Ch 20
"Do you see anything yet?" I yelled to Dick as we looked through storm. The rains beat down on our transport jet. Dick and I, the only trained pilots in the Titans, were flying while scanning for this 'anomaly' that Alfred had told us about.
"Vic, you seeing anything yet?" Dick yelled back to Cyborg, who was searching the area using the jet's scanners.
"Friend Daniel," Starfire said, walking over to me, "Perhaps the danger is below the water?"
"Can you pull us down lower?" Vic asked, "I can scan below the surface if we are closer."
"We can try." Dick said, "The storms creating some big waves. We don't want to submerge her, these things cost a ton!"
"Yeah, cause that's what we are worried about, the cost of the plane!" Speedy snarked sarcastically.
We pulled down as low as we could.
"Hey guys, I got something, I-" Vic started to say. A loud thud on the top of our plane interrupted him.
"What the hell was that?" I asked Dick.
"I don't know…" he said nervously. I stood up and walked over to the back of the jet. I opened the cargo door.
"Hey, Dan, you sure you should..." Beast Boy started to ask. I didn't listen to him. I started to climb out on top of the jet.
The rain beat down on my hood. I felt deafened by the storm. I couldn't see very far in either direction. I pulled out my comm unit.
"I don't see anything, I-"
I got hit in the back hard. I started to slide off the jet, but managed to catch the edge of the wing. I pulled myself up. There was some kind of… fish creature standing on the top of the jet.
"What the hell?"
It screeched, then charged me. I heel kicked it in the face.
"Dayhound, status! What's going on up there?"
I punched it, but it started to tackle me. I hit it twice, but my blows seemed to do nothing to it's thick scales. I stabbed it with the spikes on my gauntlet hard. It bowled and jumped back in the ocean. I caught my breath for a moment.
"Dayhound?"
"Some kinda fish… thing." I said, getting back to my feet.
"There's gotta be more."
"Hey guys…" I heard Cyborg say nervously on the comm-link. "My scans are pulling up a lot of… things…"
"How many?" I roared over the rain.
"About 1000…" He said.
Suddenly, a ton of creatures jumped up on the jet. Some fish creatures, some squid creatures, and some I couldn't even tell you what they looked like.
"Shit!" I yelled. The creatures charged me. I spun a few times, kicking them as they came. One of them got sucked into one of the engines of the jet. It exploded, sending me into the dark water.
I couldn't tell which way was up or down. There was no visible sun, and it didn't seem like there was gravity. Something grabbed onto my arm. It hurt a lot. I swung wildly with my free hand, hitting a large creature. I drew my utility knife and stabbed it several times until it let go.
I tried to escape the darkness, to breathe the precious air that I desperately craved. Something hard slammed into my head. Metal. Was it a piece of the jet? I felt my consciousness fading. I swam in the direction that I got hit. My head felt light. My lungs burned. I felt my hand hit above water. I was there!
Suddenly, before my head could get above, something grabbed my leg and yanked me down. I finally gave in to the cold clutches of the deep.
"Daniel!" I heard a familiar voice calling my name in the distance. Where was I?
I wandered through the cloud of shadow that I was in, heading towards the voice.
"Daniel! Can you hear me?" The voice said again. "Daniel!"
I called out.
"I'm here!" I yelled loudly. "Over here."
Suddenly, the thick black fog lifted. Revealing a… white area. Giovanni Zatara was in front of me.
"Daniel! Finally, I have been able to find you!" He said. He looked awful! His clothes were tattered, his hair and mustache were messed up, and there was dried blood covering one side of his face.
"Gio!" What's going on?" I asked, thinking about what happened. "Am I… dead?"
Zatara laughed.
"No my friend, not quite!" He said, placing a hand on my shoulder, "I have finally been able to communicate with you. We don't have much time."
Everything around us started to fade to gray.
"Wait, what's going on?"
"No time. I need your help! I am trapped in Trigon's realm. You need to save me. Trigon is trying to enter into our realm. Talk to Raven about it! You need to help me! Find Constantine! He will know what to do!"
"Wait Gio!" I yelled, as he and everything else all faded.
I woke up gasping for air. Oh sweet air! How I always took advantage of sweet, sweet oxygen. I threw up some water.
"Oh thank God!" Megan said, hugging me tightly. I was back in the jet. It was a lot quieter now. The storm had subsided, or we had gone away from it or something.
"Shit…" I muttered. My clothes were soaked. "What the hell happened?"
"You fell in the ocean." Beast Boy said, "I tried to go in after you, but I couldn't find you, until some dude carrying you in the water found me."
"What?"
"Aquaman." Dick explained to me.
Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman, was the King of Atlantis. He was a good king, but shared the xenophobia of all Atlanteans, despite being half human himself. Why would he have saved me? It would've been really easy for him to just let me drown.
"Is he here?"
"No." Supergirl chimed in, "He said he had to deal with all of what was happening below the surface. Sounded pretty bad."
Suddenly, my dream or vision of Zatara came back to me.
"Shit! Where's Raven?" I asked. Raven came over.
"What happened?"
"Trigon. He… he's coming."