Finn hit the water first and the impact knocked the air clean out of him. The warmth of it was the only thing that registered before he was under, salt burning his nose and eyes, the weight of his bag pulling him sideways. He kicked and found the surface and grabbed Ciri's arm when she came up beside him, and they swam.
The shore took a while to reach. By the time Finn's feet touched sand he was done. He dragged himself forward until the water was at his ankles and dropped. Ciri dropped beside him. They both coughed water into the sand for a while.
Eventually Finn rolled onto his back.
"Good idea," he said, to the sky.
Ciri coughed once more. "What was?"
"Appearing in the sky. Dropping into the sea." He put one arm over his face. "The point of entry was way up there, not down here. They'd assume you teleported somewhere completely different."
Ciri was quiet for a moment. "I had no idea what I was doing. I just teleported."
Finn lowered his arm. "Oh. Right." He put his arm back over his face. "Good job either way."
Ciri sat up, pushing wet hair back. "I saw him, Finn."
"Saw who?"
"Geralt." She pulled her knees up. "He was riding with them. In the middle of the Wild Hunt."
Finn swore under his breath and sat up, looking out at the water they'd just crawled out of.
"What are you going to do?" he said.
Ciri was quiet for a moment. "Let's find somewhere safe first."
—
The island was small. It took them less than an hour to figure out the rough shape of it, a strip of sand curving around a cluster of trees, warm water on every side, nothing else visible on the horizon. Finn got a fire going and dug through his bag for food.
Ciri was quiet while he set everything up. She ate when he handed her something and didn't say much beyond that. Finn left her to it.
When the fire had settled he broke the silence.
"Looks like they're going to take a while finding us this time."
"That's not guaranteed." Ciri turned a piece of dried meat over in her fingers without eating it. "I've felt safe before. It never lasts as long as I think it will."
Finn hummed.
"I'm going to save him," she said. Not like a question. Just a fact she was putting on the table.
"I figured," Finn said.
She looked at him. "How did I do it in the story? In your world's version."
Finn thought about it. "Honestly I don't remember the specifics. Just that you sensed him and pulled him out." He turned his own food over. "The details weren't spelled out."
"...Not that useful."
"I know. Sorry." He set his food down. "But here's what I'm thinking. We've been running every time they show up. What if we just… didn't? What if we picked the ground, let them come, and hit them instead. We can't take them all, I'm not pretending otherwise. But we don't need to. We just need to get to Geralt and pull him out before teleporting away again."
Ciri chewed on that, her eyes on the fire.
"And then what," she said. "We drag him through a portal with us?"
"We drop him somewhere safe, maybe Kaer Morhen like what you did in my world's story, and then we leave through the next door. I'm sure there's a door near Kaer Morhen."
She was quiet again. She was thinking about it.
Finn smiled a little. "It makes the most sense. At least to me."
Something shifted in her expression. She was quiet long enough that the fire popped twice before she said anything.
Her fist then clenched itself on her knee.
"Let's go then," she said.
—
They spent the rest of that evening preparing.
The tree line was dense enough to hide in but thin enough that riders could push through if they wanted to. The beach was open on all sides. The only real advantage the island gave them was that the Wild Hunt would have to come through portals, which meant they couldn't surround them all at once. They'd come in clusters.
He could work with clusters.
He pulled rope from his bag and strung it low between the trees at ankle height, multiple lines across the main gaps between the trunks where a horse would naturally try to push through. Ciri watched him work without asking questions, which he appreciated.
When he was done he called out the pokemon.
Chip appeared in the sand and immediately tried to bite Finn's shoe. Finn moved his foot. Kelpie appeared beside Ciri and pressed her nose against Ciri's arm once before turning to face Finn with her ears forward.
Finn crouched down to Chip's level.
"We're going to have a fight," he said. "A big one. I need you underground for most of it." He pointed at the sand. "Stay under there. When riders come through on horses, come up from below and knock them off balance. Can you do that?"
Chip tilted his head. Then pointed at the ground with one claw.
"Yes. Dig. Exactly that."
Chip grinned his jaw-wide grin and dropped into the sand without another word, the chipped fin cutting a small line through the surface before that too vanished.
Finn turned to Kelpie.
"You stay with Ciri," he said. "When riders get close, Flame Wheel. Keep them off her while she goes for Geralt."
Kelpie's mane burned a shade warmer. She understood enough.
Then they waited. And waited. And waited.
—
The biting cold came before dawn.
Finn was up before Ciri, already pulling his lightsaber off his belt. He checked his pistol next, counted what he had. Eight rounds. He put it back.
The first portal opened at the treeline.
Ciri was on her feet immediately, sword out, Kelpie already burning beside her. The riders came through in pairs, which was what Finn had hoped for. The rope caught the first horse at the ankle and the animal went sideways, throwing its rider into the sand. Behind the cover, Finn shot the fallen rider dead with his pistol.
More portals opened. Further along the beach this time, and Chip erupted from the sand directly beneath the lead horse of the next group, the impact sending the horse stumbling forward onto its knees. The rider flew over its head and Chip was already back under before anyone could react.
Finn had the lightsaber on and was moving.
He cut through the first rider that came at him on foot, the blade going through the armour clean. The second he shot. One round, on the head. The rider dropped dead instantly.
Six rounds left.
He kept moving, kept his feet under him, using the treeline to stop anything from getting behind him. A hound came from the left and he cut through it mid-leap. Another came from the right and he sidestepped it and shot it in the skull.
Five rounds.
Then the third wave came and it was bigger than the first two combined.
Portals tore open all along the beach, not just at the treeline but out near the water too, the icy blue light reflecting off the waves. Riders poured through in numbers that made Finn's stomach drop. He stepped back instinctively and his heel caught a root and he went down hard on one knee, and a rider was on him before he could get up, sword coming down.
He threw himself sideways, the blade hitting the sand where he'd been, and scrambled back to his feet. The rider raised the sword again and Finn drove the lightsaber through him before he could bring it down.
His shoulder was already screaming from the fall.
He shot another rider closing in on his right. Four rounds.
Across the beach things weren't going much better. Two riders had gotten past Kelpie and were pushing Ciri back toward the water, one pressing hard from the front while the other circled wide to get behind her. She was handling the front one well enough but the second was almost in position.
Kelpie hit the second with a full Tackle, the rider crashing into the sand, but a hound came from nowhere and latched onto Kelpie's hind leg and the Ponyta screamed and kicked, Double Kick connecting with the hound's skull and sending it skidding across the sand. Her leg buckled slightly when she put weight on it again.
Finn moved toward them and a rider came at him on horseback, sword raised. Finn waited until the last second and stepped aside, letting the horse thunder past, and drove the lightsaber through the rider's back as he went by. He kept moving.
His shoulder hurt badly enough now that his left arm was doing less than it should.
Chip came up from beneath a cluster of three riders near the centre of the beach, Metal Claw flashing, raking across two horses at once and sending them into each other. The riders went down in a tangle and Chip was gone again before they could orient themselves. But when he came up a second time one of the riders was ready for it and drove a spear into the sand right at the fin line.
Chip's yelp was audible even over the noise of the fight.
He surfaced fully, the spear having caught his side, not deep but enough to matter. He shook it off and launched himself at the rider with his jaw open, Bite connecting with the armour at the shoulder and not letting go. The rider thrashed and Chip held on, claws digging in.
Finn shot the rider in the helmet. Three rounds.
He grabbed Chip and checked the wound fast. Not bad. Chip snapped at his hand out of habit, then dropped back into the sand.
The beach was chaos. The rope traps had been cleared or trampled. The riders had stopped coming in waves and were just everywhere now, on foot and mounted both, pushing in from all directions.
Ciri was bleeding from somewhere on her arm. Kelpie was still moving but favouring her hind leg. Finn's shoulder felt like something had come loose in it.
Then the portal opened near the water's edge, and Geralt came through.
He was on his horse, in formation with three other riders, the same blank face and feline eyes as before.
"Finn!" Ciri shouted across the chaos.
Finn turned, shot a rider closing on him from behind without fully looking. Two rounds.
He ran.
A hound cut across his path and he jumped it and kept going, the lightsaber clearing the space ahead of him. Chip erupted from the sand between Ciri and the three riders flanking Geralt, Dragon Claw raking across the nearest horse's legs and sending it down. Kelpie hit the second despite her bad leg, the Tackle still solid enough to knock it sideways. The third tried to wheel and Finn drove the lightsaber through its horse's chest and hauled the rider off the saddle as he passed.
That left Geralt.
Ciri reached him first. She grabbed his arm with both hands and he pulled against her, whatever the Wild Hunt had done to him making him resist even now, his free hand going for his sword.
She held on.
"Geralt," she said. "It's me. It's Ciri."
Nothing in his face changed. But he stopped pulling.
She grabbed Finn's wrist with her free hand. Finn grabbed Chip and recalled Kelpie in one motion.
The beach was closing in, riders converging from every direction.
Ciri closed her eyes. And they disappeared once again.
They landed in wet grass. It was cold too, and through the dark treeline ahead Finn could make out the shape of a large structure built against the mountain. He could see torchlight in the windows.
Geralt's knees hit the grass.
Ciri went down with him, both hands still on his arm. Finn dropped beside them, breathing hard, his shoulder throbbing badly enough that he was already dreading looking at it.
"Is this Kaer Morhen?" Finn said between breaths.
Ciri had both hands on Geralt's face, her thumb on his cheek, trying to find something in his expression. The witcher is now knocked unconscious.
"Yes," she said. She wasn't talking to Finn anymore. More to herself.
"Alright, let's get rid of Geralt's armor, and leave him here. I'm sure he can find a way to the castle alone." Finn said, already doing it. "After that, we can't rest. Kelpie and Chip need treatment, you sure look like you need one too. But we need to keep moving to the nearest portal, otherwise, The Wild Hunt will catch us again."
Ciri took a deep breath. "A-Alright."