Going Native: Rewritten: Warstorm 5.1 (ch. 22) (Patreon)

“How was the trip?” I asked Kori as she entered the docking bay, her flaming hair drifting behind her as she took off her navigation visor. Even with the upgrades done to the Attack Balls, Kori was simply faster than them by a pretty significant margin. Fast as in a hundred light years an hour kind of way in the vacuum of space. 

Kori greeted me with a wide smile, and I took a moment to acknowledge that time had been kind to her. Nearly a decade ago, we had all looked the same age, but with every year, Kori had grown up. Gone were the days of the awkward early teenage phase, and in the two years since we had left Planet Vegeta, Kori had become a young woman. 

“It was most wonderful! The Vega System knows peace once more, and my people's future is secure!” Kori immediately began to gush, joy beaming from every pore. That got a smile out of me -- in the years since we left the Vega System behind, the Tamaraneans had been slowly conquering the system planet by planet. Their powers were both a boon and a curse in some regards as it made the PTO start funding the Citadelians in the hopes of gaining a steady supply of Tamaranean slaves for their war against the Reach.

They had backed the wrong horse, but it made the war last years. 

“I'm glad to hear it,” I said, meaning it. “And your family made it out okay?” 

“Yes! Komand’r is regarded as a hero, and father is thinking of stepping down to allow her to become Queen of the Vega System!” Kori informed with easy jubilance, “I have also returned with gifts!” She added, tapping the holding bracelet on her wrist, and a comically large bundle erupted from it that she caught deftly before passing it to me. The burlap sack was about the size of fifty of me. 

“They are seeds and plants of Tamaran along with rich soil for your love of gardening,” Kori informed, and that made me perk up a bit. It had been a shame that I hadn't picked up the hobby yet at the time we were on Tamaran, so that missed opportunity felt like it had been corrected. “Are the others onboard? I possess gifts for them as well.” 

The massive burlap sack vanished in my holding ring before I gestured for her to follow. “You just missed them,” I informed her, making Kori droop a bit at the news. “Raditz and Kakarot are on a mission with Bardock -- family bonding time. Cabba is with Dende on a contract, but I think they're going to be heading back soon. Caulifla got side tracked on her own job and is answering a distress call for the Galactic Patrol.” 

“I hope we are reunited soon,” Kori sighed, sounding equal parts hopeful and sad that they weren't here. “It feels as if we have been spending less and less time together…” 

“That's what happens when you keep getting stronger,” I admitted, floating through the halls of the Rebel Moon. After so many years of them being empty, I still hadn't quite gotten used to seeing others flying by. “All of us going on a single mission is the definition of overkill.” 

“I know, but I do miss the days that we were all together,” Kori said wistfully. 

“Honestly, I gave it even odds that you would decide to stay in the Vega System now that the war is over,” I told her, glancing her way as we flew through the familiar halls. As we did, we flew by two Saiyans racing towards one of the three gravity chambers that resided on the Rebel Moon. Each one with the ability to produce X300 the galactic standard of gravity, but with so many Saiyans on board who loved the chambers, we had to set up a rotation for those on board. 

Kori looked a little guilty, “I did consider it,” she confessed. “But I can better serve my people out here, being a force for goodness and liberation, than I would back home. I shall return to stay one day, but I am not sure it will be soon.” 

“Well, you'll always have a place on the Rebel Moon, Kori,” I reassured her as we arrived at the garden. The double doors slid open to reveal a curated wilderness that was my personal garden, which seemed to be ever expanding. The kids, once they learned that I liked plants, insisted on bringing back seeds and samples from every mission they went on. And I tried to find little corners for them all, even if, admittedly, the garden was now well beyond my ability to tend to alone. 

Which was how I found myself with a number of helpers. 

A couple dozen Saibamen helped tend the garden, making sure each plant’s unique needs were being met. Though something of note had happened about a year ago -- I discovered the hard way that Saibamen reproduced through a form of pollination, just as flowers did. As a result, rather than just the light and dark green of the traditional Saibamen, there were now a multitude of hues. Each one was adopting traits from the plants that they had been fertilized by. 

Which was how I ended up with a team of helpers who ended up tending to their parent plants. The effects were pretty interesting as well -- there were Saibamen that gained magical talents because they were born of some of my magical plants. Others gained healing abilities similar to the Healing Pods as they were born of the plant that produced the fluid, which is why I had them working in the medical wings. 

The whole situation developed entirely by accident, but I was content to let it continue to develop. Even if there were some uniquely weird versions of the Saibamen being born -- like the one with tentacles whose parent was the murder vines.

“You have created something wonderful here, Friend Tarble,” Kori noted, making me puff my chest out with pride as I approached one of the floating gardens. “Your garden rivals the vibrancy of the forests of Guldanfor,” she praised, her eyes darting around to the many species of plants that I had accrued over the years. 

“Thanks. Though at the rate things are going, I'm going to need to expand the garden,” I said, dumping the soil into the plant bed. A sterilizing cycle gave me enough time to sort the seeds that Kori had given me. Some of the plants they would grow were purely aesthetic, others had potentially practical uses, while the rest could be planted in our hydroponic bays. 

“Can we afford it already?” Kori asked, sounding a bit awed when I shot her a grin and a thumbs up. 

“Thanks to Bardock, we ended up gaining a lot more connections than I expected. Between him, and our prize fighting, we got our foot in a lot of doors,” I told her. King Vegeta had kept his word, and the Rebel Moon, through quantum mechanics nonsense, had a constantly updating list of open contracts. Between that, Bardock, and the Galactic Patrol? There was always work to be found as we sailed through the galaxy. But then I scowled, “Don't tell him I said that.” 

Kori giggled behind a hand, “You are still upset that he completed your clone technique?” 

“No. Yes,” I admitted, my scowl intensifying. I didn't buy the secret from him. The moment that he showed me how to do it, the final puzzle piece clicked into place, and I had my autonomous clones. But every time he saw me use the Multi-Form technique, he'd just kinda… smirk at me, and it never failed to irritate the hell out of me. Which was probably why he kept doing it. “Honestly, he's picking fights with a child. That's pretty shameful, you know?!” 

Kori just laughed while I sorted the seeds with a little more force than necessary. I had to take a breath to calm myself down. “But, yeah, we're ahead of schedule even with our expenses,” I confirmed, knowing that was partly because I had shaved a full sixty percent off our food budget by creating fast-growing plants and special fish feed that made our fish farms triple their output. “Everyone is getting stronger faster than I expected, too.” 

With my garden of magic plants in full swing, and the Multi-Form, I was able to produce training equipment for everyone. Weighted clothing and Resistance Rings, all used in conjunction with the gravity chambers and the training simulators? The results were staggering across the board. 

Within six months, the ten thousand Saiyans I had brought with me had all crossed the threshold to become Mid-Class. And then they crossed the threshold again when King Vegeta implemented a new threshold to cross at 50k PL. Something that had the Saiyan Empire in a fit of unrest as many lower-end Mid-Class found themselves stripped of their status, but any rebellion was short-lived. 

All the while, across the Empire, he was beginning to implement my reforms across the nurseries to various effects as he was taking the methods without understanding why they worked the way they did. 

Now, a year and a half later? The strongest of them were fast approaching the current threshold for High-Class. Which meant that their ability to do solo missions freed up significant manpower, which in turn allowed us to accomplish even more missions. At any given time, half of our overall force was being hired out, and the other half was going through mandatory rest. 

“This is good news, is it not?” Kori questioned, crouching down and helping me plant the seeds in the garden plot. 

“It is. It just comes with its own challenges.” Like King Vegeta demanding that I use my army to start conquering planets in his name. I didn't even bother replying to those messages. “It’ll be the first major expansion of the Rebel Moon. It's going to take time to complete, but when it does, we can bring in another batch of kids.” 

The expansions would functionally double the circumference of the Rebel Moon to six hundred and twenty-eight miles. It would give us enough room for a ballpark estimate of one hundred thousand additional Saiyans, provided that we maintained our current productivity. Which, by all accounts, we would. 

“Yet you do not sound happy,” Kori noted. 

“The kids are growing up,” I confessed. “The strongest of them are looking to strike out on their own. Heck, some of them are already starting families.” That was something I really hadn't been prepared for, but, sure enough, in the medical bay, I could sense a few weak ki signatures that came from babies in their incubators. There weren't many, fewer than a dozen, but the fact that there were babies on board and being made on the ship was… something. A revelation of sorts. 

I guess it was empty nest syndrome or something. Except my nest wasn't exactly empty. 

Kori just smiled indulgently, knowing that I was fretting over nothing. It was only natural for them to strike out. Some wanted to command ships of their own to continue doing contracts. Others chafed under my restrictions and sought to go to war. It was absurd to expect everyone to always return to the Rebel Moon for the rest of their lives. I just hadn't really thought about it, and hadn't prepared myself according- 

“Captain, you have an incoming call from Jaco, the Galactic Patrol member,” Ada informed me, making my thoughts come to a screeching halt. I had been in contact with Jaco on and off over the past couple of years, and in that time, whenever he called me, it was usually about something big. 

“Patch the call through,” I instructed, making a hologram appear as I wiped the dirt on my pants legs. A split second later, a hologram of Jaco appeared. He didn’t seem particularly distressed, meaning that this wasn't a ‘I need you right now, or I’m going to die’ situation, which was the usual circumstances. “Yo, Jaco. You got something for me?”

“You hate the PTO, right?” Jaco asked, and that was one heck of an opener. I cocked an eyebrow at him, and he scratched at his cheek. “Well, you do, right? So, would you be interested in ruining the day of one of their board members?” He asked, his voice dropping into a low whisper as if he were worried about someone overhearing. An interesting tell. 

I tilted my head, “I thought the Galactic Patrol stayed away from PTO business?” I asked, hiding how interested I was. Now, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was going to accept the job. I just wanted to know more before I did. Jaco was a real skinflint when it came to details sometimes. 

To that, Jaco offered a cocky smirk, “That’s the thing! Technically, you’d be attacking an independent paramilitary organization that’s affiliated with a member of the Board of Directors. While they’re totally off-limits to us because of red tape, you, technically speaking, are also an independent third party! So, really, this is a conflict between third parties and not between the Galactic Patrol and the PTO!” He seemed pretty proud of himself for that deduction, too. 

He wasn’t wrong, though. A few years of dealing with the Galactic Patrol and the PTO had shed some light on both organizations. Namely, how they tried not to step on each other's toes. 

On paper, the Galactic Patrol was an organization dedicated to policing the lawlessness of space -- pirates, smuggling, slave trafficking, and selling of restricted tech to aliens that didn’t meet the qualifications for them. They also acted as a paramilitary force for underdeveloped species that faced expansionist empires, such as the Saiyans. They were, in a few words, space cops trying to bring order to a chaotic and deadly galaxy. 

The PTO was a merger between dozens, if not hundreds, of mega-corporations. It happened tens of thousands of years ago, but one day, several megacorps that sold everything under the sun decided to pool together their resources, which formed the Board of Directors that presided over the PTO. Each Director had a specialty: Slurm, a food and beverage company fronted by a Wormulon Queen named Eisen, or Haycon, who led Arasa-tech, a military-industrial company that produced everything from battleships to guns to mechanized infantry. 

The Cold Family founded a real estate company, just as they did in Dragonball. The company was founded by King Blizzard, the something something great grandfather of King Cold, who in turn fathered Cooler, Frieza, and Frost. While they hadn’t been there at the founding of the PTO, they had swiftly joined in the centuries following, and between their lucrative business of flipping planets for profit, their armed forces, and their own personal power… they had quickly risen to prominence with King Cold becoming the PTO CEO some thousand years ago. 

As such, the Galactic Patrol and the PTO both worked together and hated each other's guts. The PTO was a prime example of everything wrong with the galaxy; only they had their own set of internal laws that they adhered to while ensuring that others within the company were held accountable. It was just very unfortunate that chattel slavery’s meaner and crueler big brother was legal within PTO-controlled space. 

“Alright, you have my interest,” I admitted to him. “Who is this third party I’d be picking a fight with?” 

“The Warstorm,” Jaco answered, and my lips curled into a smile at that. The Warstorm were a known force to me -- they were mercenaries who forcibly recruited slave soldiers as they marauded across the galaxy. The ones that managed to make the cut would either be added to their army or sold to the PTO, and those that didn’t? They were sold to the Blakksun Mining Company. “Recently… they came to my home planet.”

Jaco’s jaw tightened, “They took thousands of my people. I can’t do anything about it -- not without turning in my badge. But you’re in the area… and you’re the only one I can think of who could get through their stellar hurricane tech.” Which is how they operated with impunity across the galaxy, unless they were stopped by a Green Lantern. 

It was essentially a barrier of solar dust that was whipped into a hurricane by gravity simulators. Anything trying to approach it was ripped to shreds by high-powered gravity and diamond dust, and if that failed they finished you off with really big guns. The whole ship was apparently large enough to house a hundred thousand people, though a large fraction of that was because of the cramped slave quarters. 

“You have their location?” I asked Jaco, and I could see the tension bleeding out of him. He heard it in my tone, even if I didn’t say the words. I was going to accept the job. If not to help out Jaco, then to ruin Frieza’s day. 

The Blakksun Company was an industrial mining giant. One that specialized in strip mining planets with slave labor, with the minerals and metals they harvested being fed right into Frieza’s war machine. The Blakksun siblings were co-owners of the company, but it was the elder of the two who had a seat on the Board of Directors. I didn’t know much about them, as they were private by nature, but I saw the product of their methods, and that told me enough. 

“I’m sending it to you now,” Jaco said, and I got a ding as the data was inspected and cleared. They were coordinates, and not only that, they were the Warstorm’s predicted flight path. “Tarble… I don’t know how to thank you for this.”

“You don’t have to,” I replied with a shrug of my shoulders. 

Kori leaned into the frame based on how Jaco reacted, blinking a few times. “We shall liberate your people, Friend Jaco!” She declared as if our victory was a foregone conclusion. And it very well might be. Even with just the two of us, I struggled to think of anything that the Warstorm could throw at us that we couldn’t handle. 

“That’s a relief,” Jaco admitted, releasing the breath he had been holding. “I’ll be waiting for good news. So, be careful, okay?”

“You’ll hear from us soon,” I told him before I ended the call, mulling it over for a moment before glancing up at Kori. “I could probably handle it solo, but are you in?”

Kori actually seemed offended by the question, “You do not even need to ask!” She was right. That was a dumb question. 

‘Okarot? It's Tarble -- me and Kori got an emergency call from the Galactic Patrol. You're in charge until we get back,’ I thought at Okarot, whose reply was swift. 

‘You got it, Boss! I hope you find someone strong!’ Okarot thought back. 

Hopefully, but I doubt it. “Let me change out of my training clothes and we'll head out,” I told Kori, who nodded before she went to prep a couple of Attack Balls. 

My room wasn't anything too grand, but I did find it increasingly cluttered as the years went by. The kids brought me back weapons and stuff that they thought were cool or useful. So, the shelves were cluttered, but they would have been anyway with my own various projects scattered about. Books and scrolls were piled high on my desk that came from Elder Guru's lesson plan. 

My current project was a little bonsai tree. One that had little bean-like seeds sprouting from its bound branches. 

It was my latest iteration of the Tree of Might. For the past two years, I had been trying to reduce the size and the speed of which it sucked down ki from the soil. The size was self-evident, as mountain-sized trees were a bit of a tough sell on a spaceship. But the absorption was to temper their production rate and turn them into a Senzu Bean farm. 

As they were now, we couldn’t plant them in the normal gardens as, without fail, they would drain the soil dry. During my first iterations, it happened within seconds. Now? The process took a few weeks. Still not great, but we were moving in the right direction. Soon, hopefully, we will be able to stagger the Senzu Bean production with the Beans passively absorbing energy, so we would always have a crop available in case of emergencies. 

But that was a project for another day. As it was, I already had a mission. I tossed off my training attire -- gloves that weighed five hundred pounds, armor that weighed about ten thousand, an undersuit that weighed a thousand, and boots that weighed five hundred each. I took off the gravity and resistance rings on my tail -- the gravity ring was my newest creation that put me under the effects of x50 the standard gravity while the resistance ring made me feel like I was moving through tar. 

After doing a few warm-up stretches, I got dressed in unweighted clothing and armor. I felt light as a feather as I headed down to the docks to find Kori already had the Attack Balls ready to go. They were a bit different than the previous version -- they kinda looked like Sputnik with three thin antennae attached to the ship. It made them a bit more fragile, but much, much, much faster than the previous versions. 

Getting in, I commenced the docking procedure while inputting the coordinates that Jaco had given us. They were quite a distance away -- eight thousand light years away. With the old version of the Attack Balls, that trip would have taken about thirty years. With the current version? About six hours. 

The FTL drives were courtesy of Jaco. He slipped us the communication and FTL tech that the Galactic Patrol had, and it was some serious top-tier stuff. It massively increased our ability to maneuver through the galaxy and act on contracts or emergencies. It wasn’t the best stuff out there -- that belonged solely to the Green Lanterns, who could apparently zip between galaxies and communicate across the universe. Still, it was a massive upgrade that I had been looking for. 

‘Hm. Think we’ll ever see a Green Lantern?’ I asked Kori as the Attack Balls drifted from the Rebel Moon. Space began to ripple before the window, before we shot off at several times the speed of light. It kinda hurt my eyes to look at how space got all wibbly through the window, so I leaned my head back and closed them. 

‘I do not know, but I hope so! They are righteous defenders of truth and justice across the universe. It would be a great honor,’ Kori replied in my head. ‘Why? Do you wish to meet one?’

‘More that we’ve been bouncing through space for years now doing the same job, and we’ve never met one before,’ I admitted. The majority of the contracts that we accepted seemed like the kind of stuff that a Green Lantern would get in on. We defended planets, hunted pirates, broke up slave and smuggling rings, and more. Yet, we hadn’t seen so much as a hair of them. ‘Makes me wonder what they’ve been up to.’

‘As you are fond of saying, Friend Tarble -- space is quite big. I am certain that they are faithfully performing their duties across the universe,’ Kori replied. 

‘That’s fair,’ I admitted, settling in my seat. ‘So, tell me what the Vega System was like? How was home?’ I asked, and Kori barely needed to be prompted before she began to gush about the changes to the Vega System under the enlightened Tamaranean rule. The Vega System had always been a den of villainy because the Green Lanterns steadfastly refused to enter the massive system, which made it the favorite hideout for various evildoers. Kori’s words, not mine. 

She launched into detail about how the reconstruction of her planet was going, and the general reconstruction that was happening across the system as those who had long suffered under the Citadelian boot were being uplifted. The Citadelians themselves had been beaten back to their home planet, and their fortresses around it occupied. Kori admitted she didn’t know what would be done with them in the long run, but she was certain that they would be free to rejoin the galactic community once they paid their penance. 

Now, with the Citadelians defeated, they were working to push out the pirates and slavers that still lingered in the system. Kori spoke about it passionately. Enough so that I knew what would likely happen in the next few years, even if she didn’t yet. Kori was going to return to the Vega System, and apply everything she had learned traveling with us to defending her people’s home. 

It was something of a bittersweet revelation I had, even as she continued to gush about the progress that was being made. But Tamaran was her home. It was only natural that she would return to stay one day. 

The chatter helped pass the time as we traveled to the coordinates Jaco gave me. The Attack Balls began the deceleration process, meanwhile doing a passive scan for ‘anomalies’ which a stellar storm would qualify as. We got a ping a second later while I attached a mask to my face. The air in the ship was vented before the door opened, letting me and Kori out. I looked in the direction of the ping and saw it.

A stellar hurricane was a thing of deadly beauty. It was like looking at a multi-colored hurricane that whipped around itself in a violent torrent, and I knew in the eye of that storm was the Warstorm ship. Even without the raw gravity factoring into things, that cloud of dust would shred even high class armored hulls. And, if you didn't know any better, you wouldn't have a clue that a warship sat in the middle of it as it was completely obscured by the storm. 

Raising a hand, I formed a ki sphere around us and our ships, watching as the stellar storm began to approach us. Steadily, it got bigger and bigger before it entered my ki-sensing range. There was a ballpark of a hundred and thirty thousand people on board, with the highest power level being roughly 1,200pl. Which didn't discount tech or magical abilities, but if they had access to that, they'd be more than scavengers attacking weak planets. And considering their practice of throwing slave soldiers at military targets, if they did have some high end armor, then they didn't have a lot of it. 

The gravity current caught us, yanking us into the stellar storm and I was caught off guard by how violent it was. I had to thicken the ki barrier to prevent any cracks from forming. ‘I think we found another upgrade for the Rebel Moon. Might take the power source while we're at it.’ 

‘Or you could give the ship to one of the others,’ Kori pointed out. That was true. 

‘Tsk.’ 

Kori's giggles rang out in my head, but I knew she was probably right. The Warstorm could be a ship that we could salvage and give to someone like Okarot, or Ginge. Or Bardock, honestly. He had his own ship, but it was built for a small squad to get around in rather than something to live on. 

The stellar storm dragged us to the center of the storm, where the intensity of it increased dramatically. If it was just the Attack Ball, they would have been reduced to bite sized chunks, but with my barrier, we managed to sail through the worst of it before we cleared the storm itself. And it was then that I finally saw the ship. 

[Image]

It was kinda ugly, and had a few obvious weak points from what I saw, noting where debris managed to get sucked into the ship itself. A pretty notable design flaw, I thought to myself, pushing us straight into that opening where I sensed a number of presences. And the reason why the glaring design flaw was left untouched was revealed to be a feature rather than a flaw. Because how else could the Warstorm pointlessly throw lives away to unclog the massive spinny things that got clogged with debris if the debris wasn't let in? 

Our arrival was met with stunned disbelief as I brought our ships safely inside before dropping the ki barrier after making our way through the emission system. Dozens of aliens stopped what they were doing, each carrying chunks of stone that they knocked out of various gears or pistons or… something. I was a magic guy, not a mechanic. 

Of those dozens, I saw a handful of Jaco’s species members. I also saw something else -- an alien wearing armor. Big, bulky, and the only one wielding a weapon. Long, thin tusks protruded from his gaping mouth as he simply stared at us. The mace in his grip had old bloodstains on it, with an alien crumpled at his feet. 

I raised a finger and fired off a ki blast that vaporized the arm wielding the weapon. Even before his severed arm hit the ground, an alarm started blaring through the engine room. The temperature began to swell, and I realized that they intended to burn us out. So, channeling ki through my feet, I sealed the emission points with ki, and, while I knew next to nothing about engines, I got the reaction I had hoped. 

The ship trembled violently as something somewhere else blew out. That got the various aliens to scramble to safety, and that was apparently a platform where the screaming ‘War Stormer’ was. Flying over, a member of a species I had never seen before looked up at us, “Who… what are you?” 

“A Saiyan,” I heard a voice growl from behind, and I was immediately poleaxed. I understood the words not because of the translator… but because they were speaking in a language that I understood. 

English. 

I couldn’t begin to describe how weird it was to hear English again after all this time. It almost felt unnatural to hear it. And it only felt more unnatural when I glanced over my shoulder to the source and saw the very last thing that I expected. 

He was unmistakable, even for someone like me who was only passingly familiar with DC Comics. He was tall and built like a brick shithouse, his face covered with an iconic pointy eared cowl, while on his chest was a black bat symbol. His hands were clenched into fists, covered in dust and soot, his eyes covered by a white film and a long black cape was draped over his shoulders. 

Batman. 

I was looking at Batman. 

Why was I looking at Batman? I thought he didn’t leave Gotham, or something?

“A species that has consistently invaded Earth every year for the past five years,” Batman continued, unbothered by my expression. I had to recover, I knew. I barely knew anything about him, but I knew that the meme of ‘Batman with prep time beats anyone’ didn’t happen in a vacuum. Absurdly dumb or not, people viewed it as possible for a reason, so I was dealing with hypercompetence. 

Or maybe not, because he kinda looked like crap. 

“You…” I began, and I knew he was reading my expression, so I had to recover. He couldn’t know that I knew him. Or, at least not why I knew him. “You seriously named your planet… Dirt? I thought Vegeta was telling me a joke,” I muttered, making Batman’s eyes narrow into slits. I guess that was supposed to be terrifying or something, but without his preptime, I couldn’t see myself possibly losing to him. 

However, thankfully, the conversation was interrupted by a door opening to reveal a bunch more Warstormers. There were a handful of races that I was familiar with as I had seen them in various prize-fighting tournaments, but none of them were particularly noteworthy. Batman was instantly on guard, and even as the Warstormers leveled their bolter assault rifles at us, he sprinted forward. 

And, I had to admit, he could move. No wasted movement with each one gracefully moving to the other, letting him dodge bullets and throw himself into the thick of things while I put up a barrier around the others. He lashed out with fists and kicks, each blow delivered with pinpoint accuracy with explosive power. 

Dynamic. If I had to describe his fighting style, the word dynamic came to mind. He was in a constant state of motion, fluidly moving from one foe to the next. By the time the Warstormers reacted to him, he had already moved on, with every reaction seemingly accounted for and seamlessly used to set up his next move. Honestly, it was a thing of beauty. He was held back by his human body, however. Significantly. 

Looking at him, though, it really got my heart ticking a few beats faster -- if he was my equal in strength, speed, and endurance, then he would be a fun opponent. One that I wasn’t certain I could defeat. Which was something that was becoming increasingly rare these days. 

Kori dove in after him, joining the fight, and she smashed through the Warstormers like a bowling ball knocking over pins. Her flaming hair whipped in the air as starbolts flew free of her hands, slamming into the Warstromers. Within seconds, the odd three dozen Warstormers that had been sent to deal with us were laid out on the ground. 

“Well, I guess they know we’re here,” I remarked, and I noticed Batman tilt his head at me, listening closely. “Jaco sent us to rescue you,” I said, looking at the members of his race. 

“Then you’re with the Galactic Patrol?” One of them asked, the others sharing relieved looks. Huh. Looks like Jaco was famous amongst his people. 

“Eh, kinda. The Galactic Patrol can’t be seen stomping on the PTO’s toes, especially when they’re at war, so Jaco sent us as a compromise,” I answered, elaborating a bit for Batman’s sake. “We’ll get you all back home. We just need to take command of the ship -- shouldn’t be too hard. These guys got anything like power armor or something to give them an edge?”

“No,” Batman answered, his voice low and harsh. The guy sounded like he ate gravel on a daily basis. It felt a bit silly, too. Like, he had to be doing that on purpose. And, maybe it would be way more intimidating if I didn’t know I could bend him into a pretzel, or if I didn’t have any metaknowledge. But badass display aside, he felt more like a guy cosplaying Batman to me rather than Batman himself. 

“Then this should only take a couple minutes,” I said, sensing the Warstorm locking down the prisoners to various degrees of success across the ship while the rest were mobilizing to defensive positions. I said degrees of success because it seemed like some sensed that something had gone wrong with the Warstorm, so they were seizing the opportunity. Honestly, it'd be cleaner if they didn't. “We take out the captain and that magic number of Warstormers that makes them realize that they're wasting our time and causing themselves a lot of pain.” 

Batman regarded me coolly. Considering me and my presence here. Given what I knew of my people, I couldn't imagine that he had a particularly high opinion of Saiyans. However, he seemed to be willing to work with one because he jerked his head into a nod. “The captain is mine,” he said, and he almost sounded like a Saiyan. 

“Sure. Suit yourself,” I said, looking at Kori. “Let's split up a bit. There's a rebellion happening elsewhere on the ship. I'll make sure the Dirtling gets his shot at the captain.” 

“I shall commence liberating the downtrodden!” Kori declared with a cry, blasting off down the halls that had Batman flinching. 

“The rest of you -- you can probably stay here. This won't take long,” I told them, earning stunned looks as I floated after Batman, who broke into a sprint. I watched him run, just kinda amazed by his presence. It was Batman. I had known Kori from Teen Titans, but when I met her, she had been a kid like us. It was only in these past few years that she had grown into the version of herself I had saw in the show. “So, Dirtling… you got a name?” 

“Batman,” Batman answered tersly. “And it's Earthling.” 

It was hard to not reply in English, I discovered. I had been speaking Saiyango for years by this point, it felt like the natural language to speak, but that would tip my hand all the way and ask questions I didn't want to answer. 

“Same thing,” I replied with a shrug of my shoulders. “You don't strike me as being like the others. You're an experienced fighter. So, what are you doing scraping out an engine?” 

“I could ask you the same thing,” Batman replied evenly, that low growl in his voice as he sprinted forward at full speed. We were coming up on one of the barricade points. “As I understood it, the Saiyan race are conquerors. Ruthless. Merciless. Not the type to have connections with the Galactic Patrol.” 

“Eh, you're right for… like ninety-eight percent of us,” I could admit. “I'm with a freelance mercenary group, though. We specialize in preventing planets from getting conquered. So, the next time a Saiyan army shows up, keep us in mind. Might even toss you a discount if I don't like the Elite-Class Saiyan invading.” It was weird. Like, I couldn't quite shake it. 

It wasn't just that he was Batman. It was that he was human. After more than a decade in this new life of mine, I had encountered a human. My old species. It was weird. 

It just now registered with me that I could use him to figure out where Earth was. 

“I'll keep that in mind,” Batman replied as a pair of double doors opened before us. Predictably, we were greeted with a wall of gunfire. A simple ki shield deflected the bullets, letting Batman erupt from the hallway like a can of whoopass being opened. There were more this time -- dozens in an entrenched position. 

Batman worked through them like a machine, but it wasn't flawless. The aliens he was fighting were often tougher than he was. A full power punch might stun them for a moment, but it wouldn't put them down. And they were stronger -- a glancing blow would be enough to break bones. So, I gave him a little helping hand. When he was on the verge of being overwhelmed, I fired a ki blast that gave him an escape route and thinned out their numbers. When one Warstormer lined up a shot on him, I destroyed the weapon. 

All the while, I evaluated him, and my opinion was being validated with every punch and kick -- Batman was good. Great. He had honed his body like a weapon, and he wielded it with mastery. It was genuinely impressive. And he fought smart, too. He didn't try to defeat everyone, only enough to get through the blockade. Leaving me to mop up behind him, so none of them tried to slip behind us and take the prisoners hostage. Actually, speaking of that… 

“They should have locked down the ship by now,” I noted. 

“We have a man on the inside,” Batman replied, moving through another hall. He seemed to know where he was going, so I was content to follow him. However, as he ran, he glanced over his shoulder at me. “You haven't killed,” he noted, like it was something worth noting. 

Oh, yeah. Batman had a whole thing about not killing. 

“Don't need to,” I replied dismissively. I had a body count, and honestly, it was pretty high. It wasn't something I thought about often, but I had without a doubt killed thousands, if not tens of thousands, during the war for Tamaran. And I was fine with that. It didn't bother me that much. 

In the end, they had chosen to go to war with the expectation of killing and enslaving. It didn't bother me that they were killed, and I didn't care that it was me who killed them. The same was true for all those who had followed in the years since. I avoided killing where I could, but it wasn't some iron-bound rule like it was for Batman. Or what I knew of him through memes and general discourse, of course. 

“What's your name?” Batman asked suddenly, and I realized I never gave it. 

“Tarble,” I answered. 

He said nothing to that, and I simply followed him through the ship. I decided to bide my time on some of the questions that I had -- like where Earth was. Or how bad were these invasions? But, they could wait until after we had taken the ship. 

Which wouldn't take much longer, as I sensed we were approaching the second strongest presence on the ship. It wasn't that impressive, honestly -- around 200pl or so. Then again, Batman had utterly dominated the fights so far with a power level of just fifteen. A pair of double doors opened up, revealing the bridge and the captain himself. 

Captain Syyn of the Warstorm. 

He was a large red alien with horns like a goat framing his face while his right arm was a number of tendrils. There were three aliens in a chair, but crumpled up in one corner was a red, vaguely humanoid robot. 

“Batman. I can p-p-Punch n-now,” the machine said, his voice filled with static. 

“Birdman,” Syyn growled, the tendrils of his arm twitching. “And a Saiyan. Do you even realize what kind of enemies you're making today? I work for the Blakksuns! They own millions of planets and the mining rights to millions more! They possess armies that number in the hundreds of millions. Do you really think that they'll let you get away with this? I am their greatest provider of slaves! My death will have consequences of which you can't even imagine!” 

Well, it looked like he was smart enough to realize that he had no hope of winning. Just not wise enough to realize that was the very last thing you should ever say to a Saiyan. 

“Then after I'm done with you, I'll visit these Blakksuns,” Batman growled, putting up his hands. And in saying that, he revealed the depths of his ignorance. How out of place he was on the galactic stage. 

Syyn scoffed derisively, “Fool. Very well. Before I meet my death, I shall take great pleasure of breaking you!” With that, Syyn lunged forward, his tendril arm lashing out but Batman was already on the move. Batman moved like a man who had envisioned this fight a thousand different times, and had accounted for every possible variation to it. Because of that, he moved like the fight was scripted, seizing every opening and narrowly dodging every counter. 

Batman danced around Syyn, throwing everything he had behind every punch, kick, knee, and elbow. Syyn ate each attack, but he wasn't unaffected by them. The fight was honestly enthralling to watch, even if it was well beneath my level. Syyn was an enemy I could defeat effortlessly, but there was just something about how Batman moved that gave me chills. 

Even when he got hit, his body not quite able to match what he had envisioned, the debilitating blows were simply ignored as Batman fought on. 

‘I wanna fight him.’ I couldn't even remember the last time I had felt that way about someone. There was that familiar itch in my blood that wanted to see who was better. I didn't even mind that I'd have to power all the way down to DC's infamous ‘peak human’ level. I just really, really, really wanted to fight him. 

Batman roared wordlessly, something primal escaping him as he swung a hammer fist into Syyn's head with enough force to break a horn. Syyn himself skidded across the floor, striking one of the three chairs with the navigator on it, sending the green blob alien onto the floor. Syyn groaned, starting to get up, but Batman mercilessly kicked him in the side of the head with a brutal crack. 

Then Syyn did what people like him always did. 

“W-wait,” Syyn gasped, holding up a hand to forestall another blow. “I… I can help you! I have information! Y-you said you're going after the Blakksuns, right? I can help you do it!” He bargained, trying to save his own life. Self-preservation instincts were a universal common, I had discovered. They just manifested differently in various species. 

Batman reached down and grabbed Syyn by his one remaining horn and yanked his head up until they were eye to eye. 

“Tell me everything,” Batman demanded in a low growl, and this time, it almost sounded intimidating. 

I had to fight a smile as I watched Syyn start to spill his guts. 

This trip was turning out more interesting than I expected.