The entire Vanguard was sitting at the Vanguard Tower roundtable, sans Superman, who stood at the front of the table and opposite a gigantic monitor that stood at the very end of the room. From his left, they were seated in this order: Iron Man, Batman, Thor, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Aquaman, Hank, Wasp, Zatanna, Banner, Martian Manhunter, Carol, Hal, Barry, and Captain America. Superman looked around at his teammates as he readied himself to speak.
"To start things off, I'd like to welcome Steve Rogers to his first Vanguard meeting." He had his right arm in the direction of Cap, who just sat there and smiled.
Superman sat down and move his placed his hands on the table. "So, as I hope you've all heard by now, Hydra survived the end of World War II, and is still active as we speak. 16 scientists were killed during their break-in of the local S.T.A.R. Labs, and I would prefer to minimize their body count, no matter how much sweat we have to put into doing so."
"I've been scouring and hacking through the Internet as much as I can, along with the Bruces." Iron Man piped in, raising his hand up as he did so. "But we've found…less than we would prefer…"
"It's clear that Hydra has adapted well to the age of the Internet." Batman added on. "They've figured out how to work around it. But even taking the Deep Web into account, the Internet is only so big. There has to be some info on modern Hydra."
Cap looked at Batman with confusion on his face. "The…the Deep Web."
"Areas of the Internet that are not accessible through Google, or Bing, or any other standard search engine." Batman replied.
"How exactly does that work?" Cap asked back, intertwining his fingers.
Batman let out an 'hmm'. "We'll tell you later. Best not to get off-track."
Aquaman cleared his throat. "So have the interrogations towards Light, Reaper, or any of the other soldiers gotten us any information?"
"Not yet." Superman replied, before sighing. "They are stubbornly loyal to Hydra. No one – not us, not the US Government, not S.H.I.E.L.D., no one – has gotten anything from them. We don't know the headquarters or the full power of Hydra."
"So." Iron Man piped in, raising his finger as he did so. "For all we know, they could be at the bottom of Antartica, with robots and the actual Hydra monster guarding their base."
"That's…highly unlikely," Wonder Woman replied, with her eyebrow up. "Leraean Hydra has not popped up since it was slain by Hercules long ago."
Banner began stuttering and struggling to form words for a moment before finally speaking. "Hercules? But…but you're with the Greek pantheon and all that, and I swore on my life Hercules was the Roman name."
"It is. Heracles took the Roman name to distance himself from Hera. But Stark, I do get what you're trying to say."
Hal finally broke his silence. "We should take into account that there might not be anything on modern Hydra on the Internet. And -"
"Damnit, Hal, don't be stupid! There's gonna be something about them!" Hank shouted, causing Superman to press on his nose.
"First off all, don't insult my intelligence! And secondly, can I not finish?!"
Both stood up, with Hank pointing at Hal. "Well, maybe you should your brain for once!"
"Oh, here you go again, acting as if you're just so much better than me!"
"I swear to God, Hal, I just want to –"
"Enough!" Superman shouted, while Wasp tried to calm Hank down and Carol and Barry tried to get Hal cool and collected again. Black Panther shook his head while Zatanna sighed. "We will we dealing with you two very soon." Superman said in a very stern voice.
Hank grumbled while Hal stared at the table for a moment before speaking. "As I was saying, there might be nothing about them on the Web, and also, we can't just take S.H.I.E.L.D's word that they haven't gotten anything. Danvers and I met Nick Fury once – he was coming to Ferris Air for some matters that Ferris couldn't tell us about. He is a dirty son of a bitch, and I'm pretty sure torture isn't beneath him."
Iron Man interjected and pointed towards Hal. "First of all, damn you for summing up Fury so beautifully." He then turned over to face Superman. "But second of all, Hal's right. The NSA has nothing on those bastards over at S.H.I.E.L.D. I guarantee you that Fury is having an Hydra agent, or someone else, being tortured at this very second. Worry not, though. They're no match for the genius minds we have here, including my own. We'll hack through their files, no problem."
Superman nodded. "I understand. But tread carefully. And I want everyone here to understand that hunting and taking down Hydra will be a top priority for the Vanguard. I know and respect that you all have lives, but if there's any time you can use to finding anything on Hydra, I ask that you take it. We need to –"
Superman was interrupted when an alarm began to go off. *INTRUDER ALERT, INTRUDER ALERT* *UNIDENTIFED PERSONEL ON VANGUARD PROPERTY* *INTRUDER ALERT, INTRUDER ALERT*
"Oh, what the hell?" Pym grumbled.
Batman walked up to the monitor and pulled up their camera footage – and it was there that they found a redheaded woman clad entirely in a green-scaled outfit, banging on the Tower's walls.
"It's only a lone woman." Batman then pressed a button, and now they could hear the audio coming from the footage, and she was not speaking English. She was speaking a language that left Superman baffled, as it was unlike any he had heard before.
"She speaks the Atlantean tongue!" Aquaman interjected, standing up as he did so.
Superman turned around and looked at Aquaman. "Aquaman, Thor, Tony, you're with me! The rest of you stay put unless anything happens!"
Superman, Thor, and Iron Man all flew out of the meeting room, with Superman carrying Aquaman along to speed things up. It was only about a minute before they were able to reach the teleporter at their speeds, and they all hopped on and teleported out of the tower.
They teleported right near the lady, who stopped banging on the walls and looked at the four Vanguardians with a frustrated look on her face.
"Who are you? Why have you come here?" Aquaman asked, walking up to her and speaking Atlantean.
"I…I am Mera. And I have come all the way from Atlantis to enlist the aid of the Vanguard of Justice."
Aquaman looked at Superman, Thor, and Iron Man for a moment before looking back at Mera. "You came from Atlantis. What…what has brought you here?!"
"King Attuma and Prince Orm are about to launch a full-scale invasion of the surface world. We must act now, before their army arrives!"
Then Superman could suddenly hear the screams and pleas of thousands of civilians from the nearby bay, as well as water flooding into the city. He grunted, feeling distressed at the sound of innocents being harmed or worse.
"Superman, I'm getting CCTV footage of what looks like a…full-on army invading New York from the bay." Iron Man piped in.
"That's what Mera warned me about! That Atlantis itself will invade the surface world!" Aquaman added on.
Superman stood silent for a moment before speaking. "…They've already invaded." He then held his hand up towards his ear comm. "Everyone, get to the bay, now! This emergency requires the entire Vanguard!"
Several feet of water covered the streets as a redheaded woman and her 10 year-old son ran like hell. Men in dark green armor stormed the streets of Manhattan, impaling and bashing everyone in sight. She held her son's hand with an iron grip and didn't look back. She only ran. But then four of the men surrounded the two, and the woman held her son in her arms while gasping and screaming. The men looked to have four yellow eyes under those helmets, and they had what appeared to be arm cannons, with which they readied themselves to blast the woman and the son.
But then the men attention was taken when they saw flying ants crawling swarming around them. The woman and her son looked in confusion as countless ants began to surround them and swarm all over them. The men tried to get the ants off them, but there were too many. Then the ants got up into their helmets, and the men were now screaming as they ran amok, still trying to get all of the ants off of them.
Then Hank appeared, flying on the same ant, and jumped onto the shoulder of one of the four men. He gave the man an uppercut and, with the strength he gained when shrunken, the soldier was knocked out. He jumped onto another flying ant and gave another soldier an uppercut, knocking him out as well. He did the same with the third soldier before the final one tried to grab Hank. He just barely dodged and jumped onto the arm of the soldier. He ran up as fast as he could. The soldier tried to smack him, but Hank jumped out of the way and landed onto the soldier's shoulder. He punched the soldier in the face three times, knocking him out.
The woman and her son then found themselves encased in a green bubble, and looked up to see Hal, who flew them away while Hank got back onto a flying ant and flew off in search for more civilians.
"We got any ideas on why Atlantis is invading?" Hank said into his ear comm.
*Well, let's ask the Atlantean on the team.* Iron Man replied through the ear comm.
*How the hell should I know?!* Aquaman said in a surprised tone.
Hank flew passed Mera, who decked a soldier in the face and bashed another into a building wall. He was impressed, but he had to turn his attention towards Aquaman, who took two of the soldiers and bashed their heads together, knocking them both out.
"I haven't been in Atlantis since I was 10!" He cried out as he decked another soldier in the face.
*Well, that's just great.* Hal said into the comm.
Aquaman sighed. "I wish I had more answers, Jordan."
A soldier blasted Aquaman in the shoulder with the arm gun, causing Aquaman to grunt, then let out a war cry as he charged towards the soldier.
He was soon joined by Cap, who deflected a blast with his shield and bashing that soldier until he was knocked out, and then two more soldiers cornered Cap into the wall. He felt nothing but complete bafflement when one of the soldiers hammered the other in the face, before grabbing him by the shoulders and headbutting him. Then the soldier morphed into the Martian Manhunter, and now Cap was completely and utterly confused.
'What….what….huh?' Cap thought to himself as Manhunter made eye contact with him.
'I have the ability to shapeshift, Captain.' Manhunter replied into Cap's mind, which for Cap just raised whole other questions. '…Sorry for reading into your mind.'
'I-I didn't even know you could do that, either. Interesting.' Cap replied, before the two headed out to combat the Atlanteans.
Barry zoomed through the waters of New York, knocking out as many of the soldiers as he could, while Hal, Carol, Thor, and Wonder Woman all took to the skies. They stared at the surrounding ocean, and saw a dozen gigantic crustacean monsters that Iron Man had spoken of, all behemoths that stood about 200 feet tall.
"Stark, when you said these crabs were big, I didn't realize you meant the kaiju-sized." Carol said into the comm as the monsters approached Manhattan.
"That just makes it all the more fun!" Thor said with a grin on his face, to which Carol simply stared at the god.
The four flew towards the crab monsters as they drew closer and closer to the mainland. Hal created an enormous amount of gigantic knives and lunged them all towards two of the crustacean beasts, slicing them into bits. He was forced to dodge blasts coming from the Altantean soldiers down below, and he smirked before creating a gigantic fly swatter and smacking seven of the soldiers down.
He saw Carol blasting towards one of the monsters until it collapsed into the ocean. One of the other crustacean goliaths screeched in her direction, and Hal and Carol looked at each other before flying towards it. Carol projected her energy blasts towards the crustacean's neck, causing it to scream in pain while Hal blasted missiles at it with his ring.
"Look alive, Hal!" Carol said as the crab tried to swipe him with his claws, with Hal just barely dodging.
"Oh, just you wait." Hal replied, before creating a giant hammer and pummeling the creature's back with it. He bashed at the creature with his hammer while Carol blasted at it, and together they overwhelmed the crustacean until it finally collapsed into the sea.
"See, Hal. You can do great when you actually put some imagination into it." Carol wryly shot towards Hal, who just shook his head before following her to combat more of the crustaceans.
Wonder Woman flew towards three of the crabs at super speed and decapitated all of them with her sword, watching as the water got soaked in the blood of their severed heads. The skies began to darken, and lighting and thunder roared through the skies as Thor swung his hammer around until he aimed it towards four of the beasts – and with that, lightning struck them all, sending the four crustaceans down to the ground.
Then the Batplane and Black Panther's jet soared through the sky, and while Hal and Carol were combating one of the remaining crab monsters, Batman shot at it with the missiles on his Batplane many times until the creature was finally overwhelmed and collapsed, with Black Panther doing the same to the last crustacean.
"It's been so long such I've been able to face such beasts!" Thor exclaimed as he flew towards Wonder Woman, who had a stern look on her face.
"Well, now that they've all been taken care of, we have to head back to New York and aid the rest of the Vanguard!" She said, before the two flew off with Hal, Carol, Batman, and Black Panther, back to Manhattan.
There, Superman was super speeding around New York as more of the city began to flood, trying to get all the citizens he could get to off the flooded streets and up on the rooftops where water wouldn't get to them.
Wasp was with Iron Man and Zatanna, the latter two blasting away as many of the soldiers as they could while Zatanna moved her wand around. "Taeh rieht snopaew!" She commanded, and the arm guns of the nearby soldiers began to heat up considerably. Iron Man and Wasp used this to their advantage and blasted at all the soldiers, knocking them all out. But one of them smacked Wasp before collapsing, and Zatanna only barely grabbed her insect-sized ally before she fell into the waters.
Iron Man looked around, and saw Cap, Manhunter, and Aquaman all combating the Atlantean soldiers. They had made progress and the opposition was dwindling siginifcantly, but there were a few more soldiers coming out from the bay, and he could see it, so he headed west to combat the arriving forces.
Cap and Aquaman both bashed around the soldiers, with Cap throwing his shield towards one, with Aquaman using the soldier's distraction to bash him into the nearby street pole. Cap's shield bounced off the street pole and came right towards him. Their attention was taken, however, when a figure jumped onto one of the cars that had been flooded. This figure was clad in a purple scaled torso not unlike Aquaman's orange scales, and he had black pants and chest armor, as well as a black mask with grey fish fins at the top and on the sides.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't my dear brother, Orin." The figure said. Cap could not understand the figure, but Aquaman could – and he knew right away who it was.
"Orm!" He shouted, truly surprised to see his brother.
With the silver trident he wielded in his hand, Orm bashed Aquaman in the face. Cap charged towards him, attempting to strike, but Orm grabbed him by his chest and threw him a few feet away, into the waters.
"What was it like, brother? To live peacefully with our father, while I was cast aside and left behind?!" Orm shouted angrily, bashing Aquaman in the chest.
"Father thought Attuma killed you and mother both when he seized the palace. We both did! We're sorry!"
Aquaman tried to deck Orm in the face, but he dodged and punched Aquaman in the chest. "Attuma spared me, raised me…and showed me the true horrors of our father!"
Manhunter spotted Orm and Aquaman and tried to fly towards the two, only to get distracted by soldiers blasting towards him. Cap got up from the water and tried to head towards the two, but then he noticed Mera charging her way towards the princes.
She jumped onto the car that Orm had made his entrance on and bashed the back of his head, causing him to grunt loudly as he was sent down into the waters.
Orm quickly got up and kicked Mera in the chest while deflecting a punch from Aquaman. "Mera!" Orm cried out as she got up. "You have wasted your time coming to the surface world. You are but a nuisance!"
Then he saw a speedster running around the streets before decking him in the face twice. Aquaman and Cap both assumed it was Barry at first, but then it turned out to be Jay. And levitating in the skies above were Alan and Namor, the latter locking his eyes completely towards Orm.
"Son...is that really you?" Namor asked in Atlantean, having a mixed look of rage and confusion on his face.
Aquaman and 'Mera' could only watch as Orm looked up at his father and grinned sinisterly, wondering what had to be going through their father's mind. "It is me, father. And it's time Attuma and I finally finished the job."