Gladiator: Beast Invasion Book 4, page 1
Gladiator
Beast Invasion Book 4
Timothy Nugent
Copyright © 2024 Timothy Nugent
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 979-8882879630
Cover design by: Timothy Nugent
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1 - Day 1
Chapter 2 - Day 1
Chapter 3 - Day 1
Chapter 4 - Day 1
Chapter 5 - Day 8
Chapter 6 - Day 14
Chapter 7 - Day 14
Chapter 8 - Day 14
Chapter 9 - Day 14
Chapter 10 - Day 14
Chapter 11 - Day 14
Chapter 12 - Day 15
Chapter 13 - Day 15
Chapter 14 - Day 19
Chapter 15 - Day 21
Chapter 16 - Day 23
Chapter 17 - Day 30
Chapter 18 - Day 32
Chapter 19 - Day 39
Chapter 20 - Day 39
Chapter 21 - Day 39
Chapter 22 - Day 39
Chapter 23 - Day 41
Chapter 24 - Day 41
Chapter 25 - Day 435
Chapter 26 - Day 435
Chapter 27 - Day 440
Chapter 28 - Day 440
Chapter 29 - Day 441
Chapter 30 - Day 441
Chapter 31 - Day 441
Chapter 32 - Day 442
Chapter 33 - Day 446
Chapter 34 - Day 446
Afterword
Chapter 1 - Day 1
“I’m almost out of chi fam! What should I do?” Matt screamed in a panic.
“Run.” Drew mumbled.
“I’m not leaving you!”
“I’m dead already. Save yourself. Save the others,” he gasped.
“No.” Matt shook his head and bent down next to his friend. “I have an idea, but you aren’t gonna like it.”
Matt grabbed onto his wrist and heaved. Drew was slowly dragged away toward the swirling portal.
What are you doing? No! You have to run and save the others!
Drew was unable to speak as he mentally protested Matt’s actions. Step by step, Matt trudged toward the spatial distortion just a few feet away, his shield the only thing holding back the microwave assault. Without any chi, Drew’s domain had disappeared and left him unable to sense his environment.
Regardless, Matt suddenly lifted him from behind and with a grunt of effort, they both fell backwards into the portal.
Drew’s stomach dropped as they passed into the swirling spatial distortion, as if falling backward at a great height. However, unlike Earth, there was no wind resistance to slow his acceleration.
What’s happening? Where am I?
Without his domain, Drew strained his eyes to see into the darkness. Every few seconds, he would pass through a dimly lit gaseous formation, which allowed his eyes to discern a patch of color.
What’s lighting up the clouds? Everything else is pitch black. Do they glow on their own?
Regardless, it seemed to glow from within with some internal illumination. His body fell backwards through the cloud, and it slowly disappeared into the distance.
Drew accelerated as he fell alongside Matt. The few seconds between each dimly lit cloud morphed into a single second, then half a second. As his speed increased, Drew’s world became a strobe light.
Suddenly, his entire world lit up with a blur and the feeling of falling abruptly stopped. He squinted as the brightness assaulted his eyes. He could no longer decipher his surroundings, as ever-present light obscured his vision. Drew had no clue how long he hung, what felt like motionless, in space.
Am I dead? Is this the light at the end of the tunnel?
He wished he could turn and see Matt, who he hoped was beside him. The second he had fallen backward into the portal, his entire body had locked up, and he could not even twitch an eyebrow. Thankful that his eyes had been open when he entered, he at least had something to look at while he lay frozen and unmoving.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Drew felt the sensation of falling return. However, this time, he felt as if he fell forwards, rather than back. The constant blur of light again began to flicker then strobe. He strained to see into the surrounding vastness.
Then the intervals between the blinking began to slow.
At first, less than a second existed between the light and the dark. However, that stretched to a second, then a few seconds. The time between illuminated clouds continued to increase, until his vision remained dark for multiple minutes. Then, he felt his body impact something elastic behind him.
Suddenly, the world was alight with color once again.
Drew saw a cloudless night sky as he fell backwards onto Matt, and he was grateful to know they remained together during the trip. Heat began to beat against his body and he was instantly drenched in sweat. The air was thick with humidity and stank like rotting plants.
He heard his friend grunt as his massive weight flattened the skinny twenty-one-year-old into the rocky ground below. However, despite knowing it had to be uncomfortable for his friend, Drew could not move.
Drew lay face upward, with his entire focus on a celestial object above. It was something impossible, something out of a movie.
Am I dreaming?
A brown colored moon, at least three times the size of Earth’s, hung in the dark sky. Drew could not help but stare at it to try and make sense of what happened.
“Ugh…” Matt strained. “Get… off… me…!”
Then, something entered his vision that terrified him to his core. His heart rate accelerated, and his mind screamed to run as an all too familiar being looked down at him from above.
Drew stared into an alien’s enormous, unblinking black eyes as it loomed above him. The face was bereft of emotion, and held only cold, detached curiosity. By the time he attempted to flee, movement was stolen from him, and he was forced to stare at the face of his enemy, the aliens that had destroyed his world.
FOOLISH
A thought blasted into Drew’s mind. He could instantly tell that it was not his own. It was not just a word that was communicated, but a concept. Drew knew instantly that this being felt that he had made a massive mistake in traveling through the portal. Condescension and arrogance was instantly communicated through whatever link the being had established.
The world faded to black, and Drew knew no more.
* * *
Consciousness was slow to return.
When Drew’s mind finally began to function once more, he woke to extreme lethargy. His entire body ached and his head was fuzzy. It was a struggle to lift his hand to wipe away the sand from the corners of his eyes.
“Finally, you’re awake.” Matt breathed out a sigh of relief. “I’ve been goin’ crazy here with no one to talk to.”
“What happened?” Drew croaked, his throat dry.
“Those alien bastards captured us is what happened!” Matt vented. “The second we fell out of that portal, your fat ass smothered me. It took everything I had to roll you off me. And when I did? I see a seven-foot tall alien, straight out of a movie. The last thing I remember was that scary bastard looking me straight in the eye, and then I passed out. I woke up here with a new collar around my neck and nothing’s happened since.”
Drew glanced over to his friend and noticed a thin metal band wrapped around Matt’s neck. It was silver and about an inch tall. The outside was covered in strange symbols that seemed to glow in the dim room.
Suddenly, he realized a light weight rested against his own neck. His hands immediately reached up and grasped onto the same band around his throat. The collar must have been only a single millimeter in width and weighed almost nothing. It was also unnaturally warm.
Drew wrapped his fingers beneath it and pulled.
Am I just that weak, or is it really that strong?
Despite being weakened from an empty core, even in his feeble state he should be able to crumple it like tin-foil. It seemed reality disagreed.
“Yeah, I tried to tear it off too.” Matt said when he noticed Drew struggling to remove it. “It’s gotta be some kind of magic or something.”
His arm shook as he struggled to hold it aloft in an effort to examine it. Finally, he let the limb flop back to the ground in defeat. Drew shifted his effort to a new goal, observing his environment.
He rolled onto his side and began to lever himself into an upright position. His muscles strained and shook, as he grunted in exertion. Matt, seemingly took pity on him, strode toward him, and helped him sit.
“Still weak from an empty core, huh?”
Drew nodded as his gaze began to examine the surrounding room. The smooth walls of their room were lined in a brown colored stone. The ceiling was at least ten feet above his head and contained four soft glowing crystals at each corner that provided ample light to see. The vertical walls were at least twenty feet by twenty feet and were made of the same strange stone as the ceiling and floor. r />
The room was austere with no decorations or windows. However, all along the stone structure were those same strange symbols he had observed on their collars. They were placed at even intervals and seemed to be connected by a thin line carved into the rock.
While it did not stink of rotten plants like outside the portal, their cell smelled musty with age. The humidity was also not as clingy and oppressive as before. For some reason, Drew felt lighter, as if he had reduced his weight with a gravity spell.
His eyes were drawn to the lone wooden door along one vertical wall. It had at least four times as many symbols as the walls, which made it look almost decorative. Drew stared at the door so long that Matt decided to interrupt him.
“Yeah, I tried bustin’ through the door too. No matter how much I beat on it, it refused to budge. I even tried blastin’ it with chi.” Matt shook his head. “All I did was waste the little I got left.”
“Can you sense the other side of it with your domain?” Drew asked.
“Naw, it blocks that too.” Matt then frowned. “Wait, why’d you have to ask me? Isn’t your domain waaaay bigger than mine?”
Drew shook his head. “Not right now. With my core empty, I can barely stay awake and my domain is completely gone.”
“Chuegy…”
Drew sighed. “Yeah, I need to refill my core somehow.”
He ran his fingertips along the rough stone floor, the only surface within his reach. Drew wanted to explore the entire room, but without any chi within his core, his body was too weak. He gave up, exhausted.
“Too bad we didn’t have time to take that triceratop’s core before the General screwed us.”
The mention of the army’s betrayal refocused what happened in his mind. His heart ached as visions of Gloria, Megan, and Dave’s deaths replayed in a never-ending loop. If that was not enough, he saw his daughter-in-law with her hands up in surrender, tears running down her distraught face. Javier lay limp at her feet, either dead or unconscious.
Drew cursed himself for not following his original wariness. He had been cautious when they first began working together. However, over the months, he had developed a camaraderie with Captain Westbrook and his team. While he had always thought the Major projected a fake front, the others seemed like generally good people.
Carol was right, I never should have trusted them.
“I should’ve suspected something when Westbrook wasn’t there.” he mumbled.
“What’s that?”
“I said, I should have suspected a betrayal when Captain Westbrook wasn’t there.”
“Yeah, that seemed kinda sus.”
Drew snorted. “The major said he was suspended or something because of ‘behavioral issues’. I think that was code for not willing to betray a friend.”
“I don’t even know why that douche betrayed us in the first place. We were constantly helping him out. He coulda stayed quiet in the background, and we’d have never known he hated us.”
“I should’ve let Carol kill him like she wanted to from the beginning. If I had, Gloria, Dave, and Megan would still be alive.”
“I thought you said that woulda started a war?”
“Sure, but we could’ve just ran away and set up a base in New Mexico or something.” Drew wiped the tears from his eyes. “Snyder was right, I was a fool.”
They both remained silent for some time as Drew mentally flogged himself for his horrible choices. Finally, Matt broke the silence.
“What do you think they’ll do with everyone else?” he asked in a small voice.
Drew was immediately grateful for the distraction from his morose thoughts, but the subject Matt broached was no better. “I don’t know. He killed all of our fighters except for Carol. I just hope she got back to the bunker before they did.”
“I doubt it. The douche made it seem like they already sent in another team.”
“Thanks a lot, Matt.” he said sarcastically.
Matt seemed to realize that he had squashed a budding hope that Drew had formed. To make up for it, he tried to be optimistic. “Don’t worry. Knowing Carol, she probably killed everyone and rescued our friends. Right now, they’re probably cruising down the highway in an invisible van.”
“Do you actually think so, or are you just trying to make me feel better?”
“It could totally happen.” Matt said confidently. “Matter of fact, I’m way more worried about us than them right now. Where do you think we are?”
“I don’t know, it felt like we went through a worm-hole or something. I think we’re on the alien’s planet. Right after I fell through the portal, I saw a massive brown moon in the sky.” Drew cocked his head to the side. “Do you feel like you’re lighter?”
“For sure.”
“Good, then it’s not just me. I was afraid my empty core was making me feel weird. If we’re lighter, then the planet we’re on must be smaller. Or it could just have less mass, I suppose.”
“What if it’s a spell that’s making us lighter?”
Drew crinkled his brows in disbelief. “Seriously? What would be the point? That’s a massive drain on chi to what, make us more comfortable or something?”
Matt raised his hands in defense. “Hey! Don’t hate. You don’t know any better than me.”
“That’s true.” Drew admitted. “Although, I think the aliens want something from us.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because they put collars on us and put us in a jail cell. You don’t do that to someone you want dead.”
“Maybe they want to question us before they kill us.”
Drew stared, deadpan, at Matt.
“Sorry, you’re right, I gotta think more positive.”
A sudden noise from the door interrupted their conversation. Drew heard a latch slide open, and the door began to slowly swing inward. A thin, seven-foot tall alien creature was revealed behind it.
I guess we get to see what it wants.
Chapter 2 - Day 1
Drew stared unblinking as the entity entered the room, but was unable to see into the hallway beyond the door. It wore a long, brown, flowing robe that brushed the ground. Its sleeves were oversized to the point that it hid the being’s entire arms and hands. An abnormally large head sat atop a pencil-thin neck. Its angled eyes were pitch black and the size of oranges. They gave the alien a sinister look, as if it were always angry.
Its ears were absent, with only holes where they would normally sit. It had a tiny nose above a small, lipless mouth. There was not a single hair on the alien’s head.
The being strode silently into the room as it studied Drew and Matt. Behind it, levitated a large pink chunk of what resembled uncooked meat. The alien suddenly stopped, yet the raw flesh continued toward them. When the chunk was within a few feet of Drew, it suddenly fell to the ground with a loud thump.
EAT
“Holy shit!” Matt blurted and flinched backward with a hand to his temple. “It talked in my head!”
The alien passively gazed at the excitable young man as Matt backed away toward the wall. While Matt seemed frightened by the being, Drew only felt a rising anger. He struggled to rise to his feet so he could attack the thin, frail looking alien. However, without chi, his body betrayed him.
Eventually, Matt regained his courage. With a scowl and narrowed eyes, he waved his hands above his head. A small spark of a fireball began to form above him.
Get him Matt!
Suddenly, a wave of mental pressure emanated from the alien, which froze both him and Matt. The fireball dissipated, and Matt slumped against the far wall to the ground with a gasp.
EAT
It repeated the command, and the pile of raw meat suddenly lifted back into the air. It slowly floated toward Matt, who remained frozen as he was pressed against the wall. As the chunk neared his friend, Drew saw that it was aimed directly at Matt’s face.
It continued to close until the edge entered Matt’s open mouth. Despite being frozen and unable to move, Matt’s jaw suddenly closed and ripped off a strip from the side. Drew saw his throat bulge as the raw meat was forced down it.
After a moment, the pressure was released and they both slumped forward and breathed hard to catch their breath.
“Ewww…” Matt complained. “I can still taste it.” He began smacking his mouth and spitting red phlegm onto the ground beside him.
