I'd like to thank those who were nice enough to review, and The Lady Isis for being nice enough to beta this chapter for me. Now on to chapter 2!
J'onn floats high above the city, expanding his mind...reaching out with his telepathic senses. If there is another Martian in the city, even if they are hiding he'll still be able to tell they are here. He will sense that another one of his people lives. Unless they're a White, he thinks to himself. He stops himself from going down that line of thought. His brother was dead. He might not have watched the life leave his eyes, but he saw the building go up, felt the heat of the blast, and the centuries that followed would have brought him down from old age even if he survived J'onn's enraged attack. No, this is something else. He looks down and sees police cars speeding along, and a psychic probe reveals Callahan behind one of the wheels.
Seeing that she's alone, J'onn ghosts into her passenger seat and solidifies next to her. The car swerves slightly when the Detective sees him and she lets out a string of expletives before regaining control. "You seriously need to fucking stop doing that!" she shouts at him.
"My apologizes," J'onn tells her. "Has there been another victim?"
"Yeah they just found her in the sewer," Callahan tells him. "Put on your human suit, I don't want to explain why I have a Martian riding shotgun."
J'onn shits into his John Jones form and says, "I've found no evidence that another Martian is involved with these crimes."
"J'onn, whoever is doing this jumped planets in an attempt to fuck with you," Callahan tells him. "I think you know the guy."
"My race is long dead, Callahan, and their ghosts have been silent for a long time," he answers.
"Well have you ever faced an alien in your long history as a Martian superhero?" she asks.
"Yes. But I choose not to consider him a suspect," he answers.
"Why?" the Detective asks.
"One, I doubt he would use these methods to get to me, and two...I would rather not think of the implications if Apokolips has turned its gaze on Earth," J'onn tells her.
"Do I want to know?" she asks.
"No," he simply answers.
The last few minutes of the ride go by in silence until they stop in front of a crime scene around an open manhole cover. Callahan waves her badge and gets her and J'onn past, where they descend the latter to another closed crime scene in the sewer. Bright lights have been set up to illuminate the dark stone corridors in blinding white. Inside the brightened area lab techs work the scene, photographing and cataloging everything possible into evidence.
"Cause of death?" the Detective asks one of the more senior analysts.
"Same as the last girl, burned faceless," he answers.
"Do we have an ID?" J'onn asks.
"Yeah she had a wallet on her, the license belongs to a one Debra Lingston," the tech answers.
"Well muscled, short nails," Callahan observes, kneeling down next to the body.
"And defensive wounds," J'onn notices.
"Looks like we have a pattern," the Detective notes, standing up.
"And no clues about the identity of the killer," J'onn notes.
"Except that he knows you," she says.
…
His night quiet except for the discovery of the murder victim, J'onn flies frustrated back home. He is almost disappointed that no other criminals are out tonight, they would have provided a much-needed distraction. His mind continues to wonder back to the dark thought that his brother might have somehow survived that last encounter, but J'onn simply pushes those thoughts away. Mal'fic is dead, he has to believe that.
As he floats towards his destination the Martian hears a woman's scream coming from an alleyway not two miles away from the Erdel house. He quickly flies to the source and finds a woman lying face down on the ground. He lands next to her, kneels down, and lifts her enough to find that she is a victim from the same killer he's been investigating. What he also notices is that her wound doesn't radiate any heat, meaning that she was killed some time ago - meaning that she couldn't have let out the scream that lead him to her.
J'onn looks up to see a heavily cloaked figure lift his arm and shoot a metal net at him from a thrower on its left wrist. J'onn goes intangible before the net hits, but it still connects and binds around him. Before the Martian Manhunter can think of a way out of his bonds, the metal net begins shocking him. As J'onn struggles in pain against the tight metal strands, the cloaked figure pulls an alien gun and begins firing a line of burning flames at the ground in front of J'onn. As his enemy slowly approaches the line of flame slowly creeps its way towards the struggling hero.
Before the line of burning death can reach him, J'onn shape changes into a serpent and slips his bonds right before they slam shut around him. The cloaked figure begins firing the flame gun in short bursts, trying to catch the Martian's new lithe snake like form, but J'onn quickly goes intangible again and slips through the ground.
While underground J'onn reverts to his hero form and reaches out with his psychic senses to try and get a reading on his enemy, but his cloaked opponent is invisible to his mind's eye. Putting some distance between himself and where he believes his enemy stands, J'onn shifts into a terrifying multiarmed and sharped tooth form before flying up through the ground, solidifying, and belting out a monstrous roar! Only to find the alleyway empty of everything except the victim's body and scorch marks.
After looking around and finding no more evidence of his attacker, J'onn reverts back to his hero form and floats down to the ground. "I don't know who you are!" J'onn calls into the darkness around him. "But you have made a mistake by trying to get to me through those which I protect! I will make you pay for every life you have taken, Stranger! That is a promise!"
TBC. Reviews are always welcomed and appreciated!