Blue Nexus #27--Conference

       Traffic flowing into East City wasn’t too bad, but Boomer felt himself growing more and more impatient by the second. In a world where there were more people being known to fly than species being found, he really wished he could sprout that ability right about now. Instead he was stuck in a five year-old car driving three hours toward a metropolitan area—where parking would be all but impossible—to find a man he had never really met, and was only following a hunch on where to find him.

         What a glorious situation. The world might be ending, he might be getting betrayed, and he was stuck driving some car to some city.

         He peered over to Luna for just a moment. Her breathing was slow and deep, and she looked a little pail. Her hair fell in front of her face. Boomer had already asked if she were sick, but she said that she wasn’t. Either she was lying or this was just something normal for her to do in her off time. Perhaps it was the stress of the situation.

         The two of them had never really been in a predicament like this, Boomer realized. There were moments along their partnership where they faced some deep threats or big moments, but always came out on top. Trying to tame Gargador? Imparted with the knowledge of a War God. Faced with the daunting task of taking down two Nexus wielders and a mage? Imparted with the aid of the Benefactor.

          Only now, all of that could be turning on them. The heroes were all back on their feet, Gargador was little more than just a dog and could spiral out of control, and the Benefactor might very well build an army to destroy East City, and probably Blue Nexus, crushing any chance to further his goal and research. That just wouldn’t do. On the other hand, none of that could happen and Boomer was going crazy. But that’s what this little visit would be all about.

           By the time he got into the city it was nearing one o’clock in the afternoon and people were abuzz around town, probably headed for food. Boomer felt a slight hunger pang as well but ignored it, weaving the streets. It’d been so long since he was last in East City, for a presentation, that he barely remembered how exactly to get to where he wanted to be.

            He stopped on the side of the street, parking into a meter zone and nimbly getting out of the car before spinning back around, watching Luna slowly get out of the car. 

            “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

            “I’m fine, let’s meet with this guy,” Luna said, looking worse than before.

            Boomer shrugged and moved toward the large building looming overhead. The impulse in his body to just go inside and find someone was too overwhelming, completely taking out any sympathy he felt. He just needed, so desperately, to find the Benefactor.

            Patton arrived back at the school only ten minutes after the Aberrants were successfully taken away by Brenda, to be placed in her own construct far away from the town so they wouldn’t harm anyone again. Kyle, as Blue Nexus, met her up.

            School was instantly called off after the attack. Patton let the higher-ups talk with the school officials to discuss what was to be done. Kyle could only imagine the subject matter, and it would no doubt hurt his case as a superhero. It hadn’t even been a month since the baseball stadium and back field were completely destroyed, and not to mention that this was twice now that students’ lives were put directly in danger and stopped very closely by a super force.

            As he waited for Patton to make his way over to him, she was talking with others who were waiting around and were clearly shaken up, Kyle wondered what things were going to be like for him moving forward. He had so much heat on him right now. Where was Blue Nexus during this attack? Why hadn’t he intercepted the Aberrants so they couldn’t get to the school in the first place?

            He kicked a small rock so hard that it went straight through a metal beam. Damn it! He couldn’t do anything, all because of a stupid secret identity. If he just transformed into Blue Nexus he could easily have taken the fight away and there would be little damage done. Plus he would have isolated Sandy and talked with her. Her role in all this was an even bigger mystery, as was where she went and why she attacked the Aberrants.

            Worst of all, though, Kyle couldn’t stop thinking about his fear paralysis. He knew that he was going to die in that moment because he couldn’t get himself to become the Blue Nexus. He was restricted by a rule he shouldn’t have even considered. And in that moment, Sandy arrived, putting everyone at even greater risk than before with her inexperience.

            Patton whistled when she made it over to him, then she clicked her tongue a few times.

            “Can’t even leave this school for a day and something major goes down,” she said. “I’m hearing conflicting stories, ranging from alien monsters to Frankenstein to just downright WWE wrestlers, so tell me you can set me straight?”

            “Not going to try and convict me of being a student again?” Kyle asked.

            “I don’t give a damn about you right now so much as I do these people, who can’t take care of themselves should those things come back,” Patton said. “Now, tell me what they were.”

            “They’re called Aberrants, created as giant monster-like weapons for an army. Only problem is we aren’t entirely sure who’s responsible for creating them. Each scientist we think has created them suddenly goes off the grid and we’re a bit too busy fighting off other threats.”

            “Have you tried looking up a little professor right down the road?” asked Patton. “Name’s Boomer, he’s a chemist down at the community college. Got one of the world’s sharpest minds in recent years and yet he spends his time there. I’d say that’s as off the grid as you can get.”

            “Boomer also had a hand in the creating of the Tiger Trio, didn’t he?” asked Kyle.

            Patton nodded. “They’re chemically imbalanced, changing their body structure to adapt to their respective elements. Nobody actually thinks he was the one behind the Aberrants because of that, but, then again, we have yet to see just how far a mad scientist is going to go.”

            “Let’s hope we never do see that day, either.”

            “Right. I checked in with a few of my boys, and they said they haven’t seen Boomer in a while, and that he’s not in his office at the college. My bet is he’s at East City, for the obvious reasons that something weird is going down there.”

            Kyle nodded. “I’ll have to call in some back up then, if he’s in East City.”

            Patton raised her eyebrow, then crossed her arms. “Why? Can’t handle the big city life? You were just there yesterday, or at least on the outskirts.” 

            “Look, I just have a bad feeling about that place. Plus we don’t know what Boomer may have brought with him, it could be something dangerous that requires more experience than I can bring to the table.”

            Patton grinned widely, then patted Kyle on the shoulder as if he were a little kid who just caught a ball for the first time.

            “Using your head and thinking of others, I like it, kid. Well, I still suggest you head on over to East City. Call in whatever back-up you have to, but do it quick. Things are developing much quicker than we talked about, and that’s never a good sign.”

            “I’m on it,” Kyle said, before bursting into the sky, then shooting forward away from the school, leaving just a faint trail of blue energy behind him as Patton looked on.

            He hesitated at the town’s limits, looking off into the distance. With his enhanced vision he could just barely make out the city in the distance, the tallest buildings standing proud as ever as they pierced the sky above. He’d been there for just a few minutes last time, but when he had been there for a little while longer, Gargador waited for him. What if he was doing the same again? What if Boomer was just luring him there to eventually spring some sort of trap? That would put way more people in danger than the Aberrants did at school.  

            Kyle shook his head, brandishing his Zanderia communicator. Then he would just have to make sure the battle left the city, as Hood Nexus had done in their most recent bout with the demi-War God.

            He dialed up Phoenix, holding the communicator, watching as the signal began to rise on the meter until it was full. Something crashed on the other end. Kyle raised an eyebrow.

            “Phoenix, everything alright up there?” Kyle asked.

            “Well considering the mass chaos going on, no, I’d say things are going pretty poorly,” Phoenix said.

            “Mass chaos, what’re you talking about?” Kyle asked again. He thought the only chaos was in his area.

            “Remember that monster you fought up in Vermont? Well guess what, there’ve been more sightings of those types of things around the whole world. I’ve dispatched everyone I can get to, but…I just don’t know.”

            “Shouldn’t Eclipse be able to talk some of these monsters down? Or is he off-planet?”

            “Eclipse is nowhere to be found.”

            A chill ran down Kyle’s back. Now that he mentioned it, Kyle hadn’t been feeling that ever-so-slight tug in the back of his mind, where Eclipse occupied it to keep everyone in check. Not that he was constantly reading Kyle’s thoughts, but he was making sure Kyle didn’t do anything rash. This all with Kyle’s permission, of course.

            “Oh, jeez.”

            “We’re spread thin, Blue Nexus. Real thin.”

            Kyle hesitated to respond, remaining unmoving in the air above the town. He felt as if he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. The Zanderia, spread thin? For all the time they’d been around, Kyle never once considered they could run into a problem. He lived in a world where the Zanderia were accepted as the greatest heroes the Earth would ever see, stopping potential disasters everywhere. And they always kept a positive façade both before and after the battle. But the during?

            Phoenix’s fear and dread about the potential destruction leaked into Kyle’s mind. The chills in his back weren’t stopping. His hand was shivering slightly. He noticed it, trying to clench a fist but it was too shaky.

            “What can we do, then?” asked Kyle. “How can we help?”

            “Do whatever it is you’ve been doing,” Phoenix said. “You and I both know that the things happening in East City are an absolute priority. Do not lose focus, Blue Nexus. We’re going to need your all for the next few days, be sure to bring it.”            

            “Yeah, right. Good luck, Phoenix.”

            “We need it.”

            Static filled the air as the communication went down. Kyle put the communicator away. He was still as a board, suspended up in the air. It almost sounded as if they were already beaten. Why wasn’t Kyle informed of this earlier?

            Must’ve been because Phoenix was urging him to stay focused. A sudden weight full onto his shoulders, compounded by a further realization. Not only was he Adelita and East City’s only line of defense as a super hero, but he was their last line of defense as well. Brenda had to have been off with the Zanderia, called in for support and Hood Nexus was as reliable as good Lotto numbers.

            Kyle looked ahead, to East City again, then peered down and back to Adelita, a small town with smaller people in a humongous world that could swallow it whole. Leaving it now left it defenseless. But if he didn’t leave, a darkness that was already overwhelming could become invincible.

            “Sorry guys,” Kyle muttered, then turned and blasted toward East City at top speed.

            “Blue Nexus wait!” Brenda shouted, coming to a jarring halt where Kyle had just been. She swore under her breath.

            She’d been just a second too slow to catch him. Brenda had no idea why he was headed to East City, but figured it had to be urgent for him to be going so dangerously fast down the highway. If she hadn’t been so held up by that monster, she might have made it with more than enough time to spare, and possibly help him out.

            “Hey, Shindari, down here!” a familiar voice exclaimed. Brenda looked around in the sky before diverting her attention to the ground, where that Detective Patton was standing waving her arms, speaking through a megaphone.

            Brenda dropped to the ground, catching herself on a platform construct. She strode up to Patton, who shoved the megaphone into another officer’s hands.

            “Too late to catch him, huh?” Patton asked.

            “Yes, but, he’ll be okay,” Brenda said.

            “You gonna follow him?”

            “It sounds as if I’m needed here.”

            “Indeed you are.”

            “Then how may I be of assistance?”

            Patton sighed. “A couple of Aberrants attacked the high school down the road. Nobody was hurt. Apparently there was a strange archer there who took them down quite easily. Some people say she was glowing. Then again some people were saying the Aberrants ate somebody…not something they do. Anyway, Mockinjay escaped but we’ve decided to pursue the possibly perpetrator behind the Aberrants, and would like you to go to his base.”

            “Why can’t you take a group?”

            “Because as much as I don’t believe that the girl is glowing, I also know I saw an alien girl drop out of the sky and land on a red magical platform. Check it out, let me know what you find there. It’s an office in the community college, if there’s magic, you’ll know where to go. Right, that’s how it works?”

            “And if it there’s no magic? Or I can’t sense it?”

            “Keep looking.”

            Brenda nodded, and stepped past Patton. The detective chuckled to herself. Brenda turned as she slowly moved up, inch by inch, into the air.

            “Magic, aliens, work just isn’t the same as it used to be when I started. Biggest crime was stolen tires. Now? Armageddon.”

            “Not if we can help it.”

            “And you better!”

            Brenda smiled, then shot toward the community college. It was a part of town she only frequented when with Kyle, and even then, those were very sparse times. Kyle had no reason to be there and what was Brenda going to do there? Class? How would she prove an Earthly identity? And what need did she have for college? Lalay was her biggest teacher thus far, and was teaching Brenda far more than an Earthly teacher could.

            She arrived at Adelita Community College instantly, looking for a place of cover to land, then exit out of her super garb for normal human clothing, to try and blend in. Brenda took to landing behind the Library, and after a flash of red, she leapt over a small brick wall and was briskly walking toward the Chemistry building on the outskirts of the campus. There was just something odd tugging her there. It was magical, but, it was an odd magic. Almost a mix of sorts, if that was even possible.

            Few students walked about the campus, Brenda noticed. Did it have anything to do with this magical energy? Perhaps. More likely it was that few people even wanted to be at school, which was far more understandable.

            Brenda made it to the Chemistry building, maneuvering through the halls before she stopped in the middle of a hallway, looking down. The magical source lay below her, underground. She frowned. Not like she could just punch through the floor and reveal the lab to everyone. She knew it was there, which was what her mission truly was, but she had no idea what kind of magic this could be.

            Once more, she looked around the hallway, then up to the corners, checking for cameras. If there were any, they’d be hidden. Brenda bowed her head, then headed into one of the open classrooms. She placed her hand on the ground, tracing magic down her arms from her chest into her hand. She felt the wealth of magic below once more, this time more poignant as she was using her own magical sensors, but was more looking for a way to get to it than anything else.

            Something across the hallway forced Brenda’s eye to twitch. She stood up, severing the magical connection, and ducked out of that classroom into the room across. She forcibly unlocked the door and stepped into an office.

            Papers were stacked neatly on top of each other, with no name on the table to mark whose office this was.  Nothing seemed to be out of order, which was exactly what Brenda was afraid of. It was too neat, something was amiss. There had to be something in here that triggered Brenda’s magical sensors. She knew she wasn’t out of touch or anything of the sort, so what was bugging her about this place?

            She wandered over to the other side of the desk, feeling around it for…anything, really. It felt wrong for her to be sifting through his the drawers, but, that was depressed by the fact that there was nothing to be found there. The papers on the desk were student reports. There wasn’t even a computer to log onto.

            And yet there was somehow a connection between this room and the one below. Brenda peered over to the other side of the room. There was a door, but, that would only lead to the outside. She looked over to the other side of the room. No door.

            Immediately, Brenda turned on her heel and made for the extra door. She opened it, a cool air greeting her, before stepping down into the concrete stairwell as the door shut behind her. The hallway went black for a second before the light from Brenda’s magic around her hands illuminated it.

            She stepped out of the room into another, which had a green tint to it. There were pods all along the wall, all of them empty. Brenda looked around, marveled at what she saw. How was nobody noticing this major lab beneath the school? Was maintenance just not aware of all of this?

            Regardless, she knew this was where the odd magic was coming from. But, unlike before, now she was unable to pinpoint a specific spot. It felt as if she was surrounded by it. The more she stood in it, though, the more she was able to put a label on what kind of magic this was.

            Demon magic, the worst of the magical variants.

            Brenda grimaced. So, this teacher fellow was delving into some dark magic. Made sense. It explained how inhumanly strong the Aberrants were. Whoever was behind this, Patton would know for sure once Brenda returned no doubt, was some sort of alchemist, it would appear. Brenda retained her grimace as she moved toward the back of the room, where a drape hung over something.

            She reached out to grab the drape before her hand was shocked, and a wall of shadow appeared before her. On the walls were two generators, creating this energy. Whatever was behind this could be potentially dangerous, Brenda figured. She conjured a cube and moved it into the shadow wall. Instantly it was crushed. Brenda tried to create constructs around the four generators, failing with each attempt.

            Her fingers tingled. This wasn’t normal magic, this was infused with some sort of dark energy. Not the eclipsing energy of Black Nexus, luckily, or the world would be in serious trouble. Perhaps this required a more forceful, non-magical touch. She would have to return with Kyle so they could work together and figure out how exactly this Demon magic was being worked.

            Brenda moved quickly out of the lab below, sealing it with a red construct, wondering all the while how the alchemist below even got a hold of such magic.

            East City shone incredibly bright, with almost all of the buildings reflecting the Sun’s magnificent light. Kyle floated just a football field-length away from the city, his arms and feet crossed.  Among his hundreds of trips to and from East City, this was the slowest one. Normally, Kyle had a straight, clear mind about what he was going to the city for. Someone was in danger. Something huge just went down and needed an immediate response.

            This time, though, he was out of his element. He had to hunt down and find someone who may not even be in the city. And then what could he do? Arrest him? Possibly, but, on incredibly ridiculous charges. And was he supposed to bring Boomer to the East City police or back to Patton?

            All the questions made Kyle’s head buzz. He wasn’t even thinking about the possibility of Gargador leaping out of the city and pile-driving him into the ground again. Kyle flinched at the thought. Was he still really afraid of Gargador? Of someone that beat him a few times because he was fighting more with his emotionally distraught heart than with a level head? His mind wasn’t all together yet, but, at least he was in a better state than a week ago.

            Kyle began to float closer to the city, moving with great hesitation. If he was going to do this, he had to be able to think fast. Boomer had no idea that he was coming but what if he had men posted about that could inform him? He would have to expose himself eventually, unless he was in such a good hiding spot that he wasn’t even afraid of a super finding him.

            Finally, Kyle made it to the city, touching down onto a rooftop. He strode across it, then scanned the first few blocks, trying to get a grip on the situation. Boomer wouldn’t be in the outskirts of the city, but going too far in would be obvious.

            Everyone milled about the city like normal. Taxis honked, there was a murmur of conversation. Kyle couldn’t listen in on anything specifically, just the dull chatter hundreds of feet below. He took a leap to a building two blocks down, controlling his descent, then walking to the edge of that building and repeating the process. He wanted to draw as little attention to him as possible, thus, he couldn’t fly out in the open. Who wouldn’t notice that?

            The hospital was nearby, as were some of the taller apartment complexes. There, though, Kyle noticed something odd. Someone crawled into an alleyway. Kyle stood up straight, then beamed straight for the frail person, forgetting about the mission. This lady was in trouble.

            People dispersed as he made a sudden landing in front of the alleyway. The woman heeded him little attention, instead moving into the shadow of the building, where she huddled up against the wall, sighing contently.

            “Ma’am, are you okay?” Kyle asked, taking a step toward her.

            The woman looked at him, quivering as she did so. She reached around for something to grab. Kyle extended his hand out.

            “I’m fine,” she spat out. “Fine!”

            “What’s happened?” Kyle asked, trying not to sound forceful.

            “I’m just not…feeling well,” the woman said. “I was told to wait outside so…so I am.”

            Kyle tilted his head curiously. He swore he’d seen this woman before, but where? He pursed his lips, then knelt down in front of her.

            “I’ll take you to a doctor, ma’am, if you’ll come with me,” he said. His hand was still extended toward her.

            “I am a doctor, damn you,” the woman said.

            Well at least we’re getting somewhere, Kyle figured.

            “That doesn’t mean you don’t need one,” Kyle said. “Come on, there’s a hospital right down the road, they can fix you right up.”
            “They can’t fix this.”

            “Why not?”

            The woman looked up, dark red blood running from her nose and down one ear. Her skin was almost white. Kyle lurched forward, scooping her up, then leaping over the building and landing a block away from the hospital. He sprinted inside, the sliding glass doors just barely opening in time to avoid being shattered by him.

            A nurse approached him as he looked around desperately. “Whoa, sir, I mean, Blue Nexus. What happened to this woman?”

            She signaled for a man to bring over a wheelchair. Kyle gulped, nerves swelling in his stomach.

            “I’m not sure,” he said. “But, she really doesn’t look good. I can’t, I don’t know what to do for her.”

            “Trust me, you did the right thing,” the nurse said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We’ll have a look at Ms…Luna. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

            The man with the wheelchair approached them. Kyle set Luna down into the wheelchair. She gripped his collar very loosely.

            “That building, find him, please,” she said, her voice raspy. Her arm flopped to her side before she picked it back up. Kyle clenched a fist, then stormed out of the hospital.

            He was back at the alley in seconds, peering up at the apartment complex above. Maybe Boomer was in there and maybe he wasn’t. But something odd happened to that woman and he had to know what it was.

            Kyle floated up, hoping to catch a peek at possibly Boomer through one of the windows. He didn’t have to look too hard, though.

            On the fifteenth floor, Professor Boomer stood on the balcony with his arms folded behind his back. Kyle moved up to him, keeping himself level. Boomer had a straight face, a concentrated look glowering at Kyle.

            “So, let’s chat,” he said. He turned and walked back inside.

            Kyle moved over to the balcony, landing onto it before making his way inside. The living room was large, and open. There was a couch against the left wall and a pair of cushioned seats next to it. A glass table sat in the middle, and a nice rug before the small hallway brought the whole room together.

            Boomer was standing by the counter, pouring himself a small glass of liquor. He swashed it around before taking a sip. When he glanced back up to Kyle, the hero noticed that Boomer had some darkness under and around his eyes, and that there was a slight heaviness in his breathing. He didn’t look entirely sleep-deprived, but, he probably wasn’t the most stable scientist in the world right now. That alcohol probably didn’t help much, either.

            “Kind of an inconvenient place to be when you work a few hours away,” Kyle said.

            “I wish I lived here,” Boomer muttered. “No, sadly, this is just a nice, quiet, out of the way meeting place. Nobody to see us, nobody to hear us. It can be just…us.”

            “Cozy,” Kyle said. He moved further into the room. Boomer poured himself just a few drops more before doing the same. Kyle crossed in front of a table against the wall with nothing on it. Boomer looked down to his drink, smiling.

            “Though, I have to imagine you’re wondering why I’m here anyway,” Boomer said. “Well to be honest, I’d really rather not have to meet in my office. It’d throw both of us under the bus if someone saw the conversation. But this place, it was offered to me.”

            “By who?”

            “The Benefactor.”

            “Ah, so you’ve met him.”

            “In a way. We have a mutual friend who has worked with me in the past. And against you. But the Benefactor felt that now was the time for us to meet, and I heartily agreed.”

            “I think you and he have sent more than just one villain after me recently. Does Gargador work under him, too?”

            “Gargador works under me.”

            “Color me impressed.”

            Boomer took a sip out of his drink. Kyle was trying to sound as intimidating and smart as possible, trying to remain one step ahead of the man who had an arsenal of bad guys at his call, given that he worked with the Benefactor. Who exactly was that, though?

            “But I don’t work under the Benefactor, we’re simply partners looking for a similar, not the same, goal.”

            “Oh yeah? I don’t get what the difference is. You both, since you control Gargador, attack this city regularly, you use your science to create Aberrants, and the Benefactor uses his…benefits…to give people more power to attack the city.”

            “My goal is not to attack the city for the sake of taking it over. Nor do I want some sort of global conquest or a need to recreate the human race in my own perfect image.”

            “Then what do you want, Boomer?” Kyle asked, giving himself a silent victory that he managed to get the information out of Boomer that he created the Aberrants.

            “Your bracelet,” Boomer said. “That’s all I need.”

            “For what? If you don’t want to conquer anything and if you don’t want to destroy anything then why do you want this?”

            “As an offering, a gift more like, to Cata, the War God.”

            Kyle’s heart plummeted. Great, an actual War God was involved now. Though, how Boomer had access to her was incredible to perceive. How would some human, some community college teacher, have the ability to communicate with one of the univeres’s most revered beings? One that even the Sentients of the Nexus were afraid of?

            “An offering?”

            “The War Gods don’t inherently seek out the Nexus bracelets but with so few relatively scattered around the universe now it’s impossible to keep track of them as well as keep them out of the hands of anyone who thinks they can be a hero.”

            “Right, we’d much rather have them in the hands of psychos who wanted both the power of a War God and a Nexus Sentient. Why not just change the color to black and give them the ability to wipe away existence?”

            “Because, as you said, you would have to be psychotic.”

            “But working with a War God for an end you can’t even see isn’t?”

            “I know what my end of the bargain gets me, Blue Nexus. It gets me something far more than anything normal humans want, and is something the greatest of humans desire.”

            “What’s that?”
            “I want to live beyond my mortal limitations. I want to know far beyond my own comprehension. I have an incredible wealth of knowledge at my hands. Cata has already granted me so much, but there is still that much more to learn. I know about the Orion system, the Kingdom Planets. About King Eru and the legendary Golden Sword. The Venus Molten Men’s eradication? Elementary. But there’s questions I don’t have the answers to. One is a question you’ve already brought up and that is: how does one attain the power to eliminate existence? I don’t look at the trivial problems of Earth, I’m looking beyond. And my ticket there lies on your wrist.”

            Boomer cast his glass aside, shattering it. Kyle was suddenly conscious of his bracelet glowing on his wrist.

            “But you use it as a simple weapon. You could fly around the galaxies, retaining your youth far longer than anyone else on Earth, but you would use it to fight my mindless beasts, or shattered city streets! Pathetic. You don’t understand how much of the universe’s power you wield at your fingertips. And you don’t even use it for any sort of gain?”

            “I do use it for gain, Boomer.”

            “What gain?”
            “To give people a chance to live out their own dreams, just like you’re looking to live out yours. I can’t give you the Nexus bracelet if it means just letting you understand the workings of the universe while other people are put in danger! The Benefactor doesn’t share your desires, he’s only been spreading darkness for the sake of turning the world into an evil place!”

            Boomer scoffed at Kyle. “An act not incredibly difficult to do.”

            “But you get my point. You’re working with the wrong people. You don’t need the Benefactor to do what you want. You don’t even need Cata! How do you know the information she’s feeding you isn’t a complete lie? Hell, how do you know the Benefactor isn’t just playing you? I trust my Nexus bracelet because it’s what my parents gave me. They trusted me, and I trust them. I trust Aequitas, and all of my allies that I’ve met since I got this thing. They have good, pure hearts. And here you are, saying all of these things, when your best ally is a man you don’t even know.”

            “I don’t have to.”

            “That’s why I’m going to beat you.”

            Boomer laughed, then moved back over to the counter, where he flipped over a larger glass, but hardly filled it up. He moved the liquid around again, then stepped off the tile, crinkling the glass as he did so. A shiver ran up Kyle’s back and his hands twitched.

            “As you’ve been doing so many times in the past. I’ll admit, even though you’re wrongfully using the bracelet, you’ve proven yourself a capable combatant. But, what’s a warrior without a strategy?”
            “What’s a scientist without a method?”

            Boomer smirked, looking over to Kyle once more. “A mad genius.”

            A shocking cold ran through Kyle’s body as he felt his stomach and abdomens tighten. He peered down to it, seeing a black hand jutting through it, but there was no blood or markings of any sort. The hand yanked out, and Kyle dropped to his knees. His body pitched forward, forcing him to brace himself with one hand as he stared helplessly up to Boomer.

            “Alu…card,” Kyle said.

            “It would appear he decided to join us,” Boomer said, nodding to the shadow that stepped over Kyle.

            “He, he turned Sandy,” Kyle said. “She’s working with…with you?”

            “Ah, I guess that’s who the archer is,” Boomer said. “Quite the mage. Perhaps not as powerful as Shindari, but, then again, at least now they’re down one more person.”

            Alucard stooped down, then lifted Kyle’s chin, so he could stare the red eyes backed by a completely black, grinning face dead on.

            “The first hero falls, I wonder how quick the others will be to fall, too,” Alucard said, then shoved Kyle back toward the wall.

            Kyle jolted, blinking twice as his body finally calmed down. He braced himself against the cold wall of an alleyway. He looked around quickly, breathing quickly as well. He was in the alleyway that the frail woman, Luna, had been in before. Only, this was much, much different.

            Everything around him was grey. The sky was grey, the buildings were grey. They were different shades of it, but, there was no true color to anything. Nothing except the faint glow around Kyle provided by the Nexus abilities. Kyle tried powering up, but found that he was actually weakening down more and more.

            Kyle tried to sprint out of the alleyway before a hooded person walked in front of him, pushing him back in. Kyle sprawled to the ground, feeling his chest tighten and his body grow weak. Was the Nexus actually weakening him now? He reached over and swiped his hand over the Nexus bracelet, transforming him out of it.

            Surprisingly, he felt much better. He picked himself up as the man at the start of the alleyway started on, marred in shadow, his face invisible.

            “What’s going on here?” Kyle asked, his voice echoing around not just the alleyway, but the street. A cold bead of sweat rolled down his head. Was the city…empty?

            “Nothing,” the man said.

            Kyle raised an eyebrow. That voice, it was just like Brian’s. Only, Brian wouldn’t be here. Why would he be? Damn, it…

            “Where the hell am I?” Kyle asked. “How did I get outside?”

            “You’re not outside,” the man said. It still sounded somewhat like Brian, but the voice was somehow morphed, distorted even, as if there were a second voice behind it.

            “Then why am I outdoors?” Kyle asked.

            “You’re in a place of simple transition,” the man said. He reached to his side, and a small blade materialized in his hand.

Kyle stepped back, placing his hand over the Nexus bracelet. As if that would help, he realized.

            “Then mind telling me what I’m transitioning from?” asked Kyle. “Or even, too?”

            “You work with an incredible power, Kyle Raiden of the Nexus,” the man said. “Which is the only reason you’re here. But…”

            The man turned to a blur, and in a second he was in front of Kyle, driving the blade through his chest. This time, there was blood. Kyle, knocked back by the man’s sheer force, spat out a few drips of it before he hit the ground, feeling the coldness of the alleyway continually overtake him.

            “You relinquished that power. And you now relinquish your life.”

            The greys were suddenly turning black. It was colder than any winter Kyle had ever faced, and the liquids running from his chest were like the coldest rivers streaming down his body. He was falling, freely, coldly, into a ravine of pure darkness. He wasn’t even sure if his eyes were open or not.

            “Kyle Raiden of Earth.”

            The falling slowed. It became controlled.

            “I welcome you.”

            The coldness suddenly turned lukewarm. He knew his eyes were open. He knew…

            “To the Nether.”

            …that he was dead.

Next time: "Blue Nexus #28--Into the Nether"