The Legends of Forever by Barry Lyga (books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

He took another step—

“I get it already!” he shouted. “I take another step, try to teleport, and it doesn’t work! I got it the first time. Don’t make me look like an idiot, Lyga. I’m crazy, not stupid.”

Joe advanced on Ambush Bug. “You’re under arrest.”

Ambush Bug looked up. “I seem to be under the sky. Under the Tuscan Sun. Underworld Unleashed. (Hi, Mark!) Don’t mind me—I’m just free-associating because there’s nothing else to do.”

Joe sighed in deep relief and strode over to the Bug.

“Oh man, there’s some space before the bottom of the page. Is this the end of the chapter?”

“It’s the end of your story,” Joe said, and happily punched Ambush Bug into unconsciousness with a single blow to the jaw.

* Ooh, I said crisis! Red skies! And look—a footnote! Cool!

45

Superman landed on needle’s surface, suddenly grateful for the Legion transsuit he’d worn for its communication abilities. He’d lost his powers before, been under red suns before—he knew the signs and the portents. The first one was this: cold. The sensation of cold. It was unfamiliar to him, but when it came, he knew what it meant. It meant that his powers were fading. His invulnerability was going away. He needed to breathe now.

Just like a person.

It’ll be OK, Clark, he told himself. You’ve been powerless before, and you’ve always made it through.

Behind him, the Time Trapper loomed enormous and impossible. He hoped Heat Wave and the Flash could hold him off, or at least distract him. There was too much to do here and now.

The Time Trapper’s machinery was enormous—a massive, metallic Gordian knot of impossible-to-follow cables, tubes, and conduits. Energy crackled around it, black spots vibrating and sloughing away, bleeding off into infinity. He knew the fundamentals of Kryptonian technology, so much more advanced than Earth’s, but this technology was as beyond him as a cell phone was beyond a caveman.

He didn’t really need to understand it, though. He just had to destroy it.

He’d been accused in the past of thinking with his fists. His best friend often chided him for relying too much on his powers, not using his head enough. It wasn’t really a fair criticism, Superman thought. He relied on his powers so much because the foes who came his way tended to have abilities that matched or outstripped his own. But when the time came for outthinking an enemy, he was more than capable of doing so.

And he might have to do it now. His strength flagged. His invulnerability, which would protect him from harm as he smashed the machinery, was almost gone. A chill enveloped him. This is what Lois complains about on cold nights, he thought. And he imagined her, wrapped in a sweater, feet tucked under her as she sat on the sofa, pounding at her laptop, writing yet another exposé. Making the world a better place, one story at a time.

Asking him how to spell misanthrope. Her spelling was awful, and she didn’t trust the computer’s spell-check.

I’m coming back to you, Lois, he thought. I swear it.

He stared at the machine, willing his X-ray vision to work one more time. To show him some weakness he could exploit.

Instead, it showed him Cisco Ramon.

Shocked, he turned around. The Time Trapper had grown even more, now bigger than most skyscrapers. He raised his arms, laughing into the void. How could they hear him, with no atmosphere?

And why was Superman even worrying about such things?

He figured he had one chance to get Cisco out of this contraption. He knew what he needed to do, and he also knew how risky it was. If it didn’t work, he would be rendered powerless.

Then again, even if it did work, he would still be rendered powerless.

Super Flare. It was his last chance. He had a little heat vision, a little flight . . . In short, he had all his powers, but at drastically reduced potency. No single power—strength, freeze breath, whatever—had enough juice behind it to break into the machine and liberate Cisco.

But if he combined all of them, compiled the last dregs of yellow sunlight in his cells, it might make a Super Flare strong enough to crack open the prison.

Even if it didn’t, he’d be left powerless.

Lois always likes to say that the man in Superman is the important part. Let’s find out if she’s right.

He put his hands far apart on the skin of the machine. He focused as hard as he could, channeling all the yellow solar radiation stored in his cells.

With a scream of pain, he allowed the power to explode out of him. His eyes erupted with yellow bursts of energy, sizzling along the surface of the machine. The metallic layer began to bubble and warp, softening beneath his fingers.

For the first time in a long time, he felt heat. His own heat. His fingers burned.

No time for regrets or for pain, Smallville. Lois’s voice in his head. This looks like a job for Superman.

Crying out in anguish, he sank his fingers into the melting metal. It would cool and re-harden rapidly in the cold vacuum of space, so he had to move quickly. With the last of his strength, he clawed the metal apart, opening a gap in the machine’s exterior. His breath came too fast, his heart pounding as he strained mightily.

Something electrical within the machine cracked and sparked. Superman staggered back, his fingers throbbing with pain.

From the smoky darkness of the gap he’d made, a figure appeared, then reached out, probing tentatively.

“So, in other words,” a voice said, “the TV Barry Allen screwed up, messed with history, then re-messed with history, and we’re the ones who get punished for it? Not cool.”

The hand hung there.

“So, in other words . . .”

Superman grabbed the hand and pulled. Cisco Ramon stumbled out of the machine.

“. . . messed with history,” Cisco said, dazed, “then remessed . . .”

He suddenly shook all over, then blinked rapidly, as though disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes.

“Whoa! I never thought . . .