VT - Chapter 39 : Tractor Beams & Self Destruction..... (Patreon)

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Brockton Bay

–Assault–

As Console hung up on him, ignoring his questions and requests about whatever the hell was happening in and above Brockton Bay right now, making him question his original choice of ever choosing to become a hero here, Battery spoke, or rather, screamed, right into his comms, “Ethan! Whatever it is that you are thinking of doing, DON’T!”

“I wasn’t thinking about anything!” He whined as he sat down on a footpath, looking up at the massive ship that was currently floating above their city. Just the appearance of it alone should have pushed the entire city into chaos, but the timing, as well as efforts from the authorities, was making sure that the city did not descend into anarchy.

It did not help matters that the first thing Grand Chariot did when they parked above the city was to make sure they took all members of the E88 into custody. Sure, he’d heard that Krieg had escaped using his German contacts, but all the capes that were significant were captured by Grand Chariot and kept imprisoned somewhere aboard that ship.

He was glad they did that, though, as he was pretty sure it was beneath their abilities to keep the entirety of the E88 contained, especially with the threat of their foreign allies sending in some Mover to break them all out.

No, even if they did somehow manage to keep all the E88 capes behind bars, they would still have to worry about the other gangs. They would have moved in almost immediately, just to expand their territory and make sure that in the event of the E88 breaking out, they would have no territory to return to.

Even if the E88 returned, they would find their territory ruined, which would prompt yet another round of gang violence, putting innocents and, more importantly, him and Puppy in the line of fire.

It would have been an all around disaster. He now understood why the PRT HQ kept ignoring Piggot’s request for more and more capes and reinforcements. The violence would have kept escalating, which would have just accelerated the death of the city, as more and more people would have left in droves because of the constant gang violence that would have ground economic activity to a halt. Already, it was getting harder and harder to make a living without resorting to crime.

Eventually, the city would have been mostly abandoned.

Shaking his head, he looked up at the gargantuan ship that was glowing with lights that were undoubtedly energy weapons capable of razing the entire city to the ground, he was kind of glad that Grand Chariot were the ones to make the first move and just destroy an entire gang of their city.

Even if it did happen because of Coil, he was glad it happened. Because perhaps this was the only way the E88 could be taken out in a more permanent manner, without the rest of the villains turning the city into a warzone. He couldn't think of anyone else being capable of projecting power at such a scale.

Even the Triumvirate, with all their power, would not have been able to do what Grand Chariot was doing right now.

They were powerful, yes, but they were only three people. Grand Chariot could field hundreds of drones capable of putting down most villains in the city, save for maybe Lung, and even then, he was pretty sure that there was a weapon aboard that ship that could kill even a fully powered Lung.

Considering the most impressive feat of Lung in his dragon form, it gave him plenty of hope for future Endbringer battles. Grand Chariot could finally be the one thing that could give humanity hope, that could somehow hope to match or even just stall the Endbringers. Even reducing the casualty count would be a huge help. Losing the city would be more than fine if they did not lose the civvies as well as the capes.

The world should be tripping over itself to hire Grand Chariot to build dozens of these massive ships to make sure that whenever Behemoth arrived, the countries got enough time to evacuate their cities and reduce their cape casualties, which would ensure more participation and more forces for the next Endbringer battle.

Even if Grand Chariot could not meaningfully defeat any of the Endbringers, that alone would be more than enough as it would finally give everyone the breathing room they so desperately wanted.

Which is why he simply could not understand why he was being ordered to stand down. Even with the civvies, he was only supposed to either guide the people to the BBPD, or guide BBPD to the people. He had strict orders to stand down in case of a villain attack. There was nothing in the order that defined what standing down meant in case of an active shooting in front of him.

It was all kinds of messed up. Basically, the PRT was forcing him to keep still and just move about the city to act as if he was patrolling but otherwise, keep to himself, just so they could make sure that Grand Chariot could be blamed for any deaths or damages that might happen in the time the massive floating aircraft carrier was above the city.

Politics.

Petty politics at that.

The people in power could not bear watching someone else have all that power with no way to hold them accountable, or, more realistically, have all that power for themselves, so they were resorting to this. He was pretty sure that Piggot was hating all this, but if the orders came from Costa Brown directly, then she would have no choice but to accept their demands.

For fucks’ sake, they were told to just walk around the city and ignore any crimes. So far, he had been barely able to stop himself from slapping the shit out of the two people who were quietly walking out of the alley with a broken backdoor that almost certainly led into that electronics store. The only reason he had only glared at them until they left with only a quarter of the stuff they stole was that they hadn’t harmed or killed anyone, and just looked like common gangsters, instead of hardened criminals or capes.

He had quietly gathered everything, made sure the owner was informed of the break in and theft, made sure the BBPD arrived in time, and so did the owner before walking away.

“I know what you are thinking. I know the orders are confusing but–”

He snorted, “Ha! They are not confusing at all, Battery.” He regretted the words immediately but went on, “I think they are pretty clear on what they want the end result to be. I am not one to be hung up on the morality of stuff, but this? This is a bit too far even for me. I don’t think I could–”

Then, Console butt in, bypassing all individual comms channels, “This is Console! Merchants have been spotted in the Docks. I repeat, the Merchants have been spotted at the docks. Tinkertech vehicle confirmed. No sighting of any other cape. Stealth has not been deployed. I repeat, the Merchants have been spotted at the…”

“Ethan, please! They will arrest you, Ethan,” she practically pleaded, and yet, he could not find it within him to listen to her. Sure, if he could not see stuff happening or if he was knocked out, he might have been willing to ignore it. But after years of doing it, he supposed that some heroics had indeed rubbed off on him.

….How surprising.

“I am just going to take a look, Puppy. See you soon!” Saying so, he hung up before speeding away towards the last known location of the tinkertech monstrosity of a vehicle that Squealer built.

Even if he could not just interfere with them overtly, he could at least steer people away from there, or just make his presence known, and maybe that could act as a deterrent, even though it did not seem likely from past examples.

Usually, it would take the appearance of at least two Protectorate heroes for the Merchants to go back into their hiding hole. The abilities or identities of the capes did not matter. Only the number did. It must be something that had gone wrong in their heads due to all that drug use.

Honestly, it would be a huge benefit to science to have the brains of the Merchant capes taken out to be studied because of the amount of drugs they did on a constant basis.

If he was not wrong, they must be using their powers on drugs as well. It should be a fascinating study.

Shaking his head, he turned around the corner and found the Tinkertech vehicle running away towards the Bay, bulldozing through the street, damaging the already pothole-ridden streets as well as the cars parked on the side of the road. The vehicle was not even that wide. They had more than enough space to pass safely without damaging other cars, but he supposed they were druggie capes for a reason.

His gaze instinctively slid past the tinkertech vehicle as he looked at the massive boat above them, wondering what they would do to stop the Merchants. They might send in a suit or two to catch them, but that might turn into a fight that could potentially spill out.

It might just be better to–

Goosebumps rose all over his arms as he instinctively pushed all his energy into stopping, abruptly coming to a halt, and then jumped back with all his might, pushing himself as far behind as he could. It felt like death itself was approaching him as he could do nothing but stare into Death’s face.

A sudden increase in light made him squint as he looked up, and he watched with a pale face as a beam of light came from the bottom of that carrier and slammed straight into the Merchants' vehicle.

He expected the road around the vehicle itself to liquefy, but nothing of that sort happened. As he blinked through the sudden change in light, he saw the vehicle’s cannon shoot fruitlessly at the energy field around it, as the tinkertech vehicle was simply lifted away into the carrier.

All he could do was watch dumbly until it disappeared into the carrier, and he heard the screaming Console once more.

Ah, he was so going to get chewed out for this.

At least, he got to see the Merchants get taken down a peg. At the rate Grand Chariot was going about doing this whole thing, they might just make Brockton Bay a villainous cape free city by the time the sun came up.

Now, wouldn't that be a great thing to witness?

He was pretty sure that would put all of them out of jobs, though, or atleast, make them move to other cities, which wouldn't be a bad thing in and of itself. He was feeling really conflicted about the whole thing.

“Assault, you have been called back to the Rig for an urgent briefing.” He sighed as Console gave the order with a sense of finality.  But he didn’t even do anything!

_____xx__

“But I didn't even do anything! I just watched them go away!” He complained as Piggot tried to glare two holes in his head.

“You didn’t do anything, not because you didn't want to, but because you couldn't. I know the difference, Assault.” Then, Piggot somehow deflated, which he did not think was possible. “But I know what has been happening, so I will let this one slide. Now, I want answers. What happened?”

He settled down in the chair in front of her, which intensified the glare, but he did not care much about that. He was pretty sure she hated his guts. 

“So, there I was, just strolling about and following orders like a good soldier when—”

Puiggoit’s phone interrupted him as she took the call, then she sighed once more before hanging up with more force than was necessary and taking out the remote to the TV here.

He looked at the TV, confused, when she switched it on…

“Hello, I am Max Anders. The world might know me as the villain known as Kaiser. I am putting out this video to confirm the unconditional surrender of the gang once known as the E88. I confess to using and manipulating my followers as well as my employees by making them believe that I cared about the race stuff. In fact, I am well aware that we are all humans in the end and racism is just stupid. The world faces many other perils, and as such, killing other humans based on the color of their skin always seemed moronic to me, but I went along with the ruse. First, because I was afraid of my father, and then, when I got the taste of power and what I could get if I could simply convince people that the source of their problems was their fellow person with a different skin color than people like me. I am sure that…..”

His gaze mechanically turned to Piggot as Max Anders delivered what was probably the most defeating and self destructive message he could ever deliver.