asked if you were going to fight with the rest of us, even with a broken arm?” the kid wasn’t just translating. He was asking the same question.

“Of course I’m fighting,” I scoffed. Everyone in the room looked startled. I guess the Omnitrix translator was kicking in strong. “I’m frontline, broken arm or not. Nobody dies before I do if I can help it.”

Got some skeptical looks for that. Couldn’t blame them. I was terrified at the idea of dying. I liked my life now. But I couldn’t let these people die.

“Look, I get it. I’m not one of you. You have no idea of knowing if you can trust me,” I waved around. “But that’s your advantage. I’m the only here who doesn’t have a grudge. I don’t give a shit who you are or where you come from. All I know is, we’re being sent in to die, and I’ve been trained to be able to handle it. We group up, grab the right weapons, support each other, and this becomes a fight we can win, instead of one where we die. And hey,” I shrugged. “We’re all going together. What’ve we got to lose by working together?”

There was a moment of silence. I swung my longsword onto my shoulder and looked around. “So how about it folks? Wanna go to war together?”

Nobody cheered the way they did whenever Steve did one of his speeches. But I guess things were just hopeless enough that people were willing to listen to the loudest voice in the room.

“All right then,” I looked over at Gresh. “Gresh buddy. How good are you with those daggers?”

He stared at me for a long moment before blinking, like he’d only noticed right then that I was speaking to him. He spoke, and for the first time I heard Gresh speak English. “I was taught by my mother. I can hiss, gragh. Heeeet, caaaa-can fight as well.”

The Omnitrix cut out part way through, but he was nodding towards some of the members of his race, who straightened.

“Great,” I looked around, marking things out. The people I’d been carted in with had been joined by more people, so we had about… fuck me, 26 people? Seemed like a lot for a gladiator fight. But it would do. “Okay. I have a plan.”

I laid things out while the Saur-Lord guards watched blankly. Guess they didn’t mind us strategizing. What did they care? We were going to die anyway.

------

Gresh helped me with my armor. I must have made an impression on him because my former bully seemed more amiable all of a sudden.

The armor I was wearing now was ill-fitting. Guess Stend hadn’t taken my measurements. Still, it was the best one I could wear. The armor was a mixture of Roman and Medieval-style like a gladiator and knight had come together to design it. And it was all crap. Just mismatching iron and leather. But it's better than nothing.

The chest piece was an iron vest, dented and beaten, with the chest showing the image of a screaming ape. My shoulders and right forearm had leather of different colors and designs to protect them. I’d chosen to use an iron piece of armor to protect my left arm. With the right one out of commission, it was best to protect the one I could fight with. My left leg had the only piece of armor I could find that could fit either one of my legs. Thicc thighs apparently don’t always save lives.

So I was looking pretty asymmetrical as we were all lined up and forced to head toward the gates. I did, of course, take time to really support my broken arm, reinforcing it with extra padding made from pieces of leather and a dagger to dull to cut anything. If anything was going to get me killed, I didn’t want it to be my right arm breaking again somehow.

Gresh and I stood side by side near the front. I had asked someone to take the first steps out of the door after making sure they were confident in their abilities. Still, I felt guilty for it. So as we walked, I spoke to them.

“Hey. You want any help?”

A feminine voice as smooth as silk spoke back to me. “No need. You were right to place me in front. I can take any blows the moment the door opens, allowing you and Gresh to survey the area and strike with me. I appreciate your concern,” the Omnitrix must have glitched again because the next words from them sounded like a boulder cracking.

“Got it,” I looked around. The 26 people around me looked scared, nervous, angry, calm… I felt almost happy, personally. I was tired of waiting for a fight. I was beginning to breathe a bit easier. Sure, I was still scared and tense. But the wait had been the worst part.

We came to a set of large doors. They were made of cheap wood, with the sunlight outside coming in shafts of light. The Saur-Lord guards locked metal gates behind us, leaving us to stand in the dark hallway. Dust floated in the air, the scent of sweat and piss noticeable. Along with the copper tones of blood that had soaked this place for years.

I looked at the people around me.

“When those doors open!” I shouted to everyone around me. German guy raised a hammer. “Then all hell breaks loose. But that’s okay,” the Allosaurus Saur-Lord who had questioned me earlier snarled, his long slashing teeth clenched. “Because we have each other's backs. Don’t falter. Don’t give up,” I clenched my sword high. “They wanted to sacrifice us. So we make them pay. Understand!”

“MAKE THEM PAY!” Gresh shouted.

“Say it!”

“Make them pay!” The German guy yelled.

“Make them pay!”

It was panicky. Desperate. But as everyone around me said it, I began to shout. “Don’t stop! Let them hear you! Make them pay!”

“GRAAAGH!” The Saur-Lords shouted. The winged men and woman sang out. My fellow humans roared. The lizard men barked out. And in front of me, the sound of a mountain shattering erupted.

“Make them pay! Make them pay!”

The doors swept open. Outside, a T-Rex Saur-Lord, laughing in enough armor to cover a tank, rushed forward swinging a sword. He’d been planning on striking while we were bottlenecked in the tunnel. Dick move.

And his mistake.

Demi stepped forward to meet him. The T-Rex was startled when his sword bounced off of the stone person’s skin, right before Demi’s fist smashed into his chest, the sounds of ribs breaking barely discernible.

I rushed around her body and stabbed out. I knew this would suck. Killing people was something I’d never get used to. But in the choice between this and death, I was able to push myself through the feel of my sword stabbing through scales to enter the T-Rex Saur-Lord’s chest.

The cheering of the arena around us was immense. I ignored it. We had work to do.

In front of us, a group of men and women of varying types faced us. All Saur-Lords. And all way better equipped than we were. Not to mention, all uninjured, young and more muscular than Ahnold on his best day. I counted them up, ignoring Gresh as he leaped forward with a shrill screech to bring the T-Rex I’d stabbed to the ground, blood spraying while the savage lizard man stabbed the dying dinosaur to death.

Twenty people, well, nineteen if you didn’t count the guy Gresh was stabbing, spread out across the battlefield. Fifteen of them were Saur-Lords. Combined with the guy I’d stabbed, that was sixteen Saur-Lords of varying subspecies, most of them being the bigger types. Bit biased if you asked me. The remaining four were human, all just a little smaller than me in muscle and height.

As for the battlefield, while it did have the sand that I expected and was shaped like the great coliseum in Rome, there was something I hadn’t expected. Physical obstacles. There was a chariot that had been tipped over and half destroyed in front of us, some crappy weapons strewn all about, and boulders. Two big ones resting randomly in the field, one the size of an RV, the other in the shape of a pillar.

Those opened up options.

“Aerians, take the platform!” I barked, pointing out the biggest rock.

The winged people, who were the aforementioned Aerians, flew upward. There was a large cage surrounding the top of the arena, but they had enough room to fly up to the platform and land. Winggirl watched them before running to join me, Gresh and Demi. German guy roared while running with his own group.

In some attempt to get us all out alive, I’d made the most basic of strategies. The fact was, I’d need months of work to get us all working with any amount of synergy. So instead, I just had to mash us all into groups based on who could fight and who needed help. Sadly, there weren’t a lot of fighters in our group.

Counting Winggirl, there were six Aerians. I advised them to grab long range weapons like spears so they could provide air support. Even though two were an elderly couple and one was a kid in the middle of his teens, they were the best I had to work with. Luckily the two left over were a former hunter and a warrior.

They were only six out of our group though. 26 People. And I was pretty sure a lot of us would die. I tried my best to mitigate it, to group everyone up and make up strategies for them to follow. But of our group, there were just too many injured, elderly and inexperienced.

Whatever. Focus on the battle. Move to help when you can, but focus on the fight.

In front of me was a group of three, one red-headed human woman carrying a trident and net, a Ptero Saur-Lord with green skin holding a short sword, and the biggest one, a Triceratops man holding a giant battle ax in one hand and a shield in the other.

“Gresh, new targets!” I barked out while running forward.

He snarled, rather than answer me, flipping off the T-Rex and moving forward. Demi, slower than us, went in as well, Winggirl hovering in the background.

The plan was surprise at the start. Don’t fall into the enemy pattern. Instead, rush in and take the flow of battle for ourselves.

I headed for the Pterosaur, moving as fast as I could. The Pterosaur, who had been temporarily horrified at the death of the T-Rex, adjusted quickly, raising his blade to meet me. We met in the center and began to clash, my longsword and his shortsword clacking together.

He was faster and stronger than me, but I had reach and technique. My broken arm meant I couldn’t take the advantage as well as I wanted, so I had to work twice as hard.

He stabbed at my stomach, I dodged and tried to take his head off with a short cutting slice. He ducked under it and stepped back. I noted the way the guy was built. Despite being a pterosaur hybrid, he didn’t have wings. Instead, it seemed like he was designed for speed, with lean muscles and quick reactions. Best for me to face him.

I parried a sword slice at my arm, our blades clanging on contact. Gresh sped past me to head for the human woman, who raised the net in her hands high. The triceratops ran for Winggirl, Demi moving to intercept. Then I was forced to focus on my opponent.

I raised my sword high and brought it down as fast as I could. My opponent raised his blade to block it. Too bad it was a feint. I pulled my arms in during my swing, bringing my sword to my hip, then thrusting forward while twisting my hips out.

“Raagh!”

My sword sliced through flesh again, entering through the Pterosaur’s chest. He gasped in pain, stabbing at me again. I tried to back away, but he was too close. His sword entered my right shoulder.

“Fuck!” I hissed, pulling back. He swiped at me as I pulled away, the short sword slicing into my cheek. He fell to his knees as blood poured from the new hole in his chest. I stared at him hard, sword raised, then slashed outward to cut into his throat. I ignored the horror deep inside me at the fact I’d killed again to spin on my heel and rush for Gresh.

Gresh had gotten wrapped up in the human woman’s net and was trying to cut himself out. As he sliced his way out using his daggers, he snarled and shouted, looking enraged as his blades slid across the ropes.

I’d tried to warn him. Retiarius, fighters who wore light armor and carried tridents and nets to battle, were pretty famous when it came to Roman gladiators. They were among the worst kinds of fighters to take on, trapping you in their nets before striking with a trident while you were trapped. A simple and dangerous tactic. I heard they had a rough reputation, but I gave less than a shit about that.

What mattered was that this woman was trying to stab Gresh with the trident.

I slashed out at her while she was trying to bring the three points down on his skull. She was forced to dodge but still got him in the thigh. Gresh shouted out in pain as a single spike sliced through his scales, then pulled back out with barbed hooks when the woman pulled back to face me. I tried to stab her in the throat, but she twirled her trident to send my thrust out to her right. She reached for her side, where a dagger was hanging, taking it up to stab at me. Cursing, I stepped back. The woman snarled at me in frustration. Somewhere behind me, I could hear the sound of metal bouncing on stone as Demi and the Triceratops battled. Gresh was slicing himself out of the net.

And the sound of someone dying filled the air from where I’d last seen the other fighters.

I raised my sword and took a deep breath. The stab wound I’d gained on my shoulder was sore, but adrenaline let me ignore it a bit. The retiarius woman in front of me was unharmed and pissed. Whatever happened next, it wasn’t going to end clean. I rushed forward and got ready to put more blood on my hands. That or die.