"What the hell was that?" Rod shouted over the cacophony of noise. The emergency lights were blinking, and it sounded like every car alarm in the state was going off, as alarms sounded. "Are we live?"

"WHAT?" Sasha Banks shouted in response, just as the alarms suddenly cut off, leaving the arena with an eerie unnatural quiet. It takes her a moment to center herself, before she pushes herself off her seat. A wave of nausea hits her, and she immediately brings her hand to her mouth as she tries to power through it. She takes a few deep breaths before, exhaling and making her way to survey the damage. What had once been a bustling city looked like a scene out of an apocalyptic movie. "Holy. Shit."

Rod stumbled over to the balcony and his shoulders slump with his jaw, which is just hanging open at this point. He's not sure if it's shock or fear, or the simple absurdity of it. There had been thousands upon thousands of life model decoys and they looked like people, and to see them all lying motionless made it seem like he was standing above a mass graveyard.

"The shield generator is down." April commented, they were going to have to postpone things until they got that back up and fixed the—lights suddenly flicker back on and April looks up. "Must not have fried everything then."

Sasha flicked her eyes towards the lights and then back to the field, before she can say anything further she feels the band on her arm growing hot. "I have to go. I need to go down there to make sure the students are okay, before all hell breaks loose."

~ O ~

Frannie opened her portal and her tablet fell into her hands completely unharmed, she had been so glad that she had predicted that this would happen and had managed to save all her work. She looks around, "Well. At least no one is screaming," she hummed before opening up her ranking and dropping Charlie's ranking down towards the bottom. "Disappointing."

"Frannie." Artemis said as she slowly stood up with Lawrence immediately grabbing their things before he joined her.

Frannie shot her grandmother a look, "What? She lost control!"

"She's seventeen," Artemis reminded Frannie. She wasn't going to bring up Frannie's misadventures with her powers just yet.

Frannie frowned, she wasn't going to be condescended too. "She's a seventeen year old with the powers of a god. Charlie can't be anything but perfect, or—" Frannie gestures wildly to all the damage in front of them. "This happens."

"No one died, and she managed to contain herself in a second. You know how sensitive she is, it won't happen again," Artemis said, waving off Frannie's concerns. "Besides, don't think I missed the fact that she was already in the middle of the pack before you dropped her down further."

"It's my job to judge her, and she has so much to work on! Where are you going?"

"You don't actually think the commission is just going to let this go do you?" Lawrence grumbled.

Frannie opened her mouth and then closed it and then opened it again, before she too stood up. "They are probably going to blow this out of proportion, no one was hurt and quite frankly you're right. In the context of a stupid high-school competition, she is just a teenager, and there are plenty of teenagers that lose their shit in this competition. People have lost control of their abilities before."

"Exactly, they don't get punished and quite frankly Charlie shouldn't either," Lawrence agreed rubbing at his beard.

~ O ~

"I think I must have triggered one of her traps, I'm sorry Charlie I didn't hear or see anything, until after she'd caught me. I didn't mean to get Santana hurt—I can't really remember much, I just remember seeing Dani and Elliot and things went fuzzy. I think they used me to distract Santana," Tina explained, closing her eyes. She felt ridiculous riding on Charlie's back and she was certain that she could walk but Charlie had quickly rebuffed that idea.

"This isn't your fault," Charlie stated simply, if anything it was her fault, she had underestimated Dani and Lauren. Truthfully, Lauren was predictable and under normal circumstances she trusted both Santana and Blaine to be able to handle her without too much fuss, but she hadn't predicted that Dani would get involved. Even if in Lauren's mind this was a personal grudge, it didn't matter because she and Lauren had never been intimate, and Lauren wasn't anywhere near important enough to her for her to give a shit about Lauren's personal grievances. This had Dani's manipulations all over it, and she could smell Elliott's involvement in this. She should have taken him out first, his abilities had never once worked on her. She hadn't read the situation correctly and now Santana was badly injured, and Tina had been caught.

"But—"

"Santana will be fine." Charlie promised her. "We were simply caught off guard," Charlie admits, as she takes in the damage that she caused, and sighs there would be consequences for this.

"Charlie, her knee," Tina said, glancing over at Santana who was currently strapped to a makeshift metal stretcher. Charlie had immediately applied first aid, and seemingly knocked Santana out, for now. "There's no healer that will be able to fix that damage that quickly."

Charlie wiggled her arm, drawing Tina's attention to it. "Are you sure about that?"

"You know someone!"

"My grandmother, paternal," Charlie said, deciding to keep with the story that they were going with. Grandma Rose would be enough to act as a cover for Brittany to get things done, and she was a capable healer. Brittany wouldn't necessarily have to use her powers.

Tina blinked, she'd forgotten that Charlie had lost an arm, she hadn't really thought about it. "Your grandmother then—"

"Santana will be fine," Charlie interrupts with a hum. "I, on the other hand, am probably in deep shit." Charlie hummed, as she stepped over the fallen body of an LMD. She flicks her gaze towards Santana for a moment, and can feel a pang deep in her chest. "But since I knocked out all the LMDS, and all the camera drones, I imagine I've bought us a couple of hours. While they're figuring out how they want to continue the games, and my punishment, we'll have to figure out what our game plan is if I'm removed from the games."

"We're still in the lead."

"On a technicality," Charlie admitted. Their watches were dead, and she imagined that the commision was going to be punitive in removing points. Just like she imagined that they were going to block her from actually facing Charlotte Flair. "We'll see how much damage I caused, and then you guys need to stop Santana from trying to kill me."

"I don't think there's anything we can do to stop that, Blaine says we should just ignore you two when you're fighting. Kitty makes jokes about how mommy and daddy are fighting, all the time when you two fight."

Charlie snorted and bit her lip and looked over at Santana, "Don't mention it to Santana, then we're all going to be in trouble. Somehow this will be my fault." Charlie's smile fades as she looks at Santana. The ligaments in Santana had basically been shredded, and the force that Lauren had used had shattered Santana's patella. She was certain that there was far more damage than her quick assessment. It was taking a concerted effort to control Santana's bio electrical signals so she couldn't feel pain and wouldn't wake up, before she got her to Brittany. "Hold on tight." She waits until she feels Tina grip her shoulders tighter before double checking that Santana was secure in the makeshift stretcher before she uses her abilities to get to the rest of the team at the rendez-vous.

~ O ~

"I'm glad that you're all safe. Blaine—Matt, good job in making sure everyone came back safe," Beiste said, nodding at the two of them. Matt had stepped up and Santana's quick judgment had prevented what she could have been so much worse. It was a shame he was a senior and this was his final year.

"I didn't get everyone back," Matt said, clenching his fist. "We can still go back—"

"Charlie is with Santana, she should be with us shortly with Tina," Beiste said, hoping that it eased his concerns. "You did the right thing Matt, this could have been far worse."

Rachel immediately raises her hand and when she catches Beiste's attention, she drops her hand. "What happened?"

Jake nodded, "Was the building attacked?" It would at least explain Charlie's actions.

"More importantly, we can't exactly compete like this. Are the games canceled and does that mean we won by default?" Kitty asks and when everyone looks at her, she shrugs. "What? I can't be the only one thinking it!"

Beiste held up her hand to stop the team from devolving into a bickering match, she didn't have time for this, but she couldn't trust Figgins and when the budget increased she was going to demand that Figgins get her an assistant. "No, we haven't won yet, I can't stay and explain everything because I'm not quite sure what's going on myself. What I do know is that there will be an emergency session with the commission, where all this will be discussed. As for what happened, Matt, can you give a brief report. I'm still trying to piece things together myself." There was no way that Santana had lost a straight up fight with Zizes.

Matt hesitates, the guilt eating at him. "We were working in the disaster zone, we had just finished and Santana was in contact with Blaine's team when we were attacked by Zizes. Santana told me to take the freshmen and to get to Blaine, I didn't want to leave her, it didn't seem to make sense. Lauren might have hurt feelings, but she's not dumb enough to take Santana on alone. Even when she was on the team, Santana was always our second heaviest hitter. So when Santana told me to take the freshmen and get to Blaine, I was concerned, but like it's Santana, and it's not like she was facing Charlie or something. I figured she could handle it until I got the freshmen to Blaine."

"Charlie took off towards the disaster zone area," Rachel points out, before looking around, they had needed to avoid the camera drones dropping as well as the LMDs the only thing those had in common were— "This was Charlie. Charlie did this?" It comes out as a whisper. It looked like a bomb had gone off, and like they'd been hit by the apocalypse.

Beiste sighs, "I'm aware that they both claim that they aren't even friends, but we're not blind and we're certainly not stupid. We all know how close the two of them are. This was an accident, and quite frankly I'm not thrilled that I have to explain to a bunch of bureaucrats that the only thing that makes this different then any other year, is the scale of Charlie's abilities. But before I do that, my priority right now is to make sure that you guys are all alright, and to get our team back together." She was trying not to think about the injury that Santana had sustained. It looked like it could be career threatening.

"Maybe we can—?" Blaine stood back as Charlie landed, hard behind Beiste, nearly tripping as she kept her hand outstretched to make sure that the makeshift stretcher remained stable.

"Tina!" Artie rushed over to her immediately, helping her down from Charlie's back. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just a bit light-headed. I got caught by PVA. Dani set this up," Tina said wincing. "She used Elliott, he's never competed before."

Beiste stored that tidbit of information away, and moved to check on Santana. "Is she alright?"

Charlie glanced over at Beiste, "She'll be fine, where's my sister Brittany. I need to get her to Brittany, she can help Santana with the pain, and keep her asleep. I need to go and find a healer, she'll be fine once we get her to the healer I have in mind."

Beiste sucked in a breath when she got a look at Santana's leg, it was turning an ugly purplish color, "Charlie that damage—" Beiste began but stops when she is met with a dull look from Charlie, it was the scariest thing that she'd ever seen and Beiste immediately takes a step back away from Charlie. She could sense the danger, "Are you okay?"

Charlie looks over at Beiste and blinks, and takes a breath, "No, but I will be. I'm sorry about the mess."

"Go and get Santana help, I'll figure this out." Beiste said dismissing Charlie who immediately turned towards the locker room. Beiste watches them leave before turning to the rest of the team. "Head back to the locker room, the support crew is going to need to do emergency repairs. I need to figure out what's going on and advocate for the team, once I hear anything I'll let you know. Blaine, Matt, you're in charge."

"Understood," Blaine said, taking a breath, he hadn't ever expected to be in this position and it's daunting. The entire team was looking to him for answers and he wasn't sure what to do. He's still not sure what happened. "You heard Beiste, back to the locker room."

~ O ~

"What were you thinking?" Jesse shouted getting into Lauren's face. "Do you know what you just did? We could have come in second!"

Lauren immediately shoved him to the side, "Get out of my face St. Jackass. I can't—"

"Enough." Shelby interrupted. "There is nothing that we can do now but hope that Cassandra can pin this on PVA and have them take the blame. But the moment she watches the footage back and I imagine she will, we will have no intention but to bench you Lauren."

"Appeasement? Really?"

Shelby rolled her eyes, she was so over Lauren's attitude. "Fine, you can explain to Charlie why you continued to hurt her girlfriend after Elliott released you from his command inducement ability. Carmel won't be paying for your surgery this time Lauren. You were right there, and she locked eyes on you. She just determined that you weren't responsible. That was a momentary lapse, just like recruiting you has been." Shelby narrowed her eyes as Lauren looked away. "It's completely up to you, but for your own safety I suggest you sit this out. I have an emergency meeting with the commission."

Lauren picked up a bench and hurled it against the wall. It wasn't fair at all, she hadn't managed to show the Titans just how sorry they should be, for letting her slip through their fingers. There was a small part of her that couldn't believe that she'd managed to do it, they should be pushing their advantage while Santana was no longer there. They could win this.

"There might be a silver lining coach," Shelby turned to look at Andrea who swallowed. "She destroyed the arena, it doesn't matter why she did it, it doesn't. She shouldn't even be competing, she's already far ahead of us and far more powerful. I mean and it's not as if Lauren didn't knock out Santana Lopez, she isn't going to be competing with that injury."

Shelby stared at Andrea for a moment, suddenly understanding why Cassandra hated working with teenagers and young heroes. "I've got to get to the emergency meeting. Understand that what the commission cares about is money, and while Charlie cost them quite a bit of money the fight between her and Charlotte Flair will more than recoup that cost. Even if they hate her, they have no problem using her. It'll be a slap on the wrist, and once again even if Shannon is new, she's definitely going to pivot to the fact that PVA crippled Santana Lopez and this was a pure innocent reaction from Charlie. The fact that she didn't straight up murder Lauren shows that this was an involuntary reaction. I need to play this correctly so we pin this on PVA, and have Charlie focus on them."

~ O ~

Quinn fell into lockstep with her twin the moment she burst through the locker room doors. "Brittany's in the back, Marley cleared out a space for her to use to keep Santana stable," Quinn informed her twin quickly. She wasn't exactly Santana's biggest fan, and she really didn't see what Charlie saw in Santana but it didn't matter. She had never seen Charlie emotional before.

Charlie glanced at Quinn for a moment, "I know. I know she'll be fine but we need to protect Britt and that means—"

"Yeah, you're going to have to fetch grandma Rose," Quinn said. "I can go—" Charlie shakes her head. "Charlie, you know how anti-establishment she is. And you know how she is about using her abilities."

Charlie turned to look at Quinn, "I can handle it Quinn, I need you here helping with the team. I know you still remember your first aid training, and I know that you can lead the team if you really wanted to. I need you Lucy."

"Of course, though we are going to have a conversation when this blows over about how you're an absolute shit twin."

A rather grim smile crosses Charlie's face, "I know, I'll do all your homework for the rest of the year."

"You'll do all my math homework and chemistry homework for the rest of the year," Quinn corrected, and nudges her. "She'll be alright."

"I know, but I can't—I didn't even lose control when I found out about Dani. When we broke up it hurt, but I just saw her and—Dani did this to hurt me."

"Pretty sure I told you that Dani was bad news, but you refused to listen because she let you touch her boobs. I mean they are nice boobs, don't get me wrong but I did tell you she wasn't the one." Brittany reminded Charlie and winced as she looked at Santana's body, and quickly assessed the damage done. She flinched, there was no way that she could heal Santana without her grandmother's presence. "Go and find dad he left to go and figure out they are."

"Want to bet that she joined another pyramid scheme?" Quinn sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Is that what we're calling the cults?" Brittany asked with an amused smirk. "Let her read your chakra or whatever she's into these days." Brittany paused for a moment, "Whatever you're thinking, stop."

Quinn looks over at Charlie, for a moment and notices that she looks away. "Charlie."

Charlie pulls back, "I need to go and find dad, and then go and kidnap our grandmother. Let's hope it's not a sex cult this time. I don't need that seared into my mind." Before Brittany or Quinn can call her out on her bullshit, she immediately retreats and goes to look for her father.

Quinn glanced over at Brittany who doesn't look up. "Well?"

"She's going to overcorrect again, like she did with Dani. I imagine she's going to double down on her crush on Sasha Banks, which will never happen. I think she's realizing that she really has strong feelings for Santana and it's scaring the crap out of her. She always was a cry baby." Brittany shook her head.

"Well, we should leave it alone then. Charlie will figure it out on her own and if she doesn't then Santana will beat it into her," Quinn shrugged. She grins, "We should definitely have popcorn."

Brittany smiled at the idea, before returning her attention to Santana and continuing with the scan, and frowns slightly. "Do you remember how AI abilities work?"

Quinn shrugged, "Yes, augmented individuals produce an energy field of sorts, and that's how we interact with the environment."

"I mean I know you don't care about practicing your abilities and all that, but I mean you should probably know a bit more than what they teach you in elementary school Quinn," Brittany lectured, shaking her head. It was a bit more complicated than that. But that's the gist of it, most of Santana's nodes have been shattered," When Quinn gives her a confused look Brittany sighed. "AI abilities flow through—for lack of a better term ley lines in the body, in the middle of those lines there are nodes which we can control. Level 5's produce an overwhelming amount of energy and we are far more in tune with energy fields. Santana produced more energy than her nodes could handle and like a balloon that has been over-inflated they popped.

"So she can't use her abilities anymore?"

"Yes, all that energy spilled out into her body and it destroyed quite a bit of tissue. It explains why she was glowing, and if Charlie hadn't gotten there when she did—" it would have led to death. As far as Brittany was concerned, she couldn't bring the dead back to life. "In some cases, they'll repair themselves—but she shredded hers. Grandma won't be able to fix this. Unless she's gotten better since we last saw her."

"Britt, Charlie brought Santana directly to you. She hasn't been seen by anyone else so no one knows just how bad it is yet. Fix everything that you can."

"They're shredded—" Brittany sighed. Quinn didn't understand, it was one thing to work on family Santana wasn't family yet, and she knew that Charlie didn't want her messing around with her nodes at all. From what she could tell from the nodes that hadn't burst, it was a miracle that this hadn't happened in the past. If anything this had Charlie's grubby little hands all over it. They would need to have a long conversation about her boosting people's potential by messing with their bio-electrical signals. Though in this case it was more likely that Charlie had inadvertently reorganized the pathways which had prevented Santana from a more catastrophic injury.

"Britt, if Santana can't use her abilities when Charlie gets back, she might actually kill Dani," Quinn pointed out. There would be no stopping her rampage, not that she'd want to.

Brittany sighed, it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. "Alright, keep everyone out, until Charlie gets back. This is going to require quiet and time."

~ O ~

Carmen Tibideaux, inhaled sharply, it was the only sign of utter annoyance that she showed as she saw Artemis July walking into the room as if she was welcome at this emergency meeting. "This meeting doesn't concern you Artemis—and you brought the entire family. "

Artemis smiled and waved off Carmen's annoyance as if it was beneath her. "She's my granddaughter, you have three, you know how it is. She's still cute."

"Since when?" Frannie looked at her grandmother like she'd grown another head. Her parents had brought home three horrid drooling poop monsters. It had probably been their silly attempt to keep their marriage together. She had been punished since the day Brittany had come home.

"You might be holding our government hostage, but I have the final word on this Artemis. This is my kingdom and you're an unwelcome guest."

"Now Carmen, Charlie—" Lawrence said, hoping to diffuse the situation. They were here to defend Charlie not getting into a pissing match. Artemis would win and that wouldn't help Charlie.

"Your granddaughter has a history of destroying property, and causing millions in property damage. I should have known this was going to happen!" PVA's coach snapped as he entered the room and pointed at Lawrence. "Are you going to use your immense wealth to replace everything she destroyed?"

Carmen sighed, as she felt the painful headache going on. She had never wanted Charlie to participate to begin with, Charlie's participation meant that they would be at odds with Artemis July. She'd been overruled by the other members of the commission. Now she had to deal with this mess. "Sit down Dustin, this isn't just about Charlie Fabray, we're also here to discuss what your team did. Do you think it's acceptable that your captain attacked, tortured and maimed another teenager, because she was on the other team? PVA holds quite a bit of culpability here."

"PVA? She's a damn level 5! You didn't even want her in the Inter-high, you voted against her participation. How are our teams supposed to compete?" Dustin argued, as more coaches began to filter in. He doesn't care he was going to voice his opinion loudly and make it known that they wouldn't be happy with any decision that didn't penalize McKinley.

"The reason that I was against Charlie's participation has nothing to do with how strong she is. Charlie has a provisional hero license, she is the only teenager in the country with one that we know of. I know for a fact that there was talk of giving her a full one rather than a provisional one. There have always been powerful AI's in the Inter-high. Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Bayley, Sasha, literally tore the place apart. But they still had a lot to learn, Charlie is powerful and more importantly she knows how to use her abilities in a way that is inconsistent with her age group. That's what makes her dangerous Mr. Goolsby." Carmen informed him bluntly and shook her head, she would deal with him later.

"Her skill level doesn't matter—" Frannie speaks up.

"It does, and don't pretend you don't think it doesn't. Charlie isn't like everyone else, and quite frankly the difference in ability and skill breaks the curve." Carmen interrupted. "With that said, we don't make the rules with one-person in mind. But we are bound by optics, and right now the entire world thinks that the commission has crowned Charlie."

"I didn't ask to be handed anything. I admit that I lost control, but my ex-girlfriend apparently hates me enough to target—we're not even dating." Charlie rubbed her head mussing up her hair, she hated this. "It won't happen again."

Dustin scoffed loudly and stood up, banging his hand on the table to get everyone's attention. "You said the last time you destroyed a facility Charlie. I guess you're going to be one of those heroes."

Charlie rolled her eyes at Dustin, "I destroyed the facility because you dared me too and you wouldn't leave me alone. I didn't actually mean for this to happen. I was honestly going to keep smacking Soldier Boy in the face with his shield until I got bored. Dani—" she takes a breath calming herself. "It doesn't matter. None of this matters, I don't care if I fight Charlotte Flair. I just want to make sure that Santana gets the best treatment possible, so I'm going to let you adults figure it out."

"Firefly."

"Grandma." Charlie challenges. "If they're going to punish me because of an accident then fine I just want to make sure that Santana's alright."

Artemis studied her granddaughter for a moment, "Let me handle it Firefly, you go and make sure that Santana's alright." Charlie shrugs her shoulders and turns to Frannie and rattles off the last coordinates, it takes Frannie a moment before she opens a portal. Charlie exhales slowly before running through the portal which closes behind her. Artemis waits for a moment before turning back to Carmen. "I do admit to being a very doting grandma, but it's hardly my fault since my grandchildren are perfect."

Frannie rolled her eyes, no one believed that Artemis July was just an innocent old lady who cared about her grandchildren.