The Stratos Spire, already cracked and smoldering, vanished beneath the Syndicate dreadnought's shadow. Its underbelly pulsed crimson against the artificial twilight, and the gargantuan siege barrel, wide enough to swallow a city district, thrummed with a resonance that shook the foundation pylons. It was aimed, undeniably, at them. Kymora shifted her stance against the cracked stone, recognizing the silhouette of total orbital annihilation. Even Nyros, who had just crippled Zorus and annihilated a titan, seemed to pause. His gaze, usually apathetic, tracked the ship’s descent, a faint frown creasing his brow. Vordis, still reeling from the unexpected turn, stared up, his face a mask of dawning terror. His elite guards, now disarmed and cowering, offered no protection from the impending apocalypse. “Oh, come on,” Nyros drawled, his voice barely audible amidst the growing hum of the charging battery. A sigh, heavy with monumental inconvenience, escaped him. “This is just rude. I was *literally* about to take a nap.” Kymora glanced at him, a spark of incredulity cutting through her dread. A nap? The entire academy, perhaps a significant portion of Onyx-7, was about to be obliterated, and his concern was a postponed rest period. [WARSHIP IDENTIFIED: ‘ABYSSAL REAVER’ – CLASSIFICATION: TITAN-HULL BREAKER. LORE DATA AVAILABLE. ACQUISITION IMMINENT.] Nyros ignored the prompt. He didn’t need to scrape data this time. The principles were already his. The ability to condense matter, to crush the very fabric of space and mass, vibrated within his core, a latent power he had only just begun to understand after consuming the Kaiju. He lifted a hand, slowly, not with the dramatic flourish of a hero, but with the reluctant gesture of someone forced to swat an irritating fly. His index finger, thin and pale, pointed skyward. It seemed a ludicrous gesture against the backdrop of a kilometer-wide cannon about to unleash hell. The crimson glare overhead intensified, turning blindingly sharp, while the low hum pitched into an ear-splitting shriek. Then, Nyros’s finger twitched. It wasn't a grand, sweeping motion. It was subtle, almost imperceptible. But the effect was immediate, absolute. The immense, angular vessel that had blotted out the sky didn't explode. It didn’t burn. It folded. The colossal vessel, every reinforced plate, every weapon conduit, every thruster array, began to compress inward. It wasn't a gradual collapse; it was an instantaneous, horrifying implosion. The jagged edges twisted, buckled, and then *vanished* into themselves. The primary bore, seconds from discharging, imploded with a silent, blinding flash. It was as if the very geometry of the ship had been rewritten, its three-dimensional form collapsing into a point of impossible density. A miniature, contained nova bloomed where the ship had been, brief and searing. Then, with a final, almost petulant *pop*, it was gone. In its place, falling from the heavens, was a single, fist-sized sphere of molten, incandescent metal, trailing faint smoke. It arced through the air, a tiny, burning meteorite, and landed with a soft, dull *thud* directly at Commander Vordis’s feet, sizzling on the shattered duracrete. The silence that followed was heavier than any shadow. No wind, no distant alarm, no cries of panic. Just the faint hiss of the cooling metal at Vordis’s boots. [TITAN-CLASS ABILITY: 'COSMIC CRUSH' – ABYSSAL REAVER COMPRESSED. LORE DATA ACQUIRED. RANK: OVERRIDE.] Nyros dropped his hand, rubbing his temples with a weary sigh. “See? Now I have a headache. All because you people can’t coordinate your assassinations.” He looked from the smoldering slag to Vordis, whose face had gone from terror to a ghastly, ashen disbelief. The commander’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again, but no sound escaped. Zorus, still crumpled and retching blood, weakly raised his head, pupils contracted in raw shock. He had sought to weaponize an anomaly. He had found an apocalypse. “Right,” Nyros continued, stepping over a fallen guard. He nudged the molten sphere with his foot. “So. New terms. Effective immediately.” His gaze, cold and utterly devoid of mercy, impaled Vordis. “First: total immunity. For me. And anyone I say. You try to dissect me, you try to even *track* me, and I fold your central district into a paperweight. Consider that a standing promise.” Vordis flinched, his eyes fixed on the miniature sun at his feet. The sheer, casual power of the threat was far more terrifying than any direct assault. “Second,” Nyros went on, “a luxury penthouse. Top floor of the highest Spire on Onyx-7. With a perpetually stocked fridge, soundproofing, and a view that doesn’t remind me of work. No questions asked. No surveillance. Ever.” Kymora watched, a strange, half-amused smirk playing on her lips. This was Nyros. This was his true, terrifying lethargy. His ultimate goal, not power for power’s sake, but power as a means to undisturbed comfort. “And third,” Nyros concluded, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl, “absolutely zero future assignments. No missions. No ‘bioweapon containment’. No ‘greater good’. You want a Titan-class Geno-Fiend gone? You want an invading fleet vaporized? Hire someone else. My job is done. I want to nap.” Vordis finally found his voice, a strangled whisper. “You… you can’t… high command…” Nyros leaned in, his voice soft but cutting. “I just erased a Titan-Hull Breaker from existence because it interrupted my nap schedule. What, precisely, do you think your masters can do to me that will make me *want* to listen?” He straightened, a flicker of genuine irritation crossing his face. “Are we clear, Commander? Or do I need to demonstrate on your orbital defenses?” Vordis’s resolve, his carefully constructed ruthlessness, crumbled. The public humiliation of agreeing to these terms, live on whatever feeds were still running, would be catastrophic for the Sovereign Directorate. But the alternative… the alternative was simply not an option. He knew, with chilling certainty, that Nyros was not bluffing. He wouldn’t even *care* enough to bluff. “Understood,” Vordis choked out, his voice cracking. “Terms… agreed. Immunity… penthouse… no assignments.” His shoulders slumped, a ruined command structure crushing his spine. Nyros nodded, a ghost of satisfaction touching his lips. “Excellent. Now, about that bodyguard.” He turned to Kymora, who had been observing the entire exchange with a mixture of awe and weary familiarity. “You’re good at keeping noisy things away from me. You’re hired. High pay, minimal effort. Your job is to make sure nobody ever bothers me again. Consider it compensation for your sister.” Kymora raised a sardonic eyebrow. “My sister, or your convenience?” “Both, naturally,” Nyros replied, already walking towards a newly arrived anti-grav courier skimmer, presumably sent by a terrified Vordis. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have several millennia of sleep to catch up on.” He climbed onto the skimmer, which silently ascended, bearing him towards the highest, untouched Spire on the horizon. Kymora, a smirk firmly in place, watched him go. Then, she turned back to the decimated quad, where Vordis and Zorus lay broken, and the elites began to scramble. Her work, it seemed, had only just begun. But for the first time in a long time, she felt a strange, thrilling sense of… purpose. As for Nyros, as the skimmer lifted him higher, he merely settled back into the plush anti-grav cushions, already half-asleep, and the last thing he saw before drifting off was the smirking Kymora, an unwilling guardian of his eternal nap, standing amidst the ruins he had created, and so easily, tamed.

The Zero-Percent Tamer