VT - Chapter 19 : Heartbreaker No Mo (Patreon)

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

Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

The fact that Heartbreaker lived in one of those fancy rental villas, surrounded by trees and the sound of water on all sides, walled off with a farm on all sides for privacy, made a ton of sense. He checked that the rent was being paid on time, and the owner of the property had delisted it from the rental market long ago, and yet was still getting paid.

Obviously, Heartbreaker was not the kind of person who would willingly pay the rent for his dwelling, which meant that his theory of the government making sure that Heartbreaker was isolated and did not venture too far out of his bubble of hedonistic behaviour was true. The property was perfect for that.

Walled off compound, along with thick trees on all sides, with generous spacing on all sides of the property, leading up to a road that was not even used that often. From his records, there was a weekly delivery done by a truck, giving everything that the Heartbroken might need, and the container was delivered in front of the gate of the property.

All in all, it was quite the arrangement, as the government had made sure that a much more convenient quarantine had been done for a Human Master Villain. All the other houses around that house were cordoned off and were likely full of government assets as well, ordered to shoot on sight, or maybe the government really was stupid enough to keep that entire area empty and trust Heartbreaker to keep his word, not that any record of any agreement whatsoever existed.

Shaking his head, he watched as all the assets were in position. His most preferred option to deal with puny human durability level capes was to just use the Iron Man suit as a prison, making sure that they could not move, either to escape or hurt themselves. After all, the moment Nikos was encased in a metal suit, unable to speak, move or even stay conscious without his say so, the rest of his harem or children, or otherwise brainwashed group, was going to pounce on the suit. He was going to need to make sure that everyone was alive and subdued.

That would go a long way toward making sure that any attempt on Cauldron’s part to malign his image in any way would not succeed. They still held a ton of power and influence on how the world worked, and while they were on the back foot right now because of his unexpected appearance and the ruse that it was not just a single person working but a potentially multi-Earth operation.

It was inevitable that over time, that hesitation would vaporise and they might try more and more overt methods to find him, or provoke him into action. Cauldron was certainly not below such underhanded tactics; he knew that much.

So, as he had promised in the very first PHO post he’d made. He was going to take care of yet another S-class threat. While this one was not really a globally designated S-class threat, or even PRT designated one, Nikos certainly had the potential to be one. 

Also, this was not the Canary situation where she was pushed into the Birdcage just for the potential for being a villain. Sure, her crime of telling her boyfriend to eat himself was certainly a crime, and she should have been tried for that, but the PRT had rehabilitated multiple rogues or villains who had far more severe crimes to their name. It was just the nature of Canary’s power that made her an ideal candidate to be pushed into the Birdcage.

He was sure that Cauldron must have had a hand in that as well, considering the swiftness with which justice was handed out in that case.

No, Nikos here was a certified Villain, and as such, should have been dealt with long ago. Maybe Cauldron saw some use in him? Being able to master humans and, more importantly, Capes, over the long term was certainly a very useful ability, but Cauldron had the Slug for that, and even if they didn’t, Nikos was certainly not the kind of guy anyone could trust to have the good of anyone else but himself in his mind. Giving that guy any kind of power over a large group of people would result in one thing and one thing only.

Large scale Destruction.

A ping from one of the suits assigned to watch over the property had him looking up. Truly, Tony Stark was a one of a kind genius. Even if he did not have access to Tony’s most advanced suits capable of Magi-tech and more, even the lower tier ones had such utility that he simply found himself defaulting to them. Plus, their humanoid appearance worked to assuage the fears of the common populace, or so he hoped.

He certainly hoped that a human looking robotic suit was far more palatable than having an eight legged drone that could do far more with far less mass. 

A detailed scan of the property told him that just over 100 people occupied the property, even though it “only” had 20 bedrooms. Assuming a cozy 3 people per bedroom, that still left 40 or so other people who had no place to sleep. 

Or maybe the government gave him extra mattresses for the rest of his cult? Some of them were clearly children as well, with Nikos’ bedroom clearly visible to the sensors. After all, it was the room that had the highest number of women with a single man. They were all asleep right now, which was perfect for him.

Many were awake in the lower floors, and some were even walking around the property, with guns in their hands, keeping watch. One of them was far too young to be doing that. His face twisted in disgust as the suit’s long range cameras showed him the same blank eyed look on everyone’s faces, as they robotically went through their assigned activities.

Truly, Mind Control was an evil power. Control over other people's minds really corrupts people.

His hands flew over the terminal, marking each and every person with a suit. The highest number of suits were going to be needed for the bedroom that housed Nikos. Hopefully, his theory of the mind control effect dispelling itself when Nikos died was true, otherwise, he had no idea how he was going to save all these women and children.

Also, it was abundantly clear to him that all the men on the property were likely his children. Nikos seemed like the type of man to never let any other men come near what he considered his property.

Then, there was also the matter of long term exposure warping the minds of everyone present, to the point that even if the mind control aspect was removed, their minds had been molded in that manner for so long that they would stay mind-controlled. It would not surprise him if most of them turned to suicide after this.

Canada also had an Assisted suicide program, and if there was ever a case for it, it should be women who had been Mastered into becoming slaves for over a decade. Still, maximum efforts should be made to make sure that these people could go on to live atleast semi normal lives.

Another ping from the suits told him that the entire 3 mile radius from that house was empty, with not a single human around, armed or otherwise. There were certainly hundreds of cameras around the property, with a satellite aimed constantly at the man, likely, but no humans. It was certainly a strategy since the road was a dead end, and the only way to actually move such a large group of people was to use a big truck, and the road that led through a small town in the distance.

Now, that town had an alarmingly high confederation of law enforcement, high tech barriers, and county wide bunkers, so the government had done some preparation.

With that confirmation done, he looked at the many crimes listed in front of him, and these were just the known ones, and pressed the button to go ahead, as dozens of Iron Man suits flew out of the air, and into the property, as a suit aimed precisely and burned a hole in Nikos’ head, killing him in his sleep.

Before the sound or smell of a hole being burned into Nikos’ head could reach the women around him, his suits flew in and began knocking out every single person in sight. Using a concentrated dose of Sleeping Gas, physical trauma to the head, asphyxiation, and more to make sure that not a single one of them remained conscious.

On the other hand, a few of his suits, along with a rescue bogie using just repulsor tech to float and facilitate high speed travel, had travelled to the nearby hospitals and gotten the emergency services to load onto them before bringing them to the property.

He had already sent messages to the local PRT chapter, the Guild, Dragon’s public email ID, and was only holding back from pushing the send button on his PHO post. Noticing the frantic activity, he had to show everyone a photo of Nikos with a hole in his head, sleeping almost peacefully. Killing him in his sleep was a far more merciful death than he or any of his thralls would have given him, but he couldn’t risk anything.

Already, he was deathly terrified of Human Masters, and the sooner he was done with this, the sooner he could move on to other threats.

It took some time, but eventually, his bogies brought in some particularly brave EMT techs all the way to the property, as practically a sea of police cars also began heading towards the same direction, using the roads, which was far slower than just flying straight towards the house.

Between the EMT techs arriving, he had to knock out a few children once more, as they were parahumans, and as such, had a somewhat sturdier constitution than the rest of the thralls, who were probably never taken care of properly, nutrition wise, and as such, were quite weak.

The condition of some of these woman had him regretting the fact that he coulnd’t just trap Nikos in a seat, and then constantly boil, freeze and torture him for years before finally granting him the sweet release of death.

Thankfully, with the suits being numerous in number and swift to act meant that there weren't any life threatening injuries to treat. He had already conveyed the nature of the emergency to the EMTs, as well as the government, and as such, restraints were being brought in from everywhere to make sure that once the Heartbroken woke up, they would not kill themselves.

It was a sorry state of affairs everywhere, but not something that could be avoided. The government's incompetence might come to light, but it was not like he cared one bit about that.

___xx___

Quebec, Canada

—Thomas Crooks–

It was a night like every other. Peaceful. It was just the way he liked it. Some of the young-ins hated nights like these. Peaceful and boring, they called it, not knowing that boring meant that you got to go home alive, even if a bit tired due to pulling an all nighter.

Their young blood meant that they were all too eager to start a car chase or be a tad bit overzealous in finding and fining people who were breaking the traffic laws, not knowing that a small fine was not worth risking your life.

He didn't know what they were teaching the new recruits back at the academy, but he made a habit of teaching every single newbie he was saddled with that it was not worth it. It was not worth it to put his own life, all the people's lives that were there on the highway, as well as the life of the one driving the car into danger, at risk for a small traffic infraction.

It might have been different had the concept of capes not existed here, but their existence changed the entire equation. So, it was far better to just note down the number, and keep watch for bigger issues than wasting time trying to hunt down small-time criminals. They could always do that during the day, where it was generally far safer to do law enforcing.

It was during one such night that he received an emergency alert.

It was the most panicked he had ever heard Dispatch, as all officers in the city were being called to a remote rich people vacation home location. Apparently, it was a cape related crime, but the cape was dealt with and the police were being called in to deal with the aftermath.

The fact that everyone was being pulled meant that either it involved a rich or powerful person, or the cape in question was just that powerful and impactful.

Either way, his peaceful and, more importantly, boring shift just turned interesting, and he did not like that one bit.

____xxx___

Undersiders Lair, Brockton Bay

–Jean Paul Vasil Alec—

“Alec,” He heard Lisa call for him, her voice strained for some reason. He was doing the same thing he did every night, at 3 AM. Playing video games.

Lisa did the same thing she did every night. Woke up to pee and then spent some time with him, silently sitting with him before going back to bed.

He appreciated that.

Tonight, though, something had changed, and while he was going to go look at what had happened, he just had to beat his high score once more to get to the top of the leaderboard—

He looked up and was about to snark at Lisa for shutting down the mains, not knowing that he had long since installed battery backup for exactly such annoying tactics, only to pause as he saw her expression. It was deathly pale, and a tad bit concerned.

Concerned for who, though? For him?

“A-Alec, you should see the TV,” She gave him a look, as he sighed and grumbled, but got out of the chair to see what the fuss was all about.

Getting around the small partition that separated the TV and Gaming area from the dining section, he looked up at the TV and froze, even before unmuting it.

He robotically stood in place, looking at the headlines.

Heartbreaker Dead. Heartbroken rescued. Grand Chariot strikes once more.

Fuck.