Pepper could have sworn that he was visibly shaking. It wasn’t from fear or nerves, but from the reverberations of the cheering crowd. He was now halfway down the tunnel to the arena, the announcer had just re-introduced the crowd to him and they went nuts in return.

  He couldn’t help but smile and appreciated hearing the celebratory response. It didn’t end there, however. His plan was to start the beat of We Will Rock You, once Mala made it to the golems starting area. The crowd decided to beat him to the punch, and the stands echoed out once again in the thud-thud-pound pattern.

  A quick climb up the stairs to the gladiator platform and he took a deep breath. He had wanted to spend more time training with his new runes. But, he had only two days off before his nex cohorts next set of matches were scheduled.

  He was just thankful BJ was able to squeeze his safety inspection in before the match. Pepper even tried to offer him a Big D Energy drink as a thank you, but BJ rejected the gift with a smile. Of course, BJ also began to quote the exact paragraph out of the Golem League field operations manual where it stated that League Officials were forbidden from accepting gifts from active competitors. Though the gesture meant a lot to BJ, he reminded Pepper that he was all too familiar with long hours of work. His army experience had practically branded one of its unofficial motto’s deep within him; “you can sleep when your dead.”

  Though Pepper didn’t have a lot of time to practice with his new runes, he was still feeling confident heading into his next match. Whenever he wasn’t training within his simulator, he had spent time reviewing Franchesca’s previous matches. Her Artic Wolf, to the best of his guess was a mixture of clay and stone. The high mobility left him believing that it wasn’t a hardened stone such as granite. But it still was strong enough to take a considerable beating.

  The artic wolf stood upright in a humanoid form. The head portion was shaped like a wolf and the eyes glowed in a frosted blue, light teal, and crystalized white mixture of colors. The ears of the wolf were formed upward but the back of the head had hair which extended down slightly more than a wolf’s fur traditionally would.

  There was a strong masculine shape to the golems body, but it still maintained a well sculpted woman’s physique. The arms weren’t overly done, and the etched designed stone breast plate elegantly accentuated the chest area. It was the chest plate that was the solid stone portion and wrapped around to complete the protective plating.

  The announcer shifted to welcome and re-introduce his opponent. It caused him to intently focus his gaze on the opposite tunnel entrance. A giant cloud of white smoke billowed out, a second later, there was a cold blast of air that rushed over him. The sensation was the same when he would open the freezer door on a hot summer day. The beads of sweat that had been running down his face immediately latching onto the chill and leaving a slight shiver while the body adapted.

  His eyes locked onto Franchesca as she walked out of the smoke screen and made her way onto the gladiator platform. Her blonde hair flowed down and laid over top of her white puffy vest. From what he could see, she had a light gray knitted sweater or long sleeve shirt underneath that. He quickly shifted his gaze back to the entrance as the Artic Wolf then appeared. The blue frosted light of its eyes glowed with life and he watched as Franchesca lowered her golem into a ready stance.

  Pepper was sure she was going to keep to her usual tactics. Stay back, use frosted path to coat the immediate area of the arena floor in ice. Then use ice wall to form a protective defensive barrier and then start launch precision ice beams towards him.

  He had also seen her use an article blast attack, which was like his force blast, only Franchesca’s had the potential to freeze a portion of her opponents golem. The effect was minor and normally didn’t create any serious damages but left a potential for armor to be more fragile and weak against blunt attacks.

  Franchesca had also used ice weaponry in one match. Though it appeared similar to his elemental expansion, he had only seen her wolf harness weapons. That left him believing she didn’t know how to create custom sub-sets and programmable options, but merely relied on the pre-programming the manufacturer had installed on the rune card.

  Before Pepper knew it, the countdown timer had ended and the starting horn blared with life. To his surprise, Franchesca didn’t immediately go for her frosted path attack. Instead her wolf placed the palms of her hands together and let out an ice beam.

  He was shocked the attack had enough power to activate. But though it was successful, he was confident that there wasn’t a huge amount of energy placed within the beam. Pepper immediately countered by launching Mala off to the side in a rolling dive. His battle tiger rolled, planted its feet and pounced back up onto both legs.

  Franchesca sent another ice beam streaking across the arena. He dodged it again, but this time he was afraid he had cut it too close for comfort. It appeared as if Mala had a slight dusting of frost against its hip and he was just grateful to have a high degree of agility with his battle tiger.

  By the time he recovered he could see the Artic Wolf preparing another ice beam. He quickly glanced over to see that all his runes were powered up and ready to activate. A quick flick of his fingers and his elemental expansion activated and formed a metal shield in front of his golem.

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  He commanded Mala to press ahead and cut the distance between the two, but as he took his first step, the next beam of energy shot out from the wolf. Pepper brought his shield up and quickly adjusted Mala to brace for the impact. The ice beam slammed against the shield and shoved the golem slightly backwards.

  Pepper watched as his power core meter ticked upwards but slowly his tiger’s feet dug into the arena’s floor and pressed on. He was surprised to see the shield was holding up against a sustained beam. Ice began to form over the shield, the edges forming giant shards of ice as the beam continued to blast against the metal frame.

  Mala continued to cut the distance towards the wolf. The entire time it maintained the shield in its’ grasp. But then the alarm started to blare with warning. Pepper shifted his gaze to the caution, which informed him Mala’s shoulder and arm joints were weakening under the strain of the ice’s weight.

  As Pepper’s focus was on the alarm, his mind quickly working to figure out what to do, he was caught off guard. Franchesca had dropped her ice beam and had then activated her frosted path. By the time Pepper realized what she had done, the arena floor was instantly transformed into what looked like an ice skating rink. The ice building upon itself and had grown at least two inches below the golems feet.

  The Artic Wolf lifted its head up and acted as if it was howling at the moon. Franchesca had installed a small speaker in her golem and the distinct sound of a wolf’s call rang out from it. The wolf then lowered its gaze down and Pepper could have sworn the teal blue light flared outwards from the golem’s eyes.

  The wolf then turned and began to run towards Mala. The golem appeared to have no issue with the ice, and Pepper assumed it was due to his opponent designing it to work within her strategy. He turned his attention back to his display, the alarming still flashing its warning.

  He tried to shift the runes sub-option and force the metal to shift to a different form. But that was when the rune icon flashed red, warning him that it was unable to perform the function. His eyes widened and he found his mind now frozen in fear of what to do.

  The wolf was gaining ground and he knew he needed to gain some distance to give him more time to devise a new plan. He looked up and gaged the distance of the wolf, his mind then reacted to the first idea that came to mind. He command Mala to lift the shield up as high as it could. The alarming blaring that Mala’s joints were on the verge of being damaged.

  Once the shield reached its’ apex he reversed course and commanded Mala to slam the shield down and into the arena floor. The metal dove past the ice barrier and wedged itself into the ground underneath, ice shards shooting out all around Mala in the process.

  The wolf, however, was starting its lunge towards Mala. Two ice blades forming in its hands as it braced against the ice and began to shove off. Pepper thankfully still had a firm grip on the shield and used the metal as a brace. He then sent Mala sprawling down and onto the ice rink.

  The tiger made it to the ice, but not without one of the ice blades slicing down the golems back. The wolf continued its trajectory and landed a few feet away. Pepper didn’t waste any time worrying about the damage from the blade, but directed Mala to slide around to the opposite side of the shield. Once he saw the metal was in the center line of his golem, he activated his force blast.

  A rune activated and sent a surge of energy directly against the shield that was practically in line with his golem’s feet. The blast formed a cloud of frost as it flash melted some of the ice that had formed on the shield. It additionally created a back blast of force that shoved Mala back. The ice rink allowed the tiger to slide enough of a distance away that Pepper could get his golem back and onto its feet.

  The Artic Wolf was already in hot pursuit by the time Mala made it back to its feet, though. I may not have some flashing cool speaker, but I don’t need it! “You’re not the only one with a beam attack!” Pepper paused his statement as he adjusted Mala’s hands. He brought them to chest height, the left hand hovered directly over the right, while both palms faced each other. The orb shape that the golems hands formed began to contained the initial wave of energy. Pepper then made Mala’s hands surge forward and formed a cone with the fingers extended out in front. He finished his statement with a loud extended yell “En-er-gy beam!”

  The deep purple beam of energy streaked across the arena. Franchesca tried to utilize her Ice Wall, but the rune didn’t have enough time to form the wall fast enough. The attack slammed directly into the stone chest plate of the wolf and sent it flying backwards for a few feet before the golem slid across the ice floor.

  Pepper didn’t wait to see the result of the damage. He made a b-line straight for his metal shield that was still wedged into the ground. It was a struggle to try and coordinate his golem’s movement over the slick surface of the ice rink. He had made some progress but had to halt and wait as he watched the wolf start to return to its feet.

  He kept his gaze fixed on his opponent. Once he saw the slight indication that the wolf was building itself up to launch another ice beam, he checked to ensure his rune was ready for another round. Thankfully the Paladin had a fast cool down period of 15 seconds, he remaining few seconds for the cooldown timer to expire seemed to take an eternity.

  His eyes dashed back and forth between his opponent and the timer. The instant the rune icon shifted to green, Pepper activated it and sent the energy beam streaking across the arena. His instincts were right and Franchesca had launched her ice beam a millisecond after he did. The two beams of energy were on a crash course for one another.

  Pepper smirked at the last instant. He was positive his Paladin rune had a greater hex rating and would overpower the ice beam. The two heads collided, but instead of erupting into a massive explosion, his energy beam split Franchesca’s attack in half. The ice beam’s energy splintering off the left and right side as Pepper’s attack continued its perfect trajectory. His attack landed a direct hit on the wolf, a cloud of smoke lifted up while debris pelted against the ice rink.

  The crowd went wild in cheers and screams of excitement. The wolf stood there with a slight lean, it then staggered forward for a step. The smoke had dissipated enough for Pepper to see a large hole had punched clean through the chest plate and exited out the back. Sparks of energy sprang to life within the golem, and shards of frayed wires were now exposed. The frost blue coloration of the wolfs power core flickered, but finally faded out and the wolf crumbled down and onto the frozen arena floor.