Chapter 10: Life From Mars

J'onn J'onzz didn't know quite how to feel. Well, other than in pain, anyway.

For centuries he had believed that he was alone, the last survivor of a proud and peaceful race. It was hard, but he had learned to cope with that. He had learned to move on from both the loss of his species and the loss of his own personal family. In fact, he had found a new family, a new species he could feel almost like he belonged to, in spirit if not genetics. After years of struggling, he had come to terms with the demise of his people.

And now he was learning that they weren't quite as gone as he had believed. The Martian race wasn't as close to extinction as he had thought. Physically nothing may have changed, but the core part of any being is the mind, the thoughts being what defines who a person truly is. With telepaths the importance of the mind over the body was always even more prominent. And the minds of many Martians lived on in this cloud. J'onn was no longer alone.

But the cloud was also threatening to destroy the new family he had managed to create. That was why his feelings were caught in a paradox. He felt both the joy and the fear, the agony and the ecstasy. This cloud was offering him the chance to save his people, but also the chance to lose his new home. However, for all the contradictions, one thing was undeniably clear. There was one thing that had to happen for the good of both the Martians and the Earth.

The Imperium had to be stopped.

Thankfully, they were yet to run into any more of the alien fiends. Of course, Flash was doing most of the running, J'onn draped over his shoulders. His head was still splitting into far more than just two. Regardless of the fact that Flash was simply much quicker, J'onn needed to save his focus to keeping himself together. He was the only way they had of actually finding his people. Not only did he need to use the bombardment on his mind to track them down, but he was almost certainly also the only way of drawing them out. From all that they had been sending into his head, it was clear to J'onn that his people didn't particularly want to be found. They had resided in this cloud for centuries with only the Imperium for company. They were used to staying hidden for their own good. It was a near certainty that the only way to make that stop was to present them with a face that was without a doubt friendly. The only such face was J'onn's.

And, of course, that meant that he was the best hope for the entire world. There was no doubt in J'onn's mind that the Martians were the key to stopping the cloud's assault on Earth. There was too much doubt about the core, too much doubt as to exactly how much Batman and Wonder Woman would be able to control it, especially with all the Imperium who would surely be protecting it. J'onn had complete faith in his friends, he knew that they wouldn't give up until they came up with some way of saving the day, but he also knew that they shouldn't have to risk trying. With their telepathy, even at greatly lesser numbers than their foes, the Martians had every chance of taking over the cloud with only a matter of thoughts. He just had to find them, and then convince them to do it.

The only thing was, that would mean they would really need to come out of hiding...

"J'onn, old buddy, I'm still not seeing anyone else who's green around here," Flash suddenly shouted out, having to call over the rushing sound caused by his incredible speeds. "You sure we're going the right way big guy? I don't think even I have time to take a wrong turn today!"

"This is the direction I sense them in," J'onn groaned out in reply. "Just keep going. Don't forget, this is not a physical realm. Distance doesn't have the same meaning in here that it does on the Earth. We must keep going until we get my people's attention and they show themselves. This is the direction in which to do that."

"If you say so," Flash, like before, didn't sound too convinced, but he kept going regardless. J'onn didn't blame young Wally for being confused and unclear about the situation. It wasn't an easy one to get your head around, by any means. J'onn just happened to have an advantage in doing so. He was the one who at least knew the myths about Transcendence before this whole débâcle had began. He was the one who knew all the rumours, including about how the environment of a Transcended cloud was actually controlled by the minds it contained. The problem was, his own mind was too pre-occupied with pain and incoming telepathic imagery to change things himself and force his people out, while he also hadn't the time to explain and teach the techniques to Flash or the other two. They would have to do this closer to the old fashioned way, though in the cloud there was no old fashioned way. In here, everything was new. In here, everything was risky.

But they had to try. They were running out of time, a fact which soon became eminently clearer.

The rumble tore through the cloud at that moment, almost throwing Flash off his feet. Wally managed to stumble and keep going, but it was virtually like an earthquake had erupted around them. J'onn knew that it was possible that it could be caused by the Martians or the Imperium with their environmental control, but he also knew that that wasn't the case. He just knew that it was something else, just as it had been before, albeit on a smaller scale.

Something was going on outside. Something that was harming the cloud, perhaps even irretrievably. It could well be destroying it.

With them all still inside it.

"Flash, if you could run any faster, it would be advisable. We have even less time than we thought."

Shayera battled on, but it was even more futile by the second. Ever since that one glorious moment when it had seemed they had done it, things had been getting worse and worse. The League had been completely unable to stop the cloud from hitting the city. Whole skyscrapers had been absorbed. Countless people were surely lost.

And the cloud had only been in the city for seconds.

Nothing the Justice League had tried had worked, except the one method that had gotten people killed. Everyone was still trying, still looking for some undiscovered combination of their powers that could actually stop this thing. Shayera was very definitely still amongst them. She would fight to the bitterest of ends. But that didn't stop her from feeling secretly pessimistic.

Of course, her encounter with GL hadn't helped things there. Even when it had looked like they were about to die, she had found herself unable to look at him after what he had been putting her through lately with his damn indecisiveness. He had to make up his mind, or she had to move on, or else she would never be able to be near him without her mood being shot to hell, sadness and anger kicking in. In the middle of a battle, sadness was not something to be desired, even if you were one of the stoutest of warriors.

Besides, seeing all those people being lost was providing enough sorrow without GL's effect on her. This cloud had to be stopped. Because of that, Superman's call couldn't have come soon enough for her.

"Superman to Captain Atom. We need to regroup. We don't have a choice any more. Regardless of the risks, we need to destroy the cloud. Now."

It didn't stop her from her own actions against the cloud, but it certainly got her attention. In fact, as soon as her latest swing of her fully charged mace had failed just like all of the others, she was looking across the skies desperately for the signs of Superman and Captain Atom to give the cloud the deathly ending it really deserved.

They were quite distant, once she spotted them, but she could certainly see them. And she also saw the icy breath quickly followed by the blasts of radiation, both issuing forth. She made sure that she stayed out of the way. This blast was going to do some real damage. She didn't want to be the one it hit. She didn't want anyone to get hit. That was why she decided that perhaps she ought to go and help out the evacuation efforts.

But she did enjoy seeing the cloud get hit, even though it still had a fair chunk of Metropolis now within its confines.

It was even better seeing the first signs of the cloud falling apart.

The shaking didn't stop like it had done before. It was constant now. Clearly whatever the others on the outside were doing, this time they were determined to see it through. J'onn knew that for the sake of the people of Earth, that could be for the best. However, he also knew that for his people inside the cloud, they had to find another way.

That was why it was a good job that he could sense that he and the Flash had finally caught the Martians attention. J'onn could sense it. Not only was the essence of the bombardment changing to recognition instead of warning, it was also lessening. They definitely knew that he was coming.

"Err... J'onn? Getting difficult to keep upright here..." Flash muttered, regarding the quaking environment. However, J'onn didn't have the chance to reply, to explain to Flash what was happening. He didn't have to. Flash soon saw for himself.

Appearing from nowhere just as the Imperium had done, Martians suddenly sprang up right in front of Flash's path. In fact, Flash had to skid to a halt to avoid hitting them. That, combined with the quakes, sent him crashing to the deck. Since J'onn was draped on his shoulders, he went down too.

"J'onn J'onzz, you are here. You are not meant to be here."

It sounded as if the voice had spoken, but as J'onn pushed himself back up to his feet he could tell that it was instead simply in his mind. And it was the only additional voice now in his mind. The Martians must have finally cottoned on, likely due to their new proximity, that what they were doing was only causing him pain, and it was too late to warn him anyway. But now the pain was gone, meaning J'onn was only a fraction behind Flash in returning to stand in the shaking lands of the cloud.

There were at least a dozen Martians standing before him, plain as day. That wasn't all either, as J'onn could sense that there were more on top of that number, only they remained in hiding. He could already sense the sensation of fear they radiated outwards, fear of what the Imperium might do to them should they be discovered. Even in just these seconds, J'onn was getting a very strong sense that these Martians were lost to the cloud quite early in the Imperium's invasion of Mars. These were Martians who had not yet become fully accustomed to fighting and to war, who had not been changed by its horrors to cope with even more of them. They were even looking at Flash almost as if they should be scared of him too, just because he wasn't Martian. It was a very good job, then, that J'onn was here.

Despite all that he had been through himself, all of his heroics, all the need for quick action for the Earth and for them, it still took J'onn a second before he could react. Being face-to-face again with actual Martians did that to him. It brought the paradoxes of emotion flooding his way even stronger, but he managed to fight them down. They could wait. They had to wait until later. Right now they had work to do.

That was why J'onn quickly picked out the one who had spoken into his mind from the bunch by reaching out with his own. He suspected very much that to an untrained eye like Flash's his people would largely look the same, virtually indistinguishable. For J'onn, she looked completely unique.

"You can speak aloud," J'onn verbally responded to her, Flash thankfully having left that task to him. It was the only way they would convince them to listen and not hold on to their fears, talking to someone who didn't have to earn their trust. "It is too late to worry about my presence here. We have more pressing issues now. I am sure you have felt what is happening to the environment around us. We have to remove the cloud from the Earth before its people destroy it, and us."

"My name is M'vall Ma'jolnyk," the Martian spokeswoman resumed almost as if she had not heard a word that J'onn had just said, though she did speak verbally this time, causing Flash to look her way too. "Is it true that you are the last of our kind to remain alive, in the traditional sense of the term? We have missed much since we unintentionally learned the Transcendence was real. We tried to pick some of what has happened up telepathically, but we have been buried for so very long."

"That's a girl?" Flash muttered softly in J'onn's ear at the sound of M'vall's voice, but speaking so that only J'onn could hear. "How can you guys tell?"

J'onn ignored his friend's easy distraction. He also ignored M'vall's line of conversation. Now wasn't the time to be telling stories of what had been happening in the Solar System for the past several hundred years. He had to make her see the urgency of the situation, since it was pretty clear already that she was the leader of the pack, the one the rest would truly listen to. However, from the way she had ignored him before, she might also be the type who was difficult to talk to away from their own terms. Still, J'onn had to try and, as another strong quake almost threw them all to the deck, he knew that he had to succeed.

"I will tell you everything that you need to know," J'onn spoke directly to M'vall, despite his words applying equally to all of the Martians. "I will do everything in my power to help you rediscover as much as you have lost as I possibly can. But all of that is irrelevant if we do not make this energy cloud move away from this world. As we speak this cloud that is keeping us alive is being destroyed. We have to move it away from the planet so that it is no longer a threat to the people of this world, which in turn will stop them from harming it. We have to do so now."

"I am afraid we cannot do that, J'onn." M'vall's response was immediate, not even a second's worth of thought. That meant that J'onn was instantly feeling downbeat. "We cannot expose ourselves to the Imperium like that. It is not safe."

"Not safe?" Flash incredulously blurted out. "The place is falling apart around you and you won't try to stop it because it's not safe? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?"

M'vall, typically, ignored the Flash, going on as before. "If we do anything to try and take control away from the Imperium, they will be able to locate us. They will come and they will kill us, and we are not prepared to die, especially with our race so endangered. We will not risk it."

"But then we shall all die," J'onn essentially repeated Wally's earlier point. It was a very good one. M'vall and all of the others around her had to register it. They had to accept it. And they had to do so now. These quakes were getting stronger. "If you take control, at least there is still a chance that you could live on. If you do nothing, there is no chance. We will all die."

"That is not entirely true, J'onn J'onzz," M'vall was quick to counter, determined. J'onn wished that she wasn't speaking for all of the Martians, but he knew that was a wish without truth. He had only been reunited with his people for moments, but he could already read them perfectly. "There is still a chance, more of a chance than if we act. We can sense this cloud in the human city. The Imperium are feeding. They are gathering their strength. Once they are done, they will move the cloud away on its own. They don't fear death any more since the Transcendence. They will gladly risk the end of all things to have their feed. But it is still a better chance for us to survive to hope they finish up quickly and back away, than for us to try and force it upon them."

"Okay... J'onn, I thought you're people were meant to be smart?" Flash quipped at that, sounding like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "That's ridiculous. You're just going to sit here and hope that you're enemies don't let us all get whacked, instead of trying to do something about it? Are you all nuts? If Superman and the rest have a way to destroy this thing and save the world they'll take it. They have no idea we're all in here. There's nothing to mean they wouldn't be willing to see this thing off. You have to back us off now!"

"No!" M'vall reacted, showing her first sign of recognition of Flash. She shouted the word, sounding almost enraged, completely uncooperative. "Our telepathy may give us extra strength over them in here, in this cloud as you put it, but the Imperium have vastly greater numbers, and combined that gives them more strength than we can muster. We cannot challenge them. We cannot risk getting ourselves killed! This is our only option, to use our minds to allow us to hide! You must accept this, or you must leave us! We will not let you bring about our downfall."

"Let us...?" Flash still obviously couldn't believe his ears. However, the exact nature of his grievances were left unsaid. Another highly intense rumble of everything around them saw to that. The cloud was really starting to fall apart around their ears. It clearly didn't have long if things didn't change. They couldn't stay here. They had to move, and it was too late for J'onn and Flash to try anything else. They had to get through to these Martians. All of J'onn's initial happiness to see his people again was being lost to annoyance and despair at their foolish, stubborn cowardice.

"Please, I beg of you," J'onn pleaded to M'vall, seeing no other option left available to him. Reason clearly wasn't working. She was refusing to see any line of thought other than her own. From the way that none of the other Martians were speaking up to counter her point of view, it was obvious that either they all felt the same, or this bunch was just subjective enough that they would just do whatever she said. Either way, it had to be her that J'onn convinced. "I know you are scared. I know that you are not soldiers, that you never really fought the Imperium when they brought war to our planet. I know that you do not want to be in this situation. But you are in this situation. You have to put your own feelings aside. You have to see the bigger picture. You have to go for the greater good, even if it means sacrificing yourselves. I had years of war to learn that lesson. I know asking you to do it in seconds is asking a lot. But I have to ask it of you. You have to do it. For us. For our entire species. For all the people of this planet that the Imperium have already absorbed. You have to stop this cloud, to force it to leave this world before it is destroyed. I promise that Flash and I shall do everything in our power to protect you. But you have to act."

Unfortunately, the response was for M'vall to immediately begin rapidly shaking her head, trembling as she did so to make her fears incredibly prevalent. It was now clearer than ever. There would be no convincing her, not now, not without far more time than they had. There would be no changing her mind. There would be no Martian fight back. They would not be taking control. M'vall's fears, the fears of all of these other Martians... They could cost everyone in this cloud, and perhaps many others too, everything.

Suddenly, M'vall's head stopped shaking, but that didn't mean J'onn had time to hope. He recognised the signs as soon as he saw them, where someone like Flash might take a moment to do so. J'onn saw as the eyes of M'vall and all of the other Martians began to glow in the exact same moment that they all stilled. They were telepathically sensing something, something which J'onn wasn't privy to, nor could he be without knowing who or what they were sensing. What was more, he couldn't invade on the minds of M'vall and the others either, not without risking interrupting or even doing damage. J'onn was definitely curious about what it was that was so important that all the Martians suddenly had to stop and share it. However, he didn't need to hear their thoughts to know that they weren't doing the one thing telepathically that they needed to do. They weren't stopping the cloud.

"What the heck are they doing now?" Flash exclaimed when he had cottoned on. He sounded more than frustrated now. J'onn couldn't really blame him for that either. J'onn was certainly frustrated himself. Facing death because the few who could stop it were too scared to act would do that to any man. When those few were your own race who were thought long dead until just moments ago, destroying all sense of joy, that feeling got a lot worse. It was so bad that J'onn refused to even let himself think about it.

Instead, his mind just went back to his wife, his human wife, and to his newly adopted species. While the other Martians were distracted, there wasn't exactly much else that he could do. That was why J'onn dared to reach out, to try to make contact with his wife, knowing this could be his last chance to do so. Especially with time surely so short. But, from here in the cloud, he couldn't get through. That ruined his mood even more.

"Hey, J'onn. Are we boned?"

Flash's question drew J'onn back to the young Speedster. J'onn knew what answer was perhaps closest to the truth, but he had long since learned that in this game it was for the best to simply ignore all of the odds. He didn't have to lie. No doubt Flash knew all this anyway. But he did have to say a truth that could inspire hope.

"Do not give up, my friend. There is still a chance. We are not the only hope here. Don't lose sight of that."

"Yeah, Bats and Wondy..." Flash muttered back, hardly sounding joyous. Almost being thrown over by another quake saw to that. "Should we go lend them a hand? I can get us there in no ti–"

But he couldn't. He couldn't even finish the sentence, even though J'onn knew how it would end. It was at that moment that M'vall and the other Martians returned from their telepathic escapade, and they did so with immediate interruption.

"You did not come here alone," M'vall voiced for all of them again. It was not really a question, much more of a statement, but she still paused at the end of it, waiting for J'onn to respond. Feeling his entire body shaking to its core as the cloud around him threatened to collapse meant that he had no desire to wait long himself.

"No. Along with Flash there were two more, a man and woman born of the planet below."

"We can sense them. They are engaging the Imperium as we speak. They are attempting to move the cloud as you asked of us. But on their current path, where there two there will soon just be one."

"What?" Flash virtually exploded at that. J'onn didn't need telepathy to know the thought that had just crashed into Wally's head. From what M'vall had just said...

Either Batman or Wonder Woman were likely dying right now. If they weren't lost already.

It suddenly seemed like an age since J'onn had been telling Flash not to give up hope, that those two could yet save the day. And it suddenly seemed like no hope was left.

But then J'onn sensed it too, sensed exactly what it was that the Martians truly meant. It had taken longer for him to pick up on it telepathically, but he was certainly doing so now. And he couldn't believe what he was detecting. He should have known better than to give up with Batman and Wonder Woman around.

Hope still remained.

A/N:

I know at least one of you (and probably more) are waiting for more Batman and Wonder Woman after their last bit, and don't worry, they're the stars of the next chapter. Just don't expect to get all the answers about them, and particularly what Batman's thinking, just yet. As the fact I've got another chapter without them up here ought to show, this tale has more strings to its bow than just that, even if it is the big one.

Anyways, review on as normal, friends! Cheerybye for now.