Arena Road 2 Chapter 3

The two warrior women looked at me in confusion, so I decided to clarify things. “Like, not just at the gate, but when we’re moving around throughout the city, before your fight.”

“How, John?” Ellie asked with a small furrow in her pearly brow.

“Well, I was thinking we could get you two a little more, uh… finery.” I paused to take in the two women’s facial expressions before I quickly continued. “Something badass, but easy to take off or change out of before the fight starts.”

Indy frowned doubtfully, but the dainty warrior on my other side started to look thoughtful.

“We would stand out from the other warriors,” Ellie mused. “Most do not have such finery to wear.”

“Exactly,” I said with a grin.

I directed us toward the store I had looked up on my phone, Luminos Apparel. According to Yelp, there was a huge range of medieval clothing, and it seemed like it was frequented by cosplayers and costume designers alike.

“More human dolls,” Indy said skeptically as the store’s window display came into view.

I didn’t blame her. The mannequins in the window display were wearing some fussy medieval gowns with about a hundred too many ruffles. The best use they would have served for my warrior princess probably would’ve been to smother her enemies with those skirts.

But here on Earth, we were in the digital age, and the Yelp reviews for this shop made me decide it was worth walking in and taking a look around. I had seen pictures of the type of shit I was sure my two women would love, so I was gentle but unyielding as I propelled the two women into the store in front of me. As soon as we were inside, I spotted the type of clothes I had seen on Yelp toward the back of the store.

And so did Indy.

“Come, Ellie,” she commanded, and I snorted as the princess took off toward the back while pulling the dainty warrior along behind her.

I sidled up next to them when they came to a halt in the back area of the store, and both women turned in circles to look at the treasure trove of clothes there.

There were a ton of Daenerys Targaryen-style dresses with jeweled bodices and draped or flowy skirts, but they ranged from queenly to queenly and scandalous. There were also various pieces of “armor” that had a similar shape to the leather armor I had bought for my two women, but with a purpose that was clearly decorative. Some of them even looked like they belonged at some sort of red carpet event, but they still held a war-like element, and I knew the combination would immediately draw everyone’s eye in Bayalon.

There were corsets, shirts, and shoulder armor made out of shiny metallic scale-mail in all different colors like black, gold, and copper. Some outfits even had queenly capes or cloaks made of silk or sheer gauzy fabric. A lot of the clothes were medieval in style, but some had more modern twists. Others look like they belonged in ancient Egypt, and some were vaguely Greek Goddess-like.

The two women drifted toward different areas of clothing like there was a gravitational pull to them, and I stuck next to the more vulnerable Ellie for the moment, since she was both tinier and newer to Earth. I still kept a careful eye on my princess, partly to make sure she was safe, but also to ensure she didn’t backhand any innocent customers who got too close to her.

There was no fairy godmother-like women to guide our journey here, but my two warriors were both getting braver and bolder in my world already, and it didn’t take them long to get the hang of the whole “snatch up anything that looks pretty” thing that I not-so-subtly encouraged.

Then I lounged around near the changing room while my two women trooped inside together. I heard them whispering and giggling for what seemed like forever, but I let them have their fun. Then I watched the two bombshells parade out in different outfits like they owned the place.

Soon Indy strutted out in a skin-hugging black gown with a long, V-shaped neckline that revealed a generous amount of her plush golden cleavage. It even went down far enough to display a portion of her toned abs. There were glittering black beads on the dress that accented the lush curves of her form, and she wore a skimpy bralette made of gleaming gold scale-mail underneath that made the dress only slightly less revealing. She wore gleaming golden scale-mail on her shoulders, too, and a gauzy black cape flowed down to the backs of her ankles.

As I looked Indy up and down, I still almost couldn’t believe this woman was mine.

“You look like a fucking warrior goddess,” I told her with total honesty. “I’m slightly concerned that someone in Bayalon will jump us at the sight of you in this, though. And… maybe it’s not the most practical thing for striding around in the desert world.”

I could see that Indy agreed with this idea, but she also looked slightly mournful as she ran her hands over the fabric of the dress and toyed with the golden scale-mail bralette. Her bottom lip poked out in a way that immediately got to me.

As I studied her outfit more closely, I could see that the scale-mail and the cape definitely seemed like they were separate pieces from the dress, and I gave them a thoughtful look.

“I think you should get the whole outfit,” I said decisively. “But maybe just wear the shoulder scale-mail and cape with your romper thing when we go into the city. You’ll still look every fucking inch a warrior queen, but it’ll probably be a lot easier than wearing the dress and then changing before battle.”

Indy’s face brightened, and her eyes flared like a desert sunrise. “I may take the dress home, then, John? And wear it here on Earth?”

“Hell yeah,” I chuckled at her reaction as she bounded back to the changing room.

Then I realized Ellie had been in the changing area for a while now, and I was just debating whether it would be weird to call out and see if she was alright when one of the doors creaked open, and the dainty warrior shyly flitted out to stand in front of me.

“Ellie…” My mouth suddenly felt dry as I drank in the blue-haired fighter with my eyes. “Damn.”

The dress she wore was somehow both ethereal and faintly scandalous. It was a shade of pale, airy periwinkle, and the upper part of it bared the tops of her small, high breasts. The bodice sheathed her dainty form so closely that they were almost spilling out of the top, but she looked at ease in the dress.

And she looked fucking beautiful.

The dress’ long skirt flared out a little toward the ground. Its delicate appearance was both emphasized and balanced out by the corset that encircled Ellie’s waist and abdomen. I had no idea what the corset was made out of, but it looked almost like polished blue porcelain, and it had swirling designs made of gold leaf on its edges. It seemed as decorative as a painting that belonged on the wall of a museum, but the shape of it had a war-like aspect that immediately drew the eye.

She wore shoulder armor, too. Each one was made of the same polished material as the corset, but they were a rich shade of pink. Instead of just being shaped like the protective leather shoulder pads that she would wear into the arena, these were intricately molded to look like two big pink flowers that sat upside-down to cup her petite shoulders under their petals.

Then Indy marched out wearing her normal Princess-Jasmine pants again and clutching her new clothes in her arms.

“Waspie,” she commented with an approving look at Ellie’s corset. She reached out to touch the material, and her fingernail made a clinking sound against the polished surface when she tapped it. “This armored finery is very nice. I think Ellie needs these clothes, John.”

Ellie smiled shyly, and I rubbed my jaw as I contemplated the anatomical details of this outfit.

“The corset and shoulder flower… things… can go on over your normal fighting outfit, right?” I asked as I stood up and tapped the material myself.

“Yes, John.” Ellie twirled around in front of the mirror and watched the dress’ skirts swirl around her ankles, and I thought about the fact that neither of these women had ever owned a fancy dress in their lives.

So I ended up giving it the same verdict as Indy’s new outfit.

When we were carrying the clothes up to the idle-looking guy at the front desk, I suddenly realized there was more than just the two dresses and decorative armor in the collection of garments my ladies had chosen.

I came to a halt.

“What is all this?” I asked, and I plucked up a skimpy, sheer lace garment and stared at it. “Is this lingerie?”

I was more curious than anything else, even without seeing the price tag, but Ellie’s face immediately blushed a vivid, pearly pink at my words, and she averted her big blue eyes. She studied the blank white face of the nearest mannequin like she was staring at a fascinating painting, and I turned my gaze toward Indy to see if she knew what was going on.

To my surprise, my princess did the same exact thing. I glimpsed about a dozen scattered colors dancing through her eyes before she hurriedly shoved my sunglasses back onto her face, and a blush of bright pink spread across her golden-hued skin.

I glanced down at the lingerie again, then at the two women, and I thought of the whispering and giggling I’d heard when they were in the changing rooms together.

Finally, I shrugged to myself and placed the heap of clothes on the counter, lingerie included.

Altogether, the price for the new clothes was well over a thousand dollars, and I winced reflexively at this information before I suddenly realized I could afford it now.

And these stunning, badass women deserved to be treated to something like this for the first time.

They were both still blushing slightly when we left the clothes store, and I shook my head again at the mysterious ways of women.

As we walked back toward my car, I fished the pamphlet that the martial arts trainer had given me earlier out of my pocket and scanned over it to find the Portland location of the supply store. Since we were already here, I figured we might as well go to one of the bigger locations. They were more likely to be supplied with home training equipment for my warriors to practice with.

I let out a low whistle as I led the way into a labyrinth of wooden post dummies inside the store, along with a crowd of various human-shaped ones. There were other kinds, too, from simple sandbags to more elaborate contraptions constructed from tires and PVC pipes.

Indy walked up to a wooden-post dummy and reached up to tap one of the rods that stuck out from it. “We practiced with these during our training for a short time.”

“They were formidable,” Ellie added, and she gave the sea of posts a slightly mistrustful look. “The wooden arms move.”

Eventually, I managed to track down a worker in the middle of the wooden labyrinth, and I ended up deciding to get several different kinds of dummies: One of the wooden-post kinds, and two that were human shaped.

One of the two human-shaped dummies was the grappling kind, and the other was like the upper body of a person mounted on a stand. With the latter option, a weapon could be placed in the dummy’s hands.

I grabbed some wrist wraps and a few other accessories for my women’s home training, too. Thankfully, the guy behind the register allowed me to pull my car up to the curb right outside the store, and I managed to shove the wooden-post dummy, which was boxed up in several pieces, into my trunk. The grappling dummy could be curled up enough to squeeze in on top of it.

The person-on-a-stick dummy ended up wedged in the back seat with its head in Indy’s lap, but my princess didn’t seem to mind. She just settled in with her fingers tapping an idle rhythm against the dummy’s blank, featureless face, and she looked like she was already daydreaming about putting it to good use.

Now that the idea had occurred to me for the warriors’ bracers, I realized it might be a good idea for me to get some reinforced gloves of my own. The kind I wanted weren’t available in the store, though, and I stopped to grab a pair on our way home. They were half-finger gloves that left some extra room in my first few fingers, so I’d still be able to handle my gun. I figured the gloves would come in handy if I needed to fight my way through a crowd like I had last time we’d left Bayalon.

Especially if that required punching one of those fiery volcano beings in the face again. This way I wouldn’t scald my knuckles on one of those motherfuckers.

The sky was getting dark when we finally headed back to my little cottage. It took several trips to bring the dummies inside, and I stared at them as I set the last  box containing the wooden wing-chun dummy in my living room.

“This is gonna take up half the room when it’s all set up,” I muttered as I stared at the three training dummies.

I decided to save setup until later, since Indy and Ellie had just had their training session earlier today.

The two women immediately darted upstairs with their bags of new finery, and I was about to head upstairs too when the ominous Imperial March song suddenly filled my living room.

“Shit!” I fumbled to snatch up the phone and silence it. Then I took a deep breath before I answered. “Hello?”

“John.” As usual, Marsh’s gravelly voice spoke my name like it left a bad taste in his mouth. But a familiar self-satisfied tone crept into his voice as he went on. “I’ve got a shipment that’s perfect for you.”

“Oh, really?” I asked warily, but a small thrill ran through my chest at the statement. “Where to?”

“Walla Walla,” he said with a growing note of grim delight in his tone. “From Portland. It’s to a shop called Party Fowl Taxidermy Studio.”

“Taxidermy,” I repeated slowly. “Uhh, you mean, like…”

“Stuffed dead animals,” he finished in a crisp voice. “Birds, to be specific. Mostly ducks, I’m told.”

“I see.” I strived to infuse my voice with the perfect mixture of acceptance and gloom. Then I asked the question that I already knew the answer to. “When’s it for?”

“Friday,” he said triumphantly. “Hope you didn’t have any big plans.”

“I can do Friday,” I said, and I had to dig deep to use my calmest and most neutral voice so I didn’t betray the excitement that was making itself felt in my speeding pulse.

Because I did have big plans, as a matter of fact.

And those plans were contingent on this shipment being assigned to me.

“I’ll text you the info, bird boy,” my boss cackled hoarsely.

Then the line went dead.

I couldn’t help letting out a small, exhilarated laugh.

Marsh thought he had just screwed me over, but he hadn’t.

It was the other way around.

I officially had my schedule set to drive through the portal again Friday night.

Marsh could call me “bird boy” all he wanted. I didn’t give a fuck. Now I was that much closer to stealing that bastard’s business out from under him.

“This bird boy is about to fly the coop,” I muttered under my breath as I dropped down onto my couch and let out a satisfied sigh.

With all the excitement, I had expected the next few days to drag by. Instead, time seemed to fly in a way that surprised me. I focused most of my effort on making sure my two warriors were ready for the fight.

Coordinating their training almost felt like the easy part compared to being strict about not letting them go overboard with the dummies at home.

There was one time when I emerged from my five-minute shower to find the two women converging on the grappling dummy with perfect coordination. They even acted out a move where Indy used different techniques for dislodging the dummy from on top of Ellie when she was lying on the ground with it on top of her, and vice-versa.

But when the situation devolved into the two warriors pummeling and throwing the dummy in earnest, I eventually decided to intervene.

No matter how fun it was to watch.

I allowed Indy to practice using the metal version of her chain whip against the other two dummies, though. I had solved the issue of the cramped space by squeezing each dummy into two respective corners of the room, and then dragging one out to the center whenever the women wanted to practice on it.

The dummies were perfect for fine-tuning new chain whip moves she’d learned in training. Unlike the foam version of the whip she’d been using in her training session, using the metal version against the fighting master in earnest could’ve had unwanted consequences. But with the dummy, she didn’t have to hold back, and I watched with approval as she went to town flowing through some of the moves she’d learned.

When the chain whip’s weighted metal spike scraped against the ceiling again, the princess froze in place and shot me a nervous look.

I still assured her these little scrapes weren’t a huge deal, although it did lead me to imagining a home where my warriors would have plenty of space to do some training. A space that had even more equipment, and where they would have a better surface to spar on than the carpet of my little old living room.

It was an amazing thing to envision, and the fact that this idea was actually in the realm of possibility for me was about as thrilling as watching my two warriors strive to prove to me that they were more battle-ready than ever.

When I got a text message from Abbey the leatherworker that I could come pick up my womens’ new bracers, I decided we’d go grab them right away so Indy and Ellie could have them at their next training session as planned. Making the two-hour drive again seemed like nothing in light of the fact that my warriors would be equipped with this type of armor for their upcoming fight. From the sheer amount of exclamation points Abbey used in her messages, I knew they must have turned out even better than anticipated.

As promised, Indy’s single bracer and new vambrace were both reinforced with carbon fiber, including the knuckle area of the bracer. They were both the same color as the leather armor she already owned with the same gold swirls, but when my princess put them on and did a casual punch against her own open palm with the bracer, her mouth fell open at the concentrated strength of the carbon fiber knuckles.

Ellie’s two fawn-colored bracers had the carbon fiber knuckles, too, and I was happy my petite little warrior had this extra protection in case she lost one or both of her weapons for any reason when she was in the arena. She had been slowly working on strengthening her strikes, including the hand-to-hand kind, but the reinforced knuckles would lend more impact to those strikes, and it would protect her delicate hands in the case that she did need to fight that way.

I stayed to watch the womens’ next training session so I could go over the footage of their last one with them and their trainer. Even though I wasn’t going to be the one out there in the arena, it seemed like a good idea for me to watch over the critique of their moves and the trainer’s suggestions for improvement. That way when I was at the sideline of the arena watching them, I could even call out specific things I remembered if it was necessary.

No matter what happened in that crater stadium, or any of my warriors’ fights for that matter, I was determined to never be like the backers I’d seen who roared threats at their fighters from the sideline.

Part of my reasoning for this was the simple fact that I cared for and respected my two warriors.

Well, that seemed simple to me, at least. But I knew that to the asshole backers I’d met in the oasis cities so far, this was something they straight-up just didn’t understand, and probably never would.

Still, even if I did have the same lack of caring toward my women, I had seen first-hand that trying to terrify a warrior into winning was supremely unhelpful when things got real in the arena. When the bald backer with the wizard staff had tried that with his own fighters, it had given them a burst of desperate energy, but the desperate part had ended up contributing to their downfall in the fight as they hurried to best my women as quickly as possible.

As I watched the video footage of Ellie strengthening her counter-attacks and Indy increasing the intricacy and precision of her chain-whip moves, I felt a growing sense of pride in the spirit they showed in applying themselves to their training. They seemed fully determined to never stop improving, and I was just as determined to keep finding ways to help them do that.

And then kick more ass in more desert cities.

And come back with more warrior women in my possession.