"I cannot do this, my sweetheart," the woman said tragically. Her long-lashed baby blues blinked, glistening with unshed tears. Full lips pouted and then trembled.

Looking anguished, the muscular model-like man swept her up in his arms and planted a soppy kiss on those lips.

"But we must, Belinda. Our future rests upon your shoulders – you must use your gifts. For the greater good!" he said, in his melodramatic husky voice.

"Oh, my darling. My heart breaks without you! The world splinters in your absence. My world is so dark!"

Tora made vomiting noises in the background. Damien and Carlos shushed her at once, not even bothering to turn around from the sofa. Both sat in rigid poses, Carlos with his legs crossed in front of him and Damien with his chin on his knees. Rolling her eyes, Tora squared her shoulders to deal with the arduous task at hand.

Snap. The plastic cover to the pack of minced beef was ripped off. Bang. The beef smacked onto the sizzling frying pan, spraying oil everywhere. Swearing as the hot droplets hit her skin, Tora snatched the handle of the pan and stirred with vigour, with little regard for the bits of meat that flew across the counter and onto the floor.

"I hope there'll be enough food left to actually eat at the end of that endeavour," remarked Ross as she passed by. Tora mimicked her in silence, stabbing with the wooden spoon at the food. Ross hadn't picked on her again to train since a few days ago, but Tora knew it was only a matter of time before she was made to fight her again. And she wasn't keen to be forced into that corner again.

"I love you, Belinda, but I must let you go."

"What's he making her do?" Tora said, emptying half the pepper pot into the meat. "Sleep with the other guy? At last?"

"Not yet!" Carlos said, excited. "Belinda's torn between the hot vampire and the werewolf who well and truly loves her. And that other buff vampire. And she has to use her gifts at last to save the world!"

"Oh, so never mind the world's going to hell. The plot highlight is which hottie she's going to pick, because romance is all that matters?"

"Don't be a spoilsport! Isn't this the sort of thing human girls dream of?"

"Why are you asking me?"

Romantic music ensued, punctuated by regular sobs and gasps of despair. The next time Tora glanced over again, the stricken female main character had tears running down her face. Her make-up was perfect and not one strand of her auburn hair was out of place. Belinda had taken her clothes off – the camera panning to carefully maintain her modesty – and she shimmered, on the brink of invisibility.

"She's doing exactly the same thing as you. Why the hell are you even watching this crap? We're literally superheroes ourselves and you find this interesting? Humans pretending to be like us?"

"It's a relaxing form of entertainment," Damien said, defensive, pink spots appearing on his cheeks. "Good for chilling out after we've been so exhausted by demons. You should know."

"Yeah, 'cos all the women do is sit by and wait for the men to save the day," Tora grumbled, stirring the spaghetti with the same vigour as she had when stabbing the minced beef.

"I didn't realise you were such a feminist, Tora," said Markl. He had a small smile on his face when she glowered at him from across the room. His hands were flying across the keyboard, although he kept half an eye on the television programme at the same time. "Perhaps you should join the humans on one of their equality rallies."

"No, that's not my point. I don't see why the guys get all the fun and the girls just sit and cry. And look pretty at the same time. It's boring."

"Belinda's doing something."

"Belinda spent the last season and a half throwing herself into danger even though everyone told her not to. Belinda seems to think the world revolves around her and if she's not in critical danger, she's not worth anything."

"But now she's using her gift!" said Carlos, triumphant, as though that corrected all of her past sins. Tora turned in time to catch the actress turning visible again, utterly naked, in the middle of the street.

"Oh yes, what would the world be like without bared breasts and flying ankles?"

Tora rolled her eyes again when she didn't get a response. Typical boys. When a girl got naked, their mind got blank. She drained the spaghetti and slapped the cooked mince and sauce on top. As an afterthought, she snatched a few basil leaves and threw that on top. That was what chefs did to decorate their food, right?

By the time she slapped the plates onto the table and yelled, "Food!" the two boys were squabbling again.

"I'm team Edmund!"

"Are you kidding me? Edmund is such a d-bag!" Damien said, indignant.

"What, you think Jared is such a good guy? 'Wait for me, Belinda. The world is much darker than you think, but I can bring you light.' Bleurgh!"

"And you think Edmund is great? All he wants is to manipulate Belinda! He's the creepazoid watching her sleep, for crying out loud!"

"When you're done bickering amongst yourselves," said Ross, shutting them both up instantly, "the food is waiting. And getting cold."

"Aw, man!" Ever hungry, Carlos vaulted over the sofa and sprinted to the table. Damien went to wash his hands, but by the time he settled at the table too, Carlos was halfway through inhaling his spaghetti Bolognese. Tora tried to avoid the sight. Decomposing demon bits and flyaway internal organs, she could deal with, but the sight of Carlos sucking up his food like a vacuum cleaner churned the hardiest of stomachs.

"You should watch Bloodheart sometime, Ross," said Damien, twirling his fork in the food. "It's quite an entertaining series. Humans have imagination."

"Thank you for the offer, but the sight of humans pretending to have superpowers and throwing in some trivial life crises doesn't interest me."

"Irh hood hu hee hro hey—"

"Carlos, if you don't swallow before talking I'll ram the rest of the dish down your throat," said Ross, glaring at him. Carlos swallowed noisily. The mouthful went down the wrong hole and he spent the next five minutes hacking his lung out, head bent out of sight beneath the table.

"I said—" Carlos resurfaced again, his dark eyes watering. "—it's good to see how they – humans – deal with problems we might come across. Like, if we get found out, maybe they'll accept us once they find out how useful we are."

"They won't."

"You don't know that. Those dilemmas that always come up in Bloodheart—"

"Dilemmas?" Tora interrupted. "The only dilemma I see is when Belinda will take her clothes off. And which hot guy she's going to pick."

Carlos glowered at her from across the table, sauce smeared across his face.

"Those dilemmas are always about how we can use our powers for the greater good, like we're doing now, but maybe we can do better. People can let us know when they're in trouble. We can help."

"If you're seeking glory, you're in the wrong profession." Ross's tone was icy. The room temperature dropped by several degrees. "Humans are nowhere near as accepting as that fantasy portrays it to be. Seekers do not do their work for recognition. We do it to protect those who cannot do it themselves."

"But why can't they at least thank us for nearly getting ourselves killed every time?"

"Because if we do, it will be they who kill us instead of demons."

"We don't know that, Ross," Markl intervened, at last. He had a grim look on his face. Serious eyes swept across the table at the other four Seekers. Tora felt like she was being x-rayed from head to toe. "We know that is a possibility. The last demon break has shed light on another peculiar activity in the city and the media are getting interested. If another event happens like that, we risk exposure."

"We don't know that? We know what they did to Damien when his powers manifested."

Damien flinched.

"Ross!" Tora glared at her.

"I'm sorry. I know that came out too blunt." Ross gestured her head at Damien across the table. Her features softened for a fleeting moment. Seeing Ross without a scowl was like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. "But you know what happened. They saw him as a freak. They tortured him. They tried to kill him. Acceptance didn't even cross their minds, and he was their son."

"Adopted," quipped Carlos. Tora elbowed him, hard. He yelped.

"That's not the point, you idiot," she said.

"What makes you think they'll treat us any different?" Ross said. "Real life isn't like the TV series. Our problems are not solved by the end of the episode. Main characters can and will die. Wake up and smell the coffee. The actors may pack up and go home at the end of the day, but their fantasy is our reality, twenty-four seven. We're lucky our abilities together can keep the humans at a distance, otherwise we're looking at looking at becoming guinea pigs, or worse."

"We can take them on," said Tora.

"Don't be stupid." Ross gave her a withering look. "Seven billion of them against the five of us? They can't stand things that are not the same as them. They can't shoulder the responsibility."

"It'll be nice if, you know, the fate of the world isn't resting on my shoulders. For once." Carlos shrugged.  "We're busting our asses for people who don't even know we exist. If we were humans—"

"Nothing would change. Being human is just as crap as it seems. I did my fourteen years pretending to be normal. Bar the special powers, it's the same dog-eat-dog, ungrateful good-for-nothing lot as they've always been." Ross's tone was scathing. She took another mouthful of food, chewing so hard Tora could hear her teeth clicking together. "There's nothing good about the world out there."

"Then why are you a Seeker, if you hate them so much?" Tora couldn't help but ask. It was hard to imagine Ross willingly helping out such a terrible world.

"Markl," she said simply.

At the name, they all turned to our leader, who had been observing the conversation with a small frown on his face, his meal forgotten.

"Is my food that bad?" Tora said. Markl's mouth twitched.

"Not at all, just... It's interesting. Listening to you guys."

"Well, you're always welcome to grace us with your knowledge if you would stoop to the plebs' level," said Ross in a dry voice.

Markl chuckled. "It's not that. There's nothing making any of us stay in this group. At all."

"That's not what I mean," Carlos said hastily. "I like what we're doing. I like all the fighting and stuff. I just wish it's not all about that. When we're not fighting, we're training, going over strategies, or lying in bed 'cos we'd broken another leg."

"I appreciate why you would think that, Carlos, but trust me," said Markl to a silent room, "there is no room in the human world for entities like us. Not right now. But we have loved ones we wish to protect – your family, for example. Damien's and Ross's, mine, too."

"Yeah, Tora's the alien here. Ow!" Carlos jumped as Tora punched him, hard, on the shoulder.

"I'm fighting 'cos I like it, unlike you, whiner!" Tora flipped him off. "I like killing things. I like the blood and guts. I don't care for the renown. We're doing some good in this world, so suck it up!"

"Interesting to see the 'doing good' part comes last," said Ross.

Tora ignored her.

"Why don't we continue this topic another time," said Markl. "It's not nice to have unhappy feelings at the table. It messes up your appetite."

"Yeah, we wouldn't want that for Carlos now, would we?" Tora said, with a small grin.

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