Below the seaside cliff in the suburbs of the metropolis, a silvery-white escape pod was firmly stuck in the gap between two rocks.

  Viktor sat at the open hatch, sorting a bundle of fishing gear and a few bottles of rough, homemade sauce.

  He found all of these things in Tom's old little cabin.

  "You really don't need to take all that."

  Rachel sat on a rock washed by the waves, her fair, bare white feet dangled in the cold seawater.

  She looked up at him with a cold stare as usual, and her voice sounded like she was compining.

  "You've been diving into the sea yourself every day for the past two days. Those nets and rods are totally useless. They'll just take up space."

  He didn't reply right away. He focused on the work in his hands, and only after everything had been sorted into categories did he set the gear down.

  He reached out and gathered up a pile of firewood he had collected yesterday.

  Even though the seaside air was damp and the wood had absorbed moisture, Viktor still carefully stacked it like a grid.

  He pinched his thumb and middle finger together, pointed his index finger at the firewood, and furrowed his brow in thought for a moment.

  Then a few murmured words passed from his lips.

  Snap!

  With the flick of his fingers, a nearly invisible spark dropped onto the pile, and then those woods defied all reason and began to give off a thin wisp of smoke.

  "Ha! I really do have talent for magic."

  After watching the woods go from a faint thread of smoke to a tiny fme, Viktor happily gave himself a high-five.

  Then a sudden gust of strong wind blew in and instantly extinguished the little fme.

  Rachel stood there with her mouth open, bnkly stunned for a long while, before helplessly closing it again.

  In fact, Viktor didn't have even the slightest bit of magical talent.

  Viktor's body was still like a solid sb of iron in Rachel's eyes. She couldn't find the slightest clue where that magic or divine power had actually gone.

  However, Viktor excitedly pestered Rachel to teach him, convinced that since there was magic inside him, he should at least be able to learn one or two minor spells.

  In the end, Rachel couldn't withstand his pleading, and she taught him a few lines of an incantation.

  It was the kind of spell meant for a child to py with.

  Viktor did learn the words quickly, but since he couldn't 'channel' with his magic at all, he simply couldn't cast anything.

  That tiny spark from before wasn't really magic.

  Viktor is just really strong.

  After a single finger snap, the friction between his fingertips generated enough heat, and it triggered a tiny spark that carried only a very weak trace of magic with a bit of wood dust sticking to his hand.

  He could barely light the damp wood, and the little fme extinguished right away when the wind blew.

  Rachel raised a hand and pointed, and couldn't even be bothered to recite a spell.

  "SHHH!"

  The firewood that had just been extinguished erupted into a fierce bze, the fmes lighting up in his face, and his smile disappeared.

  After a moment, the two of them sat around the fire and began shaking fish out of the net.

  "It isn't that bad changing things up once in a while. I can't rely on brute force to catch fish forever—and these seasonings are pretty good. The fish will smell better grilled with them."

  He said, finally answering Rachel's earlier compint.

  Of course, the net was only being used as a container.

  He just jumped into the sea and grabbed the fish with his bare hands before tossing them in.

  Rachel sat cross-legged by the fire, and the corner of her mouth twitched as she watched him pull out those brightly colored sea fish.

  "No matter how good it smells, it's still fish. I've eaten so much fish these past few days that I'm almost sick of it."

  She rolled her eyes, her tone helpless.

  "Your lifestyle is so primitive it's making me nostalgic for the days when I used to steal bread. I didn't have to stare at fish meat every day back then."

  Viktor dug a fish knife out of Tom's stash. As he scraped off the scales, he said with a grin, "I don't pn to keep living like this either. Yesterday, when I dove down to the bottom of the sea, I found some ruins down there. It looked like a lost Atntean outpost, and there were quite a few jewels inside."

  "Where's the jewelry now?"

  Rachel asked, and her usually bnk "empty" eyes suddenly sparkled with interest.

  The jewels could be traded for money, and money meant they could go to a restaurant in the city and eat a proper meal.

  Vioktor finished skewering the prepared fish and propped them over the fire, then spread his hands.

  "Uh… for some reason, the moment those jewels touched the air, they crumbled and rotted away. We couldn't use them at all."

  He even shook his head in regret.

  Those jewels sparkled and gleamed in the deep sea.

  Viktor thought he could take them to Bruce Wayne and get a huge amount of money, but they turned out to be way too fragile.

  The light in Rachel's eyes faded again. She went back to staring bnkly at the "dead fish" roasting over the fire.

  Just as he picked up a jar of some unknown-fvored sauce, ready to sprinkle it over the fish... the communicator he'd been sitting on suddenly let out a rapid series of beeps.

  The screen lit up, dispying the Justice League's emergency contact symbol.

  The two of them looked at each other. Viktor quickly pulled out the device and pressed the answer button.

  On the other end came Batman's low, grave voice, carried through the static and clearly reaching their ears.

  "Queen Hippolyta of Themyscira has sent the Justice League a distress call. Wonder Woman may have been kidnapped. She's been out of contact for two days."

  The communication cut off, and silence fell instantly around the campfire.

  "Your teacher… got kidnapped?"

  Rachel kept her head down, still staring at the roasting fish, and asked casually.

  Meanwhile, Viktor stood up, and a hint of bewilderment appeared in his eyes.

  'Even Wonder Woman could be kidnapped?'

  'I had been a month since I arrived. I'm already running into something on this level?'

  The communicator suddenly beeped twice. Batman switched to an encrypted channel audible only to Viktor's device.

  "Viktor, this may have something to do with you two. Queen Hippolyta says the kidnappers came from the divine realm. They left a piece of parchment, and on it they wrote that the thief who stole the golden apple must go to the divine realm in person to atone for their crime."

  Hearing that, Viktor's confusion disappeared right away.

  'It wasn't some random huge disaster. It was a bunch of self-procimed "gods" looking for a fight.'

  He replied into the communicator, "Understood. I'll head over too. Is it the Justice Hall in Washington?"

  "No. The Watchtower. And bring Aquaman with you. He can't fly."

  "Huh?"

  The communicator was cut off immediately.

  Before Viktor could even begin to wonder, Rachel, who had stood up at some point, patted his shoulder and nodded toward the distant horizon.

  A white wave appeared at the edge of the sea, then raced toward the seaside cliff at astonishing speed.

  A dozen or so seconds ter, a man gleaming head to toe in gold burst straight out of the sea, carrying a spray of water into the air.

  Aquaman nded right on the rock Rachel had just been sitting on. He pnted the golden trident in his hand to the side, looked up at Viktor, and gave him a slightly teasing grin.

  "Hey, kid. Yesterday, did you happen to visit some underwater ruins?"

  "Well, wow. We didn't get the money, and now the owner's come knocking."

  Rachel spoke in a ft, mocking voice with sarcasm, then silently took two steps back, putting Viktor in front of her as a shield.

  Before Viktor could answer, Aquaman waved a hand cheerfully.

  "Those jewels were enchanted by the Atnteans. They can only circute on the seabed, and they crumble in oxygen and honestly… looks like you've been living pretty rough out here."

  Suddenly, Aquaman casually tossed two shiny things over.

  Viktor caught them and looked down.

  There were two pearls, one bck and one pink, and each as big as a thumb.

  "That's for travel expenses. And when you fly us up ter, please try to keep it steady… I might be a little afraid of heights."