Kal was having a really, really confusing day. The last thing he remembered from before he had woken up in this weird cave place was showing his mother how far he had gotten with his letters. He could write out his whole name now, though Teacher Amaris had commented that his handwriting was abysmal.
Kal hadn't mentioned that to his mother though, she didn't like Teacher Amaris very much and he had a feeling that it was his fault somehow. Somehow, no matter what he was doing or how good he tried to be, Teacher Amaris was always unhappy with him. He would be very glad when he moved up to Teacher Reny's class next year, she had filled in for Teacher Amaris earlier that year when she was sick and she had been much much nicer to Kal.
Anyway, now he was stuck on the Surface world with a bunch of strangers and no idea how he had gotten there. Mother and Uncle Calvin had always told him that he should stay away from surface-worlders, as had all the adults in his life, and he was really worried that he was breaking their rules. Despite what Amira's father had told his classmate, he was not a rebevous trout1 (whatever that was) and he always, always did as he was asked. It was unfair! Now he was gonna be in trouble with his parents and his teachers and it wasn't even his fault.
The surface-worlders were fairly nice though, even if he was still pretty sure that they had kidnapped him. The one who had brown skin like his and Calvin's had held his hand as he was watching their strange communicator earlier and the other white skinned ones had given him food, and one of them had even done a spell that allowed them to talk to him in Atlantean. He hadn't known that surface-worlders could do magic like that, or (now that he thought about it) why the older boy with the dark hair and the strange dark eye mask had known how to speak Atlantean but he guessed that his teachers would probably know.
Maybe he should try to escape! They had left him all alone in the pool, and he didn't think they actually wanted to hurt him, kidnapping aside. Ronay, whose father was in the royal guard, had once told him a story where Annex Orin had escaped from kidnappers just like these. Well… maybe not just like these, the kidnappers in the story had seemed much meaner when Ronay was telling the story at break-time, but still!
Having resolved to this plan, he took a deep breath and started to rise to the surface of the pool they had placed him in to nap earlier. Glancing around sneakily, like in the stories Ronay often shared, he swam up the edge and got out trying to be as silent as possible. He crept up to the door of the pool, stilling when it whooshed open, and then creeping forward when no one else appeared in the door way. He hid behind the door frame and looked all around the hall way to make sure that the kidnappers weren't hiding anywhere to sneak up behind him and then took off at a run down the corridor, trying to remember the way the nice older girl had carried him to get here from the main room.
Through luck more than memory he ended up exactly where he had wanted to go. The main room was as empty as the rest of the complex had been since he woke. An older Kaldur would have regarded this as suspicious but, while Kal did wonder about it, the excitement of his escape attempt overrode his concerns. Looking around curiously, he spotted the large entrance to his area and decided that was his best bet at a way out. He walked up to look at the strange opening and then jumped in surprise as a wave of light passed over him.
'Designation: Aqualad. Permission to teleport is currently revoked.' A monotone woman's voice sounded from somewhere near.
As Kal looked up and blinked in confusion, the opening started to light up. He stumbled back in shock as the woman announced in the exact same tone, 'Designation: Aquaman2.'
He closed his eyes as the light got even brighter and then opened them, blinking the spots out of his eyes as a vaguely familiar voice sounded out above him.
'Ah, Kaldur'ahm, I see that the reports from the Batman was correct. Don't worry lad, we'll have you back to normal in no time!'
The spots finally clearing from his eyes, Kaldur looked with astonishment up into the pale, hairy face of Annex Orin, ruler of Atlantis.