Blue Nexus #49 - Mark of the Mage

            It was the quietest night Kyle had ever seen East City since he was a little kid. The only noise was the rumble of cars as their wheels quickly churned against the pavement. There was also the obligatory honking from the city and the occasional maniacal laugh of a person a little too happy for their own good. But there were no gunshots, few sirens, and no cries for help.

            He stood atop a tall building, but not too high up that he couldn’t see clearly below him. Part of him wished there were a gargoyle for him to stand on, but the furthermost edge of a square rooftop was good enough for his purposes, too. His cape flowed in the wind behind him, though, so that factor of him trying to look cool helped him immensely.

            Kyle crossed his arms and made another scan of the street, spotting a hooded man holding his weapon in his hand looking out down below from another building. He was known as the Blunt, since he used blunt knives and short swords to deal damage but never to inflict fatal wounds. Apparently he was also very direct when he spoke. Kyle had never met him, but had seen him in combat.

            As well as several other vigilantes. Vigilantism across the nation was at an all-time high and it was clearly because of the greater outburst of superheroes in the world. Much like when Kyle first became a superhero there was an outcry against them as well; until, that is, the haters were silenced when it was revealed that most vigilantes actually worked as a distant wing of the police forces, and some street-level heroes had even gone so far as to work with some members of the Zanderia or other super groups. None of them were as popular as the Sentinel in East City, who could be a member of the Zanderia if he chose given how he was actually a better hand-to-hand fighter than Phoenix.

            It wasn’t until Kyle ran into some of the vigilantes that the reality of this entire situation hit him. He didn’t know how popular he was, since he barely watched the news and didn’t pay attention to much of the superhero trends on social media, but learned that he and the other members of the Zanderia were actually starting to become legends among the vigilante community, and possibly greater human population as a whole.

            When he ran into a few trying to help them stop a very minor supervillain, they were surprised, gasping that the Blue Nexus was actually real. Kyle thought that was ridiculous. Of course he was. He’d saved the world twice. But then he realized it: East City is just one city among a larger world.

            Back when Riko first became a superhero, he was a legend as well. A man that could speeding semi-truck with just one arm? No way. Then more super beings appeared. And supervillains began attacking. And now, the world is at it is. Now Kyle became legend, and he found that hard to believe. How could a legend worry about his physics homework?

            Though if he were really a legend, he didn’t care much for it. He knew he was inspiration for the great men and women fighting within some distance of the law to keep crime at the minimal level it was at now. Kyle worried sometimes that there would just be a great explosion of villainy; that one night all the evildoers would meet together and attack all at once, almost as bad as if the Cube were to bust open.

            Then again with the amount of heroes around now, how much of a problem would that be? East City, between himself and a few other vigilantes and the powerful police force, essentially eradicated crime on the main level. Underground crime was harder to weed out and Kyle left his hands out of that. Not that he didn’t want to help, it was just that he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with his fellow heroes who might have had stronger backgrounds in it. They would appreciate his help, but Kyle knew that he was around mostly for the threat of supervillains, and of which there were none.

            Small crimes and things like that? Of course one could expect Blue Nexus to swoop in to save them…or possibly another masked hero. Kyle’s powers were so far beyond what he could have comprehended before that he somewhat understood what let his name and abilities pass into myth. It did make his regular life a lot easier, though.

            Fewer students back at school talked about the Blue Nexus. Instead, most of the seniors talked about what colleges they’d gotten into and what their plans were after school for the summer. Others were focused on the closing winter sports and coming spring sports, and Kyle found himself in that category. With less responsibilities needed as a part of the Earth faction of the Zanderia—Brenda, Riko, Lalay, and Eclipse liked to take the off-planet tasks—Kyle noticed he was slipping more into lacrosse. The coach expected great things from him, even if there was some stiff competition.

            Lacrosse conditioning’s “hell week,” essentially where the coaches drill the players to the brink and then tell them to come back for more the next day to weed out who really wants to be on the team, was over with and Kyle couldn’t be happier. When gifted with the powers of the Nexus he was able to fly to Mars and back like he were running a mile. Without the Nexus powers he realized how unathletic he’d let himself slip, depending mostly on the powers.

            Hell week shaped him up, though, and he slipped back into a groove. He wondered why the Demon mark on his arm kept acting up. It could’ve been because of the mark Andreus had. Kyle shivered when he thought about that. How did Andreus wind up with it? Regardless, the mark and the bracelet seemed to be helping him get back into shape and then some. He was still able to keep up with his martial arts skills—using them during his Blue Nexus nights—but those could fade out the more he relied on his brute force.

            Something flashed in his eye and he looked down below. Several dozen people had gathered below and had their phones and cameras out taking pictures. He realized his blue aura was just bright enough for him to stand out against the light-polluted night sky of the city. He smiled, even though they would never be able to tell, and then leapt off the side of the building and floated away.

            Kyle drifted through several city streets from above, floating like a black specter. People walked and talked. Neighbors shouted across the way to other neighbors about various things, like molded cheese and marital affairs. A few people noticed him and waved and he waved at them. A pair of twins, a boy and a girl, he decided to stop and chat with. They lit up like the fourth of July when he floated over to their fire escape.

            By the time Kyle got home the clocks were striking midnight and he wasn’t all that tired. He wanted to be, so that he could be better recharged for conditioning the next day, but knew that he would just be up for the next hour or so staring up at his ceiling or looking out into the starry sky, knowing that if he really wanted to, he could blast off to any one of those stars to explore what was around them.

            Much to his surprise, though, he woke, startled, to an alarm. It blared against his left ear and jolted him out of bled. He flailed for a moment on the ground trying to find the source of the noise before he realized, stupidly, that it was his phone. Kyle scrambled through the morning with haste, doing almost everything backwards until he finally made it out the door with his backpack half-open.

            The early morning twilight was settled in around Adelita. Kyle jogged down the hill to lead into a speed-walk the rest of the way to school. Everyone around him, all the students anyway, slugged through their walk. He was still ringing from the alarm. He thought it was a doomsday alarm. Stupid, he thought while he walked. Stupid, stupid superhero.

            Luke and Kip waited for him by his locker. Normally they had to make it their official meeting spot, but this year they just dropped the pretenses and met at his locker without any discussion. When they weren’t there it was strange, as if part of the hallway itself were missing. Even Mira joined in on their little morning pow-wows and when she wasn’t there it was as if some of the lights were dimmed.

            Though what was even stranger was seeing none of them and instead a tall, lean woman with pitch black hair and a green dress suit on standing in between the two locker sections on a smartphone. She stole one look at him, smiled, and returned to her phone. Kyle eyed her curiously until he approached his locker.

            He checked his backpack for anything he wouldn’t need. It was empty save for a thin English book he forgot to read. He pursed his lips, trying to figure out a way he could read it when he heard the final voices in the hallway fade out into the outside walkway. The other woman, he saw under his locker, was still there, standing between the sections. He groaned silently.

            “I suppose this sort of thing happens often enough for you?” she asked. She had an accent, maybe somewhere from southwestern Europe.

            “Not that often,” Kyle said. He looked at his new semester schedule taped to the side of his locker. Anatomy. He needed that book. “But you’re not very conspicuous among teenagers. You don’t even have a visitor’s badge on.”

            “Why would need to identify the invisible?” she asked.

            “Because some of us don’t believe in magic,” Kyle said.

            “A user is a nonbeliever?”

            “I didn’t know there were psychic class mages.”

            “I’m not. I can see the mark on your arm. It’s grown since you got it, I can tell. Have you been using it more?”

            Kyle smiled, placing the anatomy book into his backpack behind two notebooks and a binder. He checked the schedule again.

            “No,” he said. “What’s that make you then?”

            “I’m not important. I’ve been trying to keep track of all the new mages that have appeared recently, though you stand as an outlier. You gained your abilities, your awakening, before the great wave.”

            “Great wave? So there’s a name for it now?”

            “No, but, it’s easier than calling it a global awakening with mysterious origins. I would think the implication is obvious.”

            Kyle shrugged, even though the locker was blocking him from her. He took one last look and then zipped up is backpack. He shut the door and looked over to her. She was leaned against his section now, with her arms crossed and an eyebrow cocked.

            “Who are you?” Kyle asked.

            “My name is Tania,” the woman said. “A deception mage from far before when you were born. I’m proud of you for defeating Alucard, though. He was always a growing worry. His power was creeping back into the world and I worried for who would have to stop him.”

            Kyle raised an eyebrow as well. The way she said that last part was odd. He wasn’t sure if she meant she was worried for who would have to fight him, or for who would answer the call.

            “Why didn’t you try to step in?” asked Kyle.

            “Earth has super beings for a reason, I believe,” she said. “Though now, I can sense, they will become the worries of yesterday. Your mark is the reason for it.”

            “Demon mages, like Alucard?”

            “Mages. Young mages like yourself, though compared to them you’re something of a veteran. These green mages don’t understand what their abilities are nor how to control them.”

            “That’s not entirely true.”

            “Which means, in many regards, it is true. And several more of these mages don’t even realize they have these abilities. One is at this school, with you.”

            Kyle nodded. Andreus, Kyle knew, was able to keep his abilities in check. He hadn’t displayed any extra strength outside of just simple workouts necessary for conditioning.

            “If you’re planning on talking to him about it, please don’t,” Kyle said. “I’m his friend, I think I can break the ice a little easier.”

            “No, you’ll be soft about it,” Tania said. “He needs to know everything he can about mage-craft. Humanity is incapable of distinguishing the ‘meta’ humans from the mages of the world. They’ll berate my mages just as they have others.”

            “Your mages? As if you made them, as if you created them?”

            “Who else can protect them, boy? You? You’re a mage in training, barely capable of using your powers. What can you do, let shadow consume your arm and enhance your strength? Demon mages are the most lethal of all the mage classes and yet you do nothing about it. That’s why I’m here. Your friend will learn far more from me than he would in a conversation with you.”

            “I can take him to Magus Forest, a place not far from here,” Kyle said.

            Tania laughed. Her laugh went on far longer than Kyle thought, and not a moment of it was actually funny.

            She wiped a tear from her eye when she stopped. Kyle saw the sun rising up over the horizon behind her. The hallway lit up and soaked in the orange light. Luckily she was positioned so the sun wasn’t straight in his face.

            “Magus Forest, you are hilarious, boy! He would be even worse off than if he talked to you if he went there.”

            “Magus Forest protects all the mages they can from the harms of the world and gets them ready to control their abilities. It’s literally the same thing that you want.”

            “I want these mages to be able to live in this world, not hide in it. As one of this Earth’s strongest warriors, though admittedly a low-caliber mage, I expected you to agree with me on this.”

            Tania sighed and tried walking passed him. Kyle stepped in her way. She smiled and her eyes flicked around. Kyle’s head ached, and by the time the fast throbbing stopped a moment later Tania was no longer in front of him. The door opened fast and then closed. Kyle rushed for the door, but when he got to it, he heard low whispers. He saw in the reflection why.

            The hallway was full, like it normally was. Everyone stared at him, waiting for him to leave it seemed. Even a few teachers were standing outside their doors, probably wondering what everyone was doing just standing around. Kyle pressed on the door slowly, waiting to see if this were really the illusion.

            He fell out into the breezeway and saw nobody around him. He looked in the hallway, which was still brimming with people.

            Tania stood atop a thin tree, perfectly balanced. Kyle approached the railing, gripping it tightly. His right arm, particularly where the mark was, throbbed. She held out her arms. One by one the students began to reappear.

            “I’m not even the most powerful of my kind,” she said. “What if I told you there were mages who wouldn’t trick your mind, but the fabric of reality itself? Mages that could shatter buildings with a blow, who could create and wield weapons beyond the fabric of their imagination. This is true magic, infant Demon. Magus Forest will restrict you from this, and you will hold your friend back from his true potential.”

            All of the students were back now. Tania nodded to Kyle and when he blinked she was gone. He punched the railing. It rung out all around him and everyone once again looked his way. The people in the hallway were still watching him. Kyle wanted to shout, wanted to scream.

            He wanted answers.

            As most things did, the situation in the hallway was forgotten by lunch and Kyle was able to get through the day with ease. There were no more tricks, he noticed. No rabbits jumping out of hats or people missing from the hallways. Lunch was the best time of the day and he was glad that wasn’t ruined, but was wary to tell Luke and Kip about anything. He didn’t want Tania hearing about it and then screwing with them. At first he was unsure if he should even risk being near them, though apparently she’d been watching him for a while so at this point she would have done something.

            Kyle really began to get worried around practice. He walked to the locker room with his whole body tense and with his gaze constantly flicking to his right arm. Everything was normal on the walk there and on the walk in. He even exchanged a quick glance with Andreus when he walked in and his teammate made little notice of Kyle.

            The locker room smelled sweatier than normal, though that was probably due to all of the winter sports having to share one large locker room. They didn’t have as much gear, admittedly, as some of the fall sports. Since the lacrosse teams were still in conditioning they were relegated to the small cubical lockers rather than the cages they would have once the season started, so they could have a place to put their pads and lacrosse sticks. That area of the locker room smelled nice…somewhat.

            Andreus approached Kyle with quick steps, so fast and silent that Kyle barely had time to register who it was that walked up to him.

            “Which one are you?” he asked, so fast that the words almost came out as a single entity.

            “What?” Kyle asked.

            “I’m Power, so what are you?” asked Andreus.

            Kyle raised an eyebrow. “Is like a new app or something I’m missing out on.”

            Andreus lifted his shirt, revealing the Power mage symbol that was on his bicep. It’d grown slightly in the time since Kyle last saw it. It was a lighter shade of blue now. He wondered how Andreus played off that story, since he was still telling everyone it was a regular tattoo.

            “That chick in the green said I’m a magician or something,” Andreus said. “She said you knew all about magic and me for a while now.”

            He nudged Kyle into his locker. Kyle refrained from any sort of response.

            “Why didn’t you tell me, Raiden?” asked Andreus. “This thing’s been keeping me up all night sometimes. Throbbing, burning, all that. I can’t get rid of it.”

            “Look,” Kyle said, leaning against the locker to hide his own arm. “I’m not a mage. I just…I know a few.”

            “Who?”

            “Look if Tania put you up to this then I’m not telling you anything. She’s trying to recruit you, dude. She wants to make some sort of, I don’t know, army to fight against demons or some crap like that. We’ve got superheroes for that.”

            “She said she could make it stop.”

            “So does anyone that’s crazy. You really going to believe her? What if it were that monster Alucard who said that? What if he said he could make you stronger? You’d be the one attacking East City! This chick is messing with you, bro. I’m still iffy on the whole magic thing, but that’s so legit if you have it. Look, I’ve heard of this place where mages go to be helped out. They can make the pain go away and help you control your powers.”

            Andreus backed up. “What’s the difference between them and Tania?”

            “The people I’m talking about didn’t play dirty tricks on me when I met them,” Kyle said. “I could trust them immediately. Tania faked me out, tried to play me like some idiot.”

            Andreus looked Kyle up and down, as if he were looking for a mark Kyle could have. Kyle remained stoic, unmoving. Don’t give him any room, he figured. Any wiggle room Andreus had was room that Tania could have. She already had the upper hand in this debacle, and she seemed the type of person to take advantage of advantageous situations.

            “This is sketchy, man,” Andreus said. “I’m just trying to graduate, and now I got all this to worry about.”

            “I know, I know,” Kyle said. “Think it wasn’t weird seeing someone make an entire hallway of people appear in front of you like she were just snapping her fingers?”

            “What? That’s crazy!”

            “Not as crazy as I’m gonna be if you guys don’t get out on the field, let’s move!” Coach shouted from the end of the locker room. Kyle realized that most of the others were already jogging out onto the field. Kyle quickly changed into his proper attire and sprinted outside after Andreus, who looked like he was just trotting but was running at a fast jog. Kyle struggled to keep up.

            Mira and the rest of the health students and staff watched on the sideline. Kyle approached her about a quarter way through for water. He was parched, tired, and still stressed out about Tania and Andreus. Andreus hadn’t missed a beat the entire conditioning session thus far, Kyle noticed. Mira seemed to, as well.

            “I don’t know what they were feeding Andreus up in New York but they need to send it our way,” she said. “Guy doesn’t even look tired.”

            Kyle handed back the water bottle and nodded. “I know. Look at Coach. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.”

            The second unit, along with Andreus, wrapped up their drill. Coach screamed and shouted but paused for just a second when he looked at Andreus. When he pointed at Kyle his face was red and he looked ready to fight someone. Kyle sprinted out onto the field.

            The team was fixed with barely functioning lacrosse sticks and helmets for a small set of drills on the field. Coach was paranoid about their gear breaking before the season and them not having the budget to fix it during the season. That, apparently, was the main reason he wanted to go to the State Championships: the monetary benefits.

            Andreus lined up across from Kyle on the faceoff line. They were to run a regular scrimmage up until a point was scored before the assistant coaches would make instructional changes, and designate plays for everyone. Goalie coaches were assigned behind the goalie to be just constantly instructing them.

            Kyle watched the Power mage mark the entire walk up to the line. Coach stood in between them with the bright orange lacrosse ball. He squatted down and placed the ball just between them. Kyle and Andreus got into their proper stances.

            “I got that itch again,” Andreus said.

            “Ignore it,” Kyle muttered.

            “You know how hard that is?”

            You know how hard it is having the literal powers of a demon in your arm? Kyle wondered.

            Coach blew the whistle and Andreus blew Kyle back. Coach almost blew the whistle again but everyone exploded in surprise that nobody knew what to do. Kyle’s head slammed against the ground but he jumped back to his feet pretty quick and sprinted after Andreus. He felt the Nexus bracelet his time more than he did the Demon powers in his arm.

            He swatted down Andreus’s stick just before he could shoot, knocking the ball out. Andreus, under the sheer force of his attack, lurched forward and lost sight of the ball. Kyle watched as his own teammates picked it up and passed it.

            “The hell was that about?” asked Kyle. “You shoved me.”

            “You weren’t ready for me, then,” Andreus said. “I just did what I was supposed to.”

            Kyle tapped the part of the bicep where the mark hid. “Control it. You almost broke my neck, dude.”

            “I am in control,” Andreus said, but sprinted away faster than anyone on the team could ever run. Save for one kid.

            Kyle ran just behind him, exhausting his legs and feeling his lungs catch nearly on fire. Thankfully a point was scored and Andreus managed to halt himself. But the force of his run made the person in front of him stumble forward a bit. Andreus shrugged at him.

            The two went over to get some water, although Andreus was much quicker about it than Kyle. Mira gestured at Andreus once again.

            “Something is definitely up with him,” she said. “He could’ve hurt you pretty bad at the faceoff.”

            “I know,” Kyle said. “Must’ve had some insane summer and winter workouts.”

            “No, I don’t think that would do it,” Mira said. “He’s not tired. At all. Think he might be a meta-human of some sort?”

            “Doubt it,” Kyle said. “There’s a lot of them, but don’t you think that’d be quite a few to come out of Adelita? Someone would have noticed and done something about it if he were.”

            “Makes you wonder, though,” Mira said.

            Kyle gulped down more water and then handed the bottle back to Mira. They exchanged a soft hug and Kyle sprinted onto the field. It was very faint, but when Kyle looked back over to Andreus, he saw the mark of the Power mage glow.

            Control. Yeah. He was one hundred percent in control.

Next time: It's the milestone 50th part of the "Blue Nexus" saga. And with new, powerful mages running about, who will step up to try and defeat the Blue Nexus now? Find out in "Blue Nexus #50 - Golden"!