“So…” I asked when we had walked a while. “When do we get to the entrance?” I asked as I watched Lysa twirl around like she was on a joy stroll rather than stuck in a timeless cosmic void.

  “Oh, you want out?” She replied with a cheeky grin.

  “Isn’t that where we’re headed?”

  “Nope!” she chirped. “I just like walking. Every time the incompatible ones died off, I’d wander around here until I got captured again. It’s like… my weird little routine.”

  I blinked. “Why don’t you just leave? I mean… you literally create energy. Burn through this place, punch a hole, nuke it—whatever!”

  Lysa stopped walking and turned, her tone softening. “I needed an inlet.” She pointed at me. “And wouldn’t you know it? Varko stumbled upon the most raw, unstable, beautiful pulse energy source in the Infinitum, my dear son, and brought him right to me.”

  My stomach dropped. “Me?”

  “You!!” she shouted, grinning as she spun on her heel and dived straight into the armor’s core.

  Suddenly, pain hit my chest like a lightning bolt. I dropped to one knee. “AARRGH—” A helmet covered my face, and my vision turned blue.

  “Okay, Mason!” Her voice echoed now, filled with excitement. “Focus. You want out, right? Then draw it.”

  “Draw… what?!” I asked, “There's nothing there.”

  “C’mon, you have to feel it. Sense it. Will it be?”

  “I just want to say, for the record. I have no idea what you're saying.”

  Lysa groaned, "I'm starting to think you're boring, Mason. You have to be like your mom; don't be a…”

  “What?? I'm not boring…”

  “Then will a sword come into existence.” Lysa’s voice rang out in my helmet.

  I stretched out my hand and exhaled. It took a second, but a sword emanated from thin air.

  “I'm doing it!! I'm doing it!!” I yelled.

  “You're doing it!! You're doing it!!”

  The sword came out.

  “A dagger?” Lysa chuckled. Then she cackled and burst into laughter.

  I held the puny dagger in my hand. “Hey, what gives!! I did as you said!”

  Lysa came out and pointed at the dagger. “It's so funny. So cute…”

  I shoved her away. “Can it!!”

  “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” She smiled. “Okay, next, infuse your pulse energy into your…pfft…‘sword.’”

  “Hmmph.” I frowned. I gritted my teeth and focused. The blade roared to life, crackling with white-blue flames.

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  “NOW—TEAR THROUGH IT!!” Lysa screamed, practically bouncing with joy.

  I swung.

  The void screamed back.

  Space fractured like glass under the blade’s impact. A blinding fissure tore open in front of me, exposing a swirling path—violent, unstable, but real.

  “Holy crap…” I muttered, stunned, the dagger still vibrating in my hands.

  “Told ya!” Lysa laughed, skipping beside me. “Now come on! Before the void heals itself or worse—someone notices.”

  I leapt out of the void and found myself back in the dark regions of space.

  “We made it.” I smiled as I floated around.

  Lysa’s voice rang out from the core. “Yep!”

  Then I remembered my friends. “Oh no, we have to go find the others.”

  “Others?” Lysa asked.

  “My friends.” I turned around. “Shoot!! How do I get there?”

  “I can take you… Just tell me their last location, and I'll scan the Infinitum until we find them.”

  “Alright, but where are we now?” I looked around.

  “Universe twelve.” Lysa replied.

  “Twelve??!! Okay, we were on universe twenty.”

  “On it!” she said. A bunch of info came up on my visor, and I scanned through it as quickly as I could.

  “Got ‘em!” Lysa yelled, “They're still there. But they're waging war against something. And there's five of them.”

  Five of them? Did the commanders send backup? Maybe Nolan?

  “Alright… Let's go!” I said. “How exactly do we…”

  “Like this!” Lysa said. My boots hummed a low frequency, and I looked at them.

  “Rocket thrusters?”

  “Heck yeah!!” Lysa yelled, and we blasted off.

  ***

  As we flew through space, I wondered what would be happening on the planet. Jett was unconscious when I blacked out, but he was alive.

  “Faster!” I said to Lysa.

  “I'm doing my best; you have to give me more juice!” She replied.

  I exhaled and infused more of my energy into the core.

  “There we go…” I could picture her grinning in my head. But we did move faster.

  “We've reached the planet.” Lysa yelled. I scanned the surroundings. There was a massive beast in the center.

  “Let's take ‘em down!” Lysa yelled again.

  “You don't need to tell me twice.” I grinned as we crash-landed. I activated a giant sword and sliced the beast into two equal parts.

  “Boom.” I grinned and turned around. The five figures were blocked by the resulting smoke, so I waited for it to clear.

  When it cleared, I saw my friends…

  “What’s—”

  …then I felt my stomach twist. My helmet gave way, and I blew chunks right next to the slain beast.

  “Eww…” I heard Lysa say.

  “Mason…?” A familiar voice called out, soft as a whisper but jagged with emotion. I wiped my mouth with the back of my gauntlet and turned around slowly.

  A girl stood there, eyes glassy with tears. Her voice struck a chord—painfully familiar. But her face didn’t.

  “Who are you?” I asked cautiously.

  Her Afro shimmered under the pale sky. She was taller than the Keisha I knew… older, more built. The Keisha I remembered had soft eyes and shorter hair, much shorter.

  “It’s me,” she said, voice cracking. “Keisha.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “No… you’re not.”

  She flinched at that.

  I scanned the rest of the group—three others. One of them had a familiar stance, wearing a black eye mask over his forehead like a bandanna.

  “Levi?” I asked, uncertain.

  I froze. My mind was scrambling. They looked like them. But they weren’t. They couldn't be…

  “This doesn’t make sense…” I pulled away, unsettled. “Why are you here?”

  Behind Levi, a guy stood quietly, a familiar hilt in his hand. But it looked broken.

  My heart jumped.

  “Jett?”

  He didn’t say anything. Just stared at me—older, taller, rough around the edges. His hair was unkempt, and his face was weathered. He looked like he didn't get enough sleep ever.

  And beside him… a girl who looked like Liv. No—too tall, too mature. Her sword lay on the floor, and she was crying openly.

  “No,” I shook my head. “You’re not them. You can’t be.”

  “Mason…” Keisha stepped forward again. “Please…”

  A silence fell between us.

  Then Levi exhaled. “It’s been three years, Mason.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Since you disappeared.”

  I stood frozen, all breath punched from my lungs.

  Three years?

  Then I remembered what Lysa had earlier said…

  “…Time doesn't flow here, so we could be stuck here for ages, eons even, and we'll never know…”

  “…No way,” I whispered. “We were in there for a couple of minutes…”

  Lysa held my shoulder. “Guess we were in there longer than expected…”

  Keisha reached out gently, her voice trembling. “We never gave up on you.”

  I finally looked into her eyes—really looked—and saw it.

  It was them.

  It had always been them.