Holy shit I am late on this one…but it's extra long, so enjoy

Chapter 16: The Rebirth

[Nick's pov]

"Wide swipe!" I slash through another group of crawlers, continuing my search for Jack. Kyle sent out an S.O.S. about twenty minutes ago and hasn't sent out another one yet, I'm starting to get worried. I only have the location of Kyle when he sent out the S.O.S. and I have a sinking feeling that the worst may have happened to him. I keep running faster and faster, cutting down Tremors that try to get in my way. CRASH. What the hell was that? I would like to check that out, but I've got more important things to get to right now.

"Master Nick, I've located Kyle."

"Give me the zone code." There was a moment of silence, I stop and prepare the super jump.

"I got it, location is: 39, 82, 242."

"Thanks, I'll call you back when I can." I disconnected the call and super jumped to the location. Now that I have an awesome aerial view, I can see a large pack of ogres converging on a crater. I really don't care what's there, all I know is that that's where I'm going to land. The moment I make contact with the ground, I bash in one ogre's head with my fist and stab another through the heart. An ogre strikes the ground, trying to disorient my movement. I jump up and roundhouse kick the ogre in the face, bounce off the ground, and chop off his head. Another ogre brings up his club and tries to bring it down on top of me, but to no avail. I sidestep left and hit an ogre in his knees, breaking them. Random ogre number 632 falls to the ground in pain, crying out for help (that's what I'm assuming at least). I look behind me to see Jack about to get crushed by an armored ogre. I kick my senses into high gear and take off towards Jack, summoning my long sword and my power shield. When I get there, I knock the large metal club out of position and launch myself onto the ogre's head. The armored ogre stumbles back, most likely unsure how to get me off. I notice his hands coming down on top of me and jump down, turning to face the beast. I point my long sword at his right eye and throw my sword at it, hitting the mark perfectly. The armored giant screams out in pain and collapses on his back as I land back on the ground.

"Wha-" I turn to see Jack looking over at me, I hold out my hand to him.

"Guess who's back."

[Noire's pov]

"Not all of that power was yours, the energy level is at 173%!" I give a confused look.

"Is there something wrong with that?" The crystal begins to vibrate violently.

"If you overload the crystal, you'll cause a rift between your dimension and ours." Vinnie rips me away from the crystal. The Crystal unleashes a large beam of light, I hear civilians yelling and screaming outside.

"Oh no." We all rush outside to see that a large rift had opened right in the middle of the main street, those discussing crawlers leaping out of it. A tear rolls down my face, "What have I done?" Vinnie wraps his arms around me in an attempt to comfort me, his gesture is kind but I'm still upset.

"Relax, Noire, you aren't to blame for this." His calm and soothing voice manages to calm me down a little. "Feeling better?" I nod and transform.

"If we're going to fight these things, we need to evacuate the civilians." Vinnie and Kei nod and run out towards the citizens, funneling them away from the rift. I fly out and downward slash a crawler, the disgusting creature dissipating in a plume of smoke. I float in front of the rift, watching for any other crawlers to run through. Several crawlers jump at me, they must really have a death wish. I give them all a horizontal slash, the beasts falling lifelessly to my feet. "Ha! That was far to-" my gloating was cut off by a large pack if crawlers suddenly appearing in front of me, all of them clawing and scratching me. "You just don't know when to quit." I trigger my aura burst (Nick taught her that move), and blast them all away. "Lace Ribbon Dance." Dead and done, now to deal with that rift.

"GROAR!" A Cyclops burst through the rift, swinging wildly at me. I dodge a few swings, but get hit by a couple others.

"Finally, I get a challenge." I quickly fly up and give the Cyclops an overhead slash. The Cyclops, surprisingly, catches my sword and gut-punches me into a nearby wall. "Now you're really pissing me off." I go to counter the punch that he threw at me. The Cyclops' punch was much harder than expected, but I still overpowered it. Now with the upper hand, I rush forward and hit him hard with a left hook, uppercut, and then drop kicked him for good measure. I flew over and pick up my sword while the Ogre was stunned, satisfied that I had beaten the beast down. I walk back over to the Ogre and step on his chest, pinning him down. "You fight well," I reel back my sword, "but not well enough." I cut off his head, a single question floating in my mind. "Why the hell was that so difficult?" I had meant to ask that in my head, but I said it aloud. I hear a roar from behind me, and turn to see a horde of those crawlers pouring out of the rift. I prepare myself for a fight.

"Enemy lightning strike inbound." What was that? I look back to see, what might be, Mercury. There's lightning surrounding his body. A giant ball of electricity appears above his head, he throws it down onto the crawlers. After my vision clears, I see what looks like a giant knight emerge from the rift. I hit it with multiple attacks, but it doesn't seem to be phased by my attacks. I go in for a 'Lace Ribbon Dance' to at least knock him off his feet, but he just knocked me aside. "BLAKE!" Just then, who I'm assuming is Blake, drops in outta nowhere and bashes the knight on the head with an extremely oversized sledgehammer. The knight takes no damage, but the blow was hard enough to crack the helm and make him stagger backwards. Blake, at least that's who I'm assuming this guy is, slams the ground with the sledgehammer, ice spikes protruding from the ground and trapping the knight. Blake whistles and Vinnie comes bounding down the street, holding a spear. He leaps off the ground and lands on the side of a building, hopping of that one to another one. He continues doing this until he jumps up and is directly above the knight.

"Activate, Power Module!" Vinnie becomes engulfed by a green light, almost blinding me. When the light clears, a hulking suit of black and green armor stands in Vinnie's place. "Your armor is cracked, allow me to fix it for you." He takes the spear and launches it into the crack with extreme speed and precision, causing the knight to scream out in pain.

"Let's give this guy a horn." Blake holds up his sledgehammer, "Swap! Lightspeed!" A beam of white light streams down upon Blake's sledgehammer. When I can finally see what happened, his sledgehammer was turned into a battle axe that was glowing white and he had a white light flowing around the edge lines of his body. Blake's hair was now a little longer and light blue. His eyes were now a bright red, he reminds me of Blanc when she transforms. Blake jets up to the embedded spear and punches the thing right through his skull, I can see the tip of the spear sticking out the back of the knight's head. The knight falls on his back and dissipates into nothing. While in awe, I didn't notice the boys rush through the rift. I did notice that Neptune and the rest of the gang was now all here.

"What happened?"

"Are you hurt?"

"Where's Nick?"

"Should I find actual clothes to wear?" While Neptune's question was kinda random, I gave everybody else a summary of what happened.

"So, is Nick and the others over there?" Nepgear gestures to the rift, sounds of fighting emitting from it.

"Only one way to find out." I walk up to the rift and step into it.

[Nick's pov]

"That should be the last of 'em." I look around, just to be sure.

"Holy hell-*cough**cough* ACK!" Blake's axe dispels itself while Blake collapses to the ground, coughing up blood. Vinnie, still in his super form, rushes to Blake's side.

"Blake!" Vinnie picks up Blake and sits him upright against his own body, searching for the cause of his bleeding.

"Somebody call Mike." I yell back at the other three who aren't doing anything.

"Already doing that, master Nick." Thank Christ that Kyle exist.

"Mercury, go get Max and his workers to take care of the rift." Mercury gives a mocking salute and runs off, I'm going to kill that jackass one day.

"What happened here?" I turn back to see Noire and company, all looking dumbfounded by the sight before them. I notice Noire giving me a strange look.

"What? Is there something on my face?" I check myself. Nope, nothing physically weird.

"Your hair is white." I check myself again, huh, it is white. Guess I didn't deactivate my iron skin. I return to my base form, the large amount of mana I used catching up to me. I kneel down, clutching my side. Noire begins to take out a health potion, but I wave her off.

"I just used too much mana, I'll be fine." A blue summoning circle appears below us, I flinch thinking it was an enemy for a second.

"Finally." Mike arises from the center of the circle, his eyes glowing a deep blue. The circle disappears and Mike rushes to Blake's side. "Drink this." Mike pulls out a blue potion and hands it over to Blake, who chugs the whole thing down without hesitation.

"Thanks." Blake takes a look around. "Hey, those beast were part of the Kingsmen." He picks up one of the patches that one of the beast had on and holds it up for us all to see, the mark of the king standing out among them all.

"Does that mean we need a rebirth already?" Kyle ask, pulling out his phone.

I look at the patch, my answer already chosen. "We need a rebirth, but we need to do it on both sides of the rift." I point at Blake. "Blake, you and I will set up a rebirth on their side." I point back to Noire and the others. "Vinnie and Mercury will set one up on this side." I was about to head back when Noire stopped me.

"Hold it, what is a rebirth." I look at her a smirk on my face.

"You'll see." Blake and the ladies walk with me to a cave, where some of the kingsmen were waiting for us. Blake and I dispose of the beast easily, much to our relief.

When we finally get to the rebirth pool, the stone is sitting there in the center; It's almost like it's been expecting us. The girls marvel at their surroundings. "Wow, I'm going to have to remember this place." Noire mumbles to herself, well it's too bad that she won't.

"Let's move." Blake steps in, the water only moving up to his waist, I quickly follow suit. On the opposite side of the pool I see a mirage of Vinnie and Mercury walking up to the stone, smiling once they see us. The four of us touch the stone and close our eyes.

"Rebirth."

RTR: The Rebirth

Nick wakes up with little remembrance of what had happened the night before, but the woman sleeping next to him told him all he wanted to know. He gets up and looks around the room, taking note that it isn't his own. "Goddammit." He thought, his long night of drinking had ended in another one night stand…again. He put his clothes back on and walked out the hotel room, heading back to his actual house. As he continued walking, his thoughts kept trying to figure out what had led up to him dropping into the club for a fun night; But he couldn't go farther back than when he and his friends went out to the club. Nick eventually gave up on trying to remember and instead, thought up of an excuse for his absence this morning to Kyle. When he stepped into the house, Jack gave him a hug "He was probably worried." Nick thinks to himself, not paying enough attention to notice Kyle who is currently stomping his way over to the pair.

"Master Nick." Kyle says, sending a shiver down Nick's spine. While the softness of his voice seemed to be out of a genuine worry, Nick knew better.

Nick turns his attention to Kyle, who was clutching a document of some kind in his hand, and said "Well damn, good to see you too." He smirked as he thought he had managed to slide past the usual question of his whereabouts, although he did the exact opposite.

"Do you know how long I've been looking for you?" Kyle says, the smile that he had getting wider, causing sweat to pour down Nick's back as he realized that he wasn't getting out of this lecture. Kyle grabs Nick's shirt and pulls him in, a growl coming from Kyle. "FOURTEEN HOURS!" This revelation hit Nick like a truck as Kyle continued to yell at him. Fourteen hours, Nick had forgotten fourteen hours of his life and at this point, he didn't care. Due to Nick not having the strength or the care to resist, Kyle drags Nick off into his office where Mercury is waiting for him. Before he could he could ask anything, Kyle cut him off saying, "The Deen has awoken again." Hearing "the Deen" doesn't bode too well with Nick, but that uneasiness allows him to wake himself up a bit.

"So what the hell do we do this time?" Nick asks, standing upright. He knows that the first time they tried to raid the Deen's castle, almost everybody died. Nick becomes more upset as he remembers the front that he took with Blake, the look of confidence that they had going in with a million troops each, only for Blake to get blasted through the chest and being swiftly taken to the med bay. While Blake is still recovering from that injury, at least he's alive; But Nick doesn't want to dwell on the subject any longer and wipes the thought from his mind. Mercury doesn't seem to be doing too well either, despite the fact that he and most of his side survived. The only thing that could possibly be troubling him would be the state of his brother, but he doesn't want to ask.

Kyle tells them, "The base has been under constant bombing and we need someone to head down there to "check things out" while I organize a strike team to follow in after they find the Deen's throne room and take the guy out…or send him off into another dimension." While Nick doesn't want to try and two man this operation, that's all that was left. Vinnie had been nonstop training with Charlie and Monte, Blake was still recovering in the hospital, Richard and Ron were taking over some field duties in Blake's absence, Mike was being worked to hell with his and Blake's work, Max is fitting himself for prosthetic legs, Hayden's got his own work he needs to do, RJ and Cooper are doing guild work, and Jack and Kyle aren't going with them, so we're the only ones left.

Nick growls in annoyance, "Where do we start?"

"Here, I guess." Mercury sets up an anchor, while Nick keeps guard; the destroyed buildings giving them a bit of cover. Mercury tells Nick that he's done with the anchor and they both head out into the graveyard, a place where there are metal scraps and human limbs everywhere.

Nick couldn't help but resonate on the battle that happened here with a constant frown. "So many were lost here," Nick thought as he and Mercury kept trudging up the hill, "and it was all for nothing." Nick crushes the head of one of the sentinel bots in his hands out of anger for his soldiers, with little to no realization that his hand was now bleeding. Nick noticed that Mercury was up and over the hill, so he quickly followed suit; only so find Mercury on his knees. Nick couldn't quite make out what he was seeing and moved next to him, he saw seven hundred bodies at least; all of them were part of Spark core, Mercury's elite group.

"Was it worth it?" Nick looks over at Mercury, who had knelt at the edge of the crater; a single tear rolling down his face. "All these people are dead," he violently gestures to the bodies, "AND WE STILL HAVEN'T WON!" Nick takes a few steps back, unsure of what to do. He had never seen Mercury snap, let alone to this degree. Luckily for him, a crusher bot erupts from the ground. Nick leaps back in time, but Mercury was hit up into the sky. Nick, being the quick thinking fighter he is, rushes up to the bot and rips its arms off; bashing the head of the bot. Nick notices the small crack in its head and continues to bash its head in, taking a mental note of the sounds of other bots coming towards them. It's at this point that Mercury crashes on top of of the crusher, completely destroying it.

"There's more of them on the way," Nick says, summoning the BloodSaber, "we need to get into the stronghold quickly." The two of them run down the path to the stronghold, Nick wondering why this was so easy; only for him to be blasted back by an explosion. Nick stands back up, vision blurry, movement jarred, thoughts mixed, left arm broken, and limps toward Mercury; he hasn't moved yet. Nick feels the structure of Mercury's body, "Cracked left arm, dislocated right shoulder, spine is okay, his back's got a shitload of cuts, bruises, and gashes." He says, picking Mercury up and slinging him over his shoulder. "We gotta go." Nick takes off, running to the stronghold; dodging bullet and rocket fire along the way. Nick's healing kicked in and repared all of his wounds, only for another mine to blow him into a flag pole, breaking his spine and knocking him out.

"-ck! Nick! C'mon man, wake up!" Nick shakes his head to further his waking up process and looks around. They were being trapped inside a glass cage, by none other than the Deen, who was having a grand old time laughing at them.

Nick, blinded by his anger, charges at the Deen; only to get a large shock from the glass cage. "What the hell?"

The Deen smiles, "Do you like the upgrades to my cage?" Nick turns into a shadow bear and slashed the cage, only to get shocked again and be flown back into the middle of the cage. "I'll take that as a 'no.'"

Nick reverts back to normal and sits up, rubbing his head. "What the hell do you want, Deen?"

The Deen turns his attention from his console to Nick. "Well, ever since you and Mercury got those items that make you regain your health at an annoyingly fast rate, you've been a thorn in my side; but now I have the ultimate way to get rid of you." The Deen pushes a button revealing a portal underneath the cage. "I'm going to send you away, to a place where you can't get back to me. AHAHAHAHAAAAA!" As the Deen laughs, Nick turns into a Kraken and crushes the cage, barreling down toward the Deen. Mercury launches one of his daggers in the Deen's right eye, the mechanical man screaming out in pain. " You'll pay greatly for that." The Deen says as he bashes Nick over the head with a sledgehammer, cracking his skull.

Nick gets up again and stumbles a bit, the head trama not completely gone, and feels the blood running down his hand. Knowing he has moments to stay conscious, he and Mercury fire a volley of ranged attacks before The ground below them gave way to the portal taking the two with it.

Nick lands with many broken bones and his head wound still hasn't completely healed, but that didn't matter to him at that time. Nick looks around, seeking out Mercury. He finds Mercury and would normally help out his friend, his blood loss has caught up to him, and he fell over; noticing two women floating down toward them, one with purple hair and one with white hair.

"A rebirth out of spiritual adversity causes us to become new creatures."

-James E. Faust

Sorry that this took so long, but at least it's done now.

Don't forget to leave a review skrubs

BYE