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#1
DEC 11 |
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“The Henchmen Murders”
Uncounted fathoms below the moonlit surface of the ocean, beneath the unbearable pressure and the darkness untouched by the light of the world above, Atlantis should have been under attack. Baron Gorgos, the deep sea monster pirate king of a lost civilization of mutant criminals had finally roused the motivation within his followers enough to facilitate an all-out attack. Accompanied by two hundred of his nastiest roustabouts, Gorgos had no way of knowing what had befallen the lost city of Atlantis. Now, they floated in the dark water, facing the blackened and solidified field that held Atlantis suspended in time and space. The entirety of the huge underwater city had been encased in an unbreakable shell, and the people within were frozen as if sheathed in amber.
“What now, Gorgos?” Clownfish, the Baron’s second in command, asked, always using a tone that enraged Gorgos. “Got any underwater drills or impossible machines that can get us in?”
Gorgos frowned, his eyeless face scrunched in anger. The tendrils that surrounded his head fluttered as they changed colors that reflected his mood. “Get the Pardoner,” he demanded much to the surprise his men. “It appears that we’ll be raising the Old One sooner than we wanted.”
Clownfish squinted into the barrier that entrapped Atlantis, hoping to see something within. A mermaid was motionless within, her fish tail unmoving as she had been frozen while in the process of a dance or something. He could not stifle a laugh and, as usual, he made that laugh as ridiculous as possible. “Old Ones!” Clownfish bellowed. “I love it!”
Gorgos turned to his men and yelled, disrupting the fluid of the water with the sound waves of his words. “Atlantis will be ours!” Gorgos shouted. “At last the Old Ones will take back what is theirs and give it to the rightful heirs!”
It was obvious that Baron Gorgos had no idea of the holes within his logic, even as Clownfish departed to summon the Pardoner, the usher of the coming end times.
Aquaman walked along the beach, appearing deep in thought. The noises of construction had driven him out of the lighthouse that he planned to make his home while the current barrage of information that was being telepathically relayed to him from the creatures of the sea led to quite a busy day. Despite all that troubled him…his missing wife, his kingdom in suspended animation, his part in the recent Crisis…more troubles were being added to his life at a remarkable pace.
“There’s a perimeter breach at the Atlantis site,” an unseen voice informed Aquaman. “Gorgos, it looks to be. Many mutants are looking to cause trouble.”
“Are they having any luck?” Aquaman asked aloud, watching the humans repair the lighthouse from afar. Only the basic structure had been rebuilt, a wooden frame in a cylindrical shape. Power saws and hammer strikes still bothered him from such a distance.
“Nope, but there is mention of the Old Ones.”
Aquaman shook his head. “Sometimes the under dwellers can be just as stupid as the surface people,” he muttered. “When will the populace of the oceans learn that the Old Ones are all myths created by a sickly human in an attempt to impress a girl?”
“Don’t care,” his telepathic correspondent replied. “I’m sending word from Cron. He has information regarding something or other.”
“Let’s have it,” Aquaman answered as he saw the human construction foreman wave in his direction from the lighthouse in an attempt to gain his attention. He reluctantly began to walk back to the construction site as he continued the telepathic conversation.
“Another surface man I found,” the growing voice of the aged shark translated into words that Aquaman understood. “Dressed in black and missing a hand, same as the others.”
“Troublesome,” Aquaman said as he thought of the situation. Seven surface dwellers fund beneath the waves, rid of their left hands and dressed in the black wetsuits that were associated with running with Black Manta. “No one has seen anything?”
“Don’t remember,” Cron replied, his voice slow as though he had forgotten what he had just heard. Such was the short term memory capacity of a great white shark.
“There’s a girl looking for you,” the drawl of a walrus interrupted the telepathic transmission. “Peculiar sort to be wandering around underwater.”
“Did you catch her name?” Aquaman asked.
“I don’t like being interrupted,” Cron interrupted, obviously angry at the walrus.
“I apologize,” the walrus replied before it continued.
“For what?” Cron asked, already forgotten his anger.
Aquaman met with the foreman as he reached the lighthouse. “Hang on a bit,” he mumbled as he closed communication with the sea creatures.
“Mister Curry, we got a few questions about the basement,” the foreman asked, his New England accent made his English almost indecipherable.
“I’ve already discussed this,” Aquaman said. “The pool stays.”
The foreman nodded. “Yeah, I heard you, but Cavins bonked his head on a rafter and fell into the pool. Now he’s all bonkers.”
Aquaman did not hesitate, already in motion before the foreman finished his sentence. He bolted into the lighthouse, pouncing through the construction zone into the basement. He knew that having a Lazarus Pit hidden in his basement was going to cause problems.
Cavins, lost to the insanity that the fluids of the Pit caused, had laid waste to two of his co-workers as the rest of them had managed to reach the ladder. Aquaman landed in front of him and administered a quick backhand that put the threat to rest immediately.
He squatted to make sure that Cavins had not suffered irreparable damage and, out of the corner of his eye, saw a body bubble up from the black waters of the Lazarus Pit. He stood to investigate and noticed instantly that the body was a henchman of Black Manta, garbed in black and missing his left hand.
Aquaman pulled the body out of the water, curious about the reasons the body had not been restored by the Pit. He was shocked to recognize the dead man as Cal Durham. Cal was once Black Manta’s right hand man but reformed and attempted to become a hero. Aquaman was saddened by the loss.
“Aquaman,” a voice called from above. It was a voice that Aquaman thought he would never hear again. It belonged to a girl that did not exist.
He looked up above and saw Aquagirl standing amidst the mess as the workers checked out her attractive physiology.
“Lorena?” Aquaman asked. Things were growing stranger by the second.
Aquagirl was surprised that he recognized her but tried to look in control of the situation. “Aquaman,” she said. “The nation of Mu requires your help.”
Aquaman leapt effortlessly to the floor above to stand next to her. “Lorena, it’s so good to see you made it,” he smiled as he squeezed her shoulders.
“You know me?” she asked.
Aquaman was mildly confused. He saw that she shared his confusion and knew not to continue questioning it. “You say you need my help,” he changed the subject. “How so?”
“I think you know,” she replied. “Surface man murders. Black wet suits, severed hands, etc. Except in Mu, there are twenty-seven of them waiting for you.”
Looking down at Cal Durham’s corpse, Aquaman knew of his next course of action. “It seems that this has just moved up on my long list of priorities.”
“When can you leave?” Aquagirl asked.
Aquaman looked around as Cavins began to regain his consciousness and sanity and the workers got back to work. Some climbed down the ladder to attend to the dead body, waiting for the police. Others grabbed their tools and saws. The sound instantly got on Aquaman’s nerves.
“Now,” he said, already leaving.
Tempest had scoured the vicinity for any indication that his quest was for something other than naught. Through the bustling environment that grew from the thriving coral reef, Tempest began to think that he was on a wild goose chase. Searching through the multitudinous life, he could hear the chattering of the creatures, although he did not have the capacity to understand them as Aquaman did.
Frustrated, he was on the verge of giving up. Unexpectedly, he felt a tugging on the hair on the back of his head. He turned to see a tiny seahorse beckoning him to follow. Not one to be too surprised by the strange behaviors of the wild life of the sea, Tempest followed.
The seahorse tittered and bubbled under the assumption that Tempest could understand it. Tempest announced his inability to understand the seahorse several times until it was apparent that the seahorse could not understand him either. Quite hilarious.
Swimming away from the reef, the seahorse led him to an isolated outcropping. The coral formation was eerily empty with the exception of a single anemone that sparkled like crystal beneath the water. With a streak of orange and white, Tempest was joined by a fish that swam at super speed.
“Who dares to approach my Anemone of Solitude?” the fish asked in perfect Atlantean.
“I am called Garth of the Idyllists, otherwise known as Tempest,” he replied, bowing to honor the presence of the fish. “I am a long-time confidante of King Orin of Atlantis and an ambassador to the surface world country of Cerdia.”
“All well and good if I were not instantly bored with your words,” the fish replied, huffing the oxygen in the water through his gills. If a fish could look egomaniacal, this fish certainly would qualify. “Why do you trespass?”
“I am aware that you are what the ocean world is calling the Superfish,” Tempest declared, making eye contact with the fish. “I have come to ask you to join the Justice League of the Oceans.”
The Superfish considered for a long moment. “I have long known that my flying saucer crash landed into this coral reef for a reason,” he bellowed. “Perhaps my greater destiny lies with this thing you call the Justice League.”
“Perhaps it does,” Tempest replied, waiting for the fish to answer.
“I am in,” Superfish finally responded. “Allow me to fetch my cape and I will be ready to lead this league of yours into battle.”
Garth had doubts as the Superfish disappeared into the so-called Anemone of Solitude, sharing his uncertainty with the seahorse, which had no idea what was going on. It was a seahorse, after all.
Aquagirl struggled to keep pace with Aquaman as they sped through the depths in excess of one hundred fifty knots. The life forms within their path barely had time to notice their path and get out of the way. Aquagirl rode his wake to take the pressure off of herself.
“What do you think?” Aquagirl broadcast telepathically. “Has Black Manta finally flipped out?”
Aquaman replied without indicating that he was having a conversation. “Manta flipped out years ago, Lorena,” he said in her head. “Long before he killed my son. He’s always been off the deep end, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
“Do you think he’s killing his own men?”
“Cal Durham hasn’t been allied with Manta for years,” Aquaman replied. “As far as I can assume, the victims are former henchmen, not current ones.”
“So Manta is offing them for some other reason.”
“Maybe, maybe not. The severed hands would lead us to believe the possibility that this is a personal attack against me,” Aquaman explained, not losing speed. “We could be dealing with Charybdis, Piranha Man, or whatever he calls himself these days. He took my hand originally.”
“It looks like you got better,” Lorena observed as she noticed Aquaman once again had both of his hands intact.
“A lot of things have happened recently,” he said, revealing nothing. “Let’s keep our heads in the game.”
As they sped at impossible speeds, they came upon the path of a familiar foe. The Clownfish, lumbering his obese body through the water, smiled as he saw that they had seen him. Aquaman and his new partner swam to a halt before him.
The Clownfish smiled as he greeted them, thinking of a good one-liner to acknowledge their arrival. His flabby purple skin jiggled as he chuckled at the joke that he had just invented only to lose it to his own insanity. “Glub-glub, Aqua-stooges!” Clownfish yelled as his sickly fish surrounded him. The small fish all had mutated faces, giant lips and pearly white teeth curled into biologically impossible smiles. The Clownfish matched their smiles as he continued to laugh.
“I see you’re still as awful as always, Clownfish,” Aquaman said as he prepared to take the villain down as he always did.
Clownfish frowned, pulling the circular tattoos carved into his face into a strange oval. “You hurt my feelings, King-man,” he whined with exaggeration. “Now I’m not going to tell you that Baron Gorgos is planning on summoning the Old Ones to take down the impenetrable sphere that holds Atlantis within its clutches.”
“Really?” Aquaman asked as Clownfish realized what he had said aloud. “I suppose you’re well aware that I’m going to beat you now.”
Clownfish dropped his hands to his sides as he knew that he had fallen to his own ignorance yet again. “Go on then,” he mumbled. “But then you’ll never know that the Pardoner is hidden within the Chasm of Locke Valley, guarding the tomb of Nyarlathotep.”
Aquaman approached Clownfish carefully, not wanting to taunt the villain into using his stolen Joker Venom underwater again.
“I did it again, didn’t I?” Clownfish asked. “I’m a terrible villain.”
“Yes, you are,” Aquaman agreed. Lorena smiled as Aquaman took care of business. As Aquaman let the insane villain sink to the bottom of the seabed, he had already moved on to other subjects. “The list keeps growing,” he said as he began to swim again towards Mu and his ultimate destination. Mysteries were adding up into a mountain of stress and bother as Aquaman increased his speed to shut them out of his thoughts.
Black Manta stood on the bridge of his submersible craft deep below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. He was completely unaware that his former henchmen were being eradicated. He had spent the last six months training his current group of underlings for their current agenda, tirelessly working to make sure that they succeeded where the others had always failed.
He surveyed his bridge. Seven men were on deck, working the controls as they crept deeper into the darkness of the sea. Countless red lights blinked randomly and computer screens displayed a constant stream of information. Manta silently observed, letting others do the job for him.
Steadily descending, the ship was rocked by a heavy explosion, nearly knocking Manta off of his feet. Alarms immediately blared as the number of red blinking lights increased in both number and random blinking. Black Manta should not have been surprised; he should have expected failure. However, he never expected what happened next.
“Status report,” he demanded. His black oblong helmet distorted his voice ominously. His henchmen looked at the various displays in hopes of discerning the cause of the current situation.
“Unknown, sir,” one of the black wet-suited pilots replied, unable to draw a conclusion. “Systems show a drop in air pressure but external hull remains sound.”
As they contemplated their troubles, the ship continued to rock under duress. Manta heard the metal scraping before he saw the pressurized door behind him be torn from its solid steel hinges.
“Aquaman!” he growled, assuming that he had been foiled before his plan had even gotten underway. As the intruder entered the bridge, Manta was speechless.
A young boy, no older than eight years, strode to him. His blond hair and blue eyes were instantly recognizable. Black Manta staggered back, knocking into a henchman as they drew their weapons.
“It’s so good to see you again, Manta,” Aquaman’s dead son said as he was joined by a zombified teenage girl. The two grinned at each other as Manta struggled to speak.
“Impossible,” was all Black Manta could manage as his henchmen began to scream.
Blood spurted in all directions as Arthur Curry, Jr. raised his hand to the air. With a gesture of his fingers, the henchmen’s hands were severed from their bodies. Manta panicked but had nowhere to go.
Arthur Curry, Jr. smiled. He turned to his zombie and motioned for her to take action. “Go ahead, Tula,” he said with malice evident in every syllable. “Make sure they never see their families again.”
Tula growled an indecipherable reply. Her tongue was not in usable condition. She ran at the henchmen, pushing Manta to the floor as she pounced.
Junior slowly walked to Manta and stood over the man that had killed him as the villain tried to get to his feet. Through the noises of his dying men, Manta knew that he had reached his own end.
“This is karma coming back at you, Manta,” Arthur, Jr. snarled he pushed Manta into the black metal floor. “You killed me, so now I kill you.”
Arthur Curry, Jr. laughed as his mental powers tore Manta’s hand from the arm. The terrorist screamed as he bled. With a blink of effort, Arthur, Jr. heard the head pop within the black helmet as Manta fell limply to the floor.
Junior kicked the dead man to ensure that Manta was dead, frowning with dissatisfaction. Tula looked at the boy with concern, cocking her head with a meaty snap. “Not very satisfying,” he said as he shook his head. He bent down to remove Manta’s helmet, unlocking the clasp and releasing the flow of blood and gore that had once been Manta’s head. He lifted the helmet to investigate it and frowned yet again.
“We’ll have to do some alterations, Tula,” he announced as he put the bloody helmet on his head. It was way too large to fit properly. “This thing is way too big.”
“Grobble,” Tula replied, patting the helmet with her decaying hand.
Arthur, Junior stifled a chuckle. “You’re right, Tula,” he smiled as he gave the zombie a hug. “You’re always right. Now we just have to figure out how to work this ship.”
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To Be Continued...
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