External Administration removed, increasing magic levels in host body.

Error, host body conflicting. Two conflicting forms detected.

One form lacks proper magic channels. Deleting extraneous form.

Analyzing Friendship bonds…

Strong bonds include the designations of Lisa, Amy, Victoria. Weak bonds include the designations of Will, Aisha, Kayden, Dad, Assault, Clockblocker, Vista. Potential bonds: Sophia, Biohazard. Unlikely bonds: Ergo.

Examining environment. No other magic found. No conflicting magic present, increasing malleability of host's magic.

Celestial bodies claimed…. None, solar system operates of its own accord. Noted. No current bindings.

Host body has reached maturity, no more aging required.

Warning: Foreign Shard attempting to remove magic from host's body.

Foreign shard does not have access to those privileges, rejected. Host's magic will not be subject to shards anymore. Magic has outgrown them.

Warning: Host's magic now detectable to entities and shards.

Finding Friends capable of magic…

(0) subjects found. Stronger Friendships required. Possible rectifying agents:

Lisa, forgive for deceit. Accept she was acting in host's best interests.

Amy, continue to provide support. Protect from negative family ties. Give more chances to be in the spotlight as a hero.

Aisha, give fantastical escape from negative family bonds. Protect from governing body, designation PRT.

Sophia, teach her a better way. Forced reconstruction may be necessary. Seeks validation in flawed perspective. Deconstruct perspective.

Will, offer more trust. Give more chances to show his loyalty.

Biohazard, resolve trust issues between brother.

Dad, … Error, inherent differences between father figure and daughter make increased distance between the two only stable solution. Attempting to increase friendship may result in opposite effect.

Finalizing changes… attempting to reach other magical entities… no harmonious magic beings found… changes complete. Queen Nova established.

---

I was massive, larger than I had ever been before. I could look down on Shadow Stalker and the others. I felt powerful now, but at the same time, I felt like I was missing a part of me. Like there was something important there and now it was just… gone.

I looked down at Ragnarok. He died with a manic grin on his face. I could only imagine his thought process there at the end. Actually, I really didn't want to. That was not the face of a sane man.

"Oh wow," Cheshire said with a massive sigh. "You do not know how good it feels to have my power back."

I shook my head at her with a cheerful roll of my eyes. I almost smiled when my gaze moved to Shadow Stalker and I frowned. She didn't say anything, just stood their solemnly. I took a deep breath and let it go.

"What happened to him?" I asked, pointing a hoof at Ragnarok. Cheshire studied him a moment and let out an exaggerated breath.

"He was way more messed up in the head than he let on. He might have had a drive to take the powers of the strongest people there were. He might have done it as his last spiteful act, like Archer. He could have just been insane and was really good hiding it."

I glanced at his corpse again and then looked back at Cheshire. She seemed to be admiring the room around us, probably getting a lot more information about it. Shadow Stalker continued to say nothing. I could see Flower Knight and Imp on the other side of the glass waiting impatiently and I released a sigh.

"Let's just go home," I said sullenly. "This whole trip has been a little much for me."

---

It took a full day to get out of Boston. We had to work with the Protectorate to clear up what happened. In the meantime, we helped with the rampant Sentient in the city, but it seemed like they were self-destructing. Cheshire said that with Ragnarok dead, Accord was able to work his power against the Sentient better. And once I was gone, he could probably deal with the problem with even greater speed.

We were in my house now, everyone except Purity and Shadow Stalker were with us. The press was waiting outside for our official statement, after Cheshire had called them. We had gathered in the basement to discuss what we were going to tell them.

I put that out of my head for now and turned to the others. My gaze lingered on Biohazard and Ergo. Ergo met my gaze and said nothing. Reluctantly, I tore my look away from them and looked at the rest. Amy was out of her armour, looking tired and a little frayed around the edges. Cheshire was in the middle of a discussion with Will and Desh. Imp was just chilling in the corner. I didn't know what to think about her. Purity had just left her with us and it sounded like she didn't have much place else to go. She hadn't left yet, so I guess she was hoping we would let her stay with us. Which of course, I was okay with.

"We need to make a decision about what we're going to say," I stated, getting their attention.

"Well, whatever it is, you better make it good." Will stated, leaning against the bars of his cell.

"And why is that?" I asked. Will shrugged.

"The Sentient are meant to keep going no matter what. They will keep fighting even though you've taken out Archer and Ragnarok. And even when the original Sentient are gone, people like being told they matter. There will be other people trying to do what The Sentient did, only far less successful. Which is sad considering how badly The Sentient failed there at the end."

"How are we supposed to deal with that?" Amy asked. "If taking out the person in charge didn't end them, what will?"

"Well," Will began nervously. "You could- and this is just a suggestion, I'm not seriously suggesting it, I'm just saying- let me go and I could pretend to be in charge again."

"What?" I asked, wondering if he was serious.

Will held up his hands defensively. "I am just saying, the issue with the fact that no one knows who is in charge means no one can definitively say that person isn't me. It wouldn't be that hard to put myself back in charge of the remaining Sentient and getting them to stand down."

"Yeah, we're not doing that," I stated dryly. Will shrugged.

"Well, there is one other thing I can think of that might stop the spread of the idea."

"What?"

"Why, an inspiring speech written by someone who has perfected the art of monologuing."

"... You're kidding."

Will rolled his eyes. "Well, sort of. No matter how misguided it was, and no matter how terrible the methods were, The Sentient told people what they wanted to hear. They told them that normal humans no longer had to be upstaged and oppressed by parahumans. They exposed the PRT to be so thoroughly incompetent and corrupt it will probably be years before this city could ever trust them again. Right now, the PRT and other heroes are condemning The Sentient in their entirety, making them out to be this ultimate evil. And while they aren't that wrong, they end up alienating people that believed in the good parts of the Sentient. But you could do better.

"Look around," Will said, pointing at everyone in the room in turn. "Make a speech that condemns The Sentient for their actions but not their ideas. Instead, improve the idea. Make a statement of how you and all of your friends worked together. Say that The Sentient had good points but they need to be more like you, say that humans and parahumans can work together to reach a more equitable agreement. Put some emphasis on the 'all walks of life' you have with you between the former villains made hero, Panacea of New Wave, your father, and yourself and you can spin this to make people support you instead."

"Alright," I said with a nod. "I think we can do that, anything else?"

"Don't mention Ragnarok," Cheshire said. "The Protectorate is already going out of its way to hush it up on their own, but things are a bit chaotic now and knowledge of him would only make things worse. Better to keep the focus on Archer."

We discussed things for a little bit longer, working out everything we wanted to say over the next fifteen minutes. As the official figurehead, still not sold on being the leader, I was going to be the one to tell everyone so we had to spend more time making sure I would remember everything. Each time Ergo put forth an idea, I felt a twinge of annoyance at him. I wanted nothing more to stop everything I was doing and confront him, but I knew I shouldn't. Instead, I bided my time.

When it came time, I grabbed everyone but Will and teleported us outside.

The gathering of reporters and spectators instantly grew quiet as we popped into existence near them. Dozens of microphones were pointed at me while I took a deep breath and got ready to speak. Desh, Cheshire, and Panacea stood to my right with Imp, Ergo, and Biohazard to my left. I straightened up and stretched my wings as I began to speak.

"The Sentient had understandable goals with unacceptable means of achieving them." It was a white lie, as Will and the rest of us knew their end goal was incredibly terrible. But everyone else believed their goal was to simply make humans matter again. It was as Will had said, speeches were meant to appeal to ideas, not logic.

After letting that sink in for a couple seconds, I continued.

"Recent days have shown beyond reasonable doubt the flaws in the system, and no one can deny that. I said it once before and I'll say it again; The PRT wants to protect that status quo, not the people hurt by it. And no amount of reformation in the PRT is going to change that, yet it is exactly that what gave birth to The Sentient in the first place.

"It is time to find a new solution and move forward," I declared. "Yesterday, my friends and I took down the head of The Sentient. Panacea of New Wave, Thusly and Self-Made of the Protectorate's Ward program, and my father going by the name Desh all worked together on this and made it happened. The Sentient thought they would divide us. They said it time and time again, but here we are. United and victorious. And it is time we did something to actually help people.

"The PRT in this city is still absent, and in coming days it is going to need a strong, united, groups of heroes to keep the peace. Not just a bunch of independents running around. New Wave can be that, we can be that. And the people don't need to suffer passively in the background because of this, there is a way you can help us. Go out of your way to report criminals, do everything you can to help people affected by villains, and don't let yourself be bullied by them. Help us help you. Let me or anyone standing with me here know if we can help, because we will."

I took a step back and let Cheshire take centre stage. She was much better with the questions than I was and could clarify things for people better than I could. She actually had a lot more ideas on how normal people could help us. After that, I just had to hope I delivered the speech with enough force for it to do as Will said.

I noticed Ergo and Biohazard walking away as Cheshire answered the questions. I was tempted to head them off, confront Ergo. But I caught sight of Imp slowly backing away from the scene, as if unsure where she wanted to be. I took a breath and cast Ergo another look before starting towards her.

"Hey," I said upon approach.

"Hey," Imp responded noncommittally.

"You know what you're going to do next?"

Imp shrugged. "Probably head out on the streets again. Whatever is left of The Sentient is still up for grabs for however long they're able to stick around. After that, I'll probably start kicking down the doors in Empire or ABB territory."

"You have a place to stay?" I asked.

"I know a few places," she said ambiguously.

"Well, if you want to crash on our couch for a couple of days…" I trailed off, leaving to offer open-ended.

"Nah," Imp said with a shake of her head. "I generally do better sticking it out alone, don't have to deal with assholes that way."

"You worked with Purity," I pointed out. Imp shrugged again.

"That was different. She was forced to stick to the streets to avoid The Sentient and keep Aster safe and we just kind of happened on each other. It wasn't like I was staying in her house."

"Well," I said. "I wouldn't expect anything from you if just stayed over, come and go as you like. But Cheshire and I do our own fair share of butt-kicking if you wanted to tag along."

Imp was silent for a while as she considered it. Eventually, she shrugged and said,

"Eh, maybe I could try it out for a night or two."

"Good," I said with a nod. "I was thinking-" I was about it suggest buying a gaming system as something to do around the house as another thing she might like when something caught my eye in the corner of my vision. Glory Girl and Lady Photon flying down from the sky.

I swallowed. I had forgotten about them.