Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 417 THE CAST

Most everything that happened in the first five minutes of a suicide squad movie happened to me over the next week. I was forced to sign some documents, put under for surgery, drugged up, thrown in a plane, and sent off to the East Coast. The Amanda Waller in this world inserted a bomb next to our hearts, so not the head at least, which was a bonus in my book. 

Not that a bomb near my heart was any scarier than our actual target. The man of steel himself, Superman. 

From what I could tell he was basically the stereotypical Superman. The old me didn’t know he was Clark Kent, or an alien. The news portrayed him as simply a super strong man that flew around the world, saved people, and could do no wrong. Though he hadn’t been in the news in a long time, there were always supposed sightings of him. None of that diminished the fact that it was like trying to kill a god.

“I’m not having sex with this one,” I swore to myself as I racked my brain for ways to win. I honestly wanted to give up for a while and try Invincible out, but I had received a quest that made it too tempting not to push through. 

I guessed that whichever choice I made would decide if I was a hero or villain in the world. Unsure what exactly was going on, I really doubted he was doing anything evil, but I never knew when coming in the worlds. 

Once in my daily routine on the East Coast I was actually given a little privacy. Sequestered in a big room in a military base. A lot of cameras were pointed at me 24/7 but it gave me the opportunity to get to know my Rift skill better. 

I learned early on that there was something special about my body. The accident that gave me powers somehow allowed me to open rifts to other dimensions. Not just ignoring space in my plane of existence, but real-live other planes that I didn’t know anything about. The chemicals that fell on me gave my body some weird attunement to open portals to other places, or rip open the current dimensions. Either way it was scary to think about. 

Since I traveled to other dimensions or realities through doorways, was there a way to hone into them and open portals to the worlds I traveled to? That possibility was far out of reach for the current me, but something I could work toward. Instead I set out to master everything I could currently do which were two main things. 

One was cracking open space to go from one spot to another. This process was pretty simple. If I faced a direction I could push out my Rift power and force a tear to open, allowing me to jump from one location to another. This was how I broke into banks and bypassed security back in the day. Also this was my main way of trying to escape prison before I gave up. I could never jump too far through the portals, and after more than a few beatings the old me just accepted his fate in prison. 

The second thing that my power could do was open a Rift into a subspace. Unsure how else to think about it, my power had an attunement to a specific dimension that technically wasn’t real. More of a hidden pocket beside me at all times, the pocket dimension was where I kept all of my loot. 

The main reason I had been charged with so many crimes was because old me refused to tell the cops where I hid everything I stole. I would have been let go years ago if I had just given it all back. But the old me was greedy. He kept everything hidden away in a pocket dimension in hopes of escaping, but he never did. 

Opening the pocket dimension easily, I found that there were stacks of money, gold bars, necklaces, and jewelry beyond compare inside. A smile on my face. I closed it, hopeful that I could open the same dimension in other worlds. I now had my very own gamer Inventory, ready to hide all the goodies I could find. 

Once I familiarized myself with the abilities, I began to train with them. I already had a flying skill, so I really didn’t need the ability to travel, but ripping holes in things sounded like an awesome attack. It took time, but I did find that if I placed it correctly, the Rifts could tear and break things. 

First I practiced on a bottle of water. Using my Observation Haki it took time but I could form a Rift right on the plastic, causing the water bottle to tear apart and water to spill everywhere. After that I attempted it on bigger things. Walls, doors, my own bedding, I could make all of them rip open as space was torn asunder. Excited by the possibilities, as soon as I was done with the first stage of training I was escorted to a new conference room.

This one more like an auditorium, the whole cast of the Suicide Squad was finally brought together. No cuffs this time, they actually wore their own weird supervillain costumes. I was in my heart hoodie/Hero Costume of course. Despite being old I thought it fit rather nicely. Granted I looked like the old guy that wore kid’s clothes, but I didn’t really care. 

Sitting at a free spot near Captain Kangaroo he leaned over to me. “I heard you’re pretty famous, mate,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I asked, intrigued. Old villain or not, who didn’t like to hear rumors about themselves?

“Yeah, fought Superman, did ya?” He asked. 

“Fuck no,” I said. “He kicked my ass. He’s fucking Superman.”

“I fought Superman once,” Killer Croc growled. Everyone turned to face him. He breathed in and out heavily but didn’t continue.

“Great story,” I said. “Maybe add a middle and end there? Just a word of advice.” 

“Ha!” The Down Under warrior laughed. “You’re not bad for an old fart.”

“And you’re not what I expected,” I admitted. He was a shorter man with mutton chops. Brown hair and a ball cap on, he wore a brown trench coat. “As an Aussie I thought for sure you’d be wrestling the gator boy.”

“Crocodile,” Killer Croc growled. He honestly looked like a man with a skin condition. Hard pale green crocodile skin covering every inch of him. He looked like a Goomba from the live-action Mario Brothers movie. Sharp pointed teeth in his mouth he had long claws for nails. 

“The purse talks?” I asked, surprised. He hissed at me, this time standing up. 

“Calm it down,” a man said from the front of the room. He was tall and had a crew cut. Thick jaw, brown hair, he felt mildly strong for a regular human. On his chest the name Flag was stitched in.

“Does that say, Fag?” I asked. Though I was older I was feeling younger every day thanks to my Nen. Pulling back the lifeforce that had been leaking out of me I should be able to live for a hundred years. Not including my Viltrumite form, I was pretty sure I would start reverse aging. With my increased strength and energy I couldn’t help but let my real personality out. 

“Flag!” He barked.

“Sorry,” I said, acting innocent.

“I thought the same thing,” a woman mused. She had black hair and wore glasses. More like a librarian than anything, she didn’t appear to belong there. Also the only woman in the room she drew more than a few eyes. But she leaked no fear in the crowd as she was surrounded by killers and rapists.

“Cut the chatter,” Flag ordered.

“Or what? Going to send us on a suicide mission?” Deadshot asked. I was pretty sure he was Will Smith in the original Suicide Squad movie, but where Will Smith lacked, this guy had. Muscle layered on muscle, shaved head, black skin, he wore a black military uniform. His Haki was obviously that of a killer. Indifferent to everything around him, it would have been hard to notice him since his Haki was so unassuming. A true assassin, I was pretty sure he was basically Hawkeye with a gun. So…useful. 

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I was thinking about that. Maybe we should, you know, ease into this whole X Warrior business. Do simple stuff like I don’t know, kill a few dictators. Blow up a nation. Not fight the living embodiment of perfection.” 

“I second that,” Boomerang said as he raised his hand. Killer Croc did one of those weird hisses crocodiles did in nature documentaries. A mix between a cackle and breathing, it was a little off putting.

“See,” I said. “I think we can all agree it’s not worth the effort.” 

“Too bad,” Waller said, already bored as she walked out to the podium. She was no nonsense and all business. Her Haki leaked hate for every single one of us. I was fairly certain she often used the Task Force for her own gains, but I could tell she was actually worried for her job and country with this mission. “Now shut up. Sit quietly. And don’t ask stupid questions.”

“What constitutes a stupid question?” I asked. Her eyes moved over to me, trying to stare me down, but she was a normal person. No super powers. Only her position in the military gave her strength. I smiled wide, staring back at the beautiful girl. I let her know what I thought of her as I rested my chin on my fists and let out a love sick sigh. 

The Boomerang cackled a laugh and Waller continued. She clicked a small remote and a picture was projected on the screen behind her. It was a blurry image that looked like a blue blob in a sea of stars.

“11 months ago, Superman left our solar system,” she said. I really wanted to ask if she could point him out, since the blue blob only had a giant red circle around it. I needed arrows to point me where to look. But she clicked the remote again to show other similar images taken from different angles. 

“No reason given, he just packed up and left,” she said.

“I fucking knew it,” A man at the back said. He was actually older than me and wore a green suit with a black cloak at his back. 

“Yes, I’m sure all of you have heard rumors, but he disappeared. That was until nine days ago,” Waller said. She clicked the remote and more images showed up. First a blue blurry blob, then side views of a very obvious Superman.

“That could be anyone,” I said.

“Please shut up,” Waller said.

“I’m serious,” I said with a shrug. “How do you know someone didn’t take his face?” 

She shut her mouth and clicked to another image. “An hour after that picture was taken, he stopped a building from collapsing,” she said. I shut my mouth, that was proof enough.

“Not long after that, he left again, only to come right back. This time carrying this,” she said, showing him holding a large metal structure. About the size of a car there was fogged up glass but nothing else visible. “Thanks to information we have gathered, we learned that Superman is not from our planet.” I felt like the government probably already knew that, but was just announcing it to these people. 

“The direction he flew to in space was the last location of his destroyed home,” she said. “Soon after he came back with the structure, this woman was seen with him.” She showed another picture and the view of it made me ignore any and all other women in this world. Next to Superman was a girl in a white skin tight suit with a red cape billowing behind her. She had short cut blonde hair, thick red lips, long legs that I could see all of thanks to the skimpy suit, and one of the most beautiful busts I had ever seen.

“Hot damn,” someone said. A few other guys whistled. I grew excited. I was fairly certain she was Supergirl, or some version of her. This one had a much larger chest than I remembered though. I seemed to remember hearing a story of a Supergirl that the illustrator kept increasing the bust of to see if the editors would notice. If the story was true, no matter how big he made her it wouldn’t do the mountains justice. Bigger than DD, Superman had to be a man above men to not stare at them when she was talking.

“Yes, we don’t have a name for her yet, but she has been seen saving some people as well,” Waller said. She clicked the remote and pictures of the busty blonde beating up robbers, and flying kids to hospitals was shown. I didn’t care what it took, but I planned to become a hero in this world and get to know this Supergirl. 

“What’s the problem then?” I asked, getting serious for once now that I had a real mission in this world. 

“The problem is we have reason to believe Superman and Supergirl are working to try to revive their people on our planet,” she said. “From what we know Superman’s original planet, Krypton, was very different from our own. If they were to bring their people, they would alter the ecology on our planet, making it impossible for us to live. This cannot happen.” I frowned, doubtful he would do that. I remembered that Zod had tried to do that in the Man of Steel movie, but nowhere in this report was General Zod mentioned. 

“Even if that were the case, how are we supposed to stop them?” The nerdy girl in the crowd asked. She was actually taking notes. 

“Thanks to recent events, we have learned something vital,” Waller said, clicking the remote again. This time a green gem was revealed. “To make their world like ours, the Super twins need vast amounts of remains from their planet. Your mission, whether you want to accept it or not, will be to gather as much of this Kryptonite as you can. Keeping it from the Supers. In time, I hope to use this all as bait to draw them in for the real trap.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. I hadn’t thought of that. I doubted that they knew Kryptonite was Superman’s weakness if they wanted to use it for that reason. Since my goal was to save Supergirl…and her cousin too probably, I would need to work the angles in this whole thing to make sure Waller failed. Then again if they were trying to make Earth like Krypton, maybe I would have to kill Superman. 

“Where do we get this green crap?” Deadshot asked.

“That will be your first mission,” Waller said, clicking the remote again as she went through her plan of robbing the richest person in the world. 

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