The Figdroids

Crux Prime

Sandy Studs

Aiden Talmid

Luke Mercury

Mara Mercury

Darkitect Jr

Albert Overbuild

## Prologue

After 2 and a half long years of bitter warfare, the Nexus
Force has finally cleansed the Nimbus System of the evil threat known as the
Maelstrom and their un-master, Baron Typhonus.

With Imagination saved, life quickly returned to normal.  A little too quickly.  Only ten years after the Crux Wars, the
legends, heros, and veterans of the war are forgotten.

A failure of unacceptable odds in the face of the coming
threat to all of minifigure kind....

## Chapter 1

Jay was like any average minifig living in the suburban
towns lying a few miles out of Nimbus City, the #1 Place To Build In as voted
in the Nexus News Channel.  He was lanky,
had brown hair, a smiling face, was very imaginative, liked building, and maybe
a little worrisome.  His hometown of
Nimbus Grove was a calm city, though not all that up to date with the
technology of the rest of the whole Nimbus area.  Mail Transporters were used, but the old tradition
of a paper route still somehow remained.

And that's what Jay did.  He delivered paper.

Wearing his brown mail satchel over his shoulder, Jay sped
across town on his green moped, stopping at every apartment complex to slip
mail into each little mailbox stacked on the front lawn amidst lots of
flowers.  Simple, repetitive, and boring.

The sky was brightening, and bored from his early morning
mail runs, Jay wasn't paying too much attention to the pothole-pockmarked road
of his last street.  The front-wheel of
his bike slid into a hole, and with a yelp Jay flew over the handlebars of his
bike onto the road, his mail flying out of his bag too.

Not able to catch it fast enough, a parcel slid past Jay's
hands and smashed open, sending several lined papers fluttering around it.

Jay grabbed those and organized them into a pile, which he
began to stuff back into the parcel.
Just as he was about to reseal the parcel, three shocking words from the
top paper met his eyes.

"OPERATION FIGDROID EXECUTE"

## Chapter 2

"Wut." Jay mouthed.  He stood up, the parcel tucked his shoulder,
and realized he was at a dead end.  There
were no houses left, and there was no address on the parcel's surface.

'May as well take it back to the post office.' he thought,
and soon he was well on his way.

...

14 years prior

"Yay, the Maelstrom is defeated!" Sandy Studs
cheered as he danced around his Assembly science lab in Nimbus Station.
"Woohoo!"

Turning to face his mentor, the acclaimed Dr. Albert
Overbuild, Studs exclaimed, "This is a joyous occasion, let's go build
some fun!"

Overbuild didn't answer, or move to suggest he had payed
Studs any mind.  It took quite a long
eery space of silence for the latter to realize that Overbuild's attention was
focused completely on the computer console in front of him.

"Sir?" Sandy inquired, stepping over to Overbuild
to peer over his shoulder at the screen.

Overbuild finally looked away to clean his glasses, and
Sandy asked, "What's building?"

"The key to defending Imagination." Overbuild
answered matter-of-facty.

Sandy forced a laugh. "Uh, sir, the war is over, the
Maelstrom is gone.  Imagination is safe,
chaos is defeated."

"It's not that simple, Mr. Studs." Overbuild told
him, turning his console off. "Chaos is not something that can just be
defeated.  It's an essense of nature,
created by our mistakes.  The Maelstrom
was merely a force of chaos, but chaos itself is forever here."

"And when it is time, it will be harnessed again."

## Chapter 3

The door to the apartment where Jay lived opened, and Jay
stepped silently into the front hall.
The house was quiet, and convinced he was alone, Jay made his way
towards the kitchen to grab a snack when his sister Katie stepped out from
behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"AH!" Jay jumped five feet into the air, spun
around, and landed on his feet. "Don't do that." he complained as
Katie stifled giggles.

"So, what's up with your paper route?" she asked,
like she did every day.

"Nothing interesting," Jay answered like he did
every day.  Then quietly he added,
"Nothing of your concern anyway."

"Then why are you holding a box under your
shoulder?" Katie pointed out, and Jay did a mental facepalm.

"Stromlings, this is supposed to be at the post
office." Jay muttered. "It's a parcel with no address in it and all
this weird stuff in it.  I have no idea
who it's for."

Jay set the box on the table, and Katie lunged for it,
rotating it upside down and revealing an address. "Ha!" she
exclaimed. "Hey, this is our address!"

As annoyed as he was by his sister, Jay couldn't help feeling
a twinge of admiration at her way of finding things he had previously looked
over, or in this case not looked at at all. "Then let's look at it."

"Yeah, I want to see all the weird stuff you said that
was in it." Katie said, and tore the box open like a lawnmover to grass,
much to Jay's dismay.  Soon there were
uneven cardboard strips everywhere, but the box's contents were more
interesting.

## Chapter 4

13 Years Prior

It was Sandy Studs' appointed task to watch over Overbuild's
prototype key to defending Imagination. It was a project that only the both of
them had knowledge of. Total time spent on the project; eleven months to a
year. And now it was online, under Sandy's watch. But it wouldn't be ready for
about 16 years.

Sandy sighed as his thoughts extended to Overbuild. He was
completely devoted to his project and was already planning on putting together
another 'key'. Not as a spare, but as just 'another one'.

...

"I wonder what all this stuff means." Katie asked
as she looked through paper after paper. Most of them looked like highly
experimental weapons schematics and battle plans, while the first one still
screamed out in all caps "OPERATION FIGDROID EXECUTE".

Underneath those three letters was written a weird sentence.

"The time has come! The Mail Storm is making its way
back! It is time to Assemble our Venturous Sentinel Paradoxes. I am on my way
to the Hail Storm for the Flame of Dark; you will go to the Exit.

Answer the call, save Imagination!

- Overbuild"

Jay was leafing through his own pile of papers. But he
couldn't make any sense of it. He eyed the first page he had seen only an hour
before and took a mental photograph of the mystery message displayed across its
face. Then he took a look at his watch.

"Only half an hour and its time for school,
Katie." he announced. "Let's get a move on."

Katie groaned and they began putting everything back in the
box. After making it look sealed they left it at the front door, and after
putting on their backpacks made their way out of the apartment to the bus stop.
On the way there, Jay thought of an idea.

"Meet me at the school library at recess." Jay
said, remembering the most important lines of the first page. "We're going
to do some research."

## Chapter 5

Seated in front of one of the many computer consoles
adorning the transparent tables in the library, Jay typed on the holographic
keyboard projected before him "operation figdroid", then pressed
enter.

Immediately results filled the screen, ranging from ads for
Built-it-yourself Nindroids to a vacation hotel called "Operation
Fig".  Jay glanced at Katie who was
leaning on the table at his side. "Hopeless...." she muttered.

Deciding to try something else, Jay typed in "assemble
venturous sentinel paradoxes".  He
got a message "Did you mean Assembly, Venture, Sentinel, Paradox?"
and he clicked yes.  Then an image of a
strange blue pointy thing that looked a bit like a disproportionate compass
came up, with the description "The Nexus Force logo circa 3024-3026".

"The *Nexus Force*?" Katie repeated, raising
her eyebrows. "Seems fairly recent, only from about 14 years ago.  How come we've never heard of it?"

Jay clicked a link for an encyclopedia entry for "The
Nexus Force", within which was written,

"The Nexus Force was a militia of minifigures devoted
to the protection of Imagination from the Maelstrom
following the Crux Incident of October
26th, 3024." as the first line.

Jay read a bit more of the first paragraph, and most of his
questions were answered.  It finished like
this.

"Following the victory over the Maelstrom at Crux
Prime, the Nexus Force quickly disbanded to prevent a civil war from breaking
out among its factions, the Sentinels, Assmebly, Venture, and Paradox."

## Chapter 6

The post-recess bell went off, so the rest of the day
progressed normally for Jay and Katie; until they got home.

Upon opening the front door, they were greeted by the only
other person living in the apartment, their disorderly dad, - long sand colored
hair, unshaven face and all - who was standing in front of an open suitcase
tossing stuff into it.

"Hey kiddies," he said, not even glancing at them.
"Pack your bags, we're going to Avant City."

"We're WHAT?!" Jay exclaimed.  Almost never did they ever go anywhere all together
as a family, and never anywhere outside the Nimbus Planetoid.

He exchanged a confused glance with Katie, but her facial
expression and the way she dragged him to their bedrooms told him to not bother
about it and go along for now.  They'd
get answers soon enough.

Once behind the closed door of Katie's VERY PINK room, did
Jay's mouth fall open and he started spiling out questions, even though he knew
Katie wouldn't have the answers. "Why are we going off-planet?  Where is Avant Ciy anyway?  Why are we even *going* anywhere?"

"Maybe it's because of the mysterious letter from that
guy called Overbuild, who's message told us, or just Dad, to 'go to the
Exit'."

"That's actually something interesting to research
about." Jay suggested. "Where's your I-Brick?"

"Here," Katie said, moving a bunch of books on a
large bookshelf aside and reaching behind, pulling out a very shiny PINK
I-Brick v.15.

As Katie scrolled through the same encyclopedia page on the
Nexus Force they had seen earlier, Jay scanned for information that could
reveal the identity of the "Hail Storm", "Flame of Dark",
"the Exit", and "Overbuild".

Finding Overbuild was easy.
The second paragraph was about how the Nexus Force was split into four
subdivisions, the front line soldier "Sentinels" lead by a Duke
Exeter, the hard-hitting "Venture" lead bya  Hael Storm, the engineering
"Assembly" lead by the obvious Dr. Overbuild, and the
"Paradox" group which was kind of a mix of all, but with much more
devious means of warefare, lead by a Vanda Darkflame.

"Look," Katie said, pointing at each name.
"Flame of Dark is like a Dark Flame, which in this case is the Paradox
person.  Hail Storm is just a mispelling
of the name Hael Storm, and Exeter sounds like Exit."

"Interesting, but why is Overbuild going to the leaders
of a now defunct military?  And what does
Dad have to do with this?" Jay asked.

"I have absolutely no idea," Katie replied.
"So, don't ask me?"

"Fine." Jay agreed. "So, let's start
packing.  Maybe we'll figure out a bit
more at this *Avant City*."

## Chapter 7

The Nimbus planetoid and the Avant planetoid were actually
very close to each other within the Crux System, relatively.  Travel between the two by a Rocketbus took
only about 10 minutes.  Private rockets
could get there in only 3 minutes.  And
this is not counting launching preparations, which took about 20 minutes.

So in the end, any, all, and every Rocketbus trip is boring.

Jay, Katie, and their dad had a row of seats near the middle
- the perfect location to be inconspicuous, Jay noted.  A second later he felt silly.  There was no reason they would need to be
inconspicuous anyway, right?  No other minifigures
aboard the Rocketbus payed anymore attention to *them* as they would to
other *random* minifigures.  Except
for the guy in the black top hat at the back.

Through the corner of his eye, Jay watched the top hat guy
sitting at the back with a newspaper in front of him.  He had mirrored sunglasses on, a black suit,
and a red shirt.  Even though he was
wearing reflective sunglasses, Jay could tell he had his eyes on them.  And when he focused on the sunglasses, he
could even see right through them into the top hat guy's purple eyes....

Jay slouched into his seat and looked to face the wall,
which showed nothing but space as black as the top hat guy's top hat and some
far away stars.  Whatever had just
happened was weird.  Unless he had just
imagined it, there was a guy in a top hat with purple eyes and mirrored
sunglasses who was watching them, and Jay all of a sudden could look through
sunglasses.

"Whatever," he thought, and a few seconds after he
let his eyes focus on the wall in front of him, he realized he was staring into
space.

## Chaper 8

Jay blinked, and he was staring at a blank wall again.  First he thought a guy in a top hat was
staring at him.  Then he thought he could
see through glasses as if they weren't there.
And finally he thought he was looking through a wall into space.

With a sigh, Jay slumped deeper into his chair and relaxed,
but then he remembered they had already been flying through space for around 10
minutes already, which meant the Avant planetoid was coming up.

And it was very close.

...

14 years ago it had been called Avant Gardens.  But now that name was reserved for only a certain
location of the grassy world.  What was
once long endless plains surrounded by a body of water which flowed off into
space was now towns and cities.  And in
the center of them all was the true "Avant Gardens", bordered by
trees since grown twice as high and rocky cliffs that remained rocky cliffs.

"Alright kids," their dad briefed them, "I'll
be in a meeting over there," - he pointed to a large, sparkling, green and
purple building - "so you can stick around out here.  If you need help, just call." Then he
left.

Katie eyed the building, taking in its conflicting color
scheme, its slightly blue-tinted glass windows, and all the satellites,
antennas, huge cylinder smoke-stack thingy, and radio equipment at the flat
roof of the building.  "This building
reminds me of Barney the Dinosaur.  Let's
climb on these rocks, I want to get a look at the roof."

Jay gave Katie a boost onto the lowest rock which was still
kind of larger than an average minifigure, and from there Katie continued until
she could get a clear look at the building's roof.  Just behind the short wall that ran around
the roof were rows of mountings with tripods attached.  Just tripods, nothing was on them.

But something could have been on them a long time ago.  They looked like the type of tripod that
would hold a weapon of some sort.

The Barney the Dinosaur building was once a Nexus Force
military base, or lab.

## Chapter 9

After Jay made his way up to his sister's vantage point,
Katie pointed towards a large tree with a long limb that extended just until
the roof of the Nexus Force building.

"You're not suggesting we climb across that," Jay
started.

Katie shrugged. "Hey, I want to check the roof.  It's not like we can just waltz inside from
the first floor and then walk unnoticed up the stairs to the roof."

"But what's so interesting about the roof?" Jay
continued.

Katie's answer was to open her I-Brick and take a picture of
the Nexus Force building.  A second
later, a popup box identifying the building along with some information
appeared, saying,

"Paradox Museum

Formerly known as the Nexus Force Paradox Research Facility
until its transformation into a museum in January, 3040."

"That was only last month," Katie explained.
"And it looks like they left or stored some stuff on the roof."

"Or in the basement." Jay said.

"I don't see any easy way into the basement,"
Katie told him. "If you do, tell me."

"Well, I don't see any easy way onto the roof
either." Jay countered. "Seriously, you actually *want* us to
climb on an unstable tree branch suspended high above the ground and then jump
the last two feet onto a concrete roof lined with lots of sharp stuff used to
hold weapons."

"Awww, where's your sense or adventure Jay?" Katie
whined. "Besides, you don't have to come with me." Then she reached
up and hoisted herself onto the branch, then began pulling herself along the
branch towards the Paradox Research Facility.

With a sigh, Jay pulled himself onto the branch and followed
her.

## Chapter 10

The roof of the Paradox Research Facility was covered in old
equipment, most of it junky, rusty, and broken.
There were some diamonds in the rough though, but Jay wasn't interested
in them, and he couldn't see what Katie saw in them either.

"WHY ARE WE HERE?!" Jay screamed.

"Now that I think of it," Katie admitted, "I
don't really know.  I kind of just had a
feeling...."

"Whatever," Jay interrupted her. "Now how do
we get off this roof?"

The tree branch they had used to get to the roof was several
feet above them, and piling sharp equipment up to make a mound to step on would
not be recommended.  Katie quickly ran to
a metal door imbedded in the roof and tugged at it, but it was locked.

Jay thought of an idea. "How about we build something
to break through the door?"

"It's metal." Katie burst his bubble.
"Besides, that'll take too long and it'll make too much noise.  I've got a better idea."

All around the roof were gray tarpulins that covered piles
of 'more important' machinary, and Katie grabbed one and accidentally kicked
the object underneath it, a shiny orange machine shaped vaguely like a
minifig.  In its right hand was what
looked like some kind of ray gun, and in its left hand was.... nothing.  It was a mech.

A red light on its 'head' turned on, and awestruck, Jay and
Katie watched the mech unfold over a period of ten long seconds.

"PRDX-4 0NL1N3; PRDX-4 1N1T14L1Z1NG 5Y5T3M CH3CK;
PRDX-4 F1N15H3D 5Y5T3M CH3CK; PRDX-4 1N1T14L1Z1NG 3026 P4R4D0X R0B0T D3F3N53
PR0GR4M;" the mech, having introduced itself as PRDX-4, monotoned in its
gravelly computery voice.

PRDX-4 then rotated around to face Jay and Katie, its red
eye focusing on their faces.
"1N1T14L1Z1NG 3026 F4C3 R3C0GN1T10N CH3CK; F4C3 R3C0GN1T10N CH3CK
NULL; PR3P4R3 T0 D13 M43LSTR0M SL1M3;"

With that, it leveled its ray gun at them and began
rapid-firing blue balls of some destructive force at them.

## Chapter 11

Jay and Katie scrambled at blinding speed behind a pile of
junk, just missing the blue balls of destruction, which streaked past them.

PRDX-4's voice grated across the roof as he clanked his way
towards their hiding place. "D13 M43LSTR0M SL1M3; SURR3ND3R TH0UGH Y0U
W1LL B3 PUN15H3D 31TH3R W4Y;"

"WHAT DO WE DO?!" Jay shrieked. "We're stuck
up here on a roof with a stupid mech bent on punshing us!!  And why are you holding a gray tarp?!"

"That's the plan." Katie said, and as PRDX-4's
footsteps became louder, she gripped two corners of the tarp.  Jay, getting the idea, gripped the other
corners, and together they flung it into the air.  The strong Avant Gardens wind instantly
picked up the tarp, and it threatened to rip itself from their hands and go
airborne.

"And now we jump!" Katie yelled, and just as
PRDX-4 rounded the corner to their location, they ran towards the edge of the
roof.

And jumped off

.

...

12 years before....

As they had planned, Sandy was standing at a warehouse at a
desolate Avant Grove property, awaiting Overbuild as part of their annual
yearly status report.  The waiting part
though, wasn't planned.

It's not that *he* was uncomfortable, the night wasn't
all that cold, but Sandy would have preferred to be in the warehouse -
actually, he cared more about having the 'keys to defending Imagination' in the
warehouse, as opposed to the open air of the small rocky chunk known as an
Avant Grove property.

The thing was, he couldn't get into the warehouse, not
without the card pass to open the magnetically locked doors which he believed
Overbuild had.  And where was Overbuild?!

With a sigh, Sandy leaned his back onto the steel walls of
the warehouse and slouched a bit, which caused his feet to slip, sending a
couple rocks flying and causing him to fall splat to the ground.

Carefully he picked himself up, and noticed a flat
rectangular object sticking out from under the rocks he had misplaced.

It was a card pass.

## Chapter 12

The doors slid open, and Sandy stepped into the dark
warehouse.  Sensors detected his
movements and the lights clicked on, illuminating the room.

After getting the 'keys to defending imagination' inside the
room and sliding the doors shut, Sandy set himself up at a console.  Tapping the keys turned on a scanner next to
the computer monitor, and a box popped up requested him to scan the key card.

Done.

The desktop appeared with a single icon, a video file
labeled Urgent appeared.

Sandy double-clicked on it, and a video showing Overbuild in
front of a drab gray background appeared.
He spoke.

"My calculations were off," Overbuild began.
"Way off.  The Maelstrom are going
to return much earlier than I anticipated, Operation Figdroid will not be
ready.  We must rebuild the Nexus
Force.  Not now, but soon.  Await the next time I contact you, it could
be in a few days, or many years.  But
wait for me."

The video ended, and the file auto-deleted itself.

...

Avant Gardens

Whatever air resistance they expected the tarp to give them
didn't seem to be working, because as far as Jay was concerned, they were
falling.  Fast.

Two seconds later they impacted and ended up sprawled on the
ground face-first, with the tarp sailing away to entangle itself in some trees.

"Ugh," Jay grumbled, picking himself up and
helping Katie get to her feet.  He took a
few staggering steps, but then an explosion just to their left sent dirt flying
into them.  Jay whirled around and saw
PRDX-4 standing at the edge of the Paradox Lab's roof, preparing to fire again.

"AH NOT AGAIN." Jay screamed and together they ran
from the Paradox Lab as quickly as possible, explosions of dirt and grime
rocking the ground just missing them.

After half a minute of running, the explosions stopped
because they were out of PRDX-4's range.
Then they realized something interesting, fascinating, and scary.

"How did we just jump off a four story building,"
Katie said slowly, "and survive?"

## Chapter 13

It didn't take long for the security team at the Paradox
Museum to disable PRDX-4 and upload updated 3040 programs into him, and as far
as they knew or cared, his activation was a malfunction in his central core
while it was doing a timely scheduled systems check.

Meanwhile, Jay and Katie were back at the rocks, speculating
about their misadventure on the roof of the Paradox Lab.

"Really, the tarp was hardly creating any air
resistance for *us*." Jay insisted. "I doubt it would have been
any different if we jumped without it.

"You could go back and check," Katie suggested,
holding up her I-Brick. "I could time you, and you'd make two jumps."

"No way," Jay said quickly. "So what
now?  Maybe you could explain that
'feeling' you had to go onto the roof anyway?"

"Huh, that's an interesting question bro." Katie
told him, then stood silently in thought for a few seconds. "It was like
there was something drawing me there, as if the answer to a question would be
there.  But I don't know what that
question is."

Jay raised his eyebrows. "Okay, that's weird.  So, what now?"

"Well, we still don't know what Figdroids are, or what
Dad has to do with this Overbuild guy and this Exeter guy." Katie
suggested.

Jay thought of something. "Maybe we can get some
answers *inside* the Paradox place." he said. "Instead of the
roof." he added quietly.

Katie groaned. "Seriously?"

"Seriously, it's a museum." Jay urged.
"What's so conspicuous about walking into a museum?"

"Museums are *boring*." Katie grumbled, but
she followed Jay as he climbed down from the rocks and headed towards the shiny
doors.

The lobby of the museum was empty.  And boring.
There were a few glass tables with holopictures and plastic flowers with
stiff-seated couches arranged around them, which were also boring.

Beyond the lobby was a white hallway lined with doors with a
tiled floor that squeaked under Jay's sneakers.
At the end it split into a T, with an elevator in the center.

That's when they heard voices and squeaky footsteps coming
from the split hallway.

From behind, Katie grabbed Jay's shirt collar and yanked him
and herself into a closet, keeping the door open a crack.

Two seconds later, six minifigures walked by.  A bald guy in goggles, a determined looking
guy with yellow hair, an unshaven disheveled brown haired guy, a lady in
purple, a guy hiding behind a white space helmet, and a younger (compared to
his companions) guy with black hair who looked bored.  Their conversation bounced around the hallway
and entered the closet, filling Jay's and Katie's ears with.... gibberish.

"The first step is getting the Nexus Force back
together," Goggles was saying. "Then we must move on to our primary
priorities.  Getting a battalion of Elite
Nexus Troopers with Valiants at the Imagination Nexus in Nexus City is
critical.  That, Permitted Valley, Smooth
Forest, Nimbus City, Avant City, and the Venture Museum will be the Maelstrom's
prime targets."

"And I thought ya had an idea that didn't require us to
get completely mobilized like this, Doc." Unshaven Guy grumbled.
"It's been 12 years since this system has seen militants, nobodys' gonna
be ready."

"Imma ready!!" the bored guy announced.

"Shut up, no one asked you to speak." Blonde Guy
snapped. "Hael has a point, what happened to your awesome plan?"

"Certain variables failed to add up the way I had
planned and so my project wont be usable until at least 6 years." Goggles
explained. "But it doesn't matter, the only way we can sucessfully repulse
and subsequently counterattack a new Maelstrom incursion will require an
organized guiding force - us."

"That was years ago." Purple Lady stated.
"And remember what it turned into?
Le Duke of Awesome turned victory into a faction war."

Blonde Guy's face turned angry red for a second, then he
said coolly to Goggles, "*She* can live in her delusion, but I'm not
leading a military alongside *her*."

That's when Jay realized they were the faction leaders.

## Chapter 14

Only a few seconds later and the group of important veterans
was gone.  Jay exploded the second Katie
swung the closet door open and they tumbled out.

"THOSE WERE THE LEADERS OF THE NEXUS FORCE!!!" Jay
exploded.

"You think I don't know that?" Katie said.
"But remember, the Nexus Force had four leaders.  That group was six.  Interesting."

"So who are the other two?" Jay asked.

"That I don't know, but I think I know what the
'Doc's', as in 'Overbuild's' plan was." Katie answered.

"Operation Figdroid." they both said.

...

It was Katie's idea to explore the basement of the Paradox
Lab, so after hitching a ride on a service elevator, they found themselves in
the dark base of the Paradox Lab.

It was mostly just boxes, desks, and tables littered with
more boxes, parts, bricks, machinary, scientific equipment, and other old junk.

Katie pointed towards a door at the far end of the basement,
and Jay followed her through it into a pitch-black room.  Jay reached for a light switch, and finding
it, he switched it on.  Some old ceiling
lamps buzzed to life, revealing the room to be an small storage room filled
with file cabinets.

Quickly Katie was on her knees in front of a drawer labelled
'F'. "Look in 'O'," she stated, and Jay pulled open a drawer with O
on it, then began leafing through faded yellow binders.  His fingers found a few Overbuilds, Obelisks,
Ostriches, and then into Operation.

"Found it!" Jay announced, and pulled out a binder
labelled "Operation Figdroid".

"Found what?" said a voice, and then the guy with
black hair stepped into the room.

He did not look happy.

DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN.

## Chapter 15

"Who and what are you doing here?" the guy
exclaimed, stepping into the room and pulling out a communications device.  He had, as stated before, black hair, a
slight beard, and looked to be in his mid twenties.

Immediately, Jay and Katie dashed past the guy with the
black hair.  On the way past, Jay grabbed
the communications device, and Katie slipped her foot around the guy with the
black hair's ankle, tripping him, though a paper slipped from Jay's grasp and
floated to the ground.

In the time it took for the paper to hit the ground, Jay and
Katie were gone, and the guy with the black hair was picking himself up from
the ground grumbling.

The second he got to his feet, the paper flittered past his
face.  On reflex, he grabbed it.  It contained two color pictures, and at the
top was written "Operation Figdroid".
He sucked in his breath in shock, but quickly stuffed the paper into his
jeans pocket and gained his composure.

"Fusion Dude," he muttered, as he picked up a gray
bullhorn, that was in fact not a bullhorn, but a stun-gun. "Time to get
back to work."

...

Panting, Jay and Katie sprinted through the doors of the Paradox
Lab and kept running.

"What's gotten to us?!" Jay yelled. "We jump
off a roof, eavesdrop on a conversation between military officials, break into
a locked storage room, and steal important documents ON A PROJECT WE DON'T EVEN
KNOW ABOUT!!"

"It's your fault, you started it!" Katie retorted.

"What- how?!" Jay snapped.

"By becoming a mailman!" Katie answered, but then
a sound like tires spinning on pavement filled their ears, and a split-second
later they were being levitated into the air by blue rings that moved slowly
past them, emitting from the barrel of a bullhorn behind them in the hands of
the guy with the black hair.

Caught in the air, Jay and Katie craned their necks to glare
at their captor. "Who are you?!" Katie spat.

"I could ask the same," their captor said with a
smirk, "But I'll be nice. I'm Intrepid Fusion Eclipse, and you are?"

## Chapter 16

Jay was at a loss for what to do, but Katie took over.
"How about you let us down first?" she challenged.

"Fine with me," Intrepid agreed, and turned the
stun gun off.

Big mistake for Intrepid Fusion Eclipse, because a split
second after he released the trigger his head was snapped to the side from the
force of a roundhouse kick to his jaw.

Intrepid recovered quickly, but surprisingly Jay and Katie
had vanished.  Not really a problem,
since he knew Avant Gardens like the back of his hand.  They wouldn't get far.

...

When the stun gun had turned off, Jay had used the backwash
of energy to propel himself over Intrepid and latch onto a pipe that ran up
alongside the length of the Paradox Lab, while Katie had tried something a
little more on the offensive side, and with Intrepid on the ground she had
grabbed onto Jay's foot and pulled herself up to his perch, where they stayed
silently until Intrepid was gone.

A hundred seconds later, Katie broke the ambient noise of
birds chirping. "Let's take a look at those files," she said, and Jay
handed her the folder which he still had with him.

Katie pulled a stack of papers out and gave Jay the first
half of them, and then she dived into her half.

Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to remain on a pipe with
just his feet, so Jay picked up the first paper and read into the first
paragraph.  It seemed to be the
schematics for "Figdroids", written out in words instead of in a
blueprint picture.  There was Unit 1
called J and Unit 2 called KT.

"Read that out loud," Katie said.

"What?" Jay turned to see that Katie was looking
over his shoulder.

"Just do it." she instructed.

Jay turned back to the paper. "Okay.... Unit 1; S#
2359PM300112; J; Unit 2; S# 2400AM310112; KT- what- oh...."

His blood froze.  His
heart pounded in his ear, and Jay and Katie shared a look of confusion,
contempt, and trepidation.

It was Katie who spoke. "We are the Figdroids."

## Chapter 17

Both siblings stared at eachother in shocked silence, until
Jay managed to squeak out, "Does that mean we're.... robots?"

"Most likely...." Katie said slowly. "but I'm
surprised we didn't realize this before.
It explains how we were able to jump off a tall building and not get
hurt, and most of the other wacky things we pulled off today...."

"And it probably explains why my feet have been
sticking to this pole for so long." Jay stated.

"Maybe you've got magnets in your feet," Katie
suggested.

Jay shuddered. "Be quiet."

Katie was quiet for two seconds, then spoke up again.
"I wonder who else knows about us.
The Overbuild person, obviously.
That Intrepid Fusion Eclipse guy, probably.  Dad?"

Jay shifted nervously. "I never thought of that.  Now I feel betrayed."

"Don't sweat it, how 'bout we just move on?" Katie
said. "I mean, we've lived normally all our lives, it wont be any
different now that we've discovered something special about ourselves.  It might even be kind of fun.  I'll have to read through all of this
stuff." she gestured to the papers in her's and Jay's hands.

"Good for you," Jay told her. "But it's been
a long day, at least for me." He stared at the setting sun in the distance
and the pink and orangey clouds that surrounded it as it cast a final afternoon
glow across Avant Gardens. "I just want to go home."

"Yeah sure, fine."

...

Soon they were sitting in the puny backseats of a sporty car
called a "ZL1" after its engine that their Dad had rented as he drove
them to a vacation hotel in Avant City.

"So kiddies, what have you been up to today?"
their Dad said through a grin. "Did you get to see the monument?  Or the caves?"

"Actually, we kind of stuck around the museum,"
Katie answered.  It wasn't a lie, since
Jay had in fact been stuck to the outside of the museum.

Jay wasn't listening. Instead, he was staring out the window
at the star-littered sky.  When suddenly
a bright trail of fire lit up the night, and its source.

It was a giant pencil.

## Chapter 18

Jay blinked, and saw that it actually wasn't a giant flying
pencil.

It was a rocket styled to look like a giant flying pencil.

Using the skill he had already found to look through
objects, Jay had no trouble keeping track of the Pencil Rocket as it flew
overhead and did a barrel roll.

Then Jay stifled a gasp as he noticed who its pilot was.

It was Intrepid Fusion Eclipse.

...

Their current Avant City hotel room was kind of on the large
side compared to average hotel room.
There was the main room which was actually a living room/kitchen/dining
room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom.

So it actually wasn't a hotel room.  It was an apartment with shiny window shades
and a few pieces of comfy furniture.
Boring.

The room which Katie and Jay shared was no less boring than
the rest of the 'apartment'.  And from
all the reading they did of the file on the Figroids project - them - and
internet encyclopedia research Katie did from her I-Brick, both concluded that
they were originally.... *built* as *something* that had to do with
defending the Imagination core in the center of Nexus City, though back then it
was referred to as the Imagination Nexus in Nexus Tower.

And the thing they were supposed to defend it from was called
the Maelstrom.  And addng the puzzlepiece
of the secret meeting between veterans they had heard back at the Paradox Lab,
the 'Maelstrom' would be coming back earlier than 'Overbuild' had predicted, so
the Figdroids - them - wouldn't be needed.

"So.... what's up with us now?" Jay said slowly.
"We were \*shiver\* created for something that was expected to be happening
some time a long time from now, but that something wont be happening a long
time from now, so what's going to happen to us?"

Katie was about to give a speculative answer, when suddenly
the large window overlookng a balcony at the outside wall of the room, did
something that normal windows just don't do.

It shattered.

Enter Intrepid Fusion Eclipse.

## Chapter 19

"Don't be alarmed," Intrepid said quickly, acting
as if he had NOT just smashed through a window. "First off, I need to talk
to you."

Katie folded her arms. "And what makes you think we
should we trust you?"

"Look, I'm not going to go unleash the epic power of a
bullhorn on you," Intrepid stated, but eyeing Katie he added, "but I
don't take lightly to violence either."

"Just what do you want?" Jay demanded. "You
can't just smash into our apartment and order us to speak with you.  Besides, it's not like we're going to be doing
anything when this 'maelstrom' comes- oops."

Katie clamped her hand across Jay's face, but Intrepid just
laughed. "Ah, good, so you've already discovered who you really are.  That's half an hour of explaining, whining,
and shock shaved off." He reached behind him into an invisible bacpack,
rummaged around a bit, and removed a sheet of paper, which he folded into a
paper airplane and then promptly launched it at Jay.

Jay unfolded it, and found himself staring at two mugshots
of his and Katie's faces in black and white, with their **J** and **KT**
technical designations written under each respective picture.

"Old news," Katie snapped, since Jay couldn't
answer. "Now get on with it."

"Challenge accepted." Intrepid declared. "I
know you were eavesdropping on the Nexus Force leaders' conversations, because
I am awesome, but they shouldn't have been speaking so loudly anyway.  I prefer quietness and silence over the loud
noise known as a conversation.  But
anyways, Dr. Overbuild isn't one who fights.
He'll say what his three comrades want to hear.  Which means he'll say you are not needed
because 'you are not ready' because you're not old enough, hehehe, which means
you are actually needed much more."

Jay pried his sister's hand off his mouth and said slowly, "So
what do WE have to do?"

Intrepid pointed out the window, and replied, "Follow
me."

## Chapter 20

It turned out that just outside the field of view from the -
broken - window was a metal stairwell that led up and down the side of the
building, with down being the ground floor, and up being the roof.  Up was also the direction Intrepid leading
them.

The roof itself was extremely high above the ground with a
four feet tall wall at its edges, which spanned the whole expanse of concrete
that made up the roof.  No chimneys, no
air conditioning fans, and no water towers crowned it.  Even with no illumination form the dark night
sky, it was obvious that it was *all* boring gray concrete.

"And why the *roof*?" Jay questioned with
raised eyebrows.

"Well," Intrepid explained, "it's a large
open area with lots of privacy.  No one
will see us from below, no one goes flying this late, and any sound we make
will never get through all this concrete."

"Why?"

Intrepid grinned. "To get you familiar with what you're
really capable of." With that, he launched into a backflip and landed
several feet back. "Now you try!" he called.

Jay and Katie began several failed attempts at doing
backflips, and ten seconds later Intrepid yelled, "Enough!  Let's try something else."

He produced five boxes and a shiny green marble, which he
dropped into one.  Then he shuffled them
around and rearranged them in all sorts of ways before announcing, "Which
box is th marble in?"

Jay concentrated on each box, and before long found himself
staring at the marble *through* the box's walls.  He was about to answer, but got ninjad by
Katie.

"That one." she pointed at the same box which Jay
was going to answer.

"Nice." Intrepid remarked.  Then with a smirk, he stated, "After a
few more of these 'simple' objectives, let's switch to something more, how
should I say this, intensive...."

## Chapter 21

After a few more easy assignments in which Jay and Katie
learned how to double-jump, magnetically stick to walls, hack into computer
systems (which is actually very complicated), and activate 'speed-mode', though
Intrepid calls it a speedhack.

"Alright," Intrepid instructed. "We're moving
onto the more 'intensive' challenges.  To
put it simply, what you have to do is defeat me." Within seconds he was suddenly
wearing his full Bat Lord gear; staff, shield, helmet, special abilities, and
all.

Jay gulped as Intrepid handed both him and Katie Elite
Longswords, Dragon Shields, and Breastplates of Armored Inspiration. "I
used to have only one of each of these." Intrepid told them. "They
used to be my best gear, before I got *these*." He patted his Bat
Lord shirt.

"Uh, *used to be*?" Jay asked worriedly.

Intrepid grinned. "Listen, if you think this is an
unfair match, it is, to ME.  There are
two of you, there's one of me, you've got all your special stuff like
speedhacks, and I'm a bit rusty since I haven't been in any active combat for
years."

"So how about we get on with this already?" Katie
stated, impatient.

"That's the spirit!" Intrepid cheered, and then
did spun around and activated is Bat Lord Helmet speed ability.  With a sound like tires spinning, Intrepid
was quickly all the way at the opposite end of the roof.

Jay and Katie assumed a defensive stance, awaiting
Intrepid's next move.  Which didn't come.

"Are we supposed to *attack* him?" Katie
whispered.

"Don't ask me, you're the expert on stuff like
his," Jay complained.

"Alright then, I've decided." Katie told him.
"Let's do this."

The instant she and Jay let down their defensive guard,
Intrepid attacked.

## Chapter 22

In less than a second Intrepid was standing in front of
them, his shield inches from Jay's chest and his staff frozen in mid-poke
centimeters from Katie's face. "Congratulations," he told them.
"You're dead."

...

"Try and develop a better reflex, response time,
hand-eye-coordination, pretty much don't be slow." Intrepid stated as he
tossed piles of bouncing bricks from his backpack across the roof.  After inspecting each one, he announced,
"Quick bulid them."

The response he got was a blank expression from each of his
trainees. "Aw, you can't be serious." Intrepid jeered, but then
stopped himself. "Actually come to think of it, you are serious." He
held up a picture of a bald minifigure in a red shirt and blue pants.
"Have you ever seen this guy?"

"No?" Jay answered.

"As I thought." Intrepid said. "You can't
quickbuild and you're can't fight, hehehe.
It's because you haven't had DA POWAH OF
IMAGINATIONNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! unlocked for you yet, by that guy who's
called Bob."

"What's the power of imagination?" Katie asked.

"The power of imagination means to use your full
imagination potential to do awesome stuff at a massive scale, such as building
whole towns, using special abilities that come with gear such as speed hats or
shield slams like meh awesome Bat Lord gear, getting pets to become your pets
very quickly, and quickbuild small stuff quickly." Intrepid explained.
"But I've been thinking, do you guys really need to travel all the way across
this star system just to find a guy called Bob, when you're figdroids?

"As in, can't I just activate it for you now?  Flip a switch?" he continued.  He held his hand out, and asked, "Can I
see your blueprints?"

...

In the end, Intrepid announced that it had been a long night
and as day's first light appeared, they departed for the morning.

But they would be back.

## Chapter 23

Like the last night, Intrepid met up with Jay and Katie on
the roof.  And this time, he was carrying
a laptop bag with him.

"I wasted the whole of today reading your
blueprints," Intrepid complained, "but then I found this in the back
flap of the folder." He held up a small booklet with 'Programming Manual'
written across it and waved it around.

Katie cringed. "Programming Manual?  You're going to reprogram us?"

"No way," Intrepid grinned. "It's much more
simple than that." He retrieved a shiny black laptop from the
aforementioned bag and turned it on, before connecting a special-looking USB
cord to it. "It turns out you have a connector port here" - he
touched the area behind his ear - "and if I connect this laptop to it, I
can very simply check all the boxes for all of your awesome figdroid features
and then you'll be awesome like mehself!"

Now Jay cringed. "So you're going to plug us into
that?  Wont we get electrocuted?"

"Do you get electrocuted whne you drink a glass of
water?" Intrepid answered with a question.

"Uh, no?"

"There you have it." Intrepid told him. "Who
wants to experience awesomeness first?"

...

'Awesomeness' translated to increased processor speed,
increased movement speed, increased agility, and pretty much awesome
SUPAHPOWAHS!!! controlled from an awesome Heads Up Display.

"Wow...." Jay gasped.

"Whoa." Katie gawked.

"If it's too overwhelming, you can just switch it
off." Intrepid assured them. "Thought control is awesome."

It worked. "Thanks," Jay told him.

"No prob." Intrepid said with a smirk. "So,
you guys ready for the fighting test again?"

...

"CHEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!"
Intrepid screamed less than ten minutes later, scaring Jay and Katie so much
they jumped out of the position they were in to pin Intrepid to the ground.

And that pretty much sums up how the test went.

## Chapter 24

In the end, Intrepid Fusion Eclipse took leave of his two
trainees, telling them his mission was finished and that they were on there
own.  Not very comforting, but enough for
Jay and Katie to know the most important thing about their lives....

There would be more challenges to come....  Or would consequences fit the description
better?

\* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \*

During the war of fourteen years ago, the Nimbus System was
mostly under Martial Law, and with military control came military rules.  Including the rule to NOT contain in your
house, your property, your Paradox Research Lab, or your backpack any essense
of Maelstrom because it could lead to infection.

Of course, whether or not rules are meant to be broken, they
usually end up getting broken anyway.
Dark Ronin ended up appearing all over Block Yards, Raven Bluffs, Chanty
Shantys, and Avant Groves.  It took years
to clean them all up following the war.
Maelstrom infected bricks found their way into innocent minifigures'
inventories, numbering in the thousands.
Those also took a long time to be rid of.  And while an official exception was made for
a Dark Spiderling to be housed in the Paradox Research Lab for studying, it
would lead to a great mistake in itself as well....

\* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \*

With Intrepid gone, Jay and Katie and their dad had about
two weeks left of having fun on vacation in Avant Gardens, and the first 12
days were spent looking at the monument, going into tourist traps at the Launch
Area, exploring the caves, and doing nothing at all.

That left the 13th day to do something they hadn't *officially*
done.

An official tour of the Paradox Museum.

Which was also the Paradox Research Lab once upon a time.

Which had a Dark Spiderling in it.

What did I tell you about mistakes, broken rules, and
consequences?

## Chapter 25

It was pretty uncomfortable for Jay to act like he had never
seen the basement of the Paradox Museum as the group-of-about-twenty-tourist's
tour guide, a red haired lady called Mara, lead them to that controversial
location.

"This, fellow adventurers used to be the center of all
experiments conducted in the Paradox Laboratory." Mara explained. "It
was in here that the renowned researcher Wisp Lee explored the concept of the
Maelstrom's infecting power, which he got to see first hand, no pun intended,
when the Maelstrom escaped and infected all his colleagues, and a bit of him
too."

She lead them towards a row of shiny metal doors, long
cleaned since whatever Maelstrom infected the museum. "Each of these doors
used to lead to a containment cell on the ground floor, which housed infected
specimens, including the fabled Spider Queen; the cells are still there, but a
wall was built in front of them to keep the museum looking cool."

"Can we go into them?" a guy in a baseball cap
wearing mirrored sunglasses - even though he was in a dark basement - asked.

"I don't see why not." Mara answered, and pulled a
ring of keys out of her pocket.  She
jammed one of the keys into one of the doors, and it swung open, revealing its
stained-in-purple other side, and a stairway that lead to the ground floor.

Mara walked casually up the stairs, ignoring any trace of
Maelstrom that could have been there fourteen years ago. "Don't worry
about any Maelstrom traces, they weaken over the years and shouldn't have any
effect on anything."

The group followed her in, with Jay and Katie taking the
rear.  Faded splotches of purple studded
the wall, and Jay ran his fingers over them.
They tingled a bit, but nothing else.

Then his eyes fell on the Maelstrom Infected Bricks.

## Chapter 26

It was a pile of purple and black bricks hidden mostly under
the staircase that caught Jay's eye.  But
not just any pile of purple and black bricks.
They were *jumping*.

Jumping bricks.

"Oh uncool, a quickbuild site." Katie grumbled.
"Looks boring."

"Probably, but I wonder what it builds into," Jay
said. "It shouldn't take long, since it's a *quick*build."

"Alrighty," Katie agreed. "But don't say I
didn't warn you that it'd be boring."

Once Jay started quickbuilding the thingy, he found that
stopping wasn't really possible.  And
then he realized how big a mistake it was to try and build a quickbuild that
involved not just any jumping purple and black bricks, but jumping purple and
black MAELSTROM INFECTED BRICKS which, unlike Maelstrom stains, stayed fresh a
loooong time because of the larger volume and depth in an infected brick.

Within seconds, the bricks had transformed into a large,
oversized, ugly, weapon-wielding SPIDER.

Jay and Katie screamed, not because of the disgusting
arachnid that stood hissing at them offering no thanks or gratefulness for
being revived, but rather because a hand clamped down on each of their
shoulders from behind.

"Now look what you've done!" a disappointed voice
groaned. "I thought you'd be smarter than that.  Now I have to fight Maelstrom again."

Jay and Katie whirled around to face the guy with the
reflective sunglasses and the baseball cap, except now he wasn't wearing his
reflective sunglasses and baseball cap, rather he was instantly wearing a
leather jacket, some funny green aviator pants, a brown cape, and a silly
looking color changing jester cap.  But
in his hands were a serious looking cleaver like Intrepid's and a dragon shield.

"Be gone with you, ugly Dark Spiderling thingy!"
the guy screamed, and proceeded to trip over his own feet when he made a failed
attempt at a battle charge.

Despite the situation, Katie facepalmed.

## Chapter 27

"Um, excuse that, heheheheeheehee." the guy
wheezed, then jumped to his feet and correctly this time charged the Dark
Spiderling and gave it five good whacks.
With a big smash, the evil monster thingy exploded and turned back into
a pile of purple bricks.  A bunch of
other goodies appeared as well, in the form of some white bricks, some gems,
and a blue longsword, which their savior picked up.

"Haven't seen one of these for awhile," he
commented, analyzing the sword before stuffing it into his backpack.  Turning to face Jay and Katie, he said with a
grin, "It seems I haven't introduced myself yet.  You can call me Luke, or Grand Masterly
Shadow, or just friend of Intrepid."

"You know Intrepid?" Jay repeated.

"Well yeah, we were teammates back in the war."
Luke said. "We kicked Stromling back on this very ground, along with Elite
Distant Tofu, or Mara, or just the tour guide.
In case you didn't realize, you're surrounded by us." Then he
launched into a fit of giggles.

"Um, why all the weird names?" Katie questioned.
"'Grand Masterly Shadow', 'Elite Distant Tofu', 'Intrepid Fusion Eclipse';
what's up with that?"

"Oh, heehee, blame that on the Nexus Force." Luke
replied with a roll of his eyes. "Some say it was to make us look stupid,
others think it was to keep us more organized.
We never got an official word on it.
What can you expect when the whole star system is under martial
law"

"I see," Katie said. "So you're actual name
is Luke, and Elite Distant Tofu is really Mara.
Then what's Intrepid's name?"

Luke shifted on his feet uncomfortably, before saying
quietly, "Nobody knows for sure, but I think it's Talm-"

Then yours truly Intrepid barged in and screamed, "DEH
MAELSTROM BE HERE!!!!!!!!!!"

## Chapter 28

Luke paled, and quickly ran from the room while Intrepid
gritted his teeth and grumbled, "Follow him and look what you did."

Silently Jay ,Katie, and Intrepid followed Luke to the
ground floor lobby, which was surprisingly empty except for them.  Through the large windows, they could all see
the dangers outside.

There were living purple skeleton thingys ripping their way
out of the ground and growling.  In their
claws were either sharp blades, glowing chainsaws, or huge hammers.

"I never thought I'd see one type of Stromling
again." Intrepid moaned. "But all three?  This will be fun."

And then the battle between two war veterans and a huge army
of five hundred plus evil Maelstrom Stromlings began.

After charging into the swarm of Stromlings and slashing,
hacking, and grinding their way through hundreds of Stromlings did they realize
that the army was growing, even though it was pretty evident already by the way
the museum windows were broken and the whole front half of the lobby was
overrun.  Intrepid and Luke were covering
behind a row of desks and tables and were blasting away at the Maelstrom mass
with.... drills.

When the first desk exploded, Luke sighed and said,
"Alright this is it we lost."

"Fine then." Intrepid agreed. "But we're not
going down without getting Jay and Katie to safety- wait, where are they
anyway?"

Indeed, they were gone....

....from the lobby.
Instead, they were on the roof kicking a group of Paradox Mechs in the
heads until they turned on. "PRDX-2 0NL1N3." "PRDX-7
0NL1N3." "PRDX-12 0NL1N3." "PRDX-9001 0NL1N3."
"PRDX-4 0NL1N3- 0H L00K, 1T'5 Y0U 4G41N."

"NOW GET DOWN TO THE LOBBY AND DO YOUR JOB." Katie
screamed at them, and obediently the mechs clanked their way to the open door
hatch down the steps through the hallway into the lobby and began shooting
everything.

Everything.

And the museum went up in flames.

## Chapter 29

From the large hills overlooking Avant Gardens sat Intrepid,
Luke, Jay, and Katie huddled around a fire.

"How did this happen...." Jay said softly, staring
down below them at the Stromlings that ran wild, rampaging throughout the
gardens but not smart enough to venture through the trees into the major
population areas that colonized the rest of the Avant Gardens planetoid.

"You did it." Intrepid replied.

"WHAT?  WHAT DID
I DO?" Jay screamed.

"I'm no scientist or Paradox researcher, and my theory
is as follows." Intrepid told him. "When you revived that cute
Spiderling-"

"Cute?" Katie interrupted, disgusted. "That
thing was ugly."

"-it somehow awakened up all the Stromlings that have
been smashed and since had their pieces scattered around under the ground of
Avant Gardens." Intrepid explained. "So they all surfaced and this is
what happened.  We smashed so many back
in the war that they haven't even finished coming up."

Jay gulped. "But what about the rest of the Nimbus
System?  Will the Maelstrom come back
there too?"

Intrepid raised his eyebrows. "Who knows.  No one really understands the Maelstrom, but
according to the news that Luke is pulling up," - he jerked a thumb in the
direction of Luke who was peering at the screen of a boring black laptop -
"only this section of Avant Gardens is in trouble."

"Did everyone get out safely?" Katie asked.

"I can confidentally tell you yes." Intrepid
answered. "Minifigs are very smart, but of course I'm smarter since I'm
awesome."

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Katie pressed.
"We're supposed to 'defend Imagination' but how?  And how did that Overbuild guy even know to
build us because the Maelstrom would come back?
It seems like we caused it to come back, at least here."

Luke screamed. "Breaking news!  The Maelstrom have landed at Guppy Forest,
Favorable Valley, and Nexus City!"

"In answer to your question," Intrepid said to
her, "There is nothing for you to do.
At all.  Null."

## Chapter 30

"But," Intrepid continued, "there is a way to
make yourselves useful."

"And that is?" Jay asked.

"To put it simply, you can't do anything that has to do
with fighting without your own gear." Intrepid explained. "You've
haven't even gotten enough skill from me, but with the proper weaponry, armor,
and stuff you can overlook that.  So we
need to get you some gear."

"But Intrepid," Luke interrupted while patting his
sword, "this stuff is vintag, there's no way to get them anymore.  And we can't part with our own gear because
they're linked."

"'Linked'?" Katie repeated.

"Forget about that." Intrepid said quickly.
"Actually Luke, there IS a way.
Though it's a very dangerous, deathly, and unconventional way. And it
should give our two trainees some real training at the same time." He
jerked his thumb in the direction of Jay and Katie, before proceeding to say to
them, "Want to see Avant Gardens in its true pride and glory?"

...

A week had passed since the Maelstrom had literally resurfaced
in Avant Gardens.  And at the start of
that week Jay and Katie were back at their apartment outside Nimbus City.  And in the midst of that week, multiple
things happened.

- The New Nexus Force military rose to power.

- Martial Law was declared by the New Nexus Force.

- Old veterans from the war 14 years before were back.

- Avant Gardens, Guppy Forest, Favorable Valley, Nexus City,
and Pet Cove were all caught up in warfare.

- Everyone was doomed.

- AND IT WAS ALL JAY'S FAULT.  MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

"It's not your fault Jay, really." Katie was
trying to assure him. "It's not like anyone smart would leave a bunch of
infected bricks in the middle of a museum."

Jay slumped deeper into his seat, and was about to retort
something witty when the window next to them exploded.

"But," Intrepid continued, "there is a way to
make yourselves useful."

"And that is?" Jay asked.

"To put it simply, you can't do anything that has to do
with fighting without your own gear." Intrepid explained. "You've
haven't even gotten enough skill from me, but with the proper weaponry, armor,
and stuff you can overlook that.  So we
need to get you some gear."

"But Intrepid," Luke interrupted while patting his
sword, "this stuff is vintag, there's no way to get them anymore.  And we can't part with our own gear because
they're linked."

"'Linked'?" Katie repeated.

"Forget about that." Intrepid said quickly.
"Actually Luke, there IS a way.
Though it's a very dangerous, deathly, and unconventional way. And it
should give our two trainees some real training at the same time." He
jerked his thumb in the direction of Jay and Katie, before proceeding to say to
them, "Want to see Avant Gardens in its true pride and glory?"

...

A week had passed since the Maelstrom had literally
resurfaced in Avant Gardens.  And at the
start of that week Jay and Katie were back at their apartment outside Nimbus
City.  And in the midst of that week,
multiple things happened.

- The New Nexus Force military rose to power.

- Martial Law was declared by the New Nexus Force.

- Old veterans from the war 14 years before were back.

- Avant Gardens, Guppy Forest, Favorable Valley, Nexus City,
and Pet Cove were all caught up in warfare.

- Everyone was doomed.

- AND IT WAS ALL JAY'S FAULT.  MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

"It's not your fault Jay, really." Katie was
trying to assure him. "It's not like anyone smart would leave a bunch of
infected bricks in the middle of a museum."

Jay slumped deeper into his seat, and was about to retort
something witty when the window next to them exploded.

## Chapter 31

"I apologize for all the broken windows," Intrepid
said hurriedly as he lead Jay and Katie through the crowded streets of Nimbus
City before stopping abruptly at an old rundown building.  He jammed a key into the flimsy door which
had a faded picture of some vegetable on it and with a twist of his hand, the
door swung open.  They stepped inside,
with Intrepid closing the door behind them.

The building's interior was a far cry from its exterior
appearance.  The walls were clean and
whitewashed, and the dark windows outside were actually just heavily tinted to
hide the stuff that littered a bunch of wooden tables throughout the brightly
illuminated main room.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Intrepid stated.
"It's called Leek Works, established in late 3026 after the militaristic
government collapsed.  All my coworkers,
friends, and team members are here.
Myself, Luke, and Mara, the whole three of us." He snickered.

Jay posed a question. "What about that brown haired
guy?"

Intrepid's eyebrows shot into the ceiling. "What brown
haired guy?"

"From the Paradox Museum," Katie explained.
"Back when the old Nexus Force leader guys were having a meeting.  You and some weird brown haired guy were
walking with them."

"There wasn't any brown haired guy." Intrepid
said.

Katie and Jay shot a glance at each other, which pretty much
said drop it.  Silently, they followed
Intrepid through another door into a weird room with a weird object in it that
looked like a wormhole projector thing from some sci-fi movie.  At its sides doing some maintenance work were
Luke and Mara.

"Alright, it's about time I gave you your
instructions." Intrepid announced. "This is just an old wormhole projector
thing thingy thingy that will, hehe, well, once Luke brings it online you just
have to walk through it and follow the instructions you'll get along the
way.  Super simple.  SO WALK THROUGH IT, MWAHAHAHA."

Then it turned on.

The last thing Jay remembered *after* stepping into the
online wormhole projector thing thingy thing was seeing a bright blue flash.

And that was it before the darkness seeped in.

## Chapter 32

- Late 3025

All was quiet in the cabin of the Venture Explorer.  Commanding Officer Sky Lane, First Officer
Bob, a random guard called Jett Moonshot, and some bored disposable orange
shirts were the only minifigures awake on the whole ship.  The rest of the passengers, numbering in the
infinite, were all in cyrogenic sleep somehow squeezed like sardines in some
ten travel tubes near the engines at the back of the ship.  The only sound throughout the ship (asides
from everyone's breathing) was the slow throbbing of the engine to a fearful
tune: doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom....

Then the forward window and the surrounding bulkheads
exploded in a shower of glass and debris which were all sucked into space.

....

The Maelstrom attack had been brief, but with eternal damage
to the Venture Explorer which would from then on remain in eternal, never
ending doom.

An infinite supply of new Nexus Force recruits also flowed
from the Venture Explorer.  And few
people knew why.

Following protocal, those Nexus Force recruits had their
Imagination unlocked early, were given thinking caps, built their own rockets,
and blasted off the forever doomified starship to the world of Avant Gardens.

One such minifigure, called Quest Blake (or by his official
Nexus Force name Happy Lucky Fish) was approaching Avant Gardens' eastern
launch pad in his custom rocket like all the others before and after him.  But unlike all the others before and after
him, he encountered an obstacle that he could never have expected ever.

Two minifigures fell onto his rocket in mid-flight.

What the brick. O\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_o

## Chapter 33

Quest's expression looked like this O\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_o for five
seconds before his shock finally subsided and his voice box turned back
on.  He let out a long scream of terror
as he realized he had overshot the launch pad and was headed straight for
the.... THE PARADOX MUSEUM!!!!

His two hitchhikers also realized their perilous course and
jumped off seconds before impact.

With a mighty crash, the rocket struck the base of the
building and to the dismay of a guy with funny spiky red hair who was blown
away by the shock wave, a group of Stromlings wielding hammers swarmed out of
the hole. "Not again!" he yelled. "Why does everybody always
smash into my Paradox Lab!!"

Offering no help to Quest as he disentangled himself from
the wreckage of his rocket, the guy - who's name was Wisp Lee - muttered
something unintelligible and was about to return to his previous position when
he remembered his job.

"Help!  I need
help!" Wisp Lee screamed.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!!" Quest yelled. "Someone
help me instead!  Get me out of this
death trap!"

The two competed for help until Quest finally got out of his
mess and stomped over to Wisp Lee, who quipped, "All of our research has
been destroyed!  At least the Sentinels
are-"

"Whatevers!" Quest grumbled. "My older bro
told me about you and your annoying missions when he came back for winter
vacation, I know everything about Avant Gardens and what to do already!  SEE YOU LATER."

He then proceeded to run towards Epsilon Starcracker the
Nexus Force Scout and then get smashed by a Stromling.

Wisp Lee sighed and was about to take off his "Imah
infected help meeeeee!" costume and get some fresh air when he noticed two
more minifigures walking towards him.  So
he resumed screaming, "Help!  I need
help!"

Being good minifigures, Jay and Katie forgot about their own
problem at hand and ran towards him.

## Chaptah 34

"Go to Epsilon Starcracker!" Wisp Lee cheered.

"What, that's it?
Yay...." Katie said.

Jay and Katie dizzily zigzagged away from Wisp Lee before
collapsing under some trees.  Waiting for
their thoughts to clear, Jay panted, "Now just where are we?"

"It's obviously Avant Gardens," Katie stated.
"There's the Paradox Lab Museum Place Thingy, the same trees, that large
bridge which is now broken, and there are Stromlings."

"In a much smaller number," Jay pointed out.

"Yeah.... so this is the way how Veggie Works plans on
getting us trained."

"Must be."

"But what is 'the way' anyway?  Everything is so real, and so
different...."

"Simulation?"

"No...." Katie was silent for a few seconds,
before saying slowly, "Want to know what I think Jay?  I think this is the Maelstrom War.  We're in the past."

May as well get that training over and done with.  Following the mission chain, Jay and Katie
smashed hundreds of Stromlings, Stromling Mechs, and Dark Spiderlings; died
several times in Survival; fell off the Monument even more times; and then walk
all the way back to the other side of Avant Gardens.

...

Several days of grueling missions, leveling up, collecting
and buying items later....

After running down the road to the launch area adorned in
their best gear, passing by a guy shouting a paraphrase of "Become a
member and give me all your money!" who was in turn being booed by someone
who looked a lot like Intrepid Fusion Eclipse, setting their new rockets on the
launch pad to Block Yard, and waiting twenty minutes while their rockets'
system monitors displayed a "Travelling to Block Yard", Jay and Katie
*finally* were ready for the ultimate test.

Battling the Spider Queen.

## Chaptah 35

After those boring twenty minutes, Jay and Katie
materialized at a dark, forbidding chunk of rock.  It was indeed a chunk of rock.  A small rock, with some trees and other rocks
at its borders and a huge mountain at the back.
They were the only people there, except for some other guy in Sentinel
clothes standing near a random mailbox and a huge purple spider, if you count
the Spider Queen as a person.

"Well, this is it." Katie said, pulling out her
Superior Longsword of Stunning and eyeing it. "I doubt this will work very
well against that...." She stared at the huge purple spider.

"Let's check out that guy." Jay said, pointing at
the Sentinel clothes guy.

They walked towards him, who greeted them saying, "Oh
cool, I've never seen two people come to claim a Block Yard and battle the
Spider Queen at the same time.  I was
sent here to battle it but I failed.
Take these Trial Faction Gear and-"

"Yay thank you!" Katie interrupted him, and
grabbed the Venture gear, while Jay got the Paradox gear.

"What is it with kids and guns...." Vance grumbled
as Jay and Katie charged the Spider Queen with their new weapons blazing.

Two seconds later they were hiding behind the rocks with 0
armor.

"That was embarrassing," Jay panted.

"Indeed." Katie agreed, while Jay spawned an anvil
which gradually supplied armor points to their charred gear.  Thirty seconds later they were at full
health.

This time they planned a more coordinated attack.  During their initial attack, their memory
banks had stored the data on the Spider Queen's battle tactics, which was to
focus all weaponry on one target, eliminate it, then move on to the next.  Too bad her attacks were so slow, and her small
brain was clouded with so much Maelstrom she didn't have much logic in her own
memory.

Jay jumped over the rock and immediately came under fire,
which he easily dodged by sidestepping two feet, while Katie began blasting
away at the Spider Queen from behind.

Since their battle plan was better than the Spider Queen's,
and they outnumbered the huge purple spider 2-1, it wasn't long before they
forced the Spider Queen to retreat up the mountain.  Katie was just about to climb up after the
Spider Queen when sudennly the rocks which they had taken cover behind only
moments before exploded and out came....

Dark Spiderlings.

With their trial gear, they smashed the Distraction
Spiderlings in only a few seconds.  After
those few seconds, the Spider Queen jumped back down and sent everything
flying, including Jay and Katie.  They
quickly got up again and continued blasting away at the Spider Queen, who
continued shooting at Jay.  They forced
the overgrown spider up the mountain again, defeated the Spiderlings again, and
then when it jumped down again it did something that wasn't again.

Turning its weapons vertically straight up, the Spider Queen
fired several rounds to the cloudy sky.

A bunch of red circles appeared on the ground as the cannon
rounds fell back to the ground, making sonic booms as they passed 700 MPH.  But what would never happen again after that
was that all the red circles were centered on the Spider Queen.

The cannon rounds hit the ground, exploded, and took the
Spider Queen with them.  And with the
Spider Queen went the Maelstrom on this Block Yard.

The Spider Queen was smashed.

"Good show." Vance Bulwark applauded them as they
returned. "Since you were the best -and the only- team I have ever seen
take on the Spider Queen, you can keep the Trial Faction Gear.  Now all you have to do is impress me with
your building skills and place down four models." He placed the models in
front of him. "Models are prebuilt brick models-"

Katie grabbed the models, and she and Jay slammed them on
the ground next to the mailbox.

"I'm even more impressed." Vance said. "I've
never seen anyone place them outside the building area.  You truly are imaginative."

Then sudennly they were back at Veggie Works.

## Chapter 36

"Congratulations!" a voice cheered from behind
them, and Jay and Katie whirled around to face Intrepid. "Over the course
of a week, you've achieved Level 15, gained lots of gear and weapons, Permanent
Rank 2 Faction Gear, and quite a bit of experience in combat, building, and
flying rockets.  It's my honest opinion
that you two are now hereby ready to assist in Leek Works' grandeous Operation
Takeback!"

"Hold it, slow down a bit." Luke called from where
he was seated at a computer console. "First we've got to give a littl
background info on what's happened the past days, then we'll explain Operation
Takeback...."

....

During the 7 days of Jay and Katie' absense, the Nexus Force
was completely back in power and all worlds (except for Nimbus Station) were a
battleground, with Avant Gardens hit the hardest.  And Operation Takeback revolved around the
elite team that Leek Works was landing at Avant Gardens and striking as the
heart of the Maelstrom presense: The Paradox Research Lab.

Operation Takeback had three major parts to it.

1) Flying the official Leek Works modified C-17 Globemaster
through the thick Maelstrom air defenses to the Paradox Lab.

2) Landing at the Paradox Lab and planting bombs in the
basement.

3) Escaping on the Globemaster as the 4th of July begins
early.

It was decided that Intrepid would fly the C-17 through the
dangerous Stage 1, then Mara would take over controls while Intrepid, Luke,
Jay, and Katie went down.  They would
blast their way through the Paradox Lab, plant the bombs at the basement, then
return to the C-17 which Mara would have to land.  AND THEN THEY ESCAPE.

And being the impatient, hasty group Leek Works was, they
would be leaving for Operation Takeback *immediatly*.

## Chapter 37

Like 14 years before, Avant Gardens had a large Maelstrom
presense within its east side.

Unlike 14 years before, Avant Gardens had a massive
Maelstrom presense everywhere but the Launch Area.

From not so high up in the sky, Jay and Katie watched from a
forcefield window in the floor as Avant Gardens unfolded underneath them.  They passed over some purple mountains and
within a minute were all of a sudden over the Paradox Research Lab.

"Alright, let's do this!" Intrepid announced,
about to stand up and leave the controls to Mara who sat in the copilot seat.

It was a good thing he didn't, because a loud explosion
would have rocked them all across the interior of the C-17 if they hadn't been
suffocating under their seatbelts.  A
Maelstrom missile tore through the fuselage, but since they were quite low to
the ground they weren't at risk of losing oxygen.  Still, half the cargo plane was on fire and
they were spinning in an uncontrolled dive towards a forest.

"GIRONEMO!!!!!!!!!!!" Luke screamed as they veered
into a forest of trees and faced impending doom.

....

At the last moment before impact, everybody epically jumped
out and survived, though the whole team was now falling through a mess of
branches and leaves.  Scattered fires
from the crash threatened to spread and engulf the rest of the forest, but that
wasn't their main problem as they landed on the ground.

It was the approaching Maelstrom army.

"Eat this, you evil ugly thingies!" Luke yelled as
he, Intrepid, and Mara swung out Wormholers and fired hundreds of thousands of
rapid-firing LAZARS upon the onslaught of hundreds of Stromlings, Mechs, and
Spiderlings - a standard Maelstrom patrol.

Within seconds, more than hundreds of Stromlings had
exploded in small puffs of purple smoke.
But they kept coming, and would keep coming....

Doom was impending.

## Chapter 38

Jay and Katie, who had been hiding in the trees for those
seconds of minutes of epic fighting decided to get to work.  Jay glanced at Katie, who winked at him.

With a gulp, Jay swung out his own Wormholer (courtesy of
Leek Works) and firing it straight into the middle of the Maelstrom,
double-jumped from his perch and landed just to the left side of the army,
sucessfully diverting their attention from trying to infect Intrepid, Luke, and
Mara who needed to reload their own Wormholers.

After that long runon sentence, every single Stromling set
its glowing red eyes upon Jay.  The
Stromling Mechs' eyes not only glowed, but shone laser beams into Jay's
face.  Then the lead mech stepped
forwards, and Jay groaned.

"PRDX-4 F4C14L R3C0GN1T10N T35T R3SULT5 R3C0GN1T10N 0F
F1GDR01D J4Y.  H3LL0 C0US1N."
Paradox Robot Defense X-4 monotoned. "N0W PR3P4R3 T0 D13."

"Oh noes!" Jay screamed as all the mechs opened
fire on him.  He intended to use his
super figdroid legs to leap five feet into the air, but ended up bumping his
head on a low hanging branch.  He grabbed
it and held tight, avoiding the first stream of Great Balls Of Purple, but the
Stromling Mechs recorrected their aim and their next stream of Great Balls Of
Purple hit him straight in the chest.

He fell flat on his back to the ground, unhurt except that
all the wind was knocked out of him.
However, he recovered superquickly and dove behind a rock for cover,
barely missing the next stream of Great Purple Balls.

But being shot at by every single mech was his idea.  Because they didn't notice Katie sneaking up
behind them, and by the time they did half their Maelstrom Patrol had already
fallen from the immense fire of a Wormholer.

By that time, their teammates were back in the fight and
with the added firepower of Intrepid, Luke, and Mara, the Maelstrom Patrol was
defeated.

But they had more to do.

## Chapter 39

The lobby doors slid open and five silhouettes stepped
inside.  Since it was a night operation,
there was no illumination at all within the walls of the Paradox Lab.

Except for the long red lasers that signified the arrival of
more Stromling Mechs.  The sound of
mechanical footsteps grew louder with each passing second, and then the mechs
stepped in from the back hallway.

Wormholer bullets and Firecrackers impacted all around the
mechs, until they were completely obliterated.
The team stepped into the hallway.

Intrepid replaced his Wormholer and put on his Bat Lord
Gear, while Luke and Mara pulled out Elite Cleavers. "We'll be in close
combat here, it's too risky to use a Wormholer." Luke explained.

Jay nodded, and he and Katie pulled out their own
swords.  They navigated through a maze of
corridors and pathways, all the while looking out for Maelstrom.  Being awesome Figdroids, Jay and Katie could
already detect Maelstrom thingies by just looking through walls.  Strangely, the halls were clear.

Shortly after, they were once again back at the
basement.  The walls were completely
covered in purple goo, and the support beams creaked and seemed to be
crumbling.  All the old machinery that
covered all the desks now had a weird purple aura around it.  Mech factory?

"Bomb time." Mara announced, and began assembling
a large device from pieces from her backpack.
As soon as she put in the last piece, a display appeared on it and Mara
set to work setting the bomb.

In addition to that happening, an alarm rang and sudennly
all the machine pieces turned into Stromling Mechs.  But these weren't normal Stromling
Mechs.  They still had their blasters,
but they were of a more advanced appearance.
And in their left hands they held lances with spikes lining the forward
half.  They also were more armored with
shoulder, arm, and leg armor pads and heavier plating across their chests and
heads.

"Uh oh!"

## Chapter 40

The mechs charged, and it was everything Jay, Katie,
Intrepid, and Luke could do to keep these new Maelstrom toys from ruining their
mission.  Despite all the Slashing and
poking away with their swords and, uh, staff, nothing seemed to be working.

"Don't let them near deh bomb!" Intrepid screamed,
slamming his shield into the sword hand of the closest mech and then stabbing
at its face.  His bat staff merely
bounced off, and the mech responded by swinging its gun barrel to Intrepid's
head.  He ducked at the last second and
detonated a flash bang, which stunned every mech in the room but only for a few
seconds.

Everyone went all-out on the dazed Stromling Mechs, but
their weapons bounced off their armored bodies harmlessly.  Luke began rewiring one of his flash bangs.
"Now everybody close your eyes!" he yelled, and quickly tightened one
wire before throwing it into the center of the mechs.

Even though their eyes were closed, Jay's and Katie's
optical sensors still detected an immensely white flash of light, but unlike
Intrepid and Luke who got blinded, they weren't hurt and neither was Mara,
since she was hiding behind the bomb.
The mechs however all broke into a million pieces again just from the
sheer power of IMMEEEEEENSELY WHIIIIIIIITE LIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!!!

"Blinded by the light!" Intrepid sang, and Luke
socked him.

Then a Stromling Bomb Squad dropped from the ceiling and ran
for the bomb.  Jay and Katie jumped into
action and quickly dispatched them, taking the bait.

Half the farthest wall smashed open, and as dramatic opera
sudennly blasted for ten seconds, black light began flowing into the room.  And enter the biggest Maelstrom arachnid any
Nexus Force soldier had ever seen, and would never see again after their next
and last few seconds of their lives.

The Scorpion Queen.

And on its back was a cloaked figure.

"Yayz I'm not blinded anymore!" Intrepid cheered.
"Oh wait, no, I'm not happy anymore.... AH GIANT ARACHNIDZ!!!!!!
HEEEELPZZZ!!"

## Chapter 41

The Scorpion Queen reared up on its hind-most legs and
emitted a loud shriek that could be heard even by the deaf, before turning
control back to gravity and smashing its forelegs into the ground.  A mini-earthquake rumbled through the Paradox
Lab, and all the work tables turned to dust.

"Now how do we smash that thing?!" Jay yelled
amidst shriekes and hisses from the Scorpion Queen as it stomped its way
towards them.

"Well-" Luke started.

Katie interrupted him. "Simple, we don't!"

"That's not what I was going to say!" Luke shot
back. "Once get the bomb triggered, this whole place will go up in flames
and that Scorpion thingy with it!"

"AND WHAT ABOUTZ US?!?!" Intrepid screamed.
"WERZ ALL GONNA DIE!!!!"

Luke slammed the blunt end of his sword into Intrepid's
helmet, silencing him. "Set the bomb for two minutes, Mara." he
ordered. "Now let's get that Scorpion outtta the way!"

Luke lobbed fifteen turbocharged Flash Bangs one after the
other directly at the Scorpion Queen's face, and it exploded on impact.  Again, white light filled the room and for a
few horrible seconds, the Scorpion Queen let out a screech louder than the
previous ones.  Then it charged towards
where the group *had* been, but ended up smashing its head and its stinger
head-on into the wall.

"Go!" Luke screamed, and everyone piled out
through the hole on the opposite wall, leaving the Scorpion Queen and its
blinded rider with the bomb.  The hole
lead into a large tunnel which after a few feet began sloping upwards.

The Scorpion Queen's shriekes still echoed through the air
as they emerged from a door in a small building some hundred feet away from the
Paradox Lab.  Intrepid, having regained
his normalness nodded towards the hills above them and stated,
"Climb."

Two minutes later, they were standing at the top of the
nearest hill with their eyes set on the flaming ruins of the Paradox Research
Facility.

## Chapter 42

A blinding blue flash illuminated the whole of Avant Gardens
from the Paradox Lab, and the wind picked up to immense speeds as all the
Maelstrom in the air was sucked into the whirlwind of blue.  Then as quickly as it started, the wind
returned to calm speeds and all of a sudden Avant Gardens was the bright green
happy place it had been before.

Intrepid, Luke, and Mara all cheered and started dancing.
"We did it, we did it, we did it, YEAH!!!
Thumbs up to that!!"

Mission Sucessful?
Yes, this stage of it.  Compared
to what would happen next, things were only starting to heat up....

\* \* \* \* \*

Since then, Leek Works has commenced and completed several
more operations across the Nimbus System, with the Nexus Force never really
realizing that they had some elite help from behind enemy lines.  Over a course of nine missions, Avant Gardens
was cleared, Guppy Forest was cleared, Favorable Valley was cleared, and the
final mission before Leek Works would take a break and let the Nexus Force
finish was in the Rocky Forest of Rocks at Crux Prime, a few miles out of Nexus
City.

But the most bizarre thing about these missions was not the
impracticality and constant threat of perpetual doom, (Ha!  A pun. ) but the weird bosses the team would
encounter in the final stages of each engagement.  First it was that overgrown Scorpion Queen,
then in the Guppy Forest campaign they had to do battle with a massive
steroidal Ape.  Favorable Valley unveiled
the largest Dragon ever seen, larger than Butterscorch even.  And all three of them had been ridden by a
mysterious hooded figure.

So, where did these super bosses come from?  Who's the mysterious hooded figure?  Why am I making puns about Perpetual
Doom?  All questions will be answered....

On Crux Prime.

Stay Tuned.

## Chapter 43

The Nexus Force was stretched thin across four major
battlegrounds around Nexus City and its famous tower called, erm, Nexus
Tower.  And in a daring spy and recon
mission, it had been learned that only too soon there would be a fifth
battleground too.

Spread much too thin already, there would be no way the
Nexus Force would be able to repulse this fifth strike.  And not just any normal strike, but an
invasion strike.

This would be the final hammer blow of the war, and the
Maelstrom would prevail.

Unless the Invasion Force, consisting of

●
Ten thousand assorted Stromlings.

●
Five thousand Stromling Mech invaders.

●
Four thousand Dark Spiderling invaders.

●
Three thousand Dark Ronin invaders.

●
Fifteen hundred Ape invaders.

●
One thousand Dragon invaders.

●
And one very big boss.

was to be stopped.

By an elite team called Leek Works.

....

The air of Crux Prime was thick with impending doom.  And an eternal doom *would* come befall
from the sky, if the most elite team of Nexus Force renegades EVER was to fail.

And in a situation like this, with supplies running low and
only the benefit of numbers, overwhelming weapons fire, superior armor, and
advanced technology at their disposable, the only way to make a sizable impact
on the Maelstrom army was to attack it straight forward and bluntly.

Attack it they did.

"PREPARE TO BE PERPETUALLY DOOMED!!!" Intrepid
screamed, and he, Jay, Katie, Luke, and Mara leapt from their hiding spot
behind some random tree and unleashed the power of five Wormholers; two waves
of Flash Bangs, Firecrackers, and Big Ones; and two Paradox Robot Defense mechs
flanking them upon the overwhelming force of 49001 Maelstrom land and air
soldiers.

The very basic of Stromlings got to eat the ground within a
second of the bombardment.  The next two
seconds involved even more basic stromlings falling, and the next three seconds
had the stronger and faster Chainsaw and Hammer Stromlings charging the elitest
of teams and engaging them in melee combat.

A chainsaw ripped through the tip of Jay's wormholer,
disconnecting the chain and ending its stream of bullets.  Still, it was a heavy thing, and Jay quickly
swung it into the evil Chainsaw Stromling that dared approach him.  With an awesome whack, the Chainsaw Stromling
was smashed.

Mara detontaed a Flash Bang, blinding the swarm of
Stromlings in their tracks before they could do more damage.  Luke lobbed a Big One at them, and with a
mighty explosion the Stromlings and Jay and Katie who were unfortunately
standing right next to them were blasted away, though the latter two survived
since they are invincible to conventional weapons.

Still, there was another group of Chainsaw and Hammer
Stromlings fastly approaching.  Intrepid
provided cover fire over Jay's and Katie's heads as they backtracked to where
Mara had the Paradox Mechs set up a small barrier which they could take cover
behind.

"How many of them have we taken out?!" Jay yelled.

"Fifty more or less, then I lost count!!" Intrepid
replied. "And who said fighting was easy?!" He reached down into the
bag of Firecrackers and grabbed three, which he tossed all at the same time
into the mass of chainsaws and hammers.
The ones within ten feet of the impact centers went "poof".

An hour of battle progressed, in which everything heated
up.  It was almost completely a gunfight,
with Stromling Mechs taking cover behind nearby trees and firing into Mara's
fort.  Twice, Dark Ronin and Spiderlings
had attacked from the rear and Dragons could be heard in the distance.  Mobility was extremely limited, with mech
shots whizzing overhead every other second.
The Paradox Mechs had been wiped out, and they were down to two
Wormholers, no Big Ones, five Firecrackers, ten Flash Bangs, and little hope
for survival.

Go down fighting?
Most certainly.

## Chapter 44

They came from the sky.
Bombs!  Bombs everywhere, around
the fort, inside the fort, in the trees, on the Maelstrom, and the
eXpL0s10nS!  Everything looked like it
had a gigantic bonfire sticking out its top before they realized that no, the
Maelstrom hadn't bombarded them and set them on fire.  It was the Maelstrom on fire, with hundreds
of Stromlings smashing within seconds.
They were saved!

At least for awhile.

Intrepid, Luke, Mara, Jay, and Katie turned to face their
saviour, and in doing so Intrepid paled immensely. "NOT YOU!" he
gasped.

A minifigure in the gear of a Rank 7 Paradox Space Marauder
stood before them in all her awe and glory. "Miss me much?" she said
sweetly.

Intrepid facepalmed. "Get out of here, Shirley."
he groaned.

Shirley's face turned sour. "You're mean, I don't like
you anymore." Shirley pouted, and was about to turn away when Luke clamped
his hand over Intrepid's mouth and interjected, "Hey wait, we could use
your help...."

"But she's a traitor!" Intrepid whined, wrenching
Luke's hand off his face. "She betrayed the F2P Legion and joined a
faction-"

Luke's glare cut Intrepid's sentence into pieces and he
growled, "Look at things from a strategic position for once Intrepid.  And I know the *real* reason you're
being so difficult.  Family rivalry with
your cousin, eh?"

"Family rivalry?!" Jay exclaimed.

"COUSIN?!" Katie yelped. "You have family
Intrepid?!"

Intrepid rolled his eyes. "Obviously," he
grumbled.

"How about we wrap up with the introductions,"
Mara suggested, "And get ready for the next batch of enemies?  I can hear Dragons in the distance...."

"Alright, long story short," Intrepid started,
"SHIRLEY AKA SHRILL FAILED BRICK IS MAH COUSIN AND WE HATE EACH
OTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!  The end."

It was a good thing they took Mara's advice, because a hole
was ripped through the wall of trees in front of the fort, and from within
stepped the most fearsome steed of the Maelstrom.

The Dragon Invader.

## Chapter 45

In only a few moments, there were twenty of them in all with
the other 980 someplace else.  All Dragon
Invaders, and all packing fatal, lethal, and deadly speed, agility, and
firepower.

Intrepid, Luke, Mara, Shirley, Jay, and Katie all stood with
their weapons in front of them, challenging the Dragons to make the first
move.  Yet they just stood around the
fort, ready to obliterate them at any instant, yet instead waiting....

"What are they waiting for?" Katie whispered.

Nobody responded for the next ten seconds of nervousness,
until Intrepid answered, "For a command."

"But that's impossible," Mara protested.
"Chaos has no master-"

OR DOES IT?

And then abruptly, 19 of the Dragon Invaders took off and
flew away into the clouds, leaving the six helpless minifigures to face the
first one.

And its master.

With a swift leap through the air, a figure that had
previously been seated upon the Dragon was now standing in front of the Dragon,
and in front of those six helpless minifigures.
He was clad in a dark hooded robe that concealed his face, the fabric as
black as a moonless midnight sky.

But what could be scarier, than the Staff of Doom in his
hands?

Intrepid, Luke, Mara, and Shirley gasped.  They knew of the powers of deadly doom within
that staff, and Intrepid and Shirley had been able to witness them first hand
only 12 years ago, when it was in the hands of ***DEH DARKITECT!!!!***

Shirley
gasped."It's-"

"IMPOSSIBRU!!!!!"
Intrepid finished.

The voice
boomed, ricocheting across the forest and then coming back again.
"Anything is possible," it cackled, "with the power of the Maelstrom
in my hands!
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-
\*cough\*"

With a flourish, deh Darkitect spun around and flung his
hood down to reveal his face.  Intrepid
sighed with relief.

He couldn't have been much older than Jay really.  His hair was long and brown, his face
screaming determination, and his identity unmistaken. "I'm Typhonus
Junior, your DOOM!"

## Chapter 46

Intrepid's eyebrows jumped so high they almost hovered above
his head like in Dora the Explorer. O\_\_\_o "I hope you are serious."
he jeered at Typhonus Jr.

In response, Typhonus Jr. erupted in another fit of cackles.
"You'd be surprised," he wheezed, and with only a touch split the
Staff of Doom down the middle.  Maelstrom
fog oozed out of the jagged crack, then being unleashed in full upon the
environment as the two halves fell to the ground.

Cleverly hidden within the Staff of Doom, was a Katana of
Doom.  Carved from a block of the
strongest pure Maelstrominite Mineral with a blade so sharp its ends were
nearly invisible, and complete with all the powers of the old Staff of Doom
multiplied by some random number, the Katana of Doom was quite intimidating not
just as a sword, but as a weapon of mass destruction, its overall strength
rivalling that of an Atomic bomb.
Combined with a guy claiming to be DEH DARKITECT's son, you have five
Atomic bombs.  It most most certainly was
a Katana of DOOM.

As soon as the words left Typhonus Jr.'s mouth two
paragraphs ago, his swung the Katana of Doom and a lightning bolt extended from
its tip, headed straight at the group of good guys.

Each good guy did different things.

1) Jay ran to the right.

2) Katie ran to the left.

3) Luke ran to the right and spawned an Anvil of Armor.

4) Mara ran to the left and spawned a Fountain of
Imagination.

5) Shirley launched several rockets and ran to the left.

6) Intrepid spawned a Cauldron of Life and threw a shield
around himself.

At the exact same time Intrepid's shield activated around
him, the lightning bolt happened to just make it into that space that the
shield would occupy.  With a massive
flash and then the smell of burnt stuff, Intrepid's shield had suddenly become
a grotesque thingy, a sphere with ugly blue and purple lines running across
it.  And it was rooted to the ground,
leaving Intrepid not just protected from the outside, but trapped inside too.

IT'S A TRAP!!!

Eyeing Intrepid's predicament, Typhonus Jr. giggled,
"You can stay there." and then turned to face ten homing missiles
that impacted with him with ten pretty explosions.  The Katana of Doom flew from his hands in a
random direction that happened to be directly at Jay, and imbedded itself in
the ground mere inches from the tips of his feet, causing a mini earthquake.

"Yikes!" Jay scrambled away from it, just missing
the tendrils of Maelstrom lightning that emitted from it as it shot from the
ground and returned to Typhonus Jr.'s hands.

More missiles headed itowards Typhonus Jr., but this time he
simply held out his hand and the missiles came to a dead stop in mid-air,
before turning around and streaking towards Shirley, who had launched
them.  A cloud of green marble-sized
thingies intercepted the missiles, stopping them.  Mara, wielding two Pea Shooter Mk.2s then
turned her weapons fire to Typhonus Jr., with dire results.  The peas just bounced off him.

That left Luke, Jay, and Katie.  Spinning his Elite Cleaver, Luke charged
Typhonus Jr., jumping and weaving from side to side to avoid the Katana of
Doom's lethal lightning bursts.  Then the
sword fight of epicness began.
Instantly, their swords were locked together, turning it into a battle
of strength, with only the stronger minifigure able to emerge victorious.  And tired from hours of fighting the
Maelstrom army, it was obvious Luke wasn't going to last very long in this
position.

Jay and Katie swung at Typhonus Jr. from behind, who quickly
dove to the side and rollled into a crouch.
Then he double-jumped towards them and flying-kicked Luke to the
ground.  His sword cut the air right in
front of Jay's and Katie's faces, but before they could strike back he
backflipped a few feet and jammed the Katana of Doom into the ground.

The world shook and rumbled.

## Chapter 47

They had probably been knocked out, since in what felt like
only seconds Jay and Katie were sitting in a dark room so dark they could
barely see even five feet ahead of them.

"Now just where are we?" Katie said, and as if in
response, several lights flickered on, illuminating the massive auditorium they
were in.  Smack in the center was a large
circular platform on which they stood, and around them were rows and rows of
seats, housing Stromlings, Mechs, Spiderlings, Apes, and Dark Ronin.  And in a box room elevated above the crowd,
was Typhonus Jr. himself.

"Welcome!" he announced. "To my humble
abode."

"Why have you brought us here?" Jay called weakly.

Typhonus Jr. sighed. "I'd have expected you to be
smarter than that, given all the hype about you.  The entirety of the Maelstrom Dimension is
filled up with talk about 'The Figdroids', who will destroy the Maelstrom once
and for all."

"'Maelstrom Dimension'?" Katie questioned.

"'Destroy the Maelstrom'? I thought were were just
defending Imagination." Jay stammered.

"One does not simply play the ignorant here."
Typhonus Jr. threatened. "In every which way you are completely under my
control now, and nothing you can think of doing can stop it, or my master
plan.  You have no power here."

"How about we give them a sample of our master plan,
Master?" a 'high up' Dark Ronin wheezed.

"Excellent idea," Typhonus Jr. agreed, and he
pressed a button on his control board.

Two circular sections on the center platform shook and
proceeded to sink into the ground as elevators to some place below the floor.  For a long minute, they clanked and clattered
their way into the underground caverns of the Maelstrom's Humble Abode, before
coming to a stop for five seconds, and then clanking and clattering their way
up again.

"While we wait," the Dark Ronin cackled, "How
about we ask 'The Figdroids' some questions?
Like, what would happen if you went back in time and smashed your past
self?"

Jay and Katie stiffened as they searched their memory banks
for an answer.  Instantly, popup windows
started appearing over their vision, and Microsoft Sam's voice screaming error
messages. "Computation of question 'what would happen if you went back in
time and smashed yourself' failed.
Shutting down central processing unit to prevent physical damage. -
Shutting down central processing unit failed-"

As Jay and Katie gasped and fell to their knees in Computer
Death, Katie only managed to squeak out, "Flip the power switch!"

A Stromling jumped over and promptly flipped their power
switches, and as Jay and Katie collapsed to the ground as they began rebooting,
the Stromling hissed, "You owe me one."

Shrouded in steam, the elevators reached the floor again as
Jay and Katie pulled themselves to their feet.
Rubbing his hands together in utter evilness, Typhonus Jr. announced,
"The following experiment will give us an answer to everyone's favorite
Ronin's question, though without the time travel part.  Such a shame." He jeered, "So
Figdroids, can you defeat yourselves?"

The smoke cleared, and from the platforms stepped,

MAELSTORM JAY AND KATIE!!!!

## Chapter 48

As sudden as the
Darkitect himself rising from the dead, a massive eXpL0s1oN rocked the
auditorium.  Everyone except Jay's and
Katie's lost their sense of hearing as more eXpL0s1oNs radiated out from the
source of the eXpL0s1oNs.

The eXpL0s1oN had
come from a massive generator in a corner of the auditorium, which had
eXpL0dEd.  Smoke poured from it, making
everyone except Jay and Katie lose their sight.

"Thank me
later!" a familiar voice screamed so loud to be heard it was high-pitched,
and the mysterious Stromling was back.
This time he had earmuffs pressed against the sides of his heads, and he
was yanking at the fake sword on his arm.
INTREPID FUSION ECLIPSE.

Grabbing Jay and
Katie by the arms, he pulled them towards some random place.  The Figdroids had no idea how Intrepid could
see through the smoke, but at least they could see enough to know that the
'some random place' was an employee door with EXIT
written in bright red letters.

The instant they
stepped over the threshhold, they were suddenly on Crux Prime with Nexus City
not so far away on the horizon and a shiny yellow Corvette very close to them
in the foreground.  A whirling sound from
behind caught Jay's attention, and he spun around to see absolute nothingness.
"wut." was all he could muster.

"Explanations,
explanations," Intrepid chanted. "What we are standing in front of is
a cloaked building called 'The New Maelstrom Headquarters' after we blew up the
old one some 14 years ago or something like that.  What nobody except us knows is that it's
right here outside civilization.  Also
what nobody except us knows is that you left your I-Brick on, and that's how I
could track you." Intrepid held up a pink I-Brick, and Katie snatched it.

"And finally
the last thing I'm going to say," he continued, "the Imagination
Nexus over thar" - he pointed towards Nexus City - "is about to be
stolen.  GET IN THA CAR."

## Chapter 49

After fifteen
seconds of fire extinguishers and advanced ventilation systems, the auditorium
in the New Maelstrom HQ To Replace The Old One That Was Destroyed 14 Or So
Years Ago was cleared of smoke and noise.
Typhonus Jr.'s eardrums were still ringing, but he had enough composure
to take advantage of the failure of unacceptable odds in the face of the coming
threat to all of minifigure kind.

Gesturing towards a
picture of a mustachioed Dr. Overbuild, Typhonus Jr. mocked, "This man
built these Figdroids as the key to defending that horrible distraction called 'Imagination'.  Then he had his assistant Sandy Studs play
Daddy to them while they waited for meeeeeeeeeeee to come along and make my
move.  The only problem is, after I made
my move of hiding some Maelstrom Infected Bricks in the Paradox Lab, they
didn't do anything except the take bait.
I don't care for Avant Gardens.
I'm taking Crux Prime.  NAOW.  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA." he monotoned.
"Get the Clone Army online and unleash them."

....

It is very unwise to
squish three people within a $25,000 two-seat sportscar.  Which is why the bumpy ride back to Nexus
City was very uncomfortable for all three occupants of Intrepid's Corvette.

"Why did you
bring a two-seater!" Katie hollered to be heard over 6000 RPMs.

"Because I
expected to bring back only one of you." Intrepid replied.  Jay and Katie stared at each other in shock.
"What, was it something I said?" Then his face turned pale as he
faced the reflection of something so horrible in the rear view mirror.

Very faintly heard
over the engine was the ominous chanting of the song "Oh I am so glad to
be home" or something like that.
"Trolololololololololololololololol" whirled the horrible something,
and Intrepid screamed.

"IT'S A
ROFLCOPTER!!!!!
RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

## Chapter 50

"I only said it
for drama," said Intrepid hastily before Jay opened the door so he and
Katie could jump out of the cramped cabin and resume escaping on foot.  Intrepid jabbed a red button on the dashboard
and the trunk popped open, (yes, the High*er* Performance C5 Z06 has a
trunk and the Normal C5 doesn't! Where's the logic?!) unveiling an array of
three oversized crayons aimed at the

ROFL:ROFL:LOL:ROFL:ROFL

^

L
        /                       [
] \

O===                           \

L        \                      ]

I
   I

-----------------------/

"Futile is
resistance," a voice blared over a loudspeaker from the ROFLCOPTER.
"Lower your boarding and prepare to be shielded."

"Stop trying to
sound cool, 'cuz you're NOT!" Intrepid cheered, and punched the red button
again.  Two of the oversized crayons
(which were actually missiles in disguise) shot out of the trunk and streaked
towards the ROFLCOPTER.  Before its AI
Pilot could run an evasion code, the ROFLCOPTER was effectively grounded.

The third oversized
crayon's launch mechanism failed and it exploded in the Corvette's trunk AKA
weapons bay, which knowing Intrepid Fusion Eclipse it probably included more
lethal weapons of mass destruction within its walls....

....

The combined
explosion of cannon shells, cluster bombs, rockets, parachute mines, homing
missiles, particle beams, tesla coils, and severely underpowered atom bombs
resulted in Intrepid, Jay, and Katie being blown out of the flaming wreckage of
twisted fibreglass and alluminum all the way to the highest most floor of Nexus
Tower in Nexus City.

Intrepid smashed on
impact.

"Grrrr, I lost
hundreds of coins." Intrepid grumbled as he rebuilt, scrambling around to
collect some coins that had appeared out of nowhere.

"Forget it,
LOOK!" screamed Katie, pointing out the window at a massive army that will
be revealed in Chapter 51.

## Chapter 51

Hundreds upon
thousands of Maelstrom Monsters of every type flooded the ground two hundred
floors below where Jay, Katie, and Intrepid stood.  And two hundred floors up from where the
Maelstrom Monsters were was a fleet of about ten ROFLCOPTERS, all blaring out
of their loudspeakers the Trololo song.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yoyoyoyo,
yoyoyoooooyooooooooyoooyoo.
Hohohohohohooooooooo, yoyoyo, yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo!"

"Quickbuilds!" Intrepid screeched, and dove towards a pile of
jumping bricks.  All across the floor
were several piles of jumping bricks.
Jay and Katie quickly started building them, and soon an array of
powerful looking rocket launchers littered their floor.

The rocket launchers
swiveled towards the windows which also opened up automaticaly, and homing
missiles shot out of the tower and straight into each and every ROFLCOPTER,
effectively obliterating them.

However, not
effectively obliterated were two silhouetted figures who managed to bail out of
the exploding ROFLCOPTERS and launch a grappling hook through the open window.  And then be it on purpose or by mistake, no
one will ever know why the grappling hook grabbed onto Intrepid and pulled him
out the window into open-air, 3000 feet above the surface of Crux Prime so far
below....

For ten seconds, Jay
and Katie stared silently, shocked, at the spot where their mentor, guide, and
only friend in a suddenly changed world had stood only moments before.  Then two pairs of hands suddenly appeared
over the edge of the building, and with a few fluid motions, le Maelstrom Clones
of Jay and Katie stood before them.

Who then made a mad
rush for the center of the floor, which housed a huge glass tube spanning the
basement all the way up to the 200th floor.
The glass tube in turn housed the most valuable of valuables.

The Imagination Nexus.

LE DUN DUN DUN.

## Chapter 52

Quick to respond,
Katie dove across the floor, grabbing the legs of her Maelstrom clone and
tackling it. "Get the other one, slowpoke!" she said through her
teeth, and Jay the slowpoke took off after the runaway
Maelstromcopycatdroid.  The one thing Mr.
Darkitect Jr. Guy had left out in replicating the figdroid platform was
speed....

The clones were
agile and fluid in motion, yes, but they had no straight-line speed at all.

Within but a few
seconds Jay was at his clone's heels, and was just about to grab its neck and
put on the brakes when it darted to the side.
Jay managed to grab its shoulder, but he was still throw off balance and
began to slide across the floor....

....towards the rapidly being-approached glass windows
surrounding the Imagination Nexus.  The
service robots that took care of Nexus Tower's appearance and well-being had
just polished the tiled floor the night before, so it was especially slippery.

A red light flashed
in the edge of Jay's vision, warning him that he was exceeding the 'normal' max
speed of, like, 60 miles per hour?
Instead of slowing down, Jay's speed was increasing.  This was going to be very pretty.

Like bullets, Jay
and Maelstromcopycatdroid smashed through the glass (pretty glass shards flew
all over the place) and began the long straight-line tumble through 200 stories
of gaseous.... Imagination.

Its sole purpose
being to destroy, damage, infect, or assimilate its surroundings to the service
of Master Darkitect, purple lightning began charging around the Jay clone's
fingertips.  Despite his rapidly
increasing velocity towards the very dark basement of Nexus Tower, Jay had the
sense to grab the clone's hands and absorb the incoming lightning burst,
momentarily saving the Nexus from doom.
He then punched the clone in the face, ripping off artificial plastic
skin and exposing the cheap Maelstrom-engineered circuitry that made up the
clone's logic center.

Then the Jay clone
counterattacked.

## Chapter 53

Being a Figdroid, Jay didn't feel any pain from the clone's
punch to his chest.  He was never really
a fighter, always the calmer one, with Katie being the "ZOMG IMAH GET
YOU" type of person.

He was doing alright though.

He just barely caught the clone's next punch in his hands
before it reached his face, but a kick sent him into the far side of the glass
tube.  And his inertia sent him flying
through the glass again into a room full of shocked minifigures who had been
watching their descent.

Jay stumbled to his feet, but was pulled down again by his
clone, who was grasping his ankles.  The
familiar purple lightning was back, and Jay quickly smashed his foot onto the
clone's hand, stopping the lightning from flying anywhere where it could cause
more damage.  He was a little slow
though, because he felt an electric shock charge through his foot, and for the
second before reserve power kicked in, he lost all control of his right leg.

So he kicked out with his left leg.

He felt his foot connect with the clone's head.

And it disconnected from its body.

The moment it happened, the clone vaporized.

Everyone around the room wore the same jaw-dropped-wide-eyed
collective look.  Jay managed to pull
himself to his feet and called, "Nothing to see here, move along!"
before darting into an elevator that was just opening.  He could only hope Katie was doing alright-

"Sup bro." Katie said, and Jay would have jumped
30 feet into the air if there wasn't a roof in the elevator.  Bump.

Jay landed, stumbled, and collapsed on the floor.
"Don't do that," he complained.
He eyed the scuff marks all over her shirt. "You don't look very
good."

Katie grabbed his arm and hauled him up to face the mirror
at the back of the elevator. "Look at yourself first," she
retorted.  Jay whinced at the sight of
his, well, *lack of* a face.  A lot
of his face was just circuitry....

"Where is this elevator going anyway?" he asked,
and as if in answer the doors swung open.

## Chapter 54

The second Jay and
Katie stepped into the basement, the elevator doors behind them slammed shut,
and the elevator itself rocketed to some other floor far away.

The elevator had
opened up to a dark and dank basement that wasn't very well maintained.  Like the basement at the Paradox Lab, there
were random parts strewed around the room on steel tables, but unlike the
former, they didn't appear to be mech parts.
They were something else, but Jay and Katie couldn't place it, because
their thoughts were primarily on the feeling of forebodement and doom that came
with entering this room.

"Welcome,"
a creepy voice said. "To the end!"

Brandishing a scary
looking sword, Darkitect Jr. stepped out from the shadows.  He spun the sword around in front of him,
each swish accompanied by a whooshing sound as it cut through the air.  His movements didn't stop upon leaving the
shadows, he was walking straight for where Jay and Katie stood.

The two Figdroids
gave each other a brief glance that said 'Stall him'.  "By end," Jay started, "you
mean *our* end?"

Darkitect Jr. paused
walking, and answered, "I thought you would have figured that out by
yourselves." He smirked, and slashed his sword into a table next to
him.  The sword cut right through it,
steel and all. "Yes, I do mean your end, and I intend to bring it to
you." He continued walking.

"That's not
fair." Katie protested. "You have an overpowered sword."

Jr. paused again,
and his expression turned into a frown. "I find it justified, there *are*
two of you."

"Yeah,"
Katie continued, "but you've got your equally overpowered lightning powers
or whatever they're called."

"True."
Darkitect Jr. lowered his sword and scratched at an imaginary beard at his
chin.  Whether he was feinting
nonconcentration or not, Jay and Katie instanty charged towards his cloaked
form and rammed him.

It was probably
legitimate, because he ended up on the floor, his sword clattering to the
ground some yards away.

## *Chapter 55*

It didn't take two
kicks to send Jay and Katie flying off Darky, (I'm going to call him that for
now) knocking down several tables, and into the elevator shaft doors, denting
them.  It took one.

With surprising
agility and speed, Darky was up on his feet with the sword in his hands.
"Nice try," he cackled, aiming it at the metal behind them.

Jay and Katie dove
behind an overturned table each as lightning shot out of Darky's sword,
obliterating the doors to the elevator shaft and a huge portion of the room
around it.  To their surprise, another room
was visible through the hole in the floor.

A room full of
grotesque looking Stromlings.  But
instead of glowing purple, they glowed red.
They were inside stasis tubes, though.

Even Darky looked
sickened at the sight of them.

Taking this momentary
distraction, Jay and Katie jumped up from over their tables and landed on Darky
again.  The sword fell from his hands and
landed in Katie's, who proceeded to take a swipe at him.

There was a loud
explosion, from which Jay, Katie, and Darkitect Jr. emerged battered, charred,
but not majorly hurt.  Except Darky was
missing an arm.

At the place of his
left shoulder were several wires and a blackened metal joint.  With a gasp, Jay and Katie looked at Darky,
then at each other, and then back. "You're a Figdroid too!" Jay
exclaimed.

"No,"
Darkitect Jr. spat. "'Figdroid' is the name used for the Nexus Force
project 14 years ago.  I'm earlier than
that."

"Then what *are*
you really?" Katie pressed, picking up the sword and aiming it at Darky's chest.
"We're not done with you."

At this, Darkitect
Jr. started laughing.  First subtly, then
louder, and finally an all out maniacal crazy laugh.  When it finished five minutes later, he said
to a very impatient Jay and Katie, "The Nexus Force is but a band of
thieves.  I truly am Maelstrom, a project
of the Darkitect himself.  The Nexus
Force stole my schematics and built two clone weapons to stop me.  You."

## Chapter 56

"We know
that," Katie snapped.

Darky Jr. raised his
eyesbrows. "But how much do you *really* know?" It was pretty
obvious by Katie's and Jay's facial expressions that they were interested.  They were listening. "How do you plan on
stopping me?" he challenged. "If you cut me apart, I'll still be
alive.  As you might have realized already,
you and me alike are built to be invincible."

With his right hand,
he patted his chest. "Solid carbon fiber fused with neutronium.  Invicible to nuclear explosoins." He
pointed at Jay, "Your face too, unless the Nexus Force has decided to go
the inexpensive route, and use cheaper materials for building you."

"So you're
telling us," Katie continued, "you're invulnerable to all means of
weaponry, conventional and unconventional.
And there's a possibility that Jay and I aren't."

"Oh no, it's
not just that." Darky Jr. grinned. "Which one of you is supposed to
be 'older'?"

"Me." Jay
said.

Darky's grin
widened. "There you have it.  In the
period of us talking, you've given me enough time to analyze the materials used
in your interior frames." He pointed at Jay, "You, Jay, are like
me.  Well, physically." He pointed
at Katei, "You on the other hand, are built out of lighter, less durable
materials.  Which means-"

Lightning started to
brew around Darky's fingertips, which were still aimed at Katie. "-you're
not invincible, and I could destroy you right now."

It would have been
Jay's insticts to dive in front of his sister and protect her from the
lightning, but his legs were glued to the ground shock.  Katie however seemed unfazed. "So I'm
lighter?"

"Yep."

"Good."

In the split second
that followed, Katie jumped into the air, bounced off the cieling, and kicked
Darkitect Jr. backwards.  A split second
later, Jay's legs became unstuck, but his nerves were still messed up, so he
ended up careening towards Darky and knocking him through the hole in the
ground into the room below.

And the Stromlings
awoke.

## Chapter 57

The stasis tubes
holding the green Stromlings automatically opened when they felt the impact of
Darkitect Jr. on the floor in their midst, and they blew open, the foggy vapor
inside them billowing out.  Out of the
fog came the Stromlings, who in every which way just seemed *wrong*.

The obvious wrong
was that they were green.  The next wrong
was that they walked extremely slowly and made extremely long, slow, growling
sounds.  And the parts of them that were
green was really just green slime, which dripped off of them with every step.

Jay's mouth dropped
open, and Katie said, "Zombie Stromlings!"

Then, with immense
speed and ability, they pounced on Darky Jr.
The sound of his screams mixed with the long, mournful noises of the
Stromlings was absolutely horrible, and Jay and Katie could do nothing to keep
it out of their ears.

A flash of purple
lightning and an explosion later, and suddenly the sounds of Stromlings
dissipated.  Jay opened one eye, and
there, standing in the middle of the room below, was Darkitect Jr. covered in
the green slime, with the vapor clouds around him, smirking at Jay and Katie
above. "Nice try," he jeered. "You think a little Nexus Force
experiment could stop me?"

"Nope."
Jay and Katie said together, their composure regained.

"So that was
all just stalling of time?" Darkitect Jr. said, before laughing
maniacally. "That's all you can do, waste time?"

"Actually," Jay corrected him, eyeing the vapor clouds that
was still closing in around Darkitect Jr., "I think you might want to
know, but you're the one wasting time."

"You're doing
it right now," Katie quipped.

Darkitect Jr.'s brow
furrowed in thought, and the vapor continued to inch closer. "A little
green slime wont hurt me, what the brick are you talking abou-"

With that last
sentence, he wasted the last little bit of time he had left.  The vapor, which was water vapor, made
contact with his exposed arm circuitry and Darkitect Jr. shorted out.

## Chapter 58

The streets of Nimbus Grove never seemed so inviting.  Sitting in the backseat of a '12 Challenger
392 driven by Intrepid Fusion Eclipse, Jay sighed.  He turned away from the window and grinned at
his sister.  In only a few moments, they
would be home.

Home.  Ever since he
and Katie had been taken under Leek Works' wing and lead the front line of the
war against the Maelstrom Uprising, he hadn't given home a second thought.  Or even his dad.  He couldn't help but wonder how the reunion
would go.  He knew Katie's thoughts were
pretty much of the same context as his.

When the Challenger screeched to a screechy halt in front of
the familiar brickwork house - and Intrepid cursed the brakes for squealing - a
glance out the side window confirmed Jay's hopes.

This reunion wasn't just a happy reunion.  It was a chance for answers.

Intrepid unlocked the doors and his passengers tumbled
out.  Standing in the front lawn was
their dad, some familiar looking guy with brown hair, and another familiar
looking guy.

It didn't take a second for Katie to speed over to Sandy
Studs - the father - and embrace him in a hug.
Jay held back, and found himself absentmindly shaking Dr. Albert
Overbuild's - the another familiar looking guy - hand.  He was more focused on the other guy, the
familiar looking guy with brown hair.

"If I may introduce myself, Jay," he said,
extending his own hand. "I am Fig, the second Figdroid Prototype and
advisor to the Nexus Force leaders.  You
could say I'm your older brother."

"Nice to meet you," Jay said, recalling how he was
familiar.  They had seen him at the
Paradox Museum, when they had been spying on the faction leaders.  He had been with them.  One more loose end tied, another loose end
formed. "Wait, *second*?"

Dr. Overbuild sighed. "You know, the young man who
claimed himself the new Darkitect?
Junior?"

Jay stiffened. "I'm listening."

"He was Figdroid Prototype #1, but he wasn't created by
the Nexus Force, but by Baron Typhonus himself."

## Chapter 59

Surprising himself with staying cool and not faltering, Jay
said slowly, "So what you're telling me, I.... all of us," he waved
his arm around to include Fig and Katie, who was now watching them with silent
intentness, "are 'copied' from the Maelstrom?"

"In some ways," Dr. Overbuild answered, "but
not all.  No offense to Fig, but there is
one thing he lacks that we really needed to 'borrow' if you were to be true to
your potential.  It was your
Imagination."

Jay couldn't help but feel flabbergasted, and couldn't
formulate a reply.  Katie came to his
rescue with two syllables. "Say what?" she said to the doctor.
"Repeat, please."

"When the weapon of Darkitect Junior was created, the
logic center that Baron Typhonus personally installed went against our
knowledge of Maelstrom logic, no pun intended." Overbuild somewhat
explained. "It gave him the power of a natural minifigure's mind, and all
of the Imagination with it." At Jay's and Katie's still perplexed
expressions, Overbuild said, "Here's a hint, Imagination is what powers
the power of emotion, again no pun intended."

"Oh...." Jay said. "Fig lacks emotion?"

Fig nodded. "Indeed, I do not have the particular
weakness of emotion, weaklings."

"Hey!" Katie exclaimed, in mock offense.

"It was an attempt at a joke," Fig defended
himself, turning to Katie. "I am not devoid of being able to sense
emotion."

"Yeah I know, me too, somewhat." Katie said.

"Well, I just wanted to clear that up." Overbuild
concluded. "Not even the mastermind behind the Maelstrom is without some
form of Imaginative thinking.  When all
is said and done, we still have a bit of Baron Typhonus to thank for helping to
bring you wonderful two into the Universe." He stared at Jay and Katie
each for a few long seconds. "And now it is time for us all to go
home."

## Epilogue

It was weird, Jay thought the next morning, how easy it was
to return to 'normal' life.  Intrepid Fusion
Eclipse, Grand Masterly Shadow, Elite Distant Tofu, all of their friends, Sandy
Studs too, they had done a good job at maintaing his and Katie's anonymity
throughout it all, so well that they were truly able to just pick up where they
left off and get back to living the life they had prior to this adventure.

Their only public appearance had been to some wide eyed
tourists and staff workers at Nexus Tower.
Otherwise, they were truly out of the public eye.

If anything thing had changed though, Jay had been promoted
from bicycle mail man to ATV mail man.
As he gunned the 'well muffled' engine of a hot pink - Katie's fault -
Mini four wheeler up a hill in the early dawn neighborhood of Nimbus Grove, a
wave of nostalgia washed over him, heating up his heart.  He felt tears well  up in his eyes, everything was just so
'normal', and he had everyone to thank for it.

It.  Oh, it just felt
so great to be back home.

*The End*.