It was a very good day. An exciting day, where even as I looked through all the security footage AEGIS could find on Dragon, I could hardly sit still.

Dragon had taken our bait. If he were coming for Athan, he'd be here in California. He was in New York, which was absolutely ideal for us. Well, second-most ideal after dead, but we'd kind of ruled that out as a possibility.

Athan had been practicing every day, maybe more out of habit now than anything, but we all kinda knew he had no chance of beating Dragon in a fight. And then that one night happened, and impossible became impossibler. In a way, it was a blessing, since it finally opened up my dumb big brother's eyes to just how young he was about to die, and start thinking laterally instead.

It was only a couple weeks ago that we put our plan into action. Or, I did, with the support of the others. Felt great being able to contribute and put my skills and reputation positively for once, though I was a little...worried?...humbled?...at just how much it affected my state of mind. I'd always thought AEGIS was just kind of a whackjob for being so obsessed with taking care of Athan, but dude, being the hero of the moment was fantastic. If they ever bottled that sensation, I'd drink a twelve-pack every week.

The plan, like all good plans, was simple. Dragon had no way to know that Black Shark was related to Athan in any way. All I had to do was go online as my alter ego and begin posting/inquiring in the deepest channels about an illegal Exhuman device I'd 'acquired'. The thing Dragon was looking for.

The details were kept sparse and the channels were kept narrow, as Dragon would never believe it if I suddenly started making sweeping public inquiries. In order to be convincing, he should have never been able to find my posts at all. So how do you tell a murder-psycho something without telling him?

That's where AEGIS came in. I mourned for my poor black-market comrades-in-arms as AEGIS 'discovered' and published a security loophole in one of the channels I frequented. It became a feeding frenzy instantly, as private transactions became visible to anyone willing to work the exploit, and my other haunts instantly exploded with people looking to have their leaked data purged, while others tried to unload same data they'd managed to scoop up.

Subtle prodding and manipulations later, and the leak and its data made it into the public eye, where reporters buzzed on the news about huge quantities of everything from drug deals to assassinations suddenly having hard digital evidence floating around, just waiting for their real-world cases to be discovered or linked.

In short, it was a privacy and informational clusterfuck, obliterating a dark corner of the 'net overnight, all so that one tiny secret could be leaked in the most convincing way possible.

It was out there. The thread of my inquiries, pictures and dimensions of the artifact, and my transaction to sell it to a buyer in New York for a cool few tens of millions. The data made it out, and with Dragon showing up there, we confirmed it had made it into his hands.

My buyer held in his hands a fabricated replica designed to explode fatally if used. AEGIS thought that seemed unnecessary, but I insisted. If the buyer used it, the device was now 'destroyed', and Dragon would have to give up his search. If he didn't, if Dragon found it, with any luck it would take him out instead.

I didn't tell Athan that part, of course. He would have never approved of mailing a bomb off to a stranger if he knew.

The only question was if Dragon would be able to tell it was fake. If he could...he'd be coming for me next, and while I obviously did my best to cover my butt, I didn't fancy my odds of forever eluding a professional killer any more than Athan's odds of fighting him. Our little leak really was pretty innocuous in the great scheme of things, and yet Dragon had still chased it down, basically confirming if I ever made a mistake, I'd be done for.

But, he wasn't here, he was there. Chasing our bait for now. It was a good day. One didn't often get the opportunity to outfox a killer that scared even Taglock, so I was going to drink it in.

Athan was still out, and I hoped he wasn't doing anything stupid, and AEGIS was still elbows-deep in tracking Dragon as best she could, which was a lot better than the crying she'd been doing after Athan threw his food and bolted.

But that meant I had a rare window where the kitchen was open, and snuck in to make pancakes of my own. AEGIS' creation had inspired me. In the same way that watching a chihuahua go up stairs might inspire one to go adopt a goldie.

I'd gotten a few off the pan before I heard the turning of the lock. Athan froze as he heard and smelled cooking and gave me the most cautious of glances.

"Oh thank God, it's you," he said.

"Pancakes?"

"Yeah, I'm starving, thanks."

AEGIS was standing in the doorway to their room for I don't know how long, but she looked equal parts cold, hungry, and desperate as she watched him stuff entire pancakes into his mouth without hesitation.

"Mamk tthm eeg, rramgon," he said to me.

"Yeah. Maybe swallow."

This took him several seconds. I flipped my pancakes while I waited.

"Talk to me about Dragon," he repeated.

"He's in New York, so it looks like he fell for the decoy," I said, grinning at the stove. "With luck, he'll take it and go away forever. If he believed it's out there, he believes you don't have it anymore."

"Wow. You're amazing, Lia."

I gave the spatula in my hands a little twirl. "Don't I know it."

"I did half the work," AEGIS pouted.

"Well...you're amazing too. Thank you, AEGIS," Athan said, turning to her.

"I don't need your pity compliments," she huffed. He rolled his eyes and turned them back towards me. "But you don't have to stop," she added.

"What happens when he finds the decoy?" Athan asked and then frowned. "Do you think he'll hurt whoever bought it?"

"I think he'll probably be like, 'hurr, durr, it's my toy, I'm a penis breath'. And then yeah...I don't think he cares about people's lives too much when he's after something. I don't know why he said penis breath," I concluded.

Athan shook his head. "I don't know that I fully agree."

"About the penis breath?"

"No, that part's spot-on," he smiled. "I meant, when he was fighting the Defiant and AEGIS and me...I didn't realize it until I watched it, but he really could have killed me a bunch of times. He punched the shit out of me when he could have done the same thing but with knives, and I'd be done for. And he has a million knives up his sleeves, so that wasn't the issue."

"He opened by shooting you, didn't he?" AEGIS asked. "That seems pretty lethally conclusive."

Athan shook his head. "With a regular firearm, yeah. Which, any Exhuman who tangled with the XPCA during their window could be reasonably expected to be immune to. If he wanted that to work, he could have carried and drawn any number of exotics but for some reason he didn't."

"He didn't exactly hold back on me," AEGIS complained. "I got shot and stabbed dozens of times."

"Yeah. But you kept moving and fighting after. It's like he was pushing each of us as far as we could take it for some reason, but not killing us outright." Athan frowned as he scratched at his head. "I don't get it. He had no problem with just offing the Defiant like they were nothing."

"Okay, hypothetical here," I said, putting more pancakes on a plate out of Athan's reach so I'd get to eat some too. "Maybe...he's into the whole Chinese 'honor' thing? You were unarmed, so he fought you unarmed?"

"I think that's Japanese," AEGIS said. "Bushido. And it's been largely fantasized, real samurai had no problem with killing unarmed opponents."

"Yeah, the Sinos were supposed to be craven and honorless," Athan said.

"Says the media. I thought they might be the same as the Japanese since they were so geographically close," I said with a shrug. "Okay, so maybe not. Maybe...maybe to him the Defiant were nothing, because they just stood there like cattle, and he's got no respect for that. You didn't even need to be there, didn't even need to fight, but you did."

"Yeah, I doubt that," AEGIS said. "He's an assassin, not a...gentlemanly boxer or something.

"He did compliment me, though," Athan said. "He praised me for having more nerve than the whole of the Defiant."

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"Yeah, right before he bashed your guts in. This is all moot, he left you and me both in conditions where we should have died. He wasn't sparing either of us, he just...he probably only applied as much lethality as he thought we were worth. Drawing out the fight for his own sick amusement or something."

Athan nodded, still frowning as the pan sizzled with a final round of batter. "Yeah probably. But I really felt...not at the time, but watching it after...like he was testing us for something."

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes. "Whenever I test someone, I make sure to kill them afterwards to validate my results. He's just a sick murderer, Athan."

"Maybe that just means I failed," he said.

"Or maybe, he's a sick murderer."

"Regardless," I spoke up, "I think we should be focused on the right now. Right now, he's off doing what we want for a change, with the distinct possibility that he gets his paws on the decoy and then fawns off for good."

"Until he tries to use it, and finds out it's fake," Athan said.

AEGIS and I exchanged a glance. Athan, observant as he was, completely missed it.

"Actually, there's uh," I started, flipping the pancakes for a second to procrastinate. "Something I didn't tell you. Kinda made the decoy a bomb."

"What?"

"In case of this scenario. So if he tests it...problem solved."

"Jesus." He thought for another second, his expression growing darker. "Jesus, Lia. What if your buyer used it? Is this how you treat your customers?"

"If I need to, yeah. I don't have any sympathy for people who buy illegal Exhuman contraband, dude."

"He's your buyer."

"And it's not like I have a loyalty program, okay? It's called a black market for a reason. Shady things go on there. Sometimes you have to break some eggs."

"And blow up some innocents? I don't remember that part of the idiom. Fuck, Lia, this is like, Blackett-level shit. You can just risk ordinary lives for your own greater good, and that's sick." He looked furious, cradling his head at the counter. "As awesome as it is to have you here, I spend a lot of time regretting introducing you to this lifestyle, you know. I wish you'd just grown up a normal, happy kid."

I put the fresh, hot pancakes on a new plate and then slammed it on the counter in front of him. "Well I didn't," I informed him. "I chose to run away from home, and I chose to pick up Black Shark, and I chose to pull the trigger every time someone had to decide between you living and someone else getting shot. I chose to send that bomb, and I'd do it again, a hundred times, to hospitals and orphanages if I had to, and if I did, it'd be my choice, and not any imagined blood on your hands, you insufferable jerk."

That put most of the fight out of him, and his face now just looked agape. I wasn't really as angry as I was putting on, but I knew if he was allowed to start beating himself up over this, he'd drag it out forever, to nobody's benefit. I was a little mad though, and it did feel good to vent. If he chose to spit back at me, I'd just bring up Brick and the argument would be over, but he didn't, and quietly set in on his pancakes instead.

AEGIS was glaring knives at me but said nothing. It kinda irritated me that she could remotely read my vitals and tell when I was only acting, but as long as it was for Athan's own good, I was sure I could get away with whatever in front of her.

Things settled into relative normalcy for a bit as Athan and I ate in silence, and with the threat of superior pancakes and no more conversation to engage her, AEGIS drifted back into her room. Eventually, Athan did speak up again.

"I am sorry that you're in this life," he said. "I know you didn't have much of a choice a lot of the time, but what you did choose was your own decision."

"It's a pretty cool life, when it doesn't completely blow," I shrugged. "At least I get to be in college now. That's super cool."

"Any thoughts on a major?" he asked.

I shrugged. I'd considered psych, though there was the potential blowback of making people more aware they were being manipulated if they knew they were talking to a trained psychologist. I felt like much of my success was attributable to my apparent innocence...the same thing Athan felt like he had to fight to protect. Which was sweet, but kinda misguided. I'd rather be competent than innocent. You never heard the news stories about a competent victim getting tragically killed.

"Advertising, maybe," I said.

"Do black-market dealers need to advertise?"

"Everybody needs to advertise. You think illegal buyers are any more psychic then regular ones? If they were, they sure wouldn't need my services."

"I guess."

"Plus...I dunno that I'm gonna do Black Shark forever. At some point, you're just inviting trouble. The data leak we, uh, helped along...it had a lot of Black Shark's records in there, for authenticity. I made sure none of it could be traced back to me, which of course it wouldn't, I'd never release that information in the first place, but really, that kind of leak can happen, and can get you in a world of hurt. I'm sure, right now, there are people who realized I've sold their secrets and are looking to find me and punish me."

"Oh," he said simply. "I didn't think you'd leak anything more than you had to about yourself."

"That wouldn't be very convincing if I did. We took Dragon as seriously as we could, dude, and if that gets Black Shark in some trouble...well...everyone who did dealings on that site are in trouble. It'd be weird if I was the only one who wasn't."

"I guess. You think about a lot more stuff than I do," he laughed.

"Not hard, bro."

"Hey!"

I cackled at him. "That's what I'm here for. You always talk about protecting me and trying to shelter me from this messed-up world and all the baddies in it, but like I said, I'm here by choice. I'm here next to you, bro, because that's where I should be. It's not fair if you're wading through filth for my sake and doing it all alone while I lounge around sipping virgin daiquiris."

"What are those?"

"Smoothies, basically."

"Oh. I expected something dirtier if it's explicitly named after virginity."

I rolled my eyes as I grinned. "See, you can just keep being innocent and fight for that in other people. I'll keep being smart and fighting for that. You're not the only one who can choose to get their hands dirty to protect their sibling, dorkbutt."

He looked like he was going to argue for a second and then didn't, putting more pancake in his mouth instead, chewing thoughtfully.

"I'd rather you didn't," he said. "I know I can't stop you, but sometimes...a lot of times, my life sucks, Lia. Before college, felt like you guys were the only good things in it. I'd be happier knowing that you didn't have to go through that."

I grinned and reached across the table to mess up his hair as he'd done to me innumerable times. "Silly boy. You only think that's true. You think you'd like it if you could just take in all the suffering on your own, put the world on your back and heroically, stoically just bear it all in silence. But you're wrong. You'd be miserable, and you'd be alone."

"And you think I couldn't deal with that?"

"I don't. But I'm not going to argue that. What I am going to say is that no decent sister in the world would let her stupid older brother do that to himself without at least trying to stand next to him and hold up her share."

"That's dumb," he said.

"You're dumb!"

He stuck out his tongue so I showed him a mouthful of chewed-up pancake.

"Really though, I think honestly, your strategy could be better," I said, after swallowing.

"So that I don't leave my sister out of it to have a good life? I've heard."

"No, not that. Rather, instead of trying to carry all the world's troubles on you like it's nothing, it makes a lot more sense to fix those troubles instead, right?"

He sighed. "I try."

I patted him on the head again. "I know. And I try too. That's why we sent Dragon a bomb. One less trouble for the world."

"I guess," he said, poking at the last of his food. "I just don't think it'll work. He's not exactly a normal person. He'll do something unexpected, somehow."

"Then when that happens, we'll just have to deal with it together, right?"

Athan nodded as my mobile went off. Message from Tower, of all people.

> Hey Lia!

> I'm not allowed to contact Athan, so this is me not contacting Athan.

> Did Moon find you guys recently? She seemed really upset and I just wanted to see if things were going better now. She would never say it, but she was really hurt when Athan left the team. I might have encouraged her to go pay you guys this visit, so if she's being impossible, blame me.

> I can't seem to get ahold of her. Please let me know she's all right. Unlike her, I don't mind letting people know I worry! Ha ha.

I smiled at the thought of Tower typing all of this out with his huge hands and considered that maybe he was an advocate of voice-to-text messaging. Might explain the 'Ha ha.', because nobody typed that out. I began to reply when another message came in.

> We also have an op scheduled in a few days. Technopath lair. Please let her know (and Athan too but I'm not allowed to tell you to say that).

That...did not make me feel good, and any happiness I'd gleaned from his message now withered tenfold. I swallowed hard and got back to replying.

> I'll 'not' tell Athan. I haven't seen Moon in a couple days, but if I get ahold of her, I'll let you know.

"Do you know where Moon went?" I asked Athan.

"Japan...I think," he said, and pulled a mobile out of his pocket which I realized wasn't his. He flipped through some menus on it before sighing something which sounded suspiciously like 'freaking AEGIS', and putting it away. I guess he didn't have something to show me after all.

> Uhh, looks like she forgot her mobile here. I'm sure she'll be back to pick it up, but that's probably why you can't reach her.

> Cool. Thanks. Stay in school, guys.

I closed my phone and found myself staring at Athan, who caught my eye and then frowned. "What?" he asked.

"P-Force is taking on a technopath in a few days," I said.

"Oh. Fuck."

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly."

He and I both stared down at our pancakes, whatever happiness there was in eating them now served with a side of dread. Technopaths weren't anything anyone wanted to deal with, and knowing one was coming up...I felt a cold shiver despite the warm April air.

Athan looked similarly put off, but after only a few more moments before he began to shove pancakes down his throat with renewed zeal. Which made me laugh a little and see my own plate as a little more inviting.

Because, he was right. As grim as it might look in the future, all we could do now was to make sure we were full and prepared to face it when the time came. So it'd be with the technopath, so it'd be with Dragon, so it'd be with the rest of our lives.