Every well-planned mission started with an info session. Phoenix was still conflicted about his role in the exchange team and didn't want to be told anything he didn't need to know, but Kate insisted that he should have some background. Trying to convince her otherwise was like talking to a brick wall, so he gave in and listened.

The Snakes were first established as a pair by the Black Snake, the current leader, and the Azure Snake, the current second-in-command. The supposed siblings, Crimson and Violet, joined the team three years ago. Amara had been around for about a year. Their real names were unknown, and while Amara was a confirmed superhuman, the statuses of the other four were undetermined. They were good at keeping low profiles.

The League's intelligence unit had built up some other information in the past years from direct interactions and secondhand knowledge of the Snakes' activities, but all Phoenix needed to know for tonight were their names, their appearances, and one fact: they were not to be underestimated.

The exchange team consisted of him and three others. Kate Green, thirty-two, was the leader, and she explained that she was a private League superhero, meaning she was an agent usually assigned to missions where her superpowers could come in handy. Along with strength and durability, she had super speed, too, but she didn't count it as a 'real' power of hers. It was exhausting and hard to navigate when running that fast, so she only used it when absolutely necessary.

Tara Mann, twenty-seven, was another private superhero, gifted with the power of flight. Her job was to watch the exchange from above and intervene if anything went wrong. Martin Stevenson, forty-two, was the only non-superhuman of the group, but he was ex-CIA and a current League agent, so he was just as qualified to be here as the rest of them.

The exchange was set for one in the morning at a shipping yard. They took a bulletproof black van with Kate driving and Martin in the passenger seat. The back of the van was empty space with two benches along each side, and Phoenix and Tara sat across from each other by the rear doors. Amara was on the other end of Phoenix's bench, chained close to the dividing window so Martin could keep an eye on her from the front. She sat perfectly still, her cuffed hands folded in her lap.

Phoenix couldn't figure out if she was happy to be going back to her team. She didn't look like she was, but she didn't look too thrilled to be here with them, either. Maybe it was simply a matter of who she disliked least.

If everything worked out, they would return her to the Snakes, the League would get its flash drive, and there would be no fighting. But despite the simplicity of the plan, everyone was eerily silent, like they were on a suicide mission. Phoenix didn't know if the quiet was a sign of calmness or worry, or a bit of both.

Tara cleared her throat. "Do you have a codename?"

Phoenix shook his head, a little relieved. Kate had told him that Tara was talkative and easy-going, and he was glad for it. Her bright smile made it seem like he was hanging out with a friend and not in the back of a van with a criminal.

"Do you have one?" he asked.

"Not really." She shrugged. "They call me Tara, or Agent Mann." She paused, and then she suddenly turned her head. "Hey, Amara?"

Amara side-eyed her, surprised by her nerve to talk to her. "What?"

The tension was suffocatingly thick. Phoenix held his breath and hoped Tara knew what she was doing.

"Why don't you have a color codename?" Tara asked. "All the other Snakes have one."

Amara closed her eyes and leaned the back of her head against the van wall, looking like she wasn't going to answer. Then she murmured, "You don't know what I am."

 They waited, but she said nothing else.

.................................

Sitting cross-legged atop of a stack of cargo containers, the Crimson Snake watched the roads leading to the shipping yard. Headlights streaked as cars zipped down the freeway. One of them would turn in soon—a van, probably, would take the ramp and head into the yard, and he had to make sure he noticed when that happened.

He leaned forward to look down. The Azure Snake was on the ground, pacing back and forth between the three stacks of containers that walled him in. Azure would be the only one meeting the League team face-to-face, and although Crimson didn't understand why he'd picked a spot with a dead end and nowhere to run, he didn't doubt his decision. It wasn't as if Black was here to suggest otherwise.

Crimson straightened and gently touched his cheekbone. It didn't hurt anymore, but Raymond Alastair's brick left a bruise that was now an ugly purple-yellow. Crimson had expected some sort of resistance, maybe an attempt to run away, but he wasn't expecting to get nailed in the face with a brick. The fact that he'd let it happen hurt his pride more than it hurt his face.

"We should just go," Azure said suddenly.

Crimson leaned forward again. "It's five minutes to one. They'll be here."

Azure stopped pacing and looked up. "But do we really need to get Amara back?"

"Are you serious?"

"Let the League keep her. What's the point of—"

"We're getting her back," Crimson interrupted. It was true that even after a year with them, Amara was still distant and mysterious, but she was part of the team. They owed it to her to help her.

Azure sighed. "Fine."

Crimson heard an exasperated huff behind him and looked over his shoulder. Violet stood on the other end of the container, heels in her hands. She widened her eyes, let out a deep breath, and shook her head—all clear signs that whatever she'd just come back from doing, it hadn't been fun. She padded across the metal barefoot and sat down next to him.

Crimson returned his attention to the roads. "I thought you weren't coming, Elle."

"We're on a mission," she said, giving him a look. "It's Violet."

"I'm your brother. I call you whatever I want."

"Whatever, Jack." She threw an arm around his shoulders. "I wanted to spend our twenty-fourth birthday together."

"And since when have you been so fond of birthdays?"

"Since the last one was an absolute disaster."

Their twenty-third birthday was something he remembered all too vividly. Memories of a blowtorch, a camel, an international bounty hunter, and a sandstorm flashed through his mind, and he laughed. It had been a hell of a day, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't fun.

"See anything, Crimson?" Azure asked. He was never one to be agitated, and if he ever was agitated, he never showed it. Now was no exception: if anything, he sounded bored.

"No," Jack said.

Elle leaned over. "Hello, Azure."

Azure looked up at her. "Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?"

"I took care of it," she muttered. "Believe me, you don't want to know the whole story. Let's leave it at this: they'll leave us alone if we leave them alone, and I may have stepped in ocelot poop during that negotiation."

Azure blinked. "They've got an ocelot?"

Elle shrugged. "Weird people, weird pets."

Jack made a mental note to stay far away from Elle's heels.

She suddenly made a noise, and when he turned toward her, she'd already gone invisible. Not even a second later, someone landed on the container stack across from him. Jack didn't know her name, but he'd seen her enough times to recognize her: the flying woman from the League. He smiled and waved, and she responded by narrowing her eyes.

Jack saw that there was a van parked in the yard, and there were people coming. He should've noticed them earlier. A hand brushed against his shoulder, and he felt the container move underneath him as Elle, still invisible, silently walked away. She was likely going to stand by Azure in case things went sour.

Jack glanced at the flying agent to make sure she wasn't prepping an attack. She wasn't. She nodded once, and he did the same, seemingly in agreement that they were only here to watch, and they both turned their attention downward.

.....................................

Phoenix was surprised.

There was only one Snake—he'd expected at least two. He looked up along the edges of the containers. The others might be nearby; there were plenty of shadows to hide in.

He studied the Snake and tried to match him to the visual characteristics he'd memorized. Black hair, around five-ten in height, bright blue eyes. This one was Azure. He looked so...casual. No weapons, no armor, nothing. Not even a defensive stance. He was at ease, and if not for the fact that he was in a shipping yard at one in the morning, he'd pass for a normal person.

Kate spoke first. "Where's the Black Snake?" she asked, one hand on Amara's cuffed wrists.

"He had better things to do," Azure replied calmly. He held up the flash drive, clearly wanting to get this over with as fast as possible. "Shove Amara my way, and I'll throw this to you."

The flash drive was small, barely the size of his thumb. It was black with a red stripe running down the middle and a little glass pad for fingerprint scanning. Phoenix eyed it carefully. He could easily tug on it and have it fly into his hand, but this was an exchange, and he wasn't going to screw it up.

"On three," Kate said, shifting her hands to Amara's back. "One."

Azure got ready to throw. "Two."

"Three," they said together.

Kate gently pushed Amara forward, and Azure tossed the flash drive to her.

No, tossed wasn't the right word. He pegged it at her, aiming for her face. Kate caught it in front of her nose, held it there for a moment, and slowly lowered her arm.

Hostility from the calmest of faces, Phoenix thought. The silence that followed was tense. Both sides stood still, waiting for the other to pick a fight or leave. Phoenix watched Kate. She was considering something, but he couldn't figure out what.

She finally turned on her heel and started heading back to the van. Martin followed suit. Phoenix let them pass and only lagged behind a short moment, and then he turned to follow his team.

"You're new, aren't you?" Azure asked.

Caught off guard, Phoenix hesitated. He looked over his shoulder. Amara was tilting her head, her blue eyes scrutinizing him like he was a hamster she wanted to poke.

Azure smiled, close-lipped and slightly lopsided. "Well, then. Welcome to the world of the League." He winked. "You'll enjoy it."

Phoenix left, regretting having stopped at all. He didn't know what to make of his first encounter with the kind of people the League dealt with on a regular basis. Not that it mattered: the exchange had gone as planned, and his part was over.

No one asked why he'd fallen behind because Tara got in the van right after him, so it looked like he'd been waiting for her. After Kate drove them out of the yard, Phoenix slid down the bench to be close to the divider, and Tara followed him there.

Phoenix tapped Martin's shoulder through the opening. "What's in the flash drive?" he asked.

Kate raised an eyebrow at the rearview mirror. "So much for not wanting to know anything," she teased.

He smiled nervously. "I'm curious. And it's over now."

"It has plans for an energy containment unit," Martin explained, turning the flash drive over in his palm. "It's an old, deactivated project that no one's touched in years, but we didn't want it in their hands." He glanced at Kate. "That went well, right?"

Kate's grip on the wheel tightened. "Always does."

Phoenix shouldn't have asked about the drive, and he shouldn't ask about this, but her reaction was too puzzling to ignore. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"The Snakes are strange," she said. "They're not as violent or...evil, so to speak, as you would expect them to be, given their impressive reputation. They don't harm the average, innocent people."

"But they're still criminals," Martin pointed out. "Espionage, connections with shady characters, obstruction, international crime, the list goes on."

"Of course, of course," Kate said. "They're just not what we consider a big issue. They're more of a recurring problem."

Phoenix nodded. He could understand that—the League had lots of enemies, and not all of them were the types of threats that rose once and had to be terminated immediately. There were syndicates to be dismantled slowly, things to be tracked, and regular villains who would come and go.

It all sounded exhausting, and he couldn't imagine the kind of mental and emotional capacity it took to be able to work with all of that. He looked at Kate, at Martin, and at Tara, three people who did work with all of that, and he suddenly felt very out of place.

Tara sprung up a question at that very moment. "Do you plan on sticking around? Becoming an agent?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"That's too bad. It would've been fun to have a telekinetic around."

Phoenix laughed awkwardly. Tara laughed, too, to make it clear she was only teasing. After that, everyone fell quiet for the rest of the ride back to HQ, from where they would go their separate ways.

Phoenix leaned against the van wall. Azure's welcoming words echoed in his head, but he tried to forget them. This wasn't the first mission in a long career: this was the first and last for him. The exchange was a success, he was registered in the database, and he didn't want to be an agent, and the League understood that. Everything was taken care of. It was over.

So why did he feel like something was just beginning?