Cassian had spent the entire fight terrified of the Ape Titan.
There was no shame in admitting it.
The creature towered above him like a living siege engine.
Black fur covered shoulders wider than a chariot.
Broken bronze restraints hung from its wrists.
Old scars crossed its chest.
Every time one enormous fist struck the sand, Cassian felt the impact through his feet.
Forty thousand Romans screamed from the stone seats surrounding the arena.
They wanted spectacle.
Governor Varro had promised them something Rome had never seen before.
A gladiator against a monster brought from beyond the northern frontier.
Cassian had survived the first five minutes mostly through instinct.
Duck.
Roll.
Run.
Strike only when there was space.
Never stand directly in front of the creature.
His shield had already split.
His sword had lost part of its edge.
One shoulder burned from where the Titan had thrown him against the arena wall.
Still, Cassian was alive.
That seemed to disappoint Varro.
The governor sat beneath a crimson awning high above the arena.
Beside him were senators, officers and wealthy guests.
Livia stood farther behind them, wrists held by two guards.
She had been forced to watch everything.
Cassian looked toward her.
She shook her head.
Don’t fight.
Survive.
He understood.
The Titan charged again.
Cassian barely moved in time.
Its fist struck the wooden barrier behind him.
The entire section collapsed.
The crowd roared.
Cassian rolled across the sand and grabbed his sword.
“Come on,” he muttered.
The Titan turned.
For a moment their eyes met.
Cassian expected rage.
Instead, he saw exhaustion.
That confused him.
The creature could have crushed him several times already.
Yet whenever Cassian fell, it hesitated.
Whenever the crowd shouted for it to finish him, it seemed almost reluctant.
Cassian had started wondering whether the Titan truly wanted to fight at all.
Then a horn sounded.
One long note.
The Ape Titan stopped.
Cassian looked toward Varro.
The governor was smiling.
Not the amused smile he had worn during the fight.
Something colder.
Varro slowly stood.
“Citizens of Rome!”
The audience quieted.
“You have seen strength.”
He gestured toward the Titan.
“You have seen courage.”
He pointed toward Cassian.
Cassian spat sand from his mouth.
Varro opened both arms.
“But you have not yet seen the real contest.”
Another horn sounded.
This one came from beneath the arena.
Cassian frowned.
There were several gates around the amphitheater.
He knew which held gladiators.
Which held animals.
Which led toward the underground tunnels.
But one gate had remained closed since he entered.
A massive iron structure on the northern side.
Black stone surrounded it.
Heavy chains crossed its surface.
Cassian had assumed it was an unused entrance.
Now the chains began moving.
Metal scraped against stone.
The audience exploded with excitement.
Cassian turned toward the Ape Titan.
And everything changed.
The creature backed away.
Cassian stared.
One step.
Then another.
For the first time since the battle began, the giant animal lowered its shoulders.
Its breathing quickened.
Its eyes fixed on the opening gate.
Cassian knew fear when he saw it.
The Ape Titan was afraid.
“No,” Cassian whispered.
The gate rose another foot.
Darkness waited behind it.
The Titan made a low sound.
Not anger.
A warning.
Cassian looked toward Varro.
The governor was enjoying this.
“You knew.”
Varro could not hear him from that distance.
But Cassian suddenly understood.
The Titan had never been the final attraction.
It had been the first.
Livia realized it too.
“Cassian!”
He looked toward her.
She was struggling against the guards.
“Get away from the gate!”
Cassian almost laughed.
“Where?”
There was nowhere to go.
The gate continued rising.
Three feet.
Four.
The audience began chanting.
Cassian could smell something from the tunnel now.
Smoke.
Wet stone.
And something sharp that reminded him of burned metal.
The Ape Titan retreated toward Cassian.
That frightened him more than the darkness.
Seconds earlier, Cassian would have done anything to keep distance between them.
Now the creature deliberately positioned itself beside him.
Cassian looked up.
“Whatever is in there…”
The Titan growled.
“…you’ve seen it before.”
The creature struck its chest once.
Then pointed toward the gate.
Cassian’s stomach tightened.
“Yes.”
The gate reached halfway.
Two glowing eyes appeared inside.
The crowd went silent.
They were too far apart.
Too high.
Cassian raised his sword.
Something enormous moved in the darkness.
Chains rattled.
Then a claw emerged beneath the gate.
Not an animal paw.
Something covered in overlapping black scales.
Each talon was nearly the length of Cassian’s forearm.
Livia whispered:
“What is that?”
Varro answered for everyone.
“The last survivor of Project Vulcan.”
Cassian looked up sharply.
Project?
That was not the language of arena games.
It sounded military.
The Ape Titan roared.
The creature behind the gate answered.
The sound shook dust from the amphitheater walls.
Spectators who had been cheering seconds earlier stopped smiling.
The gate reached the top.
What emerged was unlike anything Cassian had seen.
A colossal reptilian beast moved into the sunlight.
Its body was lower than the Titan’s but longer.
Dark scales covered its back.
Heavy bronze plates had been attached along its shoulders.
Its head resembled some impossible combination of lizard and war beast.
Steam escaped from metal fittings near its neck.
A thick chain dragged behind it.
Cassian stared at the machinery fixed against the creature’s body.
“This isn’t natural.”
The Ape Titan stepped backward again.
Varro laughed.
“No.”
Cassian looked toward him.
“What did you do?”
Varro raised one hand.
Handlers in the tunnel pulled several levers.
The scaled beast convulsed.
Then its eyes locked onto the Titan.
It charged.
“MOVE!”
Cassian threw himself sideways.
The Ape Titan barely avoided the first strike.
The reptilian beast crashed into the wall.
Stone exploded outward.
The crowd screamed.
Not with excitement anymore.
People in the lower seats began moving backward.
Cassian pushed himself up.
The Titan attacked.
Its fists slammed against the creature’s armored back.
The beast twisted with shocking speed and knocked the Titan aside.
Cassian saw something exposed beneath one bronze plate.
A Roman military insignia.
The same emblem he had seen on experimental weapons during his years in the legions.
He looked toward Varro.
“This came from the army.”
Varro smiled.
Cassian suddenly remembered rumors.
Years earlier, soldiers had whispered about secret expeditions beyond Rome’s borders.
Animals captured alive.
Engineers transferred without explanation.
Prisoners sent to remote compounds and never seen again.
He had always assumed the stories were exaggerated.
Now one stood in front of him.
The scaled creature charged the Titan again.
This time Cassian noticed the giant ape was not merely avoiding it.
It was trying to stay away from the metal apparatus attached to its neck.
Why?
Cassian followed the cables.
A bronze cylinder sat behind the creature’s skull.
Red markings covered it.
The Ape Titan saw Cassian looking.
It struck its own neck.
Then pointed toward the cylinder.
Cassian understood.
“That controls it.”
The Titan roared once.
Cassian looked at Livia.
She had seen it too.
“The device!” she shouted. “Break the device!”
Varro’s smile disappeared.
“Archers!”
Soldiers along the arena wall raised bows.
Cassian laughed bitterly.
“There it is.”
He ran.
The scaled beast snapped toward him.
Cassian slid beneath its head.
Its jaws closed inches behind him.
He reached the creature’s side and drove his damaged sword beneath one bronze strap.
Nothing.
Too thick.
The Titan grabbed the beast from behind.
For a few seconds the two giants struggled across the sand.
Cassian climbed onto a broken section of the arena barrier.
Higher.
He needed height.
Varro saw what he was doing.
“Stop him!”
Arrows struck around Cassian.
One shattered against stone.
Another passed beside his shoulder.
Cassian jumped.
He landed on the scaled creature’s back.
The crowd erupted.
He grabbed a bronze handle.
The beast twisted.
Cassian almost fell.
He crawled toward the cylinder.
Up close, he saw writing engraved into the metal.
PROJECT VULCAN.
SPECIMEN IV.
BEHAVIORAL CONTROL UNIT.
Cassian froze.
Behavioral control.
The beast was not attacking because it wanted to.
Rome was forcing it.
Just as Rome had forced the Ape Titan into the arena.
Cassian looked toward Varro.
“You made both of them prisoners.”
Varro shouted:
“BREAK HIS ARMS IF YOU HAVE TO!”
The handlers pulled another lever.
The cylinder released a sharp mechanical sound.
The scaled beast roared in pain.
Cassian nearly lost his grip.
The Ape Titan charged.
But instead of attacking the creature, it reached toward Cassian.
Cassian understood.
He jumped.
The Titan caught him.
For one unbelievable moment, Cassian stood in the creature’s enormous palm.
He pointed toward the control cylinder.
“There!”
The Titan lifted him higher.
Cassian raised his sword.
Then brought it down.
Once.
Metal sparked.
Again.
A crack appeared.
Varro screamed:
“No!”
Cassian struck a third time.
The cylinder broke.
The scaled beast collapsed.
Silence swept across the amphitheater.
The Ape Titan lowered Cassian to the ground.
Everyone waited.
The reptilian creature slowly lifted its head.
Its eyes looked different now.
No frenzy.
No forced rage.
It looked toward the Titan.
Then toward Cassian.
Finally, it turned toward Varro.
The governor stopped smiling.
Both creatures were staring at him.
Cassian picked up a broken piece of the control cylinder.
More writing appeared on the inside.
There was a date.
Twenty years earlier.
And a location.
THE NORTHERN LABORATORY.
The Ape Titan saw the inscription.
It immediately became agitated.
Cassian looked at it.
“You know that place.”
The creature struck its chest.
Then pointed toward the scaled beast.
Cassian understood something horrible.
They had been there together.
These two creatures had not first met inside the arena.
They had been prisoners of the same Roman experiment.
Livia shouted:
“Cassian! Look at the final line!”
He turned the metal piece.
One sentence had been carved beneath the project number.
ONLY TWO SURVIVED TRANSFER.
Cassian looked at the Titan.
Then at the creature Rome had hidden behind the second gate.
Two survivors.
Not arena monsters.
Evidence.
Living evidence of whatever Varro and Rome had done twenty years earlier.
Varro stepped away from the balcony.
Cassian saw the fear in his face.
The governor had expected the two creatures to destroy each other.
Instead, Cassian had broken the device controlling one of them.
Now both remembered the same enemy.
The Ape Titan moved toward the imperial balcony.
The scaled creature slowly followed.
Varro shouted for his guards.
Nobody immediately moved.
Cassian tightened his grip on the broken cylinder.
He finally understood why the Ape Titan had been afraid when the second gate opened.
It had not feared the creature itself.
It feared what Rome had turned that creature into.
Whatever happened inside the Northern Laboratory had scarred both survivors deeply enough that twenty years later, one look at the second gate had brought the terror back.
And the inscription in Cassian’s hand proved Varro had been connected to it from the beginning.
The real contest had never been Cassian against the Ape Titan.
Or even the Ape Titan against the beast behind the gate.
The real contest was whether Varro could destroy the final two witnesses before Rome learned what had happened inside that forgotten laboratory.
Cassian looked toward the tunnel Varro was now trying to escape through.
Then at the two enormous creatures standing beside him.
For the first time that afternoon, he smiled.
“Looks like the contest changed.”
Tap the link below the comment to discover what Rome hid inside the Northern Laboratory—and why even the Ape Titan was terrified when the second gate began to open.
