"You've never seen Star Wars!?" Beast Boy gaped at Siren comically.
"Erm," The former Little Sister looked to Raven for some support or explanation, but the goth merely rolled her eyes. "No?"
"Dude! Come on, no Empire Strike's Back? No Return of the Jedi? I mean forget the prequels, they never happened, but the originals are classics!" He complained.
"...I really have no idea what you're talking about."
"Alright, that's it!" He leapt off the couch. "Hold onto your diving suit, I'm about change your life forever!" With that, he veritably dived headfirst into the DVD cabinet, digging through the unorganized mess and chucking DVD cases behind him. Siren looked around helplessly.
"I did not believe stars wage war," Starfire walked over from the kitchen with a pan of pinkish brown mush. She sounded as confused as Siren felt. "To what is friend Beast Boy referring?"
"Your guess is as good as mine,"
"Alright everyone, the T-sub is ready for launch!" Cyborg announced proudly to the living room as he burst through the doors. The T-sub had been a joint pet project of the metal man's and Robin's for some time. It had been fast tracked over the last few days thanks to a peculiar incident off the coast. The news of its completion brought a feeling of apprehension to Siren however.
"Does it have the depth rating to get where we want to go?" Siren asked, standing from the couch. "The tanker?"
"With room to spare," Robin walked in from behind Cyborg. "If everyone's prepared, we can head down within the hour, ready to get wet?" Beast Boy suddenly jumped into the center of the room and puffed out his chest.
"Oh yeah, finally my time to shine!" Siren chuckled at his pose and turned towards the door. He forgot that he wasn't the only one capable of surviving underwater.
"Well, no time like the present, let's go." She told them. Nodding, Robin and Cyborg returned the way they had come. Starfire floated behind them, asking half a dozen questions per second. Beast Boy sped after them eagerly. Raven, however, intercepted Siren at the door.
"You know you don't have to do this, right?" Her voice carried no obvious emotion, but she was clearly concerned. That apprehension squirmed inside her, but outwardly Siren smiled.
"Oceans cover most of the world. I can't afford to be afraid of them, can I?" Her brave face did did not seem to fool the sorceress. "Besides, what's the point of wearing a diving suit most of my waking hours if I never dive?"
"And you don't think any bad memories might spring up?" Raven said skeptically. Soren's smile faltered. The sense of apprehension became harder to ignore.
"I can't promise they won't, but one can't fear echoes forever. That's supposed to be part of moving on, right?"
"Begin launch sequence," Robin's voice came clearly over Siren's headset. "Main power, online." She shifted nervously. It was hard not to be nervous. This felt strangely like coming home to an neglectful parent. The sea floor had been as familiar to her as a child as the sky was to most others. It had born witness to her first steps and moments of joy, but so many more moments had been far from joyous.
"Oxygen tanks at maximum." Starfire reported. Siren resisted the temptation to wring her hands. In truth, she had volunteered to go out in her diving suit despite objections from Robin and quieter but no less strenuous objections from Raven. She didn't have Beast Boy's advantages and of her own powers, well, fire would only generate steam bubbles for a few feet. Electricity would harmlessly dissipate into the ocean at best and electrocute her at worst. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to try dematerializing and rematerializing amidst such pressure. Her lithe superhuman body and telekinesis was all she had, but Eleanor felt strongly that this was something she had to do.
"Defensive systems active." Raven's voice brought back their earlier conversation. Her worry had as much to do with their exchange of memories as any lingering aversion to the ocean. The sorceress worried that the experience had not left Siren unscathed either, that her memories had been destabilized somehow. She couldn't say how that would affect Siren, but deemed going into an environment almost sure to trigger old memories a bad idea. Siren couldn't entirely disagree.
"Twin Turbo Hydrojet Engine, purring like a kitten." Cyborg said proudly.
"And our secret weapon is ready to rock!" Beast Boy boasted from the seat in front of her. Unlike the others, Siren and Beast Boy shared their particular cockpit as it was the one that allowed them to exit the ship while underwater. His bravado brought made her quirk a smile and she touched her headset.
"Secret weapon babysitter here too,"
"What!?" Beast Boy twisted around in his seat and gaped at her. She just smiled with false sweetness.
"Someone has to keep you on task." Siren teased.
"I feel your pain," Cyborg told her through the comm.
"Come on guys!" The shapeshifter complained. He stuck out his tongue at Siren before sitting back in his chair.
"We could need both of you for this mission." Robin cut through the banter. "We have to find out what this Trident guy is planning. If it takes forty barrels of toxic waste, I doubt its environmentally friendly." The T-sub descended to the large oval entrance built under the tower for this exact purpose. "Titans, launch." Siren braced her hands against the sides of her cockpit as the submarine's engines engaged and they rocketed forth through the tunnel, out into the open ocean.
"What can these chemicals actually be used for?" Siren asked once she sat back in her seat.
"Nothing on record that I could find." Robin told her. "Some of it is industrial waste, some from medical and chemical laboratories, but its waste. Nothing obviously useful jumps out."
"Someone thinks its useful..." Cyborg put it in. Siren wanted to address that, but several loud bumps drew her attention. A large number of very disoriented looking fish drifted by overhead. She blinked.
"Did you just pilot through a school of fish?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Oooh, they're wondrous!" Siren could see Starfire admiring the passing underwater near-roadkill in her bubble.
"If you think they're cool, wait 'til you see me out there kicking butt! First I'm going to go shark!" The shapeshifter began chomping his teeth in imitation of a shark's bite.
"Oh boy..." Siren shook her head and looked at Beast Boy with fond amusement. "And what will you do when the villain punches you in the nose?"
"The I'll go giant squid on them!"
"Hmm... I could really go for some calamari now that I think about it..."
"Dude!" Beast Boy recoiled from her. "Not cool!" Siren laughed.
"Sonar contact," Robin broke in. "Beast Boy, Siren, ready to go?" Beast Boy grinned ear to ear and unfastened his restraint belt.
"Dude, I was born ready!" Siren rolled her eyes and sighed, undoing her own belt. "Try not to be jealous." The shapeshifter remarked smugly.
"I'm all set, ready to take a dip." She donned her spherical helmet and listened for the subtle hiss as it sealed securely to the rest of her suit. Amongst the many advantages to her old suit, this one required no bulky oxygen tanks. Its oxygen recycling systems could sustain her for several hours if need be. Her and Beast Boy's seats began to descend with a whine of servo motors and they approached the airlock. Several seconds later, they were in the ocean.
Siren had expected the shock of the water's cold temperature, positively icy at this depth, so she was not stunned by it. It quickly faded thanks to her suit's temperature regulation. It never faded in the old suit, in truth nobody without a Big Sister's resilient physiology could survive in those things, cobbled together from scraps as they were. She was pulled from her thoughts by the sudden expansion of Beast Boy's form. A massive green whale swam through the water beside her.
"He just put on three hundred thousand pounds," Raven spoke dryly. "I am soooo jealous..." Her sarcasm brought a smile to Siren's face. For a time after that nobody said anything and she heard nothing save her own breathing. Before them the rocky ocean floor suddenly dropped off and their target came into view. The ship sat on the sea floor like some massive toy long ago broken and discarded. The crew, thankfully, had escaped so it was only this metal hulk that had received a burial at sea. Siren propelled herself through the water with superhuman grace and speed. When she drew close enough to read the ship's name on the side, S.S. Vargas, Robin's voice crackled through the silence.
"There's our ship, but where's the cargo?" Beast Boy took on the appearance of a green hammerhead shark. He entered the forsaken ruin. After a moment of hesitation, Eleanor followed him. Within the wreck, all was dark save for the sparse holes in the roof through which the T-sub's floodlights gleamed. Eleanor found herself trailing a hand along the nearest wall so she wouldn't lose track of it. The passing lights made the shadows dance. Her heart began to beat faster. Siren's limbs grew tense and it took an effort to control her breathing.
"If this Trident guy was bad enough to sink a whole ship, that cargo could be anywhere by now." Cyborg offered to the group at large.
"And if we want to know where, we have to search for clues." Siren's voice was more tense than she meant it to be. A dull ache had settled into her brow. Maybe it was the pressure. Maybe it was purely nerves. The comm was silent for a time. Seconds seemed to creep by in minutes. She had forgotten what this could feel like. It was the closest she had ever come to full sensory deprivation. The darkness of the wreck, unable to touch anything directly, and the silence shrouding everything. In Rapture, during the later days of her mother's reign, silence had been a cherished rarity. It was then that she could contact Father or the Little Sisters. Now... Now the quiet seemed to her a gulf filled with disquieting promise. Siren turned her head to look out one of the holes in the ship's hull to the brighter blue of the seemingly endless ocean. It was not so deep here as the place of her birth and sunlight filtered down clearly enough to give the surrounding sea a pleasant blue color. That brought her some comfort, but as she watched something began to shift. Even to her unusual eyesight, she barely caught it. Eleanor thought it was her imagination for a moment, but then the shifting resolved itself as small vague dark mass far in the distance. It was getting larger, closer...
"Eleanor," Raven broke Siren from her reverie and she shook her head to clear it. When she looked again she couldn't find the spot of darkness, her imagination after all then. Somehow that did not make her feel any better. "How are you doing?" Her tone was flat and unconcerned, but Eleanor knew better.
"Perfectly fine," She said with a cheer she did not feel. "Is there a reason I wouldn't be?"
"It's just the two of us on this channel," The sorceress assured her. "You can speak freely." That made Eleanor sigh.
"Raven... why are you trying so hard? I can handle myself!" There was silence at the other end of the line. Siren instantly felt the specter of guilt. She had not meant to snap. She swallowed "...I'm sorry. I didn't..."
"I... Suppose I only meant..." She struggled for the words. Siren abruptly realized that Raven felt guilty herself. Why, she wasn't sure. "I know that having the past dragged up isn't easy, that's all."
"I..."
"Siren! Beast Boy's spotted him off the starboard side, go!" Robin's voice abruptly cut through their private conversation. Siren desperately hoped he had just tracked what channel they were on rather than eavesdropping. But enough of that. She pushed her feelings and concerns to the back of her mind and propelled herself out a gap into the sea. Siren could see Beast Boy speeding away in his shark form after a vague slender figure in the distance. The T-sub was already in pursuit, twin turbines sending a billow of bubble up behind them. Eleanor self consciously realized she falling behind and began carving through the water with every once of superhuman strength her body could muster. For several moments she closed the distance between her and the others bit by bit. Then caught her eye, a blur of movement. She turned her head and there was a new figure swimming just behind the orange-red submarine, a figure holding a trident.
"Trident! He's behind you!" She cried out into her radio and at the same time altered her trajectory towards the scale skinned foe. He pointed the trident at the speeding submersible just as it began to arc away from him and its three tips began to glow. Abruptly, Siren realized she wouldn't make it in time. The submersible wasn't going to move fast enough. She did the only thing she could think to do. In a bright flash and a curious sucking sound where the water moved in to fill the space she had been, Eleanor was gone. Then she was in front of a very startled Trident and seized his weapon, wrestling it away from the sub. A bolt of white lightning fired from the end of the trident harmlessly into the sea above them. Siren clung to the trident, attempting to wrestle it away from the scaly villain, but Trident matched her strength. She heard him growl in anger at her.
"Siren, hold him, we're coming about. Raven, get ready to fire!" Robin ordered. Trident kicked at Siren's midriff, but she was able to twist away from most of the blow's force and brought her helmeted head forward in a headbutt. Trident reeled. His grip weakened. Eleanor snatched the weapon away from his grip. She twisted in the water, braced her foot against the haft and pulled. The trident snapped and she let the pieces sink down into the depths. Behind Trident she could see the T-sub coming around to face him. A blinding bolt of white lightning fired from somewhere below and struck the submersible with a flash of fire.
"Where'd that come from?!" Cyborg struggled to keep the vehicle level. Eleanor was utterly taken aback. Trident was here in front of her and she had broken his weapon!
"You cannot defeat perfection!" Bizarrely, she could hear him even through the water. Trident took advantage of her distraction and surged forward with a punch that sent her whole body spinning. The world spun between Trident, the T-sub, Beast Boy down below by the sea floor, the ocean stretching on and on.
"He is there!" Starfire's voice shouted in her ear. Siren began to slow her spin by stretching out her arms. Whenever Trident and the T-sub came into view on her rotation she saw blurs of white light hammering the retreating submersible.
"No, there!" Raven corrected. A green blur and a blue slender form sped by her in the water, chasing after the falling sub. Siren glimpsed an explosion coming from one of the twin engines.
"He can't be in three places at once!" Robin ground his teeth. Siren could hear alarms blaring in the background. She finally righted herself into a fighting posture and looked after her friends. "Aim for that-"
"The engine's fried," Cyborg reported. "We're going down!" The new blue clad figure had caught up to Trident and was grappling with him. In the form of a green squid, Beast Boy was chasing after the T-sub was was falling towards... A deep sea trench. Eleanor's heart began to hammer in her chest.
Her stomach plunged in fear and dismay at the sight of the explosives filling the corridor before the lifeboat. Eleanor skidded to a stop and twisted around, reaching out to her Protector behind her. Delta charged along with great thunderous footsteps, but he was slow, too slow. The charges were detonating even as she began to teleport to safety. For a moment she found her gaze fixed on the glass side of the corridor, on that yawning abyssal trench below, thinking about how easily it could swallow them all up. How easily it could devour Father in its crushing pressures before she had a chance to save him...
"No!" Siren surged through the water with her hand outstretched towards the T-sub, desperately attempting to take hold of it in her telekinetic grip. Against all the odds, despite the distance, the sheer size of it and only for an instant, she had it. Her emotionally charged hold was tenuous and Eleanor gasped at the strain. A pinpoint of aching pain sparked beneath her forehead. For a moment, the T-sub's descent slowed. Then her fragile grip broke and that pinpoint released in waves that crashed and reverberated inside her skull. One hand pressed against her helmet, forgetting that her head was encased in metal, and the world spun. This time it had nothing to do with her body's spatial orientation. "Aaah!" Siren squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth against the throbbing pain.
"Siren!" Raven gasped through her helmet speakers. Her voice was shrill with surprise. The throbbing began to fade. Siren could only groan and lament the inability to rub her temples. She forced her eyes open and had to do a double take.
"I... Think we're alright team." Robin said, confounded. The T-sub was no longer sinking, it was being born along on the backs of a pair of large whales. Siren gawked at the suddenly charitable wildlife and nearly jumped right out her skin when something touched her arm. It was a tentacle, a massive green tentacle connected to an equally green squid. Beast Boy pointed with another tentacle and Siren got her first good look at the blue clad interloper, a lanky but muscular teen with a mane of dark hair streaming behind his head as he swam in the same direction as the whales carrying the T-sub.
"Okay, okay," She took steadying breaths. "Right, lets see what he wants then..."
The swimmer in the blue unitard led them into a cave in the side of a deep sea cliff, in which was a hollowed out grotto with breathable air enough space to safely dock the T-sub. As they approached the entrance, Siren felt a peculiar sensation in her mind, like fingertips sliding through her hair and brushing her scalp only it was deeper than that. The unsettling yet oddly sensual feeling almost made her pause, but instead she surged forward, past Beast Boy and past the blue swimmer. Strange as it was, the touch had carried with it a familiar impression. Raven had reached out to her somehow, she didn't even know the sorceress could do it, that meant... Well she didn't rightly know what it meant but she was quite eager to get to her friend and find out.
"What was that back there?" Raven was standing by the water, waiting for her as she broke the surface. She reached out a hand and helped Siren clamber out of the salt water. The grotto was spacious yet surprisingly well lit and smelled musty with brine. Glistening stalagmites and stalactites dotted the floor and ceiling. Eleanor waited until she had removed her helmet to respond to her friend.
"I'm not sure, but... You were right earlier, I did remember something, a flash."
"What was it?" The sorceress' tone had become heavy with some emotion Siren couldn't identify.
"My escape," She said simply. Siren had no desire to dwell any longer on that harrowing moment. Raven would know what she meant. "It was strange... Like I forced myself past a limit."
"You were very distressed, afraid."
"About that..." Eleanor lowered her voice. "What was that just now? In my mind, your... Touch?" Raven avoided her gaze and looked flustered, wringing her hands.
"An empathic link, it formed when your memories bled over into my mind. When you felt such a strong emotion," She touched the gem on her forehead. "I couldn't help but feel it too." Eleanor looked at her friend in shock.
"How long have you known?"
"...I noticed it a few days ago, about a day after you entered my mind." Raven's soft spoken words propelled Eleaner from surprise into shock and then to simmering indignation.
"Why didn't you tell me!?" Siren hissed. It was absurd to her, perhaps a betrayal even, that Raven had not told her about a connection between their minds.
"It will fade with time," Raven assured her. "I didn't want to..." She trailed off, either not knowing what to say or unsure how to say it. The way the sorceress continued to avoid her gaze made something dawn on Siren. Raven felt guilty, she blamed herself for Eleanor's resurgent memories and the link. Her features softened.
"Raven..." Before she had a chance to complete her thought, whatever it might have been, the sound of something large breaking the surface of the water interrupted. Looking behind her, she saw their blue clad rescuer emerge standing on the back of some sea creature. He was tall, taller even than herself and she was shorter only than Cyborg on the Titans, and had a lean toned build. Wet long black hair was slicked back against over his neck and his dark eyes observed the Titans without malice. He smiled and leapt onto dry land and the creature sank out of view.
"This is my place," He explained. "I told the whales to bring you here." Siren turned towards him reluctantly, postponing their conversation for a later date.
"How did you manage that?" Eleanor said without thinking, but blushed as she realized she was being rude. "Er, I mean, thank you."
"Telepathy," He said simply. "And it was no trouble."
"Hey!" All eyes went to the pool, where Beast Boy was standing, soaking wet and shaking a fish out of his boot. He was fuming. "I was there too ya know!"
"You stopped Trident from kabobbing us with that soured up shrimp fork?" Cyborg raised an eyebrow.
"Way to go!" Robin congratulated him with a smile. Beast Boy deflated and shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, I was gonna..." He said began awkwardly. Their rescuer walked up to them.
"I'm Aqualad," The water breathing youth introduced himself with easygoing confidence and composure. He took the scowling shapeshifter's hand and shook it amiably. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier, we Atlanteans try to keep a low profile."
"Don't think anyone noticed you..." Beast Boy muttered bitterly. Siren wasn't paying attention. Her interest had been piqued by what Aqualad had said and for a moment she forgot all about her recent troubles.
"Wait, you come from Atlantis?" She asked him. Naturally she had heard of Atlantis. She had done her reading on the members of the Justice League and she knew about Aquaman, the supposed king of a sunken civilization believed to be a myth in her own time. She hardly believed it even then, but she found the prospect of another city beneath the too sea unsettling to dismiss. Aqualad nodded at her gravely.
"And so is Trident," He walked over to a small device sitting on a rock and touched it. Images sprung up into the air, Trident wreaking havoc in an undersea city reminiscent of Ancient Greece, his weapon raised triumphantly. "Trident is one of the worst criminals in Atlantis, with an ego to match. He believes he's perfect in every way, so he thinks can do whatever he wants."
"Any idea what he's planning to do with the stolen toxic waste?" Robin asked.
"Whatever it is, it'll be bad for both our worlds." His brow furrowed. "Recently he seems to have developed a new power, it's like he can be everywhere at once."
"So we saw..." Eleanor commented. With her thoughts drifting back to the battle, she glanced at Raven. Whatever emotional turmoil she had experienced before, the sorceress had schooled her expression into the image of dispassion. Eleanor couldn't help but worry. Aqualad's attention wasn't on either of them, but instead he focused on Robin.
"So long as we're after the same guy, maybe we could help each other out." Siren saw Beast Boy start at that, and as Aqualad extended his hand toward Robin he interposed himself between them.
"Hey! Woah, we're good! 'Got the whole Trident thing under control!" He blabbered somewhat desperately and began pushing the boy wonder in the opposite direction. "Besides, isn't there a school of minnows somewhere that needs your he- Ugh!" Abruptly, Cyborg grabbed both of them by the collar and pulled them over to the rest of the team for an impromptu team huddle. Siren found herself roped in before she knew what was happening.
"We are at the bottom of the ocean," Raven stated gravely with a pointed look at the shapeshifter.
"Our sub's Swiss cheese." Cyborg's voice carried a note of anger.
"Fixing it will take time," Siren said distractedly, looking at the submersible from the corner of her eye. It was quite battered and worrying cracks crisscrossed some of the transparent bubbles. It was only a matter of time though, she figured. She and Beast Boy could make supply runs to the surface if necessary.
"And we cannot breath water!" Starfire interjected, not that it needed to be said, but successfully underscoring the direness of the situation. Robin nodded and raised his hand to get Aqualad's attention.
"We'll take any help you can give us!"
While the sea life telepath introduced his diminutive fish-like friend Tram, Siren allowed her mind to wander. She mulled over thoughts of Atlantis. It was a strange idea, that Rapture was not the first undersea metropolis, but she wondered idly if the Atlanteans were not as ignorant as she had been. Had they known about that city of nightmares? If she had looked out a window at just the opportune moment, would she have seen a so very human face staring back at her out of the depths? There was no way to be sure, except maybe to ask. How could she do that without revealing too much? Her train of thought slowed to a halt when she spied Raven. If emotion truly echoed across this link between them, Raven was either truly untroubled or, more likely, clamping down on them. The sorceress's face was impassive as she watched the the others, but avoided Eleanor's gaze entirely. Siren took a breath and approached her.
"I know that you wouldn't keep the link from me out of malice." She said, maintaining a steady pitch. "And I don't expect you to tell me your every secret, but this is my mind and my emotions. I have a right to know." Finally Raven looked at her. Perhaps it was her imagination or a hint of intuition from the link, but Siren thought she saw a flicker of pain in the sorceress' violet eyes. Regret, maybe.
"I understand," The flicker was gone. She spoke with minimal emotion. "But I think they need your help now." Siren followed her pointed finger to the edge of the pool. Aqualad and Beast Boy were grappling, pushing and shoving at one another like little boys fighting over a place in line, apparently arguing over who would be the one to go out and track Trident. She looked back to Raven, who offered Siren her helmet in one hand and held up her radio headset in the other. "I'll be in touch." Eleanor frowned and opened her mouth to object. This wasn't a conversation that could wait.
"Guys! Why don't you both track down Trident together?" Her attention was dragged back to the pool. Robin had pulled the Atlanteans and the shapeshifter apart and was speaking loudly to both of them. Siren gave the sorceress one more troubled look, but took the helmet and began walking toward the water's edge.
"I usually work alone." Aqualad was saying as she approached.
"Yeah, me too." Beast Boy crossed his arms.
"You do not! You're part of a team!" The Atlantean accused.
"And you hang out with Tram the fish boy! What's your point?!" The shapeshifter snapped right back. Siren sighed heavily at their bickering and performed a brief check of her suit. Everything seemed in working order.
"Hey! Arguing isn't going to get us any closer to stopping Trident, now get out there and search, both of you!" Robin broke in between them with a hint of anger. The shapeshifter and the Atlantean glared at each other for several moments more. Then they turned as one and dove into the water like a pair of synchronized swimmers, a pair of overly competitive thick headed swimmers anyway. Robin shook his head after them in exasperation. He turned to Siren as she stopped beside them.
"I know," She sighed before he had a chance to speak. "You want me to make sure they remember that it's Trident they're supposed to be fighting, not each other?" Her helmet slipped over her head and sealed with a hiss.
"Just stay on the lookout, and be careful." He told her, his voice muffled by her helmet, the internal speakers had yet to engage.
"Will do... and to believe I was being sarcastic when I made the babysitter comment..." She huffed and then, without ceremony, dove from the edge and reentered the deep.
"Checking in, any progress?" Raven's voice whispered through the speakers by her ear. Siren frowned. She had only been following Aqualad and Beast Boy, once again in the form of a giant squid, for several minutes. The hadn't even begun to properly search yet.
"Not really, is something wrong?" She asked.
"Robin's just getting antsy," The sorceress assured her. "There's not much he can do. He knows it and he doesn't like it."
"That's our Robin." Eleanor noted. "He's big on control..." She trailed off. There was a long pause on the other end.
"...I know you want to talk." Raven's tone was a mixture of reluctance and apprehension. She was biting at bait and knew it.
"I know you have secrets," Eleanor had not stopped thinking about this since entering the water. "We both have them, a few things we didn't share that night after I entered your mind."
"Everyone as a few secrets." The sorceress countered, but she spoke it more as an idle observation than an argument.
"Yes, some for very good reasons." Siren slowed her pace through the water as Aqualad and Beast Boy came to a stop. They appeared to be arguing, but that was only a guess. The conversation was entirely telepathic. "Some are more… selfish."
"You're dragging this out more than it has to be, Siren."
"Sorry," Siren said awkwardly. "What I mean is... Hang on, I think Beast Boy has something." Before her the green squid had become a green dolphin. Without a word she could understand, the shapeshifter sped off through the water with Aqualad in hot pursuit. Eleanor swam after them as best she could. Keeping up with the pair of them was taxing even for her, but thankfully they did not have to ge far. Soon they came to a stop when a group of dolphins began swimming up and around Beast Boy. She couldn't read dolphin expressions, but she would say the shapeshifter looked sheepish. Aqualad folded his arms and looked amused.
"Well?"
"Never mind," Siren sighed. The dolphins began to swim off with Aqualad and Beast Boy in pursuit. She followed after them. "A false alarm. Anyway, what I mean to say is that I understand if you didn't tell me because of selfish reasons. I'm guessing that's why you didn't tell me about the link... You thought I'd think less of you?"
"I... shouldn't have allowed the link to form in the first place." Raven spoke quietly. It sounded as if she were struggling with the words. A flutter of nervous energy skittered across her mind through the link. "And I thought you'd worry about the effect your emotions might have on me, so... I said nothing and hoped it would fade before anything happened that would make you notice… and then I didn't want you to know I was lying." For a brief moment, Raven's confused guilt and shame struck Eleanor like a clear note. It was the bald faced truth. Oddly, for Eleanor it felt like a weight had lifted. If Raven had claimed total selfishness, she did not know that their friendship would endure. If the sorceress had claimed only altruism, Siren would not have believed her. Perhaps that would have hurt more, the lie of it. Instead, she admitted to the complex mixture of guilt, shame, and concern that was so very human.
"It's alright," She said soothingly. "I don't blame you and you should be easier on yourself..." Even as she said those words, her brow furrowed. Something was off. It had nothing to do with Raven, but rather her two companions. They were just coming up to a ridge in the sea floor. Beast Boy had shot ahead of Aqualad, taking the form of a swordfish, and the Atlantean was slowing and reached out his arm is if trying to hold back the shapeshifter. Then Siren saw why. Beast Boy didn't until he smacked right into Trident's chest and bounced off, dazed.
"Trident!" Immediately she began to swim faster, desperately trying to close the distance.
"You see him?"
"Right in front of us," There was movement on the other end of the connection. Then Robin's voice came on.
"Siren, you see Trident?" Before she could reply, Aqualad slammed into the scaled villain and both tumbled over the ridge grappling. Beast Boy shifted into a great white shark and swam after them out of view.
"Beast Boy and Aqualad are going after him, I'm pursuing." With that she kicked through the water with all her strength and rocketed through the depths. When she reached the apex of the ridge, she came up short. Her eyes bugged out and her head swiveled back and forth between her friends' combatants. The sight below her was, well, impossible. "There are two of them..."
"Two of what?!" Robin asked loudly.
"Tridents! There are two Tridents! Maybe more! That's how he's able to be everywhere at once!" In the open below, Aqualad was grappling with the scaled villain. Behind a rocky outcrop, Beast Boy tussled with his own Trident. Neither could see the other. They may not even realize they were fighting separate combatants. So absorbed was she by the implications of the revelation that she did not notice the bolt of white lightning until a sharp hot pain lanced into her side and sent her spinning through the water with a yelp of surprise. When she righted herself and assured made sure the blast had done minimal damage to the suit, she saw yet a third Trident, yellow eyes gleaming with prideful rage, bearing down on her, his namesake weapon glowing for another discharge.
That was when something utterly unexpected occurred. A great black form, easily twice the mass of Trident, was suddenly slamming into him, knocking the Atlantean down into the rocks on the far side of the ridge from her fighting friends. Abruptly Siren realized that this was the shadow she had seen at a distance in the wreck of the Vargas. The form turned and stared at Eleanor through an all too familiar crimson visor.
"Theta..." She breathed in disbelief. He was much as she remembered. The armor was slightly different, better covering, likely water tight and most notably what appeared to be a motorized propeller strapped to his back, but it was the same imposing juggernaught she remembered. She could hear the whirring of it from where she stood. He was mobile, and she didn't want to think about her chances with only telekinesis at her disposal.
"What!?" Robin sounded utterly confused. Theta raised his drill arm towards her and the engine on his back began to rumble louder, revving up for a charge. Siren tensed, prepared to lunge out of the way. A bolt of white lightning shot up from the sea floor and struck Theta in the side. It did not send him spinning as it had Siren, but he twisted around to search for the offender. The third Trident stood below, firing another bolt of lightning at the juggernaut that sparked brightly off his shoulder. Eleanor felt rather than heard a low rumble through the water as Theta charged down like a torpedo towards the offender, throwing a cloud of dust and splintered rock up with his impact. She did not wait to see more.
"Theta is here," She hissed into her comm as she swam towards Beast Boy and Aqualad. They had evidently concluded their fight with the Trident duplicates and were swimming away towards what looked like a cave mouth. They had each been so focused they had not noticed the ruckus behind them.
"How!? Why?!" It was easy to tell that Robin was having a hard time containing his frustration at being stuck away from the action.
"No idea," Her tone remained hushed, as if worried Theta would hear her through the water. "But I'm not about to face him hamstrung. I'll try and get Beast boy and Aqualad to help." She followed the aquatic duo into a small trench on the sea floor. The rough walls were steep and dropped off sharply into darkness, but down was not their direction. Some distance along the trench it narrowed and then its top edges closed entirely with one another, the trench became a cave. When she found her friends, they had come to a stop at an intersection of several different tunnels. Aqualad was glaring at the shapeshifter and Beast Boy's squid tentacles were gesticulating angrily. Clearly they were having another telepathic argument.
"Oi!" She shouted as she came up to them, hoping to get their attention. They glanced at her, but were too absorbed in their conversation to do anything else. Grinding her teeth in frustration, Siren grabbed one of Beast Boy's tentacles with one hand and pointed out the cave entrance behind her. "There's more out there! Theta and there are atleast three Tridents!" She held three finger up in front of her helmet. The shapeshifter blinked at her uncomprehendingly and shook her off, returning Aqualad's glare. She smothered her anger as best she could but found herself grinding her teeth again.
"Siren? Did you...ind them?" Robin again, the signal was getting a bit choppy.
"For the lot of good it's done me!" She almost snapped. "They can't hear me and Aqualad's telepathy only works on fish. Fish! How bloody novel! I'm reduced to charades here!"
"Siren, calm down." Suddenly it was Raven's voice. With a shock of guilt, Siren remembered the link. Raven might be keeping her side of the link in check but Eleanor was probably broadcasting every fist clenching moment. She took a breath and attempted to steady her heartrate. "You can handle this, you've always been adaptable."
"Alright, alright." She breathed. Then abruptly her aquatic friends pointed at opposite tunnels. It took her a moment to see why. In each tunnel she caught just the tail end of a Trident escaping beyond. After a few more moments of intense glaring, the shapeshifter and the Atlantean set off... Into different tunnels. "Wha...Where are you off to now!?" Siren looked back and forth between them, uncertain who to follow. It was precisely then that the cave seemed to grow darker. Looking behind her, the light from the cave's mouth was partially obscured by a dark solid mass, rapidly growing closer and staring at her with a bloody red visor.
"Hell," She swore and picked a tunnel at random. "This is so messed up..."
"Sir...? Is Thet..." And just like that, the radio signal vanished entirely. Eleanor was suddenly very alone.
"Siren? Are you there?" Raven paused to listen, nothing but static. She looked at Robin and shook her head. "She's out of contact," The boy wonder frowned and she could sense his frustration. He turned towards the T-sub. Cyborg and Tram crouched over a damaged section. The electric glow of some sort of tool, perhaps a welding torch, flickered over the cavern walls. Starfire hovered nearby, trying to be useful.
"How close are you to done?" Robin called out.
"Should be ready in a few minutes," Cyborg didn't look up from his work. "Tram here really knows his tech!"
"Good, because we need to get out there yesterday," There wasn't a trace of humor in his voice. Raven couldn't agree more with the sentiment. She had not been entirely truthful when she said Siren was out of contact. She could still feel the former Little Sister through the empathic link. Right now she felt a nervous apprehension that fell just shy of fear coming at her in sporadic bursts. Eleanor was in trouble. She was without allies facing a foe she couldn't beat on her own even when all her powers were available. Raven didn't want to think about what would happen if they weren't fast enough.
It is difficult for most to truly imagine the true oppressiveness of true darkness. In this cave, well below the sun rich surface of the sea and deep within the sea floor itself, utter blackness ruled. It wrapped around her with suffocating totality as the last glimmer of light from the cave mouth faded. The only light Eleanor had was that which came from her porthole to light a meager portion of the space before her. But she was accustomed to darkness. Half her life there had been only the melancholic gloom of Rapture's exterior to light the half flooded corridors of the city. Darkness did not trouble her, but she knew well enough to fear the things that hid there. She flipped through her helmet's filters anxiously. They did her little good. The tunnel was winding and she could see only a short distance before or behind her.
"Raven? Robin?" She whispered into her comm with little hope of answer. She may as well be trying to get in touch with Aqualad's telepathy... and abruptly it occurred to her that this was not such a bad idea, though not with Aqualad. Eleanor took a breath and hunted within her own mind that thread of foreign feeling she knew belonged to Raven. It took some doing, but Raven was not the only one that knew how to keep her mental house in order. What she felt earlier from the sorceress told her what to look for, and there it was. It was bizarre, like a trickle of a water entering her thoughts from elsewhere. She was used to the feeling of foreign thoughts in her mind, but they were ghosts, long dead memories. This was new. This was raw living nervousness from someone for whom she cared.
Uncertainly, she tried feeding feelings of foreboding and urgency into the link. It was not the most efficient way to communicate, and Eleanor had to wonder whether distance was a factor. Her answer came as a breeze. It felt like one anyway, a light airy touch of reassurance brushing her mind soothingly. Raven knew she was in trouble and they were on their way. It was off-putting, but surprisingly comforting.
Then the illusion was shattered.
It began as a sound of whirring behind her. At first Eleanor was too absorbed by her own cerebral sensations to take notice. Then she heard the all too familiar sound of a revving drill. She twisted in the water and saw Theta bearing down on the former Little Sister, red visor gleaming with mindless malice. A low metallic groan rippled through the water as the metal clad juggernaught rocketed towards her, drill outstretched. Her reflexes saved her life. As Theta closed, she propelled herself upwards with a burst of adrenaline and a touch of telekinesis. The juggernaut's drill plowed into the cave wall, clouding the sea with dust and rock fragments as it tore up the stone. Siren dispersed the cloud with a burst of telekinetic power, and saw Theta ripping his drill from the wall. She reached out with her telekinesis, taking hold of the free floating fragments of rock.
And abruptly realized she could do more.
Her mental grip came with far less effort than ever before. The shards and fragments were nothing and they would not be enough. As Theta turned to face her, she reached out into the stone around her. There was a thunderous crack as chunks of stone the size of her torso ripped themselves from the wall and hurtled towards her armored foe. He knocked aside the first but the second struck him right in the chest. Then Theta was lost in a haze of dust and fragments. For a moment, Eleanor dared to believe she had won. Then Theta, dark and looming as the specter of death, rocketed out of the haze straight at her like a freight train. She reached out once more with her telekinetic grasp, but he was too fast. She dodged the drill only for the vice grip of his free hand to close around her shoulder and carry her with him to slam painfully into the wall of the cave.
"Ah!" She cried. He pressed her back painfully into the rock and leveled his drill at her head. At this distance, the whirring noise of its spinning was deafening. He thrust the drill towards her and she threw up her hand reflexively, catching the drill tip in her palm, holding it back. There was an unholy screech as the drill fought metal, then a fiery agony ripped through her arm as the armor ruptured and a cloud of red billowed around the drill. The scream caught in her throat and became a unintelligible gag of pain and shock. The systems of her suit isolated the ruptured sectional most instantly. Then she vanished in a flash of violet light, reappearing on the opposite side of the tunnel.
Siren grimaced and held her forearm. The bleeding was already slowing. She gritted her teeth as flesh knitted itself over awkwardly fusing bone structures. She would have to rebreak and set them in order later so that it would heal properly. Until then she was effectively maimed. Eleanor didn't want to think about the damage the pressure difference would be causing her body right now if she were normal. She didn't have time to either. Theta whirled about to face her and she heard another low rumble vibrating into her very bones. It certainly did no favors to the pain in her arm. Just as he raised his drill for another charge a blinding flash of white light sparked brightly off his left shoulder. Siren looked to see a trio a dark yellow eyed figures speeding towards the juggernaught with glowing tridents aimed squarely at him. Suddenly a fourth figure was looming over her, scaled features glaring disdainfully.
"I am Trident! I am perfection!" He announced as he pointed his namesakes weapon at her.
"So I've heard," She muttered, and with a thought dragged the villain's trident away from his hands with telekinesis. He clung to it with greater tenacity than she expected and was unceremoniously bashed against the cave wall. While he was stunned, Siren swam past him further into the tunnel, there appeared to be a light ahead. A glance behind her revealed that she had little time before Theta finished dealing with the Trident copies. The tunnel emptied into a small cavern, and ubove the dance of artificial lighting on the water's surface. Eleanor realized her best chance was above water, where she would have her other powers available, and sped to the surface with such desperate speed that she emerged from the water like a shot from a cannon. She landed awkwardly in a roll and came to her feet unsteadily.
"Siren!" Eleanor blinked in surprise to see Beast Boy waving her over from the other side of the cavern. "We've figured out Trident's power, he's made copies of himself!"
"That's what I was trying to tell you!" She snapped in exasperation, and partly because of the lingering pain in her hand. "There are at least seven!"
"Guess again," Aqualad said without humor. He pointed straight up at the cave ceiling. If Eleanor had been keeping a count of all the things that went wrong today, she would have stopped bothering when she looked up. The cavernous ceiling was entirely covered with fleshy transparent orange growths, eggs dangling and each containing a full grown Trident curled in a fetal position. "Try thousands,"
"Oh my god..." Eleanor breathed, staring wide eyed at the ceiling. "That's..."
"An army?" A great multitude of identical voices said at once. Dozens of Tridents emerged from the shadowy recesses of the cavern, each sneering their fishlike faces in precisely the same way. Some held tridents, some merely clenched their fists, but all charged as one towards the interlopers. Siren found herself surrounded. She summoned fire to her undamaged hand and struck the first Trident to come at her square in the chest. From there it devolved into a melee, her punches and kicks with the occasional burst of lightning or fire barely holding them at bay.
Finally, one of them managed to get in close with a trident and struck at her. The blow glanced off her armor and she lashed out instinctively. It was only after a bolt of sharp pain lanced up her arm that she realized it was the injured one. Trident stumbled back, her blood splattered on his face. He straightened himself and glowered at her with a snarl. She couldn't tell if the blood on his teeth was hers or his. He started towards her again and suddenly stopped. A look of bewilderment came over his face, then his eyes bulged dramatically as if in pain. He collapsed, clutching his chest and shaking silently as if in a seizure. Siren and the other Tridents around them paused to stare dumbfounded. Then the shaking stopped and he was still, terribly still.
Dead. Had her blood done that?
Unfortunately her mingled horror and shock distracted her from her surroundings. One Trident launched a bolt of white lightning from his weapon that hit her straight in the chest, lifting her right off her feet to fly halfway across the cavern and slam her back into some sort of console.
"Umph!" Siren grunted as she fell to the ground. Two accompanying crashes against the console told her that Aqualad and Beast Boy had fared no better. There were simply too many of them. She forced herself to her feet and realized the console she had hit appeared to be at the root of the fleshy network of orange growths, around its base were what appeared to be the missing canisters of toxic waste. "Well," She rubbed the back of her head. "At least now we know what he was doing with the toxic waste."
"My brilliant plan is already a success." One of the Tridents sneered.
"If one of me was perfect..."
"Why not make more?" Said two others.
"You can never have too much of a good thing." A fourth added.
"Once my army conquers Atlantis..."
"I will invade the surface world!" Two more gloated gleefully. Siren, Beast Boy and Aqualad glanced at each other. This odd communal speech was getting strange, Beast Boy's brow was furrowing. He was forming an idea.
"All the world will bow down before me!" Another Trident continued.
"AND PRAISE MY PERFECTION!" All the Tridents cheered in unison.
"Any bright ideas?" Aqualad whispered to the two Titans. Siren had no answer for him, her mind was still stuck on what had happened to the Trident she had struck. She couldn't think of any way to use that to her advantage at the moment, but Beast Boy piped up.
"Just one, try to keep up." He turned to address the assembled Tridents. "So if you're all perfect, which one of you is the best?"
"I am!" They all said instantly, then looked at each other in confusion.
"That can't be," Siren said, catching on. "Surely one of you is better than the others."
"The original maybe?" Aqualad put in. A murmur went through the scaled Atlantean clones. Then one of them towards the rear waved his trident in the air.
"I am the original, I am the best!"
"You are not the original!" Another shouted back.
"I am!" Several insisted at once. One Trident growled, his weapon glowing with a charged bolt.
"Nonsense, you inferior fools! I am perfection! I am Trident!" The Tridents around him quickly turned and struck. The army of clones quickly devolved into a free for all, all turning on each other and claim their perfection. Beast Boy and Aqualad cringed at the brutality with which the clones beat each other. Siren just blink.
"How about that? Much easier than I thought it would be," She commented as the last two Tridents beat each other into unconsciousness. Various clones groaned from where they lay on the floor in various states of dazed pain.
"Great idea," Aqualad complimented the shapeshifter.
"Kinda got it from you," Beast Boy said with a sheepish note. "Now let's stop those clones from hatching!"
"Hatching? What're you..." Siren's sentence trailed off as she laid eyes on the screen of the console she had crashed into. It read:
Hatching Sequence
00:00:02
"Oh dear..." Was all she had time to say before the console began beeping frantically.
Hatching Sequence
BEGIN
"Too late!" Aqualad said and the trio looked to the ceiling. A sound of keening growls resounded from above. The Tridents in the egg pods were squirming and ripping their way free from their translucent membrane prisons. One by one they began to drop down from the ceiling and in moments they were surrounded all over again.
"You've got to be bloody kidding me!" Eleanor all but screamed. Then a peculiar sense of reassurance entered her mind. It took her a moment, but she recognized it as Raven. She could guess what it meant, she prayed she was right. "We have to run, now! The team will be waiting waiting for us outside!" Her two companions gave her looks of bewilderment.
"What? How do you know that?!" The shapeshifter looked back at her over his shoulder.
"Just trust-" She cut herself off when she heard the sound of a drill spinning. Eleanor looked to see Theta clambering out of the pool she had originally entered from, his red gaze set on the former Little Sister. Her stomach dropped. "Just go, now!" They needed no further urging. Beast Boy took the form of a hippopotamus and charged through the newly hatched Tridents, knocking them aside as he went. Aqualad and Siren followed in the path he cleared with all the speed their superhuman bodies would allow.
They leapt into the closest pool and swam with all their might. Siren found herself using telekinesis to speed her way through the water. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the Trident clones speeding after them. Behind them, she thought she could make out a red light growing steadily closer through the shadows. They could not allow the Tridents or Theta to escape if it was in their power to stop it.
"Raven, Robin, anybody! Can you hear me!" She spoke into her helmet.
"Siren!" Starfire gushed over the comm. "Thank goodness you are alright!"
"Siren?" Robin this time. "Where are you?"
"Escaping, we need to find a way to block the entrance!" The light of the exit was getting closer now, in a matter seconds they would be free. In a few seconds more, their pursuers would be too.
"We're way ahead of you." Raven said. Suddenly the light of the surface was obscured by the silhouette of the T-sub descending into view. Siren's heart leapt. Aqualad and Beast Boy shot out ahead of her. She emerged and came to a stop some distance away, turning around to watch the entrance as the T-sub's seismic blasters fired into it with a water muted boom. Stone collapsed and the exit was buried in a mound of rubble.
"Yes!" Robin whooped.
"Victory!" Siren could see Starfire holding two fingers up in a 'V' through the transparent canopy.
"Cool," Raven remarked, impressed in a rare moment.
"Booyah!" Cyborg fist pumped. "Seismic blasters worked like a charm! Nice repair work Tram!" The unintelligible but obviously excited babbling of Aqualad's friend came over the comm. Siren found herself smiling.
"Great job everyone, great job."
"So... How about your first time seeing a sunrise from the surface?"
"That would be..." Aqualad rubbed his chin in thought. "The Pillars of Hercules, uh, you'd call it the Strait of Gibraltar. I remember it was spring, it was incredible." He shook his head with a laugh. "You know, nobody ever asks me about these things." After the mission, the team had asked Aqualad to spend some time in the tower with them. Right now, it was just him and Siren in the living room sitting on the couch, hitting it off much better than she had expected.
"Oh? Why's that?" She asked.
"Well, most people ask me things like what movies I saw first or what I think of surface culture." Aqualad shrugged. "I guess they just don't think to ask about the little things."
"The things most people take for granted." She nodded in agreement. "I hear you, umm, I guess I just like to keep the simple things in mind. Most people see their first sunset before they were old enough to appreciate it. Seeing it when you're older is... Must be breathtaking." She finished with an awkward smile.
"I understand." He nodded, then he seemed to remember something. "By the way, that area of the Atlantic you asked me about earlier, west of Iceland?" Eleanor's mood darkened, but she thought she did an admirable job not letting it show.
"What about it?" She asked pleasantly.
"A large part of that area has been taboo to Atlanteans for as long as anybody can remember." He explained. "I don't know much, but old stories say something about a 'Crimson Scourge'." The Atlantean shrugged, apparently missing the way Eleanor stiffened at the name. "Whatever that is, nobody goes there. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I went diving around there once." Eleanor forced herself to smile. "Not very deep, I was just wondering if I missed any Atlanteans while I was there."
"Well, I doubt it." Aqualad looked out the window. "Anyway, I think we should be going down. Robin said he had something for me before I left." She stood from the couch.
"Alright, let's not keep them waiting."
It was later that night, hours after Aqualad had departed, that Raven came to Eleanor's room. She found the former Little Sister in her room. She was sitting at her desk, evidently absorbed in her own thoughts. Her helmet was on the desk and her hair was a matted mess. She hardly twitched when Raven opened the door.
"Siren," The sorceress said quietly but clearly. Eleanor started slightly and turned around to face Raven.
"Oh! Sorry I didn't notice you come in, I have a few things on my mind." She offered an embarrassed smile. Raven took a breath and said what needed saying.
"I'm sorry," She began. "I should have told you about the link, and I shouldn't have let my emotions cloud my judgement on this." Siren tilted her head at her.
"Didn't you already say that?"
"I needed to do it in person." Raven shook her head. "I should have more control than this, it's my fault in more ways than one."
"My, you really have this guilt thing down pat."
"What?" Raven blinked. Eleanor sighed and stood. She turned to face her friend fully.
"Raven, I forgave you before the mission was even over. I understand why you did it and I don't blame you anymore, so stop beating yourself up or you'll only make the situation harder for yourself. How long will this link last?"
"...A few days more, maybe a week." Raven told her. Siren nodded.
"Great, so just hold off the self flagellation for another week and then we can put this all behind us."
"You're really alright with this?" The sorceress stood awkwardly in the door, unsure if she should pursue the matter further. Siren sat down and sighed.
"Yes, I am, so how about we meet in the living room in five minutes and watch movies? Beast Boy still wants to show me this Star Wars thing." She smiled at her friend, but Raven could detect a slight strain to it. She took the hint.
"You know, if you want a moment to gather your thoughts, you can just ask." She commented with a note of good humor.
"I don't mean..." Siren protested weakly.
"I know, see you in five." She waved off the former Little Sister's protest with an air of understanding and disappeared through the door. When the door slid shut, Eleanor sat back in her chair and allowed her head to loll back so that she stared at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and sighed. After a few moments Eleanor sat up and removed a small item from her desk, a bit smaller than a TV remote. She held the digital audio recorder in front of her and presses a button on the side.
"So... Audio diaries... That's not a habit I thought I'd be picking back up." In her mother's captivity, the diaries had been her way of voicing her fears and exulting in her triumphs in aiding her father. It was not so different now, only the captivity was a secrecy of her own devising, a necessity of her life. There were fewer secret triumphs and more secret worries now too. "I believe what Aqualad told me about Rapture, it explains why the Atlanteans never took notice of the massive construction effort it took to build a city. I wonder if it was luck or rather some horribly ironic twist of fate that the city was built on forbidden ground to the Atlanteans." She paused and bit her lip before she continued.
"And then there's ADAM. One of Trident's clones died from exposure to it in moments. Aqualad mentioned a 'Crimson Scourge'. It makes sense that the Atlanteans might forbid a region crawling with creatures that produce such a lethal toxin to them, but how did it become so deadly? They're quite similar to humans, considering that they're an offshoot, but ADAM has never been a poison except of the mind and slow genetic degradation." Eleanor took a breath, she was about to leap into the realm of speculation.
"I believe the answer may lie in their origins. Tradition says Atlantis sunk in a day. Even assuming it was really more like months or years, it's far too short a period for them to adapt to their new environment through evolution. Evolution acts on a macro scale, not a micro scale. Sorcery is thought to be the catalyst for the swift change, but what if it was only a stabilizer for ADAM. Absurd as it sounds, it would make Atlaneans the original splicers. If sorcery stabilized the process and rendered ADAM poisonous to them as a side effect, it does fit." She sighed an rubbed her temples. "...And I can't prove a bit of it. All I know for sure is that they probably aren't in any danger of stumbling on Rapture. I'll take what I can get. Then there's what happened with my telekinesis." She held her hand in front of her face. "If Adam allows my body to adapt to extreme circumstances, could the same be said of my plasmids? Am I evolving on a micro scale?"
"Useless oaf..." Ryan Lutwidge muttered under his breath. He sat at a desk in the facility Slade had provided for his experiments. His mask lay discarded on the table and he glared at Theta out of the corner of his eye. The juggernaught stood tall in the corner, utterly passive, his armor covered in dents, dings, and scorch marks. "I ordered you to investigate what the disappearing chemicals were being used for," He grumbled. "I specifically ordered you not to attack the Titans. I specifically told you to gather samples and return, but no! In the end you had to dig your way out of a mountain!"
Lutwidge sighed heavily and returned his attention to the work in front of him. A severed scaly hand and forearm sat in a glass case in front of him. In a jar beside it was a sample of a peculiar orange fleshy substance.
"I really must find a way to counter this fixation on Siren you've developed, but in the meantime..." He picked up the jar of orange material and held it in front of his face. "Cloning... That would do wonders for my supply problems if I can reverse engineer it. We'll see what comes..."
Author's Note: As far as C-list Titan villains go, I've always had a soft spot for Trident. What can I say, I find him amusing. "Bow before my perfection, inferior fools!" And all that :D
Anyway, I know this took me far longer than normal, but obligations have a way of keeping one distracted.
I wanted to do 'Deep Six', in part as an excuse to bring up the ideas I've had regarding Atlantis and Bioshock and in part because it just seemed silly not to ever have Eleanor use the actual diving suit functions of her diving suit. Part of the reason it took so long was because it originally was little more than a slight rescripting of the original episode. Then I started adding things like Theta's presence, the empathic link, Eleanor's evolution. It took a little bit of reworking.
As you've probably already realized, I'm skipping some episodes. Originally I was going to skip 'Switched', but I've been rethinking that lately. Good thing episode order is fairly unimportant save for a few main plot centric episodes. I don't plan on doing Mad Mod or Car Trouble at this time, season 2 is largely uncertain, but I want to work in a lot more original episodes with a somewhat more cohesive plot arc.
As usual, Reviews are appreciated