The four of us stood - and sat - around the table in our hideout, staring at the meticulous plans we had spent the last 3 months learning front to back. The blueprints, the false identities, the passports, the engineering plans... it was beautiful. Flawless. And, by now, useless.

"What a shitshow," Geralt finally said, breaking the silence. "You said you planned for everything!" he yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at me, though a finger was underselling it given its size. He was a massive man, a perfect hitter. It wasn't immediately obvious; some people even called him fat. They stopped doing so when he would lift them up with one hand.

"I did!" I protested loudly. "The plan was literal perfection! It's why you agreed to it!"

"Perfection?! Then why the deep-fried fuck," Geralt replied and picked up the TV remote, tuning in to the evening news. Our faces were plastered all over the screen, capturing our confusion beautifully, "are they naming the museum after us?!"

"Well it is a nice museum," Nassor chipped in from their corner where they were peacefully reading the newspaper which, once again, featured us on the front page. Heroes of the Year, the headline read. Geralt threw an angry look their way but then turned his anger back towards me.

"You said nothing could go wrong," he kept pressing.

"Well, how could I possibly predict that some other group of thieves would be mad enough to break into the impenetrable Royal Mint? And on the same day as us! And, lest we forget, if you didn't trip the alarm during the scuffle, we would have still had the time to make it out with some money. But no, by the time we were finished incapacitating them, the League of Heroes was on site, shaking our goddamn hands!"

"Oh don't throw this at me," Geralt growled. "That hitter of theirs would have snapped you like a twig had I not stepped in."

I shook my head in hesitant agreement. The woman on our competitor's team nearly matched Geralt in size. I was almost impressed.

"She was kinda hot though," Nassor commented again. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Not the time, mate," I sighed.

"I just wish we could have spared a second to grab her number, ya know?"

"Oh let me grab the world's tiniest violin for you! Oh wait, we can't bloody afford one!" I yelled at them angrily. They merely shrugged and went back to reading the paper.

We all slinked back into silence as we stared at our plan. It was supposed to be the heist of a century.

"Goddamit," I mumbled and looked around the room. Geralt was still fuming, Nassor more blank-faced but clearly disappointed. My eyes finally rested on Lilian, our hacker. Her face was buried in her hands. She was white as a sheet, though not because she was scared.

"Lilian," I said slowly. "You're awfully quiet."

She sighed and removed her hand from her face and looked around the room with her bright-red eyes. Her albinism was often enough to catch everyone's attention, but combined with her elegant mannerisms and sultry voice, when she spoke, people listened.

"I am," she replied calmly, "because I know how the rest of this conversation is going to play out. I can see it on your faces, no matter how much you try to hide it. You all feel it too."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Geralt narrowed his eyes.

"Don't pretend with me, tiny," Lilian scoffed. "I saw how you looked when that old lady hugged you."

Suddenly, it was as if Geralt deflated, his bravado and anger replaced with meek embarrassment.

"...she reminded me of me gran, alright?" he mumbled.

We all exchanged looks.

"Really?" Nassor raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, my gran was the best person I ever knew, alright?!" Geralt blew up. "Don't you even dare!"

"Hey, I'm not saying anything," Nassor shrugged.

"Face it," Lilian continued. "We all liked being... heroes." She almost spat the last word out. We all looked down at our feet in shame. "Seeing all those people all happy."

"...yeah," I murmured. Geralt and Nassor did not reply, but I could see it on their faces. They liked it too. Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Bleh.

"There's bound to be more people like us out there, you know?" Nassor said. I looked at the team. My team. I took some of the world's best criminals; the toughest hitter, the slickest thief, the sharpest hacker, not to mention my immaculate planning brain... and turned us all into good guys.

"Wanna stop them too?" I asked.

Lilian smiled. Nassor folded the newspaper and put it on a nearby table. Geralt tried resisting the idea before sighing loudly and cracking his fingers.

"Ah, what the hell. Sounds fun," he said.

"Alright," I chuckled. "Let's get to it."