Her eyes snapped open as she awoke from her forced slumber. Immediately the young woman scanned her surroundings, taking note of the newest situation she found herself in. The first thing that caught her attention was the sphere around her. Some sort of red bubble that was large enough for her to stand within, but prevented her from moving further than her current position. A cautious hand reached out to press against the bubble. Surprisingly warm to the touch, it gave no leeway as she pushed against it with her finger tips. Flattening her palm against the surface she used more of her strength, determining just how sturdy her most recent prison was. As she did so, a connection in her mind clicked; her strength, it had returned. She brought her hands up quickly to her neck, searching for the unwanted accessory that was no longer there. This was new; ever since she had been brought to this strange world she had been forced to wear some sort of collar that had neutralized her abilities. But now, for the first time in over a month, they had removed it. Whomever
they were.
Lorena Marquez, otherwise known as the hero Aquagirl, was not a native of this world. While back home she had been a noble force for truth, and justice alongside her King and savior, Orin, here she was nothing more than a captive like so many countless others. On her first night here, Lorena had overheard one of her jailers mention the newest batch of slaves had arrived from a different dimension. At first, she had believed this to mean she was in Xebel - an aquatic world much like her own, existing in a separate dimension, in which her Queen, Lady Mera, had been born - but none of the guards Lorena had seen during her time here, nor the scientists who had poked and prodded her during her first week had been of Xebel origin. In fact, all those she had encountered thus far had appeared, in many ways, to be of alien design unlike anything she had ever known before. Overtime, it had become evident to her that she was much further from home than she had previously thought. That, however, would not stop her from escaping and finding her way back to Atlantis and her King, of that she was sure.
Lor, in her role as Aquagirl, had been praised for her calm reasoning and deductive mind, and she used those aspects now as she focused on her current situation. She could remember, albeit hazily, the last moments she was lucid for before she woke here, in this strange, bubble-like cage. A woman, if you could call her that considering the striking silver hair, masculine armor, and four additional limbs she had possessed, had come to Lorena in her cell. It was the first time she had seen this person since being taken, but it was clear from how the guards had given the armored woman a respectable berth, and from how she had carried herself that she was of considerable importance.
"Stand, slave," the woman had told Lor then. "You have been determined to be of sufficient worth to compete in today's event. Your costume will be returned to you as the viewers take delight in seeing your pretty little outfits stained with blood." She said this last bit with a smirk, referring to Lorena's Atlantean armor she wore as Aquagirl, originally taken from her when she had first been abducted.
The six-armed woman continued in what seemed to be an explanation she gave fairly often. "You will be taken to the coliseum where you will face three of your fellow slaves in combat. Those heroic sensibilities your kind seem to so strongly admire will not serve you in your new life. If you wish to survive long, abandon them. But, whether you perish or not is of no consequence, so long as you entertain."
Then the woman had turned to the guards that accompanied her, speaking in a language Lorena did not understand, and the last thing she could recall was a sharp sensation as needles from her slave collar sunk into her skin and injected her with a tranquilizing agent of some sort.
Lorena looked down at herself, her full wits now again with her, noticing that she had been garbed in her Aquagirl costume, as was promised. It seemed her captors, this silver haired woman, wanted her to compete in a death match for their amusement. They believed that after a month of invasive tests and isolation that she would be subjugated to follow along with their sadistic intentions like a good little sheep. They were fools. Lorena Marquez, Aquagirl, adopted daughter of the great King Orin of Atlantis and ruler of the seas, was no one's sheep. They would not herd to the slaughter, and they could not force her to abandon her honor no matter their methods.
Accepting that there was no immediate way of bypassing the spherical field that bound her - and it was clear to her they would release her eventually for their cruel gladiator match to begin - she looked past the transparent bubble at what awaited her. She stood, it seemed, on a raised pillar some couple hundred feet above the ground, granting her a great sight line of the arena she had been placed in. It looked to be a large box-like structure with immensely tall walls leading up to a domed roof. The walls, which Lorena estimated to be of about a mile in length, curved out slightly, and they appeared to be metallic in nature. Rustic and clunky, Lor made note that they may provide a potential escape should she be able to locate a section in the wall with a crack or some other structural weakness.
Aside from the building itself, there were ruins beneath and ahead of her, spreading across the entire arena as far as she could see. She was too far off from them to be sure, but the various statues and pillars, broken and worn down, seemed to be comprised of both stone and metal. There was sparse vegetation she could spot, tangling itself around some of the structures below. They, too, looked to be alien in nature, further leading her to believe that perhaps her captors were indeed extra-terrestrial. Although she had never encountered any, she had heard tales from her King that there had once been a handful of alien protectors on Earth, before her time. It was not an entirely improbably concept, she decided.
Off in the distance a red object caught her notice. In the corner directly opposite of where Lorena's own pillar was located she could just make out the faint hue of another bubble. Though she could not distinguish whether or not someone was inside, she was sure it held one of the three other captives the woman had mentioned. A quick glance to her right and left strengthened this theory as she could make out two similar red shapes atop pillars on both sides.
Once this game of theirs begins, I must be careful, she thought.
Although I
refuse to participate in their savagery I cannot be sure the others will not. Nor do I know what they may be capable of.
Lorena considered that, perhaps, the other three were fellow Atlanteans abducted along with her, but she had been alone when she was taken, and the woman had clearly mentioned costumed heroes brutalizing one another was of particular enjoyment here. Lor knew of no other hero on her world who wore what could be considered a costume, beside her King and Lady Mera, all others had been wiped out during the Great Catastrophe, and she refused to believe that anyone was capable of capturing either of those two. No, Lorena figured that, if she were right about her captors being aliens, the other prisoners here with her were likely also taken from different worlds. If Earth had costumed heroes, she saw no logical reason why other planets with empowered beings would be any different.
Before she could ponder more on this, however, the sphere began to glow a deeper shade of red, pulsing and flashing alongside the sound of a loud buzzer. A countdown for the start of their intended death match, it seemed. Lorena took a step back to steady herself as the pillar shook with a resounding rumble, and lowered itself closer to the ground, though it still stopped at least fifty feet short of the surface. The red force field that had been containing her faded away quickly, allowing her freedom of mobility once more.
For the first time since she had been forcibly taken one month ago, Lorena was capable of moving about as she pleased, no longer cooped inside one cramped cage or another. And, although she wasn't entirely and truly free from captivity, as she leaped off the pillar and to the ground she had but one thought on her mind:
escape.
