Arena 4

by Logan Jacobs

  Baba pulled the bike up to the side of a small storefront. A large opaque window took up most of the front wall and there was a door made of matching glass to the right of the window. It was a compact and unassuming building nestled between a handyman's shop and a local deli.

  An old, faded sign hung above the door read: Cyl-Vesters Gym in gold leaf letters.

  Baba took off his helmet, rehung it on the hook, hopped off the bike and waited for me at the door. I certainly didn’t want to keep the mysterious ninjutsu rodent waiting, so I unbuckled and climbed out of the sidecar.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I looked like something the rat dragged in. My hair stuck up at all angles, and my jumpsuit was a wrinkled mess. I tried to flatten my hair down with a lick of spit on my hand but it was a lost cause.

  “Just go with it, Havak,” I said to my reflection. “Act like you look like this on purpose.”

  “Very funny,” Baba chuckled, opened the door, and I followed him into the gym.

  The very first thing that I noticed was the smell. It was a heady combination of sweat, liniment oil, and feet and instantly reminded me of every martial arts gym I’d ever set foot in. Through the years I’d tried everything from Okinawan Karate to Wing-Chun to Taw Kwon Do, and they all had this smell in common. The rectangular space was maybe two hundred feet long by a hundred feet deep with a floor to ceiling mirror that took up the entire right wall. The floor was a threadbare carpet and a fifty-foot square section of thin matting near the mirror. On the other side were several combat dummies, a heavy bag that hung from a steel hook in the ceiling, and a rack with various wooden practice weapons.

  Baba bowed toward a small statue of a bipedal rat alien in a lotus pose with her hands folded in her lap and a peaceful look on her carved blue jade face. Not to be rude I followed suit.

  Baba motioned for me to sit on a bench that sat on the window next to him. There was a group of various aliens on the floor of the gym - two orange tabby cat males, an almost six foot tall rat alien who looked like he was on steroids, and two of the black and white skinned members of the Opposer gang who resembled the Baseball Furies from Warriors, only they didn’t wear makeup. They all had on tight fitting black tank tops and thigh length skin tight shorts and had lightweight, padded, fingerless sparring gloves on their hands. They shuffled around, there was a lot of grunting, and then a clear view opened up and I saw that Fallon was in the middle of them.

  She had on a similar outfit, only hers was bright white. Her tawny fur was slick with sweat as her muscles rippled with potential violence.

  “Um, is she sparring against all those guys?” I asked Baba-Tadao quietly.

  “Yes,” he replied in an equally hushed tone. “It is a light training day.”

  I glanced over at him to see if he was joking. He only looked straight ahead as he watched her intently. There might have been the slight hint of a smirk on his face but I couldn’t be sure. I turned back to watch Fallon.

  She stared at her opponents as they all breathed heavy with exertion. It felt like the eye of a hurricane. Calm before the storm.

  Her opponents shuffled from foot to foot, their hands up in a fighting pose as they judged their moment, looking for a weakness. The tension was almost unbearable.

  Fallon didn’t look any of them in the eye. Her yellow flecked jade eyes remained unfocused as she took in everything around her. Her nose twitched which wiggled her whiskers, and then she winked at me and launched into action.

  She shifted her weight, and her right foot shot out like a piston and caught the Opposer who had maneuvered behind her in the stomach as he advanced. He let out a painful “ghurk” sound and crumpled to the ground.

  The two tabby cat guys rushed forward and tried to grab her arms. Fallon let the lead tabby get a hold of her torso and she actually grabbed him back which took him by surprise. She then lifted herself completely off the ground and went almost perpendicular to the floor as her legs windmilled up and around the shoulder and neck of the other tabby. Fallon then twisted at the waist. I watched her tight stomach muscles flex under the fine layer of fur and then the orange tabby dude flew head first into the mat as she shifted and brought her legs down. The momentum of the controlled Judo-style roll pulled the tabby off balance and Fallon used her grip on him to pull with all her might. He flipped over her and landed flat on his back before he even had a chance to register that he wasn’t upright anymore. Fallon’s fist flew out like a rattlesnake strike and thwacked the tabby on the nose. He yowled in pain, and his hands came up reflexively to cover his face.

  Fallon sprang to her feet like, well, like a cat to overuse the obvious simile, and then got yanked into the air by Arnold Ratseneggar who wrapped her in a massive reverse bear hug from behind. One of her arms was pinned at her side, and I saw the veins pop out on rat guys massive biceps as he squeezed.

  She didn’t waste a second because she didn’t have one to spare. I could tell she struggled to get a breath with the pressure of Arno-Rat’s squeeze. Her right arm whipped up and wrapped around his head. She then lifted her legs up in the air and brought her knees almost to her face in a crazy stomach crunch. Fallon kicked her legs up and out with all her might. Gravity plus the force of the kick pulled her forward powerfully, and she pulled down with her right hand at the same time.

  Rat Guy’s eyes went wide in shock and then he flew over her head and sailed through the air. He landed four feet away on his back.

  “Ooof!” He grunted as all the air exploded from his lungs and he began to writhe on the ground while he made wheezing noises as he tried to suck air back into his body.

  Fallon rose to her full five-foot ten-inch height, flicked her nose with her hand like Bruce Lee and then bowed deeply to her opponents.

  Baba-Tadao gave a slight chuckle and nodded like a proud parent as Fallon grabbed a hand towel from the floor near the mirror and walked over to us.

  I stood as she approached and began to slow clap. She smiled at me and wiped the sweat from her face and neck.

  “That was freaking cool,” I said. “Nice moves.”

  “I know,” she purred. “Wanna try?”

  “Do or do not,” I countered and felt my inner scoundrel come awake. She had that effect on me. “There is no try.”

  “Come do me then,” she shot back not to be outdone.

  Baba rolled his eyes so hard he almost broke his neck.

  “Okay then,” I replied and followed her back out onto the mat. Me and my big mouth. “What is with me having to fight all the chicks I like?”

  “What was that?” Fallon asked even though I knew she had heard what I’d mumbled under my breath.

  “Let’s do this--” I started to say but then had to dodge a fist that tried to punch me right in the nose. “Okay, I guess we’re starting.”

  My nervous system came alive, even though I’d had no food or coffee yet, as my various combat mods came online. I slapped the fist away, juked to my left, and tried to through a rabbit punch into Fallon’s midsection, but she’s already skipped out of the way.

  We faced off, both of us in loose fighting stances on the balls of our feet as we slowly began to circle one another.

  “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice,” Fallon said quietly as we danced around each other. “As much as I do love trading… blows… with you, I actually wanted us to be able to talk without arousing too much suspicion.”

  “Oh, shit, okay,” I said. “And here I was just thinking that you liked it rough.”

  “Rougher the better,” she said and tried to kick my face. She telegraphed it intentionally and was nowhere near full speed so I was able to duck under it easily and then threw a slow roundhouse punch of my own just to make it look good.

  “What’s up?” I panted. Even though we weren’t going full out, Fallon was a damn good hand to hand fighter, as I had just witnessed.

  “I’ll tell you in a second,” she said and then lunged forward, grabbed the front of my jump
suit and rolled us to the ground. The Krav Maga was a good all-around fighting style designed for maximum damage in little time, but when faced with some straight up Judo, I was a bit out of my element. I just went with the throw, and we ended up grappling on the ground as each of us tried to get the better position. “Okay, so, I know your President is making a visit soon.”

  “Yeah,” I grunted as I tried to put her into an arm bar that she wiggled out of. “Probably tomorrow actually.”

  “I’ve heard some grumblings that there may be an attempt on his life,” she whispered while she did a nifty wrestling move to end up on my back. She bent low over me while she tried to get me into a half-nelson.

  “What?”

  “Well, he kinda made a lot of folks mad on his last appearance with Trillium Vou,” she answered as I leveraged her back to get my arm back under me. “And by kinda I mean he really pissed some very bad people off.”

  “Yeah, he has a talent at that,” I acknowledged and snaked around to get behind her. I didn’t waste time with a half-nelson and went right for the full. “But I didn’t think he was inappropriate enough for anybody to want to kill him. You know what? Scratch that.”

  Fallon was as easy to grasp as wrangling a herd of cats. In that I mean, she wasn’t. Before I knew it, I was on my back, and she straddled me. I covered as she threw some half hearted punches at my head. Feeling her warm body on top of me reminded me of the night we spent together, and I had to stifle the urge to take her right here and now.

  “I don’t know much more than that,” she grunted in a rush, her arms tired from the exertion. “I’ll keep my ears open though. Just thought you would want to know.”

  “I appreciate that,” I panted. I waited until there was a lull in her fullisade of blows and then when she hesitated to catch her breath for a second I bucked my hips as hard as I could which unseated her just enough for me to pull her to the ground so that my arms pinned her elbows to the mat. She struggled but my full weight was too much for her. I reached down and touched her gently on the nose.

  “Boop,” I said and grinned.

  Fire flared in her eyes, and it was a mixture of fury and desire that both scared and aroused me. The next thing I knew there were two tawny fur covered legs wrapped around my head that cut off my air supply.

  “Boop yourself,” she purred as she hate fucked me with her eyes. And I kind of liked it. A lot.

  I knew I could end the fight with a full force punch to her sexy face that would knock her out cold, but, I liked her face and didn’t feel like punching it at the moment. Plus, I wanted her to save some face in front of her people. And, this wasn’t a real fight so I tapped out.

  Fallon squeezed just a little tighter with a wicked grin on her face and then let me go. Then she jumped to her feet and then put out her hand to help me up. Once I was on my feet, she pulled me close for a pseudo chest bump as if to say “good fight”.

  “I know you could have cleaned my clock just then,” she whispered into my ear. “Remind me to thank you some time, and you can really clean my clock.”

  “Baby, I’ll ring your bell all night long,” I whispered back before we disengaged. “Thank you, Fallon. Seriously.”

  “You're welcome,” she replied with a nod of her head. “Thanks for the workout.”

  “Anytime,” I half groaned as we started to walk toward Baba. Regen mod or no regen mod, that last bit of rolling around had been tough, and my back let me know that it was not thrilled.

  “I’ll do what I can to find out more,” Fallon said quietly as she handed me a bottle of water. “I have to be careful though, don’t want anyone to know I’m digging. I’ll send a bird or Baba if there’s any more info.”

  I nodded in affirmation as I chugged the bottle.

  “Baba will run to the Hall of Heroes,” she said to both of us. Baba nodded silently to her.

  “Actually, I need to head home first,” I said as I looked down at myself. “I probably stink.”

  “Just like pussy,” she purred from deep within her throat, “figuratively and quite literally.”

  I nearly spit out the mouthful of water I’d just taken.

  “Fallon!” Baba hissed and I think he actually blushed.

  “What?” She asked innocently.

  Neither one of us bought it for a second.

  “Havak, let us go,” the rat-ninja said as he shook his head at Fallon like a parent. “Before I wash Fallon’s mouth out with soap.”

  “Sorry, Baba,” she half-heartedly apologized. “See you later, Marc.”

  “Not if I see you first,” I tossed over my shoulder and followed Baba outside.

  I got in the sidecar, and we were soon back in the morning traffic. I glanced at my watch and was shocked to see that it wasn’t even eight a.m. yet.

  “Early bird does get the worm,” I mumbled to myself.

  “You should wash, Marc Havak,” Baba-Tadao said through the comm system as we zoomed in and out of the rush of morning air-cars. “You do smell like sex and ass-kicking.”

  I chuckled and nodded at him. I was guilty as charged.

  Chapter Six

  An hour later I walked through the doors of the gym at the Hall of Champions and showered, shaved, and filled myself to the brim of coffee and Woodhouse Specials ready for a day of training.

  For once, I wasn’t the last of the team to arrive. Grizz and Artemis were huddled over by the Command Center deep in discussion. PoLarr, as per usual, was at the firing range doing quick draw drills with targets that were twenty-five yards away. Which was an impressive distance with a pistol. She put double-tap after double-tap from her Equalizers into the heads of every single target.

  Aurora and Nova weren’t in yet.

  I walked over to the little break station we’d set up and poured myself another cup of coffee. Even though I’d had three cups at home, before ten a.m. there was never enough of the glorious dark black elixir of stimulation. I swirled in a splash of vanilla creamer and then made my way over to Grizz and Artie.

  “Good morning Team Havak!” I said to the cadence of “Good Morning Vietnam.”

  “Artemis, why is the human singing?” Grizz said as they looked up from their computer screen.

  “Because he did a little parallel of the ground plane samba last night,” she said with a suppressed giggle.

  “Ah, the beast with two backs, yes,” Grizz nodded then looked at me appraisingly. “For your many faults, Havak, your prodigious libido matches that of Philbert of the Powerful Phallus. Bravo.”

  “Hey, I was there too,” PoLarr shouted over from the range. “My libido is just as prodigious!”

  “Agreed, PoLarr,” Grizz nodded. “I’m sure Havak only rises to the occasion because of the greatness of his partners.”

  “Officially, the oddest watercooler conversation I’ve ever had,” I said as I sat down at the table.

  Artemis moved over and kissed me on the cheek. “Morning,” she said into my ear. “I’m glad you and PoLarr finally did the mortgage, but I am claiming dibs on you. Mama needs a little sugar.”

  “Deal,” I replied, a little embarrassed even though I didn’t need to be. Jealousy was decidedly a human socialization, and I was stupid lucky that none of my partners fell prey to it. “And it’s horizontal mambo and did the deed.”

  “Ah, got it,” Artemis said, and I could tell she made a mental note of it.

  “What are we up to this morning?” I asked and took a sip of my coffee.

  “Grizz and I were speculating on what we thought the challenge was going to be,” Artemis said and pulled up a holographic display with several scenarios laid out like a mission select in a video game. “I think it’s going to be some kind of heist where one side will have to prevent the other from stealing something.”

  “I have laid a wager that it will be a siege of some sort,” Grizz countered. “Team A will have to defend a position while Team B does all in their power to lay them to waste. It will be a castle, or bunker, or wal
led city. I am sure of it.”

  “Hmm, both sound interesting,” I nodded to both of them and sipped my coffee. My mind was still spinning with what Fallon had told me that morning. As if she had read my mind, which because of the Soul Gaze she kinda sorta did, PoLarr walked over, plopped down next to me, and took a sip from my coffee cup.

  “Blech,” she grimaced. “Okay, Soul Gaze or no Soul Gaze, that liquid is disgusting. What did Fallon want this morning?”

  “You saw, Fallon?” Artemis questioned. “How was she? Is she doing okay? Did she have any problems with the credit account I set up for her? I made sure to route it through four-hundred different financial institutions under a myriad of fake persona’s that I created. There should be no way to trace it directly back to you.”

  “No, Artemis,” I said, “the money was fine. She’s used it to help a lot of her people. And, by the look of the guys she was sparring with at her dojo, she’s been able to recruit a better level of help as well.”

  “Well then, what did the Kaunchveet--” Grizz began to ask.

  “Grizz!” Artemis scolded. “We do not use that word in this gym, sir!”

  “I am sorry, Artemis,” Grizz bowed his head to her. “You are correct. What did the felonious feline want, Havak?”

  “Aw, come on, man,” I protested. There was some kind of bad blood between either Grizz and Fallon personally, which I didn’t see how that was possible because my trainer had been dead for over a hundred years, or Grizz really didn’t like cat aliens. “Fallon has proven herself to be a trusted ally and a pretty good friend.”

  “I know, I know,” Grizz admitted and took a breath. “I… I knew one of her kind a very long time ago. It caused… problems for me.”

  “Damn, dude,” I huffed, “you pissed a lot of people off.”