The Arena

by Bradford Bates

  This time she raised an eyebrow at me but was still smiling, so I took that as a good sign. “So you were watching me, huh?”

  Damn, I knew she would pick up on that.

  “I’ll have to keep an eye out for you next time.” She gave me a playful swat on the shoulder and headed up the stairs.

  I watched her legs move up the stairs until the door closed. Daily two-hour workouts seemed to have benefits for all of us. All right, I had to pull my mind back to the present. If I was thinking about Britta when I tangled with Sarge, I was going to end up with a lot more than a hurt ego. Being distracted in the ring was something that only got you hit harder, and more often.

  I was greeted by loud clacking sounds when I walked into the gym. It sounded as if someone was slamming two baseball bats together in rapid succession. The sound did not seem to come in any type of set rhythm, but it was coming from the rings. I groaned a little, thinking about what kind of new torture Sarge had worked out for me, before heading in that direction.

  When I got to the ring, I was a little relieved that he wasn’t getting something ready for me. Sarge was locked in fierce combat with the petite red-headed girl. I was impressed she was holding her own against a larger opponent and, if my eyes were right, actually seemed to be winning. Each of them had two batons in their hands; the wood smashing together was what I had heard when I entered the gym. I was impressed watching the speed of their combat. Maybe, if I was lucky, one day I would be able to match it.

  Sarge dropped back into a defensive position. He did not make a move toward the girl, but only used his batons to redirect her attacks. My guess was, he was trying to save energy while letting her get worn out. If anything, this only made the girl more aggressive. She had come to the same conclusion as me and was trying to end the fight as soon as possible. Finally, she made the slightest mistake of overextending one of her attacks, and the fight ended with a thud. Sarge landed a blow to the girl’s ribs. The hit actually lifted her slightly off the ground. I ran to the side of the ring to make sure she was ok.

  I heard her grumble, “Damn, Alex, that one hurt.”

  Funny, I had been training with Sarge every night for a few months now and had never asked him his first name. It had never even crossed my mind to do so.

  Never one to let any type of complaining slide, Sarge replied, “Serves you right for the hit you landed on me earlier.”

  Sarge let out a little laugh as he extended his hand to lift her off the mat. I noticed a bruise on the side of his head. That bruise must have been what he was referring to. I could sense her pulling on her mana from where I stood. Slowly, her breathing eased, and she stopped hunching over. I hadn’t learned any healing magic yet, but my guess was I had just witnessed some for the first time. I was told as one of the Gifted we could heal from almost anything. Now I was a believer. Bruised or broken ribs healed in a matter of seconds—not a bad skill to have.

  I couldn’t help myself when I asked, “Did you just heal yourself?”

  She turned toward me, and her gaze was so fierce, I almost took a step back. “What’s it to you?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I looked over at Sarge and he just shrugged his shoulders, so no help there. “I just haven’t seen that before. It was awesome.”

  She looked over at Sarge. “Is this guy for real?”

  Sarge smiled back at both of us before speaking. “April, this is the guy I was telling you about.” She gave me a look as if she were appraising me for an auction. “Jackson, I’ve asked April here to help with your training. As you can see, she makes quite a fierce opponent. It’s time we dropped some of the hand-to-hand and got you trained with some weapons.”

  I looked from April and back to Sarge with my mouth hanging slightly open.

  April’s look turned into a frown. “What, you don’t think a woman can train you?”

  I was completely confused. That wasn’t what I had been thinking at all. “Actually, after watching you fight with Sarge, I was afraid you would kick my ass.”

  Sarge laughed and walked away. I actually earned a tiny smile from April, so it must have been the right thing to say. She walked over to the rack and picked up a set of padded batons, and then motioned for me to grab a pair. They were much heavier than I expected. I wondered how she swung the other ones so fast.

  April gave me a look while I was moving the baton around. “These are escrima sticks. The practice sticks are padded, but we have also modified them to weigh more by using a lead center. That way, when you use them, it not only hones your reflexes, but your muscles.”

  April spent the next thirty minutes showing me the basics, how to hold the escrima sticks and how to set my feet for combat. She then showed me a series of moves to practice. The entire series, when mastered, was called a form. For the next thirty minutes, she had me work through each of the positions in the form, often walking around me and poking me with her stick to emphasize a point.

  Sometimes she added simple instructions. “Keep that left leg straight, open up your hips there, on that third move, end with the weight centered on your feet, not up on your toes, try and take smaller steps. This isn’t about making huge lunges and powerful swings; this requires a little finesse. You need to be able to change directions at a moment’s notice.”

  She continued working me through the series of moves and making changes when they were needed. “During combat, this technique will be all about muscle memory. When you practice, you need to ingrain the proper technique. That way, during a fight, it will happen naturally. You did a good job tonight, Jackson. So you will be meeting with me down here nightly now. I’ve got a lot of work for you. The best part is, once you have mastered a few of the forms, we can actually spar.”

  I got the feeling she wasn’t joking. She actually loved this stuff, and she was a great teacher. “You really know how to motivate a guy, April. Your reward for working really hard is to get my ass kicked by a girl half my size.”

  That one earned me a smile as well. “See you tomorrow, Jackson.”

  I continued to train with April every night over the next couple of weeks. We worked on the forms she had taught me, while adding some new moves into the mix. We started each of our training sessions with some light hand-to-hand sparing. The last thing April wanted was for me to forget my up-close combat skills. She was easily the best fighter I had seen at the academy; I was impressed with myself when I could win one out of four matches with her.

  The only thing that let me win that many matches was the length of my arms. If I could keep her away from my body, she had to telegraph where she was going, and it bought me half a second to react. I had no doubt in my mind that if we were the same size, I would have been lucky to win one in a hundred.

  Our last match of the night ended when she landed four sharp blows to my belly and chest. I landed flat on my back, gasping for air. Between gasps, I managed to ask her, “So, tell me, what is it we are trying to accomplish by training with the escrima sticks? We aren’t actually going to carry those around with us outside of the academy, are we?”

  She gave me a little smile. “No, we aren’t. Outside of the academy, you get to carry a sword. Or in this case, we are training so that you can carry two swords.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was joking with me or not. “Seriously, do you think we will get in a lot of sword fights?”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t think hitting a Lycan with a metal club is going to do you much good. At least with a sword, if you don’t sever something, they will need a little time to heal. Plus, it never hurts to be prepared. What if something happened that blocked your access to your gift?”

  “Can that really happen?”

  “There are stories out there about members of the Ascendancy dying when their gift was blocked. I’m not sure if they are true, but why take the chance when your life is on the line?”

  “So what you are saying is, I better learn how to do this right, because it could save my life.”

/>   “That is exactly what I am saying; now stop slacking off with all this talk and get back to work.”

  We spent the next hour working through forms, before April decided we should do a little sparring. We went through attacks and counters in slow motion. It really helped my brain tie in the forms I had been learning and what they countered. Going through the motions in slow motion also left me unscathed, though I was sure that wouldn’t last for long. It also let April stop and show me where I had messed up—where I should be focusing my eyes and moving my feet while I countered her attacks with the escrima sticks. It all made more sense when I wasn’t experiencing only half of the fight. She continued to drill me, landing a few harder hits before calling it for the night.

  We walked back to the dorms together, splitting off at the elevator when she got out on the floor before me. After another long shower, I crawled into bed. I knew this life was going to be tough, if I chose to keep it. Fighting a werewolf with a sword—well, that just sounded suicidal. I hoped I never got to experience that firsthand.

  14

  Jackson

  I woke up sore from the multitude of hits that April had landed on me with the escrima sticks. Even though they were padded, it still packed a nasty punch. We hadn’t even sparred for that long and I was in bad shape. What was it going to be like when we went full speed and she really started drilling me with those things? At some point, we were going to switch to the unpadded version, and I wasn’t looking forward to that at all. I was going to have to ask Marcus about healing spells at some point. On the bright side, so far she had been much gentler with me than Sarge had ever been. After the first few months, Sarge would really lay into me when I made a mistake. “Better in here than out there,” he would always say. “Out there when you make that kind of mistake, you wouldn’t be coming home.”

  Tossing on my last pair of clean workout clothes, I headed for the door. It seemed like life sometimes devolved into a never-ending cycle of laundry. Clothes for two workout sessions a day and class didn’t wash themselves. Now wouldn’t that be a nice use for magic? I wondered if the credit card Mr. Stillman had set up for me would still work, and if it didn’t, how would I be able to ever purchase new clothes? I didn’t have any money or a job. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if it cost money to attend class here. It was kind of shocking that I hadn’t thought of it yet, but when you were on your third load of laundry in a week, it gave you extra time to ponder.

  I realized that, outside of the savings from my summer job, I was out of money. Who knew if that money was even available? The police could have frozen it after my parents’ murders. Being the number-one suspect in what I thought of as unsolved homicide probably meant they had seized my funds and were tracking my cards. I would have to find someone to talk to about the money situation; I just wasn’t sure who would even handle something like that.

  I felt my chest hitch before I knew what was coming. The sobs escaped me as I thought about the last moment I had seen my parents alive. Here I was thinking about myself and money, when I should have been thinking about how I could find their killer. What I was learning here would help, but at some point, I was going to have to track him down and make him pay for what he had done. There was no doubt in my mind that that was what I wanted to do.

  I was sure that my parents would tell me to let the police handle it, but dead people didn’t get a vote, did they? I had never felt exceptionally charitable when it came to how rapists and murders were treated, so an eye-for-an-eye punishment seemed justifiable to me. Who knew when I would even be able to go back home. We were on lockdown for the semester, so I couldn’t even check out the local papers for information.

  One thing that I knew for sure was that I missed them, and I wished they were still here. I was going to miss waking up on the weekends to hang out with my dad, and our family dinners. It’s funny how much you think you hate those things until you can never have them again. I could still see his face as he tried to get me to run. That was something that would stay with me forever. I knew if he was here today, my dad would tell me to focus on what I was doing now. That it was important, and that I would find time to deal with the rest later. I miss you, Dad.

  I was putting together my normal high-carb double breakfast burrito meal when Britta walked up. Since I sat in the front row in most of my classes, I didn’t get the chance to look at her as often as I would have liked. She had black hair cut in the trendy style where it was longer in the front than in the back so it framed her face. She was curvy and, well, in fantastic shape, almost everyone here was. She had bright blue eyes that made you want to stare into them for days. I might have been just a little bit smitten. Was smitten even a thing people felt anymore? All I knew was that since our chance meeting outside of the gym, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her.

  She reached out and poked my bruised shoulder. “Humm, what have you been getting up to, Jackson?”

  “Oh, just putting in a little more work on physical training. Somehow getting hit doesn’t seem to agree with me. It’s great to see you again, though. I had been hoping to run into you again.”

  “Well, at least this time you didn’t knock me down, so that’s an improvement. Looks like your training partner really did a number on you.”

  “It sure doesn’t help my ego much to admit I’m getting kicked around by a girl half my size. I mean if the guys at my old school would have seen it, I’d never have been able to live it down. Just an FYI for later, if you plan on stepping in the ring with April, she is a monster.”

  Britta looked over my shoulder. I assumed she had spotted April and was thinking of how I let the smallest person in class kick the crap out of me. “I can see that,” she murmured. “Before I go, let me give you a little something.”

  As she stepped closer to me, I felt my heart begin to race. She smelled faintly of wildflowers. Seriously, how was that even possible? I felt a hand cover my bruise, and three seconds later, the bruise was gone. Britta had just healed my shoulder, something that would have normally taken days or weeks to go away on its own.

  She gave me a warm smile. “You should really go and see one of the healers every so often. Granted, if you don’t like going to the infirmary, you could always swing by my room and I could help you out with those bruises. I’m pretty sure I’m just down the hall from you in room 307.”

  “I’m thinking of ways that I can hurt myself right now.” Wait, did I say that out loud? Shit. Real smooth, Jackson, real smooth.

  “Well, try not to do anything to that face,” she said, and ran a finger down my cheek before walking away.

  I watched as she walked across the cafeteria to go and sit with her friends. Man, I loved watching her walk away. I started to wonder, was I going to man up and stop by her room? Maybe I could have April hit me hard again tonight and I could just swing by. I knew she was friends with Ted’s girlfriend, and that made me a little bit wary that I was being set up for something. In fact, they were sitting together and talking right now.

  Britta caught me staring and winked at me. Damn, even if it was a trap, she was so hot, it was worth the risk. What was the worst Ted could do to me, anyway? Blondie probably didn’t even have it in him to beat someone up without some help from his friends. I was going to have to think about it, but for now, it was time for more important things. Now it was time to feed the ravenous beast that lived inside of me. Now it was time to eat.

  I tried to wipe the goofy grin off of my face as I headed over to join Marcus and April. I didn’t know that they knew each other, so I was surprised to see them sitting together. Did I have two friends now? That was a two-hundred-percent increase in a week. From the looks of it, they knew each other pretty well. They were deep in conversation as I approached the table. For the first time, I noticed that they weren’t sitting alone. I know, I wasn’t so great with situational awareness yet. I hadn’t seen anyone new to the academy since I arrived. Granted, with my lack of observational skills, that didn’t
mean much, but I wouldn’t have to wait much longer to find out.

  I sat down at the table, and everyone stopped talking. If that started happening regularly, it was going to give me a complex. “Don’t stop talking on my account.”

  “It wasn’t that, bro,” Marcus said. “We were just talking about the best way to fill you in on what just happened.”

  Were they talking about me and Britta? I mean, it might have been odd to see me talking with a girl, but it couldn’t have been that odd. Right? “So what’s up?”

  Marcus gave April a look before meeting my eyes. “So the twins here just told us that the Council has decided to stop supporting the academy.” Marcus said it with a shrug, almost as if he had been expecting it to happen.

  April looked furious, and the twins were oddly excited. For the next few seconds, the rest of the world faded away. Did that mean they were going to close the academy? I didn’t have anywhere else to go. It was like a cruel joke. Oh, you have this gift, and we are going to show you just enough of our world so that you can’t ever go back to being normal again. And then, wham, guess what, we are going to take it all away from you.

  I started to come back around as I realized Marcus had stopped talking and was just staring at me. “Sorry, I zoned out for a second. What were you saying?”

  “Yeah, bro, I thought you were going to lose it there for a minute. Anyway, the Council, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that the way Adam runs the academy is not to their liking. They feel like he is keeping too much of the top talent for the Ascendancy, and when they started to feel the power shifting again, they decided to make a move. None of us are sure exactly what happened, but Adam used to run the Council. He left for America back in the 1700s and has never really acknowledged the Council’s rule since he left. Something big happened about eighteen years ago, but no one talks about it. We were all just saying, today probably had something to do with that.”