It's the sound, the low hum as the lights flicker that cause Santana to look up, her thoughts immediately flying to her girlfriend, when Charlie had strong emotions there was always some sort of indication and flickering lights was generally a warning to get the hell out of dodge. Before she can text Charlie to see if she is feeling okay, her phone begins to blare in unison as an alert takes up her entire screen.

The PA-system crackles to life as the blares stop, "Students this is not a drill. I repeat this is not a drill, until further notice the school is in lockdown, please move away from the windows the emergency defense system will be activating in 3-2-1.' A light blue energy shield immediately engulfs the school, wrapping it in a protective forcefield.

Before Santana could piece together what the hell was going on and how it related to Charlie, someone screamed, causing her to duck and immediately flame up, her training kicking in, as she immediately turned to the noise to assess the threat. Had something managed to get through the barrier? If this was a threat on multiple—

"Holy shit is that Utopian?"

Santana immediately turns to look outside, and immediately pales as her flames go out, "That's the Union of Justice." It wasn't the entire union, but it was the only A-listers, the main branch. The Utopian, Brain Wave, Lady Liberty, Paragon, Ectoplex, and Ruby Red. It was the dream team, and they were in McKinley. There was genuine awe, she'd grown up watching the Union, and she'd always wanted to be a member if even for a brief moment. To fight alongside Lady Liberty. But her hero worship is quickly cut short as she suddenly puts two and two together.

If Charlie was out there—then she needed to do something in here to minimize the damage. This didn't look right, the optics were terrible. Charlie was a damn hero. "Everyone, start recording. Start streaming, posting it everywhere. Someone get JBI and his AV nerd people to start streaming this live. Use our support team to get audio, I want to know what's going on outside," Santana started barking orders. When no one moves she explodes in flames causing them to scurry about and begin pulling out their phones.

Santana frowned, she needed more information. She was missing something, a visit from the Union of Justice wasn't necessarily something that would piss Charlie off. For all she knew they could have come to pay their respects to Artemis and Lawrence. "What am I missing? Keep recording."

"Santana Lopez, this is a lockdown!"

"Trust me, we really don't want a brawl of the strongest AI's on the planet anywhere near this school. We all know how cheap Figgins is, there is no chance those shields hold." Before the teacher can respond she's out the door. Charlie had English class first thing in the mornings, so that would be her first stop.

~ O ~

"So the Union of Justice is now in the business of murdering teenagers?" Charlie questions as she stands and looks up at the supposed greatest heroes. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't take this personally."

Utopian narrowed his eyes, he hadn't been for the long range attempt, it had seemed cowardly. "Charlie Fabray, I warned you that there would be consequences for failing to listen and more importantly submit—"

"Dude you're like a hundred years old and you're telling a teenager to submit to your authority, that's not a good look," Charlie interrupts immediately. "Actually it's gross and creepy. Stranger danger everyone, he wants me to submit to him and his authority!" Charlie says raising her voice.

"I told you, disrespectful, she won't bow to our authority, and given the history of her family she already thinks that she's above us, she has already shown us that she can't be trusted with that power."

The Utopian nodded, his brother was right, the power of a god in the hands of an arrogant, disrespectful teenager. "You have one chance to save yourself. I do not wish for your blood to be on my hands."

Charlie stared up at them, her eyes flicking between the Union of Justice members for a moment, "On whose authority?"

"President Robert Kelly has issued an executive order, revoking your hero license, if you fight back you will be labeled a supervillain, and we will use lethal force. You are too powerful and too dangerous, and your arrogance, your disrespect and the fact that we can not control you is why this is happening. I warned you about the consequences."

"And I told you—I'm sorry looking up at you is hurting my neck, so if you don't mind. Kneel." Charlie commands, there was no amusement in her voice as she brings the entire Union of Justice to its knees in front of her, she can see The Utopian straining hard to break free of her control, and judging from the roar of pain it was painful. "Let me just make sure we're all on the same page here, the President of the United States sent a kill order for an American citizen on American soil, and you for whatever reason didn't see a problem with that. Did I get that right Brainwave?"

"We counseled him that this was the right course of action and the AI Act gives him express permission to label you a threat to national security and the right to label you as a supervillain and with this act of aggression—"

"This act of aggression, you took a shot at me, you tried to assassinate me. I didn't come to the Union of Justice and knock over all your ugly-ass statues that people worship. I was minding my own business, trying to grieve and see if that would help me and you come and try and kill me. In case you haven't realized I'm far more popular than any of you and the people of this country realize that I am the future and you're obsolete." Charlie's gaze immediately returns to the Utopian who with a loud roar manages to break free of her control.

Using all of his superspeed and appearing right in front of Charlie he throws a punch, he was the strongest man on the planet. It had been a few years since he'd been in his prime, but he'd just stopped a rogue meteor from crashing into earth a few days ago, it would have been an extinction level event. To have an untested young gun coming after his position, was infuriating. His son would be Earth's greatest hero in a few years. But his brother was correct, Charlie's ability seemed to be growing exponentially. They couldn't afford to let her live, if she went crazy like Cassandra then there would be no one on the planet who could stop her.

The force of his blow collides with Charlie's face, causing an explosion of air pressure and the windows rattle and car alarms go off in the distance, but instead of seeing a smear on the pavement where Charlie had been standing. He's immediately taken aback by the fact that she's still standing and his fist is barely an inch from Charlie's face. "What the—"

Charlie glances back at the school for a moment, and quickly reinforces the shields, it would be smart to take this away from the school, she doubted that even with a boost from her abilities the shield would hold, but she doubted there would be a place nearby that wouldn't lead to an absolute loss of life, and at least here with people watching and possibly streaming the conflict they would be on their best behavior. "I don't think I need to get serious to beat you," Charlie informs him as she reaches and places her hand on his chest and smiles as she disrupts his heart's rhythm. "I did warn you what would happen if you came after me and my family," Charlie whispered to him as he dropped to the ground clutching at his chest. "I know you have your reasons and you have your orders, but unfortunately I'm taking this personally," Charlie informed the rest of the Union as her eyes began to glow.

~ O ~

The very last thing that she had wanted to do today was head into school, but if Charlie had decided to attend then that's where she needed to be. Federal agents were a problem, but most of them were nils who carried guns, which quite frankly wouldn't work on Charlie to begin with, but she would need to keep her head down for a few days and hopefully everything would be back to—

Almost instinctively she presses the button on her steering wheel answering the phone, as she glances at her media center to see who was calling, "Rachel, I'm on my way to see Charlie. If she's being as weird as you say she is, I'll handle it then. She probably just needs a bit of a push—"

'The Union of Justice is at the school and they're currently battling it out with Charlie, the entire school is in lockdown. You won't even be able to enter the parking lot Quinn.'

Quinn immediately pulled over so she could park her car, "What? Why the fuck is the Union of Justice here? What members of the Union of Justice—"

'The Utopian, Brainwave—all the A-listers, I mean it's a pretty one-sided beatdown, and it's being streamed. But According to JBI, they're here to kill Charlie. I mean it's JBI so I'm certainly not sure how accurate he is, and that is certainly an accusation to hurl around, but everyone is saying it.'

Quinn blinked slowly, "Is Charlie winning?"

'Yeah but—'

"Then I don't care, it hasn't even been a week, it's been a weekend and they're attacking her directly after her mother's death? Fuck them. If Charlie wants to kick their ass and use them as punching bags, I honestly could care less."

'Quinn, I know that you're upset but I think Charlie's using lethal force, she's not batting them around like she does with us, she's not taking any damage. It looks like she's trying to kill them and as much as you think they deserve it. They probably do, you know what the fallout is going to be if she does. She needs you right now, she really needs you.'

Quinn immediately makes a face, she didn't doubt Rachel's perception of events and if Charlie had started off using traditionally lethal force, her twin clearly wasn't in a good headspace and murdering the Utopian while on camera wasn't wise. "Show me. I need to see what's going on, switch on your camera."

~ O ~

Charlie slammed her foot into Utopian's jaw, kicking the much bigger and older man onto his back and placing her foot on his neck, her eyes iridescent under the sunlight as she pressed down with her foot. "I did tell you that you were in my spot—" A bolt of electricity slammed into her face, and Charlie blinked and turned to look at Ectoplex, tilting her head. "What was that? Did you just hit me of all people with electricity? I mean all that did was give me a bit of a boost. Come on Shelly—can I call you Shelly? Imma call you Shelly, is this the best that the Union of Justice has to offer? You want to see electricity? Charlie snaps her fingers and a massive bolt of lightning descends from the heavens, it's not just one bolt but many as she brings it down on the heads of the Union of Justice. Ruby Red's energy shields shatter under the pressure and even Lady Liberty drops to a knee. Charlie returns her attention back to The Utopian, "Now Shelly, you have one opportunity to tell your people to run away. Those words, run away. You'll be the Utopian no more, forevermore known as the world's biggest coward, who took his people to murder a teenager and had to withdraw because they were weaker than her."

Utopian struggles, trying to get up, to fly away but she had put him in a gravity well, there was no escaping. "Walter," he manages to get out.

Brainwave aka Walter Sampson manages to break free and steps into Charlie's space as the teenager turns his hand rising up as he drags Charlie's mind into his mindspace. He knew they should have started with this attack, instead of getting their asses handed to them, once the assassination attempt had failed and they were forced to go to hand to combat, this had been a disaster. He would need to create a psychic construct so realistic that she wouldn't be aware of the damage her body was taking. "Ruby!"

Ruby Red, with the ability to make energy constructs switches into making large red spears and immediately runs at the frozen body, hoping and praying that Brainwave's psychic construct worked and they could end this. What had once been a perfect photo-op, had now turned into a brawl, and while she knew this wouldn't look good. It would at least help with their image as the world's strongest heroes—before the spear could pierce Charlie's body it stopped inches away from her body and no matter how hard she pushed it didn't seem like she could pierce the distance. "It's not working."

"What do you mean it's not working?" Brainwave says, grimacing, she seemed aware of what was going on outside her body. All of this should have stopped ages ago, Sheldon and Grace should both be up as should Sierra. Before he can start yelling out more orders, Charlie's hand suddenly shoots up and grabs him by the throat, as her hand sparks and he's electrocuted, as he drops his psychic construct as he falls to his knees and tries to catch his breath.

Charlie turns immediately to look at Ruby Red who seems to understand what is about to happen as she wraps her body up in her thickest shield she can muster, but it shatters as Charlie touches it and before she can react, she gets hit with a blast of electricity sending her flying away. Before she focuses on Brainwave, she was angry he had tried to trap her in some sort of happy illusion. She had been with her grandparents, she'd seen her mother—and she had known it was fake. Every last second of it. "Did you think that was going to work?" Charlie questions. "When I was a child, they made sure that I could keep myself safe even while I slept, that my abilities would still work as long as I was conscious. Did you think that your little parlor trick would work on me? My grandmother didn't trust you and figured we might come face to face one day, so we all learned how to keep you out of our mind." Charlie said as she places a firm hand on his head and brings her knee up, slamming it into his face. At the moment of impact firing off another blast of electricity, which seems to explode his face.

Walter coughs, and struggles to back away, only to be met with a firm punch to the face as Charlie suddenly mounts him and begins to throw punches, they weren't as powerful as Utopian's fists, but they were certainly strong enough to rattle his brain and knock a few teeth loose. His blood splattering all over her.

Grace Sampson also known as Lady Liberty is to her feet first and she manages to grab Charlie by her waist and throw her backwards in a suplex, slamming Charlie down onto her upper shoulders and lower neck. But before she can follow up, a powerful current of electricity shocks her, forcing her to break her hold as Charlie rolls back. A wild dangerous look in her eyes. No wonder the 4 Horsewomen had laughed in their faces at the thought of taking her out. This was a fight that Walter had pushed for, and it was clear that it wasn't working out at all for them.

Charlie slowly gets to her feet, wiping away some of the dirt and blood that had splattered onto her face, and inhales deeply before exhaling, a thick smoke as the water vapor condenses. "Alright. Now I try."

~ O ~

'Absolutely not.'

Santana frowned as she looked at Frannie. Frannie was logical, she could convince her. "You know as well as I do that Charlie can't just kill the Union of Justice, and while it was cool at first, this one-sided beatdown is making people feel uncomfortable, I can calm her down. Just—"

'Santana, I understand that you have a burning desire to make a name for yourself, and while I do think that you might be able to pull Charlie back, you are also Charlie's biggest liability. If you go on the field and something happens to you, we're not just looking at a bunch of dead dipshits, we're looking at an extinction level event.'

The words sting, but instead of focusing on the pain that she feels at being once again dismissed by someone she respected deeply, she focuses on the situation at hand. "Something needs to be done, if that means that you have to enter the fray then you need to fucking enter the fray. If you won't let me go help then send in Quinn, send in the 4 Horsewomen, anyone who can put a stop to this."

'Santana, I understand that you're worried but you need to actually think about this situation, you have all the information. There's a very good reason why I'm not getting involved, why Quinn isn't getting involved. If we stop the fight at this moment, if Charlie's focus shifts for even a second—'

Santana glances at where the remnants of the bullet were, "They're here to kill her. If they get a chance, they'll kill her."

'If you want to be a hero, you need to take the emotion out of it and look at the situation for what it is, even if it is people you care about. This is what separates the shitty heroes from good ones. I'm not saying to be emotionless and be a killing machine, but the world isn't black and white and you need to be able to see the bigger picture.'

"The big picture is that Charlie is currently bashing Brainwave's head into the pavement like she's dribbling a basketball. I'm not sure they can survive much longer, and something still needs to be done."

'The solution is on its way, I know you're focused on what you're looking at right now but change the channel. Santana, we are working on it. It shouldn't be that much longer.'

Before Santana can reply and ask for more information Frannie ends the call, leaving her stunned. Charlie and Quinn had repeatedly warned her about Frannie's personality quirks, but that was still rude as hell. "Roderick, we need to get a news channel, try a national news station."

"Got it," Roderick replied as he went back to his laptop.