Half a dozen parallel beams of red light shone on the brave Captain Blaize’s face, cascading warmly over his chiseled jawline and confident smile. He lay full length on his arms and knees, peering through the vent cover and into the massive room beyond. His fingers shifted slightly on the grip of his Chimera-model laser blaster, and his heart beat out the half-forgotten rhythm of action in his breast. He was at the very core of the dark fortress, a sprawling subterranean complex that now hosted none other than Doctor Devious, seemingly back from the dead and dastardly as ever. With the impossible theft of the Thurian Power Diamond accomplished, only one thing stood between the Doctor’s malevolent machinations and the peaceful Stellar Union:

Captain Blaize and the rest of The Paragon’s crew.

His blue eyes flashed through the vent slits, reviewing the room beyond: it was vast as a cathedral, with rough walls hewn from the brown rock of this world that stretched to a lofty arched ceiling far above. The red glow that illuminated the whole space emanated from a deep cloven chasm far off to the Captain’s right, which was spanned only by a single narrow bridge draped in bundles of cables and wires. Off to the left, four capital-ship class generators stood like gargantuan pillars between roof and floor, hissing and venting steam as the hydraulic actuators expanded and contracted. But most notably, Blaize observed the Doctor himself, clad in white lab coat and delivering furious instructions to two clipboard-holding goons. The Captain smiled.

“Zynner!” Blaize whispered into his communicator, “How close are you?”

Doctor Devious dismissed his frightened underlings before the First Mate’s voice crackled in over the communicator.

“The interference field threw me off trajectory a good way, sir…I calculate it may be some time before I can reach you.”

Blaize nodded. “Quick as you can, Zynner…I want you to be here when we take down the Doctor, once and for all! …Again!”

“Friends are always there when you need them, sir.”

That left Doctor Devious alone in the generator room. As quietly as possible, Captain Blaize popped out the bottom of the vent cover, slipping down to the stone floor of the cavernous space. The reactors themselves provided excellent cover as he snuck forward, closer to where he had last seen his nemesis. His veins throbbed with adrenaline–once a common sensation, now made all the sweeter by its temporary absence.

He rounded the generator and at last leveled his blaster pistol at Doctor Devious’s exposed back. The man stiffened as he heard the Captain’s sonorous voice echoing over the noise of the reactors.

“Doctor Devious, we meet again!”

And slowly, the Doctor turned to face Blaize. He was exactly as the Captain remembered, only now he wore a white mask, all made up of geometric shapes as though it was cut from resin. Despite this, the sneer was audible in his voice as he responded.

“Captain Blaize! You’ll be disappointed to learn you’re too late: the Thurian Power Diamond is already integrated into my weapons system, and there’s not a force in the galaxy that can save your precious Stellar Union now!”

The Captain’s confident smile indented his cheeks with those classic, charming dimples as he began to advance towards the Doctor, blaster pistol still raised. “We’ll see about that, Devious! I must say, you quite convinced me with that fake death. You’ll have to tell me all about how you did it…from your Union holding cell!”

There was a zap, blast! as a yellow beam erupted from the Chimera blaster, but Doctor Devious leapt behind one of the generators just in time to evade the searing bolt. Captain Blaize fired a few more sizzling shots for covering fire as he picked up his pace, striding up to the reactor and peering around the side to see…nothing.

Blaster at the ready and eyes roving ceaselessly, he navigated around the back of the massive powered pillar, checking for any sign of the Doctor. His ears replayed again and again the blasts of his laser pistols, relishing the sound of real, live rounds… a laser in action was a completely different sound from yet another run through The Paragon’s training simulator.

A hiss breathed out behind Captain Blaize and he spun to face it, but not quick enough. A massive metal force slammed into his chest, hurling him a dozen feet back and flinging the pistol from his grip. He scraped along the ground, coming to rest with his back propped against one of the other generators. He struggled to suck breath back into his lungs, forcing stability to return to his vision and attempting to shake the ringing out of his ears.

Triumphantly approaching his prone form was the Doctor–installed in the torso of a fifteen foot tall mechanized exosuit. The huge metal fists pumped at the air, and with a sadistic stomp it crushed Blaize’s discarded pistol.

“Zynner,” the Captain wheezed into his communicator, “Anytime now!”

The mech picked up speed as it approached, tilting forward into a full on charge. Blaize made out to be weak and shocked, but his muscles waited like coiled springs for exactly the right moment…almost…NOW!

He hurled himself out of the way as the hydraulic exosuit arm rocketed out like a cannonball, plowing into the generator Blaize had been leaning against only a moment ago. The massive pillar spat out fountains of sparks as the pistons ground to a halt, and an alarm system began ringing through the entire complex along with a warning message.

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“Alert: reactor meltdown imminent in t-5 minutes. All personnel evacuate immediately. Repeat: all personnel evacuate immediately.”

Doctor Devious swore, tugging to free the mech’s arm from the warped steel of the reactor’s hull. Captain Blaize hauled himself to his feet, and took the crucial few seconds he had to examine the exosuit for weaknesses. It was a sturdy construction, so characteristic of the Doctor in its design that he almost couldn’t help but smile–and yet, as always, there was one glaring flaw. On the inside wall of the cockpit, an open JX3 port. Any power sent in through that would overload the system, frying the circuits like a Tarintian cobb rat! He’d be trapped inside of his own personal prison.

The Doctor finally wrenched his mechanized arm from the wreckage, mauled with scratches and moving in erratic jerks as it compensated for severed hydraulics. Devious began advancing towards the Captain once again, the fury evident in his voice through the mask.

“You’ve ruined it! All my plans, laid waste! I’ll crush you, Captain Blaize! I’ll scrap your precious ship for parts!”

Blaize turned, running as fast as his legs could carry him for the bridge that spanned the red chasm. The light in the room intensified, the trench glowing fiercer and fiercer as he approached it. The ground shook with the pounding footsteps of the Doctor’s exosuit behind him, gaining a concerning amount of ground as it charged after him.

Just ahead of his nemesis, the Captain reached the bridge, hurling himself onto the narrow metal surface and spinning around to face Devious. He could see now that the carmine light came from a violently glowing red fluid that bubbled in the chasm…a tide that rose higher and higher as the exosuit slowed to a menacing walk.

“T-4 minutes,” the alarm reminded them.

“A narrow bridge, Captain? You’re not as sharp as you used to be! Nowhere to run, now!”

“Zynner!” called Blaize uselessly, combing the underside of the handrail with his fingers.

“Your–your friends are no help to you now, Captain!” The broad mech chassis forced the handrails apart as it stepped onto the bridge, making a horrible scraping sound as it bent the metal out of place. Blaize finally located a bundle of wires and tugged them free, building up slack as he backed up.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Doctor Devious! Do you know what First Mate Zynner taught me?”

The exosuit jerked to a halt before it continued.

“You may as well have your last words, Captain. What did your wretched officer tell you?”

“That your friends will always be there when you need them. At the time, it struck me as pretty…shocking!”

With a sudden burst of motion, Blaize’s muscles snapped into action, hurling him forwards with the fistful of live wires he had ripped from the handrail. He planted them into the JX3 port before Doctor Devious had time to block him, and just as he had expected the whole suit short circuited. Arcs of electricity stretched across the metal hull with a loud crackling and flashing, the machine seizing up as the Doctor howled inside. The gigantic metal construct convulsed, blew out a cloud of sparks, then began slowly, inevitably to keel over to one side. It snapped through the guardrails, looming over the edge towards the rising tide of boiling toxic sludge.

As the arcs of electricity stopped, it was already toppling. Devious keyed the emergency release sequence, leaping out of the cockpit with a scream, but too late. His hand fell short of the bridge as the exosuit was swallowed by the scorching iridescent fluid.

And he jerked suddenly to a stop. Blaize was reaching out over the edge, suspending the Doctor by his black-gloved wrist. Devious looked up to that iconic smile, the confident smirk he knew so well…so well.

“This seems familiar, Doctor,” grunted the Captain. “But one thing’s different.”

The panic showed in his voice as Devious replied. “What–what’s that?!”

“Last time, you had the courage to show your own face! Let’s see what you’re hiding behind that mask!”

“No! No, anything but the mask! Stop!”

But Blaize reached through Devious’s flailing arm and tore off the white, geometrical mask, flinging it back into the red fluid with a careless flick. The gloved hand suddenly dropped down a good five inches as the Captain recoiled in shock and disbelief. For a moment, there was no sound but the blaring of the alarms and the popping of the boiling waste. Blaize’s eyes turned sanguine with the reflection of the sludge, wide open as they saw, but refused to believe.

“Zynner?” he breathed at last.

The Paragon’s First Mate reached up, grasping the edge of the bridge instead of his Captain’s hand. Blaize backed away, planting his back against the rail on the opposite side.

“Zynner?” he echoed “How?”

“T-3 minutes,” announced the alarm system.

The lab coat fluttered in the shimmering updraft as the red fluid popped, now a mere two meters below the First Mate’s feet. He looked up, and met the Captain’s eyes with a set jaw.

“You were without purpose after Doctor Devious died, sir…drifting through space, replaying your old logs again and again in your quarters. I couldn’t bear to see you like that. I had to do something, rekindle the hunt to give you meaning again…” his eyes fell to his feet for a moment before he looked up with a bitter smile. “Friends are always there when you need them, sir.”

Blaize stared in horror, his mouth agape and his ears deaf to the ringing alarms, the increasingly flurried reactors and the fluid that bubbled louder and louder as it rose. A long moment passed, Zynner simply hanging from the bridge. Finally, the Captain blinked, rolled forward onto his knees, and extended his hand over the edge with a short nod.

“Then I’m here for you, Zynner. Give me your hand!”

“I don’t think so, Captain.”

“You–what?!”

Again, that bitter smile. “What could I be now, Captain? Not a friend, not a villain–I’ve failed you in every capacity. I’m so sorry, sir. You trained me better than this.”

A hot tear plummeted out of Blaize’s eye and landed on his First Mate’s cheek. “Stop saying that! I’m not leaving here without you!”

Zynner drew in a slow breath. “No, sir. I calculate you are not.”

And he released his grip on the bridge.