章 4: 2/2
Feeling much more confident now in the knowledge he was fighting mercenaries and not shinobi, Kiba dodged the pipe easily and trapped the man's knife hand as it whistled at him. A little twist, and the knife clattered to the ground. In one fluid motion, Kiba let go of the man's hand, dodged another attack from the pipe by ducking, rolled under the man's feet, and let two kunai fly at him and his partner.
He watched amazed, as they tumbled to the ground. Blood seeped out from the body in slowly-growing pools. That was WAY too easy. Thought Kiba.
"Omoshiroi.{Interesting}"
Kiba swung around at the new voice. "Nani? Nan des ka? {What? What was that?}"
"Omoshiroi," repeated the voice as its owner strode into the light, clad in a blue trenchcoat with blue pants, blue hat, and an orange shirt. Kiba choked back an exclamation as he saw something else: the man had no face. There were no eyes, no nose, not even a mouth for him to use as he said: "Namae wa, nan des ka? {What's your name?}"
Kiba blinked at the odd question but saw no need to withhold it. "Inuzuka Kiba." He replied.
"Kiba." The other mused in English. "Of course, Fang, referring most likely to the fabled Dragon Fang project. Why would the Illuminati send one here, though? Unless…" He glanced upwards at the building. "Of course. To infiltrate deserted Montgomery Ward warehouse. Front for the Starbucks franchise, most likely being used to assist in alien-mystic rituals." He nodded. "Obvious, in retrospect."
Kiba frowned. He couldn't understand the man anymore. "Nani o hanashiteiru?"
The man seemed to focus on him again. "I will need more information." He muttered to himself. "Ore to tsurete kuru. {Come with me.}"
"Nani?" Kiba jumped back. "Ie. Ie." He responded, shaking his head just in case the man didn't get the point.
The man shrugged his shoulders. "Very well then." He said, switching back to English. "The hard way."
He rushed forward. Kiba, feeling unusually confident by now, prepared to meet him.
Unfortunately, this man was nothing like the other thugs. He glided under Kiba's jab, blocked his kick, and send one hand sweeping down to touch a pressure point on his neck. Kiba's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he collapsed to the pavement.
The faceless man bent over him and picked him up. "Must remember to investigate warehouse at later date." He noted. "For now…," he glanced at the unconscious chunin, "interrogate suspect."
The appropriate chord of dread seemed to have been struck. All four of the odd children stared at him in frozen astonishment. Taking advantage of their surprise, Batman gave a quick perusal of the newcomers.
Teenagers, close in years. One girl, three boys. Abnormalities: White eyes on boy, pink hair on girl, eyebrows on boy. Possible meta applications—manipulative hair, laser/x-ray/telescopic vision. Eyebrows inconclusive, perhaps a indicates an excess of hormones. Steroid user? Armor on third boy that of 17th century Japanese Samaurai. Kanji on armor for "food." Significance? Name. Designation. Possible clue as to power. Different meaning in other dimension?
While all this was flashing through Batman's head, he also noted that all four looked wounded and worn out, and the one in green spandex looked curiously winded. That, plus the surprisingly loose armor on the other boy, implied they had just spent a great deal of energy, most likely in the teleportation to this dimension.
Of course, that didn't make them innocent, or even harmless. The first time these dimensional ruptures had hit, part of the Metro Tower had been blown up. The others had been equally catastrophic. Batman didn't intend to risk finding out how bad this one could get.
The teenagers recovered with commendable speed. "Batman?" snorted the girl, whom Batman had already marked as the leader. "Nanda, ano bakana namae? {What kind of stupid name is that?}"
Batman ignored the sentiment. "Omaera, ippun inai namae to Gotham no youji wo ie. {You have one minute to start telling me your name and business here in Gotham.}"
The attitude of the teenagers changed subtly. A shift in posture, a slight adjustment in their grouping. But to a practiced crimefighter, the signs were clear. Their new postures were more balanced, and their new grouping more defensive. Without even a word, the teenagers had switched into battle mode, and formed a squad.
This was bad. They were clearly soldiers, and highly trained ones. Let loose in Gotham, there was no telling what they might do.
""Matsu {I'm waiting,}" indicated Batman.
"Naze shitteiranakya? {And why do you need to know?} Omae wa nan no tsumori? {What do you intend to do, exactly?}" That was the white-eyed boy.
Batman stared straight back at the boy. "Sore wa omaera ikanda. {That depends on you.} Demo, otonashiku tsurete kuru no hou ga ii. {But if you're wise, you'll come with me quietly.} Ore wa shitsumon ga aru. {I have some questions you need to answer.}"
The white-eyed boy glanced at the girl. She gave a short nod. "Hayaku oitsuke. {Catch up soon.}"
"Hai." The white-eyed boy launched himself forward.
"Get him, get him!" shouted the commander over the roar of laser cannons. "Not there you idiots! Back there—no over—wait now he's—just shoot him already! Reinforcements!" He shouted into his headset. "We need reinforcements!"
"Captain, what is going on down there?" A cold voice rang from his speaker.
The captain turned a few shades paler. "We… we have a situation, sir."
"So I hear." The impatience bled from the speaker. "What kind of situation is it?"
"Sir, we have an unprecedented breach in Sector 14!" The Captain reported. "Four intruders, three of which are down already." The captain decided not to mention that apparently they had been down since 'penetrating' the building. "We're experiencing some difficulties with the last one, though, sir!"
"In what way?"
"Well, it…. It…" the captain fumbled for a moment for words. "It's like a demon, sir! It's got some kind of energy shield that makes bullets bounce off, and it moves too fast for us to hit it with anything bigger!"
"Get the heavy artillery in place and then deploy the counter measures we developed against the Flash." The voice directed. "Once it freezes him, take him down, but do not terminate. Is that understood?"
"Yes sir!" The captain snapped his speaker off. "You there! Jonesy! Get that sonic disruptor to the back of the hallway! Smith! Run over to 317 and get the Peashooter out! The rest of you, keep on him! Don't let him stop!"
There was a small explosion and some guards went flying overhead.
"Get in there you louts! What are you waiting for? Any others with sonic disruptors? Bring them to the rear of the column!" The explosions were getting closer. "C'mon, keep it moving, what do you think the boss is paying you for?"
"Captain!" A soldier tugged at his elbow. "Captain, Smith is back with the Peashooter!" He gestured to miniaturized tank-like vehicle speeding down the hallway. An enormous gun sat atop it, connected by a pipe to a vat of some strange liquid.
"About time!" The captain wheeled around. "Smith! Get that over here! You other men, fall back! Fall back!" He turned to Smith. "Soon as you get a clear shot, fire." He muttered. "Once he does, you others, zero in on it and hit it with the sonic disruptors."
"Sir." The others nodded.
Men came flying back, shooting as they ran. The clearing hallway gave the captain a full glimpse of his enemy. Crouched on all fours, the teenager had curiously red eyes and fangs. Energy bubbled off him in a shroud-like covering. Two tails of pure glowing power sprouted from his back. Exultant in the clearing hallway, it roared aloud to celebrate its triumph over the fleeing soldiers.
"Take it." The captain whispered.
The Peashooter fired three times in rapid succession. Every time it fired, twelve great blobs of massy goo shot from the cannon and smacked into the strange red creature. They stuck to him, weighing him down. The creature roared in fury and thrashed about, yet already the strange red energy was dissolving the blobs imprisoning it.
"Shoot you morons! Shoot!" The captain shouted at the others.
"But sir, Johnson and Larry are still in the way of…"
"SHOOT!"
Four Sonic disruptors fired into action, sending a wall of pure sound at the rampaging creature. It thrashed even more furiously, clutched its head in its hands, roared aloud. The gooey balls were almost gone now.
The captain's Intensive Laser Rifle shot out. With breathtaking accuracy he fired, sending the beam straight through the creature's chest.
Doubling over, the creature gave one last roar and then lay still. The energy around him faded.
"Check Johnson and Larry." The captain ordered. "B-team, with me! Secure the prisoners!"
The guards tentatively approached the blonde laying on the floor. At an irritable wave from the captain, others jogged down the hall to find the other three "intruders" the initial guards had reported.
"Jeez, cap'n, you shot him in the chest!" one of the guards marveled. "Didn't the boss say he wanted him unharmed?"
"He said alive. A wound like that'll heal, with proper medical attention. And it should keep him down for a while. Clap a gas mask on him and give him enough sedative to stay out of it." Glancing over, he shouted, "Report on Larry and Johnson?"
"Uh… they're dead sir. Couldn't take the sonic, looks like, their brains are comin' outta their ears."
"Hm." The captain turned back to the blond lying on the floor, already being sedated and secured. "Add that to the ones this guy killed. How many does that make?"
A slight pause. "At least thirty, sir. Need to get an exact count to be sure."
"Do it."
"Sir." A lieutenant saluted as he came forward. "We have the others. Is termination authorized?"
The captain turned and surveyed the other three. A man with dark hair drawn back into a ponytail, a girl in Chinese costume with her brown hair in two tight buns, and another girl with brilliant red hair. All teenagers. All unconscious.
"Negative on that. Keep them sedated and secured like this one." He gestured. "No telling what they are or what they can do, but Mr. Luthor's going to want to look at them for sure."
Of the different choices available to his suspicious visitors, Batman had rated 'flight' at 43%, 'fight' at 47%, and 'come along peaceably' at 2%.
The strategy 'fight AND flight' had occurred to him, but it had earned an 8% likelihood because it didn't make much sense. Nonetheless, the point remained that he'd considered it, and the girl had barely finished saying her bit when he was already leaping into the air, above the white-eyed boy, and straight at the remaining teenagers. He could fight later, right now he had to stop them from leaving.
The boy in green spandex was in the lead. A few seconds served to validate Batman's first impression—these kids were trained. And fast. Though he seemed to be pulling his punches a little (why, Batman couldn't imagine), the spandex kid attacked with a mixture of method and madness. It was a very distinctive, and yet a very unique style. Batman felt a brief desire to stretch the fight out, just to study the fighting style…
"AAAGH!"
Batman ducked just in time to let the girl's slim fist go whizzing over his head. A second later he had reason to be glad of that, as the wall behind him cracked with the force of the girl's blow. Definitely a meta. He noted. Strength related to unusually colored hair? Samson-like phenomenon? These coincidences were not uncommon.
Even as he pondered the question, his left elbow was shooting up, into the girl's stomach. Apparently her great strength did not come with great durability, for she doubled over with a grunt and just barely managed to catch herself from falling.
Batman would have followed with a chop to the neck—it would have taken the girl out of the fight, and made things SO much simpler—but suddenly the spandex kid was attacking with a renewed vigor, and no longer pulling his punches. His speed was nearly, but only nearly, inhuman, and if Batman hadn't been getting the rhythm of the boy's attacks, he might have not been able to keep up with it.
As it was, he had landed about five solid hits and was lining up a sixth when he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a great whirling mass of red. He leapt backwards, just in time to let the great ball of armor and emaciated teenager go crashing into the wall, directly next to the pink-haired girl. The ball unrolled and swung around to face him, just as the girl rose to her feet.
Lashing out with a foot, Batman kicked back the spandex kid, and whirled about just in time to deflect a blow from white-eyes, who had come back to join the fight. He didn't quite manage to block all of it, and the teenager's palm struck his shoulder lightly.
A stabbing pain shot through Batman's armor and hardened nerves. He could feel the muscle tearing, the straining of the tendons. Nearly all his left arm felt slightly numb from the blow.
White-eyes had whipped away from his counter-stroke and now stood between him and the others again. "Ie {Go}." He said.
"Iya. {No way,}" growled the girl, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Sore wa itakatta. Koko ni tomatte, ano hito wo taosu. {That hurt. I say we stay and give him a good pounding.}"
"Sakura-san, mae no kanten wa mada mottomo da. { Sakura, our original points still hold.}" The boy pointed out. "Hoka no hitotachi wa sugu kite orera wa jikan ga nainda. {Those others can't be far behind, and we have even less time to spare.}" Subtly, the boy shifted position. "Ano hito wa ore ni makasete, sugu oitsuku. {Leave him to me, I'll meet up with you soon.}"
The girl nodded slowly and glanced to the others. Turning, they leapt into the darkness of the rooftops.
Batman was already moving after them, but this time White-Eyes was completely in his way. "Iie. {No.}" He said, bringing his arms up in a very odd stance. "Omae no aite wa ore da. {Your opponent is me.}"
Neji understood as few did the relation between chakra and power. Not just because he was a genius Hyuuga with precise chakra control and implementation, but also because he was on a team with a taijutsu specialist and a weapons expert, neither of whom could employ chakra very well. In his younger days, he had always assumed that this difference rendered him inherently stronger, but time (and Naruto) had changed this opinion. Now, he had a much healthier appreciation for the capabilities of the 'common' ninja.
But this ninja—for so Neji had to call him, there was simply no other label—was on another level altogether. He was like a melding of Lee AND Tenten, an insanely fast taijutsu specialist with an array of bizarre weaponry. True, he did not have Lee's speed, but he more than made up for that in sheer unpredictability. It was impossible to analyze his style, for either he had none, or he had so many that it was impossible to see how they related.
Worse, the man seemed to have grasped the essence of the Gentle Fist style nearly immediately. His left arm had an obvious stiffness to it, and its blows were decidedly weak, but he took great care to avoid so much as a touch from Neji, deflecting blows instead of blocking them. And often, he merely whipped away and hurled bombs or odd-looking shuriken at him.
The upshot of this was that Neji found himself relying more and more on the Kaiten, both as the best way to deflect the ninja's projectiles, and as the surest means of blocking all his strikes. And it certainly forced the ninja back.
Neji might have felt pretty good about that, if he hadn't already used up most of his chakra in the battle with Sasuke before. The few last spins he had in him were fast running out.
The man whipped away from his jab and leaped back, hurling an assortment of small artillery as he did so. Neji attempted to conserve chakra by dodging his way through them, and received a slash across the cheek for his pains. Ignoring it, he threw up a hand to block the stranger's incoming attack. He caught the slight motion of the leg and jerked backwards in time to avoid the foot that went whistling just shy of his abdomen.
That did it. Neji's gaze hardened and he launched himself straight at the man, feet twirling and arms outstretched in the dreaded preliminary form of the Hyuuga Kaiten. A whirling blue bubble of pure death surrounded him as he charged forward.
The man backflipped away, tossing an array of objects that splintered or exploded harmlessly against Neji's shell of energy. The glowing whirlwind charged onward, shredding or blowing aside anything in its path as it vainly sought to catch the elusive crimefighter. All the while, Batman continued to hurl back useless projectiles.
Which was why Neji did not pay attention to the small blinking object he threw right in Neji's path, instead simply charging over it as it blinked faster and faster.
The glowing blue shield broke apart into little wisps of energy as the white-eyed teenager went flying. A sickening crack was heard as his body slammed into the wall, and then he slumped down and lay still.
Batman eyed the boy carefully as he approached, but everything indicated a true state of unconsciousness. Breath rate, eye movement (or lack thereof), muscle tension… the teen was well and truly out of it.
Injured too. A quick examination showed that apparently that hit against the wall had completely broken a few ribs. Surprising, but perhaps they'd been cracked before the battle. The wound wasn't life-threatening and could doubtless be handled by paramedics while Batman tracked the others…
Except he didn't want paramedics touching this kid. And those others, whoever they were, had to be long gone by now. A chase would be worse than pointless.
Batman touched the ear of his cowl. "Alfred." He said. "Have the Computer alert me of any and all police reports concerning three teenagers moving at approximately twenty miles an hour.
"Sir?"
"Just do it. Any word from the League on the other dimensional rifts?"
A short pause. "Superman reported in with some people who fell from the sky."
"Hm." Batman digested that bit of information. "Anything else?"
"No sir. The League investigated the other sites but found nothing. Perhaps an anomaly?"
"Perhaps, but not likely." Batman frowned in thought. "Something's wrong, Alfred. The rifts don't usually open up all over the place like this. And there were kids at this one… dangerous kids. If there were others at the other sites…" Batman shook his head. "Tell Clark to put the League on alert. There's no way of knowing how many got through, or where they are now."
"Tch." Sasuke brushed some leaves off his coat. "That was annoying."
"Who the heck WAS that guy?" Frowning, Suigetsu glared at the park they'd left. "He just… came out of nowhere. Like that Tobi dude."
Juugo shrugged. "I don't know. Never seen anything like him before. All green and glowing and…" He frowned. "A relative of that Leaf taijutsu expert?"
"More likely a Kumo nin. But he didn't seem to have any headband, and besides this place is nowhere near Kumo." Suigetsu glanced around. "Come to think of it, where IS this place, anyway? And where's Karin?"
"I'm not sure. When the…"
"This is another dimension." Sasuke interrupted them. "Hatake Kakashi seems to have teleported us using his sharingan. Karin was probably outside of his attack, so she is not here." He let a small huff of frustration. "This is problematic."
"Hmm." Suigetsu pondered that for a moment. "Well… do you know how to get us back?"
"No," responded Sasuke, "but I will. I am not familiar with the technique he used, but it cannot be difficult to imitate."
Juugo nodded quietly. "But until then, we're stuck here."
"Exactly." Sasuke replied. "We need somewhere to stay while I learn the technique."
"Hide, you mean," snorted Suigetsu. "That… whatever-it-was, was looking for us, and there's only one reason why people are ever doing that."
Sasuke coldly eyed the silver-haired man. "I mean we need a secure position. We know little about this dimension, and I'd prefer to act from a position of strength." He pointed across the water. "We'll use that building on the island."
"Yeah, that looks so totally non-conspicuous and out-of-the-way." Suigetsu squinted across at the gleaming building. "There are lights on inside. Might be occupied."
A shrug was his only response. "That's too bad for the occupants. Prepare to move."
"Um… Sasuke–sama?" Juugo spoke up from the rear. "What are we going to do with her?" He indicated the girl in his arms.
"You brought her with us?" Suigetsu almost laughed.
Juugo shifted uneasily. "She was wounded… and we were in a hurry."
"Leave her." Sasuke ordered him, without sparing a glance for the white-eyed girl. "She's of no further use to us." He turned back to the harbor and the odd T-shaped tower on the island. "We have more pressing concerns."
to be continued..
A/N: Now introducing... the wonderful concept known as REVIEWS! Perfect for making suggestions, flaming, or getting special previews of chapters to come! Just click the small button at the lower left-hand corner of the screen and type a few short words! It's that easy! Submit within the next twenty seconds and we'll send you a cute puppy in the mail!
And so we get into the story proper. I think you can see why this chapter took longer than the others... unfortunately most of the other chapters will probably be just as long.
For anyone who's confused about the switch between languages, it's done to show the character's reaction. So when Batman meets Sakura's team at first, they don't notice anything because he's speaking in Japanese the whole time. But Batman knows English, so the Japanese being spoken is noticeable to him. On the other hand, when Kiba meets Question, he's switching back between Japanese and English, so Kiba is able to tell the difference. (In the comics Question has a somewhat Zen angle at times, so I decided he would know Japanese).
At first I included the translations at the end of the chapter, but that confused people, so I put them in brackets by the words themselves. Hopefully the brackets actually APPEAR on the document. Many thanks to rookie84 for providing me with fuller translations. I know a little Japanese, but not enough for this.
The Japanese shouldn't be an issue so much in later chapters. Luthor knows Japanese, the Titans know Japanese, Question and Batman obviously do, and J'onn is going to insert English into the heads of Ino and her pals. Next chapter, we're going to get more of the DC's view of these strange new visitors.
.
So that's the rationale. Also, I felt it unfair to one of DC's greatest heroes to let him be defeated by four teenagers, however powerful. I'm aiming for a balance of power between the worlds. There's another reason why the rookies are so weak, but I'll explain that later.
週次パワーステータス
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