<h4>Chapter 167: Chapter 167: Learning to Fight</h4>


    Emma’s scream shattered every light bulb in the underground bunker.


    "I can’t control it!" she cried, golden light pouring from her eyes like tears. "Every time I try to see the future, it hurts!"


    ra rushed to her daughter’s side. Around them, the secret training room Tobias had led them to was in chaos. Broken ss covered the floor. The twins, Jake and Lily, were huddled in the corner with their stuffed animals.


    "It’s okay, sweetheart," ra said, but her voice shook. They’d been hiding here for six hours. Six hours since escaping Director Matthews and his soldiers. Six hours since learning that ra might not survive what wasing.


    "No, it’s not okay!" Emma shouted. Her power red again, and cracks appeared in the concrete walls. "The visions keep getting worse!"


    Tobias stepped forward carefully. "Emma, you need to breathe. Fear makes the power stronger."


    "I don’t want it to be stronger!" Emma sobbed. "I don’t want to see bad things anymore!"


    Kael knelt beside his daughter. "What if we taught you how to use it differently?"


    "How?"


    "Instead of seeing what might happen, what if you learned to see what you want to happen?"


    Emma wiped her nose with her sleeve. "Can I do that?"


    "We don’t know until we try."


    Meanwhile, three-year-old Jake was having his own problems. A family of mice had somehow gotten into the bunker, and they wouldn’t stop talking to him.


    "The boy says dangeres from above," Jake told his mother seriously. "The mice family is scared."


    "What kind of danger?" ra asked.


    Jake listened to the squeaking sounds only he could hear. "Big metal birds. Lots of them. With angry humans inside."


    Lily, Jake’s twin sister, was sitting with a injured bird she’d found. As she petted it gently, its broken wing began to heal.


    "Lily, how did you do that?" Darian asked in amazement.


    "I told it to feel better," Lily said simply. "Animals listen when you’re nice."


    Ronan was pacing back and forth. "This is crazy. They’re just babies. They shouldn’t have to learn to fight."


    "They shouldn’t have to," Tobias agreed. "But Matthews isn’t going to stop. And now that he’s working with the shadow creatures, normal weapons won’t be enough."


    "What do you mean?" ra demanded.


    Tobias pulled out a strange ck device. "I took this from one of his soldiers before we escaped. It’s not from our world."


    The device looked like a cor, but it pulsed with dark energy.


    "What does it do?"


    "It steals powers. Once it’s on a supernatural child, their abilities get sucked out and stored in these." He held up a glowing crystal. "Matthews is building an army of powerless children and powered crystals."


    Emma gasped. "That’s what I saw in my vision! Children with no light in their eyes!"


    Baby Marcus started crying from his makeshift crib. As he cried, small objects around the room began floating.


    "Even the baby’s getting stronger," Kael observed.


    "Which means we need to get them ready faster," Tobias said grimly.


    "Ready for what?" ra asked, though she was afraid of the answer.


    "War."


    For the next hour, Tobias tried to teach the children basic control. Emma practiced seeing happy futures instead of scary ones. Jake learned to ask animals for help instead of just listening to them. Lily discovered she could heal people too, not just animals.


    But it was hard work. Emma kept seeing shes of the terrible battleing. Jake got overwhelmed by all the animal voices in his head. Lily cried when she couldn’t heal a dead flower.


    "I’m not good at this," Lily whispered, frustrated tears in her eyes.


    "Yes, you are," ra said, hugging her daughter. "You healed that bird perfectly."


    "But I couldn’t fix the flower."


    "Some things can’t be fixed, baby. That doesn’t mean you failed."


    Just then, Emma’s eyes went wide with terror.


    "They found us," she whispered.


    "What?" Kael spun around.


    "I can see them. Right now. They’re digging down to us."


    Above their heads, they heard the sound of heavy machinery. Drilling. Getting closer.


    "How long do we have?" Tobias asked urgently.


    Emma closed her eyes, trying to see clearer. "Ten minutes. Maybe less."


    "That’s not enough time to run again," Ronan said.


    "Then we make our stand here," ra decided.


    "With three-year-olds and a baby?" Darian protested.


    "The children are more powerful than you think," Tobias said. "But they need to work together."


    He turned to Emma. "Can you see what happens if they all use their powers at the same time?"


    Emma concentrated hard. Her golden eyes glowed brighter. "I... I see light. Lots of light. And the bad men running away."


    "Good. Jake, can you ask every animal in the city to help us?"


    Jake nodded seriously. He closed his eyes and started making soft animal sounds. Within minutes, they could hear birds gathering outside. Dogs barking. Even insects buzzing.


    "Lily, when the fighting starts, your job is to keep everyone healthy," Tobias continued.


    "What about Marcus?" Lily asked, pointing to her baby brother.


    "Marcus might be the most important of all."


    "Why?"


    "Because his power is pure creation. He can make anything real just by thinking about it."


    The drilling sound got louder. Dust began falling from the ceiling.


    "Five minutes!" Emma warned.


    ra looked at her four children - her babies who shouldn’t have to fight but had no choice. Her heart broke and swelled with pride at the same time.


    "Listen to me," she told them. "No matter what happens, you stick together. You protect each other. And you remember that Mommy loves you more than anything in the whole world."


    "Are you going away?" Jake asked quietly.


    ra’s eyes filled with tears. Emma’s vision said she wouldn’t survive. But she couldn’t tell her children that.


    "I’m going to try very hard to stay with you," she said instead.


    The ceiling cracked. Light poured through from above.


    "Here theye!" Tobias shouted.


    Soldiers dropped through the hole, wearing the power-stealing cors around their necks. But these soldiers looked wrong. Their eyes werepletely ck, and dark mist poured from their mouths.


    "Those aren’t humans anymore," ra realized in horror.


    "The shadow creatures took them over," Tobias confirmed. "Matthews isn’t just working with the shadows. He’s be one of them."


    Emma screamed as her power exploded outward. But instead of her usual golden light, darkness poured from her eyes.


    "Emma!" ra cried.


    "I can’t stop it!" Emma sobbed. "The shadows are in my vision! They’re making me see terrible things!"


    Jake suddenly spoke in a voice that wasn’t his own: "The boy belongs to us now."


    Lily’s healing power turned backward, making the injured bird in her hands wither and die.


    Even baby Marcus was affected. Instead of floating toys, he was floating sharp pieces of broken ss.


    "They’re turning the children’s powers against them," Tobias said desperately.


    The shadow soldiers moved closer, their power-stealing devices glowing hungrily.


    And then ra realized the most terrible truth of all.


    Emma’s vision about someone noting home wasn’t about the battle with Matthews.


    It was about right now.


    Because the shadows weren’t just trying to steal her children’s powers.


    They were trying to steal her children’s souls.


    And the only way to save them might be to give up her own life.


    The lead shadow soldier smiled with Matthews’s face, but spoke with a voice like grinding ss: "Choose, Luna. Your life, or theirs."