The dust in the air faded as the other gladiators left the arena, leaving the corpses of defeated men and animals. The large metal gate opened and the famous Spiculus appeared with his shiny mermillo metal armour that covered his whole right arm, carrying a heavy sword. He threw away his shield on his left hand, revealing his left arm, which was also covered with the same arm shield. Although he exposed his muscular chest, It was still not the usual mermillo style.

“You’ve taken my hunt, woman!”

He was unimpressed, he never expected their fight could end too soon. The Erymanthian boar was supposed to drain out as many gladiators as possible. He had planned to enter the arena and kill that boar to claim his ultimate victory against all other gladiators.

“Didn’t your circus leader inform you about the game plan?”

Mevia stared straight at him, she was not informed about the boar. Although she knew most of the gladiator fights were staged and every fighter had to follow a game plan, such plan was never informed to any noxiis – the cannon fodder in the battle field, to be fed to the animals, and to be slain by the winners.

But what was more attractive than any glorious victory? When freedom was the final reward! Even a noxii could only day dream about getting close to that opportunity. She did not reply to him, dragging her sword, she dashed towards him with all her strength, she wanted to end the game as soon as possible, for the reward was too alluring to resist.

Spiculus blocked her sword with ease, with the metal armours on his both arms, he knocked her away.

“Rude! Mannerless! Pathetic noxii! You started the fight before paying respect to Caesar and the audience!” He leered at her, with a woman as his only opponent, he clearly knew there was no way he could lose this match. But he needs to put up a good show for the spectators.

“For the glory of the nation, let me teach you a lesson on how to be a submissive woman!”

The crowd cheered for him and they dashed towards each other. Knowing her strength was unable to match his, she dodged him at close distance, turning and aimed at his legs. Uncaught by the sudden change of direction, he kicked her. But his kick knocked on the edge of the metal shield on her hand.

Taking the opportunity of close distance, she tried to stab Spiculus with the short sword, but he grabbed her hair, and caught her arm. Twisting and she has to turn herself down to the ground else he would disjoint her arm. She had to let go of the sword and the shield.

The large man successfully pinned her down on the ground and the crowd shouted with exhilaration. He knew killing a mere woman would not brought him any glorious praises, thus, his next move was intended to torture and humiliate her, although, this noxii woman was not physically attractive to his standard.

When his face got closer to hers, she spit out a burst of dirt and sand from her mouth towards his eyes.

“Arrgh!” While the sand caught in his eyes, she raised her hip and forced him to fall ahead to the ground. Hugging tight to his torso, she avoided his retaliation, and turned herself over him. She knew she could not hold him long, and she needed a weapon, but the only thing on the nearby ground was the metal net, thus, she simply grabbed that and ran away from him.

Angered with tears, he shaked his head hard to remove the debris. The metal net caught him and Mevia retrieved a trident from a defeated retiarius, aiming at the man, she dashed towards him. Spiculus roared and with his both arms, he tore the metal net apart with ease, and captured the trident head. He pulled and swung the trident, sending the woman flying when she released the handle, and crashing on the dead boar’s corpse.

Spiculus used the trident to stab Mevia, but she jumped to the other side of the boar, using its tusks to trap the trident heads. Ceasing another moment, she jumped out, reaching to the other end of the trident handle, wrenching the end to trapped Spiculus between the trident handle and the boar corpse.

Before she could stab him with a short knife, Spiculus broke the trident handle in half to unlock himself. She noticed that his arms were with strength beyond human. What hidden beneath that pair of arm shields?

To be continued…