The clearing behind the ranger station had become a training ground.
Dave stood in the center, his weathered face calm, his hands loose at his sides. Around him, the air shimmered—a barely visible distortion, like heat rising off summer asphalt. He was testing her. Waiting.
Eva raised her hand.
"Dominance Sphere."
Purple fire erupted from her, spreading outward, forming a perfect sphere around them. The light was intense, concentrated—not the wild flames she'd used before, but something denser. More controlled. The pulse output was higher than anything she'd attempted, her body straining with the effort.
Dave didn't move. He couldn't.
The sphere was so concentrated, so absolute, that the pressure pinned him in place. His arms wouldn't lift. His legs wouldn't move. Every instinct screamed to fight back, to break free, but the Pulse was too dense, too refined. It wasn't just holding him—it was crushing.
He looked at Eva.
At her eyes.
Those eyes held something that made his blood run cold. Not anger. Not grief. Something older. Something that had been waiting in the dark for a long time.
Monstrous.
She held the sphere for one more breath, two, then released it. The pressure vanished. Dave staggered, catching himself on his knees, gasping for air.
Eva stood motionless, her face unreadable.
"Again," she said.
---
Across the clearing, the others trained in their own ways.
Derek stood before a massive boulder, his fists clenched, his brow furrowed in concentration. Pulse amplification. He'd done it once—in the battle against Prime 10, when he'd become something more than himself. But that had been instinct. Desperation. Now he needed to learn control.
He focused. Felt the Pulse building in his chest, his arms, his fists. He drew it upward, compressing it, making it denser—
His fist connected with the boulder.
CRACK.
A fissure split the stone from top to bottom. Derek stared at his hand, flexing his fingers. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
He pulled back and struck again.
---
Maya sat cross-legged on a flat rock, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and even. In her mind, the white space flickered at the edges.
You need to practice rejection, Helena's voice echoed. If you can't use a sphere, learn to break one.
Maya focused. Imagined a sphere around her—walls of energy pressing in, trying to control, to dominate. She pushed back. Not with force—Helena had made that clear. Force wouldn't work. She needed precision. Density. Stability.
She reached out with her Pulse, threading it between the imaginary walls, finding the gaps, the weaknesses, the points where control was thinnest.
The sphere cracked.
Maya opened her eyes, breathing hard. Helena was quiet, but she could feel her approval, warm and steady.
---
At the door of the ranger station, Wolfen sat with his back against the frame, watching the training. Zoey was beside him, Lena on his other side. They'd been there for hours, watching, waiting.
Zoey broke the silence first.
"Why aren't you practicing?"
Wolfen's eyes didn't leave the clearing. "Don't need to."
Lena raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Wolfen was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was distant. Flat.
"The universe I got trapped in—that other Earth." He paused. "There were monsters there. Big. Small. Didn't matter. All of them were strong. Stronger than anything I'd faced before." His lips curved, not quite a smile. "I'd be lying if I said it was easy. It kinda was, actually."
Zoey snorted.
"But there were four monsters. Zombies, technically. They were the most troublesome." He paused again, longer this time. "The strongest one—I'll say it was the strongest in that whole world."
He stopped.
Zoey leaned forward. "What were they?"
Wolfen's golden eyes found Maya across the clearing. "One was her."
Zoey's breath caught. "Maya was a zombie?"
"In that world, yeah." Wolfen's voice was calm, almost clinical. "One was Leo. One was Jordan."
Lena's hand tightened on her knee. "And the fourth?"
Wolfen was silent. His eyes drifted to Eva, still training, still pushing, still burning with that terrible focus.
"When I arrived, the last one was holding a head. By the looks of it, he'd put up a really good fight." He paused. "Half the planet was in flames. It was me—that Earth's version of me. He'd died fighting. Went out in style."
Zoey stared at him. "So the fourth zombie was—"
"The last one had the same look as Eva does right now." Wolfen's voice was quiet. "The same eyes. The same fire."
Lena's face had gone pale. Zoey was gripping the doorframe.
Wolfen looked at them, and for the first time, they saw something in his eyes that wasn't boredom or sarcasm. Something that looked almost like fear.
"The last zombie was Eva."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Zoey opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came.
Lena looked across the clearing at Eva, her purple flames still burning, her face set in lines of absolute determination.
Wolfen watched too. His expression unreadable.
"She's not that Eva," he said finally. Quietly. "She's not that version. She's ours."
He didn't sound like he was convincing them.
He sounded like he was convincing himself.
In the clearing, Eva's sphere blazed brighter.