Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 376 PETER CRICHTON

The world we jumped out onto had blue grass. The first through as per usual, Tabi followed behind me, then Cath was the last in the portal. Carrying the large array with him I was surprised the skinny man could hold the large metal disc. 

Looking around we were on yet another new world, in yet another small village. These people were white skinned, not tan like my own, but paper worthy of white. They were bipedal, with heads that were stretched out extra-high with dips in the forehead. Long limbs, they appeared rather freaky. Yet another alien species I wasn’t interested in having sex with. 

I let out a sigh. “If you bring up sex one more time I am going to light you on fire,” Tabi threatened. 

“What? I didn’t say anything,” I said as the ellipsoidal portal winked out. Cath didn’t hesitate to drop the array back down to allow it to gather mana again. 

It was impossible to know how long we had been jumping worlds. A week? Maybe longer? Since every world we went to had a different time zone, amount of suns, and mana flow it had been a long time since we left Cath’s world. His world had Fault or Mana Bastions or whatever that broke, making the mana increase in flow. Not every world was so lucky. The array requiring a set amount of mana to open a new portal; it typically took anywhere from 10 minutes to 4 hours to charge up. 

We slept when we could, trained when the opportunity was upon us, but mostly we jumped between worlds as soon as we could. Cath had become rather quiet and angry that we had left his world. Since I had more than threatened him he wasn’t in a talking mood. But I did promise to try to find him help for his people. 

Yes, Anissa very well could have already killed everyone on his planet, but I was an American. We were used to ruining the lives of other races as long as it benefitted us. In all honesty I kind of felt bad about the situation, but it wasn’t exactly my fault. I might have sped up Anissa’s plan for his planet, but either way they were headed for destruction with a Viltrumite infestation. It was really the king’s problem for having blabbed or confronted, or whatever he did to piss Anissa off. 

As I thought about this, one of the locals walked up to us. “Hello,” it said. 

“Hello,” I said. “I am Weston. There was a gas leak found in your area. We are checking the meter. Side effects include hallucinations like a black and blue glowing cat.”

“You said that joke at the last world,” Tabi said, bored. 

“Woah, did that cat just talk?” I asked, jumping back as if I just noticed her. She rolled her eyes and curled up near Cath. I turned back to the leader of the group, happy that I could still talk to everyone somehow. 

“How can I help you?” I asked the…man or whatever. I squinted my eyes, unable to tell gender. 

“Are you god?” The white alien asked. Actually no, I was the alien. He was the resident. I pushed that thought out of my head. 

“No,” I said. “If you see anyone that looks like me, you should run as far as possible. I am a Viltrumite, bent on world domination. I have decided to leave your planet, but if someone that looks like me comes back, you should just give up and do whatever they say.” I had told this to most worlds. It had been a long trek. 

The last quest I received gave me Viltrumite Physiology, unlike how I had hoped though, I was unable to immediately fly, punch through steel, or do most anything cool that Viltrumites could do. I brought up my Status Screen. 

I had expected the Viltrumite Physiology to be added as a bonus, skill, or ability. Instead it created a new distinction called Form. I didn’t understand at first, but I remembered my fight with Maximus and Courtney. Max had turned into a blue alien from Avatar, and Courtney had turned into a vampire. This was simply my first instance of creating a new body. I guessed that in the Comic Hall I would be able to have the body of a Viltrumite, but I would need a Challenger Slot to use it elsewhere. Not only that, but I had to raise it. 

I received the form at 0.5%. A week later and it hadn’t raised once. I wasn’t sure how to raise it, but I guessed I needed quests to do it. Viltrumites able to live in the vacuum of space, survive on the sun, fly, become impossibly strong. I wanted to get to 100%. Thus I was more than willing to stay in Invincible world…or Invincible universe really, since I had been to so many new places. 

Stuck in this Guardians of the Galaxy/Lost in Space/Sliders/Farscape/every other planet jumping drama out there, we had seen a lot. First was big bug guys. I had instinctively killed one of them, probably because I had seen Starship Troopers too many times. Luckily the bugs left us alone and the portal charged back up. 

After that there were little green men, little gray men, big horned monstrosities, little children aliens that reminded me of the cannibals in Galaxy Quest. I gave them a wide berth. We had portal jumped to dozens of villages, and 2 battles. Cath’s array somehow honing in on intelligent life millions of miles away we were dropped smack dab in the middle of a war of the dwarves just that morning. Not the cute kind though. These were short, had baby-puke green skin, and fur most everywhere. I had to kill about 20 from both sides of the battle before they left us alone. 

The man that had come up to talk to us slowly withdrew. Moving to what I assumed was his family they conversed with one another. I looked around, mostly huts in the village the place was not very technologically advanced. We had gone to a desert planet for one. The villager’s well having dried up I used a Techwand to fill it with water. They praised us, but again they were as ugly as sin, so I wasn’t up for the thanks they were offering. 

I didn’t see any immediate danger for us or the residents of the village so I walked over to Cath. “How are you doing?” I asked. The frogman turned to face me. The right side of his round face was still red from when I smacked him earlier. 

“What do you care?” He asked, actually croaking. I had learned that croaking meant he was angry. “You drag me across the galaxy, and won’t let me go home to check on my people.”

It had dawned on Cath recently that Anissa was probably killing his people. I hadn’t pointed it out to him, but he had been inconsolable when he realized. 

“Cath, you can go home, just get me somewhere with space travel. I was serious about finding the Coalition for you. I just need a way to get home too.”

“I know,” he burped. Mid-croak was not a good time to talk. “But there are literally infinite worlds. Do you have any idea what that means?”

“I know better than you can possibly understand,” I said, my friendly gaze disappearing. “Cath, you are not some victim here. That’s me.” I pointed at myself. “Your king wanted me to help solve your problems. If I hadn’t pushed for this I would have been stuck there for the foreseeable future.” 

“For the greater good!” Cath yelled, standing up to stare me in the eyes. “Yes, some of our youth were acting-” 

“Normal!?” I yelled. “Cath, everyone in this universe is looking out for themselves. Mana became more readily available on your planet. Of course people would use it for their own gain. You forget that I read your books. I know your history. The royal family? They used magic to subjugate people that acted up. The Magiknights? A bunch of murderers. There were accounts of them focusing their magic to flood islands of people trying to fight against the monarchy.” 

“They were simple rebell-”

“Rebellions, I know,” I said. I rubbed my hand over my face. We had been talking about this same subject for days, but he somehow still wasn’t seeing that his king was as bad as the people that were acting up. “Rebellions don’t happen for no reason.” 

“Power corrupts,” Cath said. 

“And how wasn’t the king corrupt?” I asked. “What? He was the only good person, not corrupted by the authority to silence who he wanted?” 

“Of course not-” Cath said but was cut off as the array glowed and another ellipsoidal portal appeared. The 3-dimensional oval glowed blue and I rolled my eyes. 

“I’m done talking about this,” I said. Tabi getting up she leapt to my shoulder as I jumped my way to another world. On another new planet I noticed a yellow sun above, but as I took in the other views my heart rate began to hasten. 

Instead of finding huts all around us though there were great metal structures. Coming out of the portal on a sidewalk I noticed blue skinned people ahead and behind me. I could have wept tears of joy when I was able to tell some of them were obviously female. Baby blue colored skin, small ears that resembled tiny nubs, no nose….everything else was human. 2 eyes, a pair of lips, and one of the woman species had a nice rack. It was all I cared about. I had finally found some aliens I could hit on without fearing I was crossing a line. 

“Oh god,” Tabi said, practically able to read my mind. 

Cath jumped out of the portal, causing me to turn to him. The green man’s eyes became wide as he looked at the large buildings around him. Excited as well, he asked, “Is this…”

“No idea,” I said. “I assume it’s one of the worlds in the Coalition.” I looked up to the skyline. Far in the distance above the clouds was an obvious ship. Blue burning jets behind it the ship began to move slowly far overhead. “I think so. See, they have space travel. I think this is it.”

“So I can go home?” Cath asked excitedly as he dropped the array. He prepared to start changing some aspects of the array so he could change it to go home. 

“Woah there frogger,” I said. Grabbing his hand he gave me an angry glare. “Despite what you might think, I am trying to help you, Cath. If we can get help, your people could be a lot better equipped to fight Anissa.” 

“Or they’re all dead,” Cath spat back. 

“Or that,” I said with a nod. “Cath, just give it a day. Excuse me, miss?” I said, looking at one of the blue aliens-er residents I meant. I needed to stop thinking of them as aliens.

“Me?” A buxom blue woman asked. We had drawn quite the crowd. The blue portal winking out behind me I walked toward her. 

“Yes, what planet is this?” I asked. 

Instead of answering she screamed as I stopped in front of her. Like a signal for the rest of the blue people they all yelled and ran in different directions. 

“Wow, you really have a way with women,” Tabi said from my shoulder. 

“I told you, I can make any woman scream,” I said. “Usually it’s in pleasure though.” I touched my chin, confused as the rest of the aliens ran away. As I watched them a futuristic ship stopped in the air above us. A spotlight pointing at us though it was still daylight I blocked it from my eyes as a speaker at the bottom of the ship blared it’s horn.

A loud voice on a microphone yelled, “Viltrumite! You are not authorized to be on this planet! Please leave at once!” 

“Fuck,” I said, annoyed. Closing my eyes I raised my hands. I forgot I resembled the villains of the universe, of course they would assume I was a Viltrumite. This was going to be tougher than I thought. 

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