VT - Chapter 27 : Pieces of Puzzle, Deterrence & Unc.... (Patreon)

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Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

So, he’d settled on one thing when it came to Endbringer conflicts. He would help. No matter what, he was going to help. With his suits already going into the wild and helping people, they were already exposed to the wider shard network, and since he hadn’t been smote out of existence by Scion and his OP ray that disintegrated matter, he assumed it should be fine to use his tech in smaller amounts.

In case that was not the case, he was going to prepone the event that led to the death of Zion. As far as he could remember, it was a combination of things that led to the final blow killing Zion’s true body hidden away in some body.

It was Oliver, a member of the Travellers, a group he had yet to locate, who could take on the appearance of Eden and deliver a depressing blow to Scion, turning him into a defenseless person. Then, it was Flechette, currently a ward under Legend, whose power was used to force open a pathway to Zion’s true body by piercing Scion, the Entity's avatar, with a weapon. Her power was special in the manner that doing so created a pathway that then allowed all of humanity’s tinkers to create a super weapon of some sort, which had a sole purpose.

To create a spectacular explosion and destroy the massive mass of Zion. With the Entity already mentally defeated, the explosion went off without a hitch, as the Entity did not fight back and essentially committed assisted suicide.

So, in the case of his sudden death, he was going to put together a plan that would go into effect the moment his death was confirmed. The main parts of the plan were Oliver, Flechette, Khepri, Panacea, and a Super Weapon that could obliterate a planet-sized mass.

Of that plan, he knew where Panacea, Taylor, and Flechette were. He had a rough idea as to what kind of weapon he could build. If not, then he was going to have to fall back on turning Taylor into a Shard-human hybrid to mass mind control all the capes on the planet to build that superweapon. He was in the process of locating Oliver, and he had chosen to start from Coil as it did not look like they left behind a traceable digital footprint.

With Bonesaw dead, he was going to need Panacea to do the whole brain surgery for Taylor, which was going to be much harder. Honestly, he was rather weary of the fact that a teenager just had to be sacrificed so that she could somehow mind control the vast majority of the capes on the planet, all so that the Entity could commit assisted suicide of sorts. It just felt wrong to him, and he would much rather that was not an option.

After all, if that was the only option to kill Scion/Zion, then it also meant that he was going to have to let Taylor suffer through everything she did before she got the mentality that eventually turned into something that got her to ask, voluntarily at that, to have brain surgery done to remove some of the limits on her shard. 

That was impossible. He would be no better than Cauldron at that point, and he wouldn't even have the excuse of being run by a Shard that was made with the express purpose of gathering data. Data that could only be gathered by using those powers in increasingly creative ways, and unfortunately, the best creativity and advancement that humanity did was when they were under the threat of life or death, and during war.

Sighing, he looked up at the terminal, showing him the live locations of Flechette, Panacea and Taylor. All teenagers, all so young, nowhere near old enough to have the burden of saving the world plopped on their heads. 

He waved the terminal away and opened one of his favourite PHO threads, about Blue Shield and all her feats around the Bay. He had been entirely honest when he told her that he was going to leave the suit to her moral judgement and let her do her thing. As long as she did not go evil and start leaving behind bodies in a manner that could not be explained, he was not going to interfere in her activities.

Scrolling through the entire thing, it brought a smile to his face as it was full of testimonies about her saving people, rescuing people, doing first aid, and then telling people to move on instead of handing them over to the police when it was clear that it was their first time and they had just made a mistake or were lured into making one.

She got into trouble with some of the testimonies, with some people berating her for not being strict on crime, but she was thick skinned enough to ignore them. At this point, she had begun cutting her shifts at the hospital, as the weight of her nightly activities began weighing heavily on her.

She was also quite thankful for the floating platform he gave her, so that she could carry around her preferred tools of healing. Being a Doctor really helped. Ever since meeting Glory Girl, she had also met much of the current cape roster of the PRT, along with some Wards as well.

Without failing, everyone of them told her that the PRT would like a meeting on her terms. That Piggot would like her to come in, entirely voluntarily, of course. That she could register as a totally independent cape and then rely on the PRT if things went sideways. That the PRT’s deterrence was enough to make sure that capes would not go too far even if she found herself on the losing side.

He could only snort at that, as the mere threat of Grand Chariot personally intervening with the big ass machines of death had been enough to push crime to an all time low. Still, as he had told her, that particular time of peace was never going to last. Crime was slowly ticking up, and was probably going to reach its previous average within a month.

As expected, the criminal element had simply adapted to her time of operation. Crime at night had fallen to an all time low, but it had mostly just moved its timing to the day shift. Sure, due to the very nature of the various daytime activities of the city, straight up murder or abducting people had become very much harder, but most other crimes simply happened behind closed doors, and those were the most heinous kinds.

He did not have the heart to tell Ashley about it, but fortunately for her, he had found another candidate in Brockton Bay, and while he was somewhat queasy about handing such power to the man, the random choice had clearly worked out great with Ashley, so maybe it might work well with Harrison as well?

Michael Harrison.

A Vet. A homeless Vet, to be precise. Living in one of the Vagrant communities around the Bay, barely sustaining themselves on the dwindling generosity of people and some support from the government as well. It was tough for the guy, having lost a leg and most of his savings in the treatments later on.

According to the file he had on the guy, he was briefly on some drugs, but he’d been clean for well over three years before he discovered his wife’s adultery and, in a fit of rage, assaulted the guy. The other side won; his wife left him and took the house and most of his savings with her. From there, it was only a matter of time until Michael found himself on the streets.

He was actually from Boston and had just drifted here somehow. 

His profile was actually picked up by the algorithm, which was quite dumb since it was not powered by an actual AI, because he was quite well known for teaching the poor kids. Maths, science, English, combat, and more.

He was quite famous on social media, as the people he taught made sure the world knew about him, and those donations sustained some of his lifestyle. Most of that went to pain medication and occasional visits to a cheap diner with all the kids he taught. There was a years-long history of the man, and it was clear that he was not engaged in some child trafficking or something equally heinous. 

So, trusting the random choice, he sent in the same proposal he sent to Ashley, with the explicit guarantee that he could not outright grow new limbs for the man. That was the realm of Panacea, and while he was going to help that poor girl get out of the frankly abusive situation at her home, it was not going to be under the pretext of using her powers to heal people he had under his employ.

Yes, she was part of the Endgame backup plan if he did not pan out, or if he died midway, but for now, he just wanted to avoid the whole Red Queen scenario. He did not have a single clue as to how he could make that happen, but at least he had initiative on his side.

Moving on, he’d sent Michael the invitation in the morning, and it was currently resting innocently under his bedding, which was reserved for him as he was one of the more respected and, frankly, useful members of the community.

Opening with the assumption that he was going to be making the Super Bomb, and all he needed was to deliver said bomb to Scion. Then, only the cooperation of Oliver, to mimic Edin and make Scion suicidal, and Flechette, to open the portal, was really needed, right?

Then, why did it feel like he was missing something here? Something crucial?

He was brought out of his thoughts by a ping. Looking up, he grinned as he finally had the location of Coil’s base. Well, as long as Coil’s base was a shuttered Endbringer bunker that was not on any of the city’s plans, and was located underground, with an office building built above it. The bunker also had exits leading to multiple parts of the city, as well as the underground sewer network.

That had to be Coil’s base. If not, then it was one hell of a decoy, and he was going to have to infiltrate that decoy.

See, Coil was a tricky enemy, but only for people who did not know what his true power was. It was not the ability to create two timelines and then choose one. No, that was something that was more reserved for something on the level of an Infinity Stone. Objects of Literal Infinity Power. The answer to the Entities’ entire existence.

He seriously doubted if Coil’s shard had the power to actually time travel, let alone do so regularly. No, Coil’s shard most likely was some advanced simulation shard that gave him the most likely future. Still a pretty potent power, and still something that would fuck over most people.

And yet, not true time travel.

He was not sure what effect his Blank-ish power was having on Coil, but even assuming that Coil could account for his suits coming in to deal with the guy, how was Thomas ever going to compensate for a two pronged attack on both his selves at the same time, with overwhelming power?

Simple. He was going to use a deterrent to deter him from attacking Coil outright.

How would one go about doing that?

Well, the mass of roiling energy hidden deep within the bunker, only visible to his drones because they had dug pretty deep into the ground to get some scans, was a pretty dead giveaway of the location of the Endbringer Lite Coil had in his basement. 

So, he could safely assume that Coil had made contact with the Travellers, and they were either close by, or Coil knew their location.

Either way, Coil had something he should not have, and if he thought that the threat of Noelle being unleashed on the Cape Capital of the country was going to deter him, then he was wrong.

It was only going to make him take a step back, go into overkill mode, and just.....finish Coil.

It was that easy.

Until then, let’s see what Michael has to say about the proposal. It was about time he was done with his night classes and could go to sleep. The pain was becoming too much for the man to be moving about all day and night. After all, he was in his late 30s now.