Chapter 13

The next couple of days were fairly chill with our successful mission however although I certainly wasn't being forced to be here, I was still feeling a bit cooped up here in Mount Justice.

The other team members however didn't have that problem as they either enrolled in the local school like Miss Martian and Superboy did or were already in school and had their sidekick stuff keeping them busy just because they made the young Justice League didn't mean that Kid Flash stopped running around Central City with his mentor. It just meant he spent less time there and instead spent that time at the cave and occasionally spending the night there.

Just as per usual on the daily news I was watching there was some catastrophe in Metropolis with Superman coming to save the day and this time it was a large bridge collapsing so Superman in the midst of welding broken metal beams of the bridge back together with his heat vision also saved the vehicles that fell off the bridge into the water below.

"Huh, so Superboy wasn't going for some Subway," I muttered as I watched Superboy leap onto the crumbling bridge his impact actually caused another car to fall off the bridge and towards the water below making Superman abandon the teetering bus of school kids to save the car that was already in free fall.

Superboy seeing the large yellow teetering bus ran forward and with obviously a great deal of effort managed to pull its rising backside down to the ground and stabilize it but in the twenty seconds it took him to do that Superman saved the falling car and pushed back several others from the collapsed section of the bridge before he flew over to Superboy and with one hand effortlessly dragged the large school bus back onto the bridge.

"Well, that's going to piss off Conner." I grimaced as cameras were locked onto the forms of Superman scolding Superboy for his rough landing on the crumbling bridge that endangered the lives of others when he had it well under control.

But then Superman froze and cocked his head to the side, and I realized he was probably listening to something in the distance or maybe a disguised earpiece as he said a couple more words to Superboy before he quickly flew off in a blur the cameras couldn't track.

-

Not even five minutes later I heard the teleporter go off with Conner stomping through the base and he obviously caught me watching a news replay of what happened earlier, and he blushed heavily in embarrassment. "Let's go fight. I need to work something out." He growled and I sighed but nodded following the Kryptonian into the workout room with a thick and reinforced mat placed in the middle of the room that supposedly held up to Wonder Woman and Superman lightly sparing on it.

"No pining, no energy beam bullshit. Just my fists and your fists hitting each other." He grunted ripping his tattered Kryptonian S-branded shirt off his chest and stood with his fists in something close to a boxing stance.

I stood across from him on the other side of the ring and just as I thought he was fucking fuming in anger at Superman's dismissal as he made a war cry as he leaped at me.

For a moment I considered just kicking aside the leaping man that was obviously trying to land a powerful 'Superman' punch on me with his dozen-meter leap, but I knew that just playing with him would just make him even more pissed so I mentally grunted as I coated my body in a dense Hierro and met his war cry with my own.

Our fists met with a loud crash that blew aside the air launching us both backward with the momentum of our punches exceeding the force of our movements forward but whereas I was pushed back only a meter, Superboy was launched the fully ten plus meters to the other side of the ring as I actually had leverage in using the ground whereas he was hit in the air.

"I am not much of a brawler, but I will try to keep up Superboy," I said as I kept my fists up and disregarded my Hollow instincts that served me so well in Hell that insisted on me just grabbing onto my prey and simply ripping their limbs off or likewise making my Hierro covered hands stab into their bodies and rip out their organs.

In the end, a blunt fist is much less valuable when you can simply rip opponents apart in a melee especially when you are outnumbered.

Superboy seeing me meet his blows and didn't pull any bullshit tricks like pining or knocking him on his ass by kicking out his knees couldn't help but grin as I fulfilled his existence goal. Superboy was made to fight period full stop. He was certainly already a good person at heart once you get past his prickly moments but in the end, he lived and breathed for combat as Cadmus made him.

Finally, after literally fifteen minutes of the two of us brutalizing one another with me possibly bruising a couple of the clone's ribs he staggered back and waved me off as he gingerly walked off the mats to go pour some water on his head making him groan loudly in comfort. "Damn, I needed that." He said looking much more relaxed but as he lowered the water bottle, he hissed as he held onto his side and threw me a dirty look.

"Oh, don't give me that look I lowered my strength to around your level and didn't just kick your feet out from underneath you." I scolded him as I likewise wiped my face off with a wet towel as my long silver hair was a pain in the ass to clean.

As I relaxed against the bench, I used my spiritual energies that were ever-present in my body to continue training a facet of my individual powers as I made my long hair lengthen even further, harden with Hierro, and begin curling some of the free weights around in the gym.

"Fear me for I am the Salon-Man!" I said sarcastically as I juggled the large weights with my hair making Superboy burst into laughter.

Normally you would think wow super hair. That's dumb as all hell but try flying at full speed straight into a single taunt hair that could support the full weight of a train... Yeah, seeing someone bisect themselves would be hilarious.

Not to mention I had managed to pick up Jiraiya's techniques that would cover my body in extremely durable hairs or by greatly lengthening them I could smother and capture an opponent with them.

'It's not time manipulation or anything but it's still something.' I thought as I took heart in that I was getting more adept in controlling my spiritual energies and I planned on focusing on my Garganta ability to get into Space Manipulation in general as simply sealing away beings here in DC will be far easier than killing someone like Klarion if I couldn't get my hands on them.

"Well let's get going supposedly Black Canary is supposed to be giving us a pep talk and stuff," I said as I carefully had my hair put back the weights they were carrying and recede, so my hair was only coming down to the bottom of my back.