[Emissary] Chapter 17 - Vow (Patreon)

AN: If you're interested in joining my Discord server, you can do it at /nzxJcxsyrd

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

Chapter 17 - Vow

“Good morning, Superman. What brings you to Star Labs so early today?” asked a middle-aged man with tanned skin and grey hair. His square glasses and well-trimmed beard gave him an intellectual appearance and the white lab coat he was wearing suggested that he was either a scientist or a doctor. 

“Professor Hamilton! Still working as hard as ever!”

“Haha! A particularly interesting project has kept me up all night. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how difficult-,” he suddenly stopped and cleared his throat. “Never mind that; is there anything I can help you with?”

Looking at the device in his hands, the professor asked:

“Is that… a hard drive?”

“Yes. I was wondering if you could help me out with it. This hard drive contains extremely sensitive information that I can’t easily trust others with. You’re the only one I can entrust this to. Can you help me?”

“Hmm, let me take a look at it. Follow me to my lab,” he said, walking ahead. 

Ten minutes later, Superman watched how the middle-aged man was typing furiously on the keyboard of his computer. 

“I’ve never seen this level of security anywhere. Even Star Labs doesn’t have that sort of encryption system for its secret files… I’m afraid it will take me a few days to decrypt it,” the professor said. 

“I understand. Considering who I got this hard drive from, I wouldn’t expect any less from their cyber security. I’ll owe you one, Professor.”

“Speak nothing of it,” Hamilton waved him off. “Our relationship is far beyond such niceties.”

Superman smiled, but he insisted: “I know, but I’d feel bad to make you go through all this trouble for nothing. If you ever need anything, feel free to call me. You still have my Super Watch, don’t you?”

“I do, right here,” Hamilton said, rolling up his sleeve to show him the red and blue watch around his left wrist. “This watch is like a second life to me. Ever since Intergang tried to kidnap me that day, I never forget to wear it, no matter the occasion.”

The two men exchanged pleasantries and made some small talk for a few more minutes before Superman bid his goodbyes and flew away. 

Professor Hamilton was one of Superman’s oldest friends, a genius scientist, and one of the senior members of the Starr Labs. Superman had come to him for the sake of decrypting Batman’s hard drive and finding out what secrets Batman had uncovered about Harry Potter before he died. 

As his superhearing picked up the sound of sirens ringing in the distance, Superman let out a sigh. 

“I really hope GL and Shaeyra get discharged from the hospital soon,” he muttered before changing the direction of his flight, heading towards the sound of sirens. 

It wasn’t even 9 p.m. yet, but Superman had already had to stop four crimes, of which three happened in Gotham. Now that he was the only active member of the Justice League, he was really feeling the strain of having to take care of everything by himself. 

⁂

While Superman was running himself ragged fighting crime, a few hundred kilometres away, in New York, Power Girl was just waking up. 

Yawning and stretching her arms, she realised that the other side of her bed was empty. 

‘I hope, for his own good, that he didn’t disappear on me again,’ she thought. 

But as she stood up and left her bedroom, she noticed that her apartment was uncharacteristically tidy. Not only that she normally did not have much time for cleaning due to how many hours she spent at work every day but, last night, she and Harry also left a trail of clothes and shoes on their way to the bedroom from the living room. 

Remembering their last night’s activities put a smile on her face. Her smile got even larger when she found him in the kitchen. 

He was sitting on a chair with his back to the entrance, and he seemed to be so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t even hear the door opening. 

Seeing that he didn’t hear her coming in, her smile turned mischievous. She was going to scare the living daylights out of him!

She tried to fly, but, much to her exasperation, it looked like her powers weren’t working that morning. The only option left was to walk on her tippy toes and do her best to be stealthy. 

Harry was in the middle of inscribing some Magic Runes on the back of a mirror when he felt a weight settle on his head, and a sudden shout startled him:

“Freeze! You’re under a breast!”

Recognising her voice, he burst into laughter. 

“Really?! Making puns about your breasts? Ahahaha!”

Power Girl laughed with him as she hugged his head from behind and bent down to kiss him on the cheek. 

“What got you up so early? Waking up next to the one you love is one of the best feelings in the world. Why would you rob me of that?” she said, pouting. 

“I thought you weren’t in love with me just yet?” he retorted as he put the finishing touches on his little project. “Something about me needing to keep on being sweet and attentive before you might fall for me.”

“That was yesterday. What can I say? I’m a simple woman. I fall in love easily.”

“You liked our last night that much? Well done, me!” Harry snickered as he praised himself, but he let out a gasp of pain when her teeth sank into the lobe of his ear. “Ow! Ow!”

“I always wake up early-” he began to explain.

“Just like an old man,” she muttered.

“Well, this old man was working on a gift for you but if you don’t want it…” he said as he took a palm-sized mirror from his pocket.

It was rectangular, a bit thicker than most mirrors, and it had a red protective cover. At first glance, it looked no different from a smartphone. 

“What’s this?” she asked as she snatched it from his hands and opened the cover, making him chuckle at her impatience. “A mirror?” 

“Yes. To be more precise, it is a magical, two-way mirror. It comes in a pair of two. That is yours, and this will be mine,” he said as he gestured to the face-down mirror on the table that he was still working on. “Although I’ve gotten my magic under control now, accidents could still happen, and I could fry my new phone again. But there won’t be any issues of that sort with these magical mirrors. Think of them as a sort of magic smartphone.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet of you!” she said and kissed him on the cheek again, making him smile. 

“Also, don’t worry about it breaking. I cast an Unbreakable Charm on it. Try using your super strength on it. I think even you’ll have trouble damaging it.”

“I would if I could. My powers aren’t working this morning, again,” she said. 

“You should really try solving that problem one of these days,” he advised. “Ignoring a problem won’t fix it.”

“I don’t believe in therapy. And I told you I’m not going to let anyone rummage through my mind, no thank you.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders and dropped the subject. He knew that, with how stubborn she was, insisting would only make her want to do the opposite. 

“Besides,” Kara continued, “We are super busy today.”

“I thought you took a day off today. And what do you mean by ‘we’? What are you cooking up in that devious little head of yours?”

“I’d like us to go to Morocco today and strike a deal with their government.”

“What for?”

“For the sake of stopping desertification and reclaiming land from the desert.”

“Wait, you were serious about that?!” he asked, remembering that she had mentioned something like that during his ‘job interview’. 

“Of course I was!”

“You’ve gone barmy! Do you realise what kind of endeavour is this? The Sahara Desert is immense. It would take me decades to finish something like that.”

Merely restoring New York City had taken a big toll on Harry, and he had needed to borrow Death’s magic power in order to do it. Planting a belt of trees around the desert and fast-forwarding their growth with his [Arc of Time] magic might take him nearly half a century to accomplish. 

“Calm down. We won’t start such a large-scale operation right away. We’ll first test it on a small strip of land, and we’ll also have to wait two or three years in order to see whether the species of trees we have chosen have thrived or died.”

Harry was relieved to hear her say that. He had better things to do with his time and with his life than planting trees in a desert. 

“Anyway. After that, we’re also going to Europe. Of course, you’re not forced to come, but I’d be happy if you tagged along.”

“Well, I don’t have anything in particular planned for today.”

“Great! I’m going to see my former teammates from the Justice League of Europe. I left Paris a few months ago, and I haven’t gone back to visit even once. They were good friends. I’d like to introduce you to them.”

“If this is a ploy to make me become a member of their team, I’ll have to refuse,” Harry said straight away. 

“It’s just a visit,” she reassured him, and she tousled his already messy hair even more before taking a seat on the chair next to him and watching him work on the second mirror, the one that was going to be his. 

In the meantime, Harry pointed his wand at the rack of dishes and then at the French press coffee maker, making them float to them. Kara watched with interest as the coffee maker poured hot coffee into a cup and floated down in front of her. 

“I’m living the life of a Disney princess!” 

He chuckled at her enthusiasm. It reminded him of how he used to be as a child when he discovered magic for the first time. 

Once Harry finished his two-way mirror too, he started preparing breakfast using magic, much to Kara’s delight. She watched in fascination how the eggs cracked and poured by themselves in the frying pan; the knife was cutting tomatoes by itself; and so on and so forth. 

It was a perfect morning, after a perfect night, spent in the company of the person they were in love with. Everything was perfect… until Harry and Kara went to the balcony of her penthouse together. 

“What the… HARRY?! What did you do to him?!” Kara yelled and rushed ahead. 

In front of them, a one-eyed orange cat was hanging off from the top part of the door’s frame with a rope tied around its midsection. It seemed to be meowing, but no sound was coming from his mouth. 

Power Girl pulled on the rope to rip it off, forgetting that her powers weren’t working that day. 

“A little help here?”

“No. That little bastard deserves to stay right where he is!”

She looked at him as if he had grown two heads. 

“Are you being serious right now?! Why would you even do something like this to him?! Tying him up, and… you even put a muting spell on him?!”

Harry lifted the Silencing Charm that he had cast on the cat and cut rope with his magic too, but he was clearly not happy about it. 

“If only you knew the kind of words he was saying.”

“What are you saying? He’s a cat! He can’t talk!” she said. 

Her disbelief was so high that she was tempted to think he was messing with her. 

“Oh, trust me, that old bastard can talk. And he talks a lot.”

“This is unbelievable!” she said as she hugged the meowing Stinky to her chest. 

“You can shoot lasers from your eyes and make ice with your breath; why is it so hard to think I can understand what the cat says?” 

When he put it that way, her incredulity subsided, and she became a bit unsure of what to think. 

“Even so-”

Power Girl forgot what she was about to say when, under her incredulous eyes, Harry Potter’s silhouette abruptly decreased and changed shapes. In but a second, the dark-haired young man transformed into a cat. His fur was as dark as the night, and his eyes were an emerald green. 

At the sight of Harry transforming into a black cat, Stinky let out a panicked yowl and a hiss before jumping out of Kara’s arms and breaking into a mad dash inside the house. 

It was the behaviour of a cat who realised that he was about to get scalped for all the mad shit he talked while thinking that the human couldn’t understand him. 

Kara was stunned speechless as she looked at the black cat. 

“Whoa…” she exclaimed as she picked up the cat from the floor and looked into his green eyes. “Did you just turn into a cat?”

“Meow!”

She actually let out a squeal when she heard him meow and hugged the black cat to her chest.

Momentarily, Harry was tempted to turn back into a human while she was holding him. It would have been hilarious…if not for the fact that her powers weren’t working that day. He didn’t want to crush her under his weight. 

So he jumped gracefully from her arms before turning back into his human form. 

“You never said you could turn into a cat!!” she said as she came to him, her blue eyes shining with excitement. “Tell me, what else can you do?”

At that moment, Power Girl didn’t look like Karen Starr, the serious and no-nonsense CEO of an engineering company, but like Kara, the alien girl who had never seen such magic in her life. 

“So now you believe me? That damn cat was the rudest animal I’ve ever talked to. If he were human, he wouldn’t have gotten off so lightly.”

“You’re a 500-year-old magician, yet you’re beefing with a cat…seriously!” she laughed, finding the idea of it hilarious. 

⁂

Things don’t always go according to plan, and that happened to be the case for Power Girl’s plans that day as well. She and Harry were in the middle of dressing appropriately for their trip to Morocco when Martian Manhunter’s voice rang in her head. 

“Power Girl. It is me, Martian Manhunter.”

“J’onn?” Power Girl asked mentally. “Do you need something?”

“Is it a bad time?” 

Her first intention was to tell him that she had plans for the rest of the day, but she changed her mind. J’onn J’onzz never contacted her unless it was a pressing matter.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” she asked the Martian mentally. 

“I need to speak with Emissary. I am currently outside your balcony.”

“Harry, Martian Manhunter is here, and he needs to talk to you,” Kara called Harry, who was in the bathroom, shaving his stubble with a spell and checking himself up in the mirror. 

Once they went to the balcony, they saw the Martian waiting for them. 

“Lex Luthor from the other dimension was discharged from the hospital half an hour ago. He wants to go back to his dimension, but the problem is that his teleporting device was destroyed in the fight against the Crime Syndicate on the moon,” the Martian said straight away. “He is hoping that you will be able to teleport him there with your magic.”

“Can’t he just build another device?” Harry asked. “He’s the one who invented it.”

“He could, but it’s not easy to get a hold of the parts and materials he needs. It could take weeks.”

Harry showed an unsure expression. 

“I could give him a portkey that would take him there, but the problem is that it will teleport him to the only place I’ve been to.”

“...The Crime Syndicate’s base on the moon,” J’onn said in realisation. 

“Yes. He’d be teleported straight into the lion’s den.” Harry confirmed. 

“Maybe you should talk to him in person. Could you teleport together with me to the Watchtower?”

“Are you sure? Last time I was there Superman told me to bugger off.”

“I will vouch for you personally,” Martian Manhunter said. 

Turning towards Power Girl, Harry told her:

“It looks like our plans will have to be put on the backburner…”

Kara let out a sigh. 

“It is what it is… just give me two minutes to change into my hero suit.”

“You’re coming too?” he asked surprised because he knew her powers weren’t working that day. 

“Might as well. It beats staying at home and watching telenovelas.”

“You’re watching soap operas? You?” 

She laughed at his incredulous voice. 

“I don’t. That’s the point. I’d do anything instead of watching that.”

⁂

A few minutes later, Harry, Power Girl, and Martian Manhunter Apparated in the Watchtower’s Monitor Room. 

Unlike the last time when Harry was there and Superwoman and her Made Men wrecked the place, the Monitor Room was cleaned and fixed. Everything looked as good as new. 

“J’onn, you’re back. I see you brought him too,” Superman said when his eyes fell on Harry. But then, the sight of Power Girl made him ask: “Power Girl? What brings you here?”

As far as he knew, Power Girl was extremely busy with her company. She had retired from crime fighting. 

“I’m just tagging along with Harry. I took a day off from work to spend it with him, but, well, as you can tell, things happened.”

“...Why are you with him?” Superman raised his voice. “How can you be with him? You know what he did!”

“He saved our lives, Superman,” Martian Manhunter said. “Without him, we would have been killed by the Crime Syndicate.”

“Look, I’m not here to start a polemic,” Harry said before their verbal exchanges devolved into an argument. “I came here because you needed my help, but if you don’t need it, I can leave right away. I’d much rather spend my day with Kara than here, arguing with you.”

Superman looked like he was on the verge of exploding. It was one thing for him to hold himself back while knowing he did not have any hard proof that Emissary was evil. 

But hearing the fact that Power Girl, someone whom he saw almost like family, was in a relationship with the one who had murdered Batman, was really testing his self-control.

“No, I do need your help. I can’t stay here a moment longer. Not while the Crime Syndicate is wreaking havoc in my own dimension,” Lex Luthor said. 

He had healed from most of his wounds, but he wasn’t wearing his supersuit anymore since it had been destroyed, and his bald head was sporting a rather gnarly claw scar. 

“As everyone else here knows, I can only teleport to places I’ve been before. And the only place I’ve been to in your dimension was the Crime Syndicate’s base on the moon…”

Lex Luthor sat back on his chair and buried his face in his palms. 

“But even if you go back, what could you do all by yourself?” Hawkgirl asked. “You saw it too; that spineless president is too afraid of the Syndicate to do anything.”

“I can’t do anything alone,” Luthor agreed. “You may not have been able to help me, but, somewhere in the vast multiverse, there surely is a Justice League version of ourselves that will be willing to help.”

“Leaving that aside, how are you going to escape unharmed if Emissary were to teleport you in the middle of their base on the moon?” John Stewart asked.

“I could cast a spell to make him invisible,” Harry offered. “And another spell that would make people instinctively ignore his presence. Where I come from, we used to call them Notice-me-Not Charms. Only magical people would be able to see through them. But that’s as far as I can help him.”

“That’s already more than I could ask for,” Lex Luthor said. “With those two spells, it wouldn’t be too hard to get to Hangar and steal one of their ships.”

“But what about Superwoman and her three Made Men?” Superman addressed the elephant in the room. 

Superwoman and those Made Men of hers were almost as tough as Wonder Woman. Nobody felt safe keeping them at the Watchtower. They were afraid that their current shackles would not keep them imprisoned for long. But at the same time, none of them even considered the option of executing them. 

“I say we send them back to where they came from,” Green Lantern said.

Lex Luthor frowned as she said:  “Couldn’t you give them a trial here? Lock them in a special prison for metahumans?”

“And trial them for what?” Hawkgirl asked. ”They aren’t from this world, they don’t even have an identity, and we can’t pin any crimes on them either.”

“I may be able to help with that,” Harry said. 

In truth, there were several ways to deal with them, but Harry wasn’t about to reveal all his abilities to them and make them even more paranoid of him.

“It’s a spell that would magically bind them to someone. We will give them a choice: either make an Unbreakable Vow to stop committing crimes and obey Mr Luthor here, or threaten to kill them.”

“We aren’t going to kill anyone!” Superman shouted at him right away. It was as if he had been waiting for the chance to explode all along. 

“You’re being awfully antagonistic, Superman,” Harry said, getting fed up with his behaviour. 

Something in the tone of his voice set the rest of the Justice League on edge. 

“I’ll say it for the last time. I do not owe you anything. I am not obligated to help you or anyone here. I am doing you all a favour now.”

“If you don’t want me here, I can leave at this instant. I’m in no mood to deal with your temper tantrums, brat.”

Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Martian Manhunter watched their interaction without saying a word. 

The rest of the Justice League felt like they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they understood that Emissary had never meant to kill Batman. Furthermore, Emissary had saved their lives when they fell into the Crime Syndicate’s trap. 

But on the other hand, Superman was their friend. And accidental or not, Emissary's spell did kill Batman. They did not know whose side to take.

When Superman didn’t say anything in response, Harry continued:

“As I was saying, we will threaten to kill them. It’s only a threat, a bluff, but they’ll have no way of knowing that.”

“What if she doesn’t fall for your bluff?” asked Hawkgirl. 

“Oh, I’m quite sure she will,” he said, knowing that he had put the fear of death in her with his Cruciatus Curse. “But if she doesn’t, then it will be up to you to think of a different method. After all, you’re the Justice League. I’m no longer a part of this team.”

⁂

“Well, well, look who came to visit me in my cell!” Superwoman said and smiled flirtatiously. “Green eyes, I have missed you.”

Lex Luthor gave Harry a sidelong glance, not having expected Superwoman to greet him like that. 

“I can’t say the feeling is mutual,” Harry muttered as he took out the Elder Wand. 

Luthor didn’t miss the way Superwoman’s eyes fell on Emissary’s wand or the minute change in her facial expression. 

“So, to what do I owe your visit? Does it have anything to do with the baldie next to you? I would have liked it much more if you visited me alone.”

“Enough of these games!” Lex Luthor snapped at her. “Listen carefully, Superwoman. Your life is hanging by a thread now.”

Superwoman rolled her eyes. “As if a boy scout like you would have the stones to do anything to me, let alone kill me.”

“He may not kill you, but I have no qualms about taking your life,” Harry said calmly, his eyes boring into hers. “You wouldn’t be the first, not the last. Your little boyfriend, Owlamn was his name? He died at my hands too.”

As the saying goes, it takes one to know one. As a psychotic killer, Superwoman had murdered many people in her life. It took only one glance into Harry’s cold eyes for her to understand that he was no stranger to killing people either. 

“What do you want from me?” she asked. 

The frivolous air around her disappeared, and a serious expression appeared on her face. 

“You have two options. Either swear a magical oath that you will behave and live like a good person. Or die by my hand now.”

As if to emphasise his words, he raised the Elder Wand and pointed it at her. 

“You want me to become a hero? Are you crazy?” Superwoman asked in disbelief. “Might as well just kill me now!”

“Is that so?” Harry said calmly. “Very well.”

But when a red light appeared at the tip of the wand, Superwoman suddenly shouted:

“Wait, Wait!”

Harry cancelled the spell that he was about to cast but didn’t drop his wand. 

“What is it?”

Superwoman let out a curse under her breath. 

“What kind of hero is this trigger-happy? Goddamn it!”

“Clock’s ticking. I don’t have the whole day,” Harry said indifferently. 

“Fucking hell, just give me a minute to think!” she yelled at him.

“What’s there to think about?” he asked. “It’s all very simple: submit or die.”

When the tip of his wand lit up again, she shouted:

“Fine! Fine! Damn it, I’ll swear the blasted oath!”

Harry nodded before he cast a spell to release one of her hands from the high-tech shackles immobilising her to the wall. 

“Don’t even think about any funny business. I’ll kill right where you stand the moment you make a single wrong move,” Harry said coldly, his wand trained on her the entire time. 

⁂

Although only Emissary and Lex Luthor went down to the cells where Superwoman and her Made Men were imprisoned, they could all see and hear what was going on there thanks to the surveillance cameras installed in the cell. 

Blood rushed to Power Girl’s head when she saw Superwoman flirt with Harry like that. It was only the fact that Harry didn’t show any reaction to her words that stopped her from going down there and giving that hoe a piece of her mind, regardless of whether her Kryptonian powers worked or not. 

Alas, when Emissary threatened to kill her, Superwoman wasn’t the only one who felt that he was actually entirely willing and capable of committing murder. John Stewart, a former marine, and Hawkgirl, a member of the Thanagarian military could both sense it too. 

It was a facet of Harry Potter that they had not seen until then, a darker side that made them narrow their eyes in thought. It came to their minds at that moment that they actually didn’t know much, if anything, about Emissary or the kind of life that he had lived before joining the Justice League. 

They were broken from their thoughts when Harry freed one of Superwoman’s arms and made her clasp Lex Luthor’s arm in a forearm handshake. 

“This magical oath of yours… what happens if I break it?” Superwoman asked.

“You will die,” Harry said simply. 

When Superwoman squinted her eyes at him, he told her:

“Don’t think that your magic will save you. I have lived for over 500 years. Nobody, and I mean it, absolutely nobody, has ever survived after breaking their vow. It’s called the Unbreakable Vow for a reason.”

“Five hundred years?? Jesus Christ,” Green Lantern said in disbelief. Emissary didn’t look a day over 30 in his eyes.

Hawkgirl and Superman weren’t any less shocked either. 

“Is that why he called Superman a brat?” Hawkgirl said in realisation. 

“Did you know about that?” Superman asked Power Girl, noticing that she didn’t appear to be surprised. 

“I did.”

They stopped chatting when Harry asked:

“So what is it going to be? I won’t ask again. Will you make an Unbreakable Vow, or die?”

“I’ll make the stupid Vow. Just get over it already!” she spat at him. 

“Wait a moment, what about me? What’s going to happen to me?” Lex Luthor suddenly asked. 

“There are no disadvantages to you whatsoever,” Harry said. 

Turning his attention to Superwoman, Harry began casting the spell and asked:

“Will you, Mary Bromfield, lead an honest life and attempt to fight crime to the best of your ability for as long as Lex Luthor requires your help?”

Superwoman’s jaw muscles could be seen bulging from how hard she was clenching her teeth before finally replying:

“I will.”

A thin tongue of fire came from Harry’s wand and coiled around Lex Luthor's and Superwoman’s locked forearms. 

“Will you protect Lex Luthor to the best of your ability and never seek to betray or harm him?”

“I will.”

A second thread of fire came from the Elder Wand and coiled around their forearms, its ends uniting with the first thread of fire and forming a chain. 

“Will you help Lex Luthor to the best of your ability in defeating the Crime Syndicate and reinstating order?”

“I will.”

A third fiery snake shot from Harry’s wand and intertwined with the others around Lex Luthor and Superwoman’s forearms and hands, sealing the Unbreakable Vow.

⁂

After repeating the same process with Superwoman’s three Made Men (who had had no other choice but to obey her orders), Lex Luthor’s face was lighted by a radiant smile. 

Although Harry had managed to defeat them, that was mostly because they had never fought someone as versatile and experienced in magic combat as him. Lex Luthor was quite sure that a second fight between Emissary and Superwoman wouldn’t end in Emissary’s favour now that she knew what he was capable of. Lex Luthor knew better than anyone just how formidable Superwoman and her Made Men could be. 

He had never expected to all of a sudden gain four extremely formidable allies who were incapable of betraying him. 

‘Even if I don’t seek help from another dimension's Justice League, we might be able to overturn the Crime Syndicate just with the five of us,’ Lex Luthor thought. 

After all, of the original 6 Crime Lords, the Martian and Owlman were dead now, and Superwoman was now on his side. The Crime Syndicate had already lost half of its strength. 

Having chosen a piece of cable long enough for all five of them to be able to grab onto, Harry touched it with his wand, making it glow with a blue light. 

Unexpectedly, Martian Manhunter also grabbed the cable together with Lex Luthor, Superwoman, and the three Made Men.

“J’onn? What are you doing?” asked Superman, his eyes wide with surprise. 

“I have decided to go with Lex Luthor to the other dimension,” Martian Manhunter replied. 

“But… but why?” Green Lantern asked. “We need you here… we need you here more than ever now that Batman is dead and Wonder Woman and Emissary quit the Justice League. Flash isn’t active in the League anymore either.”

“Is it because of the president’s daughter?” the ever-perceptive Hawkgirl asked, having noticed that the girl and the Martian had gotten close after he prevented an assassination attempt on her person. 

Before their final battle against the Crime Syndicate on the moon, Martian Manhunter became acquainted with the other dimension's president’s daughter and realised, much to his surprise, that their minds were attuned. Even amongst Martians, it was an extremely rare phenomenon. 

“She is, indeed, one of the reasons why I decided to return, but not only,” J’onn J’onzz replied. 

Originally, he would not have returned to the other dimension just because of her. However, Batman’s death due to his own dark intentions towards a fellow teammate disillusioned J'onn from the thought that the Justice League was like a family. Family members wouldn't plot against each other and harbour ill intent for one another.

Lastly, Superman’s behaviour after that was a small but pivotal push that convinced him to make a different choice, to go to the other dimension together with Lex Luthor instead of staying in this world. 

“This is not a spur-of-the-moment decision on my part. I have thought about it for over a week,” Martian Manhunter said, revealing the reason why nobody had been able to contact him ever since they returned from their fight with the Syndicate.

The Martian's expression faltered when Hawkgirl came to give him a goodbye hug. 

“Will you come back to visit us, at least?” Shayera asked. 

“I will. Once the Crime Syndicate is dealt with, I could come back,” the Martian said. 

“J’onn-” Superman began to say but Martian Manhunter just shook his head. He wasn’t going to change his mind now, at the very last second. 

“I’m sorry, Superman, but I have made up my mind,” he said before giving the rest one last goodbye. “Everyone, it’s been an honour to fight crime together with you.” 

Turning towards Harry, J’onn J’onzz said, “I am ready to go now.”

Harry nodded at him and started casting Disillusionment Charms on each one of them. His mastery of the spell was so high that they became completely invisible. 

“Should I cast the spells that would make others ignore your presence too?” he asked. 

“No. It might work against us since Martian Manhunter and I would be susceptible to not recognising Superwoman and the rest,” said Lex Luthor. “This invisibility spell should be enough. Even if we were to be discovered and a fight broke out, the five of us should be more than enough to deal with them. After all, normally, there aren’t many Syndicate members present in the tower. Most of them are in the field, performing their duties for the Family Heads.”

“I see. Well then, everyone, grab onto the cable and don’t let go, no matter what. On my mark, 3, 2, 1. Stinky.”

Power Girl snorted softly in amusement when she heard the activation word that Harry had set for the portkey but didn’t say anything. 

In the next moment, Martian Manhunter, Lex Luthor, Superwoman, and the three Made Men were whisked away, vanishing into thin air. 

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN1: in the canon, it is said that Animagus Wizards can talk with other animals. Pettigrew talked to other rats in order to find Voldemort’s shade. 

AN2: Related to Martian Manhunter, it was foreshadowed a bit that he wasn't left unaffected by what had transpired. His connection with the other world's president's daughter happened in the movie as well and Wonder Woman even encouraged J'onn to stay behind for that girl, to not kick away the opportunity to find love.

AN3: As for Stinky (Power Girl’s half-blind old cat), it’s a running joke in the comics that he’s an ill-mannered and irascible cat who picks fights with everyone. 

This chapter brings the "Crisis on Two Earths" arc to an end and it also sets up the foundation for the next story arc. I hope you enjoyed it.