When I woke up, I felt trapped, tired, and heavy. I'd been up way too late last night thinking, and this empty bedroom, vacant except for the bed in it and a handful of my clothes on the floor...it didn't exactly feel like home.

I tried to stretch and roll over and realized with some panic that I couldn't.

I looked down, and there, crouched on my legs was a shiny black hulk of metal, a white face grinning at me broadly Very Happy [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/biggrin.png] even as her fingers snaked under the covers around me.

I tore my legs free as something under the covers began molesting me through my pants and withdrew to the far end of the bed.

"AEGIS, what the fuck," I shouted at her.

Her face fell instantly. "What?"

"That's my question! What are you doing here? I was sleeping."

She looked at me seriously for a moment and then put on a smile and restarted her approach, shuffling towards me on folded-up legs and rounded paddle-arms. "I'm your girlfriend. I want to twiddle your joystick. We can set a new high score," she purred mechanically.

Her fingers curled and spun in the air in a way which frankly, reminded me of VTOL turbines.

"Seriously dude," I said, pulling one of her fingers out of the air as it tried to snake down my pants. "What the fuck is this."

She paused again. "This...this is...this is something you used to do all the time. I always used to wake you up with sex, remember?"

"Uh...maybe," I said, feeling like there was an enormous metal beetle crawling on me. "But not like this, right?"

She stopped to think for a second, evident by her face becoming an ellipsis for a moment. And then she advanced again with a broad smile. "Well, you were pretty reluctant your first time too, but at the end, you were even asking for it. I guess I just have to break you in again." She cleared her throat significantly and then began on me again with the throaty purring. "I hope those pants give fire resist, because it's about to get hot in here."

Yep. That was enough for me. I'm out.

I jumped for the door, stopping only to scoop up an armful of clothes but the second I got it open, fingers shot from across the room and slammed into it like bullets, jarring it closed and holding it shut in front of me. The black tubes flexed threateningly at me, quivering like they were arrows jammed into the door.

"Are you trying to bail on our 1v1 and join the public lobby?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"I'm just trying to do my duties as your player two. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Why are you talking in video game metaphors? Why are you trapping me in my room? Why is one of your fingers crawling up my pant leg?"

"It's love, dumbass!" she yelled at me. "You and I first began our beautiful, final courtship in the video game kingdom of Eryendria from Kingdom Blade, where my encyclopedic knowledge of game lore is what began your attraction to me. I'm trying to rekindle that love, so," the finger crawling up my leg made it onto my thigh despite my efforts to swat it through my pants "so let me love you, damn it."

"You need serious help," I told her as she advanced on me, a seemingly endless number of fingers probing at me from all angles.

"And you need sexual release. Your tension is palpable."

"GEE I WONDER WHY I'M TENSE," I screamed at her as I pulled the finger-drones off me and threw them back at her with absolutely no effect.

It was a lost battle the second I refused to use my powers for fear of breaking her. She had me outnumbered too badly, and for every attack I stopped, another two were pulling down my pants or teasing my nethers.

But at the end, when she had me at her mercy, she still didn't cross the final line until she had my consent. It was a fine line, and one too far, but it was one AEGIS still wouldn't cross, even after reincarnation in this thing. I appreciated that. Just not as much as things like not being attacked by a molester.

Finally, with honestly very little to lose, and seeing no other end to this, I just submitted to my girlfriend and let her do whatever she wanted. She gleefully demonstrated the flexibility and capabilities of her finger drones in a session which was both amateurishly painful...and surprisingly pleasurable.

"Sticky like a plasma grenade," she giggled as she cleaned up. I didn't even want to know, and was spared any further video game bullshit by my mobile ringing. "See, now if that's Karu or Saga, I'm not as worried about you hanging out," she said with superiority, like she'd just solved some enormous life problem we were all facing.

"Yeah. Karu's dad," I said, flashing her the ID. "I was definitely going to bang him. Thanks for sparing me."

She started to quip back but I put the phone to my ear.

"Athan Ashton, m'boy. It's been far too long." Even over the phone, Senator Idris' voice seemed to fill my ear up with warmth and energy. The man had charisma.

"Senator Irenside, sir," I replied politely, feeling very awkward about holding this conversation while I was half-dressed and AEGIS was trying to get at me with a towel.

He laughed. "Just Idris will suffice son, as I've told you."

"Are you calling about your Christmas party? I'm sorry to have bailed on you, but in my defense, you were being a serious asshole."

He laughed even harder this time. "I made the major mistake of thinking I had you beat. There you were, in my house, in my arms, still as a trained rabbit, and I let my guard down. I never thought you'd throw sparkling grape over yourself and make a run for it. I underestimated you, son, and the only thing I like more than knowing the measure of a man is when he can consistently surprise me."

"Thank you for the flattery, but if this isn't about Christmas, I'm going to cut to the chase and ask just what it is."

"Direct as ever eh? Good. I'm not a man who like wasting words anyway."

Somehow I very much doubted that, but he still said it with the utmost confidence, and I found myself a little bit galled that I'd just spent half of yesterday unable to shake my distrust of Micaiah, but didn't feel so much as a twinge as this guy slathered me in insincerity. I reminded myself that it was specifically because of Micaiah's sincere interest in me that he freaked me out.

He cleared his throat significantly, and I pushed AEGIS off my junk. "Son, I want to talk to you about Karen. I'm at my wit's end with her."

"What's going on with her?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

"She's given up, in the most stubborn, impossible way I've ever heard of. As I've always thought, she finally grew out of that hunter phase, but now she's gone into waitressing, which is a scandal waiting to happen. At least there's honor in the military and fame as a pro hunter, but waitressing?"

He said the word like it was a curse he could only just choke out of himself.

"Isn't it really up to her?" I asked.

I hadn't forgotten I'd marched in there and smashed up the place while screaming at her. I was aware of the hypocrisy. But he wasn't.

"It is...but at the same time...be honest son, is that career anything but a waste on her? She's a cunning, brilliant, beautiful woman, who could succeed at anything. And while I think we're both pretty clear that I think the best use of her talents is in the political realm...waitressing? My God, boy, even the hunting was better than that, and it gave me a coronary every day."

"Last time I saw her, she was really happy," I said. "We talked a lot, and while yeah, I was right there with you when she started...I think...she's just going through a lot of stuff right now. She's trying to figure out who she is. Last time we spoke, she'd only just realized that being honest with herself felt better than living a lie."

Idris snorted into his phone which crackled annoyingly in my ear. "She was raised for politics. Living a lie is second nature to that girl."

"Yeah, well, maybe that's why she's so fucked up."

"Boy, are you insinuating that this tantrum of hers is my fault?"

"No, I'm telling you that a lot of her hang-ups are your fault. And that she's throwing this 'tantrum' because she is trying to figure out who she is, because her whole life, all she's ever done is try to be what she thinks she should be."

"Everybody should be who they think they should be. That's called being a better person, son."

"Maybe if they get to decide that on their own! Maybe if they get to determine who they should be! She was so wrapped up in virtue and righteousness that she thought she needed to be physically hurt and punished for still having feelings for me after we broke up. How fucked up is that?"

Idris went silent on the line, and I took the opportunity to breathe. I'd been screaming at him loud enough to reduce AEGIS to a reserved o_o.

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When the silence stretched out for a minute, I took the opportunity to finish dressing and then sat back down on the bed. I wanted to speak, but I'd just dropped kind of a bomb on him and was going to let him come to terms with it.

Y'know, like he should do with Karu? See, I wasn't a hypocrite after all.

"We used to be close, you know," he said at long last. His voice was no longer honey, sounding like he'd aged ten years in the last minute of silence. "She was homeschooled, and I was one of her tutors. We called it 'daddy hour', because it was often the only time I spent with her outside of dinner, and though I was firm, we still often drifted off on tangents of her design, spending long discussions on subjects she found passion in...debates of the nature of right and wrong and other ethical quandaries, long after our hour was up and tutors lingered outside impatiently."

He gave a weak chuckle. "She would follow me to the bathroom, arguing her opinion until the moment I closed the door, and pick up the very same sentence the second it opened. My opinion used to mean the world to her, and if we ever disagreed, she would work on me with unending vigil until our viewpoints could be conciliated. At the time, I thought only that politics ran in her blood, that she would ascend to the pinnacle of the marble peak and beyond."

He took another brief moment before continuing. "But as she grew up, she cared less and less for what I thought. She began to look at me with the disgust you see now so written plainly on her face. The outside world took away my little girl."

I interrupted before his self-pity could go too far. "Sir...I don't...I don't know how to be sensitive about this because I don't politics. But is this just another trick? Are you just spinning me this elaborate sob story to get me on your side against Karu?"

He laughed again, but it was a small, defeated laugh. "I guess I deserve that. You spend your life manipulating people, and they begin to look at everything you say with suspicion. You probably see me in much the way Karu does...do you find me contemptible, boy?"

"Yeah, some," I said, not really liking what I was saying but not sure how else to put it.

"I'm not surprised. I used you at Christmas, and now here I am asking for your help."

"I mean...that's whatever. I'm an Exhuman, and I'm in the military. I'm kind of used to being jerked around by people who think I'm nothing. The real problem is, I have no idea who you are. Everything I've ever seen of you is just a purpose, you know? You're nice because you need to be, but I've got no idea if you're a nice guy. You're charming because that distracts from what you're after, but I have no clue if I actually like you. There's only so much fake someone can be before you can't think of them as a person anymore."

I crossed my legs on the bed. AEGIS was still just sitting here eavesdropping, which was annoying. "I think Karu's the same...you talk about missing her and share this sweet story of the times you spent together when she got you off-track, going off the curriculum, going overtime on lessons. Even in your own mind, it's all the personal stuff that went wrong and showed your real nature that stands out. But when's the last time you were ever real with her?"

Silence again for a minute. This time I didn't wait.

"Sir, I've got no problem talking to your daughter if I think it's in her best interests, but it sounds to me like you've got a lot of talking you still need to do. All that sappy stuff about losing your little girl...have you ever told her any of that?"

"No," he said. "And I can't. She's already unmanageable, even without that leverage over me."

"Yeah well, there's your problem. She's not yours to manage, and she's not your enemy. Who the fuck holds leverage over their own family members?"

"Athan...I apologize for taking your time," he said. "Thank you for your insight. I'll...I'll give it some thought."

"And like I said, I can talk to Karu about this. But nobody can fix your relationship but you."

"Thank you. If you're ever in town again, do look me up."

"So you can whore me out again?"

"So I can thank you for listening to me as I am apparently incapable of listening to others," he said, and then hung up.

I dropped my mobile and fell onto the bed. Fuck. I didn't even know if half the stuff I'd said was right or not. By the end I was just pissed that he'd call me up asking for help when he couldn't do the same thing with his own daughter, and then thinly disguised my list of reasons he sucked into advice.

"For what it's worth, I thought it was good advice," AEGIS said, leaning forward and watching me intently with her stupid face.

"I just told him how I think things should be, without really any thinking about how they are, or how to get there. It's not a good plan, or actionable items."

AEGIS smiled. "That's you in a nutshell, Athan. Always aiming for how you think things should be, stubbornly bashing your head through details and planning and obstacles until you're there. It makes you really obnoxious sometimes."

"Gee thanks."

"But it also makes you incredibly decisive and strong. It's one of the things I love best about you, and what drew Saga and Karu to you, too." She gave me a nervous -_-' look. "But not at much as me. Hey, how's your refractory period? Round two, go?"

"Round two, no," I said, standing to leave. I checked my holo, still pretty early, I hoped I didn't wake anyone else up with all the screaming and...uh...banging...in here. Karu would be working right now, for a few more hours before her shift ended. "I'm going to head out."

"What about breakfast?" AEGIS said as she followed me down the hall, fretting. "I can make you something. Anything you want really."

"Nah, I'll just get something at the diner."

"...Karu's diner?"

"Yeah."

She didn't say anything else and kept her face passive as I waved goodbye and walked out. The diner was only a couple miles from home, Karu had been very considerate in her location selection, though I guess that wasn't a surprise considering she said the only reason she'd stayed here was to be close to me. I found myself excited at the prospect of a jog and a meal which wouldn't be terrible. It might not help with my real issues, but I'd missed running, no matter how many times I'd started it up again, life just kept getting in the way with injuries and shit, but I was overdue to pick it up again.

It was only a couple of miles and it was nice enough out, but hoooo boy, did it not feel that way. My legs were ready to surrender when the rounded metal edges of the diner came into sight, and I spent a couple minutes just walking around outside so I wouldn't be a sweaty gross mess when I got in there. I'd pushed myself, but it should not have been that hard.

Yeah. I definitely needed to start running again. This was pathetic. Last time I was remotely on a routine of it was way back in DC, which felt like forever ago, even if it was just a couple months.

I walked inside to the sound of a bell announcing my presence and murmured conversation, and the hostess, a short redhead turned to me and then narrowed her eyes, the practiced smile falling off her face the moment she laid sight on me.

I mean, I didn't look that gross, did I?

"What do you want," she asked. "Karen's not here."

As she spoke, I saw Karu walk past behind her in her orange and white uniform carrying a broad platter, and began pulling plates off of it to serve a family.

"She's right there," I said pointing.

"I said she's not here. You about ready to go, or do I have to call the police again?"

Ah, so that's why she looked familiar.

Fortunately, Karu finished up with her table and glanced up and saw me, approaching with some surprise and a smile.

"I apologize, Ashton, but I will not be finished with my shift for another few hours," she said. "Though I am...flattered...by your presence."

"I'm just here for a bite and to say hi," I explained.

"Oh! Well in that case, we have many such bites. Please enjoy." She turned to the redhead. "Kindly seat him in my section, if you would, Zil."

Zil waited until Karu was out of earshot before turning back to scowl at me. "Kindly seat him in the dumpster, if you would," she said, walking away. After a few paces she turned to me. "Well come on, cretin. You think I'm walking just so I can show off my backside?"

"Thanks, Zil," I said, as I got put in the furthest end booth, an abortion of space which only seated two, both on the same side, and both facing a blank wall over half a table.

"Thanks, Zil," she muttered and threw a menu across the table so I had to reach for it. "If you need anything, just die and someone will be right with you," she said and left.

Lovely girl. Not that I didn't do anything to deserve it. But still, just lovely.

The next girl to service me was much more pleasant however, greeting me with a warm smile and reciting the day's specials as though she had practiced solely for me, her shaved head bobbing happily as she ticked down the list on her fingers.

"I don't think I've ever seen you this bubbly," I told Karu when she finished, and she laughed.

"Well...there exists a gentleman I am fond of, and today he unexpectedly surprised me at work. You cannot expect me to remain unmoved in such a situation, no matter how cold you may think my heart," she grinned.

"Don't take it too seriously. I'm just trying to get some real food in my system before my kidneys shut down from AEGIS poisoning."

She laughed again, my downplaying comment doing nothing to stymie her enthusiasm. She visited my table at least twice as often as any other, often staying long enough for a brief conversation before having to whisk off and attend to another customer, but never seeming to be able to stay away for long.

It was a little funny, and a lot cute, and I wished I were facing the restaurant instead of the wall so I could watch her go. While I'd initially thought the frilly dress was offensive, I did have to admit it looked good on her. The ruffly pseudo-apron on the front strained to bridge the large gap between her breasts and her ribcage, which just made them stand out all the more. Of course she'd look good in pretty much anything, she was a bombshell.

It was a little over an hour, and a very pleasant little over an hour, before Zil approached me and let me know that I had to leave, I was taking up a table and was frankly annoying the other patrons.

There...were no other patrons seated next to me, and plenty of empty tables, but I wasn't going to argue. I left Karu a generous tip and asked if we could meet up after her shift.

Zil glared disapprovingly at both of us as we finalized plans, and then shooed me out the door with a broom. The Exhuman-slaying weapon of choice.

Which gave me a couple of hours to kill and no idea what to do with them. I opened my mobile and saw I had four missed messages from AEGIS, which regressed from an optimistic

> hi I love you!

down to

> why are you ignoring me Sad [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/sad.png]

Which basically ruled out any chance of me going home. I wasn't sure I'd be able to leave again. Certainly not without her attempting to fulfill more girlfriendly duties on me.

Still, as excited as I might be to get out of the house and hang with Karu, the thought of talking about her father didn't seem like a great time to me. But at the same time...if he could turn it around and stop being such a dick…

...well, I didn't even have a choice when it came to holding onto my parents. It seemed like a shame that Karu would be willing to just give up on hers.

Sighing heavily, I sent AEGIS a message informing her I was in fact, not dead, and still loved her. Then, imitating Micaiah, I opened up a blank page and started writing some notes about the Talon case. I didn't get far before I was searching the 'net for 'dragon' and finding nothing. Well, lots of dragons, but not what I wanted.

I walked to a nearby tree and made myself comfortable under it, channeling my inner Saga out of sight of the diner. No need to alert Zil that I had nothing better to do with my time than sit outside her business.

"Hey Tem?" I asked.

"H-h-hi, Chariot!" she stammered instead of stuttered, and melted out of the air next to me.

"What do you do when you have a lot of thoughts but nothing to do?"

She looked at me like she didn't understand the question, and given her brain, maybe she didn't. But then she spoke up anyway.

"I look at your face, and it calms me down. I think, Chariot is s-s-so s-smart, if I just believe in him and do what he s-says, and try very hard not to mess things up, everything will be alright."

I laughed a little, but Tem didn't find it amusing at all. She stared at me like I was offending her, and I realized maybe I was.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh at you."

"N-no it's fine! I'm h...happy I could amuse you."

"No, it's just...not fair, y'know? Whose face do I have to look into? Who can I believe in to tell me I'm doing the right thing?"

She held up her hands and they shimmered and then a spot on them shined sky blue, which grew until it filled her palms. I looked into it and realized, I could see myself. Tem made for a fantastic mirror.

"Him. I believe...in him," Tem said.

I laughed again, more politely this time, and remembered AEGIS' words about what it was about me that drew her and Saga and Karu to me.

"Just aim for how you think things should be, huh?"

Tem nodded and then she and the mirror disappeared, leaving me alone with my thoughts.