Superman's android was restrained by a large, green, glowing hand.

 

 

 

 

 

The Justice League had followed Jake's instructions and pulled back to the minimum safe distance to minimize the chance that J'onn might somehow reach out to mind control a member of the justice league. Even at that distance, they could hear what was being said. Guy Gardner with a construct listening device, Batman with his gadgets, and the android because it was... well... an android.

 

Upon hearing that Jake's plan involved using an innocent as a hostage against J'onn, Superman's reflexive reaction was to end this, right now. If Superman had been present, that might have happened, but this was Superman's malfunctioning telepresence android. The response delay gave Guy a moment to intervene and restrain him with a construct. The rest of the Justice League turned to Guy as if he had gone insane. More than one thought J'onn might have gotten control of the man. Guy just kept watching the unfolding drama as he answered the Justice League's unspoken question.

 

 

"Let Him Cook."

 

 

Wonder Woman's jaw dropped. She looked like she was going to give Guy Gardner a thrashing he wouldn't soon forget. It was completely against her nature to let a young woman be abused, much less threatened with decapitation. Guy didn't even look at her, simply holding up his hand flat in her face before repeating himself.

 

"LET."

"HIM."

"COOK."

 

No one spoke as it sunk in WHO was putting his faith in Jacob London.

 

Instead, everyone just watched.

 

And waited.

 

---

 

Plastic Man couldn't believe his ears, "Wha-?"

 

Jake cut him off, "Shut it."

 

"Let me explain what EXACTLY is going on, Plastic Man." Jake jutted his chin towards the squirming, mud-caked alien, "That is a TRUE demon, not the usual half-breeds you got running around. True Demons are pure memetic energy. They have no physical form. So to function on the physical plane, they need an anchor. This being an ancient Martian Demon that only manifested after J'onn learned about the existence of the burning ones, that tells me everything I need to know."

 

The creature stopped struggling to stare directly at Jake. To say his eyes burned with undiluted hatred goes without saying.

 

"The only anchor it has are these two Martians."

 

Megan's eyes grew larger. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but where she was, what with a burning sword near her throat, and her species genetic fear of flame. However, somehow, she managed to fight down her terror and remained still. Well, her whole body was trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, but she wasn't trying to escape. She did what she was told, which was to say, she did nothing.

 

Plastic Man noticed the mud was starting to bake off and took a moment to dunk his prisoner, once again, deep into the muck, only to bring him back up to face Jake. O'Brian looked as uncomfortable and unhappy as the possessed Martian "If you are taking advantage of my lack of fear right now..."

 

Jake spoke with a hiss as he continued, "LISTEN. If this thing gets free, it can reproduce asexually, but it still needs a host, that's one of these two. If I kill J'onn, he'll just jump into Megan here, where ever she is in this universe! So there are three ways this will play out."

 

Jake fiddled with the blade, slowly wiggling it to make sure it stays on J'onn's mind, "One, The Demon surrenders itself and I grant it a swift and merciful death." The mud-caked monster didn't look like it was going to accept that option.

 

"Two, I kill Megan first, then J'onn. The demon will survive, but will be thrown back into the Nul where it will remain until the literal end of time, trapped in an endless nothing between voids where it will eventually go insane and pray for a death that will never come."

 

The demon didn't seem to like that one either.

 

Jake then pointed the blade at J'onn, "Three, J'onn here finds the strength to force the demon out of him where I can get a clean shot."

 

Furnas started to laugh.

 

It was a laugh that you didn't hear with your ears or your mind, but your SOUL. A laugh that was pure derision. You knew that this laugh was nothing but contempt in its true, undiluted form.

 

"There is a fourth option." The demon spat from smoking lips caked with dried flakes of mud, "I kill These two Martians and maybe I get lucky and there is a third Martian still alive... somewhere."

 

Jake laughed as well but with irony instead, "There isn't, not in this universe. Oh, there could have been another one. Sure, there are timelines where there were other survivors, but I didn't see a blue beetle anywhere on the internet, so no Martian from that timeline. So given how J'onn got here, that would mean there are no White Martian infiltrators. Or... am I wrong? J'onn would know." Jake grinned with wild eyes, "But you said MAYBE, so we both know there aren't any infiltrators."

 

The demon scowled.

 

Jake rolled the blade in the air for a second, then brought it back to Megan's throat, "But it doesn't matter. This is all for show. I already know I need to kill you two. I'm just making it look good for the League."

 

O'Brian literally spit out his own skull, then sucked it back in, "HOLD IT! I-"

 

Jake glared at the rubbery hero, "SHUT IT. If this thing gets free, every self-aware thing in this galaxy will DIE. Do you understand? The only happy ending here is if J'onn forces that thing out of his body, and that ain't happening."

 

Megan finally spoke up, "Uncle? PLEASE! You need to FIGHT!"

 

Furnas spoke, "You won't do it. You hero types are-"

 

Jake sneered, "You are inside the mind of someone who was inside MY MIND. YOU KNOW WHAT I DID. YOU KNOW WHO I KILLED. He KNOWS who I betrayed! I killed my three WIVES for the sake of REVENGE and you think I won't cut this cunt's HEAD OFF??"

 

Silence.

 

Jake let loose a snort along with a sneer, "I just need to make it look good so the Justice League doesn't turn me over to the Guardians. Truth be told, I know J'onn. I know his character. He's WEAK. He's PATHETIC." Jake turned his focus to Plastic Man as he continued, "Do you have any idea what a total fuck-up J'onn is? He got his whole family killed."

 

Plastic Man and Megan both spoke in unison, "What???"

 

For a moment, just a second, so fast nobody noticed it...

 

J'onn's eye twitched.

 

Jake nodded and spoke in a casual and conversational tone, "Oh yeah! Back on Mars! He got them killed through neglect and incompetence." He turned his attention back to J'onn, "That's how I know I'm going to wind up killing Megan here."

 

Jake moved the sword an inch closer, forcing Megan to pull her head back as far as she could to avoid the flames. The flames reflected in her eyes along with her deep-seated terror. She spoke in a high-pitched, pleading voice, "UNCLE J'ONN! PLEASE! TRY!"

 

Jake looked unmoved as he stared with a blank expression. His eyes were dull. To look into them was to see a man truly dead inside. He kept talking to the now-struggling demon-possessed alien as if this was nothing more than a formality, "You can hide who you are from the rest of your team, but not from me."

 

Jake tilted his head oh-so-slightly, "You killed your people. You killed your wife. You killed your daughter." There was a long pause before Jake smirked softly, "And now you've killed Megan."

 

Jake brought the blade into contact with Megan's throat.

 

She screamed as the flames seared her skin.

 

Her scream was joined by a scream from J'onn and Furnas in unholy harmony.

 

Not even Plastic Man could fully contain what happened next. Abruptly J'onn came to resemble the same sort of amorphous material that O'Brian was made of, except there were not one, but two people inside his body.

 

He exploded into multiple limbs and snake-like tails as they fought for control of J'onn's polymorphing form. The contest lasted for only a few seconds before J'onn, somehow, managed to push the Burning Demon partially out of his body. It was only a few inches of distance, and only from the shoulders up, but in that instant, there was both J'onn and Furnas. The one had become two.

 

"Gotcha."

 

Jake didn't hesitate. He simply let go of his sword. Of its own accord, it flew straight and true, embedding itself up to the hilt through the forehead of the unholy memetic infection.

 

"O'BRIAN! PULL THEM APART!"

 

Plastic Man didn't need to be told twice. As the sword twisted itself from side to side in an attempt to burrow yet deeper, the many eyes of the demon rolled up into its head as it went into a seizure. Plastic Man forced multiple hands in between the two and with over two dozen arms pulling in unison, he forced J'onn and Furnas to separate.

 

Its scream was agonizing, both physically and psychically. If it had been anyone other than Plastic Man, they would have been incapacitated. Even those at a 'safe distance' were clutching their heads and doubling over in pain.

 

Fortunately, it didn't last long.

 

A moment later, the demon was ripped from The Martian body landing in churning muck, only to be sucked screaming into the holy sword that devoured and destroyed its memetic essence with purifying holy flame.