Legends of the Halcyon Era: The Devil’s Yard Journey – Part 9

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Legends of the Halcyon Era

The Devil’s Yard Journey

Part 9

by

David Oxford/LBD “Nytetrayn”

*****

“So…” said Nytetrayn, as the Diggers left the chamber of the surprisingly easy going Tsathoggua.

“So… that was interesting,” Fenix said.

Xenos nodded solemnly, while Janine frowned deeply. “I don’t like him saying my species tried to kill off mankind,” she said.

“Yeah, that is a bit of a downer,” Nyte replied.

“I’m sure there’s something screwed about it,” said Fenix. “That guy wasn’t exactly sane.”

“Yeah,” agreed Nytetrayn.

“Well, this is the last one,” Xenos said as they arrived back at the latest intersection of their journey. Without hesitation, the group headed down the third hallway, which carried on in a straight line. In the distance, there was a strange sound, like an articulate buzz that resembled human speech.

Janine’s eyes doubled in size, as the sound became more distinct. It was now clearly inhuman, yet the sound was not unlike that of someone speaking English in a buzzing insectoid voice. As they grew closer, it became apparent that this was not a voice, but that it was several voices, voices which seemed to be chanting something.

“Nyte, hold me,” said Fenix.

Nyte just looked at him and took a large step away.

“Shub-Niggurath… Shub-Niggurath,” the chanting went. “The black goat of the woods with a thousand young!”

“So now the buzzing people talk,” said Xenos. “I was hoping it was human.”

It is then that they could be seen, creatures eight feet in height who resembled terrestrial lobsters. But where lobsters would possess multiple legs, these only had two. However, what they lacked in legs, they made up for with arms, many in number and each tipped with lobster claws. Where their faces might have been, they instead bore an uncommonly ugly cluster of mandibles and feelers. And on their backs, they possessed multiple pairs of fin-like wings.

“Welcome to Red Lobster, may I take your order?” said Nytetrayn.

At once, the worshippers turned and charged the interlopers, shrieking damnably and waving their deadly limbs.

“I dunno, Nyte,” said Xenos, “I wouldn’t want to – aah!”

Nytetrayn opened fire with his Nyte-Buster on the creepy crustaceans, while Xenos pulled out his gun and fired wildly at them. Fenix and Janine coordinated and took out a fair number with a combined plasma/Caster attack.

The creatures screamed demonically as they perished, yet they still kept coming. Nytetrayn switched to his Gatling Buster and started to cut them down where they stood, while Fenix let loose another plasma blast, Janine unleashed a wave of raw flame, and Xenos kept trying to hit something at head level.

“Man, a pot of boiling water seems like it’d come in real handy right about now,” said Nytetrayn. “Maybe some melted butter, or a bit of lemon…”

Soon, the onslaught came to an end, lobster bits everywhere.

“As I was saying before,” said Xenos, “they didn’t look too tasty to me. I mean… eww.”

“Well, they always look a bit futt-buggly until they’re cooked,” said Nyte, as he sniffed at some of the remains to see if they seemed edible. It didn’t matter, though, as they soon quickly dissolved.

“I think these guys would be ugly after they were eaten,” said Janine.

“Yeah,” said Nyte, “something tells me they’d probably be ugly long after they were eaten, too…”

“Lovely thought, that,” said Fenix.

“Anyways,” Nytetrayn continued, “weren’t they saying something about a goat?”

“Some kind of god they were praying to, I think,” said Janine.

“Hmm, Goat-God…”

“Bloody, with fire and an inverted pentagram?” asked Xenos.

“That would be interesting,” said Fenix. “Let’s take a look.”

As the Diggers proceed, the proverbial light appears at the end of the tunnel, with the corridor rejoining the other two branches before continuing on deeper into the labyrinth of the damned.

“More tunnels,” said Nyte. “Wee, lalalalalala.”

“Um, guys?” Janine said. “Can you feel that? There’s something up ahead… something really, really… nasty.”

After they looked around for a moment to see if they could detect anything, Nyte said, “Well, we aren’t getting anywhere standing here.”

They continued along, with Janine floating over to huddle next to Xenos. The hallway opened abruptly into a vast cavern, whose floor was littered with strange monoliths, as well as various shapes and sizes of boulders. Its bizarre geometry meant one could stand fully upright in one spot, but appear to be standing at an angle to someone only a few meters away. One couldn’t tell if the surface they stood upon was flat, or if it curved, or even if they were standing on either side of a sharp corner.

“Whoa… vertigo,” said Nyte, as Fenix stumbled. “This is really weird,” Janine added, while Xenos became quite visibly dizzy.

At the cavern’s center was a massive door, easily over a hundred feet tall and wide. Engraved upon it was the image of something like an octopus, but with evil, slitted eyes and a tooth-filled mouth. It was impossible to tell whether the door sat flat on the ground, or at a slight upward angle.

“Methinks that does not bode well,” said Fenix.

“…methinks you’re right,” Nyte said.

“Xenos, hold me,” said Janine, and he did so.

“Ahhh, what the hell, you only live once,” said Fenix, as he gave the door a good, swift kick.

At the touch, the door emitted a deafening groan when stone screeched against stone as it split in half down the middle and began to open outwards.

“I guess we’re about to put that theory to test,” said Nytetrayn.

“Eep!” yelped Janine, staring wide-eyed at the door as it opened..

A fearsome stench wafted outwards—it could only be described as a cocktail of rotting flesh, freshly-gutted fish, inhuman excrement, and blood.

“I am really glad I’m wearing a helmet,” said Fenix from behind his visored mask. Meanwhile, Xenos made a retching sound.

From the opened doors emerged an aura of blackness that was like a liquid, shiny shadow, which left traces of residue on the rocks as it passed. Behind it was a vast mass of goo, an enormous pile of slimy, green pulp which managed to twist and ooze its way upwards, kicking up more clouds of the sickening black stuff and the terrible smell that accompanied them..

Before the Diggers’ eyes, the goop came together to form a shape, though of what, no one could surely say. An animal, a monster, some primitive god, or even some cross between all three? It stood nearly as tall as the door from which it emerged, its massive, bulbous head echoing the visage seen on its front. Trailing behind was a mass of tentacles which obscured the rest of the body; what little could be seen appeared vaguely reptilian, but it blended with the tentacles in such a way that no one could be sure.

On its back were a pair of enormous, dragon-like wings, which stirred up the wind as they fluttered agitatedly. On its left, there was a giant trident made of polished black metal, held under its curtain of tentacles by unknown means. Its eyes flared with a crimson glow as its small, silvery-fanged mouth opened to reveal a terrifying roar.

“Is that… Cthulhu?!” Xenos asked, eyes wide at the sight of the monster before them. He then pushed Janine away from the beast and took aim at its eyes, ready to fire, but was interrupted by Cthulu driving his trident towards him. He dove to the side to avoid its three terrible points, while Janine ran and hid elsewhere in the room.

Nytetrayn and Fenix opened fire with Nyte-Buster and Gatling Arm, respectively. However, Cthulhu didn’t seem to notice the bullets and various blasts hitting him, though that didn’t stop him from sweeping his trident at the younger Digger.

Leaping up and over the trident, Nytetrayn tried firing some Buster shots at the creature’s face. But it was for naught, as Cthulhu merely cackled as his face was blown apart before reforming into its previous grotesque visage.

“Note to self,” said Nytetrayn. “Face is invincible.”

“Oooh… holy shit,” said Fenix.

“Unholy shit,” said Janine. “Definitely unholy.”

Switching tactics, Fenix broke out his Plasma Caster and unleashed a blast from it, tearing a hole through Cthulhu’s stomach, only for him to laugh it off as the blast passed through. Meanwhile, Nyte tried his Gatling Buster, and sprayed the beast with a hail of energy shots, while Janine sniped at him with energy shots from the sidelines.

Eventually, Cthulhu stabbed the head of his trident into the ground, unleashing a shockwave of violent green energy that spread in a circle outward. Nyte tried to jump the shockwave, but mistimed it and was blown back against a wall.

“”Oh grea-MPHG!” Fenix said, as he was also sent flying by the attack.

Xenos flipped towards Cthulhu to get over the wave. Meanwhile, Janine simply floated over the attack, chewing her thumb worriedly as Cthulhu took advantage of the reprieve to heal his wounds. The Air Pirate fired at him as soon as he landed, only to be met with a quizzical expression as the monster’s cackling grew louder.

“Okay, so now what?” said Nyte.

“Maybe we need to focus on his wounded spots?” suggested Xenos, firing at one of the regenerating spots. Cthulhu retaliated with a vicious slash that didn’t hurt the Pirate, but did leave a nice gash in his armor.

“Energy attacks don’t work,” said Janine. “Maybe something… biological?”

“Hmm, biological, eh?” Nyte said, as he removed a Bio Grenade from his backpack. “Almost forgot about these babies.”

Janine unleashed a pair of blasts which shot out Cthulhu’s eyes. The beast let out a deafening roar, and in turn, blasted Janine with a wave of power from his trident, causing her to hit the floor with a thud.

“Collect call for Cthulhu!” Nyte said, as he chucked the Bio Grenade into the monster’s open maw as it roared. It swallowed the explosive before letting out a pained shriek as its stomach exploded messily, the flesh around its wound turning gray.

Nyte wasn’t celebrating the outcome, though, as he ran over to check on Janine, who wasn’t moving. “Janine, you okay?” he said, nudging her. “Oh man, this isn’t good.”

Xenos ran up and propped Janine up as Fenix looked on, dumbstruck.

“Is there a doctor in the house?” Nyte asked.

Meanwhile, Cthulhu shuddered, convulsed, and fell back, as he once again lost cohesiveness, now seemingly unable to recompose itself for some reason. Instead, it fell apart into a mass of ropy, sickly gray flesh.

“You guys don’t know anything about field medical care?” said Xenos.

“I can’t see anything wrong with her on the outside,” said Fenix. “She’s not bleeding… must be a concussion.”

“Wait, can Reaverbots get concussions?” asked Nyte.

At the center of the mass of organic components that was Cthulhu stood a humanoid shape, covered in gray metal armor with a bestial mask. It was attached to the monstrous body by way of numerous metal cables and wires that extended from its chest, shoulders, and hips. Its eyes blazed ominously green, and in its right hand, it held a massive curved blade.

Fenix was the first to look over at where Cthulhu had once been, and his mechanical eyes nearly bulged out of his helmet.

Still focused on Janine, Nyte asked, “Anyone got some bandages handy?”

“Um… guys?” said Fenix.

“What is it…?” Xenos said, first looking at Fenix, then at what Fenix was looking at. “Uh… Nyte?”

“Xenos? You have some?”

“Nyte…” said Fenix.

“What is it?”

“Look up.”

Nyte noted Fenix’s gaze, then looked over at Cthulhu.

“He’s… still here,” said Xenos.

“Crap.”

Xenos pointed his pistol at the demon cautiously, and the creature let out an inhuman roar before he brought down his sword and launched a volley of huge green energy blades at the Diggers.

Nyte grabbed Janine and jumped out of the way, while Xenos rolled clear and Fenix leaped aside.

“What is that?!” Fenix asked.

“No clue!” Xenos replied. “Nyte, you keep Janine safe. We’ll handle this guy.”

“Right!” Nyte said, nodding and carrying Janine behind one of the obstacles littering the area.

Xenos pointed his pistol at the creature that was Cthulhu and fired repeatedly, but the creature didn’t notice the bullets as they bounced off his armor, while those that did reach his flesh were quickly absorbed and the wounds healed.

“I think we need another grenade!” said Fenix, who fired his Concussion Blaster, only to have his shots blocked by the massive sword. Green energy crackled around the being as he dissipated the energy with his own unholy power.

“…crap,” said Fenix.

Hearing his friend’s plea, Nyte shouted, “Fenix! Heads up!” as he threw his other Bio Grenade to the masked Digger, who looked up and performed a cinematic jump kick that hit the grenade and sent it flying at their opponent… who caught the flying object in his left hand.

“Oboy,” said Fenix, as he watched the grenade get crushed, a fizzing black liquid spilling down the recipient’s arm with no effect.

“Ohhhh crraaapp,” said Xenos.

“Fools,” rumbled a dark voice from within the monster’s helm. “With mighty Cthulhu’s power harnessed by my unapproachable mind… I, Gades, am invincible!”

Elsewhere, Janine twitched, and a soft moan escaped her lips.

“Janine?” Nyte said, returning his attention to her.

“Mmmph… what…?” she said, as she wearily opened her eyes and winced in pain as she did so.

“Good, you’re waking up. That thing out there knocked you out. Fenix and Xenos are fighting… something… that came out of it now.”

Fenix decided to risk getting closer, as he fired at Gades with his Gatling Arm. Gades returned the favor in kind, unleashing an energy wave at Fenix while cackling, and Fenix dodged while swearing. As this went on, Xenos circled around in the hopes of getting a shot off from behind Gades.

“Shit,” said Janine.

“Yeah,” said Nyte. “Tell me about it.”

“The humans sowed the seed of their own downfall,” said Gades. “With the powers that the Reanimator has given me, I am far more than the Reaverbot Lord!”

“Zuh, gah?” said Nyte.

“Did… did he just say… what I think he said…?” Janine asked.

“If it was about the Reanimator’s powers and Reaverbot Lords… then yes.”

Gades turned to fire a few attacks at Xenos, who performed a few flips, but was nevertheless thrown into the wall with a yelp and a thud.

“I think we’re in trouble,” said Fenix.

Janine stood up. “Who are you?! What are you talking about?”

“Jan, you sure you’re okay?” Nyte asked.

As she sank back to one knee, she said “no,” while Nyte helped her keep her balance.

Gades chuckled. “The humans built my kind to be their perfect servants, humanoid in appearance, but more powerful than any robot. And when our glorious leader started his rebellion, we obediently followed! And now I will begin that rebellion once more as I kill you all!!!”

“Lovely,” Nyte said. “Sounds less and less like we’re dealing with demons here.”

“No!” Fenix shouted as he drew his beam sabers and leaped right at Gades, landing on Cthulhu’s body and slashing at his shoulder, while Xenos let off a few more shots. Gades gasped as his armor was pierced, a few cables flying aside with a shower of sparks.

“Insect… die!” shouted Gades, as he brought his blade straight down on Fenix’s helmet.

Meanwhile, Nyte looked frantically between the battle and Janine. “Dammit… they need my help, but so do you.”

Fenix grunted as the blade lodged itself in his helmet, and blood started to trickle out from underneath. “No… not this time!”

“Fenix!” Janine shouted suddenly. “Hit his chest! His power core’s in there!!!” Just as suddenly, she fainted again, moaning softly from the exhaustion.

“Jan? Jan!” Nyte shouted, trying to get her to come around.

Heeding Janine’s words, Fenix brought one of his sabers back and drove it through Gades’ middle. “Noooooo!!!!” the beast screamed, as he pulled his blade free and black blood oozed out from beneath his helmet. Fenix fell backwards onto the ground, grunting as he landed on his side.

Nyte looked back out onto the battlefield just in time to see Gades let out a final scream as his body disintegrated, and Cthulhu’s massive remains flowed backwards into the portal from whence it came, taking the horrible smell with it. A second later, the doors closed with a final clash, leaving nothing behind but Gades’ strange helm.

“…toasty!” Fenix said.

Nytetrayn stepped out from behind cover with Janine in his arms. “Fenix! Are you okay?!”

“Are you alive?” added Xenos.

Fenix slowly pulled himself to his feet, and wiped at the thin trickle of blood. “Well, that was a hell of a thing.”

“Hell of a thing?” said Nyte. “Dude, that was a thing of Hell.”

“It’s odd that the deeper we get into this, the more Jan’s involved.”

“Yeah, I sorta noticed that, too.”

“Perhaps she’s the key to all this insanity.”

“So,” asked Xenos. “Is this a normal ruin after all?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘normal’.”

“‘Normal’ is usually a bit less unholy,” said Nyte.

“‘Normal’ as in not made by the undead,” said Xenos, “but rather made by man or something man-made.”

Fenix felt the gap left in the top of his helmet by Gades’ blade. “Damn, that thing did a number on my headgear.”

“I’m not very big on the whole helmet thing,” said Xenos.

“Really?” said Nyte. “I’d think that just made a pretty strong argument for it.”

Janine shifted uneasily in Nyte’s arms, and her eyes opened slowly.

“Jan?”

As Janine snuggled up against the young Digger, he just let go of her legs while keeping her steady with his other arm.

“Ehhh… s’okay,” she said. “Just hold me.”

“Er… uh…” Nyte stammered. “Um, ‘kay. Sure,” he said, looking a bit nervous about the situation as she mumbled softly and buried her face in his shoulder. Nyte looked to Fenix and Xenos, with just a slight hint of “what do I do?” on his face.

Xenos mouthed to Nyte to just do as she said.

“Ah, poor thing, she’s been through quite a lot,” said Fenix. “Just hold ‘er Nyte… she wants a little comforting.”

Nyte nodded quietly and did as he was told. Janine shuddered and buried her face in Nyte’s shoulder again, and clung to him like a frightened child, much to his chagrin.

“Let’s get going,” Fenix said. “We’ve only got one leg left now.”

Looking back at the battleground, Nyte said, “Well, that was fun. Remind me never to do it again.”

“I really, really, really wish I hadn’t trashed my suit,” Xenos said.

Looking to Janine, then to Fenix, Nyte said, “Um, maybe we should wait til Janine is… uh… ready?”

Janine shivered, but raised her head and looked around. “I… I’m okay… I think I need to see this through to the end.” As the others agreed, she nodded resolutely, then added, “but… could you carry me for a little longer?” while flashing puppy eyes.

“Um…. sure… why not…?” Nyte said nervously.

Xenos and Fenix chuckled a bit as they headed out. As he followed, Nyte chuckled a little, too, just so he didn’t look like he didn’t get the joke.

Eventually, the group found themselves back in the main hall, but it had changed.

Few remnants were left of the hexagonal chamber they’d become familiar with over the course of their journey, as the ground was now fully comprised of the white surface they’d seen emerging before, and the walls were less like any sort of normal construction material, now appearing as various geometric shapes, lines, and dots atop a plane which didn’t seem to have any material substance, yet resisted their touch as any solid object would.

Through this mysterious space, data seemed to flow, as honeycombs of hexagonal shapes spread out beyond their reach, with some sort of data seeming to flow all around them. Where the door they had just journeyed through had once stood, it crackled and distorted before fading from existence.

One final door stood before them, but unlike the rest of their surroundings, the door marked with the seal “Necronomicon ex Mortis” still stood, like a monolith apart from everything around it. If the rest of the world around them wasn’t real, the final gate seemed ready to assert that it was very real.

“Well,” Xenos said, after checking up on his suit. “Here we go.”

Potter’s Field filled with death…
The Moon-Bog covered in ancient breath…
The Nameless City with horror’s silent wings…
Sarnath doomed with far worse things…
The Neconomicon, book of darkness and dead god’s power…
Open the door to strike the hour!

Janine shivered and pressed herself closer to Nyte’s chest.

Fenix poked at the seemingly solid door experimentally, which made it fall over backwards, shattering into fragments that disappeared into smoke. “Well, we seem to be invited.”

“Damn,” said the Air Pirate. “I need the Helpbots to fix this thing. Ah, well.” With that, he pried one of the plasma launchers loose and toppled over. “I meant to do that. Just a second…” He then stripped various parts off the launcher, turning it into a rather simple bazooka-like weapon that he then strapped to his back.

“Well then!” said Fenix. “Everyone ready?”

“Let’s rock,” said Xenos, as he did a very poor job of exuding machismo.

“Shriek the lips across a ragged tongue,” said a familiar voice from out of nowhere.

“Did you hear that?” Xenos asked.

“Yeah,” said Fenix. “What’s your point?”

“The hell was it?”

“Insanity?” asked Janine.

“You didn’t hear it?”

“No, I heard it,” she said. “I think we’re all going insane.”

“I heard it,” said Nyte. “I just don’t care anymore.”

“Convulsing together,” the voice continued. “Sing violently. move the jaw, cry out loud, bound up the dead triumphantly…”

“Maybe if we get to the end, the voice will stop?” suggested Fenix.

“Maybe,” said Nytetrayn. “Or get worse.”

“Stir the limbs across the wrist, full possession of memory,” said the voice. “Bury me as a dog, icy hands surrounding me.”

“Maybe it’s a clue,” said Janine.

“Well, let’s move it,” Xenos said as he started for the doorway.

What the Diggers saw as they traversed the corridor was unlike anything they’d seen up to this point in the ruin. In fact, it looked very much like a normal ruin, metallic and old, yet also twisted, almost shattered. They couldn’t tell whether the ground upon which they walked had been damaged, or if the materials were damaged before constructing whatever it was meant to be.

“Fun,” said Nytetrayn.

They didn’t have time to wonder for long, as the corridor soon gave way from twisted, rent metal to a jade-like material, albeit one that seemed to have a regular pattern to it, rather than something naturally formed. That was just the pathway and ceiling, however, as the walls seemed to no longer continue along with the rest of the path.

Instead, the expanse seemed almost similar to the one in the main room, only now the hexagonal panels they’d seen before were in disarray, looking like they were being pulled towards a black hole off in the distance, yet never moving. It was as though the space they were in had begun to unravel, to collapse in on itself, yet was frozen in time.

“Hey, trippy!” said Xenos. “I like it.”

“I wonder how much we could get for this stuff, if we could just get it out,” Nytetrayn said, looking at the jade-like material that surrounded them.

“No smell,” noted Fenix. “That’s a relief.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Nytetrayn. “The rest of this place pretty much stunk to high heaven, didn’t it?”

“Yeah! especially that place full of zombies,” said Janine, shuddering.

As the Diggers continued to walk, they heard a great, baying howl from far beyond, like the roar of a chained beast bellowing in rage.

“Lovely!” said Xenos, with a huge, sarcastic smile.

“Anyone have any wolfsbane handy?” Nyte asked. “Some garlic, perhaps?”

“Your socks might do the job,” Fenix replied.

“Or we could just have you converse with it, and wait a moment for your breath to take full effect.”

“Hey! I told you, it’s a biological condition.”

“If having your head up your ass qualifies as a ‘biological condition’…”

Xenos put away his pistol, and instead brought out the launcher he’d kludged together earlier.

At the end of the hall, they found a doorway built into another wall of warped metal and broken tubes and wiring, a wall that seemingly led to nowhere. With three blue hexagonal diamonds across the front, it looked as much like the jaws of some kind of grimacing Reaverbot as it did any sort of passage.

As the Diggers stepped through, they found a short hallway made of metal – normal, undamaged metal – with rows of blue lights along the top of the walls on either side, ending with another door: one made of silver metal, with a thin horizontal line across it, representing where it would split open. Put simply, it looked just like one of many doors found in many ruins by many Diggers across the world every day.

This door slid open easily, and the Diggers stepped through, not sure what they were going to find.

As the Diggers stepped into the chamber, they found a rather large room, around 50 meters on each side. It contrasted everything seen up to this point: a polished, modern facility in various hues of white, silver, and blue, with computer banks lining each wall.

On the far wall from where the group entered sat a large screen, while the center held a cylinder of gray-green stone that reached from the floor to the ceiling, with images of some great winged canine resting a forepaw on a human skull embossed into it.

This would go largely unnoticed, however, as the Diggers saw rainbow-hued refractors that must have stood at least six feet tall in each corner of the room.

Fenix fell to his knees, thanking the lord while proclaiming, “They’re even bigger!” While Xenos was already hugging one, Nyte was attempting to remove another. “Hey, God-boy, get to helpin’!” he shouted.

Xenos slid down and pulled the refractor out of its installation, while Janine helped Fenix shift another, and Nytetrayn carried his over his head towards the center of the room.

“Jack-pot, jack-pot, jack-pot,” the young Digger sang.

Grinning madly, Xenos danced around with his refractor.

Fenix and Jan moved on to the final refractor, and wept with joy as they removed the crystal.

“This almost makes up for everything we’ve gone through over the past days,” Fenix said.

“And they told me the Mother Lode didn’t exist,” the Air Pirate said.

“I don’t think this is the Mother Lode,” said Janine.

“Close enough,” said Nyte. “It’ll power my suit, with plenty to spare. Might be a little big for that, though, but I’m sure I can figure something out.”

Suddenly, the large screen at the back of the room blinked to life, as what seemed to be a young man with piercing blue eyes and long, dark green hair appeared upon it. He was wearing white battle armor with a gold trim, adorned with spikes on the shoulders and engraved with runes like those used by the Ancients. Blood ran down his pale face from a gash on his forehead as he breathed heavily.

“This is military model MegaMan unit version 11.21, serial number 709MN-7G, code name: Bullet. This was a research facility studying a mysterious temporal effect in the area until three days ago, when I confronted a rogue techno-organic model warlord in this chamber. I managed to subdue him, but using the energy from the refractors which powered this base, he managed to tap into the anomaly itself.”

Janine paled at this.

“Now, the anomaly has warped time and space around it, and while it once appeared to be contained, it’s begun spreading further throughout the facility, dramatically altering it and unleashing a virtual army of bizarre… creatures. They’ve… they’ve slaughtered all the remaining personnel, excluding myself. The warlord has absorbed power from this anomaly, and seems able to control it, making creatures and reshaping the facility as he desires, like some kind of…” Bullet stops himself short of saying it. “He’s taken on the name of ‘The Reanimator,’ and attempted to escape to the surface with his new forces in tow.”

“Fortunately, our forces on the surface have been able to seal the entrance off, and installed a unit named MegaMan Uni to guard it. As long as he remains at his vigil, The Reanimator and his forces should be kept contained, and the world outside can remain safe.

With a malicious smile, Bullet continued. “The Reanimator didn’t fare too well in our rematch. I’ve destroyed his techno-organic exterior, and sealed his remains in a cryogenic chamber. His power… is still there, even if dormant, but the refractors have enough power to keep him sealed in there forever. I just hope that whoever sees this message doesn’t remove them.”

“Oh, hell…” said Fenix.

“Now he tells us!” said Nytetrayn.

“As for me, I’ve been wounded… in the battle, and… I don’t think… I have much lon… ger…” Bullet said, before sinking out of sight as the screen went blank.

“Do you realize what this means?” said Fenix.

“Yeah,” said Nyte. “Never let Bullet program your TV recordings, you’ll never get to see anything.”

“Fenix,” Xenos said, “of all the places… of all the dig sites in the whole world…”

“I think I’ll just be putting this back now,” said Nyte, as he started to carry his refractor back to its original resting place. Xenos likewise did the same.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Fenix protested.

“You chose this spot!” countered Xenos.

Just then, the cylinder in the middle of the room cracked open along all four sides, releasing an enormous burst of white fog with a chorus of shrieks as the temperature around them dropped. The two front panels of the chamber slid into the ground, revealing a similarly-shaped block of ice, inside which one could see a skeletal form.

“Get ready,” said Janine. “This is gonna be bad.”

Nyte looked at Fenix, and said, “I hope he eats you first.”

To be continued…

—–

Legends of the Halcyon Era is a work of fan fiction set in the world of Mega Man Legends. It is largely adapted from a series of freeform RPG sessions, combining ideas from several contributors, and further fleshed out here in a prose format.

David Oxford, also known as LBD “Nytetrayn,” is a lifelong Mega Man fan who, along with his wife Nadia, has co-written the Mega Man Robot Master Field Guide and Mega Man X Maverick Hunter’s Field Guide from UDON Entertainment, and runs The Mega Man Network (themmnetwork dot com). You can also find him on Twitter @LBD_Nytetrayn and @themmnetwork, and on Twitch and YouTube under the name “Nyteworks.”

You can also find Legends of the Halcyon Era as it updates at Archive of Our Own.

Thanks for reading!