3MA

3MA | Chapter 37

37
OLD RULES

The confused and sweat-drenched residents of Camelot castle shield their eyes from the glaring, pale blue moon, lifting the hems of terribly out-of-fashion nightgowns as they climb through the hole in the Amphitheater's stage, adjusting dusty spectacles, and from the looks on many of their startled faces, taking in the whirling night sky for the first time.

Hidden behind the vast, raised platform of Fantasia's Octagon, out of view of the Amphitheater's rabid audience, the chorus of screaming voices and thundering chants nearly knocks me off my feet.

I glance up at one of the enormous TV screens featuring an aerial view of the arena; thousands of moonlit hands reach up into the night sky, grasping for the stars, for a memory, for something just out of reach. I've been in that audience every year of my life.

Tonight it's my turn to take the stage.

Know who you're fighting.

Know who you're fighting for.

Make up the rest as you go.

Dad had always drilled that mantra into me while training in the courtyard. I never truly understood the power of it until now. Because regardless of how hopelessly outmatched I am, regardless of the laundry list of things Amaris and I desperately need and have no time to acquire, with the answer to both questions sitting firmly on the tip of my tongue, I've never been more focussed on a goal in my life.

"You can put her down now," McNair says, grabbing Amaris and forcing her to her feet. "You play a crappy unconscious person."

"You play a crappy person," Amaris replies, spitting in McNair's face.

McNair wipes his cheek with the back of his arm. "You people," McNair shouts pointing at the Heirs, "you're with me. Everyone else, follow my officers into the damned arena."

McNair's officers march the crowd around the side of the Octagon and wrangle them all into the reserved front row of the arena, mere inches from the Octagon's golden fence.

The Heirs are jostled up the Amphitheater's side aisle at gunpoint. As we squeeze through the frenetic crowd and make our way back up the arena's steps, it isn't the insane fervor of the audience that surprises me. It's the number of purple star-spangled shirts that does.

"Damn," Amaris shouts. "Your groupies roll deep."

At the top of the arena, we're directed through a village of billowing white tents, each one painted with the name of the 3MA fighter housed within:

ABYSS

KRAKEN

THE SHARD

BLIND FURY

THE NAMELESS ONE

SOUL BENDER

I lose count after the twentieth name. How in the world I'm supposed to beat all of them and then take down Black Heart, all while shackled with Caster's Cuffs, still remains a mystery. For now, I'll have to file that under Dad's make up the rest as you go part.

We halt in front of the largest tent of the lot; the sagging monstrosity that Amaris had pointed out earlier. The way the moonlight strikes the thin white fabric stretched over the tent's frame reminds me of a corpse's pale flesh draped over bone.

McNair unzips the front flap and waves his blaster inside.

Amaris grabs my wrist. "It feels wrong in there," she shudders.