Arena

by Logan Jacobs

  Aurora and Nova helped me to my feet.

  “And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!” I spat at the creature.

  With gorgeous warrior women on either side of me, I threw the torch on the ground, punched my fist in the air and bellowed into the sky.

  “Leeeeroooooy Jeeeeeenkiiiiiiinsssss!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The last thing I remembered before there was a flash of light and a loud whoosh was standing over the eviscerated corpse of a nine-foot tall demon-dinosaur who liked eating people whole, flanked by two bad-ass super-hot women, and shouting the name of a once-popular internet meme.

  Then I was engulfed in bright white light and the familiar feeling of my molecules being torn apart came over me like a splash of cold water. Then I found myself piled up at the bottom of the large plastic teleportation tube in my training gym at the Hall of Heroes. An oval sized hole seemed to melt into the plastic, and I fell through into a heap on the floor of the gym.

  I was still covered in dark gray slime from head to toe. I was pretty sure some of it had gotten in my mouth, and I had swallowed it. I was sore, tired, and kind of an emotional wreck. I didn’t remember a lot about my ordeal inside that freaky creature’s belly-hell or whatever it was. I just knew it was heavy, more than a bit dark, and scary as hell. And, like a proper human, that I was going to bury the memory of it deep down inside me where it would stay until it emerged at the most inopportune time.

  The first thing I saw was Artemis’ face. She had tears streaming down her cheeks which were red and streaked with eyeshadow even though she had a giant smile on her face.

  “Marc, oh my god!” she squealed. “I literally almost came out of my skin when Amohot showed up in your match.”

  “Yeah,” I said in an exhausted haze. “Tell me about it.”

  Grizz appeared over her shoulder and looked down on me with tears in his holographic eyes. He tried, but failed miserably, to hide the pride that shone through him like a spotlight.

  “Human!” He bellowed. “Champion Havak, by all the Weapons in the Great Battle Heaven that was a most exquisite display of heroism. It was unlike any I have ever seen.”

  “Really?” I shot back as Artemis helped me to my feet and lead me to the shower units, “Because I kinda feel like I got through that with a lot of help and some damn blind luck.”

  “You could have escaped many times,” Grizz said seriously, “or turned your back on your Alliance comrades. Many have done much worse when faced with less. I myself would have strongly considered it. But you did not. You attacked without fear or hesitation. It was one of the most beautiful sights my eyes have ever beheld.”

  “You never betray your friends, Grizz,” I said as I looked him in his electronic eyes. “Ever. No matter what.”

  “Indeed.” He held my gaze for a long beat. I didn’t know if he knew what I was talking about, but the fire that I saw flicker in the back of his eyes told me that maybe he did.

  “Well,” I grimaced as I slid out of my disgusting jumpsuit in front of the shower, “he was a class-A jackass who was trying to hurt my friends.”

  “Oh, yes!” Artemis squealed again. She was full of so many emotions her body shook from them. “Alliance’ing up with Nova Qwark and Aurora Starfall was a stroke of genius. All of you have decidedly loner tendencies so I was bafferglasted when they said yes to you. It was right around the time of your standoff in the trash lake that your viewing scores went off the charts.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said with a sigh, “I forgot about that.”

  “Well, after you cut your way out of a Demonia Jinn with a plasma torch to win the Death Match for your Alliance, I don’t think anyone else is going to forget that sight ever,” she said enthusiastically as she helped me take off my boots. My fingers didn’t seem to want to do what I told them to do.

  Grizz walked around, almost in a tizzy. I think the match had taken a toll on him as a trainer. He was uncharacteristically chatty.

  “When you dove head first into Amohot’s gaping maw, I thought for sure I was going to die a thousand deaths,” Grizz admitted. “The foul beast even rubbed its distended belly as if that had been its plan all along. It was on the verge of devouring your two Alliance mates when the red point of your plasma torch pierced its belly. I swear you could hear the whole city cheer!”

  “Freaking sweet,” I said and smiled at him. I really wanted to meet his enthusiasm, but I was exhausted.

  As he spoke, I walked into the shower cabinet and stripped out of my disgusting jumpsuit. The hot water that rained from above felt amazing at it washed away the day. Not quite as amazing as the soapy, slippery body that slid in behind me and wrapped her hands around my chest. I twisted my body around so that Artemis’ face now rested on my chest as the hot water cascaded down my back. She held me for a while like that, and it was the most amazing feeling on this or any other world.

  Eventually, she looked up at me, her eyes big and so very human.

  “Hey,” I said as I brushed a few errant wet hairs out of her face.

  “Is for horses,” she replied with a small giggle.

  “I think you’re starting to get a handle on this whole ‘being human’ thing Artemis V,” I whispered.

  “I am glad you think so, Marc Havak,” she whispered back. “I did not tell you earlier, but it is a one-way trip for me.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” I thought for sure I’d misheard because of the water noise.

  “I am human for good,” she reiterated. “Once my algorithm adapted to the organic neural network of this brain, that was it. It cannot be extracted.”

  “What? Why? I mean, they pulled Grizz so why couldn’t they pull you if something happened?” I asked, confused. “I mean, I just got off a constructed junk planet where I flew a blue winged jet pack, why would putting your consciousness back into the computer not work?”

  “It’s not that simple, Marc,” Artemis said in a reassuring tone. “Grizz was once a living being whose consciousness was then digitized. I was a digital construct whose core programming was altered by adapting to a biological brain. If I tried to upload to a digital system, my files would be degraded. Key functions of my algorithm have been altered through neuroplasticity and would simply cease to function. It would be like going insane.”

  “Jesus, Artemis, why would you do that?” I asked incredulously. “Humans are frail. We get sick and hurt and break things. We are wild and ruled by our emotions and capable of the most horrendous things.”

  “Yes,” she replied very simply. “You are capable of terrible, terrible things as a race. But you are also capable of beautiful things. Like grilled cheese sandwiches, and Raising Arizona, and all the wonderful little things in-between. You laugh and fight and sing with joy and cry and hate and love. Once I experienced even a fraction of that, I could not go back even if there were a way. It would be like being blind and finally being able to see only to have to go back to the darkness again.”

  “I can’t promise much, Artemis,” I said as I cupped her face in my hands, “but I promise that I will continue to be your unofficial guide to humanness for as long as you’ll let me or as long as I live.”

  We kissed a long, hot, wet, steamy movie kiss that would have gone on for the length of whatever end credits were going to show when this whole crazy adventure got made into a movie but Grizz ‘knocked’ on the door.

  “Champion Havak,” he said almost politely, “you have guests.”

  Artemis and I finished up, dried off in a hurry, and walked out while putting on our clothes.

  Nova and Aurora stood there talking to Grizz. They had both cleaned up as well.

  Nova wore a medieval style dress that wasn’t quite a dress, more like a shirt with a skirt sewn onto it. It was made of the darkest navy blue velvet I had ever seen. The middle had a built-in corset that was cinched up tight and made her already huge breasts look even bigger. The skirt portion ended right at the top of her thigh and under it she had on a
skin-tight pair of leggings. Her hair was partially braided down one side and she still retained some of the essence glow. She looked stunning and formidable.

  Aurora kept with her ‘lingerie as everyday wear’ motif. She had on a deep purple teddy made from a satin-like material that shimmered in the light. It laced up the front, and her more than ample breasts struggled to be free. She had on a pair of matching purple sheer thigh-high stockings with a solid black line up the back. A pair of black high heeled calf boots and her trusty cloak rounded out the barely there ensemble.

  “Oh, hey, ladies,” I said, a bit surprised. “Didn’t know if I would be seeing you today. Not sure what the protocol is.”

  Artemis and Grizz began to laugh.

  “What?” I asked. I didn’t know what I’d said that was so funny.

  After a few seconds, Nova and Aurora got in on the action as well.

  “What was funny?” I asked again. I hated when I didn’t know why people were laughing.

  “Oh, nothing, Marc,” Artemis managed to get out between giggles.

  Finally, Aurora took pity on me. “Now that we are an Alliance, Marc, you will be seeing quite a bit of Nova and I.”

  “For like training and stuff?” I assumed.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged, “we will start training together. We will also cohabitate from here on out.”

  “Meet your new roomies,” Artemis burst out.

  Now I knew why it was so damn funny.

  “Whoa, that’s heavy,” I sighed and sat down on a bench near the computer array. “How do we do that? I mean, whose apartment do we live in? Do we rotate? What happens if we don’t? What if Aurora is a total slob and we get into an argument over who has to wash dishes?”

  “Slow down, Marc,” Artemis said as she rubbed my back. “It’s all taken care of. Since you initiated the Alliance, it falls to you to house it and basically be in charge.”

  “I am not a slob,” Aurora said coolly. “Nor would I ever even consider

  doing the dishes because I don’t know what dishes are.”

  “My apartment isn’t big enough for everybody,” I complained.

  “Are you sure?” Artemis gave me a wry grin.

  “Why don’t we go and look?” Nova suggested.

  After a quick round of introductions and a three cab caravan, we stood at the door to my apartment.

  “Okay, Artie, I hope you are correct about this or it is going to be very very cramped,” I half scolded as I opened the door and almost fell over.

  My tiny apartment had tripled in size. I now had a spacious three-bedroom apartment with an awesome living room, a bigger kitchen, and a dining nook. All total I think I’d gone from a little over six hundred square feet to probably eighteen hundred.

  “Okay, everyone, welcome home, I guess,” I said with a flourish as I bid them all to enter. I now had two robots that stood in the kitchen and began to scurry about making cocktails and snacks.

  Nova, Aurora, Artemis, Grizz, and I walked into our apartment and had a nice little impromptu mini cocktail party. By the end of it, everyone was half buzzed, all the way stuffed, and more than fast friends.

  “Okay, okay, so they are literally the coolest thing,” Artemis said excitedly to Nova and Aurora. “Human’s call them movies. They are these fantastic stories that are funny and exciting and sad all at the same time.”

  “Slow down, Artemis,” Nova said skeptically. “What you are saying could not possibly exist. It begs credulity.”

  “I swear,” Artemis emphatically assured her. “That’s it, we’re watching one right now. Marc! We all need to watch a movie!”

  “Okay,” I said as I came back in from getting a beer in the kitchen. “I know just the one. You guys figure out the seating. I call dibs on center cushion.”

  While they sorted out seating arrangements, I went outside on my new balcony to take a minute to soak in the moon set. As one of the daylight-bright glowing day moons set on the horizon, I took a deep breath and let it out.

  It had been one hell of a week, that was for sure. I didn’t even know who that Marc Havak was anymore. I looked in the mirror now and while I didn’t see a stranger, I saw someone who had been kept on the bench too long and was now going to play every damn inning.

  “Havak, we have been patient enough,” Nova said with equal parts force and buzzed slur. “We wish to watch a mooovie.”

  “Okay then,” I said with a big smile, “I have just the one.”

  As everyone got comfy on the huge sectional couch that now took up most of my living room I pulled a DVD out of a well-worn case and slid it into the computer in the wall.

  I made my way through many limbs and sat smack dab in the middle of the big couch and made everyone fill in around me. Artemis snuggled in under my right arm while Nova leaned heavily against my left shoulder. Grizz took up a post past Nova, and Aurora preferred to stand. She positioned herself right behind me and started to give me a small neck rub.

  “My people do not like to sit still,” she said almost apologetically. “It is a hard habit to break, but I think today it shall come in handy.”

  “No argument from me, Aurora,” I said as I pressed play on the remote. The lights dimmed automatically, and I could hear my kitchen bots pop popcorn.

  I was as happy and content as I could ever remember being as the staccato drums that accompanied the Twentieth Century Fox logo appeared.

  Soon, John Williams’ iconic score blared from hidden speakers, and we were taken to a galaxy far far away.

  I was born at exactly 11:58 pm on October 31, 1988, to a witch and a warlock. They named me Marc Caleb Havak because Samhain babies are said to be immune to evil spirits, able to read the dreams of others, speak to the dead, and have the gift of Second Sight or precognition.

  With all of that going for me, I should have been a fearsome protector of the Nine Realms or a rogue Special Forces soldier wandering the countryside helping the innocent fight tyranny and oppression.

  Instead, I am a chosen Champion for the planet Earth. I battle in the Forge of Heroes for glory, honor, and a better life for everyone on my planet. In the last seven days, I have passed through the Crucible of Carnage and emerged victorious. How was your week?

  End of book 1

  End Notes

  Hey! Thanks for reading Arena. Did you like the book? If so, please leave a nice and quick review right here. Thanks! You are awesome!

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Logan Jacobs