Gone Native: Earth Saga (DBZ/DC Comics)
- Thread starter Ideas-Guy
- Start date
- Location
- Germany
Ares didn't understand Saiyan nature, maybe he is learning it right now.
to be fair, its been a bit since his last jaw-dropping masterstroke
its Saiyans, ancient or not.
They don't do metaphors for "eating"
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Oh man. That's a new level of Diplomatic Faux Pas. "Sorry I just ate your god, but in my defense? I was really hungry!"
What Faux Pas? The Greeks said they would provide a feast and entertainment, and BOY did they deliver.
Tarble: Looking like a double wide surprise there, let me have a bite
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Fixed that for you
- Location
- Germany
I claim self-defense, Ares started the action at a feast.
Ergo he joined the feast, not as a Guest but as a dish!
Big Leagues
- Location
- USA
The power that surged through me wasn't an explosion of strength like what I associated with the Wrath State or Super Saiyan transformations. My ki didn't multiply several fold, granting me impossible strength and speed. It didn't feel like raw electricity flowing through my veins, sharpening my senses to a razor's edge while leaving me feeling like a too-small vessel for the pure, raw power that I now contained. It was the opposite, really. A completely new sensation.
It was like my entire body had been asleep for all of my life, and as I swallowed the flesh and blood of a divine being, my body began to stir from its deep slumber. The god ki that nestled deep in my gut began to flicker -- it was my own, but it was weak. Barely an ember that had but a moment to exist before it would be snuffed out. Channeling my ki towards it, I tried to turn it into kindling to keep the ember burning, only to find that god ki was a glutton. The ember demanded exuberant amounts of ki to turn into the barest drop of god ki.
That, I suspected, would change if I finished eating.
Ares hovered across from me, his aura portraying his fear and uncertainty for me to see. I couldn't say that I liked Ares very much. Given what he tried to do, I think I was going to enjoy killing him. Eating him wasn't anything personal. He was just a meal I needed to consume to grow stronger. Like a human child needing to eat their vegetables. What I couldn't say about him, however, was that he was a coward, because he swallowed his fear and leveled his sword at me.
I imagine that this was one of his few life-and-death battles. Rolling my shoulders, two ki spears formed in my hands and these were a bright red with only the barest hints of blue to be found swirling inside of them. The fire around Ares' sword swelled while the storm above began to churn violently, becoming a cyclone as the winds howled above. Rain began to fall from the sky in fat drops, becoming a torrent in no time. Around Themyscira, the seas started to revolt, becoming huge waves that crashed into each other or the shores of Themyscira.
"I hope you don't expect me to just let myself be devoured, Saiyan?" Ares questioned and my savage smile grew a fraction. It was hard. So very hard. It was hard to accept a cold truth. Because, it was that same truth that made me accept what Yamoshi had said about my efforts -- that they wouldn't work and my attempts would end in failure and devastation. It was hard because I wasn't that different from those that I was trying to change. The ones that lived for the fight. For battle. To discover a powerful opponent and testing their skills and worth against them and finding that they had to dig deep to win.
It was a hard truth, but right now, I was happy. Probably the happiest I've been since Broly chose to fight by my side. My fights with Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of Earth were tainted by my failure. That we had been pushed to fight because I was unable to convince them of my intentions and the death of my soldiers. The awesome power that filled me now was intoxicating and I stood before a god, waiting to do battle.
I enjoyed fighting. Worse, it was one of the few things that I knew I enjoyed. It was one of the few things that I knew was fun.
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't," I answered, a shimmering red aura flickered around my body. "It's no fun unless your lunch fights back," I told him before I moved, closing the distance between us in an instant. Ares swung wide, intent on driving me back, only to find one of my spears slamming into his chest when I threw it at him. My spears were sharper. More durable. Or, rather… both of us used god ki, which was fundamentally different than normal ki. If normal ki was steel, then god ki would be nth metal in comparison and there was a vast difference between having traces of nth metal in a structure and dealing with something made entirely of the substance.
Both of our attacks were made of god ki. Even with the trace amounts of normal ki in my spears, in quality, my attacks were well above Ares. His was raw, untamed power while mine was harnessed and controlled.
The long spear slammed into his chest, punching a hole through the wall of flames, knocking Ares back with explosive force. His back slammed into the island below, carving through a building and I was right on top of him. He sent a desperate slash of flames at me, only for them to wash over a ki shield that I used to burst right through them. Appearing before him, I threw my hand back, curling it into a fist, and brought it down on his metal helmet hard enough that the entire island shook.
His helmet warped around the blow, but Ares was quick to get back into the fight. Spinning my short spear in my hand, I batted it against his sword in a flurry of blows, this one holding up far better than the spears I used before. The spear I threw before carved a deep groove into his armor before the tip broke, making it a weak point that I went after like a hound smelling blood, and Ares did his best to protect that weakness.
The aura that betrayed his next move was clearer now. I hadn't realized it at the time, just a minute ago, but it had been like looking at a mirror covered in fog. Was that because I had been using Yamoshi's god ki? While it wasn't enough to see more than his next move, I found my counters to him far outstripping his to mine. In his posture as we flew through Themyscira, our battle completely uncaring of what was in our way and simply slammed through it, I saw that he was getting frustrated. Desperate, even. He felt his defeat inching closer and closer, yet for all of his effort he couldn't keep it or me away.
My foot found his stomach, forcing Ares to bend around the blow before I spun sharply over his counter with a swipe of his sword. Fire washed over the trees that clung to the hills of Themyscira, burning them to cinders. As the sword passed underneath me, I slammed my other foot into the side of his head, driving Ares to the ground while I spun my short spear to drive it down into his heart. The tip of my spear struck the flat of his blade instead, the impact so great that it rang out in a sonic boom that felled the burning trees around us.
I used Ares as a plow, digging a long trench with his body as he tried to keep my spear away. I thrusted up with it, intending to skewer his head, but Ares guided the blow to the side using the flat of his blade. He slashed at my side, thinking me out of position, and because of that, he left himself open. I channeled the last vestiges of Yamoshi's god ki, and a huge portion of my own, leaving me feeling almost winded, to create a second short spear that slammed the edge onto his arm just above the elbow.
There was faint resistance at first, but the god ki was dense enough that it held its form and cut through Ares' sword arm. Golden ichor erupted from the stump while Ares howled in agony, his other hand going to his stump. I kicked his sword away before knocking up the arm itself. Eating an opponent when they were still alive was a first for me. Tossing my second ki spear into my other hand, I caught his arm and brought it to my mouth.
It was a small mercy that I didn't actually have to eat it in a traditional sense. The arm acted as kindling that fed the ember of god ki within me, making it a small flickering flame. My body continued to awaken from a deep slumber, the power of a god taking root within me. I don't think the Guardians intended for the Saiyans to reclaim our godhood like this, but I took it all the same. The arm and armor dissolved in my body, becoming pure divine power that became my own.
All the while, Ares looked up at me, his aura betraying his fear and pain. "Do you even understand what you are doing, fool? Do you think my father will take my death lightly?" He asked me, golden ichor seeping through his fingers as he clutched at his stump. He pushed himself into a sitting position, looking up at me with defiance to mask his fear.
"I thought better of you, Ares, than to hide behind your father's name," I responded, merging the two ki spears into one and leveling it at him. The spear didn't grow in size. It just grew denser and stronger. A spear fit to kill a god. "For what its worth, its nothing personal. You chose to put yourself in my way," I told him, taking a step forward and raising the spear high to skewer his heart with it. The rest of the Olympians would likely cause some problems, but with Ares's divinity, I had a chance to defeat them. I could kill and eat the weaker gods, or feed them to Saiyans that I trusted… or, rather, Broly.
The aftermath wasn't ideal, but I was willing to accept it if it gave me my shot at Trigon.
"Any last words?" I asked him, giving him that last courtesy. His aura shimmered with impotent rage and he said nothing. "I just thought I'd ask," I said, thrusting the spear down with full intent on killing Ares where he sat. It wasn't the end that he likely deserved, to be executed for the sake of power, but it was the ending that I planned to give him.
Only, instead, the tip of my spear crashed against the palm of a hand that crushed the head of my spear like it was made of glass. My gaze went up at the man who put himself between me and Ares -- he was tall, a bushy white beard and flowing white hair that was held back with a golden crown that looked familiar. He smelled of salt water and the ocean breeze, his barrel chest bare except for the half of a toga that was draped over one shoulder, revealing a powerful body.
It would seem that not all gods were created equal.
"Poseidon, I presume?" I questioned, withdrawing my spear to see that it was only a staff. My god ki slipped through his fingers, a small trail of ichor dripping down his list. A thrust that I intended to kill Ares with had earned a small gash against Poseidon. That didn't bode well. Especially when Zeus was known for being so powerful that none of the other gods could stop him from following through on every whim he had.
"King of the Saiyans. Or, perhaps, it is God of the Saiyans now?" Poseidon questioned lightly, his voice heavy and carried an unnatural weight to it. If Ares was like looking into the sun, then Poseidon was… he was like looking up into the night sky and realizing that every single speck of light in the darkness was a sun that was millions of miles away, complete with its own solar system, and between those stars was millions of miles of nothingness. It was the feeling that you were a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the universe and your entire life, no matter how great or terrible, would go completely unnoticed in the grand scheme of things.
"King," I decided. I had seen what happened when a king treated themselves as a god. More than that, despite the divine power in me, I didn't feel any different beyond… stronger. Stronger with a new type of strength.
"Yamoshi's presence is insult enough, but one not worthy of a response. You, however, have laid hands upon a member of Olympus and stolen divinity. Your invasion of Earth matters little and we have been content to allow you and your empire to exist. This is a very different matter that must have a response. I ask of you, King Tarble of the Saiyan Race, how shall you make amends?" He asked me, looking down at me in more ways than one.
"I think we're well past the point of posturing, god of the sea," I returned. I wasn't arrogant enough to think I could win just because I got my hands on a little divinity. Ares had been pinned into place by Yamoshi. At the same time, I couldn't show weakness. "Ares issued a challenge and I answered. How will you make amends for interfering in our fight?" I returned, taking in a slow breath as I prepared for the fight to spill out of control. I had no clue where Yamoshi stood in the hierarchy of gods, but I would be relying on him until I was powerful enough to take on the Hellenistic gods on my own.
Behind Poseidon, Ares forced himself to his feet with a swallowed groan. "Do not interfere, Poseidon. Do not shame me any more than you have," Ares bit out, earning form Poseidon from over his shoulder that was barely disguised contempt.
"Spare Olympus any more shame, boy," Poseidon scoffed, his gaze sliding back to me. "You were defeated soundly by a fledgling god." Ares was anything but pleased with the remark. His aura betrayed an thought of attacking Poseidon for the sake of preserving his own pride. "The battle is over. For now… walk freely, King Tarble. When Olympus is ready to address your transgressions, you will be summoned."
With that, both Poseidon and Ares simply winked out of existence. Less like they teleported and more like they simply snapped out of existence. My eyes narrowed at the spots that they had occupied before I slowly looked upward, watching Zeus' presence slowly leave the dark storm above. As he left, the rain began to slow to a trickle until it stopped entirely, while the clouds themselves faded from a pitch-black, to dark gray, to normal white clouds. The presence of the gods was gone from Themyscira. Or was it hidden?
In any case, one thing was clear.
"I need to train," I muttered. My base state needed to be vastly stronger if I wanted to contend with gods like Poseidon or Zeus, much less Trigon. Not to mention, the Ascended Super Saiyan form still eluded me. Since my arrival on Earth and the establishment of my empire, my training had taken a back seat. There hadn't been a pressing need on account that I already defeated the Earth's Heroes, I was amongst the most powerful beings in the galaxy, and there hadn't been an enemy to aim for.
Now, I had the Olympian gods. I had Child, a Lord of Chaos and whoever else she told about the Dragon Balls. And… I had Trigon.
My training needed to be a top priority going forward if I wanted a chance at defeating the new enemies I had made.
"You won?! Hey, hey, Brother -- did you save some for me? I wanna become a god too!" Elery exclaimed, slamming into me with a hug, stars in her eyes as she took in my appearance. Her aura told me that if she was any more excited that she could actually die. "This transformation is so much cooler than the Super Saiyan one! You're all red and stuff," Elery said, letting go of me to stand on the ground and she practically vibrated through it.
Despite my concerns, I patted the top of her head before I turned my attention to the ki signatures of the others. The space between us… I tested the limits of my power and pinched the space between me and the others, instantly teleporting to Diana, Clark, Mom, and Queen Hippolyta. Elery gasped, looking over the moon with pure excitement, and I felt somewhat satisfied myself.
Instant Transmission. It was a technique that I had known about for years, but I had never managed to get it to work. The math behind how it would work to avoid any accidents was too much for me and I hadn't found a way to sidestep it. Now? Now, I just had to pinch the space between me and my target to instantly close in.
Some of the onlookers were far happier to see me than the others. Queen Hippolyta looked at me with despair and horror. It shone clearly in her aura, a deep dark stain on it. A scar on her soul that was old but had never healed. Her gaze looked beyond me at the damage that had occurred throughout the battle before refocusing on me.
"Leave," Queen Hippolyta breathed, speaking the command like a death sentence. Clark shifted where he stood, while Diana placed a hand on her mother's shoulder to get her attention, but Queen Hippolyta brushed her hand off to take a step towards me. "I allowed your presence because of the faith I have in my daughter, but it was clearly misplaced. Not one hour upon the shores of Theyscira, you have brought devastation when before you there were thousands of years of peace and tranquility."
"Mother," Diana stressed while Clark gave me a worried look. I could see frustration bubbling in my Mother's aura, but she was swallowing it down. I… was rather surprised about that. I always assumed that Elery got her impulse control from her. "That remark is unbecoming. It was our gods that instigated the battle, mother. Ares would have usurped an empire from King Tarble without intervention from Yamoshi. It is us that must make amends."
Diana was correct in a logical way. She was angry as well, every bit as her mother was, but her mother had deep scars from the past that Diana didn't have.
Queen Hippolyta was coming from a place of emotion and she wasn't entirely wrong. She had taken a huge risk, in her eyes, by allowing men to step foot on the island. A risk that hadn't paid off at all because we didn't even get to eat before everything went to shit and the island was devastated by a short and brutal battle. A fact that tied into those old scars, feeding into them, and it was because of them that she dug her heels in.
"Be silent, daughter," Queen Hippolyta commanded, her tone sharp and cold enough to cut to the bone. Diana, despite herself, flinched back at the tone while the Queen of the Amazonians glared at me. "You will leave this place, King Tarble. You will never return. Not you, nor any man. The gods may allow you to rule over Earth, but you will not rule over Themyscira."
Annoying. I really wasn't any good at diplomacy, was I?
"Meh, s'not like there was anything worth ruling here anyway," Mom dismissed, her frustration bubbling over as she crossed her arms. Queen Hippolyta turned to her and Mom met her look unrepentantly, "All I see are a bunch of scared women hiding behind divine protection because they're too scared of the wider world."
"You," Queen Hippolyta began with a low snarl, "do not know our history. The horrors we endured at the hands of men."
"I don't. Don't really care to, either. I'm just calling it how I see it -- an island full of cowards whining that something bad happened to 'em, what, thousands of years ago? Sheesh. How pathetic can you be?" Mom continued, earning a sharp look from Diana. I don't think she exactly disagreed with the point of what Mom was saying, but she took a lot of issue with how it was being delivered.
Clark decided to step forward, "I think," he interjected, looking at Queen Hippolyta, "we should all take a step back and a breath. No one was injured during the battle," he said, and Queen Hippolyta nodded to him, giving him a thankful look that told me that was because of him and Diana. "We can help with the reconstruction if you would like but, given that this is the home to the greek gods… Tarble, I do think it would be best if we left."
I gave a slow nod of agreement while Mom huffed. Diana looked apologetic, but her mother still looked at me with contempt in her gaze. "For what its worth," I started, flying up with Elery and Mom, "I am sorry that it came to this. I didn't expect to get a reaction out of your gods when they did nothing when I took over Earth." With that as my parting words, and with Superman following along, we left the island of Themyscira.
I don't think that Ada'la would ever let me go on a diplomatic mission by myself after this. So far, I was 0-2. The only silver lining there was that they were both on Earth.
"Clark?" I said as we flew away, bringing my attention to Superman, who seemed dissatisfied with how things had ended on Themyscira. "I need to speak to the Green Lanterns. And the Guardians… and I need to do it now."
It was long past time for me to get answers about the history of the Ancient Saiyans out of them, and it was time to start the search for the Dragon Balls.
...
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It was like my entire body had been asleep for all of my life, and as I swallowed the flesh and blood of a divine being, my body began to stir from its deep slumber. The god ki that nestled deep in my gut began to flicker -- it was my own, but it was weak. Barely an ember that had but a moment to exist before it would be snuffed out. Channeling my ki towards it, I tried to turn it into kindling to keep the ember burning, only to find that god ki was a glutton. The ember demanded exuberant amounts of ki to turn into the barest drop of god ki.
That, I suspected, would change if I finished eating.
Ares hovered across from me, his aura portraying his fear and uncertainty for me to see. I couldn't say that I liked Ares very much. Given what he tried to do, I think I was going to enjoy killing him. Eating him wasn't anything personal. He was just a meal I needed to consume to grow stronger. Like a human child needing to eat their vegetables. What I couldn't say about him, however, was that he was a coward, because he swallowed his fear and leveled his sword at me.
I imagine that this was one of his few life-and-death battles. Rolling my shoulders, two ki spears formed in my hands and these were a bright red with only the barest hints of blue to be found swirling inside of them. The fire around Ares' sword swelled while the storm above began to churn violently, becoming a cyclone as the winds howled above. Rain began to fall from the sky in fat drops, becoming a torrent in no time. Around Themyscira, the seas started to revolt, becoming huge waves that crashed into each other or the shores of Themyscira.
"I hope you don't expect me to just let myself be devoured, Saiyan?" Ares questioned and my savage smile grew a fraction. It was hard. So very hard. It was hard to accept a cold truth. Because, it was that same truth that made me accept what Yamoshi had said about my efforts -- that they wouldn't work and my attempts would end in failure and devastation. It was hard because I wasn't that different from those that I was trying to change. The ones that lived for the fight. For battle. To discover a powerful opponent and testing their skills and worth against them and finding that they had to dig deep to win.
It was a hard truth, but right now, I was happy. Probably the happiest I've been since Broly chose to fight by my side. My fights with Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of Earth were tainted by my failure. That we had been pushed to fight because I was unable to convince them of my intentions and the death of my soldiers. The awesome power that filled me now was intoxicating and I stood before a god, waiting to do battle.
I enjoyed fighting. Worse, it was one of the few things that I knew I enjoyed. It was one of the few things that I knew was fun.
"I'd be disappointed if you didn't," I answered, a shimmering red aura flickered around my body. "It's no fun unless your lunch fights back," I told him before I moved, closing the distance between us in an instant. Ares swung wide, intent on driving me back, only to find one of my spears slamming into his chest when I threw it at him. My spears were sharper. More durable. Or, rather… both of us used god ki, which was fundamentally different than normal ki. If normal ki was steel, then god ki would be nth metal in comparison and there was a vast difference between having traces of nth metal in a structure and dealing with something made entirely of the substance.
Both of our attacks were made of god ki. Even with the trace amounts of normal ki in my spears, in quality, my attacks were well above Ares. His was raw, untamed power while mine was harnessed and controlled.
The long spear slammed into his chest, punching a hole through the wall of flames, knocking Ares back with explosive force. His back slammed into the island below, carving through a building and I was right on top of him. He sent a desperate slash of flames at me, only for them to wash over a ki shield that I used to burst right through them. Appearing before him, I threw my hand back, curling it into a fist, and brought it down on his metal helmet hard enough that the entire island shook.
His helmet warped around the blow, but Ares was quick to get back into the fight. Spinning my short spear in my hand, I batted it against his sword in a flurry of blows, this one holding up far better than the spears I used before. The spear I threw before carved a deep groove into his armor before the tip broke, making it a weak point that I went after like a hound smelling blood, and Ares did his best to protect that weakness.
The aura that betrayed his next move was clearer now. I hadn't realized it at the time, just a minute ago, but it had been like looking at a mirror covered in fog. Was that because I had been using Yamoshi's god ki? While it wasn't enough to see more than his next move, I found my counters to him far outstripping his to mine. In his posture as we flew through Themyscira, our battle completely uncaring of what was in our way and simply slammed through it, I saw that he was getting frustrated. Desperate, even. He felt his defeat inching closer and closer, yet for all of his effort he couldn't keep it or me away.
My foot found his stomach, forcing Ares to bend around the blow before I spun sharply over his counter with a swipe of his sword. Fire washed over the trees that clung to the hills of Themyscira, burning them to cinders. As the sword passed underneath me, I slammed my other foot into the side of his head, driving Ares to the ground while I spun my short spear to drive it down into his heart. The tip of my spear struck the flat of his blade instead, the impact so great that it rang out in a sonic boom that felled the burning trees around us.
I used Ares as a plow, digging a long trench with his body as he tried to keep my spear away. I thrusted up with it, intending to skewer his head, but Ares guided the blow to the side using the flat of his blade. He slashed at my side, thinking me out of position, and because of that, he left himself open. I channeled the last vestiges of Yamoshi's god ki, and a huge portion of my own, leaving me feeling almost winded, to create a second short spear that slammed the edge onto his arm just above the elbow.
There was faint resistance at first, but the god ki was dense enough that it held its form and cut through Ares' sword arm. Golden ichor erupted from the stump while Ares howled in agony, his other hand going to his stump. I kicked his sword away before knocking up the arm itself. Eating an opponent when they were still alive was a first for me. Tossing my second ki spear into my other hand, I caught his arm and brought it to my mouth.
It was a small mercy that I didn't actually have to eat it in a traditional sense. The arm acted as kindling that fed the ember of god ki within me, making it a small flickering flame. My body continued to awaken from a deep slumber, the power of a god taking root within me. I don't think the Guardians intended for the Saiyans to reclaim our godhood like this, but I took it all the same. The arm and armor dissolved in my body, becoming pure divine power that became my own.
All the while, Ares looked up at me, his aura betraying his fear and pain. "Do you even understand what you are doing, fool? Do you think my father will take my death lightly?" He asked me, golden ichor seeping through his fingers as he clutched at his stump. He pushed himself into a sitting position, looking up at me with defiance to mask his fear.
"I thought better of you, Ares, than to hide behind your father's name," I responded, merging the two ki spears into one and leveling it at him. The spear didn't grow in size. It just grew denser and stronger. A spear fit to kill a god. "For what its worth, its nothing personal. You chose to put yourself in my way," I told him, taking a step forward and raising the spear high to skewer his heart with it. The rest of the Olympians would likely cause some problems, but with Ares's divinity, I had a chance to defeat them. I could kill and eat the weaker gods, or feed them to Saiyans that I trusted… or, rather, Broly.
The aftermath wasn't ideal, but I was willing to accept it if it gave me my shot at Trigon.
"Any last words?" I asked him, giving him that last courtesy. His aura shimmered with impotent rage and he said nothing. "I just thought I'd ask," I said, thrusting the spear down with full intent on killing Ares where he sat. It wasn't the end that he likely deserved, to be executed for the sake of power, but it was the ending that I planned to give him.
Only, instead, the tip of my spear crashed against the palm of a hand that crushed the head of my spear like it was made of glass. My gaze went up at the man who put himself between me and Ares -- he was tall, a bushy white beard and flowing white hair that was held back with a golden crown that looked familiar. He smelled of salt water and the ocean breeze, his barrel chest bare except for the half of a toga that was draped over one shoulder, revealing a powerful body.
It would seem that not all gods were created equal.
"Poseidon, I presume?" I questioned, withdrawing my spear to see that it was only a staff. My god ki slipped through his fingers, a small trail of ichor dripping down his list. A thrust that I intended to kill Ares with had earned a small gash against Poseidon. That didn't bode well. Especially when Zeus was known for being so powerful that none of the other gods could stop him from following through on every whim he had.
"King of the Saiyans. Or, perhaps, it is God of the Saiyans now?" Poseidon questioned lightly, his voice heavy and carried an unnatural weight to it. If Ares was like looking into the sun, then Poseidon was… he was like looking up into the night sky and realizing that every single speck of light in the darkness was a sun that was millions of miles away, complete with its own solar system, and between those stars was millions of miles of nothingness. It was the feeling that you were a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the universe and your entire life, no matter how great or terrible, would go completely unnoticed in the grand scheme of things.
"King," I decided. I had seen what happened when a king treated themselves as a god. More than that, despite the divine power in me, I didn't feel any different beyond… stronger. Stronger with a new type of strength.
"Yamoshi's presence is insult enough, but one not worthy of a response. You, however, have laid hands upon a member of Olympus and stolen divinity. Your invasion of Earth matters little and we have been content to allow you and your empire to exist. This is a very different matter that must have a response. I ask of you, King Tarble of the Saiyan Race, how shall you make amends?" He asked me, looking down at me in more ways than one.
"I think we're well past the point of posturing, god of the sea," I returned. I wasn't arrogant enough to think I could win just because I got my hands on a little divinity. Ares had been pinned into place by Yamoshi. At the same time, I couldn't show weakness. "Ares issued a challenge and I answered. How will you make amends for interfering in our fight?" I returned, taking in a slow breath as I prepared for the fight to spill out of control. I had no clue where Yamoshi stood in the hierarchy of gods, but I would be relying on him until I was powerful enough to take on the Hellenistic gods on my own.
Behind Poseidon, Ares forced himself to his feet with a swallowed groan. "Do not interfere, Poseidon. Do not shame me any more than you have," Ares bit out, earning form Poseidon from over his shoulder that was barely disguised contempt.
"Spare Olympus any more shame, boy," Poseidon scoffed, his gaze sliding back to me. "You were defeated soundly by a fledgling god." Ares was anything but pleased with the remark. His aura betrayed an thought of attacking Poseidon for the sake of preserving his own pride. "The battle is over. For now… walk freely, King Tarble. When Olympus is ready to address your transgressions, you will be summoned."
With that, both Poseidon and Ares simply winked out of existence. Less like they teleported and more like they simply snapped out of existence. My eyes narrowed at the spots that they had occupied before I slowly looked upward, watching Zeus' presence slowly leave the dark storm above. As he left, the rain began to slow to a trickle until it stopped entirely, while the clouds themselves faded from a pitch-black, to dark gray, to normal white clouds. The presence of the gods was gone from Themyscira. Or was it hidden?
In any case, one thing was clear.
"I need to train," I muttered. My base state needed to be vastly stronger if I wanted to contend with gods like Poseidon or Zeus, much less Trigon. Not to mention, the Ascended Super Saiyan form still eluded me. Since my arrival on Earth and the establishment of my empire, my training had taken a back seat. There hadn't been a pressing need on account that I already defeated the Earth's Heroes, I was amongst the most powerful beings in the galaxy, and there hadn't been an enemy to aim for.
Now, I had the Olympian gods. I had Child, a Lord of Chaos and whoever else she told about the Dragon Balls. And… I had Trigon.
My training needed to be a top priority going forward if I wanted a chance at defeating the new enemies I had made.
"You won?! Hey, hey, Brother -- did you save some for me? I wanna become a god too!" Elery exclaimed, slamming into me with a hug, stars in her eyes as she took in my appearance. Her aura told me that if she was any more excited that she could actually die. "This transformation is so much cooler than the Super Saiyan one! You're all red and stuff," Elery said, letting go of me to stand on the ground and she practically vibrated through it.
Despite my concerns, I patted the top of her head before I turned my attention to the ki signatures of the others. The space between us… I tested the limits of my power and pinched the space between me and the others, instantly teleporting to Diana, Clark, Mom, and Queen Hippolyta. Elery gasped, looking over the moon with pure excitement, and I felt somewhat satisfied myself.
Instant Transmission. It was a technique that I had known about for years, but I had never managed to get it to work. The math behind how it would work to avoid any accidents was too much for me and I hadn't found a way to sidestep it. Now? Now, I just had to pinch the space between me and my target to instantly close in.
Some of the onlookers were far happier to see me than the others. Queen Hippolyta looked at me with despair and horror. It shone clearly in her aura, a deep dark stain on it. A scar on her soul that was old but had never healed. Her gaze looked beyond me at the damage that had occurred throughout the battle before refocusing on me.
"Leave," Queen Hippolyta breathed, speaking the command like a death sentence. Clark shifted where he stood, while Diana placed a hand on her mother's shoulder to get her attention, but Queen Hippolyta brushed her hand off to take a step towards me. "I allowed your presence because of the faith I have in my daughter, but it was clearly misplaced. Not one hour upon the shores of Theyscira, you have brought devastation when before you there were thousands of years of peace and tranquility."
"Mother," Diana stressed while Clark gave me a worried look. I could see frustration bubbling in my Mother's aura, but she was swallowing it down. I… was rather surprised about that. I always assumed that Elery got her impulse control from her. "That remark is unbecoming. It was our gods that instigated the battle, mother. Ares would have usurped an empire from King Tarble without intervention from Yamoshi. It is us that must make amends."
Diana was correct in a logical way. She was angry as well, every bit as her mother was, but her mother had deep scars from the past that Diana didn't have.
Queen Hippolyta was coming from a place of emotion and she wasn't entirely wrong. She had taken a huge risk, in her eyes, by allowing men to step foot on the island. A risk that hadn't paid off at all because we didn't even get to eat before everything went to shit and the island was devastated by a short and brutal battle. A fact that tied into those old scars, feeding into them, and it was because of them that she dug her heels in.
"Be silent, daughter," Queen Hippolyta commanded, her tone sharp and cold enough to cut to the bone. Diana, despite herself, flinched back at the tone while the Queen of the Amazonians glared at me. "You will leave this place, King Tarble. You will never return. Not you, nor any man. The gods may allow you to rule over Earth, but you will not rule over Themyscira."
Annoying. I really wasn't any good at diplomacy, was I?
"Meh, s'not like there was anything worth ruling here anyway," Mom dismissed, her frustration bubbling over as she crossed her arms. Queen Hippolyta turned to her and Mom met her look unrepentantly, "All I see are a bunch of scared women hiding behind divine protection because they're too scared of the wider world."
"You," Queen Hippolyta began with a low snarl, "do not know our history. The horrors we endured at the hands of men."
"I don't. Don't really care to, either. I'm just calling it how I see it -- an island full of cowards whining that something bad happened to 'em, what, thousands of years ago? Sheesh. How pathetic can you be?" Mom continued, earning a sharp look from Diana. I don't think she exactly disagreed with the point of what Mom was saying, but she took a lot of issue with how it was being delivered.
Clark decided to step forward, "I think," he interjected, looking at Queen Hippolyta, "we should all take a step back and a breath. No one was injured during the battle," he said, and Queen Hippolyta nodded to him, giving him a thankful look that told me that was because of him and Diana. "We can help with the reconstruction if you would like but, given that this is the home to the greek gods… Tarble, I do think it would be best if we left."
I gave a slow nod of agreement while Mom huffed. Diana looked apologetic, but her mother still looked at me with contempt in her gaze. "For what its worth," I started, flying up with Elery and Mom, "I am sorry that it came to this. I didn't expect to get a reaction out of your gods when they did nothing when I took over Earth." With that as my parting words, and with Superman following along, we left the island of Themyscira.
I don't think that Ada'la would ever let me go on a diplomatic mission by myself after this. So far, I was 0-2. The only silver lining there was that they were both on Earth.
"Clark?" I said as we flew away, bringing my attention to Superman, who seemed dissatisfied with how things had ended on Themyscira. "I need to speak to the Green Lanterns. And the Guardians… and I need to do it now."
It was long past time for me to get answers about the history of the Ancient Saiyans out of them, and it was time to start the search for the Dragon Balls.
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
Red_Faux
私を終わらせる
- Location
- 'Straya M8
Man she's such a misandrist.
Lady, she might not know your history, but I do.
You are undoubtedly a coward and worse. The horrors you speak of where repaid more than once, and generalising an entire race because of less than a thousand events over you entire goddamn history, most during WWII from a group of extremists hated the world over, is not acceptable. There is a reason the gods don't speak to you anymore besides Ares.
It may be cruel, but it's been over a thousand years. Get over it or step aside, you know your judgement is flawed. Your adopted daughter is a better Amazon than you will ever be
Lady, she might not know your history, but I do.
You are undoubtedly a coward and worse. The horrors you speak of where repaid more than once, and generalising an entire race because of less than a thousand events over you entire goddamn history, most during WWII from a group of extremists hated the world over, is not acceptable. There is a reason the gods don't speak to you anymore besides Ares.
It may be cruel, but it's been over a thousand years. Get over it or step aside, you know your judgement is flawed. Your adopted daughter is a better Amazon than you will ever be
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Yeah but unfortunately Misandry isn't called out in popular culture like Misogyny is. It's one of the Double Standards you never hear about since it doesn't fit the narrative certain people are trying to propagate across the world. The real point that people should be focusing on is All Power Corrupts no matter what genitalia you have. Hippolyta has been in power for far too long and unfortunately she's had thousands of years for the misandrist propaganda to embed itself in the minds of her citizens. Hell one of DC's problems you never hear about is not only the murder of Men who wash up on the island without exception (except for Steve Trevor) but the kidnapping of the women that wash up with those men and their indoctrination into Amazonian culture. There needs to be a story in DC Comics about someone ripping apart the protections over Themyscira and forcing the Amazons to deal with the Real World. However that will never happen since all anyone would hear afterwards would be "Misogyny, Misogyny, Misogyny!"…
The power creep of this arc is seriously damaging my interest.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Or you could just... ignore that and uncanon it since that was pretty much only the New 52 version of DC that was written to do that shit as far as we're aware. In our experience, it's usually healthier to just pick and choose which comics you consider to be actual canon and which ones were written by bad authors with bad ideas that don't deserve the light of day.
Red_Faux
私を終わらせる
- Location
- 'Straya M8
Quiksilver and Scarlet Witch getting all Lannistery comes to mind for "bad ideas that don't deserve the light of day"
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That was the Ultimates universe, to be fair. Not quite mainstream canon. Think probably a better example would be, say, the entirety of Civil War II.
Old Enemies
- Location
- USA
I breathed in deeply, holding the air in my lungs, before letting it out slowly after a long minute. Only once my lungs were empty to the point it felt like they were going to collapse did I repeat the process -- taking in a long slow breath, holding it, then letting it out. Even the small action of breathing was difficult for me, sweat dripping up my brow, then down it as I hovered in the air despite the three hundred times the galactic standard gravity that tried to crush me, spinning at a stable pace.
My muscles burned with strain, my ki felt heavier than it ever had before. It was a familiar feeling but not as much as I would have liked. When was the last time I trained properly? That I pushed my body to its absolute limit and then pushed further? Not since before Earth. It had only been a few months since I arrived and forged my empire, but since then, it had just been one thing after another.
I had never properly mastered the Super Saiyan transformation. That had been due to… fear of it. Of the emotions that it would dredge up. The Ascended Super Saiyan was distant -- it needed a certain… clarity that I hadn't achieved again. Now, I had the Saiyan God form to puzzle out. But, as full as my plate was, it made something extremely clear.
It was painfully apparent how reliant I was on my transformations. It had always been true -- the Wrath State had been the first and without it, I never would have made it through the war. In my time on Earth, it had become even clearer, because without them I couldn't defeat half of the heroes or villains on Earth. My base form simply wasn't up to the task. That was something I had to correct quickly. My God Form was only as strong as my base form. It just gave me some extra tricks to make up for sealing my various multipliers.
That being said, my God Form was demanding. Extremely so. That, I'm certain, was due to the fact that I didn't get to have a full meal. I had only stolen a portion of Ares' divinity.
Enough to awaken mine, but not enough to make me a god in earnest. If Ares was the sun, then I was an ember in terms of scope. To become anything more than a spark of flame, I had to channel my ki into that ember to make it into god ki, and it took a lot. A whole lot.
Breathing in slowly, I drew upon the god ki that lurked within me, dredging it up. A flickering red aura shrouded me, but it was weak. Nothing compared to the god ki that Yamoshi had given me. Without it, I could only maintain the transformation for a grand total of ten seconds. Channeling all of my normal ki into it would extend the transformation for a total of one minute. That wasn't good enough.
"It's been a long time since I've felt inadequate," I admitted to myself, opening my eyes to see the smooth surfaces of my gravity chamber. It was completely featureless except for the hologram projectors that let me control the intensity of the gravity as well as give me an obstacle course. Children's games from back on Planet Vegeta that turned into incredibly deadly challenges where a single wrong move could mean certain death. As I was right now, I didn't dare activate them.
My jaw ached, the muscles sore from strain while the god transformation faded, leaving me feeling exhausted. Letting out a long breath, I took another in and prepared myself to pull upon it again. There had always been those that were stronger than me, and that was something I accepted, but I hadn't felt like this… since the days I was fighting Saibamen back on Planet Vegeta.
A feeling that I was completely outmatched and it was going to be a long, painful road before I was strong enough to win.
I forced the ember to burn again and this time, I channeled ki to it in a trickle. I had so little natural god ki and it took so much ki to make more that I had to learn to not waste even the smallest amount. I couldn't afford to. The Hellenistic gods were my enemies now and I couldn't count on Yamoshi appearing and rescuing me again -- coming and vanishing just as quickly as he arrived. I needed to be prepared to take them all on. Alone. Unless I found a way to feed a god to Broly.
God ki was still so new to me that it was difficult to tell if there was much wastage on its end, but a minute and one second later, I felt the transformation drop. With it, so did I as I slammed into the ground, unable to maintain my own flight. The gravity was heavy and oppressive, trying to squish me underneath a titanic weight so great that even breathing was a demanding task. All the same, I breathed deeply and with a low groan, I pushed myself into a sitting position. Then a standing one.
My legs trembled, and my movements were stilted and feeble, but I went through a series of katas that I had created back during my days on the Warworld. All were designed to exercise the important muscle groups exactly as I wanted.
I was in the middle of a set when I got an alert. Patching it through, I saw it was Starfire. She gave a beaming smile at me as I continued my exercise, "Friend Tarble! I hope that your training has gone well?" She asked, and I nearly collapsed when I tried to speak and breathe at the same time. Bracing myself, I nodded. "Friend Robin has gotten word that Superman has achieved contact with Hal Jordan."
Finally.
"I'm guessing there's a reason why you're telling me this instead of Robin or Superman," I noted, continuing my katas, sweat pouring down my body. My legs felt so incredibly weak, my arms so feeble. It reminded me of when Broly, Vegeta, and I took the Warworld -- when Mongul had increased the gravity to a point that only Broly could continue the battle. All the same, I kept at it despite the growing weakness in my body.
Kori nodded, "They thought the bad news would be easier to hear coming from me!" She confirmed, and I suppose they were right about that. "Hal Jordan does not like you very much, Tarble. He says he won't help you with anything," she said, her tone mournful, almost as if the words had been directed at her.
I didn't really expect anything different. "Hal was always stubborn and there's a lot of bad blood between us," I admitted. The ambush that took a chunk of the Green Lanterns out of the war had been a blood bath for his people. If the shoe had been on the other foot -- if it had been my team, my family, that had been slaughtered in an ambush that left me the sole survivor of? I wouldn't want to work with me either.
Still, with his new position, I had expected a little more practicality from him. But, that was likely a mistake on my part. Bonding with the Willpower Entity Ion likely hadn't done anything good for his stubbornness. Given what I knew of the New Lanterns' actions since they were founded, it was the exact opposite. Hal being too stubborn would explain a number of their actions. Either way, it was annoying that this couldn't be solved with a simple conversation.
"Perhaps you can apologize to each other?" Kori offered a solution, but I shook my head.
"An apology won't make good what was done. I killed a lot of his friends during the war, Kori," I told her, earning a slow nod from her. Her upbringing on Okaara had made her familiar with the nature of war, more so than her personality would suggest. "It was necessary at the time. Or, so I thought."
"You regret fighting him?" Kori questioned, sounding curious. In the months we've known each other, the War of Light had been something of a taboo subject. It was an elephant in the room, so to speak. The Teen Titans, among others, have moved past their initial opinions of me, but my actions during the war were still hard to swallow for some.
"I regret fighting for Frieza," I told her. "Knowing what I know now, I think I would have done things differently. I had suspected that the Guardians were listening in on me from the Power Ring I earned from Kylark, and instead of ambushing them… I could have laid a trap for Sinestro. I could have made a deal with the Guardians to save my race and my soldiers and their families," I said, still moving through the katas. "But, at the time, all I cared about was ending the war. I hated the Green Lanterns because they took a noninterference policy for the first ten years of it though I understood why. Their greatest enemies were fighting and killing each other after all. Still, trillions of people died in that time because they did nothing."
Kori let out a small, warm, laugh. "I think, Friend Tarble, that you should say such things to the New Lanterns. Hal Jordan only knows you from the war. He has not seen how you changed," Kori said, her voice soft as she aimed an equally soft smile in my direction.
I paused in the middle of my katas for but a moment, holding the position. "Have I changed?" I wondered out loud. Change was something very difficult to quantify. I still felt like myself. I didn't have a grand moment that made it clear that I wasn't quite the man I had been before.
"You never would have entertained a What-If about the war before," Kori noted, and… I suppose that she was right about that. "Hal Jordan wishes to meet with Superman to discuss things. Friend Robin doesn't know what, yet."
I finished my katas and stood still, my chest rising and falling with deep and even breaths. I ran the possibilities through my mind, knowing what was being offered -- Hal Jordan would not react well to me dropping in on the meeting. At all. I couldn't say I knew him that well, but that was obvious. My best bet was to sit back and hope that Superman could convince Hal of my intentions. Trust that I had done enough to convince Superman to vouch for me and hope that would be enough to sway him.
Trust and hope. Two things I did not do well.
"Tell Robin I want to know when they're meeting," I decided, taking in a slow breath before decreasing the gravity to a mere one hundred times the galactic standard. It was time for my cool-down exercises. Walking over to a wall, I took hold of a pair of weights that unslotted themselves from it -- a pair of dumbbells that each weighed five hundred pounds. With the current gravity, however, they weighed more like fifty thousand apiece. "Where is it happening?"
"A planet called Ranoko -- it is near the center of the galaxy," Kori informed me while my holograms projected a map, highlighting the planet in question. It wasn't near the center of the galaxy, but well within the 'bullseye' of it. It actually wasn't that far away from Sadala -- within a few jumps of a wink drive. It may be worth going just to swing by Sadala to talk to Yamoshi again, and ask why he simply vanished after the fight against the Olympians.
My eyes narrowed at the map while I continued my cool-down exercises -- a handful of sets with the weights. "It's not in anyone's territory," I noted. The galactic center was too dangerous for any of the remaining forces in the galaxy to bother taking. From wandering black holes, to stars going supernova that, because of time dilation, had been burning since the universe was created. The planets there weren't worth the time or effort.
However, the location of the planet wasn't the only thing that the map showed. The Green Lanterns had been a policing force for the universe since there had been a universe. Billions upon billions of years. That was enough time for a number of interested parties -- such as the Trade Organization -- to build up a profile for how the Green Lanterns operated and, in this case, where they operated in this galaxy. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to estimate some things.
When compared to the close eye I had kept on the New Lanterns, to make sure that they were acting well enough above board for me to consider letting them police my empire, there was overlap. Ranoko was a point of interest with a number of trails marking New Lanterns coming to or from the planet. It didn't seem to be the headquarters for the New Lanterns, which left a question of what the planet was and what it meant to them.
With any luck, it would house a clue to where the Guardians were being kept. The New Lanterns had announced that they had imprisoned them, but the reaction to that was disbelief and suspicion. I was one of the few that believed Hal Jordan, but it was a question of whether imprisonment actually did anything or not. The Guardians were as old as the universe itself -- they wouldn't be imprisoned unless they wanted to be.
"I won't be stepping on any toes other than Hal's by showing up anyway, and I'm tired of him dodging me," I said, bracing the weights against my shoulders and going through a set of squats. "I'm going to have to force a meeting."
"Will there be a battle?" Kori questioned and I thought about it. For all of a second. The answer was rather obvious.
"Very likely," I admitted. I wasn't under any delusions about that -- Hal Jordan named me his enemy and I would be showing up on his doorstep unannounced.
Kori didn't seem like she expected anything else, "Our friends would like to go with you! To prevent any misunderstandings," she offered, and I didn't think there would be any… misunderstandings, per se. More airing out old grievances and spilling some bad blood on the floor. Still, it would be useful to have some of the Titans accompany me. If Hal saw that they were backing me up, he might think a little harder on why they would, and listen to what I had to say.
"Very well. I'll make preparations," I said, earning an enthusiastic goodbye from Kori, who sounded like she thought that this was a road trip. I finished the last of my cool-down sets before the gravity returned to normal, leaving me dripping with sweat. Taking off the spat shorts I wore, I quickly showered off and got dressed in my royal attire, shooting a message to Ada'la before I left the tower - which was nearing completion.
Earth was experimenting with FTL travel, and desired to use my space elevators to act as checkpoints for what were in essence space highways. That, I suspected, was due to their attachment to things like roads. They were getting their other planets set up -- Harvest was a food production planet that they were already working on mass exporting farmers and farm animals to. There were also plans to create more food planets while others focused on industry -- Lex was too smart for his own good, but I did have to admit that he was taking the opportunity presented to humanity and running with it.
Ada'la acknowledged that I would be leaving, but chose to say nothing about the confrontation I would be having with the New Lanterns. I'd like to think that was because she had complete faith in me, but I suspected it was the exact opposite. I think she had learned to expect a disaster whenever I went on a diplomatic mission of any kind, and decided to plan accordingly.
It wasn't long after that I arrived at my destination -- landing lightly on the white sandy beach of Broly's island, I saw Shayera on the beach getting a tan. She watched me land with a flat glare and an impassive expression -- she hadn't forgiven me for intruding on her paradise with Broly, but her glare didn't have the same ire to it as it did before.
"He's inside," she gruffly told me as I walked past her.
"I know," I replied, my tone terse. The exchange was short and indifferent. It was a little disappointing, really. Shayera was the last member of the 501st -- my personal army that had spearheaded every offensive in some capacity throughout the war. Heading up the steps, Broly heard me coming because he shouted for me to come in before I could even knock.
Broly was wearing a pair of swim trunks and his chest was bare, revealing the X shaped scar on his chest. A scar that he got from his father -- a man who had simply vanished after I had rescued him and Broly from the planet Vampa. He aimed a beaming smile at me, holding up a snorkel that he didn't need, "I'm going to go scuba diving! Wanna come?" He asked, and seemed genuinely disappointed when I shook my head.
"No, I'm here to tell you I'm going off-planet for a bit," I told him, catching his attention. "I need you to stay here," I told him and I saw Broly's expression harden, digging in and not liking the idea at all.
"You're going to fight someone," He voiced and he wasn't wrong there.
"I am, but I'll have backup," I reassured him, crossing my arms over my chest. "I need you here because I've made enemies of the Hellenistic Gods. Leaving now is going to invite retaliation from Ares. Possibly with the blessing of the rest of the Olympians. I need you here in case they try anything," I told him, earning a pensive look from Broly. He saw my logic. Broly might not be a god or have god ki, but as far as I could tell, that simply didn't matter to him. Broly had reached a level of strength that he could hit the people that he wanted to hit, regardless of how impossible it should be.
My family was on Earth -- Elery was picking fights with the gods that she thought I didn't know about. Mom was spending time with Diana, and it was far too early to tell if that was a good thing or not. The rest of the Saiyans on Earth were settling in with minimal growing pains. Things were chaotic at first, but they all found something that occupied them -- one had taken to dressing like a police officer, another kept trying to sneak into eating competitions by hiding her tail, and another had taken to fishing.
In short -- things had almost leveled out. The chaos and disruption that the Saiyans caused had settled down and between Earth and Tamaran, I think my people were being influenced for good. Yamoshi's warning still echoed ominously in the back of my mind, but he had said that his attempt to reform the Saiyan race had a few thousand years of progress before it ended in disaster.
"I need you to take care of everyone while I'm gone. Can you do that for me?" I asked, making Broly sigh before he nodded.
"I can," he agreed with some reluctance, "but every time I'm not with you, you ended up picking a fight with someone else. First Trigon and now the Greek gods."
That got a small smile out of me, "I won't be making any new enemies on this trip. Just settling up with some old ones. And not because I want to, either." I reassured him, but he didn't exactly seem reassured. That was fair, I suppose. I didn't have a great track record there. A handful of ki signatures appeared on the beach outside of the building, telling me that the Titans had quickly hammered out who would be coming with me.
"How long are you going to be gone?" Broly questioned as we headed for the door, earning a small shrug from me. I didn't expect to be gone for long, but it would be the first time I would leave my empire since it had been established. I expected Ada'la to handle everything while I was gone, but it was a little odd how apprehensive I was to leave my borders. Even if only for a handful of hours or a few days at most.
"No idea," I settled on, opening the door. "But, it shouldn't be too long," I added, seeing the team that would be coming with me to meet the New Lanterns -- Robin, Kori, Raven, and Kara. Kara had her arms crossed over the shielded S on her chest while Kori greeted me with a friendly wave. Raven offered a small nod of her head as a greeting while Robin was on the phone, sounding like he was trying to get permission to actually go.
They weren't my old team. Not even close. No one could replace Bardock, Fasha, Tora, Shugesh, and Borgos. But, the old wounds had begun to heal.
"Let's go see what the Guardians have to say."
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
My muscles burned with strain, my ki felt heavier than it ever had before. It was a familiar feeling but not as much as I would have liked. When was the last time I trained properly? That I pushed my body to its absolute limit and then pushed further? Not since before Earth. It had only been a few months since I arrived and forged my empire, but since then, it had just been one thing after another.
I had never properly mastered the Super Saiyan transformation. That had been due to… fear of it. Of the emotions that it would dredge up. The Ascended Super Saiyan was distant -- it needed a certain… clarity that I hadn't achieved again. Now, I had the Saiyan God form to puzzle out. But, as full as my plate was, it made something extremely clear.
It was painfully apparent how reliant I was on my transformations. It had always been true -- the Wrath State had been the first and without it, I never would have made it through the war. In my time on Earth, it had become even clearer, because without them I couldn't defeat half of the heroes or villains on Earth. My base form simply wasn't up to the task. That was something I had to correct quickly. My God Form was only as strong as my base form. It just gave me some extra tricks to make up for sealing my various multipliers.
That being said, my God Form was demanding. Extremely so. That, I'm certain, was due to the fact that I didn't get to have a full meal. I had only stolen a portion of Ares' divinity.
Enough to awaken mine, but not enough to make me a god in earnest. If Ares was the sun, then I was an ember in terms of scope. To become anything more than a spark of flame, I had to channel my ki into that ember to make it into god ki, and it took a lot. A whole lot.
Breathing in slowly, I drew upon the god ki that lurked within me, dredging it up. A flickering red aura shrouded me, but it was weak. Nothing compared to the god ki that Yamoshi had given me. Without it, I could only maintain the transformation for a grand total of ten seconds. Channeling all of my normal ki into it would extend the transformation for a total of one minute. That wasn't good enough.
"It's been a long time since I've felt inadequate," I admitted to myself, opening my eyes to see the smooth surfaces of my gravity chamber. It was completely featureless except for the hologram projectors that let me control the intensity of the gravity as well as give me an obstacle course. Children's games from back on Planet Vegeta that turned into incredibly deadly challenges where a single wrong move could mean certain death. As I was right now, I didn't dare activate them.
My jaw ached, the muscles sore from strain while the god transformation faded, leaving me feeling exhausted. Letting out a long breath, I took another in and prepared myself to pull upon it again. There had always been those that were stronger than me, and that was something I accepted, but I hadn't felt like this… since the days I was fighting Saibamen back on Planet Vegeta.
A feeling that I was completely outmatched and it was going to be a long, painful road before I was strong enough to win.
I forced the ember to burn again and this time, I channeled ki to it in a trickle. I had so little natural god ki and it took so much ki to make more that I had to learn to not waste even the smallest amount. I couldn't afford to. The Hellenistic gods were my enemies now and I couldn't count on Yamoshi appearing and rescuing me again -- coming and vanishing just as quickly as he arrived. I needed to be prepared to take them all on. Alone. Unless I found a way to feed a god to Broly.
God ki was still so new to me that it was difficult to tell if there was much wastage on its end, but a minute and one second later, I felt the transformation drop. With it, so did I as I slammed into the ground, unable to maintain my own flight. The gravity was heavy and oppressive, trying to squish me underneath a titanic weight so great that even breathing was a demanding task. All the same, I breathed deeply and with a low groan, I pushed myself into a sitting position. Then a standing one.
My legs trembled, and my movements were stilted and feeble, but I went through a series of katas that I had created back during my days on the Warworld. All were designed to exercise the important muscle groups exactly as I wanted.
I was in the middle of a set when I got an alert. Patching it through, I saw it was Starfire. She gave a beaming smile at me as I continued my exercise, "Friend Tarble! I hope that your training has gone well?" She asked, and I nearly collapsed when I tried to speak and breathe at the same time. Bracing myself, I nodded. "Friend Robin has gotten word that Superman has achieved contact with Hal Jordan."
Finally.
"I'm guessing there's a reason why you're telling me this instead of Robin or Superman," I noted, continuing my katas, sweat pouring down my body. My legs felt so incredibly weak, my arms so feeble. It reminded me of when Broly, Vegeta, and I took the Warworld -- when Mongul had increased the gravity to a point that only Broly could continue the battle. All the same, I kept at it despite the growing weakness in my body.
Kori nodded, "They thought the bad news would be easier to hear coming from me!" She confirmed, and I suppose they were right about that. "Hal Jordan does not like you very much, Tarble. He says he won't help you with anything," she said, her tone mournful, almost as if the words had been directed at her.
I didn't really expect anything different. "Hal was always stubborn and there's a lot of bad blood between us," I admitted. The ambush that took a chunk of the Green Lanterns out of the war had been a blood bath for his people. If the shoe had been on the other foot -- if it had been my team, my family, that had been slaughtered in an ambush that left me the sole survivor of? I wouldn't want to work with me either.
Still, with his new position, I had expected a little more practicality from him. But, that was likely a mistake on my part. Bonding with the Willpower Entity Ion likely hadn't done anything good for his stubbornness. Given what I knew of the New Lanterns' actions since they were founded, it was the exact opposite. Hal being too stubborn would explain a number of their actions. Either way, it was annoying that this couldn't be solved with a simple conversation.
"Perhaps you can apologize to each other?" Kori offered a solution, but I shook my head.
"An apology won't make good what was done. I killed a lot of his friends during the war, Kori," I told her, earning a slow nod from her. Her upbringing on Okaara had made her familiar with the nature of war, more so than her personality would suggest. "It was necessary at the time. Or, so I thought."
"You regret fighting him?" Kori questioned, sounding curious. In the months we've known each other, the War of Light had been something of a taboo subject. It was an elephant in the room, so to speak. The Teen Titans, among others, have moved past their initial opinions of me, but my actions during the war were still hard to swallow for some.
"I regret fighting for Frieza," I told her. "Knowing what I know now, I think I would have done things differently. I had suspected that the Guardians were listening in on me from the Power Ring I earned from Kylark, and instead of ambushing them… I could have laid a trap for Sinestro. I could have made a deal with the Guardians to save my race and my soldiers and their families," I said, still moving through the katas. "But, at the time, all I cared about was ending the war. I hated the Green Lanterns because they took a noninterference policy for the first ten years of it though I understood why. Their greatest enemies were fighting and killing each other after all. Still, trillions of people died in that time because they did nothing."
Kori let out a small, warm, laugh. "I think, Friend Tarble, that you should say such things to the New Lanterns. Hal Jordan only knows you from the war. He has not seen how you changed," Kori said, her voice soft as she aimed an equally soft smile in my direction.
I paused in the middle of my katas for but a moment, holding the position. "Have I changed?" I wondered out loud. Change was something very difficult to quantify. I still felt like myself. I didn't have a grand moment that made it clear that I wasn't quite the man I had been before.
"You never would have entertained a What-If about the war before," Kori noted, and… I suppose that she was right about that. "Hal Jordan wishes to meet with Superman to discuss things. Friend Robin doesn't know what, yet."
I finished my katas and stood still, my chest rising and falling with deep and even breaths. I ran the possibilities through my mind, knowing what was being offered -- Hal Jordan would not react well to me dropping in on the meeting. At all. I couldn't say I knew him that well, but that was obvious. My best bet was to sit back and hope that Superman could convince Hal of my intentions. Trust that I had done enough to convince Superman to vouch for me and hope that would be enough to sway him.
Trust and hope. Two things I did not do well.
"Tell Robin I want to know when they're meeting," I decided, taking in a slow breath before decreasing the gravity to a mere one hundred times the galactic standard. It was time for my cool-down exercises. Walking over to a wall, I took hold of a pair of weights that unslotted themselves from it -- a pair of dumbbells that each weighed five hundred pounds. With the current gravity, however, they weighed more like fifty thousand apiece. "Where is it happening?"
"A planet called Ranoko -- it is near the center of the galaxy," Kori informed me while my holograms projected a map, highlighting the planet in question. It wasn't near the center of the galaxy, but well within the 'bullseye' of it. It actually wasn't that far away from Sadala -- within a few jumps of a wink drive. It may be worth going just to swing by Sadala to talk to Yamoshi again, and ask why he simply vanished after the fight against the Olympians.
My eyes narrowed at the map while I continued my cool-down exercises -- a handful of sets with the weights. "It's not in anyone's territory," I noted. The galactic center was too dangerous for any of the remaining forces in the galaxy to bother taking. From wandering black holes, to stars going supernova that, because of time dilation, had been burning since the universe was created. The planets there weren't worth the time or effort.
However, the location of the planet wasn't the only thing that the map showed. The Green Lanterns had been a policing force for the universe since there had been a universe. Billions upon billions of years. That was enough time for a number of interested parties -- such as the Trade Organization -- to build up a profile for how the Green Lanterns operated and, in this case, where they operated in this galaxy. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to estimate some things.
When compared to the close eye I had kept on the New Lanterns, to make sure that they were acting well enough above board for me to consider letting them police my empire, there was overlap. Ranoko was a point of interest with a number of trails marking New Lanterns coming to or from the planet. It didn't seem to be the headquarters for the New Lanterns, which left a question of what the planet was and what it meant to them.
With any luck, it would house a clue to where the Guardians were being kept. The New Lanterns had announced that they had imprisoned them, but the reaction to that was disbelief and suspicion. I was one of the few that believed Hal Jordan, but it was a question of whether imprisonment actually did anything or not. The Guardians were as old as the universe itself -- they wouldn't be imprisoned unless they wanted to be.
"I won't be stepping on any toes other than Hal's by showing up anyway, and I'm tired of him dodging me," I said, bracing the weights against my shoulders and going through a set of squats. "I'm going to have to force a meeting."
"Will there be a battle?" Kori questioned and I thought about it. For all of a second. The answer was rather obvious.
"Very likely," I admitted. I wasn't under any delusions about that -- Hal Jordan named me his enemy and I would be showing up on his doorstep unannounced.
Kori didn't seem like she expected anything else, "Our friends would like to go with you! To prevent any misunderstandings," she offered, and I didn't think there would be any… misunderstandings, per se. More airing out old grievances and spilling some bad blood on the floor. Still, it would be useful to have some of the Titans accompany me. If Hal saw that they were backing me up, he might think a little harder on why they would, and listen to what I had to say.
"Very well. I'll make preparations," I said, earning an enthusiastic goodbye from Kori, who sounded like she thought that this was a road trip. I finished the last of my cool-down sets before the gravity returned to normal, leaving me dripping with sweat. Taking off the spat shorts I wore, I quickly showered off and got dressed in my royal attire, shooting a message to Ada'la before I left the tower - which was nearing completion.
Earth was experimenting with FTL travel, and desired to use my space elevators to act as checkpoints for what were in essence space highways. That, I suspected, was due to their attachment to things like roads. They were getting their other planets set up -- Harvest was a food production planet that they were already working on mass exporting farmers and farm animals to. There were also plans to create more food planets while others focused on industry -- Lex was too smart for his own good, but I did have to admit that he was taking the opportunity presented to humanity and running with it.
Ada'la acknowledged that I would be leaving, but chose to say nothing about the confrontation I would be having with the New Lanterns. I'd like to think that was because she had complete faith in me, but I suspected it was the exact opposite. I think she had learned to expect a disaster whenever I went on a diplomatic mission of any kind, and decided to plan accordingly.
It wasn't long after that I arrived at my destination -- landing lightly on the white sandy beach of Broly's island, I saw Shayera on the beach getting a tan. She watched me land with a flat glare and an impassive expression -- she hadn't forgiven me for intruding on her paradise with Broly, but her glare didn't have the same ire to it as it did before.
"He's inside," she gruffly told me as I walked past her.
"I know," I replied, my tone terse. The exchange was short and indifferent. It was a little disappointing, really. Shayera was the last member of the 501st -- my personal army that had spearheaded every offensive in some capacity throughout the war. Heading up the steps, Broly heard me coming because he shouted for me to come in before I could even knock.
Broly was wearing a pair of swim trunks and his chest was bare, revealing the X shaped scar on his chest. A scar that he got from his father -- a man who had simply vanished after I had rescued him and Broly from the planet Vampa. He aimed a beaming smile at me, holding up a snorkel that he didn't need, "I'm going to go scuba diving! Wanna come?" He asked, and seemed genuinely disappointed when I shook my head.
"No, I'm here to tell you I'm going off-planet for a bit," I told him, catching his attention. "I need you to stay here," I told him and I saw Broly's expression harden, digging in and not liking the idea at all.
"You're going to fight someone," He voiced and he wasn't wrong there.
"I am, but I'll have backup," I reassured him, crossing my arms over my chest. "I need you here because I've made enemies of the Hellenistic Gods. Leaving now is going to invite retaliation from Ares. Possibly with the blessing of the rest of the Olympians. I need you here in case they try anything," I told him, earning a pensive look from Broly. He saw my logic. Broly might not be a god or have god ki, but as far as I could tell, that simply didn't matter to him. Broly had reached a level of strength that he could hit the people that he wanted to hit, regardless of how impossible it should be.
My family was on Earth -- Elery was picking fights with the gods that she thought I didn't know about. Mom was spending time with Diana, and it was far too early to tell if that was a good thing or not. The rest of the Saiyans on Earth were settling in with minimal growing pains. Things were chaotic at first, but they all found something that occupied them -- one had taken to dressing like a police officer, another kept trying to sneak into eating competitions by hiding her tail, and another had taken to fishing.
In short -- things had almost leveled out. The chaos and disruption that the Saiyans caused had settled down and between Earth and Tamaran, I think my people were being influenced for good. Yamoshi's warning still echoed ominously in the back of my mind, but he had said that his attempt to reform the Saiyan race had a few thousand years of progress before it ended in disaster.
"I need you to take care of everyone while I'm gone. Can you do that for me?" I asked, making Broly sigh before he nodded.
"I can," he agreed with some reluctance, "but every time I'm not with you, you ended up picking a fight with someone else. First Trigon and now the Greek gods."
That got a small smile out of me, "I won't be making any new enemies on this trip. Just settling up with some old ones. And not because I want to, either." I reassured him, but he didn't exactly seem reassured. That was fair, I suppose. I didn't have a great track record there. A handful of ki signatures appeared on the beach outside of the building, telling me that the Titans had quickly hammered out who would be coming with me.
"How long are you going to be gone?" Broly questioned as we headed for the door, earning a small shrug from me. I didn't expect to be gone for long, but it would be the first time I would leave my empire since it had been established. I expected Ada'la to handle everything while I was gone, but it was a little odd how apprehensive I was to leave my borders. Even if only for a handful of hours or a few days at most.
"No idea," I settled on, opening the door. "But, it shouldn't be too long," I added, seeing the team that would be coming with me to meet the New Lanterns -- Robin, Kori, Raven, and Kara. Kara had her arms crossed over the shielded S on her chest while Kori greeted me with a friendly wave. Raven offered a small nod of her head as a greeting while Robin was on the phone, sounding like he was trying to get permission to actually go.
They weren't my old team. Not even close. No one could replace Bardock, Fasha, Tora, Shugesh, and Borgos. But, the old wounds had begun to heal.
"Let's go see what the Guardians have to say."
...
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- Location
- Brazil
For all that we like to joke about Zeus lovelife this is just gosipe heavely colored by the artistic and political biases of the sources. Zeus is a god of justice and he is righteous that exalted the just and punished the crocked for the most part, to the point the image we have of god as a severe old man with white bearb is a helenic syncretism from him.
He probable knows about Tarble's origin and desided a expatriated soul searching to reconect with his humanity by returning to his cradle wouldn't be a reason to interfier. Something everyone here agrees on due to the kid's gloves Tarble used.
After the disaster of the Trojan Wars it is bests for mortals to decide their fates for themselves. Lex certain apreciate the hands off aproach.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Have you studied Greek mythology? Like... even just a little?
Looking at how the Greek went about sexuality, I'm actually surprised that Zeus wasn't banging young gods to show them the way. When it came to Justice, he WAS the law in his eyes. You really can't use current thinking to describe how the Greek thought gods worked thousands of years ago.
Fool's Errand
- Location
- USA
"We're not teleporting in?" Kara asked, using her X-Ray vision to sweep through the interior of the ship to see that it was well put together, if very different from the ships she knew on Krypton. Like all members of the house of El, she was raised to be a Scientist, though she had a special fondness for engineering. A fondness and upbringing that didn't see much use. She was sent to Earth to be Kal-El's protector, only to wake up and discover that her newborn cousin was a grown man.
"No," Tarble answered, striding forward with a sense of purpose through the ship's halls. "Hal would take great care to keep a close eye on my preferred methods of faster than light travel. Using the Wink drive, or slipstream would be an announcement that we are coming."
"And… that is… bad, yes?" Kori questioned, floating down the halls with Raven and Robin trailing behind the three of them.
"Very," Tarble answered, his tone curt. "We'll use another more common method of extreme speed. It will take us some time to arrive at the center of the galaxy, but as we near, we will engage stealth tech. We should arrive completely unnoticed." Kara hadn't really thought that Tarble had it in him to do a stealth mission. He struck her as far too direct. She supposed that's why Robin was here. If the bat family was good for one thing, then it was finding their way into places that they shouldn't be.
Kara deactivated her X-Ray vision and looked to Tarble as he led them into a living quarters. "How long should the trip take?" She asked, curious. Spaceflight was something that Krypton had discovered more than a thousand years ago, but it was a technology that was expunged from records. Their ships could work within Krypton's heavy gravity, but they couldn't make it to space.
In her time on Earth, Kara realized how isolationist her people had been. Once, there had been a Kryptonian empire that stretched across the stars, and for some reason, her people chose to give up that empire and retreat to their home planet, recalling every Kryptonian to live there. It was something that Kara had grown up with accepting, but in her years away from her culture, she could see how odd the decision was.
"A day there, a day back. Theoretically," Tarble answered. That answer didn't inspire a lot of confidence.
"Theoretically?" Raven echoed while Kori threw herself into a couch and sighed in contentment. Kara was tempted to do the same. The living quarters were clearly designed with earthlings in mind, but it was a poor imitation. Uncanny, really. The furniture was clearly made by alien hands that seemed to take a look at a human living room, and tried to copy it while also stuffing in traditional amenities such as hologram projections.
Tarble came to a stop, glancing back at Raven and seemed pensive. "Hal Jordan doesn't like me very much."
"I gathered," Kara remarked, cocking an eyebrow. The TV shows and movies and dramatizations had made the rivalry between Hal and Tarble extremely clear. She was glad to see that it hadn't been fabricated for the sake of views, but it did mean that Tarble was confronting someone whose friends he had killed a number of. Kara herself didn't know Hal Jordan -- she only arrived on Earth a handful of years ago, and by that time, Hal hadn't been earthside in years.
Kal-El only had good things to say about him and, as a Green Lantern, she knew he had to be a stubborn but good man. But, if the shows could be believed, then Earth's first official Green Lantern had fallen on hard times and he had had a harder fall from grace. He led a rebellion against the Guardians, imprisoning them for their many misdeeds over billions of years, and now led the New Lanterns. Which seemed to just be the Green Lanterns, but way more colorful.
"Things are going to get complicated. They always are when the Guardians are involved. Depending on the information I receive, the trip could be extended. If you wish to return, then you may at any time," Tarble offered, but Kara shook her head. Tarble's gaze slid to Raven, who nodded knowingly.
"Then we should go," Robin voiced, and Tarble offered a nod. Kara could hear the hum of the ship's engines as it left idle. Her gaze went to the window at the living room to see the stars of space begin to shift as the ship left its place at the tip of the space elevator. She floated over while Tarble and Raven spoke quietly to one another and Kara did her best to ignore the conversation.
One would think after spending two decades in space that she'd hate it, but Kara had been asleep during that time. In stasis. As far as she remembered, one moment she was entering the pod after saying goodbye to her family for the last time, and the next she was waking up to see a fully grown man with the emblem of house El on his chest. Before that, though, space had fascinated Kara. It was a forbidden realm to the Kryptonians, a place that they could never go by order of the government. The Phantom Zone was the punishment awaiting those that tried anyway.
The most recent example Kara remembered was General Zod and his people.
The ship hovered in zero gravity and after a brief pause the stars became lines of burning illumination, as the ship lurched into motion faster than the light given off by the flames that made them up, whisking them away on a journey to the center of the galaxy.
"Oh, my!" Kara heard Kori exclaim, sounding delighted. Kara turned around to see that she was fiddling with the hologram projector. Another thing she had missed -- technology. Earth was so incredibly primitive in comparison. It wasn't their fault, not really. Krypton had gone through a similar history of rapidly advancing technology but not quite being able to use it to its full potential. However, Kara hadn't grown up in that age. She grew up in a time of modern miracles being mundane by Earth standards.
Joining Tarble's Empire -- and Kara still couldn't believe it was just called 'Tarble's Empire -- helped some, but transition was far too recent for the effects to have set in yet. Cleaning the oceans of microscopic plastic and trash was good, but most people didn't feel the change of having a cleaner ocean. The novelty of more advanced technology hadn't worn off for most. Though, there were many humans that were hesitant on what the technology would mean for their way of life.
It would likely be decades before Earth embraced the technology at all levels. Like they had on Krypton. It wasn't a happy thought -- she liked Earth for the most part, mostly because of the people, but there were planets she came across during her exploration of the empire with the rest of the Titans that made her feel like she was standing on her own home planet once again.
"Oh, wow," Robin remarked, sounding amused as the three of them looked at the hologram. A broadcast from the Trade Organization.
"I did wonder if they would keep making shows," Kara added, watching the teaser for a new show about King Tarble: The Traitor. The teaser was short but it sent a very clear message that Tarble was the bad guy of the show and he was going to be defeated by a squad called the Ginyu Force. The show actually looked pretty good, all things considered. High production value.
"Can't be a surprise that they'd be less than happy with him after he stole a huge chunk of their territory," Robin continued. Kara agreed with that.
"Let's hope that bad-mouthing him is all they'll do," Kara voiced. She still remembered the broadcast that declared Tarble's Empire as its own independent force -- the vow that Tarble broadcasted across the galaxy. That if they provoked him that he would come for them and he would wipe them out of existence. That had been a few months ago. Kara highly doubted that he experienced such a radical change in nature that he would break that promise if it came down to it. "And speaking of bad-mouthing… what happened on Themyscira?"
Robin caught her look while Kori seemed interested. He crossed his arms, "Why would you think something bad happened?" He asked, his tone guarded, more or less confirming something bad did happen.
"Because Elery wouldn't tell me what happened," Kara admitted. She was fond of the younger Saiyan. She was just so… direct. Straight forward. She knew exactly what she wanted and wasn't afraid to pursue it -- no matter how dangerous or how it might inconvenience other people. That desire in question was to grow stronger and fight greater fights.
Kara could admit that if she were a less durable species, that attitude wouldn't exactly inspire the fond amusement that she felt for Elery, but she was a Kryptonian under a yellow sun. She wasn't a member of a less durable species. Because of that, she and Elery stayed in touch after they spent a month exploring the Empire and Elery, Kara learned, couldn't keep a secret unless directly told to by her older brother.
"What makes you think I know anything about what happened?" Robin questioned, crossing his arms over his chest, getting defensive.
"Because your curiosity always gets the better of your caution and you would want to know what happened as much as me," Kara responded sweetly, a smile tugging at her lips when Robin scowled. He might disagree, but she imagined it was difficult when he did know what happened when he wasn't supposed to.
A sigh escaped him, "I don't know all the details…" He started, spilling the beans in a low whisper, "but according to Wonder Woman, Ares showed up to pick a fight with Tarble. They did fight and Ares lost. But the Queen of the Amazons saw that the island got wrecked the one time she invited outsiders and gave Superman and Tarble the boot." Robin informed them both, and she and Kori had very different reactions.
Tarble was getting stronger and he was getting stronger fast. He was fighting gods now? And winning?
"I'm overjoyed that King Tarble was able to fight off the accursed Ares! Wonder Girl has no kind words to say about him," Kori declared. Robin offered a shrug at them both, pinning them with a sharp look.
"Don't jump to conclusions about this, okay? We've been burned because of it before," he pointed out, but the words mostly seemed directed at himself. He still felt guilty for how Tarble was received. Kara thought he was being a bit ridiculous about it -- it wasn't like Batman didn't expect his Robins to hack into the Batcomputer -- so blaming himself for acting on the information that he had felt a bit much. "If you're that curious, then ask him."
"Though," Robin quickly shifted courses, looking to Kara. "I'm surprised you decided to come with. Miss space that badly?"
It was Kara's turn to cross her arms over her chest, blocking the shielded S from view. It wasn't exactly a secret, per se. She had her own reasons for coming on this trip to confront the Guardians. "Elery told me that the Guardians of the Universe meddled with the Saiyan race according to her brother," she started, catching both Kori and Robin's attention. "Basically, every time their race wipes themselves out, the Guardians bring them back. They're the ones that made stuff like the Super Saiyan or Oozaru transformations."
How? Kara wasn't really sure. She didn't specialize in genetics. However, it if was possible to do whatever was done to the Saiyan race, then it would be the Guardians that could do it.
"The Saiyans weren't the only ones they meddled with. The Martians were too," Kara began, a frown finding its way onto her face. "My people once had an empire, Robin. We had colonies in other galaxies. Then, one day, we decided to abandon them. My ancestors decided to retreat back to our home planet underneath the one sun that wouldn't affect us."
Kara had started experimenting with what other wavelengths of sunlight would do to a Kryptonian. Some were dangerous while some would radically improve her already incredible abilities. She knew because that information had been there in the Fortress of Solitude.
"My people knew about it. They studied the effects other suns would have on our bodies, but a rapidly expanding empire just up and decided to return to our home planet under a sun that depowered us," Kara spoke and she could see the expressions on Kori and Robin's faces, telling her that she wasn't the only one he saw how senseless that was. "We scrapped any vehicle capable of spaceflight and refused to leave Krypton, choosing to mine our planet's core for energy because we expended every other resource on the surface."
That's what destroyed her home and sentenced her and Kal-El to be the last Kryptonians in existence. And it just didn't make any sense.
"What are you going to do if the Guardians tampered with your race?" Robin asked her, sympathy in his voice. He believed her. So did Kori. She had approached the topic with Kal-El, but he… he didn't know Krypton. He only knew of it through the AI modeled after his father and her stories. In his own mind, he was an earthling even if he wasn't human. The destruction of their people and planet were of a people and planet he never knew or met.
It was different for Kara. She grew up on Krypton. Even if she spent a hundred years on Earth, she would never be an earthling.
"If they did," Kara began, anger leaking into her voice. Her hands clenched into fists, her knuckles white. "Then they're the reason for the near extinction of my entire race," Kara told them both quietly. She didn't know what she would do, but Kara knew herself well enough to suspect that her response would be violent.
After that, they all settled in an uneasy silence aboard the ship. Kara went off on her own to explore it without needing to use her X-Ray vision to find that the ship itself was rather large. Large enough that it could easily house a hundred people, but it was just the five of them. It was complete with a mess hall, common rooms, and so on.
The others saw more of Tarble than she did. Raven was frequently with him and Kara was really starting to wonder about those two. A lot of private talks with Raven making sure she couldn't listen in on them. Kori treated him like he was a member of the Titans, but she was friendly to everyone. Robin was a bit more formal as they discussed plans to improve the quality of life for his empire.
An empire that looked more and more like it was expecting heroes to be a part of its future. It was an interesting clash -- Kara had yet to forgive Tarble for beating her cousin, especially with using a dirty trick, but she very much liked the idea of traversing his empire and stopping crime. It wasn't what she thought her future would look like, but that just went to show you should never have expectations.
If Tarble noticed that she was avoiding him, then he didn't care to comment on it as they spent a full day upon the ship. Kara's attempts to relax or distract herself so time would speed up were fruitless because her mind was stuck on what she would do when she confronted the Guardians. Or the Green Lanterns for that matter. Krypton was in a Green Lantern sector. They should have known that Krypton was unstable. If a Green Lantern told them that the entire planet was at risk of imploding…
Maybe it would have changed nothing. Maybe it would have changed everything. Kara would never know.
The days dragged on, feeling like years before they finally reached their destination. Kara looked through a window to see that it was a drab gray rock, almost completely uniform in color. There did seem to be some mountains and valleys, and a massive crater that made it clear something had struck the planet itself. According to the computer as they punched through the atmosphere, the air was breathable to her and Kori, but Robin and Raven would need masks.
Stepping onto a new planet was a thrill that Kara didn't think would ever get old, she relished the experience as she floated out of the ship upon landing. The planet felt like it was made out of the same substance as the moon -- mostly soft rock and dust. There was no sun in the sky as the celestial body was locked in position between two black holes that could be seen in the perpetual night sky. It was little wonder that the place was basically just a giant rock. It was a shock that it had an atmosphere at all.
"Here we are," Kara said, her hands on her hips. "Now what?"
Tarble frowned as he looked at something far off in the distance. According to Elery, Tarble always seemed to know where everyone was when he was planetside. And, so far, Kara had seen only evidence to support the theory. "I thought I would have to confront Hal Jordan to let me see the Guardians, but the fool led me right to them," Tarble said, striding out of the ship that went invisible the moment all of them left it. Stealth functions.
Kara's eyebrows rose at that. The Guardians were here? On this rock? "Where?" She asked, her tone harsher than she intended. Tarble spared her a glance, as if realizing that she was going to be a problem and she had her own reasons for meeting the Guardians.
"The center of the planet," Tarble informed. "Under guard, of course. It does seem like this is meant to be a prison. Just one that the Guardians could leave whenever they wanted to," Tarble said, crossing his arms. "And it would seem that we have not gone unnoticed."
Initially, Kara had no idea what he meant by that, only for a portal to open before them. It looked like a drop of blood at first that quickly spiraled and grew into a portal large enough a man could step through it. Kara expected a Red Lantern to step through the portal, but it wasn't.
Hal Jordan no longer looked like himself, Kara thought, taking the Green Lantern's appearance in. His entire body was green and faintly translucent while still retaining the shape of a human, but it was as if the details were being smoothed away. The emblem for the Green Lanterns shine in his eyes, glowing brightly while wisps of green willpower wafted off of his body that seemed to be dressed in the Green Lantern uniform, but it was hard to tell.
Tarble seemed unsurprised by Hal Jordan's appearance. "Jordan," Tarble greeted, his tone flat and unkind.
"Tarble," Hal intoned, his voice humming with power.
There was a brief moment of tension between the two as they gazed at one another. That moment of tension only did last for a moment before Hal moved, blasting past her to punch Tarble in the face and send him flying through the ship that they came on.
And, like that, the battle was on.
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
"No," Tarble answered, striding forward with a sense of purpose through the ship's halls. "Hal would take great care to keep a close eye on my preferred methods of faster than light travel. Using the Wink drive, or slipstream would be an announcement that we are coming."
"And… that is… bad, yes?" Kori questioned, floating down the halls with Raven and Robin trailing behind the three of them.
"Very," Tarble answered, his tone curt. "We'll use another more common method of extreme speed. It will take us some time to arrive at the center of the galaxy, but as we near, we will engage stealth tech. We should arrive completely unnoticed." Kara hadn't really thought that Tarble had it in him to do a stealth mission. He struck her as far too direct. She supposed that's why Robin was here. If the bat family was good for one thing, then it was finding their way into places that they shouldn't be.
Kara deactivated her X-Ray vision and looked to Tarble as he led them into a living quarters. "How long should the trip take?" She asked, curious. Spaceflight was something that Krypton had discovered more than a thousand years ago, but it was a technology that was expunged from records. Their ships could work within Krypton's heavy gravity, but they couldn't make it to space.
In her time on Earth, Kara realized how isolationist her people had been. Once, there had been a Kryptonian empire that stretched across the stars, and for some reason, her people chose to give up that empire and retreat to their home planet, recalling every Kryptonian to live there. It was something that Kara had grown up with accepting, but in her years away from her culture, she could see how odd the decision was.
"A day there, a day back. Theoretically," Tarble answered. That answer didn't inspire a lot of confidence.
"Theoretically?" Raven echoed while Kori threw herself into a couch and sighed in contentment. Kara was tempted to do the same. The living quarters were clearly designed with earthlings in mind, but it was a poor imitation. Uncanny, really. The furniture was clearly made by alien hands that seemed to take a look at a human living room, and tried to copy it while also stuffing in traditional amenities such as hologram projections.
Tarble came to a stop, glancing back at Raven and seemed pensive. "Hal Jordan doesn't like me very much."
"I gathered," Kara remarked, cocking an eyebrow. The TV shows and movies and dramatizations had made the rivalry between Hal and Tarble extremely clear. She was glad to see that it hadn't been fabricated for the sake of views, but it did mean that Tarble was confronting someone whose friends he had killed a number of. Kara herself didn't know Hal Jordan -- she only arrived on Earth a handful of years ago, and by that time, Hal hadn't been earthside in years.
Kal-El only had good things to say about him and, as a Green Lantern, she knew he had to be a stubborn but good man. But, if the shows could be believed, then Earth's first official Green Lantern had fallen on hard times and he had had a harder fall from grace. He led a rebellion against the Guardians, imprisoning them for their many misdeeds over billions of years, and now led the New Lanterns. Which seemed to just be the Green Lanterns, but way more colorful.
"Things are going to get complicated. They always are when the Guardians are involved. Depending on the information I receive, the trip could be extended. If you wish to return, then you may at any time," Tarble offered, but Kara shook her head. Tarble's gaze slid to Raven, who nodded knowingly.
"Then we should go," Robin voiced, and Tarble offered a nod. Kara could hear the hum of the ship's engines as it left idle. Her gaze went to the window at the living room to see the stars of space begin to shift as the ship left its place at the tip of the space elevator. She floated over while Tarble and Raven spoke quietly to one another and Kara did her best to ignore the conversation.
One would think after spending two decades in space that she'd hate it, but Kara had been asleep during that time. In stasis. As far as she remembered, one moment she was entering the pod after saying goodbye to her family for the last time, and the next she was waking up to see a fully grown man with the emblem of house El on his chest. Before that, though, space had fascinated Kara. It was a forbidden realm to the Kryptonians, a place that they could never go by order of the government. The Phantom Zone was the punishment awaiting those that tried anyway.
The most recent example Kara remembered was General Zod and his people.
The ship hovered in zero gravity and after a brief pause the stars became lines of burning illumination, as the ship lurched into motion faster than the light given off by the flames that made them up, whisking them away on a journey to the center of the galaxy.
"Oh, my!" Kara heard Kori exclaim, sounding delighted. Kara turned around to see that she was fiddling with the hologram projector. Another thing she had missed -- technology. Earth was so incredibly primitive in comparison. It wasn't their fault, not really. Krypton had gone through a similar history of rapidly advancing technology but not quite being able to use it to its full potential. However, Kara hadn't grown up in that age. She grew up in a time of modern miracles being mundane by Earth standards.
Joining Tarble's Empire -- and Kara still couldn't believe it was just called 'Tarble's Empire -- helped some, but transition was far too recent for the effects to have set in yet. Cleaning the oceans of microscopic plastic and trash was good, but most people didn't feel the change of having a cleaner ocean. The novelty of more advanced technology hadn't worn off for most. Though, there were many humans that were hesitant on what the technology would mean for their way of life.
It would likely be decades before Earth embraced the technology at all levels. Like they had on Krypton. It wasn't a happy thought -- she liked Earth for the most part, mostly because of the people, but there were planets she came across during her exploration of the empire with the rest of the Titans that made her feel like she was standing on her own home planet once again.
"Oh, wow," Robin remarked, sounding amused as the three of them looked at the hologram. A broadcast from the Trade Organization.
"I did wonder if they would keep making shows," Kara added, watching the teaser for a new show about King Tarble: The Traitor. The teaser was short but it sent a very clear message that Tarble was the bad guy of the show and he was going to be defeated by a squad called the Ginyu Force. The show actually looked pretty good, all things considered. High production value.
"Can't be a surprise that they'd be less than happy with him after he stole a huge chunk of their territory," Robin continued. Kara agreed with that.
"Let's hope that bad-mouthing him is all they'll do," Kara voiced. She still remembered the broadcast that declared Tarble's Empire as its own independent force -- the vow that Tarble broadcasted across the galaxy. That if they provoked him that he would come for them and he would wipe them out of existence. That had been a few months ago. Kara highly doubted that he experienced such a radical change in nature that he would break that promise if it came down to it. "And speaking of bad-mouthing… what happened on Themyscira?"
Robin caught her look while Kori seemed interested. He crossed his arms, "Why would you think something bad happened?" He asked, his tone guarded, more or less confirming something bad did happen.
"Because Elery wouldn't tell me what happened," Kara admitted. She was fond of the younger Saiyan. She was just so… direct. Straight forward. She knew exactly what she wanted and wasn't afraid to pursue it -- no matter how dangerous or how it might inconvenience other people. That desire in question was to grow stronger and fight greater fights.
Kara could admit that if she were a less durable species, that attitude wouldn't exactly inspire the fond amusement that she felt for Elery, but she was a Kryptonian under a yellow sun. She wasn't a member of a less durable species. Because of that, she and Elery stayed in touch after they spent a month exploring the Empire and Elery, Kara learned, couldn't keep a secret unless directly told to by her older brother.
"What makes you think I know anything about what happened?" Robin questioned, crossing his arms over his chest, getting defensive.
"Because your curiosity always gets the better of your caution and you would want to know what happened as much as me," Kara responded sweetly, a smile tugging at her lips when Robin scowled. He might disagree, but she imagined it was difficult when he did know what happened when he wasn't supposed to.
A sigh escaped him, "I don't know all the details…" He started, spilling the beans in a low whisper, "but according to Wonder Woman, Ares showed up to pick a fight with Tarble. They did fight and Ares lost. But the Queen of the Amazons saw that the island got wrecked the one time she invited outsiders and gave Superman and Tarble the boot." Robin informed them both, and she and Kori had very different reactions.
Tarble was getting stronger and he was getting stronger fast. He was fighting gods now? And winning?
"I'm overjoyed that King Tarble was able to fight off the accursed Ares! Wonder Girl has no kind words to say about him," Kori declared. Robin offered a shrug at them both, pinning them with a sharp look.
"Don't jump to conclusions about this, okay? We've been burned because of it before," he pointed out, but the words mostly seemed directed at himself. He still felt guilty for how Tarble was received. Kara thought he was being a bit ridiculous about it -- it wasn't like Batman didn't expect his Robins to hack into the Batcomputer -- so blaming himself for acting on the information that he had felt a bit much. "If you're that curious, then ask him."
"Though," Robin quickly shifted courses, looking to Kara. "I'm surprised you decided to come with. Miss space that badly?"
It was Kara's turn to cross her arms over her chest, blocking the shielded S from view. It wasn't exactly a secret, per se. She had her own reasons for coming on this trip to confront the Guardians. "Elery told me that the Guardians of the Universe meddled with the Saiyan race according to her brother," she started, catching both Kori and Robin's attention. "Basically, every time their race wipes themselves out, the Guardians bring them back. They're the ones that made stuff like the Super Saiyan or Oozaru transformations."
How? Kara wasn't really sure. She didn't specialize in genetics. However, it if was possible to do whatever was done to the Saiyan race, then it would be the Guardians that could do it.
"The Saiyans weren't the only ones they meddled with. The Martians were too," Kara began, a frown finding its way onto her face. "My people once had an empire, Robin. We had colonies in other galaxies. Then, one day, we decided to abandon them. My ancestors decided to retreat back to our home planet underneath the one sun that wouldn't affect us."
Kara had started experimenting with what other wavelengths of sunlight would do to a Kryptonian. Some were dangerous while some would radically improve her already incredible abilities. She knew because that information had been there in the Fortress of Solitude.
"My people knew about it. They studied the effects other suns would have on our bodies, but a rapidly expanding empire just up and decided to return to our home planet under a sun that depowered us," Kara spoke and she could see the expressions on Kori and Robin's faces, telling her that she wasn't the only one he saw how senseless that was. "We scrapped any vehicle capable of spaceflight and refused to leave Krypton, choosing to mine our planet's core for energy because we expended every other resource on the surface."
That's what destroyed her home and sentenced her and Kal-El to be the last Kryptonians in existence. And it just didn't make any sense.
"What are you going to do if the Guardians tampered with your race?" Robin asked her, sympathy in his voice. He believed her. So did Kori. She had approached the topic with Kal-El, but he… he didn't know Krypton. He only knew of it through the AI modeled after his father and her stories. In his own mind, he was an earthling even if he wasn't human. The destruction of their people and planet were of a people and planet he never knew or met.
It was different for Kara. She grew up on Krypton. Even if she spent a hundred years on Earth, she would never be an earthling.
"If they did," Kara began, anger leaking into her voice. Her hands clenched into fists, her knuckles white. "Then they're the reason for the near extinction of my entire race," Kara told them both quietly. She didn't know what she would do, but Kara knew herself well enough to suspect that her response would be violent.
After that, they all settled in an uneasy silence aboard the ship. Kara went off on her own to explore it without needing to use her X-Ray vision to find that the ship itself was rather large. Large enough that it could easily house a hundred people, but it was just the five of them. It was complete with a mess hall, common rooms, and so on.
The others saw more of Tarble than she did. Raven was frequently with him and Kara was really starting to wonder about those two. A lot of private talks with Raven making sure she couldn't listen in on them. Kori treated him like he was a member of the Titans, but she was friendly to everyone. Robin was a bit more formal as they discussed plans to improve the quality of life for his empire.
An empire that looked more and more like it was expecting heroes to be a part of its future. It was an interesting clash -- Kara had yet to forgive Tarble for beating her cousin, especially with using a dirty trick, but she very much liked the idea of traversing his empire and stopping crime. It wasn't what she thought her future would look like, but that just went to show you should never have expectations.
If Tarble noticed that she was avoiding him, then he didn't care to comment on it as they spent a full day upon the ship. Kara's attempts to relax or distract herself so time would speed up were fruitless because her mind was stuck on what she would do when she confronted the Guardians. Or the Green Lanterns for that matter. Krypton was in a Green Lantern sector. They should have known that Krypton was unstable. If a Green Lantern told them that the entire planet was at risk of imploding…
Maybe it would have changed nothing. Maybe it would have changed everything. Kara would never know.
The days dragged on, feeling like years before they finally reached their destination. Kara looked through a window to see that it was a drab gray rock, almost completely uniform in color. There did seem to be some mountains and valleys, and a massive crater that made it clear something had struck the planet itself. According to the computer as they punched through the atmosphere, the air was breathable to her and Kori, but Robin and Raven would need masks.
Stepping onto a new planet was a thrill that Kara didn't think would ever get old, she relished the experience as she floated out of the ship upon landing. The planet felt like it was made out of the same substance as the moon -- mostly soft rock and dust. There was no sun in the sky as the celestial body was locked in position between two black holes that could be seen in the perpetual night sky. It was little wonder that the place was basically just a giant rock. It was a shock that it had an atmosphere at all.
"Here we are," Kara said, her hands on her hips. "Now what?"
Tarble frowned as he looked at something far off in the distance. According to Elery, Tarble always seemed to know where everyone was when he was planetside. And, so far, Kara had seen only evidence to support the theory. "I thought I would have to confront Hal Jordan to let me see the Guardians, but the fool led me right to them," Tarble said, striding out of the ship that went invisible the moment all of them left it. Stealth functions.
Kara's eyebrows rose at that. The Guardians were here? On this rock? "Where?" She asked, her tone harsher than she intended. Tarble spared her a glance, as if realizing that she was going to be a problem and she had her own reasons for meeting the Guardians.
"The center of the planet," Tarble informed. "Under guard, of course. It does seem like this is meant to be a prison. Just one that the Guardians could leave whenever they wanted to," Tarble said, crossing his arms. "And it would seem that we have not gone unnoticed."
Initially, Kara had no idea what he meant by that, only for a portal to open before them. It looked like a drop of blood at first that quickly spiraled and grew into a portal large enough a man could step through it. Kara expected a Red Lantern to step through the portal, but it wasn't.
Hal Jordan no longer looked like himself, Kara thought, taking the Green Lantern's appearance in. His entire body was green and faintly translucent while still retaining the shape of a human, but it was as if the details were being smoothed away. The emblem for the Green Lanterns shine in his eyes, glowing brightly while wisps of green willpower wafted off of his body that seemed to be dressed in the Green Lantern uniform, but it was hard to tell.
Tarble seemed unsurprised by Hal Jordan's appearance. "Jordan," Tarble greeted, his tone flat and unkind.
"Tarble," Hal intoned, his voice humming with power.
There was a brief moment of tension between the two as they gazed at one another. That moment of tension only did last for a moment before Hal moved, blasting past her to punch Tarble in the face and send him flying through the ship that they came on.
And, like that, the battle was on.
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
That's not as much Jordan as it is Ion.
At least he's not Parallax, though.
At least he's not Parallax, though.