Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 429 ZOD

The scenery around me was a blur as I sped up. Tabi holding onto me she was pure confidence as I shot at the duo. The fight had only gotten worse since I reviewed my options. Another skyscraper falling, I wished I could help, but I needed this fight. A notification appeared in my view and I scanned it before dismissing it quickly. 

“Let’s fucking go!” I yelled. Tabi’s blue flame enveloped me. Chakra filling me for the first time in a long time. I did something I hadn’t needed to since we learned to become one. I used a shadow clone jutsu. Creating as many shadow clones as possible they fell from the sky like rain toward Metropolis. Prepared to help the people in the city, I doubted they could fly, but would have a few of my powers available. Probably three hundred of them falling from the white smoke of the jutsu, I felt the pure chakra eat at my skin. 

Blue flames nipping away at me I ignored the pain as I poured chakra into my palms. Huge basketball sized chakra balls formed and grew. I poured all the chakra I could handle into them. An old friend I hadn’t seen in some time, it was a great feeling to be able to do this again. The chakra reached it’s crescendo and I threw both balls. They slammed into Zod at the same time, causing him to be thrown forward into a building. 

“What are you doing?!” Superman yelled. He was bleeding from his cheek, and his suit was ripped. Other than that his knuckles were bloody, proving I wasn’t exactly ready for this stage of strength yet. He was hardly hurt and I had just given my strongest attack. 

“Helping. We need to get him out of the city!” I yelled. 

“I’m trying,” Superman said. “He’s gone crazy.” 

“Do we need to kill him?” I asked. Superman opened his mouth but was stopped as Zod roared. Coming back at us. Of course that was when time ran out. Tabi disconnected from me and I scrambled to get my Nen back up. 

Zod was just as bloody as Superman, so not beat up at all. A cut on his forehead, his knuckles were bloody, but he was like an animal. Dark thin hair on his head, he had more meat on his bones than when I saw him last, but still radiated a sickly Haki. There was something severely wrong with him. Hollow eyes, cheeks, and disgusting teeth. I didn't want to push it, but I felt like he had to be put down. He flew for me and Superman got in his way. 

“Fucking pussy,” I said to myself because I flinched slightly. Superman punched Zod and I went after them. Getting angry at myself for my cowardice, the veins in my arms bulged with new strength. Remembering the other tool I had I summoned my Soulsword. The white blade shot out of me instantly. Made from my Nen it was as strong as my soul was. 

Flying at the two men going at it I sped up more as Tabi held onto me. My clones helping to evacuate people I was a far cry from the weakling I had been. It was time to prove it once and for all. Zod stabbed his fingers into Superman’s gut, drawing blood. He dropped and I was on Zod. Stabbing my Soulsword at him it stopped at his forehead. Sinking into his skin for perhaps a millimeter, it stopped there.

“Fuck,” I said as I summoned it back into myself. Zod made a move and I used Timeflow to keep up with his hit. Narrowly ducking under the punch that would have cut me in half I coated my arm in nen and haki, and punched him as hard as I could in the chin. He actually felt the hit and I did another. Speeding up my Timeflow more I did hit after hit until he was pushed back a few feet. 

As time sped back up to normal he made another move for me, but I couldn’t dodge. Instead I coated myself with Sparks and took the hit. Absorbing his fist with both forearms I felt my shoulders pop as I was thrown back 100 feet. 

“Fucking cheat ass skill,” I said, annoyed by the Krytonians. Superman was back on Zod and we started a game of tag. Me resting, and watching them fight, Superman getting knocked away, so then I could dive in, we worked together to push him away from the city and toward the ocean. 

Once Zod flew at me with all his speed and I opened a Rift that pointed back at the ocean, forcing him a good 40 feet in the opposite direction he wanted to go. Then Superman was on him, pushing him further back. We didn’t speak, only attacked. I grew less and less nervous with each bout I had with Zod. Mixing my skills in a cacophony of randomness, the super powered freak had no idea what to expect. 

When Tabi and I could become one again we pushed the psycho back miles over the water and this time I got him to talk. “Why the fuck are you doing this?!” I yelled. “Why are you fighting? Why aren’t you happy-” 

“I killed them all!” Zod yelled. His voice like granite hitting the Earth. “Every single one.” Out of breath there were tears in his eyes as he explained. Superman frowned. I could see he knew the answer. 

”The Phantom Zone was a last resort!” He growled. “I was set in charge of them. No food or water needed, we could survive there indefinitely. What they didn’t tell us was that how you felt when you entered was how you stayed.”

“What does-” I asked, but he continued.

“The first 10 years wasn’t so bad. I could deal with the hunger,” he mumbled, his eyes far away as he stared through me. “That was around when the hunger began to redouble. I couldn’t have eaten even if I wanted before entering the Phantom Zone. I was so worried for our people.” He didn’t wipe the tears that fell. “But around the 12 year mark, one of our people killed another. A grievance from bad blood. I figured that we had no food…no one would miss a part of his body.” I frowned, not liking where this was going. I had expected it since I saw bite marks on corpses in the Zone, but still. 

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“Then more fighting happened. The zone never opened. We fought and I kept trying to fill that void that the phantom zone left in me. Eating my fill till I puked did nothing. The hunger was still there and I would continue to try to eat.”

“Fucking hell,” I said. He had been in there for 30 years. Who knew how long he had been the last survivor? I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have my body frozen in time. Even a stubbed toe would probably feel excruciating by then. 

“I deserve death,” Zod said. “Leave this new world to the last of us.” He looked to Superman, pleading. 

“Zod, you can-”

“No!” He roared, his voice hitting the waves below us to bounce back. “I am done. I have no idea how to die in this body and-”

“I can kill you,” I said, raising my hand. 

“Weston,” Superman said. 

“You can?” Zod asked, hope in his voice. 

“Pretty sure I can,” I said. Tabi sat on my shoulder, staring at them as if she knew all of their secrets. “But only if he agrees.” I pointed at Superman.

“Kal-el, I wish for this. Why do you deny it to me?” Zod said.

“Because you’re the last of us,” He said. “The last one that can tell me how our planet was. The last that can tell me what our people were like.” His voice cracked, doing his own best to not show tears. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I was the last of my kind. 

“No, our people were not right. There is a reason we died out. All to pay for our sins,” he said. I wanted to ask about these supposed sins, but he continued. “Start over, Kal. This world will do you much better than ours would have. Maybe…if I hadn’t been with the others it would be different. But I doomed us. I ruined it all. Please, let me die.”

It didn’t happen instantly. Superman was a range of emotions as he stared at Zod. The general that annoyed me in the comics and movies was actually pretty honorable in this world. Granted he killed a lot of Kryptonians, and Earthlings too now, but sometimes it wasn’t how you lived, instead it was how you died. Slowly Superman nodded and I whistled happily as I opened my subspace. 

Breaking off a chunk of kryptonite from Lex’s trove I pulled it out of thin air. Neither asked where it came from. “This is part of your planet,” I said. “I think that the strength you have here is counteracted by the mineral from your home world.” I brought it closer to Zod as I flew toward him. “One last taste of home before…” I faded off. He nodded, joy pouring out of him instead of the anguish he had been going through.  

I stared at Superman, who frowned, fighting the tears, but nodded. I knew kryptonite wasn’t strong enough on it’s own. It was just able to weaken the super pals. But I could coat a playing card in nen and throw it through brick. 

I coated the spike of kryptonite in Nen and used Timeflow. Hoping this guy didn’t have second thoughts at the last second, I struck as quick and cleanly as I could. Stabbing directly into his heart he didn’t fight at all. The green rock moved through his chest, into his heart, and out back through his shoulder blade.

As time sped back up he gasped, smiling widely for the first time he rasped, “thank-” then died. No longer flying, I grabbed onto him so he wouldn’t fall. As if I was giving him a hug I pulled the kryptonite out and put it back into my subspace. Kryptonian blood all over me from the wound I turned to Superman.

“Uh you uh…wanna like bury him in a meadow or something?” I asked. 

Superman frowned, fighting back tears. “You just killed-”

“He asked me to,” I shot back. “I fucking knew you’d pull this shit. Righteous asshole. Don’t think I forgot you arrested me.”

“Don’t think I forgot either, Rift,” he said. He flew over to me and took Zod’s body. Princess carrying him, he didn’t say another word and floated away. 

“Where’s Kara?!” I yelled. I had expected her to join in the fight, but she hadn’t. 

“He knocked her out. But she should be fine,” he said in a cold voice. I sighed in relief. “And stay away from her!” 

“I haven’t…Did she say anything about me?!” I yelled. Superman didn’t answer. Looking around, I noticed the many news and military helicopters around us. Cameras pointed my way I raised my fist up in triumph like All Might. Smiling wide, I had lived. 

Granted I wasn’t deluded enough to believe I could actually live against Superman. Since both Zod and Superman were only a little bloody, neither was going there all. Obviously Zod was trying to push Superman into killing him. Killing people he didn’t care about but Superman did. Though it wasn’t working, I was glad he went a little easy on me. Happy with the gains I brought up my quest. 

Though I had completed the quest, I guessed this was related to the original quest. 

“Not bad at all,” I said. To my surprise, the World Role Choice wasn’t automatically chosen. Was I already assigned a role in the world? Could I choose a new World Role with this item? What could be gained from that? 

I tried to use the item. 

“I wish you had told me that earlier,” I said to the world. I had thought I hadn’t gotten a role. Confused what a Dynamic Hero was, I knew that Dynamic dealt with motion. Maybe it was more of a fluid hero? Or maybe the type of hero I was for some reason. I wasn’t too sure.

Unsure what was going on, I pushed no. Perhaps I could use the item in another world where I didn’t want to be a hero? Or maybe there was a world coming up where I would be the villain? Or maybe I could do something in Marvel that would label me a villain and I could use this to switch back. “That sounds more likely,” I admitted. 

Either way I was now 16% into my Viltrumite form. Getting there piece by piece I had almost doubled the amount in this world. Happy with my gains I turned to fly toward Gotham when a helicopter moved in my path. Inside was Captain Boomerang waving at me wildly as Rick Flag pushed him back. 

“You’re breaking your parole leaving the city!” Flag yelled. 

“Fuck you!” I yelled, flipping him off.

He frowned. “Waller wants to see you!” He yelled.

“She can come to me this time!” I yelled. “The restaurant at my hotel!”

I flew back toward my home. Annoyed by the government pulling this crap I seriously considered calling a press conference. Announcing to the world about the new hero in town, and calling out Waller by name. But she was just a bitch that liked to be calling the shots. I would let her play her game. I’d just killed a god. Granted he wanted to die, but still. Usually I had to fuck one to beat it. I was slowly increasing my range of abilities.