AN: Hello, everybody! I'm back with a new story taking place a few years after my Season 4. This won't be a season-like story with several chapters making an episode, it's more of a traditional story that I'm hoping to feel like a movie, kinda like what Kubo has done with his Bleach series movies. Thank you for coming back to read my works, now on with the story! Enjoy!
Young Justice: Vow
By: Angelus-V1
Prologue
Eighty Years Ago:
Landing hard on the red soil of Mars, a humanoid Martian woman let out a grunt as the purple fluid that was her blood seeped from open wounds. Dust flew into the air around her as small rocks embedded themselves into her body. Gripping her head, the green skinned female let out a shriek from an excruciating pain coursing through her mind. Withering, she cried out in pain and balled herself up into a fetal position as two other Martian's fought nearby.
"What did you do?!" Flying backwards, a Martian male known as J'onn J'onzz landed in front of the female as another green Martian landed and gave a dark laugh.
"It's something to keep you out of here." Pointing to his head, the other humanoid Martian grinned, showcasing his uncharacteristic sharp, jagged teeth.
"M'yri'ah." Using his telepathy, J'onn's eyes shimmered a bright red as he tried to enter his wife's mind but was immediately shut out. "M'yri-"
"No! Don't! J'onn!" Struggling to her knees, M'yri'ah tried to get away from her husband when her eyes began to take the coloring of flames.
"M'yri'ah-AGGGH!" Stiffening, J'onn froze with his body looking up. Looking down, the Martian saw a sharpened object skewering him through his left shoulder a moment before being flung to the side.
Holding his arm up, the other Martian morphed his hand from a sword-like weapon to a more human appendage. Unlike the other Martians of the planet, this one took on a mixture of both humanoid and Martian forms. Keeping his feet Martin-like, two long webbed toes gripped onto the red planet's surface with a third protruding from his heel. His shins took on the form armor, ending just above the knees with dual points on top. Blue pants with a red 'Y' shaped design covering the front led to a nude torso where his green skin took on a hardened form with pinkish areas over his abs and on his sides. Spines covered his forearms and ended at the wrists where his hands flexed two elongated fingers each, then there was his skull-like head with protruding crest on top. His blood red eyes added to his fierce look, as if the mouthful of sharpened teeth were not enough.
"Wha-what did you do to her?" Getting back up, J'onn, in a tattered blue uniform worn by the Manhunters of Mars, applied pressure to his wounded shoulder.
"I warned the Manhunters, I warned the elders, I warned the populace, and I have warned you to stay out of my way. Mars needs it's supreme lord and I will do everything in my power to give it to her." With his eyes brightening, the Martian fired a telekinetic force at J'onn and knocked him into a nearby Boulder. "And I will make an example of you."
"J, J'onn!"
"M'yri'ah!"
Abandoning the fight with the other Martian, a fight that had been going on for over an hour, J'onn crawled over to the female, his wife, and reached out to her. Her slender fingers came into contact with his and for the briefest of moments, both thought they were safe.
"Enough!" Delivering a hard kick, the Martian antagonist formed his fingers into a Multitude of sharpened spikes. "I am the most powerful mind by far. I have made puppets of the governing body and was poised to have them deliver Mars to me had it not have been for you. And as I have sworn, I will make you suffer for it."
With his eyes growing brighter, the Martian turned his gaze to J'onn's wife and viciously entered her mind, forcing a scream so loud, it blew her vocal cords out, as he telekinetically held J'onn to the ground.
"H'ronmeer, the God of death and darkness has revealed to me his secrets. Your daughter K'hym, was the first to suffer his curse, and now, your wife is feeling it."
Unable to move, J'onn stared at his wife as she flailed about. He had witnessed his daughter die before having to leave to save his wife and now it seemed to have been all for nothing. Having nothing to lose, the Martian Manhunter gathered all of his mental and physical strength to fight back and slowly freed himself.
"M'yri'ah," he struggled to say. "I...Lov-"
Knowing what her husband was prepared to do, M'yri'ah could not let him do it. Fighting through the pain the Martian was forcing on her, the wife of J'onn launched the strongest psychic attack she could create. The result was opening her mind fully to her attacker, allowing him to become susceptible to her attack and receive his right back.
With his head flying back, the Martian let out a scream as his eyes faded and rolled back. Hitting the ground, he grabbed his head and felt his brain ignite in flames. It only lasted for an instant, but it was enough to knock him out and lay on the red soil, drooling and twitching.
"M'yr, M'yri'ah!" Quickly getting to his hands and feet, J'onn swiftly bear crawled the few feet to his wife and knelt beside her. "M'yri'ah."
"J'onn." She weakly opened her eyes and felt her husband try to enter her mind to comfort her. She immediately shut him out, reaching up to caress his face when she saw the hurt look in his eyes. "You can't."
"Why, why did you-"
"Because, I could not let him win." Looking over at the fallen Martian, M'yri'ah snarled slightly. "He's a monster, J'onn. I could not let you succumb to his desires. He has killed so many, and for you to do the same to him, I could not let you do it."
"But why you?" J'onn asked. "I am a Manhunter, it is my job to police Mars, to keep its people safe, especially you, my wife."
"It was the only way, and already too late for me. He has perfected H'ronmeer's Curse." She swallowed hard. "I was doomed from the moment he infected me."
"M'ryi'ah."
"I only regret not being able to feel you in my mind, to never feel your touch again."
Stiffening, M'yri'ah took a sharp breath. "It, it hurts. It burns!"
"Shh, it will be over soon." Holding her close, J'onn made sure she knew he was right there beside her until the end.
"Promise me, promise me he will never harm anyone again. Please. For our daughter. For all of Mars."
"M'yri'ah, I-"
"I love you, J'onn. Always remember."
"M'y- M'yri'ah..."
With his wife still in his arms, J'onn J'onzz, one of Mars' best policing agents known as a Manhunter, watched his wife pass. Her bright red eyes slowly dimmed, drawing a cascade of tears from her husband's eyes until they became dark and lifeless.
Dipping his head, J'onn touched his forehead to hers, aching to have saved her but unable to do so. He could not even reach out with his mind to touch hers due to what the Martian placed in her mind, a curse to end all life on Mars. Hundreds had perished including his wife and daughter, leaving J'onn, the sole survivor of his immediate family as the only witness to the near apocalyptic destruction narrowly avoided being caused by his longtime friend and fellow Manhunter.
As the lone Martian mourned for his wife, holding her tight and crying into her neck, a dark laughter slowly grew louder behind him. With tears still in his eyes, J'onn gently placed his wife on the ground and stood, facing the downed Martian and stomped over to him. Part of him wanted to end his life, to make him pay for putting an end to all the Martians he killed in his quest for power, to avenge his wife and daughter, to make sure he could never cause any destruction like what he had caused anymore.
With his eyes flashing, J'onn felt his anger boil the closer he got to the Martian. His right hand morphed into a jagged pike for the intention of impaling the Martian's chest when he heard the sound of a Manhunter ship approaching.
"Do it, J'onn," the Martian taunted. "You know you want to. But you can't."
Tightening his left fist, J'onn wanted so much to dig his sharpened arm into the Martian's heart, if he had one.
"You were my friend, my brother. We were Manhunters," J'onn told him.
"And that is all we would ever be," the Martian hissed. "To be anything, you need power. And what greater power is there than holding life in your hands."
"You are a Martian, not a God."
"I am more of a Martian and less of a God compared to you and the rest of our kind." He grunted. "I will have Mars. H'ronmeer's Curse will see to that. It will be mine. And you will be witness to it."
"As long as I stand, Mars will be protected from you, Ma'alefa'ak. You are not Martian, as my wife stated, you are a monster. And there is a place for monsters like you, a place where you will never see the sky again."
With the Manhunter ships arriving, 'V' shaped red and blue flying machines, J'onn had his arm turn back to normal. "You are hereby under arrest and sentenced to life in the deepest part of Mars' caverns. You-"
"You are a fool," Ma'alefa'ak laughed. "You cannot keep me. With everything I have surrendered for H'ronmmer's power, there is nothing you can do to stop me. Mars will have a God for a ruler. And since I could not take your wife as my queen, I will wait until one is supplied for me. Then Mars will be mine and all who challenge me will die, especially you."
"And that," J'onn said forcefully, "will never happen. I swear on my life."
With the ships arriving, J'onn used his telekinesis to hold Ma'alefa'ak down until his backup could restrain him properly. Many questions were unanswered. How he obtained the ability know as H'ronmeer's Curse, what he had surrendered for it, and how were they going to obtain the information they needed if they, or anyone, could not read his thoughts as the power he had prevented it and killed any telepathic who did so.
So many questions needed to be answered, but now was not the time for them. J'onn would get the answers he needed later. As for now, he had a wife and daughter to bury and mourn for.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!
