VT - Chapter 28 : Gunmetal Grey Gun...... (Patreon)

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

Brockton Bay

–Michael Harrison–

He was no stranger to pain. Be it physical, mental, or emotional. He had been through it all and had come out considerably worse for wear on the other side of it all. He lost many things, and the only thing he could say he gained from all of that would be perspective. It kind of got hard to feel sorry for himself when he saw the tenth case of a person who had no chance whatsoever of ever having even a normal life, let alone a successful one. 

People who were simply born with the wrong circumstances and quite literally zero opportunity to get themselves out of it. It was humbling to know that he had at least known that kind of life before he lost it all. He had a house, a wife, a somewhat okay relationship, a job that paid well even if it put his life at risk. 

Shaking his head, he stopped needlessly dwelling on the past before hobbling towards his dwelling- would be a term for it. In reality, it was just a camp, with a few holes in the tent, and a reserved bedding that no one else touched, and someone else kept it clean. It was honestly something that made his life quite easy, relatively speaking.

It was the one constant in his life. This piece of bedding that he slept on every day, as it was the one thing that was not shared or passed on between everyone. Which is why he knew that there was something wrong with it the moment he laid his eyes on it. There was just something different about it. He just could not put his finger on it. A good Doctor who checked his eyes last year told him that he had excellent eyesight, and he hadn’t had any issues since then, so it could not just be his eyes playing a trick on him.

Slowly approaching his bedding, he inspected the whole thing. It was put on top of a small cardboard platform to be insulated from the cold ground, but lifting the thin bed did not yield any results. He did the same from the other side, and then checked the beds next to his as well, finding nothing. After wasting several minutes doing this, he felt his hands begin to tremble, making him sigh as he just slumped and got into the bed, any disturbance be damned.

He was anyway slowly dying, so what was the point of–

He paused. He had just set his head down on the pillow they had right now, and he was pretty sure it was not this hard when he woke up in the morning. Getting up, he used his non trembling hand to look around and take out a phone. An expensive looking phone, somehow.

He brought it to his face, and before he could do anything about it, it began vibrating. Startled by that, he almost dropped it before getting hold of it and pressing the accept button.

“Hello?”

“Michael Harrison, we have been watching you, and we have a proposition for you.”

“Who is this?” He instantly asked, his gaze swiveling all around him. Have they been watching him? From where? And more importantly, why? He was nobody. Just a cripple trying to spend the last days of his life trying to do some good instead of wasting away. The kids were honestly the one thing that kept him away from the bottle.

“We are Grand Chariot, and we have a task that we feel you are suitable for.”

A shiver ran through him as he heard that name. The name of the organisation that had rocked the entire country. They were spoken of in hushed whispers by everyone. From what he could gather, they had scared everyone so much that not even villains were willing to get on their wrong side.

And he had seen the effects of that first hand as well. Here, in Brockton Bay, just from the news that one of their members was patrolling, overall crime had dropped so much that the entire community had gotten restless. There had been multiple talks of just moving away, without any plan whatsoever.

They had a good place here, with good contacts and even the ability to call upon some less than stellar doctors if need be, for cheap as well, and the city itself had a ton of spaces they could occupy without anyone giving them grief for it. Aside from the astronomically high crime rate, which could be somewhat alleviated by staying together or in groups, the city was practically a homeless haven for them, on the East Coast at the very least.

For them to even think of leaving such a good place, especially so soon, was unheard of. Many of the older members constantly warned everyone that silence and peace was never a good sign. A long period of silence was always followed by astronomical amounts of violence. The memory of the Boston Games was still fresh in the memories of many people here, which is why they were seriously considering moving, alteast a few miles out of the city, until things settled down.

By settling down, they meant letting the astronomical violence headed towards Brockton Bay settle before moving back in. It was just so unthinkable to his sensibilities, but he knew that they had to think about everyone before making a major decision such as moving. It was always hard on everyone, and almost always, they lost one or two members, either to simple chaos or to some sickness that flared up at the wrong time. Either way, moving them would certainly mean a death count, and he would have to grudgingly admit that the number of dead people then would be way lower if they just moved, as opposed to letting a cape group assault the city when Grand Chariot inevitably brought the big hammer down on the current crop of villains.

Still, why would they choose him if they had all the weapons he had seen on TV?

“H-Hello, sir. I am Michael Harrison. What can I do for you?” He had to be careful here. Capes as a whole, even heroes, were unpredictable at best and downright harmful to interact with at worst. It was common knowledge that all capes were best kept at a distance, to normies anyway. That whole caution must be applied a hundredfold when it comes to dealing with someone on the level of Grand Chariot.

Hopefully, whatever happened, he was the only one who would be impacted. He would hate for anyone else to get caught because of him. The community had been through enough.

___xx___

Brockton Bay [A week later]

—Thomas Calvert–

He sweated bullets as his power showed him a concentrated beam of yellow light filling his vision before it all went dark, throwing him back into the present. Taking in a few deep breaths, he tried again.

This time, he remained in the Rig and gave the order for Noello to be–

This time he didn’t even see the Light. He just felt the heat before he was back in his office, sweating, his heart hammering. Using his power once more, he remained stationary and did not do anything out of the ordinary in one timeline, but in the other one, he ordered the mercenaries to begin infiltrating the office building directly above his lair, and then began heading out of the emergency exit, which would take him directly out of the city, after which the base would self destruct and, in doing so, inevitably result in the release of—

He was barely halfway through the emergency exit before the tunnel above him caved in, and he only saw a split second of a massive grey barrel pointed at his face before his vision went black, and he was thrown back into his office.

Slamming his hand on the table, he ignored the throbbing pain, cursing at the situation, “Shit!”

What had he done to gain their attention? Grand Chariot. A Super Tinker group responsible for restraining all cape activities within the Bay for quite a while now. After all, if Toybox was a Tinker group, then that group could only be called a Super Tinker group. Seeing some of the things the group could do was terrifying.

He had thanked his lucky stars that the woman they had chosen to get the suit was just a normie doctor, who was obviously more focused on helping people. Pathetic as it might be, it helped him reroute most of his activities away from the woman without risking getting tagged as an enemy of the group. It would be the worst thing possible, as even with his power, there were limits he couldn't really cross.

If there was one thing that he hated after the woman in the Fedora, then it was an unknown variable. And Grand Chariot was so far the second biggest unknown variable he had seen in his life. No Thinker group was able to get any information on them. Not even Tattletale, and even Watchdog, reported issues trying to get past the abilities of the ship.

It was as if everything any Thinker could see were the ships and the ships’ capabilities only. Nothing regarding its origin, or what it contained, or anything else. It had rattled the entirety of the command structure at both PRT and Watchdog, which is why the Ashley woman was treated with such care. 

All the unwritten rules were broken in favour of gaining more information on them, but it looked like it was a moot point. Just like the ships, all the information they could gain about them was the technical ability of the suits, as well as the woman inside. The suit was the real deal, no matter how inexperienced and useless the woman was. The terrifying abilities of the suit had stopped the PRT from even approaching the woman with anything that could remotely resemble a forceful approach.

Orders had come from high up to accommodate her.

And he had accommodated her. He had deliberately thrown bait at her, made sure she was busy treating people to care too much about what was happening on the other end of the city. But this?

For the past week, he had been unable to use his power at all. No matter what move he made, he found himself on the other end of a yellow energy beam that ended him, no matter what tinkertech defenses he had in place.

It was only then that he got a different vision, which was of that grey barrel. It was clearly a gun barrel, and from the looks of it, it was high calibre, armour piercing round, and the way the tunnel had caved in, it would be safe to assume that it was a drone of some sort since the tunnel was not big enough to get a tank inside.

Whatever it was, it had been targeting him with remarkable precision, getting him no matter what he did. No matter where he went, what actions he took, or if he did it as Coil or as Thomas, it mattered not. The yellow light was there, waiting for him.

They were audacious enough to target him even inside the Rig, or on the way to the Rig, or in plain view of many heroes, Wards, or independents. No matter what he did, they did not relent. It figures that the only group capable of provoking the PRT in such a manner and then walking away scot free would be Grand Chariot. They did have the firepower to back it all up.

Before this, he had thought that they were using one of their massive ships to just target him, as the ship would be invisible and thus capable of targeting him from anywhere.

Maybe they were doing that as well, but from the tunnel caving in, he had a sinking suspicion that Ashley was not the only person they approached with their suits.

And this particular one seemed to be far more aggressive and just as willing to break the unwritten rules as the PRT when it came to threats.