Aquaman #11: "The Return", pt 2: The Behemoth ...

Orin turned towards the scream, speeding in its direction, his eyes frantically searching for its source. All around him Atlantis was falling: coral living quarters cracked and fractured; whale-bone buildings trembled, leaned, and sometimes fell apart; metallic structures punctured and twisted. Atlantis was crumbling before him while his people swam to their deaths. He would not have it.

Undersea living had revolved around the concept of 360 degrees of moveable space, conditions normal for activity in the ocean: and so the majority of atlanteans homes and buildings were made to be long cylindrical towers with several levels within, branching chambers, and tunnels. Now Orin felt a small pang of remorse as old Atlantean homes with centuries-old art and generations of heirlooms were becoming nothing more than the graveyards and the debris of his culture.

Tons of heavy rubble drifted down over his citizens. Orin dived right into the thick of it, delivering a blow right at the weak spot of one of the buildings. Like glass it shattered, splintering throughout the rest of the its frame until it exploded into smaller pieces. Noting his effectiveness, he continued to demolish building after building as his people escaped outwards and upwards.

“King Orin!”

Orin looked around, again trying to zero in on the source. The only thing he was sure about was that it was a child; he’d be damned if a child died on his watch, though with all of the chaos around him it was hard to concentrate.

And then he felt something—vibrations. On any given day the waters are never all at peace, and right now there were thousands of vibrations: Atlanteans swimming to safety, buildings shuddering and giving way, sea creatures fleeing—but these vibrations were erratic and frenzied. The one he felt now was more like a pulse, and was unmoving.

He swam towards it, finding a path leading beneath the newly made ruins of the town. The further down he went, the cooler and darker it got, though it made no difference to him. His pupils dilated, exceeding the pale irises and expanding to just about the span of his eye, his vision becoming extraordinarily clear (though his view of colors had diminished). Still, he had found nothing; this chamber was empty…

Or was it?

The pulse was stronger, but he could tell he wasn’t at its epicenter. He followed the waves to a wall that had a small, child-sized hole in it. Was there another chamber beyond? Was the child within?

Time to find out.

Worrying about how close the child may be to the wall on the other side, and whether this place would come apart, he hit the wall in its center with a precise, controlled hit that was neither strong nor weak. The wall shattered in the middle, creating a cracked hole. He saw a light within, but he couldn’t see enough. He chipped off some more of the hole with precise hits until he could get in.

The pulse was at its strongest here. Orin glimpsed odd metallic devices, but saw the child he had been looking for was trapped under a pile of rubble. “King Orin! Help me, please! I didn’t mean to get down here—it’s just that—the chamber—“

“Slow down,” Orin said calmly. He thought he recognized the boy…a quiet boy whose only parent was a father who was an often traveling merchant. “Listen lad…you’re fine now.”

“But King—“the boy said, breathing hard, “I think—I think something’s…”

“What is wrong?”

The boy’s voice caught in his throat. “I come here a lot—best place to gather my thoughts—and I felt the pulse, but it was so weak before. I saw the hole yesterday and had to explore. Today I began to squeeze into it but when I came out, a loud noise came and everything began to shake. The pulse got stronger and then all of the rubble fell on me. And, and—“

“You think those things,” Orin said with a nod to the metallic devices, “are causing the sea quake?”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

The pulse was growing stronger ever still. He crept closer to the metallic devices. They were held up by a small surface, but he could see that the light was coming from beneath it. Peeking below, he found something—a strange, spherical structure with a rocky spiral coming around it. From its middle was a light—red, it seemed. And within that bright light was a screen, one with numbers on it, counting down…

And it was just reaching two seconds.

“Oh god,” he said, turning and grabbing the boy to him.

In a now deserted Atlantean square, no one noticed the arrival of a crew of men digging into the ocean floor. No one saw the men digging miles deep with expensive drilling instruments that left powerful explosive charges lodged deep within the depths of the earth below the sea. No one knew that kilometers above there was a man walking around a ship ready to give a signal that would bring him something long forgotten.

The man, scurfy, rugged and filthy, walked around his deck, occasionally scratching his flaky skin or running a hand through his wet, shaggy hair. He wore a captain’s hat, the kind worn by pirates in older times, and a black coat with two identical white symbols, one on each shoulder, a cursive J partly overlapping an Ace of Spades.

“Black Jack!”

The captain turned to find a darker, built, statuesque man with a bald head and a bushy beard covering most of his face. On his arm was a tattoo of a curved shark. This man was his first mate, the Black Shark.

“What’s the news?” Black Jack asked.

“I’ve got good news, and bad news.”

“The good?”

“The charges are set.”

“That means to me that it’s finally time for a bit of pirating.”

“That’s the thing. We got a handful o’ men findin’ it a bit hard to go along with the plan.”

“You mean they’re findin’ themselves a bit cowardly, is what it really is. Bring ‘em to me.”

In a few moments, another crew member brought four men to the captain. The captain looked over them men with disdain, staring them head to toe. “Gather ‘round!” He screamed to the ships crew.

Everyone came closer, surrounding the men so that the four were in the center of a circle. He paced around the men, and then came upon one of them, yelling into his ear. “I hear you’ve got something to say to me? I hear you want to back out of our plan?”

The man began to stutter, trying as hard as possible to look away from Black Jack. “I-I j-j-just think that we-we’re not—we’re not, you know, ruh-real—I mean we got Aq-Aq-Aquaman to take on and—“

“I think I can talk for him, Captain.”

Black Jack turned to another of the four, the largest; bigger than even he and the Black Shark. The man stared Black Jack right in the eyes, looking down on him. “What he’s trying to say is that we’re not real pirates. We’re henchmen from Gotham, recruited by you to try a new type of sure-fire way to make money. And what are we doing but sailing around, trying to rile up a fricking superhero? We left Gotham to get away from The Bat, and from what I hear, for all he can do, The Bat's a normal man. Now we’re taking on a guy who has punched Superman and taken on major supervillains. It ain’t smart to me, man.”

“Compelling argument, Mr. Brutis, but one I have to disagree on. We’re pirates true and true, and you better start actin’ like one—“

“Acting like what? This ain’t that Disney mov—“

A shot burst out into the silence of the sea. Black Jack’s gun was smoking, leveled at his waist and pointing up towards Brutis’ chest. The entire crew gasped, except for the Black Shark. Brutis fell backwards, blood pouring from his wound. The stuttering man began to whimper, repeating “Oh my god, oh my god,” over and over again. Black Jack turned, leveled the pistol at the small man, and pulled the trigger, another burst sounding off into the sea. Blood hit the last two men, who remained where they were, between two dead bodies; their jaws hung open.

Black Jack stepped up to them, his voice a whisper, but still heard by the entire crew. “You may all be small time crooks and petty thieves but I was born at the sea. Shark ‘n’ me are more than just fishermen and merchants. We’re real pirates, we are. I’ve turned you all into men and I’ll be damned if my crew has any challengers or cowards in it. Savvy?”

The two men nodded with the smallest movement.

“Good. Today you’re reborn as real pirates. You’ll start by dragging these bodies away and feeding them to the sharks—fitting for traitors, wouldn’t you agree?” The two nodded hastily, and Black Jack continued. “After that you’ll scrubbed the deck until there is not one drop of red. Now get to work,” he spat.

The two quickly moved, picking up the bodies by the limp shoulders and dragging them towards the planks, glad to be gone from the center of attention.

Black Jack turned to his crew of large, cutthroat men, looking over them once, and then making a gruff laugh. “Men, we may be too poor to afford champagne and fine wine! We may be too damned ugly ‘n’ dirty to afford a woman with all the right curves; but tonight is the start of a new night, if things go right. We’re going to be new men. We’re going to bring back the bloodthirsty, head-bashing, pillaging ways of our forefathers and show the 21st century that their ENRONs and hackers and dot.com con men just don’t cut it to the real physical work of real thieves. Shark! Start a toast!”

Black Shark took out a bottle of whiskey and raised it to the sky. Black Jack and the entire crew followed suit and raised fifty bottles and glasses to the sky. The Black Shark’s voice was deep and bellowed over the entire deck. “To hell with living a life with rules! We do as we please!”

“To hell with society’s lies! We live by the seas!” Black Jack added.

“To hell with Depp ‘n’ Bloom, I’d give ‘im death from above!” someone yelled.

Tonight be the night,” Black Jack started, “that we be sailing on blood!”

Everyone shouted a cheer as Black Jack threw his arms in the air in early triumph. “Give the signal!”

As a remote device went off a crew of six men swam as far away from where they were and activated a sonic wave signal within their gauntlets. The result was a monstrous shudder that caused the entire ocean floor to rumble. In various places where charges had been set, the ground split open, dividing and splintering dozens and dozens of places, until the ground beneath the sea seemed to give up and give way to the explosions erupting within. And the more the ocean floor gave way, the more the crewmen began to see a shape of something emerging from the rubble. Something large and colossal…

Slowly it emerged, a behemoth of the seas, a monster pushing up from unknown depths. Black Jack’s ship nearly turned over, but at that point he didn’t really care. His men were suited up with all of their weapons and packs on their back.

“Mr. Maxwell, what’re you waiting for? Shoot!”

A big, bald man stepped up past the crew, a large cannon lying on his shoulder. A shot burst out, and with it a large grappling hook shot out, hitting and grabbing onto the rising leviathan. He then set up the rope to their own falling ship and when done gave a thumbs up.

“Let’s get on before the ship rises too high. Onwards, men!”

The men followed as Black Jack took a descender, fixed it right on the rope and jumped, rappelling across. Soon all fifty crewmen were abseiling towards the leviathan.

Black Jack shouted as the ship made its way out of the water and into the air. His men were following through with his carefully detailed orders while he looked over the deck watching the ocean like never before. And then he looked to the left expanse of sea before him and saw: Aquaman, and one of the grandest sights he had ever seen.

A bridge of water had risen above the ocean, hard enough for the superhero to run on but still splashing like ordinary water. The bridge had stretched for kilometers, going from the surface of the sea and rising up toward the leviathan. Aquaman was sprinting at a frightening pace; he was almost to the ship and gaining fast. “Men! We have a guest coming to our ship. Let’s give him a right welcomin’!”

All the men who had finished their orders and put their packs aside turned towards the captain, seeing Aquaman running full speed towards them. They took out their guns and aimed it at him, waiting for him to draw closer. “Say the word Captain!”

“Now!”

And just as the words left his mouth, they drew fire on Aquaman; and yet they hadn’t hit him. In a split-second he leapt into the air like a missile and dived over their bullets. The entire crew was on the deck now, waiting to get their hands on him. He landed on the edge of the deck, his fists clenched tightly. “As King of the sovereignty of Atlantis I’m going to give you all the kind of mercy you failed to show to the Atlantean people; suffering without homes. You have one chance to lay down your arms and surrender; failure to do so will result in a barbaric beating by the King himself, which, as I said, is me. What is your response?”

Two bangs rang out; Aquaman had moved but one bullet had grazed his shoulder, drawing blood and burning his skin, while the other had struck him, lodged slightly into his body, with a trickle of blood falling over a bad burn. Everyone turned to see smoke rising from the shaft of Black Jack’s pistol. “Those’re high caliber shots right there…you should have a hole the size of a pancake burning through you right now…tough hide ya got…No matter though, I got tons more waiting for you.” The captain smiled and blew the smoke from his gun. “I think you’ve just got your answer, King.”

Aquaman’s jaw clenched tight and his face twisted into one of intense rage. “So be it.”

Another bang burst out, but this time Aquaman gave no time for the bullet to touch him; he was already moving. He rolled onto the deck, springing upwards towards a group of men, punching in all directions and dodging blows. He leapt into the air, gracefully moving between the men with air of beauty and savagery all mixed into one, delivering acrobatic kicks and blunt, powerhouse punches to whoever was close. While he fought them he felt the leviathan lurch upwards. Black Jack was taking them away.

Aquaman leapt away from the remaining crew, running away from the main deck and going further up towards the back of the ship. “Look! He’s a salmon outta water! The man doesn’t know what to do!”

Black Jack turned to his crew; Black Shark was at his side with his gun out at the Captain’s Wheel, while fifteen of his conscious men were cheering. “You think a handful of you could scare him away? Go after him, the man’s onto something!”

The men turned at once, running after the Sea King, sluggishly climbing the angled ships sterns to the back of the boat. The Sea King stood at the end, his eyes closed and his body motionless.

“What’s he doing?” One of the men shouted.

“I don’t know? I say we shoot ‘im!”

“It might just get him angry!”

“He’s standing still! Do it together, on three!”

Aquaman’s face tightened into one of silent resolve.

“One!”

Aquaman’s bottom lip quiver gently.

“Two”

His eyelashes flickered, still closed, and his head shook slightly.

“Three!”

All of a sudden his eyes opened and he smiled. “Men, I’d advise you to lay down your arms.”

Mr. Maxwell stepped up, gun still trained on Aquaman. “Why’s that?”

The ship shook violently. All the men fell, rolled over, and crashed over each other. The water blew upwards and fell like hard rainfall over the men. Everyone looked up as long tentacles rose all around the ship, covering the top like a roof and casting a shadow over the entire leviathan. A head arose out of the waters, that of a hundred foot octopus, one that looked particularly angry. “You want a reason, men?” Orin said as he walked through their crouching bodies. “Meet Topo. She’s gotten bigger and finds that she needs to sleep more often... and she's none too happy about being woken up from her slumber at the bottom of the sea.”

Orin made his way back towards Black Jack and the Black Shark. The Black Shark fired his guns, charging towards the hero like a madman. Orin rolled from the trajectory of the bullets and cart-wheeled forward into a crouch. He directed a few blows to the gut of the Black Shark and then rose with an elbow to the Black Shark’s jaw. The Black Shark fell to the floor with a thud, unconscious.

As Black Jack raised his pistol, Orin raced over, jumping off of the deck siding and launching himself, tackling the villainous captain. Black Jack raised his pistol, but as he shot, Orin swatted the man’s arm away. Orin put his hand to the sea captain’s throat and raised the other as a fist. “The only reason you’re still conscious is because I want answers. How did you raise this ship? How do you know how to pilot this? Speak now!”

Black Jack began to chuckle at the Sea King’s fury, and then burst out laughing manically. He couldn’t contain his glee, and this was making Orin even angrier. “Why the hell are you laughing? This is not a game!”

Black Jack’s eyes open wide and his laughter died down a little. “No? Apparently you just don't that you're being played, Sea King.”

“What’s going on? Who are you and who put you up to this?”

The man smiled and chuckled. “The name’s Black Jack. I’m part of a pretty big organization that is trying to benefit the world.”

“And how is that supposed to happen?”

“We’re looking for what you might call a new run o’ things. A new world order with two beacons of light leading us into glory. “

“Who? Who’s supposed to be leading?”

“That’s not for you to know King Tuna…all you need to know is one word: OGRE.”

“Ogre?”

“Well…two more things—“ he added as he laughed in Orin’s face, his voice becoming a hoarse whisper in the King’s ear. “This has all been a diversion. My boss could give a damn about this little piece of crap.”

Orin’s face betrayed his confusion. “What?”

“There are two more leviathans, King; two bigger ‘n’ badder than this sucker and I’ve been distracting you here while my partners work on the other two.”

Orin’s eyes opened wide. “Dammit!’

“One more thing, Sea King,” Black Jack said, chuckling gruffly. “Bang.”

Explosions erupted all over the ship. Topo shuddered and began to thrash her tentacles, diving under the sea away from the fire. With all of the chaos, Black Jack kicked Orin off of him and dived off of the boat; some of the other men, half conscious, followed close behind. Orin looked across the ocean to see water shooting high into the clouds as another leviathan rose out of the water and began to move fast, much faster than this ship, into the opposite direction.

The second leviathan was just a bit larger than the destroyed ship Orin was in. It was made of foreign substances but had a color of navy blue metals, light blue rocky substances, and white details and lining across the ship. In anger Orin slammed a fist into the ship, breaking a piece of it, and decided the only thing he could do is escape from the falling piece of priceless Atlantean history.