I half-heartedly jogged in front of Amelie after we made the disappointing discovery that while she could technically fit in the vent system, she wasn't small or flexible enough to actually navigate parts of it without a lot of struggling on her end and a lot of pushing or pulling on mine. And I didn't want to wait five minutes every time we needed to make a turn. So running it was.
Well, like I mentioned, half-hearted jogging for me, what was quickly turning into a sweaty, lung wrenching marathon for Dr. Roquette. It turned out cardio wasn't something she did a lot of before getting kidnapped.
Sigh, we haven't even been running for five minutes yet.
"Are you sure you don't want me to just carry you? It would be a lot faster than what we're doing now."
"...no…I can…run on…my own…" Amelie panted out.
"Mhmmm." I hummed doubtfully.
"...I will not…be carried…by a…teenager…I have…that much pride…at least."
Hrm, on the one hand I could kinda understand where she was coming from. But on the other I really just wanted to speed things up so I could go find Hawkie. Of course if she was really looking for Amelie, she would be coming to me so I couldn't just ditch the doctor somewhere…ugh, this was an escort mission.
I hated those!
I sighed, at least we were getting close to the exit.
"If you say so, Doc." I grumbled before going back to scanning up ahead of us for any signs of the liza– Gordanians coming to stop us from running around their base since whatever tech they were using to shield their base was still messing with my Ki sense.
I was actually a little surprised no one had come to stop us yet. The alarm was still going off and I knew we had to have passed at least a few cameras by now, so why hadn't we run into anyone yet?
We made a turn into some sort of terminal room and I had just completed that thought when a massive door slammed down behind us, trapping us inside.
"So this is the pest that has been making even more of a mess in my outpost?" A large Gordanian said as he entered the room followed by a group of smaller grunts. "And Doctor Roquette! How interesting to see you outside your lab. For your sake I hope that you finished my weapon before trying to escape."
"This is bad," Amelie hissed in my ear, even as she tried to hide how out of breath she was. "That's the Supervisor. We need to find a way out of here now!"
I tilted my head to look at her. "Why? It's just more of them, and even if the big guy is stronger than them they aren't all that tough."
"You don't understand, he's in a completely different league! He fought both Hawkgirl and Hawkman by himself and nearly killed them. I overheard some of the guards saying he was a match for Wonder Woman!"
I froze and looked at the large Gordanian with an intense look. A match for Wonder Woman? "So…you're saying he's pretty strong then…huh?"
"Way more than a kid can handle." Amelie nodded. "We probably won't be able to get away, but if we can hold out until Hawkgirl comes back with the Justice League…"
I was already ignoring her and raised one hand to point at the wall to our right. A decently sized beam of ki shot from my hand and blew through not only the wall I shot it at, but also the wall behind that one until I could see the sky and a bit of sunlight peeking through the freshly made hole in the mountain.
Guess I underestimated how close to the edge of the outpost. Oh well.
"That should lead outside to the mountain." I told Amelie. "You can head out now and wait for Hawkie to find you. I'll take care of these guys."
"..."
When I didn't get a response I looked back at the scientist only to find her staring open-mouthed at the hole I just made. Turning to the Gordanians, I could see they were doing the same thing. Was a simple Ki blast really that impressive?
"Hey, get going." I urged Amelie by prodding her in the side with my tail.
While it did snap her out of whatever trance she was in, Amelie didn't run towards the hole like I expected. Instead she grabbed me by the front of my shirt and pulled me up into her face.
"Why didn't you do that from the beginning?! We could have been halfway down the mountain before they caught up with us!"
I just looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "One," I said, putting up a finger. "We only just got close enough to the edge of the outpost that I knew the roof wouldn't collapse on us…probably. The last time I blasted through an underground structure I got yelled at about it a lot and she was a lot tougher than you. Two," A second finger went up. "You didn't want me carrying you so there was no way we were going anywhere without the lizard guys spotting us on some sort of camera. And three," the final finger went up. "They are being really polite right now waiting for you to run away, so can you do that before it gets awkward?"
Amelie jerked her head towards the Gordanians that were currently spreading throughout the room but not charging us or blocking the hole I made. I could see the question on the scientist's face but I wanted to get the show moving already.
"Better move fast, Doc. I'll come get you when I'm done."
I gave her a little push to get her moving – which she did, finally – and she did her best to run towards the hole while simultaneously looking back at me every once in a while, keeping an eye on the Gordanians for any sudden moves towards her, and trying not to collapse from how out of breath the short jog was making her again. I guess the small rest we took wasn't enough for her to recover her breathing.
It was a little weird seeing someone so out of shape. She really needed to work on her cardio…
But now it was just me, the Supervisor, and a bunch of grunts. Which meant I could cut loose without worrying about the squishy human getting hit by accident.
"Thanks for waiting, I'm ready to fight now!" I shot the Supervisor a thumbs up.
The Supervisor just huffed. "Stupid pest, you sent away the only leverage you had. Soldiers take aim."
I frowned at him while the grunts all pointed their laser baton things at me. This wasn't going the way I expected. "Wait a sec, you guys aren't going to fight me fairly? Even after I made sure Amelie was out of the way?"
"You're a Saiyan so you should somewhat understand. You don't fight inferior lifeforms fairly. You put them down when you don't have time to play with them." He said dismissively. "Fire!"
The grunts were either really used to following the big guy's orders or were really eager to shoot me because they were firing at me even before he finished the word. And not all of them shot directly at me either, aiming slightly around me in an attempt to guess where I would try to dodge.
But enough were on target that when I apparently didn't move a laser went through my leg, two more went through my chest, and a final shot went through my eye.
"Hmph, still just an upjumped pest." The Supervisor sniffed. "One of you go grab Dr Roquette before she gets too far and another clean up that– what?!"
I smiled from my new position behind one of the grunts as everyone watched the much holey-er me distort before fading away like mist.
"My turn!"
I placed my hand on the grunt's back and used a ki blast to propel him face first into a wall. Unless he was more durable than the other guys I fought that should be enough to knock him out for the rest of the fight which I kinda doubted cause, you know, he was just a grunt.
And speaking of grunts, the remaining ones didn't waste any time shooting at my new position even when I turned and basically dared them to. Not that they had a chance at hitting me.
As my hole ridden image faded away, I picked another grunt at random and blasted him the same way I did the first, following the pattern until there was only one very panicked grunt left and the Supervisor, who was just watching his men get taken down one after the other.
In fact, it was only when I was about to take down the last grunt that the large Gordanian made a move.
I was just about to blast the smaller lizard when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and instinctively dodged. The Supervisor's arm missed me by a few inches but slammed into his underling's side. I winced a bit at the sound of ribs snapping because that was definitely going to hurt later but otherwise just hopped back a bit, excited that I was about to get to the main event.
"Missed again! And this time you even hit your own guy." I taunted as I took an actual stance for the first time.
"He served his purpose. That intangibility teleport trick you used is something you need to set up in advance, isn't it? You dodged, which means I can hit you, which means I can crush you."
Hah, as if I was going to lose to some lizard. Still, I was excited to break out this technique since I failed to debut it against that one fight with the yakuza guy.
…man, I'd been holding onto this one for a while…
"Yeah, it's called the Afterimage Technique! As for crushing me…you talk big, don't disappoint me now…"
The Supervisor snarled and launched himself at me.
He was pretty quick, but nothing I hadn't dealt with before. I sidestepped a wild swing and snuck in a punch about twice as strong as anything I'd used so far that hit him directly in the chest. My eyes widened as not only did it do nothing, the Supervisor grabbed me by the wrist and swung me over his head towards the floor.
At the last second I managed to get my legs under me so that I landed in an awkward crouch instead of flat on my back, but the Gordanian still hadn't let go and picked me back up to deliver a heavy blow straight into my stomach.
I gasped a little as the air was driven from my lungs, but I wasn't just going to let him use me as a punching bag. As he went for a second punch, I pulled myself up and over his arm while kicking at his face. It was rushed and from an awkward angle, but it was still enough to get him to let go of me. Twirling in the air, I gathered a ki ball in my hands and once my feet hit the ground, shoved it into his chest that got a pained grunt out of the giant lizard.
I smiled at the sound, but it was too early to celebrate because a scaly arm cut through the smoke of my last attack and nailed me solidly on the cheek – sending me flying across the room.
Ow. Okay, I can see why the Gordanians thought the Supervisor could go up against Wonder Woman. He hit hard.
I quickly stood up and wiped a bit of blood from my cheek as I watched the Supervisor brush away the last bit of smoke to reveal that while I had destroyed a patch of his chest armor, the scales underneath were only lightly singed. That meant he was pretty durable too.
I was going to need to put a lot more effort into this fight if I wanted to win.
I smiled. "Today was a good day afterall."
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