large explosions ringing out as I methodically destroyed all of their heavy weapons. At a certain point they attempted to implement some sort of sticky grey glue as a countermeasure, which was presumably intended to slow me down or stifle my movement. For all the good that it did them, shortly before I used shinjutsu to incinerate the gunk from my person and went back into the fray.
Invincible wasn't so lucky, as he immediately got plastered to the ground when distracted, covered in the gooey substance. It was strong enough to at least keep him down, as I markedly lowered my estimation of his real strength. That was what I presumed for the moment, until Atom Eve also got hit and stuck in place.
She had one free hand to throw up some barriers as she desperately tried to free herself, but it wasn't going to be enough. I was already starting to move to intervene, but apparently I didn't need to, as a roar erupted from the bound teenager. It was…
Something was happening at the atomic level, yet I was unsure of the specifics of the act. It was too quick, too much of a rapid burst, as he ripped his way free of the gunk and slammed into the bunch of soldiers. It left me wondering what precisely was the source of that sudden surge of might. Were his powers tied to his mental state in some regard?
Whatever the real source was, I didn't have too long to try and try and investigate it. One of the Flaxans that he'd knocked away fell, and as it did so, its wrist slammed into the ground. Almost instantly as the bracelet sparkled, it was already beginning to freak out. Too late for the creature to do anything about it, though, as it began to age on the spot.
And I realized precisely what it meant to turn the tide of this battle.
Sucking in a lungful of air, I pushed out a wind jutsu to make my yell a howl over the din of the battlefield. "THEIR BRACELETS ARE KEEPING THEM FROM AGING!"
Blessedly, one of the Teen Team understood the assignment.
Robot might not have been a one-man army, but he was a Swiss Army tool of a problem solver in that chassis of his. Already, he was disarming one of the soldiers to study their bracelet. "It's weak to a specific frequency! Keep them off of me while I generate a large enough burst!"
Well. I didn't know if it'd be enough to end the invasion, but it would certainly be enough to keep them from wanting to invade if stepping into our dimension was certain and immediate death. So I didn't see any real issue with applying a certain level of violence to keep them off-kilter.
I'd like to say that it was hard, that there was some real focus or concentration put on my actions. That would be a lie, though. The closest thing that I could equate it to was cleaning your house or maintaining your car. Boring, mindless, repetitive work, where you didn't really think too hard about what you were doing so much as you were focused on the end result.
I broke limbs, necks, and spines with the kind of casual ease that came from having functionally no real threat to myself on the battlefield. Intervened where I needed to for the rest of my erstwhile allies, who by and large didn't share my durability. If there had to be ascribed effort, it was in the attempts to not be as brutally gory as I had in the first battle.
Cleaning blood off my robes was already kind of an irritant.
By the time a shrill screech was coming out from Robot's body, it passed over the entire battlefield in a wave. Bit by bit, as bracelets sparked and shattered across the entire army. And almost immediately as it happened, the effects began to kick in.
It was unsurprising that a species this technologically advanced managed to try to beat the functional time difference between their dimension and our own. I mean, it was stupid, rather than trying to invade somewhere, they weren't at such a profound disadvantage. Yet I got the feeling that the brutality and conquest were the point, rather than the presumed expansionist ambitions they held.
None of them were prepared for the brilliance of Earth, however, or our willingness to return war crimes in earnest at the drop of a hat. That was one thing, perhaps, that the Ōtsutsuki in me might never truly understand. Just like before, the results of being exposed to our timestream were brutal to witness.
Flaxans were finding themselves being shriveled up, slowly aging before our eyes. Going from green, vibrant bodies to hues more typically found on decaying husks of plants. Whatever formal order had been in the army's ranks after my assault had begun to taper off in earnest. It was frightening, but not quite the same form of death as literally being aged into nonexistence.
That must have been an order of magnitude more terrifying to the Flaxans, which was why they were flooding back through the portals.
When the last still-living Flaxan was through, the red, malevolent holes in the world blipped out of existence just as quickly as they'd arrived. It left the battlefield quiet, with the dead and destroyed vehicles sprawled out all around us. This part of the city was a mess and would remain a mess.
But we'd won, and victory washed away a great many sins.
"Is everyone in one piece?" I asked, glancing around at the bruised and hurt bodies around me. As the Teen Team and Invincible came together once more, though, I was pleased to see only superficial pains. Nothing broken, and nothing that was truly insurmountable to deal with.
"More than fine! You could have dealt with that entire invasion on your own!" Rex shouted.
A scoff escaped me. "Maybe I could have evacuated everyone on my own or stalemated them, but even I don't have unlimited stamina." I mean, I might as well functionally have it, considering I didn't need to eat, sleep, or breathe. But my chakra was a resource that was finite, despite how it looked on the surface. "Besides, without Robot's intervention we would have been fighting a hopeless battle."
"...But would you have been able to fight them all by yourself?" Kate asked, squinting over at me.
To which I could only glance away sheepishly. "I mean, probably, but everyone helped out."
"Helped out, he says!" Rex scoffed. "I was gonna call out Invincible for going psycho for a minute there, but I guess in comparison to you, it wasn't exactly that much…"
"I-I don't know what happened there," the teen stammered out, looking and sounding every inch his age at that moment. "I was trapped, and I got so angry and just…snapped."
Eve came in at this point, putting a hand on Invincible's shoulder and shooting me a smile while giving Rex a glare. "Don't listen to him. You two did great, more than great, really. We wouldn't have been able to deal with this without you both."
"It was a decent diversion to idle away the time, I suppose," I spoke, shrugging softly. "Rescuing people felt more meaningful than the actual fight for me."
"Your assistance was truly invaluable," Robot conceded with a nod. "As such, I'm extending an invitation to our base in the future if you'd like to collaborate more."
"I'm not much of a teen, but I wouldn't mind getting to know everyone better." For all of their outright weakness and Rex's brusque nature, I didn't think anyone here was actually all that bad of a person. Even Invincible's softness toward threats spoke of more genuine humanity than anything else.
It was also about this time that Invincible got a phone call, and one that immediately shuttered his expression. "I…I have to go. I'll catch you guys later!" Whatever the news was, he was flying like a bat out of hell, up and into the sky in an instant.
Much to Rex's scoff as he and everyone else watched him fly away. "Right! Thanks for helping clean up, asshole!"
Judging by the boy's expression, though, I got the feeling that whatever the news proved was genuinely serious. Though just standing there with the now-bickering Teen Team as the rest chastised Rex, I was left with one sizable conundrum in my mind. With a conflict of this scale…
Where exactly were the Guardians of the Globe?
The one thing that this whole affair had demonstrated to me was a need for more defenders, or at least more effective ones. If the Teen Team were the best that this world had to offer, or among the best due to the Guardian's absence, I wasn't feeling hopeful for their capacity to defend against even worse threats. Not when they were dealing with problems on this scale.
It was a problem, but I got the feeling that I might be able to also sell Cecil and the GDA a possible solution for their problems. One that was more expansive and broadly reaching than just having me on call all the time. The only real question was how was I going to sell the man on the prospect of puppets…
Whatever. Planning for the future could come later. For now, I had some unfortunate clean-up with my name on it.
Author's Notes:
Another chapter down, another out the door! It's good to be sharing what I've been working on for months, refining, and getting some feedback on. I've been looking forward to this for a while, but especially because I've had the support of all of my readers here. The same suite of beta-readers too were responsible for this chapter as the one above.
Additionally, if you would like to read ahead, you can find up to ten chapters ahead on my Patreon and Subscribestar, linked there. For the time being, all adult content like future smut in anything I write, will be on Subscribestar, though in due time I'll likely try to get the processing and authentication through on Patreon to be able to post it there as well. So be mindful of where you're supporting me.Last edited: Yesterday at 6:40 PM Like ReplyReport Reactions:Rallen, WakeWalker, Joy and 514 othersTurncoatYesterday at 5:32 PMAdd bookmarkView discussionJump to newThreadmarksView content