by Logan Jacobs
“Why, I remember the spine spoon adventure like it was yesterday.” He met my eyes. “Would you like to know more?”
“I am both intrigued and disgusted,” I said with a shrug, “and hell freaking yes I want to hear about it!”
“Then pick your power-ups,” he said. “My story shall be your reward.”
“Actually, you guys need to choose two power-ups,” Artemis said as she looked up from her computer screen.
“Even better.” Grizz smiled and crossed his massive arms over his chest. “Now choose.”
“About that… so how do we decide who chooses these upgrades?” Nova asked. “I have never been part of an alliance before.”
“I have not either,” Aurora said.
“Well, I mean, I should probably be the one who chooses,” I said as I crossed my arms and widened my stance in a way that totally wasn’t copying Grizz or anything. “It was my idea that led us to victory against Amohot, so…”
“We fought too!” Nova protested. “You’d be dead without Aurora and me.”
“True, and a fair point, but I went to hell for you guys,” I responded. “Literally.”
“For ten seconds, maybe,” Nova retorted with a huff.
“And, sugar, don’t be so cliche as to proclaim ten seconds as a triumph,” Aurora chuckled.
“A. Literal. Hell. Dimension. In the belly of a Chaos being,” I retorted with a bit of bravado as I raised my brow. I had to admit I enjoyed the playful banter. There was something about getting Nova and Aurora’s feathers ruffled that kinda turned me on. Twisted? Wrong? Maybe. But if that was wrong I sure as hell didn’t want to be right. It was hot as hell to have the undivided attention of two super-sexy space babes in a ménage à trois te tête-à-tête.
“This isn’t the first instance where your concept of time seems a bit exaggerated,” Aurora teased. Her voice dripped with sexual innuendo and playfulness.
“Despite that,” I began while I turned back to Nova and Aurora. “I did just take on a twelve-foot, giant space snake. And won.”
“Ten-foot,” Nova corrected. Now I knew she was trying to get under my skin. “Your perception of measurements may need work too.”
“Time? Space?” I started, my voice low and full of confidence. “No matter what you both know my cunning linguistics can get me out of just about any jam I may find myself neck deep in.”
Now it was Aurora's and Nova’s turn to blush a little. It was a rare occurrence for Aurora, and I couldn’t help but smile as bright pink flushed across her cheeks.
“Er, um, what giant did you beat?” She asked as she tried to recover.
Grizz stepped forward and gave her an answer, “The Dark King. He was a champion favored by one of the mob bosses that unfortunately infest this city planet. As for the powerups, it would be beneficial to choose two things that complement each other.”
“So, what upgrades can we choose from?” I asked.
“Let me pull up the list,” Artemis said, and she turned back to her terminal and began hammering on the keys.
A moment later a selection menu appeared on the wall screen, and the five of us stepped toward it so we could see better.
“They are all skills or knowledge based,” Artemis said as she gestured to the options. “Since you are all in the alliance, it pulls any possible options from each of your worlds.”
“Will we all get the two upgrades?” Nova asked. “Or do we have to decide which member or members get them.”
“You each get them,” Artemis confirmed with a cheery nod.
“This is like an all you can eat smorgasbord of badassitude,” I said as I glanced at the list. It kind of looked like an old RPG skill tree set up, with Physical and Mental options at the top. Beneath each of the two options was a root system with dozens of sub options, and then each of those options had dozens of super small type sub-sub options.
“This could take us hours to go through, and I wish to get sweaty,” Aurora sighed. “Not to mention the arguments around making a decision.”
“Wait,” I said as I waved my hands frantically. “Guys, guys, guys, I already picked one. Artemis, baby, zoom in on the fourth option under Mental where it says Riding.”
“Done,” she said, and the screen shifted.
“Third sub option is Aquatic,” I said.
“Done,” she confirmed, and the screen zoomed again.
“Yes!” I giggled when I saw the words clearer. “We are totally picking the fourth one.
“Shark riding?” Aurora sighed. “Havak, are you--”
“Think about how awesome it would be to ride mother fucking sharks into battle!” I laughed. “We can even put freaking laser beams on their foreheads!”
“One, how the hell are you reading this so fast?” Nova said.
“Misspent youth,” I fired off quickly.
“Two, I have never seen one of these shark creatures,” Nova said. “Are they fearsome beasts?”
“Totally,” I said with growing excitement. “They have rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth, big black eyes, like dolls eyes, and they just fucking chomp through everything. Chomp, you’re dead. Chomp, you’re dead. Champ, you’re dead.”
“Sold,” Nova said with a stoic nod. “I wish to ride the death chomping shark creatures into battle.”
“Ahhh, slow your roll, sugars,” Aurora sighed. “How often are we going to be involved in water battles?”
The four of us turned to Grizz, and the ancient holographic warrior tapped his chin as he looked up at the ceiling.
“In all my time as a champion, I believe I fought in one or two water battles.” He said after a few moments of deep thought.
“Out of how many battles?” Aurora asked.
“Hundreds,” he said.
“Six hundred and seventy two,” Artemis confirmed.
“Damn, dude, you are a beast,” I said as I nodded to my muscular mentor.
“Yes. I am.” He shrugged.
“You know who else would be beasts?” I asked. “The three of us, riding into battle on mother fucking sharks.”
“I vote no,” Aurora laughed. “Pick something else.”
“Unfortunately, I agree with Aurora now,” Nova said. “We should not waste our choice on such an unlikely scenario.”
“Bleh, you guys are no fun,” I said as I saw my shark riding dreams sink to the bottom of the broken heart sea. “But in all seriousness, maybe we should try to true up some of our team weaknesses. I mentioned shooting fire earlier, but it looks like we can’t gain Mario-fireball-out-my-nose-ability, but is there something else we need?”
“I can think of an obvious deficiency,” Grizz said. “Aurora is stealthy, Nova is stout, and Marc somehow manages to get lucky, but the three of you lack any sort of agility that could prove useful in either moving across the tournament grounds or sliding through melee combat range.”
“So you are saying we are clumsy?” I asked. “I am lithe as a--”
“You especially,” Grizz snorted.
“Awww,” I laughed. “A few weeks ago you would have said something like ‘You move like a brick of Dolmidian feces with two tons of Carnumbi feces bricks on top,’ but now you are just saying ‘you especially.’ You love me. You really love me.”
Grizz actually smirked before his stern eye raise slammed back into place. He then nodded at Artemis. She clicked on her terminal, and the menu shifted to the Agility section of the upgrades.
“I recommend gymnastics or perhaps acrobatics,” the giant holographic warrior said. “My translation module is telling me those would be most advantageous.”
Just as Grizz was saying ‘gymnastics’ my brain went into overdrive, and I remembered something I had always wanted to try as a kid, but my mom wouldn’t let me take the classes at the local YMCA.
“Hold up! Do you guys know what parkour is?” I asked everyone as I searched the Earth Ability tree.
“No,” Aurora and Nova said in unison.
“It is a train
ing discipline humans developed to get from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Artemis rattled off. Her AI identity still made itself known every once in a while. “It incorporates gymnastic, acrobatics, climbing, jumping, rolling, and crawling and is considered by many to be a non-combative form of martial arts.”
“That sounds useful,” Grizz said. “You could use that to evade enemies or to get to hard-to-reach places in future urban battles.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” I lied. I really just thought parkour was fucking cool and wanted to do flips off walls while shooting pistols from each hand killing any baddie that came my way in the arena. “Nova, Aurora, can we at least agree on that upgrade?”
Instead of replying to me, Aurora turned to Artemis. “Before we pick it, I’d love to see it in action. Can you bring up some videos of the skill?”
“On it!” Artemis said happily and a second later, the screen on the wall lit up with a male CGI character who looked vaguely yellow and had a very pleasant, charismatic voice.
“Hello, I’m Roy. You may remember me from such training videos as Sharks and how to ride them and Passion Fruit, nasty as hell or nature's little fruit cups.” He smiled widely at the screen. “Today we’ll be going over Parkour so you can make an informed decision about your next upgrade.”
Then he spent the next ten minutes showing us spliced together YouTube clips of nimble parkour athletes going to town on everything from park benches to the tops of skyscrapers. All of it was totally freaking awesome, and when it was over my companions must have agreed because they both nodded.
“Oh, yes,” Aurora drawled. Again, I had no idea why she seemed to be from the southern part of the continental United States, but it totally worked for her so I just went with it. “I very much want to do that.”
“I admit, that seems like it’d be not only handy in battle but, how do you put it, Marc, fun as fuck? Although I’m not sure how well it would work for me because I’m, well, heavy.” Nova sighed and looked the closest to self-conscious as I had ever seen the Paladinian Knight.
“Nova, I think you’re perfect just the way you are,” I said with a genuine smile.
“You think I’m perfect?” Nova asked, and the way she looked at me made my heart slam wildly in my chest. “You’re not just saying that because I can crush your skull between my thighs like it was a grape?”
“Nope.” I replied as I tried to hide the expression on my face while that mental image raced through my brain. “In my book, that’s just a perk.”
“As much as I’d like to see that in action,” Aurora said. “I think that parkour will be even better for you because of your density once you build the requisite muscle memory. Can you imagine leaping from a high place and slamming your armor clad knee into an opponent's skull?”
“Yeah, you could totally climb to the top rope and drop an elbow like a greased up Macho Man Randy Savage!” I smiled. “Snap into a SlimJim!”
Everyone just stared at me for a second. I was quite used to this reaction by now and just stood there silently until they started talking again.
“I don’t know what that means, but I think you both may be on to something. Let’s take that one.” Nova nodded.
“Excellent. One down, one to go,” Aurora replied. “What should our second boost be?”
I looked to Artemis and then to Grizz, hoping one of them might have a suggestion for something that coupled well with Parkour.
“Might I suggest first aid skills?” Artemis asked with an arched brow. “Parkour may leave you with some bruising, twisted ankles, and shoulder subluxation, so perhaps it would help to know how to remedy things of that nature?”
“Combat in general will leave us with injuries, so yes, field medicine would be a very useful upgrade,” Nova agreed.
“Okay, but that seems kind of pumpkin-spice-latte with black leggings and brown leather boots basic,” I commented. “Plus, we have the best medical care in the universe at our fingertips.”
“Yes, but that isn’t available to us during battle,” Aurora pointed out.
“I do not know what pumpkin spice is,” Grizz piped up and crossed his arms, “but do you know how to set a broken arm in the midst of the blood-lust and chaos of warfare, human?”
“Uh... that’s gonna be a no from me, Grizz,” I replied.
“Exactly. Being able to mend your own wounds and injuries can go a long way,” Grizz told me. “In fact, I remember a battle where I broke my arm and since I didn’t know a thing about first aid, I injured it even worse by punching my enemy in the face half a dozen times until he resembled a pile of ground beef.”
“That sounds tragic and vomit inducing,” I said with a sigh. “But you make a valid point.”
“I agree with Grizz,” Nova said. “First aid and parkour.”
“So, we’ve decided then. First aid abilities and parkour?” I confirmed and turned to Aurora.
“First aid and parkour,” she repeated to me with a wink.
“Sounds good to me. Let’s get those upgrades.” I turned to Artemis.
Artemis stood, and I was once again amazed at her tight, Victoria Secret model body as she brought the laptop over to us and typed the appropriate codes into the server. While the thought of the cruel and devious ways that Grizz would come up with to help us gain muscle memory for the new skills made me shudder, there was a large part of me that couldn’t wait to put these upgrades to use in the next round of fighting.
It dawned on me that this technology was potentially the technology that Earth would receive should I continue to win my arena rounds. I couldn’t imagine a world where the President was some sort of ninja-badass-gunslinger and everyone was parkour-kung-fu fighting. It seemed too far-fetched. Then again, life outside of Earth seemed too far-fetched not too long ago so what did I know?
Then, without any sort of warning, my vision blanked, my brain felt hot, and I felt the breath leave my body in a surge. A few moments later, everything came back into focus, but I didn’t feel that much different.
“Okay, everything should be all set,” Artemis said once she closed the laptop. “You all technically know all the intricacies of Parkour and have the knowledge of an experienced battlefield medic.”
“You’re a doll,” I teased her as I flashed her a smile. My hand rested on Artemis’ bare shoulder for a moment as a simple gesture of thanks. Even the way her neck curved into her shoulders seemed perfect. She was elegance, intelligence, and sensuality all wrapped up into one sexy package. I was disappointed in the fact that Aurora had not meant an orgiastic Baccanal of Roman proportions when she mentioned getting sweaty, but at the very least, Artemis had vocalized her desire for me to rip all her clothes off.
Nova, Aurora, and I walked over to the training room next door and began to pick some weapons up off the racks that lined one wall of the high-tech gym. Nova grabbed a trusty, non-ogre blood covered longsword, Aurora grabbed two katanas, and I grabbed my trusty Space Viking Axes, SVAs for short. They were one of my first weapons and were still my go to weapons of choice.
In fact, I’d managed to unlock more of their features. The axe handles were made of a foot and a half of cylindrical dark blue steel like metal with molded hand grips at one end. With the push of a button razor sharp double-axe heads appeared on each handle that turned them into kick-ass Viking inspired battle axes. With another push of the button the bottoms connected with a metallic click and turned the whole thing into a double-ended axe staff that could rival any Sith Lord’s double-bladed lightsaber. I had to admit, feeling like a Norse warrior of yore but in space was pretty goddamn cool. “All that talk of us ‘celebrating together,’ earlier…” I said to Aurora as she checked her blades, “You big tease.”
“Sugar, I have no idea what you mean,” she said innocently. I saw a mischievous twinkle in her violet eyes.
“Uh-huh, sure,” I teased. “‘Celebrating’ together with some super fun activity…”
“Don’t
forget that I said ‘that we’d get really sweating and moan a bunch,’ too,” she said, and her full lips curved into a devilish smirk as she walked away toward the center of the room.
“Well, we can always take a shower after this, and--”
“Havak!” Grizz shouted from behind my shoulder and interrupted my attempt at flirting with Aurora. “Grab your axes and let’s get to work. These ladies obviously want to get some serious training in.”
“Got it, Boss,” I replied, and then I joined my two beautiful allies in the center of the training room. “Cock-blockin’ Rock wannabe,” I muttered under my breath.
“Ready?” Artemis said over the speakers.
“Ready,” we all confirmed, and then Artemis counted down from three.
About five different races of various space bad guys materialized before us. I couldn’t name them, but they all looked like rejects from the Luc Besson space opera, Valerian. Despite being of different origins, they came in one size, fucking big. And one color, fucking ugly.
In addition to the baddies, a maze of concrete walls, blocks, and rooves appeared that could be used to strengthen our new parkour abilities. The barriers were of various shapes and sizes ranging from a park bench to three story building, but my mind suddenly saw bright blue lines to traverse around, over, and across them in ways I would have never thought of just a few hours ago.
This was going to be awesome.
“All right,” Grizz said as he cleared his throat. “There are five types of enemies here that have been digitally constructed to help you, Aurora, and Nova develop your team attacks.”
“Gotta love those ‘team attacks,’” I said to Aurora with a cheesy grin.
“Focus, human,” Grizz growled. “Now. What is required for this training is that you, Aurora, and Nova work together to each kill a monster.”
“Roger that,” I said with a nod.
“The blocks and walls are there for you to use too,” Artemis announced. “It’ll take time to develop the muscles for that skill, so best start right away!”
“Ready your axe,” Nova said loudly as she leapt forward.