Blue Nexus #54 - Awakening

            The mummy wasn’t wrapped normally. Sure the wrappings themselves covered most of his decayed body, but the wrappings themselves were tight, almost as if they were meant to hold whoever this was down. They were also glowing, shifting colors between the magical color spectrum. Kyle and the Sentinel took two small steps toward it.

            “I’m not sure if it’s the mummy or the bindings but something is giving off a hell of a lot of power,” Kyle said. “Magic power, that is.”

            “I know,” the Sentinel said. “And yes, it’s insane that I can tell. We’re working with something over our heads right now. How’d they manage to get this over here?”

            “What I want to know is why I wasn’t able to tell it was even in the city until now,” Kyle said. “The box is just, well, normal.”

            “Maybe that other mage we’ve been chasing can suppress it?”

            “No, he’s not a Reality mage, he wouldn’t be able to, like, distort this thing’s presence.”

            The Sentinel shrugged. “Regardless, we need to get this thing out of here and bring it, um, somewhere.”

            “I know a place we can keep it safe,” Kyle said. “A place full of good mages that’ll know all about it. I just don’t know how we’ll move it.”

            The Sentinel held out his hand to show him how but stopped himself short. Kyle turned before he did, sensing them as the Sentinel had heard them. Creeping down the hallway were four ninjas, dressed in dark purple attire from head to toe. Kyle saw their mage marks tattooed on their faces, glowing off of their cheeks like some sort of insignia. At the end of the hallway stood one of the young men from the party, probably the owner’s kid.

            “Look just get rid of them and you’ll have your money! Jeez, what the hell are they doing here anyway, ruining my damn party?”

            The Sentinel reached back and grabbed his knife. Kyle kept his guard up and waited for one of them to make a move. The ninjas entered the room, then walked to the four corners, surrounding Kyle and the Sentinel. They moved with slender steps, so quiet that Kyle barely heard them over the stillness of the vault.

            They each held out their hands, and with their other hands had their small swords out. Simultaneously, they ran their hands over the blades to give them a purple glow, and infuse them with their magic.

            “This is the strangest thing,” Kyle said.

            “No, it really isn’t,” the Sentinel said. “You up for this, or am I gonna have to do all the work myself?”

            “How’s about I challenge you and ask you not to kill any of these guys?”

            The Sentinel paused. The ninjas braced themselves. The kid at the end of the hall whipped out his own gun, pointing it down the hallway. Kyle smiled at him, and he fired an errant shot.

            The four ninjas sprang forth, holding their swords up. They moved fast, with precision, but Kyle was much faster. The Sentinel was as well, apparently, swinging under the motion of one ninja and punching him in the ribs. The ninja dropped and Kyle was able to push him into the wall. Kyle blocked the blade of another and almost elbowed him in the face but the third ninja was there to defend him. Kyle kicked away the original, toward the Sentinel.

            The Sentinel back-flipped away from the ninja, who leapt up and balanced on the side of the box. The Sentinel laughed, gesturing for the ninja to go ahead and attack. Kyle backed up against the box, waiting for the two ninja to attack again. The gun fired off again and they all leapt into action.

            Kyle ducked under a swing and blocked the leg of another, pushing him away and focusing his efforts. Kyle was fast enough to keep up with the ninja’s moves, but the speed did not give way to power. Kyle’s attack had far less force than he wanted, and he shoved the ninja into the opposite wall rather than actually hitting him. Kyle caught the roundhouse kick of the next ninja, and was able to hit him away.

            The first ninja rebounded off the wall and leapt at Kyle, punching him across the face. Kyle stumbled back but regained his bearings and dodged the next attack. They engaged in a small fist-fight, and a high-speed one at that. Kyle noticed the brass knuckles the ninja had on only after he nearly had his eye pop out of his face. Kyle kicked the ninja in the leg and then slammed him to the ground. The second ninja, with far less energy, attacked him again. Kyle dodged and launched the ninja into the crate, shattering it.

            The Sentinel spun around his attacker and elbowed him in the spine. The ninja was frozen. Kyle blasted him away from the Sentinel, who had his arms perfectly positioned for a fatal move.

            “Buzzkill,” the Sentinel said.

            Kyle gestured at the crate. “We need to get this out of here.”

            The kid shot the gun again. The bullet deflected off the wall, and back into the crate, barely piercing the wood. The Sentinel looked down the hall and grabbed a throwing knife off one of the ninja’s boots. He stepped into the clearing, and before Kyle could realize what he was doing, the Sentinel tossed the knife end-over-end down the hall and into the boy’s shoulder, almost missing him.

            “What the hell are you doing, you could’ve killed him!” Kyle exclaimed.

            “You would doubt my aim so much?” the Sentinel asked. “Come on, I did that blindfolded a few times.” He paused. “Okay, it wasn’t the safest thing and one guy was impaled in the chest but he lived, so it’s fine, right? Anyway, check this out.”

            The Sentinel approached the wall behind them and knocked. Kyle stopped, then walked toward it to hear better. The Sentinel knocked once, then punched the metal wall. He dented it, but Kyle realized easier that it was hollow. Something was on the other side.

            Kyle punched through the wall and it toppled over, revealing the main road for Pacific City. They were just a few feet above the ground level, and were actually staring right out to Maya’s car.

            “Oh, wow, look at that,” the Sentinel said.

            A cold rush passed by Kyle. He whirled around, noticing two more ninjas.

            “I’ll get the mummy if you can handle these two,” Kyle said.

            “With pleasure,” the Sentinel responded.

            Kyle lurched for the mummy, but paused when he saw that the crate was empty. The imprint of the body upon the wood was there and some wrappings had fallen, but that was all. The ninjas leapt through the hallway.

            “Well?” asked the Sentinel, running toward the ninjas.

            Kyle blasted the ninjas out of the sky in frustration. They dropped immediately, and the Sentinel swung at nothing but air. He spun around, looking into the empty crate.

            “Well how the hell did that happen?” he asked.

            “Simple,” Kyle said. “It’s all a trick.”

            Kyle stomped on the ground, and a trapdoor opened up beneath the crate. The same kind that’d been there when the deception mage appeared. The Sentinel noticed and groaned. Kyle nodded at him.

            “Hate magic yet?” Kyle asked.

            The three of them crashed in the hotel room. The Sentinel stayed out a little longer to go to the docks to see if he could find anything, but returned with nothing of note. Kyle wanted to continue digging into the house to follow the deception mage, but Maya and the Sentinel forced him not to. While it was important to find him, the mage wouldn’t get very far and the Sentinel had finally built a decent public standing without this incident at the manner. Now many higher-ups were calling for his head again after stabbing a major kid with a knife.  

            He was once again gone by the time Kyle woke up. Kyle did wake, though, with a strange sense of relief. The Demon mark was still bothering him, and the sensation was familiar enough for Kyle to realize that the Deception mage was still in town somewhere. Maya assumed that he would be getting ready to leave town by tonight, since having two superheroes on his tail was probably not the mage expected.

            Still, they were fresh out of their own leads. The Sentinel was off to try and find some of his own, and Maya claimed she may know a way of getting another.

            She took Kyle downtown again, this time in an area better suited for safety. The buildings were nice and tall and everything just seemed a little fresher, unlike the areas that the Sentinel tended to hang out, apparently. Maya claimed that in his early days the Sentinel was actually in these parts of town a lot more, going for the big swings against monopolized corporations funding overseas operations in Renza, the evil island in the Mediterranean. Kyle found that hard to believe, but then again at this point six years ago he was twelve and struggling through the most awkward stages of middle school puberty.

            They approached a small coffee shop in between two huge complexes. People in suits and dresses rushed up and down the street as they ran to work. Kyle was in some loose-fitting clothing and next to Maya, who looked amazing in her multi-colored dress and vest, he was supremely underdressed.

            Maya gripped his shoulder before Kyle could go in. “No way, we don’t go in there.”

            “Like, we or you-we?” Kyle asked.

            “Yes,” Maya said, after some hesitation. “Listen, that’s the shark tank in there. You’ve gotta have a sizeable pair of whatever to head in there and order a coffee.”

            “I can’t tell if you’re messing with me or not,” Kyle said.

            Maya gestured at the doorway. “What kind of coffee shop do you know that has two security guards standing in the doorway? City officials, police chiefs, the mayor and the governor, high-ranking detectives, those are the people that go in there. They’d spot you and I and know exactly who we are. They’d sniff us out and we’d be on the run in seconds.”

            “So isn’t it dangerous for us to be standing right here?” Kyle asked. “Like where they can see us?”

            “They’ll never do anything while we’re out in the open,” Maya said. “Everything about this city is done behind the scenes, behind closed doors. Out here we’re fine. You’re standing out a bit, but you’re just rolling with it. You’re learning fast.”

            Kyle grimaced and tried to keep his attention off the coffee shop. Maya crossed her arms and leaned against a guard rail, watching the store. Kyle watched as the busy state of mind clambered over the populace and the density of the roads swelled up, fit to burst like a balloon.

            Maya snapped him out of it by smacking his arm. Kyle turned and Maya pushed herself off the guard rail, waving someone down from the pits of the coffee shop. A woman, about as tall as Kyle but stout and with a hard look, caught the wave. Suddenly, her face softened when she smiled and approached Maya.

            The woman crossed through a crowd, that all apparently knew her, and she nodded at them. Maya patted her on the shoulder.

            “Good morning,” Maya said. “Good to see that you haven’t died down in the public eye.”

            “Good to see you, too,” the woman said. She looked at Kyle for just a second. “What’s happening?”

            “This is the Blue Nexus, no need to hide any gimmicks,” Maya said.

            Kyle slouched, groaning. “Seriously? You know how hard it is to keep up a secret identity when there are cameras everywhere now?”

            “Relax,” Maya said. “I still go out in the open. Blue Nexus, meet Cassidy. She knows our mutual friend much better than I do.”

            “Um, I prefer to think that I know his secret identity way better than I know the Sentinel,” Cassidy said. “But it’s a pleasure to meet you, Blue Nexus. You’re pretty crazy.”

            Kyle shook her hand. “Thanks, I try to keep it not so crazy, but then I meet people like Maya.”

            “I agree,” Cassidy said. “And I can only assume things are about to get even more crazy? Given how you were related with the incident at the party house last night?”

            Kyle snapped his fingers. “Bingo, already making headlines out west. Can’t wait for the Zanderia to hear about this one.”

            “Oh, I’m sure they’re ringing you up quite a bit,” Maya said. “But we’re here to talk about that, sort of, with you, Cassidy.”

            “I don’t know anything,” Cassidy said. “Nothing but how that spoiled brat got hurt and they evacuated the house once gunshots were heard. There were no bodies recovered and no indication that any normal person was there. Just a super hero able to punch through walls.”

            “Kinda my thing,” Kyle said.

            “Good thing we’re not getting into specifics,” Maya said. “Because I could honestly care less about what happened at the house regarding those people. There was something there that we need to find. A crate, something that came in either last night or the night before.”

            “Haven’t heard anything from the museum or anything else,” Cassidy said. Kyle paused and Cassidy smiled at him. “I used to be a detective before Capital Industries fell, now I work in the Mayor’s office, heading the main anti-crimes unit along with some pretty special people.” She nodded at Maya. “Think of us like the mayor’s secret service. We know things, and we do stuff about it when the Sentinel is either too busy, incapacitated, or just being stupid.”

            “It’s always two out of the three, just depends what day it is, really,” Maya said.

            “I haven’t heard anything about any mysterious crates, though, if that’s what you want to know,” Cassidy said.    

            “Not really,” Maya said. “More like mysterious shipments. Things off the record that are trying to be moved through the underground.”

            “The extinct underground?”

            “The same one.”

            Cassidy pursed her lips and shook her head. “Afraid not. Everything that’s been coming in and out of the docks has been monitored pretty well, nothing’s been weird.”

            “Can’t even say there’s corruption with the cops or anything,” Kyle said. “Those goons I fought off a couple nights ago, and even last night, where hired mercenaries. This is an inside operation, I just want to know where they got the crate from.”

            “What’s in the crate?” Cassidy asked.

            “A mummy,” Maya said. “A magic mummy, actually.”

            “You can’t be serious,” Cassidy said.

            Both Maya and Kyle raised their eyebrows. Cassidy raised her arms helplessly, laughing. Kyle had finally gotten used to how weird things were for him, but had a hard time remembering that others didn’t have as much interaction with the supernatural. Lucky them.

            “There’s another magical man running around with the mummy right now,” Maya said. Her phone buzzed. “If you hear anything, or if you see anything, call me immediately.”

            “Can do,” Cassidy said.

            Maya answered her phone. Cassidy looked Maya up and down, smiled at Kyle, and then departed, walking down the street and melding into a busy crowd. Kyle stepped off to the side to get out of their way while Maya spoke on the phone.

            She stopped the conversation and yanked Kyle away from his spot.

            “Come on, we might have something,” she said.

            He followed her into another part of downtown, one with far less business folk. It was a normal city street, with people in their mid-20s doing laps around the main square and elderly folk sitting on benches waiting for a bus to come, or just watching the birds in the nearby trees. A few people were dressed nice and were taking photos as well.

            Maya led Kyle through a pretty clean alleyway and they turned a corner near another coffee shop. It smelled heavenly, but Kyle had no time to absorb it, as Maya forced them to sprint across the street and duck into another, much thinner, alleyway.

            The Sentinel dropped down from the rooftop, landing without a hint of a broken ankle. Kyle had no idea how that was possible, unless there was something in his boots. Kyle wanted it, because base-jumping around the school would make things so much easier.

            “You ever see a mage explode?” asked the Sentinel.

            Kyle didn’t answer, still absorbing how weird it was to see the Sentinel in the daytime, and without a city crumbling around him. He didn’t look quite as violent, somehow.

            “Not on purpose,” Kyle said. “Why, have you?”

            “I just did,” the Sentinel said. “I managed to track down our old friend and asked him where the mummy was. He laughed, saying we had no idea what it really was, and then exploded before I could get any more information out of him.”

            Kyle let his arm hang loose at his side, consciously putting thought into the Demon mark. It festered on his arm but didn’t become visible to Maya or the Sentinel. It was just enough for him to be able to sense the Deception mage as he had the other night.

            “Yeah, he’s gone,” Kyle said. “Dead, I mean, I don’t think he could’ve gotten away from you without noticing.”

            “Is that a compliment to me or an insult to him?”

            Kyle smiled. “I don’t feel like being punched in the face so I’ll say it’s a compliment to you.”

            The Sentinel nodded, and Kyle knew he was smiling underneath his mask. “Problem is that our one lead is now dust in the wind. We have no idea where that mummy is. You can’t sense it at all?”

            “No,” Kyle said. “It must be in that crate, still.”

            “We just spoke with Cassidy, it doesn’t sound like there’s anything suspicious going on at the docks anymore,” Maya said.

            “And with their boss dead they don’t have much of a reason to keep this thing around,” the Sentinel said. “They’re going to end up moving it. And I seriously doubt they’ll stick around until the evening to bother moving it.”

            “You think they’d be on their way right now?” Kyle asked.

            “If they’re smart,” the Sentinel said. “There’s really only two places that they could be leaving from, if they haven’t already. One of the debunked Capital Industries buildings or off by the airport. Blue Nexus, take the airport, we’ll check out Capital.”

            “Got it,” Kyle said. He almost swiped his fingers over the bracelet but stopped. “Uh, how will we communicate?”

            “Meet on the highway,” the Sentinel said. “If you don’t find what you’re looking for, odds are that they’ve already escaped or that we’re giving pursuit. We’ll meet up eventually.”

            “You know you’re putting a lot of faith in chance right now,” Kyle said.

            “Part of our job,” the Sentinel said. He winked, then shot off in the other direction. Maya followed him, keeping up with ease. Kyle sprinted after them as well, swiping his finger over the bracelet and letting the Nexus consume him before he shot into the sky, curving around and heading for the airport. Stealth was no longer a priority so much as finding this crate was.

            Kyle cut off the Nexus for a moment and went into free-fall near the airport, looking around for trucks of a kind. He hit the roof of the cell tower and rolled, stopping himself on an antenna. He squinted, narrowing his vision. A truck was pulling away, headed for the main highway while traffic opened up around it, giving the truck room to work. It was a semi, and two motorcyclists shot ahead of it.

            Kyle looked around at the rest of the airport before a bullet whizzed past his head. He managed to catch the next one between his index and middle finger. Four gunmen were near an airplane that was preparing to launch.

            “Truck’s a distraction,” Kyle muttered. “Fantastic.”

            He leapt off the building and his aura reappeared around him. He filled his palm with energy and launched it airplane, knocking out the tires on the bottom and creating a small crater that it couldn’t escape from. Kyle dove down and landed just behind the plane, where it had a hatch open in the back. Kyle swung his hand around and knocked the four approaching gunmen out, then entered the plane.

            It was dark, with little sunlight coming in from the cloudy skies above. He looked around for the crate, but there was little difference to be had between all of the crates in there. He stopped at the back of the storage bay, and punched open the door.

            Something flew past his head, clicking. Kyle spun back around but whatever it was stopped and then beeped and Kyle had just enough time to dive away from the crates full of explosives.

            Fire shot into the sky and shrapnel was everywhere, banging against other airplanes and the airport windows. Kyle launched out of the plane and crashed into a second airplane. He opened his eyes but could barely see anything, and he was basically deaf. The Nexus was helping restore his senses. People along the runways and back area were screaming, but thankfully few people were hurt. The airplane was all but gone, the only part that really survived was the cockpit. Kyle warily got to his feet and tried to fill himself with energy from the Nexus.

            “Truck’s not a distraction,” Kyle muttered. “Damn it.”

            Security was on the scene almost immediately. Kyle took a few steps then blasted off into the sky, picking up speed as he did so he could come down even harder on the truck with the crate.

            He found them easily and quickly. They were speeding down the highway, now with four motorcyclists surrounding the truck inconspicuously. Kyle launched one energy ball down at a motorcyclist, forcing him to spin away and lose control, riding off into the median. Kyle blasted forward then, in free-fall, jumped aboard the truck.

            One of the motorcyclists sped up and leapt off his bike up to Kyle. He removed his helmet and threw it at Kyle, who dodged it but felt the speed of it. A Power mage, then.

            The Power mage ripped off a part of the roof and used it as a weapon, infusing his strength with it. Kyle ducked under his attack and punched the Power mage square in the back, propelling him to the front of the semi. The semi blared its horn. The other two motorcyclists turned about and leapt onto the roof as well.

            Kyle heard the revving of a fifth motorcycle and groaned. Not that they would be impossible to handle, but that they would just be so annoying!

            The fifth motorcycle sped up and then levelled with the front cab. Kyle raised his eyebrow, but recognized the silver jacket easily. He smiled.

            “Oh, good,” Kyle said. “Then this’ll be easy.”

            He sprinted forward, leaping over an attack and kicking the Power mage in the head, knocking him off the truck and into the median. He ducked under the next attack, then delivered an uppercut right into the next one’s jaw. He went up, then dropped down into the semi where the first ripped off a part. Speaking of him, he attacked with that big hunk of metal. Kyle held out his arm and his lance appeared. Kyle sliced through the metal and shouldered the power mage off of the car and into the metal railing of the bridge.

            The Sentinel struggled for control, Kyle noticed, as the truck swayed across the highway. Cars blared their horns and halted abruptly. Kyle held an energy ball and jumped up to the front cab, landing on the roof. He shot the ball down to the connector rods and the two separated immediately. The Sentinel leapt away and Kyle managed to catch him.

            The back cab spun out of control, headed straight for the metal railing. Kyle dropped the Sentinel, who hit the ground running, and leapt in front of the load before it could fall over the railing. The semi continued on, plowing ahead.

            Kyle and the Sentinel punched into the load and entered. The faint golden glow was much more evident this time around, although this time there was a strange mist surrounding the crate. Kyle stopped the Sentinel.

            “Could be a trap,” Kyle said.

            “I think it’s just magical residue,” the Sentinel said. “This was the same stuff that appeared when that Deception mage blew himself up.”

            Kyle nodded and the two proceeded. Even in the Nexus, Kyle felt the Demon mark wriggling in his arm, as if it were trying to break free and escape into the crate. The two stopped at the crate, peering into the opening they’d left last night.

            “Wait a second, that’s not a mummy,” the Sentinel said.

            Kyle approached it, feeling the Demon mark ready to burst. It wasn’t the only thing, though, as the mist around them began to swell near the crate. Kyle shoved the Sentinel back, and then all at once, it seemed as if the Earth itself cracked in two.

            He was violently forced out of the Nexus as the Demon mark seemed to explode on his arm, and then it returned to normal. Kyle’s whole body shook violently and the world around him swelled with noise of some sort, as if it were just thick static hanging in the air around him. Golden light filled his vision.

            A blast knocked him out of the load and back onto the road, where everyone else was stopped and watching. Kyle blinked and the world suddenly returned to normal. He scrambled to his feet, watching as the load deteriorated around the golden figure. The Sentinel leapt away, landing next to Kyle.

            Instead of the mummy that’d been in the crate, a man took its place. His hair was long and golden, and he wore an old robe. Golden light poured out of him, and he lifted into the sky with ease as if he were an angel. Just as slowly did he descend to the ground. He held out his hand.

            Six different colored lights, all of which were familiar to Kyle, drafted off of his fingertips. He looked at them curiously, then balled his hand up and the rainbow of magical power exploded from his hand. Kyle was pushed back by the gust.

            The man looked to Kyle and the Sentinel, then to the people around them. He pointed specifically to Kyle. “You stand as the bridge between my world and theirs.”

            “Who are you?” Kyle asked.

            “The harbinger returned,” the man said. “I have finally been awoken from my slumber and I am ready to continue my task to bring magic to this world. The days of pious humanity are over. This is the day that magic has won.”

            Kyle swiped his hand over the bracelet. “So you’re just jumping straight to the villain thing? Fine, then I’ll end this quick. Wave Two!”

            The second wave of Nexus energy erupted around him and Kyle launched full-speed at the mage, holding an energy ball back with enough power to obliterate someone with Alucard’s power. The golden man stood there, unfazed, until he opened his arms up and ruptured the air around them. Everyone was blasted back and he managed to stun Kyle, halting him. Kyle punched at nothing by the time he made it.

            He landed, looking around for the golden man. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

            The three of them regrouped later in the evening. Kyle scoured the entire city from the sky while the Sentinel took to the streets to find the reborn mage, but there was no luck. Not a trace of magic anywhere, either.

            Kyle returned to the airport to apologize for the damages and had to go out on a limb and say the Zanderia would somehow cover the damages. He couldn’t wait for this PR talk from Phoenix, either.

            They stood atop one of the Capital Industries buildings, looking up at the night’s sky.

            “Thank you for all your help,” the Sentinel said. “Seems like we really were onto something there.”

            “Something that probably won’t end up being much fun to deal with,” Kyle said. “Glad I could help. I’ll head out soon so I can keep looking for him. It’s a big world out there, but there’s more mages for me to look for him with.”

            “And I’ll find out who brought that crate here,” the Sentinel said. “I don’t think he was able to pull all those strings while he slept, which means he had some sort of help. I’ll find them.”

            Kyle held out his hands. “Until next time, then.” The Sentinel shook his hand.

            Maya pointed up to the sky. “Never seen that before. Probably not good, but hey, it’s pretty.”

            Kyle followed the direction she pointed, but noticed he didn’t really have to. The six magical colors filled up the sky, blotting out the starts until they all beamed down to different areas. As if they were six pillars of magic. 

Next time: Kyle and Brenda are on the hunt for those six pillars, rumored to bring chaos on the world along with that new, reborn mage. But what they find proves that seeing is certainly not believing. Find out what in "Blue Nexus #55 - The Great Dune"!