Paloma trudged through the snow as quickly as she could. She'd been on her own ever since her abuela got caught by the bad men, running and hiding. The torn bag carrying the last of her food and water was running out from one too many stops to eat and drink, never mind that it hadn’t contained much to begin with.

  She knew she wasn’t going to make it out here in the frosty air, but turning back was suicide. They thought her family—what was left of it—was with the resistance forces. They weren't! But their pleas fell on deaf ears. She'd been sent to flee into the frigid night, with only hope and prayers to keep her company. Where was she going to rest? Sleep? There didn't seem to be an answer. She was well past any form of civilization now, and none of the abandoned houses around her were properly insulated from the freezing temperatures. That was how things were for longer than she'd been alive: you either slept out of the cold, or the cold would put you to sleep forever.

  Being forced to run, she blinked back her tears and swallowed heavily, then resumed her greedy gulps of air as she exerted herself. The snowy layer was so thick she couldn't run at full speed, having to lift her legs up so high for each step. It made her muscles burn, but she didn't dare stop even after getting some cover from the trees. Couldn't get caught.

  Couldn't let them find her.

  Alternating between looking behind her and making sure she wasn’t secretly being watched from any other angle, she clutched her bag tighter to her body in a vain attempt to give herself the illusion of safety and staving off the weather.

  Paloma’s lungs burned as she forced one more desperate step through the deep drifts. The frozen world around her was a harsh expanse of endless white and bitter wind. Each gust slicing at her cheeks was a shard of broken glass. Crunching and groaning of snow and ice punctuated eerie the silence, the only undertone to her labored breaths.

  Exhaustion seeped into her bones; each muscle screamed in the relentless cold. Hunger gnawed at her stomach and her fingers numbed, starting to go stiff. Every breath was a battle, and though stopping could be fatal, she couldn't go on for much longer.

  Just… just a bit of rest. She would start searching the destroyed houses in this abandoned town for leftover food or supplies later. Stepping behind the fence of one of the devastated residences to her left, out of sight, she took a moment to catch her breath.

  Due to some rotten luck, however, it would seem that whatever god gave her this life hated her enough that she wasn't even afforded this small break. She could hear a low rumbling, barely noticeable enough for her to make it out over the wind. It was unmistakable though. There was something nearby. At the end of the street, if the direction the sound came from was an indication.

  Instantly her entire body locked up, not making a single sound. She wanted to find a better hiding spot, but she didn't want to be heard, because she was fairly sure she knew what that was. And if she was right, there was a fair chance it had very good hearing. And smell. Oh no no no.

  The weighty thuds of its passage over the landscape grew ever closer, causing her to tremble even harder. A shadow loomed before it came into view, the huge silhouette sending her heart racing. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from whimpering while the danger approached. In her panic, not wanting to do nothing, she shifted slightly, the noise from her tiny action not even registering in her mind.

  Wrong move.

  All sense of mystery was dispelled as the creature rounded the corner swiftly, trepidation replaced with acute dread. It looked like a deer, but nightmarish. Wild black fur, pointy antlers, glowing red eyes, and two stories tall at least. A primebeast.

  She screamed, and didn't wait for it to make the first move, simply dashing away to the other side of the house. Put as many obstacles as possible between them. Not that it helped. The beast barreled straight through the house to continue its charge, resulting in a cloud of dust, planks and bricks.

  Dodging a piece of wood coming for her head, Paloma stumbled and fell, burying her face for a moment until panic and not being able to see set in and she scrambled out. She grasped at anything she could without taking her eyes off her feral executioner.

  Her hand closed around something hard and she threw it with all her strength, right at the head. Stone bounced uselessly off its antlers, lacking the force for it to even acknowledge the hit. She hyperventilated, trying to come up with something and failing miserably. This was it. She was going to die painfully and get eaten. Alone.

  The deer beast reared back to spear her like a brocheta, pawing the ground in preparation for a second charge. Then it shot forward in a spray of white faster than Paloma could react, promising a brutal—

  A blur collided with its side, sending it crashing through the fence into the next house over in a cacophony of breaking walls and glass.

  Processing what happened a second later, Paloma looked at the figure before her, clad in odd silken clothing that was far too loose and thin for any sane person. The new arrival faced the primebeast that was now getting up, standing calmly with a raised arm, hand making the universal gun sign.

  What happened next would never leave her memory for as long as she lived. Standing before a raging primebeast that possessed the power to flatten homes, the tips of the stranger's fingers began to shine with pure light, so bright Paloma had to squint.

  The flash that followed was so fast she had to figure out what happened from the red spot in her vision after blinking. A long line of light. A laser?

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  It had shot forward into the primebeast who was mid-sprint and collapsed a beat later, as if not yet realizing it was dead. The ground shook from its impact with the ground and it slid forward, momentum carrying it to its killer's feet.

  Silence fell once more, and she felt safe enough to breathe again, gasping to the point her lungs felt like bursting over and over. And then, apparently done surveying their kill, the figure turned.

  When she got a good look at his face, her breath caught. Long black hair, vibrant green eyes, and a well-defined face with perfect olive skin. Her jaw hung open for longer than she would be willing to admit later.

  The thought of “later” brought back the tears to her eyes, and Paloma began to sob from relief. She was safe, finally.

  Her savior spoke.

  She didn't understand a word of it.

  *******

  Finn eyed the hulking primebeast’s corpse again, watching the smoke rise from its head, which now bore a gaping hole.

  Logically, he knew full well it was completely, truly dead. He could sense that its brain had been burned through and its body had stopped functioning altogether. But that internal paranoia learned over the course of his career hadn’t left him yet. He was still expecting it to get back up and resume the fight. Frankly, he just wasn't used to winning fights this easily against an opponent with any real power.

  But the evidence was clear as day. A primebeast that was likely monster-class, lying dead in front of him. He was the undisputed victor, barely having had to put in any effort. His laser attack hadn't even burned his hand all that much, so he fixed it with a few slow, deep breaths that the nanites converted into the tissue required to heal him. He shook his head. Power assessments could come later, when he knew more.

  Not an excuse to let his guard down. This environment was not one he had ever visited in the past. Overcast sky, snowy landscape, abandoned city full of broken houses? Amalgam had just dropped him here, and the one other living person in his range was being attacked, prompting him to rush over without delay.

  One thing was for certain: he was decidedly not in Apexia.

  Lying to himself would do him no good. He had to admit that he was stranded here with no way out.

  In this frozen hellscape.

  The irony of it all was sick and twisted, going from one place far from home to another despite his intentions.

  But could he have done anything to prevent this? Looking back, he didn't think so.

  Because he remembered what Amalgam had said about the gatekeys and the possible routes he could take. The one he’d taken was rated for survivability, meaning the other options had been even worse than this somehow? It was hard to wrap his head around that notion. That he had gotten the safe option and somehow still ended up in a place where primebeasts roamed free.

  If any colossal-class beasts showed up, his odds of winning would be drastically lower. He could potentially survive such a fight, but his chances would be worse if he had to worry about protecting a little girl.

  He looked back at the crying girl whom he had tried to speak with. Tried being the keyword. She didn’t speak English. And he didn't speak Spanish.

  Upon fully uncovering the nature of his ability’s recall aspect in Wanderlust’s dimension, Finn hadn't had access to any textbooks to learn new languages even though that was one of the first uses he had come up with. Which meant he’d been caught a bit flat-footed here. No way to communicate complex concepts to this girl, who by the way did not look old enough to be in middle school. Ten, maybe. Twelve at the very most.

  It was funny, in a way. For all his increased power, the first roadblock he ran into wasn't an opponent he couldn't defeat, but a simple language barrier. His father and mother had always spoken solely English with him.

  From what he knew, Lyra was the same. She spoke English and a few words in Mandarin, according to what she had told him. Jack was fluent in French as well and spoke it with his family. Casey, on the other hand, did actually speak Spanish from her visits to Solvarna, the megacity south of Apexia.

  Sadly, none of them were here, and the climate of this place most definitely did not match Solvarna. Nor did the apparent state of welfare. He would think he was somewhere deep in the north, if not for the sole resident he had encountered.

  Seeing how she was shivering from the cold, he stepped closer and controlled his nanites to emit some heat from his body to warm her up, mainly using his hands. She sagged forward, falling into his embrace. Crouching down, he scooped her up in his arms. He tried to get her to talk more, but she didn't seem to comprehend what he said no matter how clearly he said it. Soon, she fell asleep.

  Alright. She was obviously in no condition to do anything else, meaning he would have to find his way out of here and get her to safety. He couldn't allow another primebeast to get the opportunity to go after them. Finn would prefer not to get into a fight with this extra “baggage” he was planning to transport.

  Adjusting her body so she was riding piggyback, he set off in the direction opposite of where the girl’s footsteps had come from. Presumably, she had left whatever was there behind for good reason.

  One of his recent advancements was that he was able to render himself invisible. Not the camouflage he had used as Shade from the beginning. No, this was true invisibility. It worked by manipulating incoming light around his body with his nanites and projecting a perfect replica of the image that would originally be there if he weren’t standing in that place. The downside was that light didn't reach his retinas using this method, leaving him blind. And even that was remedied by the fact that he did not need his eyes to see. It was an excellent technique.

  It also wouldn't work. Despite his training, he still couldn't change the color of other people's bodies. It seemed to be an insurmountable limitation of his power, and the reason why he couldn't render the girl invisible or even camouflaged. He could use some fabric from somewhere to cover them with but primebeasts were likely able to track by other senses. He couldn't do anything about that, meaning the real danger was staying in this place.

  With that in mind, he set out on a journey away from this place. He would do his level best to make sure he wasn't attacked by a colossal-class or titanic-class primebeast. Yet those might not be the most dangerous possible encounter, as he was aware of his general location now.

  This was South America. Territory of the world’s strongest supervillain, Seraphim.

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