Kaldur'ahm swam swiftly against the current, a torrent of bubbles in his target's wake. Above was a mile of open ocean, below were ridges that may one day become mountains. Tattoos ablaze as he channeled the water around him to give him strength, to give him speed, and to give him light. He kept up with his pursuit.
The target? A massive metal tube suspended in the water, moving of its own power. Sleek gray metal adorned with flashing crimson lights along its exterior, lights that likely attracted more than their fair share of curious sea life at these depths. On its side were demarkations that this was an Indian submarine, though it was small compared to some of the others he'd seen throughout his youth, prowling the ocean depths.
"Aqualad to Aquaman," he tried into his communication channels again, "authorities have indicated that this submarine is under threat. I have reached out to contacts for assistance in Tritonis, but have received little support. Rumors abound that this could be an Atlantean threat against a surface vessel. Please advise."
Kaldur'ahm followed the submarine at a leisurely pace, waiting for anything that may change and hoping that he were far enough away that if it exploded unexpectedly, he might survive for at least a few seconds. He was prepared to move forward, to investigate on his own, but he wanted confirmation from Annax Orrin on what he should do. This could very well be a political matter.
As sidekick to the High King of Atlantis, Kaldur'ahm had not escaped political study. He did not have a seat at the table for important discussions, but many considered him a shoe-in for one of Orrin's cabinet positions, or perhaps to become a diplomat for his home city-state of Shayeris, when he became older. Despite some of the conversations and mentorship he'd received, he did not feel prepared at all to handle the aftermath of a political situation if something were to come of this.
There could be any number of threats responsible for the alert. Internal strife aboard the sub. A criminal faction of surfacers. A rogue faction of dissidents from Tritonis. That was the option that worried the teenager the most.
Maybe the king of Tritonis himself supported these actions – Kaldur'ahm had not been able to reach any contacts in the nearby city-state for assistance, after all, which boded poorly for the culprit. If Tritonis itself planned to use its autonomy to attack the surface, then the title of Aqualad would not be enough to stymie the fallout. He'd need Aquaman backed with the hegemony over the other city-states to intervene.
There was no response from his mentor, only more feedback. Something was jamming the signals, and Aqualad realized very quickly that he'd need to do something. India was not well known for its warmongering, but they had nuclear capability. For all he knew, that alone could be the reason for this sub's targeting.
With a sigh, he poured on the speed through the water and clutched onto the surface of the sub. With careful movements, he pulled himself, arm by arm, toward the nearest entrance and was about to rip it open when he realized with a surprise that something had already ripped a man-sized hole in its side, water pouring into the sub with likely dangerous consequences for those inside.
He tried to update Aquaman again, but still found static.
Kaldur slipped inside, studied the interior space that had been breached, and wished he had the time to use his strength to force the hole shut – at least to slow the flow, if not to stop it entirely. He knew of a spell by name, not by experience, that could bend the flow of water away from the entrance and clear it for at least an hour, but he had none of the materials to cast it, nor any of the knowledge.
No, he'd have to settle for investigating the source of the threat himself, while water slowly filled the tube around him.
The first chamber was filling quickly, but he had been lucky to arrive quickly enough to respond. Redundancies built into submarines were keeping it afloat, but it could not possibly hold forever with such a significant hole in its side. The next chamber was better, though the great metal door was ajar. And floating lifelessly was the body of a sailor.
Face down in the water, blood pooled from wounds in his side. He, again, cursed his lack of training – there were fields of magic capable of healing such injuries, if not outright then easing pain, but he knew none of them. Instead, all he could do was speculate that a trident had pierced the man's side, had perforated lungs and punctured the lining of the stomach. If it were possible to survive such an injury, it would have needed a magical touch in the few moments after it had happened.
The man was dead, long before he arrived.
A trident confirmed speculations that an Atlantean had done this.
Kaldur'ahm climbed out of the water of the filling chamber and prepared to advance, knowing that it was right to engage, knowing that any potential political quagmire was worthy of his intervention. Water-bearers in hand, he raced through the tight quarters and burst through the metal doors and into a central, wider chamber.
A group of sailors stared in shock at his entrance, their surprised words a string of Hindi. Two wounded – or worse – were cared for by the rest, who were paralyzed in fear and huddled together. At the top level, lording over them from a grated maintenance access walkway, was an Atlantean threat he had not encountered himself: a Trencher.
Wielding a silver trident, forked and terrible, the humanoid fish-man was far less human in appearance, their magical and biological adaptations holding almost none of the characteristics of the humans they had once been in the ancient past. Those from the Trench were a threat to all of Atlantis, for if they were to organize and rise to warmer waters, there would be death and destruction across all of the city-states. Some in Atlantis would relish the chance to prove themselves, while others would rather see such enemies stay buried in the depths. Kaldur would much prefer the latter, and yet, this enemy was here.
Water swirled from the space around him and gathered into twin blades, and Kaldur'ahm brandished them toward the clear threat. Slipping into Atlantean Greek, he cleared his throat. "My name is Aqualad. I am protege to Aquaman, King of Poseidonis and Annax to all of Atlantis. These surface humans are under my protection, and therefore the protection of the High Crown."
The Trencher's bulbous eyes narrowed at that, its brown scales tensing above tightly corded muscles.
"You have already transgressed against the wishes of Atlantis. Throw down your weapons, and your punishment will-"
"You have no authority! We do not care for your lawwwssss!"
The Trencher gripped the trident in hand, twisted its silver length, and then stabbed forward. Water materialized in between its teeth. In a tumultuous and powerful surge, a jet of water cut a swath through steel.
INDIAN OCEAN
MAY 04, 13:24 UTC +5:30
TEAM YEAR ZERO
I swam through the water like a racing torpedo. Not as fast as I would be in space or even in the air, I was still plenty fast enough to get somewhere in time and fully capable of outrunning a submarine. I didn't know what the threat was, only that there was a strong chance that someone like Aquaman might be present.
I had not made a good first impression with Speedy.
…
Actually, no. He had not made a good first impression with me. I half-expected that his drug-addled arc from the comics had already started, because surely a man who chose to risk his life for others could not be such a colossal dick.
Still, I wasn't going to let one jerkwad ruin my chances of League assistance. It did change my perspective on things a bit, because it was a bit of a struggle to imagine someone in this line of work could be unpleasant or unreasonable to someone seeking to help them. I was not new.
I wasn't naive enough to believe it would be easy. Of course it wouldn't, couldn't be. Nothing in this second life had been easy. But I'd expected … more.
So, I angled for the chance to explore my newfound ability to reach underwater environments and to potentially make nice with the King of Atlantis. I'd loved this guy since the JLU cartoon, and it saddened me slightly that he didn't have the badass hook for a hand in the pictures I'd seen online. Still, I was certain he was every bit the competent hero he should be, instead of the joke from the Superfriends cartoon memes.
Everyone was ridiculous in those cartoons. That was the point – they crossed over with Scooby-Doo.
Aquaman had a protege of his own, much like Green Arrow, and I could only hope that he was nothing like Speedy. Perhaps he'd answer the call of a nuclear submarine under attack under mysterious means, and if neither of them did?
Well, I'd just have to handle it myself.
I raced toward the side of the structure, searching for an entrance. Before I could enter the porthole I found, something hard struck me in the side and blasted me backward with such force that it stung, deep into my core.
I scanned for the source and found it – a shadowed fish man with a trident. Nude, the alien-looking Atlantean villain gripped his weapon and swung, an arc of water speeding toward me.
I poured on the speed with a kick of my legs, avoiding the maneuver, but when I turned back to aim a neutral shock toward him, he was gone.
I spun around swiftly, searching for the assailant. He reminded me of something I'd seen before – was this the villain from the early episodes of Teen Titans? What was the name and what was his deal?
Another blast of water clipped my outer hip, and I cursed in Osmotin when I flipped around and found nothing. This asshole was fa-
Another surge of water preceded a slash of the trident toward my back, but I turned it into a swipe against my shoulder, letting it sting into my flesh a half-inch in order to grab hold. I swam forward and latched onto the Atlantean's arm before it could run away.
With a thought, my upper body became the same silver-hued metal as the trident. The villain's bulbous eyes widened in shock, and I reached back to launch a fist into the man's abdomen.
The punch landed, hard, and blood clouded the water as he coughed. I spun, not letting go of his body until I had momentum, and then hurled him bodily at the submarine. He struck the side hard enough to dent the metal, blood trailing the water in his wake.
But, he wasn't alone.
Four watery attacks from silver tridents pummeled my back, one after another, and my head collided with the submarine hard enough I was certain I'd be dead without the metal reinforcement.
Dazed, I tried to clarify where I was, and at first, I thought I was seeing quadruple. Four identical Atlantean villains carried copies of the same trident, and oh. That had been his name, and you… you remembered why.
There were four of him. Five, if you counted the one that I'd knocked unconscious.
There were likely more elsewhere.
"Damn it, Trident," I spat, still not fully recovered.
The cloned villains tried to approach, but I snapped my eyes toward them and unleashed a blast of crackling green light from both eyes. Cascading through the ocean, dispersing only slightly as the water closest to the attacks turned rapidly to steam, the twin beams delivered the pain to the closest Trident clone.
"Save me some time, here. Which one of you's the original?"
Naturally, the three remaining did not answer.
A trident tried to fork through my lower legs, but I swam downward, flipped, and kicked upward into the overextended shoulder joint. The Trident screamed as his arm shoved from its socket, weapon descending toward the ocean floor.
A trident scraped across my armor, leaving gouges in the metal, but it didn't manage to pierce all the way to soft flesh beneath the armored surface layer. Before I could take advantage of a successful defense, a jet of hardwater impacted my chest, the force of it releasing stinging pain.
I pushed an armored arm forward to intercept, the attack striking my forearm, but it did not relent. A second burst of water cascaded with its false pressure, joining the first, and it was all I could do to fight against the onslaught. Inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, I descended further and further.
So powerful were they together I could see the armor chip away, like high-speed erosion.
What could I do?
A risky idea formed.
A neural shock collided with the beams and an explosion of energy erupted between the three of us, forcing all three combatants spiraling through the water. I collided with the submarine, but the force of it caused the sub's wall to give out. I punctured the side and tumbled within amid a torrent of water, landing on dented metal railing.
The Indian nuclear submarine was not empty. I thanked my internal durability as I recovered, little by little, and glanced around the chamber, rapidly filling with water.
Sailors crouched in the corner, moving away from the water level that continued to rise. Another of the Trident clones – or perhaps the original – swung his weapon toward his enemy, a dark-skinned blond teenager in a form-fitting red and navy wetsuit. Aqualad held the hilt of a weapon in both hands, using water to form shifting weapons. One was a blade, while another shifted from a hammer to a whip that threatened to grab his target.
No one had expected me.
"Aqualad, how do I get these people to safety?"
The sidekick kicked with one foot toward the cloned supervillain, but the brown-scaled fish-man batted it away and then stabbed. The superhero forced his whip into a watery shield to defend himself.
"Safety protocols! I'll keep him busy, emergency surface!"
The words seemed to make as much sense as anything else I could try.
"He's not alone, I fought five of him outside!"
Aqualad's blade met the metal of the trident, which held under his onslaught. One shove later to make some distance, Aqualad followed it with launching several beads of water forward from his shield, each almost a bullet of destruction. Three, four, five hits, and the Trident clone faced some serious wounds.
Another swum through the hole and threatened the sailors, but I jerked a fist backward in a hopefully universal gesture. They moved to get behind me, to continue climbing through the submarine to access the emergency surface sequence.
Instead of attacking me, the new clone joined another of Trident, and they headed after their real target.
"Anyone speak English? What's that way?"
In broken English, a middle aged portly soldier said in horror, "Nuclear… matter?"
"Aqualad!" you called out as the last of the sailors headed into the next chamber, the last two stragglers carrying a wounded third. "They're after nukes!"
Aqualad wrestled the clone to the ground and then met my eyes, taut body holding back a thrashing Atlantean. "Get them to safety, I will handle them!"
"… but I-"
"I can't go all out while worrying about them!" The weapon in his hands shifted to that of a mace, and he brought it down on the clone's torso, which ceased its struggling. "People first, Trenchers later! Can you handle that?"
The sidekick did not wait for my answer as he dove into the submerged next chamber, skin glowing with white-blue light in intricate designs. At least two of Trident were that direction, but there could be more in the direction with the crewmen.
I glanced back and followed after them, leaving Aqualad to secure the rest.
INDIAN OCEAN
MAY 04, 13:31 UTC +5:30
TEAM YEAR ZERO
The Trenchers were diabolical, Kaldur'ahm had decided. Attacking a surface world submarine to secure nuclear material would cause an international incident the likes of which would never stand for the surface.
Atlantis was hardly a well-known world polity, with very few years of history in the public eye. At least one life had been lost during the attack, and that had been one life too many. If nuclear material left the hands of India in addition to that, whatever standing his country had on the world stage would be severely impacted.
No, Aqualad had to ensure that he handled this. The presence of a blond Tritonian battlemage on the scene encouraged him, because it might be easier to assuage the minds of those in power if the local city-state intervened. It gave him peace of mind, if anything else, and whatever spells they were teaching in Tritonis were impressive because he didn't recognize them.
The duo of Trenchers had become a trio by the time he made it to their location, and like they'd expected, they were utilizing impressive strength to break through the defenses securing the nuclear waste. A torrent from the magic trident tore through steel and gave them an opening, but Kaldur'ahm swam forward and intercepted with a forceful grapple.
His skin icons ablaze, the elemental electricity of an eel raced through his webbed hands and into the Trencher. The fish-man twitched with agony before he grew limp, but Aqualad was just one man.
The forked teeth of a trident pierced his back, and Kaldur cursed aloud even as he twisted well enough to prevent it from becoming lethal. Water-bearers gathered renewed water from the immediate environment, and an eel-shaped tendril snapped out to push both of them backward.
Aqualad tasted the copper on the water through his gills.
"Why are you doing this?"
The Trenchers didn't answer.
The submarine started to ascend around them.
"You won't stop me."
"I am innumerable."
"I will be back."
Aqualad tapped the area with his bio-electricity spell again, and the two of them twitched before finally collapsing, limp in the water.
As if to prove their point, three more of the Trenchers, each identical to the next, launched themselves through the submerged chamber. He readied himself with a prepared bash to one's shoulder, swimming away with as much speed as he could muster.
"I am forever!"
"I will beeeee."
The Trencher tried - and failed - to stop him, as he brandished his water weapons in just the right angle, slicing two of their tridents to ribbons with twin blades of watery-spellcraft.
One kicked him, hard, in retaliation, the impact trailing more blood into the water from the earlier hit. Aqualad had moments to change this around, and prepared a flash of spellcraft.
The water construct of an eel, generated from his skin icons, expanded to a large size until it nearly filled the room and then smashed into the two remaining Trenchers, their bodies thrown into metal railings and dividing walls.
"You got more?" Kaldur'ahm challenged, a watery shield in one hand while a spear emerged in the other. The radioactive isotopes stored behind him were under his protection, and he would do anything to stop them.
Moments passed, then more, until he was certain that they were safe.
INDIAN OCEAN
MAY 04, 15:45 UTC +5:30
TEAM YEAR ZERO
I offered my hand to Aqualad, who accepted it with only a small moment of hesitation. He winced as the movement stressed the wound he held on his back, but it was likely not a serious one.
The two of us were standing atop the surfaced submarine, alongside other sailors who were whispering to one another and awaiting transport away from here. I didn't want to think about how difficult it would be for Indian officials to clear this situation, nor how Aqualad would transfer Trident and his clones into Atlantean custody. Would it be better to deliver them to Indian officials as a political offering, or leave things to Atlantis and its secrecy?
"It's nice to meet you," I told Aqualad sincerely. He was every bit as cool as I'd expected him to be, and not at all like Speedy had been. The fact that he'd ignored the hurting from the cuts on his back as well as he had to just stand here said a lot.
"Likewise, Cassian," Aqualad declared, using the name hesitantly for the first time. "How did you know about this? Did you recieve my message to Tritonis?"
I peered at him. "Oh, no. I don't know what – or where? - Tritonis is, but I have been keeping an eye on problems across the world and uncovered this one."
I waved the Plumber Badge, but if Aqualad recognized the green and black symbol, he didn't show the recognition on his face.
"So… you are not from Tritonis."
"Nope," I answered simply. "I'm actually an alien who recently relocated here. Saw there were other aliens sticking up for humans, thought I might do the same. Been working mostly in New York."
It was not a lie, just not the full truth.
Aqualad glanced toward the sailors a few yards away. "That is a noble goal, but I am afraid this complicates things."
Now, the shoe dropped.
"Oh? I don't want to complicate anything."
"You are not, truthfully," he answered, "but you are not whom I thought you were. I, admittedly, have more calls to make."
"Is this about-"
Aqualad held up a hand. "It is not a reason for you to worry. The fallout of this is my burden to bear."
I furrowed my brow. "I don't want you to feel burdened. Can I help?"
Aqualad glanced toward the horizon, contemplative. Then, he pulled a slip of paper from a compartment in his backpack. The equivalent of a business card, complete with contact information with a phone number and an address in Amnesty Bay. I knew, from the comics, that this was the city Aquaman frequented the most on the surface, a home away from home.
"Let us exchange information. You may recieve a call if you are needed to make a statement to the authorities."
… Oh.
Yeah, that did complicate things. I had started making waves, had helped to resolve a number of small and large crimes, but I had not entered into an international incident like this yet. For my first one to involve nukes was… well, more than a little concerning.
I gave him my number – a burner phone for emergencies. "I can make a statement to whomever, if it makes things easier. I also expect a call if this guy turns up again somewhere else."
Neither he nor I knew if that was the last they'd see of Trident, or if there were more clones out there somewhere. From the episode I'd watched, there had been dozens of them, but expecting things to happen exactly as I'd remembered them was foolish.
"I can do that. You were a good help, today. I have many questions for you, Cassian, but I don't believe now is the time."
I nodded, understanding. I didn't like the idea of leaving him to handle the politics of Indian-Atlantean relations alone, but I also didn't want to intervene in places where I shouldn't. Lesson learned from Speedy – not everyone was going to be gung-ho about managing the "new kid", and I suspected he would genuinely be better equipped to deal with this than me.
"You are nicer than Speedy," I commented, taking into the sky for a few feet. Both Aqualad and the crewmen stared in awe for a beat, though the former recovered far more quickly.
"You met Speedy?"
"Yeah, he was, uh, a jerk. Helped him with a case a bit ago, in Star City."
The Atlantean considered that for a few moments. If he was surprised to hear the word jerk, he didn't react. "Speedy can be excessive, but he's a loyal friend."
"Oh. Well, I'm sure he's a good guy, deep down, just…" I trailed off, not sure what else to say. Aqualad's attention returned to the situation at hand, and the sailors approached him to ask questions. "I'll be in touch!"
With that, the Indian Ocean became a distant field of blue, and how Aquaman would handle what Aqualad and I did for India's military would become his distant problem.84