Sitting in the living room's couch with LED on my right side was incredibly awkward by account of all that had happened today,

I let the silence Stretch, unsure of what to say and noting the mulling expression on his face. he minutes ticked by as the silence stretched in the mood Spyglass leaving for her room left.

Led exhaled sharply “You know, this situation isn't easy for any of us. Half of our team isn't even awake. But I'd like to reassure you a little.” he looked at me and I nodded showing for him to continue.

“Something similar actually happened to me when I had just started” he said, reclining in the sofa his expression taking on a distant look.

“What, like someone died because of you?” I asked, unbelieving

He sighed "Pretty much, yeah. There's no reason for me to lie in this situation. But it was before I joined the Dawnbreakers,"

I was curious but didn't press, if he wanted to tell me he simply would. LED seemed to get my thought process because he continued his story unprompted.

“Before joining the Dawnbreakers I was a professional player, and I had an apprentice of sorts, the boy really looked up to me. He was a dreamer and loved the game, so I always buffed him up and helped him train. He only wanted to waken so he could join the team.”

“He ended up getting powers because of me,” LED sighed again the hurt clear on his face. “At that point this was an unknown part of my power and the government immediately took notice. Coming with me with offers for employment and high-ranking positions on the military.”

“I of course refused all of it, I was much more interested in continue playing. I had been with that team since I started playing in the powered leagues. We were all like brothers.”

“And then One day after I refused another of the government incessant ‘offers’ to join their ranks they ambushed my entire team. The boy died that night, together with three others of my brothers. We managed to run, although with heavy injuries and I decided after that to just run way. I realized the regime wouldn’t let me stay out of their grasp living my life as my own and I couldn’t risk the rest of my friends that were still alive”

“So, I went out on my own, and started raiding government shipments as a form of petty revenge. That was barely five years ago. This is the first mission I was assigned, and clearly my training isn't really shining.”

I ignored the mention about his fault in the mission and focused in the bit on his story. “His death was hardly your fault.”

“Whose fault it would be, if I had accepted it then that wouldn't have happened,”

“No, that’s wrong. It’s the government's fault.” I rebuked, baffled that he wouldn't see it that way

“That’s what I'm trying to show to you” he said, a small smile adorning his face.

“My situation was different; I had the tools and the knowledge” I shook my head

“Mabe, but the underlying cause of all of this is the regime. They're the ones at fault as you’ve said.”

Made more or less gesture “that might be true, But-”

“No buts, it is. If we want to make a world where this doesn't happen or that people can live in peace, we have to work together to overthrow the govern.” he said with the conviction he always shows clear in his eyes.

“I know. I believe that as well.” I said, my own conviction a newborn yet.

“You can't just believe it. We need to make it happen. Because otherwise stuff like this will just keep happening, I see a future where powers just keeping getting more common and what will the government do in a bid to stay in power”

“That wouldn’t be pretty.” I said imagining the carnage or possible genocide and the even heavier regulations and abductions.

“Yeah, the skirmishes and the slips are already increasing. The gangues are increasingly more powerful with the trickle of powered that go their way. In a couple years the situation will just be bleaker”

“It doesn't seem like there's much we can do, what’s the Dawnbreakers plan.”

“I don’t know.”

I must've have seemed clearly surprised cause he barked a laugh.

“Thought I was a big shot didn’t you,”

“Yeah, I did actually.”

“Nah, I'm practically a recruit myself. Were basically in the boonies out here. I'm just training as an official. That’s why I was saying it was my fuck up. I didn’t explain the mission properly and put everyone in risk.”

I just had assumed because he seemed to command everyone at the base that he was a leader on the entire organization but again I didn’t ask, and it seemed the organization was bigger and more properly organized than what I assumed.

“How long ago did you join?” I asked after mulling for a bit.

“Ah, that stuff I told you happened around six years ago I then spend some time just wandering and ransacking government convoys and shipments by myself but I eventually met some Dawnbreakers doing the same and ended up joining with them. That was just five years ago, I'm not really that experience in all this”

“But that’s also something to have against this shitty country that just drag us in this situation, just because I happened to awaken a power with the chance of awakening others. It's not even a sure thing.”

“Yeh that’s really fucked up...” I trialed off, not sure of what to say anymore.

My perspective changed in a bunch of ways and one of those was seeing him as a figure that was unfeeling and in control of everything. We stayed sitting; the silence stretching but it wasn’t so awkward anymore, I still felt guilty over David's death of course and I'd still carry that weight as part of my mission against the government it just seemed I really wasn’t that alone in this situation the others possible had similar weights to carry themselves.

The ultimate goal of the organization and mine was the same and LED could see that, and his vote surely wouldn’t be against me but Spyglass wouldn’t be so easily convinced and there's no way to know the other twos response for now.

-

LED had decided to rest and went to the room, I stayed thinking things over and keeping an eye out, the tracker could awake any time, if he was still alive but there must be plenty of healers in the city.

I also tried fitting parts of Spotlight's power with mine but they seemed essential to one another and separating he parts without making it all just fall apart proved to be extremely difficult, I finally decided to just try to implement the power of seeing attention as an addition to the other enhancements but instead of everything simply going by its own it seemed that an alteration like this would need me to figure out exactly how to modify the fractals on the enhancements with the ones on the ability, and they seemed to contain information on every possible attribute of the power which made the task quite difficult.

It was already dark when I heard voices from the room that the guys were sleeping in; I presumed Spyglass had slept as well as I didn’t hear from her anymore. It was a little later that led and Payback exited the room, a severe look on Payback’s face as he looked at me clued me that LED had probably already told him About the situation

"So, Matrix could you do a quick run to the city to get some food for us?" LED asked me an awkward attempt at a smile in his face, "I had some in our car, but I don’t think there's anything left of that."

"Ah, of course" I told him nodding at Payback direction that only gave me a curd nod back, very different from his normal friendly demeanor, he didn’t seem outright hostile so maybe the situation could still be salvaged.

I quickly drove to the small collection of houses in the distance, asking a person on the street for directions to a market, the guy eyed me very warily, probably because of the complete lack of hair. But thankfully still gave me the directions and soon I was in a little mixture of bar and small family market.

I didn’t actually know what everyone wanted, and the house didn’t have any gas so I took they whole supply of fried snacks various chips and some sweets as well.

When I got back LED and Payback were talking in subdued voices in the kitchen table and I approached depositing everything in the table

Payback turned to me as I arrived, “I was very disappointed in you when I hear you had kept things from us, but LED here believes your mind in the right place going forward and I can tell you're decided, so I'll believe in you again, but just tell us stuff man.”

“Thanks Payback, il do better from now on,”

“Well, we need to eat and talk about what we're going to do, so I'll go wake up Spyglass we checked on Spotlight and it seems he’s too weak, he wouldn't wake up.”

"Let me, LED" Payback said. Going himself to Spyglass's room.

We started taking the things out of the bags and setting them on the table, and not long after a still scowling Spyglass entered the with Payback.

We ate with some awkward small talk, planning to go the next day after a healer as Payback was still injured and Spotlight even more so.

I was the only one actually sitting, and the silence stretched as the planning died down, there wasn’t much to decide and everyone agreed to go quickly, the healer lived in São Pedro do Iguaçu a tiny town close to Cascavel about one hour of travel by car, so it would take while more than that as we had travelled a bit away already.

We left Spotlight in the bed back on the room, the first one on the house. The guy didn't seem good. Using the wide ranged version of his powers two times in a row really took a toll out of him. His eyes were sunken and his face pale.

I addressed the situation to Spyglass myself so I started speaking after a lull in the small talk

“David said something to me, before the fight.” I started, working my reasoning to them." He said that seeing Paul die made everything finally seem real to him. And it was the same with his death to me, even more so because his blood is in my hands.”

“I got all these powers and they are growing and my only objective is more or less to grow them even more. But there are bigger things going on, and things that I should work to fix. That I even said I had a stake on helping. It just seemed surreal and distant until now. Seeing how paranoid the revolutionaries are, seeing how much missing posters there were, seeing how they were right in being paranoid.”

“And finally, seeing how I was being such a child towards all this, just playing with my new toy. I'm determined now though. To take this seriously. To not turn you all down again.”

“We all do our mistakes at the start; you are no trained soldier neither was I. there's promise in you Matrix. and I'd want you by my side in unraveling the regime.”

“I back him in it.” Payback said nodding seriously at me. “You need to see what the regime does to want to stand against it. Don't let me down again, Matrix”

It seemed they used my codename meaningfully at this time, meaning that I was still part of the team. I was resolved to take this seriously now. The stakes weren't only a future that could be bright. It was people living and dying right now.

“You two can't be serious,”

Everyone looked at Spyglass she was still fuming. Glaring at me in disgust, her look stirred the raw guilt inside of me.

“Spyglass calm down it's not like anything we do Is going to revert time.” LED said to placate her.

“We can tell he is being sincere, berating him even more won't solve anything,” Payback added

“What guarantee we have he won't do it again, when going to be the next time he sees a new shiny power and just can't resist getting it.”

“There are no guarantees in life Spyglass, were putting our trust in him again,” Payback said

"Spyglass, I never intended to any of this to happen David didn't deserve any of it. I couldn’t bring myself to commit the same mistake. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself,” I told her trying to explain my side.

“Shut the fuck up. As if you could actually die. Isn't this just a fucking game to you?” She said slamming a hand on the table.

“Of course not, I just wasn’t as aware of the situation. It was like the horrors of the regime weren't there at all. It's not like we see people being kidnapped and killed when you're just living your day-to-day life.”

“Stop creating excuses to yourself. If you didn’t take what we do here so lightly David would still be alive right now.”

“Spyglass, I get where are you coming from but at this point this isn't entirely about him is it,”

“Stop with that shit. I just pointing out the huge time bomb you all have in your hands you don’t need to bring my past up every fucking time.”

I saw LED and Payback opening their mouths to rebuke even as I was myself forming a defense for myself, but Spyglass wasn’t done yet having worked herself into a rant in her rage.

“I know what you all think that I'm a coward for not really wanting to hep, for coming to this forsaken little place just do some small-time missions, but you all don’t really know the power they have, the real deal, the ones actually strong. It's unbelievable its futile fighting against that type of force.” She was curling her fingers in her hands, she didn't seem so angry anymore, only afraid.

“And I can't bring myself to lead you all to death on that path, I've done that once already. I can see that you're with some crazy martyr idea now, Matrix and it will not work. They will just want to crush you when they see the kind of potential you represent.” she had deflated now, her anger gone and Payback guided her to a chair.

I was left speechless my argument forgotten as I processed what she had said. The other two kept their silence as well.

“If you all try too much, the real thing is going to come for you all,” she said weakly.“I don’t want everyone I know to die again. If someone with greed, drive and potential like she had, like Joseph has, gets too involved in fighting against the government we’re done for.”

“I can't keep you all alive if we grow too fast. I accepted helping in this because we need to make a difference but we cannot raise their attention.” She was jamming her finger against the table to emphasize her point.

“Spyglass, I know how you feel,” LED said putting a hand on her shoulder, she was with her face down her hair covering her eyes. “But it's impossible to not eventually bring their attention towards us.”

“We can't keep stalling forever.” Payback said

Spyglass shook her head repeatedly “I can't do it” she said and repeated it lightly two more times running her hands through her face, covering it, LED made to talk to her again, but she shoved his hand from her shoulder and hurriedly left the room, locking herself in the room.

LED sighed again. “We'll leave tomorrow if nothing else crops up. Try to rest you two, I'll try as well.”

He left, the kitchen with a heavy mood hanging in the air now. Payback patted me on the shoulder saying that we’d talk more on the next day. And went his way as well.

I was left alone in the table the conversation echoing in my mind, the fight I had, the choices I made.Everything bouncing while I sat there in a daze. A mess of thoughts and feelings but under it all i could feel the bitter power that I now possessed; I couldn’t hate it though. It was the thing I most desired.

I would just dedicate it to end this awful regime. I'd do it whatever it took. If there was one thing that I had excelled at in my life it was at pushing against miserable odds, destroying myself over and over in order to accomplish something better. And I'd whittle myself into a sharp point to carve a new era into this country.

I fell asleep with my head on the table. That night I dreamt of almost being swallowed in seas of blood and fighting together with a giant emerging from the ground.