"Is that it?" Cassandra asked, looking down the street and scanning for any one else. Cars had been abandoned, and people had raced into various safe zones, or escaped into the subway system which they had blocked off with some of the abandoned cars to create a barrier. Hopefully it would buy the people a few minutes.

"What about them?" Charlie asked, pointing upwards at the various helicopters that were circling the area. "Why is the media here?"

"Because they're leeches and they're looking for a story, with some clickbait bullshit headline. I promised your mom that you wouldn't be in any real danger so we're going to need to pull back. We'll keep clearing the streets and picking up and rescuing any stragglers away from whatever the threat is. Understand?" When Charlie nods, Cassandra takes a deep breath she had been worried that the kid would argue with her and try and do something stupid. But Charlie was taking in her instructions and her suggestions and adjusting and communicating with her. "Alright double check and make sure that there isn't anyone else."

Charlie nods and looks around before creating an electric field, and containing it to the streets and above. She closes her eyes, and focuses for a moment, what had once been blurbs in her mind's eye, had sharpened considerably and she could feel them, people huddled together, there were people pacing, others were praying. She's about to narrow the scope to her usual distance when something enters her electrical domain and it's like nothing she's ever felt before. It wasn't human. She could tell that immediately, "It's headed this way."

Cassandra immediately follows Charlie's line of vision, she didn't—before she can react the speed at which half a building just implodes as a large grey humanoid shape roars, loudly at Becky Lynch who batted away like she was nothing and sent flying in the opposite direction as both Bayley and Sasha attempt to bring or slow the beast down. Sasha was teleporting all over the place while Bayley's metal wolf constructs try to drag the beast down but they're failing and the beast shrugs off all attacks. "Holy—fuck," Cassandra swears. "We got to go before it—"

The monster's head suddenly whips around and locks its eyes on Charlie and lets out a deafening roar, as its shoulder slams into Sasha sending her crashing into a building, there's a sick thud as she gets knocked out cold.

Bayley swore under her breath and slammed her hands together summoning another creature this time a large bird as she jumps onto it and ducks out of the way to check on Sasha, just as Becky breaks free from the rubble and runs and jumps onto the back of the monster as she tries to wrap her arms around its neck in an attempt to hopefully choke the thing out. She focuses on Charlie who seems frozen in place and narrows her eyes. "Get the fuck out of here! Go now!"

Cassandra tears her eyes off the monster and spots Charlie just staring at the sheer carnage, and swats Charlie hard upside the head. "You need to go. Now!"

Charlie blinked and looked at her aunt Cassandra, and turned her eyes back to the gray monster, there were bones everywhere, and the glowing red eyes showed no compassion, no humanity. It was just a rabid monster intent on destruction. And for the briefest of moments Charlie was absolutely terrified. This wasn't like anything she'd seen before this thing wanted to kill her, she could feel it. She didn't want to—

"Charlie! It's okay to be scared, but I need you to remember your training and retreat," Cassandra said after slapping Charlie hard across the cheek and forcing the kid to pay attention to her. "I'll hold it off. Contact Frannie and get the fuck out of here. Understand?"

"I—"

"Charlie!" Charlie nods at the sharpness of Cassandra's voice and swallows and begins to pull back as her Aunt turns to face the monster and energy explodes off her body and she starts creating a large and condensed ball of energy. Her Aunt had this, Cassandra had been unstoppable in her prime and she had the experience. Charlie immediately takes to the sky, putting distance between her and Cassandra as she pulls out her phone and notices her hands trembling, and she takes a deep breath and tries to steady her nerves as she dials Frannie's number.

~ O ~

Frannie was not having a very good day, under normal circumstances it took little to no thought to simply open up a portal and connect the space to another space. But she normally didn't have multiple portals open at the same time. And for the first time her attention was split, her son was with his paternal grandparents but they were old and weak. If they couldn't stop this she would be forced to flee and find a safe place for her Mikey. She would let the world burn to keep him safe.

Her eyes immediately fly to her phone, her heart dropping hoping that it's not Joe's mother telling her that something was wrong. Instead it's just Charlie's name flashing on the phone. Immediately she answers the phone. "I am currently running our entire logistical support so this better be good." Frannie snapped at her youngest sister.

'I don't want to die.'

Frannie's concentration nearly breaks and she turns to the phone and quickly turns around and turns on the tv. Her heart had nearly sunk, she had forgotten that Charlie was in New York. "Where are you? I'll bring you to me."

'It's just death, it's just death and destruction and I—oh god, I think it just crushed Becky's face, it's just blood. None of Aunt Cassandra's attacks are working—I can't—I don't want to die.'

"Aunt Cassandra is there? What the fuck is she—" Frannie took a breath, as she lands on a channel that has a clear visual of Charlie and focuses slightly, blinking a bit when the camera suddenly pans and Frannie takes a good look at the monster that they were facing, and she suddenly understood Charlie's fear. Cassandra was a monster in her own right and it looked like her best moves were just stinging the beast. "Oh. Shit." Frannie's jaw drops as Cassandra gets dropped, her head into the cement as the monster catches her and drags her down. The force of the impact creates a crater and there's a sickening bounce. The sound of Charlie's panic attack in her ears brings Frannie back and she sighs, "Hold on, I just need to regain my bearings and I'll—"

'It's going to kill her. Fuck it's going to—'

Frannie flicked her attention back to the television, she had no idea how long the delay was but Cassandra was barely holding on, and her energy shield flickered dangerously as the monster simply pounded away at her. Her mother was going to write her out of her will for this, but there was no way that she could risk opening a portal so near the monster to do a rescue of her aunt. Charlie would need to create some distance, she was the only one who possibly could make the rescue and get both her and Cassandra to safety. "I'll give you permission then."

'What?'

"That's what you need isn't it? My permission not to hold back? I don't have the brainpower to save Aunt Cass right now. So you're going to need to be a hero and make the rescue. Once you get clear I'll save both you and Aunt Cass." Frannie fires off quickly they needed to do this in one quick sweep she'd deal with the damage later.

'I—'

"If you have the power to save someone and you turn your back on them because you're scared, what does that make you?" It was the lowest of blows, and it was beyond manipulative but Charlie finally takes a breath. "You're going to need to go past it."

'Okay. I can do this.'

"A simple grab Charlie, we've practiced this maneuver before, remember you've done it perfectly each and every time." Frannie reminded her sister turning around as the door to her room opened and she looked up. "I need to go now. Go."

~ O ~

Charlie takes a deep shaky breath, for something that size it's speed would be problematic even if she was going at her top speed. She can feel the panic starting to creep back in. She wanted to run away. She wanted so desperately to run and hide under her covers until the danger passed, but she would never be able to forgive herself. She wasn't the only one here that was scared, she could feel the hearts racing, the fidgeting, every action that the masses below her were doing reverberated in her head. She could have a nervous breakdown later she needed to remember her training, and she needed to trust her instincts.

The simplest way to get her Aunt Cassandra to safety was to get the monster away from her, and if that thing was nothing more than a mindless predator, the quickest way to do that was to become the biggest threat and force the alien to come to her. She wasn't quite sure she could simply grab it's nervous system; this wasn't a normal human where the signals were different but also similar. The amount of concentration it would take would be dangerous, which meant that she only really had one other option. She needed to become the prey and which was not a position she really wanted to be in. "Okay."

Taking another deep breath and exhaling, she calms her mind and focuses, before opening her eyes creating a massive electrical pulse which acts like a beacon for the alien. Almost immediately it's head snaps up, its attention locked onto her as it roars and leaps up in the air.

Charlie's eyes widened in shock at the speed of the beast hurtling through the air at her, no one had said it could fly!

~ O ~

"Have you gotten Frannie yet?" Judy said pacing as she glanced at the television, and nearly screamed as she alien attacked her daughter. "Mom!"

Artemis looked at her daughter, but she dropped her phone as Charlie dropped suddenly before catching herself and blowing the head off the monster with a finger. Her granddaughter didn't have the best momentum and crashes into the lower half of the monster's body as it drops, the heft knocking Charlie out of the sky. "What. Was. That?"

It was so unlike Artemis to be surprised at anything but even Lawrence couldn't believe what he was seeing. Charlie had never just annihilated— "Did you know she could do that?"

Artemis looked at her husband and gave him a patient look, "I don't even know what she did."

Lawrence flicked his eyes back to the television as a camera found Charlie and managed to get a close up of her sitting up and staring at what appeared to be the carcass of the alien. He could be wrong, but he would need to press his granddaughter for answers, if she was generating enough electrical power to generate antimatter then there was no walking this back. He had noticed it back at Nationals, and there was an ease at which Charlie had done it, like she wasn't fully showing off what she could do. "Well it seems like we were worried about nothing."

"It's not over," Artemis said immediately before going back to attempting to call Frannie. "Lawrence, do you have Santana's number?"

"No. But Shannon might," Lawrence said, reaching for his phone. He pauses and looks up at Rachel who immediately shakes her head. She didn't have Santana's number at all.

"I already texted Blaine, but he's not responding, Kurt's reaching out to him, but he might not have his phone on him."

~ O ~

Charlie made a gesture when she noticed a camera whizzing by, hoping that Frannie got her aunt to safety. She takes a deep breath and resets her footwork as she studies the alien, the electrical signals hadn't stopped once, and even though she had managed to stop it she hadn't managed to end the fight. That had been her second strongest attack, one that she had hoped would end everything. But she had managed to stop it, which meant that she was probably the best bet at killing this thing. So even if she was scared, she was the only person who could fight.

Red lightning appeared in her left hand, as Charlie focused, doubling and tripling the power until a large black ball appeared in the palm of her hand, the sphere expands as Charlie raises her other hand repeating the process with her usual lightning till there were two massive black balls just as the beast gets up, it's head reforming as it lets out another deep roar at her. The action causes the hair on her neck to stand on end as she fires off both balls which combine creating a massive purple beam of lightning that annihilates everything and anything in its path.

But instead of killing the monster, and destroying everything, the beast catches the blast, the sharp bones that pierced his grey skin grow in response to the stress as it begins to absorb the blast, it flashes it's gross sharp teeth at her as it begins to get bigger.

"Oh. Fuck!" Charlie swears. That had been her strongest attack and the stupid thing had just taken it and absorbed it. Any shred of confidence that she was going to live through this evaporates, as she can feel the ice cold grasp of fear slowly wrap around her. She was so fucked.

~ O ~

Shannon's mouth went dry as Charlie's attack failed. It had been a mistake, to throw that much fire power at the alien when they weren't sure of it's capabilities. She could certainly understand why Charlie had made the choice, and if she were in the same situation she would have certainly made the same decision, but it had clearly been a mistake. She suddenly felt guilty, all year long she'd depended on Charlie and Charlie's growth had been stunted. Charlie was way ahead of her peers when it came to experience and skill, but compared to a season vet, all Charlie had going for her was her skill and pure raw power.

"We've never had a student killed before!" Figgins stated closing his eyes, they would have to get grief counsellors, and the massive bonus that they had won through winning nationals would be eaten up.

Shannon shot Figgins a dirty look as her phone lights up and she reaches for it. "Beiste," she greets not even checking to see who it was.

'Shannon it's Lawrence, do you have Santana's phone number, we're hoping that Frannie is still at the Combine, we're trying to send some support to Charlie.'

Shannon immediately looked, "No, but I have her parents number on file, we'll bring it up and send it to you as soon as we get it."

'Judy do you have the Lopez's number?' Lawrence asks focusing on his daughter.

'Yes I have Miguel's and Maribel's number in my phone—I'll try both of them!'

'We're good here, thank you Shannon.'

"Will she be okay?"

'We're working on it.'

Before Shannon can ask any more pressing questions Lawrence hangs up. Under normal circumstances she might have been offended by the rudeness of being cut off but this time she understands. Charlie was barely managing to keep space between her and the monster, at least she had learned that her hand to hand combat was barely passable in these types of situations.

~ O ~

Cassandra coughed as she slowly got to her feet, everything fucking hurt. She would normally take stock of her injuries and make a decision then and there but Charlie was still on the fucking field, and it was clear that she was on the defensive as she zipped past cars, touching each of them until she manages to land on a massive 18 wheeler and she touches it, lifting the truck. Charlie's eyes are glowing as she falls back to her usual techniques to slow the monster down as she fires off the cars using her rail gun technique, but just like everything else the alien simply shrugs it off.

"Heads up kid," Cassandra yells catching Charlie's attention, but she's proud that Charlie doesn't take her eyes off the threat and instead ducks as she sends a beam of energy flying at the monster, now this was a tag team up that people would be talking about for ages.

The blast seems to catch the monster's attention as it's deflected by the bones that covered the beast's arm like armor. The energy slamming into the building and causing the shield to flicker and fail. Before Cassandra can do anything the beast lifts its arm and throws a long shard of bone that's been sharpened into a javelin at her. Cassandra immediately creates an energy shield but the bone pierces it as if it's nothing and Cassandra looks down in horror at the bone piercing her stomach. Cassandra coughs, tasting the bitter iron taste of her blood as her legs give out from underneath her.

"Aunt Cass," Charlie called out before appearing beside her, catching her in her arms. "You'll be okay. You'll be okay. Frannie!" Charlie shouts as loud as she can as a portal opens up behind her. Without even hesitating Charlie throws Cassandra into the portal as the monster finally catches up to her and brings it's fists down to begin pummeling her to death. One of it's massive fists slamming into Charlie's chest.

The force of the blow is enough to shatter the windows of all the cars that lined the street and the now defenseless building, but as glass rained down, Charlie hadn't moved an inch and upon closer inspection the blow from the alien hadn't landed. It was a full inch away from Charlie's body.

For the first time an expression other than rage and hatred graced the face of the alien as it cocks it head in confusion, as a snowflake suddenly lands on it's rather large nose. As Charlie looks up at the monster her eyes are a crystalline green and they are glowing, and the apex predator suddenly senses the danger that he's in and stumbles backwards.

~ O ~

"Is that you?" Marley questioned Quinn, tearing her eyes away from the television, it didn't look like Quinn was doing anything but watching as intently as everyone else. She had never seen her girlfriend worried, it was etched all over her face. Maybe Quinn had figured out how to use her abilities from a distance. It was all the way across the country but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that the Fabray family could do.

"I'm not doing that," Quinn whispered as she looked at her hands. "There's no way." They had done so many tests as twins, the fact that they didn't have the same power had baffled even the top scientists. It hadn't made a lick of sense, she and Charlie were genetically similar, they were practically perfect copies of each other. Brittany had all but confirmed that. There was no way that Charlie could use her abilities, but at this moment she had prayed for a fucking miracle and whatever god or angel or demon had granted her wish as there's an explosion of ice and lightning and the alien is encased with ice.

"Then how—?" Marley questioned flinching as the alien broke free of the ice encasement.

Quinn shrugged but if Charlie had tapped into her abilities then her power levels had just gone up exponentially. Charlie had chosen overwhelming force to beat this thing and maybe now she finally had a chance. Her phone dings and she looks up as the rest of her family begins to ask her the exact same question.

~ O ~

"Did you know that she could do that?" Blaine whispered as Charlie returned the favor and pierced the aliens body with thousands of lightning icicles, there's an explosion as the tips suddenly explode, sending the beasts blood flying everywhere, and it's at that moment he realizes that the blood was corrosive as it eats through the cement and through cars.

Santana is about to respond when she sees the blood seeping from Charlie's nose, as her body begins to steam as it looks like Charlie has lightning trapped under her skin, as parts of her muscles and blood is illuminated, "I don't think that Charlie knew that she could do that. They were watching Charlie creating history, "She has this," never had she been more sure of anything. Charlie wasn't going to lose this fight. She had never once seen Charlie as fucking pissed as she was. It was written all over Charlie's face, there was just fury on Charlie's face.

Dani was about to agree with Santana's assessment when she spotted that something dark and red is dripping from the ear that was facing the camera. "Where's her fucking back up? She's dying!" Dani snaps and glares at Santana angrily as her phone begins to go off.

Santana immediately sent the call to her voicemail, her eyes riveted to the screen. She had faith, this time Charlie wouldn't fall until the fight was over. But her phone immediately begins to ring again and she answers it without looking at it. "What?"

'Santana! It's Judy. Is Frannie still nearby? We're trying to get Charlie backup—' Judy explains quickly.

Santana blinked as the monster suddenly started to sink into the ground and began to struggle, there was not a hint of kindness in Charlie's eyes as she forced the monster to its knees so it was finally at eye level with her. "I don't think Charlie needs back up Mrs. Fabray," Santana whispers, gravity as well? Was Charlie tapping into her entire family's arsenal? How was that even possible there was no studies on this, and with the exception of the people who could copy powers this was unheard of.

'Santana.'

Santana blinks and nods, "I'll see if Frannie's still on the premises."

'Good, my mother is trying to get to Charlie and help. So hurry I'm not sure how long she'll be able to hold on for.'

Santana nods and turns to Blaine and the rest of the Titans, "We need to find Frannie now. Charlie needs more backup and they're trying to get her the help she needs. So split up and find her, let her know to contact Charlie's mom."

Blaine immediately nods, "You hear that! Everyone get off your asses and find Frannie, we need to get Charlie help!" He says taking charge and getting the rest of the gathered teenagers involved. The more people looking the better.

~ O ~

The alien beast roared in agony as Charlie shoved the bone javelin that had just been shot at her through its heart. Mercy couldn't be in her vocabulary; as she used her abilities to bend both ends of the javelin leaving a long shard through the beast's chest, and it slumped to the ground. It's body was attempting to heal itself but while the bone was piercing it's skin it would be difficult for it to heal properly. It gives her enough time to stop reacting and think of a way to win this fight. She had annihilated it's brain, stabbed it through the heart, and it hadn't stopped.

That didn't leave much left, she slowly exhales and takes the moment to just be in the moment and experience it. Everything felt like it was sharper, she could hear just a bit better and she could feel everything. The entire city was her domain, she could see people glued their devices, there were so many televisions on right now. And she knew in that moment that was only a drop of what she could do—

An ear piercing roar, forces Charlie's attention to shift back to the threat. No—it wasn't a threat any longer. That roar had lacked the power from before. She tilts her head as she focuses on the beast and reaches for it only for it to take a swipe at her, but this time Charlie shrugs off the blow with a flick of her fingers and there is an explosion of light, which dissipates leaving just a stump. Charlie froze and waited for the beast to start healing again but this time nothing changed. There is just a stump where its arm used to be, its corrosive blood spilling out as nothing more than a sputter.

Charlie exhales and enters the beast's space and places her hand on its chest pushing it back so it's on its back. But as she does she can feel it and her eyes blur as she feels it, its pain is written in its genes. Is this what Brittany felt when she healed people, "I am so sorry," she murmurs. She couldn't change what it had gone through but she could give it release, perhaps it could find the peace it sought there.

She can feel the heat from her eyes as a blinding light begins to emanate from the aliens body, before it spreads bathing everything in a bright white light.