by Logan Jacobs
“Yeah, that is easier said than done,” I replied. “She is one tough bitch.”
“Ha, yeah,” Olivia chuckled. “Paladinian’s are rough hand to hand to fighters. My suggestion would be to not let her connect with any force. Come in for quick strikes and then back the hell up because if she gets her hands on you, or lands a punch, your clock is going to be quite cleaned.”
“Oh, I know,” I said. “This is going to be interesting. My hand to hand mod is made for up close, personal, and dirty fighting, not boxing.”
“You will have your work cut out for you,” Olivia agreed. “Now, you both know you just need to put up a good show, right?”
“Um, I hope so,” I said as we got to our box suite.
I changed and began to warm up again with the heavy bag. Before I knew the well-dressed ring servant arrived at the door to bring me down to the fight.
“Good luck,” Olivia said.
“Thanks,” I replied.
I followed the ring servant and was able to catch a glimpse of the Sultan’s box suite as we made our way down to the ring.
PoLarr, as the Sultan, stood in the center of the room gazing down on the ring. Aurora was draped on her arm like gooey candy, and the body guards definitely seemed more interested in her than the Sultan.
I caught PoLarr’s eyes as I walked by, and she gave me the slightest head nod.
Thomas was right, this harebrained crazy scheme was just insane enough to work. Maybe.
The announcer was already in the ring and began to announce both of us.
Nova and I met in the center and shook hands as we glared at each other.
“Welcome to the first fight of day two!” The announcer said into the mic. “Knock-Out Nora versus Van Damage Incorporated!”
“Cool, nicknames,” I mumbled to myself.
“Let’s have a good fight!” The announcer said as he was lifted out of the ring on his harness. “Go!”
Nova moved into a classic boxing stance and started to walk slowly toward me.
“Hey, remember, this is for show,” I said as quietly as I could as I got into my own fighting stance and started to circle around her.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t make it a good show,” Nova said and winked at me.
I started to grin back when she shot forward and threw a surprisingly fast jab at my face. I ducked and danced back.
“Hey!” I blurted out. “Oh, now it’s on, lady.”
I ducked under another punch and landed two quick body blows before I skipped back out of her range. I’d pulled the punches at the last minute to not hurt Nova, but they still couldn't have tickled.
Nova and I did our little fight pantomime for another full minute without either of really getting hurt, and I could tell the crowd was quickly growing bored.
“Come on guys,” Thomas said over the comm in my ear. “Folks are getting restless out here.”
“Yeah,” I heard Aurora whisper. “And the Skalle Furia representative just arrived.”
“Okay, people, this is it,” Thomas replied. “Nova, Marc, come on, make this interesting.”
“Oh, fine,” I said.
I stopped dancing around Nova and punched her right in the face. The punch was thrown with a lot of show and not a lot of substance and was more of a love tap. Nova’s head popped back and when it came back down her eyes were wide in surprise.
“Sorry,” I mouthed to her. Nova squinted her eyes, grinned, and punched me in the chest.
I could tell she pulled her punch as well, but I still flew off my legs and landed on the ground five feet away. I’d helped sell the blow by kicking off when she made contact and I floundered like a fouled soccer player.
The crowd roared.
I glanced up at the Sultan’s box and saw several skull-masked Skalle Furia in the little room. One of them was talking to PoLarr as the Sultan as the others flanked the guards. PoLarr held up her hands in a “hey let's all calm down gesture” as the main Skalle Furia stood aggressively in front of her.
I got up and dusted myself off, then moved back toward Nova.
“Um, sugars,” Aurora whispered in all our ears. “Things are going very poorly in here.”
“What’s wrong?” Thomas asked, concerned.
“They got here three hours early and want twice as much money as originally agreed upon,” Aurora said. “PoLarr just told them no.”
“How are they taking it?” Olivia asked.
“They just pulled guns on us,” Aurora answered. “And--”
Whatever she said got cut off because thirty armed Skalle Furia terrorists stormed into the arena and fired their guns into the air to scare and control the crowd.
Nova and I immediately stopped our fight and turned our attention to what was happening outside the ring.
The crowd cowered in terror as the Skalle Furia goons held their guns intimidatingly.
“Everyone get to the Sultan’s box!” Thomas commanded.
I looked at Nova. She looked back. Without a word we both sprinted toward the ring’s exit.
We’d bounced up half the steps toward the level with the box seating when a Skalle goon glanced our way and saw us running. Bullets tore into the seats just to our right as he opened fire on us. We dove for cover behind a row of seats.
Aluminum and plush cushion fabric flew around us like a storm as the bullets destroyed the seats. We kept moving forward on our bellies as fast as we could until the Skalle had to reload. Once he stopped I bolted up and sprinted toward him as fast I could. He had just shoved a new mag into his AK-47 style assault rifle when I slammed into him like an All-State linebacker. We crashed to the ground and wrestled for the rifle. In the tumble I somehow ended up on the bottom and the Skalle desperately tried to bring the gun toward my face. I had just twisted it from his grip when he suddenly flew off of me, sailed twenty feet into the air and crashed in a heap of broken limbs four rows down. Nova stood over me and smiled.
“Team work,” she said and helped me up.
We continued on our way.
Our bravery against the one Skalle had given the crowd some courage, and I saw a few of the losing fighters from the day before start to give them hell.
We were only about twenty feet from the box when the door slammed open, and the Skalle goons poured out with PoLarr, now looking just like Polarr, and Aurora in the middle of their pack. The lead Skalle had a gun to Aurora’s head as the group of them rushed toward the elevator.
“Guys,” I said into the comm. “They have PoLarr and Aurora and are making a break for the elevator.”
“Copy that,” Thomas replied. “I see them, we’re on the other side.”
“We’ll try to intercept before they get to you, but we’re unarmed,” I said.
“Only if you have an opening,” Thomas replied.
Nova and I slowed our speed and ducked behind an ornate pillar. The goons in the back caught sight of us and sprayed the pillar with gunfire to keep us pinned down.
They reached the elevator, and the head Skalle Furia terrorist shuffled in and motioned for four of the others to stay behind. Next to us was a food cart full of fresh dishes and silverware for one of the boxes. I reached in and grabbed a stack of the heavy, porcelain plates and a steak knife. I stuck the steak knife in the back of my fighting shorts and then I realized I was going up against a bunch of gunmen in my underwear armed with cookware. Eh, I’d been in worse spots.
“I’ll draw their fire,” I said to Nova as I readied myself. “You take them out.”
“Sure thing, Marc,” she replied, and I could see her muscles flexing.
I ducked out from the pillar and started the hurl plates at the goons like they were frisbees. It made them pause for a moment, and one actually got beaned in the head with a spinning plate. The plate shattered and showered his buddies with sharp shards of white porcelain.
By the time they’d recovered, I’d closed the distance by about half and slid in behind another pillar. They opened fire on me, an
d I had to crouch with my limbs tucked in tight to keep from getting hit. The barrage of bullets lasted for about five long seconds, and then I heard a startled scream and the breaking of bones.
I took that as my cue, drew the steak knife, and ran around the other side of the pillar.
Two of the four already lay on the ground with their arms at weird angles. Another one was ten feet away and trying to get back onto his feet so he could bring his gun up to bear while Nova was locked in battle with the final goon. I sprinted right at the one who was trying to get up and reached him just as he stood. Without prejudice or any bad feelings whatsoever I drove the steak knife into his thigh.
He screamed in pain and doubled forward. As he did, I drove my knee up into his masked face. While he fell back, I took the AK from his grip and fired off a burst point blank into his chest.
I turned to aim at Nova’s goon but held my fire. She had him in a reverse headlock and with a sudden twist of her arms, broke his neck.
Thomas, Tempest, and Chaz ran up just as Nova dropped the dead terrorist to the ground.
“Where do we think they are heading?” I asked.
“My guess would be parking level,” Thomas answered as he picked up one of the fallen terrorists' guns. The rest of us did the same.
“Can you get us there, Chaz?” I asked him.
“Yup,” Chaz responded almost gleefully, and the next thing I knew we were surrounded by black smoke. The second after that we were in the hotels rather plain looking parking garage just as the Skalle Furia with PoLarr and Aurora got out of the elevator.
We pointed our weapons at them.
They pointed their weapons at us.
It was quite the standoff.
“Back off or they die,” the lead terrorist said.
“We don’t negotiate with terrorists, especially alien ones,” Thomas replied.
“I mean it!” the head Skalle goon yelled and shoved his pistol harder into PoLarr’s skull.
My mind raced as I desperately thought of something to do. I was usually great at pulling shit out of my ass in situations like this but I was coming up blank. I was about to suggest we do as they say when I felt a little buzz in my brain.
“Marc, do you trust me?” Chaz’s voice boomed in my mind. “I have an idea.”
“I trust you, Chaz,” I replied with my brain voice. “Do it.”
The little blue aliens antenna wiggled, and he BAMF’ed away.
A nano second later the upper half of the nearest terrorists bamfed away and then dropped out of a black cloud ten feet away.
Black clouds appeared in quick succession around the rest of the Skalle goons, except for the leader, and then various body parts began to rain from the sky.
It was awesome and disgusting all at the same time.
Before the smoke had cleared, PoLarr took her opportunity as his concentration faltered and the gun floated away from her temple. She slammed her foot down hard into his and then pushed herself away.
The leader stumbled back, and when he saw the bloody carnage that was all that remained of his team he bolted for a row of crotch rocket motorcycles a few feet away.
It was hard to see in the purple smoke and blood, and I didn’t realize that is where he had made his break until I heard the squeal of the tires, and he zoomed away.
Without a thought, I ran over to the row and thankfully there was a bike with the key in second in the line. I pushed the start button, revved the bike in a high-pitched wail and with gray smoke trailing behind me I took off after the leader. He couldn’t get away. We needed whatever information he had.
The wind whipped my hair as I sped up the ramp that lead out of the garage. I caught a little air on the way out and saw the Skalle leader turn onto a busy Dubai street.
With a flick of the wrist I switched gears and gunned the bike. It lurched under me like some wild beast and soon the cars and pedestrians around me became little more than blurs. I had to trust that my reflexes would do their job because I sure as shit didn’t have time to think about what I was doing.
I quickly caught up to the Skalle leader and pulled my bike up alongside his. He reached out with his left hand and fired off a few shots from his pistol. I had to swerve the bike to keep from being hit and then swerve again to avoid a surely life ending head on collision with a truck.
We continued this deadly dance of death on our Ducatises through the streets of Dubai. Cars hit their brakes, and I counted at least four accidents that were left in our wake.
The Skalle leader fired on me again until his pistol went dry, and then he attempted to throw it at me. I juked the bike out of the way easily and then accelerated again to pull alongside him. He slammed his bike into mine and almost put me into a slide, but I managed to post my foot and keep the bike upright.
As we rubbed paint, we’d hit a major pedestrian walkway that led into the Mall of the Emirates. People scattered like bowling pins.
The Skalle leader misjudged his distance and crashed through the glass entrance way of the mall and had to lay the bike down. He rolled away from the crash and began to sprint away.
There were too many innocent people in the mall to risk continuing to ride the bike, so I rode the bike in through the broken glass and jumped off it to run after him.
He had about twenty yards on me, so I had to hustle through the crowd of startled people. The sucker was fast, I would give him that.
He crushed his way up an escalator, and I followed in his wake as I tried to gain ground. Then he bolted into an entrance to what I assumed was a store. As I crashed through the doors after him it hit me that I was at the top of a giant snow-covered mountain. I glanced over and read a big ass marquee that read SKI DUBAI.
“Huh, cool,” I mumbled.
The Skalle Furia leader had taken off down the giant man-made mountain full of fresh powder. I was about to go after him, yet again, when I passed by a rack of snowboards and got a totally rad idea. I grabbed the nearest one, ran over to the top of the mountain, shoved my feed into the pre-attached boots, snapped the laced closures tight, and threw my weight forward.
Thankfully, I’d grown up close enough to snow and small mountains and my Great Uncle Joe had taken me snowboarding at least four times a season starting when I was eight years old.
The man made powder wasn’t as great as fresh, but it wasn’t the worst I had ever boarded on, and I soon shot down the mountain like a half-naked red streak.
The Skalle Furia leader had been making slow progress down the man made peak, and I soon caught up to him. I didn’t bother trying to slow my speed at all, in fact, about twenty feet before I hit, I crouched low over the board with my body weight thrown all the way forward for maximum speed. I crashed into him doing probably close to twenty-five miles an hour, and we tumbled into the very cold snow. As we rolled, I made sure to grab him around the waist so that we wouldn’t get separated when we finally stopped.
The roll sucked. Bad.
My regen mod went into overdrive as I literally felt my back begin to become one giant bruise. When we finally came to a stop, I let go and jumped to my feet, ready to knock the Skalle Furia leader out cold, but as it turned out that was unnecessary. His bloody and jagged left thigh bone poked out through a tear in his pants and steamed in the cold of the false winter. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Whoa, gnarly dude,” I said as I stood over him shivering.
Chapter Ten
I’d thought we had a surefire interrogation tactic in Aurora’s seductive striptease, but she’d been shaking her luscious alabaster ass for ten minutes, and the Skalle Furia leader hadn’t so much as gotten a woody.
“I’ve seen better dancing in the backwater burlesques of Xtravaganza VI,” he rasped. “You think your amateur striptease can entice me? Pathetic.”
Aurora slid off his knee and turned to us, her hands on her hips. “Just let me eat him, sugar. This is a waste of time.”
I turned to PoLarr. “Do you think I should give it a
try?” I’d never tried to flirt with a man before, but tactics were tactics, and I’d been feeling a little more confident about my own hotness lately. Having about half a dozen incredibly attractive, kickass women fall into your lap within the span of a few months is a nice little ego boost.
The Skalle leader’s derisive laugh answered that question.
“Well, now I hate you even more,” I told him. “You could have let me down gently. Are you always this bitchy?”
Chaz raised his hand. “Ooh, ooh, let me try! I’ve never interrogated a terrorist before, it sounds fun.”
“If you think he’s into little blue dudes, go for it...” I encouraged him, but Chaz was already holding two fingers to his temple and scrunching up his eyes.
“Gosh, you’re tough to get into. Lot of walls up there, huh, buddy? You need to relax more.” Chaz’s eyes narrowed in effort.
“Uhh, dude, why didn’t you remind me you could just read someone’s mind?” I asked the cute blue man.
“You just seemed so happy to have Aurora move her—”
“But I would have rather just read his mind,” I groaned at my sidekick.
“Same here, sugar,” Aurora hummed. “I prefer to use my assets on Marc, flirting with this bag of garbage is all icky.”
“Ohhh,” Chaz said as his eyes got big. “That makes sense.”
“But what are you seeing in douche bag’s head?” I asked.
“I’m seeing... brown. Lots of brown smoke covering everything...oh, I see big tall towers.” He smacked his lips. “And something soapy, but it’s a tangy, tasty kind of soapy. Does that make sense?”
“Mexico City?” I suggested. “Singapore? Rio de Janeiro? Do you see a big statue of a dude with a beard and long hair T-posing?”
Chaz shook his head.
I tried to think of other big, smoggy cities whose residents might eat a lot of cilantro. “Los Angeles?”
Chaz opened his eyes and snapped his fingers. “That one!”
The Skalle leader howled in fury.
“L.A. is a big city,” Thomas said. “See if you can get anything more specific.”
“Just more brown smoke,” Chaz answered. I’d have thought that the city had gotten rid of its smog problem with all of Earth’s new technology, but maybe the Mr. Fusion was a prize to be won in a later game. “Lots and lots of...oops, it’s going black.” Chaz frowned. “That’s not good.”