Chapter 5:Lagoon and Grotto
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Dick was polite but it was all voluntary to him.
No waves, not yet but...She had to be the operative. She was….so pretty!
"Melinda and Juarez both met this spring. Juarez's family going back five generations or more and he owns the hotel, yet something is causing their heads to turn towards what isn't owed back to them. It's simple, but it's not. You say there is a chance the beach itself has a hidden source on it? That's a tough call. What are we asking."
"The men who came left the project on the beach and we believe it to be more than worth covering your fee for finding it, a merman from the lagoon."
Dick frowned. "A, meta. To be exact then. You think it escapes and came to your hotel, the beach being where it's hidden." Slade rubbed his chin. "This is a black market find at this point, Mr. Wilson." Slade used his real name, making this woman's eyes seem more deadly than the idea of trying not to drown in those high waters. Dick fidgeted a bit before his hand flew to his "uncle's" wrist. "Sorry, the boy is here for his self esteem issues at-home, it was what the doctor even suggested. He'll be over in the water, no trouble."
"Of course, enjoy the sea." Juarez chuckled and waved the kid off with his ring clad fingers of a mob boss. That's what this was. Finding the lagoon meta and trapping it. Dick moved along quickly and knew the this was only to get permission to scout the beach. So far, the woman couldn't come after him. He was just fine…
"HeyA-
Dick swerved around. No. Not a ghost. He made his way to the rocks covering a more secluded branch as he pulled out a detector from his pocket. Heat detection active….
There. In the shallow pool…..up…
Dick looked up. It was –
"What are you doing?"
The boy saw a face flop down. Green gills. A face like a boy.
His hands flew up as he waved them in front of the teen. "You are not thirsty, are you? This water tastes like fish. Try someplace else –
"Whu – wait!" Dick pulled back as the boy flopped into the sand from the pool he'd popped out of. "SO….NOT. A MERMAID?"
"No!"
The pool boy rattled around. "Not gonna get me, kid. I'm not a lot of anything. Skin and bone. Try again." His piranha teeth startled and angered Dick as he grabbed the lagoon kid's tail. "We…have. .to…..catch…you-
"You're wrong about them! Those people aren't-
"NOT….. THEM!" Dick tugged the lagoon brat into a heap. Standing over him, another thing came out of his pocket. "Time to go back to your tub, dude." A meta – collar as the siren, screamed.
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The raining sand and rumble on the beach alerted Slade and Melinda as she ran after the man. Juarez yard and got over to find his buggy due to his big one's backside.
The beach goers scattered and ran all the way out as the sound wave was not the only issue in their way .
Dick felt something go after his throat as he ignored a prick.
"You didn't have to knock him out!" Lagoon boy yelled as a bit of mist that formed into a person. "Get out of here. I can handle this…just…gotta tug…-
" You are clearly stuck. Let me get it –
"Stop right there, kids." Melinda had her taxes gun from her . "You are this close to putting down my company, step away from the meta child, little killer…."
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Slade dropped to his knees, silently, as he waited for his timing. The boy could get the meta child through the vortex of pools. He just had to be brave.
Dick moved back as the lagoon kid shuffled to the side, getting the distance he needed to hop in. Dick was taking a step, when the mist person went after the SPYRAL agent. Dick dove down and dragged lagoon kid down as Slade swung by. His entrance into the pool of transportation-based fluids was not deterred. Dick gurgled coming down, the kid in his grip still as shocked at the fact the boy was holding his limp too tight. "Stop...I'm gonna….drop! –
"NO...Kid…." Slade snorted water and dragged himself into the whirlpool. Down below, lagoon kid was trying to help the boy. He was unconscious as Slade miraculously landed on a pile of rocks to this tide pool. "He's with you?" The man sauntered over carefully. Lagoon kid's gills vibrated as if he were in enemy territory. "You sent a kid…. he could have lost his life down there. Who are you people?"
Slade stopped. "That woman was trying to take you captive." Slade explained. "Our job was to see them out of the way, there is a person who would be happy to stabilize your powers –
"NOTHING IS WRONG WITH ME!!" The kid's fins nearly grew to crush Dick's windpipe. Lagoon boy gasped and reverted. "I…I'm not that bad, I can learn to control it without their help! Cadmus made a mistake. I had my home and….and…"
"You don't really have a home, child." Slade pointed to the rocks; the boy was the ground as he breathed softly back to life. "There is no place here where they won't find you. Make no mistake. My apprentice found you with my help, yet your capture would no longer be any of our concern once the job is through. You had a place to stay, rent free. And for what? An experimental way to give you a human body? Even when you're not human to begin with, they won't promise you what they had in words. Their bind means less than this should. Your absolute freedom." Slade's eye darkened.
"They…. they promise…I'm not really a human? I, have a home. Out there??"
"No, you are born to the sea with the Atlantean tribes. You hold to fresh water but for some reason you're able to manipulate salt water for short periods of time." Slade placed with his hands behind his back. Dick sputtered out more water, Slade was just relieved that this was a kid and not a full-grown sea – monkey. "Are you satisfied?? That kid was your partner, wasn't he? He said he came here with you –
"Because there is another organization you could be aware of. A more accepting one." Slade told the fish boy.
"Get out of your stupid head for a second old man." Lagoon kid shook his head and scoffed. "I'm wanted like a prize. I would rather be fish bait than bait people like you."
Slade sighed, reaching to his wrist watch as Lagoon kid never knew how spy - like this mission was going to be.
"Very well." Slade tapped a button and the collar held many volts. "Your little sprite helper won't have to worry." The man smiled as Dick seemed to prefer playing dead. Efficiently, the merc carried both boys over his shoulders, down into the rocky caverns. It had to lead back into the main area of the wilderness. That much he had known from being here years ago. Dick groaned in his grip as Slade sighed. "You'll both be thanking me sooner or later for this." He muttered and took off, another job completed for the HIVE to simply get a clue, and for Melinda to scream about her losses to her now "screwed" boss.
They left Rio a while; no sooner whence on a cargo that was Slade's personal loan from another old contact. Dick came to as Slade handed him a water bottle upon rising. "Get enough rest? You did well for the most part."
"I…fell asleep, right?"
They searched the open waves together that washed the shore, the ship taking off like a dream, as Dick's memory lapse remained falsely in a drugged state. Best he'd not find who had repurchased the fish boy –
Until later on the television station out of Queensland, Australia ..
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In his villa in Milan, Slade had Dick practicing he swordsmanship out on the veranda. Inside, Slade had cable and one eye on his next venture. "You should keep one eye open, Dick." The man looked at the news and smiled back at the screen.
~ Lagoon boy stops poaching of endangered species…Titans praise his efforts. Mudslides rock Markovia, mysterious origin still under investigation. Bruce Wayne makes tough call in career.~
"You may have some, competition in the near future, abd me? Some very good news on your initial progress, my boy."
Beside the lagoon kid at sixteen now, was Aqua lad, a protégé of the sea faring Atlantean hero of the deep. Slade rubbed his chin and considered weighting their options along.
It wasn't until that very hungry year, and everything all at once, fell capsized onto its head….