Beatrix jerked upright on the cot, disoriented. She'd made it back to her quarters somehow, didn't remember the walk. The terminal showed 15:37, she'd lost hours. Slept without meaning to, body demanding rest despite her mind's resistance.
The chime repeated.
Beatrix stood, every muscle protesting, and opened the door.
Kivi and Rain stood in the corridor with equipment cases. Kivi looked tired, not physically, but emotionally. Like she'd been crying recently and put herself back together through force of will. Rain looked energized, almost eager, his usual casual demeanor replaced by focused intensity.
"Hey," Beatrix said, stepping aside.
"Hey," Kivi replied, voice carefully neutral.
They entered without asking permission, the casual comfort of people who'd already been through violence together. Rain set his equipment case on the desk with practiced efficiency. Kivi moved slower, distracted.
Beatrix noticed the change immediately. "You okay?"
"My father's not speaking to me." Kivi said it flatly, like stating a fact. "Found out I'm crew for a Grind fighter. Didn't take it well."
Rain glanced up from unpacking his terminal but said nothing. Just waited.
"Because of the fight?" Beatrix asked.
"Because of my sister." Kivi's hands were steady as she unpacked diagnostic equipment, but her voice wavered slightly. "She died three months ago. Minos debt collection. They..." She swallowed hard. "To him, me being involved with you, with the Grind, it's the same as choosing to die."
The pieces fell into place. Why Kivi had been so desperate when Minos came for her. Why she'd hugged Beatrix so hard after being saved. Why her father's reaction was terror, not anger.
Beatrix absorbed this. Another weight. Another person paying a price for her choices.
"If you need to step back…"
"I don't." Kivi met her eyes. "He'll get over it. Maybe. Either way, I'm here." She paused. "I was at my parents' pod when you fought Rauk."
"You went home?"
"Yeah. Thought I should watch with family. In case..." She didn't finish. "When you won, when you knocked him out, I screamed so loud my mother nearly collapsed. She thought something terrible had happened."
"What did you tell them?"
"The truth. That my friend was fighting in the Grind. That she'd just won." Kivi's jaw tightened. "My father asked which friend. When I said your name, when I explained how we met, what happened with Minos, he imagined the worst. Started yelling about how I was throwing my life away, how I was going to end up like…" She stopped abruptly.
The silence hung heavy.
"I'm sorry," Beatrix said quietly.
Kivi shook her head. "Not your fault. This is my choice."
Rain cleared his throat, rescuing them from the moment. "Speaking of the fight. I saw Julius's match."
The temperature in the small room seemed to drop.
"Yeah," Beatrix said. "We all did."
"That was murder," Rain said bluntly. "Not competition. Charon didn't wait for the ruling."
"He was sending a message," Kivi added softly. "That he's back. That Acheron was wrong to give up on him. That Rauk isn't the future."
"Julius never had a chance," Beatrix said.
"No," Rain agreed. "He didn't. Bad luck. Wrong draw. Wrong time."
"I saved him in the Culling. Dragged him across that finish line."
"And that mattered," Kivi insisted. "For those extra days, it mattered. But this is the Grind. Eventually it takes everyone."
Virgil noted.
"So," Beatrix said, forcing herself to move past it. "You came to talk strategy?"
"Among other things." Rain pulled up his terminal, fingers flying across the interface. "But first, I need to show you something. People in my feed wouldn't shut up about the Ghost Feed during your fight. Kept saying things like 'check the digital layer' and 'Rauk's team is getting destroyed.' I had no idea what they were talking about."
"Ghost Feed?" Beatrix frowned.
Rain turned the screen toward her. The image showed fight footage from her match against Rauk, but not the arena feed she'd seen. Something else. Something layered and complex.
"Premium subscription service. Shows what most viewers never see, the digital warfare layer running simultaneously with physical combat." He pulled up the dual-layer view. "I subscribed during the final three minutes of your fight. When I switched views..."
The footage played. Her fight with Rauk, but overlaid with information that made her head spin. Colored streams indicating data attacks. Shield visualizations showing her Firewall under stress. Timing markers showing response patterns. A completely invisible war she'd been fighting without knowing it.
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"Seventy-three attacks during your eight-minute fight," Rain said, voice quiet and intense. "Seventy-three separate attempts by Rauk's team to compromise your systems. Reconnaissance probes. Power disruption attempts. Neural interface hacks. Pain amplification protocols."
He highlighted specific moments in the footage.
"Minute two. Acheron team sends reconnaissance probe. See this? Virgil blocks it automatically."
Another highlight.
"Minute four. Seventeen simultaneous intrusion attempts. Your Firewall held, but barely. Look at the stress levels, 67%. If one more coordinated attack had gotten through, your system would have crashed mid-fight."
Another.
"Minute seven, near the end. They tried to overload your pain receptors. Direct neural attack designed to paralyze you through sensory overload. You can see Virgil cutting the connection here, 1.8 seconds. If it had lasted three seconds, permanent neurological damage. You'd be paralyzed or dead."
Beatrix stared at the footage. Watched herself fight Rauk while an entire other battle raged in spaces she couldn't see. Every glitch she'd felt, every moment of system stuttering, those weren't random. Those were attacks.
"Virgil," she said aloud. "Did you see this during the fight?"
"You never mentioned it."
"Yes," she said flatly.
Rain pulled up processing load graphs. "You can see it here. Virgil's resource allocation during the fight. Look at these numbers."
The graph showed a nearly flat line at the top of the chart, barely any variation. 97% utilization. For eight straight minutes.
"Virgil was operating at his functional limit," Rain explained. "Managing seventy-three defensive calculations while simultaneously running combat prediction algorithms, coordinating your enhancement protocols, and providing real-time tactical analysis. He was maxed out fighting a digital war while keeping you alive physically."
Virgil stated, and there was something in his voice Beatrix had never heard before. Strain.
"You'll fail," Rain finished quietly.
Virgil said.
Beatrix had never heard her AI ask for help before. The military-grade system that had kept her alive through impossible situations had just admitted it wasn't enough.
"The analysts are roasting Rauk's team," Rain continued, pulling up commentary feeds. "They're calling it embarrassing. Seventy-three attacks against a fighter with no team and only two partial penetrations? Amateur hour. But here's what matters, every other team is watching that footage now. Learning from Rauk's mistakes. Your next opponent will come prepared."
Beatrix looked at the Ghost Feed footage again. The invisible war. The attacks she'd never seen. Virgil operating at his absolute limit just to keep her alive against an incompetent team.
"Not good, eh?" she asked Rain.
"I think you're going to get yourself killed if you keep fighting like this." He met her eyes. "But you're also overperforming. You took down Rauk. That's not nothing."
Fighter with no team. The words echoed in her mind. Bodhi tried to warn her. “The Grind chews up lone wolves.”
"Speaking of overperforming… I need to check your core, and make sure your hardware is running clean," Kivi added. "The Cyclops may have minor damage from the Rauk fight. Nothing critical yet, but it compounds.”
Beatrix laid down in the bed, closed her eyes and waited calmly. Kivi ran preliminary diagnostics on Beatrix's systems remotely, making notes. Rain pulled up opponent data, analyzing the fighters who qualified to the next round. Beatrix watched them work, watched how naturally they collaborated, how Rain would pull up data and Kivi would immediately understand the implications, how they'd been doing this long enough to have a rhythm.
This is what team support looks like, she realized. Not just people helping when asked. People who see what needs doing and do it. People who've already decided you're worth the investment.
Later in the day, her terminal chimed. Message notification.
[BRACKET ANNOUNCEMENT CONFIRMED | 64 FIGHTERS REMAINING]
[TROIKA - CERBERUS CLAN VS BEATRIX ALIGER - UNALIGNED]
[COUNTDOWN: 11:59 HOURS]
Rain pulled up footage of her next opponent. "Ok. This is going to be a problem."
"He's built to counter you specifically." Rain pulled up a holographic display. "Fast. Precise. High dexterity. Everything about his enhancement profile is designed to shut down power fighters."
The display showed Troika's physical profile: shorter than Beatrix, lean build optimized for speed over strength. His record showed quick victories against larger opponents, systematic dismantling of fighters who relied on raw power.
"He's going to try to dance around you," Kivi said, studying the display. "Hit and move. Never let you land solid strikes. Wear you down through accumulation."
"He's also," Rain continued, pulling up more data, "equipped with neural reflexes boosted to near-precognitive levels. He sees attacks coming before most opponents throw them."
"That's optimistic," Rain muttered. He'd apparently gained access to Virgil's calculations somehow. "Troika's team is also professional grade, full Cerberus pit crew. They'll be running coordinated digital attacks while he tears you apart physically."
"Encouraging," Beatrix said dryly.
"I'm being realistic." Rain's expression was serious. "You need to understand what you're facing. Troika is everything you're not: fast, technical, experienced. His clan backing means he's got resources you don't. His enhancement suite probably costs more than this entire workshop."
Beatrix watched the data from the Ghost Feed. Troika’s team had unleashed a rain of attacks on his adversary. It was almost beautiful. She had been lucky so far. She needed to be prepared too.
"Would you..." Beatrix said abruptly, the words stuck in her throat. She'd never asked anyone to risk their lives for her before. "Would you guys be part of my team? Like... officially? I know what I'm asking. Troika's going to come hard. Every fight after gets worse. But I..."
She met their eyes. "I can't do this alone. And I don't want to."
Rain and Kivi looked up from the holographic display.
"Both of you. Full team support. I would add you to the Stygia Contract registration. And…" She met their eyes. "...even pay you. I'm asking."
Kivi glanced at Rain. Some silent communication passed between them.
Kivi glanced at Rain, then back to Beatrix. "I'm in your team from day one, Beatrix." Her smile was painful. "My father... he won't understand. But that's my problem, not yours." She extended her hand. "I'm in."
Beatrix took it, then turned to Rain.
"I…" He was quiet for a long moment, that easy smile completely absent.
"This is different, Rain," Kivi said softly.
"Is it?" His voice was raw. "How?"
"Because she's not them. And you're not who you were."
Rain looked at Beatrix, studying her. Then at Kivi. Something passed between them, an old argument, an old wound. "Maybe." He exhaled. "Yeah. I'm in. But we do this right. No mistakes this time."
“As safe as a fight in The Grind. Agreed.”
"That’s Scav Fist talking." The smile returned, but it was smaller, more genuine.
"I'll pay you," Beatrix said quickly. "I don't know the standard rate for team support, but…"
"We'll figure it out," Rain cut in. "After we deal with Troika. One crisis at a time."
Kivi nodded. "Agreed. Let's make sure there's something to pay for first."