Chapter 4417: Prelude to Darkness (Part 9)

After a round of questioning and investigation, an officer walked over, saluted Barry, and said, "Sorry, sir, there's bad news."

"What?" Barry asked.

"These two cunning Martians might have destroyed your parents' grave. When we went there to investigate, we found the coffin had been pried open, and the grave was already empty."

"What?!!!" Barry almost jumped up and said, "How could this happen?!!!"

"We suspect they did it to find an excuse for their infiltration. To fake a resurrection from the dead, they had to fake the scene of resurrection. That's why they dug up the cemetery and took away your parents' original remains, pretending they crawled out of the grave; this way, it's easier to deceive people."

"My god!" Barry said in disbelief, "Then where did they put my parents' remains?!!"

"We are still checking," the officer said. "This might be the first batch of living Martians we've captured. The higher-ups' meaning is to hand them over to the Federation, and then find the most professional experts to study them. However, the president's side..."

"We will be responsible for explaining," Hal said. "But you had better be truly professional. If you can't give us an explanation, the president might be very angry."

"Rest assured," the officer said. "We haven't had any results after such a long time of spy screening; it's not easy to catch living ones, we also want to make a contribution."

After the two left the police station, Barry sighed long and said, "I have to go to the cemetery; at least restore my parents' grave first."

"I'll go with you; Green Lantern energy will come in handy." Hal nodded and said.

The two went to the cemetery where Barry's parents were buried and found the grave had indeed been dug open. Hal circled the place a few times and said, "It looks quite real; it really looks like they crawled out of the grave. This is too unbelievable."

Actually, he meant that they all knew there was no such thing as Martians. Then these two might really have crawled up from the grave, it's just that Barry didn't think they were the original people, so he could only treat them as monsters first.

"Do you think I'm a monster?" Hal asked.

"Do you want to hear the truth?"

"Of course, I've already prepared myself mentally."

Barry said very seriously for once: "'Resurrection' is Pandora's box. Humans absolutely do not have the ability to open it now. Anyone who attempts to do so, or has already done so, will definitely meet with retribution."

"Then you said it right," Hal sighed and said. "I'm meeting with retribution now, neither dead nor alive, it's terribly uncomfortable. But I was also using an expedient measure at the time; if I didn't come back to life, the subsequent war situation would be another matter. But this is ultimately a mistake; perhaps I should end it?"

"But the problem now is, you can't end it. You don't think that as long as you die, the problem is over, right?" Barry shook his head and said, "It absolutely won't be that simple. How exactly you resurrected, and why the resurrection didn't succeed completely, before figuring out these problems, you can't die. Otherwise..."

"But you just said that resurrection is a field humans cannot touch. How come you want to study it now?"

Barry closed his eyes for a moment and said, "I don't know if I've told you, but the Speed Force can travel through time; time power is the power of cause and effect. The sequence of events on every timeline is a manifestation of established cosmic rules.

"If someone who shouldn't be alive is alive, the entire future direction will be changed. Even if he dies later, the direction won't change back to the original, but will become another kind of future, not to mention correcting mistakes.

"So even if I know they aren't my parents, I know they shouldn't be alive, I can't kill them, because that won't make the future the same as the original. You can't compare which of the two futures is better: killing them after they resurrect, or letting them live on after they resurrect. Perhaps dying would be worse, so you still can't die."

Hal was a bit dizzy from his explanation, but he roughly understood Barry's meaning. Anyway, if he had died at Steppenwolf's hands that day, it might have been the worst ending. If he survived, it was a slightly better ending.

And if he now committed suicide again with the idea of correcting mistakes, then perhaps some things he needed to do in the future couldn't be done, and he would face a bad ending again. And if he lived on, it might still be a slightly better ending.

In general, from the moment he was resurrected, the future had already changed. Then perhaps the ending of him living would be better than him dying, so it's better not to die.

Barry wasn't using double standards either. Although he was very terrified and angry, he didn't really do anything to those two people. At first, he just wanted to drive them away; it was the other party who cried thief while being the thief and called the police, which led to the current situation; it could only be said that they brought it on themselves.

After returning to the base, Hal comforted Barry for a long while. And at this time, Arthur returned. Hal asked, "How is the situation in Atlantis?"

"It's okay. We lost some manpower in the last battle, but we got some Parademon corpses. Scientists are working hard to study them; perhaps we can get something useful."

Arthur sat on the sofa. Seeing Barry, he asked somewhat confusedly, "What's wrong? You look a bit unhappy."

Hal was worried about having no one to complain to, so he told Arthur everything that had just happened. Arthur was very shocked and said, "Resurrected out of thin air? This is truly rare. Do they have your parents' memories?"

"It seems they do," Barry said somewhat dejectedly, "even the habitual small movements of my parents are the same."

"No," Arthur said, "these things are very easy to imitate, even that feeling of not knowing can be acted out. But there is a method that can make them have nowhere to hide."

"What?"

"Mental search," Arthur said, "J'onn is a very powerful master of mind-reading; not only can he read thoughts on the shallow layer and deep memories, but even those things deliberately sealed away cannot escape his sharp eyes. If you want to know the origin of these two people, finding him to conduct a search is definitely correct."

Hal and Barry looked at each other; both of them felt this plan was feasible. That pair of disguised parents couldn't be completely unaware; even if their shallow consciousness didn't know, perhaps they were also hinted at in their subconscious, and these could all be found out.

Arthur immediately took out his phone and called J'onn, but found there was no signal. He said, "J'onn should be on Mars; let's go over and find him."

The three came to the Martian spaceship together, but J'onn wasn't on the spaceship either. Arthur had no choice but to call Bruce; upon learning that J'onn had gone to the east of the city, Arthur also frowned.

They had all heard that J'onn's home was in the east of the city. Whenever that place was mentioned, J'onn would avoid it. They rarely mentioned it, fearing it would stir up J'onn's sad affairs. How could J'onn take the initiative to go there?

Feeling something was fishy, the three raised their vigilance and rushed toward the east of the Martian city. They searched here for a long time; Barry ran through the entire east of the city with the Speed Force and finally found J'onn's house.

When pushing the door to enter, they saw J'onn sitting alone on the sofa. Arthur called out cautiously, "J'onn?"

J'onn turned to look at them as if he had just awakened. But Arthur saw a trace of panic on his face, as if he had been caught doing something bad.

"What's wrong, J'onn?" Arthur didn't go in, just stood outside the door and said, "Did you encounter any difficulties? If you have anything, you can tell us; we can think of a way together."

His action of stopping seemed to give J'onn great comfort. J'onn took a deep breath, wiped his face, and said, "Nothing, I just..."

Hal seemed to feel something; he looked upstairs, but didn't say anything. J'onn naturally also noticed his action. He sat there struggling for a long while, then said, "In fact, I might have really encountered some trouble. It's like this..."

J'onn told them why he appeared in the east of the Martian city, this place he had originally avoided.

It was probably this morning that he suddenly felt a weak mental fluctuation connecting to his mental link. This was a unique way for Martians to connect; generally, they would network with their relatives to communicate anytime, anywhere. And connecting with strangers required the other party's consent.

But this weak mental fluctuation was connected directly, and the frequency made J'onn very familiar; it was exactly his daughter's brainwave, and the source location was exactly the east of the city.

J'onn couldn't suppress his curiosity; even knowing it might be a trap, he still went. Then, he saw his wife and daughter.

"I still feel like I'm dreaming," J'onn said. "I can't believe all this is real. I really saw them again, and hugged them again."

"Then they..."

J'onn was silent. Immediately after, he revealed a somewhat sad expression: "I suppressed their mental power; this can make them fall into a coma. Now they are upstairs."

Arthur was somewhat shocked and said, "Why did you..."

"Anyone can see this matter isn't normal," J'onn said. "I witnessed their death with my own eyes; there was absolutely no possibility of survival. Their bodies were burned to ashes in the flames. The ones who came back now are probably phantoms created by someone unknown."

He paused for a moment, then continued: "If it were in the past, when I was still living alone on Earth, perhaps I would be willing to stay here and have a beautiful dream. Before waking up, I would absolutely not take the initiative to expose them. But not now.

"From the moment I decided to join the Justice League, I had new responsibilities to shoulder. Just like when I swore to become a Manhunter on Mars. I cannot indulge myself in any unhealthy emotions, because this might bring harm to the entire world. So I can only... I can only control them first..."

Clearly, this kind of thing made J'onn very painful, but everyone present couldn't help but feel admiration. Not everyone could still remember the responsibilities they shouldered when facing such a situation. Especially J'onn's encounter was the most tragic among them: watching his beloved family burned to death with his own eyes, listening to their screams in the mental link, yet being unable to do anything, and finally even failing to protect his own homeland, only able to drift to a foreign star.

Under such circumstances, when facing his family who had returned, being able to maintain half a bit of sanity was already not easy, let alone J'onn's speed of waking up was too fast, and he didn't hesitate at all when taking action.

J'onn himself was a Martian Manhunter, which was a policeman on Mars, and he was also a hero policeman, whose fame resounded throughout Mars. Such a law enforcer was self-sacrificing, sacrificing the small family for the big one. Years of professional habits and professional spirit made him keep his duties in mind at all times, even now.

It could only be said that no matter who was manipulating all this behind the scenes, the trap he laid out encountered J'onn; that was truly kicking an iron plate. ===== CHAPTER 4418 =====