- 7 -

Colossal Boy was the first to leap into action growing to forty feet tall. He was also the first to be taken out by Super-Bully, who slammed into his right arm and leg, shattering bones in both.

"Get Mr Brande out of here!" ordered Cosmic Boy using his magnetic power to lift metal floor plates long enough to screen them and allow Chameleon Boy to shape-shift into a large bat-like creature, grab Brande in his claws, and fly him to safety through the hole left by Star Lass. Super-Bully slammed the floor plate down on Cosmic Boy, knocking him out, then was surprised as Phantom Girl's arm emerged from his chest. A moment later she screamed and fell backwards, still in phantom form, her arm blackened and smoking. He moved forwards... and was abruptly slammed flat by Star Boy's gravity increasing power. But only for a moment. He surged upwards against that increased gravity, a reaction that resulted in Star Boy being thrown across the room. Where Star Lass had ruptured the wall he slammed into it, hard, sliding to the floor unconscious. Super-Bully turned his attention to Triplicate Girl, who had split into three, as her Carggite power allowed.

"A weak girl is a weak girl," laughed Super-Bully. "Three of her is no more of a threat than two."

With that he turned his heat vision on one of her, incinerating that one. She still stood before crumbling into a pile of ash. Her remaining selves collapsed to the floor, driven into a coma at the shock of their loss.

All this had taken only seconds. Super-Sister burst into the room and slammed into Super-Bully, appalled at the carnage he had already caused.

"Monster!" she screamed, raining blows down on him.

"Enough!" he shouted, throwing her off him. "I'm stronger than you, girlie, and I've learned enough about fighting technique after a thousand years of watching from the zone that you're not going to defeat me that way again. Only raw strength is going to defeat me this time, raw strength you don't have."

Lightning Lad appeared in the shattered doorway holding a glowing green rock.

"A little souvenir I picked up on my recent trip," he said, throwing it at Super-Bully, who caught it with ease.

"Kryptonite has no effect on me," he grinned, rolling it in his hands, "but we both know someone it does affect."

He hurled the rock at Claire too fast for her to avoid... which is when Star Lass returned at incredible speed, catching it and slamming both fists into his face with all her might.

"Super-Sister may not have enough strength on her own," she said, tossing the kryptonite aside, "but then she's not on her own. Shall we?"

"We shall," said Claire as Super-Bully staggered to his feet, only to go down under the weight of blows that rained down on him from two female powerhouses.

"Could you step aside now please, girls," said Brainiac-5, calmly.

They did so, and he bathed the barely conscious Super-Bully in the rays of the phantom zone projector, returning him to that ghostly realm.

"While you all kept him occupied Brainy and I hid behind the dock, feverishly working on a crude fix for the projector," said Invisible Kid.

"It will still need a complete overhaul, but fortunately the damage his twin eyebeams caused could be bypassed," said Brainiac-5. "If he'd thoroughly smashed it we'd have been in real trouble."

- 8 -

In the Time Institute, Vidar stood before its impressive viewer and tried tuning it to the beginning of the universe. Around him lay the slumbering forms of Circadia Senius and rest of the Institute staff, all of them commanded to sleep by his power ring. To his frustration there was something wrong with the viewer.

"The Time Institute's viewers won't currently peer any further back in time than Super-Sister's primitive device," said a voice behind him. "According to Brainy, it's almost as if some outside force is restricting our access behind - for want of a better term - an 'iron curtain of time'."

Vidar turned to see Saturn Girl standing there, her power dampener gone.

"All that effort for nothing," sighed Vidar. "Super-Bully was supposed to keep you all distracted while I was in here, finally witnessing the birth of time itself!"

"How did you learn about him?"

"From Super-Sister herself. When I travelled back to her era I was in the scrapyard, invisible and masked from them by my ring, when she revealed everything she knew about Super-Bully to a young male friend, and also how she used to be Superboy. I brought her time viewer to Zynthia Ardeen and Thom Kallor and used that information, along with my version of the events it showed them, so that when they presented it to the Legion a trial would be called. I would then be invited to Earth to appear as a witness, giving me access to the Time Institute. That hasn't worked out as I'd hoped, so I think I need to depart this planet."

He raised his arms, intending to fly away, but nothing happened. Puzzled, he pointed his power ring at Saturn Girl, but again nothing happened.

"I charged my ring before coming here so it can't be out of power," he said, frowning.

"It's not," said Saturn Girl. "Those rings are controlled by the wielder's will power. I'm willing it not to respond to yours, and try as you might it won't. I'm one of the strongest telepaths my world has ever produced. Against my will power yours is as nothing."

All around them, everyone was waking up.

"A simple mental command," said Saturn Girl, "and now it's your turn. Sleep."

Vidar crumpled slowly to the floor, where he was found by the other uninjured Legionnaires a few minutes later, ready to be taken away.

- Epilogue -

"Whatever Super-Bully is he's not made of flesh and blood," said Phantom Girl. "It was like sticking my arm in a nuclear furnace. What is he Claire? Where did he come from?"

"I have no idea," admitted Super-Sister. "He's an evil imposter who Supergirl and I managed to cast into the phantom zone, but beyond that..."

"Well, I'm very grateful we live in an age where damaged flesh can be regenerated," said Phantom Girl, flexing her arm.

"What about Colossal Boy?" asked Star Lass.

"He's on the mend, too. It's Luornu I'm worried about. Neither of her has come out of her coma yet."

"Losing a third of yourself..." said Claire. "I can't imagine how big a shock to your system that would be."

"I should be getting to the infirmary," said Phantom Girl, "to see how they're doing."

"I'll wake Luornu up when the time is right," said Saturn Girl, "and tell her that while Triplicate Girl may be gone Duo Damsel still has a place in the Legion."

"And you and Invisible Kid?" asked Star Lass.

"We're fine," she said. "I know it wasn't personal and that he was just doing the job he'd been given. Which brings me to you, Zynthia. We haven't been close for a long time. I'd like to change that. If not for you Super-Bully would probably have defeated us. We were going to offer Thom a place in the Legion anyway, but I'm going to propose we offer you one, too. It would also be an opportunity for us to mend our relationship. What do you say?"

"Yes!" she said, excitedly, throwing her arms around her cousin. "I accept. With his duties on Xanthu Thom will probably only be a part-time member, but I'll be here full time if you want me."

She turned to face Claire.

"I feel like I should apologise to you," she said. "I'm not that other Zynthia but she started out as me so I could very easily have become her."

"But you didn't," said Claire. "You bear no responsibility for the decisions she made. That fault lies with her and her alone."

"Will we see more of you in future?" asked Saturn Girl.

"I hope so," said Claire. "The Legion already feels like family to me."

She gazed around her at the former court room, now repaired and returned to its original function as the Legion's conference room.

"Abin Sur told me that the branching off of this timeline involved a time paradox, said Claire, "one which caused some events to occur in a different order than they had in the original one. I wonder if any of those changes resulted in someone not becoming a Legionnaire who otherwise would have?"

"With that other timeline now closed off to us," said Saturn Girl, "I guess we'll never know."

********
The End
********

Stories this tale draws on:

1. SUPERBOY #78 (Jan '60): "Claire Kent, Alias Super-Sister!"
2. SUPERBOY #86 (Jan '61): "The Army of Living Kryptonite Men"
3. ADVENTURE #282 (March '61): "Lana Lang and the LSH"
4. SUPERBOY #89 (June '61): "Superboy's Big Brother"
5. LSH #295 (Jan '83): "The Origin of the Universe File"