Well, it's been a week with no more attacks, but I guess we can't really count on them sticking to a strict schedule anymore. Because of course not; why shouldn't things become ten times more complicated right when I end up being responsible for it all?

I went to talk with Rachael Ling yesterday. I wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject, really, so I called the number on the card Sensei gave us.

"Hello, Rachael Ling's office. This is Fred; how can I help you?" some bland-voiced guy asked.

"Umm... hi, I need to speak to Rachael."

"Just a moment, let me check..." A minute later he came back. "She's in with a client right now. Can I take a message?"

What was I gonna say? Yeah, tell her that there's a new Solar Defender in town, and since she used to be one herself, he needs to talk with her about some help getting his head straight. I thought about it for a few moments. "Yeah, I'm a student over at Abe Lincoln High. One of my teachers referred me to her to talk about some things I'm going through lately. Can you ask her to call me back when she has a moment?" I gave him my number, and then was surprised when I got a call within fifteen minutes.

"Hello?"

"Hi, this is Rachael Ling. This note I got says you're a student referral?"

"That's right. My name's David."

"May I ask who referred you?"

"Sensei Billingsley," I said. "He told me you're the only one who would really understand the things I'm dealing with."

"I see," she said. Her tone made it sound like she was half-expecting that. "All right. You should have my office address on the card."

"Yeah..."

"Can you be here in one hour?"

"Sure."

"All right. When you come by, you'll see it's two stories. Don't come in the normal lobby; meet me on the second floor, directly above it."

"Umm..."

"You shouldn't have any trouble. I'll see you then, David."

"OK." I hung up, feeling a bit weirded out. How was I supposed to meet someone on the second floor without going in on the ground floor? Either there's an external access or...

Oh. It's a test. Only someone with a genuine Fundament bond would be able to step into a second-floor office from the outside, by opening a rift. That seemed a bit paranoid to be honest, but given the circumstances, can I really blame her?

I headed out and caught a bus downtown, walking by the address. It was a pretty quiet place a couple blocks away from a main road, right on the edge between commercial and residential areas with a few houses here, a Wendy's there, and a church about a block away. The office itself seemed to be in a small office building, with a dentist on one side and an attorney on the other.

After a bit of looking around, I decided to head into the Wendy's, duck into the bathroom and, after making sure there was no one there, open a rift to the second floor of the nearby building. I stepped through into an open office a bit smaller than a classroom, the two side walls lined with bookshelves. At the front, near the windows, was a comfortable-looking armchair, and at the back, a desk with a woman sitting behind it. Behind her, there was a framed quote. I'm used to seeing things like that be all inspirational, but this... it felt like it was directed right at me and the other Defenders. Maybe it was. It said, "Let he who fights monsters beware, for if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

"Ms. Ling?" I asked. She certainly looked Asian enough to fit the name. Long, black hair, petite build, dressed in a very professional-looking suit coat and blouse.

She nodded, glancing over at the rift as it closed with a strange, unreadable expression for a moment. Then she looked at me. "Call me Rachael. You must be David, then? Please, have a seat. So, which one are you?"

Well, apparently she gets right down to business. "Jupiter," I said, heading over to sit in the comfortable chair. "Isn't a therapist's office supposed to have a couch?"

That brought an amused smile to her face. "How many long-standing assumptions about the Solar Defenders have you recently found out have no basis in reality?"

I laughed. "Good point. Let's see... that they're trained, competent professional soldiers, that they volunteered for the job, and that they have any clue what they're doing. Just for starters."

Rachael nodded. "But at least you have some tradition to fall back on. Trust me, it could be so much worse."

That was a bit sobering. "Yeah, Sensei told me your team's story. The basics at least."

"All right. So what do you need help with?"

"Well, first off... do you mind if I get this out of the way first? What's all this going to cost me?"

"Sure, that's a very valid question for high school student who's probably not rolling in cash. For Defenders, I tend to work on the barter system, valuable service for valuable service. You do your best to keep my hometown unbroken, I do my best to keep your psyche unbroken, and we call it even. Sound good?"

That kind of sounded too good to be true at first. What was the catch? But then I realized what she had said. This was her home. If anything went wrong, she was in danger just as much as the rest of us. If, as Kawena put it, we're the shield of mankind, maybe this is just her working to keep that shield in good repair.

"Makes sense, I guess."

She gave me a little smile. "So... Jupiter. And new to the job. What's it like, leading the team?"

How did she know... oh, of course. She knew that's what I was having trouble with because that's probably what every new Jupiter she deals with has problems with. "It's like... why me? I mean, I've got no problem with being a Defender--well maybe a little, but not too much at least--but the leader? How am I supposed to run the team when I'm brand new and hardly know half my teammates? Venus is the one who should be in charge. She's been there the longest, she's the best at karate, and she's the highest of us socially speaking too!"

Rachael nodded. "Well, domain knowledge is definitely important," she said.

"What's that mean?"

"Sorry. It's a technical term. It means specialized knowledge about the subject you're working in. And that's important, but it's not the most important thing for being a leader."

"All right," I said slowly. "Then what is?"

"Leadership."

I snorted a little. "The most important part of being a leader is being a leader. Yeah, thanks."

That got a quiet little laugh out of her. "Leadership means more than just the state of having been appointed as a leader; it means the art of being a leader, the techniques of it. There are concrete techniques and methods to doing it effectively, things you can practice and learn, just like with karate."

"OK, like what?"

"Well, lots of things, really. What parts are you having trouble with?"

Josh, at the moment. How do I put this, though? "I... well... one of the team did something they shouldn't have. Drawing attention in public, just for fun."

She gave me a knowing look. "Mars, at the recent assembly?"

"You heard about that?"

"You didn't know? One of your classmates recorded it and posted it to YouTube. Half the country's heard about it by now!"

Ugh. "Seriously? So... yeah. What should a leader full of leadership skills do in a case like this? I mean... how do you discipline a Solar Defender, for heaven's sake? I'm not his dad, or a teacher. I can't, like, send him to the principal's office or put him in time out or anything like that. I suppose technically I'm something like his boss, but I can't fire him--not that I want to! I just want him to not do stupid crap like that again! But if he doesn't want to listen, then what? It seems like the only remedy is to resort to force, and that doesn't end well for anyone involved."

She listened patiently as I ranted, then nodded. "You've given this a lot of thought."

"Yeah."

"All right. Here are a few things to consider. First, is this even something worth making an issue out of?"

"Of course!"

"All right, why?"

"You think it isn't?"

"I didn't say that," she said. "I'm asking. This seems very important to you. Why is that?"

"It's..." Why was it so important? "A bunch of things, really," I said, thinking it through as I went. "Like... he said stuff about us that people don't know. We're told we should be keeping that information secret, so the Masters don't learn stuff they can use against us. And then the whole grandstanding and using this opportunity for personal gain. He told us that he thinks Christine Stanton is hot; we all know the only reason he did that was to flirt with her. Doesn't that count?"

Rachael sighed a little. "Yeah. Aderan's rules. That's something you'll have to come to deal with."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, he's an alien. The Fundaments were created for people who are... well... fundamentally not like us. And you have to keep that in mind when dealing with him."

"That almost sounds like racism," I said.

She shook her head. "No, not really. The thing is, racism is a lie, the idea that some other person is different. But we know the truth, that however much some person from another part of the world may be different in certain ways, they're still human. They're still like you in every way that's truly important. They have the same basic human emotions and drives and thought processes that you do, so it's wrong to treat them as if they were something alien.

"Aderan's race, though, are alien. Like, you see this?" She pointed to the quote on the wall. "I don't think this actually applies to his people. The notion that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? That's something you have to watch out for, but in all honesty I don't think he does. And conversely, they have other issues that you don't have, and the thing is, as near as I can tell he doesn't truly understand that!"

That was a lot to digest. "All right..."

"What I mean is, you're dealing with power that was never actualy intended to be used by humans, overseen by someone who doesn't get what it means to be human. And the rules are part of that. They're ideals you need to try to live up to, but you shouldn't expect everyone to be perfect at them. That's just not realistic."

"OK, I guess that makes sense," I said. "But... Aderan also told us that the rules were connected to the strength of our bond to the Fundaments." She nodded, and I continued. "Thinking back now, when I saw the guys before me fall, it was just moments after they did something extremely aggressive that could easily be interpreted as a violation of the rule to defend and not attack.

"That makes me wonder. Is it possible that breaking the rule weakened them, making it easier for them to be defeated by the monster's next attack?"

She narrowed her eyes slightly, drumming her fingertips on her desk. "That's a very good question," she said thoughtfully. "I never really thought about it that way, but..." she trailed off. "It's possible. I wouldn't consider what you saw to be proof of that idea, but it's definitely evidence."

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Huh? "Aren't those two words for the same thing?"

She shook her head. "Evidence isn't proof; it's a piece of information that supports an idea. Enough evidence can add up to proof, but there can also be insufficient evidence to prove something, or even evidence in favor of notions that turn out to be false."

"OK, didn't know that. But anyway, with what you were saying about power corrupting, and my idea about the abuse of one's power possibly weakening ourselves. What do I do if someone does go completely out of bounds? Is there any good answer to that?"

She hesitated a few seconds before answering. "There is one thing I know about. I don't know how it's done, but Jupiter does have the power to shut down another Defender's ability to shift into Defender Form. I have to recommend very strongly against using this for anything but a true emergency, but if you need it, you should be able to get it from your Fundament."

"Wow. So now I'm the one who has to worry about getting corrupted!"

She nodded. "That's the thing about power. It exists! It has to go somewhere. Often the best we can do is try to endow responsible people with it, find ways to limit what can go wrong, and..." she made a shrugging gesture with her hands, "then hope we got it right."

"You know, this would be so much easier if I could just talk with someone who had been through it. I don't suppose you could tell me who the last Jupiter was?"

Her face darkened when I said that. "This quickly, huh?"

"What?"

"Every single Defender I consult with asks me about the identities of previous Defenders eventually. It doesn't usually happen on the first session, though. I'll tell you the same thing I tell all of them." She took a slow breath, then continued, with the air of someone reciting something they memorized long ago. "Not only are you asking me to violate my oath to hold to the code of the Defenders, you are also asking me to violate my code of professional ethics and doctor-patient confidentiality. Please don't ever ask that of me again."

Woah. I wasn't expecting that! "Sorry. I didn't realize that was something you took so... so seriously, I guess."

She nodded. "To me, it is serious. And it works both ways. If you know I won't tell you about my other clients, it also means you can be confident that I won't go telling other people about you or what you discuss with me about being a Defender."

"Huh. That's a good point. I really wasn't trying to get you to break any... anything, you know. Just, I don't have anyone to discuss this with who's been a team leader before. Closest I have is Venus, and I dunno if you've spoken with her, but she's... how do I put this?"

Before I could find a diplomatic way to phrase her unhelpfulness in such matters, my phone chirped. Rachael frowned slightly. "I know that tone. That's a message from a teammate, isn't it? Is something wrong?"

I pulled it out and looked at the message. She must have seen my eyes widen. "What's going on?"

"Monster attack, but it's not here."

"What?!?"

"Yeah. Apparently there's something rampaging around Chicago!"

"I don't think that's ever happened before."

"Yeah, we've been noticing that lately. The Masters are finally changing tactics. We're not quite sure why yet, but we have some suspicions. But I gotta go. I'll discuss more stuff with you later."

She nodded. "Yeah, this definitely takes priority. Umm... do you even know how to open a rift to Chicago?"

"No, but I betcha anything Mercury does."

"Good," she said. "You're learning the strengths of your team. That's important, as a leader." She waved her hands at me. "Now go. You're needed."

I got up and cupped my hands. "Powers come upon me, Defender Jupiter!" As I turned away to open a rift to meet up with the rest of the team, I saw her giving me that same inscrutable look as before, when I arrived. I'm not sure what that's about.

All in all, though, I think that went well. Certainly better than what came next!

* * *

We found the monster down by the waterfront in Chicago, trashing a big shipping yard. This thing looked like a cross between a werewolf and a draft horse. It ran around on two legs that seemed too small for its immense body, and its arms ended in paws with foot-long metal claws extending from them. The beast snarled at us when it saw us arrive on the scene, turning away from the shipping container it was tearing open--looked like it had gone through several already--to charge us.

Venus and Mars stepped in with sword and axe to block it, while Mercury did a rift-jump to get behind it and strike. Her daggers just drew a bunch of sparks, though. "Ugh! This thing's armored like nobody's business!" Around front, Mars and Venus were discovering the same thing. It wasn't very fast, but it could just block with its arms, and their weapons wouldn't penetrate. After a few swings, it didn't even bother blocking; it left its chest wide open and raked its claws along their armor, tearing smoking gouges in it! Then it turned on Mecury, but she was gone already, emerging a bit behind me and off to the right as the other two stumbled back.

"OK, Neptune," Mercury said, "I think we need a can opener. You got that spell we were working on ready?"

"Think so."

"Let's try it then." The two of them traced quick runes in the air. Suddenly a bunch of swirling light coalesced into their hands, forming into a pair of what looked like some sort of big, bulky pistol, more like a comic book ray-gun than an actual gun. One silver, the other deep blue, matching their owners' armor. They pointed them at the monster and fired, bolts of energy shooting out, ripping holes in its chest armor.

"Nice!" Mars called. He stepped up and hacked at the larger hole, managing to hook the blade of his axe under its armor and tug the thing off-balance, making it stumble and fall to the ground.

"Another shot!" Neptune called. They aimed for the head this time, leaving a smoking hole in the monster.

"Look out!" Venus yelled. "That's not enough; finish it!" But before they could get another shot off, the thing started to grow. "Oh crap! We need the Eidolons! Now!"

We quickly called up our Eidolons, all but Mercury. She turned. "Hey! What's that?" And without another word, she rifted away.

I felt like I hadn't contributed anything yet, so I made Eidolon Jupiter step forward, taking the lead. Fighting back the disorientation that still comes from being in two places at once--I wonder if that ever goes away?--I called forth the Eidolon's giant sceptre and swung it into the monster, staggering it back a step. Eidolon Venus stepped in with a sword, engaging and pushing it back further. We all knew what would happen once we defeated this thing, and an explosion in the middle of the port would be a huge mess. Better to drive it into the water first.

The monster had other ideas, of course. It snarled and slashed at Eidolon Venus, its enormous claws catching the sword and twisting. Sensei had taught us that the best way to disarm an attacker, once you've stopped the weapon swinging, is to twist the weapon and make it put pressure on the weakest part of a human hand's grip, the gap between the thumb and forefinger. This thing seemed to know the same trick; it was easily able to twist Eidolon Venus's sword out of its hand, letting the massive weapon fall and clatter to the ground.

Unfortunately for the monster, this left it occupied. Eidolon Mars stepped in from the side, swinging its axe two-handed, like a baseball bat. It couldn't bite into the monster's heavy armor, but the force of that swing staggered it back another few steps. Then Neptune stepped up. She didn't bother with weapons; she just has Eidolon Neptune blast it with concussive power, staggering it.

This is where Mercury should have stepped in, but she was gone. The monster dropped back into a crouch, one leg back, one hand on the ground, the other stretched behind it, balancing, then springing forward and off to the side, away from our Eidolons. It jumped and strode on its immensely long legs, reaching a ship-unloading crane and shattering the arm near the base, then grabbing it and weilding it in both hands like a club.

Great. Now it was armed too. While Eidolon Venus retrieved its sword, I moved Eidolon Jupiter up to engage the monster. It swung its club, but I stepped back, just outside the range of the swing, then forward as it tried to reverse the swing, catching its arms before it could swing again. That's another trick we learned from Sensei: never try to block a swinging club or you will break your arm. Instead, go for the arms that are holding it.

I trapped its arms against its body as it struggled. Then Eidolon Mars came up, grabbing the end of the club and twisting it out of the monster's grip. Eidolon Venus quickly joined us. "Pull its arms straight!" So we did, each of us taking one monster hand in our Eidolons' two, grasping firmly and stepping back until we had both arms at full extension, the horsewolf monster struggling between us.

Eidolon Venus moved in, placing one hand firmly on the shoulder to the arm I was holding, pushing down, then raising its knee, driving it into the back of the monster's elbow with all its strength. The thing may be big and tough and armored, but it still had joints that were only meant to bend one way. Its arm shattered, armor plates cracking... which gave a perfect opening for Eidolon Mercury to suddenly appear and drive a dagger into.

"Hey! You're back!" Mars called out as the monster roared, struggling and writhing, kicking helplessly at the Eidolons that held it. "Hey Jupiter, I've got an idea. Lift! We can drown him." His Eidolon placed one hand under the monster's armpit and started to strain to lift the thing off the ground.

That might actually work. I grabbed the other armpit, its broken arm hanging limp now, and we raised it up a few feet. Venus and Neptune stepped in, grabbing its flailing legs, and Eidolon Mercury stood by to make sure it didn't get free as we carried it towards the water. Monsters may not bleed, but they do still breathe. We reached the water's edge and waded out until our Eidolons were knee-deep, then dropped the monster into the water, each Eidolon placing one foot on its chest or a limb, holding it under until it stopped thrashing. Then, knowing what was coming next, we simply dismissed the Eidolons and let the monster explode.

A huge splash of water erupted, dousing the whole shipping yard but not doing any additional damage. We regrouped and Mercury took us back to the Fortress.

"Defenders," Aderan greeted us. "What news do you bring?"

"The monster's been dealt with," Kawena said. "But how did it end up in Chicago? There's never been a monster attack outside of Michael's Landing, has there?"

Eden looked over at him. "Is it possible there's another Master out there? Because I could have sworn I saw another Defender, there at the shipyard. But then when I went to look, they were just... gone."

Josh shook his head. "If there were other teams of Defenders, we'd have heard about it."

Aderan seemed to agree. "And had the lost Fundament been retrieved, my scrying would have sensed it."

"No," Eden said. "It wasn't a new color." She looked at Josh. "This one was red." She turned to look at all of us. "Look, I know what I saw; I just didn't get a very good look at it. And when I went to approach, it vanished, but then I saw it again, off in the distance. Six different times I chased it until it finally stopped showing up, so then I went back to rejoin you guys."

"I believe you," Josh said.

Jenny nodded. "Yeah, don't worry. We don't think you're crazy or something. But just because you saw it, doesn't mean it was really there. It could have been someone playing with you, with illusion magic or holograms or something."

Eden sighed. "Maybe, but... that doesn't feel right. Like, why would someone even do that?"

I rolled my eyes a little at that. "Why does anyone do half the stupid crap they do? They probably get a kick out of messing with your head or something."

Aderan said, "I will search for others, just to be certain." His fingers traced an intricate pattern of runes in the air, and he seemed to concentrate on something for several moments, then he shook his head. "The only Defenders upon this world are the five of you."

"Wait," Kawena said. "You can scry the entire world, just like that? Then why can't you find the missing Fundament?"

"Kirila's magical nature makes it difficult to see by scrying," he said. "I can only find it in large amounts, larger than a Fundament crystal. That is how I see a Defender, with the Kirila in their armor."

Eden picked up on the problem with that right away. "So if one of us was in civilian form, you wouldn't know we were a Defender?"

"That is correct," he rumbled. "It is possible that there is another Defender who was in Defender Form at the time but is not now, but I find that unlikely."

"Hey," Jenny broke in, "not to change the subject or anything, but is anyone else a bit worried about what we did there?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Holding someone under and making them drown? That's kinda... brutal, y'know?"

"It wasn't a 'someone,'" Josh said. "It was a monster."

"Yeah, but... you saw what it did with that crane. Transforming a piece of its environment into a weapon by changing it. That's tool use. That's a sign of intelligence."

Kawena gave a kinda dark little laugh. "If anything, that makes it even more evil, if it can think and make choices and not just act according to a brutal nature. Remember, we're defending and not attacking. If there were monsters out there who lived in peace and didn't go around terrorizing cities and killing people, we would totally leave them alone, if for no other reason than that it reduces the risk to us! I don't think any of us want to fight or kill monsters for its own sake, but you saw what that thing did."

"Yeah... I guess," she said. She looked over at me. "Dave?"

I had to think about that for a second. "We've killed a bunch of monsters before and you've never been queasy about it," I finally pointed out. "Are you feeling like it's not what we did, but how, that's the problem?"

Jenny let out a little chuckle. "I guess I am. Wow, yeah, so there's nothing wrong with beating a monster to death, but drowning them is a special kind of brutality." She sighed. "It sounds so silly when I say it, but it still doesn't quite feel right, y'know?"

"I know," I said. "Some things just sort of... make you wonder." Turning to Kawena, I asked her, "Speaking of which, what about the monster's body?"

She scoffed. "I'm not about to go searching for remains in Lake Michigan. If some MH wants to drive all the way to Chicago and go scuba-diving to find fragments, more power to 'em."

This drew a frown from Eden. "I've kinda been wondering about that. I mean, I know some of the MHs are prety awful, but... what happens if we stop them?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, like... Michael's Landing is technically a war zone, and has been for our entire lifetimes. It really ought to be desolate, but the population's half again what it was on Comet Day. Instead of a ghost town, the availability of monstronium turned it into a boom town! My parents moved here, all the way from Liberia, just in the hopes of making their fortunes here. I know Josh's folks came here from Scotland for the same reason... anyone else?"

Kawena nodded after a moment. "Mine too," she said, sounding a bit reluctant to admit it.

"And even though none of us ever did strike it rich the way some people do, we're all doing pretty well for ourselves, aren't we? What happens to Michael's Landing if we cut that off? Do we really want to risk that?"

"So you're saying," Josh said slowly, thinking this over as he talked, "that letting the Underwoods have it is the lesser of two evils?"

I'm not sure if he noticed, but Eden flinched just a little when he said their name. After a moment, though, she nodded. "As awful as it is to admit that, that might be right."

"I guess that's why they call it the lesser evil," Jenny said. "It's still evil, just not as bad as it could be."

"You're right," I said. "OK, no more disposing of the bodies. We'll try to figure out some way to make the outcome better, though." I looked over at Eden. "Where were we putting them, anyway?"

"I dropped them in random locations high up in mountain ranges, where no one's likely to stumble upon them for decades or more."

"That works, I guess," I said.

We headed home after that. It had barely been half an hour, though, when I got a text from Josh, with a link to a live stream. "Look at this! The President's talking about us!"

I pulled it up and saw President Rivers there at the podium where Presidents always give press conferences. He was right in the middle of saying how the Solar Defenders had always managed to keep "the alien problem" contained to Michael's Landing in the past, but now that one of the monsters "broke free" and caused three deaths and millions of dollars worth of property damage at the Port of Chicago, this was on the edge of becoming a true state of emergency. Apparently he's not going to do anything quite yet, but he's got the military on alert and if it happens again, appropriate measures will be taken. Whatever that means. Sure doesn't sound good, though, not for us or for the country.

A reporter asked if the military was creating more Defenders, and the President repeated the official line that the Department of Defense has no program or division fielding Solar Defenders as US military fighters, and that we operate independently, without any government oversight or support. I've heard that line a few times before, but this time it wasn't just some rote line some politician dashes off; he sounded genuinely frustrated about that.

So yeah. Apparently someone in DC thinks we screwed up, even though we had nothing to do with it, and if the Masters do that again, they're gonna send in the army, or... something. Heaven only knows what will happen then!