It took a surprisingly short time for the hub hub to die down. I hid in the back of one of the speeders, hoping that they might think that I was dead. It would, I hoped, be hard to verify who the driver of the flier had been, so badly had the wreck burned. For a long while I didn’t know what to do. It had just been graphically demonstrated to me that attempting to fly out was  not a viable option. I knew that I couldn’t just abandon Hadrian, but that knowledge didn’t furnish me with any actionable plan. I lay back against the upholstery and tried to think but nothing concrete came to me. I was still thinking when four of the guards left the hangar. By their excited chatter I could tell it wasn’t just a change of shift. I followed them, staying in ear shot of their excited chatter. I heard something about sport but nothing I could make out. We moved back to the main house and into another wing, me skulking along behind hoping they lead me somewhere useful. 
 
I heard it before we got there. Take it from me that the sound of a blood thristy mob cheering for death has a unique timbre to it. The guards went into the auditorium and closed the door behind them. I wasn’t sure I could safely follow. Simply walking through the door seemed like a recipe for disaster. I edged up to it anyway and peered through the narrow gap between the door and the jam. I swore at the narrow slit of vision I was granted. Fortunately all eyes were on the spectacle below so I took a deep breath and pushed the door open, slipping inside and taking a seat beside a couple of servants. They didn’t even glance at her. Hadrian was in the pit below, circling with a… well it looked like a man, but it was too thin and too tall. It seemed like its features should be handsome, beyond beautiful, but somehow it managed to be repellant. Like a sculpture made of pieces by a half dozen master artists whose pieces didn’t quite add up. It was unnaturally fast, a fluid blurr that lunged across at Hadrian. He managed to dodge aside and took a swipe at the thing but it was already out of reach. It was clearly playing with the Inquisitor, much to the crowds delight. Emmaline noticed that it wore manacles at its wrists and ankles. Was this creature a prisoner here too? That hardly made it an ally, but it was clear that if she didn’t do something soon Hadrian would be dead. She did the only thing she could. She reached out with her psy and snared the minds of four of the servants. It was easy. There was so much hate and bloodlust in the air. They all screamed in rage and leaped into the pit, landing awkwardly on the arena floor. The creature turned and casually shattered the throat of the nearest servant, dropping the man to the floor as blood sprayed from his face. I saw heads turn to regard me from the seats of honor. Someone up there had noticed what I had done.

“Frak,” I said and grabbed the pistol from the holster of a guard who was cheering hoarsely. I pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. The gun roared and he staggered backwards, clutching his chest. I turned and fired more or less randomly in the direction of the booth. I  reached out again and whipped the nearby crowd into a frenzy. One woman leaped on another and sank her teeth into her neck. A guard casually stove in the head of another man with the but of his rifle. Chaos erupted.