Besetting and radiant fireflies casted away all shadows between the brothers inside the makeshift cave.

  "Wait!" Gabe yelled.

  The blinding amber lights emitting from the flux-infused fireflies revealed Joaquim using his working leg to perform another fluxjump. While he was in midair Gabe ignited his firefly summons, however the explosions only accelerated Joaquim's aerial velocity. He cruised above Gabe while a trail of flames and smoke followed him.

  When Joaquim reached the chasm outside, a kick to his ribs stopped his momentum altogether. If it were not for flux, he would feel this particular kick for weeks. With the smoke in his lungs not helping at all, Joaquim could not suck in any air no matter how much he tried. Before he could think about where his body was heading he plunged into rushing waters.

  While submerged Joaquim caught a glimpse of the kicker above, which was a silhouette of a teenaged human and a mask-shaped drone.

  It was Farouq that stopped his escape.

  And Joaquim could not risk staying underwater any longer. Water had entered his lungs before he even realized it.

  However, the silhouette above was swallowed up by new amber lights. For some reason Gabe caused more explosions above water. Joaquim emerged his head from the river foam and sucked in as much air as he could, thinking about how he could take advantage of the nascent smoke.

  Should I do the unexpected and stay in the river?

  If he were to jump, especially with too much force, he would disperse the smoke and become visible again. After waiting to be submerged once more due to the current, this time sucking in lots of air before submerging, he reemerged and swam to the left of the river. He gently tapped his flux-infused left foot into the river's side and hopped towards the right wall of the chasm, breaking out of the river current. After dipping flux into his fingertips using his imagination, it was easy to dig his fingers into the rocky wall. He did not have to even use his feet; he could simply climb using his hands.

  "What the fuck are you doing Gabe?!"

  While crawling with his hands alone, Joaquim also focused on resummoning that warmth he had inside his left foot earlier. And the gentle vibrations he had felt in his bones returned too. Subsequently approaching the ledge above, Joaquim glanced behind himself to find smoke in every direction. He tried to slow his panting until he reached fresh air again.

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  "Did you get him?!"

  "What the fuck do you mean?!"

  Joaquim reached the ledge. He did not even risk using his left foot, he only performed generous fluxjumps with his right one. It would only take seconds to leave the clearing with the chasm and back into the dense taiga forest covered in snow-clad pine.

  Joaquim could no longer hear Gabe and Farouq arguing within the rising smoke, however Camilo as Dalia watched over his one-legged escape above a bushy slope for reasons unknown. Logic would dictate that he should be in hot pursuit, but he stood still.

  And when Joaquim finished glancing at the shapeshifter, he found himself somewhere in the sky when he turned his head forward. Without realizing he was about to fall down a mountainside, he searched for the rogue hand that jaunted him just now and she grasped him by the collar of his army jacket before falling.

  "Try to be more discreet in the test next time," Corporal Woo said.

  Breezes were more robust up the mountainside while still feeling sunbaked on the rocky trail Joaquim was hopping in. Even though Gabe was at the top of Joaquim's mind, he did not want to rouse suspicion from the corporal that unintentionally saved him.

  "You should sit... I can come get you," Corporal Woo said while ahead. "Private Felix wanted you here."

  "That's Lucia right? Sorry I'm just learning ranks... I just wanna make sure we are referring to the same person... or dog?" Joaquim explained. "Was she also looking for Gabe too?"

  "She wanted to ask you about him," Corporal Woo replied.

  "We're gonna owe Sergeant Uzi big time."

  Lucia's voice could be heard past a walkable crevice on the side of the mountain. It was only now that Joaquim noticed that they were not too far from the summit after glancing up from the crevice. He leaned against the rocky wall, waiting for the husky's pitter patters to come closer.

  "Hey, I was the one that got all the chairs," Corporal Woo grumbled.

  "And Sergeant Uzi is the one that is going to keep them away from our officers," Lucia added, her black and white face poking through the crevice while the rest of her jumped out. She wore a camouflage bandana around her neck with the same grid pattern Corporal Woo and Joaquim wore on their uniforms. Clipped to her bandana was a device responsible for sustaining a hologram of a chevron above her.

  "Who's Sergeant Uzi?" Joaquim asked.

  "The arak in our platoon," Corporal Woo answered.

  "Indeed I am!"

  What was at first a silhouette within the crevice became a fan-shaped torso that had a pattern of mantis green, pitch black, and twinkling silver, and their large eyes on top the torso reminded Joaquim of bubble wrap.

  "That's me," Sergeant Uzi said, waving a needle-like arm at him.