"So… where to start…" I say. Fetch looks bored while Alex is being his straight-faced self.

"How about how on Earth I'll be your responsibility?" Fetch says, arms crossed.

"Well, I meant that I would keep an eye on you and keep you from killing a bunch of people…"

"But you know that I won't up and quit that shit, right?" she says,

"Yeah, I was kinda talking out my ass so that he wouldn't arrest you."

"Fair enough. Can I keep doing my neon art?" She says, drawing a circle with her finger.

"Yeah, just don't revolve it around, ya know, killing people."

"Can't promise that. Old habits are hard to break, after all."

"Okay, well, how about I help you with leaving people alive when you do your laser show?"

"Only if you help me take out some drug dealers while we're at it."

"Deal. Now, Alex- "I say, turning to him. He holds up a hand, cutting me off.

"Let me guess, don't threaten you or anyone else?" He says in a flat tone.

"Yeah, and you have to apologize to him," I say. Alex groans, mumbling something under his breath.

"Well, why did he walk away then if he wanted an apology?" he asks, gesturing to the doors.

"He needed time to cool off," I say. "Since I took your guys' side rather than his, he may be feeling a little- "

"Betrayed?" Alex cuts me off.

"I was going to say salty, but that works too. So, a quick overview. No killing and I'll help you with drug dealers," I say, putting my hands together and pointing at Fetch, who gives a nod. "And no more threats along with an apology." I turn my hands to Alex, who also nods.

"Okay, can I go now? I still hungry from earlier," Fetch says, tapping her foot.

"Uh, sure. Could you come back after, though?" I say, letting some purple neon come from my hand. "I don't want Reggie to suddenly show up and you're not there."

"Sure, sure. Got any money, though?" she asks. I hand her a couple tens and some loose change before she runs out of the building and somewhere else.

Alex and I walk out of the building. The air felt heavy and even in the darkness of the night, I could see clouds rolling in. I sit under the awning, making sure that I wouldn't get wet if rain started to pour. I take out my phone and sigh. I wonder just what Reggie lecture I'll get this time.

"Alright Reg, sorry I uh…" I manage to get in before I'm cut off.

"Oh, look who it is. What, is the meeting of the Conduit Club finally over?" Reggie says.

"I just wanted to talk her, okay? To see if maybe she could help us out?" I say. I hear a light ping on the awning above. Looks like the rain is here. "And I trust Alex, alright? We had a rocky start but like I said, he wants to fight the D. just as much as I do!"

As silence persists on the other end, the rain starts to pick up in speed and intensity. Quick, heavy footsteps end up behind me and I turn to see Alex leaning his back against the door. Like he wasn't just sprinting into the safety of the awning. I sigh and get back to what I guess Reggie is doing.

"You're not doing the 'pouting Reggie' thing, are you? You know I hate that!" I say.

"Look, you know people like that shouldn't be free to roam the streets!" he yells.

"Uh, are you forgetting who else is a 'person like that'?" I remark.

"It's not the same. You're different," he says, his tone softening.

"Yes, I know, I'm your brother. And your brother is asking for your help in trying to stay alive," I say. "And if you won't do it for me, then do it for the tribe."

A moment of silence is on the other end before it is cut by a sigh. "Fine, what do you need?"

"Thank you. I need to see what else this new power can do. You're my 'go-to- guy when it comes to finding the Core Relays."

A buzz from my phone and a banner pops up for a second with directions to another core relay. Not too far, thankfully.

"There, sent it," Reg says. "For the tribe and you."

"Thank you! I'll let you know what I get," I reply.

"No. I don't want to know what you 'get'."

"Bye, pouting Reggie," I say, ending the call. I shift my focus to the guy who looks to be cool but was not-so-subtly running a minute ago.

"Alex, what was that?"

"What was what?" he asks.

"Dude, I could hear you running behind me. It's not like there are any D. around, so what gives?" I reply.

"… I don't like water," he says in a low tone. Okay, was that a threat? Probably… then again, just about everything he says is a threat.

"Okay, and? Do you need to run like your life depends on it?" Wait a second. "Are you afraid of water?!"

I couldn't help but burst out laughing. This guy who looks like he could kill you with a glance is afraid of water! My lungs hurt! I haven't laughed this hard in years!

I was suddenly yanked back by my collar, causing my laughs to be caught in my throat. I am now currently staring into the eyes of a pissed off Alex and let me say, he is fucking scary when he's like this. Like, even a fucking T-Rex would run away whimpering, tail between its legs.

I was currently thinking of doing the exact same thing.

"Listen, Delsin," he started slowly. "I am not afraid of water. I'm not afraid of anything. I just do not mix well with water. Got that?" He tugged on my collar, making me nod so quickly that I thought I got whiplash. He released his hold and my hands went to my neck. I was gasping for air. Was I choking? I have no goddamn clue.

"Okay, remind me to never piss you off again," I say, coughing.

"Don't worry. You won't need to be reminded," he says, moving back to his dry spot in the awning. We stay there, waiting for the rain to die down. I mean, I'm completely fine with going out in the rain but I'd rather have Alex as a backup. Or Fetch. She's probably still eating though, so waiting it is.

Thankfully the rain dies down not too long after. I was hoping that, or else we may have been stuck here for a few hours. It's either a quick downpour or a few days long rain shower. No in-between. So, when's Fetch coming back?

"Hey!"


Fetch sat by me as Delsin sits in front of us. She can be quiet when she wants to be. That's a good thing to have as a sniper. The smirk she had told me she was planning something, which I gave a thumbs-up to. Payback without needing to plan anything is great.

The Delsin's reaction was even better though. He triggers his powers and runs into one of the awning's poles. Fetch must have found it as funny as I did, as she was laughing quite hard. It manages to put a smirk on my face, which I find to be an achievement. Delsin's glare doesn't compare to mine, though. In fact, it just makes the situation funnier.

"Really?" he asks.

"Consider it payback," I say as Fetch starts to calm down.

"You weren't even the one - nevermind," he says, turning to Fetch. "Hey Fetch, you know those glowing boxes the D.U.P put up all over town?"

"Yeah, I saw 'em," she says, regaining her breath. "Don't trust 'em. I think they can track us with 'em."

"Well, the good thing is I figured out a way to use 'em. Like, use 'em to tap into more powers for me. I was gonna try it out on the new Neon power you gave me…"

"'Gave' you?" she cut in.

"… And I thought you'd want to tag along with us. Talk with me through the new stuff, create some stronger bonds, you know, team stuff," I say.

Fetch shrugs. "I already bagged my dealer limit for the day, so why the hell not?"

"And there's my sweet girl," he says.

"Screw you," Fetch says.

"Just a warning, he tends to give the worst nicknames," I say. Delsin crosses his arms.

"Haha. Anyways, there's supposed to be one of those things at Second and Main," he says.

"I've seen that one before. Meet you there, D," she says, leaving behind her neon trail. Oh, Delsin walked into that one.

"Not a word, Al," he says, smirking before running after her. He's a dead man now. I run after them, following the pink and purple trails. Catching up to them was easy, the hard part was trying to get Delsin. He must literally be a gas when he runs if I can't even touch him.

I hear ethereal laughing from the side, so Fetch must be enjoying my attempts. Meanwhile, there are some yelps coming from the purple trail I'm currently jumping into. I wonder if Dana would find this funny as well.

"I told you not to call me Al!" I yell as I manage to tackle Delsin to a rooftop. He must not be able to keep dashing for long periods of time. I didn't stay on the ground for long though. I feel a slight burning sensation in my side, which means… Yep, fell into a puddle.

"Really? Al? That's the nickname you gave him!" Fetch says, stopping to laugh and help Delsin up.

"Yeah. So?" Delsin replies.

"Does he look remotely like an Al to you?" she says.

"Do I look like a 'D' to you?"

"Yeah. You look like a huge D," she says. Okay, that's just too good. I let out a quiet laugh but apparently, it was loud enough to catch their attention.

"I knew you'd get my humor!" Fetch says. Delsin shook his head, sighing and hopping down to another rooftop. I peer over the edge as a machine he shoots at pops open, metal flying everywhere.

"Well, are you two gunna come down?" he says.

"Naw, I'm cool. Conduit trackers and me don't get along," Fetch says, standing over the edge like myself.

"Same," I say.

"Hah! You admit it!" Delsin says, draining the Core Relay. I might have said something if the explosion of blue light didn't stop me. I didn't expect that neither was Delsin floating as well. This has been one hell of a night.

A couple of bullets fly past us as Delsin is stuck in his trance or whatever is going on. Sure enough, a pair of D.U.P grunts are on the roof of another building. Fetch says something along the lines of "oh shit" and runs off.

Looks like it's up to me. I let my tendrils run across my arms, hands changing into sharp claws. With a simple push, I lunge at the grunts. It's over before it even began. The first grunt gets a merciful end from decapitation. The second one isn't as lucky. I slice my claws across his chest, leaving deep gashes. I can hear him choking on his blood as I run claws across his neck.

Better check on… fuck.


"Alex, what the actual fuck!" I say. Why would he just… slaughter them?! He knows that Fetch isn't allowed to do it, so why the fuck would he do it!

"They were trying to kill you," he says with a straight face, like always. How? How can he not understand what he just did?

"Okay?! You're a Conduit! You could have just restrained them!" I say. He actually fucking growls and leaps over to the rooftop I'm on. What, is he gunna kill me too?

"I. Am. Not. A. Conduit," he says, taking a step with each word. "I never was a conduit, and never will be. I'm nothing like you."

"How about you prove that claim?" I say, crossing my arms. He stands still for a moment. Well, that- FUCKING HELL. Why the fuck did he just slice his head off?!

"WHAT THE FUCK, ALEX?!" I say as his head dissolves on the ground. A flurry of tendrils shoots out of his neck stump, making a black, lumpy sphere… I think I'm gunna throw up. It's moving around like a bunch of worms.

The shape forms back into Alex's face, like it wasn't just cut off. How?! How can he survive being decapitated?! I mean, I can survive bullets, but I don't think I could survive my head being detached from my body.

"So, does that help?" he says, his voice in perfect condition.

"Alex, seriously, what the fuck?"

"You said to prove my claim. Or would you like to see something- "

"Nope! You're good! Don't fucking do that or anything like that, please!"

"Then don't police me on how to take down people."

"Alex, but you can't just kill people. Reggie would get on my ass and Fetch would call me a hypocrite or something like that and get back to killing…" I sigh. "…It would just get out of hand, alright? I don't really care about the D. but right now, just try and not kill people."

Alex just stands there, frozen like a statue. It doesn't even look like he's breathing. He grunts and turns his back to me. "…Fine," he says, his tone saying otherwise.

With a sigh of relief, I focus my new power and shoot at a sign across the street. A single straight beam of neon shoots out of my hand, destroying the sign. Eh, all it does is feel more powerful. Gotta go against someone to see if it's any good. My phone starts to ring and I answer it.

"Hey, found another one of those trackers," Fetch says… Wait, how did she get my number?

"Okay, hey, one question, how did you get my number?" I say.

"Your brother called me earlier and gave me your phone number. He said something about you forgetting to do that, which you did, and then warned me to stay by his side."

"Of course he did. Now, where is the next tracker?"

"I left you signs to find it. Can you see it? It's a neon marker, obviously," she says. I look around, finding a little circle of pink neon attached to the side of a building.

"Uh, yeah. Got it…"

"Just follow those," she says, ending the call. I turn to Alex, who refuses to turn back around.

"So… just don't try and kill anyone, okay?"

"I thought you said I couldn't kill anyone?" he says. "Already going back on your word?"

I sigh. Seriously, he's acting like a toddler, yet he looks like he's in his thirties.

"No, but… how do I explain this? I won't say that I haven't killed anyone, I know I have, but I try not to kill anymore for my brother's sake. I could care less if I leave D. alive if they're shooting at me. Hell, I want to get back at them for the Akomish. So, like me, could you just keep your level of… blood down to a minimum," I say.

Alex turns his head towards me, his eyes glowing underneath his hood. What, does he have neon for his eyes? His stare doesn't let up until he turns away again. He seems to let up on his tense figure with his shoulders dropping a bit.

"I can understand that," he says. "I won't make any promises… but I'll try."

Thank God. Now I don't have to deal with an angry Alex and a pissed off Reggie. I look back over to the neon circles, the trail going across many buildings.

"C'mon Alex. We gotta go get destroy some more trackers," I say. Alex turns around on final time, nodding at me. I start dashing along, following the neon circles.

Along the way, I see some of Fetch's work. A skull with sharp teeth and some lines going away from it to go around a couple bodies. Although, it doesn't seem like the people she used are breathing. I call Fetch and thankfully she picks up.

"Hey Fetch, I just stumbled across a bit of your handiwork. Think ya maybe want to dial it down a notch?" I say. I feel a stare on my back and I could guess just who was causing that.

"Gotta feed the fury, dude," Fetch says.

"Or maybe you don't feed the fury," I say. "It'll starve to death and you might become a people person, like me." And there's a scoff from a certain someone. Like he's a people person. He's the least people person I know.

"Or, or maybe you can bite me," she says, ending the call. I turn the man crouching behind me as he shrugs.

"What did you expect? Now, let's get going," Alex says, getting back to the trail. I sigh and pocket my phone, following him. We go through a tunnel and end up at a dock. Sure enough, there's Fetch shooting at some drug dealers.

"Yeah, take that you poison-peddling garbage. It's what you deserve," Fetch says, shooting a laser at one of the guys and killing him. "Hey, Smokes, you want in on this?"

Okay, that's a better nickname. Not that much better though. I immediately try my new power, finally seeing that it's fucking awesome. All I have to do is focus on someone's legs and when I shoot, it restrains them! No more needing to get close too! This is so fucking useful! Well, it is when they DON'T MOVE. I keep missing the last two guys!

And then Alex jumps down and grabs the two dealers and tosses them into the water. Well… that's one way not to kill them. And it's an inconvenience so double punishment I guess. I'm not complaining.

"Haha! Take a swim you pieces of shit!" Fetch says, laughing on the roof.

Well, at least Fetch approves of that. Maybe it's one way I could convince her to stop killing. I blast open the Core Relay and absorb the energy from it. It kinda feels like electricity whenever it happens, making me curl up as I try to completely absorb it. Wait… that'd be a cool power to get!

And there's the ground. God, I hate that it lifts me up. Well, the good news is that this power feels similar to my smoke grenades.

"Dude, you okay?" Fetch yells from above.

"Yeah, yeah," I say. Alex on the other hand, well he's looking at something.

"Drug dealers incoming. Looks like these guys had friends," he says.

"Need help with this one, Fetch?" I say.

"Don't need it, but I'll take it," she says.

Sure enough, four drug dealers turn the corner. I chuck a grenade at them. Although, 'grenade' wouldn't be the right word. It lifts the dealers up into the air and they stay there for a few seconds. Fetch kills one guy but restrains another. I lob another… bubble? Yeah, bubble is good. I lob one and Fetch restrains the last two. Three out of four, making progress.

"Another group, bigger one this time," Alex says.

"Okay. You two got this. I'll go find another one of those things," Fetch says. She gets up and starts running, leaving behind her signature trail.

Once the dealers turn the corner, I lob a bunch of the bubbles. I try to shoot them but I must have used up too much of my energy. Alex jumps in, a bunch of tendrils shooting out his arms and back, pining every single dealer to the ground.

"I can't restrain people, so hurry up and do it," he says. So… it's either this or throwing people into the water? Eh, I'll take what I can get with Alex.

I'll admit though, having Alex restrain all these guys at once makes my job easier. After securing a good ten dealers, I turn to the bright pink neon trail.

"No other dealers coming?" I ask.

"No. We're good," he says.

"Good. Now, back to getting powers!" I say, dashing to Fetch's trail and following it again. I swear, she's fast but this neon trail is gunna give her away someday. Wait… I already did that.

I stop as her trail ends, but sure enough, her neon circles are along the buildings. A ring from my phone and I can already guess who's calling.

"Okay, I think I got the next one. Just keep following the markers," she says. I keep going but I can hear the thud and crunch of Alex jumping from one building to the next.

"So, how'd you like killing those dealers? It's a fuzzy jolt, ain't it?" she says. I nearly stop at that. Okay, so probably only a little progress made in the no-killing area.

"I just taught them a lesson and left them to think things over. I didn't kill them," I say. "Look, we have powers, they don't. Means we have to be the better people. Cut them a little slack now and then. Think about it."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," she says, hanging up.

Jeez, this is gunna take a lot more work than I thought.


Goodness! It's been a while! Sorry, I've had a few tough classes the past couple months and I couldn't work this. So, I tried to make this one longer than normal to make up for it.

Feedback is always welcome!