VT - Chapter 44 : Wards? Armoured. New Wave? Armoured. Taylor? Uhh..... (Patreon)

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

Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Assault–

He stood on the edge of the platform just outside the Rig, with dozens of other capes standing beside him, as they all watched, even with the reduced visibility because of the rain, the massive flying ship anchored itself to the forefront of the Bay, as if a steadfast shield.

The Triumvirate had already arrived and were discussing strategies with Dragon, the gathered Capes, the Thinkers, as well as the PRT strategists hired exactly for occasions such as this, but he was in no mood to listen to that. As someone who had already participated in Endbringer battles before, after a certain point, there was no meaning to any strategies whatsoever.

Most of the people you could communicate with were either dead, hysterical, dreading death, welcoming death, despaired, whipped up into a rage frenzy due to the loss of their friends, crippled, knocked out, incapacitated, or any combination of those words. An Endbringer battle really had no scope for any tricks, methods, or ways you could utilise to get a sure victory.

Endbringer battles were ugly things, as things quickly devolved into utter chaos, as all everyone could do was stay alive for as long as possible and make sure that their contribution to the fight was meaningful, while making sure that they did not become a burden to the combat front. Many capes even lost the will to fight and retreated as soon as the terror began to set in, leading to the collapse of frontlines, which is why it was futile to discuss any strategy.

There was no certainty when it came to Endbringer battles. Anyone could die at any point, well, except for some truly exceptional capes, and perhaps discussing strategies was worth it for them specifically, but when it came to capes like him? Yeah, there was no point in attending that meeting beyond getting his locator band and knowing which quadrant he was going to be deployed in.

Shaking his head, he watched as another lightning bolt in the sky showed everyone the true size of the flying ship. He still had to take a moment to process that someone out there managed to build that monstrosity of a ship, and it would not be wrong to say that they hadn’t even seen the ship’s true abilities yet.

Apparently, Grand Chartio had predictive algorithms and methods beyond even Dragon’s, who was widely known to be the best when it came to predicting the monsters’ attacks. 

“It is truly massive, isn’t it?” Battery, his wife, came to stand right next to him, as they both continued looking up.

“Yeah. I just hope it helps us as much as everyone thinks it will.”

Battery made him face her, searching his face for something before she spoke up, “You don’t think they will be of any help?”

He shrugged, “I don’t really know. All I know is that we don’t know what the Endbringers can do, not really. Every time, we have never truly defeated them. You know what happened at the last battle. Every single time, they have left on their own terms, after they have finished their goals. What happens if something truly stops them from completing their objectives? What then?”

“That’s not true. The Triumvirate have–”

“Oh, they have helped, certainly, but they have never been the reason why the monsters have left. In fact, I would bet that the Triumvirate know they can’t defeat the Endbringers, which is why they mostly focus on holding the monsters back to keep civilian casualties at a minimum, and once that is done, focus on reducing cape casualties. I don’t think they truly expect to win. They just do their best to reduce the casualty count.” He replied bitterly, his mood sombre, as it was before every Endbringer battle. After all, no matter how many jokes he might be able to crack in the face of everyone else, he couldn't keep that facade up in front of her. 

She just remained silent and hugged him as they both stayed out in the rain, getting ready for a battle that might just end one or both of them, even with the supposedly high level of help they had today. Sure, being a hero in Brockton Bay was practically a death sentence waiting to be carried out, but any Endbringer battle was far beyond that.

A thought occurred to him as he asked her, “No sign of Lung or Oni-Lee, huh?”

She shook her head. “No. Despite multiple notices across the city about the Truce being active, even telling them that Grand Chariot had agreed to the Truce as well yielded no result. Grand Chariot has released half of E88’s cape roster.”

“Well, can’t say I expected anything different. Lung always struck me as a coward. I just expected him to come forward when it was his home being threatened. And only half of E88? What happened to the other half?”

“They rejected participating in the Battle, so Grand Chariot kept them in custody.”

“On top of that flying boat?”

“Yes.”

“So, they intend to kill the capes who rejected fighting.”

“.....Most likely.”

He scoffed, “Ha! Serves them right! Can’t even fight for your own home. Anyway, let’s get inside. Wouldn't want to get a cold right before the battle, huh?” He joked as she just punched him in the gut before they turned around to walk towards the Rig.

WHISTLE

He looked up as Dennis whistled at them and then waved at them to come over, as the Wards were all huddled around Kid Win, who was working on something on a small handheld computer. It must be something about the flying boat above.

He shook his head fondly as both of them, Assault and Battery, walked towards the gaggle of children who really should not be here, but alas, they were legally in the right, as long as they did not fly into the front lines, as per Piggot’s orders. She might be a ruthless, borderline dictatorial Director, but she cared for the kids in her own way, and despite being legally allowed to do as they pleased because of their parental permissions, the Wards were explicitly ordered by Piggot to stay away from the front lines. 

The threat of Console duty for a month was enough to make them nod their heads like headless chickens.

“Whatcha doing here, kids? I thought you guys had a curfew. Do you want me to call your mommies so you are not afraid on your way home?” He taunted them, as most of them just ignored his jokes.

Tough crowd.

Sophia’s loss had disturbed them a bit at first, but over time, all of them just realised that Sophia was not adding anything meaningful to their team dynamic, and things had actually improved quite a bit with the Wards’ cohesion and overall morale. Dean was nowhere to be seen here, but that was obvious since he must be with Glory Girl.

Those two were quite the duo with their on-and-off relationship, but there was nothing like the imminent threat of death that would make a couple resolve all their differences and make up.

“Kid Win is trying to map the energy output of the Helicarrier.”

“Helicarrier?” He asked them.

“It is in the emergency report. Read it.” Kid Win replied, his entire focus consumed by the small computer in his hands, as he furiously poked at it.

He rolled his eyes. “Kids! I get the interest in nerdy stuff, somewhat, but there are more important things at stake here. I don’t know, like, securing your life? We are about to head into an Endbringer battle, for Pete’s sake. Don’t you have anything better than to look into a computer?”

He regretted them the moment those words left his lips, knowing full well the home conditions of some of the wards here. The mood went down the gutter in an instant, as he realised that in a moment of heat, coming off the emotional moment he had with Puppy there, he had blurted out the first thing that came to mind and–

“Assault is right.” A voice spoke up, cutting right through the dying mood as well as the rapidly forming tension in the air, as Kid Win muttered a confused, “What?” before hitting his tablet, as if trying to correct it by violence.

The tablet glitched before the voice spoke up once more, “Since I can’t order you kids to stay away from the battle, since that is apparently your right as Wards to endanger your own life. An idiotic right, if I have ever heard one. So, in exchange–”

The voice stopped speaking; he was pretty sure it was Grand Chariot, and everyone looked at each other and then at the tablet in confusion before his neck snapped to the side, a subtle sound getting past the sound of the torrential downpour that was getting past even the Rig’s forcefield, as its intensity had been reduced in preparation for the actual battle.

A moment later, a number of things happened all at once. An alarm rang briefly before it sounded like someone personally smothered that alarm before it could escalate. A portion of the Rig’s forcefield was lowered, letting in a huge amount of rainwater, along with a black box- multiple ones, in fact that came to a stop right in front of them.

He immediately stood in front of the kids as Battery began to push them away from those black boxes, whatever they might be, when all of them made a synced clicking sound before all of them unfurled right in front of his eyes.

Clouds of black stuff came out of the boxes and headed straight towards them. He braced for impact, and was instead about to jump forward, only for the cloud to part around him and aim for the kids.

He turned around and was about to blast forward, only to catch what was happening with the black cloud, as all of them had enveloped the kids, before solidifying and turning into…

“Holy shit!”

“Holy fuck!”

“Language!”

“What the heck?”

“What the hell?”

A bunch of exclamations rang around them as all the Wards were now clad in armoured suits that were identical to the ones that Grand Chariot had running around.

“Nanotechnology!” Kid Win exclaimed from inside one of those suits, as he received a directive from Console to go with the flow and subtly ask the kids for more information.

The voice from Grand Chariot spoke once more, “Since I can’t really stop you from jumping headfirst into the battle, I can atleast make sure that if you truly try to do something idiotic, I have the tools to pull you back and deposit you on the Canadian border, so you can learn your lesson.”

“Wait!” Dennis exclaimed, just moving about mid air, immediately doing flips, “How is this so easy? Also, do we get all the weapons? Can I keep it after this? Please? Please! Please!”

“Another one has been sent to Gallant as well. And no, you can’t keep this. The weapons suite is not available to you, unless the suit’s onboard systems detect an active threat to your life, which should not happen since you guys won't be on the battlefield.”

He was about to object to Dean getting a suit since his power wasn’t really a Tinker power, and the truth about that might–

“I am aware of Dean’s powers. Do not worry.” A voice spoke up in his comms, as he just kept quiet, understanding that Grand Chariot really was the chad group here, somehow aware of everything and prepared for everything as well.

Really makes him wonder if the whole Coil thing was just a pretext to get the Helicarrier, as the Wards called it, as well as their other suits, in position without getting an immediate backlash for it.

“Alright! I am now part of Grand Chariot as well! Fear me! For I am Man of Metal, blaster of energy, destroyer of villain gangs and–”

He cleared his throat, his hand shooting out to grab Dennis, who was about to fly by him, only to raise an eyebrow, as he had to do his best to hold onto Dennis’ leg, because the suit was sending out localised shockwaves of varying strengths to make him lose his hold on the suit’s legs, and this was without applying too much force.

He was sure that if he did something that the suit registered as life threatening to Dennis, he might just receive an energy beam to the face as well.

Good. This meant that the Grand Chariot was serious.

That made him wonder. Did they give one to the New Wave kids as well? After all, they too were minors.

___xx__

“Absoltuely not!”

“But Mooom,” Glory Girl, Victoria Dallon, whined, clad head to toe in a metallic suit capable of tearing apart city blocks and destroying cape gangs as well as buildings, judging by the footage she saw of War Machine doing the same with Coil’s hideout.

To think that Coil, someone who everyone thought of just as a minor villain, ended up becoming the catalyst that resulted in the destruction of the E88, to the point that even if all of the current cape roster of the E88 tried once more, they would most probably be unsuccessful, because Kaiser had just spat on their core ideology. They would have no cause to rally around, hopefully.

“Aww, mean. Just because I turned 18 last year, I don’t get one?” Crystal Pelham, Laserdream, whined as she had to watch her younger cousin, Vicky, as well as her baby brother, Eric, whizz around the older members of New Wave, clad in their nanotech suits. She’d read about the theories and conspiracies surrounding nanotechnology and how the government had it, and they were hoarding it. Now, she didn't know if the conspiracies were true or not, but she did know that Grand Chariot had that technology and was apparently generous enough to just lend it to the minor capes who were going to fight here.

Crystal sighed as Aunt Carol and Sarah began arguing about the suits and whether they should be allowed to wear them or not. All the while, she just floated there awkwardly, looking at the flying teenagers with envy in her eyes.

A small poke at her back made her flinch as she turned around, only to be greeted by a sea of black, something that made her want to blast them away with her hands, only to pause as a screen appeared in front of her, with a greeting.

“Welcome, Laserdream. One time use authorised, to mitigate envy.”

___xx__

Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

“You do realise this is a supremely bad idea?” He asked Taylor, exasperated beyond belief, and so very close to just saying fuck it, and having Taylor flown to her father, who was frantically searching for her in containment site 3.

“I can help,” Taylor was adamant about participating and just repeated that single sentence.

“How? Your power, while more than capable for urban warfare and for other normal capes, is not going to be a match for the power of Leviathan. Your bugs and insects will just die off under the onslaught of all that water.”

Sure, the cold hard logical choice would be to let her participate from a distance and let her witness all the death and destruction that an Endbringer can bring to bear, which would just help her with her power and mindset, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it right now.

As Taylor remained silent, stubborn in her belief that she could help, he sighed once more, even as he had to juggle a dozen different things at once. Atleast, the wards had protection now, so hopefully, none of them died.

The medical bogie was also up and running, as Amy and an army of doctors were getting familiarised with all the tech he’d crammed in that flying building.

Argh. Teenagers.

No, willful Teenagers who were convinced that they were right and everyone else was wrong.