VT - Chapter 33 : Mini Endbringer, Thinker 7 & Protecting Villains..... (Patreon)

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

Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

As he watched the first people notice what had happened and began reacting, both online and on the news, as well as the print presses stopping the current printing to print the hottest news, he realised just why Cauldron had not rescued Coil.

They hadn’t even tried. As far as he could piece it all together, Cauldron could not see him or around him. What they could do was see the pieces of equipment he made and sent out into the world that did not have that anti psychic tech built into it.

None of the Iron Man suits had them. The aircraft carriers and all the bigger jets had that tech. Maybe it interfered with how the shard worked, or maybe it was something else. Either way, Cauldron could see the actions of the people he recruited, and they could maybe even manipulate them. He had no idea what Cauldron would do since this would be the very first time they had encountered a totally alien and yet seemingly human entity.

Being the sole Thinker 12 on the planet, and yet left totally out of the loop must have spooked them, at least at first. That was why he was not overly concerned about their actions for Ashley. They would see her, term her a non-threat, and then move on.

It was Michael that could actually worry them. He was just the kind of person who could look at the firepower he had in his hands, then at the injustice around him and choose to work to remove all that injustice. He was a soldier at heart, even if he had a really strong moral compass.

As he watched the reactions pouring in from every corner of the country, as Piggot was woken up by the PRT alarms, as the first E88 scout learned of the information, as the rest of the villains learned of it, and as the information reached the upper echelons of the Federal government, he realised that this might just be a ploy by Cauldron to see if they could influence the actions of his agents. Soon enough, the Travellers might learn of this as well, and then he would have a bunch of Ziz bombs on his hands.

Hopefully, he would have contained Noelle long before then, and did not have to resort to containment that was of the lethal variety. Already, he could tell that Michael had realised that things had quickly spiraled out of his control, simply because he had acted out of rage, and he did not want the additional burden of a cape group tearing their way through cities, just to get to Noelle.

This just reeked of Cauldron’s involvement. If they could not influence Grand Chariot, then maybe they could influence its agents, and see if public opinion could be turned against him.

He sighed as the first of the suits arrived at the bunker, ignoring War Machine and Blue Shield before diving deep into the bunker to make sure that Noelle was safe and secure. Her safety was not an issue right now, since she was a pretty strong cape, but securing her was paramount, especially since the PRT was hot on their heels, what with the first known combat initiation that involved Blue Shield.

The fact that War Machine had initiated an attack on a seemingly civilian and vanilla office building will raise some uncomfortable questions as well, and he might just have to deal with it outside of PHO, and that would suck. Ugh. He knew there was going to be trouble headed his way when he began doing all this, but he had expected that to come later on, like maybe during Leviathan time.

Not now. Not so soon. Michael had somehow put himself and the entire program in trouble within weeks of getting the suit. Not a good look for the performance review, if he planned on doing any.

Shaking his head, he focused as the suits broke through multiple layers and reached the vault that held Noellle. Already, quite disturbing sounds could be heard from inside the vault, as one of the suits quickly hacked into the air gapped vault that was on an entirely different power connection, with its own backup generators that had kicked in the moment the bunker’s power was compromised, keeping Noelle inside, away from any parahumans.

That was very important here. Now the second question was how the hell was he going to transport Noelle, with her vault, out of that place without getting involved in a combat situation? The PRT were not just going to sit on the sidelines and let him move her without a fight, or at least act as an obstruction until they received instructions from high up.

Or worse, until someone from high up actually arrives to take charge. Legend could be there pretty soon. In fact, he would have to operate on the fact that Legend was going to come in the way.

So, the best bet was to make sure they could not keep Noelle there. With the assets already on their way, he would have more than enough firepower to make sure that the entire City was under control within hours at best. The biggest firepower source that should also be enough to hold Noelle, even if she somehow became loose, was the Helicarrier, and its sight alone should be enough to quell any shadow of riots or destruction in the city.

Unfortunately, that particular unit was not stationed around the Bay, because he had never expected to use it before the Endbringer Fight, and as such, it would take approximately 90 minutes to reach the Bay’s skies, even though it was running at full tilt. He could move it faster, but that would compromise the stealth aspect, and he did not want that.

He had a limited number of those, and he planned on using them during the Endbringer battles, along with an assortment of self-destructing suicide suits that would hopefully keep the Endbringers engaged for quite a while until the cities were evacuated.

Knowing that he would not be able to take Noelle out, he activated the sleep functions built into the vault and sent poison gas into the vault, knowing full well that it would not kill her. She had absurd regeneration abilities and had recently been fed, and as such, would not have been an issue for the next week or so. It was only the noise and the disturbance that woke her.

There were no cameras in the vault, as Noelle was kept in a state of absolute darkness for some reason that was most probably cartoonishly evil, but there were other sensors, and he could see on the motion sensors that Noelle’s movement was slowing down. Soon enough, she fell asleep, or the closest approximation of one.

Either way, the immediate problem was resolved, which is why the suits began securing the entrance to the lower levels, and another two began the work to make sure that the vault was mobile when they did want to move it.

Once that was done, he moved to the PRT as well as local law enforcement chatter. Already, Armsmaster was up and running, as the entire PRT roster was called upon to deal with the chaos that was no doubt about to besiege their city. Police were on their way to the site, as was Velocity, for different reasons.

Local law enforcement did not know what was happening, but Velocity probably did. They were going to ask for his help, through Michael. Piggot was calling for the entire Triumvirate to come crashing down on her city, to help crush the wave of gang violence that was going to hit the Bay.

It was smart of Piggot to make both plays.

Even if one or the other did not arrive, they could still minimise the damage caused. If both arrived, then there would probably be no damage to the city, but a confrontation that might lead to her getting some answers.

Either way, Piggot would have her city saved, at least for now. She probably did not care what capes did in case of a conflict, as long as it happened out of her city.

Knowing that time was of the essence, he opened a direct line of communication with the Rig, where the meeting was happening, as Piggot had not left the office because of her work.

He saw Armsmaster tell Piggot about the line of communication before Piggot allowed it to open, “Greetings, Direct–”

“What do you want?” He was interrupted by the rather venomous voice of Emily Pigot, and for one second, he was tempted to fire back, but understandably her mood was in the gutters, so he was straightforward with her.

Sending over the files to her, he began, “The villain known as Coil is Thomas Calvert, a PRT Consultant.” He let that hang in the air for a while before continuing, “War Machined discovered a ploy meant to target a minor Thinker, who is a conservatively esteemed Thinker 7, with the possibility of being an even higher one, owing to her current age. She is a preteen.”

A sharp intake of breath in the meeting room had Piggot halting her tirade. Not wanting to let her get a word in, “I have assets converging on the city soon enough. Coil had fail safes in place; he was attacked, and one of those fail safes involved leaking the identities of the capes that are in the city. I have deactivated the self-destruct, as well as the sleeper bombs he had around the city, but he had measures ready in case I stonewalled Coil digitally.”

“So, what are we supposed to do? Wait around for you to come in and occupy the city?”

“Do what you want to. I am just warning you. I will have more and more suits in the city within the next few minutes. It is the bigger bogies that will take some more time. I will recommend calling Velocity back and sending in a higher urgency notice to Costa Brown, if you do not want the PRT to be seen as entirely incompetent. You did have a high level PRT employee who was not just a cape, but a villain as well.”

Cutting off that line, he waited until the number of Iron Man suits in the city surged up to two dozen before turning on their stealth systems and sending them towards Max Anders’ home, both as a means of protection, as well as one of warning, as he did not want the E88 to get ideas and try to raise maximum chaos because they wanted to flee the country.

A red alert had him tearing his gaze away from the feed of the suits, as he had to be more involved this time and actually talk to the E88 capes this time, and might just have to make a few examples to dissuade them from taking a few awful steps. 

He sighed, seeing the Red alert. Legend was on his way. He was in his Breaker form, and while not as fast as he could certainly go, he was making good pace and should be in the city within the hour, just about enough time for him to get his first ship in place.

He was sure that just the optics of having his ship here would be enough to make some of the gangs hesitate, or make someone insane like Lung take it as a challenge to his rule, making him rise up to engage with his ships. 

In fact, he would actually prefer it if Lung stepped out and tried to fight him. He wondered just how long Lung would survive underwater, or in a vacuum, even with his power trying to ramp him up.

Shaking his head, he noted the ETA on Legend before looking as the suit finally reached the Anders’ home, with none of the Anders present.

Theo Anders and Max Anders were both present in the bunker underground, with Max pacing in the bunker, talking with someone on his phone, making furious gestures all around. He moved to intercept the call, only for his attempt to be rebuffed immediately. Likely Tinker tech, then.

Max Anders jerked at the same time, looking at his phone, as per the motion sensors.

Remembering where the other child of Max Anders was, two suits broke off the group and headed downtown, in stealth, of course.

Ugh. He hated the fact that he was going to have to act as security for villainous capes, but if he did not do that, then things might devolve into a riot, and he did not want that, not without the backdrop of the Helicarrier behind him.

Once the skies were darkened by the Helicarrier, he was sure that the city would quiet down. He just had to hold the fort down until that happened.

Argh. Fucking Worm.