Title: A New Era

Pairings: PG/TW, Duo Damsel/BB, SG/LL, SV/B5, and a few Oc pairings among the kids

Summary: In the years of the 31st century's Golden Age, many of our beloved heroes retired, settling down to raise families. Their children are the heirs to the Legion, but when the responsibility falls on them too soon, it's up to the Legionnaires we know and love to set things right. Set mid season 2.

Rating: T

Warnings: violence, injury, mentions of character death; it has its happy moments I swear. I honestly don't even think it warrants a "warning" because it's 2014 and homophobic people are a waste of my time, but among the Ocs there's a gay pairing and a lesbian pairing in this story. You have been told.

Disclaimer: I do not own Legion of Superheroes or any of its characters or properties


Legion Headquarters, 3035 A.C.

Thick black smoke mixed with the darkening storm clouds above the city of New Metropolis, a telling sign of the tension stirring in the battle going on below. Four armed super villains sought vengeance against their hated enemies in the Legion, and four budding heroes had stood up to defend their home. It was in no way an even match despite the numbers, and the young Legionnaires were each struggling just to hold their own.

"Sphere Lass, incoming!" a voice yelled from somewhere behind the only female on the front lines. The multicolor haired girl turned her head slightly, not taking her attention off the ax-wielding assailant in front of her until the black and blue blur of a Kryptonian boy sped by, sweeping her off her feet and out of the way as the green blasts of energy Emerald Empress had been directing at them just missed and hit Persuader instead.

"Thanks for the save, X!" Sphere Lass called to her friend over the wind, one hand holding her pair of white goggles on her head as the boy grinned at her over the top edge of his shades.

"No prob, SL, and that's Superboy X to you!" X answered. He set her down just as quickly as he'd picked her up, flying back in the direction of the Empress with his heat vision fighting the Eye of Ekron at full blast.

Sphere Lass glanced down at the flight ring on her finger and took to the air as well, taking the opportunity of Persuader being down momentarily to gauge the situation better from above. She watched her teammates closely, a dozen strategies being formed and revised in her head. Superboy X and Empress seemed to be rather evenly matched, but Sphere Lass couldn't as easily read the situations of her other two friends. Storm Reader was shooting lightning bolts down at Mano while he in turn tried to grab at the boy, the pair playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse across the field. Meanwhile, she'd completely lost sight of Atom Boy, but the enraged look on Tharok's face and the way he kept grabbing at his robotic half was a pretty good indicator to where he was.

"Tama! Do you really expect me to just twiddle my thumbs up here when you almost just got hit?" an angry static filled voice called out suddenly from Sphere Lass's communicator. The super heroine rolled her eyes at the use of her real first name, flying out of the way of a stray green blast before she answered.

"I'm sorry, Winny, but now's not the time for you to be having problems with the way I run things! I was put in charge when the senior Legionnaires left and I say you and Gwen aren't fit to be back in the field yet, it's too much of a risk!"

"What makes you think we can win this fight when half your team is holed up in command with Computo 2.0 guarding us? We can help, Tama, Liam's been begging me!"

"Forget it! You and Gwen are unstable and Liam and Ren are too young, the four of us out here have got it cov-"

Tama was cut off mid sentence as too late she realized her mistake; in all the chaos of arguing with Winema, she'd turned her back on Persuader. The villain's axe flew through the air, and Sphere Lass just managed to avoid getting her head chopped off before it exploded behind her, knocking her from the air. The heroine tumbled to the ground, morphing into a ball shape to cushion her fall. She bounced once weakly, then collapsed back into her normal shape.

It took a matter of minutes for Sphere Lass to watch her team fall apart. Superboy fell first as Persuader intervened in his battle with the Empress. He tried the same trick on X as he had with Sphere Lass, and when the Kryptonian dodged the Eye of Ekron was waiting there to catch him off guard. The older boy fell to the ground with a thud, his eyes glowing an unnatural green behind his dark glasses.

Sphere Lass struggled to get to her feet, her arms and legs feeling weak and her back of her dress singed from the blast, but she still tried for the others' sake. A few feet away, Storm Reader was trying to disengage from his fight with Mano without success until Tharok unwillingly blasted Mano, a happy accident thanks to Atom Boy's tampering. His cybernetic side sparked and popped, and after another moment there was a bang, and an unconscious miniature Atom Boy was painfully ejected from the cyborg's body. Storm Reader caught him and flew back towards Sphere Lass, grabbing the back of Superboy's jacket as he went and landing on his knees beside her with one hand cupped around their tiny fallen friend.

"We're not even holding our own here, Spheres, I think a retreat is an order." the strawberry blonde said sternly, his good blue eye stormy as he looked up to see the Fatal Four approaching them slowly. Tama got to her knees stiffly, taking Atom Boy from the other boy and when he passed him to her and slipping his unconscious form into an inner pocket of her dress so that he'd be safe. She watched as the scar over Storm Reader's left eye charged up, then he leaped into the air and blasted at the villains with electricity to keep them at bay.

"Go, Sphere Lass!" he called over his shoulder. He shot again, but Tharok seemed to have recovered from Atom Boy's tampering and easily absorbed the energy. One hit to the head with the blunt side of Persuader's ax and a powerful blast from the Empress's Eye later, Storm Reader fell to the ground beside his friend X.

Hopelessness spread through the last Legionnaire standing as she found herself surrounded, her fallen comrades at her feet and hateful faces on all sides. She looked up to see the Eye of Ekron charging up one last blast as the Empress smirked at her victoriously.

"End if the line, little Legionnaire. You tried, I'll give you that, but there's no point avoiding the inevitable any more." the Emerald Empress said with crossed arms and a cold smile. Sphere Lass closed her eyes, the fight gone from her as she just waited for it to be over, but the blast never came. A guttural, primal growl erupted from the air behind her, and the heroine's violet eyes snapped open as she turned around just in time to see the beastly form of Winema "Ghost Wolf" Londo shooting past her and straight at the Fatal Four.

Sphere Lass's heart crawled into her throat as she watched her monstrous comrade barrel straight into the Empress and swat the Emerald Eye to the side with a giant paw, those familiar golden eyes burning with rage and hatred. Reluctantly Tama tore her eyes away, her eyes searching for the others. There was no sign of Winny's sister Gwen, but she could easily have been invisible, and the Legion leader's heart sank when she saw her little brother and Ren flying toward her.

"Li- Triplet Lad! Durlan Damsel! Get out of here, now!" Sphere Lass yelled, panic and adrenaline flooding her systems and renewing her will to fight. She took a running start and leaped at Persuader and Mano, bowling them over in ball form to keep them away from the kids. They were only twelve and eleven, so in Tama's mind the battlefield was no place for them yet, and she'd fight with everything she had to protect them.

The only problem, of course, was that the kids really didn't want to be protected. They teamed up on Tharok together, Durlan Damsel transforming into a crab like creature Sphere Lass was sure she'd seen the girl's father turn into before while Triplet Lad split into three. The black and white costumed selves of the half Carggite boy attacking first followed by his blue self, each one kicking the cyborg in the chest while Ren flew in to finish the job in crab form. If the two young heroes weren't so outmatched it would have worked too, but Tharok was too intelligent to be beaten by a pair of kids. The cyborg's arm reached out, grabbing one of Durlan Damsel's antennae and attempting to crush it. The young girl reverted back to her humanoid form instantly, screaming in pain until Tharok let go and shoved her away.

"Get out of there, Ren!" Tama screeched as the mouth of Tharok's canon pressed against the side of the terrified girl's head, ready to fire. Sphere Lass shot forward, speeding at the cyborg and registering Ghost Wolf doing the same somewhere to her right, but neither of them got there before Triplet Lad. The black Liam used his whole body to shove the canon out of the way while the blue wrapped both arms around it to hold it out of range from the others until the white Liam could scoop up Durlan Damsel and fly away as fast as he could.

Sphere Lass had almost gotten to the group when Tharok regained control of the situation, punching Triplet Lad's black self in the gut and kicking him away before shaking off the blue self. Before anyone on the battlefield could react or even blink, Tharok had turned and blasted the blue Liam point blank. The boy never even had the chance to scream as he went flying, his body going limp as the canon hit him at full blast. Liam's blue self was dead before he'd even hit the ground.

Tama saw red, and all she could remember after that through the surge of rage and grief was Liam's two remaining selves screaming while she slammed into Tharok with every ounce of strength she had.