| Chicago - August 10
The creatures lunged at once, thick limbs thudding against the reinforced floor as claws scraped across tile and bone-crusted talons slashed through the air. There were eight of them—hulking, reptilian abominations with jagged teeth, glowing red eyes, and muscles that seemed to ripple like cables under their scaled flesh. Some had tails, some had additional limbs. All of them were fast.
Nova didn't want to fight them. Not really. He didn't know what they'd been before Meta/Tech turned them into this. Maybe they were just civilians once—scientists, janitors, runaways. But whatever they used to be, now they were snarling weapons bred in a lab.
The first brute struck, a hammering fist aimed for his head. Nova ducked, twisting sideways, and planted a boot into its gut. The impact sent the creature flying into a metal wall with a crunch—but it staggered up only seconds later, limbs snapping back into place like joints on a marionette.
The second came in low. Nova caught it mid-charge and hurled it overhead into the others. The mass of beasts stumbled, but they didn't stay down.
They never stayed down.
Every punch he landed cracked bones and crushed cartilage—yet the creatures regenerated almost instantly. They healed before they even finished hitting the floor. His concussive blasts only staggered them. Even blowing holes in their torsos with focused Nova Force beams didn't slow them for long.
Nova clenched his jaw.
Damn it.
He flipped backward, buying space. One of them screeched, charging again. He caught it with a glowing fist to the chest, the blast sending it crashing through a reinforced console. Still, it got up. Again.
"Is that all you can do?" Viper's voice cut through the room, calm and amused.
Nova didn't answer. He didn't have time to. The monsters weren't letting up.
But he was done holding back.
Fine.
Time to get serious.
Nova inhaled sharply. The air around him shimmered—his anti-gravity field expanding with a pulse that rippled like a gravitational heartbeat.
The room shifted.
With a flick of his fingers, the ground under the creatures inverted.
Suddenly, the beasts weren't charging. They were floating—suspended in midair like balloons. Their bodies flailed wildly, snarling, jaws snapping open and shut with rage. Nova raised a hand, and the anti-gravity field contracted, locking them all into a tight sphere above the ground.
Then he created an air pocket. The pressure dropped inside the bubble—clean, calculated deprivation. No sound, no oxygen. Just silence.
The creatures thrashed violently, red eyes wide with panic. Their limbs beat uselessly at the invisible barrier, muscles twitching and throats convulsing as they fought to breathe.
Nova didn't like it in case he was permanently harming the brains of innocents from the lack of oxygen but he had to shut their systems down.
"Good," Viper's voice rang out again, louder this time. A slow, amused clap echoed through the lab. "Yes. You should at least have that much power."
Nova turned toward the old man.
Etienne Du Vipere stood at the edge of the room, arms crossed, that calm, arrogant smile never leaving his face.
Why was he smiling? Did he think he was going to be let off?
He extended a branch of his anti-gravity field toward Viper, wrapping the air around the old man and lifting him effortlessly into the suffocating sphere of silence.
Viper's eyes widened briefly. Panic? Maybe. For a fraction of a second.
Then he looked into Nova's eyes and smiled.
Not just smiled—smirked.
And then—
Nova was unconscious.
**
Joseph awoke to a blinding white expanse—Dream State. His limbs were bound, not by chains, but by pale serpents slithering up from the ground, coiled tightly around his arms and legs.
Before him sat a middle-aged man with French features, his face unfamiliar but his presence unmistakable. A picture of understated aristocratic style, dressed in a tailored frock coat over ankle trousers, accented by a high-collared shirt and elaborate cravat, and polished boots. He lounged on a throne woven entirely of the same white snakes.
"Viper?"
The man didn't respond. He was gazing around, intrigued.
"I've never encountered a mind like yours in all my centuries. Fascinating. So... structured. As if built by a machine," he said as he looked at the Nova avatar beside him, a humanoid figure made up of shifting voxels.
Joseph struggled, his breath catching. "How are you in my head?"
He willed the Nova avatar to fight Viper—nothing happened, the avatar was just a shell of AI Nova. He willed himself to exit the Dream State. It wasn't working. Panic rising, he willed the Nova Control Center to appear to exit manually.
/* Nova Control Center
(A menu displaying body's status before AI's termination with adjustable options in some categories.)
Memory Archive (Before AI's Termination)
Data Archive (Before AI Termination)
Body Abilities
Nova Avatar
Mental Configuration
[ Exit ]
He tried to select [ Exit ]—but the snakes binding his arms made movement impossible.
Viper tilted his head, intrigued, as the menu slid over to hover in front of him.
"Such delightful features," he murmured. "Let's see... 'Mental Configuration.' Hmm. 'Dream State Configuration'—pity, no way to change this dreadful white. Ah well. Beggars, choosers."
Joseph's dread deepened. This man was inside his head. He had access to everything—memories, systems, the core of who he was. If Viper took over, no one would know. The world would think Nova was still in control.
But then Joseph felt rage like never before.
How dare this smug, snake-loving French fucker chain him in his own mind and attempt to control his body? He'd gone through too much to go out like this.
"You should've submitted to me when you had the chance," Viper said smugly. Then he paused. His eyes narrowed. "Wait... what are you doing?"
Joseph focused.
He could absorb energy—nuclear, solar, quantum, even magic.
So why should psionic energy be different?
He looked down at the snakes and took.