The
Ocean’s floor;
The slime covered the sea floor to a depth of six or seven feet. The
mire grew there over time, thickening as the Apokoliptans dumped their
sludge into the seas and the soot from the Fire Pits rained down.
A generation ago, a scientist discovered that the slime was an
excellent dietary supplement for the Parademons, both feeding their
stomachs and making them extra aggressive. Within weeks, Darkseid set
the Deep Six to work in Poseidonis harvesting the slime. Even
Darkseid’s armies marched on their stomachs and Parademons
ate a lot.[1]
The waters swirled as the giants moved in. The fish were horrid
looking. One of them extended an arm to stir the slime into a slurry.
Then, together, they swept through with their mouths open gathering the
disgusting effluvia and swallowing it. Their four eyestalks worked back
and forth in ecstasy as they absorbed the slime.
A grim form floated nearby. Green-skinned, the humanoid looked to be an
Apokoliptan amphibian of the same race as the Deep Six, though
decidedly runty by comparison to the rest of the Six.
The two giant slime suckers turned to their fellow traveler
communicating. “Come, Swimmer. We are full and ready to
deliver to the processing center,” one of the creatures sent
telepathically.
Nodding his blonde head, the grim one dressed in gray and black with a
white wave design in his uniform swam in the mutated beasts’
wake.
One of the few seaforms that survived the polluting, the slime suckers
grew intelligent over time, mutated either by the pollution or by one
of DeSaad’s experiments, no one knew for sure. After the
discovery of the dietetic applications of the slime, the suckers were
pressed into service to Darkseid’s greater glory.
The Swimmer let the mutants lead. Truth be told, he had more in common
with the beasts before him than he did with the Six or the
gray-skinned, thin-bodied, and bulbous-headed No-Logs.
Thirty years ago, he had been born, the mutant son of two No-Logs. The
No-Logs were the survivors of Old Atlantis before the coming of
Darkseid…if the legends were to be believed.
The Swimmer shook his head smirking, “As if there were ever a
time before the Dark Lord,” he muttered.[2]
“Did you say something, Swimmer?” One of the slime
suckers asked turning its fourth eye to gaze back at him.
“No,” he answered the fish who was his superior and
his inferior at the same time. His function in the team was to directly
deal with the Six on the suckers’ behalf and guide them
through the pollution-filled waters avoiding the dead zones where no
living thing could survive.
He shook his head still preoccupied. “How could I be of the
No-Logs?” he thought flexing his hand and arm. “I
could crush three of them in a single grasp.”
He regarded his hand…unwebbed. The No-Logs hands were webbed
as were their feet. He stood 6 foot tall. The No-Logs were 4 feet. The
majority of their height was owed to their huge heads.
Still shaking his head, he trailed along in the suckers’ wake.
When it was determined that he was different, the Six took him from his
parents, lest the No-Logs kill him as an abomination.
Tests using one of DeSaad’s scanners showed him to be a
telepath. Within days, he was in a nursery in Granny
Goodness’s orphanage. Those days were the worst, beaten
daily, trained, and, then, beat some more.[3]
The lessons of those days burned in his mind and heart.
“Know
your place!”
“Serve
Darkseid!”
“In
all things, the will of the Dark Lord is ascendant!”
“Bow
before your betters!”
The Swimmer stopped. His eyes squinted and worked as he thought.
“That last…wasn’t one of
Granny’s rules,” he thought.
He raised his hand to his chin touching the heavy slime-dyed green
beard that hung there. “That was one of Slig’s
rules,” he remembered. “The price of working in the
sea. In Slig’s domain.” He rubbed his head.
“The Six are my superior. I am only allowed to live my mutant
existence because I am able to guide and speak with the creatures of
the sea. I only have value as long as I serve.
I…,” he stopped looking ahead realizing that the
suckers had outstripped him.
Swimming rapidly, he overtook them, before slowing to pace along side
them.
Ahead, the black globe of Atlantis loomed out of the dark, dank, fetid
waters of the ocean. The legends claim that when Poseidonis was new,
the dome was clear and you could see out from the inside, of course,
that was before the processing began in earnest. The smoke and
exhalation of the processing plant had darkened the globe until it
could no longer be seen through.
“The legends claim a great deal though,” Swimmer
thought keeping pace with the suckers.
A dim red light showed from the tunnel entrance.
The suckers lead the way following the red light into the interior of
the dome resting on the ocean’s floor. The dark shaded toward
gray as they swam up the tunnel. Gray gave way to light as they broke
the surface.
The city stretched before them. The only rebuilt city on the
ocean’s floor, Poseidonis stretched from one side of the dome
to the other. Each building crowded on top of the next. The hovels of
the No-Logs and the buildings of the slime processing plant and the
mansions of the Six, all cluttered together in the space of the dome.
Side by side, the Swimmer surfaced with the giant mutant suckerfish.
“You’re late, as usual,” a green-skinned
giant of a creature said as it strode down the dock, which creaked
under the beast’s weight as it moved. His scales glistened
under the distant of the light burning in the top of the dome.
“We’re here, aren’t we Trok?”
The Swimmer responded to the orange-helmed member of the Deep Six.
Wa-thew!
Wa-thew! The sound of
Trok’s axe spinning was the only warning.
BLAM!
The flat edge of his whirling axe smacked the Swimmer in the side of
his head knocking him to his knees.
“Never speak back to me again!” Trok gritted out as
he grasped the Swimmer by the beard pulling him up to glare into his
glazed eyes, “or next time I give you the bladed side of the
axe.”
He glared at the Swimmer for a moment, then, tossed him full length on
the dock.
“Get up and get the processor sluice operating,” he
said turning to watch the suckers move into position.
“But that is the No-Log’s
job…,” the Swimmer said before ducking away as the
axe swung back. “Sorry, my lord.”
Trok stared hate at him. “I am not a Lord. I am just your
better. The only Lord here is Darkseid and his viceroy, Slig. They rule
here. I am doing my job. And if you keep me from doing my
job,” he said menacingly.
“No. No. I won’t,” Swimmer answered
staggering to the sluice and pulling it into place.
Looking into the water, the Swimmer telepathically sent, “It
is ready.”
Eight sets of eyes rose from the water regarding him.
“Swimmer, you are bleeding,” a telepathic voice
called back to him.
Raising his hand, he wiped at his lip. The bright red blood came off on
his hand. The blood washed a swatch of the green slime coating off his
body. Pink skin showed at his lip. The pink skin marked him as a mutant
in the No-Log community. The pink-skinned full-size children of the
No-Logs were killed to keep them from passing their genes on to the
next generation. It was the law of Slig. The only upright humanoids in
Atlantis were he and his species, he and his Deep Six.
The Swimmer was saved because he was the first…and they
needed his telepathic abilities. Since his birth, every generation saw
some of the pink skins born and, just as quickly, done away with. He
was only alive because one of Desaad’s devices had registered
him as a median order telepath.
One of the suckers rose up on the edge of the sluice. Its vestigial
hands extended from the ends of its fins grasping the edges of the
sluice.
HUR-URK! HUR-URK! The giant mutant suckerfish vomited the slime into
the sluice where it drained away quickly back toward the processing
plant where it would be made into Parademon rations.
Trok stood by watching as the vomitus ran down the sluice guides. He
rubbed at his cheek before taking a box from his belt and speaking into
it.
A moment later, another green-skinned large humanoid appeared. A voice
like broken glass spoke, “Kurin says that the readings are
too low. The composition is off. They must have been gathering at a
site other than where we intended.”
Trok regarded the Swimmer. “He has been defiant,”
he said.
Shallago flapped his finned wings slowly. Pushing the blonde hair back
from his face, he said, “Perhaps you need to return to Granny
for a refresher course in obedience. Or perhaps we should tell Slig
that you aren’t capable of performing a simple job that a
No-Log in a submersible could.”
“If they could, you would have them doing it and I
wouldn’t have been allowed to live,” the Swimmer
responded.
Shallago raised his chin at the response. He pushed a button at his
belt. “Or perhaps Gole will teach you respect,” he
said.
The nine-foot tall blue-helmeted Gole rushed down to the dock in
response to the buzz that sounded in the electrodes implanted in his
skull. His red eyes burned as they stared from the eye slit of his
full-face helmet.
Shallago looked to the onrushing Gole. “Discipline him,
Gole,” he said.
Swimmer went for the scabbard hanging at his side. His hand closed on
the hilt of the short sword there.
THOOM!
THOOM! The Swimmer flew
across the channel smashing into the far wall as Gole’s
mighty fists connected in an axe handle sweep. He slipped falling back
into the filthy waters of the canal. Cracked concrete fell into the
water from where the breakwater was destroyed.
The mute Gole dove into the water.
The suckers went on regurgitating their loads, oblivious to the fight
going on in their midst.
CRACK!
The Swimmer hit Gole in the jaw knocking him back.
“Get away from me, Gole! I won’t let you hurt me
anymore,” he broadcast telepathically.
The muscles in Gole’s arms clenched. His red eyes squinted
down. He reached out his hand closing a fist.
FA-ZOOSH!
A spout of water shaped like a fist struck the Swimmer blasting him up
out of the water of the canal, before he crashed back into the water.
The Swimmer spun around stunned trying to regain his bearings.
Gole’s green-scaled fist grabbed the Swimmer by the neck
dragging him back as he swam to the stairs and walked out of the canal,
dragging his foe in his wake.
THUMP!
He threw the stunned Swimmer flat on the pier before Shallago and Trok.
Gole stood quiescent before Shallago like a puppy, which had just done
something good and was awaiting his treat.
Shallago glared at Trok. “Get the mutant back on his fins and
out into the ocean. Tell him to take the suckers to where we say or
there won’t be a next time,” with that Shallago
motioned for Gole to follow him and stalked back toward the ladder
leading up into the city and away from the canal.
Sighing, Trok levered the Swimmer up onto his shoulder and carried him
toward his shed on the far end of the pier.
Above them, the processing plant began to belch smoke and soot into the
sky as the slimy regurgitant was sifted, screened, and baked into
bricks for the Parademons. The smoke rose up and added to the layer
growing on the inside of the dome.
Slig’s Palace,
The High City of Poseidonis, Atlantis;
The green-skinned, blue-tuniced amphibian leader of the Deep Six sat in
his headquarter’s meeting room, swirling his drink as he
gazed into its amber depths.
The long-eared, green-tuniced Jaffar stood looking out a view port. In
the distance, he could see the one called Swimmer diving back into the
canal with his two slime harvesting fish in tow.
“Are we meeting quota or not?” Slig asked.
“We don’t need Darkseid paying a visit or sending
Kalibak,” Slig spat the name, “down here to
investigate.”[4]
“We are just at our quota. Provided the No-Logian mutant goes
where he’s sent, he should return with plenty slime for us to
reach our allotment,” Jaffar said staring into the distance
as the Swimmer disappeared through the muck. “Though how the
creature finds his way in this slurry is beyond me.” As he
said the last, he gestured at a viewport looking outside the dome.
Slig dropped his mug drunkenly on the table. “It is the
reason that we kept him alive and had Granny train him. His
talents,” Slig said swaying.
Jaffar motioned him back to his chair lest he fall.
Turning, he opened a briefing folder. “As Second-In-Command,
I felt it necessary to have some tests run,” Jaffar said.
“Between accretion and the exhaust of the processing plants,
the dome’s air supply has become 25% unbreathable. We project
that in another year we will need to build a new dome or drastically
clean this one.”
BELCH! Slig let his true feelings for such talk show.
Jaffar sighed wearily. “There is also the matter of the Dark
Lord’s desire that we search the extinct undersea
civilization sites for prizes and powers,” he said turning
his hard gaze on Slig. “We haven’t sent a scouting
group out in over six months.”
Slig burped again, before wiping his hand down his mouth and chin. He
rubbed his hand back and forth on his shirt. “You remember as
well as I do what happened last time. The No-Log called Orm went out
with 20 of his kinsmen and never returned. The Swimmer found the
remains days later. Something had eaten them in the deeps,”
he said.
“Have you truly fallen this far? Has the drink made you a
coward?” Jaffar asked.
“Watch your place, Jaffar, lest you find it cut from under
you,” Slig muttered blearily with a dangerous tone in his
voice.
“If you are so concerned about going out and dying in the
oceans of this forsaken place, then, please, take a contingent of the
No-Logs and go,” Jaffar said. “But make sure you
exhort those who remain to double their workload to make up for however
many you lose on your adventure. Whether we search for
these,” he made a wishy-washy motion with his hand,
“lost civilizations or not, we have to meet our
quotas.”
“Who knows, maybe mighty Darkseid will reanimate you after
you get yourself eaten,” Slig said slyly to his
second-in-command, “or maybe not.”
Jaffar stared daggers at his brother. “And what will Darkseid
do to us, if he finds out that we haven’t been looking for
whatever prizes this dank, polluted mudball may have hidden
away?” He asked.
“There’s nothing here,” Slig said
gesturing at the viewport and the polluted ocean beyond.
“Nothing worth having. We’ve been here for hundreds
of years. The secrets of this toilet world are already
ours…and none of them are worth having.”
Rising, Slig staggered to a side table. He half-spilled a blue bottle,
before grabbing hold of it. He refilled his mug.
Turning, he regarded Jaffar. “You’re dismissed,
brother. Report when the Swimmer returns, I need to know in advance if
we are going to make our allotment or not, so I can polish this
shithole before Darkseid or one of his chiefs visits,” he
said, gesturing with the bottle toward the door.
The Deep Ocean;
Swimmer led the mutant suckerfish through the dank darkness. The water
temperatures were steadily increasing as the Fire Pits on the surface
radiated ambient heat into the atmosphere, the earth, and the sea. The
ozone layer had been gone for many years. The sun showed down on the
black clouds heating and re-heating the atmosphere above.
As they crossed a deep trench, 9 pink and purple tentacles shot out of
the depths grabbing one of the suckers.
“SWIMMER! HELP ME!” A telepathic cry tore into his mind.
Turning, he saw one of his suckers being pulled into the stygian
darkness below.
“Stay here,” he sent to the other as he drove himself after
the fish. Inky blackness closed around him.
He pushed himself as he dove deeper, going further down than he had
ever gone before.
Light faded away to nothingness, yet he could still see. He could make
out a strange kind of radar image. He could tell the image was being
sent to his brain via his optic nerve, but it wasn’t sight.
Before him, the suckerfish was wrapped in 20 tentacles as more reached
for it. The creature beyond the fish was huge. Big enough that it
couldn’t swim through the tunnel into Atlantis, the creature had
hundreds of tentacles, some hanging limply, others writhing and
slashing back and forth spastically.
Squinting his eyes, the Swimmer broadcast his telepathy. “LET MY
FRIEND GO!” He blasted his telepathy forth with as much force as
he could muster and brandished his short sword.
The loose tentacles that hadn’t grabbed the fish yet retracted.
The others wrapped tightly about the sucker held tight.
A gigantic yellow and red eye blinked open in the middle of the torso.
An eerie luminescence shined from it, lighting the ocean’s depths.
“What manner of fish are you?” A deep dark voice rumbled in
Aquaman’s head.
“I am the Swimmer of Lord Darkseid’s Deep Seven,” he
said in challenge. Beat into him from day one, this was one of those
rare instances when it was acceptable for him to claim to be a part of
the Dark Lord’s service.
Of course, if Slig ever heard him refer to himself as a member of the
Deep Six, he would be severely disciplined.
“The fish is important to my lord and you must release
him,” he broadcast.
SQUISH! The tentacles tore the
suckerfish in two.
A great horned beak rose out of the dark and swallowed half of the fish.
The Swimmer heard the sucker’s death scream for a brief second
before it fell silent.
The beak worked open and closed again and the other half of the fish
disappeared.
The giant octopoid-like creature extended its tongue and licked its
tentacles. Its eye regarded the small humanoid.
“You smell like the small gray things that I discover from time
to time,” the octopoid telepathically sent as it slipped its
tentacles closer to the Swimmer.
“They are delicious,” it said as its pseudopodia shot
forward and grabbed the Swimmer.
He shrugged in the tight grip, struggling to free one of his arms from
the beast’s grasp. His sword slipped from his hand falling away.
RRRIIIIPPPP! He grabbed the
tentacle nearest him and yanked tearing it from the monster’s
hide.
Twisting in the monster’s grasp, he reached for another tentacle
holding him as the torn one fell free, loosing its grip.
Above his head, he saw the beak loom out of the darkness.
Closing his eyes, he fired concentric blasts of telepathic force into
what he hoped was the monster’s head.
The octopoid monster growled as the waves of mental force beat against
its mind.
Catching another tentacle in his hand, Swimmer heaved, tearing the
waving arm loose from the body.
The hundred-armed octopoid released him squirting away, spraying ink to
blot out the vision of its opponent.
As it retreated, he could hear its thought, “Not like the
gray-skinned ones, too strong. Easier prey in the seas than
this.” The thoughts faded with distance as it ran away.
Untangling himself from the tentacles the octopoid had left behind, the
Swimmer retrieved his short sword from the near bottom and kicked for
shallower water.
There circling slowly was the other of the Giant Mutant Algae Eaters.
It regarded him as he rose. “Where is the other?” It sent.
Raising his chin, he answered, “The octopoid ate him. I’m
sorry.”
The sucker regarded the humanoid with her four eyestalks, before
drawing them in tight to her body and closing them.
The Swimmer turned away. He had seen them do this a number of times and
it never failed to creep him out.
Behind him, the sucker began to bleed from a cleft along her left side.
A cloud of blood added to the pollution of the water.
A stale metallic scent diffused out through the water. Behind him, the
sucker bent away from the rent torn in its side. A head emerged there.
It wriggled and a moment later, a second suckerfish swam beside the
first. The new fish began growing, immediately.
“We are ready to continue,” the first sent.
Turning, Swimmer found himself in company with two suckers who looked
just like the previous two. The newborn’s scales glistened more
than the other’s and it was 2/3rds the size of the first, but
otherwise, largely indistinguishable.
At the orphanage, Science wasn’t something taught to the lower
orders. And Swimmer’s only concern was that they complete their
mission in a timely fashion, so that he would have time to explore and
goof off before having to return to Poseidonis and his normal position
under the Six’s thumbs.
An hour later, they swam through a darker section of water. They were
directly offshore from one of the Fire Pits. Its sluice vents poured
into the water less than 200 miles to the east of where Swimmer and his
two companions tread water.
“This is the site?” The older sucker asked extending her
four eyes glancing around in four directions at once. Tentatively, she
extended her tongue, tasting the fetid waters.
The nearly full-size newborn mimicked the action. His voice sounded,
“Mmmm, delicious.”
“Yes, it is,” the elder responded.
“Yes, this is the place,” Swimmer said motioning below.
“I’ve scanned the area with my telepathy. There are no
threats.”
“Very well,” the older said. “Come,” the sucker
fish said, drawing the younger fish that was both her son and her new
lover to her as they spiraled together, tentacles extending and
wrapping about each other as they sank into the deep, dark effluvia.
Their tentacles extended drawing in the slime as they mated in the
depths, preparing for the day when one of them would die and need to be
replaced.
Swimmer watched the two fall out of sight in the darker water below.
Silently, he thanked mighty Darkseid that his lot wasn’t like
that.
Keeping his telepathy tuned in case a predator came within range, he
began swimming long sweeping circles around the area.
At 10 miles out, Swimmer encountered something that he had never seen
in his entire life.
Clean water.
One moment, it was the usual dank, acidic, sewage-rich
environment…the next, the water turned blue.
A cloud of green surrounded him as the slime coating that had been as a
second skin on him his entire life washed away in the clean water.
Below him along the bottom, a small crater or cavern opening yawned. A
dim blue light shown from inside.
He approached slowly. The crater seemed to have been carved from the
rock. A small structure stood at the bottom of the grotto.
As he approached, he saw a man standing there, leaned forward,
seemingly staring into a pool or well. White-haired, a long white beard
hanging down, the old man was dressed in a faded red and black uniform
made to look like wave patterns.[5]
Swimmer walked around the pool. The old man stared at the bottom of the
pool oblivious to him and all that was around him.
“You seem familiar to me,” the Swimmer murmured, “but
that’s impossible. I’ve never been in this part of the
ocean before.”
He looked about and out at the clean water stretching away above.
“But I should have been aware of something like this,” he
said incredulously.
Stepping up, across the small pool from the old man, he looked into it.
At the bottom, a piece of gold chain lay. A white, glowing fragment of
stone depended from the filigree.
Glancing up at the old man, he reached his hand slowly into the pool.
He fingered the chain and slid it around the pool before lifting it up
to glance at the glowing stone fragment.
His hand closed on the charm. A burning sensation suffused his hand.
The heat increased. His whole hand felt like it was burning. [6]
“Arthur…,” a weak voice said.
“Wha?” The Swimmer said jumping back shocked.
The red-clad old man regarded him, reaching out. “Arthur, you
can’t give it to him,” the old man said. The old
man’s eyes glowed with a dim purple light.
He moved toward the Swimmer. “You can’t…URK!”
He said.
Looking down, the old man regarded the hilt of a sharp short sword that
penetrated his gut.
The Swimmer’s hand, wrapped around the hilt, twisted it to cause
maximum damage, just as Granny had taught him.
“No, Arthur,” the old man said. The glow in his eyes
intensified. He grabbed the Swimmer by the shoulders. “I
won’t let you give the fragment over to Darkseid. I don’t
know how you came to be like this, but I won’t let it
happen.”
The blast of purple energy took the Swimmer by surprise. The light in
Tempest’s eyes intensified. Twinned beams of mystic energy hit
him in the face blasting him backwards to crash against the wall of the
grotto.
The Swimmer tore himself loose from the wall and kicked back across the
grotto toward his opponent.
Tempest staggered as he lost more and more blood from the deep stab
wound. His hands held the hilt of the sword.
The blue glow of the grotto stopped, dying away.
The burning of the Swimmer’s hand lessened.
Tempest sat on the edge of the pool. A purple glow formed a globe about
him.
Swimmer struck at the globe. Sparks of purple energy bled off as he
slashed his sword at the force field.
The old Tempest sat and watched, breathing heavily as the wound in his
gut stole his life force.
“I don’t understand what happened. The last I remember was
disappearing from the dungeons of Atlantis and, then, swimming into
Atlan’s Grotto,” he rudimented, staring at the ferocious
barbarian, who had once been his mentor and friend, trying to tear into
the force field and kill him.
“The mark of evil is upon you,” he said. “I
can’t allow you to leave here with the fragment of Anti-Life. The
consequences could be devastating.”[7]
Tempest forced himself back to his feet. Sweeping his long white beard
aside, he looked up at the upper reaches of the grotto. Far above, the
polluted waters began to leech into the clean zone, the power of the
grotto disappearing with the fragment being removed from the scrying
pool.
FA-ZAAM! ZAAM! ZAAM! Focusing, Tempest fired concentrated bursts of
purple mystic energy at the walls of the grotto. The energy tore from
his eyes and hands. He turned, blasting the walls of the ancient
cavern. Cracks spread. The walls began to fall in.
Too late, the Swimmer realized what was happening. He kicked to swim
straight up…only to be hit by a large piece of falling debris,
which bore him back down.
He slammed into the ocean floor with a large chunk of the cave wall on
top of him. The grotto caved in burying he and the old man alive.
Darkness.
The Ruins of Atlan’s Grotto;
He groaned, pushing a rock aside. Dim light filtered down to him
through the filthy, polluted water.
The Swimmer forced himself back to his feet. He looked at the destroyed
grotto. Throwing a rock aside, he found the scrying pool. The faded red
and black uniform lay there, but the old man who had been in it was
nowhere to be seen.
Raising his hand, he opened the palm and looked at the fragment on the
gold chain. He clasped the chain about his neck. Raising his gray
shirt, he hid the glowing stone away.
Kicking his legs, he rose from the bottom of the destroyed grotto.
Breaching, he jumped 20 feet into the air, breathing deeply the
polluted air above. He dove back into the water, feeling the slimy
embrace wrap about him as the slime layer began to re-accrete.
Looking down, he was surprised to see the destroyed grotto covered in
lichen and slime as if it had been in that condition for hundreds of
years.
He grabbed the fragment hanging about his neck, assuring himself that
it was still there.
The Swimmer smiled as he kicked to swim after the suckers and find
where they had gotten off to.
The Sluice
Docks,
The Lower City of Poseidonis, Atlantis,
Two Days Later;
The suckers delivered their slime regurgitate into the sluices for
processing. The Swimmer stood by on the dock under Trok’s
watchful gaze.
Above the dock, Swimmer could see Gole working back and forth sparring
with himself. All the creature ever did was fight and prepare to fight.
There was a No-Log legend that it had once bested Kalibak in an honor
combat. Its punishment for beating Darkseid’s whelp had been
having its vocal cords removed so that it could never tell of its
victory.
Absently, Swimmer fiddled with the fragment beneath his tunic.
“What do you have there, boy?” Trok asked.
The Swimmer looked up seeing the amphibian Apokoliptan staring at him
intently.
“Nothing,” he said dropping his hands to his side.
CLANK! The haft of the
leather-covered handle of Trok’s swinging axe hit the Swimmer in
the jaw. He held it there, forcing the Swimmer’s head up, so he
could look into the subservient one’s eyes.
“Don’t ever imagine that you can lie to one of the
Six?” Trok gritted out.
“I didn’t lie,” the Swimmer responded.
“Umm hmmm,” Trok said as his clawed hand reached to tear at
the fabric of Swimmer’s tunic.
CRUMP! WOOM! A brilliant flash of white
light exploded outward. When the light faded, Trok lay at
Swimmer’s feet. He looked wizened as if he had aged many years in
a single moment…he, also, looked…dead.
The sluice, one of the few objects on the dock kept in good repair, was
rusted through. Slime dripped from it, pooling underneath.
The desiccated skeletons of the two sucker fish lay beneath the sluice,
right where they had raised up to deliver their slime.
Swimmer stood there. His shirt ripped open. The Anti-Life charm glowing
like a small sun where it hung at his neck. He reached down and touched
it. Its light burned him all the way through. He smiled staring into
the white light.
Raising his head, he saw Gole, alerted by the sound of the explosion,
making his way down to the dock.
Somewhere above in the Low City, the No-Logs had set off the alarm.
The Swimmer smiled grimly. Shaking out his slime-covered, green-tinted,
blonde hair, he strode forward to meet Gole on the steps.
The mute, giant, Apokoliptan, amphibian stalked forward, jumping to the
bottom of the steps in a single bound. His muscles rippled as he
clenched his arms, repeatedly.
KRA-KOOM! A
portion of the dock shattered as Gole’s fist just missed striking
the Swimmer.
Swimmer dove aside as the rapidly aged dock sank into the canal.
Gole grabbed the edge of the shattered plank to keep from falling into
the canal. He pulled himself up.
SMACK! Swimmer, with one hand
clutching the fragment, slapped Gole across the way, slamming him into
the steps leading up from the dock to the city above.
“Huff! Huff!” Gole fought for breath. His skin changed from
green to gray as the life sucked away from him. Forcing himself back to
his feet, Gole staggered toward Swimmer.
Swimmer smiled as the goliath came on. With one hand still holding the
fragment, he raised his other toward the giant. White waves of energy
seemed to leap from Gole to Swimmer, coalescing around the hand holding
the fragment.
Now, it was Swimmer’s turn to groan, almost orgasmically, as the
energy coursed through him.
Gole shriveled and shrank down, before falling at Swimmer’s feet.
THOOM! Swimmer kicked the
corpse with all his might, sending it flying across the canal where it
crashed into the embankment on the far side. His last sight of Gole was
of its corpse slipping into the fetid water of the canal.
Swimmer walked toward the city above, like a king come home to claim
his throne. The alarm still sounded through the city.
Shallago flew in as the Swimmer reached the top of the steps.
“What have you done?” He cried looking at the shattered,
sinking dock below. Trok’s dead body and the bodies of the
suckers lay near the sluice at one end.
Shallago growled, showing razor sharp teeth. “The discipline this
time ends in death,” he said in his ground glass voice.
“I agree,” Swimmer responded.
T-ZAK! T-ZAK! White beams of
energy tore from his eyes striking Shallago, blasting the Flying
Finback across what passed for a sky in Poseidonis.
THUMP! Shallago fell at his
feet. His body dried and mummified in an instant.
Smirking, Swimmer turned and strode up the steps and on through the
streets toward Slig’s palace. As he walked along the street,
No-Logs in the surrounding streets, homes, and businesses fell dead.
White waves of life energy flowed to him.
A deep rumble sounded from ahead of the Swimmer. The doors of the
processing plant where the slime of the seas was turned into Parademon
chow burst open. Kurin walked forth. He pointed his three-bladed sword
at the Swimmer. “I saw what you did on my security screens. You
killed them,” he shook with rage. “My wonderful suckers. Do
you have any idea how long it took to clone them from the small genetic
stock that survived in these horrible seas?”
He raised his sword. “You die here,” he declared.
The tips of the three blades glowed red.
BA-DOOM! A
heat blast struck Swimmer blasting him across the street to shatter the
outer wall of a No-Log dwelling. The building fell in on top of him.
Grunting, Swimmer threw the roof off, rising to his feet. He stepped
from the wreckage, not noticing the multiple dead and dried out
No-Log’s he left in his wake.
“Hi-yah!” Kurin cried as he leaped forward, swinging his
tri-blade sword.
Swimmer staggered back as an arc of his blood followed the
blade’s path. Three long cuts ran the width of his chest from
lower left to upper right.
The fragment pulsed. The cuts knitted themselves shut in moments.
Swimmer blocked the blade haft with his wrist and drove his other fist
into Kurin’s face knocking the gold and orange helmet aside.
Kurin twirled the blade slowly in his hand. “You learned more at
Granny’s school than you were given credit for, No-Log,”
Kurin taunted.
The fragment pulsed against the Swimmer’s bare chest.
Kurin aimed the blade at his opponent, focusing the heat energy through
the blade.
Swimmer reached out his hand toward the Deep Six technical master.
Three red beams impacted a wave of white that rushed across the
battlefield between them. There were crackles of white lightning along
the collision zone…, then, the white wave rolled on impacting
Kurin. His flesh melted from his bones, which then fell to dust. He
didn’t even have time to scream.
Nearby Poseidonis;
Mutant octopoids and all other sea life began to die, as their energy
were sucked away.
The Lower City of Poseidonis;
From the Sluice Docks to the Marketplace to the Ghetto of the No-Logs,
nothing moved. Nothing lived. The Lower City had become an empty place
manned only by the dead. They died where they had stood when the life
energy-sucking fragment of the Anti-Life Equation passed by.
The High City of Poseidonis;
Swimmer walked to the gates of Slig’s palace.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! He slammed
his fists against the door.
“OPEN THE DOOR, SLIG!” He cried. “I’VE COME FOR
YOU. I’VE GOT SOMETHING FOR OUR DARK LORD.”
“Oh yes, something that he is going to like indeed,” the
Swimmer said in a quieter voice.
“Hold on,” a voice said from the far side of the heavy
door. “Hold on.”
The sound of a large bolt being drawn back was followed, a second
later, by the door opening.
Jaffar stood there. His long ears hung down. His skin was already
mottling toward gray.
Swimmer smiled. “Let me in, Jaffar,” he said, pushing
against the door.
Jaffar grabbed the Swimmer’s arm. He fired his mutagenic power
into the Swimmer.
“I’ll transmute you into a snail and crush you,” the
mad-eyed Jaffar cried in a weak voice.
“AAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” The Swimmer cried as his body
transformed around him. A shell formed along his back. His legs
disappeared into pseudopodia. Antenna sprang from his forehead.
The fragment of the Anti-Life Equation pulsed. Jaffar fell back behind
the door.
The white energy ran around the Swimmer’s body, head to toe,
restoring him. His body returned to a more humanoid form.
CRACK! Swimmer struck the
door, shattering it inward. Wooden shrapnel flew across the small
courtyard beyond.
Jaffar cried out as he was impaled by a long spike.
The Swimmer walked to Jaffar. He looked the whimpering, wounded member
of the Deep Six over. Reaching down, Swimmer grabbed the spike,
twisting it and drawing a loud scream from Jaffar.
Swimmer lifted Jaffar by the spike, holding him in the air before him.
The fragment pulsed and all of the life energy drained from Jaffar. He
melted into nothingness falling off the spike. He drained away so
completely that nothing floated to the ground…not even dust.
Throwing the spike aside, Swimmer cried out, “SLIG! WHERE ARE YOU
SLIG?”
“I am in here,” a voice answered from directly ahead of him.
SMASH! Swimmer knocked the door
off its hinges and strode into the headquarters room of Slig.
“You must contact Darkseid. It is past time for him to meet the
true master of Anti-Life,” the Swimmer crowed.
Slig rose from a long table. He wiped his lips and tossed aside the
goblet of liquor that he had been drinking. He grabbed his blue helmet
from the end of the table, slipping it over his head. He belched
loudly. He popped his knuckles and strode toward this attacker in his
realm.
“When the alarm went off, Darkseid was alerted
immediately,” Slig burped out. “He or one of his scions
should be here anytime.”
Gesturing around, Slig said, “based on what you’ve been
doing to Poseidonis, I’d say the Dark Lord will deign to put in
an appearance himself.”
Slig stopped regarding the Swimmer’s new look following
Jaffar’s manipulation. “Maybe Mighty Darkseid won’t
kill you since you are trying to look like a member of the
family…if you survive until he gets here.”
Slig used his mutagenic power on himself, changing his fists into
blocks of stone. He dove across the room, smashing his fist into the
Swimmer’s jaw.
“You’re just one more snack,” the Swimmer said
concentrating on the fragment hanging from the necklace.
Slig weakened immediately. His fists transformed back into flesh.
Looking around drunkenly, Slig waved a hand. “I won’t go
down that easy. There is a reason why I lead the Deep Six,” he
said.
The slime in the water seemed to solidify and grow.
KRA-KOOM! A
humanoid-shaped slime creature hit the Swimmer, knocking him across the
headquarters room.
Swimmer reached out to absorb the life energy of the slime creature.
Only to find that its life energy was of so low a level that the
fragment didn’t recognize it as alive.
SMASH! Another blow threw him
into the wall.
The slime creature moved in.
Closing his eyes, Swimmer reached out with his telepathy.
The creature raised its hands to deliver the coup de grace.
SMASH! SMASH! The glass doors
leading out to a reviewing area over a courtyard broke inward as the
zombified remains of the two mutant sucker fish ripped through in
response to their master’s call.
In short order, the two suckers ate the slime creature…and,
then, fell dead again.
Slig fell to his knees as he tried to feed more energy into the slime
creature to allow it to fight off the zombies eating it.
The Swimmer rose and walked across the headquarters room. As he neared
Slig, the later’s skin grayed and cracked, before flaking away
into nothingness.
Slig’s
Palace,
The High City of Poseidonis, Atlantis,
Two Hours Later;
A heavier darkness descended across the city…a heaviness. If
anyone were still alive, a palpable fear moved across the city.
The Swimmer passed beyond fear as the power of Anti-Life swept through
him.
The shadows at the far end of the headquarters room grew
longer…darker.
And suddenly, he was there.
Darkseid stood observing.
Red beams leaped from his eyes striking out across the city. At the
spots where each of the Six had fallen, lumps of protoplasm formed,
which quickly grew into the Deep Six.
“Return to your work,” he said in a voice that made
world’s quake and sun’s go out.
As the Six filed out of the room, he said, “DeSaad will be along
with your punishment later.”
“Now, then,” Darkseid turned to the Swimmer who sat at the
far end of the room on Slig’s aquatic throne. “What do you
have for your Lord? Why should I spare you?”
“Spare me. Spare me!” The Swimmer foamed. “Why should
I spare you?”
Darkseid’s chin rose at the insult. “So…you fancy
yourself a master among slaves. A king. A New God,” Darkseid said
in a low voice.
“I shall be the new lord. A Light Lord,” Swimmer said
raising his hand and reaching out with the Anti-Life fragment.
Energy swirled between them. Energy peaked, fell, and rose again. Only
the energy flowing out of Darkseid was black as night…not white
like the life energy that the fragment had been draining from every
other living thing.
“Aaahhhh!” The Swimmer cried, clasping his arm. “It
feels like my arm is being cut off.” His concentration broken,
the energy stopped draining from Darkseid. The skin of his arm grayed
turning black. His arm from the elbow withered.
The white glowing fragment dulled to gray as the energy flow between
the Swimmer and Darkseid died. Slowly, it rose back to a white
prominence.
Swimmer looked up. Darkseid stood over him…towered over him.
“Give me the fragment of Anti-Life and I will give you your just
reward. A better reward than you deserve after all that you have done
here,” the Dark Lord said looking out through the broken window
at the dead city beyond.
“I…I am sorry, my Dark Lord,” the Swimmer said in a
broken voice. All his programming kicked in, all Granny’s
lessons, all Slig’s rules, making him a loyal subject of Darkseid
despite the influence of the fragment of Anti-Life. Raising his shaking
hand, he undid the clasp behind his back, one-handed, and reached out
to hand it to Darkseid.
The red beams of Darkseid’s Omega Effect struck the Swimmer as
his large hand closed around the bauble of Anti-Life. When the effect
cleared, the only part of the Swimmer not destroyed was the hand that
let go of the fragment and fell to the floor of the room, twitching.
“It will take hundreds of years to breed enough No-Logs to make
this a viable processing center again,” Kurin said to the others
where they stood near the door.
“You have ten days,” Darkseid said from the doorway.
“Or you will share the Swimmer’s fate.”
BOOM! Every window in
Poseidonis shook in its frame. The Boom Tube opened to take Darkseid to
another part of his empire.
BOOOOOMMMM!
The End!
To
be continued in Dark Genesis #3...
BACKSTORY:
1. The Deep Six are a race of semi-humanoid amphibians
of Apokoliptan descent, though their origins have never been fully
revealed. They 1st appeared In The New Gods #2(April-May, 1971). They
have apparently been killed multiple times and, then, reanimated by
Darkseid. In their second appearance, they killed the aquatic-based New
God, Seagrin.
2. Check
recent issues of JLU’s Dark Genesis and all the JLU titles
crossing over with DG.
3. Granny
Goodness leads the orphanages of Apokolips leading and training the
next generation of the military and Darkseid’s Elite. She is a
severe disciplinarian. The Female Furies are a special cadre of
warriors from her orphanage who are loyal to her. Her first appearance
was in Mr. Miracle #2(May-June, 1971).
4. Kalibak
the Cruel is Darkseid’s son and Orion’s half-brother. In
addition to the strength and agility powers of all the New Gods, he
uses a Beta Club that gives him the ability to fire force blasts and
pain-causing nerve beams. He first appeared in The New Gods
#1(February-March, 1971).
5.
Atlan’s Grotto is a carved cavern where Atlan lived many, many
eons. He practiced his magic here and served as the High Mage of
Atlantis for many, many generations. After his death at the hands of
Black Manta and Ocean Master at Neron’s behest, in
JLU-2001’s Aquaman #5, he contacted Orin through the Clear
telling him that a gift awaited Tempest in the Grotto. Whether this was
the Anti-Life fragment or something else is unknown at this time.
Tempest was mystically transported to the Grotto in JLU-2001’s
Aquaman #14 and JLU Presents: Dark Genesis #1.
6. Yes, dear reader, he grabbed it
with the hand that in the normal JLU isn’t there.
7. Anti-Life
was theorized a couple of ways over the comic book iterations. Some
writers saw it as a destructive force. Others, Kirby among them, saw it
as a mental control device more in line with anti-free will. For it to
have the effect that it does on the M2K Death in JLU-2001, I’m
theorizing that it is more in tune with what its name implies.
Story
© 2006 Mark "Puff"
Anderson and may not be
reproduced without permission.
