The Arena

by Bradford Bates

  It had never occurred to me that I would be able to refuse to fight in the arena. I wondered what would happen to me if I did. There was no way I was going to miss out on a future with the Ascendancy. “I accept.”

  Sarge motioned for me to move aside. The man with the chest entered my room and set it down inside of the door. The man with the scroll placed it on top of the chest. Both of them stepped out and stood behind Sarge before he spoke. “Thank you for honoring your duty to the light.” Sarge turned and walked away, closely followed by the two men.

  I might have considered that weird once, but it wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened to me since joining the academy. Picking up the scroll they left, I cracked the wax triangle that was holding the scroll shut and started to read. The text outlined the process for the tournament. The format was simple: win and move on, lose and you were done. I was happy to see that my opponent for the match was not Marcus or April. Both of them were scheduled for the second round of the day. On the other hand, I would be one of the first students to enter the arena. It must have been wishful thinking to want to watch a few matches before getting started.

  Before or after your match, you were allowed to sit in the stands and watch the other fights. I couldn’t wait to see how some of the older students handled their matches. I had never seen them battle before, but if their spell work was that much better than ours, it would be amazing to see in action. While the tournament was active, all non-eliminated participants had to remain confined to their rooms after the day’s games. Food would be brought to you daily. Once you had been eliminated from contention, you could walk around our new campus freely.

  It was possible that I could lose early tomorrow. I hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but wishing for something never guaranteed that it happened. My experience fighting other people with magic was limited to sparring with Marcus, and he always took it easy on me, even when I asked him not to. I probably didn’t stand a chance in the fights ahead, but deep down I could feel the twist in my gut. I wanted to win; I needed to win. This was going to be my home, and fighting was what they did. What we did.

  Setting the scroll aside, I opened the chest in front of me. I was hoping that it would be a set of the fighting clothes that my father had worn in the few pictures I had seen. I wasn’t disappointed in the least when I pulled the black tunic from the chest. Turning it around, I noticed a neon blue triangle with an eye in it on the back. The symbol for the Ascendancy was the all-seeing eye, just like on the necklace I was wearing. Unconsciously I placed a hand around the necklace while pulling the rest of the items out of the trunk.

  Inside the chest were pants, gloves, socks, and boots, all in solid black. The only color on the entire outfit was the small symbol on the back of the tunic. I was going to fight in the arena for a chance to prove myself to the Ascendancy. I couldn’t miss out on the chance to join them on their quest to hunt and remove evil from this world. My new life was like waking up from a dream only to find out that the things happening in my dream were real. This was my chance to do something important, to do more than earn a living. I was going to be part of a group whose sole purpose in this life was to save the world from monsters.

  I had to try and get some sleep, but the adrenaline was doing a damn fine job of keeping me awake. Lying in my bed, I wondered if my father had felt this nervous before his first match in the arena. Once this semester was over, I needed to find out more about him. When the tournament ended, I would reach out to Professor Simons to see if he could tell me anything about him. Even if he couldn’t, maybe he knew someone who could. I wondered just what my adoptive father would have thought about all of this. He probably would have loved it. With thoughts of my family swirling around my head, I finally drifted into a fitful sleep.

  The alarm went off, and I was tempted to send it hurling across the room. The morning was here and with it came my first chance to battle in the arena. I slipped out of bed and took a quick shower. Still wiping the sleep from my eyes, I started to get dressed. I had to tie the laces on my boots three times just to make sure that they weren’t too tight. When I opened the door, a white-clad member of the Ascendancy was standing there to greet me. She silently turned, and I followed her down toward the arena floor.

  Walking out onto the sand of the arena felt different today. Everything seemed to have a sharper edge to it than it had the day before. Today I was going to fight someone who either needed to submit or be knocked unconscious. I wasn’t extremely comfortable with knocking one of my fellow students unconscious, but I knew I couldn’t hold back. The sun was out at full strength already, and I could see a thousand faces lining the seating area.

  My palms were starting to sweat, and I was trying not to get my black boots covered in too much of the red sand. A feeling of panic started to course through me. What was I even thinking, being out here? My opponent was going to make me look foolish, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I found Marcus and April in the crowd, and they were cheering for me. Well, that was something; at least I had made a few friends who wanted me to do well.

  The escort from my room led me to the edge of a large oval and asked me to stand in the box outlined at the apex. I was surprised at how large the ring for our match was. Although our area was an oval, it would have easily fit half a football field inside of it. The arena floor looked like it contained five rings of this size, from end to end. My escort bowed to me and then walked away from me toward the center of our ring, meeting my opponent’s escort there. They bowed to one another and then moved toward the outer edge of our fighting ring.

  Reading the scroll last night, I had learned that the arena floor was divided into separate fighting areas, but I hadn’t understood how large those areas were. As the matches progressed, the circles would grow larger until the final three matches would be played with the entire arena floor available. The reasoning behind it was that larger spells could be put into play in the bigger spaces. I was really looking forward to watching a few of the later battles to see what kinds of spells people would use.

  Pulling myself back into the moment, I could finally focus on my opponent, Grace, at the edge of the ring. I remembered her from class but hadn’t spoken to her much outside of that. I still felt weird hitting a girl, but April had shown me many times over that your sex didn’t matter in a fight. Actually, she hadn’t really shown me so much as beat it into me. I knew that I had to come out ready to hurt Grace if I needed to. She was going to do the same to me. I tried to look lazy and peaceful by stretching while I was waiting for the match to start. I wasn’t sure if the act would work. My heart was pounding. It felt as if it was trying to work its way out of my chest and into my throat. On the plus side, the stretching was actually starting to calm my nerves just a bit.

  For the first time since coming to the academy, I laid eyes on Adam as he walked toward the throne at the edge of the arena. He looked to be in his mid-sixties, but recently I had found out that it was possible for the Gifted to live for hundreds of years, if not thousands. So looks could be deceiving. I thought Marcus had said he came to America in the 1700s, so I could only guess at his age. His long white hair was pulled into a ponytail and matched the color of his beard. He wore the same white robes as the Ascended did.

  When he took his seat on the throne, I finally started to notice some of the details. It had been sculpted from the rock of the mountain like everything else, but while everything around us was plain from years of abuse from the elements, the throne remained pristine. The throne was elaborately carved. It was raised above a sculpture that made it look as if different types of Demons were holding the seat above them. The symbolism was not lost on me. Our job was to slay the things that preyed on humans, Demons included.

  Adam’s words boomed out across the arena floor. “Fighters, prepare.”

  The voice seemed to come at me simultaneously from every corner of the arena. Shutting the voice out, I worked to calm myself and pull the mana into m
y center. Closing my eyes, I felt the rush of the mana enter my body. The strength of the mana coursing through my veins filled me with purpose. I could do this. My father had done it before me, and it was my turn now. I hoped that he was watching over me now, to see me following in his footsteps.

  Just when I thought I would burst from waiting, Adam’s voice echoed across the arena again. “Fight!”

  Opening my eyes, I watched my opponent for any indication of what was to come. She hadn’t made a move yet, but I had the feeling it was going to happen soon. Deciding not to play defense any longer, I conjured a pack of wild coyotes. I sent the coyotes sprinting across the arena toward Grace. The coyotes were a simple magical distraction that I conjured to buy me some time for the fireball I was casting now. I hurled my fireball at her from the right while the coyotes were darting in from the left.

  Grace surprised me by deflecting the fireball with a simple wall of ice and countering my coyotes by conjuring a pair of lynx into the ring. The two lynx smashed into my coyotes, nullifying their effect, and I used a small bit of mana to shatter Grace’s wall of ice, hoping the icy shards would knock her to the ground. She staggered to the left for a second, clearly not expecting her own wall of ice to be used as a weapon against her.

  Neither of us had an attack in play for the moment. The coyotes and the lynxes had cancelled each other out, just as our fire and ice had. I could see Grace starting to reappraise me after one of my attacks had actually reached her. We both stood catching our breath for the moment, waiting to see what the other would do. I started thinking about what I knew about Grace. The only thing I could come up with was that she was probably second only to April in hand-to-hand combat. So, whatever I did, I needed to keep her at a distance.

  The same thought must have crossed Grace’s mind because she started charging toward me, using her magic to boost her speed. I started using my mana to raise stone walls in front of her in the hopes of slowing her down. The four-foot-high walls did absolutely nothing to stop her, as she used magic to enhance her movements. I watched with growing horror as she effortlessly jumped over the first two without breaking stride.

  I started raising the walls with sticky vines on top so she would have to hurdle them without stepping on the top. To my surprise, instead of slowing, she used fire to clear the vines from the tops of the walls and continued accelerating toward me. I could see the smile starting to spread on her face with each step she took. We both knew as soon as she reached me, the fight was over.

  I did my best to sell my panic. I mean, who would blame me for losing it in my first magical fight? I started waving my arms around erratically, making the last few walls I had created slightly taller. Grace didn’t slow down at the sight of the taller walls blocking me from her. The first wall she simply sprinted into, blowing it apart while still moving forward. The next wall she vaulted over by placing a hand on it. She was like a juggernaut, and I only had one wall of defense left between us.

  She leaped into the air, placing her hand gently on the top of the wall for balance as she tried to vault over it. That was when I sprung my trap, closing the solid stone around her hand before she could lift it from the wall again. I watched as her momentum carried her forward until her wrist caught the full force of her body, slamming her violently back into the stone wall. I was sure I had heard something pop, probably her wrist. She was hanging limply against the wall, about a foot off of the ground.

  I doubted that a single injury would keep her from lashing out at me as I approached, so I did so with extreme caution, making sure my shield was in place. Sure enough, she arched her body, managing to arc a violent kick toward my head. I pulled back and the kick missed. It was hard not to, even though my shield would have deflected the kick easily. I continued forward until I was just out of reach for any kind of normal attack. I could see the pain in her eyes as she hung limply against the wall, one hand completely encased in the stone.

  “Do you yield?” I tried to ask the question without aggravating her more, but as soon as I finished asking, she lashed out again. This time I didn’t pull back, and her foot slammed into my shield, making me move back a step. She was still trying to fight her way out of this using brute strength, and it wasn’t going to work. She kicked out again, this time with a growl, and her foot bounced harmlessly away. I moved closer to her, keeping my eyes firmly planted on hers. The pain and rage I saw in her eyes made me want to end it quickly.

  She started screaming. “I’d never yield to a no-talent, no-friends piece of shit like you!”

  Her words touched upon my greatest fears from when I started attending the academy, but I had friends now, and obviously enough talent to beat her. I wondered if she was trying to get me monologuing to buy herself time to break free. I decided it was time to end the fight—and I was tired of hearing her swear at me. I commanded the rock to continue wrapping around her until her entire body was encased in stone.

  I removed just enough of the stone from her head so that I could see her eyes and she could speak, before asking her again, “Do you yield?”

  I watched as the rage continued to build in her eyes. She wasn’t lying when she said that she wouldn’t yield. I used my gift to start tightening the stone around her, crushing the air from her lungs. I watched her face with an eyebrow raised, just waiting for her to say the words that I needed to hear to end the match. Finally, the stone was so tight around her that I knew she couldn’t breathe. Still, I waited to hear the words spring from her lips. She impressed me by not giving in. With the air being crushed from her lungs, she finally passed out. As soon as I saw the consciousness leave her eyes, I let the spell go, leaving her lying limply on the sandy arena floor.

  I rushed over to make sure she had started breathing and that her mouth wasn’t covered in sand. One of the officiators from our match gently moved me to the side while laying hands on her. She started breathing again right away. Slowly she rose to her feet, leaning heavily against the man who healed her.

  She met my eye and mouthed, “Good match.”

  Nodding my head in acceptance, I replied, “You fought well; maybe we can spar some time.”

  Grace only shrugged as the official helped her out of the arena. While I watched her exit, I was still trying to get a handle on the realization that I had strangled her into unconsciousness and she had thanked me for it. The official who had met me outside of my room grabbed my hand and lifted it into the air, signaling my victory to the arena. Her words echoed around the stone walls. “Jackson Fairfield is the winner, by knockout of his opponent Grace Park. Both combatants have brought glory to the Ascended!”

  I wanted to feel like a monster for almost choking a woman to death. I wondered how I could have hurt one of our own just for a personal gain. Would I become the kind of person who killed someone just to achieve a goal, or would I only take a life to save another?

  I wasn’t sure yet who I would become, but in this moment, I couldn’t get the cheers out of my head. They rained down upon me as if they came from the heavens themselves. In this moment, all of the students and Ascended were cheering for me, for what I had accomplished today. It felt good—really, really good. It would be a shame not to give them what they wanted in return. I raised a fist to the sky as a smile spread across my face. The cheers doubled in intensity. Maybe I had found my true calling, a place where I belonged more than anywhere else. I wish I could say I was still thinking about what I had done to win, but in truth, I was just enjoying the moment.

  17

  Jackson

  My escort led me from the arena. After winding our way through a small maze of subterranean tunnels, we emerged back into the blinding sunlight. I scanned the seating area for Marcus and April but couldn’t find them. I decided that I would head up to my room for a quick shower before coming back to watch the matches.

  Stripping out of the black tunic, I headed directly for the shower. The hot water massaged away the remaining tension in my muscles. I still couldn’t
believe that I had won my first match in the arena. I knew that I had gotten lucky with an overconfident opponent, and that would not happen again. I hoped when I finally lost, I wouldn’t end up in as much pain as Grace had. Shoving that thought aside, I finished up my shower. All I wanted to do now was get back out to the arena and watch Marcus and April in their fights.

  Dressing quickly in some loose-fitting workout clothes, I headed toward the door. The second set of matches was wrapping up, and the third set of the day was about to get started. April and Marcus would be fighting in the third round, but thankfully not against each other. I headed a little higher up in the stands so I could watch both of them at the same time. It was kind of freeing to be above the throng of people below me. Everyone at the academy, including all our new arrivals, must have been out watching the matches today.

  I noticed a lithe figure emerging from the crowd and making her way up to where I was sitting. Britta was always something that would brighten my day. Today was no exception. She made her way up the stands toward me, and I took in the full scope of her beauty. Raven-black hair, eyes that had a slight tilt to them, speaking of Middle Eastern heritage, and a body that would make anyone jealous. Not to mention a light-hearted and easygoing personality.

  She sat down next to me and leaned in so our shoulders were touching. “Nice match today, Jackson.”

  I knew from looking at the large tournament board that she had also fought during the first round and won. I gently pressed back against her shoulder. “You, too.” That was me, so smooth. You, too. Yep, that was the best I could do.

  “So, are you looking forward to watching your friends fight right now?”

  “I’m not sure I would say looking forward to it, but I want to watch them win.”