The Gladiatrix

Jengo never wanted to be a gladiator, but he was good at it. For years he had been a hunter in the fields of North Africa. He roamed the Savannah, finding and killing massive beasts, which he would haul back to his village. There was never a better hunter than Jengo. He could bring down a full-grown hippo with nothing more than a knife. Once he and a friend took down an elephant with nothing but a rope to entangle its legs. He enjoyed hunting, and it brought him pride. But three years ago, he was captured by strange soldiers in shiny armor, and brought to this arena. 

This land was strange. He spent most of his time in the training pits, and had no contact with the world outside of the arena. The only time he saw the outside world was when he fought in the arena, yet even from that he could tell this place was strange. The arena was impossibly big. After each fight he found himself amazed by the sheer number of people gathered around him, most of them with the strange pale skin of his captors. There were so many, he thought, almost all of them men. And yet, when he looked off to the distance, he could see the highest levels of the arena. And there, he sometimes thought he saw women. But not like any women he had seen: they were huge, bigger than any beast in Africa.

Instead of killing beasts, Jengo now killed men. He was a natural killer, fearless and athletic and resourceful, and quick to master new weapons. But Jengo took little pride in killing men in the Arena. Sometimes they would let him fight alongside other men in the arena, killing lions, or tigers, or other strange beasts. That he enjoyed. Killing beasts made him feel like a man. But for each man he had killed, and it had been more than twenty now, he felt a terrible sadness. He would look at their face as they lay down in the dust. He knew that he had ended the life of another man, a man with whom he had no quarrel. He told himself that he was not a murderer, for he had no choice. And yet he still felt like a killer. Jengo was no pacifist. Sometimes he imagined killing his captors, leading his fellow fighters against the very men who forced them to slaughter each other in the arena. But until that day came, Jengo wanted to kill no man. 

Jengo was told he wouldn't be fighting other men today. Today was different. Today was strange. Today Jengo would fight alongside other men. A hundred of them, he was told, and elephants and horses as well. They would be fighting against a single terrible beast, so great and powerful that it would take all of them to fight it. Yet they were not allowed to use swords or axes. The beast, he was told, was so valuable that it must not be killed. Instead, he was only allowed to use his blunted training sword. He was given one other thing: a small dagger, too small to inflict much injury on such a large beast. Its blade, the trainer told him, had been laced with a strange poison to sedate the creature. But his trainer said the poison had other effects as well. Jengo distrusted such things: poisons were an evil art, and best left to old women. Yet he kept the dagger in the leather case by his side, just in case. 

It was time to fight, and he ducked through the low gate that led from the fighting chambers to the brightly-lit arena. He looked around the crowded arena, amazed by the sheer number of men he would fight alongside. He saw over a hundred gladiators, several horseriders, and two massive elephants, each with several men riding on their back. At first it seemed like an impressive force, but as he looked again, he changed his mind. Many of the men had blunted weapons like him; others seemed to have no weapons at all. Most of the men wore little armor, and some were only wearing robes. They were unprepared for whatever beast they would have to battle. His side, he thought, was not expected to win. He would do his best to change that. With only a blunt sword and a short dagger, he might have to improvise a weapon. He looked around the arena for anything he could use. He noted the pillars that circled the edge of arena. They stood roughly ten feet high, with rounded tops, and were placed every thirty feet or so. He also noticed a long, thick rope coiled in a corner. Aside from that there was little else, save the golden sand of the arena .

Then he noticed the other men staring at a huge gate, nearly thirty feet high. The gate had always been there, but Jengo had never seen it opened. There was a chain attached to either side of the gate. Jengo watched as men pulled the chains, slowly opening the gate. The heavy gates creaked and screeched as they pulled up. Jengo wondered what beast could be terrible enough that they would need such gates. Maybe it was a lion with a scorpion’s tail, or perhaps some giant nine-headed serpent? Jengo heard its roar. It was a powerful, feminine roar, like the roar of a lion in heat. Except it sounded different somehow, it sounded… human. Like a woman. Then Jengo thought back to the women he had seen at the top of the Arena. How could he be so foolish? It was one of them. It had to be one of them. 

The gates opened a bit more, then came to a stop. A single, huge giantess stood there, nearly forty feet tall. A mesh of thick ropes were wrapped tightly around her back and breasts, holding up her massive breasts, while a chainmail skirt protected her groin. She wore nothing else, save the red blindfold covering her eyes, and the iron shackles around her wrists. She was beautiful, thought Jengo. Beautiful, and bestial, and deadly. 

The beast bent over and got on all her hands and feet. She loped out of the gate on all fours. Then she stopped. Turning her head, she sniffed the air until she found the gladiators' scent. She had found her quarry. Arching her back, she thrust out her chest and let out a deafening, bestial roar. It was a woman, and a beast, Jengo thought. This would be a difficult battle. 

The gladiatrix loped over towards the first group of gladiators she smelled, sniffing the air as she went along. She found them quickly. Her hands felt along the ground until she felt one gladiator, then another, then another. Her fingers were barely long enough to wrap around their torsos, yet she managed to grab two of the men with her right hand. They struggled at first, and one hit at her with his blunted sword. It did nothing, save anger the beast. She squeezed harder, until the man dropped the sword and the others stopped squirming. 

Jengo watched, stunned. The beast lifted one of the men into her mouth. The man was too big, Jengo realized, for her to swallow whole. Instead, she put the top half of the man’s body in her mouth. The beast bit hard, pulling on his legs with her hand and tearing the man in half. She tore through his torso, chewing the man’s upper body like a steak. Then she swallowed, and tossed away what was left of the man’s lower body. The others, she wasn’t so gentle with. The beast lifted her left hand to her mouth, biting off the heads and upper torsos of the two men in her hand. Then she slammed her hand down against the ground, crushing what was left of them. 

Jengo looked at the beast. Most of these other men were inexperienced, too young and too weak to have any real chance of taking her down. He would have to do it himself. He thought about running in, thought about stabbing her with his dagger. She was turned away from him now, still on all fours, and Jengo was close to her. But then Jengo watched as a group of gladiators charged in front of him. The gladiators ran up behind the woman, blunted swords in hand. It looked like they might have a shot at hitting the back of her legs, as much good as it might do with such weapons. But the beast had noticed. She leaned back, letting herself fall hard on her rear. Her thick ass came down upon them with crushing force, turning their bodies to a splatter of blood on the sand.

She noticed them, Jengo thought. But those men were loud and slow. Would she notice me? While the beast was still getting up, Jengo ran towards the beast. He unsheathed his dagger as he charged towards her. He leapt towards her back. Just one cut, he thought, that’s all it would take… but just as he was about to stab her, the woman quickly turned. She hit him out of the air with the back of her hand. Jengo felt the air knocked out of him, felt his back hit the hard sand of the arena. She was coming towards him. Unable to get up, he scrambled backwards as fast as he could. 

The beast’s giant head loomed above him, sniffing the air. Her hand felt its way along the ground. It was coming towards him. But before her hand found Jengo, it found the legs of another gladiator. The beast grabbed him by his legs, tossed him above her mouth, and ripped him apart. She threw her head to one side, then, the other, gnashing her teeth wildly. The force tossed what was left of the man’s body a good twenty feet. Then she turned around. Jengo realized now that the men on the elephant had arrows. Useless things, he thought, probably as blunted as my sword.

Jengo managed to stand up, though it wasn’t easy. As he searched the ground in front of him, Jengo saw his dagger. He walked towards it, but every movement of his legs was slow and painful. The fall had hurt him badly. He wouldn't be able to run like he had earlier, not for some time. He kneeled down by the dagger and placed it back in its sheathe.

Jengo watched as the beast fought. She stood on two legs now, like a woman, though Jengo could tell it was not her preferred gait. A dozen soldiers circled around her. They tried to stab her feet with their pathetic swords, doing their best to dodge when her huge feet came down on them. He watched as she stomped down, catching an armored gladiator below her foot, squishing him like a bug. She did the same to another, her foot crushing him to goo. A third man wasn’t so easy to catch. She tried to stomp on him, but found herself missing. The man jumped out of the way, hitting the back of her knees hard with his blunted sword. The beast fell back in pain, landing on several gladiators and crushing them. She felt the man hit her again with his sword, this time hitting her on the side. She grabbed the man with a furious energy, squeezing her hands together until thick red fluid ran between her fingers. She threw his crushed body hard at the ground. 

The elephant was next. Men sat on top of the beast, shooting blunted arrows at the beast’s blindfolded face. The woman let out another terrible roar, before charging on all four towards the creature. The elephant panicked, running as fast as it could away from her and throwing the men off its back. The gladiatrix charged after it, a look of intense anger on her face. Her feet and knees crushed several men as she ran on all fours towards the elephant. Finally, she tackled the creature, wrapping her legs around the elephant’s body, her arms around its neck. With a single motion she effortlessly broke the creature’s neck before shoving it aside. She stood up and sniffed the air again.

The gladiatrix let out another long roar before charging towards another group of gladiators. Jengo watched as she crushed and chewed her way through another group of men. She had killed two dozen men, and she wasn’t even winded. To attack her now, Jengo realized, would be folly. He would bide his time, waiting until she became tired, or her bloodlust sated. Then, he would strike. This would be a long battle.