307. No, Who Do You Say You Are?

Jonathan's groan sounded especially harsh in the silence of the Batcave.

Ian and Batman turned at the same time toward the hibernation pod in the medical area. Through the observation window, they saw the boy inside undergoing some unimaginable change.

Jonathan's body was trembling. The contours of his face were subtly shifting—his jawline became more defined, his nose sharper, his shoulders noticeably broader. In just a few seconds, the boy who had looked like a high school student suddenly grew into someone with the appearance of a college student.

"I guarded against everything, but I couldn't guard against Superman dragging me down!" Ian muttered to himself, faint arcs of the Speed Force flickering unconsciously around him.

Jonathan's growth did not stop.

His body continued to change. His muscles grew more developed, his features more mature, until he looked like a young man in his early twenties, and only then did the transformation gradually slow.

The hibernation pod's monitoring equipment let out rapid alarms, its vital-sign readings jumping wildly.

By then, Batman had already rushed to the console, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "Abnormal cell-division rate. DNA telomeres are lengthening instead of shortening—this violates every known law of biology."

His voice remained calm, but Ian could hear a rare trace of astonishment in it.

"An inside job! You can't guard against your own family! Stupid old man screwing over his teammates! I can't carry this!" Once Ian realized what had happened, he went numb all over. He walked up to the hibernation pod and pressed his palm against the observation window.

Ian could sense a familiar fluctuation of temporal energy—similar to what he felt when traveling through time, but more... primal, more fundamental.

This meant the effects of the timeline had already reached Jonathan. It also meant something had happened