Blue Nexus #81 - Prisoner 36

 

Previously in "Blue Nexus": Mages have begun to appear all over the world in the wake of Rafael's attacks and magic spreading all across the globe, and Brenda has become something of a leader for the group. Also following the Magus War, several villainous mages were placed in the Cube, and security there has been heightened in the wake of some tricks being pulled there, such as one of the Six Pillars of Magic attempting to break some prisoners out. With peace settling around the world once again, the Zanderia has begun to fall into a bit of a rhythm, and may not be prepared for a little shake in the status quo.

              Few places on Earth could make Brenda happier than Vito’s on West 34th Street and 6th Avenue in the city that she rarely enjoyed actually being in. It was a building barely larger than a regular apartment, with the ovens giving off plenty of heat to keep the place warm during the cooler March evenings. Brenda sat atop her high chair in the back parts of the restaurant, close to the back exit but still within view of the counter.

                She always sat facing the front door, able to eat her two slices of cheese and soda while she watched various patrons come in. She particularly enjoyed watching tourists come in and watching them fumble about the menu while the fast-paced cashiers asked for quick orders. It was relatable. When she’d first arrived, after coming back from a mission with the Zanderia and in desperate need of food, she was the same way. Now?

                Well, now she was a regular. Brenda never went anywhere else for food and there was nowhere else she’d rather be on a Tuesday evening. While New York City was a hustling and bustling metropolis, this small little restaurant provided a reprieve from the outside world. There wasn’t enough room for that many people and it often served as a turnoff for anyone that wanted to come in and sit down, since they’d be eating their food in a cramped place.

                Brenda wiped her hands of some of the crumbs and what not left on her hand. She sat up, feeling some of her hidden scarlet hair tickle the back of her neck. She never wore her hair proper in New York, or even in Vito’s. She often had it tucked into a hat of some kind. Brenda didn’t fear her identity being blown, but she didn’t want to attract attention to herself by someone trying to mix her and Shindari up.

                She preferred to travel in a simple fashion around the world, carrying as little with her as possible. For some reason, the clothing that women had to wear on Earth often came without pockets. Brenda felt it’d be far more convenient for her to be able to put a small wallet into a dress pocket, but she hadn’t been able to find a dress at a reasonable price that had such a feature. Then again, she didn’t really try that hard and often wore jackets that had the same effect for her.

                Brenda took a sip from her drink, surveying the room. A few students, a man in tattered clothing, and a young woman sitting by the window vehemently texting something on her phone. Brenda looked to the cooks and made eye contact with a couple of the workers in the back. She smiled and they blushed. Brenda strummed her fingers along the glass, closing her eyes, and sensing that, indeed, there was something up with the woman in the back.

                Brenda looked to her once more, and saw her wiping her hand along the back of her neck, where little bits of something green were there. Brenda grimaced. A fledgling Reality mage. She gazed about the room, and nobody else seemed to be paying her much mind, thank goodness. New York City had become a hotbed of magical activity in recent months since Rafael’s Awakening stirred the world, and then following the incident with the Dark Soul and Mystic Sven, the world was put on an even higher alert than before to magical activity.

                The woman looked back to her phone after rubbing the mark. Brenda sighed and lowered her head to the table for a moment before picking it back up and stepping away from the table before another woman rushed into the building. The girl on the phone slowly looked up and the other woman immediately wrapped the other in her arms, and Brenda could clearly see the purple mark of a Combat mage on her tricep.

                Brenda stopped and stood smiling in the middle of the restaurant. She wanted to move and say something. Her body swayed forward but her feet stayed planted. Her mouth twitched, and she instead just waved goodbye to the kitchen crew and stepped into the bustling streets of the city, feeling her chest momentarily seize while her throat caught.

                It was like this all around the world for mages and there was so little she could do about it. She couldn’t help every mage in the world. She couldn’t even work up the courage to just talk to two of them. She heard the two scuttling to get up and Brenda stepped out of the way, keeping her head bowed so they wouldn’t make eye contact.

                Say something, Shindari! Brenda shut her eyes and lulled her head back in disappointment. What a fool. Had she so little resolve in her desires to save mages around the world? What was there to fear? Or, rather, what was there for them not to understand? Would they get where Brenda came from? These women were clearly tortured by their new abilities, but they weren’t physically tortured.

                Brenda opened her eyes and tried not to focus on the horrifying memories attempting to flood into her mind. She could still hear the whips and cracks and shouts from all around after the slave masters discovered she had magical abilities. Even now, the powers still pained her from time to time. She looked to the red cracks along her hand, now much larger than they were when she fought against Rafael. She closed her fist and the lines only seemed to grow.

                These girls couldn’t understand her plight. There wouldn’t be any point in trying to get her to their side. Brenda could help the mages grow and learn, but could never relate. She sighed and slid her hands into her jacket pockets, feeling the Zanderia communicator there. She strummed her fingers against its side and then slipped into the alleyway behind the pizza place.

                Brenda stopped behind a tall dumpster and waved her hand over her body, weaving her Shindari outfit together. Perhaps going on patrol could help her out. The jacket clung to her body, sealing anything in her pockets besides the Zanderia communicator, and then she braced herself against the dumpster, closing her eyes, reaching out with her magic.

                The two mages were still nearby, their powers severely depressed while they just walked through the city together. Brenda couldn’t help smiling that they were together, but, if only…

                She opened her eyes, pushed off the dumpster, and blasted into the sky, not activating her aura or any other magic to give away where she was. Her aura lit around her when she was caught in the bright lights of a billboard and she increased her altitude. Brenda held the communicator in her hand, waiting for anyone to come into contact.

                She figured she’d wait five or ten minutes for someone to call for help on the intercom before she used the device’s radar system for any sort of criminal activity going on in the city. It’d be all over the place, sure, but being a such a high altitude meant that, if she needed to, she could use her barrier magic to stop criminals before they got anywhere and they’d never see her coming.

                She curved around a bit and then perched herself along the Empire State Building, placing a barrier gently against the window and then bracing herself against it, melding her feet with the platform. She raised the hat off her head and let her hair flow in the gentle breeze. She stared out at the gorgeous nightline sky of the city and smiled. Brenda closed her eyes, allowing the sounds to fill her ears while faint light filled her vision.

                The communicator buzzed in her hands and she pressed the receive button.

                “Shindari?”

                She raised her eyebrow and her smile faltered. Brenda opened her eyes and raised the communicator to her mouth.

                “What is it, Riko?”

                “There’s been an incident. A bad one. I need your help immediately.”

                Brenda raised her eyebrow. “Sure, where is it?”

                “The Cube.”

                Brenda sighed. “Okay, I’ll have Phoenix teleport me there. Shall I meet you outside or inside?”

                “Inside, in the lobby. We’ll walk to the place together.”

                Brenda closed her fist around the communicator, fear beginning to seep into her bones. “Be there in a flash.”

                She pressed same button and clipped the communicator to her belt. She tapped her watch and waited for Phoenix’s facial hologram to appear.

                “Yo,” Phoenix said. “Where do you need?”

                Brenda could barely suppress the giggles she felt every time Phoenix’s AI voice asked that. They’d installed a new teleportation system that responded with Phoenix’s mannerisms so that even if he weren’t in the moon base, he could still technically be the one teleporting people. Of course, the Zanderia weren’t foolish enough to leave an AI in charge of the teleportation system, so they ensured that there was always one tech-savvy member of the Zanderia on the moon base in case the program went rogue.

                “The Cube’s lobby,” Brenda said.

                “On it,” Phoenix’s voice said, and Brenda held her finger on her watch. Stars began to fill her vision and she was momentarily lifted from the platform before the world around her completely shifted in shape and color, and her feet touched down on the white panels of the Cube’s lobby.

                Her vision blurred while it adjusted until she blinked and was, fully, in the Cube. She braced herself by clenching her fists and felt her nerves shake her down to anchor her back to the physical realm. Riko stood next to her, not smiling. Brenda’s own little grin left her lips.

                “This isn’t one of the Six Pillars, is it?” Brenda asked. “Oh, um, good evening, by the way.”

                Riko chuckled and gestured for Brenda to lead them through the sealed front doors. Brenda placed her hand on the panel and it opened up for them. The lights automatically activated overhead and the two proceeded together.

                “It’s not,” Riko said. “Thank goodness.”

                “So, do we have another mage here?” Brenda asked. “Why call me directly if it’s not?”

                “Because you’re the only one that’s going to be able to help me in this situation,” Riko said. “At least, in the ways that this needs to be done.”

                Brenda nodded and the two continued into the second hallway. Riko took the lead a bit, quickening his pace. Brenda tried to look into his face but he was practically unreadable. The man never had a face this stoic; at least, not recently. He’d been far more jovial in the aftermath of the Magus War, far more supportive of everyone in the face of a world-ending threat. Did a prisoner escaping the Cube worry him more than that?

            Perhaps it was beyond that. In the year since she’d joined the Zanderia, nobody had ever escaped the Cube. Professor Boomer had gotten out of his cell, yes, but that was ultimately to serve a great goal, and he went right back in. Even so, someone was able to freely roam about the Cube. Someone had figured out the Zanderia’s tricks, and if Boomer had malevolent intent, he could have gotten some of the prisoners out.

            Brenda looked quickly into each cell as they passed them by. Prisoners were all, for the most part, sleeping, save for the few who reveled in the heroes coming by and shot profane gestures at them in an attempt to get into their heads. Brenda hardly felt anything from it anymore.

            Riko stopped at just beyond the halfway point of the second hallway, and Brenda immediately saw it. The lights above flickered over the massive hole in what had once-been unbreakable glass. The glass had, somehow, been melted through, and there were bloody footprints leading up to the glass from inside the cell.

            Brenda reached out with a hand filled with Shield magic and touched the glass. It was still warm, as if it’d been recently melted. She stuck her hand further and then stepped all the way into the cell. It reeked of sweat and B.O., but that was the only sense she was picking up.

            “No traces of magic here,” Brenda said. She shrugged at Riko. “Just needed to be sure. How soon did you find out about this?”

            “I thought something was suspicious when a man of this prisoner’s description was found wandering a fishing village in Argentina two days ago,” Riko said. “I went to inspect but found no signs of him. I checked up on the security feed and found that he was gone, and came here.”

            “So why do you need me specifically?” Brenda asked.        

            “This is a dangerous man,” Riko said. “He can destroy anything he touches, or can destroy and regrow parts of his own body. Your magic can contain that.”

            “He wasn’t destroying anything in Argentina?” Brenda asked. “That’s rather odd, don’t you think?”

            “I couldn’t be sure it was him until I saw this,” Riko said. “But this destruction doesn’t match what he can do. He can’t melt through the glass; he would’ve shattered it.”

            “There’s no footage of what happened?” Brenda asked.

            Riko shook his head. “That worries me more. Footage of this area is consistent for the last few days. There’s no sign of his departure or anything. It was wise of you to ensure that there was no Reality or Deception magic at play, but now I worry for a technological game at play.”

            “We don’t have any tech based villains nearby, do we?” Brenda asked.

            Riko shook his head, and crossed his arms. “We stripped them of their tech, and they have no access to any tools in the facility. We even made sure to dispose of any that Boomer may have had lying around.” Riko gestured at the glass. “That glass is powerful enough to stop the Power Pillar and can resist any amount of heat concentrated on it.”

            “Apparently not,” Brenda said, running her hand along the divots in the glass. “Riko, I think there’s really only one course of action.”

            “I know,” Riko said. “And our issue is a matter of tracking. I lost track of him two days ago. He could be much deeper into the tundra by now; he could be dead.”

            “How could he even have gotten ashore, that would’ve taken weeks,” Brenda said. “And we’re nowhere near Argentina.” Riko rubbed his alien chin, and Brenda reached out and grasped his shoulder. “I can see why you’re worried, friend. This is incredibly troubling. After this is over we should sit down with everyone and explain the situation, if they don’t already know, and then have most of us come down here to inspect. Maybe we can call in some scientist ally that the Zanderia has, or an intergalactic ally. This may be the work of an extraterrestrial threat.”

            Riko nodded. “I think that’s wise.” He clasped her arm. “Great thinking, Shindari. First, though, we must capture this man.”

            “Indeed,” Brenda said. “Have Phoenix teleport us there. I want to continue inspecting the cell.”
            Riko nodded and pressed down on the watch on his arm. Brenda stepped through the melted glass back into the cell, where the blood was. The overhead light of the cell was off, but not broken. She held a small barrier in her hands and looked the blood over. There were footprints in the blood, as if someone had been walking in it. She looked to the bed, which was unmade and also covered almost completely in dried blood. This blood, though, was aged, as if it’d been stained for much longer than just a few days. Not to mention that there were splatters of it all over the wall and sheets.

            Before Brenda could get a closer look, the same feeling of teleportation seized her and she felt her body lifted and then dropped back onto the ground. Gravel crunched beneath her feet, and she had to brace herself. This time, she wasn’t nearly ready for the teleportation.

            Riko braced her and she blinked twice to return to this plane of reality. When she opened her eyes the second time, she stared out to a wide wasteland. Blotted sheets of ice covered parts of the land, and mountains stood in the far distance. A chill swept over her and her body instinctually put a protective layer of thin Shield magic around her. She sighed and her breath escaped her.

            “This is southern Argentina,” Brenda said, turning to Riko.

            He nodded, unaffected by the cold. Mars was far, far colder than any normal Earth winter or tundra. This was probably a nice day to him, though the dreary, cloudy night’s sky wasn’t helping much.

            “There’s no way he’s alive,” Brenda said. She shrugged, cocking an eyebrow. “Then again, there’s no way he could have made it all the way down here, so there’s that.”

            “Come, the village isn’t too far,” Riko said, gesturing north.

            Brenda followed him, surveying the land. The distant crashing of waves against the eastern shoreline of the country came into her senses. She rubbed her hands together to build a little bit of friction, and stared out at the mountains. There wasn’t anything around for miles and miles. Perhaps there was something to hunt, but if the only water around was the sea water, this escapee would definitely have died. Plus it was freezing cold.

            She didn’t want to think of any strange conspiracy theories, like this prisoner being part of some alien cabal and he escaped to their secret rural hideout. That seemed far too unlikely to be the case, but it would be some sort of underground organization that the capability to stealth underneath he noses of the galaxy’s greatest heroes.

            The sounds of light chatter and a crackling fire soon appeared over the small roaring of the waves, and Brenda turned her attention to the small village up ahead. There was a paved road leading through the village that couldn’t have been more than a half-mile large in diameter. Riko nodded to her and they slowed down a bit, so as to not seem so intent.

            One of the children nearby caught sight of them first, and pointed specifically to Riko. An older woman noticed, and a wrinkly smile overcame her face. She called out to Riko, by name, and Riko greeted them. Made sense. Would anyone really forget meeting the Earth’s most popular superhero?

            Brenda hung back while Riko spoke with some of the older elders and the children all played around him, trying to get his attention, but he was far more captivated by what some of the others had to say. His face, for the briefest moment, turned to complete shock and then Riko moved into the mode that Brenda most often saw him in: undying care.

            He knelt to be closer to the people and took the hand of a nearby woman that burst into tears. Brenda stepped closer, to try and hear, but wasn’t able to get close enough. Riko patted the woman’s head and she asked him something. He reluctantly nodded and together they bowed their heads while she said something and then, when she was done, he was allowed to stand and he said his goodbyes to them.

            Riko walked right past Brenda, his pace quickening. “He came back, screaming about something. Notice how there’s a large gap in the middle of the village, where it looks like there should be a pyre or a village square?”

            “You’re kidding.”

            “Apparently it was on accident,” Riko said. “But that’s not what matters. He had the sense to come back here. Why? Why come back if he didn’t meant to harm them? Or why come back at all?”

            “When was he back?”

            “Just yesterday. Thankfully nobody was seriously injured in the attack but he left as fast as he arrived. He headed northwest, and that’s where we’re going. Apparently there’s an abandoned military base up ahead; it was developed in secret during World War II if things ever came so south in the world.”
            “Do you think he’s going to try and fly away?” Brenda asked.

            “Why wouldn’t he just use the same means of travel that he got here to get away?” Riko asked. Brenda finally looked into his face and saw nothing but confusion.

            She could see through his eyes, though, that his brain was working fast. He clenched his fists, then opened them back up. Brenda gritted her teeth and started to take to the air.

            “I’ll scout ahead,” Brenda said. “See if I can get to that base. You follow up behind me in case I need back up, but I should be able to contain him.”

            “Bad idea,” Riko said, also floating up. “We should take this guy on together. He’s dangerous, Shindari. I may not have been the one to bring him in, but that doesn’t mean we should treat him lightly.”

            “Fine,” Brenda said. “But you need to be ready to fly back to the Cube the moment we get this guy. I have a bad feeling that this may be a distraction of some kind.”

            “I’ll do you one better and have Phoenix send someone down to the Cube for heightened security,” Riko said, touching down on his watch. “Let’s hurry!”

            Brenda nodded and threw a small platform in front of her. She dropped onto it, and then swung her arms forward and surged through the sheer power of her magic.

            She sliced through the wind like a knife through butter, cutting across the late Argentinian sky while snow blasted against the shield in front of her. She moved at such a fast pace that it hardly made a difference. She dove a bit and lowered herself to the ground. She’d be able to see the base just fine from up above, but she wanted to go in swinging.

            She curved into the air, holding her arm out and creating a massive shield behind her, one large enough that she’d be able to block off an entrance to the hanger. Brenda narrowed her vision, and a massive metal structure came into view over the horizon. She pointed ahead to Riko and picked up speed.

            Part of the metal roof blew off, and the entire upper structure started to curl in on itself. Brenda’s eyes widened. Was he fighting someone now? She surged her power forward again and then leapt off the platform, letting it blast right through the metal doors and knock them over. She flipped and slammed her barrier down behind her sealing the entrance.

            Her foot slid into a puddle of something dark. She followed it all the way to a screaming figure in the middle of the hanger. It was a man, frail, with his hands seemingly pounding at his own chest. He screamed through the pounds, ignoring the pain entirely. He didn’t even see Brenda come busting in.

            With another scream, though, an explosion erupted between them, almost as if that one knew she was there. She threw up a barrier that managed to stand, but cracked all the way across it. Brenda dropped the barrier.

            “Get down on your knees, sir, now!” Brenda shouted.

            “You have to make it stop!” the prisoner exclaimed. “Please, it hurts!”
            “I can do that, but you need to put your arms down!” Brenda exclaimed.

            The prisoner shouted again, this time swinging both arms down. Brenda barely had time to move as the ground quaked and erupted beneath her. Rubble flew everywhere. She swung her arms out and caught his hand with a cube, and then she brought the cube down and slammed the man to the ground. His face slammed onto the ground.

            “Please, please, make it stop!” he said, and with his other hand started punching at hic chest before he viciously dug his fingers into it.

            Brenda sprinted forward, projecting a barrier around him as another explosion went off. This one knocked him back. With both hands, now, he ripped at his chest. He screamed again and another explosion went off within the cube that was supposed to keep him protected, but it only knocked him back again. He slammed against the back wall, but still clawed at his own chest.

            “What are you doing?” Brenda exclaimed, and put cubes around his hands. He streamed, slamming his legs on the ground like a child going through a tantrum.

            “Make it stop!” the prisoner exclaimed. “Make it all go away!”

            The cubes covering his hands expanded quick, as if there were explosions, and turned a deep red. The man’s face turned purple while he continued to scream as loud as he could about some sort of pain. But, Brenda’s magic should’ve been healing him, right? She tightened her power up, but it was doing little.

            “Shindari!” Riko roared overhead. “What’s going on!”
            “I have no idea!” Brenda exclaimed. “My barriers should be healing him.”

            “You have to make the pain go away,” the man said, and his face blinked red once. Brenda raised her eyebrow, and another explosion went off, this one at random.

            The man’s chest heaved up and down. He punched at his chest with the two cubes, going at it until Brenda saw another blinking red light in his chest.  

            “No, no!” she and Riko yelled as they realized what was happening.

            The man finally smiled before his body burst into dust before them, the explosion itself cracking the massive cube around them. Brenda stopped short of her quick burst toward the man, raising her hand to her mouth.

            Neither spoke. They stared at the horror of a man’s own destruction, silent, unmoving, unsure of what to do. The cubes dropped around him, fading into the magical ether.

            As the dust settled around his body, something still remained behind: a metallic spine, heart, and the base of a skull. It was completely unharmed, if a little dirty. Two red lights were there, but were no longer blinking. Brenda’s eyes widened at the sight, and Riko took cautious steps toward it.

            “What the hell is this?” he asked, kneeling down close to it.

            “It was inside of him,” Brenda muttered. She turned to Riko. “Did he always have these implants?”

            “No,” Riko said, and looked behind the two of them. Brenda did the same, and saw a trail of blood leading from the puddle she’d stepped in earlier leading right to there. “This must have only just been implanted in him.”

            “Who can do that?” Brenda asked.

            “Someone who could’ve gotten into the Cube,” Riko said. He ripped free part of his shirt and then picked the spine up, careful not to let it touch his skin at all. “We’ll have to analyze this as much as possible. This is something I’ve never seen before; at least, not on this planet.”

            Brenda stared at the metal spine and organs. “Wait a second.”

            She stepped closer, and saw a small chip attached to the skull. She raised her eyebrow, and when she raised her watch to level with it, she grimaced, and glared at Riko.

            “Same tech,” she said.

            Riko nodded. “Now we know how he got free. But someone had to be on the receiving end of the teleporter to use it.”

            “In the Zanderia?”
            “Nobody else has access to our information, or records,” Riko said. “I’ll call everybody in tomorrow. We have important business to discuss.”

            “Very,” Brenda said. She shook her head. “Damn it all.”

            “There’s nothing we could do,” Riko said. He sighed. “Not a damn thing. Someone played us good, and sacrificed a life just to show us that they could.”
            “Next time,” Brenda muttered. “There’s always a next time.”

            “I suppose so,” Riko said, and nodded to Brenda. “Thank you as usual for all of your help, Shindari. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            Brenda saw herself out, and then saw herself teleported away. Tired, ragged, and now once again hungry, she teleported to the top of the Empire State Building. She sighed when she stood atop it, looking out to the city of eight million souls. It was alive and well. She closed her eyes, sensing so many magical signatures nearby. She clenched her fist.

            The mages were one thing, but now there was some kind of a mole with the Zanderia? That almost seemed impossible. How had something so obvious like an explosive villain gone unnoticed for two days? She shook her head.

            This person was good…no, they were great. They were easily able to outsmart the Zanderia and played with the group’s toys as if they were child’s play.

            Brenda shook her head. Thought for another time. She needed some food, and then some rest. She wasn’t physically tired, but, emotionally? She could go for a nice nap.

            She drifted down to West 34^th and 6^th and slid her had back atop her head, entering the building to come face-to-face with a young woman almost spilling her pizza onto Brenda’s lap. Brenda instinctively caught it, but in doing so, her sleeve slipped up and her mage mark was momentarily revealed.

            The girl gasped as Brenda caught the plate of pizza. Brenda smiled at the girl, who, without a word, rolled her own sleeve up to reveal herself as a Shield mage. Brenda’s mouth hung open. The girl had black hair with little red roots beneath her hair.

            “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was in a rush, that was totally my bad.”

            Brenda smiled and handed her back the pizza plate. “No, you’re okay…say, do you mind if I…do you wanna talk?”

            She tapped the girl’s arm and felt a magical tingle run up her arm. The girl shivered and barely held onto the pizza. A breeze swept through the streets. The girl stared at Brenda’s eyes, searching for any kinds of deceit, but there was none to be had there.

            “Yeah,” she said, and her lips curled into a slight grin. “Sure.”

            Brenda gestured and they both slid back into the restaurant. Brenda signaled and the owners knew exactly what to do. Brenda sat opposite the girl, who laid her pizza down and then leaned close.  
            “When did you get your magic?” she asked. “Like, was it with everyone else?”

            Brenda held her hands up and the girl eased up. “I was a little girl.”
            “Were you scared?”

            “I’m scared now.”

            “Why?”

            Brenda sighed, breaking eye contact with the girl. Why not? Someone was capable of getting behind the Zanderia. Her own magi often pained her to use, and it just killed a man. Brenda closed her hands together, but she saw a small red spark jump and felt two hands close in around her own.

            Brenda raised her head, and saw scarlet eyes looking back at her. She’d seen those same eyes before, in the face of the mirror, when she first arrived on Earth and saw nothing but fear and confusion in someone who didn’t belong. Her vision twitched and then she held the girl’s own hands.

            “I’m not entirely sure,” Brenda said. “But I just hope that I don’t have to be afraid for long.”

            “I don’t know what do to with this,” the girl said, looking to the mark on her forearm. “Everyone looks at me strange. I don’t belong here.”
            “We all belong here,” Brenda said. “We all have a part to play. We’re all…we’re all people that live on this planet, and we have to do it together. We have to work and live together, and trust each other. Earlier there were two other girls just like us, and you know what? One walked in sad, but the other helped her get back on her feet. We don’t have to be afraid as long as we can put our faith in each other.”

            Brenda saw another red spark leap from their hands. “I just saw something…horrific, and I barely have the words to describe how I’m feeling, but seeing you? It helps me, it helps me so much. We all need this, to help each other when we’re scared.”

            The other girl nodded. “Right.”
            Damn, why hadn’t she realized it before? She had Riko right there, she could have talked to him about it. She could have talked to anyone, but instead she chose to go it alone.

            Brenda squeezed the young mage’s hands. No more of that. She was a member of the Zanderia, and even if someone were trying to topple them, she would not let that happen. She didn’t need to be this beacon of hope for the mages, either, nor some sort of leader for them; Brenda just needed to stand with them, among them, to give them support and show the world how great and kind they could be.

            There was no need for fear. Brenda smiled, and watched the owner slide her favorite meal in front of her. She sighed and smiled.

            Vito’s always did have a way of bringing things back around for her.

Next time: The Sentinel calls in the aid of the Blue Nexus to reintroduce the hero to some ground-level crime, as well as call in aid for a massive underground movement that may be bigger than the two of them in "Blue Nexus #82: Micro Narcos Pt. 1"