Mel hadn't asked any questions. He'd been torn between rushing home with Cherry, and waiting for the others to catch up. When he saw the monster turning in circles, he'd been pretty sure that they weren't in immediate danger, even if Amber and Arnie weren't quite strong enough to deal with it yet.

He was confident in their ability, knowing that the Enemy had summoned creatures in many places at once. They were all distractions, but that must surely mean that there was less power behind each of them. But his thoughts dwelled just as long on what he could do to help if he stayed. And the answer was that he was no use to them here; whether they succeeded or failed, all he had to worry about was getting Cherry home in one piece.

But in either case, those two girls had the monster's attention now. So there was nothing to stop him escaping more slowly, in the hope that Monica would be hot on his heels. He had to stay and wait for her; that was what Amber had asked of him, after all. And he hated himself for not chasing after her, but in the moment it had seemed like a choice between catching her and getting Cherry to safety. Monica, at least, would be near two more capable Rainbow Knights who could protect her.

It didn't stop him feeling bad now, as he stood a block away watching the crowds move in confusion after the creature vanished. He didn't feel any better until he saw Arnie again, and Monica running beside her. They were carrying Amber between them, limp like a doll, and Mel's mood went from relief back to panic in an instant. He turned back and moved towards them, leaving Cherry standing alone for just a moment.

"What happened?" he gasped, "Is she okay?"

"She's not breathing," Monica sobbed, barely managing to get the words out between panicked gasps, "I tried to call an ambulance but..." A jerk of her head indicated the chaos behind them, plumes of smoke rising from fallen buildings.

"They're overworked anyway," Mel filled in, "Arnie, can you tell–"

"Violet said she should be fine," Arnie answered, but didn't seem so confident in the diagnosis, "She overworked herself, just exhausted. And then she disappeared."

"Wait, Violet? Amber's imaginary friend?"

"Maybe," Mel answered, "You'll have to ask her about that."

"She's not breathing, she's got no pulse! We need to get her to a hospital, right now!"

Arnie and Mel met each other's eyes, and it was clear they were thinking the same things. They couldn't talk easily with Amber's mother here, and a young girl who didn't know anything about the Rainbow, or about reincarnated lords. They didn't have time to tell her either, but they couldn't just keep shutting her out.

"I'll go check," Arnie was the first to jump to a decision. "Hold me. Violet?" Her eyes closed, and Mel was just quick enough to catch her shoulders before she fell.

Monica was still holding Amber, sobbing wildly, but she couldn't hold back a stream of four letter words as she saw the other girl's body go limp.

"Calm down, please," Mel pleaded, but he could tell that he was losing control of the situation, "Please, try not to panic. And don't use words like that in front of Cherry."

"I'm sorry," she gasped, the last word hitting her like a slap. She couldn't believe that she hadn't even thought about the other child present. "She's dead? She looks dead? What's going on here?"

"Uhh... technically. But it's not permanent. I have no idea how to explain this. Arnie's soul has left her body, she's gone to check with some friends who are technically ghosts, but that's also not what you might think. She'll be back in a minute or two, it's something we've both done dozens of times. Seriously, this isn't as crazy as it sounds."

"She said Violet?"

"Yeah. One of the ghosts. Violet is like a kind of gatekeeper, she can let living people enter the afterlife and then come back again. She was one of my best friends in school. Please believe me, I wanted to tell you before, but you've heard how crazy this all is. There's no way you would have believed any of it, and I can't think of a way to say it that makes any kind of sense."

Monica took a deep breath, tears still running down her face. Mel had no idea what she was going to say next, but he knew that if she was angry, there would be no way for him to defend himself.

"That girl," Monica nodded towards Arnie, "Has she got a pulse?"

"No," Mel shook his head, "Any doctor, or any medical test, would tell you she's dead right now. But then she'll pick up right away like nothing happened."

"And Amber's the same, that's why she stopped me running for an ambulance?"

"We don't know," Arnie answered, blinking unsteadily, "Sorry."

"What does Violet say?" Mel asked, "I've told Monica some of the story, but I really don't know where to start."

"Amber's soul isn't in her body, and she hasn't crossed over. She's not in the dream world either. So far as we know, the only other option is in the mortal world somewhere, but outside Violet's reach."

"But Violet can reach..."

"Yeah. But it doesn't make sense any other way. There must be someone alive, maybe in some remote place that's beyond Violet's senses, or a computer that's enough like a human mind to be possessed by her spirit. Violet gave me a quick list of ideas, you remember that last memory she had? She said there's computers in orbit that have a soul, so your spirit can interface with them. Like, an off-site backup of our memories from past lives."

"A city-sized supercomputer hidden in Saturn's rings," Mel muttered, remembering that conversation and trying not to look at Monica's reactions right now. "It's crazy, but it would explain what we've been seeing. Our spirits going out to Saturn one by one to pick up old memories, I can't believe it. Who had the technology to build something like that? And why so far away?"

"Because that's where we came from," Amber answered as soon as her eyes opened. "Mel was right, we're not human. But we're not Neanderthals or monkeys, we're actual aliens. There's some kind of super magic, something to do with destiny, that means that we'll be reincarnated again and again, and keep on meeting up with each other every hundred years, until... Aah, I can't remember. There was so much information, so much history, I can only remember bits and pieces. But the rule was, we'll be born again, and again, and again, as long as there's someone born with a brain that can handle our minds. When our race became extinct after the war, that didn't end the spell. We kept on waiting until another species evolved that was close enough to sentience. Mel, do you know what that means? We created the human race, and we'll keep on living over and over until humanity advances enough to complete the quest we started."

"You're serious?" Arnie asked; she wondered if she looked as surprised as Monica now. This wasn't how she'd expected her first meeting with the other living Rainbow Knights to go at all, and even after she'd forced herself to believe in past lives, in reincarnation, in magic, and in destiny, she hadn't thought she'd ever hear this kind of story from someone who wasn't completely crazy. "You didn't just overexert yourself, and have some kind of fever dream?"

"It's real," Mel shook his head, "I don't believe it, but it's real."

"How can you say that?" Monica still couldn't take in half of what she was hearing, and Amber was trying hard to think of something that would help her mMom to calm down. "You're supposed to be an adult, Mel! We have to keep out of these wild flights of fancy, and help make sure the kids know what's real! Tell her it's just a crazy dream, you know people can be delirious when something traumatic happens, right? Everybody goes a little crazy sometimes?"

"I'm sorry, Monica." Mel couldn't even meet her gaze. He kept his eyes on his own hands, fingers dancing around each other in the air. "I'm sorry. If you want I could tell you that Amber ran off, and we found her again, and everything else was just kids with an overactive imagination. But would you believe me?"

"I saw her... A catapult?... Amber was dead, she wasn't breathing... I don't know?"

"It's tough. Believe me, I know. I've been through what you're feeling now, we all have. Seeing something that can't be real, and then the more you try to check it, the more evidence you find that you can't possibly deny. Any time you try to check it, you find out that it has to be true. Because you can't deny what you've seen with your own eyes. I'm sorry, Monica. I want to tell you everything is going to go back to normal, but you've seen enough to know that isn't going to happen. So I think all you can do is believe it, and try to live with a world that isn't quite the one you're used to. Denying this won't work, not without a lot of drugs. And I think you'd rather be there for your daughter when she needs you. Right?"

She just nodded.

"Anyway, what's this about a catapult?" Mel cut in before Monica could fall apart again. She was over the hardest part now, and she might actually be able to live with knowing the truth. But she needed to see the positive pieces of the puzzle first. She needed to know that everyone had powers, and whatever she'd seen sounded like it might help her deal with the monsters a little better.

"Not quite a catapult," Amber corrected, "It was a gravity-drawn ballista. Jack knew how to make a trebuchet, I don't know where he learned that, but then I kind of changed it to work with what I had. Because a trebuchet shoots up and down again, and you need big heavy rocks to throw, and I thought if I could make it wind a spring with the weight then it might work to fire something in a straight line. And after, he worked out what it might be called. It came apart after it fired, but with Jack in me I could aim it in just the right place to stop the monster."

"Jack?"

"He's a ghost. But one of the good guys."

"That's good, I guess? But... even if this stuff's true, about magic, and monsters, and everything... even Mel and Arnie said they couldn't believe what you said about aliens, honey. Maybe that was just a dream, after you tried too hard and passed out?"

"Sorry," Mel shook his head, and explained. That was even harder for Amber's mom to take in, but eventually she accepted that they all had powers. She couldn't deny that some kind of special abilities existed, after what she'd seen her own daughter do that day. So she was at least rational enough to take the only explanation on offer. And she had to admit that it made a lot of sense, once you were willing to accept reincarnation, and magic, and monsters.

Eventually, she might actually start to understand some of it.