We arrived at the safe house again. Ancestry left his car just about the same distance he had left it before.

“This is it then, until another time, Spotlight, Matrix.” Ancestry said, nodding to the both of us.

“Thank you for the car ride, Ancestry.” Spotlight thanked him, tapping his shoulder.

“It’s all right, don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep today though, after all that.”

Me and spotlight both nodded along to that. “Tell you what spotlight said, we still got plenty of beer in the house, want to spend some of that with us, until the alcohol does the job of sleepiness for us.” Spotlight offered.

Ancestry shrugged, “sounds good to me.”

I waited propped against the car with Ancestry as Spotlight went and got some beer for all of us. He brought three whole packs with him and the hours went away as we all drank and bonded in our hatred to the government but also just joked around drunk.

We kept drinking, but as the two got only drunker, the problem with me was another one entirely, as when I was getting fully drunk, my matrix activated and it was all gone. As somber as they come. It ruined the fun for me a bit, and after a while Ancestry fell asleep inside his car.

Spotlight had strained to me that he wanted everything a secret, and as much as the drunkenness went away my memory was still fuzzy from when I was drunk but I remembered agreeing to it, so I drove the car a good distance away made ancestry wake long enough to drink some water, left him a note and went back walking, looking at the stars and thinking about my life now, and the mission I had taken to myself.

It was quite daunting but all my life I wanted something like that. Maybe it was just a hero complex, but I had the potential to make it happen, and so I’d give it my best. It also helped me not think about all the people that were dying or the mistakes I had done in the past. For now, my goal was simple enough. To get stronger and master my powers.

I arrived at where I had left Spotlight when I went out. He was awake then, but now he was completely passed out there on the ground; I took the dumbass on my shoulders and brought him to the house, everyone had drunk quite a bit and it was the dead of the night so no one woke up at me entering, I left Spotlight in his bed and made for my room again.

I laid there in my bed, thinking about everything I needed to do, eventually falling asleep.

I woke up hearing noise around the house. It was already really bright, so it really didn’t seem to be that early. I got up and stretched, popping my back. And exited my room to see what was going on.

Spyglass and Spotlight were already in the kitchen, sharing some coffee. I approached them, hearing LED’s voice from Spotlight’s room.

“Good morning,” I greeted the two.

They greeted me back, and we smiled at each other at LEDs voice trying futilely to wake up spotlight.

“That’s going to be a challenge,” I said, amused, as I filled a cup of coffee for myself.

“Why so? Know of something?” payback asked me.

I took a sit as well and chuckled, “yeah actually.” I couldn’t tell them everything, our midnight escapade and all, but some parts of it were not just silly to keep hidden, undeniable. “We had a good few more beers than we should. I had to carry him to his bed, completely passed out.”

“How come you’re perfectly okay, then?” Spyglass asked, tilting her head.

“Turns out my power doesn’t like alcohol too much,” I said simply, shrugging.

“You fucking cheat,” Payback said jokingly, taking a jab at my arm.

“Hey, I don’t get the hangover but I’m also can only get tipsy at most. My body won’t let me get too drunk.”

“Well, it is poison,” Spyglass chuckled.

At this point LED came out of Spotlight’s room with him stumbling along with LEDs help, groaning all the walks to the table.

“Please, I need a healer.”

“You’re out of luck, pal,” Payback laughed boisterously at Spotlight’s misery

“Please, tone it down,” Spotlight said as he curled up, protecting his ears.

“You own choices spotlight,” led said, chuckling as well. “You can sleep in the car but well be going. The sooner we get there, the better.”

Everyone but spotlight nodded, he letting out only another groan, and we all had breakfast for lunch with plenty of coffee before packing whatever we hadn’t eaten the day before and filling in the car, everyone much lighter without the burden of constantly escaping. Going for our line of work, though, we might become fugitives again sooner or later.

We had mostly been wandering around in the opposite direction from the base, getting farther and farther away as the days passed, so now to come back we had to stay a night on the road. Only making stops as necessary.

Then finally I started seeing very familiar trees and pastures, which didn’t say much as it seemed that the whole estate was only that. But in the afternoon, I saw the arch that I haven’t seen in God, only a week or so. It seemed like months.

This whole thing, that seemed like a lifetime, is just a very recent addition in my life, I stayed around a week in the base before the mission as well so it can’t even be a whole month since I got my powers, and yet it really does feel like years separate me from the depressed professor that I was just such a short while back.

But it is as they say, what makes memories and fills a life are experiences, and those are something I am certainly not lacking in nowadays.

We passed by the little sign almost buried in vegetation reading the almost nostalgic Green Water Barn; it was very different seeing the farm in the light of day, and I could feel the stress I had left fading away, somehow this place really feeling like a safe base already

I saw Old Man Dan’s house approaching after a while of being bumped up and down the snaking dirt road, and soon we were passing through the gates, once again, just left open. I sighed happily as LED parked in front of Dan’s house.

I was once again in the middle sit so I turned and shook payback awake, while spyglass gave me a little smile opening her door. I marveled for a moment at how now we really felt much more like companions. As before, I wouldn’t ever have felt comfortable shaking any of them awake.

We all got out of the car, payback and spotlight groggily yawning as they stretched their arms and legs. I saw Old Dan getting old of the house, looking exactly the same, small and old. I waved his way.

He got down the staring to greet all of us, but he had a heavy frown on his face

“What is it Dan? Did something happen?” LED asked, alarmed, the tension rising

“Of course, something happened,” he said, his voice a mixture of anger and incredulity. “Where is my fucking car” he yelled out finally.

Everyone was stunned confused for a second, then everyone got it. The car we left exploded in the confrontation. Everyone looked at each other, seeing who would explain it.

Spotlight came forward, gesturing the car we arrived with. “Well, we bought you a new one.”

“I’ve had that car for more than 20 years, your dimwit” the little old man shook with rage. I was afraid he might die from the tension.

“It was a real tragedy, the families attacked it,” Spotlight said theatrically faking sadness, “We- we couldn’t do anything.”

We all laughed and Old Dan had to let it go, huffing the anger away. “You’re paying for it yourself then Spotlight.”

The blonde froze in shock. “No, but it was a mission casualty.”

More laugher echoed then. It felt good relaxing like this. I looked at the dismayed Spotlight pleading his case while dan only shook his head with his arms crossed. He glanced in my direction, then seeing me smiling at the situation.

“What are you happy for, baldie? found gold in the mission?”

“The opposite actually,” I sighed, looking at the clear blue sky above the farm. “I’m happy to be back.”

“It was quite bad Dan.”

“Bah, it shouldn’t be that bad, but do tell me on the way there, I’m sure ya’ll want to be in your hide hole as soon as possible.”

“That is true, old man,” Spotlight agreed and everyone started walking to the barn, “So how you’ve been doing”

“I’ve got nothing much to do, so I’m doing the same. What about you, you buffoon?” Dan responded in his crude way.

“Ah, you know, tired of working so much”

“Ah shut up Spotlight. I just woke up and have to listen to this kind of shit. All you do is faint like a princess”

That one got a laugh out of everyone. “He got a point, Spotlight,” I said

“What is this? Now you all teaming up against me, huh?”

“Hey shush you all, we need to focus.” LED said from the front

Everyone got their last chuckles out before focusing on led, Dan added, right behind him: “He got a point though, Araphel is here already, told me you all should have been here days ago.”

The mood got more serious in an instant; Old man Dan barked a laugh, “so the pups are into trouble.”

“The truth is that I messed up Dan, I’ll talk to him,” LED said, still holding himself straight.

“The one who has to talk to him is me LED, you know that.” I intervened, stepping up to touch his shoulder.

“You know it’s not; we’ve talked about this.” he said, taking my hand off. “I’m the leader, the one responsive for the team.”

“Why don’t you two just talk to him together? I got to talk to him too,” Spyglass added somberly.

“Well, whatever the case here we are, good luck to you all,” Dan said as everyone stopped walking.

We stood in front of the Barn, which was faintly green, something I hadn’t realized the other times, anyway we took the wooden pole out of the door and entered the place, it was still shadowed but much clearer now than the other times I passed by here; it was just some storage space, there was a truck in a corner and some seed storage units as well.

We approached the elevator and then waited. The metal doors standing out on the bare concrete cabin it was in.

A whole minute passed by as we waited, our tension evaporating as we had brief moments of small talk. This was taking very long.

“Huh, does he know we’re here?” I looked around and noticed there were no buttons or anything around, so it only opened from inside as far as I knew.

“Yeah of course he knows” LED said matter of factly

“Okay then,” we waited for another entire minute then, before my doubt crept up again, “You all sure? Maybe we had to call or give some kind of sig-”

“There’s no signal, okay” LED said snappy, but then took a breath and continued more calmly. “Sometimes he takes a little while, okay.”

“Okay.” I nodded, looking at the other who seemed used to this kind of thing. Spotlight just shrugged.

The door finally started opening slowly, revealing inside an apologetic Victor standing alone. “Oh hey, you’re all alive then. That’s a relief. Come on, the others are all waiting.”

The elevator pinged, its doors opening up to the room I had become used to seeing in the week I spent here. The eating place with the long tables, the plain concrete walls, everything had just such a safe and nostalgic feel, probably just me internalizing the first safe place I stayed after gaining my powers but it was great, and I was excited to test my powers here again.

We all got out and I could see a barely contained Swordjuice jumping up and down at the sight of us all. Glassmetal smiled wryly at the scene waving at us.

“Where were all of you? Oh my god, are you all okay? I missed you all so much! I told you all that you should’ve left me go, then I wouldn’t have to wait around so long without doing anything but-”

“Hey now, calm down, Swordjuice. We’ll explain everything slowly,” LED reassured the girl, stopping her deluge of questions.

“Yeah, it was a tiring journey here.” Payback said sighing

“It probably was. I don’t see the one who you all were supposed to bring with you anywhere.” Victor pointed out, making the entire team deflate.

“Yeah, we lost him, the Sulphals appeared and tracked us.” LED explained, “We had to fight, and he didn’t make it out.”

“It’s okay LED,” I said, stepping forward and taking his place in the middle of the two groups. “It was because of me that it happened.”

“Hey come on man, it isn’t like that,” Spotlight said, putting a hand on my shoulder

“Yeah.” Payback said too, “they would get a track on us either way Matrix”

“Okay, I think I get it, but let’s not just discuss everything here and now, okay.” Victor said, gesturing for us all to calm down.

“Yeah, I don’t get it,” Swordjuice said, but without all the energy, catching on the mood of the newly arrivers.

“Let’s wait for Araphel.” Victor said sighing, “no need to repeat yourselves twice.”

“That won’t be needed,” Araphel's voice sounded from somewhere, echoey. “I’m here already.”

Araphel formed from the shadows and I couldn’t suppress a pang of greed to have his power to me, but those things could wait. I was in control. It is patience together with consistency that will lead to the most results.

“So, let’s start the briefing,” Araphel said fully formed and facing our entire group, his hands behind his back.”

“Maybe let’s all sit down first though?” Spotlight said carelessly. Everyone looked at him, and he slowly shrugged, showing the palms of his hands.