Zelena was cornering my dad in the back of the warehouse, close to where it looked like Dad managed to disable a set of bombs. He couldn’t run anywhere but forward, and Zelena was blocking that way out. She already had red lightning arcing from her hands like she was going to kill him at any point. I ran forward, hoping that it wasn’t too late. "Zelena, stop!"

Dad’s head turned away from Zelena, giving me a wide eyed, scared look. "Anna, what are you doing!"

"Look at you, always trying to be the hero!" Zelena said, rolling her eyes as the red lightshow stopped. "Shouldn’t you be trying to stop the rest of my team before this?"

"Don’t do this, Zelena. My dad didn’t do anything to you."

"He’s part of the reason you exist and you’re the biggest thorn in my ass right now, so I think that’s enough grievance."

"It’s me you hate, not him." I said, slowly creeping forward. "Zelena, please don’t hurt my father. He isn’t a part of this fight."

"He made himself a part of this fight by disabling the bombs. In order for this plan to work, he-"

"What plan, Zelena? What exactly is the plan?"

"Destroy the heroes an-"

"What will that honestly achieve?" I asked, slowly walking closer to Zelena as I tried to get in between her and Dad. "Zelena, violence is not the answer here. The heroes-"

"Are the reason my parents are dead! A villain attacked my family and killed them. The heroes didn’t even bother to show up."

"That doesn’t mean that the heroes are to blame! They aren’t perfect! Nobody can be! You can’t expect there to be there every ten minutes. They have families, they have lives. There has to be some place for error!"

"There shouldn’t be!"

"You’re right. There shouldn’t be." I said gently, walking closer to where I was directly in between Zelena and Dad, Dad giving me a confused look as I kept talking. "But you killing my father and destroying this building is not the answer, Zelena. There has to be a different way."

"I’m afraid there isn’t. Destroy the event where they honor the heroes and you destroy the heroes."

"Zelena, that doesn’t make any sense."

"Of course it doesn’t to you. You still have something to lose. I don’t." Zelena said, moving away from me so that she could see Dad again. "Maybe you need to feel my pain so that you can understand."

"No, I do understand. Zelena, don’t do this." I said as she went around me to get a clear shot at Dad. She ignored me as she geared up a ball of electricity. "Do you regret it?"

Zelena paused, not turning towards me. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you regret telling me that I deserved to die last night?" I asked, not daring to move in case that set her off. "Because I did a lot of thinking last night, and I know I regret not trying harder to make sure you knew you were loved and that you were my friend."

Zelena didn’t say anything. She just kept her hateful gaze locked on Dad. Taking a chance, I took a step forward. Zelena’s face grew a bit more annoyed, so I didn't try to take another step as I continued talking. "Zelena, we were friends for a long time. You can’t just pretend that, at one point, you didn’t care about me. I still care about you, even though every fiber in my body is telling me that you’re probably too far gone for me to possibly consider caring about you."

Zelena cautiously looked towards me as I took a step forward. She closed up for a minute. "Don’t come any closer."

"Zelena, don’t do this. You are a good person. Cross this line and there's no coming back for you." I pleaded, trying to hold back tears that were threatening to fall. "Please don’t do this."

Zelena seemed to consider my words for a moment, staying completely still as the chaos went on beside us. I was still with her, trying to study her facial expressions. Her face seemed to soften for a minute, then it hardened again. Our small corner was dead silent for what felt like ages, but then she sighed. "Well, you’re right about one thing."

"What am I right about?"

"I am too far gone for you to care about me." Zelena said, forming a ball of electricity in her hands once again.

"NO!" I screamed, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to run in front of Dad in time to save him. In my panic, I felt my body disappear. Before I even knew what was happening, I was in front of Dad, taking the brunt of the blow from the lightning. I think he screamed behind me, I wasn’t sure, but after the lightning cleared, I saw light emitting from my body. I looked down at my hands and saw that they were flickering in and out of existence, just like they were in the video. I couldn’t even feel the ground on my feet, then I looked down and realized I was hovering in mid air. I looked over at Zelena and noticed that she had a scared expression on her face.

"Oh shit..." Zelena whispered nervously.

"You wanna try hurting my family again, Zelena?" I asked, landing on the ground but still not feeling the ground on my feet. Zelena looked as confused as I felt as I held out my hand and shot a giant energy ball, one bigger than I’ve ever been able to summon. It hit Zelena square in the face, causing her to black out on the ground. As soon as she was out, I turned around to Dad and saw his mystified expression. I sighed, shaking my head. "Dad, believe me, I have no idea how this is happening."

"I might." Dad said uneasily, standing up from his crouched position on the ground. "I think that Zelena hitting you with electricity might have turned you into pure energy."

"Isn’t that a leap in logic?"

"Keisha showed me the security video. It’s the only logical explanation I can come up with."

I felt my body become solid again, the light dimming down, as I ran over and hugged Dad tightly. "Thank God you’re okay."

"I can say the same thing about you." Dad whispered into my ear. Once he let go, he looked down at the bottom of my braids, then laughed a bit. "Might want to think about putting your hair back in a bun from now on, honey."

"What?" I asked, looking down at the bottom half of my hair, realizing that half of it was singed black while the other half of it was stark white. I snorted, rolling my eyes a bit. "Well, I’ve been meaning to get a haircut for a while now."

Dad laughed even more, hugging me tightly. "I love you, Anneliese."

"I love you too, Dad." I said, hugging him tightly one more time before I let go. "All of the bombs are disabled, right?"

"All but one." Dad said, pointing to the back corner.

"I’ll handle it." I said, smiling up at Dad as I went in the direction he pointed. "Go outside. Handle the crowds. Check with the EMT’s on a girl named Jill Jenkins. She was on the other team, but she had a change of heart and paid the price for it."

Dad nodded, smiling at me happily. "Anna?"

"Yeah?"

"I’m proud of you. I always have been, always will be."

I smiled back. "Thanks Dad."

I turned away from him, pausing where I stood. I had teleported without even thinking about it. I closed my eyes, concentrating on the set of bombs, and in an instant, I was standing right there, right in front of the bomb set. I smiled a bit, but then I was tackled to the ground by a man shrouded in a trash bag like jacket. Herbstreit. He looked down on me, his hands around my neck. "You couldn’t have just stayed away."

I was helpless to get away. I tried lifting my knee so I could knee him in the groin, but he had both of my legs pinned. I started coughing, quickly losing air, until he somehow got thrown into a stack of wooden boxes. I looked over and saw Braylen standing there, arms outstretched. "Stay away from my girlfriend!"

I quickly got up, getting some air, as I walked over to the bomb and sucking out the energy from the bomb, then redirecting it to the pile that Herbstreit was in. I teleported over him, putting my knee on his chest as he looked up at me wide eyed. I punched him in the face, barely knocking him out. "And that is for making live through that twice!"

Callum came running as I got off of Herbstreit, picking him up and restraining him. Braylen looked over at me, smiling widely. "You teleported on command!"

"Yeah, well, it helped that Zelena gave me a jumpstart." I said jokingly.

Braylen’s eyes narrowed. "Do I even want to know?"

"Turns out, it wasn’t me that was going to kill Dad. It was Zelena."

"Let me guess: you jumped in front him to save his life?"

"Oh, you know me so well, Prince Charming." I teased as Callum walked forward with Herbstreit.

Callum took a look at my hair, a look of concern growing on his face. "Anna, you do know that-"

"Yes, I am aware!"

Braylen laughed a bit. "I just wasn’t going to mention it."

"Hey, is everyone still alive?" Trayvon asked as he and the others walked over. He pointed to my hair. "Yo, Anna, did you get a secret dye job and not tell us?"

"No, I did not-" I started to say, grabbing the ends of my hair as the whole bottom half of my hair broke off, the rest of the braid undoing itself. "Guess I went a bit overboard when I turned into pure energy..."

"You were that big energy reading!" Keisha said happily.

"Wait, so you have a pure energy form?" Erika asked. "How in the world did you access that?"

"It is a long-" I started to say, but then the other half of my hair broke off. I picked it up, quickly inspecting it to see if the ponytail holders holding it together were salvageable, then shrugged. "There’s a trashcan in the main room, right?"

Becky looked up from her phone call, her eyes widening when she saw me. "Yeah… Mom, we’re gonna need to fix Anna’s hair bigtime."

Braylen laughed as our group started walking out into the main room, gripping my hand tightly. I looked over at Becky. "How long has the fighting been done?"

"Not long. Damian had already gone ahead to deal with the crowd." Becky said uneasily. "But not before flirting with Erika right in front of Callum. Or at least attempting to flirt. It was really bad."

Braylen looked over at me uneasily. "How long was he-"

"August, maybe?" I suggested. "I know he didn’t remember me because when I told him I was your girlfriend, he said ‘how did that dork get a girlfriend’? Well... He insinuated some other things about me that made me extremely uncomfortable, so I paraphrased it, but you guys get the idea."

"That’s a long time..." Trayvon said uneasily.

"How are we gonna-"

"Guys, I am right here!" Callum said, laughing a bit.

I looked over at him, smiling sadly. "Callum, I’m so sorry."

"Not you or Erika’s fault that he’s actually straight and that they were just using him to get close to the group."

"You got that right." Herbstreit said, laughing a bit.

I held out my hand, allowing it to spark. "Shut up, or I spark you."

He seemed to shut up as Braylen turned his attention to Callum. "He’s bi, Callum. Not straight."

"He is?"

"Look, I’ll talk to him." I promised. "I need to give him back his thing, anyway. Braylen, since you're a familiar face to him, you're with me."

"What was his personal thing?" Braylen asked.

"Um… This metal figure." I said, taking it out of my pocket.

Braylen took it in his hands and smiled. "I remember this! I gave it to him for his tenth birthday because he was collecting soldier statues from around the world."

I laughed, smiling from ear to ear. "Well, let’s get ready to do some damage control!"