A Saiyan warrior wakes up on final approach to the planet 'Earth' with some extra memories in her head. Rather than carry out her mission, she decides living by her own rules would be much more fun...only to discover that this Earth was not the one she was expecting...
Growing Pains [DBZ/DC]
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Chapter 1
- Location
- USA
AN: Welp, guess this is migrating out of my snippet thread
Growing Pains - Chapter 1
It was a fairly normal Tuesday for the people of Metropolis. Or rather what had rapidly become normal after the sudden debut of a man that could fly through the air unassisted, catch bullets, and lift an airplane on his own a couple of years ago.
Since then Superman had become a relatively common sight to the citizens of the 'City of Tomorrow'. Proving that the human race could truly adapt to anything given time. It also helped that the caped 'Man of Steel' had proven friendly and polite to just about everyone, helping with everything from firefighting to catching robbers.
The small spherical spaceship crash landing in the middle of the street was decidedly less common and sent people running for cover.
When nothing happened for a few minutes, the braver (or more foolish) in the crowd risked getting a better look at the crater and the ship inside of it. The spaceship was rather oddly designed. Perfectly round with no visible means of propulsion and only a few lines where the door appeared to be and an opaque purple pane of glass for a window.
It was also rather small. It barely looked big enough to fit a single adult.
The growing number of spectators flinched back when a hiss of air signaled the ship was opening to reveal…a young child looking curiously around her surroundings.
She obviously wasn't human. The fuzzy brown tail twitching behind her proved that and no one had hair quite that spikey or gravity defying naturally, but the rest of her looked shockingly similar to a human girl around twelve years old.
Her appearance - and the lack of instant hostility - prompted one of the bystanders to call out to her.
"Excuse me, are you alright? Do you need help?"
The girl startled like she hadn't noticed the people gathering to stare at her and blushed heavily.
"Oh right - the natives!" She quickly darted back inside her ship and rummaged around until she reappeared with a sheaf of what looked like paper.
"Ahem," She coughed into her fist and started reading. "Greetings people of E-arth. I am Califa, and I will be conquering your planet today in the name of the Saiyan race unless you can produce a champion to defeat me. If you cannot then resistance is fu…fu…hmm, Ah! Resistance is futile and I will accept the surrender of your leaders now."
She looked around at the stunned faces of the bystanders and smiled widely and innocently. "Did you get all that?"
Silence stretched for a few seconds before a police officer in the crowd decided to act. He strode forward and pulled his gun before hesitantly pointing it at the young looking girl. Declaration of conquest aside, she still looked like a kid.
"Get on the ground now!"
"Oh there's already a champion here? Lucky me!" the girl chirped and raised a hand. Faster than the cop could react, an orb of yellow energy formed in her hand and shot forward. It slammed into his handgun and turned the entire thing into a useless mass of molten metal he needed to throw to the ground to avoid getting burned.
Everyone looked from the ruined gun back to the alien girl and then back to the gun.
Then the screaming started.
-o-
[Sometime before, in Earth atmosphere]
Waking up in an Attack Ball after a mental download wasn't an experience I thought I'd ever deal with and it certainly wasn't one I'd recommend. Brains just weren't meant to handle that much new information that fast or at least mine wasn't.
It didn't help that most of the information…I just didn't care about.
Yeah, knowing my new name and race was useful but I didn't need to know about her childhood or how her father sent her on mission after mission alone fully expecting her to die at some point because old-me didn't meet his expectations. I certainly wasn't going to go back to that abusive asshole.
So the first plan after finding out I was an anime character was to hide out on Earth, get strong enough that I could do what I wanted, and then just…go exploring.
Seriously, Earth was boring. Even DBZ Earth despite the animal people, cyborgs, and random future tech, because outside of the handful of beings like Cell or Buu…nothing really happened there.
That changed when I started scanning radio waves looking to see what music was like on the way to my new home and found a talk show being hosted by someone called Vikky Vale.
I didn't care about her, but I did care about what her topic was.
She was going on about how the appearance of Superheroes like Superman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman were affecting the world and what it could mean for the future.
That meant I wasn't in the DBZ-verse! Mashup-verse? Who cares!
That meant I didn't need to bother with Frieza! Let the space-cop Green Lanterns deal with him!
Aww, that meant Piccolo probably wasn't around. I wanted to meet the grumpy green slug-man.
It also meant Earth was going to be infinitely more interesting than what I was expecting with at the very least Themyscira and probably Atlantis to explore. And it meant a bunch of people I could fight against that could actually push a Saiyan pretty far!
Too bad the strongest of them were heroes and probably wouldn't fight me for real because they were heroes…
…Unless I was a villain.
A plan started coming together in my mind and I didn't bother hiding the grin stretched across my face as the alert for final approach beeped in my pod.
-o-
Metropolis was a really pretty city, I noticed. All the cities I remembered had at least some kind of trash in a corner somewhere, but I didn't see anything like that here. That, and the bright tan stone and glass buildings made the entire place feel bright.
I also managed to catch my reflection in one of the windows, spiky black hair that hung around my shoulders except for a few locks that stuck upward, black bodysuit covered by white armor thankfully without the stupid shoulder pauldron thingies, and rather cute. Even if I didn't like suddenly being a kid. I would grow though, so that was fine.
"Excuse me, are you alright? Do you need help?"
A voice suddenly broke me out of my thoughts and I could feel my face heating up. I completely forgot about the people watching me!
Thankfully, I already had a plan.
"Oh right - the natives!" I quickly went back to the Attack Ball and dug around for the troubleshooting manual - not that the people around me would know that - and made my way back and gave my 'I'm here to conquer you' speech, deliberately flubbing a few words to make it seem like I really was as young as I looked.
I wanted to fight the heroes a bunch, and having them not hold back or lock me in a hole somewhere meant I wouldn't be able to do that as often. So I planned to be a reoccurring villain that popped up constantly, but wasn't that big of a deal as long as I got what I wanted.
And since that would mostly just be a fight it should be pretty easy to give.
But I couldn't look like a pushover or they would start ignoring me, so when the cop pointed his gun at me I didn't waste a second before turning it into scrap.
Then the screaming started and people started running for their lives.
Which…was actually kinda annoying given my new, more sensitive ears.
I flew around the area a bit, getting used to the fact I could FLY! and idly blasting the guns of the few cops brave enough to stand their ground.
"Don't you have anyone stronger? This is boring!" I called down at the masses and fired a few more weak Ki blasts.
"That's enough! I think you've caused more than enough destruction." a firm voice demanded from…behind me?
I turned and felt my heartbeat speed up at the sight of the man flying there, arms crossed, with a stern expression on his face.
It was Superman! Right in front of me!
A smile of pure happiness split my face.
And I was going to fight him!
Growing Pains - Chapter 1
It was a fairly normal Tuesday for the people of Metropolis. Or rather what had rapidly become normal after the sudden debut of a man that could fly through the air unassisted, catch bullets, and lift an airplane on his own a couple of years ago.
Since then Superman had become a relatively common sight to the citizens of the 'City of Tomorrow'. Proving that the human race could truly adapt to anything given time. It also helped that the caped 'Man of Steel' had proven friendly and polite to just about everyone, helping with everything from firefighting to catching robbers.
The small spherical spaceship crash landing in the middle of the street was decidedly less common and sent people running for cover.
When nothing happened for a few minutes, the braver (or more foolish) in the crowd risked getting a better look at the crater and the ship inside of it. The spaceship was rather oddly designed. Perfectly round with no visible means of propulsion and only a few lines where the door appeared to be and an opaque purple pane of glass for a window.
It was also rather small. It barely looked big enough to fit a single adult.
The growing number of spectators flinched back when a hiss of air signaled the ship was opening to reveal…a young child looking curiously around her surroundings.
She obviously wasn't human. The fuzzy brown tail twitching behind her proved that and no one had hair quite that spikey or gravity defying naturally, but the rest of her looked shockingly similar to a human girl around twelve years old.
Her appearance - and the lack of instant hostility - prompted one of the bystanders to call out to her.
"Excuse me, are you alright? Do you need help?"
The girl startled like she hadn't noticed the people gathering to stare at her and blushed heavily.
"Oh right - the natives!" She quickly darted back inside her ship and rummaged around until she reappeared with a sheaf of what looked like paper.
"Ahem," She coughed into her fist and started reading. "Greetings people of E-arth. I am Califa, and I will be conquering your planet today in the name of the Saiyan race unless you can produce a champion to defeat me. If you cannot then resistance is fu…fu…hmm, Ah! Resistance is futile and I will accept the surrender of your leaders now."
She looked around at the stunned faces of the bystanders and smiled widely and innocently. "Did you get all that?"
Silence stretched for a few seconds before a police officer in the crowd decided to act. He strode forward and pulled his gun before hesitantly pointing it at the young looking girl. Declaration of conquest aside, she still looked like a kid.
"Get on the ground now!"
"Oh there's already a champion here? Lucky me!" the girl chirped and raised a hand. Faster than the cop could react, an orb of yellow energy formed in her hand and shot forward. It slammed into his handgun and turned the entire thing into a useless mass of molten metal he needed to throw to the ground to avoid getting burned.
Everyone looked from the ruined gun back to the alien girl and then back to the gun.
Then the screaming started.
-o-
[Sometime before, in Earth atmosphere]
Waking up in an Attack Ball after a mental download wasn't an experience I thought I'd ever deal with and it certainly wasn't one I'd recommend. Brains just weren't meant to handle that much new information that fast or at least mine wasn't.
It didn't help that most of the information…I just didn't care about.
Yeah, knowing my new name and race was useful but I didn't need to know about her childhood or how her father sent her on mission after mission alone fully expecting her to die at some point because old-me didn't meet his expectations. I certainly wasn't going to go back to that abusive asshole.
So the first plan after finding out I was an anime character was to hide out on Earth, get strong enough that I could do what I wanted, and then just…go exploring.
Seriously, Earth was boring. Even DBZ Earth despite the animal people, cyborgs, and random future tech, because outside of the handful of beings like Cell or Buu…nothing really happened there.
That changed when I started scanning radio waves looking to see what music was like on the way to my new home and found a talk show being hosted by someone called Vikky Vale.
I didn't care about her, but I did care about what her topic was.
She was going on about how the appearance of Superheroes like Superman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman were affecting the world and what it could mean for the future.
That meant I wasn't in the DBZ-verse! Mashup-verse? Who cares!
That meant I didn't need to bother with Frieza! Let the space-cop Green Lanterns deal with him!
Aww, that meant Piccolo probably wasn't around. I wanted to meet the grumpy green slug-man.
It also meant Earth was going to be infinitely more interesting than what I was expecting with at the very least Themyscira and probably Atlantis to explore. And it meant a bunch of people I could fight against that could actually push a Saiyan pretty far!
Too bad the strongest of them were heroes and probably wouldn't fight me for real because they were heroes…
…Unless I was a villain.
A plan started coming together in my mind and I didn't bother hiding the grin stretched across my face as the alert for final approach beeped in my pod.
-o-
Metropolis was a really pretty city, I noticed. All the cities I remembered had at least some kind of trash in a corner somewhere, but I didn't see anything like that here. That, and the bright tan stone and glass buildings made the entire place feel bright.
I also managed to catch my reflection in one of the windows, spiky black hair that hung around my shoulders except for a few locks that stuck upward, black bodysuit covered by white armor thankfully without the stupid shoulder pauldron thingies, and rather cute. Even if I didn't like suddenly being a kid. I would grow though, so that was fine.
"Excuse me, are you alright? Do you need help?"
A voice suddenly broke me out of my thoughts and I could feel my face heating up. I completely forgot about the people watching me!
Thankfully, I already had a plan.
"Oh right - the natives!" I quickly went back to the Attack Ball and dug around for the troubleshooting manual - not that the people around me would know that - and made my way back and gave my 'I'm here to conquer you' speech, deliberately flubbing a few words to make it seem like I really was as young as I looked.
I wanted to fight the heroes a bunch, and having them not hold back or lock me in a hole somewhere meant I wouldn't be able to do that as often. So I planned to be a reoccurring villain that popped up constantly, but wasn't that big of a deal as long as I got what I wanted.
And since that would mostly just be a fight it should be pretty easy to give.
But I couldn't look like a pushover or they would start ignoring me, so when the cop pointed his gun at me I didn't waste a second before turning it into scrap.
Then the screaming started and people started running for their lives.
Which…was actually kinda annoying given my new, more sensitive ears.
I flew around the area a bit, getting used to the fact I could FLY! and idly blasting the guns of the few cops brave enough to stand their ground.
"Don't you have anyone stronger? This is boring!" I called down at the masses and fired a few more weak Ki blasts.
"That's enough! I think you've caused more than enough destruction." a firm voice demanded from…behind me?
I turned and felt my heartbeat speed up at the sight of the man flying there, arms crossed, with a stern expression on his face.
It was Superman! Right in front of me!
A smile of pure happiness split my face.
And I was going to fight him!
Chapter 2
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 2
Superman - though he really preferred to think of himself as Clark Kent - had seen a lot of different reactions to his arrival since he decided to reveal his powers. Hope, fear, resignation and the like were fairly normal, but it was weird to see pure joy from someone who had been attacking the city moments before.
"Oh hey, you look way stronger than the other guys…and you can fly too! That's great!" The young alien chirped, making Superman wish he could talk her down somehow. Fighting children didn't exactly sit right with him, so if this could be resolved peacefully…
"Who are you and why are you attacking the city?"
"Oh, did you not hear? I'm Califa and I'm here to take over the planet!"
Take over the…was she serious?
"So you're gonna have to beat me if you wanna stop me!"
The tailed child suddenly flew forward and punched him in the face, sending him flying backward. Superman winced at the hit and quickly stopped his momentum before he ended up going through a building.
Contrary to popular belief he did feel it whenever someone hit him -at least a little- it just usually never did anything to him.
He was also glad that the child, Califa, had only used those orbs on everyone else. That punch would have done some real damage to a normal human.
-o-
I just punched Superman.
I JUST PUNCHED SUPERMAN!
Oh it did absolutely nothing and I wasn't holding back so I knew I was screwed, but I didn't care. This was like getting the chance to fight Muhammad Ali, or George Foreman, or Mike Tyson in their prime. Even though I knew I was going to lose, just the opportunity was enough for this to be the best moment of my life!
I was also so distracted by my thoughts I failed to follow up after that one hit I almost missed Superman flying back towards me. Weird, I would have thought my Ki sense would have…Ki sense wasn't a natural Saiyan ability.
My eyes widened as I remembered that.
Huh, wonder how I'd go about learning how to - thoughts for later. Superman was back.
"You're kinda tough huh?" I pretended like I didn't know he was a Kryptonian, no need for awkward questions later.
"Just a little." The Man of Steel replied. "Any chance we can talk this out? Come to an agreement?"
Bleh, I knew my physical age would make him hesitate but I didn't want to just float around talking. So I was going to move this along a tiny bit…
"Sure! You have to beat me first though!" Then I blasted him in the chest with a solid beam of Ki.
That did about as much damage as me punching him (meaning none at all) but it did send him rocketing out of the city where I followed as fast as I could. No need to trash the city during my introduction after all.
I caught up to him just when he was recovering and punched him again, straight into the ground.
Superman ended up in a crater while I just hovered overhead. I still couldn't keep the smile off my face. Flying, superstrength, and shooting lasers from my hands? That was just way too cool, and an opponent I could give it my all against and not worry about hurting? I couldn't ask for a better introduction to my new abilities.
A blue and red blur burst out of the crater and a completely unharmed, if slightly dirtier, Superman was suddenly in front of me still wearing a stern expression.
I didn't want him talking more so I flew forward with the intent to punch him in the face, but he caught my fist before it hit like I was a normal human twelve-year-old. Then he caught the second one just as easily.
"I think that's enough of that. I beat you, so let's have that talk now."
"You didn't beat me!" I immediately protested. "You didn't even hit me once!"
He raised an eyebrow and pointedly wiggled my still captured hands. "I didn't need to hit you to beat you and I'm not going to fight someone that, despite causing a panic, hasn't really hurt anybody. Now then, who sent you and why just you?"
Internally I was fuming. This was how my first fight was going to end? A few good strikes and then captured like some little kid? No way. So I did something Superman wasn't expecting at all.
I poked him in the eye with my tail.
He reeled back enough that I was able to bring my foot up and kick him in the jaw, both freeing me and putting a little distance between us.
"Fine…if you aren't going to fight me then I'll just have to wreck a few buildings until someone who will fight shows up." With those parting words I turned back towards the city. I wasn't actually planning on wrecking the place. Maybe blow up a few decorative bits, get Superman to take me seriously, then take things from there. But I didn't even get that far.
Instead I barely heard Superman mutter behind me. "Ma always said you had to have a firm hand with children…"
Huh, wonder what that was abou-
*SMACK*
"AIEYEEP!!" Iyelped howled in outrage.
He…He just…He SPANKED ME!
"Do you give up?"
I turned to face him with fire in my eyes. "No, I don't give up! I'm going to-" He vanished in a blur.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I flew at him ready to pound him so far into the ground they could use it as a well.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I shot Ki blasts everywhere I thought he would move.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I mined the area with tiny orbs of Ki ready to explode at the slightest touch.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I erupted in an omnidirectional surge of Ki that reduced everything around me to rubble.
*SMACK*
*SMACK*
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I…I tried flying away as fast as I could.
*SMACK*
"I GIVE UP ALREADY!" Icried screamed, tears flowing out of my eyes and holding onto my butt.
Superman appeared in front of me again, this time looking at me with something like sympathy and regret in his eyes. Something told me he had gone through something like this before and didn't like that he was forced to do the same.
That look reignited the fire inside me.
He ruined my first fight, spanked me like some misbehaving child, and now he felt bad about it?!
"Now that we got that out of the way, I have some questions and you are going to answer them young lady." he said firmly. "Do you want to answer them here or do you want to land on the ground first?"
I answered that the best way I knew how. I reared one leg back…
…Then I kicked him in the balls as hard as I could before sticking my tongue out and flying away.
"This isn't over! I'm gonna get way stronger and then I'm gonna beat you up!" I promised as I flew into the distance.
Superman didn't say anything. He just remained hunched over midair holding himself, but I figured he heard me anyway.
Superman - though he really preferred to think of himself as Clark Kent - had seen a lot of different reactions to his arrival since he decided to reveal his powers. Hope, fear, resignation and the like were fairly normal, but it was weird to see pure joy from someone who had been attacking the city moments before.
"Oh hey, you look way stronger than the other guys…and you can fly too! That's great!" The young alien chirped, making Superman wish he could talk her down somehow. Fighting children didn't exactly sit right with him, so if this could be resolved peacefully…
"Who are you and why are you attacking the city?"
"Oh, did you not hear? I'm Califa and I'm here to take over the planet!"
Take over the…was she serious?
"So you're gonna have to beat me if you wanna stop me!"
The tailed child suddenly flew forward and punched him in the face, sending him flying backward. Superman winced at the hit and quickly stopped his momentum before he ended up going through a building.
Contrary to popular belief he did feel it whenever someone hit him -at least a little- it just usually never did anything to him.
He was also glad that the child, Califa, had only used those orbs on everyone else. That punch would have done some real damage to a normal human.
-o-
I just punched Superman.
I JUST PUNCHED SUPERMAN!
Oh it did absolutely nothing and I wasn't holding back so I knew I was screwed, but I didn't care. This was like getting the chance to fight Muhammad Ali, or George Foreman, or Mike Tyson in their prime. Even though I knew I was going to lose, just the opportunity was enough for this to be the best moment of my life!
I was also so distracted by my thoughts I failed to follow up after that one hit I almost missed Superman flying back towards me. Weird, I would have thought my Ki sense would have…Ki sense wasn't a natural Saiyan ability.
My eyes widened as I remembered that.
Huh, wonder how I'd go about learning how to - thoughts for later. Superman was back.
"You're kinda tough huh?" I pretended like I didn't know he was a Kryptonian, no need for awkward questions later.
"Just a little." The Man of Steel replied. "Any chance we can talk this out? Come to an agreement?"
Bleh, I knew my physical age would make him hesitate but I didn't want to just float around talking. So I was going to move this along a tiny bit…
"Sure! You have to beat me first though!" Then I blasted him in the chest with a solid beam of Ki.
That did about as much damage as me punching him (meaning none at all) but it did send him rocketing out of the city where I followed as fast as I could. No need to trash the city during my introduction after all.
I caught up to him just when he was recovering and punched him again, straight into the ground.
Superman ended up in a crater while I just hovered overhead. I still couldn't keep the smile off my face. Flying, superstrength, and shooting lasers from my hands? That was just way too cool, and an opponent I could give it my all against and not worry about hurting? I couldn't ask for a better introduction to my new abilities.
A blue and red blur burst out of the crater and a completely unharmed, if slightly dirtier, Superman was suddenly in front of me still wearing a stern expression.
I didn't want him talking more so I flew forward with the intent to punch him in the face, but he caught my fist before it hit like I was a normal human twelve-year-old. Then he caught the second one just as easily.
"I think that's enough of that. I beat you, so let's have that talk now."
"You didn't beat me!" I immediately protested. "You didn't even hit me once!"
He raised an eyebrow and pointedly wiggled my still captured hands. "I didn't need to hit you to beat you and I'm not going to fight someone that, despite causing a panic, hasn't really hurt anybody. Now then, who sent you and why just you?"
Internally I was fuming. This was how my first fight was going to end? A few good strikes and then captured like some little kid? No way. So I did something Superman wasn't expecting at all.
I poked him in the eye with my tail.
He reeled back enough that I was able to bring my foot up and kick him in the jaw, both freeing me and putting a little distance between us.
"Fine…if you aren't going to fight me then I'll just have to wreck a few buildings until someone who will fight shows up." With those parting words I turned back towards the city. I wasn't actually planning on wrecking the place. Maybe blow up a few decorative bits, get Superman to take me seriously, then take things from there. But I didn't even get that far.
Instead I barely heard Superman mutter behind me. "Ma always said you had to have a firm hand with children…"
Huh, wonder what that was abou-
*SMACK*
"AIEYEEP!!" I
He…He just…He SPANKED ME!
"Do you give up?"
I turned to face him with fire in my eyes. "No, I don't give up! I'm going to-" He vanished in a blur.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I flew at him ready to pound him so far into the ground they could use it as a well.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I shot Ki blasts everywhere I thought he would move.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I mined the area with tiny orbs of Ki ready to explode at the slightest touch.
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I erupted in an omnidirectional surge of Ki that reduced everything around me to rubble.
*SMACK*
*SMACK*
*SMACK*
"Do you give up?"
I…I tried flying away as fast as I could.
*SMACK*
"I GIVE UP ALREADY!" I
Superman appeared in front of me again, this time looking at me with something like sympathy and regret in his eyes. Something told me he had gone through something like this before and didn't like that he was forced to do the same.
That look reignited the fire inside me.
He ruined my first fight, spanked me like some misbehaving child, and now he felt bad about it?!
"Now that we got that out of the way, I have some questions and you are going to answer them young lady." he said firmly. "Do you want to answer them here or do you want to land on the ground first?"
I answered that the best way I knew how. I reared one leg back…
…Then I kicked him in the balls as hard as I could before sticking my tongue out and flying away.
"This isn't over! I'm gonna get way stronger and then I'm gonna beat you up!" I promised as I flew into the distance.
Superman didn't say anything. He just remained hunched over midair holding himself, but I figured he heard me anyway.
Chapter 3
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 3
Lightning cracked through the sky as rain poured down steadily, providing the perfect backdrop for my nightly activity. One that any aspiring supervillain would treat with utmost seriousness.
Plotting how to beat their nemesis.
Superman had revealed himself to not be the paragon of truth and justice he pretended to be during our fight.
No, instead he was some kind of spank-happy sadist hiding behind the mask of a hero.
Clearly I had landed in one of those bizzaro universes where Superman was secretly evil and it was up to me to take him down! I blinked as I realized I had gotten a bit excited and then sat back down to continue cooking dinner in my newfound supervillain lair.
Okay, it was a random cave I had found and moved into but it was a start. Thankfully my Attack Ball had included a remote that allowed it to autopilot to my location so I wasn't forced to sleep on the floor even if it meant everything else was just rocks repurposed into furniture and my stove was a campfire.
It was still fun though. Camping is waaaay better when you are tough enough to ignore small sticks and stones poking you constantly.
I shook my head. Enough getting distracted. I needed to think of a way to beat up the big blue bully. The problem was, Superman was just too fast for me right now. I had gotten lucky with mycheap shot sneak attack, but otherwise nothing I had tried got close. I hadn't managed to figure out Ki sense on my own yet either.
So I needed to get faster or get better at hitting things.
I thought about the heroes I could potentially train against.
The Flash was slower than Superman, right?
-o-
Central City was…fine I guess.
After Metropolis I had kinda hoped that all the new cities I checked out would be cool and interesting. Gotham was probably going to be filthy but it at least had a cool aesthetic. But from what I saw of Central City so far was that it was…normal.
At least the Flash museum would be pretty neat. Was that built yet? Probably not, everyone seemed pretty new.
Meh.
I kinda just wandered down the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the Flash, but I wasn't getting much luck. So I tried multitasking by practicing sensing other people's ki.
I wasn't having much luck with that either.
"Whoa, watch yourself kid!" A hand stopped me from walking forward just as a car passed by in the street.
Had I been zoning out that much? Oops.
"You gotta be careful crossing the street." the man who stopped me continued. "And where are your parents? Central is pretty safe but kids shouldn't be walking around by themselves."
Did my entrance not make the news? An alien spaceship attacked Metropolis, I should be famous!
Although come to think about it, I didn't see a bunch of cameras around when I showed up. Maybe they didn't have a good picture of me?
"I can take care of myself." I told the man. "Besides, I'm here looking for someone."
"Oh, going to a costume party? It's a really cool outfit. The tail looks pretty real too."
"My tail IS real." I waved the thing at him for emphasis. "And I said I'm looking for a person not a party."
We were starting to draw attention. Pedestrians were whispering between themselves and pointing. While I didn't mind it at first, the longer it went on, the more annoying it got.
*CRASH*
Oh hey look a distraction!
The sound of something large crumbling to rubble grabbed everyone's attention and I felt it was a perfect excuse to leave.
"I'm gonna - well, that's just rude." the man I had been talking to vanished before I could ditch him!
Ignoring that I lifted off the ground and started floating towards the sound from earlier.
Good news is I found the Flash. Too bad he was fighting that ice villain of his. Shoot, what was his name? Commander Chill? Private Popsical? Something like that.
Anyway, the villain had just robbed a jewelry store and had frozen then shattered a wall during his escape. Now he was taunting the Flash while blasting the ground around him with some kind of frost gun, causing Flash to slide right past him when he tried getting close.
It was neat to see a real superhero fight but I wanted to start training soon, so when Flash slammed into a nearby parked car I floated over until I was in front of him.
"Hi there, I'm Califa! I need you to help me."
The speedster seemed surprised and kept looking between me and checking up on the villain. "Ah, sure mysterious floating monkey kid. But I'm a little busy right now and it's dangerous, so why don't we talk once I take care of Captain Cold there?"
So THAT was his name! I knew I was close.
"Hiding behind kids now, Flash? Not very 'heroic' of you." the ice villain taunted while twirling his cold gun.
"I'm not hid-!"
"Look, can we wrap this up already? I've got things to do." I interrupted Flash. "So just give up already so we can get going."
"..." I think I might have made Captain Cold a bit angry. "You know what? I don't want to deal with some random superpowered kid so why don't you cool off in timeout for now."
The next thing I knew, I was suddenly covered in some kinda weird ice.
Weird because, yeah it was cold, but I could breathe through it? I don't think you can breathe through normal ice.
Still, Captain Cold had trapped me in about an inch of ice so that meant he attacked me. And that meant he was fair game.
I focused my Ki and exploded it outward, shattering the ice and freeing me to both Flash and Captain Cold's surprise.
"My turn!"
I pitched a sphere of Ki into the ice villain's chest hard enough to knock him off his feet and into a parked car. If the Ki orb didn't knock him out of the fight, the cracked ribs from denting the vehicle's doors probably would. He would be fine though. It was only a few bones at most.
"Okay, now you have to help me!" I ordered Flash, grabbing him by the wrist and starting to lead him off.
"Uhhh, sure…he's gonna be okay though, right?"
"He'll be fine, I barely hit him."
Unfortunately Flash refused to leave until Captain Cold got picked up by the cops and an EMT.
He was fine just like I promised. His ribs would heal in a few weeks.
-o-
"So you want to explain what you need my help for? I don't mind helping but you've been kinda light on details."
"I need you to help me get faster."
We were in the middle of some random field outside the city limits because I didn't want to be tripping over random people while doing this and frankly, I was surprised the Flash didn't ask sooner.
"Get faster? I mean I appreciate the thought but you know not everyone can just do what I do, right?"
"Yeah, but if I'm working my way up to Superman levels of speed, then it just makes sense to train with someone a bit slower right? And you could help me just get used to keeping up with people faster than me."
The speedster opened his mouth to say something when I could practically see the moment his train of thought latched onto something I said.
"Hold on, Superman is fast but he is not faster than me. I'm the fastest man alive." he protested.
"Are you sure?" I tilted my head doubtfully. I mean Flash was fast but…
"Yes, yes I'm sure! You know what, fine, I'll help you get faster. And we'll do it the fun way."
I perked up. "Fun way?"
The scarlet speedster nodded sagely. "Yep, using the best way there is to get used to moving fast…"
He walked over to me and slowly reached out one finger. Poking me in the forehead.
"Tag, you're it."
I smiled widely and flared my Ki.
It was so on…
-o-
"Ha, ha, haah…"
"Hey, you're doing better! You almost got me that time."
Hours later I was tired, sweaty, exhausted. Not only had I not come close to catching the Flash he hadn't run out of breath the entire time we were training. And this was including the times he had to run back into Central City to help break up a crime while I took a break to recover.
It was working though!
I was already able to move much faster than when we first started thanks to all the practice I was getting controlling my Ki. Flash had also given me pointers about my running form when I got too tired to fly. And the biggest improvement was that I figured out Ki sense!
No idea how I managed that last one, but I think it had to do with me constantly trying to find Flash when he sped away and something just clicked. I didn't even realize I had done it until Flash mentioned something.
"One…one more time…" I panted, wiping sweat off my forehead.
"Sorry, kid. I gotta head back to the city. I've got another appointment." He waved his hands in front of him negatively. "But keep up those exercises we started on and you should be way faster in no time!"
"Pfft, fine." I grudgingly accepted. I was getting hungry anyway.
"Great! Now take care and don't do anything dangerous. Don't want a newbie hero biting off more than she can chew too quickly, right?" Flash had the audacity to ruffle my hair before vanishing back towards the city in a blur.
Wait…
Hero?
I did tell him I was working my way up to take on Superman though?
Meh, oh well. He'll figure it out at some point.
Lightning cracked through the sky as rain poured down steadily, providing the perfect backdrop for my nightly activity. One that any aspiring supervillain would treat with utmost seriousness.
Plotting how to beat their nemesis.
Superman had revealed himself to not be the paragon of truth and justice he pretended to be during our fight.
No, instead he was some kind of spank-happy sadist hiding behind the mask of a hero.
Clearly I had landed in one of those bizzaro universes where Superman was secretly evil and it was up to me to take him down! I blinked as I realized I had gotten a bit excited and then sat back down to continue cooking dinner in my newfound supervillain lair.
Okay, it was a random cave I had found and moved into but it was a start. Thankfully my Attack Ball had included a remote that allowed it to autopilot to my location so I wasn't forced to sleep on the floor even if it meant everything else was just rocks repurposed into furniture and my stove was a campfire.
It was still fun though. Camping is waaaay better when you are tough enough to ignore small sticks and stones poking you constantly.
I shook my head. Enough getting distracted. I needed to think of a way to beat up the big blue bully. The problem was, Superman was just too fast for me right now. I had gotten lucky with my
So I needed to get faster or get better at hitting things.
I thought about the heroes I could potentially train against.
The Flash was slower than Superman, right?
-o-
Central City was…fine I guess.
After Metropolis I had kinda hoped that all the new cities I checked out would be cool and interesting. Gotham was probably going to be filthy but it at least had a cool aesthetic. But from what I saw of Central City so far was that it was…normal.
At least the Flash museum would be pretty neat. Was that built yet? Probably not, everyone seemed pretty new.
Meh.
I kinda just wandered down the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the Flash, but I wasn't getting much luck. So I tried multitasking by practicing sensing other people's ki.
I wasn't having much luck with that either.
"Whoa, watch yourself kid!" A hand stopped me from walking forward just as a car passed by in the street.
Had I been zoning out that much? Oops.
"You gotta be careful crossing the street." the man who stopped me continued. "And where are your parents? Central is pretty safe but kids shouldn't be walking around by themselves."
Did my entrance not make the news? An alien spaceship attacked Metropolis, I should be famous!
Although come to think about it, I didn't see a bunch of cameras around when I showed up. Maybe they didn't have a good picture of me?
"I can take care of myself." I told the man. "Besides, I'm here looking for someone."
"Oh, going to a costume party? It's a really cool outfit. The tail looks pretty real too."
"My tail IS real." I waved the thing at him for emphasis. "And I said I'm looking for a person not a party."
We were starting to draw attention. Pedestrians were whispering between themselves and pointing. While I didn't mind it at first, the longer it went on, the more annoying it got.
*CRASH*
Oh hey look a distraction!
The sound of something large crumbling to rubble grabbed everyone's attention and I felt it was a perfect excuse to leave.
"I'm gonna - well, that's just rude." the man I had been talking to vanished before I could ditch him!
Ignoring that I lifted off the ground and started floating towards the sound from earlier.
Good news is I found the Flash. Too bad he was fighting that ice villain of his. Shoot, what was his name? Commander Chill? Private Popsical? Something like that.
Anyway, the villain had just robbed a jewelry store and had frozen then shattered a wall during his escape. Now he was taunting the Flash while blasting the ground around him with some kind of frost gun, causing Flash to slide right past him when he tried getting close.
It was neat to see a real superhero fight but I wanted to start training soon, so when Flash slammed into a nearby parked car I floated over until I was in front of him.
"Hi there, I'm Califa! I need you to help me."
The speedster seemed surprised and kept looking between me and checking up on the villain. "Ah, sure mysterious floating monkey kid. But I'm a little busy right now and it's dangerous, so why don't we talk once I take care of Captain Cold there?"
So THAT was his name! I knew I was close.
"Hiding behind kids now, Flash? Not very 'heroic' of you." the ice villain taunted while twirling his cold gun.
"I'm not hid-!"
"Look, can we wrap this up already? I've got things to do." I interrupted Flash. "So just give up already so we can get going."
"..." I think I might have made Captain Cold a bit angry. "You know what? I don't want to deal with some random superpowered kid so why don't you cool off in timeout for now."
The next thing I knew, I was suddenly covered in some kinda weird ice.
Weird because, yeah it was cold, but I could breathe through it? I don't think you can breathe through normal ice.
Still, Captain Cold had trapped me in about an inch of ice so that meant he attacked me. And that meant he was fair game.
I focused my Ki and exploded it outward, shattering the ice and freeing me to both Flash and Captain Cold's surprise.
"My turn!"
I pitched a sphere of Ki into the ice villain's chest hard enough to knock him off his feet and into a parked car. If the Ki orb didn't knock him out of the fight, the cracked ribs from denting the vehicle's doors probably would. He would be fine though. It was only a few bones at most.
"Okay, now you have to help me!" I ordered Flash, grabbing him by the wrist and starting to lead him off.
"Uhhh, sure…he's gonna be okay though, right?"
"He'll be fine, I barely hit him."
Unfortunately Flash refused to leave until Captain Cold got picked up by the cops and an EMT.
He was fine just like I promised. His ribs would heal in a few weeks.
-o-
"So you want to explain what you need my help for? I don't mind helping but you've been kinda light on details."
"I need you to help me get faster."
We were in the middle of some random field outside the city limits because I didn't want to be tripping over random people while doing this and frankly, I was surprised the Flash didn't ask sooner.
"Get faster? I mean I appreciate the thought but you know not everyone can just do what I do, right?"
"Yeah, but if I'm working my way up to Superman levels of speed, then it just makes sense to train with someone a bit slower right? And you could help me just get used to keeping up with people faster than me."
The speedster opened his mouth to say something when I could practically see the moment his train of thought latched onto something I said.
"Hold on, Superman is fast but he is not faster than me. I'm the fastest man alive." he protested.
"Are you sure?" I tilted my head doubtfully. I mean Flash was fast but…
"Yes, yes I'm sure! You know what, fine, I'll help you get faster. And we'll do it the fun way."
I perked up. "Fun way?"
The scarlet speedster nodded sagely. "Yep, using the best way there is to get used to moving fast…"
He walked over to me and slowly reached out one finger. Poking me in the forehead.
"Tag, you're it."
I smiled widely and flared my Ki.
It was so on…
-o-
"Ha, ha, haah…"
"Hey, you're doing better! You almost got me that time."
Hours later I was tired, sweaty, exhausted. Not only had I not come close to catching the Flash he hadn't run out of breath the entire time we were training. And this was including the times he had to run back into Central City to help break up a crime while I took a break to recover.
It was working though!
I was already able to move much faster than when we first started thanks to all the practice I was getting controlling my Ki. Flash had also given me pointers about my running form when I got too tired to fly. And the biggest improvement was that I figured out Ki sense!
No idea how I managed that last one, but I think it had to do with me constantly trying to find Flash when he sped away and something just clicked. I didn't even realize I had done it until Flash mentioned something.
"One…one more time…" I panted, wiping sweat off my forehead.
"Sorry, kid. I gotta head back to the city. I've got another appointment." He waved his hands in front of him negatively. "But keep up those exercises we started on and you should be way faster in no time!"
"Pfft, fine." I grudgingly accepted. I was getting hungry anyway.
"Great! Now take care and don't do anything dangerous. Don't want a newbie hero biting off more than she can chew too quickly, right?" Flash had the audacity to ruffle my hair before vanishing back towards the city in a blur.
Wait…
Hero?
I did tell him I was working my way up to take on Superman though?
Meh, oh well. He'll figure it out at some point.
Chapter 4
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 4
I had a problem.
It wasn't even a fun problem like how to get faster so I could punch Flash, or get strong enough to take down evil-Superman.
It was a boring problem of 'I'm sick of eating fire roasted deer and almost nothing else'.
Sure it was tasty and when I swung by a lake I was able to easily grab a few fish. But there was no flavor! It was just boring meat and boring fish. And I already didn't like fish that much!
So like I said, a problem.
I couldn't exactly go around clearing out restaurants either. The amount of food required to satisfy a Saiyan was far more than a normal person would allow a child to order without either asking where my parents were or at least demanding that I could pay in advance. And I didn't want to have a meal interrupted by someone trying to arrest me. That would be dumb.
I guess there was always the option of getting stuff from a supermarket or something and making it myself, but there was another problem there.
I had no money.
That tended to be a major issue when trying to buy things unless you were a politician or businessman. Then you just took out a loan or asked other people to pay the bill for you. Anyways, I had no money. And I sure as hell wasn't going to rob a grocery store of all things. That was like bottom D-tier villainy at best and I had more class than that.
So that meant I needed some kind of plan.
-o-
Planning didn't go very well.
I either made them too complicated (like trying to figure out how to manipulate the resuppliers to put everything I wanted on one truck so I could steal that) or just silly once I let my imagination run wild (not entirely sure where I was going to get a Mariachi band with flamethrowers to act as a distraction while I stealthily walked away with everything), when I realized another very simple flaw in my process.
I still had no money so I couldn't bribe or hire people. Which made my plans useless!
That was okay though, I was a smart villain. If I didn't have enough money to complete my plan then I would just have to steal more! That would work! And then I could spend all I wanted finding a flamethrowing music band to help me.
…or I could just use the stolen money to buy food. That would make much more sense.
I thought about it for a bit before shrugging and leaving that decision to future-me. I had a robbery to plan.
-o-
Man, I was bad at planning robberies.
Well no, I was great at planning them. It's just when it came to making them realistic I got a little…too enthusiastic. That was fine though. So what if reality was unable to appreciate my genius? Everything was possible somehow, I would just have to keep working at it.
"Next, please."
I mentally shelved my plans for a volcano fortress and walked up to the teller with a winning smile. No, I wasn't nervous. Why would you think that?
It's not like this was my first actual robbery and I had no idea what I was doing.
"Hello sweetheart, how can I help you today?" The teller asked kindly. Aw man, why did she have to be nice? And I guess she couldn't see my armor or tail with them covered up by a jacket I grabbed on the way here.
"Hi, sorry I've never done this before." I saidnervously. "I'd like to make a withdrawal."
"Sure thing. Do you have your account number?"
"Um, no I don't have an account number. This is a robbery. I'm robbing you."
The teller frowned. "I see…"
Then the door burst open as five men in masks with machine guns rushed in screaming for people to get on the floor.
-o-
"She's just a little girl." The teller pleaded with the robber pointing a gun at my head.
I wasn't upset by that. By all appearances I was indeed a little girl. Wasn't even upset about the gun to the head. It was a good way to motivate the nice teller lady to open the vault. (also she was apparently one of the people in the bank that could get into the vault. Not sure why she was working a station then.)
No, I was annoyed because, somehow, someone else decided to rob the same bank I was going to, at the same time, in Metropolis of all places.
You might think robbing a bank here would be stupid with the Blue Bully ready to pop up at any point, but the thing about knowing his secret identity is that I could plan around his absence. I totally didn't get lucky watching the news skimming for something to watch and seeing him standing next to Lois Lane in a conference in Florida yesterday.
"I don't give a fuck lady. And unless you want a new hole in her head, keep your mouth shut and keep moving."
"At least let her go…"
And it wasn't like these idiots knew Superman was out of town. So they decided 'yeah, we can totally rob a bank in Metropolis and get away' despite being totally normal humans with some guns.
"...you listenin' to me, brat?" The jerk jabbed me in the shoulder with his gun. "I said get in the vault!"
Oh neat, that was open now.
"Not really. Got distracted by how stupid this is."
"You calling me stupid?"
"That's not what she said! Please…" the teller begged again.
"Shut up! I think she called me stupid. The hells the world coming to when brats talk back to their betters? I oughta beat the shit outta you to teach you respect, just like dear old dad." He swung the butt of his gun at my jaw but I was done with this guy.
My fingers closed around the plastic-like material and shattered it with a light squeeze.
While the two humans were standing slack jawed at that, I punched the robber in the stomach.
Lightly, so I didn't kill him. But yeah, he wasn't getting back up.
"Oh my god, you're a metahuman!" Teller-lady exclaimed once she got over her shock. I frowned.
"I'm a Saiyan, not a human."
"Wait, you mean that alien that crash landed in the middle of the city and said you were here to conquer Earth? That's you?!"
"Yep."
The lady went quiet and looked at the robber facedown on the floor. "You aren't working with them are you?" She asked softly.
"No? Why would you think that?"
"Because you said you were robbing the place right before they broke in." She pointed out reasonably.
"Yeah, no. Not working with them. Kinda mad they ruined my first robbery."
"Why were you going to commit a robbery in the first place?"
Because I wanted more food and wasn't going to taint my supervillain reputation by stealing from restaurants. So…
"The internet said I should." I lied proudly.
"...the…internet?"
"Yep, I wanted to get more supplies since I wasn't expecting to take more than a couple days taking over your planet. But you need money for that. So I found out from your internet that illegal aliens need to steal your jobs, your women, and your money to get more stuff.
I have a job, I'm too young for a wife, but I needed money so I looked up how I'm supposed to steal money. And one place said that most people rob banks for more money."
"That's…" The poor lady had no idea how to deal with my logic. But she shook herself and refocused. "Ignoring that for now, there are still four more men with guns out there. We need to hide until the police show up."
I shrugged and walked into the vault where I started stuffing random bills into various pockets. "You can do that. I'm just gonna take this and leave."
"You're still robbing us?!"
"Well, yeah. I still want food."
"You can't just take things that belong to other people!"
"Sure I can. Saiyans do it all the time back home." 'Probably.'
By then I had loaded up a few thousand dollars and walked back out. The teller made no move to stop me but she was looking pretty distressed.
"I…you…" She sighed. "This is not how I expected today to go. What's your name sweetheart?"
Same here lady. "I'm Califa. Nice to meet you."
Her lips twitched in a hint of a smile. "I'm Samantha. We both know I probably can't stop you from taking that money. But do you think you can do me a favor?"
A favor? I cocked my head to the side, interested at what she could possibly want a favor for right now.
"You're pretty strong right? And fast, too? I saw some clips of you fighting Superman even if they weren't that good."
"Yep! I'm training to get faster too! So the next time we fight, I'll win and take over the planet."
"Training to…nevermind. Do you think you can beat up the other robbers on your way out? In a way no one else gets hurt?" She asked.
I shrugged. "Sure? I was going to beat them up anyways for ruining my first time."
"Oh…good…"
I didn't feel like there was much else to say to Samantha at that point so I made my way back to the main lobby where the other robbers were still shouting at people.
I introduced myself to the first one by kicking him in the stomach, flipped in the air to blast two of them with a Ki attack, and turned to the last one just in time to catch a bullet in the mouth. Then the guy decided to just mag-dump me and kept firing.
The bystanders began screaming at the sound of gunfire and everyone panicked when my head snapped back. They only calmed down a bit when my hands kept moving after the first shot and the gunman's weapon clicked empty. While they were all staring, I brought my head back forward and spit out the bullet I had caught and brought my hands up to eye level. With a slow deliberate motion I opened them and let the flattened pieces of lead pour out of my hands and clatter on the floor.
"I am so fucking sorry." The gunman whimpered as I started floating towards him.
"You're going to be." I promised. Then I punched him in the nose.
The other robbers were dealt with, I had my money, and no sign of the cops or Superman. I could call my first robbery, despite some setbacks, a success.
Now then, off to buy groceries.
In another city, of course. I wasn't an idiot.
I had a problem.
It wasn't even a fun problem like how to get faster so I could punch Flash, or get strong enough to take down evil-Superman.
It was a boring problem of 'I'm sick of eating fire roasted deer and almost nothing else'.
Sure it was tasty and when I swung by a lake I was able to easily grab a few fish. But there was no flavor! It was just boring meat and boring fish. And I already didn't like fish that much!
So like I said, a problem.
I couldn't exactly go around clearing out restaurants either. The amount of food required to satisfy a Saiyan was far more than a normal person would allow a child to order without either asking where my parents were or at least demanding that I could pay in advance. And I didn't want to have a meal interrupted by someone trying to arrest me. That would be dumb.
I guess there was always the option of getting stuff from a supermarket or something and making it myself, but there was another problem there.
I had no money.
That tended to be a major issue when trying to buy things unless you were a politician or businessman. Then you just took out a loan or asked other people to pay the bill for you. Anyways, I had no money. And I sure as hell wasn't going to rob a grocery store of all things. That was like bottom D-tier villainy at best and I had more class than that.
So that meant I needed some kind of plan.
-o-
Planning didn't go very well.
I either made them too complicated (like trying to figure out how to manipulate the resuppliers to put everything I wanted on one truck so I could steal that) or just silly once I let my imagination run wild (not entirely sure where I was going to get a Mariachi band with flamethrowers to act as a distraction while I stealthily walked away with everything), when I realized another very simple flaw in my process.
I still had no money so I couldn't bribe or hire people. Which made my plans useless!
That was okay though, I was a smart villain. If I didn't have enough money to complete my plan then I would just have to steal more! That would work! And then I could spend all I wanted finding a flamethrowing music band to help me.
…or I could just use the stolen money to buy food. That would make much more sense.
I thought about it for a bit before shrugging and leaving that decision to future-me. I had a robbery to plan.
-o-
Man, I was bad at planning robberies.
Well no, I was great at planning them. It's just when it came to making them realistic I got a little…too enthusiastic. That was fine though. So what if reality was unable to appreciate my genius? Everything was possible somehow, I would just have to keep working at it.
"Next, please."
I mentally shelved my plans for a volcano fortress and walked up to the teller with a winning smile. No, I wasn't nervous. Why would you think that?
It's not like this was my first actual robbery and I had no idea what I was doing.
"Hello sweetheart, how can I help you today?" The teller asked kindly. Aw man, why did she have to be nice? And I guess she couldn't see my armor or tail with them covered up by a jacket I grabbed on the way here.
"Hi, sorry I've never done this before." I said
"Sure thing. Do you have your account number?"
"Um, no I don't have an account number. This is a robbery. I'm robbing you."
The teller frowned. "I see…"
Then the door burst open as five men in masks with machine guns rushed in screaming for people to get on the floor.
-o-
"She's just a little girl." The teller pleaded with the robber pointing a gun at my head.
I wasn't upset by that. By all appearances I was indeed a little girl. Wasn't even upset about the gun to the head. It was a good way to motivate the nice teller lady to open the vault. (also she was apparently one of the people in the bank that could get into the vault. Not sure why she was working a station then.)
No, I was annoyed because, somehow, someone else decided to rob the same bank I was going to, at the same time, in Metropolis of all places.
You might think robbing a bank here would be stupid with the Blue Bully ready to pop up at any point, but the thing about knowing his secret identity is that I could plan around his absence. I totally didn't get lucky watching the news skimming for something to watch and seeing him standing next to Lois Lane in a conference in Florida yesterday.
"I don't give a fuck lady. And unless you want a new hole in her head, keep your mouth shut and keep moving."
"At least let her go…"
And it wasn't like these idiots knew Superman was out of town. So they decided 'yeah, we can totally rob a bank in Metropolis and get away' despite being totally normal humans with some guns.
"...you listenin' to me, brat?" The jerk jabbed me in the shoulder with his gun. "I said get in the vault!"
Oh neat, that was open now.
"Not really. Got distracted by how stupid this is."
"You calling me stupid?"
"That's not what she said! Please…" the teller begged again.
"Shut up! I think she called me stupid. The hells the world coming to when brats talk back to their betters? I oughta beat the shit outta you to teach you respect, just like dear old dad." He swung the butt of his gun at my jaw but I was done with this guy.
My fingers closed around the plastic-like material and shattered it with a light squeeze.
While the two humans were standing slack jawed at that, I punched the robber in the stomach.
Lightly, so I didn't kill him. But yeah, he wasn't getting back up.
"Oh my god, you're a metahuman!" Teller-lady exclaimed once she got over her shock. I frowned.
"I'm a Saiyan, not a human."
"Wait, you mean that alien that crash landed in the middle of the city and said you were here to conquer Earth? That's you?!"
"Yep."
The lady went quiet and looked at the robber facedown on the floor. "You aren't working with them are you?" She asked softly.
"No? Why would you think that?"
"Because you said you were robbing the place right before they broke in." She pointed out reasonably.
"Yeah, no. Not working with them. Kinda mad they ruined my first robbery."
"Why were you going to commit a robbery in the first place?"
Because I wanted more food and wasn't going to taint my supervillain reputation by stealing from restaurants. So…
"The internet said I should." I lied proudly.
"...the…internet?"
"Yep, I wanted to get more supplies since I wasn't expecting to take more than a couple days taking over your planet. But you need money for that. So I found out from your internet that illegal aliens need to steal your jobs, your women, and your money to get more stuff.
I have a job, I'm too young for a wife, but I needed money so I looked up how I'm supposed to steal money. And one place said that most people rob banks for more money."
"That's…" The poor lady had no idea how to deal with my logic. But she shook herself and refocused. "Ignoring that for now, there are still four more men with guns out there. We need to hide until the police show up."
I shrugged and walked into the vault where I started stuffing random bills into various pockets. "You can do that. I'm just gonna take this and leave."
"You're still robbing us?!"
"Well, yeah. I still want food."
"You can't just take things that belong to other people!"
"Sure I can. Saiyans do it all the time back home." 'Probably.'
By then I had loaded up a few thousand dollars and walked back out. The teller made no move to stop me but she was looking pretty distressed.
"I…you…" She sighed. "This is not how I expected today to go. What's your name sweetheart?"
Same here lady. "I'm Califa. Nice to meet you."
Her lips twitched in a hint of a smile. "I'm Samantha. We both know I probably can't stop you from taking that money. But do you think you can do me a favor?"
A favor? I cocked my head to the side, interested at what she could possibly want a favor for right now.
"You're pretty strong right? And fast, too? I saw some clips of you fighting Superman even if they weren't that good."
"Yep! I'm training to get faster too! So the next time we fight, I'll win and take over the planet."
"Training to…nevermind. Do you think you can beat up the other robbers on your way out? In a way no one else gets hurt?" She asked.
I shrugged. "Sure? I was going to beat them up anyways for ruining my first time."
"Oh…good…"
I didn't feel like there was much else to say to Samantha at that point so I made my way back to the main lobby where the other robbers were still shouting at people.
I introduced myself to the first one by kicking him in the stomach, flipped in the air to blast two of them with a Ki attack, and turned to the last one just in time to catch a bullet in the mouth. Then the guy decided to just mag-dump me and kept firing.
The bystanders began screaming at the sound of gunfire and everyone panicked when my head snapped back. They only calmed down a bit when my hands kept moving after the first shot and the gunman's weapon clicked empty. While they were all staring, I brought my head back forward and spit out the bullet I had caught and brought my hands up to eye level. With a slow deliberate motion I opened them and let the flattened pieces of lead pour out of my hands and clatter on the floor.
"I am so fucking sorry." The gunman whimpered as I started floating towards him.
"You're going to be." I promised. Then I punched him in the nose.
The other robbers were dealt with, I had my money, and no sign of the cops or Superman. I could call my first robbery, despite some setbacks, a success.
Now then, off to buy groceries.
In another city, of course. I wasn't an idiot.
Chapter 5
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 5
"-have a cold front moving in from the North, so expect temperatures to fall into the high fifties, low sixties for the next few days. That's it for the weather, now back to you – hey, what are you doing here?" the weatherman exclaimed as he spotted me walking onto the set.
In fact multiple people were surprised to see me walking in. I always thought news stations had different rooms for things like weather and all that. Turns out they are just off to the side. Huh, neat.
I gave myself a mental shove. I needed to focus, this was a crucial step in the plan for my continued training.
"Hi there, is this the newsroom? I need to send a message into the city." I said cheerfully. Out of the corner of my eye I could see whispered conversations happening among the crew. Apparently a few people knew me on sight now, but plenty of others had no clue who I was.
That would probably change after today.
"You can't be in here, we're in the middle of a broadcast." One of the crew said in a hissed whisper, moving towards me and trying to shove me out of the room even as others tried to stop him.
"So this is the right place? Good."
Some people screamed when the light yellow Ki ball struck the man in the chest, knocking him over. I mean, in their defense, they had no idea I had basically just pushed him over from a distance. But still…loud.
"Oh relax, he's fine. Now then which one of these is on…?"
I looked around until I spotted a camera with a red dot on it and realized the crew hadn't stopped filming since I showed up, so it was still on the weatherman. With a little push, I kicked off the ground and floated around him.
"Hey, do you mind stepping away for a sec? I need to say something." The man was backpedaling away before I even finished my sentence. "Thank you!"
I turned to the camera and smiled widely. "Hello future subjects of the Saiyan race, as many of you know I'm Califa and I've been tasked with taking over your planet! I was doing a good job too until I, uh, kindasortalosttoSuperman, but I've been training!" I skipped over the unimportant stuff. "Now I'm ready for a rematch, but since your buildings are super fragile I'm moving the fight outside the city so we can go all out from the beginning!
So, Superman! I will face you 50 miles south of the city tomorrow at noon! If you fail to show up then I will take that as your forfeit!"
"Ah, um, excuse me. Ms Califa?" A young man nervously called out from behind one of the cameras. "What happens if he doesn't show, or just see your message?"
I blinked. "Wait, you can't just keep repeating what I said to make sure he sees?"
"Uh, well, this is live so…no?"
"...oh."
That wasn't part of my plan. If Superman didn't even know we were supposed to fight, how could I test how much stronger I was? I mean sure I could attack the city again but that would meangetting spanked again holding back too much and not giving it my best. I couldn't decide what to train next if the fight ended before we got going.
Maybe I could come back every hour to make a new announcement? No, that wouldn't work. The whole point of going on the news was to give me some free time to make sure nothing got in the way. The last thing I needed was a random hiker wandering into the area to ruin the whole fight.
"Um, can you just make a recording and play that later?"
The young man looked around but everyone else seemed to have lost their voice.
"None of you have a way to get a hold of him? Something like what that Bat-guy does in Gotham?"
"Not unless you count kidnapping his girlfriend…" Someone muttered in the back.
"What was that?"
"Ah, nothing! Just saying it would be best to ask one of his friends?"
Would that work? There was currently no Justice League, so no help there. And even if the other heroes took the message then I would end up fighting them which ruined the whole plan to fight Superman anyway.
No, that was too unreliable.
"Um, I guess I'll just show up before the fight is supposed to start? You guys can still repeat the message right? Even without me being recorded?"
"So you aren't going to hold us hostage or attack the studio if Superman doesn't show?" Another person called out despite another coworker jabbing him repeatedly in the ribs.
"Uh, no? Why would I do tha-"
"Or go on a rampage through the city?"
"I mean maybe I'll shoot off a couple blasts just to get his attention-"
"And destroy a few skyscrapers!"
"What!? No!" I just wanted a fight not to level a city. "The whole point of me moving the fight out of the way is so that we DON'T ruin the place."
"What about-" At this point his coworker put his hand over the guy's mouth and physically restrained him.
This…was not how I expected this to go.
"I'm just gonna go…"
-o-
The newsroom staff watched nervously as the alien child floated out of the studio.
As soon as she was out of sight, the man who had been restraining his coworker released him and slapped him upside the head.
"Are you trying to get us all killed, you moron?!"
"Hey, I just found out three very important things. Thank you very much! And you know the Execs wanted more about the girl if we could get it."
"Yes! From the reporters and investigators! Not from the video crew!" The man looked ready to beat some sense into his companion before he sighed. "Whatever, what did you learn that was so important?"
"Well, one, she really is just a kid. My nieces get flustered and run off the exact same way when they are mid plan and discover an obstacle they didn't think about and I suggest a bunch of things they don't want to do in a row.
Two, she isn't going to use hostages or anything like that. She didn't even give that idea another thought. Maybe a cultural thing? I'm sure some anthropologist would love that data point.
And three, she doesn't want to destroy the city. Even said so herself!"
"So let me get this straight. You risked all of our lives because the would-be alien conqueror acted like your kid nieces? What if she just blasted you with one of those laser balls or whatever they are?"
"I'd be fine. She did it to Dave and all he got was a little dirty from rolling on the floor."
Everyone in the room was now looking at their coworker with various levels of stunned disbelief or anger. Especially the ones who had seen the same yellow energy orbs melt metal in seconds and hit Superman hard enough to send him flying out of the city.
"...you're an idiot."
-o-
Clark Kent sighed as he watched a recording of Califa's challenge to Superman for the third time. The girl's announcement had gone viral on practically every video hosting site and social media platform around in minutes.
At this point it would be harder to find someone in the city who hadn't seen it than those who had.
Oddly, part of him was relieved Califa hadn't deviated from her mission of taking over the planet by defeating it's champions. He had been worried when it was reported she had robbed a bank that it would be the beginning of another rampage by a superpowered alien. That worry lessened when reports of her buying groceries of all things a few hours later, but it did confuse the hell out of him.
The rest was just resigned to the massive headaches this event would cause in the future. Anti-alien factions were starting to form due the rising number of verified extraterrestrial visitors on Earth, and an alien hijacking a news broadcast to declare hostile intentions and call him out in particular was going to be twisted by someone he was sure. Irregardless that this was the action of a child.
A child that was smart enough to research things on the local internet despite being from another planet on a mission of subjugation, but a child nonetheless.
He hoped he could settle this before some hothead decided the military needed to be involved and more people got hurt.
Even if it ruined his lunch plans.
"-have a cold front moving in from the North, so expect temperatures to fall into the high fifties, low sixties for the next few days. That's it for the weather, now back to you – hey, what are you doing here?" the weatherman exclaimed as he spotted me walking onto the set.
In fact multiple people were surprised to see me walking in. I always thought news stations had different rooms for things like weather and all that. Turns out they are just off to the side. Huh, neat.
I gave myself a mental shove. I needed to focus, this was a crucial step in the plan for my continued training.
"Hi there, is this the newsroom? I need to send a message into the city." I said cheerfully. Out of the corner of my eye I could see whispered conversations happening among the crew. Apparently a few people knew me on sight now, but plenty of others had no clue who I was.
That would probably change after today.
"You can't be in here, we're in the middle of a broadcast." One of the crew said in a hissed whisper, moving towards me and trying to shove me out of the room even as others tried to stop him.
"So this is the right place? Good."
Some people screamed when the light yellow Ki ball struck the man in the chest, knocking him over. I mean, in their defense, they had no idea I had basically just pushed him over from a distance. But still…loud.
"Oh relax, he's fine. Now then which one of these is on…?"
I looked around until I spotted a camera with a red dot on it and realized the crew hadn't stopped filming since I showed up, so it was still on the weatherman. With a little push, I kicked off the ground and floated around him.
"Hey, do you mind stepping away for a sec? I need to say something." The man was backpedaling away before I even finished my sentence. "Thank you!"
I turned to the camera and smiled widely. "Hello future subjects of the Saiyan race, as many of you know I'm Califa and I've been tasked with taking over your planet! I was doing a good job too until I, uh, kindasortalosttoSuperman, but I've been training!" I skipped over the unimportant stuff. "Now I'm ready for a rematch, but since your buildings are super fragile I'm moving the fight outside the city so we can go all out from the beginning!
So, Superman! I will face you 50 miles south of the city tomorrow at noon! If you fail to show up then I will take that as your forfeit!"
"Ah, um, excuse me. Ms Califa?" A young man nervously called out from behind one of the cameras. "What happens if he doesn't show, or just see your message?"
I blinked. "Wait, you can't just keep repeating what I said to make sure he sees?"
"Uh, well, this is live so…no?"
"...oh."
That wasn't part of my plan. If Superman didn't even know we were supposed to fight, how could I test how much stronger I was? I mean sure I could attack the city again but that would mean
Maybe I could come back every hour to make a new announcement? No, that wouldn't work. The whole point of going on the news was to give me some free time to make sure nothing got in the way. The last thing I needed was a random hiker wandering into the area to ruin the whole fight.
"Um, can you just make a recording and play that later?"
The young man looked around but everyone else seemed to have lost their voice.
"None of you have a way to get a hold of him? Something like what that Bat-guy does in Gotham?"
"Not unless you count kidnapping his girlfriend…" Someone muttered in the back.
"What was that?"
"Ah, nothing! Just saying it would be best to ask one of his friends?"
Would that work? There was currently no Justice League, so no help there. And even if the other heroes took the message then I would end up fighting them which ruined the whole plan to fight Superman anyway.
No, that was too unreliable.
"Um, I guess I'll just show up before the fight is supposed to start? You guys can still repeat the message right? Even without me being recorded?"
"So you aren't going to hold us hostage or attack the studio if Superman doesn't show?" Another person called out despite another coworker jabbing him repeatedly in the ribs.
"Uh, no? Why would I do tha-"
"Or go on a rampage through the city?"
"I mean maybe I'll shoot off a couple blasts just to get his attention-"
"And destroy a few skyscrapers!"
"What!? No!" I just wanted a fight not to level a city. "The whole point of me moving the fight out of the way is so that we DON'T ruin the place."
"What about-" At this point his coworker put his hand over the guy's mouth and physically restrained him.
This…was not how I expected this to go.
"I'm just gonna go…"
-o-
The newsroom staff watched nervously as the alien child floated out of the studio.
As soon as she was out of sight, the man who had been restraining his coworker released him and slapped him upside the head.
"Are you trying to get us all killed, you moron?!"
"Hey, I just found out three very important things. Thank you very much! And you know the Execs wanted more about the girl if we could get it."
"Yes! From the reporters and investigators! Not from the video crew!" The man looked ready to beat some sense into his companion before he sighed. "Whatever, what did you learn that was so important?"
"Well, one, she really is just a kid. My nieces get flustered and run off the exact same way when they are mid plan and discover an obstacle they didn't think about and I suggest a bunch of things they don't want to do in a row.
Two, she isn't going to use hostages or anything like that. She didn't even give that idea another thought. Maybe a cultural thing? I'm sure some anthropologist would love that data point.
And three, she doesn't want to destroy the city. Even said so herself!"
"So let me get this straight. You risked all of our lives because the would-be alien conqueror acted like your kid nieces? What if she just blasted you with one of those laser balls or whatever they are?"
"I'd be fine. She did it to Dave and all he got was a little dirty from rolling on the floor."
Everyone in the room was now looking at their coworker with various levels of stunned disbelief or anger. Especially the ones who had seen the same yellow energy orbs melt metal in seconds and hit Superman hard enough to send him flying out of the city.
"...you're an idiot."
-o-
Clark Kent sighed as he watched a recording of Califa's challenge to Superman for the third time. The girl's announcement had gone viral on practically every video hosting site and social media platform around in minutes.
At this point it would be harder to find someone in the city who hadn't seen it than those who had.
Oddly, part of him was relieved Califa hadn't deviated from her mission of taking over the planet by defeating it's champions. He had been worried when it was reported she had robbed a bank that it would be the beginning of another rampage by a superpowered alien. That worry lessened when reports of her buying groceries of all things a few hours later, but it did confuse the hell out of him.
The rest was just resigned to the massive headaches this event would cause in the future. Anti-alien factions were starting to form due the rising number of verified extraterrestrial visitors on Earth, and an alien hijacking a news broadcast to declare hostile intentions and call him out in particular was going to be twisted by someone he was sure. Irregardless that this was the action of a child.
A child that was smart enough to research things on the local internet despite being from another planet on a mission of subjugation, but a child nonetheless.
He hoped he could settle this before some hothead decided the military needed to be involved and more people got hurt.
Even if it ruined his lunch plans.
Chapter 6
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 6
Lex Luthor was many things. Rich. Intelligent. A ruthless businessman with a keen instinct. Yet, there was one aspect that he prided himself in above all others.
Being able to manipulate the masses at whim.
Right now he was watching the challenge to the Alien sent by the Saiyan child. Like everything, it was simply another situation he could twist to his favor. The only question remained, what would be the best move at the moment?
Unlike most of the things that made the news, this wasn't something he knew was coming in advance. It was sudden, spontaneous. And it wasn't like this child had any contacts or subordinates he could spy on or recruit to keep tabs on her. No, this was a rare opportunity with a small window to take advantage of it before it was too late.
Many plans of action whirled through his mind, each carefully evaluated before being refined or discarded.
He could push for a military response, through several proxies naturally, and have them attack the site of this duel. If they managed to kill off the Saiyan then it would be one less alien thinking they could come in and take over because they were physically superior. Of course if they failed he was sure he would be able to convince several people in both the military and the government to increase sales and funding for L-Corp weapons.
It was a tempting plan, but one he ultimately had to push aside. It would have worked if the invader didn't look like a child. While people were scared of the Saiyan's power, they weren't so scared they would be willing to be attached to an operation gunning after a twelve year old. While his more pragmatic contacts would have no issue with the deed, they would be crucified by public response.
No, that option was out.
He could always hire a mercenary to attack both of them…
No, the timeframe was too short for anyone competent.
Very well, it seemed direct action was off the table this time. But Luthor did not make it to where he was today by being unable to adapt his strategies. If being direct wouldn't work, he would be indirect.
He pressed a button on his desk that opened the intercom to the lobby outside his office.
"Come in."
Luthor leaned back in his chair as his right hand woman, Mercy Graves, walked into the room.
"What can I do for you, Lex?"
He gave his favorite henchwoman a rare natural smile. Her absolute loyalty to him and her competency were just two of the reasons he relied on her as much as he did. Her ruthlessness and willingness to follow orders instantly just made her even more useful.
"I've decided what we are going to do about our visitor's little challenge." He said slowly. "Get a few camera crews out to the location specified. As many stations as possible. We are going to make sure the whole country sees this."
"Yessir, right away."
Instant obedience. How refreshing.
Yes, this was the best move he could make right now. If the Alien won, and Luthor could easily admit it was likely he would, the country would be witness to their beloved idol of justice beating on a child. If for some reason he lost, then he was no longer the unbeatable symbol they held him up as and his influence would wane. Of course if the camera crews happened to be killed…well, that just goes to show how dangerous it is to let these aliens run loose where normal people could get hurt now didn't it?
-o-
When I first picked the place for my rematch with Superman, I thought about recreating the tiled floor seen in the World Martial Arts tournament or the Cell Games but couldn't due to the lack of giant mountains I could carve up for tiles. I mean I also wasn't strong enough to just whip up tiles like I remember Cell doing, but the thought was there.
Instead I settled for a wide flat patch of ground far from pretty much everything. It would be fine if we spent most of the time flying right?
So imagine my surprise when I found nearly a dozen different news crews converging on my location minutes before my scheduled fight. These people did realize I was about to fight Superman right? That the whole reason I moved the fight from the city was because I didn't want squishy people getting in the way? Were they suicidal or just dumb?
Well I still had some time to kill…
"Heeyyy! What are you guys doing here?" I called down to them once I flew over. "And can you leave? I have a fight in a few minutes and I don't want us getting distracted."
I definitely took them by surprise because most of them jumped, some of them fumbled with the equipment they had been unloading, and one unfortunate guy dropped a camera lens down. I winced at that last one. That was probably expensive.
Of course the reporters didn't just instantly jump to obey me, that would be too easy.
"Excuse me, miss, I'm Danny Demaris; reporter for Channel 7. Would you mind a short interview?"
Was there something about being a reporter that required getting up close and personal with things that could kill you? The other guys at the news station seemed the same. Maybe it wasn't a Lois Lane thing, but something that all reporters did and she only survived it because of Superman…
Actually, that reminded me.
"I guess I can talk to you for a bit if you don't mind answering a question first?"
The reporter checked to make sure his cameraman was recording before eagerly nodding his head yes.
"Can you only be a reporter if your name starts with the same two letters?"
"...I…what?"
"I mean, I didn't really go looking for a bunch of reporter names but there's Lois Lane, Vikky Vale, and you're Danny Demaris. All of you have names that start with the same letter. I guess there's Clark Kent too, but his names only sound similar. Is he not a very good reporter then?"
Hah, take that you Big, Blue Bully! Even if I can't physically beat you up yet, I can still make fun of your alter ego.
"..." Donny took a second to recover before giving me a strained smile and attempting to move on. "I'm sure Mr. Kent is a fine reporter and it has nothing to do with his name. The alliteration of the other names is just coincidence."
"Isn't that when a word sounds like the sound it makes?" I knew what alliteration meant of course, but I had an image to sell.
"No, that's onomatopoeia."
"Oh…"
"...Anyways, there have been a lot of scared people since your arrival asking what exactly your intentions are with the planet."
I waited for him to continue with a question, but he just looked at me expectantly. Was I supposed to respond to that?
"Okay…?"
"What is your response to those people. Any clues to your motivations, that might explain why you are here?"
"I'm here to take over the planet by beating your champions." I repeated the public reason I was doing anything.
"Yes, but why? Is it for resources? For territory?"
Going by my original mission it would be to exterminate everything on the planet and sell it off, but I wasn't about to say that on TV! Time to use the politician's second most popular trick in the book: blaming someone else and changing topics.
"I dunno, I was just sent here to take it over. It's taking longer than I thought it would but I've been having fun! You have some interesting things here, even if most of you are weaklings."
Donny looked a little annoyed at my response but kept his tone polite. "Aren't you worried about people getting hurt though? Your first appearance did quite a bit of damage to Metropolis."
I shrugged. "A little? I don't want to hurt people who aren't fighters but I can't stop people from being stupid. I mean, I tried to have my rematch out here away from anyone else and you guys followed me anyway. Seems kinda dumb to worry about getting hurt if your gonna go looking for it."
Now the reporter was definitely annoyed. I could see him clenching his jaw at my comments to not blurt something out.
"Well, what can I say? Channel 7 has a good medical plan." He tried joking.
I tilted my head 'innocently'. "Wait, does this planet not give people the same level of medicine for everyone? Do only certain people get healed?"
"No, of course not." Donny backtracked. "Everyone in the country can get the same care at a hospital. My company just lets me not pay for it as much-"
"You have to PAY for a hospital?!" I exclaimed, 'shocked' at this revelation. "That's so weird. How do you stop people from making things super expensive for no reason, or not curing diseases because they get paid more if people stay longer?"
"We have a very good system in place to make sure everyone gets the care they need." Donny assured me, not very well considering the stiff looking smile he had on his face.
"If you say so. Anyway, it's time for my fight. If you guys don't wanna risk getting in the way you should go home." I gave them one last piece of advice before flying back into the air and looking at the direction I could sense Superman coming from.
Okay, round two!
Lex Luthor was many things. Rich. Intelligent. A ruthless businessman with a keen instinct. Yet, there was one aspect that he prided himself in above all others.
Being able to manipulate the masses at whim.
Right now he was watching the challenge to the Alien sent by the Saiyan child. Like everything, it was simply another situation he could twist to his favor. The only question remained, what would be the best move at the moment?
Unlike most of the things that made the news, this wasn't something he knew was coming in advance. It was sudden, spontaneous. And it wasn't like this child had any contacts or subordinates he could spy on or recruit to keep tabs on her. No, this was a rare opportunity with a small window to take advantage of it before it was too late.
Many plans of action whirled through his mind, each carefully evaluated before being refined or discarded.
He could push for a military response, through several proxies naturally, and have them attack the site of this duel. If they managed to kill off the Saiyan then it would be one less alien thinking they could come in and take over because they were physically superior. Of course if they failed he was sure he would be able to convince several people in both the military and the government to increase sales and funding for L-Corp weapons.
It was a tempting plan, but one he ultimately had to push aside. It would have worked if the invader didn't look like a child. While people were scared of the Saiyan's power, they weren't so scared they would be willing to be attached to an operation gunning after a twelve year old. While his more pragmatic contacts would have no issue with the deed, they would be crucified by public response.
No, that option was out.
He could always hire a mercenary to attack both of them…
No, the timeframe was too short for anyone competent.
Very well, it seemed direct action was off the table this time. But Luthor did not make it to where he was today by being unable to adapt his strategies. If being direct wouldn't work, he would be indirect.
He pressed a button on his desk that opened the intercom to the lobby outside his office.
"Come in."
Luthor leaned back in his chair as his right hand woman, Mercy Graves, walked into the room.
"What can I do for you, Lex?"
He gave his favorite henchwoman a rare natural smile. Her absolute loyalty to him and her competency were just two of the reasons he relied on her as much as he did. Her ruthlessness and willingness to follow orders instantly just made her even more useful.
"I've decided what we are going to do about our visitor's little challenge." He said slowly. "Get a few camera crews out to the location specified. As many stations as possible. We are going to make sure the whole country sees this."
"Yessir, right away."
Instant obedience. How refreshing.
Yes, this was the best move he could make right now. If the Alien won, and Luthor could easily admit it was likely he would, the country would be witness to their beloved idol of justice beating on a child. If for some reason he lost, then he was no longer the unbeatable symbol they held him up as and his influence would wane. Of course if the camera crews happened to be killed…well, that just goes to show how dangerous it is to let these aliens run loose where normal people could get hurt now didn't it?
-o-
When I first picked the place for my rematch with Superman, I thought about recreating the tiled floor seen in the World Martial Arts tournament or the Cell Games but couldn't due to the lack of giant mountains I could carve up for tiles. I mean I also wasn't strong enough to just whip up tiles like I remember Cell doing, but the thought was there.
Instead I settled for a wide flat patch of ground far from pretty much everything. It would be fine if we spent most of the time flying right?
So imagine my surprise when I found nearly a dozen different news crews converging on my location minutes before my scheduled fight. These people did realize I was about to fight Superman right? That the whole reason I moved the fight from the city was because I didn't want squishy people getting in the way? Were they suicidal or just dumb?
Well I still had some time to kill…
"Heeyyy! What are you guys doing here?" I called down to them once I flew over. "And can you leave? I have a fight in a few minutes and I don't want us getting distracted."
I definitely took them by surprise because most of them jumped, some of them fumbled with the equipment they had been unloading, and one unfortunate guy dropped a camera lens down. I winced at that last one. That was probably expensive.
Of course the reporters didn't just instantly jump to obey me, that would be too easy.
"Excuse me, miss, I'm Danny Demaris; reporter for Channel 7. Would you mind a short interview?"
Was there something about being a reporter that required getting up close and personal with things that could kill you? The other guys at the news station seemed the same. Maybe it wasn't a Lois Lane thing, but something that all reporters did and she only survived it because of Superman…
Actually, that reminded me.
"I guess I can talk to you for a bit if you don't mind answering a question first?"
The reporter checked to make sure his cameraman was recording before eagerly nodding his head yes.
"Can you only be a reporter if your name starts with the same two letters?"
"...I…what?"
"I mean, I didn't really go looking for a bunch of reporter names but there's Lois Lane, Vikky Vale, and you're Danny Demaris. All of you have names that start with the same letter. I guess there's Clark Kent too, but his names only sound similar. Is he not a very good reporter then?"
Hah, take that you Big, Blue Bully! Even if I can't physically beat you up yet, I can still make fun of your alter ego.
"..." Donny took a second to recover before giving me a strained smile and attempting to move on. "I'm sure Mr. Kent is a fine reporter and it has nothing to do with his name. The alliteration of the other names is just coincidence."
"Isn't that when a word sounds like the sound it makes?" I knew what alliteration meant of course, but I had an image to sell.
"No, that's onomatopoeia."
"Oh…"
"...Anyways, there have been a lot of scared people since your arrival asking what exactly your intentions are with the planet."
I waited for him to continue with a question, but he just looked at me expectantly. Was I supposed to respond to that?
"Okay…?"
"What is your response to those people. Any clues to your motivations, that might explain why you are here?"
"I'm here to take over the planet by beating your champions." I repeated the public reason I was doing anything.
"Yes, but why? Is it for resources? For territory?"
Going by my original mission it would be to exterminate everything on the planet and sell it off, but I wasn't about to say that on TV! Time to use the politician's second most popular trick in the book: blaming someone else and changing topics.
"I dunno, I was just sent here to take it over. It's taking longer than I thought it would but I've been having fun! You have some interesting things here, even if most of you are weaklings."
Donny looked a little annoyed at my response but kept his tone polite. "Aren't you worried about people getting hurt though? Your first appearance did quite a bit of damage to Metropolis."
I shrugged. "A little? I don't want to hurt people who aren't fighters but I can't stop people from being stupid. I mean, I tried to have my rematch out here away from anyone else and you guys followed me anyway. Seems kinda dumb to worry about getting hurt if your gonna go looking for it."
Now the reporter was definitely annoyed. I could see him clenching his jaw at my comments to not blurt something out.
"Well, what can I say? Channel 7 has a good medical plan." He tried joking.
I tilted my head 'innocently'. "Wait, does this planet not give people the same level of medicine for everyone? Do only certain people get healed?"
"No, of course not." Donny backtracked. "Everyone in the country can get the same care at a hospital. My company just lets me not pay for it as much-"
"You have to PAY for a hospital?!" I exclaimed, 'shocked' at this revelation. "That's so weird. How do you stop people from making things super expensive for no reason, or not curing diseases because they get paid more if people stay longer?"
"We have a very good system in place to make sure everyone gets the care they need." Donny assured me, not very well considering the stiff looking smile he had on his face.
"If you say so. Anyway, it's time for my fight. If you guys don't wanna risk getting in the way you should go home." I gave them one last piece of advice before flying back into the air and looking at the direction I could sense Superman coming from.
Okay, round two!
Chapter 7
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 7
I hid my excitement behind a confident smile and crossed arms as Superman slowed to a stop and hovered in front of me. There was just something about having the chance to go all out that got my heart racing.
"I'm glad you got my message, I want a proper fight this time!" I declared.
Superman sighed and relaxed his stance a bit. "Are you sure about that? We could try resolving this another way."
"Nope, has to be a fight."
"Because of your mission? You said you were here to conquer the planet for your race, but you moved the fight all the way out here so no one gets hurt so I know you aren't just going to mindlessly destroy everything." Superman said, delaying the start of our fight even more…also oops, definitely giving people the wrong impression of Saiyans now. "Is there some way we could try negotiating with your leader to leave us alone?"
I mean, probably? If the Planet Trade Organization was a real thing here then there had to be someone they didn't kill off or enslave right away. Since they needed, you know, people to actually buy and trade the planets they took over.
Not that I, as a disposable shock trooper, would know how to get ahold of them anyway, but I guess I needed to give him some kind reason to fight me without me attacking the city.
"Alright, if you can beat me then I'll tell you everything I know about talking to our leader." I declared, settling into a more offensive stance.
"...Okay, it's a deal the–"
I didn't wait for him to finish before I launched myself forward and attempted to bury my fist in his face.
Superman caught it before that could happen though.
One hand firmly captured, I could tell by the way he was bringing up his other hand he was expecting me to try punching him again like our last fight. He wasn't expecting me to use my hand as a pivot point to kick him instead.
It was awkward, especially because in order to kick Superman I ended up twisting my whole body around and away from him, but I still hit hard enough to not only free myself but also send him flying.
He recovered quickly though.
"I'm glad you're not hitting normal people that hard. You'd really hurt them." Superman commented, rubbing his jaw.
I scoffed. "Humans are too weak for me to need to do that." And they'd probably pop if I hit them that hard.
"They might surprise you. Humanity might not be the most physically strong race out there, but we are plenty strong in other ways."
I was tempted to point out he wasn't human though, but who was I to tell him what he could or could not consider himself? It's not like he was saying he physically wasn't kryptonian, just that he considered himself human. No different than if someone was born in Japan and grew up in America or something like that. Yeah they were born somewhere else but they likely didn't think of their birth nation as home if they were only there as a baby.
Or maybe they did? I guess different people could have…
While I was distracted by my thoughts Superman blurred to the side. If this had been before my training with the Flash I wouldn't have been able to keep up with him, but I was used to this level of speed now. I was easily able to see the open hand coming straight at me, confirming Superman was a jerk. He was still trying to spank me!
Not this time you blue jerk!
Ki gathered in my palms and with a loud shout I blasted him in the stomach with two beams of energy, swatting him out of the air and into a nearby cliffside.
"Ha, I've been training for our rematch Superman! You can't cheat like last time!" I laughed as I floated closer to him. He was half buried in dirt and rocks, but he didn't look particularly bothered by it either.
"Cheat? How did I cheat?" He asked, sounding a little incredulous.
"You didn't fight properly!" I yelled, angry he was trying to sound innocent. "Spanking people when you are supposed to be fighting them isn't fighting! It's harassment!"
"H-harassment?!" Superman coughed. "Where did you hear that from?!"
"Internet!"
He sighed and pulled himself out of the cliffside. "I wasn't trying to spank you," he lied. "I was trying to restrain you so I could get some answers. I can tell you're powerful, but running around causing trouble is going to get a lot of people hurt eventually. And I really don't think I can seriously fight a child…"
"Hey, I'm a Saiyan warrior, not just some kid!" I protested. "And the only way you're getting me to talk is to beat me in a proper fight! Now stop stalling!"
Superman sighed again. "Alright then…"
And then he was gone. Faster than Flash had moved during our training, but not quite as fast as I had seen him move, so I was already swinging a fist to hit him in the face. But to my surprise I hit nothing but air. How did he –
"Gah!"
I couldn't help but gasp in pain as Superman's palm dug itself deeper into my stomach. It hurt, but I also started smiling. He was finally taking me seriously!
I smacked his hand away and tried using that momentum to kick him, but once again I hit nothing but air. This time Superman grabbed my arm as I went sailing past and swung me around before throwing my high into the sky.
Which was really disorienting. I spent a few seconds just trying to figure out which way was which before finding Superman with my Ki sense and rushing back at him.
For a bit I thought I was overwhelming him. I still wasn't landing any solid hits but he never managed to counterattack either. But as I paid attention to why they weren't landing I started noticing something else.
Every kick landed short, every punch was being gently deflected or caught before it hit, and every ki blast was dodged.
He… he was toying with me wasn't he? I was wrong, he still wasn't taking me seriously at all!
Darn it, I was tiring out too. I was starting to overextend and Superman was taking advantage by throwing me around. Literally!
"WHY. CAN'T. I. HIT YOU!!!" I screamed, punching him with every word. None of them landed and I just got a slight smile in return that almost sent me back into a rage.
"Well, you just keep punching or kicking randomly." The jerk said smugly. "It caught me off guard at first, but I just needed to watch carefully to figure you out."
I froze.
Of course! Everything I knew about fighting was basically 'hit it harder, hit it faster' and while it worked for anything weaker than me, anyone stronger would be able to keep up. Okay, I knew what I needed to train next!
Superman looked a bit surprised when I smirked and drifted away from him instead of charging forward again.
Sorry, but I got what I wanted from this fight.
"Giving up?" He asked. "If you are, I hope you're ready to answer my questions."
My smile grew a bit sharper "Nope! But I definitely can't beat you with my fists right now, so I'm going to end this with my ultimate technique!" (out of three, but he didn't need to know that)
I spread my fingers out and placed them by my face while I readied the ki needed for the technique.
Superman started looking serious, watching for any sign of what I was planning.
Perfect.
"SOLAR FLARE!" I shouted the name of the technique as my ki flared out in a blinding flash of light. Superman was taken completely off guard and flinched while trying to shield his eyes, for all the good it did him right now. Leaving me to complete the last part of my master plan…
…running away as fast as I could! I knew I couldn't win just yet, I just needed to not lose either.
-o-
"GAH?!" The sudden blast of light was unexpected and Superman was half expecting a child-sized missile to come crashing into him when he was blinded, so it was a bit embarrassing when nothing happened long enough for his eyes to recover and find Califa's form flying off in the distance.
He was tempted to fly after her and wring the answers he needed out of her because if she was anything like some of the other children he knew growing up (and she certainly reminded him of some of them) she wouldn't consider this a loss.
Before he could chase after her, there was a scream and the sound of rocks giving way.
Superman turned to see that some of the reporters that had stubbornly stayed in the area even though he tried to keep the fight far away from them had also been blinded by Califa's last technique and staggered too close to the cliff edge where it collapsed.
He was already moving to catch the unfortunate reporter even as he realized the Saiyan girl would be long out of sight before he managed to calm the reporter down.
Hopefully she would keep to her pattern of relatively harmless actions until he could properly get her to sit down for a long discussion…and maybe figure out what to do with her afterwards.
If he was lucky she would stay out of trouble until then.
-o-
It was dark and stormy by the time I finally managed to get to my destination.
I hadn't exactly wanted to come here looking for a martial arts teacher, but they were the best person I knew where to find and I knew they didn't mind working with villains or kids from time to time.
"Why are you following me?" A stern voice growled from the shadows where I had finally found my target.
"You're good at martial arts, right?" I asked instead.
Lightning flashed, revealing a dark cowled figure with a bat symbol displayed prominently on his chest.
"..."
"I want you to train me!"
I hid my excitement behind a confident smile and crossed arms as Superman slowed to a stop and hovered in front of me. There was just something about having the chance to go all out that got my heart racing.
"I'm glad you got my message, I want a proper fight this time!" I declared.
Superman sighed and relaxed his stance a bit. "Are you sure about that? We could try resolving this another way."
"Nope, has to be a fight."
"Because of your mission? You said you were here to conquer the planet for your race, but you moved the fight all the way out here so no one gets hurt so I know you aren't just going to mindlessly destroy everything." Superman said, delaying the start of our fight even more…also oops, definitely giving people the wrong impression of Saiyans now. "Is there some way we could try negotiating with your leader to leave us alone?"
I mean, probably? If the Planet Trade Organization was a real thing here then there had to be someone they didn't kill off or enslave right away. Since they needed, you know, people to actually buy and trade the planets they took over.
Not that I, as a disposable shock trooper, would know how to get ahold of them anyway, but I guess I needed to give him some kind reason to fight me without me attacking the city.
"Alright, if you can beat me then I'll tell you everything I know about talking to our leader." I declared, settling into a more offensive stance.
"...Okay, it's a deal the–"
I didn't wait for him to finish before I launched myself forward and attempted to bury my fist in his face.
Superman caught it before that could happen though.
One hand firmly captured, I could tell by the way he was bringing up his other hand he was expecting me to try punching him again like our last fight. He wasn't expecting me to use my hand as a pivot point to kick him instead.
It was awkward, especially because in order to kick Superman I ended up twisting my whole body around and away from him, but I still hit hard enough to not only free myself but also send him flying.
He recovered quickly though.
"I'm glad you're not hitting normal people that hard. You'd really hurt them." Superman commented, rubbing his jaw.
I scoffed. "Humans are too weak for me to need to do that." And they'd probably pop if I hit them that hard.
"They might surprise you. Humanity might not be the most physically strong race out there, but we are plenty strong in other ways."
I was tempted to point out he wasn't human though, but who was I to tell him what he could or could not consider himself? It's not like he was saying he physically wasn't kryptonian, just that he considered himself human. No different than if someone was born in Japan and grew up in America or something like that. Yeah they were born somewhere else but they likely didn't think of their birth nation as home if they were only there as a baby.
Or maybe they did? I guess different people could have…
While I was distracted by my thoughts Superman blurred to the side. If this had been before my training with the Flash I wouldn't have been able to keep up with him, but I was used to this level of speed now. I was easily able to see the open hand coming straight at me, confirming Superman was a jerk. He was still trying to spank me!
Not this time you blue jerk!
Ki gathered in my palms and with a loud shout I blasted him in the stomach with two beams of energy, swatting him out of the air and into a nearby cliffside.
"Ha, I've been training for our rematch Superman! You can't cheat like last time!" I laughed as I floated closer to him. He was half buried in dirt and rocks, but he didn't look particularly bothered by it either.
"Cheat? How did I cheat?" He asked, sounding a little incredulous.
"You didn't fight properly!" I yelled, angry he was trying to sound innocent. "Spanking people when you are supposed to be fighting them isn't fighting! It's harassment!"
"H-harassment?!" Superman coughed. "Where did you hear that from?!"
"Internet!"
He sighed and pulled himself out of the cliffside. "I wasn't trying to spank you," he lied. "I was trying to restrain you so I could get some answers. I can tell you're powerful, but running around causing trouble is going to get a lot of people hurt eventually. And I really don't think I can seriously fight a child…"
"Hey, I'm a Saiyan warrior, not just some kid!" I protested. "And the only way you're getting me to talk is to beat me in a proper fight! Now stop stalling!"
Superman sighed again. "Alright then…"
And then he was gone. Faster than Flash had moved during our training, but not quite as fast as I had seen him move, so I was already swinging a fist to hit him in the face. But to my surprise I hit nothing but air. How did he –
"Gah!"
I couldn't help but gasp in pain as Superman's palm dug itself deeper into my stomach. It hurt, but I also started smiling. He was finally taking me seriously!
I smacked his hand away and tried using that momentum to kick him, but once again I hit nothing but air. This time Superman grabbed my arm as I went sailing past and swung me around before throwing my high into the sky.
Which was really disorienting. I spent a few seconds just trying to figure out which way was which before finding Superman with my Ki sense and rushing back at him.
For a bit I thought I was overwhelming him. I still wasn't landing any solid hits but he never managed to counterattack either. But as I paid attention to why they weren't landing I started noticing something else.
Every kick landed short, every punch was being gently deflected or caught before it hit, and every ki blast was dodged.
He… he was toying with me wasn't he? I was wrong, he still wasn't taking me seriously at all!
Darn it, I was tiring out too. I was starting to overextend and Superman was taking advantage by throwing me around. Literally!
"WHY. CAN'T. I. HIT YOU!!!" I screamed, punching him with every word. None of them landed and I just got a slight smile in return that almost sent me back into a rage.
"Well, you just keep punching or kicking randomly." The jerk said smugly. "It caught me off guard at first, but I just needed to watch carefully to figure you out."
I froze.
Of course! Everything I knew about fighting was basically 'hit it harder, hit it faster' and while it worked for anything weaker than me, anyone stronger would be able to keep up. Okay, I knew what I needed to train next!
Superman looked a bit surprised when I smirked and drifted away from him instead of charging forward again.
Sorry, but I got what I wanted from this fight.
"Giving up?" He asked. "If you are, I hope you're ready to answer my questions."
My smile grew a bit sharper "Nope! But I definitely can't beat you with my fists right now, so I'm going to end this with my ultimate technique!" (out of three, but he didn't need to know that)
I spread my fingers out and placed them by my face while I readied the ki needed for the technique.
Superman started looking serious, watching for any sign of what I was planning.
Perfect.
"SOLAR FLARE!" I shouted the name of the technique as my ki flared out in a blinding flash of light. Superman was taken completely off guard and flinched while trying to shield his eyes, for all the good it did him right now. Leaving me to complete the last part of my master plan…
…running away as fast as I could! I knew I couldn't win just yet, I just needed to not lose either.
-o-
"GAH?!" The sudden blast of light was unexpected and Superman was half expecting a child-sized missile to come crashing into him when he was blinded, so it was a bit embarrassing when nothing happened long enough for his eyes to recover and find Califa's form flying off in the distance.
He was tempted to fly after her and wring the answers he needed out of her because if she was anything like some of the other children he knew growing up (and she certainly reminded him of some of them) she wouldn't consider this a loss.
Before he could chase after her, there was a scream and the sound of rocks giving way.
Superman turned to see that some of the reporters that had stubbornly stayed in the area even though he tried to keep the fight far away from them had also been blinded by Califa's last technique and staggered too close to the cliff edge where it collapsed.
He was already moving to catch the unfortunate reporter even as he realized the Saiyan girl would be long out of sight before he managed to calm the reporter down.
Hopefully she would keep to her pattern of relatively harmless actions until he could properly get her to sit down for a long discussion…and maybe figure out what to do with her afterwards.
If he was lucky she would stay out of trouble until then.
-o-
It was dark and stormy by the time I finally managed to get to my destination.
I hadn't exactly wanted to come here looking for a martial arts teacher, but they were the best person I knew where to find and I knew they didn't mind working with villains or kids from time to time.
"Why are you following me?" A stern voice growled from the shadows where I had finally found my target.
"You're good at martial arts, right?" I asked instead.
Lightning flashed, revealing a dark cowled figure with a bat symbol displayed prominently on his chest.
"..."
"I want you to train me!"
Growing Pains - Chapter 8
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 8
"No."
The reply was quick, firm, and delivered so matter-of-factly that when Batman turned and walked off I was left floating dumbly behind.
It was only when the last bit of his cape disappeared around a corner that I snapped out of my daze and chased after him.
"Hey, what do you mean no!?"
"No, I won't train you."
"Why not!"
Batman was like THE DC martial arts guy. Yeah there were people that got superpowers from their fancy martial arts or whatever, but Batman knew like all of those and mastered them too! Even if he didn't get the powers from them.
And none of those other people ever trained a handful of tinier people that went on to kick nearly as much butt as he did. It was all 'I've been chosen by some magical force~' and then Batman and his sidekicks beat them up. He had to train me!
"You're a child on a self admitted mission to take over the planet." Batman pointed out dryly. "It'd be irresponsible for me to teach children to throw themselves into danger, even more so when you are going to be using those skills to fight us."
That was a well reasoned argument. I had a counterpoint.
"Don't you have a five year old running around in tights fighting criminals? That's pretty irresponsible already."
There was a crash of shifting metal. I turned towards the sound and was shocked to see a small boy in a red and green outfit trying to pull his foot out of where it punched through a rusted air conditioner.
How did I miss him earlier? Anyway…
"Yeah, him!" I turned back to Batman while pointing at his struggling sidekick. "You train him already so train me!"
Besides a slight deepening in his frown, Batman made no sign that he was bothered by Robin's blunder. "Robin is a normal human that has dedicated himself to fighting crime. He isn't trying to attack the planet and has no powers. Unlike you, he needs training to live with the path he's chosen."
"And I'm eleven, not five!"
I whirled back to Robin.
"Eleven is basically five. You're short enough it doesn't make a difference."
The pre-teen scowled. "Yeah? Like you're one to talk, you're only a little taller than me. How old are you anyway?"
That…was actually a good question.
Saiyans didn't exactly care about age. We didn't have birthday parties or anything like that. Even if we did it wasn't like the calendar of Vegeta and Earth were the same.
"I have no idea. Older than you though." I said with a smirk.
Robin bristled. "How do you not know how old you are?!"
"Don't know the day I was born, space travel and induced hibernation makes keeping track of time hard, and I have no idea how our time systems compare." I counted the reasons on my fingers. "Do you know how an Earth year compares to a Vegetian one?"
"No, why would I know that? How would I know that?"
"You asked." I shrugged. "Don't lose your tail over it."
"I don't have a tail!"
"Guess that explains why you are so small and wimpy then!" I started floating around Robin, jabbing him occasionally with my tail despite his efforts to grab it. Too bad for him I was faster and able to fly while he was just getting angrier and sloppier because of that anger. I guess Batman hadn't trained him how to deal with flying oppone–
Oh right, I was here for training, not messing with a preteen!
I gave one last push to the middle of Robin's forehead and knocked him over before floating back to Batman.
The Dark Knight had moved since I got distracted with Robin. Now he was standing in an area that gave him a clear view of the two of us with his hands hidden under his cape. Had he been watching us? It made sense, he probably didn't want me accidentally squishing his sidekick and Robin probably hadn't been training with him for long if he still sucked so much so he wanted to make sure he could intervene.
"Now where were we? …Right, train me!"
Batman remained unimpressed.
"I don't have time for this." He grumbled and stalked off. I naturally wasn't going to let him get away so easily and followed after him.
It was actually kinda cool watching him sprint over rooftops. No wasted movement, no uncertainty even when he got close to the edge of a building, and it didn't look like he was moving randomly either. Eventually he came to a stop near a skylight.
Curious, I looked inside and saw a bunch of people operating some kinda machinery inside.
"What's that?" I asked. Batman spared me a small glance and went back to studying the men below without a word.
Rude.
"It's a counterfeiting ring run by the Mob." Robin informed me as he caught up to us. I could've sworn I saw Batman scowl more at his arrival but it was gone before I could be sure. "We've been tracking them down for the past few days."
"Oh hey, you finally caught up!" I smirked. "About time."
Robin bristled and opened his mouth but he was cut off by Batman.
"Enough. They are packing up their operation tonight. We don't have time for this." He turned to look at me. "Stay out of the way."
I tilted my head. "If I do, will you train me?"
"I'll consider it."
Better than nothing. I nodded my acceptance and watched as the two of them went to work. Batman started things off by crashing through the skylight and blowing out the lights with one of his little boomerang things with Robin following close behind.
I'd like to say it was a cool fight and I managed to learn something just by watching, but Batman versus a bunch of random people disoriented by sudden darkness meant everything was over pretty quick. A few punches and the occasional kick and they were knocked out already. Even Robin managed to take out a few with little trouble.
I decided to be polite and waited until they were done tying up their criminals. Once they finished I landed in front of Batman and looked up at him with sparkling, excited eyes.
"So, you'll train me now?"
"No, I won't."
I was crushed by this completely unforeseen betrayal.
"Whhhhhyyy!?" Iwailed asked reasonably. "You said you would if I stayed out of the way!"
"I said I would consider it. You are still hostile to Earth so I won't train you."
"That's not fair!"
I admit the next few minutes were not my most shining moments. I tried begging, threats, promises, and many other things trying to get Batman to give in but without success. Begging didn't seem to phase him. Threats made him point out it was exactly those reasons he refused to train me in the first place. And everything else just seemed to bounce off the jerk. Eventually he just ignored me entirely and went about the city stopping a few more crimes and teaching his sidekick how to freerun a bit better.
It didn't help that Robin seemed to find the whole thing hilarious.
The wimp was getting on my nerves.
"Relax, monkey girl." the bird brain smirked at me. "He just said no. Don't lose your tail over it."
I saw red.
"I'll show you losing your tail!" I shouted and readied to throw a Ki ball at him when a gloved hand clamped around my wrist.
I don't think any of us were fooled into thinking Batman could really stop me if I wanted to continue with my attack but blasting Bird Boy wouldn't make him train me. I was going to have to break out my ultimate technique. A move so evil and underhanded that I felt uncomfortable even considering it.
But they left me no choice.
I looked up at Batman and let some water gather in the corner of my eyes. "You really won't train me?" I asked, voice trembling.
"Whoa, wait. Are you crying?" Robin asked, uncertainly. Even Batman looked uncomfortable in the face of my ultimate move. And this wasn't even its final form!
"N-no, I'm not! You're crying!"
Despite my words even more water started gathering in my eyes and spilling over my cheeks.
Batman was still holding strong, but Robin was starting to crack.
"Br– Batman, what do we do?"
The Caped Crusader shifted awkwardly and released my arm. I let the Ki ball dissipate and sank to the rooftop, the very picture of dejection. I heard them start to edge away and decided to break out level two of my technique, adding in some low keening sounds and hiccups.
"We're not going to really leave her here…are we?" My technique was already eating away at the unity of the heroes. It was only a matter of time now.
I upped the intensity a bit more and knew I was close to succeeding when I heard Batman sigh and walk back over to me.
I looked up at him when he kneeled in front of me and struggled to see through the water pouring from my eyes. A drawback from using this technique.
"You really won't?" I asked one more time.
Batman sighed. "I'll train you…if you agree to some conditions."
"You promise?"
"...yes."
"YES!" I ended my technique and leapt into the air with a bright smile. I knew this would work! Fake tears were one of my most evil moves but no hero could withstand it!
"Tch, I thought she was supposed to be a monkey not a crocodile. We got played…"
I was so happy at my success I didn't even get mad at Bird Brain for the comment.
Emotional terrorism…
"No."
The reply was quick, firm, and delivered so matter-of-factly that when Batman turned and walked off I was left floating dumbly behind.
It was only when the last bit of his cape disappeared around a corner that I snapped out of my daze and chased after him.
"Hey, what do you mean no!?"
"No, I won't train you."
"Why not!"
Batman was like THE DC martial arts guy. Yeah there were people that got superpowers from their fancy martial arts or whatever, but Batman knew like all of those and mastered them too! Even if he didn't get the powers from them.
And none of those other people ever trained a handful of tinier people that went on to kick nearly as much butt as he did. It was all 'I've been chosen by some magical force~' and then Batman and his sidekicks beat them up. He had to train me!
"You're a child on a self admitted mission to take over the planet." Batman pointed out dryly. "It'd be irresponsible for me to teach children to throw themselves into danger, even more so when you are going to be using those skills to fight us."
That was a well reasoned argument. I had a counterpoint.
"Don't you have a five year old running around in tights fighting criminals? That's pretty irresponsible already."
There was a crash of shifting metal. I turned towards the sound and was shocked to see a small boy in a red and green outfit trying to pull his foot out of where it punched through a rusted air conditioner.
How did I miss him earlier? Anyway…
"Yeah, him!" I turned back to Batman while pointing at his struggling sidekick. "You train him already so train me!"
Besides a slight deepening in his frown, Batman made no sign that he was bothered by Robin's blunder. "Robin is a normal human that has dedicated himself to fighting crime. He isn't trying to attack the planet and has no powers. Unlike you, he needs training to live with the path he's chosen."
"And I'm eleven, not five!"
I whirled back to Robin.
"Eleven is basically five. You're short enough it doesn't make a difference."
The pre-teen scowled. "Yeah? Like you're one to talk, you're only a little taller than me. How old are you anyway?"
That…was actually a good question.
Saiyans didn't exactly care about age. We didn't have birthday parties or anything like that. Even if we did it wasn't like the calendar of Vegeta and Earth were the same.
"I have no idea. Older than you though." I said with a smirk.
Robin bristled. "How do you not know how old you are?!"
"Don't know the day I was born, space travel and induced hibernation makes keeping track of time hard, and I have no idea how our time systems compare." I counted the reasons on my fingers. "Do you know how an Earth year compares to a Vegetian one?"
"No, why would I know that? How would I know that?"
"You asked." I shrugged. "Don't lose your tail over it."
"I don't have a tail!"
"Guess that explains why you are so small and wimpy then!" I started floating around Robin, jabbing him occasionally with my tail despite his efforts to grab it. Too bad for him I was faster and able to fly while he was just getting angrier and sloppier because of that anger. I guess Batman hadn't trained him how to deal with flying oppone–
Oh right, I was here for training, not messing with a preteen!
I gave one last push to the middle of Robin's forehead and knocked him over before floating back to Batman.
The Dark Knight had moved since I got distracted with Robin. Now he was standing in an area that gave him a clear view of the two of us with his hands hidden under his cape. Had he been watching us? It made sense, he probably didn't want me accidentally squishing his sidekick and Robin probably hadn't been training with him for long if he still sucked so much so he wanted to make sure he could intervene.
"Now where were we? …Right, train me!"
Batman remained unimpressed.
"I don't have time for this." He grumbled and stalked off. I naturally wasn't going to let him get away so easily and followed after him.
It was actually kinda cool watching him sprint over rooftops. No wasted movement, no uncertainty even when he got close to the edge of a building, and it didn't look like he was moving randomly either. Eventually he came to a stop near a skylight.
Curious, I looked inside and saw a bunch of people operating some kinda machinery inside.
"What's that?" I asked. Batman spared me a small glance and went back to studying the men below without a word.
Rude.
"It's a counterfeiting ring run by the Mob." Robin informed me as he caught up to us. I could've sworn I saw Batman scowl more at his arrival but it was gone before I could be sure. "We've been tracking them down for the past few days."
"Oh hey, you finally caught up!" I smirked. "About time."
Robin bristled and opened his mouth but he was cut off by Batman.
"Enough. They are packing up their operation tonight. We don't have time for this." He turned to look at me. "Stay out of the way."
I tilted my head. "If I do, will you train me?"
"I'll consider it."
Better than nothing. I nodded my acceptance and watched as the two of them went to work. Batman started things off by crashing through the skylight and blowing out the lights with one of his little boomerang things with Robin following close behind.
I'd like to say it was a cool fight and I managed to learn something just by watching, but Batman versus a bunch of random people disoriented by sudden darkness meant everything was over pretty quick. A few punches and the occasional kick and they were knocked out already. Even Robin managed to take out a few with little trouble.
I decided to be polite and waited until they were done tying up their criminals. Once they finished I landed in front of Batman and looked up at him with sparkling, excited eyes.
"So, you'll train me now?"
"No, I won't."
I was crushed by this completely unforeseen betrayal.
"Whhhhhyyy!?" I
"I said I would consider it. You are still hostile to Earth so I won't train you."
"That's not fair!"
I admit the next few minutes were not my most shining moments. I tried begging, threats, promises, and many other things trying to get Batman to give in but without success. Begging didn't seem to phase him. Threats made him point out it was exactly those reasons he refused to train me in the first place. And everything else just seemed to bounce off the jerk. Eventually he just ignored me entirely and went about the city stopping a few more crimes and teaching his sidekick how to freerun a bit better.
It didn't help that Robin seemed to find the whole thing hilarious.
The wimp was getting on my nerves.
"Relax, monkey girl." the bird brain smirked at me. "He just said no. Don't lose your tail over it."
I saw red.
"I'll show you losing your tail!" I shouted and readied to throw a Ki ball at him when a gloved hand clamped around my wrist.
I don't think any of us were fooled into thinking Batman could really stop me if I wanted to continue with my attack but blasting Bird Boy wouldn't make him train me. I was going to have to break out my ultimate technique. A move so evil and underhanded that I felt uncomfortable even considering it.
But they left me no choice.
I looked up at Batman and let some water gather in the corner of my eyes. "You really won't train me?" I asked, voice trembling.
"Whoa, wait. Are you crying?" Robin asked, uncertainly. Even Batman looked uncomfortable in the face of my ultimate move. And this wasn't even its final form!
"N-no, I'm not! You're crying!"
Despite my words even more water started gathering in my eyes and spilling over my cheeks.
Batman was still holding strong, but Robin was starting to crack.
"Br– Batman, what do we do?"
The Caped Crusader shifted awkwardly and released my arm. I let the Ki ball dissipate and sank to the rooftop, the very picture of dejection. I heard them start to edge away and decided to break out level two of my technique, adding in some low keening sounds and hiccups.
"We're not going to really leave her here…are we?" My technique was already eating away at the unity of the heroes. It was only a matter of time now.
I upped the intensity a bit more and knew I was close to succeeding when I heard Batman sigh and walk back over to me.
I looked up at him when he kneeled in front of me and struggled to see through the water pouring from my eyes. A drawback from using this technique.
"You really won't?" I asked one more time.
Batman sighed. "I'll train you…if you agree to some conditions."
"You promise?"
"...yes."
"YES!" I ended my technique and leapt into the air with a bright smile. I knew this would work! Fake tears were one of my most evil moves but no hero could withstand it!
"Tch, I thought she was supposed to be a monkey not a crocodile. We got played…"
I was so happy at my success I didn't even get mad at Bird Brain for the comment.
----------------------
AN: Ah yes, one of the most effective weapons in any child's arsenal.Emotional terrorism…
Chapter 9
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 9
I don't know what I was expecting training with Batman to be like. Maybe getting strapped into fake giant death traps and needing to fight off robots with one arm tied behind my back or maybe brutal hand to hand lessons in certain styles while getting quizzed on detective mysteries.
Calmly moving through tai chi stances with Robin while a Gi-wearing Batman (He was still wearing the mask) corrected my posture was not on the list.
"This wasn't what I was expecting when you said you would train me." I couldn't help but say as I moved through the forms I'd been shown.
"Body control is very important for learning martial arts. Tai Chi is very good for learning both awareness and control, things you will need in other styles. Especially if you need to control your strength to human levels." Batman explained again.
"Still think it's weird we agreed to train her at all." Bird Brain commented. No one paid him any attention though, as was proper.
"Yeah, but this would be easier if you just used your Ki to make yourself stronger instead." I insisted for probably the fifth time. "Then I wouldn't need to be so careful."
"We've tried that. But until Robin or I can do so it would just waste time. So we'll focus on practical things first."
"It would help if your instructions didn't suck."
"It would help if you weren't too stupid to follow basic directions Bird Brain!" I snapped at Robin.
"Basic directions?! 'Feel the warm glowy stuff in your body and make it do stuff' aren't directions! It doesn't even make sense!" The moron snapped back.
"Of course, they're the basics! They're so basic I shouldn't even need to teach you how to do it! It's like asking me to teach you how to breathe!"
I thought Batman would have been a really impatient guy, but he must have the patience of a saint to put up with someone as stupid as Robin.
"I take it someone taught you how to do this on your homeworld?" Batman asked calmly while stopping me, correcting my stance, and making me start over.
I actually had to think about it. There weren't a whole lot of interesting memories from old-Me so I tended to not think about them a lot. Most of them were just being bored traveling from one planet to another while jerk-dad tried to get me killed off.
"Not really?" I eventually replied. "I mean I learned some stuff by watching others but I was getting sent on missions too much for anyone to teach me."
"Missions? Like the one you're on right now?"
"Yeah! There aren't a whole lot of Saiyans available so we usually get a mission right after we finish the last one. I think. I always got a new one a few days after I got back from the old one."
"Wait, does that mean you stole planets from other races before?! How could you!" Robin shouted loudly.
"Robin." Thankfully Batman silenced him with a stern word before turning back to me. "Did you not train for these missions then?"
I focused on shifting my weight the way he had shown me. "Kinda? Like I did exercises and stuff, but the missions were supposed to come first. And they were kind of a let down, honestly, I always finished them super fast. The first one was supposed to be this really advanced civilization or something but they ended up blowing themselves up before I got there. I spent a long time just looking for someone before I realized I had the planet to myself."
I was so focused on my form that I didn't see Robin stumble out of his stance and stare open mouthed at me. I didn't see Batman stiffen up either.
"And how old were you at the time?"
I paused what I was doing and thought about it. That was my first mission and I think it took a few months to actually get to the planet. So…
"Maybe three and a half or so?" I said uncertainly. "Still no idea what that is in Earth years, but around that."
"...and how many missions have you been sent on?"
"This is my fourth!" I gave him a bright smile. "The second was full of giant killer reptiles that wanted to eat me."
Robin raised an eyebrow. "Giant killer reptiles, huh? How did you beat them?"
I shot him a smirk. "I waited until I was bigger than them and then squished them all."
Robin looked a little green at the thought. Wimp.
"What about the third?"
"That one was fun! It was full of carnivorous plants." I replied to Batman. "It was too bad about the allergies though."
"Allergies?"
I nodded seriously. "Yep, the plants were allergic to laser beams."
"Geez monkey girl, that's really messed up." Robin said.
"Your face is messed up!" I shouted and pounced on the brat. I wasn't going to let him insult me like that! Batman allowed it, just as long as I stayed in human levels.
-o-
Coast City was similar to Metropolis in many ways.
While it wasn't built as a testament to what the technology of tomorrow might bring to the table, it was a city that had become known for being the home of a man with powers far beyond the average person. Only instead of those powers being the result of alien biology, the Green Lantern was granted powers by alien technology and inducted into a galactic peacekeeping force.
Similarly to Superman, Green Lantern seemed to appear when needed only to vanish once the trouble was taken care of. The fact that there were two more Green Lanterns active elsewhere made him even more mysterious…
…unless you happened to know that Green Lantern could be seen coming and going from the same direction multiple times at different angles and could do the math to discover his likely launch point.
The sun was just about to set on the California coast when Green Lantern Hal Jordan landed in the alleyway a few streets down from his condo. It was a great blind spot and helped him ensure no one was going to target him while he was 'off the clock' as it were.
It was also one of those places that normal people had no reason to hang around in. So seeing a costumed man waiting patiently in the middle of the alley looking like he expected Hal to be there was a bit of a shock.
"Green Lantern." The man dressed up like a bat greeted him calmly.
"Uh, hi there. You're that guy from Gotham right? The urban legend?" Hal had been vaguely aware of the 'Batman' from some late night TV shows on modern day legends. He had dismissed it as just normal hoaxes trying to scare people or cheat them out of money like those Bigfoot hunter shows, but then Superman had shown up and Hal had gotten a magic ring from a dying alien. He was a little more willing to not dismiss things immediately after that.
Bat-guy nodded. "I've heard your ring can access information from all over the galaxy. I need your help."
"Woah, woah. Slow down there, spooky, yeah the ring can access the Green Lanterns' databases but we can't exactly go handing that stuff out to anyone that asks!" There were rules, not that Hal always agreed, but the phrase monkey with a flamethrower was a good way to sum up some of the incidents caused by other Lanterns freely sharing advanced technology.
"I only need information about an alien race that recently arrived here."
Another one? One of these days Hal really needed to figure out exactly how many aliens were actually on Earth. Still, if they were already here that meant he could justify sharing some things without issue.
"Alright, still not sure I can give you what you're looking for but ask away. What am I looking up?"
"Sayians."
Hal barely needed to prompt his ring for the information before a green construct with the information scrolling down it appeared in midair.
"Anything in particular? Looks like they've been around for quite awhile."
Tall, dark, and broody considered the request for half a second. "I need to know what will happen if the person they sent to conquer a planet fails to do so."
Conquer the planet?! How had he not heard of this before now?
[Lantern Hal Jordan - Sector 2814 requested all local media broadcasts from planet designation 'Earth' be muted unless there was a significant risk of life while on patrol around the sector] His ring unhelpfully informed him.
And how was an invasion not considered a significant risk of life?!
[Invading party was confronted by local forces and defeated in less than four local hours. Threat level was decided to be nonurgent]
That was…okay, he clearly needed to tweak some settings before this happened again. The last thing he wanted was to come home to find out his city was blown up because the ring didn't think to warn him before something happened.
"Uh, okay…going by this, as a whole Sayians don't leave their own sector of space that often. No reports of them invading for a few hundred years. The last one was a Saiyan that turned pirate five decades ago and tried taking over a planet as a base of operations and was stopped by the local Lantern. Looks like we might just have a bad actor trying to carve out their own territory."
There was a minute frown on spooky's face that Hal might have missed if he wasn't specifically looking for it. "You're sure? According to the girl herself she has already conquered three other planets before arriving here."
"Three? Did she say how?"
Hal actually relaxed a bit when spooky told him about a dead civilization, a planet full of super predators, and carnivorous plants. That sounded more like someone scavenging the planets no one wanted for some reason or another. Not the beginnings of an aggressive invasion. He even said as much to his sudden visitor.
"So yeah, don't think we have much to worry about in terms of an invasion on the horizon. Give me a few hours and I'll find them and kick them off the planet. It's kinda my job after all."
"Don't bother. I have her handled."
The invader was already beaten? This guy must be a pretty impressive metahuman if he could take down a Sayian. Hal could easily admit the average human didn't really stand a chance against one.
"Still, I should check her out. If she's invading planets then she needs to either be deported back to her race or imprisoned before she hurts people."
"There's no need for that. I'm training her to limit any collateral damage."
"Woah, hold up. You're training the alien invader?!"
"Yes."
"...Why!?"
"Because she is a child acting under the orders of another to invade planets. If she stays here we can stop her from being used by whoever sent her here and potentially draw that person out. If she is sent back we might be responsible for sending a child to an abusive environment. I refuse to allow that."
Hal made a quick check on Saiyan biology to confirm this wasn't just a species that happened to look like human children making use of a cover, but sure enough, while Saiyans grew in stages unlike humans that grew continuously to adulthood ,that only meant the invader -the girl- could be as young as eight earth years or as old as fifteen. And considering they could easily live to be 200 years old, she truly was a child.
"Alright, good point. And you're sure you can control her?" Spooky nodded, "then I'll ask the Corp to investigate any rumors of someone using Saiyan children as shocktroopers, with any luck – what the hell?"
The second Hal started looking for incidents regarding Saiyan children used like that he ran headfirst into a security wall marked Alpha Lantern eyes only, and the date of the block was several thousand years old. That didn't make any sense.
"Something wrong?"
"I got locked out when I went looking for similar incidents. That shouldn't happen without a very good reason." Hal turned away so he could focus on the readings his ring was giving him. It was starting to look like he was going to take a trip to Oa to get to the bottom of things. "I'll need to investigate more. You think you can keep an eye on the kid for a while?"
"I am training her." Was the deadpan reply.
"Right, well, leave me some way to get a hold of you. If there's someone out there using kids as an invasion force, I want to make sure we can catch him and I might need to talk to the girl about that."
"No need. I'll ask myself and update you if there is anything you can do."
"Wait just one second," Hal turned back fully expecting to give Bat-guy a reality check that this went beyond just Earth and was a Green Lantern matter, only to pause when there was no one there.
"Ring, scan for lifeforms."
[There are 4,207 Human sized lifeforms nearby within a one kilometer radius]
Definitely was going to tweak those settings after this.
"Scan for the guy in the bat suit I was just talking to."
[There are zero lifeforms nearby meeting the criteria 'guy in the bat suit I was just talking to']
Well…dammit.
I don't know what I was expecting training with Batman to be like. Maybe getting strapped into fake giant death traps and needing to fight off robots with one arm tied behind my back or maybe brutal hand to hand lessons in certain styles while getting quizzed on detective mysteries.
Calmly moving through tai chi stances with Robin while a Gi-wearing Batman (He was still wearing the mask) corrected my posture was not on the list.
"This wasn't what I was expecting when you said you would train me." I couldn't help but say as I moved through the forms I'd been shown.
"Body control is very important for learning martial arts. Tai Chi is very good for learning both awareness and control, things you will need in other styles. Especially if you need to control your strength to human levels." Batman explained again.
"Still think it's weird we agreed to train her at all." Bird Brain commented. No one paid him any attention though, as was proper.
"Yeah, but this would be easier if you just used your Ki to make yourself stronger instead." I insisted for probably the fifth time. "Then I wouldn't need to be so careful."
"We've tried that. But until Robin or I can do so it would just waste time. So we'll focus on practical things first."
"It would help if your instructions didn't suck."
"It would help if you weren't too stupid to follow basic directions Bird Brain!" I snapped at Robin.
"Basic directions?! 'Feel the warm glowy stuff in your body and make it do stuff' aren't directions! It doesn't even make sense!" The moron snapped back.
"Of course, they're the basics! They're so basic I shouldn't even need to teach you how to do it! It's like asking me to teach you how to breathe!"
I thought Batman would have been a really impatient guy, but he must have the patience of a saint to put up with someone as stupid as Robin.
"I take it someone taught you how to do this on your homeworld?" Batman asked calmly while stopping me, correcting my stance, and making me start over.
I actually had to think about it. There weren't a whole lot of interesting memories from old-Me so I tended to not think about them a lot. Most of them were just being bored traveling from one planet to another while jerk-dad tried to get me killed off.
"Not really?" I eventually replied. "I mean I learned some stuff by watching others but I was getting sent on missions too much for anyone to teach me."
"Missions? Like the one you're on right now?"
"Yeah! There aren't a whole lot of Saiyans available so we usually get a mission right after we finish the last one. I think. I always got a new one a few days after I got back from the old one."
"Wait, does that mean you stole planets from other races before?! How could you!" Robin shouted loudly.
"Robin." Thankfully Batman silenced him with a stern word before turning back to me. "Did you not train for these missions then?"
I focused on shifting my weight the way he had shown me. "Kinda? Like I did exercises and stuff, but the missions were supposed to come first. And they were kind of a let down, honestly, I always finished them super fast. The first one was supposed to be this really advanced civilization or something but they ended up blowing themselves up before I got there. I spent a long time just looking for someone before I realized I had the planet to myself."
I was so focused on my form that I didn't see Robin stumble out of his stance and stare open mouthed at me. I didn't see Batman stiffen up either.
"And how old were you at the time?"
I paused what I was doing and thought about it. That was my first mission and I think it took a few months to actually get to the planet. So…
"Maybe three and a half or so?" I said uncertainly. "Still no idea what that is in Earth years, but around that."
"...and how many missions have you been sent on?"
"This is my fourth!" I gave him a bright smile. "The second was full of giant killer reptiles that wanted to eat me."
Robin raised an eyebrow. "Giant killer reptiles, huh? How did you beat them?"
I shot him a smirk. "I waited until I was bigger than them and then squished them all."
Robin looked a little green at the thought. Wimp.
"What about the third?"
"That one was fun! It was full of carnivorous plants." I replied to Batman. "It was too bad about the allergies though."
"Allergies?"
I nodded seriously. "Yep, the plants were allergic to laser beams."
"Geez monkey girl, that's really messed up." Robin said.
"Your face is messed up!" I shouted and pounced on the brat. I wasn't going to let him insult me like that! Batman allowed it, just as long as I stayed in human levels.
-o-
Coast City was similar to Metropolis in many ways.
While it wasn't built as a testament to what the technology of tomorrow might bring to the table, it was a city that had become known for being the home of a man with powers far beyond the average person. Only instead of those powers being the result of alien biology, the Green Lantern was granted powers by alien technology and inducted into a galactic peacekeeping force.
Similarly to Superman, Green Lantern seemed to appear when needed only to vanish once the trouble was taken care of. The fact that there were two more Green Lanterns active elsewhere made him even more mysterious…
…unless you happened to know that Green Lantern could be seen coming and going from the same direction multiple times at different angles and could do the math to discover his likely launch point.
The sun was just about to set on the California coast when Green Lantern Hal Jordan landed in the alleyway a few streets down from his condo. It was a great blind spot and helped him ensure no one was going to target him while he was 'off the clock' as it were.
It was also one of those places that normal people had no reason to hang around in. So seeing a costumed man waiting patiently in the middle of the alley looking like he expected Hal to be there was a bit of a shock.
"Green Lantern." The man dressed up like a bat greeted him calmly.
"Uh, hi there. You're that guy from Gotham right? The urban legend?" Hal had been vaguely aware of the 'Batman' from some late night TV shows on modern day legends. He had dismissed it as just normal hoaxes trying to scare people or cheat them out of money like those Bigfoot hunter shows, but then Superman had shown up and Hal had gotten a magic ring from a dying alien. He was a little more willing to not dismiss things immediately after that.
Bat-guy nodded. "I've heard your ring can access information from all over the galaxy. I need your help."
"Woah, woah. Slow down there, spooky, yeah the ring can access the Green Lanterns' databases but we can't exactly go handing that stuff out to anyone that asks!" There were rules, not that Hal always agreed, but the phrase monkey with a flamethrower was a good way to sum up some of the incidents caused by other Lanterns freely sharing advanced technology.
"I only need information about an alien race that recently arrived here."
Another one? One of these days Hal really needed to figure out exactly how many aliens were actually on Earth. Still, if they were already here that meant he could justify sharing some things without issue.
"Alright, still not sure I can give you what you're looking for but ask away. What am I looking up?"
"Sayians."
Hal barely needed to prompt his ring for the information before a green construct with the information scrolling down it appeared in midair.
"Anything in particular? Looks like they've been around for quite awhile."
Tall, dark, and broody considered the request for half a second. "I need to know what will happen if the person they sent to conquer a planet fails to do so."
Conquer the planet?! How had he not heard of this before now?
[Lantern Hal Jordan - Sector 2814 requested all local media broadcasts from planet designation 'Earth' be muted unless there was a significant risk of life while on patrol around the sector] His ring unhelpfully informed him.
And how was an invasion not considered a significant risk of life?!
[Invading party was confronted by local forces and defeated in less than four local hours. Threat level was decided to be nonurgent]
That was…okay, he clearly needed to tweak some settings before this happened again. The last thing he wanted was to come home to find out his city was blown up because the ring didn't think to warn him before something happened.
"Uh, okay…going by this, as a whole Sayians don't leave their own sector of space that often. No reports of them invading for a few hundred years. The last one was a Saiyan that turned pirate five decades ago and tried taking over a planet as a base of operations and was stopped by the local Lantern. Looks like we might just have a bad actor trying to carve out their own territory."
There was a minute frown on spooky's face that Hal might have missed if he wasn't specifically looking for it. "You're sure? According to the girl herself she has already conquered three other planets before arriving here."
"Three? Did she say how?"
Hal actually relaxed a bit when spooky told him about a dead civilization, a planet full of super predators, and carnivorous plants. That sounded more like someone scavenging the planets no one wanted for some reason or another. Not the beginnings of an aggressive invasion. He even said as much to his sudden visitor.
"So yeah, don't think we have much to worry about in terms of an invasion on the horizon. Give me a few hours and I'll find them and kick them off the planet. It's kinda my job after all."
"Don't bother. I have her handled."
The invader was already beaten? This guy must be a pretty impressive metahuman if he could take down a Sayian. Hal could easily admit the average human didn't really stand a chance against one.
"Still, I should check her out. If she's invading planets then she needs to either be deported back to her race or imprisoned before she hurts people."
"There's no need for that. I'm training her to limit any collateral damage."
"Woah, hold up. You're training the alien invader?!"
"Yes."
"...Why!?"
"Because she is a child acting under the orders of another to invade planets. If she stays here we can stop her from being used by whoever sent her here and potentially draw that person out. If she is sent back we might be responsible for sending a child to an abusive environment. I refuse to allow that."
Hal made a quick check on Saiyan biology to confirm this wasn't just a species that happened to look like human children making use of a cover, but sure enough, while Saiyans grew in stages unlike humans that grew continuously to adulthood ,that only meant the invader -the girl- could be as young as eight earth years or as old as fifteen. And considering they could easily live to be 200 years old, she truly was a child.
"Alright, good point. And you're sure you can control her?" Spooky nodded, "then I'll ask the Corp to investigate any rumors of someone using Saiyan children as shocktroopers, with any luck – what the hell?"
The second Hal started looking for incidents regarding Saiyan children used like that he ran headfirst into a security wall marked Alpha Lantern eyes only, and the date of the block was several thousand years old. That didn't make any sense.
"Something wrong?"
"I got locked out when I went looking for similar incidents. That shouldn't happen without a very good reason." Hal turned away so he could focus on the readings his ring was giving him. It was starting to look like he was going to take a trip to Oa to get to the bottom of things. "I'll need to investigate more. You think you can keep an eye on the kid for a while?"
"I am training her." Was the deadpan reply.
"Right, well, leave me some way to get a hold of you. If there's someone out there using kids as an invasion force, I want to make sure we can catch him and I might need to talk to the girl about that."
"No need. I'll ask myself and update you if there is anything you can do."
"Wait just one second," Hal turned back fully expecting to give Bat-guy a reality check that this went beyond just Earth and was a Green Lantern matter, only to pause when there was no one there.
"Ring, scan for lifeforms."
[There are 4,207 Human sized lifeforms nearby within a one kilometer radius]
Definitely was going to tweak those settings after this.
"Scan for the guy in the bat suit I was just talking to."
[There are zero lifeforms nearby meeting the criteria 'guy in the bat suit I was just talking to']
Well…dammit.
Chapter 10
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 10
I wasn't too surprised to find out Batman wasn't going to be able to train me whenever I wanted. Unlike me, he had other things to do which meant he had to set aside time for preparation, investigation, maintaining his cover identity, and then his own training.
That meant I was free to do almost whatever I wanted when he was busy.
Batman did give me a few rules I was going to have to follow if I wanted to keep getting his training. Most of them were obvious ones like 'no blowing up a city' or 'no killing people'. Things that I wasn't really interested in doing anyway so it was fine. It used to be I had to follow the law, but I started looking up all the random, nonsensical laws I could find and presenting them to him asking if I had to follow those too until he removed that one from the list and told me he would revise it when he had time.
Which meant there was a window of time where I could do almost whatever I wanted and had a ready excuse so he couldn't get mad.
I was going to use that time to rob a bank.
It bothered me that my first bank robbery got interrupted, okay?! It was a classic crime, a hallmark of any successful supervillain. I wasn't going to let it remain a black mark on my career just because some stupid humans had to ruin it for me!
Of course I couldn't just act like the first time hadn't happened at all so I wasn't going to focus on the location as much. I wasn't even entirely sure what city I was in at the moment. Just that it was somewhere in the south east. As long as I stayed out of Florida I should get some decent news coverage and help cement my reputation. I might even be able to find a few more minor heroes too. Someone I could spar against that fell somewhere between Superjerk and Batman so I could get a fight I was capable of winning but took more effort than just raising my Ki.
And this time I wouldn't be nearly as nervous – not that I was nervous the first time! – because I now had some experience. I could do this, and it would go perfectly…
-o-
I couldn't stop smiling if I tried as I walked out of the bank.
Everything had gone perfectly to plan!
Not only was I able to break into the vault and steal a bunch of money, the teller had also managed to set off the silent alarm so I would be able to fight the police on the way out! Naturally they wouldn't be able to stop me and I would finally get the recognition as a villain I deserved.
My grin widened when I saw a bunch of police cars right outside and I was fully ready to launch into the mandatory monologue when I noticed something was off. None of the cops were actually looking at me.
Instead they were looking at – oh come on! That wasn't fair!
Barely two blocks from the bank there was a bird-winged woman with a mace fighting some kind of giant lizard with a laser gun. And they were kinda trashing the place which meant they were getting my attention instead of me.
Shoot, the woman looked familiar too. She was Hawkgirl, or was it Hawkwoman? Were they the same people? And wasn't she secretly evil for a bit? Ah, whatever. Right now she should be a hero. Which meant I might be able to fight her to make up for the fact my carefully planned robbery was ruined – again!
But first I needed to get rid of the other alien she was fighting.
I flew up into the air and pointed a palm at the reptilian alien, a ball of Ki gathering there. Then I thought about it and how the alien was tanking the mace hits and poured even more Ki into the attack.
The blast caught the alien completely by surprise and sent him crashing into an abandoned car…and the one behind it……and the three behind those.
I may have gone a tiny bit overboard.
It was fine though! I could still see him breathing so he was alive, just…very thoroughly knocked out.
My attack also had the bonus effect of making the police remember why they were in front of a bank in the first place but none of them were brave enough to actually face me, they just readjusted where they were hiding so they had something between me and them.
Hawkgirl-woman didn't seem to pick up on that immediately though.
"Thanks for the help, but I had it handled." The winged woman said as she landed nearby. "Lieutenant Shayera Thal of Thanagar."
I shrugged. "I was just upset you guys were getting in the way of my special event. I had everything going the way I wanted and you were distracting everyone else." I waved at the gathered cops. "Oh, and I'm Califa! Nice to meet you."
"Event? What kind of…" Hawkgirl-woman finally saw the police hiding from me and the building we were standing in front of as well as the bag full of money at my feet.
"...You weren't robbing this bank, were you?" She asked, glaring at me, well, hawkishly.
"And if I was?"
"Then, as a reward for helping detain another criminal, I would let you go as long as you left everything you took behind."
Her mace lit up in some weird sphere of lightning and she had a very aggressive looking grin on her face. One that I was certainly matching at this point.
"Yeah? You know what I say to that? Make me."
Alright, hero fight. Ready…set…
"Don't say I didn't give you a chance – ragghhh!"
Go!
The winged heroine launched herself at me with a loud battle cry. Swinging her mace at my torso.
I kicked the bag full of money away so it wouldn't get damaged and brought up both arms to block. To my surprise even when I flared my Ki to reduce the impact, the mace still really hurt when it hit. I could actually feel my bones creak a little from the impact. Hawkie certainly wasn't holding back!
I was going to have to watch out for that.
This was not the time to be distracted though, and I had to duck under another swing to avoid getting whacked again. Hawkie overshot and I was able to land a solid punch to her ribs that had her flapping her wings hard to avoid crashing into the ground. I waited patiently for her to stabilize and turn around so that when I shot a Ki beam at her, it was heading directly for her face.
She surprised me again by actually smashing my beam backwards with her magic mace and I had to move fast to avoid getting hit with my own energy. Of course by the time I had done that Hawkie was right in front of me again. I tried flying backwards to get out of the way but she was faster. That didn't mean I was going to let her get a free hit though. Since I couldn't dodge, I leaned into her swing and used the impact to increase the momentum for a solid kick to her face. Unfortunately between my own shorter legs not managing to fully connect and her bird shaped helmet the attack didn't seem to do much.
This time it was my turn to attack and I rushed forward to take advantage of the fact that Hawkie's flight was reliant on actual wings. Two simultaneous Ki beams forced her to pull them closer since there was no way she could hit them both with her mace and left her wide open for a mid-air tackle.
I felt the air whoosh out of her lungs as I tried to push us both towards the ground, but she wasn't making this easy for me. Even with the surprise grapple, Hawkie managed to bring her knee up hard and fast into my chest so that it loosened my grip on her. Which turned out to be enough that she was able to slip out of the hold entirely and use me as a springboard to keep flying while I was sent crashing into the pavement below.
At the sound of another battle cry I looked up just in time to throw myself to the side as Hawkie's mace cratered into the ground where I just was. I flared my Ki to kill my momentum and fly straight back at her to deliver another punch to the face. This time it was a clean hit that sent Hawkie stumbling away, dazed but not out of the fight.
I waited just long enough for the retaliatory swipe with the mace when she tried to guess my next attack's timing to miss before launching myself at her again, only to realize too late that she had predicted me predicting her and flew straight into a roundhouse kick.
"You're pretty good!" I complimented as I floated back off the pavement.
"And you're a pain in the ass." Hawkie growled back.
"Aww, that's not nice. Aren't you having fun?"
I don't think she wanted to admit she was enjoying this fight just as much as I was because she just leaped at me with another battlecry. She was somehow faster than I expected and caught me with a surprise uppercut before grabbing me by the front of my armor and spiking me into the ground.
I wheezed a bit at the force of the impact.
Once again Hawkie readied her mace to smash me further into the ground but she was too slow. A bright yellow Ki blast caught her right in the stomach and sent her smashing through a stone building's wall.
Oops.
Still, that wasn't enough to keep Hawkie down, even if she was looking a little rough at this point. She pulled herself out of the rubble and glared down at me looking fully prepared to keep the fight going. Something I was all for, but I was getting to the point that one of us would have to go down soon.
Even if Hawkie was looking pretty banged up, I wasn't all that fresh either if I was being honest.
I wasn't about to run away though. This was the first no holds fight I had gotten in that wasn't against someone that outclassed me hilariously. I was going to keep enjoying this as long as I could.
Hawkie probably didn't feel the same way. I got the feeling she was looking for a way to take me out as quickly as possible going by how careful she was being right now.
"What's the matter, did you want to give up?" I taunted her with a wide smile.
"Don't flatter yourself, kid. I'm just getting started." She snarled, flying into the air and dive bombing me, mace cocked back.
Since I knew she was skilled enough that I wasn't going to just avoid her I did something she wasn't expecting and jumped closer at the last second. Using the training I did with Batman I managed to stop her next swing before she really got it going. But just because I caught her by surprise, that didn't mean she wasn't quick enough to respond. Even as I caught her right arm her left was moving into position to block the attack she was sure was coming.
Too bad for her that wasn't what I was after.
Batman had spent a lot of time teaching me how to use leverage instead of strength to disarm someone. I used that training now to twist Hawkie's arm around until she was forced to drop it and then I kicked her away.
This time when we separated, I was the one left holding the fancy metal mace and she was unarmed.
"Give that back!"
I waved the weapon tauntingly at her. "No way, it's my turn to play with it."
"Grrrrrrr."
"Alright. Ready for round two?"
Hawkie took a stance while glaring at me. Even without her weapon she was going to keep fighting. Great! It would have been boring otherwise.
"Okay, let's keep going!"
I wasn't too surprised to find out Batman wasn't going to be able to train me whenever I wanted. Unlike me, he had other things to do which meant he had to set aside time for preparation, investigation, maintaining his cover identity, and then his own training.
That meant I was free to do almost whatever I wanted when he was busy.
Batman did give me a few rules I was going to have to follow if I wanted to keep getting his training. Most of them were obvious ones like 'no blowing up a city' or 'no killing people'. Things that I wasn't really interested in doing anyway so it was fine. It used to be I had to follow the law, but I started looking up all the random, nonsensical laws I could find and presenting them to him asking if I had to follow those too until he removed that one from the list and told me he would revise it when he had time.
Which meant there was a window of time where I could do almost whatever I wanted and had a ready excuse so he couldn't get mad.
I was going to use that time to rob a bank.
It bothered me that my first bank robbery got interrupted, okay?! It was a classic crime, a hallmark of any successful supervillain. I wasn't going to let it remain a black mark on my career just because some stupid humans had to ruin it for me!
Of course I couldn't just act like the first time hadn't happened at all so I wasn't going to focus on the location as much. I wasn't even entirely sure what city I was in at the moment. Just that it was somewhere in the south east. As long as I stayed out of Florida I should get some decent news coverage and help cement my reputation. I might even be able to find a few more minor heroes too. Someone I could spar against that fell somewhere between Superjerk and Batman so I could get a fight I was capable of winning but took more effort than just raising my Ki.
And this time I wouldn't be nearly as nervous – not that I was nervous the first time! – because I now had some experience. I could do this, and it would go perfectly…
-o-
I couldn't stop smiling if I tried as I walked out of the bank.
Everything had gone perfectly to plan!
Not only was I able to break into the vault and steal a bunch of money, the teller had also managed to set off the silent alarm so I would be able to fight the police on the way out! Naturally they wouldn't be able to stop me and I would finally get the recognition as a villain I deserved.
My grin widened when I saw a bunch of police cars right outside and I was fully ready to launch into the mandatory monologue when I noticed something was off. None of the cops were actually looking at me.
Instead they were looking at – oh come on! That wasn't fair!
Barely two blocks from the bank there was a bird-winged woman with a mace fighting some kind of giant lizard with a laser gun. And they were kinda trashing the place which meant they were getting my attention instead of me.
Shoot, the woman looked familiar too. She was Hawkgirl, or was it Hawkwoman? Were they the same people? And wasn't she secretly evil for a bit? Ah, whatever. Right now she should be a hero. Which meant I might be able to fight her to make up for the fact my carefully planned robbery was ruined – again!
But first I needed to get rid of the other alien she was fighting.
I flew up into the air and pointed a palm at the reptilian alien, a ball of Ki gathering there. Then I thought about it and how the alien was tanking the mace hits and poured even more Ki into the attack.
The blast caught the alien completely by surprise and sent him crashing into an abandoned car…and the one behind it……and the three behind those.
I may have gone a tiny bit overboard.
It was fine though! I could still see him breathing so he was alive, just…very thoroughly knocked out.
My attack also had the bonus effect of making the police remember why they were in front of a bank in the first place but none of them were brave enough to actually face me, they just readjusted where they were hiding so they had something between me and them.
Hawkgirl-woman didn't seem to pick up on that immediately though.
"Thanks for the help, but I had it handled." The winged woman said as she landed nearby. "Lieutenant Shayera Thal of Thanagar."
I shrugged. "I was just upset you guys were getting in the way of my special event. I had everything going the way I wanted and you were distracting everyone else." I waved at the gathered cops. "Oh, and I'm Califa! Nice to meet you."
"Event? What kind of…" Hawkgirl-woman finally saw the police hiding from me and the building we were standing in front of as well as the bag full of money at my feet.
"...You weren't robbing this bank, were you?" She asked, glaring at me, well, hawkishly.
"And if I was?"
"Then, as a reward for helping detain another criminal, I would let you go as long as you left everything you took behind."
Her mace lit up in some weird sphere of lightning and she had a very aggressive looking grin on her face. One that I was certainly matching at this point.
"Yeah? You know what I say to that? Make me."
Alright, hero fight. Ready…set…
"Don't say I didn't give you a chance – ragghhh!"
Go!
The winged heroine launched herself at me with a loud battle cry. Swinging her mace at my torso.
I kicked the bag full of money away so it wouldn't get damaged and brought up both arms to block. To my surprise even when I flared my Ki to reduce the impact, the mace still really hurt when it hit. I could actually feel my bones creak a little from the impact. Hawkie certainly wasn't holding back!
I was going to have to watch out for that.
This was not the time to be distracted though, and I had to duck under another swing to avoid getting whacked again. Hawkie overshot and I was able to land a solid punch to her ribs that had her flapping her wings hard to avoid crashing into the ground. I waited patiently for her to stabilize and turn around so that when I shot a Ki beam at her, it was heading directly for her face.
She surprised me again by actually smashing my beam backwards with her magic mace and I had to move fast to avoid getting hit with my own energy. Of course by the time I had done that Hawkie was right in front of me again. I tried flying backwards to get out of the way but she was faster. That didn't mean I was going to let her get a free hit though. Since I couldn't dodge, I leaned into her swing and used the impact to increase the momentum for a solid kick to her face. Unfortunately between my own shorter legs not managing to fully connect and her bird shaped helmet the attack didn't seem to do much.
This time it was my turn to attack and I rushed forward to take advantage of the fact that Hawkie's flight was reliant on actual wings. Two simultaneous Ki beams forced her to pull them closer since there was no way she could hit them both with her mace and left her wide open for a mid-air tackle.
I felt the air whoosh out of her lungs as I tried to push us both towards the ground, but she wasn't making this easy for me. Even with the surprise grapple, Hawkie managed to bring her knee up hard and fast into my chest so that it loosened my grip on her. Which turned out to be enough that she was able to slip out of the hold entirely and use me as a springboard to keep flying while I was sent crashing into the pavement below.
At the sound of another battle cry I looked up just in time to throw myself to the side as Hawkie's mace cratered into the ground where I just was. I flared my Ki to kill my momentum and fly straight back at her to deliver another punch to the face. This time it was a clean hit that sent Hawkie stumbling away, dazed but not out of the fight.
I waited just long enough for the retaliatory swipe with the mace when she tried to guess my next attack's timing to miss before launching myself at her again, only to realize too late that she had predicted me predicting her and flew straight into a roundhouse kick.
"You're pretty good!" I complimented as I floated back off the pavement.
"And you're a pain in the ass." Hawkie growled back.
"Aww, that's not nice. Aren't you having fun?"
I don't think she wanted to admit she was enjoying this fight just as much as I was because she just leaped at me with another battlecry. She was somehow faster than I expected and caught me with a surprise uppercut before grabbing me by the front of my armor and spiking me into the ground.
I wheezed a bit at the force of the impact.
Once again Hawkie readied her mace to smash me further into the ground but she was too slow. A bright yellow Ki blast caught her right in the stomach and sent her smashing through a stone building's wall.
Oops.
Still, that wasn't enough to keep Hawkie down, even if she was looking a little rough at this point. She pulled herself out of the rubble and glared down at me looking fully prepared to keep the fight going. Something I was all for, but I was getting to the point that one of us would have to go down soon.
Even if Hawkie was looking pretty banged up, I wasn't all that fresh either if I was being honest.
I wasn't about to run away though. This was the first no holds fight I had gotten in that wasn't against someone that outclassed me hilariously. I was going to keep enjoying this as long as I could.
Hawkie probably didn't feel the same way. I got the feeling she was looking for a way to take me out as quickly as possible going by how careful she was being right now.
"What's the matter, did you want to give up?" I taunted her with a wide smile.
"Don't flatter yourself, kid. I'm just getting started." She snarled, flying into the air and dive bombing me, mace cocked back.
Since I knew she was skilled enough that I wasn't going to just avoid her I did something she wasn't expecting and jumped closer at the last second. Using the training I did with Batman I managed to stop her next swing before she really got it going. But just because I caught her by surprise, that didn't mean she wasn't quick enough to respond. Even as I caught her right arm her left was moving into position to block the attack she was sure was coming.
Too bad for her that wasn't what I was after.
Batman had spent a lot of time teaching me how to use leverage instead of strength to disarm someone. I used that training now to twist Hawkie's arm around until she was forced to drop it and then I kicked her away.
This time when we separated, I was the one left holding the fancy metal mace and she was unarmed.
"Give that back!"
I waved the weapon tauntingly at her. "No way, it's my turn to play with it."
"Grrrrrrr."
"Alright. Ready for round two?"
Hawkie took a stance while glaring at me. Even without her weapon she was going to keep fighting. Great! It would have been boring otherwise.
"Okay, let's keep going!"