Chapter 14: Last Son of Mars (War World – Part 1)

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman belong to DC. No infringement is intended.

For as long as humans had gazed up towards the sky, the planet Mars had been a dead world. There was plenty of evidence that this hadn't always been so, that Mars had once sustained a live-giving atmosphere and an ample amount of water, but those days were long over. Whether or not Mars had ever had any indigenous life was an ongoing debate, but mostly an academic one.

It was not a debate for Kryptonians, though. Back in the times when Kryptonians had been a space faring society, they had learned of the once great Martian race. Long before even the Kryptonians had sailed the stars, the Martians had already been an advanced civilization. Some even said that their famed law enforcers, the Manhunters, had been the model upon which the Guardians of the Universe had based their own Green Lantern Corps.

Eons ago, though, the Martian race had fallen prey to an invasion by a parasitic alien species called the Imperium. The invasion had apparently been the end for both races, as there was nothing left to be found but ancient ruins and wrecked war machines. The Martian race had faded into the pages of history, much like the Kryptonian empire did many millennia later.

Which was why Kara had been rather surprised when her Fortress' computers had informed her of activity on the long-dead planet. There was definitely something going on there, something involving advanced technology and energy eruptions. Given Mars' proximity to Earth, she quickly decided to investigate, just to be on the safe side.

Kara had long ago tested the limits of her ability to fly through space. Her powers easily protected her from the vacuum and if there was an upper limit to the speed she could achieve, she hadn't found it yet. One day she wanted to attempt breaking the light barrier by herself, but so far she had shied away from it. The relativistic effect of travelling close to light speed was not to be underestimated and she didn't want to return from space, only to find her son an old man and the rest of her family long dead.

The only practical limitation she had when it came to travelling through space was oxygen. She had found that she could go without air for extended periods of time, but it was a drain on her as her body burned through stored solar energy much quicker to compensate for the lack of fresh oxygen. So she took a small capsule of pressurized air with her on her journey, which would allow her to take a breather every so often. Just in case there was something on Mars that required her full strength.

Shooting beyond Earth's atmosphere was always something she enjoyed, the unfiltered sunlight in space made her feel slightly giddy. She quickly adjusted her course, her vision powers easily spotting the red body of her target, and accelerated. Current calculations showed that a human space craft using the Hohmann transfer orbit would need approximately 9 months to reach Earth's nearest celestial neighbor. Kara made the flight in under ten minutes.

Soaring over the empty red plains of the planet, Kara needed a few minutes to finally locate the source of the disturbance. She spotted an alien space craft of unknown design, which had set down right next a mountain. Closer inspection showed that the mountain was adorned with symbols belonging to the ancient Martian race. In fact there was a huge doorway in the mountain side, worn down by time, but still solid. Except for the hole someone seemed to have blown into it, that was. Kara set down beside it, inspecting it.

The hole was definitely new, probably caused by whomever had arrived in that craft. It seemed to have been caused by a physical impact rather than an energy weapon. Kara quickly peeked inside, but found that the mountain apparently contained enough traces of lead to impede her vision powers. She could only see the corridor ahead of her, nothing else. Well, it seemed she had to do this the old-fashioned way.

Carefully making her way inside, Kara remained on guard. Generally speaking, people who broke into ancient tombs were not all that friendly, though she resolved to keep an open mind and not seek out a confrontation if it could be avoided. Remembering a few too many Indiana Jones movies (Clark just loved those), Kara decided to be careful and floated through the corridor, just in case the ancient Martians had left some traps behind that had endured over the millennia. One never knew.

Thankfully the dark corridors of the ancient Martian ruin only impeded her vision, not her hearing. She easily followed the sounds of what was apparently someone pounding away on yet another heavy door. Speeding up her flight, she soon ended up in a rather large room. It was easily the size of a large cathedral with a high ceiling, ornate carvings on every wall, and several large doors leading away in different directions. Only one of the doors was closed and someone was currently trying to remedy that with his bare hands.

Kara hovered for a moment, observing the intruder. He was big, that much was certain, easily eight or nine feet tall and almost as wide. He was humanoid in shape, but his skin was a faded yellow, his hands only had four fingers each, and there was no hair to be found on his head. He was dressed in something appearing to be battle armor, too. Overall he was not looking too friendly, but appearances could be deceiving, especially across different species.

"Excuse me?" she said, finally approaching. Given that she was facing an unknown alien species, she switched to Interlac, the interplanetary commerce language. Despite the Kryptonians' aversion to space travel in their latter days, the language had still been taught in schools as an elective. She hoped she wasn't too rusty.

The intruder stopped pounding away at the door and turned to look at her. "Interesting accent, creature. Can't say I have heard that one before. Are you native to this hunk of rock?"

It was always dangerous to try and interpret alien mannerisms and tone of voice, but Kara got the distinct impression that she the intruder did not think very highly of her.

"No more than you, I would wager," she replied, retaining a bit of a distance between herself and the yellow-skinned giant. "But seeing as this 'hunk of rock' is in my immediate neighborhood, I am an interested party. What are you doing here?"

The giant gave her a long, speculative glance, before resuming his pounding on the closed door. "I am looking to retrieve an artefact that was hidden here long ago by people long dead. Now go away, creature, I am busy!"

Kara was uncertain what to do. Apart from being very rude – though that might just be a matter of two aliens conversing in a language that was native for neither of them – the yellow giant had not done anything aggressive. Grave robbing was not something she considered proper, but given that the Martians were long dead, there really wasn't anyone here to dispute his claim to whatever artefact he was looking for. Still, something about this guy made her skin itch.

"What kind of artefact?" she asked. "And what claim do you have to it?"

The giant stopped again, looking at her with something she was fairly sure was irritation. "That is none of your concern, creature! Now leave me be before I have to expend unnecessary time and effort for killing you!"

Okay, threatening to kill someone just for asking a few questions was definitely on the suspicious side of things. Before she could make up her mind as to what to do, though, something else happened that came as a surprise to both visitors.

"Leave this place immediately," someone spoke in heavily accented Interlac. Kara started, none of her enhanced senses having picked up the presence of a third party before they spoke. The yellow giant seemed equally surprised. Both looked over at one of the other doorways, where a new figure now stood.

It was a Martian, that was quickly apparent. He was tall, though not nearly as tall as the giant, with long, gangly limbs and a long, almost hammer-shaped head. His skin was green, naturally, and his eyes glowed red.

"A Martian," the yellow giant said. "Well, it looks like my information was incomplete. I was told you were all dead."

"I know what you are here to steal, Mongul," the Martian said. "I will not allow it!"

"You know my name, Martian? Interesting. It seems your species' telepathic prowess has not been exaggerated."

Mongul, as apparently his name was, slowly stalked towards the Martian, seemingly having forgotten about Kara's presence. "If you have read my thoughts, Martian, then you know what I want. Give me the key and your race will remain non-extinct, at least for today."

"Now wait just a minute here," Kara said, beginning to step between the two.

Mongul's fist lashed out at terrifying speed and hit her with the force of a meteor. With no clear idea how it had happened Kara found herself on the other side of the room, prone on the floor, and desperately gasping for breath in the almost non-existent Martian atmosphere. She tried to breathe in and the breathing hurt. It actually hurt! Fingers trailing over her body, she gasped in surprise when she found a bump on the side of her chest.

Mongul had actually managed to break one of her ribs!

Kara took a moment to gather herself, feeling panic begin to rise. She had never really been hurt since arriving on Earth. The Parasite had drained her, yes, but that had just made her weak. Sparring with Diana occasionally hurt a bit and even left a bruise here or there. Never since gaining her powers had anything actually managed to damage her body in such a way, though. Mongul had broken a rib! She still couldn't wrap her mind around it. She was supposed to be invulnerable!

Looking up, she saw that Mongul had apparently forgotten about her again and was trying to kill the Martian. The green-skinned man, however, seemed very adept at avoiding his enemy's fists. His body morphed and contorted in impossible ways, reminding Kara that Martians were shape-shifters. His limbs lashed out to land hits on Mongul, though those seemed largely ineffective.

Staggering back to her feet, Kara held her aching ribs as she tried to figure out what to do. Clearly Mongul needed to be stopped. If a Martian still lived, than this had progressed from "mere" grave robbing to outright theft, plus murderous intent on herself and the Martian. For the first time in living memory, though, she hesitated.

I'm scared, she realized, almost with a start. Well, this wouldn't do! She was Superwoman, damn it! Mongul might have landed a lucky punch and was much stronger than she had anticipated, but she refused to let that deter her.

Quickly checking that she retained a full range of movement despite her injury, she waited until the Martian had moved out of the way of yet another attack by Mongul, leaving her a clear shot. She sped forward at the best speed she could manage in a confined space, little more than a blur to the naked eye, and drove both her fists into Mongul's chest with enough force to split a mountain in two.

Mongul took a step back.

"Not bad, creature," the giant said. "I almost felt that."

Kara was so dumbfounded by the fact that this being seemed almost completely unaffected by one of her strongest blows, she was too slow to dodge his retaliatory strike. Mongul spun around at surprising speed and the back of his fist connected with the side of her head. Kara was driven into the nearest wall with enough force to actually embed her into the stone, stars exploding in front of her eyes.

She dimly heard the sounds of more fighting, apparently the Martian was back in the fray, but she could barely focus. The blow had rattled her brains but good and there was a very strange taste in her mouth. Something liquid, metallic... blood? Could that actually be blood?

Pushing the pain and panic aside, she strained to free herself from the rock wall. Stumbling to her feet, she saw that the battle between the Martian and Mongul had moved to the far side of the room. The Martian was still evading, but seemed incapable of actually hurting his larger opponent. Small wonder, Kara thought. How many beings were there in the universe that could shrug off her blows as if they were insect bites?

Deciding to avoid another blow for blow encounter, Kara zoomed forward and let loose with her deadliest weapon. Her eyes lit up an eerie red and fizzling beams of heat shot out at the speed of light. The twin beams struck Mongul and this time the yellow giant did more than take a step back. He actually grimaced in pain as the red energy beams tore apart the chest of his battle armor and left visible marks on his skin.

Mongul roared, sounding more angered than in pain, and Kara briefly noticed that the Martian was recoiling from where her heat vision had lit up the chamber, seemingly in pain himself.

"You will pay for that, creature," Mongul screamed and dashed forward at terrible speed.

Kara managed to evade his first blow, which tore a huge hole in the ground she had stood upon a moment earlier. She let loose with her eye beams again, damaging more of his armor, but still couldn't seem to penetrate his skin. Mongul lashed out with a kick, which she ALMOST managed to dodge. The tip of his toe caught her in the hip and spun her around, causing her to miss with her third burst of heat vision.

She tried to keep at a distance from the clearly more powerful opponent, but the room was only so large and Mongul was far quicker than his size suggested. Thirty seconds into the fight her luck ran out as Mongul managed to corner her and one of his huge fists closed around her ankle.

Kara almost blacked out as Mongul used her body as an improvised sledgehammer and slammed her into the ground two, three, four times. When he finally let go, her vision was fuzzy and her limbs refused to move. She somehow managed to push herself up to her knees when she saw Mongul approaching from the corner of her eye. Moving on instinct, she lashed out with her right arm... only for her fist to be caught in a much larger one.

"Admirable," Mongul said. "But ultimately futile!"

Kara screamed as he brought his other fist down and the bones in her caught arm broke like kindling. Spots swam across her vision and all strength fled from her body. She was completely helpless as Mongul hoisted her up by grabbing onto her hair, dangling in his grip like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Time to end this distraction," he said and raised his fist.

I am sorry, Clark, she thought before everything went dark.

The next thing Kara was aware of was pain! Lots and lots of it, made even worse by her almost being entirely unfamiliar with the feeling. Now, though, her entire body was screaming at her, nerves clamoring for attention, wailing to tell her that things were WRONG! Short flashes of her disastrous fight with Mongul buzzed through her mind, she relived the pain of him breaking her arm. Her lips parted as she screamed out her pain for the world to hear.

Amidst the swirling agony, though, there was a soothing voice that rang out inside her mind.

I require you to hold still, Kara-El, the voice said. Your regenerative powers will be able to deal with most of your injuries, but your broken bones need to be set, otherwise they will heal wrong.

Even through the haze of pain, Kara understood what the voice was telling her. Her cells were living solar batteries and could regenerate almost any damage, provided they received the solar energy to do so. Broken bones, however, were another matter. She dimly remembered breaking a bone back as a child on Krypton, but never on Earth. Her force-field, the source of her supposed invulnerability, had kept all force strong enough to break bones away from her. Until today, at least. Until Mongul had simply overpowered it.

She felt ghostly fingers on her arm, just above the break, and tried her best to keep still despite the howling agony. It almost felt like the fingers were moving inside her arm, which was a strange feeling in and of itself and almost managed to distract her.

This will hurt, the voice said inside her mind.

Kara screamed as something ghostly yet strong forced the bones inside her arm back into their proper position. A moment later, she mercifully blacked out again.

The next time Kara regained consciousness the screaming pain from before had dulled somewhat. She still felt like every single part or her body was hurting, but it wasn't as all-encompassing as before. She even managed to open her eyes and saw that she was now outside the Martian mountain fortress. The sun shone overhead, more distant here than on Earth, but thanks to the thin atmosphere the rays were actually more potent. She could feel her cells greedily drinking up the energy to begin the healing of her body.

Looking slightly to the side, she saw her savior squatting on the ground next to her.

"How are you feeling, Kara-El?" the Martian asked.

"Terrible," she replied honestly. "But given that I expected to never feel anything again, I will count that as an improvement."

She tried her best to sit up, the Martian quickly moving to support her back with one of his arms. "Move slowly, Kara-El," he said. "Mongul has dealt you quite a bit of damage."

"Believe me, I am aware. I guess you picked my name out of my head, using your telepathy?" she asked, causing the Martian to nod. "Well, I can't do the same, so what is your name?"

"My name is J'Onn J'Onnz."

"Well, thank you J'Onn J'Onnz. I assume I have you to thank for my still being alive?"

The Martian, J'Onn, rose to his feet, looking up at the sky. "As much as I would like to take credit, I fear our joint survival is more due to Mongul's indifference than anything else. Once neither of us posed a hindrance to him anymore, he simply moved on."

Kara scoffed. "I'm not sure whether to be thankful or offended." She looked at J'Onn. "So I guess he got what he came here for? What was it, this key he mentioned?"

Before her eyes J'Onn seemed to shrink, almost as if his form deflated and all hope left him. "He has succeeded, yes, and I have failed. Eons ago, long before my race fell victim to the Imperium, a dying race called the Largas entrusted us with this key. It was the crystal key of the Warzoon, Kara-El. They key to the War World!"

Kara froze in place, even as memories from long-ago history lessons on Krypton came to the forefront of her mind. The War World! The Kryptonians had never encountered it themselves, but it was a story told by numerous space-faring races across the universe, so there had to be some truth to it. The War World, a mobile weaponized satellite created by a warlike race looking to conquer the cosmos. Bigger and sturdier than a dwarf star, and equipped with weapons able to obliterate entire planets easily,

"I see you have heard of it," J'Onn said.

"It was something Kryptonians picked up during our space travel days. Many considered it nothing but a scary story."

"I fear it is far more than a story," J'Onn continued. "It's quite real. The Warzoon built the War World with the intention of conquering the entire universe with it and they might well have succeeded. Their race died out, though, their reign of terror and destruction remaining incomplete. The Largas came upon the empty War World and locked it away, so that no one could make use of its destructive potential."

"Unless that someone has the key," Kara concluded. "The key that Mongul took with him."

J'Onn nodded sadly. "I have failed in my duties. As the last of my kind, it fell upon me to keep the key safe. Now I fear the entire universe may pay the price."

Something resonated with Kara as she heard him speak of being the last of his kind. She could hear the intense loneliness in his voice, as well as the pain for having failed. She could certainly sympathize. She may not be the last of her kind, but in many ways Clark was more human than Kryptonian. He didn't remember their home world. Only she did. Krypton lived on only in her memory. And the same was true for Mars and J'Onn J'Onnz.

Struggling to her feet despite the pain, she stood to face the last son of Mars.

"We have both failed today, J'Onn," she told him. "But maybe there is still time to stop Mongul. If we work together."

He looked at her. "I appreciate the sentiment, Kara-El, but I fear even the two of us together are not strong enough to face Mongul. Especially if he should already have the might of War World at his beck and call!"

"You are probably right," Kara said, looking upwards where her enhanced vision could see the face of Earth in the sky. "Which is why we are going to need more help."

End Chapter 14

Author's Note: The Martian Manhunter as he appears in this story is based almost entirely on his appearance in the Justice League cartoon. J'Onn's level of power has fluctuated wildly during his various comic and TV appearances, so I'm going to stick with the version I liked best. He is powerful, but not as physically powerful as a Kryptonian. He can shape shift, become immaterial, and has limited telepathic powers, but he has a severe weakness to fire.

Mongul, on the other hand, is the pre-Crisis version, who first appeared in DC Comics Presents #27 from 1980, on which this story arc is loosely based. I freely admit that I do not enjoy writing fight scenes, but in this case I went into a little more detail because it was an important point in Kara's development to be humbled by a physically superior opponent.