Chapter Text
There was a faint sensation, almost like pain, as the ship hit the atmosphere of a planet. Pain didn’t entirely make sense. Even with the jolt, the fluid of the pod shielded his body from any impact. Perhaps it was only the sensation of gravity, after so long in the void of space. A stretched sensation on his physical form, to match the stretched, gaping burning inside him.
A burning that he reached towards, now. An ache that he grabbed with both metaphorical hands. If they were making planetfall, then now was the time. He’d only have one chance at this.
He was distracted, faintly, briefly, by the sensation … He knew this system. Not this planet, but this system. It had been … so long since he’d been here. But even dead, even devoured in his entirety, he would know the feeling of the world beside this one. Dead, now, silent. But … Familiar. Yes. The echoes sang to him.
A bubble of humour surged. They hadn’t quite brought him home to die, but … close enough. Oh, so very close enough.
There was a judder, as the ship manoeuvred for landing. The shields were up, the psychic baffles. Unless the people of this planet were more telepathically adept than Ma'aleca'andra itself, they wouldn’t sense the advance ships landing. These monsters were good at subtle invasion. But that … that was J’onn’s purpose, here. They’d made an error. His telepathic resources were almost completely expended (what a nice, gentle way to say that they had been eaten), but he wasn’t dead yet. They should not have put him on the advance convoy.
But he was expended. A husk of a thing. They’d kept the fresher food sources with the main fleet. The advance scouts would have to make do with what dribs and drabs they could siphon from all that remained of him. There was a cruel logic to that, too. If they were hungrier, they would perform their function more eagerly. They would scout the resources of this world all the quicker.
And J’onn … He was a husk. Eaten nearly to the core. But he had siphoned himself. From his own heart. He’d gathered … hopefully enough. Hopefully just enough energy.
He did not know this world. He had been a captive so long, a larder, that perhaps he did not know any world any longer. He wondered if even Ma'aleca'andra would look unfamiliar to him. But none of that mattered. Whether he knew them or not, he would try to offer them a chance. A warning. His power should reach beyond the psychic baffle. Draw … attention. Hopefully. If he had salvaged enough. No matter what this world was, what its people were, he would try to offer them a chance.
If … If for no other reason than to spite these monsters. Once more. One more time, before they ate the last of him. If he even offered one slight disruption to their plans, one stumble, then he could die at least faintly satisfied.
He laughed softly, jaggedly to himself. Ignored in his pod, of no use or care to anyone beyond the feeder tendrils embedded in his flesh. Such … Such a tiny hope. The smallest fraction of a dream. Not even to win, but just … to prove a nuisance in his last moments. Such pitiful crumbs of triumph left to him. Much as such pitiful crumbs of self. So died the last Malecandran. Devoured by scavengers, taken from the ruins of a dead world by hideous parasites. Saving his last shreds of power to … to offer some fraction of warning to some strange, alien world.
But. A world close to Ma'aleca'andra. Almost, almost home. So. Let’s give them all he had left, hmm? Let him reach in earnest.
If a nuisance was all he had the power left to be, then let him be all the nuisance he was capable of.
***
He didn’t know how much time passed before he felt it. Them. Some … Some outside force. He had been reaching blindly. It was hard to balance his efforts, enough power to reach beyond the baffles, but not so much that his sending would be detected. A delicate balancing act, and J’onn was weak. Near empty. The pain had not been gravity. He was so far extended now that the feeder tendrils had begun attempting to scavenge his flesh as well. Scraping the last morsels of power they could from him. He would not last much longer. The effort of sending had felt like a thin, stretched eternity. Near meditative, his mind a fading arrow flying outwards.
And, finally, finding something. Someone.
Several. Several someones. He had reached for defenders. The minds of protectors. Someone who would have cause to answer, even so strange a call as this one. Those who thought of their world, and what lay outside it, and sought to protect it. If the world was isolated, unknown, then his efforts might be doomed to fail, but it was likely they were doomed regardless. He had reached. And … found.
They were not telepathic, was the first thing he realised. Psychic, yes. He could sense … They carried their psychic energy differently. Not internally, a well, a resource, but externally. Fields, around themselves. Almost displays. They had neither the power nor the capacity to reach back to him as he did to them. That was … an issue. If they were empathic more than telepathic, then the invaders would have a feast. All of the fuel, none of the power or defences. This world …
But it made sense. Of course it made sense. Why choose a difficult target when you could choose an easy meal? Why else would the invaders have come here? They had not come to Ma'aleca'andra until the planet’s own wars had left it all but defenceless. These were not warriors, they were scavengers. Hungry parasites.
J’onn … was going to watch another world fall, wasn’t he? Unless they finished eating him first.
For a moment, perhaps an eternity, despair swamped him. Swallowed him whole. He felt himself drift. Felt himself lose touch, briefly, with those warrior minds. Felt a spike of alarm as his presence slipped away from them. A spike of … concern.
He nearly laughed again. Black amusement. Concern, for him. Far, far too late for that. Be concerned for yourselves. But another part of him was …
It was too late. Far too late. But it was … not unpleasant. To know concern before the end.
And it steadied him. Not hope. Not courage. But spite. A jagged, vicious flowering of spite. Another world. Another people. Thinking, feeling beings, ones capable of offering concern. Offering, not devouring. People, not monsters. J’onn could not save them. Perhaps no one could save them. But J’onn could warn them. He could …
He could be a nuisance. All the nuisance he had left in him. Right up until the end.
He gathered himself, the last shreds of his strength, and reached one more time. Sent … pictures. Memories. Anything he could. Trying to show the threat. To force understanding. I am here. Your enemies are here. Warn your planet. There are more coming. Warn your people.
He felt … alarm. Fear. A surge of warrior’s instinct. And … another surge of concern.
And they turned … not towards their own people. Not towards warnings or war. They turned towards him. Full of concern. Full of pity. Their minds, their emanations, those psychic fields, attempted to reach out down his link. Reassurance. Not for themselves, but for him. Hold on. They were coming.
That was … not what he’d intended. No. Warn the planet first. But they seemed not to listen. His warnings, wardings, seemed to only stir them faster. J’onn struggled vaguely. In his pod. For the first time in aeons, he attempted to struggle physically. If they came here, without warning anyone, to save him, then the scouts would capture them all, and the planet …
He writhed. He’d been too obvious, now. The balance lost. His captors had noticed him. Noticed the sending. Alerted to possible intrusion. Minds crushed down over his. Bludgeoning, strangling. He was going to lose the connection to the outside. J’onn roared, a telepathic howl, and desperately poured his remaining power into a spike. To them. The warriors. One last warning, before he was silenced.
Leave me. Protect your world. GO!
Then familiar, hateful minds crushed down around his. The mental static of the psychic baffles whined to crescendo. And J’onn … J’onn fell back. Away. Into himself. The hollow at the core of himself where he kept all … all that remained of him. Those last few precious shreds and memories. Ma'aleca'andra. M’yri’ah. K’hym. He felt the feeding tendrils flex within his flesh. The hunger and fury that surrounded him. And he had done … all that he could. So he fell.
And hoped … hoped that if this world fell, that he would be too far gone to feel it.
***
The next thing he was aware of, the next thing outside himself, was a … a crash? A wrenching, tearing sound. A sensation. The tendrils wrenched in his flesh, jolted, and J’onn startled upwards. Swam back to physical consciousness. Because that, whatever it was, was not part of the normal functioning of the scout vessels. J’onn knew every sensation of these ships to his core. He knew them better than he remembered any world. They had been the whole of his existence for … for time without meaning. The pods, and the ships, and the slow hollowing of his core.
This was neither normal nor good. For his captors, at least. It was far from the sound of a healthy ship.
But how? The baffles were still up. How would anyone have found …
But they weren’t. The baffles weren’t up. Not anymore. Something … Something must have …
The ship slewed sideways. Gravity. They were planetside. There was gravity here. The pods were grown from the walls, couldn’t be moved, but J’onn could. He was flung against the membrane of the pod. One of the feeder tendrils tore loose, a bright bloom of pain in his midsection. He gasped, the sound swallowed by the fluid, and then laughed. A new sensation! And a lessening of the ache, the hollowing. Physical pain was a fine trade. He’d take it.
Something ruptured close to him. There were … emanations. What had they called them? Those minds he’d touched? Auras. There were auras close by. The warriors. On. On the ship. One … One moving so fast …
So fast. Too fast to block with the baffle. If he’d started moving the moment J’onn started sending, then he might have already been inside the field by the time the invaders noticed. They might have already had the location, by the time the invaders noticed. The psychic baffles were designed to avoid notice from the outside. But if someone was already inside the field …
J’onn shook himself. Unfurled himself. Just a little. A faint reaching. He had nothing left, but they were so close. Despite himself, despite how much they may have damned their world by doing this, coming here, there was a part of him …
What a dream, to die outside the pod. Too much, far too much to hope. But.
They felt him. The faint feather of his sending. And one of them, the first of them, that first mind that he’d touched, swung around. Pointed itself, himself, right at J’onn.
Right … Right at J’onn. Directly. By the shortest possible route.
A figure … A figure smashed upwards through the floor of the pod chamber. Just erupted from below. It was … rather inelegant, J’onn thought dazedly. A Malecandran would have phased through the floor. Much neater. But the efficiency could not be denied.
The creature turned to him. Swept the pod chamber in search of him. The empty pods. The empty husks. And then … J’onn. Alive. More or less. Meeting his eyes through the membrane.
The connection was … electric. A creature, a free, thinking creature, that was not one of his captors. How long since he’d seen such a thing? Not a prisoner. Not food being loaded into a pod. A warrior. Free and still fighting. It was nearly too much. His captors were insidious. What were the chances that this was an illusion? A last cruel trick, punishment for his defiance earlier? Likely. Very likely. But it could hardly hurt more to die in hope.
The creature surged towards him again. So much speed, so much power. His mind was vulnerable, his aura untrained to defend against a true telepath, but physically. Physically. A match for any of the parasites. His eyes glowed red. Burned. And started … started searing a path through the membrane of the pod.
“Superman to Justice League,” the creature said. Sound, not telepathy. “I’ve found him. He’s … I think he’s the last thing alive in here. Hey. Hold on in there, okay? We’re getting you out. Just hold on a little bit longer.”
J’onn … J’onn had no answer to that. Absurd humour bubbled through him. Hold on? He had. For aeons, he had. Eaten all the way to the core. Amusing, to ask more from him now. But he reached out, aching and slow, and rested one hand against the membrane, just to one side of the burning path. Freedom. Even only a breath of it. One moment, outside the pod. For that, he would wait …
Well. Until he died. Which might be soon enough. But he thought he had enough moments left.
“You should not have come,” he sent carefully. Sent anyway. Because they should not have. “If they overwhelm you, all hope is lost. There are more coming. You should not have come.”
The creature, Superman, paused. The red blinked from his eyes, so that he could look at J’onn without harming him. One hand, bracing the pod, shifted. To rest opposite J’onn’s, only the thin, hard sheet of the membrane between them.
“You were trying to warn us,” he said quietly. “You were hurt trying to warn us. I felt it. Of course we were going to come.”
And his aura … his aura shone with honesty. The psychic field reached up, wrapped around J’onn. A gentle cradle of concern. Truth, concern. And J’onn …
No trick. In all these aeons. Not a single trick of his captors had ever splintered him faster.
He ducked his head. Hid his eyes away. And after the smallest moment, his rescuer returned to his efforts. His aura … softened, a little. Tucking carefully around J’onn. As if to hide him.
J’onn hunched, curled around himself, and turned to more practical concerns. Let that … Let it happen. If it could. He could not … He would not let himself hope. Let it happen if it could. For him, now, more definite concerns. Let’s return to being a nuisance.
They were close enough to shield, now. Even with the shreds of strength remaining to J’onn. They were here, within reach. Four minds, arrayed around him. And … not completely undefended either. Perhaps another reason why they had managed to power through the baffles. One of them, J’onn recognised, at least by reputation. A Lantern of Oa. His captors had always stepped so carefully around them, slinking through the shadows where they weren’t. Lanterns weren’t telepathic, not usually, but they were difficult to control. Misdirection was easier, but if given enough warning, raw willpower could force a Lantern through. And another of these warriors, a female, had something with her. An artefact, a technology, that radiated an aura of truthfulness. It could not shield her mind, not truly, but again, it provided warning of some of their tricks.
They were … They were not as vulnerable as he’d thought, maybe. Not. Not enough to hope. Oh, against the scout ship, perhaps, but the main force …
But they were not undefended. At the very least, this planet might put up enough of a fight that the parasites might judge it better to leave rather than take losses? They were running low on food. All J’onn’s people had been spent long since, save himself, and newer food sources were not as … durable. They were spent so much faster. The fleet might not have the power to fight a long fight.
But … by the same token. They were hungry. They might not have enough food left to leave. Not without taking at least some longer-lasting specimens with them. From what J’onn could sense, the auras, the psychic emanations of these people, would not be enough to sustain the parasites long. Not unless there were a lot more of them, or several much bigger ones.
No. No, they wouldn’t leave. Starvation … They were cowards, but starvation was a hard way to go. J’onn would know. They wouldn’t want a long, slow death. And these people were not telepathic. As physically powerful as these four champions might be, their minds were still vulnerable. If his captors had sent enough information to the fleet. Identified a foothold target. Rich pickings. At the very least, they would stay long enough to ‘stock up’. And if they gained enough ground, then …
Then this world would go the way of Ma'aleca'andra. Eaten, slowly, into silence.
There was not enough grounds for hope. Even. Even as hands reached, finally, past the membrane. As hands touched him. Living ones, gentle ones. Not to implant horrors into his flesh, but to pull them out. Gently. As gently as possible. J’onn didn’t care. He welcomed every burn and tear as the tendrils were teased free. He moved. Tore them faster. Tried to … tried to climb, swim, pull himself towards the opening now splitting the membrane. Tried to fall forwards on the flood of liquid pouring outwards.
The hands caught him, instead. Braced him. Pulled him. Guided him.
J’onn hit the ground. He thought the alien, Superman, might have caught him, might have caught him easily, but J’onn had pulsed out a refusal. Desperation. He wanted … He wanted to feel. Not hands, bearing him to whatever fate. The floor. Gravity. His own spent strength. He hit. His legs crumpled under him. They’d never had any hope of bearing him. Nor did he have any strength left for control. He’d lost the ability to shift, to phase, ages ago. They’d eaten too much of him. On purpose, to hold him. Them. All they’d stolen of J’onn’s people. They’d eaten freely and gluttonously at the start. They’d only started rationing when the numbers dwindled, and it turned out there were few psychic food sources of a Malecandran’s calibre to be found. J’onn. The last of them. They’d made him last.
As had he, admittedly. Not hope. Surely, after all this time, not hope. But something. Spite. Stubbornness. Something. He had held on. Held some precious things. Some memory of strength.
Long enough to … to feel his own weakness once more. And take a breath outside his pod.
“I’m sorry,” Superman said. Crouching next to him, soft and gentle and concerned. “I wish you had longer to recover. But we need to go. I … I need to carry you. I’m sorry.”
Sorry? Ah. He’d read too strongly into J’onn’s desperation. It was not revulsion. Nor fear, either. But … But J’onn did flinch, when hands slid around his back. Manoeuvred him. Not into a pod. Not back into a pod. J’onn knew. Could sense, clear as sunrise. There was no cruel intent in the aura around him. But his captors were good at tricks. And he could not help but flinch.
Superman pulled him close. Tucked J’onn in against his chest. A sharp spike of fury bloomed quietly in the man’s aura. A slow, steady seep.
“Superman to League,” he said again. Quietly. “We’re out. Bring it down.”
Not try to bring it down. Not make an effort. Leashed fury. Leashed surety. A simple injunction. Bring it down.
And as J’onn hit … free air. Outside air. A planet. As Superman flew them both out through the holes he’d smashed through the superstructure. It was a distinctly gratifying sight, to see a red blur, and hammers of green light, and a shining golden lash, tear the scout ship to pieces behind him.
***
Superman flew him to a snowy peak a little way away. They were in an isolated area. Naturally. The scout would have aimed for a remote location, the better to remain undetected until their survey was complete. Just in case of telepathy, or technology, that could track them. They hunted primarily telepathic species. It was a constant consideration.
The air was … cold. What a sensation. The pods could be cold, if the ships were low on energy, but not … not like this. The snow was wet, when Superman gently eased them down. Let J’onn stand, sort of. Still held against him, but with his own feet on the ground. They sank into the substance. An initial crisp crunch, then wetness as the weight broke the surface. Softness. Cold.
J’onn turned his face into the chest beside him. A moment. Just a moment. He’d never …
It had been too much to hope. For years. Decades. Maybe, by this stage, even centuries. They’d made him last a long time. He’d had the power to last. An near-endless supply of psychic energy. But even Malecandrans eventually ran dry. He’d thought … He’d thought to warn someone. One last act of spite. He had not dared believe …
It would end badly, of course. This world would fall. He would have to witness it. But.
One breath. One moment of free air. That … That was a thing.
Superman didn’t push him. Didn’t question or challenge him. He simply waited, a warm, steady figure beside J’onn, and held him carefully while he breathed. But … eventually. The other three minds. Auras. Landed gently beside them.
Superman hugged him slightly. Reassurance, as J’onn gathered himself. J’onn could feel … a fierce, instinctive, almost subconscious protectiveness from him. Nothing reasoned. Nothing based on who J’onn was or might be. Simply an intrinsic reaction to someone who was hurt. Some vaguely remembered part of him bristled at it. The rest was rather exhaustedly grateful.
“… Hey,” one of the others said softly. Part wary, and part concerned. The red blur. The one who’d found them. Almost at the speed of thought. “Are we … Are we all okay?”
It was a far more gentle prompt than any J’onn had endured in a long time, but it was a prompt. And fair enough. He lifted his head.
“Thank you,” he sent. Given his overall condition, he didn’t want to try speaking physically. Though his mental condition was not better, and arguably significantly worse. But it was instinct. His first language. “I am … better than I have been in a long, long time. Thanks to you.”
Especially as he took a moment to scan the wreckage. They had been … very thorough. More thorough than they had intended to be. There were shattered white forms strewn among the wreckage, and he could feel that there were not intended to be. They had not intended to slaughter. To shatter the ship, yes, but not end all life among the invaders. But these …
“They are drones,” he sent softly, feeling the depths of their perturbation. “You did not kill all of them. Their own … The parasites are structured around a central figure, an intelligence that controls the hive. Should they fail their tasks, they do not deserve to survive. The moment they were revealed and entered combat with you, their fate was sealed. Even had you successfully captured some, the Imperium would have killed them from within.”
“The Imperium?” the Lantern demanded sharply. “What’s the Imperium, when it’s at home?”
J’onn blinked faintly. “I do not know if they have a home,” he admitted. He did not care if they had a home, truthfully. And if they did, he hoped they had lost it. “They are … roaming scavengers. Parasites. In all the time I have been with them, I have never sensed so much as a thought of home. Only of food. They exist to eat. The centre of the hive, the Imperium, has more complex desires. But hunger reigns over all, even for it.”
They were not beings. They were a plague. An all-devouring swarm. They had intelligence, yes, but only to further their hunger. All their might, all their intellect. It only existed to better enable them to feed.
He was … He wasn’t rational. Not about this. How could he be? Vaguely, he remembered the ideals of Ma’aleca’andra, the principles that had been the difference between them and their pale, warlike brethren. How terrible, to let these parasites wipe out what all the efforts of the Pale Malecandrans could not. But the Pale Ones had not been eaten. They had been safe in their prisons, while Ma’aleca’andra was harvested in the wake of the destruction they had wrought. And in the wake of that. Of centuries of imprisonment. J’onn could not remember mercy, nor respect, nor anything but … but blind, seething hatred.
The parasites were not a people. He would not acknowledge it. They were a plague.
“… I’m sorry,” someone said softly. The woman. Diana, he saw, sensing the name at the core of her identity. She approached, and stooped slightly to catch his eyes. “We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves. Forgive us. What is your name? May we know it?”
J’onn blinked. And blinked again.
“… J’onn,” he sent finally. And … slightly hesitantly. It was all that was left of him, one of three precious names he had secreted at his core. Four, if you counted Ma’aleca’andra. Some part of him was loathe to give it up. To hold it out, where it might be eaten. But there was no reason to deny these people. And … It would be good to die as himself. “I am J’onn J’onzz. I am from …”
He trailed off. Because. Because he saw it. In their minds. When he looked for the echoes, the knowledge. He saw … The remains of a world. A silent, empty planet. All that they knew of it. Which was nothing. Because … Because nothing remained. It had … It had all been …
“Mars,” he whispered. Aloud. Unable to hide the grief. “You … You call it Mars. It was … We were … It was Ma’aleca’andra. Once. But you call it Mars.”
They’d brought him home. Almost home. Enough to witness … the ruin that was left.
“Mars?” the Lantern asked. Still harsh, but almost hesitant, now. Careful. “There’s been nothing alive on Mars in …”
He didn’t say the number. J’onn heard it. Sensed it. All the precision of the Oan database. But the Lantern had the mercy not to say it.
They had … They had eaten him so slowly.
“It doesn’t matter,” J’onn said. Made himself. The shock was distant, all-encompassing. And irrelevant. “It was … a long time ago. What matters now is not my planet, but yours. There are more coming. This was merely a scout, given the dregs of fuel to spur them. The Imperium will have felt them be destroyed. And they are too hungry to leave without food. They will come. They will find a foothold. And they will harvest.”
Perhaps if it was mindless, an empty ravening, it would be easier to forgive. But the Imperium thought. It planned. And it ate.
“… What does that mean?” the red one asked now. Very warily. “Harvest. What does that mean?”
J’onn … J’onn looked at him. He had sent this already, some of this, snatches and sensations of it. That spike of desperation, when he thought he would be cut off. But perhaps their minds had shied from it. Disbelieved it, in pure self-defence. He could feel … The auras were important to them. A core foundation of their senses of self. Much as his people … He had salvaged all that he could. A core. They had eaten the rest. He was nothing now but the few shreds that were left. He could sense the distant horror for the thought of it. The instinctive, reflexive, protective disbelief. But he had neither time nor space to be gentle with them. It was too late.
“They eat auras,” he said softly. Mercilessly. “Psychic energy. My people were telepathic. Powerfully so. I have lasted … They travelled far on the fuel that we provided. But we are all gone now. I am all that is left, and I am well spent. They need more fuel. They cannot leave without it.”
The red one backed up. Instinctively. A physical step away. A runner’s instinct. The Lantern was more controlled, they were built on willpower, but he also raised his ring defensively. The woman, a warrior to her core, merely shifted her weight, bracing readily. And Superman …
He hissed out a breath, stunned and dismayed. And … looked at J’onn. Down at him. At the wounds. Where … Where the tendrils had torn.
“The pod,” he breathed faintly. “Those things inside you. They were …?”
J’onn breathed. The hollow at his core ached. But he was no longer inside it. And these people would not put him back.
The Imperium might. If this world fell. But it might not. A waste of a pod, to take back a source already spent. Especially when the auras of this world were so small.
“… They will look for a concentration,” he pushed out. Forged on, despite their horror and his own. “Your auras … Forgive me. I mean no offence. But by their standards, your auras are small. You will be spent quickly, perhaps only a few years. They will need a great many of them. The fleet has … They will find a concentration. Block it off, hide it. Harvest it dry. If they are not discovered, they will move on to another. They more they take, the stronger they become. If they get enough food fast enough, they will simply stay. Feast. Until … Until they are sated. And have enough stored to last them a longer voyage onwards.”
The Lantern shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, that doesn’t make sense. We’d have noticed. The Lanterns have a lot on our plate, but we’d damn well notice whole worlds going silent! Being eaten. How long have they … They’ve been doing this since Mars died? We would have noticed. The Guardians would have noticed!”
J’onn winced. Shuddered. Since … Yes. But he faced him down regardless.
“They go where Lanterns are not,” he rasped thickly. “And they are good at hiding. You felt it. If I had not saved the strength to draw your attention, you would never have noticed the ship. They hide. They … bend minds. Make them look away. The scout ship’s capabilities are weak, so they rely partly on isolation. But the command ship is much stronger. The Imperium is much stronger. I could not have reached out past those shields. I have seen … Yours is not the first world I have witnessed fall to them. They have had me for centuries. While I was held on the main ship, I could do nothing, even centuries ago when I was much closer to full strength. Only for the fact that I am too spent to be worth keeping, I would not have been here. And you would not have noticed them, until the foothold was already established.”
He had seen. Felt. So many times. He knew why it could not be believed, why it was too vast, too horrible, to be believed. But he had seen.
They chose worlds carefully. Powerful enough to feed them, but weak or isolated or distracted enough to be easily taken. Ma’aleca’andra had been splintered by civil war. Other worlds had hidden themselves, tucked themselves away from the universe at large, and died in silence when the first hunters to find them had eaten them all alive. Still others had been colonies of over-extended empires. The weak left to die at the edge of the herd. The Imperium was intelligent. And all its intelligence was bent to eating. Nothing more, and nothing less.
“You will have found them,” he continued softly. “The worlds they have eaten. They will have been colonies gone mysteriously silent. Worlds torn by war, until it looks as if they wiped each other out. Some of them you will not have found. Many were new, or young, or had chosen to hide themselves first, so that none would know if they fell. You have … If you check your database, Lantern. They have been doing this for a long time. Look for worlds that went silent after war. Colonies that starved themselves. If you see … I hope you do not. But if you see the interior of the command ship, you will find the remnants of those worlds in their pods. The most recent, at least. Malecandrans … Martians. We lasted longest. Most others last a few years or decades at most.”
The Lantern stared at him. Rage. Disbelief. Bottled anger. And … underneath them. The bedrock of all of them. A slow, seeping, primal horror. A dread. A knowledge. That J’onn … was right. If he looked, he would find them. He knew, already. J’onn was right.
“… Then how do we find them?” The woman, the warrior. Standing firm and steady, when both J’onn and the Lantern looked at her. “How do we find them, here, on this world, and how do we stop them?”
J’onn … J’onn flinched. Hunched around the ache. He didn’t know if they could. Not alone, not the four of them. And they were already the protectors of their world. He had reached for champions. There might not be many of even equal power that they could call on for aid. Oa, possibly, but that would take too much time. The Imperium would take the foothold supply and run. Thousands would be lost. A small price, perhaps, for a world, but …
But it didn’t matter. ‘Could’. It didn’t matter. It was already lost. So … So be a nuisance until the end.
“… They need a concentration. A large mass of auras. I can’t … My range is limited, and the Imperium has saved the bulk of their remaining power for itself. I won’t be able to track it unless I’m close. But the scout ship has been here for a while. So it will be close to here. A large … large mass of auras. Thousands or more. Preferably in a location easy to control. They can hide even the largest of cities, even from the strongest telepaths or furthest reaching technologies, but they are already low on food and power. They won’t want to expend any more energy than they have to. They are … They are hungry. They need a feast, to bolster themselves for further expansion. Large, powerful auras, or a large concentration of auras. Somewhere they can lock down and keep hidden long enough to feed.”
Superman stiffened beside him. Slowly, carefully. And the woman, Wonder Woman, Diana, J’onn skimmed their names now, straightened as well. Opposite him.
“… Gotham,” he whispered. Something wincing, frail, dismayed, shuddering through him. This creature that had ripped a ship apart with his bare hands to reach J’onn. “They’re going to Gotham.”
The Lantern balked, yet again. Blinked, bewildered.
“The hell city?” he asked, mildly incredulous. “Not to knock you or anything, Supes, but weren’t they like decimated by the quake way back when? I know they’ve been rebuilding, but … I mean, I know I’ve been in space a while, but I don’t think they’re back up to numbers to match Metropolis or New York or even Central. If we’re looking for a concentration …”
“No,” Wonder Woman said softly. “Kal is right. It is … It is a concentration of aura, not population. Gotham has no shortage of aura. And it is also … delicately positioned. If they seek a large feast, that few would notice missing …”
Fury stirred. Superman, beside him. His arm still around J’onn. That same fury from earlier, in the ship. When J’onn had flinched.
“I will notice,” he said quietly. Diamond hard. “And I won’t allow it, either.”
“No,” Wonder Woman answered coolly. “Nor I.”
The other two, the Lantern and the Flash, stared between them in consternation. And J’onn …
“May I?” he asked carefully. Turning, still in Superman’s arm, and raising one hand carefully towards his face. Forehead. Nothing to do with anything, but it helped many understand his meaning, if he gestured towards their head. “Show me. I will be able to tell if it is a viable target. I have … I have long experience. May I?”
Superman blinked at him. Startled. But nodded readily. And … focused. Showed …
J’onn let go again with a small gasp perhaps only a second later. The sensation was … rudimentary. These people were not telepathic, and had a different frame of reference for what they did sense via the auras. But even from that much …
“Yes,” he rasped thickly. “If they knew of this city. Found it. It would a prime target. Yes.”
No shortage of aura, she had said. J’onn could sense it. Even vague, through the memories of someone else. This place, this Gotham, was not short of aura. And J’onn had gleaned enough of its history from Superman’s (Kal’s, Clark’s) mind to know that it also fit a great many other of their criteria. A microcosm of their favourite targets. Worlds left out on the edges of great empires to die. Yes. If they knew of it, the Imperium would go for Gotham.
It would have already gone for Gotham. The moment it felt the scout ship destroyed. Knowing a Lantern was present. It had no time to waste. And neither did they.
“… If you are serious,” he said. Sent. Telepathy, once more. Let him die speaking his native tongue. “If you mean to fight them. Then we must go now. Call whoever you can call. But they would come the moment they felt the scout ship die. If Gotham is their target … then Gotham is already fighting. And we must go now.”
To die. J’onn couldn’t walk, couldn’t so much as stand on his own. And his powers were eaten. He could shield them, maybe. These four, if they stayed close. Even against the Imperium, maybe, for a few moments or so. But not much more than that. A century ago, maybe, but … he was bleeding. The tendrils had not just torn but eaten his flesh. Scraping out those last few scraps of power. He had nothing left to offer. Nothing he could do except die.
But … free. Fighting. For people who could think and feel and protect. A city cut out and left to die. In … In the shadow of Ma’aleca’andra. Of home.
An hour ago a last breath of warning had been all he’d thought he could offer. But now. A dream he would never have dared to dream. He need not die in a pod. He could die fighting. Maybe, at least some little bit, helping. Keeping … even one person. One. From the pods.
They would not win, but that was irrelevant. One disruption, that was all he asked. One snarl. One chance. To spite them, these monsters, even as he died.
And … to help. A thing he had not dreamed possible in centuries. Hands had freed him. Hands had pulled him from the pod. Had chosen to, despite all the fatal risk to their world to do so. It was … too much. Far too much to dream, to repay. But. He had breath, still. No strength, but breath. He was not dead yet. Perhaps, this one last time, the Imperium had made an error. And if so. J’onn would drag it with him to the grave.
To Gotham. For hope, for gratitude, and for spite. For … the memory of Ma’aleca’andra.
Let him die making a monster’s life difficult one more time.