"One more thing before y'all head out," Jango announced on their final morning.
Team 9 stood on the porch, packed and ready to leave Ganfall. Five weeks of hell had transformed them. Leaner. Harder. Sharper.
"Y'all ain't leavin' without completin' one last task."
Juli groaned. "What now? More boulder moving?"
"Nope." Jango's eyes swiveled independently, that predatory gleam returning. "There's a creature terrorizes these parts. Big ol' sandworm. Calls itself home in the deep dunes 'bout ten miles west. Been meanin' to deal with it proper-like."
"A sandworm?" Tessa's voice wavered.
"Yep. Graveltooth, folks 'round here call it. Nasty critter. Teeth like diamond drills, hide thick as starship plating." Jango spat to the side. "But I done tamed the beast some years back. Got an understandin', ya might say."
"You tamed it?" Kade's interest piqued. "Then why must we confront it?"
"'Cause I want y'all to spar with it. Test yer teamwork. See what five weeks of trainin' done for ya." Jango grinned, showing his reptilian teeth. "Don't worry none. It won't kill ya. Probably."
"PROBABLY?!" Tessa squeaked.
"Now, creature stays dormant most times. Sleeps underground for weeks, then surfaces irregular-like when it gets hungry or ornery. Lucky for y'all, I know how to wake it up real nice." Jango gestured toward a covered vehicle near the side of the house. "We'll take my sand speeder. Get there 'fore noon."
He pulled the tarp off, revealing the machine underneath.
Juli and Kade's jaws dropped simultaneously.
The sand speeder was beautiful. Sleek metallic hull painted in faded bronze and silver. Hover engines on the sides. A reinforced cockpit. Exhaust ports that looked like they could output serious thrust. It looked like a speedboat designed for desert warfare.
"THAT'S SO COOL!" Juli shouted, his eyes sparkling.
"The engineering is magnificent!" Kade rushed forward, circling the vehicle. "Hover propulsion with stabilized gyroscopic balance! This must achieve incredible velocity across unstable terrain!"
"She does 'bout two hundred miles per hour on flat sand," Jango said proudly. "Built her myself."
Juli and Kade were practically vibrating with excitement.
Pam adjusted her glasses. "When do we leave?"
"Right now. Ever'body load up."
The team moved toward the speeder. Tessa climbed in nervously. Kade vaulted over the side with his tail swishing. Pam stepped in gracefully.
Juli stood frozen at the edge.
"Well?" Jango drawled. "Git in, boy."
"Actually," Juli said, voice unnaturally high. "Maybe I should stay behind and, uh, guard the house?"
Everyone stared.
"Guard the house?" Pam's voice was flat. "In the middle of nowhere. From what?"
"Uh, raiders?"
"There ain't been raiders here in ten years," Jango said.
"Well, you never know! Could be a surprise attack and..."
Pam's hand shot out and grabbed Juli's wrist. Her grip was iron. "Get. In. The. Speeder."
"Pam, listen, I really think..."
"Now."
She dragged him like an angry parent hauling a misbehaving child. Juli's feet scraped against the sand as he desperately tried to resist, but Pam was surprisingly strong when she wanted to be.
"This is tyranny!" Juli protested.
"This is teamwork," Pam corrected, shoving him into a seat.
Jango climbed into the driver's position, his small frame somehow fitting perfectly in the custom seat. He fired up the engines. The hover system hummed to life, lifting the speeder off the ground with a low thrumming vibration.
"Y'all hold on tight now," Jango said. "Sand gets choppy this time of day."
"Wait, choppy?" Juli's face went pale. "What do you mean chop..."
The speeder LAUNCHED forward.
The acceleration slammed them back into their seats. Wind whipped past as the desert became a blur of red and orange. The speeder rode the dunes like ocean waves, rising and falling with stomach-churning momentum.
And then it started.
Juli's face turned green.
"Oh no," he groaned.
The speeder hit a particularly rough patch. The vehicle bounced, dipped, and swerved as Jango navigated the terrain at breakneck speed. The motion mimicked rough seas perfectly, the hover system creating that same nauseating sway and pitch of a boat in choppy water.
Juli leaned over the side and vomited.
"HAHAHAHA!" Kade howled with laughter. "THE MIGHTY WARRIOR DEFEATED BY TRANSPORTATION!"
Juli heaved again, barely able to form words. "Shut... up..."
"Where is your legendary combat prowess now?! Brought low by simple motion!"
"Space shuttles... are fine..." Juli gasped between heaves. "This is... different..."
"It's like a boat," Pam observed. "The rocking motion."
Another wave of nausea. Another violent retch over the side.
Tessa looked genuinely worried. "Is he okay?"
"He has motion sickness," Pam said, though her voice carried concern. "Specifically water vessel motion. Juli, why didn't you say something?"
"Didn't... wanna... look weak..." Juli gasped.
The speeder continued its wild ride across the dunes. Every bounce, every swerve, every shift in momentum made it worse. Juli gripped the side rail with white knuckles, his face a shade of green that shouldn't exist on humans.
Kade couldn't stop laughing. "This is glorious! The great Julian Weiper, terror of the academy, reduced to a vomiting mess by a simple vehicle! Oh, this is a tale I shall recount for years!"
"When I... feel better... you're dead..."
Ten miles felt like a hundred. By the time Jango finally slowed the speeder to a stop in a flat expanse of sand surrounded by massive dunes, Juli was barely conscious.
"Alright, greenhorns," Jango announced. "This here's the spot. Good luck now."
He hopped out and started walking back toward his own speeder.
"Wait, you're leaving?!" Tessa called out.
"Yep. Y'all got this. Probably." Jango tipped his hat. "Remember what I taught ya. Control and chaos. Work together. Don't die."
The speeder roared to life and shot away, leaving Team 9 standing in the middle of the desert.
Juli collapsed onto the sand, still green.
Pam knelt beside him immediately, pulling a compact first aid kit from her belt. "Juli, you idiot. You should've told us."
"M'fine..." Juli mumbled, clearly not fine.
"You're not fighting like this." Pam's voice was firm but gentle. She pressed a button on the kit, and it unfolded with mechanical precision into a small emergency bed. Medical foam expanded to create a cushioned surface. "Lie down."
"But the worm..."
"Will be handled. Lie. Down."
Juli was too weak to argue. He collapsed onto the emergency bed, groaning.
Pam pulled out a medical scanner and ran it over him. Dehydration. Severe nausea. Low blood sugar from vomiting. She administered a hydration pack through an auto-injector and gave him anti-nausea medication.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I dragged you onto that speeder. I should've listened."
"Not your fault," Juli managed. "I shoulda said somethin'."
"Yes, you should have." Pam's fingers were gentle as she checked his pulse. "Don't hide things from us. We're a team."
Her stern expression softened. Despite all his growth, all his strength, all the ways he'd surpassed her in combat, this was still the same Juli she'd known since childhood. The reckless idiot who'd get into fights with bullies three times his size and come running to her afterward, bloody and grinning.
She remembered being ten years old, sitting on a playground bench, using a borrowed first aid kit to clean cuts on his face after he'd defended a smaller kid from Rikan's older brother.
"You're still the same," she murmured, a genuine smile touching her lips.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Sleep. We'll handle this."
Kade approached, his earlier mockery replaced with something more serious. "Can we prevail without him?"
"We have to." Pam stood, pulling her metallic ball from her belt. "New formation. You lead the front line. I'll coordinate from mid-range. Tessa provides cover and heavy damage."
Tessa clutched her plasma rifle, nervous but determined. "I can do it."
"The formation is sound," Kade agreed, unsheathing his claws. "Let us demonstrate our growth."
The sand beneath their feet began to rumble.
Pam's enhanced hearing picked it up first. "It's coming."
The rumbling intensified. The dunes around them started to shift and collapse inward.
Then it emerged.
The Graveltooth burst from the sand like a breaching whale. Massive, easily forty feet long, with segmented armor plating covering its cylindrical body. Its circular mouth opened to reveal rows upon rows of rotating diamond-hard teeth. Small black eyes dotted its head. A screech that sounded like grinding metal echoed across the desert.
"POSITIONS!" Pam commanded.
Kade's golden eyes flared as his yellow Resonance aura burst to life around him. His muscles tensed with enhanced strength, his senses sharpening to predatory levels. "COME THEN, BEAST!"
The Graveltooth lunged. Kade dodged left with Resonance-enhanced speed, his claws raking across its armored hide. Sparks flew but the armor held.
"Armor's too thick!" Kade reported.
"Tessa, find a weak point!" Pam ordered, her own silver Resonance aura flickering around her. Her already heightened senses expanded further, catching every vibration in the sand, every shift in the creature's massive body.
Tessa's rifle unfolded from its ball form. Pink Resonance aura surrounded her, steadying her hands, sharpening her vision. She took aim, breathed between heartbeats like Jango taught her, and fired at the creature's segments where the armor plates met.
The magenta plasma bolt struck true. The Graveltooth screeched and thrashed.
"The joints!" Tessa called out. "Between the armor plates!"
"Kade, herd it toward me!" Pam's battleaxe unfolded, fluorescent green and silver gleaming in the sunlight. Her silver aura intensified, feeding strength into her arms. She saw her father's hollow eyes reflected in the blade for a split second, then pushed the memory aside.
Kade became a blur of yellow and tiger stripes, his Resonance pushing his speed beyond normal limits. He slashed and dodged, leading the worm in a circular pattern. The Graveltooth snapped at him with those horrifying rotating teeth, missing by inches each time.
When it turned broadside to Pam, she charged, her Resonance-enhanced legs propelling her forward with explosive force.
The axe came down with devastating power between two armor segments. Green blood sprayed. The creature shrieked and tried to dive back underground.
"Don't let it escape!" Pam commanded.
Tessa switched to beam mode, her pink aura feeding into the shot. The sustained ray burned hotter and brighter than normal, scorching the wound Pam had created. The Graveltooth writhed in pain.
Kade leapt onto its back, his Resonance-enhanced strength allowing him to dig claws deep into gaps in the armor. His tail wrapped around a protruding spine for stability as he climbed toward its head. "Your reign of terror ends here, monster!"
The worm bucked wildly, trying to throw him off. Kade held on with claws and tail, his yellow aura flaring with each movement, reaching the head section. He slashed at the small eyes, blinding it on one side.
The Graveltooth went berserk, thrashing in all directions.
"Kade, jump!" Pam shouted.
He leapt clear, his Resonance-enhanced legs carrying him safely away as the creature reared up, exposing its softer underbelly.
All three attacked simultaneously, their Resonance auras blazing.
Tessa's plasma ray carved a burning line across the exposed flesh, her pink aura making the shot pierce deeper.
Pam's axe buried itself deep into the underbelly with a Resonance-powered overhead swing that cracked through tissue and muscle.
Kade landed and immediately slashed upward with both sets of claws, his yellow aura coating each strike with enhanced cutting power, tearing through softer tissue like paper.
The Graveltooth's screech reached a crescendo, then it collapsed onto the sand with a ground-shaking impact. It twitched once, twice, then went still. Not dead, just thoroughly defeated.
Team 9 stood breathing hard, their Resonance auras flickering and fading as they released the energy. Weapons still raised.
Slowly, they lowered them.
"We... we did it," Tessa whispered, her pink aura dissipating completely.
"Without Juli," Kade added, his yellow glow fading as he caught his breath. "We have grown stronger."
Pam's silver aura vanished as she turned to where Juli lay on the emergency bed, now fast asleep despite all the noise. His face was peaceful, the green tint finally fading. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths.
She walked over and knelt beside him, that genuine smile returning.
"Always adorable when you sleep, you idiot," she murmured, brushing a strand of blonde hair from his forehead.
The twin suns blazed overhead.
The Graveltooth groaned in defeat behind them.
And Team 9 stood victorious, stronger together than they'd ever been apart.