Groaning, I opened my eyes and found myself…in another jail cell…
What the heck?
This one wasn't the concrete and metal one like in Metropolis, but a giant glass-like tube surrounding me on all sides. Where was I? And what happened?
"Hello?" I called out, only to get no reply.
Either no one was listening, or they simply didn't care that I woke up.
Well since I was being left alone, I decided to take a moment to figure out how I ended up here. The last thing I remembered was flying up with Superman to stop Lobo from getting away and then…
Ah, right. It was a trap.
Superman had gotten in front of Lobo's ship and stopped it from escaping the atmosphere while I took shots at him with a few Ki blasts, but I wasn't really fast enough to do more than slightly inconvenience him most of the time.
Then a sudden laser beam hit Superman in the chest out of nowhere which allowed Lobo to get the drop on him and knock him out before he went after me. I got a few good hits in but the Bounty Hunter mostly just shook them off until he was close enough to grab me by the throat and then…nothing.
Which meant I either got choked out or knocked unconscious too which led me to…wherever I was now.
"Hello, anyone here?" I tried again, only to still get no response back.
Was anyone even around to hear me?
I took a moment to shift to a more meditative pose and focused on my Ki sense. And yeah, sure enough there were quite a few Ki signatures nearby, and if I focused I thought I could sense Superman…surrounded by absolutely nothing for miles.
…okay three scenarios. One, everything besides the signatures nearby had died. Two, whoever these people were that locked me up had some kind of tech that shielded Ki signatures like the lizardmen. Three, and the most likely one considering where the trap happened, we had been kidnapped and were now on a spaceship.
"...And I can't breathe in space, so no blowing holes in the probable ship." I muttered to myself as I looked for a way to escape.
It didn't take me long to give up trying to find some way to sneak out – not a whole lot of options when it comes to clear tubes – and I moved on to the direct route.
I walked up to the clear wall keeping me trapped and looked at it for a second. If whoever had captured me knew anything about Saiyans, it probably wasn't made out of something like actual glass but I couldn't see any signs of reinforcement or laminates like Batman had described one of the times I had shadowed him and Birdbrain. It certainly looked like just one big glass tube.
Tapping on it didn't exactly change my mind about that either, but I could at least confirm that I could touch the 'glass' and there wasn't some kind of energy shield protecting it. Nothing left to do but go for it.
I pulled back my fist and slammed it into the glass, only to collapse onto the ground clutching my hand in pain as the material failed to even crack. Holy crap, that thing was way harder than I thought it could be!
"There is no need for that." A calm voice said behind me, startling a yelp out of me and causing me to whip around to face it.
At first I thought someone had managed to trick my Ki sense completely and snuck up on me, but once I got a better look I realised it was actually some kind of robot.
It didn't look very threatening, but l wasn't really willing to fully drop my guard when I didn't know what was going on. "Really? Because it seemed like a good idea to me. Who are you and why am I in here?"
"I am known as the Preserver." The robot answered. "For ages I have collected many rare creatures on the brink of extinction. You were brought here by Lobo due to some bounty he no doubt wished to collect, but for other reasons that will be impossible."
"If he can't collect, then why am I still locked up?"
"This ship houses a great many creatures that are the last of their species and you are a Sayian." The robot pointed out. "You will remain where you are until I can return you to a planet that does not object to the presence of your race."
I resisted the urge to grumble about that.
The downside to being a member of a proud warrior race that no one wanted to talk about was that anyone who actually knew what that meant didn't really want you around. If this was what it was going to be like every time I ran into an alien, I was considering the benefits of just staying on Earth.
Actually…
"Any reason I can't just go back to Earth?" I asked.
"I have a timetable to keep that does not include pandering to unexpected guests on my ship. I am generously offering you and the other one the Czarnian brought onboard transportation to another planet when I could have just released you out the airlock." The Preserver said blandly.
"...can I at least be moved to wherever you're keeping Superman then? If I'm going to be stuck here until you find a place to drop me off I'd at least like someone to talk to."
The robot was silent long enough that I was slightly worried that the Preserver had simply stopped paying attention to our conversation and gone to do something else. At least until he spoke up again in a distracted tone. "With the addition of the Czarnian enclosure there is no more room in that section of the south wing, so I cannot agree to your request. However, I will send a drone with some options for entertainment later."
Well at least the guy wasn't going to just lock me in a glass cage and call it a day, even if I was definitely going to try breaking out once his robot left me alone.
But if he was doing requests…
"Any chance I can get something to eat too? It's been a few hours since my last meal."
"The drone will bring that as well. Now if you will excuse me, I need to focus on ensuring the Czarnian's enclosure is accurate to his native environment."
There was no change in the robot, but I was pretty sure the Preserver was no longer watching me.
Between that and no changes that I could sense over where Superman was, that meant I had plenty of time to sit and actually think about how we were going to get out of this mess. Because 'hit it until it breaks' is a terrible strategy when you are on a spaceship.
I wasn't too worried though.
Either Superman thinks of something and escapes, or I go and break him out and we take over the ship and go back to Earth.
Since both of us weren't in any actual danger at the moment, I was going to take the time to think things through so I didn't accidentally kill us all.
…and get a free meal out of the Preserver.
That was important too.
-o-
A few hours later I was thinking a lot harder about how to escape.
The Preserver did provide food like he promised, it was just awful. And the 'entertainment' was just a bunch of informational packets about the animals on his ship. Not even good ones too, just a bunch of sciency descriptions without even a single picture of what the thing being described actually looked like.
If I was forced to spend much longer in here I was going to go crazy.
I'd been eyeing up the glass again once the Preserver's robot had left to go do something else. I hadn't exactly hit it as hard as I could earlier, so there was still a good chance I could break it and escape. The bigger question was, what did I do once I got out?
I did actually know how to fly a few spaceships but only if they shared a similar control scheme to my attack ball, and I really doubted that was the case with this one.
The Preserver had idly mentioned the ship had wings dedicated to different enclosures. I had never even been on, let alone learned to fly, something that big before!
Although if the ship really was that big, there were probably smaller ships inside somewhere that I could steal to get back to Earth with. Assuming I could get out of this glass prison thing of course…
"Screw it, I'm not going to be able to plan for everything sitting around here." I mumbled under my breath. "Escape, find a way to get back to Earth, don't get ejected into space. Foolproof plan. Oh, and maybe find Superman along the way if he doesn't find me first."
Plan decided on, I focused on the glass keeping me prisoner and sank down into a stance, gathering my Ki into my fist and clearing my mind of all distractions.
With a short yell I punched the clear material and once again confirmed it wasn't something like glass as a jolt of pain ran up my arm. Not for nothing though, since there was now a web of cracks where my fist hit!
I pushed aside the pain and tried again. The wall still didn't break at the second punch or the third, but the wall was looking pretty fragile by that point. A good thing too, because I had either triggered an alarm or the Preserver noticed my escape attempt and now some sort of gas was slowly rising up from the floor!
I was only going to have one more chance to escape before I was going to be forced to breathe in whatever that crap was.
Doing my best to ignore everything and put everything into one more punch, I felt something in the back of my mind click. The Ki surrounding my fist suddenly evened out into a fiery glowing-yellow orb instead of the wispy aura thing it was before and when I hit the wall my fist punched right through it!
No time to celebrate though, the gas was still pouring in!
A couple shoves were enough to dislodge some of the bigger chunks around the hole I'd made and I didn't hesitate to jump through the opening and keep flying until I was around the first corner I found and away from whatever gas the Preserver had used.
"Okay, part one of my plan, complete." I congratulated myself. "Now on to part–" I froze as I straightened up and fully realized my new surroundings.
Right in front of me was a very large window looking straight out into space on the other side of what I now realised was more of a decorative wall than a functional one. I was suddenly very glad of my decision to not try escaping with a Ki blast. Because if I had tried and misjudged the strength of the blast, there was a good chance I would be floating in a vacuum right about now.
"At least part three of my foolproof plan is still in effect." I muttered. "But just in case, Ki blasts are definitely banned. Though, on the other hand…" I focused on my hand and after a few seconds managed to replicate my impromptu Ki technique.
I played around with it a little trying to change not only the shape of the Ki form, but also my hand. With a little testing I actually managed to get something that resembled what I remembered a Ki blade should look like, even if I still hadn't figured out how to make it cut on its own yet.
Clearly, I had stumbled into only half completing the technique, but I wasn't that upset about it. This was clear, tangible progress after weeks of almost nothing and even half-complete it was still a useful technique for protecting my hands if I had to hit anything super hard again.
"Part one, complete. Part three, in progress. Time to work on part two." I said aloud before glancing back at the window to the void. "At least I know which direction not to go in…"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Support the Author at ko-fi.com/azurawriting or over at patreon.com/AzuraWriting to read a few chapters ahead in the rotation