VT - Chapter 6 : Minute Panic attack, Canberra & Defensive Vehicles... (Patreon)

Disclaimer: Worm belongs to the one and only absolute chad, Wildblow. Enough said.

Captain’s Bedroom, Quinjet, Earth Bet

–Simon–

His eyes snapped open, a violent gasp escaping his lips as he threw the blanket off his body and stumbled out of the bedroom, hitting a wall on his way as he was completely unfamiliar with the layout of this room. His eyes darted all around the room, taking in the unfamiliar sight in front of him before his hands inadvertently touched the lock of the bedroom, opening the door.

He stumbled out of the door, tripping and falling on his face as the impact finally snapped him out of the terror induced haze he was in. His vision a bit blurry, he looked all around the room he had found himself in, and at the realisation that yes, he was inside the Quinjet, and yes, he was in Worm, he felt relief as well as terror course through him.

Because this was real. He was inhabiting the same planet as so many other eldritch monstrosities, and somehow, at that moment, just having the ability to build any vehicle did not seem enough. For how was he going to battle reality warning continent sized eldritch monstrosities while piloting vehicles?

And that’s when it struck him. The realisation almost came with a physical sense of relief, as he just turned around and rested on his back, looking at the exposed ceiling with all the wires, conduits, and reinforced hull plating visible to the naked eye, for easier access for repairs. After all, he was going to be the only inhabitant of this place for a long time.

As for the realisation, it made him smile, then chuckle, then laugh out loud as he realised just how simple it was. He was twisting himself into knots over nothing. Shaking his head, he put his hands behind his head and just sighed in a little bit of relief.

Who said that he had to be the one to save everyone and this world? Who says that he was the only one who could do so? After all, if this world followed canon, even if canon was shot dead the moment he took a breath in this universe, then it stood to reason that the same thing that killed Scion could be repeated here as well. The same series of events could be emulated to achieve the final goal.

Sure, the end result was a very horrible one, as the victory was very costly, but maybe that’s where he could come in and help them achieve their goal that much faster, and with a far lower cost?

He didn’t have to be the one to pull the final trigger or even participate in it. He just had to build the tools and make sure that the right people could use them. His mind went back to the timestamp he got as part of the download, and realised that Taylor had already triggered. If this world followed canon, even loosely, then Taylor was out there, in Brockton Bay, with a power that could, one day, take control of every single cape in the world and then force them to fight a losing battle with Scion, or something along those lines.

He couldn’t really remember just how they won, but a comment on some chapter kept coming to the forefront of his mind. It read - 

“Basically, Taylor bullied Scion to death.”

He was sure that there was more to that, but it was just something that was stuck in his mind. So, if someone could kill Scion, in any way, despite living in an objectively decaying world, then maybe they could do it faster, better, and earlier if they were living in a world that was not dying, or, well, had a much slower rate of death and decay before he came into the picture.

With a grunt, he got off the ground, his goal clear, and his chest no longer tight with tension and anxiety. He had a simple job now, far simpler than trying to figure out a way to fight and kill a multi-dimensional being made up of matter that is very hard to even touch, located in a dimension that could be sealed from any outside entry the moment the entity within detects a hint of a threat.

All he had to do was build vehicles, secure himself, ensure his survival, then move on to the many, many threats of this world, and help the world one threat at a time, to create a better environment for the ones who actually could help stop the end of the world.

Looking at himself and all around the cabin, he hopped back into the bedroom with a spring in his step. He had stuff to do, and just sitting around, undergoing panic attacks, was not going to solve anything.

___xx___

He looked down at the switch under his hand for the 3rd time before taking his finger away, hesitating at the last moment to activate the beacon. Sadly, despite his paranoia practically revolting against the decision, he’d realised that if he wanted to participate in the world, or even prepare for his eventual introduction, then he couldn't do that with a very last century connection to the information highway known as the internet. 

He needed information and up to date information. Not now, but soon enough, and depending on how things were in the outside world, he was going to decide on what to build. He had multiple options in front of him, none of which involved him leaving the safety of his Quinjet, but for that, he had to know what was up in the world.

There were so many things he could do, but sadly he was but one man and he had very little time on his hands. If he had access to unlimited matter or something akin to a matter synthesizer, not the ones found on spaceships but industrial ones that could spit out tonnes of matter with very high precision. 

That was one of the first things he searched for, with the hope that if the big mining equipment could also be considered as vehicles, then maybe a portable industrial synthesiser could also be within reach? Turns out, nope.

Apparently, and this was within the context of the ships he could see within the repertoire of his power, anything involving creating matter out of energy or converting matter to another material involved so much energy that it was usually its own standalone unit.

Even the spaceships that had food synthesisers were not worth building because they were built to house a large number of people and travel through space. That was not necessary here. He needed something that was built to kill a large number of people and could be piloted remotely, and those tended to not need food grade synthesisers.

It was a problem, which is why he looked at the switch one more time before just pressing it, activating a still air gapped system, but one that was active in a manner that could allow Dragon or any number of other people on the planet to register his plane as a device. Hopefully, the lack of antennas, as well as the rather weak hardware, was enough to deter any serious investigating attempt.

Scrolling through major news, he found multiple articles about the government’s new programs in America, PRT’s newest stats about which PRT branch was the most successful, and announcements for new Capes, Wards, and more about some promotions, painting quite the rosy picture.

He was not looking for that rosy picture. So, he typed in Endbringers in the search bar and almost immediately, his screens were flooded with articles about the recent Endbringer attack, but oddly enough, none of them looked to be from the professional publishing houses that were used by the PRT and government to highlight their achievements.

Most of the Endbringer information seemed to come from amateur or single person blogs, with the word allegedly used far more often than he had expected.

His eyes widened a bit as he opened a blog post about the Canberra attack by Simurgh. February 2011, so just last month, the Simurgh descended upon the capital of Australia, and unlike most times, Scion did not come until the very end, as the heroes suffered a massive defeat.

The entire city was quarantined, with the numbers being smudged to make sure that the real scale of the disaster was not made public. For example, the number of people quarantined was never revealed, and they were not considered in the casualty number, even though everyone knew by now that quarantine was just another word for keeping them contained until they either died inside the containment zone of natural causes or were killed by someone else, or were killed trying to escape the containment.

It was a nasty situation all around, so he could understand the government’s rationale in keeping all the numbers hidden. What couldn't be hidden, however, was the statistics regarding hero deaths.

Though the blogger did add that the PRT was well known to hide overall casualty figures, mostly omitting the deaths of Villains and Rogues, hiding the number of dead capes was far harder simply because no cape ever remained in obscurity for a long period of time.

Due to the existence of the Truce, the PRT could not just jail Villains and had to let them go, so one of the only reasons why any Villain would suddenly go silent after an Endbringer battle was if they died, or in Canberra’s case, were quarantined inside the city, due to the risk of becoming Simurgh Bombs.

Speaking of the so-called Simurgh Bombs, one of the links on the page took him to a bunch of videos depicting when they first figured out what the Simurgh was capable of, even after the Endbringer attack was done. That was when the Master fear and hatred really began to spread.

Leaning back into his chair, he looked at the time and realised that he had gotten engrossed in reading the surprisingly detailed blog posts about the past few Endbringer attacks, and this was him making a conscious effort not to click any links that might take him to PHO.

He feared that he would be awake for days trying to go through that entire site. He was going to have to make an account someday, but for now, he was content reading blog posts and seeing what he could prioritise in his building pipeline right now.

___xx___

As it turns out, due to the varied nature of all the villains just on the East Coast, not to mention the Endbringers, it was really hard to just build a singular thing that would help him deal with all or even most of them. Plus, going through the videos of some of the capes here, it was abundantly clear to them that just the Quinjet was not going to be enough as protection. 

No, he needed something far better, especially against some of the esoteric stuff, like spatial manipulation, portals, mind control, and more. As things stood, he was but a squishy human with a convenient power. He needed so many defenses to actually venture out into the world; it wasn’t even funny.

Thankfully, he had a few months’ time before Taylor went ahead and kicked canon into action, and if he could build a brand new advanced Quinjet in less than a week’s time, then he could certainly build something far better with a month’s worth of time, especially now that he could travel all around the world for resources, or for secrecy. It was paramount to build something to ensure his security before he could build something for offense.

Hell, even this Quinjet, if used properly and targeted the right people, could be used to kill dozens of capes with ease, but that would just leave him defenceless, which is why a personal defensive vehicle was at the top of the list. Preferably something that would not need an upgrade anytime soon. Then, he could start working on some offensive payloads. Just thinking of all the explosive drone payloads he could build as part of the vehicular buildout, and all the capes he could solve using them made him giddy with anticipation.

Either way, it was time to get to tinkering and show this world what a Vehicular Tinker could actually do.