I'd had moments in the past where I nearly died. And I'd learned, what they said was true, you really did see your life flash before your eyes.

Some cocktail of adrenaline and other panic-drugs in your bloodstream just hit you, time seemed to slow down, and your thoughts went back over what had been, what was most important to you, what led you to this point where everything was about to end.

I had no idea what purpose such a biological mechanism might be for. Maybe for those who didn't quite die, it gave them a touch of divinity, the clear-sightedness of reviewing their lives in a penultimate moment, to reflect and change...and biologically-speaking, to avoid that kind of situation in the future. But also, cognitively, to have an opportunity to become a better person, to cast off all the lies of a lifetime, and see the world objectively. Or at least, more objectively.

I'd had those moments, and they'd changed me. Not for the better, I thought. Always, I was trying to do 'right', and those moments showed me how naive or hypocritical my stance was. I'd been blunted towards pragmatism and selfishness, the paths that I'd corrected towards were indeed away from the roads that led towards repeated brushes with death...by pushing that death onto others.

And I'd accepted that. I was an objectively awful person. But even an awful person could change things for the better. And no matter how badly I'd steered my own life, the fact that I had a close group of friends, each of whom was many times smarter than me, each of whom held their own opinions and outlook on the world, who watched my moves and stood by me, that was a vote of confidence that I was never steering life life too far astray.

My friends: Lia, AEGIS, Karu, Saga; Cosette, Whitney, Tem, Moon; Steffie, Rio, Alyssa, Trish. They'd always watched over me and stood beside me, and I realized that I was leaning on them to help guide me, even though I was the leader somehow, the one picking the direction, I knew they'd speak up if I went astray.

And then to learn this.

To learn that no, they weren't here by choice. They weren't friends who would hear me out and think critically about my words. They were hostages, strapped in and tied down by code-X powers I didn't even know I had.

The words were written right there on the screen. Aphrodite. SEDUCTION.

So many words and notes and so much speculation followed, but I hardly took it in as my eyes struggled across the letters.

I knew enough by now to know how powers worked. I'd put it together, from the Exhuman I'd been, from the ones I'd fought, from my experience swapping powers with Whitney, from what we'd read in these labs.

Exhuman powers were driven by concept, manifesting the host's idea of a muse's favorite concept, however that host interpreted it. Exhumans never had problems controlling their powers because their powers functioned exactly as they expected them to. When I thought of controlling lightning, my brain put it in football terms, a team that I was the center of, that I could control. Someone else might have lightning speed, or call down bolts of lightning, but not me, and I didn't question it because of how natural it was to my mind.

Which meant that Aphrodite worked the same way. The way that I knew it did, as soon as I'd read that brief descriptive line.

I was an awful, toxic person, and I knew that. And how many times had the girls tried to pull away from me, only to be drawn back in, like gravity they couldn't escape?

When we first knew each other, AEGIS became increasingly worried and paranoid about her growing obsession with me. She'd tried to kill me because of how afraid she was of her irrational attachment, and as a fully-rational AI, she'd been right. When I became too much, when her confidence broke, she'd had to utterly remake herself in my image, worshipping me and serving me for a lifetime, to give rationality to her attraction.

Karu had dumped me, because our relationship was unprofessional and unhealthy, and doing so had destroyed her. She turned to cutting her own wrists, beating herself, just to try to drive the thought of me from her mind, and eventually, rewriting her entire outlook on morality, just to justify my being with her. Even when she broke it off, shaved her head, got a job as a waitress, and fled...she only moved a mile away, too enslaved by my powers to even leave properly.

Saga had left to hunt down Mage's power and calm her visions of the end of the world, and she'd even made a decent go of it. But the second we bumped into each other again, that quest evaporated, even something as grim as the looming apocalypse, Justice's arrival, lost and unimportant compared to staying with me from then on. To say nothing of how she, an immortal, timeless being, could find me so captivating.

And a thousand other moments. All the times Cosette looked the other way as I fucked up or made trouble for her. Tem's obsessive attachment, even when the others were showing her the same humanity and kindness that I did, if not more. Moon, who found a friendship, who crushed on me, felt my leaving as painful, personal betrayal, despite her philosophy on avoiding personal contact. Whitney, who hated Exhumans completely, but somehow found me okay. Lia, abandoning home and friends, her life and everything else, to be with me over any of them.

It all came back to that muse. Aphrodite. The reason for everything good in my life was not me, it was her. Without her, I was nothing. I was just a vessel for hauling around a mind-fucking code-X power, and I didn't even know it.

I threw up before I knew it was coming. It was telling that AEGIS took a reflexive step towards me and then paused, unsure of how to proceed. A minute ago, she'd have rubbed my back and whispered soothing words without hesitation, but now...she knew as well as I did. What we had was faked, forced.

She was enslaved to me. Despite her hesitation, she did it all the same, her words patronizing. I pushed her away and she didn't complain.

"How do I get it out?" I asked Cer.

"Pardon?"

"How do I get the muse out of me?"

"Athan, no--" AEGIS pleaded.

"You care about me?" I snapped at her. "You really think you do? Let's fucking take the thing out and see how you feel. Let's find out how much you really think I'm worth wasting your life on, once I'm no longer mind-fucking you every single minute of every single day."

"I don't care," she said, cracking the floor with her heel, her eyes puffy. "I don't care!"

"You don't care, what?"

"I don't care if it's a power, or code-X, or any of that! It's part of you, just as much as your eyes or your heart or your bravery. It's who you are, and I love who you are, Athan. You don't cut yourself open and take yourself apart just because you find out there's parts of you--"

"That are mind-fucking people?"

"--that you don't like."

"Erm. Regardless!" Cer interjected. "Muses, unremovable, only move on in host's death."

"Then we'll just kill me," I growled at him, and AEGIS gasped. I rolled my eyes at her. "Stop my heart and then restart it. Or...put me under a sedative so strong, they think I'm dead. Or hell, cryogenically freeze me." I shook my head, bitterly imagining the suffering of my suggestions, envisioning all of that misery crammed into the fucking muses which drank my thoughts. "Or just fucking kill me, I don't care."

"I do, moron," AEGIS shouted. "And your stupid idea wouldn't work anyway, muses see through time, remember? You can't just fake-die to get away from them if they know you aren't staying dead. And also: what the fuck, Athan? You can't just fucking give up like this."

"I can, because of how you're looking at me. Every single thing you're thinking about me, you're not running through a microscope, wondering if that's really what you think or if you're just being forced to, because of some Exhuman power."

"That's me, everyday, anyway!" she shouted, thrusting her chin forward. "I'm a paranoid Exhuman-hating AI, remember? Having my thoughts tampered with is my fucking breakfast, Athan. You're gonna hang yourself over that?"

"If it was just you, maybe not. But the others? Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life looking at Lia, wondering if she'd be a happy, normal girl if only I wasn't there?"

"Do you think she'd be happy if you were gone?"

"I know she's miserable because I exist! I know she's here on some other fucking world, covered in burns that might kill her, with toxins in her body and a great fucking chance at whole-body cancer, because she's a little too obsessed with me, and now I fucking know why!"

AEGIS' voice went cold. "Athan. She's depressed, and whatever the reason, she is a little obsessed with you. If you die, she's going to kill herself too. And if you're taking the fucking coward's way out, I promise, I won't stop her."

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I felt my face twitch. "You bitch."

"It's your fucking bed you're making. Now stop hanging yourself from it and pull your head out of your ass."

"You wouldn't be blackmailing me if it weren't for my powers. You love Lia, legitimately. You'd save her. You're just choosing me because you have to."

"I don't fucking care. If this is what it takes to talk you off the ledge, so be it."

It said a lot that I was angrier at her than myself right then. And the fact that she was defying me, it should have felt good, should have indicated that she wasn't just wrapped around my finger by my powers. But instead, AEGIS was so infuriatingly backwards, as she always had been, doing the opposite of whatever I'd wanted for my own good; taking care of me when I wished she wouldn't, sacrificing for me when I thought I was worthless.

The thought of it before made me feel uneasy, unworthy. Not it just made me sick.

"Well. Urm. The tour, concluding," Cer sang unceremoniously. "Cer, did not expect...such arguments to erupt. Apologies."

"Cer, turn the whole fucking thing off. Kill the beacon. It's done enough."

"Cer...as you say," he quibbled, wavering in the air. "Cer...can certainly...do that, no gratitude needed, of course."

He sounded confused and even frustrated as he went to the machine, the screen lighting up as he warbled sing-song at it in machine-speak. Bit-by-bit, I felt the power dipping around us, the thrumming dropping in amplitude, my senses less whited-out by the machine at work.

He hummed a sad song while he worked, loyal, lonesome. So, so stupid.

"Erm, perhaps, honored guest...might have...a new purpose for Cer, following the deactivation of the beacon? The beacon, operation and care, it has been Cer's pursuit for...the last three-hundred years, Cer would not...know what to do with himself...after this."

"I don't know," I sighed at him. The problems of some stupid Exhuman-making defect were so far from my mind right now.

"Maybe you could hang out with me, Cer," AEGIS said with a small smile. "Maybe we could find you a new purpose, together."

"Cer, would like that. Oh! And, honored guests, may like this. Update from medical wing, receiving. Exciting!"

He paused shutting down the beacon to warble excitedly in place.

"Update, reads: Sister's life…" he paused suddenly, and it was strange to see him floating so still. "...um...forfeit."

"FORFEIT?" I screamed.

"Treatment, not successful. Vital signs, crashing...emergency procedures being undertaken...projected lifespan...thirty minutes, with life support. Honored guest, advised...return...if wish to...observe final moments."

"FINAL…"

I was on the ground, blinking at a ceiling spinning above me. "Final...final...final…" the words kept repeating themselves on my lips.

Final, what? That word had been so devastating just a moment ago. Now my mind was just a white haze, and I couldn't force myself to think.

I felt like I was AEGIS, just crashed from some overstimulation. I wanted to think, but my brain was shut down, as though by turning itself on, I'd just black out again.

My breathing was painfully hard, my chest was pounding. The words that AEGIS and Cer were saying echoed without sinking in, just indecipherable noise beneath the ringing.

Final. Final. Final.

For some reason my thoughts drifted to Lia. When nothing else in my mind seemed to work, she was always there. I'd known her for so long...what a stupid thing to think, she was my sister, I'd known her my whole life. If I were a better artist, I could probably draw her with my eyes closed. The way her hair blew out the bottom of a hood, the little half-cocked smile she liked to hit me with when she was stirring up trouble, the gleam in her eyes when she was thinking.

She'd never not been there for me. Not just in the big stuff, not in pulling the trigger on her rifle or coming up with a plan or standing by her Exhuman brother...but all the little things, too. She made waffles every weekend so we'd have to sit down and eat a meal together as a family. She'd come to every one of my games, and more of my practices than she really had time for. Last year, we walked home together once with our arms full of books, when my backpack had split, and we'd laughed the whole way back.

Why was I crying, I wondered? These were such happy memories. These were genuine, before I was an Exhuman, before I had a muse in me that would make her mentally enslaved. Even if I couldn't be sure now, in these memories, that smile, that laugh, it was genuine. She loved me, and I loved her.

There was a race one year, some stupid school event, back before she was in high school with me. I remembered her there, all grinning and beaming and bouncing, standing with Mom and Dad at the starting line as I leaned down, mimicking those professional sprinters, waiting for the starter pistol which was just some gym teacher shouting 'Go!'

We joked afterwards that she was the one who'd won the race. The distance she'd travelled in weaving through the crowds and bouncing and cheering like a maniac was further than any of the runners. I only got third, but the way she was screaming as I crossed the line, you'd think I'd gotten gold at the olympics. She was on the track hugging me before everyone else even finished the race, something we'd gotten chewed out for after the fact.

And it was strange, thinking back on it now, that nobody ever gave me shit for that. I was never the guy in high school who had the screaming clown of a sister. Everyone loved Lia, her passion was just so genuine, it was beyond reproach.

So why did it hurt so badly to think of now? Why was my heart going cold in my chest? Why were my lungs crushed, and my stomach knotted? I loved Lia, I loved her so much, why would thinking of her cause me so much pain?

It had to be that word. Final. Final. Final.

Final what? I remembered her studying on the couch, both her and the book, upside-down, in preparation for her final exams, her hair defiant of gravity, no matter the direction. I remembered her final day in middle school, the teary goodbyes she and all her friends said to each other during their graduation, as they hugged each other and cried again and again, even though they'd spend all summer together...and then all be in the same high school next year. The final time I'd been in the house with her, rushing out the front door into the arms of the XPCA, seeing the confusion and worry on her face as she cooked silent waffles before the family was awake.

I tried to remember the final time I'd seen her. I remembered a burned body, a slipskin being cut away, shaved head, bleeding, cracked lips.

That wasn't Lia. That was closer to a corpse than my sister. I didn't want that thought. I didn't want these thoughts rushing in, didn't want to remember.

AEGIS dragging her out of a glassy crater, to lay her down beside Tobias and Soran, two visions of what was to come. Her pitifully weak breathing, labored, ragged. How her skin seemed to fall off of her in horrifying, disturbing chunks, like she was rotting away while still alive.

Final...message. Final...minutes. Final...moments.

I sat up, and my head spun, black spots popping in my eyes from getting up too fast. I felt like I broke the surface of water, and suddenly AEGIS and Cer were yelling at me, words battering my ears. My head screamed with aching.

I turned to AEGIS, asking her without words, with just the pleading on my face, to tell me I was wrong, that I'd fallen over and bumped my head and imagined it all.

There were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks, and her lip trembled to look at me.

"They're doing all they can," she whispered. "Do you...do you want to see her?"

No. No, no, no. There can't be a 'her'. We're not talking about anyone. Lia is fine.

I thought of all the times I'd heard Lia gasp in pain. All the times she'd been hurt, stabbed, burned, or shot, all the times I'd failed to protect her.

Everybody loved Lia. Nobody would choose to hurt her if they knew what she was. She was beautiful, a dancing light, a spark of joy. The only reason she ever got hurt was because she stood by me, and now...she'd...she'd done it again, hadn't she? She'd come with me, when she really shouldn't have, and it would be the last time.

I'd failed her again. And I'd never get the chance to do so again.

"Athan, stop!" AEGIS pleaded. "You're hurting me!"

I looked up and found her gritting her teeth, her face strangely lit by the arcs of electricity jumping across her body. Everything around me was dancing in sparks and lightning, the metal floor crackling. Cer was backpedalling the hell away, staying out of the growing field.

I tried to stop it, but my mind was just full of Lia. She was so much of me, and I was going to lose her? I didn't know what it was like to live without her. Was I supposed to just...care about things in her absence? To just...go on, pretending like she wasn't going to be absent, forever? Like there wasn't going to be a whole in the world where she'd once been?

"It's okay," AEGIS said, her voice distorting with the strain. "It'll be okay."

"How will it be okay?" I shouted, my voice breaking. "How is it ever going to be okay?"

"We'll get through it. One day at a time. Like she did. Every step is just a step. I must always keep trying."

Her words hit me right in the heart, words I'd hear Lia whisper to herself almost every day. Words she pretended the world couldn't hear, as she struggled with her own problems.

Lia never gave up. How could I?

I did as she did. I closed my eyes, blocked out the world. I took a deep, deep breath, filling my lungs up all the way to bursting, and then let it out as slowly as I could.

As the air left me, so did my panic, so did my lightning. I could see, feel, the currents in the air around me stilling, calming. Could feel myself doing the same.

I thought of how hard this must have been for her, to not go to pieces every single day. To not just pull the covers over her head and sleep, or cry, or pretend not to exist. She had days like that, but she always came out after, with more vigor than ever, grinning and energetic, as though to spite the red in her puffy eyes.

I can never give up. I can't cry if I'm too busy smiling.

I opened my eyes and saw again. AEGIS, tear-streaked. Cer, bobbing his concern in the air as his blue optics focused on me.

And the beacon, behind them both. Still halfway on, halfway-off, where we'd left it when I'd heard the news.

I'd done bad things in my life. Selfish, stupid things. And I was fine with that, this world had given me no reason to think otherwise. If it would take from me until I had nothing left, there was nothing for me to do but to take back. I owed the world nothing, but still it kept at me, and now I could return the favor.

I just hoped Lia could forgive me.

"Cer," I said, my voice stronger and clearer than I thought possible. "Turn the beacon back on. It's got one final job left to do."

"Ecstatic! Cer, pleased to help however he can! Wants to know, what is honored guest thinking, for important, final task?"

I turned to him and stared into his mechanical, blue eyes. They widened slightly, as though taken aback by our contrast, how he could be so happy and I could be so fucking somber.

"The medical ward. My sister. Make her an Exhuman."