Blue Nexus #47 - Counterattack from the Past

           

           The Delta Squad closed in on him fast. It was the armor, Kyle knew. For some reason the speedster was moving just as fast as the others. He wondered if Ygon, or Aplin, were somehow controlling them. Probably Ygon from that mech. The suits they wore were no doubt battle suit extensions from it.

            Thanks to good old gravity, the giant fell first. The force buffeted Kyle. The speedster was next, no doubt given an order to attack Kyle. The telepath remained floating in the air. Kyle kept his eyes only on the speedster but knew the giant would be coming in next.

            His armor gave him away. Kyle smiled when he realized the oversight. Under the great bright lights, the speedster himself was hard to track but the light reflecting off of the armor was not. Kyle spun around him, helping the speedster out a little with a slight push of the hand. He swung the lance out and blocked a beam of ice from stabbing himself in the side. The giant moved in while Kyle’s chest was wide open.

            Kyle flexed his chest and absorbed the hit. A little blood spat out of his mouth and he slammed against the rough metal walls but hey, he was alive. Using the momentum, Kyle bounced off of the wall and shot like a rocket for the giant, blasting him away and into the mech’s foot. He bounced off of that, but too a little longer to get back up.

            He heard someone laugh and realized his mistake. The speedster zoomed behind him, wrapping his arm up. The invisible leader then took his legs. The light from Ygon’s mech cannon lit up more, energy swelling inside of it.

            “A noble warrior always makes a great fool!” Ygon declared.

            Energy blasted right out of the cannon.

            In the distance, but definitely still in the complex, Brenda heard an explosion. She stopped and looked around. Nothing but the dimly lit hallway and eerie silence still. The low roar of the explosion faded out into the nothingness and Brenda continued forward, this time choosing to just stay her current course.

            She realized a while ago that this was a maze, now, and regretted having split up with the other two. If they stuck together they could possibly have enough combined power to rip through the walls, but alone she found that difficult. The metal was unlike anything she’d encountered on Earth or another planet. It had to be some of the metal from the future that Ygon brought with him.

            All of the walls looked the same and if Brenda kept this up she would go mad. She ran into a dud and was forced to choose between left and right. She chose left, hoping to loop back around. How were they able to create all this in such a short amount of time? Why would they have this here?

            Brenda stopped, his red hands starting to glow as the wheels turned in her head. Why would they build this? It was a research center, not some sort of elaborate trap. Either they’d been lured to the wrong place and it was a trap, or…

            Brenda placed her hands on cool ground and let her magic dribble down her arm onto the floor. The ground warmed to the touch as her magic spilled slowly onto the silver metal floor. The silver began to peel away to glass, slowly. Soon the entire panel she was standing on was gone, revealing a glass floor beneath her.

            She smiled and kicked at the floor, shattering the glass beneath her. Brenda dropped down, this time onto a platform. She was in an empty room, though it was incredibly spacious. Above her, the maze wound round and round going up and down. She looked below her into a pit of nearly nothingness. She could sense everything now, though. Kyle was fighting the Delta Squad and something that had heavy amounts of energy. Sandy was running close to where Brenda was and Brian was doing the same.

            Brenda summoned up a large red barrier around a single level of the maze. It coated over it gently. She felt the pulses of magical energy draining from her body as she melded away the deception magic that had stuck to it. They must have had one hell of a deception mage at their side to make their fortifications seem impenetrable.

            A shiver ran up her spine. Speak of the devil, she thought. The deception mage strode up to her while he walked on the platform, holding his arms out with no weapons in them. The deception magic around the maze was worn out completely.

            “You saw through my trick?” he asked. “Just as Aplin promised, then. You really must be a tough one.”

            “It was just a thought, really,” Brenda said.

            He stopped, looking Brenda up and down. “You’re a Shield mage. Tell me, then, have you met the Broken?”

            “The Broken?”

            “Too early, then.”

            “Who are you?”

            “My name is irrelevant. Lost to time itself, but I was given one more chance to try and fix that. If I can defeat you then history itself may change for the better or worse, depending on a certain point of view of course.”

            Brenda nodded, realizing not who her opponent was, but rather when he was. “A mage from the future.”

            “The not-too-distant,” he said. “And I’m quite happy to be here.”

            “How’d they manage to get you involved?” Brenda asked. More magic swarmed in and around her hands.

            “Oh mages are getting involved in everything now,” the deception mage said. “Can’t you tell? Or are they still too well hidden?”

            Brenda pushed that thought aside for later. More mages? She hadn’t sensed any in the past few weeks and there were an incredibly low amount before Alucard attacked East City. Was he referring to Magus Forest? She knew all about that already, but, did he? No point risking them.

            “Doesn’t matter right now,” Brenda said. “Do you know where they’re keeping Yusero?”

            “No idea what you’re talking about,” the deception mage said. He stopped his walk. “I was just hired to make a room seem like a maze. Pretty easy. But now it looks like I have to keep you occupied while they do, well, whatever is they want.”

            “Good to know I’m needed elsewhere,” Brenda said.

            She didn’t give the deception mage a moment to make any quips. A red barrier appeared around him. He pounded against it as hard as he could. Brenda smiled at him, then flicked her wrist. The red barrier shot up into the air and through the ceiling. With another heave it went soaring through the Utah sky.

            Brenda didn’t waste another moment and sprinted down the platform for the wide metal door at the end.

            Kyle whistled and sighed, letting his arms down. All but the giant and the telepath were down, completely knocked out by the large energy blast. The light in the cannon was completely gone, but the light around Kyle couldn’t be any brighter.

            He let down his arms, allowing another pulse of Wave Two energy to leave him. He looked around the room, where the door was still barred shut but had a major dent in it. Somehow there was also a tremendous drop of magical energy surrounding him, though it wasn’t in the room at all.

            The giant swayed but regained his stance and the telepath was well out of the way of the beam. She tried to sneak into his brain but the Nexus was blocking her out. Kyle smiled up at her. The giant tried punching Kyle but he caught his fist and threw him to the side.

            “Alright Ygon, it’s all over now,” Kyle said. “There’s nothing you can hit me with that’ll do anything.”

            “You believe that?” asked Ygon.

            Kyle was about to agree when the floor shook beneath him and the second explosion took him by surprise. Kyle barely dodged it but his cloak was torched. He ripped the bottom half off. Another shimmering of light beneath him informed him that the floor was not the safest place to be. Kyle leapt into the air but was swatted to the side by the giant mech’s hand.

            Ygon’s mech reached behind its back and brandished a long dark-grey sword. With no speed but great momentum it swung down at Kyle. Kyle summoned out his lance and would have blocked it if not for the sword slicing right through the lance with ease. Kyle’s momentum kept him going and he stumbled against the wall, jumping up again to dodge another attack. The mech stabbed at the wall where Kyle was but Kyle was quicker, jumping onto the mech itself.

            He pulled back his arm then stabbed down into the neck of the mech, but all it did was make a large scratch and a small dent. Kyle’s arm shook from the power and went limp momentarily. The mech flung him off of his shoulder and Kyle bounced before he was punched into the wall. Summoning his strength, Kyle shoved the arm away and charged at the mech.

            An energy blast rammed right into its chest but did little damage more than just pushing it back. Kyle followed it up with a kick to what he hoped would be a weak spot, the neck, but it proved just as strong as the others. A pulse of energy sent Kyle reeling back and he floated, glaring down at the mechanical foe in front of him.

            “There’s nothing you can do, I already told you,” Ygon said. “The technology here is too beyond you and your primitive Nexus.”

            “The Nexus transcends time,” Kyle said. “And like I said, everything has a weakness. I’ll find yours, and then you’ll lose.”

            “Good luck, Blue Nexus,” Ygon said.

            He pulled up the cannon. Kyle hadn’t even realized that it was fully charged again. A quick idea flew through his head and he charged at the cannon. The blue light filled it and Kyle prepared an energy blast in his hand. Just as the beam was readying to fire, Kyle pushed himself once more toward the cannon and shoved his arm inside, releasing the energy just in time. The cannon’s beam stopped halfway and blew it completely off the arm.

            The cannon, and Kyle, dropped straight to the ground with a bang and Ygon’s mech stumbled to the side, bracing itself against the wall. Wiring and metal parts were finally exposed. Kyle took hold of the cannon and threw it right at the mech. It pinned the right shoulder against the wall, piercing the armor. Ygon shouted.

            “Do something about it,” Kyle said.

            “I will,” Ygon said.

            The mech ripped itself free of the wall and the wiring and metal parts shot out of the arm, fixing the missing arm in mere seconds. Kyle threw a ball of energy but it was a fruitless effort. The cannon didn’t grow back, but instead it was a thick blade arm with a flat side to serve doubly as a shield. Kyle jumped back to give himself some room and braced himself.

            “I have no weaknesses,” Ygon said. “This suit is meant to withstand battle for days on end against enemies that can actually contend with it. Can you last for days against me?”

            “I’d rather it didn’t come down to it,” Kyle said. He stole a glance up over the mech. Yusero was missing, the panel replacing him completely empty. Kyle gestured up at Yusero. “Where’d he go?”

            “You think he was really there the whole time?” asked Ygon.

            Kyle nodded. That drop in magic power he felt earlier must have been some sort of deception magic that leaked into the room, screwing with Kyle. He hoped everyone else either figured that our or wasn’t affected by it that bad.

            “Then I assume he’s safe somewhere else,” Kyle said. “And I can start really going all out.”

            “Safe?” asked Ygon. “When my portal opens he’ll be in mortal danger.”

            “Portal?” asked Kyle.

            “Oh yes,” Ygon said. “I’ve given Aplin all the necessary tools to bring all of my dearest friends and soldiers here. You think this lone mech is causing you problems? You wouldn’t last a moment in my time. Neither would anyone living nowadays. I’ll be unstoppable in this universe!”

            “Hate to break it to you, but I’m not really the strongest fighter out there,” Kyle said. “Nor am I the brightest mind. You’ll find conquering the whole damn universe pretty hard.”

            “I’ll give it a shot regardless,” Ygon said. “For now, I’ll deal with the threat presented in front of me. And when the portal opens, all of your super friends will fall before my army’s power.”

            “So all I have to do is beat you before the portal opens? Or just hope one of my friends stops the portal from opening? Cool.”

            Another wave of energy rang out around Kyle. He opened his palm and an energy ball appeared in his hand. It grew larger and larger at his side until he finally threw it up at Ygon. Kyle clenched his fist and it exploded, flashing bright blue light around the walls. Kyle was just fine, able to see, and hope that stupid suit wouldn’t protect Ygon from being blinded.

            He leapt all around the suit as fast as he could looking for a blind spot or even a spot of weakness but found none. When he came back around he was almost cleaved in half by two swords. Kyle leapt back and held another energy ball at the ready. He charged, roaring at the top of his lungs against the laughter that Ygon had.

            Brenda kicked down one of the old doors and found another empty lab. She held up her hand and let red light bleed into the place, trying to find the next door to lead her down another godforsaken hallway. At this rate finding anyone, much less Yusero, would be impossible. She took one sweeping look around and then blasted down another door. Indeed, it was just another hallway. She groaned but ran down it regardless.

            When she rounded the next corner, she found a bit of a surprise. Twelve soldiers, in four rows of three, turned to face her. They all had strange looking armor and were carrying laser swords that hummed in the metal corridor. She prepared to knock them all back but the wall that burst open at their side startled them and then they were all overcome by blue light and knocked into the next room.

            Hood Nexus stepped through the dust, his chest heaving and sweat dripping down his arms. He looked over to Brenda.

            “Pretty sure they’re sending guys over already from the future,” Hood Nexus said. “Seen anymore?”

            “These are the first I’ve found of them,” Brenda said. “Have you run into anyone else?”

            “No, I’ve been busy with all these goons,” Hood Nexus said. “They’re coming in waves and I’m here to be the greeting party. I haven’t been able to reach Blue Nexus yet. I’d recommend helping him out, he seems like he’s in trouble.”
            “He’s gone Wave Two,” Brenda said.

            Someone shouted in an alien language and Brenda heard lasers ignite and then there was a low humming nearby. Hood Nexus gestured at them.

            “I’ll deal with them, but you should find Blue Nexus,” he said. “If he really did go Wave Two, it means he’s in a bit of a pinch. That’s not a fun situation to be in.”

            He looked and smiled at the new batch of enemies, then rocketed right for them. Brenda followed his lead and sprinted down the remainder of the corridor. It led into an open room with the lights blazing on. She looked all around the room, sensing something was amiss.

            She approached the right side wall, which appeared blank, and kicked at it. It fell over immediately, revealing a completely grey room with Aplin and Yusero in a casing, with wires strapped all over him. Two guards shot at Brenda but she blocked with her shields then cast barriers over them and flung them behind her.

            “Mr. Aplin,” she said, nodding.

            Aplin nodded back. “Shindari. I’m surprised you found me. I suppose that deception mage was just a good for nothing after all.”

            “Quite,” Brenda said. “Now, you’re going to turn off the portal and hand Yusero back over to us and we’ll bring him back to his time.”

            “So we can just do this all over again?” asked Aplin. “I have the readouts and the know-how to build another machine, Shindari. There is no stopping this. It’s like placing a rock in the middle of a river. It’ll naturally flow around it.”

            “Then I’m going to put a wall down. Leave now.”

            Aplin smiled. “It’ll overflow.”

            Brenda clenched a fist, her arm trembling with power. She sensed Hood Nexus’s battle continuing as was Kyle’s. And here she was, helpless against a human intellect. Taking him would be a futile effort, too, as he was a major government official and if a member of the Zanderia took him in the backlash would be unprecedented.

            “Hurry up, guys,” she muttered.

            The building suddenly shook. Aplin braced himself against Yusero’s casing. The body shook while the building did but stopped when it did. Aplin scowled and looked beyond Brenda.

            “This isn’t good,” he said.

            Before he could continue, the three of them were buffeted. Brenda felt herself being drawn out of the room, pulled by some unseen force. Aplin gripped as tightly as he could to the casing that Yusero was in but was struggling.

            “The time machine has been damaged!” he shouted. “It’s no longer just a portal, it’s a damn vortex! It’ll become unstable and suck in anything it can!”

            Brenda, in response, wordlessly placed a barrier where the wall once stood. Mr. Aplin dropped to the ground and Brenda felt the tug continuing on her through the wall. Aplin cackled but Brenda failed to see the humor in any of the situation.

            “Can you fix it?” she asked through gritted teeth.

            “I can,” Mr. Aplin said. “But none of you can.”

            Brenda smiled and Aplin’s smile faded instantly. Slowly, the wall began to fall down. He grunted and gripped tightly to Yusero’s casing. Brenda heard static behind her and saw dust and different materials being flung around the open room, headed for the room the portal was in.

            “Unless you want to be sucked violently through space and time,” Brenda said. “You’ll lead me to the control room and help me shut this down.”

            “I won’t!” Aplin exclaimed. “I’ll die for this project.”

            “And let Ygon claim all the glory?” Brenda shouted.

            Aplin glowered at her. Brenda hastened the dropping of the shield. She fell to one knee and covered the bottom half of her leg up with a barrier, halting her from going back anywhere. Aplin couldn’t see it, of course. She knew she had him. Pride was the greatest weapon against men and women like this.

            He voiced his response but it was inaudible over the crashing of all the items being thrown around. When Brenda gestured that this was the case he loudly voiced his agreeance. Brenda smiled, nodded, and then placed a barrier around him and replaced the barrier around the room. She sprinted, with Aplin just behind her voicing directions, toward the vortex.

            She sprinted passed Hood Nexus, who was still fighting despite the clear struggle to stay in one place. The enemies coming through weren’t at all affected by what was happening.

            Brenda leapt over a crack in the ground that led straight through to a large open room. A giant robot stood beneath them and that was all she saw before she sprinted up the stairs, quite the tiresome run.

            When they reached the control room she flung Aplin against the wall and ran over to the controls. They’d been ripped to shreds. Aplin sighed and pushed himself closer with the barrier still around him.

            “We’ve our work cut out for us, dear,” Aplin said. “I hope these constructs are good for more than just barriers.”

            “Of course they are,” Brenda said. “They’re for fixing things, too.”

            The portal opening was far more violent than Kyle anticipated, but he held firm. The mech blocked off most of the power that the portal was commanding. When the roof caved in he took it as an opportunity of attack but it once again failed and he was batted to the side, and just barely dodged another sword attack.

            Ygon had him on the robes, backing him into each corner and Kyle hardly able to dodge any of the attacks. He rolled between the mech’s legs this time and shot an energy blast straight up to no avail, instead it deflected off the walls and into the growing portal above. Ygon laughed but Kyle could hardly hear a thing over the roaring winds that whipped around him.

            More of the rooms overhead were being destroyed and neither of the combatants paid it any attention. Kyle blocked Ygon’s punch with his own fist and drove the mech back before leaping at it with his full power and punching it square in the chest. Once again: dented, but still just fine. Ygon was also far too smart to try and punch or stab Kyle while he sat on Ygon’s chest, instead using the power of the portal this time to get Kyle off.

            The ground was, at least, no longer laced with explosives. A few of them got Kyle but they were hardly anything while he was protected by the Nexus’s Wave Two energy. Those black swords sure did cut nicely, though. Kyle sort of wanted one now.

            The Blue Nexus sighed and almost dropped to one knee. Wave Two was exhausting him and trying to stay level while the time vortex pulled at him was just slowly waning his energy away. Ygon was completely unfazed by it, though, and continued to attack just as he had been at the start of the fight. His next attack pushed Kyle against the entry and exit door. He slouched against it for just another second to try and rest before it burst open from behind him.

            Purple light flooded into Kyle’s vision and the twang of multiple arrows firing off filled his ears until the roaring time vortex replaced the sound.

            Sandy, now as Violette, leapt over him and gripped onto a loose cable on the wall, continuing to shoot harmless arrows at the mech. One caught in a cut that Kyle made earlier but it was at an inconsequential place. Kyle tried calling for Sandy but she couldn’t hear him. Instead he attacked once again, forming the lance in his hand for the fifth time, and attacked, looking to make more openings. Sandy stayed where she was.

            Ygon stabbed at her, leaving his underarm wide open. Kyle thrust the lance up and the blade bounced off the metal. Kyle followed it up with a bunch, twisting the mech to its side. Kyle stabbed down once again but was grabbed just as the lance made contact with the dented metal. He was pushed into the ground and placed on his back while the blade-arm pointed down at him. Sandy’s arrows shot right into the blade-arm, though, and it had enough force for the blade to just miss Kyle’s face. He got a nasty cut along his cheek, but it was better than being the Headless Nexus.

            Kyle ripped free of his restraint and punched the mech into the air with all of his strength. It suspended and Kyle realized why as the winds strained and tightened around them. Kyle felt the pull from the vortex tightening around him. The mech shot its arm out and punched Kyle down to the ground, knocking him out for just a second.

            When he recovered he saw Sandy flipping through the air holding a snapped cable and saw the dark purple lighting coming right for him. What followed was the familiar feeling of weightlessness followed by an immense pressure—though he was protected by the Nexus—and then finally that weightlessness again until he crashed onto solid ground.

            Only this ground wasn’t metal, but it was dry. His arms and legs trembled as he stood up and looked around. He was in a wide-open plain with patches of dead grass and green clouds in a purple sky passing overhead. Mountains stretched into the sky several miles ahead but they were obscured by the rising of Ygon’s mech.

            He sensed a familiar presence and to his left saw Sandy getting to her feet. She struggled to breathe for a moment but a purple aura flashed around her and with a deep breath she was fine. She looked at Kyle, confused.

            The roaring winds behind them stopped and the entire field was quiet save for Kyle crushing the dirt beneath his feet. Ygon’s mech hummed but it was low and hardly noticeable. Kyle took one large look around his surroundings and saw some dots forming in the sky. Spaceships. And he knew where he was.

            “Your odds of winning have now become impossible,” Ygon said. “You had an advantage of having back up and friends, useless as they are, in your own era. Now, though, you are alone in the future. In my era.”

            As if called for, the ships crashed to the ground and three more mechs rose from the dust of the ground. Soldiers in strange robotic armor filed out of the ships. Kyle sighed and Sandy notched two more arrows to her bowstring.

            “Not gonna lie, I wasn’t planning on this today,” Sandy said.

            “What, you mean dying in the future?” asked Kyle.

            “No, just going to the future was enough, really,” Sandy said. “Won’t be around long enough to remember it, anyway.”

            “We can’t even tell anyone about it,” Kyle said.

            Two more ships appeared in the sky, though these were smaller. Sandy weaved a spell over him and he felt some of his strength restored, but his confidence was not holding up all that well. Not especially when the three other mechs held up their energy cannons. Kyle had a rough enough time dealing with one cannon, now he had three, four mechs, and a small army of robotic super-soldiers with their laser swords ready to slice him up like a chicken.

            “At least our tombstones will be unique,” Kyle said.

            “That’s one hell of a last thought,” Sandy said.

            Kyle braced himself for a charge but stopped when two of the mechs spontaneously exploded and part of the army went up in flames with it. The other new mech, though not Ygon’s remained where it was.

            The two ships from before hovered overhead with their blasters aimed straight at the enemy ships. Kyle saw a silhouette jump down to meet them before the ships took off, headed for the enemy’s.

            A woman approached them, wearing tight brown jeans, a small green shirt, and a strange hat. She had two pistols holstered at her side and a face that screamed attitude.

            “So just who the hell do you think you are?” she asked. “Ygon and his idiots are my fight.”

            “Glad to see we have something in common,” Kyle said. Another explosion, though this time it was another enemy ship crashing nearby. “Is there gonna be more of that?”

            “Word spread quickly that Ygon had some sort of time portal opening up,” the woman said. “I guess you came from the other side?”

            “We were going to send a guy named Yusero, but that hasn’t worked out yet,” Kyle said. “We need to get Ygon to reopen the portal.”

            “Yusero? That idiot’s got himself captured again? Damn it. Ah, well, I’ll help you. You guys can take on Ygon’s mech, we’ll deal with the rest of the cronies.” She held her hand out. Kyle shook it, wildly confused by the future lady. “Name’s Halen, leader of the Swordvail Guild. I’m Yusero’s boss, and I’m gonna kick his ass when he gets back here for being such an idiot.”

Next time: In the present, Hood Nexus and Brenda fight off Ygon's men and work to reopen the portal...hopefully without breaking anything! And in the future, Kyle and Sandy team up with the wild Halen and the Swordvail Guild to finish off Ygon in "Blue Nexus #48 - Swordvail Guild"!