THE STORY SO FAR: Aquaman lost his
hand…again. It was replaced with the ghostly help of
his fathers with the mystically altered Ocean Master’s staff,
thus giving him control of the 12 Ancient Atlantean Crystals from
antediluvian times. Arion pushed Aquaman into a series of
tests to prove his worthiness to wield the Crystals. Poseidonis, Republic of
Atlantis; The Scabbard, HQ of the Swords
of Atlantis;
A light came on in the living quarters deck of the huge sword-shaped
building on the outskirts of Poseidonis.
“Awakening in a cold sweat while sleeping underwater is a unique
experience. Atlanteans don’t sweat. They
dehydrate when out of water at varying rates, but they don’t
sweat,” Arthur Orin Curry sat at the edge of his bed.
“But I’m sweating,” he thought. His brow
cradled in his hand. His elbows rested on his
knees. His fingers slowly massaged his temples.
After the extended time Arthur spent on the surface, he had discovered
that he did indeed sweat…even underwater…though not in
response to heat or humidity. Usually, he experienced it as
a stress reaction, the first time during the months after Arthur
JR’s murder…and at various times since.
Arion was a thorn in his side these past few months. He
regarded his prosthetic hand, calling the Atlantean Crystals to the
hand’s surface. Testing him…prodding
him…probing him…all the tests seemed designed to make him
feel unworthy rather than to prove anything about him or his
character.
The Serapean Bull was sure to be a royal pain for years to
come…and his unseen master…”if Serapis appeared and
he was a god…well, I’ve faced gods and monsters
before.” He rose and grabbed a tunic from his wardrobe, slipping
the orange chain mail over his head and grabbing his golden belt.
**As seen in JLU’s Aquaman
#23**
Arion’s awakening the mutant Liquidator to test the Justice and
Rightness of Atlantis and Aquaman had been a touch too
much. The giant, purple skinned humanoid creature strode
into Atlantis and started passing his judgment on everything and
everyone he found. And while that did reveal some
substandard building materials and hidden weapons caches and the like,
it also impugned into the private thoughts of the
citizenry. The Liquidator dissolved three of the
Council’s Senators before Aquaman managed to convince him that
the Republic needed all its voices, positive and negative, loyal and
dis. The Council was still bellowing about the Liquidator
taking up residence instead of returning to the
depths.
It raised its arm and called up stone from the deep depths.
A temple complex and giant throne formed. And the
Liquidator sat down, directly across from the Councileum.
The creature’s purple skin quickly accreted to stone.
And now, a Lincoln Memorial-esque landmark sat across the main
concourse of the Republic from the Councileum and the Mansion of the
First Citizen.
…If Lincoln had two round mirrored horns on his head, a hand
that resembled a cat-o-nine tails, and another hand that ended in
tentacles instead of fingers, a statue that sat there
alive…hibernating…watching…judging.
The origins of the Liquidator were clouded in mystery and
myth. It may have been a mutant form of undersea
life. It may have predated Atlantis’s sinking, but no
one knew for sure. It may have been an avatar of a god at
one point…or it may have been an alien policeman…or moral
inquisitor of some pan dimensional church. Whatever it was,
there it sat across from the Council.
**The Liquidator originally
appeared in mainstream Aquaman #38 (1968)**
…Another gift of Arion’s testing.
Arthur shook his head. And then came, the test of
Humility… and the truth about Arion.
A week ago;
Reports came in from the military observation post on the lip of the
Thierna Na Oge crater. The city had disappeared in a flash
of anti-energy a year or more back. And in that time,
strange energy readings, sightings, and occurrences had been
commonplace in its vicinity. At the base of the crater were
cracks that seemed to have no discernable bottom. Probes
sank so far sending back telemetry and then, disappeared.
**Thierna Na Oge disappeared in a
bolt of anti-energy in JLU-2001’s Aquaman #13 in one of the
dimensional rift effects of the JLA/Avengers crossover**
Flashes of lightning broke out of the Thierna Na Oge crater, reaching
almost to the surface of the sea, roiling the waters there, causing an
intense blue glow of St. Elmo’s Fire for hundreds of miles
around.
Unfortunately, a container ship loaded with cars from Japan was
transiting above the crater at the time of the subsea lightning,
destination: the Maryland Port Administration’s Port of
Baltimore. The Mitsubishi Maru loaded down with new 2010
Mitsubishi Celestes for the American auto market was making headway
against a gathering sea.
One moment, it was there sailing for the eastern seaboard of the United
States…and the next, there was a rumble of thunder, a flash of
light, and the Mitsubishi Maru, her cargo, and her crew were
gone.
Alarm bells rang throughout the Scabbard. Reports came
flashing in from the Thierna Na Oge observation post and from the home
office of the container ship in the Port of Shimotsu, Wakayama City,
Japan. The ship’s regular telemetry showed no
problems and then it vanished. No warnings. No
subsequent signals.
Twenty minutes later, Arthur swam, at speed, toward Thierna Na
Oge. He reached out into the Clear…only to discover a
buzzing sensation that was blocking his access. Instead of
using the Clear to teleport
to the crater, he had to swim the distance. As he approached the
crater, the buzzing grew stronger.
**Aquaman learned about the Clear in JLU-2001’s Aquaman
#1 by the incomparable X3. Over time, he learned to use the
Clear as a way to teleport
himself to places of crisis involving Mother Ocean and her
denizens. **
As Aquaman arrived at the Marine observation post, the soldiers
explained what they had seen. They showed him the readings
from the subsea lightning and the ship’s disappearance.
He stood on the edge of the crater, looking toward the distant
bottom. An odd blue glow luminesced there.
“Your Test of Humility awaits below,” a voice said behind
him.
“I’m growing tired of your interference in my work,”
Arthur answered the ancient Atlantean sorcerer. Arion merely
smiled at the former king’s discomfiture.
“Humility, huh?” Arthur shook his head before kicking off
toward the distant crater floor. “Great!” If
Arion understood the sarcasm, he gave no sign.
As he approached the crater’s floor, he saw blue lightning
flickering between the walls of the deep crevices. Chains
of lightning flitted across the shadowy base of the Thierna Na Oge
crater.
“No wreckage,” he thought.
Centering himself, he let concentric rings of telepathic communication
reach out, calling on the sea creatures that were his subjects.
A giant isopod responded. “My king, I saw the surface
being conveyance. One moment, it was there and the next,
bright lights struck up from the deep darks hitting it from the
underside. It faded slowly from sight.”
“Majesty,” a nearby skulking glass squid interrupted.
“I saw an outline of the ship fall down and pass through the
bottom of the crater. Phantom-like.” As the glass
squid spoke, it pulsed its colors imitating the color of the bluish
ghostly color of the ship that he had seen.
Aquaman approached the spot the glass squid had indicated.
He floated slowly to the edge of the nearest crevice. The
currents in this area swept toward the crevices and then, pulled
downward. Atlantean scientists were fearful that in heavy
seas this downward current might trigger huge whirlpools reaching the
surface and menacing shipping. However, the squid and the
giant isopod’s eyewitness accounts didn’t support the
whirlpool idea.
Fighting the current, he hovered near the edge of the crevice, looking
into its depths. Intense blue flashes of energy crashed
from wall to wall hundreds of feet below him. When the
lightning would lessen, he could see beyond them into the deeper areas
where what looked like a starry sky stared back at him. He
leaned further forward, using his sea dark honed eyesight to see as far
as possible. He could swear he was looking at a distant sky
glittering full of stars.
“In for a penny,” he murmured to himself.
Telepathically, he sent a message to the receptor box in the Marine
observation post. So that if something went wrong, word
would get back to Vulko about where he had gone.
He stepped out over the crevice and let himself drop with the
undertow.
Elsewhere;
First, it was dark. A deep, oily darkness even his subsea
vision couldn’t penetrate. Those deep stars that he
saw before were still there. They seemed to grow brighter
as he dropped. Deeper he swam.
He felt the salinity of the water change. He breathed deep,
scenting the water. “And cleaner,” he
thought. And there was light up below him.
Bright light. Almost like he was approaching the surface
instead of the crevice’s floor.
He swam up out of a crevice in the ocean’s floor…but he
had never stopped going down. He swam past the ruins of a
city that looked eerily like Thierna na Oge. He broke the
surface and found himself looking…up…at a sunny
sky.
The Mitsubishi Maru floated off to his left. Her engines
were at station keeping as another ship came alongside of
her. The assisting ship was a NATO flagged destroyer, which
had happened upon the beleaguered ship just after it appeared.
Aquaman put his head down surging toward the Maru and leaping up onto
her deck.
“Aquaman!” a low-pitched Dutch voice called from
above. The captain of the ship waved down from the pilot
bridge, swinging out onto an access ladder and climbing down.
“Am I glad to see you.”
Perspiring profusely, the big man introduced himself to
Aquaman. “I’m Captain Nils Vanderhooven of the
Mitsubishi Maru. Welcome aboard, sir.” He extended his big
gnarled hand.
Arthur shook the proffered hand.
“And this is…” The Captain indicated the smallish
slick-haired man following him down.
“I am Lieutenant Becker of the NATO vessel Sprague,” he
extended his hand. “He called you
Aquaman. You’re the one that the American media is
always claiming is a genetic experiment. The M.A.N. from
Atlantis program. Right?” He shook his head.
“But you don’t look like that guy. He looks like the
American actor…you know…the one who was in that
show…Tulsa. There are some oddities here,” he
said looking down into one of the open holds of the ship.
“We’re looking at this ship loaded with cars that
don’t exist. An Aquaman who isn’t quite what I
expect…I’m left in a very odd place.
Yes.”
**The Man from Atlantis was a
70’s era sci-fi based television program staring Patrick Duffy,
pre-Dallas. **
“Ever since they came alongside and started going through our
manifest and questioning us, they’ve been acting like we’re
spies or something,” the Captain said gesturing
about. “This…gentleman is trying to convince
me that the date is 5 years ago. And that Mitsubishi
doesn’t make cars,” the Maru’s captain gestured
toward his cargo holds, “even though I’ve got a hold full
of ‘em.”
Eyeing the NATO officer, Aquaman noted derivative differences in the
uniform from what he expected. It hadn’t been
that long ago that he had been on a NATO ship with General Horgan
chasing the Hueman near Florida. “Lieutenant Becker, can
you tell me if General Horgan is still working with NATO?”
**General Horgan has been
Aquaman’s main contact with NATO for a number of
years. Last appearing in JLU-2001’s Aquaman #21**
“Sir,” the XO of the NATO ship answered, “General of
the Army Horgan is currently Chairman of the NATO Military
Committee.”
Arthur smiled before sending the XO off to get a message through to
Horgan. And then, sat down with the Mitsubishi Maru’s
captain and XO to try and explain that he believed they had ended up on
an alternate world due to the energies of the Thierna na Oge
crater.
Twenty minutes later, a short ship-to-shore phone call determined that
this Horgan had indeed helped this world’s Aquaman fight off a
Hueman like creature and his gray amorphous killing fog along the
Florida shoreline a few weeks before. Bona fides
accepted…in a circuitous way, the Maru was taken in hand by the
NATO crew to help her get to shore and her crew squared away.
**An extremely summarized version
of what went on in the Hueman’s last appearance, also from the
previously mentioned JLU-2001’s Aquaman #21**
“Sir!” The Maru’s communication officer rushed up to
Aquaman. “We’ve picked up something that we
think you should hear.”
He handed Aquaman a wireless headset tuned to pick up radio and
television audio signals. A static filled voice came from the
speakers. “Repeating this is Tully<SQUAK!
BUZZ!> for WG<MZZZZZ!> in Metropolis Park. A pasty
skinned creature with gray bony protrusions has just waded through the
Justice League International and is making its way toward the city
center.”
“Damn you, Arion,” Aquaman said under his breath.
Handing the headset back to the officer, he raced to the bridge
railing, swan diving to the sea far below. He cleaved the
water with barely a splash, accelerating in one movement as he hit the
water.
He reached into the Clear of
this alternate world, opening a portal to advance him to the Metropolis
Harbor area.
Metropolis Harbor;
Swimming in through the Metropolis Ship Channel between Hell’s
Gate and St. Martin’s Island, Aquaman could feel the
vibrations from the Earth transmitting through the waters of the
channel. Doomsday’s trodding feet caused seismic
disturbances that could be felt for many miles.
Leaping from the water, Aquaman landed on a concrete quay and raced
inland.
The monster tore its way through the Old City district of Queensland
Park, headed toward the city center.
Aquaman wiped his lips as he made his way down the quay into the city,
following the sounds of the destruction Doomsday was wreaking.
“If events are playing out in this world like they did in mine,
then the monster has finished tearing through the JLI and is about to
rampage into downtown. If I can injure it before their
Superman faces it, maybe this world won’t have to suffer like
mind did,” he thought. His lips were set in a grim
line as he shook his head, not believing that he really had a chance,
but feeling like he had to try.
He topped a rise at Old Apricot Orchard Park. The JLI lay
scattered before him, a fairly unique version of the JLI…
**Metropolis is sometimes referred
to as the Big Apricot**
The Gold Beetle lay on his back. His obviously broken leg stuck
out from under him at an odd angle. His eyelids fluttered as he
fought to maintain consciousness. His crashed Bug airship
lay amidst a broken stand of apricot trees. Fires burned
here and there. A bronze park statue lay amidst the dented,
smashed inward windshield eyes of the Bug.
Booster Blue, Hero from the Past, floated within a sputtering force
field, being weakly generated by his belt. A small, dried
trickle of blood could be seen coming from his ear, spilling across his
long silver hair. The creature struck him with a pressure
wave hard enough to create an overpressure inside the field. The
impact knocked him cold, shredded his uniform, and destroyed much of
his weaponry gathered from around the Time Stream.
The platinum blonde form of Ice lay nearby out cold. Only
she wasn’t Ice, she wore a stylized version of a GL uniform,
seemingly halfway between Guy Gardner’s and Alan Scott’s
uniform only in violet instead of green. There wasn’t
a ring on her finger, but a battered lantern was still clasped tightly
in her hand. The Star Lamp still held a small pinkish spark
at its center, protecting its holder as best it could while she was
unconscious.
Green-haired Fire sat beside her friend, leaning forward with her hands
cupped over her forehead and her palms pressed against her
eyes. The former Brazilian super model bled from numerous
cuts and scrapes and seemed to be mumbling lightly to
herself. She wore a skintight, commando body
suit. An empty grenade clip bandolier cut between her ample
breasts, shoulder to waist. A jammed machine gun and two
spent pistols lay next to her. The shards of a broken sword
littered the ground near her. On this world, she gravitated
toward the more militaristic aspects of her training. Her
father and the Brazilian government had paid heavily for her
participation at the Wilson-Wintergreen Military Arts Center in
Wales…but all that training had come to naught against the
monster that had torn through here just a brace of minutes
earlier.
An apparitional female stood over a Thai woman in a black body suit
with the remnants of a large shattered pink gemstone sticking out of
her chest. Her red and white cape draped from her shoulders
covering the ground beneath her. Dying sparks of mystic
energy glowed weakly from the gemstone.
The ghostly form solidified into a Green Martian, a female Green
Martian, dressed in a head to toe red and blue uniform with rank
insignia at collar and a rack field of medals on her left
breast. J’oan J’onnz said, “Good night,
Gaan Nong Leuat Lom Yen. I had hoped to hide within you until I
was strong for us to both face the Rot demon in the crystal. But
it seems your defeat by the monster, Doomsday, has stopped us
both.”
**Gaan Nong Leuat Lom Yen is badly
translated Thai meaning Bloodwynd**
Arthur looked about. “Guy Gardner should be here
too…” The thought stopped short as he spied a quivering
gray mush that seemed to be trying to regain cohesion. “I
guess he became Warrior far earlier on this world.”
**An alternate world version of
mainstream Justice League America #69(December 1992)**
The ghostly J’oan J’onnz turned and stared at
Aquaman. “You’re not our Mannie! Who are you? If
you’re in league with that monster, by the Red Sands,
you’ll not leave this spot?”
The Martian woman seemed to grow in stature as she moved toward
him. He felt the psychic probes strike him. They were so
powerful that they felt like physical blows. Instead of
responding aggressively, he allowed the probes to find what they were
looking for, revealing who he was and what he was doing here.
In seconds, he and this universe’s Martian Manhunter had a
complete psychic conversation exchanging all the information that they
needed.
“Take care of your team,” Aquaman said.
“I’ll go after Doomsday. ”
“Good luck, Arthur Curry,” J’oan J’onnz said,
watching as the alternate universe M.A.N. from Atlantis
rushed after the monster. “What kind of name is
Aquaman?” She cast aside the thought and reached out to
Guy’s mind to soothe him and help him reform.
The Daily Planet
Building;
Aquaman caught up with Doomsday near the corner of Concord Lane and
Fifth Street in front of the Daily Planet. He glanced at the
building noting the sign, The Planet Media Network. A ring with
the letters “PMN” etched on it girded the globe atop the
building.
He took in the creature as he approached. It had ivory white
skin…Bizarro white…Solomon Grundy white…with gray
bony protuberances at the major joints and crowning its head. The
shredded rags of a thick, green containment suit hung from its muscular
form.
“A test of humility in the form of Doomsday on an alternate
world,” Arthur thought. “Arion…wherever
you are, I’ll give you this much. You’re a Grade A
bastard.”
Doomsday’s clawed hands closed on the fenders of a car trying to
slip past him and get out of the area. He raised the car
over his head, stepping to the center of Fifth Street. He
whipped the car up over his head, shaking it. As the car shook,
the driver opened his door and jumped out to the street, 12 feet
below. SNAP! The sound of the driver’s ankle giving
way came clear and sharp to Aquaman’s ears. The driver
squirmed and crawled, before being helped up by a nearby
policeman. The officer got the injured man across the street and
down Concord out of direct line of sight of the white skinned, gray
boned monstrosity that was tearing through the town.
Doomsday hurled the car at the Planet building. KA-THOOM! The
car impacted tearing through the outer third floor and burrowed halfway
through the building before coming to rest between the fourth and fifth
floor, destabilizing the far side of the building.
“That’s enough, Doomsday!” Arthur said drawing the
creature’s attention away from its seemingly mindless
rampage.
It regarded him. Its glowing red eyes dissected him,
gauging his strengths and weaknesses. Clenching its fists, the
creature gave a reptilian growl…and charged.
Tensing his seaborn muscles, Arthur leapt just as Doomsday got within
arm’s length. KRAK!
He drove his leg in a roundhouse into the monster’s jaw, knocking
it back. Landing, he dropped to the ground,
spinning. His kick connected with the monster’s
knee. POP!
The creature sagged for a moment. A wet, jelly-like squelching
sound came from its knee as new bony growths formed, stabilizing the
knee as the spot was covered over, strengthening, and supporting.
“Oh crap,” Arthur said under his breath.
SMACK! Doomsday backhanded
Aquaman, knocking him across the street. CLANK! He crashed into the red and
white Soder Cola advertisement on the side of a Metro-Transit
bus. The sign broke off the side of the bus falling on top
of him.
Blood coming from his nose, Aquaman pushed the sign off of him and
clawed his way back to his feet.
Doomsday didn’t speak. He fought largely in silence,
excluding the occasional grunt or groan. To a surface dweller, it
might have seemed eerie, but to Arthur it was one of the facts of being
an undersea superhero. Sometimes, sound didn’t carry
well due to pressure or depth…or creatures not having a
vocabulary that you could recognize.
The ground cracked beneath its feet when it took a step. People
screamed. Cars wrecked. Gas mains exploded. But the
creature didn’t utter a sound.
Doomsday advanced on Aquaman, tearing a light pole from its
moorings. As the King of the Sea regained his feet, the Hater of
All Life smashed the light pole down on him, driving him through the
asphalt and concrete to splash into the shattered sewer pipes below the
street. A fountain of brown water exploded upward reaching
four stories into the sky and dousing all within a two-block
area. As the pressure was spent, the fountain dropped back to
ground level and began to spill outward into the surrounding
neighborhood.
“Uhhhh,” Aquaman groaned, lying on his back in the rubble
of the shattered sewer pipe.
Daily Planet
Building; The 40th floor:
“Calvin…Cal…Cal Ellis!” A voice yelled across
the bullpen.
“Yes, Mr. Black,” a nebbish looking male answered pushing
his thick-lensed glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“I need you down on the street with Jimmy Jane and Lois
Olsen. There’s a story right on our doorstep and
damned if PMN is going to miss out on it,” the big balding man
cried around the unlit stogie clenched in his teeth.
“Right away, Mr. Black,” Cal answered. He
grabbed his Lex-phone off his desk so he could file his Blog reports
from the scene…whatever was going on…
Passing the big bank of windows outside the offices, he stopped,
staring down at the street.
“Whatever that thing is it already took down the JLI,”
Perry Black said looking over Cal’s shoulder. “Just
get down there and find out what you can.” And as Cal ran for the
elevator, “And Cal…be careful. ”
“Always, Mr. Black. Always. ”
Once out of Mr. Black’s line of sight, Cal Ellis glanced both
ways and ducked into the cramped janitor’s closet at the opposite
end of the floor. It was one of the few rooms in the entire
building that had a window that opened. Going to the window, Cal
cranked it open.
Removing his glasses and slipping them into his jacket’s breast
pocket, Calvin Ellis stepped up on the windowsill. He raised a
hand toward the distant sun.
“By Rao, I call upon the souls of Lost Krypton. I am
Superman!” he called.
Blue, red, and yellow flashes of light shot from equidistant points of
the compass coalescing around him, flaming over him, burning away the
façade of Calvin Ellis.
Superman, the Gladiator of Metropolis, leaped from the window. He
dropped at speed to the street below. The large yellow
sunburst on his chest caught the light. His thumbs hooked over
his big red S belt buckle as he dropped toward street level.
THOOM! The
impact shattered pavement as the Keeper of the Souls of Krypton landed
on the sidewalk. A star pattern of cracks radiated out from his
feet.
“We recognize you, Destroyer,” the Kryptonian
said. He raised his hand. A blast of blue
energy flashed out striking Doomsday, enveloping him. A warp
portal into the Phantom Zone opened around Doomsday.
SLAM! Doomsday rammed his fist
into the ground, anchoring himself into the pavement.
The electric blue, glowing edges of the portal defined the edge of a
pressure differential between the Zone and Earth. A howling roar
swept through downtown Metropolis. All the loose detritus of city
life became airborne. Paper, leaves, and assorted garbage
swirled, sucking through the wormhole into the Phantom
Zone.
Superman continued feeding energy into the rift allowing it to grow
wider and stronger, sucking at Doomsday. The more energy that
Superman fed in, the wider the rift became the stronger the
decompression wave trying to sweep Doomsday into the Phantom
Zone.
With its free hand, Doomsday tore a chunk of concrete loose from the
street and hurled it at Superman.
KRACK! Superman fell
back. His concentration broken, the blue warp energy wave
dissipated, and the Phantom Zone portal snapped shut.
Rubbing his jaw, Superman coughed, spitting violet colored
blood. He shook his head, as a shadow enveloped him, and a
bony, white fist slammed into the side of his head, knocking him for a
loop.
As consciousness departed this dimensional analogue of our Last Son of
Krypton, he saw an orange and green clad savior interpose himself
between the onrushing horror from Krypton’s ancient past and
him.
Aquaman stood, his shoulder out of joint, his arm broken, and a welter
of bruises painting his body from head to toe.
“You…will…not…DO…THIS!” he
gritted out as he raised his mystical prosthetic.
He called all of the mystic crystals of Ancient Atlantis to the surface
of the hand, energizing them as they arrived. He linked
their power causing the entire hand to glow with the energy.
BOOM! A
bolt of eldritch energy reached out and clutched Doomsday, smashing him
to the ground, rolling him, and tearing him to bits.
Smoke and dust rained down. “Screw your Humility Test,
Arion!” Aquaman proclaimed as he teetered and then fell, face
first, slamming into the ground.
Aquaman awoke on a hospital bed. A monitor at the head of the bed
showed his vitals. An IV saline drip slowly fed into his
arm.
At the foot of the bed sat a nebbish looking man in thick glasses, he
smiled when he noticed Arthur awakening. “Good to see you
awake,” the man said, extending his hand. “My
name’s Calvin. Calvin Ellis. ”
“Mine’s Arthur Curry,” he shook the proffered
hand.
“I know. I spoke with my friend Joan Jones about
you. She said you aren’t from around
here. When you’re feeling better, we’ll have to
see about getting you back home,” the Keeper of the Souls
of Krypton said with a smile.
Our Earth; Thierna na Oge; A few hours ago:
Aquaman swam out of the crater. He could sense the shifting
currents behind him…and realized that when he wanted he could
reswim the path to that other Earth via the crevices in the depths of
the crater. It was if the directions were imprinted on his
subconscious. The mystic nature of Thierna Na Oge combined
with the anti-energy bolt that consumed it had opened a portal into
other worlds. And if what he was sensing was correct…other
times and other places.
At the edge of his consciousness, as he glanced around at the craggy
walls of the crater, he could sense that somewhere out there, the city
still existed. And someday…hopefully, he would find
it.
The Superman of that other world had promised to look after the crew of
the Mitsubishi Maru until a way could be found to transport them back
home.
On that world, Aquaman had been heralded as a hero and a savior on that
world. They had made him an honorary member of their
JLI.
He felt an odd shift in the currents as he cleared the crater’s
edge. Spinning to look behind him…VEE-ZEET! A blast of mystic energy
struck him in the back knocking him cold.
Arion floated there. “Thank you for fully activating the
Atlantean crystals, Arthur. Thank you very
much…Atlantean scum,” he spat. His voice came
out oddly accented, more guttural than Arion’s previous
voice. His aspect rippled as the illusion was
dropped.
The sallow, lumpy-skulled humanoid in purple armor that floated there
slowly raised the saya, the scabbard holding his katana, from his waist
left handed. In a flash, the super sharp blade was drawn in
his right. His ridged chin rose as he glared red-eyed at
Aquaman. The sword held in waki gamae, the concealed
posture. The blade pointed away from Aquaman, but the
posture left little doubt that the faux Arion knew how to use it.
SIP! SIP! SIP! SIP! The blade
arced up, down, around, and back. Arthur moved back, his
hands raised in front of him to ward off the blows that weren’t
landing. SIP! The
mystically sharpened blade bit into and through Arthur’s wrist in
a single smooth motion.
Arthur’s mystic prosthetic floated free. A deep red
hemorrhage marked the path of the freed hand as it floated away from
its owner. Arthur grabbed his wrist, squeezing tightly, trying to
stop the bleeding.
The mystic crystals gleamed energetically as the villain gathered the
hand to him. He ran his gnarled hand over the prosthetic.
As he did, the Ancient Atlantean Crystals subsided below the surface of
the hand. The metal of the hand ran through his fingers,
reshaping in response to the will of its new master. A silver
dagger with the twelve crystals embedded around the hilt and handle
gleamed in the sallow humanoid’s grasp. He slipped the
dagger into his obi opposite his saya.
Returning his katana to its scabbard, he said, “Don’t
worry, my marionette, you won’t have time to bleed to
death. And you shall not interfere in my plans.” He
gestured and the flow of yellow chaos energy flowed out of his hands
surrounding Aquaman.
“Ahhhhttt,” Aquaman groaned as his senses distorted.
Time slowed as the yellow energy solidified. He hung there,
trapped, like a fly in amber.
Tapping his knuckles against the dagger, “With this I shall
restore Lemuria,” the faux Arion said, “and Zanadu shall
rule. ”
**Zanadu appeared in mainstream
All Star Comics #62-63 (1976). He was defeated by Dr. Fate
and encased in amber within Mt. Fuji. **
Aquaman’s sense of time was disappearing. He felt muzzy
headed. The edges of his vision were darkening as light
fell inward to a single point. In his dying peripheral vision, he
saw Zanadu floating away, a mass of purple robes with the fully
activated Zodiac Crystals of Atlantis in dagger form hanging from his
sash.
As his vision went black, he saw a blue and red clad humanoid in a cape
covered in gold brocade descend to the edge of the crater where Aquaman
sat entombed in mystic amber. Arthur had the impression
that he was being accessed negatively by the noble face that regarded
him as all hints of consciousness faded away.
Poseidonis Republic of
Atlantis The Scabbard HQ of the Swords
of Atlantis Now
Aquaman grabbed his tunic and pants and made his way to the main
briefing room.
The auburn haired man sitting at the head of the table with Vulko was a
familiar face. Though, this was the first time that Arthur
had ever met him. He was the man who had appeared to him after
Zanadu had entombed him in amber. Moloq sat at the foot of
the table, clearly not happy with all the brass that outranked him or
seemed to outrank him taking up space in his conference room.
“Orin,” Vulko rose, “I’d like to introduce you
to Arion. The real Arion.”
The two Atlanteans shook hands.
“Arion was just briefing me on who and what Zanadu
is.” Vulko made a carry on gesture, feeling a bit
self-conscious telling this ancient Atlantean High Mage what to
do.
“I always served Atlantis,” Arion said
soothingly. “The ideal if not the government.
“Zanadu has been around for as long as I have…maybe
longer…”
To be continued in Aquaman #25 – Xanadu with Zanadu
