Arena 3

by Logan Jacobs

  “Marc?” Nova asked in my ear.

  “Don’t wait on me!” I yelled back as I swung the blade of the battle axe at Gargor’s stupid head. He’d seen me coming a mile away and ducked easily.

  My rage boiled up. He wasn’t Tyyraxx by a longshot but he was buddies with the guy who had killed my trainer in an act of betrayal and cowardice. And that was close enough for me at the moment. I swung again and again.

  Part of me knew I’d played right into what Gargor had wanted. I was being sloppy. Letting my anger control me. But the other part of me didn’t care. I was tired of Tyyraxx’s shit and Gargor was going to have to pay the price for it.

  And, that’s when he hit me so hard with his tail I literally flew across the room and slid on the floor under a long, ornate, solid wood banquet table that was easily thirty feet long.

  Gargor hopped up on top of the table and began to shoot through it into the surrounding floor, and I scrambled back to avoid the purple energy blasts as they send splinters flying to cover me in bits of wood.

  “Piece of advice, human,” Gargor yelled down at me as he took his sweet time. He knew I was going to run out of table soon. “You need to be able to cool your emotions in the Crucible. Get too attached to a teammate. Get too angry. Or, god forbid, fall in love, then it’s all over.”

  He punctuated each of his sentences by firing a neat three-round burst into the table. The last one nearly shot me in the crotch. I looked above me, and there was only five feet of table left.

  “You have to be smart,” Gargor gloated. He was savoring this. “Cunning. Ruthless. Without hesitation. If you can kill an enemy. Then do it. Swift. Fast. Lethal. I learned that from Tyyraxx.”

  I’d reached the end of the line. If I scooted any farther, my head would come into plain sight. Gargor pulled the trigger, and I heard the click of an empty chamber.

  There was a rustle above me as Gargor went to reload his weapon. I took a deep breath. Exhaled. Then pulled my Desert Eagle and opened fire from under the table until my mag was almost empty.

  The huge .50 caliber bullets pulverized the wood and shot up into Gargors legs, hips, and groin. Dark, ichorous blood ribboned out as the massive high-velocity slugs ripped him to shreds. He yelled out and pitched forward.

  His head appeared suddenly a foot and a half above me over the edge of the table.

  “Marc, the antler is in place,” Nova yelled in my ear and I felt the telltale tingle of my molecules begin to disintegrate.

  “Looks like you failed that lesson,” I said to Gargor who stared at me with fear-filled eyes as I raised the Desert Eagle up. “I’ll make sure to tell him that when I send the bastard to meet you in hell.”

  Then I pulled the trigger and blew Gargor’s brains out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Shut up you so did not say that,” Artie said as she thwacked me on the arm. We were sitting on my couch, and the rest of the team milled about the apartment getting drinks and making themselves comfortable.

  “No, he totally did,” Chaz piped up from the other side of the couch. “There was a remote cam zoomed up super close when he said it. It was so freaking cool. Everyone is talking about it. Everyone.”

  “Thanks, Chaz,” I smiled over at my new best little buddy. I held out my fist, and we pounded.

  “I can’t believe I missed that,” Artie said and shook her head. “I was so intent on what was going on upstairs when Nova tried to get the antler in place. You know you only needed a little piece of that right? Not the whole thing?”

  “Nope,” I answered as I nodded my head. “No clue.”

  “That would have made things much easier,” Nova grunted as she plopped down on the couch in a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. She had a sixty-four ounce glass of Coke in her hand as well as a giant sub sandwich.

  “No kidding, sugar,” Aurora chimed in as she stretched out next to Artemis. She had a fancy wine goblet that was full of Coke and a neat little charcuterie plate in front of her. “That thing almost got all three of us killed up there.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said exasperatedly. “Chi-Chesire left that tidbit out. Anyone else think he’s a jerk by the way?”

  “Oh, he’s a total asshole,” PoLarr said from the kitchen where she took a massive plate of ribs from Woodhouse. “Real tool. Why is tool an insult?”

  “Um, I’ll explain later,” I threw back to her.

  “While I am always pleased at your victory,” Grizz said as his holographic form sat in a holographic recliner near the sliding glass door that lead to my balcony. “I am still vexed at your emotional outburst, Marc. Gargor was not wrong in what he was saying. He just picked a very inopportune time to do it.”

  “I couldn't help it, Grizz,” I said. “That assface just kept pushing.”

  “Marc,” Grizz said and looked at me seriously. “I am dead. I have been dead for a very long time. Nothing Gargor said could change that. You should not take it personally. Isn’t that what one of your movie heroes says?”

  “I suppose,” I agreed. “Dalton in Roadhouse does say that. But you know, he takes it real personal when they kill his best friend and mentor.”

  “Gargor did not kill me, Marc,” he said back softly.

  “I know, Grizz,” I said and sat up to meet his gaze. “We are all family now. And I will go to the ends of this world or any other to protect my family. Tyyraxx needs to pay for what he did. And anyone who thinks they can do the same, well they can get in line. Because there is nothing I would not do for those I love.”

  There was silence in the room for a moment as everyone looked at me. I hadn’t intended to get so emotional. But as a kid who’d grown up without his dad and had to make a family from those around him. Uncles could be fathers. Friends could be brothers. I’d learned that family, both by blood and by choice, was sometimes the only thing in life you could count on when all else failed.

  “Wow,” PoLarr finally said to break the tension. “That got heavy.”

  “Hey, I know how to keep a gathering fun and light,” I said self-deprecatingly. “Now, enough emo nonsense. Who wants to watch a great little movie about revenge? TV cue up The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

  The room went dark and my wall became a Technicolor Italian version of the Old West. Ennio Morricone’s iconic score blasted from the sound system. I snuggled into the couch between Artemis and Aurora with my head on Artie's shoulder and a hand on Aurora’s thigh. It felt comfortable and safe.

  Grizz was right. Nothing could change the fact that he’d been killed in the arena. But I sure as hell was going to get justice for him. Or die trying.

  And tomorrow was going to be another chance for me to avenge my friend and prove how badass the humans from little ‘ol planet Earth could be.

  End of Book 3

  End Notes

  Hey! Thanks for reading Arena 3. Did you like the book? If so, leave a review here! You are awesome!

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Logan Jacobs

 

 

 
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