On the outskirts of Prague, Phoenix stood watching the city. It was his first time in Europe, and if he were here under less-complicated circumstances, he would actually be enjoying the trip.

Their jet landed in a private airfield two hours ago, but who the field belonged to, only Ave knew. Now, they were scoping out Miklos Novak's base of operations from a high vantage point across the roadway. The building was wide and cream-colored, with dark-red roofing and thin gutters. It matched Prague's architectural style, as far as it was from the rest of the city. There were no guards stationed around it. It didn't look anything like an arms dealership, but it wasn't as if Phoenix would be able to tell.

"Do we know where in the building the stone is?" Ave asked.

Kate lowered her binoculars and shook her head.

"And do we know if they're willing to kill to keep it?"

"We don't know for sure, but I'm assuming yes."

Phoenix barely reacted. He wasn't as scared as he should be, but that was likely because he was so scared, he'd gone numb. He took it as a good thing: the last thing he wanted was to walk in there with shaking hands and a pounding heart.

Tara took his elbow and gently pulled him away from Ave and Kate, who both watched the base silently. Their arms were crossed, their heads tilted in the same direction, but they were calm and analytical, not nervous.

"It'll take them a few minutes to come up with a plan," Tara said. "How are you feeling? You've barely said a word since take off."

Considering she was asleep for most of the flight, he was surprised she'd noticed his silence. "You're all so...indifferent," he said. There was no other way to put it. "Is this just a typical mission for you?"

"I won't say it's typical, but it's nothing special, that's for sure." She smiled. "Why? Are you surprised?"

"No," he admitted. The League kept most of its operations out of the public eye, but even the few details that made the news were enough for him to know that they regularly dealt with things crazier than this. "But I never thought I would be part of anything, even if it's nothing special."

"You never pictured yourself going to Prague to break into an arms dealership to steal a fancy rock?" Tara deadpanned.

Phoenix held back a laugh, trying not to disturb Ave and Kate's planning. "No, I never pictured that."

"And yet." She sighed dramatically. "Here we are."

Ave turned around and clapped his hands once. "We've got a plan!" he announced with a resigned grin.

"We're splitting up," Kate said.

Tara scoffed. "That's what you came up with?"

Phoenix agreed with her disappointment. Splitting up never led to anything good, and every horror movie in existence could attest to that.

"It's the fastest way to find the stone," Kate explained, "and remember, that's our only goal. Take care of anyone in the way, but don't engage if you don't have to. We're not here to stop Novak's operations or make a scene."

"I'll go with Kate," Ave said. "You two stick together."

Tara shook her head, but she relented. "How do we get in?"

Kate rolled her shoulders, cracked her knuckles, and winked. "Leave that to me."

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

Apparently, Kate's 'leave that to me' meant 'let me break down this door real quick.'

And not only did she knock down the door with a single kick, she also knocked down the guard behind it. She dragged his unconscious body into a closet, and then they split up as planned, Kate and Ave going one way, Phoenix and Tara the other.

Phoenix followed Tara silently, taking in every detail. From the outside, he would've guessed that the building was an office or a hotel, but from the inside, it was something else entirely. The hallways were bare: instead of walls, most of the structure was metal studs draped with thick, silvery tarp that acted as barriers. Pipes and beams ran across the ceiling. The building was a metal skeleton, with none of the necessities for housing people and offices but all of the space and structure needed for housing arms.

"Left or right?" Tara asked. She'd stopped at an intersection.

Phoenix hesitated. He didn't want to make any decisions, however small. "I don't know. You decide."

Tara chose left, but as she was turning, she suddenly pivoted on her heel, grabbed Phoenix to keep him from making the left, and pulled him back into the hallway they were coming from. She held a finger to her lips, pulled a compact mirror from her pocket, and angled it so they could see the hallway they almost walked into.

Still recovering from the whiplash of the sudden turn, it took Phoenix a moment to focus on the mirror. It reflected a man at the end of the hall, closing an entrance door behind him.

Tara inhaled sharply. "That's Crimson."

"Crimson?" Phoenix whispered. " As in the Snake?"

She nodded and turned the mirror so they could see who had let Crimson in. This guy had Novak's seal on his sleeve and a gun slung on his back. Phoenix held his breath, thinking that a fight was about to break out, but the guy greeted Crimson with a handshake. Together, they went down a different path.

Tara put away the mirror. "Of course the Snakes are friends with Novak," she muttered.

"What's he doing here?" Phoenix asked. Stealing the stone was one thing, but now Novak, a Snake, and the League were all under one roof. This wasn't what they planned for.

"I don't know." Tara considered it and shook her head. "Let's find the stone. We'll deal with him later, if we have to."

She started walking again, faster this time. Phoenix followed, taking a deep breath and reassuring himself that this was fine. Like Kate said: they get the stone, and they get out. No causing a scene. And if Crimson didn't cause a scene, either, then they would be okay.

He hoped.

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

The Snakes' abandoned building was quiet, the silence pierced only by the occasional synchronizing of chirping crickets. It was night, and the large, glassless window holes let in the chill of the evening. Azure was alone on the first floor, pacing back and forth. Amara was somewhere on the decrepit second floor. He didn't know why she was up there, but at least he knew where she was. He couldn't say the same about the Black Snake, and he made a frustrated noise as he was reminded of the bitter reality of his particular situation.

The Snakes, known as a group of five, was really only comprised of three people: Crimson, Violet, and Azure. Unknown to Crimson and to Violet and to the League and to everyone else, Azure was a superhuman, and a very powerful one. But that power was unstable, he couldn't handle it, and nature had strange ways of dealing with instability.

One day, a few years ago, he'd woken up feeling better, clearer, able to think straight, only to find out that some of his power had detached from himself and manifested as a whole new person: the Black Snake. Azure tried to fix it, tried to make Black go away, but nothing he did worked. Black couldn't be hurt, and so he couldn't be killed. Azure was forced to come to terms with it, and then, one year ago, he unintentionally and unknowingly invested some of his remaining power into another new person: Amara.

They weren't real, not on a human level. Azure was the actual person, and he himself now held only the amount of power that wouldn't overwhelm him the way it did when he was in his natural, whole state. Amara could even use her share of his power like she was a superhuman herself.

He'd reluctantly accepted their existence, but he was never more annoyed than during times like now, when he had no idea what Black was up to. The Snakes had started as just the two of them, and when Crimson and Violet joined, he made Black the 'leader.' Black wasn't fully real, but he still did things and had ideas, especially if prompted, and Azure either ran with them or was the one who prompted them in the first place. The recent actions, though, were throwing him for a loop.

As if on cue, the 'leader' of the Snakes strolled in and leaned against a pillar. He tilted his head up and studied the ceiling with disinterest.

The thing that bothered Azure about these manifestations, other than the fact that they existed at all, was that they didn't look like him or like anyone he ever knew or imagined. They were both fair-skinned and blue-eyed like him, but everything else was new and baseless. Black was taller than him, looked a little older, and had blond hair instead of black. Amara was shorter, looked the same age as Azure—twenty-five—but she was also blonde. It didn't make sense to him.

"Why are Crimson and Violet in Prague?" Azure asked flatly.

Black's attention dropped from the ceiling to him. "What do you mean?"

"You told them to get some stone. Why?"

Black responded with his all-time favorite answer: infuriating silence.

Azure glared at him, unamused. "And what do you want to do with that?" he snapped, pointing at the briefcase of materials from Alastair. It had sat, untouched, in the corner for days. "First you brought Amara with you to steal the League's top-secret plans and get her caught, and then we have to exchange those plans, which we couldn't even open, to get her back, and now the materials for those plans, the plans we don't have, are just sitting here, and you've barely said a word about what any of this is for. What are you doing?"

Amara had come downstairs, and she sat on the bench, her face as unexpressive as always.

"If you must know," Black said finally, "I brought Amara to steal those plans because I wanted her to get caught, and I made sure she was."

Azure blinked. "Why?"

"I needed her out of the way for a bit. I needed you all out of the way for a bit, so I made those errands to keep you busy. I don't need the League's blueprints, or Alastair's supplies."

"Why?" Azure repeated. "What have you been doing?"

Black inspected his fingernails. He was still leaning against the pillar, looking much more comfortable than Azure felt. An uneasy feeling settled in, and Azure knew something was seriously wrong.

"What have you done?" he asked coldly.

"I've been talking to someone," Black said. "He was a supervillain once, a powerful one. We're powerful, too. He has some interesting ideas, and he proposed a partnership."

Azure's fists clenched. Even without the name or the details, he knew this was bigger than what they did as Snakes. "No," he said. "I'm not doing it."

Black shrugged. "Oh, you don't have to. I'll do it. I'm going to use the stone to drain you of your power and absorb it into me, and then I'll do the same to Amara. If you don't die or disappear in the process, I'll kill you myself." He finally looked up and smiled. "I don't want any obstacles."

"You do realize," Azure said through gritted teeth, "that you're nothing but a piece of my power, of me, don't you? You can't live without me."

Black raised an eyebrow. "And you're absolutely sure about that?" he teased, dangerously calm. "Who knows what that stone is capable of? Crimson and Violet are getting it for me, and once you and Amara are out of the way, the aforementioned supervillain and I will be free to...well, we'll see, won't we?"

He winked, making it clear he had no intention of revealing what their grand plans were, and then he walked out of the building as quietly as he had come. Azure let him go; he already knew what he had to do.

What Black was planning was violent. Azure had been in terrible shape with his full powers before the manifestations eased the strain on him, and if all that power went back in one person? Whether it was him or Black, it would not go well.

"Amara." He held his hand out to her. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Prague."

She tilted her head. "You want to get the stone first?"

He nodded. Then he sighed. "If I get it first, I can use its power to help me take you and Black both in, and then..."

He trailed off, sure that he didn't need to say the last part out loud for her to understand. Once he used the stone to erase his manifestations and get all of his power back, all he had to do was to take himself out of the picture, and the dangerous threat of him lashing out would be gone.

First, he had to get the stone before Crimson and Violet did.