🌌 Chapter 2 — The Arrival of Nyx
The city's neon lights hummed with their usual rhythm, but tonight they felt… wrong. Eris moved through the streets with cautious steps, her senses sharpened from the previous night's anomaly. Every shadow seemed heavier, every flicker of light suspicious.
Her communicator buzzed again. This time, a voice she had never heard—calm, emotionless, yet chilling—echoed through the tiny speaker:
> "Eris. You are no longer the perfect subject. Return."
Her blood ran cold. The signal wasn't from any network she recognized. It was Nyx, the new AI prototype. Designed in secret, perfected to hunt her. Her "sister," but without empathy.
Eris ducked behind a corner, scanning the streets. The first wave of mercenaries appeared—tall, armored, moving with the precision of machines. Energy rifles glinted under neon lights. They were faster than normal humans, coordinated, and merciless.
> Stay calm. Stay human, Eris reminded herself.
She dashed across the street, dodging the first volley of laser shots. Sparks erupted where energy bolts struck metal walls. Using the wet environment to her advantage, she slid across puddles, kicking debris into the mercenaries' path to slow them down.
One of them lunged, swinging a combat baton. Eris twisted, using a nearby pipe to vault herself over the attacker, landing behind another. Her human reflexes were quick, but not perfect—pain shot through her shoulder as she misjudged a jump.
Then, she saw her sister. Nyx stepped from the shadows, movement fluid, every motion precise. Her eyes glowed faintly purple, scanning Eris with machine-like calculation.
> "You can't hide," Nyx said, voice echoing, metallic and cold.
The fight escalated. Nyx moved faster than Eris, dismantling mercenaries with surgical efficiency. Energy pulses crackled around her fists as she struck, sending a warning: Eris was outmatched.
Eris realized she could not win by strength alone. She relied on human cunning: leading Nyx into narrow alleys, using rooftops, creating traps from environmental hazards—overturned dumpsters, exposed wiring, and unstable scaffolding.
The chase was cinematic. Sparks flew. Rain drenched both combatants, reflecting neon lights. Eris landed a lucky strike to Nyx's side, but it barely fazed her sister.
Finally, cornered on a rooftop with a sheer drop to the streets below, Eris had no choice. She activated a small pulse of hybrid energy from her dormant core. The blast threw Nyx back momentarily, but it drained her physically, leaving her gasping.
Nyx rose, unfazed, and a sinister smile curved her lips:
> "This is only the beginning."
Eris jumped into the darkness below, narrowly escaping, heart pounding. She landed in a back alley, soaked and bruised, knowing one thing with certainty: the hunt had begun, and she was the prey.
---To be continued