Iron Heart (The Gauntlet #2)

Chapter 45 - At What Cost

The semi-finals delivered two of the most hotly anticipated clashes of the entire competition.

On one side, Ripple Thawborn had surgically dismantled opponents from Alpha Centuri, Kuiper One and even dispatched Cassandra Riven from her own academy, to set up an encounter with Keefer Darkwood. The giant's form hadn't faltered, his mechanical technique and enhanced exoskeleton driving him through victories against Torri Masters, the top seed from the Holdfast Academy, and again against Battlecast's Cardle North in the quarter final.

On the other side, after beating Max, Codi had come out of her quarter-final slug fest a winner, once again getting the better of Darien Fallow. With the Olympus Mons fighter out of the way, she finally had a chance to excise one of the demons that had been dogging her competition. Her semi-final would be against none other than Dustin Morto.

While the hype and the media frenzy had largely centred on Keefer Darkwood, Morto had quietly gone about his business, crashing through the opening round with ease, before seeing off two top ten opponents, including Chris O'Leary in the quarter final, to place himself within touching distance of Gauntlet glory.

Now everyone was paying attention to a contest that had analysts, journalists and fans alike drooling with anticipation. Codi fielded half a dozen interviews in the run up to the clash, some of it about her, about her fight with Max, about what she expected from Morto; whether she thought with her and Ripple both in the semis there might well be an all Battlecast showdown for the final.

She deflected the worst of it and answered what she could, more concerned at the moment to discover whether or not Kye and Rokki had had any success in their shadowy endeavour. So far she'd heard nothing from the pair. Her heart wrenched back and forth over what it really wanted. On the one hand, she had no desire to see Ripple eliminated by a cheat, but equally, she wanted her shot at Keefer Darkwood. She wanted to get him alone in the arena and see just how far his little gadgets would take him when faced with the full force of her wrath.

But it looked like there'd been no progress, and she couldn't dwell on it any longer. Before any of that could happen, she needed to beat Dustin Morto, and that was by no means a certainty.

She'd studied him in the recording rooms with Thradd by her side, looking for any weaknesses she could exploit, but Dustin Morto was a frustratingly simple opponent, with solid technique and not prone to displays of showmanship. He lacked her speed, but his sheer size offset whatever advantage that might have given her. No matter what clever scheme she concocted, Codi was painfully aware that she would always be in range of those windmill-like blows before she could strike.

Her preparation, therefore, had focused on getting positional advantages; escaping holds and dodging left and right, circling like a wasp and finding any opportunity to attack from the back or sides. No easy task when facing an alert, dangerous opponent, but it was the one thing she could do to him that he wouldn't be able to replicate.

Fans and reporters lined the approach to the arena into two clamouring, undulating walls of flesh. Camera drones swooped and flashed like vultures on a corpse. Codi bit back the disdain; waved to the crowds and put on her most appealing smile. Tried not to flinch when the drones dived past her. It was over in a few moments.

They stepped through the blissful threshold where the noise of the world ebbed down to its lowest and she could gather her thoughts. Codi rolled her head from side to side, loosening her neck, and shook our her arms and legs, going through a small series of stretches with the time she had left, running through everything she and Thradd had worked on in the run up to the fight.