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.

"Fragile!" Zetterburn snarled, raking his claws across the shield. Green sparks flew. "Just like all your kind!"

"You're lost, little boy," Zetterburn growled, his voice the sound of a collapsing forge. He flexed a claw, and a corona of fire licked up his forearm. "This isn't Onett. There are no weak, sentient animals here for you to bully with your mind."

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.

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.

"You—!" he rasped, ice crystals falling from his singed whiskers.

Ness lowered his hand. He was trembling, his nose bleeding from the strain of focusing PSI in this alien place. He held the broken remains of his bat like a spear.