I'm done. Absolutely done with the PRT.

They couldn't protect Rune, they threaten me, the arrest my friends, and someone raided my house. I was completely done.

They were waiting for me as I landed on the street in front of the PRT headquarters. And by 'they', I mean Alexandria herself was patiently waiting for my arrival.

"Let them go," I told her. She shook her head.

"It doesn't work like that Nova. We know they have-"

"Well, I gave you a chance," I stated before teleporting into the building.

I was in the cell area I had only visited when I had come to seen Rune all that time ago. The reminder annoyed me. I began looking around. I saw a lot of people, previous Sentient members I guessed. But not Cheshire or Panacea.

I started walking sternly, keeping up a brisk pace. PRT officers started storming through the doors as an alarm went off. Foam was flying towards me a moment later, which I caught with my magic and threw it back at them. Now sufficiently trapped in their own attack, I strode past them without giving them a second look.

Leaving the main prison area I realized I wasn't going to find them here. I teleported to the elevator only to find it filled with more officers. Picking them off the ground and holding them still, I waited for it to come to a stop on the floor they had selected then proceed to throw them out. Hitting a surprised Armsmaster in the process. Before he could really react, I grabbed the entire elevator in my magic and forced it downward, breaking many of the delicate mechanisms in the process.

I found my way to several prison cells meant for capes and started walking downward. Occasionally PRT officers or weird electrical devices got in my way. They weren't a real issue.

Eventually, I found Cheshire in a cell behind a solid Tinker door. Much the same as I did with the elevator, I ripped it open and found her inside, still in costume and covered in left over flakes of containment foam. They hadn't had her very long.

"Where's Panacea?" I asked immediately.

"Protectorate headquarters," Cheshire answered instantly, climbing onto my back as she did so. "But Imp is in the cell to the left here." Without hesitation, I broke down the wall with a kinetic beam. Looking inside, I saw Imp unconscious on the shoddy mattress they provided. Levitating her up and floating her onto my back, I heard Cheshire say, "I got her, were good to go." I nodded and teleported away.

Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon were waiting for me as I arrived at the oil rig and they each attacked simultaneously. I was unimpressed.

Grabbing Alexandria out of the air, I flung her at Eidolon who failed to move out of the way in time. I didn't even look at Legend as I blocked his beams with a shield. I glanced down at the Protectorate base below, seemingly unphased by the Leviathan's waves. With that single look, I teleported to the inside of their force fields.

I got my first glimpse of what the Endbringers likely took from them as the only people from this city I saw was Dauntless and Miss Militia. There were few others here that I only half recognized, like Chevalier, but they were mostly unknown to me. I decided not to bother with them.

I teleported several more times, one after another in a random path as I got closer and closer to the building itself. Tinker weapons on the outside of the building were firing on me as the different capes attempted to attack me. But I got a glimpse through a window and like that, I was inside.

Moving through the base itself was slower going. I was saved by the fact its layout was very similar to the PRT headquarters. I had just found their own elevator when Eidolon teleported into the room in front of me and hesitated. I narrowed my eyes at him and we stare at each other for a moment. Then I fired a kinetic beam into his face.

His own green bubbled shield appeared as the beam struck him, but I just used the distraction to discreetly press the elevator button behind him. Immediately the doors opened and I teleported inside before he realized what I was doing.

"Go up three floors," Cheshire told me. She was hanging on to me rather tightly. Probably because of the breakneck speed at which I was teleporting, but I could be wrong. I nodded to her and forced the elevator upwards.

This time when Eidolon appeared I attempted to engulf him in flames. Once again, he simply blocked it, allowing me to teleport away again.

"He doesn't know what he needs," I heard Cheshire murmur. Works for me.

Several more times Eidolon appear in my path, each time with the same outcome. Once he attempted to strike me with lighting, but one of the protection stones I had been carrying was enough to protect me from it.

I found Panacea in an airtight cell with her hands bound in a straight jacket. The very sight if it infuriated me.

"Nova," Panacea said the moment she saw me, attempting to rise to her feet. "I didn't do what they said, you haven't to-"

"I know," I said, cutting her off before ripping the door off the hinges. She stared at me wide-eyed as I undid the straps on her jacket.

"What are you doing?" She asked me incredulously.

"Getting you out of here," I stated sourly. She seemed to get the message at that moment.

"Nova," Alexandria called out. I turned and look directly at her with the harshest stare I could pull. She was floating tensely at one end of the hallway, ready to move. "Stop what you're doing," she demanded. "Give us back those three and you still might walk out of here. It doesn't have to be this way."

"I don't think you understand," I said, picking her up in my magic. I felt her attempt to flinch. I didn't let her. "I'm am sick and tired of people attempting to control me, to undercut me, to hurt my friends. And most of all, I'm sick of it being done by people who suck at their jobs!" I chose that moment to slam her into the wall behind her, causing her to shoot through it like it was made of paper. Half a second later, Eidolon appeared again. This time he raised his hand and emitted a purple glow. But whatever it was meant to do, I wouldn't know, as I teleported a second before he activated it.

I had only one more stop to make before heading back, by far the easiest one. I teleported to the Endbringer bunker, flew in and found my father. Looking at him, I felt my anger flare again. Not at anyone in particular, just in general.

I grabbed a healing potion from my bags and stuck it in his mouth before teleporting away one more time.

---

Lisa came up to me as I watched the moon move through the sky from one of the thicker branches of the Crystal Tree. She was freshly showered and in civilian clothing. She handed me a magic potion she must have just cooked up, which I appreciated as it soothed a headache I had been dealing with for the last couple hours.

The city had been silent. They hadn't even started bringing people back yet. They were confused. While we had lost four times as many capes as normal, but we had ten times as many capes present for the fight. So, technically it was a record low of capes dead per cape present. On top of that only a few dozen citizens had been killed and about a hundred injured. As far as damage went, only the Behemoth managed to actually harm the city. And most of it was a fire that spread by itself. Both Leviathan and the Behemoth had been horribly injured in amounts never before seen, not to mention the death of the Simurgh. By all accounts we hadn't just fended off all three Endbringers, we utterly destroyed them.

But all that left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth as news of what happened slowly spread, soon become a tense air of unease all around the city. I was sure there were thousands of different versions by now, all of them equally untrue. But people were waiting to see what was going to happen. Not even the heroes have been patrolling.

"So what happens now?" Lisa asked, sitting down next to me.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I'm a villain now," I said with a dry laugh. "Funny, I'm pretty sure Will warned me this was going to happen. He had more foresight than the PRT seemed to have. Speaking of which, any sign of him at all?"

"Nope," Lisa said with a shake of her head. "He's out there somewhere, but until we get a chance to go and find him I have no idea."

I sighed. Well, at least he wasn't dead. Before it all went down, I spent some time going through the list of the dead. An overwhelming number were from out of town, but there was a lot from around here too. Glory Girl, Flashbang, Shielder, Kaiser, Crusader, Night, Cricket, some independents, Kid Win, Triumph, Velocity, Browbeat, and Uber. It was a massive vacuum of power on all sides in the city. The Empire, in particular, seemed doomed to collapse, leaving the ABB and the Merchants to fill in the gaps. Not exactly an aspiring future.

"How is Amy?" I asked after a time.

"Shes…" Lisa paused and considered it. "Trying to focus on other things. Like making more rooms inside the Crystal Tree. Apparently, it's not the first time she experimented with making a tree house like this."

"And my dad?"

"Recovering. Amy put him back together good as new, but he is still processing the information."

"What about Shadow Stalker?" I was almost afraid to ask.

"Keeping to herself, surprisingly. It seems like she knows she isn't exactly in welcome company at a time, where it would probably end badly if she bothered anyone. So Amy gave her a room and shes been there ever since."

I sighed, that was something at least.

"Hey," Lisa said, nudging me lightly. "I just thought you'd want to know that whatever happens, whatever you decide going forward, all of us are a team. We'll help you."

"Are we though?" I asked. "It doesn't really seem like we're a team at all. In fact, almost every person here is only here because they were running from something. You ran from Coil, Amy ran from her family, Imp is running from authority. Will was running from… everyone. And now there is Shadow Stalker, who is only here because she hates the PRT as much as I do. We're less like a team and a collection of problem children."

"Will isn't a child."

"He might as well be."

"... That's fair."

Lisa paused a moment and considered things. After about a minute she said,

"No, I think we're a team. We're friends after all. If I really wanted to leave I could have a long time ago. Will honestly thinks working with you is his best chance to be the good man he wants to be. You went out of your way to save Aisha and she won't forget that. And with only Brandish left, Amy doesn't have much of a family to go back to even if she could. You've given us all a reason to stick together."

"You, Aisha, Will, Amy, and now Shadow Stalker," I said, turning it over in my head. "A corporate thief, a runaway child, a terrorist leader, and a convicted felon. This doesn't make me feel any better."

"Oh lighten up," Lisa said with a roll of her eyes, nudging me playfully. "Don't act like we haven't at least made your life interesting."

"I guess so," I said, nodding. "But there is one more thing bothering me."

"And what's that?"

"You lied to me. Multiple times if I remember right, but mostly about Biohazard. Even when you knew, you wouldn't tell me. Why?"

Lisa took a deep breath and sighed. "I really did think I was doing you a favour, helping you come to a decision more peacefully. But we saw how that played out."

"Yeah, we did," I added bitterly. Lisa sighed again and shook her head. She seemed to consider something for a second, then straightened up and raised a hand.

"Well, not again," she declared. "From here on out, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Crazed Frankenstein creations and all."

I couldn't help but manage a weak smile. "I guess that'll do."

"Good," Lisa said, standing up. "Then tomorrow we're going to need to find Will."

"Why?" I asked curiously.

"Because whatever you decide to do, you're probably going to need to make a speech. And you just can't do that without Will."