Gone Native: The Line (ch. 11) (Patreon)

She was stronger than me. Significantly so. At Stage Ten of the Wrath State, she was still closer to ten times stronger than I was. She was comparable to Frieza. I could feel the sheer breadth between our power… the gap was so large that I knew that the blow that shattered my hand was a punch that she had pulled. Her face was twisted into an angry snarl, a fury in her eyes that was slightly abated by confusion when my words reached her ears.

"Shut up with your crap justifications!" She snapped, lashing out with a hand and shoving me in the chest. It wasn't quite an attack, but I still was flung away and sent straight into the ground. Dirt and stone did little to stop me until I infused my ki into the area, strengthening it enough that I could come to a stop. She hadn't shoved me hard enough to send me straight through the planet, but I was sent a few hundred feet underground easily.

A sigh escaped me -- I felt a ki bubble break, but I didn't feel the man inside of it fall. Nor was he ferried away to somewhere safe. A bit of soil fell from the ceiling of the tunnel that had been carved out with my body, the dirt landing on my face. The dark tunnel was illuminated with purple light as the bones in my hand were mended by my Medicine Ball.

When it was healed, my hand went up to my necklace -- to the bone that was fed through the green power ring. The situation was complicated. It was messy. And I was starting to have doubts about my approach to the issue… more than that, I was having doubts about myself. But those were separate issues. Despite them all, I still had my reason.

As for the destruction of North Rhelasia, I knew I was right. It wasn't something I could tolerate, even if my approach caused problems for me. All that there was left to do was to see it through.

I looked within myself and found a familiar thread leading to a well of power deep inside. The last time I had pulled on it, the thread had snapped, leaving me in a state of agony for years until I became a Super Saiyan. I almost preferred going Super Saiyan over touching that thread again, but… my judgment was already clouded. Experiencing the emotional hell of the transformation would only cloud it further. I was used to physical pain. Not so much with emotional.

Taking a breath, I pulled at the thread, drawing up the power of the Oozaru transformation. I felt the pain increase several times over as it bubbled up inside of me, pushing against my bones and flesh, feeling increasingly like the power contained within me was too large for such a small body. But it was easier than before. Rather than five liters in a single liter cup, it felt more like two -- still too much for the cup to contain, but it didn't feel like I was stretching at the seams to contain the excess.

Blasting upward, I fell into Stage Fifteen of the Wrath State for the first time in nearly five years. The blonde haired woman hovered above with the prisoners. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the shimmering aura of green around me as I slowly rose up to her level. In her hands was a general for the North Rhelasia military, and based on how she had him by the front of his coat, she wasn't particularly friendly with him.

"Drop him," I ordered, making a ki disk form underneath him. "It's for his protection."

She hesitated for a moment, her piercing blue eyes searching my gaze for any sign of deceit. When she found none, she dropped the General onto the disk before it became a ki bubble that trapped him within. That alone told me a lot about what kind of person she was. She was either a good judge of character, or naively trusting. I made a note of that. If it was the later, her mentality was refreshingly Saiyan. With all of them secure, I lowered the ki balls closer to the ground.

Once they were secure enough, I rolled my shoulders. "Are you ready?" I asked, wearing a cocky smirk.

"Are you?" She asked back, readying her fists. She didn't have much of a structure to her stance, I noted. It was impossible to judge her footing giving that we were flying, but the way she positioned the rest of her body led me to believe she had been taught to fight by someone that couldn't fly. Or maybe that she was trying to copy someone she else she had seen fight without really understanding what she was doing. It was too easily to tell she had little experience properly levering the advantages given by flight.

"Your name?" I asked, getting a look of suspicion.

"Kara Zor-El, but most people call me Supergirl," she answered, and I was faintly surprised that she gave her real name. I suppose she felt no need to hide it.

"King Tarble of the Saiyan race," I introduced myself.

"Nice to meet you?" Kara replied, sounding a little uncertain, but her guard didn't drop. My attitude seemed to throw her off. I offered a thin smile before I blurred into action. In an instant, I closed the distance between us, but Kara tracked my movements easily, remaining unsurprised even as I threw a testing jab at her face. Still, it slipped through her guard, planting itself in her cheek even as her own fist struck out in retaliation.

Her face was completely unyielding. It felt like I had punched a brick wall. Her head rocked back at the sheer force of the blow, but I didn't hold any illusions that she was in any way injured. And judging from how unflinching she was, she had expected as much. Her fist raced up to my ribs, only to be caught and diverted away from them at the last second, saving me from a debilitating blow. As soon as it was clear that the first blow wouldn't land, I found another racing towards my face. I dodged it by kicking her in the gut, and more or less used her as a springboard rather than sticking around and having to deal with the inevitable injuried confronting it would have caused.

There was a cocky smirk on her face as she watched me fall back. She was confident. She should be. The initial bout very much wasn't in my favor and I'm guessing that she couldn't imagine ever being outmatched. Had never been outmatched. She clearly lacked experience fighting superior opponents. But that would be her downfall.

Kara didn't do defense. She weathered blows to dish out more damage, trusting her body's natural durability to protect her so she could end fights quickly. It might sound reckless, but it was perfect for a Kryptonian. It perfectly leveraged her natural abilities. The only issue was that it was a poor stance to take against someone her equal or above her weight class.

Or against me.

Kara moved in a blur, her fists raining down on me to end the fight as quickly as possible. The first blow moved in a blur, but the fact that I was able to divert it told me that she was still holding back. Less than she had with the first punch, but with the difference in strength, dodging should have been the only way to avoid a broken jaw or a broken hand. My hand on the back of her fist guided the blow away, opening her up to an elbow to the throat.

It was a solid blow that sent her flying back, one of her hands flying up to her throat with some alarm. Either she had felt that one, or instinct had gotten the better of her. She looked up at me and this time I settled in a stance of my own -- my legs spread wide, one arm outstretched, while the other was bent towards my head, my palm facing out. The stance of the royal family. Kara's eyes narrowed into slits, her momentary discomfort quickly forgotten as she blasted forward, intending to pummel me with her fists.

I took in a sharp breath and dove forward to meet her. Her attacks were wild, fists flying out in every which direction without rhyme or reason. She clearly knew how to throat a punch. The issue was that she didn't know how to fight. Or, rather, she had no real sense of the ebb and flow of a real fight. Her style was relentless aggression, and for most people, perhaps even people stronger than her if she got the first blow in, that would be more than enough.

But I was used to fighting people that were far stronger than me. Her relentless assault was met with relentless counters and flawless evasions.

A diverted punch opened her up to a shot to the diaphragm, and while I was forced to dodge a fist I could only just barely see, her shoulder was still in the same place, letting me deliver a powerful uppercut to the bottom of her arm. It was difficult to tell if the blows did any damage, but based on her expression, Kara didn't care to receive them.

An uppercut missed my chin by a millimeter, the wind from the blow brushing against my skin, and I slammed a knee into her gut. A backhand nearly took my head off, but when she overextended, I grabbed the back of her wrist and slammed a fist into her elbow. That earned a pained cry, she might have an exceptionally sturdy body, she it still followed the same rules. I couldn't break her bones, but she was just as susceptible to hyperextension as anyone else. She yanked her arm back so savagely that she nearly took the hand that was holding it. And when she dove right back in with a punch to my gut, I learned that pain alone wasn't enough to give her any pause.

As I dodged the blow and retaliated with a punch to her nose that probably did more damage to my hand than her, I realized that I wasn't going to win the fight like this. I wasn't losing, but I wasn't really winning. I had underestimated just how durable her body was. Going on the offensive as I was right now was a pipedream. It would take ages to wear her down, and she only had to get lucky with her punches once while I was comitted to counterattack to turn the fight in her favor. If I went full defensive, I could hold out indefinitely, but I would never get a blow in.

So, I took in a slow breath and I pulled at that string. Cautiously. Almost fearfully. I pulled at it too hard and it broke before, but I had seen first hand that the Oozaru transformation had more to give. Vegeta had pushed it to Stage Twenty before his death. It was time to do the same.

Gritting my teeth, I countered another blow before I clapped my hands around Kara's ears. She winced in pain, but was otherwise undeterred. I felt the power inhabiting me swell in size. The Wrath State wasn't so refined that each stage was clearly marked, but I felt myself enter what I judged to be Stage Sixteen. And, as I blocked a blow for the first time, relying on the surge of power to weather the force while delivering a kick to Kara's ribs, I pulled harder to reach Stage Seventeen.

Kara was knocked back a good twenty feet before she caught herself. She said nothing about my sudden increase in strength before she resumed the fight, taking the offensive with more and more vigor as she held a little less back with each blow I landed on her. My near misses got nearer and nearer, until I was forced to block blows even as I countered. The hits were messy, glancing blows at most, but they still hit with bone-rattling force. The only thing that kept me from flying off was the fact that I was intentionally staying in the thick of it to meet her blow for blow, denying her the leverage to truly send me flying.

I slammed my fist into her cheek with enough force that my knuckles cracked and was rewarded by her head snapping to the side. The gap in our strength was shrinking with each stage of the Wrath State I pulled out, but I couldn't win like this either. I needed to take control of the momentum of the fight and truly go on the offensive.

I yanked on the thread, swallowing my hesitation in doing so. The air around my body stirred at the sudden surge in power as I hit Stage Twenty, matching my brother's accomplishments. Even with it, Kara was still stronger than me. However, she went from being nearly ten times stronger than I was to less than four. Narrowing the gap enough that I could do some real damage to her without falling back on my ki or one of my other tricks.

Her eyes widened, sensing something was wrong, but she wasn't prepared to do anything about it. Her defenses were non-existent, letting me easily slip a fist through her guard and slam my fist into her stomach. Unlike all the blows before, she clearly felt that one. Kara flew off like a missile through the night sky, her hands clutching her stomach in pain before she righted herself. There was anger in her eyes, the pain fueling her will to fight rather than weakening it. A grin found its way onto my face. I had worked up enough of a sweat to get my blood flowing. I was enjoying our little bout.

"Let's see how you like cheap shots," she spat, and that's when the fight began in earnest. She dove at me, her fists darting in and out like a snake lunging at me. I blocked the blows, and her prior words served as a warning to catch a kick aimed at my groin as she made use of her legs for the first time. I blocked her foot, catching it with one of my own and hooking my foot around her ankle. Pulling her foot forward, I pulled her out of her form and easily dodged her following punch as it went wide, throwing one of my own back at her with all of my strength behind it. It connected with her surprised face full force.

A crack like thunder echoed out across the night sky the moment my fist hit her cheek. Her head snapped to the side as she was sent on a collision course with the ground. The ground buckled underneath her when she landed, a massive dust cloud going up into the air as Kara's momentum carried her through dirt and stone much as she had done to me earlier. But, as soon as she could, Kara regained control of herself and flew right back at me, tearing through the ground like it was made of wet tissue paper.

We clashed above North Rhelasia, a sonic boom stirring the wind. I felt more strong presences beyond the horizon halt at the border of the county -- the Justice League given I recognized a few of them. But they were bound by the restraints placed on them. By red tape. I paid them no mind, choosing to give Kara my full attention.

She threw a punch that I was forced to block with my forearm and I felt the bone inside ache from the strain. I could see it in how she fought -- she felt like she was losing, so she fought harder. Her technique got sloppier, but she more than made up for it in sheer speed and strength. If she was still holding back then it wasn't by much. One good clean hit would do more damage to me than every blow I've dealt her several times over. I was loving it. My lips peeled back in a smile as I enjoyed myself, showing off the enlarged canines of the Wrath State.

With a snarl, Kara tackled me, tired of my dodging and evading. Taking my fist in hand, I brought it down in a hammerblow on her back, earning a pained grunt, but that didn't stop her from blasting forward, arms wrapped around my waist, intent on pushing me towards the border of North Rhelasia. I slammed my fists down again and again and again. On the third blow, I filled us and kneed her in the stomach, forcing our trajectory down.

I felt my back hit the ground, tearing through a hill and a forest, trees evaporating upon impact as we carved a line through the earth. Kara attempted to right our trajectory, sending us-

"Wait!" I shouted, and to my surprise, and apparently Kara's, she slowed down significantly. "We're going to hit a fishing village in a few miles." At the speed we were moving, that was only seconds away.

Kara slowed more, pausing for a brief moment, before I felt her grip on me relax. She straightened out, looking slightly more devilished, but otherwise fine. She looked suspicious of me like I was about to take a cheap shot. "Yeah, there is. We should be fine to go over it."

"If we're going to do this, then we should leave the planet," I said, crossing my arms. "I know you're leading me to the Justice League at the border. I'll have to stop holding back to have any chance of winning, and Earth would be devastated. Space would be a preferable battleground."

Kara said nothing for a long second as she seemed to process what I had just said, her eyes flickering behind me. Her lips curled into a frown before a sigh escaped her, "What did you mean by that? When we first started fighting. What do we have to explain to you?" She demanded, sounding pissed off that she was even asking.

I cocked my head, "This," I answered gesturing to the nation beneath us. "I can't accept how my citizens have been treated. Nor can I accept that nothing was done to stop it."

Her nostrils flared, but the anger in her expression eased away ever so slightly. "Does geopolitics mean nothing to you?" She asked, sounding more exasperated than anything.

"It does. It's just not an acceptable reason," I answered easily.

"So you just destroy an entire country? I mean… I thought you were coming here to kill a lot of people, not take hostages," Supergirl said, frowning at me. It seemed she was every bit as unsure what to make of me as I was of her.

"Prisoners," I corrected. "That was the plan originally, but Raven made some points that I've found hard to dispute. I executed the leader of the nation, but I decided that these people would undergo a trial."

Kara looked hesitant, "That's… better, I guess. Still not okay at all, but better." She remarked, her brow furrowing in thought. "To answer your question, there is no satisfying answer. At the end of the day, heroes and villains are outsiders. We can't save humanity from themselves. We don't have the right to choose their path for them."

Interesting. Unlike Superman, it sounded like she didn't consider herself a part of humanity. When Superman spoke of humanity, he used we and us. Supergirl used their and them.

"I disagree," I refuted, not willing to budge on the issue. "All you heroes have done is save humanity from themselves. It would be a simple thing to take it a step further. This nation and its practices were only possible because of inaction. My people deserve better than to be force-fed drugs to increase production rates and starved."

"Yeah, I agree there," Kara admitted, the anger bleeding out of her entirely. Though, based on her posture, she was still very ready for a fight. "People do deserve better, but it's a slippery slope. If the Justice League or heroes in general start deciding government policy, then even the nations that are fine our existence with will disavow us. They won't accept evidence that we give to lock away the bad guys, and they would fight us just as much as the villains. By not stepping over that line, we can do more good for more people, because the moment we step over it, we can't do anything."

That was a good point. I still found it distasteful, but I could admit that it made sense from their point of view. They didn't want to take away humanity's autonomy from them, so they made compromises to ensure that they wouldn't threaten that autonomy. But, from my view, humanity didn't have autonomy. They were my citizens, thus subject to my standards and laws. And I thought that their decision not to interfere was irresponsible at best, if not unacceptably negligent.

"Humanity could do worse than have heroes like the Justice League in charge," I remarked, making Supergirl's lips curl into a frown, unsure if I was being sarcastic or not. I wasn't. "Without heroes, humanity would have killed itself several times over in recent years, from my understanding. You're not preserving their autonomy, you're coddling them by protecting them from the repercussions of their own mistakes. They seem insistent on proving that they can't be trusted to lead themselves."

"But you can?" Kara made a barbed retort, sounding unimpressed with my argument.

To that, I shrugged, "Perhaps not." I admitted, and that clearly caught her off guard. "It's been made clear to me that I've made mistakes when it comes to leading citizens rather than soldiers. However, I refuse to accept this as an acceptable alternative to spare humanity’s feelings."

With that thought in mind, I raised a hand to my ear, activating the comms link in my scouter, "Mobilize to my position. Ready relief efforts," I sent to my fleets that encircled the system. I received an affirmative in response, and Supergirl appeared alarmed.

"Who was that?!" She demanded to know, making me raise an eyebrow.

"A few of my fleets," I answered, thinking it should be obvious.

"What are you doing with fleets in the Sol system?" Kara demanded to know, an edge entering her tone. I'm guessing that she had an educated guess about what they were doing in the system. She just wanted me to confirm it.

"Right now? Relief efforts," I answered shortly. "They would also serve as transport in the case that humanity loses the case over ownership of Earth and decides against joining my empire. They would be brought to the Federation where I will negotiate on their behalf to be given a suitable planet."

Kara, however, had doubts, "Or to be the spearhead of an invasion force!" She pointed out sharply, before her gaze drifted upwards as the first of my fleets began to descend into the upper atmosphere.

"If this were an invasion, then I would be the tip of the spear," I countered. Kara's eyes flashed.

"Do not let them land, Tarble," she snapped at me. "Even if you're trying to help people, the only thing that humanity will see is an invasion force. If you're going to do something like this, then at least do it right, or I will take you into space and kick your ass." She warned me, her hands curling into fists. Her tone was deadly serious, telling me that she was ready to carry out that threat.

She wanted to help everyone below as much as I did. She never took action because it would break the fragile balance between humanity and the heroes that protected them. However, that didn't stop her from taking advantage of the situation. I could respect that. She had a window of opportunity and she was taking it. There was nothing wrong with that.

"I am willing to compromise on how it is done but this will happen," I returned, my tone as unyielding as steel. "North Rhelasia will be no more. My citizens will be cared for and receive the aid that they need. Those in charge of the now dismantled nation will suffer consequences for their actions. These things will happen. The only voice you have in the matter is how they happen."

Kara's lips thinned. She was rather open with her expressions, because it looked as if she had swallowed something sour, but she nodded all the same. "I can accept that, but it's not up to me. You have to convince the rest of the planet. And the Justice League," she reminded. "We all want the same things in this case, but it's not going to work if you don't treat it like a conversation. You can't just make unilateral decisions. And… as a gesture of good faith, you should head to the Justice League at the border. Nothing will happen to you."

That last demand didn't come from her. It came from someone else.

I cocked my head in consideration, weighing my options. "Very well," I decided, coming to a decision quickly. Pressing a hand to my ear, I sent another transmission, "Hold position. Treat any incursion from unknowns as a declaration of war." To that, Kara winced. "I can forgive attacks on me, but I will not tolerate them on my nation. I've given humanity a great deal of slack, but if they choose to tie it into a noose, I will hang them with it."

"That's fair," Kara decided, even if it sounded like she didn't agree with the fairness of it. I imagine I wouldn't either if I were in her position.

With that done, I turned to where the Justice League was and began to fly towards them, pointedly showing my back to Kara as I flew. I was knowingly putting myself in a compromising position as a sign of goodwill. As a Super Saiyan, I was confident that I could take Kara. Superman was a coin toss and a hard maybe at best. But the entirety of the Justice League? I would have no chance.

They were just too powerful and too numerous. I would have to be arrogant and an idiot to think I could take them all on at once.

But I put myself in that position all the same. Simply because I wanted to see what they would do. I wanted to see how much they would yank at the leash the UN placed on them. I wanted to see how the UN would react to the effortless way I removed the leadership of a nation.

North Rhelasia wasn't destroyed yet, but it would collapse like a house of cards with the slightest touch. I could feel it. In a way, I understood it so well because in structure, our nations were similar. Without me, my empire would collapse. Just as North Rhelasia would collapse without their dictator and command structure.

The prisoners joined me as I flew to the border -- the Justice League was gathered at a destroyed gatehouse. Superman stood at the front, and he was flanked by two figures. One was vastly more powerful than the other. I knew who they were even if I never met them. Even with the briefest search, it was an easy thing to recognize Wonder Woman and Batman. The latter I had likely come across in Gotham.

Behind them were other heroes. Aquaman, the Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Cyborg -- who the Titans had mentioned before as a previous member of the Teen Titans. They said half of his body was mechanical, but it was closer to four-fifths. His body was made of some chrome-colored metal, and only out-of-place patches of his original dark skin remained. Aquaman was a dignified looking man -- wet blonde hair and a short beard, orange scale armor on his torso, and green leggings. In his hand was a golden trident.

I couldn't gauge Cyborg's power because it was mechanical, but… I did feel something from him. It was odd. That was the easiest way to describe it. It seemed powerful, but at the same time, I couldn't actually tell. It was almost like it was evading my ki sense, not letting me get a look at it, and all I could see were glimpses from the corner of my eye.

Aquaman was fairly powerful. I would put him at around… half of Kara's strength. I was nearly certain I could defeat him, but I would refrain from certainties until I saw him in action. Martian Manhunter, a green-skinned Martian, was more comparable to Superman than not.

Which made Batman stand out so much. He felt stronger than a normal human, but not by much. A single point higher than most, perhaps two. He watched me carefully with whited-out eyes and a cowl, his black cloak covering his body so that only his jawline could be seen. He felt out of place when compared to the rest of the League. Especially considering he stood next to Superman, who was by far the strongest person here, and Wonder Woman, who wasn't far off from being his equal.

Tense best described the situation at the border. Southern Rhelasia troops had guns pointed at me, barking orders that I ignored as I touched down on the North Rhelasia side of the border. The Northern soldiers had no problems opening fire on me, their military already making token efforts to secure the border. Bullets bounced off of me as I slowly walked towards the League, Kara behind me and the prisoners I had floating above.

I came to a stop at the line that marked the border between the nations. Superman frowned, but he approached all of the same, as did Batman and Wonder Woman. I could feel both of them measuring me, casting quick looks at Kara as she flew over the border to join the rest of the League -- noting that neither of us was injured. What they did with that information, I could only guess.

"You didn't have to do this, Tarble," Superman said, sounding genuinely disappointed with me

"I told Earth that I would. I've only told one lie in my life, and it wasn't that warning," I responded bluntly. "What happened in this country is unacceptable. Unlike you, I'm not bound from acting on my sense of right and wrong."

Batman's lips thinned, "You have a very skewed sense of right and wrong." He remarked, his voice coming out a low growl.

"Enough. What is done is done," Wonder Woman said before I could return the verbal jab. "Let us discuss what happens now. You brought a fleet into Earth Airspace. The UN is going to treat that as intent to invade."

To that, I scoffed, "If I intended to invade, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. My armies would be falling from the sky and your cities would be bombarded. My fleets are here to give aid." I returned, not impressed with the posturing. "Any military action that would be taken would be to prevent a war between the forces of North and South Rhelasia."

"No military action will be accepted," Wonder Woman interjected. I looked at her -- she seemed frustrated. Stressed, maybe. I'm guessing that while the Justice League was here, the UN was using them as a mouthpiece. "Your prisoners will be overturned and the fate of North Rhelasia will be left to the UN to decide. In exchange, a brazen attack on a nation's sovereignty will not be treated as a declaration of interplanetary war."

"I refuse," I replied bluntly. "I don't recognize North Rhelasia as a government. It failed in the most basic and fundamental ways of caring and supporting its citizens. My citizens. As a nation, it will be dissolved and its military disbanded. However, I am willing to speak to the UN on who will take in its citizens as a concesion that Earth is arguing against my ownership to ensure that they receive the aid that they need."

Then I shook my head, "Regardless, aid will be given to my citizens. I don't care how you perceive it. They will receive the necessities that have been denied them. They will receive them here, and they will receive them across the planet. If I have to invade to give that aid, then I will." There was an uneasy silence at my declaration as I stared hard into Superman's eyes.

He let out a small breath, not quite a sigh, but it was close. "I understand that you want to help and the last thing I want to do is stop you from helping people that need it. Believe me on that," he implored, and I did. He was a man that was being stretched between his sense of duty and his personal morals.

I knew what that was like. In the end, you had to make a choice. Your morals or your duty.

I chose duty. It just so happened that this time, the two coincided.

"But how you go about this matters. Do it like this, and every nation on this planet will fight you tooth and nail. Even the people that you intend to help will smack away your hand. I've seen it before. I've experienced it before," Superman continued.

Wonder Woman nodded, "You said that you desire peace. The Teen Titans even spoke well of you and your intentions, despite everything. We would like this to work and end in a way where no blood spilled. But there will need to be compromises. On our behalf as well as yours."

I was already compromising. Too much even. They had no right to ask for more. They didn't even deserve what I was giving them.

But they were right. I knew that. I struggled with it. I was making mistakes, and this could be another. But I identified the problem.

I was a man that needed a war to fight, without an enemy in sight. Even as I desired peace, I sabotaged it.

This was likely a mistake…

But I stepped over that line regardless.