Caterpillar

Unrest

Through the cockpit's window, a dark-purplish marble could be seen in the distance. It was one of the very few habitable planets in the Cygnus System, Debstam. Another short space-warp later, they got close enough to the planet that they were about to enter the exosphere. The robotic voice of their ship's AI sounded:

"Operator, you have received a new transmission. Should I play it?"

At Naruto's confirmation, a yellow-skinned man wearing a military uniform appeared on the screen of the computer on board.

"This planet is a restricted area. Aliens are not welcome. Return at once or we'll open fire."

Right after that, the transmission ended. It was a very blunt and short message. But only moments later, the radar detected 5 warships.

"See? That's why our previous ship was better. Scenes like this wouldn't have happened if our ship could become invisible."

The fox closed his eyes and seemingly fell asleep, ignoring him. Naruto blew out a sigh and sat up from the pilot's seat.

"I guess we'll just have to do it the hard way."

"I see you're no mood for this... Well, just stay here and protect the ship then. I'll head down alone."

Kyuubi was not exactly the biggest fan of missions that involved subtlety. He would much rather stay in the ship and have a nap than sneak around without doing anything, with no action. He was kind of hoping Naruto would run into some kind of trouble for him to have an excuse to let loose. Nevertheless, he did not take any actions to ruin his bounty on purpose. Taking control of the ship, the fox drove it away from the planet to avoid an altercation with the small fleet of patrol ships.

As for Naruto, his white ANBU fox masked covered his face and a layer of yellow-red chakra enveloped his body, turning his previously black cloak and dark combat suit into a brightly glowing golden colour. With his nine tails chakra mode, he could survive in the vacuum of space. Then, his hands went through a short sequence of hand seals and his silhouette all of a sudden disappeared. A vague distortion in the air was the only sign left of his body. It was not perfect invisibility but it was more than enough for him to infiltrate the planet undetected. It was a technique that his old mentor, Jiraiya, had created primarily to peep on women in bathhouses. Over the years, it had become a technique that Naruto relied on heavily when it came to missions that required secrecy. With his preparations ready, he exited the ship, into the Outerspace, and started flying towards the planet below.

⁂

Unsurprisingly, Naruto managed to sneak past the network of satellites surrounding the planet without being detected. He took notice though of how heavily guarded and monitored the planet was.

'Come to think of it, Earth was the same too. Besides the Justice League's Watchtower, they had thousands of other minor satellites that one would ignore at the first glance but they were in fact all part of a bigger network. Whoever is controlling that network of satellites is a powerful man. I haven't had the chance to talk to Diana and ask her what she knows about it. I should warn her of it in case that system of satellites doesn't belong to the Justice League.'

All that Naruto could see in front of his eyes was an unending mass of grey and dark purple clouds. The entire planet was covered by this blanket of clouds, he could not see anything below. When he reached the upper limit of the troposphere (~9 miles above the ground) he instinctively reached out to make a connection with the nature of the planet to see its state.

A deep frown creased his forehead behind the mask.

'This planet is dying.'

He sighed in sorrow. Another planet was going to be destroyed soon. Looking at the mass of dark purple clouds enveloping the planet, he wondered: