Chapter 41: Newton Doesn't Govern Aliens
2023-10-23 Author: Rowing Without Oars 233
Gotham, night.
Pale yellow streetlights cast a faint glow. Two men walked down the street, arguing heatedly as they went.
"Nonsense! Clearly, Miss Jim Gordon is prettier!"
"Impossible. I'll admit Miss Jim Gordon is good-looking, but that just means she has bigger breasts, longer legs, and a pretty face. She definitely can't compare to Lana!"
"Hah, but Miss Jim Gordon is the mayor's daughter. Even if you suck up to her like that, she doesn't know you."
"By that logic, Lana is a movie star in Metropolis. As if she knows you, either."
The two men suddenly fell silent.
"Ha, you've got a point."
"You're not wrong either."
"Ah, whatever, forget it. Come on, let's go get a drink."
"Right, let's go drinking. Why argue about all that nonsense?"
And so, with arms slung over each other's shoulders, humming a little tune and singing a song, the two made their way to a bar.
Until a figure appeared in the darkness ahead.
From the silhouette, they could vaguely make out that it was a woman. As they drew a little closer, the dim yellow light revealed a rarely seen, tall woman. She had a figure that could literally be described as heavenly, with well-defined curves, stunning long legs, and bare feet on the cold ground. Her face was hidden in the shadows.
What was even more unusual was that she was draped only in a single, strangely styled, loose cape. It seemed to be woven entirely from feathers, resembling those of a peacock.
A single glance made it obvious that she was completely naked under that cape.
Beneath the magnificent cape, her full thighs were vaguely visible, and even the rounded curve slightly higher up.
The two men's eyes instantly went wide.
Could someone really be this... open?
One of them let out a loud whistle and immediately moved closer. As he approached, an intoxicating fragrance assaulted his senses.
"Lady, do you need some help?"
"Are you lost?"
"On a cold night like this, don't you need some warmth...?"
"Come to my place, it's pretty big..."
The woman lifted her head, and an eerie, ghostly green light flashed in her eyes.
"Alright. I do, in fact, need some help..."
As she spoke, her snow-white arms shot out from under the cape. Her speed was immense, like two bolts of white lightning. Without another word, her ten fingers clamped around each man's throat, lifting them both off the ground with astonishing arm strength.
The two men's faces instantly flushed the color of a pig's liver as veins bulged on their necks. A ball of dark green gas was released from the woman's fingertips, surging along their necks, into their throats, and flowing through the complex network of their veins into their bodies.
The two men screamed in unison.
Their bodies began to expand rapidly, their sleeves bursting into strips of cloth. Their skin became rough and hard, their spines were forced to bend, and they transformed into some sort of slender, twisted, zombie-like monster.
The woman released her grip. The two fell, one to her left and one to her right, landing on their knees with their heads bowed. They let out muffled sounds from their throats.
She drew her hands back inside her wide, green cape and said languidly.
"I need you to help me find someone."
Sirena didn't see how Watox had been taken out.
It was also fortunate that she hadn't been operating with Watox. They had separated earlier precisely as a precaution.
She didn't possess Watox's immense power. If it was a situation Watox could handle, her presence would have been merely ornamental. If they encountered an opponent Watox couldn't defeat, she would have just been a burden.
In fact, Watox was supposed to have a "ward" on him. It was meant to record everything he saw and encountered during combat, informing his teammates what kind of enemy they were facing.
That way, even if he met with disaster, Sirena, hiding from afar, could take this precious message and return to the Phantom Alliance to devise a new strategy.
However, the video feed that should have been transmitted back was interrupted by some unknown interference mid-battle.
This alone was enough to make Sirena realize something was wrong. How could a mere Level Three civilization possess the means to interfere with their equipment's signal transmission?
It increasingly made her feel that this planet—especially that agency called A.R.G.U.S.—its waters ran much deeper than they appeared.
In the end, all she received from Watox was an encrypted message transmitted through a backup emergency line.
It was just a single, concise sentence, yet it was filled with tension.
"Earth is terrifying, run!"
Only now was Sirena starting to believe that the loss of their two previous teammates might not have been because they were weak.
This planet definitely has a problem!
I must hurry back and notify the Alliance, notify the Lord.
She had a premonition that the mission to find the Kryptonian girl who went missing on this planet might not be so easy.
It might even require those terrifying entities within the Organization to act personally.
A.R.G.U.S.... She memorized the name.
A.R.G.U.S. Headquarters.
Naturally, the events at the Gotham base were quickly reported back to Amanda Waller.
"Alien" had clearly become the number one sensitive term on the A.R.G.U.S. watch list recently. Both sides of the alien brawl at the base—the one dishing out the beating and the one taking it—had displayed heaven-defying strength that conventional weapons were completely unable to handle.
This was especially true for the Ultraman they had been monitoring for a while. This time, not only did the Giant form of Ultraman appear, but also a battle mech that was suspected to be its teammate.
A.R.G.U.S.'s weapon experts conducted an overnight study of the combat data displayed by that mecha and quickly produced a report.
Its mobility was heaven-defying, its power system was heaven-defying, its energy output was absurdly exaggerated, and its energy weapon technology was a generation ahead of the rest of the world.
Anyway, the summary was basically this:
"Even if you shot me dead with a gun, I still wouldn't be able to figure out the dozens, even hundreds, of heaven-defying patents on that suit of equipment."
Amanda Waller was furious.
She didn't understand science. But she felt that someone had already built the finished product and shown off its specific effects right in front of them, yet they were still telling her they couldn't understand it?
"It's like an open-book exam and you don't even know how to copy the answers, is that it?"
The experts were helpless in response.
The technological level of this thing had long surpassed the scope of humanity; it was simply not something they could comprehend with their existing theoretical foundations.
If they had to say, this wasn't an open-book exam at all. It was a final, capstone question with a convoluted solution path, where the answer key only provided the final result and the process was left out with a stylish "Omitted."
However, a stupid leader doesn't care about all that. A stupid leader says, "I may not understand it, but I think you're all just trash."
Relatively speaking, the mecha was something they could almost understand. The Giant, however, had touched upon a biological realm that was fundamentally beyond their comprehension.
In any case, judging from Ultraman's two brief, ephemeral appearances, the very existence of this creature seemed meant to shatter every known law of physics. Just looking at the giant footage gave Amanda Waller a headache.
But there was nothing to be done. Aliens probably weren't governed by Old Master Newton.
"Achoo!"
Amanda Waller suddenly sneezed.
"Caught a chill, ma'am?" her Adjutant asked from the side.
"None of your business. Focus on your work," Amanda Waller said icily.
"Yes, ma'am."
The Adjutant, having been snubbed, turned his head and went back to work.
Amanda Waller rubbed her nose and frowned, a strange sense of unease settling over her.
She kept feeling as if she were in someone's sights, though she couldn't tell if it was just her imagination.
She even had a faint feeling that, in the great unseen, someone had just made her a scapegoat for something massive.
(end of chapter)