4 03

[Las Vegas: 05/03/1975]

Las Vegas was in the southeast of Nevada County, the city recognized for being the city of sin, gambling, women, bars and all of this was wrapped in a drape of colors and lights that attracted tourists like flies in a lighthouse.

In the night-lit streets of Los Angeles, a police car prowled like a hawk looking for its prey, in the car there were two officers, detectives Harry J. Korb, a middle-aged Caucasian man, who lived his entire life in Los Angeles, and his partner and recently promoted Detective John Jones, a thirty-year-old African American who had arrived a year ago and quickly climbed the ranks in the police department.

"I'm telling you John, those Stark flying cars were crazy!!" Harry said as he drove.

John just smiled at his partner.

"I believe you, but if these flying cars worked, wouldn't they be circulating?" John asked his partner.

"Well... those are details kid, a flying car right in front of me!! For a kid like me that was crazy at the time!!" Harry said remembering the 1948 Stark Expo.

"That must have been amazing for you." Harry said smiling, his partner was easily impressionable.

He himself didn't see anything wrong with a prototype flying vehicle that couldn't even fly properly.

John had a happy face until suddenly his expression changed, becoming more serious, he looked into a dark alley that was poorly lit, there were many of this type spread throughout the city.

"Harry stop the car!" John asked his partner who parked near the alley.

Without wasting any time John got out of the car and ran towards the alley entering the darkness as if he could see in the pitch black, he arrived in time to see several silhouettes running away while only one body was left behind.

A white man, in his fifties, with just standard clothes.

"Jesus John!! Why did you go out in the middle of this pitch black...Shit what happened?!" Harry was shocked to see the dead body on the floor.

"Who made this?" Harry questioned as he reached for the gun on his waist just to be safe.

John crouched down, approaching the body to analyze it.

He reached up to touch her wrist.

'Still hot, he was killed a short time ago, maybe there's still a way to see things better.' John thought as he closed his eyes to hide the green glow in them.

That was when a series of images appeared in his mind, they were images from the dead man's perspective... his name was Erik Holloway, just an ordinary worker, a security guard at a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, in addition there were images of him at work, from his family and then from the men who killed him, men wearing hooded robes.

These same men that Erik saw breaking into the warehouse center where he worked.

"Hey man you doing your thing?" Harry asked a little uncomfortably.

"My bid?" John asked, standing up.

"You know, every time we find a homicide victim you walk over and close your eyes then boom! You have a lot of very good guesses." Harry said as he scratched his head.

John smiled at his friend.

"Come on, we have to go to the warehouse center in the west of the city, call the police station, we have a homicide on our hands." He said as he walked towards the squad car.

-----------------***-----------------

[Westvill Shed Center]

The two, after calling the police station, headed to the center of Galgãos where Erik worked, Harry was wondering why a security guard was murdered, while John was trying to capture Erik's residual mental waves.

That was John's "thing", his telepathy allowed him to solve crimes and certain problems in life much more efficiently than most can't. He was not afraid of being discovered as he could hide in plain sight, and he was not afraid of being mistaken for a mutant.

With that out of the way John led the way towards the warehouse he remembered from Erik's memories, arriving at the entrance they noticed that the doors were locked and with steel chains.

"Okay that's very suspicious" Harry said raising an eyebrow.

"I agree, call reinforcements, I'll see if I can find something to cut these things." John said and Harry got back in the squad car.

With his friend away, John took his hand to the chains and squeezed, breaking the chains with his strength and opening the doors slowly, trying not to make any noise.

He entered the warehouse which was completely pitch black, but he was able to walk normally, he tried to stay covered while staying out of sight.

That was when he saw a glow in the middle of the warehouse, where a bunch of occultists were surrounded by a circle of containers with symbols, while in the center there was a child tied to a kind of dark pillar.

The boy was gagged to stop him from screaming, with tears and snot falling down the boy's chin, obviously scared as one of the occultists was approaching him with a very strange knife.

It was a blade made of completely pitch black metal, with its handle being red wood with a dagger skull.

"Our lord cries, and he receives, may the night bleed and the lamb satisfy him!! And may his glory burn upon us." He said in English.

"Benedic, Domine, sanguinem Agni sanguinis Mephistonis!!" He said in an ancient language as he cut the boy's cheek making him struggle.

John tiredly was going to intervene, but his shoulder was grabbed, turning around he saw his partner with the gun in his hand, waving him to stop.

John cursed, if he was alone he could solve this alone, but he couldn't use all of his powers in front of Harry.

*Back!!*

But something stopped everyone, a figure fell in the middle of the occultists, dressed in white with a white hood covering his head, the stranger stood up, showing a costume with white strips similar to mummies, and of course his full-face white mask and white eyes The lights were enough to scare the cultists.

"Kill him!!" What appeared to be the leader shouted and everyone drew daggers to kill the intruder.

John seeing this rushed to the situation.

"Shit John!!" Harry shouted, following and covering for his partner.

And then chaos ensued, the stranger pulled two crescent-shaped blades from his chest and proceeded to slaughter the cultists, causing a bloodbath.

*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang*!

Meanwhile Harry fired shots incapacitating as many cultists as he could while John ran towards the boy who was still in danger with the cultist leader about to plunge the dagger into his heart.

"What?!" The cultist leader screamed as his hand suddenly stopped, an invisible force holding him back.

"Good dreams." John said as he threw a punch breaking the cultist leader's jaw.

"Holy hell John!! Why do we end up in some sort of Scorcese movie every time when I walk with you!?" Harry asked as he looked at the carnage around him.

And of course the two were still attentive to the stranger with two blades dripping blood in their hands, the three exchanged a look.

*Crack!!*

When the three heard a sickening noise, it was the cultist leader who stood up, his mouth filled with blood and twisted at a strange angle and an ominous voice came out.

"Foolish lambs, struggling and wiggling as the knife twists in your ribs, enjoy it while you can, you won't have much time later, Hound of the Old Gods, son of the Stars and marked for death he... hehehe HAHAHAHSHS!!" The cultist leader laughed sinisterly at the end and then fell to the ground unconscious.

Only silence followed.

"There's a little pee coming out of me now." Harry said bewildered, not noticing that the stranger's figure had disappeared.

John, after recovering, went to free the boy.

"Alright, alright, you're safe now, let's get you home." John said smiling.

A few hours later the warehouse was surrounded by cars and ambulances, John let Harry go through the entire report while he absorbed everything that happened, the voice...it seemed much more than the ravings of a madman.

"Hey man, how are you?" Harry asked patting John on the shoulder.

"Huh?...yes I am, I think I just want to go home and rest." John said with a tired smile.

Harry nodded in agreement, and then took his friend home.

In his apartment John took off his police uniform, after a hot shower he went to the living room where he turned on the TV.

'A year, it's been a long time.' John thought as his form changed.

His skin stopped being black, taking on a shade of green, his entire structure changed, he became taller and his limbs changed proportion, this was his true form, J'onn J'onnes the Martian who arrived on Earth a year ago and since then he has been waiting for a chance to return home.

He grabbed a glass of hot milk and a bag of cookies and turned on the TV.

'They are not very developed, but without a doubt they have top-notch entertainment.' J'onn thought while playing Looney Toones on TV, and with each channel change J'onn took on the shape of the characters.

This has been his life for the past few years, but for the first time since finding the Tesseract he has encountered something as strange on this planet as he is.

'Well, I hope everything goes well.' J'onn wished.