When the horse knocked Hallez down, something weird happened.

    She turned invisible. She concluded that it was triggered by her survival instincts, but how it never happened before, why it decided to just appear now, she wasn't sure.

    She'd already had a theory about how she had the ability in the first place, given her...heritage, (she refused, refused to think about it). She didn't question how it was scientifically possible; Please, she'd seen worse.

    Hallez couldn't see her own body, which was disorientating. Actually, she couldn't see much in general. Her vision was like someone had switched a lever that lowered her focus by a thousand. She could only see blurry colors and shapes. The sunlight seemed to waver, like a flickering flashlight, and the little she could see of the physical world blurred even more, swimming in and out of focus, which made standing up a huge headache. When she blinked, however, she could see—or feel, she wasn't sure—different shapes of energy around her, some weaker than the rest.

    She didn't know what it was, obviously, but she didn't have time to dwell when a high-pitched voice screeched from the distance. She felt two new shapes of energy come from...actually they just appeared there. They sort of formed out of thin air.

    The horses had stopped running circles now, and she could see and feel the vague shape of Cade, lying in the sand. She desperately wanted to run to him, but something told her that she would be revealed if she tried to move, even when invisible.

    "What is the meaning of this?" one of the...new things, hissed. It sounded like a female. "Where's the girl? Why do I have a dead boy here?"

    Hallez wanted to yell He's not dead! But she had a feeling that it would be a fact, if she did, and not just hoping. She didn't yell out loud, of course.

    One of the horses neighed.

    The second female thing snorted a puff of grey smoke. So, they could all breathe fire.

    "He told us to get the Shield of Mars and the human girl! He mentioned nothing about a boy, you lousy smoke-breathers!" Thing #2 shrieked, oblivious to the irony of her last sentence.

    Thing #1 walked over towards Hallez, and for a panicked second, (if she wasn't panicked enough already) she thought she had been made, or discovered. (She'd been dragged into too many TV show marathons recently that she was using their slang.) Then she walked right past Hallez, and grabbed the weird eight-figured shield off the sandy ground. It was only then that Hal realized it had somehow slipped off her arm. She thought she had it tight enough that it wouldn't slip off if someone yanked on it. How did it come off?

    "Let's bring what we found. Don't eat the boy, he's obviously alive," she said. "But you four-legged smoke-breathers are going to be the ones to explain why we don't have the girl!"

    Then, for the first time, Hallez ignored her instincts, and did something foolish. She reached for the shield. If someone asked her why, she would deny it. She would say that the shield had a strange energy, that it was beyond tempting, which wasn't completely false.

    When she reached for the shield, however, her hand (at least, Hallez thought it was her hand, since she couldn't see herself) went straight through the shield. Before she had the time to be confused, suddenly, her vision shimmered back to normal. She couldn't sense the energies of the horses or the female creatures or Cade, or even the shield, around her. She looked at her hands and they were there, as real and physical as they should be.

    Yet now that she was back to normal, she realized that she felt more awkward, more exposed, like this.

    Her thought process was interrupted when Thing #1 in front of her shrieked.

    "I FOUND THE GIRL!"

    Under completely different circumstances, Hallez would have made a sarcastic Sherlock comment, but there was no time for that when Thing #1 swung a kick at her head with a metal leg— Her brain practically backtracked. A what?!

    Duck!

    Hallez ducked. She was too confused and busy trying not to die to think about the voice in her head, or the metal leg. She didn't remember feeling this much emotion since, well, the incident.

    The voice had appeared first when Cade had used his satellite phone earlier that day. It said that the sat phone was attracting too much attention, which was when she noticed the horses in the distance. She had put two and two together, told Cade to hang up, and everything that happened after, happened.

    She didn't know what the voice was, but she got a sense of peace, and the instinct to trust it. So she did.

    The 'Thing' had long, dark hair, a strangely pale and sharp face, bright red eyes, fangs, claws on each hand, one copper leg, and one donkey leg. Or, at least Hallez thought it was a donkey leg. She was wearing a simple black skirt, and her hair was up in a high ponytail. Smoke came out of her mouth. Typical.

    Thing #1 screeched at the others. "HELP ME YOU FOOLS! OR I WILL CUT OFF ONE OF YOUR LEGS!"

    In the time she was threatening her fellows, Hallez made a split-second decision, and booked it. From what she'd overheard, it didn't sound like they were going to kill Cade. Worst-case scenario, they decide he's dead and eat him—but she wasn't strong enough to carry Cade one way or another.

    She tried not to feel guilty. She kept thinking to herself that this was what he would've wanted. She wasn't sure if she believed herself.

    She heard the creature's screeches behind her.

    The vans were just around the corner of that outcropping, if she could just warn everyone and drive off...

    Suddenly, she rounded the corner and nearly bumped into a girl around her age, perhaps a year younger.

    "Woah!" She held out her hands and caught Hallez before she could crash into her. "Hello! I'm Fiona, and I'm assuming you're being chased by a bunch of weird monsters you don't understand?"

    Hal's first instinct was to distrust her. Because who the heck was this and how could she know about Hallez's situation? But then the voice was back again.

    She can be trusted. She will help.

    For some reason, Hallez believed the mysterious voice completely. Even if her mother were here to tell her that this Fiona could be trusted, Hallez would still be suspicious. What was this voice? Did she suddenly grow a sense of morality?

    "Y-yes," Hallez said, panting. Her adrenaline was running out, and she felt like her legs were on fire.

    "Great!" Fiona said cheerfully, grabbing Hallez's forearm. "I can't fight very well, so let's run, and hope Luck is with us."

†††

They didn't need to run very long.

    Some parts of the Mojave Desert were littered with stone outcroppings, small valleys, and hills. Fiona led them to one of those small valleys in between two rocky hills.

    As they scampered down, Hallez spotted a sign on a long stick.

    It said in bold, red text:

BEWARE!
HAZARDOUS AREA!!
QUICKSAND BELOW!!!

    She stopped for multiple reasons. First and foremost, there's no quicksand in deserts. Especially in a hot desert such as the Mojave, which received little to no rainfall a year. Second, even if there were, say, dry quicksand, why was Fiona going straight towards it? Third, if there were no quicksand of any kind, they would be trapped in the valley, and the monsters could catch up to them.

    Fiona noticed the absence of Hal's presence. She looked back up. "What are you waiting for? They're not far behind us now!"

    Hallez gestured to the sign next to her. "It says there's quicksand below. First of all, there are no quicksand in the desert, but it would be a bad idea even if there are no quicksand. Secondly, if there is a quicksand patch, it would also be a bad idea."

    Fiona sighed. She climbed up to Hallez's side. "Look, I know you don't know me very well yet, and nor I you, but I need to get us to safety, and I promise this is the way."

    Before Hallez could decide, however, the monsters decided for them.

    "SISTER! I FOUND THEM!"

    They looked up and saw one of the two fire-breathing ladies with mismatched legs above them.

    Fiona grabbed Hallez's forearm again. "I'll explain when we get there, come on!"

    Hallez wanted to ask where was "there," but she just followed as they half-rolled down the hill, getting bruises and scrapes and cuts from the jagged rocks and stray branches. They tumbled onto the sand below, and instantly, faster than normal quicksand, they were sucked underground.

    Darkness closed around them, but, as quickly as they were swallowed, they were spit back out again, into more humid, and cooler air. Then, just as abruptly, Hallez felt a rush of cold, liquid water, submerging her. The currents pulled her in one direction, and she nearly took a breath, but then, a hand grabbed her arm, and pulled with surprising strength, hauling her up to her feet.

    Fiona pulled her ashore, where Hallez doubled over, her hands above her knees, coughing and gasping, dripping with water from the river.

    When she finally looked up, she started at the sight of dozens of people, ages ranging from ten to around twenty, all wearing armour and carrying weapons. Behind them, a high wall stretched a hundred meters or so to either side.

    Fiona smiled cheerfully at Hallez. "I said I would explain. So, first of all, there's the introductions: We are the Fifteenth Legion Apollinaris, this is the Castra, and welcome to Rome Ultima!"

---

I'm not sure if I should be concerned or happy that I'm writing at such a speed with this book—
-Lunya