Pale bark cracked under the force of his knuckles, denting the trunk inward. Straightening, Finn assessed his handiwork with a tilt of his head. Not the most impressive punch he'd thrown during his time here. Yet at the same time, his personal best.

Despite how contradictory that sounded, it was true. Because he hadn't been reinforcing himself. That punch had been pure physical force. Just his base level of strength, nothing more. He almost couldn't believe it, because back on Earth, he had undoubtedly hit a ceiling on his power progression, and it had taken enduring hell many times over to finally break through. But now that he had?

He was on an entirely different level than before.

Finn's eyes moved to his hand, and he clenched it into a fist, turning it over as he did. The calluses he had once carried were gone, as was the scarring from the small wounds that had accumulated over the course of his career as Shade. Those burns on his shoulder, the minor cuts, all of it had disappeared, replaced by flawless, smooth skin. Even after all the time spent training and having countless accidents while testing the limits of his newfound power, the nanites took care of it.

At first, he had assumed that there would be some limit to the number of times they could perform a task, or a problem with fuel, or any of a dozen other problems. Every step of the way he had expected some complication to arise, but that never happened. He was truly fortunate beyond belief.

Obviously, the pain it took to get here was something he never wanted to experience again. However, denying the ridiculous amount of luck required to transport him across dimensions and get him in the exact position required to inherit the prototype colony? Impossible.

Sighing to himself, Finn sat down on the otherworldly grass and thought. This stay here, it was miraculous. He knew he shouldn't have been alive, that by all rights he was dead following the explosion. For a time afterwards, he had even been a walking corpse. It was only because of the help of other people that he was here today, trained and breathing and ready. Without them, he would have been nothing.

Not that he had instantly admitted that to himself. In the beginning, he'd forced the narrative into his head that he and he alone was responsible for all good things that ever had and would happen to him. Regardless of the fact that he logically knew it wasn't true, he'd repeated it over and over in his head. As a coping mechanism, of sorts. The weight of the overwhelming silence in this place had kept pressing down on his shoulders, along with the knowledge about his friends—or lack thereof—and the question of what was going to happen to them.

Now, though, after having so much time to stand still and think, he was able to see the situation for what it was and acknowledge that it was a combination of luck and effort that got him here.

Unfortunately, as nice as he was sure that would sound if he said that out loud, the main concern wasn't ruminating on how he got into this place; it was how to get out.

On that front, he had taken far too long for his own liking. Training was one thing, but it wasn't the reason he still resided in this dimension. He was actually stuck. And the time he'd here had primarily been dedicated to cracking the code behind Amalgam's message.

And he had managed it.

It had been a difficult venture the whole way through, not to mention all how much he had to rely on his power to recall the exact memory of the cryptic message he was supposed to decipher.

Ultimately he had decided that a single sample wasn't enough, so he had gone back to the facility to make another attempt at communication, which worked, much to his pleasant surprise.

The last time he had done that was weeks ago, he thought, and the crystal must have been recharged for months at this point.

He honestly didn't know. Not because it was absolutely impossible for him to keep track of time, but because he didn't see a point in doing so. He had a rough idea, though. Assuming there wasn't some sort of relative time differential going. He dearly hoped that wasn't the case.

Whatever the case, worrying about it wasn't going to bring him back any faster. Only taking action and solving his problems would. Hence why he had been working tirelessly to come up with a solution, sharpening his mind. Aside from that, he had been honing this new weapon at his disposal, using it to strengthen his body whenever he took a brain to get back to code-cracking with a fresh perspective later.

Jack would probably be surprised that he was allowing himself breaks at all in this situation, and also pissed that he was filling said breaks with more training. Finn smiled. Hopefully he could tell his friend all about it when he returned.

Hopping to his feet with inhuman grace, he turned to the other end of the clearing. The forest populated by alien-looking trees had been a strange find. A fortuitous one, too. After all, they were the sole source of food.

During his first visit, the plant life had been the first thing that stood out to him. Pure white trees with multiple trunks fused together, sprouting up in different directions. Odd, spiraling branches, nothing like the gnarly growths he'd gotten accustomed to in his old world. All of them were dense with blue leaves, and unique purple fruits.

At least, purple when they were ripe. Upon sprouting, they started out pink, slowly growing from a small dot to a matured fruit. Shaped like tomatoes, with fuzzy skin and juicy flesh. He'd wondered if they were poisonous, though he'd risked eating them since he was confident in his ability to scour poison from his body now. Either way, it was a moot point. These things were most certainly not filled with poison. In fact, they were the single most nutritious form of sustenance Finn had ever encountered. His body lacked nothing. A single fruit, designed to contain all that was necessary for human survival. It seemed so valuable, he had started collecting seeds from the cores. That was not to say he needed to eat daily, at this point.

But today would be his last day. He would trace back the route from whence he came, and then collect what he needed before heading home. A complicated look flashed over his face at that word: home. The thought felt surreal.

Wasting no more time, he crouched and took off with a sprint. Wind beat against his face as he ate up the distance with his rapid steps. In truth, the designs for upgrades to his body had been largely handled by the nanites. He lacked the expertise to optimize his own physiology beyond baseline, and the colony seemed designed to elevate its host to the next level, even if he was presumably the first successful subject.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

They seemed to have a specific endpoint in mind for what he was turning into, and worse came to worst, he could always stop them. But he had no plans of doing so for now. The benefits were plain as day. Excluding the improved physical strength from normal training and increased height—something he found useful for the extra reach—he had been remade to be faster, stronger, more resilient than a regular human. Down to his very bones.

For fuel, the nanites used air, water and fruits to convert into matter for his body to become better. It was an ongoing project, but one that had started slowing down, of late. He didn't think he could get much better physically unless he discovered something major that could help. Unless he was able to ask his colony somehow, but that seemed like a long shot. Smart as they were, he hadn't ever been able to hold a conversation with them.

His eyes moved over the scenery, taking in his surroundings one last time. Focusing his vision in front of him was unnecessary. He could sense the way ahead just fine, even if he didn't remember it perfectly—which he did. Better yet, he could sense even more than before, as he had now gained the passive awareness of all light within his range.

It was different from solids or liquids or gases with a color. He understood it scientifically, but using supernatural senses to detect it made him aware of how fast it traveled. Finn had gained a new appreciation for the speed of light, and for his ability to incorporate light into his own arsenal more. His understanding was far from complete, and the biggest project he had in mind was only in concept phase at the moment, but he was finally able to harness it. From the day he first manifested his ability to manipulate color, light had seemed completely outside his grasp to directly manipulate. No more.

His own travel time was cut down by more than half, but it still took a while until he made his way back to the settlement he had spotted from his place up in the facility so long ago. To accelerate his pace, he used a couple of reinforced steps that exploded the soil beneath him. It was still outside his means to measure in real-time, but he was quite sure most speeding cars couldn't keep up with him when he did this. Regardless, he didn't hold a candle to them over long distances, because these brief bursts were just that: brief. Each one of them took time to charge.

Returning to the camp, Finn was greeted by a somber sight, causing him to slow. He would move on in just a moment, but he felt it was appropriate to spare a few seconds of silence for the people before him. Or their memory, at least. For they were no longer alive, all resting in graves he had dug for them.

He had no clue about their history or origins, but when he originally came here, the camp had been inexplicably populated by cold, unmoving skeletons. The remains of what he could tell had without a doubt been humans once. The cause of their death, on the other hand, was a mystery.

As much as he hated the man, Finn did not think Gunther had been lying about not having killed the other inhabitants. Not these ones, anyway. The corpses were too old. Though that wasn't where the forensic clues ended. There also seemed to be signs of burning. Blackened edges around the tents here and there. The fire must have been stopped partway through. Did these people have access to more tools than he thought? Maybe. He couldn't definitively tell one way or the other. All he could do was give them the courtesy of a burial.

Finn took a deep breath, and moved on. He supposed he should be grateful that the tents were still intact, because he wouldn't have any new clothes otherwise. Plus, he had discarded his costume. The reason was simple. It was too small.

So that left him with these strange fabrics and exotic-looking clothes. There were a lot of them, fortunately. And he was the last person to ask about style or fashion. He didn't know or care about that stuff. Lyra would have given him a look for some of the things he had worn, that much he could say.

At least he would be able to see her again soon, after so long. Packing up a huge, cobbled-together backpack, he rested it on his shoulders and rushed off without looking back.

The facility was a fair distance away. Closer to the camp than the forest had been, but nonetheless far. And neither journey made him particularly tired, due to the fact that he possessed superhuman stamina. He imagined this was what all warrior types felt like.

Reaching the enormous building didn't take too long, but getting to the entrance did. Nevertheless, he made it there all the same. And when he reached the entrance, he wasted no time stepping through.

Similar to the way his own nanites never left his body under any circumstance, Amalgam never left the vast structure in front of him. Finn lacked the information to discern the exact reason for it, and it was far from a priority to figure it out.

Wasting no more time, he sent out the first deliberately curated signal with his nanomachines. Calling it a language would have been the understatement of the century. The messages he had to send to even be able to begin to make himself understandable to this entity was a bundle of data of so many different facets, systems and points of reception that a single dialogue contained enough encoded signals to stymie an entire organization of seasoned professionals with the sole purpose of achieving some form of understanding.

Even with his ability to cheat using a nanite colony that had a basic "instinct" to comprehend and compose messages, he wasn't capable of simply winging it. He had needed to script his responses in advance so he wouldn't be caught completely flat-footed. And the way they talked wasn't straightforward like throwing words at each other, either. No, it was more like painting a masterpiece with nothing but advanced mathematical equations and expecting the recipient to solve them, then use the answer in their response.

Keeping all of that in mind, he now knew the initial message all that time ago roughly translated to:

[Greeting reciprocated. Assistance required?]

Finn replied as planned, using his nanites to dispense the request.

[I need a way back to my home world.]

Unlike his own careful deliberation and painstaking calculations to give that response, Amalgam answered him instantly.

[Use gatekey.]

He held up the rectangular crystal. [Do you mean this?]

[Correct.]

A thought struck him then, unrelated but potentially priceless. [Can I have the items you guard?]

[Access denied. Administrator permissions not detected.]

He shrugged. It had been a long shot anyway. He could buy things from the Aegis store later, knowing the independent colony was a major supplier. Now to get back on topic.

[How to activate the gatekey?]

[Multiple methods available. Offering assistance for immediate transfer to destination: Earth.]

[Accepted.] Anything else would be irresponsible.

Amalgam manifested around him, both in the dome that had surrounded him during the absorption of the prototype and the humanoid form he had first seen. Meanwhile, Finn deciphered the message in his head. Good news.

[Safety protocols: engaged. Cross-dimensional stabilization: active. Designated regions detected on gatekey: three. Routing for highest survivability. Immediate transfer?]

[Yes.]

And then he was somewhere else.

It wasn't Apexia.

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