A flash of red distracted me for a second before I felt the force impacting my chin, pushing it upwards. I was knocked off my feet and flew upwards for a meter or two before my momentum stopped, followed by a kick into my stomach knocking the wind out of me.

The force threw me through the room, but I managed to flip around and stop my momentum just as my feet touched the wall.

I didn’t push off forcefully and just used my ki to accelerate back at my assailant. I threw a punch which sailed over her head as she dodged it. I immediately followed up with a knee to her stomach that was too fast for her to dodge. Even though she seemed to have anticipated it as she blocked my knee.

She took the brunt of the force with her crossed forearms and slid backward. Her boots rubbed off the ground creating a dark trail behind her.

I wouldn’t let her rest, so I flashed in front of her to pressure her. She reacted as fast as I thought she would. She had instantly counterattacked, and her hand penetrated my head from her viewpoint. A second later the After-Image disappeared while I hammered my elbow into her spine.

Her armor was already in shambles and with nothing to protect her, she took all the force behind my attack. She flew forward with her body bent backward. She bounced off the wall and fell powerlessly to the ground.

She groaned in pain, and I figured that would be enough for today as I commanded the AI to turn off the artificial gravity.

I threw her arm around my shoulder to lift her up and dragged us out of my gravity chamber. I dropped her on my couch in my living room and made a meal for the two of us. After all, we just had a long training session behind us.

Kara averted her eyes from the tv and observed the both of us with her cookies in hand. “Finally done, I see. You two good?”

She asked us. I gave her a thumbs up. “Yeah, we both are good!”

The woman in question groaned out in response as she looked at me filling up our bowls with food Kara had made. “Urgh. Speak for yourself, Saiyan. How about you just fuck me then I will be goo-”

Kara turned to Maxima with her eyes glowing red and with a smile on her face that wasn’t a happy one to which Maxima just shrugged at, “It’s your fault that you can’t satisfy your man!”

I put her bowl and a spoon into Maxima’s waiting hands. Kara’s eyes flickered to me with a glint of guilt, even though I had already told her she had nothing to worry about.

The first time was just over 3 months ago and a few times after that I had tried to train with her, but it almost always ended with the two of us in bed. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but it was just too much of a good thing.

I wanted to become stronger, especially with the telepathic knock that would come back every so often. Even when we didn’t escalate our training to the bedroom, she was still pulling her punches. Well, not really, but she just didn’t like to injure me as heavily as I would like her to.

It sounded like I was masochistic, which I wasn’t, but that’s just part of being a Saiyan. We literally gained strength from our injuries. There was just no way I could turn my back to my Zenkais with that little tidbit in mind, even if it cost me a bit of pain.

As of a matter of fact, I liked and wanted to get stronger, which was why I pressured her to participate in my training. In every healthy relationship, the partner should take at least an interest in the hobbies of the other and help if they could, right? Well, training was more than just a hobby for me.

That was also why she had joined, and it wasn’t like she disliked fighting, but like Maxima said, it didn’t leave me satisfied, which was why I continued to train after she wanted to stop. She wasn’t happy about it and couldn’t understand why I went as far as I did.

She especially didn’t get my obsession of getting stronger and argued that I didn’t need to get stronger with her around.

There was a bit of a back and forth as we argued about it, and we came to the conclusion that I should just train with somebody else. In the end, she just didn’t want to injure me, and I, on the other hand, needed to get injured to push past my limits.

Of course, the reason she accepted my desire to get stronger was not because I was a hero and needed to get stronger to save the world, which she argued she could do in my stead.

Which, by the way, hurt my pride a bit since it was obvious she thought I wasn’t as strong as her. Her belief wasn’t precisely wrong since she had more raw life force running through her body that would only accumulate with a yellow sun being around, even if she couldn’t wield all of it.

In fact, she didn’t want to wield all of it. She didn’t want to get any stronger since she was already struggling in her everyday life. As a Kryptonian, it was a lot more difficult to restrain yourself and act like you were human. As a Saiyan, I could just suppress my ki and I was good. I was still superhuman, but everyday life was not much different to other humans.

That little difference between us was probably why she couldn’t understand the desire to get even stronger, since for her it would only make restraining that gained power that much more difficult.

I understood that, but it just irked me she didn’t have that same drive even with her natural advantage. But what pissed me really off about our brief argument was that she thought of me as weak, which she, of course, denied!

She told me I ‘was already plenty strong’ and didn’t need to obsess about getting stronger. So, what if I wanted to get ripped in the chamber, that I wanted to surpass my limits and reach heights I knew were possible!

Like I didn’t see eye to eye with her complacently, she didn’t get my desire to surpass my previous version, but in the end, she conceded and even looked forward to me getting stronger. Not because of the benefits strength would give me as a hero or something else that were all good arguments for ‘obsessing with training’. No, she accepted because she wanted to continue having sex with me.

To make this point clear, when we argued, we didn’t do the deed for some time, and she opted for a metal dildo overlayered with some silicon, which she had accidentally crushed. And when I told her she would grow only stronger under the sun until I could no longer do it with her, she started to worry.

I had said it jokingly since I believed she could just restrain herself to the degree where she could even sleep with humans or she could just use small doses of kryptonite in the off chance that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her, but she seemed to take it to heart. I wholeheartedly believed this masochistic girl was already obsessed with the carnal pleasure!

All jokes aside, we talked it out and the benefits just outweighed the drawbacks, even if she couldn’t understand my mindset about it. In the end, I suggested having Maxima train with me, who I was able to call with that device she gave me before I left her planet, and Kara hesitantly agreed to it.

She first wanted to have her cousin train with me, but she discarded the idea as soon as it came up since she didn’t want her cousin to be here when she was too, for reasons.

There was also the fact that he probably wouldn’t agree to spar with me for fear of hurting me too much. There was also my gravity chamber that I didn’t want to reveal to him. Although I really wanted to fight Superman, I couldn’t argue that it just wasn’t the time now.

Maxima, on the other hand, wasn’t too busy after having stabilized her position in the hearts of her citizen and with most tasks delegated to Sazu and her subordinates, she had a lot of free time to visit. Besides, as a warrior queen, she was much more willing to entertain my training ideas.

When Kara and Maxima first met, Kara just started throwing hands at her, since Maxima did kidnap me the last time. It took me a while to separate the two.

I knew that would happen, but I chose her anyway. Besides her willingness to engage in rougher sparring, Maxima, not unlike Kara and Superman, had a lot of unused life force that was just sitting there for her to use, so she would grow into her powers the same time I grew stronger, making her a good practice partner.

Thrice a week she would join my training for several hours and in the beginning, only when Kara was visiting. She didn’t want the two of us alone since she thought Maxima wanted to do the same thing she wanted to do to me when she saw me all sweaty from the training.

She wasn’t wrong, but she was wrong thinking I would let that happen. I didn’t want to hurt Kara. She had been through enough with her tender age and I didn’t want to be the asshole that took advantage of her goodwill to cheat on her.

I would rather break up with her than betray her. Both options would be terrible to do to her, but I believed if I was at least honest with her, she would be able to handle a clean breakup better. Mind you, I didn’t intend to break up with her just because of some pussy.

Maybe it was because she knew how much I loved her or how obsessed I was with getting stronger that she didn’t continue to sit in the gravity chamber to watch us the entire time.

She usually just watched her favorite tv show and waited for me to come out to cuddle with me, which earned her a scorned look from the queen. However, this only served to excite Kara as she rejoiced in having a monopoly in cuddling me.

Besides that, she still joined in on the spars from time to time. I probably didn’t have to say that she didn’t hold back against Maxima, which, luckily for Kara, had earned her respect. That was the only reason Maxima wasn’t as hands on as she wanted to be. Nonetheless, the time spent together was enjoyable, to say the least.

Currently, Maxima’s and my progress were on the steady increase. We were practically equally strong. She had a lot of unused strength that was slowly unearthed in our training, but her strength until now had matched my base power.

Besides training with Maxima and Kara in the chamber, I also visited Shiva from time to time to hone my martial arts skills, but it slowly reached the point where I couldn’t learn much more from her. Well, I could, but it would damage my style.

Although she was exceptionally skilled, she was still a human fighting with two feet on the ground. (Most of the time at least, not counting the times she fell from buildings and fought midair)

With my strength, I would mostly leave the ground to fight opponents worthy of my attention, so practicing how to leverage force from the ground was next to useless if the ground broke apart from the force I used for a regular punch.

Nowadays, she mostly gave general advice and let me find my path, which was highly appreciated. Since Felicia was the protégé of Shiva, I was used to her being around when I was trained by Shiva. She was quite happy to see me around and kept trying to seduce me in vain.

Oh, Kara was obviously absolutely livid about hearing that Felicia was anywhere near me. The only reason why Felicia’s head wasn’t taken off by Supergirl was because she had bribed her with cookies whenever they met.

All in all, it had been a relaxing three months with a lot of progress. I had a lot of training partners, which gave me a lot of variety.

With Kara and Maxima, we could fight unrestrained in the air, and when we were inside the gravity chamber, I didn’t need to hold back as much as I would otherwise.

Shiva and Felicia taught me how to move my body and leverage force in a precise manner, but also – which was most certainly not their intention – how to hold back against much weaker opponents.

In the three months, I even went out into space again. I wanted to try out a life and death training amidst meteors à la Vegeta style to push myself beyond mere training. A change of perspective in the face of death kind of deal.

Well, it went better than expected, even if I was admonished by Kara afterward for being reckless. Though it was a pleasant change to be away from the girls for some time.

Wait, I was surrounded by only women, wasn’t I…?

When was the last time I hung out with one of the boys? Wait, who were my boys in this world, anyway? Superman? Well, he wasn’t really my friend, more like my girlfriend’s brother kind of deal, and I hadn’t seen him for a while now…

Maybe I should call Nick. He told me about some coins or something. I should probably help him with that when I had time.

I sat down next to Kara, who immediately cuddled up to me and ate the meal she cooked up when we were training. Maxima looked at the both of us and before she could say anything, Kara had opened her mouth, “No.” before she glared at the Queen, who rolled her eyes in response.

“You really are a selfish young woman! You only take and never give back. You want this and that from him while trying to forbid him from doing what he wants. What was that human saying? You want your cake and eat it too!”

Kara narrowed her eyes at the older woman. “You are talking about him sleeping with another woman when he is in a relationship with me?! That isn’t me being selfish, that is normal! Besides, you only say that because you want to steal him from me!”

“Hmph! You think I need to steal him? With your restraining attitude, it will only be a matter of time until you earn his resentment, and he will turn to those more accepting. Besides, why would he want to be with you if he can get a queen?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. These words sounded somewhat familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Either way, I couldn’t have her bullying my girlfriend.

“That would only apply if I wanted what you implied and since I don’t, your arguments are invalid.” Maxima raised her eyebrow and leaned forward, arching her back in the process, accentuating her curves.

“Are you just saying that, or do you really believe that? Because I have seen your look when we spar and that wasn’t a look of a warrior. Isn’t that right, Kara? You should have seen it, too.”

I couldn’t help but snort.

Most men looked even if they were in a relationship, besides I was a Saiyan fighting with a warrior woman, it was natural for my eyes to wander, that meant nothing- “… Babe, you did look at her sometimes just as you would when we did… you know.”

‘Oi! Why are you agreeing with her?!’

I frowned at Kara, but she just averted her eyes.

“Maxima, we are training partners and friends, nothing more. There isn’t going to be anything beyond that-”

“-yet” Maxima threw in before she shrugged slightly. She grabbed herself a popsicle so she could keep eye contact with me as she licked it.

She only wanted a man strong enough for her, didn’t she? Maybe I should throw her to Superman so he could deal with that queen of a headache. Of course, she usually wasn’t that on edge, but it was that time of the month again…

Normally we would go out and patrol for a bit, but lately, there wasn’t much going on. Some of my ideas were already taking root and the crime rate was going down by a lot, so there weren’t many to arrest. So, instead of going out, we talked a bit more, and the two decided to leave for the night.

Although Maxima had a lot of free time, she still needed to be seen by her people and give her last verdict on some things, so she couldn’t just stay on earth for multiple days in a row. That she spent around 8 hours every third day was already a lot. In the end, she left shortly after eating.

Kara, on the other hand, visited almost every day and only left in the late night. Usually, she didn’t want to deal with Clark’s complaining parents. They had given her a curfew time, but she rarely stuck with it, which caused some friction in the house Kent. Fortunately, apart from that, Kara was a model niece, which made them overlook her being late most of the time.

After cuddling a short time as we watched the rest of her episode, she went back home early today. Something about a school trip, so she had to pack her things for tomorrow.

I didn’t mind having some alone time, as it became rather rare the last few months. I had been busy training and there was always more to do and improve. Thinking about it made me feel bad about Kara.

Even though she came over, she couldn’t spend too much time with me alone, since I was training with Felicia and Shiva or Maxima. That had probably become another reason why she often sought out sexy time with me, since it would mean there weren’t any other girls around, as I had to cancel my training plans.

Maybe she had already ingrained the idea that she could only get my affection if we did it. Another thing I had to watch out with her. I loved that girl, but she had some problems.

She was too eager to please me or felt guilty when she did something that might be potentially upsetting to me. I didn’t doubt that if I begged her to let me sleep with Maxima, she would give in.

She probably hated having Felicia and Maxima, girls that aimed for me, around me all the time, but she relented because she didn’t want to lose me.  

With me, she didn’t know how to set boundaries. I could walk all over her, and she would let me with a smile on her face. With all the power she had, she was just too helpless against me.

I could tell that she was somewhat exhausted with Maxima and Felicia aiming for me and, although I had reassured her, it didn’t help ease the edge.

I needed to take a break from training and just spend some quality time with her. We barely had any dates, the last was already 2 months ago. I sighed out. This was a me thing. I was too focused on getting stronger that I put her desires behind mine.

With a troubled mind, I was about to go to sleep when a telepathic wave hit me like a truck. It was unlike the many times in the past few months. This time, it was much more intense than usual.

It was so intense that it could knock somebody off their feet, even if they were prepared for it. Usually, it was on the down-low, but this was the first time it peaked to this degree. The intensity aside, this time I could get some information out of it.

These intense signals weren’t only unintelligible words, but pictures and directions. I frowned as I tried to sense something in the direction it had pointed me towards. Combined with the previous signals that had reached me previously, I now believed I might know where it was coming from.

I quickly got up and put on my armor, which was repaired by some modern smith equivalent from Maxima’s empire. It surprised me when they were fascinated by the structure of the fabric, which allowed it to be highly durable - to their standards – and stretchable.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t create too much of the fabric, so they were only able to produce a few armors for their elites.

I pushed my head through the armor’s collar and was ready to go. I put on my scouter since I figured I might use some of the special tools Minion had saved on there. The reason I figured I needed to have some high-tech with me for a telepathic hint given to me was simple.

From what I knew of the DC Comics, something calling me from far away was either some ancient shit and had something to do with old gods or old magic, or it had something to do with aliens or some metahumans.

A telepathic wave sent out once every few weeks to months was probably a distress signal of a stranded/captured alien, or as I said, old magic/deities.

With my scouter, I had at least covered the high-tech side of the possibilities, for everything else I hoped I could strong-arm myself out of any situation I would get into.

I had already wasted enough time; I thought as I shot towards the direction the signal pointed me towards.

Just as I left the border of the city, I saw a flaming meteor land in the middle of Portland. I looked at it for a second as I thought it didn’t crash to the ground, but it was more like it landed.

This was more of an immediate threat, I thought with displeasure. I hoped the telepath wasn’t in too much trouble right now. They had survived until now. They surely will survive another day. I would look for them right after this.

I changed my direction and shot towards the burning meteor. Just as I was approaching it from a few hundred meters away, long white-red jagged legs broke out of the meteor and pierced the ground before something akin to a war of the world's alien tripod pulled itself out of the meteor.

“Was this meteor an egg?” Although puzzled by the nature of what landed in Portland, my hands were already holding condensed ki spheres.

…

“He had been reaching out to me telepathically, but that stasis field interfered. After the message finally broke through. I came to rescue him.” Superman said as he helped the freed alien up.

“What’s he doing here?” Superman saw Batman approach as he asked, while still keeping a distance.

“The invasion. I came to warn you, but I was captured and imprisoned here. They wouldn’t listen.”

“Big surprise.” Batman dryly added. Superman wasn’t surprised by this, either. Mankind was often distrustful of extraterrestrials. It wasn’t anything new. Even Superman had often encountered distrust of his people, especially from the military. He had made his fair share of experience with them, and it had been mostly negative.

“I sense you do not trust me.” The alien picked up from Batman, no doubt using his telepathic abilities. “Perhaps this will help.” He said as his body shape morphed into something more humanlike.

This caused Batman to narrow his eyes at the alien. The green alien just approached him as he reached out to shake Batman’s hand.

“I am J’onn J’onzz.”

Batman just stood there in silence as he scrutinized the alien with his hands hidden underneath his cape, which wasn’t unsurprising to Superman. “Don’t take it personally, J’onn. He doesn’t trust anyone.”

“A wise policy.” J’onn nodded.

They then quickly left the research facility in order to warn the world of the invasion to come. Just as they stepped out of the hole in the wall, they were stopped by a company of soldiers pointing rifles at the three.

“Stop right there, Superman. You are trespassing on restricted area! Our orders are to keep that freak here!” The general said as he pointed at the alien in question.

“Wait! I vouch for him. You must let us go!”

“I don’t think so.” The general responded with contempt.

“But the world security maybe at stake!”

“That’s why you will never leave here alive!” The general spat out as his body morphed into a taller, white, humanoid, slime-like creature. The numerous soldiers holding them at gunpoint followed suit and turned into the same species.

The normal rifles they held just a second ago had transformed into futuristic weaponry, no doubt being alien technology.

It was obvious by now that this military base had been compromised by these shape-shifting creatures.