See the first chapter for acknowledgements and major canon divergences. Thanks again to everyone who is leaving comments and kudo's. I hope you enjoy this one as well!


Chapter 5

After listening to King Atlan's message, Orm and Arthur had spent about an hour making their way back to the surface of the Sahara. Luckily, they exited close to the ocean. After retrieving the ship they had then made their way over to the island of Sicily. Arthur had insisted this time that they'd park and exit the water a few miles off from where they needed to be in order to be more discreet and blend in more. Which led to them now sitting in back of a truck heading into a small Italian town.

Orm glanced around as they jumped off of the vehicle. Children were laughing and playing, people were eating and buying things at a market. It all seemed so similar to life back in Atlantis.

As they walked along the little shops and restaurants, one of the stall owners handed him a handful of colorful plants with green stems and red tops. Orm, never having seen them before, sniffed at the bouquet. It did smell quite nice. He glanced around the market square and noticed a number of humans eating red-colored food. Perhaps this was food as well? Orm carefully took a bite. The taste was strange, but not entirely unpleasant.

"Uhhh…" Orm turned around and saw his brother, who had just paid the stall owner, looking at him confused. Orm took another bite and offered him one of the other plants. Arthur threw his head back and let out a laugh. "Let's get us some real food instead of roses." Orm hesitated. "Shouldn't we find the path to the Trident?" he asked. His brother shrugged. "The Trident has been sitting wherever it is for centuries. It can spare an extra thirty minutes. Come on."

They sat down at a small restaurant adjacent to the square and Arthur ordered one of those 'pepperoni pizza's' he had mentioned when they were in the Deserter Kingdom. The taste was quite differently from Atlantean food, but still nice. As he finished his third piece, Orm glanced at his brother. It's almost like we're a normal family, he realized. They were doing the things brothers did, spending time together and eating together, and he didn't mind it. It was all he had wanted as a child before his mother had died. And maybe Arthur wasn't that bad either…

They wandered around the square a bit more after finishing their food. Orm noticed a little girl standing next to a fountain and looking at the water. Arthur nudged him and handed him a small coin. "Human's believe you can make a wish when you throw a coin into a fountain." Orm took the gold piece and walked over to the basin. After a bit of hesitation he decided to give the coin to the girl beside him. She gave him a big smile and kissed the coin before throwing it in the water and running back to her mother. Orm could stop the ends of his mouth curling up. "You know," Arthur spoke as he came up beside him, "I'm starting to think you might actually not mind these surface-dwellers." Orm chuckled. "Well I did hear it would be wrong to judge a place I have never been to before." Arthur gave him a huge smile that made his golden eyes twinkle.

Orm got lost in those glowing orbs and felt his heart doing the same jumpy thing it had done back in the Deserter Kingdom when Arthur had pulled him away from the hatch. Orm had felt warm, safe, and content, like he never wanted to leave those arms. The moment was broken when Arthur turned away. "I'll be right back, just going to ask for directions. Don't go anywhere." Orm watched him go and tried to calm his heart.

His brother returned a couple of minutes later with the information they needed, and they started heading up the hill towards the old castle. Halfway along the route there was a ice cream-cart, and Arthur, still persisting in his quest to introduce Orm to human foods, bought them two ice-creams. It was a bit too sweet for Orm's liking, but still nice. He had just finished his cone when they reached a small courtyard outside of the castle overlooking the sea. It was filled with columns and statues of people Orm did not know.

"What did the recording say again?"

"Journey beyond the edge of the world to the Hidden Sea. Look in the bottle for the charted path. Only in the hands of the True King, can he truly see," Orm recited from memory. He pulled out the map from the bag he carried. They were at the spot marked in red, but the piece of parchment did not give any further clues.

Arthur walked around pensively for a moment, murmuring the words to himself. "Aha!" His brother suddenly rushed over to their bag and grabbed the bottle they had decided to bring along. "Look inside the bottle for the charted path… Oh, wow!" Arthur had lifted the throat of the bottle to his eye and was looking through it while twisting it with his hands. He then handed it to him. Orm put the bottleneck to his own eye and saw that the base of the bottle was carefully scratched in. It showed some distinct islands as well as a trident pointing to a particular spot on a horizontal line. "How do we know where to point it?" he wondered out loud.

"Well, we need to find the True King," Arthur replied as he started walking up to one of the statues surrounding them. "Hmmm. Let me see. This is Marcus Agrippa. Great general, but he was not a king. Neither was Scipio." "How do you know all this stuff?" Orm asked. "Because of my pops. He made sure I knew my history," his brother replied, his brow furrowed in concentration as he made his way to the next couple of statues. "None of these guys are kings… Except this one: Romulus, the first king of Rome."

Orm looked at the statue his brother was pointing at, which had one of its hand lifted in front of its face, as if he was meant to look through a spyglass. The back of its head was also missing. Arthur carefully placed the bottle in the statue's hand. "Only the hands of the True King can he truly see, right?" He climbed unto the base of the building and looked through the back of the statues head before letting out a triumphant laugh. "Haha! We have our heading!" "Really? Let me see." Orm climbed unto the base as soon as Arthur had jumped off and saw that the sketching of the two islands on the bottle's base lined up with two islands off of the coast. The horizontal line also lined up with the actual horizon, and the trident was pointing straight to… Coldness gripped Orm's heart as his throat went dry. It can't be…

The rock cracked and Orm feet slipped off of the small base, but strong arms enveloped him and carefully put him down on the ground. He turned around to see Arthur had caught him. Both of them stared at the other for a moment before realizing their proximity and parting. Arthur cleared his throat, a hint of red on his cheeks. "Not bad for an imbecile, huh?" Orm nodded, fighting off his own blush. "Not bad at all."

Before he could say anything more, an explosion hit the statue beside them and they were both thrown back to the ground.


Arthur groaned as he got up. Out of the smoke there emerged a figure clad in dark armor not too dissimilar from the Atlantean armor he had seen before. One big difference, however, was the oval bug-like helmet with two big red eyes. He suddenly heard the sounds of something charging up. The red eyes started to glow and emitted two laser blasts. Arthur could only move himself in front of his brother in order to protect him before the blasts hit him in the chest and threw him back. He let out a scream as he felt his skin burn. Somewhere in the distance Orm was screaming his name. Black spots danced in front of his eyes, but he quickly pushed back the unconsciousness that was threatening to overtake him. He blinked and saw Orm trying to fight the black figure before being pushed back and ending up on the floor beside him. This is definitely not human technology, he thought.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked as he got up again. "Maybe this will jog your memory," the figure replied as a blade shot out his gauntlet. Realization dawned upon Arthur. "You're the guy from the sub." "That's right," the pirate answered before starting to attack. "But now I have Atlantean steel. You can call me Black Manta!" Arthur managed to doge most of the attacks, but couldn't prevent being stabbed in the shoulder. Thankfully his brother had gotten up as well and joined in on the fight. They almost managed to overpower Black Manta, but then the suit starting charging up again. Arthur was pulled off of the cliff by Orm before another laser blast could hit them.

They fell through the roof of one of the houses of the small town below. Arthur quickly got up and extended a hand to his brother to help him up as well. The pirate landed behind them. "You can't run. You owe me blood!" The two brothers managed to land some hits before being forced to retreat again due to another laser blast.

The cycle of attacking and retreating continued until they made their way to a square in front of a small church. Black Manta's latest blast hit the church tower. As rubble started to come down, Arthur noticed a little girl standing right in the path of a huge falling bell. He quickly punched the bell off-course and ushered the girl into the safety of the church. He then turned and saw Orm was helping a man who had been trapped beneath some rubble. His brother lifted the rock without hesitation and helped the man get inside the church. Arthur went to follow them inside, but was stopped when a small harpoon-like arrow pierced his back. "I'll show you the same mercy you showed my father and gut you like the fish you are!" Black Manta shouted. Arthur reached back and managed to dislodge the arrow with a groan. His knees gave out and he sank to his knees. In the distance he could hear the sounds of the laser charging up again. Arthur wouldn't be able to move on time. Is this how I am going to die? he wondered.

The blast never hit him, however. Orm had rushed out and thrown a piece of rubble towards the black suited man. Black Manta tried to fly upwards, but his jetpack stuttered and short-circuited due to the impact. The pirate disappeared behind the town wall and, based on the noises, seemed to hit various rocks before landing in the ocean. Arthur let out a sigh of relief as his body fully slumped to the ground. Orm appeared into his view with a worried expression on his face. "Arthur?" Arthur tried to give him a reassuring smile as his vision turned black. The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was his brother shouting his name and trying to wake him.


As I mentioned last chapter, I unfortunately have had less time to write than I would like the last couple of weeks, so I've run out of pre-written chapters (I have like ¼ of chapter 6). The next couple of weeks I'm going to have a couple of exams, presentations and deadlines for uni, so the next chapter will be posted in 2-3 weeks time (it will at least be on a Sunday as usual).