The tree had changed. Panacea was still growing it, somehow. But being filled with magic circuits, being right next to me as I shot out magic at unprecedented levels, and then being right next to the Crystal Heart when it formed had changed it. Changed it into a tree of massive crystal.

Granted, for almost an hour the entire city looked had looked like crystal after the Heart was created, but that effect eventually faded. The tree, however, stayed crystal. Even the leaves were crystal, mixed with an incredible organic design to them. It was strangely beautiful, perhaps unsurprisingly.

"How are you still able to manipulate it?" I asked. Panacea, pressing both hands to the tree face, frowned as she considered.

"It's still alive," she began slowly. "Fully organic in every way, only now all the wood and leaves and otherwise now have a crystalline structure to them. It's… really weird, but not impossible. A person's fingernails and hair are vaguely crystalline. The colour blue can only be made organically by have special structures that meant to reflect that part of light. So it's not unprecedented, but still this is…"

"Not normal." I finished.

"Right," she said with a nod. "The leaves don't have any chlorophyll anymore, instead it looks like they are turning sunlight into magic."

"Photosynthesis?" I asked with raised eyebrows.

"Something like that. It is incredibly strange, the magic circuits are… not really circuits anymore. They're as large of the tree itself, overlapping every single part of the organic crystal structures in a way I could never recreate on my own. Essentially, the tree is more magic than it is tree."

"Is it stronger at all?" I asked. "It will still hold the city together, right?"

"It should," she answered. "But with all the magic in it, I have no idea what will happen."

I nodded, not thinking of anything to add to that. The tree was massive, taller than most skyscrapers and its leaf coverage stretched several blocks by now. It was an impressive sight. Particularly as it blocked the Simurgh from sight.

"I'm going to go and talk with the other capes," I told her. "See what finally preparations are needed."

"Alright," Panacea responded absently, not looking away from the tree. "I'll be here."

I nodded one more time before turning around and looked up at the building where Cheshire was playing with the Crystal Heart. I gave my wings a stretch. I had a little bit of magic back, enough that my wings were able to lift me. Moving them after having expended every last bit of magic in me felt like I had liquid concrete in the joints. I did my best to shake the stiffness from them before taking off, but the difference was negligible.

The Crystal Heart floated on its own, with no input from me or Cheshire. Fueled by its own massive reserves of magic. Looking outwards towards the ocean I could see the shimmer of the protective field the Heart was generating. But past that, I could see a massive deformation in the water where the Leviathan was lurking. A massive bulge constantly rising upward as more and more water drew into the effect. One more thing that was concerning everyone.

"Learn anything?" I asked, landing next to her.

"Nope," she answered immediately. "The Heart is like a white dwarf of magic energy. Probably because of the sheer mass of stones that went into it."

"Did you see how it formed?" I asked.

"Nope. One moment you're casting your magic, and the next moment you're on the ground and the Crystal Heart is floating here. And from what I heard, everyone else was passing out crystals one moment and then suddenly almost every crystal they had charged disappeared. Curiously, some stayed behind."

"They had the wrong emotion," I stated.

"Ah, that makes sense. People are probably feeling a lot of things right now, them being able to correctly charge each crystal every single would be ridiculous."

"I guess," I glanced one more time at the massive bubble of water that was forming outside the bay. The sun was beginning to set, casting an orange glow over the area. "Are you ready to meet up with the others?"

She shrugged and stepped away from the heart. She looked up at the Crystal Tree for a moment and considered something.

"You should put the Heart up there, it'll probably be a better place than on this random rooftop. But otherwise, yeah, let's go."

I knelt down and let her climb onto my back before taking the Heart in my hoofs. I was lower on magic than I have ever been since first starting and I really didn't want to attempt telekinesis when my headache only just got to a manageable level.

I flew upwards into the branches of the tree. Panacea seemed to notice as the crystalline branches spread apart to let us through. They lead us to a place where many branches came together, giving it a wide platform.

I gently placed the Crystal Heart in the center of the platform. It immediately began to float in place as small crystal vines sprouted out of nowhere and began to surround the Heart in a large bubble around it. That would be well enough for now.

I turned and began flying the other direction, towards the place where some of the most powerful capes in the world were gathering. The roof of the PRT building.

---

The difference between the gathering of forces for this battle and every battle before it was massively different, and it showed. With only a few hours left before Behemoth was scheduled to arrive The Protectorate had time to gather everyone. Capes from every corner of the world where here. Dozens of capes that could possibly equal or even surpass Lung and Alexandria. Russians, Africans, Indians, Europeans, Asians, Australians, and on and on. They were all here. Several dozen Tinkers had disappeared downstairs and appeared to be comparing notes. The Triumvirate was talking to the powerhouses while everyone else mingled. Everyone except some strange woman in a suit standing far off to the side, silently watching the proceedings.

And it was at that point the thing of nightmares walked up to me.

"Hello there," It hissed. "This one is Supesu."

Holy rays of Celestia what the ever loving buck is this thing! Its limbs bent oddly. If it needed food to live it would have died long ago, and it's creepy, ever-present smile was terrifying. Supesu didn't have lips at all, just a wide smile that revealed every tooth in his skull. Combine that with its wide eyes that never seemed to blink and I was sufficiently creeped out.

"What is wrong, Horse God? Supesu means you no harm. Supesu had idea. Supesu seeks to help."

The creature, cape, thing, twisted its head around and moved into a crouching position in front of me.

"Ah, er, what, exactly, did you have in mind?" I was a little afraid to ask.

In response, Supesu opened his mouth and a long, pointed tongue rolled out, holding a stone which he deposited in his hand before returning his tongue to his mouth.

"Here Supesu has a supesu he has charged for a long time. Could affect whole city, maybe. Never wanted to use it. Wouldn't be any fun. But now, maybe it will be useful."

"What does it do?" I asked carefully. Supesu began to giggle.

"Nothing, yet. But something soon. Supesu thinks that this supesu could disperse energy attempting to come in, and make radiation none damaging inside. Maybe stop electricity and heat too, if Supesu can think of rule that do not cause more harm than good."

"Er, that sounds good," I said, more than a little uncomfortable. It didn't help that he was edging closer to me and Cheshire.

"Nova," someone suddenly said before Supesu could say something else. I looked and saw Legend waving over to me. Thankful for the excuse, I quickly shuffled away without saying another thing. Whoever or whatever Supesu was it freaked me out.

"Hey," Cheshire said, moving to slid of my back as I walked. "I'm going to go talk to some people while you deal with the big three over there."

"Alright," I responded awkwardly, not sure what to say in response to that. She nodded and hopped off, instantly disappearing into the crowd.

"We've decided on a strategy," Legend told me as I got close. I looked between him and Alexandria, as Eidolon began flying away. Getting a chance to talk with a member of the Triumvirate was pleasing to me, particularly after that unsettling encounter.

"Alright, what did you decide on?" I asked. I noticed I somewhat subconsciously straighten up and spread my wings a little.

"We've managed to evacuate a large part of the city," Alexandria stated seriously. "But it has still left a significant number of people in the shelters."

"Right," Legend agreed with a nod. "We have our best teleporters working on getting them away from here safely, but we're going to have to hold off the Endbringers until then. Almost half of the cities population is on the line here." Legend took a deep breath and glanced around. There were some people pretending not to be listening nearby, but nothing overt. After a moment, Legend continued.

"Our best chance at getting through this is to keep the three Endbringers from getting fully together. Were going split into three groups and hope it's enough to keep them out of the city.

"Eidolon is going to take the lead against the Leviathan, where we are going to put most of our Tinkers. With any luck, he'll be able to hurt the Endbringer enough that it'll leave and he can move into assist the other teams.

"Alexandria is going to be leading our forces against the Behemoth. We're putting our strongest Brutes and Blasters against him. We're expecting him to be the hardest to deal with in this fight, but a bulk of our muscle is going into preventing his advance for as long as possible.

"I will be taking everyone who can fly or otherwise help to attack Simurgh. We're going to do our level best to keep her out of the city to give Eidolon as much time as possible to defeat the Leviathan. I can't stress enough, with the amount of Tinkers we have in the city we can not let the Simurgh get close. Which is why I want you with us."

That bit shocked me, but it probably shouldn't have. But still, being asked by Legend himself to help him fight the Simurgh gave me just a little prideful flare. But that was overruled but the idea that I would be fighting the Simurgh while I was this low on energy. Though, it wasn't like I had too much of a choice. If the Simurgh get into the city with this many Tinkers around and two other Endbringers on either side of us... we won't last long.

"I'll do it, but I need to get something together," I told him.

"Be quick and get your affairs in order," Legend responded seriously. "We've got less than an hour before the Behemoth arrives."

---

A/N: In case it wasn't clear in the conversation, the idea is that if Behemoth gets into the city then it's all over. So they put a wall of Brutes and ranged fighters in front of him to slow his progress down as much as possible. They essentially do the same to the Simurgh as if she get in between things the resistance is going to fall to pieces. By putting Eidolon, all of the Tinkers, and any other miscellaneous capes of the Leviathan, they hope he can be beaten quickly and then move to help the other two teams.

Also, I don't believe I mentioned that I based Supesu's appearance on the image that pops up when you look up the Russian Sleep Experiment. Not a good thing.