In the distance, I saw a dim light in the otherwise dark deep ocean. It seemed to be coming from the ground and it extended for some miles to the sides.
Even though it was somewhat far away I could still hear the rumbling of stone as if it was about to collapse and it was not far from the near light source. In fact, it seemed to be right beside it.
It was barely a few seconds later before I arrived a few meters behind Aquaman's lifeforce. I saw a boulder fall towards submarine volcanoes which revealed them to be the source of the light I witnessed from the distance. An underwater fissure with magma erupting out of it. Lots of bubbles came from the water that was evaporating as it hit the lava below.
The lifeforce of Aquaman was coincidentally coming from the boulder that was falling towards the volcano, coupled with his shouts and screams of a baby it made me realize that he was bound to it. It fit with what I vaguely remembered about the scene in the cartoon as well. Without waiting I extended my telekinesis and lifted the rock up.
I placed it some distance away from the edge before I looked at the bound king and the crying baby that was hung up at the hilt of a dagger stabbed into the rock.
The king of Atlantis was looking at me with relief in his eyes. One of his hands was already free. With a twist of my telekinesis, I freed him from his shackles. After being freed, he immediately went to grab his son holding him close to his chest.
It was only after he made sure that he was unharmed that he looked at me, "Not only did you save my life twice but you saved my son as well. I am in your debt." He said solemnly.
"That's what I do. Hero and all that jazz. Can we go now, Atlantis needs you." He seemed like he wanted to argue about his debt or something, but after hearing me talk about Atlantis he decided to put it off and followed me back to his country.
There was much to worry about, not even mentioning the main perpetrator that was still running around free. At least, I hadn't heard the other members of the league talk about how they captured the rebellion's leader.
After a short swim, we arrived back at Atlantis. We entered the palace and Aquaman was intermediately hugged by his distressed wife. The wife, whose name I still didn't know, took their son from Aquaman's hands.
Aquaman looked absolutely furious as he glanced over the other members of the league, "Where is Orm?"
"We don't know. A part of the army that didn't know of the rebellion was sent to delay us while Orm's supporters had left with several ships. Witnesses said that they left to the north."
Aquaman scowled at that, "He is going for the Doomsday Thermal Reactor! ...We designed it to create a polar meltdown."
"What?" Green Lantern was shocked and I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as well. I believe that almost every one of my past earth knew that this would lead to some serious global issues.
"I had it built as a weapon of last resort. To protect Atlantis should the surface world ever attack." He argued
The other members of the league were shocked, but it wasn't that different to having enough nuclear weapons to make the world uninhabitable with, was it? I was long above worrying about succumbing to such weapons, but I couldn't say the same about some people I...associated with.
"But I never armed it, but I believe Orm wants to." Aquaman frowned as he thought about it.
"And now he has the capabilities to do so with the missing plutonium from the submarine!" Green Lantern concluded.
"Then we have to leave now. He must be stopped before he can activate it." Superman was already storming out, presumably heading towards the north pole.
"And he will be. I will see to it myself!" Aquaman said as went to grab a trident before exiting the city. Obviously, we followed along.
"Why are you following?" Aquaman looked over his shoulder at us.
"We want to help." Wonder Woman answered resolutely.
"This is my battle. No one asked you to fight it." He frowned not willing to give us another glance as he headed off.
"Like it or not we have a stake in the outcome. We are not leaving!" Superman persisted as he continued to walk beside the king.
"Fine. Just stay out of my way." With that, he jumped into the water before swimming off. Since it was his domain, he was faster than us. We flew out of the water and followed along through the air. Good thing every member of the league present could fly...
It didn't take long for us to arrive. After getting the message from Batman that there were indeed some signs of a reactor being activated at the north pole, I noticed that Batman's lifeforce was approaching as well, though it would take him a while to actually arrive.
At some point, Aquaman broke out of the ice and started to walk on foot. We landed beside him before I spoke up, "There are several Atlanteans ahead. We will have company soon."
"Again?" Green Lantern enveloped himself in green light. A moment later an energy blast headed our way. I flew up and kicked it in the direction where it came from.
Several other ships rose from the ice as a response and started to shoot at us.
"Oh, this is going to be fun!" I couldn't help but exclaim as ki gathered in both my hands into small spheres. An energy blast headed my way again and I met it with a casual ki blast. Their energy blast just bounced off my ki blast and exploded harmlessly on some glacier.
My ki blast on the other hand remained undisturbed in its flying path and reached the offending ship. My attack ripped right through the outer layer before blowing up. Metal ripped apart as the eruptions flung scraps in all directions, drowning the surroundings in a rain of metal pieces.
The soldiers near the exploding ship suffered from the shrapnel that embedded themselves in their back, while Several other soldiers with tridents in hand were approaching us on something akin to snowmobiles, though they didn't come far. I manipulated the ki and disrupted the planet's geomagnetic field and with a swift upwards motion of my hand, a violent eruption ripped through the ice.
I didn't stop at that, pebble-like ki blast formed in my hand and I continuously flung that shit at those that escaped my [Exploding Wave].
I was raining down attack after attack as I devastated the enemy's army before I heard Superman's voice, "Don't overdo it with your attacks. We are here to prevent the polar ice caps from melting, not to destroy and melt them ourselves."
"Tch. Fine." I stopped my barrage and let myself fall to the ground. With a stomp, the ice beneath me cracked while I flew over the icy terrain before backhanding a soldier off his snowmobile and into the ice. I jumped on the snowmobile and drove it towards the area with the most soldiers.
When they saw me approach, they immediately started firing at me. I swerved through the attacks as well as I could but I wasn't really that good at driving this thing. I jumped in front of the snowmobile, grabbed it at its hood, and hurled it towards the soldiers.
Wonder Woman, Superman, and Martian Manhunter were dispatching the remaining ships and soldiers, while I saw Green Lantern and Batman heading towards a glacier where Aquaman's lifeforce was coming from.
I ignored them before I focused on the other Leaguers and how they fought. Trying to be aware of the entire battlefield instead of just the enemy in front of me. The Atlanteans we fought against were puny enough that I could practice it.
As I analyzed my colleague's fighting style, a lifeforce in the glacier suddenly vanished. I didn't bother with it as I rounded up the rest of the rebels before Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Batman came out of the glacier.
We bunched the soldiers together and tied them up. I thought it was a bit overkill for the hard hitters to be handling these soldiers, but I didn't complain because it was insightful. It wasn't like I would be of any help to deactivate a Thermal Reactor anyway.
Green Lantern approached us seemingly distressed, "Have you seen someone exit that glacier?"
"Hm? No, why?" No lifeforce was there besides the four of course there was that one lifeforce that vanished, but I was pretty sure that it was because he died of a high fall. At least, the long descent deep into the ground, the sudden stop, and then the lifeforce vanishing indicated as much. After asking Aquaman confirmed that it was most likely his cousin that my scouter detected.
"The thermal reactor was deactivated before we entered a moment ago. Someone beat us to it!" The Green Lantern said before shooting off in search of the perpetrator. I on the other hand extended my senses and came up with nothing but some aquatic animals. Seemed like they were already gone before we arrived.
Strange. Someone helped us but didn't stay around to say hi? If it was a hero they would at least not avoid us. If they came too early they might not have noticed us, but it had to happen just as we arrived otherwise the rebels would have already looked for him right? Great. Someone stole the stolen goods. Hopefully, that wouldn't bite us back.
...
Afterward, we had looked around for some time but we didn't discover any traces of the thief. Realizing that we wouldn't catch whoever stole the plutonium, we returned to Atlantis with the rebels in hand.
The rebels pleaded not guilty, saying that they only followed orders, but Aquaman dismissed their pleas and judged them guilty. He sent them away with other loyal soldiers escorting them away.
I didn't know the laws of Atlantis or how the prisons were for that matter, but I doubted wherever they were imprisoned or what their punishment would end up being, it wouldn't be anything pretty.
After sending the soldiers away, Aquaman sighed out heavily before he shook his head, "I can only blame myself. My fear of the surface dwellers blinded me to the ones I should have feared most and it almost cost me dearly."
"Don't be so hard on yourself. Maybe we all misjudged." Green Lantern said. Right, wasn't he suggesting that Aquaman was the one to steal the plutonium at the beginning? Now that it turned out to be a traitor from Atlantis, he must be feeling stupid. Should I tease him about it?
"Perhaps." Aquaman said as he looked at his clenched fist, "All I want. All I have ever wanted is peace and security for Atlantis." He looked out at the city from the wall window next to his throne, which I thought was a giant oversight in terms of security, but whatever.
"After what happened it won't be easy."
"I know but some sacrifices will be worth it."
After that little talk, he invited us to eat which we thankfully agreed to. Unexpected there were lots of seafood, well it was probably the only thing they got to eat with some plants on the side.
I always thought he talked to fish and the little Orca that I saw Aquaman summon during the beginning of our little skirmish had underlined that belief, but apparently, he only commanded them and didn't actually talk with them.
After finishing we were leaving this time without a ship. Apparently, we didn't need any ship anymore. Green Lantern didn't like my teasing but whatever.
As we were about to exit the water I sensed something weird, "Go back without me. I am going to look around the area for a moment. Explore the ocean."
"What? Why?" Wonder Woman asked after we exited the water and hovered right above it.
"I heard that there were some underwater creatures and I wanted to fight some. Until now it was only boring Atlanteans." I answered easily with a grin on my face.
She smirked slightly at that, "Alright, but don't cause any trouble for Atlantis. And remember we have a meeting in two hours." The others didn't say anything and left. Though I did hear Green Lantern snort at her words, saying that I would definitely cause trouble.
I rolled my eyes at that and watched them leave before I fished out my scouter and scanned the area. I wasn't quite sure if I imagined it, but I was sensing two identical lifeforces, which should be impossible since every person had a unique lifeforce maybe apart from clones...
After confirming that the scouter registered the same lifeforces as well, I made my way down and towards them. As I approached them I noticed a troupe of soldiers that were guarding the borders of Atlantas territory.
"Halt- Oh, it's one of the hero surface dwellers." The leader of the troupe wanted to stop me, but I guess the news of our help had already made its way around.
"Yeah. I had scanned and found something near here. It should be a relatively strong creature. Do you know or have you seen anything unusual around here?" It was twice as strong as a normal Atlantean soldier, so to them, it should be formidable.
"A strong creature?" The leader looked at the other soldiers but they shook their head, "Not that I knew of."
I nodded at that and was about to head off when he called out to me, "Wait. There is something that sunk several ships of the surface recently, though we hadn't looked into it yet. Maybe it is related?"
"Hm. I will look into it, thanks." I waved before heading towards the distancing creature. I followed from far away before I noticed that the two lifeforces were heading deeper into the ocean. Fortunately, I still had this mask that Batman had donated to us.
Maybe I could try to surround myself and filter oxygen through my ki as Green Lantern did it with his ring. An idea for later.
After following it for half an hour, I noticed that they headed towards a place with lots of identical lifeforces. Either it was a creature with hundreds of clones or it was a hive mind of sorts, though a hive mind should still have different lifeforce signatures depending on the body, at least that was how the last hive mind I thought felt like.
The creatures swam close to the ground beneath a giant underwater mountain. I soon noticed that there was an entrance down below and without hesitating, I entered it behind the two, who were now standing still somewhere inside the mountain.
After swimming through the entrance for several dozens of meters, I was able to emerge from the water into a cave. The cave wasn't as dark as I initially expected in fact it was rather bright. There were several barrels of radioactive waste opened up and golden roots were inserted into it.
The roots extended to the ceiling of the cave, covering it almost completely. From the roots at the ceiling, several oval-shaped cocoons were hanging from it. I could sense that each cocoon was holding an individual creature inside. It looked disgusting with that organic look. It almost appeared like a fungus that had taken over the walls only to sprout eggs of giant insects.
The two creatures free to roam looked at me surprised after I stepped into the cave looking at their nest. Now that I had a better look at them, it confirmed my suspicion that these creatures might be clones as they looked the exact same.
They had dark green scales as skin which almost looked like armor. Although he was a humanoid, his features weren't exactly human. Like a fish that was slowly but surely turning human. It was entirely in the uncanny valley range.
Their appearance didn't matter to me as much as what it was planning, so the only thing that did matter was why this creature made an army for itself. Was it trying to help and reduce nuclear waste or was it trying to build an army to take over the world? With the theme of this world, I was going with the latter.
"You, what- how did find me??" One of them shouted as they pointed a finger at me, though my attention was attracted to the plutonium behind them that was surrounded by some roots.
I palmed my fist with my other hand as I came to the realization, "You were the one that stole the plutonium from the Thermal Reactor!"
They turned towards me completely and pointed their golden tridents at me, which of course were glowing. Atlantean weaponry, why wouldn't he wield them?
I noted that there was a giant computer that seemed to have been linked to the roots of this nest. Maybe it was controlling the hatching time?
"So, why exactly are you making clones." I crossed my arms as I watched the two slowly approach me. Maybe they were wary, but most likely they were waiting for their other clone to reach me from behind to ambush me.
I sidestepped the downward slash from behind and kicked their ambushing friend towards the other two as they jumped at me. The one I kicked crashed into them in the air and they fell into a heap while more and more clones came out of the darkness.
"Because I am perfect!" "And why not make more?" "You can never have too much of a good thing!" "Once my army conquers Atlantis!" "I will declare war on the surface world!" "Everyone on the planet will bow down before me!"
""And praise my perfection!""
"Right...Going with the classic world-conquering schtick, eh? Oh, and really cute how you finish each other's speeches, adorable, though kind of annoying, not gonna lie."
"Mock me as you like, inferior being. You won't open your foul mouth after I killed you."
"Inferior being...? You are done."
I leaned my head out of the way of a golden beam shot out of a trident before I pushed myself off the ground and blitzed towards the shooter. Instantly I swiped my fingers across the throat of my offender. My fingers tore through its scales like it wasn't even there.
I grabbed the now corpse at the shoulder and threw it at a group of clones. The body crashed into two, ripping their upper torso off before continuing flying until it crashed into the wall and splashed the wall with bloody meat as if it was paint splatter.
Several looked at the intestines littered on the way to the wall in shock before they noticed that I hadn't stopped. My fist tore through their torso with ease, I twisted their head like it was a spinning top, and broke them in half as if they were twigs.
It was honestly not even worth mentioning that they tried to put up a fight. I dodged a trident blast here and there, reading their body language like a good book. With my perception, the movement in their shoulder was enough forewarning for me to know where they would be aiming at.
I could have just tanked the attacks but I didn't want to ruin my armor that I had just repaired a few days ago. The attacks from their weapons were the only thing I had to worry about. Their bodies themselves weren't even eligible to damage my enhanced armor, not with their meager strength.
I caught the strike of a trident with my hands and pulled. The clone didn't want to let go or wasn't able to react, so it was pulled with its weapon. Luckily a well-placed axe kick to its neck, not only killed it but removed its grip from the weapon.
"Well, let's see how to use this thing." I pointed it at the incoming creatures, but it wouldn't fire. Did I have to twist it or was it based on magic? I leaned out of the way of yet another golden beam.
"Ah, fuck it. I will just use it as a cold weapon." With a swipe, the tip of the trident bisected several of them in a half-circle. I suddenly sidestepped and angled my trident behind me as I dodged another swipe. One of them ran into my trident, turning himself into a fish skewer.
I tore it to the side, opening up half of his torso. He grunted and fell to the ground, "Please have mer-" With a sidekick, I turned his head into mush before catching his falling trident.
With a small throw in the air, I repositioned my hold on the trident to a throwing position and just threw. It tore several clones before an unlucky one on the other side of the cave caught it with the back of his throat, making him kiss the computer at which he operated.
The computer exploded shortly after and I ignored the indignant screams as I continued my role as the pest control. With a wave of my hand ki-based fire sparks, rained on the ones that were trying to jump into the water and flee.
Powered by ki made the formed fire sparks and the resulting fires rather nasty. As long as enough ki was there and wasn't countered by a sufficient strong opponent, it would just keep burning. Of course, water had some effect but it wasn't as effective as it would be against normal fires. So, even the ones that made it into the water, kept burning until they died.
Chaos had already descended in this group of 'perfect beings' as some tried to flee, some wanted to fight and many begged for mercy. After a few more minutes of this, I started to clean up the ones that played dead.
With a wave of my hand, I incinerated the corpses and the roots at the ceiling. After realizing that the last lifeforce of this thing had vanished, I made my way to the plutonium. It was truly a jackpot.
I needed it for the next project of mine and hadn't even searched for it yet, but here I was randomly finding it on a trip out of Atlantis. Was this how it felt to have plot armor?
After encasing it in my ki and psychic energy, I carried it with me and was about to head home when I got a message from the Watchtower, telling me to attend the weekly meeting. I pulled out my scouter and made it display the time. Indeed two hours had already passed since I went to look for this creature.
"Time flies when you're having fun." I took the plutonium and thought about burying it underneath some rocks before leaving the cave, but what if someone picked it up? Or if another clone that hadn't been here was to arrive and take everything with it?
But I couldn't just walk into the Watchtower with 20kg of plutonium. With a cube of 10 centimeters, I could hardly hide it underneath my armor. I hesitated for only a moment before I created a deep crack into stone floor. I threw the radioactive chemical element into it before closing the crack again.
I quickly left and shot upwards and out of the ocean before flying out of the atmosphere and then towards the Watchtower. I quickly arrived at the tower and attended the boring meeting.
...
After dropping into the ocean I flew back to the cave I had found/hid the plutonium at. I entered the cave and found it to be too dark to see. With a little ki sphere illuminating the cave I instantly saw the state of the cave. It had been cleaned up. The barrels of nuclear waste was cleaned up.
I swept my telekinesis across the ground and found the plutonium still inside the crack. There were some marks as someone obviously tried to dig it but gave up after a few centimeters. The place where I placed the plutonium was 10 meters below, so they would have dug until there to get it, but in the end it seemed whoever came deemed it too much trouble.
I scanned the area but I couldn't find where the thief could have escaped to. I couldn't help but sigh out. It felt like I left without finishing my business here, but there wasn't much for me to do anything about it now, so I reluctantly left.
I accelerated out of the ocean and then towards home, circling across half the globe in a matter of minutes. After arriving above my city I gave it a quick sweep in case I luckily detected some demonic creature deciding to take roots in my territory.
It was currently just after 3 o'clock, so I decided to go on patrol for an hour just in case, but I found it to be as boring as usual. With that cleared, I thought about the meeting I just had with the justice league as I hovered a few hundred meters above my house.
I hesitated to drop down and enter, so my thoughts wandered off. It was just a way to not focus on the matter that would welcome me once I stepped inside my own house, but I decided to distract me with the topics discussed in the meeting anyway. Though there wasn't much to think about what was said.
I was just in disbelief. Didn't we decide just a few weeks ago that we wouldn't add anyone to the Justice League?
Sigh.
Of course, they would make an exception because of politics. I understood where they were coming from, especially with Atlantis being the 'powerhouse' that it was, but if we added too many people, there would be too many to effectively create a synergy among the members.
Honestly, our teamwork was already shit and it didn't improve much as we worked only occasionally. Though much couldn't be said about it yet since the team hadn't formed long ago. In fact, our very recent partnership made it easy to explain why we stumbled over our feet even if the individuals of the league were extraordinary.
I didn't care to mention it to the others since I doubted that they hadn't noticed it. It was quite obvious in fights, especially if one focused on the entire battlefield like I did in our skirmish a few hours ago.
We didn't cooperate and just took an opponents to fight against. It didn't help that I liked my fights to be fought alone, but I doubted that would fly if someone formidable came along. Maybe we actually had decent teamwork, but hadn't realized it since our enemies weren't individually strong.
I shook my head dismissing those thoughts. Let someone smarter think about those issues. At least, Batman and Superman should be aware of it.
Now I focused on something more important, how I should placate Kara, so Raven was comfortable staying here.