I decided to leave Cheshire and Imp with Team Vigil while I went with the heros. Cheshire seemed to really want to know more about them and Imp just seemed bored. And since they were sticking to the area New Wave gave us, I figured it should be okay. That, and Showman insisted on it.

I followed Armsmaster and Miss Militia through the air as he rode his Tinker tech motorcycle and Miss Militia followed on a normal motorcycle. Although hers had a lot more American flags on it. I didn't recall seeing the cycle before, making me wonder when she got it. Did she only just get it? And if so, from who?

They lead me to the PRT headquarters in the city. All around it I could see marks from fighting. Bullet holes riddle the outside of it and there were scorch marks in one place or another. I wonder how much were villains attempting to make a point and how much was Sentient trying to prove they were still relevant.

"You can head up to the roof," Armsmaster stated. "We've had you cleared."

I appreciated the thought, as trying to squeeze through doors were sort of uncomfortable at my size. Let alone trying to sit down or fit into some of the tiny rooms I knew existed in the place. I gave Armsmaster and Miss Militia and nod and took off to the roof.

Landing up there, I found no one around. Curiously, I paced the length of the roof for a few minutes as I waited. I didn't see anything interesting happening, this part of the city being oddly quiet.

Eventually, the roof access opened up and a man came out onto the roof, flanked by two PRT officers and Miss Militia. I guess the purge of the corrupt elements of the PRT was going well.

"Director James Tagg," the man greeted seriously, stopping just feet from me.

"Director?" I asked. "What happened to Piggot?"

"Director Piggot is temporarily on leave until the PRT authority is reinstated. I was brought in to oversee the city until then. And you," Tagg pointed at me with a finger, "Are causing some problems."

"Problems?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. Tagg nodded and held out a hand. One of the PRT officers next to him placed a file in it. Tagg opened it up and began to read through it.

"Among lots of property damage and several minor illegal acts you've committed since starting your career, there are some more glaring crimes here. For one, your attack on Cornucopia headquarters in Boston. You didn't alert anyone that you were attacking it, you worked with a few villains, took some of our Wards out of the city, left a great many men missing body fat and muscle in a curious turn of events, not to mention an unexplained death in the basement that someone is working hard to cover up. And that isn't even the worst, as somewhere along the way, company secrets reportedly worth millions of dollars disappeared in the chaos. I could keep going," Tagg snapped the file shut and scowled.

"Now, normally no one bothers with the smaller, illegal acts," Tagg continued with a low growl in his tone. "Independent heroes are protected by that, all of them would get dropped if it went to court so no one bothers. But corporations have protections for this very reason, and if we pressed, we could have you and everyone involved tried as villains."

"Are you… threatening me?" I asked through narrowed eyes. I felt a flare of annoyance pass through me.

"No," Tagg stated pointedly. "I'm warning you. You've been riding a wave of good PR since the beginning. But you're not some cute two foot tall horse anymore. You're a massive alicorn and a seemingly limitless variety of powers. People are getting used to you. And the more they realize how powerful you really are, the more nervous they get.

"You cannot continue to behave as you are. You are powerful and have shown blatant disregard for our laws and guidelines. It can not go on."

"If you are going to charge me with something, do it," I stated as I stamped my hoof against the roof with a heavy thud. Tagg and I stared at each other for a moment, neither one of us willing to break the gaze.

After a moment, Tagg heaved an angry sigh.

"No," he said. "That isn't what we want to have happen,"

"Then why did you call me here?" I asked, getting more and more annoyed.

"Because Cornucopia wants you brought in an tried and my superiors don't want that." I noticed he didn't say 'I don't want that'. "But we need to give them someone or there is very little we're going to be able to do. So we want you to bring us the person responsible. And we both know who that is."

Suddenly, it made sense. They knew Ergo, or Thusly now I guess, was stole the data. Albeit, with a little bit of Cheshire's help but I wasn't going to mention that. And I suppose it would look bad if they arrested their own Ward, or at least it would look worst. I honestly didn't know how they were going to spin this, but it was clear they had a plan that involved me bringing him in.

It was just like before, they cared more about their PR than actual justice.

"You want me to arrest Thusly for you," I stated clearly, making sure I understood it.

"Yes," Tagg declared with a nod. "It'll show the company you're not against them, it'll give them the person they want, we sweep these lesser offenses back under the table for the sake of the city's PR, and I'll have two less criminals in our Wards program. For all intensive purposes, everyone wins" He didn't sound convinced himself.

"Two criminals?" I asked.

"Yes, we don't have any real proof, but it is pretty clear someone has been manipulating things in Self-Made's favour. And without Thusly, I'm betting she'll be gone too."

Silence fell between us as I considered that. I had already thought about bringing Thusly in just because of what he was doing to Self-Made. But there was something off-putting in how Tagg was asking me to do it. But after a minute, I realized I've been through this before.

The first time I met director Piggot she played the same game. She rubbed the minor mistakes in my face and made thinly veiled threats at me. Only then it was an attempt to make me join the Wards. Now it's to make me arrest someone for some corporation I wasn't even sure how it was still in business.

I didn't put up with it back then, and I wasn't going to put up with it now.

"I'll think about it," I said noncommittally. Tagg's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Think hard Nova," he warned. I shot him a glare and took off the roof.

---

I flew across the city to head back to Cheshire as the conversation spun around in my head. The more I thought about it, the more I disliked the situation and the more annoyed I became. Much to the despair of the robbers and drug dealers I ran into along the way.

I hadn't even been paying attention to it. I saw a criminal, I grabbed them, zip tied them to a pole or something, called the cops, and took off again. I didn't try to keep count, but I was running low on zip ties and I carried no small amount of them. People seemed to think the lack of PRT meant anarchy of some sort despite have three or four days to learn otherwise.

It wasn't hard to find Cheshire and the others again, not with Showman with them anyway. But on approach, I saw something that completely threw me off guard.

Thusly, by himself, standing in the centre of the group of them. He had been talking to Cheshire but as soon as I started flying downward, he held his arms up in surrender. The bit of his face I could see was blank, completely emotionless.

"What's going on?" I demanded as I landed.

"I'm surrendering," Thusly said. "I understand how this all works, and I believe my best chance would be to surrender before you catch me. It's for the best."

I stared at him for a moment, wondering what his angle was. But he didn't say or do anything else. After a long stretch of silence, I asked,

"What did you do to your sister."

"I can't tell you that," he answered.

"Why did you do it?" I demanded.

"I can't tell you," he stated again, this time a little more earnestly. I frowned and grabbed him with my telekinesis, floating him towards me. There was no need to bring Team Vigil into this, so I flew up into the air to get a bit of privacy for us.

"Ergo, Thusly, whatever I'm supposed to call you, let us help you. Whatever it is you've done, whatever it is you thought was necessary, you need to let us help you. "

Ergo continued to look at me flatly as he said,

"Nova, I'm glad you've been able to help mommy issues one, two, three, and four along with the repentant criminal, who in fairness can be called daddy issues, but some problems are bigger than that. And you can't fix it, no matter how much you want to."

I frowned and pulled him closer, squeezing him a little tighter with my magic. "I don't want to be mean," I began slowly.

"No, I get it." Thusly said, fixing me with a flat look. "I understand how this works, I know you want to help. But what you don't know is that my sister exists without harmony."