VT - Chapter 52 : A (PR) Disaster averted..... (Patreon)

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Brockton Bay

–Ashley Brent–

Her blood ran cold as she realised what Michael was doing, her suit rocketing straight up before it angled towards the evacuation site where Lung was saying. It was almost empty now, with only 2 more trips necessary to empty that particular site of all civilians. She had purposefully targeted that evacuation site to be emptied of innocent people first, so even if Lung decided to do something, the number of people in danger would be lower.

Diverting the one rescue bogie she had free to Lung’s evacuation site, she called Michael, as thoughts ran through her mind. The most important question in her mind at the moment was: What the fuck was Michael thinking?!

Seriosky, had he not messed up enough things before this? Sure, none of them could ever be prepared for the opportunity and responsibility that was given to them in the form of this suit, but Michael should know by now that doing anything with the gift given to them had consequences, both good and bad.

Just what could he have been meaning to accomplish by approaching Lung and Oni Lee, while civilians were nearby?

She took control of the suits that Michael was controlling before ordering them to make sure that the civilians were both far away from the potential confrontation and protected just in case something did happen. 

She scowled as Michael finally picked up her call, as she cursed the fact that they had kept all the evacuation sites separated by a distance of atleast 5 minutes, even for them, just in case Leviathan chased them on land and they had to quickly scatter the entire civilian population rapidly to reduce the chances of Leviathan committing a massacre.

“Michael, what in the Nine Hells are you doing?! Do you WANT to cause a fight in the middle of an Endbringer Truce?” She all but roared, her patience fraying at the edges as she had to deal with something this idiotic and unnecessary, just after being told that this was the first time in recorded history that Leviathan had been pushed back without double digit casualties, combined from both civilians and capes.

“What?” The sheer confusion in Michael’s voice made her want to tear him a new one, only for the man to continue explaining, likely sensing that it would be good for his overall health to continue speaking, lest he draw the ire of someone who was capable of equally hurting him and healing him.

“Wait! I wasn’t picking a fight with him. I was just nearby, keeping a watch on him just in case he did something. Anyway, we were evacuating the people around him first, because of all the risk surrounding him, so I made sure I was visible to him, along with two suits stationed nearby, ready to blast him should he do something.” Michael hurriedly explained, making her pause for a moment at the reasoning, before her forehead vein popped, as she understood what must have happened later on.

“Then, his body temperature began shooting up. Then he began growing in height as well. I know how his power worked, so I didn’t do anything except stay nearby, keep my guns low. I just–”

A tired voice intervened in their call, as she felt a couple of things happen all at once, “Michael, stop. Just stop. You knew what his power was. What do you think is going to happen to someone when they see War Machine floating just a dozen feet away from them, flying and looking down on them, with two other suits floating nearby?”

She sighed as her flight path was nudged by Grand Chariot back to her evacuation chamber. Grand Chariot had given her command of over a hundred suits, likely as a test. And within the first hour itself, she had failed. She failed Grand Chariot by handing over temporary control of a dozen suits to Michael, thinking that he could handle them, only for the idiot to hover over a known villain whose entire shtick was being able to ramp up endlessly as long as a threat was registered to his mind or power.

As things stood, War Machine was an intimidating armour, even without any of its guns or energy beams aimed at Lung. She also had Puppy constantly doing fly bys above that particular evacuation site, but from a distance, and it was always aimed at the crowds, which did not trigger Lung’s powers. So, she figured that Lung did not consider that a threat, which was fine since he was still right next to a lot of people when that began.

Right now, though, Michael barely had 20-30 people on the site, and they were very far off from Lung, and Lung right now had a suit of armour just glaring down at him from a height, with obvious backup.

Sigh.

___xx___

Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

Sigh.

He watched as War Machine, as well as the other two suits, flew off into the air, away from Lung and the evacuation site. The rescue bogies arrived a moment later to take away the last group of people in that particular evacuation site, as he had to forcibly take control of War Machine and the generic suits he was using to threaten Lung.

After all, what else could that posturing be?

If he or Ashley hadn’t stepped in at the right time, he would have had another violation of the Endbrinert Truce on his head. Another thing he would have had to defend. And this time, he wouldn't even have the shield of Leviathan attacking the Helicarrier to use as an excuse as to why Lung was attacked.

Was this Contessa’s doing? Was she somehow manipulating Michael into doing everything possible to make sure that Grand Chariot was in trouble? Were they so spooked by the Helicarrier and what all it could do that they had to do this to make sure public opinion about Grand Chariot was in the gutter? Why did they care so much about public opinion anyway?

Does Contessa think that if he somehow managed to become more trustworthy than Cauldron was, then he would drive Earth Bet into the ground? Did they really think they were the only ones who could actually fight against Scion and win? 

Shaking his head, he dismissed those thoughts, finding it hard to control all the anger he had towards Contessa and Cauldron for doing all that they did in the name of saving the human civilization from the Entities, before making sure that Lung was being actively monitored and did not do anything to endanger the people around him.

The last of the people in that evacuation site should be gone in minutes, and seeing that Lung was not even moving from his place, and was instead shrinking, he was sure that Lung was not going to be a problem here, atleast not in this particular situation.

Oni Lee was not even an issue, as all the teleported could do right now was throw generic grade bombs at Lung, instead of the tinkertech bombs that Bakuda could make in the future, so all Ashley and Michael had to do was watch out for Lung and make sure that the gang leader did not do anything.

Instead, Michael went ahead and began threatening the man, causing his power to ramp up. If he was recalling correctly, Lung’s powers couldn't really be controlled. Why would Lung suppress his power that worked based on the threat in front of him? He did not know if Lung could control his ramping up or ramping down, but he did know that by choosing not to move from his place, Lung expressly told him that Lung was not going to fight right now, which was enough for him.

He supposed that an Endbringer Truce was a grave enough matter that even Lung was taking it seriously. As for the person who was supposed to be taking it seriously, but was not, he could see that serious repercussions were in order.

Micchale had been silent ever since he forcibly took control of War Machine and was bringing it away from the evacuation sites, away from Brockton Bay as well, near the safe house where Max and Kayden were staying, waiting to be taken back into custody.

“Michael, do you understand where you went wrong?” He asked the man, his mind half focused on what to do about Kaiser and his kids, and whether it was appropriate to give their custody to an ex member of E88, someone who was supposedly dead. 

Was this world different from the canon world? Because as far as he could recall, Iron Rain, Kaiser’s sister, who was supposedly a true believer in the cause that the E88 championed, was quite the passionate cape who was supposed to inherit the E88, and the only reason she did not cause an inheritance crisis because the GodFather did not sound like the person who would hand over power to a woman was that she died in the line of duty. That allowed Kaiser to use her death as a rallying cry and unify the gang and bring it to ever greater heights.

Michael was silent for a moment before talking, “I should not have approached him. But I just wanted to be sure! He was just standing there, away from the civilians, staring at them. He knew that we knew of him and even then, he was waiting for an evac lift. So I just wanted to make sure he did not get on with some of the other civilians. I-I-I…..” Michael’s voice trailed off as he showed Michael the current visuals of Lung and Oni Lee, still standing in the same place, which was now smoking slightly because of all the threat Lung gave off in his amped up form.

Lung not having moved an inch from his place showed that Micahel’s actions were unnecessary. He even made sure Michael was aware of the entire site being empty, with no civilians in sight, before the makeshift flat vehicles created to transport a large number of people approached Lung and Oni Lee for their trip back to Brockton Bay.

“During an Endbringer Truce, there are no villains until you can catch them in the act of harming someone or destroying property. Attacking them preemptively makes you the aggressor there and the villain innocent even if said villain decided to retaliate. Even if they were to pass you in the city in their costumes during a Truce, you cannot treat them differently than a civilian. Your actions could have led to tomorrow's front page news being about Grand Chariot and how much of a Truce breaker they were. Did you really think things through before doing that?” 

Michael’s HUD flashed with a dozen different articles emphasising the importance of the Endbringer Truce, why it was important, why it was applied nationwide instead of just where the Endbringer attack was happening, why the villains could not be attacked on their way back home. Most importantly, it showed Michael what happened to Truce breakers and how they were viewed as traitors to humanity itself, irrespective of their past contributions.

He could feel Michael trying to form words, but words failed Michael as the magnitude of the risk he had taken probably registered at that very moment.

Sighing, he realised his mistake. Maybe he would have to take a more academy training type approach with any future recruit, and make sure they were aware of a laundry list of stuff before handing them a weapon of mass destruction. 

He had just hoped that given access to such a vast repository of information that held secrets that not even Cauldron, an Illuminate organisation, knew of, would be enough for everyone to seek out information and get educated on their own.

He could see now that he was wrong.

Michael was exactly the kind of person who would prefer action over lengthy reading sessions, or maybe Michael was just eager to prove himself after his previous blunder. He might just be blaming himself for Coil’s death leading up to the E88 attack, which then led to the Endbringer attack.

He might even be right, as the Endbringers had a clear goal, and maybe the Simurgh, seeing just how powerful the new player was, sent out Leviathan earlier than scheduled to test the new player they probably could not see.

But Michael did not know that particular detail, and he did not need to either.

All Michael had to say after that was, “I am sorry.”

He sighed.

Dealing with adults apologising and being on the verge of crying after a mistake was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

He wanted to sleeeeep, he whined to himself in his mind.