I turn around in time to see one of them raise a translucent purple screen against Cephalus's inferno overblast. The immense force shoots embers through the barrier, but their temporary shield protects them from most of the attack.

Kalai's head shifts on my shoulder as he stirs. For a second, it's like we're children again, as I watch his amber eyes blink into focus.

"Did you get it back?" he asked.

I stared at him, uncomprehending.

"Your power," he clarified. "I lose other people's powers after I wake up, so I think they return when I lose consciousness."

"Oh." Embarrassment made my hands slick. "I didn't test it out while you were sleeping."

Kalai poked my knee with his toes. "Come on, Viole! Experiments only work if you do them properly."

"Sorry." I brushed the back of my neck, and my hand got stuck. "Oh! I'm sticky again!"

Kalai hugged me. "It worked! Tonight, let's find out if it happens as soon as I fall asleep or only when I wake up."

"Why wait?" Our hands were almost the same size; my palm was broader, but his fingers were longer. "Take my adhesion and let's try again now."

"I just woke up from a nap, Vi. You can't expect me to go right back to sleep!"

"Mom's right," I teased. "Men are lazy creatures."

"How is not wanting to sleep all day lazy?"

"And argumentative," I fumbled as I repeated Mom's words, "and stubborn, and mean."

Kalai pushes me, and we both fall. My elbows scrape the ultra realm's violet stone, the impact ripping my sleeves. I get up before my elbows get stuck to the ground. Adhesion puts me in awkward situations sometimes, but it has never been life-threatening.

"I almost split myself in half today!" Kalai told my mom and me as we sat on mats around our low, square-shaped dining table. He gestured with the butter knife, and Mom took it from him before he could take out my eye. She spread hummus on our crackers as he explained, "I borrowed a lady's teleportation ability and warped myself to a school for people like us—people with powers that don't fit into an elemental type like water or fire."

"Ultra powers," I spoke with my mouth full, and Mom clamped her hand on my shoulder with her usual reprimand, "Manners, Viole. Don't be a rude man like the filthy downtown rats."

"There was this boy with Aether-yellow hair," Kalai continued. "He was too big to be one of those skinny scientists' kids, though. He smiled at everyone and he taught me his secret handshake."

I giggled as I kept up with the high fives and finger taps. Listening to Kalai's kleptomaniac exploits was fun because he came up with new ways to make contact with people—tag, touch-football, hugs, you-have-something-on-your-face.

Mom cleared her throat after swallowing. "Men are fools."

"And then I sank through the floor! I couldn't feel my legs, and then I couldn't breathe, and when my face went under, I was blind and deaf. I couldn't even scream for help."

A shiver ran through me. Some powers are inherently dangerous, but none more so than a power that can take those dangerous abilities when you have no idea how to use them.

That wasn't the only near-death incident for my best friend.

"Don't fight us, Kalai," Kartana warns as Tzwol growls and rubs at the eye Mirami attacked. "You're outnumbered four-to-one. And even if you steal most of our powers and Viole doesn't want to hurt you, you have nothing against our burst's firium ring."

Cephalus waves his fingers, showing off the gleaming scarlet ring on his middle finger. "It's made from magma from Mount Lanakila—back when it was a volcano during one of the hotter epoques, and, obviously, before your foolish champions turned it to rock crumble."

Kalai hisses. I hold my breath, expecting him to do something rash. His grip tightens around the hilts of his curved knives as he turns to me. "Is this what Naga wants for you, Vi? She taught you to be kind."

"She taught me men are cruel," I correct him. "She's wrong—returning to a primordial state is neither kind nor cruel, it just is."

"Do you think she's wrong?" Kalai throws his first knife at me, but I know it won't hit me. I don't blink or turn as it swerves in a wide arc. Tzwol's howl of rage tells me where it went. "Did you forget what Malu did to me?"

I'll never forget.

I arranged our low table with a poison-purple tablecloth and our newer ceramic dining set. Only one of the teacups had a chip. I basked in the aroma of Mom's turkey, fresh from the oven. That day was the turn of the epoque. The sun would hide for at least seven years, and Hala would choose this era's champions. Kalai and I were both a year too young, but Hala wouldn't have chosen us, anyway. I couldn't imagine using adhesion in battle, and Kalai's power is too unpredictable. To be honest, it's unreliable. His dad must have known that, because he only trained his son in physical combat. Mom disapproved of vicious fighting, calling it a man's filthy habit, but she knew Kalai isn't like that. She provided Kalai with a safe space, a second home of sorts. I think, for him, it's more home than Malu's house.

Someone pounded at the door and I tensed. It couldn't be Kalai because my best friend never knocks. Mom's pale blue eyes flashed violet as she concentrated poison onto her fingers. "Stay here," she ordered.

I picked up a spatula, which stuck to my hands at once. Mom screamed, and I ran to her side. Then I screamed.

Kalai bled onto our mud floor. His eyes were so swollen I don't know how he could see. Red bruises and scratches marred his neck as if someone desperate had tried to strangle him. His hands got the worst of the assault: raised welts and lacerations ruined the skin, and he flinched when I touched them.

When I was six, I tried to help Mom pull the beef casserole from the wood oven. I burned my hands and couldn't use my adhesion for days. And for at least two weeks after that, the substance that oozed from my hands was inconsistent, sometimes not sticky at all. Anger like fire coursed through me. Someone burned Kalai's hands in an effort to destroy his power.

Kalai caught my eye and whispered, "Malu."

"Malu," Cephalus snarls. "He's my father, too." At Kalai's look of disbelief, he adds, "I was raised by my mother. Rowa was a fire type whose parents immigrated from Kanto to escape being drafted into the war. She told me about how awful Malu treated her, and how she thought he cheated on her. I didn't believe her for the second part because I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to have children with a despicable person like the man Rowa described." Ceph stares at Kalai; they don't look like they're related, except for their identical judgmental expressions.

"Welcome to the City of Gold," Kalai mutters, looking away first.

Tzwol finally speaks up; a cloth covers both of his damaged eyes. "With our combined strength, you can get revenge. You can be an island chief like Solga—no, we'll have more power than a chief who wanted to bind himself to his own laws. You are like a brother to us, Kalai."

Kalai glances at me and I wince and look down. Tzwol doesn't speak for all of us, though Kartana and Cephalus stare at the amber-eyed boy in expectation. When their bodies turn toward me, I look up. Kalai puts a hand under my chin. His gloves are so thin, I can feel the warmth of his uneven skin.

"Is this what you want, Vi?"

When Kalai arrived at my mother's doorstep, wounded after stealing Malu's destructive power, Mom started boiling soup while I guided him to my mattress.

"I don't want to sleep," Kalai mumbled. "Sleeping means letting him win. I want to make him suffer for a while."

"You need to rest," I urged him. "He can suffer for eternity, but I want—I want you to take care of yourself first." He didn't answer, and I asked, "What's his power, anyway?"

Kalai's grin was pure evil. I didn't see anything, but a magnetic force pulled me closer to him. Two cockroaches flew at his thumbs and then vanished from existence. "Voracity," he explained as the mini black hole subsided. "It creates a black hole that seems to destroy anything. Malu made it sound that way, but nothing can disappear for real. The matter goes to another realm."

"Like the Otherworld?"

Naga called me over from the kitchen. "Viole, stop being a lazy man and help your mother carry this to Kalai."

"Don't go to sleep yet," I said. "Mom will complain about men being ungrateful."

"Vi." Kalai's smile would haunt me for over an epoque. "We're ten years old."

In the kitchen, Mom's fingers were sharper than knives as she tore small pieces of turkey. Fluid oozed from the ends of her fingers and dripped into the soup along with the bits of turkey. Mom's power is known as stinger, and it turns her fingers into needles that can transmit all sorts of toxins, from lethal to soothing. I think her toes can turn to needles, too, but Mom likes her fuzzy purple slippers more than her ultra power.

"Our powers come from the ultra realm, right?" Mom looked at me, surprised at my query. "Can we go there?"

"The ultra realm isn't a zoo for children," Mom reprimanded. "It's an abyss of wonder and terror, unbound potential that could be used for anything—anything at all. It's worse than evil." She gave me the bowl of soup-and-medicine and said, "Bring this to your friend, and then we'll talk."

Kalai had already left. Blood stained my cot and the edges of the window, a square-shaped hole in the wood.

I brought the soup back to the kitchen. Mom didn't ask any questions, though the ends of her mouth stretched in disappointment. "They say this is the last era that the Tapu will return. Kukui wants to train his champions to kill. Without the island's protectors and their precious laws, Alola will belong to those who are strong enough to subject it to its will. Those with ultra powers will reign supreme, not as gods but as survivors."

Malu will have hell to pay.

"Leave us for now," I tell the other ultra beasts. There used to be more of us—the stinger, the lighting, the glutton. The symbiont has been compromised, and the others lost to age or their own powers. Just because you can eat a dozen explosives like they're donuts doesn't mean you should.

Tzwol and Cephalus obey. Before following them, Kartana warns me, "Remember what you're fighting for."

When they're gone, I pull Kalai in, slowly at first. Our bodies melt together without needing adhesion. "This," I whisper, "is what I'm fighting for. This," he shivers when my breath tickles his ear, "is what I want."