I am Maximus, the Champion of Champions. And yes, I defeated the crowd's new favorite, Victor. But the true testament to my greatness is that he lived for so long.

The day I met Victor—who was yet to receive this proud name from our Empress—feels like it was yesterday.

The owner of our gladiatorial school, Rufius Fulgentius, brought him in, fresh from the slave market. Flushed with excitement, he didn't scoot away to his office. He squealed for me to 'Come, quick!' and 'See what I have!' the moment he stepped into the gallery separating the training yard from the living quarters and the gymnasium.

I thundered in, so flushed from the fighting, that my sandals pounded the dirt floor into rock.

Once I laid my eyes on the rookie, however, the scowl melted right off my face. Sweat cooled between my shoulder blades. A few goosebumps might have popped up here and there.

Before me stood everything a lanista prays for. Nay, lives for.

Yes to the bulging muscles on the back of Victor's arms and thighs! Yes to the width of his shoulders! And a hip-hip-hurrah! for his skull-crushing hands. He even sported wicked scars underneath his fresh slave brand for added fierceness.

"Welcome to my school, rookie," I said. "I'm Maximus and I shall forge you into the champion of the arena." And a crowning achievement of my career.

Victor didn't stir. His skin and hair were blue, typical of the barbarians native to Nanciscor; other than that, they didn't look much different from us. 

Hmm, did he speak our civilized tongue? Rufius Fulgentius wouldn't have grabbed him, if he didn't. Plus, I sensed resistance in the stiffness of his shoulders. He had to understand my words to resent them.

"Fidelium lusts for a perfect man. A perfect killer. A perfect lover," I said louder than before. "The ordinary citizens crowd the stands of the arena looking for him among the lesser gladiators."

I half-turned, showing our training yard. Today, the sun shone on its gray sand, if only a single ray, meager and pale. However, my students' training swords clanked against one another with vigor. As if to help me make my point, my best shouted in triumph, downing his partner. The loser rolled, released his grasp on the sword and let it fly wide. It ended up crashing into the walls, surrounding the yard.

"Tat! Tat!" I hollered at the rest of the guys, who stopped to clap the textbook take-down. "Back to it, slackers!"

Victor towered next to me, rock-solid and silent. His hand, modestly covering his privates, didn't clench. Not a single spark of glee danced in his blue eyes.

My gut protested this big fat nothing. The training yard was as loyal a copy of the Fidelium Colosseum as Rufius Fulgentius could afford. Actually, a loyal copy of a loyal copy, for what wasn't a copy in our Empire? But one didn't need to see the original Roman arenas on Earth, if he had arena-lust in him.

Mithras' bulls, what was wrong with my future champion? Why was his face impassive and his wide chest barely rose and fell with even breath?

On that chest, the slave's brand sat dead-center of the right pectoral. The hair was shaved off in a neat rectangle. Every letter even-edged, burned into blue flesh to a regimented depth, not more to torture, not less out of false pity. The 'F' of the P.U.F. was crusted in indigo of dried blood, but not inflamed. It showed pride in craftsmanship. So... a fresh batch of the rebels at the Imperial frontier? Battle-shocked?

"You can put your clothes back on." I pointed at the tunic and pants that lay folded by Victor's feet. He obeyed, but didn't rush it.

I nodded my head, following his unhurried movements. The sack-like garment looked prettier on him than togas do on the lesser men, and beauty came in handy in our ancient profession. "The gladiator is so good at love and war, that the high and mighty pay him to perform either act."

Victor's icicle-blue curls brushed the support beam as he straightened after pulling up his pants.

"The champion's name is graffiti on every wall. His death makes the crowd weep and swear off stepping into the arena ever again, because the era is over. There will never be a champion like him again!"

My reward was a single blink from Victor. "I don't speak Latin," he said, barely moving his jaw.

"Perfect. You don't have to speak. It's understanding me that is paramount. You can do that, right?"

Victor remained silent.

"I take this as a yes. Now, where was I?"

Rufius Fulgentius kicked a broken shield that was leaning against the gallery wall in anticipation of repair. It toppled sideways and quaked on the packed dirt for a bit.

Victor and I gawked, unsure if any violence was to ensue or...?

The old reprobate settled cross-legged on the shield. Apparently, he just wanted to rest his back against the railing. Once comfy, Rufius Fulgentius sighed, produced a cup from the folds of his cloak and poured himself wine from a wineskin. He always had it dangling from his belt, always half-full.

"Maximus," Rufius Fulgentius took a sip, bit at a hangnail, then lifted his eyes to the thatch instead of the heaven. "The champion's name is a damn graffiti on every damn wall... keep going."

"There was more. The thing about death," Victor said, looking troubled by the prospect of sitting through my pitch for the second time.

"Seems to me, your Latin is fine."

Victor's pout screamed, I'm not talking to you ever again, dirty trickster! 

Heh. "The champion's death makes the crowds weep in ecstasy and swear off stepping into the arena ever again. Fortunately for our noble owner's purse, they always come back."

His mouth twisted, and I lifted my finger, to stop him from spitting. "You see, they tell themselves that it had to be this way. That a gladiator is an enslaved god, and that's how the arena grants eternal youth and unbeatable power. Nobody wants a young Emperor, and nobody wants an old gladiator."

"Viva the Emperor!" Rufius Fulgentius put in deftly.

"Viva Claudius Caesar!" I echoed.

Then I took one step closer to our rookie and stared directly into his eyes.

"Do you understand what it means to be a gladiator?"

Victor folded his arms across his chest. Welts from the ropes needed ointment, but the bruises would heal on their own. Other than that, he was in prime condition. Astounding, really, considering his rough transportation from the wild frontier.

"I understand perfectly, barbarian. And I'll never fight in your foul arena."

My lips twitched in a smile: the champion inside him was stirring. I unfastened a certain item from my belt. It was a wooden rod, about the length of a gladius sword. Its steel core helped match the weight as exactly as possible, though without the sword's grip. "Do you know what this is, barbarian?"

"A stick? You'll beat me with it, taskmaster?"

"Tempting, but no."

A lopsided smirk snuck onto his face, erasing the memory of his earlier tantrum, but was gone the moment he realized he was smiling back at me.

"Guess again."

"It's a stick," Victor repeated.

"For the second time, no." I infused my voice with infinite patience. "This is a rudis, and it represents freedom."

"Then you have lots of this 'freedom'." He swept the gallery with a derisive gaze, as if nets, tridents, swords and other weapons hung on its wall and from the rafters caused him displeasure.

Excitement flared in my gut. This was a duel of wills, and I loved all duels. That's what got me into the profession in the first place. That's what made me the Champion of Champions.

"You're right. We train with similar rudii. But this one..." I made an arc in the air with my rod, enjoying how it sat in my hand. For a stick, my ceremonial rod had an excellent balance. "It's different. Important. It deserves respect."

Victor's gaze tracked the rod while it moved, as if he knew I could kill a man with it. As if he guessed how many men I had to kill to receive it.

"Claudius Caesar, the Emperor of the Fidus Empire, presented me with it when I won every bout of the Great Games."

"Wow." Victor whistled to fake admiration. There was something about him, something—brazen? Earnest? Raw? Something irresistible.

"The Emperor's recognition made me a free man, the rudiarius."

He regaled me with a glance that mixed disdain with pity. "You used to be a gladiator?"

"Not just any gladiator. I'm the reigning Champion of Champions, because nobody has won the Great Games since. My record stands in the arenas of Fidelium, unchallenged." I pinned Victor with my gaze. "Fight with valor, beat it—and you shall win your freedom."

"A free man can't enter the boundaries of the Fidelium Empire on the penalty of death."

He meant a barbarian man, of course.

"If the rudiarius is a barbarian, he's escorted to the border with all honor due his station."

Victor smirked. "To finish the savage off or to release him into the wilderness?"

"To go wherever it pleases him. Home, if that's what you wish."

"Fidelis burned my home."

What was he expecting of me? An apology? It was we, the Fidelis, besieged by the barbarian tide since the Crossing to Nanciscor. They were many; we were few. We were a rock cliff from Earth that persevered for five generations in their midst.

"You know why we win over you? Because we hadn't backed down once in our hundred twenty-four years here." I twirled my rudis before his nose before stuffing it behind my belt. "But if you won't fight..."

He spat on the packed dirt before the pause reached the dramatic climax; I think he wanted to do it for so long, he couldn't hold it in any longer. 

"You, Fidelis, turn everyone into a dog, even your own."

There it was, the fighting spirit, even if I had to coax it in such a childish way. Nice. "We don't."

"Says a man who fought for a stick."

Rufius Fulgentius turned redder than his wine from containing his mirth, but I had no time for him. I locked gazes with Victor until I read him as clear as I would a graffiti on the walls. The barbarian thought that because he had nothing to lose; feared neither death nor punishment, I wouldn't be able to harness the fury directed at me to create my champion. He'd know me better before long.

"I suggest heavy armor, but no shield for starters. Remember that old set, the one Laurentius keeps asking after?" I said to Rufius Fulgentius.

He tilted his head this way and that, imagining Victor kitted out in my old armor. "Yes, it would do."

What an understatement! My breastplate on Victor would be just what the Senate ordered. Laurentius would grumble, because I told him that on a man of a bigger stature, this armor would be like slapping beetle's wings on a behemoth. But let him grumble!

All I needed was to get the plate to an armorer to mend, have the straps adjusted, and the dents—fixed. I used it hard in the fight that won me my rudis.

"Leave the helmet off though," Rufius Fulgentius murmured upon further pondering. "We don't want to hide his pretty face."

I nodded. "Agreed."

Despite a prominent nose and wide teeth, wild eyes and sticking-out ears, Victor's face was as alluring as his body. His features just combined well, because Venus is full of mischief. In the heat of a fight, when Victor's blood ran high and the thirst to win gripped his heart, his mouth would charge with primal sensuality, his big blue eyes would blaze. The arena would salivate over his looks, which was half-the-battle. In defeat, you could but pray that the crowd found you too handsome to die.

Victor glanced between us, then refolded his arms on his chest and set his feet wider apart for a good measure. So fortified, he drove every word of his following sentence into me like spikes.

"I won't fight my brothers in your foul arena."

"Would you look at that? A barbarian shaking with indignation at the thought of fighting another barbarian! Isn't that all they do in the woods?" Actually, it was Rufius Fulgentius who shook, with his insipid giggles. "Well, we have an outlet for this piss and bluster, don't we, Maximus?"

"Yes, we do." Involuntarily, my gaze drifted back to the training yard. In the middle of it, a slight figure of our jester, Quintus— 

No. My heart saw Quintus as slight, not my eyes. He was a tad coltish, but he'd grown out of his adolescence. His taunts became so biting of late, I couldn't fault other men for punching his teeth in during the mock fights. The best way to protect him was to arm him and let him taste blood in the arena like a man, while... 

Mithras, yes!  Our rookie could take Quintus' old position as a jester. So simple a solution, it was elegant for a connoisseur of our lethal art.

I allowed myself a tight smile. "With your permission, noble Rufius Fulgentius, I'll tell Quintus that you've just purchased our new jester."