51 Mastering Super Saiyan

It didn't take me long until I realized he wasn't in Alcatraz, where he was supposed to be. It wasn't surprising that he wasn't there or that the Justice League wasn't informed of this. At least I guessed that was the case. Superman would have already informed me the moment Metallo had disappeared.

It wasn't long before I arrived at my destination. The place didn't look like much, just a normal office building. It's clear that I was at the wrong place... Yeah, as if.

I snuck inside and made way through the cubicles. Nothing hinted at this being somewhere Metallo was hidden at. Maybe he truly escaped and took refuge at a friend's workplace or something.

If I believed that, I would be brain dead. There were a lot of other life forces around. They were lower than the ground floor. After remembering the scene in Young Justice, I approached the elevator at the ground floor and pried the door open and, as expected, a deep drop could be seen leading deep down. With a jump, I dropped down the elevator shaft.

It took about 5 seconds of falling until I was about level head with Metallo's life force. I stopped at the floor and entered it. They should have already noticed me by now, right? There was no way they didn't have any surveillance at their entrance.

The life forces I sensed were mostly humans, and as expected, they moved towards me after I had entered. Probably triggered some of their alerts by just brazenly walking in. A squad of 5 people with some heavy weaponry, some of them were glowing and buzzing, probably some alien-tech. They weren't messing around, that was for sure.

Their weaponry and their response time were excellent. With a twist of my fingers, their head snapped to the side before every one of the squad except one dropped to the ground. I tried to find some markings on their equipment, but came up empty-handed. There was only one left I deemed as the leader of the squad and sifted through his mind for information like who I was up against and the general outline of this underground base.

It took me several minutes before I got what I needed and decided to not waste any more time, less something troublesome came to stop me.

I quickly bolted through the hallways while trying to find my way towards Metallo. The underground facility wasn't that large, just about a football field in size. It took me no time before I arrived at a giant metal gate. With a yank of my hand, I ripped the meter-thick metal door and threw it behind me. I entered the lab and found Metallo propped up in a transparent glass tube.

I turned towards the scientist who was shivering as he tried to hide away, but with my telekinesis I lifted him towards me through the air. Like the soldier before him, I turned the scientist to a source of information.

I had already extracted some information from the soldier, but he didn't have insights on the projects being done here, just about security measures and the outline of the facility. This one right here, however, had more knowledge about the projects being done.

After extracting everything, I dropped him to the floor and turned my attention towards Metallo, who was still deactivated even though he had a functional body again. It even looked like he got some upgrades as well.

Since he wasn't activated, he probably had little information on who held him, but that was alright. I already knew that A.R.G.U.S was the main contributor of this facility.

Not entirely sure if there was anyone else, but I suspected as much. In particular, I thought Lex Luthor might have a hand in this, since this facility focused on creating some weapons that could harm Kryptonians or other powerful beings like me.

I could have confirmed this if I had arrived a bit earlier, since someone with a very high clearing for this facility had entered it a while ago, just a few hours before the robot attacked in fact. Now it was unclear who it was. At least, the two I had searched weren't aware of their identity.

I dismissed the thought of getting more information about this place and turned my attention back to Metallo. Besides some information about who had sent him and how he got to know where I lived and that Kara was there as well, I could refine my control over him.

After having experienced the minds of new gods, molding his mildly deranged one was quite easy. It took me just a few minutes to deeply cut into his mind and give him some tasks. He would do his own thing for a while and inform Westmob in case he got some information about Argus. Currently, he wasn't really useful to me, and I didn't want him to be close to me either, so I yeeted him through the ceiling and out of this laboratory after I was done going through his mind.

The only interesting bit I could gather from his mind was that he got the information about Supergirl going to my place from an information gatherer called Calculator. After knowing where Supergirl was, Metallo just headed there to attack and kidnap her. Calculator also knew that it was my house and had warned him, but Metallo decided I wasn't a threat. He might be a Cyborg, but man did he miscalculate that…

It was a bit concerning that Calculator knew where I lived even if I wasn't exactly secretive about my hero and public identity living there, but it wasn't a big deal either, as long as my 'villain' identity remained unknown. I couldn't really deal with Calculator directly since no one really knows who he was, just that he had reliable information for a bit of remuneration.

Maybe I would have to contact him as Hakai. From Metallo I knew Calculator worked with villains regularly. It also eliminated the idea that there was a mastermind behind Metallo who had sent him to my place. True, Calculator was working with villains, but he also had an excellent reputation among them.

Another reason would be that Argus wasn't considered a villain organization. They were more like a secret agency of the government, so it wouldn't be a great idea for Calculator to work with them, otherwise he would get incredibly popular with the villains for the wrong reasons. Though I guessed Calculator wouldn't have to work with them. He could have just used them as his source of information.

Argus had probably 'accidentally leaked' my information to take advantage of villains coming to a conflict with me or Kara. They would get some nice data while me being attacked.

Me being attacked and my house getting destroyed was probably something they didn't care about at all. After all, my house was rather secluded and there was almost no possibility of casualties.

It would have been easy to push this mission even if there were some high-ranking, justice-loving people among their leaders that didn't want any collaterals. They probably hadn't expected that I would come here.

After hearing some soldiers heading to my place, I broke apart the pipes that I could feel in the walls and then gathered everything explosive towards me with my telekinesis before I flew through the hole in the ceiling which I had sent Metallo through. I gathered explosions on that floor as well and did the same to the floor above, all the way to the ground floor.

Half-way through, the soldiers and scientists had figured out what was happening, but I was too fast for them to escape. I triggered a spark before I dissipated the clone as the explosion started spreading underground, destroying everything they had gathered in an expanding ball of flames.

With that done, I headed back to my bed and cuddled up to Kara from behind. She subconsciously grabbed my arm while I thought about a simple solution for future issues, which I should have been doing a long time ago.

I really should give Metropolis a visit again. I needed to memorize the life force of Lex Luthor. It wasn't just him, but I probably should visit the other Leaguers' enemies as well. It might come in handy in the future.

I also needed to make sure that I could get a hang of Amanda Waller. If I had her in the bag, then I would instantly gain a lot of power. Even Westmob, who could be said to be in control of San Francisco, couldn't contend their power to the degree of what she could offer. With my experience, I should be able to 'convince' her to my side, even if she was trained in resisting brainwashing.

With her, I would even get some access to high-ranking people in the military that I could take over, but I would have to be subtle about it. They were high-profile people, so if they behaved differently all of a sudden, people would take notice.

I pushed the idea of targeting Argus to the back of my mind. I couldn't really go about it since I wasn't sure where they lingered around, and I had no intention of focusing my energy on searching for hideouts.

Metallo and Westmob would do just fine for now. They could inform me in case they found her, but for now I would focus on the really important things.

My training to master Super Saiyan.

...

I stood in the middle of the training hall and felt the energy that was now easier to grasp than before. By enticing and pulling at it, it erupted from my back before spreading throughout my body, filling me with inexplicable strength and with it came the confidence, the pride.

The pride that I was now something more than a mere Saiyan, which I was, but I didn't let it get to my head. With my experience of meditation and self-control, I pushed this arrogance of being a Super Saiyan to the side.

Even the desire to fight something and release my seemingly boundless power was tossed aside. The strength I felt now was several magnitudes higher than before, so if I let loose, the entire planet would vanish from the solar system. The transformation was contained inside this training hall, because I willed it to be.

A transformation that enabled me to slay Darkseid, but I knew this was far from my achievable peak. I could still grow even more powerful. In fact, I just made my first step to becoming the strongest, to exploring what a Saiyan could accomplish. The feelings of being powerful and being prideful of being a mere Super Saiyan paled in front of the knowledge of a higher goal, a higher transformation state.

Although I knew the author had said that the other transformations, Super Saiyan 2 & 3, could be surpassed by completely mastering Super Saiyan, the difficulty level of that seemed to be too high for now.

Even Goku and Gohan seemed to have mastered the normal Super Saiyan form, but weren't anywhere near the strength that SSJ 2 or 3 could offer. Maybe one had to first unlock the other transformations in order to master the Super Saiyan completely, but even Goku hadn't done it after years of training. Even after becoming a god, he had used these transformations for a power boost without turning into god mode.

Achieving something that this freak couldn't do was just too far away. With SSJ 2, 3, and possibly 4, I had some easily accessible transformations. I would have to master them one by one before I could consider mastering Super Saiyan to the degree that I didn't need the other transformations. Who knew? Maybe I would achieve godhood before learning SSJ 2 & 3.

After reveling in the feeling of power for a moment longer, I focused on trying to suppress the energy while still letting it fill my body. I knew from the series that Goku and Gohan restrained their power to maintain the transformation, otherwise there was no way in hell to constantly stay in this state. The energy drainage would catch up eventually if all the boundless energy was leaked to the outside like this.

So, I ignored everything around me. The low buzzing noise of the high-tech devices around me, the light reaching my eyes through my eyelids, and even the heavy gravity pushing my body into the ground were ignored as I tried to suppress my power.

I needed the power to be suppressed to an acceptable degree where I could hold the transformation, which theoretically was around my base power. Theoretically, if my power was around my base power, I shouldn't have a problem holding the transformation indefinitely. It would be better if I could lower it even further, but having to decrease my Super Saiyan strength by 50 times, as if I hadn't transformed at all, was already a tall task.

It didn't take me long to suppress my power to where I was only 40 times as strong as my base, but before I could push on, I quickly lost control and it rose back up to its full power, which was incredibly straining. It was like trying to compress a spring. If I let go for just a moment, it would just return to its previous shape and with incredible force at that.

I tried again, pushing all the Super Saiyan power down, passing 45 times before I instantly lost control again. With a deep breath, I calmed my rising temper. A drop of sweat rolled down my cheek to my chin before falling to the floor. My transformation still held strong, but I could already feel it taking a toll on me. For the outside, I might just stand around, but I was trying to fight my own energy that elevated me to heights unimaginable.

I only tried to suppress my power twice and every time I lost control and it rose back to its default increase as my body took the full brunt of the transformation. Just this little of ki manipulation was too tiring. I could barely push it down past 40 times before I lost control, with my next attempts being worse.

I quickly realized that it would be a pipe dream to suppress it back all the way down to my base in one go. Since that was the case, I would do it incrementally. I suppressed my power to 49 times and let it stay there.

Several minutes passed before I lost control and even dropped out of the transformation. I dropped to the floor and took deep breaths as the accumulated sweat dropped to the floor. "Even suppressing it to 49 times is a struggle now." I muttered as I replayed what had happened in my mind. The constant focus was a bitch and a half, but that wasn't too bad.

I had just started 10 minutes ago, I realized as I looked at the clock. I shook my head because I knew I had a long road in front of me, but that was fine. My time-slowing device would do wonders in reducing the time, though that didn't mean I wanted to waste time.

I turned the gravity down, got up and quickly headed towards my kitchen and made myself something to eat. In my anticipation of today's training, I had even skipped breakfast and I wouldn't be able to rest well with an empty stomach...

An hour and a half later, I returned to the training hall.

This time after transforming, I didn't lower my power and just timed the time I could stay in this state. After a short 11 minutes, I was already on the ropes and had no more power to support the transformation. I was only able to support it for that long since I wasn't moving around and just kept standing there. If I had to fight in that state, I probably only had about 5 minutes.

Though having the timeframe of 11 minutes would make any future improvements more noticeable. It was easier to check changes if I had a replicable baseline. I obviously need to familiarize myself with the transformation while fighting as well. Otherwise, what was I going to do? Transform and stand there like a stature? But before I got ahead of myself, I would take it step-by-step.

With a baseline now, I could see how long I could hold the transformation at 49 times all the way down to my base's strength, where I hopefully can sustain it indefinitely.

So, for the next few minutes, I just stood there while suppressing my power to 49 times. Honestly, the amount I was suppressing wasn't a lot compared to the overall strength I now possessed.

The difference calculated as power level would be 120 million, compared to the 6 billion, wasn't a lot. However, suppressing my power took me more focus to do this as a Super Saiyan than it would be in my base. It was mostly because of the difference in the ki's nature and how it affected me mentally.

When I finally found myself drained and dropped back to my base, I looked at the digital clock above the manual controls right next to the 100G that indicated the active artificial gravity. Maybe I should have been surprised, but the time was the same. The time I was transformed amounted to 11 minutes again, give and take one or two seconds.

There was practically no difference, even though I expected the difference to be at least 10 to 15 seconds. It could be because I wasn't as well rested as I thought or the difference wasn't large enough to impact the time I could be transformed, since the difficulty of staying transformed didn't grow linear. There were multiple plausible reasons for the lack of difference, which made me rethink my approach.

The goal was for the body to be desensitized to the transformation. Transforming strained the body, so to save strength, one could just remain as a Super Saiyan. With the focus redirecting from maintaining the transformation to attacking and defending, one could leverage the entire strength of the Super Saiyan transformation without worrying that one strained their body with the transformation itself.

These were the main points of mastering Super Saiyan as far as I could remember, but why was it necessary to lower one's power level? The goal was to be able to leverage the entire strength, so wouldn't it be better to get used to the entire strength?

True, if I could incrementally increase the strength of strain by starting at the weakest increase of Super Saiyan, then my body could handle the transformation better. So, increasing it 1 time at a time would give my body time to desensitize to the transformation until it was ready to handle its full power?

If that was correct, the thought of using the Zenkai boost to help by body adapt would therefore be counterproductive. Zenkais would just increase my strength, which in turn made my Super Saiyan transformation stronger.

Perhaps using Super Saiyan Grade 2 and Grade 3, the ones that Vegeta and Trunks used, could help desensitize myself faster? But then why did Goku not use these grades to maintain and directly dismissed them as the wrong path? Was it because the strain was even greater, making the desensitizing process more difficult? Maybe it was because the grades couldn't be maintained as long?

In the end, the key factor might just be time? Using less strength theoretically meant that one could maintain it for hours as opposed to a few minutes, giving the body enough time to get used to it? The idea of using incremental steps to adapt to had to be the correct path.

But I was already struggling to suppress my Super Saiyan to 4/5th of its full strength, which didn't help me maintain it at all. So, the root of my problem was...

The root of the problem had to be that my ki control sucked ass.

...

"This is the Super Saiyan transformation? Shiny..." Raven commented with a raised eyebrow when she and Kara came down to the training hall. She hadn't seen it before. The only thing that was comparable to it was when he used that Pseudo Super Saiyan transformation.

After entering the hall, they didn't even register the time difference since there weren't any indicators except the clock outside the hall to not lose touch with time.

The time didn't affect them too much, however, the artificial gravity was another topic. Raven formed a barrier over her body like a second layer of clothes to counteract the intense gravity.

She used to create an entire spherical barrier, or only half of it around her, in case she needed to defend herself. It was just how she was taught, and a round barrier was easier to create quickly.

With the help of Nathan's training, she became more precise with her powers and could now encapsulate her target almost flawlessly. Not only did it consume less since the surface area was less, but it also was almost as strong as her spherical barrier.

With her little barrier, she had no problem walking through a gravity of 100G, except for some strain and that it consumed her energy.

Kara was walking through it as she just endured it with her bare body. Nathan wanted to upgrade his scouter soon, but he estimated Kara was now hovering around a power level of 18 million.

Raven didn't understand what any of these arbitrary numbers meant, but from the sound of it, it seemed to be impressive? It didn't affect or interest her too much, since, by the accounts of Nathan, it was mostly a way to identify the physical strength of a person.

She, as a half-demon, was stronger than most people and the training Nathan had put her through increased her in that regard as well, but the source of her true strength remained her magical power and her soul self.

"It's indeed pretty. You know he first transformed because of me. It was when we had a little disagreement..." Kara had pridefully told her this 3 times before. Raven just kept quiet and just let her gush over it.

"He then carried me to the bed and fucked me real good, but who am I telling it to? You already know, since you watched..." Raven tensed at that. She didn't know that they had noticed her looking at them.

"Don't worry, it's not a big deal anymore." Kara continued and compared to the last weeks, it truly wasn't that big of a deal anymore. After Kara found out that she and Nathan had technically dream-raped her two times, she had come up with a perverted agreement that Raven still wasn't too sure about even after she got the dreaming Nathan to subtly consent. Honestly, she should have just said no.

If she was truly traumatized or even bothered by that dream, she would have done something the second time, so there was no reason for Kara to feel bad, but the worst thing was that Kara knew she had a crush on her boyfriend and had some weird perception of how to make it up to someone. Was it because everyone wanted the same thing from Kara? Every other girl that interacted with the couple wanted Kara to let them have a piece of Nathan. Was that why she thought it was an appropriate way to make up for something?

Back when she had offered that deal, Raven was baffled by her turn of logic that she was too stunned to speak. Kara had then taken that as her being shy about it and denied any reluctance afterwards. Worse was that Raven had gone along with it in the end. She should have just said no and not entered the dream that night. It would have made her point clear, but the temptation after the first taste...

After spending these couple of weeks with them, doing these things in their dreams with them made it harder for Raven to stay away from them. It was like a drug and her inhibition decreased with every dream they shared. She used to crush on Nathan, but now she got deeper into that rabbit hole.

The main reason she wanted to move out was because she feared she would develop too deep emotions and become a wedge in their relationship... She had to move out and create some distance to calm down again, otherwise, she would truly be evil girl that everyone who knew of her demon side thought she was.

Fortunately, now that Nathan had recovered, their deal was now done and they would finally discontinue it. Maybe a cold turkey would help her disperse these rising emotions and thoughts.

"Why are you looking so depressed? ...Don't worry. I just need time to think about some things. But in the future we will have another dream with Nathan knowing what is going on." Kara hugged Raven at the waist with a smirk on her face.

Kara had become increasingly bolder since that one night when the two's emotions had been in a tumult. Raven saw how they had reconciled back then, but the effects were still making themselves known even now.

'Please, don't.' Raven thought at the prospect of their increasingly weird relationship, but knew if she had opened her mouth, that wasn't what she was going to say.

She knew she had been hooked already. She knew she was a hypocrite, but hopefully...Hopefully in the future she would be more steadfast, but for now she let Kara's promise ring in her mind.

They looked at Nathan standing still in the middle of the training hall from the kitchen's door where the increased gravity didn't reach. His golden aura flickering chaotically, contrasting to the subdued environment of the white hall with a tinge of red due to the increased gravity.

His aura making a distinct constant whooshing sound until it suddenly dispersed with his ki washing out for a moment. He dropped out of his transformation before he dropped to his knees. With perspiration running down his nose with several drops falling to the floor. His entire body was drenched in sweat. The scene was familiar to the two women just from a different perspective.

They sighed slightly at the same time.

...

Kara and Raven suddenly approached me, and I only realized then that they were around. I was too concentrated on my task that I completely missed them. Concerning my training, I made some headway, but the difference wasn't too high as I could hardly improve in a single day.

It was a good idea to rest for the day. I thought about going to the new gods and messing with their head some more, but the two wanted me to spend time with them and a clone apparently wouldn't do.

So, we just chatted for a bit while eating the snacks they had kindly brought. After a while, we went upstairs and talked on the couch. I had to say it was probably one of the most relaxed days. The last two weeks had been too stressful. Not because of some wacky villains or catastrophe, but because I had too many projects going on that I was almost losing track of what needed to be done.

Training my body and my skills was a million times better than running around and talking with scientists about whatever devices I wanted to be optimized. Just a bit of training and then chatting with my girlfriend and a friend about mundane things. Hopefully, the next few days would be as peaceful as today.

I checked my calendar and found it empty for now. Just a visit with the local criminals to have our monthly tournament for the title as the top dog, but besides that, I should be able to focus on my training.