VT - Chapter 12 : Legendary Ignorance...... (Patreon)

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Skies above Blackwater, Pennsylvania

–Keith [Legend]—

He tensed, waiting for the ship to do something. The barrier around it glowed brightly, only increasing in brightness to the point that even in his Breaker Form, he found it hard to look directly at the ship’s forcefield. He felt more than saw Eidolon readying an energy attack of some type, presumably to breach the massively durable forcefield ahead of them, or he had some other power to help bypass the shield.

Either way, he could tell, perks of being within his Breaker Form, that whatever energy was gathering within his arms was far lower than the energy exuding from the forcefield. It was truly massive, and it made him wonder just what kind of power source they had inside that ship to be able to project power on this scale. It also made him wonder what they were trying to do inside.

Judging by the amount of energy being mobilised here, it was a reasonable assumption that they were trying to teleport away. It also meant that they could not truly stop them, whoever they were. Obviously, they were a Tinker of some sort, and seeing what they had built, it was most likely a large group of Tinkers, working together to make a ship of this calibre.

Not to mention the suits and other rescue vehicles he spied entering the larger ship. 

It just made him wonder how Contessa missed something like this. A buildup of this scale should not have gone unnoticed. The fact that they could do this just made him want to stop them here, hence the primed attack waiting in his hands.

Alexandria stayed back as she was the least useful in attacks like these. She had hit the forcefield with all she had, and it hadn’t even budged, so maybe energy attacks were—

His thoughts were halted by a spike in energy in the ship, which made him and Eidolon instinctively attack the ship, only for both their attacks to bounce off the massive forcefield.

He was about to try again, only for the glow to die down, revealing what had happened underneath that forcefield.

“What…” Eidolon whispered to himself, shell shocked, as the forcefield revealed only ashes, with some solid structures that soon crumbled to dust as well, taking the forcefield with it. He floated there, shell shocked as well, staring at the destruction.

The massive ship, likely more than capable of taking over multiple countries and destroying all but the strongest of cape organisations, self-destructed?

Alexandria was the first to move forward, collecting the dust that was flying away. He was about to move as well, though he could see no point in doing so, only to pause as he noticed Eidolon’s head glowing with power. A moment later, Eidolon looked straight up, his form slowly moving up subconsciously, only for the green glow around his head to fizzle out as Eidolon floated back down.

He gave the man a curious look as Eidolon answered, “I used a thinker power to figure out if someone else was watching us from above. Obviously, many people are looking at us right now, so it is not the most accurate, but I was able to adjust some parameters and confirm that the person we talked to was looking at us through the satellite as well.”

“Are you able to track their position?” Alexandria demanded, now holding a jar of dust that was likely useless, but they had to do something to try and track down a group that was somehow not just capable of building such a massive flagship ship, but also willing to destroy it all, just to remove any chance of being tracked.

It made them competent, paranoid, and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goal. It was a particular brand of dangerous, and this was likely going to create waves across not just the world, but also across Cauldron assets, as Contessa being unable to find them, even if they were a Tinker, had some pretty uncomfortable implications. After all, for Contessa to be unable to path them, it meant that they were a blind spot, and so far, the only blind spots to Contessa’s Path to Victory were…

Eidolon answered, having switched to a newer power to find an answer to that question, shaking his head in the negative, “No. Whatever link they were using to watch us no longer exists. It is likely, just like this ship, they destroyed it immediately.”

“What a waste,” He couldn't help but comment as Alexandria called for a Door and handed over the remains of that ship, even if all of them knew that nothing of substance was going to come from that. They had to try. After all, that was the only clue they had of the Tinker Group here. A jar of dust.

An unknown Tinker Group. They didn't even have a name for them, which was odd since he expected a natural trigger cape to have more aggression, because of the conflict drive present in most capes. Even their vials, which gave them powers, were not really optimised for anything, and yet they had found over years of research that all of them possessed a much lower conflict drive than natural triggers.

That same conflict drive also meant that most capes did not work well together. Occasionally? Sure, but for the long period of time it undoubtedly took to build all of that? There should have been some other conflicts, some defection, some combat. Something that would have exposed the group t o the rest of the world before they were ready.

Even now, for them to eliminate the S9 and then vanish without even giving out their name was odd in and of itself. Usually, the stronger and more accomplished a Tinker was, the more aggressive and in tune with their power, and as such, very enthusiastic about their work. They should have atleast given their name.

“Others will handle the cleanup. We need to figure out a way to deal with this going forward. Door to Cauldron Compound.” Alexandria said as a door opened in the middle of the air, as all three of them flew through, with Mother Doctor and Kurt already seated, waiting for them.

As all of them got seated, he looked around, waiting for Contessa to appear through a door, only for Mother Doctor to begin, “Contessa is busy looking for the traces of the group. She will not be joining us today.”

Odd, he thought to himself. 

But soon enough, the meeting began, and he forgot about Contessa’s oddity.

___xx___

After a thorough yet quick debrief, they were going to be on their way. After all, they had disappeared abruptly due to the nature of the event, but the world outside must be expecting a word from them. It was likely going to be Alexandria or Eidolon, depending on if Rebecca was going to attend or not.

Mother Doctor had advised them to be honest about the Tinker Group, being unusually wary of their abilities, as usually, they would have used the advantage of trust they had to corner the other side into accepting their terms, but this time, the other side seemed to be incredibly resourceful, not to mention more than capable of inflicting devastating damage, not just to villains but to their overall reputation if they tried to go too far, and destroying their image.

So, Doctor Mother had chosen to curate a version of the truth that omitted a few things, allowing the public to form their own opinions, whatever they may be, but whatever they were going to reveal to the public at large was going to be true.

He rolled his eyes at the blatant manipulation of the masses. If it had been at the start of Cauldron, he would have frowned in distaste at the actions, and resisted against the underhanded tactics, but after being a member of Cauldron and leader of a Protectorate team for years, he knew that sometimes, these tactics were necessary. Plus, even if the other members did not tell him about the many activities that Cauldron undertook, he was not foolish enough to believe that their organisation was pure and white.

It was certain that in their quest to save Humanity against an unwinnable foe, they had committed grave crimes, and while he was in no hurry to confront them about their actions, he knew that he was not going to be able to escape blame when the time came to own up to the consequences for their actions. He knew that, and he was going to accept whatever punishments he was going to get, but he supposed that it was just nice and somewhat cowardly to just not know right now and have that mental burden be placed on a future version of himself.

There was also the fact that he was, more than likely, going to die in the line of duty anyway, which felt like a coward’s way out instead of accepting the consequences of his actions, but their world being what it was, death was always around the corner. Dismissing his morbid thoughts, which always found their way to the forefront of his mind whenever he was back in this meeting room, he got up from the table, ready to head back to the place where the S9 had finally found their match.

A smile found its way to his face as he thought of the thousands, maybe more, that the Tinker Group had saved by killing the Slaughterhouse Nine. Plus, it looked like they were not going to stop at the one, which meant that soon enough, considering the group’s strength, they should—

“What? Door to my Office,” Rebecca’s sharp exclamation made all of them look at the door that manifested in front of her. Before anyone could ask her about it, she flew in and back out immediately, holding onto—

“Manton?” He whispered, looking at the corpse Rebeca was holding. She froze and looked up at him with a panicked expression for some reason, before her face turned blank, but he dismissed those reactions in favour of the far more important elephant in the room.

Rebecca nodded and placed the corpse on a table that sprouted from the ground, as Kurt rushed forward and examined the corpse that had a hole in its head, already cauterised with extreme heat.

Despite it being in bad taste, he smiled in joy as Kurt confirmed that it was indeed William Manton, the psychotic ex scientist who used to work here and was directly responsible for the haphazard creation of the Case 53s, having stolen a large batch of the power vials before somehow escaping the Cauldron Compound.

“This is great news!” He softly exclaimed in joy, “Now there will be no more Case 53s.”

He did not notice everyone's faces as he exclaimed in joy, feeling the urge to jump and dance about, as it was one of the biggest mistakes of Cauldron, in his opinion. To let William flee with so many power vials, and then their inability to track down or shut down his operation, was a giant mark on Cauldron’s actions, in his opinion.

Hopefully, no one else had the expertise to continue his operation, and there are likely only one or two people who could even do this, and they would need the power vials for that. Plus, the number of Case 53s was so high that it should not take long for those power vials to run out as well, after which, even if someone wanted to, creating more Case 53s was going to be impossible. With the way they had fortified the storage and distribution of the power vials, it should be safe to say that from here on out, new Case 53s should not be created.

“Yes,” Mother Doctor agreed before she told everyone to get back to their jobs, which was moving about the disaster site for PR, before getting ready for a press conference. There was also the President, who was undoubtedly going to demand a debrief, but they had Rebecca for that.

Once he was done with the Press, he was going to go back home, with the knowledge that not one but two blots on humanity were erased today.

And that’s what he did. Once he was done with the Press conference, even though it was tragic to lose dozens of lives, it was undoubtedly a positive day in a sea of negative ones; he was back home with a bottle of champagne he had picked up on the way from his office, something he had reserved for such a good day. 

Arthus was going to want to hear what happened today from him personally. After all, his dear husband always preferred to get the scoop, straight from the source, so to speak.