Arena

by Logan Jacobs

  I was just about there when I almost stumbled over a humanoid alien who was curled into a fetal position. It looked like over eighty percent of its body was charred black, and its skin cracked and peeled away from the flesh as it moaned and wailed for its mother.

  The alien's eyes were wild with pain and spun around in lidless sockets. They settled on me, and it began to cry out louder. I had no idea what the hell to do.

  Then a giant, seven foot tall, four armed alien emerged from the smoke. Three of its arms had been burned off, and only smoking stumps were left in their place. The remaining hand held a pistol that was pointed right at me.

  For an instant the ar’Gwyn almost took hold, but I stopped my hand from unsheathing my pistol the instant before it did. The four-armed alien lowered the pistol and shot the mewling creature at my feet in the head three times.

  The whimpering stopped immediately, and a wave of relief washed over me. I was glad the thing was out of its torment, and I was also glad that I’d made the right call and hadn’t moved. The contestant in front of me obviously had a good set of ears, and he probably didn’t know I was here, since I hadn’t made a sound.

  The four-armed alien stared at me with sightless eyes for a moment then put the gun to its own temple and pulled the trigger. A spray of neon green brain matter sprung from the alien’s head like a fountain. It pumped to the beat of the being’s heart for a second then slowed to a drizzle as the seven-foot tall alien slumped to the ground.

  And that was it for me. Even Sgt. Cigar Chomp was silent as I turned and took off in a full on sprint down the little path in the junk that led away from the burned field of horrors behind me.

  I had just started to slow down, and the screams had finally faded in the distance when my spidey-sense started tingling. I couldn’t explain it any other way. One moment everything was fine, the next? Sgt. Cigar Chomp was screaming at me to move so loudly my brain nearly exploded from the sound of his voice.

  And, because I didn’t want to enrage the psycho in my head, I complied, twisting my body away from the perceived danger a split second before a bullet whooshed by me with so much force that it punched a hole in the damaged hull of the spaceship next to me. Then the shockwave of the attack threw me from my feet, and I slammed into the junk at the bottom of the two-foot deep ditch. It took me a second to regain my composure since my brain was still a little frazzled, and I couldn’t put two and two together without a supreme effort.

  I started to get up but the surrounding metal began to ping loudly as large, angry bees buzzed past my head. That cleared my brain up, and I slammed myself back into the ditch.

  Someone was still shooting at me.

  Thankfully, the armor had taken most of the kinetic energy away from the impact with the crater after I’d fallen or else I’d be dead. Thank you, Artemis. I made a mental promise to do as much of the thing with my tongue that drove her wild when I got back.

  My combat upgrade mixed with the ar’Gwyn triangulated the bullet’s origin, and, with the help of a shiny piece of metal to my left that acted as a mirror, I was able to trace where the bullet had come from.

  Behind me, about a hundred and fifty meters away, was a hollowed out starfighter on top of a rusted scaffolding. Nestled underneath the bent wing was a smallish alien with a sniper rifle trained on my position. For shits and giggles, I grabbed a piece of trash and tossed it over my shoulder into the air.

  It had just barely cleared the lip of the ditch when it was blown to bits. Yup, I was both pinned down and a fucking sitting duck until I could figure out a way through this.

  I shimmied myself down toward the mirror-like piece of metal as far as the depth of the ditch would allow so that I could get a better idea of my surroundings.

  The starship was about twenty feet in the air on top of a rusted-out scaffold that had a lone spigot near the top that had a steady flow of brackish water coming from it. The water had pooled at the bottom and forged a little stream through the junk and detritus that ran through another ditch on the opposite side of the path I had been on. It was only about six feet to my left. There was no way I was going to be able to do any kind of jump or leap over to it without getting riddled with sniper fire, and from this range, a pistol shot was tricky.

  No, I needed some way to get the sniper where he lay.

  I took a deep breath and let my mind wander. I kept coming back to the little junk stream again and again. Something about that water spigot as it poured all down the fuselage of the starfighter. I could see in my mind the small alien sniper wipe water from his face as it sat in a pool of liquid. Then it hit me.

  I rolled up on one shoulder so that I faced the other side of the path, reached back, and grabbed one of the stun grenades. It had a little dial on the top that would adjust the detonation time from on impact up to five seconds. I wanted on impact, I’d only get one shot at this, and the timing was going to have to be perfect.

  The grenade felt heavy in my hand as I rolled back on to my back, took a deep breath, and felt my mind clear. PoLarr’s spirit flittered around the edges of my consciousness to let me know she was there, as always. I opened my eyes and sprang into action.

  With my left hand, I pulled one of the Px4s from its holster and gently squeezed the trigger. The large bore .45 caliber round bucked the gun in my hand, but the bullet flew straight and crashed into the piece of metal I had been using as a mirror with a clang. Before the bullet struck the metal, my right arm flung the grenade in a high parabolic arc toward the other side of the path.

  My hope was that the loud clang of bullet meeting metal would draw the sniper’s attention as the grenade flew in the air.

  Sure enough, no sooner had my bullet hit the metal then three more clangs rang out in rapid succession. There was a brief moment of silence, and I could almost feel the waves of confusion coming off the alien sniper. Then the electro-stun grenade hit the little river that ran down the center of the ditch on the other side of the path.

  As soon as the grenade touched the surface of the water it detonated, and snakes of white-hot electricity skated across the surface of the water in both directions. They hopscotched their way out of the ditch and up the steady stream of water until they hit the spigot where they fanned out like a whirling tornado of high voltage arcs.

  The little alien realized what was happening just before the bolts of electricity grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let go. The grenade had a long discharge time, probably five full seconds, and was obviously meant for taking down larger foes, like elephants.

  Just before the charge ran out, I rolled out of the ditch and onto one knee, both pistols in my hands. I squeezed off a quick double tap, one from each gun, and the little alien flew backward off his perch, as ribbons of blood flew from the holes that had just appeared in his chest.

  Knowing the gunshots were bound to draw attention eventually I rushed over to where the body had fallen. I’d holstered my left-hand gun and held the right-hand Px4 in a close tactical stance as I approached the site. I quickly came around the side of the scaffolding, but it was soon obvious that the gun wasn’t needed.

  The alien who was about four and a half feet tall, covered in gray fur who only had one tooth that snaggled out of his ugly mouth, lay dead in a pool of his own bubblegum pink blood. A modified sniper rifle that looked like a Barrett .50 cal but made for small people lay two feet away. I picked it up, but the grip was way too small for my hands.

  I quickly searched the body for anything that might be useful and found a small silver gun the size of a .38 special snub nose revolver on the alien's ankle. It had the word SUN-JET stenciled into the side of the barrel. I didn’t have time to check it out further, so I just used the holster and strapped it to my ankle.

  The sound of rushing footsteps came from down the path so I made a hasty exit as I ducked in and out of piles of trash and rusted out car chassis. Soon, I found myself in a literal junk maze.

  The mounds of trash had all closed in and were now
about nine feet high. The little path I was on had gotten smaller and smaller until it was only a person-width across. Sgt. Cigar Chomp screamed at me to get the hell outta there, and I did the best I could, but there was only one apparent way in and out of the damn maze. With a pistol held in front of me, I rushed as fast as I could.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t long before I popped out of the maze into a small field. What I saw there stopped me dead in my tracks.

  On the other side of the field was a nine-foot tall creature who had the body of a dinosaur in the shape of a man with a triceratops-like head, if that triceratops only had two horns that looked like the tines of a demented pitchfork. They were black as obsidian and seemed to absorb any light that came in contact with them.

  The creature’s skin was a dark gray and seemed to be made from leather. It had on a long, thick cloak straight out of a fantasy RPG, and two bat-like wings protruded from its back, each one six feet long. They didn’t look big enough to make the thing fly, but they definitely rounded out the living, breathing, walking monster vibe nicely.

  There were four male and two female Champions who had obviously formed an Alliance and stood against the creature. They looked battle hardened and tough as nails, yet even from the distance I was at, I could tell they were scared shitless.

  I was mesmerized by what was about to go down.

  In a blur, the creature dashed forward toward the two closest Champions. Everyone opened fire with everything from bullets to laser beams which all bounced off the creatures hide as if they were toys. The creature closed the distance in one long stride and grabbed the closest Champion by the leg and flung him around like a cudgel.

  I could hear the bones crunch and grind together from where I was seventy feet away. The creature used the now-unconscious Champion to beat two others to death, and when the body was nothing more than a limp sack of skin-covered bones, it hurled it at another Champion.

  It hit with a crunch and flung the two of them off the edge of a small ravine.

  There was now only one Champion left. She unsheathed a serrated sword that hummed with vibrational energy. The creature just smiled and gave her the “bring it” signal with its hand. The female Champion launched high into the air and brought the blade down with tremendous force. The creature caught the blade in its horns and tossed it away with a twist of its head. It reached up and caught the Champion by the throat and held her at arm’s length.

  Its eyes glowed a hateful red as it opened its mouth wider and wider as the Champion struggled to break free. Before I could aim my pistol to fire off a round, the creature stuffed the female Champion into its impossibly wide maw and swallowed her whole.

  That broke me from my inaction, and I quickly skirted the thing and took off along a ridgeline. I had managed to work my way to within a hundred yards of the Junk Tower. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew the endgame for this battle royale would happen soon. Plus I needed to find a way to get up to the cannon to use it to wipe that freaky people-eating demon thing off the face of the planet.

  I was just about to break away from the ridgeline when an alien covered in fur that resembled a panther on two feet jumped from a hiding spot and trained a laser rifle at me. The ar’Gwn took over, and as the alien fired the rifle, I jumped into the air and spun to my left. The laser bolt missed, and as I twisted in midair, I pulled the Px4’s and fired off six rapid fire shots. Four found homes in the panther alien’s torso while the last two relieved him of the back of his head.

  I had thrown myself toward the slope of the ridgeline and landed on my back at a downward angle. Momentum and gravity worked together to propel me down to the bottom of the ridge where I landed in a pond full of ankle deep brackish water.

  I got to my feet and found myself staring at the incredibly buff, statuesque female Champion from Paladin Prime, Nova Qwark. She was clad in her signature blue accented armor, her bright red hair done up in a tight braid.

  Her machine cannon lay in six inches of water at her feet, and she had a nasty looking knife blade held to her very sexy throat. The holder of the blade was a tall, shadowy alien with a metallic facemask in the shape of an elongated skull.

  Nova struggled to keep the shimmering knife blade from her throat with her forearm while her other hand was clasped onto Shadow’s fist that was balled up in her hair. They both grunted with the effort.

  I just stood there and watched them for a full ten seconds. I wasn’t sure what to do. Sgt. Cigar Chomp wanted me to waste both of them pronto. I had another idea in mind.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered, “the more the merrier.”

  I drew my pistols and emptied my left-hand gun into the Shadow alien’s face and torso. It flew back into the water as dark gray smoke oozed from the bullet holes like smokey blood.

  I kept my right-hand pistol trained on Nova.

  She was shocked for the briefest of seconds before she took stock of the situation and locked eyes with me.

  “So, hey,” I said a touch too friendly, “not sure if you remember me from the other day. Marc Havak, Champion of Earth. Pretty sure I just saved your life, so you’re welcome.”

  Nova cocked her head as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard, then in a motion so fast all I saw was a blue blur, she drew the pistol on her right thigh, and its triple laser sight lit up my chest like a holiday tree.

  “I don’t recall asking for your assistance, human male,” Nova said. Her voice was strong, firm, and skeptical. It had a slight Eastern European lilt that only served to make her even hotter. “I had the situation well under control.”

  She seemed completely unimpressed with my charms, and I could tell she would tolerate none of my nonsense. Again, it just made her that much hotter.

  “Point taken,” I acquiesced. “Still, couldn’t hurt to Alliance up, pool our talents so we can get off this landfill of a planet in one piece.”

  Nova eyed me carefully.

  “Hmm, you have a warrior spirit, for sure,” she said with a scoff, “but it is buried beneath the wit and sarcasm you humans prize so dearly. How can I trust you?”

  “Well,” I answered with my scoundrel smirk, “I haven’t double-crossed anyone yet, even when they were being a giant, slime-covered douche canoe and, I don’t plan on starting now. Especially not with badass warrior knights with machine cannons who are also super sexy.”

  That last bit actually surprised her. Her eyes went wide in shock for a moment and then narrowed in what I hoped was attraction and not an “I am going to murder you” look. She was just about to open her mouth to respond when a sensual disembodied feminine voice rang out from what can only be described as a Junk Tree.

  “The human does have a point,” the voice said. It was low and husky and sounded like it had been filtered through a gallon of whiskey and a thousand cigarettes. If sex could talk, it would sound exactly like this voice.

  The air just above a ‘branch’ on the junk tree shimmered as an optical veil was lifted as the gorgeous, white-skinned, female alien hunched on the branch dropped her Predator-style camouflage and smiled at us.

  She had pale silvery-white skin accentuated with blue geometric tribal tattoos that covered her torso and legs. The tattoos pulsed with light like a heartbeat. Her voluptuous, 60s Playboy Bunny body emanated raw sexual power in waves.

  She gracefully swung to the ground from the branch, languid, like a cat in the sun and stood to her full five foot eight height which revealed her practically nonexistent outfit. A black leather, or some type of alien animal skin, corset covered her midsection and gave new meaning to the word hourglass. A matching pair of boy shorts that didn’t leave a lot to the imagination, and thigh high black boots connected with garters to the corset.

  On her hands were fingerless gloves made from some kind of lace. The whole outfit was brought together with a flowing black cloak with a blood red lining that billowed out around and behind her as if it had a mind of its own. Her shoulder length hair was as white as the space between stars
is black. Finally, her eyes were a deep, dark, almost violet, purple that glowed from the inside.

  Nova and I looked at each other for a beat then simultaneously turned our guns on the woman.

  Her cloak surrounded her and put up a shield in front of her as she held her hands above her head, middle and ring fingers of both hands pressed into her thumbs, purple-black energy glowed like a halo around them.

  “I'm sorry,” I said apologetically. “We haven’t met yet, so let me tell you that I have a strict no-Alliance rule with strangers. Even mind-numbingly hot ones. Marc Havak, by the way.”

  “I am Aurora Starfall,” the white-haired woman said with that amazingly sultry voice. “Princess and heir to the throne of Starfall, the last known living member of my race.”

  “And she is a Shriike,” Nova said with a slight sneer.

  “Hello, Nova,” Aurora responded coolly. “I was hoping for a warmer reception this time.”

  “Whoa!” I shouted in utter surprise. “You two know each other? Either very cool or not cool at all. Verdict is still out. Oh, and what the hell is a Shriike?”

  “She was bitten by a Soul Sucker,” Nova answered definitively. “It turned her into that. A Shriike. A being in limbo between life and death that feeds on the life-essence of others in order to survive.”

  “That is an oversimplification of my condition, and you know it,” Aurora shot back, a knife edge to her voice.

  “Okay,” I said as I tried to de-escalate the situation, “this is officially the strangest Mexican standoff ever, and are you a freaking Space Vampire? If so, you’re totally on the team.”

  “There is no team!” they both said in unison and shot hot daggers with their eyes at me.

  “Details,” I said with a shrug as I looked between them.

  I’d either found the hottest, coolest, most awesomely badass Alliance in history, or I was going to get us all killed. The verdict was still out.