"What IS that thing?" I asked Michael, suddenly awake. I got up from the seat I was on and got closer to the monitor. When I did, I realized that I was looking at an adult floadon.

  "Shoot," I said. "Why are its eyes black like that?"

  I looked at Michael's pale face.

  "I just looked up pictures of adult floadons and none of them had those black eyes," Michael said. "So I asked what the average eye color of floadons was, and I was told that their eyes are always milky white."

  "Then why is that one's black?" I asked Michael, though I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew why they were like that.

  "You know how that wreech could control Dark Matter?" Michael looked at me in the eyes, and I knew my worst fear was coming true. "Well, they shouldn't be able to do that. It looks like the Dark Matter is overcoming them and the Dark Matter... well... it seems like it wants to kill you."

  I shuddered. It looked like all of Michael's theories had been accurate all along. Why did that kid have to be so smart?

  "You're going to have to fight it," this time it was Harper who spoke. "I don't think there is any other way around it. We have to get past the thing to get to the academy."

  "It's not like the people at the academy don't want to kill me," I muttered under my breath.

  "Sorry?" Harper said, but Michael cut her off.

  "You really need to fight the thing. I agree with Harper. It's our only way out."

  "How am I supposed to fight it, though?" I said. "I'm low on Matter. Heck, I don't even know if I have any Matter left!"

  "Maybe you should pray to that voice that you keep hearing in your head?" Harper suggested. I hated that she had to say it, but I knew it was the truth. It was our only chance of survival. Well, my friends' only chance of survival.

  I wasn't an idiot. I knew what was really happening. If we had to take a detour around the floadon in an attempt to evade it, it might take us too long, causing Harper and Michael's oxygen to run out.

  "I'll do it," I said grimly. "Just cover me, will you?"

  I stood up and dabbed Michael up, looking into his eyes. He smiled at me and nodded nervously. Next, I approached Harper, but instead of a high five she gave me a hug.

  "Thank you so much," she whispered into my ear. We both blushed and then backed away from each other.

  I smiled at the two of them and then channeled the rest of the Matter that I had. It was only enough to shut the visor on my helmet. This was going to be a suicide mission.

  "Hey, person that keeps talking to me," I said aloud, looking up at the ceiling. "If you could help me out, that would be great."

  IF YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR FRIENDS, TAKE WHAT THEY ALREADY HAVE, the voice whispered into my ear and was gone.

  I cursed and told my friends what HELPFUL advice the voice had given me. Harper and Michael started to brainstorm together, but when I looked over at the monitor, the floadon was almost here.

  Then it made sense. Without warning, I looked into Michael's soul somehow and found the same glowing that I had when there was still some Matter in my system. I then took it and moved it into my own soul. I didn't know how I did it. It just felt like the right thing to do.

  Michael shuddered and fell onto the ground unconscious. His face was ashen. Harper looked at me, and we passed a quick look of understanding before I took what little Matter she had too. I caught her before she collapsed.

  I looked down at my unconscious friends and bowed my head.

  I'M DOING THIS FOR THEM, I thought to myself as I looked at their prone bodies. IF I DON'T DO THIS, THEY'LL DIE ANYWAY.

  I stared at the bodies for a little longer than I should have as I thought about how their lives rested on my shoulders. I started to cry but then stopped myself. Now was not the time to get emotional. I had a job to do.

  I grimly turned on my wings and unlatched the door. Immediately, the wind started to howl, pulling me to and fro. Still, I stood firm, gazing into the space beyond our little airship. It was go time.

  I thought about my flying thing that I had done before, and I shot into the air. What I saw outside almost made me reconsider my life choices. The floadon was huge, bigger than I could have possibly imagined.

  It was very well the size of a mountain, so big that I could only see its legs because its upper half blotted out the sky.

  I flew out from under the creature and gained altitude so I could see the top of the beast. Its beady black eyes looked at me with hatred as it slowly turned around.

  In that moment, I did the most stupid, impulsive thing ever. I flew right at the beast. I rushed at it, screaming at the top of my lungs with my sword aiming at its eye. I ended up being short of my target and hit the creature hard, stabbing the skin.

  Stolen story; please report.

  When I had taken the sword out, I realized that I had hardly even made a dent. The skin was so thick that it was basically impenetrable. Even the effort I had used to rip out the sword required a bit of Matter. Otherwise, I would've had no shot at getting it out.

  ALMOST IMPENETRABLE, I thought to myself, and filled my sword up with Matter, stabbing it down into the skin, but instead of a massive explosion, all I made was a large, perfectly circular hole in the skin. The creature didn't even seem to be fazed.

  I ran up the rippling skin, headed straight toward the eyeball, yelling at the top of my lungs. I put all the energy that I had into my sword and drove it straight into the floadon's eye.

  I was blown right off the creature as the world exploded into light. I must've blacked out for a second because the next thing I knew, I was falling toward the surface of Titan.

  "Aaaahhhh," I screamed very unheroically as I jerked to a position where I was flying back up to the floadon. The floadon was in no way happy, and it had its one beady eye fixed on me with hatred beyond anything I had felt before.

  The beast's mouth opened wide, and it flew at me faster than I could react, and before I knew it, I was in a very large, very wet, soggy cave.

  I felt my pants grow wet, and when I tried to move around, I found that my lower half was submerged in some type of slime.

  I was horrified as I reached out my hands, hoping that I would find something to grab onto. I felt something long and smooth.

  Then I had an idea. I put a bit of Matter on the tip of my sword so I could see.

  I had been grabbing onto a bone.

  They were littered everywhere, and the disgusting liquid I was stuck in was slowly rising. I took a bone from next to me that still had a little flesh on it and threw it farther into the liquid. I cringed when the bone went under and it came back up, shiny and white.

  "Great," I muttered to myself. "Of course it has to be acid."

  Then, of course, it only got worse. Darkness started to seep out of the slimy walls of the stomach, and I heard voices in my head.

  FINALLY, the voice said. WE GET HIS BLOOD AT LAST.

  I shuddered and bowed my head, saying a silent prayer to whoever it was that had helped me before. I sat there with my eyes closed for a couple of minutes, feeling like an idiot when I realized they weren't going to come.

  The darkness got closer and closer to me as I got a wonderful idea. Maybe if this creature had some type of soul too, if it could manipulate Dark Matter, then maybe, just maybe, it might have some Matter as well.

  I reached out my consciousness and looked around with my soul. What I saw was horrible. A seething dark mass was bigger than the floadon itself, and it was constantly moving, swirling around the floadon. I dove through the Dark Matter and went into the inside of the floadon. It was there that I found a large ball of Matter waiting for me. I grabbed all of it for myself.

  Immediately, I was jerked back to the present, and I felt like I was in a free fall for a second before the floadon stopped falling and the acid started to rise at an alarming rate.

  "Crap," I said as I looked into the soul realm and saw that the Dark Matter was controlling the floadon's corpse.

  Still, I felt the immense power that was inside me, and I had hope. Maybe I could defeat this thing after all. Before I did, though, I subconsciously put some Matter into my friends' bodies, just enough to wake them up. Hopefully, they would get to safety. What followed very well could decimate everything around me.

  I then stuck my sword in the side of the floadon's mouth and used my Matter to turn my armor into a type of protective box. I couldn't see anything in that box, but I could still feel my sword a couple of feet beyond, and I started to pump all my Matter into it until finally I had pushed everything that I had into that sword. Once it felt like I wasn't going to be able to hold it back any longer, I let go. My world went black.

  When I woke up, we were back in our spaceship, and Harper was leaning over me, muttering to herself. Or rather, I could hear her muttering to herself as she examined the little box I was in.

  I struggled a little bit but realized I wasn't getting out without any Matter, so I cast my consciousness to some strange creature that I felt not too far away. It was only a speck of the stuff, but it was just enough to turn the cube back into my armor.

  "Wyatt!" Harper said, giving me a big hug.

  "Easy there," Michael said, smiling at us. "Are you okay?"

  I nodded my head, and Michael continued to speak, barely acknowledging the fact that I had survived.

  "That was really quite the show you put on. The explosion was so bright that the light was probably seen around the whole moon. In fact, the people from the academy swarmed the place, and we had trouble sneaking you out of there without getting caught."

  Harper grabbed something from off a chair and handed it to me. It was my sword.

  "Here's the sword," she said, handing it to me with a sense of awe in her voice. I grabbed it and put it into my sheath.

  "Sorry to burst your 'you saved the day bubble,' but the academy is demanding to see this 'golden warrior,' and I kind of doubt they're having you over for tea."

  I nodded my head.

  "This means I have to hide what I can do, doesn't it?" I mumbled, meaning to talk only to myself, but Michael still heard me.

  "Yeah," he said. "If you could turn that into a backpack or something, that would be great."

  I took a tiny bit of Matter from another poor creature and willed my armor to turn into a backpack while still leaving some golden clothes behind.

  "How's that?" I said, turning around in a circle. Harper started to laugh, and Michael joined in. I rushed to a mirror to figure out what was up and realized that I was wearing clothes made of pure gold. Like that was going to help me fit in.

  When I came back, Michael passed me an outfit, and I took it. It was an old miner's outfit, but it would work. I went into a bathroom and changed. When I came out, I looked like a normal person, minus the gold backpack.

  "Why don't you turn the backpack into armor under your clothes?" Harper suggested. "That backpack still looks pretty stupid."

  I nodded my head and willed it into an undershirt and pants, and of course underwear. I smiled to myself. I was getting pretty good at this whole Matter manipulation thing.

  "Well," Michael said, grabbing his bag full of gadgets, "I say we head to the academy before our oxygen runs out."

  I slapped myself in the face. How long had I been out for? For all I knew, they were on their final hours before their oxygen ran out!

  "How much longer do you guys have?" I asked them.

  "Give or take an hour," Harper said. "You were unconscious for about a day, and we figured we'd wait for you before we went to the academy."

  "Why would you do that?" I asked Harper, exasperated. "Now there is a chance of you guys dying because you wanted to give me a pat on the back when I woke up!"

  I told Michael to hurry up and power the skiff up.

  "You kinda destroyed it with that explosion of yours," Michael shrugged. "I tried to fix it, but there are just too many parts that need to be replaced."

  I opened the door to the thing and marched out onto a plain full of little animals the exact shape and size of grass, running around every which way. It was literally moving grass, and I saw bigger creatures that I hadn't seen before grazing on the grass. In the middle of it all was a huge mountain, and on that mountain was a city full of skyscrapers that reached impossibly high into the sky.

  "That's the academy," Harper whispered under her breath. I stormed out onto the field, crushing a bunch of the little grass creatures. Why did she have to act like everything was fine between the two of us when it wasn't okay? Nothing the two of them had done was "okay."