Chapter 7: "The Hammer of Justice Is Unisex"
(In which Nightwing learns about trap cards, M'gann dives for her life, and Batgirl attempts diplomacy with a shinobi swarm.)
Static:
On the far side of the battlefield, where sand met forest and storm clouds brewed overhead, the air buzzed with static—literally.
Static, the electric dynamo himself, zipped through the air as a living bolt of lightning. Sparks danced around him like excited fireflies. His eyes glowed with power, and his voice crackled through the comms:
"I've turned into lightning. I repeat—lightning. Let's see him touch me now."
Across the field, Naruto's clone tilted his head.
"Huh… So you're energy now?" He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "That's cool."
Then, the clone smiled.
A slow, fox-like grin.
That meant danger.
Static struck first—literally. A bolt of lightning tore through the field and hit Naruto's clone center mass. The ground exploded into scorched earth and dust. For a second, it looked like he'd landed a solid hit—
—until the smoke cleared and Naruto's clone stepped forward. Smirking. Untouched.
"What the—?" Static blinked from the treetops, electricity flickering around him.
The Naruto clone reached toward his stomach, where the lightning had passed through—and then calmly reshaped his midsection, like molding clay.
"Guess what?" Naruto called out. "You're lightning... but I'm chakra. And chakra can phase too."
He cracked his knuckles. "So let's play."
Static zoomed down again, arcing between trees like a living flash. He fired bolts of lightning, shock spheres, crackling bursts of ion energy—
—and the Naruto clone let them pass through him. Like smoke through air.
"Try hitting me without phasing through me," Naruto teased, his clone body flickering with golden energy. "I dare you."
Frustrated but still grinning, Static kicked it up a notch. He gathered electricity into a massive energy disc and hurled it forward like Zeus on caffeine.
Naruto didn't even flinch.
He raised his hand… and bent the wind itself.
The disc shattered against an invisible barrier of compressed air.
"Control the wind…" Naruto said, his voice calm, "and you control the battlefield."
Static was starting to feel it—slower reactions, heavier limbs. The lightning form was fast but drained energy quickly, and now?
Now he noticed something weird.
The air around him was thin. Too thin.
He gasped—just a little—but it was enough for the Naruto clone to smile.
"Did you forget?" Naruto said softly. "Lightning burns oxygen fast. And I control the wind."
He clapped his hands together, and the wind vanished from the air around them. A perfect vacuum formed within a tight bubble.
Static tried to shout, to retreat, to breathe—but it was like trying to inhale smoke underwater. His body flickered back into solid form, instincts kicking in—
—but by then, the damage was done.
With no air, and his energy nearly depleted, Static collapsed mid-strike, his body falling into the Naruto clone's arms.
"Too strong to hit directly," Naruto murmured, gently lowering him to the ground, "but too reliant on your element."
He placed Static carefully on a soft bed of moss and gave him a quick thumbs-up.
"Respect the hustle, though. That lightning form was sick."
Meanwhile…
From the main field, Nightwing's HUD pinged.
"Static's down," Miss Martian reported with a frown.
"Knocked out?"
"Looks like he's breathing… but barely. Naruto didn't injure him—just outplayed him."
Nightwing nodded grimly. "One clone. One down. We need to end this before he clears the entire team."
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Nightwing:
If there was one thing Nightwing prided himself on, it was planning. Strategy. Contingency. The man had faced assassins, aliens, gods, and Batman's judgment. He'd seen it all.
Or so he thought.
"Static's clone is vulnerable. Take it," he said, his voice calm over the comms.
M'gann nodded, eyes glowing white as her consciousness slithered into the distracted Naruto clone still standing beside the unconscious Static. The clone, still caught up thinking, "What if I used pure energy to phase into my own Rasengan?" barely flinched as M'gann slipped in.
"Got him," she confirmed, a grin on her face. "Transferring control to you."
Nightwing's HUD pinged. Control interface locked in. He felt the clone's power at his fingertips—a warm, golden rush of energy ready to shape into anything. For one brief, shining moment…
He was a ninja.
"Okay," he muttered. "Let's see what I can do—"
CRASH.
The golden clone's chest exploded inward before he could even move.
"What the hell—!?"
Three more clones—no, four—burst from the foliage like golden specters of vengeance.
One with the calm menace of the Lagoon Boy-slayer.
One with the lightning-dancer poise of the Robin-battler.
And two who looked like they'd just given Batgirl and M'gann a very rude awakening.
They attacked simultaneously.
Nightwing barely had a second to register the danger. The clone body flickered under his control as chakra arms slammed into it, slicing with edge-sharp wind pressure and razor-light chakra.
He threw up an energy shield with the unfamiliar body.
It shattered instantly.
"Trap—!" was all he could yell before—
BOOM.
A massive explosion of golden chakra lit up the coastline as the clone Nightwing possessed was utterly dismantled. Bits of golden light scattered into the sky like confetti at a very violent parade.
M'gann shot back into her real body, gasping. "They baited me," she said, breathless, "they baited me. That clone was waiting."
Then she felt it—several chakra limbs coming from the soil itself.
"Nope!" she yelped and phased straight down into the ground, intangible and invisible.
Batgirl, standing alone in the clearing now, looked around with her escrima sticks drawn and… a lot of questions.
"Okay," she muttered, backing up. "Let's not be hasty."
The four Naruto clones turned toward her in eerie, perfect unison, glowing eyes fixed, chakra spiraling from their arms.
Batgirl held up her hands.
"You wouldn't hit a defenseless girl, would you?"
There was a pause.
One of the clones cocked its head.
Then another said in a flat tone: "The hammer of justice… is unisex."
Batgirl groaned. "Right. Of course it is."
She flipped backward, hurling smoke pellets as she sprinted toward the treeline.
Behind her, the ground erupted as the clones gave chase.
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Batgirl:
Batgirl vaulted over a fallen tree with the grace of a professional gymnast and the drama of a Broadway lead. Her crimson cape flared behind her as she landed, rolled, and launched a smoke pellet in the same motion.
Behind her?
Four Naruto clones—glowing golden, grinning way too much, and having the time of their chakra-infused lives.
"She's fast," one clone said, flickering through the smoke.
"She's fun," said another, flipping into a sprint.
"She smells like lavender shampoo and bad decisions," the third added.
The fourth? "Guys, she's literally throwing caltrops. My feet aren't even real and I felt that."
Batgirl's voice called from somewhere in the trees, sweet and smug:
"Come on, Naruto Number Seventy-Two or whatever—you gonna chase me all day, or do something useful?"
"Hey, I'm Clone Fifty-Nine," one of them shouted indignantly.
Another added, "That's offensive. We have feelings!"
"Well," Batgirl quipped as she hurled a flashbang backward, "you're about to have a bright one."
BOOM!
A blast of light seared through the forest.
The clones reeled back with theatrical flails—because, really, the flashbang didn't affect them much. They were just… having fun.
"Is this how you flirt in Gotham?" asked one clone, materializing in front of her with a playful lean.
Batgirl smirked and flipped over him, landing behind and tossing three tiny explosive discs onto the ground. "Only with boys made of chakra and questionable impulse control."
Another clone tried to catch her in a spinning sweep kick, but Batgirl somersaulted over him and blasted him in the face with pepper spray.
He clutched his eyes and dramatically staggered. "I CAN'T FEEL MY EYES! Wait—I don't have eyes—what did you spray?!"
"Regret," Batgirl said, sticking her tongue out.
The chase continued, now weaving through the craggy cliffs on the island's east side. Batgirl ducked behind a boulder, placed a beacon grenade on a tree trunk, and waited. When the first clone dashed by, she leapt out, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him into what could only be described as a trap hug.
"Hey there, handsome."
The clone blinked. "Uhh…"
She tapped something on his shoulder—beep—and kicked off his chest with both legs, backflipping away.
The beacon exploded in a contained, concentrated burst of light and force—more designed to disorient than destroy. But the clone stumbled, flickered… and almost popped.
Almost.
"Too bad," he said, brushing smoke off his cloak. "That was close."
Batgirl narrowed her eyes. "You're tougher than I thought. Or maybe I'm rusty."
"Nah," said a second clone from a tree branch. "You're just outnumbered."
"Oh please," she shot back, tossing a bola toward his legs. "I'm Batgirl. I've fought worse odds in high heels."
"Respect," muttered a clone as he dodged it mid-air.
They closed in again, forming a loose square around her. Batgirl dropped smoke bombs, launched a taser, spun into a low kick—but they matched her step for step. They weren't pressing in. They weren't overwhelming her.
They were playing.
And she knew it.
Batgirl sighed dramatically. "So are we sparring or just flirting? Because if it's both, I want at least a milkshake after."
The clones glanced at each other.
One scratched his head. "Do we even… eat?"
Another shrugged. "I mean, technically I remember what ramen tastes like, so…"
Batgirl rolled her eyes, then smiled. "Tell the real Naruto—if he wants to impress a girl, he needs to stop sending clones and come himself."
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Bumblebee:
Bumblebee zipped through the air like a golden bullet, her body no larger than a soda can and moving too fast for the naked eye to follow. One second she was above the tree line, the next she was behind Naruto's clone, unleashing a point-blank sonic burst into his back.
BOOM!
The soundwave hit like a miniature explosion, dispersing the chakra skin on his back and sending the clone tumbling through the underbrush.
"Okay," Naruto said, getting back to his feet, golden energy reforming over him. "You pack a punch."
"You're not the only one who hits hard," Bumblebee quipped, teleporting mid-air in a flicker of light. She reappeared beside him, almost too fast to react, and drove her heel into his side.
Naruto blocked with a chakra arm, but she'd already vanished again, her form blinking out with a pop! like a spark of lightning.
"She's like a yellow Raikage with wings!" Naruto muttered as he ducked another sonic lance and countered with a gust of wind. The wind didn't touch her—she teleported again, reappearing to fire a vibration pulse into the ground beneath him.
CRACK!
The ground shattered beneath his feet as the very molecular bonds of the earth cracked apart.
Inside his seal, Kurama gave a low whistle.
"Okay, that's… that's not bad. Girl's got science chakra."
Bumblebee darted around him in blurring zigzags, alternating between full-size and insect-scale, blasting waves of compressed vibration that distorted the air. Naruto tried to catch her with chakra arms, wind bursts, and even a sneak-attack Rasengan—nothing worked. She wasn't just fast—she was unpredictable.
And Naruto loved it.
"Kurama," he thought, blocking another vibrational shockwave, "do you feel this? She's not hitting hard, she's hitting smart."
"You're finally starting to get it," Kurama muttered, tail flicking.
"That's frequency warfare. She's shaking things apart. You could learn from that."
Naruto grinned, flipping back as a barrage of vibration blasts slammed into the forest around him.
Leaves rained down like green confetti.
"So what if…" he muttered aloud, eyes glowing.
Suddenly, he let himself get hit. Deliberately.
The clone's chest rippled, absorbing the vibration. Then it… sang.
A hum spread out from his body like a tuning fork.
Bumblebee blinked in the air, hesitating for just a second.
"Wait—did you just—"
"Copy your frequency?" Naruto said, his voice carrying through the vibrating air. "Yeah. Kinda figured if I match it… I can ride it."
He blurred forward, using her own vibrational field to surf the pulses mid-air.
"What?!"
Before she could teleport, Naruto was behind her with a chakra arm swinging in slow-motion—deliberate, controlled, just enough to tag her and not destroy her gear.
She blinked out of reach—but not before he clipped her wing.
She spiraled slightly, recovered, and landed in the trees.
Her full-size form appeared again as she held a hand to her wing pack.
"That's… new."
Naruto grinned. "You're amazing! You weaponized music and physics!"
She raised an eyebrow. "Did you… just compliment science like it was ninjutsu?"
He nodded enthusiastically. "I need books. So many books. Maybe a lab. I'm gonna vibrate my Rasengan now."
Kurama groaned.
"Don't… don't say that sentence again."
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Naruto stood in the center of the clearing, golden energy shimmering around him, his eyes sharp and glowing with Sage Mode's telltale orange pigmentation. The battle was heating up—literally. Every move Bumblebee made came with a flash of light and a sonic scream. But beneath all the bluster and flashes, Naruto was listening.
More importantly, he was feeling.
His Sage Mode wasn't just giving him heightened perception of life—it was letting him feel the subtle vibrations of the world itself. And right now, it was telling him a lot about Bumblebee's tech.
He could feel her wings' frequency.
Each pulse changed slightly depending on what she hit. Stone? High frequency. Wood? Midrange. Chakra shield? Slightly distorted, almost fuzzy.
It was like watching music play through his skin.
Naruto grinned. "You change your vibration depending on the material's resistance, right?"
Bumblebee blinked, hovering in midair. "Yeah, that's the basic idea. Accelerated particles. Focused vibration fields. It's not magic, it's physics."
He nodded thoughtfully, then said, "You know... I can copy that."
Before she could say anything, Naruto clapped his hands together.
WHUMM.
The air shifted.
The wind itself began to hum—not loudly, not visually, but in a way that made the trees tremble, leaves shake, and the rocks nearby crack like they'd just remembered how fragile they really were.
"Wait, wait, wait—what are you doing?!" Bumblebee asked, suddenly struggling to stay airborne. Her wings sputtered slightly, the energy field around them flickering.
Naruto's grin widened. "I'm using the wind to carry vibration. But not just any kind—the kind your suit uses. I matched the frequency."
Inside him, Kurama sighed.
"Now you're just showing off."
The entire clearing began to resonate. The leaves danced. The dirt quivered. Even the birds peaced out, clearly wanting no part in shinobi-tuned sonic warfare.
Bumblebee tried to teleport—but her suit blinked out instead. Sparks crackled from her wrist module.
"Are you—vibrating the whole battlefield?!" she shouted over the growing hum.
Naruto gave a mock-sheepish grin. "Maybe a little."
She crashed into the underbrush a moment later with a loud thud. Naruto, ever the gentleman, was already beside her by the time she groaned and pushed herself up.
"You okay?"
She coughed. "Just… mildly rattled. Literally."
Naruto offered her a hand. "Thanks for the lesson. Seriously. I had no idea you could use science like that."
Bumblebee squinted at him, a mix of impressed and mildly offended. "What did you think I was doing this whole time—buzzing around like a lightbulb?"
Naruto laughed, helping her up. "No! I mean, yes. I mean—you were awesome. I just… didn't know vibrations could be so effective. Flash does this too?"
She nodded. "He can vibrate his molecules to pass through walls. Superman can shatter mountains with focused hums. I'm just the budget version."
Naruto turned toward the trees, eyes gleaming. "Then I guess I've got more to learn."
Kurama snorted.
"Congratulations, you've officially become a science nerd. Want me to grow you a lab coat next?"
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Beast Boy:
Beast Boy floated above the cracked jungle floor like a smug, emerald blob of physics. Or, more specifically, like a Galilean alien with gravity powers and exactly zero chill.
Below him, Naruto stood with his arms crossed, squinting up at the green alien form like he was trying to decide if he should be impressed or insulted.
"So…" Naruto began slowly, "you're like a flying green potato… that can squash me?"
Beast Boy's distorted alien voice vibrated in the air like it had been autotuned by a refrigerator. "Excuse you—this is a Galilean war form. Super advanced. Super dangerous. And also… super squishy." He bounced slightly in midair for emphasis.
Naruto made a face. "You're threatening me with a stress ball."
"A stress ball that controls gravity!" Beast Boy said, and with a dramatic gesture, launched a gravity mine.
The air bent weirdly around the dark sphere as it hit the ground—and Naruto, predictably, got slammed downward like he owed the earth rent money.
"Ugh—okay!" Naruto grunted, peeling himself out of a crater. "Note to self: do not underestimate the walking green planetarium."
Another gravity ball floated by like a lazy moon, and Naruto dodged it—barely—using a substitution jutsu that swapped him with a very confused coconut.
Beast Boy blinked. "Did… did you just ninja-jutsu a coconut?"
"I mean, it was nearby," Naruto shrugged, reappearing behind a boulder. "And it volunteered, okay?"
More gravity mines popped into the field, floating like evil bubbles waiting to wreck your whole day. Naruto's clone dashed forward—dodging two, purposely getting hit by the third.
It collapsed under the weight of the field with a "WHUMPH!" and stayed still.
Beast Boy hovered over the motionless clone and blinked. "Did I… win?"
From the trees, the real Naruto watched intently, eyes glowing golden. Inside his mind, Kurama was humming.
"Feel that?" Kurama said. "The way the gravity compressed the space around the clone? That's a natural force. With Sage Mode, you're already part of the world's rhythm—you just need to let it move through you."
"Yeah, but I don't get the science-y stuff!" Naruto muttered mentally.
"Then stop thinking like a scientist. Think like a force of nature."
Naruto closed his eyes, focused on the shifting pull of energy in the air—the warping of weight, the curve of movement. Slowly, almost instinctively, his feet lifted half an inch from the ground.
He floated.
Then he grinned.
"Ohhh, you're in trouble now!" Naruto called, launching himself toward Beast Boy with a whoop.
Beast Boy squinted. "How are you flying? You don't have gravity powers!"
"I do now!" Naruto said gleefully. "I call it… Sage Gravity No Jutsu!"
"That is not a real thing."
"It is now!"
They collided midair. Naruto's chakra arms burst forth to smack away incoming gravity balls while launching his own mini pulses of gravity back at Beast Boy.
"Okay, not gonna lie," Beast Boy grunted, dodging mid-air, "this is kind of terrifying."
"Yeah, welcome to my ninja style," Naruto shouted, swinging with a gravity-powered roundhouse kick that sent a shockwave through the trees. "Clone-Fu, plus natural disaster! You can call me… Hokage of Physics!"
"No. No one's calling you that," Beast Boy snapped, launching a gravity surge that compressed air around Naruto like a bear hug from the moon.
Naruto broke free by redirecting gravity downward with a pulse from his chakra-infused soles. He countered with a clone popping in from above, only to dissolve into smoke as Beast Boy crushed it mid-flight.
"You're learning too fast," Beast Boy grumbled. "This isn't fair. You're like a cheat code wearing a jumpsuit."
"Well, I'd apologize," Naruto said, charging up a Rasengan laced with gravity pull, "but I'm way too entertained."
Before the attack landed, Beast Boy's form glowed.
With a burst of light, the Galilean form vanished—and in its place hovered a majestic, emerald phoenix, flames trailing behind its wings like curtains of living jade.
"Oh, come on," Naruto muttered. "Now you're just showing off."
Beast Boy flapped his wings dramatically. "You're the one throwing planetary Rasengans, bro! I'm just trying to survive out here!"
The firebird flared, sending green flames spiraling outward. Naruto dodged them with a flip, his excitement building.
"Okay, okay—this just turned into my new favorite spar ever."
Beast Boy screeched from above, "Let's see how well that Sage Gravity No Jutsu handles a bird made of fire and sass!"
Naruto cupped his hands together. "BRING IT, CHICKEN WING!"
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Beast Boy was glowing. Not in a "hey, you're doing great" kind of way—but in a literal, solar-charged, sun-eating, jade-green-flaming kind of way.
Hovering in the sky like a majestic green god of destruction, his immortal phoenix form radiated heat so intense, the clouds had started sweating.
Naruto stood on the waves, arms crossed, staring up at his opponent with an expression that read: "Okay, I see you, spicy chicken."
"Nice tan lamp you got there," Naruto called. "You about to cook the whole ozone layer?"
The phoenix screeched, heat shimmering around him. He had been absorbing solar energy for the past few minutes, and now his green flames had reached 'Will Set the Air on Fire' levels.
In response, Naruto chuckled and closed his eyes.
"Alright, Kurama," he muttered. "Let's show him what happens when the sun tries to roast a fox."
Golden chakra burst from his body like a dam breaking. The ocean rippled violently. Trees on the island bent.
In the next second, a colossal golden Nine-Tailed Fox rose from the sea, each of its tails swaying with enough force to shift air currents.
Beast Boy faltered in midair.
"...Okay, so we're doing giant monsters now," he said in his normal voice—somehow still audible from his firebird mouth. "Should've known."
The fox growled, chakra limbs rippling across the air, voice echoing with Kurama's deep snarl: "You started it, feather duster."
What followed was chaos. No, not your average ninja-style chaos. This was kaiju-level chaos. The kind you'd call in the Justice League to clean up after.
Beast Boy flapped his wings and unleashed a barrage of solar fireballs—each one the size of a small house.
Naruto dashed forward on the wind, using chakra-infused air steps to run across the sky like he was in a platformer game. His golden tails intercepted the blasts—twisting, spinning, slashing them apart mid-air.
They collided above the ocean in a blinding shockwave—a Bijuudama crashing into phoenix flames. The result was a blast so massive it vaporized a quarter mile of seawater.
Thunder rolled across the horizon. Fish filed a class-action lawsuit.
"Okay, NOT going to explain that to Aquaman," Naruto muttered.
Beast Boy zipped through the air, cloaked in solar energy. He dove at Naruto like a comet, claws slashing through golden chakra fur.
Naruto roared, his tails spiraling into the sky. He launched chakra lasers from each tip—ten simultaneous beams that arced across the air like divine judgment.
The phoenix dodged five. Two hit the ocean. One melted a cloud.
Two hit Beast Boy.
He screeched, spiraling back, green feathers scattering like burning leaves. But he wasn't down. He was energized.
Beast Boy pulled back into the sky, then unleashed a solar storm. A sphere of concentrated plasma swirled in his chest—spinning so fast it bent the light around it.
Kurama's voice echoed in Naruto's mind:
"He's charging up something big. It's gonna be flashy."
Naruto grinned.
"So are we."
The golden fox vanished. In his place, Naruto reappeared—smaller, yes—but with a Rasengan the size of a building spinning in his palm, surrounded by crackling wind, vibrating nature energy, and gravitational distortion.
Beast Boy fired.
Naruto launched.
Both attacks collided in the sky—and detonated. The resulting explosion sent shockwaves in every direction, capsizing waves and briefly turning day into greenish-gold night.
When the light cleared, Naruto was behind the phoenix—his hand grabbing its tail.
He spun.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
And with a roar, Naruto performed the most glorious Seismic Toss in chakra-based history.
Beast Boy screamed, "NOT AGAINNNNNNNNNN—!"
And then he was slammed into the ocean like a meteor made of feathers and flame.
A massive splash erupted, waves rising like walls before crashing back down. The phoenix form fizzled midair as Beast Boy's consciousness flickered and the transformation broke. He resurfaced moments later, dazed but alive, floating belly-up.
Naruto hovered above, slightly winded but grinning. "Ten out of ten. Would kaiju-battle again."