"There's no waiting for Melissa. We've got to go now," Dess flew out the hospital door.

Rex and Aris exchanged a glance, and then followed after her. Jonathan and Deron, however, stayed in the room a bit longer, both of them watching the flowing white curtains blow in the breeze from the open window.

Jonathan didn't want to turn away and leave. But the distant pangs in his head pulled him away. Deron watched the boy leave. He heard faraway footsteps on concrete stairs. For some reason, he knew something was wrong.

Something wrong with the light coming in the window.

It had a faint tinge of blue to it.

Somewhere, something was humming.

What did it all mean? Deron stepped backwards. Two midnights? It was only…Four o'clock in the morning. Did it have something to do with the call to fight?

Melissa saw Rex's car parked in the hospital lot. But she wasn't really looking at it. She was staring into the air, where she saw dark blue particles floating downward through the air like snow.

What is this? she thought, catching one of the snowflakes.

As it touched down on her skin, it melted into a puddle of blue liquid in her palms. Just like a real snowflake would.

Melissa looked up into the sky, a burst of wind blowing her loose hair back. She squinted a bit and tried to see up into the gray-blue clouds. But there wasn't anything up there except, well, clouds.

Suddenly, a tremor rocked the mind-space in the air around Melissa. She yelled and collapsed to the ground, her eyes tightly closed. Again and again the call rocked through the parking lot, pulling on her insistently.

Melissa rose shakily, almost unable to stand in the shivering air. Her eyes focused on a spot far away in the dark, a point just beyond the mountains. She sighed. The reunion would be so diluted by a fight with dark monsters. Then again, how appropriate.

Melissa didn't see anyone in the car, or coming out of the building, so she used all of her available willpower to force herself to wait for her friends. It took several minutes, but eventually Dess, Rex and Aris emerged from the hospital, along with Jonathan, and Deron a moment later.

Melissa sighed with relief. She had been worried that they had been…hurt. She watched them exclaim about the blueness.

Deron saw her first.

"Melissa!" he shouted, running toward her. He stopped about a foot away, feeling kind of awkward. He didn't know her that well.

Dess, luckily, saved him.

"You're alive!" she shouted. "What happened?"

Melissa shrugged, unused to such an outburst from Dess about her well-being. Rex walked up with Aris, putting a chill on the moment. His dark eyes stared into Melissa's and tugged on her soul.

"Let's go," he said quietly. He got into his car.

Dess went and pulled five bags of steel out of the back of her car. She loaded up Rex's, and then got into her own car.

Melissa walked after Dess, and sat shotgun. Dess looked at her questioningly as she started up the car.

"Rex," Melissa said, and she looked away.

Deron had a lot of time to think as they drove toward the mountains. He felt the call, just like everyone else, but he was terribly afraid. They were going to fight monsters.

Jonathan snoozed beside him, calm, ever cocky, even while he slept. Deron looked back out the window and sighed. Perhaps he was just being a baby. These people had fought darklings all their lives. They weren't complaining.

"I'm a midnighter. This is what we do," Deron whispered to himself.

Jonathan smiled in his sleep.

"Someone came for you? That's really weird. A human too."

"Really weird?! Is that all you can say? They wanted to kill me!" Melissa grumbled a bit under her breath.

"Yeah, yeah. But is it connected to midnight, or not?" Dess pressed the window-shield wiper button. The 'snowflakes' were pretty hard to see through.

"I don't know…I don't think anyone I knew before even knows I'm here." Melissa squinted thoughtfully. "It has to do with midnight. I was by myself, defenseless; an easy target." She shivered.

"It's okay. We won't leave you by yourself again."

Dess felt that she and Melissa should talk more often.

"Why's that?" Melissa asked.

Dess scowled out into the night she was trying to drive through.

"Totally ruined the moment, Melissa."

Melissa shrugged.

Rex stopped. The blue moon had risen, and the world was all kinds of variants of the color. The mountains rose before them, but the way was blocked by a giant scorpion.

Deron squeaked.

"Wow." Jonathan whistled. "I hope Dess brought the Golden Gate Bridge."

"What?" Aris looked at him from the front seat.

"Steel. Duh," Jonathan replied, not taking his eyes off the darkling.

"Is that the king?" Melissa asked warily.

"No, I doubt it," Dess answered. "I get the feeling that the king will be a jaguar, and be a lot bigger."

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't know…Intuition? Besides bugs, the jaguar darklings are their most powerful."

Melissa nodded at Dess' reasoning. "So we going to get out and fight our way in?"

"I assume so."

"Okay. Let's do it."

Dess pulled some gear off the backseat, like steel helmets and bars. She handed some of it to Melissa, and then took some herself.

"Are you sure this will be enough for everyone?" Melissa asked, looking down at the meager pile.

"I didn't account for Rex or Aris, but I guess Aris can take Jess' stuff. Rex is part darkling; maybe it will just let him through."

Melissa shivered. She could hear the frightened thoughts of her friends in the other car, but Rex's mind was empty.

"I hope so."

Dess got up and climbed into the back, pulling tons of duffel bags of steel up into the front.

"You named all this stuff?" asked Melissa, eyes wide.

"Eh. I cheated on some of it," Dess said, holding up a rod with Hypenated-18 engraved on it. Dess had probably used a paperclip or something, with the way the words were written.

Melissa nodded and picked up a weapon, then stuffed a few more in her pockets.

"Too bad we didn't have time to prepare. It could have made one heck of a barrier with this stuff." Dess held up a small sack. "Steel powder."

"Blind them with it," Melissa suggested.

The two groups got out at the same time, every kid not taking their eyes off the monster that blocked the road.

If we can't defeat it, we'll have to run. Melissa thought to everyone. Of course, this was probably impossible. The call would be too hard to resist.

They made their way toward the scorpion, moving ever so slowly. Deron shook so bad that the chains on his helmet rattled.

"Stop it," Jonathan hissed at him.

That just made him shake even more. Deron tried to stop, but he was just too afraid.

The scorpion looked over, bored.

Suddenly, it noticed Deron's helmet. It shone, even in the midnight moonlight, and kept winking light at the scorpion as Deron shook.

The scorpion scuttled toward them, drawn to the light. Nobody moved, except for Deron, who still shivered. The short legs echoed on the pavement as it neared.

It stopped, standing above them now. The head lowered, ever so slowly. Deron could see it's open maw, then it's beady eyes…

"AHHHHHHHHH!" Deron yelled as he jumped out of the way of the stinger. The size of an average-sized man, the stinger had been primed for attack the whole time. The scorpion's eyes followed Deron as he ran down the road, and it quickly pursued.

"Dess, powder!" Melissa yelled. She caught the bag in mid-air, and ran off after the scorpion.

"Well, the road's clear now." Rex pointed toward the mountains.

"Don't you think they may need our help?" Dess asked.

Rex's black eyes glowed. "The guard doesn't matter. It's the king that does."

"But Melissa matters!" Jonathan yelled. "And so does Deron. We're stronger w-"

"My team. My rules. Let's go." Rex strode off, with Aris close behind.

Dess nodded slowly, and reluctantly followed the two. Jonathan looked toward the distant battle that was taking place, but decided that, no matter how much of a jerk Rex was, he was right.

The king was what mattered.