Pepper cracked the door to his bedroom and softly called out. “Babe, it’s me.” He let the door slowly open and then noticed the faint glow coming from Amprage in the far corner of the room. His eyes narrowed and he realized that Amprage was curled up in Andrea’s lap while her back leaned back against the far corner.

  He closed the door and slowly walked forward, taking a seat next to her and let his back rest against the wall. “Hey.”

  She was taking slow and steady deep breaths. At the top of her inhale she held her breath for roughly three seconds and then slowly let it out. Pepper recognized the breathing technique as one they had learned at Status Academy by one of the crisis counselors.

  His eyes caught sight of her ruined makeup. The tear streaks had now dried and she looked at him with weary eyes.

  “You okay?” He gently asked.

  She pressed her lips together and slowly nodded.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  She slowly shook her head. Her gaze then lowered down to Amprage and she let her fingertips glide across his smooth metal skin. “This guy is taking care of me pretty good.”

  Amprage lifted his head and his metal tail began to wag. He tilted his head while gazing at Andrea, and then turned his head towards Pepper. “Dad, I protected everyone.”

  Pepper smiled. “Yeah you did bud.”

  “Am I a good boy?”

  He nodded, “Yeah Amp, you’z a good boy”

  Amprage opened his mouth and stuck out his metal tongue just enough for it to be comical looking. Pepper’s mind started to awaken to a thought, but he forced it away. He felt the exhaustion come over him and all he wanted to do in that moment was take a shower and then try to get some rest.

  He knew that getting actual sleep was nothing but a wish at this point. His senses would keep him awake for the next few days as they interpreted every little pin drop as a new potential threat. But, he knew he would have to settle for whatever rest his body could get.

  A fresh set of clothes and he joined Andrea who had finally made her way into the living room and was huddled up on the couch. Her eyelids were heavy as she wearily stared at the holoscreen. A video of aerial footage of a gorgeous tropical paradise was playing.

  “We should go there.” She said under her breath.

  Pepper shifted his weight on the couch as Andrea started to turn into him and latched on. “Yeah, you think so?”

  “Doesn’t look like they have any demonic attacks there.”

  Pepper sighed. “Nope… doesn’t look like they do.”

  “You ever been to the beach?”

  He softly shook his head. “Nope… just Lake Michigan.”

  He was happy to here her give a playful moan. “Doesn’t count.”

  “Well, we are in Georgia, maybe we should go do a beach trip?”

  “You have your Regional Invitation… we’ll save it for next time I visit.”

  He leaned his head down and gently kissed the top of her head. “Sounds good babe.”

  They had drifted in and out of sleep over the next couple of hours. It was well into the mid morning hours by the time he felt as if he was up and awake. He was nothing but groggy and still didn’t want to leave the comfort of the couch.

  “You want some-” Pepper tilted his head and looked back outside and took note of the time. “brunch?”

  “Sure, that’d be nice.”

  He got up and started to retrieve the few items he would need to make some eggs, bacon, and pancakes. To his surprise, Andrea had left the couch and came over to sit at the kitchen counter top. He then decided it was best to broach the topic he felt nervous to discuss, but decided there was no better time then there and now.

  “So, are you mad at me?” He asked.

  He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t ask to clarify. She already knew what he was referring to. “I was at first… but Elowen made sure to spend a minute or two with me before they carried her off. She told me how you guys had just been friends. How you invited her over and were nothing but a gentleman.”

  She took a second to pull the ends of her sweatshirt down and over her hands, only letting the ends of her fingers stick out. “I didn’t believe her. Thought it was all a ploy to try and convince me that nothing had happened. But then I spoke with Marcus. He confirmed everything and even shared how devoted you were to me. Took a stand when he tried to encourage you to explore all your options out here.”

  He turned around and saw her just when she tilted her head and slowly blinked with a smile. “I then remembered who Pepper Walker is, the man I chose and who I have always known him to be.”

  “Oh, and who exactly is this Pepper Walker?” He asked in a playful tone.

  “A guy who isn’t perfect, has his good and bad moments. But is loyal to his friends, defends them against everything from accusations to demonic attacks. Has a dream and is actively pursuing it, and helps encourage others to reach for their own new goals.”

  Pepper nodded along. “Wow… maybe one day I will get to meet this awesome cool guy.”

  “If your lucky enough.” She countered with her tongue sticking out and her eyes crossed slightly.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The two lightly laughed for a minute. He finished serving up their breakfast and they started to dig in. They both took notice of one of the bedroom doors being opened up. Marcus slowly made his way out of the hallway and headed for the fridge.

  “Hey-hey, morning guys.”

  “Morning.” They said in unison.

  Marcus grabbed hold of a water bottle and then turned and looked at Pepper. “So P-Dub… I wanted to ask you for a favor.” He paused and there was a severe nervous look on his face. He finally took a deep breath and continued. “I was hoping you’d be willing to train with me and give me some pointers on what I should be mindful of before the regional?”

  Pepper was surprised by the request. But remembered an old TV clip he had seen. The main character was asked why he had helped another person and all the reply was, ‘When a friend asks you for help, you help them.’ Nothing else needed to be said, he knew what he should do.

  He glanced over to Andrea with a slight grin. She knew what his intentions were and she shrugged. “I don’t care. You boys go have fun, I’ll try to get some more rest and we can all watch a Golem Match later tonight when you’re all done.”

  Pepper turned back to Marcus and smiled. “Well, that settles it. You know what time it is?”

  Marcus side eyed over towards the laundry room where the case of energy drinks were stacked up. “Big D Energy time!”

  ***

  Marcus tossed his freshly finished Big D Energy drink can off to the side. It landed with a clank against the pile of cans they had stacked up in the corner. They had rearranged the couches in the workshop to face off against each other and were leaning back against the cushions.

  Pepper’s hands were in front of his face, the anxious energy surging through his veins. “Okay, so like I said, when you’re going to use that psionic bite attack, you’ll want to be sure you have that next side step movement ready to evade whatever counter attack your opponent may try.”

  “Yup, I totally see what you’re saying man.” Marcus had covered his face with his hands and then brought them out in exclamation. “Like… I never would have even considered using the snake heads to catch opponents’ strikes, or even weapons being launched at me. It was one of those things that you don’t think of training for, because our club matches didn’t allow weapons, but that totally makes sense.”

  Pepper nodded along. “Yeah, so now does it make sense how you can use your psionic pulse as a ranged attack but also use it defensively if you close the distance too fast and need to gain some separation?”

  Marcus’s eyes widened and he motioned with his hands that his head had been blown off with information. “Dude… it’s a game changer for me.” He then lowered his hands and shook his head. “I didn’t even realize I could go in and change those movement combinations either. Thanks for being patient with me and helping me out in those few simulations. It’s a hard shift getting used to that kind of an adjustment, but man… I love how Copperhead can lean from side to side. Using that with the four head strike attack is gonna be sickkkkk!” Marcus finished with a laugh.

  “Alright, ready to go again?” Pepper asked.

  “Heck yeah man! Let’s do this.”

  The two continued to train for a few more hours. Pepper was excited to see Marcus’s skills significantly improve throughout the course of the day. The training not only helped Marcus, but helped Pepper get used to accessing his elemental expansion rune. His Hellion Light power core had no problem generating the power the rune required to function.

  To him, that was what made the rune worth the investment. He could easily power the rune activation and sustain it until the rune cool down ended. With Marcus becoming more proficient with his combat, it pushed Pepper to learn how to activate his metal shielding, and then quickly change the rune to adapt the metal into a weapon.

  He couldn’t help but laugh over how they both looked starting out. The secondary activation module took some getting used to. The whole process initially caused Mala to stagger around in what looked like terrible dance moves. But eventually, you could hardly tell the difference when Pepper went to activate the sub-set of options.

  Pepper had also appreciated the opportunity to virtually spar with Marcus, because it gave him a chance to face off against a golem that relied heavily on psionic attacks. There were hardly any gladiators back home that used psionic runes, so he had little experience in having to adapt to them. On top of that, Marcus’s attacks were a test bed for his Celestial Enchantment rune.

  Pepper was nothing short of ecstatic with the result. Rather than leaving a paralysis on his controls, which was the common theme talked about in the forums; he instead only saw a short half-second delay. In one simulation Marcus had struck his left side with four rapid snake bites. The 2 second delay was a godsend compared to what should have happened.

  Though it wasn’t a complete shield, the resistance was enough to give him time to evade and adapt to the situation. His elemental expansion rune then changed into whatever option was best suited for either a counterattack, or a defensive shield. During one sparing match, Marcus tried to bite down on Mala’s arm while it was coated in the metal. The snake’s copper teeth didn’t even penetrate the metal. The result was Pepper using his energy strike with a karate chop. The counter severed the head clean off the copper limb. Pepper made sure Marcus wrote down a note to remind the company to upgrade all of Copperheads’ teeth to iron so they would have penetrating power.

  The longer they trained, the better Marcus became and the more engaging the combat. Before they realized it, darkness had set in and Andrea came to check in on them. She informed Pepper that she was going to order a pizza for them and that they needed to wrap it up and head inside.

  The cleaned up the area and rearranged everything in the workshop. They both chuckled as there was no need to secure the access door, seeing how Mala had plowed through the main role up door the night before. Both stopped before exiting though. Andrea had not gone anywhere without Amprage, and now all they had was Marcus’s familiar rattler.

  “Do you mind if-“ Pepper didn’t even finish asking.

  “I was thinking the same thing.” Marcus replied. He looked down at his familiar. “Rattler, go check the yard and let us know if you see, anything.”

  “Will do.” His familiar replied.

  The large snake familiar slithered out the opening and disappeared around the corner of the workshop. Marcus then turned to him. “Thanks Pepper.”

  He smiled and waved back at his roommate. “Don’t mention it man. That was great training for me also. I feel a lot better going into the invitational.”

  Marcus shook his head and lifted his hand to emphasize. “No… seriously Pepper. Thank you. I have to admit, our whole tension around my friends really irritated me and I resented you for a while. But… the closer we got to the invitational, the more I started to panic about being ready. I didn’t want to get out there and make a fool of myself and get obliterated in one or two matches.

  “You have been by far the best gladiator I’ve come to meet. But, I was nervous to ask you and felt I had burned a bridge with you, or something like that. I was nervous to ask you in front of Andrea. When she and I talked last night, I actually asked her, and she told me to simply ask you.”

  “Well, thanks for asking. Trust me, this helped me just as much as I helped you.” Pepper shrugged his shoulders. “You know, look at the other gladiators in the league. Many of them are all friends but compete against each other. They’ve often talk about helping each other behind the scenes with training. That and you’ve helped me with all the Golem Chat stuff. I mean… we’re equal.”

  Marcus reached over and tapped his shoulder with his hand. “Man… I am glad our paths crossed. I wish I had a friend like you back home.”

  “Well, you have a friend now.”

  “For real my man. Haha!” Marcus smiled beamed. “Also, Andrea… I now get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “How you are the way you are. She is the real deal. I totally get why you gave me so much push back when we first got here.”

  Pepper shifted his gaze over to the house. “Yeah… she’s awesome. I got real lucky.”

  “Man…. If luck was a thing that your stats would be to the moon with that one.”

  The two laughed and then heard Rattler call out that the area was clear of any perceived threats. Pepper felt a youthful playfulness come over him. “Race you to the house?”

  Marcus confidently grinned. “You’re-” He didn’t have a chance to answer as Pepper nudged him off balance and then took off in a dead sprint towards the house.