| Thanagar - September 4
"Thank you, Son of the Sun, sir!" a young Thanagarian boy yelled up to Joseph as he finished moving a chunk of a massive tower that had collapsed, trapping hundreds of Downsiders beneath, with his anti-gravity field.
Son of the Sun. Hawkgod's Hero. Protector of Polaris. Word had spread across the planet—how, he wasn't sure. Maybe something like the internet? Radio? Wild rumors? Either way, his actions had quickly become myth. Every city he liberated added fuel to the legend. The Thanagarians prayed when he approached. Even soldiers began treating him with reverence.
He'd tried convincing Shayera to step in—she had been in the Justice League, after all, and understood the dangers of false gods. But she refused.
"Our planet is ravaged," she said. "The people of Thanagar need hope—from anywhere they can get it. So please, just bear with it a little longer."
It honestly made him uncomfortable. He wasn't a god and the last thing he needed was that sort of poisonous mindset. Too many villains had god complexes and he didn't want to become another one.
Their deity, the Hawkgod, bore an eerie resemblance to the Egyptian god Horus. Was there a connection? Were the pyramids actually the work of aliens? He pushed the thought aside for now.
With Joseph's help, Gordanian influence on Thanagar was nearly wiped out in just a few days. The surge of enemy ships had ceased.
"Uh, sir?" a Thanagarian soldier hovered toward him, wings beating the air. Joseph hadn't given them a name. He refused to use "Nova" in case it was somehow traced back to Earth, and frankly, he didn't care what they called him. He'd be gone in two days. "Command needs you."
Joseph nodded and waved to the crowd below, causing them to cheer, before flying off toward a makeshift command tent.
Inside the tent, the mood was grim. Hro Talak, Kragger, the Hawk heroes, and several other Thanagarian military personnel stood clustered around a table cluttered with tablets and tactical displays.
"We've lost contact with the crew aboard our mothership," Hro Talak said grimly, getting straight to the point. "And intelligence reports five more Gordanian mothership en route. They might appear today or tomorrow."
That was bad. One mothership had been enough to cripple Thanagar's orbital defenses even if they were caught by surprise and had to deal with Despero mind controlling a lot of them. If a five more joined, the Thanagarians would be overrun.
Joseph was scheduled to leave in two days. But abandoning the people who had fought so hard to reclaim their planet, knowing they'd likely be slaughtered in his absence, didn't sit right.
Hro Talak had ordered Earth to be sacrificed. But the innocent citizens of this world had nothing to do with that decision. They deserved better.
'Nova. Got any ideas?'
//Yes. I have one.//
**
Three hours later, Joseph streaked through space at Mach 5, golden Nova Force pouring from his feet like twin comet trails.
He soared toward the massive Class-9 Bloodstar mothership, the same one that had destroyed Thanagar's primary ship and forced its remaining fleet to retreat planet-side. If this thing made orbit unopposed, it could turn the tide of the entire war.
Command wasn't sure it would work—they thought he was on a suicide mission. The Hawk heroes had tried to dissuade him, insisting they had a duty to protect his life after what their people had nearly done to his, even if they didn't know before. They were good people. In fact, they were the reason he hadn't sided with the stronger faction when he first joined this war.
Across Thanagar's colonies, other Gordanian and Thanagarian fleets were deadlocked in brutal stalemates. Desperate for an edge, the Gordanians wanted to unleash a second mothership. It was clear: they wanted to end the war.
But Joseph wasn't about to let that happen.
He angled toward the colossal battleship, a jagged hulk of alien steel larger than most cities. Thanagarian intelligence had classified it as a Class-9 Bloodstar—a model designed for planetary sieges and total orbital control. Already, dozens of escort fighters were launching in response to his approach.
Joseph didn't flinch. He raised a spherical telekinetic shield around himself, powered by the vast reserve of psychic energy stored within Nova's avatar—energy he had absorbed from over a hundred Gordanians. Its durability was further reinforced by the Strength Force. Laserfire pounded the shield from all directions, causing it to ripple with each impact, but it held firm.
Enemy ships closed in, surrounding him.
Joseph ignored most of them, occasionally using his anti-gravity powers to hurl ships into one another. His bonded Nth metal, coated in Nova Force, morphed into a sword that sliced through ships, tearing open hulls and exposing those inside to the vacuum of space.
Then, the mothership responded.
From its front-facing cannon, four thick beams of crimson energy converged at a central point, charging an attack. Power built rapidly, distorting the vacuum around it. Even without scanning, Joseph could tell—this was meant to erase whole city blocks, or worse.
'All that for little old me?' he thought. 'I guess they figured out I'm the one who decimated their forces on the surface.'
The weapon fired.
Joseph tried to dodge but it seemed the cannons had aim lock. So Joseph raised both arms. The telekinetic shield flared, taking the brunt of the blast. It cracked at the edges but held, the Strength Force succeeding in holding it together as his massive reserve of psychic energy was rapidly being depleted. He grit his teeth as pressure and heat bore down on him, but this came with a benefit. Joseph could only absorb energy that touched his body so he was absorbing a lot of thermal energy that managed to pass through the shield.
Then he let go as the weapon stopped firing.
Immediately as it let up, Joseph flew straight toward the mothership, dodging what he could, enduring what he couldn't. Beams carved past him. Turrets locked on and fired. Explosions flared all around.
He poured Strength Force and Nova Force into his blade and slammed it into the hull. The sword pierced through layers of armor with a shriek of metal. He cut his way through, carving a path into the ship's superstructure.
Inside, Gordanian troops rushed toward him as a vacuum was created sucking in the air.
He dropped them with wide-range telepathic blasts, disrupting their brains before they even fired. Others fell to concussive telekinetic pulses. They all got sucked out into the vacuum of space as he moved on.
The halls shook violently as he punched through wall after wall with his sword in front of him, occasionally cutting through bodies.
'Nova, are you ready? Do you feel a connection?'
//Yes sir.//