The intercom fizzled once more, static dragging like a breath caught between words—then silence.
Nyx's eyes sharpened beneath the mask, trailing the blurred contours of the assassin's suit as she kicked the hatch door closed, before moving off the stage. Her movements resembling a phantom walking down the dark halls of an old abandoned mansion. The shimmering distortion curled off her skin like heat waves, refracting around her edges, like witnessing a mirage in the desert. By the way she moved one thing was clear, she was designed for one thing: obliteration with precision.
She didn't speak—just tilted her head, a flicker of movement that mirrored predation. Nyx inhaled calmly, his sword remained sheathed as they stared each other down away from the stage.
The male voice over the intercom had called it a 'test' but, it was really a performance, a show, they wanted him to dance by their choreography, them rip the power away as easily as he took it.
Flair's voice crackled faintly in his comms sound excited and urgent: "Use your nanites."
Nyx's thumb slid across the guard of his sword, as if considering his options. "I'm not showing them anything." said Nyx, speaking to both the assassin woman and flair.
The woman lunged first without warning, just a blur slicing the air, clawed hands angled for his throat. Nyx moved with where his natural born reflexes, his body bending backward, feeling the air split against his nose, even when behind the mask.
Her suit shifted mid-motion, venting a shroud of microfibers as counterweight. She landed, silent, claw tips gouging the metal floor.
"You were supposed to be myth," her voice rasped—softer than expected, almost reverent. "But myths don't bleed."
Nyx shifted his weight slightly, grip steady on the sheath, eyes locked with hers through the distortion. "I haven't bled," he said, voice low and serious, feeling insulted.
Nyx held a tighter grip on the sheath of his katana, while the woman digitizes her spear from behind Nyx into her hand. "Well dame, that's pretty nice whoever you are" says Nyx, hoping that Flair and the others can take over the tower without him, not wanted to reveal all his cards to their enemy.
"You may know that Mirage as killed you" Mirage responds, her form becoming a blur again when she dashes forth, faster this time, the symbiote enhancing his strength and reaction speed, his brain processing events faster. Dodging her spear before it even came close to him. Mirage, stopped close however instead of passing by him this time. Swinging her spear horizontally, Nyx crouching down to dodge it before quickly arching his back to avoid a knee to the face, flipping backwards to gain distances. Mirage was fast though, quickly throwing her spear at unexpected speed. Nyx and the symbiote both reacted in sync to dodge; however, he wouldn't be able to dodge the incoming attack of her punch, running fast enough to trail along behind her spear. Instead, he raised his hand and caught her punch to his face, while at the same time unsheathing his hidden blade, that stabbed through her wrist.
If it caused pain there was no telling if she felt it or not, her face was completely hidden regardless of the skin tight suit, her face designed like the outside corner of a wall. "Impressive, you really are an assassin" she spoke calmly, a mix of elegance and sass in her voice and through her wrist was stabbed and her fist caught in his hand she forced opened her hand and grabbed onto his, intwining their fingers together as her claws tried to dig past his leather gloves, her left hand coiled back to punch him.
Nyx let go of his sheath to grab her other hand when his senses alerted him to the spear that was heading for his head again, shocked that not only did she have a digital recall but also a telepathic one?
Instinctively he dodged, moving towards the right as the spear slide across his hood, yet it was a faint, her leg moving as his body moved towards it. The collision felt like it could have broken several ribs if the symbiote hadn't already fused with his bones and organs, his body hit the handle of the spear, bouncing off of it before Mirage landed several hits throughout his shoulder, chest and face. Grabbing onto him, Mirage lifted him up and slammed him into the floor, climbing on top of him.
Mirage reached up to grab her spear only for Nyx's ankles to cross against her neck, before she could do anything an electric shock, shot through her body for several moments before Nyx flung her off of him.
Her suit dimmed like glass hit by cold water—cloaking tech stuttering beneath the shock. Nyx rolled to his feet, breath steady, his hand pressing against the ache of his ribs that was rapidly fading thanks to the regeneration from his symbiote, that pulsed along his spine, adjusting his inner system to prevent further trauma.
Across from him, Mirage recovered fast, adjusting her stance, one hand still sparking slightly where his blade had shocked her. Her voice crackled through the distortion, sounding impressed "Efficient. You're not just enhanced—you're engineered."
Flair: "GM and Rock are in position. If you stall her long enough, I can run a shortwave overload from the tower's edge and crash the surveillance feed where you're at."
Nyx said nothing, his body already healed and mind calculating his next move. If Flair could actually figure out a way to take control without the nanites then good, yet he couldn't risk their best hacker's life either.
Internally, Nyx couldn't understand it, two serious hits and she didn't flinch. Yet he saw the blood, there was no mistaking it though he still wasn't sure if what stood before him was even human. He refused to use the nanites, or expose the symbiote, and if he didn't lock in soon, it would be harder for him to win. She wasn't just fast—she was timing her feints around his micro-adjustments. Each dodge fed her a breadcrumb, and Nyx hated how familiar that felt. Someone far back in his immortal past who had studied his past missions, mimicked his ghosting patterns, and now held them up like a mirror made of knives, so far back when he was so naive, mistaking justice for revenge. Not wanting to be the same kind of murderer that killed his wife and child.
The far-off memory drew closer, closing the distances of a hundred years. The kid idolized him, like a real-life superhero from a comic, having went as far as chasing after him. He had brushed it off however, believing it was just a child's fantasy. Yet the child had become a teenager, then a young man, all who learned science, boxing, judo, gymnastics. So, unlike him in those years that such forgotten ages, pretending to be dumb so he wouldn't get picked on, played chess and piano while avoiding any physical activity. Even today he wasn't very social…every day for four years he questioned why did he have to die? Was it really because he didn't allow the kid to join him, it had been a serial killer that Nyx had put in prison, wasn't even his MO. The killer was the kind to kill cheating husbands, learning about their lives before killing them.
"I can protect too" where the naive words from that boy, yet daggers to his once beating heart.
"Please forgive me for not protecting you, for failing you, and our precious child" It hadn't been to protect or save, it was more like a repentance, a why of asking for forgiveness from his beloved wife who stood by him.
That day, the alley was drenched in rain. A time of night that even the dead dared not rise. Blood flowed like water from his body, he had protected a man who had been innocent of the crime, diagnosed with cancer and keeping it from his family who after the incident found out and grieved together, working though it until his end. Nyx had been at both the boy's funeral and burial. Then at the killers when he had brutally murdered him, where he knocked over the tombstone, both angry and grateful, because it was then that he decided to never let anyone escape from his blade.
"I take back my earlier statement, you're not actually enhanced at all are you?" came Mirage's voice, as if just remembering something, Nyx showing that she had his attention. "If you where your chip would have been scanned, but you don't have a chip at all, that makes it more impressive that you were able to last this long at all. As illegal as your actions your existences is, you don't seem the type to get illegal enhancements. Your human."
"You seem sure" replied Nyx, slowly pulling out his sword, holding it out in front of him like a barrier between them.
"Are you getting serious now, have you finally realized that you won't win this fight without those nanites?" she questions, digitizing her spear into her hand, having dropped it when Nyx shocked her.
Nyx started at her, his eyes cold. "Don't look away"