“Who do you think will die first, boy?” the General sneers, smoke from his own burned face spilling out of his mouth when he speaks. I try to backpedal, to break away from him, but he puts all his weight down, forcing me to my knees.

Suddenly, a Mogadorian sword is thrust towards my face. Unable to move my head, I can only flinch backwards. The tip of the glowing blade stops just short of my eye. The General’s grip slackens and then drops away entirely. I fall onto my side, gasping for breath, trying to figure out what just happened.

“Through the back. Isn’t that how you do it, Father?”

Adam holds the General’s broadsword in two hands—it’s almost too heavy for him—and yanks it out of his father’s back. He drove it straight through the General’s chest, the glowing blade piercing that Mogadorian armor as if it were made of tinfoil. I was too busy fighting for my life to notice the force field come down. Luckily, the General was, too. He stares at Adam, stunned. The General must realize his mistake—all the Mogs know the voice command to bring down the force field, but one of them wasn’t fighting on his side.

The General gropes at the wound on his chest and for a moment I think he’s going to keep coming. But then he staggers, reaching out to grasp at Adam, almost as if he wants to hug him. Or maybe strangle him. It’s hard to tell.

Adam steps aside, a detached look on his face, and allows the General to fall face-first onto the pavement. Beyond the court, the fighting is over, the Mogadorians all dead. Back in Adam’s front yard, Sam kneels over a wounded Chimæra. Malcolm stands a few feet off from us, on the sideline, watching the scene with the General, a look of concern on his face. I pick myself up and stand next to Adam.

“Adam, are you . . . ?” My voice is hoarse, throat raw and sore. Adam holds up a hand, cutting me off.

“Look,” he says flatly.

At our feet, the General begins to disintegrate. It doesn’t happen quickly like I’ve seen with the many vatborn scouts and warriors I’ve killed. The General decomposes slowly, parts of him flattening out faster than others. In some spots, his flesh melts away but not the bone beneath, leaving a skeletal elbow jutting up from the ground next to a rib cage, all attached to a half-disintegrated skull.

“You can see where Setrákus Ra augmented him,” Adam says, his voice almost clinical as he explains. “Healed wounds, cured diseases, improved his strength and speed. He promised immortality. But the unnatural parts disintegrate, like the vatborn. The rest, what’s left, that is trueborn, real flesh.”

“We don’t have to get into this now,” I manage to say, still trying to catch my breath. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the information. It’s just that Adam’s dad is lying dead at our feet and he’s giving a lesson in Mogadorian genetics like nothing happened.