Well that was bizarre.

Yeah, I'm still alive. Not a scratch on me from the attack; just a quick fight with a bunch of golems. Kawena and Eden said to be on our guard, because a brief battle like that is usually a lead-in to something, with the golems trying to distract us, steal something important, or something like that. So for the whole next day we were all on edge, before finally relaxing.

And so of course, then that's when the monster attack came, the day after, while we were all in school. It actually attacked the school. Which, when you think about it a little, is incredibly stupid--in Michael's Landing, they may as well have raided a military base--but when you think about it a little more is kind of terrifying. I don't want to be paranoid, but... what if the attack came at the school because the Masters know the Solar Defenders are high school students?

I was sitting there in Geometry class, watching as Mr. Woodward explained a proof on the board, when suddenly the fire alarm went off. But it wasn't alone; the harsh, piercing scream of the alarm was overlaid by an electronic pulsing two-tone alert, EEEE-OOOO-EEEE-OOOO-EEEE-OOOO... We'd never heard that go off before, not for real, but we've all been taught what it means at the beginning of each school year: an attack. Here.

Everyone jumped a little and looked around nervously. Mr. Woodward paled and set down the marker, stopping mid-sentence.

Kawena screamed and dashed for the door, fleeing out into the halls. I kinda felt sorry for her; that had to be humiliating, putting on an act like that. Several of the students snickered, but there was a nervousness to it. We'd all seen her freak out before, but the attack had never been here! Mr. Woodward just sighed. "I suppose we should all follow," he said. "Everyone please evacuate in an orderly fashion." Just like a fire drill, apparently. We all stood up and he led us out of the room, down the hall and down the stairs, where we merged in with other evacuating classes and out toward the student parking lot.

The place was swarming with golems, dozens of them. Maybe a hundred or more! They were milling about aimlessly until all the kids started to show up; then they broke into a charge, the whole mass of them loping towards the evacuating students!

A few kids looked freaked out and began to turn to flee, but suddenly a new group came running in from the direction of the gym: Sensei Billingsley, leading his first period class, all dressed in gis. Sensei was carrying a megaphone. He held it up and barked out, "Students! Fighting stance!"

"YES, SENSEI!" hundreds of voices called out, almost in unison. He'd trained us well, and the wavering kids turned and fell into stance to meet the oncoming attack.

"Hold them until the Defenders arrive!" Sensei ordered. Then he quickly ducked into the Metal Shop classroom, emerging a few moments later carrying a steel bar nearly as tall as himself, holding it like a staff.

I figured that was about as good a cue as any. As the golems crashed into our group, everyone spread out, striking at them with as much discipline as they could manage, the higher-ranked students stepping up to take the brunt of the fighting, meeting the golems head-on and letting the lower belts strike from the sides, in small groups like Sensei had trained us.

When we engaged one of the golems, I hung back, trying out something that Eden had shown us after the last fight: my fingers quickly tracing a subtle pattern based on Form 12 repeated three times, the runes interlocking with themselves and connected by curving lines. The Fundament guided me as I wove the spell of Unpresence. According to Eden, it's kind of like going invisible, except there's no such thing as invisibility. Instead, it simply makes people not look at you. I felt the spell settle over me, and quickly ducked out of the melee and dashed off behind the school as fast as I could, hoping no one saw.

Once I was in the clear, I cupped my hands in front of my chest. "Powers come upon me, Defender Jupiter!" I felt the power erupting from the Fundament whose magical essence had merged into me, filling my body with strength, clarity and resolve. My skin began to toughen and thicken, plates of metallic orange armor emerging, somehow absorbing my clothes and covering them under an inch of metal. The helmet emerged as a part of the process, a tinted visor covering my face.

I went to run back around, but my Fundament inserted a new idea into my mind: it would be faster to go over. I flexed my legs, took a few steps' running start, then leaped upward, Powers-enhanced strength easily clearing the two-story roof. When I got up, I saw Mars and Neptune there already, both dashing for the far end, so I ran to follow them. The two of them pushed off in soaring, powered jumps that carried them over the heads of the nearest students, landing in flying kicks into two of the golems. I copied the move, bearing a third to the ground, then quickly pivoting to kick at another one. I sensed more than saw yet another golem moving in from my right, so I turned and struck with a hard, level shuto, staggering it and leaving it open just long enough to follow up with a quick punch that shattered its shoulder.

A golem grabbed me from behind, but a student tackled it, ripping it off of me. I turned and lashed out with my foot, trusting the Fundament to guide my kick so it would strike the golem and miss the student. The powerful kick cracked the earthen monster into shards, then suddenly I found myself wishing my kick had slipped. Standing there was the guy who had pulled it off of me: Scott Underwood.

Focus.

"Thanks!" I said, then turned away to strike at another golem. I didn't want to look at him.

Scott, though, seemed to have other plans. He hustled forward and grabbed a golem that was about to engage me, the big brute holding it practically immobile through sheer strength and stubbornness, presenting it to me as a perfect target. And once I shattered that one, he grabbed another one, and another, at least half a dozen times until all the golems around us were broken and sinking back into the earth they had risen from.

Looking around, I saw the battle winding down. It looked like Blake had taken it upon himself to pull a similar team-up with Mars, while Alex Keith and Shawn Harper, a couple of the larger guys from the football team, were following Scott's example, grappling targets for Neptune and Venus. Mercury didn't have any student partner because she was everywhere, opening a rift, jumping out behind a golem, striking with her daggers or grabbing an arm in a lock and hyperextending it until the joint shattered, then opening another rift and zipping off to ambush another golem.

And then there was Sensei. He was standing right in the thick of things, surrounded by half a dozen golems, whirling and lashing out with that steel staff, dodging and striking, cracking earthen joints and knocking golems back, fighting almost like a sixth Defender! I had dropped all the golems nearby, so I figured I should help out. Eden had shown us the runes for a Rift, but I wasn't sure I could get the location right in such a crowded area, and landing on top of a student would be a very bad idea, so I turned and sprinted, leaving Scott behind right as he was trying to say something ingratiating about us making a great team. Which is probably good, because if I had to stand there listening to him, I'd be sorely tempted to test out whether bone breaks more easily than golem.

Anyway, I crashed right into the back of a golem, bearing it to the ground, then spun to side-kick a second one. This brought their attention around to me, drawing some of the heat off Sensei. He stood behind me, staff at the ready, and we proceeded to take apart the rest of the golems.

By the time it was over, he was dripping with sweat, but not breathing too hard. As we stood there, he turned and faced me, clasping an open hand over a fist and bowing to me. “I thank you and your team, Defender.”

I returned the covered-fist bow, my armored hands clanking together. “You have trained your students well, Sensei.”

Then the monster showed up.

A huge being, seemingly made out of wood, strode out from behind the library. It was shaped a lot like the golems, but taller, almost 8 feet tall, with a flat, crude wooden face carved into its “head”. It roared and launched an energy blast that staggered me back a couple steps and tossed Sensei Billingsley into the air, throwing him several feet. He landed hard with a painful grunt.

Mercury pulled out one of her rift jumps, warping to behind the monster and knocking it forward, just as Venus stepped out of a rift with her sword drawn, slashing it across the chest. I heard Mars and Neptune running over to engage, but I turned away, crouching and offering Sensei Billingsley a gauntleted hand.

He took it, wincing as he pulled himself up to his feet. Looking into my visor, he said, “go, Jupiter. I'll be fine; you take down that monster.”

With the way he held his side and stood a little bit off-balance, he didn’t look fine, but my Fundament was urging me to the fight, whispering to my mind that he was still right; that protecting everyone from a monster took precedence over helping one person. I turned and ran to join the fight, hearing Sensei ordering everyone to clear out and get to the other side of the school. Golems were one thing, but an actual monster was too dangerous for civilians!

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When I got over there, everyone had their weapons out, with Mars hacking at the monster with his battleaxe and Neptune stabbing with a spear. I still hadn't gotten the hang of conjuring up Jupiter's staff, so I ran forward to throw punches and kicks at it. I could almost feel sorry for this monster; it was being ganged up on by five armored warriors with magically-enhanced strength, and it was made out of wood. It started splintering almost immediately as the five of us carved it up, its jack o'lantern face contorting painfully as it groaned and flailed about, trying helplessly to attack us back.

After a few blows, it was all over. Venus called out, "Mars! Torso strike, as hard as you can!" So Josh put all of his enhanced strength into a two-handed swing at the thing's center mass, while Venus kicked hard at the knee and Mercury did a rift-jump flying kick to strike its neck from behind, pushing it forward into the axe blade. The blow chopped the monster clean in half, and we all retreated back several steps, because we knew what was coming: about five seconds later, it exploded into a big fireball, leaving behind flaming shards of wood scattered all over.

Venus and Mercury looked at each other. "That was a bit anticlimactic," Mercury said. "The Masters must be scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one."

That drew a groan from Mars. "Is it a wooden barrel?"

"Argh, I didn't even think of that!"

"Cut the chatter, you two," Venus interjected. "A lame monster where no one's ever in any real danger is the best kind. Heaven knows there are enough of the other type!"

We quickly used a mixture of magic and stomping to put out the various pieces of burning wood before any flames started spreading to the school, then opened a rift to dispose of the monster's body. Sometime I'll have to ask Kawena where she's dropping them off. Then Venus said, “all right, you guys head back to your patrols,” which we'd established via IM as a code word for normal life. I could almost hear the scorn in her voice, even through the distortion; having to keep the whole world in the dark, to say silly things like this just in case anyone was listening, was wearing on her.

Mercury opened a rift to an empty classroom, and we stepped through, quickly reverting to civilian form and covering ourselves in Unpresence before heading out and rejoining our classmates out in front of the school. A minute later, Venus showed up on the roof of the building, calling out that everything was clear now and safe to return to class.

We headed back in to Geometry. Kawena arrived a couple minutes later, looking shaken. If I hadn't known, I'd have never suspected the truth about her. Wow, why wasn't she in the Theater Guild?

Everything went pretty ordinary from there on, until I was between classes on my way to last period, when I got a text from the school administration:

> Report to detention after class. Room 218. Reason: abandoning classmates under attack.

Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me! Someone noticed my absence from the fight? Or even saw me slip away? Eden said the Unpresence spell was basically foolproof; had I done it wrong? I don't remember a thing from the class; I was too busy trying not to freak out about possibly being busted. And even if someone hadn't figured it out, that meant I could possibly essentially get in trouble for helping save everyone!

After school I made my way to room 218, where I saw Josh and Jenny already sitting there. A minute later, Kawena walked in.

We looked around at each other. “How bad is it?” Jenny asked.

Kawena looked over her shoulder at the door. “About this bad, I'd say.” Right as she said that, the door began to open, and in walked Sensei Billingsley, limping a little.

“So, we have a new Jupiter,” he said, looking right at me, “Mars,” to Josh, “and Neptune,” to Jenny.

Josh looked panicky. Jenny, with a completely straight face, just went “huh?”

Kawena looked over and shook her head. “He knows. Everyone except Mercury. Go ahead Sensei, tell them.”

Sensei nodded. “Hard not to recognize the personal style of students I trained myself, but she keeps using magic to come up with moves I never taught her.” He looked like he couldn't decide whether to be amused or frustrated by that. “I respect Aderan’s code of secrecy, and I'll protect your identities as you do, but there are things you need to know.

“A few days after the comets struck, once the fires died down, a handful of kids with more boldness than sense headed out into the ruins of the forest, what we're calling New Tunguska now, with cameras, packs and tools, looking to find something they could sell for a quick buck. The one who convinced them all to go along, the charismatic leader of this little band, was Matthew Billingsley.”

“Wait,” Josh blurted out. “Your son, the one who died. Are you saying that he...”

Sensei nodded. “The original Defender Jupiter. The kids found something out there all right, or it found them. You were drawn to the Fundaments, weren't you?”

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

He gave a little snort. "You couldn't hide all this from me, and you're just my students. You really think my own boy could?

"Oh, he tried. He put up a valiant attempt, but I could tell that those kids came back from NT as different people. And then the Defenders started showing up, and they kept running off... it didn't take too long for me to put two and two together. Eventually I confronted him, and he broke down and told me everything."

He had a haunted look as he continued. "I tried to teach them how to fight more effectively. God, I tried so hard! But in the end..." Sensei closed his eyes and turned away for a few moments, before turning back to us. "They lasted the better part of a year, but four of those five are dead now. Matt and two of his colleagues, the first Mars and Mercury, fell to a monster that was tougher than most. And then..."

"Oh crap!" Jenny said.

I looked over at her. "What?"

She looked at Sensei. "Jessica Sloan?" He nodded wordlessly.

"Who's Jessica?" I asked.

"Matt Billingsley's girlfriend. She..." she hesitated, but when Sensei gave her another nod, she continued. "She killed herself, a few weeks after Matt died. I remember hearing about it."

Kawena nodded. "The original Venus."

"So what happened to the fifth one?" Josh asked. "The first Neptune?"

"She stayed around long enough to train the replacements, then handed off her Fundament. I'll come back to her. Me, though, from talking with Matthew, I realized that they really hadn't known what they were doing, and by the time I started teaching them, they'd already figured out how to do certain things the wrong way, which then makes it that much harder to learn right.

"When new Defenders showed up and kept on carrying on the fight, I swore to myself I wouldn't let that same mistake happen again. So I went to the school and volunteered to teach the students to defend themselves against monsters on one condition: they make it mandatory for everyone. I managed to scare them with the thought of dead children who couldn't protect themselves. I even told them how my son and his friends had really been killed by an attack, and the police covered it up and told everyone it was a traffic accident to keep people from panicking. You were all still infants back then, so I don't think you know how bad things got for a while, back before we gradually redefined all this as normal. I probably wouldn't have been able to pull it off today, but back then, I was the right guy in the right place at the right time. I got enough people to listen, and I've been training everyone ever since, because that's the only way to be sure I get them all.

"Every single Solar Defender after that first crop of replacements, they learned to fight from me before they ever got their Fundaments. And after, I found most of them and made them the same offer I'm making you now: no-limits training. As far as I'm concerned, you're all 6th-dan black belts now, same as me. I will teach you everything I know, if you let me, because it's the only way I know to keep you alive. The only rule is, you keep it to the private sessions. In class and in meets, you're still the same scrubs you've always been."

He shook his head. "We still lose a few. But never again has it been four of five. Not even close. Rachael and I have seen to that."

"Rachael?" Jenny asked.

"Rachael Ling," he said, shaking his head slowly with a bit of a fond smile. "The original Neptune. Only Defender who's ever been crazy enough to move back here after making it out." He opened his wallet and pulled out three business cards, handing them to me, Josh, and Jenny. I looked at it; it was for a psychiatric practice downtown. "Kids aren't really cut out to be front-line soldiers in a war that never ends. No one is, really; our minds aren't built for it and this stuff can really mess us up, but you... you're particularly at risk. When you need it, and you will, she's the one therapist you can actually be completely open with."

I wasn't really sure what to say to that. "Uhh... thanks, I think."

Sensei nodded. "It's not easy to hear, but I'd rather tell you the hard truth, so you can prepare properly, than a sweet, gentle lie that'll get you killed." He sighed. "Now go on, get outta here. You're not in trouble, and your record won't show any detention."

We all looked at each other and nodded. There really wasn't much to say after all that! So we got up and headed out, but right as I was about to leave, Sensei laid a hand on my shoulder. "A word, Juptier?"

I hung back. "What is it?"

"Whoever the new Mercury is--you do know she's pretty new, right?" I nodded. "Can you talk to her on my behalf? Kawena hasn't been able to get through to her, and I'm not completely certain, but I suspect there may have been some bad blood between her and one of her former teammates. Now that they're no longer in the picture, maybe you can get her to see reason? Whoever she is, I'm very impressed with the tricks she's managed to come up with on her own, but having solid fundamentals can only improve her odds."

I nodded. "I can't promise any results, but yeah, I'll talk to her."

"Thank you, David. And... thanks for earlier. I couldn't have held them for much longer."

"Sure," I said. "It's... kinda my job now, I guess. One question, though?"

"Shoot."

"They've never attacked the school before, have they?"

He shook his head. "Never. Always up until now, the Masters have been repetitive, predictable. The same basic strategies every week, always losing, and no one's sure why they didn't ever adapt. If things are changing now... that troubles me. It could mean any number of things, but the obvious one is that, whatever plan they're working off of, they're moving on to the next phase of it now. Keep alert out there."

I nodded. "Yes, Sensei."

That seemed good enough for him, and I left. And now it's 11 at night, and I should be sleeping, but how am I supposed to sleep after getting all that dropped on me? The weight of the world on my shoulders, and now someone who knows what he's talking about tells me I'm guaranteed to need therapy, assuming the job doesn't literally kill me first? I never signed up for any of this! All I ever really wanted is to make it out of here in one piece, go off to college, and become a writer someday.

And yet, what am I gonna do? Just walk out on being a Defender?

I can't do that. I saw a different side of Sensei today. He's a little bit broken. The way he kept looking at me, I think he was seeing his son, Matt. Rightly or wrongly, he blames himself for those kids who died, because he didn't do enough. And if I walk out and someone dies because of it... now I know what it looks like to have that on your conscience. And I don't want to end up that way.