After another ten days of floating through dark matter in space, when SpaceWalker finally enters the Artulis galaxy, the view of the purple planet that's their final destination is breathtaking. The planet is similar in size and shape to Earth, and twin moons revolve around it.

The ride through the environment is smooth, just like the departure from Earth was, and the advanced oxygen and gravity mechanisms of SpaceWalker ensured their long journey was as comfortable as possible. The landing fills the captive humans with conflicting emotions - nostalgia of missing Earth, excitement of visiting a new planet, and fear of what the planet holds for their future.

As they finally step down the stairs of the exquisite spacecraft that was their forced abode for about a month, with their mouths gagged and wrists tied behind them by nylon ropes, they are welcomed by enchanting lilac skies instead of mild blues.

The cool, fresh air that hits them is a luxury that they only dreamt of in their era of synthetic oxygen synthesizers and air purifiers. A lush green garden stretches for several miles around them, ending in thick trees that could only be the edge of an enchanting forest. The beauty of nature in Volzolks is as beautiful as Earth would have been centuries ago, before industrial revolution ruined it forever.

The royal castle of Volzolks stands tall and proud across them, its scenic complex, shimmering golden exteriors, gigantic size and remarkably tasteful design puts even Buckingham Palace to shame. It stretches for miles along with the gardens, it's size fit to hold the entire population of a town on Earth.

The human leaders, however, aren't given much time to admire the beauty of the palace, as they are escorted, rather dragged inside, through the eerily quiet, long but beautiful palace corridors. The walls are painted in shimmery gold paints like the exterior, roofs are engraved with intricate colorful designs, and floors are carpeted with dark fur.

Soon, they are shoved into a huge, stadium sized hall and as soon as they enter, the place becomes alive with commotion.

Avni looks around and quickly realizes that they are in the center of this indoor stadium replica, but the levels where the audience should be are hidden from their view by life-sized panels, that are projecting live images of their tied and gagged selves, probably taken by the tiny drone-like cameras flying around them.

They cannot see anyone behind the panels, but judging by the amount of noise, there is a huge audience around them that can see them, like animals paraded through a zoo for human entertainment. The thought is sickening, and hits home the notion of human's cruelty against our animals.

The commotion continues to rise, and the idea of such a huge audience sends a creepy chill down her spine, when she wonders what sick games Mr. King has planned for them.

When he visited her over a week ago in her quarters on the spaceship, he had left her dumbfounded with his revelations. She's relieved his little stunt with the bombings was just a trick and nobody really died on Earth that day, but something tells her that can change anytime. She has to ensure she never instigates him ever again; only God knows how much destruction he's capable of.

"His Majesty is visiting his family, and will join us in a few moments," the man Mr. King calls his Commander announces to the audience. She can't see him anywhere due to these panels, but she can identify his robotic, emotionless voice anywhere.

After a few minutes of waiting anxiously, the man of the hour graces them with his esteemed presence. Commander's words, not hers.

The panel in front of them shifts, revealing Mr. King sitting across the hall on a royal, lavish, and comfy looking golden throne, embedded with beautiful, shiny jewels. The throne is equipped with several controls on both armrests and is situated on a raised platform above several stairs.

He looks down at our tied and gagged forms with approval, his lip twitches upwards ever so slightly and his lifeless icy eyes light up with mirth.

"Welcome to Volzolks, petty humans", he says in a calm, dangerous tone that suits the power emanating from the throne he is sitting on.

"You have received the honor to meet an intelligent, advanced species, that you oh-so-lovingly call aliens, at their own home planet. Presenting to you, my beloved people, the Volzites."

The panels hiding the audience from our view lower down one by one, and thousands of dark cloaked, dark haired people come into view. Their skin tones vary from fair to dark, much like us humans, only their skin oddly glows, just like Mr. King's. Only lesser than his, and the shiny dots changes shape very slowly, thereby reinforcing my theory that he's somehow genetically superior to the rest of his kind, not just by his position on the throne.

Mr. King speaks again, breaking my trance. "Now before I tell you about the chance you'll get and lay down the terms and conditions of the game, it is only fair that we let both the involved species enjoy the show as an audience."

Avni sucks in a deep breath at his words. Is he going to telecast this humiliating scene to Earth - all the top human leaders, tied and gagged at his mercy?

A translucent panel descends on our right and several news feeds from different television channels on Earth pop up. They're muted, but the headlines are unmistakable. They're still looking for them, no terrorist group has taken responsibility for the kidnapping, Indian government is receiving flak from all over the world for their poor security arrangements. Nations are holding re-elections, as they continue fighting each other to transfer blame.

Avni sighs with disappointment; these nations are still fighting over trifles. They don't understand, no arrangements could've prevented this kidnap. Their doom was destined by the stars, or rather, by the alien planet called Volzolks.

"Let the show begin", Mr. King says and with a click of a button on the right armrest of his throne, all television telecasts stop, and Mr. King's face appears. It makes Avni wonder the level of technological advancement on this planet; if they can live telecast from several light years away and galaxies apart, what else can they do?

"Hello filthy humans! I'm Albatross Vrokzad King, the ruler of planet Volzolks and Earth's oh-so-beloved leaders are held hostages on my planet."

He clicks another button and live feed from the drones around us starts showing up on the televisions on one half of the screen, as several small tiles. All of us, gagged and bound, standing huddled in the center of a huge hall with thousands of unidentifiable faces in the background as audience.

Mr. King resumes, "I've heard from my sources that you filthy worms were speculating terrorist involvement. A few of you found the crater where we landed and came up with alien conspiracy theories. Well, kudos to those who guessed correctly and shame to those who thought petty human criminals can knock out a whole city and abduct the deceitful leaders of your polluted planet with such ease.

It's hilarious how all this time while my hostages were travelling through space, you humans were just worried about who is guilty and who will pay the ransom. You're so selfish and greedy. All you care about is money. Your planet deserves a better class of criminal. And I'm going to give it to you.

But not today.

Today, I'll just collect the first and tiniest part of my ransom. And all of your shabby nations will pay it. Starting now, all the mines on Earth will be evacuated and no humans will enter a fifteen-mile radius around them. You have twenty-four Earth hours to comply. If you refuse to co-operate, not just your beloved leaders here will die, but more Earth cities will be knocked out and this time permanently.

So, make no mistakes. This is not an empty threat. If you don't obey, there will be consequences. See you again after twenty-four hours."

He clicks the same button again and the telecast is disconnected.

"Commander, remove their gags. Record the interactions henceforth and telecast to Earth after twelve hours."

"Sure, Your Majesty."

In a span of few minutes, all of us are ungagged, but as expected, none of us says anything.

"So, dear deceitful politicians who lead this universe's cruelest species, it's time to test your skills. As you already know, you are here because I intend to put an end to humanity and take over Earth, but I can't seem to decide a way to seal humanity's doom. That's where you beloved pawns come into play. Each of you will get an opportunity to participate in a championship, a series of duels and its winner will decide how humanity dies."

A murmur of appreciation spreads through the alien crowd at his words, strangely terrifying the humans as they wonder why all these people hate humans so much.

"Rules are simple. Each of you will get an opportunity to fight one of my champions. Any weapon, any armor of your choice will be made available to you. You can pick your fighting style too, and you will receive one month of training for it. You are also free to choose whether you want to fight or not.

If the Volzite contender wins, the human is thrown out of the championship. If the human contender wins, he qualifies for the next level where he fights other qualified humans. The duels between humans will continue until one final human stands. That final human will fight the Volzolks' Army Chief, my beloved younger brother, Vadarius Vrokzad King. He couldn't join us today for private reasons. Anyway, whoever wins the final duel, decides the doom of humans."

The audience begins to cheer at the prospect of this crazy championship, as if this is just another sport for them, and not a matter of someone's life or death. And perhaps that's all it is, a sport and a means of entertainment.

Avni looks around herself and finds all of the humans are equally freaked out at his game. He's clearly trying to mock humans. Fighting against these seven-foot, muscular aliens is a death wish, and he's convinced we're going to lose. He just wants to establish his species' strength and superiority, while forcing humans to die daily in the fear of imminent death. He wants to torture humans as he trains them, and then he'll watch in amusement as we fail.

It's all a sick joke and she wouldn't be surprised if majority of the leaders back out. Most of them are over fifty anyway, they don't stand a chance to fight and win against this strong species.

But she's more afraid of what will happen if everyone backs out. If humans refuse to play his games, he'll get pissed again. And this pissed King can kill millions in a snap of his fingers.

She looks back towards the throne after observing everyone and finds Mr. King already looking at her. He looks amused again, as if he's trying to figure out if she'll play along or back off.

Of course, she'll play along. Why would she leave out any opportunity to save her planet and people? Even if it means a few broken ribs and bones. If she doesn't participate, they're going to die anyway, so why not go down with a fight?

Now that she thinks about it, he obviously wants her to participate too, that's why he asked her to get healthy again. She's glad she started eating well and doing yoga daily after his warning, it will definitely pay off.

"Does anybody have any questions?", the Commander asks and immediately one of the hands from audience goes up.

"What if none of the humans win against our champions?" He asks mockingly and the whole hall roars with whistles, laughter, and applause.

Avni cannot help but roll her eyes. Egoistic arrogant bullies!

Mr. King responds immediately, "All the fights will be timed, and whoever opposes his Volzite competitor longest will fight against Vadarius."

That sounds fair to Avni, as all one has to do is stand longest against a Volzite to earn a chance against this Vadarius. But what about defeating Vadarius? If he is the Army chief, he'll definitely be the strongest of them all, maybe after Mr. King since he's the ruler.

What chance do petty, untrained humans stand against a giant, trained warrior?

The Commander speaks again breaking her chain of thoughts, "Humans, do you have any questions?"

Nobody from them responds. They're too dumbstruck to say anything anyway.

"Moving on, if humans haven't noticed yet, Volzolks is very similar to Earth in terms of size and climate. Both galaxies and planetary positioning are eerily alike, hence both planets have equivalent length of days too. I'm telling you this because I'm giving you twenty-four hours too, just like your species on Earth.

Commander will show you to your rooms in the new human wing after this and you'll be provided with the best of clothes and food there. You can sleep peacefully tonight, but when we meet here tomorrow, you'll tell us who amongst you wants to fight, and we'll decide which of my champions you get to fight against. And those who refuse to participate, will be directly sent to the dungeons, so they can enjoy their only night of hospitality at Volzolks."

Soon after making the announcement, Mr. King leaves the hall and the audience begins to disperse. The humans' hands are untied, and they're respectfully escorted to our individual rooms on the ground floor in the left wing of the palace, now especially reserved for humans.

As Avni sink onto her soft, new bed in exhaustion, she cannot help but conclude - that was one hell of a welcome!