Blood feeds the soil. But in Nocturne, it's memories that make the world spin.
Combat Eruption — The Data Pit Bleeds
The lights in the underground vault shatter in a flash of red emergency pulses. Sparks rain like dying stars. Data vats hum ominously, their azure liquid glowing like bottled souls — each one brimming with stolen memories, desires, and traumas.
And then the room erupts.
Asher is the first to move — no hesitation, no stealth, just raw fury. His fist cracks through the reinforced helmet of the nearest corporate Spec-Ops trooper, visor splintering like sugar glass. The man's head jerks back, body collapsing in a twitching heap.
Noir's HUD flickers in the corner of his vision, painting the world in tactical overlays — red for killshots, blue for threats, yellow for instability.
"You're not taking my memories. Not today."Asher's voice is low, guttural. Controlled rage.
Behind him, Rosa thunders forward, swinging a rusted server rack like it's a child's toy. Her shock gauntlets flare as she smashes the rack down — sending another trooper sailing into a vat of synthetic neural fluid.
The vat ruptures.
Neon-blue liquid spills across the floor, fizzing as corrupted memory strands sizzle into code-death. The man's body spasms as the data invades him — old love letters, a child's laugh, fragments of forgotten trauma — now overwritten by strangers' lives.
Rosa spits.
"Memory soup. Disgusting."
Somewhere above them, steam hisses — then a shot rings out.
Lucien flips backward onto a console, both pistols twirling like a circus act on stimulants.
He fires again — striking a pressure valve. The pipe bursts, unleashing a wall of blinding vapor that covers half the room in dense fog.
"Yeehaw, corporate dogs!" Lucien yells, silhouetted in the mist. "Get steam-cleaned!"
His laughter cuts through the chaos — equal parts thrill and madness.
This isn't just a raid anymore. This is a memory war.
Bullets zing past.
A drone explodes above Rosa's head, and she charges straight through the smoke, vaulting a desk.
Asher rounds the corner — they nearly collide.
She grabs his collar mid-motion, yanking him close.
Sweat drips down her cheek. Her grin is feral.
Rosa (grinning):"Detective, you ever think about blowing off some steam after this? Maybe in my gym… or my bed? Either way, I'll break something."
Asher, ever the deadpan glacier of the trio, doesn't blink.
Asher:"I think you already broke three skulls today."
From the smoke, Lucien whistles loudly, kicking a drone off the railing.
Lucien:"Get a room, you two!"(he blasts a shotgun shell into a guard)"Oh wait— we just made one. It's called the Pain Suite!"
Suddenly, a screaming guard gets shoved backward into a tall black cylinder — a Memory Imprint Scanner.
The machine activates.
Holographic screens light up across the chamber, suddenly projecting slices of the man's subconscious.
Everyone freezes as explicit romantic fantasies begin looping across the screens — neon-lit lingerie, a moonlit rooftop, some kind of jellyfish costume.
Noir (deadpan):"This data is… explicit. Censoring now."
Lucien stares.
"No, no — leave it. That's comedy gold."He pauses. Shoots the screen."Okay now I'm done."
The fight resumes, the absurdity lingering like static electricity in the air.
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Asher's Breaking Point — The Tactical Beast Unleashed
The laughter fades.
Asher's expression shifts.
His pupils contract. His breath slows. Noir's voice becomes louder in his mind — not words, just tactical pulses, a cold rush of executable violence.
His body moves on instinct. No flourish, no theatrics.
Just devastation.
He twists behind one of the Spec-Ops troopers, grabs the man's rifle — turns it inward and fires it point-blank into the man's own knee. Bone and metal shred.
The trooper screams.
Asher finishes it with an elbow to the neck. The scream cuts off.
Noir (whispering):"Target incapacitated. Move to the next."
Asher says nothing. Just advances.
He slams a heel into another soldier's ankle — snaps it. Fires a bullet through the chest plate before the man hits the ground. The entire time, his expression never changes.
"No more memory thieves."
His voice is hollow.
The old him — the idealist detective — is buried under layers of anger and stolen memories.
And something darker is surfacing.
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The Boss Reveal — Mistress Helix Enters
From the shadows of the rear lab, a figure glides forward — not walking, floating.
Her heels click once against the floor before her body levitates fully off the ground.
Mistress Helix.
Her white lab coat trails like a specter's veil, but underneath, her body is a hive of machinery. Chrome tendrils slither from her back, hissing with micro-saws and injector needles.
Her face?
Half-human, smooth and smug.
The other half?
A polished steel mask that reflects every soul in the room.
Mistress Helix (smiling):"You worms… all this violence over a little memory tax? Very well. I shall harvest yours instead."
She lifts a hand.
Above them, the ceiling splits open.
Six spherical drones descend, their surgical arms whirring. Each one is loaded with neural extractors, laser scalpels, and data spike needles.
Lucien (staring):"Oh crap. It's one of those kinky boss fights again."
Rosa (stretching):"Time to tear the tentacles off, boys."
Asher reloads. His eyes glow faintly blue.
Noir (toneless):"Warning: Boss-level threat detected. Initiating overclock protocols."
-----------------------------------------
All or Nothing
They move.
Together, like a storm.
Rosa leads the charge with a yell that shakes the vats.
Lucien spins into the fray, his pistols belching flame as he dives across consoles.
And Asher?
Silent now.
Every shot a headshot. Every movement a death sentence. Noir rides his brainwaves like a symbiotic devil, syncing body to machine.
The extractor drones scream.
Surgical lasers slash the air.
The walls rupture, memory streams spraying across the chamber like burst arteries. Some of them play fragments of childhood lullabies, others torture sessions, others first kisses and last breaths.
And still, the erotic scan from earlier plays in the corner — unrepentant.
Noir tries to censor it again. Lucien laughs and shoots it again.
The boss fight has begun.
Asher's final bullet slices through the smoke — aiming for Helix's eye.
Her tendrils whip forward like striking serpents, clashing with the bullet mid-air.
A spark explodes between them.
Rosa howls.
Lucien's laughter turns feral.
Mira — far above, strapped into Noir's drone rig — watches through the cam feed.
Her eyes widen.
"They're going to die… all of them..."
And below, Nocturne's blood-soaked Data Pit prepares to devour its newest memories.
[End Of Chapter 84]
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Next Chapter (85) — Harvest Queen: The Boss Fight Turns Personal
Mistress Helix's past is revealed — the twisted origin of her obsession with "memory purity." Rosa and Asher go fully feral in the fight, tapping into trauma-born strength. Lucien? He loots mid-battle like a gremlin with a shopping cart. But when a forgotten face emerges from Helix's database, everything changes.