Growing Pains DC/DBZ

The one thing I discovered pretty early on was that these lizard guys definitely hadn't just set up this base.

For one, the vents had been in place long enough that even the parts not close to a room or opening had become a bit dull thanks to all the dust moving through them but also because of the state of some of the rooms and equipment I could see.

I really doubted a group that had the ability to dig out a secret mountain base was going to intentionally have dust covered machines with visibly frayed wires going into the walls if they just set up the place.

It was possible that the lizards had just moved into a base they found, but even the newer looking equipment looked the same as the old stuff. Like it had been made by the same people. So either an old base that had been reoccupied, or a base that had been here a long time.

Either way these guys had probably been here for a while. Which meant they were likely here for something. And considering the weapons I saw a few of them carrying around, it probably wasn't some peaceful study of Earth.

I needed more info, and since I didn't trust myself to hack into a computer system without getting caught on camera or setting off an alarm or something, that meant relying on Batman strategy number three…

Stalk a group of grunts and see what they let slip.

And just my luck, there were two guys that just walked into a room close to the vent I was in!

Moving carefully to make sure I didn't bump into the walls of the vent, I made my way over to the intersection and slowly crept up to the vent cover into the room they entered.

"...just hope the strike team gets whatever that human scientist needs. I'm sick of this cave."

"Agreed. But with luck the virus will be completed and we can leave this backwater with the weapon needed to destroy those winged pests."

"Hmph, I don't believe it. A natural bioweapon that is nearly lethal to both Gordanians and Thanagarians? I have seen the natives of this world. If the virus was truly that deadly there would be none of them left."

"Which is why we need the scientist." the second lizard said. "She can modify the strains so we will be immune while our enemies suffer. Besides, even the unmodified version is lethal to many humans."

"Of course it is, have you seen how fragile most of them are? If it wasn't for the strength of a handful of defenders we would have defeated and sold off the population ages ago! Not that I'd know what they'd be useful for."

"Deep space mining? The smaller ones can be incredibly flexible and a laser drill doesn't require much strength to use…"

From there it was basically the two passing ideas back and forth about what menial jobs humans could do and I decided it was time to move on. Still, figuring out that the lizards were definitely the bad guys was nice I guess. Kinda hard to be anything else when you were planning biological warfare and casually discussing slavery in your downtime.

It was the kinda thing that would let me blow up the whole mountain and even the Justice League wouldn't get too mad at me for it.

But the idea that they had a scientist hidden around here somewhere working on a super plague sort of put a stop on that plan.

Blowing up a mountain base and accidentally releasing the super plague was definitely not something I was super eager to do.

So I needed to either find the scientist and kidnap them so they couldn't finish making the weapon or destroy any samples they had in the base before wrecking the place.

I paused and thought things over.

Or both. Both was good.

Now let's see what I could do before someone caught me and raised the alarm…

-o-

Britlok did his best to appear busy as the supervisor exited his personal chambers. Despite actually having several duties he was currently wrestling with, he knew from experience that the supervisor wouldn't hesitate to add more if he believed you were not working enough.

"Drisz! It has been a full day, why haven't the systems damaged by that winged rat been restored?"

"The engineering teams are out of materials, Supervisor! We will need to either produce more replacement parts or salvage them from other less critical systems!"

"Then do it! That Thanagarian scum will be back sooner or later and I don't want the first I know about it to be when we are invaded again! Everything except for defenses or the human's lab are secondary now. We are close to accomplishing our goal, I will not allow failure!"

"Sir!" Drisz snapped to attention before rushing out to inform the engineering teams himself.

"Britlok!"

"Yes Sir?!"

"Until those systems are running I want security teams patrolling the halls. Investigate any disturbances or I will have your hide, understand?"

"Understood, Supervisor!" Britlok snapped back while cursing in his mind.

The supervisor was wrong, it have been less than a full Earth-day since one of the Thanagarians stationed on this mudball had infiltrated the base using one of their own ships and had gone on a rampage trying to reach the human scientist before they were forcibly ejected by a desperate teleportation trap.

If they were a proper warband, they would have demanded reinforcements or relocated by now. But after the last battlegroup's defeat at the hand of the planet's defenders Britlok's group of scouts were only supposed to observe and sabotage when the time was right. They did not have the resources to move their base of operations without being discovered by the locals and would have to stealthily steal anything they needed, such as what the elite Talon warriors were doing right now for the last materials required for the human to finish their work.

Britlok could only hope that they returned and the human was successful before the Thanagarian wised up and called on the other defenders for help.

Any proper Gordanian wouldn't shrink from such a fight but Britlok wasn't foolish enough to believe that an understrength, undersupplied scout division would be enough to guarantee the weapon would make it off the planet intact.

The Supervisor probably also knew but that didn't change the fact they were helpless to do anything but wait until the human's work was done and was simply venting his frustrations to his underlings.

So while he relayed orders to the idle warriors to patrol the halls in groups of four, Britlok didn't pay much attention to the patrol groups until he realized three of them hadn't reported back during their scheduled time.

While part of him wanted to raise the alarm immediately, there were no indications that they were under attack.

No damage alerts, no war cries, and the missing patrols were so deep in their own territory that it was simply impossible to be a Thanagarian agent.

Without at least a suspicion of what happened to those partols the Supervisor would tear off his hide.

This would have to be investigated personally.

Britlok set a delayed alarm at his station and gathered up a few warriors to accompany him. If it turned out to be nothing more than a communication deadzone he could be back at his station and nothing would make it back to the Supervisor. And if something was wrong and prevented him from reporting the rest of the division would be alerted when Britlok didn't make it back to his console, presuming he didn't raise an alarm earlier.

And as much as he would have preferred the walk to be silent, warriors would be warriors and it didn't take long before the lower caste peons he gathered began gossiping behind him in hushed voices.

"So what do you think, equipment interference or infiltrator?"

"It must be interference. I heard from one of the engineers that the shielding for the internal communication network had to be stripped out in places to fix the outpost's electronic cloaking systems. They thought having dead zones was better than risking the locals discovering us even with their primitive tools."

"I think it's an infiltrator. How else would a Thanagarian think of sneaking into an outpost instead of charging us, screaming the whole time?"

"Impossible. They would have to be strong enough to defeat an entire patrol group and any of the beings on this planet strong enough to do so wouldn't bother with sneaking around."

"It could happen! There's a Manhunter that worked with one of the Thanagarians to drive away the Imperium!"

"One time. Next you'll say it's that juvenile Saiyan we've heard about."

Britlok suppressed a shudder at the mention of the Saiyan. It wasn't exactly the warrior's fault. None of them had access to the historical reports about various alien races the Citadel considered extreme threats. Even Britlok only knew about them due to his time working under a different Supervisor that dealt with ancient conflicts.

The tales of Imperial Krypton, the Burning Martians, the Deep Space Imperium, and many others were the kind of thing that kept you up at night.

Thankfully the Green Lanterns' Guardians had done one thing right in the galaxy and destroyed the Burning Martians somehow, and there would never again be a near invincible army of conquering Kryptonians thanks to the explosion of their planet and near extinction, but the story that always bothered Britlok the most was the one about the Deep Space Imperium.

Their most recent defeat by the Earthlings proved the Imperium was far from the superpower written about long ago when they were a swarm that consumed entire solar systems at a time, but what most didn't know was that the Imperium hadn't been defeated by another major faction like most other histories assumed.

They had been destroyed by a single golden Saiyan.

And while the Saiyans as a race had eventually been quarantined by the Green Lanterns, Britlok knew they hadn't been modified like the Martians had…or if they had it had clearly failed in some way. Afterall, you didn't quarantine something unless it had the chance to become too dangerous to control and yet you lacked the ability to conquer it. Because if one Saiyan could become that powerful, so could another.

And if one did Britlok wasn't sure all the power the Citadel could bring to bear would be able to stop them.

"Enough talk," he ordered and looked over his shoulder. "Focus on – where are the other two?"

Of the five warriors he had brought with him only three were still in the hall. And going by the flashes of surprise and frantic looking around the remaining three weren't aware that they had gone missing.

Britlok hissed and quickly shoved his way past the startled warriors while grabbing his personal plasma baton. But even backtracking their path for a few meters showed no trace of his missing personnel. They were missing.

His hand immediately went for his communicator to issue an outpost wide alert, but even when he used the command frequency nothing happened. It was just his luck they were in a deadzone.

"Pair up, no one moves anywhere alone." Britlok ordered. "Keep an eye out for anything suspicious and shout the moment you see something." Without waiting for an acknowledgement, Britlok immediately began heading back the way they came.

If he could find an area to restore communications they could flush the intruder out…

Instincts honed from years of dealing with vindictive Supervisors looking to vent their frustrations on an unsuspecting underling suddenly started screaming.

He turned and pointed his plasma baton at the source of the feeling just in time to see a shadowy…something…dart back from a vent opening.

"!"

The vents! Whatever the infiltrator was had been hunting them from inside the walls!

Britlok didn't hesitate to open fire into the vent opening, even knowing there likely wasn't anything there to hit. The walls might have given the energy bolts some trouble, but the thin metal of the grate was vaporized almost immediately.

"It's in the walls! Destroy the intruder!" He ordered his warriors before immediately turning to run away from the corridor. There was a confirmed infiltrator, the outpost needed to be alerted!

There was a sudden screech of tearing metal followed by the scream of one of his warriors as they engaged whatever had emerged to attack them. A sudden surge of light and pressure illuminated the hall and the sounds of his warriors' own plasma batons suddenly went silent.

Britlok wasted no time continuing to run.

Three more trained warriors defeated in less than a few seconds…

Britlok was naturally stronger and more skilled than them due to his position and those three were certainly no elites, but he knew he wouldn't be able to match that feat within the same time. He absolutely had to raise the alarm!

A security hatch was all that stood between Britlok and a section of the outpost he was sure had communication access. All he needed to do was open it–

A bright yellow orb of energy missed his arm by inches and slammed into the hatch's control panel, melting it to slag and rendering the door inoperable.

Britlok slowed to a standstill and stared in disbelief, knowing that he had failed even as the shadow of his pursuer loomed over him.

At least he could take comfort in knowing the alarm would eventually be raised…

He just wondered if anyone would be able to do anything about it before the creature hunting him vanished back into the shadows…

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