Luke woke up to Sirius kneeling over him and shaking him awake. "Let's go bud, time to head out."

"Five more minutes," Luke said tossing to his side and giving Sirius his back. Luke wanted to return to the dream. Finally, things were making sense. A couple of months ago he had a dream of the archangel Uriel passing the gift of fire to him while in the Garden of Eden. Now he finally understood how he got the lightning ability.

But Uriel was different when he passed on the ability. He looked younger, and although he managed to keep his calm demeanor, he seemed sterner as well. By restricting the blooming of Luke's power until some point where "the son of the son unleashes the false death," whatever that means, he was handicapping Luke in a way. Luke managed to advance his powers so much in just two months. Imagine if he had two years, or even had learned this when he was twelve years old?

Sirius yanked Luke out of his sleeping bag like a hotdog out of a bun. He bear-hugged him from behind and swung him away from the sleeping bag like they were contestants on a dance show competition. "Let's go, before Victor gets angry."

When Sirius put Luke down and withdrew away from him, he suddenly felt a cold shiver go down to his bones. The heating lamp had been turned off, and he wished to either be back in that sleeping bag or back in Sirius's arms—whichever kept him warmer.

Luke opted for a third option, his layers upon layers of shirts, sweaters, and a winter coat that made him look like he gained twenty pounds in twenty seconds. Meanwhile, Sirius was helping Nil get up from his bed and get dressed. He was so gentle with the child, treating him like a fragile infant when he was creeping up on the age of six.

"What do you think about all of this," Luke asked Sirius.

Sirius pulled Nil's head through a wool sweater. "About the Garden Run? Well, it has its pros and cons. I know you only see the cons of pulling him away from the Lord, but by doing so, he will be coherent enough to fight for the Lord. He will have the ability to be a martyr and that is probably just as good as dying with one's innocence intact."

A martyr? Luke thought. Was that really the best outcome that could come out of corrupting one's innocence? "Still, what if we pull him from the light and he becomes evil? What if he chooses Lucifer?"

Sirius seemed to shudder when he heard that name. He paused as if to mull over what he wanted to say.

"Just because a person doesn't agree with God doesn't necessarily make him evil."

Luke let that thought slow roast in his mind. There were probably plenty of times when he disagreed with what God has done or at least not understood why He has done it. If God could make evil go away at the snap of a finger, well—why does He allow it to linger? If He could end suffering with a blink of an eye, well—why does He hesitate? If He could bring peace and prosperity to humanity in the speed of light, well—why does He withhold it?

Sirius had finished dressing Nil and strapped on his small backpack. He led Nil by hand to Luke. "If Nil could make the decision to stay in this state—then we would've allowed him. Sadly, other people must make the decision for him. But who knows, maybe by bringing him down to Earth, after having seen the light of God, he can save more people than just himself from the grasp of Satan."

Luke liked that answer a lot better than the martyr one. Luke also noticed that Sirius distanced himself with that final response. It showed that Sirius might not agree with everything that was occurring, but he goes through with it nonetheless, trusting the system to know more than he does.

And he did have a point. Although there was a chance of a Nef going rouge, there was also the opportunity for a Nef to change the world.

Luke hoped he could do the latter.

"My balls are freezing," Luke thought out loud by mistake. They had dismantled the camp and were following Victor who was studying the map every fifteen paces or so to keep track of where they were going.

"Then use your fire to heat your balls up," Victor grumbled as he fumbled with the map against the raging wind.

"I can warm them up with my mittens," Sirius offered with a smile like a butler to a rich entrepreneur.

"As tempting as that sounds, I'd rather not have my crotch impaled by your sword of light."

Sirius shrugged his shoulders. "I offered."

"Can you two stop being gay for a second and just shut up," Victor said. The wind blew the map against his face and he cursed in a language that was neither English nor Latin. Was it German?

"There's nothing wrong with being gay," Sirius asserted.

Luke agreed. "Yeah, update your software. It's the 21st century."

"I'm going to update my foot up your ass if you don't be quiet, and DAMN THIS FREAKING WIND!" Victor curled up the map and started punching the wind. Luke would've found this hilarious if Victor wasn't actually serious about murdering the air.

Apparently, Sirius found this comedic, and so did Nil—or at least he thought he heard a second laugh. When he turned around, Nil was still silently looking up like a candidate in a revolutionary poster. All he needed was a fist in the air and some slogan of rebellion and Nil would become the face of a random insurrection.

The wind started to howl, almost like the whispers of wolves. It lingered in the breeze and seemed to curve around invisible corners. The wind was forming words, sentences that Luke couldn't understand.

"Aeria," Sirius said unleashing his sword Absorber. But he was barely able to allow the mini-star-sword to shine before being dragged beneath the mounds of snow and ice.

Parting the snow like it was sand, a hairy creature climbed from beneath the Earth. It was difficult to tell the difference between its white fur and the snow that caked it. It was about seven feet tall and humanoid. Fur covered every inch of its body except for its face. Even amongst this fur, it managed to have distinguishable hair, long and silver, that flowed in the wind. In its right hand it clutched an ax whose blade was covered in ice while the handle was made of stone. The ax was crusted with red blood over the ice that showed no signs of cracking.

Luke's heart started pumping. He was worried for Sirius. He disappeared and Luke had no clue where he was dragged off to. Luke reached for his whip, but then the ground shook. Sprouting up like worms on a rainy day were one, two, three, four, five giant yeti-like creatures in total.

"That's a lot of Chuchunyas," Victor gulped as he reached for his slingshot.

"Chew-chew-what?"

"Siberian variants of the yeti. Must've migrated down here just to eat us."

"That's comforting," Luke said thinking that Sirius was going to be a delicate meal for some ugly fur balls. But his thoughts got drowned out by a collective roar like a football stadium full of fans.

"They're level 2 Iumenti—well at least alone they are," Victor said.

Luke's eyes raced towards Nil who was standing near where Sirius had been pulled down. One of the Chu-chu trains was staring down at Nil probably contemplating whether he would make a good appetizer or dessert.