VT - Chapter 53 : Readmaxxing, Alabama & Suck it, Cauldron! (Patreon)

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

Somewhere on Earth Bet

–Simon–

Seeing Michael on the verge of tears, he sighed before turning on the mic, “Look, Michael. You were wrong; it is as simple as that. I have realised a few of the mistakes in your onboarding, so we will have to correct them soon. The bad news is that I am going to take away your suit.”

“What? Bu–”

“Let me finish,” he said sternly, hoping that the feeling got through the voice modulation, before continuing, “However, I am only doing so temporarily. You will still have physical possession of the suit, and you can enter and exit it freely, just for safety purposes, but no patrols. No hero work, nothing. Not until you can finish a pre-planned course of all the information you need to know before setting foot in the cape setting.”

“...Okay.”

Alright, it was really disheartening to watch Michael, a vet, sound so downtrodden, especially since he hadn’t done anything like Michael had done, in both his lives, for the service of the country, so he continued in a softer tone, “Good news is that with Leviathan pushed back, the crime in the city will go down to record lows, so the need for you should be reduced. I would suggest talking to Ashley. I can understand the urge to jump back into action after so many years of being forced on the sidelines, but you aren’t jumping into the fray with just your body. You are wearing weaponry that no one on the planet can replicate, so I would hope for some level of caution with it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” He paused back in his home, blinking in confusion at the salute that Michael gave him, as if he were a general. He did not know what to do with that information. Ignoring that, he just pushed to the next task at hand. The sooner he was done with this whole thing, the sooner he could go to sleep for as long as possible. Realistically though, he was probably going to be up in a  few hours, so he was going to make the most out of it.

Man, he would have really loved to have some real food tonight. The cause was worthy of a grand celebration. Unfortunately, he did not have the privilege of doing something even minutely risky tonight, what with the entire world’s attention on the phony organisation he had conjured from the round up.

The longer he could keep the ruse of Grand Chariot being this massive, potentially multi Earth organisation up, the longer he had to prepare for everything, and make sure that all the pieces, even the ones in PRT’s control, were in the right place for the final battle.

“I hope you understand. Now, come on, you have to go to Boston. I have already booked a room for you. It is all expenses paid. I hope you take the week off to relax a bit and read up on all the stuff Ashley will shortly send you.” 

“B-But what about–” Michael was about to object, as he interrupted the man, “Don’t worry about the homeless camp. I will take care of it in your absence. They will get the supplies, and with things being what they are, I don’t think you will have to worry about anything happening to the camp.”

“Safe Trip, and Happy reading.” He told Michael, whose suit was locked to a hotel which boasted of cape level security, and was likely run by Accord. Another test hidden inside a test for Michael to prove if he was worthy of wearing that suit and also if the entire program was even worth running or not.

Or at least that’s what he would have said if he had some kind of grand, overarching plan, but nope. He had just searched for secure and private hotels in Boston, and that hotel came up. Once he was done booking the biggest room for Michael, only then did he bother to check up on the hotel, and it was common consensus on PHO that the particular hotel was run by the villain known as Accord, who ensured that the place ran like clockwork and that there was nothing that could go wrong.

With parahuman backed order, he was going to trust Michael with the hotel. There were a lot of interesting ways it could go, and any one of them would give him a lot of answers about Michael and his way of thinking and living. Until then, Ashley would have to hold the fort down in Brockton Bay, and something told him she would be more than happy to do so.

With that done, he sent out a ping to Ashley to compile a list of content from the repository and the wider internet that she thought Michael needed to complete before he could regain access to the full functions of War Machine. 

Checking that task off the to-do list, he turned to the terminal as it showed the video feed from a few suits as they landed in front of an old looking cabin, in the middle of nowhere, with a stereotypical barn nearby, though a brief scan told him that all of it was fake.

Sure, people could live inside the house, and the barn was made up of real materials, but none of it was being used currently. The only inhabitants of the house were deep underground, with multiple tunnels coming in and out of the underground bunker that Kaiser seems to have built for himself in case of an emergency.

Two of the tunnels headed towards the highway, and he even had a car ready in the basement, so Max Anders did not fall short on any preparations whatsoever. It was just his bad luck that it was him in Max’s path to freedom, so Max Anders had no choice but to come out of the bunker of his own free will, as he must have known that nothing could have stopped Grand Chariot if they put their mind to it.

“Max Anders, I assume you know what happened to Leviathan?” He couldn't help but let a happy note escape into his voice, as he watched Max and Kayden walk out with their kids on their own, a certain aura of resignation around both of them.

“Yes,” Max said, “Congratulations on that. Even if we are going to prison, I want to thank you for bringing hope back that Endbringers can actually be dealt with instead of just weathering their assault.” 

It didn’t escape his eyes that Max glanced at Theo when he said, alluding to the fact that without the Endbringers, it would be a much better world for his kids. He did not know if the concern was real or faked to gain sympathy and potentially a reduced sentence, but he chose to believe it was real. If not for nothing, then atleast for his own sanity.

“I assume you have to talk to your sister before you can go to prison?”

“Yes, can I have a private call with her before you ship my kids off to her?” Max’s words made Theo flinch in worry and a little bit of fear.

Huh. Did something happen?

He thought of that reaction and, instead of risking things, he chose something that froze Max. “I will do you one better. My suits will take all four of you to your sister in Alabama. I will be monitoring everything every step of the way, and I expect a peaceful resolution to come out of this. If I sense that your sister is not fit to be a guardian, I will pull the plug, understood?”

Max was obviously surprised, but controlled his reaction far better than Kayden did. “Ofcoruse. Thank you for that.”

“Thank the kids for that. Also, any attempt at escaping, at calling in a Mover from your German friends, or otherwise trying to escape your punishment will result in instant action. I assume you know what that means?” The threat was accompanied by the sounds of repulsor arrays being charged halfway, the sound echoing in the empty area even more.

Max nodded, sweat forming on his head, but he did not show a fearful expression. “I understand. I will make sure I come back before the Truce ends.”

Indirectly asking for two weeks of time, which was fine. “Very well. Do note that if you are not in Brockton by the end of the Truce, then know that I don’t just have a single Helicarrier.”

A gasp escaped Kayden’s lips at the fact that he had more Helicarriers, before the suits walked forward and engulfed the capes, with a specialised suit flying in to contain Kayden and Aster at the same time. It was based on the IGOR design, and had a much bigger inner cabin to account for the baby as well.

It was obviously secure as well, having harnesses for the baby as well as the pilot. Hopefully, they will not need anything, as the five suits in total flew off towards the residence of the cape known as Iron Rain. He was sure there was a story behind a passionate cape like her shrugging off the cape to go live in the south, but now was not the time to get into that.

__-xx___

After what felt like days but were only a few hours of constant work, he could finally see that the city was coming back online. Some of the grid and water infrastructure around the city needed repairs, as the workers, understandably so, decided that their lives were more important than their jobs and decided to flee the city instead of shutting everything down properly.

Dragon was already in the middle of doing that when his suits jumped in for the tasks, and as big as Dragon’s drones could be, they were not really suitable for manoeuvring the conduits that ran under the streets for power, sewage, water, fibre and more.

It helped that he did not have to wait around for permission to get the schematics necessary to start the job, as he was not hampered by a bunch of rules set by an afraid man, which were then abused by a psychopath. So, understanding that she could not be of much help there, Dragon left the space to man the capes gathered in the city, while his suits flew around the city, and in some cases, even to neighbouring towns to get supplies as fast as possible to get everything up and running.

He had to stop more than one attempt by the civilians to rob or borrow, as the thieves called it, from the many trucks around the city that were abandoned as the drivers evacuated, leaving behind valuable cargo on the streets.

He stopped all such cases from happening in the city, as he had all the manpower to burn. Over a hundred suits, all ready to work tirelessly, until the Truce ends. He was still undecided about the fate of the other villains in neighbouring cities, as he was sure that Lung was not going to need a hundred armours, but that question was left for later on.

For now, he watched as the number ticked above 90% for utilities being turned on, and smiled.

People were attempting to convert many of the rescue bogies into homeless shelters, as the homeless people just slept in the bogies instead of setting off, which prompted him to turn the whole bogie upside down to get rid of them.

He was sympathetic to their conditions and, as such, had ensured adequate housing with food, water, and heat to make sure they did not die in the cold, but the ones who refused to get off the bogies and just wanted to claim them as their own were the ones who ticked him off the most. They most certainly had some kind of mental issue, but that did not mean he had to deal with it.

He had hundreds of thousands of people to worry about, not a few people.

As the number of people back in the city finally matched the number of people he had evacuated, sans the capes that went off on their own of their own volition even after being warned multiple times, he smiled and leaned back in his chair, feeling a sense of relief and triumph.

He had done it.

He had pushed Leviathan back and made sure Brockton Bay hadn’t devolved into the hellhole it was fated to turn into in the canon timeline.

Cauldron could suck it!