While the PRT and the police dealt with Uber and Leet's people, Aegis, Vista and I were loaded into a van and taken to the PRT-HQ, along with my Autobots.

After such a public fight the director wasn't going to wait for us to make a report.

She was already waiting for us when we were led into a large meeting room, Aegis took a seat at the middle of the table, his back to the door. Vista and I sat on either side of him while the Protectobots and Warpath took up positions around the room. I'd grabbed some stuff from the mall before we'd left that I'd stuffed into a bag which was currently sitting by my feet.

A PRT officer placed a small voice recorder on the table.

"I have one question," the director asked, her voice cold. "Who authorised the use of live fire around civilians?"

Aegis cleared his throat, "that was my decision Ma'am. Uber and Leet had us outnumbered and were shooting into the crowd with paintball and rubber rounds. We were locked in and needed to end the fighting quickly."

Aegis quickly recounted the entire event, starting with Concerts arrival and pausing to let Vista tell her part. Taking down two Heavy's on her own was impressive but she looked annoyed at being sidelined for most of the fight.

"If it helps, I have footage of everything," I suggested. Rewind had already pulled the footage from my bots and was synching it up with the footage taken from Concert.

The wall mounted TV was a newer model and I could connect to it wirelessly. Rewind split the screen into smaller frames and even included subtitles to show who had given what orders.

It took nearly an hour to go through everything. The director insisted on stopping and replaying actions that caught her attention, her expression darkened every time footage from Concert was used. Most of her ire was focused on Treble and Lightshow, whose actions were token at best.

First Aid produced a full list of injuries sustained by the public and was even able to point out who likely caused them. Warpath helped as well; he had a good head for ballistics and was able to account for every shot he fired. He could honestly say he'd never hit anyone but the villains and had video to prove it, that meant all the injuries were a direct result of Uber and Leet.

Director Piggot had just finished watching the footage again when she fixed me with a rather pointed stare, "You do realise there will be comments raised about the force used against Uber?"

"Excuse me ma'am, but what other choice was there?" Hotspot said before I could reply. Piggot looked momentarily surprised but covered it quickly.

"He was throwing grenades at people and we didn't expect him to keep fighting with a broken arm. That gun of his was high caliber and it was using live rounds," as he spoke, the video on screen changed to Defensor's view. Uber's aim was clearly off, his arm was waving all over the place.

Hotspot continued on, "He was firing blind. Not to mention the chance of a ricochet. It's a miracle he didn't hit someone. Our first priority was to stop him before that happened."

"Any police force you can name would have been justified in gunning him down," Streetwise pointed out.

The director's expression darkened further, but she didn't say anything. She looked up at the sill images that were on the screen, Uber and Leet in the middle of the mall, a diagram Rewind had pulled up that showed the layout of the mall, complete with everyone's locations and Uber aiming a gun at Defensor.

"Very well," she said eventually, "I'm not happy with what happened but given the situation I can't say I would have done anything different." She sighed and turned to Aegis, "It's a shame Uber and Leet got away, but you did the right thing and made protecting the civilians your priority."

I think that was supposed to be praise.

"Ma'am, if I may, what about Concert? Did you know they would be there today?" Aegis asked.

Affiliated groups were not supposed to make big public appearances without warning the PRT first. It wasn't really a rule, but it gave the PRT time to make sure help was available if a villain decided to crash the event.

"No, and I will be talking to them about that later. For now, you three are dismissed."

The others stood to leave and I reached under the desk for the bag I'd stashed there. "Umm… Actually, there was one more thing..."

Piggot let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes?"

I lifted the bag and placed it on the desk, "I thought you might like this?"

Frowning, the director carefully opened the bag, she was acting like it was going to bite her. -Then again, Clockblocker was on the team - Seeing the smashed remains of Leet's camera, her expression shifted to one of dark amusement.

Her smile wasn't friendly, "very well, good work you three."

Vista and Aegis kept their expressions carefully blank until we were outside the meeting room.

"What was that about?" Vista asked.

"Honestly? I don't know. Dragon suggested it." I'd received the message just before we left the mall and had quickly grabbed the camera. The others had been tagged as evidence but Miss Militia had already promised to make sure they arrived in my workshop, along with Leet's backpack.

The pair of them had pulled equipment from thin air, that meant they either had a form of dimensional storage or a highly accurate teleporter. Either way, I was fairly sure the backpack was part of it.

"Well it certainly cheered her up," Aegis responded while looking at his phone. "Anyway, it's getting both did well today, so go home and get some rest. Matrix, don't forget you and Vista have a joint patrol with Concert on Monday evening."

Vista groaned at the idea of patrolling with Concert and I had to admit I wasn't looking forward to it either. -Maybe I'll get lucky and Treble with break a leg.- Putting that aside, I sent a message to Amy to see if she was still up for tonight.

##

By the time I'd made it out of my meeting with the director, Amy had been home, collected her stuff and her sister, and gotten back to the PRT-HQ.

Now the three of us were snuggling down on the sofa with a pile of cushions, pillows and quilts. We also had snacks and dad had ordered us pizza. He'd been planning to go out with friends tonight, but when he heard about the attack he considered canceling.

Vicky proceeded to talk rings around him until he gave in. He was barely out of the door when she turned on me with a rather salacious grin.

"So~ you finally met Uber and Leet. What do you think?"

"Ugh, they're idiots." I screwed my nose up at the thought of them.

"Yeah, but Uber's kinda cute," Vicky said with a grin, bumping her sister with her hip.

"Is that all you think about?" Amy rolled her eyes at her sister's antics. She hadn't said much on the ride here.

"Oh, come on, how can you not like those abs?"

"By remembering the five people the pair of them nearly blinded?" Amy shot back.

"Y'know, sometimes you two are no fun." She stuck her tongue out at us.

"Well sorr~y for not finding a musclebound bully attractive." I snarked, copying her voice as much as I could.

Victoria held her hands up in defeat. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. I swear, the pair of you are like peas in a pod; how can you not enjoy a nice bit of beef? Speaking of bullies, whatever happened to those girls?"

Her sudden change of subject caught me off guard and it took me a minute to realise just who she was talking about.

"Not much, Sophia is on the run. Emma was sent to juvie for assault and attempted manslaughter and Madison got community service. The school is paying damages and for the hospital stay." So had the PRT, but they'd asked me not to talk about it.

Truthfully, I hadn't thought about any of them in weeks. Between patrols, school and working on my own tech, I'd just been too busy. I was glad they were being punished, but I had more important things to do.

"Really? That's it? If it had been me, I would've hunted Sophia down by now and made the bitch pay."

"Like you'd even fit in the locker." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

"Are you calling me fat?" Vicky said with a grin.

"Well you're bigger than me," I said defensively. In truth, I was taller than Vicky, but she was much more curvy, and her short sleeved t-shirt showed a surprising amount of muscle tone on her arms.

"Yea, but don't worry about it, i'm bigger than most girls my age," she said with a laugh. "But seriously, how do you resist going after her?"

I shrugged. I know some of the Wards had been worried I'd do just that after our run in with Shadow Stalker. But what would be the point? Sure, pounding her face in might be satisfying, but it wouldn't change what she did.

"I'm not going to waste my time chasing her. Sure, If I got the chance I'd happily shove a tazer up her ass," -okay, maybe I was still a little bitter- "but she's not worth the effort."

Vicky's frowned, "I suppose so... Wait, why did one of them only get community service?".

"She pled guilty. When the police turned up, she told them everything, even handed over text messages and emails about it," I explained. Apparently, she'd had nothing to do with the locker, and had only found out about it when it happened.

Vicky was about to say something else when her cell dinged, she glanced at the screen and her face lit up. "Oh! That reminds me, did you know there's already a PHO thread about the mall? There's tons of videos and pictures up. Somebody even caught Ams tackling that cape!"

Amy and I groaned as Vicky grabbed my tablet and brought up the video.

##

After several cheesy movies, Vicky was the first to fall asleep. I debated trying to draw on her face or something. Wasn't that what you were supposed to do? In the end, I abandoned the thought. Her forcefield would probably stop me, and the last thing I wanted to do was make someone with super strength jump.

Amy and I were about halfway through some old action movie, I forgot the name but the leading man was obsessed with doing the splits.

"Taylor... Is… Is fighting always like that?" Amy asked, she had her phone in her hand and I could see the video of her taking that cape down on the screen. She'd been quiet all evening and I was starting to get worried.

"What do you mean?"

"Terrifying, frantic, noisy…" she struggled to find the word she was looking for.

"Exhilarating?" I offered. I'd never been much of an adrenaline junkie in the past, but there was something thrilling about winning a fight.

"Exactly! I've never really been in a fight. Most of the time I'm on the edges, looking after the injured and I've never used my powers as a weapon… It was just so easy, I walked up behind him and put my hand on his neck and…"

"Do you want me to wake Vicky up?" I asked quietly, surely her sister would be better equipped to deal with this?

"No. No, let her sleep, I'm just being silly anyway."

Shuffling over, I put my arm round her shoulders, "Amy… What's really bothering you?"

She didn't answer at first, she was too lost in her own thoughts, "... Did you know I was adopted?"

"No…" it made sense though. I'd seen pictures of New Wave, and Amy didn't even have a passing resemblance to any of her family.

"My Dad… My real one I mean. I don't really remember him, but I think he was a villain. Carol never talks about him, but he must have been someone really bad. Sometimes, I catch her looking at me and it's like she's seeing someone else… Sometimes, I think she hates me. When I first got my powers, I tried so hard to be good, to help people. But putting that cape to sleep made me feel better than healing has for a long time."

She took a shuddering breath, "When he was on the ground, I couldn't help thinking about what I could do to him. How I could make him pay for threatening people. I could do so much harm it's not even funny."

Thinking about it, I'd never actually heard of a healing cape before. Sure, there were capes who could heal, but they could always do more. When I was researching Tinker medicine for First Aid, I'd gotten distracted by the different 'known' healers. The closest I'd found to Amy was a cape down south who could heal almost anything, however the people he healed were then forced to obey him. The duration of the effect was in direct proportion to the extent of the injuries healed.

"Amy, what exactly is your power?" I asked carefully. I felt like I was walking through a minefield.

She gave me a slightly haunted look and I had to fight the urge to move my arm. "If it's organic and alive, I can do anything I want to it. Cosmetic surgery? How big do you want them? It doesn't even have to be instant. I can make them grow gradually over time. Turn a human body into a swarm of insects? No problem.." her voice had a slightly hysterical edge, "Life ending plague? Give me five minutes and a glass of water... I could make Nilbog look like a child with a chemistry set…"

Nilbog was a Striker who turned people into monsters. He'd turned and entire town before people realised what was going on, and it had taken him less than a week. The PRT had still been finding its feet at the time, and attempts to kill him had ended badly. In the end, all the PRT could do was quarantine Ellisburg. So far, Nilbog had been content to stay behind the walls.

I pulled her close and tried to calm her down. Her power was... terrifying. It was bad enough knowing just how dangerous Tinkers could be, but at least we were limited by time and materials. It sounded like all Amy needed was some bacteria and a bit of imagination.

I couldn't see Amy doing that, but the knowledge she could was clearly eating her up inside.

I decided to try a different approach. "Wait here," I snuck up stairs, careful not to wake Vicky, who was still dead to the world, and pulled a notepad out of its hiding place. Going back downstairs, I handed it to Amy.

Confused, she opened it up. The first image was labeled 'Fusion Cannon'. The next was a bomb. The entire notebook was filled with designs and notes for weapons that could depopulate a city. As Amy read, I explained what they did in as much detail as I could.

Eventually, she stopped at another small bomb. Compared to the others, it was nothing. It wasn't even Tinker-Tech.

"Taylor, is this?"

"When I first realised what I could do…" I shrugged, "I was angry, nobody seemed to care about what had happened to me except for dad, but there was nothing he could do. It was my word against theirs and no one in that shithole of a school wanted to take my side. Not even my own personal stalker."

I put my hand on the page, "If Rewind and Rung hadn't been there, I would probably have gone through with it… Now this is a hiding place for all my worst ideas."

I shook my head. "Everyone has thoughts like that. The idea that if you'd just pounded her face into the pavement it would have all been better." I gave her shoulder another squeeze. "What's important is that we don't follow through with those thoughts."

\\life is violent and cruel - and so very precious\\

"Amy... Yes, your power can be dangerous, but so is mine. Hell, all capes are... Heroes and Villains… In the end, we all come from the same place. We're all messed up, we all had that one bad day. What truly matters is what we chose to do after the tragedy. At the end of the \day, life is cruel. All we have are our choices, and we can chose to make things better.\ You did, after all."

Amy stared at me. "Do you really believe that?"

"Sure," I nodded, shifting my arm slightly and ignoring what felt like a static shock. "You could have done anything to that cape. He had a gun, he was a threat to everyone in the crowd, including yourself. Despite that, you chose to deal with him in the gentlest way possible. You put him to sleep and lowered him to the floor."

\\You chose to be better\\

We sat there quietly for a little while, neither of us really watching the movie.

"Taylor?... Thanks."

"Don't worry about it. I know I've said this before, but I really think you need to take some time away from the hospital, and if you need to talk to somebody, call me. It doesn't matter if it's late, I don't need to sleep."

I glanced back at Vicky and decided to try lightening the mood, "Your sister is a really sound sleeper, huh?"

Amy smiled weakly, "Yeah, she once slept through an explosion." I gave her a shocked look and she decided to explain. "They changed Dad's medication awhile back. It ended up really messing with his head. At one point, he put a sealed can of beans in the microwave and walked away..."

We passed the time swapping silly stories until she couldn't stay awake any longer and we decided to get some sleep.