Blue Nexus #23: Something Wicked...Is Already Here?

           Kyle stopped dead in his tracks, sweat beading down his face like a waterfall. His eyes flicked around the city, his sense for power scattering everywhere. The lights sparkled at him as if trying to hide his vision. The wind in the sky he floated in seemed to be trying to knock him down.

He winced as he moved his arm. No, God, no! In his Nexus form, Kyle knew, he couldn’t feel much pain. There was so much adrenaline and energy flowing through him that he wasn’t able to fully comprehend pain. Now, though, he knew. His arm was broken, and he knew his vision was going to go soon, too.

         “Where are you?” Kyle shouted. “Get out here!”

         “Playing hide-and-seek now?” Gargador shouted back, soaring through the skies from down below. Kyle, eyes flaring with blue, shot down toward Gargador, who smirked.

         He caught Kyle’s fist, then head-butted him back into the sky. Gargador kept coming, not at all slowed down by Kyle’s attack. He tried to elbow Kyle, who caught the attack and cast Gargador toward the ground. Gargador bounced off of the roof of a building, shattering it, then rolled back and stood up. He flexed his large orange scales and a long smile spread out on his long face, revealing extremely sharp jaws.

         “You honestly have no chance, Nexus,” Gargador said. “So I’d stop wasting your time with me, let me go on my way, and you can wait until your little mage girlfriend wakes up.”

         “No, you’re going to pay for that!” Kyle shouted, and blasted toward Gargador, who opened his arms out wide.

           “I’m under orders to give you mercy,” he said.

            Kyle roared, his hands igniting blue. He sped up just before he hit Gargador, who jumped up. Kyle crashed through the building like a bullet. Glass shattered and concrete broke instantly. He went all the way through, dust billowing from the building, before catching himself, bleeding now where he was formerly sweating.

            “Garga—!” he started before he was elbowed in the back of the head.

            Blue Nexus plummeted to the ground, crashing into the pavement below and creating a large crater. Gargador dropped down into Kyle’s, then strut up to him, grabbing him by the throat and putting their faces close. Kyle could easily smell the disgusting, hot breath emitting from Gargador.

            “Keep hunting me like this and I’m going to have to kill you,” Gargador said.

            As he had the past two nights that he was victorious, Gargador took out his blade and seeped it into Kyle’s bicep. Kyle roared in pain as the blade glowed blue and dark red poured down Kyle’s black-sleeved arm.

            Gargador sighed, dropping Kyle’s head into the crater. Water from a pipe began to wash over Kyle. Gargador sheathed his blade, and turned.

            Kyle’s fist glowed blue and he fired a blue energy blast that missed and barely made a dent into the other-side. Gargador laughed.

            “Did you lose your touch like the mage did?” asked Gargador.

            Kyle shook his head, but when his vision focused, all that was there was that shadow. Half of its body was facing Kyle, and it was smirking with bright white teeth. Kyle clenched a fist, fear trembling through his body.

            “No, no, I can take you!” he shouted, and pushed himself up with one arm.

            He noticed more silhouettes beginning to form around the crater. The main shadow turned around fully, something bright glowing behind their teeth. There were whispers above, barely audible over the pouring of the water.

            Kyle stumbled one step forward. He held his arm out, and the lance formed in his open palm. It was shorter than usual. In his bloodied and broken hand he crafted some energy. Kyle lurched forward, trying to jump. A jet of darkness was released from the shadow’s mouth.

            Kyle was knocked back, losing his grip on the lance. The shadow charged toward Kyle, stopping just short. Simply his momentum from the run knocked Kyle back. He reached for the lance but it was snapped in two by the shadow’s foot.

            The shadow looked down at Kyle, turning its head slightly.

            “Still too weak,” it said. “Still too weak!”

            It ran up and kicked Kyle into the back wall, cracking a rib instantly. Kyle rolled over the puddle of water that formed, face down in the dirt.

            “Not strong enough,” it said. “Still too weak.”

            Two heavy footsteps and a whoosh later and Kyle knew he was alone in the ditch. Water bubbled as he struggled to breathe. The mud stuck to his chest as he tried to do so in near failure every time. His arm was in terrible pain, and felt completely immobile. One eye was still open though all he could see was dark grey and some rubble sliding down the wall.

            The smell was the worst. Kyle slowly realized, as his brain was processing at a slower rate having hit the ground so many times, that he was laying down in sewage water, mixing with the city’s concrete.

            This was the third night in a row that he lay down in utter defeat. The first night was when he came closest, he realized. Gargador had no idea he was coming, as he was seemingly trying to escape the city and head south toward Adelita. He intercepted him and they began their fight. But, at the end, as Kyle and Gargador were getting down to the wire, the shadow from Magus Forest instantly replaced Gargador, overtaking Kyle easily and leaving him for dead. Last night was the same, and this night was the most humiliating. Gargador was putting forth as much strength that he had, sure, but made such quick work of Kyle that it was insulting.

            He felt someone scoop their arm under his armpit and he was lifted up, water leaking from his face and mud sliding down his pants. He was surprised he was still in his Nexus form, thought that was more likely because his body was depending on that not to be in some incredible pain.

            Slowly, he looked around. A mother held her child close to her as the young boy looked on in wonder. Another couple in plaid watched him, both of their phones pointed at him. Some words were uttered by his carrier. Kyle’s body suddenly went limp and the person accidentally let him fall. People gasped.

            The carrier stooped down but Kyle lazily waved them off. He bent his knees beneath him and used all of their strength to get to his knees. He breathed out and braced himself, then heard his joints aching and his muscles crying out as he stood up, and took one look around.

            A small fire in the crater, water filling the base of the crater. Dozens of innocent people looking on, with three cars covered in dust and with shattered windows. A building with a gaping hole through it. He looked down to his hands. His gloves were charred off, and he saw the dozens of slashes along the rest of his uniform.

            He suddenly threw up from exhaustion, then bucked forward before falling back and rolling into the crater, the sound of a splash the last thing he heard before fading into the darkness, where he felt watched.

            “Gotta be the weirdest day of my life,” someone muttered above him.

            “Not every day you get a superhero in your hospital,” a woman said, over to Kyle’s left.

            He opened his eyes. Fuzzy at first, then things gelled together. He was laying down in a bed, he knew that. Above him was a plain white ceiling with only four lights glowing down on him. He raised his right arm just fine. He was still in his Nexus form.

            Kyle looked across from him. Nobody there sitting in the green chair, which was placed next to a small plant for some reason. He groaned and looked over to his right. A stubble-faced man with large eyes but a small nose looked down at him. He had a surgical mask around his neck and white gloved-hands folded in front of him.

            “Good morning, Blue Nexus, welcome back to the world of the living,” he said.

            “Wh—where?”
            “Where are you? Eastern General Hospital, of course. Been waiting for you to wake up for about, oh, thirteen hours now? Haven’t so much as touched you or taken pieces of your magic suit or anything,” the doctor said.

            “Or revealed your identity, not that we were looking, but, you don’t even wear a mask, so, uh, you’re doing fine,” the woman said to his left.

            Kyle turned and looked. She was a young woman, probably in college, with a beat red face. She was nervous, Kyle could tell instantly.     

            “Where’s, wait, what happened?” Kyle asked, clumsily. “How did I get here?”

            “An ambulance came and got you, son, after you passed out,” the doctor said. “Almost everyone dialed nine-one-one instantly, so we got their as quick as possible. None of us were really expecting to find a superhero there but we took you in just as fast as anyone else and set you down here.”

            “The Phoenix showed up and asked for you, but, we had you stay here,” the nurse said. “Less obvious to find, who would come looking for a superhero at a normal hospital?”

            “Unless they worked at a hospital, but, I don’t think many super heroes are certified medical doctors,” the doctor said. “Anyway, we’ve been tending to your wounds as best we can. You heal quick, kid, helped us out a lot. You’ve just a few residual scratches and we would guess some dizziness from thrashing around the city, but you’ll feel that when you start walking again.”

            “When’s that?” Kyle asked.

            The doctor chuckled. “When I say you can. Now, I know you probably want to go running off and start fighting again, but what good are you out there if you go out with no energy and your senses out of whack? We’ll have you stay here until further notice, so, just relax. If you need to contact your friends, I put your, uh, communicator on the nightstand next to you. Don’t worry, I didn’t open it…not like I could, anyway.”

            Kyle smiled faintly and nodded. The doctor patted him lightly on the shoulder and exited with the nurse, the two discussing once again how odd it was to have a superhero in their hospital. Kyle was tempted to transform out of his Nexus form so it wasn’t as awkward on anyone that walked in, but realized yet again this was what was keeping his body intact and not turning in on itself.

            Instead he turned on his side, the side with the formerly cracked rib that was now feeling only slightly better—did the doctor really mean that Kyle healed quick or was he just trying to make him feel better—and turned on his communicator. He realized he had over ten messages, all from only Riko and Phoenix. The ones from Phoenix were asking if he was okay, and the ones from Riko were actually reports based off of what Lalay was monitoring on Brenda. She was getting better.

            Kyle sighed of relief. Thank goodness. Apparently her body’s healing magic was kicking in much better every time they checked up on her. Kyle could use some of that, but knew he could also bear the pain until Brenda got fully healed. He would need her to take on Gargador, there was no escaping that simple fact. Her barrier magic was incredibly effective against almost anything—even Black Nexus, who Kyle still knew was his strongest foe to date—so it would probably be their trump card against Gargador.

            Perhaps even the shadow that haunted him.

            Kyle shuddered at the thought of it. The shadow didn’t even attack him out of rage when he encountered it by Magus Forest. It attacked him, it seemed, as part of a test, as part of a way to gauge Kyle’s power against his own. So why did it keep reappearing?

            He wasn’t even sure if it was still appearing as he fought, or—this was what he feared more—that his mind was fabricating its existence. Kyle knew exactly what that meant:

            He was cracking and was going to break, and soon. This, of course, was the very last thing that Kyle needed. The Grand Elder prophesized some pretty major destruction. If it came at the hand of Gargador, Kyle alone was out of his league. If it wasn’t Gargador, then he had no idea what it would be and wouldn’t know how to confront it.

            Regardless, there was one thing he was definitely sure of. Okay, two: one being help and the other being more training. His technique against Gargador was sloppy at best mostly due to a lack of stamina. Plus, Kyle thought, since his victory over Black Nexus and the long gap of time between then and school, how many enemies had Kyle actually defeated? He hardly accepted the scuffle between Lightning and Thunder Tiger as victories, given that he could barely stand afterward, and there was one victory over the giant, possessed squid. Besides that? All losses, all in a row. And he was at a dead end in who was behind this.

            Who gave Gargador the anti-magic knife? Who would purposefully go after Brenda and ask to keep Kyle alive? Along with that, who would need to siphon Kyle’s power and why? Who was behind the destruction coming that the Grand Elder was afraid of? Who the hell was that shadow figure and who had the kind of power to create a monster like that from Vermont?

            Whoever they were, they left no trail, no sign of who they might be. Were they a mage? Then why would they need to take Kyle’s powers? Were they some other being with super abilities? Then why possess a giant squid in Vermont and have Gargador running laps seemingly just to fight Kyle.

            The worst part, Kyle knew, was that nobody in the Zanderia was able to pay close attention to what was going on. Lalay helped tend to Brenda, Riko was around the clock crime-fighting, and Phoenix was only human, doing as much as physically possible. There was also no word from Eclipse, which meant this person was talented.

            Kyle’s head throbbed. Nothing was adding up. Gargador wasn’t behind all of this by himself, he didn’t have possessive-like abilities nor the gall to leave Kyle alive. He was a demi-War God, leaving a Nexus live was against his practices. Someone was pulling his strings and pulling on them with incredible force, which worried Kyle.

            Because his strings, he knew, were also being pulled.

            Boomer sighed and folded his arms behind his back, walking around the small table with just test tubes and test tube holders on it. They were in a glass case that seemed blue, but was actually clear. The radiant blue light, the energy siphoned by Gargador, was turning the glass blue. It was liquefied, after the attempt at that failed miserably two nights ago, and Boomer had Luna help him run hundreds of experiments to see how the energy reacted.

            In short: greatly. The Nexus energy was able to mold with almost everything it came across. Boomer could only feel elation. This was the energy that the War Gods coveted so badly? No wonder. It was incredible. All beings in the universe would want this energy.

            Mostly because all beings in the universe were distorted versions of this energy, but who was really there to claim that? Boomer hardly cared. The great enlightenment the War God Cata bestowed upon him was paying off big-time. In only two, now three, known locations in the universe was Nexus energy used. One was used as a way to protect some king, and the other was unknown. Nobody was even sure who had it. Of course, nobody would know who had this energy, either.

            Boomer still had another week or so until Cata would send another agent—likely not another demi-War God like Boomer expected—to deliver the energy samples to her. She was excited when Luna contacted her that they had it, but Boomer made his colleague swear to tell her nothing of his experiments with the energy. Luna agreed. She was just happy that the Blue Nexus was falling more and more off of their path. Boomer couldn’t help but agree.

            It had to have been an odd weekend for the hero. He came back, apparently, shaken. Sadly, this resulted in Gargador’s ego inflating to about the size of his head, but Boomer still had him on a leash. After all, it was only because he supplied the knife—well, the Benefactor gave him the tools to create it—to knock Shindari out of the way, which was the real crux of the plan.

            Now he could continue on. With the two of them out of the way, his path to leaving the planet and working with Cata was practically paved. His Benefactor played his part marvelously. Boomer would miss him. Though they’d never met, the two worked almost perfectly in sync in the previous week, a synchronization he rarely ever saw. Admittedly, the Benefactor did most of the physical work, which Boomer knew of, but still.

            That is, until an arrow crashed into the leg of the table, knocking it over. The glass case cracked but the Nexus liquid held up. Boomer, trying to keep calm, looked over to the door.

            “Who the hell are you?” he asked, nonchalant.

            Two pairs of footsteps echoed behind Boomer. Gargador and Luna stepped up beside him, Gargador in his human form despite looking inhuman with how muscular he was.

            “An ally, sent from one you call the Benefactor,” the person said. It was a woman, and a young woman at that. Her hair fell down to her shoulders. Her arms and legs looked toned, powerful. She had a bow strung tight in her left hand, her right hand empty but looked ready to reach back into the quiver of feathered arrows and fire immediately. Besides that, she was unarmed and rather unimpressive to look at. She had a small brown shirt on with shorts to match with gloves and very thin shoes on, strapped to her feet.  

            “She’s a mage,” Luna muttered. “Look at the quiver.”

            Boomer looked over to it. There was a light purple hue radiating from the feathers, as well as the tips of the arrow pointed toward the ground. In all, Boomer could only count twenty arrows, probably normally carrying twenty-one given that she just fired one.

            He looked over her shoulder, stooping down to grab the glass case. The shot came from outside…and through the door. The door was knocked over on its side from the sheer force of the blow, and some smoke was coming off of it. Even the wood had a burn mark from where the arrow lodged into it.

            Gargador took the glass case from Boomer as the scientist dusted himself off. The archer stepped into the room. There were purple markings all around her neck and one on her face, looking similar to tattoos. As she stepped into the full light, he noticed that there were more but they weren’t as glowing as the others for some reason.

            To perfectly contrast the bright purple tattoos, though, the girl had a dead serious expression on her face. Almost as if she were hypnotized. Boomer shrugged it off. The Benefactor was a mysterious person.

            “Why’d he send me an ally?” asked Boomer.

            “Because we have a common goal to obtain the Blue Nexus,” she said. “And my master would like to see him brought down as well.”

            “Well he’s been missing out the past few nights,” Gargador said. His voice was deepening. Boomer didn’t bother turning around, he knew Gargador was transforming to try and intimidate the young woman. “Doesn’t he know that I’ve been destroying the Blue Nexus? And did he not hear about how Fire Tiger, a weakling, managed to have his lackeys also overtake him?”

            “You would forget then, Gargador, that the Blue Nexus has not been going full force on you,” the girl said.

            Boomer furrowed his brow. She was speaking too proper. Not that young people spoke in a bad way, but, this girl was serious about her words, and there was no possessiveness to them. She wasn’t even trying this, she simply knew she was powerful and spoke that way. Who was she?

            “What?” asked Gargador.

            Luna chuckled. “Ah, that’s right. He has a second stage, it’s been so long I forgot we logged that.”

            A shiver ran down Boomer’s back. Ah, yes. His second wave of energy, the one used to stop the black ball of negative, black energy from hitting the Earth months ago. He didn’t even take that form against the two Tigers. Was he holding back or did he also forget about it?

            “And he is not the true foe you should worry about,” the girl said. “You know all that you need to against the Blue Nexus, as Gargador has seen him in his human form. But the other? He’s a complete mystery. I should like to know more about him.”

            “You and your master as well?” asked Boomer.

            “Myself more than he, as he seems to be fixated on the Blue Nexus for some reason,” the girl said. “I won’t question it. But if the other Nexus can enter into his second stage of power, then not even two of your demi-War Gods might be able to defeat him.”

            “Wait, how do you know about the cosmic hierarchy?” asked Luna. She tensed up, Boomer noticed. She was on edge. Boomer tensed up as well. Who was this girl?

            “I have learned a great many things in the last week or so,” the girl replied. “All of which has been used to bring me to this moment. I’ve been sent as an ambassador of sorts to aid you in chasing the Blue Nexus and discovering more about him. Soon, Shindari will be on her feet and my master would also like her permanently out of the way.”

            “Then what are we to do about it?” asked Boomer.

            “As I said, Shindari is not yet an active player, so you needn’t worry about her or what your next move is,” the girl said. “We suspect that the Blue Nexus will try to stay local. Here we advise you to hold back your forces and bide your power until we let you know.”

            “Is he really trying to tell me what to do?” asked Boomer. “I only answer to one being.”

            “Who is not here at the moment, and we’re simply advising you,” the archer said. “Our plans will indeed come to fruition, with or without you, but they simply are expedited by you aiding us and staying true to what we want.”

            “Which is?”

            “The destruction of Shindari and the two Nexus.”

            Boomer nodded. The same goal as Cata. Simple enough to work with. The two Nexuses were a pain and he didn’t have the brute force to take them on yet, anyway. The Benefactor also seemed to be cooking up something insane, and was finally starting to come out of his shell. That spelled great things for further cooperation. The feeling of unease was gone. This girl meant no harm at all here, which meant neither did the Benefactor.

            “One more thing,” the girl said.

            Boomer smiled and nodded at her, unfolding his arms from behind his back.

            “Alucard is a dangerous person,” she said. “Stay out of his path. His darkness spreads farther than you could ever imagine, and once it catches hold of this area, it will be impossible to break free of it. Stay with our plan, and you will truly see power.”

            The girl bowed, then exited without once breaking her stride of confidence. Boomer watched her go, dumbfounded. Luna stepped up next to him.

            “So, if he’s supposed to be here already, then there should be a simple answer to this: who the blue hell is Alucard?”
            Boomer shook his head. “I have no idea, my dear Luna. But I don’t want to find out.”

            Kyle turned back over on his side, restless. He brought his cape over his chest and wrapped it around, tighter. He blamed the light from the digital clock for keeping him up since it was staring right back into his face.

            A cold breeze passed through the room, and he felt someone run their finger along his cheek. Immediately he sat up, allowing his aura to give some light to the room.

            He looked around, and froze when he saw it. A young boy was sitting in the chair across from him, holding something in his hands. He wore a ball cap but was bathed in shadow. Even as he approached, Kyle noticed that he was only in grey. Kyle didn’t feel any pain as he walked, only an overwhelming sense of cold.

            “They say that you get to visit one more place before you go, so I asked to see the one hero I’ve really wanted to meet,” the boy said.

            Kyle stopped.

            “I wanted to see you, Blue Nexus, because he said I’m not going to get to see the good guys ever again. Not where I’m going, not in the Nether. He said I’m just going to know bad people, but, I’m not bad. Mommy said I’m good. Unless, maybe Mommy’s there, too. Would you know? Would you bring me to Mommy?”

            Kyle’s chest tightened. This boy, he looked, he sounded just like…

            “Who sent you to the Nether, who took away Mommy…and Daddy?”

            The boy stopped fiddling with what was in his hands. He opened up his palm, revealing a bracelet with a faint blue light. The boy looked up at Kyle. Blue eyes to match his own.

            “Alucard.”

            The door suddenly opened. Light flooded in. The nurse stood in the doorway, holding a clipboard. Kyle’s aura was no longer there.

            “Blue Nexus?” she asked, though her voice sounded a million miles away.

            “Mom?” Kyle asked. “Dad?”

            “Why did you…when did you?” she sked, her voice still distant.

            Kyle felt someone faintly touch his face again. He suddenly shook, and he fell back against the chair, plopping right into this. The nurse stooped down, then made his way over to him, holding out something.

            His Nexus bracelet. Kyle stared at her, wide-eyed.

            “Who were you talking to?”

            The bracelet fell into his hands. He looked down at it, and began to fiddle with it. The light was dimmer, and it normally shone so bright in the darkness. Kyle frowned, then reached out and lightly touched the hand of the nurse. She quickly cupped her hands over his own. He looked up, feeling her warm touch against his deathly cold body. The darkness of the room suddenly began feel as if it were losing some sort of presence. As if someone were leaving.

            “Blue Nexus, who were talking to?”

            Her voice was much closer. She was there with him. She was real. But was he? But was…

            “Alucard.”

Next time: Kyle and Brenda are back on their feet but still have a ways to go until they can back in the ring! Kyle, though, feels walls closing in around him. To help him, Hood Nexus teams with Phoenix as they storm East City for answers! Check it out in Blue Nexus #24: The Shadow Man.