Amber opened her eyes. The throne room, as she'd expected. She wasn't even surprised to see that all of the other five were here tonight.

"Time for a debriefing," Jack started, not even pausing to say 'hi'. "There's a lot happened today, and something tells me I've not heard a complete story."

"I've told you–" Arnie started.

"No. We're all here now, so we all tell the story from the start. Right?"

They all nodded. After a little hesitation, Mel went first. He didn't have much to say; just watching a monster rampage inside the school as he got closer, and then rounding a corner to find it had gone. He hadn't been close enough to see anything properly. Arnie was next. She'd seen about the same, starting off on Mel's scooter, but had used her powers to get there faster. She'd been right opposite the school when there was a burst of ancestral spirit power so intense that she couldn't see any detail. A crystal-armoured figure had flown out of the wrecked building, swooped close to the monster a few times, and then sped away. By then, it seemed the monster was gone.

"One thing we can be sure, at least," Mel said, "Being near each other amplifies our powers. Being near the monster, even more so."

"Previous generations suspected that might be the case," Alex said, "They couldn't properly analyse the effects, but they were sure that whatever connection we have to our first selves is stronger together, because whatever force stops us passing on affects the Council as a whole."

"Destiny?" Arnie suggested, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Whatever it is, I can't argue with you there."

"The question," Jack took a deep breath before continuing, and it seemed obvious that he was making a real effort not to raise his voice, "Is why I was not assisting Amber, while she was already on the scene. Between us we could easily have defeated that monster more quickly, leading to less collateral damage. Or did you want to see your school destroyed so you could take an extra break?"

"Of course not!" Amber rose to kneel on her seat, almost matching Jack's eye level, "You can't really think that? It's not just about the monster, I wanted to find..." And there she stopped, eyes turned down to her own hands as she wondered whether the glow of her spirit would hide her blushing.

"Ammadrine was there," Violet picked up the story. "Or, a guy who could be Ammadrine. He's not reincarnated like us, though. He's trying to possess a human body, taking over someone else. His ancestral spirit was weak, but I could feel it well enough. Amber couldn't have found him on her own, because the monster's aura was practically blocking all spirit sight. Mine works differently enough that I could sense him."

"I think we should have known something about this before," Jack growled.

"I didn't know if it would work," Amber finally admitted, unable to take the number of people staring at her for more than a couple of seconds. "I thought he must be there, it was like an instinct. And I wanted to be sure before I told you anything."

Jack glared at her. He didn't seem to care that she was still a child, maybe because he thought he was talking to Orsertro rather than Amber now. Mel saw that she was trying not to get nervous, and cut in with an attempt to disperse some of the tension.

"So what did Ammadrine say? Does he have some reason for what he's been doing? Is he willing to come here and explain himself?"

"He wasn't talking," Violet and Amber spoke at the same time, met each other's gaze, and Amber continued. "The human guy, he said something about making a deal with the devil. Like, he lets Amma use his body sometimes and in exchange he can use her powers. But he's seen the things Amma wants to do to us, and that creeps him out, so he wouldn't let her take over while we were there. It's like, it was taking all his strength, I don't think he could do that for long."

"A knight in shining armour, keeping a little kid safe?" Alex raised an eyebrow. "I wonder what Ammadrine could have up his sleeve, that's so much worse than calling monsters to attack us?"

"I'm not sure Amma is the villain here," Amber mumbled. She was talking slowly now, trying to find the right words that the others might actually understand. "I mean, she was fighting the monster I think. As soon as she appeared, it was gone."

"Or she dismissed it so she could torture you herself," Jack snapped, "You're lucky you were out of there for me and Mel to pick you up."

"Mel and I," Alex corrected, but nobody really paid attention to her in the heat of the moment.

"I really don't think–"

"Maybe you should leave the tactics to us," Jack snarled, "You think like a child, and that's half the problem. If you'd told us in advance what you were planning, I could have been there in time to beat this Ammadrine until he tells us the truth."

"Amber's right," Violet interrupted. "Or she could be, we have to think about this. Isn't it possible that this guy, who can use Ammadrine's power because of some contract, is the one behind all the monsters, for whatever reasons he has? If that's true, he'd have a big reason to stop us talking to Amma, because then we'd be looking for a way to take those powers away from him again."

"It could be," Alex said slowly, "That's the problem, when he's serving as the gatekeeper. We only have his word that he's doing this for the greater good. And Ammadrine has been missing from our group for nearly two centuries that we've personally seen. Why, then, would the monster attacks only start now if he... I'm sorry, are we referring to Ammadrine as 'he' or 'she'?"

"'He'," Jack answered without a second thought, "Irvetrani had to learn that. The Rainbow are always 'he', to ensure a sense of continuity. In our past lives, when we were the lords, we always had to present a masculine persona, so that the humans would understand we're actually the same people."

"It's a long time since our first generations," Amber said, in a voice so low the others had to lean in towards the table so they could hear her. "And that wasn't a decision everybody agreed on. I've... When I was Orsertro, I've found Ammadrine crying because she wants people to see her as a girl, as well as a knight. She hated that she had to wear armour all the time, just to pretend to be a guy."

"I did wonder," Alex nodded, "I noticed that you seem to be using feminine pronouns for her. And I would propose that her own preferences trump any rules that might have existed in prehistory. Certainly, for our current identities, we each use the pronouns equivalent to our current bodies. Should Ammadrine do the same, or does the issue of incarnation versus possession make a difference there? In any case, that is merely a grammatical query. I was going to say that there is little evidence in either direction as to whether Ammadrine could be considered a friend or–"

"He hit me," Mel interrupted, "First time we met in this life, went straight for an attack. I'd say that's a good reason to think we're not on the same side."

"Was that him, or her?" Violet asked, after a half glance to the right to reveal that Amber was too nervous to ask the question that must be on her mind. "That's always the question we've got to ask. And you said she hit you in the past too, when the demons were invading. She blamed you and Madir for... we don't really know. All we've got is questions and wild guesses."

"No," Jack pounded his fist on the table, "We know that Ammadrine was kicked out of the Rainbow Council. He – or she, if you insist – is a traitor regardless of anything else. Blaming Nico and Madir, that's just an attempt at distraction. We have to remember that Ammadrine is no longer a member of this Council, and there has to be a reason for that. And we have to remember that Madir can't be considered a traitor after he sacrificed his immortality to build a system that would help us retain these old memories."

Amber had a dozen answers to that, none of them respectful. So she kept them to herself, and tried not to think so much. Mel didn't keep his thoughts to himself, and brought up – again – that Madir's machine could just as easily have filtered or changed some of their memories, only allowing them to see the things he wanted them to know. It was a weak argument and he knew it, but he felt he had to play the devil's advocate when Jack started laying down the law.

"In any case," Jack barked, once he'd shot down all arguments against him, "We know that Ammadrine has lied to us, and is consorting with demons. That on its own should be reason enough to know he can't be trusted. So I don't care who encounters him next. If you see Ammadrine, you either drag his spirit in here for interrogation, or you call me in to break that armour. Right? Don't let me down, Mel. After he's attacked you so easily, I would expect you to be the last person having sympathy for the Enemy."

After that, he asked them all to agree to his plan. Some were reluctant, but they all at least nodded. Aside from Amber, who stayed silent, and just hoped it wouldn't come to fighting. And then they were heading off to their own dreams, or back to the waking world.