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Conning the Arena

Chapter 2

Sponsored by GlynWolf

by Draconicon

"Get him to the Primary Lab," Dr. Malfust said, the peacock gesturing at him. Four armed guards stepped in from the hallway, standing at either side of the exam table. "I want to see just what this Olag can do..."

The polar bear was aware of the fact that he had caused himself some extra trouble by showing off, but despite that, he was more excited than anything else. So many months holding back in the main arena, barely allowing himself the strength to stay on top, knowing that he could beat anyone that came into the ring without even trying? That had been Hell for him, utter Hell. The fact that he was dealing with a challenge now just made everything so much better that he didn't even have the words for it.

They guided him off the table, the barrels of their rifles pointed at him, their positioning...interesting. They were keeping to no more than a 90-degree angle between where the two groups stood, ensuring that they wouldn't be able to hit each other in a crossfire. Smart, but not quite smart enough. They should have had someone immediately behind him, rather than one group in front and one to the side. A crossfire could easily be created with that position.

But the naked bear had been told to go along with this, and go along he would, provided that he got what he wanted later. He walked away from the standing exam bed, his cock slowly softening to sag between his legs again. Dr. Malfust rolled his eyes.

"And someone cover him."

"Hey, nothing wrong with a bare bear," Olag said with a smirk.

"I do not come here to look at that."

"Heh, I'm sure you prefer the other end, asshole."

"You have no common sense, do you? Or is it a sense of self-preservation you find yourself lacking?"

"Eh, bit of column a, bit of column b. We going to this other lab or not?"

"...Take him."

The guards - dressed up in thick white and black armor, complete with masks that covered their faces - pushed at him from either side. He probably should have shown a little concern, but they had already tested him on the table, found that there was more to him than met the eye. Considering that they probably had a good idea of his strength already, he didn't mind them finding out a little bit more. He didn't care about holding back -

Don't showboat, Olag...

The Man in Red had been very explicit about him not showing off too much, however, so, much to his annoyance, he reined in his grin just a bit. Just a bit, though, rather than making himself completely somber. He held his hands up, making it clear that he was going along with them. They didn't relax, but he didn't expect them to.

Looking at them, he wasn't entirely sure what species they were. They were too small to be equines, unless they were all miniature donkeys or something like that. They were too thick in the shoulders to be foxes, though that might have been the padding of the body armor, too. They were surprisingly bulbous in a number of places, and there was a hint of something leathery running along their backs and arms.

Bats, he guessed. Probably bats.

Despite being focused on what was coming next, Olag couldn't help but pay attention to everything around him. The walls of the corridor were not metal, as he had expected, but something that seemed almost more like rubber. Something thick and bending, something that would give at an impact rather than just shatter or dent. He started to reach for it, only for the doctor to grab him, the peacock's scaled hand gripping tightly.

"Do not touch."

"Why, afraid I'm going to mess up the paint?"

"We do not have time to unstick you from the wall if you do touch it. It acts as a restraint device as much as support for the facility."

"...Huh. Fun."

"Maybe for freaks."

"Ain't saying I ain't one, doc."

"Just...go."

Going along with the poking finger, Olag allowed himself to be led along. The shimmering black went from the edge of the floor up both walls, and then overhead, forming a semi-rounded tunnel that should have been rather structurally insecure, but perhaps there was something to this material that encouraged a more organic shape. Sure as hell seemed to move more than it should have.

The boss is gonna love finding this place...

Not that it was likely that advanced. Most of the shit in this world wasn't, but there were always new applications to existing tech that were interesting enough to port over and advance to a suitable level. He would just bet the boss's science officers would be drooling at the chance to see what they could do with whatever this fucking stuff was.

But if the walls were off, the floor was...weird. It was heated under his feet, and he wondered if that meant that this place was working off of thermal shit, or if there was another reason for the central heating. The whole place was almost overheated, he realized, something that had escaped him when he'd been tied down to the table, and it didn't take the big bear long to be leaving sweaty footprints on the floor tiles.

The doors leading off the barely-curved corridor seemed to lead into other labs, at least over here. He imagined that there were dorms and fighting arenas further off, places where the different subjects were put to work making money for those that had kidnapped them, but he hadn't seen any such thing yet. It was all one experiment after another.

He leaned back as a door to the left opened, briefly showing a phoenix stretched out on an exam table. They were screaming, and for good reason. Their beak was gone, and a prosthetic lay on a secondary rolling table besides the exam table. They were completely conscious for whatever operation was going on in there, and -

WHOOSH!

A sudden flare of heat followed the self-immolation that the phoenix was going through. The door slammed shut before Olag could see the end result of the 'experiment' going on in there, and he shook his head, his heart rate spiking slightly.

Well...that was a hell of a lot more than I expected...

Dr. Malfust chuckled.

"Do you understand now, 'Olag'? Do you feel like you understand what you've gotten into?"

"Yeah. Big fucking mess of a place."

"Are you afraid?"

"Hell no. I'm more excited than ever."

"..."

"Gonna have to work harder than that, Doc."

"You are...very strange."

"Yeah, so I've been told."

Dr. Malfust gestured to the right, and the next door opened. This lab was bigger than the last, with a contained cylinder at the far end perhaps ten feet across. There was an open door, and a pair of field projectors at the top and bottom. He imagined that was there to keep whatever happened inside contained, but he could have been wrong.

"Get in."

Olag shrugged and did what he was told, sliding into the cylinder and getting as comfortable as he could. The heated floor stopped at the other end of the projectors, with the ones in the cylinder being dotted in little dots, little holes. Gas projectors, perhaps, or something else? He didn't know enough about the science to be -

"Nnngh..."

The bear reached up to his ears, rubbing them as a blue field of light dropped down in front of him. Energy fields, then. The dark ring certainly had better tech than the arenas up above, but considering that they were taking in and improving all kinds of good fighters from the other rings, he imagined they'd have to have something. Just surprised that they didn't seem to use it up there.

Unless the whole point was to make sure that they never lost any of their tech, so that it could never be examined and used against them...or to track them.

The energy fields pulsed, and the pressure in the air increased, making him feel like there was some sort of compression going on all around him. Olag pressed his hand to his chest, feeling almost like that time that he had gone diving with the rest of the crew to pull some treasure out of the Celestial Deep. Big suspended cluster of water there, kinda like the ocean, but with a greater rate of compression the further down you went.

This was like that, making breathing a little bit more difficult as he felt the pressure getting stronger and stronger. He looked up at Dr. Malfust, who was leaning over a set of holographic computer monitor arrays. The peacock looked down, looked up, and looked down again.

"Either this is malfunctioning...or you are unlike any physical specimen that we have ever seen..."

"Heh. I told ya. I'm different."

"Let's see just how different..."

Olag gritted his teeth as the high-pressure feeling grew. The compression effect on his chest was bad, but it was particularly uncomfortable on the more tender parts that weren't held down. He bit his lip as he felt his balls getting pushed up against his crotch by the pressure in the air, and then the more tender feeling of them being slowly crushed. His ears felt like they were being stuffed full of cotton, and there was a feeling of actual blood starting to flow from inside his nose. He reached up, dabbed the red stuff, and rubbed it between his fingers.

The peacock pressed it right up to the point of it going past uncomfortable for the bear before something sparked, going out. Olag would have guessed that was something like the equivalent of two hundred, maybe three hundred meters below the surface of the water. Something that would have been rather problematic if he had been in it for long, but survivable. Not enough to crush something, not just yet.

Dr. Malfust glared at the screen, then looked up at him.

"If I find out that you used to be one of ours..."

Heh...they think it's just augmentation that they haven't found yet...

That was a relief. They didn't know that he was as all-natural as they came. Well, 'natural' in terms of no machines, at least. He started to smirk -

Then flexed his legs, feeling weight pressing down on his shoulders. That pressure spread across his upper body, running down his back and along his arms. His fists felt like they were weighed down by invisible dumbbells, pulled closer and closer to the floor, and if things had felt like they were being pushed in before between his legs, well, now they felt like they were being dragged out, stretched to their limits.

"Nnngh..."

"Let's see just how much gravity you can take..."

"What the hell..."

"Just seeing what your limits are, 'Olag'. I imagine that we will find quite a few things before this is done..."

They'd already discovered that he withstood pressure better than he should. Soon, they'd get an idea of his actual strength. The question was, how much did he let them find out...and how much could he fake?

#

That...coulda gone better.

Olag groaned, slumping against the wall as soon as the guards left. They'd tested him in a number of different ways, starting with how much pressure and weight he could take - the latter of which he managed to make them believe was only about a thousand pounds, which was something of a miracle - and then they started taking it further. They started taking blood tests (and that had been a pain in the ass, considering the other thing inside him kept trying to freeze the holes before they could take the needle out) and urine tests, going through everything that he had.

Hell, one asshole almost tried to get him to give a semen test by jabbing his goddamn testicles. That had been stopped with a punch in the face, and even Dr. Malfust admitted that had been going a little too far. He'd been allowed to jerk off in peace for that one.

But they had gone far further than he had expected, and he knew that the fucking peacock was going to be a pain in his ass until he found a way to fake being weaker than he was. So far, he had managed to keep them off the scent to some extent, but if they were going to be this thorough all the time, he didn't know how long that was gonna last. Sooner or later, he was gonna slip up, and one of them was gonna see just what he could do.

And that? That'd lead to all kinds of experiments on him.

Okay...okay, think of that later, Olag told himself. You got a room now, and you have some time to pull yourself together. Let's do that.

After all, he still had to find a way to get in contact with the Man in Red, and he needed to find out where the fuck he was. They'd sent him in without a tracking device, and he didn't have any clue of his whereabouts. Until he managed to get that, sending limited transmissions out was too risky. He'd need to find the right moment to make contact, and then make it count. For now, though...

Sleep. Sleep would be good.

Olag stumbled from his door to the bed. More of a bedroll, really, some sort of rubbery thing that had been laid out on the ground. The naked bear looked at it, judged whether he'd break his face if he just fell on it, and decided he could live with it if he did. He fell forward, hit the rubber -

And almost immediately sank into it.

Oh, fucking HELL!

It wasn't a bed. It was fucking goo. And thick goo, at that, running all over his body and coating him all along his front almost immediately. He pushed back, getting his head over the level of the black ooze, but it was a struggle, more of a struggle than it should have been. The bear thrust his hand against the edge of the liquid layer, feeling the internal pressure and suction of the goo trying to yank him back down. It was strong, but not as strong as him. But anyone else...

Keeps ya down, keeps ya quiet in the night. Makes sure ya can't leave your room...

He'd wondered why he hadn't seen any chains or any fucking things like that. They didn't need 'em. They worked you to the bone, then thrust you into the goo, and from there, you were all but imprisoned. Olag shook his head, starting to reach out -

Then stopped himself. This had to be another test, something to see what else he could do, what else he was able to make happen. Dr. Malfust wasn't the sort to give up or just let things slide, and he would bet anything that there were sensors all over the room that were taking into account what he was doing, trying to get a read on him, trying to find out just how he did the things that he did. One false move, and they'd figure out even more before he could get anything fucking done.

Fuck...fuck...

So, he had a choice. He could submit to the goo and keep up the idea that he was weaker than they thought he was, than he actually was, or he could try and fight it and push himself the rest of the way out. They'd see that he could do it, and if he did it a particular way, they'd see something else, somethign that'd immediately get their attention. No, no, no. He couldn't risk it.

Fuck you...fuck you, peacock asshole...

Gritting his teeth, the bear let go of the edge of the 'bed', and allowed himself to sink beneath it.

It was surprisingly warm, and for all the thickness of the rubbery ooze, it clung to him with a great deal of smooth fluidity. There wasn't a hint of any graininess or discomfort; it was smooth and pressed against him from head to toe, forming rubbery toe-socks around his feet, running up his legs all the way to his cock. It surrounded that, not quite caressing it, but rubbing it for sure the moment that he shifted his weight.

It pulled him further in, and it slipped back between his thighs and between his cheeks. For the first time in years, he felt something besides a tongue back there, and he gritted his teeth as he felt it pressing right against his pucker. He clenched hard, barely keeping it on the other side, but managing to keep that part of himself inviolate. It still stroked along the outside, though, reminding him of what it could do.

Something in the rubber tube around his cock pressed against the very head of his shaft. Guessing what it was for, Olag braced himself -

"Mmmph!"

Only to groan as he felt a tube running right down his cock. Yep. Just like a catheter. It was keeping him ready for long-term storage over the night, so that there was no need for him to get up and use the toilet. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He was sucked in quickly after that, the black ooze running over his face and down the sides of his muzzle. He could feel it forming lenses over his eyes, not that he expected to be able to see, and two little tubes ran into his nose and mouth, connecting him to the surface. Not much of a breathing tube, but it was better than nothing.

Soon, the pressure pushed him down, down, down, until he was suspended in the middle of the ooze. He couldn't touch the bottom, couldn't reach for the surface, couldn't do anything. His arms were all but bound to his sides, and he had to force himself to keep them there, to not scrabble for the surface.

But more than that, he had to fight the cold inside.

Need...free...

Nope, bitch. You're staying right here.

Trapped.

Nope.

Must...get...out...

Olag could already feel the temperature around him dropping. Not by much, a degree or two, but enough for him to notice. The polar bear clenched his hands into fists, trying to keep his breathing even.

Can't know. They can't know.

Get out. Kill.

Not yet.

Get out...must...

I'm in charge, and I say, STAY!

The cold retreated again, though more begrudgingly than before. He couldn't blame it. He didn't want to be there, either, and his heart was going a few hundred miles a minute, but if they were stupid now, they'd pay the price for it sooner than later. They had to try and make this work.

Olag closed his eyes tighter and tried to relax. It wasn't so easy as just doing it, but he still tried.

The goo ejected him slowly when morning came, and the moment the tubes and ooze-rubber mask came off his face, he gasped for breath. The polar bear didn't quite shake with fear, but he did tremble as he reached out one shaky hand for the edge of the 'bed.'

"Fuck...you...all..."

The polar bear dragged himself free as the goo released him. It must have either been on a timer or connected to some central system that released him and others at the same time. Otherwise, he'd probably still be deep down inside the black ooze. The idea was unpleasant, to say the least, and he knew for a fact that it was going to be something that would cause him problems later. That kind of trap...ooooh, he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

Olag reached down for the tube down his cock, wrenching it free with a wince and a growl. His urethra gaped for a few seconds, then slowly started closing. As he waited for the ooze to run down his legs and release his feet, the door opened.

Not Dr. Malfust, this time, but rather someone that he didn't know. One of the guards, white and black armor shining in the light.

"The scientists want you in the ring," the guard said.

"Yeah...sure they do."

"In five minutes."

"Heh, still waiting for the goo to let me go, dick."

"It will do, shortly."

Olag tested it, pulling one leg up. The black goo still ran between his toes, keeping him from lifting it more than a few inches from the goop. He shook his head, his leg falling back down.

"Still got a few minutes."

The rifle barrel came up, and this time, Olag saw the slight shake at the end of it. Ah, that was it. Another scared person, someone that was sure that this was a trick and that the bear was waiting for the chance to beat the crap out of him. He smirked.

"Don't worry. I ain't in the mood to break out."

"You're trying to pull something."

"Kid, if I was gonna pull anything, I'd be pulling my dick right now."

"Get up."

"You wanna tell me how I get out of the goo without it pulling me right back in? You do that, and I'll get up right fucking now. If not, then you better be ready to pull that trigger, or you better sit down and calm down."

The barrel of the gun wobbled a few times, then slowly came down. The guard stepped back, shaking his head.

Olag took a minute to study the armor. He'd always struggled to understand why anyone would want to wear so much shit when they were in a fight. When you were fighting, it was always his understanding that it was better for the body to know how to take pain and for the brain to know how to get out of the fucking way. Armor dulled your ability to take the pain because you never felt it until it was too late, and it made it a hell of a lot harder to actually move around when you were fighting. Worst of both worlds, far as he was concerned.

But the armor was an interesting style. It had thick shoulders, the kind that suggested that something was built in there, and there was something bulging out of the back. On a diver, Olag would have called it an oxygen tank, but this one didn't seem to have those kinds of hoses. Maybe a battery of some sort. The suit was chunky enough for that kind of thing.

With all the plates that covered it, he could tell that it was meant to stand up to some serious firepower. The dark arena must have had some serious difficulties with the law in the past if they were going to spring for that kind of tech and protection for common security guards.

The weapon looked like a standard rifle with bullet-based ammunition, at first, but a second look indicated that it had a different ammo-type. Plasma of some sort, judging by the way that it moved and looked like gaseous slime. The barrel itself had a longer length to it, meaning that it'd stay accurate down a short hallway, as well as an extender. Probably something to make sure that the guy using it could keep working at multiple ranges.

But the guy using it sure didn't seem that confident about using it. Despite the relaxed shoulders, there was a shake in the helmet. The bear chuckled.

"That scared, kid?"

"...The bosses told me to be careful with you."

"They're right. But not because of what I'll do to you."

The guard started to raise his rifle, but Olag chuckled, leaning one arm back. His foot finally came free of the ooze, and he lifted it up and free, staring between his toes for a moment.

"Nah. I'm saving whatever I get pissed about to take out on the big guys."

"That's suicide. And a lie. Probably."

"Kid. I came here to fight. Hell, I want to be here. You think that there's anyone else that you got down here that wants to be here? I'm built for it. I like it. So, don't you worry about me trying to run off. You worry about what'll happen to the guys upstairs if I start getting pissed off, because they are the ones that are gonna have to deal with it."

That was putting it lightly, and perhaps a little more aggressively than somene in his position should have really bothered with, but at the same time, he was a little bit pissed at the way that he had been treated the day before. He had come here quite willingly, shown off a bit to make them happy, and then they not only tried to push it further, but they threw him in a rubber bath for the night. That wasn't how this was supposed to go, and he was pretty sure that he was allowed to feel a little angry about that.

Olag stood up, stretching his arms over his head, then brought them back down again. The guard kept that rifle half-raised, almost like he was afraid of being charged. He chuckled.

"So, what's your name?"

"...Kevin."

"Well, Kevin. Gonna open the door so I can go fight?"

"..."

"Think we're down to about two minutes, now."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..."

The door opened in a flash and they were on the move. The corridor, just as he had expected from last night, did curve around, following a long, gradual sweep inwards towards the right. It probably covered miles of rooms down here with something that gradual, but that meant that the dark arena was just that much more successful than he or the boss had realized. And that meant that there was even more chance of a good reward for taking them down, even if that meant just looting them to get paid back for their efforts.

They passed many other guards, most of which immediately grabbed for their weapons as soon as they saw him. They were terrified, and he wondered just how much data they had really gathered from him during the various tests that they had put him through. Enough to know that he was powerful, obviously, but he wondered just how well he compared if they were this ready to fire.

Probably better than they liked.

They took a stairway down. He half-expected it to be made of hard-light, just because this place kept surprising him with what it had for tech, but no, they were simple metal stairs. As they made their way down, however, he was surprised to find that they bent and shook slightly beneath his bulk and weight. The bear cocked an eyebrow, looking at the thick armor that the guard wore, and then at his own denting footprints.

"Care to explain?" the bear asked.

"What?"

"Why you're not wrecking the stairs and I am?"

"Um..."

"...Heh, that's not as heavy as it looks, is it?"

"It's heavy enough. Don't try anything."

"Hey, hey, Kevin. I already told you, I'm not here for someone like you."

"And you better remember that."

Still, worth knowing. If the armor only looked heavy, that meant that it was probably capable of more than just protecting the wearer. It was probably meant to do a great deal more than that, as a matter of fact. He stored that information away, but he couldn't quite keep the grin off his face as he realized just how much fun he would have if he got into a fight with the guards.

They left the stairs and entered a smaller corridor, one that Kevin pushed him into. Olag took three steps forward before the hum of another force-field coming down caught his ears. He slowly turned around, looking back at the much-relieved guard. Kevin pulled at the base of his helmet, pulling it up and over his head.

Bat. Called it.

The brown-furred bat looked him right in the eye, rubbing his forehead and cheeks. His fur was sweat-soaked, his eyes still wide.

"Look...before this happens, I want you to know. I'm sorry."

"Heh, you apologizing to me? What for?"

"They're...they're sending you against #33."

"Guessing that they're strong?"

Kevin nodded.

"Eh, we'll see."

"Look. I've brought four different...experiments here, and they've all gotten ripped to shreds by 33. They send people here when they want them to die, when they want them to disappear."

Olag frowned. That sounded like they were closer to figuring out what he was able to do than he liked...but at the same time, probably not close enough to know the full story. Long as he fought smart, he should still be alright. Far as he was concerned, the bigger issue was still keeping them from figuring out what he could do in the arena.

"Eh, I ain't bothered."

"You're just fine with dying?"

"Kid, you're the one that thinks I'm up for execution. Me? I think that they just want to know what they're dealing with." Olag flicked his eyes up, smirking. "And I'm gonna show 'em."

"..."

"But hey, if it matters, apology accepted. Ain't needed, though."

"But you're gonna die!"

"Watch me."

With that, he turned on his heel, making his way down the corridor. Another force-field, whited out, waited for him at the far end. He leaned against it, tapping his fingers against it as he imagined what this #33 could be.

Probably not one of their super-soldiers, not unless it fucked up and got turned into some sort of failed experiment. Probably not a guard, either, because that'd be a waste of resources. And Kevin wouldn't be pissing himself about what might happen if it was a guard.

Far as he was concerned, that meant that the arena was doing more than just throwing together different soldiers. They were throwing together monsters to pit the soldiers against in the arena. That would stand to reason, he guessed. Not like they could just buy tons of fodder to throw at them, and certainly wasn't like they could just hire out to temps that nobody would miss.

But why #33? What was so special about -

The force-field faded, and he almost stumbled through. The naked bear grunted as he caught himself, looking straight ahead, not at an arena ring, but at a high-tech obstacle course filled with flamethrowers, rubber traps, sticky binders, spike pits, and more.

"...Right." Olag leaned forward, looking straight down to find a pit of black ooze waiting under him. Just ahead, a platform on a rickety plank. Past that, the first solid ground with weapons armed and aimed right at the landing point.

It wasn't a monster or a soldier at all. It was a fucking training course, and this one seemed to have arrived straight from hell.

" Olag. You will start running the course in five seconds. Failure to begin will result in you being submerged for the next two days before being given the chance to try again. Five...four...three...two..."

The End

Summary: Olag goes through a few tests, and finds out that this place is a bit more high-tech than it looks.

Tags: M/solo, Nudity, Polar Bear, Series, Weight, Pressure, Sci-Fi, Testing, Olag, Rubber, Ooze, Bondage, Catheter, Fuck You Science,