Disclaimer: I don't own either the Dragon Ball or the One Punch Man franchises. I do wish I had Murata's art skills though.
Just A Hero
Saiyan Invasion Arc
Chapter 2 - A Looming Threat
-Three Months Later-
Beads of sweat dripped down Saitama's forehead as a vein throbbed against his temple. He could feel his mind, his body, even his soul growing weary with each passing second. He could only grit his teeth as he stared at the unforgiving gaze of his opponent.
He will admit, this battle had been far more difficult than he could've ever imagined. No matter what he did, what attacks he sent, what tactics he tried, his opponent took them all and sent them back twice as hard.
It felt less like a fight and more like a relentless beatdown.
After hours waddling in the pits of despair, he found a light in the darkness. A crack in his foe's impassable defense. As if the weight of the world depended on it he latched onto that opportunity, and he broke through.
Now all he has to do is deliver the killing blow.
"Knight to C7." Saitama stated, a wide grin spreading across his face as he moved the piece. He not only broke through the line to capture his opponent's pawn but also set up another attack between a rook and the queen. A lethal fork. "Heh, how does that 'impenetrable defense' look like now King?"
A stifled giggle came from the side of the table. "Looks like this match is already over." Fubuki remarked, a light smirk resting on her face as her emerald eyes glanced from her book and onto the board. She was a slender woman, her dark green hair styled into a neat bob while her verdant dress fitted tightly around her curvaceous figure, hidden only by an opulent white fur coat.
King, an S-Class hero regarded as the strongest man in the world, said nothing, his arms crossed as his eyes glanced down at the board. He was a tall lean man with slick blonde hair, a chiseled jawline, and three gruesome scars over his left eye. While he had the visage of an experienced warrior, his clothing was very casual compared to most heroes, consisting only of a light-blue hoodie, jeans, and white sneakers.
"I will admit, you have improved greatly these last couple of weeks, Saitama. Just a week ago you couldn't even make it past six turns without making a game-ending blunder." King chuckled.
"So, I guess this means you finally forfeit, eh?" Saitama leaned over, his grin only growing wider as he wagged an eyebrow in anticipation. After months of humiliating defeats, he can finally savor that sweet, sweet relief of victory.
The scar-faced hero shook his head, opting to merely slide one of his pieces a couple squares. "Bishop to B4. Checkmate."
Saitama damn near fell out of his chair.
"Wha… how does that make sense?! My king can still move out of the way and then you will still lose either your queen or your rook."
King shook his head, pointing a finger at his queen and then tracing a line straight towards Saitama's king. "You can't move your king down because the queen can capture it. Since you have no way to block both the queen and the bishop, it is a checkmate. Nice try though."
Saitama could only stare at the board in disbelief, doing his best to drown out the laughter coming from the esper across the table.
"My my, Saitama, you were so preoccupied with trying to attack your opponent you forgot to protect what's most important." Fubuki chided, a delicate finger flipping a page of her book. "Chess, like life, is a game. To come up on top, you need to be the one to set the terms, to move your enemies before they move you."
She placed a hand under chin, an aura of confidence practically oozing around her. "Those who understand how to move their adversaries are the ones who can change reality to whatever they desire. It is how I managed to get you, Demon Cyborg, and the strongest man on earth into the Blizzard Group after all."
Saitama groaned, forcing enough willpower to not slam his head through the table. How many times did he have to tell her he wasn't joining a damn group? He's already stuck with one sidekick and that was more than enough for him.
If she was going to keep pretending that he was part of her group despite his constant objections then it just wasn't worth the mental energy to keep correcting her.
Wait a minute, maybe that was her plan all along… Break down his resistance enough to make him give up trying to stop her, thus making him part of her group by proxy. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
Urgh, crazy psychic boss lady.
King offered him a sympathetic smile. "Don't beat yourself up, Saitama. You actually aren't half bad. Honestly, I didn't think you were a chess person."
Saitama sulked. "I'm not. I just thought I could catch you off guard by challenging you in something that's not a video game. You just had to be a Grandmaster at chess too, huh?
The scar-faced hero shrugged. "We can always try Monopoly."
"I'm already broke in real life. You think I want to be broke in a game too?" Saitama deadpanned.
At this, Fubuki crossed her arms, an eyebrow arched in a mix of perplexity and annoyance. "How are you even broke? You are now on an A-Class salary, your roommate is on an S-Class salary, and you don't even pay rent since you are the only one insane enough to squat in a ghost town."
A cloud of despair hovered over the bald hero. "It's… it's complicated, alright?" He sighed before turning and gesturing towards the board. "Hey King, let's flip the board. I want to play as black this time."
As he set the pieces back into the starting position, Saitama couldn't help but feel the ever-familiar lump of frustration swell up inside of him. He just wasn't exactly sure why he was as invested into this petty rivalry with King to begin with. Sure, it was a challenge but it was nowhere near the daily suffering, the unending grind he endured when he was training to become a hero.
Back then he felt miserable every day, but it was the good kind of miserable. The kind which kept him going.
Each milestone he hit gave him that dose of immense satisfaction which kept him pushing through the pain, a reminder to become better each and every day.
It had been only three years since he felt that last bit of satisfaction. It may as well be an eternity.
He figured that if he could just beat King at something it would bring back that fulfillment he had so long ago. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't, but so far the journey to get there just wasn't the same.
Becoming a strong hero was a monumental dream he had and strived for years to achieve. This rivalry was, at best, just a convenient distraction, a means to occupy the time between his daily hero patrols and whenever the next World-Ending Crisis™ occurs.
He could only wish that the next crisis wouldn't be a complete waste of time, but between the disappointment of the alien warlord, the scorpion dude that ruined his nap, and the guy who was playing monster… he wasn't keeping his hopes too high.
God, I feel like a middle-aged man and I'm only twenty-five, damnit! I already lost my hair. Getting wrinkles before thirty would be the fastest one-way ticket to depression possible…
"Sensei! Dinner is ready." A young male's voice announced from the kitchen. Saitama looked up to see his apron-adorned roommate Genos walk out of the kitchen, pink mittens in hand, bringing a large steaming pot towards the table. The teen, as his hero name would suggest, had an entirely cybernetic body packed to the brim with some of the most advanced weaponry known to man. He wore a white sleeveless jacket which showed off his mechanical arms. The only natural looking part of his body was his head which consisted of black and gold eyes underneath a mop of short blonde hair.
Fubuki clasped her hands together in delight as she gazed at the gourmet (and free) dinner. "Oooh, this smells absolutely delectable. Excellent work, Demon Cyborg. Mind sharing what you made this time?"
Genos pulled out a small slip of paper from his pocket. "Tonight Saitama-sensei requested noodles with stir-fry vegetables, extra spicy. The ingredients consist of udon noodles, takoyaki balls, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, green onions, spinach, and snap peas."
While Fubuki helped herself to a rather large serving, much to Saitama's dismay, a low growl rumbled from the bald hero's stomach, reminding him of his own unmet appetite.
He glanced over at King who waved a nonchalant hand. "You can go ahead. I already ate. We can finish this game later. You seem to need the food more than I do."
Saitama let out a sigh, thanking his friend before getting a bowl of his own.
Perhaps filling his stomach would lift his mood up a bit, even if just for the moment.
xXx
Deep underneath the technological haven known as Y-City, only the tapping of a keyboard could be heard within a spacious laboratory chamber. A small boy, no older than ten, sat in front of a wall of monitors working away on a project, but not one of his own volition.
Rather, he was stuck cleaning up yet another mess caused by the esteemed executives of the Hero Association.
There was an R&D department he led which specialized in studying monsters and the monsterization process with the goal of understanding and mitigating such threats. For the past three weeks several specimens have been disappearing from the database with no mention or warning from any of his subordinates. At first it was just a couple of corpses or thrown out limbs; concerning, but negligible compared to the mountain of other tasks he had to deal with.
But of course, ignoring problems does not make them go away, it only makes them grow even stronger than before. In less than a week, several live specimens have vanished with only vague, uncoordinated explanations in response.
It was when a demon-class specimen went missing that he was left no other options but to take matters into his own hands. After several sleepless nights of investigation, he discovered that a couple of executives have been buying off these specimens from his subordinates to resell on the black market either as decorations, pets, or biological weapons.
Now he was stuck scrambling various A-Class heroes to collect these monsters, spread all over the world, before even just one formerly captive caused enough damage to not only implicate the Association, but him as well.
He had no delusions that if the Hero Association could buy even a week of survival, they would throw him under the bus without a moment's hesitation.
Needless to say, Child Emperor hated every second he spent working for this organization.
It was an open secret by this point that the Hero Association was on the brink of collapse. Ever since the Hero Hunter and Monster Association fiasco, public opinion has been in a death spiral, funds from sponsors has been drying up month by month, and it was getting impossible to recruit A-Class, let alone S-Class, worthy fighters into the organization.
The only thing preventing the regional governments from cracking down on the association was the fact that those same politicians had all moved into the A-City stronghold to get away from the monster incursions.
And that was just the external issues. Internally, morale has become so downright toxic that not one, not two, but three S-Class heroes have either quit or retired along with numerous other lower ranked heroes. Even among the heroes that are still in the Association, everyone has isolated themselves either alone or into already established groups.
If it was difficult to get the strongest heroes to work together in the past, it may as well be impossible to do so now.
If anything even remotely on the level of the Monster Association occurred, he had serious doubts if the threat could be contained without the death toll approaching the hundreds of millions.
At this point he had to ask himself why he was still in this organization to begin with. If the Hero Association was going to continue being a clown fiesta he might as well dip before the lion gets out of its cage…
A staccato of beeps rang out from his headset, shaking him out of his thoughts. Child Emperor looked up to see the profile of Dr. Boifoi, the S-Class hero known as Metal Knight, on his screen.
The petty part of him wanted to let the call run out, especially after the less than ideal recent interactions he had with his former mentor. The rational part of him knew that as questionable as the genius inventor may be, Dr. Boifoi never called without a very good reason.
With a groan, he pressed a button to accept the call.
"Yes," Child Emperor answered, blandly.
"...I see that proper respect has forsaken you today." The raspy, detached voice of Dr. Boifoi rang out.
"Oh, forgive me if I am not exactly thrilled to speak with you, especially after you abandoned the operation and left everyone on the brink of death." Child Emperor deadpanned.
"I offered a plan of action. You and the association rejected it. I simply allowed you to proceed with your own course of action."
"Your plan involved blowing up a hostage child, one who is the son of a, if not the, major organizational sponsor. You know that if anything were to happen to him the entire hero industry would've been at jeopardy."
"Such a loss would've been an acceptable casualty. The explosive would've eradicated the vast majority of the Monster Association occupants, leaving only injured dregs to be cleaned up by the surface crew."
Metal Knight continued. "Instead of trading one life to save millions, you opted to throw away a million lives to save one. Your results? A third of Z-City destroyed, half of the S-Class in critical condition, over three million souls lost, and the near eradication of any trust the public had left in the Association. If it weren't for King's intervention, those casualties would've been only a fraction of what should've occurred."
The lollipop in his mouth shattered into pieces as he took a moment to control his rage. It took everything he had to not hang up right then and there.
"Why did you call?" He gritted out.
"I presume you are aware of the theory of tachyonic particles." Metal Knight said, less of a question and more of a statement
Child Emperor took a second to recall the term. "Yes, they are hypothetical particles which always travel at superluminal speeds. It is theorized that they can be made from interactions between imaginary mass and a quantum field, however no evidence exists for such a type of mass."
He paused for a moment before glancing up at the monitor, a tinge of annoyance painted on his face. "If this is about assistance in regards to a research project, I am afraid that I have my hands tied at the moment."
A muted snort rang out from the headset. "Even if I were investigating the topic, I would have no need to rely on the help of an amateur." Metal Knight returned, either not seeing or not caring for the incensed glare from the boy hero. "Regardless, it appears that the theory held far more weight than originally anticipated."
In an instant, a window popped up on Child Emperor's monitor, showcasing an enlarged astronomical map of the entire local cluster of galaxies. Among the countless celestial bodies dotting the screen, there was one object that stood out above the rest. Right within the intergalactic void, a singular red dot moved at a pace far, far faster than what should be remotely possible, and it was on a direct course towards the Milky Way Galaxy.
It didn't take more than a couple of seconds for him to put two and two together.
"A-another battleship?" Child Emperor paled. Just a single attack from one of those ships turned the largest metropolis in the world into a smoldering crater.
"Unlikely." Metal Knight drawled as the screen now locked onto the red dot along with various properties and data being displayed on the side. "Tachyonic sensors from the captured flagship suggest the source to be of a significantly smaller mass, no more than twenty meters in length. Assuming the object continues at the current pace, it should arrive in our solar system in approximately fourteen days."
The boy hero's mind was now sprinting at a thousand miles per hour. Just what the hell could this object contain? A diplomatic corp sent to make amends? A squad of elite warriors sent to conquer the planet? Perhaps the object wasn't even a ship at all, but rather a super-relativistic kill missile on course to eradicate the planet from existence. With each second the possible scenarios only grew more and more apocalyptic.
"...What shall we make of this?" Child Emperor asked.
The silence that echoed throughout the chamber seemed to last for a century.
"That is for you to determine." Metal Knight finally answered in his ever-so-present dispassionate tone. "I have given you the information I have. Prepare accordingly."
Before Child Emperor could even form a reply the call disconnected, leaving him with only the company of himself and a healthy dose of existential dread.
xXx
Deep within the void, a perfectly spherical ship shrouded in energy sped towards its destination, warping the very space around it.
Within one of the many modules within the capsule, a lone figure sat in the dark surrounded by a multitude of monitors, though he paid little attention to any of them except for the one he was watching a show on. Everything was already automated by the ship's artificial intelligence. He was just there in case it missed anything which happens approximately never.
As mind-numbingly boring as trips like these were, he couldn't really be too upset. He could care less why Boss wanted to send a kill squad halfway across the universe to some backwater planet. He was getting paid to do nothing except sit back, relax, and wait until he could bust some skulls in. Seemed like a pretty good deal to him!
Placing his feet on the panel in front of him, he laid back on his chair and lit a cigarette. Nothing to do now except watch just some of the highest quality Shonen in the universe.
Before he could get a single good smoke in, the door to the control module slammed wide open, causing all of the lights in the room to turn on and flood every inch in a fluorescent flashbang.
"Arrgh, I can't fucking take it anymore!" A voice roared from the doorway. "Oi Pepp, how long do we have left until we get to the damn place?"
The figure now identified as Pepp twitched an eye in irritation. He turned towards the door towards the man he was unfortunate enough to be stuck on a crew with.
Said crewmate had a rather short figure, his disheveled jet black hair, massive brow and unkempt beard gave him the appearance of a neanderthal, albeit a particularly ripped one as evident by his bulky, muscular frame. He wore a black leather jacket, fully unzipped to showcase his hairy, chiseled chest along with ripped dark pants and combat boots.
As if they were two sides of a coin, Pepp had almost the exact opposite build to his crewmate. He was a taller, leaner man sporting an oversized spiky black mohawk on top of his head. He wore opaque razor shades that matched well with his black motorcycle jacket, giving him the appearance of a retro-era punk biker.
"Oi Arlic, can you look at a damn computer for once or do you just lack enough brain cells to do that?" Pepp responded with barely hidden aggravation, pressing a button on his console to pause the show he was watching. "We are only a couple million light years away. We will get there in about fourteen days. Would it kill you to just shut up until then?"
"The hell? Why are we going so damn slow!?" Arlic roared, his voice somehow becoming louder causing the room to reverberate in response, much to the ship engineer's dismay. "We should be there in a week, not a half a damn month!"
"Because this region of the universe is uncharted, dumbass." Pepp retorted, taking a much needed puff from his smoke. It was the only thing preventing him from punting the midget straight out of the airlock. "But if you want to warp straight into a black hole then by all means, just get into an escape pod and I will be more than glad to send you at full speed."
At this, Arlic let out a low growl as he walked across the room right in front of Pepp's face, a blue aura of energy forming around him. "Tch, it's quite easy to be confident when we are still stuck in this damn ship. Would be a shame if the moment you step foot on the planet your skull gets cracked wide open."
"Oh nooo. I am being threatened by an inbred garden gnome. I am shitting my pants over here." Pepp rolled his eyes as he stood up from his chair. While his face maintained a bored visage, an aura of energy of his own enveloped around him.
As Pepp and Arlic stood face to face, the force of their energies clashed and intensified with each passing second. The ship trembled violently as electricity ruptured from the monitors, spreading across the walls and intertwining with the auras of the two warriors.
Right before tensions could escalate any further, the two men froze as a horrifying amount of killing intent blasted all around the room.
"Both of you. Shut up."
In an instant both of their energies dissipated into nothing, a sliver of fear spreading across their face as they turned towards the less than pleased captain staring at them from the doorway.
The imposing figure looked like he was ripped straight from a Hell's Angels poster, complete with short graying black hair and goatee, black sleeveless leather vest, absolutely ripped arms covered in tattoos, and opaque shades hiding his silent enraged glare. "We will continue at this pace, no quicker, no slower. If I hear so much as a whisper from you two until we reach our destination, I will separate your heads from your bodies. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Korne-taichou." The two men conceded through gritted teeth.
After watching to make sure Arlic left the control room, Korne returned to his domicile where he attempted to get back into his meditative state. He could've sworn that he was assigned to lead two capable Saiyan warriors, not to babysit two toddlers. He was getting too old for this shit.
He could only hope that the warrior he was supposed to come across would be worth this unending headache.
Author's Note: Whew, another chapter done.
First, I would like to apologize for the long wait. No excuses here. Just need to keep motivation up and find ways to solve problems. On a side note, after my 'g' and 'h' keys broke I am now fully aware just how so many words have the letter 'h' in them. I never thought I could vehemently despise a single letter, but hey, you learn something new every day.
Second, I am honestly floored by the amount of reception the first chapter got. Every follow, fav, and review means a lot to me and I look forward to seeing how you guys enjoy this story as it develops a bit more.
Anyways, I think that is it for now. See ya in the next one.
