A gray shape crashed ashore. A dolphin’s body washed in with
the
surf. As the creature touched the sand, a gray stain seemed to spread
from it, streaking out from the dolphin’s corpse like a
ravenous
beast covering the entire beach and sending tendrils inland. The whole
sea was gray out to the horizon. All the colors of life leeched from
it. The colors drained out of the surroundings. The day grew colder. A
sense of death slipped through the quiet tourist and retirement island
of Little Malachai.
A trailer park stood near the surf line along Main Street, the
island’s main drag, terminating on one end at some road
barriers
beyond which the bay lapped at the shore, on the other at the
island’s ferry to the mainland. The gray stain touched the
edge
of the park and began spreading through it. Old trees that had stood
for three hundred years, surviving hurricanes and blights, fell victim,
going gray and shriveling.
A boy, riding his Big Wheel, skidded to a halt, throwing a cloud of
white sand into the air. The yellow and red plastic tricycle spun its
black wheels as the boy riding it turned and raced away. The gray moved
faster, like a predator in pursuit of its prey.
“MOM!” He screamed as he jammed the pedals
backwards to
spin to a stop at the foot of the steps to his front door.
He took the steps two at a time, leaping across the porch as the gray
leeched the color out of his lawn and advanced up the steps.
“Junior, you know not to park that Big Wheel in the middle of
the
walk, your father’ll…” she trailed off
as she saw
the gray coming up her porch.
Junior leaped into her arms. She caught him and slammed the door of the
trailer house shut.
“What was that?” She cried, running toward the rear
of the
aluminum-sided structure.
All around her, the gray penetrated the walls, leeching the color out
of the living room. The sofa lost its color and slumped as if it had
aged a hundred years in mere moments. The temperature dropped 20
degrees inside the trailer.
“No,” she cried, holding the little boy tight
against her
shoulder. “No!” Tears streaked down her face as she
tried
to force the back door open.
“Junior?” She shook the boy feeling him grow colder
against
her.
Bending to her knees, she held the boy in her arms and pushed his face
back from her shoulder, so she could look into his eyes.
His face was gray and slack and cold to the touch.
“NNNooooooooooo!” She bayed like a wounded animal.
The cold stole up her fingers and arms, across her shoulders and
throughout her body. The gray devoured her, sucking the
color…and the life away from her, body and soul.
2
miles offshore Little
Malachai Island, FL; 450
feet of water;
In the middle of a spreading gray sea, a cocoon, roughly man-sized,
pulsed with all the colors of the rainbow.
***The
cocoon and its inhabitant
last appeared in JLU Aquaman #18
A graveyard of sealife floated in orbit about the cocoon.
In an hour, Little Malachai became a tomb.
Poseidonis,
Atlantis Office
of the First Citizen
A merman in a suit with dark sunglasses opened the door allowing
Aquaman in.
Arthur marveled at how quickly surface affectations were invading
Atlantean culture. This morning he had passed by some new construction.
A sign on the lot claimed that it would soon be the site of the first
undersea McDonalds. He wasn’t sure about the concept of a
subsea
Big Mac, but he found himself, oddly, looking forward to trying one.
Vulko was seated behind a large desk. Glasses pushed up on his forehead
as his eyes read down a page. Glancing up, he let the paper slip to the
table.
“Your majesty,” he greeted his former liege,
“good to
see you.”
“Your call sounded urgent,” Arthur prodded. He had
only
been out of the city for three days when he had been called back. When
he agreed to be at the government of Atlantis’s beck and call
following the founding of the first Atlantean Republic, he
hadn’t
expected to be called back this quickly.
***Atlantis’s
democratic
government took its first steps in “The Refugee
Crisis” in
JLU Aquaman #11 – 15 and in “Election
Days” in JLU
Aquaman #17 – 20.
“It is,” Vulko said, pursing his lips. He glanced
aside at
the aides in the room. “Everyone out. I’ve got a
National
Security issue to discuss with Aquaman.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. It was a rare thing when Vulko
referred
to him by his nom du costume; usually it foretold a dire situation.
After the assistants, councilors, and civil servants departed, Vulko
opened a side drawer of his desk. He pulled a folder and a clipboard
from the desk.
“First, I need you to sign this,” he held the
clipboard
out. “This officially makes you a Special Operative of the
Republic of Atlantis.”
Arthur glanced down the page, noticing that the title of the special
operatives was Sword.
“Why is this necessary?” He asked.
“The bureaucracy of Atlantis is already in full swing. This
helps
us and you. It gives you carte blanche to act in Atlantis’s
stead
before INTERPOL and other foreign law enforcement and in conjunction
with Atlantean armed forces, effectively giving you both the power of a
General in the field and a Police Commissioner at the same
time,”
Vulko said. He let a smile light his face. “At least
that’s
how the civil servants have explained it. Apparently, it will hold up
under any court’s scrutiny worldwide,” he paused
for half a
beat, “as long as you stay out of the territories of Oumland,
Bialya, and Cerdia…and whomever else we manage to make
enemies
of in the next few years… ”
With a half-smile, Arthur signed.
“When all is said and done, we project there being 10 Swords
of
Atlantis. Being the first you will hold seniority and command of the
others in any situation where you are called on to operate in
concert,” Vulko explained. He turned the clipboard and
glanced at
the signature, making sure that Arthur had actually signed it.
Vulko vividly remembered presenting a signed communiqué from
the
king to the Royal Council a few years back. Just as he was about to lay
the document on the Council table, he glanced at it, realizing that
Orin I, King of Atlantis had signed the official document with the name
of…Mickey Mouse.
The former king of Atlantis had a sense of humor despite the grim
exterior he had worn for a number of years; it just didn’t
surface very often.
He exchanged the folder and the clipboard with Arthur.
Noting the American Security Agency logo on the front of the folder,
Arthur flipped the file open.
“The American ambassador hand delivered this a few hours ago.
It’s from your old friend General Horgan and has been vetted
by
the Good Samaritan,” Vulko said. He pursed his lips.
“Horgan…Horgan,” he tapped his finger
against his
chin. “He was the one with NATO that you had
some…interactions with a few years ago. Wasn’t
he?”
Vulko asked.
***General
Horgan first appeared
in mainstream DCU’s Aquaman #57, 59, 60, and 61 in 1977 and
1978.
Arthur nodded his assent. He was sure that Vulko knew the answer to
this question and waited for him to come to the point.
Arthur remembered Horgan. He had been a NATO general during
Arthur’s New Venice days. Horgan was a hawk in the purest
sense.
He didn’t take well to touchy feelie negotiations or of
allowing
the more subtle methods of Aquaman’s craft time to work.
The last time he had interacted with Horgan a ship transporting nuclear
materials had been taken over by terrorists. The general had given
Aquaman a deadline to evacuate the area before he bombed the ship
sinking it, its cargo, and the terrorists to the bottom of
Arthur’s domain. Aquaman stopped the bombing, captured the
terrorists, and, for good measure, gave the General a piece of his mind.
Arthur had been a kinder, gentler Sea King in those days. If the same
thing had happened during his harpoon
phase…well…it was
for the best that he hadn’t.
Arthur flexed the hand that he wore in place of his harpoon. Today he
wore it flesh-toned and warm so that it looked and felt like living
flesh. The hand was a mystery that Atlantean scientists were still
trying to figure out. Great as they were, Arthur doubted they ever
would. Atlan had triggered the psionic gem of the Ancient Atlanteans on
the Ocean Master’s staff transforming the gems of the
Ancients
and the staff into the hand that Arthur now wore. It felt like a normal
hand, but the power that lurked there was impressive. The power of all
those gems lay at his fingertips, along with the ability to alter the
hand’s shape at will.
***Atlan
gifted Orin with the new
prosthetic encrusted with mystic Atlantean jewels in JLU’s
Aquaman #8.
Vulko spread the folder on the desk. There was a map showing a portion
of the sea off the Florida coast, a group of islands called the
Malachai Chain. The easternmost Little Malachai was ensconced in a gray
circle with directional arrows showing how it was spreading.
There were aerial photos of a beach town. A gray line ran through the
middle of the photos. On one side of the island, the town that covered
it and the sea about were colorful and full of life…on the
other
the landscape and seascape were gray and lifeless. A close up shot
showed a man and woman lying in the street, side by side. They appeared
dead. The time stamp showed that the photo was taken over 10 hours ago.
Glancing back at the map, Aquaman noted that it referenced as being
accurate as of 3 hours ago.
“Horgan believes that the HueMan creature is responsible. The
Samaritan agrees with him. He asked for you specifically. He stated
that the Force of July were otherwise engaged,” Vulko
explained.
“Our scientists have been unable to get consistent readings
from
the gray zone. If it is the Hueman, he is either exhibiting powers that
he kept hidden from us while we had him in custody or he is
evolving,” Vulko said.
“If the rate of spread remains constant, the gray zone will
devour the life energy of Big Malachai Island within a few hours and
will reach the mainland by morning,” Vulko explained.
“Two
days later, the gray zone will begin infringing on outlying areas of
Atlantis.” Vulko tapped the outposts nearest the American
shore.
Breathing deeply, Aquaman let his eyes slide shut and expanded his
senses into the surrounding waters, reaching out across the miles and
miles of ocean and communing with all of his subjects.
A moment later, Aquaman said, “Horgan may be right.
The
fish and the creatures of the seas are stampeding from this gray
zone’s edges. It’s spreading through the sea faster
than
the estimates. In two days, it won’t be at the
fringes…it’ll be here in Poseidonis. Whether the
Hueman is
responsible or not, I’ve got to stop this.”
His eyes opened to find Vulko peering closely at him.
“I’ve
never seen you do it like that before,” he said.
“I’ve been learning more about myself these last
few
months,” Arthur explained.
Vulko nodded toward a harness vest, leaning against a corner chair.
“Our scientists are convinced that the machinery in this vest
will block the Hueman’s power from sucking your vitality
away,” he said with a shrug. “If this is the
Hueman.”
The two old friends looked at one another. Both knowing if this
wasn’t the Hueman and Orin swam into the gray zone, he could
very
easily become one of this phenomena’s victims instead of the
rescuer riding to the sound of the drums.
Rising Aquaman made his way to the window, “Have the American
ambassador call Horgan. Tell him I’m on my way,” he
said,
launching himself out the window and swimming out and across the walls
of Poseidonis at full speed.
Vulko watched his friend go until he was out of sight. He murmured
quietly, “May you draw first blood, Sword of
Atlantis.”
Missouri
Federal Penitentiary Special
Division North
Keystone City
A dark cell filled with long shadows. The prison wing susurrated with
the sounds of hundred of men sleeping or trying to be quiet so as not
to draw attention to themselves and whatever they happen to be engaged
in.
Roy G. Bivolo rolled over to face the wall. Sweat beaded his forehead,
moist with a fever dream.
“No,” he breathed in his sleep.
“No.” Shaking
his head, he sat up, blinking his eyes.
A kaleidoscopic pattern glowed faintly on the wall of his cell. It
slowly turned. The dim pattern was hypnotic in a way. He glanced out
toward the walk running in front of his cell. He couldn’t see
where the rainbow light on his wall was coming from.
His head snapped back to look at the pattern on his wall. He had been
colorblind his entire life. Briefly when he had internalized the power
of his prisma goggles, he had been able to see in color, but that
effect had worn off.
His career as a super-villain was something that he half-wished would
wear off, but every time he got out and a chance presented itself, he
put the spandex on again. Some laughed, but the Rainbow Raider had
power…whereas Roy G. Bivolo was a colorblind artist who when
he
was on the outside was all about putting the starving in starving
artist.
The pattern of color on his wall drew his eyes to its center.
A voice softly whispered in his head. “Raider…come
to me.
Come to me, Roy. I will make you stronger than you have ever been. I
will give you power. I will make you the envy of those who have made
fun of you and doubted your position among them.”
Roy stood up from his bunk. The fingertips of his left hand massaged
his temple, slowly tracing back and forth in the area between his ear
and his eyebrow.
Glancing toward the bulwark outside his cell, Roy Bivolo stepped toward
the kaleidoscope image on the wall. Reaching out, his fingers went
through the image as if the wall weren’t behind it.
A smile on his face, Roy G. Bivolo stepped through the rainbow play of
light on his prison wall and disappeared.
The guards wouldn’t notice him missing until the next morning
at
roll call.
An hour later, Roy stood near a wastewater treatment plant, northeast
of St. Louis near the Platte River. Other villains had hideouts in
abandoned warehouses and boltholes that were underground lairs full of
the most advanced scientific equipment the world had ever seen, the
Rainbow Raider’s hideaway was an abandoned maintenance shed
near
the sewage intake at the St. Louis and Eastern Missouri Platte River
Treatment Facility.
Whoever was behind the rainbow energy that had broken him out of jail
had deposited him just a few miles up the road within easy walking
distance.
Inside, he found the locker. Working the combination, he popped it
open. Inside hung one of his Rainbow Raider suits with a pair of his
prisma goggles strapped around the hanger.
As he slipped into his black spandex uniform with the rainbow motif on
the chest, he considered the voice that had spoke in his head. Already
sure he was out of his league dealing with anyone that could do
something like that, he wasn’t so certain that he should be
involved with any of this. But he was sure that he didn’t
want to
go back to jail, whether that meant having to go through a Flash, the
Batman, or whatever, he’d do it.
Stepping from the shed, he fired a rainbow bridge from his goggles and
stepped aboard, rising into the sky and angling toward the southeast,
homing in on the source of the voice in his head.
The
ocean off Little Malachai Island,
Florida;
Waves of energy wash back to the cocoon where it lay anchored to the
ocean’s floor. The energy thrums through the cocoon and
pulses to
its core. Then, the energy washes out again. Out to suck the life
energy from everything that it touches and to return that energy to its
master gestating within the embrace of the cocoon’s
metamorphosing frame.
Little Malachai Island lay completely within the gray zone.
Occasionally a Technicolor wave would wash down Main Street leeching
whatever spark of life energy might still sputter there. The rainbow
waves were foraging further to the west where the juicy life energy of
Big Malachai Island and the mainland awaited.
Fifty
miles to the east of Little
Malachai Island;
The US Navy frigate Fleming Dean
held station. She made minor course corrections every few minutes to
stay just beyond the edge of the gray zone.
General Horgan stood on the deck, chewing a cigar and hating the
inactivity that was being forced on him by the higher ups. He had
already chewed out every sailor on the boat…including her
captain. He’d apologize later, right now, he needed that
fishy
bastard to hurry up and…
A fountaining of water to the ship’s port side and a flash of
blue and white heralded Aquaman landing on the deck beside Horgan.
***Aquaman
has been wearing the
blue and white wave pattern uniform off and on for the last half dozen
issues. The blue uniform originated in mainstream DCU’s
4-issue
Aquaman mini-series from 1986.
“General,” Aquaman greeted him. “Sorry to
keep you
waiting. I got here as fast as I could.”
“Welcome aboard, Aquaman,” General Horgan said.
Nodding to
the man standing to his left, Horgan said, “Aquaman, this is
Captain Ellison in command of the Dean.”
The two exchanged nods.
“Our latest data indicates that the gray zone’s
expansion
rate has slowed in the last hour to less than a quarter of what it was
at the beginning. Whatever is doing this is either getting full or its
catching its breath for a big push later on,” Horgan began
without preamble. “My orders are to stay outside the gray
zone
and should this thing reach the mainland, the Captain is to launch his
tomahawks at the coordinates where we first saw the gray zone
begin.” His finger stabbed down on a chart at a spot in the
open
ocean between their current position and Little Malachai Island.
Aquaman nodded. “So…what you’re telling
me is that I
have a couple hours, based on current expansion rate to stop this thing
before you’ll launch missiles at me. Haven’t we
swam in
these circles before?”
Horgan smiled a grim little smile. “I have my orders. And
I’ll follow them. If this,” he swept his hand
around the
chart indicating the gray area, gets within a mile of the mainland,
I’m to order the immediate launch of the Fleming Dean’s
whole
complement of tomahawks at the gray zone’s estimated point of
origin. I argued with them that that would mean letting Big Malachai
fall into this and I was told that the big island was already almost
completely evacuated.” The General shook his head.
Aquaman let his eye run over the Dean,
especially the tubes where her tomahawks would launch. He pursed his
lips. “Nuke-tipped, tactical short range cruise
missiles.”
Captain Ellison responded. “Yes, sir. The deep diver variety.
Originally designed to take out enemy boomers that were hiding with
their payloads to launch after First Strike and Retaliation had already
been exchanged,” he shrugged. “We’ve
found another
use for them. With water depth in this region, they’ll blow
the
water back like Moses parting the Red Sea and, then, their follow ups a
few seconds behind them will deliver a couple of megatons onto the sea
floor in the target area.”
The implications of what else a ‘deep diver”
nuclear
missile could be used against wasn’t lost on Aquaman. This
was
something that he’d have to make sure that Vulko was aware of.
“Very well,” Arthur said. “ I had better
get cracking
so you gentlemen don’t have to use your nukes.” He
flipped
a button on the Hueman energy harness that Vulko had given him. Status
lights blinked green along the shoulder strap.
“Good luck, Aquaman,” Captain Ellison said.
“Godspeed,” General Horgan murmured as the King of
the Seas
cleaved the ocean’s surface and swam toward Little Malachai
Island.
“Captain, I want you to preflight the missiles right
now,”
Horgan said watching the wake of bubbles racing along in
Aquaman’s trail. “Better we’re ready
immediately when
the time comes than having to wait.”
The Captain nodded and went to have his crew warm up fire control.
Above
the southeastern United States;
A rainbow streak of light flashed across the skies of southern Georgia
and northern Florida, angling southeastward.
The Rainbow Raider brought his rainbow bridge to earth near the
causeway that connected Big Malachai Island with the mainland. From
here, the Raider could see Big Malachai and beyond in the gray distance
a small distant silhouette of Little Malachai Island, his destination.
The small town of Malachai Landing crowded around the main road leading
across the causeway. A gas station, a post office, and small grocery
store faced the street.
And today, four tanks and three dozen National Guardsmen.
“Are you the one responsible for this?” A voice
echoed from
a bullhorn.
The Raider turned from the sea to face the tanks and Guardsmen.
A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I may not be the
alpha dog of super-villains, but even I can take on a bunch of weekend
warriors too old to go to Qurac,” he said.
The voice in his head interceded. “You must hurry. If I am to
share my power with you, you must…” it trailed off.
“Sorry, gentlemen, we’ll have to play another
time,”
Bivolo said as he blasting a scything ray of yellow energy through the
main guns of the tanks.
CLANK!
CLANK! CLANK! The
barrels dropped off the weapons.
A rainbow leaped skyward from the Raider’s goggles with him
riding its wave as it arched into the air and across the waters toward
Little Malachai Island.
Ineffectually, the Guardsmen’s bullets pinged or lost their
energy as they impacted the bottom and the back of his rainbow bridge.
“Hold your fire, men,” the bullhorned voice
reasoned.
“If he’s going in there, we might not have to worry
about
him after all.”
As the Raider crests the gray waves of the zone, he realized that he
was giving off swirls of rainbow energy that were being sucked into the
gray and rolling back outward in the direction he is flying.
The pressure in his mind from the voice urged him to follow that
receding wave front.
Rainbow energy leeches out of his bridge and his goggles as he
continues eastward across Big Malachai Island and Little Malachai
Island, until he reached a spot with no land in sight. The energy waves
were originating directly below him.
He spiraled in a circle over the open ocean, lowering a bit on each
revolution.
On the ocean’s floor, the cocoon covering the Hueman twitched
and
pulsed in response to the Rainbow Raider’s nearby energy.
The
seaward edge of the Gray Zone;
Aquaman penetrated the edge of the gray zone. The Atlantean dampner
vest that he wore flashed briefly and settled into a rhythm with the
vampiric energies pulsing around it.
Expanding his senses through the water, he checked on the sea life
inside the gray. Nothing answered his telepathic hails. He poured on
the speed as he felt the tickle of the gray reaching passed the
vest’s field to leech at him in minute amounts.
Ten minutes later, he spied a flying man in the middle distance. As he
approached, he saw the man was standing on a rainbow slope that seemed
to be coming from his eyes. The man was describing slow circles over a
spot of open water.
The rainbow pulses racing out and rolling back in to the cocoon had
stopped. The gray zone’s outer limit stopped expanding,
momentarily.
The Raider circled above, scanning the waves.
He unleashed a rainbow bolt into the water. He formed the energy into a
bowl. Using the same effect that he normally used as a mode of
transport, he forced the sea back with a solid phalanx of energy.
Deeper and deeper, he pushed the bottom of the bowl toward the
ocean’s floor.
Aquaman took in the milieu as he approached. The Raider pushing the
seas back, opening a corridor to the ocean’s floor. The
cocoon
strained toward the air as its surface began to crack. Rainbow colored
tentacles reached through the cracks in the mottled surface of the husk.
The rainbow sea wall enclosed the cocoon opening to the air above.
Currents surged around the outside of the kaleidoscopic enclosure from
above looking like the eye of a psychedelic hippie hurricane. The
cocoon, slowly, rose, floating up through the center of the tube under
its own power, drifting toward the Raider. The bottom of the husk
cleared the sea floor. The skeleton of the Hueman’s first
host
lay on the sea floor.
Aquaman looped the rainbow cofferdam. He saw the dead host’s
body
laying on the sea floor as the cocoon finished hatching.
The student-scientist who had been the Hueman’s first host
lay
dead. The alien survived the destruction of his homeworld only to fall
through a rift during the Justice League’s adventure
alongside
heroes from an alternate dimension. Bonded to the first human it
encountered, the alien Hueman stewed in his biological imprisonment. He
battled Tempest and Aquaman during the Refugee Crisis in Atlantis. And
now, the alien sought a new host, one acclimated to the kaleidoscopic
energies that were its trademark and life force…perhaps one
who
could return him home.
***A
short retelling of the
Hueman’s origins from JLU Aquaman #13.
A manta-winged, sharp-clawed octopoid creature the size of a Great Dane
shot skyward. The tentacles depending from its face streamed our in the
air. A glittering wake of rainbow energy followed the creature into the
sky.
The Raider seeing the onrushing creature blanched, releasing his
cofferdam and causing the ocean’s water to crash back in
again.
Fighting against the sudden swirling current, Aquaman lost track of
both the Raider and the Hueman’s alien form.
As the water cleared, Arthur saw the Cthuloid creature racing toward
the southwest, chasing the Rainbow Raider as he beat a hasty retreat
toward Little Malachai Island.
Little
Malachai Island, FL
The Raider crossed the shoreline of the small island. He kept looking
over his shoulder. Fear lit his eyes as he gaped at the nightmarish
creature backlit by rainbows closing on him.
“Oh God! No! This can’t be happening.” He
gasped out
his disbelief. He raced across the island.
Below him, he saw street after street littered with dead bodies, the
victims of the Hueman’s cocoon.
It was catching him. He gauged the distance between him and landfall on
Big Malachai. The creature would catch him before he could get
there…much less the mainland.
Slowing, he spiraled down landing on Little Malachai’s Main
Street. Touristy souvenir, t-shirt, and seafood shops lined both sides
of the avenue.
The creature came to a hover at the far end of the street. The
Hueman’s kaleidoscopic effect appeared before the Raider.
“Come to me, Roy G. Bivolo. I can make you powerful. I will
make
it so that no one will ever consider you a joke again,” the
voice
from the light crooned.
Bivolo leaned forward, wanting to go to the light. His mind fogged. His
perceptions dimmed. A vision of a world that respected him played
before his eyes. His art hung in the best museums. A Bivolo original in
the Louvre. His words and ideas carried weight. He stood in the rostrum
before Congress. He was respected by men and sought after by women. The
Flash and Batman listened to his advice. Wonder Woman in a short toga
stood before him expectantly.
A shadow blotted out the sun causing him to blink and look up, breaking
the spell.
KA-SLAM!
Aquaman dropped an
oil storage tank over the Hueman creature.
Grabbing the Raider’s arm, Arthur wrenched him around, face
to
face. “This thing is going to kill you. Run, you damn
fool!” Arthur exclaimed.
The Raider staggered back, disoriented. He took 3 steps touched the
side of his prisma goggles and fell flat on his face.
CLANG-ANG-ANG!
SPRANG-ANG-ANG! CRACK-ACK-ACK-ACK!
Sounds echoed from inside the
metal storage container. At the crack sound, Arthur felt the brief
vibration run through the ground.
His blue wave pattern uniform caught the slanting rays of the afternoon
sun. He stood over the Rainbow Raider. He didn’t take his
eyes
off the oil storage tank. Clangs came from inside.
“You were out of your league, Raider. Atlantean science
couldn’t determine what the Hueman is, but we did determine
that
its appetites required a host to focus its energies. The only thing
holding it in check was its host,” he explained to the half
conscious man laying at his feet.
“And,” Aquaman slowly shifted his gaze from the
fallen
villain back to the container holding the monster, “they
discovered that it had an iron-based weakness.”
As the King of the Seven Seas pulled the Rainbow Raider to his feet, a
valve on the surface of the oil storage drum turned and a rainbow
colored mist began drifting out of the tank. As it cleared the tank,
the Hueman resumed his winged Cthuloid shape.
Feeling the temperature drop, Arthur threw a quick glance over his
shoulder as a blue energy blast struck him, knocking him down the Main
Street of Little Malachai Island. Ice crusted his shoulder and hair.
His breath fogged with the suddenly frigid air. Icicles depended from
his eyebrows as he fought his way back to his feet.
The Hueman hovered over the storage drum. The blue cold ray flowed from
its wing tips. Shifting its stance, the blue ray faded into a vibrant
purple.
The purple beam struck the pavement a yard ahead of Aquaman, tearing
holes in the concrete and asphalt as it dug a trench toward him,
blowing dust, sand, and bits of rock into the air.
Frozen in place, Arthur couldn’t move. The impact beam struck
him, blasting him head over heels down the street. The blast bulldozed
him through a barricade at the end of the street and skipping him
across the water near the docks before he sank beneath the waves.
The Hueman hovered a moment regarding the water where its foe had sank.
Then, it turned and floated back toward the Raider where he stood,
rooted to the spot in fear.
“You have absorbed so much of the pristine energy over the
years
that you’ve become a battery for one such as I,”
the
creature’s voice crooned in Roy’s head. The
creature
fluffed its wings wide and waves of energy began to flow upward from
the Rainbow Raider to the Hueman.
“Ah yes,” the creature’s voice hissed
inside the
Raider’s mind, “you have enough of the prisma power
to
allow me to return to my home dimension.”
One of the Hueman’s tentacles reached out and caressed
Roy’s cheek. “Shame you won’t survive the
bonding,
but just think…you’re helping a poor refugee get
home.”
ZZZZZZ!
A yellow-green blast
ripped from the Rainbow Raider’s goggles as his hand cycled
the
control knob on the side opposite the slithery tentacle that lay along
the side of his head and neck.
“We’ll try sickness, discord, or
cowardice,” the
Raider mouthed with false bravado, “and see which one sticks
on
you.”
“…and hope one of the three works,” he
thought.
The Hueman seemed to wilt under the blast. It shuddered, ripples
running through the spiny wings of the creature. It drifted back from
Roy.
Bivolo twitched the dial on the side of his goggles, causing the
yellow-green blast to darken into a deep purple. He poured feelings of
gloom and depression at the alien monster.
Forcing himself up, Roy kept his hand on the side of his goggles so he
could make adjustments to his blasts as needed. A solid blast of energy
flowing from his prisma goggles toward the Hueman.
The Hueman swayed, muttering, “I’ll never get
home.”
Its breathing became labored.
“Never…never.”
The Raider could swear that the Hueman was shrinking, growing smaller
every few seconds.
Roy let the dark purple segue darker into black, focusing despair
through the goggles.
The Hueman’s face, half-hidden by tentacles, distorted into a
rictus. “No! I will not be defeated by emotions. I will not
be
defeated like this. I will…”
The Hueman slumped forward dropping to the asphalt and sand surface of
Little Malachai’s Main Street as the Raider changed tactics.
Instead of spraying energy at the Hueman and influencing his emotions,
the Raider started siphoning energy back from the Hueman.
“This almost worked against the real Flash, you monster. You
don’t stand a chance,” the Raider gritted out as he
drew
energy from the Hueman.
Raising one of its winged arms with the fingers spread in supplication,
“Wait! Please!” The Hueman swallowed audibly.
Breathily, he
said, “I’ll…I’ll find another
host…another host.” The monster’s gray
skin tone
lightened toward white.
***The
Rainbow Raider used this
energy draining stratagem on the Flash numerous times in mainstream
DCU’s The Flash.
Roy hesitated for an instant.
“One who isn’t as stupid as you,” the
Hueman cackled
as he unleashed a kaleidoscopic blast of energy knocking the Raider
head over heels to crash through the front glass of a surf shop which
faced Main Street.
Roy Bivolo had a brief impression of a giant bullfrog wearing
sunglasses, standing on a surfboard as he crashed through the window.
The Hueman’s energy blast drove him backward into the store,
punching a hole through the window display. The Raider crashed through
the mascot of Mr. Frog’s Surf Emporium and Tattoo Parlor
landing
in a jumble of broken glass, surf boards and t-shirt racks.
The Hueman’s skin tone fluctuated, shading darker. The gray
zone
surrounding the island shrank inward as the Hueman lost his focus and
depleted his stores of energy.
On board, the USN frigate Fleming
Dean, Horgan stomped back and
forth. “Move us in closer. I
want those birds to have the shortest flight possible when we
launch,” he ordered.
Ellison cut his eyes around at the landlubber General giving him orders
that would place his ship in unnecessary harm’s way. The
weapons
they carried could hit the target from where they were with no
problem…but if that dead zone expanded again without warning
they wouldn’t be able to turn the Dean
nearly quick enough.
“Helm, ahead dead slow. Make your course,” Ellison
glanced
at the chart table, gauging, “10 degrees North. Firm on those
missile locks. Nothing goes without my say.” As Ellison added
the
last, he cast a glance at General Horgan, making sure the Army officer
understood where he was and whose boat he was on. Ellison would carry
out his orders, but that he wouldn’t surrender command of his
ship to the Army.
“I want lookouts all around watching for the gray to expand
again,” Ellison ordered.
He dropped his hand on the helmsman’s shoulder. “We
might
have to get out of here in a hurry. Stand ready.”
Glancing back, he added, “XO, tell the engine room that we
may
need to make steam quickly,” he said.
Aquaman stirred beneath the waters of the Little Malachai Bay. He had
fetched up against a large ship’s anchor and chain. Shaking
his
head to clear it, he felt the life energy of the ocean begin to rush
back in at the edges of the void. His hand closed on the anchor chain
as he forced himself back to his feet and swam toward the shore.
The Hueman blasted red waves of energy into the surf shop where the
Raider had fallen. The heat blasts caused the structure to catch fire.
A huge gray and black cloud rose above Little Malachai Island, visible
for miles.
In the front window of the surf shop, a High School Musical logoed
boogie board scorched and caught fire. Flames leapt toward the ceiling.
Arthur waded ashore where Little Malachai’s Main Street
deadended
into the sea. He drug the anchor chain along behind him.
“Hueman!” He cried as he began to swing the chain
in
accelerating circles. He allowed the momentum to build as the anchor
went around.
The Hueman floated in a circle in front of the surf shop. He faced the
threat from the Atlantean. Gathering himself, he launched himself
toward Aquaman. A nimbus of black flared around the Cthuloid shape of
the Hueman.
Arthur let the chain fly, head-on toward the Hueman.
The extradimensional, kaleidoscopic alien tried to juke away from the
anchor. He managed to dodge, but Aquaman pulled on the chain causing
his missile’s trajectory to alter.
The body of the anchor snapped around in response to
Aquaman’s
counterbalancing the momentum.
KA-THUMP!
It slammed into the
Hueman’s body. The anchorhead’s momentum pulled the
chain
along wrapping the Hueman in its iron grip.
Aquaman charged using his sea-born, high pressure acclimated
musculature to run at the Hueman. He made a diving leap, delivering a
shoulder tackle into what passed for the Hueman chest. The running
tackle carried them both to the brink of the burning surf shop.
Aquaman landed and rolled, coming to his feet before the
shop’s
shattered front window.
The Hueman spun through the air into the surf shop, disappearing from
view behind a wall of flames.
The fires inside the shop roared and crackled.
CRACK!
CRACK! CRUNCH!
A major roof support
member gave way. The whole shop seemed to teeter toward the street.
Aquaman leaped over a flaming t-shirt rack and around a tumbled pile of
smoldering surfboards. Reaching the cracking roof support, he put his
shoulder to the shattered timber and pushed it back into place. The
flames licked at him, sapping his sea-born strength.
“Raider? Where are you?” Smoke and flame obscured
most of
the interior from his view. He called again, louder. Bits and pieces of
the flaming roof fell about him. “The roof’s about
to come
down on this place. We’ve got to get out of here!”
He
yelled into the thickening smoke and flame.
He saw a black shape move beyond a thick veil of smoke.
“Raider?” He asked, wiping stinging tears from his
eyes
with one hand as his other continued to stabilize the roof stanchion.
A rainbow glisten of energy haloed the black shape, revealing the
Hueman’s winged squid-like appearance .
“Interfering in my
plans,” the Hueman said as he drifted forward,
“You’ve made your final mistake, fishman.”
A loud cracking sound reverberated through the shop as another support
timber toward the back of the store snapped. A huge section of flaming
ceiling fell on the Hueman.
The Rainbow Raider, having regained consciousness, staggered out of a
dressing room and into the burning showroom.
Brilliant shafts of white light erupted from the area where the Hueman
had fallen. One of those shafts punched a hole through what was left of
the surf shop’s roof.
Arthur grabbed the Raider by the arm and dragged him, bodily, from the
burning building, as the intensity and frequency of the stabbing white
lights built.
One of the blasts hit a scorched surfboard hanging over the door
Aquaman and the Rainbow Raider were racing for. The board flashed
brightly and disappeared. No ash. No debris. Just gone.
“Run!” Aquaman urged the colorful member of the
Flash’s Rogues Gallery, as they crashed out the front of the
shop.
BA-DOOOMMMMM!
An eruption or rainbow energy stabbed skyward as they cleared the
building.
Another second, and the building folded in on itself as the
Hueman’s death throes created the transdimensional rift that
he
desired…his way home. This white hole between dimensions
sucked
the Hueman’s remains and everything in his immediate vicinity
back to his home dimension.
MMMMMOOOD-AB!
The rumble and the thunderclap of the air rushing in to fill the void
faded. The wind whipped up and down the street, blowing the normal
detritus of a tourist trap island about…plastic bags, ice
chests, 12-pack boxes, and hot dog wrappers.
Shaking his head, Arthur sat up. He and the Raider had been thrown
across the street in the energetic reaction brought about by the
dimensional aperture.
Arthur looked down at his leg. A skinned place showed where he had been
blasted down the street by the Hueman. The blood had already congealed.
His blue, white, and black wave patterned uniform was a shambles,
burned here, ripped there, a complete loss.
He looked down the street and his heart froze. In the heat of battle,
the casualties of the Hueman’s assault had to be
overlooked…but now. “What had Vulko said in his
briefing,” the King of the Seas thought, “Little
Malachai
Island had a population of 86…with only 23 accounted
for…63 people were on this
island…somewhere.”
Aquaman, slowly, levered himself to his feet. From this vantage point,
he could see 6 people…including a little boy, laying at the
end
of the dock where he and his father had mistimed their run for the last
ferry to make their escape from the Hueman’s gray wave as it
ate
the life energy of Little Malachai Island. They lay close enough
together that the father’s hand still held the
boy’s where
they had fallen.
As Arthur observed this, a line of blue returned to the sky and a
moment later, the colors of life returned to Little Malachai Island.
None of the people moved as the energy returned.
Aquaman expanded his mind, allowing his telepathy to reach out in
concentric circles. He couldn’t find any living sea life
within
20 miles of Little Malachai.
When the living color energy raced back in to replace the grayscale,
the plants seemed to recapture their spark…but not the
people
and animals. If they fell victim to the Hueman, they were dead.
Arthur heard the Rainbow Raider stirring behind him.
“I am not going back to jail!” The Raider mumbled
as he
half-consciously rose to his feet. A red energy glow gathered in his
goggles. The glowing hate blast cast its baleful glow on Aquaman.
SLAM! The Raider flew backward from Aquaman. A force blast, emitted
from the ancient Atlantean mystic crystal embedded in the sea
king’s prosthetic hand, slammed into the Raider. The
black-clad
villain crashed into a parked Volkswagen Beetle, denting the passenger
side door before crumpling to the asphalt.
Through gritted teeth, Arthur said, “This really
isn’t a
good time for me,” as he glared at the Raider’s
unconscious
form.
The whup-whup of helicopter blades cutting the air penetrated the
unnatural silence of Little Malachai. The National Guard, the Coast
Guard, and a detachment from the ASA with the Good Samaritan at the
fore landed on Main Street.
Arthur turned the Raider over to them. And explained what he believed
had happened to the Hueman.
16 hours later, Arthur lay in his own bed, home in Poseidonis, tossing
and turning, dreaming of family…Orm, Old Tom, Vulko,
Garth…Mera…and Arthur Jr.
These fitful dreams tortured him through the night.
