VT - Chapter 36 : Grand Chariot is here..... (Patreon)

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

Brockton Bay

–Michael Harrison–

He stared in horror as the consequences of his foolhardy actions hit him right in the face. He could do nothing but watch on in mute horror as people around the world were woken up by an explosive piece of news. Governments, departments, entire PRT departments woken up in the middle of the night, simply because he had been too angry at what he saw and did not bother to read or follow through on the warning that Grand Chariot had left behind for a single villain.

He should have known that if they thought to include a warning about someone, then that villain was probably not as simple as he had thought them to be. But no, he just had to look at the facts provided to him and jump into action. The thought of those two kids, because they were just kids and nothing more, just playing at being adults, who were forced to commit crimes because of factors outside of their influence.

Shaking his head, he tried to snap himself out of it, as the suit alerted him to the arriving law enforcement. They were quite late, and a quick look at their communications told him that the entire top brass of law enforcement within the city was quite conflicted about the whole thing. Most of them did not even want to come here and deal with what they called cape stuff.

This time, the cape stuff involved him and Blue Shield, which they knew from the multiple 911 calls, along with the portal that the PRT had created so that people could also upload video proof so that the appropriate response could be mounted for cape activity. The entire police department was up in arms, with many of them not even picking up calls for duty, as the Police Chief eventually sent someone to check in on stuff, with explicit instructions not to engage anyone regarding anything.

Shaking his head, he read the message sent to him by Grand Chariot, who were, as expected of a group their size, ready with a response that seemed overkill but was necessary. With the way things had devolved, he might have started a citywide gang war if Grand Chariot had not stepped in to defuse things.

His instructions were clear. He was to make sure that the mercenaries still alive inside the bunker were knocked out and prepared for transport to the nearest prison. He was also to make sure that nothing reached the bottommost floor of the bunker, not even Legend, who was apparently on his way here.

Figures that his blender would draw the attention of not just Grand Chariot but also of Legend. He was also the closest member of the Triumvirate here, and was quite fast, so he better get to work before meeting Legend.

He had always wanted to meet the trio who were the strongest capes in the country, but he had never expected his first meeting to go like this. Sighing, he signalled for Blue Shield to follow him as they entered the bunker and began stacking the mercenaries one by one.

During that, he observed how Blue Shield and her methods of operation worked. She had a mobile platform that was always floating around Brockton Bay, ready to be summoned at a moment’s notice. Just like now, the floating Hexagon came through the hole in the bunker, before floating right next to her, as she scanned the patients one by one, before a series of tools came out of the floating platform, aiding her in surgery.

In one case, a steady flow of nanites entered a mercenary’s head, before the visible swelling on his head was reduced, and he was deposited cleanly next to the treated mercenaries. All the while, their backgrounds were visible to him, courtesy of the truly massive database that Grand Chariot had given him access to.

After he was done finding and stacking all the humans he could find in the bunker, save for whatever was behind those blast doors that were being guarded by multiple armours, and was blacked out from his suit’s sensors whenever he tried to get a reading on it, they had gathered all the mercs and were just waiting for them to be healed before handing them to the police, who were waiting outside the bunker, still too afraid to even use the megaphone they had to call for the capes inside the bunker.

In the middle of her work, he asked Blue Shield, “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” She replied, her voice distracted.

Even so, he pushed on, “How do you deal with people you know are criminals, of the highest order, no less? I mean, that–” He pointed to the pile of unconscious people, “includes some of the worst criminals I have ever seen. Open investigations for damn near every crime under the sky. These people deserve to die, and here you are, wasting precious time and resources to heal them.”

“Who lives and dies is not for me to decide. I can just do the best I can, and leave the decisions to the people who want to do it, or are allowed to make those decisions.”

He scoffed at the reply, “You mean the same people and the same authority that let someone like Coil, a known villain. A Thinker Villain, climbed the ranks at the local PRT branch, and yet, you think we should trust them with these criminals?"

His hand shot out, repulsor array charged as he aimed them at the pieces of shits that these criminals were, “I should just kill them and save us all some time, money, and energy. The government barely has enough money to go around. It would be better served trying to imprison some white collar criminals instead of these animals!”

Because these people truly did not deserve to live. People who had taken other lives were always going to be different from the norms, as doing so changed people permanently, but these people had taken that pain and damage and turned that into some kind of game. All of them seemed to be carefully selected based on their pasts, and that filter seemed to be just heinous shit that they got away with.

He could see why Coil would do that. To a Thinker, having blackmail above your head seemed like the best way to gain loyalty, obedience, and fear, on top of the handsome salary and special perks Coil provided these guys. It was a whole carrot-and-stick situation, and yet, the more he read about their operations, the more disgusted he got and the more he felt the urge to just shoot them in the heads and be done with it.

Society would be better off without them, objectively.

The floating platform appeared in front of him, its many glows telling him about the multitude of repulsor arrays planted into it, as an armoured hand wrapped around his wrist and pushed it down, as Blue Shield was suddenly right there, in his face.

“Look, I know you made a mistake, and I know it feels bad. But this is not the end of the world. Mistakes happen, and both of us will continue to make those in the future. There is no point in blaming or killing them. That is not our job. You killed Coil because you saw something evil in him, and I get that. You thought killing Coil was necessary, and apparently, so did Grand Chartio because they had plans to deal with him, eventually. What I can’t get behind is killing people who can’t fight back or have already surrendered. I, for one, do not wish to be associated with someone who could do that.”

He stepped back as she released his hand, and at that moment, a sudden feeling of self loathing entered his head, but just as he was about to fly away, she said, “Don’t even think about it! Mistakes happen, but the way you get out of it is not by flying away, but by tackling them head on. We were told to stay here and guard the bunker, and handle the officers outside, and we will do it. Understand?"

He nodded instinctively as she finished the rest of her patients and floated up to greet the police officers who were calling for them. It didn’t escape his notice that the entire time, the floating platform had its eyes on him and was keeping him in the aim of those massive repulsor arrays.

It was funny. He had the biggest guns, the bigger size, and the intimidating appearance along with the name here, but he had a hunch that Blue Shield here was capable of doing so much more damage than he ever could with just this one suit.

Maybe there was a reason she was trusted with so much firepower.

___xx___

–Simon–

With all that was happening right, he supposed it was time to deal with the one thing that was bound to go wrong, and that was dealing with Cauldron. Well, this time, the agent representing Cauldron was not the worst matchup ever, since Legend did have that Legendary Ignorance thing going on about most of Cauldron’s atrocities.

Even so, he was on guard, just in case the lady in the Fedora had planned for this as well. From what he could tell, his existence was kind of a wrench in their plans, but not the people he would hire. So, while Contessa should be able to guide Legend into manipulating Ashley and Michael, she should have nothing if he came to confront Legend first.

Which is why a suit was floating in the air, right in between Legend and Brockton Bay. The city lights were visible behind him, so was the yellow streak of light heading towards him, declaring slowly, which meant that Legend had seen him and wanted to talk. That was good.

“Greetings, Legend of Cauldron,” he decided to open with that. After all, the goal here was to buy as much time as possible, and what better way than to let Cauldron know he was aware of them and all of their activities, something they thought impossible.

Understandably, Legend did not show an iota of shock at that, as the leadership there probably already knew that. What they did not know was the extent of his knowledge about their operations.

“Are you here to terminate the Terminus Project? I had assumed that the whole project was supposedly meant to showcase cape society without Cauldron’s shadowy hand guiding it.”

At that, Legend’s eyes widened, his hand instinctively going to his ears, where a comms unit was probably tracking everything.

Sitting in his secure jet, in front of the Terminal, he smiled. He had one goal and one goal only when it came to Legend.

Stall.

And judging by the reaction, he had succeeded with the first step.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Then, his gaze went to the ETA of the Helicarrier, and it showed a long 60 minutes before it could reach the Bay. That was a very long time, and judging by the way he had already had the entire E88 in custody, without a single casualty, and was coordinating with the PRT to make sure nothing happened during this fiasco that would damage the city in the long run, he might just never need the Helicarrier anyway.

…..Ha! As if.

He snorted internally at the optimistic–no–delusional thought in his head, before focusing on what Legend had to say.

Not only was there Lung in the city, but he also had to deal with an Endbringer Lite situation which could rapidly swell and lead to the entire city being condemned for it.

Better to have overkill on his side even if he did not need it, than to need it and not have enough reinforcements to fall back on. Brockton Bay was a powder keg waiting to explode, and Coil’s death had brought a matchstick that was about to fall onto that keg.

He would be extremely lucky if he managed to handle everything without at least one cape death.

___xx___

PRT HQ

–Emily Piggot–

Her fists clenched as she saw the visuals on the screen in front of her, of Legend somehow wasting almost an hour just talking to a suit. They had no idea what was being spoken of, or why it was taking so long, as Costa Brown had just stopped taking her calls, and she did not have the authority to order around Legend of all people, so all she could do was wait and watch as the city teetered on the edge of burning but never reached that final stage.

Turning to the side, she ignored the various aches in her body as she watched all the capes under her command up and running throughout the city, making sure that no large-scale violence occurred.

At the same time, the BBPD had received orders from the Mayor, and they too were out in full force, making sure that the city remained standing until the big guns got here. Unfortunately, the big guns had decided that a conversation with a suit was more important than coming here and suppressing any criminal thoughts.

Then, there were the two. The two capes from Grand Chariot who started all of this. The new one, the aptly named War Machine, had killed Coil, revealing him to be a senior member of her PRT, which was a whole other headache that would be addressed once they had a semblance of a stable city back once more.

She would take Blue Shield as a cape at any time of the day, as the Blue cape was somehow more competent than half of the capes under her command. She came in silently, did her job, and went away silently. No muss, no fuss. 

And as it turns out, she is also extremely powerful, capable of commanding a floating platform of sorts that could be used for a variety of things. The way she went about repeating stuff and healing people, her mind went to all the combat applications of all those things.

She wrote a memo regarding her threat rating, as it had to be updated after this, only for a series of alarms to ring inside the entire HQ.

Dragon appeared on the screen immediately, as Armsmaster had called for her help the moment they had realised just what they were dealing with. If her city fell, then it was likely that Boston was next. The refugee wave alone would decimate half of that city. So, everyone was taking it seriously, except Legend, it would seem.

“Director! We have an emergency. As part of my closer surveillance, I have found something that deserves an S-class emergency. Tiny tremors in the water, in the airflow, as well as the EM field all around the city. That, coupled with–”

“Dragon, English, please." She said, exasperated, and also feeling the incoming migraine.

“Director, I don’t think you understand the scale of what is headed towards the city. If my calculations are correct, we have something that is far bigger than an Endbringer headed towards the city.”

Her eyes widened as Dragon showed her a video of a pointy object traversing through the air, and when she saw the numbers right next to the flying thing, all color left her face.

“S-Sound the alarm! Activate Endbringer protocols! Get me–” She choked on her next words, her breath short, as she watched Dragon switch from that render to camera footage, showing her a flying aircraft carrier.

“It would seem, Director,” Dragon said solemnly, as they watched multiple aircraft coming in and out of the now visible flying monstrosity, “That the Grand Chariot has arrived.”