The past.

  The scavenger scouts looked through their binoculars. Fear gripped the two men. They had not seen this large a group of Ponus outside a vault before. Worse, they were headed directly for the same scavenger village these two men were from.

  The pink-clad marchers were a healthy, mixed bunch of Ponu men and women.

  "They are marching with a mission," one said. His friend didn't answer. Suddenly, he was yanked off the ground and thrown. Gathering his senses again, he saw him, a large Ponu male, standing there with a grin.

  The scavenger looked over and saw his friend on his knees with a weapon of some sort aimed at his head. Behind them were a dozen or so Ponu. A few were males, but most were female.

  The scavenger got to his feet, only to be knocked down again by the Ponu. "Come on Scavenger, call out to your friends for help. We'd like to have even more fun, stupid waste."

  His pink-clad audience looked on in approval.

  Soon, with more pressing matters at hand, their fun was over. The Ponus rejoined the marching pink army and left two scavenger bodies with broken necks where they fell.

  The attack on the scavenger village was devastating and quick. They did not wipe out the village as was their usual method. Instead, they marched the survivors back to the temporary Ponu camp.

  The long, sad line of about 100 scavenger survivors struggled down the road towards their doom. Ponu guards line the route with contempt on their faces. The survivors know where they are going, to be "cleansed". At least eventually.

  They know why they are not being killed immediately. The Ponu's masters, Geeryo, whatever that is, see the Ponu as assets. There are dangerous tasks that they would rather have others for instead of risking even more Ponu. This is why they are collecting Scavenger prisoners.

  One scavenger, already dazed and disheartened, strays off the path a little. A male Ponu is there to push him back in line.

  Among the survivors, a young boy walks with his mother. She is holding on to his hand, trying to give him some kind of assurance that everything will be ok. But she knows it will not be. She will die, and her son will die too.

  As they march into the Ponu camp, the sound of a woman on a loudspeaker blasts through their ears.

  It's a Ponu woman.

  She says

  "Thank you, scavengers, for your orderly procession. Your sacrifice will help usher in the new phase of humanity. You should be proud that your deaths will mean more than your lives ever could."

  The little boy tugs at his mother's hand, trying to get an answer to what the Ponu woman meant. His mother only looked down with tears in her eyes. She can't take her eyes off him.

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  His life is to be taken out before it's even had a chance.

  He saw her, the ponu woman on the loudspeaker. She was wearing the pink Ponu suit, her long dark brown hair flowing, and her smug grin was there too. She was satisfied. This was the elimination of the scavengers, the "human waste", that Geeryo demanded. She was pleased to serve her masters, Geeryo, in this way.

  One of the Ponu men grabs the boy's mother and proclaims, "Here's one for the Arena".

  He shoves the boy down as he tries to rescue his mother. He falls on his back, but he sees his mother's eyes still fixed on him even as she is being pulled away.

  Later, from a holding pen, he watches something no child should ever see. His mother, forced to fight. She was pitted against a Ponu woman. The fight was brutal and quick. His mother was no fighter. The Ponu woman was not much of one either, but her enhanced physiology made it a severely uneven fight.

  After a series of blows, his mother was knocked out of the fighting area into the arms of Ponu, men and women, they shoved her back in, where she was promptly dispatched by the Ponu woman with a series of strikes to the stomach, then face. The glee from the pink-clad audience was sickening.

  She fell lifeless.

  Her eyes were fixed just to the side of his direction. That was what really indicated to him that she was dead. That she was unable to move her eyes just a little to make contact with him.

  The Ponu woman raised her hands in victory with a smile as her friends in the crowd cheered her on for dispatching the "human waste".

  The boy cried out from the pen. He looked at them, all of them, rage consumed him. Whatever was present in his heart before was gone. All that was left was the fuel that would make him into the warlord known as Kallian.

  As he watched, panic ensued. There was an organized scavenger attack to rescue those in the holding pens. The Ponu were caught off guard by the attack in their arrogance. Still, while brief, the battle was vicious. A young scavenger warrior named Kunan, eyes wide with fear and seeing his first combat, helps to open the cage as his colleagues fight to give him more time.

  He was young but bulky and looked like he was made to fight. The terror in his eyes as he desperately tried to open the holding pen was visible to all inside. This was their only chance. The lock could not be opened. He decided to use a different approach. Using his raw strength, he bent the bars enough for the prisoners to squeeze through. It almost broke his body in the process, but it worked. It was an improvised solution that saved many lives.

  The scavengers were beaten back, but not before rescuing a good number of prisoners, including the boy, who was hesitant to leave his mother. Kunan grabbed the boy's hand and told him to stay close. With the rest of the scavenger warriors and survivors, they ran for their lives before the Ponu could regroup and counterattack.

  Years later, Kunan, by then a seasoned warrior, would meet the young boy again. By then, the young boy was a young man. Kunan would take him under his wings as a protege warrior. Still, the same fiery fury that burned in him that day had not been extinguished; it had only increased. He had learned to control it, however, and would become a great warrior, a leader. A leader who was intelligent, but not always wise, strong, but rarely gentle, relentless, never merciful. He craved the fire and fury, but Kunan was appalled by it and eventually left his protege. The men remained friends, however, at least until a fight irreparably broke their bond.