It felt like it had been a lot longer, but it had been only mere minutes since we'd left the XPCA side and crossed no-man's-land into the Exhuman base. The former were just now recovering from Saga's mind-lashing and getting lights back on from where I'd nuked their power before, and I didn't think the latter had spare lights or equipment to replace what I'd blown out. But with the distraction of our presence fading, both sides were beginning to remobilize.

And frankly, I found I didn't care.

How many times had I been tasked out, tried to talk some Exhuman down instead of kill them? Tried to save some civilians, only for them to recoil at my presence? Tried to do what was right, only to be punished?

How stupid must I be, to keep trying? Time and again, to help a world that obviously was beyond helping?

I'd calmed down some. Maybe that wasn't accurate, maybe it was more truthful to say that my blood was running cold instead of hot now. Because honestly, I found myself completely okay with the idea that these fuckers could go kill each other for a while until Justice came by and finished the job.

And then he'd mop up Las Vegas, maybe even every other city on the map. Scour them all of these fucking, worthless, bigoted, self-absorbed pieces of shit. Once all the regular folks were gone, there'd be nobody left but a world of fucking politicians and bureaucrats, leaders without anyone to lead, trembling as they finally percieved their uselessness. And all the while they were dying, they'd be begging, pleading, for someone to come save them from the disaster they created themselves.

But oh, not me. They wouldn't ask me to help. I'm an Exhuman. I'd just make everything worse. And if I tried to help anyway, if I felt an empathy they lacked, tried to put myself in danger to save their loved ones?

Well they'd fucking take mine away. So fuck that, and fuck them. My loved ones were here with me, were safe, as long as I kept them away from people like them. So yeah, they could all burn in hell, I was tired of risking everything I had for a swarm of ingrateful fucks.

I was tired of everything. I was tired of hurting, and most of all, I was tired of seeing people I loved being hurt.

In the dark behind me, I heard a sound and spun, blades flashing into light, poised to strike.

I found AEGIS standing there. She smiled softly at me, like she was the one who had something to apologize for.

She did, I realized, as soon as she spoke.

"Athan, I know...you don't want to. And neither do I."

"Then don't."

"But right now, we have a plan, and a little time. If we wait, if we...if we indulge in emotional outrage, no matter how justified, we're going to have no plan and no time. Justice will be here soon. And even if the Exhumans are going to run, the XPCA will get slaughtered. We have to do something."

"We have to do nothing. We owe the world nothing. In fact, the world owes me plenty, AEGIS. Where's the rescue party being sent out here to make sure we're safe, huh? All that ever comes after us is kill squads--"

At the last two words, I thrust my swords forward into the dark, where I picked off a shadow ops unit who had strayed too far, thinking his camo would protect him from me. The last thing through his mind was a gasp of surprise.

"Let's just get Lia, Saga, and Karu and leave," I finished. As though it was perfectly normal for me just to murder people halfway through my sentences.

"Leave...where?" she asked.

"Anywhere. I don't care."

"But you do care. I know you do. If you run away now and something bad happens here, you'll never forgive yourself, will you?"

"But if I stay and something happens to you, or to Lia, or to Karu, I'll also never forgive myself!" I screamed at her. "Just what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

She fidgeted on the spot for a few moments, before seeming to make up her mind and advanced on me. After long, hesitating seconds, she took my hand in hers and gave me a solemn squeeze. I could still see tears and discolored spots on her neck from the fight with Soran, but no matter what happened, her hands were always too soft and too warm for belief.

"I dunno," she said, her voice only barely above a whisper. "And honestly, I don't know if future regrets are worth present suffering. There's just so much we don't know right now. It feels like everything's coming to a head, and we're not ready for it."

"They why are you pushing me so hard to do something?"

"Well…" she pulled her hand halfway out of my grasp and then stopped. "I just...it was the plan, Athan. We made the plan when we were clear-headed and capable, and changing the plan because of some emotional outburst...it's a really terrible idea." And then quickly added, "Even if the emotional outburst was completely justified!"

"I'm sorry for yelling at you before. You don't have to keep dancing around the fact that Lia was hurt with me. I was upset...I still am upset. But not at you."

"That's...good. I'm sorry too."

We lingered there for a minute. I felt numb and cold, all except my fingers where AEGIS clung to me. It felt like that was the only part of me that was alive, somehow. I kicked at the dirt, my legs were heavy and lifeless in a way that had nothing to do with the exoframe.

Sure, I'd just used my powers to move my body too fast a few times there, and that always hurt like a bitch and burned out my muscles. But even with that, I wasn't sore or exhausted. Just...dead.

Just numb with disbelief, really. Just one of those moments that made one pause, and consider just how obvious it was that there was no God. How else could you explain us arriving at the exact moment that the people we were rushing to save were fixing to lynch my sister? It was like a cruel joke. If there were a God, he was laughing at my existence, not...spreading peace and love, or whatever.

Because looking around here right now, there wasn't peace and love to be found. Just two armies, shelling each other, explosions in the dark, the smell of smoke, and of death. And the promise that they'd be clashing in earnest, the dark ground where I now stood maybe soon drinking its fill of blood.

"All I want," AEGIS' hand gave mine a squeeze, bringing me back to the present "is for you to be okay with yourself. And I know what a big ask that is," she laughed. "Just...please...try to give it a think. Try to imagine...that everything here goes wrong. The XPCA hold the New Edeners back, Justice wipes out both of them. Could you live with that? Could we still stop him if that happened?"

"I don't know."

"And it's more than just here and now, you know. This is the last, best army of Exhumans in the world. If they break...it'll show the rest that there's no point in standing up to him."

"I don't know."

"And the XPCA will be dissolved. Their leadership...that's mighty whatever. But the men and women serving...to say nothing of the rest of their assets. All the exotics outside of Oasis might all be here in this one place."

"I still don't know, AEGIS."

She frowned at my words. "Assets are more than just things, though. There are people, like Trish, in their care. The rest of New Eden. There's no telling what will happen to them."

I didn't bother answering. She already knew what I didn't know.

I had a suspicion that whatever happened here, I'd be filled with regret. I wasn't sure there was a single situation I'd ever handled where I didn't regret something about it. Some more than others, but never had everything gone well for us.

Which is why...maybe this time, we should just leave. When the stakes were highest, that was when you had the most to lose. I felt the warmth squeezing my fingers, and the coldness in the rest of me, and tried to think about everything she'd just said, all the millions of lives in the balance.

But it was impossible to weigh all of that against the one bit of warmth I could still feel.

"Well, not all of them."

I turned and saw Lia, leaning heavily on Karu as the two of them entered the circle of light projected by my swords. She gave me a serious nod.

"All of what?" I echoed stupidly.

"All of the Exhumans being held by the XPCA. Not to eavesdrop, but there wasn't much else to listen to as we walked over. I know at least one who was in their care that I can vouch for."

She turned and...several...perhaps too many dramatic seconds later, Saga came into view, along with somebody else. A short girl, with large blue eyes and blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She was trim, with a suggestion of muscle, and almost exactly my age, I knew.

Because I recognized her. It was Rito. But at the same time, was not.

I remembered Rito as energetic and bubbly, sort of a further extension of Lia. Or, during a crisis, pissing herself and cowering uselessly. The girl in front of me was neither, with blank eyes and dazed posture.

I turned to look at Saga, who grinned as I frowned.

"Well, she wasn't going to help us any other way," she didn't apologize.

"Lia, what is this?" I asked. "She was locked up in New Eden."

"And we all just broke out of New Eden, if you recall? I had to pull a few strings to get her out, and then a few more to keep her from trying to get herself back. Now that we've got Saga on hand, that should be much easier."

It felt like forever ago, but I remembered Lia and Rito together at a party, the only two people there even remotely approximating teenaged girls. They were discussing TV shows and soliciting opinions from others as to which male celebs were hunkier, pictures up on their mobiles and everything.

And now she was standing here like a zombie, her thoughts no longer her own, dragged out of prison and mindfucked by that same friend.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Seeing her now really sold me on it. The fact that being here, trying to help, all it brought was pain. This poor girl just wanted to go to art school and support her mom. And because of us, now she was a known and incarcerated Exhuman, a fugitive, and our slave.

"Lia's right," I said. "We're leaving. And then we're setting Rito free, and we're not turning back."

"W-what?" AEGIS stammered. "Athan, wait. All the things I said, think it through--"

"I have thought it through." I pulled my hand from hers. Somehow, as though missing her touch, it was even colder and more numb than the rest of me. "There's nothing we can do here except make the situation worse. All we'll do is lose people, or be forced to kill people. And all for nothing."

"So you are saying Justice cannot be stopped?" Karu asked. "That is your answer? He is greater than us, and so to try is folly?"

"Maybe."

She crossed her arms and looked down at me with open revulsion. "Then you are not the man I thought you to be."

"I don't care if I am or not, Karu," I spat at her. "I never asked to be put on your stupid, divine pedistal. I don't care if you think I'm God's gift to Exhumanity or if you think Satan put me here. I've only ever done what I thought was right. And y'know what? It's never turned out right. So maybe it's time for a change."

"You are a coward," she declared. "You are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices after all. You have led us this far, and when the burden has grown too heavy, you have quit it."

"So what if I fucking have? If you could have quit it all before that Exhuman melted your boyfriend alive in the past, wouldn't you?"

She went rigid. "I would not know. He was a man who would die serving his duty. Whether I wanted him to stop or not would be irrelevant. All you are demonstrating is how many ways you lack, to his measure."

"Athan, come on," AEGIS stepped forward as Karu shrunk away. "You know I care about you, more than any of those jerks in the dark. But we both know that if you run away now, you'll never stop running. This isn't who you are, Athan. You got scared because of what happened to Lia, and that's okay--"

"Isn't it a bit much for you of all people to be telling me about my duty?" I snipped at her.

"Excuse me?" she adjusted her glasses at me.

"Your job was to guide and protect the XPCA, not me. You chose to bail on them, chose to dedicate your life to me. And now you're giving me shit for doing the exact same thing?"

"There's a big difference between choosing not to go back to the XPCA after being buried and forgotten a hundred years, and walking away from them the moment they're about to be crushed, Athan."

"Oh, fine, you're right. Maybe I should go back to a week ago when we could have fixed all of this. You know, when you quit working with the XPCA because it was getting in the way of your cooking?"

She glared at me. "What the fuck has gotten into you?"

"You're the one always telling me to look after myself. Now here I am doing it, and for some reason, it's a huge ordeal. What if I don't want to die today...what if I don't want any of you dying today? Why is it so fucking irrational to ask that, for the first time in my life?"

"Athan--"

"I'm just tired of everyone treating me like shit!"

"Dude," Saga said. "Nobody here treats you like shit. That's on those fuckers."

"Right," I turned on her. "Because it's not shitty having to babysit you, to make sure you don't decide today's the day to go off and murder everyone."

She fished in her ear with her pinky. "Yeah, I'm not like those other bitches. Good luck finding the right words to eviscerate my delicate little heart, Athan."

I didn't say anything else at her. I just thought, very hard, pulled to the surface of our shared mind-space all the fucking times everything had gone to shit because she was an irresponsible fucking child. Really threw in her face the pain we'd all had to go through because of her, jammed it in how much of a burden she could be, even if she couldn't see it because of how high and powerful she saw herself.

"I hate you," she said simply.

"Good," I clarified. "Better than everyone being dead."

"Athan--"

I turned to the next person trying to shut me down and found myself face-to-face with my sister. I froze.

"What?" I asked. "You're going to tell me I'm wrong, too? Tell me I need to go fight and die against Justice today, because that's who I am?"

"No," she shook her head. I frowned at noticing that her hair had been cut short all along the sides of her face to keep it out of the burns, and that she had a new stim patch on her neck beside the old one. She had cuts on her face and palms from a hard fall, and her slipskin was scuffed up. I felt fire began to race in my veins, as I took stock of her injuries yet again.

But her words were soft, even. The voice of my sister, no matter how battered her body was. It warmed my heart, even as it cooled my blood, somehow. Made me feel again. Made me want to cry.

"I want you to do whatever you want, bro. If you want to run, I'll run with you. If you want to fight, I'll be at your side." She crossed her arms, but then winced at the maneuver, and let them dangle. "But what I won't tolerate is you treating these friends of yours that you're trying to 'protect' like this. You owe them an apology."

"For what? Each of them is trying to push me with their own fucked-up agendas."

"And you're doing what, exactly? You have an opinion, and they have an opinion, and just because those happen to disagree, that gives you a license to act like everyone is treating you like carp?"

"Just because it's a difference of opinion doesn't mean both opinions are valid, Lia."

"Oh please. This isn't about opinion, this is about you turning it into personal attacks. You've crossed the line four or five times now, bro, and that's a whole bucket of monkey feathers. Apologize."

I glared at her. How could she just stand there, demanding I apologize to people asking me to kill myself? Asking me to kill them? Asking me to kill her?

"I don't need an apology," AEGIS muttered. "I just want what's best for him."

"Well I need one for you," Lia spat. "And I'm not budging until you get one."

"It isn't that big a deal. He's just lashing out. He's scared, and you were hurt."

Karu clacked forward. "Indeed. He is of unsound mind. I would not push him."

The three of them looked at Saga, who just turned slowly to face me, and then with even more deliberate slowness, raised a single finger in my direction.

"Pretty sure she's beyond an apology," AEGIS commented. "So...c'mon, let's just go. If that's what you want, Athan."

"No," Lia said, sitting down now.

"Lia, stop, you're being as stubborn as he is."

"Maybe so. But AEGIS, you wanted to make sure he thought about his decision, and he's gonna do that. Karu, you thought he's acting out of character, and we're looking at that too. And Saga...you uh…" She scratched her head. "You wanted him to be less insufferable, I guess."

"Yeah fuckin' good luck with that one," she sneered.

"The point is," Lia said, turning her eyes onto me, her big beautiful hazel eyes, brown in the middle and green around them. "That I know why you're being such a massive tool right now, and it's important that you not be."

"I'm being a tool--"

"Because you are, for like, the first time ever here, not confident in your decision. You feel like you're taking a leap, and everyone's second-guessing you, and it's making you defensive as hell."

"Well, yeah. That's what I've been saying."

She rolled her eyes. "No it's not, dummy. It's what you meant to say, but instead you said 'hey, here's a personal attack, and I hate you.' You see how that comes out a little different?"

"Fine. What's the difference, then?"

"The difference is that one is coming from a place of love and one from a place of fear, you goober. Loving your friends and wanting to protect them is noble. That's the Athan we all know and love. But controlling them? Being jealous? Refusing to hear them out, and yelling them down when they express themselves?" She shook her head. "That's not coming from a good place. And I think you can see that, reflected in your behavior to those around you right now."

There was a distant explosion, louder than the others that made us all turn. AEGIS frowned as her eyes wavered.

"The XPCA is attacking in force," she commented. "We need to get out of here, it's about to become a warzone."

Lia didn't stir. "I said I'm not moving until Athan apologizes."

"Lia, what the fuck? You're going to die if--"

"If you don't apologize," she said coldly.

"This is stupid. Lives are on the line."

"If it's so stupid, then just say it."

"Rito, take us to--"

"Take them. Leave me," she crossed her arms, and this time didn't flinch at the pain.

"Fine!" I shouted at her. "Fine! You want to hear what a big dumb idiot your brother is? Well I am. I'm the biggest, stupidest, most hypocritical, most selfish, worst Exhuman out there. I yell at my friends instead of letting them get hurt. I'm sorry, okay?"

She looked up as fire began to light up the sky.

"No, not really, but it'll have to do. Rito, let's go," she said.

I watched the fire get closer and closer to us, wondering just how long Rito was going to take to get us out of there. Or...was someone watching her? One of the camps, keeping an eye on us, making sure we weren't a threat until the fire hit us and wiped us out.

We'd die here, burned alive by a blanket of fire, I thought. Some hellfire concoction like Karu used, maybe; flames that clung to you, burned hotter than normal flame, couldn't be smothered or drowned. I tried not to imagine Lia, already burned, now with it covering her body head to toe, writhing and screaming until she moved no more.

All of us like that. And the last thing I'd have said to them was to tell them how stupid I thought they were. Stupid and manipulative and controlling...when it was me who was the one being stupid and controlling. She was right. I'd just...never made a selfish decision like choosing to run before, and I didn't know how to cope with it. I was lashing out, when it was me I was angry with.

I was so stupid. I should have apologized better. I turned to look at the others, hoping to catch their eyes, to tell them with words I didn't have time for that I loved them, and that I really, really, was sorry.

And as I looked at them, and past them, I noticed, we, uh, weren't on a battlefield anymore. There was tile under my feet, and a roof overhead. The starlight, once so bright in the darkness was now muted by city lights.

Shit. I'd forgotten how sneaky Rito's powers were in moving you around. I watched with relieved bemusement as realization crept up on the others.

And then, somehow, we were all laughing. The situation had broken us, and laughing was all we could do at it. One by one, I went to each of them and apologized, sincerely. Hugs and all.

"I'll only accept it if you let me kick you in the nuts," Saga commented. "You were a real jerk."

I stood with my legs spread wide. "You do know that you're going to feel this through me, don't you?" I asked.

She paused. "Well. Yeah. But that's okay, I was just...testing...that you were...serious about it anyway. You passed so...I accept your apology, I guess."

"Though we have escaped narrow death, let us not forget that there are thousands who yet remain," Karu said. "Any celebration is premature. And it is with regret that I must conclude the likelihood that, embroiled as they are, Justice stands a decent chance of defeating the XPCA, the New Edeners, and Vegas, all at once."

"Maybe we should go back," I said.

Lia glared at me. "After all that? After that huge penis you've been gargling in your throat the last twenty minutes, now you finally come to?"

"Well." I blinked at her. "I didn't think I had a huge gargley penis, but...yeah. I don't...exactly feel like they deserve rescuing. But...even if they don't...I should try, shouldn't I?"

"Or," AEGIS said, cracking her knuckles. "There's a plan B. I didn't tell you before because...you kinda...leapt down my throat. But since you landed right where you are, on the crossroads of 'want to help' but 'think they should all die', I might have just the road forward for you to pursue."

"And...what's that?"

"Oasis. Soran. Mage. Karu overheard something very interesting while working with Tobias during our last visit to the glasslands. And now that we have Rito, I think we can start working on a plan."

"Right. Except Rito's never been to the glasslands. And we don't have a VTOL."

"Uh, guys?" Lia said, her face lit up with the glow of her holo. "I don't think we need to go to the glasslands. I think...we might need to go back to Vegas after all."

"What? Why?" AEGIS leaned in to look over her shoulder, and then, swearing, pulled out her own mobile and frantically began tapping away, edging next to me as she worked.

I watched as the window on her device popped up, showing a feed of the unfolding situation. An overhead view of the place I recognized as where we'd just been. Except, instead of two forces present, there were now three. The fire which had just been shot at us, it had come from an entire extra army, from somewhere.

AEGIS worked the digital zoom until we got a close-enough look at some of the soldiers in the third army, and I felt my jaw fall open.

Flowing silks in vivid colors, visible even by the dim glow of the weapons pulsing in their hands. A rigidity of posture and formation which belied how little humanity was left in those ranks. Absolute order, and more exotics than the rest of the world combined could field.

Dragon had come through. And from the looks of it, Rio had come with him.