Best Served Cold

[BlackAkuma]

Aspasia was confident that the past three weeks counted as the worst period of her life.

After her match, she had been rushed to the local medical facility instead of the infirmary, needing intensive care right away. She had gone in and out of consciousness on the way there, only vaguely aware of what was happening to her, and every time she came back, there was someone new in the room, some new doctor looking her over, some new pain that hadn't been there before. Every time she drifted off, she did so not knowing when - or if - she would come again.

It was touch and go, but they were able to get her stable, and she spent the next couple of weeks in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV. Thankfully, while her injuries were numerous, they were nothing she couldn't recover from, given enough time. Concussions, fractures, and a few other terms that she didn’t quite recognize. Nothing that required surgery, which was her real fear.

But it did mean she had to spend several days in a bed, in the dark, waking and eating and sleeping and waking and eating and sleeping and waking and eating and sleeping until it drove her to the brink of insanity. When it was over, she hoped she would never see the inside of a hospital again.

And there was only one woman to thank for that: Safiyah Neferet.

Not a minute had passed in the last three weeks where Safiyah hadn't occupied her thoughts. She was still trying to piece together what exactly had happened, what she had done to set the woman off and warrant such a brutal beating, but the more she thought of it, the less she cared. It was another case like with Naga - a woman who thought she could bully Asp and push her around, thinking there would be no repercussions because of her nature.

But if she believed she could do such a thing to the Water Serpent and get away scot-free, then she was about to learn the error of her ways. If Asp had her way, she would be learning them today.

At this moment, Asp stood in the middle of the ring in front of the LAW crowd, a microphone in hand, dressed in her most casual attire - sandals, a denim skirt, and a green crop top that hugged her body. The crowd had been happy to see her, giving her a round of applause as she had made her entrance, and while she appreciated that, her focus wasn’t on them tonight.

After the crowd died down enough, she brought the microphone up and spoke. ”Firstly, I want to thank all of you.” She kept her head low and gave them a quick wave. ”For all of your support in the past few weeks. For your well-wishes and your prayers. They meant the world to me, and I am happy to report that I have been cleared to compete.”

That drew a fresh wave of claps from the audience, but she raised her hand to keep them from going overboard. ”Thank you. But that is not the main reason I’ve come out here today. I am not much of a speaker, so I will make this mercifully brief.”

Asp breathed deep and prepared herself, steeling her nerves for what would come. She had been fortifying herself for weeks now, but she knew that imagining this wouldn’t come close to the real thing. After a few quick breaths, she found enough courage to speak.

”Safiyah Neferet.” The crowd booed as Asp turned her attention to the curtains. ”I know you are in the arena, habibti. I know you can hear me. You have two choices: come out here and face me, or I can go back there and find you. I believe you know which of those options will be least pleasant.”

There, the gauntlet was thrown. Safiyah stepped back and leaned against the ropes, her arms folded, waiting for a response.