Growing Pains

The seven heroes could only watch in stunned disbelief as the small Saiyan child transformed into a five story tall ape-like creature in the span of seconds. Interestingly, her black bodysuit and armor grew to match her new height while her whole body was covered in a coarse layer of brown fur, even her normally black hair shifting to match. The only indication of her normal hairstyle was the slight mane of longer fur falling around her shoulders. Her arms and legs thickened into massively powerful limbs that effortlessly smashed through the walls of the Imperium outpost. And most disconcerting, her eyes, normally filled with mischievous playfulness or curiosity, shifted to pure red orbs of malice.

Semi-freed from the confines of the outpost, the Great Ape roared its fury for the world to hear before raising both arms into the air and smashing them down on the increasingly ruined building.

Not content with a single attack, the huge figure began to thrash mindlessly around, causing an impressive amount of destruction in a short amount of time.

"Guess we know what that thing meant by Great Destroyer now, huh?" Flash commented as the rest of them regrouped nearby. Despite being surprised by the transformation, all of them were quick to move when it became clear Califa's change could bring the roof collapsing down on all of them. "So, uh, did anyone know she could do this? Cause the giant monkey form is a surprise to me."

There was a chorus of no's with the noticeable exception of Batman.

"When I questioned her about her background, she mentioned a planet full of giant lizards she beat by waiting until she grew big enough to take them. I assumed she meant waiting until she was older, but if she meant this…" The Dark Knight trailed off.

"Oh cool, did she mention how to snap her out of it by any chance?"

Manhunter closed his eyes and put his hands to his temples in concentration. "Her mind is full of rage. Until she calms down I will not be able to communicate with her."

"No chance you can just put her to sleep or something?" Hawkwoman asked.

"No, her emotions are too powerful for me to influence in her current condition." He said. "We will need to find some other way to deal with her."

Hawkwoman looked back at the rampaging giant and palmed her mace. "Think we can knock her out before she wanders off then? We aren't that far away from a city. If she makes it there before we stop her…" No one needed to imagine the damage a fifty foot giant monkey could do to the place.

"We might not need to go that far." Superman offered. "All she's done is wreck the outpost. We could just keep her here until she calms down or we find a way to change her back."

"It's far enough that we wouldn't need to worry about civilians." Wonder Woman agreed.

With the beginnings of a plan in place Batman turned to Green Lantern.

"Any chance there's something in the non-restricted section of your ring about Saiyans transforming? Or how to change them back?"

Green Lantern raised an eyebrow at him. "And why do you know Saiyans have a restriction on their information? Nevermind, from what I can see here Saiyans can transform into that form by being exposed to cosmic radiation reflected off celestial bodies. The only ways listed for them to change back is for them to tire out or for the source of the radiation to disappear. There is also one other way but I don't think we want to do anything permanent."

A few of them realized he was talking about putting her down for good and understandably balked at the thought of killing a child, especially those who had interacted with her frequently.

"So, what? We have to somehow blow up the moon?" Hawkwoman questioned.

"Whoa, wait a second!" Flash threw up his hands. "I'm pretty sure blowing up the moon is a bad idea, for like, a few reasons!"

"No one is blowing up the moon." Wonder Woman put her foot down on that particular idea. "If all we need to do is remove the source, then we just need to keep her here until the moon sets. We just need to make sure nothing catches her attention or for her to wander off."

As if to spite those words several explosions bloomed on and around the giant monkey, causing it to roar in pain and anger and start looking for the source of the attack.

"What was that?! Where did it come from?"

Manhunter was the first one to find the cause of the commotion. "It's the Army. They think she is a last resort by the Imperium."

"Tell them to call off the attacks." Batman demanded. "The city is right behind them, they'll lure her towards it!"

"It's too late. She's already noticed them."

Sure enough, the Great Ape had turned back to the military forces that had been firing on her. Before any of the heroes could react, a bright yellow light erupted from her maw and utterly destroyed several of the artillery platforms there, sending the Army soldiers scrambling for cover.

To make things even worse, Califa hadn't lost interest after destroying the platforms. She was slowly breaking her way out of the now thoroughly ruined outpost and was heading towards the Army group.

Superman was the first to speak up.

"We have to distract her. Keep her from hurting anyone until she changes back."

"Right, distract King Kong from breaking everything. Anyone know where we can find a pretty blonde in a white dress?" Flash quipped before taking off in a streak of red, the other heroes not far behind.

-o-

As it turned out, distracting the giant monkey from going after the Army was easier said than done Clark noted before refocusing on the task in front of him.

Superman made a note of Flash and Green Lantern taking off towards the soldiers to start evacuating them out of the area and stop any more mouth blasts from destroying the area while he and the rest of the group made for the transformed saiyan.

He and Wonder Woman were the first ones there, and did their best to get her attention by flying directly in front of her face. "Califa, stop! The fight's over you need to–"

Ever since he decided to become Superman, he had fought a few creatures of similar size to what the Saiyan child had changed into but none of them were as fast as she was. He barely had time to notice the instant between when she pulled her arm back again and to when he was swatted into the ground like an annoying insect.

Groaning, Superman began to pull himself out of the destroyed rocks that partially buried him. Califa certainly hit harder in this form too.

If this was the power saiyans could bring to bear when they didn't care about individually overcoming a planet's champions, then he was going to have to rethink how annoying it was the alien child kept challenging him one on one.

"Superman!"

He looked up just in time to see another mouth laser being charged and fired. Just before the yellow beam hit, he threw up his hands in an attempt to block it, but the energy smashed into him and sent him tunneling through the rock and into the Earth's crust. When the beam finally cut out, the tunnel also collapsed and left him battered and in darkness.

-o-

"Superman!"

Unfortunately for the Princess of Themyscira, Diana's warning came too late and Superman was blasted under a mountainside. It seemed that in her current state the young warrior couldn't recognize the people she had just been working with or didn't care and fought them anyway. She hoped it wasn't the latter. She had faced berserkers before and their battlelust often made them unpredictable, but when the haze cleared and they were able to think for themselves again they were usually affected with feelings of guilt.

She may have only met the young Saiyan for a short time, but Diana didn't want the spark of life she had seen in the girl snuffed out because of an accident made in an altered mindset.

With that in mind, she realized the best thing to do would be to end the now unavoidable fight as quickly as possible so as few people as possible ended up hurt.

She flew under a massive backhand and slammed her fists into the jaw of the giant creature. Hard. The force snapped the Ape's head back and caused a roar of pain, but there was little actual damage done.

By the gods, how much more powerful was the girl in this form?!

Diana dodged over a grasping hand and saw both Hawkwoman and the Martian Manhunter land powerful blows of their own, successfully splitting the Ape's attention between the three of them but again doing very little to actually damage it.

Hawkwoman was the next of them to be targeted, probably because she was a larger flashier target between the wings and electrically charged mace. Another mouth beam shot at the winged hero, who managed to dodge it, but when Diana and Manhunter found out the Ape didn't need her eyes to keep track of her opponents.

Manhunter was able to phase through the tail before it slammed into him, but Diana ended up trapped as the Ape tried to crush her by clapping its hands together. She managed to catch them before they slammed together, but that just caused the Ape to put its effort into crushing her gradually.

"RRaaAGHH!" With the mouth beam no longer focused on her, Hawkwoman went for the Ape's head from above in an attempt to knock it out. But in another surprising feat, the fifty foot Ape was able to twist out of the way at the last moment. Caught off guard by the movement, Diana watched as a massive foot came up and smashed the winged woman into the ground and pinned her in place. At least she was still alive if the pained screaming and curses were an indication.

Diana wasn't able to focus on the other hero's condition too long though, as the pressure surrounding her redoubled and she saw the beginnings of another mouth blast charging up.

She braced herself as best she could, but before the attack could be released, two explosions erupted near the Ape's eyes causing it to flail in shock and pain. Diana took advantage of the momentary distraction to free herself as a dark, bat-themed jet screamed past them.

-o-

Batman watched from above as the others regrouped again a short ways away from the Great Ape as he fired another missile at it.

Flash and Green Lantern had rejoined them and Flash had even managed to secure Hawkwoman from where she had been pinned. The only one missing was Superman.

Batman hoped he managed to regroup with them soon. His plan wouldn't work without him.

"Can everyone hear me?" He asked once he figured he had given Manhunter enough time to retrieve the earbuds he had provided and hand them out to the group. A small voice in the back of his head told him it would be faster and easier to have Martian Manhunter let them all speak telepathically, but he was not comfortable with letting someone into his head. No matter that he had done so before in order to trick the Imperium.

No doubt others would have reservations as well. No, mass telepathy like that required a trust that simply didn't exist between them in the short time they were working together. A technological solution would work just fine for now.

"Yeah we hear you, Bats." Flash spoke up. "You have some kinda plan for this one? Cause we're stopping her, but we aren't slowing her down much."

And that was the issue, wasn't it? Yes all of them working together could keep the transformed Saiyan in one place, but injuries and fatigue were starting to pile up. Soon someone would make a mistake that would take them out of the fight and it could spell disaster.

"I do. Although you are all going to have to work together for this to work." He went on to explain his plan. All the while doing his best to distract the raging giant with the diminishing amount of missiles aboard the Bat-jet and dodging the Ki beams being shot from the Saiyan's mouth or the occasional rock thrown his way.

"I've noticed while sparring with Califa there is a kind of scruffing reflex whenever someone manages to grab her tail. Probably how adult Saiyans keep their offspring under control. She's been training herself out of the reaction but hasn't managed it last time we met. Green Lantern, can you create a construct to secure her tail and hold it long enough for the moon to set?"

"If she doesn't move, probably." Green Lantern replied. "The problem is I'm running out of charge and if she struggles I won't be able to hold her."

Batman nodded.

"I figured as much. The rest of us will have to secure her long enough for Lantern to hold her in place by tying her limbs down so she can't move. Wonder Woman, Manhunter, Hawkwoman, can the three of you handle her arms?"

"My Lasso should be enough for one of them at least." Wonder Woman confirmed.

"It'll be awkward but I think between me and the martian, we can handle the other." Hawkwoman added.

"Okay, great." Flash said. " We got the arms and the tail handled but how are we going to stop her from blasting us with a mouth laser or just walking off while we're trying this?"

"Flash, you and I will handle the mouth." Batman said. "There's a tow cable attached to my jet. I'll make a distraction, you will have to bind her mouth closed before she can fire off a blast."

"Oh great. If I get eaten, you can expect a strongly worded letter in the mail." Flash whined. "That doesn't stop her from walking off though."

"I'm guessing that's my job then?" The voice Batman was waiting for asked.

The Caped Crusader allowed himself a small smile. "Yes, you will have to pin her in place once the others finish their part of the plan."

Superman sighed. "I never thought dealing with kids could be this high maintenance." He finished with a smile in his voice.

Ignoring the Man of Steel's joking tone, Batman looked out the cockpit to see the giant ape had lost interest in him and was now moving towards the city lights visible in the distance.

"We're out of time. Stick to the plan."

-o-

The heroes didn't start going for the Ape's limbs immediately.

Not only had she shown that even in a rage-fueled state Califa still possessed some form of animal cunning, if any of them failed to subdue her at the same time they risked her freeing one of her other limbs and making the effort useless.

Instead they reengaged the fight by having Superman attempt to blindside her with a punch to the head, but once again the Great Ape seemed to detect him without using her eyes. This time, however, when the Saiyan went to focus on Superman, Wonder Woman managed to get her Lasso around the Ape's right wrist.

"Go now!"

Following the Amazon's cry, Martian Manhunter, in the form of a long serpentine creature, phased up through the ground and wrapped himself around the giant ape's legs as Hawkwoman dived bombed it from above. With a characteristic warcry, Hawkwoman smashed the ape's head with her mace three times before the Ape tried to bat her away with its remaining hand.

The second it did so, Wonder Woman pulled on the Lasso as hard as she could while an emerald beam slammed into the Ape's back. Off balance and unable to move thanks to the Martian Manhunter, the combined force of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern was enough to cause the Great Ape to fall to its hands and knees.

Hawkwoman circled back around and smashed her mace into its left wrist, driving the Ape even further off balance and finally crashing to the ground with Superman landing on its back and pushing hard enough that the ground under the Ape began to crack and give way.

"Manhunter, Flash, now!" Batman ordered as one end of the towcable was fired into the ground near the Ape's snout and anchored itself there. Flash covered the open ground in a blink of an eye while carrying the other end of the cable and tightly wrapping it so the saiyan was unable to open her mouth.

Martian Manhunter moved from the Ape's legs to the left arm and pulled together with Wonder Woman to force them both straight.

Finally, Green Lantern grabbed the Saiyan's tail with his ring and held on tight.

They had managed to hold down the giant Ape, but just as they had feared simply grabbing hold of its tail wasn't enough to knock the fight out of it. The Ape might have greatly weakened, but it was still struggling and trying to free itself.

"We can't hold her like this forever!" Hawkwoman snarled as she added her own strength to the effort of keeping the left arm immobile.

"Keep it up as long as you can." Batman ordered, "Even if we can't stop her we can buy ourselves time."

"She's struggling too much!" Wonder Woman cried as she strained against the force pulling on her lasso. "She's going to escape any second, Flash, get out of there!"

The Flash ignored the warnings. Instead he zipped around until he was directly in front of the Great Ape's face and waved to get its attention.

"Hey Califa!" He called out and managed to resist flinching as both giant rage-filled red eyes locked onto him with laser focus. "Hey, don't worry kid, fight's over! Why don't you just calm down and take a nap? We'll grab a bite to eat when you wake up, sounds good?" He said in the most calming voice he could.

If the Ape's mouth hadn't been firmly tied shut it might have tried to bite the Scarlet Speedster, but fortunately it was so the Ape had to settle for a great big huff of air instead. Although the struggling was starting to diminish.

Flash had to brace himself against the gust of warm, moist wind – giant monkey snot, eyuck! – but recovered quickly and continued speaking in the same tone of voice. "Yeah, we can try out that BBQ place I was telling you about. Maybe finally introduce you to Kid Flash so he can't whine about missing you all the time."

The more Flash talked, the more the Great Ape relaxed. Eventually its eyes began to drift closed and it began to breathe deeply. The struggles stopped completely and the heroes were able to stop trying to restrain it.

"She is sleeping." Manhunter confirmed for all of them after shifting back to a more humanoid appearance. "As long as she remains undisturbed, I believe I can keep her from awakening before the moon is set."

"Good, I don't want to have to do that all over again." Hawkwoman exclaimed, rubbing at a stiff spot on her shoulders.

"Yeah, me either." Flash added, trying to wipe some of the…stuff, off himself with little success. "I'm already going to need a long shower after this."

"Then let's do a quick check to make sure nothing nearby is going to wake her up again." Superman suggested. "But other than that, good work everyone. We made a good team."

Batman watched as the other heroes split off to take care of whatever they felt needed to be done at the moment. But last thing Superman said stuck in his mind.

'A good team, huh? Maybe we'll need more of that…'