The Flash accelerated across the open water of Metropolis bay. Cresting the waves he ran on the surface of the water, his feet moving far too quickly to sink into the sea. Fast closing the distance between him and the by comparison much slower twin hulled boat. With the power of the speed force smoothing his passage Barry ran quickly enough to be invisible to her crew. He made no effort to intervene at this stage, instead accelerating away from the fleeing craft.
This run out into the ocean seemed an odd course for these techno-thieves to take. On the face of it this was a fast but still a relatively small boat in a very big ocean, and the scarlet speedster couldn't see these crooks making this a transatlantic jaunt, the boat was clearly designed for racing, not transatlantic crossings. The Flash extrapolated it's course out into the Atlantic running reconnaissance, tracking across the water in wide sweeping arcs, back and forth, checking out the area ahead of the Off Shore Power Boat.
The Flash figured the raiders were going to do one of two things, either they'd turn and make for shore, and if so he was confident the League would be there to meet them. Otherwise some where out in the wide expanse of blue there was to be a rendezvous with party or parties unknown. His gut told him it was going to be the the latter.
He was right.
The flash hit an invisible wall, he was zagging or zigging, things suddenly weren't too clear for him, his head and body were in a downward spin. Barry felt himself bouncing away from what had been a jarring glancing blow. An imperceptible but solid energy field and his own velocity defying power hadn't played nice together.
Of that he was certain. Just as sure was the thing he'd seen and comprehended in the split second the Flash had made contact with the invisible wall. Hundredths of a second could be a long time in Barry's accelerated world.
He didn't need to be a Green Lantern to recognise an alien space craft and this shining disc ticked every box, it could have burst from the pages of a pulp science fiction magazine, but it didn't stand out, not to normal sight. Barry couldn't be sure if it was really here in a material sense. The other thing the Flash knew in this moment was he was wet. The explosive concussion of his crash, had sent him downwards repelling him from under the flying saucers rim, and so down into the deep water. How deep he was right now, he couldn't be sure, but any second now, he'd have to breathe. At least he was good for a few seconds more, the Flash could do a lot in a few seconds. If only it were that simple, his limbs seemed to belong to someone else. The after effects of the force field he had encountered. So for what seemed like an eternity, Barry struggled to regain control, as the fractions of a seconds past, the Flash was driven down into the darkening blue like a bullet fired from a gun.
A force connected with him. Everything stopped, and by rights the impact should have snapped him in two, but it didn't. All of a sudden the Flash was moving back upwards through the water. No discernible wake, no churning turbulent waters, there was only a sense of speed. Again physics told Barry Allen, Central City's leading Forensic Scientist, that at this speed the ocean should boiling around him – yet there was little to no disturbance in the salt water. This sensation was not unfamiliar to him, it was like this when he ran, because he Flash didn't encounter any friction in the air. Yet this was under the sea, and Barry wasn't moving, he wasn't doing any of this. The Flash was being carried instead of doing the carrying.. The bizarre inexplicable lack of resistance could mean only one thing, Barry decided, he must have found another kindred spirit. How else could a man swim so fast?
The Swimmer drove him back upwards. How long did it take to get the bends? Barry thought about it, and figured although he'd gone deep really quickly – it had been too quickly, that it was too short a time at such depths for his body to react to the pressure. The aquatic speedster carried him up and out of the water, he felt sure they must have looked like submarine fired missile taking to the air.
Returning to the sea moments later by virtue of Gravity the man held him upright.
It appeared to the Flash that the aquatic super-man was treading water with just his feet, because they stood, or rather the man in orange gold and green stood with the waves lapping around his knees. While he was held there casually at arms length
"Thanks – I think I have control of my legs again." The Flash said, he began to run on the spot, which was more than enough to keep him from sinking. The fine spray this created fell like rain around them.
Barry held out his hand. "I'm called the Flash." He said.
"I am Orin – King of Posideonis, Capital of old Atlantis." The man called Orin crossed his arms across his chest. He looked regal and non too friendly.
"No kidding."
"What do you know about the vessel which you attacked?" Came the question. Spoken with an air of command, by a man used to being obeyed.
"Nothing." Flash replied. "And I didn't attack it. Not deliberately any way." Barry reasoned that his first contact with the alien might have been considered aggressive. "More to the point I didn't see it until I frankly ran slap-bang into it." He looked at inexpressive face of the self proclaimed King. He asked the important question of him. "Is it one of yours?"
"No. It is not."
"Then..?"
"It rose from the bottom of the sea. From a great depths, in doing so disturbed many tons of rock and sand even before it took to the water."
"So you detected this undersea quake?" Barry reasoned. "Followed the cause, and saw me encounter it?"
Orin nodded. "As you saw, now it rests hidden on the surface. Honestly I'd hoped you perhaps knew more than I." The Sea King turned across to where Flash estimated the hidden vessel's location. "Whatever it is – it has been here for a long time."
"How long?"
"My best scientist tells me the sedimentary rock displaced by this vessel was laid down millions of years ago."
"You don't mean..."
"That the craft was sealed into the earth's crust itself, buried beneath the sea – yes I mean that. This vessel was here when the seas teemed with reptiles, and the land Dinosaurs."
"There is a boat moving in this direction, I mean that – whatever it is, maybe be it's destination. If it isn't it's one huge coincidence."
Aquaman frowned.
Flash continued. "A team raided a Luthor-Corp lab." Flash hoped this Atleantean knew what Luthor-Corp was science as Disney was animation. "We, that is the Justice League," again Flash hoped that name meant something, "have no idea why – that is what they stole. I was following them to try and find out who they are working for."
"Perhaps we should just ask them." The Sea King stated, then he disappeared under the water speeding towards the raiders boat.
-8-
Batman scoured the collapsing buildings sub basement. In his hand the technological lens of the electromagnetic spectrum scanner swept the dark crime scene like Sherlock Holmes would wield his magnifying glass. This phone sized device, whose touch sensitive surface displayed the residual trace signals from still operative computer systems. The Dark Knight reflected the Cowboy could probably see these energies, and Diana with her hunters eye could magically track down pretty much anything she set her sights upon. Bruce felt the dynamic in their League shifting. Clark and Barry brought a new more masculine meta-powers into the previously feminine equation. The Dark Knight had no illusions, he understood his strengths and weaknesses. After all analysis of the facts was his forte.
A lifetime ago his late father had diagnosed him as another Wayne genius. The curse of a family of engineers, industrialists, inventors, and in Thomas Wayne a doctor and a surgeon. Bruce was a playboy. What was it the gossip columnist had said? "The apple has fallen far from the tree." Then what Gotham did not know was that a heart broken little boy's genius had been channelled into the dark. Nature had contributed intelligence tempered by a peculiar single minded madness. Bruce knew it, he was an Autistic Savant. If Joe Chill hadn't that night ended Thomas and Martha's lives so suddenly. If his parents hadn't died so brutally, by the snap of Chill's gun, lit by the flash from the barrel in the dark of Crime Alley – then life would have nurtured Bruce very differently.
Fate decreed different, and as it was Bruce was orphaned that night. He was raised by a immigrant soldier, a former special airborne forces operative, and a field medic. A English gentlemen's gentlemen. Alfred had done the best he could. He'd watched Bruce grow up to pretend to sip champagne while chasing girls with clinical efficiency. Acting out the role of an attentive lover – as a means to an end. Bruce didn't do relationships – couldn't do relationships, because as an autistic scale genius he was emotionally trapped. Forever a weeping child on the dark damp pavement kneeling beside the twitching dying bodies of the only people he'd ever been able to love. Emotions closed down, shut out unused, the Dark Knight's mind was free to process the multitude of tiny details through the sieve of deductive reasoning, performing mental gymnastics the equal of any his body was asked to complete. Even now as he repelled down the taught nylon line, down the elevator shaft, it was all a business of arithmetic and geometry expressed through iron hard muscle. Releasing the shaped charge from his grappling gun barrel the explosion cut into the server vault.
The warm air hit Bruce as he dropped through the hole, and as a precaution he snapped shut his cowl - covering his mouth with the breather device.
The ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus port in the front of the wall of servers was all he needed. Seconds later the computer woven into the battle armour of his costume had forged a link with the Luthor-Corp Network. The passkey had been an expensive purchase, but the back-door into Lex Luthor's system had been a prize worth paying for. Diana would not approve of his greying the boundaries, her rules, by indulging in industrial espionage. Bruce hoped he'd be able to compartmentalise that memory well enough not to think about the how, should he need to explain the why. As the data ran through his suit to his own system in the cave under Wayne Manor, Bruce realised he had no choice.
-8-
Superman and Wonder Woman arrived at the raiders boat to see a fight in progress. On deck the Flash pounded, dodged and weaved around the giant of a man, his gun broken and useless, disarmed at speed by Barry's fleet fingers. Then from the deck a second figure shot at Diana and him. No Superman calculated it was directly at him. Diana was already falling upon the shooter. While the bullet sped towards him, he turned aside, while flying down into it's path, as it passed him by he tasted the bitter scent of substance K.
The assassin's aim had been perfect. If he weren't faster than a speeding bullet that is, it had been a dead shot. The deadly bullet had been targeted at Superman's heart. Kal liked to believe this first heavy calibre K slug would have bounced off him, or rather he hoped that he was recovered enough for that to be true, but cautious after earlier mistakes, he avoided trouble rather than diving headlong into it.
Coming to the boat he saw beneath the water another battle being fought. Even as he ripped the drug delivery system from off the back of the big man, causing him to shudder, letting Barry land a blaze of punches to his head. Superman saw in the water the strangest mutation he had yet seen, it was as if someone had loosed a creature from Doctor Moreau's island. Half Man half Shark engaged another man in orange gold, and green, fighting each other in the water under the boat.
Barry looked up from the downed giant, registering where Supeman's gaze was directed. The Flash explained. "That's King Orin of Posideonis, Capital of Lost Atlantis. Personally – if I was him, I'd go with something like Aquaman. It's snappier. The other guy goes by the name of King Shark. I don't know how he got so good looking, but it's a face only a mother could love."
Superman had a lot of questions, but even at the accelerated rate he and Barry were able to converse at, there wasn't time, as a figure in black barrelled into him. Initially it was non event. Frail humanity grabs at a Man of Steel, for that reason Superman held back, still conscious that he was yet to master the full extent of his abilities in this new cardboard and paper world, but then Superman found himself being shaken to his very core. This was the figure who had attacked the foundations of the Luthor-Corp research facility, and Superman felt that same destructive power. Some how this terrorist was able to create shock waves in matter, through the ground it acted like a targeted earthquake, mimicking seismic energy. Yet even at sea, this metahuman was able through contact with Superman shake the Man of Steel as surely as it he had shaken the steel framed tower.
The boat shuddered and Superman did the only thing he could. He took to the air. His attacker hung onto him, his grip more than tenacious, it was supernatural.
"How do you like the touch of Terra-Man?" The Texan drawl was unmistakable.
Through gritted teeth the Man of Steel replied. "How do you like altitude?"
Superman was been shaken to his core, he felt nauseous, and his thoughts were confused half dream, half reality, with the boundaries becoming more and more blurred. It was like his synapses were being assaulted, making his body feel trapped, enclosed, paralysed, but up, up, and away came as naturally to him now as breathing.
The self identified Terra-Man held on, his grip like a magnet to metal, but as Superman climbed the air thinned and cooled, so Terra-Man began to shake too, shiver with cold, gasp for breath. In that moment Supeman's thoughts cleared. He ensured the metahuman found unconsciousness, before Superman dived back to the boat.
-8-
Jo closed in on the location of the mysterious space craft. The Flash had relayed the position of the hidden vessel via his com link. Jo had then established all the details she could from his memory. For the moment she chose to keep quiet about the real nature of the League's intranet. The reality was subtlety different from the advanced communication system she had sold to her team mates. For it was the Martian Manhunter that was the link pin – Jo J'Onzz was the how and why technology worked, or more simply she was using her powers. Jo had no doubt that her colleagues would be uncomfortable with idea she was dipping into their minds. Ollie and Bruce especially had expressed and unexpressed reservations about her telepathic reach. Jo also had issues of trust. As an alien alone displaced by both time and space, Diana and the Amazons had helped with those fears and served as her template. Upon meeting the men of the league this subtle approach especially given Amazon sensibilities had seemed the logical approach. Now Jo wasn't so sure.
The Martian Manhunter cautiously approached the energy field that displaced light and rendered the alien craft invisible. Jo considered how different the world might have been had Clark Kent not encountered Kryptonite so young, and had matured into his powers. Perhaps he rather than Diana would have founded the league and served as a template for Jo J'Onzz life on Earth. Perhaps Jo would have been more trusting of these human males.
The Martian Manhunter peered into the shell of the saucer shaped craft and her deep held suspicions were confirmed. The Sea King was correct. This was an ancient vessel. In another time and place it would have represent something sacred to people of Mars, but sometimes Jo thought to herself even angels fall.
-8-
Diana watched as Superman returned to the boat with his unconscious captive. She hoped that perhaps this raider the Man of Steel brought back to them, would know something more concrete about their mission objective. Thus far her golden lariat had plumbed the depths of Bane's tragic soul. Unfortunately he was but a mercenary for hire at the right price.
"Need to know." Had been the simple answer. He hadn't needed to know much, and he hadn't been inclined to ask any questions.
King Shark was dumped before by the Swimmer. Flash called him Aquaman. It seemed a fitting title.
"From Posideonis." Diana noted, recognising the crest he wore as a belt buckle.
He nodded. She cocked her head quizzically as she cast the lasso around the mutated man meets shark. King Orin held King Shark as the magic took hold. In the brief moment the unfortunate chimera struggled Diana's magic rope touched the Atlantean's hands, so it was that Diana touched both swimmers thoughts and memories.
"Thank you Arthur." She said. Noting the surprised look on Aquaman's face. "I understand now why Posideonis's King could break millennia of traditional isolationism. For she has bowed before a King whom she cursed to die from birth. A prince who learned about truth and justice from a man of compassion, a surfacer."
"Princess Diana, do you make a habit of delving into the souls of strangers." Arthur asked. His voice measured. Diana sensed both anger and conflicting good humour. She relied on her smile to defuse the former and encourage the latter.
"Forgive me Prince of Atlantis, but your soul reached out to mine by the light of Hestia's fire forges into Gaia's chain, Arthur Curry made you who you are. He gave you his name and his values."
"That I will not deny." Arthur also called King Orin replied.
"My father will kill you for this Amazon." King Shark spat.
Diana returned her attention to the shark faced captive at their feet. She lent close to the razor filled jaw of the grey skinned metahuman, and stared into his dark eyes. "I'm on first name terms with the gods of Olympus, angry gods don't scare me Nanaue but by all means send my regards to daddy Kamohoali'i when next you see him. I'm sure the Shark god will be impressed by his son's chosen line of work as a thug for hire."
Nanaue recoiled from Diana as if she were a hot flame.
"What does he know?" The Flash asked
Diana shook her head. "I'm sorry, he's as ignorant as the big man Bane."
"Need to know Mercenary." Barry nodded.
"Then you have learned nothing of value Diana?" The familiar voice was lacking something of it's usual warmth.
Wonder Woman turned to face Jo J'Onzz. Her friend came to land on the narrow deck, stood between her and Superman.
"I was hoping you'd have better luck." Diana said. "Did you find the hidden space ship?"
Jo smiled, and she reached out and took Diana's hands, bringing them together in hers. It was a compassionate gesture that seemed out of place.
Jo looked at Diana saying. "I have seen into the Flying Saucer. It is a relic of a former age." The Martian Manhunter's fingers drifted to her wrists. "An ancient power."
"Jo what's wrong." Diana asked. "You seem out of sorts – not yourself."
"I have seen so much Princess in my life, so much history – children like you, like the daughters of Themyscira, you can't imagine it."
Diana suddenly wanted to break free from her friend's touch. There was something very wrong here, something almost mechanical about the perfect inflections of Jo's voice. Diana looked at Kal. In a split second she saw him read her features and his face now mirrored her expression of confusion and concern. Wonder Woman tried to free herself of the Martian Manhunters grasp - to part her wrists, but to her horror she saw that metal cuffs materialised around her vambraces, binding her bracelets and so robbing her of her magic gifts.
Jo rudely pushed her to the deck. Hard and fast. Stunned, powerless. Diana struggled to free herself.
Superman acted. Kal reached out to her past the green skinned officer of the law. Reaching out to her, confusion and concern in his face, replaced by uncomprehending surprise, so he too was unprepared for the full extent of Martian's treachery.
With super human speed the green hand thrust a green K blade at Superman's heart.
