I opened my eyes slowly, only to awaken to a massive headache. I felt the back of my head where the source of the pain was, and felt a bump. I looked around to inspect my surroundings, and I saw that I was in a strange metal cage that was so small that if I sat on my knees my head would almost touch the top of it. My first thought of what had happened to me was that the knights had knocked me out and then caged me like a wild animal. I took another look around to take in more detail. In front of me were the metal bars of the cage that were too close together to one another so that I couldn’t squeeze through. On my left and right were brick walls, the left wall opened up to a large window. On the opposite side of the window stood a guard who held a whip. He was staring at me because his head was positioned in my direction, but his expression was hidden, for he wore a helmet over his eyes.
“Hey dog!” The guard shouted at me. I turned to face him. “Shift now!”
“What if I don’t wanna?” I folded my arms across my chest, raising an eyebrow at him. The guard snickered at me in return.
“That's what this is for.” He cracked his whip on the ground and then struck me on the arm with it. I recoiled away from him, holding my arm in pain.
“Ow! that’s not very nice you know!” In response, he whipped me again. I still refused to shift, and he kept whipping me over and over again, until I finally, forcefully, shifted into my wolf form.
“See? That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” The guard turned around for a second and waved his hand. The metal bars in front of me lifted. The guard turned back to me. “Now go on, get!” He commanded. I stared at him blankly.
Was he really letting me go? Or was it just a trap, where I would find myself in a larger cage? The guard cracked his whip, disrupting me of my thoughts. I decided to take whatever freedom awaited me, and sprinted from the small cage at top speed. Behind me, I heard the guard laughing for some odd reason, as if freeing me brought him joy. I glanced back, swearing to myself that he was truly crazy. Suddenly I hit a wall and fell down. I shook off the pain and stood up, glancing around to figure out where I had been released into. I wasn’t free, but merely caged in a larger area. Brick walls similar to the sides of my previous cage surrounded me in a circular form, trapping me. Above the walls sat hundreds of cats, all cheering and shouting. I looked up to the sky, which was a dark blue and filled with stars.
“I must've been out cold for a while,” I thought, “seeming as to how it was daytime when I left our camp. I finally understood where I was and why I was here. This building I was in was the same round one that I had been near when I got lost. The building was a Colosseum, used for pitting criminals together to face off in death matches, or pure sport for people to show off their strength against one another. No matter what kind of match it was, someone or something either died or ended up fatally wounded. I hoped that I wasn’t one of those whose blood and lifeless body was going to be cleaned up after the battle.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” An announcer from somewhere within the stands shouted out. I jumped from the suddenness and loudness of it. “Welcome to the City of Nahai's Colosseum! We have got a special treat just for your entertainment today! A wolf! And not just any ordinary wolf, but a nagual!” At this the crowd roared. “And this young wolf nagual will face off against our strongest fiercest competitor. Known by all as the undefeated champion, please welcome “The Tiger of Nahai”, Kannon and his two snow leopard partners, Lau and Rao!”
The crowd cheered louder than ever in response. From the cage where I came from emerged a large and ferocious white tiger. Cages on both sides of him opened and released two snow leopards.
“Let the games being!” The announcer yelled ecstatically. A buzzer went off and all three cats rushed towards me; the two leopards fleeting with grace, and the tiger making the earth shake when his paws hit the ground. The leopards jumped at me from both sides in unison. I leaped forward to avoid their attacks and bumped right into Kannon. Before a single thought could even cross my mind, he clawed at me with his gigantic paws, digging into my side. He flung me across the colosseum and I smashed into the wall, hard bricks scraping into my side. I slowly stood up and examined the side of my body where Kannon's claws had been, my grey fur now turned into a dark red color from the stain of my own blood.
“Darn, this isn’t good. I've gotta be more careful,”. At that moment one of the leopards charged at me and I instinctively jumped to the side, but before my paws even skimmed the ground, the other leopard was next to my side and clawed me, making me roll off to the side from the blow. The leopard's incision wasn’t as deep as the tiger's was, but that didn’t make the pain hurt any less.
“Hm...they seem to be working together. And if I’m not careful..-” My thought was cut off when I saw the tiger come at me. I didn’t have anywhere to run because the leopards had me surrounded. Even if I could run, it would have been futile, for Kannon was too quick, and my thought process was too slow. The tiger sunk his teeth into my neck and threw me into the middle of the arena.
“Would you stop throwing me?!” I growled at Kannon. Shaking, I stood up, but my legs gave out underneath me. This left me helpless and vulnerable, and the cats noticed this, so they all rushed over to me and started clawing at me. I cowered before them, trying to put my paws over my face in an attempt to protect myself. Before long I decided to make a courageous leap over the tiger, who stood in front of me. I looked up at the tiger and quickly pounced over him, just barely making it, managing to scratch his back with my claws.
The crowd let out a “oooohhh” as I touched the ground on the other side of Kannon, who stood motionless, staring angrily at the ground. The crowd grew silent with suspense as they awaited his move.
“Maybe now I've got the advantage.”
Kannon then turned around to face me. He let out a tremendous roar that reverberated off the walls of the colosseum and made the hairs on my neck stick up in fear. It turned out that instead of gaining the upper hand as I thought I had, I just made him angrier, and any chance I had of winning was gone. I turn around and sprinted to the other side of the arena, all three cats racing at my heels, but this time, the tiger was faster and was in the lead. Once I reached the wall I turned to face them, surrounded. I then realized that I didn’t have enough strength to jump over anything, and that my only hope of surviving was if I were rescued, so I slunk to the ground in defeat. I braced myself and closed my eyes as Kannon lifted his giant paw and brought it down fast upon the top of my head. A sharp pain echoed in my brain, and then darkness swallowed me whole.
