The next Thursday, we met after school for study. We aren't all in the same Chemistry class, but we're all taking it from Mr. Simmons, and we were all going to have the same test on Friday, so it was cramming time. Unfortunately, I had other things on my mind.

"I'm kinda worried about Kawena, you guys."

"Hmm?" Josh asked.

"Just... well, you know. She's been doing this for two years now. All that stress, the weight of the world on her shoulders, and the way she talks about it, I can't help but wonder how close she is to the breaking point."

Jenny rolled her eyes at me. "Just ask her out already, Montague," she snickered.

Huh? "Montague?"

"You know. Teen guy who spends way too much time pining and obsessing over a certain pretty young Kapule-ette..."

I groaned as I realized what she was getting at, not so much at the awful pun as at the implications. "Whatever. She's out of my league; that's half the problem. More than half."

Josh shook his head. "Not if you're a Defender just like her! Heck, technically, as Jupiter you outrank her."

Jenny nudged him with her elbow. "Not helping."

"Huh?"

"Because there's totally nothing creepy at all about your boss coming on to you."

"...oh." He looked like he hadn't even thought of it like that.

Well that was enough of that. "Knock it off, you two. And Jenny, could you please find a better metaphor? One that's not about a guy whose stupid choices ended up getting both of them killed?"

She winced. "Sorry. But yeah, the point stands; just ask her out already."

"Whatever. Even if I was thinking of her that way, which I'm totally not--"

"Ohhh, woe is me!" Jenny interrupted, clasping a hand to her chest all over-dramatic like, "the fair Kawena is out of my league, which is a very large part of the problem!"

"--which I'm totally not," I reiterated, "did you miss her whole rant about not mingling socially because people would notice?"

Josh nodded. "That strike anyone else as a bit self-serving, coming from someone at the top of the food chain?"

Jenny shrugged. "Maybe, but she does have a valid point about not drawing attention. And besides, would you even want to hang out with the popular kids? Most of ‘em are total jerks and snobs."

"Sure" Josh said, "but it’s just… the way she said it, the way she singled out Eden like that and basically declared her as permanently beneath herself, it came across as a bit harsh, y’know?"

I stayed out of it. Better to have them discussing that than my hypothetical love life prospects!

Jenny looked like she was about a say sometimes, when Josh's phone lit up. He looked down. "It's Eden. ‘Come to the Fortress quickly.’ Ok, study break then."

We stood up, and Jenny opened a rift for us to step through. When we emerged in the stone room, Aderan at his desk with his huge book, like usual, and Eden sat in a chair nearby, a computer in her lap.

"We got an emergency?" I asked.

She looked surprised. "No, I just thought of something." Looking over at Josh, "you called Dave and Jenny?"

"We were studying together," he said. "So what's up?"

She had one of those fancy laptops where the screen can come off and turn into a tablet. She detached it and held it up. "What do you see?"

The screen showed a drawing of two elaborately curved lines, making up what looked like a rune. Josh got it immediately. "That’s your rune pattern to summon your Eidolon."

Eden nodded, then tapped the screen, and another one came up. "And this is yours. Here’s Kawena’s, Dave’s, and Jenny’s." I recognized the one that was supposed to be mine, and it looked right.

"OK, what about them?" Josh asked.

"I was thinking a little, and… here, look at this." She went back to her first pattern, and moved one of the lines around, rotating it and crossing it over the other line. "Now what does it look like?"

We all saw that one immediately. "A Defender" Jenny said. It was kind of a crude line drawing of a person, but it was recognizable as a human figure encased in armor, if you looked past the curves and jaggies sticking out that were part of the rune forms.

"Yeah. And all five of the patterns will do the same thing. You can make them all into representations of Eidolons."

"So that’s cool" Josh said, "but was it really worth calling us over here for?"

Eden just grinned at him. "Not that part" she said, "but check this out." She switched to another window, where she had the representations of all five rune-forms transformed into human-shapes and colored appropriately. Then she started to rotate and drag them into a circle, feet in the middle, hands and feet of each figure touching their neighbors to either side. The intricate rune marks seemed to interlink together, almost like puzzle pieces or gears.

"It only works with this specific arrangement, at this angle" she said. "But when you fit everyone together…"

Josh saw it before she was done. "The angles are too large. You’ve got five pieces of a six-sided figure."

"Exactly!" Then she pulled up another rune, based on Form 7. "I worked backwards to get this. Transform it into an Eidolon, like so…" She moved the lines around on that one, the same as the others, then copied and pasted it into the other drawing, rotating and dragging it… "Voila. It fits perfectly."

That stunned us all a little. "Aderan" I asked, "is there supposed to be another Defender?" Sensei had talked about Defenders being killed by monsters. If they’d had another teammate to support them, would they have made it?

The wizened alien nodded. "There was once another Fundament, the most powerful of all, but it was lost in the collision between my star-vessel and that of the Masters of Podrema. Mercury, you are only the third to ever discover this connection. Previous teams of Defenders have attempted to search for the missing Fundament, without success."

"Wait," Jenny said. "They're actually called the Masters of Podrema? That's not just on the show?"

"Seriously?" Josh asked.

"What?"

"Nevermind. I'll show you later. It's on YouTube."

"What is?"

"The one time the Defenders gave a TV interview, real early on. It's how the general public knows the basics."

Eden sighed. "You three never stay on topic long, do you?"

"Not really," said Josh casually. "Oh hey, that reminds me, did you hear about the time when…" He trailed off as everyone chuckled. Then he turned to address Aderan. "The thing people don't know is, what is Podrema? The name of their galactic empire?"

He shook his head. "Their people are the Droil, and their empire, as you call it, is named Krolitiar. Among the Droil, there is a philosophy known as Podrema. The simplest translation in your tongue would be ‘the proper path to conquest.’"

Something Sensei had said came back to me. "Losing over and over is the proper path to conquest?"

"It is how the Droil overran my world and enslaved my people. We had thousands of Fundaments, entire legions of Defenders, and their monsters simply wore us down, one and two at a time."

Josh let out a low whistle at that. "Thousands of Defenders?"

"We thought we were winning, that we were beating them back. Again and again their armies of monsters attacked us, again and again our Defenders destroyed them utterly. We thought our losses were small, but they kept coming and coming…" He closed his eyes.

"Today, the Lirial, my people, are no more. Their lives remain, but their culture, their knowledge, their strength and their magic, what has not been broken now serves Krolitiar. I am one of a very few who escaped, pursuing the Droil scouts to their next worlds in the hopes of at least putting an end to their further expansion. I came bearing a new invention, one of the last discoveries of our war research: Fundaments whose bond is not permanent, that can be passed down from one Defender to another."

Josh let out a low whistle. "So we're up against the freaking Borg, is what you're saying. Got it."

"What is a Borg?"

Eden piped up with an explanation. "Creatures from the mythology of our people. They never stop attacking, slowly advancing no matter how many you kill, adapting to every attack, until they overwhelm you, assimilating you and turning you into more Borg."

Aderan managed to actually make it even worse, if you can believe it. "The Masters of Podrema do not adapt to their foes’ attacks" he said. "They have no need to."

Wow. That was… I don't even know what. About the only word that even comes close to fitting is "bleak," but that's really not enough.

"Is there any way to win, then?" I asked. "If we're going to do this, we need to know that we aren't just fighting an endless, hopeless war. That there's an endgame somewhere."

"There is," he said. "You face a small scout force, not the entirety of the Droil army. Your victories are slowly depleting their reserves of Kirila. Without it, they cannot create monsters. Each time you win, you weaken them and strengthen your own people."

I saw Eden tense up when he said that, but she didn't say anything.

"They've kept it up for more than fifteen years," Josh pointed out. "When do you think their supply will run dry?"

"Given what is known of their capabilities," Aderan said, "I believe they must be close to exhausting it. Perhaps they will have enough for another year, or slightly longer, but not two years. Perhaps not even that much."

We looked around, glancing at each other, all probably thinking the same thing: that's before graduation, for all of us except Kawena. If that's true, if we can hold out that long, we could be the last Defenders, the ones who decisively defeat the Masters!

Wow, and to think that just a few weeks ago, I thought the Defenders and the Masters were just this permanent fixture in normal life. What would our life be like without them? What would our home be like without them?

What would my life be like, and the team’s? Would we keep our Fundaments? Would we just go back to what used to be "normal" before I was born? Would it be safe to reveal our identities? Would--

The ground shook.

Eden looked over at Aderan. "Another attack?"

"It is Thursday," Josh noted.

Aderan drew a few spells in the air, then nodded. "Observe the scrying pool," he said. Eden walked over to a corner of the room, and as we followed her over we saw it held a pool surrounded by a low wall of raised stones. We looked into it, and an image formed of a big complex of buildings with a maze of pipes, catwalks and pylons running all over the place. There were about a dozen golems slowly approaching.

I’d never seen it before. "Where’s that?"

"The power plant," Eden said, looking up from her phone. She was already tapping out a message to Kawena. "It's a common enough target. OK, let's go." She put her phone in her pocket, then held out her hands. "Powers come upon me, Defender Mercury!"

As she began to transform, the rest of us invoked our incantations, metamorphosing into the armored, super-strong warriors who stood between the unaware citizens of Earth and domination by the Masters of Podrema. She opened a rift for us, and we stepped through to find Venus already there, surrounded by golems. "Took you long enough!"

"Hey, if you don't need help..." Mars called out in response, razzing her as we hustled over to join in. Honestly I don't know why the Masters even bother with golems; we made short work of them, like always. But then the monster flew in.

The media likes to use terms like “cosmic horror” to describe the Masters’ creations, but this is the first time I've seen one that's truly, viscerally horrifying in appearance. It looked like they had somehow distilled the pure essence of “bug” and made it bigger than a person.

Imagine if they started with an enormous preying mantis, with four powerful legs and two big clawed arms, then gave it the head of a fly, four pairs of seven-foot black dragonfly wings, and a big wasp stinger on the back. What you're envisioning is probably about half as scary as actually confronting it.

“Weapons!” Venus called out. She reached over her shoulder and drew a sword that hadn't been hanging there, and the others did the same. Was that how it's done? I reached back and felt for my staff… nothing.

“What's wrong, Jupiter?” Neptune asked.

“I can't summon my staff. What’s the trick?”

Venus sighed, and I could clearly hear the exasperation even through the distortion effect. “It’s not a staff,” she said. “Jupiter was the king of the gods; you need to reach for a scepter.”

Seriously?

I reached back and thought about grabbing a scepter, not a staff, and then my hand closed around something. I pulled out a long wooden bar that was totally a staff, just with a big fancy ornament on top.

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The bug-monster flew in, buzzing us (no pun intended) at about twelve feet up, too high to reach even with our weapons. It spat out globs of something that smoked when it stuck to our armor. Mercury hurled a dagger, but it jinked to the side, avoiding it entirely.

"See?" Mercury said. "This is why we need guns!"

"Save it," Venus snapped, cutting her off. She was busy conjuring a stream of water from her palms, spraying all of us to wash the acidic goop off before it did too much damage. It bubbled away, leaving smoking scorch marks on the concrete.

"The monster's coming back around!" Neptune said. We looked up and saw it had turned in the air and was flying back towards us.

"OK, that's enough of that," Mercury called out, opening a rift and jumping through, trying to land on its back. Unfortunately, the bug dodged and she fell to the ground, flailing. "Aaaaaangh!" She landed in a shoulder-roll.

Venus and Neptune looked up, tracing spells to send blasts of energy against the monster. Neptune was still getting the hang of it; her spell missed completely as the bug dodged again. Venus called up a big grid of energy beams, though, so that it couldn't dodge out of the way of one without flitting into the path of another! Two of them struck it, one on the monster's underbelly, the other on one of the wings, scorching it. The bug flailed its other three wings in the air, trying to turn away. Greenish white ichor dripped out of the wound on its underside as it flew over a building, breaking our line of sight.

We ran after it, in between the buildings. After a few moments, Mars said, “Oh crap! Hurry!”

“What's wrong?” Neptune asked.

“It's headed for the reactor!”

“Huh?”

Mercury was already opening a rift. “This way!”

We jumped through and ended up in front of a big, blocky building, and sure enough, the monster was flying straight toward us.

Venus opened up with more energy blasts, but the monster seemed prepared for it this time; it folded its wings and dropped to the roof of the building it was flying over.

“Gotcha!” Venus called out. She jumped thirty feet straight up, onto the roof. Mercury followed, with a rift instead, and the rest of us were about to join them when another group of golems rose up to confront us.

I’d seen footage of Defender Jupiter using his staff to throw lightning around, but I didn’t know how it worked. For the moment, I was just glad I had the thing. As Sensei taught us, a staff is a very versatile weapon. You can hold it across your body to block, swing with a wide grip to fight defensively, or hold it with both hands together and swing like a bat or club for lots of reach and power.

Well, I had Defender armor already. I gripped the staff with both hands at the bottom and swung aggressively, to shatter the golems as quickly as possible. Mars did the same, really letting them have it with his axe; Neptune seemed to prefer to throw magic at them, blasting away with shockwaves and energy bolts.

“Careful!” Mars hissed at her. “Important infrastructure all around…”

“Right.” She pulled out her spear and twirled it, trying to get into a good position to fight in close quarters. It didn’t take long for her to just say “screw it,” and grasp it like a staff that happened to have a spearhead on one end.

The golems didn’t take too long to fight off, especially with Powers-enhanced weapons, but they did serve the purpose of splitting us up. Once the golems were down, the three of us leapt up to the top of the building, where we found Venus and Mercury engaged in a defensive fight, trying to hold off the bug-monster, striking at Venus with its claws and batting at Mercury with its wings and stinger, no matter which angle she approached it from.

Mars charged, holding his axe high for a vicious swing, chopping at one of the monster’s clawed mantis-forelimbs when he got close enough. It was able to do what Venus’s sword couldn’t, severing the limb and giving her some much-needed relief. I ran to the other side, swinging my staff, while Neptune stepped up beside Venus and poked at its face with her spear.

The bug-monster roared and reared up, exposing its thorax, and Neptune stepped forward, stabbing deep into it. “No, wait!” Venus said, but it was too late. Venus jumped and hacked at the monster’s head, but not enough to kill it, and the injuries proved enough to trigger the monster’s enlargement.

“Get back!” Mercury yelled, just before rift-jumping away. Venus did the same; the rest of us didn’t have enough practice with rifts, and we had to scramble, jumping off the roof of the building and diving for cover as the bug monster suddenly expanded into a massive bug-titan!

“No! No!” Venus shouted. “Last thing we need is an Eidolon fight here!” But that’s the only way to deal with monsters this big, so we had no other choice but to trace the elaborate runes that call forth our Eidolons.

“Push it back!” Venus called out to us. “Get it away from the plant!” I shook my head, trying to clear the disorientation that comes from having senses coming at me from two places at once, two distinct perspectives, one of them from five and a half feet off the ground and the other at thirty.

The power plant was a complex of buildings, with walkways between them designed for humans to move through, not giants. It made for precarious footing, trying to step forward and engage the monster. “They ever get around to reinforcing this place?” Neptune asked.

“Some of it, when they built the reactor,” Mars answered, carefully maneuvering Eidolon Mars forward to engage the big bug. He used a careful set of kicks, jabs, and palm strikes to try to force it to move back. Eidolon Venus stepped up to do the same. Me, I was too busy trying to get in position without stepping on the buildings. If they weren’t reinforced yet… well, we’ve all seen the footage from the early days, with skyscrapers getting torn apart like they’re made of cardboard.

But right as I was finally getting into position, I heard something behind me, a loud crash followed by a squeal of abused metal. I turned and looked--doing so without Eidolon Jupiter turning as well took some real effort--and saw a third squad of golems, about a dozen of them, near the door to the building Mercury had brought us to. I have no clue where they got it, but they were carrying a massive crowbar, fifteen feet long if it was an inch, and using it to pry open the metal doors.

Didn’t Mercury say this was the reactor building? I wasn’t quite sure what that was--it sounded like something off of Star Trek really--but apparently it’s really important. And the golems were going after it while the monster had us all distracted.

Well, not all of us. “You guys take this bug down. I’ve got another emergency here,” I called out as I turned fully, focusing entirely on the golems, letting Eidolon Jupiter vanish. They broke the door open and swarmed through, faster than I’ve seen golems move before, and I turned and ran after them.

The golems ran down a hallway until they reached another heavy door, bigger and tougher than the outside one, and started in on it. Somehow their crowbar was a lot shorter inside the building, with less space to work in.

I looked over and saw an opening off into an office area, with a bunch of workers taking cover in corners or under desks.

“Hey!” I called to them. “This is a three-thirty-five! There are golems breaking down that door, and the other Defenders are busy outside. I need help with them, and I need to know what they're after!” (Michael's Landing Municipal Code, Section 335 makes it illegal to refuse any assistance requested by a Solar Defender during an attack. Everyone around here knows that one, at least.)

One of the workers looked up at me. “That door leads to the reactor core, Defender. But none of us are soldiers. If you can't stop them, I don't think we'd make any difference.”

“What would monsters want with a reactor core?”

He gave me a blank look. “You don't know? It runs on monstronium. Maybe they want it back.”

Ok, I totally did not know that! I'll have to ask the others later.

I heard metal straining. “It sounds like they’re going to get in,” I said. “Do whatever you can to help out.”

The guy nodded, and got to his feet. “OK, you heard the Defender. We need to shut it down, NOW!” the various workers got up and sat at their desks, and started doing whatever control stuff they do at their computers. I ran towards the golems.

These guys go down easily, but not that easily when there's a dozen of them and one of me. About half of them broke off and swarmed me, trying to hold my arms and immobilize me while the others forced the door. I struggled, but with three on each arm, I could barely move. Even kicking at them didn't do much; they were just too close in to swing my foot far enough to get much power behind the kicks!

Just as I was starting to get loose, the golems with the giant pry bar popped their door open. They swung the door open and smashed a pipe near the entry. Scalding steam came hissing out, enough to scorch a couple of the golems that didn't get back fast enough; they began to melt into a muddy sludge. I was further back, and I could still feel things getting uncomfortably hot.

I heard a dull thump from right behind me, and then a metallic clatter and the sound of retreating footsteps right as one of the golems staggered and loosened its hold on me. That was all it took for me to wrench myself free far enough to take half a step, then shatter a few clay legs with side kicks. I looked and saw a folding chair laying on the ground, and one of the office workers slowing down as he realized the golems weren’t pursuing him. “Thanks!” I called to him in between fighting off the rest of them.

When I finally broke free, the remaining golems didn’t stand to fight me; instead they ran after the others, into the reactor room. I headed after them, careful of the broken pipe, which was still spewing superheated steam, and tried to find my way through the hot, foggy room.

That way. My Fundament was distinctly trying to guide me in a certain direction, so I headed that way, and it wasn’t long before I realized I was approaching something very hot. It was like walking towards a furnace, even through my armor, and I instinctively raised my arms to protect myself.

As I got closer, the steam cleared a little, and I saw several of the golems had long metal bars now (where were they getting them from? The same whatever-place we stored our weapons?) and were clumsily trying to use them to lift up a round ball of metal about the size of a baseball that was glowing white-hot. Was that the monstronium core? It had to be.

Either way, it was intensely hot, and I didn’t feel like I could risk getting any closer. But the golems were about to make off with the core. Throwing blasts of energy around would risk damaging stuff. But then, what else could I do?

Then the thought came to me. A spell I could use to quickly take care of the problem, with minimal risk. I began to trace runes with my fingers, and a moment later a small rift opened beneath the monstronium core, then immediately closed again once it fell through.

The golems sure didn’t seem to like that! They turned and charged me, attacking with a bunch of hot crowbars. I quickly pulled out my scepter, trying to beat them back, swinging, pushing, kicking, and still taking plenty of hits on my armor. But at least I had armor; they were nothing more than magically animated dirt, and with a few good strikes, I took down one, then another, then another, each one getting easier than the last.

Once I had them all finished, I turned and headed back to the hallway, then made my way to the door, right in time to see the others headed my way. “Did you get them?” Mars asked.

I nodded. “And you?”

“The bug’s down. What was going on in here?”

“A bunch of golems tried to steal the monstronium core from the reactor.”

“Is that why power’s going out, over in town?” Mercury asked.

I was glad I had a helmet so they couldn’t see my face. “No… actually that was me. I couldn’t stop them in time, so I stole it first. Rifted it up onto the roof. Figured this place would be reinforced and could take the heat.”

Mercury did a quick rift-jump, then came back a few moments later. “Yeah, it’s up there, safe for the moment. Too hot to touch, though.”

Venus groaned. “Ugh, I bet it’s going to be a real bitch to get it reinstalled.”

Some of the workers were coming out now, carefully approaching us. “What happened, Defenders?”

I looked over at them. “It looks like the monster attack was to distract us, so those golems could break in and steal the core. I used magic to move it up onto the roof of this building so they couldn’t get ahold of it. Will you need any help getting it back?”

The guy I’d talked with before shook his head. “No, we can handle it from here. Thank you for saving it, Defenders. Losing this facility would have been catastrophic. We’re still going to have brownouts from here halfway to Chicago for a few hours, but it could have been so much worse.”

I nodded. “Happy to help.” Then I looked over at the guy who’d smacked the golem with a chair like some sort of pro wrestler, and an idea came to me. “Hey, thanks for the assist back there.”

“It was all I could do,” he said, sounding a bit apologetic.

“Did you guys hear about the last attack? Over at Abe Lincoln High?”

A bunch of them grinned at that. “Oh yeah,” one of them said. “The monsters didn’t know that they teach everyone karate there, and all the kids took ‘em apart. My daughter told me all about it!”

I nodded. “The guy they learned it from is a teacher named Richard Billingsley. If any of you want to be more capable at defending yourselves, look him up. I happen to know he’d welcome the chance to teach anyone willing to learn.” Well, technically I didn’t exactly know that, but it felt right. Then I lowered my voice a little. “And… please don’t spread this around--we don’t want to start a panic or anything--but I’d strongly recommend you learn. The monster situation is starting to get worse; you should all be prepared.”

A few of them looked shaken by that. “We’ll keep that in mind, Defenders,” the one in front said.

“We should be going, then,” Venus said, turning and opening a rift for us.

Once we stepped through, back to the Fortress, Kawena took her helmet off and glowered at me. “What was that all about, back there?”

“Remember what Sensei said? ‘I'd rather tell you the hard truth, so you can prepare properly, than a sweet, gentle lie that'll get you killed?’ He’s right.”

Aderan looked at us. “What happened, Defenders?”

We gave him a quick recap. “That is troubling,” he said after we were done.

“I know,” Kawena said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them using real tactics before. Distraction, misdirection…”

Jenny chuckled. “Hey, as long as the monsters don’t learn to talk and start throwing juvenile taunts and insults at us, I’ll be fine.”

This earned an eye-roll from Josh and an exasperated sigh from Kawena. “Come on, this is serious.”

“I must agree with Venus,” Aderan said solemnly. “If what you tell me is accurate, it means the Masters of Podrema are no longer following the path of Podrema. This is very troubling news.”

“So you’re saying you’re as blind as we are here?” Kawena asked.

He nodded. “Such a shift in tactics is unprecedented. I fear that things may be about to get far worse.”

I groaned. “As if them trying to steal mon--err, kirila back isn’t bad enough?” Looking around at my teammates I asked them, “speaking of which, what’s the deal with that reactor anyway?”

“You really don’t know?” Josh asked.

“No.”

“OK. Umm… you know how the MHs sell most of the kirila they retrieve to steel mills and stuff?”

“Yeah. They mix it in to make reinforced steel. They used a lot of it to rebuild downtown so the monsters don’t trash it when they grow.”

“Right. But a few years back, these guys discovered another use for it. Turns out when you bombard kirila with the right frequency of X-rays, it heats up, but not like you’d expect; it gives off about a squillion times more energy than they put into it.”

Squillion? Seriously?

Eden nodded. “They say the stuff’s about half as powerful as uranium, but there’s no radioactivity, no toxic waste… no waste at all, really. As near as anyone can tell, it just doesn’t get used up. That ball’s probably the exact same size it was 5 years ago when they installed it. Drives the scientists nuts, because that breaks pretty much every law of physics on the books, but nobody’s complaining too hard when we get massive amounts of clean energy out of it.”

“Wait, wait,” Jenny said. “What if that’s the plan?”

“What do you mean?” Kawena asked.

“Umm… not sure yet, still thinking this through, but… anyone know how much power we get from kirila cores? Like, what percentage of the total?”

“Hang on,” said Eden. She quickly reverted so she could get at her pocket and pull out her phone, then poked at the screen a few times. “Ugh, Aderan, we get lousy reception out here,” she grumbled while waiting for it to load. “OK, umm… depends on where you are. State of Illinois, about 70%. United States in general, between 30 to 50, depending on where you are. Worldwide, less, but still pretty significant. Only reason it isn’t more is because the stuff’s so scarce. Why?”

“What if that’s why they kept losing?” Jenny said. “Let us gather it, let us all grow dependent on it, and then suddenly take it away and cripple us? Losing that much power generation, especially all at once, would bring the world to its knees.” She looked to Aderan. “Could that be?”

“I could not say, Defenders. On my world, kirila exists naturally. Thus we were never dependent on the Masters to obtain it.”

We discussed things a bit more after that, but it was all pure speculation; the simple fact is, we don’t have enough information yet. I guess the next few months are going to be interesting, in the Chinese curse sense.

After taking a rift back to a block or so away from home, I walked through the dark streets to my place and found Mom, Dad, my brother Ramón and my sister Cinthia sitting in the front room, quietly talking by the light of a few candles someone had set out on the coffee table. Mom looked up when I walked in.

“Where have you been, David?” She’s the only one who pronounces my name “dah-veed” the Spanish way; everyone else, including dad and the siblings, just calls me Dave. “We’ve been so worried for you!”

“I was at Josh’s place, studying. We decided to just sit tight when all the lights went out.”

She scowled darkly at that. “¡No me mientas, mijo! I called over there an hour ago, and Mrs. Hunter said you were all out. She’s as worried as we are.”

Crap. Busted! What could I say? I hesitated for a moment, then decided to tell the truth… sort of. “Please don’t tell anyone but… when the power went out, Josh ran out to try and hunt for monsters. Like, to patrol the neighborhood. You know how he is with the Solar Defenders and all? And we went after him to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid and get himself killed.”

Ramón’s eyes widened and he grinned up at me. “Cool! Did you get to fight any monsters?” At 10, he thinks anything his big brother does is awesome. Is it bad if I wish he never grows any older?

I shrugged. “We ran into a handful of golems, about five blocks from here. They weren’t too much trouble.”

Cinthia rolled her eyes. She’s 13, and definitely past the age where I’m always awesome. “Yeah, yeah, after fighting off an army of them last week, this group wasn’t even a challenge, huh?”

Mom looked at her and shook her head slowly. “Enough of the attitude, mija. Our David has always been a fighter. The doctor told me when he was born too early, he would have to struggle to even survive the first week. But he has always been a strong one, one to struggle and win.”

“Ugh, mom,” I groaned, “do you have to bring that up again?”

Dad just chuckled to himself. “None of you got hurt?”

“No, just the golems. I wonder what they were up to.” That part isn’t a lie, at least.

“Did you at least get your studying done?”

I nodded at him. “Yeah, I think we’re ready for tomorrow’s Chemistry test,” I said with more confidence than I actually felt. Then I let out a big yawn that I didn’t have to fake at all. “I’m kind of worn out now, is it OK if I just go to bed?”

Mom smiled and gave a little nod. “Sleep well, mijo.”

So that was a bit of a close call. I just hope they never learn the real truth.