The most obvious benefit to not needing sleep was time. A person could gain an extra third of the day with complete lack of sleep. The obvious downside to that was that you were forced to be alone with yourself. And if you couldn't tolerate being alone with yourself, more time was self-destructive rather than beneficial.

For Aryana, alone time was the natural being of things. Being with a group of people was just as distracting as being alone. So once the daytime finally came up, and she was done meditating, she got up from her bed and made her way to the kitchen, unchanged after a long night by herself.

Aryana heard Emily and Sabrina conversing at the kitchen table. They'd been talking for about an hour before she decided to leave her bedroom. "Vivan is fifteen," Emily said. "Aryana is eighteen. Edwin is nineteen, and Robert is twenty one. I haven't asked how they all came to Brockton Bay, but I think they'd be open to talking about it if you asked."

Entering the kitchen, Aryana saw the two girls sitting at the dining room table. One was slightly taller than herself, with short curly brown hair and a face densely covered in freckles. The other girl was red-headed, with straightened curls, and bright blue eyes that that made her look pretty.

Aryana let out a fake yawn, "hello, my fellow humans."

Sabrina rolled her eyes. "It's twelve o'clock, do you always sleep this late?"

Aryana shrugged, "mondays suck."

"It's Sunday."

"I know, I'm just saying Mondays suck."

Sabrina squinted at her, she was already detesting who she'd have to live with. Aryana rustled through the fridge to look for something to microwave, "shit, we're out of leftovers. By any chance, can one of you two cook?" They both shook their heads, "such useless women. I should trade one of you for Vivan."

Sabrina raised her arms up, "no way in hell am I rooming with Lee-" she quickly held her tongue, "two other boys…"

Aryana sighed, "I think I'll start asking Vivan to make breakfasts for all of us from now on."

Aryana pulled out a bottle of wine from the fridge and set it on the table. "Christ," Sabrina commented, "you just woke up, and you're already getting hammered?"

Aryana took took out a glass cup and poured the chocolate flavored wine in. "It's the Lord's day today, and the Lord's day is wine tasting day." Sabrina glared at her, but Aryana easily ignored her gesture.

Emily, thinking Aryana was still tired from sleeping in, spoke quietly, "Aryana, I wanted to ask, is Vivan mad at us right now? He seemed... upset when you told him he'd have to move out."

Aryana thought back to the night before, when Vivan packed his things up to move to Robert and Edwin's apartment unit.

"Once again," Vivan said, "a black man gets kicked out of his home by a group of white chicks."

Sabrina yelled, "for the last frigging time, what race are you!?"

"Native American," the two siblings said at the same time.

"Last time you said it was Indian."

Vivan commented, "to be fair, that's pretty similar."

Before Aryana could call him 'racist bastard', Sabrina pointed to her and yelled, "don't you fucking say it!"

"Nah," Aryana answered, "he wasn't actually angry, he just pretends to get angry. We thought about giving you two your own flats, but we'd rather not divide ourselves too thin. It causes too much distance. Besides, I'm sure he's better off with Robert and Edwin than staying here to clean up after my messes."

XXX

Vivan's new Apartment:

"For fuck's sake man, God created hangers so that man could hang coats." Vivan threw a fistfull of hangers in Edwin's direction, "so hang up your goddamn shirts you sick fuck."

"We've lived here for a year on our own, why the hell should we start cleaning now!?" To prove a point, Edwin grabbed all the coats in the closet, and threw them to the floors. "See this mess? It's my mess, at least I know where my goddamn stuff is instead of where you've been hiding our shit."

"You cannot organize piles of shit!" Vivan yelled, "both your dumbasses are messier than Aryana."

"You know what," Edwin stormed off to his room, "if you're gonna clean up, then be a little bitch, and pick up these coats!"

Vivan yelled back, "I am not little! And check your privilege you sour cream colored bastard!"

XXX

After taking a quick shower and getting an apple flavored juice beverage, Aryana paced around the living room while her new roommates sat on the living room couch to listen to her. Emily listened attentively while Sabrina stared off to the side offering her minimal attention.

"First, a few rules," Aryana said, "each of us have a fan-base. Edwin is always busy tinkering, so his fan base is playing video games with other gamers. Robert kind of took the easy way to do it. He uses his powers to recommend sparring techniques for people online. He's pretty big online for it, even experts like taking his advice. Vivan runs a cook show. He puts on a mask and shows people how to make foreign dishes."

"Question," Sabrina said snapping her head, "are you sure he's not gay?"

Aryana shrugged, "I've asked him that a few times. He says he's straight as a cucumber, even though he's never had a girlfriend."

"Sounds pretty gay to me."

"I'm pretty sure he's not. He actually told me he started culinary arts in middle school because he wanted to take a class with a girl he liked."

Sabrina chuckled, "of course."

Emily asked, "so what's your fan base?"

"I'm a webcam model." Their eyes widened at her. "Kidding, that doesn't pay enough anymore. I'm more of a jazzy blogger type. I make poetry and philosophy vlogs."

Sabrina commented in a sarcastic tone, "I bet you think you're so deep."

Aryana bobbled her head, "indeed, as deep as a shallow puddle." Sabrina stayed quiet, wondering if Aryana was either dense or being stupid towards her snide comment. Aryana pointed to them, "so, both of you are going to need fan bases. Humanize yourselves. Think of something you love, and vlog about it one way or another."

Emily thought about her love for botany, and wondered how she could make videos about it. Sabrina sighed in annoyance by how useless the requirement was. Sabrina said, "there's nothing I like, so there's no point in me being a part of that."

Aryana smiled, "hate to break it to you, but having a fan base is a requirement on this team. It doesn't matter if you don't have 50,000 followers like Robert. You can have ten followers for all I care. The point is, you need a fan base. It can be anything, it just has to be something worth following."

Sabrina shook her head, "this is fucking stupid. Humanizing ourselves? What's the point?"

"The point is to make ourselves something that people don't want to kill. Our fans cheer for us, and being involved in our own communities expands that cult base. Remember, the best way to gain minions is to connect with people on a fundamental level."

Sabrina shook her head, "christ, I don't have anything I wanna share, alright? All I've ever done since juvie was roll up joints when I've got time."

"Holy shit," Aryan laughed, she jabbed a finger in her direction, "that's it! We need a pot head in our group!"

Sabrina raised an eyebrow, "what?"

A wide grinned formed on Aryana's face while she asked Sabrina a series of questions, "how good are you with blunts? Could you recommend stuff to eat while stoned? Could you give people advice on edibles?"

"Wait," Sabrina asked, "you're serious? You want me to do a blazing channel?"

Aryana ran to her bedroom and came back with a bong. "Emily," she tossed the bong in her direction. Emily hastily fumbled her hands as she caught it. "Show me how to use this."

"But I've never-"

"I know. Just show me how you think you should use it."

Emily looked down smoking tool. It looked more liked a strangely sculpted toy from her perspective. She guessed that she had to put her mouth on the longer end of it. She did so, but also tilted the bong up like she were sipping down from a cup.

Sabrina cringed, "that's, actually kind of sad…"

Aryana bit her lip, "yeah, I bet you like it like that you dirty little whore."

Emily gagged, and dropped the bong to the ground. "See?" Aryana said catching the bong mid-fall, "how many more innocents need to be enlightened by the power of trees?"

Sabrina leaned back on the chair, it wasn't like she had any other talents she could offer. She looked down at the bong and had a hard urge to relax from the predicament she'd put herself in. "Fine... But I gotta ask, do you have something I can smoke right now?"

Aryana grin grew wide enough for her teeth to show, "Sabrina, you're gonna love what I made Edwin brew up in his lab."

XXX

Sabrina, above all else, needed to find Leet's lab as soon as possible. The less time she'd spend undercover, the better. The Losers had a philosophy of the exposure effect, the idea that they needed to show who there were as much as they could, both good and bad, for the sake of publicity. It only did damage to Sabrina's image with the E88. She didn't need more people thinking she'd left the gang.

Unbeknownst to Sabrina, as she walked through all of the apartment rooms, and checked each individual unit for any signs of Leet's lab, hidden cameras watched her while the Loser team spied on her from the boy's living room unit.

"Hey, Edwin," Aryana asked, "have you used these cameras to spy on me and Emily yet?"

Emily's face paled while Edwin's face turned a hot red. "Hell no," he shook his head violently. "I'm a villain, not a creep."

Aryana smirked, "too bad, I'm an exhibitionist." She stared at the TV screen while Sabrina scurried across the floors searching for what was obvious. "I feel kind of bad for her, she's trying so hard to find your lab, but she's never gonna find it."

Vivan said, "I know right? I feel like I'm cheering for a nazi underdog."

"For fuck's sake," Edwin yelled, "she's gonna stab us in the back as soon. When are we kicking her out?"

Aryana hummed to herself, "After our… Third mission."

Robert scoffed, "why, so she can screw us over on the first mission?"

"No," Aryana sighed. "But maybe if she's on our side of the field a few times, she'll learn to like us more."

There was a long pause among all of them, no one believed that would happen. And Robert was growing exhausted at her naivety. Typically, her attitude made them more reputable online, even energized offline, but now, it was obviously putting them all in risk. "That's not how it works, Aryana."

"I already know that." Aryana replied in a plain tone. "I just figured if we could convince the world that she's more loyal to us than to Kaiser, Kaiser would have to ditch her anyway. When that happens, the E88 loses a member, it looks like their cape ditched their nazi ideology, and the biggest loser ends up being Kaiser."

Emily finally asked, "isn't this dangerous? I won't be here on weekdays because of school, but you're in real danger just by living with her."

"That's why drugs are always good for you," Vivan said with a wave.

"Excuse me?" Emily asked.

Edwin flicked at his own forearm, "He means biomods. I made a vaccine that gives us special blood cells. We're more numb to pain, heal faster, and have perfect physical strength because of it. So I guess we're not in as much danger as most people would expect."

"You should get the shot too," Aryana mentioned, "and relax, it doesn't get you high… anymore."

"That was only a trial shot," Edwin said meekly.

"Those poor hamsters…"

Emily asked, "you guys heal faster?"

"It's helped us on several occasions," Robert said. "We won't give it to Sabrina, but trust me, you should take it. You'll feel great afterwards."

"And it's not like Edwin's limitless pill." Vivan lowered his head, "the hangovers from that are like crack, opium, LSD, and alcohol all at the same time."

Aryana winced at him, "stop pretending you know about stuff."

Vivan sighed, "I hate that you make me live like a godless mormon."

Emily wondered if it was worth having those modifications. She was skeptical of having irreversible tinkering alter her body. "But are we sure about this?" Emily asked for a final time. "Do you guys really think it'll be a good idea for Sabrina to stay here?"

"Nope," Aryana answered. "But it'll be fun anyway."

Robert rubbed at his chin, "look, we wouldn't be half the team we are without you two taking risks. So if you've got some sort of plan to make this work, I won't stop you. But…" Robert paused, he wasn't sure what words could actually make them more careful.

Emily finished the statement for him, "watch each other's backs."

Aryana and Vivan replied at the same time, "of course."