Titans East was fixing up the tower, as usual on one sunny afternoon. Speedy has destroyed half of the flooring by dropping one of his exploding arrows in his room…again. Bumblebee was fussing on about how she told him so many times to be more careful, while Mas y Menos were running around and laughing at the scene. Aqualad was losing patience with his team members very quickly and decided to try and break up the argument. "Okay, okay! Speedy, Bumblebee did tell you to be more careful and Bumblebee, this is the third time he's done it and I'm sure he's sorry. Let's just let it go for now, okay?" he tried. They all looked at him with glares on their faces. Aqualad shrunk down into his shoulders; maybe he should have stayed out of this one. But then they all continued to argue again.
"Ugh, maybe if there was another girl here you all would understand! I was in the middle of brushing my hair! I have to brush it at least three a day for it to stay in perfect condition!" Bumblebee shouted.
"Your hair never looked that good in the first place, Bee!" Speedy replied.
"Humph! Well for a guy you sure like to primp like a girl!" Bumblebee threw back. Mas y Menos broke out into a fit or laughter.
"But he's not as bad as you!" Aqualad pointed out. "You spend all day on your makeup and everything!"
"You see, this is why you guys don't have a girlfriend!" Bumblebee retorted. "You're single now and you'll always be single!" and with that she turned and flew into her room and slammed the door!
"I can't stand her!" Speedy growled. "She's just like you Aqualad."
"Me!" Aqualad was offended, "You brush your hair at least four times more than the both of us put together!"
"Go talk to you fish or something!"
"Maybe I will!" he yelled back. Mas y Menos said something in Spanish and laughed. Aqualad bent down and yelled in their faces, "SHUT UP!" and they back away and sped off into their room.
"I'm not fixing this right now!" Speedy told Aqualad and then walked into his room and slammed the door. Aqualad looked down at the giant hole and sighed. He knew Tramm would be able to help fix it and decided to go pay his old friend a visit.
He walked to the shoreline and dove right in. The water was his usual home and it was very refreshing to be back where he belonged. It would be a good swim back to Atlantis but he was a fast swimmer so it wouldn't take too long. As he went he spotted his old fish friends and stopped to talk to them. They spoke of the usual, until one of the dolphins spoke of an unusual current that has been haunting the waters for some time now. He said to Aqualad that the current didn't seem earthly or even possible to run against the water line, and most of the fish tried to stay away from it. Aqualad asked him, using telepathy, where it was. The dolphin replied that it was within a mile of Aqualad's old home. Intrigued, Aqualad made a mental note to check it out after he spoke to Tramm. It could be some plan of Trident's to rule over Atlantis again.
Hours of swimming among his familiar surroundings calmed him, and made him forget about all that had happened back at the East Tower. His friends never understood him. He was from the ocean, yet they still ate fish…especially Speedy. It seemed like Speedy did it on purpose just to upset him. Bumblebee didn't really seem to are unless it messed up what she had planned. They couldn't really call themselves a team because they never worked together. But they could certainly call themselves rivals because all they did was bicker and fight. However it didn't bother him, he was used to working alone. Nobody cared as much as he did for the sea and the animals living in it.
Upon his arrival, he was welcomed by Tramm. Tramm ran over and hugged Aqualad by his legs. "It's good to see you too, buddy." Aqualad answered, "How have you been without me?" and the fish creature made some of his usual noises and made gestures to answer. "Really now? Anything new?" and then Tramm nodded and the he jumped back and began to talk about the change in the water currents. It sounded serious. "Okay, well, I'm going to go check it out. Think you could pay the titans a visit and repair the floor for me?" and Tramm nodded. "Great, I'll see you later." And then he jumped back into the water pit and swam out.
He swam to the exact spot where Tramm told him the currents met, and on his way there he saw surprising signs. Fish and other sea creatures hurried off in the other direction, scared out of their minds! "Wait, can you tell me what's wrong?" he asked them as they hurried by. The currents! The currents! And they didn't even bother to swim around him, knocking him over or back as he tried to push his way through. When the traffic cleared, he looked around him and saw almost nothing. It looked like a barren wasteland! There was no life, just sand and jagged rocks all over the place. And the closer he got to his destination the less sea weed grew until there weren't even any seedlings daring to break the surface of the sand. It was as if everything scattered in fear.
Looking ahead, he was shocked to see four different currents, crossing over one another. The currents looked like streets that met at an intersection, but all four were coming from different directions, North, South East and West. Aqualad looked on in awe, he had never seen something so odd. He went to get closer, but stopped when the water currents swarmed into a giant ball! The ball hovered in place and grew bigger than him. He stared at it with his mouth gaped open. It didn't make any sense! What kind of magic was this? Things just continued to get weirder as blue and white lights twinkled from within the water ball. "What's going on?"