Growing Pains

"You know there are easier ways to get my attention, right?"

"Yeah, but this is the most fun!" I smiled as I adjusted the weight of the car so it wasn't slipping off my shoulder anymore.

The Flash wasn't as amused as I was. Or at least he was pretending to not be.

It was bad form for a superhero to laugh at the police chief when his car was stolen by a passing supervillain and held hostage twenty feet off the ground, not when the guy was right there. Especially since this was the fifth time I've done something like this.

Flash hadn't exactly been thrilled to find out he had been training a supervillain instead of the aspiring hero he had assumed I was, but after a week of needling him I managed to work out a similar deal to the one I had with Batman. I wouldn't do major crimes in Central City in return for continued speed training.

He tried avoiding me a bit and relying on our agreement to keep me from doing something too noticeable.

So I went to someone that would complain loud enough that Flash would need to check in even if I wasn't doing anything super evil.

And the police chief could certainly yell. Especially when his 1965 Mustang kept mysteriously finding itself in places a car couldn't get to…like a roof or a tree. Luckily for him there was a helpful alien invader that would be happy to get it down, as long as he could get the Flash here for a bit.

Flash told me I could stop after the third time. I kept doing it because it was funny.

"That is not the way to treat a classic." Flash shook his head in mock despair. "Come on, give the Chief back his car. I know what you want."

"Sure thing!"

I dropped the car back in a parking lot and ignored the Police Chief as he rushed to inspect the thing for damage. Seriously, it was a car. An old one sure, but older doesn't always mean better!

And there was certainly no reason to cry about it…

"Normal spot then?" Flash asked, doing some light stretches with a challenging smile.

"You're on."

After a silent three count, both of us went speeding towards the city limits.

Needless to say Flash beat me by a few miles.

-o-

Two hours later I was laying on the ground, drenched in sweat and panting like a dog. All I could do was glare at Flash who, despite everything I tried, was barely sweating at all. And I couldn't even be sure that wasn't from just standing around in the sun for a few hours.

"Hey, don't give me that look. You're doing much better than when we started." He said genuinely. And if he stopped there you could mistake him for being a kind, caring individual. "Who knows? In a year or so, you might get me to break into a light jog!"

Yep, there it was.

Jerk!

"Oh come on, is that any way to treat your favorite training partner?" Flash continued when I glared harder.

"You aren't my favorite. Hawkie's my favorite, it's just that it's really hard to find her before she moves cities or she has her partner with her. And I can't fight both of them at once yet."

"Oooph, scathing." Flash mimed grabbing his chest in pain. "Well, anyway, I've gotta run. I've got a date in a few minutes. Wouldn't want to be late."

"Is a few minutes enough time to get there and be ready?"

"Sure it is, I'm the fastest man alive!" He said confidently.

"Oh, I feel bad for your date then."

"Yea– wait, what do you mean by that?!"

"Nothing," I said 'innocently', "just that it's a shame if all your dates end too soon because you go too fast."

Flash narrowed his eyes at me and tried to guess if I was implying what he thought I was, unfortunately for him I was used to trying to hide my thoughts and reactions from Batman (not that it seemed to make a difference) and Flash was certainly not Batman.

Eventually he gave up his one sided staring contest and turned towards the city.

"Right. Well, stay out of trouble. Don't go trying to take over a city or something."

Hah! I wasn't about to tell him that was my next idea on how to force Superman to fight me. The Metropolis mayoral election was next week, I was totally going to crash it and declare myself mayor.

Flash gave me a two fingered salute and began to run back to get ready for his date.

He made it all of three steps when there was a massive flash of light behind us.

We both turned to see what looked like a dozen flaming meteors burning through the atmosphere trailing dark black smoke. It didn't take long for me to realize these weren't normal meteors.

Those didn't tend to change direction midair and scatter in several directions.

"Huh, looks like another alien invasion." I idly commented, causing Flash to slump over.

"I'm not going to be on time for my date, am I?" He asked rhetorically.

-o-

From what I gathered on the internet, the last three alien invasions used the same plan that went something along the lines of this:

Step 1: Invade in one big group.

Step 2: Use landing location as a beachhead to attack nearby city. Or for the more aggressive ones, just attack city directly

Step 3: Quickly overrun the population and military forces until nearby hero (or Superman) shows up.

Step 4: Send out Champion(s) that are the pinnacle exception in strength compared to the rest of the invasion force.

Step 5: Lose.

Step 6: Pull back all forces and flee because without Champion(s) X, the invasion force is too small to actually hold the planet and the foot soldiers like living or because the Champion was the invasion force.

And (Optional) Step 7: Leave Champion(s) behind to act as infiltrators/scouts for when the next invasion occurs.

And considering that these invasions were usually wrapped up in less than a day, a lot of people didn't bother panicking unless they were right near the initial invasion point since everything would go back to normal by tomorrow.

So when the black smoke being trailed by the meteors turned into oily black clouds that covered the entire sky and showed no signs of dissipating almost a day later, people started to worry. They began outright panicking when it turned out that the invasion force was actually the second wave and that several people in the military, government, and science facilities had been replaced by shape shifting aliens that had sabotaged local responses and revealed more machines that were pumping the air with black stuff all over the continent.

The following armies of white gray and black, gelatinous, homicidal goo-people with laser rifles didn't do much to calm them down either.

Fortunately for the humans – and unfortunately for me – the aliens themselves weren't so tough that a person with a gun couldn't at least hold them off for a bit. So it wasn't like the invaders were just rolling over any resistance just yet, but there were a lot of them and they weren't even fun to fight.

"Get off this planet!" I yelled as I vaporized another squad of goo-people. "I was here first! I called dibs!"

I'd have said that I'd lost count of how many of the invaders I had done that to by now, but that would imply I was keeping count to begin with. I was far more interested in stopping them from blowing up my favorite restaurants than counting blown up aliens.

Central was the only city I'd found so far that had decent serving sizes and didn't try calling the police whenever I just wanted something to eat. I wasn't going to let some random invasion force me to go hunting for decent food again!

I spotted another group going down Fifth St, shooting at people as they ran away and wrecking buildings thanks to some kind of armored vehicle that looked like a misshapen potato attached to four spider legs that also shot lasers.

I flew over to it, blasted three of the legs off, caught it by the remaining one, and started using it as a giant hammer to squish the smaller foot soldiers running around in panic. Then when there was only one remaining, I swooped down and grabbed it by its…skin? Eww…and lifted it into the air.

"Alright slimeball, listen up. I was having a good day until you jerks decided to show up. So, I'm going to give you one chance to tell me where your leader is so I can politely tell them to turn around and get off this planet before I vaporize all of you. Sound good?"

The alien made a weird repetitive hissing sound that I eventually recognized as an attempt at laughter. "We ArE tHE iMpEriUm. We WiLL conQuEr thiS paThEtIC PlANet AND feED On it. YoU hUMANs CannOt sTOP THIS. EVen yOuR PoweR wiLl jUst make us STrONgeR."

"Sorry, not a human. I'm a Saiyan. Got the tail and everything." I said, waving said appendage behind me.

I then got to witness the fascinating experience of something going absolutely statue still for a moment, before frantically doing its best to claw my hand off it's skin and when that didn't work, claw away at itself in order to escape.

The whole sudden spectacle shocked me enough that I just floated in stunned disbelief even after the goo-person managed to free itself only to fall several hundred feet back to the ground where it splattered on impact.

"What the hell was that about?"

Unfortunately for me, the universe didn't suddenly leap to answer my question. But that didn't mean the invasion had stopped just because something weird happened to me. A nearby explosion drew my attention to another one of those walking potato tanks and more foot soldiers.

…welp, guess the only thing left to do is find another alien to explain what the heck just happened. And if that one didn't give me an answer? Well, there were plenty more of them wandering around.

-o-

Hours later I was tired, hungry, and absolutely covered in soot from all the fires popping up all over the city. Not to mention I was starting to get really pissed off that I wasn't any closer to finding out why the invaders were freaking out about a single Saiyan child on the planet they were attacking. Did Saiyans actually exist in this universe? And if so why am I what's causing them to panic rather than the yellow sun-charged Kryptonian that should be a much bigger threat?

Sure a group of Saiyans would absolutely demolish these Imperium guys, but it was only me here.

My musing was interrupted by a red blur streaking by and doubling back that predictably turned out to be the Flash. He looked a bit scuffed up and more tired than I had ever seen him – not that that said much – but he also looked pretty happy to see me, so I guess he was fine.

"Hey Kid, glad to see you're okay." Flash said quickly. "And I heard you were doing a pretty good job taking care of the city, a lot of people were talking about it!"

I scowled. I wasn't exactly doing that for the people here. But if they were grateful I better get a few free meals, at least!

"Cool, great to hear. I'm guessing the heroes won and now it's just dealing with the leftovers?" If so I was going to be bummed. Despite the amount of destruction they caused, the Imperium was kinda weak. I was hoping for one good fight at least.

"...yeah, about that…" Flash rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

-o-

Minutes later I was standing in the middle of an American Army base and surrounded by several heroes including Superman, Hawkie, and Wonder Woman who I actually hadn't been able to meet before now. Normally, I'd be ecstatic about that, but I was currently too busy glaring daggers at the green skinned man in a blue cape.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you right. Run that by me again?" I grit out.

Martian Manhunter didn't have any hair, so it looked a little weird when he raised an eye-ridge at me.

"As I said before, the Imperium plan to terraform this planet into a feeding ground–"

"I don't mean that!" I angrily swiped a hand through the air. "I meant, what do you mean you left Batman behind?!"

I could feel a bunch of looks from the other heroes but I ignored all of them. Or at least I was going to until Superman put a hand on my shoulder and I began to debate if it was worth hitting him with a full power Kamehameha.

"Look Califa, I know it's hard to hear. He was my friend too. But these things happen and sometimes there's nothing you can do."

"Batman's gone…"