"OH MY GOD, WHERE THE ACTUAL SHIT HAVE YOU BEEN?!?!"
   Alex storms into their room, yelling at Daimian as he lies his head face-first in his pillow. "I MEAN REALLY! MOM'S BEEN WORRIED SICK!!! What excuse do you have this time, HUH?! Your little FRIENDS take you to your comic club bullshit in the summer without us knowing?!"
   Daimian sits up and looks down at his end table in shame, pouting his arms into his pillow in his lap. "I'm sorry, I was going to the library and I got-" He looked up as his pissed sister, arms crossed around her chest with her nostrils flared. Sighing, he hung his head low, flapping his arms once up then back to his lap. "Okay, you wanna know the real reason I've been gone all day?"
   "YES," Alex shouted at her younger brother.
   Daimian sighed once again, tilting his tearful eyes up at Alex as he tried to think of something. "Alex, I was going to get some pizza at the pizza pub and didn't tell you guys. Then the news happened and all of... this stuff I got caught up in," he curled up on a ball in his bed before muttering in his arms, "but you won't believe me, so what's it even matter?"
   Alex looked sternly at Daimian before loosening her face. Seeing her poor brother, she couldn't help but pity him. Shrugging, she lowers her eyes in an attempt to be lighthearted. "Well, did you get me any?" She stepped over to the bed and sat down on the squeaky mattress next to Daimian sighing. She sat back, pressing her hands in the sheets behind her and looked at the ceiling. "Daimian, where do I even begin?" Alex pinched her eyes to her nose before turning to her brother. "Look, I've been really worried about you, kid. I'm gonna be moving out soon and I just don't know how well you'll be able to survive on your own when I do. It's been a bit rough for the beginning of summer, but I feel like it's been... at least a bit enjoyable."
   "Alex, we barely did a god damn thing this month, it was highly forgettable at best."
   Alex stretched her hands up to the ceiling. "I know... It's just really sad to see you like this. I mean, it's usually me who's depressed, but seeing you this way, it's just heartbreaking." Alex looked sincerely into Daimian's eyes as he moved his gaze to the wall across from him. "You know, back when the café exploded in, like, March, I was genuinely worried about you and Dan. But that day, the big guy gave me instructions to watch over you since he couldn't. But, uh, not be in your personal bubble I guess."
   "In fact, when we were back at the hospital about a week ago, we were discussing just that. How you would run off with your friends, even with all the news lately. It's been chaos, even more than usual down here. I just want to make sure you're ready for that, so when I leave, I can see you as a proper, adult-ish teenage brother that I can count on. And I think that's what Dan wants too. To see you grow from this experience," she looked over at her own bed across the room from them. "Only the law of the land, amigo."
   Daimian looked down at the floor sadly as Alex turned her watch back on him. "Sorry, I'm... not really good at these sorta talks. I just don't want to see you get hurt by other people because of your much... friendlier nature than most people I know." She looked down at Daimian's now bleeding left ankle wide-eyed and shot out of the bed, pointing at it. "Did you trip while you were skipping around town with your friends?"
   "One might say that, yes," Daimian replied with a solemn shrug.
   "Good god, kid, you gotta tell me these things sometimes," Alex told him, dashing out of the room. Daimian quietly apologized as she came back with a roll of toilet paper. "Alright, this is probably the closest thing to gauze or whatever it is. I gotta wrap this around your leg fast so we can stop the bleeding!" She squatted down to Daimian's ankle and unraveled the toilet paper until only the tube was left, muttering to herself as she started to tie it around the wound. "Okay, just something maybe a bit more, probably two or three toilet paper tubes could work-"
   "Alex." Daimian stopped his sister, who looked back up at him with half of the toilet paper wrapped around his foot. "How about I do it real quick?"
   Blankly staring, Alex finally stopped wrapping the wound, letting Daimian grab onto the paper. "Right, sorry, eh-" she stuttered as she handed him what was left of the tube of toilet paper.
   "Thanks."
   Alex sat back down on the bed as her brother continued wrapping his foot. Suddenly, a thought came into her head. "So you think that thing could heal up around next week," she asked, pointing down at Daimian's foot. "I mean, it's the Fourth of July and the fireworks show at the Hall was gonna happen even with everything going down lately."
   "ah shhhhh-" Daimian looked at the wall in front of him wide-eyed causing him to stop tying the knot to secure the paper. "Um, Alex," he quickly turned to his sister as the paper unraveled around his ankle, "I actually wanted to make plans for that with some of my friends that day, so could I get a little time to do that for a bit?"
   "Oh, uh," Alex looked away in thought before turning back. "Sure. I guess just yell if your ankle starts killing you, okay?"
   "Sure," Daimian hastily replied as his sister stood up from his bed. Turning to leave from the door, she stepped out into the main room before turning back.
   "I'll have to talk this over with Mom, just so you know."
   "Okay, sis."
   "Love you, bro."
   "I love you too, Alex," Daimian said as his sister closed the door. After wiping his brow with widened eyes, he rushed over to his backpack and grabbed the sheets of paper he got from Nino Man's lair. "Alright, yeah, plans for that day. I guess I should see what my friends are doing first." Dumping the papers onto his bed, he shuffled through them in search of the July Plan. "So, what have we here," he asked himself as he looked at the map of downtown before thinking to himself. 'It seems like he's got bombs in various locations, so I'll have to be careful not to trigger any of them. It says here that he's planning to detonate them around ten or so all across the city, so it's gotta be a remote control situation. If I'm lucky, maybe he'll bring it with him where he goes since the news'll probably glorify his ass. If he doesn't, it might be at his base, probably locked in a vault. Either way, I'd have to find a way to get it from him before he does something stupid.' Daimian looked up and squints at his thoughts. 'Well, more stupid than how he's been lately, I suppose.'
   "Okay, so either way," Daimian quietly said to himself as he grabbed his notebook from his backpack, "I'd have to meet Nino Man at some point in the night. Confronting him will probably get me closer to the detonator one way or another, but where should I do it? He knows the rooftops reasonably well, enough to put bombs up anyway." Suddenly, an idea popped into his head, causing him to drop his notebook. "OH, I know the perfect place to fight him!"
   Daimian took out his black trunk and opened it. "Now that I've figured that out, I have a few more orders of business to go through. First of all, I need a new belt."

   Over the next week, Daimian discretely got some important items that would help patch up his lightly burned suit. Using his mother's sewing machine, he managed to fix  little threads that hung off of his new mask from the explosion at Nino Man's lair. After making light repairs and finding a white belt in his black trunk, he declared his suit ready for action. As he worked on his suit a bit further, he made a note for Nino Man to show that he meant business.
   When the Fourth of July finally came, Daimian separated from his family to his own affairs, bringing a different bag with him, one that was smaller and better suited his costume. Getting to the top of the roof with the smell of German food, he changed into his suit and hid in the shadows, ready to enact his plan, thinking to himself 'shake and stir well, and deliver the letter to the receiver.'
   Around the 8pm sunset, Nino Man sat over his desk in a quiet rage, peering over the new plans he made for his new enemy. As the sun crossed the horizon, he heard a crash come from downstairs, rushing to see the cause of the noise. At his front doorstep lay a rock with a small piece of paper on it held only by a piece of string. Nino Man picked them up and read the paper to himself.
   "Find me if you can. ~Obs"
   Nino Man clenched his fist with rage, crumpling the paper in his hand as he walked back to his office. Putting on his suit with a hidden closet, he grabbed a briefcase and crept out the door. In the air, he could almost sense that someone was watching him in the shadows, but was too furious to investigate. He had an idea of where he would go.
   He climbed up a building through the alley with a briefcase, stopping to stretch before proceeding. He opened it and pulled out a small, circular device that he placed under a pipe poking out from the building's roof. "There. Last one," he said to himself as he stood up quickly.
   "I figured you'd be here at some point," a voice from behind him said, causing him to freeze with rage and shock. Only turning his head, he looked back at the figure before turning back to the device he just set up. "I figure you're not here for a nice schnitzel on this fine American night, huh?"
   "You really came, huh? You really don't know when to stop, do you," Nino Man asked as he peered over his shoulder at the figure, who was slowly approaching with only the light of the fireworks to back him up.
   "Oh trust me, Nino." In his newly fixed suit, Obscurity stepped up to Nino Man in the light of the night, the white features on their suits making them stand out among the rooftops of downtown. He tilted his head before finishing.
   "I'm just getting started."