[Caterpillar] Chapter 35 - War (Patreon)

"Heeh~ how convenient! Our Javelins don't have AIs." Wonder Woman said.

Man, woman, and fox, the three of them were aboard Naruto's ship. The Amazon was seated in the pilot's seat, piloting it. After reaching a high enough altitude she followed Naruto's suggestion to input the coordinates of Paradise Island. Following that, the AI took control of the ship and drove it by itself. Therefore, while she was technically the 'pilot', in reality, she did not have to do anything after setting the course.

"Does the Justice League even use spaceships anymore?" he asked her knowing about the changes that the Watchtower had undergone after the Justice League's massive expansion.

"Most of us use the teleporter to travel from the Watchtower to Earth and vice and versa, but Javelins are still used frequently because quite a few members don't like the feeling of being teleported. As Green Arrow would put it, he doesn't like someone 'playing pinball with his molecules'. Those like him prefer to use a spaceship instead." she said and giggled.

"Speaking of, he's the only one who stood up for you, isn't he? Didn't know you two were that close."

Diana threw him an amused sidelong glance.

"Are you perhaps jealous?"

Naruto chuckled.

"I'm just wondering how come that, out of dozens of metahumans, nobody dared to stand up for you. Instead, it was only a regular dude with no powers, just wielding a bow, who had the courage to defend you against Superman and the big guns of the Justice League so to speak. If anything, I admire him. I've always respected people of character like him."

The princess was silent for a few moments, thinking about Green Arrow.

"I was surprised too that he stood up for me when even someone like J'onn took Superman's and Batman's side, condemning my actions. We aren't that close, we've only interacted a few times and we rarely go on any patrols together. All I know about him is that he was one of the very few that took effort to recruit into the Justice League. At first, he refused our offer directly, with no hesitation. His reason was that big organisations like the Justice League tend to forget about the 'little guy' and that he'd rather protect the ordinary people instead of saving the world on a large scale. He wanted to take care of his city first of foremost."

"How did you convince him to join in the end?" he asked in interest.

She showed a hint of distaste on her face when she spoke next:

"Batman made use of Black Canary to manipulate him."

Black Canary's name did not light any bulbs in his head because she was not a particularly famous hero. There were over 100 other members of her tier in the Justice League. Naruto did not care to remember them all. He only knew a dozen or two of them by name.

Seeing that he did not know who she was talking about, she explained:

"Her ability is to release sonic screams. She's a good fighter too. But, most importantly, she's a very attractive woman. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, often wearing a costume with sexy fishnet stockings. Green Arrow fell for her at first sight."

"Looks like no matter the planet, men of character often have a weakness for beautiful women." he chuckled.

In the momentary silence that followed, a sound of purring and a low, quiet growl could be heard clearly. It was coming from the nine-tailed fox cub that was sprawled like a lazy cat in Wonder Woman's lap. It looked like Kyuubi had forgotten all about his sky-high pride and dignity as the most powerful bijuu. Every time the Amazon princess petted his head and caressed his back, the fierce and violent tailed beast would become putty in her hands.

Diana grabbed a bunch of his fluffy tails and pulled at them playfully, not able to resist the urge to tease the fox a little but he did not seem to mind it all. If anything, his growls of comfort grew louder. In moments like that, it was very hard for her to wrap her mind around the idea that the cute fox cub purring like a small engine in her lap could become a murder machine in the next second if needed.

"The old leader of my country in my homeworld and my mentor both were big perverts." Naruto continued.

Kyuubi lazily opened his eyes and his snide words suddenly put Naruto on edge:

"And you're a bigger pervert than them both. A closet pervert."

The princess began to smile widely, realizing that she was about to hear some juicy bits about Naruto's 'dark history' from when he was young.

"Kurama..." Naruto called his name in warning but the fox revealed an evil grin.

"What? You forgot about the first technique you've created?" Turning towards Wonder Woman he told her: "Other great ninja and the previous Kages created powerful cloning techniques, spheres of destruction, teleportation spells and so on. But do you know what he created? A sexy jutsu. Wahahaha!"

Naruto's face looked like he had just seen a ghost. He became even paler (if that was possible) when Diana said in a very sweet voice:

"Oh, a Sexy Technique? I wonder what was that all about."

The nine-tailed demon fox made a large toothy grin, filled with malice, worthy of his name.

"You have no idea how much time and effort this idiot put into creating that technique. He spent years reading porn magazines and peeping on women in bathhouses as a kid to perfect it."

Naruto suddenly lunged at Kyuubi but Wonder Woman intercepted his hands, protecting the fox in her lap. At that moment, Kyuubi raised his nose in the air and sniffed in provocation at him. The look he gave to Naruto was just like that of a kid who escaped from getting an ass-whooping from his parents by running into his grandma's arms.

"I did it as a prank at first, to prank the Academy instructor who used to pick on me for being a problem kid. That's all, I swear!"

From behind Diana's protective arms, still lying comfortably in her lap, Kyuubi chuckled and said:

"Then why did you continue doing it after that too?"

Naruto's face was steaming. Diana had such a huge grin on her face that she almost resembled the Joker at that moment. She could not get enough of seeing his mortified with shame face.

"Because it worked against strong opponents. Shinobi were often perverted, especially those stronger than me! Iruka, Ebisu, Sandaime, Jiraiya. Hell, even the Rabbit Goddess fell prey to my Reverse Harem Sexy Technique!" he sputtered self-righteously.

At this point, Diana burst into a fit of uncontrollable giggles.

But Naruto was not laughing. Not one bit. 'One more word and you're dead.' - that was what his eyes seemed to convey as he glared at Kyuubi. His expression looked fierce, like he was going to eat him alive if he said another word.

"You have so many funny moments from when you were a kid, so many memories. I envy you," Wonder Woman said, still giggling.

Kyuubi stretched his tiny limbs and let out a cute yawn that sounded more like a yelp. Then, he hopped on Diana's shoulder, his eyes filled with schadenfreude.

"You don't know half of it. Let me tell you more of his embarrassing moments. You don't need to beat his scummy ass in a race. You have me!"

Naruto's eyes widened in panic.

"Kurama, don't you fucking dare-"

But the fox continued speaking, completely ignoring his threats and looking giddy at the thought that he was finally getting revenge on Naruto for how many times he had gotten his ass kicked by the blonde in the past.

"Oh my, oh my! I don't know where to start. There are so many! Wihihihi!" Kyuubi giggled weirdly in perverse glee. "Let's see, let's see... maybe the way he won his first fight in his first Chunnin Exams, by farting? Hahaha! Or maybe the One Thousand Years of Death technique? Wahaha that shit's so funny no matter how many times I think about it. Nonono, maybe when he transformed into his Uchiha teammate and tried to steal a kiss from his crush but his diarrhoea gave out his disguise? Oh, wait, maybe I should tell you who's the one he had had his first kiss with?"

"KURAMA!" Naruto hollered and a lightning blade burst from his palm and pierced right at the fox.

The fox jumped away from Wonder Woman's shoulder, laughing out loud in glee and easily dodging the lightning blade. However, while he was still in mid-air, he was abruptly yanked and smacked down onto the floor of the ship.

"What the hell?!" the fox cussed in surprise, not noticing at first the invisible chakra threads that had extended from Naruto's fingers and connected to various parts of his body. If he had not been so busy laughing out loud, he might have noticed the chakra threads when they hooked onto him.

But now, it was too late. Now, it was Naruto's turn to laugh evilly as he dragged the fox on the floor to him by pulling on the chakra strings.

"Diana! Help!" he cried out pitifully.

But the princess's indifferent laughter sealed his fate.

"You-... you, traitor! I trusted you to protect me!" the fox yelled at the Amazon.

Naruto chuckled in anticipation.

"You reap what you saw. What goes around, comes around."

Kyuubi's eyes revealed fear.

"No. Wait. Naruto, can't we talk? Ahaha, I was joking. It was a joke. No. Nooo! Gyaaaah!"

The fox's screams filled the spaceship as Naruto administrated him a long-overdue and well-deserved beating.

⁂

While Naruto, Kyuubi and Wonder Woman were flying over the Atlantic Ocean, heading towards Themyscira, the doorbell rang at Wonder Woman's apartment back in New York.

"I think they are not at home," the one pressing the button to ring the doorbell said. It was a rather short girl with shoulder-length blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

"Or maybe they're doing something and can't answer the door?" the girl next to her said. She could not be any more different: she was tall and athletic, her hair was red and almost reached her waist, her eyes were green, and her skin had a faint golden hue.

"I've been ringing the bell for 3 minutes already. What could be so important?" the blonde said.

"Maybe they don't want to answer? Or maybe...you know..." the redhead said and wiggled her eyebrows at her friend suggestively.

"Honestly! Why you always gotta make jokes about that?" the blonde rebuked her.

The redhead raised her hands to defend herself.

"I'm just saying. They are a couple and they're living together. Isn't that normal between lovers?"

The blonde huffed and rolled her eyes.

"At least use your superhearing to make sure whether they're at home or not," the redhead said.

"But what if they're really, you know, doing it?" the blonde said, her cheeks becoming a bit red.

The redhead also flushed a little.

"Come on, Kara, just do it!"

Eventually, the blonde steeled her resolve and used her superhearing. But after a few moments, her shoulders dropped.

"There's nobody inside."

If she focused intensely on her superhearing, she could even hear someone's whispers from half a mile away. That was how she could be sure that the apartment really was empty.

With bummed-out faces, the two girls, Supergirl and Starfire, headed to the elevator dejected. The purpose of their visit was to see how Wonder Woman was feeling after the way the rest of the Justice League treated her earlier that morning during the meeting.

In truth, Supergirl had no hard feelings against Wonder Woman's actions and even agreed with her decision secretly. But she could not outrightly defy Superman in front of everyone.

'Wonder Woman was not wrong... But Clark and Batman and the rest of the League, aren't wrong either... This whole situation is one big mess. There is no right answer.'

As for Starfire, she was completely on Wonder Woman's side. She had wanted to speak out in her defence too, alongside Green Arrow, but Supergirl had stopped her. Starfire was just a newly-arrived alien on Earth, a teenage girl and not a full-fledged member of the Justice League either. She had been on Earth for only a few months. Her words would not hold any weight in the eyes of the rest of the members. Supergirl had stopped her from making a scene because in those sensitive times, not only Starfire's action would not change anything for good, but she would also needlessly make her life harder.

'Look at me, being all mature and all that,' she thought half-amused, half-mocking herself.

After Naruto saved her from her cryo-sleep on Argo and brought her to Earth, Supergirl lived her days on Earth happy to have a second chance at a new life. Light-hearted and always up to some mischief, she just enjoyed high school, hanging out with her friends, and occasionally beating up bad guys. She was letting her adopted cousin, Superman, deal with the serious stuff. However, after the addition of Starfire in her life, the ditzy blonde involuntarily became more mature in order to take care of the redhead who was an even bigger airhead than she was. But Supergirl did not regret it nor was she annoyed or frustrated because, before she knew it, the Tamaranean princess had become her best friend, almost like a sister. No, even more than that.

"I really wanted to see Diana and tell her that I don't hate her like everyone else. She must be feeling horrible right now," Starfire said pitifully. "Do you think that maybe she left the Earth?"

Supergirl was startled.

"That... I don't know."

Soon, the elevator reached the ground floor and the two teenage girls came out of the building.

"DOWN WITH THE JUSTICE LEAGUE!"

"BOOO!"

"ARREST ALL METAHUMANS! WE DON'T NEED ANY METAHUMANS!"

"FUCK THE GOVERNMENT! DOWN WITH THE GOVERNMENT!"

"DEATH PENALTY FOR WONDER WOMAN!"

Hearing what the crowd was screaming, Supergirl and Starfire thought to themselves:

'I wouldn't blame Wonder Woman if she left the Earth after all this...'

The roars coming from the crowd reverberated through the entire city.

Although Starfire was dressed in a long grey winter coat that covered most of her body, her height, her vibrant green eyes, and her golden skin still made her stand out. The Tamaranean princess pulled her fluffy white hat deeper and wrapped her muffler higher up her face to hide her face. Her unique and exotic looks made her quite famous worldwide among the male population after she joined the Justice League. But with the anti-metahuman hatred having reached its peak at that moment, being recognized as a metahuman and a member of the Justice League was the last thing she wanted.

The two girls hurriedly made their way to a narrow side alley to not get swept by the mob. When they reached a spot with no people or visible traffic cameras around, they flew away, quickly leaving New York City behind.

⁂

The streets of "The Big Apple" had become pandemonium. Almost one hundred thousand protesters were screaming at the top of their lungs. Burning bins and destroyed police cars littered the streets as the angry mob smashed the windows of the shops and cars, looting everything they could get their hands on.

The riots were not limited to New York City. They had spread from there to the rest of the country in a matter of hours, like wildfire. Metropolis, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, Gotham, Coast City, Jump City... almost all the great cities in the United States had been frozen by protesters.

Central City was the only great city in the USA where there were no riots in the streets. Central City was Flash's home city. The inhabitants of the city loved their local hero so much that they had even inaugurated a museum in his honour, to show their appreciation for him. Because of the kind and likeable speedster who always did his best to protect them, Central City's population had not jumped on the hate train against metahumans like everyone else.

Regardless, the situation in Central City was an anomaly compared to what was happening in the rest of the country. In Washington DC, the government mobilized the army to protect the White House from the protesters. In the rest of the cities in the USA, the police and the National Guard clashed against the rioters violently. Many city halls were set on fire and multiple casualties were recorded only a few hours after the start of the protests.

The general population was enraged. Enraged at the metahuman criminals. Enraged at the Justice League. Enranged at the government for their tolerance towards metahuman criminals instead of executing them as they deserved. Enraged at the government also for allowing the Justice League to run amok as they pleased. All the frustration, helplessness, fear and anger that had been brewing and bottling up inside of them for years blew up violently at that moment.

But the Justice League was untouchable. In the first place, nobody knew the civilian identities of the members and it was not like they had any means of attacking the Watchtower, a satellite in space, either. However, in the eyes of the general population, the government was the root of all evils. In their minds, it was the government's fault that metahuman criminals were just imprisoned and given the chance to break out of prison and commit crimes all over again instead of being given the death penalty. It was the government's vault for allowing an independent organisation of superhumans like the Justice League to exist outside the confines of the law. It was the government's fault for allowing the metahumans to run amok.

Due to the US citizens' high level of armament and their ingrained anti-government predisposition, the riots in the USA quickly became violent, with the protesters using fireweapons to fight against the armed forces of the government. But that did not mean that the rest of the world was left unaffected by what was happening overseas. In the next few hours, protests blew up in Europe too. In Moscow, tens of thousands of people came out in the streets and sieged the Kremlin.

In Athens, the already existing riots against the police forces due to a case of police brutality had turned even more violent after a metahuman policeman tried to disperse a mob of protesters through the use of his superpowers. Because of him, the number of protesters sharply increased and the riots became a nation-wide issue. In France, multiple cities became paralyzed by the protests as hundreds of thousands of people came out in the streets, while in the UK, the angry mob of protesters attacked the royal family when the monarch came out in the streets, trying to placate the masses. Soon, the rest of the continent descended into chaos too.

In Asia, some governments directly ordered the army to open fire on civilian protesters. The situation quickly escalated in brutality, even above what was happening in the USA.

In China, one of the generals in the People's Liberation Army controlled by the Communist Party refused the orders of his superiors to open fire against the peaceful but numerous protesters in Beijing and sided with the population instead. Because of that, the enormous country was engulfed by the flames of revolution. In that chaos, Hong Kong broke off from the rest of the country and the waves created by the civil unrest in China greatly affected North Korea too. In the following days, the North Korean leader was lynched by the population alongside his entourage of politicians and the ruling political party. The North Korean government fell.

In India, the initial protests against the metahumans and the Justice League immediately devolved into something much worse, a violent clash between people belonging to different religions. The initial reason for protests was forgotten and the protests became something entirely different when the already existing conflicts amidst the population reared their fangs. In Myanmar, the military opened fire on the protesters and then the army overthrew the government too, installing a regime of stratocracy; under martial law, hundreds of civilians were murdered in the process. In Thailand, the already existing movement against the monarchy intensified and blew up into an all-out revolution.

Compared to most of the world, the situation in Japan was vastly different because the anti-metahuman movement over there was almost non-existent. In the first place, the percentage of metahumans in the total population was noticeably higher in Japan compared to other countries, a fact which had led the sociologists of Japan more than a decade ago to predict the possibility of major civic unrest to occur in the future (as it was the case for the rest of the world now). Because of that, years back, the government had taken timely measures. The Hero Agencies and the Superhero Academy that they had created years ago had fully integrated the metahuman population into the society and the economy of the country. In Japan, metahumans could use their gifts properly as working members of society instead of being tempted to join the wrong side of the law. Naturally, superpowered criminals still existed but the percentage was much smaller than in the rest of the world. There was no dichotomy between metahumans and regular humans. In the current Japanese society, metahumans and regular humans were like the cogs of a machine, both necessary for it to function. (1)

As for Africa, several countries had already been in the midst of riots or civil wars for various other reasons. In light of the current events, the United Nations could no longer afford to pay attention to the African countries that were in turmoil anymore. The rebel forces, the revolutionary movements, the crime lords and the anarchists on the continent did not miss the chance. Senegal's capital, Dakar, was like a battlefield between the protesters and the armed police forces. The rebel forces from the Central African Republic overthrew the government under the leadership of several metahumans. In Mozambique, the armed rebel forces launched a siege on the capital city and the population started an exodus en masse towards the south, desperately running away to escape the war.

Just like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been the pretext that sparked the start of World War I several decades ago, Wonder Woman's murder of Maxwell Lord sparked a wave of chaos and war as the Earth had never seen before. This time, it was different from World War I when there were clear alliances and enemies. This time, there were no enemy countries fighting against each other. Now, it was a different kind of war, it was hatred and discord from within.

In less than a week, chaos engulfed the entire world. The way the social unrest, conflict, and war had spread from one country to another could be attributed to mass media and the internet. However, for the people who had clear minds and clear eyes to see, the speed at which it had happened was not normal. Never before had a country's civil war impacted the whole world like that. Never before had such a state of chaos and strife overtaken the planet so fast. It was too sudden. It was too fast. It was unnatural.

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: Remember that this is a fictional work, not intended to spread any political views or agenda. I could not care less about politics in real life (never been to any elections), but I feel like the story would not be complete if I did not show the consequences of the characters' actions on the world. That said, just treat this story as it is, a piece of fiction written by an uneducated dude with no studies in politics/literature/sociology etc. Until next time!

(1) As you're probably thinking, the situation in Japan is a reference to Boku no Hero anime. To those that remember, it has already been mentioned before in the story, in chapter 18, when Diana told Naruto that Japan had never needed the Justice League to intervene in their affairs because they handled their metahumans by themselves with their hero agencies.