- Location
- Argentina
Private equity companies is were real companies go to die. leveraged buyouts used to be ilegal for a reason and should be illegal again.
Growing Pains [DBZ/DC]
- Thread starter Azura
- Start date
Private equity companies is were real companies go to die. leveraged buyouts used to be ilegal for a reason and should be illegal again.
Fabula Amanti
I want a Grimoire, but I got books.
- Location
- Singapore
I feel like the three adults are getting a glimpse of the future with super power kids. Batman might have a chance with a more normal child but WW and Supes are going to be in for a fun time when/if they want to have a family.
And they still haven't reached the extremely worrisome puberty stage of their lives yet.
Not_Interesting
The Munchkin of Megastructures
- Location
- In your walls(the walls between realities)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Dang, you actually nailed it! They did go grab some Ice cream after!
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
There have been many lawsuits about this and I doubt places with speedsters around would fail to include fine print found in many real world all you can eat places regarding limits.
Growing Pains - Chapter 39
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 39
As much as I wanted to drag Donna all over the continent and introduce her to my favorite places and people, it was recommended by Wonder Woman that she take a few days to slowly get acclimated to the modern world now that she wasn't stuck in a magical mirror.
Donna, like theresponsible boring person she could be sometimes, agreed and was now on Themyscira getting a similar crash course on what you were, and were not, supposed to do on Earth while probably being told she had a home there if she just wanted to become part of the Amazons.
I wasn't about to get in the way of her finally being able to meet what she considered her people just yet. I knew from our talks how much she wanted to meet other Amazons and be a part of them.
I would just drag her out on a few adventures if she didn't leave on her own in a few weeks.
But that did mean I was once again left on my own with nothing to do once the Justice League members had to go back to their day jobs.
Part of me wanted to run off and find one of the other heroes to bother, I hadn't seen Hawkie or the Sidekick Squad in a while, but those were things I wanted to do with Donna so I held off.
Instead I just kinda wandered down the streets of a random city somewhere on the west coast.
I think one of the Green Lanterns lived here? I hadn't really interacted much with any of them, only briefly dealing with the black dude a couple times and even then it was more him focusing on his job while I just happened to be there then us actually fighting or working together.
I don't think this was his city though. He didn't really seem like a beach town kind of guy. Probably one of the other Lanterns then.
Maybe I should go find one of them?
My plans to find and poke the galactic space cops was interrupted by something crashing down from the sky right in front of me. I immediately jumped back and fell into a fighting stance, ignoring the screaming humans running away from whatever just showed up.
I didn't have the luxury of getting distracted by them because whatever this thing was? I couldn't sense its energy.
A bright pink thing shot out of the dust cloud straight at me and I instinctually ducked under it before leaping backwards to get some more distance. I didn't know what this thing was. I wasn't going to let it touch me just in case it had some kind of super poison on it.
The dust cleared and I got my first good look at what just attacked me.
It was a mostly pink robot…squid?...with some black and metal bits hovering in the air and suddenly I felt cheated. The stupid thing didn't even look tough.
So with a disinterested scowl I raised a hand and shot it with a fairly strong ki blast. Only, instead of exploding like it was supposed to, my energy attack splashed harmlessly over some kind of shield.
Okay, slightly more interested now.
The robot squid shoots forward at me, almost like it was going for a tackle, which I sidestep easily enough. It's fast, but after all the training I've done it's not at a level I really have trouble with. At least until it flipped around and started using its four tentacles to either attack or try to grab me.
I don't know what the things were made of but they were durable enough that all hitting them did was knock them out of the way for a bit and every time I did so I felt a weird electric tingling in whatever I touched them with that was slowly making my arms and legs heavier.
One of the tentacles speared towards my head so I sidestepped out of the way and grabbed the weird not-metal as it passed and used it to heave the squid over my shoulder and into the side of a nearby building. Not that it did much beyond damaging the brickwork.
I scowled as I looked around the street.
Most of the humans had cleared out by now but it was still too cramped to really cut loose without breaking something.
I needed to get to a more open area. Good thing the ocean was right there.
Now just to see if the squid will follow me…
-o-
The good news was that the robot squid was willing to follow me out over the ocean instead of staying in the city so the heroes wouldn't need to lecture me about paying attention to my surroundings after I destroyed the thing.
The bad news was I still had no idea how to destroy the stupid thing.
I didn't feel like going too far away from the coast but once I was far enough away from the city to not worry about hitting a building, I shot the squid with a serious ki blast. One that should have theoretically vaporized a skyscraper if it hit, but just like before the blast scattered harmlessly over the robot after hitting some kind of shield and I was back to square one.
Actually I was a little worse off because my limbs still felt heavy from whatever the tentacles did to them. It was fine for now but eventually it could be a problem. Come to think of it my Ki was moving a little more sluggishly than normal too…
I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind and focused on the squid. No point worrying about those things if I just got blindsided because I was distracted. Something I was actually pretty annoyed at. I spent so much time trying to make using ki sense second nature that now that I couldn't use it I felt like I was fighting half blind.
The squid caught up and looked like it wasn't going to slow down even as it flipped and spread its tentacles to give it the biggest chance of grabbing me. I didn't know why it seemed so focused on capturing me rather than fighting but that joined the rest of my thoughts in the mental 'for later' box as I counter charged the flying pink robot and punched it in the body right where the tentacles attached to the rest hard enough to cause a thunderclap.
I smiled because for once I actually felt the body deform from the hit. This thing was durable and strong, but I could beat it.
"Okay squiddie, I don't know what your problem is with me. But if you think you're enough to beat a Saiyan warrior, you've got another thi– hey, wait! Where are you going!?"
I was just going for a bit of banter and the thing dove into the ocean!
Did I just scare it off? The last alien I told about me being a Saiyan was those Imperium guys and they went as far as trying to claw pieces of themselves off trying to get away from me. Were Saiyans simply too scary? But this was a robot, it shouldn't even feel fear!
I looked at the water and debated if continuing to fight the alien robot squid was worth following it into the water. On the one hand, it twinged my pride to just let the thing get away after attacking me. But on the other, I wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of getting soaked just to try and find something that could have run away by now with almost no chance of catching it.
I was just about to give up on finding the robot squid and heading back to the city when I caught a flash of pink on the surface of the water. I had a split second to realize the reflection came from above me before the robot squid slammed into me and wrapped two tentacles around each of my arms.
What…how did it get above me that fast?!
I got my answer seconds later when the second, or rather the first, robot squid burst out of the water and grabbed my legs.
Okay, there were more of these things. Now I knew for sure someone was after me specifically.
Doing my best to ignore the growing numb feeling in my arms and legs, I flared my ki and spun in place before flexing my core and slamming the two robots into each other. My move worked and they lost their grip on me, even better I could see some sparks coming from where the two squids collided indicating some kind of damage. Whatever shield these things used to protect against my energy attacks didn't protect against itself.
"Well, now we know I can break you. Any more friends you want to bring to the party?" I taunted the robots. Not that I was expecting them to talk if they hadn't by now.
They didn't talk but they quickly shut me up when two more robots exploded out of the ocean bringing my opponents up to four.
"That wasn't an actual invitation." I complained and then had to focus as all four attacked at once.
Between sixteen tentacles it was hard to find room to dodge and I ended up tanking a lot more hits then I wanted, but eventually I managed to catch one of them again and started using the rest of the squid as an improvised flail on the other three robots. Without the shields getting in the way I managed to do some decent damage but couldn't take any of them down before the squid I had a hold of ejected the tentacle I had a hold of.
Still, going by the sparks coming off them now a few more solid hits should change that.
Unfortunately I wasn't in much better shape because the whole time I was using a squid to beat a squid, whatever numbing thing the tentacles did had still been going on. I could barely feel my right hand right now and it took actual effort to form it into a fist. And that was after forcibly pushing ki as a sort of barrier to slow down the effects.
I could be in a bit of trouble here…
Then one of the squids broke off and started flying back towards the city for seemingly no reason. That was until I heard the sound of jets in the distance and saw what looked like a human robot flying out towards us. Oh hey, I recognized that thing! It was the knock off battlesuit/Ironman thing the army had!
"Attention Aliens: you are violating United States airspace. Either leave Earth orbit now or if you are unable to break atmosphere, surrender and disarm. You will be held in custody until you can be escorted off-planet." the new arrival blared from a loudspeaker.
Huh, he sounded kind of familiar.
The robot squid close to him flipped and spread out its tentacles, either to block the newcomer from getting closer or in preparation for an attack. Either way, not the right choice as that caused the robot to open fire with some kind of shoulder mounted gatling gun that tore into the pink squid and after a few seconds caused it to explode.
I frowned at that because there was no way some bullets were doing more damage then what I could do. But it happened anyway. Either something about that gun was special or I was missing something.
Another issue for the 'later' box.
The three remaining squids decided this was the last shot they were going to get at me and rushed to go on the attack. But they made a mistake, not only did they group up, they also had given me enough time to gather my Ki.
"KAMEHAME–" I cupped my hands and focused on making the attack as dense as possible to give it the best chance of getting through the damaged shields. Then I let go. "HAAAA!"
Just asI guessed planned, the shields on the squids couldn't hold off a continuous attack and eventually failed. The three squids exploded and without the shields protecting them, the resulting parts were vaporized by the energy attack.
That just left me alone with the new guy. Who I finally remembered the name of.
"Hey, Rhodes!" I half-sang, giving him an exaggerated wave to disguise the fact I still couldn't really feel my limbs. "I see you got a new suit. Does this mean we get to have another match?"
The military drone slowed to a stop and gave me a lookover. "You look familiar. You don't happen to have a younger sister do you? Gets into places she shouldn't be? Likes to break expensive prototypes?"
"You have trouble hearing through that thing?" I scowled at the robot. "It's me, Califa."
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! But seriously, you look different. No more little monkey girl, huh? You had one heck of a growth spurt from the last time we saw you."
"Thanks! It happened when I spent a month in a magical mirror training device. I met a new friend there too! I'll have to bring her by so she can spar against your new suit too!"
"...magical mirror…? Right, gonna decide that's above my paygrade. Anyway, look sharp kid. We got another UFO dropping on our heads. We'll catch up after we figure out what they want or send them packing."
I looked up and sure enough there was a spaceship heading right for us.
Not a very big one though. So either this was just a landing craft or whoever owned it was just bringing a handful of people. Especially when I saw the size of the two figures standing on top of the ship. Unless there was some serious space expansion wizardry in that ship you weren't fitting more than two or three of the…crab-people? They looked like giant armored crab-people to me at least…in there.
"Attention Aliens," Rhodes announced one more time. "This is Air Force Specialist James Rhodes. You are violating United States airspace. State your intentions or you will be considered hostile."
Going by the look of the armor on these guys I was betting they were the ones behind the robot squid things, and since those hadn't said anything I wasn't expecting these two to either.
So it was a little surprising when one of them held up a golden badge and said, "In the name of the Grand Centauri Empire, the Saiyan girl is under arrest for violation of the Ekelon Accords. Once she is captured we will leave this planet. Stand aside."
Wait. Were these some kind of non-Lantern space cops? Why were they after me, I hadn't even done anything off planet?! And what were the Ekelon Accords?!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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As much as I wanted to drag Donna all over the continent and introduce her to my favorite places and people, it was recommended by Wonder Woman that she take a few days to slowly get acclimated to the modern world now that she wasn't stuck in a magical mirror.
Donna, like the
I wasn't about to get in the way of her finally being able to meet what she considered her people just yet. I knew from our talks how much she wanted to meet other Amazons and be a part of them.
I would just drag her out on a few adventures if she didn't leave on her own in a few weeks.
But that did mean I was once again left on my own with nothing to do once the Justice League members had to go back to their day jobs.
Part of me wanted to run off and find one of the other heroes to bother, I hadn't seen Hawkie or the Sidekick Squad in a while, but those were things I wanted to do with Donna so I held off.
Instead I just kinda wandered down the streets of a random city somewhere on the west coast.
I think one of the Green Lanterns lived here? I hadn't really interacted much with any of them, only briefly dealing with the black dude a couple times and even then it was more him focusing on his job while I just happened to be there then us actually fighting or working together.
I don't think this was his city though. He didn't really seem like a beach town kind of guy. Probably one of the other Lanterns then.
Maybe I should go find one of them?
My plans to find and poke the galactic space cops was interrupted by something crashing down from the sky right in front of me. I immediately jumped back and fell into a fighting stance, ignoring the screaming humans running away from whatever just showed up.
I didn't have the luxury of getting distracted by them because whatever this thing was? I couldn't sense its energy.
A bright pink thing shot out of the dust cloud straight at me and I instinctually ducked under it before leaping backwards to get some more distance. I didn't know what this thing was. I wasn't going to let it touch me just in case it had some kind of super poison on it.
The dust cleared and I got my first good look at what just attacked me.
It was a mostly pink robot…squid?...with some black and metal bits hovering in the air and suddenly I felt cheated. The stupid thing didn't even look tough.
So with a disinterested scowl I raised a hand and shot it with a fairly strong ki blast. Only, instead of exploding like it was supposed to, my energy attack splashed harmlessly over some kind of shield.
Okay, slightly more interested now.
The robot squid shoots forward at me, almost like it was going for a tackle, which I sidestep easily enough. It's fast, but after all the training I've done it's not at a level I really have trouble with. At least until it flipped around and started using its four tentacles to either attack or try to grab me.
I don't know what the things were made of but they were durable enough that all hitting them did was knock them out of the way for a bit and every time I did so I felt a weird electric tingling in whatever I touched them with that was slowly making my arms and legs heavier.
One of the tentacles speared towards my head so I sidestepped out of the way and grabbed the weird not-metal as it passed and used it to heave the squid over my shoulder and into the side of a nearby building. Not that it did much beyond damaging the brickwork.
I scowled as I looked around the street.
Most of the humans had cleared out by now but it was still too cramped to really cut loose without breaking something.
I needed to get to a more open area. Good thing the ocean was right there.
Now just to see if the squid will follow me…
-o-
The good news was that the robot squid was willing to follow me out over the ocean instead of staying in the city so the heroes wouldn't need to lecture me about paying attention to my surroundings after I destroyed the thing.
The bad news was I still had no idea how to destroy the stupid thing.
I didn't feel like going too far away from the coast but once I was far enough away from the city to not worry about hitting a building, I shot the squid with a serious ki blast. One that should have theoretically vaporized a skyscraper if it hit, but just like before the blast scattered harmlessly over the robot after hitting some kind of shield and I was back to square one.
Actually I was a little worse off because my limbs still felt heavy from whatever the tentacles did to them. It was fine for now but eventually it could be a problem. Come to think of it my Ki was moving a little more sluggishly than normal too…
I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind and focused on the squid. No point worrying about those things if I just got blindsided because I was distracted. Something I was actually pretty annoyed at. I spent so much time trying to make using ki sense second nature that now that I couldn't use it I felt like I was fighting half blind.
The squid caught up and looked like it wasn't going to slow down even as it flipped and spread its tentacles to give it the biggest chance of grabbing me. I didn't know why it seemed so focused on capturing me rather than fighting but that joined the rest of my thoughts in the mental 'for later' box as I counter charged the flying pink robot and punched it in the body right where the tentacles attached to the rest hard enough to cause a thunderclap.
I smiled because for once I actually felt the body deform from the hit. This thing was durable and strong, but I could beat it.
"Okay squiddie, I don't know what your problem is with me. But if you think you're enough to beat a Saiyan warrior, you've got another thi– hey, wait! Where are you going!?"
I was just going for a bit of banter and the thing dove into the ocean!
Did I just scare it off? The last alien I told about me being a Saiyan was those Imperium guys and they went as far as trying to claw pieces of themselves off trying to get away from me. Were Saiyans simply too scary? But this was a robot, it shouldn't even feel fear!
I looked at the water and debated if continuing to fight the alien robot squid was worth following it into the water. On the one hand, it twinged my pride to just let the thing get away after attacking me. But on the other, I wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of getting soaked just to try and find something that could have run away by now with almost no chance of catching it.
I was just about to give up on finding the robot squid and heading back to the city when I caught a flash of pink on the surface of the water. I had a split second to realize the reflection came from above me before the robot squid slammed into me and wrapped two tentacles around each of my arms.
What…how did it get above me that fast?!
I got my answer seconds later when the second, or rather the first, robot squid burst out of the water and grabbed my legs.
Okay, there were more of these things. Now I knew for sure someone was after me specifically.
Doing my best to ignore the growing numb feeling in my arms and legs, I flared my ki and spun in place before flexing my core and slamming the two robots into each other. My move worked and they lost their grip on me, even better I could see some sparks coming from where the two squids collided indicating some kind of damage. Whatever shield these things used to protect against my energy attacks didn't protect against itself.
"Well, now we know I can break you. Any more friends you want to bring to the party?" I taunted the robots. Not that I was expecting them to talk if they hadn't by now.
They didn't talk but they quickly shut me up when two more robots exploded out of the ocean bringing my opponents up to four.
"That wasn't an actual invitation." I complained and then had to focus as all four attacked at once.
Between sixteen tentacles it was hard to find room to dodge and I ended up tanking a lot more hits then I wanted, but eventually I managed to catch one of them again and started using the rest of the squid as an improvised flail on the other three robots. Without the shields getting in the way I managed to do some decent damage but couldn't take any of them down before the squid I had a hold of ejected the tentacle I had a hold of.
Still, going by the sparks coming off them now a few more solid hits should change that.
Unfortunately I wasn't in much better shape because the whole time I was using a squid to beat a squid, whatever numbing thing the tentacles did had still been going on. I could barely feel my right hand right now and it took actual effort to form it into a fist. And that was after forcibly pushing ki as a sort of barrier to slow down the effects.
I could be in a bit of trouble here…
Then one of the squids broke off and started flying back towards the city for seemingly no reason. That was until I heard the sound of jets in the distance and saw what looked like a human robot flying out towards us. Oh hey, I recognized that thing! It was the knock off battlesuit/Ironman thing the army had!
"Attention Aliens: you are violating United States airspace. Either leave Earth orbit now or if you are unable to break atmosphere, surrender and disarm. You will be held in custody until you can be escorted off-planet." the new arrival blared from a loudspeaker.
Huh, he sounded kind of familiar.
The robot squid close to him flipped and spread out its tentacles, either to block the newcomer from getting closer or in preparation for an attack. Either way, not the right choice as that caused the robot to open fire with some kind of shoulder mounted gatling gun that tore into the pink squid and after a few seconds caused it to explode.
I frowned at that because there was no way some bullets were doing more damage then what I could do. But it happened anyway. Either something about that gun was special or I was missing something.
Another issue for the 'later' box.
The three remaining squids decided this was the last shot they were going to get at me and rushed to go on the attack. But they made a mistake, not only did they group up, they also had given me enough time to gather my Ki.
"KAMEHAME–" I cupped my hands and focused on making the attack as dense as possible to give it the best chance of getting through the damaged shields. Then I let go. "HAAAA!"
Just as
That just left me alone with the new guy. Who I finally remembered the name of.
"Hey, Rhodes!" I half-sang, giving him an exaggerated wave to disguise the fact I still couldn't really feel my limbs. "I see you got a new suit. Does this mean we get to have another match?"
The military drone slowed to a stop and gave me a lookover. "You look familiar. You don't happen to have a younger sister do you? Gets into places she shouldn't be? Likes to break expensive prototypes?"
"You have trouble hearing through that thing?" I scowled at the robot. "It's me, Califa."
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! But seriously, you look different. No more little monkey girl, huh? You had one heck of a growth spurt from the last time we saw you."
"Thanks! It happened when I spent a month in a magical mirror training device. I met a new friend there too! I'll have to bring her by so she can spar against your new suit too!"
"...magical mirror…? Right, gonna decide that's above my paygrade. Anyway, look sharp kid. We got another UFO dropping on our heads. We'll catch up after we figure out what they want or send them packing."
I looked up and sure enough there was a spaceship heading right for us.
Not a very big one though. So either this was just a landing craft or whoever owned it was just bringing a handful of people. Especially when I saw the size of the two figures standing on top of the ship. Unless there was some serious space expansion wizardry in that ship you weren't fitting more than two or three of the…crab-people? They looked like giant armored crab-people to me at least…in there.
"Attention Aliens," Rhodes announced one more time. "This is Air Force Specialist James Rhodes. You are violating United States airspace. State your intentions or you will be considered hostile."
Going by the look of the armor on these guys I was betting they were the ones behind the robot squid things, and since those hadn't said anything I wasn't expecting these two to either.
So it was a little surprising when one of them held up a golden badge and said, "In the name of the Grand Centauri Empire, the Saiyan girl is under arrest for violation of the Ekelon Accords. Once she is captured we will leave this planet. Stand aside."
Wait. Were these some kind of non-Lantern space cops? Why were they after me, I hadn't even done anything off planet?! And what were the Ekelon Accords?!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
As a FYI, the US Air Force is pretty top heavy on rank for pilots. Like, you have to graduate as a 2nd Lt. to even be allowed, so Rhodey being a Lt. Col. is not too extreme.
[EDIT]Oh, jeez. A specialist in the armed forces is either a private or corporal at best!
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- Location
- under your house
- Pronouns
- She/Her
it's funny to me because she's an infiltration baby, what's she supposed to do?
BlackoutSampler
So Easily Forgotten
There are like, 3 Green Lanterns on the planet at any given time. Maybe she got brought in a regular report back to the Guardians, and her mention just got passed along the grapevine until it hit these guys.
The monster from the league forming had a hive mind and literally ripped off its own arm to get away. Also green lantern asked about them and the guardians or even a lantern that overheard got concerned for earths safety
- Location
- Argentina
So do these guys know they got in a city that has a Green Lantern on it?
xbox432
Lover of Editing
...These are those guys that tried to capture Blackfire and got confused with Starfire in Teen Titans, aren't they? At least, that's where my vague memories are going... It'll be interesting to see if something similar is happening here, or if they just heard rumors about her and came to "apprehend the vile criminal".
Also, it'll be interesting to see what kind of jurisdictional stuff comes up between them and the GLs.
Also, it'll be interesting to see what kind of jurisdictional stuff comes up between them and the GLs.
Ah, random aliens counting on the backwater planet to not care about little things like "jurisdiction" and "violation of sovereign airspace."
What a wholesome friendship between Califa and Rhodes aka DC story's version of War Machine*. Imagine the shenanigans they can pull together.
*Although Red Rocket exist, the guy in a red suit of armor with a shoulder minigun and rocket launchers who tried to shoot down Amazo in Justice League Unlimited but got casually brushed aside.
LocalCatHybrid
Now I am become floof, the floofer of floofs.
- Location
- You know where...
- Pronouns
- Il/Lui
Oh, I think I recognize these peeps! Is Califa in Jump City? There was a whole robot squid thing where the cops were after Starfire's sister and she left Starfire with the bag in the 2003 Teen Titans
AnantaAtman
I wandered, I watched, I judged
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I would have to say this fic is quite great. It's fun and light while maintaining the setting. Love it so much.
Huh i completely forgot about that. I wonder if that means Blackfire is in town, because i can completely see them coming to Earth for her only to see a Sayian and reprioritize that over Blackfire.
LocalCatHybrid
Now I am become floof, the floofer of floofs.
- Location
- You know where...
- Pronouns
- Il/Lui
No, I've thought it over and the timeline doesn't quite match up... Robin's still running with Batman, so he won't have even met Starfire yet. This is just a visit from your regular intergalactic cops being incompetent as usual. Trust them to turn up late to an issue already sorted by Oa with their own dumb ass opinions. They arrest Blackfire and she still turns up a few seasons later as the ruler of Tamaran!
Blackfire: "Okay, first off. I was just minding my own business-"
Califa: "Bullshit!"
Blackfire: "But I waaaassssss!"
Growing Pains - Chapter 40
- Location
- USA
Growing Pains - Chapter 40
Despite what I was expecting after giant crab space cops showing up calling for my arrest, we actually didn't break out into another fight.
Someone back at whatever base Rhodes was piloting the suit from had taken over his speakers and had started spitting legal talk at the crab people who started spitting it right back.
I lost track of the conversation the first time they mentioned clause c of subsection; who cares, and hadn't been able to figure out anything since.
Especially because both sides eventually seemed to default to 'wait until a Green Lantern showed up to deal with this' once the military dude let it slip they had contacted one.
They wouldn't even let me leave either!
The crab guys because they still wanted to arrest me, and the military guys because they didn't want to be responsible for an invasion if the crab guys came after me anyway.
They did agree to move this whole standoff to the beach though, which was nice because I couldn't feel my toes anymore. Ki control was letting me move mostly normally, but it felt like everything was half-asleep.
I didn't like it, hopefully it wore off soon.
Finally, after what felt like hours, I saw a flash of green heading towards us marking the arrival of the Lantern we were waiting on.
Not the one I expected though, because it was the same guy from the Imperium invasion and the H.I.V.E. thing and not the white dude with the mask.
"Sorry for the wait," GL said as he touched down. "I'm Green Lantern 2814-2 Stewart. I got word of a jurisdictional dispute?"
"Greetings Lantern Stewart, we are members of the Centauri Police sent to deal with a violation of the Ekelon Accords. Which this planet's military is blocking us from enforcing."
"No offense, Crab-bucket, but we aren't just going to let you launch drone strikes into an American city because you say you can." Rhodes sniped from the side. I guess he got control of the microphone back for a bit. "And GL, can you explain to them that they need to say what they are here for in plain words? Because they and the legal eggheads keep going back and forth over a bunch of codes or references to those Ekelon Accords, which our best and brightest are pretty sure Earth hasn't signed so…"
"Not true." One of the crabs said, taking a step forward. "King Ἀλέξανδρος signed the accords several hundred years ago. As the majority ruler of the planet at the time, that was sufficient for Earth to be included."
"King who?" Rhodes asked at the same time Green Lantern groaned and covered his face with a hand.
"King Ἀλέξανδρος, or King Alexander the III, also known as Alexander the Great. At the time he could have been considered influential enough to sign for the entire planet…as long as the person asking him to sign was shifty enough to not care that they were a bronze-age civilization to get another signatory attached to their name."
"So what does that mean?" I asked, still lost with all the legal talk.
"Earth is technically part of the Accords, they have the right to respond to major breaches if there is no leader or nation in control of most of the planet."
"And the United States doesn't count?" Rhodes asked petulantly.
"The US, the EU, Russia, China. All of them are close enough that one of them can't be considered the undisputed ruler of Earth."
"Try not to let the Brass hear you say that. You'll bruise their egos."
"Now that this has been cleared up, will you stand aside so we can do our duty?" Left crab demanded, raising his bigger claw in my direction.
Rhodes moves to block him but is held back by Green Lantern. "Hold it, hotshot. Let's finish hearing them out." He turned back to the crabs. "What breach exactly are you responding to?"
"Article seven; clause four, subsection thirty seven."
Green Lantern looked confused as his ring no doubt gave him the information what that actually meant. "The removal of invasive megafauna threatening to destroy a garden world? That should only apply to non-sapients…"
"Or species that cannot be reasoned with and found in small numbers. Saiyans are on the list." Left crab interjected. I don't think I liked him. "You're lucky we detected her this early in the lunar cycle, she may seem reasonable now but Saiyans are savages that won't hesitate to destroy everything around them."
"That's racist." I couldn't help but comment. I was starting to get annoyed about people talking like I wasn't here.
"Tell that to the people of Sideralux after you Saiyans leveled half the planet fifty years ago."
"Enough," Right crab stepped in front of his partner. "We've given our reasons for targeting the girl. Are you going to stand in our way or not?"
"Two cyborg crab people picking on a kid? You bet I'm gonna–" Rhodes started before his suit locked up and stood, well, robotically. "Now that this is a confirmed law enforcement operation the US Air Force will stay out of the matter for now. Any action outside of securing the Saiyan will be considered a hostile act, if you plan on further operations on Earth contact the United States government ahead of time so we can avoid a repeat of this unfortunate situation." A different voice, one I recognised as one of the lawyers, spoke up. And then the robot flew up into the air and started heading back towards the city.
I guess that means Rhodes got his suit taken away. Sucks for him.
"And you Lantern Stewart?"
"Are you requesting my help?"
"As if we need the help of a Lantern that couldn't even realize a Saiyan was on his home planet. We don't need you or your help." Leftie cut in aggressively. "Just don't get in our way."
To my surprise Green Lantern just shrugged and took a step back. "Alright, just had to ask for the record." Then he turned to me. "Try not to hurt them too badly, kid."
Oh. Oooooh! I see what he did there. I just got the green - heh - light to kick these two's butts off the planet and now they couldn't even complain about it because they told GL to get lost.
He was cooler than I thought…
I looked over at the crabs and made a show of cracking my knuckles - I could mostly feel my hands again by now - and made a 'come get me' gesture at them.
Leftie didn't hesitate to point his larger claw at me and charged. But he was even slower than the robot squids so it was easy to leap to the side and blast him in the back with a simple ki ball when he missed. His partner had a better idea by shooting some sort of weird translucent green tentacle out of his own claw, but after dealing with the effects of the robot ones I didn't doubt for a second there wasn't more to the thing than just an attempt to tie me up.
So I crashed back to the ground and used it to kick off so I went low under his guard.
I gave him points for not panicking at me suddenly getting so close by attacking instead of flinching away, but once again he was too slow and his giant claw arm/weapon smashed into the sand behind me half a second before I buried my fist into his stomach area.
Even after my recent growth spurt I needed to fly a bit to pick the crab guy up and not drag part of him on the ground. These guys were tall.
And strangely heavy, too.
But that didn't stop me from throwing the guy into his more impatient partner who had just recovered from my ki blast.
They went down in an explosion of sand and tangled limbs and I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Shouldn't these guys be tougher than the robots from earlier?
"I don't suppose you want to join their side?" I asked Green Lantern. "Make it a bit more interesting for everyone?"
He just gave me a blank look and raised an eyebrow.
Guess that was a no.
A laser beam shooting between us had me snap my focus back to the policecrabs, but they were either more shaken up from the hits I gave them and getting thrown around than I thought they'd be or they were terrible shots because I was able to dodge all of them just by flying around a bit.
At least that was what I thought until the heavily damaged robot squid I thought Rhodes destroyed slammed into me from behind!
"Quick, restrain her!"
I spat sand out of my mouth and stood just in time for one of the policecrabs to shoot that green tentacle thing at me and this time I couldn't dodge. The thing wrapped around my upper body and I suddenly found myself with my arms pinned and a lot more tired than I had been a second ago.
Not a big deal though, I didn't need my hands to beat these two.
I jumped into the air – and then fell right on my face when I couldn't direct my ki to fly.
That's what these tentacles did! They suppressed energy somehow!
I couldn't even curse the crabs out because the tentacle had covered my mouth, so I did the first thing that came to mind and bit down on the thing as hard as I could…
Bleh…that was a mistake. Stupid tentacle tasted like burnt rubber and had basically the same feel too. But now that I got a good grip on the end, and if I used my tail just so…
"We got her! Bring the ship around so we can get her in the containment field. Let's get off this planet before she pulls any more tricks." One of the crabs said, I didn't even care who it was anymore.
"On the way. Returning the capture probe too." The other replied, pressing a button that had the damaged squid robot also head for the incoming ship.
They were in a rush. Probably because they didn't want Green Lantern stepping in for some reason, but they should have been paying more attention to me. When the crab closest to me went to pick me up I kicked my legs around and drove my knee into his chest. Their fancy tech could stop me from using Ki in most ways, it did nothing against my base strength. He folded in half before I used him as a springboard to launch myself at his partner.
I blocked the swipe of his claw with one leg and then used it as a platform to kick his guard out of the way. Then I bounced around him delivering kicks to his face, chest, arms…pretty much any target I had a clear shot at while he flailed around until he made one more desperate stab at me with his claw arm that glanced off the tentacle wrapped around my chest.
With a twist of my neck and my tail, I was able to use the bit of room the crab's claw had created to loosen the tentacle enough to move my arms so I could rip the whole thing off me.
Freed and able to use my ki once again, I flew low over the ground where I grabbed the crab by his leg and then went straight up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other policecrab trying to work the control pad so I interrupted that by doing the first thing that went through my mind.
I threw his partner at him.
It certainly stopped him from finishing what he was doing, but I guess suddenly getting hit with his partner made him hit the wrong button because there was a loud crash in their ship followed by an explosion. One of the engines cut out and the thing looked like it was going to fall out of the sky…
…right on top of the policecrabs…
Ah, dammit.
I quickly flew down and grabbed each of the crabs by the first limb I could get a solid grip on and got out of there before the ship hit the beach. At first it looked like it came out of the crash with nothing worse than some dents and scratched paint, but whatever caused the first explosion rattled out of a hatch and I had a split second to see the even more damaged robot squid before it blew up again and completely ruined one of the engines.
I guess they were trying to bring it out to cheapshot me again and something went wrong? Meh.
"So ready to keep going? Or you two wanna give up?" I asked as they picked themselves off the ground.
"Why don't we call it here." Green Lantern said, flying over and separating us with a transparent wall from his ring. "I think it's pretty clear if she wanted to, Califa could have wiped the floor with you in seconds. Instead she held back and even saved your lives. I think that's proof enough that her being here isn't a violation of the Ekelon Accords."
The policecrabs looked at each other and then at the wreck of their ship that had almost crushed them. "...Agreed," The calmer of the two said eventually. "We'll have to report this incident and we can't guarantee that the Centauri Police Headquarters will make a permanent exception, but we won't be taking any more action against this Saiyan today. As a reward for behaviors that go against the norms for her species."
"This mean we're done fighting?" I asked and scowled when I got three nods in return, "Lame."
"Same bad attitude as other Saiyans though." The second crab grumbled. I ignored him though.
I stuck around as GL helped them get their ship back up and running and gave the crabs a cheeky wave as they flew off into space. I even told them if they ever wanted a rematch they knew where to find me, much to the second crab's annoyance.
Too bad for him.
"You shouldn't antagonize them too much, they can make your life pretty difficult if they want." Green Lantern said.
I raised an eyebrow at him, "I thought they said I wasn't breaking those accord things, shouldn't that be the end of it?"
"Yeah, unless their bosses disagree." GL nodded. "But what they can do is put a capture bounty on you for a whole lot of other reasons. Earth doesn't really have a spokesperson to tell the Centauri Empire they can't."
"So I might get random aliens coming here to fight me? Cool!"
GL just sighed at my response. "All right kid, why don't you clear out while I finish cleaning up here? And try staying out of trouble?"
"I mean I could, oooor do you want to have a spar? That last fight kinda ended too easily and I haven't fought a Green Lantern yet!"
GL just ruffled my hair while giving my head a shove and took off over the beach while a beam of green energy scanned the area.
"Is that a 'no' then?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Despite what I was expecting after giant crab space cops showing up calling for my arrest, we actually didn't break out into another fight.
Someone back at whatever base Rhodes was piloting the suit from had taken over his speakers and had started spitting legal talk at the crab people who started spitting it right back.
I lost track of the conversation the first time they mentioned clause c of subsection; who cares, and hadn't been able to figure out anything since.
Especially because both sides eventually seemed to default to 'wait until a Green Lantern showed up to deal with this' once the military dude let it slip they had contacted one.
They wouldn't even let me leave either!
The crab guys because they still wanted to arrest me, and the military guys because they didn't want to be responsible for an invasion if the crab guys came after me anyway.
They did agree to move this whole standoff to the beach though, which was nice because I couldn't feel my toes anymore. Ki control was letting me move mostly normally, but it felt like everything was half-asleep.
I didn't like it, hopefully it wore off soon.
Finally, after what felt like hours, I saw a flash of green heading towards us marking the arrival of the Lantern we were waiting on.
Not the one I expected though, because it was the same guy from the Imperium invasion and the H.I.V.E. thing and not the white dude with the mask.
"Sorry for the wait," GL said as he touched down. "I'm Green Lantern 2814-2 Stewart. I got word of a jurisdictional dispute?"
"Greetings Lantern Stewart, we are members of the Centauri Police sent to deal with a violation of the Ekelon Accords. Which this planet's military is blocking us from enforcing."
"No offense, Crab-bucket, but we aren't just going to let you launch drone strikes into an American city because you say you can." Rhodes sniped from the side. I guess he got control of the microphone back for a bit. "And GL, can you explain to them that they need to say what they are here for in plain words? Because they and the legal eggheads keep going back and forth over a bunch of codes or references to those Ekelon Accords, which our best and brightest are pretty sure Earth hasn't signed so…"
"Not true." One of the crabs said, taking a step forward. "King Ἀλέξανδρος signed the accords several hundred years ago. As the majority ruler of the planet at the time, that was sufficient for Earth to be included."
"King who?" Rhodes asked at the same time Green Lantern groaned and covered his face with a hand.
"King Ἀλέξανδρος, or King Alexander the III, also known as Alexander the Great. At the time he could have been considered influential enough to sign for the entire planet…as long as the person asking him to sign was shifty enough to not care that they were a bronze-age civilization to get another signatory attached to their name."
"So what does that mean?" I asked, still lost with all the legal talk.
"Earth is technically part of the Accords, they have the right to respond to major breaches if there is no leader or nation in control of most of the planet."
"And the United States doesn't count?" Rhodes asked petulantly.
"The US, the EU, Russia, China. All of them are close enough that one of them can't be considered the undisputed ruler of Earth."
"Try not to let the Brass hear you say that. You'll bruise their egos."
"Now that this has been cleared up, will you stand aside so we can do our duty?" Left crab demanded, raising his bigger claw in my direction.
Rhodes moves to block him but is held back by Green Lantern. "Hold it, hotshot. Let's finish hearing them out." He turned back to the crabs. "What breach exactly are you responding to?"
"Article seven; clause four, subsection thirty seven."
Green Lantern looked confused as his ring no doubt gave him the information what that actually meant. "The removal of invasive megafauna threatening to destroy a garden world? That should only apply to non-sapients…"
"Or species that cannot be reasoned with and found in small numbers. Saiyans are on the list." Left crab interjected. I don't think I liked him. "You're lucky we detected her this early in the lunar cycle, she may seem reasonable now but Saiyans are savages that won't hesitate to destroy everything around them."
"That's racist." I couldn't help but comment. I was starting to get annoyed about people talking like I wasn't here.
"Tell that to the people of Sideralux after you Saiyans leveled half the planet fifty years ago."
"Enough," Right crab stepped in front of his partner. "We've given our reasons for targeting the girl. Are you going to stand in our way or not?"
"Two cyborg crab people picking on a kid? You bet I'm gonna–" Rhodes started before his suit locked up and stood, well, robotically. "Now that this is a confirmed law enforcement operation the US Air Force will stay out of the matter for now. Any action outside of securing the Saiyan will be considered a hostile act, if you plan on further operations on Earth contact the United States government ahead of time so we can avoid a repeat of this unfortunate situation." A different voice, one I recognised as one of the lawyers, spoke up. And then the robot flew up into the air and started heading back towards the city.
I guess that means Rhodes got his suit taken away. Sucks for him.
"And you Lantern Stewart?"
"Are you requesting my help?"
"As if we need the help of a Lantern that couldn't even realize a Saiyan was on his home planet. We don't need you or your help." Leftie cut in aggressively. "Just don't get in our way."
To my surprise Green Lantern just shrugged and took a step back. "Alright, just had to ask for the record." Then he turned to me. "Try not to hurt them too badly, kid."
Oh. Oooooh! I see what he did there. I just got the green - heh - light to kick these two's butts off the planet and now they couldn't even complain about it because they told GL to get lost.
He was cooler than I thought…
I looked over at the crabs and made a show of cracking my knuckles - I could mostly feel my hands again by now - and made a 'come get me' gesture at them.
Leftie didn't hesitate to point his larger claw at me and charged. But he was even slower than the robot squids so it was easy to leap to the side and blast him in the back with a simple ki ball when he missed. His partner had a better idea by shooting some sort of weird translucent green tentacle out of his own claw, but after dealing with the effects of the robot ones I didn't doubt for a second there wasn't more to the thing than just an attempt to tie me up.
So I crashed back to the ground and used it to kick off so I went low under his guard.
I gave him points for not panicking at me suddenly getting so close by attacking instead of flinching away, but once again he was too slow and his giant claw arm/weapon smashed into the sand behind me half a second before I buried my fist into his stomach area.
Even after my recent growth spurt I needed to fly a bit to pick the crab guy up and not drag part of him on the ground. These guys were tall.
And strangely heavy, too.
But that didn't stop me from throwing the guy into his more impatient partner who had just recovered from my ki blast.
They went down in an explosion of sand and tangled limbs and I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Shouldn't these guys be tougher than the robots from earlier?
"I don't suppose you want to join their side?" I asked Green Lantern. "Make it a bit more interesting for everyone?"
He just gave me a blank look and raised an eyebrow.
Guess that was a no.
A laser beam shooting between us had me snap my focus back to the policecrabs, but they were either more shaken up from the hits I gave them and getting thrown around than I thought they'd be or they were terrible shots because I was able to dodge all of them just by flying around a bit.
At least that was what I thought until the heavily damaged robot squid I thought Rhodes destroyed slammed into me from behind!
"Quick, restrain her!"
I spat sand out of my mouth and stood just in time for one of the policecrabs to shoot that green tentacle thing at me and this time I couldn't dodge. The thing wrapped around my upper body and I suddenly found myself with my arms pinned and a lot more tired than I had been a second ago.
Not a big deal though, I didn't need my hands to beat these two.
I jumped into the air – and then fell right on my face when I couldn't direct my ki to fly.
That's what these tentacles did! They suppressed energy somehow!
I couldn't even curse the crabs out because the tentacle had covered my mouth, so I did the first thing that came to mind and bit down on the thing as hard as I could…
Bleh…that was a mistake. Stupid tentacle tasted like burnt rubber and had basically the same feel too. But now that I got a good grip on the end, and if I used my tail just so…
"We got her! Bring the ship around so we can get her in the containment field. Let's get off this planet before she pulls any more tricks." One of the crabs said, I didn't even care who it was anymore.
"On the way. Returning the capture probe too." The other replied, pressing a button that had the damaged squid robot also head for the incoming ship.
They were in a rush. Probably because they didn't want Green Lantern stepping in for some reason, but they should have been paying more attention to me. When the crab closest to me went to pick me up I kicked my legs around and drove my knee into his chest. Their fancy tech could stop me from using Ki in most ways, it did nothing against my base strength. He folded in half before I used him as a springboard to launch myself at his partner.
I blocked the swipe of his claw with one leg and then used it as a platform to kick his guard out of the way. Then I bounced around him delivering kicks to his face, chest, arms…pretty much any target I had a clear shot at while he flailed around until he made one more desperate stab at me with his claw arm that glanced off the tentacle wrapped around my chest.
With a twist of my neck and my tail, I was able to use the bit of room the crab's claw had created to loosen the tentacle enough to move my arms so I could rip the whole thing off me.
Freed and able to use my ki once again, I flew low over the ground where I grabbed the crab by his leg and then went straight up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other policecrab trying to work the control pad so I interrupted that by doing the first thing that went through my mind.
I threw his partner at him.
It certainly stopped him from finishing what he was doing, but I guess suddenly getting hit with his partner made him hit the wrong button because there was a loud crash in their ship followed by an explosion. One of the engines cut out and the thing looked like it was going to fall out of the sky…
…right on top of the policecrabs…
Ah, dammit.
I quickly flew down and grabbed each of the crabs by the first limb I could get a solid grip on and got out of there before the ship hit the beach. At first it looked like it came out of the crash with nothing worse than some dents and scratched paint, but whatever caused the first explosion rattled out of a hatch and I had a split second to see the even more damaged robot squid before it blew up again and completely ruined one of the engines.
I guess they were trying to bring it out to cheapshot me again and something went wrong? Meh.
"So ready to keep going? Or you two wanna give up?" I asked as they picked themselves off the ground.
"Why don't we call it here." Green Lantern said, flying over and separating us with a transparent wall from his ring. "I think it's pretty clear if she wanted to, Califa could have wiped the floor with you in seconds. Instead she held back and even saved your lives. I think that's proof enough that her being here isn't a violation of the Ekelon Accords."
The policecrabs looked at each other and then at the wreck of their ship that had almost crushed them. "...Agreed," The calmer of the two said eventually. "We'll have to report this incident and we can't guarantee that the Centauri Police Headquarters will make a permanent exception, but we won't be taking any more action against this Saiyan today. As a reward for behaviors that go against the norms for her species."
"This mean we're done fighting?" I asked and scowled when I got three nods in return, "Lame."
"Same bad attitude as other Saiyans though." The second crab grumbled. I ignored him though.
I stuck around as GL helped them get their ship back up and running and gave the crabs a cheeky wave as they flew off into space. I even told them if they ever wanted a rematch they knew where to find me, much to the second crab's annoyance.
Too bad for him.
"You shouldn't antagonize them too much, they can make your life pretty difficult if they want." Green Lantern said.
I raised an eyebrow at him, "I thought they said I wasn't breaking those accord things, shouldn't that be the end of it?"
"Yeah, unless their bosses disagree." GL nodded. "But what they can do is put a capture bounty on you for a whole lot of other reasons. Earth doesn't really have a spokesperson to tell the Centauri Empire they can't."
"So I might get random aliens coming here to fight me? Cool!"
GL just sighed at my response. "All right kid, why don't you clear out while I finish cleaning up here? And try staying out of trouble?"
"I mean I could, oooor do you want to have a spar? That last fight kinda ended too easily and I haven't fought a Green Lantern yet!"
GL just ruffled my hair while giving my head a shove and took off over the beach while a beam of green energy scanned the area.
"Is that a 'no' then?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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- Location
- Canada
I like that the Justice League are getting comfortable enough with her to not even be bothered anymore when she wants a fight.
Califa might be a battle maniac, but she's a battle maniac that prefers consent in her fights. So all they gotta do is say no =P