He turned, his tail lashing, and began to walk. After a second, Ness followed, his battered sneakers squelching in the mud.
The smell of grilled geckos and ozone hung heavy over the sweltering marsh. Ness took a shaky breath, the end of his cracked baseball bat digging a nervous trench in the black mud. Across the smoldering clearing, a creature of living flame and raw, screaming savagery gnashed its teeth.
The lion prince of the Fire Armada wasn't just a rival. He was a cataclysm. His fur was a cascade of dying embers, his mane a roaring inferno that warped the air around his scarred muzzle. Every time he exhaled, a puff of superheated ash and contempt billowed towards Ness.
Zetterburn lowered his head, a gesture that was not submission, but respect. He spat a single, frozen tooth onto the black mud. rivals of aether ness
Zetterburn slammed into it. The impact sent shockwaves rippling through the mud. The lion roared, claws scrabbling against the psychic barrier, his heat so intense that the air inside Ness’s shield grew sticky and hot. Sweat beaded on Ness’s forehead.
The clearing was silent but for the hiss of Zetterburn's cooling fur and the drip of melting frost. The lion glared at him, a thousand-year hatred burning behind his eyes. But he was also, for the first time, truly seeing the boy in the striped shirt. Not a curiosity. Not prey.
"The rift you fell from," he growled, his voice still hot but no longer mocking. "It wanders. Near the Rock Wall. I will take you there." He turned, his tail lashing, and began to walk
He’d been pulled here by a rift, a wound in the sky that spat him out into the Aetherian wilds. And for the past three days, Zetterburn had hunted him. Not for survival. For sport. The lion saw Ness as a curiosity, a soft-skinned anomaly to be crushed and forgotten.
Crack.
Zetterburn laughed, a sound like a landslide of hot coals. "Home? This is your home now. Ash and bone." Ness took a shaky breath, the end of
Ness tightened his grip. The psychic pulse of this strange, elemental world was a chaotic drumbeat compared to the steady hum of Eagleland. His PSI felt… muffled. Sluggish. Like trying to shout through a pillow. But the fire in Zetterburn’s eyes was real. The heat on his cheek was real. And the quiet, desperate courage that had made him face Giygas was still real, too.
Zetterburn stumbled forward, off-balance for a heartbeat. It was all Ness needed. He didn’t think. He acted . A lifetime of batting practice and fighting possessed moles took over. He swung the Louisville Slugger not at Zetterburn’s head, but at his front paws.
The psychic cryo-blast erupted from his forehead, a needle-thin lance of absolute zero. It wasn't the wide, powerful blizzard he used on Starmen. It was a surgical strike, honed by desperation.
"I don't want to hurt you," Ness said, and meant it. "I just want to go home. So either you help me find a way back to that rift… or I'll learn exactly how much fire it takes to melt a glacier. Your choice."