Arena 3

by Logan Jacobs

  I touched the bottom with my belly and then found myself kicking with everything I had. I came through the surface like a rocket and shot completely out of the water to land on the side of the pool practically at the same time that Aurora and PoLarr did.

  “Okay, that was fucking cool,” I exclaimed as I turned to my alliance mates. Then I realized that Aurora had lost her bikini top somewhere back in the pool. She stood before us completely topless. And apparently a bit chilly.

  “Oh, um, Aurora, perhaps you should go get a proper wetsuit on,” Grizz stammered. Aurora glanced down at herself and then back at us with a wicked grin that made me think she’d lost her top on purpose. She covered herself with her arms in mock modesty.

  “Oh, well, if ya’ll insist,” she said and sashayed into the locker room.

  “Vishnu on a wafer, that woman has a hell of a ledge,” Artemis said.

  “Rack, Artie, a hell of a rack,” I corrected, “and yes, yes she does.”

  I glanced over and caught PoLarr with her hands cupped around her own breasts as if she were weighing them. She then shook her head back and forth as if making up her mind on something and jumped back in the water.

  I was about to join her when there was the telltale ding-dong of a doorbell.

  “We have a doorbell?” I asked as I looked around the gym.

  “I’ve got it,” Nova said and walked over to the door. “Might as well make myself useful.”

  Nova opened the door and a small, blue-skinned, balding five and a half foot tall alien greeted her with a smile. His jet black hair was in an impossible comb-over, and he had on what looked like polyester slacks, a short sleeve button-down shirt, and a very drab, very wide tie.

  “Oh, hi!” the little blue alien said excitedly. “Wow, the Nova Qwark. Boy, you are as beautiful and busty in real life as the posters make you out to be.”

  “Hello little blue person, that I am a few seconds away from destroying,” Nova growled as she looked down at him. “My large, rather perfect breasts aside, can we help you?”

  “Holy crap, I just totally forgot when I saw you and your breasts,” the blue guy gushed and smacked his palm into his forehead. “My name is Chaz, Darry sent me to deliver your order. Here you go.”

  He touched a finger to his temple and two little antennae popped up from the bald crown of his head and began to glow. Behind him, a large pallet of gear that was surrounded by the same glow as his antennae floated into the gym and over to our command center. Chaz followed behind it and then with a flick of his finger, the pallet settled to the ground. As he removed his finger from his temple, his little bulbous antennae shrank back into his head.

  “That was cool,” I said as I walked over to Chaz and the pallet.

  “Oh, my sky father!” He practically shouted as he spun on me, and his eyes went wide. “Marc Havak! Wow. You are taller than I expected. And so handsome.”

  “Chaz, I like you already,” I said and pulled the little fella into a hug. “This is Chaz everybody, my new best friend.”

  Just as I said the words, I caught sight of Artemis who had a rather stricken look on her face and shook her head quickly back and forth as if I’d made some huge mistake. Then I had a warm buzz in my brain and suddenly felt as if Chaz and I had been best friends since kindergarten.

  Artemis must have seen the smile that I suddenly found on my face, and her head dropped to her chest.

  “Too late,” she uttered.

  “What?” I asked as I put my arm around my best buddy Chaz.

  “Oh, oh, I know,” Chaz chirped before Artie could answer. “She might be upset because I’m an Affinitorian. You said we were best friends, so I bonded with you telepathically, and we are now best friends forever. It’s a trait of my people.”

  “Well, that sounds awesome!” I said with joy.

  “Yeah, except it’s practically impossible to turn off,” Artemis said with her hand in her face. “And Affinitorians can be… how do I say this politely? A big ass torture.”

  “She means pain in the ass,” I said to Chaz with a shrug, “and I don’t see how that could be true.”

  “Me either, Marc,” Chaz said and smiled from ear to blue ear. “I feel like we’ve known each other forever and will know each other forever and forever will go on forever.”

  “What he said.” I grinned and pointed down to Chaz. “Isn’t he the best?”

  “Oh, god, can I kill them both?” Nova asked with a face that looked like she smelled something bad.

  “With hugs,” Chaz answered and went to hug Nova who pushed him away by his head. “Maybe later.”

  “Can we please get back to the task at hand,” Grizz complained, “so that you all don’t die tomorrow?”

  “Yes!” Chaz yelled and began to unpack the pallet. “Okay, so we have two Equalizer pistols, I believe those belong to the tall and lovely PoLarr.”

  He handed them off to PoLarr who looked down at him as if he were some kind of strange, cute, yet annoying fluffy animal.

  “Darry modified them to work underwater and provided torpedo ammunition,” Chaz continued. “Each round will travel for approximately two hundred yards at a speed of two hundred knots. Each magazine holds six torpedoes, and you’ve got eight reloads. Oh, and your Val’Keeyre jetpack will function underwater much the same way it does in zero gravity space.”

  “Thank you, Chaz,” PoLarr said and patted him on the head. I thought Chaz was literally going to pee his pants from excitement.

  “You are so welcome, PoLarr,” Chaz said. “Next is Aurora’s Starfall cloak. It will act like the wings of a manta ray from Earth and help you glide through the water, and Darry made you a special face mask with a retractable window in front of your mouth while keeping air supplied to your nose so that you can suck the life force from your opponents even under water. I have a best of video of you doing that by the way. Maybe you could sign it for me one day?”

  Aurora had just come back in from the locker room. She had managed to squeeze all of her magnificent curves into one of the full sleeved wetsuits. The zipper was still down at her belly button though, and it took all the neoprene-like material’s strength to keep her breasts inside the suit.

  “Oh, darling, I just love it,” she said as she bent down and gave Chaz a small kiss on the cheek.

  “I’ll never ever wash this cheek again,” Chaz squeaked out before he regained a small amount of his previous poise. “Okay, so, I saved the best for last. For the man himself, the man I admire, the man who I wish I could hold in my arms and rock to sleep every night until the universe ends. Marc Havak.” Chaz began to clap his hands in my direction.

  “Oh, Chaz, you cad,” I said and waved away his applause as if I were embarrassed, which I wasn’t.

  “So, we’ve got your Eradicator rifle,” Chaz continued as he handed me my trusty assault gun. “Waterproofed and fitted to fire forty-millimeter flechettes which will be accurate up to a hundred yards. You’ve got four mags of forty each, so it’s a good thing you’re an amazing shot. Your lightweight body armor has been fitted with microjet propulsion that will create a small cavitation pocket under the water to travel at about twenty-five knots. Unfortunately, it pulls a lot of power so you’ll only have ten seconds at a time. There’s a full face mask that will fit the standard rebreather and accept the tanks used for the match.”

  There was silence for a few minutes as everyone checked out their new gear.

  “Please give Darry our many and profound thanks,” Grizz said as he tried to escort Chaz out of the gym.

  “Oh, I will for sure,” Chaz assured him as he walked right through Grizz’s holographic body to stand right next to me. “I just want to make sure everything works as it should. So I’m going to stay and watch your guys train for a while.”

  “Won’t Darry need you back at the shop?” Artemis asked and rubbed her temple ever so slightly as if she had the beginnings of a headache.

  “Nope!” Chaz yelled as he plopped himself down on a b
ench next to the pool. “He said I could spend all afternoon here if I wanted to. He kinda insisted on it, actually. I don’t know why, I just love hanging out with that guy. Such a character.”

  “Great,” Artemis sighed.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Chaz said with a smile, and I couldn’t help but agree.

  “Okay everyone,” Grizz announced, “suit up and run through some practice drills with your weapons. Their added bulk and weight will throw your balance off so you’d better get used to it today.”

  “I bet Marc is the best swimmer in the whole universe,” Chaz said proudly.

  “Well, I don’t like to brag--” I said with more mock humility and then Nova shoved me, and I fell into the pool.

  When I came to the surface, she stood on the edge and stared down at me with one hand on her hip and the other in front of her mouth to cover the big smile she wore.

  “Oops.”

  Chapter Four

  As my molecules reformed in the blink of an eye from the matter transmitter, I found myself falling through the air at a hundred twenty miles per hour. A scant second ago I’d been in the transport tube in our gym at the Hall of Champions as the match started and now I was at terminal velocity hurtling toward the surface of some unknown planet.

  “Holy shit!” I screamed. I’d expected to find myself a hundred feet down in the deep blue sea, not flying through the wild blue yonder. Luckily I was used to surprises like this in the Crucible of Carnage and got myself under control in about half a second. I flung out my arms and legs and pulled out of the tumble I had been in so that I could get my bearings.

  I fell through a clear blue sky with big puffy clouds below me. I had no idea how high I was when I teleported in but I was falling fast as hell and below me, there was a green-blue ocean for as far as I could see in all directions.

  “PoLarr? Aurora? Do you copy?” I said into my helmet microphone.

  “PoLarr here, off your right side and just above you, Marc,” I heard PoLarr’s voice in my left ear. She sounded fairly calm but I could detect an edge of the adrenaline surge we all must have felt upon realizing we weren’t under but way-way-way over the sea. I turned my head and saw her in a controlled free fall just off my right side.

  “I’m here too, sugar,” Aurora said through our secure radio network. “Just behind you, and I must say it’s quite the view.”

  I tucked myself into a quick roll so that I fell with my back to the ground and saw Aurora about twenty feet above me and slightly back from my position. With another quick roll, I was back to falling face down toward the quickly approaching surface of the ocean below us.

  PoLarr’s aerial training flashed through my brain thanks to our Soul Gaze connection, and it was like I had a build in altimeter in my head. We had just passed the five thousand foot mark and had about thirty seconds before we hit the surface. And at this speed, the surface tension of the water would be like hitting an ocean made of concrete. I needed to think of something fast.

  “PoLarr can you activate your Val’Keeyre pack?” I asked as I ticked off another thousand feet in my head.

  “Already tried, Marc,” she answered a touch anxiously. “Whatever Darry did to modify it for underwater use, it must have taken its aerial capabilities offline.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. Another thousand feet. Even if we managed to hit the water absolutely perpendicular, the force would break our arms and probably snap our necks.

  Another thousand feet. And then I had an idea.

  “Aurora!” I shouted and hoped I had enough time. “Cover us in a thin shield of dark matter!”

  “Copy that, sugar!” She yelled, and a second later, I was encased in a body-hugging coating of purple-black dark matter. A second after that, I pushed my arms close to my body and hit the surface of the water like a purple meteor.

  Bubbles exploded all around me, and I felt PoLarr and Aurora hit just on either side of me. Our velocity carried us about twenty feet below the surface before we slowed to a dead stop.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked as my arms and legs automatically began to move back and forth to keep me stable in the water.

  “Yes, Marc,” PoLarr answered, she hovered like I did and had already drawn one of her Equalizers. Her jetpack glowed with blue energy and instead of its usual angel wing like exhaust pattern it looked like the translucent neon fins of some fish from deep within the Mariana Trench.

  “A little shaken up, but I’m in one piece, Marc,” Aurora responded. She was clearly having a harder time staying upright and stable in the water. Her cloak flowed around her, and she struggled to keep from getting caught up in it.

  “Take a breath, Aurora,” I said to try to calm her. “Slow down, we’re okay for the moment. Everyone check their air supply.”

  I glanced at my right wrist which had a large chronograph type digital display on it what showed the air level for the two air tanks that were plugged in to our rebreather units. We each had one main tank and a backup that would be automatically switched over to when the main tank was empty or we could manually switch with the press of a button on the air gauge.

  I felt three big concussions above us. I looked up and pulled the Eradicator from where it had been securely strapped to my body on its tactical sling. A flick of the safety, and it hummed to life even in the water. I shoved it into my shoulder and aimed up but after I saw what had hit the water I lowered it again.

  Apparently, an alliance hadn’t been quite prepared for how fast the surface of the water had approached. Three lifeless alien bodies sank past us, their limbs at impossible angles.

  Well, that was easy.

  “Hey, howdy, hello Heroes fans,” the familiar feline voice of the Forge of Heroes announcer, Chi-Chesire came through the water and seemed to resonate in my chest. I turned and sure enough, there was the over-the-top humanoid cat’s face thirty feet tall in the water above us. “Today’s match is set on the beautiful, yet incredibly deadly, aquatic world of Namorastria. Our teams of champions will have to fight not only each other but the fearsome undersea beasts that inhabit the entirely ocean-covered planet. And it looks like three of our teams have already bitten the dust, or water as it were. Ha! The remaining teams must survive for one hour beginning… now!”

  A large digital display appeared in the water and began counting down from sixty minutes.

  “To make things even more interesting,” Chi-Chesire grinned fifteen feet wide, “Each of the champion’s air tanks is only good for ten minutes at a time. So they have to find where extra tanks are hidden…”

  I had a brief thought about just going to the surface but then caught a glimpse of a champion who had started to freak out. Being twenty to a hundred feet under the surface of the ocean was a weird and claustrophobic experience for some folks. Apparently, this champion had had enough. The bird-like alien flapped its arm-wings and kicked itself to the surface. The water was amazingly clear, like that of the Caribbean or Tahiti, and visibility was pretty great. My team and I watched as the bird-alien began to tread water.

  “Oh, no no no,” Chi-Chesire chided, “breaking the surface is expressly forbidden.”

  I caught a flash of something gray-white as it shot up from the deep and then a thirty foot long Great White Shark bit the bird-alien in half, swallowed that half whole, and then swam back to the abyss from which it came. All of this happened in about three seconds.

  “Wow,” Aurora gasped. “What is that monster?”

  “That, my lovely space vampire, is a shark,” I said once the sheer terror of what I’d just witnessed wore off. “Remember how I wanted to ride them? Yeah. Now, who’s wishing we’d chosen shark riding as a skill set? But no, everyone said that’s silly Marc, when would we ever use that. Now. Now is when we could use that.”

  “Point taken,” PoLarr said quietly.

  “Me, I wish that,” Aurora echoed. “Sharks are amazing.”

  “Thank you, and yes they are,” I said with finality. “We actually have an entire w
eek of every year where my people worship them on TV.”

  “Ahhh, I love Shark Week,” PoLarr sighed. “Even though I’ve never seen it.”

  “Okay, since I’m assuming getting a bigger boat is out of the question, let’s go find some of those tanks. I was thinking we should make that our focus and try to stockpile as many as we can as fast as we can.”

  “Agreed,” PoLarr said as she swam up next to me. Aurora had managed to get her cloak under control and Chaz had not been wrong. With the cloak spread out around her, her black wet-suit, and white legs she looked very much like a large manta ray as she swam to my other side.

  “Okay, team Havak, let’s… swim?” I uttered with as much leaderly confidence as I could muster and began to swim toward the ocean floor that was ten feet below us.

  Ocean life was teeming all around us as we got closer to the white sand covered floor. Fish in every color, shape, and size swam in schools like shiny clouds all around us. Large white and rust-red coral reefs grew out of the ocean floor to form massive fish playgrounds with tunnels, overhangs, shoots, and ladders. Off to our left was a massive cave opening that looked like it descended into the bowels of hell itself. The whole thing reminded me of this game called Subnautica that was like a combination of Minecraft and Fortnite only instead of other players you had to watch out for underwater nightmares that lurked everywhere and wanted to eat you. I’d gotten about two hours of playtime in and had to quit because it gave me bad dreams. And now I found myself in a very real version of the game.

  “Marc, there,” PoLarr’s voice came across the comm-network, and she pointed down near the underside of one of the coral reefs. Bundled together were three air tanks.

  “I see them,” I said as I brought the Eradicator back up to the ready at my shoulder. “PoLarr, you’re the fastest, so use your pack to zoom down there while Aurora and I cover you.”

  “Copy,” PoLarr responded, and the blue jets of her pack flared to life as she angled herself downward and then shot through the water like a rocket.

  Aurora and I floated back to back and scanned a hundred and eighty degrees of ocean each. She had pulled her slender spear gun from its holster on her leg and charged it with a dark matter harpoon. The quiet of the serene ocean was unsettling. Like waiting for a jump scare in a horror movie.