The arena

chapter six

I woke up with Molly still holding my arm with her head on my shoulder. This surprised me because she usually moved somehow in the middle of the night. That or just before I woke up. Either way it was strange that there was no movement. I tried numerous times to wake her up peacefully but it was futile. So I had to resort to my most powerful tactic, violent and unnecessary shoving. After about half an hour all the shoving finally worked and she woke up groaning and after about another half hour she finally sat up. "Ug, what is happening. The world isn't ending is it". I had to shake my head at that. Her sarcasm obviously had no limits. I asked her what is happening today. "Today is something really special," she said. When I gave her a funny look that told her that that explanation didn't tell me anything, she elaborated. "Today is forging day where all you new people make your weapon of choice". I was suddenly very excited and immediately thought of the weapons that I might want to make. "Now just wait a second," she said "you can't just make a weapon. You need to make it your own too. So think about design and functionality that best suits you. Think about how it reflects you and how you fight. Think of it as your counterpart." I pondered this for a while and I got an idea of what I wanted to do. I nodded and she teleported me to a room with a bunch of forging stations. I picked an empty one and got to work.

It took me about half the entire day to finish it. But when it was done it was a pure masterpiece. It was a straight edge knife, about eight inches long, with a revolver barrel and a tube going to the tip so I could fire little night fire balls. It had a straight crossguard and the handle had a finger wedge with a small flair at the bottom for better control. On the back of the handle there was a button. This button, when pressed, had a trigger appear just below the finger guard. This trigger fires the revolver part of the knife. I looked upon the weapon with pride and fascination of its mechanism. I really wanted to play around with this. It just seemed so fun to mess around with. I moved over to a table where they had many materials such as leather, silk, and similar pieces to have them make the holster. After that was done, I had it firmly strapped to my side and loaded when three thug-like people came up to me. "Hey look, it's the newbie," one of them sneered. "Why don't we show him what a real weapon looks like." Then in unison they all pulled out their weapons. Two of them had simple katanas and the third had a karambit. All normal weapons without any consideration to the actual way they fight. I pulled out my knife and loaded it with stun like night fire bullets. He laughed "You think that is supposed to scare me? Go ahead and load your puny bullets, they won't do a thing".

I shrugged, "Fine. It's your funeral" and as I said this I pushed the button on the back, lined it up, and fired. It took three quick shots into each of their heads to knock them out. "Well that was a bit anticlimactic," I said as I put away my knife. Looking around for any more challengers, I walked out of the room, following the long hallway. When I emerged from the hallway, I was in the empty training room. I knew I had a few hours left in the day so I decided to find out different ways to make the bullets. I thought of adding more power to them and this stuck with me so I decided to try it. To my mild surprise it worked, however it took more time to make. Not optimal in fights but is more lethal in case I need a quick kill. I tried one more time to add more potency to it. This time it took even longer, a whole five minutes if my time sense hasn't failed me. This I could not use mid fight or even at the start. But I could make them pre fight. Assuming that I knew a fight was coming. Might be a good idea to load at least half whenever I have the time. Though how I am going to get said time is an entirely different story but one problem at a time. I had loaded up three of the six slots with the one shot kill bullets when suddenly I was in Molly's room again. But I didn't notice that the flames were red this time. There was no one here. I looked around and didn't see anyone. I looked out the window and there were just two random fighters there duking it out. Again I looked around and again there was no one there. I pulled out my knife and started searching the walls. All of this seemed suspicious and I wasn't going to be caught off guard if something happened.

I heard the noise a split second before the wall blew up. I jumped behind a chair and took a cautious look out. In the doorway there was the man I followed and another. He was tall and lean, he also looked kind of gothic but he had that air of danger that told me that I won't want to mess around if I have to confront him. "I swear he is in here Infamy, there's no other place Molly could put him." the other man was saying. I got the impression that he messed up a couple times and he was trying not to get killed by pleasing his superiors. The tall man, Infamy, just grunted in response. He didn't seem to talk much, in fact he seemed like the kind of person to talk to select people only. "I know that he is here" he was mumbling "I can feel it." I could tell that he was desperate. He was obviously in a precarious position. The man named Infamy just stood there. Searching, measuring, considering everything and noticing everything. I could tell that he was used to doing the dirty work. I got a supreme rush of adrenaline as they started searching the room. I backed further behind the chair and suddenly, to my relief, the teleportation flames started.

But before they completed their spinning, Infamy found me, he looked straight in my eyes and said "Aaron?" I was in a brightly lit room when I disappeared. It looked exactly like the bedroom upstairs with the same arrangement, same furniture, same everything. Except for one thing, there were no windows. There was absolutely nothing showing me the outside. I looked around when out of nowhere, Molly jumped up, hugged me around the neck, and started crying on my chest. I felt very uncomfortable as I was not good in this kind of situation. She stayed, crying like this for about an hour or two, then proceeded to have me stand there like that for another hour. My legs were starting to hurt from holding up her weight when she finally let go. She walked over to the bed and laid down. I felt the strangest compulsion to go lie down with her. Maybe I was just tired but either way I gave in. I needed some sleep anyway. I lied down and went to sleep.

When I woke up Molly was shaking. She was also clinging onto me for dear life. I couldn't tell if it was day or night but something told me that I needed to be awake right now. I could tell she was still asleep so I decided to wake her. Apparently I had really good timing because it looked like her nightmare reached its horrifying climax when she woke up screaming. She calmed down but was still breathing heavily. She looked like she had been chased by some sort of demon and almost lost. I found myself kind of uncomfortable, Molly has not been acting like herself lately and it disturbed me. Something genuinely had scared her and I didn't like it one bit. If something, or someone, could scare her this badly, they were obviously powerful. I decided to find out what was going on. "What happened?" I asked in a concerned voice. I didn't know if she would really notice but it was probably a good idea. I did however get the feeling that I might not even get an answer.

She shook her head, "Nothing" she said, gathering herself again. I sighed. Of course I had to call it. Molly was the kind of person that didn't reveal anything unless she wanted to do so. "And before you ask anymore questions, no I do not know how that demon got in, nor do I know how he made you go to the normal bedroom". Ok so that answered one of my questions but I still had some. I thought of some possible questions to ask. I could ask how she knew that at least one of the people was a demon. I could ask why she had a second bedroom. But then one thought hit me. It hit me so hard it felt like an uppercut to the gut.

"What is my name?" I asked suddenly.

Molly laughed at this, "Your name? That's your question right now? You almost get blown up, deal with all the emotional crap I dumped on you, and you have no idea why any of that happened, and your question is what your name is?" I nodded at this. Hearing the ridiculousness of the question but wanting the answer all the same. Molly shook her head, "You amaze me. Anyway, your name is Aaron Dagger". It was kind of a weird name I thought. Not the first part but mainly the last part. Why was my last name the name of a kind of blade? It was a question I guessed that very few people asked. I felt very bored after that thought passed. I looked back and realized that I haven't done a real fight in a few days. Molly must have read my mind or something because when I looked at her she sighed, "Fine. But you may not go to the break room afterwards." It seemed like a fair arrangement so I agreed to it. She then waved her hand and I teleported out of the room.