Chapter 2
Gaveedra was a lot better at languages than Rictor was.
It wasn’t even close, really. After they had perfected each other’s names, they moved on to the absolute basics, teaching each other the words for “me”, “you”, “one, two, three”, “a, b, c”, etc. in their respective languages. Rictor stuck to English, figuring it’d be too complicated to throw two completely separate languages at the guy at once. By the end of the week, he realized he probably didn’t have any reason to worry.
Rictor was stuck on the basic words and phrases in Gaveedra’s language, but basic to Gaveedra was different from what Rictor considered basic. While Rictor started with numbers, pronouns, and basic verbs, Gaveedra taught him words for “fight”, “enemy”, “danger”, and “help”. It took a while to realize that Gaveedra’s native language wasn’t as complicated as English or Spanish. It was a language for survival and not much more. There weren’t as many filler words or articles. The goal was to get a message out as quickly and efficiently as possible because someone’s life was usually depending on it.
The sentence “I need medicine now” would just be “MEDICINE NOW” in Gaveedra’s language. The order of the words depended on whatever part of a sentence was most important. The word “medicine” was more important than the word “now”, so “medicine” would go first. Occasionally there would be a use for pronouns and words like “and”, “but”, and “like”, but they were rare and could usually be omitted.
All-in-all, it seemed like a pretty simple language and Rictor expected Gaveedra to struggle more with English than he did with Cadre (which he had discovered was the name of Gaveedra’s language). However, it was the other way around. Gaveedra picked up on English grammar and vocabulary almost faster than Rictor could teach it. He struggled most with pronunciation, but even then it usually only took him a few tries. Once he got it right, he rarely got it wrong ever again. His favorite way to learn was to listen to Rictor tell him stories and absorb the knowledge through osmosis. At least, that’s what it seemed like he was doing to Rictor.
By the end of the week, Gaveedra could have basic conversations with him in English. It was beyond impressive. Gaveedra insisted that he be taught combat terminology in English and Rictor indulged him. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for it to become apparent to him why Gaveedra was so insistent.
Two days after Rictor had gotten stuck there, he had picked up on the basic routine. Twice a day, a guard would come in and take Gaveedra away. He would come back covered in blood and sometimes other pieces of his enemies’ remains. Rictor was able to mark the end of the day when a guard came, took the both of them to a communal shower area for about 30 minutes, and then brought them back to their cell. The lights would go out once they returned to their cells and they’d be allowed to sleep for roughly 5 hours. The first time he was taken to the showers, Rictor was given a uniform that looked exactly like Gaveedra’s. He was hesitant to lose his clothes, the one thing he had connecting him to his home, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He planned on hiding the knife in his new uniform but figured that it wasn’t necessary. Gaveedra carried around two massive swords without issue, so he doubted the guards cared about his tiny butterfly knife. His theory was proven correct when he tucked his knife into his belt where it was visible to anyone who saw him and none of the guards even batted an eye. That made him feel more uneasy than secure. If they didn’t care about prisoners having weapons, they definitely had some sort of failsafe for if someone tried to escape or fight the guards. Rictor wasn’t eager to find out what their failsafe was.
Once Gaveedra was able to communicate the idea, he told Rictor that they should try and communicate in English at all times. It was safer than speaking Cadre since only the two of them knew English. Rictor was also right in his assumption that they were being surveilled constantly, so he understood the precaution.
Five days after Rictor had gotten stuck there, Gaveedra was able to explain the basics of where he went twice a day. He didn’t have all the words he needed, so Rictor was missing pieces of the puzzle, but he had a general idea. The guards made the prisoners fight each other to the death. Gaveedra had to do it more often because he was popular. Even with the crude explanation Gaveedra had given him in broken English, Rictor’s stomach turned over at the thought. Every time Gaveedra had left, he knew he was either going to be taking someone else’s life or lose his own. Rictor didn’t know how he did it, but he also knew Gaveedra didn’t have a choice. That was just how it was.
Gaveedra also warned him that it wouldn’t be long before the guards put him in the “hole”. Rictor didn’t know if he meant a literal hole or an arena, but it didn’t really matter. The idea made the hair on the back of his neck stand up either way. Rictor had tried to ask how it was decided who fought and who watched, but Gaveedra didn’t have the words to explain yet. Apparently, not all of the fighters had the collars that he and Gaveedra wore. Gaveedra was able to explain that the collar meant you had a “thing” that needed to be controlled until you were in the hole. It wasn’t hard to guess what the “thing” was, seeing as people in his universe had also invented technology to dampen mutant abilities. He wanted to ask Gaveedra what his mutation was, but he didn’t think Gaveedra had the vocabulary to answer or to understand what a mutant was.
Eight days in was when it finally happened. The guard came in and instead of barking an order at Gaveedra, she said something to Rictor, pointed at him, and started walking out the door without waiting to see if he had followed.
He could feel his breathing grow erratic. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t worried about losing, he had enough training with X-Force to be confident in his fighting abilities. He was worried about winning. Winning back home meant triumphing against someone who wanted you dead because of bigotry or ignorance. Winning against them was just, and if you killed them, it was easily justified. In this universe, it meant slaughtering someone who was likely just as innocent and afraid as he was. He couldn’t do it. He felt like he was going to pass out.
Suddenly, he felt a weight on his chest. He looked down to see Gaveedra’s hand pressing on his sternum, a mirror of his actions over a week before. Rictor met his gaze.
Gaveedra’s expressions were as unreadable as they ever were.
“You must. You do not have a choice,” Gaveedra said sternly. He hadn't meant it unkindly, it was just the truth. Rictor had to do this or he would die. He knew enough about the building’s security to know that all the prisoners had a “killswitch” that could be activated remotely by any of the guards at any time. He’d be dead before he even made it down the hall.
Gaveedra inhaled deeply and Rictor followed. He closed his eyes and stood, making peace with what he was about to do. He wasn’t religious, but he prayed his opponent would forgive him.
He quickly followed the guard out the door, noticing immediately that they were going somewhere in the building he was unfamiliar with. His knowledge of the layout extended to his and Gaveedra’s cell, the bathrooms, and the hallway that connected them. As the guard led him down a dimly lit stairwell, he tried to keep track of how to get back to his cell. It would do him well to memorize as much of the layout as he could, in case he was ever actually able to make a run for it.
The cheering that seemed to be a permanent part of life in the prison grew louder than Rictor had ever heard it. He wondered how Gaveedra could bear it, day in and day out. He tried to listen to the conversations around him to distract from the growing feeling of dread in his gut. The guard who had escorted him out was now speaking with a guard who had joined them. Rictor recognized him as the one who monitored them while they showered. He didn’t like the way his gaze lingered on Gaveedra, how he always stood too close, let his eyes drift too low. Rictor was sure Gaveedra noticed, but if Gaveedra wasn’t going to bring it up, neither was he.
He focused on what they were saying instead, but he couldn’t pick out any of the words they were using. It didn’t even sound like the same language as Cadre. Maybe it wasn’t. He wondered how many languages this universe had in such proximity to each other.
After a few more minutes of walking, they shoved him into a small room and slammed the door before he could even stand back up. He stood and looked around, noticing the dirt floor. He had ruined his uniform when he was shoved in there, but he figured they'd give him a new uniform that night anyways. The crowd was deafening from there. He stood completely still, unsure of what to do and certain he was being watched.
He felt a small static shock and the back of his neck and all of a sudden he could feel the earth again. The ground cracked beneath his feet, his entire body vibrating with power. He knew better than to use his powers to try and escape when there were so many eyes on him. Now that he knew the collar could be turned off, he could work on a plan from there.
The doors in front of him slammed open to reveal a massive arena. He stepped out of the room and the doors slammed shut behind him, preventing retreat. At the other end of the arena, he saw his opponent. He was just as tall, if not taller, than Gaveedra, with long black hair and a pair of black pants with no shirt. He had a sword strapped across his back that was almost as tall as Rictor. He bared his teeth as they grew closer, trying to intimidate him. It didn’t work. Rictor had been in far too many dire situations his adult life and for quite a few years of his childhood to be intimidated by the obvious false confidence. The man looked - Jesus, he looked like a kid. No older than 16, definitely not older than Rictor. The height was deceiving, but his face was that of a child’s. As they circled each other, Rictor bit back the nausea at knowing the man, the kid, wouldn’t make it out of there alive. Rictor thought about if he had any friends. If he was stuck in a room like his own. If he had a roommate who coached him about how to stay safe in the arena. Someone who was expecting him to come back to them in a few minutes. Rictor was going to take that away from them.
The kid had clearly been there a long time if the patchwork of scars across his body was any indication. Rictor wondered just how long he had been there. He wondered if he was even scared of dying anymore. Maybe he would see it as a sort of release from the pain he’d been forced to endure. Or maybe that was just how Rictor was rationalizing the brutality that was about to take place. Rictor had never felt guilty about the lives he had taken. Most of the people he killed were trying to kill him first or trying to kill mutants as a people. It was easy to feel vindicated, even righteous about taking their life. There was nothing righteous about what was going to happen in the arena.
Rictor shook himself out of that headspace. He couldn’t afford to be distracted on the battlefield.
He waited for his opponent to make the first move. Rictor’s only visible weapon was a tiny knife and he was counting on being underestimated because of that.
Sure enough, the kid lunged at him, sword drawn but his body was completely open like he wasn’t expecting Rictor to take advantage of the vulnerability. Rictor was trained that whenever your enemy gives you an opening, you take it. He felt the earth beneath his feet and willed a spear of solid rock to shoot out of the earth and hit the kid in the chest with enough force to shatter every bone in his abdomen. It would be enough to kill a human. At the very least, it would completely incapacitate even the toughest humans. But, as Rictor was beginning to realize, the people there were not totally human. Maybe they weren’t human at all.
The kid rolled onto the ground, one hand covering his chest as if that would soothe the pulverized bones and internal bleeding. The crowd’s cheers became impossibly louder, the ground vibrating not because of Rictor, but with the sheer amount of noise. The kid stayed on the ground long enough that Rictor was sure he was unconscious. Rictor didn’t have to know what words the crowd was saying to know that they wanted him to finish things. He figured this was probably better, a quick end rather than a long and bloody fight.
He tried to shoot a sharp spike of rock up into the kid’s heart, but at the last second, the kid lunged at him, diving out of the way of the spike. Rictor recovered quickly, but not quickly enough. The kid had dropped his sword, but he didn’t even try and recover it before leaping and tackling Rictor to the ground. The kid was physically stronger than him but Rictor had extensive training on how to fight people physically stronger than him. The kid was trying to wrap his hands around his neck and Rictor knew he couldn’t let that happen. If the kid’s strength was proportionate to his inhuman size, he’d be able to snap Rictor’s neck before he could blink.
Rictor sent a shockwave through his body into the kid’s, hard enough to push him off.
The kid fell to his side again, visibly sweating. His hands were shaking and Rictor saw him cough up blood. The internal bleeding was getting worse. Rictor thought he might collapse from blood loss before he was able to land another hit. He thought wrong. Rictor jumped to his feet at the same time the kid rose on shaky legs. Rictor could hear his ragged breath, the wet sound a clear sign that there was fluid in his lungs. He wasn’t long for the world and Rictor wanted to put him out of his misery. He wanted to yell at the kid to just stand still, to let Rictor make it as quick and painless as possible. Even if he spoke the kid’s language, he doubted it would have mattered. The people there were warriors. So was Rictor. He knew if it was the other way around, he’d fight until his dying breath, regardless of the pain.
The kid got down into a crouch, keeping an eye on the ground now that he knew Rictor could manipulate it in some way. Rictor should’ve ended it right there. It would’ve been easy, to just do it without thinking, to have a breakdown about it later.
But he got lost in his own head. He thought about how much agony the kid must have been in right then, but he was trying so hard to hide it. Everything in that universe was filmed and the kid probably didn’t want the world to see him as a coward. Rictor didn’t want the kid’s life to end like this. Painful, cut-short, public. He had seen too many people in his universe die like that. It was hard enough as an observer. He didn’t know if he could handle being the one to deliver the killing blow.
The kid’s muscles tensed, a clear sign he was about to attack. His eyes were wide and he was trembling. Rictor didn’t know if it was from his wounds or his fear. The kid had realized he wasn’t going to win this fight. Rictor did his best to shut out his thoughts and act purely on instinct. He let the ground split open below the kid faster than he could react. The kid stumbled in, the ground beneath his feet was suddenly replaced with open air and a drop over a thousand feet. The kid fell into the newly made ravine and Rictor waited a few seconds before he snapped the earth back together again. He almost threw up at the faint sound of a body being crushed by thousands of pounds of force.
He assumed the crowd erupted into cheers. He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t hear anything clearly. Everything sounded distant like his head had been shoved underwater. He looked down at the ground. There were no signs that it had ever been disturbed. Not a single crack.
He glanced to his right and saw the man’s sword laying there. He didn’t know why, but he walked over and picked it up, slinging it across his back.
He felt the static shock at his neck again and his connection to the earth disappeared. His power-inhibiting collar had been turned back on. He heard the metal doors on his side of the arena slam open, two guards waiting for him, the same two guards who had led him down to the arena.
Rictor found that he didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to leave the grave of a young man whose name he’d never know. But it wasn’t like he had a choice.
Rictor closed his eyes, whispered low, “I’m so sorry. Wherever you are now, please forgive me.” He felt a tear slip down his cheek and quickly brushed it away. He didn’t want to leave, but there was no point staying. At least if he could get back to his room, Gaveedra and whoever was monitoring their cell would be the only people to witness the massive breakdown he was about to have.
/////
The trip back to his room was a blur. He blinked and suddenly he was sitting on the floor across from Gaveedra. The guards were gone and the door was shut. He knew they were still being watched - they always were - but it felt like they were alone. Gaveedra was looking at him with his usual unreadable expression.
Rictor normally would’ve put up a front, pushed his fear, his guilt, his disgust into the back of his mind until he could take his pent-up emotions out on an opponent. It didn’t always work, more often than not he still ended up sobbing into his pillow long after the rest of the team had gone to sleep whenever something really bad happened on a mission. But as long as he was in front of people, he had to keep it together. And if any emotion did slip out, it had to be rage. That was safest.
But Gaveedra wasn’t like his friends in X-Force or X-Factor. He had already seen Rictor at his lowest the first time they met and it hadn’t seemed to affect Gaveedra’s opinion of him negatively. Who was he fooling anyway? Gaveedra knew what it was like, he had probably experienced everything Rictor was feeling than the first time he’d been forced into the arena. Hell, maybe he never stopped feeling that way.
Rictor realizes, belatedly, that he’s shaking with sobs. Tears are streaming down his face, and snot running out of his nose. He could barely see Gaveedra, vision badly blurred. He wrapped his arms around his middle, curled in on himself, and tried to force some air into his lungs in between sobbing fits. He hadn’t cried this hard since The Right had tortured him.
He had killed a kid. Who could claim to be one of the good guys after doing something like that?
He flinched when he felt Gaveedra settle on the ground next to him. Rictor was expecting him to put a hand on his chest as he had before, but Gaveedra just sat there, slightly lilting into Rictor’s side. Rictor decided at that moment to just let go.. Tears started flowing and he didn’t stop them. He didn’t have it in him to hold back, not anymore.
Gaveedra didn’t say anything and Rictor was glad. He didn’t want to hear Gaveedra’s stilted and unfamiliar attempt at comforting someone in a language that was, quite literally, alien to him. After several drawn-out minutes, Rictor stopped crying. Neither of them moved away, both taking solace in the small contact. They stayed like that until the guards came to take Gaveedra down to the arena.
Rictor wanted to kick and scream and fight until they understood that what they were doing was evil and Gaveedra shouldn’t have to do this. It had been so much easier to let them take Gaveedra away before he knew exactly what was going to happen in that arena.
Gaveedra must have sensed the tension in his muscles as the guards made their way into the room because he turned to Rictor and earnestly said, “I can handle this. It is normal for me,” as if that wasn’t the most heartbreaking thing he could have possibly said. Gaveedra moved away and stood up to his terrifying full height.
Rictor watched hopelessly as Gaveedra stalked out of the room, stone-faced, seemingly completely at peace with the price he had to pay to ensure his survival, but Rictor knew better. He had seen the devastation on Gaveedra’s face that first day. Gaveedra may have thought it was normal, but the lifestyle he was forced to live was taking its toll.
Rictor looked at him with a new appreciation. For as long as Rictor had been there, Gaveedra had had to go into the arena twice a day, every day. Who knew who or what he was fighting, but he had as much of a choice in the matter as Rictor did. Rictor thought about what Gaveedra had said. That it was normal for him, the brutal cycle of kill-or-be-killed that he endured day in and day out. What kind of person would he have been if he had been born in Rictor’s world? A world where he actually had a chance?
Rictor was still lost in thought when Gaveedra returned, his white uniform stained red in a way Rictor had almost become desensitized to. He hadn’t realized that much time had passed. The guards shut and locked the door behind him, leaving the two young men alone. Gaveedra came to sit next to Rictor on the floor.
Rictor usually left him alone after he came back from the arena, but that was before Rictor knew what it was like. It wasn’t exactly the same. It was new for him, and Gaveedra had been doing it for a long time, although he didn’t have a firm enough grasp on English yet to articulate just how long. But now Rictor knew what thoughts ran through your mind when you were forced to end someone else for the entertainment of your captors as if you were nothing more than an animal in a zoo or a dog forced to rip another of your species apart for your owner to make a few bucks.
Gaveedra’s brow was furrowed, causing his forehead to wrinkle. Rictor wanted nothing more than to soothe the lines etched into his face.
“Can I tell you a story?”
Gaveedra looked at him, head tilted to the side. Ever since that first day, he had loved hearing any stories Rictor had to tell. He couldn’t be sure if Gaveedra actually cared about or understood what he was saying, or if he just enjoyed the process of learning a new language and Rictor’s anecdotes were an easy way to improve his listening abilities. Either way, he was captivated whenever Rictor shared a tale from his world.
Gaveedra nodded slightly and Rictor hesitated.
Usually, he would just tell Gaveedra about a time he and the rest of the team had gone to Burger King and inadvertently caused a small riot or the awkward kiss he and Tabby had shared back in their X-Factor days. Stories that were funny, but simple and ultimately didn’t matter. But maybe Gaveedra needed to hear something real. Something he could connect with.
He took a deep breath before speaking.
“When I was younger, I was kidnapped by some bad people. They tortured me until I lost control of my abilities. They wanted me to hurt people.”
Gaveedra asked, “Tortured?”
“They hurt me really bad so that I would do what they wanted me to do,” Rictor explained. Gaveedra nodded understandingly.
“Yes, we have a word for that,” He gave Rictor the word and it took a few tries for Rictor to get the pronunciation right.
“I have been hurt badly so I will submit. It is common here,” Gaveedra said as if it was the simplest concept in the world. To Gaveedra, it probably was.
Rictor wanted to explain that it was wrong for people to do that to each other, but he had found it extremely difficult to explain his world’s morality to Gaveedra. He didn’t know if it was the language barrier or if Gaveedra’s world just had a very different understanding of ethics. Maybe it was both.
Rictor continued his story, “It could have been really bad. But some good people found me and they helped me. Even though it was dangerous. They could have been hurt, but they risked their lives to help me anyways.”
Gaveedra was giving him an odd look.
“Why?” Gaveedra asked.
“Why what?” Rictor said, although he was pretty sure he knew what Gaveedra was asking. Gaveedra let his gaze fall to his lap as he contemplated how to articulate what he wanted to say.
“Why they risking being hurt to help you?” Gaveedra stumbled over the grammar, but Rictor didn’t bother correcting him. He would have if they had been having a less serious conversation.
“Because that’s normal where I’m from. Not as normal as it should be,” He admitted, “But people care about each other. They want to help because they feel like it’s worth it.”
Gaveedra looked lost and Rictor couldn’t really fault him for it. He still didn’t fully understand what Rictor meant when he said he was from “somewhere else”. Probably because it was hard to describe what “somewhere else” meant to someone who had presumably spent their entire life in one building. Rictor didn’t even know where to begin explaining that he was from a completely different world.
There was the added complication that Rictor was explaining ideas that Gaveedra had never been introduced to. The concepts of mercy and selflessness weren’t discussed because they could get you killed. Unflinching brutality was ethically sound because it kept you alive.
Rictor almost wanted to give up. Maybe if Gaveedra never understood how much better things could be, he’d never experience guilt for the mountains of bodies he’d accumulated. Rictor was practically sentencing him to a life of turmoil. Once he was able to grasp that what he had been forced to do wasn’t okay, he’d fall apart. Did Rictor really want to subject him to that? They did say ignorance is bliss.
But Rictor had gotten an idea in his head the first day. He fully intended on getting back home. It might take longer than he had originally planned, but he was getting back home. And if he had been stuck in a room alone, he wouldn’t have had any qualms about ditching as soon as possible. But he hadn’t been left alone. He had Gaveedra. A man who had shown him kindness despite the gore and dehumanization they were surrounded by. He wanted to give Gaveedra a chance to get out if he wanted to. He had no idea how he was going to get himself back home and adding another person who probably wouldn’t fully understand what they were getting themselves into made things even more difficult, but it would be worth it. Gaveedra had given him the gift of compassion and protection despite everything he’d ever been taught, and Rictor was committed to returning the favor.
Rictor tried to explain in a way he thought may sound more familiar to Gaveedra.
“I can do things most people can’t, right?” He waited for Gaveedra’s nod before continuing, “The people who helped me were warriors. Helping me meant they had an ally who could help them in battle.”
Gaveedra seemed to understand this better, although trusting other people in battle was still pretty foreign to him. Typically, fights in the arena were one-against-one, with very rare exceptions. Gaveedra had shared enough about his life that Rictor knew the few times he’d had to fight with others, it had almost gotten him killed. Rictor would have to help him through that. If he was going to get them both back home, he might need Gaveedra to fight with him.
Their conversation trailed off and they both settled into their bunks. Gaveedra usually took the top, seeing as it was just tall enough that it would be awkward for a normal human to climb onto it, but it was a perfect height for Gaveedra.
Rictor curled up on the cold sheet of metal, trying to banish the thoughts of what he had done not 12 hours earlier from his mind. He dozed off a few times, but each time he was awoken by nightmares. All of them were of the kid from the arena, the events replaying over and over again. Every time, he woke up drenched in sweat and shaking uncontrollably.
Just as he was about to give up on sleep that night, he heard Gaveedra lower himself down from his bunk. He sat down on the edge of the bunk and placed a hand on Rictor’s arm. Rictor stared at him for a few moments.
“You should try and sleep too,” Rictor said, gaze moving to the hand on his arm.
Gaveedra shook his head, squeezing Rictor’s arm gently. “I do not need as much sleep as you. Rest. I will be here.”
Rictor didn’t have it in him to argue. He just closed his eyes and let himself drift into a dreamless sleep.