Bombs were going off all over the city. I wasn't exactly sure who was the cause, but Cheshire and I had heard some talk of them getting a Tinker not that long ago, but the Empire didn't have any Tinkers that I knew of which left the ABB. I just wish it was anything other than bombs.

The first bomb to go off had been at the largest mall in the city and no one had been able to get inside yet because of the effects. This one, in particular, seemed to trap everything in a space and time warping field. I wasn't completely sure of the specifics, but Cheshire seemed sure that going inside wasn't going to help anyone so we left at alone.

The first place I went to was the Boardwalk where Coil and The Workers were exchanging fire. I still felt a massive collection of magic humming inside of me since learning of Rune's death. And I really needed a way to let it out right now.

I descended on the area with my whole body glowing with a brilliant silvery light, a side effect of my body practically radiating magic from it. I reached out and grabbed the guns out of people's hands and crushed them. A few turned their weapons on me before I could grab them, but I threw up a shield that ignored the bullets. The Tinker lasers Coil's mercenaries had were a little more annoying though, but just as crushable.

It only took five minutes for me to destroy every single firearm in the area, and without guns to back them up all the people dispersed. Going to report back to whoever they report to. I barely used any of my magic.

"The Docks next," Cheshire said into the bluetooth earpiece we had gotten for communication between us. It was a little difficult to make fit my horse ear, but not too much. "Lung is tearing it up beyond recognition and the people fighting him aren't helping. They need someone who can put him down or get everyone out safely."

"On it," I said, taking off the ground and flying into the air. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to deal with Lung. If he was fighting Fog and Night then he likely was already pretty large, but I couldn't let him torch the Docks. It was already in bad enough shape without him destroying it.

I winced as another bomb went off in the city. I really wanted to do something about that, but I had no way of finding them, no way of disabling them, and if there were space time manipulation bombs, I doubted I could defend myself against them. Probably better to just leave it to the Protectorate's Tinkers. Maybe they can at least do that job.

I spotted the clouds of smoke the moment I got above the line of buildings, but it sadly wasn't the only thing visible like that. Across the city, a forest of blades was growing into the sky, intersecting in thousands of places and branching off in a thousand more. The Kaiser was practically building a fortress of blades.

There was a beam of light shooting up around Captain's Hill. I didn't know what it did, could be another Tinker bomb. There was a geyser of rainbow coloured paint spraying out of the downtown area, also no explanation to that. And they were just the most obvious of dozens of large effects all around the city. Other bombs and massive cape battles were devastating the city elsewhere. But I couldn't be everywhere at once, I needed to focus on Lung.

"How are things going on your end?" I asked as I started flying towards Lung.

"Not well," Cheshire answered. "Panacea and I are barely keeping up with the injured coming in. A lot of civilians are getting hurt. I'm doing my best to brew the potions, but I can only move so fast. Panacea is going from person to person just to make them stable enough they don't die before they can get real treatment."

"That bad?" It was a stupid question, this was one of the largest cape battles Brockton Bay has ever seen. They opened the Endbringer bunkers for this.

"Bad?" Cheshire laughed. "Oh, this is so much worse than bad. We're looking at Birdcaging across the board for every villain involved in this mess. I don't even know what they are going to do to the new gang leaders since they are just normal humans. Can't exactly send them to the Birdcage."

I grimaced. Without being able to send them to the Birdcage the people who did this, the people that killed Rune, were going to go through the normal courts. Be judged by normal people and have a chance to get a lesser sentence instead of the sentence they deserve. It made me angry just thinking about it.

"Uh, Nova. Glory Girl is calling, I'm putting her through."

"Nova, where are you?"

"About to take on Lung," I answered honestly.

"What?! Hell no, that's fucking suicide!" I bit my lip. She wasn't wrong, I nearly got shredded trying to fight Hookwolf nearly an hour ago and he didn't have nearly as much explosive power as Lung. Not to mention just how fast Lung could escalate things.

But that didn't matter, I needed to get in there and help. All the reasons were screaming at me; people are getting hurt, he is damaging The Docks, my father works there.

Oh Celestia, my father. I hadn't even thought about it, it was a school day making it more than likely he went to work. Did I see him this morning? I suddenly found myself unable to remember, thousand of thoughts running through my mind. About twice that in emotions I was now feeling. Angry for Rune, worry for my father, concern for the city. My heart was pounding in my chest.

For my entire life, not even when my mother died, I could not remember ever feeling this emotional. I doubt I will again. But one thing was for sure, my magic was bursting at the seams because of this.

"At least wait for me to get there and help you." Glory Girl asked with a pleading tone.

"No," I answered, a plan suddenly popping into my mind as I neared The Docks. "Brute force isn't going to help, there are plenty of other places in the city that might need your help."

"Let's not forget," Cheshire cut in. "That your greatest weakness is a gun that can hold more than one bullet. Honestly, considering that everyone thinks you're invincible and has no reason to hold back it is a miracle you weren't killed early on."

"Well, where am I supposed to go?" Glory Girl asked, ignoring Cheshire. She had gotten good at that since we started working together

"The Kaiser is doing something massive on the other end of town," I answered. "Or help with the bombs. Cheshire will tell you which. I got to go now, it's time to fight Lung."

I hit the bluetooth button with a wing tip before extending my wings to come to a complete stop just above the fighting. Lung was stand at near fifteen feet tall as far as I could tell, wing like snubs coming out of his back and the scales around his face looking more cat like in nature. I could only see half of The Docks, due to Fog covering a rather large portion of it, but from what I could see didn't look pretty.

We were in the part of The Docks that did a lot of storage back in the day, which only lead to a lot of storage containers torn into scrap metal and getting thrown around. The entire area was blackened with soot and there were corpses petrified on the ground as flames seared them so fast they died before they even realized it. The thought that one of those might have been my father spurred me forward.

I was tempted to shoot Lung into the ground with a kinetic beam like I had done with Hookwolf to make my entrance, but no, if this was going to work I needed Lung to not kill me on sight.

Let my magic flow out of my horn into the air around me as I closed my eyes and focused. I let my magic effect as much air as possible, not grabbing hold like my telekinesis but just letting it weave with the air. I imagined it moving forward but felt nothing happen until I put a little more focus on my wings. I felt something snap together as the spell formed in my mind. I just needed a little more to it.

Building off that initial feeling around my wings, I built a pair of massive ethereal wings visible only to me to grab all of the air. And then I flapped them with all the might I could muster.

The wind slammed into the three combatants down below. It didn't do much to Lung but it forced Fog away enough to reveal Night, who was actively fighting to withstand the winds.

I pulled my wings back and let the magic ones fade away, moving slightly downward to speak to them.

"Lung," I shouted. "You're being made a fool of!"

Night ran back towards Fog who was rapidly retreating from the scene himself. Probably better, things got really difficult when three rival groups all got involved. Lung turned towards me, fire erupting from all around him. Not a good sign.

That was further supported when he leapt straight through the air and directly at me. I flew just a little to the side and wrapped his massive body in my telekinesis, just enough to redirect him and fling him in another direction.

"Listen to me," I shouted at him again. "Things just got a whole lot more complicated, and it doesn't help anyone for you to fight right now."

"Oo 'alk oo much." Lung growled, raising up from the ground. Flames erupted from him, bathing the area in fire once more. I threw up my shield and waited for the fire to stop.

This wasn't working, I needed him to calm down first. There was the distinct possibility that if I didn't fight him his power might start slowing down. But that could take a long time and he still might not listen to me. Or worse, he might start targeting civilians just to get me to fight him. I couldn't let that happen.

A few ideas popped into my mind. The first of which was lifting him up with my magic and dragging him into the bay in some attempt to drown him. He wasn't as heavy as Hookwolf, and from here I could make it to the bay. I wasn't sure if I could keep him down long enough to actually stop him though, or if his power could increase enough it didn't matter.

There was possibly another way. My magic has been able to do a lot, make potions, lift objects, make shields, created ethereal wings. It was becoming increasingly obvious my magic didn't follow any specific theme. So maybe there was something that could calm him?

I kept my shield up and used my wings to dodge his attacks while I worked. If I didn't attack him he shouldn't be able to grow wings. And so long as he didn't grow wings I should be able to avoid his attacks so long as I kept half an eye on him.

Just like when I made the plants charged with magic, I started pulling up emotion. I thought about calm moments in my life and what they felt life and focus those feeling into my horn. I thought about spreading that, sending it into Lung.

It wasn't working. It was ready, I could feel my magic ready to commit, but there was something missing. Some sort of connection that would allow me to pass it to him. I needed something to bridge the gap. Something like… Music.

I wasn't sure how the idea got into my mind, but my magic responded immediately. A heavy breeze began to blow through The Docks. It began to whistle against the steel wreckage Lung had kicked up and after a moment, a lullaby could be heard.

At first, I couldn't believe what was happening and was about to cut it off when I saw Lung slowing to a stop, his form shrinking and his claws retreating into his body. I blinked a couple of time to really see if he what had been another charging leap at me was slowing down into a walk.

As Lung came to a full stop, I cut off the song. Immediately a wave of fatigue hit me. Not quite enough to take me off the massive power boost I had been feeling, but enough for me to notice. I had created two new spells today, and I was getting the feeling their creation had cost more magic than I initially thought. But I could think about that later, there were more pressing things to deal with now.

I stretched out my wings and glided closer to the ground to get near Lung, keeping my shield up and making myself ready to move at the first sign of trouble.

"Why are you fighting?" I asked to test the waters. I had a pretty good idea, but it would help me see if the lullaby spell had any after effects.

"They attacked us," Lung answered with a heavy accent I had to struggle to understand through. "Killed our human members, destroy dozens of our buildings in large explosions, and now they killed Oni Lee. I will make them pay for their arrogance."

Well, his mental function seemed to be intact enough to know what he was doing and why. And seeing as he wasn't attempting to rip my wings off, he was in a much more passive state.

"What if I told you the Empire didn't do it?" I questioned. "That the new gangs are attacking both you and the Empire to prove a point."

Lung out a low guttural growl and extended a clawed hand. "Then I will teach them differently."

"Well, it's worse," I said definitively, landing on the ground with all four hooves as I said it. "Because they are trying to make a fool of both the PRT and you. Because they did what you have been trying to do since coming to this city by taking out over half of The Empire's capes in just a few hours and claim a lot of territory. And they did it all without capes, to show you that normal humans are just as, if not better, than parahumans." It was almost completely true, with just a little bit of guess work added in.

Lung's clawed hand curled into a fist and fire sprouted from it and he let out a snarl.

"Show me where they are," Lung growled. "I will crush them."

I opened my mouth to say something and suddenly found myself conflicted. On one hoof, ramped up like this there was little The Sentient could do to Lung. He could go after them, crush their forces throughout the city now that he has proper direction. It would cripple whatever The Sentient were planning to accomplish by the end of the day.

But people would also die. Lung had already incinerated enough Dock workers just fighting Night and Fog. If I told him where to attack, those lives would be my fault too. Even if they killed Rune, even if they have killed a massive amount of capes today, they couldn't be uniformly to blame as they were a large group of normal people. People that are tired of getting bullied by capes.

"No," I said with a shake of my head. "The city is in chaos, there are fights everywhere and a bomb Tinker destroying buildings left and right. What we need right now is to de-escalate the situation." It wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to go out and put these people through the wringer until I found the people responsible for Rune's death. But that wasn't going to save the city.

"Don't think you can tell me what to do," Lung answered harshly. "I may have decided to talk with you, but I was still attacked, pony."

"But you're not fighting other capes," I said sternly. "Right now all you're doing is destroying the city. If you really want to destroy these human groups, do it the normal way and take their territory until there is nothing left of them."

"I'll do as I see fit." Lung answered. I sighed heavily and started flapping my wings to take me upward. I wasn't going to get much further with him. I paused as a thought came into my mind.

He was about six or eight feet tall now. His scales were more like body armour than monstrous changes like they were before and even his claws were receding. I could see his eyes clearly now, staring at me with suspicion and a little weariness. This was pretty low for him. So the question became, what if I hit him?

What if I poured everything I had into telekinesis and attempted to crush him, or put it all in a kinetic beam and tried to cut him in half. Or maybe if a created a new spell entirely like I have been doing a lot today and threw my entire magical weight behind it. Into one single attack against Lung while he was relatively vulnerable.

And what if it still wasn't enough?

I shook my head and turned around. "If you're going to fight, at least see if you can stop the bomb Tinker," I said to him before taking off into the air.

I levitated out the hard metal box that served to protect the cell phone I carried from my saddlebags and quickly dialed Cheshire. She picked up on the first ring. I wasn't surprised.

"Before you ask what's next," Cheshire said before I even got a word in. "The PRT contacted me and they finally made their plan of attack. Miss Militia extends a formal apology and what not and says it would be really nice if you wanted to work with them. I said I'd ask you."

"Don't you already know the answer," I asked dryly as I continued to climb higher into the sky.

"To the out right offer, but if you were paired solely with Vista or one of the other Wards?"

Well, that was different, they weren't the ones I was angry at. I think I could work with Vista for this, I know she would at least be good for it.

"Good to hear," Cheshire said, despite me not actually saying anything. "So here is the deal, Kaiser is on the north side of downtown growing a forest of blades as he is swarmed by a number of people trying to kill him. One of Leet's Tinker devices exploded and painted a few blocks of the south side of downtown. A villain called Bakuda has been targeting E88 people and buildings all over the city, causing massive effects. One of the largest causing a space time bubble over the mall. You stopped Coil's mercenaries and The Workers from slaughtering each other for the time being, but they might come back. All the remaining E88 capes are still in combat over the city. That's what we're up against, you game?"

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A/N: To clarify, the spell only made Lung calm towards Taylor enough that he wouldn't out right attack her.