I saw a figure in black break the treeline and stopped my run, perplexed and sucking in lungfuls of air. From the description, this was the guy who had been tracking AEGIS and me, but it made no sense why someone so well outfitted and apt at tracking and stealth would suddenly pop up only a couple hundred feet from the person they were tracking.

Then I heard the woods crashing and saw a bear emerge at full-speed and knew the man’s hurry.

I ran to help, but in the open there was no chance for him. He was running as fast as he could, but the bear was gaining on him with every step, and I was still so far away.

I skidded to a stop and forced myself to breathe. I formed fist-sized lightning bulbs in each of my hands and readied them. The bear was only about the size of my thumb at this distance, and I had to act now or else I’d be catching the man in the blast zone as well. I aimed carefully and flicked the bulb.

It flashed off, exploding in the trees behind the bear, the tendrils of lightning drawing black scorch lines up and down the bark of the trees.

Shot number two hit the snow just on my side of the bear, flying too low. Some of the grasping tendrils grazed the bear but it seemed to give exactly zero fucks about them and doubled-down on chasing the man.

Jesus, what the hell had this guy done to this bear?

My third shot was on-point and nailed the bear in the shoulder. The sudden twitching from the shock made the bear miss a step and slide, face-first into the ground, giving the man an extra few steps. He took this chance to seemingly empty his pockets, sending dozens of things bouncing around all over the ground. The bear had its feet under it again, but as many of the bouncing things exploded into fire, gas, or other hazards, the bear stumbled again.

Unfortunately, this seemed to frustrate the bear more than stop it, and now, freshly-pissed-off, it roared and charged with even greater speed than before. The figure, who had paused to throw everything took off again instantly, certainly regretting their decision to slow down for any reason at all.

I was jogging closer the whole while and had closed almost half the distance. The man was running straight for The Bunker, where he thought he might be safe, but I knew that unless he could get the rusty piece-of-shit door closed, it was going to be a very enclosed tomb. We had to handle the bear out here.

There was no way to communicate that, however, and I wasn’t sure what we’d manage even if we could. The man was clearly winded from sprinting for who-knew how long, and obviously the contents of his pockets weren’t of any use here. That meant our only hope was for me, winded and out-of-shape as I may be, to engage the bear and drive it off…or kill it.

And I had to do that before the bear turned the man into meat confetti.

I tried to throw as I ran. As far as people qualified for this task went, I was probably in the top 1%, but it was still hard. I peppered the ground seemingly everywhere around the bear, only grazing it and not able to land a solid hit. It was frustrating, and made me realize what an incredibly shitty wide receiver this bear was.

I even landed a shot directly in front of the bear’s face, but it simply sprinted through the arcing bolts and explosion of stone and snow, completely ignoring what must be some incredible pain of burns and electricity running off him.

Seriously, what the hell did this guy do to this bear? Did he kidnap its cubs or something?

He was only halfway to The Bunker, fortunately or unfortunately, but I was almost there. Unfortunately, so was the bear.

“Run to me!” I yelled. The man adjusted course and headed right at me, the bear compensating instantly and now a couple steps ahead by being able to cut the angle. Fortunately I was only a few steps away now.

I ignored the pain in my legs and the burning in my chest and pushed myself even harder. I had to get those extra steps in. The bear was only feet from him. Inches. The bear’s claw swiped out and missed by fractions of an inch, razor blades with hundreds of pounds of force behind them.

And then I was there. Four bolts of lightning materialized from the air and hung for a fraction of a moment before converging on the bear’s charging form. It roared, in pain or frustration, and fell, tumbling over itself and skidding on its backside.

But shit, this bear was quick. Even on its back, it spun to have an angle and swiped at the man again. It caught him on the side of one thigh, annihilating his clothes on the side and leaving three angry red gouges. The man stumbled one or two more steps but then fell over into me, his voice coming out of his mask in a synthesized scream.

Still running the other way, I caught him. Might have been a bit more impact than crashing into the ground, but at least he wouldn’t slam his head on a rock. He was smaller than me, and light, really surprisingly light, which was good because I was still really surprisingly weak. Holding him mostly upright, I finally stopped our momentum and turned to face the bear which had slid past on its back. As expected by now, it was quickly getting back on its feet to charge again.

I didn’t intend to allow that, and, dropping the man as gently and quickly as I could, took two long strides to close the distance and impaled the bear with lightning swords again. It roared and writhed, but even as it did so, put its feet back under it.

I remembered AEGIS talking about bears…seemingly endlessly, but one fact had stuck with me because of how personally relevant it was. Particularly true for polar bears, but all bears were extremely well-insulated with a thick coat which functioned as a radiative shield, but also had a thick layer of fat all over their bodies. In other words, more than pretty much any other animal, bears resisted heat and electricity extremely well.

I really hoped I wouldn’t have to get in close and do my trick of controlling the lightning’s flow. Looking back at the man collapsed and trying to staunch his wound, if the thing did get its claws on me, I’d probably be done for before I could do much.

So despite the ineffectiveness, I played it safe, keeping the monster at the edge of my sword range. Whenever it charged, I stepped in before it could get any speed and stabbed it down, driving it back and making it lose enough coordination by shoving lightning in its face that it had to break off. It only took two times before it seemed to learn the extent of my range.

From there, it roared at me and then started to charge again. I readied my swords and then…it stopped. Then started, then stopped, then slammed the ground, creating a huge explosion of snow and rock, easily ten feet in the air.

From the wall of snow, the bear exploded forward, slightly to the side of where it had been a moment ago. Fortunately it was as blinded by its own attack as I was, and I was able to jump to the side at the last second…the only second I had to react…but I was officially scared shitless now.

For all AEGIS’ talk of bears, she’d never mentioned anything like this. This bear was deliberately trying to fake me out, mislead, deceive, and disguise its attacks. It was a better combat tactician than many humans.

I took a more defensive stance, keeping my swords extended at max length in a half-circle in front of me at shoulder height. Even if he came in by surprise, he’d have to get through them now, and hopefully the extra moments that cost him would give me the time to get my other weapons to bear.

Just outside my range, the bear snorted and clawed at the ground, trickles of blood starting to drip from the corners of its mouth and eyes. The thing looked like it just came straight from hell, specifically to make me and my new friend dead.

Again it charged. I held my swords at the ready, unsure what trick was coming next, I held and waited, the bear charged straight, turned, straight, and then suddenly launched into the air, right before coming in contact with my swords, sailing right over my perimeter.

Shit, it was fast. I didn’t have time to do anything but dive, and diving anywhere within reach of the thing was suicide. So forward I went, right under it as it arced high through the air at me.

I ate shit, crashing face-first into the rubble, but before I went down, swung all my blades in the air behind me wildly, hoping to slow its invariable follow-up down enough to get my feet back. If the terrain were less bad, I could have rolled and used my momentum to bounce up, but instead, I now just had a bloody nose and dazed myself. But my life was on the line, and I had to move. Blades flailing blindly behind me, I scrabbled on all fours, trying to find enough grip and momentum to get myself forward and on my feet.

Apparently one or more of my blades found the target, because it roared in terrible pain and slammed violently into the ground, making the rocks jump under my hands and costing me another moment before I could rise to my feet. But when I did, and turned, I found the bear lying prone and motionless.

“Y-you did it!” called the synthesized voice from the man in black. “Holy cow, I don’t believe it!”

I raised up a hand for him to stop and slowly advanced on the bear, swords at the ready. I crept forward, one step at a time, slowly, slowly, I approached my outer range–

The bear exploded into motion, launching itself right at me, claws extended.

Fortunately I was ready this time. I found it suspicious that it would just so happen to land facing me with all its feet under it, and after its last tricks I expected more. As it lunged, I jumped up, using its own forward momentum to get above it and grabbed the thick fur on its back. It roared again, still in the air, unable to roll to crush me under it.

It was too late. “Sorry, bear,” I whispered, as the electricity I’d already pre-charged in my hands flowed through its thick skin and fat and directly through the bear’s brain. It landed roughly on all fours, instead of rolling, it froze, every muscle in its body tensed. I gave it another blast, and the bear collapsed forward, motionless. One more blast to be safe, with no effect whatsoever. It was well and truly brain-dead.

“Holy goats,” said the man, standing while holding his thigh, which had blood now run down his entire leg. “You’re amazing!” I turned and stomped towards him until my face was only a foot from his stupid high-tech mask.

“What the hell did you think you were doing? What did you do to provoke that bear? You think that’s amazing? Killing innocent forest animals because they’re trying to defend their homes from idiots like you?”

I caught him off guard and he took half a step back, and then stumbled on his bad leg. Instinctively, I reached out and caught him around the waist.

Again, I was surprised by how light and small and thin he was. His black cloak hung down from his shoulders and made him look much bigger than he actually was, but holding him around his body, it felt like almost nothing.

“Y-you saved me,” he panted, his voice modulator filtering out what was obviously an emotional statement. He put his arms around my neck and hung off me, kicking his wounded leg into the air. “You saved me!”

Okay this was awkward now. Holding him like we were just at the end of some coupley dance, this guy was even more flamboyant than Luminary. And…why wasn’t he letting go? Yes, we’d just cheated death, but come on. The wild was supposed to be wild, and rugged, and manly. Not any place for a flamenco.

“Don’t get used to it. I still want to know what you did to piss of that bear so bad. I’ve never seen an animal so worked-up.”

He seemed to wilt and recede. “I…I’m sorry, I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“Happy? I don’t even know who you are except that you’ve been sneaking around here for a week now.”

He cocked his head and looked at me puzzled. “Oh! The mask!” he said, and reached back, finally releasing my neck and hanging entirely off my arm now. He reached into the depths of his hood and undid something, and then pulled the mask off, the straps pulling a long mane of frizzed-out brown hair free from the hood as it went.

“Heya,” she said with a shy grin. I almost dropped her.

There, in my arms, in the middle of the nuclear exclusion zone, dressed in a black hood and cloak, and bleeding from a brutal but shallow gash from a bear was my sister Lia.

My arms closed and almost crushed her in my ensuing hug as tears forced themselves out of my eyes.