"..."

  "...""

  "..."

  Snk-kkkt.

  "..."

  Snk-kkkt.

  "..."

  Alfie sipped on her bubble tea, a slow, deliberate slurp that echoed in the quiet of the small, glass-walled study room.

  Linda adjusted her glasses, fixated on the holographic display of her Sapphire Lens as she scrolled through pages of data. Her brow furrowed in concentration, her lips a thin, tight line.

  Val, on the other hand, was a picture of barely contained energy off to the side.

  She was sprawled out in a plush, rolling chair, her legs kicked up on the table, her combat boots leaving faint scuff marks on the polished wood. She was idly tossing a pen in the air, catching it with a flick of her wrist, her movements fluid and practiced.

  "I'm just saying, girls," she said, her voice a low, conspiratorial grumble. "Why can't we just do this at the hideout? We've got perfectly good, grease-stained couches there."

  "And perfectly good, sound-proofed walls, you mean," Linda shot back, not even looking up from her lens. "I mean, I get it. It's bad enough my mom thinks I'm part of a 'highly competitive academic decathlon.' The lies are getting complicated, you guys."

  "Coming out here just to keep up appearances sucks. The snacks are better at the garage," I said, my arms crossed over my chest.

  My voice always got a little lower, a little more grumpy when I was in one of my moods.

  "Like I said," Linda said, finally looking up from her lens, her eyes serious. "We need to talk. And we need to talk about... everything. The Sentinels. The Wounds. Reimi. Julian. All of it. And we need to do it somewhere... without any surprises."

  She looked at Momo and Popo, the two little mascots who were currently trying to see who could balance a book on their head. Popo, the blue one, was winning.

  Val snickered. "Surprises? The only surprise I'm expecting is another one of Alfie's 'I have a great idea!' speeches that ends with us covered in slime and facing a C-class monster."

  Alfie pouted, setting her bubble tea down with a sad little thump. "Hey! The boulder plan was a good one! It just... had unforeseen structural integrity issues."

  "The unforeseen issue was that you threw a boulder at another, bigger boulder," Linda deadpanned, not even bothering to look up from her Lens.

  "Anyway, I still don't see why we couldn't just do this at the hideout," Val grumbled, resuming her pen-tossing. "Mr. Hoshino's garage is a sacred space of grease and existential angst. It's where we belong."

  Linda finally looked up, her expression a perfect mask of weary patience. "Val - to be absolutely blunt, the Hoshino garage is a potential security risk. A very large one."

  Valentina stopped mid-toss. "What are you talking about? We've been using it for the last three months. It's safe."

  "Is it?" Linda asked, arching a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Is it really?"

  Oh, here we go. Linda was about to go full super-spy on us again.

  "Maya's father has been a fully licensed, active-duty Sentinel for over twenty years," Linda stated, her voice dropping to the low, serious tone she used when she was about to drop a truth bomb on us. "He has a Tier 4 Perception-Awareness Skill. Do you really think he doesn't know what we've been doing in there?" She gestured vaguely in the direction of my house. "He probably knows what brand of potato chips we prefer."

  A cold knot of dread formed in my stomach. I'd always had this... this feeling. This nagging little suspicion that Dad knew more than he let on.

  He was always a little too... okay with everything. A little too casual about the late-night 'study sessions' and the random, unexplained scuffs. It was why we trusted him with our statuses as Sentinels-to-be in the first place.

  "Oh, come on," I said, my voice a little weak. "He hasn't gone back down there in years. He wouldn't... you know. Spy on us. Would he?"

  "Of course he would," Linda said, her tone matter-of-fact. "It's his job. His instinct. He's not just 'Dad' Maya. He's a retired veteran superhero intelligence specialist who has a daughter who is actively, and often clumsily, engaged in magical warfare. The only reason we haven't found any bugs is because he's probably smart enough to use methods we can't detect. Or because he doesn't need to. A listening charm woven into the concrete feeding into some kind of listening post would be child's play for someone of his caliber."

  She sighed, adjusting her glasses. "I'm sure he would love to help, but Reimi was right that she is an X-factor that would complicate things. There's no telling what Maya's dad would do if he knew he was housing someone that volatile who could take on all of the elite Guildmasters at the same time."

  Linda looked at Momo and Popo, who had both given up on the book-balancing contest and were now paying rapt attention. "This is why we're here. In a public, neutral space. With Momo and Popo's magic giving us some soundproofing. Where the only thing listening is the library's crappy Wi-Fi."

  Alfie, who had been looking progressively paler, finally spoke up. "So wait... all those times we were complaining about the Association? And... and complaining about all our parents including him?"

  Linda just gave her a flat look.

  Valentina let out a low whistle, slumping back in her chair. "Huh. Well. That's... horrifying if Lin's instincts are right."

  My stomach did a flip-flop.

  My dad... listening in? To all of it? To us whining about training and complaining about points and making bad jokes?

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I was suddenly, intensely grateful that I had never tried to have a private, super-secret heart-to-heart with Jules in there.

  "Alright, fine," I said, my voice a little shaky. "The garage is a potential surveillance state run by my dad. Point taken. But speaking of Momo and Popo - why are they here looking all glum and gloomy?"

  I pointed a thumb at Momo and Popo - invisible to the average person walking by. "No offense, but you two are usually... you know. M.I.A. unless something is actively trying to eat one of us."

  Popo, puffed out his little blue chest. "We are always vigilant! Ever-watching! The silent guardians of..."

  He trailed off, looking at Momo for support. She was looking uncharacteristically less fluffy today.

  Momo, sighed, a sound like a pin dropping on metal. "She's right. We need to talk. And we need to talk about the System."

  My head snapped up. "The System?"

  My brain did a weird little glitch.

  The System was... the System.

  It was the metahuman equivalent of the phone's operating system. It was the magic. The skills. The points. The whole shebang.

  But Reimi did go on a rant a few days ago about how it was set up by the Greek deity Hephaestus as an advance automated defense against these monsters we'd run into.

  "The way it works," Momo continued, her small, serious gaze sweeping over us. "The way it's designed. And the way we've been using it. Or, more accurately, how the world has been misusing it."

  She hopped onto the table, a tiny, furry general addressing her troops.

  "First, a baseline," Popo added, striking a dramatic pose. "You all know your transformations. The rush of power. The strength, the speed. But do you know why?"

  "Because... magic?" Alfie offered, her head tilted.

  "In a sense," Momo conceded. "Think of the default Astra transformation as a template. A one-size-fits-all physical boosting package. At its absolute bare minimum, it boosts the user's physical capabilities to a set peak. Let's call it... 'peak human.' Your Captain America. Strong, fast, durable. A low level superhero, by any standard measure."

  She looked at Alfie, then Val, then Linda. "The power of an Astra isn't a static power. It's adaptive. It amplifies you you. Your muscle memory. Your physical conditioning. It takes the person you are and multiplies it. It turns your potential into your power."

  My brain started to connect the dots. "So... Alfie, because she does ballet and lacrosse and has that crazy core strength..."

  "She gets a massive boost to her balance, agility, and flexibility," Linda finished, her fingers flying across her Lens's holographic interface. "Her multiplier is significantly higher than the baseline you or I have. Her transformation takes her static strength and turns it into something... superhuman. The same goes for Val's general athleticism."

  "Which is why I can run laps around you, Pinky," Val interjected, a smug grin on her face.

  "And Linda," I murmured, looking at our quiet, analytical friend. "Our little kempo black belt."

  "Is a fighting style built on efficiency, precision, and leverage," Linda confirmed. "Our transformation amplifies that. I may not be the best at it, but my strength and speed are higher because I suppose the System recognizes my body is already primed for combat. It gives me what I need to be effective."

  I felt a familiar, bitter pang of inadequacy.

  My friends knew it. I knew it. I was always a clumsy ditz with two left feet, all heart and very little grace. I couldn't dance, I tripped over flat surfaces, and my idea of a workout was carrying a full laundry basket upstairs.

  "So what you're saying," I said, my voice flat, "is that I'm getting the bargain basement, entry-level 'Black Widow' package, while they're all rocking the 'Super-Soldier 2.0' deluxe edition."

  "In essence, yes," Momo said, her tone gentle but firm. "Your baseline is the standard. The minimum. But it's not a weakness, Morganite."

  "It's not?" I asked, my sarcasm meter cranked to eleven.

  "No," Popo chimed in, zipping over to hover in front of my face. "It's the foundation. The Astra class, by its very nature, is considered one of the 'weaker' starting classes in the System's grand design. It's a reactive class. It's not meant to be the strongest from the get-go."

  "Yeah, yeah. We've all heard," Val grumbled, leaning back in her chair. "We're the 'emotional support' class. The cheerleaders."

  "That's a simplistic and dangerously inaccurate assessment," Momo said, her voice sharp. "You are not cheerleaders. You are a capacitor."

  "A... what?" Alfie asked, blinking.

  "A capacitor," Momo repeated. "A device that stores energy. The power of the Astra class is directly, and I mean directly, tied to the ambient emotional state of the world around you. And even your general vicinity. Specifically, hope."

  My brain screeched to a halt. That sounded like something straight out of anime.

  "Hope?" I asked.

  "Hope," Momo confirmed. "Faith. The desperate, primal need for salvation. The more humanity feels it is in peril, the more it hopes for a savior... The more they have faith in you as they fill in that gap, the stronger you get. Every person who looks at the news and feels a pang of fear, every child who prays for the monsters to go away, every family that huddles together during a Dungeon Break... their hope coalesces. It becomes fuel. And you are the engine that burns it." She looked at each of us. "By default, your class is weak. But its potential is... theoretically limitless."

  The room was dead silent. We just stared at her, our minds trying to process the sheer, overwhelming weight of what she was saying.

  "So what about the S-Rankers like Aurelian and the others? The ones on TV The Guild Leaders and elites?" Alfie asked, curiosity in her voice.

  "They are the scalpel," Momo said. "They are the specialized, powerful tools designed to deal with specific threats. But you... you are the shield. The last first line of defense when the Chaoskampf returns. The System's contingency plan for when everything else fails. When the hope runs out... and despair is about to win."

  Popo landed on the table, his usually cheerful expression gone, replaced by a look of seriousness.

  "The Association, the governments... they've spent years treating you like a sideshow. A novelty. 'Magical Girls' fighting goblins and skeletons in low-level Zones, and using your unique power to shut down Dungeons when needed. They gave you a cutesy name and description and patted you on the head, all while they funneled their resources into the 'serious' heroes. Into their Sentinels. Because they didn't understand. They still don't."

  He looked at us, his gaze intense. "They think the System is a game. A tool to be mastered. They do not realize it's a living, breathing defense mechanism for the entire planet. And you... the Astras... are its last line of defense."

  I leaned forward, my elbows on the table. "Okay. So we're a big, hope-powered battery. Fantastic. What does that have to do with right now? With us being in a library and not out there, you know, being good little spreaders of smiles and hope?"

  "Because of this," Momo said, gesturing vaguely towards the east. Towards where the Wound was.

  "The Turnpike Dungeon that Cool Big Sis destroyed. That wasn't just a random Dungeon Break that day. It was an incursion point. A sign that the... the 'Other Side' is getting more aggressive. More confident. Eyeing our world like a snack. The barriers are thinning. And your Association will not be ready."

  Popo flew up to my shoulder, patting my cheek with his tiny, soft paw. "They see a bigger problem, so they're sharpening their favorite knife. They're ignoring the real solutions. All of you."

  He looked me dead in the eye. "Momo and I have been communing with the other earth spirits. There are less than a hundred Astras across the world who are active. Less than a hundred. And you are all young. You're all supposed to be at school, worrying about proms and grades."

  He paused.

  "The world may have forgotten what Magical Girls were originally meant to be. A last, desperate defense. But the System hasn't. And its been watching you. All of you. And... let's just say our mother is terrified and kicking it into overdrive."

  Our mother?

  I just sat there, my mind a complete and total train wreck. A hope-powered battery? The world's last line of defense against some cosmic horror show? It was... too much. It was too big. I was just some kid from New Jersey who failed her driver's test twice and still cried at the end of 'The Iron Giant.'

  I wasn't... this. I wasn't a last llne of defense. I wasn't a savior. I was just... me.

  "So... what do we do?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "What's the 'strategic debriefing' part of this? What's the plan?"

  "The plan," Momo said, her gaze sweeping gently over us, "is that we are going to take things seriously starting from today. Especially me and Popo."

  Popo coughed. "Now, let us start with that lump sum of Points all of you earned from the Railway rift..."