[Caterpillar] Chapter 7 - Starfire (Patreon)

"Why have you gathered us all here today, Batman?" Green Lantern asked.

It was only a few minutes after Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter sabotaged the International Space Station. To prevent anyone from getting their hands on that powerful railgun, they blew up the whole satellite. Everyone else on board, the astronauts and Kaznia's agents too, was taken out and brought to the Watchtower thanks to Green Lantern's power ring. But it was only temporary. They had to take them back to Earth.

All the members of the Justice League were gathered in the conference room; except for Wonder Woman, the rest were looking at Batman, waiting for an explanation.

"Do you remember that alien mercenary that rescued Superman half a year ago? He's back. He came back to Earth and our Watchtower's radar couldn't detect it all."

"So that was the big emergency?" Hawkgirl scoffed. "Last time we met him, he wasn't a psychopath. He saved Superman's life."

"Appearances can be deceiving. He's dangerous. He put me under an illusion and I didn't even know it until he lifted the spell himself. While Wonder Woman was imprisoned and I was under that illusion, he broke into Vandal Savage's control room and cut off his head."

A momentary silence descended. In their memories, the alien mercenary and his talking fox did not strike them as the cold-blooded killer type. If anything, he seemed like a decent person at heart because he had gone out of his way to save Superman and Supergirl.

It was Green Lantern that broke the silence:

"As far as I'm concerned, good riddance."

Seeing the way everyone was looking at him, he said:

"That madman poisoned the king of a country, destroyed 3 US Navy ships killing almost everyone on board and then tried to start World War 3. I'll say it again, good riddance! Not to mention what he did in World War 2 too."

When presented with the hard facts nobody could retort against his words. Vandal Savage was one of the worst scourges of the Earth.

Batman narrowed his eyes as he spoke:

"This guy is a mercenary. He'll do whatever he's paid for. What if his target was the US president instead of Vandal Savage? What could we have done to stop him when we can't even detect him?"

At his words, everyone finally realized the gravity of the situation, what Batman was worried about.

"We've banded together and created the Justice League after Imperium nearly took over our planet almost 1 year ago. Our purpose, as the Justice League, was primarily to defend against alien threats. If we can't do that, what is the Justice League needed for anymore? We don't need to work together just to keep in check the criminals with superpowers; we've been doing that just fine, solo, long before the Justice League was formed."

Superman nodded and said in support of his words:

"Batman is right. We're not the only ones who took the responsibility of protecting the innocent. Almost every large city has its own local hero or group of heroes that protect it, just like us. As the Justice League, we must not forget about our purpose."

As they started to discuss how to improve Earth's defences against external threats, an alarm started to blare from the Watchtower's control room. Flash was the first to arrive and see the reason: an enormous alien ship could be seen heading towards Earth at a very high speed.

⁂

"Even after all these years, I can't see what you like so much about ramen. The taste is nothing special and there is so little meat. We're also in the middle of a job, aren't we?" Kyuubi's voice sounded in Naruto's earpiece.

Naruto brought the bowl of ramen to his mouth and drank all the remaining soup in one breath.

"Shut up, when was the last time I had ramen? Half a year ago! Six months!"

Suddenly, a very loud growling sound almost made Naruto go deaf in one ear.

"Oy, Kurama, the hell was that? What are you doing?"

"Hehe, just a stupid bear that didn't know its place. I'm going to eat roasted bear now. Talk to you later." Kyuubi said and then cut off his transmission.

"Good grief," Naruto said and chuckled at Kyuubi's antics.

After capturing Vandal Savage, Naruto did not immediately leave the Earth. Earth was one of the very few planets where people cooked ramen and he had not eaten any in half a year, since the last time he came to Earth. Naturally, he would not pass on the opportunity to have some again. But Kyuubi did not tag along with him this time around and chose instead to wander through the Balkan Mountains (where Kaznia was located) in the meantime, having some fun of his own.

As for Naruto, he flew halfway across the planet, from Southeastern Europe to the Northeastern coast of the American continent, to Boston City, where he had eaten ramen the last time. While the Justice League was having a very serious discussion concerning the danger that Naruto posed, the man in question was in a world of happiness as mountains of empty bowls of ramen piled up on his table. Since it was early morning on the Eastern Coast of America at that moment, there were other customers besides him in the restaurant too. His outrageous eating immediately became the focus of their attention. Wearing a mask while eating did not do him any favours either.

"Some crazy alien crashed on Earth again...Hey, Russel, turn up the volume," one of the customers asked the clerk behind the counter. It looked like the customer in question was a regular because the clerk listened to his request and turned up the volume on the TV hanging above the counter.

Naruto threw a passing glance at the screen but he immediately focused his full attention on it when he saw the contents of the news report.

"[...] an alien object crashed in the centre of Jump City just 10 minutes ago. The sole survivor of the crash appears to be a young woman in her late teens but it became clear that she was not human when she spoke in an alien language and started smashing the walls of the surrounding buildings with her hands. Charles Rock is at the scene with more information [...]"

As the news anchor spoke, a live footage started playing. But when Naruto saw who that alien was, he said slowly:

"No fucking way!"

He tapped quickly on his wristwatch and a hologram appeared from it: it was the 3D image of a young woman in her late teens with golden-coloured skin, long, wavy red hair, and bright green eyes.

"Void, what are the chances?!"

The girl in the hologram coming from his wristwatch was the very same person as the berserk alien on the news report. It was none other than Koriand'r, the princess of Tamaran whom Naruto was supposed to rescue from the Psions.

⁂

An Almeracian warship was flying at the fastest speed it was capable of in Earth's atmosphere. The moment Naruto realized that the alien that had crashed into Jump City was his bounty, he ditched his ramen in a heartbeat and teleported back to his ship. To cover the distance between Boston and Jump City, Earth's commercial aeroplanes would need to fly for a few good hours. One city was on the East Coast while the other one was on the West Coast of the USA. In contrast, it took him only a few minutes.

However, despite his speedy arrival, by the time he got there, the central district was already trashed as if it had gone through a war. Destroyed buildings, burning cars, cracked streets, and civilians running away in panic.

In the middle of all that destruction, the Tammarean princess was shooting energy bolts from her cuffed hands while screaming in an alien language. Opposite of her, three peculiar teenagers were running and dodging as though their very lives were on the line...and that was the actual case. In her desperation and rage, Koriand'r was shooting energy blasts everywhere around her.

"That was super close." a green-skinned boy wearing a helmet said while panting.

"Girl is gonna wreck the whole city!" another one of them said. It was a very buff young man dressed in casual clothes and a hoodie covering his head. Going by the red glow in his left eye, it seemed like he was not entirely human.

"I won't let her! I won't lose this fight!" the third one said. It was a black-haired boy dressed in a green and red costume. A thin black mask covered his eyes.

The three of them were none other than Robin, Beast Boy and Cyborg. At Robin's words, they jumped away from the bus behind which they had taken cover and rushed at the alien girl who had fallen to her knees in exhaustion. But their sight suddenly turned ashen-black and they stopped in their tracks.

"Maybe fighting isn't the answer." a girl said as she walked out of a side-alley. Her entire body was covered by a hooded purple cloak.

Further talk among the 4 teens stopped, however, when someone dropped from the sky almost like a meteorite and the entire street was shaken by the powerful tremor.

"Who are you?" Robin shouted and grabbed a birdrang from his utility belt.

It looked like the newcomer did not hear him because he started walking towards the kneeling girl without sparing the other 4 a glance.

"Don't come any closer!" Koriand'r shouted hysterically and pointed her cuffed arms at him as energy bolts formed in her hands.

Unlike the teens from before, Naruto had no issues with understanding her words thanks to his high-tech translating device.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. Your parents hired me to rescue you."

Naruto had expected at the mention of her parents for the girl to calm down but instead, her face became twisted in anger and she screamed as she shot two very powerful bolts of energy from her hands. Though startled, he was not caught off-guard. He had been cautious from the beginning because he knew very well just how dangerous a cornered beast could be. With a stomp of his foot, the street in front of his feet rose to make a wall in front of him, just in time to block the green energy bolts. The wall was blasted to smithereens but the girl had poured the last of her strength in that attack. Then, she collapsed back on the ground powerlessly. She no longer posed any threat.

"It's alright, little girl. Just go to sleep." Naruto said and he formed a ram seal with his hands.

Though Koriand'r was able to detect the unknown energy that invaded her body she was too exhausted to resist it. Her eyes closed against her will and she fell on her side, succumbing to a genjutsu-induced deep sleep. It was the same technique that Kabuto had cast over the stadium where Naruto's first Chunin Exams had taken place when he was a young genin. That is to say that it was an area-of-effect technique: the alien princess was not the only one to be forced into a deep sleep but 2 of the three boys on the sidelines also fell on the ground asleep with Beast Boy even snoring out loud.

The only ones who could hold their composure and resist the genjutsu were the cloaked girl, Raven, and Cyborg, due to him being half-robot.

Over the past century, Naruto had never stopped training his taijutsu, ninjutsu and genjutsu, the three main arts of a shinobi. He had achieved an impressive feat in his ninjutsu due to his Shadow Clones: he had mastered all 5 nature transformations and even the yin and yang releases. His taijutsu had become flawless as well. Due to knowing that if he found a way back home he would have to fight against the Rabbit Goddess, Naruto had never slacked in his training.

But genjutsu had never been his strong point. He had no talent in that area and hard work could only take one so far. Although he became proficient enough with it to fool the senses of regular people, those with decent magic resistance and any half-decent magic user could resist his genjutsu without problems. In that regard, the aforementioned girl, Raven, was more than "half-decent" when it came to magic.

Black light appeared around Raven's hands and her eyes glowed beneath her hood. Cyborg's hand transformed into a cannon too as he shouted:

"What did you do to them?"

But Naruto did not have time to reply because a beam of red light blew up the place in front of his feet. It was a warning shot, coming from none other than Superman. And he was not alone. Alongside him were also Flash, Batman and Hawkgirl. As for the ship that the Watchtower had detected, it was the Gordanian ship from which Koriand'r had broken out; Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman were investigating it at that moment.

Now, he was surrounded from all sides by the 4 members of the Justice League and 2 of the local heroes of Jump City.

"Do not move!" Superman demanded.

Naruto frowned behind his mask.

"Why did you come back to Earth? And why did you kill Vandal Savage?"

"Gee, Superman, why would a mercenary capture someone? Maybe because someone paid me to?"

Superman frowned at his sarcasm.

"Why are y'all even mad? I got rid of a mass murderer for you, for free. For all I know, you should be grateful. No lengthy trials, no chance for him to buy his way out with bribes and good lawyers and no chance for him to escape prison again either. He's finished."

"That's not how things work on Earth," Batman retorted. "No one has the right to take the law in their hands and kill."

Naruto let out a drawn-out sigh.

"Aye, aye, whatever you say. I'm not in the mood for polemics. Look, I'll just get my bounty and be out of here."

Then, under their eyes, he bent down, grabbed the sleeping princess from the ground and put her on his wide shoulder.

"Put the girl down," Superman ordered as he started making steps towards him.

"She's my bounty. And she's not an Earthling. This has nothing to do with you." Naruto said calmly, trying to reason with them.

However, in the next moment, a red blur rushed at him from behind at the speed of sound. But with a light stomp of his foot, dangerous-looking spikes burst from the ground, almost impaling the attacker. The speedster was forced to jump high up in the air at the very last moment and abandon his attacking attempt.

A clone appeared next to Naruto and grabbed the princess from his shoulder. Then, he turned towards the heroes surrounding him and warned:

"I'm saying it one last time: this has nothing to do with you. Back off before things get ugly. I don't want to hurt you."

Generally, Naruto tried to not get into altercations with good-natured people. He did not want to kill or maim people that did not deserve it. However, because he was not bound by their tight morals, once in a while, scenes like the current one still took place.

"Oh, I don't know who'll get hurt in the end," Hawkgirl said and her mace shone menacingly with electricity.

"I suggest you let go of that girl and hand over Vandal Savage's remains too. After that, we won't stop you from leaving. You can leave the Earth and never come back." Batman said.

Naruto no longer spoke. He prepared for fighting. Naturally, in normal conditions, he could have just teleported back to his ship and then be on his way. But with Koriand'r in his custody, things were different. He was more than capable of teleporting her alongside him but the problem came after that. He did not know for how long the genjutsu that he had placed on her would last. His skill with genjutsu was unreliable.

'If she wakes up in my ship and starts throwing around her energy bolts, my ship will be toasted.'

Initially, he had intended to explain the Tamaranean princess the situation and make her come willingly. But that idea flew out of the window with the Justice League's appearance. Of course, he also had another option: to beat the crap out of the girl until she became physically unable to even move... but Naruto was not the kind to raise his hands against innocents. Especially since his mission was supposed to be about rescuing and protecting her, not breaking her arms and legs.

But just then, a huge hologram appeared in the sky. It was the image of a muscular humanoid lizard with red eyes and metallic wings. It was a Gordanian. A sonorous voice reverberated through the entire city:

"People of Earth. We come to your planet to hunt down an escaped prisoner. A very dangerous prisoner. Do not interfere and we will leave your city with minimum damage. But if you attempt to assist her, your destruction will be absolute."

Just as the Gordanian's words ended, Martian Manhunter's voice sounded in Batman's earpiece.

"Batman, the Gordanians on the ship do not want to negotiate. We cannot approach them easily either. They have their weapons aimed at us."

True to the Martian's words, only a few moments later, a swarm of flying Gordanians appeared in the sky above Jump City. There were almost a hundred of them.