Shadows do not have mass. Shadows are not substantive objects, they are a lack of light, in the same way a vacuum isn't actually a substance, but the lack of substance. This is what makes it confusing to be punched by a shadow who has more mass than my brother does. This isn't a high bar to clear, seeing as Will Rosenbloom is physically incapable of throwing a punch, but I run my gloved hand along the impact site and feel sword-heat emanating from the only unarmored part of my face.

I should have imagined up a better helmet. My cheekbones are worthy of protection.

As I stagger back, cheek clutched, Harper sweeps me off her feet with another blow from the shadow. I have one hand still around the sword, but I can't cut a shadow, which is intangible whenever it is most convenient for it. The shadow itself, which has eyes (holes) and large, jagged teeth, looks over me like a curious dog. Harper bends down, her face obscured by her cloak, and pets it below the 'chin'. I place a hand against the ground, helping myself up, but another knock from the shadow assures me I should stay down and admit defeat.

"Does it have a consciousness of its own?" asks Megan. "Oh, that's fascinating. How much are you controlling it right now? Does it feel anything?"

Harper looks back up towards the rafters. Today, by cosmic coincidence, there are two bored figures up there instead of the regular one, not counting Anthem, who is indifferent, and Megan, who could get excited about anything.

"You could stand to be a little more concerned about my welfare," I tell Megan.

"You don't strike me as the kind of person who wants someone concerned about their welfare?"

"I'm sure he'd be fine if it was you," Evan suggests.

My other cheek begins to burn. "Are we going to move towards collaborative activity soon? Whoever we're going up against, we don't have to worry about fighting each other."

"It is important that you know the strengths of your team members, as well as how to... work around those strengths."

"But it's not conducive to what we're actually going to do--" I argue.

Anthem blinks.

"Whatever, whatever. We've got better things to do tonight, so let's just finish this up," Evan clears his throat. "Tournament twenty-three. Last round? Megan versus Harper. Start."

"I can see your point," I tell Serena, who has her head between her hands as she watches Megan's dance. She's dodging, for now, but any second now she'll have discovered a new way to get around the shadows. First it was light refraction through water. Then defensive maneuvers that stalemated Harper until she let up. Then distorting the shadows through water, causing them to dilute and scatter. Megan's not just content to win. She has to win a different way every single time. "These are getting excessive."

"I get it, but," interjects Evan. "seeing as you've been out in the first round for eight of these tournaments and not present in the other fifteen, you have no right to complain. If you could summon more than a stick with your oh-so-powerful object generation, then maybe..."

Serena skulks, "It's impossible."

"No, it just takes time. Time you're not willing to put in," Evan says.

"Break it up," I say.

"Am I right?" Evan retaliates.

Serena glares down at him.

"If you realize all of these things are problems, usually the first step to take is to try to amend them," Evan says, raising his head as he takes her silence for a vote of confidence. "I mean, what do I know, though? I'm just the dumb kid who sits behind you in math. As far as you're concerned, I don't exist outside of here, and even here, it's pretty easy to ignore me."

Serena stands up and walks past Anthem to the far side of the bleachers. She resituates herself there, in silence, and continues watching. Megan is having a harder time with Harper, who has done some work on the durability of her shadows against non-air substances (again, this will come up when, exactly?), but they seem evenly matched enough that this could take forever.

"So, do you know why you haven't beaten her, either?" I ask Evan. We're sitting close enough that we overlap where Megan would be warming the bench. Doesn't make sense to save a spot for someone who isn't there. (Even if she has to wriggle between us when she comes back.)

"Are you Harper?" asks Evan. "Because that was some shade you just threw."

"No, I don't mean--" I pause. "Does everything I say come out that condescending?"

"Yes," Evan says.

"Sorry."

"That did, too, just in case you're wondering."

"Thanks." I pretend to be engrossed in the battle. "I just meant that there has to be some way for us to get around the face that she's unreasonably proficient."

"Fire and water are a historically bad matchup," Evan says. "It takes much more energy for me to turn water into steam than it does for her to douse me. You, on the other hand? You have half a chance, if you could just tap into whatever that sudden rush of bloodlust was from the first time we trained."

"Geez, if I knew, you'd think that I'd utilize it more often," I say. "Whatever. Between hearing Anthem and seeing the Diosite, maybe I'll just do utility."

Anthem blinks. "You pick up fast."

"Was that a compliment?" I ask.

Anthem's expression doesn't change. "Do not count on it."

Down below us, the battle stalls out. Harper has managed to grip Megan around the legs with two separate shadows, which have taken on a gelatinous quality. Megan has her arms up for surrender. I guess there is such a thing as being too inventive. You eventually run out of tricks.

Anthem's ears perk. "I have a mission for you today. As a group, I would like you to investigate a set of coordinates where I have found traces of Diosite activity. It will not be a long mission. You are not to attack if you find anyone there, as it will likely lead to an encounter you can not win with your current skill level."
"Wonderful," I say. "Hey. Full group mission."

"We're bringing Ser, huh? Took us long enough," Evan says under his breath.

"She's part of the team." I shrug.

"By what, technicality? What does 'team' really mean to you? We don't know her that well," prods Evan.
"I don't know you that well, either," I say.

Evan blinks. "What?"

Serena joins the other girls, and Megan rushes back up to meet us. The five of us eventually form into something resembling a group, and are escorted out into the main room. Beyond that lies our black door, which seems like it heads into the void of space, but exiting through it reveals instead those same woods. I'm worried at first we'll have to go back towards that house, which is probably sporting some nasty property damage from where we opened the window two weeks ago, but then Harper says, "Something's not right here."

She's correct. Metal teeth glint through the trees, and past us is a dirt road, occasionally spotted with gravel. There are tire tracks through it, but the maintenance is poor. Someone left it to die a long time ago.

"I know where we are," Evan says. "I used to come out here. Come on."

He takes an uneasy lead to the group, and we travel up the path. The day is colder, framed by the red of falling leaves at the height of their glory, but the chill wind doesn't seem to know how to get under our costumes. The air throws itself against us, barely shaking our hair, and leaves rustle on the trees, being plucked off one by one. The last few birds stand guard over the land, filling the quiet, wind-tossed land with their calls. It sounds like they're looking for whoever else is still around. Doesn't seem like there's anyone else to answer.

We reach a metal gate, topped with barbed wire, and past that is a huge industrial building, concrete with rusty-red doors. Around it, behind the wire, the ground is plated, although the chipped concrete is washed clean of road markings and whatever else used to be there. I remember, from a vague conversation with my dad, talking about a nuclear plant that had been taken out of service decades ago. It's not exactly a tourist destination.

"Here we are," Evan's fingers glow molten orange. "Anthem was right. No cars."

"Right," I say. "How about robots?"

Serena tenses. "You think they might have bought them out here?"

"Maybe," I muse. "In that case, we're all going to wish that instead of fighting each other, we'd been focused on the robots."

"That sounds way more profound than it had any right to be," Megan says. Her dress is really suffering the wind, but it doesn't seem to blow up in any way that might inconvenience her. At first, I thought she might be showing off, but maybe she really is just more comfortable in a dress than she would be in casual attire. There's no performance for others involved in it.

Honestly, I still feel stupid in my outfit. There's also the issue of the group of us: from left to right, we look like we were pulled from five different comic books, with highly differing ideas on graphic design. A 'team' feels like an overstatement.

The gate falls over as Evan finishes cutting the gates open with his fingers. He can't get up to the top, where the barbed wire is, so he just folds that out of the way. The result is a tenuous looking door, but it's better than the last escape option we had. "This way," he says.

We enter. All the noise from the outside world falls silent as we approach the building, which is in even worse condition up close. People are so reluctant to come out here that no one's even tagged it yet. There are rumors of everything from remaining radioactivity to a government quarantine zone. Megan knocks on the door.

No one answers.

Evan sticks a burning hand against it, then draws it back. "Thick metal. This one's on you."

I draw my sword.

"That's not going to do anything," Serena warns.

My sword glows red. I drive it against the door, slicing upwards, and manage to cut a long gash in the side, almost straight. I have to stand on tiptoe to get the line across, but I manage that, and when I draw it back down, it remains still. "Ev-- I mean, wait, what was your name?"

"Onyx?" Evan suggests. "Let me guess. You want help getting this down."

"Maybe," I say.

The two of us kick it over.

It's so quiet inside that I can hear everyone's breath. The landing appears to be a large, warehouse-like area, with dark tunnels cutting across the ceiling in either direction. There are doors to the left and right, which lead into smaller, thinner tunnels. "Left or right?" asks Megan.

"We could split up," suggests Serena.

"Don't split the party," says Harper. "I have learned one thing from a lifetime of reading books. If we split up, we are going to immediately get ambushed and die."

"I would think you'd get a lot more... thematically grounded material than that," Serena suggests.

Harper folds her arms. "It's called 'hyperbole'?"

"Wow, she's throwing--" Evan begins.

"You don't get to make that joke twice," I put my hand on his shoulder. The little dragon-skull implements he has there are a nice touch. By nice, I mean ridiculous, but I'm beginning to 'get' that this is what makes Evan tick.

"He made it once? Did I miss something?" asks Megan.

We've been standing here for too long. "We're going left," I announce to the group.

As we trail down the abandoned hallway, Megan adds, "No, but really. I saw you two talking while I was on the field."

"About nothing," I say. The hallway before us is empty as it is cold, well-lit to a pristine white even though there should be no electricity to light it. There are no doors on either side, and when we exit onto the other side, we're in another massive warehouse. We've come out the left side, and on the right is another tunnel. There are no other discernible entrances or exits. "I guess we keep going, then."

The next tunnel is the same as the first, barren, cold, frustrating, echoing up with the reverberation of our footsteps. I keep my sword drawn, but it reflects only the white light back at me. Evan runs his fingers down the hallway, leaving long rows of clawmarks. The noise, a shrill eeeeee, is almost welcome due to the otherwise complete silence, but I think I might be the only one who thinks so.

"Can you stop that?" asks Serena.

"If there's no one here, giving us something to retrace our steps by," Evan says. He removes his fingers from the wall. "If there is? I want them to know someone was here. I want them to be afraid, or at least on their guard, before we're actually up against anyone." His eyes gleam with bitter fire. He drives a finger into the wall and scratches out a loose curve. "There we go."

"It's an alpha," I say. "Where'd you pick that up from? A video game?"

"Yes," Evan says. "Obviously. I figured we needed a group name, so I went ahead and made us one. Team Alpha."

"I helped," Megan says. "I don't know, it still feels a bit cheesy... but... I kind of like it. What do you guys think?"

I shrug.

"No objection!" Harper says.

We're at the end of this hallway, at least. We emerge into a warehouse, which is the same as the last, save for one conspicuous difference-- there's a large hole in the front door.

"That's it?" I ask.

Megan shakes her head. "I don't think so. There has to be something we're missing, doesn't there? Either that, or they're just circling the place... waiting to start something."

"Electricity. There shouldn't be any," I think aloud. "They've already started."

Serena asks, "Where do you think the power source is?"

"If I had to guess, further in," I say. "It's a nuclear power plant. There's a 'further in' we can access, right? Where the electricity would be generated. We can't get there, because this looks like a closed loop. There has to be a door somewhere that we're missing. Onyx. When you were running your hand along the walls, did you feel anything?"

"You'd think I'd mention that," Evan says.

"Do we think that? Do we?" asks Serena.

"I don't know what else there is to do," I say. I close my eyes. There's no hint of the Diosite, like there was when we were looking for the shard back in the neighborhood. However, there is something unsettling about the place, even then, this slight electric hum that permeates the whole building. I step forwards, eyes still closed, and hear the hum getting louder. It's coming from the inside of the building. Somewhere around here has to be the entrance.

I open my eyes in front of the back wall. It looks like it's just a bunch of slightly curved metal, but some of the lines are darker than others, like they've been welded shut. My sword glows.

"A- Are... you... okay?" asks Megan. "You really need a superhero name, don't you?"

That's future Adam's problem. I knock the wall. Sure enough, it appears to be hollow.

"Think he's cracked?" asks Serena.

I plunge my sword into the wall, drawing it across. There's more resistance than there was with the entrance, but as I swing the sword horizontally, then draw it down, a surprisingly thin pane of metal gives way to an internal room, which is buzzing with electricity. "We have to force our way through," I say.

The debris in the room is much more recent, not caused by disrepair but what looks like active pillaging. Old operating systems have been replaced with new ones. Hard drives flash and whistle behind glass walls, but in the center of the room is one touch screen, large across as that of a television.

"Don't touch it," warns Serena.

Evan already has his hand on the screen. A resonant jingle sounds from the computer as it boots up. The screen flashes with the same rainbow of nonsense colors it holds when you break the display, but the colors give way to a white, oddly fuzzy screen. An abnormal operating screen pulls up, flickering black means moving across it. Around us, from behind the glass, red lights turn on. I hear the computers buzzing, their discerning hmmmm overwhelming us.

Megan immediately swings out two walls of water, so that we're blocked on either side. Her arms shake with the strain. "They probably already have us," she says. "Sorry."

I raise my sword, which seems to be the answer to most of our problems. "'Have us'?"

Evan moves away from the screen. From deep under the monitor, a voice sounds, at first in electronic, dissonant tones for each syllable, and curving up into the voice of a woman. "N-n-no-O-O-t b-b-BAD for a fi-r-st attempt." Metal clicks from around the corner. "But I can't let you go."

The robots from the attic are outside the door, but these are far more formed, like the one we met in the woods. The quadrupedal beasts rush us, and Megan's walls of water flood around us, brushing my side and engulfing me in the spray, and drown them out. Metal clicks and curcuity crackles, but even then the machines drag themselves up from Megan's onslaught, even if one of them is dragging a dysfunctional leg behind.

Evan's fingers alight. Serena summons a plain pole, and Harper's shadows emerge from her arms. "Shall we?" asks Harper.

Not even a question.

It turns out that fighting each other is a lot harder than fighting robots. Harper is able to grip and throw them against walls, leaving them unable to react, while Evan's fire causes the intricate metal parts to stick together and fail completely. All told, it's over before Serena or I can do anything.

The screen must realize, because it begins whirring again. "Calling," chirps a voice more reminiscent of the 'narrator' on a normal operator system. "On route. Belligerents are warned to evacuate prior to more forceful extermination or rehabilitation. Belligerents are warned that--"

The pitch kicks up as I drive my sword through the monitor. The sound gives out after a minute of noise so terrible that every one of us is covering our ears. I hear Evan yelling, but I can't even make out the words. My eyes are wet beneath the mask, and I'm grateful as hell that they can't see that I'm crying. When it finally dies, I withdraw the sword, which is still glowing red. My arms are trembling.

"We can't face her," I say. "It's that woman. There's no way. We need to get out of here."

"But it's just a woman," Serena says.

I remember how Evan and I almost died in the attic. If she's creating all these robots, if she has all that Diosite, it's likely she's much more experienced with her powers than we are. "Anthem told us just to get a look around. We need to go."

"I'm not arguing," Serena says. "I don't want to be here either!"

"Good," Evan says. "Let's kick it, guys."

We run past the smouldering bodies of robots as we exit. The woods past the gate are liberating, and as we rush in to the nearest portal, I hear a truck thundering up the road. My heart accelerates, blazing with panic, and as my team files in, I catch a glimpse of the woman from earlier. It has to be her. She's not alone. She's wearing normal attire, instead of the dress, but when she turns, I can see her face is hidden behind a mask, as are those of the people in the car with her.

"The trap's baited," she says. I can feel the heat of her vision on mine, and instinct seizes me as I disappear into the Veins.

When I emerge, the others are waiting in the main room, around the hearth, which has been lit in the intervening time between when we exited and when we returned. Megan and Evan are on opposite sides of the couch, so I move in between them, sprawling my arms out. Given my armor and the sword on my back, it's a miracle that I fit at all, but the couch seems to fold in on me to account for that. "They know we're there," I tell Anthem. "We didn't get too much information, but we know where they are now--"

Dully, Anthem responds, "I know. Next time you will not turn around as quickly, and we will work on receiving more information on the humans themselves. Regardless, what you did was adequate."

"Thanks," Serena says. "In that case, can I go?"

Anthem moves along the edge of the couch, curving around my head. "If you wish. You should work on that code name, Serena. It will become an inconvenience faster than you think."

Serena grimaces like Anthem spit up a hairball on her. "Alright." She stands primly. "Goodbye."

"Adios, commander Killjoy," Evan says.

"Stop that," Megan snipes back. "Harper, Adam, can you come up with names before the next mission?"

Harper frowns, her legs swinging beneath her chair. "I'm not good with this stuff."

Evan suggests, "We could come up with your name. How do you like 'Silent but Deadly'?"

"I'll have my name back to you by tomorrow," Harper promises Anthem. "It's two, right? I should go before people start asking where I am. We have weekend activities at school."

"Boarding school?" I ask.

Harper nods. "Lots of fun," she says. "Or would be, if I knew anyone."

"You keep being a real one, kid. We're here for you," Evan says, flashing her a thumbs-up from the couch. He leans back into the back of the couch."Forget the haters."

Megan pushes him from around me, sneaking her hand behind my back. "Stop that," she says.

Harper gives a slight, nervous laugh. "I'll see you all later. Megan, it was fun to fight with you. Hopefully we work things out next time!"

She disappears.

"She's so earnest," Megan says. "Are you guys doing okay?"

I look towards the hearth. The woman's words still ring in my head. The trap's baited. Evan and Megan wouldn't duck out, no matter what I said to them, would they? The idea of saying something, and them ducking out, suddenly fills with me as much fear as the idea of being stuck in that attic, surrounded by robots. "Sure," I say.

"That sounds anti-okay," Evan argues.

"You haven't told anyone, right?" I ask.

"We can't," Megan says.

"My brother's genre savvy," I say.

"Your brother's a dork." Evan flicks my hair.

"Amanda would be great right about now," admits Megan.

We sit in silence. I'm relieved to be alive. "I'm relieved to be alive," I say. "And I'm so glad to have you both. You are so, so much more competent than I am."

Megan nods. "We know."

"You don't have to cut off the moment. Stick around," Evan says.

"Naval Brigade," Megan says.

"Homework," I add.

Evan's eyes roll. "Fine, I get it. It's not my fault you two have lives." He frames 'lives' with his fingers, his mouth curling into a harsh smirk. We stand up, all at once, and Megan brushes herself off.

I bow to her. "You first, m'lady."

Megan laughs. "That's Evan's line, isn't it?"

"Hey, hey. He's the knight," Evan says. "You are super derivative, though, Rosenbloom."

I roll my shoulders. "My outfit's not from some heavy metal band's costume set. At least I'm cribbing from a better playbook. See you later, Evan. Megan."

Megan disappears, the portal shifts, and it's my turn. I can feel all the afternoon fall off my shoulders as I step out into the sun, as if it never happened at all. Our house is just across the street, and when I step in, Will's in the living room, alone. Our parents are probably out at the gym. It's a Saturday thing. Sometimes they'll take us along on things, but we're always busy, these days. All of us.

"You still watching X-Cross?" asks Will, clicking the TV off. I want a sword to plunge through the screen. Feels like it's watching me.

"What?" I ask.

Will's eyes narrow. "You know, the anime we were watching together a few weeks ago."

"Haven't had time," I respond.

"Right," Will says. His shoulders slack a little when he's disappointed. "You don't have to watch it if you don't want to."

"Things've come up," I say.

"You're not doing your homework like you used to. What else is eating up your time?" he asks.

Something you would be better at, I almost say. Something that you would know what to do about. You'd pull something from some show you like, just like our problems came right out of the stories, so would the solution. I tell him, "Stuff with friends. You've been out more, too." I sit down. He'll be gone soon, to Naval Brigade, and maybe then I will do homework. "Are you happier, Will?"

Will scoots over. There's enough room on the couch for us to sit on opposite sides. "I am," he promises.

See? I couldn't hurt him like that. I couldn't take that brief moment of sunlight away from him, when he's finally free of everything I've ever brought into the house with me.