They walked into the tower and instantly saw something very out of place: a real, solid minififgure, identical to Nexus Naomi, was standing on a console. They jumped around, seeming freaked out.
"Ok," Thenso said. "That is just plain weird."
"What happened?" Vanda asked.
Nikolai glanced towards the Sentinel corridor for a second. "Something with the Imagination Nexus," he said. "Something fell out, or... nobody's really sure. But now everything's gone haywire. The dummies in the Sentinel area are alive, and real Maelstrom. Duke's Crux Prime hologram has become a solid battleground. All the Nexus Naomi holograms are real minifigures."
"Right," Meyer said. "Where are we needed?"
"Well, our first priority is the Sentinel vendor area. Achilles Plutarch is using his arsenal to hold off the Maelstrom."
They ran down the Sentinel corridor. They went past Yawny Goodknight, who was now awake and fully alert, sword at the ready, and down the hallway. The speed pads had turned into paper cutouts. The holograms of armor had turned into real sets of armor. The Talon Dropship hologram above the Crux Prime teleporter had turned into a small model and was lying on the floor.
In Bullet Mullet's room, the holograms had solidifed into living creatures, so he was fighting a Spiderling and an Admiral - and he was losing. "Bullet!" Nikolai called.
"In a bit of a situation here, Nikolai!" Bullet replied.
Nikolai shot at the Spiderling. "Catch!" He threw a flashbang to Bullet.
"Thanks!" he said, throwing it at the ground. It exploded, sending the Spiderling and Admiral slamming into the walls. They shattered into bricks.
"Hey, Nikolai!" Bullet said. "You'd better get back to the vendor room! Things are intense in there!"
"On our way there," Thenso said, following the group through the room. They walked through the doorway into the sound of explosions.
The vendor area wasn't in such a good condition. Maelstrom flooded out of the Challenge booths. Stromlings, Pirates, Admirals, and deadly Kamikazees charged at Achilles Plutarched, who was valiantly defending the area. He swapped from a Massive Spear to a Zweihander and sliced three enemies into bricks.
"Hey, Achilles!" Nikolai called.
"Nikolai?" Achilles asked, not turning around. "You're back! Finally!"
"Yeah, I brought friends."
Thenso and Extreme ran forward and began blasting down Maelstrom with their Valiant weapons. Vanda came forward and began cutting up Maelstrom.
"I could use a weapon," Meyer said.
"Here," Achilles said, throwing him a Scarlet Scythe. Meyer grabbed it. He came up and put a group of enemies to sleep, then proceeded to slice them up. After several minutes, not much had changed. The Maelstrom wasn't spawning any slower, and the minifigures had gained no ground.
"This isn't working!" Extreme said, summoning a Mech. It began shooting at Maelstrom.
"I know!" Vanda said. "We need a new tactic."
"The generators!" Nikolai said, pointing at the machines that were shooting down lightning, creating more Maelstrom.
"Yes," Meyer agreed. "We need to destroy them."
"I'll take care of that." Extreme turned his Wormholer to the generators and fired. In a few seconds, the Maelstrom had stopped coming.
"I'll clean up here," Achilles said, getting out a Construction Shield and repairing the minifigs' armor.
"Right," Nikolai said. "Priority number two: the Venture League map room."
"What could posssibly go wrong in there?" Meyer asked.
"You'd be surprised," Nikolai said. "Planet Crux has reformed."
"You mean the hologram has come alive?" Vanda asked.
"Yes," Nikolao replied. "The corrupted Nexus is active in a way. Trek Furino was infected. A few Stromlings are there, but the main problem is the Maelstrom concentration. We need you to destroy it. Nobody else can get close to it."
"Brilliant," Thenso said, rubbing his hands. "Let's get started."
They walked into the Venture League map room. The first thing they noticed:
A huge cube was sitting lopsidedly on the floor. It had smashed in part of the wall. Near the top, a small column of curling, purple energy bubbled. Purple smoke floated around it. A few Stromling Pirates stood around the cube. One was unmistakable: Trek Furino. He still held his pistol, but his entire outfit had changed. The skull on his shirt now popped out, and had glowing red eyes. His shoulderpads radiated purple. Instead of green, his pants were dark grey with tears through them.
The second thing they noticed was Hael Storm. He was standing at the entrance to the room, shaking his fist at the Stromlings and cube. "Curse ye!" he yelled. "Ye be ruinin' all me hard work! Do ye know how long it took me to get all these what-ya-me-call-its workin'?! I'll smash ye for this!"
"Uh, Hael," Thenso said. "What are you doing?"
Hael turned around. "Aye, mateys, it's about time some of ye Paradox got 'ere!" He pointed his cutlass at the cube planet. "That thing! No one can get close to the blasted thing! Go smash it, then I can get me revenge on them Stromlings!"
"Right." Extreme exchanged his Wormholer for his Launcher and Blaster. "Let's get to it."
They ran towards the cube. Meyer and Vanda cut down nearby Stromlings as Extreme unleashed a barrage of missiles on the cube. Thenso's Spiderling charged it and began slicing away.
Suddenly something blasted Meyer aside. A voice echoed out of nowhere, "Vanda Darkflame. As believe you know- " A Stromling emerged from the shadows. He held a smoking pistol. " -I am Trek Furino, servant of the Maelstrom."
Before Vanda could react, Furino blasted her with his pistol. She was knocked to the floor, but only to reveal Thenso standing behind her. His Doomslicer glowed as he spun around. Furino groaned as he was hit by a blast of energy being released from Thenso. He fell to the ground.
"Surrender," Thenso said, aiming his Doomslicer at Furino.
Furino tried to stand, but when he saw the Doomslicer's grotesque head, he fell back down again. "Never," he managed.
"Fine. I'll do it for you." Thenso got a Thirst Quencher out of his pocket and poured the contents onto Furino, who instantly passed out, but the Maelstrom was quickly fading.
Thenso helped Vanda back up as Extreme ran over, holding back a huge crowd of Stromling Pirates with his Wormholer. "Little help?"
Meyer got back up and began cutting up Pirates.
Off the sidelines, Hael seemed to rally his courage. He yelled and began charging into battle. His parrot flew ahead of him. As soon as it got close to the cube, it dropped out of the air and began turning purple. It got back up and stared at Hael with red eyes.
"Err," Hael said. "No need for that now, matey..."
The parrot screeched and tried to attack Hael. He knocked it away with his hand, but it flew back up and began pecking him on the head.
"Ouch!" he complained. "Yar! Stop it!"
He dug a Hiccup Tablet out of his pocket and threw it into the parrot's beak as it opened it. The tablet fell into it. The bird coughed as if choking, then fell out of the sky into Hael's hands.
"Aye," he said, watching the Maelstrom fade from the parrot. "That was a bad idea."
In a few minutes, the cube had been destroyed. Immediately, the Stromling Pirates exploded into smoke.
They walked back to Nikolai and Hael at the entrance.
"Yar har!" Hael cried. "Ye did good. Now I need to get me guard Trek Furino back up." He walked into the room and helped Trek up.
"Good work," Nikolai said. "Now, priority number three: the Paradox room."
Vanda unsheathed her katanas. "What's happened?"
"You probably don't want to know," Nikolai said, "but let's just say the Shadow Orb is..." She trailed off.
"That sounds bad," Thenso said. "Very bad."
"We'll take them," Extreme said, spinning his Wormholer's blade.
"Right," Meyer said.
They ran down the hallway. As they looked into the Assembly room, things were haywire. A dozen Assembly technicians and engineers were desperately doing something to the Imagination Nexus, and so was Doctor Overbuild. Something very bad must be going on if Overbuild didn't trust his own men to fix it.
They walked down the stairs into the darker Paradox area.
"Which portal?" Meyer asked.
"Let's go left." They jumped into the one on the left and emerged in Rutger Hemoglobin's area - and it was under attack.
Yet again, next chapter up tomorrow.