Hauzer

Something hit me from the side. A person. I was tackled to the ground and held there by someone, while a blade was held to my throat. I stilled at the feel of the cold steel, looking around frantically.

Guards. All wearing the same black armor, pouring into the arena. They separated the fighters, bringing the battle to a halt. Gresh, who had been stabbing one person that he had tackled to the rock pillar, snarled when he was forced to stop, but rose to his feet. Demi dropped the corpse of the Triceratops, who's head had been beaten in. One of the Aerian's rose to his feet, clutching his abdomen.

"Well done, warriors!" the guard pinning me down lifted me to my feet roughly, allowing me to look up at Stend. "You have earned your right to survive!" he grinned down at me. "Yes! This was a magnificent battle, truly worthy entertainment! Thank you all! As a reward, you may all witness the next bout!"

Stend made sure his eyes met mine. "Till the next time, warriors!"

The guards began shoving and pushing us inside as the crowd cheered. I counted up the survivors as we walked. Well, hobbled.

There had been twenty-seven people on my side. Twenty on the other. Out of forty-seven people… only twenty-four had survived. Twenty-three people, dead, just like that. We'd lost ten people, and the enemy had lost thirteen. Numbers had given us an advantage.

But it still felt like we lost. Or at least, neither side had won.

Asymmetrical warfare is like that. Win-Loss-Draw. It's all relative. For us, survival was the only way to win. No. In fact, no longer being enslaved, free to leave the stadium, go back home, have our captors imprisoned. That was total victory for me. For Stend and the Saur-Lords, having us fight on their behalf willingly, even eagerly, giving them a good show and staying useful. That was total victory for them.

In this case, we had to take what we could. We had survived, despite losing a lot of people, getting injured, and still being enslaved to possibly do this crap again. And they were entertained, despite losing slaves and having one of the last surviving ones more than ready to kick their asses the second I had a chance. Still, that was the nature of things.

Asymmetrical warfare. Where nobody wins, just loses less than the other guy.

I kept that to myself.

We were shoved into a room together. Both groups of people. There was a tense moment as we shared a look. The warriors whose friends I'd killed glared at us. The Raptor I'd stabbed in the shoulder glared at me, growling. I smiled a bit. Gresh barked out something that made the guards tense. German guy, who had survived the fight, looked exhausted but yelled something as well, to which one of the humans on the other team yelled back.

Then more slaves poured in. Carrying two things more sacred at that moment than any temple. Food and medicine.

We calmed down, waiting patiently as we were treated. With some chairs nearby and a big metal grating that showed the arena outside, we had a nice view of the next fight.

It took some time for them to clear the bodies out. I watched, trying to hold back from flinching, as the bodies of my allies and those I had murdered were pulled out. Once done, the cleaners left the arena as fast as possible, with terrified looks on their faces.

I watched through the grate as a young man started to treat me. I was roughed up. I had two large cuts on my face, a big hole in my shoulder, and bruised everywhere. Plus, all the combat hadn't done anything good for my previous wounds anyways. He put paste into the cuts and tried his best to work with me. I wasn't a good patient. I was watching the arena.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Stend stood out in the stands on a pedestal, his hands wide. "What a show! A simple exhibition match turned into a true test between warriors on equal ground!"

Equal ground my ass. I'd failed those who ended up lying on the ground of that arena, but things hadn't been anywhere near 'equal'.

"But now, we have our main event!" Stend pointed at one of the bigger doors on the side of the arena. "Three great beasts of our great land, brought to you to battle to the death against the Red Devil!"

Slowly, one of the gates opened. Behind me, one of the guys who had pushed us along spoke to another guard.

"Red? The damned thing is orange."

Wait, what the fuck? I spun to look at the speaker, startled.

"Stend wanted to call it red," the other Saur-Lord said with a shrug. "Whatever. Still a damned monster."

Orange? Wait, so who-

The slowly rising gate exploded outward, the being behind it tearing it out of the wall with horrific ease. It leaped into the arena and glared around with glowing yellow eyes. I stared at it, my jaw dropping in shock.

Horns. That was the first thing that popped into my head. It had long curling horns on either side of its head and one on the back of its- no, his neck, with a purple membrane stretching down to it's back.

"I…" my right eye twitched, all my aches and pains fading to the back of my mind in favor of the beast in front of me.

His body was stacked with muscles bunching up under dark orange scales that came on the edge of being red. A pair of small wings extended from the base of his tail.

"That's…" I clenched my left fist, trying to understand what was happening.

His lower legs were armored in some kind of bird-like carapace, the long slashing nails a deep purple.

"That's not Devil Dinosaur…" I said weakly.

Hauzer. Hauzer from Red Earth, his mouth wrapped in a giant muzzle that kept his lips together. He couldn't roar. But his eyes flickered with power as he raised his head to look around. The earth rumbled under his steps, as though rather than his weight causing it, the Earth Dragon was trying to control his own element. He jumped into the air, reaching the height of the iron cage surrounding the arena, and landed on the center of the large rock platform, looking around angrily.

So. My escape plan hadn't changed. But it had gotten a lot more interesting to say the least.

Stend looked down at me. I tried to school my features, but I don't know if he caught the shock and awe on my face or not.

Before I could say or do anything, Stend waved a hand. One of the other gates rose up, three shadows prowling inside before the began to exit. "Our current champion of beasts will battle three Allosaurs! Ferocious beasts, strong and hungry, left without food for a full week! Let us see how he fares against them, shall we!"

Compared to Hauzer's explosive entrance, the three Allosaurs entered with almost a grace to them. They had a soft coating across their bodies that gave them a striping of brown patterns through their almost inky-black feathers. They looked pissed off as they prowled into the arena. And, unlike Hauzer, their mouths had no muzzles, allowing them to roar as they stepped forward.

Then they saw Hauzer, freezing. Their nostrils twitched. Hauzer glared down at them from his perch.

One week. That's how long Stend said they'd been without food. That could drive anyone mad. And you could see it in their eyes. Madness and hunger.

They roared. Hauzer crouched. I was standing at the grate with my left hand wrapped around the bars so tight my knuckles had gone white, my eyes straining to take in every detail.

The Allosaurs charged Hauzer with blistering speed, covering the ground between them and sending sand flying about in arcs. Hauzer waited until the lead one got close to the rock. Then he jumped up into the air.

No animal that big should ever be able to jump like that. But Hauzer did it, soaring over the three allosaurs like a more traditional dragon, heading for the one in the back. As he did so, the horn on top of his head moved, coming down to point over his head like a spear. He hit the allosaur in back like Mjolnir, the earth shaking once more under his weight. The allosaur screamed. Hauzer wrapped his talons around the dinosaurs neck and stabbed downward, once, twice, three times, blood spraying into the air as the horn on his head split flesh.

The other two allosaurs spun to face him, one rushing him from behind. With incredible agility, Hauzer released his first victim and turned to face the dinosaur trying to kill him. When the allosaur lashed out with it's teeth to try and bite Hauzer in the throat. Hauzer stepped back just before his throat could be bitten and turned in place, his tail snapping like a whip as he twirled at high speed on one foot. Orange tail hit black feathers with a mean slapping sound, teeth flying out of the allosaurus' mouth as they shattered. The allosaur staggered back while Hauzer came back around to face him. The Earth Dragon raised one leg and kicked out, the long purple talons on his feet cutting through the air. The allosaur tried to retreat, but got hit by the deadly kick to it's chest. Hauzer spun around the other way, tail whipping once more to hit the allosaurus and send it flying back into the rock platform, where it lay unmoving.

The last allosaur stared at Hauzer. Hauzer stared back. For a moment, I could see what the smaller dinosaur was thinking about, the wish to run. But he was trapped. And from the look of excitement on Stend's face high above, he wasn't getting an out.

Left with no option, the allosaurus roared and charged Hauzer. The dragon couldn't roar in response, but he charged forward as well, the horn on the top of his head lowering down once more.

Both dinosaurs met. I stumbled, almost thrown to the ground by the force of their impact, keeping my eyes on the fight.

Hauzer, as the dinosaur and dragon wrestled, got under the other behemoth and lifted the allosaurus off the ground. He tossed him into the wall of the arena, the wall shaking with the impact. Then he hit him with the force of a train, his horns slicing into the dinosaur with ease before the rest of his body followed, the wall behind the allosaurus cratering behind it as it was killed.

The crowd roared. The allosaurus died. And Hauzer, removing his horns from the dead dinosaur, looked around. Red Devil. With blood spilled across his face, dripping down his horns, he looked it. Then he saw someone. Another Saur-Lord, this one standing next to Stend. A big yellow one that towered beside his peers, a ceratopsian like a Triceratops. Hauzer's eyes blazed. He raised his head and tensed his muscles. You didn't have to be a genius to tell that he was ready to kill, and his target was big yellow.

"Guards!" Stend roared, panic in his voice for the first time.

Hauzer leaped for the yellow guy. He hit the cage hard, falling back to the ground. Still enraged, he twisted to his feet like some mix of T-Rex and gymnast, just back to grab the cage. I could hear a low enraged hissing sound as he clung to the side of the iron cage, bashing his head into it. The cage squealed, and the spectators began to run as Hauzer tried to rip his way through the cage.

"GUARDS!" Stend shouted.

The yellow guy didn't move. He stood there, wrapped in his toga, hands clenched behind his back and cocked his head to the side, staring at Hauzer.

Hauzer would have been roaring if it hadn't been for the muzzle around his jaws. As I watched, the muzzle began to rip, one of the straps coming undone. But Hauzer was too pissed to just wait for the muzzle to come apart. Instead, he tried to force himself through the cage. Metal squealed as his talons bent at them, his arms pulling the bars apart.

"SHOOT HIM!" Stend shouted at the Saur-Lord guards that surrounded arena ran up to the cage, metal bending and cracking as Hauzer tried to force himself through. "SHOOOOT HIM!"

The guards raised something to their mouths. Blowpipes. That explained what had knocked me out before, when I had been in the jungle. As I continued to watch, they fired, little darts piercing Hauzer's skin while others fell to the ground or missed.

Hauzer snarled, finally able to make the sound. With a sound like nails on a chalkboard, the cage bent enough for his head to pass through. He snarled again, pressing through. But he was slowing down. I don't know what was in those darts, but apparently it was fast-acting and thirty or so were starting to affect the big guy. His eyes were drifting closed. The top horn on his head was sinking back to lay flat on his head. He reached his head out for the yellow guy.

The yellow guy, once Hauzer had come close enough, stepped forward. Then, he cocked his fist back and unleashed a haymaker into Hauzer. The punch was worthy of any of my superhuman friends or forms, launching Hauzer back. He fell back into the arena and hit the ground with earth-shaking force for the last time. The guards kept shooting him even as he tried to struggle to his feet. The big dinosaur gave the yellow Saur-Lord a hate-filled glare. His muzzle loosened, beginning to come undone. I saw something between his jaws, beginning to flicker to life.

Then his eyes closed, and Hauzer slowly limped to the ground. More darts hit him for a minute or so. But the big guy was done. Yellow Saur-Lord smirked and turned away.

"...Fuck," Gresh said next to me. At some point, we'd all stood at the grating, watching our fellow prisoner fight. I nodded slowly, then looked for Stend. He looked back at me. Then he turned and walked off.

Then, the Omnitrix blinked. I looked down at it, tense.

For just a moment, green flashed, blinking three times. Then it went back to white. I subtly tried to hide it from the guards, but Demi and Gresh, who stood on either side of me, noticed. Bringing the Omnitrix to rub against the wall, I twisted the dial, tried to press it, have it do something. Still nothing.

Okay, it was okay. The Omnitrix was coming back. And when it did.

I was going to carpet bomb this entire place to the ground.