Pan got low and hid beside a snowdrift. She spotted Era several paces away, digging through the avalanche, hoping to find Pan – dead.

She isn’t tracking me. She must be confident I’m in there.

Pan searched for a good hiding place. She saw a rocky area, stuck up from the snow. It stood far away. Pan portaled to it and looked back at a much tinier version of Era. Era stabbed the snow with a stick, trying to strike a body. She was so arrogant; she didn’t call upon her tracking and notice that Pan had left.

Pan traced a tiny portal just above Era’s head and spoke softly into it. “Do you want to go somewhere warmer?”

Era straightened. “You just had to survive that. How did you get out? Where did you go?” Era looked around for Pan.

Pan closed her portal, only for a moment. She could see Era search the sky. When Era brought her attention back to eye level, Pan reopened her portal.

“I’ve noticed you really want to prove yourself to other Soffigen. Why is that?”

“Smartass.” Era stood still. She probably drew on her tracking skills.

The band wouldn’t help her, with Pan so close. Pan waited. She wanted to understand this part of Era.

Era sighed. “Since you’re so curious, I might as well tell you. You see, they thought I was the least promising subject. They had two others at Tingaran. Both were doing a lot better than me.” Era strode over the snow. “But, subject one liquidated. Yeah, you heard me right. He liquidated. Subject two started killing other Soffigen – kind of like a reaper would. We couldn’t have that. I mean just look at you, and every other reaper that’s come into existence.”

Pan couldn’t deny it. She was the best reaper, but she wasn’t good by far. It seemed Era was something similar.

Era continued, “That left me, and they weren’t too happy about it.”

“I bet,” Pan whispered.

“You probably think it’s the worst thing that could happen to a person. To be made into something like a reaper. I know how you hate yourself.”

Pan bristled. She didn’t hate herself. Now, Brynn – Brynn had hated herself.

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a reaper anymore.” Era paused and took a deep breath. “I am willing to do for you what you feared the old reaper would. Of course, I don’t work for the Scaldin, so that’s probably not to your liking.”

Pan’s heart quickened. She touched the suppressant. Now could be a good time to use it. She had the chance. Pan slipped the gun into her hands and aimed it at the portal she kept open above Era’s head. Pan paused. Hadn’t Brynn suggested she should wait on the suppressant? She only had a single dose. Would she want it more later?

Slowly, Pan stowed her suppressant. Phase two hadn’t arrived. Pan could only guess that Era would grow more powerful or something along that trope. Maybe, the two Soffigen arcanes they’d found at the storehouse and lab would show up and back Era. It could be a heartwarming moment where they discovered their true selves.

Pan sighted Era. She portaled to a point behind her.

Era spoke into the wind, “Now, how are you portaling all over the planet? I answered your question.”

“You don’t really need to know,” Pan said.

Era whirled. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted Pan. “Finally.” Era made fire.

The fire swirled around Pan’s feet but never got too close. It melted snow. Steam rose.

Era was a fool if she thought Pan would stand for it. Pan portaled out of the attack and dropped her full height to land by Era’s side.

Pan pushed to her feet and plowed into Era. Era stumbled and muttered an objection, without words. They fell into the snow.

Pan sat on Era and piled snow on her lower legs. Era struggled. She kicked and usurped control of the snow. It banded between them, creating a miniature snowstorm, sometimes under Pan’s control, sometimes Era’s.

Pan searched the horizon for weapons, anything – a rock from the beach, a splinter of ice, even a fish. She couldn’t see through the flurry of snow. Pan rolled off Era, got to her feet, and put some distance between them.

Era lobbed a hunk of snow at Pan. She’d failed to pack it together, and the snowball shattered in the wind.

Pan shook it out of her hair and searched the horizon again. She spotted a rock and pulled on it. The boulder answered her telekinetic call and then disappeared. Pan startled. She looked into the snow – now featureless. All of her weapons from the beach hid beneath an illusion.

Era scrambled to her feet. She made a wave of ice and sent it crashing through drifts towards Pan.

Pan drew a portal and used it as shield. She set the exit behind Era. The ice entered the portal, headed for Era, but Era warped it around herself, freezing it still. The ice created a kind of backdrop for Era to rest against.

Pan sent a telekinetic push Era’s way and tried to force Era against the ice. Era shattered her own creation. Just like the objects over the snow, the shards of ice shimmered and disappeared. Pan bet they would come her way. She watched Era flick her wrist.

Pan ducked. She drew a portal and curved it around herself, a full three-hundred and sixty degrees. The portal folded in on itself and showed a twisted exit. Pan couldn’t see the result of Era’s attack as she hid in her own pocket of the world, but she heard soft plops in the snow. The icicles went askance.

Time for me to do the same. Pan maintained her shield portal and set a new portal below herself. She remembered the look of the land and drew herself a destination by memory. Pan slipped into the snow and stayed low. She watched her old portal deflate. Now you see me…Now you don’t.

Era’s head whipped back and forth. She raised a hand, and all the snow disappeared.

Pan hopped to her feet. She stood in a wasteland, not the kind painted by hand, but the kind that could be rendered by computer. Era made an illusion so complete that despite the cold around Pan’s feet, she could see no snow, just the horizon straight and clear, stretching for miles.

“Time for a little fantasy,” Era said.

“Fantasy? This is more like the opposite.”

Era had robbed herself of a good view and telekinesis. She couldn’t see the land and couldn’t use it. However, her ice shaping and fire starting remained, and Era coaxed a flame into the air.

Pan also couldn’t see to employ her telekinesis, but she always had her portals so long as she had open space.

Era’s fire seemed to stream through the air, but Pan could see steam, rising from its path. The fire traveled on the hidden snow.

Pan drew a portal at its end and sent the fire down. She couldn’t see the snow, but she knew it had to be there. Between Era and Pan, a trail of steam rose, seeming to come from nothing.

Era and Pan exchanged a glance.

Pan drew a portal under Era and dumped her into the trail of steam.

Era’s fire died as she fell. A splash sounded. Whether it was warm or cold, Pan didn’t know.

“Come on,” Pan called. “Let’s have something interesting back. Drop the illusion, or I’ll take the party somewhere else.”

Era hopped out of the steaming snow that neither woman could see. “You want it back? Fine.”

Snow appeared all around, and Pan spotted several weapons in the drifts. She lifted them into her telekinetic grasp.

Her eyes whipped to Era, but Pan couldn’t find her. She couldn’t find the real Era that is because she saw a dozen Era’s. Not one. Pan’s eyes flicked between them.

“I thought the snow wasn’t too interesting on its own,” the Eras said. “So, I added something else.”

“You think you’re interesting?” Pan pulled her weapons close.

Era glared. All the Eras glared. Then, they attacked. Some wielded fire. Others created illusory beasts. Ice attacks came from the remaining Eras.

Pan drew three portals. They stretched from her head to her feet and swallowed the attacks, which seemed to come from all angles. Between the portals, Pan caught glimpses of the snow, the Eras, and their weapons.

Pan shifted the portals. She rolled them around herself, spinning them like discs. Through the rapidly shifting gaps, Pan watched the attacks fly far afield. The illusory objects and things rippled into non-existence – far from the designated battleground. The real attack burned over a dome of snow, igniting steam.

Pan traced that attack back to the real Era. Pan still held bits of debris in the air. They hovered around her. She slowed and stopped her portals. She changed one and sent some of her potential projectiles through.

Era usurped all. She even tried to send them back through Pan’s portal, but Pan again changed its destination. She picked a new portal and sent more debris through it – the last of her things. Era caught those too. In fact, she froze them.

The ice traveled too fast for Pan to close her portal. It came into her safe space. Pan pressed herself against the back of a portal and let more ice in. She let it grow.

Pan shifted her portal’s destination and snapped the ice free from the whole. She held it in her telekinetic grasp and shattered the ice into pieces – new projectiles.

How to keep Era from dodging or catching?

Pan felt her eyes go wide. They felt alight.

Pan drew a portal beneath Era. Era fell. Pan put a new portal in Era’s path, and through that portal came a shower of icicles.

Era caught all the icicles in her person. She landed in the snow and stayed there.

“Star gods. This hurts. Alright, you win. You win!” Era shouted.

Pan dropped her portals and ran to Era’s side. “Really? You surrender.”

The icicles started to melt, dripping into Era’s wounds and, sometimes, riding her skin to the ground. Era’s healing power staunched the flow of her bleeding, and it was the icicles that bled more.

“Maybe not. If you’re just going to stand there, I can get up from this.” Era started to shift.

Pan pulled the suppressant gun from behind her back. “I think you and I have had enough fighting.” Pan waited a moment longer for Era to heal to a point where her injuries wouldn’t be life threatening. Then, Pan squeezed the trigger.

“No! Pan!” Brynn’s ghost shouted from a point nearby.

Pan’s gaze snapped up to Brynn. Then, she looked back to Era. Era’s healing remained on pause. She groaned and pulled a tiny syringe, with tiny needle, from her shoulder.

“You needed that,” Brynn said.

“I...” Pan could think of no good answers. She’d chosen Alban’s plan, not because she didn’t want Brynn’s offered freedom but because she didn’t want to fight Era endlessly.

A ship whined through the air. Pan looked up.

“That’ll be phase two, and you just used up your backup plan.” Brynn shook her head.

“This is why you should tell me the whole truth,” Pan said.

The ship hovered. Swinging side to side, it made minute adjustments and began its descent. Pan watched. The green hull had faded to a mint, but a few spots of naked metal made Pan wonder if the ship had always been mint. Perhaps, the bare metal betrayed the ship’s age instead, and the pastel shade was from its glory days.

Brynn stroked her ghostly staff. “You’ll have to time message. It’s the only way. Or, you call Sotir and Alban and ask them to get you more suppressant.” In the ship’s wind, Brynn’s hair waved in streams of black, same as Pan’s. “This is going to be some fight. Alright, we can still come back from this.”

Pan tried to listen to Brynn, and she tried to watch the ship. Both were of equal interest. The ship won. Its door hissed open and a ramp slid to the ground.

Pan glanced at her deceased mentor.

“Try to fight this thing. You need the practice, and when the time comes, repeat what I say. But, sometime during that fight, you need to get new suppressant. Okay?” Brynn stared, unblinking, not at Pan but at the ship.

“Okay. Are you sure you don’t want me to send a time message?” Pan asked.

“I’m sure. This way you can have Era out of the equation. You don’t have to convince her to help you or anything like that.” Brynn shrugged. “Really, it’s better this way. It’s better.”

“You sure?” Pan turned back to the ship. “Cause I could use the help…”

Where Pan expected to see a monstrous Soffigen arcane, she saw a Visitor.