Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 447 MUTANTS VS. ALIENS

“Why do I feel like these holographic projectors are useless?” I asked Wolverine as he openly walked around. 

“Cus they are,” Wolverine said. “This is your first time with aliens, right? We all look the same to them.” 

“You’ve run into aliens before?” I asked, surprised. 

“Of course,” he said. “As X-Men, we are usually called when some lost ship lands on Earth or something.”

“Goddammit,” I said. I hadn’t thought of that. I often forgot that the X-Men were around a while before I showed up. “Wait, how the hell do we not have space flight if that's the case?”

“No idea,” Wolverine growled. 

“What about Garuda? That AI is supposedly watching us.” Scarlet asked as she walked beside me. Quicksilver was currently trying to sneak into the palace to establish some form of dialogue between our groups. With luck, he could try to sneak them out as we continued to look for a ship, but I didn’t want that. My quest said to win this stupid tournament. I planned to do just that. I was positive that something would get in the way of our escape before the tournament, so I wasn’t too worried about it. 

“True,” I said. “Maybe it thinks Wolverine is part of that bear species I saw at the bazaar.” I looked around, confused as Wolverine continued to walk with a purpose. “Where are we going anyway?”

“I found some people that have answers a few towns over. This area is crawling with the bird-people, but a few dozen miles out has a more diverse crowd that isn’t so happy with the Shi’ar. I was coming back to check in with the professor when I found our hotel was wiped out,” he said.

“Cool. Should we start running or-” I stopped talking as a large ship swooped in. Red and yellow lights flashing on the top, someone began to talk from a speaker mounted somewhere at the front of the vehicle. 

“Humans! For your protection we have been asked to gather each of you in preparation of the Arin'n Haelar. Please allow us to…” The voice continued on, as the shuttle began to descend. A door lowering from the back there were a half dozen soldiers inside.

“I guess your disguise didn’t work,” I told Wolverine as I summoned my Soulsword. His claws shot out as he growled. 

“Guess so, but we can’t get captured. We are the only hope the others have,” he said.

“I agree,” Scarlet said as her hands began to glow red. 

“Oh let’s try that bowling ball move,” I said to Wolverine excitedly. I couldn’t remember the name of the move he and Colossus did, where the big Russian threw him. 

“What bowling ball move?” He asked, eyeing me as the soldiers jumped out of the vehicle to the ground. 

“Eh, nevermind lets just steal their shit,” I said. Grabbing Wolverine by his flanneled shirt, I wrapped my other arm around Scarlet’s shoulder. Taking flight I shot us into the open maw of the vehicle. Only a couple of soldiers inside, I used Timeflow to rush to the pilot after I dropped the others inside. My sword at the driver’s throat, Wolverine threw the soldiers outside as I directed the pilot where to fly. With the other soldiers left behind, we were covering a lot more ground. 

After getting a handle on the controls after a short tutorial from the pilot, Wolverine threw him out the back as well. My piloting skills still sucked as they had in One Piece world. After a choppy ride, we made it to the city Wolverine found. Using Observation Haki I found a rather empty skyscraper building and rammed the ship into it. 

Each of us sporting our holographic projectors we jumped out and escaped with everyone else from the building. Hopefully disappearing into the crowd so the Shi’ar AI couldn’t find us. What followed was picking up the trail Wolverine had been carving through people. 

It wasn’t so hard for the beast of a man to find the seedy areas of a city. Since he wasn’t as morally inclined as the Professor, Wolverine was rather rough with the people. Jumping from one informant to another as we asked a range of questions. 

Our main goal was finding a spaceship to get us the hell out of there. After finding and threatening a few smugglers we learned that was mostly useless though. Even the slightly illegal smugglers were tracked by the AI. Forced to go through intensive scans before leaving the planet, they were also limited on knowledge of the known universe. 

How the majority of governments stayed in power in the cosmos, was by holding a stranglehold on exact locations of settlements and planets. Though I never really appreciated how big it was, the universe was rather large. The advanced civilizations had access to warp technology to ensure that space travel took a fraction of the time, but knowing where to go exactly was the hard part. Getting visas to enter certain territories was also a huge issue that people had to navigate. 

Sickened by the bureaucracy that already had a monopoly on the final frontier, I was starting to see the whole space travel idea as far less romantic than I originally hoped. Still holding out for a dream of my own space opera adventure some day, we continued our search as we beat up mini-bosses. Slowly but surely making our way up to the big boss of the area, an alien by the name of Campos. 

“You know, for aliens these guys sure are weak,” I told Wolverine. My hand wrapped around a cluster of tentacles on a weird eldritch humanoid alien. I shot Nen from my hand in a wave. Throwing the alien back. 

“We are-“ Wolverine punched a stocky toad man in the throat before he could burp out another flame of fire. The spark in his throat caused the flabby skin around his throat to stretch and explode out, singeing Wolverine. His flannel catching on fire he padded the flame and punched another alien who was trying to shoot him with a massive gun. 

“We are working our way up,” Wolverine said. 

“Why are you doing this?!” A pink skinned hairless alien said. I kicked him between the legs causing him to howl and fall to the ground. 

“Sorry, I don’t remember,” I said. 

“We need answers!” Scarlet yelled as a wave of red energy shot from her hands, blocking a half dozen aliens from charging us. I could feel the power she was using. The energy she expelled was faint but there. Resonating more with my Nen than Haki, she could apparently cast some type of red magic that I wasn’t aware of.

“We need a ship,” Wolverine reminded. He wasn’t using his claws. All three of us still wearing the faces of random Shi’ar with our holographic projectors. We weren’t risking the planet’s AI finding us. “And a pilot.”

“Where is Han Solo?” I asked a gray skinned alien that looked like he anally probed people for fun. 

“Who?” The alien asked through a tiny slit for a mouth. Instead of answering, I threw him into the wall. Next to where he hit, the elevator doors opened again. It wasn’t really an elevator but another one of those shafts you floated up. This time instead of a bunch of lackeys though, it was a single man. 

He wore a red and blue skintight suit. Much like Superman’s it had a red cape and showed off every single bulging muscle underneath. His head was mostly shaved, but he actually had a dark mohawk pointing straight up. His skin a deep purple I was beginning to get chills as I felt his Haki. I was able to mostly tell strength by someone’s spiritual energy. Where Wolverine’s was like a really strong flashlight, this guy’s was like a lighthouse. Radiating power, he was the second strongest person I ever felt in front of me. Only second to future me that I had got a glimpse of in…the future.

“Wolverine,” I said, taking a step back as the lackeys we had been fighting retreated toward the elevator.

Wolverine took a deep sniff of the air and somehow he knew this guy was strong as well. “Finally we are getting somewhere,” Wolverine growled happily. Not showing a hint of fear as we faced the man. Normally I would be excited for the fight as well, but I recognized this guy. One of the strongest beings in Marvel, he was known as Gladiator for some reason. I couldn’t remember his exact backstory, I just knew of him, like most of the Marvel characters. 

“Why have you attacked this place?” The mohawk man said as he stepped onto the metal scaffolding above. 

“We wanna join your gang,” I said with a smile. “Is this not…how you join?”

“You three have been causing quite the headache,” the man said, ignoring my comment. He began floating over the balcony handrail and descending toward us. Other aliens we had beaten that were conscious but faking, quickly moved out of the way. 

“Listen, bub,” Wolverine said as he pulled out a half smoked cigar from his flannel pocket. The move did not translate well with the holo-projection, it appeared he pulled the foul smelling stogie out of nowhere.

“Ah, now I see, you are wearing faces,” Gladiator said. His tight super suit showed off every muscle in his forearms as he squeezed his fist to crack his knuckles. “Show me who you are, and I may go easy on you.”

“I got a problem taking orders from anyone with hair like that,” Wolverine said as his zippo lit the cigar. “We need answers, and though you feel strong, you still aren’t who we are looking for.”

“And who is that?” Gladiator asked, his Haki rising. I doubted he could manipulate it, but he was obviously not at his full strength. 

“A crime boss by the name of Campos, supposedly he runs this place,” Wolverine said as he took a puff. 

“Ah, well the master of this house answers to my master,” Gladiator said. “I do not care for these people you have beat, so I am willing to hear your plight. Perhaps if our needs align, I will assist you.” Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Wolverine and I stared at him in a stunned silence for a moment. Both of us slowly dropping our battle stance in annoyance. “Oh, we aren’t fighting?” I asked, actually disappointed. 

“We can if you want,” Gladiator said. “But currently I am in the need of strong people. You seem more capable than most. I had hoped to push Campos for assistance, yet he called me up here, thus telling me that he is worthless.”

Again I was lost in this world. I had no idea what was going on. I thought maybe Gladiator was some muscle for hire, which he might be, but he obviously wasn’t working for these guys. Wolverine and I shared a look and he shrugged. 

“We need a way off this planet,” I said to Gladiator. 

“Ah yes, I believe I heard that,” Gladiator said with a nod. His Spiritual Energy rising steadily still. “You are hiding your faces, and on the run perhaps? Me as well. But my situation is far from over. Tell me…whoever you are. Will you assist me in my own struggles if I am able to provide you an escape?”

The guy talked weird, but he felt truthful. Surprised how well this was working I eyed Scarlet who was standing behind us, stricken with fear of the purple man. 

“What do you need us to do?” I asked since no one else was stepping up. 

“There are a group of aliens on this planet. I need them dead,” he said. 

“Okay,” I said with shrug.

“Goddammit, Weston,” Wolverine growled. “This is why the professor gets pissed off at you. We don’t just kill people.”

“They’re aliens, does that really count?” I asked. “It’s like killing robots or zombies or whatever. It doesn’t count since they probably don’t have souls.”

“I know,” Wolverine said. “But we lead into that. Not jump right to it. Tell me, Grape, who are the aliens?” He asked Gladiator.

“They are the individuals summoned for the trial of the Kree Champion. I believe they are called humans,” he said.

“Oh…” I said. Eyeing my partner in crime. “Maybe you have a point, you shouldn’t jump right into the killing. Maybe these humans have souls.”