Blue Nexus #28--Into the Nether!

            It was dense. Cold. Bleak. The sky was dark grey. The cliffs were pure black. There was no changing light in the sky. There was no wind. There was no noise. It was purely still.

            For as far as one could see, there was nothing but dark grey and black. The cliffs cut into the sky overhead as well. It had to be a quarry of sorts, then. There were a few black boulders that slowly came into view, constructing themselves from mere blurry polygons.

            Not even steps made a sound. There was no crunching of the gravel below, nor the slight thump one heard when landing a foot on the ground.

            Sheer silence.

            There was no smell, either. There was air, there had to be air somehow, but there was no smell. Otherwise, how was anyone able to breathe here? The density should have made that difficult as well. It was as if one had an orange between their hands, and were slowly bringing their hands together, but stuck in a perpetual state of tension.

            The gravity was far more intense as well. A constant shove toward the ground made it practically impossible to move. The immense cold also made it impossible to move—yet there was also no shivering. Was this truly the cold?

            The quarry only went on for about a hundred more feet or so on the right side. On the left, it opened up, like a gateway, into plains. But how far did those go on for?

            There was a slight tugging all around until a figure appeared near that gateway. It too was black, fading into existence. His hands were extended out until he slowly brought them back in. He beckoned forward.

            “You are Kyle Raiden,” he said, his voice echoing off the walls. How could he speak? He continued, “I have dominion over this land, I command you to speak back to me what I’ve just said.”

            “I am Kyle Raiden,” the boy said.

            “You are a Nexus wielder, killed by a black mage,” the man said. “You have been sent here, where a soul must wait for their turn to fade on.”

            “I am in the Nether,” Kyle said. His voice was monotone, but, suddenly, a jolting sensation filled him, and he dropped to the ground.

            When he came to, the man was closer, by about halfway. Kyle sat up immediately, then sprung to his feet. He swiveled around.

            “What the hell, what…what’s going on?” Kyle asked.

            “My name is Jericho,” the man said. “As you yourself said, you’re in the Nexus, Kyle Raiden. By my request, that is. I couldn’t let you simply die. A hero like you? Hmph.”

            Kyle gritted his teeth, and clenched a fist. “How do I get out of here? I have to get back home, now!”

            “You cannot escape by means you can conceive,” Jericho said.

            Kyle smirked. “Watch me.”

            He swiped his fingers over the Nexus bracelet and jumped up. However, he just fell right back down to the ground, landing on his butt. He took a quick look at himself. Besides being mostly silhouetted, he was otherwise normal. He grunted, and tried transforming again.

            “Come on, work!” he exclaimed.

            “It won’t,” the man said.

            “Watch me!” Kyle barked. He stood up, trying again, and failing again. He punched the ground, and shot toward the man. “There’s gotta be a way out!”

            He shot past the man, sprinting as hard as he could with no sound emitting from his feet. Running was almost impossible, but he ran as hard as he could, right out of the quarry.

            The sky remained a dark grey, and all shapes around him on the ground were still perpetually black. In the distance, behind a slight hill, was another large, looming black shape. Perhaps another land mass? Or perhaps the doorway out of here? If Jericho had come from there, then that would mean he hadn’t come from too far away.

            Kyle continued to sprint, though it was getting more difficult the farther away from the quarry he was. It was like someone had an elastic band around his waist, and Kyle was stretching it as far as he could. Hopefully it wouldn’t snap.

            When he peaked on the hill, though, he found that elastic band’s hold weaken tremendously. The black shape also opened up, much like a gateway. He couldn’t see what was on the other side, too. All good things.

            He dashed down the hill, pumping his arms at his side and letting his legs pretty much go free. He ducked his head to increase his speed as much as possible.

            When he looked up, Kyle’s heard dropped. He slid to a stop…back in the quarry. He braced himself against the wall next to him, but was surprisingly not heaving breaths.

            “Oh, right, I’m dead,” he muttered, feeling his chest.

            “Indeed,” Jericho said. He materialized next to Kyle. He was just barely taller than Kyle, and just as muscular. He too was partially visible, as Kyle could distinguish short hair and a round face. “The Nether is inescapable by normal, very un-circumstantial means. It’s a place very few have ever escaped from. I’d rather you prepare yourself for a longer stay.”

            “Fantastic,” Kyle said. “How’d I get here again?”

            “There are a multitude of ways, but I’d rather assume that a high-level Demon mage cast a spell on you to transport you here,” Jericho said, thoughtfully. “Though to be honest, I’m also not sure what that tremor or interference I felt was from before.”

            Kyle took a moment to realize what he was talking about. It was the place that was just like this, only, it was in East City. And that familiar looking man that stabbed him…what was that?

            “You mean that wasn’t the Nether?” asked Kyle.

            “No, I would have sensed your presence far sooner,” Jericho said. “All I can assume that it might be is your Nexus bracelet trying to salvage you before you were fully pushed into this realm, my dimension.”

            “So I’ve been completely cut off from this?” asked Kyle.

            “As you so willfully demonstrated, yes, it would appear so,” Jericho agreed.

            Kyle slumped to the ground, the gravity keeping him there even though he tried to straighten himself out. He punched the ground, making a slight dent in it. Jericho watched as Kyle punched it again, then again.

            He was waiting for it to happen. Waiting for all of it to just unravel, to rip apart.

            He wanted to bleed. He wanted to feel pain. He wanted to make sure it wasn’t just another nightmare conjured up by Alucard, or that he wasn’t in some sick, twisted world. That he wasn’t really…

            Dead.

            His throat swelled and his last fist hit but there were still no sounds coming from it. His body fell forward, trembling.

            “It’s all gone,” Kyle said. “I can’t believe I…I…”

            “Escape isn’t impossible,” Jericho said. “Like I said, there are circumstances that allow you to leave. But for now you should familiarize yourself with this place. With the Nether.”

            Kyle found the gravity being lifted off of him somehow. He looked up to Jericho, confused, but Jericho wasn’t doing anything. Kyle took to a knee, then was on his feet, moving toward Jericho, who was walking in a different direction.

            “The Nether has always been here,” Jericho said. “And I as long as I can think of. I have no memories outside of this place, or, I just don’t have memories.”

            Something about his voice, Kyle realized. It was familiar.

            “Jericho, is it possible to communicate outside of the Nether?” Kyle asked.

            Jericho turned slightly, giving him a sharp look nonetheless. “Not to my understanding, no. Why?”

            “Oh, it’s just, you sound familiar to me,” Kyle said.

            Jericho chuckled. “I must have a familiar voice is all. But I’ve never communicated with any being outside this realm. Connections are impossible to make. If even something as strong as the Nexus cannot breach then how can something as simple as a voice?”

            “Good point.”

            Jericho continued to walk toward the end of the quarry. Their shape hadn’t changed at all. Neither had the rocks or any of the dirt on the ground. It all seemed to be frozen in place.

            “Where is this place?” asked Kyle.

            Jericho turned around confused. Kyle swung his arms around.

            “Where in the universe are we? On another plane of existence or something?”

            “I suppose you could say that. Think of the Nether a gateway between life and death. Only, there is mostly darkness. The Nether, also, in a way, organic.”

            “Organic?”

            “It has its own energy. Perhaps its own thought. Its rules change. Such as—”

            “The circumstances,” Kyle finished.

            Jericho nodded, and turned back toward the back end of the quarry. “It’s ethereal, in a way.” He chuckled lightly to himself. “Mystic. Truly a marvel. Imagine the possibilities if one could freely travel to and from the Nether to the human world.”

            “Well why can’t they?” asked Kyle.

            “None would want to,” Jericho said. “It requires an impossible amount of energy on someone inside the Nether, or from the Nether itself. The strain could be cataclysmic on both dimensions.” Jericho turned around again, then picked up a small shadow rock from off the ground. “If I were to pierce you with this rock right now in your heart, what would happen?”

            Kyle stared at the rock. Well, he hadn’t bled when he punched the ground, and come to think of it, he didn’t even have a heartbeat now.

            “Nothing,” Kyle said. “If I can’t be harmed.”

            “Right, and the rock would not break,” Jericho said. “Think of the energy from the Nether as this rock. Right now it would not hurt you. But placed into the world of the living, into another dimension? Well the properties of the rock, or energy, wouldn’t change, but your properties would. This ethereal rock, so to speak, would shatter your body and soul. If there was ever a breach between the two, I cannot imagine what would happen.”

            “Can the energy be used to manipulate people?” Kyle asked.

            “I’m sure if a mage were to get their hands on this energy,” Jericho agreed.

            Kyle nodded. “So that’s how Alucard does it.”

            “Who?”

            “Alucard. I think he’s a mage, or at least something. Anyway, he’s been using tons of dark magic to manipulate people and make new monsters on Earth to threaten us. I ran across him, and, well, here I am.”

            “Formidable then?” asked Jericho. Kyle eyed him curiously. Was Jericho making fun of him? Kyle didn’t bother asking.

            “Anyway, it’s become a huge problem, one we can’t seem to solve. And he’s only been growing in power, too,” Kyle said.

            “As is expected,” Jericho said. “He’s using energy gathered from the Nether.”

            “What? How?”

            “By placing people here. As I said, it’s entirely possible for a Demon mage to use magic on another being and place them here. I imagine that he’s been doing that to normal people, putting them here and training their energy to power his own. How he was able to connect with the Nether is impossible to comprehend.”

            “Well he has to be stopped.”

            “By you?”

            “By someone!”

            Jericho stopped his walk. Kyle strode up to him, confidently.

            “And we’re running out of time, Jericho. Any more people and Alucard might impossible to defeat.”

            “There’s no such thing as an invincible enemy,” Jericho said.

            “Unless they’re here?”

            “Which your Alucard isn’t.”

            Jericho restarted his walk, turning his back to Kyle, who clenched a fist. He gritted his teeth, his arms trembling.

            “Damn it, Jericho, stop bouncing around the elephant in the room!” Kyle exclaimed. “Tell me how the hell I’m supposed to get back home!”

            “You can’t,” Jericho said. He turned around, and this time, shadows completely took over his body. “Whatever good shred of Kyle Raiden there is will be permanently sucked into the Nether. Should one escape the Nether, the darkness taints their soul. They are no longer good, as evil encompasses them.”

            “That can be worked on. How do I get out?”

            “Rather simply, actually. You trade your life for another’s.”

            Kyle gulped. “What?”

            “If we get another visitor, I can arrange for your soul to return to the living world while they stay here, trapped forever as you would be. So, simply put, you live while another dies. It’s up to you, but without any energy from the Nexus or magic of any kind, it’s your only way out.”

            “Is it possible to learn magic down here? Magic that can help my chances?”

            Jericho held his arm out. The shadows on the cliffs began to shift. Kyle took a step back as he felt himself being partly sucked in.

            “Help your chances? Hardly. However…”

            The shadows peeled off the wall, revealing dark grey cliffs illuminated between now two sides of pure shadow. The peeled darkness swirled until it became a ball hovering over Jericho’s hands. Jericho suddenly vanished then reappeared in front of Kyle, holding the ball out in front of him.

            “There are some forms of magic you simply can’t learn from the mages of the living. Shall we begin?”

            He let the ball float closer to Kyle. Kyle was captivated by it, and he knew it. He grimaced, looking back up to Jericho. The shadow slid down Jericho’s arm, forming a black sleeve on his right arm. Now, only his arm was out, waiting for a handshake.

            What was this? It was just pure shadow, completely taking over Jericho’s arm. But, how was he able to manipulate the Nether so easily? Was it the same as how Kyle was able to manipulate the Nexus’s energy from his bracelet? If so, how hard could this magic be to master?

            Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of cold came over him. He felt his chest start to cave in slightly, but held his composure. The pressure from before had returned. He glowered back up to Jericho. Either Jericho was doing this to force Kyle’s hand, or the Nether was trying to impose its will and break Kyle. Either way, there was only one thing to do now, one way to try and survive, to hold out until he could figure out a true plan.

            Kyle took Jericho’s hand, and the shadows began to leak onto his arm.

           

Next time: Earth's forces continue their war against their growing number of enemies as Brenda returns to the Zanderia base in an unexpected way! The heroes are running out of time to act, and one of them may just decide to go rogue in "Blue Nexus #29: Out of the Shadows"