The Chained Watcher

The Arena (past)

Xisuma's perspective from before the escape, plus flashback

The door creaked open, light spilling into the dark room and blinding the gladiators' eyes. A muffled thump, a soft groan. The door closes. Several people shuffle quietly towards where a new figure lay on the ground. Seems like the Watchers found more people to kidnap. 

The figure shifts slightly, before rolling over onto their back. Seems they aren't too heavily injured then. Xisuma starts making his way around the varyingly injured gladiators to greet the newcomer, and see if they were unlucky enough to have been experimented on before getting tossed down here while he was at it.

Getting closer, he's relieved to find no heavy saturation of Watcher magic on the man, nor can he spot any missing limbs. Dark-vision is quite useful seeing as the Watchers don't seem to have deemed their gladiators as worth the effort of installing one of their magic lights for, and Xisuma once again thanks his luck for at least not letting the Watchers discover his heritage when he was captured. They seem to have a tendency to just abduct clusters of humans/humanoids with little care as to what they actually got.

Xisuma was a Voidwalker, though his various powers hadn't properly manifested yet. Maybe that's why he was overlooked? The Watchers would certainly have brought him to wherever they experimented on people if they knew what he was. 

It was his own fault though. He wouldn't have been captured if his curiosity hadn't gotten the better of him. Everyone always talked about the surface dwellers though, and it sounded so much more interesting than home. Never mind that they were usually talked about with scorn, at least they actually did things with their days. At home, it was always "When you're older" or "Once you get your powers" and never any reasons. 

Well at least he knew the reasons now. Home was safe, even if it was boring because of that. Home didn't have the Watchers. He shuddered, remembering what had happened that day.

He had snuck out, wanting to go visit the surface and see just what was so special about it. Snuck out successfully too, but now he wishes he had failed. It was so colorful on the surface, with greens and blues and so many colors of flowers all dotted around. A mountain in the distance was covered in white, changing to gray near the bottom. Fluffy clouds scudded across the sky, looking so close while feeling just out of reach. 

A sound had drawn his attention from the sky, and he saw a village a short ways away from where he stood. A small group of children had chased each other in his direction, and he scrambled to activate his helmet's visor before they could see his eyes. A Voidwalker's eyes are one of the most visible inhuman traits they possess, and one of the few traits that manifests even in children.

The visor slides into place with a soft *click* right before the kids dashed around a nearby tree, hiding his void-tinted eyes from sight. The leading child spotted him and pulled up short, staring for a moment before the others crashed into each other, falling down like bowling pins. Did they get hurt? Apparently not, as the tangle of limbs sorted itself back out into four children.

"Who are you?"

The innocent curiosity in the eyes of the children begged for a response, so respond he did. "I-I'm XisumaVo- Xisuma. Just Xisuma" Well that was close. From what he knew, the distaste felt by Voidwalkers was reflected in kind by the surface dwellers. The children don't seem to pick up on his little slip, and one of them grabs his hand and starts pulling him towards the village.

"C'mon! Mom's making bread today." This random child stated excitedly while pulling Xisuma behind him. They were so happy to find a new friend, they didn't care where he had come from. 

That didn't last long. Not that he wasn't welcomed by the village, but it wasn't long after he arrived that the Watchers came.

The sky split open, a shimmering curtain of purple magic surging out to surround the entire village. Then the Watchers came down as well, floating slightly above the ground as they looked at the people there with the same attitude one has looking at ants. One of them spoke to the others, voice screeching in some dialect of Galactic "Th1s i$ i7? T#ere are f3wer th@n ant!cip4ted."

Their voices were worse than he had expected, despite having been told about how discordant the noises they made sounded. Another Watcher responded, this one having fewer wings and sounding like overlapping snakes hissing angrily. "W3 c0u1d no7 f!nd 4 1arg3r qu@nti7y"

"1t w!ll h@v3 to d0."

'It will... have to do"? What will 'have to do'? That answer was quickly answered, as the rift in the sky spat out a large amount of masked hybrids saturated with Watcher magic. The hybrids then marched over to the villagers, and fighting broke out as they tried to tie them up. A minute of frantic fighting passed before the first Watcher spoke again. "3n0ug#"

A man exploded abruptly. Silence fell. The hybrids continued tying everyone up.

Time had passed since then, and Xisuma couldn't help but wonder how the villagers were doing. Obviously they weren't doing well, considering they'd been abducted by Watchers, but were they still alive? A shudder ran down his spine at the thought of the experiments and the monsters pitted against the gladiators. It was obvious what had happened to the experiments, but some of the monsters had more sinister origins.

Some monsters were gathered from wild places, while others bred in captivity for the sole purpose of fighting. Occasionally though, a monster would show up that he could feel was different. They were more intelligent, cunning, and filled with such violent fury it tainted the air around them. They were also formerly humans, twisted beyond recognition by their captors and driven to madness by their distorted bodies.

A noise drags his attention out of his memories and back to the present. He looks up to see the new victim talking quietly with other nearby gladiators. At least they're not catatonic like the last guy thrown in here. Time to go greet the new guy, then.

Xisuma walks up to the new gladiator, drawing their attention as he introduces himself. "Hey, what's your name?" He sat down next to them. "I'm Xisuma, the sorta impromptu leader of this little corner of this forsaken fortress." Not that he wanted to be, but it kind of just happened. Apparently he made for a rather comforting authority figure, somehow.

The man looked over, wiping dirt off his face as he gave a little smile. He spoke quietly, but with a surprising amount of optimism for someone in this situation. "Call me Scar." Then again, maybe a little optimism wouldn't hurt.