Resting proves to be an even better decision than I realize once we teleport to Onett and I can barely make the quarter-mile walk back to Ness's house. His mom lights up when she sees the three of us, and pulls Ness into a hug in the doorway.

"You look like you could use a steak dinner," she says. "You're lucky the store had some when I went out after you left. Good thing you're back tonight so we don't have to freeze it."

She releases Ness, studying the still-damp jacket and grime on his face.

"You'll have to tell me what happened in Winters later," she says. "I'm proud of you for being so strong and thoughtful, but you do need to take care of yourself when you're on the road, okay sweetie?"

"Mom, I swear you're fretting over me more now than during our adventure."

"I'm always going to worry about you. It's what mothers do." She looks past Ness and beams at us. "And it's been so long, Jeff. I'll stop talking your ears off and let you rest. You all look exhausted."

"Is it okay if they stay the night?" Ness says. "We have planning to do for tomorrow."

"Of course, sweetie. Just remember the talk your father and I gave you when you turned thirteen about-"

His cheeks redden. "Paula and I aren't like that, and we're definitely not going to try anything when Jeff's right there in the same room as us."

"All right, all right. Just making sure."

Ness' mom heads into the kitchen and starts the steak, and Jeff shoots a smirk at Ness.

"That was some mental image you forced onto us," Jeff says. "Me just sitting there while you and Paula-"

"We're not talking about this unless you want me interrogating you about your love life with Tony."

"Go ahead." A mischievous twinkle appears in Jeff's eye. "I've got nothing to hide."

Ness shakes his head, grumbles, and walks into the house. When Jeff and I follow him in and get situated, Ness wastes no time pulling out extra towels and offering for us to shower. Jeff and I go first while Ness catches up with Tracy, and we hang out in his room when he goes next. The room has a few new baseball posters and figurines, but other than that it's exactly as I remember it.

"Since we can't chat strategy until Ness is out," I say, turning to Jeff, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure. I wasn't kidding with Ness about being an open book."

"Um, it is a little related to that. Were you and Ness… really dating?"

"Depends if you consider long-distance dating real or not, and if you consider a relationship consisting of exactly twenty days real."

"So he's also…"

Jeff motions for me to finish.

"He's gay?" I ask.

"Nope."

I blink. "But you said…"

"He's bi. Honestly, I'm a little surprised he shared that given how as of yesterday he hadn't spoke to you in five years. Guess he still trusts you that much."

Him talking about his stint with Jeff means he trusts me? I frown.

"Think about it," Jeff says. "Sure, there are some people who are openly queer, but the large majority of people don't want us to exist. At least not without hiding who we are in public. Have you looked up polls on whether people support gay marriage? It's not a lot."

Jeff looks out the window, and then back at me.

"So imagine that the hero of Onett who led the charge against Giygas and drew the awe of little kids around the world is revealed to be interested in boys. In a world where homosexuality was in the manual of mental disorders right next to pedophilia not too long ago, how do you think parents will react to that?"

"They'll make sure he can never exist in public again," I say. "They'll chase him away to the ends of the earth if they have to."

I clasp my hands together. I can see him being surrounded by adults who are watching and salivating at the chance to drag out every little detail of his life and beat it to death for their own satisfaction. I won't let that happen to him too, no matter what it takes.

"And right this second," Jeff says. "You could run out right now and give some second-rate talk show a juicy story."

I flinch. "You think I'd do that to Ness?"

"I don't. And he doesn't even consider it as a possibility. Like I said, he trusts you."

Well, that does put things into perspective.

"Right," I say. "Thanks for making me realize that. How should I support him? I'm not used to…"

"Yeah, queerness isn't exactly mainstream. Ness says he thinks it will get better by as early as the 2010s and 2020s, but I'm not holding my breath. Treat him like you always have, and know that letting you in about his sexuality is a big gesture. He hasn't even told his family yet, so don't mention it around them."

I blink. I'm not sure what I did to earn a level of trust he doesn't even have with his loving mother.

"And actually," Jeff says, "If you really want to make his day you could confess your feelings to him."

I jerk my head towards him. "What?"

Jeff shrugs. "It's not really any of my business, but it's obvious that you two like each other. I'm about as dense as a cinderblock so I was there with Tony too, and once we both got it out we felt silly for not talking about it sooner. I'll leave it at that, and I won't bug you about it again."

I bite my lip. Jeff's right about almost everything, but now's a bad time to be messing around with romance. Our top priority should be saving people under alien influence, not getting all gushy with our emotions.

But then again, it was our first adventure that drew us together, and it was our bonds that held us firm against Giygas. It seems silly to act like the fate of the world relies on a seventeen-year-old girl making a love confession, but it's also not like that's a stranger idea than facing down aliens and the incarnation of evil again.

Ness's mom calls us down for dinner, interrupting my thoughts. Ness gets out of the shower in time to join us, and my stomach growls when Ness's mom sets down a plate with a huge slab of steak in front of me. Ness digs in and scarfs down his food at an almost uncomfortable speed, to the point that his mom even reminds him to chew before swallowing. Still, it makes me feel better about how ravenously I dig into the meal.

"So," Tracy says, looking around. "Poo didn't get the invite or what?"

"After being told that teleporting in willy-nilly could start a diplomatic crisis about border customs," Ness says, "I decided to leave the Dalaam palace phone a voicemail this time. I'm hoping he gets back to us soon."

"Well, sounds like you know what you're doing," Tracy says. "Another adventure means more steak dinners for me when you swing by, so keep up the good work, big bro. And don't die out there."

"That's the plan."

The rest of dinner is pleasantly uneventful, and after we clean up the three of us head back into Ness's room to plan out tomorrow.

"All right," Ness says, turning to Jeff. "What has that big brain of yours cooked up?"

"Tony tells me that I focus on technical details and nobody can understand what I talk about," Jeff says, "So I decided to condense my findings into three main points that are the most relevant for our mission. First, it looks like you already figured out that PSI Magnet is a good tool against the thralls."

Which is yet another reason that I hope Poo gets back to Ness soon. Given how close our scrapes have been so far, we could really use someone who can both heal and use PSI Magnet.

"And in testing with Poo," Jeff says, "I was able to uncover some interesting findings. People who gained new PSI recently like Tony are especially susceptible to it. I think it's because most creatures will naturally resist PSI Magnet and keep it from draining all of their energy, but the overflowing power I saw in Tony meant that he couldn't do that. Incidentally, that power kept coming back when it wasn't fully depleted, so we'll need to drain our targets in a single fight."

All right. So going forward, PSI Magnet will be even more useful than it has been. I'll take any piece of good news I can get at this point.

"I was curious if PSI Magnet creates an actual magnetic field for PSI," Jeff continues. "And with Tony, I found that it behaves as an electrostatic field instead." He pauses. "Or a gravitational one, if you prefer. At least, according to Newton's Theory of Gravity, which I know isn't fully accurate."

"Well, that makes our math easier," Ness says. After a second, his eyes widen. "Wait, if the strength of this uncapped PSI Magnet is proportional to the square distance from the target, you're saying…"

"Exactly," Jeff says.

I look between them. "That sounded like gibberish."

"Sorry," Ness says. "The gist is that against someone possessed, closing the distance to them by half makes your PSI Magnet four times stronger. Get three quarters of the way there and it's sixteen times stronger. You see what this means?"

"If I get close enough," I say, "I can drain all their power almost instantly?"

Jeff nods. "All that power flooding into you at once could be dangerous, so watch how you feel. But that's our key for dealing with thralls without having to stall out their Starstorm PSI."

"Great." I glance over to Ness. "And where did you learn about this stuff? Jeff giving you private lessons?"

Ness balks in mock offense. "This is standard high school physics, Paula."

"Well, it's advanced high school physics," Jeff says. "But yes, quite possible for a grade student to grasp. Onto point two. The sanctuaries are a source of incredible psionic power, and the thralls seem to be channeling them towards something. That's part of why I wanted us to rest now. We can't go around to all the sanctuaries in a day, and the threat doesn't stop until we make sure all of them are safe."

Okay, so we're in for more of an adventure than I was expecting. But doesn't that mean…

"We know about Dr. Andonuts going missing," I say. "Who's guarding the other sanctuaries?"

"That gets onto point three. I'm not sure if all of them are being manned by thralls right this second, but my father isn't the only person with a connection to the Starmen who disappeared recently. Did you know that we're not the first people to deal with Starmen and Giygas?"

I exchange a glance with Ness. This is the first I've heard of it, and it looks like he's as surprised by this as I am.

"Well, I'm not sure whether it was Giygas exactly," Jeff says, "But Starmen definitely. They attacked another part of the world about ten years before setting their sights on us, and were defeated by a group of kids like us. Among those kids were two PSI-users. A boy named Ninten and a girl named Ana."

More PSI-users? If they've had a decade longer than us to work with their powers, I bet I could learn some nifty tricks. And beyond that, there are so few PSI-users out there that any other psychic is one step away from being found family.

"Both Ninten and Ana are missing," Jeff says. "We have to consider the possibility that they're thralls, and that the Starmen will go after you two as well. Yet another reason why I wanted us rested before trying anything else. Fighting experienced psychics is going to be a challenge no matter how you slice it, and trying to take them on without full resources is asking to get ass-whooped."

"That… does make sense," I say. "The Starman and thralls we've faced have been using telepathy to try and convince me to join their side."

Ness sits up straight, frowning at me. "I haven't heard anything from them. Why are they only talking to you?"

Because I'm the weak link. None of us say it, but I bet that's the thought that passed through their minds as well.

"The point is that you both need to watch out," Jeff says. "Now, that's all I have. We have a big day tomorrow, so shall we turn in early?"

Neither of us argue with that, and as we begin setting up to go to bed Ness points out that not all of us can fit comfortably in his bed anymore. Looking at it now, it makes me wonder how the three of us ever used to share it. Good thing Poo was more comfortable sleeping on harder surfaces to begin with and was happy wrapped in a sheet on the ground.

"You and I both sleep like rocks," Jeff says to Ness, "So it should be one of us in a sleeping bag. And since it doesn't make sense to kick you out of your own bed, you and Paula can take it."

Right, I do remember having to shake both of them awake because they slept through hotel alarm clocks even at blazing siren level. If Jeff's happy taking a sleeping bag then I won't complain, and his face betrays nothing when I glance his way. He doesn't strike me as the type of person who's invested in matchmaking, and he did say that it's not his business if Ness and I get together. I can trust that this is a practical decision on his part.

Ness also doesn't put up a fight, so a few minutes later the two of us are settled underneath the covers of his bed. It's strange to think about how naturally we all jumped into hotel beds together during our adventure without even stopping to think through the implications. Contrast that to the awkwardness of sharing a bed with Ness now, knowing that this could be a scandal if someone snapped a picture of us.

That being said, the fact that Ness is asleep and snoring softly within three minutes does alleviate some of the tension. Hard to get weirded out when the other person isn't even conscious, after all. And after closing my eyes, I begin to drift off almost immediately as well. I'm all too happy to let sleep take me, and soon I'm off into a deep slumber.

Until I wake up to the sound of screaming.