Aegon saw it too. The outline of a head. He smiled, a bloody, broken thing. "Now I see you."

He moved. No more defensive waiting. A jet of focused flame, hotter and sharper than before, lanced out.

Wade shrieked, stumbling backward as the fire scalded the blood-painted shield, the heat transferring through.

Aegon was on him, a fury of precise, brutal strikes. He parried a visible arm, ducked under a bloody silhouette of a swing, and drove another ruthless knee, then a fist, directly into the painted, vulnerable groin.

And Aegon snapped. No, to be accurate, he crashed out.

~Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!~

Aegon's boot connected with Wade's groin repeatedly."You sorry excuse for a fucking hero"

~Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!~

Wade's groaned, his voice barely a whisper. "P–Please…. Stop… Ukeh—!"

Aegon wasn't done.

"Well, let me personally ensure the bloodline ends with you, you sadistic little shit!"

~Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!~

Wade's scream was piercing.

He collapsed, his invisibility flickering wildly as his concentration shattered. For seconds, he was a half-seen phantom, naked and bloody, before the field failed completely.

He lay on the cold floor, visible, curled around his agony, retching.

"You… can't…" he wheezed.

Aegon stood over him, breathing heavily, one eye swelling shut. "I know."

He knelt. This was the moment.

The win was real; against diamond skin, he couldn't put him down for good.

Wade was already gathering himself, his blue eyes blazing with hate and spittle riddling his cheeks, his body beginning to shimmer once more.

Aegon placed a hand on Wade's heaving chest. Not to strike. To phase.

His hand phased into the hero's torso as if into water, bypassing skin, muscle, and bone.

Wade froze, his eyes widening in incomprehension. Inside the cavity, Aegon's phased fingers left something small and solid, nestled deep against the beating heart.

He withdrew his hand, the sensation cold and violating.

Wade gasped, the shimmer around him solidifying again as he scrambled back, invisibility returning in a panicked wave. But it was too late.

"What did you do?" the voice hissed from nowhere.

Aegon walked to the ruined kitchen, picked up the glass of scotch, and finished it. The ice had melted. He set it down with a final clink.

"Goodbye, Invisiman."

He immediately ducked down under the counter. His hand reached for his ear as he pushed the comm within it. "Zara, now."

—BOOOM!

Aegon squeezed his eyes shut as the explosion rattled the entire room.

He, got back up to see Invisiman's guts used as paint for the walls, ceiling and ironically already red couch.

"Damn." Aegon cursed, heading for the door. Twisted it open to see Zara already standing in wait of him.

She peeked over his shoulder to see the gore which he left the house in. "I didn't think it would actually work."

"Alex hasn't been wrong yet."

She examined him. Apart from the cut on his lip and his sweaty form, his sleeves were also scorched thin. "You really need to get back your suit."

"Later," he said, sidestepping her in the hallway. "... We should leave here before the cops get here."

"Yeah. Yeah." Zara said, turning around to leave. "So, who's next?"

---

"Aegon! Could you pay attention?" A teacher called out as she watched him stare blankly at the outside.

"Hmm..." He blinked, trying to get a bearing of where he was. "Yes, ma'am."

She didn't buy it, the instructor instead squinted her eyes and chose to teach the entire class a lesson, with Aegon as a scapegoat.

"What do you know about Awakened law and Jurisprudence?" She asked Aegon.

Sighing, he rubbed his eyes like her question itself gave him a migraine. "It's supposed to examine the legal framework for awakened and the limits of what an awakened licence can do."

He ended with folded his arms and returning her stare.

"It's more than that..." She said, searching for a reason why he's wrong. "Awakened law keeps supes responsible for their actions.

It's why we have licences, because not everyone who has powers should be heroes, and the system helps us weed those out."

A student at the back raised a hand.

"Yes, you?"

The student stood. "So, awakened without these licences aren't allowed to be who they are in public?"

"No. No. No." She shook her head. "The licensing dispute is so complex it has an act that explains all of this... If an awakened is permanently bound to an animal or beast and it's impossible for them to disassociate, they are allowed to be themselves.

But you see that's quite different from someone with a fire affinity to blast around town."

"So, it's fair to some and unfair to others." Ren abruptly said.

She turned to him. "It's the law so it's a lot more complicated than that... Different people have different situations."

Another raised a hand. "So, are we required to reveal our identities to the government?"

"Yes, and no. Secret identity protections acts classifies legally registered secret identities as a protected category.

So, no. You don't have to tell everyone in the government your identity but at least one person has to know to keep you accountable.

Otherwise, you're nothing more than a vigilante."

"Sometimes vigilantes are needed."

Aegon said with his folded arms.

"..."

Silence hung in the room for a second, everyone turned to him but no one knew had to respond.

"Is that really how you feel?" The teacher started. "Vigilantes are nothing more than caricatures of actual heroes who think their way of doing things is righteous—"

"And you think all registered awakened heroes are righteous?"

"Not all." She argued. "Everything has shades of grey which is why they are awakened courtrooms which help straighten the line between wrong and right."

"Alright." He scoffed. Flipping the pages of his textbook to site something. "It says here on page 375;

'Identity vs. Personhood: If a villain has multiple personalities, and only one is criminal, who is culpable?

If a hero is mind-controlled, who is liable for the damage? The law struggles with fragmented consciousness.'

It seems to me the law doesn't fully grasp the world that we're in, and as such have no bearing on its issues and how to handle them.

"I realise that the law isn't perfect, but that's why it's dynamic, it could change and get better over time—" he didn't let her finish.

"Time?" He laughed sarcastically. "If the law is just controlled by a bunch of old men who get to say what's right or wrong then the term is only a title for those who conform to their norms.

It doesn't mean they're right, it just means the system is broken... And if you deny that then you're as naive as a child."

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