It had been two days since the dragon's attacks and Astro's return. The Vanguard had been struggling to figure out how the dragon had managed to get so far into the city without anyone noticing it. According to Hank's scanner, and multiple eyewitnesses, it just seemed to just appear out of nowhere. Which was incredibly troubling.

It was bad enough dealing with monsters trying to get into the city. If they just started popping up inside of it there was no telling how much damage they could do.

As for Nia, the others decided she should sit out missions for a little while. With everything that had been happening around the young princess Kingsley had been worried that she may have been overworking herself. Nia didn't like it, but after her fight she had to admit she could use a little time to relax and clear her head.

Of course it would have been a lot easier if she could stop thinking about how angry she was with her brother. Astro really had come back and acted as if everything was back to normal. He went right back to his usual routine. Playing with Sear, hanging out with Micah, training. And everyone else just welcomed him back.

Well, almost everyone. Cayenne had been furious with him, but he brushed it off, infuriating her even more. The only thing that kept a fight from breaking out was Micah and Vera calming the Combat Department officer down and convincing her to deal with him later.

It was actually pretty off for everyone else when she, Cayenne, and Astro were in the same room. With the looks they were always shooting him now you'd swear Cayenne and Nia were the ones who were related. Even now, Nia couldn't help but feel irritated with her brother. And it showed in her sparring.

Olevia easily parried every swing of the sword Nia sent her way. She had been teaching the younger girl a few fencing techniques over the past few weeks, and Nia had been advancing pretty well. Today however it was obvious something was on her mind.

She stepped aside, and Nia stumbled forward almost falling onto her face. She quickly balanced herself and turned back around, getting ready to attack again. But Olevia held her hand up and shook her head. "Nia, you've been way too aggressive with your attacks lately."

The princess sighed. "I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'm just a little… distracted today," she said trying to catch her breath. She glanced over towards her brother, who was sparring with Amber. She still couldn't believe he just went right back into his regular routine.

There was no explanation or talk. He just went on like always.

Olevia walked over and patted her on the shoulder. "Family troubles, right? I know how it is. My sister and I have some drama between us too," she said.

"How did you deal with it?"

"I moved here," Olevia said, shrugging her shoulders. "But I don't think that's going to happen with you two, so you should try and smooth things over. Just talk to him."

Nia rolled her eyes. "You clearly haven't talked to my brother yet. I'd rather have to fight that dragon again," she muttered. Hank was still freaking out about how that thing had managed to get into the city without the alarm going off.

"Just give it a shot. It can't hurt right?" Olevia said, smiling.

The two then heard a clashing sound. They looked back over and saw Astro using his sword to push Amber back. She was holding him back with her sickle. "You've gotten better," Astro said, smirking down at her.

Amber smirked back. "You've gotten stronger." She spun around, letting him stumble forward, and then swung her sickle towards him. Astro just barely managed to block the strike with his sword. "But you're still slow on your feet."

"Maybe, but I did learn a few new tricks…" He pushed Amber back again, but this time the septerain princess felt something snag her foot. She fell back and then looked down to see Astro's tail wrapped around her foot.

She looked back up at him confused. She had thought he would have completely changed, but his eyes and teeth were still the same. "How did you…?"

"The horns are permanent now. Everything else is optional," he said offering her a hand. She reached out and took it before he hoisted her back up to her feet. "I'm glad I have someone to clash blades with again. Father isn't exactly the swordsman type."

Amber turned and looked towards Nia. "Well, Olevia is also very skilled with a sword. She's been helping Nia improve quite a bit," she explained.

Astro looked towards the two. "Really?"

Nia narrowed her eyes. "Well you know, someone had to keep helping train me while you were gone…" she said, not even trying to hide the bitterness in her voice.

Astro completely ignored the jab. "What do you say we see just how much you've improved then?" he asked. Nia looked a bit surprised at the offer, and Olevia and Amber shared a glance. "You said you've been training in your swordsmanship, haven't you?"

The younger Butterfly just stood there. "Uh… I don't…" She kept getting quick images of their last fight. How angry she felt, her losing control, cutting her brother. She took a step back away from him. "N-no… I don't want to."

Olevia and Amber both looked surprised, while Astro just hummed. "Well, that's a little disappointing. If you do feel up for it just let me know. I'm eager to see what you learned. Perhaps I can spar with you Olevia."

Olevia nodded. "It'd be my pleasure."

The two began to stand off against one another, but then Vera suddenly walked into the room. "Hey guys!" she said waving happily. "Really sorry to interrupt, but Kingsley wanted to talk with us about the event next week."

"Wait, what event?" Astro asked, raising an eyebrow.

Nia crossed her arms. "Oh, I guess I forgot to mention it to you." The tone of her voice said she clearly hadn't. "We decided we're going through with that big party to introduce us all. I hope that's not a problem for you."

Astro stared down at her for a few moments, and then sighed. "Fine. Do what you want. I'll participate if you want me to, but I'm not really interested in planning any of it. I'll leave that up to you," he said heading for the door.

"I don't care if you show up…" Nia muttered.

"Duly noted," he said before whistling. Sear, who had been sleeping, poked his head up before quickly rushing over to his side. "By the way. I suggest you work on keeping your powers in check. Micah told me about the little meltdown you had trying to rescue Sear. We can't have you exploding every time you stress out now, can we?"

Nia's eyes widened as she watched her brother leave. She bawled her fist up and glared after him. Olevia and Amber both looked worried. "Nia…?"

"He is such a-!"

"-uppity piece of shit!" Cayenne cursed angrily.

She sat along with the other lead officers in their office as they went over some of the events of the past week. "Yes Cayenne, we heard you the last four times," Damian said.

"Then why is everyone just letting him get away with this shit?!" she snapped. "He keeps secrets, goes AWOL, comes back and starts acting like some big shot and we're just going to act like nothing happened?! The fuck?!"

Kingsley held his hands up. "Cayenne, he already explained what was going on. I know he kept some secrets from us but given the situation I think we can let it slide," he said. "Besides, I'm more worried about Nia right now. With what she told us about her family and that attack yesterday, I think she needs our attention right now."

Cayenne snorted and rolled her eyes while Renee turned to Hank. "Did you figure out what was going on with the monster radar?" she asked.

Hank shook his head. "There's nothing going on with it. I ran it through a bunch of tests and it's one hundred percent functional. It's working just fine," he said bluntly.

"Something's got to be wrong with it. Monsters don't just pop in and out of the city like that," Cayenne said crossing her arms.

"I'm telling you there's nothing wrong with it. I can readjust it all day and night, but I can't fix what isn't broken. The only thing I can guess is that it's some kind of magic at play, and that's just not in my skill set," Hank said before turning to Damian. "Any suggestions?"

Damian shrugged. "I can try asking the others, but if this really does have something to do with Nia's family we're probably out of our depth here. Maybe we can ask Alexander?"

"I don't trust that asshole," Cayenne said. "There's something slimy about him."

Renee chimed in. "His family does have a pretty shady history. Hardly anything was ever proved but it's well known that they'd been involved in a number of criminal activities."

"He's the only one who can teach Nia to control her powers though. Not to mention the donations he's making to the League," Kingsley pointed out. "Still, we'll keep a close eye on him. If it looks like he's up to anything we'll step in." There was a reason he had asked for Nia to be taught here at the base after all.

"I think we also need to talk about the security for the event," Renee said. "We don't want another repeat of what happened during the press conference."

Hank frowned. "I've got some help from Eiffel and Lily as far as cybersecurity goes. I'm not sure if we'll be able to stop them from taking over the systems, but we'll at least be able to see it coming and prepare," he said. They didn't have any hackers on the Youngblood's level, which was a huge disadvantage. "We also have some facial recognition cams set up."

"According to Astro Sear has collected the scents of quite a few Youngblood members, so we'll have that going for us. But they're pretty wise. It'd be easy for them to hide the scent of their shape shifters," Damian said. "Still, I suppose it's better than nothing."

"Alexander offered his help with security too, but I'd like it if we would go over everything just in case. I really don't think he'd let anything slip but better safe than sorry. We're going to have the royal family here after all," Kingsley muttered.

The Lucitors and Queen Star herself were showing up. He had a feeling the Youngblood wasn't going to pass up this chance to try and make them look bad at a public event. They needed to make sure they had all bases covered this time.

Alexander hummed as he stood before his younger cousin. He had arrived just a little while ago to begin showing her how to reel her powers in, and from what he was seeing he was pretty sure this wasn't going to be an easy task. "Is something bothering you Nia?" he asked.

Nia had her arms crossed and was scowling. All the small objects in the room were flowing around her, carried on a small gust of wind she was in the center of. "No…" she muttered.

He sighed. Any type of power based on emotion was always tricky to deal with, but when you were dealing with a teenage girl those problems multiplied tenfold. "Nia, I know there's been a lot going on lately, but you need to clear your mind. We're not going to make any meaningful start like this," he explained.

The girl groaned before taking a deep breath. She breathed in and out for a while and, and the gust of wind began to die down. Eventually everything settled down. "Good, good. Being able to calm yourself will be essential until you can get a handle on your abilities. Now we can get started," he said cracking his neck.

Nia stretched her arms. "Okay, so what do we do first?"

"We're going to focus on controlling the massive amount of magic you have. So we're going to sit down and meditate," he said before taking a seat.

She raised her eyebrow. "Um… I meditate like every day with the others, and it never helped me before. Why would doing it now help me any?" she asked.

"When you've done it before it was to clear your mental state. A helpful skill that will come in handy for this, but not the goal. The goal today will be to use your mental state to control your magic in its rawest form," he explained. "You know how you channel your magic through your wand, right?" Nia nodded. "Well, it'll be the same basic principal only instead of the wand you'll be channeling it through you actual body."

Nia looked down at her hands. "Uh… won't that be dangerous though? I can only use so much magic through the wand as it is. Can my body really handle something like that?"

Alexander nodded. "You have nothing to worry about. With our lineage we could absorb ten times even the most powerful sorcerer's magical limit and still keep going. You may not remember but your magical power exceeded anything that wand itself would handle while Titania was in control," he said. "Now, sit down and focus. Bring all of your magic power to the surface. Just remember to keep calm and in control."

Nia shook her head and sat down, feeling a little nervous. Even if she could bring out all that power would she really be able to control it? "Don't be worried," Alexander said suddenly. "If things get out of control I'll reel you in. But for now you must get used to bringing out your power. Once you get used to wielding it, we'll start to work on controlling it."

"O-okay…"

Nia sat down across from her cousin and then closed her eyes, doing her best to clear her head like Damian had taught her. Then she focused on what Alexander said. Bring her magical power out through herself, just like she would with the wand. She thought back to the time when her brother had told her to pour her power into the wand to see how large she could make it grow, and tried the same thing.

Alexander hummed as he felt the girl's magical power begin to spike. He opened his eyes and saw a pink aura starting to form around the girl. "Good," he commented. "That's good. Just keep bringing out that power…"

The princess didn't answer him. The aura around her kept on growing and growing, and eventually it looked like a cloud of pink energy had formed around her. Alexander got back up to his feet. "Incredible," muttered. He'd felt it before, but for someone her age to be so powerful was still impressive.

He walked towards her. "Alright Nia. Now I want you to just keep doing that. Grow used to the feeling of wielding that power. Make it become second nature. Once it does, you won't need to attempt to suppress it anymore. You'll be able to keep it from spiraling out of control," he said.

Nia nodded and kept concentrating. She knew it was probably much easier since she was just sitting, but she did feel in control right now. This was the most power she had ever drawn out, and she didn't feel like it was slipping away from her.

Alexander backed up and began making his way out of the room. With that amount of magic it would take some time to burn out. He gave it an hour tops. But that was a good thing. The longer she could hold it together, the quicker she could adjust. After he walked out of the door and turned around, he found himself face to face with Astro.

He smiled down at the prince. "Have you come to observe your sister?" he asked. The prince just kept staring at him with a blank expression for a few moments, and then turned and began walking off. Alexander hummed as he watched him leave. "That one… might be a problem…" he muttered. Something was up with that boy. He just couldn't figure out what.