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Growing Pains [DBZ/DC]

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Growing Pains - Chapter 33
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    • Growing Pains - Chapter 33

    Trekking through an underground maze filled with monsters trying to kill me was incredibly boring when the monsters died from a random ki attack.

    I mean, it was really cool to see a bunch of different monsters. But it was kinda like expecting to go to the zoo and just walking to different rooms and seeing a model instead. Completely underwhelming and disappointing.

    "Hey, what would happen if I blasted through the floor? Would that speed this up?" I asked Donna after another room was easily cleared.

    The Amazon paused on her way to the other side of the room and scratched at her cheek in thought. "I don't actually know?" She said eventually. "We never considered not just going through the maze."

    Time to find out then…

    "You might want to stand back a bit." I warned Donna before cupping my hands and focusing. "KAAAAMEEEE…HAAAMEEE…HAAAAAAA!!!"

    Light pooled and burst forward, slamming into the smooth sandstone and drilling straight through. It didn't stay that way though. The further my Ki beam drilled, the slower it did so, the walls getting tougher and tougher until my attack couldn't push through anymore. Ki pooled at the end, building up until it lost cohesion and exploding violently enough I could hear it from where I was.

    I broke out into a self satisfied smile at the newly created shortcut even as I cut power to my attack. I didn't cut through the entire labyrinth, but at least we could get to the fun stuff instead of wasting our time on these weaklings now.

    "That worked pretty well," I chirped and started pulling a dazed Donna along by the wrist. "Come on, let's go see what's waiting for us. I think I heard something roaring down below."

    "...I…you…ugh! What if the roof collapsed on us?! There's a limit to being reckless you damn monkey!"

    Oh hey, Donna's using the same insult as Birdbrain now. I bet they'd get along pretty well when I introduced them after we got out of here. Honestly Robin would need the help, his skill at bantering was pretty weak…

    -o-

    "...Great Hera…that's a manticore!"

    "Oh cool, are those tough?"

    "They're nearly legends! Only the greatest heroes and demigods lived after encountering one!"

    So they were supposedly really tough! Finally, we might get something interesting to fight.

    "So do you want to go first or should I? Cause I have been hogging all the fights, even if they kinda sucked until now." I admitted.

    Donna looked at me like I was crazy. "Go first…? Califa, this is a manticore, we'll need to work together to even have a shot at winning. Between the claws and poisonous barbs a single mistake could be disastrous and we'll probably still have more monsters ahead of us as well!"

    I scowled but she was right. It just wasn't any fun, but then most Amazons trained and worked in teams. Saiyans just preferred to take turns. Stupid poison, making things less fun.

    Oh well, I'd just demand a spar later to make up for it.

    "Fine. You go left, I'll go ri-" I was cut off when the manticore decided to remind me talking wasn't a free action and slammed me to the ground. I instinctually caught a clawed limb from tearing open my face and was surprised when I had to put more effort in so it didn't casually overpower me.

    Strong. Dangerous too.

    Finally, something exciting!

    Donna shoulder-checked the manticore into a wall hard enough to crack the stone before either of us could really put any effort into our struggle and knocked the creature back into the room it was supposed to be guarding.

    "You okay?"

    I smiled. "Never better."

    "Good because it's coming back for more. Watch out for the tail, it can shoot venomous barbs."

    Also good to know.

    Now that it was clear I wasn't just going to blow through this one in a single attack, I took a second to actually look at the monster we were fighting.

    Big fangs and claws were kind of a given for a monster, and the feline body, draconic wings, and weird scorpion tail covered in a bunch of spines were all good touches, but it was the eyes that got me excited.

    There was something hungry behind those eyes. This was an opponent that wanted to fight us.

    Well, we were going to give it one.

    Donna was the first to fly forward. The manticore roared at her and took a swipe. She ducked under the first paw and caught the second before landing a bone-rattling uppercut on the beast's jaw. Despite that, the monster didn't go flying. It was just forced onto its hind legs for a bit until Donna punched it in the face again.

    …and again, and again, and again.

    Despite the assault, the manticore didn't seem all that injured after it managed to swat the Amazon out of the way with a forepaw. It did seem mad though, and looked ready to lunge after her.

    So I did the reasonable thing and blasted it in the face with a Ki beam.

    What? Donna said we needed to work together.

    It didn't even do all that much. The manticore slammed into the walls and stayed pinned there for a few moments while the beam sputtered out. Besides a small burn mark I noticed when it picked itself up and roared, there wasn't even a scratch.

    Okay, time to take this up a notch.

    The manticore spun around and a dozen or so spines shot at me. Remembering Donna's warning about poison I flew up over them rather than risk even a tiny cut screwing me over. But the manticore apparently was counting on that, because I looked up to see it hovering above me on leathery wings already clawing towards my head.

    On instinct I reached out and managed to grab its furry wrist, using that as a lever to pull myself over the swipe and kick the manticore in the head.

    It was an awesome move and I'd totally claim I did it on purpose if someone asked…unfortunately, it didn't do much either. The manticore's head snapped to the side and that was it. So I punched it again. This time I pushed it back just in time for Donna to come screaming in for a big hit of her own.

    We kinda devolved into a big threeway aerial fur ball at that point, each of us punching, kicking, and clawing at our opponent without the space or time to really put our full strength into any one blow.

    I ducked around a clawed kick and got a solid hit into the creature's ribs just as Donna punched it across the face. The manticore grunted from both hits but swung its body around to keep momentum. More spikes shot out of its tail and went for my amazonian partner. I almost panicked and blasted both her and them out of the air, but she kept her head and quickly deflected all of them with her gauntlets. Seeing she was safe I flared my Ki higher and slammed into the manticore. This time the manticore was knocked across the room but once again it seemed fine.

    "This isn't working," I said, during a brief pause in the fight. "We keep hitting it but I don't think we're doing any damage."

    She glanced at me and then back to the manticore which was slowly circling us now that we had all figured out just rushing each other was pretty pointless. "You're right, we've both hit it hard enough that we should have done something but I don't see any damage. It's like it's impervious to blunt force."

    Well that's not good. Most of our attacks were blunt force. "Any ideas then?"

    "We could backtrack and see if one of the previous challenge rooms has a weapon we could steal." Donna proposed. "Diana and I used to do that when we were younger."

    I gave the still circling manticore a look. "You think this guy would let us wander back through the maze and not follow us?"

    "...probably not. If it's like the other monsters, it would try to keep chasing us until we left the labyrinth." She admitted. "You have any ideas?"

    Hit it harder? No, that was stupid.

    Blunt force wasn't working so more blunt force wasn't the answer. We needed to either use a different type of attack or figure out how to target a weak spot. Burying it or strangulation might work, I vaguely remembered Hercules did that to a few of the monsters he fought, but the issue was that the walls were too tough to easily break and our monster had a tail that would wreck us in a moment if we tried to brute force it.

    Have one person strangle it while the other held off the tail? No, that was too risky. One mistake and the person strangling the manticore would be skewered. Stab it with a Ki blade? Possible, but I didn't have the best control of that technique yet. I was more likely to burn it rather than stab through its skin.

    Wait…burn it.

    I glanced at the manticore's face where the mark from my Ki blast was still visible.

    So I could hurt it. Now it was a question of how to exploit that enough to win.

    "Okay, I have an idea…" I told her and explained my plan.

    To say she was thrilled would be–

    "Are you absolutely insane?!"

    "It could work!"

    –a complete lie.

    "It could also lose me my hands or my life!"

    I shrugged, she wasn't wrong there. "Yeah, but, you have any other plans besides 'run away and hope for the best'?"

    She glared at me. "...no, but this doesn't work I'm going to kick your butt again."

    "Again for the first time, you mean?" I scoffed. "And it'll work. I'm like seventy percent sure it will."

    "S-seventy percent?!"

    "Aaaand go!"

    I flared my Ki and left a sputtering Donna behind as I shot forward. We needed to catch the manticore off guard if my plan was going to work, that meant luring it into a false sense of confidence we were just going to try beating it to death…or just giving it a concussion. Personally, I was fine with either solution.

    The manticore roared and lunged to meet me, a small shockwave appearing where my forearm clashed against its wrist, and the both of us attempted to overpower the other for a bit. I thought I was winning that, but it turned out to be a trap when the manticore twisted in a way that made me shoot past it and almost get impaled by its tail. I managed to dodge at the last moment, but I actually felt the spines pass through my hair.

    Too close.

    A hind leg still caught me in the chest though, and I found myself bouncing off the floor and slamming into a wall not long after. A brief check reassured me that I hadn't been disemboweled by the kick but my clothes had definitely seen better days by this point. The four new long scratches over my torso were shallow, but still bled enough that it would be a pain to get out. Which sucked because these had been a gift and were really comfy. I'd need to start wearing my armor again.

    I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

    I must have hit my head harder than I thought if I was thinking about clothes in the middle of a fight.

    I glanced over to where Donna was now tangling with the manticore on the ground. I wasn't exactly sure how she managed to force the monster out of the air but it would make the next part of the plan easier, so good job!

    Leaving the Amazon to her fight I started preparing on my end. We'd only had one chance to surprise it so I had to make it count.

    Funny enough, Donna was actually doing better now that the both of them weren't flying. She seemed a lot more comfortable getting close and grappling than the constant maneuvering and surging flying combat needed. If the manticore wasn't tough enough that we simply couldn't beat it into submission, I'd have given her pretty good odds she could have beaten it by herself.

    But as neat as it was to watch my Amazon buddy fight, I was focused and waiting for my opening.

    I didn't have to wait long. Eventually Donna managed to twist the manticore around enough that she was relatively safe from the poisonous tail and the monster's claws. With no other options the manticore fell back on its one remaining weapon…it tried to bite her. And that was exactly what we were waiting for.

    Donna immediately dropped everything to shove her hands into the manticore's mouth and forced it open as wide as she could. The beast definitely didn't like that because it tried backing off but the Amazon held it in place.

    "Califa, now!"

    I didn't need her to tell me. As soon as I saw her make her move, I launched forward as fast as I could, the Ki I had been building without allowing to escape was dumped into the fastest and sloppiest Kamehameha I'd ever done. If it wasn't for the fact I was less than two inches in front of my target, I think the Ki would have just exploded randomly before I could force it into a beam. But my target was right in front of me, so while I shouted out the name of the technique I focused on pouring as much power as I could where I needed it to go: right down the throat of the manticore.

    Neither the manticore or my Ki really liked that. The manticore for obvious reasons, but my Ki because it was being constantly compressed in the stomach of the manticore with nowhere to go and I was only adding more. Something had to give, and given that I had actually burned the monster with a basic Ki blast I was betting the manticore would be first.

    Its body actually swelled and warped from the amount of energy I was pouring down its throat before it warped and popped like a particularly gruesome piñata. Luckily my Ki finally managed to burn away the gross bits so most of the manticore was vaporized in a flash of blue light before they got everywhere.

    "Wheeew~" I let out a big sigh as I collapsed on my butt next to Donna who did the same. "That was fun! Can't wait to see what else we get to fight now!"

    Donna gave me a look before barking out a laugh. "You're crazy! We just beat a manticore and you already want to fight again?!" She laughed some more and then gave me a friendly tap on the shoulder. "But you know what? That was fun. I forgot how nice it was to fight with a friend by your side. Let's rest for a bit and then continue on."

    I smiled back at her. We were friends now. She even admitted it!

    --------------------------------

    Yes I know the difference between poisonous and venomous. Neither Califa or Donna care enough to use the right one when both are a 'bad thing when inside you' and they have a monster to fight.
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    • I thought they would grab the tail and try to stab it with its own spikes (piercing damage). Also, it's not uncommon for venomous animals to be vulnerable to their own venom.
     
    it's pretty common for things in that mythos that are venomous to also be poisonous, so they may have been using a technically correct word by mistake anyway.
     
    Wait so does the venom work on Califa? Cause she definitely got scratched.
     
    Now that their friends, they might start doing arts and crafts together. Diana will get the mirror back and enter in their, only find califa and Donna having made a minecraft castle out of boredem.
     
    How much do you want to bet that the frist words that everyone hears when they get out are going to be
    "I'm back and I got a new sister"
     
    They shoulda hit it really hard... together! Hey, it worked on Metal Cooler! And if I'm understanding what happened to the Manticore's giblets that they didn't get covered in meat correctly, it turned to smoke when they beat it, too!
     
    Last edited:
    Azura said:
    Neither the manticore or my Ki really liked that. The manticore for obvious reasons, but my Ki because it was being constantly compressed in the stomach of the manticore with nowhere to go and I was only adding more. Something had to give, and given that I had actually burned the monster with a basic Ki blast I was betting the manticore would be first.

    Its body actually swelled and warped from the amount of energy I was pouring down its throat before it warped and popped like a particularly gruesome piñata. Luckily my Ki finally managed to burn away the gross bits so most of the manticore was vaporized in a flash of blue light before they got everywhere.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    FATALITY, Califa. Wins.

    that's one nasty way to go. If they encounter a minotaur i'm fully expecting Califa to try and headbutt it to test herself.
     
    I have to say this fic is probably the best portrayal of a Good!Saiyan I've seen to date. Most of the time they just end up feeling like a regular Joe or Jane except with Saiyan powers, Califa on the other hand has a pretty strong character voice that feels Saiyan without being a carbon copy of an existing DBZ character. Compared to say Goku, she comes off as far more aggressive and mischievous but with a similar lack of cruelty and maliciousness. She loves fighting but I don't think she'd much enjoy killing, though I could see an older Califa doing it far more readily than Goku if warranted; she seems the type with a threshold of "sufficiently an evil asshole" where she decides you're an acceptable target for murder lol.

    I also deeply, deeply enjoy her chaos gremlin energy.

    TLDR: she's not a genocidal planet-conquering monster, but she still reads very strongly as a Saiyan, kudos to the author!
     
    Growing Pains - Chapter 34
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    • Growing Pains - Chapter 34

    [Batman POV]

    "Were you able to identify anything about it?" Batman demanded.

    The man dressed as a stage magician huffed and ran a hand through his hair. "You know this isn't really my area of expertise, right? I focus mostly on my family's branch of magic. You'd get better luck talking to an enchanter or someone like Dr. Fate."

    "Fate is offworld at the moment. And I've checked with three others already." The fact Batman was still compiling a list of other magic users skilled enough to help wasn't mentioned.

    "Right," Zatara huffed again. "Well I don't know what I could tell you about this that they couldn't but it's a magical bronze mirror with a beaten silver face. Heavily enchanted."

    Batman knew that before he even went looking for subject experts. Unfortunately, despite his expectations the last three hadn't been able to tell him anything more. "What else?"

    "It's some sort of gateway or portal. I'm not really familiar with how it works but I do recognize a bit of the style. Old Greek. That's all I can tell you." Zatara seemed regretful about that but Batman was glad to have another avenue to investigate. Having a specific region to investigate was much more manageable than trying to sift through every discipline on the planet.

    -o-

    "How's the search going, Bruce?"

    "I'm shifting through thousands of historical records and myths for any mention of a mirror matching the description of the one we found. It's taking a while." Batman sighed, rubbed at his tired eyes and turned to face his visitor. "What are you doing here, Clark?"

    "Checking in. The League is hunting down leads but no one has heard from you in a week." Clark was hovering there in his hero costume, arms crossed and a disapproving look on his face.

    "I've been busy."

    "Looking for a way to get Califa back, we know. Everyone is pitching in." Clark said. "But working yourself into the ground isn't going to help anybody."

    "I've been taking breaks."

    "I wouldn't call heading out into the city to deal with several criminals every night taking a break, Master Bruce. Some proper sleep would do some good." Alfred, his ever loyal butler commented as he deposited a glass of water nearby and began collecting the empty or forgotten coffee cups. "And would our guest care for a drink? Coffee, tea?"

    Clark smiled. "No thanks Alfred, I'm good."

    Batman resisted the urge to sigh again and locked down the computer. With both Clark and Alfred teaming up on him, he was unlikely to get back to work anytime soon.

    And while he appreciated the two of them caring about his health, he couldn't bring himself to rest until he knew what happened to Califa. The image of the Saiyan child vanishing in a flash of silver had haunted what little sleep he managed since the incident. It was only after meeting with Zatara and learning that she had likely been transported somewhere instead of being vaporized that he had managed to get back to something close to his normal schedule.

    "But really, Bruce, you can take a break. We have people looking. We'll get her back."

    "I can't. I'm meeting Diana about a possible lead in a few hours. I'll need to leave soon to make that."

    Annoyingly, Clark just smiled. "Great, just let me know where we're going and hop in the Batjet. You can catch some sleep on the way there."

    The sigh Batman was holding back broke free, because with Clark tagging along Batman would have to sleep instead of working through the flight like he planned. If he didn't Alfred would know and he wouldn't hear the end of it for a few days.

    "...fine."

    He just hoped wherever Califa was sent was safe enough she could survive until they found her.

    -o-

    [Califa POV]

    "Anytime now Donna!"

    "I'm working on it!"

    "Hurry up!"

    "Just wait a bit!"

    I gaped at the audacity of that, which turned out to be a mistake. Because of course the second my mouth was open for more than a second was when the hydra head in the process of trying to eat me decided to breathe out…

    "Ghhaaakch that reeks!" I gagged. "And I don't have a bit, it's trying to EAT ME!"

    I heard a crash and the world shook and spun as the hydra went flying but not enough to dislodge me.

    There was a wet tearing sound and then the jaws that had been in the process of trying to crush me slackened, allowing me to wriggle out of the hydra's mouth and look around a bit.

    Donna was hovering over the stump of the neck she had just ripped off. A stump that was starting to wriggle and grow. I put a stop to that with a Ki beam and waited to see what happened. This was the fifth time we did this, but it was the first time the hydra didn't have any heads left. And it was clearly alive if it was trying to regrow more heads even then.

    I didn't have to worry though, because after about a minute the body just kinda tipped over.

    Guess we won…woo…

    Ugh, I couldn't even pretend to be excited. I was covered in gross lizard saliva.

    "You okay, Califa?"

    I glared at the Amazon, who was still keeping a good distance between us.

    "What do you think?"

    "I mean, you didn't have to fly into its mouth. We could've figured out another way to stop it from breathing poison."

    I scowled at her because at the time neither of us had the time to think of anything better, so I solved it by following my gut - physically holding the little flap that allowed the hydra to breathe a kind of poisonous mist closed while Donna ripped the head off. Also because every stupid monster in here seemed to breathe or have poison all of a sudden.

    "But more seriously, are you okay? You didn't breathe in any poison?"

    I shrugged and rolled my shoulders a bit. "Nah, I feel fine. A little tired but fine to keep going."

    "Good. I think we are getting close to the end. I can't imagine many things more dangerous than a hydra. Well, things that would be found in a small underground labyrinth anyway."

    "I hope so, I'm starving." Even if I apparently didn't need to eat in this weird place it didn't stop me from wanting to. Which, now that I thought about it, must have been horrible for Donna.

    I was holding off judging Wonder Woman until we got out because leaving someone trapped in a mirror didn't seem like something she should do, but if she did abandon Donna here and just kinda forgot about her…I was going to help Donna beat her up.

    "Nothing to do but keep moving forward then. I'm going first though - you kinda…smell."

    My eyebrow twitched.

    Or maybe I would help Wonder Woman beat up Donna instead.

    -o-

    To my surprise, the next room we found didn't have a monster for us to fight.

    Instead we found something that looked a lot like one of the temples on Themyscira. If someone had emptied one of them out of everything including any reference to the god it was supposed to be honoring anyway.

    "Oh, we found a rest area." Donna commented, looking around interestedly but completely unsurprised.

    "You know what this place is?"

    "Kind of? Diana and I found them a few times when we got lost on the upper floors. They're spaces that have useful tools for recovery. Things to make medicines or treat injuries, things to fix clothing or armor, and some other stuff that we needed to learn to do on our own. But I'm glad we found one because there is one room we desperately needed right about now."

    "A kitchen?" I asked hopefully.

    She snorted. "No, a bath!" She replied, not hesitating a moment to crush my dreams. "And maybe the sewing room. Gods know we could both use a new outfit."

    I shrugged at that, not really caring beyond getting something that didn't stink like hydra breath. But finding something that wasn't covered in blood and grime would be nice too.

    Would still have preferred a kitchen instead though.

    Grumbling aside, the bath was actually pretty nice. It was more like a small swimming pool than a tub, which meant both of us could clean the smell from our last fight off us without waiting for the other person.

    Donna took way longer than me though, since she actually wanted to use the little jars of oils we found instead of just getting clean. I didn't complain though. After a quick check of the area I found there wasn't exactly much to do here so I decided to just lounge in the water while she did her thing.

    "So what do you think we'll fight next?" I asked after it looked like we weren't going anywhere for a while.

    "I have no idea." Donna muttered. "The last few monsters we faced were far more deadly than I would have thought we'd be allowed to face. This was supposed to be a training tool, not a death pit filled with things straight out of Tartarus."

    I perked up at that.

    "Ooh, do you think we'll find a cyclops in here? Those were supposed to be in Tartarus, and I heard they were pretty strong."

    "Gods, I hope not. At this point I just want to get to the end so we can leave and see the sun again. It's not natural to spend this much time underground."

    I just hummed idly at that, making a mental note not to take Donna with me when I went to visit Mars. I was pretty sure that most of the inhabited areas were either underground or in a canyon or cavern or something like that. If just spending a day underground was getting to her, she probably wouldn't enjoy sightseeing there.

    Of course I could be wrong.

    I'd have to talk to Martian Manhunter about it later.

    The two of us finished with the bath and went digging through the rooms where we eventually found a sewing room complete with a bunch of extra fabric and what looked like basic half-finished clothes.

    I would have been fine with that but Donna had higher standards and took the time to not only finish the outfits, but even made alterations to mine so my tail would fit through comfortably. By the end of it the both of us were in some comfortable close fitting pants and sleeveless shirts. Her in a nice red color and mine in a dark blue that was suspiciously close to the underlayer of my Sayian armor but not as durable or form fitting.

    I tugged at part of my pant leg and was disappointed to find the material wasn't nearly as stretchy as my other clothes either when I saw Donna gathering up the scraps of our other clothes.

    "What are you going to do with those?"

    "I'm going to burn them."

    I blinked at that. I hadn't really pegged her as a pyromaniac so there was probably a reason I was missing.

    "Why? Is that some kind of ritual or prayer I don't know about?"

    She stopped and stared at me. "Califa…these reek. I'm going to do the world a favor and purge them with fire."

    …okay then…

    I really didn't like the look in her eyes. It somehow looked both completely hollow and somewhat crazed. I also got the feeling that she might snap if I told her the smell wasn't that bad, though that might just be because I was completely nose blind at this point.

    I very carefully looked away and let her go about her business.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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