Arena 4

by Logan Jacobs

  We were out the door and into the cool night air of the city before I could give it another thought. Brek set Artie down on the sidewalk.

  “I’m really super sorry, guys,” Brek-Taup apologized. “But rules are rules, and I didn’t want things to get out of hand. I hate those jerks as much as ya’ll do.”

  “Not your fault, Brek,” I said and patted the big chimney on the shoulder. “You are a true professional.”

  “Thanks, Champion Havak,” he said with a nod. “Hope to see you all together again. Night.”

  And with that he turned and walked back into the smoke filled Breach. His last comment reverberated in my head like an omen. “Together again” was what he’d said. As if part of him thought we wouldn’t be. Determination welled up inside of me. I was used to being an underdog.

  “So, Artemis,” PoLarr said as we began to walk down the street away from the tavern. “What was that all about?”

  “I’m sorry everyone,” Artemis said. Her anger had turned to self-flagellation. Her cheeks were bright red and tears welled up in her eyes. “I ruined everyone's night.”

  “You did no such thing, Artemis,” Nova reassured her and then put an arm around Artie’s waist and pulled her close while they walked. “They were knaves hiding behind a mask of chivalry. Churlish, and cowardly.”

  “And infuriating,” Aurora said as she walked up on the other side of Artemis and put her arm on top of Nova’s so that Artemis was sandwiched between them. “I want to suck the life-force from that smug, arrogant Colonel like a milkshake.”

  “Freaking JV squad if you ask me,” PoLarr scoffed and walked up behind and squeezed in tight while she hugged them all. “If a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass a-hopping. Man, I should have said that back there. Damnit.”

  “Hindsight is twenty-twenty when it comes to post standoff witty retorts,” I said as I smiled at the big girl hug in front of me.

  “Truth,” PoLarr shot back.

  “So what the hell is up with you and that Dolos dude?” I asked as we melded into the night time pedestrian traffic.

  “Dolos is an AI like me,” Artemis answered. “Instead of history, he was assigned to the war and tactics branch. When Hann-Abel came to the Crucible, he must have been downloaded into a Rautakian body. I hadn’t seen him for years and just assumed he’d gone deep into the archives. That happens sometimes. AIs will disappear for years as they troll through tetra-terabytes of information to fulfil their programming. He was always a sneaky little shit.”

  “You and grown up red skinned Joffrey seem like you have a history,” I observed while horning my way in between Aurora and Artemis. I took Artie’s hand and threw an arm around Aurora’s shoulders.

  “Yes,” Artemis admitted. “He’s an arrogant jackass who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. But mostly, smarter than me.”

  “I don’t see how that could be possible, you’re the smartest person I know,” I complimented her. She smiled for a second and then a shadow of emotion fell across her face like a curtain.

  “He’s also my twin brother.”

  “I’m sorry, did you just say twin brother?” I sputtered as we all stopped dead in our tracks.

  “Technically,” Artemis agreed. “And Tyche is our father.”

  I felt my mouth hang open. Then close. Then hang open again as my measly human brain tried to comprehend the bomb Artemis had just dropped on us.

  She looked up at me, saw what I’m sure was complete and utter shock on my face, and smiled sadly. It was a smile born of pain that only relatives can inflict. Mingled with years of history that I could never know. A pain that one didn’t even know was pain, not even when the razor of our family sliced deep, thin cuts into the core of us that would heal into puckered scars on the essence of who we are. A pain that itself smiled through the hurt that it wasn’t aware was throbbing in its heart like a migraine. Artie smiled that smile, and I wanted to hug her and hold her tight and tell her that I knew the pain because I had it too. But I couldn't because we were in the middle of the street on an alien world and how could I compare what she felt to what I felt because her childhood was zeros and ones in a house of silicone.

  I looked around and Nova, PoLarr, and Aurora who all stared at Artemis, and it was like looking in three mirrors. The reflection wasn’t my face staring back at me but it was our insides out instead. Different stories. Different families. But that sadness made us a family of our own. Artemis didn’t have to say more in that moment because we all knew. We all had the same puckered scars that ran up and down the wrists of our psyches. Inflicted by different faces on different planets in far off galaxies, some even guided by our own hands, but they were the same bone white scars, nonetheless.

  And it was in that moment, without a word, that we all huddled together around Artemis. We hugged her, and each other tight, to let her know she didn’t need to say anymore if she didn’t want to. That we heard her anyway.

  We hugged in the middle of a busy street on a planet whose name I didn’t know while aliens, who I was sure all had their own pain and scars too, walked around us and stared.

  I didn’t know how, but in that moment, that painful, beautiful heartfelt moment, I made a silent promise to these women that I would not let anyone, not Hann-Abel, not Tyche, not the Aetherons, ever tear us apart. I would fight with gnashing teeth until there was nothing left but bone and blood before I would let that happen.

  I don't remember how long we stood like that in the street. If it was seconds or years. It wasn’t until the first fat drops of rain began to splash on the sidewalk that we came out of the trance we’d been in. Before we knew it, there was a downpour all around us and we were all soaked to the bone. Our fine clothes dripped with the sky’s tears so that we couldn't see our own. Which was alright by us.

  “Well, that escalated quickly,” PoLarr said to break the blanket of silence that we’d wrapped ourselves up in.

  Everyone laughed because it was either that or cry some more.

  “Sorry guys,” Artemis said as she wiped rain from her face and pushed the hair plastered to her forehead out of her eyes. “Somehow that got really gravitational pull on our masses fast.”

  Aurora, PoLarr, and Nova looked at Artemis with cocked heads. I was her resident euphemistic translator.

  “Heavy,” I corrected gently. “Yeah, it did get a bit heavy. But so what. Don’t ever apologize for that.”

  “But I didn’t even really explain anything,” Artemis admitted, confused. “I just said they were my brother and dad.”

  “Sugar, everybody here has some kind of daddy issues,” Aurora comforted. “You didn’t need to say anymore.”

  “Indeed,” Nova concurred. “Familial bonds are like ropes around all our necks.”

  “A hangman’s noose we wear like necklaces,” PoLarr offered up.

  “Holy similes, guys,” I chirped to dispel the last of the emo spell we’d been under. “You all need some damn therapy.”

  “Cause you are the paragon of mental health, Marc Havak,” Artemis joked back, and in that second I knew she was okay. I grinned like an idiot at her. I loved when she used my first and last name like she had on the day we first met.

  “Sugars, as much as this had been a wonderful catharsis for us all,” Aurora drawled as she threw back her head so that her silver hair splashed up and around her shoulders. “Unless I am in the shower or the bedroom, I detest being wet, so can we get out of the rain?”

  It took us all a second to register the lurid suggestion in that comment. Nova whacked Aurora on the arm. “Starfall, you are incorrigible.”

  “Yes, and I am also drenched to the bone, so let’s go,” Aurora said as she smacked Nova back.

  The sudden downpour meant it took us almost five full minutes before we could hail a hover-taxi big enough for all of us to slide our soaked bodies into. By the time it pulled up to the curb next to our apartment we all shivered from the frigid AC inside the cab.

  With arms cross
ed over our chests to conserve warmth and to sort of hide all of our rock hard nipples, we speed walked through the lobby, into the elevator, and eventually into the apartment.

  Woodhouse, my cylindrical robotic butler with eight arms, spun around as we dumped ourselves into the apartment like something the cat dragged in. He took one fiber optic look at us and without a word from me he produced five tumblers with three fingers of bourbon in each.

  “A constitutional for you all,” Woodhouse chirped in his electronic British accent. “Drink up. It will help dispel the chill of the rain. I have already started baths for you all in your respective living quarters.”

  The five of us all took the thick, crystal tumblers and drank down the amber fluid. It was harsh, and burned, but the liquid fire soon spread from our stomachs to the tips of our toes and fingers, and I could feel the sigh of relaxation as the liquor hit our bloodstreams.

  “Smooth,” I hissed out and coughed slightly from the burn of the booze.

  “It’s so good when it hits your lips,” PoLarr said through a grimace.

  “Gods, that is like drinking from the red hot fountain of fire water that Paladinian blacksmiths quench their blades in after the forge,” Nova said and coughed a few times.

  “My head feels wonderfully sloggy,” Artemis said before she stuck out her tongue and fanned it with her hand. “But my mouth burns and tastes like charred wood.”

  “It’s supposed to,” I replied as I regained some of my composure.

  “Not bad,” Aurora said without the slightest hint that she’d just downed three and a half ounces of eighty proof Kentucky bourbon. “What?”

  All of us looked at her with deadpan expressions.

  “Not my fault y'all can’t take your liquor,” she shrugged and sauntered off to her living area. Since forming our alliance my teammates had decided to all reside in my apartment, which had grown exponentially since my first night when it was a small, but nice, one-bedroom apartment. Artie said it was an adaptive living space that automatically grew to accommodate any number of inhabitants and would upgrade itself based on the style points earned in the Crucible. I really didn’t understand it, but it was freaking cool.

  “Sometimes I do not know whether I want to strike that wench or kiss her,” Nova said and shook her head as she watched Aurora disappear into her room.

  “Um, I know which I’d like you to do,” I laughed.

  “Please, in your dreams, Havak,” Nova scoffed, winked at me, and walked off to her own room.

  “Burn,” PoLarr quipped. “Gah, the alcohol seems to weaken the filter between my brain and yours, Marc. I love you, but you need professional help. I am going to take a shower. Good night.”

  She kissed me on the cheek and then stalked off with a military straight back to her own little wing of the apartment.

  That left Artemis, Woodhouse, and myself standing in the middle of my living room. Two of us were soaked to the bone.

  “Your bath is ready,” Woodhouse chimed.

  “Perfect,” I said and grabbed Artemis by the hand. “Thanks, Woodhouse. Come on Artie.”

  “You're most welcome, sir,” Woodhouse replied. “I do not wish for any of you to catch your death of cold, sir.”

  I led Artemis into my bathroom where there was a large bathtub big enough for three people that hadn’t been there when I’d left that morning. Steam rose from the layer of thick, purple foam bubbles that covered the top of the water. It smelled like mint and eucalyptus.

  “Okay, that’s fucking cool,” I muttered to myself.

  “I should go to my bathroom,” Artemis said as she turned to leave. I held on to her hand tight and turned her back to me.

  “Like hell you will,” I said and kissed her gently on the mouth. I could taste the rain and a hint of salty sweat on her lips. She seemed to melt into me. “Do you want to talk about what happened tonight?”

  “Not now, you dope,” she laughed softly into my chest. “For someone who has very good comedic timing, sometimes you get things so very wrong. My emotions are a mess in my head right now and I would rather take a bath and have you make love to me.”

  “That I can do,” I said and kissed the top of her wet head. “Let’s get out of these wet clothes.”

  I couldn’t help but watch as she peeled out of her jeans and top that clung to her like a desperate embrace. Goosebumps dappled her smooth skin once her clothes flopped to the floor in a damp heap. She had on a sexy blue lace teddy with a plunging V front that I had no idea was under her outer layer of clothes.

  “I bought this with Nova and Aurora,” she admitted shyly. “I was going to surprise you with it tonight.”

  “I’m still surprised,” I whispered as I let my eyes drink her in. She was more intoxicating than any liquor, and I wanted to swallow her down into the depths of my aching heart.

  “It’s all wet and clingy,” Artie complained as she tried to smooth it down over the gracefully alluring curves of her body.

  “You look very sexy,” I said. “Now take it off and get in the tub, missy.”

  “Oh,” she said with a look of surprise on her face. “I like that. I don’t know why I like that, but I just got all tingly in my private parts when you spoke all stern.”

  I smiled wickedly at her as if to say “well, get on with it.” She took the nonverbal cues and slowly slid the thin straps of the lingerie over her shoulders until the weight of her full, teardrop shaped breasts pulled free of the lacy fabric. She continued to peel the wet underwear down her body. Her eyes burned with a delicious desire as she teased me. When it had cleared her hips, she bent seductively and let them drop to the floor, and then she turned her back to me before she stepped into the tub with a sharp inhale of breath from the heat of the water.

  I watched, mesmerized, as her heart shaped ass sank below the curtain of foam bubbles.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” She asked as she leaned her head back to wet her hair. The tops of her breasts poked free of the bubbles and that was all that was needed to break me from the trance her body had me in.

  With no small amount of effort I finally got my wet clothes, which just refused to want to let go of my skin, off.

  “Oh, my, hello soldier,” Artemis cooed as she looked me over.

  My excitement was clearly evident, and I was neither embarrassed nor would I make any apology for it. I walked over and sat in the tub across from her. The water was almost scalding at first after the chill of the rain and soaking jeans but then it dulled to a pleasant, muscle caressing warmth.

  Artemis leaned over me so that her chestnut hair brushed against my chest as she began to massage my chest with the soft bubbles. I pulled her closer and kissed her again. My tongue danced across her teeth, and I felt an almost electric shock as her tongue slid across mine. She pressed against me tighter, and I could feel her hard nipples against my body. I sucked in a hiss of pleasure as her hand found me and began to rub me slowly up and down gently in the water.

  Our kisses became harder, deeper, more hungry. My left hand cupped one of her breasts, and I felt her nipple against my palm. It was hard as a diamond. My right-hand dove under the surface of the water and between her parted thighs to find the tiny bud nestled there. I rolled it softly across the pads of my fingers and enjoyed Artie’s pleasure filled moan. Then she leaned her head back so that I could nibble the soft flesh along her clavicle all the way up to her ear, which I knew drove her wild.

  Gasping, she removed my hand from between her thighs, grabbed my rock hard cock and guided it into her as she sat in my lap and wrapped her legs around my back.

  We rocked back and forth in the tub. Water splashed across the tiled floor but I didn’t care one fuck. All I cared about was the warmth that enveloped my rigidity.

  It was slow and rhythmic until our desire teetered on the edge of mind numbing insanity. I could take it no longer, and my hands slid around her to cup her ass and shift her weight slightly up so that I could thrust into her as deep as I
possibly could. She grabbed my hair and pulled me close, her breath fast gasps in my ear.

  “Oh, Marc, yes,” she panted, and I felt her body clench around me as her climax built.

  I could hold back no longer and a wave of bliss exploded through me. My climax revved like a race car, and I gasped over and over as I pumped sperm into her delicious body.

  “Ahhhh!” she groaned as her climax rode with mine, and then she collapsed into me a few moments after my last tremor poured into her womb. She felt lighter in my arms, and I knew the pain of the night had washed away with the waves of her climax.

  I felt her heartbeat against my chest and soon my heart beat to the same rhythm as I held her tight like a drowning man did to a life preserver. And I would never ever let go.

  We had to win this match.

  Chapter Nine

  The sign on the shop in front of me read: JoJo’s Donuts - Home Of All Things Earth. It was a promising start.

  I’d found my way to the erstwhile shop fairly easily since discovering its existence a few weeks ago while in an interrogation room at the Champion District Police Department from Captain Har’Gitay, a rather attractive alien with sky blue skin and a no-nonsense attitude that had kind of turned me on. PoLarr had been right the night before, I did need therapy.

  But this morning, well, this morning was for donuts and with the directions the Captain had given me I had found JoJo’s with no problem. It was just three blocks from my apartment.

  Artemis and I had fallen into a contented slumber after our sexy bathtub rendezvous. I seemed to be waking with the dawn these days and snuck out of the apartment before anyone had been awake. I wanted to surprise them all with deep fat fried, sugar-coated deliciousness. The morning I met Captain Har’Gitay I’d been trying to do the same thing, but unfortunately, I’d run into a large lizard jackass named Tyyraxx and some of his goons, and given a lovely tour of the Champion District jail.