JLU 2001 Fanfiction - Aquaman #8

King of the Seven Seas.....

"Revenge Served Hot"

Aquaman #10 - October, Year One

by Mark "Puff" Anderson

Hy-Brasil;

Aquaman swam in past the headland corral that masked the entrance to the Valley of Hy-Brasil. Unknowingly, he followed the same path that Koryak had through the kelp and seaweed forests. Once, he dodged down behind a rock outcrop so that a trident-bearing patrol of manta men could swim by.[1]

“Better to avoid contact with the locals until I’ve taken in the lay of the land,” Orin thought.

He could just see the thin, tall spires of Hy-Brasil in the distance when he heard a low-pitched hum approaching him. Turning, he saw 3 scuba sleds coming toward him. Two of the vehicles were manned by Hy-Brasillians. Their dappled, mantoid bodies caught the dim sunlight filtering into the ocean’s depths. The third bore Black Manta looking like a Hy-Brasillian native except his skin was gray where their skins were largely mottled and light-colored.

Orin ducked behind a nearby rock formation hoping that he had not been seen. “Better to buy time and find Koryak, before fighting these bastards,” he thought.

“You can’t hide from me, Aquaman,” Manta called. “I can smell you in the water all about me.” He raised his head and seemed to scent the water. “It smells like you are going to die here today.”

With a grim smile, Manta pointed at the rock formation. “Fire!”

At the command, the first sled loosed a torpedo onto the rock formation shielding Aquaman.

CRUMP! Shrapnel exploded from the coral. An expanding cloud of debris and sand obscured all vision. Orin threw himself backward away from the razor-edged shards sluicing toward him.

The second sled moved to flank Aquaman. It unleashed a blot of electrical energy, which sizzled by bare inches from Orin’s head.

Kicking his legs, Aquaman flipped around and drove himself hard toward the second sled as it closed on him.

The first sled circumnavigated the cloud of debris kicked up by its missile and accelerated around behind Aquaman.

Manta held his sled backsliding to cut off any escape route the sea king might take as he watched the chase.

The pilot of the second sled lurched back on his controls. The Atlantean came for him much faster than he expected. He tried to dodge the onrushing sea king. His sled pitched its nose upward at an odd angle. The white and purple dapple-skinned manta man hung from the controls wrestling to control the sled as Aquaman came over the bow.

KRA-KOOM! Orin delivered a thundering blow to the pilot knocking him backward off the Manta sled that continued to climb out of the Hy-Brasillian valley toward the surface.

The pilot rolled with the punch. “Die, Atlantean!” he cried through gritted teeth. He grasped his trident and stabbed at Orin.

Aquaman knocked the trident’s razor sharp edge aside with the stump of his hand. He grabbed a handful of the manta man’s wings shaking him with all his strength. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” He said before clubbing him over the head with his stump knocking him cold. “Die, Atlantean, indeed,” he scoffed.[2]

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Three torpedoes leaped from the first sled. Aquaman spun as all three acquired him and began to zero in.

He kicked backward dropping the pilot of the third sled. Swimming at top speed, Arthur raced away from the torpedoes. He dodged through a stand of kelp with the torpedoes pacing him.

The first sled tracked him closing in.

Aquaman burst from the kelp racing toward the first sled. At over 60 miles an hour, he knifed over the startled pilot before he could react.

He spun back from watching Orin pass, just in time to see the three torpedoes burst from the dense kelp growth and bear down on him.

KRA-KOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The wreckage of the first sled sank away toward the ocean floor.

Aquaman faced Black Manta across the littered wreckage of the torpedoed sled.

“Where is my son?” Aquaman asked.

The gray, slick-skinned humanoid manta smiled. “Soon enough,” he said and clicked a switch on the control panel before him. A net shot from the front of his sled. The metal mesh wrapped around Orin. Manta hit a second switch on the panel.

T-ZAK! A million volts of power fed through the net. Gritting his teeth, Arthur groaned as his muscles spasmed in response to the energy coursing through him.

Manta gloated as he turned up the power. “Maybe you’ll die before finding out,” he said.

Aquaman’s hand closed on the net. His lips drew back in a grimace as his muscles clenched and unclenched in response to the electrical power. He crushed the steel in his hand.

He began whipping his hand back and forth. The motion transferred up the steel cable to Manta’s sled causing it to slew back and forth.

“Uhn!” Orin grunted as he swung the sled, hammer fashion, using the momentum to smash it into the sea floor. Manta leaped away in the moment before impact. The power coursing down the cable to the net died away.

Breathing heavily, Aquaman freed himself from the net uncurling his fingers from where they had dug.

Manta’s tail whipped out and wrapped around Arthur’s throat squeezing tightly. Their arms locked together in a wrestler’s stance as they sank toward the sea floor.

Orin cracked his forehead against Manta’s. Blood seeped from Manta’s nose trailing out on the current.

Aquaman gasped as the air separated from the water in his lungs. His gills worked, but Manta’s tail squeezed the intakes closed keeping the life giving water out of his lungs. He grabbed Manta’s tail with his good hand and tried to pry it loose.

Manta jammed his shoulder forward skewering Aquaman’s stump with one of his wing prongs. Orin threw himself backward clutching at the bleeding stump. He fetched up as Manta’s tail went tight lassoing him around to crash against the silty ocean floor.

“You aren’t going to make it to Akisaqtuq,” Manta croaked out as he dragged the sea king along the ocean’s floor.

In a surreal oxygen starved moment, Arthur noticed that Manta’s voice sounded electronic even without his helmet on.

Manta smirked. “I’m going to kill you right here and send you on to join your sons.”[3]

Aquaman accelerated toward him. Rage wiped away all else as Manta’s words sank in. Sons, plural, Manta had just told him that Koryak was dead. He shifted direction at the last second and whip cracked his old foe by the tail that was still wrapped around his neck. “I don’t know who Akisaqtuq is, but you and he are both going to pay for what you’ve done,” he said.[4]

“ARRRGGGHHH!” Manta cried out as his body snapped out in a pendular motion along the length of his tail. He loosed his tail from Orin’s neck to keep from being whipped around again.

Grim determination lit his features as the King of the Seven Seas twirled his stump coiling Manta’s tail about his arm. He yanked Manta toward him.

THOOM! He delivered a sea-shaking punch to Manta’s jaw. The villain’s eyes fluttered as he lost consciousness.

Orin freed his stump from the coils of Manta’s tail. The body floated free. Slowly, it floated toward the entrance to the valley.

“This…thing killed my son,” Orin thought. The urge for vengeance hung nearby. Every time he encountered Black Manta, the desire was there.

He coughed as he rubbed his throat. He looked toward the distant high spires of Hy-Brasil and the spell was broken. “What if he lied?” He thought as he kicked off toward the city. Through his connection with the Clear, he could feel Koryak’s presence. He was alive regardless of what Manta claimed.

Outside the Valley of Hy-Brasil;

Three manta-shaped vessels slipped surreptitiously toward the city. One of the shadowy pilots noted the body of the Black Manta floating past.

Low-powered, virtually undetectable, radio signals coordinated the three ships as they closed on the city.

Within the ships sat the seemingly mesmerized trio of Captain Nemo, Cutlass, and Eeol.

In the depths of hell, Neron smiled as his chess pieces moved into position. A glass of blood wine swirled in his hand as he contentedly watched the drama play out through the flames of a blackened stone hearth.

Hy-Brasil;

One of the ancient Atlantean jewels in the Ocean Master’s staff began to slowly pulse drawing his attention. He watched it for a moment. “A warning,” he murmured.

“What did you say?” The ancient sea god wearing Koryak’s body asked.

Orm shook his head. “Nothing,” he responded.

“It is your turn, Lord High Guardian of Hy-Brasil,” Akisaqtuq said with contempt. “See if you can do better than that fool Manta.”

“When it comes to battling Orin, it is always my turn,” Orm sneered back.

“Have a care, Ocean Master,” Akisaqtuq warned, “lest the gifts of the Leviathan be taken from you.”

“Oh, I appreciate the city and the subjects,” Ocean Master responded mockingly. “And I will do as I am bid.” He rose and left the chamber mindful of the pulsing stone in his staff.

As he walked out of the Chamber of State, he thought, “but what good is a city if I have to share it with a suddenly rejuvenated old fossil like you.”

The warning gem glowed its cautionary message. Each pulse grew stronger and of a longer duration, moment to moment.

Aquaman swam down the central avenue of Hy-Brasil toward the seat of Hy-Brasillian government. The Chamber of State sat on a hillock near the city’s center.

A hunched and hooded figure stood on the steps of the Chamber, its back to Aquaman’s approach. All of the Hy-Brasillians withdrew into their homes and shelters following the High Guardian’s order to clear the streets. This old man was the first native that Aquaman had seen since entering the city.

Coming up on him slowly, so as not to startle him, Aquaman said, “I seek the High Guardian.”

The old man turned, his hood falling away from his face, to stare at the approaching sea king. Orin was taken aback at the empty eye sockets that gazed at him. Thoughts of the Fisherman on that mad island at the hurricane’s center raced through his mind.[5]

“Welcome to Hy-Brasil, King of Atlantis,” the old man intoned.

“How do you…,” Orin began to ask.

“I was High Guardian in your last visit here,” the old man said.

“But…,” Orin began.

The old man smiled. “I was a young man then, before the coming of the Manta and the Ocean Master. Orm claimed the right of challenge for the mantle of High Guardian,” he said.

Orin stared. He could guess how it had gone. Orm magicked him with that staff sucking away his youth and vitality. And once he was High Guardian, Orm plucked his eyes out leaving him to wander as an example. It was what his brother would do.

“I’m going to stop him,” Orin said. “Your people will be free.” Orin looked toward the entrance to the Chamber stepping past the old man. “Has there been another Atlantean here? My son has been taken prisoner by these men.”

“By Poseidon, you are a sucker,” a different voice said coming from the former High Guardian. The illusion of the old hooded man faded away leaving the Ocean Master facing Aquaman.

CRACK! The Ocean Master’s staff smashed his brother’s head slamming him backwards. Orin landed on his back on the steps of the Chamber.

Orin furrowed his brow. Concentric rings of telepathic power slammed out of him converging on Orm’s mind. The villain felt a wave of force smashing against his innermost self, as Aquaman tried to overpower his will.

“You have made yourself a creature of the sea, Orm. Surrender to my will as your king,” Arthur commanded.

One of the mystic gems in Orm’s staff flared into light. A blast of psionic force slammed into Orin pushing him down the steps to crash into the street. A spider web of cracks spread from his impact site.

“You are not my king. You are only my brother through an accident of fate,” Orm cried.

Using his incredible sea-born strength, Arthur drove his fingertips into the street surface. Grunting with effort, he tore a 6-yard section of street loose. Raising it over his head, he hurled the pavement at the Ocean Master.

“Where’s my son?” He cried.

Twirling the staff, Orm fired a repulsor beam from one of the power gems. A glow enveloped the paving stones flying toward him arresting their flight. They exploded back toward their origin point.

Orin dove aside as the veritable hailstorm of paving stones rocketed at him. Stones of various sizes pelted him.

“I am conflicted about killing you, Arthur,” Orm said.

Surprised to hear his brother use his surface name, Arthur responded, “Then don’t do it Mac. Don’t even try.” He shrugged his shoulder where one of the stones had struck. “Show me where Koryak is and get out of here.”

Mackenzie Curry, Old Tom Curry’s other adopted son, looked back toward the Chamber of State. He knew Akisaqtuq watched from within. He could feel the ancient creature’s glee at the pain of the two brothers fighting. And somewhere beyond the mortal coil, he could feel Neron’s amusement.[6]

“I can’t, Arthur,” he said. “I’ve gone too far. I’ve done too much. I rule and I am king, or I am defeated and I am dead.”

He unleashed a blast of energy from another of the power gems. The ray missed Arthur striking the street behind him.

“You missed,” Aquaman said as he swam toward his brother with his fist clenched. He cocked the fist back to strike.

Orm responded, “No, I didn’t.”

Gray, putrescent arms grabbed Aquaman from behind. He found himself spun around facing 2 zombies in Nazi sailor livery.

CRACK! One of them delivered a thunderous right to Arthur’s jaw. His head snapped back. The other zombie grabbed him by the throat crushing down on his larynx.

Aquaman grabbed the arm of one of his attackers. His hand closed on the rotting swastika emblazoned lapel of the sailor’s uniform. Aquaman lifted and spun him with all his strength slamming him into his compatriot.

The largely decomposed World War 2 casualties exploded in a cloud of putrescence, as the magic animating them couldn’t stand against Aquaman’s strength.

Orin kicked backwards from the effluvial cloud. The broken bones of the lost souls clumped onto the sea floor.

Arthur turned his horrified gaze toward Orm. “What have you become?” He asked.

“Neron bound me to this staff encrusted with ancient Atlantean power gems. I am what I am,” the Ocean Master responded as he twisted the staff. Two beams shot out of the staff striking Orin. The first trapped him inside a psionic bubble. The second heated the water within the psionic bubble to boiling.

“Aaarrrggghhhh!” He cried in pain.

Fighting through the pain, Aquaman kicked toward Orm. His skin flushed pink and, then, red in the boiling bubble. He grabbed his brother pulling him into the bubble with him.

“Yeearrgh!” Orm screamed as the boiling water hissed across his skin. As his concentration broke, the bubble of super-heated water dissipated.

SMASH! Arthur cracked his brother in the jaw knocking him cold.

Orm floated unconscious nearby. Orin shook his fingers flexing them from the jarring impact. His chest heaved at exertions of the last few hours.

At that moment, the doors of the Chamber of State cracked open from a hard water impact. Koryak staggered out the doors. His hands held to his face as he stumbled forth.

“Koryak!” Orin cried as he swam to his son.

“Fa…father,” Koryak said.

Near the walls of the Valley of Hy-Brasil;

At equidistant points around the valley, three manta-shaped craft hove to. Each dropped anchors to lock them in place.

The hatches popped open and their pilots swam free. Captain Nemo, Cutlass, and Eeol fled the vicinity of the valley.

The steps of the Hy-Brasillian Chamber of State;

Aquaman reached out to Koryak. He clasped his son by the shoulders.

At the touch, Koryak’s hands grabbed his father’s forearms. His head rose.

And Orin found himself staring into the glowing green eyes of Akisaqtuq. Power bled from the eyes casting a greenish tint onto the young man’s features.

Orin pulled against the iron grip on his arms. Akisaqtuq held him fast.

“Koryak isn’t here anymore, father. There is only Leviathan and Akisaqtuq,” Leviathan spoke through his new body.

Twin green optic beams struck Aquaman in the face. The energy cascaded from Akisaqtuq’s eyes enveloping Orin’s head in a corona of energy.

“You should be proud. Your son is the host of Shalako and will be the object of worship throughout the seas,” he said as he pressed his attack.

Contorting his body, Orin placed his foot against his son’s chest and kicked breaking the hold on his forearms. He tumbled back from Akisaqtuq.

His face burned from the blast, his skin boiled from Ocean Master’s attack, and the various bumps and bruises provided by Black Manta, Aquaman broadcast his telepathy into the surrounding ocean summoning his subjects to him.

A look of shock appeared on his face as the fish, octopi, and others nearby refused him. He noticed that all of the aquatic life was rapidly departing the Valley of Hy-Brasil.

Akisaqtuq moved to attack Aquaman again.

He wearily rose to defend himself.

Neither of the combatants noticed that the pulsing stone on Ocean Master’s staff had gone solid calling out its silent warning of danger.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! The 3 manta ships exploded with nuclear fire.[7]

Orin and his possessed son saw the nuclear blossoms appearing all around the rims of the valley. A wall of atomic flame rushed in toward the center of the valley.

A white fog sprang into Arthur’s field of vision giving all he saw an air of unreality. He saw Akisaqtuq whirl his arms forming a hard water shield over himself. The flame and turbulence blasted him. His skin crisped as the radiation drove into him. His hair fell out in huge rapid clumps.

“NNNOOOOO!” Arthur screamed. He reached out toward his son’s body. His hand passed through him ghost-like.

A moment later, the walls of the Chamber of State blew inward as the burgeoning nuclear force tore the building apart. Buildings up and down the street were smashed flat.

Orin looked toward Koryak. He was gone swept away by the explosive power hammering Hy-Brasil.

A wave of fire and debris swept down the street obliterating any view beyond.

And then…all went white.

Somewhere;

Neron laughed. He swirled his wine glass. “Well, you evil old fish, it looks like I’ve won this round,” he said as he stared at the destruction through the mystical flames of his hearth.

Having carried out Neron’s will, his agents were set free to do their own evil in the world pending the day when their souls would be his for eternity.

Hy-Brasil;

The surface of the sea rose in response to the explosion below. A great wave rolled toward the Brazilian low lands 350 miles to the northwest.

Three-fourths of the city was mashed flat. Rubble littered all the streets. Few structures in the valley were whole. Collapsed walls, broken windows, and cracked facades characterized those who hadn’t fallen. Fires burned everywhere unquenched despite being on the ocean’s floor. Bodies, singly and in clumps, were scattered about the remnants of the city.

Neron’s attack on the Leviathan killed thousands of Hy-Brasillians. The ongoing radiation threat would kill a large percentage of the survivors.

The stench of death and fire hung heavy in the false calm following the detonations.

The hill on which the Chamber of State had sat was littered with rubble. A single load-bearing wall still stood though the roof that had topped the wall was no longer there.

A crumbled section of rubble rose as a humanoid form lifted it from beneath. Akisaqtuq tossed the wall away. His hair was burned away. Radiation pustules were already growing on his skin.

He looked about dawning understanding lighting his face. He sensed it. Neron had struck. And Orin had escaped his vengeance.

A small shattered shard of mirror drew his attention. He looked down at it. A slow full smile spread across the shattered ruin of the face looking back at him. The face of Aquaman’s son stared back at him. Revenge, it seemed, still had life.

Orin saw the explosions and saw the horrible winds, and waves of fire. He felt himself grow indistinct. His hand passed wraith-like through Koryak’s arm. He lunged at Koryak to pull him to him.

Two strong, hairy arms grabbed him pulling him back.

Turning, he found himself starring into Old Tom Curry’s face.

“I couldn’t let it end like that,” the old man said. His face was troubled. “For either of my sons.” Over his shoulder, Orin saw Orm floating.

His Ocean Master uniform was gone. He lay unconscious floating on the light current. The staff that was his power and his curse lay nearby.

“I have separated him from the staff. As long as I keep him in the Clear, I can assuage his pain,” Old Tom said sadly.[8]

“I won’t be able to see you for awhile, son,” he said. “I’ve violated the rules of this place,” he gestured at the surrounding amorphous whiteness of the Clear.

“I…,” he trailed off looking over Orin’s shoulder.

“You can give him no more warnings,” Atlan said from where he had just appeared.

“Atlan,” Orin said, “but if you are here then…”

“Yes, my son. I am dead. Orm and Manta killed me in my grotto days ago. Garth needs to go into my grotto on the next full moon. A final gift for him awaits there,” he said.

Gesturing at Orm, Atlan said, “Ready him, we must move on.” Tom Curry nodded and moved to gather his wayward son.

“A final gift for you as well my son,” Atlan said reaching out his hand toward Ocean Master’s staff.

The staff morphed as Atlan triggered the psionic gem using its energy to reform it. The amorphous metal glob floated to Orin. It settled over the stump at the end of his arm. Tendrils of near liquid metal reached down attaching to Aquaman’s arm. Within moments, the staff formed itself into a metal hand.

Orin flexed the hand morphing it into a harpoon, a hand again, a sword, a mystic gem encrusted gauntlet, the staff and then, back into a hand as Atlan and Tom Curry looked on.

Curry touched the brim of his captain’s hat. “I’ll see you again when I can, my son,” he said as he hefted Orm over his shoulder.

Atlan nodded to his son.

Orin watched as his two fathers and his brother began to fade.

“Wait. I…,” he said.

He found himself standing on a rock outcropping looking at the distant spires of Atlantis.

Brazil,
Two hours later;

The waves pulled back from the seashore all along the Amazon Delta. A 50-foot wall of water rose racing toward the shore.

A red, white, and blue-clad figure raced back and forth along the beach evacuating vacationers and onlookers. “Now, Memorial,” the patriotic figure commanded.

Nearby, a rock-skinned figure raised its hands. Waves of energy sprayed from him. Stones rose from the exposed seabed forming into a long barrier of stone men who braced their shoulders for the impact. The mighty wave struck the stone men breaking up as it did.

Memorial allowed the temporary statuary that was his stock in trade to subside back into the sea floor. He looked toward his star-spangled teammate. “Nation?” He asked.

The leader of the new Force of July nodded to his teammate. “Good job,” he said as he caught Memorial’s hands lifting him into the sky. “We need to get back to the ship. They should have tracked the detonation to its source by now.”

“Do you think it was the pirated submarine missiles?” Memorial asked.

“The ASA does,” he responded, “and as long as we work for them, what they say goes.”[9]

The U. S. Navy destroyer, the Hank Heywood, came into view. The two July-ers landed on the foredeck as it steamed toward Hy-Brasil.[10]

BACKSTORY:

        1. Koryak came to Hy-Brasil in JLU-2001 Aquaman #5.
        2. Yes, that is a little extrapolation there. I believe that grabbing a manta by its soft wing tissue should be roughly analogous to kicking a man in the…well you get the idea.
        3. Don’t know who Akisaqtuq is…go read last issue.
        4. Black Manta was responsible for the death of Aquaman’s other son, Arthur Jr in mainstream DCU     Adventure Comics #452(August 1977).
        5. The Fisherman’s plot unfolded in JLU-2001 Aquaman #1, 4, 5, and 6.
        6. Orm was Tom Curry’s son from his first marriage. Tom’s care for the boy from the sea soured their already distant relationship.
        7. These missiles were taken in a pirate attack on a U. S. submarine in JLU-2001 Aquaman #8.
        8. The Clear is a quantum field phenomenon. The Clear is analogous with what the Swamp Thing called the Green and the morphogenic field that Animal Man called the Red.
        9. ASA is the American Security Agency. Their purview is to eliminate all subversive activities and persons operating against the interests of the United States. The original Force of July operated under their auspices. This is the first appearance of the new Force of July.
        10. The U. S. Navy destroyer was named after Hank Heywood, former Marine who served in World War 2. He became the masked mystery man known as Steel before serving alongside the All Star Squadron. His grandson took on the Steel name and served alongside the Justice League when they made their base in Detroit a few years ago up until his death at the hands of Professor Ivo’s Ivodroids. As of this writing, Hank Heywood Sr.’s whereabouts or his fate are unrecorded in JLU-2001 continuity.