Chaotic Clusterfuck 38 (Patreon)

Chaotic Clusterfuck

Chapter 38

-VB-

I knew that this was going to be interesting.

In the Chinese sense. 

“Welcome!” I greeted him with a smile.

The heroes turned to me, seeing me smiling at them. Like I expected, Miss Militia was the one who greeted me first instead of Armsmaster. 

Just because this woman stuck to her orders like a limpet didn’t mean that she wasn’t impolite or so inflexible in other areas of life that she wouldn’t return a greeting. 

I glanced around at the people looking at us like we were some kind of curiosities. I bet some of them even wanted a repeat of my first encounter with the Protectorate heroes to unfold again just so they could say that they were here to see it. 

“So how does it look?” I casually asked as I gestured to the new shipyard beyond the immediate multi-tented area of the charity fundraiser site. 

Armsmaster looked up and grunted. “It is progressing far faster than projected,” he replied bluntly. “Are you using parahuman labor?”

I blinked to make myself looked surprised, but it was an act. Armsmaster, if he had his lie detection software already up and running, should know that I was faking my surprised blink. “Is that an issue?” I asked. “And even if it, that’s something for the PRT’s lawyers to talk to me about! I’m just glad you’re here!” 

I really wasn’t. 

Elite capes came to the charity, and I didn’t want to know how the infamously stubborn and stiff PRT ENE would react if they encountered the Elite capes. 

So I needed to be obnoxious as fuck to drive them away. 

Because if they decided to fight here in the middle of my charity event, then I was going to tell the law to go fuck off and beat the shit out of the Protectorate heroes.

Because the Elite capes knew better than to start a fight in someone else’s backyard.

I hoped. 

Because if they started throwing punches, then I had over a hundred of myselves to bring the hammer down on them.

“You are hiding something.”

I took a deep breath in and glared at Armsmaster. Sorry, Assmaster. Unoriginal nickname, yes. Not underserved, no. 

“Of course, I hide a lot of things,” I told him bluntly. “That’s like you hiding your civilian identity because of a subculture that no one else but you capes benefit from.”

Velocity frowned.” But you’re a cape yourself.”

“Eh? Me? I’m not a cape,” I said while gesturing to myself. “Do you see me wearing a mask? I do, however, hire many capes.” Then I cleared my throat. “So, what brings you here?” I asked them.

“We simply wanted to see how well the charity was going,” Miss Militia responded cordially. Or as cordially as she could come across at this time. 

“Uh huh,” I muttered, making my disbelief clear. “Well, I’m not going to ban anyone from joining in,” I told them. “But if you start a fight, then I will kick you out. Understood?”

My words caused some indignation, but Armsmaster eventually nodded. 

“Good. The charity auction is over that way. T-shirt, mugs, mouse pads, and keyboard merch are that way. All proceeds minus the production cost go to charity we have outlined in our brochure. Any questions before I let you go?” 

Just as they were about to say no and move on… one of the Elite capes showed up with a pair of ice cream cones.

Paramorous was a mature woman with the power to create palm-sized flowers of varying phenomena. Including “explosion” that has in the past resulted in the likes of Legend having to momentarily retreat. Why wasn’t she famous? Because she could only make two flowers at any given time and only from the palm of her hands. And the flowers she made couldn’t be thrown like a grenade. They just floated down like a regular thrown flower would. She also wasn’t immune to her own creations. 

So her being here was not good.

Especially since she was technically a villain from Maine. 

Miss Militia and Velocity almost immediately started to get into their stances, obviously recognizing her despite her lack of prominence in the local cape scene. 

Armsmaster raised his hand, causing them to stop.

“Are you here to commit any crimes?” he demanded brusquely from the cape with a corndog in her mouth.

She shook her head calmly, despite the wide-eyed look she was giving them.

“I see. Enjoy the charity.”

Then he just turned away and walked away. 

Everyone else, bystanders too, just stared in surprise. 

‘... Well, then,’ I thought with surprise as well. ‘Either he has a good coach or he’s learned something about restrain.’

I wiped a metaphorical sweat from my brows.

-VB-

Of course, peace did not last. 

“What are villains doing here?!” 

Because it wasn’t the Protectorate and the PRT that I had to watch out for but the nearly forgotten New Wave. 

After staying out of the limelight throughout my entire stay in Brockton Bay so far, this was where they wanted to cause me trouble?!

One of my clone “cape” guards for the event quickly stepped in when we saw Glory Girl starting to float. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t Paramorous who the wrecking ball decided to confront but an aging veteran of the Maine cape scene. 

Talbot was the leader of the small Elite branch that Paramorous was part of, and was a veteran of twenty years. He was actually one of the few capes that I had intentionally invited to see how I can cooperate with him, but if he was accosted at the event, then I could say goodbye to that! 

“What is the matter here?” I had my clone ask brusquely. “All capes were warned about causing problems at the event prior to entry.” Like all of our cape guards, the clone was dressed from head to toe in slim armored, face and skin-covered black body armor and clothes. 

A smartly dressed Glory Girl turned to the cape guard. She was apparently one of the public guests of the charity event, and had dressed up for it instead of wearing her New Wave costume. 

“You stay out of it!” she snapped.

And immediately, I felt a wave of fear hit the clone. 

The guard buckled and fell to one knee… but, curiously, the rest of us didn’t. We felt the fear the clone guard felt, yes, but it felt distant. 

That was good. 

Because that let the guard fight back.

“Glory Girl, you are out of line!” I shouted at her. “Leave the premise and don’t come back!” 

“W-What?! You’re-! You’re protecting the villains… You’re a villain, too!” she hissed before her fists clenched. 

That’s when one of my other clone guards stepped up. This one had a mage Gamer class, and immediately wove a pattern in front of himself with mana. The clone’s hands zipped across the space in front of him before a dimly glowing blue magic circle floated in front of him. 

Then he clapped. 

The circle collapsed, only to reappear with Glory Girl in the center, and then collapsed into her. She yelped as the magic circle tightly bound her around her lower chest underneath her breasts. As soon as the binding succeeded, she dropped to the ground.

“Binding complete,” the mage clone grunted before helping the first clone guard up. He raised a hand to his ear in as a show of activating a comm earpiece. “Incident at Section C. Instigator bound.” Then the clone turned to Talbot. “Are you okay, sir?” 

The salt and pepper haired man with a slim face mask smiled. “Oh, I am. In fact, you and your comrade reacted so quickly that I didn’t have time to do anything!” he laughed good naturedly.

But the mage clone didn’t miss the fact that Talbot’s body was surrounded by an invisible thin layer of mana. A dense layer, in fact. This ran counter to what we knew about him because, officially, Talbot named himself after the Talbot effect, a light diffraction effect. 

Somewhere else in the city, my original self pinched the bridge of my nose. 

Why was there always someone being an idiot around me? 

It had to be something in this city! 

Back at the charity event, one of my guards approached Lady Photon, who had been too far away from the incident to have noticed the commotion.

“Lady Photon,” he greeted her. 

“Hello… Mister 7?” she said after looking at the clone guard’s name tag. 

“Yes. I am Guard 7, and I came to inform you that Glory Girl has been caught assaulting one of the event guards and an invited guest with her power.”

Lady Photon stared at him before closing her eyes and sighing. 

I felt a sense of kinship with her. 

“Can you tell me what happened?”

The clone guard did as he led her to Victoria Dallon, who was pulled aside from the rest of the event. As soon as Glory Girl was in Lady Photon’s “custody,” we released her binding. 

Immediately, the area got flooded by even more fear aura. 

“Victoria, aura!” Lady Photon snapped angrily. 

The teenager flinched and hesitantly pulled her Master effect back. 

“As per the event’s rules, a cape who use their power against anyone without their consent is to be removed. She will not be able to attend the event any longer, ma’am,” the clone guard informed the duo.

This, of course, made Glory Girl go nearly ballistic. Keyword here being “near.” Even before she broke out into an outburst, Lady Photon grabbed Victoria by her arm. 

“Thank you for not escalating the issue.”

I had the guard freeze as if he heard something stupid. 

“Ma’am, Glory Girl nearly attacked Talbot of Maine’s Elite,” he replied slowly. 

That made Lady Photon freeze. 

Talbot may not be well known, but that wasn’t anonymity. People who knew knew.

“O-Oh. I see. Then thank you.”

“Your welcome, ma’am. Before I go, Glory Girl’s expulsion does not apply to the rest of your team. Good day.”

As the clone walked away, we heard New Wave’s leader start to furiously rip into her niece. 

Today was a clusterfuck.

But for once, it wasn’t mine.