The Zenko of the DC
Chapter 4: There's No 'I' in Team
"It's them!" said J'onn as he took a step back with Naruto, Superman and Batman taking a vigil stance as the white aliens charged forward and began firing their blasters at them. Naruto and the others quickly took cover behind a toppled army jeep but Superman got hit and was sent crashing into a tank. Batman took out a batarang which he threw into the air to unleash a bright flash of light then a smoke screen for some cover.
"I got this!" Naruto flipped over the jeep whilst swiftly weaving through a set of handseals before calling out "Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!" he channeled wind chakra to his throat then brought a hand to his mouth and blew a large blast of wind to send the white aliens along with any objects within range flying backwards. Some of the white aliens were quick to recover and began shooting at him, Naruto jumped and flipped to avoid the lasers then responded by throwing a single wind enhanced shuriken and formed some more handsigns "Shuriken Shadow Clone jutsu!" then the shuriken multiplied into a thousand copies of the original and sliced through the aliens into puddles only for to reform themselves
"Zenko get clear!" Naruto turned to see Superman holding up a tank, and Batman helping an injured J'onn to his Batwing to make their escape. Naruto threw a Hirashin kunai to strike close to the Man of Steel and warped towards before giving him the go ahead to throw the tank at the aliens which caused a large explosion and enough time to take to the skies for an escape.
"That was close," said Batman.
J'onn however shook his head "We're not safe yet, look," he gestured to the window for the group to see what appears to be a fleet of the alien fighters which opened fire upon them, especially the Batwing.
"They obviously want the green alien dead," said Kurama.
"Well that's not gonna happen," Naruto responded, he shot out a chakra chain to pierce through a wing of an alien fighter and rappelled himself up to it from Sigmis' back whilst forming a blue spinning sphere in hand "Rasengan!" he rammed the technique into the aircraft and blast a hole right before quickly jumping off to land on another with the first crashing into a mountain and exploding. Meanwhile Superman came diving in from above and smashed right through one of the fighters before turning around to use his heat vision to slice through another, however an alien fighter came from behind and shot him down to crash into the side of a cliff.
Meanwhile Naruto from one alien fighter to another and dodging laser fire, he landed on top and waited for one of the enemy aircraft to fly towards him and shoot a red laser beam. Naruto quickly switched places with a wooden log as the beam slammed into its fellow craft and exploded then reappeared in the air for Sigmis to swoop in and carry him away. Suddenly a laser shot flew by his head, making him look back to see an alien fighter currently in pursuit and firing at them.
"Sigmis, we got a bogey on our tails and we gotta loose em!" said Naruto alert, Sigmis screeched in response and picked up speed as they flew in between mountains with the enemy not too far from them. Naruto reached into his pouch and took out a pair of smoke grenades while timing his moment to strike "Not yet…not yet…now!" he threw the grenades at the cliff walls to throw up a smoke screen right as Sigmis pulled a sharp ascent to the sky for the fighter to fly through the smoke and right into a cliff wall and destroyed itself. Up above Sigmis targeted a fighter of its own and began flapping its wings rapidly to launch a volley of flaming feathers to shoot it down to the ground "Good one Sigmis, never saw that one before,"
He heard a loud bang and turned to see that one of the alien fighters were able to land a shot on Batman's plane to take off one of its wings, sending it careening to the valley below "Dammit, we gotta go help them!" Naruto and Sigmis were about to dive in when a beam of green energy enveloped the aircraft and held it in midair, they traced it to a dark skinned man with a crew cut and glowing green eyes as he wears a black and green bodysuit with the symbol of a green lantern on his chest, and he was wearing a green ring which is the source of the beam. "Hey that's Green Lantern, well a member of one," Naruto had been hearing of the Lantern Corps during his time in the cities.
"And he's not the only one," said Kurama, a pair of alien fighters were flying towards Green Lantern when someone intercepted and smashed them to the ground. This one is a woman with red hair and was wearing a mask designed to resemble a hawk to cover her upper face and leaving her mouth exposed not to mention that she possesses wings on her back, she wears an outfit with the upper part being yellow, a black belt with a silver buckle, red briefs, green skin tight pants, and red-and-yellow boots as she wields a spiked mace crackling with white energy which she had used earlier on the enemy aircrafts. Naruto recognized her to be Hawkgirl whom he learnt of from the media.
"Wow she's pretty strong, kinda scares me to think if Tsunade and Sakura were to use those kinds of weapons," said Naruto, he snapped to attention upon seeing the winged woman get knocked down to a ledge from an explosion courtesy of the alien fighter and was about to move in to help when again someone landed before her in defense and this one caught his attention the most. She is a beautiful woman with long black hair, she wears a strapless red bustier held up by a brace of gold resembling an eagle and blue briefs with white stars with a golden lasso attached to a golden belt, silver bracers and earrings, a golden tiara with a red star on her forehead, and red boots with white stripes. Naruto was in awe as she used the bracers to deflect the incoming shots from the alien fighter before sending them back at it. Naruto saw that the aircraft was about to crash into them and quickly reacted "Wind Style: Wind Gale!" he thrust his palm to produce a strong gust of wind to blow the ship away from the two woman. They both turned towards Naruto who sheepishly waved before getting Sigmis to fly towards where Batman's jet is with the others gathering there as well.
At that moment, The Flash showed up holding the blown off wing of the Batwing with a smirk on his face "Hey Bats, I think you dropped this," he turned round and was awed by the ravenette's beauty then shoved the wing into the Dark Knight's hands much to his annoyance "Whoa, where have you been all my life?"
"Themyscira," she replied bluntly, not getting the meaning behind his words.
"Huh?"
Then Hawkgirl spoke up "The home of the Amazons, I always thought it was a legend,"
"I assure you, it is as real as the ground we stand. I am Diana, princess of the Amazons," said the now identified Diana.
"Pinch me, I must be dreaming…OW!" said Flash only to be elbowed lightly by Superman.
"Themyscira is protected by the gods, but I could not stand idly by while the rest of the world is in danger," Diana continued to explain.
Naruto smiled and actually bowed much to Kurama's shock as the blonde is NEVER one to be formal "Well it's a pleasure to meet you Diana-hime,"
"The pleasure is mine as well, although I am surprised to see a phoenix accompanying you as they're known to symbolize purity, creativity and protection among others," said Diana, finding it curious for a mythological bird to be attached to a male in Man's World.
"Sigmis grew attached to me when he was a chick after I saved him from a crazy bird, been with me ever since and is a great partner to me," Naruto replied with a smile despite it being hidden behind the mask.
"Well I'm just glad that you all showed up when you did," said Superman thankfully.
J'onn spoke "No…not luck, I telepathically summoned them,"
"Look, I'm usually pretty quick on the uptake but would someone please tell me what the heck is going on here?" said Flash confusedly, getting everyone to look at the green Martian.
"Which also includes those visions which you had been sending to Superman and I," Naruto added.
A couple minutes after Superman helped weld the damaged wing back to the Batwing with his heat vision, J'onn was finally ready to tell them his story.
"We first encountered them a thousand of your earth years ago. It was a golden age, our Martian civilization was at the height of its peace and prosperity. And then…they arrived, where they came from, no one knew but they were determined to make our planet their own. We Martians were peaceful people and the taking of any life was abhorrent to us, we quickly learned the ways of war. For centuries, the battle raged on, every trait of our once glorious civilization was obliterated. We fought valiantly but the invaders were parasites who fed on our psychic energy, as we grew weaker they grew stronger and even absorbed our shapechanging abilities. Finally, a small group of Martian survivors planned one final desperate attack. Inside their underground stronghold, we unleashed a powerful nerve gas which paralyzed them. The attack was successful…but the cost was dear, I was the only survivor…the last of my kind. I sealed up their citadel to keep them in a constant state of suspended animation. For over five hundred years, I stood over them but then while I was in my hibernation cycle, astronauts from earth unsealed the stronghold and accidentally revived the invaders,"
Flash spoke up at that "Wait, those astronauts never said anything about finding life on Mars,"
"Hmph, some pen-pusher in Washington probably decided that it should be classified information," said Green Lantern with Flash nodding in agreement.
"I don't think that's the case," said Naruto after having a mental conversation with Kurama and came upon a disturbing conclusion.
"What do you mean?" asked Batman curiously.
"Remember what J'onn said earlier before, that the white aliens had absorbed his people's ability to shapeshift so it's highly likely that the astronauts were captured and replaced with one of them being Senator Kelly who pushed for the movement of the disarmament of the nuclear weapons and having Superman be their protector. And even before that, Batman spoke of numerous breaches in the global monitoring network which could mean one thing…" said Naruto.
Superman began to pale at the implication and Batman confirmed it "A small group of the alien invaders were sent to Earth to make it as defenseless as possible for the main forces to arrive with little to no resistance,"
"One of the basic strategies of war, disable an enemy's major source of fighting power for a dominant advantage in battle," said Diana with Naruto nodding in agreement.
The blonde Shinobi saw that Superman was slowly falling into despair for what he had unintentionally done and quickly spoke to him "Don't lose heart Superman, right now Earth needs us to save it and we'll make sure that these aliens especially the fake senator will pay for what they've done," the Man of Steel slowly nodded in agreement, now's not the time to regret but the time to protect like he had promised.
"We've got to stop them before it's too late," said Green Lantern with anger.
"It may already be too late," J'onn looked over the edge of the cliff with the rest following suit to see a massive cloud of smoke rising from the horizon to the sky.
"What are they doing?" asked Hawkgirl.
"The invaders are nocturnal, they want to blot out the sun so they could live in perpetual darkness,"
"Friends of yours?" Flash asked divertingly at Batman and Naruto given that both tend to operate well in the shadow.
"This is no joke," Batman replied while Naruto simply chuckled.
"So what's the big problem? You could just whip up some more of that nerve gas, it would be smooth sailing from here," said Flash.
"Unfortunately it's impossible now, the gas requires a rare Martian plant in order to be made. I brought along a sample when I came here, but it was destroyed when I got captured," said J'onn.
"Probably by the invaders who were disguised at that time to be rid of any countermeasures against them," said Batman.
"…Anyone got a plan B?" asked Flash.
"We'll have to take out those factories," said Diana, the others saw it to be a sound plan.
"Lady, this is no job for amateurs," Green Lantern spoke sternly.
Diana turned towards him in anger "We Amazons are warriors born! Want to test me?" Green Lantern was just about to respond when there was a blur of movement and Naruto appeared in between them.
"Now's not the time for us to be arguing like this," then he turned to glare at Green Lantern "And especially not the time to be picky about whether or not one is qualified to participate, J'onn called us here believing that we're the Earth's best chance of salvation. Merely looking at her, I can tell that Diana-hime has been trained from youth for situations like this just like I did, so we're as 'qualified' as you can get, so don't go judging someone you've just met without knowing them completely," Diana was quite surprised for she had never expected the masked male to come to her defense since she had always been told that men are selfish, arrogant and narcissistic and was prepared for such, but this is definitely a first for her. Green Lantern was a bit put off by what the ninja said but only frown before walking past them, that's when Diana spoke to the masked man.
"Thank you," said Diana.
"You're welcome Diana-hime, I just hate it when someone looks down on others. Really riles me up," said Naruto before walking up to the rest with her following him.
"Tactically we have multiple objectives so we'll need to split into teams," said Green Lantern.
"According to the news, there's one in Indonesia, Egypt and Metropolis," said Batman, putting away a handheld device back into his utility belt.
Flash zipped over to lean an arm on Diana's shoulder with a smirk "Dibs on the Amazon,"
Diana was momentarily surprised by his actions but spoke up nonetheless "Actually, I would like him to be my partner," she pointed at Naruto who was surprised but inwardly felt happy.
"I'm okay with it," he replied.
"You're beginning to like her huh kit?" asked Kurama with a smirk, Naruto had always set his heart on Sakura but with what happened in the Land of Iron, the blonde decided to move on. Thinking back on it now, Kurama was outraged at how she manipulated his feelings for her just because of a guilty conscience on the promise made to bring the Uchiha back to her.
"I don't know, I can't be too sure myself," thought Naruto, personally he knows that he doesn't really know what love truly is, given his past but is willing to learn more about it.
"Least you would have better chances than with that Haruno," he muttered with distaste at the memory of her.
"Hawkgirl and I will handle the factory in metropolis," said Superman.
"I'll go with Zenko and Diana to Egypt, we should be able to discover more weaknesses than what we know now," said Batman.
"I as well, I possess ample knowledge of the invaders which should be useful in our endeavors," said J'onn.
"Hold on, that would make yours the largest group," Green Lantern pointed out.
Naruto shrugged his shoulders "Which means we could destroy the factory sooner before coming over to provide backup to either teams,"
Green Lantern could only frown in response "In that case, I'll be taking Flash with me to handle the factory in Indonesia," he grabbed said hero and dragged him away despite protest. Minutes later, the assigned teams took off towards their marked destinations.
Sometime later, Flash and Green Lantern had arrived at the forest of Indonesia and were standing of the edge of a cliff to scope around the area of which the alien factory was currently situated with several alien walkers patrolling the parameter.
"That's our target, now listen up…here's the plan-" Green Lantern began to talk but Flash cut him off.
"What plan? We kick their butts right? Let's get this over with!" Flash dashed down the cliff before Green Lantern could respond and went up to the walkers before whistling to catch their attention "Hey! Over here!" one of the walkers turned around to fire a laser blast only for the speedster to dart to the side to dodge it "Ha! Missed me!" then he took off at high-speed, running in between their legs and avoiding getting shot at. However he stepped on a hidden alien landmine which launched him into the air then falling into a green sticky gunk. Flash tried to get himself free but to no avail as one of the walkers approached to end his life.
"Fool…" Green Lantern let out a groan of frustration then quickly flew over to help the impatient speedster "Hang tight, hotshot," he fired a beam from his ring to blast off one of the walker's legs, causing it to lose balance and crash to the ground.
"Heh…I'm sort of stuck here," Flash could only smile sheepishly.
"I hope the others are having better luck than we are," said Green Lantern as he flew over to help him out of the gunk.
Over at Egypt, Naruto and the others were currently hiding within some ruins close to the alien factory while waiting for J'onn who had to gone to survey the area for access into the factory along with some of his shadow clones to return with news.
"Hiding like cowards is not the Amazon way," said Diana with a frown.
"I understand but we can't go charging in straight for it will alert the enemy Diana-hime, the element of surprise is the key here like my sensei taught me," said Naruto, checking his inventory before turning his attention to her.
"I've been meaning to ask, but why do you add 'hime' to my name?" asked Diana curiously.
"From where I came from, it is an expression of respect or endearment, like sama meaning master, chan meaning cute, or hime meaning princess. So I was attaching the appropriate title to your name," Naruto explained with Diana nodding in understanding and was quite intrigued.
"But what do they called you? I didn't hear them call your name out once,"
"You can call me Zenko which means good fox, legends say that such foxes serve as guardian spirits and possess the power to ward off evil. That's the reason I took on the name," Naruto explained.
"And let's not forget that you represent me," Kurama piped up before getting shushed by his partner.
"I've never heard of such legends," said Diana, her natural curiosity slowly getting the best of her.
That was when J'onn rose from the ground before them and becoming tangible "I have scouted the outer walls, there are no openings,"
"Same thing from my clones," Naruto added having gone through the memories of said clones when they dispelled.
"Then we make our own!" Diana took off ahead of the others, J'onn and Naruto were about to go after her when Batman stopped them much to their confusion.
"Wait, let's see what she can do," said Batman.
They watched as Diana took out a golden lasso then quickly descended to avoid a laser blast from the alien walker, she twirled it in midair before throwing it to rope one of the legs. Diana flew around the legs a few times then pulled hard to draw them together as it lost its balance and smashed into the wall of the factory, leaving a gaping hole.
"There's your opening!" said Diana before flying inside.
"Whoa, she's got strength equal to Tsunade-baachan!" thought Naruto in surprise.
"Not bad," said Batman, then they followed after the princess and found her deflecting laser fire from the aliens with her silver bracers before running deeper into the factory. Such action was rather displeasing to her.
"They run like cowards, what are you waiting for?!" Diana flew in pursuit with J'onn close behind.
"Batman, did you notice it too?" Naruto asked, getting a nod from the Dark Knight. Both noticed how the invaders avoided the sunrays like their very lives depended on it before following after them.
Back at Metropolis, Superman and Hawkgirl were able to level down several alien walkers with the latter making sure that they stay down with her mace. Superman chopped off the pointed tip of an alien walker's leg then used it as a makeshift spear to smash open a hole into the wall of the targeted factory.
"Hawkgirl, follow me!" He flew through the hole with her right behind him and both cautiously walked through the distorted passageways "Keep a sharp eye out,"
"I always do," Hawkgirl with her mace constantly at the ready, they barely took about ten steps while a barrage of laser fire were shot from above by the white aliens.
"Stay back, I'll-" Superman was about to say more but Hawkgirl ignored him and charged straight at the invaders then began swinging away that he had to duck for one to fly overhead and splatter into the wall behind him "Whoa," he turned back to see the rest down and out on the ground around her.
"What? There's a time for words and a time for action," Hawkgirl walked past an awkward Superman and deeper into the factory with him eventually following her.
Back in Indonesia, Green Lantern was using his ring to free Flash from the gunk and so far has gotten most of it off but wasn't in a happy mood.
"Of all the idiotic, boneheaded, glory grabbing moves…haven't you ever heard of teamwork?!" said Green Lantern angrily, then a laser blast struck the ground near them.
"Uh maybe we should save the motivational speeches till later?" Flash finally got back before dashing out to engage the enemy once again.
Green Lantern projected an energy shield from his ring to defend against the salvo of laser blasts from the alien walkers and was just about to launch a counterattack when one of them fired a small pod which released a yellow gas upon impact which was rather disadvantageous to Green Lantern for the power rings belonging to his Corps have little to no effect on anything that possesses the color yellow in relation to their opposition the Sinestro Corps. Green Lantern unintentionally breathed in the gas and collapsed to the ground unconscious.
Flash was quickly at his ally's side and waved his arms rapidly to generate winds powerful enough to blow the gas away from him "GL!" he looked up and saw the alien walkers heading straight for them "Uh-oh! Gotta run!" he scooped him and quickly hightailed it out of there, forced to abort the mission assigned to them.
Superman and Hawkgirl flew deeper into the factory with the latter tightening her grip on the mace the speaking seriously.
"They're close by, I can almost smell them,"
"Are you always so eager to fight?" asked Superman, he always preferred to settle issues peacefully and would only fight when given no other choice or when people are in danger or in rare occasions …angered.
"My home Thanagar is a warlike world, there one must strike first…or die,"
Right then a laser shot flew in between the duo, they turned to see the alien invaders running away and gave chase. But then the passage sealed itself between them and the invaders with the same going for the other side…trapping them inside. The situation got worse when yellow gas started flowing into the sealed passageway, Hawkgirl began coughing and fell to her knees.
"Hang on Hawkgirl!" Superman turned towards the wall and prepared to tear it open for them to escape "I'll-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" no sooner he touched it, did it a powerful electric current course through his body and rendering him unconscious with Hawkgirl soon following after from the gas.
Back in Egypt, the group were currently engaging the alien invaders as they traversed the alien factory. Naruto was at the head of the group as he darted around to evade the laser fire from the aliens then taking them down by using chakra coated kunai to cut them down or utilizing them along with shuriken and explosive tags for powerful long range attacks, then he dashed towards them alien forces whilst summoning long chakra chains from his hands but embedded them with wind chakra, giving him a sharp cutting edge as he whipped them round for some serious crowd control and Sigmis flew around and was breathing streams of flames from its beaks to burn the enemies attacking him..
Another part of the factory's wall opened up to reveal a group of aliens which came running and began firing at the blonde ninja, however Diana flew in between them and was deflecting the incoming shots away from her ally, Batman provided support by hurling explosive batarangs to take most of them out. J'onn appeared from behind the remainder with his ghostlike powers to ambush them. Before they could even relax, another passage opened for another squad of invaders to come running in and shooting at them.
"They blocked us off again!" said Diana.
"It's almost as if they know what we're thinking," said Batman, throwing an explosive batarang to force the aliens to scatter.
"He's not wrong about that, I can somehow sense that this factory is alive in a way and they're using it to their advantage," said Kurama.
"This complicates things," thought Naruto.
"Any ideas J'onn?" the trio turned towards the green Martian only to see him standing still with his eyes glowing "J'onn?!"
The glowing faded away before J'onn replied "Superman and Hawkgirl are down, they have failed,"
"What? Are you sure?" asked Diana worriedly only to receive a solemn nod from him.
"Then we have to hurry up and destroy this factory so we can go and rescue them!" said Naruto, getting agreements from the others.
"This way, hurry!" J'onn flew through a passageway with Batman and the others following close behind, they hurried through winding tunnels as the openings were sealing themselves to obstruct their path, confirming what Kurama said earlier about this place. Diana and J'onn flew up to an opening above them while Naruto and Batman made use of the chakra chain and grapple gun respectively to reach up to it where Diana was waiting for them to cover their retreat.
"We lost them," said Diana.
"For the moment, they'll eventually find us in here," Batman put on a pair of brass knuckles charged with high volts of electricity.
J'onn spoke up "Look," the group turned to see that they're in a large room which has several aliens moving about and operating on multiple control panels, and at the center is some sort of chamber which has a red crystal floating inside it "It's the central core,"
"How can we shut it down?" asked Batman.
J'onn pointed at the red crystal in the chamber "the ion matrix crystal, if we can remove that, we'll shut down the whole plant. I'll need a diversion,"
"One diversion coming right up, Hidden Mist jutsu!" Naruto lifted one arm up with a half ram handsign and the other with same handsign at his chest and a thick mist covered the area. Batman seized the opportunity to fling a batarang to slice through a pipe which spilled out black liquid on a pair of aliens below. Diana herself pulled out a pipe to release a thick smoke in addition to the mist. That was more than enough for J'onn as he turned ghostlike and phased into the ground and head towards the crystal whilst Naruto, Batman and Diana kept the aliens busy.
J'onn reappeared near the chamber and quickly grabbed a distracted alien and tossed him over the edge to the ground below, then he went to grab the red crystal and take it out of the chamber. Suddenly the entire factory began to quake with parts of it exploding, however J'onn was unaware for a white alien appearing from a ledge above and shot him with its blaster, he let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground along with the crystal.
"J'onn!" Diana quickly knocked away the surrounding and quickly flew over to him.
"Get him out of here!" Batman called out as he punched an alien with his electrified brass knuckles.
"We'll cover your escape," Naruto flung a handful of kunai wrapped in tags which released high amounts of voltage upon contact with some of the aliens.
Diana nodded in affirmation and quickly flew away from the fight, however one of the aliens pushed a button on the nearby control as the passage ahead began to seal itself up. Batman used his grapple gun to catch up with them whilst grabbing the crystal along the way with Naruto tossing explosive tags behind him and triggering them to delay the pursuit. But Diana and J'onn barely got through with Naruto and Batman being trapped on the other side.
Batman repeatedly punched at the wall in hopes of breaking it down and Naruto began preparing a Rasengan to blast it away, the duo turned to see the white aliens slowly close in on them with blasters at the ready and Sigmis screeching at them not to get any closer to Naruto and Batman. The purple dragon tattoo on Naruto's shoulder blades glowed faintly as he thought of a plan out of this tight situation, knowing full well that the aliens have no intentions of taking prisoners.
"Zenko! Batman!" Diana realized that they didn't make to the other side and was rushing back to save them, but as she got close, there was the sound of laser fire with the wall bulging several times…and then there was silence "Nooooooo!" her eyes widened in disbelief at what had just happened and still wanted to go and help had it not been for J'onn stopping her from going any further.
"Wait! There's nothing we can do more for them!" said J'onn.
"You mean they're…" Diana couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.
"…gone," J'onn finished for her with sadness.
Diana could only look back at the sealed tunnel with sorrow, especially for the masked warrior who was friendly and cooperative unlike the stories of men which her mother would tell her of "Hera…help us,"
This is Hussbek online with the latest chapter, Naruto and the rest find themselves engaged in combat against the alien invaders to the point of taking it to the skies and were being hard-pressed when help came in the forms of The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and a newly introduced Wonder Woman from the Island of Amazons. After the battle, J'onn proceeded to explain his history with the alien invaders to the gathered heroes before they split up to oppose the enemies. Flash and Green Lantern were forced to abort the mission and retreat, Superman and Hawkgirl ended up getting captured, and now J'onn and Diana were the only survivors with Naruto and Batman being taken down. Does Earth's chances of survival grow bleak with each failure? Stay tuned to find out.
This is Hussbek from Ghana.
Signing out.
