The idea of jaunting through the time stream involved glamour and high intrigue for Injestor. He expected a similar experience to that of teleportation: a tingly feeling while one's cell structure became decompressed, a momentary period of blackout, and the same tingles as the cells reconstructed. He expected it would be a piece of cake. He didn't expect, however, the actual experience. None of the new Legionnaires did. And when, in the basement of a vacant warehouse in Metropolis, the seven of them (and Vidar's invisible prototype time cube) materialized in May of 2005, they were each greeted with a heavy case of disoriented pain.
"Whoa!" shouted Injestor, squinting hard, palms pressed against his temples. He doubled over, dropping his shades to the ground, and said. "What the grife just happened?"
"Dr. Senius should have warned us it was going to be a rough ride if we all jaunted together," responded Mentalla. She was a beautiful girl: tall, lithe, and graceful with sunbeam yellow ringlets of blonde hair. Despite the physical discomfort she was feeling, she tried not to illustrate signs of unease; as a longtime student of dance at the Titan Center of the Arts, not displaying poise and grace would be uncharacteristic. However, headaches were not something she, or most natives of Titan, knew how to deal with. She continued, "but it looks like he left out the part about the blaring migraine."
"And the nausea. Damn bug," stated Brawler. He, too, rubbed at his head, and reached over to Amp Girl's elbow conveying a manner of concern. She nodded and rolled her eyes.
"I'm ok, it'll pass," she whispered. And then she ran a few steps, turned away, and vomited.
"Relax, everyone," said Retro confidently. "We're feeling a sort of temporal jetlag, and I think I can help," he added as he raised his hands and faced his palms wide at the others. Invisible waves of energy poured forth, and each of his teammates suddenly began to feel a cleansing sensation as the head pain and queasiness left their bodies.
"Metro, you're a lifesaver," atypically admitted Brawler.
"How'd you do that," inquired Injestor, regaining his composure. He reached down for his shades and slid them back on. Orbit handed Amp Girl a tissue from a pouch in her U-belt and received a nod of thanks.
Retro basked for a minute, enjoying the awe and attention of his comrades. His smile lacked any semblance of humility. "Simple, really," he shrugged. "I absorbed the temporal energies which latched onto us as we time-jaunted. My body has a much higher threshold to absorb and dissipate that kind of energy."
"Good to know!" exclaimed Injestor. "Okay, people," he said with a couple of light hand claps in an attempt to rein the disoriented group in, "the sensors indicate we've managed to end up in the proper time target, so the first thing we need to do is find our way to Kansas."
"Are we relying on flight rings to get us there, or should we do something less conspicuous?" asked Quartz.
Brawler stepped forward and poked at Quartz' shoulder. "Find me one of those car-things the primates in this century use for transportation and I'll manipulate the grife out of it," he remarked callously. His teammates didn't think very much of the Moxian Legionnaire, but when it came to his powers, no one could scoff. And soon enough, once the seven of them left the warehouse and ventured out into the daylight of 2005, they found a large white sport utility truck parked on the corner of Blake and 48th. "This'll do," chuckled Brawler as he removed his flight ring and locator beacon and pressed them up against the driver's side door. "It's even called a Navigator! How fitting!" The metal from the SUV began to morph, taking in the properties of the Nth metal from which Brawler's flight ring was forged. The tires became encased in a sheath of white just as the vehicle began to hover in place above the ground. And then the door locks popped, and all four doors opened in synch.
The Legionnaires looked on in awe, but Mentalla shook her head. "I'm inclined to think that stealing someone's vehicle is not the best way to remain under the radar," she admitted. "I'd like to think I'm not the only one, but, sadly, I can read your collective excitement loud and clear."
"Look at it this way, Mentalla," said Amp Girl, "Mox-face needs to do something to prove his usefulness before one of us puts him down like the dog he is."
"And," chimed Retro, "it's really sprocking cool!"
They climbed aboard the hover-truck, Brawler at the helm. The truck's dashboard had taken on the properties of the beacon and suddenly became illuminated with Interlac characters and sophisticated, 31st Century technology. Brawler tapped diligently at the readings that were holographically superimposed before him, entering the coordinates for Smallville, Kansas. The group watched as Metropolis shrunk away beneath and behind them. And just to prove his carefree mettle, he plugged into a local rock station and cranked up the music.
"Woo-hoo," yelled Brawler, "Road trip!" Some giggled, some rolled their eyes. But they were all on their way to their destination.
Standing by her kitchen sink, Martha Kent rinsed the day's lunch plates and glanced out the four-paned window before her. Straight ahead, off to the side of the barn, stood Jonathan in a pair of faded blue overalls; he was looking upward quizzically, using his right hand as a sun visor. Leaning in closer to the window, Martha tried to follow the direction in which Jon was looking, not noticing that her apron was becoming soaked by the running water. There was something up there in the cloudless sky, and through squinted eyes she could still tell it wasn't a plane. When she looked back at Jonathan, he met her glance and waved her out. She shut the faucet, grabbed a towel and dried her hands, and proceeded out onto the back porch.
"What is it, Jon?" she quizzed, periodically looking upward. The thing in the sky was closer, and it looked almost like a car. Or a truck.
"I dunno, Martha," replied Jonathan as his wife arrived at his side, and now the two of them were looking skyward. Jonathan cleared his throat and shouted over his shoulder toward the barn, "Son, I think you need to come on down here, looks like we're being paid a visit!"
The elderly couple looked on as the Legion's makeshift Navigator made a stop, hovering inches above the high grass only a few yards away. Jon put an arm around Martha's hip and continued cupping his brow to block the sun. The hovercraft doors opened and out stepped several young folks, each wearing colorful costumes. A black-haired boy wearing a green and black jumpsuit with a symbol on the chest that resembled a tooth was the first to speak.
"Greetings, Mr. and Mrs. Kent," said Injestor as he approached. The other Legionnaires stayed by the vehicle. "Hope we didn't startle you," he added.
Jonathan shrugged. "Not really," he replied, "we've been half-expecting you!"
At that moment, the sky seemed to brighten. It seemed as if the sun just suddenly got a lot closer to the Earth. In unison, the Legionnaires and the Kents looked up toward the barn. Out of a doorway off the high loft stood a red-haired boy in a vibrant yellow and orange outfit. He stepped off the open ledge and hovered in a ray of golden sunlight; the wind flapped his orange cape around behind him like a flag. He made eye contact with Injestor and smiled as he lowered himself to the ground.
"Matter-Eater Lad!" he cried, and lurched forward to hug the lanky Legionnaire. "Finally, a familiar face!"
Injestor didn't know how to react; obviously, he knew who this young man was supposed to be, but he didn't know him personally. And what the grife was a 'matter-eater lad?'
Brawler let out a belly laugh and mimicked, "Matter-Eater Lad! That's Awesome!"
The Kents smiled as their son, or an exact doppelganger of their son at the age of seventeen, warmly greeted the seven youngsters. They could see that Clark was finally exerting himself in a positive light for the first true time since showing up at their door those months ago. Much had changed for their boy; he may well have been the last son of Krypton, but due to his last near-death battle with Pulsar Stargrave, his powers had been permanently altered, and all that he'd known from his earliest childhood memories were now nothing but just that. This Clark had been Superboy since just about when he could walk, getting into super-powered mischief even as a toddler. In his timeline, Clark's parents had already sewn together a Superboy outfit for him and had helped him maintain his secret identity so he could fit in with the common folk of Smallville. For most of his very young life, this Clark was Superboy. But not anymore. Gone were his powers of invulnerability, flight and x-ray vision. Though he was still much stronger than the average teenager, he couldn't consider himself the teen of steel any longer. And the exposure to the red kryptonite had altered his appearance somewhat as well; his skin was pale and sensitive to sunlight, and his hair morphed from wavy black to straight and bright orange. Ma had purchased plenty of hair products down at the local pharmacy to help him acclimate to the new hair color, but still, when looking in the mirror, Clark didn't feel like himself. On top of all of this, he was lost in the time stream, only a visitor here on this earth. As wonderful as these Kents were, and gosh, were they, they still weren't really his own parents. Martha Kent picked up on all of his feelings of loneliness and disassociation, and she did everything in her power to make the boy feel at home.
"Come on, kids," gestured Martha, "let's head inside and get some lemonade."
As they turned to make way back to the house, bolts of fire began falling from the sky. Rock formations jutted upward randomly around them, creating a semicircular entrapment. From almost all directions they could hear a strange, high-pitched howl, making it hard to focus. "Ma, Pa, go back to the house!" yelled Clark as he instinctively built an invisible energy shield around the Kents, protecting them from whatever was happening. Martha grabbed onto Jonathan and winced, and the two of them scurried between rock formations to make a beeline to the house.
From the other side of the barn emerged another group of costumed youths. It was obvious, beyond the fire and rocks, that their intent was anything but friendly. One of them, a blonde girl, shouted, "The Hypertime reject belongs to us, Legionnaires!"
Injestor recognized her, and he knew immediately she was a strong threat. He gave Amp Girl a tactical nod and yelled back, "Superboy stays with us, Inferno! And I don't know what your damage is, but you'll have to go through us if you want him."
Clark stepped forward, stepped up on a jut of rock, and said, "My name's Reflecto now, and if you want me, come and get me!"