Gladiator battles against animals were never popular among the known species of the galaxy. Not because they were illegal or seen as barbaric, which they of course were, but because most of the known species of the galaxy were herbivores that had dealt with the dangerous animals of their homeworlds by either scaring them of or by simply avoiding their territories and as such the entire thing of killing a dangerous animal by yourself to proof how tough you are never really existed for them.

  But there were of course some exceptions to that rule which were in this case the so-called deathworlders and they were unsurprisingly more often than not either carnivores or omnivores from some of the harsher planets the universe had to offer, that were often referred to as deathworlds. And thanks to the harshness of their homeworld they were quite a bit tougher than their non-deathworld counterparts. Which was something the deathworlders were rather proud of and so it was only a matter of time until someone asked the question 'Which deathworld species is the strongest?'

  This of course quickly became one of the most if not the most hotly debated questions among the deathworlders to the point that things got regularly so heated that fights broke out. But of course things got only more heated the more time went on to the point that arenas, where deathworlders fought animals from other deathworlds to proof their species was the strongest, kept popping out the woodwork with such frequency that the government of the Galactic Union had to get involved before things got even worse. And believe it or not they succeeded by simply changing the question from ‘who is the strongest?’ to ‘who is the toughest?’.

  Which of course quickly became just as hotly debated as the first question, if not even more so, making some worry that it would get just as bad as the last time. But those worries were somewhat put to rest once the deathworlders started to hold competitions of who could drink the most alcohol or eat the spiciest food, though most didn’t understand why the change occurred. The answer to which was simply that the question had changed from who could punch the hardest to who could take the most hits or in this case who had the highest tolerance.

  These competitions quickly became rather popular so the Galactic Union began to back them making them grow ever more popular over the years, while behind the scenes they cracked down at the gladiator arenas and just like that peace had been restored. But that all changed when humanity was discovered for they were so tough and strong that it bordered on the freakish even by the standards of the other deathworlders to the point that the deathworlders that humanity had discovered viewed them as the undisputable alpha of all species in the galaxy.

  So of course they dominated every competition they took part in and none could defeat them in combat. This of course wounded the deathworlders pride quite a bit especially when the humans started to say that no animal was tougher or stronger than the ones from their home world and of course none doubted that. However, that gave the other deathworlders the idea that if the animals from the human home world truly were the biggest and baddest the universe had to offer, then whoever could beat the most dangerous of them was the strongest species around, next to humanity of course. So they visited the human capital planet and asked for the most dangerous animal they had to offer only to be shot down in no uncertain terms.

  This rather confused the deathworlders so they tried over and over again only to be shot down everytime. Until today after years of non-stop begging, as well as a lot of goading, the humans finally relented under the condition that the fight wouldn’t be to the death as well as organized by humans and would take part on a human controlled planet. And that was all Nort had managed to get out of his human friend Alex before he had dragged him to the next shuttle to the planet the match was taking place on. Which was odd to say the least so Nort asked him “Why are you so excited for something as savage as this bloodbath of a match?” on the way over.

  “Because they are gonna bring an animal from the cradle and come on dude do you really think we would have agreed to this if we weren’t sure we could prevent it from turning into a bloodbath?” Alex said in return still as excited as when he had first heard about this match. Which certainly explained things for you see the human home world had many names, like the cradle, gaia, terra, earth or simply home, because to the humans it had somewhat become a place of myth and mystery for the simple reason that no human had set foot on its surface ever since they had managed to colonize worlds outside their home system almost two hundred years ago. Because of that none of the humans had seen one of the animals of their home world in person ever since then even though they had the genetic material to clone them because any one species could ruin the ecosystem on all human colonies so they never cloned any of their animals to avoid this from happening to the point that not even zoos had even one of these animals.

  That being said, it was still weird how excited Alex was and when asked about it he only said “It's just cool to experience what it might have been like watching the gladiatorial matches in the colosseum back in ancient rome. Oh and before you say anything the gladiatorial matches weren’t as bloody as the movies might have you believe, after all gladiators were rather expensive to train up and none wanted to lose their investment. Also the animal fights were more like hunts, though we both know that this match won’t be like that and apparently there they also held circus-like animal show in the colosseum. So yeah this will be way less bloody than you think.” which certainly explained things and so with all of Norts questions answered they both fell silent as their shuttle approached the transport ring that would take them to their destination.

  Which took quite a while since the ring was on the very edge of the system but once they were through they immediately found themselves at the edge of a three planet system lightyears from where they had set off. Then the shuttle headed towards the second planet, an aggriworld called New Kansas which was one of the many aggriworlds that produced the food to feed the ever growing human galactic nation. Because of this the entire surface of the planet was pretty much entirely covered by farmland and it only really had one big city, just like many other aggriworlds, which was where the shuttle was heading towards. And once they arrived it was only a short walk from the shuttle station to the stadium the match was taking place in.

  The stadium was a lot bigger than Nort had expected it to be since despite its importance New Kansas was a bit of a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere to the point that it was the biggest building in New Kansas's only city funnily enough. But apparently the people of New Kansas took sports very seriously so the stadium was almost bigger than the biggest one Nort had seen on the human capital world. And it quickly became apparent that they were clearly not the only ones interested in the match as they noticed the many aliens and humans that were heading to the stadium as well to the point that it was obvious that the stadium would be packed. Which turned out to be the case when Alex and Nort managed to get to their seats, that Alex had thankfully reserved in advance since Nort wasn’t sure they would have gotten seats if he hadn’t done that seeing as seemingly almost all seats were already taken when they got to theirs.

  Anyways the stadium was seemingly a soccer stadium that had seemingly been modified to allow as many sports as possible to be played inside of it. Though clearly none had ever imagined that it would one day be used as an arena for a gladiatorial match between aliens and an animal from their home world so their safety measures were somewhat improvised to say the least. But despite their improvised nature the human had clearly spared no expense to make the match as safe as possible seeing as how they had set up more than four dozen force shield generators to create multiple layers of force shields as well as rather gigantic metal spikes between the field and the crowd. This seemed like a bit of overkill to Nort, even for the most dangerous animals Alex had told him about but he knew better than to question the human about it, because he knew that his friend would just shrug and say “Better safe than sorry.” in response. So he kept his mouth shut and waited for the start of the match.

  Which came just a few minutes after they had sat down way sooner than Nort had expected the humans clearly wanted to get this thing over with as soon as possible as they herded the four alien gladiators into the stadium. The gladiators were piloting three metre tall headless mech suits not only to Norts surprise but clearly the gladiators as well causing them to just awkwardly stand where they had been left by the humans. Then a suit wearing human atop a metal disk floated into the middle of the arena where he put a microphone to his mouth and said “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first and last match to determine who is the biggest and the baddest around, our dear deathworlder friends here or a animal from the cradle itself.” as he gestured at an absolutely massive metal animal transport box that was just now being lowered into the arena by a crane through a hole in the stadiumˋs retractable roof.

  Nort couldn’t help but stare at the box as it was lowered to the floor of the stadium, because he knew of no animal of the human home world that needed a more than four meters tall and more than thirteen meters long transport box to be transported. But before he could ask Alex about it the announcer said “Now I don’t believe that our deathworlder friends here need any introductions, because we all know who they are. However their opponent does FOR IT IS NONE OTHER THAN THE APEX PREDATOR OF THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD. WHO UPON BEING FIRST DISCOVERED WAS GIVEN A NAME MEANING TYRANT LIZARD KING BECAUSE FROM JUST ITS BONES ONE COULD TELL THAT IT HAD BEEN THE LARGEST AND MOST DOMINANT PREDATOR OF ITS TIME. WEIGHING IN AT SIX TONS OF PURE MUSCLE AND TEETHS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I GIVE YOU TYRANOSAURUS RRRRRRREEEEEEEXXXXXXXX!” as the transport box opened and a massive upright walking lizard stepped out of it to the roaring applause of the human crowd. This was unsurprisingly absolutely not what Nort had expected so he couldn’t help but stare at the animal that should have gone extinct more than sixty-five millions years ago for a few seconds as it looked around the stadium before he turned to Alex and asked “How is this possible the dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years?” completely dumbfounded.

  Alex just shrugged in response and said “You remember the movie about a rich guy using cloning to build a theme park full of dinosaurs? That is essentially what happened some rich dude cloned some dinosaurs for his theme park on an artificial island. Honestly he probably got the idea from that movie, which is probably why this T rex looks like the one in that movie. Anyways he managed to finish the theme park but just a few years later we left the cradle so he freed the dinosaurs since none of them could fly or swim far enough to get off the island.” causing Nort to just stare at him open mouthed but before he could say anything the T rex roared at the human crowd causing him to nearly jump out of his seat in sheer fright. However that only made the humans more excited and shout even louder, which of course then made the T rex roar at them once more.

  Nort couldn’t help but chuckle at the absolutely ridiculous sight of a dinosaur and a crowd of humans yelling at each other seemingly for no other reason than to see who could yell the loudest. Though it was rather obvious that only the humans were enjoying this little exchange since they knew that they were safe behind the force shield. The T rex however clearly saw the roar of the crowd as a challenge and when its own roar didn’t silence the crowd it let out a sound that Nort had only ever heard alligators or crocodiles make before it walked towards the crowd. But before it get too close to the crowd it walked head first into the first layer of force shields causing it to stagger back a few steps and shake its head before it stared utterly confused at the at air in front of it that it had just walked into causing multiple people in the crowd the chuckle. And Nort couldn’t really blame them, because seeing a scaled brute of a theropod dinosaur, straight out of the movies, act like a dog that had just run into a glass door for the first time in its life was just too funny. Despite that he suppressed his own chuckle even when the T rex walked into the force shield for a second time making the shield visible to the naked eye for a split second as it dispersed the impact of a six ton dinosaur walking into it across its surface. Now clearly angered the T rex roared at the force shield before ramming it with its giant head. This somewhat predictably achieved little more than making the T rex stagger back while shaking its head once more and causing some of the humans to let out yelps of surprise.

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  This of course only made the T rex even madder causing it to roar even louder at the force shield and because of that it didn't notice the gladiator that was sneaking ever closer towards it. And once he was close enough he charged towards the T rex and punched it in the right side of its head right below its eye. Now he probably expected the blow to cause the T rex to stagger to the side giving him an opening to pummel the dinosaur with blow after blow. However thatˋs not what happened instead the punch only pushed the T rexˋs head a bit to the left seemingly doing so little damage that it took the dinosaur a moment to even notice that it had been attacked. And once it did it turned it head to face its aggressor causing the gladiator to stumble back a few steps in sheer terror and this little sign of weakness was all it took to seemingly convince the T rex that this was a fight it could win. So it rounded on the gladiator and bit down on the mecha suit arm causing the gladiator scream out in terror as it bit straight through the mech suits armor.

  Though that didn’t really surprised Nort or the human crowd all that much, because the Galactic Union was somewhat infamous for using rather thin sheets of tin, of all things, as armor for their mecha suits and vehicles to the point that there were rumours that the Galactic Union had some ultra light mech suits made of ceramics and plastic. Apparently the reason for that was that pretty much all armed conflicts in the known galaxy had until now been conflicts of speed and quantity thanks to ninety-five percent of the known species in the galaxy being insectoids with absolutely massive populations, so swarm tactics had seemingly come rather natural to them. And because of that the militaries of the known galaxy favoured equipment that was not only tough and reliable, while being easy to both repair as well as maintain but also easily replaceable. And since tin was one of the most common metals in the galaxy that was not only light enough that even foot soldiers could wear it without any issue, but also tough enough to offer some protection, thanks to pretty much all armies in the known galaxy using rather low powered laser rifles to kill one another though more powerful weapons were becoming more common ever since humanity was discovered, and was rather easy to work with it was widely used in militaries across the galaxy.

  However when it came to humanity or seemingly anything else from their home world tin was quite clearly way too weak of a metal to offer any real protection much to the chagrin of the gladiator as he punched the T rex’s snout to make it let go. This however only made the T rex madder causing it to yank on the mech suit's arm and ripping it off in one fell swoop with terrifying ease, the force of it making the gladiator fall over straight onto his front. The T rex shook the liberated arm like a dog would his toy for a moment as the gladiator pushed the mech suit up with its remaining arm. But before he could get further up the T rex let go of the arm and put one of its three toed feet onto the mech suit's back pushing it into the ground with its sheer weight. Then the T rex bit into the top of the cockpit, which was built into the headless torso of the mech suit, causing the gladiator to scream out in terror once more as the T rex’s teeth pierced the mech suit’s cockpit window.

  But before the T rex could crush the cockpit with its sheer bite force a round drone roughly the size of a beach ball detached itself from its casing in the stadiumˋs roof and then quickly flew in front of one of the T rexˋs eyes where it then shone an absolutely blinding light, from a round lense in its centre, straight into its eye and a let out a nearly deafening sound in its best imitation of a damned flashbang causing the T rex to let go of the gladiator as it flinched back. Then an opening in the force shield close to the gladiator appeared and two humans in mech suits quickly got him out of there before the T rex could recover. Meanwhile the other three gladiators just stood there clearly, way too shocked by what had happened to move. But when the T rex began to visibly recover the gladiators quickly rushed it before it could fully recover, raining down blow after blow as one of them threw their mechs suits arms around the T rexˋs neck to hold it in place. And for a moment it actually looked like they were winning, but then the T rex bit into the thigh of one of mech suit that was holding onto its throat and then yanked on it ripping the entire limb of with the same ease it had the others arm, causing the mech suit to fall onto its back and let go of the T rex’s neck in the process. Seeing this one of the remaining gladiators tried to grab the T rexˋs neck but it dodged the attempt and rammed its head into the mech suits side sending it crashing to the floor its side armor visibly dented. Desperate now the last gladiator tried to throw the T rex off his feet by ramming it with his mech suit but that only made the T rex stagger to the side a bit before it turned its full attention to the last gladiator. Who, to his credit, immediately tried to punch it in the face but the T rex just opened its mouth and caught the blow before ripping the gladiator's mech suit arm off for his troubles causing him to fall down just like the first gladiator had. Then the T rex immediately bit into the mech suit's cockpit causing the drone to come back and flashbang it again so that the human mech suit pilots could save him as well as the gladiator whoˋs mech suit had lost a leg leaving the one the T rex had rammed the last one standing.

  Who as soon as he got up again charged the T rex once more before it could recover from the flashbang to jump onto its back and wrap his mech suit's arm around its neck seemingly in an attempt to choke the dinosaur out causing the T rex roar in anger once more as it tried to shake the gladiator off its back much to the enjoyment of the human crowd. And once more Nort couldnˋt blame them because watching a alien in a mech suit desperately cling to the back of a motherfucking T rex to not get thrown off was just too ridiculous of a rodeo scenario not to be funny. But of course the fun didnˋt last too long as eventually the T rex threw itself against the force shield in an attempt to get the gladiator of its back damaging one of his mech suits arms in the process after which the gladiator quickly fell off the T rexˋs back at which point it was rather clear that he could not win.

  Despite that the gladiator got up and kicked the T rex in the face but none could tell if it had done any damage at all though that didnˋt stop the gladiator from trying once more only for the T rex to catch the attack in its mouth. After which it ripped the mech suit's leg off just like the others causing the mech suit to fall over and the T rex to pounce on it to bite into the cockpit at which point Nort expected the drone to show up again. But instead the sound of a bell echoed through the stadium causing the T rexˋs head to shoot up and turn towards the source of the sound a human holding up a red flare giving the human mech suit pilots enough of an opening to get the gladiator behind the force shield with a long hook though not without having to play tug of war with the T rex for him. A game they only won because the T rex ripped the gladiators mech suitˋs last leg off causing it to once more roar at the force shield before ramming it once more. But then the bell sounded once more causing the T rex to turn to the human and just stare at him for a moment before the human ran towards the transport box as quickly as he could causing the T rex to give chase out of sheer instinct. Which was clearly what the human had planned for because he was close enough to the transport box so that the T rex only caught up to him a meter or two in front of the box and once it did the threw a rather large flashbang directly at the T rexˋs face before jumping to the side mere seconds after it went off. Now again blinded the T rex ran directly into the transport box crashing into the back of it with a loud THUMB and once it was inside the box the door quickly closed behind it by itself seemingly because a sensor inside had been tripped.

  “Well well ladies and gentlemen we have an unexpected winner!” the announcer said after he had landed his floating metal disk next to the human with the flare and raised the man's arm. This of course wasnˋt to well received neither by the alien crowd nor by the Gladiators who as soon as they heard that stormed onto the field demanding that the announcer revoked his decision. But the announcer only tilted his head to tje side and said “Hm why would I do that? He beat the T rex fair and square. After all this is why we left the transport box here so that you had another way to defeat it. Just none of you even considered that an option.” causing the gladiators to stare at him for a moment as the alien crowd booed. Then they all yelled that they werenˋt told about that and that this was unfair. “Hm, was it now? Well then how about this you all will fight me and if you can beat me I will revoke my decision.” causing the gladiators to stare at him for another moment, before they agreed to his terms. Then they all walked into the middle of the stadium were there where two clearly visible trap doors were build into the floor directly on the middle line telling Nort that something was afoot although the gladiators didnˋt seem to notice them. And once the two groups were standing a few meters apart the announcer yelled “BEGIN!” causing the gladiators to charge at him. But once they passed the middle line the trap doors opened and two figures jumped out of them quickly grabbing two of the gladiators each before pushing them to the ground with one hand like it was nothing. The gladiators of course tried to free themselves but when they looked up and saw that they were being held down by Lamias they quickly gave up. And the reason for that was that while the Lamias were seen as one of humanity's pet species and not as one of the civilized species, because they had, technologically speaking, never made it past the stone age. But the weretigers, as they were often referred to as well thanks to looking like tigers with human-like faces that could walk on two or four legs, were known all across the galaxy for their brutal martial prowess to the point that many species in the Galactic Union had wanted to wipe them out. But humanity protected them simply because they knew that they were personality wise more like big dogs than tigers, as well as the fact that they were one of the first species the humans had found that looked alot like them, because of this many lamias served the humans as soldiers or bodyguards earning themselves the moniker of pet species by many of the Galactic Union.

  The later role was probably why these two were here as bodyguards or just security and they clearly took their job very seriously because they didnˋt leave the gladiators out of their sight for a even a second. And with his opponents now dealt with the announcer finally moved from his spot towards the cursing gladiators then kneeled down and asked one of them “Was that fair?” while holding the microphone to his mouth. “Of course not you damned monkey!” the gladiator angrily replied clearly trying to be as insulting as possible. But the announcer just ignored that part and asked “But did I win?” rather smugly as he gestured at the two lamias as if he wanted to ask the gladiator if he wanted to continue this fight. And while the gladiator didn't answer that question that in and of itself was answer enough especially when combined with the way his antennae dropped so the announcer stood up and said “I thought so. Now let me tell you something, friend, we humans are not that strong when you compare us to many animals on our dear home world or some of the deathworlders we discovered. But we are smart and thatˋs how we dominated our home world as its undisputed rulers not through our brawn. So never forget that being smart is part of being strong as well, even if some might call it unfair, and never forget who the boss around here is.” saying the last part with such a cold menace in his voice that it send a bit of a chill down Nortˋs spine and made it clear that humanity was not to be messed with. But as the announcer declared that the show was over Nort couldnˋt help but say “Man you humans really are theater kids arenˋt you?” half-jokingly causing Alex to laugh out loud before he said “You love us and you know it!”