I'd like to thank everyone who was nice enough to leave a review, and I'd like to thank The Lady Isis for being the beta for this chapter. Here is the final chapter!
Deciding that the police may have been able to salvage some evidence from the burned down warehouse J'onn starts scanning with his telepathic senses through the city, looking for the one police officer he's met so far. Finding Officer Callahan he phases through her apartment building wall and shape shifts into his human form before knocking on her door. Before she gets close enough to look through her peep hole he remembers what she said earlier and changes his clothing into a dark blue suit with a red tie. After the officer sees its him she opens the door.
She is dressed in an over sized Iron Maiden T shirt and pair of jean shorts, and as soon as she opens the door she points her gun at J'onn and asks, "How the hell do you know where I live?"
"I am a detective," J'onn calmly answers.
"Oh really?" Callahan answers, motioning for him to come inside while keeping the barrel of the weapon pointed at him. "Because I asked a few buddies of mine to look into you, and they didn't find any evidence of a detective John Jones in the whole state."
"I'm not from this state," he answers honestly.
"Then where are you from?" she asks.
"A whole world away," J'onzz answers calmly. "Now I'd love to share my life story with you another day officer, but right now I'm on the trail of Michael Miller. He is in the employ of some disturbed doctor who I believe is experimenting on the children that Miller and his friends abducted."
"Miller works for the Getaway King, just like over half the thugs in this town," Callahan tells him.
"Getaway King?" J'onn asks.
"You really are new around here aren't you?" she asks finally pointing her gun away from him. "He's a crime boss who's damn good at keeping himself secret and at making sure his boys get away scot-free. No fingerprints, no video, and so far all of his crew have gotten away after every job they pull."
"Then how do you know that Miller works for him?" J'onn asks.
"Because low time thugs aren't known for keeping their mouths shut, so word gets around. Still don't have any real evidence on Miller or any of the others, but we all know who holds his leash," the policewoman explains.
J'onn thinks about this for a moment, but decides that the Getaway King is a problem for another day. "Someone so cautious and meticulous probably wouldn't risk the operation that Miller is doing now, so I doubt the King has any connection to his current crime spree," he says.
"You think Miller is doing this on the side? That won't make the King happy," Callahan remarks.
"No, but it does mean that there is a good chance that unlike the other crime scenes that Miller has left behind, something will have been left. Can you find out if your forensics team has discovered anything at the warehouse?" J'onn asks.
"Why should I give you any of that information?" she asks him.
"Because Officer Callahan I can save those children, and I believe that somehow you know that," J'onn calmly tells her.
She glares at him for a moment. All of her training and common sense tells her that man in front of her is full of crap and she should either arrest him for something or just tell him to go shove it, but her gut is telling her something very different, and if she has to choose Callahan always goes with her gut.
"Wait there a minute," she tells him before going over to her computer. After a bit of searching she prints off a few pages and hands them to J'onn. "This is all our lab boys were able to find."
"Thank you, Harriet," he says, taking the pages from her.
"It's Officer Callahan," she tells him, "and I am stupidly sticking my neck out for you by giving you that, so just know that if this decision comes back to haunt me then I'm going to be haunting you!"
"Thank you very much, Officer Callahan," J'onn tells her before leaving the apartment.
…
The police forensics team was not able to find out much, but they were able to figure out what chemicals were in the lab when it burned to the ground. With a few hours of research J'onn was able to find out the best source for such chemicals in the city, and after a bit of persuasion and mind reading he was able to find out that source had sent a batch of the exact same chemicals after the destruction of the warehouse lab. Now with the address in mind and in his new "superhero" form J'onn speeds through the sky, ready for round two.
Finding the new lab now in an abandoned office building, J'onn hovers outside the walls and reaches inside with his mind's eye. He telepathically finds the children first, all still alive but still unconscious. Next he moves to their kidnappers, who along with their firearms several now are carrying flamethrowers. Miller himself is carrying one of the napalm fueled weapons and is personally guarding the Doctor and his young test subjects.
I seem to have left quite an impression, J'onn thinks to himself.
Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, J'onn phases his way inside and keeps himself in the walls. When he comes to one of the flamethrower wielding goons he quietly floats out of the wall, grabs hold of of the weapon while simultaneously wrapping his other arm around the criminal's throat, and then squeezes until the lack of air and blood flow causes the man to pass out. The Martian then crushes barrel of the weapon and returns to the wall.
J'onn moves through the deserted building like an extraterrestrial ghost until he finds two more members of the gang, one armed with another flamethrower the other just with a common firearm, patrolling down a section of hallways and empty rooms together. The Martian makes them think that they hear two sounds, one ahead of them and one behind them, and the pair predictably decide to split up to identify the source of the noises. He waits for the two to create some distance between themselves before he floats out and begins to silently take out the one with the flamethrower exactly like he took out the one before, unfortunately his friend for some reason turns around and sees their green adversary. The gunman is able to get off a few shots before J'onn sprouts a third arm which stretches out and a delivers a knockout blow to the thug's face.
The gunfire gets the attention of the rest of the gang though and one rounds the corner and points his flamethrower at the alien. Before he can ignite the Martian (and the criminal's partner in his arms) J'onn flings his captive at the gang member hard enough to knock him back into the wall, knocking the two kidnappers out. Afterwards though the last gunman comes from the same direction, sees J'onn, and then picks up the gun of one of the flamethrowers and shoots a giant gout of flame at him.
The entire room that J'onn was standing in goes up in flames, but luckily the sprinkler system still works in the old building and after a few minutes the fire is snuffed out, but there is no sign of the Martian. As the criminal is about to take a step forward J'onn burst up through the floor and delivers a devastating uppercut, knocking the man clean out. After disabling the rest of the weapons J'onn decides it's time to finish this and goes after Miller.
Meanwhile Michael Miller is standing with his flamethrower pointed at the door. "We should leave the test subjects and escape with my findings, Miller," the Doctor urges.
"We ain't leaving till I settle things with Mr. Green," the meta-human answers with an excited smile on his face.
As he watches the door J'onn steps through and says, "I am only going to say this once: throw down your weapon and surrender, Miller."
"Nice new duds," the super criminal says, "hope they're made out of asbestos."
And with that he pulls the trigger and shoots out burning napalm at the alien superhero, however once the fire passes and the sprinklers turn on J'onn is still standing in the same spot, seemingly unharmed.
"What the hell are you shooting at?" the Doctor shouts.
"What do ya…" before Miller can finish the mental image disappears and J'onn falls out of the ceiling, turns solid, and slams a two armed downward blow on to the strong man, knocking him to his knees.
As J'onn removes the flamethrower from his dazed opponent, the Doctor tries to hit him with a stun gun and gets backhanded across the room. Miller does better and hits the Martian with a backwards mule kick which knocks him back. Though he stumbles backwards a step J'onn is still able to crush the barrel closed and toss the weapon aside before Miller gets back to his feet.
"It's over, give up," he tells the strong man.
"Sorry, but I don't ever back down from a fight," Miller answers before cocking back his fist and throwing a super strength punch at the Martian. To his amazement, however, his fist goes straight through J'onn without effecting him at all. After throwing a few more punches to the same effect the meta-human shouts, "Come on, fight me!"
In response, J'onn reaches through his chest and turns just solid enough to grab something vital. Miller cries out in pain and drops to his knees as J'onn pull out his arm. The criminal looks up at him and says, "Cheater."
J'onn looks down at him, tilts his head to the side, before hitting him with a right hook that knocks him out.
The Martian then walks over to the unconscious Doctor and looks into his mind. He finds that the mad scientist was trying to recreate Miller's powers on the children in an attempt to perfect a method of creating superhuman weapons. After destroying the evil man's data J'onn revives the children. The first one to wake up is Joseph Certa, who looks up at J'onn and asks, "Are you a superhero?"
"I came here to save you," the Martian answers.
"That's good enough for me," the tired child answers.
…
In the middle of the night Officer Harriet Callahan wakes up and is compelled to get dressed and drive into the city to an abandoned office building. She steps inside with her weapon drawn and finds the missing children there waiting for her.
"Hey guys," she says kneeling down, "are all of you okay?"
"Yeah, the spaceman saved us," one of them answers.
"The spaceman?" she asks.
"Yeah an alien superhero, like Superman but cooler because he's all green and alien-looking," another kid answers.
"He beat up the assholes who grabbed us and tied them up in the other room," a little girl says, "I went back there and kicked them a bit but the cool green man must have beat them up good because none of them woke up."
"Good job," Officer Callahan says. "Wait here for a bit, I'll be right back." She walks into the back room and finds the Doctor and the entire gang tied up and laying in the middle of the room, including Miller who has a steel girder wrapped around him. "Interesting," she says looking at them, "their all gift wrapped."
One of the children looks in from the door and says, "Mrs. Policewoman, can we go home now?"
Harriet looks back and smiles, "I think we can arrange that."
…
The next day Dr. Erdel is back at home taking it easy while his daughter is in the shower when there is a knock at the door. He opens it to find a tall black man dressed in a dark blue suite with a red tie standing there. The man says, "Um…is Shelly here?"
Dr. Erdel points at the man and says, "You're him, aren't you?"
"Yes," J'onn says flatly.
"Its alright, son, come in," the kindly scientist says, ushering J'onn inside. "You know even if my ticker had stopped for good I would have died happy having been able to make my teleporter work and meet you."
"I'm glad that didn't happen," J'onn says.
"So am I, and if I'm understanding things right, I have you to thank for that," Erdel says.
"It was the least I could do," J'onn tells him.
"Well I thank you for it anyway, and once I'm feeling better if you don't mind I want to sit you down and have you tell me everything there is to know about Mars," the elderly scientist eagerly says.
"Once you're feeling better it would be my honor," J'onn tells him.
"I assure you, sir, the honor would be mine," Erdel says. "Now if you'll excuse me," he turns around, points his head upstairs and shouts, "Shelly, your new friend's here! I'll be in the lab!" before walking back to his laboratory.
Shelly quickly runs down stairs and smiles when she sees J'onn standing there. "Hey!"
"Hello," J'onn answers. "Your father is a nice man."
"Yeah, a bit frustrating at times though," she answers. "I heard on the news about those kids you saved."
"Yes, thank you again for helping me," he says.
"No problem," she answers. "Hey can you show me your new…you again?" she asks. J'onn morphs back into his hero form and Shelly begins walking around him appraisingly. "Wow, I can do some good work. Now all you need is a name."
"I have a name," J'onn answers.
"No, honey, I mean a superhero name," she explains, "J'onn J'onzz the…" she lets the sentence hang.
"The Martian?" J'onn suggests.
Shelly shrugs. "That's a start but it's not enough. Did you have any titles at home like the Savior, the Defender, the Punisher, or something?" she asks.
"I was an honorary member of the Manhunters," he answers. She looks at him questioningly and he says, "Think Martian police."
"Actually that's good, J'onn J'onzz the Martian Manhunter!" Shelly says. "That has a good ring to it."
"So it does," he admits.
Before they can say anything else the phone rings. Shelly walks over, picks it up, and says hello only to hand it over to J'onn saying, "It's for you."
J'onn takes the phone and says into it, "I'm here."
"Hello, J'onn," Officer Callahan answers, pronouncing his name correctly for the first time.
"How did you know I'd be here?" he asks.
"You're not the only detective in town, Mr. J'onzz," she answers.
"Apparently not," he says. "What do you want?"
"Only to thank you for proving my gut right, and to tell you that I now consider you an asset so expect to see more of me," the policewoman explains.
J'onn smiles and answers, "Sound like fun," before she hangs up.
He hands the phone back to Shelly who asks, "New girlfriend?"
"No, but maybe a new partner," he answers.
…
Michael Miller is laying on his cot in his reinforced cell when the door opens and a man in a black coat enters and hands him a cell phone. Miller takes the phone and says into it, "Hello?"
"I never gave you permission to work with the good Doctor, Michael," a calm and refined voice answers.
"Well, King, you never told me not to take the job either," Miller retorts.
The Getaway King chuckles a bit at that and says, "You know, Michael, I can get you out of your current predicament, but you'd have to make it worth my time and effort."
"And how do I do that?" he asks.
"Our town has a new visitor, the creature who defeated you and ended your operation. I predict that this visitor will end up very bad for my business so I've taken some steps and found someone who can help you level the playing field if you would be interested in taking the alien on again," the Getaway King answers. "I must warn you however that excepting this challenge will require extensive…modification on your part. While it would be fair to give more time to think this over, the situation doesn't allow that, so I'll need your answer now. Are you in, Michael?"
Miller smiles, "Yeah, King. I'm in."
The end. For now. Tell me what you think!
