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// 4: Point Maximus 
// Story: The Nether Wars 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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	Copper knew the area of Point Maximus better than anypony in all of Manehatten. She knew it better than the builders that had built the great city, better than the ponies that lived within her shield barrier, and even better than those that tried to hide from the law. She had spent weeks in the area of her second lab, searching for the perfect building to create a hidden lab that nopony would ever discover by accident. Though she knew that if Nexus had circled the name of the area in a folder that she may, or may not, have been meant to find then she could potentially be walking right into a trap.

In order to prepare for the possibility that there was a trap waiting for her Copper had sent a brief letter to Wisdom, asking that he and Dynamo join them in Manehatten. As soon as the message was sent she turned her attention to the ponies around her, those being Northern, her sisters, and Sunset Shimmer. By simple opening her storage area she gave each and every one of them special armor, suits of metal designed to react to their magic and abilities. Northern was the only one who didn't receive a suit, seeing how she still wore her green goo-like armor, and her sisters plain out refused to wear the ones she offered them.

Copper could have sworn that the changelings used to be easy to deal with, but Eclipse's daughters, adopted or not, were harder to deal with than anypony she had ever met.

"Come on you two," Copper growled, trying to make them wear the protective armor, "You don't know what Nexus is planning and I'd rather have you wearing protective armor and not need it then to report to Eclipse that one of his daughters got hurt looking for the deranged stallion."

"You don't have to worry about us sugarcube," Harvest said, shaking her head at the armor, "If Nexus has anything planned for us I'm certain that Echo and I are more than prepared for whatever he has waiting."

"We've been training for threats like this," Echo added, munching on an apple as, she too, denied the armor Copper offered her, "So we are more than prepared to fight Nexus and his tricks without the need of armor. We have allies that can handle themselves, a mare that knows where they are so they don't walk into any traps, and a mare whose full abilities haven't developed yet. We will find Nexus and bring justice down upon him."

Copper huffed and stored the two suits of armor away, wondering if Echo was right about her sister having more magic then she had at the moment. If that was true then she would have developed them and she would have known about them, so as far as she knew things were still normal with her. Before she could really say anything Wisdom, wearing a familiar war suit, arrived with his friend Dynamo from thin air, courtesy of his Pinkie abilities. The two looked prepared for anything, which was good seeing how Nexus could have prepared anything for them.

"Wisdom, so glad you could make it," Copper welcomed, beckoning the group to follow her to where Point Maximus was located, "I feel a lot better knowing that we have an even better chance at defeating whatever Nexus throws our way. I don't think he'll be expecting so many of us to be there when we arrive, but that doesn't mean we should take him lightly."

"So where is he hiding anyway?" Sunset asked, her eyes lingering on several of the windows they passed as she considered ditching the armor already, "You found that file in the vaults with some sort of clue hidden inside it, but have not yet shared what it is that you found. Care to share?"

"He's hiding in a place I called Point Maximus," Copper sighed, "Four years ago the place was one of the emptiest locations in Manehatten, which meant I could build a second and, more importantly, secret lab. This lab was meant to house experiments that weren't ready to be seen by anypony, but before I really got into anything too dangerous I had to vacate the underground lab. So, I destroyed what little I had created, dismantled what couldn't be destroyed, and sealed the door with a lock that could only be opened with a special seven digit combination.

I seal the lab as tight as possible, but yet if Nexus is in that old underground lab then I am curious as to how he managed to get past my security door and past my own traps. I wanted to make sure that if somepony as smart as me managed to get past my security door than they would be drugged by darts and I would have been alerted as to the fact the door had failed. If Nexus opened the door AND managed to get past the traps then he would have found himself in the fallen lab, which would have absolutely nothing there for him to mess with."

Still, she couldn't bring to tell them what had transpired in her secret underground lab. How could she tell them that she had experimented with the Nether, without anypony else knowing about it, and that there had been some nasty effects of her doing that? If Nexus had gotten past her security and found the abandoned machine then there was no telling what he could have done with what remained of it. Nexus was going to learn what it meant when you messed with the mechanical mastermind that most ponies had come to know as Copper Sprocket.

~Point Maximus, exterior~

Copper wasn't surprised when they reached the location of her old lab, she had expected to find Nexus waiting for them and had, instead, found a force of thirty ponies waiting. The buildings still stood tall, but some of them were beginning to fall apart and she could still tell that the old security door was still in place, locked tight like when she left it. The ponies around them were armed with weapons, meaning swords, spears, hoof-blades, and wingblades, and armor that might be able to block some of their attacks. Nexus wasn't playing around, he had armed his own security force in case somepony came looking after they found his little clue in the town hall.

The area became a war zone as Sunset Shimmer caught an unfortunate pony in her magic and tossed him into one of the buildings, breaking glass. Northern caught a spell before it could hit their group and tossed it back at the stallion that cast it, knocking him right off his hooves and onto his back. Spells flew, holes were torn in the various buildings, and, Copper was sure of this, bones were broken all across their enemies.

Northern wasted no time in jumping onto a pony's back, spinning around in midair, and slamming the back of her leg on the poor pony's back, crushing him right into the ground. Her sisters nodded to her and she tossed another towards Harvest, who spun around and planted a kick square into the unfortunate pony's chest. Echo, on the other hoof, brought her enemies into the air and crashed them into one of the buildings surrounding the area, through the stone walls and the wooden floors behind them.

Wisdom reached out with his staff and knocked a pony over, waiting till they got up to force them back onto their backs and crush them into the ground, knocking the wind out of them. His friend Dynamo uppercut one of the pegasi around them, his hoof gauntlet igniting and blasting the pony right out of thin air before turning to another soul. The assembled ponies that were fighting against them had thought they could handle the ponies that wandered into their territory, but with how the group was fighting they were dead wrong. Copper caught a stallion with her clawed hoof and brought him face to face with her, ignoring the rest of the fighting so she could get some information.

"Nexus," Copper said, growling as the stallion's eyes widened in fear, "Tell me, where is Nexus?"

The stallion lifted his shaking left hoof, raising it to point at the ironclad door that had once served as security for Copper during the time she had been running the lab. Without wasting a second she tossed the stallion aside and moved in on the door, her metallic claws moving fast as she put in the combination that would open the door. After a few seconds she thought the numbers had been changed, but the door creaked open and she almost tore it off the hinges, giving her an opening into the past.

She descended down the stairs without a moment to think her plan over, she just ran down the stairs, purposely hitting every single area that she had booby trapped before she had left the place. Darts flew past her mane, pieces of the stairs crumbled beneath her hooves, and her eyes were unharmed by the blinding lights she had set up. Thanks to the additions she had incorporated into her mechanical body she was well prepared for the old tricks that would have done even her in if she had forgotten about them. Though, if she was Nexus she would have added a couple more traps to catch her when she arrived and found nothing when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

The lab itself was scrapped bare, as in every single piece of metal she had put in four years ago had been ripped out and removed without a trace. Sitting in the dead center of the barren chamber, with his back turned, was none other than a dark blue coated unicorn with a silver colored mane and tail. Copper wasted no time in igniting her horn and grabbing Nexus by his body, pinning him against the bare wall on the right side of the chamber. As he rested against the wall he stared into her eyes and she returned the stare, trying to make sense of the stallion that wasn't even trying to fight back.

It was rather anticlimactic if the villain just suddenly gave up and surrendered.

"So, Nexus," she said, hoping that he would answer something before he was carted off to the Hive, "How does it feel to be defeated by somepony you tried to burn?"

"I was expecting you to return," Nexus smiled, giving him a sinister appearance for a second, "I wanted you to see the ruin I have brought to your old lab. You and every pony else in Equestria will burn, whether or not you have the ability to stop me is up to those around you. So try and stop me from destroying everything. We'll see whose right when everything is said and done."

Yep, Copper thought, definitely anticlimactic.

Nexus may have given up, but at the moment Copper was sure that he had something hidden that she couldn't see. She really hoped that capturing him wasn't part of his plan, otherwise they could very well be in a whole heap of trouble. As she learned from Eclipse, those that came after him tended to use the strangest of plans she had ever seen. Either way, Nexus and his allies were now officially their prisoners and would be brought before the Princesses and Eclipse in the Hive.