[Caterpillar] Chapter 29 - Brother Eye (Patreon)

What Earthlings recognized as the North Star was located at ~300 light-years away from Earth. But what very few people on Earth knew was that the Polaris System was also the birthplace of the Thanagar Empire, one of the most technologically advanced civilisations in the galaxy. When it came to interstellar distances, 300 light-years was considered very short. After all, just Milky Way alone was more than 100,000 light-years across. With that said, when Naruto inputted the coordinates to trigger the space warp, he knew that their journey was going to be very short, hence also why he had told Wonder Woman he would be back in 2-3 days tops.

"Something on your mind, Kurama?" Naruto asked without looking at the fox curled up on the co-pilot's seat. Instead, he stared at the spectacle of grey, white and black lights that could be seen through the cockpit's window, as they travelled through the wormhole.

When the fox didn't reply, he said bluntly:

"Are you bothered by Diana?"

"Why would I be bothered by her?" Kyuubi said and opened just one of his eyes to look at him briefly before closing it again, looking as if he was sleeping.

"I don't know, man. You've been distant as of late. Sometimes we don't see you for days. You've even stopped pestering me for food like you normally do. You're acting weird."

"That's what worries you? That I don't eat?" the fox said with a chuckle.

"There's something on your mind and I know it. Even Diana noticed it and she hasn't known you for as long as I do."

A momentary silence was instilled.

"I just want you to know that you don't have to feel like you're the 3rd wheel or something. You're the most important person in my life, even more than her. We're brothers for life, Kurama."

"Look at you getting all mushy and sentimental." Kyuubi jeered but Naruto who had known the fox for over a century recognized that he was embarrassed. "I'm telling you it's not about Diana! Who was the one that liked her from the beginning? Try to remember. It was me!"

When he heard his words, Naruto realized that his worries were for nothing.

'He's right, I used to tease him about his infatuation with her belly rubs. He liked her even before me... Come to think of it, didn't he act like a wingman for us? Kurama, the matchmaker.'

He chuckled to himself at that thought.

"Then what's wrong with you?"

Kyuubi looked like he was debating whether to tell him or not.

"I-, ..."

"Oh come on already, spit it out!" Naruto said, getting annoyed at how the fox kept beating around the bush.

"I'm hearing voices." the fox eventually said, a look of defeat on his face.

Naruto looked at him as if to make sure the fox was not messing with him.

"Are you for real?"

"I don't know what's going on either, ok?" Kyuubi said in frustration.

"Maybe you're finally going nuts? I mean I wouldn't be so surprised when I look at your age." Naruto said jokingly.

"That's exactly why I didn't wanna tell you! I knew you'd laugh!" the fox shouted.

"Alright, alright, sorry." Naruto raised his hands and apologised.

"It started a few months ago. At first, it happened rarely, once in a while. But it's gotten worse as of late. Now, whenever I'm awake, I hear broken parts of sentences, from multiple voices at the same time and I can't understand what they're saying. It's like a constant buzz in my head."

"A few months ago? Hmm, what could have triggered that?"

"It started happening after we killed the Psions," Kyuubi said quietly.

Naruto looked at him with a hint of nervousness on his face.

"You think maybe-... maybe their ghosts are haunting you?"

His sudden meek demeanour made the fox burst into laughter. Though a century passed since he was a teenager, Naruto still showed signs of discomfort when talks about ghosts were brought up.

"Don't be stupid. Ghosts don't exist." the fox said.

"Mhm. Magic is not real either and gods and demons are myths too, aren't they? A fox cub transforming into a mile-long behemoth and blowing up a planet is impossible too, isn't it?"

"Point taken..." Kyuubi admitted.

"I think we'll have to visit Doctor Fate when we come back. He's a sorcerer; he might know something about this voodoo stuff."

⁂

"I'm aware of how rare and valuable Absorbascons are but that is not enough to pay for my services," Naruto said.

The winged man sitting across the table frowned behind his golden helmet. It was one of the envoys of the Ruling Council of Thanagar, sent to seal the deal with the mercenary Caterpillar.

"Your information broker said that the payment was just fine." the Thanagarian said.

"For espionage? Yes. But for assassination? Not even close. Regular assassination missions can cost up to 4 times more. They can be even more expensive than that, depending on the difficulty and other circumstances - like you wanting me to pose as a Gordanian to make them think that there was a traitor in their ranks that killed their commander and sow discord."

Initially, the bounty was supposed to be about Naruto breaking into one of Gordanian's asteroid bases in the Vega System and stealing their intelligence. A simple espionage mission. With his Henge or his camouflage jutsu (the one that made him almost invisible) espionage missions were a piece of cake for him. But now, the Thanagarians wanted him to also assassinate the Commander of the Gordanian forces stationed in that asteroid base.

The envoy kept being pushy and trying to convince him to take the job for nearly 15 minutes. Eventually, getting annoyed, Naruto said:

"I don't negotiate my jobs like in a bazaar. You don't get to haggle over the price of my services. If you don't like it, hire someone else."

His words would make strangers who heard him think that he was full of himself but Caterpillar was one of the most sought-after mercenaries in the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. His information brokers had enough deals for him to work for several years without running out of bounties. It was not Caterpillar who had to beg for jobs but it was his employers that had to beg him to work for them. His nigh-perfect mission record and his good name made him a very desired bounty hunter. The fame he had built for himself over the past century as an intergalactic mercenary was nothing to scoff at.

The envoy gave up.

"What is your price then?"

"For a pure espionage mission, as we've agreed beforehand, an Absorbascon is enough. But if you want me to impersonate a Gordanian and assassinate the Commander of the asteroid base, I want something more. I want the Nth metal."

The Thanagarian jumped to his feet as if burned.

"Impossible!" he almost shouted.

Nth metal was unique in the Universe. It was the Thanagar Empire's most prized possession. While weapons forged from the Nth metal could not be said to be sentient, the fact remained that unless one bonded with the metal, they would not be able to bring out its full capabilities. In the hands of a regular person, the weapon would just be a durable tool with the propriety to disrupt magic. However, Nth metal possessed many other miraculous abilities that would surface only after one bonded with it. Abilities such as increasing the self-regeneration of the wielder, granting them the ability to fly, the ability to store energy for later use and so on. However, the method to bond with Nth metal was known only by the Thanagarians. It was their pride and the secret of their power.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders and stood up.

"Then I guess our conversation is over."

The Thangarian also stood up and said in a hurry:

"W-Wait! Giving you Nth metal is impossible! For thousands of years, we've never given it to an outsider! But we can give you anything else, you name it! We can even give you a position as a vassal to the Empire, to rule over one of our colonies if authority is what you desire."

The envoy looked at the mercenary as if to gauge his reaction but because of the white fox mask he was wearing, he could not see his face. Nervously, he added quickly:

"Or maybe something of value? Advanced weaponry, ancient artefacts, the newest model of military spaceships, precious minerals or-"

"I don't care about that stuff. The Nth metal is the only thing that interests me. Either that or nothing," Naruto cut him off and said.

Ever since he had come to terms with the fact that he could not find a way back home, he stopped caring as much about wealth because he no longer needed to finance expeditions across the Universe and in the void outside the 3600 sectors. Nowadays, he only cared about bounties that had interesting rewards for him.

In the end, the two of them could not come to terms and the deal fell apart.

⁂

"Damn, I wasted time and fuel for nothing," Naruto grumbled during the space-warp on his way back to Earth.

Then again, it was not exactly the first time a deal fell apart due to his employers thinking that his price was too high so he was not disheartened about it. He was just annoyed that he had missed out on watching Wonder Woman's sleeping face that morning for no reason. But his mood brightened when the ship came out of the wormhole and a blue planet could be seen in the distance.

When he got closer to the exosphere of the planet, two spaceships barred his way. The Watchtower had detected him and some of the Justice League's members came to check who he who. Nonetheless, being in a relationship with Wonder Woman meant that there was nobody in the Justice League who had not heard of him before. He was allowed access without any difficulties.

As he flew towards the Northeastern coast of the USA, he thought about the dense network of satellites surrounding the planet.

'It looks like security is even tighter than when I came to Earth the first time. I should have a talk with Diana about this.'

⁂

"Hey, I've returned."

"Already? You said you'd be away for 2-3 days," Diana's surprised voice came from the other end of the line.

"The deal fell apart. They thought I was asking for too much. Nevermind that, where are you?" he asked.

Currently, he was in Wonder Woman's apartment in New York but she was not there despite that it was late in the evening.

"At the hospital wing-"

"Are you ok?! Who happened, who hurt you?" Naruto asked quickly.

"Relax, dummy, I'm okay. But Batman isn't. Superman beat him badly, to an inch of his life."

"The hell...?"

"I know, right? We've never seen that coming either. It was so out of the blue. Earlier today, Superman went and destroyed his Batcave and beat him into a coma. Batman is still unconscious. The Justice League is looking for Superman everywhere but he's nowhere to be found."

As he talked to her, he also turned on her laptop and searched on the internet to see if the general population got wind of what had transpired. But, to his surprise, it looked like they more than found what happened.

"Do you know there's even a video of how Superman beat up Batman?"

"Yes, I watched it too. I don't understand how in the world the mass media got their hands on that. It makes no sense. The Batcave is a secure place, not known by anyone. The only logical explanation would be that someone close to Batman secretly filmed the scene and posted it. But that makes no sense either because the only person he's close to would easily trade his life for him if needed."

Though Wonder Woman and Naruto were together and extremely close to each other, she never divulged her teammate's identity to him and he had also never put her in a rough position by asking her to do it. The Justice League's civilian identities were their secrets and she would never betray their trust. That's why she did not say Alfred's name when she spoke of the person close to Batman.

"Are you aware of the network of satellites monitoring the Earth?" Naruto asked. "I meant to talk to you about this a few weeks ago but other things came up and I forgot about it until recently."

"You mean the Watchtower?"

"No, I'm talking about the other several thousands of smaller satellites orbiting the Earth."

On the other end of the phone call, Diana became silent.

"I noticed it the first time I came to Earth but it looks like the number increased over the past few months. You should talk about it with the rest of the Justice League. If you're not in control of it, then it means that someone has been watching all your movements for a long time already. The video of Batman dropping that guy from the rooftop and then the video of Superman beating him up in the Batcave... only someone in control of that network of satellites would be able to get them."

"Even if an enemy is controlling that network of satellites, how would they get a hold of a video from Batman's Batcave, a secret location known to only a handful of people?"

"If someone can control so many satellites at once, how hard do you think it would be for them to hack someone's device and use the camera installed in it? For all we know, they could use your phone's camera and mic or your laptop's webcam. Anything."

"Is something like that even possible?!" Wonder Woman asked a little shocked by the huge implications.

"A human might not be capable of doing it but what about a machine? There are AIs out there capable of doing incredible things. Brainiac, the one who destroyed the Kryptonians was an AI too. The Justice League needs to investigate this seriously. Someone has been pulling the strings from the shadows for a long time. The manipulation of the public opinion against the Justice League and the anti-metahuman movement that escalated in the past few months are probably related to that guy too."

⁂

In the wee hours of the morning, Batman woke up. He tried to sit up but he fell back and let out a groan at the feeling of pain wracking his body. The sound he made attracted the attention of Martian Manhunter who was sitting on a stool next to his bed. He was the only one who stayed overnight to watch over him.

"Don't try to sit up. You have a broken neck and multiple rib fractures. Superman almost killed you."

At the Martian's words, Batman became aware of the cast around his neck and the bandages wrapped around his body. He looked like a mummy. It was the most brutal beating that he had ever taken in his life.

"It wasn't Superman," Batman said in a raspy voice. His throat was sore.

Martian Manhunter took a bottle of water from the nightstand and helped him drink from it.

"It wasn't him? But there's even a video of how he attacked you."

"It was him, but he was not in control of himself. Someone is mind-controlling him."

A grave expression appeared on the Martian's face.

"If it's going to be a repeat of what happened when Darkseid brainwashed him, people would never forgive him again. He has to be stopped," Batman said. It was as if he was more worried about Superman's situation than the fact that his entire body was one big bruise and that he had multiple broken bones.

"The Justice League is looking for him but he's nowhere to be found," Martian Manhunter said.

With gritted teeth, Batman forced himself into a standing position. When the Martian tried to stop him, he glared at him.

"You can either help me get up or stand aside!"

"But your injuries are very serious this time. If you don't-"

"J'onn!" Batman rarely called anyone by their real names. It showed how urgent was the situation. "If I get access to a computer, I will find Superman in a matter of minutes, no matter where he is hiding."

Though he was still hesitating, Martian Manhunter took Batman in his arms and carried him to the supercomputer in the Watchtower's control room. Worried looks were thrown their way by the Justice League members that they encountered after they left the hospital wing. Everyone knew what had happened to him.

His face was glistening with cold sweat from the pain coursing through his body as he stood on the chair in front of the computer but he just clenched his teeth and endured. He started operating the computer and a window with a username and a password section appeared. But after filling the boxes, a red text appeared on the screen:

Administrator rights revoked. Access denied.

"What?! How is this possible?!" Batman shouted and slammed his fists on the keyboard. Even someone as composed and as in control of his emotions as he was greatly disturbed by the new development.

The network of thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth that Naruto spoke to Diana about had been created by Batman. He was also the one who created the artificial intelligence that administrated it. However, now, he could no longer access it. He had lost control of it.