Chronicles of the Nexian Guard: Containment Breach: Chronicles of the Nexian Guard, #1

By Lancelot Chronicler

Eighty five years ago a multiverse called the Nexus was ravaged by war. A war that threatened to not only destroy itself, but consume every realm beyond it should the evil within escape.

The Nexus contained an avatar of Balance, a child by the name of Kraner. He summoned the most powerful alternate versions of himself scattered throughout the multiverse with the help of a Grand Enchanter who had learned the secrets of temporal manipulation. The Enchanter, Silver Arcanus Quillrean, tore a rift in the paths of time so that all of the beings needed for this mission would exist at the same time and space, creating a group of Guardians to combat the threat ahead.

All nine Guardians were summoned to the Eternal Nexus. All of them powerful and immensely prepared for the war at hand, and it took them all to merely shatter the great demon known as Kanj'ranesh. With his fragmented essence scattered throughout the multiverse, and his armies of Raunsekea and Nal'resh sent scuttling to the shadows, the Nexian Guard thought their fight was finally over.

Present day, a Raunsekea mother-ship was spotted obliterating an entire planet. Nal'resh soldiers were reactivated and entire colonies of survivors from the war were culled, their planets scavenged for resources and left as naught but husks of their once beautiful state.

The slumbering agents of the Nexian Guard once again were called to arms, and their search began.

Our story begins on a planet like many others that had been brought to the Guard's attention. A planet headed down the path of destruction as it was just beginning to take many other universes' with it. The whispers of Kanj'ranesh are becoming louder every day, but no one knows who or what is uttering that cursed name...

The Eternal Nexus, the Barren Utopia, is once again called to arms.

"Deoh'Cohrrahss, rrno eeohzeze zekaess ahnoshkze. Balance, no matter the cost."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lancelot Chronicler
• Release date: Apr 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386908227

Book preview

~ Prologue ~

Standing at the helm of his personal ship, the Envoy's Reprise, Gray folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes as the ship grazed the outer atmosphere of the planet Haeldon. His ship resembled a pyramid that had been cut from one corner clear across to the other and then laid down on its side, more scalene in shape.

Gray himself stood over nine feet tall. He had dirty blonde hair that was tied into a ponytail which hung between his shoulder blades, and he was dressed in a black suit and tie. He certainly looked ready for negotiations on the outside. However, his crew could tell from the way a soft emerald glow flickered in an unpredictable manner under his sleeves, that his mind was running a mile a micro-second. Something wasn't right, but he was staying quiet to keep the crew calm. Still the crew bustled about and were getting ready to brace for re-entry above Haeldon. The very Will of the world they were about to land on pressed against his own aura, and it felt tainted.

Be prepared for anything, Gray called out to the crew over the intercom, I have high hopes that these people might actually accept our help. But the planet feels tense and afraid, so eyes sharp!

As the ship began its descent several escort planes glided up on either side, in front and behind it. They had never done anything so elaborate before, always just guiding them in by radio and helicopters positioned at the air base for a point of reference. Gray clicked his tongue and tapped the arm of his chair,

All stations stay on high alert, the game has changed.

The entire crew did not like the tone their Captain's voice held, he wasn't an overly cautious man on missions like these. Such concern had everyone scrambling to their proper stations and into position. The ship angled toward the ground, the soft hum and pulse of the engines lowering to near inaudible levels as the landing gear deployed and the ship touched down. Gray pursed his lips and walked around his chair, down the steps and toward the exit. No words were needed between him and his second in command, when Gray went silent, they knew what to do. Despite his apprehension and the feeling that the very planet was revolting against his presence, when the hanger doors opened he gave the waiting delegates a wide smile and an open armed greeting.

Gentlemen! It's good to see you all again, I apologize for our tardiness. A bit of cosmic turbulence coming around the third planet from the sun, he called out with a hearty chuckle while he strode down the ramp. His attempt at diffusing the situation with comedy didn't seem to soften the expressions of the men on the ground, if anything they tensed further still and it filled the air with a sense of dread.

Guardian. It is... a pleasure to see you as well, a gruff looking military man called back as Gray finished descending the ramp. Both sides of his uniform were normally laced with glimmering medals and pins, a well decorated war hero Gray had met on many occasions before and, from what Gray could tell, a trustworthy man. With the lack of metal pins on his uniform, however, it was becoming more and more apparent something was amiss.

Gray glanced over to his entourage, a crew of six trainees who were mentoring under him to become the first wave of delegates and envoys for the Nexian Guard itself. All of them were very nervous, but Gray had trained them to hold an air of confidence and poise that still held true on the surface. Dressed in a uniform chosen for its non-threatening colors and professional design, they all wore identical apparel. A soft blue outfit trimmed in silver on the shoulders, cuffs and collars.

Lots of commotion in the sky today. Someone make a threat against the summit, General? He questioned with a coy grin, trying to play it off as little more than a joke, but also trying to fish for information as to why so many planes were now circling the runway. The General, pursing his lips, made no attempt to answer his question and instead looked even more tense with each passing second. Noticing this, Gray motioned for one of his trainees to come forward with the information they had brought as a peace offering. The trainee closest to his left came forward with a small data pad and held it out to Gray, who took it with a nod and held it up to the General with a smile. The screen flickered to life and began to stream a list of information that detailed out schematics for several new devices.

As promised, this is the schematic for the new power generation unit we discussed in our last meeting. Nac'el also installed an AI to help with anything that might not translate completely, be it raw minerals or simple terminology.

The General took the data pad, handed it off to a man in a lab coat who did a quick examination, nodded, and stepped back. Abruptly the military personnel around them moved in and grabbed Gray's trainees, tying their wrists behind their backs while Gray's expression changed from lighthearted to dead serious.

General, I'm not sure what you think you're doing, but I sincerely hope you have a very good explanation... Gray said, voice lowering and eyes narrowing. Being that Gray wasn't exactly human his eyes contained multiple independently moving pupils, known as compound pupils, within each iris. Each were able to dilate or contract upon command, and could be evenly or oddly spaced apart. Now, however, all were trained forward in such a manner that gave him a thick, cats-eye like appearance that caused the General to falter in his position. General, you'd best tell your men to release my students or I'm going to have to take this as an act of aggression.

He could hear the men behind him muttering between each other, hearing the clink and tinkle of metal hoops and clasps as the soldiers began to tremble. Gray was becoming angry. His Will starting to manifest outside his body in such a way that everyone around him could feel the sheer pressure from it all.

The area went deathly silent, no one wanted to make the first move, but what Gray couldn't figure out is where these people got the notion to DO such a thing. It would not end well for them, they had to know that. So why? Searching the crowd for an answer, his pupils separated so he could take in more at once, Gray caught sight of a communications device hanging off the General's belt that most certainly did not belong to this planet. Once again his eyes narrowed, pupils amalgamated together, and he closed the gap between him and the General before snatching the small oval device off his belt with fury in his eyes.

Why the hell do you have Raunsekea technology?! Gray snapped, putting his face mere inches from the other man. He could see the sweat beading on his face, his body beginning to tremble as he struggled with the words. Before he spoke, a bone chilling, hair raising screech pierced the air. Akin to shattered glass being dragged down a chalk board it broke the eerie silence and pulled Gray's attention toward the source of the sound.

A woman dressed in full silver and crimson plate armour stomped her way through the crowd. Everyone moved out of her way as fast as they could to avoid contacting the fourteen foot tall, raven haired monstrosity of a person. And when she spoke, they moved back further still.

General, you waste time. Kill the others and subdue the Guardian if you wish this alliance to proceed! Do not make me wait, he can't possibly harm me. Her voice boomed over the area as though she were using an amplification device of some kind, those icy blue eyes piercing the very hearts of the men she addressed. The General nodded to the soldiers. Gray had been using a small hand motion to silently signal his assistants while the woman held the soldiers gaze, and when they went to move the six trainees all of them spun on the spot and performed a few deft, quick hand to hand combat maneuvers to knock the trained soldiers clean out.

All at once the area broke out into gunfire and people shouting commands. The trainees produced shields and energy rifles from seemingly nowhere and were picking off the soldiers one by one. Their own weaponry wasn't designed to kill, but did certainly drop a full platoon of trained soldiers like rocks in a river. The men groaned and nursed the areas where they had been shot as they keeled over in front of the trainees. As combat progressed it became apparent that they all had eyes the same as Gray's, with multiple pupils and irises of a similar colour.

Gray hadn't moved from his position, but the General stood much farther away from where he had been. Gray and the massive woman were locked in a staring contest as the soldiers around them groaned and twitched from the energy blasts.

Last chance, General Tran. Just tell me you didn't willingly make a bargain with this... beast. I don't CARE if you lie through your teeth, just TELL ME you did NOT strike a deal with the damn Raunsekea!

His words shook the General from his fearful state, but he still did not speak right away. He looked to the woman, who took a momentary reprise from the eye-lock she was engaged in with Gray, and that was all it took. In the split second she looked away, Gray surged forward and brought his leg into a sweep kick that took the legs out from under her, launched upward in a tight uppercut that caught her in the solar plexus, and hurtled her skyward.

I just got this suit too. He mumbled under his breath. The glow that had once pulsed and flickered under his sleeve grew bright enough that it showed through the fabric. Just quickly before an eruption of quill-like spikes tore the whole forearm of each sleeve to ribbons, followed by the neon emerald quills morphing into a pair of elegant, crescent shaped blades that were easily as long as Gray was tall. The woman spluttered and coughed as she flew, landing in an ungraceful heap and spitting blood. She staggered to her feet and glared daggers at the now sleeveless, ripped suit wearing Guardian, who now wielded blades large enough to cut her clean in half.

GENERAL, THE TEAR! She coughed out, holding her hand out toward the General who seemed to have finally composed himself. He reached into his pocket and produced a palm sized stone, the surface shimmering with the same intense ice blue that the large woman held in her eyes. In the same movement he threw it over to her.

It was as if time slowed for Gray - that was a Tear of the Gods, as the Raunsekea called them. A stone they used to become the monstrosity that plagued the multiverse. With his left hand he reached to his hip to grab his communicator. With his right he aimed the blade at the woman and the stone, and launched it with a mighty explosion of crackling emerald energy. The blade soared through the air, unhindered by gravity or wind, and struck both her and the stone as she reached for the Tear. The impact threw them both dozens of feet away and straight into a shack, used for the runway attendants to avoid some of the gusting winds from engines.

The blade had been touching the ground at the very tip of the one side, and as such left a large line of upturned pavement and dirt arching with residual energy from the blade. Even the now demolished shack sparked and crackled with energy. But the color quickly changed. The shack was no longer rubble and dust with an emerald glow, but had quickly turned into white hot arcs of lightning that struck several nearby planes and tore their advanced hulls to ribbons. Arcane energy, from the Tear.

Gray pressed several buttons on his communicator and his ship's engines powered back up, followed by his trainees making a straight dash back up the hanger ramp. As they did this, the rubble around the downed woman erupted outward and up into the sky. A creature towering easily twenty feet at the head grabbed a massive chunk of stone and launched it at the ship. The last trainee in the line wasn't fast enough, his head was taken clean off his shoulders from the sheer force and size of the rubble. The body hit the hanger floor with a thump.

Dead before he even reached the ground.

The others bolted inside while the dust settled, save for one that dared to look back, and the sight beyond the hanger was something straight out of her nightmares. Standing in the crater where the woman landed was a twenty foot tall, wraith-like shark creature with two eyes on either side of its angular face, looming in the distance like a grim reaper. A tail lashed out behind it. Skin that wasn't covered by plate armor appeared smooth and grey, and in the very centre of its forehead was the Tear that the General had thrown to her. The beast opened its massive mouth, saliva dripped between rows of jagged teeth, and it reproduced the same horrid screech as before. This time with such an intensity that the trainees all found themselves falling to their knees in fear.

This was a Raunsekea. The thing the Guardians fought endlessly against, but one of trillions and trillions of the damn things. She could not believe one was here. Right now! The Envoy's Reprise was powering up before Gray had even won, as if he was going to need a speedy escape... But that meant-!

She was snapped out of her thoughts when Gray surged forward and dodged the first two swipes. As the beast spun and swept its tail along the ground it grabbed Gray around the middle and launched him across the runway. Gray halted his movement by slamming his blades into the ground to use as an anchor. There was clearly blood trickling down his face and his suit was torn in several places. A piece of rebar from under the concrete had snapped off and driven through his side, narrowly missing his internal organs.

Gray grimaced and yanked the rebar out of his side, the wound hissed and sealed over with a silver mesh that stopped the bleeding and pulled his skin back together. With his wound taken care of for the most part he wiped the blood from his eyes and ran full tilt toward the Raunsekea, launching blade after blade at the beast. Each was just as ineffective as the last. Every wound made undone by a phenomenon within the Raunsekea themselves. A temporal rift that the trainees had been warned about, one that literally rewound time at the point of impact. Still that did not stop Gray from unleashing a flurry of blades at the beast!

The trainee was sure she was about to watch a Guardian die. The thing was laughing at his attempts to damage it. As Gray came closer and closer, several rings of arcane energy formed around his arms and legs, the crimson magic a dead give away as to whom was casting it. Over the intercom she caught a conversation, between Gray and Silver Arcanus Quillrean, but the words that stood out the most was the gruff old mages voice when he called out,

Breaker 4, un-BIND!

The arcane circles shattered like glass upon pavement and Gray's blades no longer held their simple yet elegant crescent shape. While still crescent design, they looked like partially carved fires that began above his head and traveled toward the ground. And that was when the battle turned.

Each new blade launched caused the laughter to dissipate, until the beast was beginning to physically show strain! Blade after blade, the wounds recovered, but now it struggled to stand. She had heard of this technique before, it was known as an Ultra Numb. A unique ability where Gray didn't attack the body, but the Will of his opponent, making them numb and unable to summon the will to fight. But still the beast had taken no physical damage, they needed a temporal rift or a time-grenade or...

Once again her thoughts were interrupted, but not by Gray. This time, someone pushed past her. She glanced to the side, emerald scales and a tail, that ended in a well kept floof, of fur swished behind an anthropomorphic dragon as he passed. Another Guardian, one she had no idea was even aboard the Envoy's Reprise. Nac'el, a Merge Capacitor.

Calculating for drift, Gray you are clear after every third shot to engage, I repeat, the fourth is yours. The bipedal dragon called into a small headset attached to his left ear. Dressed in only casual cargo style shorts and a pair of rectangular glasses that were illuminated with a screen, the male carried a long rifle in his hands. It wasn't very large. The barrel was lined with a few luminescent sections that pulsed and glowed brighter as Nac'el loaded a magazine into the rifle and pulled the hammer back. That was when it got loud.

Three shots fired off in rapid succession, rocking the area with sonic shock-waves that blew debris, and even the trainee watching, back and away from the mad scientist. Each shot collided with the Raunsekea and the very air around it rippled, distorted, and seemed to shatter as the energy passed over it. As arranged, every third shot was followed by Gray landing either a full blade or fist into the Raunsekea's body. Black blood spilled freely from the wounds created, the Guardians working in perfect synchronization with each other. No words required.

The Raunsekea tried to defend itself with a pair of protruding bone blades from its elbows, but Nac'el snipped them clean off the beast before it even had a chance to use them. Its arms were already raised however, and as Gray's blades came down, the beast's arms were cut cleanly off. Howling in pain, screeching and reeling back in an attempt to defend itself, the Raunsekea was steadily hacked apart until it only had a stump of a leg to stand on. Its temporal rift recharged once again, but this time before Nac'el could fire, Gray held up his hand to call for a halt to the attack. The Raunsekea had begun to laugh, albeit while choking on its own blood, but it was laughing nevertheless.

You'll... never stop this planet, Guardian. Our mother ship is less than two days away, run back to your 'Nexus' and cower like you always do... It stopped, hacking up blood and crumpled onto its side, gasping for air between words. You'll, all burn... hahh, it rasped. Gray snorted down at the beast and gave the signal to Nac'el. After another three shots he took the beast's head clean off with an arcing uppercut swing of his blades.

Gray spat at the ground to his left, clearing the blood from his mouth while he watched the corpse crumple. "Dormez bien, you monster." He mumbled with a huff.

Covered in nicks, cuts and a couple bruises that covered most of his side that had been impaled by rebar, Gray reached down and pried the stone out of the Raunsekea's forehead with a sickening squelch. As he made his way back to the ship he approached Nac'el and tossed the Tear to him,

Get that thing in lock up, she was no commander but that IS a commanders stone. This planet has been lying to us from day one and I, for one, want to see it burn. Nac'el scoffed and quickly followed behind Gray while the trainees who were still alive pulled their fallen comrade's body into the ship, he deserved a proper burial at the very least. The one trainee who had watched Nac'el and Gray battle the Raunsekea turned to follow the two Guardians.

Breaker four though, really Gray? Nac'el scoffed while he discharged the magazine from his rifle and pulled the spent shell from the chamber.

"Yes really, I HAD six apprentices with me today. One died before I even got off the ground. This place is lucky I didn't request seven, merde! Gray snapped back. He stopped and turned to face the sound of  footsteps behind him, the one who had watched the battle. His face was marked with a mix of anger and sorrow.  I am so, so sorry about your friend. This was supposed to be a trade of information and..." He trailed off. Nac'el placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.

It's not your fault, we stayed outside for too long, we knew the risks. But, Guardians... was that one of the great powerful Raunsekea? Is that why it took three of you you take it down? This was a great victory! ...Right? The trainee asked, her hopefulness faded rapidly as Nac'el and Gray looked to each other as much to say 'who gets to tell her?'.

Nac'el looked down at Gray's injuries and shook his head, motioning for him to head to medical.

I know the nanites stopped immediate damage but they need constant energy to really heal you, and you know that. Get down there and have the boy with the blue hat treat you, he's been hiding since the Raunsekea screamed. He said with a not so soft nudge to the man. It would be easier for Nac'el to disappoint the girl. After all, she wasn't his apprentice. What's your name? He asked, motioning for her to follow him to the armory lock up.

Saladre' Terran, Sir! She said with a bit of snap. Nac'el scoffed again and shoved the gun into a rack before examining the magazine. He turned that eerie, glowing glasses gaze toward her and frowned.

Saladre' what we fought there was a fake. A half-assed, joke of an ATTEMPT at recreating some of their moderately powerful soldiers. This was not a victory, this was scraping by with the skin of our asses intact. This 'war' is not in our favour, and by this point it's more of a slaughter than a war. He paused, looking at the next bullet in the