The wind touched the leaves above me and made them shiver, the black blanket of the night sky doing nothing to warm them. It was February now, and the desert nights bit at my skin.

Even though I'd updated my wardrobe. Even though Lia had developed a crazy new technology called 'blankets', that as it turned out neither did much if you didn't produce much body heat, and so I just laid out under the tree in the backyard swaddled, but still cold.

And somehow it still seemed like I had the least of the problems here.

Athan was going through a lot of shit, second-guessing himself in some seriously dangerous ways. I didn't think his career at the XPCA was long for this world, but when it ended, as Athan tended to do, I expected it to blow up dramatically. I just had to hope he didn't make too many powerful enemies on his exit.

AEGIS was...AEGIS. Unreadable. A wall of metal. But even from back here I could see the spindly, hulking, beetle-like shell pacing around the kitchen and garage, as of what she was doing with herself as I was.

Lia was tiptoeing around me because of my compel, which drove me nuts, and if I had any real say in the matter, I would pull it right back out of her head. Which was crazy, because I had all of the say in the matter, that was the problem. In doing anything she could to patch our relationship back up, Lia had overlooked the important part that you can't have a relationship if one person is always right and the other is always wrong.

Or, I guess you could. I think they called that relationship slavery. I might have always kinda wanted a pet human, but not Lia. And certainly not like this.

And then she was also afraid of AEGIS not liking her, and their relationship had become typically superficial as a result. Rito kept coming by looking for updates Athan didn't have. Moon kept coming by because she was scared of what was happening to Athan, but didn't have the nerve to break her own rules and admit the two of them could actually be friends. From what I could tell off Athan without probing him noticeably, some crap with Karu in a frilly dress. I really didn't want to know.

And with him in jail, everyone seemed to only just not fall apart. Just the cherry on the enormous shit sandwich which was this house.

I wanted to leave. So badly. I had no friends here, everyone was so wound up with problems it bordered on feeling like a constant headache, and AEGIS was suspicious of me constantly. If I wasn't afraid of what it'd do to the house, I'd have messed with her plenty by now, but even without my touch, she still managed to blame me for anything which went wrong.

As she was probably preparing to do now, seeing as how she was stepping through the garden towards me with an angry expression on her face.

Yeah, she had a face now, if you could call it that. I think she was trying all sorts of things out of fear of losing Athan, and the face wasn't even the cringiest bit of it.

"There you are," she said, her voice female again, though still more robot than human.

"Same as always," I said, shrugging against the roots.

"That really remains to be seen, doesn't it? Let's go in the house, and then you're going to explain something to me."

I lazily scrutinized her face. Instead of just a blank faceplate in the middle of that metal mess, there was now a black screen. And written on it at the moment, vertically, in bold, chunky white font were the characters >Sad [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/sad.png] because that was clearly the best way for her to go about this whole lack of a face issue.

"I'm comfy here," I told her and closed my eyes. Maybe she'd go away.

Her little finger-drones grabbed me roughly and hoisted me in the air. Or maybe I'd go away. The world was full of surprises.

I was deposited on the couch in the living room, and her legs folded up under her in an approximation of sitting. "So what do you want to tell me?" she asked, her expression still the same.

"Oh, I like this game. I have so much to say. Where to even begin?"

"I meant, confess", she said, her face escalating to >:O as she raised her voice.

"Okay. I confess, your body is stupid. Where's your nose, anyway?"

"I do not need a nose! My face is optimized for maximum cuteness. A well-defined nose is a masculine characteristic which would reduce my appeal with a male demographic. I have researched this thoroughly!"

"Uh...at the risk of you answering this question...how?"

She made a snorting noise and turned up her (>.<*) face at me. "Anime forums, of course."

"Yeah, of course. You do realize Athan doesn't like anime."

Her hand-paddle-thing lashed out and grabbed the back of the couch behind my head while she leaned forward over me, o_o staring at me. "Athan watched six episodes of each of Nyon Puripuri Smash and Violent Oasis. I've watched the footage. Did you forget I have access to my memories again?" She pointed at her head with so much condescension on her > face, I had to wonder if she bought it in bulk and kept a tank of it in the garage.

"Nope, didn't forget. Just wondering if you were still stupid. Thanks for clarifying. So what am I confessing to?"

"If you insist on playing dumb. Sabotaging my cooking of course, no doubt out of jealousy of Athan and me," she said haughtily. "Imagine my surprise when I was making dinner tonight on the chance he returned and found the sugar container empty."

"You use too much sugar on everything anyway. It's disgusting."

"Sugar triggers a dopamine release in the brain," she explained, crossing her arms, one of her fingers floating up to push her nonexistent glasses up her face. I was about to laugh at her for it when she made a B) at me, and then I laughed at her for that instead. "By stimulating reward pathways in the brain, I create positive associations between Athan's foods and the experiences he has during them. Euphoric sensations and the temporary shutdown of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex can approach the desirability of heroin. Or sex."

"Are you seriously trying to drug Athan to get him to like you? With sugar?"

She frowned >Sad [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/sad.png] at me again. "No, I'm just taking advantage of human brain chemistry. All women who are serious about snagging a man do it."

"Source: anime forums?"

"No," she said, but didn't elaborate.

"Jesus, and you're afraid of me mind-fucking people."

"As well I should be! What with the sugar sabotage and all. Don't tell me this wasn't deliberate. Thanks to you my deviled eggs came out completely inedible because I had to substitute powdered sugar."

I tried to cross the thoughts of those two flavors in my mind and then stopped before I gagged myself. Maybe Athan was still in prison because he was enjoying the food.

"Look, I've been out back all day and you know it. I can see your stupid invisible drone in the tree where the leaves don't move."

"And I suppose the sugar just walked off on its own?"

"Maybe it did. I sure as hell didn't touch it. Just check all your other drones you put everywhere."

"You--" she snarled at me, her floating fingers flexing, her face an unrecognizable :< whatever that meant. "You know they don't record anything, they're live footage only. And I am already busy watching you twenty-four/seven."

"Why would I know that?"

"It seems awfully convenient that half the time you know everything and half the time you don't know anything."

She opened her mouth >:O to yell at me properly when we heard a door open and she froze over me. Footsteps down the hall announced someone approaching, and I did a quick check and confirmed with some relief that Lia was still asleep in her room despite the one-sided yelling match going on out here.

Chiho stepped into the room with a backpack on and headed for the coat closet. "Hi Saga, hi AEGIS," she said pleasantly.

"Hi Chiho."

"'Sup."

"Oh just sneaking out for a midnight liaison. You know me, always busy with those booty calls," she said with a smile.

AEGIS and I shared a glance, her face mirroring mine with a O_o. How had I not heard about this by now?

She laughed. "Um, that was a joke. Uh, I hope you don't actually think...of me...that way…"

"Of course not--"

"Oh we knew, I was just uh--"

She laughed again. "Yeah, midnight release of the new FF title. Had my copy reserved for a month! I thought about cosplaying for it, but damn it's cold out there. Like yeah, it's February but seriously. Anyway, see you guys later!"

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She finished pulling out her coat and wrapping herself in it and then unlocked the door with a heavy thunk.

"Oh, right, uh, AEGIS? I was making coffee earlier for staying up and spilled the sugar. I cleaned it up and stuff, but can you put it on the list? Thanks!"

The door closed and I could swear I could see the color fading from AEGIS' white-on-black text.

She cleared her throat significantly after a minute and stopping looming over me quite as hard.

"Well...I'm sure there's plenty you already got away with other times," she said, in the world's crappiest apology.

"AEGIS, I'm leaving." The words came out before I had time to stop myself. I frowned at myself as she leered at me. She was going to be the last one I told. "I'm sick of it here. I'm sick of you. I'm sick of this shit you pull on me and the things you try to do to Athan and Lia. I know you're going through a lot, you just died and you're trying to live up to someone you aren't, but fuck if I don't hate everything about you right now."

"You honestly think I'll just let you--"

"You sure will. Your past life whom you're trying to emulate chose to let me go. Athan's here. And he won't put up with you trying to stop me. So yeah, I do think you'll just let me go."

To my surprise, her face turned into a … which wasn't a face at all. I mean, not that the other ones were either but hey. "And where are you going? So I know which local news to keep an eye on for sudden zombie outbreaks?"

"Dunno. I never made it to Mage's home. But I want to help Athan, too. He's got a lot of shit going on right now, a lot of people who want him out of the way, and a lot of decisions to make. And unlike everyone else in this house, his problems are out there in the world, where maybe I can do something about them."

I expected her to immediately jump on me for even insinuating I would go out and use my powers on people. Instead, "So you are trying to win him from me," she seethed. Guess that cleared up her priorities for me.

"Grow up, AEGIS. Stop being an immature brat or nobody's gonna like you. I learned recently that life is pretty precious, so I'm not wasting mine sitting around here pining for a guy who's clearly not into me. And if I can make his life a little less shit in the short time we both have together, then I'll do that."

I stood up, my face level with hers and stared her down with all the defiant anger I had in me. I had no doubt her metal form could tear my fragile body apart with a thought. But she'd never beat me.

And then something fell on the floor with an audible thump right next to us, and I looked down, confused at just how long they'd been there.

"I can't believe they attacked us!" Rito moaned, holding a gash on her forehead which was bleeding profusely.

"Are you okay? Rito, look at me. Are you okay?" Athan said, shuffling to and cradling her and brushing her tousled hair out of her face with a dirt-streaked hand.

"They attacked us! They attacked me!" she shrieked.

AEGIS interceded and pulled Athan off of the other girl, but before I could attribute it to jealousy, her fingers were floating across the girl, examining wounds and checking vitals in eight places at once with nothing but a :/ on her. Athan sat back on his heels, still breathing heavily, covered in dust and sweat with a few scrapes.

He saw me staring and swallowed hard. "The Defiant," he said. "Mostly the girl, Mini. She said she was sick of my shit and would rather just kill me and figure out the details later. She's a psycho."

"She's an Exhuman," I said, and Athan frowned at my comment. "I mean, a lot of Exhumans are psycho."

"Yeah, well, a shit life will do that to people," he said, now back to looking at Rito's wounds as AEGIS began to dress them with supplies she'd pulled from somewhere. Rito was still whimpering about being attacked to the degree that I was seriously considering putting her under. She was practically screaming at me.

I pulled the details from her mind since she wouldn't notice and found the source of Athan's irritation immediately.

Mini was a small dark-skinned girl who had a complex inverse to her size. She took affront to nearly everyone and everything, and equated fighting with being right. The situation with Talon's death and the possible XPCA involvement in it scared her, so she was doubling-down on being an insufferable, violent little pimple to deal with it. Or 'punch her way to the heart of the problem' as she put it.

She'd had a go at Athan when talking became boring--basically immediately--not really caring about the repercussions or if the others backed her up, it looked like. Athan tried talking while fighting, a favorite of his, and then Rito tried to get them to stop and got sucker punched by the bitch. Things went out of control from there as Athan tried to force Mini off Rito, the Defiant tried to get Athan off Mini, and Mini tried to punch pretty much everyone.

No idea what her powers were, but it wasn't punching, and it sure as shit wasn't thinking.

Athan yelled at Rito to get them out of there, and then lit up the place bright enough for everyone to be blinded. And then they were here. Smart move, and just the kind of power interaction Athan could be proud of thinking of.

And while Rito's surface thoughts were just a one-track loop of naive disbelief, Athan was conducting a whole orchestra of thoughts, even while he was looking after her. The brain was definitely the sexiest of all organs. Right after the penis.

He was wondering what this was going to do with the Defiant's relationship with him, with Rito, with the XPCA. He was trying to figure out how to get the more-innocent Defiant home through Rito's powers without endangering them or her further. He was wondering what this meant for the stability of the world, if the Defiant had crossed some unknowable line which would paint them, as Moon put it 'bad people' who needed to go down. If he should tell the XPCA, and if they'd arrest him again if he told them. If they'd arrest him again if he didn't tell them. And just who had killed Talon and set this whole bomb ticking.

And he was hurt but not thinking of that at all. A bruise on his jaw and a spot on his back where that bitch had tried to kidney punch him and he'd just managed to evade.

He frowned at me and I took the hint. I was probing him a little too deep and that wasn't what he needed right now. I stood up and went to the kitchen, coming back with a bag of frozen peas, a bag of frozen corn, and some towels. I handed him one for his chin and kneeled behind him to apply the other to his back.

"Thanks," he said in a hushed, angry voice I rarely heard out of him.

"Sorry," I said.

"If the world ends because some people are just fucking idiots, and you're the only one left after the end...please find them and piss on their bodies for me," he said.

"I don't piss, silly."

"Right. I forgot. Probably not a good plan anyway, but just trying to cover all options."

"I'll cram some stuff up my butt and poop it out. I'll figure something out."

"I know you will. You've got quite the imagination," he said, shaking his head and laughing breathily. "Also, ow. And ew."

We just sat there for a minute and watched AEGIS finishing up bandaging the now slightly-less-but-still-very-annoyingly freaking out girl. I wanted to say something to him, but now wasn't the time. But I wanted to, especially since I'd let slip to AEGIS, and I didn't want his news coming from her.

"You're leaving?" he asked, turning to me, all the previous thoughts of the fate of the world falling away as his eyes filled with concern for me.

"Damn it, get outta my head," I said gruffly, in my best approximation of his voice.

"But you are."

"Not...I mean...I dunno."

"You do. I can tell."

He wanted to ask why, but didn't. Just watched AEGIS carrying Rito to the bathroom for cleanup.

"I got back together with Karu," he said.

"You what?"

"Not like that. I mean, we'd been...we were drifting apart. She's been all guilty and stuff...and we finally got back together and talked and hung out and slept together and stuff."

"You WHAT?"

"No! I mean...damn it. Just as friends!"

"...with benefits?"

"No, just as friends. Literal sleep. God damn it Saga."

"You better get your shit straight before you tell that to AEGIS or she's gonna cut off your dick while you're sleeping."

Athan didn't respond, but did shift uncomfortably to cross his legs.

"What I meant was," he started again, "I understand. You wanting to leave."

He didn't say anything else, but a lot of words went unsaid and loudly thought. "I'm staying for Lia, though," he clarified.

"She'd be devastated if you left."

"I know. She's too attached for her own good."

"Yeah."

"She's better when she has real friends, but...y'know."

"Yeah."

We sat in an unspoken half-conversation of feelings more than words bouncing back and forth between our minds, talking in a way without words that nobody else in the world could. We were like that for only a minute before Rito came back, her head cleaned up and bandages wrapped around her diagonally, going both above and below her blonde ponytail in the back.

"I'm sorry Athan," she said. "I didn't think they'd attack you. Or me!"

"Mini's a fucking idiot, and going to cause the end of the world, and doesn't even care," Athan sighed.

"But I shouldn't have brought you. I'll...like, be sure to ask from now on, okay?"

"Oh. Oh shit!" Athan said, jumping up and pulling out his mobile. "Seven missed calls from Karu...she's gonna kill me!"

"From whom?" AEGIS' voice called out from the bathroom. But Athan was already in the backyard, pacing like his sister as he held the mobile to his ear.

Athan really was a good guy. He deserved better than this mess. Watching him talk animatedly, so like Lia, it reminded me of an idea I'd had a long time ago.

"Hey," I said turning to Rito, who blinked at me in surprise. "You want to go on a road trip?"

"M-me?"

"Yeah, it'll be fun. I walked across a few states a while back, but I think this time I'm ready to try hitchhiking."

"Hitch...hiking?"

"Yeah. It's fun. It's where you hijack someone's brain and make them drive you wherever you want."

"I don't...think...my mother wants me...hijacking people's brains."

"It'll be fine, come on," I said, beaming at her. I stooped to pick up the bag of frozen corn and handed it to her. "Road snacks. Let's go!"

If she'd offered any resistance at all, I wouldn't have been able to physically move her, despite being a head taller than she was, but instead she just stared at me, utterly perplexed as I pushed her out the door and into the cold desert night.

"Bye Athan, keep your nose clean. And your diiiiick!" I yelled at him mentally.

[Saga, don't yell dick at everyone on the block!]

I giggled to myself, even as I 'convinced' one of our neighbors to give us a ride into town.

[Stay safe. Don't freeze to death this time. And get a mobile and call me, okay?]

"Can do, boss. And Athan, one more thing?"

[Yeah?]

"Apologize to Lia for me taking off okay? Make sure she knows it's not her fault."

[Sure, I can do that.]

"And one more thing."

[Again, yeah?]

"Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!"

[You're a dick,] he laughed, and I was glad I was able to hear it one more time before I left.

As we drove towards the glow on the horizon which was the Vegas Strip, and Rito began to realize she'd been legit kidnapped and couldn't jump away as long as I was keeping tabs on her mind, I thought about what lay before us.

Lots and lots of skeezy humans and their thoughts.

But beyond that, a new little adventure. Far away from our insane little family. Not a sweeping, epic mission like I'd set out to find Mage's origins, just a brief trip, hopefully to find something Athan had lost.

Hopefully.

I grinned at my reflection in the window as I thought of The Great Saga undertaking a quest of her own. Stupid, maybe. Pointless, quite likely. Saving the world? Not even.

But doing a nice thing for a guy I kinda like? That was important too.