When I woke up again, for a second I thought I was back on Earth and the whole Preserver adventure had just been a dream. But considering the sky had a catwalk going across it and I was laying on Superman's cape, that didn't seem likely.
And since I had just been left out in the open and not shoved into another enclosure, the fighting was probably over and we won.
Yay.
Also ow.
As I shifted around to get a sense for my body, I could feel a bunch of barely healed scrapes pulling on my skin. Weird, what could have caused– the faint memory of going fist to claw with a red and black alien half my size jumped to the forefront of my mind.
Ah, right. I'd stumbled into a room with a night theme and had gone full Oozaru. Good thing I had been training to control my transformation every month with Wonder Woman and Wonder Mom for the past couple years. Pretty sure there wouldn't be a ship left otherwise, even if I still was at the 'barely doesn't fly into a destructive rage at everything' stage of control."
I sighed. It really sucked that the full moon only happened once a month on Earth. It made trying to figure out how to train my control really frustrating and slow. Especially when there were a few times I had to skip training because Wonder Woman suddenly had something else to do on those nights.
"Hey, glad to see you're awake. How are you feeling?" Superman announced his presence by landing nearby and walking over.
"Fine. You look weird without the cape though."
"Well, it's part of the uniform for a reason." He said with a smile.
I rolled my eyes at him, stood up, and tossed him his cape back. I couldn't really argue with that though.
"Whatever. Anyway, what's going on? I'm guessing we won if I was just sleeping out in the open, but how are we getting back to Earth? And what happened to Lobo and the other bounty hunters? I can't sense them anymore."
"All of them left already. They were technically all after the same bounty so once Lobo took off there was no reason for them to hang around."
That meant I wasn't going to see Lobo anytime soon. Good, because I couldn't stand dealing with that jerk. But if he showed up on Earth again, I was going to shove a kamehameha down his throat.
I was going to need to get a lot stronger if I wanted it to actually do anything to him first though.
"As for getting back to Earth, I managed to reprogram the autopilot to take us back to the last planet the Preserver visited. We should be back in a day or so."
That wasn't too bad. And I wasn't even going to bother asking what Superman was planning to do with all the animals on the ship. Sometimes the Fortress of Solitude had an alien zoo in it for one reason or another.
Some people got houseplants or collected trophies, Superman got rare specimens of creatures from all over the galaxy. I wasn't going to knock how he decorated his hideout.
Well, not unless something stupid happened because of it.
"Neat. Once we do, can I bring the Sidekick Squad to check the place out? They'd probably get a kick out of seeing a bunch of aliens that aren't trying to take over the planet."
"Are you counting yourself in that? Or have you finally given up your plans for world domination?" Superman shot me a smirk, making me scowl and turn up my nose at him.
"It'll happen one day! Just as soon as I'm strong enough to beat you!"
"Still, it's a good idea," Superman said, completely ignoring my outburst. "It'd give them all a good bonding opportunity, and it wouldn't be boring for the ones that have grown up on Earth like a regular zoo would be. I'll have Red Tornado mention it to them once we get back."
I cocked my head to one side, "Why not bring it up to them yourself? You're not trying to avoid Superboy or something dumb like that, are you?"
"That is part of it." He admitted, which kinda floored me. Cause I wasn't expecting him to just come out and admit it! "Most of it is because Tornado has a better idea of their schedules than I do so it's easier for him to ask when they should all be free."
"Wait, wait. Go back a bit. Are you actually avoiding Superboy on purpose?" I protested. "Why? Is it because of the clone thing?"
"A little bit at first. Between what happened with Bizarro and finding out there was another, completely separate cloning program focused on me? I wasn't really sure how to feel about that." He said, moving over to a nearby rock and sitting down. I followed after him and sat nearby. "That wasn't Superboy's fault of course, and I don't hold it against him. If anything, I stayed away because I was afraid he would resent me like Bizarro did. Then it was because we learned Cadmus created him to either replace or defeat me. Forcing him to interact with me after being brainwashed his whole life that he needed to be better than me? It seemed cruel."
He paused and looked at the fake sky.
"We decided it would be best if he had a few years to grow as a person before he and I met. That way he could be sure his interactions with me were genuine and not just something Cadmus programmed into him."
I blinked at all of that.
Because that made A LOT more sense than Superman going out of his way to avoid someone when they needed help and he was the perfect mentor-figure. The Justice League had just decided Superboy needed to be less of a potato before they met.
It was just…
"That's really dumb."
"Oof, don't hold back, Califa. Tell me how you really feel." Superman snarked, but quickly grew serious and looked over at me. "Why do you think so?"
"I mean, wanting to give Superboy space until he gets a bit of life experience is great and all. But I think you all missed that he's been told his entire life that he needs to be at least as good as you are – and now that he's out in the world, you want nothing to do with him. He's either going to take that as a sign that he's defective somehow or act out stupidly to get your attention. Probably both."
Superman froze. "And even if I show up after the fact, he's going to internalize I only showed up after he became a problem. That would be devastating for his mental wellbeing…"
I shrugged. "You said it, not me."
"I can't believe we didn't consider that." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "How did we miss it?"
Crap, he actually looked upset about that.
"To be fair, how many times has the person with an obsession with one of you heroes actually wanted to be a good guy instead of focusing on beating you?" I said, "I think you all get a pass on this one since it's not like anyone's really gotten hurt yet."
"That actually does make me feel better." Superman gave me a look. "You've gotten pretty wise yourself, haven't you? Thanks Califa."
"Yeah, well… you still owe me a fight when we get back to Earth!" I sputtered as I turned away, trying to ignore the burning on my face. I was NOT blushing!
"First thing after we've got all these guys settled." Superman agreed. "And I'll be sure to tell Batman and Wonder Woman how far you've come in controlling your transformation. They'll both be really proud of you!"
I abruptly stood and began stalking off in a random direction. I didn't have to just sit there and take that from him!
"I'm going to go watch the space fish!" I cried as I definitely didn't flee the now chuckling Superman.
Jerk!
-o-
Getting back to Earth was pretty effortless thanks to the Preserver's ship being 99.9% automated.
Dealing with all the animals inside? That was waaay more complicated.
Thankfully, I didn't actually have to do anything there and could just let the Justice League figure out how they were going to transfer a zoo in the Arctic while I went to hang out at Mount Justice.
It was a school day though, so nearly all of the Sidekick Squad wasn't actually there.
Donna was still visiting Megan though, so the three of us decided to hang out for a while watching TV and eating snacks while I went over the story of the past few days.
"I wonder if you are cursed somehow, Califa." Donna commented as she stole another cookie from the batch Megan brought out. "You keep finding yourself in these ridiculous situations when you try to do even fairly normal things."
"Is that something that can happen on this planet?" Megan asked.
"There's a bunch of really strange magic stuff out there, so it's possible?" I hedged. "I haven't run into any of them though, so I prefer to think about it as me just being awesome and attracting more awesome things."
Donna snorted. "You would."
"I found you, didn't I? Or are you just not awesome enough to count?" I shot back.
"Hey, I'm plenty awesome!" Donna protested and threw a pillow at me.
I blocked it with a pillow of my own and quickly took a swing at her, which ended up sparking a mini pillow fight between the two of us before both of us got pelted in the face unexpectedly. We incredulously turned to look at Megan at the same time only to find the martian looking back with a shaky smile and two more pillows in her hands.
She wanted to join in, huh?
I didn't even need to check with Donna to know she had the same thought as me. As one, we each grabbed a pillow and pounced on the redhead, who let out a panicked shriek before breaking out into laughter and doing her best to fend off our combined assault.
Donna and I quickly ended up joining her even if our team up was short-lived and the pillow fight became a free-for-all.
Not a bad way to end an adventure in my opinion.
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