The thing about neuro pulse emitters is they feel like a naturally induced sleep. Quite cleverly the signal pairs with your brainwaves and tells them that it's time to sleep because your body is tired. Another brilliant feature is because your mind thinks it's natural, in a sense. Your brain releases glycine and GABA, the chemical in your body that paralyzes you when you sleep so you don't act out your dreams. Thus creating an effective tactic for capture.
Cyklo slowly opened his heavy eyes, creeping wider it felt like they had been glued shut. He found himself staring at an unusual and ancient material, one that had not been used in construction for hundreds of years but yet here he was, asleep on wood. Laying on his stomach with his head on its side he rubbed the wood with his hand, it felt damp. He breathed in and noticed an unfamiliar smell. The ocean. Cyklo pushed himself up off the damp wood and took in his surroundings. It was a beautiful autumn twilight with the sun disappearing behind the ocean horizon. Above was a perfect mixture of pink, yellow and blue made up of clouds and sky. He realised he was on an old Earth ocean ship, a sixteenth century pirate ship with advancements not of its time. Cyklo noticed huge blasters on the port, aft and stern, a ship that was prepared for battle; he was intrigued but slowly working out the situation.
A man in a black bandana approached Cyklo. His long unwashed dark brown hair poked out of the bottom of the old ripped fabric wrapped around his head. He had on a dusty old long black coat, black leather boots and ripped khaki coloured pants tucked into his boots. His black bushy thick beard had hints of grey sneaking through. Cyklo had studied about great battles, military and warriors from all around the known universe. He knew the man was a living breathing pirate. People now refer to the 'known universe' because of our advancement in faster than light travel. We have colonized and discovered so much of the universe but there is still so much left to explore, we adopted the term with the understanding that with all our travel technology we will never fully reach the ends of the universe.
The pirate smiled revealing a gold tooth. "Ahh the ice king in the flesh." He had his arms open like he was presenting a prized champion.
Cyklo was muted by thoughts of where he could be and how a pirate and his ship from the 1500's came to be here, now.
The pirate turned to the other crew on the ship. "Best give him a moment. We all remember when we first arrived on the Combat World."
Cyklos realisation of where he was, the ancient tournament, made him conjure all kinds of thoughts, mostly the thrill of a good battle. Knowing that there was an audience and cameras he leant back to look to the sky holding his stomach and let out a deep bellowing laugh. "Hahaha!"
The pirate looked back at his crew who were equally as confused. He shrugged.
Bronson Gage spoke up "Damn, I don't remember laughing when I first got thrown into this."
The huge space Viking, Tiny, threw his massive arm around young Bronson Gage. "If memory serves, there was a lot of crying." He was always making light of Bronson like an older brother.
"Yeah yeah get off." He forced the giants arm away.
Tiny thumped his own chest. "Not me. I love me a good battle." Tiny's real name was Ormin 'Tiny' Korvestindra, he was a large space Viking, nearly as big as the Vantoran. His name was too hard to pronounce for most people so Bronson Gage called him Tiny.
Cyklo stopped laughing. "Definitely the wrong day for sweatpants." He looked around at the ship's crew, made up of not only sixteenth century pirates but all sorts of miscreants from around the know universe. He noticed a camera drone overhead about fifteen feet above him, he glared straight into the camera knowing all well the decision makers were also watching. He spread his arms out and continued looking up. "Your in for a treat now!" He crouched down close to the wooden deck then pushed with exuberance launching himself up into the twilight sky on a high velocity approach toward the drone.
The ship swayed at the thrust of Cyklos mighty leap. The crew and captain Black Water all took a step back as though they could feel the force of his liftoff. They were in awe. Captain Black Water stroked his beard and grinned. "That be the mightiest of men."
Tiny walked up behind the captain still looking up following Cyklo with his eyes. "That's not a man captain." He stated in his deep booming voice. "That is a god." He pointed to the Sky with his index finger. "They have made a huge mistake taking him against his will." He pat Black Water on the shoulder before walking away. "He's right. Their in for a treat now." He chuckled and assembled back with the rest of the crew.
Cyklo crashed into the drone at high impact from underneath, he grabbed onto its steel landing arms. The drone instantly began heading to its home base which was in the orbiting stadium. Cyklo saw the donut shaped megastructure high up in the sky through the clouds, it was faint like how the moon appears during daylight. He grunted and heaved himself up onto the top of the drone which had now built up a ferocious acceleration. The giant warrior's muscles burned as he tried to keep hold of the six foot wide drone. He knew the drone was heading up into the sky so he used every ounce of power to steer the drone anywhere but up. Rocking his body from side to side he found he had more successful turning the craft to the East.
The drones used to film all the action of the Combat World weren't like the ancient drones that used propellers, these ones are powered by the planet's magnetic field that is artificially generated by an immensely complex and powerful system. Sophisticated high powered magnets inside the drone enable it to be pulled at high velocity in any direction it chooses.
Cyklo flung his body off the side of the drone while still holding on causing the craft to make a dramatic dip in its flight path. He heard a crack from inside the drone and it began heading East at a sharp degree. Looking around to see if they were falling toward the water he noticed far off in the distance a mountainous terrain. He was determined to head there to crash the drone but it would take hours by the look of the distance. Cyklo heard a whisper in his ear. Vantoran. A woman's voice was calling to him. He felt someone grab his hand that was hanging on to the drone, he looked back up toward the drone to see the young girl from his dreams with the cyan blue illuminated hair, her piercing blue eyes were staring right through him. She started yelling, "Vantoran!". Although he was the toughest warrior around, a woman from your dream grabbing your hand on top of a flying drone was a bit of a shock. He gasped and his hand slipped. He began plummeting from just below the clouds on a fast descent straight into the ocean below. White water erupted as he crashed into the ocean like a asteroid on a destructive date with a planet.
Captain Black Water saw this story unfold on his holographic display which was in front of his wooden steering wheel. Bronson Gage, the expert hacker had set up an illegal feed of the illegal feed of the illegal tournament, so they could watch the action unfold. Not only that, they could see what the world was saying about them. They also saw the Dr Mars announcement about the Ice King and the Gamma Faction. Other drones were in flight filming as Cyklo leaped up to ride the drone, they were still replaying it on the Factionation live feed. It was a the greatest thing the audience had ever seen.
Black Water yelled out to the crew. "Engaging Nautic Drives!" That translates to Hold on everyone! He tapped the touchscreen next to his ships wheel and the Nautic Drives fired up. A him that started low and worked its way up as the ship increased in speed.
The great ship, The Black Mist, glided across the now black marble like ocean, breaking through small waves as it made its way towards the Vantoran warrior. The sun had nearly all but gone, and the moon was slowly becoming brighter. It was in fact just the orbiting stadium that generated the appearance of a moon. They approached Cyklo, who was already swimming towards them. The hum of the Nautic Drives died down and the Black Mist stopped near Cyklo. Some crew threw a rope out for him, and he pulled himself into the ship. Captain Black Water walked over to the giant. "Ahh big man, you've been here not an hour and you've given them the best show they've seen. Hear them roaring we did."
He held a handheld video device up so Cyklo could see a feed of the crowd in the stadium cheering. A man appeared on screen, he was in the stadium with members of the audience. "So, it's clear now that everyone has a new favorite."
The announcer turned to the audience members that were near him, one of them yelled out. "Hell yeah Ice King! He opened his eyes and was like I'm getting out of here!"
The camera went back to the announcer. "What we've witnessed today, I've never seen anything like that. He just jumped up without any thought. This is just the beginning for the Ice King."
Black Water turned off the device. "You'll do well here Ice King. Keep this up and you'll be famous for a century."