When Starfire got lost inside the Watchtower while looking for clothes, the sudden alarm made her want to smash straight through the walls back to the third level.
Fortunately, Cyborg connected to her comms in time. Following the navigation, Starfire rushed toward the detention level and could already hear voices from far away.
"Duck back, or you'll take a hit! Strike her left lower ribs—yes, like that..."
Batman was standing outside the cell, pointing and giving instructions:
"No, that's wrong. Superman, you really have zero experience. Pull your hand back... okay, now you're done..."
Bruce had just settled Hawkgirl and was preparing to use the Watchtower's lab to clone her a new body.
But before he could begin, he saw the alarm from the third-level cells.
Thinking something had gone wrong with the corpse of the other 'Superman', he panicked and rushed over with a newly built kryptonite ray gun.
Only to find that it was just two Kryptonians fighting inside a red sun cell.
If this had been Bruce Wayne from two weeks ago, seeing his Superman in this situation, he would have rushed in without hesitation—even at the cost of broken bones—to save him.
But now, Batman had personally killed Superman. Aside from Hawkgirl—who technically wasn't even fully alive—he was the last survivor of his universe.
Strictly speaking, everything happening in this universe had nothing to do with him. Unless Earth was about to explode the next day, Batman had no interest in getting involved in superhero affairs anymore.
Even though the crisis facing this Earth was urgent, its Superman being pinned to the ground by another Kryptonian clearly didn't qualify as something that required his intervention.
Kara's Kryptonian military training was absolutely real—at least more than enough to deal with someone like Joey, who was still holding back.
At this moment, she had twisted Joey's arm 180 degrees, palm facing upward, while locking his head between her legs, executing a highly technical armbar.
If Joey had seen this kind of grappling technique from the audience or on a screen, he would've probably applauded or liked it.
Unfortunately, he was inside the ring—and the one being locked.
Right now, all he could do was shout, "Fuck you, Bruce Wayne!"
When Kryptonians are exposed to red sun radiation, their strength doesn't drop instantly like with kryptonite—it declines gradually.
Joey, like any Kryptonian, would slowly revert to the level of a normal Kryptonian as exposure increased.
But that process was quite slow—much slower than Kara's.
In reality, if Joey got serious, he could defeat Kara—already weakened by kryptonite and red sun—in a single second.
But under red sun conditions, he needed to carefully control his strength, or he might accidentally blow her head off with a single punch.
When Batman showed up earlier and started giving him combat advice, Joey—perhaps affected by the red sun—had actually followed it without thinking.
The problem was that Batman was a martial arts master. His techniques weren't necessarily suited for Joey.
And while Joey could hear Batman's instructions, Kara obviously wasn't deaf.
Over the next few exchanges, Joey—who could've simply overpowered her—fell into complete disarray, getting countered at every move.
He was tripped, dragged to the ground, and locked in place with an armbar.
"Sorry. I didn't realize your combat skills were that bad. Normally, no one would get caught in such a basic joint lock."
Seeing Starfire arrive, Batman quietly holstered his kryptonite ray gun and turned to leave:
"Maybe next time you should find a proper teacher."
He could tell that this world's Superman didn't have many outstanding traits—but his durability definitely wasn't lacking.
Kryptonite radiation barely affected him, and even under red sun light, his body remained extremely tough.
An ordinary person would've been screaming in pain with their arm twisted like that—but Joey looked completely fine and still had the energy to curse.
Batman just hoped that when dealing with ordinary people, this Superman would show the same restraint and gentleness he was showing toward his own blood relative.
"Kara, last warning! I don't want to hurt you!"
Joey slapped at Kara's thigh—the one locking his head and upper body. He really hadn't expected her to still pick a fight after being imprisoned:
"Three seconds. If you don't let go, I'm going to use my heat vision!"
"Not a chance!"
Following the principle that good people deserve to be threatened at gunpoint, Kara tightened her grip even more:
"Go ahead—cut off one of my legs. I don't care!"
"Three!"
"Two!"
"Enough!"
Starfire couldn't take it anymore. Her Green Lantern ring formed a spear, which she thrust directly toward Kara's heart.
Kara instantly released her hold, rolling to the side and dodging the strike:
"Orange skin—you're a Tamaranean? Since when does the Green Lantern Corps recruit your kind? Your species is famous across the universe for lacking willpower—"
Before she could continue, Joey—finally freed and having regained his balance—threw a punch that sent Kara into a peaceful, baby-like sleep:
"Just shut the hell up!"
With Starfire's emotional nature, Joey didn't want that conversation to continue any further—he was worried she might lose control again.
He dusted off his cape—though there wasn't any dust—and quickly shut the cell door behind him.
Starfire, holding the clothes she had found, prepared to go in and dress Kara.
But Joey suddenly reached out and stopped her:
"If you're really mad, I'd understand if you want to kill her right now..."
"You're about to say 'but', aren't you?"
Starfire turned her head and carefully examined the bruises and wounds on Joey's face. Before she could even reach out to touch them, the injuries had already begun to heal rapidly.
She understood what Joey was feeling. No one could so cleanly and decisively cut off their own blood relatives.
Starfire herself had a sister who constantly opposed her, even tried to kill her—her older sister Komand'r, Blackfire.
But that was in the past now.
"She is still your cousin. I know what it feels like to have a family member killed."
Joey had originally wanted to say that this 'bad Kara' still had intelligence and strategic value, but Starfire's words left him silent.
At that moment, Cyborg projected his half-human, half-machine face behind them:
[ Superman, get to Alaska. The previous engagement site— there's an unexpected situation. Extremely urgent. ]
Joey let out a quiet breath of relief and flew toward the Arctic Circle. Cyborg must have regained some of his human judgment—otherwise he wouldn't have interrupted at such a perfect moment.
Neither Joey nor Starfire should continue that conversation any further.
The Kryptonian threat was still deadly. With a major enemy looming, anything harmful to unity was better left unsaid.
Joey clearly remembered that about an hour ago, he had forced most of the people behind the plan to relocate to the Alaskan ice fields.
But with Kara's sudden appearance, their fate should have already been sealed. Joey didn't believe anyone could survive the aftermath of that battle.
Cyborg's report, however, told a completely different story.
Not only were there survivors—there were many of them.
Against the freezing winds of the Arctic coast, Joey quickly arrived above the previous battlefield.
The F-22 fighters that had come to join the chaos earlier no longer dared to take off after Cyborg took over the electronic command system.
Along with them, the rest of North America's military forces had also fallen completely silent.
Now, thousands of Cyborg's robots were moving through the ruins of the defensive structures, counting survivors one by one.
Among them were junior and mid-level officers, high-ranking generals, and even key intelligence personnel and department heads.
People in the White House and the Pentagon could be replaced again and again. As for the deeper parasites, crushing hundreds of them wouldn't affect the nation at all.
But these people were different.
Without exaggeration, the entire North American war machine depended on them to divide and execute orders.
Joey instinctively swept them with his x-ray vision, originally intending to check for injuries—but what he found was alarming.
Their bodies were… too normal.
Normal to the point of being abnormal.
The reinforced concrete structures had been reduced to powder by the earlier shockwave.
In such a massive collapse, these people had been buried under the rubble—yet when they were pulled out, not one of them was injured.
They looked dusty and disheveled on the outside, but internally they were perfectly healthy. Not even the slightest bruise.
If it were one or two people, maybe it could be luck.
But hundreds?
That wasn't probability anymore.
Cyborg had clearly noticed something strange as well. Every robot present was fully armed.
No matter how these people raised their hands in surrender, Cyborg's weapons remained locked onto all of them, ready to fire at any moment.
Boom.
Joey descended from the sky, scanning the hundreds of survivors again—and reached the same conclusion.
And then he noticed something else.
Although the crowd appeared chaotic—arguing, pleading, shouting—there was a faint, almost invisible sense of coordination between them.
No.
That wasn't a feeling.
After observing carefully, Joey confirmed it wasn't paranoia.
Their gazes, movements, and speech seemed disordered, but were actually subtly connected—so synchronized it became unsettling.
Like walking into a motion-activated toy store late at night, where all the toys start playing their preset music at once.
Yet within that noise, in every blind spot of your vision, their eyes slowly turn—silently, collectively watching you at the center.
"What are you?"
Joey's eyes flared with heat vision, igniting a wall of fire across the ice beneath their feet.
What was meant as intimidation had an unexpected effect.
The eerie coordination among the crowd shattered instantly.
The fake chaos turned into real chaos.
Most of them began screaming in genuine terror, even ignoring the weapons pointed at their heads as they turned and tried to flee.
"Please extinguish the flames first—most of my people cannot remain rational in the presence of fire!"
Amid the panic, a four-star general from North America stepped forward, forcing himself to remain composed. He removed his cap and saluted Joey.
"Since it is you who returned, that means she has lost. The agreement still stands. We will continue to serve the Kryptonians—whichever one it may be."
To show sincerity, he moved away from the flames. Then, his body lifted off the ground.
In an instant, every molecule in his body rearranged.
Before Joey, he revealed his true form—
green skin, red eyes, elongated limbs with sharp joints and claws, resembling some evolved upright reptilian creature.
"My name is J'onn J'onzz. As long as it does not harm our kind, my people and I are at your disposal."
With his super vision, Joey had observed the entire transformation.
This creature's body seemed composed of a unique macromolecular structure.
It allowed them to perfectly mimic human form—so flawlessly that even a Kryptonian without experience would struggle to tell the difference.
Green skin. Flight. Fear of fire. Shapeshifting.
And one of them was named J'onn J'onzz.
Joey now knew exactly what these eerie beings were.
Martians.