JB: Chapter 17

The next few weeks went by fairly quickly. I spent a bit of time getting the Lay of the Land on Earth in general, while simultaneously spending time in Metropolis just patrolling and getting to know the City. I even began looking into getting an actual apartment in the City, with my Gold and Platinum deposits in the bank affording me plenty of options, even in the extremely swanky New Troy Neighborhood. As I acclimated myself, I kept one eye on the international news for a very simple reason. That being that it would help me to figure out just what had happened to Kakarot.

It took no real time at all to find out where Mount Paozu was, since I had the capabilities of such a powerful communications system compared to the technical level on Earth. Apparently, Mount Paozu was in the Altai Mountains near where China, Mongolia, Russia, and Kazakhstan met. This was similar to where Frypan Mountain and the Ox Kingdom were, which was in the Greater Khinggan Mountain Range, near where Manchuria, Russia, and Rhelasia met. The international nature of the mountains, combined with the power level of the inhabitants, seemed to be enough for all nations involved to not bother anyone living in the Ox Kingdom or on Mount Paozu.

Of course, I also suspected the fact that both mountains were on a border shared by two nuclear powers also helped there as well. Kami knew that the Chinese didn't give a crap about borders otherwise, judging from the situation going on in Southeast Asia. Somewhat hilariously, the CCP had tried making common cause with the KMT Remnants in the Bitutang Valley and Big Zinh's Pirate Gang against the Red Ribbon Army, to little success. Oh, certainly, Big Zinh would take their arms, but from the traffic I was picking up, if the CCP thought that he would roll over for them if the shaky coalition won, they had another thing coming. Meanwhile, the KMT Remnants outright refused to be anything more than Co-Belligerents. It made me suspect that the Red Ribbon Army was going to win that little war.

Unfortunately, that ran into the problem that Mount Paozu seemed to be deserted right now, though it had only been so for a couple of years at the moment. Frowning, I wondered how that had come about. Kakarot should be as old as I was, after all, which meant he should have at least already attacked the Red Ribbon Army and done most of his Dragonball-Era Exploits. The fact that this hadn't happened suggested that something had happened to Kakarot's Attack Ball en route to Earth. I recalled that in some versions of the DCU, Kara Zor-El's pod got trapped in some kind of time anomaly, which resulted in her not coming to Earth until much later, and even still being the same teenager she had been when she left Argo. Had something similar happened to Kakarot? If so, how did that tie into Yamcha's reformation from Supervillain to Superhero?

These were all good questions, but I unfortunately had no way of answering them short of physically tracking down Kakarot. After all, I'd already done what I could with the limits of Earth's technology from a distance, and absent any Scrying Spells in my repertoire, this was all I could do from Metropolis. I thought about that while on patrol through Metropolis, as Clark was currently out in the Mediterranean, helping run disaster relief for an Earthquake in Cyprus. It had been a fairly calm day so far, thankfully, though, especially compared to what it could have been. After all, what better time was there to cause trouble in Metropolis than when the Man of Steel was out?

It was as I thought that, in the midst of trying to figure out whether or not I should abandon my apartment search in favor of going on the hunt for my long-lost fellow Saiyan, that I heard the sound of combat from the New Hope Pharmeceuticals Campus in New Troy. That was odd because New Hope Pharmaceuticals wasn't supposed to have anything really special. If my information was right, their Heyday had been back in the fifties and sixties, and they hadn't had a breakthrough since. Still, whoever was attacking New Hope Pharmaceuticals could not have picked a better time for it, considering what I'd just thought of.

"I probably jinxed it with that, actually." I mused with a sigh.

Regardless of any self-inflicted Jinxes, I took to the air using the Sawtooth Ascension Mandala Technique and headed straight for the New Hope Pharmaceutical Campus. When I arrived, I found a group of Green-clad, Armored Men wielding Laser Weaponry who were currently engaged in a firefight with members of Metropolis' Special Crimes Unit. For some reason, the expensively equipped and trained Special Crimes Unit seemed to be having trouble with these guys, and I racked my brain to try and come up with the answer as to who these Green-clad Yahoos were. It was as I caught a flash of white peeking out from under the composite armor vest of one of them that the answer hit me.

"SKULL. The idiots who followed the Atomic Skull into a life of crime. That's who these guys are." I frowned.

That could be an issue. The Atomic Skull was a lot beefier than most of the enemies I'd tangled with so far, capable of even hurting Clark with his energy blasts. Of course, physically, he was about on par with me, but it was those energy blasts from his Visor that would be a problem. If he were here, this could get ugly fast. There was nothing for it, though. I would just have to hope that either the Atomic Skull wasn't here or that I could stall him for long enough that Clark could finish up his business in Cypress and come flying in to be the Cavalry. Either way, I had to engage because the Special Crimes Unit wasn't doing so hot. No, they weren't doing so hot at all.

The squad of Composite Armored, Laser Weapon-Wielding, Special Crimes Unit Officers was being led by an Auburn-haired woman with a Pixie Cut in a brown trenchcoat that I recognized as Maggie Sawyer, eventual head of the Special Crimes Unit and ally of Clark, not that she knew who Superman was, mind you. She and her squad were pinned down behind a Metropolis Police truck that was increasingly being melted into slag by the Laser Weapons that the SKULL Troopers had. It was a bad spot to be in, and Maggie Sawyer was currently screaming into her Radio, trying like Hell to get any reinforcements she could. It didn't seem like those reinforcements would show up in time, even if they left now, though.

As I watched the battle unfold from the air, one of the Special Crimes Officers tried to toss a grenade that had blue tape ringing the base, likely some kind of stun grenade using what, for DCU Earth, would be advanced tech. Unfortunately, one of the SKULL Troopers shot the damned thing out of the air, causing an explosion of electricity that washed over the front of the Truck and caught one of the Special Crimes Officers in the blast. The Mocha-skinned, Jet-Haired woman jerked in place for a few moments, then slumped to the pavement, unconscious.

"Chidi!" Shouted Maggie Sawyer as one of the other SKULL Troopers sighted down on the fallen Special Crimes Officer.

That was when I decided to make my entrance. I dove down to the ground, breaking the sound barrier and shattering the windows that were still intact in the front entrance of the New Hope Pharmeceuticals Campus from the sonic boom. I touched down in front of the fallen Special Crimes Officer, Chidi, just as the whine and crack of the SKULL Trooper's Laser Rifle sounded out, taking the hit for the Unconscious Woman. It barely did more than scorch my arm hairs a bit, and as I stood up, I immediately began to conjure a Lightning Net Spell with a bit of magical power and a mystic gesture. The crackling arc of lightning shot forth from my outstretched hands and caught a trio of SKULL Troopers in its Arc, sending them to the pavement unconscious.

The remaining three focused on me with their Laser Weapons, but as I advanced slowly, the beams washed over my chest and shoulders to no effect. As soon as they saw that, one of the SKULL Troopers tried to reach for a Radio or Comms Unit hooked onto his belt to call for reinforcements, and I blurred into motion. A swift, but pulled-back, chop to the back of his neck sent the Radioman into unconsciousness, even as I felt another SKULL Trooper try to sneak up on me from behind with my Ki Sense. I turned and immediately slapped his arm away from me with a light tap, breaking his wrist and disarming him of the monomolecular Combat Knife he had been trying to literally backstab me with. A follow-on tap to his left temple had his eyes rolling into his head as he slumped to the ground unconscious.

The last SKULL Trooper plucked a spherical orb off of his belt, thumbed a switch, and tossed it at me. I didn't want to even see what sort of weird tech was in that. It was clearly a grenade of some sort, and SKULL did mix it up with Clark every now and again. I decided not to take any chances, raising my right arm and firing a basic Ki Blast that destroyed the Grenade prematurely before racing forward to knock the last SKULL Trooper unconscious. Fair dues to him, he'd used the distraction of the Grenade to pull his own Radio or Comms Unit, but at my level, even with the distraction and my holding back as much as I was so I didn't slaughter these guys, he just wasn't fast enough to call anyone. A tap to the top of his head sent him to the ground unconscious.

I turned to the now advancing Special Crimes Unit Officers and nodded at Maggie Sawyer as she ordered her men to book the six, currently unconscious, SKULL Troopers. She nodded back at me, curtly.

"You looked like you could use some help." I offered.

"Where's Superman?" Questioned Maggie Sawyer.

"Cyprus, dealing with disaster relief from this morning's Earthquake. You get me instead." I answered.

"No offense, but you're just a Kid, and the Atomic Skull is in there. Am I supposed to trust people's lives to a Kid?" Queried Maggie Sawyer.

"I'm what you've got till Superman shows up. Besides, I've done this sort of thing before." I opined.

"I heard. You really expect me to believe you worked as some sort of intergalactic bounty hunter for years?" Asked Maggie Sawyer.

"I took out those guys easy enough, didn't I?" I questioned.

"That's true enough, I suppose. Be careful. The Atomic Skull isn't like Shrapnel or even Metallo. He's actually dangerous in a big way. Plus, he's got men looking after Hostages, a mix of Scientists and regular MPD Cops, in case we got past his Guards at the front." Warned Maggie Sawyer.

"So what's the plan?" I queried.

"We can get the Hostages out by flooding the Security Office with Knockout Gas. However, we'll need someone to distract the Atomic Skull while we do that. None of my men can handle that level of firepower." Informed Maggie Sawyer.

"I can stall the Atomic Skull. Do you have any idea what he might be here for?" I asked.

"He mentioned something about Neurotrol when he was making demands of the Regular Police Earlier. The damndest thing is, I have no idea why he might want that. The briefing I got said it was supposed to be both a regenerative and an anti-psychotic, but that it didn't pass trials back in the sixties and the project was scrapped." Shrugged Maggie Sawyer.

"Good to know." I nodded.

That was interesting. If I remembered right, Neurotrol was scrapped because it had a side effect of causing hallucinations that were actually telepathic images, thanks to the drug awakening latent psychic powers in the Test Subject's Brain. At the time, nobody had the frame of reference to be able to tell genuine psychic powers from hallucinations, and the project had been scrapped. I vaguely recalled a storyline from Legends of the Dark Knight back in the two-thousands in my Old Life involving someone who used Neurotrol to give himself Telepathy. I couldn't quite recall the details, though. I wonder how the Atomic Skull figured out what the drug could do, though?

"Cap, you might want to take a look at these!" Came the voice of one of the Special Crimes Officers.

I turned to see the man holding up one of the SKULL Trooper's Laser Weapons. Maggie Sawyer took hold of it and began going over the thing with a critical eye. It was when she was partway through that she let out a hissing curse.

"Damn!" Swore Maggie Sawyer.

"Something the matter?" I questioned.

"Depends. How much do you know about International Terrorist Groups?" Queried Maggie Sawyer.

"I won't know till you show me." I shrugged.

"Fine, have a look here." Scowled Maggie Sawyer.

Then she shoved the weapon into my hands, and I looked down at the Laser Rifle and saw exactly what she meant. Emblazoned on the stock was a symbol I knew from my old life. Two red triangles with their vertices facing each other to form the shape of a bow. The telltale sign of manufacture by the Red Ribbon Army.

"Red Ribbon? Where did SKULL get this kind of equipment?" I asked.

"I don't know, but I intend to find out. If we can bring the Atomic Skull in today, we might even get the answers soon!" Huffed Maggie Sawyer.

"On that note, I'm gonna head in and engage the Atomic Skull. My Scouter can tune into your Radio Frequency for coordination purposes." I opined.

"We're on Frequency Delta in the UHF Band, eight hundred Megahertz. We'll let you know when we have the Hostages secured." Intoned Maggie Sawyer.

"All right, I'll chime in if anything unexpected happens." I concurred, tuning my Scouter to the correct frequency.

Then, with nothing else left for me to do out here, I headed into the Main Building of the New Hope Pharmaceuticals Campus to confront the Atomic Skull and hopefully not die in the process. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the next chapter. In it, we get a bit more info on how the merged worlds work, plus Rugulo gets to meet up with Clark's version of Jim Gordon in Captain Maggie Sawyer of the Special Crimes Unit. Now, he's stuck in against SKULL and its leader, the unimaginatively named Atomic Skull. Somehow, SKULL has managed to attain Red Ribbon Military Grade Laser Weaponry, which was one reason why their Troopers were able to pin down the Special Crimes Unit Troopers. After all, Special Crimes only has Police-Grade Gear.

At any rate, the next chapter will be Rugulo versus the Atomic Skull, as we'll see him take on someone who is, once again, above his current level. Then we'll get an interlude showing the aftermath of the skirmish with SKULL and its leader.

Stay tuned. . .