VT - Chapter 45 : The first move? Made.... (Patreon)

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Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

In the middle of talking to Taylor, he realised that he didn’t have to listen to her. Sure, it might invite animosity later on, but he was not just going to let an untrained minor cape try and muscle her way into an actual Endbringer battle just because she thought she could help out. So, off she went, screaming at him, while encased in a suit, on a one way flight straight to Danny Hebert.

The Undersiders were yet another group of capes who had chosen to flee the city instead of staying and fighting the Kaiju headed their way, simply because they were either not ready, or had family they wanted to escort to safety out of the city, or, in the case of Rachel, had Dogs she wanted out of the city.

It helped that his rescue bogies did not discriminate between pets, strays, or any other wild animal who might be in the city. Tattletale was more than glad to accompany Brian as he took his family out of the city, and was in evacuation site 2, with Rachel in site 3 along with her dogs.

Alec was still not back from Canada, so there went the Undersiders, which just meant there was one less group of minors that he had to worry about fighting in a battle that had a high fatality rate. Honestly, just what in the hell were the kids really thinking?

And what of their parents? Watching New Wave parents not just support but also actively encourage their kids to fight in Endbringer battles was disappointing to watch. He understood that it was difficult as hell to try and convince teenagers not to do stuff with their shiny superpowers, but there should be a bit more fight when the end result was a potential death.

Shaking his head, he took a moment to take in the actions of all the Wards as well as the members of New Wave who were given bog standard versions of the nano-tech armours, that were rigged to make sure the users would be sent on a one way flight straight to the hospital wing the moment they were injured.

It was non-negotiable, even if the other party was not aware of it, and had not signed any contract.

On another screen, he watched as cape after cape arrived at the Rig, then at the PRT HQ, then at the frontlines, as Strider worked overtime to bring everyone he could gather to the fight. A solid 20% improvement over average cape deployments, with more still on the way.

Legend, the most charismatic member of the Triumvirate, was giving his bog standard speech, with the twist of the addition of Grand Chariot and their reactions capable of affecting even Leviathan to a small degree, while Alexandria was glaring holes into the flying forms of the Wards who were blissfully unaware that they were being stalked by a monster who would not think twice before killing them if they came too close to uncovering Cauldron’s schemes, or if Alexandria thought that the Wards’ death might serve a greater purpose.

Nothing was beyond Alexandria, for the Greater Good, and he hated that the most about her. Eidolon was silent, and just floating in front of the Helicarrier, looking out into the ocean, brooding as he was most useful for his intimidation factor. He was not as charming as Legend nor as useful as Alexandria when it came to using Thinker powers. Sure, he could use Thinker powers, but he was not as good as Alexandria when it came to manipulating other people for a goal.

For a moment, he wondered if he should just tell Eidolon about the reason why his power was weakening over time, and the way he could recharge it right back, only to quash that thought a moment later. They were not at that stage yet, and he was not sure that Eidolon could be of any help even if he regained some energy to power some of his more destructive powers.

Leviathan was approaching, but the waves he’d generated were going to hit first. Back at the Rig, Legend was done with his speech, as the gathered capes began heading out after they had received the band Dragon handed out to everyone to track down injured or dead capes and maintain communication between members.

He didn’t even need to hack into the connection, as Dragon had given him pretty high level access to the bands. They also had an auto translate function built into them so that his English would be translated into the user’s language. His voice was modulated enough, so he wasn’t really worried about that.

Meanwhile, Blue Shield had already identified seven capes in the middle of the civilians escaping the city, and had instructed War Machine to have a talk with the ones in his sector, and had the talk with the ones in her sector, warning them against starting anything or trying to use their powers at all.

While the threat of a single Blue colored armour was not the highest, the backdrop of the massive hexagonal floating platform with dozens of glowing energy weapons was intimidating enough that every single cape she encountered backed down instantly, including Brian.

The capes around the Rig were flying through some of the bogies he’d placed there, as the higher than expected number was not able to fit into some of the stuff that Dragon kept on hand to move the non movers onto the battlefield.

The hubbub from those capes was easy for him to listen to, as most of them were just talking about Grand Chariot, and what might change this time, as the strategy for the initial Leviathan impact was to let Grand Chariot handle stuff instead of letting the capes take the brunt of the impact that Leviathan was bringing to bear.

More often than not, the battle with Leviathan was lost the moment he was able to make landfall in the city, as it was able to use its water manipulation to absolutely demolish every single cape in sight, as the tsunamis took care of the city itself. Only the Triumvirate were capable of really pushing it back, and even then, barely.

So, this time, the most fatal and important point of the battle was going to be handled by Grand Chariot, i.e., the Helicarrier, and the second volley of attacks would come from the Triumvirate.

The goal was to make sure that Leviathan never really landed in the city. Actually, the goal was to stall the Kaiju for as long as possible, so that everyone could be evacuated. If the city was evacuated, then most of the capes were to evacuate as well, as all the capes had to do later on was to minimise casualties.

Even if the city was lost, as long as the people were safe and the cape casualties were at a minimum, it could be declared a victory. After all, as the Helicarrier was right now, it was not equipped to deal with an Endbringer. An ideal formation would be a group of three, creating a massive forcefield, along with an experimental weapon that he was working on that should be able to break through even that hyperdense structure, and for the final piece of the puzzle, a highly agile Megazord that would grapple and run circles around the Endbringer to make sure that the weapons aboard that Helicarrier were aimed properly. 

He had the whole thing planned, and would have been done in a month’s time, right in time for the canon Leviathan attack to happen, but nope. As it turns out, the Conflict Engines had different goals.

A ping jolted him out of his thoughts as he looked at the terminals and realised that he was going to have to raise the force fields now, if he wanted to make sure that the brunt of the tsunami waves did not reach the city.

With that in mind, he gave Dragon a warning, who then passed that to all the capes who had their cape bands on, before pressing the button.

….And just like that, an entire Helicarrier was gone. Ugh. Such a loss.

__-xx__

Brockton Bay

–Legend–

He slowly floated right next to Alexandria and David, both of whom were floating right behind the massive floating aircraft carrier that Grand Chariot had somehow built right under everyone’s noses and stashed somewhere close by, since they were able to get it to Brockton Bay in just about an hour.

This was the highest warning they had received for an Endbringer battle so far, and that alone has been such help, as Strider was able to get in so many more capes than usual, as everyone was just itching to watch Grand Chariot in action. He could just feel it everywhere. Even when he was giving his speech, he could tell that most of them were just listening to him with one ear, as most of their attention was outside, to the massive floating boat above them. And for good reason too.

A moment later, Dragon gave them the warnings as they moved further back as the five massive energy cores in the Helicarrier, as Grand Chariot called it, shone ever brighter, generating enough energy to power a tenth of the Eastern Seaboard as per Dragon’s calculations, which was huge if one took into account the energy requirements of the country. It meant that they only needed twenty of these things floating about to have an entirely mobile energy grid, capable of running the majority of the nation in case of a total power outage.

The whining sound of those reactors continued to increase, before a blue explosion of energy took his breath away, forcing him into his Breaker State on instinct. Only instead of that massive energy wave destroying everything in sight, it expanded and shaped itself into a wall shaped shield, before it was planted right in front of the massive tsunamis that Leviathan brought with it whenever it attacked a city.

The shield glowed a bright blue as the first waves hit the energy shield with a gong that reverberated all around them. He half expected the shield to crack or even break, but nothing of that sort happened.

The reactors continued to run at full tilt when he finally saw it.

“Leviathan has surfaced. I repeat, I have eyes on Leviathan.” Dragon’s warning just confirmed things for him, as the scaly bastard finally showed his face.

The glowing green eyes were visible from all the way here, despite the loss of visibility because of the rain and fog. Even with the fog and rain, he was able to hear something. The sound of something truly massive shifting and turning.

The sound of those reactors changing from being under stress to being absolutely killed only confirmed that they were about to do something truly ridiculous.

Dragon’s words only strengthened his theory: “Grand Chariot is about to go on the offensive. They only have a single message. Brace yourselves.” The last words were spoken by Grand Chariot in their signature voice modded tone.

All three of them instinctively floated a few feet back once more, as the reactors now glowed so bright and hot they seemed like they were about to burn through their housing, as a massive glow came from the front of the Helicarrier, as Grand Chariot apparently wanted to use a weapon on Leviathan.

Meanwhile, the next wave of tsunamis crashed into the barrier, which miraculously held as well, making him sigh in relief before he asked Dragon about the evacuation numbers.

Her reply made him gawk at the band, “What? Dragon, are you sure?”

“Yes, Legend,” Dragon replied, quite happy, “For the first time in history, the city has been 85% evacuated, and that includes humans and animals as well, long before the Endbringer has even set foot in the city.”

“And how long until it reaches 100%? The humans, I mean.” Alexandria clarified, as Dragon replied, “I believe the city should be void of humans in the next 20 minutes, as we have had to deprioritise the medically challenged cases to make space for other people. A single ICU patient would have taken the same amount of space as maybe 7 other people, so they have been left for last.”

Damn.