Chapter 9: Heat, Metal, and Mayhem

The smoke from the drone's wreckage still hung in the air — a toxic blend of melted circuits and scorched metal — but the rooftop was silent. A dangerous, pulsing kind of silence.

Nova straddled Elliot where he lay, her body still radiating heat from the fight. The violet lines on her bodysuit pulsed in time with the faint hum of her cybernetic implants, the glow highlighting the sharp curves of her figure.

Her blade was gone — retracted back into her wrist — but the predatory look in her glowing eyes told Elliot that the danger wasn't.

"You're still breathing," Nova whispered, her voice a low, sultry rasp. "Guess you're harder to kill than I thought."

Elliot's heart pounded like a war drum. "I'm full of surprises."

Her lips curved into a slow, wicked smile. "Let's test that."

[New Mission: Burn Hot, Burn Fast]

Objective: …Survive Nova's "attention."

Bonus: Don't pass out from Neural Overload.

Hidden Reward: ???

Before Elliot could respond, Nova grabbed the front of his jacket, yanking him up into a kiss — if you could call it that.

It wasn't soft. It wasn't sweet. It was a clash of teeth and tongues, a brutal collision of lust and danger.

Her kiss tasted like static electricity — sharp and hot — and the bioluminescent lines across her suit flared brighter, glowing with every frantic movement.

Elliot's Neural Boost — still glitching from the fight — went haywire again. His senses sharpened to painful levels, every touch, every graze of Nova's metal-and-skin hands feeling like raw lightning against his nerves.

His vision blurred — not from pain, but from the sheer intensity.

[Warning: Neural Overload at 92%. System integrity compromised.]

"Nova—" Elliot gasped against her mouth. "My… my Boost—"

"Shut up," she growled, biting his lower lip just hard enough to send a jolt through his entire body.

His back hit the cold rooftop again, the mix of the icy metal beneath him and the burning heat of Nova on top of him a cruel contradiction.

Her hand — half soft, half metal — trailed down his chest, over his stomach, and hovered at his belt buckle.

"You gonna stop me, rookie?" Nova whispered, her lips grazing his jaw.

Elliot's brain tried to form words — tried to warn her about the Neural Boost going critical — but all that came out was a ragged groan.

[Libido Meter: OFF THE CHARTS. System failure imminent.]

Then — a voice cut through the static.

"Well, isn't this cute."

Nova's head snapped up, her blade flaring back to life in an instant.

Elliot barely registered the shift — from skin to steel — as the moment shattered like glass.

Standing at the edge of the ruined rooftop was Cipher.

Bleeding from the gash Nova had left in his side, sparks sputtering from his damaged cybernetic arm, his red visor flickering — but somehow, still standing.

And he wasn't alone.

Two more Chrome Reapers emerged from the stairwell behind him, their gunmetal limbs gleaming under the neon lights. One had a plasma rifle mounted directly to his shoulder, the other had a spinning sawblade fused into his forearm.

"Are you kidding me?" Elliot groaned.

[New Mission: From Lust to Dust]

Objective: Survive Round Two.

Bonus: Don't die with your pants half-off.

Failure: Death or dismemberment.

Cipher's voice was a cold rasp. "Touching little moment you two were having. Shame it's about to end."

Nova's blade hissed louder. "You should've stayed down."

Cipher's visor flared brighter. "And miss the encore?"

The Reaper with the sawblade lunged first.

Nova met him head-on, her blade slicing through the air in a flash of violet light. Sparks flew as the weapons clashed — saw teeth screeching against energy steel.

The second Reaper aimed his plasma rifle — not at Nova — but at Elliot.

"Aw, come on!" Elliot dove behind the wreckage of the drone as a plasma bolt sizzled past his head.

[Health: 64% — You're slightly less crispy than before.]

"Why do they always shoot at me?" Elliot shouted.

[Because you look squishy and easy to kill. They're not wrong.]

Elliot grabbed a shard of metal from the drone's remains and hurled it at the Reaper. It bounced harmlessly off the guy's armor.

"Yeah, that was dumb," Elliot muttered.

The Reaper aimed again.

Nova, still locked in combat with the sawblade thug, shouted over her shoulder. "Move, rookie!"

Elliot sprinted.

Another plasma blast barely missed him — scorching the rooftop's edge.

Cipher didn't move — just watched. Waiting.

[Neural Boost stabilizing… barely. Your heart rate is a disaster.]

"No shit," Elliot growled.

Nova finally broke through the sawblade Reaper's defense — her blade slicing his weaponized arm clean off. Sparks and blood sprayed the rooftop. The Reaper screamed, collapsing in a heap.

The plasma rifle Reaper turned his attention back to Nova — aiming for her exposed side.

"Nova—look out!" Elliot shouted.

Without thinking, he grabbed a loose cable from the drone's wreckage — still sparking with raw electricity — and swung it like a whip.

The cable wrapped around the Reaper's gun arm.

Electricity surged through his cybernetics, overloading his implants. The plasma rifle misfired — blasting a hole straight through the rooftop, dangerously close to Cipher.

The Reaper convulsed, smoke pouring from his body, then collapsed.

For a moment, it was just Elliot, Nova… and Cipher.

The air buzzed — a deadly silence.

Cipher's visor flickered again. "Not bad… for a nobody."

Nova stepped in front of Elliot — her blade still glowing, her body still tense. "You want him?" she said. "You'll have to go through me."

Cipher tilted his head. "I was hoping you'd say that."

[New Mission Unlocked: Blood and Circuits]

Elliot's heart thundered. The rooftop was an inferno of heat, danger… and the leftover ache from Nova's touch.

And somehow — in the middle of all this — he realized something.

Nexus-9 wasn't just going to kill him.

It was going to devour him.