The feeling... it was exhilarating.
All up in my bones and muscles, a tingling sensation set in. Followed by a surge of energy like a thousand sugar rush.
I took off the sky-blue helmet and flung it aside. My eyes locked with Kazar who had his fists balled together, about to hammer down on Nic.
With a crouch, my cream gold armor solidified and as I sprang forward, the jetpack popped out and gave me a boost.
My fist met his jaw with a resounding superman punch; the force blasting him through the wall and far outside the room.
I smirked underneath and looked at the glowing blue 'T' on my armor's chest. "Good to be back!" I roared.
"Likewise," Blitz remarked. "But let's not celebrate too soon."
"Right." I looked through the swirling dust that arose from the broken wall. Beyond the hole was a dim tunnel section and Kazar had slammed into one edge; Cracks diverging from the point where his body was engraved in the rocky surface.
He gave a sadistic chuckle before breaking one hand free, then the other.
Barring my teeth, I fired up my jetpack and launched at him, smashing both knees into his crimson skull. The air around rippled and the momentum bashed him through the rocks and into another room.
When I flew in after him, I was suddenly yanked at the leg and pummeled into the ground. My vision adjusted just in time to see a towering Kazar with an increasingly glowing red circle on his chest.
"Proton beam shower incoming." Blitz piped and automatically steered my jetpack to propel me off the floor right before the intense red beam was blasted.
But the beam didn't stop, instead, Kazar steered it upward-still trying to nail me.
It trailed me as I began to circle the room, getting closer every second.
Electron grappling hooks lashed out from my shoulders and wrapped around Kazar's neck whisking him into my merry-go-round. With a powerful momentum, I released him to collide with another wall; Though it seemed like I had underestimated his reflexes.
He clung to the wall like a spider. Then he sprung and drove a shocked me through the ground which collapsed into a dark abyss.
Maneuvering out of his grasp, I flew over him and quickly fired massive pulse blasts from my cannon-shaped hands. The light from the electrons illuminated the darkness as they reached Kazar faster than he could react. He screamed and was blasted farther down.
Once the waves had dispersed, darkness covered everywhere again.
"Don't go in after him," Blitz snapped. "The portal generator was almost fully charged when you freed me. And it has all the energy needed to open the portal in its reservoir. We have to shut it down before we have an army of Alx on our hands."
Shivers ran down my spine at the thought of a legion of Kazars. With the boost of my jetpack, I backtracked to the ruined office, touching down in front of the giant white ring-shaped device.
The radical glowing particles at the center were multiplying as they spun around each other while sparking sounds filled the air.
Looking away from the blinding lights of the reaction, I saw Nic kneeling beside the lower body of Alain Archer protruding from underneath a rubble of bricks. He backed me with his shoulders trembling. And when he glanced my way, his eyes brimmed with tears and spite. But he said nothing.
"Jason," Blitz sensed my motive to console Nic. "There's no time for that, the portal is almost complete."
"Nic," As I walked over to him, sympathy laced my voice. "I'm so sorry."
"You could have saved him." Nic glowered, backing me. "But you waited till the last minute."
"It's not like that, I tried to-"
"Leave. Me. Alone."
"Nic," My hand reached out to his shoulder.
"Leave!" His roar was accompanied by the tensing of his shoulders.
"Jason," Blitz said urgently. "Do you want to save the city or not?"
Clenching my fist, I strode over to the large portal generator. I'll save the city, then console Nic.
Blitz told me earlier that a forcefield encompassed the generator so my forearm-reshaped into a hexagon tubelike blaster-fired a continuous stream of electricity at it until a shattering sound was heard.
Lowering my arm, I walked closer to the device. "All I got to do is blow it up right?"
"You've never been more wrong," Blitz said. "This generator is creating an extremely dense cluster of energy at its center. Dense enough to tear a hole in the fabric of spacetime, therefore, opening a wormhole. You'll only feed it more energy if you try to blast it."
"Woah, that's how wormholes are made?"
"It's a bit more complicated but is the lecture really worth the borrowed time we're running on?"
"Right," my eyebrows knotted in concentration. The sounds from the machine were getting louder. "So what can I do to stop it?"
"From my analysis, we need a nonreactive solid with high density to destabilize the reaction. Though it might lead to either an explosion or implosion."
"As long as it foils Kazar's plan." My eyes scanned around before falling on the overturned office desk at the end of the room. Electron grappling hooks launched from my shoulders and directed the desk straight into the swirling light at the center of the large ring-shaped machine. Disappointment washed over me when the desk incinerated on contact.
Blitz came again with the obvious. "We need something denser."
The busted metal capsule that was used to trap Blitz caught my attention. Rotore tech, must be dense enough, right?
Electron grappling hooks gave it a close-up with the now bigger reaction. It incinerated on contact too.
"Are you for real?" I groaned. "What could possibly be denser?"
The ground broke with a boom and out came Kazar, looking unfriendly as usual with barred ink-black teeth and menacing claws.
Wait a minute. I locked my thumbs and index fingers in a camera shape and peered through at the monster. "You must weigh a tonne!"
He threw a malicious punch at me which I barely ducked under. "I didn't mean it that way!"
He hammered down on my spine. Flashes of light filled my vision when I crashed to the floor. Luckily Blitz steered my jetpack out of harm's way and plopped me down on the farthest wall.
Kazar launched a barrage of spiky crimson claws at me.
My forearm reshaped into a neon-blue blade and I quickly got to slashing and hacking. Little did I know that was a distraction. Before I knew it I was in a choke hold pressed against the wall. My feet swayed frantically as Kazar raised me above his eye level. The look in his eyes showed he was enjoying this.
"It is over, human. The portal is as good as complete and now your world shall fall to the might of the Alx Army."
"You'll..." I wrestled for breath. "... never win...as long...as I'm still breathing..."
He grimaced. "Your optimism sickens me. Certainly, you shall not live to see the glory of the Alx Army." His grip tightened around my neck. Without the armor, I would've been gone a long time ago but even with the 85% damage absorption, my neck was under serious pressure. At least I'd die a hero.
Suddenly, Scott's words flashed in my mind. "The team depended on you then. And now your fans depend on you."
A jolt of determination entered me. "June..." I forced the words out through the choke. "Depends on me. They all... depend...on me!"
I recalled my last resort. Trillions of electron plates were channeled from different parts of the armor and clustered at my eye space. But instead of imagining what I wanted to create, I stared down at Kazar, imagining pure destruction, and willed them to flow out in their unstable state.
The same way the sky lit when lightning struck was the same way the room was illuminated at their release. It was followed by the sound of bombs going off simultaneously. And all of a sudden, I couldn't feel any hold on my neck.
I had slumped against the wall when the light dimmed, breathing in rounds of fresh air.
Where the red monster stood was blown up; with a hole that was at least twenty feet deep.
Pushing off the wall to examine inside, I saw Kazar sprawled at the bottom of the hole. He looked battered with massive cracks tracing around his thick skin. "Impossible..." A painful moan escaped him. "That much power...is impossible."
I couldn't believe it, the behemoth was down. He was actually down!
At the expense of almost all my power time but he was down.
A grin popped up on my face. "It worked." Normally, this was the part where I handed the bad guy over to the cops. But the situation called for a greater kind of justice.
"Jason, you're about to change back," Blitz announced. "And in 30 seconds the portal to Chargeora will be opened wide."
Electron grappling hooks wrapped around the Alx's hands and flung him to crash into the ceiling. A web of cracks lined it and he let out a sharp breath.
"That," I balled my fists. "Was for striking fear in the hearts of New Chronites."
He peeled off the cracks, plummeting, and like a baseball bat to a ball, my fist struck him across the room. His body skidded to a stop at the base of the portal generator.
"That was for what you did to Alain Archer. And this," I boosted forward and grabbed his ankle, swinging him around before launching him straight into the blinding reaction at the machine's center. "Is for putting June Austere in danger!"
The moment he collided with it, a ripple of energy dispersed, and his terrifying screams came out from the massive brilliant lights that flashed from the machine.
Blitz tinted my lenses before speaking. "It worked. His density destabilized the particles."
"Yes!" I grinned.
"But... now it's going to explode and implode."
"Wait, that doesn't sound good."
A grim expression came over me.
Nic.
"Nic, we have to-" I whipped around only to be stunned by the reality of Nic pointing a futuristic rifle at me. A frown darkened his features.
"I didn't think you had it in you." He blandly said.
"Nic, drop the weapon, and let's get out of here."
"You don't tell me what to do. And I'm not going to follow you like some freaking damsel in distress so that you can take all the glory. You think saving me will make up for all these lives that were lost? Pfft. Every dead body here is on you. If I had your powers, things wouldn't have reached this stage. My uncle wouldn't have died!"
"If you told me he was your Uncle, I wouldn't have hesitated to save him."
"Oh, so now you admit you're biased?"
"Listen, there's no time for this. This machine is going to blow." I advanced towards him. "If we don't leave now-"
"Stay away from me!" He backed up. "I rather die beside the only person who saw a hero in me," he pointed at Archer's protruding legs with his index finger while still aiming at me with his other hand. Tears threatened to roll down his eyes. "Than to live on knowing I owe my life to a cheating, lying, billionaire who thinks he's above everyone else."
"We all lie sometimes, okay? And I did that to protect my identity. But I never had any bad intentions. And I don't want you to die." I stretched out my palm.
Blitz interjected. "Jason, from my analysis, we have ten seconds before this thing blows. I'm getting you out now."
Against my will, Blitz fired up my jetpack. "No!" I exclaimed as he navigated me out of the room and zigzagged through the passageway at max speed. "We have to go back for Nic!"
"Jason, even your armor can't withstand the blast that's coming."
He cued it. The whole tunnel shook as a bang went off and almost immediately, a trail of heat and light pursued me until I blanked out.