Spaceships and Magic, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

"You seem to be doing well for someone who is meant to be dead," Akash said offhandedly. 

He'd never interacted with Lara one on one, but thanks to her presence on Prespian City as the one who managed the yearly recruitment events he was well aware of who she was. 

"Oh, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," Lara replied sweetly, leaning against some piece of equipment in the brig. "A shame the same can't be said for the rest of your species… Oh well, who's going to care about a few trees, anyway?" 

It was hard for Akash to keep his cool in the face of statements like that, but he managed. It was clear that the girl was trying to rile him up for some reason, and she wasn't going to give her the satisfaction, no matter how much she dug at him. 

"Oh, I see, you're playing the silent and stoic type, that's okay. I don't mind. That'll make you much more fun to break… which I will," She went on, practically bouncing as she walked towards the cells. 

"What happened to you, Lara…" Pax said from the other cell. "I remember when you were growing up, we knew each other, and now… I can't even recognise you." 

It sounded like the Lyrin was on the verge of tears. The two must have had a very close relationship when the girl was growing up, perhaps something akin to a cousin or an older brother. Akash had never been able to have relationships like that, after the destruction of his planet he had become a bit of an introvert. Either way, Pax sounded distraught. 

"Oh Pax, I'd love to tell you I was out of my right mind… but the truth of the matter is, you're about to be out of your right mind!" She snorted at that, "Well, you will be, first I'm going to soften you both up a little bit, make sure you can't put up much of a fight. You know how it is, can't have the experiment fighting back against the experimenter and all that." 

A white rune appeared beneath Akash, taking up the entirety of the cell. He wasn't too knowledgeable on runic spellwork, but there was nowhere for him to go, so as the intensity of the light increased he brought his guard up and reinforced himself as much as he could- though without any naturally wooden surfaces nearby the bonus wasn't all that much. 

The blaze of white runic light reached a crescendo and then- 

- Akash was no longer in the cell that he had previously been in. 

He was in some kind of fighting arena. It was circular with a floor and high walls made out of a material designed to absorb manna abilities without any damage, an incredibly expensive material. He could hear movement and jeering from above the high walls, meaning there was an audience.

Pax was off to one side and a set of wooden pallets were off to the other. That was a mistake. They had given him the one thing that he needed to be able to escape. 

Wasting no time Akash whipped out a tendril of vine and wrapped it around the wood, his biology immediately absorbing the resources to create his battle form. The form grew around him like living armour. He had never been bested while in this form, and he wasn't about to start now. 

"Get behind me, Pax, I will keep us safe," Akash said, his voice lower through his bolstered form. Something he didn't let his enemies in on was that his battle form reinforced his internal biology just as much as it gave him a set of armour. 

Whether it was the shock of being confronted by Lara or just fear, Pax did as Akash asked without any question. 

"Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, may I introduce Akash, last of the Eldrani!" Lara's voice rang out across the fighting arena, with all the enthusiasm that it had at the Battle Royale. "He's a downright powerhouse of manna, able to adapt his form when given wood to absorb, that can attack from range with his tentacle-like vines or up close with his brutish powered up physique! Audience members, give me a yell if you were there at the destruction of his homeworld!"

The audience erupted in cheers and stomping. 

Humans. 

Lara had been working with humans and now he had been captured by them. A fire raged through Akash's spirit, he was going to escape this fighting pit and he was going to slaughter every single one of them for what they did to his people all those years ago. 

"We also have Pax the Lyrin! Famed for their ability to connect to their lovers through a psychic mental connection, the Lyrin are… well they're pretty basic, boring and bog-standard as far as alien species go."

Akash bristled even further at that. The humans were well known for their xenophobia, he hadn't expected Lara to have bought into that kind of rhetoric as well. 

"And on the other side, we have… well…Me" She said as a spotlight lit her up on the other side of the room. She was wearing a hooded cloak, with two green irises shining underneath. 

Akash dodged to the side as a cavalcade of light and heat burned its way across the fighting pit toward him. He lashed out his vines and pulled himself from one side of the dip to the other.

He had no idea what had happened to Pax, only that now he was in the fight of his life. Nothing had compared to this before, not even the fight against that accursed human.

The hooded figure took a step forward, blurring as they did so, and suddenly they stood right in front of the tree-alien. He lashed out with a whip of his vines, the edges morphed to be serrated so they would do the most damage as possible if they landed.

But land they didn't.

The figure blurred on the spot, moving so fast that his vine seemed to simply pass through his opponent.

They darted forward, on the offensive once again, and gripped Akash by his thick wooden shoulders so hard that the material he was made from gave an unhappy creak. With a twist of their hips, Akash was on the ground, unconscious. The crowd watching roared their appreciation as they put a foot on Akash's face and ground down.