Storm: the Arena

Champion

Summary

  A woman in shadow enters a gladiatorial arena to the applause of the crowd.

  Ororo, in a bird-like red mask, is announced as Champion by Koga, while guards keep Yukio still by keeping their swords to her throat. She yells this is a trick and a trap; Koga insists this is a haven for mutants to do what they do best: fight and entertain. Ororo can only hear the roar of the crowd, and it gives her goose bumps for the first time in her life, and she soars skyward, carrying Yukio away and blasting through the roof with lightning.

  Yukio's apartment is decorated with photos of her with Ororo, Logan, and Amiko; she finishes taking a shower and finds Ororo on the balcony, lost in thought, rain pouring down on the city. She breaks her reverie; Ororo uses wind to dry them both off, and hears the news report of Marie's court ruling. She wonders out loud why individuals can be friends, but mutants in the aggregate are always the enemy; Yukio agrees, that's the fate of all minorities. They look at Purity's web-site, the Voice of Humanity, which now denounces Marie as a race traitor, and they understand why she had been driven to anti-mutant violence. Ororo, frustrated, tosses her drink at the image of Xavier on the screen. It was easy to police the world against a handful of evil mutants, but now an entire generation of mutants is rising and the general population sees a threat everywhere. Yukio comforts Ororo, saying she can't save everyone; Ororo says she's an X-Man, and she only knows to try.

  The women sleep on couches in the living room; a large figure climbs up the side of the building and enters from the balcony. He slams a fist down, but Ororo dives away in time. She tosses a mini-tornado at him, but he ducks; Yukio jumps on his back, which turns out to be a bad idea, and she yells for help; Ororo whips up a larger tornado, but the man reaches out, grabs her by the neck, and tosses her into the wall. Yukio tosses throwing stars, but he just laughs, catches them between his fingers, and holds Ororo down by the neck. She says she'll electrocute him before he kills her, and he backs off, showing himself to be Lila's bodyguard, Guido. Suddenly, he tells the women to duck, and he tosses the throwing stars, destroying Koga's spycams, hovering over the balcony. They sneak out and through a dimensional doorway to Lila's sentient apartment, which welcomes them.

  Guido shows the tattoos on his chest and explains he's been one of Koga's gladiators, ever since X-Factor disbanded and he had trouble finding a job (actually, he left after he had a heart attack and was hospitalized, X-Factor 111; he got a pacemaker in X-Factor 135 and was working for Lila again in X-Men Unlimited 21).

  He was seduced by the Arena's promises of luxury and ease. The apartment holographically projects images as he explains: most arenas are low-rent with bare-knuckle fights of "flatscans," but the high end have mutant fighters. Each Arena has a Champion to whom all the other gladiators are subject. Koga books the fights, and if you lose, you become property of your opponent, unless you win a rematch. Only a Champion challenge another Champion, but since Ororo defeated Musclehead without officially entering, she can just walk away if she wants, but that would leave the Arena without a protector, to be picked off by other Arenas. A bad life, but at least they're alive, unlike the mutants in Genosha. Guido tries to dissuade Ororo from staying, since there's no way out, but she's unwilling to abandon Guido. She returns to the Arena and publicly accepts status as Champion, with tattoos on her abdomen. Her first challenger: her old nemesis Callisto (X-Men I:212), now with tentacles instead of arms.