Barry awoke to a ray of sunlight on his face. He blinked, looking up at the thin gap in the dark red foliage above that let the light through. His brain took a moment to wake, but then he jerked up as he realized where he was.

From the position of the sun, it was late morning. It had been dusk when he landed here, so he must have slept through the night at least. Looking down, he could see large smears of dried blood through his torn clothing and on the ground. But his wounds were gone. He tested his left arm, pleased to find no pain or issues with mobility.

He let out a sigh of relief, letting his head fall back against the trunk he was resting on. There was a dull, metallic thunk that had him blinking in confusion. What the hell was that tree made of?

Taking stock of his surroundings, he began to notice more peculiarities in this eerily silent forest. The spacing of the trees felt off - it was too regular, as if they had been planted. There was barely any underbrush. Where were all the plants? Then, there was the soil. It was dark and loamy, which did not make any sense right next to a damn desert on top of sandstone.

He stilled as movement caught his eye. Focusing his senses, he could hear some scratching sounds and now that he looked closer, something gleamed between the trees in the distance. It was well outside of the range of his Energy Shroud still, so it shouldn't be able to hear or see anything at all.

Ripping off the straps of the Fixer Upper, he put it into storage and got to his feet, moving around the tree trunk to get a better view. There was indeed some kind of animal crawling on the forest floor, though it looked much smaller than the monsters he'd faced so far.

As he concentrated on his vision, more details were revealed. He thought it was a wolverine, though it was covered in unusually thick strands of fur that reflected the sunlight, coloring it in shades of silver. It moved like a predator on the hunt, large ears twitching for sound as its keen eyes scanned the surroundings.

Barry cursed under his breath as he noticed its prominent nose, lifted up to sniff at the air. He was covered in dried blood and sweat. It was tracking his scent. Another curse as he now realized this critical weakness to his strategy of stealth - smell had nothing to do with energy. It was just invisible particles traveling through the air. There would be no Ability to cover it.

The glimmering wolverine crept slowly but steadily closer, guided by its nose. It was only a matter of time before it would enter his Energy Shroud field and be able to see him. The same would happen if he left the field or deactivated the device.

He figured that he had two options. Either he ran for it, covering himself with [Halt Wave - Sphere] as well as [Blur Image] and hoping for the best. Or he would try and ambush it.

Wolverines were dangerous animals and it would be foolish to think this would not be considerably stronger than a normal wolverine. This was still an orange zone, after all, and Barry did not like the look of that metallic sheen on its fur.

On the other hand, he had a great opportunity to ambush it. It was small enough that striking it in a vulnerable spot might be enough to kill it. Then he could explore the rest of the forest slowly and safely, compared to running full tilt from an angry wolverine.

But then, if his ambush failed, his back-up plan would just be to run anyway, wouldn't it?

Adding everything together, giving up the chance for a clean strike did not look like a great exchange for only a small headstart in his escape. He took a deep breath and set his jaw. The decision was made, then. He would try to kill it with a single blow.

Taking his time to consider the best position, he chose a spot that would allow him to duck behind a tree and run if things went south. Then, he took off his torn and bloodied cloak and hung it onto that same tree. Finally, he brought out his two scimitars, putting all his remaining items into storage except for the Energy Shroud.

Lifting his scimitars up into a position which he could hold yet easily strike from, he then activated [Halt Wave - Sphere] as well as [Camouflage]. This Ability required him to remain still, but would perfectly hide his image as long as he did. As soon as it took effect, he deactivated the Energy Shroud and put it into storage with remote commands.

He was fully hidden now, but his cloak, draped against the tree within striking range, was not. It didn't take long for the wolverine to spot it. It approached warily, looking around and sniffing at the air, but his scent should be the same as the cloak he'd been wearing for days on end.

During its slow approach, Barry once again turned his attention to the [Camouflage] Ability. Having studied it before, he was starting to get a better feeling for how it worked. In essence, the Ability was just reflecting an image of what was behind and around his body. The light that landed on his body was stopped from reflecting back, then manipulated instead into a projection of his surroundings, making it look as if he wasn't there.

If he could find a way to keep it active even as he struck, he would be that much more likely to succeed.

He could feel his heart beating in his throat as the silver wolverine drew closer, forcing himself to take slow breaths. Soon, it was sniffing right at the edge of his cloak, vicious claws clicking sharply on a tree root. Then, right when it reared up to reach a higher part, he struck.

Focused on moving the effect of [Camouflage] along with his arms, he was able to stay hidden for a heartbeat longer. His muscles flexed as both scimitars flashed down at the wolverine's neck. It noticed but reacted too slowly, only starting to move out of the way as the blades slammed into its neck.

It looked almost as confused as him when both blades cracked against its fur and broke off with a sharp clanging sound, large pieces shooting away into the forest.

"Fuck."

There was only a brief moment to regret his choices as he stared in disbelief at the useless, broken blades in his hands, and then it lunged.

Barry pivoted behind the tree trunk, pushed off the side to leap away and then he was off, dashing between the trees. There was a flash of silver as he glanced over his shoulder. He threw himself to the ground on instinct. A rush of air and suddenly it was in front of him again, landing with four paws on a tree without making a sound.

No time to hesitate. He ducked to the left, pushing himself to move faster as he swerved between the trees. The white trunks flashed by him as he sped up, pumping his arms. He activated [Blur Image] and [Halt Waves - Sphere], but struggled to keep his sphere up consistently as he pushed his mad dash to higher speeds.

Still, it saved his life as a grey blur shot over his left shoulder, only narrowly missing his head. This time, he could see the beast clearly as it landed. It had gone from that breakneck speed to a full stop before landing. There had been an instant where it hovered off the surface, then impacted with only the soft click of its nails against the metallic wood.

How the hell was it doing that?

It twitched and he threw himself out of the way again, hissing at a streak of pain across his arm. He spotted it on the opposite tree in the same position. Could it only move like this between the trees?

Another twitch and he leapt, but instead of moving towards him it just lifted a claw and then he was hurled towards it. Something had pulled at his waist. Was it using a Momentum Ability?

Another pull had him sliding forwards before he could fully push himself up from the ground. It wasn't his body but just his belt, he realized then. The metal clasp was pulling at him-

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It clicked together then, suddenly. The hollow sounding trees, the metallic sheen of its fur, how it hovered and pulled only at his belt. Magnetism. This ridiculous little creature could somehow manipulate magnetic fields. And they were in a forest of metal trees.

He had to push down on a wave of anger and focused instead on ripping off his belt and rolling to the left to avoid having a tree directly behind him. The wolverine responded cleverly by shooting to a tree to its left, then coming at him from a different angle.

Barry twisted out of the way, but not fast enough to avoid another lash of agony on his back. Blood dripped down his arm as he cursed and ran, constantly looking over his shoulder to avoid running in a direct line between trees. But no matter how fast he ran, the damn thing moved like a bullet and easily got ahead of him.

He raced through the forest on a knife's edge, swerving and ducking and leaping to avoid the wolverine. This deadly dance couldn't continue for long, he knew. One slip and it would take his head right off. At least it would be a good death, he thought, then chastised himself. He was going to live through this. Had to live through this.

Rage bubbled up again, a flash of heat in his chest at the unfairness of it. What a blatant and ridiculous setup - a metal wolverine that controlled magnetic fields, in a forest full of fucking metallic trees.

"I hope you're enjoying this Pokka, you fucking sadist!" He growled.

Another stripe of searing pain on his shoulder cleared out the anger. He had to get away from it. But its vision was too damn good for [Blur Image] to work. He tried to activate [Camouflage] again, forcing it to work while moving, but it wouldn't take.

Could he wound it, somehow? It was made of tougher stuff than even his blades. How did you destroy such a strong alloy? Bash it repeatedly with a giant rock? Melting it would require an absurdly high temperature. Perhaps if he created a lens to focus the sunlight?

A cramp in his leg made him stumble and he had to follow through and roll behind a tree to avoid it once more. He pushed himself up again, panting. It must be the lack of energy. He hadn't eaten. There was an Ability, he remembered then, to feed energy directly into his muscles, but he didn't have time to be browsing the System Interface now.

There was nothing else to do except to try and blind it and hope it didn't recover quickly enough. No, he realized with a pinprick of hope, I can do a bit better than that.

He ducked behind a tree and raised his hand, forming a circle between his fingers as he focused on his PE Node. It would have to land on the tree right in front of him to get him back in its line of sight.

The PE Node obeyed more easily this time - he was getting better at this - but now, he wanted to weave not just light but also sound. He heard the beginnings of a distorted siren as he pushed out the energy recklessly, then activated [Halt Wave - Sphere].

As soon as he caught a grey streak shooting towards that tree, he shielded his eyes and pushed. His PE Capacity dropped by sixty percent from creating and shielding the blast, and he caught a flash of the wolverine on the ground.

He ran, blinking through the afterimage, pushing his quickly souring muscles to go further. He tore off his shirt, threw it beside a tree, then changed course as he browsed the Interface, looking for that Ability. There, that should be the one.

[Charge Muscles] - 240 Value

No time to hesitate, he purchased it, then paused behind a tree, panting heavily as he ripped off his pants, too. He then pulled out a canister of water from his storage and poured it over his head.

Hoping that this would be enough to throw it off his trail, he again changed direction, now activating [Halt Waves - Sphere] as well as [Charge Muscles] as he sprinted on.

Wearing only his boots and boxer shorts, Barry shot through the forest in a blur. Feeding energy directly into his muscles, he could now maintain his top speed, which was not much slower than that of a car.

After a few minutes he came to a rest against a tree, out of breath, muscles cramping. He wondered if that would be enough to lose it, looking back to see if he spotted anything in the distance. There was no sign of the wolverine yet, but he cursed as he saw the clear footprints he left in the soft soil. Then he noticed the blood from the cuts on his arms and back dripping to the ground. Far too clear a trail for it to miss. Shit. What did he do now?

Barry looked around for anything that could help. But there was no time to wipe his tracks nor bandage his wounds. Even if there was time, there were no tools to be found in this bare forest which had only white tree trunks as far as the eye could see, ending in wide, overlapping red-leafed canopies.

He looked up then, at the crossing white branches covered in large red leaves. The trees were so evenly spaced that there was barely any area where the branches did not touch. There was only a small overlap near the end of them though, where they were so thin they shouldn't be able to support his weight. But if there was somehow metal in the wood…

Without any better ideas he gripped the trunk on each side, squeezing his arms and lifting his body up, then doing the same with his legs. His body hadn't gotten much heavier despite his powerups, so he was able to overcome the lack of grip on the smooth surface and shimmy up with sheer strength.

The foliage was too thick to try and run through, so when he reached the top he started swinging down the length of a branch. As he reached the end of it, he was hanging onto only a thin stick, which bent under his weight, but did not crack from the strain.

From there, it was child's play to grip the next one and continue his expedition, picking up speed as he traversed the forest. He had an errant feeling of gratitude that he was not likely to run into other people here, swinging like an ape from tree to tree in just his boots and underwear.

There was no time to stop the bleeding yet, but he hoped that simply by moving faster there would be enough distance between drops that the wolverine may not be able to follow the trail.

The burn in his hands and shoulders quickly got worse, but the adrenaline kept him going for a while longer. He finally had to come to a halt when his PE Capacity was close to zero, having no choice but to sit and let it recharge. Hoping that he'd managed to cover enough distance, he hid between the foliage of one of the trees, secured between the hard branches, and found a spot to set up his Energy Shroud and MAFT.

Conscious of his energy starved body, he began to shovel food into his mouth as he considered his next move. First, he opened his map, seeing that he'd somehow already gone about a third of the way through this zone. How long had he been running for? Only an hour? Less?

He smiled as hope bloomed warmly in his chest. His plan might be workable after all. If he could keep up that speed for longer, it would be weeks or days instead of months for him to reach his family.

If he kept moving in the current direction, he'd be on a straight path towards the mountain range, which was good, but it would mean staying longer in this zone. If he curved around the west instead, his path would be longer, but he'd be moving through a light orange zone. After his experience in this one, there was no doubt in his mind that reducing the threat level even by just a single tier was a good idea.

He used the itinerary functionality of the map to set his new path, which would result in a small overlaid indicator to point the way as he went along. Only the same distance he'd already crossed was left before he could leave this zone. If there was still no sign of the beast by the time his PE Capacity had recharged, it might be best to simply barrel through the forest at top speed to reach the end of this zone.

Barry scrolled over to the highlighted part of the map where Pokka said his family had been. It was a large area, not a single pinpointed location, so he would have to do some looking around still once he got there.

A few white markers indicated where large stationary MAFTs could be found. It would make sense for people to congregate there. There were three of the MAFT locations within the marked area, all in green zones, though often bordering a yellow. He had no idea what to expect of green zones, but he hoped the creatures would be a lot less deadly than a metal wolverine.

Checking his PE Capacity, he saw that it would take at least two hours to recharge fully, which felt like too long. He decided to wait until it was half charged to move again. Hopefully it wouldn't have caught up by then.

He used the remaining time to look for a new Ability that might help, while performing some light training with [Camouflage] without draining too much PE. It would be trivially easy to escape even the wolverine if only he could get this Ability to move along with him. All he tried to do for now, was to keep it active while moving his right arm to bring food up to his mouth.

Browsing the Abilities once more, he looked through the ones that could manipulate magnetic fields for something that could disrupt the wolverine. [Dispel Magnetic Field] would be an obvious choice, but it had looked to him like the wolverine could just keep creating or moving fields without limitation. He might be able to stall it for a few seconds with an Ability like that, but then it would just turn into a tug of war where the party with the highest PE reserves won. He doubted that would be him.

Instead, he decided to double down on his current strategy. It was still an animal, which moved on instinct. If he couldn't yet perfectly hide himself, perhaps more misdirection would be just what he needed. There was one Ability in particular that seemed like a great addition to his current set.

His PE Capacity had ticked up to thirty percent, when Pokka finally deigned to pop into existence next to him. Barry's face changed instantly, lips thinning as his brow furrowed.

"You've got some fucking explaining to do."

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