"Amy," Victoria began. After briefly talking to Glory Girl in front of the news teams, we decided it would be better to take this somewhere more private. I had teleported us to my house, and immediately collapsed under the strain of teleporting three people and myself across half of the city. Victora and Amy were out of costume now, talking in the kitchen. Lisa sat in the living room with me while we pretended not to be listening. Somewhat oddly, I felt an underlying urge to go in and help them. To attempt to fix their friendship problem together, after all, we were kind of all friends with each other. But I didn't because this was their friendship problem to solve.

Didn't stop me from listening though.

"I don't get why you don't want to come back," Victoria said. "I mean, I get it Mom was a little harsh that night but-"

"A little harsh?" Amy asked accusingly. "Vicky, everything she said was based only on the idea that I might have done something illegal that night."

"And it was wrong," Victoria's stressed. "But come home, Amy. Things have been… stressed lately and I think it's because they're worried about you."

"Really?" Amy asked in a clearly disbelieving tone. "Or is it because I'm not where they can see me?"

"I-What? Amy, that doesn't make any sense."

"For I don't know how long I've been either at the hospital or at home or flying halfway across the fucking world to help some random child with an incurable disease. And the every moment of my life, Carol knew where I was. She knew what I was doing. She had control.

"Then the first night I go out she gets upset. She wants control Vicky, and she got upset because I got out of it for a bit."

"You know that isn't true! Mom didn't make you do all that, that was your choice to-"

"Not much of a choice is it!" Amy interrupted, her voice hitching for a moment. "It was Carol who suggested it. In fact, it was one of the few real gifts she gave me."

"What are you talking about?"

"When I got my healing powers Carol had gone to the hospitals and made up the papers for me, set them on my bed for when I got home. Never even asked me Vicky, not once. Because she wanted it."

"Stop it, Amy. Just stop. Mom isn't a control freak, she's just worried about you. Please, Amy, come home. I get that spending some time with the friggin cartoon horse is funny, but we want you to come home. I want you to come home."

"Vicky, I don't want to go home," Amy said sternly.

"... Amy, why?"

"Because I'm not hated here!" She shouted, causing me to jump a little. "I don't have to deal with Carol's fucking looks and off-handed comments. I don't have to deal with Mark forgetting to take his pills in the morning and getting into one of his moods because of it. Here? I at least have friends."

"Amy, we're sisters." Victoria pleaded. "Are you really putting some friends you've known less than a month above me? And all because you think Mom secretly hates you and wants to control your life? Because you think she's a control freak?"

"Do you really think Mark would be as depressed as he is if she wasn't?"

Things fell silent in the kitchen. I strained my ears to try and make out what was going on, but there wasn't anything. After a moment, I heard the back door opening followed by two sets of footsteps. I rose to my hooves to see what was going on, but as I entered the kitchen Victoria came back into the room.

"She surrounded herself with plants," Victoria said, a touch of exasperation and disbelief in her voice. "I've never seen her do that with anything before. She just made a massive shell around herself."

"And that's not the worst of it," Lisa said casually as she looked out the window. "Because now she is restructuring the plants into something that might be able to keep you out."

"Fuck," Victoria swore.

"I can try talking to her," I offered weakly.

"No," Lisa said before Victoria could say anything. "She really just wants to be alone right now. Give her some space and time, she'll come around."

Victoria let out a sigh and hung her head. "I guess I'll just go then," she said, disappointment creeping into her voice. She started shuffling towards the door when she paused and looked up, eyes narrowed at the two of us.

"And you two," she said accusingly. "You take care of Amy until she comes back to her senses and comes home."

She threw open the door and walked out, leaving it wide open and the two of us stuck in silence. I stood there silently for a moment before closing the door with my magic.

"Well," Lisa began in her most cheerful voice. "Does that mean we're ready to go over what we learned? Because I've been dying to unload this info on someone."

"Actually," I began a little glumly, "I was going to head out and stretch my wings for a bit." Lisa crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at me.

"Really?"

"Um, yeah."

"And this doesn't have anything to do with you trying to escape so you can be alone with your thoughts."

I shot her a look and didn't say anything.

"Alright, alright," she said with her hands raised. "But whatever it is that is bothering you, you're not going to figure it out flying around aimlessly. Besides," Lisa paused and looked me over. "You've used your magic all day. Flying the two of us, teleporting a lot, ripping a warehouse in half, then teleporting us across the city. Maybe instead, you should just go upstairs and think things out?"

I knew what she was doing, but I appreciated it all the same. Giving her a stiff nod, I began walking towards my room.

Opening the door with my magic I immediately climbed up on my bed and collapsed. Today had been irritating. The Four are sneaky, far too determined to undermine capes for a powerhouse like me to get at them effectively without go-betweens like Lisa. It grated, not being able to go in there on my own, not being able to take any action until someone else has set them up for me. Of course, I could have gone in guns blazing. Ripped off the roof, threw up a bubble shield to protect me while I destroyed their weapons, maybe invent a binding spell to tie them all up. But not only was that property damage for the sake of property damage, it probably wouldn't work as well as I hoped. And with all the security they put in place for all other kinds of capes, it wasn't much of a stretch to think they had something in place for someone like Glory Girl or Alexandria attacked them. Granted, I had no idea what they planned to do if Alexandria came after them, but I wouldn't put it past them at least try.

I was a glowing alicorn at the best of times and a hardcore fan of Nova when in human form. There was no way I was going to get inside their operations like Lisa. The most useful thing I had right now was an ever-growing reputation that sometimes helped intimidate people, but even then Panacea had done more to do that recently than I have. Unless there was some sort of spell I could whip up, I was basically resigned to the supporting role until we cleared these people out.

While it was annoying, it was also nice to know I had friends I could count on and trust to help me complete a job. But I was going to need more than some talented friends. I was going to need more spells, and lots of them.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my father coming in through the front door. Shaking my head free of my thoughts, I climbed off my bed and when to rejoin Lisa downstairs. It would probably be better if we discussed what we learned tonight without waiting any longer. We still had to destroy the rest of The Workers and find out more about this guy supposedly in control of them. And that left a lot of work ahead of us.

"Sir," A Worker said respectfully on the other end of the line. Max Clay spun around in his chair boredly, tapping his fingers idly as he held the phone up to his face.

"Mhmm, what is it?" He asked, clearly not caring all that much.

"One of our men just leaked our passphrase to the PRT. Their circulating information about it now."

"Ah, damn," Max said, with about as much care as he showed before. "Well, isn't that a downer. Go frame him for a murder or something, I don't care."

"Yes sir, but we were wondering…"

"Wondering what?"

"Uh, if we were going to retaliate against Nova and Cheshire at all?"

"What? Now, why would we do that?"

"Well, sir, she did attack our main operation. And if what she said is true, she exposed one of your secrets."

"One of them," Max agreed. "But by no means a reason to attack her, unless you've come up with a plan to combat her that our war council hasn't."

"No sir, but what about-"

"All Nova and Cheshire have done is force us to reveal ourselves a little earlier than intended. Give it a little time, and I'll get us control of the situation again. In the meantime, make sure Max Ander's assistant has the package for when we do."

"Alright, sir."

Max hung up the phone and lightly tossed it on his desk. He paused a moment and reached for the bottom drawer, pulling it open to reveal it was full of suckers. As he picked out a tangerine flavoured one, his phone began to ring again. Max shot it a sour look and then eyed his sucker again. With a sigh, he held off on the sucker and answered the phone.

""Ello?" Max asked, even though he already knew who it was.

"Max," The smug, sour voice he had become so familiar with answered him. "Would you like to tell me why I'm getting reports a Thinker was able to infiltrate one of our bases."

"Not particularly, no," Max answered idly. "You know how Thinkers are, real pains in the ass."

"Quite," the man on the other side answer snidely. "I that case, I suggest you hurry and show us you are in charge of the Brockton Bay branch. Because if you can't then, well, I don't have to remind that we can put you right back where we found you. Understand?"

"Yes sir," Max said with his normal bored tone as he twirled the sucker in his hand.

"Good," The man hung up. Max tossed his phone back on his desk and pop the sucker in his mouth.

"Prick," he stated.

"Mentally, they're all what you can expect from a parahuman." The therapist said. "Though Regent and Biohazard worry me a little."

"How so," Piggot asked sternly. She was looking at the recently captured villains in their cells. After failing to pull off a bank heist, they were sitting in individual cells where Piggot was able to watch them. The one named Ergo was sitting cross-legged on top of his bed, his head hung low. He wore a green suit with white accents, along with a green hood that helped mask his face with the green domino mask he wore.

Biohazard wore an all-black costume decorated with red and yellow biohazard signs. She also appeared to suffer from hyperactivity as well. Already she had flipped the bed on its side, grabbed the mattress and repositioned it in several places around the room. Each location not lasting more than a few minutes before she moved it again.

Regent was pretending like he was trying to sleep, with one arm draped over his face and another dangling off the edge of the bed. He hadn't done much since arriving And neither had the one named Grue, who pacing back and forth across his cell.

"Well," The therapist began, unsure of where to start. "Biohazard cannot sit still very long will probably need medication to calm her down. But more importantly, it seems she doesn't understand certain boundaries."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, according to her she nearly died early on because cut open her hand to get a better understanding of how her bones worked. Then she talks about opening up other people and maybe taking a few organ they don't need. Make no mistake, I'm not saying she is a psychopath, she just doesn't understand those actions are wrong and it is going to be hard to teach her that."

'These are the people I'm getting forced to hire?' Piggot thought to herself.

"How about Regent?" She asked.

"That one is a sociopath." The therapist said with a nod. "He didn't say much in terms of family history or anything that would help me corroborate it, but by all accounts, he seems to lean in that direction."

"Is he going to be dangerous to the other Wards?"

"Well…" the therapist began. "I wouldn't say so, but I'm going to need more sessions with him to make a more accurate assessment."

"Fine, what about Ergo, did he say anything?"

"Him? He is pretty straightforward. He wants money, the freedom to use it, and a lab. He isn't actually a Tinker in the normal sense, but he claims his power helps him in academic pursuits of science. Past that, he doesn't care who he works for or why, so long as those conditions are met."

"Are they safe to become Wards?" Piggot finally asked plainly.

"I would say so, so long as considerations are made for them."

"Then let's get this over with," she said, grabbing the papers she would need.