Gone Native: Digging Deep (ch. 19) (Patreon)

Aquaman wasn't down for the count, I saw as I raced down towards him, intent on picking off the scattered members of the Justice League while I had the opportunity. Simply because I knew that this was my only chance to do so. Aquaman clutched at the stump at his wrist, blood dripping between his fingers as he glared up at me. He might not be the strongest of the Justice League, but he wouldn't let a little dismemberment keep him down.

As someone that had lost my limbs in a fight more than once, I felt my respect for Aquaman increase by a fraction.

I touched down in front of him, placing myself between him and the ocean. His eyes narrowed at the sight of his trident in my hands and his lips thinned when he saw the blood dripping down it's tongs. "Whose blood is that, King Tarble?" He asked me, a deadly edge in his voice as he dug his feet into the loose white sand of the beach.

I didn't answer. It was obvious. There could only be one reason why I was here and Wonder Woman wasn't.

"Damn Hal Jordan," Aquaman decided, gritting his teeth. "You weren't meant to be this strong."

"In Hal's defence, he didn't know," I offered as I leveled my trident at him. "Will you surrender?" I asked him, though I already knew the answer.

"Never," came Aquaman's instant response. I nodded, expecting nothing less. I would actually be very disappointed if he had surrendered so easily. It would have been spitting on everything that they worked for and sacrificed. I was glad that the Justice League had more mettle than that.

However, his predictable refusal came with predictable results.

In a blur, I darted forward, kicking up a storm of sand in my wake. Aquaman raised up his bloody forearm, intent to further sacrifice his wounded arm for an opening to make a jab at my face. But, as a Super Saiyan, my reactions were simply faster than his. I spun my trident, bypassing his sacrificial limb, aiming for his sternum.

Only to have my weapon smacked away by a beam of light. Aquaman seized the opportunity and lunged for me. Instead of striking me, he tackled me with all of his strength. I quickly righted myself but not before I felt cool water wash over my ankles. I looked off in the direction that the beam had come in, just in time to lean my head out of the way as a laser came racing by.

I raised a hand and returned fire, a ki blast wiping away the hill that had been the vantage point for whoever was shooting at me. I noted that I didn't feel any presence vanish, but my attention was quickly stolen when I felt the water around my ankles stiffen. Reinforced. My eyes narrowed as Aquaman grabbed my trident, a brilliant golden light erupting from it.

My hand felt tingly, almost as if it had fallen asleep and was waking up.

With shocking strength, Aquaman raised the trident instead of trying to rip it from my hands as I expected. He slammed the butt of the trident on the ground and there was a ripple of power. The ground shifted beneath my feet as we began to sink -- the sea surged around me, grabbing hold of my body. I reared my head back and headbutted Aquaman, delivering a devastating blow to his face. Still, he grabbed hold of the shining trident. So I headbutted him again. And again. And again. Each one delivering a shock wave of force that chipped away at the magically enforced water.

Aquaman still held onto the trident, but his eyes were glazing over. Blood dripped from his forehead, soaking his hair and covering his face. He looked concussed, and that made it easy to slam the shaft of the trident into his chest before batting him away. He flew back, slamming into the beach, and I glanced over to see that the ocean was rising.

A humanoid figure was taking shape as millions of tons of water defied gravity, the water white as it rushed around the body, circulating inside as riptides. It heaved a mighty fist at me, stretching upwards until it dwarfed mountains and blotted out the sun. I tested my feet to find that the magic that bound me here was powerful. Incredibly so.

But my engravings allowed me to treat magical restraints as physical restraints, and I was more than strong enough to rip my feet free as I formed a ki spear in my free hand. Just as the colossal water giant threw it's punch down at me, casting a long shadow that submerged me in darkness, I threw my spear at the water giant's chest. It punched through the outer layer of water, carried forward like a torpedo, before I detonated the spear inside.

Millions of tons of water fell down from the sky in torrential downpour. The ocean surged as the giant lost its shape and collapsed back into the ocean. I frowned before I reached out a hand and formed a ki shield around the landmass that we were on, protecting the cities that were based along the coastline. Water slammed into my ki shield with thunderous force, the wave reaching hundreds of feet tall, high enough that it would have washed away pretty much all of Italy if I had let it.

The ocean was anything but calm as it continued to surge violently. There was so much magic pouring from it that I could practically taste it in the air. A glance at the trident told me that it was the source, or at least connected, because it shone brightly with a shimmering golden aura. I floated up before a flash caught my attention and another blood red ray raced past my head. My eyes narrowed as I leveled a hand at the source, firing reflexively, and this time I wiped out the entire cliff off in the distance, miles away.

Again, I didn't kill whoever was shooting at me. Unless they weren't alive to begin with, in which case I wouldn't be able to sense them.

Beyond the almost tangible magic in the air, I felt powerful ki signatures converging on me. Beyond the Justice League. Some of them were powerful in their own right, rivaling the likes of Wonder Woman or Aquaman. Earth had a great many more heroes beyond the Justice League and the Teen Titans, and it would seem that they had been roused from their slumber.

"You cannot win," Aquaman told me, voice slurred, pulling himself to his feet after digging himself up from a mountain of sand. "Even if you defeat us now, so long as there is breath in our lungs, you will never defeat us." He looked worse for wear, still clearly concussed, but that had never stopped me from fighting. "And even if you kill us… someone stronger will simply take our place to oppose you."

I met his gaze as a ki spear formed in my hand. "That is a very foolish thing to promise a Saiyan," I told him, before I threw my spear at him. It slammed into his chest before it exploded, catching him dead center in the expanding explosion that pushed back the sea with a wave of physical force. I flew up, narrowing my focus on the world to pick out those that now posed the greatest threat. Superman had yet to return, meaning I still had some time to swing the odds in my favor and thin out the herd before I was overwhelmed.

Already, I had defeated a sizable fraction of the Justice League, but if the heroes of Earth were anything like my soldiers, that would just mean that they would fight harder.

I picked my target before blasting off in that direction, leaving behind a critically injured Aquaman. The sea seemed to groan, almost a low scream, the vast oceans surging with anger. I couldn't determine the source of it, but whatever it was, it was powerful. The clouds above seemed to swirl, waterspouts forming as an intense wind buffeted against me. It offered no real obstacle, it was merely a sign of things to come. That this battle was anything but over.

I saw a dot of red off in the horizon a split second before I was forced to dodge. My eyes narrowed at the source -- were there multiple? If that was the case then why were the shots so spaced out?

Regardless, I continued onward to my destination. I spotted my first enemy -- but they weren't alone. But, to my surprise, they weren't allies.

I had done preliminary research about the potential enemies I would face if this day had ever come. The two people that fought above were Wonder Girl -- a blonde haired girl in a sleeveless shirt that had Wonder Woman's golden Ws over her breasts. She had no weapons beyond the bracers that she wore, lacking even the lasso that Wonder Woman carried. She was fighting against a woman that was covered in fur, who that used her razor sharp claws as weapons -- Cheetah.

The latter was fast, I noticed as they fought over a city in America. Not quite as fast as the Flash, but she was a step above Wonder Woman, who I had barely been able to keep up with. In a contest of speed, I would be no match. Meaning that Wonder Girl was nearly helpless as they fought. The only reason why the younger woman hadn't been defeated already was because of her ability to fly, which Cheetah apparently lacked.

I frowned as I sensed others, noting no less than five separate battles.

"I'm insulted," I announced myself, making both women freeze. "Am I not worth uniting against?" I asked them, and Wonder Girl's face paled when she saw the bloody trident in my hand. I had assumed that the ki signatures that I felt grouping up were teams uniting against me. Instead, they were simply fighting amongst each other.

This is what Wonder Woman had meant when she said that they were not just fighting me. I had simply underestimated how many were willing to use my fight against the Justice League to carry out their own plans.

Cheetah bared her fangs at me, "King Tarble. Perhaps we can aid one another? This child has something I seek -- help me claim it, and I shall give you the Earth." She made her offer, making Wonder Girl blanch. Wonder Girl frowned deeply, clenching her fists as she readied herself to fight both of us.

I didn't have to think about my answer. "I refuse. There is no place in my empire for traitors," I half snarled the word at her, making her eyes widen. Hate was not something I felt easily. It was not a word I often used because few things were worth using such a heavy descriptor for my feelings. However, there simply wasn't any other that best described what I felt for traitors.

Bardock. Fasha. Tora. Borgos. Shugesh.

Those that would betray their fellow man for their own ends deserved nothing less than death. The Justice League was fighting for the sake of humanity and the future of Earth, and she would betray that for her own benefit? She was a traitor of the worst kind. It was why I executed Adonis. It's why I executed the leader of North Rhelasia. They betrayed their team, their nation, and the planet they lived on.

Fight me. Resist me. You may not win. You may lose your life in the struggle, but at the very least, you wouldn't die a selfish piece of shit.

Ki swirled in my hand before I used it to blast the building that she was standing on, but before I had even moved, she was sprinting to leap to another. By the time my ki blast reached the building, she was already in the air. But, because there were only so many buildings that she could leap to and remain in the fight, predicting where she would go was a simple task.

With a heave, I flung my trident, catching Cheetah in the side as she was speared into the ground like a speeding bullet. She tore through the streets, sending up rubble, dust, and vehicles, the trident skewered into her side.

I looked at Wonder Girl, who appeared absolutely shocked that I hadn't taken Cheetah up on the offer to team up against her. "Thanks, I think?" she tried, uncertain if we were going to fight.

"You have no reason to thank me," I told her. It had been her mentor's blood on that trident. "If Earth wishes to fight amongst each other, then I will simply defeat you all one at a time."

"Oh. So we're still fighting. Gotcha," Wonder Girl replied, clenching her hands into fists. Then with a burst of speed, she launched herself at me. She was fast. And strong. Amongst the 501st, she would have been amongst the most powerful without a doubt. But, when compared to her mentor, she was lacking.

I evaded a blow before driving a knee into her diaphragm. I cupped my fists above my head and brought them down on the center of her back. Wonder Girl was flung to the ground, tearing through a building directly below us with explosive force, but I doubted that she was seriously injured. She was closer to Aquaman in strength than Wonder Woman, which still made her strong, but not enough to turn the tide of the fight.

Yet another red laser raced towards me, this one forcing me to block it with a ki shield.

As I did so, Wonder Girl rose from the rubble to clash against me. With a single exchange, she seemed to realize the gap in our power, but she was determined to fight and win anyway.

This was why I respected heroes.

I met her head-on, fighting above the city as I kept a mental track of the other conflict below. We exchanged a flurry of blows, each one landing with devastating effect -- for what she lacked in strength, she made up in skill. She fought like Wonder Woman, but against me, that was a mistake. A foot caught her in her chest, sending her flying back down the street through a different building while I zeroed in on Cheetah.

She was digging through the rubble, the trident deep in her ribs. She seemed to lack durability because the throw had shattered some of her ribs. Placing a foot on her, I ripped the trident free with a pained cry from her. I met her gaze for a moment, "Do you wish for mercy?"

Cheetah spat blood at me in response. She was a traitor, but at least she had some pride.

Granting her wish, I left her be as I spotted another fight. My lips thinned when I saw who was fighting. It was a yellow and red blur which I could see fighting against a… monkey? Interesting. It wasn't the Flash. Nor was it Kid Flash from the Teen Titans. It was the other red-headed Kid Flash, I believe. I understood that Saiyans had no right to remark about naming schemes, but…

Kid Flash seemed to sense my presence because the next thing I knew I was flying down the street, slamming through a car. A hundred blows rained down upon me from every angle, and I could feel the anger behind the punches. Gritting my teeth, I flexed my power to drive Kid Flash away, but he had learned from his mentor's mistake. As the shockwave erupted around me, he backed off, coming to a stop a half-block away.

His expression was one of anger as my blood dripped from his knuckles. I tested my body -- he landed a number of blows, but all he did was make my prior injuries worse. It seemed that like the Flash, he needed some build up to his punches to deal damage to me. The fact that I was a Super Saiyan worked against him as well so the bar to injure me was a lot higher.

Wonder Girl landed near Kid Flash, her face bloodied, but she was ready to fight. The gorilla took aim with a minigun, but before he could fire upon all three of us, I fired a ki blast that punched through his shoulder.

"Should we let him take on the bad guys for us?" Wonder Girl questioned, making exactly zero effort to help the gorilla. I opened my mouth to respond, only for a red laser to fire on my position, demolishing a few windows through a building to do it. That was my warning to lean out of the way.

That was starting to get annoying.

"No. He's mine," Kid Flash said, and for all of his speed, his attention faltered as he spoke to Wonder Girl. He took off in a blur of motion, and a fraction of a second later, my head snapped to the side from a powerful punch to the face. The shockwave that rippled out shattered every window in a block radius. But, even as blood filled my mouth, ki swirled into my hand in a bright light.

Kid Flash was fast, but he wasn't strong. A hundred times Earth's gravity slammed him into the ground, earning a strangled gasp from him.

"Kid!" Wonder Girl rushed forward as I tossed the gravity ball up, flying right at me, only to slam into the ground herself as gravity unexpectedly increased around her.

I spat blood on the ground, not spared by my technique either. I felt my injuries that were slowly stacking up strain under the increased gravity, but I fared better underneath it. Wonder Girl was quick to recover, just not fast enough to stop me from stomping on Kid Flash's kneecaps.

Her face twisted into a snarl as she threw herself at me with surprising speed, practically ignoring the increased gravity. I caught a blow with the trident, stopping her fist, and I noticed she had dropped her form. It was still there, however so slightly, but the grace and refinement was replaced with a savagery that just wanted to make me bleed.

I fended her off easily enough, but Wonder Girl wanted blood. A foot caught me in the ribs as I prepared to thrust down with the trident, making them ache from the blow. As I made my thrust, she reached out with her hand, catching the trident in the gap between the forks to stop it. I was still stronger, allowing me to overpower her with a bit of effort as we fought through the city, slamming through buildings and flying above it.

She yanked the trident to the side, readying a fist, only to catch one of mine to the face. She flew away from me, slamming through the streets and a line of parked vehicles in them. No humans were in the city. At least, none that weren't here to fight.

Yet, the city appeared… normal. As if all the humans had simply vanished.

It was an interesting development. I approved of the lengths they were going to to protect the population. Both for the hero’s intentions, and because it made the citizens a nonissue when it came to orbital bombardments.

The sound of twirling wind caught my attention, and I reacted by effortlessly dodging a…

"Oh. It's you," I remarked, looking down at Captain Boomerang. It was memorable, I would give him that. It took a suicidal amount of courage to use a boomerang as a weapon of choice when facing down an enemy like me.

That meant that the person shooting at me was the same person firing at me the last time. It explained the impossible angles that the red rays were coming from without any identifiable source. What I had been destroying… were they reflectors set up to bounce the ray between them?

They must be rather confident in their weapon of choice, then.

"Yeah, it's me," Captain Boomerang responded, his green-tipped boomerang flying back to his hand.

"I take it you're the distraction?" I asked as I stretched my Ki sense, searching for a familiar presence. The humans, by getting rid of the white noise, made it rather easy for me to zero in the ki signature of the one that had shot at me before. And who was shooting at me now. I leveled a hand in the direction of his presence and fired a ki blast. The torrent of blue energy blasted through buildings, hills, and everything else in its way until it reached its target.

The ki signature vanished.

Captain Boomerang looked up at me for a long moment as I lowered my hand. "Well, fuck me," he summarized as his situation became apparent. I lowered myself to the broken street, dust lingering in the air from the various clashes I had engaged in. He eyed me warily, his boomerangs at the ready -- there was fear in his eyes, but he didn't back down.

"Out of all the humans I've encountered, I believe I respect you the most as a warrior," I told him as I strode forward. He seemed a bit surprised by that, but a pleased smile found its way onto his face. He was not the most superior warrior, but it took a special kind of bravery to face me armed with boomerangs. A short spear formed in my hand as I dug a foot into the ground.

I blasted forward faster than Captain Boomerang could hope to react to, only to realize my mistake a second later. As I appeared behind him in a burst of speed, a set of black chains erupted from the dust around us from all angles. They wrapped themselves around me and I felt the familiar sting of magic -- I ripped through the chain by flying up, narrowly avoiding… something that appeared underneath me and tried to swallow me whole.

Pressing my lips together, I flexed my aura, blasting the dust that lingered in the streets. There, I saw hundreds of swirling black shadows materializing From wherever there was a scrap of darkness, taking the shadow that was cast with them. The creature that had nearly eaten me sunk into the ground, treating the asphalt as if it were water.

My gaze zeroed in on where I sensed the ki signatures reappearing. The creature briefly surfaced, it's oily black skin tearing open to reveal a mouth -- within it was the sorceress Enchantress with Captain Boomerang. With their reveal, more appeared from thin air, summoned by magic. Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, King Shark, Killer Frost, and Black Manta.

"That trident belongs to the king of Atlantis," Black Manta snarled. "It belongs to me," he clarified, and I noticed the trident was becoming a real point of contention. Understandable. It was a remarkable weapon.

"There is no kingdom of Atlantis anymore. The borders that you Earthlings established no longer concern me," I told him bluntly, and his red eyes glowed in response, preparing for the fight. "If you wish to claim my trident, then you must take it from me."

"Then I shall!" he snarled, firing a blood-red energy blast at me that I effortlessly overpowered with a ki blast of my own. Black Manta was only saved by Harley slamming a mallet into him hard enough to send him flying, but it was a temporary relief at best. I closed the distance between me and Black Manta in a moment, eyeing the others. Harley was ready to fight me with a wooden mallet, Captain Boomerang also let loose his boomerangs. The most dangerous weapon of the team, however, was the black magic that was swirling around Enchantress' hands.

Spinning my trident, I plunged it into Black Manta's shoulder before I flung him at Harley. King Shark and Killer Croc both rushed towards me, some manner of technology on their knuckles that hinted that they would be able to strike above their weight class. I flew to them, slamming a fist into Killer Croc's gut, folding him like a piece of paper before I flung him into King Shark.

The boomerangs closed in, but they were simply too slow to touch me so long as they didn't somehow surprise me. I blurred forward, closing the distance between me and Enchantress -- her eyes widened, stumbling a step back. Captain Boomerang began to react, but was caught by an almost gentle backhand that still seemed to shatter his face. My trident lunged out, dead set on skewering Enchantress' heart, only for the trident to flow right through her.

Intangibility?

Magic-based apparently, because she couldn't escape my hand as I reached out and wrapped it around her throat.

"Pots!" I heard a voice shout out as I began to squeeze. I stopped. I didn't stop because of the voice however. Instead, I stopped because of what I felt. The sensation of magic washed over me, breaking over my body like a wave over a cliff. My gaze darted to the source to see a young woman -- Zatanna. I recognized her.

She was joined by others. Closing in like a noose, I felt new and familiar ki signatures surround me -- Nightwing, who was dressed in an odd suit that completely covered him from head to toe. Black Canary and Green Arrow, other members of the Justice League. Shazam and Martian Manhunter. There were more. Some I knew, others I didn't.

Static Shock, Black Lightning, Stargirl, Hawk and Dove, Vixen, Miss Martian, Bumble Bee, Huntress, Batwoman, Red Tornado… and those were just the ones that I recognized. There were a half dozen more that I didn't. Wonder Girl also returned, appearing injured but ready to fight.

Beyond them were more villains. Parasite, Poison Ivy, Clayface, various humans that were armed to face me.

From above, a long encroaching shadow appeared and I spared it a glance to see that the wrath of the ocean had reformed and was rising above the city as a colossal giant. This time, however, at its helm were a few figures. Mara, the queen of Atlantis, and a man. The Weather Wizard.

I took it all in, judging my odds of victory, before a slow smile spread across my face. The first true one that I had made since the destruction of Planet Vegeta.

"Things look rather dire for me." I noted.