In the next morning, after I had told Diana of our plans, I brought Goku and Vegeta to Giblet's island where Cumber was sitting cross-legged on the beach. It didn't take long for my brother to arrive. He didn't say much besides to follow him to some mountain range that was deep in China. We quickly entered through some sort of magical portal into a lush greenery that seemed to be teeming with life. It certainly felt like we had entered the domain of some god of nature or life.
We didn't even arrive for a minute before a figure appeared between the trees of the forest. The most noticeable about him were his big ass head, large earlobes, and the long staff he was holding. I wondered who this god was, but I actually didn't care much, so I didn't ask as he guided us through the forest. It didn't take long until we were met with a barrier that felt like water hindering our path.
We just powered through before arriving at a long staircase along a giant mountain. I couldn't help but raise my eyebrow as I looked up at it. It wasn't just big, it was probably bigger than the entire Earth severalfold. After arriving at the bottom of the stairs, the god turned around again and left without saying a word.
Giblet didn't wait and just started ascending the stairs. Vegeta and Goku looked at each other for a moment before we all followed his lead. When my foot touched the first step, I could feel pressure on my body. It seemed like the gravity had just doubled, though it felt deeper than that. It wasn't just pure gravity, but everything seemed to exert pressure on my body, mind, and soul.
Another step made me realize that the gravity had just doubled again. This was going to be crazy pressure at the top. "We have a long way to go," Giblet before jumping ahead. I tapped the step and flew across several steps as well, ascending along the stairs, while occasionally pushing off a step.
...
It was a long and arduous ascend, but we arrived after a day of travel. At one point, I had to use Super Saiyan to withstand the pressure as did the others. If one considered that we were capable of destroying universes with ease as Super Saiyans, it was wild to think that this random place would force us to use it to withstand the pressure it exerted.
After arriving at the top, we were greeted by a wide flat marble ground. Each step you took in this place was accompanied by the pressure that would crush most things in the DC omniverse into dust. Even while flying the pressure persisted and I could tell that one couldn't last long in this place. At least, if we didn't adapt to it. Fortunately, we were all Saiyans.
"It kind of reminds me of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber," Goku commented as he looked around, particularly at the storm that was in the heavens and then at a small hut in the distance. His voice was followed by a lightning bolt striking the ground. It seemed like we were in for one hell of a training session.
"Alright, let's see where we stand," I said as I flew into the sky before looking down at them.
"This time I won't lose," Cumber growled before following me into the air. I glanced at others and found that they weren't inclined to follow us. Looked like we were going to battle one after the other.
My attention turned to Cumber again, who was already speeding at me. I raised my hand and caught his fist. It was heavy and I could tell that I was at a disadvantage. I already knew his power was multiplied by a higher degree in the same transformations, so I wasn't too surprised.
However, I didn't suspect his aura to infect mine. His black-red aura started to turn my golden into a similar dark aura. It wasn't something new as I had encountered it when we first fought, but now I didn't use my Legendary ki to combat it. This evil aura was attempting to corrupt my mind, but I wasn't new to these unruly ki aspects. I crushed its influence and used it to my advantage.
It boosted the power of ki and the speed of its circulation. I let it invade my body and boost my aura as I caught Cumber's follow-up. My aura rose and I felt it grinding away at my ki. I couldn't help but smile as I used it to purify my inner strength. Cumber scowled as he saw me with a clear mind.
Suddenly, I ceased my resistance and instead pulled him toward me. My head slammed forward. His fragile nose came into contact with my forehead. It cracked as it gave in. Cumber groaned as his head flung back followed by his body. He backed away for a couple of meters while I familiarized myself with the Evil Aura Cumber had transferred to me.
I knew Giblet would be upset at me for using this power, but power was power.
Cumber didn't seem too pleased with the exchange. His head snapped forward with a snarl. His eyes glared at me as he reached up to his bloody nose and cracked it back in place. Oh, this was going to be fun.
...
A month had passed since I decided to not go out of the barrier until I felt confident I could beat the Empty Hand. Goku and Vegeta had told me all about the Great Darkness, a primordial constant across reality.
It seemed to have been around since forever and touched all realities. Chronoa, the Supreme Kai of Time, seemed to only have heard of it as it usually doesn't interact with anything. It just existed, it wasn't a thinking and scheming entity out for our doom even if it was inherent to its nature.
However, the Empty Hand was one of its puppets as were the other villains that were native to this universe. Now it had begun to influence the Dragon Ball villains as well and it looked like it had a goal. Clearly, it was planning something even with Chronoa's claims of it being a 'neutral' force. Perhaps she had already changed her mind about it, but I couldn't really ask her.
Regardless of what was true, as we were now we wouldn't be able to beat the Great Darkness, but we certainly could do something about its influence. Beat everything it had influenced and used as puppets. We would essentially cripple it if we took all of its toys. With that in mind, we trained in anticipation of meeting the strongest of foes.
I have grown a lot in this past month, probably more than I have ever done. It was truly something else to have someone teach you, to have someone to talk to about ki and they knew exactly what you meant. It also made me realize that I wasn't as untalented as I thought myself to be.
My ki control wasn't on par with theirs, but I grew more skillful rapidly. Once they explained something, it easily clicked in my mind and I progressed easily. My progress spurned them on as well and it felt like it was escalating with exponential growth. I had thought they were strong before, but after a month their strength accelerated beyond belief.
It seemed like they incorporated some of my ideas of breaking down one's body and building it up again through their ki. However, their ki wasn't as chaotic as mine, which meant that they had to cause their ki to explode inside of them to get a similar effect to my ki.
Ironically, because their ki was more controllable, this sort of training became rather dangerous for them as intentionally hurting themselves wasn't achievable to the same fine-grained degree as my chaotic legendary ki naturally could. Their healing was also not really on par, but they grew better every day.
By now I had added and improved my ki techniques to a frightening degree where a single blast was several folds more efficient than before. All my attacks and my ki control had increased my battle potential to a crazy degree even if I hadn't tried to grow stronger in raw power.
Then there was the Evil Aura and its usages to purify my mind. Like many things, it helped with ki control to the point, that I was twice as powerful with half the effort. This wasn't even the end, besides that was the way to pull more out of my bloodline, which was limited by my willpower and unworthiness due to my inexperience for some reason.
There was so much to learn and train in that it got difficult to tackle and digest everything. I would need years to dwell on these concepts and train my mind. It didn't help that I wanted to go out there, fight and kill the Empty Hand, Darkseid, and whoever else came to try and stop me from finding my girlfriends.
However, for a month I had forced myself to immerse myself in training but even with that and Diana and the other's support, I was getting more anxious. Even when I was exhausted to the point I was about to pass out, I was tense as I thought that I should be out there and instead spend weeks just training without making any attempt to get closer to them. I only relied on the others to give me updates every couple of days, when I exited this dimension to see whether there was news.
Of course, I knew the concept of sharpening the axe's blade before chopping at the tree, but right now I wasn't sure if I was sharpening it or just wasting my time. What if they were killing them at this moment and I could have arrived in time if I had left earlier? Even if it was just an instant, it could prove to be significant.
I shook my head before looking down at the city again. In my periphery, I could see Shayera sitting on the edge. "It's been a while since we went out on patrol together." I could see her nod her head at my statement.
"It has been a while." She agreed as she looked down at Portland with me. I glanced at her for a moment and noted that her wings were clad in Nth metal and her mace looked enhanced.
After visiting for a quick update, Diana had insisted on going out on patrol with Shayera for old times' sake, though I knew she had just pushed for this because she knew that I had immersed myself too much into training and done nothing else for a long period of time.
I had agreed to it easily as it was the same suggestion that Goku and Vegeta had made not long ago. It seemed like they knew that I was a bit too stressed to gain the maximum effect of the training and needed a day or two before starting my next session with them. Quite hypocritical of them as they hadn't made a break other for sleeping and eating yet.
Of course, Diana's insistence might not been targeted solely at me. Shayera and Maxima were obviously pushing themselves quite hard as well. These two were close friends with the others as well even with Maxima butting heads with Kara quite frequently in the past, though perhaps that was why they were so close to begin with. After all, Kara respected Maxima for being quite upfront with her desires as she had put it when the topic of the queen and Felicia came up in the past.
Now that Shayera came to visit, Diana probably found it to be the perfect opportunity to let us relax a bit.
I turned my sight back to the city before finding a thief running away with a purse. With a leap, I jumped off the roof and floated toward the thief. There wasn't much to do anyway, for some reason there weren't many villains in Portland even though the neighboring cities had their fair share of supervillains.
I couldn't imagine what could have caused this state. It certainly couldn't have done anything to do with me as I was barely patrolling these days. I had been active in the beginning and worked with some criminal groups to work something out, but it had been put to ice ever since recent events escalated.
Just as the thief wanted to round the corner, a jogger tripped him before attempting to restrain him when I took over. I enveloped the thief with my telekinetic powers. "Thanks for the help," I said to the guy, who looked at me in shock. "I will take it from here." I lifted the thief off the ground and was about to head to the police station when the jogger suddenly called out to me.
"Hey, Shallot!" I turned around only for the guy to flip me off. "Fuck you!" The sight stunned me. There weren't many that were brave enough to insult me, but there was no one that did it with such a happy expression on their face. There was no hostility in his demeanor and with my empathetic abilities I sensed that he was grateful to me?
"Do we know each other?" I asked as I turned to him. The guy snorted before putting up his arm and holding his biceps.
"You better remember me! You saved me from some bullies in the past."
"Right..." Then why was he insulting me? "You know I am doing this on a regular, right?" There was no way I would remember every one of them.
"You also insulted me for being fat and mocked me when I thought I was going to get killed!" I observed him closely and found him a tad bit familiar, there was something tingling in the back of my mind as I looked at his face. I imagined how he would look like if he gained a couple of dozen kilos more and a faint memory came up.
"You are that fatso that I saved from the punks when I first started out here in Portland!" I was surprised to see him in such good shape. The last and first time I saw this guy was when he was being bullied for being fat. This guy thought they were out to kill him, but they were just some douchebags wanting to mess with the guy.
"Yeah, fuck you! Not so fat anymore, huh?!" He hollered though if one muted his voice one could have thought he was praising me. I slowly landed on the ground.
"So, you've worked out! How are you doing man?" He looked rather surprised when I actually landed and came to talk with him. He still had a genuine smile on his face though.
"I am doing really well! I landed a job at a tech company and moved in with my girlfriend a few months back. We are planning on marrying next year!" He was almost sparkling as he said this, looked like he was happy.
"Sounds great! Wait- weren't you some big shot or something? I thought you mentioned something the last time." He scratched his cheek as I asked this.
"Well, my sister is rather successful, so I used to leech off of her. We hadn't been on best terms then, but we are better now." I stared at the man, probably in his early thirties. Looked like he had done something out of himself.
"So, how come you turned your life around?" After I asked this, his expression turned into an unimpressed one as he raised an eyebrow before snorting. He lightly tapped on my back.
"Yeah, I am not going to give you the satisfaction... Anyway, I don't want to keep you, I am sure you have lots of villains to beat and catastrophes to solve."
Shayera snorted at the sight. "Yeah, we wish. There is nothing happening in this city. Can't even get a good fight here."
I could only nod at that. "It's even quieter than when I was active here... You don't happen to know why, right?" I asked without much hope of getting a positive response though the guy surprised me when he casually responded.
"It's probably the Portland's finest."
"That name doesn't ring a bell," I admitted, not remembering if there had been a new vigilante group popping up when I was busy with bigger things.
"It should." The former fatty said with a chuckle. "You are one of the reasons they were able to establish themselves and gain some support from the people." Some heroes inspired by my work? I guessed that had to happen someday.
The guy continued. "It's a bunch of former thugs and martial artists banding together to keep outsiders out. I heard that even the freaks of Gotham don't want to step in this city because they would be hunted down by Portland's finest criminals." He ended gleefully and understanding filled my mind.
"They are the ones I worked with when I was active?" He nodded in agreement. I collaborated with the underworld to make it less chaotic and more positive for society as a whole.
There had been some ideas to work with them to essentially rehabilitate them and make them better men, I had also some further ideas that wouldn't come to fruition anytime soon as I had too much on my plate, though it sounded like I was barely needed at this point.
"Alright, I need to bounce. Show yourself more often, Portland misses you! We all know what good you have done for the city even if the loud vocal dumbasses make it seem otherwise." With those words, he started jogging away after waving. I snorted as I lifted into the air before glancing down at the guy.
Didn't catch his name. I would ask about it the next time we meet.
Afterward, I headed to a donut station before continuing to the police station. I was a bit absentminded at the revelation that some of the things actually had some positive impact on people, I mean it should have been obvious, but being told so directly made it more real for some reason, especially when Batman's words were still in my ears from a month ago.
"Shallot, long time no see!" A detective said, making me squint at him for a moment.
"Joe. How have you been?" I asked as he handed over the thief I dropped to the floor to a policeman on the side.
"I can't complain. Though work has been... different." He said with a wry smile. Might have something to do with criminals doing their job?
"Where is your partner?" I asked as I glanced around at the room that was buzzing with people. I thought there would be less to do with Portland's finest taking care of the criminals.
"Candice? Oh, she is interviewing some witnesses right now."
"Tell her I said hello! I might come around later if we encounter some criminal." I then handed over the donut box into his hands.
He smiled before he opened the box only to chuckle. "Isn't this a box for 8 donuts? Why is there only one inside?"
"What? Did you expect I wouldn't take some?"
"No, not really..." He admitted while shaking his head amused.
"There you go. Share it with Candice." I said before leaving behind the wryly smiling detective.
"You are surprisingly popular around here." Shayera teased as she nudged me slightly from the side as she flew next to me.
"Yeah, didn't expect it," I admitted as I looked down at the city while we flew over the city. Even with my hearing, I couldn't detect too many crimes and most of them were petty thieves. Perhaps, it was due to it being midday, but it was quite peaceful. "Looks like the city can handle itself," I commented as even without my presence, it was looking rather well-
Just as the thought appeared, I tilted my head to dodge an arrow that broke the sound barrier. I glanced down and looked at the archer who shot at me. Honestly, he looked like a normal dude just with a bow, a quiver, a trigger release aid, and some other equipment.
He went for another arrow and I saw Shayera about to fly forward with her mace ready. I held up my hand and stopped her, which caused her to look at me in confusion. Given what the guy had told me there was some lingering suspicion that they went along with my plans without me.
I suppressed my ki and dived downward as the archer shot another arrow. My body leaned to the side, dodging the arrow by a hair's breadth.
I raised my hand and used a kiai. An invisible force pushed forward. The archer's instincts seemed to be quite good as his eyes widened when I raised my hand before jumping off the roof. However, the range of the Kiai wasn't easily dodged. With the fury of a tempest, it swept him a bit further than he intended to jump.
Instead of the lower roof of the neighboring skyscraper, he was dragged above the middle of the street. He didn't panic and quickly shot an arrow into another building. A thread was attached to it while anchoring onto his bow. He was about to use it to swing around, but I raised my finger and shot through the thread.
"Fuck!" He called out as he plummeted to the ground. There was still a thread in the bow's anchor point and he wasn't able to quickly undo it, so he just started to fall to his death. My telekinesis wrapped around his body and we landed safely on the pavement.
He started hyperventilating as he supported himself on his knees "Ohhhh shit. I thought I was going to die." He breathed out heavily before straightening again. I gave him a moment to gather himself.
"You are one of Portland's finest?" As he heard my question he gave me a lazy salute.
"Yessir. It's so rare that the top dog is in the city, so I thought I give it a shot if you know what I mean." He said in a relaxed manner, proving that some of my ideas had been realized while I was away.
"Do I have to escort you to the police or are you good on your own?" I asked and he reassured me he knew the way, it wasn't the first time that he lost a challenge. I nodded and watched him for a while as he headed to the police station.
"The fuck was that about? You sure he will just hand himself over?" Shayera asked doubtful at the thought that some criminal would go to jail willingly.
"Maybe? It's the first time I was challenged after all." I commented with a smile on my face.
"Challenged, what do you mean?" Shayera asked still not sure if she should follow the archer.
"People often turn to crime when they're struggling and feeling like they're getting the short end of the stick. It's that classic story of the haves and the have-nots. But what really tips the scales is when the neighbor is a flashy rich guy who flaunts their wealth. That kind of thing can make folks desperate and resentful, and when they feel like the system is rigged against them, violence can start looking like the only way up the social ladder. Crime becomes the only viable avenue to rise and gain all the benefits that those at the top enjoy.
So, I had this idea. Why not set up a system where people can climb that ladder by aiming their violently charged energy somewhere safe? It's like a structured game, with me as the top dog. You start at the bottom, work your way up by challenging others, and as you go, you earn more respect and perks from society. It's a win-win, helping those who are struggling and keeping our Portland community in harmony. Most of those who will be in danger belong to the ones who knew what they had signed up for and are in on the game, while normal people are left alone. Now it looks like they are preventing any new villains from pushing them off their ranks, so they had unitedly decided to keep outsiders out."
I scratched my chin in thought as I hadn't expected that it would come to them essentially keeping criminals out of the city and generally preventing crimes from happening. Though I could get why, if they worked hard to get their ranking and someone else just robbed some banks to get similar benefits they would be pissed off.
Unknowingly, they had become the greatest hero force because they didn't want others to succeed by not playing by their rules. However, I wondered what their attitude toward outside heroes was. I glanced at Shayera, who had been mostly ignored in that exchange just now. Maybe they think that heroes have no interest in their hierarchy?
...Wait, then why did they still think I was at the top of the hierarchy? Didn't they see me as a hero...?
"So, what are the rules?" Shayera asked still looking doubtful about the entire thing.
I shrugged at her question. "Don't know, doesn't seem like anything is off limits and ambushes are fine as well." He did shoot me with a powered high-tech bow without announcement after all. "However, that wouldn't explain why there aren't more low-level crimes. Maybe they have some rules for those under a certain rank or maybe another ranking system entirely for those that don't want to risk their lives?"
"That's... your city is weird."
I snorted at her observation. "At least I would get some interesting challenges and creative ambush ideas in the future."
"...let me guess that was why you set this in motion in the first place."
"No comment."
"Not a bad idea." She judged as she hefted her mace on her shoulder. At that point, I got a ring from Batman, asking me to meet him. I wondered what he wanted.