Of course everyone at school today was talking about what the President said last night, and it had the whole team on edge. Josh must have noticed something, because he kinda put me on the spot at our study group after school.

"OK Dave, what's going on?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't know what's up, but I can tell you've got some sort of problem with me lately. And that's the last thing we need with all this crap going on right now, so we need to clear the air. So what's going on?"

Jenny nodded. "Yeah, you keep looking at him all cold and glaring. What'd he do, kick your cat?"

I blinked. "You seriously don't know? The whole Defender Mars stunt at the assembly?"

Josh shrugged. "What about it?"

"You announced to the world that the Defenders keep on changing. That's not public knowledge, and the Masters are gonna find some way to use that against us." By this point, both of them were looking at me like I was losing it. "...what?"

"You seriously don't know?" Josh asked. "Everyone knows that! Or at least everyone who cares."

"Huh?"

"What, don't you read the fan sites?"

"No, why in the world would I do that?"

"Oh, I dunno," he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Maybe to keep abreast of what is and is not public knowledge about the Defenders, just for starters? Since that seems to be something that's important to you and all that?"

"Fan sites. Seriously?"

"Yeah. There are thousands of Defender geeks out there who obsess over the tiniest details, and it's amazing some of the stuff they've figured out. They know, to within a few days, when it was that Jupiter, Mars and Neptune got replaced by new Defenders, and that Venus and Mercury probably hadn't."

"How could they possibly know that?!?" I asked.

"Because the armor is shaped like our bodies. You're taller and leaner than the previous Jupiter. Apparently I'm a bit shorter than the old Mars. And Jenny..." he looked over at her and hesitated. "How do I put this delicately? Apparently she's a bit taller, but less... erm... endowed than the last Neptune."

Jenny rolled her eyes. "Thousands of fanboys obsessing over my metal-clad boobs. Charming."

Josh gave her an apologetic look. "Yeah, umm... you probably shouldn't look up the relevant threads on the forums. Let's just say a lot of opinions get thrown around."

"Ugh, why are we protecting them again?"

"Hey, don't even joke about that," Josh said. "We do it because it's right. Because that's what heroes do!"

"But we're not heroes," I had to point out. "We're a bunch of teenagers with magic crystals bonded to us."

He didn't agree. "We've had years of intensive training for the role from Sensei Billingsley. The Fundaments chose us. And now we fight monsters and protect people. Sounds like heroes to me."

"Well I don't feel much like one, not after Chicago at least. Not after Aderan said the Masters are changing their tactics and we have no idea why. It feels like this whole thing is spinning out of control. Aren't heroes supposed to have a handle on everything?"

"No, they're just supposed to be able to handle whatever comes at them. Which we are so far."

"Yeah, except for people getting killed, huge property damage, all that good stuff..."

"OK, tone it down you two," Jenny said. "Yeah, stuff's going wrong lately. It's not our fault, but it's still our responsibility to deal with it, right?"

"Basically," I admitted.

"All right. So if they're starting to send monsters to places other than Michael's Landing, we need ways to handle it."

Josh hmmm'd at that. "I might have an idea."

"Yeah?"

"We can use the fans. I can put out a note on the ShieldOfMankind.com forums that the Defenders need help keeping alert for attacks throughout the world. Eden and I could come up with some way for them to contact us."

Jenny blinked. "OK, one, that sounds super risky, and two, how do you know they'd even listen to some random guy on the Internet?"

Josh flushed a little. "I'm... sorta actually a moderator on there."

For some reason this didn't surprise me as much as it probably should have. "They make high school students moderators?"

"It's the Internet. They don't know I'm a kid. But they do know I'm from Michael's Landing."

"But doesn't that plan sound really dangerous?" Jenny asked. "Having people try to work directly with us will put a target on their backs, right? Not to mention that any communication system we set up has to have one of us at the other end, which gives the Masters a specific point to spy on and see who shows up."

Josh nodded slowly. "Communication on the Internet doesn't exactly work like that... but it isn't exactly not like that either. So yeah, that's a good point. I'll talk with Eden a bit and see what she thinks of the idea, and the risks."

"Speaking of which," I said, "everything going well with you two?"

"Yeah. We've been kinda dating a little. Nothing too serious because... well... neither of us has much in the way of money, and how're you gonna even try and hold down a regular job while you're a Defender? But we seem to be a pretty good match for each other, y'know?"

I nodded. "That's good. Last thing I want is to see my best friend get hurt, and the next to last thing is to have a bunch of friction or awkwardness on the team."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Jenny smirked at me. "Speaking of awkwardness, when are you gonna ask Kawena out?"

I just rolled my eyes at her. "Cut the chatter, Red 2."

She laughed. "No no no, he's red. I'm blue!"

Josh looked like he was about to say something in response, when the sky darkened and the ground shook. We shared a quick look between us--two days in a row?!?--then stood up and transformed into Defender Form. Josh opened a rift to the fortress, where we found Eden and Aderan talking; Kawena joined us a moment later.

"What do we know?" she asked.

Aderan looked puzzled. "The sign definitely came from Michael's Landing this time, but my scrying does not detect any monsters, nor golems."

I frowned. "What are the Masters up to this time?"

"It is difficult to tell," he said. "Return home, but be wary."

"All right." I looked around the room at each of my teammates, then Josh opened a portal for us to return to his place. We quickly transformed back to civilian form, and were about to get back to our studies, when there was a knock at the door. Josh looked out the window and saw an unfamiliar black SUV parked outside.

"I wonder who that is?" he said as he got up to answer it. "Hello?"

There were two guys at the door, men in suits with dark sunglasses and neutral, boring faces. Like, they could not possibly look more like completely cliché government agents if they had tried. Well, until one of them looked inside and saw us. "Teenagers?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" Josh said, sounding a bit weirded out.

The guy looked to his partner. "I don't believe it. They're a bunch of teenagers." Then to Josh, "I assume the other two Defenders are as well?"

We all stiffened a little. "I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong house," Josh said.

"No, I only wish I did," the man said. "But this is positively the location of three Solar Defenders." Jenny and I tensed, but he looked over at us and said, "please don't do anything rash. We're not here to hurt you or blow your cover or anything. We're the good guys. May we come in?"

"I'm really not supposed to let strangers inside," Josh said, "but... at this point what choice do I have? But don't try anything. You know how fast three Defenders can take you apart if you do?"

He stepped aside and let them in. The other man chuckled at Josh's bluster. "Depends. How long does it take you to transform?"

The first one glowered at him. "That's not funny, Adams."

"Wasn't meant to be. These guys seem to think they're invincible. I wonder how much they've thought it through."

"All right," Jenny said. "Just who the hell are you two?"

"I'm Agent Adams," the man said, "and this is Agent Miller, from the Department of Magical Investigation. Don't bother looking us up; the agency's very existence is highly classified."

"Then why are you telling a bunch of high school students about it?" I asked.

"Because you're not just any high school kids; you're the Solar Defenders. Mind telling us how that happened, by the way?"

I shook my head. "Still not confirming any of that. Mind telling us why you believe we are?"

Miller gave a half-smile. "Because we used magic to set off a false monster signal, then watched and waited. We saw several spikes of power around the city, and we managed to triangulate the largest one to this neighborhood, then this house when you returned."

Josh wasn't buying it. "Ordinary humans can't use magic on that scale."

"Sure we can," Adams said, reaching into his suit pocket. "Just not without a focus." He pulled out a small green crystal, glowing faintly, then drew a rune in the air, levitating himself up about a foot off the ground for a moment, just to demonstrate. "If I had to guess, I'd say that's how you do it too?" he asked as he floated back down to the floor.

Jenny gaped. "Where did you get a Fundament?"

"Is that what you call them?" Miller asked. "We call them foci, and they're built in a laboratory. It's ridiculously difficult to physically damage monstronium, but it can be done. Grind it into a fine powder, dope it with tiny amounts of specific impurities, ignite the whole thing with a laser in a heated, oxygen-rich atmosphere, and you get a blob of molten monstronium oxide. Cool it nice and slow, and you end up with something that looks a lot like a rough gemstone, and can be cut like one. The end result is... this. There, we shared something important with you. Your turn."

"You're making synthetic Fundaments?" I asked. "Trying to field your own team of Defenders?"

Adams shook his head. "We don't know nearly enough yet to do that. For now we're just trying to study the workings of magic."

"For now. Yeah. So... you're here because of the whole Chicago mess yesterday, because of the President?"

Miller nodded approvingly. "Smart kid."

"So you're here, you found us," Josh said. "Now what?"

"Now we discuss how the monster escaped whatever mechanism you--or I suppose your predecessors--have been using all these years to contain them, and how to keep that from happening again."

"Oh, that's easy," Jenny snickered. "There is no mechanism, we have no idea why the monster went somewhere else, and no clue as to how to put things back to normal. As far as any of us are aware, the Masters have chosen to confine their attacks to Michael's Landing up until now, and now they're changing their minds. This goes against everything we know about how they behave and their philosophy of battle. So... yeah. We got nothing, sorry."

The two agents gave each other dubious looks. "I think she's telling the truth," Adams said after a moment.

"So you're telling me," Miller said slowly, "that the safety of our entire nation has, for sixteen years, rested on the simple fact that our enemy has never elected to attack anywhere at all but the one place where they can easily, consistently be beaten?!?"

"I know," I said. "Makes no sense to us either, but we're all grateful for it, ya know?"

Adams frowned. "That just means we're looking at it wrong. People intelligent enough to cross space don't do stupid, pointless things for no reason, which means there's some sort of logic behind it."

Josh chimed in on this one. "From what little we understand of their philosophy, we think it's about atrition. There are only so many Defenders, and if they keep at this long enough, they believe they can wear us down and then Earth's got nothing."

I glowered at him. "You can't go saying stuff like that!"

"What? It's not like they wouldn't have worked it out anyway. They know enough that they'd have reached that conclusion soon enough."

The agents looked a bit nonplussed at that. "The thing is, if they think that way, what changed? Why attack Chicago?"

Jenny sighed. "Once again, we don't know. And we're as frustrated by that as you are."

Miller looked at her. "Seems to me there are only two possibilities. Either changing tactics at this point was part of the plan, or it wasn't."

"Either X or not X," Jenny said. "Does Uncle Sam pay you a lot for brilliant observations like that?"

He ignored her snark. "Either they're moving forward with their plan, moving on to the next stage of it, or this was never part of the plan at all, which means something's gone off the rails. We know the adversary, the Masters of Podrema, seem to be very violent by nature; perhaps there's been some sort of a coup within their leadership?"

I thought about that for a second. "That's a surprisingly valid idea," I said. "But if so, then... now what?"

"Now we have more information than we had before, and that's always a good thing," Miller said.

"You have a lot more information," Jenny retorted. "We've got... what? A theory that may or may not be correct, and the knowledge that it's possible to build synthetic Fundaments, for all the good that will do us without a lab. Would I be right in guessing it's the sort of lab that costs millions of dollars to set up?"

"Tens of millions," Adams said, nodding.

"What would really be helpful," Miller said, "is to speak with the other Defenders."

That was going too far. "No," I said. "You've already severely invaded our privacy by searching us out and coming here in the first place. We're not going to allow that to happen to our teammates. We'll tell them about what happened, and let them draw their own conclusions about how to handle this."

"I was afraid you'd say that," he grumbled. "Very well. We'll be in touch."

"How?" Jenny asked.

"We have this house's address," Adams explained as he got up to leave. "It's safe to assume that at least one of you lives here. That's enough to work out everything else we need."

Yeah, it probably was. We saw them to the door, then just stared at each other after they'd left, completely weirded out. "So... that just happened," Josh finally said. "I'm not really sure what to do about this."

"Talk to people with more experience," I said. "Sensei. Aderan. Kawena and Eden. Between them we'll probably get some good ideas."

"Yeah, I guess we'll have to do that."

"Meanwhile, I seriously have to get back to studying."

Jenny blinked at me. "Hmm?"

"We've got another chemistry test coming up. And my Fundament is totally messing with my brain. I remember everything that guy said about building a Fundament, but I don't actually know what pretty much any of it means. If this is gonna be important, I need to learn a whole lot more about chemistry!"