The world around Arthur Curry (he had long ago nearly begged his friends not to use his royal title in conjunction with his name; the pun being too painful, they agreed) resolved from a blur of hazed colors and shapes as Barry Allen decelerated, and their journey ended. The Scarlet Speeder had carried them both directly from the Hall of Justice in New Troy to the dam over a fifty miles away in less time than it took to say their destination's name. Protected by the mysterious properties of the Speed Force (so named by Barry's young partner after seeing a famous film), Arthur had experienced none of the back-breaking forces of acceleration that would normally be associated with traveling at such great speed. At first the blurring of colors and shapes caused the beginnings of nausea, but the trip had taken so little time that Arthur had easily endured it; being well adapted to changes in pressure and differences of light from a lifetime of traversing the various photic zones of the world's oceans. Of all the possible discomforts he could have endured, the only one that stayed with him was the open-limbed stance he took for the journey as Allen's backwash carried Arthur behind him. He felt it somehow undignified.

The Shining Hill Dam was built in a forested region, filled with overgrowth and native wildlife located several miles north of several small towns in the northwest of Metropolis state. The dam had once been an experimental government prototype started in the 1960s, billed as the hydro-electric dam to end all hydroelectric dams. Its optimistic name was chosen to reflect the future that was supposed to herald using a new electrical turbine that was, by drawing board accounts, fifty percent more efficient than any built previously.

The nation's young and vital President had asked its even younger and more vital alien-born champion to speed things along by breaking ground for it, as only a Teen Of Steel could. Later that year, an odd encounter with some time-travelers claiming to be Kryptonian criminals and his own future self had kept Superboy away from meeting that President in a major Southern US city. Yet still Shining Hill Dam embodied the 1960's start of limitless optimism, buoyed doubly when Superboy joined the chorus of voices fighting to save New York's legendary Pennsylvania Station from the wrecking ball.

Yet the loss of that young President, and the demolition of the old venerable station were also part of that era. Like so many projects, Shining Hill had its funding gutted in the early 1970's, when cutbacks just seemed common sense, even when common sense had little to do with the choice of those cuts' targets. The dam was all but abandoned for several years, only visited by the occasional park ranger and maintenance worker once a month. Superman himself had come here on occasion, but like his Smallville home, bad memories meant it was never for very long.

The Flash set Arthur down, and now the two men stood on the edge of the reservoir, staring outwards and upwards at the dam in the distance, its concrete walls rising overhead a fair distance away and gleamed in the sun, the concrete holding back the river.

Just one tiny crack in the structure, Arthur thought. And a million gallons of water would crush everything before it. The nearest town is just five miles downriver.

In recent weeks, the Fall season had brought heavy rain, and the reservoir was filled to capacity. Its bottom had been stirred up, and had darkened the waters with silt. Today, the skies were clear and the reservoir itself was smooth and untroubled, reflecting the surrounding foliage like darkened glass. There were the occasional ripples that appeared here and there on its surface, spreading out from tiny points where something pricked the water. Further out, near its center, the sun's rays struck off its surface as the sun continued its afternoon descent.

"Remember this place?" Barry asked.

"Yeah," Arthur replied. "I certainly do."

During the event known as "The Trial," the dam had been uplifted by Superman and used to hold back a boiling deluge of liquid light developed by a group of well-meaning scientists led by a brilliant and beautiful Japanese scientist by the name of Kimiyo Hoshi.

"Seems like they're hitting all the sites where we'd defeated them sometime in the past," Flash went on to say. "New York, and now this lonely reservoir. Don't think this could be coincidence. How much do you want to bet Metropolis will be next?"

"I'm sure Batman would have something more to say about that," Arthur commented.

Flash more than agreed. "Of late, something critical. He gets in that mode, but it's never been like this before. For how fast my brain works, he makes me feel like an idiot sometimes."

Arthur nodded. "On a team with a physical god, at least two royals, a chieftain and two galactic lawmen, it's the man with the inheritance and no powers who seems to feel he keeps us in line."

The pointless banter ended. For minutes, they stood silently, taking in the whole of the scene. It would have been an idyllic spot if not for the startling sight of the fifty-foot Toyman robot standing knee-deep and motionless in the middle of the body of water. Its massive form faced away from the newly arrived superheroes, its head and body slightly turned in the dam's direction, arms hanging limply at its sides, with the long, slender gold fingers slightly unfurled.

The more they stared at the robot, the more uncomfortable the two heroes felt. Huge, threatening and so very still. It could move, they knew. Arthur almost wished that it would. Unconsciously, he expected it to suddenly turn its head, or perhaps take a step. Rumble to life and animation. The immobility of it was almost painful in the expectation. And then he feared that if it did come to life, they would be fairly helpless before it.

Several meters next to its right knee, anchored in the water was a matte-black hydrofoil, a vehicle that Arthur was intimately familiar with. It was about twenty feet long, ten wide, and twenty high, and, true to the park ranger's description, indeed shaped like a manta ray, slightly wider in aft than fore; its long wings stretched in equal direction on either side, with still propellers adorning them, its front was a bubble canopy encasing the cockpit. From what little he could see, it appeared that no one was currently helming the controls in that compartment. Still it exuded menace, an obvious threat. Its small conning tower shaped something like the dorsal fin of the ray, giving it a particularly sinister look. The threat extended beyond mere appearance as Arthur knew from long-hard experience; the craft was armed with an ingenious variety of weapons, and any one of them was easily capable of splintering the dam.

"Think this is where they were hiding?" Barry Allan asked.

"Could very well be," Arthur said. "It seems to have everything they need: an old abandoned dam, trees and the depths of the lake for concealment - all located in our own backyard. We would never consider looking for them here, and we never did." We should have, he mentally added. It just seemed that we never took the time. We were so busy...unobservant is what Batman would call it, and he would be right this time.

"So..." Arthur asked, changing the subject. "What's the plan?"

"Well, we must be walking into some sort of carefully-prepared trap, that part's a given." Barry said. "This all seems to be part of a taunt. They want us to be here. So the smartest thing we can do is scout out the whole area. If we can spot any aspect of the trap they didn't want us to, we're one step ahead. Maybe they're hoping the attacks will make us reckless. Let's prove them, and maybe Bruce, wrong about that."

Arthur mentally prepared himself to spot out the strings without pulling on them, and noting that any string they saw was likely meant to be seen.

"So I'll be in and through the depths, and you will be...everywhere else."

Nodding, Barry said "Back in a..." his last word was blotted out by the snick of a sonic boom as he broke into another lightning run, disappearing from Arthur's sight.

Arthur now turned his gaze again out across the reservoir, at the anchored hydrofoil that now seemed miles and miles away.

He felt that he should dive in and scout the waters, but for all he knew the Legion had planted mines or other traps. He would need to scan first, like the Flash said. A pulse began to tap in his temple as he sent his thoughts forth, attempting communion with all aquatic life in the confines of the reservoir. Then they would know everything about -

BLOOP!

It was a loud distant throbbing noise, a pulse of sound like the explosion of enormous bubbles rising, but there there was an unmistakable animal quality to the noise creating an unnerving feeling of dread in Arthur's ears.

With the sound's arrival, the air around Arthur shimmered, rippled, and he could have sworn that he was not cowering on the shore, but rather deep in the depths of trench with the entire weight of the ocean pressing down on him, making him aware of just how small and insignificant he was, flattening his lungs until he choked. Then he was at the surface, with the waves lashing and lapping at him, his thoughts flicking like little fish that vanished before he could capture them.

BLOOP!

That terrible sound came again once more, and Arthur's body ached as the dark pressure pressed against him to crush. His eyeballs prickled, and his mouth felt dry.

He was losing all sense of orientation, and he gasped for breath, unable to tell which way was up or down.

Unconsciousness for Aquaman soon followed.


Suicide Slums, Metropolis.

The storm's clouds crept in over the city, slowly, ominously, moving forward in barely perceptible increments. The wisps at its edges twisted and bellowed like a dance of ecstasy, passing over storefronts, flowing over windows nailed over with sheets of plywood. The afternoon sun flickered a reddish orange, and the clouds looked like they were aflame.

No one noticed at first. In Suicide Slum, there is a saying that "the observant are also soon the dead."

Lightning caressed the shifting mass of water vapor. Below, on a small rise overlooking the north-west corner of the slums, a set of humming metal pylons reacted to the storm, and power surges resulted up and down the slums' narrow and camped streets for several blocks.

They took it in stride. The power company never seemed to serve the Slum with even a pretense of the concern reserved for the districts where people were always able to pay their bills on time and in full. They get what we pay for, or so it was said.

At first it appeared that rain would come, and bring with it a sense of purification to the filth of the slums, but none came. Soft peels of thunder could be heard, getting closer with every rumble. Overhead, bright pulsating bursts and streaks of light and color intermittently passed above the clouds, as if some great beast were waiting to be released from its stratus prison. The clouds - miles deep and wide - blanketed the entire sky, bubbling and roiling and joining one another to form a ceiling of stratocumulus.

A sick joke told of slum life went that, to its residents, Clouds look like clouds, and nothing more. The storm came, not bringing rain, but rather unease.

The animals, being gifted by nature with a sensitivity to such things, were the first to notice. Dogs whined anxiously, often scratching at their owner's door to be let free to do their business, and if unheeded, they vomited. House cats hissed without apparent reason, and refused to be held by their owners.

Dogs made a mess, and cats were finicky even outside commercials. This by itself would not mean anything to the residents, and in fact it did not.

Those out and about during the storm felt the hairs on the backs of their necks standing up, and a prickling of anxiety, the first of a variety of symptoms. The prickling was soon followed by pounding migraine headaches, a slight case of nausea, lethargy, and aches in the joints and muscles. The storm also had a smell, a faint acridity that tainted the air it filled, an aroma reminiscent of when lightning struck the ground, or when electric cables discharged sparks into the air.

You have to go to work, even when you feel like hell. The city pays no attention to this area, so it always feels and smells like hell. This is just a deeper circle is all.

For those inside, irritability prevailed, irritability and a foreboding sense of despair.. Spouses argued, parents found their temperament towards their children short. Small incidents erupted into shouting matches, minor and not-so minor scuffles occurred. The sound of a smack across a loved one's face could be heard from one of the tenement buildings. It was worse for those asleep, where it seemed that phantom fingers slithered and probed the inner consciousness of the sleepers, insidious in nature, birthing nightmares.

Everyone's arguing, and I can't sleep right. Must be a day that ends in Y.

What had begun as a slight itch slowly strengthened into a pull and a tug of the psyche. The caress became a raking, as though with demonic psychic claws.

When is enough? This seems different. This is not my boss, my family. This is wrongness that knows just how wrong it is, and wants more of itself.

The storm flowed onwards, seeking its center, a nucleus from which to whirl and revolve around to build its strength. The cumulus formation began to breathe with motion, sucking in and out slowly, swirling. The clouds parted suddenly, twisting open in a counterclockwise spin characteristic of a mighty cyclone.

The Slum is not like this. The Slum batters us but also keeps us. This is not a shoddy construction project or maintenance the landlord was too cheap to keep up on. This is unapologetic Hell on Earth.

Just moments before, those who called the slums their home might have been entertaining thoughts that the prosperity of the new era brought upon by the Superfriends would finally arrive at their doorsteps in the coming year, that the slums would be finally become a brighter and better place, that they would become brighter and better people.

These are the people who always win, right? Who always make things right? Those losers complaining about this or that right, freedom or liberty. You deal with the stench, the crowding, the empty cupboards and piling on of bills, while the likes of you clamor for cuts to things that help us 'deadbeats'. The heroes who keep your manicured homes neat and tidy now want to help us, and that eats you alive, doesn't it? Maybe, in the just world they're building, we'll buy your kids.

Change was indeed coming to Suicide Slums, but none could have predicted the form that it would take.

Urban renewal was about to take on a whole new meaning, and this time, it was no political promise.

The bad guys will run away while the good guys make a speech and some jokes. That's how it works, right? Right? right?


Miles away from the slums, in New Troy, the Hall of Justice specifically, five of those 'good guys' watched with concern and not a little bit of exhilaration as they observed Superman's fist collide with the gold and black countenance of another Toyman robot on the Hall of Justice's monitor screen. Behind Superman, the mighty form of Apache Chief could be seen holding aloft another helpless robot, which could only wiggle its arms and legs in impotent fury. A second later the Apache hurled the robot down, its as limbs came apart to produce another cloud of gray steam that temporarily obstructed the view of the conflict.

Dick Grayson seemed particularly enthralled. Unconsciously he raised his right arm, which was curled into a fist. Under his breath, the phrase "Go get 'em, Superman," was barely audible. His sharp young mind saw the Man Of Steel being as much a mentor as his effective father, and he actively wanted to be the center of his generation of young heroes, even as Kal-El was to his.

If I can merge the drive of Batman with the light of Superman, then Holy Terror, Nightwing will be the one to lead the next great gathering of heroes, and we will set in stone what these brave heroes crafted.

Whether Dick would ever get to adopt this recently-thought-of nom de guerre (actually an old alias of Superman's in an odd situation) would soon come into brutal question, and what these heroes crafted would seem to some set in sand, water and wind.

Diana couldn't help but notice things were going well, and to coin a phrase, that was what worried her. Upon arriving in Patriarch's World, she had obeyed her mother's wishes, and abandoned all preset notions of men as seen by Amazons, especially the one berserker called by Philipus as 'Bonkers Bettinia', who said all men were merely 'walking sperm-banks'. Diana read up on the classic heroes who had sprung up since Greece fell to Rome, and she found she had more in common with these warriors than with many of her sisters in this new world.

She also noticed all their stories ended the same way: one last battle, years after the great triumphs were done with and the kingdom at peace, and the fall of the hero, no longer ready for anything that came. She had hoped that the tales of Heracles' death and Gilgamesh's tormented afterlife had been part and parcel of her era, but as a much more recent ballad bespoke, 'Heroes Often Fail'.

But this was Superman, right? His memory contained all those stories, and similar ones from countless worlds. This is a god who doesn't play around, and rest on his laurels and triumphs, right?

Diana Of Themyscira, without realizing, took note of where she had stashed her sword and shield, as well as the protocols for enabling the secret weapons array for the Invisible Jet.

Bruce Wayne was not a man to speak of his origins. Even as Bruce Wayne, billionaire, he believed he spoke once of it in passing, and even then only to distract members of his rogues' gallery who invaded Wayne Manor for some passing scam. He had never told a single one of his friends, and even his adopted son (for all intents and purposes), how the deaths of his parents made him who and what he was. This darkness was best kept back. He'd chosen a prominent public role, a reassuring Caped Crusader Of Justice rather than a Dark Knight Of Vengeance.

Before his very first night of true crime fighting (after the fiasco of his first attempt at disguise nearly got him killed), he studied the world around him. Jim Gordon, long a mainstay of the Gotham PD (and the responding officer to the Wayne murders), had chased off a lot of corrupt officers, many of whom became prime henchmen in the schemes of Kobra, Brother Blood, Vertigo, and the people who would one day form the Legion Of Doom. The people who in turn opposed these schemes were forced by early high casualties and mistakes to become a lot smarter, and in the wake of this new sharpness came a more peaceful world than Bruce could ever have imagined.

Other than the world-shattering uber-schemes of the Legion members, their association was more of a Fellowship in the field than a group of Watchmen at the walls. So the Dark Knight stepped further into the shadows of Wayne's own mind, yet he was never gone, and now he stood very nearly side-by-side with the jovial Caped Crusader. Bruce at his core felt the set-up forming. Of course it was a set-up. Luthor likely had some gem from some hoary Native American evil spirit and soaked its magic with kryptonite somehow.

Gimmick Of The Month Club, that is what Batman almost found himself calling the Legion's schemes, until the Knight told the Crusader to remind himself of the Alleyway. Whatever he was, that Alleyway was where he started, and where he always ended up going back to.

Watching the battle, he felt an overwhelming sense of exhilarating and joyous nostalgia, yet he couldn't place it. Closing his eyes, he looked back in memory and saw an equally joyous sight that chilled his soul. A young boy, fresh from viewing Simon Trent's cinematic tour de force as Zorro (this was before playing the father-figure on Space Trek 2022), was walking out of the theater arm in arm with his beloved parents. Then they decided to take a shortcut.

Like we decided to take a shortcut in our battle with evil. But someone is waiting in the alley, they want what we have, and they don't care who gets hurt in the process.

Without any struggle, the Caped Crusader retreated into the shadows, and the Dark Knight rose.

The man known as Black Vulcan remembered how he and Jeff Pierce would be run ragged by Track Coach Morris Grant. Grant, once 'The Power That Fought The Power' in Track & Field, endlessly compared the two to his golden boy, Phil Rollins. Then the day came that Pierce beat the arrogant Rollins in Olympic tryouts, encouraged by no less than 'Jesse Owens' wingman in Berlin', 1936 Gold Medalist Will Everett. The future Black Vulcan asked Pierce what Everett had told him, and Everett himself told anew of how a German competitor had spoken of taking Everett on the field by lightning approach. The competitor (later stupid enough to insult both Max Schmeling and Joe Louis at the same time) was told words by Everett, and these were words both Pierce and the future hero lived by: Justice Is Like Lightning, And Must Ever Appear, To Some Men As Hope, And To Others As Fear

Black Vulcan (encouraged to call himself so by the nationalistic and extremely patriotic Atlantean Aquaman, who felt a man should be proud of his heritage) now wondered for the first time in some years where they now walked, in hope or in fear. He wondered why he would even think of this, as the Legion's return and inevitable defeat would surely cement their victory over every last burden upon mankind.

I wonder what life would be like, if any others from the old group had gotten my powers instead? Would they even have my worries? Or would they find it in them to tell these heroes they might be wrong or blind?

Hal Jordan had downplayed the review on Oa as a simple, routine thing, something all Green Lanterns eventually had to go through. It was because of Krona. It was because of the Manhunters. It was because of Sinestro, who, Hal noted, had never had to face any review of any kind until Jordan, Kilowog, and Tomar-Re brought him back in manacles.

But in fact, this review had been purely about Hal Jordan and all his amazing, super friends. Friends whose goals, while markedly less egocentric and freely given (at least contractually), were now in question. Fighting back no small annoyance at being pulled away from infrastructure vital to the larger effort, Jordan made his case before Lantern and Guardian alike.

Each member of the Justice League is a guarantee that no one of us will gain that overarching sense of entitlement that corrupted my old friend. I will always remember to my dying day Sinestro's words before I knocked him out for the last time before his capture and trial: 'But...I meant well." Meaning well isn't good enough. Saints become sinners precisely because being saints, they believe it to be impossible that this could happen to them. We've faced mind control and possession. Some of the mystics we know have flatly told us that such methods are based on flaws in our innermost selves, and that it is these flaws, more than any scheme of the Legion's, that could be our downfall. Like the group of test pilots I emerged from, we ride the risks, we embrace the risks, and we run the risks, because we are uniquely sighted to know those risks. The Super Friends won't become a Beast because we don't believe ourselves to be messiahs in the first place. In short, we get it. On every level and in every way, we get it. We get every last lesson that poor Sinestro never did and likely never will.

Yet now, as the Legion seemed set to enact yet another tired rerun complete with a stale, fated outcome, Jordan heard Kilowog fire back at his speech in true champion heckler's fashion that would make Statler & Waldorf proud of their alien godson-in-snark.

Yeah, but Hal? What happens when we forget those lessons and poozers, like Thaal learn ones we never got to?

The Guardians ended the hearing, feeling their questions had been answered. But Hal still didn't have a comeback for his old teacher.

Distracted by the spectacle of battle, they failed to notice it. One of the screens of the Vulcan weather satellite control console lit up seemingly by itself. A command prompt window opened and strings of numbers, lines of flashing icons and bits of code scrolled across its black expanse as different programs were run through at lightning speed.

Even if the heroes did turn around to look, it was doubtful that they would initially understand exactly what was occurring. Batman might, but even his mind would be pressed to cipher it out in time. For years, the concept of a computer "virus," something that was designed to infect and disrupt the operating parameters of a computing machine, had been the stuff of speculation by scholars of the emerging field of computer science. All speculation ended now by this recent incursion to the console. Now safeguards were slowly overridden, back doors that the League didn't even know existed were flung open, and logic parameters expanded and shrunk as the invading force made its way through the mainframe. In fact, the one and only thing holding the line-by-line invader back was the primitive speed of the tape-drive-storage machines, like a dimwitted servant too dense to realize it had been taken hostage.

Besides, the symbols on the screen were not in English, nor were they Russian, or French or any other earthly language. The numerals on the screen was rather Coluan in origin, and not one person on the entirety of the planet Earth read or spoke Coluan. Even if they had, the Coluan in question had chosen a multiversal variant of his own language, something it would take a twelfth-level intelligence to begin to crack. Soon that same intelligence would hold the heroes' electronic heart and watch as it gained a new rhythm under its control.

While the five members of the Justice League did not notice what was occurring on the screens behind them, what did catch their attention was an incoming call on the brightly-lit communications array.

"Come in, Hall of Justice," a familiar voice called over a vox on the side of the array. "This is Hawkman reporting from Blue Valley, Nebraska."


Perched atop the forester's watchtower, all Katar Hol could see - even with his eagle's eyes - were the sentinel forms of countless spruce and pine standing tall, looming against the gray cover of smoke. Beyond that the evergreens loomed, seeming to touch the blue heavens themselves.

Local firefighters in flameproof suits and helmets were now putting out the smaller blazes, using rakes to clear burning material, shoveling dirt over them to beat down the flames. Just minutes before it had been Hawkman's quick thinking and the use of a water tower to extinguish the main blaze before it could encroach upon the town proper.

A yellow streak in the distance confirmed the presence of Blue Valley's resident hero, the Flash's young partner, though the fire had him far too busy to do anything more than acknowledge one of his Justice League 'Uncles' with a respectful glance from a distance, before continuing his work.

"Hall of Justice," the voice of Hal Jordan spoke over the communicator. "Hawkman, go ahead."

Hawkman spoke into the communicator, "Had to take a small detour. Serious forest fire here. That was what caused my delay. Between myself, our young Mister West, and the local authorities, we've got it controlled."

Helping at times like these was what the JLA did, even before the real changes began. But it didn't take the mind of the Batman to see that the coincidences were starting to multiply past a point of calling them such for much longer.

"Understood, Hawkman."

Katar spotted additional streaks just outside his focus range, and wondered if the younger speedster hadn't corralled some of Barry Allen's older forebears to aid the effort. That he would need such aid did not yet raise a red flag in Hawkman's mind.

"How is the situation in New York?"

Bad as this fire was, Hawkman was waiting, like all of them, for the other shoe to drop and the Legion's latest 'true plan' to emerge, at which point all hands might be needed and fast. Jordan all but said as much.

"Superman and Apache Chief seem to be holding their own." Jordan said. "Could still use your help in case something changes."

The fact that Jordan had put such a heavy 'if' on that last part told Hol that likely everything was alright, and that his help was far from being needed. The lawman in him turned back to the task at hand in full.

"I still have to check to see if the fire caused any injuries," he replied. "Over and out."

He lowered the white, pentagonal communicator and attached it to his belt. He undertook a fresh assessment of the threat array in this area.

Why am I reminded of the time Byth staged a terrorist attack to cover a hostage taking that covered a bank robbery that covered up an attempted Gold Kryptonite auction? The air screams 'scam', and I think we're the marks.

The fire had sprang suddenly, and without warning. This particular stretch of forest had seen particularly severe rainstorms in the last several weeks, and the ground was still damp. The fire shouldn't have had such an easy time in starting up. This being the case, Hawkman was intensely curious as to the cause. But the math just either didn't add up or wasn't there to start.

The evidence seemed to suggest that the blaze had started at multiple points at the same time. That would mean there were multiple arsonists, or one that could be in many places at once. To Hawkman's knowledge, only a few such beings were capable of the latter feat. Not all of them were good, and none of them were people you wished to cross if you could help it.

He soared higher, gradually noticing a pattern in the way the fire had spread, almost like a message for one with exactly the right perspective.

No, it couldn't be.

But it was, clear as day. Emblazoned upon the countless acres of forest were two distinct symbols, their outlines clear-cut where rows of trees had collapsed.

The first symbol was clearly an 'S', while the second was an irregular looking 'F'.

We're being taunted, called out, or both...or simply being put on notice that this is happening, logic and our best efforts aside.

The sound of cloth flapping in the ash-scented breeze alerted him to a presence behind him.

Instantly alert, gripping his Nth metal mace, Katar Hol turned to face the threat. He saw the newcomer in a flash, saw clearly the flutter of the red cape hanging off his back.

"What?" Hawkman said. "You?"

The newcomer nodded, a grim visage like chiseled stone and a gaze that bespoke no good tidings.


When he next awoke, he found he was laying on the silt and pebbles of the shore. He got up immediately, startled to full alertness. Looking around, he saw that he was in the exact same spot where he had previously attempted the probing, but the sun was in a different position. How long had he been unconscious? He was certain that he'd been unconscious for only a few seconds, surely less than a minute, but now it seemed at least half an hour at passed. Where was the Flash? Had he been captured, or otherwise occupied?

Turning his head, he was relieved to find that the enormous robot was still in the exact same position as before, still facing in the direction of the dam, not having moved a single inch during all that time. The great bells dangling from its split skullcap were still utterly silent, not even the wind stirring them to ring.

Arthur dived into the water with a splash, and immediately took his first forward stroke, kicking and diving deeper and further toward the moored vehicle of his enemy. For the millionth time, he relished the feeling of grace and speed to be found underwater. These were the occasions when he felt that he truly belonged down here, that it was a privilege known only to his people.

Down here, it was he who could fly.

The reservoir closed over his head and he became weightless as he slipped beneath the ripples. Instantly the pressure equalized in his ears, making a high-pitched squeeing sound, followed by the silence of the depths.

He released his breath, and a soft stream of bubbles rose from his mouth towards the surface. Without hesitation he took his first breath under the surface. The lake water entered the gills on his neck and then into his lungs easily and painlessly, cool and silky. Freshwater, saltwater, it didn't seem to matter. Osmotic pressures and gradients simply adjusted like always. Nothing was amiss in that regard. The only thing that he missed was the taste of salt on his lips. To Arthur, it was an intoxicating and delicious sensation.

He took his time at the approach, wary. Arthur's top swimming speed was clocked at over 175 knots an hour. If he had desired it, he could have reached his destination in an instant, but knowing his foe he had to be cautious when making his approach, particularly after the disastrous attempt at using his telepathy.

He could see the hydrofoil above him now - a vague shadow belonging to another world. Rising to the surface, he nimbly leapt from the water and into the air. Flipping over backwards, he caught hold of the matte-black vehicle's right wing, and angled his body so that his legs could gain a foothold on the fuselage. There was a narrow set of iron rungs on the side, near a side-door, which Arthur caught hold of after swinging himself out. He next reached out to the door itself to experimentally turn the exterior knob, twisting it down. It was with some surprise that he found that the hydrofoil had been left unlocked.

Why…?

No answer.

Just like the man himself. How many years have you fought him, and yet you never even saw what he looked like without the helmet? Then again, even Bruce Wayne never figured out for years that the minor criminal who fell through a railing in a chemical plant had become the nightmare enemy feared and hated by even The Legion.

He focused, realizing there was no time for that now.

As he explored the craft, he tried not to think about the Mary Celeste. It had been Arthur's favorite story as a child, endlessly fascinating; he must have heard it a thousand times, lingering over each mysterious detail. Now, he wished that he could banish it from his thoughts as he walked up the narrow, deserted hall, passed the chart table with its maps and navigational hand tools. Arthur paused to look over the charts, hoping that they contained some clue as to what his foe was planning. They were only standard maps of the world's oceans, and when he touched one, a thin layer of dust coated his green glove.

Eventually he reached the cockpit, noting that the pilot's chair was also shaped like a manta ray, with gray and black cushioning on its seat. Moving past it to the control panel, he finally saw it.

"That's new," Arthur whispered.

Embedded in the center of the control was some sort of...device. It sat, a hunched swollen thing spread over the buttons, dials and gauges, embedded in the mass of the main body which was approximately the size and shape of a football. Scaled pipes angled out from it, conduits that went out and down to the floor and up into the ceiling, some of them connected and joined with the hydrofoil's greasy electrical cables. Metal wires extended from the panel and entered its 'skin' in a seemingly random series of small puckers.

While it had qualities that were clearly mechanical, it also had a design that reminiscent of the organic. It was darkly mottled with pieces of black plates, and parts of its structure looked like muscles engorged with blood, stretching and flexing, others resembled bladders overfilled with gases or liquids, and where there weren't wires, plant-like tendrils extended into slots in the control panel - all of it various shades of black,: ebon, charcoal, midnight, taupe, noir and onyx.

Having explored the depths of the world's oceans, and the bizarre denizens that inhabited them, he initially handled the sight of the thing without much distaste, only to then swallow hard as he watched the thing tremble slightly.

Agitation was apparent, its movements came faster, almost as if it were alive. It seemed absurd at first, but the longer he stared at it, the more convincing the idea became. It was though it knew that Arthur was there in the room. It was not just life, but some form of sentience, or at least awareness.

Partially concealed by the bizarre object, Arthur saw what looked to be the vehicle's fuel gauge, noting that it was in the red. He turned the key in the ignition, and only knocking sounds issued.

When was the last time this was filled up? It was on empty, what put it here?

More questions without answers.

Whatever the device was, however the craft's owner had acquired it, it appeared to be fully integrated with the ship's controls, albeit in a manner more reminiscent to an external parasite than any normal installation. Still, Arthur had a hunch he knew what it was for.

A noticeable blinking light flashed on and off on the control panel. Arthur reached for the switch next and pressed it down. Instantly, the movements of the device on the control panel ceased.

The aching dullness that been present at a deep psychic level and had been weighing Arthur down instantly dispelled. He felt his aquatic telepathy return in full force, a flooding rush of restored awareness; almost overpowering. He staggered, using a hand to steady himself against the wall.

Arthur attempted once again to telepathically reach out. At first it was overwhelming, like a radio with its volume turned all the way up. It took him a few moments to establish control. But when he did he sighed with relief to find that he could once again sense the simple thoughts of the river mussels, perch, panfish, bass and bowfin.

Arthur exited the moored watercraft the same way he came in, using the handrails to make his way to the top. His thoughts turned to the Flash's whereabouts, and then they went back to the bizarre object that had attached itself to the control panel. What had it been? Some kind of new invention by Brainiac or Luthor? Perhaps it had even been an extraterrestrial life-form taken from some alien world circling a distant star? In any case, he didn't have time to speculate now.

From where he stood, Aquaman looked out into the dark, reflective depths of the reservoir. A breeze hissed through the trees again, rustling leaves, rippling the water. The Toyman robot still stood exactly where it had been previously, motionless and solid as a mountain.

At first he thought it was his imagination, but in a second he knew for certain that it wasn't. Something appeared to be stirring below. Arthur tensed as he spotted the trail of bubbles rising in the mirror of the water, and ripples radiated across its surface. Off in the distance a bird called to its mate, but it felt distant and muted.

He turned his full attention to the rippling in the water

Something was rising to the surface, not with the wild trajectory of a rising object but with terrible, purposeful aim. Now he could that faint crimson lights shimmered far below the water's surface, growing brighter as they got closer. The thing was coming up from the deep. He could see it clearly now through the blackness of the lightless turbid water. He held his breath, lips parted but teeth clenched painfully, and his eyes locked on the black bulge.

When the thing broke the surface, sliding out of the water like knife out of wound, he gasped audibly. He couldn't help it. Arthur had been expecting this, but it had been so long since he had seen him: that dark body, lithe and sharply angled.

The nightmare that had been forgotten was now here, and Arthur knew its name, a name which he spoke aloud.

"Black Manta."


Again I am grateful to Gojirob for providing additional dialogue and plotting for this chapter and all the others.