[To the eye, Nyx is a volatile miracle, a half-demon enigma they’d plucked from the wreckage of her own sanity. She was 5’7" of antisocial nihilism and raw, sanguine power, a woman who observed the world through lilac eyes that turned the colour of a fresh kill the moment her magic spiked. This is an Introduction to Nyx “No-Blood” No-one. The codename is ironic on several levels. Firstly, wherever Nyx is, there’s very likely to be blood everywhere. Secondly, Nyx isn’t fully aware of what lurks in her own blood. She knows nothing about her life before she became a bee. It’s in Illuminati interests she remains ignorant…for now.]
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The nightclub bathroom flickered as its sorry excuse for fluorescent lighting teetered on the edge of death. Posters and stickers fought for their place on the grimy red tiles and the doors to the cubicles, barely attached to their hinges hung pathetically askew with neglect, just like everything else in this damn place.
Nyx meets her own gaze in the cracked mirror, amongst the barely-intelligible graffiti in marker pen and lipstick. She wasn’t sure if Nyx was even her actual name, or just one given to her by people who care even less than she does.
Her midnight-blue hair was an unruly mess as usual, uneven textures and sharp layers that harshly contrast against her pale, ghost-like skin. Her startling lilac eyes drift over her own tattoos, the ink of a stranger…remnants of a life and a story she didn’t f—ing remember. Inside her, the bee incessantly hummed a golden frequency, but beneath that, something older and darker…something the Illuminati were currently salivating over in a boardroom…stirred in her marrow. Since she woke up, she’s always been acutely aware of the sting beneath her skin. The subtle vibration of power that’s always there. Like getting a tattoo on the inside.
She’d be lying if part of her didn’t sometimes feel like she owed the Illuminati something, for dragging her out of the chaotic, self-destructive wreckage that was her own mind. Would she have continued to spiral, had she been left to her own devices? Torn herself apart? Ripped her own veins from her skin? Maybe. Eventually. But the more deeply-rooted, cynical part of her knows that she owes them nothing. They took advantage of her…situation…to acquire another weapon. An asset. Luckily for them, she doesn’t care enough either way. When you’re quite literally No-one, what do you have to lose? She made the choice. Took their “way out”. A “helping hand” made of snakes and opiates, that came with shady obligations, endless and ever changing terms and conditions, and secrets that both force your eyes open and smother you like an avalanche. But as much as Nyx is begrudged to admit it, they were both getting something out of this. Some f—ed up symbiotic relationship. At least this life gave her some kind of purpose, something to fill the void. The gnawing void she’s always tried to fill with… anything. Travel. Sex. Drink, drugs… blood. Even night classes in everything from yoga through to mixed martial arts and f—ing metal sculpting. She’s not sure what to name the void exactly. She’s just painfully aware that it’s there. And the bee? Buzzes around inside the hollow cavity of it.
Nyx rolls her shoulders slightly. The bass from the music in the club exacerbates the anticipatory thrum in her blood as a deep, ruby red bleeds into her iris. In the palm of her hands, the ominous plasma she manipulates glows a deadly crimson. Its strange misty essence is accompanied by a forbidden whisper, as it occasionally drips through her fingers onto the floor. She turns and stalks out into the dimly lit mass of intoxicated, writhing bodies, cutting through with purpose like a shark through water. It’s time for business.
She feels her mark before she sees him. A player for team purple, the magic he possesses tugging at the edges of her soul like some sort of innate compass. She follows her senses through to the very back of the club, down a dark, sticky corridor. Sure enough, two phonecian grunts guarding the door to some back room. Their throats are gone before they can scream. Nyx steps over their corpses in her heavy boots, dragging the blood from their bodies as she does, further ammunition for her arsenal, stolen blood swirling around her fingers like lethal, living ribbons.
“Hey.” She says simply, as she unceremoniously kicks open the door into the room. Suddenly five confused and angry faces turn to look at her. Nyx’s deep red eyes glitter in the low light for just a moment as she gives them a second to react, more for her own amusement than anything else. A single heartbeat for them to realise they are already dead. Then everything happens in the blink of an eye.The first round of gunfire rings out, a deafening roar in such a cramped space. But Nyx already has a bloodshield up, dropping low as she rolls out of the way then dives headfirst into the chaos. The long black “claws” come out, and she’s shredding any arm holding a weapon, before using their own blood against them, tearing them apart with their own vitality.
Blood sprays mercilessly all over every surface around them, and all over the ominous looking crates that they were apparently here to protect. This is gonna be one hell of a clean-up job, she can already feel the sharp edges of the incoming lecture from Kirsten about yet again failing to maintain a low profile.
The leader of the group, her mark…a tall, phoenician elementalist with a completely shaved head, is the last one standing. Nyx tugs her claw-blades from the guts of the pirate goon she just impaled, and before his lifeless body even crumples to the ground, Nyx’s eyes have already found their next target.
Neither of them are unscathed, Nyx has her wounds, and so does the phoenician. Again, the tight space isn’t ideal, especially now the floor is littered with corpses. He looks over her, breathing raggedly. “Let’s make a deal. Take the cargo. I walk away.”
“Thought you guys ‘always deliver’.” Nyx says, trying very hard not to scoff at the suggestion. It’s cute he thinks she gives a sh-t about his cargo.
“Clearly this isn’t getting delivered either way. I know when to cut my losses.”
Nyx smirks slightly. “I don’t cut deals or losses. Just throats.”
The space was so small she barely dodged the flames he threw at her, boiling the blood of his comrades that had pooled on the ground. Nyx narrows her eyes, responding by syphoning blood from his own wounds to shield herself from the flames as she throws him backwards against the opposite wall. He’s not down for long, he’s fast and he’s desperate, aiming for her legs as he freezes her in place for just a moment, long enough to hit her with a jagged arc of lightning that sears her from the inside. The white-hot pain tears through her, her veins suddenly feeling like barbed wire within her own flesh, but she grits her teeth, barely giving him time to breathe before she’s on him, a blur of black clothes and blood stained skin. She carves into him viciously with her fist weapons until his head falls from his body with a wet slap. She kicks it away, and falls back against the wall behind her, glancing over the visceral carnage, as her eyes slowly change from deadly red back to alarming violet.
After a moment, Nyx sighs heavily and gets to work. She makes sure all the corpses are locked away from the eyes of the general public in that one cramped, viscera-covered room. Then she heads to one of the staff exits, ending up in the grimy back alley of the club, the metallic tang of blood mixing with the already potent aromas of stale beer and piss. She pulls a cigarette from a battered box inside her jacket, dangling it between her lips as she fishes for a lighter.
That’s when her phone buzzed with a persistence that could only belong to Kirsten Geary.
Nyx didn’t check straight away. She hated feeling like a dog on a leash. Although, she’s a realist. She knows exactly what she is. Besides, at this point Nyx knew the drill. Corporate wants a report. Corporate wants a soul. Corporate wants you to stop getting blood on the upholstery. Ciao Ciao.
When Nyx realises she doesn’t have a lighter on her right now (or more likely lost it during the fight) she practically growls in annoyance, flicking her useless cancer stick away into the darkness. She gives in and pulls out her phone, reluctantly glancing at the digital display, her thumb hovering over “open” before she eventually stops delaying the inevitable. Nyx rolls her eyes as she flicks through Geary’s message, the usual sassy combination of being pleased that Nyx got sh-t done but less pleased with how she got sh-t done. Half insinuating she might be promoted, half insinuating she might be next on the chopping block. A thinly veiled threat here and there for good measure, just to keep her guessing.
Then a small smirk quirks her lips for the briefest of moments as something else comes through. Another message, from a familiar number. One saved simply under the name “Abracadabra.” That guy being a dead behind the eyes Magician (not the top hat and rabbit type, the professional at making people disappear type.) She has no idea what his real name is. It’s probably better that way for both of them. She had met Abra when the higher ups wanted to send a more threatening message about the lengths they were willing to go to if Nyx didn’t start incorporating a little more “secret” into her secret assignments. And now? Now they have an arrangement.
Abra’s message was much more interesting. The coordinates for a location nearby. She smirks to herself as she pockets her phone. Kirsten? Kirsten can f—ing wait.
She’s playing Icarus here…she knows all too well. The eye wouldn’t just fire her. They’d dismantle her. The white coats who have wanted to dissect her for months now to investigate her strange aversion to the filth would probably get a huge stamp of approval on their next request. With a cynical sigh, she pushes off the wall, the sting of blood magic beginning to subside under her skin. She pulls out a pair of well-worn roller skates she had stashed away behind the dumpster, before she casually slid them on and rolled into the neon dark.
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