As they marched down the corridor toward the transport sector, Nova spotted her crew already lining up. Dez "Blitz" Karrou, cracking his knuckles with a cocky smirk. Kade "Mute" Voss, calm as ever with a sketchpad tucked under his arm. Ayu "Petal" Tanaka, looking anxious but trying to stay brave.
But that's when Nova saw them, three guys hanging near the end of the hallway. Slouched, casual. But their eyes tracked her like wolves. And one of them… she recognized the tattoo on his neck.
Her stomach dropped.
That was one of the men who jumped X.
Her pace slowed.
She kept her face unreadable, slipping in beside Vera. "Vere," she muttered low. "You know those three by the wall?"
Vera gave a slight nod. "Yeah. Grin's boys. Word is they follow his orders like religion. Why?"
"They're the ones who jumped X that night remember when you went to clock us in," Nova whispered. "I recognize the tattoo."
Before Vera could react, the one with the tattoo made a move, quick, like a snake.
Nova barely dodged the hit, but the second came fast and heavy. A punch landed in her recovering side, knocking the breath out of her. She dropped to one knee, catching herself.
"Grin sends his regards," one of them hissed.
Vera lunged in, throwing a kick into the attacker's stomach while the guards rushed in, tasers raised.
"BACK UP! BACK UP!" the guards barked, dragging the attackers off Nova.
She was hurt. But she winced hard as Vera helped her to her feet.
"You alright?" Vera asked, panic in her eyes.
Nova coughed. "Yeah. Ain't nothing but bruises. I'm good. I'm good…"
But she wasn't. Not really.
As they escorted her to the transfer bus, Nova looked back, and the guy with the neck tattoo just smirked at her like it was only the beginning.
And it was.
This wasn't just survival anymore.
This was war.
The lights were harsh white, buzzing faintly. A nurse with a synthetic arm worked fast to stop the bleeding, spraying biofoam across the reopened wound. Nova winced and clenched her jaw.
"You popped a couple of stitches," the nurse said flatly. "You're benched for the rest of the week. No fighting, no contact. You tear this open again and it could be permanent damage."
Nova rolled her eyes, frustrated. "So I'm just supposed to lie around while they do the semi-finals?"
"You're lucky to still be walking."
She spent the day in a high-security infirmary cell, cold bed, no windows, quiet as death. The pain meds hit late, and she drifted off at some point, half-mad from boredom.
It was the sound of the door hissing open that woke her.
Footsteps. Light ones. Measured.
She sat up quickly, but didn't need to defend herself. That presence, she knew it.
X.
Helmet on. Silent as always.
He stepped closer to her bed, pulled a small chair up, and sat down, chair backwards, facing her.
" I know they got you."
"I'm fine," Nova muttered, annoyed by her own weakness.
"You don't gotta worry though," X said suddenly, voice low, dangerous, and steady.
Nova blinked. He spoke again.
"I'll handle them myself. You just focus on healing."
She looked at him, hard. "You serious right now?"
X nodded once. "They think hurting you gives them better chances. It don't."
Nova narrowed her eyes. "So you planning to go at them alone?"
"I've done worse," he said simply.
Nova frowned. There was silence for a beat, heavy and personal.
"X…. This is dangerous….." she finally said, voice softer.
He tilted his head slightly. "I know. I'll be fine."
And just like that, he stood. No dramatics. No lingering.
But before he left, he looked over his shoulder and added:
"Rest. I need you sharp when the bigger fish come."
The door slid shut, and she was left staring at the space where he'd been.
Her fingers curled into the blanket.
It was evening the next day. The alarm lights hadn't gone off yet.
Nova sat on the edge of her stiff infirmary bed, staring at the clock. Tick. Tick. The match was set to start in five minutes. She hadn't heard anything, no announcements, no buzz, but her gut was screaming.
Something wasn't right.
X was facing Grin and his crew alone. All of them. One of him.
She gritted her teeth. The nurse's words echoed in her skull;
"Tear it again, and you might not recover."
Screw that. X didn't belong out there solo. Not after everything they'd trained for.
He could die out there.
And just like that, she moved.
She yanked the IV from her arm with a hiss, grabbed the hoodie tossed on the chair, and zipped it over her bandaged side. Her skates were in the corner. The guards had been cocky. Dumb move. Nova laced them up like fire was chasing her heels.
She slipped into the hallway, hugging the wall.
The camera in the corner blinked red.
Nova pulled her hoodie up, ducked low, and waited until it turned away. Then she dashed. Fast and quiet. Every movement burned, but adrenaline drowned the pain. She was fueled by panic, loyalty, and something she couldn't name.
Not yet.
The guards were distracted at the security post, watching the match begin on a holoscreen. Grin was already on the ice, grinning wide like a shark in blood.
Nova's heart slammed as she took in the screen. Every player out there had a clown mask on. This was a setup not only from Grin, but from someone inside.
He was surrounded and didn't know.
She cut past the checkpoint unseen, flew down the back hall, and reached the locker entrance. One guard stood there, lean, bored, sipping synth-coffee.
He looked up too late.
Crack. She dropped him with the flat of her stick, pain screaming through her side.
She didn't stop.
She burst through the next door, into the locker room that led to the ice.
The air in the locker room was cold and stale, smelled like sweat, blood, and bad intentions. Nova limped past the rows of lockers until she found it, Grin's. Slick black with stickers of skulls, blood drips, and a crude smiling face scrawled in red.
She yanked it open.
Inside: gear, knives, old candy wrappers, and,
A mask.
It stared back at her. A cracked white clown mask, the kind that twisted humor into horror. The painted smile was crooked, mouth too wide, eyes hollow with red tear streaks running down the cheeks. It looked like a joke left behind by a demon.
Nova snatched it and slipped it over her face.
"Let's see how you like it when the joke's on you," she muttered.
She dragged on one of their extra uniforms, baggy black-and-purple gear with jagged red slashes, a jacket stitched with the number 666. Blood-stained gloves. A padded vest. The weight pressed into her bandaged ribs, but she didn't flinch.
She flicked her eyes to the monitor.
The match had already started.
On screen, X was dancing on blades, a ghost slicing through hell. He dipped, spun, dodged, his twin-blade hockey stick clashing against steel, drawing sparks, but there were too many. They circled like vultures. eighteen on one. No rules, just chaos.
And he was still standing.
Nova's chest tightened. "Come on, X… don't go down on me now."
The crowd outside roared and booed as Grin's crew charged him. The camera followed X as he skated backwards, blood trailing from a slice on his side. A goon tried to grab him, he ducked and elbowed him in the jaw, skating full speed backward while blocking another strike with his blade.
He was running out of time.
Then Grin entered.
And everything turned.
The lights darkened, music hit, some twisted circus melody, and Grin glided in slow, dragging a spiked stick behind him like a butcher's cleaver. The crowd booed louder, some even throwing trash. But it didn't matter.
Grin lived for chaos.
And X, he was about to be overwhelmed.
Nova grabbed the last strap of her armor and sprinted.
The gate to the ice exploded open as Nova skated out fast, low, and silent.
The announcer stuttered, "W-wait, who's that, ?"
But she didn't stop.
Grin had just raised his stick above X, two of his men holding X down.
Nova came in like death.
CRACK!
The first goon didn't even see her coming. Her stick slammed across his ribs. He hit the ice gasping she silently cut his throat.
WHAM!
The second barely turned before she hit his knees and flipped him backwards. X rolled away just as a third tried to grab Nova, she ducked, spun on one knee, and stabbed the sharp butt of her stick straight into his throat.
Not a word.
Not a sound.
Just fury in motion.
X scrambled to his feet, stunned. The crowd erupted, unable to tell what team she was on, but they knew what they were watching.
Poetry in violence.
Nova stood between him and Grin now. The mask stared. The blood on her side seeped through her uniform. She didn't flinch.
Grin froze. "...What the, "
Before he could finish, a blur slid across the ice beside X, fast and low like a ghost slipping out the dark.
Back to back now.
X turned, blades ready, but paused as the mystery skater locked in behind him, perfect sync. Tight, controlled breath. Every muscle coiled like it'd trained with him for years.
The arena roared in confusion.
"We've got… wait, who is that?"
"That's not one of Grin's players, hold on, we're getting word from the watchtower now, "
Guards scrambled. Spectators pressed to the glass.
But X already knew.
He looked over his shoulder, helmet tilting slightly. "What's your game?"
The figure reached up and adjusted the cracked clown mask just slightly. Then, voice low and smooth beneath the chaos:
"Poetry in motion."
His chest lifted once, barely a breath.
Nova.
She didn't wait.
With a pivot and a spin, Nova launched forward, stick sweeping low to take out one of the goons at the knees. He flipped clean into the boards.
X mirrored her move, one fluid blur of blades and motion, slicing another attacker's pad strap so hard it whipped off mid-spin. The guy hit the wall, out cold.
Together, they moved like choreography, like rhythm and jazz on ice. Not just fighters, artists. Arms flowing, feet stomping into skids, their movements blurred the line between battle and breakdance.
Nova spun into a sweep, low to the ice, popping up with a windmill kick that cracked a helmet off someone's skull.
X flipped his stick into a reverse grip, ducked a swing, and launched into a corkscrew move, spinning mid-air before landing with a blade pressed to another attacker's throat.
"Is this… this is unreal!" the announcer cried. "They're moving like one organism, what is this?!"
Grin backed up, chest heaving. His boys weren't ready for this.
Nova and X circled, slow now. Their chests rising and falling in rhythm. Eyes scanning. The goons hesitated, afraid.
Nova twirled the stick between her fingers like a baton, flicking off a splatter of blood.
X cracked his neck, then raised his hand for a slow three-count.
Three. Two. One.
Go.
They struck again.
One-two beatdowns.
Nova used X's shoulder as a vault, leaping into a backflip and landing blade-first on someone's leg guard. X ducked under her landing and shoulder-checked another goon so hard his visor cracked.
They didn't miss.
They didn't speak.
They danced.
And from the stands?
Every viewer was frozen in awe.
By the time they were done,the crowd was thunder.
Only four left standing on the ice, X, Nova, Grin, and the enforcer with the snake tattoo curling up his neck like a demon's whisper. Blood stained the white like art, like war.
Nova's chest heaved. Pain clawed at her ribs, her side damp and dark with reopened wounds.
She didn't care. Not with this creep and his pet snake still breathing.
The enforcer cracked his neck and grinned. "Didn't I say you were soft?" His blade-tipped skates clicked as he circled her. "Look at you now. Bleedin'. Barely standin'. Still think you can take me?"
Nova didn't speak. She slid low and fast, her blade scraping. He met her with a savage slash that barely missed her throat.
They danced, fast and ugly. Nova's stick smacked his shin, but he twisted and rammed an elbow into her side. Her vision sparked white. Her breath left her in a gasp.
"Yeah, that hurts, don't it?" he sneered, pressing the advantage.
Nova dropped to one knee like she was breaking, then pushed off the ice with everything she had, launching herself at him. She cracked his mask once. Then again. He stumbled back.
But he came back swinging, faster, angrier.
He landed a hit that knocked her onto her back, her braids sprawled across the ice like a fallen flag. Blood hit her lip.
He stood over her. "Should've stayed in bed love.It's a shame really pretty as you are."
Nova's eyes snapped open, chip kicking in.
"You right," she said, voice low.
She twisted suddenly, hooking his ankle with her stick and yanking hard. He slipped. As he fell, she flipped up onto her feet and brought her elbow down onto his throat, hard. He choked, tried to reach, but she was already moving.
In a blur, she jammed her stick under his chin and drove it into the ice, pinning his head down. His body thrashed. She held fast.
"It is a shame," she whispered.
Then, she spun, and with a final, brutal crack of her skate blade across his neck, and he went limp.
Silence.
The crowd gasped. Then screamed.
Nova stood over him, panting, shaking, ribs on fire.
Across the rink, Grin cursed and shoved X, who deflected the blow with elegant precision. He was fast, but he was slowing. Nova saw it. The wear. The pain. He was bleeding too much.
She started toward him, but Grin broke off as soon as he saw her, eyes on the puck. He knew he couldn't handle them both.
He took off skating, fast and wild, sliding through the chaos toward the goal.
X chased him.
But Grin slammed the puck in.
The buzzer blared.
Immunity.
The crowd booed, angry at the cowardice antics but helpless to undo it.
Nova clenched her fists, watching Grin raise his arms like he was king of hell. Not yet, she thought. Your time's coming.
She looked up, and there was X. Now the only opponents they had were each other. Now she would see his true intent.
He stood by the puck at center rink, breathing hard, blood on his collar. He looked at her. She looked at him.
Then he stepped back from the newly placed puck.
No words.
Just that silent look, saying go ahead.
Nova skated forward slowly, unsure at first. "You sure?" she asked quietly as they stood face to face. " Your fans may not like you playing nice."
He gave a faint nod.
Nova stared at him a moment longer, then at Grin, exiting the rink like he was a champion.
X shrugged. "Next time."
She took a breath, stepped up to the puck, and slammed it into the goal so hard the sound echoed through the entire coliseum like a war cry.
The crowd erupted in cheers to their surprise. His fans chanting his name and hers chanting her taking turns.
"X! ROSE! X! ROSE! X! ROSE!"
They stood there a beat longer, two warriors in blood, in breath, in silence.