Starring The Martian Manhunter, Featuring Bart Allen as the Emitter. New York Harbor New York Harbor is bustling with activity. A major city, it has a lot of sea-faring traffic coming in and out through the Harbor. The city tries to keep the harbor clean, but often fails in the attempt. The warehouses can be seen lining the piers in this portion of town, and it's obvious that this isn't the best area of town to be around. During the day, the New York Harbor does indeed bustle. Everyone has something to do, everyone is going somewhere - whether they want to go or not. When twilight comes, and the waters turn black and the moon comes out, there are less people around...and they're generally not going anywhere. The water steams, summer warmth wafting hazy into the chilly night, moonlit and quiet. It laps gently against the piers, staining and slowly rotting the old wood. There's activity at the end of one of the long docks - four figures, one unmoving, one obviously standing guard. The low sound of nervous, always-angry voices can faintly be heard, but the words are too hard to make out. On this particular evening, there's one more visitor to these docks than there perhaps usually is, an average looking man dressed a slightly rumpled overcoat, and a well-worn fedora. The outfit shouts 'fed' to anyone who's listening, so when the individual sees the shady-looking characters down the way, he wisely blends into the shadows himself, creeping closer along the side of a building towards the man standing guard. . o O (Just my luck.. out for an evening stroll, and I stumble across what looks to be an illegal deal of some type. Best to hide for right now, until I can find out exactly what's going on at the end of that pier...) Illegal's one word for it, yes. Sadistic's another. Close enough to the dock, it's plain to see that the 'guardsman' couldn't care less. He's far too occupied with his bottle of brandy to even notice if someone walks right past him. At the far end of the dock is where all the action is - and with every step closer, what's going on becomes clearer. Two men are dragging a slight, unmoving woman toward the end, plainly intending to throw her over. They get to the edge, and lower her to the wooden planks. One kneels down and begins making sure she can't swim, even if she should be so unlucky as to wake up. There's a time for sublety.. and there's also a time for action. Getting a closer view of the situation, the man in the shadows quickly decides that this scene definately falls into the latter. He begins to move out of his darkened hiding spot, and as he does so, he starts the process of changing to a much more familiar guise. While not as flashy as Superman's shirt-opening, or the Flash's ring-compartment, the Martian Manhunter does have his own certain flair. He simply melts from one form... into the other. And in the blink of an eye, his 6 and a half foot, green-skinned frame is soaring through the air down the pier, aiming for a flying move-through on one of the men there. And when the loud rush of green wind knocks one of the men into the rapidly cooling harbor waters, the other man cries out. As his compatriot sinks like a stone, not even struggling, he takes something out of his pocket and breaks it under the woman's nose, hurried and focused. She awakens with a start, eyes wide in a flash, and quickly looks at the man. He wordlessly points to the new arrival, by now circling around. She bites her lip, standing clumsily. (Odd...) O o . Is the only thought that the Manhunter from Mars initially forms after he circles around, hovering in the air and taking in the sequence of events. Leaving the two on the dock alone for a brief moment, he dives into the dark waters of the harbor with a splash, searching out the other man with his enhanced Martian senses. . o O (Is the woman an accomplice, rather than a victim? And the man I hit - almost seemed to embrace the fall into the waters...) Regardless of his questions, however, the hero can't let the man simply drown, any more than he could have delivered a killing blow in the first place. Struggling /now/, kicking and flailing in slow motion under water, the first man fights his rescue with every last bit of oxygen he has. The two still on the dock watch mutely, then look to each other. The man suddenly grins, and swiftly pulls out a gun. Eyes lighting up, the woman reaches for it -- but is too late. With a frightening impulsivity, he points it at his temple and pulls the trigger. *BLAM* Arcing slowly, drops of blood and shards of skull precede the suddenly limp body into the reddening water around the end of the dock - the gun is still in his hand. The woman stands, hand reaching out imploringly. When she would scream, she cannot; her voice is gone, mouth open in shock and newly awakened fear. Now waterlogged, having taken breath after breath with no air, the Manhunter's current charge does not move. The man with the bottle is lurching along the dock, trying (in his way) to get to the woman. Bursting from the water with the now limp body, the Martian Manhunter is too late to save the other man's life - though he was unfortunate enough to have seen the trigger pulled, and the spray of gore just as he emerge. "Sands of Mars, no!" His deep voice cries out at the man's suicide, stirring up a new surge of emotion in the hero. He deposits the other body on the pier, quickly grabbing the gun before the woman can use it in the same manner. "Who are you?" he demands of her. "What in H'romneer's name is going on?" While normally loathe to use his telepathic powers in an intrusive manner... if J'Onn doesn't receieve an answer, he likely will do so to find out the information he seeks. A few steps away from his goal, the brandy man collapses, grinning...and then his face goes slack. In the grip of fear, failure, and the Manhunter, the woman cannot answer. She glances over at the collapsed guard, and her face softens. She still doesn't answer. A soft whisper, though, to herself: "...at least jesse and evan made it...joy, joy, joy to them. quiet. ev, you forgot me. you didn't bring me like you promised. david has to try again. maybe he can take me, too..." Her eyes are dilated, and her skin is clamm to the touch. Glanced at, scanned, her thoughts are as jumbled and broken as her speech. Only affording the 'guard' the breifest of glances, the Manhunter from Mars turns his full attention back onto the woman, his prominent brows furrowing together as he focuses on her, gun held securely and nonthreatingly at his side. "Take you where? What were you trying to do...?" His voice and manner a little more subdued now - perhaps because the woman is not a percievable threat, or more likely because he's trying to get through to her, and shouting would do little to help her confused state. Nonetheless, it retains its deep bass tones, full of authority. "These two men killed themselves... Where they going to kill you too?" "David wanted to try it with his brandy," she explains none-too-clearly. "But he's not an alcoholic. No tolerance. He passed out. I /told/ him." Frustrated, annoyed. Then starting to cry, face screwing up like someone trying /not/ to cry. She's young; her face still has the softness of a child. Then wistfully, she continues, bringing a hand up to play with her hair. "Maybe if he's careful next time, and he doesn't use a silly way, he can take me, too. Because Ev and Jesse said they'd take me. But they didn't...I was supposed to go first. Then...then..." Her face falls, and she starts sobbing. "Then you came, and it won't ever be quiet for me." The Manhunter from Mars stares quietly at the young woman, trying to fathom her message, but finding the words still unclear. And while he realizes he has much to learn of humans and their ways of thinking, he has the feeling that perhaps not even Batman would understand the girl or her motivations. "Quiet?" he asks simply as he stands there, the night breeze blowing his blue cape behind him, his voice turned down yet another notch. She looks up, eyes wide, making no effort to dry her face. "...quiet, quiet," she whispers. "...to make the people stop, to make the noise stop, to...it's like a broken radio that can't turn off, or like a TV with no controls. no one ever stops, no one is ever quiet. they knew. they left. it's quiet where they went, and they were going to take me, too, so it would all stop." Her hands fly to her temples and her eyes squeeze shut in terrible concentration. But then she shakes her head, and finally rubs at her eyes. "I can't send and I can't look for things. I can only hear, always and always and never stopping...in the cities it's the people, in the country it's the hunger and the dryness and the rain and the discomfort..." Comprehension dawning in the Martian's dark eyes, the tall hero reaches out with his hand, shushing the girl momentarily as he moves to lay his fingers on her scalp, the green digits splayed from one temple to the other. "Perhaps..." he begins quietly, "I can help.. In a way that would let you enjoy the quiet after you've found it." And with those words, he probes again into the young woman's mind, though this time, he searches a little deeper - now knowing what he is looking for. A budding telepath, perhaps? Psionic power of some sort, at the very least, which the unfortunate girl isn't able to control in the slightest. The protest dying on her lips, quieting, stopping, she looks up at the Manhunter, eyes glassing over. From the inside, she watches as he sorts things out, as he tries to see what's going on. "Can you fix David, too...?" she breathes hopefully. "We all broke, and...and you can mend..." Her eyes close, and she breathes more slowly, and a smile begins to grow on her weary face. A quiet smile. You can feel her trying to help you as she gains coherence, also sorting, learning. Nodding quietly as he does his work, J'Onn voices his response with mental words, rather than verbal ones. <> The tone is sympathetic, as he truly wishes he could have helped them, before they took their own lives. The emotion is not dwelled upon, though, as J'Onn focuses on the living, and helping those whom he /can/ save. He places some small blocks on the girl's power, ones that can be removed as she learns, but will act as guides for her until that time comes.