Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Weapons Hall

‘Two skills in one day! We never were so lucky before!’ Esen happily celebrated, floating around in Mares’ mind space.

‘It almost makes me scared if this is some kind of premonition for what is to come.’ Mares said in a jokingly tone.

He was lying on a bed, that actually looked more like a rectangular piece of stone, but it was somewhat soft making it comfortable. His right hand was up in the air and he watched closely as his sword floated above it, few centimeters separated from touching him.

‘A physical rejection ability, huh?’

That was Elaso’s actual technique. Everything he touched could be send away, it was a type of impulsion, as if he could reject what got close to him or not.

‘That will be useful in the future, but you can’t use it next to the others.’ Esen warned.

‘Yeah, they probably already know about this technique. The only one I can use without raising suspicion is the reinforcement technique.’ Mares was sighing inside, having power but not being able to use it was too frustrating. Unfortunately, there was no way around it. It was not an exaggeration to say that his copying ability was something that could shake the whole universe to its core, and thus, this type of scale wasn’t anywhere to what he could deal with now.

Not only that, if he ever wanted to have a chance to run away, the best choice was to be able to grow while keeping as much of his power a secret as possible, so once he tried, they would severely underestimate him.

‘We should sleep, I don’t even remember the last time we got a chance to relax.’

Even if she currently had no physical, Esen could still get mentally tired.

‘Not like I really need to, but I do miss the feeling a little. Good night little bunny.’

This time he didn’t hear her reply. Mares closed his eyes, and as if he could automatically control it, he was already sleeping.

[…]

He blinked his silver shining eyes once he woke up. Normally, someone would still feel sleepy or tired in the first minutes after waking up. Mares actually forgot the last time he felt that. Sadly, he no longer would be able to experience that feeling and such thing had no meaning to him. Blinking his eyes once more he got up.

‘No, nightmares, huh. Thanks Es.’ There was no reply, but he knew it was her doing that he wasn’t plagued during sleep.

He didn’t change his clothes, there was nothing to change, he still only had a pair of pants. Once the walls of his box went down, all eyes turned to him.

“Yo, Mares, you have to come with us.” Not giving him anytime to refuse, Naal holds Mares’ arm and guided him out. They went into another hallways that Mares didn’t recognize and soon got into another big room. This one however had just a platform and a pool of water.

“Here is where we take baths. There is no heating, the water is always cold and our soap is the most basic of the basic. We try to split our hours to take baths, but only Madera can usually come here alone, the rest always has to come in groups to leave time for the others. But since you beat us yesterday, we are letting you get away with this little prize.”

Naal explained with a thumbs up, before turning and going away. Before that he pushed a button, making something that looked like a small rock fall into the water. A closer inspection would show that it was the soup he was talking about.

“Can’t waste their courtesy.” Taking his pants and underwear out, he got on the water. Fortunately, there was no one else, otherwise they would be surprised, or scared, by a rather ridiculously large part of Mares that usually doesn’t see the sun’s light.

It wasn’t a big pool and barely covered his waist. The cold was completely ignored by him, not because it wasn’t actually cold, anyone else would be shivering before getting used to it. It wasn’t certain, however, if the long-haired was ignoring the cold water or not feeling it at all.

Having the feeling of his body cleaning up after everything was a great feeling and Mares made use of it as best as he could. He felt relaxed, though he didn’t allow himself to get too relaxed.

After that he got out, put his pants and went back.

‘Embarrassed?’ Of course, he would still joke with Esen, though he knew she wasn’t.

‘Hihihi, please, I already saw everything I had to see. The size, is… maybe I would have trouble before, but when we reconstruct my body, I will… either way, I know you better than anyone. I will have dozens of ways to make you submit. I will make you admit defeat and choose all our children names!’ Her bold words, but blushing face could make someone mistaken her for embarrassed, when instead the white-haired was simply excited, even without a physical body.

‘That’s what we will see.’ If the others saw Mares smile now, they wouldn’t believe how wretched it seemed. Maybe in this whole universe, currently only Esen could make him act like this.

Once he got back to the room Glarto throwed something at him, which he rapidly took. Looking at it the long haired noticed it was a black cloak. One that didn’t look like it was on the best conditions, but that was still usable.

“Put it. We don’t have other clothes for you, but it’s still better than going around with only pants.” Glarto said.

“Thanks.” Mares put the cloak around him, it covered everything below his neck and made him look more like some type of grim reaper rather than a live being. “Are we going somewhere?”

Glarto nodded and Elaso approached them. Behind him were Naal and some few other gladiators from the room.

“Can I see your sword?” Elaso asked and Mares simply gave it to him.

Elaso pushed the hilt, taking the blade out of its scabbard and took a good look at it. There were some marks covering the blade, it didn’t look beaten but it clearly wasn’t in best condition, nor it was a well-made sword to begin with.

“Not bad, but absolutely not good. With a sword like this, you will probably only be able to use it for two three fights in the arena before it breaks.” Elaso said, a frown in his face. The coliseum didn’t give them weapons when they got into the elimination battle, meaning this sword came from the people that send Mares. So, he couldn’t understand why they gave him such a lacking luster sword.

Mares smiled sadly. He could imagine what Elaso was thinking.

“The sword was just randomly given to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was taken out of a random storage.”

Elaso nodded and gave the weapon back to him, already sheathed again.

“Glarto will take you and the rest to go to the weapons hall. You don’t have any credit now but we are going to lend you some. Just pick any weapon you think is good for you. That’s the best way to survive.”

Mares slightly widened his eyes with those words. He was surprised by Elaso’s actions, after all they just got to know each other yesterday, and even if he was still new, considering this was the last ranking place, the credits they have might not be much. Even so, for someone that they barely meet, they were still helping him immensely.

“Thanks.” He knew there was not much else to say.

“No need to waste time boy, let’s go.”

They went down the same hallway Mares used to get here yesterday and in few seconds were outside. Everything around them looked the same, after all they had no way of knowing if it was day or night.

The part where they were was empty, but as they walked down the road more and more gladiators started appearing. What made Mares curious was that he could sense some eyes on him, some hostile, some expectant.

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‘Something is wrong.’ Esen said in his head, for which he nodded.

After walking just, a bit more they finally arrived at their destination. It was a big tower, one that they couldn’t see the top of, because it disappeared thanks to the dark fog. There was only one entrance and there was no door. Above it there was a sign signalizing that place as the weapon’s hall. There were a few robotic guards around it and other gladiators going in and out.

“Let’s go, we might not have much, but it will be able to help you.”

Naal said giving a tap on Mares back.

The group entered and the first thing Mares noticed was the number of weapons. There weapons he was familiarized with, like swords, sabers, spears, axes, and weapons he had no idea how to use, like something that for the silver eyed looked like a half-opened umbrella, another one was like two rings, with one inside the other, and so on and so on. Mares could only imagine how these weird looking weapons could be used. Though, if he really wanted to know, he could simply ask Esen.

Some looked at the group, a lot of eyes containing disdain, but mostly were filled with indifference. Even those with disdain didn’t seem to particularly care about them, so the group also ignored them.

“What will you want kid?” Glarto asked.

Mares looked around carefully. As Elaso said his current sword isn’t much reliable, he was actually pretty sure they just gave it to him to mess with him, trying to put more pressure on him if the weapon broke in the middle of a battle.

Not being too picky he looked a little and decided on a simple sword that was on good condition.

‘Mars, you should choose a second weapon; with your constitution you can easily master it.’ Esen seemed have some expectation as she said that.

‘Good idea Es.’

With the remainder he went straight for a spear.

‘Why this one? I was expecting you would choose something that is still close to a sword.’ The white-haired asked curiously.

‘I always thought spears looked cool.’ He answered with honesty and simplicity.

In the space of his mind Esen forced a smile, with a big drop of sweat running down her forehead.

“These two are good enough for me.”

Glarto nodded his head and the rest of the group also took some weapons for them. From what Mares heard their previous weapons had broken in the last battle so they came with him to take some new ones.

Mares watched with interest as Glarto choose something that he could put on his tail, it looked like a big needle. It probably extended the range of his attacks, but the long haired couldn’t see much use for it.

With everyone done they went to exchange their points for the weapons.

The one in charge of it was an alien with gray scales covering his body, big eyes that seemed to take a good part of his skull and snake like nostrils.

Their weapons were put on a counter and the scaled alien took a look at it, then at the group, stopping for a few seconds when he noticed Mares. The light on his eyes made the silvered eye notice something was wrong.

“3.000.”

Mares instantly frowned, while the others hand stronger reactions.

“What the fuck? This barely gets to the two, and you want to charge one whole extra?”

Glarto almost jumped on the counter, his dry voice added with his rage scratched the ears of everyone present.

“Don’t like it, don’t buy it! Whining like a bitch won’t make a difference.” The scaled one said with a snort.

“Repeat that!” Naal punched the counter and seemed ready to fight.

Mares already had his hand on the tilt of his sword, his gaze locked upon on the scaled alien, who felt a chill. In the depth of Mares silver shining eyes there was a coldness that no one noticed, at least in the moment.

“Stand back!”

A voice even more ruthless than Glarto’s, though artificial, reached everyone’s ear. Before they could react, they were all pushed back a few meters from the counter. Everyone, except for Mares.

The arriver was one of the robotic guards that was patrolling near the weapon’s hall. The pressure it emanated with its Astral Energy, that probably came from some source like a precious mineral, was enough to make almost all of the gladiators on the first floor to jump or be throw to the end of the weapon’s hall.Though Mares it simply made his cloak wave.

If it was a live being, the robot would show surprise, but the ones in the coliseum didn’t have an AI developed enough to do so.

Mares looked at the robot and then looked at Glarto.

“How much we have?” Mares asked, not minding everything around him.

Glarto took longer to react than he normally would because of his surprise, before answering.

“5.157…” He said with clenched fists.

Mares nodded to him and then, with countless eyes following him, went to the counter. The robotic guard did nothing, it looked like that as long no one raised trouble it wouldn’t take action.

Mares put the badge on the counter and took the weapons, his meaning was clear. Glarto, Naal and the others had bad expressions but they knew that it was best than getting out empty handed.

The scaled one didn’t stand on courtesy, he fastly got the badges and made the transference of points. With a smile that wasn’t a smile he gave the badge back to Mares.

“I will remember this.” The silver eyed said without looking at the seller. He was already out with the others when the scaled alien reacted, felting like his whole body was frozen. He had a horrible premonition, but he couldn’t understand why.