-Superman POV-
It felt nice to no longer be running on fumes, he thought as he took a moment to just bask in the artificial sunlight coming from one of the enclosure's lamps. Close enough to the light of a yellow sun that he was able to shake off the last effects of the red sun lamp he was exposed to.
Apparently the Preserver really went the extra mile to get even the small things as close as possible to their natural counterpart. Something Superman didn't appreciate when that meant sitting in a room under a red sun lamp feeling like he was trying to breathe in a vacuum, but felt like it evened out now that he could feel some of his strength and energy returning.
"Grawwwk!"
Superman turned to the little creature that had temporarily scared off the bounty hunters they'd run into. Not that he could blame them for their reaction, for some reason certain birds from Earth evolved to sound absolutely monstrous – even harmless ones like the dodo bird. If Superman hadn't spotted the little thing with his x-ray vision beforehand and only heard its cry, he would have thought it was another vicious beast as well.
"Looks like you really saved my bacon, little guy." He murmured towards the little bird innocently foraging nearby, uncaring about his presence. "I'll return the favor if I can."
As much as he would like to stay here and recover though, Superman wanted to escape the Preserver's ship as quickly as possible. He had a feeling escaping a second time would be much harder if the alien being managed to capture him or Califa again.
And speaking of the Saiyan, he needed to meet back up with her before she accidentally broke the ship in her excitement. The other bounty hunters hadn't hesitated to mock her for picking a fight with the Tameranean backup they had brought to counter Lobo's strength. They said that she was going to get flattened before their friend came back to finish him and Lobo off.
Superman figured that fight would go differently than they expected, but he also knew how easily the teen Saiyan could get carried away.
With that thought in mind, Superman lifted off the ground and flew back into the main chamber of the ship and towards the three remaining bounty hunters. Now that he wasn't restricted to the ground their weapons were much less of a threat to him, and physically they weren't on the same level as their Tameranean friend.
Something the rodent-like realised moments before he was knocked out, going by the way he cursed and sagged when he saw Superman flying towards him.
Three punches and three unconscious bounty hunters later, Superman hovered in place and started looking around the ship using his super vision. He found Lobo first, simply because he already knew the general direction where to look, and found the Czarnian already at the hangar like he said he was going to be.
Somewhat concerningly was the fact the Preserver was also heading in that direction. Which either meant the floating alien had a plan to capture Lobo on his own, or was more powerful than Superman assumed.
Another look around showed Califa was handily winning her fight and had her opponent on the run, thankfully without a rain of energy beams like she did so often in her fights.
That meant Superman actually had to consider which of the two he needed to head towards first. If Califa had actually been struggling or in trouble, she would be the obvious first stop. Especially if she risked damaging the ship during her fight.
On the other hand, Superman absolutely did not trust Lobo to not somehow wreck every ship in the hangar if things got violent over there as well. And while the Bounty Hunter had implied the existence of other hangars on the ship, that didn't guarantee that any of them would have a working smaller ship that both Superman and Califa would be able to use to get back to Earth.
Which made Superman's next course of action relatively clear.
Go to the hangar and secure a ship. Either convince the Preserver to let them go or disable him long enough to leave. And then grab Califa and head back to Earth. All while keeping an eye on Lobo to make sure the Bounty Hunter didn't throw a wrench in their plans on getting home, intentionally or not.
Course decided on, Superman flew up into the air and then started navigating the hallways towards the hangar as best he could. Relatively easy, since he could sort of plan his path ahead with x-ray vision and the ship itself was not designed to confuse people moving through it. But he had still flown into two dead ends and had to quickly backtrack before moving all the same.
The fact that there were no more attempts to stall him was also a bit concerning.
Either the Preserver had decided to call off any security features left after the group of bounty hunters failed, there was nobody left to coordinate the security robots, or the Preserver felt confident enough that he could handle all three of them by himself. And that last option wasn't particularly farfetched since Superman was starting to hear sounds of something large throwing things around up ahead. Right where Lobo and the hangar were supposed to be.
It didn't take long to see what was making the racket either. Superman turned the last corner into the hangar to see a very large… creature of some sort, with thick craggy red skin and some impressively viscous looking claws… beating on Lobo with no sign of the Preserver around except for what looked like some torn robes and discarded… skin...
Was that creature actually the true form of the Preserver?
There wasn't time to think about that though, as Superman slammed into the creature's back and forced it to release the Czarnian.
Lobo looked temporarily down for the count though. And the Preserver obviously wasn't in the mood to talk things out.
Superman would have to–
His train of thought was interrupted when the Preserver backhanded him halfway through a parked spaceship.
And that hurt a lot more than usual. That brief exposure to yellow sunlight might have given him enough juice to use most of his powers again, but he definitely wasn't at full strength.
Which meant he needed to be a bit more strategic about this fight.
Flying around to the back of the ship he had been slammed into, Superman pushed on the alien craft until it started moving and then in a parody of actually flying the craft – rammed the ship into the Preserver's chest hard enough that the metal deformed around it and temporarily pinned it to the floor.
"Hey, get up. We need to move before that thing gets free." Superman said, landing next to the barely conscious Lobo and giving him a good shake.
"Uurgh, Supes?" Lobo shook his head groggily until he snapped back to focus. "What do you mean 'move'? I ain't goin' nowhere till I give that bastich a beating he won't ever forget!"
"Cause that was working out for you so well before." Superman snarked.
"Fragger caught me by surprise! Wasn't my fault I wasn't expecting the cueball to be a skinsuit for that freak!"
True as that might be, Superman didn't continue the argument as he saw the fourth bounty hunter – the one Califa had been fighting – rush into the hangar looking battered, bloody, and absolutely terrified.
"Run! You need to flee this ship immediately!" The orange skinned bounty hunter cried, "The Saiyan Califa stumbled into a night enclosure and transformed into an Oozaru, we need to flee before everything is destroyed!"
"Impossible, all the night enclosures were sealed when the Saiyan was brought on board, unless…" The Preserver rumbled and fixed a wrathful glare on the bounty hunter, "Your group opened an enclosure without permission! I should never have allowed scum like you or the Saiyan onto my ship, a mistake I will permanently correct shortly!"
"So the runt went and transformed, huh? That ain't good." Lobo muttered. "At least things can't get much worse than a giant monkey going on a mindless destruction spree."
"▂▂▃▃▃▃▃▃▄▄▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅!"
"You were saying?" Superman deadpanned as the giant monkey form of the teen Saiyan announced her presence with a deafening roar and shoved her way into the hangar to join the rest of them. Califa looked at all of them with unthinking red eyes and immediately locked in on the Preserver as the biggest thing in the room — even if he was still half her size at best — as her first opponent.
"Thinking I should stop saying things, actually." Lobo retorted while the two giants clashed. "Which way you planning on dealing with the runt? Cause I don't see a softy like you going for the kill even if it is to save our stinkin' hides, and I'll admit – feisty little thing has grown on me."
Superman grimaced as the fourth bounty hunter was caught in the middle of Califa's rampage and crushed under another smaller space ship. He was alive, thank goodness, but obviously wasn't going to be any further help. "The only way we know how to deal with her transformation is to let it run its course or knock her out with a telepath. What are our options?"
"I ain't got any of that mind mumbo jumbo but there's generally four ways to deal with a Saiyan that goes all giant monster movie. Frag them, which is pretty hard to do for most dweebs in the galaxy. Knock them out, still hard but doable with the right tricks. Cut off their tail. Or just let them get it out of their system, runt's probably only got a bit of juice keeping her transformed so she should change back in an hour or so."
There was a shriek of tearing metal as Califa ripped part of the floor up and used it to beat the Preserver over the head. The red alien didn't just let it happen though and used his claws to stab and cut at her while using some of the smaller destroyed craft as a shield or projectile when he had the chance.
"Not sure the ship has an hour." Superman said honestly. "And if one of them goes through the hangar door and opens us up to space that's it for everything in here. What was that part about her tail?"
Lobo shrugged, "Couldn't tell you the reason behind it, all I know is when a Saiyan is missing their tail they can't transform. Besides, it grows back. No reason to be a pansy about it."
"We're finding another way." Superman said firmly even as he filed that information away. If Califa's tail was somehow crucial to her transformation then Batman might be able to discover a technological way to block whatever caused it.
"Uhhhh, don't know if we'll have time for that, boy scout. Look." Lobo pointed up at Califa… and the yellow energy beam building at the back of her throat!
Superman remembered what happened the last time Califa had fired off one of those beams. If that hit the ship…
It wouldn't even matter which part of the ship she aimed at.
Superman moved in front of her and spread his arms out, hoping that she could recognize him well enough to stop what she was doing.
-o-
-Califa POV-
It. Was. So. Hard. To. Think.
Every time I tried to hold a single thought in my head it was battered by a constant rush of rage and instincts.
I wanted to break things. Smash them until they were little piles of rubble, tear them to pieces and burn them with the raging energy inside me. But I couldn't.
Some small piece of me warned that if I broke too much of the stuff around me, I could die.
Even then I wanted to break things. Breaking too much stuff was bad, but breaking a little should be fine. So what to break? Surroundings was bad. Ground was bad. Little orange man… orange man was fine. I could break that. Or try to, I struggled to think as flashes of other times I had transformed flashed through my mind. Of two figures – one with blonde hair and one with black – making noise around me while I struggled to hit them.
Little orange man was slower, I could hit him. And focusing my rage on one target seemed to quiet the urge to destroy and other instincts.
Twice I hit my prey and sent him crashing through little trees and a rock. Not enough to trigger that danger instinct but also not enough to kill him. He shot something that burned my fur before the second hit ripped it from his grip. Then he did something that I didn't like.
Orange man didn't stay like the other two.
He fled from me.
And while I felt a rush of pleasure at seeing my prey run, I felt more anger that he didn't fight like the other two. I wouldn't let him get away.
I chased him until there was no place to run anymore. No more holes to escape through. But there were more prey there. Two more small ones and a big red one. The red one actually looked strong.
I roared in challenge and felt joy when the red one attacked me instead of running away.
I battered him with my fists while he scraped at me with his claws. Things around us started breaking but I didn't care. Even the little voice telling me that was a bad thing was drowned out by the thrill of the fight.
It wasn't enough though.
I could feel the energy making me big running out fast. Once it did, I would be small again and vulnerable.
I needed to end the fight now.
Energy pooled at the back of my throat. Easier to gather it there when it was so much harder to move right than when I was small. But before I could release it, the blue small one flew in front of me. Blocking the big red one for some reason.
'Destroying the surroundings was bad', that small voice of reason whispered in the back of my head.
I pushed down the energy along with the rage as best I could. If that wouldn't work…
I slapped the blue one to the floor and crushed him underfoot as I took another swing at the big red one. I hit it once, twice, three times before lifting it over my head by an arm and leg and looking for something to slam it down on that would end the fight.
But there was nothing.
I could feel my transformation slipping away and roared in frustration. I was going to lose if I did nothing.
Energy built back up in my throat. Risking death to win was acceptable to the instincts ruling my mind.
Before I could fire it, there was a bang and a bunch of noise and red lights going off. Several sections of one of the walls rolled up revealing a black void that had my instincts screaming that way was death. Which was exactly what I needed to deal with the red one.
I threw my prey at the opening and had to crouch down on the floor as wind pulled everything towards the void. It wasn't enough. The big red one caught itself just before it was sucked into the void and was able to use its claws to start climbing back. But there was nothing out in the void. No reason to hold back.
The energy I already built up fired out of my mouth and hit the red one in the chest. It didn't kill the creature, but it did knock it out into the void where it couldn't come back. Good thing, too. I was getting smaller.
The rage and energy that came with it finally used up.
The last thing I saw before I shut my eyes was me falling out into the void and the thousands of stars that filled it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Support the Author at ko-fi.com/azurawriting or over at patreon.com/AzuraWriting to read a few chapters ahead in the rotation. Growing Pains specifically is 6 chapters ahead!