Chapter 26: Attack
I looked down or from my perspective up at my index and middle fingers as I pushed my body up and down from a handstand position. The humming of my gravity machine served as background sound had a calming effect on me especially after the stressful days I went through.
The public opinion of me hadn't really changed much even with the few troublemakers that had protested a few days after the disaster. They hadn't gotten much traction, but it was still a good thing that Portland's underworld took it upon themselves to quell that portion of the mass before it got out of hand.
They exposed the few responsible for the protest as members of Intergang, a rather big criminal organization, though I wasn't sure if it was the truth or just a smear campaign to discredit whatever the protesters tried to throw out there.
Either way, I didn't care about these fools anyway. After Portland started to rebuild I had decided to back off for a while. I still took an occasional stroll out in the open, but I wasn't out and about much anymore. Not that there was much to do anyway. I did it mostly to comfort and connect with the people.
Mostly though, I focused on the newly acquired strength that I gained after my fight against the demons. A ten times increase was difficult to adapt to. Well, not really. I adapted fine and could exert my entire strength if I needed to. Going all out was never the problem, suppressing my power to an acceptable range was the problem.
I had to suppress my power so I wouldn't accidentally break someone's arm because I 'gently' shook their hand or something. Though I shouldn't complain at least I had the possibility to lower my physical strength by will, not like Kryptonians that had to hold back... Well, I held back too, but it was easier to do with ki than by not squeezing too hard.
At least I was fortunate enough that it only took me some time to adequately adapt to the changes, which was especially nice when I considered that I only improved in suppressing my power the more experience I got with sudden increases in strength through Zenkais.
I also developed some tricks like using my telekinesis to restrict my movements even further to ease that transition. It had been a week and I was now fully recovered with my strength level sitting at a minimum of early DBZ Vegeta level.
In that power range, I could still tank most things that this planet could throw at me if they managed to hit me while I wasn't on guard. I could even get hit with a planet-busting attack and survive without having been aware of the attack.
With a flip, I jumped out of my handstand push up position to hover a few centimeters above the ground cross-legged, and thought about what I needed to do in the near future.
The pressure from the gravity chamber wasn't enough for me any longer. 100G was the max of my current machine and I knew if I wanted to improve even further I needed to update it.
My telekinesis that added to the pressure had filled the room with as much psychic energy as I could put out. The energy in the air was almost thick enough to be cut with a knife. It was almost visible with the bare eye.
All this energy aided me in my training as it added enough pressure to let me improve, but it had its downside.
The pressure that I needed to improve physically was more than I could put out psychically. It was only because I had the gravity chamber that I could still improve in this environment, but sooner rather than later it won't be enough anymore.
My psychic power was just lagging behind my physical strength. Although it was currently in an acceptable range, the gap would only widen as I become stronger. It should be obvious but it seemed like even though Saiyans were talented in a psychic way, it couldn't hold a candle to a Saiyan's physical might.
There was also the problem with my concentration. It might be a good thing to be able to equally concentrate on my physical prowess as well as my psychical one as I trained, but because I divided my attention I couldn't focus as much on my ki mastery.
I improved slower when I had to focus on both than I would have if I just focused on my ki. Besides I had the feeling that the stronger I got the less useful my telekinesis would be in an actual fight, so I rather want to improve my physical strength than divide my focus on something that won't prove useful later on.
Additionally, with my attention divided I couldn't stress test my techniques or focus on breaking through the next transformations like the Super Saiyan transformation.
With me closing in on 2 million, I would soon be eligible to transform. The better I could concentrate on the transformation, the sooner I would be able to achieve it.
The obvious choice to quicken the path to the transformation was the emotional path to power. And I had enough experience in my past that I might be able to pull that shit out of me, but that would come with a commotion. There was no need to alert anyone if I wasn't sure I would be able to actually transform.
I would try to transform off-world when the opportunity arises. Either way, I still had to strengthen my base to ease my path to new heights and increase the limits, which is why I focused on that instead of improving my control over Ikari even though I knew I could pull out more strength from that side of the Saiyan heritage.
Super Saiyan, Ikari, Oozaru, God transformations were just multiplying my base strength. Of course, I wouldn't say no to an easy way to defeat any opponent if they prove too much for me. Still improving my gravity chamber was the obvious choice as my next top priority.
Concerning that, it was a good thing that the Justice League had left yesterday. I had sensed their little scuffle in the atmosphere before first the Green Lantern and then the rest vanished into deep space.
I wasn't sure what they had to face, but if they decided that they didn't need Batman's, Wonder Woman's, or my help then they should be alright.
Anyway, it was a good thing that I had the earth all to myself with Batman and Wonder notwithstanding, but if I had sensed correctly Wonder Woman wasn't on earth for the moment.
I didn't know where she had disappeared to as she just vanished on the spot, but I didn't really care. Every hero had their own adventures and it oftentimes took them off-world or to another dimension.
After stepping out of the gravity chamber I went into the shower, before dressing into my villain garb, though with the recent development of Westmob, 'Villain' was a strong world. I preferred secret CEO with a sense of dramatic fashion.
I headed towards San Francisco to retrieve some of my wares that had been 'lost' for a while now and an 'article' that had been 'lost' a few hours ago.
Because I now had the metahuman Titan, the man that could form a stone armor covering his entire body, as a member of Westmob who could last a bit longer against our goody-two-shoes, I now knew which heroes were disrupting my material gathering.
A girl with a katana who apparently went with the name Katana, a very creative name, and a blonde girl in a fishnet, who was probably Black Canary.
Westmob had previously reported that it had been a group who had attacked them but it appeared like Katana only teamed up with Black Canary and another girl on two occasions, which was why I believed that she was mostly working alone.
Her team-ups were too irregular to be called a proper team, but it didn't matter if she worked alone or with that other girls, she and her partners were only human and low-level metahumans. They were at the very least peak-human physiology, but that couldn't even make me frown.
Previously, I had assumed that it was the Teen Titans who had intervened, but that was only because the first clash between a hero and Westmob happened in Jump City.
I hadn't actually seen any of the members appear in the news yet and since some of them were rather recognizable I believed that it had nothing to do with them staying out of the public's view, but that they just hadn't formed yet.
Maybe some of them didn't exist or hadn't arrived on earth yet. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep track of them since I didn't remember their public identity.
I didn't know if Teen Titans not being a thing was good news or not, with Trigon mucking about already, but it would be better to have Raven on our side. With her being Trigon's descendant and having defeated him in the past if I remembered correctly, her insight would be extremely valuable.
I couldn't help but sigh. Being transported to this universe made me regret not having watched more of DC series and movies, but it is what it is. There was no point regretting something I couldn't change anyway.
I closed my eyes, emptying my thoughts as I ran through the wasteland. It might be a good thing to get out of Portland for some time...
After enjoying the walk a bit more I stepped on the 'gas' and arrived in San Francisco after a few more minutes. I directly jumped through the window that they had kindly left open. It would have been disappointing if they hadn't since I had informed them of my arrival beforehand.
I looked at the ones present and found a new face among the higher-ups. Asian-looking dude, probably Japanese. He stared at me, but I ignored him in favor of the boss's right-hand man.
Titan arrived next to me and gave me several documents about the past operations that had been hit. The operations weren't even strictly illegal but they were still being disrupted.
Many of them were just Westmob buying some materials and the last one that happened a few hours ago. Westmob was hiring a scientist but in the end, he was kidnapped by Katana. Rather extreme for a hero. It seemed to me that she had a grudge more than anything else.
The police had been informed and were now on the lookout for her. Westmob's members were also running around the city to catch her but until now no luck. It might take a while for her to be found but with the combined effort of the biggest gang of the city's underworld as well as the police force, it was a question of when not if.
It was also the reason why I hadn't want to visit in the first place, but if I could accelerate it, kill some time, as well as get out of the city, I might as well do it.
I threw the documents on the table before asking the boss some questions, though that was more to pretend in front of the others since I had already read his mind. I left shortly after that. My senses swept through the entire city and beyond it for a few miles in an instant.
After detecting every lifeforce I focused on the ones that were several points above the average Joe in terms of strength. It wasn't easy to find a slightly bigger ant among a hundred thousand different ants, while also ignoring the ones that were too big to match the description of the superhero's strength, but I managed to find a few that fit the description.
I picked out a lifeforce at random and jumped across the rooftops towards it. After 3 seconds I arrived at my destination, an apparently abandoned warehouse, because of course it would be something like that.
With the additional lifeforce that couldn't be any more average, I was pretty sure I had the right place. If it truly was this place that screamed hideout, I would have to speak to the scouts of Westmob after this...
After entering the warehouse through the door which released an obnoxiously loud sound I found it to be completely dark.
The stronger person present in the warehouse moved as soon as the door made a sound. I walked towards the other lifeforce while keeping track of the person trying to flank me.
The moment I saw the dimly lit place where Westmob's scientist Dr. Wakatiwas, a rather reclusive scientist known as the father of quantum temporal theory, was tied up, a katana was swung at me which I leaned out of the way.
"Rude." Honestly, which kidnapper would straight-up attack someone that entered their secret hideout in the middle of the night?
The lifeforce of the scientist seemed to be stable, so at least his life wasn't threatened. It had taken Westmob a lot of resources and convincing to get him to our side, and after they managed to convince him he got kidnapped. If he now didn't want to help me, it wouldn't be easy to find a replacement for him.
Of course, I could force him to join me, but any sort of threatening and blackmail to force him to do something that he didn't want to would only dampen his genius and enthusiasm. And I wanted him at his best. I also didn't dare to mess with his brain and risk breaking something either.
The longer I thought about it the angrier I got at the prospect of losing this capable scientist. Katana stabbed at my chest with her katana, which I swatted away. My hand was covered in my ki as well as the rest of my body.
With my current power, it was already overkill to use this much strength to fight against a mere human, however, I couldn't suppress my strength anymore, but I might have not lowered my strength regardless since the katana in her hand gave me a really bad vibe.
A sinister lifeforce with a few more lifeforces was emitted by the sword, which was already ringing several warnings in my mind.
A loud ting sounded out when her sword was deflected by my ki-covered finger. I could feel how the magic power of the sword ate away my ki. If this sword had been wielded by a more powerful opponent it might have caused more trouble.
Everything stopped to a crawl as I upped my perception. Her eyes widened in slow motion as she saw me deflecting her strike with my finger and was already moving to back away. With a straight spartan kick to the hip, she was slowly thrown through the air.
As she was sent flying I pried the sword out of her hands and found several minds coming from the sword trying to connect with mine which I quickly thwarted before suppressing them.
When the woman finally hit the stone wall of the warehouse I stopped perceiving the world as if it were in slow-motion and dedicated my attention to the scientist, whose eyes and mouth were covered. I quickly cut through the ropes but left the blindfold on before I heaved him over my shoulder.
I looked at the sword. It looked quite generic and I thought it might be best to let her keep it. Better to have a weapon be carried by a hero than a gang. I could already see how much trouble it would bring if I kept this piece of evidence.
I couldn't even gift it away or it would be linked back to me. The other members of Westmob would probably be taken over by the minds inside the sword. It was useless junk to me.
I threw the sword next to the woman that held her hip, unable to stand up. She might have broken something. She looked at the sword before taking it and pointed it at me as if I was about to hurt her. She was already unable to fight.
After I glanced at her for a moment, I turned around and left the vicinity while ignoring the presence that had entered the warehouse.
While carrying Dr. Wakati on my shoulders I ran over the rooftops and lost another person that was tailing me. After taking some detours I finally arrived at the prepared laboratory and brought the scientist inside after checking in with the security.
I took off his blindfold, making him squint at the sudden influx of light. It took him a moment to adjust to the light. After looking around and seeing the surroundings he turned his sight to me.
His face didn't change much and he appeared to be calm as if he had expected the situation, which was fair since we had warned him that there might be people that would come to harm him.
"Welcome, Dr. Wakati. I apologize for the trouble that person might have caused you, but we will make sure that something like this won't happen again."
He nodded at that, "I hope so. My heart won't go along with something like that another time."
It seemed like he was more rattled than he appeared to be. I nodded back and pointed at the phone with which he could contact a middleman from Westmob to acquire resources for him.
After that, I left him to his own devices and went back to the boss of Westmob. I gave him some additional directions before I promptly left the city bringing with me the circuits and other parts I needed to make anti-gravity androids. This would at least spice my training up a bit.
I would have to wait for Westmob to convince a scientist called Theodore Knight before I could increase the maximum pressure of my gravity chambers.
After a bit of research, it was clear that this scientist was the obvious choice for this task since he seemed to have developed something that could manipulate gravity to some extent in the 70s, though for some reason this project of his wasn't further funded.
It was only a short flight away, so the night still had some hours left before the day would arrive. I took several precautions to disappear into the city before I went back home.
I wore my armor and decided to eat something before going to the Watchtower. Kara said that she was out to help a friend of hers and since school would start on Monday again, I would have to spend the weekend alone. I wouldn't complain about that since I knew that some time out of Portland would help her as well.
My eyes searched each shelf for something to eat inside my fridge. Initially, I wanted to treat myself but after looking inside I realized that I needed to up the weekly supplies I got.
Usually, I would buy from that one food company and they would deliver food worth a Saiyan's week, but the stronger I got the more food I needed and because of it, I was now running my supplies thin.
Fortunately, Kara didn't like the food I got, saying that it was too heavy on the meat side, so she usually got herself something when she came over, otherwise, I would have to buy another fridge... Why shouldn't I buy another fridge? It only had benefits to it...
I grabbed a prepped meal and took it with me as I headed for the watchtower. Only a minute later I arrived and planted myself in front of the screens. Usually one had to make sure to monitor the situation of the earth in case of a large-scale catastrophe. I dug in the food that I had heated with my ki and looked at the monitors which showed comparatively calm earth.
There were some tornadoes, wildfires, and one or two explosions, but the firefighters and paramedics could handle that. The tornado only did some property damage, the wildfire was controlled by the firefighters, and the explosions were caused inside an empty warehouse storing fireworks, so the situation was fine.
Superman might criticize me for not helping them, but these were rather trivial in my opinion, so it wasn't a bad thing to have ignored these situations. At least, I didn't miss some major event while I was secretly out and about helping Westmob in their business.
I ate through the prepped meal and was about to take a nap before the others suddenly arrived. They looked as if they went through a rather tough battle, hopefully, it wasn't too tough on them, otherwise, it would irk me that I had missed it.
"What's up?" Flash came in and tiredly waved his hand at me before he blurred away to come back with several burgers in hand.
"Nothing really. Kind of bored to be honest." I was sitting with my feet up on the control panel.
"Well, better being boring that means nothing bad had happened after all." Superman said. His suit was a bit dirty, but there weren't any tears in it, which indicated that it hadn't been that tough on them.
Though they still looked somewhat exhausted which was fair since according to them they had traveled through the empty space for several hours without getting too much rest.
They looked a bit closer to each other than before as well, especially to the Green Lantern and I could understand why after they iterated the events that happened during their trip.
It seemed like our Green Lantern was put on trial for genocide in Ajuris 5. It first had appeared like he had destroyed a planet when he pursued a weapon smuggler. I would have been already doubtful but okay.
The Green Lantern had believed himself to be guilty which was why he hadn't defended himself in front of the accusations.
Superman wasn't convinced so he and Martian Manhunter went out to investigate the supposedly ruins, while Flash was to stall the trial by taking the position as John's lawyer.
Flash told me that the lawyers in that district would be executed as well if John had been sentenced to death. So while Superman and J'onn wanted to find proof of his innocence and Flash risked his life to stall the trial, Hawkgirl was apparently beating up the other Green Lanterns for not wanting to help John as he was a 'disgrace to the Corps'. I was not surprised at their approach at that.
Fortunately, just before Flash and John were executed, Superman and J'onn found out that the planet was still intact and had been hidden by a hologram generator.
Apparently, this all had been a ruse by the Manhunters, robots that had been created by the Guardians of the Universe, the masters of the Green Lantern Corps.
They wanted to stain the Green Lantern Corps' reputation which in turn would draw out the Guardians of the Universe away from Oa, the headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps. All this so they could attack Oa itself and steal the Lantern's power source.
After the Guardians were successfully drawn away from Oa, the Manhunters attacked Oa and almost succeeded if the Justice League weren't there to save the day.
It was only because I had some knowledge about what they were talking about that I understood most of it.
"Cool story. I assume you guys want to go to rest as well. I myself would call it a day for now." I said as I stood up, popping my back for good measure.
Hawkgirl and J'onn were practically living in the watchtower, so they would be the first to know if something happened around the globe and could call the others for help. I was about to head out when I suddenly felt a lifeforce suddenly pop up in the middle of the room.
The others seemed to have sensed something as well as they looked around. With a familiar puff, Zatara suddenly appeared in the room.
The alarm of the watchtower started blaring and the windows were shut with the steel blinds. The sun that had been providing the room with light was now completely blocked out, the only thing keeping the place illuminated was the red light coming from the emergency bulbs.
Several security steel walls closed off the path in the hallways as we awaited whatever was barging into the watchtower.
Since Zatara had arrived almost immediately the invader had to be some sort of magical entity that tripped over Zatara's hidden magical tripwires.
"What's going on?" Flash questioned Zatara, who was looking around vigilantly.
"Someone is trying to enter the Watchtower. My shield won't hold them out. Prepare." He said before he spewed out some incarnations.
Suddenly a spot on the ground was covered in unnatural darkness before a black figure slowly rose up from the ground.
The others though exhausted were ready to take action. Hawkgirl had her mace in hand spewing lightning, Green Lantern was pointing his ring at the unknown entity while reminding us that he was already running low on energy.
Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Superman spread out as they intently watched the newcomer manifest into the now noisy red room.
The light and the blaring alarms alerted us but were extremely annoying. I idly thought as I let my ki hover around 170 000. This should be more than enough to deal with the lifeforce that was invading the watchtower and if it wasn't then I could still increase my strength a hundredfold.
Though I wasn't even sure if this invader was a threat, to begin with. After having a bit more than half a year's worth of experience in fighting crime, demons, aliens, and whatnot I had a good grasp on what an 'evil' person felt like and this wasn't it chief.
The figure remained as a shadowy figure with human-like eyes. Its body seemed to be falling apart any moment now as it flickered like a black flame.
"I sense evil in them. It feels like- I think it's a spawn of Trigon!" Zatara warned us as he stretched out his hand.
"H-lp me-!" A distorted voice called out from the figure.
A spawn of Trigon asking for help?
"You can't fool me!" Zatara angrily shouted before casting a spell. Several glowing chains erupted from behind him and flew towards the figure.
"Pleas-" The figure called out as they watched the chains head towards them in despair.
{Oregon high desert. Meet me there.} As soon as I telepathically told them my message, they readily let themself vanish from the watchtower. The chains from Zatara hit nothing but the ground.
"Why did you immediately attack? Didn't you hear what they said?" Superman asked with a frown.
"What do you mean why? It was another of Trigon's spawn! Did you really want to invite them here and destroy this base??" He asked him incredulously.
"You don't know that! They asked for help the least thing we could do was listen!" He shot back as he crossed his arms.
"It was the same tactic that other spawn of Trigon almost succeeded with, besides I am the expert on magical entities that is why you put me on this team! So let me advise you once more on how to deal with these demons! Whenever we encounter them we should strike them down first and ask questions later! Especially concerning any minion of Trigon's, and at the very least Not Help them!"
He countered emotionally and the rest of the League stayed quiet seemingly agreeing with his words.
Maybe it was because they were all tired, but Superman decided to drop it, especially since he knew that Zatara was emotionally invested in this after they had attacked his daughter.
"Can you trace back to them?" I asked Zatara who was waving his hand as he spoke in reverse. His magic faded away before he shook his head and disappeared through a portal.
Superman looked at me for a moment, I returned to him a nod, knowing the unspoken question he had asked about my well-being.
I looked at Martian Manhunter who sensed my look and asked him before he could ask me, "Did you get anything out of them?"
He shook his head, "No, their mind was shielded too well."
"Me neither." I looked around at the group and saw them relax a bit after the annoying alarm stopped and the normal light returned.
"I think we should all rest, especially you guys. You had one long day behind you." They only nodded as they disappeared to get a good night's sleep.
I had hoped to get some sleep myself, but it seemed like I would have to meet my guest first. Although like the rest of the League I didn't trust Trigon's spawns, I trusted my guts, and with that in mind, I could guess who this invader was.
It had to be either Raven seeking refuge with the Justice League or it was someone else trying to trick us again, which might end up in a fight again. This was a win-win situation for me and not something I wanted to miss out on.
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A/N: Happy New Year, guys! Hope you had a good start into the new year!
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