Chapter 711: Cold Space Babe

Not long ago...

The line was quiet for a moment.

"My name is Nyx Cosmos."

Brittany’s hand tightened on the phone. Trisha had gone rigid beside her, her eyes locked on the screen between them as if the name might rearrange itself into something less offensive.

"And I have an offer for you," the voice continued. It was calm and unhurried, the kind of tone that belonged to someone sitting comfortably while the person on the other end was falling apart.

Brittany’s jaw worked once before the words came out.

"You have some nerve."

"Yeah."

"You killed our friend." The fury came up fast and hot and it felt better than anything she’d felt in hours. "You threw a boulder at our team and Stacy fell and the Colossus crushed her into paste. Her body didn’t even look like a person when they pulled it out. You know that?"

The line was quiet. The woman on the other end didn’t rush to fill the silence, didn’t offer the kind of automatic sympathy that strangers gave when they heard about a death they hadn’t caused.

"Yes, I know that," Nyx said.

"Then why the fuck are you calling us?" Trisha cut in, her voice flat and controlled and vibrating underneath with the kind of anger that stayed quiet because it was too big to let out all at once. "To gloat? To rub it in while we sit here and rot?"

"Why else? I have a business offer for you."

Brittany’s laugh came out ugly and raw. "A business offer. A business offer from the woman who killed Stacy. Go fuck yourself and tell your psychopath boyfriend who orchestrated the whole thing to choke on his own dick while you’re at it. You murdered our best friend and you want to pitch us a deal? What is wrong with you?"

"Are you done?"

"No, I’m not done! You think we’re going to sit here and listen to the bitch who crushed our teammate into fucking paste and then went home smiling? You make me sick."

Trisha grabbed the phone from Brittany’s hand. "If this is some kind of game, you better stop! I’ve had enough of-"

"There’s no love lost between us," Nyx interrupted. Her voice hadn’t changed. The same measured calm, the same unhurried cadence, as if two A-tier fighters threatening her life was a breeze she’d already accounted for. "Your man called mine a fag while you grinned like dumb sluts behind him. You think I care for you and your opinion? Even if it was an act you put on, I don’t give a shit about either of you."

The girls’ eyes widened. They hadn’t expected this from Nyx, the woman widely recognized as the quiet background girl with some quirky, cheeky lines.

Nyx continued, uncaring for their current thoughts. "You’ve spent the past week harassing us on camera and in the field. We’re not kids on a playground. You don’t get to bully us and then cry for mommy when you get hit back. We’re awakened warriors on a monster-infested battlefield, and you actively hampering our growth isn’t you taking our ball away and refusing to give it back. It’s you pointing a gun at our heads and holding us hostage until the monsters or our other enemies ate us alive."

Brittany’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.

"So no," Nyx continued. "I’m not going to apologize. I don’t like either of you. I’m not sympathetic to your cause. I think you both deserve your fate. You’re greedy women who smelled quick money and degraded yourselves despite having an immensely bright future ahead of you, and now you’re paying the price for it. As far as I’m concerned, you two are nothing like me or Alexandra. We were kids whose parents made bad decisions. You’re adults, loose women happy to part your legs for fame and money."

The balcony was very quiet.

Trisha’s grip on the phone had gone white. Brittany was staring at it like it had bitten her, her mouth still open, her face cycling through fury and disbelief and the specific pain of hearing the truth from someone who had killed your friend and somehow made you feel ashamed on top of it.

"Now," Nyx said, and her tone shifted exactly one degree toward brisk. "Are you going to keep bitching to me, or shall we get down to business? I got out of bed when I received the news so as to not wake them up. I’d much rather curl up to my psychotic boyfriend and kiss his cheek than talk to you two."

Trisha was the first to recover. Her voice came out thin and hard. "What’s the offer?"

"Legal protection, housing, and operational support. Runewoven’s legal department takes over your contract dispute. You continue to fight, continue to earn, and you do it under Kaiden’s banner instead of Maeve’s. You walk away from Ashbound tonight and you don’t look back."

Brittany wiped her face with the heel of her hand. "In exchange for what?"

"Your cooperation. Your professionalism. And your respect."

"Respect?" Brittany’s voice cracked on the word. "You just called us loose women. You just said we deserved this. And now you want respect?"

"I want respect for the man who’s about to save your careers and your freedom. Yes." Nyx’s voice sharpened, and the sharpness was worse than the cruelty because it was precise. "I don’t care what you think of me. You can hate me until the day you die. But if you accept this deal, you will treat Kaiden Grey as your benefactor. You will show him and every member of his team courtesy, humility, and gratitude. You will not raise your voices. You will not bare your teeth. You will behave as though the man who gave you a lifeline is a saint."

"And if we don’t?" Trisha asked.

"Then I’ll put you down myself."

Brittany let out a sharp breath. "You? Put us down? We’re A-tier fighters! You’re a support who hides behind everyone else. What exactly are you going to-"

"You know where you are right now," Nyx said, and the calm returned so completely that the threat might as well have never happened. "You know who called before me. You know how many more will call after. And you know that by this time tomorrow, the only people in the world willing to help you are on the other end of this line."

The wind moved across the balcony. Neither of them spoke.

"I need an answer by sunrise," Nyx said. "You have my number now."

She hung up.

Then she turned around, leaned her back against the railing, and looked at the moon.

It was beautiful tonight. Full and pale and close enough that the craters were visible along the edge, and the light it threw across the mountains turned everything silver and strange. Nyx tilted her head and watched it the way you watched something pretty that had nothing to do with you.

’No wonder Aria got moon powers,’ she thought. ’The supermodel chick gets the most beautiful element. How unfair.’

The aesthetics of mana distribution were profoundly unfair, she realized. Nyx got space powers. Powerful, yes, extremely so, but they were transparent to the eyes, perfect to not stand out while Aria got to glow under the moonlight like a goddess carved from marble.

She smiled at nothing and waited.

...

Brittany was hyperventilating.

"We can’t," she said, and her voice was shaking. "We can’t work for them. We can’t look at that woman every day knowing she killed Stacy. I can’t do it, Trisha. I can’t."

Trisha was sitting very still with her hands flat on her thighs and her eyes closed.

"Trisha."

"I’m thinking."

"There’s nothing to think about! She just called us loose women and said we deserved everything that happened to us! She threatened to put us down like animals! How can you even consider-"

"Because she’s right."

Brittany stopped.

Trisha opened her eyes. They were red and wet and furious and absolutely clear.

"She’s right that we have nowhere else to go. She’s right that those calls are going to keep coming. She’s right that by tomorrow the only people willing to help us are on the other end of that line." Her jaw tightened. "I don’t have to like her. I don’t have to forgive her. I just have to survive, and right now she’s the only one offering survival."

"At what cost?"