Chapter 398: The Elephant Ahead

The crowd at Hell Gates Arena was losing their minds when the scoreboard flashed one last time.

Colossus 118, Skull Diggers 41.

People were screaming, stomping their feet on the bleachers, pulling out their phones to film everything. Honestly, a massacre like that always hits different for the crowd.

But on the court, the mood was completely different. The Colossus players were just trying to catch their breath. Some were standing, others crouched with their hands on their knees, but none of them looked happy. No smiles, no pats on the back, nothing. Just a bunch of tired guys who’d finished a job like any other. For them, it was just an ordinary Tuesday.

Salida walked up to Cross. The guy was still out of breath, a towel thrown around his neck. She crossed her arms, jaw clenched, and stared him down for a long moment before spitting out.

"So, asshole, you happy? Fun not keeping your word?"

Cross smiled without even looking at her.

"Sorry, sweetheart. I tried my best, but you guys are just so bad at it."

Salida narrowed her eyes halfway. In that position, she was wondering if the cameras would catch the kick she was dying to give him.

She put her hands on her hips and leaned toward him.

"You messing with me? You took the deal, you got your rocks off just fine, and you were supposed to let us win," she spat. "That was the deal, damn it! You people have zero fucking word, huh?!"

Cross looked up at her with a small smile, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"That was YOUR deal, girl," he answered. "I dialed back my performance, but... that was just me. I never said the whole team was gonna throw it."

He straightened up, trying to recover some style, and pulled out his best player smile.

"Anyway," he continued, "I had a great time last night. We should do it again. You know I’ve got a great career ahead of me, right? You’d do well to stay close to me."

Salida looked him up and down like trash, then let out a laugh.

"Lol. Close? With who? Who’d wanna date a quickshot like you?" she said, loud enough for every player around to hear. "I’d barely started working you and you were already on your last breath. You want me to die of boredom or what?"

A huge "Oooooh" burst out from the group. Several Colossus players turned toward Cross with mocking smiles.

Cross’s smile started to waver. Two minutes ago, this was just a private back-and-forth, and suddenly, all the attention was on them.

"Ok, ok," he said, raising both hands, trying to play it off as a joke. "Let’s not exaggerate here."

Salida caught the little tremor in his voice and the looks going around them. She saw he was embarrassed and trying to hide behind his smile. So she decided to go all in on the one thing that would actually give her some satisfaction today.

"No but seriously," she continued, louder this time. "You call that a performance? Honestly, I’ve had guys with a broken leg who lasted longer. Tell me, you don’t jerk off too much or something? Because damn, where’s all that cardio you supposedly have on the court?"

"You’re delusional," Cross shot back. This time, his voice was tight and his smile was really cracking. "You sure looked like you were into it, though. So into it you even took the initiative."

"I HAD to climb on top and do everything myself," Salida retorted, throwing her arms up, "because you were already soft after like thirty seconds. You’re exactly like every other loser in this league. You bark loud, but it lasts like a minute, tops."

The eyes around them got wider. This had gone from a simple Colossus win to a public execution of one of their own, and nobody wanted to miss a single piece of it. Salida, standing at the firing squad, savored the discomfort before delivering the final blow.

"The worst part is the size of your little toy, lol. Calling that a sausage is generous, I barely felt anything! Nash, now, he had a real monster down there, and he could go through three girls back to back. For hours."

Cross flinched, frowning in confusion.

"Nash?"

Salida smiled, and this time, she knew she’d hit a nerve. She leaned toward him, voice low, almost dreamy.

"Yeah, Nash," she repeated, like just saying his name felt good. "That man really knows what he’s doing with his dick. He keeps you going for hours without ever slowing down, switches positions like it’s nothing, and always leaves you so wrecked you can’t even walk for two days straight. Like, I skipped a whole training session because I spent hours cumming the night before. Like, literally hours." She shrugged, looking satisfied with herself. "After that, sorry, but guys like you are just sad. You were on the Colossus, I actually thought you’d be worth something. But, eh... ew."

An extremely awkward silence fell over the group. Some of the backups wouldn’t even meet Cross’s eyes anymore.

Salida turned on her heel and walked off toward the locker rooms with a huge smile. It was her only win of the day, and she’d landed it by insulting the guy rather than on the court.

Later, in the Colossus locker room, the mood was a lot heavier.

Everything would’ve been fine, but that little farewell sketch had managed to poison the whole atmosphere.

Cross slammed his fist into a metal locker.

"Blaze, Blaze, Blaze, always fucking Blaze! Goddamn it!" he shouted.

"Yeah, it’s getting annoying, honestly, you’d think that guy invented Breakball, son of a bitch." one of the backups grumbled.

Cross tore off his soaked jersey with unusual rage, turning to his teammates.

"Like, what’s the deal with this guy? He plays well, he pays well, and now apparently he fucks well too? Did he corrupt the entire world or what?!"

Vex, sitting calmly on the bench, rolled his eyes, tapping two fingers against his knee.

"Yeah... but about that quickshot thing... man, maybe if you left like a week between hookups, you’d have a bit more stamina."

"Shut up," Cross shot back. "I’m not a quickshot. The only thing I’m fast at is my dribbling. And eating."

A few small laughs went through the locker room.

"Anyway," a third player said, sitting straddled on a bench, "this is getting really interesting. He’s who we play next. We’ll finally get to see what this famous Nash Blaze has got in him."

"Yeah," another added. "Like, we’ll see if they’re really like the Juggernauts. His style’s almost like Snow’s, right? That whole pure speed and weird shooting form thing."

"Or it’s totally different," someone else said. "We literally know nothing solid about him, just scores and rumors. Getting better is good, but we should probably actually study the opponent sometimes."

Vex, as usual, didn’t say anything, just listened in silence, his big arms crossed, leaning against his own locker.

One of the more relaxed guys in the group, sprawled out on the bench with his hands behind his head, let out a small laugh.

"You know what would actually be funny?" he said with a smile. "If he won."

Dead silence followed, everyone staring at the guy.

"How do you mean?" Kael asked.

"Like," the player continued, spinning his cap between his fingers, "this is his big moment, right? He’s riding a huge wave right now. With all the crazy stuff their super hot manager’s been pulling off in the Underground. Everybody wants them to win. It’d almost be cruel to ruin his party right off the bat. Might as well let him win, so we don’t end up looking like the bad guys of the story."

A brief dead silence, then everyone burst out laughing. For them, guys who treated winning as just a normal part of their week, losing had become one of those bedtime stories you tell kids to scare them.

This wasn’t the Dust Dogs anymore. This wasn’t the Raptors. This was the giant of the Underground.

For all of them, it was a good joke, but nobody noticed right away that one person had stopped moving the second the joke landed.

"Perfect. In that case, I’ll let the club’s management know to terminate your contract today."

A long silence fell over the whole room. Every eye turned toward the back, where Seth had stayed quiet since the start, sitting a little apart, calmly untying his shoelaces. He lifted his head slowly, his gaze landing on the player who’d just made the joke.

"The procedure normally takes a week. Your contract has a termination clause for serious misconduct, so no severance owed on our end. You should have your locker cleared out by Friday."

The player went pale instantly.

"Wait, wait," he stammered, raising both hands. "Chill, man, it was just a joke, I didn’t actually mean—"

"Even as a joke," Seth cut in, standing up fully this time. "Even thinking it for one second, you just committed a betrayal."

The players exchanged looks; the poor guy had pressed the wrong button.

"Come on, calm down," Kael tried, uneasy, the ball now still in his hands. "It was just for laughs, nobody actually thought—"

"Losing," Seth continued, not even turning toward Kael, "is never an option. Never. Not even in a dream. Not even while sleeping. If the idea crosses your mind, even for a fraction of a second, you’ve already lost your place here." He stopped right in front of the player who’d made the joke, his gaze locked onto his, no visible emotion on his face. "If you underperform in the next match, your career here is over. I’ll handle it personally."

The player swallowed, not daring to say another word.

Seth stared at him a moment longer, then turned away, gathering his things with that same mechanical calm.

"We exist to win," he said. "Nothing else. Nobody will stand between victory and me." His gaze swept slowly across the group. "Snow, Mirage, Nash. Doesn’t matter who stands in front of me. They’re all prodigies, and to us, it’ll always be the same thing: one more equation to solve. Treat him as a serious threat, and you’ll survive this season. Treat him as a game," his gaze darkened, "and you’ll end up like him. Out on the street."

He turned on his heel, leaving the locker room without another word, the door closing behind him.

A long moment passed before anyone dared breathe normally again.

"Well... always so intense, that guy," Cross finally muttered, shaking his head.

Nobody contradicted him. Not a single guy.

Honestly, everyone in that locker room knew exactly why Seth held that much power. It was like an invisible right: he could decide the fate of any contract, and nobody dared even open their mouth to say "no."

The Colossus were a strong team, the best in the whole league. Every player on the roster was well above average, real monsters. But Seth? He was on a whole different level. The guy was just different.

For the Colossus, Seth was exactly what Nash represented for Blacklist. He wasn’t just the captain, or the best player in the group. No, it was way more than that.

He was the guarantee of victory. The damn king of the team.