VT - Chapter 38 : Noelle? Extracted. Merchants? Targeted.... (Patreon)

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Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

So, first things first. Making sure that the city had an adequate and, more importantly, visible number of weapons that could be used to put down any rioter on the spot, if someone did try to take advantage of the chaos that could form in the wake of what he was about to do.

In fact, even right now, people were waking up and looking up at the sky to see a massive ship floating high up. He hadn’t yet activated the floodlights on the ship, for obvious reasons, but even the smaller lights were more than enough to tell the awake people that something was wrong.

The PRT had called back all their capes to the HQ for some kind of meeting. Likely with Legend and the rest of the Trio of Cauldron, and BBPD were doing rounds all over the city, patrolling areas they never would have entered at this time of the night. This meant that Coil’s bunker was currently not in the limelight.

Well, at this point in time, it was safe to assume that the entire city was in the limelight, and that the most important people in the country were keeping a close watch over his actions, but he had to move Noelle out of that bunker before something happened and she got access to a cape. It would be the epitome of disaster if that happened.

So, with that in mind, he looked at Max Anders, who was getting ready with his speech, not even needing a minute before he had slipped back into his Kaiser persona and was ready with a proper speech; only this time, instead of rousing his followers into action, he was going to do the opposite.

A bunch of suits were ejected out of the Helicarrier, along with a few relief bogies, all in stealth, straight towards the bunker, where the bunker keeping Noelle inside had already been detached from the ground and was ready for transport.

Meanwhile, he watched as Max got the signal and began speaking. This was going to be a recorded message, as he did not want to wake the city up at this ungodly hour with all the speakers in the city blaring Max’s voice at the same time.

There were reports that both Alexandria and Eidolong were gone, and were likely headed either towards Brockton Bay directly, or taking a stop to meet the President before coming here. Either way, they were headed here, and he would be much more comfortable if Noelle was out of reach of Cauldron, as that was an Endbringer-tier situation, especially in Brockton Bay with the high per capita cape ratio.

The bogies, as well as the suits, reached the bunker safely, as the relief bogies lowered themselves into the ground before taking hold of the entire bunker that housed Noelle in her current form and lifting it up. The bogies did not struggle at all, as they were rated for far higher weights, and the bunker was slowly moved out of the ground.

Frankly, if there was a way to do all of this without exposing Noelle to the rest of the world, he would have done it. Unfortunately, projecting an absolute stealth field around an entire bunker would need a much bigger deployment and, more importantly, time, so he was going to have to do things hard and fast here.

Apologising silently to Noelle for all the jostling she was about to experience, especially since she was still mostly out of it due to all the poison being pumped into the bunker, he watched as the bogies, as well as the suits, once done securing the bunker, just went full throttle and abandoned any sense of stealth whatsoever.

The ETA was only 4 seconds, but even in that little time, Legend was already there, in his Breaker Form, not yet attacking them, but for a cape like him, switching from observation to outright annihilation did not take even a second.

The man was here in less than a second, which meant he was watching over the city and was ready to step in the moment he did something overtly visible. Sighing, he pressed a few buttons, as the bogies did not halt at all, instead accelerating.

He had talked with Legend at length about Cauldron and how he knew everything they were up to and what their end goal was, and how he was going to be helping them and more. It might have been just a ruse to stall Legend until the Helicarrier arrived, so that Simon had the biggest weapon on the block, instead of Cauldron, but all of it was true.

Legend by now must have transmitted all that to Cauldron, who must have told him to stand down and observe, but the man was currently right in the path.

He could have done something drastic like tell him about the real origin of Case 53s, or told him about the reason behind Eidolon’s weakening, or even about the many atrocities committed behind his back, but that was simply unnecessary, as Legend, seeing that the bogies were not stopping, simply moved out of the way.

Since he now had high-fidelity cameras pointed at the guy, it was almost bizarre just how smoothly Legend moved about. There was some kind of weird interaction with light emitted by Legend and the light being captured by the cameras. The sensors told a different story, though.

He was confused as to why Legend was just watching as they transported Noelle, and he was on full guard until the very last moment, deploying additional resources to make sure that Legend did not sabotage the move, but even when Noelle was inside the Helicarrier’s forcefield, Legend did not move.

He simply stared up at the Helicarrier, his face unreadable. Pushing the Helicarrier shields to the maximum, he loaded Noelle’s bunker onto a prepared prison floor, hooked up the bunker vault with all the things Coil had used, and after hacking into the software and making sure it was dismantled, he ensured that Noelle was asleep before talking to Legend.

Most of the suits that had helped Noelle up were redeployed throughout the city, and one of them was floating in front of Legend.

“What was that?” Legend asked him calmly, even as he read reports about the Governor and the President talking about acting against the foreign power landing on our shores, only for the PRT to butt in and stall them. He had a hunch that it was Cauldron, or maybe even Contessa, who was making sure that nothing too major happened during this clearly major event.

Max was almost done with his recording, and he had to admit, there was a reason why Kaiser had been able to rally and lead a bunch of capes that came part and parcel with being the leader of a group like the E88.

“That was a disaster waiting to happen. One that Coil had kept as a last resort in case he unexpectedly died and wanted to deliver a final fuck you to the city, in his remembrance, ofcourse.”

“A disaster? What makes you say that?”

“You should really ask your organisation to fill you in about some of the vile things they have done, or have had a part in. There is a person inside that vault who was part of a group that drank Power vials. Only this person drank only half of a vial, and someone else drank the other half.”

He could feel Legend’s shock radiating through even the Breaker State, as he continued.

“Understandably, there was a problem, and they received the short end of the stick, turning into a monstrosity who had to feed constantly, lest they lose their mind. They are anyway losing their head, but feeding does slow down the rate of decay, or at least keep them docile and compliant for a while.”

“By feed, you mean?”

“No, she is not purely cannibalistic, if that’s what you were asking. Sure, she will eat humans if they are put in front of her, but she was mostly fed animal meat. Though, I can’t say that Coil wouldn't use them to punish some of his underlings by feeding them to her. It is entirely plausible, given what I understand about the man’s mindset.”

“I see. And what about them was so dangerous that you had to extract them? I assume that this whole attack was not done for that goal alone?”

“No, I did not plan this. This did happen because one of my agents got a bit too zealous and decided to wipe the parasite that was Thomas Calvert from the world, and in doing so, triggered a whole bunch of safeties that a Thinker had spent years creating. Coil had made sure that something would happen, no matter who or what killed him. The only one who could have stopped him was the sole Thinker 12 on the planet, but I guess she was just too busy to do that.”

Legend sidestepped his last insinuation and reiterated his question, “I wanted to know more about them. What is so dangerous that–”

“She is a Trump. An unstable one at that, because of the half drunk vial. I do not plan to let her see the light of day until her current condition is stabilised, which does not seem possible in the near future, or without threatening and then ensuring the compliance of a few capes that are far too valuable to alienate. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I see.” Legend nodded before continuing, “We have called in additional reinforcements, but Dragon tells me that within the hour, most of the city will be out on the street, asking questions. The chances for rioting, especially from the members of the E88, are high. How do you–”

“That will not be a problem. I will personally make sure that nothing happens to the city. That is the whole reason I had to call in the cavalry. E88 has been taken care of. I have most of their capes in custody, along with their leaders as well. For now, I will make sure the city is in one piece before giving them to you. I am sure you have enough crimes against them to put them away for a long time.”

“We would appreciate that, thank you.”

“Very well. 

He disconnected from the suit, as it flew away to join the rest of its brethren in the formation that would ensure not just maximum reach but maximum visibility. In this case, the perception of being watched was more than enough to make sure that most people would remain calm and, more importantly, afraid of committing any crime.

Max was done with his speech, and after taking a good look at it in 2x speed, he sent Max away to their prison, which was much fancier than the other prisons, on account of both their good behavior and the fact that they had kids with them.

He did not want to traumatise the kids needlessly. Plus, both of them were quite aware that nothing they could do could get them out of those cells. The forcefields were more than capable of tanking Purity’s blasts and Kaiser’s metal skewers. They were part of the same force field that was projected all around the Helicarrier.

A red alert pinged him as his neck snapped towards one of the suits, showing him visuals of confirmed cape activity.

An exasperated groan escaped his lips as he saw the Merchants, or rather, one of Squealer's vehicles rampaging through the streets. Thankfully, there were no people on the streets, and the few cars they scratched in their high speed runs around the city were mostly beater cars.

Shaking his head, he sent in the command as the Helicarrier began getting its weapons in order.

Ideally, Legend and the other PRT capes should have been the ones to handle them, but he had a hunch that there were orders from high up to make sure that Grand Chariot was forced to use their abilities, both as a fruitless endeavour to make them exhaust their weaponry and also to gather more data on the weapons he’d installed into the Helicarrier.

Welp. If they wanted a power demonstration so bad, despite all the power he had already displayed, then who was he to deny them that?

A surgical strike against a villain group that peddled hard drugs and destroyed lives was not something that would make him lose sleep. There were far worse things in this world that he had witnessed, which is why he had zero mercy for the likes of Skidmark and his underlings.