I never thought the person bonded with the Clear would be living in Atlantis, if only because it seemed a tad too obvious. I didn't know who was it either, and the last time I saw Arthur he didn't irradiate blue energy so it wasn't him.
Either by chance or fate, a few days after talking with the trio the capital was attacked by the rest Red Trident, a veritable army whose original goal was to free their imprisoned friends, take over the city and force Arthur to declare war on the surface, despite the fact the last time they did anything they got exterminated by me, and that Arthur had no moral compunctions about killing threats to his people.
Only, the Red Trident ended up being the least of our problems.
Namely because an army of revenge-driven divers killed them first.
..........
"Hold the line, me-" A captain managed to yell out before a barbed harpoon pierced his head and ripped it off.
"Kill them all!" His killer screamed from several yards away, many other throats repeating his call.
The battered line of atlantean soldiers would have fallen if not for Arthur rallying them to the defense.
"Keep fighting!" He shouted as he fired at the enemy, smoking rifle in one hand and bloodstained trident in the other. He had a special surprise for them to get some breathing, but he needed some time to prepare it.
This sight repeated itself across a makeshift barricade made of debris and the occupied streets between it and the barrier around the city, although both sides were inflicting casualties on the other. Nonetheless, despite outnumbering the invaders, the atlantean troopers were dying in droves due to the enemies' determination, hundreds of black coloured, red eyed armored figures wearing something akin to armored scuba diving suits shooting either energy beams or high-powered harpoons at the improptu barricade as they screamed and cursed them and their city.
And then, a literal tidal wave arose from behind the barricade before being launched at the invaders and pushing them back to the barrier, causing them to scream in terror. Even if they didn't drown, the weight of hundreds of gallons of water still killed many of them.
"Stand fast, boys! We will hold the line!" He shouted before launching another water blast at the line of enemies, pushing them back even further and hopefully killing some more, with the survivors running back to their positions.
"Run, you bastards!"
"King Orrin!"
"Atlantis!"
He heard many of them cheer and shout as they saw the invaders running, but just as many were silent, rifles hanging from their arms and expressions of fear, exhaustion and anger on their faces. Sighing, Arthur turned back and looked at the enemy left behind, who after being tossed back by the tidal wave returned to their companions.
The day had begun well, a simple day in Atlantis. And then the Red Trident attacked one of the neighborhoods closest to the barrier not just in great numbers, enough to overwhelm the guards quickly, but also with mechanized support in the form of crawlers. How did those murdering bastards get so many people and materiel inside the city, or military hardware at all, Arthur didn't know, and frankly didn't care. He only knew that the Red Trident was more than willing to kill their own people just to get their bastard of a leader and his wretched cronies out of prison, and that they would know what does it feel being at the wrong side of Atlantis' wrath.
At first, the fight was more or less equal, with the defenders having more men and motivation on their side, and the Trident being having defenses. Things stayed like that for several hours during until several dozens of armored individuals came from outside the barrier and began attacking the Red Trident without abandon. While understandably wary of them, Arthur saw no reason to piss them off, at least not until after the fighting stopped: after all, they seemed to be on their side.
That is, until the 'assistance', having killed the last Trident, turned their wrath on Atlantis and began killing anyone they could until Arthur and the rest of the troops, shock wore off, began fighting them, using whatever they could get their hands on to build a wall to cover behind.
With the local garrison already weakened in the previous battle, the only real defense standing between Atlantis' terrified populace and death were Arthur, the atlantean Royal Guard and what was left of the garrison.
Arthur grunted as he saw the invaders regroup. A much as he wanted to, he couldn't just wash them all away, not only because the trident had its limits but also because the previous attack had shattered several buildings, and he didn't want to test his luck. He couldn't rely on the help of the sea life either, due to the protective air bubble around the city.
"Milord" Arthurt turned to look at who called him, a middle-aged, black haired man in armor. It was admiral Arkantos, the man in charge of leading Atlantis' fleet. He, alongside a few others, were the highest ranking officers left: Brak and the others died either the Red Trident invasion or the subsequent attack, and Orm was away on a diplomatic mission to the city of the Brine. ", I admire your fighing spirit, but we can't keep fighting like this. The men are getting tired of fighting two invading forces, and this one doesn't seem to just want to conquer the city."
He was, of course, talking about the fact the new arrivals had yet to done anything else that didn't involve killing his men. A tad obvious by that point, but it was still the truth: whoever they were, they wanted to kill them all, and because of the Red Trident's stupidity and his own limitations, they might be able to at least do it halfway.
"Where are our reinforcements from the other cities, then? I assume you called for them?"
The commander sighed. "They won't arrive for at least two hours. Your brother's closer, but it's just him and his escort. I also tried to call the Coast Guard, but something's jamming the long-range comms." Just the fact Arkantos tried to call the surface of the attack showed the changes of those last months... and the direneess of their situation.
"We don't have two hours." Arthur growled. And, as much as he cared about Orm despite their differences, there was little he and two hundred men could do.
Arkantos merely looked away from him. "It's all we can do at the moment your majesty." He said in an uneasy tone, which Arthur noted.
"Something else is worrying you, admiral."
Arkantos nodded. "After their first charge, I managed to snatch one of their weapons and take a look at one of their dead. His helmet had been shot off and..." He trailed off.
Arthur did not like the way he was speaking, knowing it had to be something he didn't want to hear, but nonetheless urged him to continue. "And?"
Arkantos took a deep breath, clearly bothered by what he was about to say. "Many of them are of original making, but at least some are just modified hydro-pulse rifles. And even though I only managed to get a glance before they dragged the corpse, I believe they're surface dwellers."
Arthur's eyes narrowed when he heard that. The last thing his kingdom needed was a war they didn't start with the surface, not after his efforts to try and make relations with them.
"Are you sure? They could have just nabbed the Trident's weapons."
"They did." Arkantos stated. "But for some reason the Trident have modified their weapons' shells. It's probably a change they made after their failed attack, but the one I grabbed looked exactly like mine, and its mechanism seemed to be recently hydrated. Trust me, I know my guns."
The monarch caressed his beard in thought, grunting as he did so. People of the surface, attacking Atlantis with atlantean werapons? Was this some plan of the Red Trident gone wrong? Did some surface country decide to attack them? If so, where the hell did they get them?
And then he realized how they got their hands in the weapons... and the most likely reason they attacked Atlantis.
"Your majesty, admiral!" Both turned to look at who called them, a pair of soldiers dragging one of the invaders, armor making it impossible to discern the gender, who didn't bother to free themselves. "We've got a living one." They then held them in frot of Arthur.
"At least we can get some answers." Arthur grabbed the unknown by the scruff of their suit with one hand. "You have ten seconds to tell us why are you and your friends attacking our city before I impale you like a damn fish!"
The individual spoke, revealing herself to be a woman, her distorted voice filtered through a changer. "We are the survivors of your attack on the Voyager of the Seas, and the families of those who were murdered by you freaks!" She spat.
'Of course, it's all about revenge.' Arthur thought morosely. He already had an idea that formed the moment Arkantos told him about their werapons; this woman just confirmed it.
"You bastards took everything from us! You took my baby from me!" She shrieked. "Ripped him from my arms and stomped on his head!"
Arthur had to stop himself from wincing when the image of a dead baby (his baby) being killed so gruesomely popped on his mind, but he managed to shake it off. "It was the Red Trident who did it, not us! And for you information you already killed them all! And you already killed several of my men!" He shot back.
"You misunderstood me then! We want to make sure it won't happen again!"
"By attacking Atlantis?" Arkantos asked.
"By sending you all to Hell where you belong, and HE will lead the purge!"
"'He'?" Arthur asked, wanting to know more.
It seemed that the woman would scream some more, but then her helmet turned a bit to look at something behind Arthur. "HE is already here." She spat as she raised a hand to point at whatever she was looking. "Look at our retribution and despair, fishmen!"
Arthur let her go and turned around towards the barrier (a potentially dangerous action, but he realize it) to see what was she talking about. At first he saw nothing across the black waters of the depths but then, he saw something, a dark. Said black form came closer and closer, and when Arthur finally realized what it was it's bow crashed against the barrier, sending water everywhere.
It was a submarine. A big cigar-shaped thing with a black-colored hull and red eyes painted on its prow, at least as long as the palace was tall. By the look it had and its sheer size, it had to be one of those american sea monsters from the Cold War that carried enough warheads to turn a small country into a glowing crater.
And it was about to enter his city and kill hundreds, maybe thousands crashing upon it, and there was nothing he could do to stop it: the Trident couldn't gather enough water to do little more than slow its fall, and he simply couldn't stop something that big and heavy by himself with muscle alone.
The vessel finally crossed the barrier fully, flew in the air of the city for a moment, it's short flight propelled by its momentum, before crashing right behind the barricade, crushing several buildings and killing hundreds of people.
Or rather, that's what would have happened, had it not been caught just as its prow neared the ground by a pale-skinned man the size of an armored van that had been shot out of a blue portal. It did hit several buildings, the floor the man exploded due to the thousands of tons being suddenly and transferred to a much smaller form, and the action still caused a shockwave that sweeped the area and broke windows, but fortunately nobody was seriously hurt.
Both the invaders and the atlanteans, Arthur included, watched in wonder and amazement as the unknown man, clearly struggling to hold the weighy machine by his grunts of effort but otherwise unmoving from his spot, kept the submarine high in the air (to the point its propellers were outside the barrier) for several seconds before bellowing and throwing it to the other side of the barricade. The invaders there only had scant seconds to run not fast enough before being crushed.
After the submarine crashed upside down, several doors opened on its sides, from which many invaders spewed out, many of them confused and disoriented by what just happened, and some simply fell down to the ground and didn't get up. The rest, though, didn't waste time in firing at the atlantean line, this time with firearms and explosives alongside hydro rifles and harpoons.
None of this mattered to the newcomer, who leaped at them, crossing a distance of a hundred yards in less than five seconds. When he came down amidst them (and crushing three under his feet), the force of his landing caused another shockwave to push those around him back. After the display of power, the crouched figure stood up, towering above those surrounding him, gave a roar that shook the air and forced everyone to clasp their ears.. and stomped on an unfortunate bastard too close to him, turning them into a smear of gore, crushed bones and armor.
Horrified as they were, the invaders couldn't react fast enough before the giant began his rampage, tearing through them like they were made of plastiline. Anyone he didn't throw away simply exploded in a shower of gore and metal, and even the former ended up crunched like beer cans against the floors or walls they hit.
The surface attackers further away from the giant focused their fire on him, but neither bullet, rocket, grenade, plasma or harpoon could pierce his skin, and in the case of the bullets some even bricocheted back at them. Reinvigorated by this unexpected but welcome turn of the tide, and not caring of the brutality they were witnesses to, the atlantean soldiers renewed their attack and charged at the disorganized invaders, careful to not hit their ally.
All sans Arthur, Arkantos and their prisoner, who stood there, gaping like fish in the men's case.
"Poseidon's balls..." The admiral breathed. "I don't know if feel relieved or terrified by this. I've seen trench rip a man to shreds, but they had claws, and there were dozens of them. This... I simply can't... "
The woman said nothing, her helmet hiding her face, but it was clear by her frozen stance and her breathing she too was terrified.
Arthur, however, was shocked for another reason, because he knew who this man, this monster was... and he didn't know what to feel.
It was Solomom Grundy, the zombie Doom Slayer had taken under his wing nearly two weeks prior, according to his father's TV when he had visited him the previous week. According to the newscaster, Grundy was also a dangerous undead freak of nature strong enough to force Superman to kill him, which obviosuly hadn't worked.
And where Grundy was, Slayer had to be close... but where?
His answer came several seconds later in the form of another submarine entering Atlantis from the other side... with rivers of blood pouring from holes on it.
So, the actions of the Red Trident finally had their long awaited consequences happen. Also, the submarine is an Ohio-class attack sub modified to carry personnel. As for how did David get two (modified to carry people) submarines and enough material and personnel to attack a city, you'll receive the answers in the next chapter.