18 Chapter 18 - Reaching space

Three months have passed since Spencer had awakened and pulled his island-sinking stunt. He has been constantly observing his surroundings making himself comfortable in this new terrain.

However, as time passed, Spencer grew bored, just as he was before he had gone into his extended hibernation.

Currently, Spencer could be seen perched on the edge of a cliff, looking around. He was trying to find a new form of entertainment to keep himself for going mad in the depth of his monotony. Spencer looked up into the sky and began to think hard about all the challenges he had faced up to this point.

He thought about the dinosaurs, the underwater pressures, and the harshness of the environment that was constantly trying to end him.

"This planet has already given me all it could… Maybe, I should find a new one."

Spencer had thoughts of moving on to a different planet. The Earth at the moment held no challenger that could make him excited anymore, he was already at the peak of this planet and all life on it. He thought that maybe if he moved to a different one, he could find a better challenge since he remembered that the DC Universe had many different worlds that could give him a greater challenge than this one.

Spending some time thinking about this, Spencer had finally decided that he would find a different world, that he could train himself on. At first, he began trying to remember what planets he could visit and how long it would take him to get there.

Caressing his chin, he tried his hardest to remember. After some time had passed, Spencer remembered a particular planet that is the homeworld of one of the Justice Leagues' strongest members.

Standing up, Spencer finally made up his mind; he had decided he would first go to Mars, the closest planet he could remember that held life in this universe, and was home to the Martians; one of the most powerful beings in this universe. They could, without a doubt give Spencer a decent challenge and potentially even more.

Spencer then leaned off the cliff and began plummeting towards the earth. As he was reaching the ground he summoned his wings and changed his downwards trajectory, flying parallel to the ground at immense speeds. Flapping his wings, he began ascending higher and higher into the atmosphere.

The first few miles weren't a challenge for Spencer, his lungs were developed for drastic increases in altitude thanks to his absorption of the aerial creatures back in the prehistoric era.

As he flew higher, he felt as if his body was beginning to strain, the pressure increased as he reached higher altitudes. It was becoming harder to breathe as time passed. The lack of oxygen was getting to the point that Spencer was struggling to grasp his consciousness as he kept increasing his altitude.

"This is harder than I thought…" He thought as he strained under the pressure from the atmosphere.

He didn't give up. Spencer continued to increase his altitude, reaching higher and higher, ignoring the pressure that the atmosphere was holding against him.

Reaching what would be known as the mesosphere, Spencer could no longer breathe, he felt as if his lungs were collapsing in on itself but he did not give up, he kept going, climbing higher in the atmosphere at his maximum speed.

Reaching the thermosphere, Spencer could no longer maintain consciousness as his brain was shutting down from the lack of oxygen. Fighting to stay awake Spencer did not want to lose consciousness, as he was so close to reaching outer space.

However, this was a fight that he could not win at this time.

His body finally gave up, lost his consciousness, and began plummeting back to Earth similar to a comet, his body heating up as he was falling. Spencer was gaining speed in his descent.

Approaching the Earth, Spencer was still unconscious, his body whistling through the air engulfed in flames.

*BOOM!*

He collided into the ground, forming the second crater since he arrived in this current era, the impact released a massive dust cloud that was visible for miles and shrouded the majority of the forest in darkness.

Time passed, the cloud of dust diminished and Spencer could be seen in the crater, his body was perfectly fine, but he was still in a state of unconsciousness.

After a few more moments, he began to wake up. He sat up in the crater, holding his head in pain. He felt as if his head was splitting in two from the amount of pain he was feeling.

Standing up, Spencer's vision was relatively hazy, but his haziness began to fade as his body began to adapt to what he had just gone through.

Recollecting himself, Spencer closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

*SIGH*

Releasing a sigh, Spencer raised his wings for the second attempt, focusing all his strength into his wings. He flapped them as hard as he could; this action launched him into the air forming a shockwave.

Climbing in altitude quicker than he was before, Spencer continued to gain speed as he flew higher. This time around, he did not have the same issue as before, his body already adapted to his first attempt.

Passing the mesosphere sooner than before, Spencer did not feel the pressure as much as he did in his first attempt. Continuing to climb higher, he reached the exosphere. Seeing that he was technically outside of the borders of the planet, he stopped flying as moving his wings did not work the same as it did inside the Earth's atmosphere.

Within only a few moments of being in space, Spencer felt immense, sharp pain in his chest. This pain felt as if his lungs had completely shattered.

This was exactly what had happened. Spencer's lungs had exploded from the pressure in space pressing against the air still left in his lungs from when he was still on Earth, causing it to expand and destroy him internally.

Coughing out a mouth full of blood, Spencer held his throat, as the pain from his lungs exploding was too great for him to handle, squirming around from the pain in the depths of space.

As he was not completely out of the planet's gravitational pull, Spencer began falling backward back into the Earth's atmosphere. He was not aware of this, he was in too much pain to realize what was happening to him.

Spencer was falling for the second time, but this time was from a much greater height, his body heating up once more and burst into a ball of flame. Explosions rang out as Spencer continued to burst through that Earth's atmosphere and rocket towards the ground without hindrance.