"It's like you don't even want to be here and try and fix what's broken Charlie, my abuela and parents spent all last night prepping because everyone knows about the blackhole that you call a stomach. The world has heroes and you don't need to take on everything alone!"

"You think I don't want to be here with you? You think I got dressed up in this and swiped super expensive rare wine from my grandfather and had Frannie send me to Canada so I could pick up some flowers for you and your mom? Or the cupcakes? There is one with bacon icing Santana. I know that you think that I'm running from you but there is something wrong. I can feel that there is something wrong with my grandmother—"

"And how do you fucking know that?"

"Because I can't feel her!" Charlie snaps at Santana. Since she could remember there had always been a gravitational field around her, something that helped keep her strength and abilities in check. She had nearly broken Lopez's dinner table earlier, the feeling had disappeared just like that. "It won't take me long to go home and just see what's going on."

Santana narrowed her eyes, Charlie was always just leaving and there was a far off look on her face, "If you go out that door and leave then we're done Charlie. I can't do this, I can't always deal with being fourth or fifth in your life."

Charlie blinked and turned to look at Santana, every bone in her body was telling her that she needed to go now, that something had happened to her grandmother, but Frannie was there and if it was some sort of health issue, then she would have taken her grandmother to Brittany or her grandmother Rose. Her grandmother was the strongest person she knew, she was probably alright. "San—"

"You need to make a choice Charlie. You can't keep bailing on my family, and me and just expect me to be okay with it." Charlie's eyes glowed in response to her ultimatum but she can't help but stick her chin out. She was serious. She needed to lay it all down and she hoped that Charlie—

"Alright," Charlie says with a sigh, if it was really important someone would call her. No one was stupid enough to take on her grandmother in a fight, and if it was a health emergency she'd need to be able to explain that to Santana's parents.

~ O ~

"Mikey!" Frannie lets out as her eyes flutter open and she shoots up, ignoring the searing pain in her shoulder as she lets out a gasp of pain, and clutches at her shoulder desperately. She needed to find—

"Stop moving, I only stabilized you," Brittany snaps at her sister, frustrated. How was she going to explain to Mike's parents why her sister and her nephew had crashed into their dining room table. Mikey's crying had woken nearly everyone up. All the blood, the damage had been extensive and if she hadn't reacted then she was certain that Frannie could have died. Regrowing tissue, dealing with the massive blood loss that Mike's mom was currently cleaning the blood from the floor while Mike was trying to speak baby for Mikey.

"Is he—" Frannie weakly attempted to push Brittany away.

"Mike has him, he's fine, they're in the living room eating cheerios and Mike is trying to communicate with him, it's not working but it's cute—" Brittany was quiet for a moment. She had spent the last hour and a half working on Frannie's shoulder rebuilding her lungs, and fixing her destroyed arteries, while also forcing her body to start producing far more blood, to compensate for the blood all over the kitchen. Never once had she been jealous that her grandmother Rose could heal with a kiss. "Frannie what happened?" Frannie wasn't the type to put her body on the line.

"Cassandra. The psychotic bitch. We need to get to a safe house."

"A safe house," Brittany repeats, raising a brow. "We have safe houses?" The amused smile on her face disappears when she sees the stormy look on Frannie's face.

"She killed them, Britt, they're all dead. Mom, grandma—grandad. She killed them, she was trying to kill me and took aim at Mikey and I just—I could have fought back but I just needed to save my son. I should have fought back—avenged them. I don't know there was just so much blood and the smell—burning flesh. Oh god." Frannie takes a deep breath, before letting out a cry of pain as Brittany's hands drop.

"What?"

Frannie hisses in pain, at this moment they didn't have the luxury for Brittany or any one of them to fall apart. "My powers can be used offensively but I don't think I can throw her into the sun—fuck thing 1 and thing 2. Quinn's heading home with dad, how long have I been out?" When Brittany doesn't answer her Frannie turns to look at her. "Britt! How long was I out?"

Brittany blinked and looked at Frannie, a shocked expression on her face, like she couldn't comprehend the information that Frannie was giving her. "Nearly two hours—grandma is like the strongest AI on the planet, Aunt Cass couldn't have killed her—are you sure? She might be injured, we need to find grandma Rose—she might still be alive."

"Cassandra ripped out her heart, Britt, and I heard mom scream and then get hit by one of her blasts to the face and when I got there—grandpa was last and then she saw me and saw Mikey and I just ran away. I needed to save him—I'm sorry, but we need to get in touch with dad, Quinn and Charlie, we need to get them to safety as well. Your phone Britt, I need to call dad, they should be on their way home now and if Cassandra is still waiting—" Frannie trails off. She barely tolerated her siblings, but at this moment she needed to make sure that they were both safe. Both Charlie and Quinn were capable of taking care of themselves, but Cassandra had ambushed the family and that's how she'd been able to get the upper hand. "Britt."

Brittany got up and grabbed her phone and unlocked it before handing it to Frannie, "What are we going to do?"

"Save the rest of the family, and then call in an air strike or something. The only reason she was able to get the jump on us was because we weren't expecting it."

Brittany immediately goes back to healing Frannie, speeding up the process as best as she could. Frannie wouldn't be a hundred percent for awhile but she'd live and she would need to make sure "There aren't many people who can handle a member of our family when they're serious Frannie, and an airstrike is like child's play to someone like Cass. Maybe we should call in the general?"

"Grandma is gone Britt. Grandad is gone, we lost our protection and if we make this public and start dragging heroes into this, it'll be worse for us. It'll be worse for my son and all the freedoms that have been afforded to us—they will be stripped away if we don't handle this ourselves. The 4 Horsewomen owe Charlie, perhaps she can call in a favor." Frannie reminded her sister as she dialed her father.

~ O ~

"Are you certain that Sue didn't fudge the score? I mean I wouldn't put it past her to bribe the officials or whatever." Rachel points out narrowing her eyes slightly, it was something that Sue Sylvester would do.

"Yes, I mean unless Sue engineered the fact that we were completely off center, Bree's rhythm was off, I can see why Sue doesn't have a national championship to her name."

"Because she's crazy?" Rachel asks.

"I mean yes, she wanted to shoot a kid from a cannon last year," Quinn mused. "The difference is that I don't think they want it. Not like the hero-team wants it. Most of you don't even want to be heroes, but Charlie practically kills you in practice and none of you are sending doctor's notes in and complaining to Coach Beiste about my sister literally torturing you."

"We do complain to coach Beiste—I mean we did till Charlie quit. Your sister is quite possibly a sadist and if the whole hero thing doesn't work out she could be a drill sergeant. Winning changes things. Even when we weren't very good, we were winning, and that's a euphoric feeling when you've bled for something. You've earned it, and we earned it. We all did. Then you get a reputation as winners and you want to keep it going, you need to, and that's how you get a culture of winning and excellence," Rachel finishes her little speech.

Quinn stares at her for a second before letting out a laugh, which only grows as Rachel huffs at her laughter.

"I assure you that was from a very condensed version of a powerpoint that Coach Beiste asked me to make for her, she appreciates my powerpoint skills! And she paid me a hundred dollars. It's given me a business idea on how to save some money for my New York dreams!"

"Which school do you want to go to up there?" Russell asks, glancing at Rachel from the rearview mirror.

"NYADA, Julliard, you know the really good schools."

"You know I have a bi-monthly poker game that I go to up in New York. I'm pretty sure that some of the guests are big donors to some of these schools. I can ask around, see if anyone owes me a favor or money, if you want me too of course."

Quinn narrowed her eyes at her father, scowling at him, "Dad."

"Relax, Quinn. I said only if she wanted it. You're friends with my daughter, and I have connections with people in all sorts of industries. It's called networking, that's how you get jobs, that's how you meet and impress the right people Rachel. That's the real power Rachel, the people you know."

"Dad."

"He's not wrong, Quinn," Rachel said, reaching for her arm, to calm her down. Nearly every leading actor in Hollywood these days comes from a rich family, or is related to someone who is in the business. There are very few people who make it on their own, I just need a chance to prove myself, and I don't really mind how I get that chance. So when it's time for me to graduate, I hope that you don't mind calling me in that offer Mr. Fabray."

"I've told you to call me—" Russell taps the answer call button on his steering wheel, "Britt! I'm in the car with your sister and Rachel—"

'I need to extract you now, where are you?' Frannie interrupted.

~ O ~

Charlie glanced over at the leftovers that the Lopez's had practically forced into her arms, as she pulled up the long winding driveway and slowed to a stop as she parked her car and stepped out immediately her eyes were glowing softly as she hops down and looks at her aunt who is sitting on the steps, her hands bloody and a serene smile on her face as she watched Arte and Wolfgang fighting over a bloody piece of meat in front of her. But apart from her aunt, and two dogs she felt nothing. She couldn't sense any other bioelectrical signals. "What did you do?"

Cassandra slowly lifts her head and smiles at her niece, "I found my peace, isn't that what you wanted?"

The sound of her phone ringing causes Charlie to glance over to it, just as her truck gets hit with a massive yellow energy blast destroying the vehicle and causing both Arte and Wolfgang to scatter leaving a bloody piece of meat behind. Charlie turns her attention back to her aunt and takes a deep calming breath. "What did you do?"

Cassandra gets up and takes a few steps to the side before opening the door. "Why don't you see for yourself."

Charlie takes a step forward carefully, but when Cassandra doesn't make a move or try to attack her she slowly makes her way into her house. It's the smell that hits her first, transporting her back to New York when she was a sidekick for the 4 Horsewomen. Blood. Burning flesh, the scent of burnt hair, is thick and she almost wants to gag. She didn't want to see this, but as she takes a step into the kitchen and gazes out onto the deck she sees her grandmother's lifeless sitting on the couch, a large wound in the middle of her chest. Her grandfather draped on her legs, hugging them tightly. The large wound in his back told her everything she needed to know about what had happened but when she turns to face her aunt is when she spots her, "Mom?" Charlie's voice cracks as she sees her mother's lifeless body.

"She was the golden child, with her perfect children and her perfect life. I mean it's not her fault that she was loved," Cassandra explains standing beside her completely frozen niece. "It'd be a lie if I said it was an accident, I hated her. I hated her dumb kids and her stupid relationship problems. Frannie who could never be bothered to take me to where I wanted to go. Brittany, who would do the bare minimum in patching me up. Quinn—" Charlie turns to her aunt sharply, but Cassandra just smiles, "Quinn, who thought she was better than me, looked at me with such contempt, and then there's you. Perfect little Charlie, my mother's pet project. The hero, the future savior. You were the worst of them all. I was fine, miserable but fine and then you gave me hope."

"I didn't make you do this Aunt Cass." Charlie's voice is barely a whisper as her eyes start to glow brighter, a crack of electricity erupts from one eye hitting the light bulb causing it to crack.

"Of course you did. You filled my head with such pretty little lies, but when I needed you where were you? When they needed you, where were you? Knuckle deep in your pretty little girlfriend?" Cassandra whispers ducking as Charlie lashes out with her arm. "Still absolute shit at hand to hand, and I thought—"

"Where are my sisters? Where's Mikey?"

"Do you really want to see their bodies?" Cassandra asks, before smiling at the horror on Charlie's face at the implication. "Oh, calm down. I didn't kill them. I'm not going to murder a kid Charlie in cold blood, I'm not a monster. This is just me burning everything down so I can start again. It has been a rather cleansing and healing experience." Cassandra suddenly shudders and smiles as she backs as she feels it. Her mother had created a monster, all that power she could flatten the world if she wanted too. Charlie had been created in her mother's image. "Mad? What are you going to do? Kill me?"

The windows in the house suddenly shatter, as the house groans under the tremendous pressure that Charlie is exerting, there was no kindness in her eyes, just white hot anger. "Yes."

Cassandra smiled as she let her power flow too, just as a portal opened up underneath Charlie's feet dropping her into it. "No!" Cassandra screams in frustration. "No!" Her face breaks a bit, before she steals herself.