So, Swamp Thing.
Not exactly a guy I or most people knew a whole lot about. For most other people it was because the guy hung out in the middle of a swamp and didn't leave much. I was mostly the same, the extra set of memories downloaded into my noggin simply didn't have much on the guy.
I did know that he was usually the Champion of the Green though. The Green being some kinda cosmic elemental force for all plant life or something like that, like how the Red was the same for all animal life.
What that actually meant was something I didn't have a clear idea of. Was he just a protector of plant life or was he supposed to be some kind of plant supremacist? Either way, I knew he was super strong and probably out of my league.
…I still wanted to eat that alligator though…
"Hi there! We're just passing through looking for dinner." I gave the giant mass of green a friendly wave. "We'll leave right away after that, I promise!"
"There is nothing for you here, child of the Red." Swamp Thing boomed. "You will not find what you seek in this place."
"I mean…are you sure we can't look around first?" I asked.
The mass of roots and moss that made up Swamp Thing's face twisted into a frown. "No. Now leave."
"Maybe we should listen to the nice plant elemental before he gets angry?" Donna suggested reasonably.
This was taking longer than it should. "Look, we're not going to do anything to the swamp. I just want to go in and grab something and then we'll leave." I said and flew forward a bit and glared at Swamp Thing. "You can even watch if you want, but I'm going in there and you can only try and stop me!"
The plant giant gave me a look I could only describe as exasperated. "Fine then." And raised his arm.
"Wha-? Hey! Mrmmmph!"
I suddenly found myself wrapped in a cocoon of roots that nearly covered me entirely, only my nose and the top of my head was left unwrapped which left me free to glare at Swamp Thing…at least until the roots started to sink back into the ground taking me with them.
I started struggling. Hard. The idea of being buried alive while unable to move did NOT sound like a good time but the roots were a lot stronger than they looked because I was having trouble breaking out of them.
Thankfully I wasn't alone.
"Hey! Let her go!" Donna yelled at the elemental and started tearing at the roots holding me.
"She will be restrained until I decide how to deal with her. No harm will befall her, Amazonian." Swamp Thing rumbled. "If you do not want the same fate, leave now."
"No way, not without her!"
Donna wasted no time throwing herself at Swamp Thing and was almost instantly spiked out of the air by a backhand. She got up almost immediately, but it was very clear that she wasn't considered a threat. Not by herself.
I needed to get out of this cocoon asap.
Brute strength wasn't working, so let's see how it liked weaponized life energy. Ki pooled in the center of my chest and exploded outwards. Some of the roots still clung to my body but most of them were either blasted off or burned enough that I could simply pull them off.
"Alright you overgrown salad! It's time to – oof!" I grunted as Donna collided midair with me. I caught her, but it wasn't exactly soft for either of us.
"Ow." Donna complained before untangling herself from me to fly nearby. "Califa, just so you know? I blame you for this."
…fair, but on the other hand,
"Fight now, blame me for getting us in this mess after we win."
Both of us scattered as another wave of roots tried grabbing us. Donna going high, and me charging straight at Swamp Thing.
From the first hit I knew this was going to be different than what I was used to. Because my opening kick nearly took Swamp Thing's arm off at the shoulder and the following hits blew chunks out of his body, yet he didn't seem that bothered. Especially since he regenerated the damage almost immediately.
They were small chunks though. Maybe a bigger hit would – Donna crashed into him from above like a meteor and completely split him in half from the impact.
Swamp Thing didn't care. His body just shlorped back together like nothing happened.
I took advantage of the opening to join up with Donna as we both laid into Swamp Thing with everything we had. A rain of punches, kicks, and even a few throws tore huge chunks out of his body even as he retaliated with several punches of his own.
Most of them were slow or telegraphed enough that we could dodge out of the way, but every so often a limb would stretch unnaturally or a vine would snag around us and catch us off guard. And gotta say, Swamp Thing hit like a truck.
After what felt like an hour of nonstop attacking but was honestly probably a few minutes at best, both of us fell back a bit to catch our breath and reassess.
Conclusion? Both of us were sweaty and tired. Swamp Thing looked basically the same if just a bit more annoyed we were still here.
…okay. So unless we could punch him to atoms or something like that, physical attacks didn't do squat.
Well, Ki worked on my cocoon. Maybe that would do something.
So I started blasting.
I rapid fired a bunch of Ki blasts to the point the steam and smoke obscured Swamp Thing completely and only stopped when Donna rejoined me at my side.
"Did you get him?" She asked, looking at the cloud of smoke.
A green arm cut through the cloud and Swamp Thing stepped forward, looking only slightly singed in some places that I could already see flaking off and being replaced by new plant matter.
"No." I said, somewhat redundantly.
"So now what's the plan?"
I quickly thought over what I knew. Normal attacks obviously didn't hurt him, but did take a small bit of time to regenerate. No, not regenerate. Replace. If he was regenerating then the burned plant stuff would just heal, not flake off.
"Okay, option one. We burn every bit of plant life in the area to the ground so he can't keep healing-" That got me an immediate smack to the back of the head from Donna. Guess option one was out. "Two, we keep beating him up and hope that he has a limit to how much he can heal."
"He just took everything we threw at him and it barely affected him. And I don't think he's trying to fight us very hard." Donna countered. "You have an option three?"
I shrugged. "Hit him with one massive attack and hope it disrupts his form so much that it takes him a while to reform?"
"How massive of an attack?"
"Uhm, best case scenario, one that vaporizes his entire body all at once?"
Donna's head snapped towards me. "Won't that just kill him?!"
I waved her off. "Nah, he's like, connected to all plant life everywhere. He'll come back as long as there are still plants around."
Probably…
She stared at me for a little bit before she slowly turned her gaze back to Swamp Thing. "Well, it's not the dumbest idea you've had today."
"Thanks! But for it to work, we'll probably need to disconnect him from the rest of the swamp. Think you can get him airborne while I charge my attack?"
"No. Keep him airborne, maybe. But he regenerates too quickly for me to get both legs before the first heals."
"Okay, then I'll get the right leg, you get the left. On my signal, ready…"
"No, wait! How are we going to–"
"Go!" I shouted and shot forward.
"Califa!"
Another wall of plants shot up between us and Swamp Thing and I quickly shot it with a Ki blast big enough to make a hole both Donna and I could slip through before it closed up if she was right behind me. A quick check with my Ki Sense confirmed she was. Donna complained a lot, but she was a solid partner in a fight.
Trusting her to do her part I focused on Swamp Thing's right leg. Like the rest of his body, it was just a mass of plants and roots mimicking a saiyanoid form, so I knew there wasn't really anything like a 'weak point' I could target. And since he wasn't all that tough anyway, there wasn't much point looking for one. Still, this was a rare opportunity for me to test something out without some of the heroes getting mad at me for it later.
I held my hand out, fingers flat like a knife blade, and focused on coating my arm in Ki. That was the easy part. The next was where I had been failing for days.
Cut, cut, cut, cut! I chanted in my head, trying to turn the energy surrounding my arm into a cutting force by force of will.
It didn't work.
Sure my hand stabbed halfway through Swamp Thing's knee, but that was just me brute forcing it. If I had done the technique correctly, I would have flown straight through him without slowing down at all.
Oh well, I'd try again some other time.
The energy on my hand might not have cut through Swamp Thing, but I focused a little more and detonated it. The blast from inside his own leg easily blew it in half and I turned to see if Donna needed any help just in time to see her cut through his other leg with her – when did Donna get a sword?! Where did it even come from?!
I shook my head as Donna grabbed the rest of Swamp Thing and flew straight up before the halves of his leg could join back together. Already some tiny branches were reaching out between the halves of the cut.
Questions for later.
I cupped my hands at my side and focused as much energy into them as I could.
"KA…ME…HA…MEEEEEE…."
I paused just long enough to make sure Donna got clear and then threw my hands forward.
"HAAAAAAAAA!"
Swamp Thing was completely consumed by the bright blue energy beam and it was only when I physically couldn't pour any more energy into the attack that I let it peter out.
There was no trace of the plant elemental left behind, but I didn't let my guard down. Even when Donna flew back to my side, we continued to scan the surroundings for any sign of unnatural plant movement.
Only after a minute or two with no change in sight did we let our shoulders drop and start gasping to catch our breath from the short, but intense fight.
"We did it!" I shouted, holding up a hand for a high-five that Donna bemusingly returned.
"Seems so." She said. "Now what though?"
"Yes. Now what?"
"Now we just need to search the swamp for dinner." I said, stretching my arms over my head. "Then find a place that can…" I trailed off and looked over to Donna. "You didn't say that second part…did you?"
She was looking at something behind me, her face paling slightly. "No."
I looked behind me and immediately saw an unamused Wonder Woman floating, arms crossed and glaring at both of us.
Quick, distract her!
"Hi, Wonder Woman! Are you here to help us search the swamp?" I asked brightly.
Wonder Woman just cocked an eyebrow. "Search for what, exactly? And what were you doing that caused you to fire an energy beam into the sky?"
Donna threw me under the bus immediately. "Califa said she wanted to eat a dinosaur that was in here and we ended up fighting a–"
"–massive alligator, but we got too into it and I accidentally vaporized it!" I hurried to cut off the traitor before she could spill anything incriminating.
Wonder Woman blinked at my outburst. "An alligator? So when you said you were going to eat a dinosaur, you meant an American alligator?"
"Yeah?"
"Donna, is that true?"
Donna fidgeted a little but nodded. "I assume so? Califa only said a dinosaur, not specifically an alligator."
"And you two did nothing else?"
"...no?" Donna said weakly, turning her head to look at me. She was a dirty traitor but I still shot her a thumbs up anyway. "I mean, no. We did nothing else."
Wonder Woman was obviously not convinced. "Right. Well then, I'm sure Swamp Thing will be able to collaborate your story then. Assuming you told the truth, of course." She said, looking off to a side.
A rumbling chuckle echoed around the swamp and Swamp Thing stepped forward from behind a tree right where Wonder Woman had been looking.
"Hello, Wonder Woman. It has been a while." He greeted.
"Alec. It has. I hope these two weren't bothering you too much?" Wonder Woman asked, proving she hadn't trusted us from the start.
Which means she knew we lied to her.
Ah crap.
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