Peter was alone in his place when there was a knock at the door and he opens it to see J'onn.
"Bossman, what's up?" Peter asks.
"It's nothing. I just needed to talk to you. I have to go away for a few days. I'm gonna need you and Alex to manage things at the DEO until I get back." J'onn explains to him.
"Why? Where you going?" Peter wonders.
"Mars." J'onn replies.
Peter stares at him waiting for the punchline but nothing comes. "Mars?"
"M'gann sent me a message. She needs my help. The message was short, but urgent. I tired to make contact, but I couldn't reach her. But I can sense she's in danger." J'onn says as he looks around his home.
"Well, if you're going, I'm going with you." Peter tells him.
"I don't have you endanger your life for a fight that isn't yours."
"Your fights are my fights, J'onn." Peter informs him. "Besides, it's not like I have anyone waiting for me here or anything to do." He says and points around his home that was once a mess with wedding plans, which has all been thrown out, along with most of Gwen's old things. Last year, he had most of her stuff sent to her parents so they could decide what happened to it.
-
J'onn and Peter go to a storage compartment and J'onn shows him how they're getting to Mars, only to see a car.
"Is that a Jaguar XJS 1975?" Peter asks looking over it. "So is this what we're driving to your ship?"
"No, this is it." J'onn says as he gets inside.
"We're taking this to Mars?" Peter asks, wanting this clarified.
"Yes, we are." J'onn confirms and Peter just steps inside. "Careful with the leather there."
"Hey, I know how to be careful around cars. One of my uncle's favorite pastimes was showing me how to take them apart and put them back together." Peter says and looks for a seat belt. "Where are the seatbelts?'
"It's from a different era. I come from a race of shapeshifters. Why shouldn't our technology shapeshift?" J'onn asks as he plays the radio and the ship turns into an actual spaceship and they take off to Mars.
-
Once they arrived, they flew past the mars rover as they go into the caves with J'onn leading the way.
They keep walking, preparing for something to happen and find their way to a secret cave where they come across M'gann.
"J'onn. You came." M'gann sees, happy to see him and they both hug. "I wasn't sure that you would."
"I'd do anything for you, M'gann. You know that." J'onn says and M'gann notices Peter came with.
"Peter, you didn't have to-" M'gann was gonna says when Peter interrupted her.
"I was more than happy to come help a friend in need. Besides, there was nothing good on T.V. tonight." Peter jokes when several White Martians approach them.
"Till'all." M'gann says, with a warning voice as they all turn into human shapes.
"If he's worried about the sight of White Martians, he came to the wrong planet." Till'all tells him.
"Meet Till'all, one of our best fighters, but his bedside manner could use some work. And N'keyy, a new recruit." M'gann introduces them when a younger Martian approaches them.
"It's an honor, J'onn J'onzz. M'gann's told us about you and how you inspired her to rise up." N'keyy says while shaking his hand.
"Enough." Till'all interrupts them and walks up to them. "We've already wasted a day trying to bring him here."
"Waisted? We flew halfway across the solar system to get here to help you. It's not like we took the scenic route." Peter tells him.
"What's going on that you had to reach out, M'gann?" J'onn asks.
"We recently stormed a White Martians base near the D'ori'i crater. There was a prison camp there for Green Martians." M'gann explains to him.
"This one was still in operation." Till'all adds on.
"Wait, there are others?" Peter asks.
"That's impossible. I'm the last Green Martian." J'onn tells them.
"No, there's another." M'gann was and Peter bites his tongue to not say anything about the Star Wars reference. "I brought you here because I didn't think you'd believe me unless you saw this for yourself." She explains and moves J'onn to a monitor and they see an elder Martian and J'onn looks shocked.
"J'onn, you know him?" Peter asks, seeing his expression.
"It's my father." J'onn tells him. "He's alive. My wife, my daughters?" He asks M'gann and sees they're dead.
"So they kept him and only him alive for hundreds of years? Why would they do that?" Peter now asks M'gann.
"Myr'nn J'onzz is the high religious leader of the Green Martians. Not even the worst of the Whites would kill the prime servant of H'ronmeer." M'gann explains.
"Instead they sentenced him to a fate worse than death. Alone for centuries, thinking he was the last of his kind. Of his people!" J'onn yells angrily.
"Soon they'll all be dead. We're running out of time." Till'all interrupts.
"What's that mean?" Peter asks.
"We believe your father knows how to find the Staff of Kolar." M'gann tells J'onn.
"The Staff of what?" Peter questions.
"Kolar. It's a myth, a parable." J'onn explains. "My father used to tell me stories about it. Be a good boy or H'ronmeer will strike you down. It isn't real."
"It is real. And the White Martians have found out where it's buried." M'gann tells J'onn.
"The staff of your god H'ronmeer is a psychic weapon. Which means that if the Whites find it they can track down every resistance fighter and kill us where we stand. We'd be helpless." Till'all adds.
"We raided their base, hoping to find the staff'a location but they had already moved on. Your father had been left behind." N'keyy explains. "They didn't realize how valuable he would be to us."
"Valuable? What are you talking about?" J'onn asks as he's sorta freakin' out.
"We believe he knows where the Whites are planning to dig." M'gann explains.
"So, why doesn't he just tell you where it is?" Peter asks.
"He's closed his mind to us, completely. We can't read him." M'gann responds.
"He is willing to let us die and he calls himself a man of God." Till'all states.
"That man of God was tortured for centuries by your people." J'onn reminds the White.
"Then you understand what is at stake. If we don't find the staff first, our resistance is finished, and then the monsters that slaughtered your people get this planet, once and for all." Till'all replies.
"We need you to go to your father, J'onn. Convince him to help us, and then we can save Mars. Together." M'gann explains why they sent for him.
J'onn turns into his Martian form and enters the room with him.
"I'm praying. Leave me be." Myr'nn tells him, not looking in his direction.
"I think that this time H'ronmeer will allow you a moment of personal indulgence." J'onn replies as he walks in front of his father to show his face. "It's me, father. It's J'onn."
Myr'nn doesn't exactly look happy and more mad.
"You're angry with me...for abandoning you as you should be. I know how you must have felt, alone all these years, thinking you'd never see another Green Martian, thinking our entire family had been destroyed." J'onn tells him and Myr'nn seems mad still as he places a hand on his son's face and removes it.
"You really thought such a trick would work on me?" Myr'nn asks in annoyance, believing this is a White Martian and not his son. "I survived two centuries of imprisonment and torture...alone. So, if you think exploiting the form of my dead son will break me, you are a fool. I will never tell you where the Staff of Kolar is."
"Father, it's me, J'onn. I lived." J'onn tries getting through to his father. "I fled to earth, I survived."
Myr'nn just chuckled and drops his hood. "You give yourself away, White. My son would never have fled."
J'onn walks out and leaves his father as Peter and the others watched the whole interaction from the monitor they have on the room.
"That did not go so well." Peter comments.
"I don't understand why he couldn't sense me. He couldn't see me." J'onn replies as he returns to his Hank form.
"Well, he's been imprisoned for a long time. He probably expects more tricks than truth." Peter guesses.
"Enough of this. I'm going in." Till'all says and M'gann stops him.
"You will not." She warns him.
"If the Green won't share the information willingly, we'll have to invoke the right of Tyagar and take it by force." Till'all tells her.
"Sorry, what's Tyagar?" Peter asks.
"It will allow him to force through my father's mental block, not unlike what you have, and show him where the Staff is." J'onn explains.
"What would it do to him?" Peter wonders.
"It could possibly kill him." M'gann informs him.
"We don't have a choice." Till'all states.
Peter raises a repulser to stop him. "There's always another way, it's just a matter of if you're willing to find it."
"Our survival depends on getting this information." Till'all replies.
"Is that all you care about? Survival?" J'onn asks.
"I swore to die fighting for this resistance. But I am not gonna die standing here waiting." Till'all says and goes to move past J'onn when he stops the White.
"You think you have what it takes to break my father's mind?" J'onn asks him. "More powerful Martians than you have tried, Boy."
"Enough." M'gann stops the two. "Till'all is right about one thing. If we don't find the Staff, we're finished. So you have to do this, J'onn. You have to get through to your father. Can you?"
"I can. And I will." J'onn promises.
"Good. Than hurry. Because time is running out." M'gann says as they all start walking around leaving J'onn and Peter.
"Peter, you ever wonder what your parents would say to you if they could see you now, after all this time? What they'd think of the person you've become?" J'onn asks while looking at his father.
Peter thinks for a minute and looks to the monitor himself. "I never gave them much thought recent years. Especially since I learned I'm half Kryptonian. But I know it'd be a bit of a mixture of emotions. First, they'd probably feel shocked. Second, they'd feel angry I put my life in danger regularly. Third, they'd be proud of what I've been doing with my life."
"Yeah, I'd think the same, and now I got the chance to ask. My father thinks I'm a coward." J'onn says and looks down from the monitor.
"Then he doesn't know who you are. Because the man who I've known for years has dedicated his entire life to making sure that what happened to his home was never repeated. So in your own words, grow a pair. And get in there and show him who you really are." Peter tells him and J'onn gets up to do just that.
This time he goes in as his human form.
"One thing I'll give you Whites, you don't take no for an answer." Myr'nn says and again without looking and his hood back up.
"As I told you before, father, I am not a White Martian." J'onn says and his father looks to see his human form.
"Or even a Green Martian, it seems." Myr'nn says and drops his hood before rising up to face him. "It is the custom of my people to take the shape of our guests for your comfort if not for my own." He says before turning into a human form.
"I am well aware of our Martian customs and lore." J'onn replies.
"Mars was once a paradise. But H'ronmeer wanted to test his children. Phobos and Deimos. To be worthy of it. So he offered them two gifts." Myr'nn says.
"A book of sacred symbols on morals that govern Martian life, and the Staff, a weapon." Says J'onn.
"The symbols could be shared but the Staff wielded by only one."
"Deimos chose the symbols. Phobos chose the Staff. He was the first White Martian."
"H'ronmeer was furious that his son would choose destruction over knowledge. And so, Phobos was banished to the underworld. But his descendants clawed their way back and slaughtered my people."
"Our people. I am your son." J'onn tries to explain to his father.
"H'ronmeer buried the staff for a reason. The Whites disgraced his name by slaughtering my people. I will serve my God by refusing to let you use his Staff to slaughter each other too."
J'onn sees its gonna take some more time to get through to his father when he hears repulser fire coming in followed by Peter running into the room.
"Hey, quick heads up. We should finish this reunion somewhere there are less rebel Martians willing to kill him." Peter says sarcastically calm.
"I am not going anywhere with you people." Myr'nn says as the Till'all comes in and Peter uses his mechanical arms to push him out and they keep the doors closed.
"Sadly, I don't think you have much of a choice." Peter says and turns to J'onn. "Where can we go?"
"Home." J'onn answers and they drag his father along.
-
They return to their Mars home and see the place is rundown over the hundreds of years of nobody living here.
"This is where you lived?" Peter asks looking around at the place that's covered in sand.
"No, it was mine." Myr'nn tells him before looking to J'onn. "How dare you? How dare you bring he here?" He asks before slapping his son across the face. "It was one thing to take my son's form but to bring me back here, to the place where your people stole our lives from us."
"I brought you here to prove it." J'onn explains, ignoring the slap even though it hurt mentally and physically. "If I wasn't your son, how would I know this place?"
"You've done...what your people couldn't do for over two centuries. You broke me." Myr'nn tells him as his voice cracks. "So kill me if you want, but until you do, I will spend my final moments praying for the ruins of my slaughtered family." He says as he walks off and kneels down in the dirt and starts praying again.
"He about I give it a shot?" Peter offers to J'onn and goes up to his father. "I'm...sorry to interrupt your prayers but I think it's important you hear what I have to say."
"What is left to say?" Myr'nn asks him.
"Look at me." Peter asks of him as he kneels down in front of him. "I'm not a White Martian. You can sense that, feel a disturbance or something." He asks and Myr'nn places his hand to Peter's head and Peter allows him through the mental blockade he has. If he focuses hard enough, he can allow him in for a second.
"You're born of Kryptonian and human." Myr'nn can see as far as that.
"Exactly. I'm a hybrid. Half of me comes from a dead planet and the other half had to blend in to survive. Just like you." Peter tells him.
"Krypton is gone. But my world remains, and every day for two hundred years, I have been forced to remember the horror of what happened to my people." Myr'nn says.
"Yeah, I can relate. I lost my family on earth. I used to think of them a lot." Peter tells him.
"There is no future for Mars."
"Not for Green Martians, no. But this is bigger than you. This is about your faith."
"What do you know of my god?"
"I overheard you talking to J'onn earlier." Peter confesses, even though it wasn't overhearing more of eavesdropping. "H'ronmeer tests us. This is your test. Your chance to save the planet. Not for your people, but for other people who want to be better than the ones that came before. I don't blame you for not wanting to believe that J'onn is your son. I don't blame you for not wanting to open your mind because if it wasn't true..."
"It would be like loosing him all over again." Myr'nn finishes for him.
"Exactly. But whether or not you believe he is J'onn, he wants to save Mars." Peter says as J'onn apraoches the two of them. "So please, open your mind just a little. Give him a chance." He asks and Myr'nn turns to J'onn.
"May I?" J'onn ask as Myr'nn and him connect their minds as the room gets clear of dust and looks like it did over two hundred years ago. "This is my favorite memory. This is our home, father. I haven't thought about this in a long time. Can you see it?"
"I see it. I remember it." Myr'nn says as two children Green Martians come giggling down the stairs. "K'hymm, T'ania."
"My daughters. Your granddaughters." J'onn says and even Peter smiles at the two children as they're playing around the room.
"They're beautiful, J'onn." Peter says as he breaks up a little as this peaceful environment is as it is now.
"They were excited about something. They were terrible at keeping secrets." J'onn tells him.
"Wh-what do they know?" Peter wonders.
"That I had left worship early to surprise J'onn." Myr'nn explains as the younger him comes in through the doors.
"K'hymm, T'ania. Look at you two. You're getting much bigger, Kim. T'ania, give me that smile. Yes." The memory of Myr'nn says as the two children Martians giggle and laugh. "Does he know?" He asks the two and they nod their head. "Daddy doesn't know, does he?"
Just then, J'onn's memory version came into the room and sees them and laughs.
"Did they tell you?" Myr'nn asks J'onn who laughs and hugs his father.
"You came." J'onn says.
"Yes, I did. Happy birthday, my son."
"Thank you, father. Thank you. Thank you for coming. You falsely kept a secret." J'onn tells his daughters who just continue to laugh as the memory fades away and it returns to normal.
"J'onn. My son." Myr'nn says and this time, happily and engulfs his real son into a hug.
"Father! I missed you." J'onn replies.
Peter takes a minute to himself and wipes the tears away from both the reunion and the sweet memory.
"I'm so sorry for not believing you." Myr'nn apologizes as he cries.
"I'm the one that should be sorry." J'onn replies.
"How did you survive?" Myr'nn asks him. "Why did you come back here?"
"The staff, father. There's still time." J'onn says when Peter senses the others have caught up to them.
"No, there isn't." Till'all says. "But we need the staff. Now."
"J'onn, it's okay." Myr'nn assures him and approaches the Whites. "The staff isn't far. They're taking it to the hive below the L'oren crater."
"Let's go." J'onn says and they all leave the home to fight.
-
In the cavern, the Whites discovered the staff and are approaching them when they hear Hooked on a Feeling being played and they turn to see Peter in the spaceship in its car form.
"Hey, guys. I'm sorry to bother your...stick worshiping. I've seen weirder, sadly. But, I think I took a wrong turn at Jupiter and...can any of you give me directions back to Earth?" Peter asks and the White Martians growl at him as he exits the car. "You know, I thought I took the wrong Hyperspace route, and my GPS doesn't work down here and it keeps trying to get me to walk into a trap. You might wanna check where you turn closely."
As they were distracted, the resistance members come flying down in their Green forms. Peter then activates his repulsers and uses them to send two white Martians flying.
J'onn and M'gann fight close as two Martians go for the staff and Peter stops one of them, only for the other to get it and start using it against the resistance.
"Oh, no you don't." Peter says as he webs the staff and yanks it towards him and spins it in his arms.
In the car, J'onn transforms it back into a ship as it keeps playing the song and aims at the Martians. "This is for my people." He says before he starts to blast them and Peter spins the staff around and uses it to finish off the remaining Whites.
The resistance members start getting back up now the effects are over with and Peter hands the staff to Till'all.
"Thank you." Till'all says to Peter.
"This is now in the hands of the resistance." Peter says as he hands the staff to M'gann.
-
They return to their base where Myr'nn was waiting for them and they hand the staff to him.
"H'ronmeer's Staff, Father." J'onn says while handing it to him.
"It's one think to dedicate your life to god, it's another thing to see God's grace in person." Myr'nn says.
"So what happens to it now?" N'keyy asks.
"I suppose it's up to them." Till'all guesses.
"Us?" Peter asks.
"I saw what the staff did back there. It's too powerful of a weapon for either side to have. Take it to earth. Bury it. If we're gonna win this planet, we have to be better than our enemies." Till'all explains to them. "Find another way."
"I underestimated you." J'onn realizes.
"And I you." Till'all says as they head out to keep fighting their war.
"So, what are we gonna do about your dad?" Peter wonders as they look at him and it seems J'onn already has an idea.
-
They park the car back in the storage and open the hood for Myr'nn to step out.
"Thank you, son." Myr'nn says as they head outside and Myr'nn sees earth for the first time. "So this is earth."
"This isn't exactly the nicest place." Peter admits since there's nothing but trash, few abandoned buildings and the highways.
"I don't know, I rather like it." Myr'nn says as he sees some grass and is amazed by it.
J'onn quickly turns to Peter to give his thanks. "You know, I'm not sure I could have done this without your help."
"Nah, you could've. I just really wanted something to do, there wasn't anythinggoing on." Peter states seeing a day on Mars beats boredom at home is a easy competition. "Besides, you're the strongest person I've known, and you know that's saying something. I may have lost two fathers, but I gained a pretty amazing one at the same time."
J'onn smiles and hugs Peter. "I'll see you tomorrow at work."
"You got it, Bossman." Peter says and turns to Myr'nn as his suit forms around him once more. "Welcome to Earth, mr. J'onzz. You raised an amazing man." He says and closes his mask before using his repulsers and takes to the skies.
"Can everyone on this planet do that?" Myr'nn asks J'onn.
"No, he's a special one." J'onn replies and the two start walking off.
"So, what do we do now?" Myr'nn asks.
"We go home, father. We go home." J'onn says as he leads the way.