Superman had saved the world more times than he could count. Heck, he could probably save the world before breakfast if he felt like it. But today felt... different. More like something's off different, as if the city was playing a game of "Who Can Piss Off Superman the Most?"
Hovering high above the bustling streets of Metropolis, Superman scanned the city below, his cape billowing out like it had its own personal wind machine. He was trying to enjoy the view — after all, being Superman did have its perks. He could see everything from up here, even the soft curve of the horizon where the city met the sky.
Then he heard it. The unmistakable sound of a struggle. His super-hearing locked in on an alley a few blocks away. Someone was in trouble.
Oh, I hate these kinds of days.
Down in the alley, the mayor of Metropolis, one Sully Lancaster (and yes, he would be one of those guys who made you call him Sully), was about as caught in a bad situation as you could get. A couple of masked goons were trying to shove him into an unmarked van, and Sully wasn't exactly helping matters. He was struggling, of course, but he wasn't exactly built for heroics. More like aw, heck, let me call the mayor's office heroics.
Superman rolled his eyes and muttered, "Give me a break."
One second, he was floating. The next, he was there—a blur of motion in the alleyway, his boots hitting the concrete with a solid thunk. His fist smashed into the hood of the van with the kind of force that could turn a steel ball into liquid. The metal crumpled like it was made out of tinfoil, and the van flipped onto its side like a pancake at a kid's birthday party.
The goons? They had decisions to make.
One of them, wearing a ski mask and the look of someone who'd watched one too many action movies, fumbled for his blaster. It was too slow. Way too slow.
"Done?" Superman asked, his voice rolling out with all the calm authority of a father asking his kid if they've finished cleaning their room. He didn't even break a sweat.
The remaining goons froze, their blasters still pointed at the Man of Steel like they might somehow have a chance. Superman was not in the mood for this. A quick, effortless flick of his wrist, and one goon was sent flying into a dumpster, his legs flailing like a bug trapped in a jar.
"Yeah, I think they're done," Superman muttered, his expression not even cracking a smile. He turned to the mayor, who was still standing in the middle of the wreckage, looking somewhere between grateful and mildly terrified. Typical mayor response.
"Mayor, you good?" Superman asked, his voice softening just a touch. He wasn't heartless. Not totally heartless.
Sully Lancaster, looking like he'd just walked out of a very bad dream, straightened his tie and gave a nervous chuckle. "Well, I'll be honest with you, Superman... I had more excitement at the mayor's ball last week. But I think I'm good now, thanks. That was a bit too real for my taste." He cleared his throat. "What the heck were those goons trying to do?"
"I'm guessing they were trying to kidnap you, Mayor. Not sure if that was their backup plan or just Plan B," Superman said, scanning the wreckage and the weapons the goons had dropped. One of the blasters was still smoking, and Superman reached down to pick it up, studying it with a raised brow.
The weapon definitely wasn't your garden-variety thug tool. There was a sleekness to it, something high-tech, something... alien? A little too Apokoliptian for his liking. And Superman had seen enough alien tech to know when it was from outer space.
"Beta-9," Superman called, his voice calm but urgent. He tapped the side of his helmet. "Got a match on these? They feel like the weapons Eidolon, Wonder Woman, and Mera busted Amunet Black for selling a couple of months ago."
Beyoncé's voice chimed back in his ear. It always did. It was basically like having an AI assistant who could both read his mind and be cooler than him. If that was even possible. But hey, it was Beta-9.
"Right away, Superman," Beta-9 purred, and Superman had to admit — if he were ever the type to get lost in someone's voice, it would be hers. "Cross-referencing now. Scanning for Apokoliptian signatures... and bingo, we've got a match. These weapons are definitely tied to them."
"Them? Oh great, now I'm getting nervous," Superman muttered under his breath, flicking the weapon to his other hand as he turned to the mayor.
"Should I ask Dr. Stone if he's free to check out these weapons? He's actually expecting you. I told him to prepare." Beta-9 continued, sounding more like she was laying down an upbeat track than analyzing weapons. "And by the way, I think he's still a little mad about the whole 'you borrowing his car' thing. You might wanna apologize for that. Again."
Superman raised his eyebrows. "It wasn't my fault that his car ran out of fuel in the middle of the desert, okay? I offered to fly it back. And yes, I did apologize. He's just... sensitive."
Beta-9 paused for a beat. "Right. Well, anyway, Dr. Stone is expecting you. Do you want me to schedule a time, or do you want to just swoop in like usual?"
"Tell him I'm on my way," Superman said, tucking the weapon under his arm. His muscles tensed as he slowly rose off the ground. "I've got a feeling this isn't the last time we're going to be dealing with those guys."
The mayor, still in shock but recovering faster than most people would, nodded his thanks. "I'm guessing Intergang's back in business then? I thought we had a deal."
"Yeah, well, their 'deal' might be up. But don't worry, Sully," Superman said with a smirk. "I'll make sure to break it real soon."
With that, he launched into the sky, the wind ripping at his cape as the city shrank beneath him. He shot across Metropolis, moving like a bullet out of a gun, heading straight for S.T.A.R. Labs. Every beat of his heart thundered in his chest, and his mind raced. Apokolips wasn't just a threat — it was a growing one. And with every second that passed, Superman felt that same rumble, the same sensation of something dark stirring just beyond the horizon.
He wasn't flying fast enough. Not nearly fast enough.
Come on, Dr. Stone. You'd better be ready.
—
Superman dropped out of the sky like a polite thunderbolt in red and blue spandex.
His landing was soft—well, as soft as you could expect from a guy who could punch asteroids into dust. The pavement barely whispered under his boots. The security guards at the front entrance straightened instinctively, half because of protocol, half because it was freaking Superman. One of them might've even flexed a little. Superman gave them a nod and that smile—you know the one. The smile that made you believe everything was going to be okay, even if Doomsday was on the morning news.
He stepped through the lobby like he owned the place—which, for the record, he absolutely didn't. But let's be real: when you're Superman, you don't need a keycard. The sleek chrome walls of S.T.A.R. Labs gleamed like they'd been buffed with alien-grade polish, and everything smelled vaguely of ozone, coffee, and anxiety.
As he pushed open the lab doors, the first thing he saw was Dr. Silas Stone standing over a console, looking like he'd aged three years just waiting for him.
"Superman," Silas said without looking up. "Either you brought trouble or you are the trouble. Guess which one I'm betting on."
Superman lifted the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and gently set it on the table.
"I brought party favors," he said, and unzipped it to reveal two glowing, definitely-not-TSA-approved energy blasters. "From Intergang's little get-together downtown. They weren't exactly handing these out like candy."
Silas squinted at one of the weapons like it had insulted his mother. "Let me guess—Apokoliptian."
"And then some," Superman replied. "I fried a few with heat vision. These two were still intact enough to examine. Figured you'd want first crack."
That's when the door creaked open behind them.
Enter Dr. John Henry Irons, nose buried in a tablet, muttering something about "resonance feedback in neural dampeners" like that was normal English. He nearly walked into Superman's cape. To be fair, it's hard to miss—but somehow he managed.
Then he looked up, saw the Man of Steel, and froze.
"Oh," Irons said, blinking. "You're here."
Superman arched a brow. "Is that a problem?"
Irons' eyes dropped to his own chest like gravity had tripled. He groaned. "Of course I'm wearing this today."
Silas smirked. "Oh no."
John Henry Irons—six-foot-something of muscles, brains, and charisma—was wearing a bright blue T-shirt. Big bright 'S' shield across the front. Not the stealthiest wardrobe choice.
"I swear this was laundry day," Irons said. "And I wasn't expecting you to drop in like Zeus on a deadline."
Superman gave him a warm smile. "Relax, Doc. I like the shirt. Great taste."
Irons stared. "You're not... offended? You sure?"
Superman chuckled. "You're a scientist, Irons. I'm sure you know—statistically speaking—ninety percent of Metropolis sleeps in my logo."
Silas snorted. "The other ten percent work for Luthor."
Irons muttered something about needing a lab coat and tried to casually drape one over himself. It didn't help. He looked like a linebacker playing scientist cosplay.
"I'll make it less awkward," Superman offered. "We'll pretend it's your symbol. The 'I' stands for Irons."
"Oh, great," Irons groaned. "Now I can't not see it."
Superman grinned, but the mood shifted as he opened the bag further.
Silas and Irons both leaned over the table. The blaster was humming faintly now, glowing with unsettling orange veins—like it was alive and mildly annoyed.
Silas picked it up with tongs like it might bite him. He glanced at the readings. His brow furrowed deeper than the Grand Canyon.
"Definitely Apokoliptian base," he said. "But the power matrix? That's Earth tech. Custom wiring, non-standard casing. Someone's hybridizing."
Irons slid a scanner over it, goggles already over his eyes. "Oh yeah. Look at this capacitor. I've seen this design before. LexCorp R&D."
Superman's jaw tensed. "That's what I was afraid of."
"You think Luthor's behind this?" Silas asked.
"I think," Superman said slowly, "Luthor's not just funding Intergang. I think he's arming them—with stolen alien tech."
"Lovely," Irons muttered. "Because the only thing scarier than alien warlords is our own billionaires playing Dr. Frankenstein with space guns."
Silas tapped at his console, cross-referencing schematics. "Some of these circuits match the files we recovered after the last LexCorp breach. Different arrangement, but same language."
Superman's voice dropped to that quiet-but-lethal tone—the one he used when people were about to make very bad life choices. "This isn't just about weapons on the street. Luthor's testing something. Maybe distribution. Maybe something worse."
"Mass production?" Irons offered. "Automated weapon platforms? You know he's been buying up drone companies."
Silas looked up, face grim. "Or he's building something bigger than Intergang. An army. A failsafe. Who knows?"
"Whatever it is," Superman said, "he's not doing it under the radar anymore. He's sending a message."
Silas narrowed his eyes. "Then maybe it's time we sent one back."
Superman nodded once. "I'll talk to Batman. See if he can dig into Luthor's new shell companies. You two keep dissecting this thing. If it burps in a foreign language, I want to know what it says."
Irons gave a small salute, already pulling up new analysis protocols. "You got it. And... thanks for not roasting me over the shirt."
Superman turned at the door and gave him a wink. "Just make sure the next one comes in black. Batman hates being left out."
As the doors slid shut behind him, Superman was already in mission mode. The sun glinted off his cape as he soared back into the sky, a blur of purpose and power.
And somewhere, miles away, Lex Luthor probably smiled—because if Superman was sniffing around, the game was about to begin.
And Superman? He was ready to play.
—
Low Earth Orbit – 173 Miles Above the Surface. S.T.A.R. Labs Deep Space Survey Mission, Shuttle Excalibur
You'd think space would be peaceful—quiet, majestic, all that Neil Armstrong poetic nonsense. Turns out, it was mostly just cold, claustrophobic, and full of terrible coffee.
Inside the Excalibur, Commander Hank Henshaw was floating upside down, which, to be fair, was the only way he could keep the coffee from going straight up his nose every time he laughed.
"You know," Terri, his wife and the ship's communications officer, said with that knowing smirk of hers, "most people would download the data to a tablet. You're over here trying to mind-meld with the console."
"I like being thorough," Hank replied, tapping a blinking screen like it owed him lunch. "Besides, last time we trusted the automatic relay, it translated a solar flare as 'Caution: Godzilla detected.' I nearly filed a threat report with Tokyo."
Terri rolled her eyes, her voice calm and honey-smooth. "Still better than when you thought the backup battery was a bar of chocolate."
"That was one time."
"And you bit it."
Hank raised a finger. "I was low on iron."
In the back, Dr. Khalil Hasan floated like a yoga master in zero-G, humming softly as he analyzed solar particle emissions. Despite the environment, the man somehow looked like he was doing a cologne ad shoot. His hair didn't float—it flowed.
"So," Khalil said, glancing over his shoulder with a grin, "if I find a way to weaponize solar radiation, do I get naming rights? 'Hasan's Solar Sizzle'? 'Khalil's Flare Gun'?"
"Only if it doesn't fry our nav systems again," Lt. Maggie Burns chimed in from the diagnostic terminal. She was flipping a stylus between her fingers like a bored assassin. "Still haven't forgiven you for that time I had to realign the satellite array while you sang Bollywood love songs over comms."
"Hey," Khalil shrugged, "you try being charming in a vacuum."
Maggie snorted. "Pretty sure that's what you're doing now."
The banter was cut short by an ear-splitting klaxon.
Alarms blared. Lights went from cozy amber to full-on red alert. The ship's computer—normally the voice of calm reassurance—now sounded like a panicked barista on their first day.
"Unidentified object detected. Impact in ten seconds."
"Ten seconds?" Hank barked. "That's not warning—that's a courtesy announcement before we die!"
Terri's fingers flew across the console. "No signature. No heat trail. Whatever it is, it came out of nowhere—like really nowhere."
Khalil's jaw clenched. "That's... not how space works."
"Tell it to the flaming silver death-ball headed our way," Maggie snapped.
They all floated to the window like moths to a fire.
And then they saw it.
It looked like a meteor on steroids—molten silver, dripping energy, wrapped in red lightning that danced and snapped like angry vines. It didn't fall toward them. It hunted.
Terri's voice barely made it above a whisper. "That thing's not natural…"
"Nope," Hank muttered, strapping in. "That's cosmic horror dressed like a rave. Everyone brace—"
The object hit.
The explosion wasn't sound. It was force—a shockwave that slammed through the hull like a cosmic sledgehammer. Panels burst. Screams filled the cabin. Sparks rained down like confetti at the world's worst birthday party.
The shuttle spun.
Terri's chair ripped from its moorings. Hank grabbed for her, but too late—her body collided with the viewport, cracking it. Blood bloomed in the air like red snow.
"Terri!" he screamed, his voice raw.
She looked at him, eyes wide, mouth moving—but the air was gone. Her body was gone. Sucked out. Just like that.
Maggie and Khalil were hurled across the cabin. Fire danced on oxygen tanks, then blinked out as the atmosphere bled away.
Hank hit the far wall. His visor fractured. Blood trickled into his eye, blinding him. Pain flared like a supernova behind his skull.
But even through the blur, he saw it—the energy, crawling over the wreckage, not just destroying but... transforming. The shuttle's systems flickered. Panels pulsed with unnatural red light. Something alive had made contact.
Something that didn't play by the rules of physics, or life, or sanity.
The alien force coiled around Hank like a curious snake. His HUD died. Then rebooted. Then displayed symbols he didn't recognize.
His breath came shallow. Terri's name rang in his ears.
And then...
Darkness.
—
Some buildings tried to reach for the sky. LexCorp Tower dared it to fight back.
It didn't so much scrape the sky as mock it—an all-black, chrome-fanged skyscraper that loomed over Metropolis like a Bond villain in mid-monologue. It didn't whisper "power." It screamed, "Come at me, Zeus."
Naturally, Zeus didn't show up.
Superman did.
Floating just outside the top-floor balcony—arms folded, expression carved from Mount Olympus—stood the Man of Steel himself. The wind teased his cape dramatically, as if even the atmosphere understood the assignment.
One second, everything was normal.
The next, every window from the 90th to the 93rd floor shuddered like they'd just been told taxes were due. A sonic boom rippled through the penthouse, and every piece of priceless art in the hallway did its best impression of a tuning fork.
Inside, the blinds retracted, the security glass de-polarized, and Lex Luthor looked up from his $800 glass of whiskey like someone had just dropped a goat into his private koi pond.
"Well," he said, with the tired resignation of someone about to sit through another bad sequel. "The Boy Scout has arrived. Let me guess. You're out of kittens to rescue?"
Superman didn't smile.
He hovered just outside the balcony, boots inches from the floor, arms still folded in that I bench press satellites and pay my taxes on time way.
"I figured we could talk," Superman said. His voice was calm, even, the kind of calm that made most dictators check their bunker exits. "Face-to-face. No reporters. No legal teams. No sound bites."
Lex took a sip of his drink. "So, intimidation by ambiance. Love the theatrics. I almost feel underdressed."
He strolled toward the balcony like he had all the time in the world and not an alien demigod hovering outside his office. His deep purple suit was flawless, of course—tailored to within an inch of its life, like his ego.
"Let me guess," Lex continued. "You've discovered something... shocking. Something that just happens to lead back to me. Color me stunned."
"You're arming Intergang with Apokoliptian tech."
Superman dropped it like he was delivering bad news to a volcano.
Lex blinked. Not a normal blink. The kind of blink that said I will kill this conversation with charm and plausible deniability.
"Intergang? Are we still talking about them? I thought they went the way of dial-up internet and VHS."
"You know exactly what I'm talking about."
"Do I?" Lex raised an eyebrow. "Because you're getting a little vague, even for someone with telescopic vision."
Superman's eyes flared—not full death-ray, but enough heat to make Lex's whiskey glass sweat.
"The weapons are a hybrid. Apokoliptian core, Earth modifications. The Earth tech bears your signature. Literally. Your patents are embedded in the hardware schematics."
Lex tilted his head. "Okay, if—and I stress if—what you're saying is true, maybe some overzealous intern got access to something they shouldn't have. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe you've been listening to Batman's paranoia playlist again."
"You fund half of S.T.A.R. Labs. You own three of the shell companies that sold the modified parts. And one of the serial numbers traces back to a warehouse you personally visited last week."
Lex gave a long-suffering sigh. "Look, just because I visit a warehouse doesn't mean I'm smuggling alien bazookas. I also visited a soup kitchen last week. Am I running a black market out of that too?"
"You tell me," Superman said. "Do they serve kryptonite stew on Tuesdays?"
Lex smiled like someone who'd just won a staring contest with a dragon. "You're cute when you try sarcasm. Doesn't really suit the whole 'last son of a doomed planet' aesthetic, but I admire the effort."
Superman didn't respond. Just floated. Just stared. The kind of stare that made people confess to crimes they hadn't even committed yet.
"I understand," Lex said finally, turning to walk back into the office, "You need a villain. Makes life easier. I wear the purple suit. I twirl the metaphorical mustache. Meanwhile, you get to shine your perfect halo and call yourself a symbol."
He set the whiskey glass down on a crystal tray. "But that's not me anymore. I'm reformed. Philanthropist. Job creator. Clean energy tycoon. Why, I'm practically a hero myself."
Superman floated inside—just far enough to make the marble floor wince under his presence, but not enough to grant Lex the satisfaction of a full landing.
"Someone in your company is leaking tech," Superman said. "If it's not you, it's someone close. Mercy. A division head. A fake company you pretended to shut down. But I will trace it back."
Lex chuckled. "And what then? Arrest me? Make a speech? Let Batman glower at my firewall until it begs for mercy?"
"You always assume I won't act."
"No," Lex said, turning back with a slow grin. "I assume you can't. Because the moment you step outside the law, you're not a hero anymore. You're just a guy in a cape with anger issues."
Superman's jaw tightened. Just a little.
"You're right," he said. "I won't break the law. But I will break the truth wide open."
He took one final look at Lex—the kind that promised this was far from over—then launched skyward in a gust of wind and principle.
Lex stood there, letting the silence settle like ash.
Then, still smiling, he turned back into the office, walked over to a seemingly decorative sculpture, and pressed his palm to a hidden panel.
The sculpture split open with a hiss.
Beneath it?
A vault.
Of very illegal alien tech.
Including two twin blasters that looked very familiar.
Lex sipped the last of his whiskey.
"Let the game begin," he murmured.
Then, because he couldn't help himself: "And do say hi to Batman. He's probably in the air vents again."
—
Somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean. 132 Miles Off the Norwegian Trench. 4 Hours After Contact Event – Codename: "Event Horizon"
If you'd asked the whales near Iceland how their day was going, they'd probably say: "We were doing backflips in peace until something the size of a kaiju belly-flopped into our living room."
Not that anyone asked the whales.
Beneath the waves, the ocean itself seemed to hold its breath. Currents tangled like panicked sea serpents. Pressure systems cracked and hiccupped like Poseidon had sneezed. At the center of it all, glowing softly from the trench like a haunted nightlight, was a crater that definitely wasn't there yesterday.
In the royal holographic command chamber of Poseidonis, King Arthur Curry—Aquaman, Defender of the Deep, Friend of Fish, and Guy With the Absurdly Perfect Jawline—stood waist-deep in a projected map of the North Atlantic. He had his arms crossed, his trident slung over one shoulder, and his scowl firmly set to "I'm about five seconds from punching something."
"So, let me get this straight," Arthur said, his voice low and gritty. "A giant, flaming space rock crashes into our territory, lights up the trench like the Fourth of July, and the surface world just misses it?"
Vulko, royal advisor, wet-blanket extraordinaire, and part-time scholar of Things That Want To Eat Us, made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a wheeze. "Their satellites were...interfered with. The object exhibited energy shielding unlike anything we've catalogued. Possibly a cloaking field. Or dimensional bleed-through. Hard to say."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Dimensional bleed-through. Right. Because that's a normal Tuesday."
Standing beside him, resplendent in coral-plated battle armor, Queen Marella gave Arthur a sideways glance. "So. We going with Option A: ignore it and hope it eats someone else first—or Option B: ride into certain doom with style?"
Arthur didn't even blink. "B. Obviously."
Marella nodded, as if she'd expected nothing less. "You know, just once, I'd like to not dive headfirst into something glowing and humming."
Arthur grinned, sharp and reckless. "Where's the fun in that?"
Vulko cleared his throat. Which, for Vulko, was basically a war horn. "If I may—"
"You may," Marella said, with the resigned tone of someone who had heard every Vulko warning at least six times before breakfast.
"The energy at the impact site is not...stable," Vulko warned, gesturing toward the projection. "It's expanding. Rewriting the local environment on a subatomic level. Our sensors are picking up hymn-like frequencies. And humming, Your Majesties, is never a good sign."
"Humming usually means something's charging," Arthur agreed, tapping his trident against the floor. "Or alive. Or worse, both."
Marella arched a brow. "Alive and charging. Sounds like your last pet."
"I told you, Bruce the Abyss Eel was misunderstood."
"He electrocuted half the Sea Guard."
"Misunderstood and moody."
Vulko sighed again, the eternal soundtrack of his life. "If you must go, I advise bringing backup. And at least one linguist."
Arthur pointed to the glowing crater. "That's Atlantean territory. Our problem. And if we don't deal with it fast, the surface will."
Almost on cue, the hologram blinked. A sleek black submarine icon slid into view like a smug little shark.
LexCorp Research Submarine – Perseus
ETA: 29 Minutes
"Oh, great," Arthur muttered. "Of course he shows up."
Marella tilted her head. "Lex Luthor?"
"Has the subtlety of a fireworks display inside a library," Arthur said. "Bet he's already writing his Nobel acceptance speech. 'For services rendered in poking glowing alien death orbs.'"
Vulko gave them a sideways look. "He's dispatched drones. And a retrieval crew."
Arthur smirked. "We'll beat him there by ten minutes."
"Only if I let you win," Marella said.
Arthur turned, his eyes gleaming. "Race you."
"If I win," Marella said, "I pick dinner. And we're not doing sea slug tacos again."
"I make no promises," Arthur said, already summoning his mount.
From the shadows, a monstrous sea wyrm surged forward—armor-plated, the size of a small yacht, with red eyes and a growl like an underwater jet engine.
Marella's hippocampus, shimmering with violet armor and enough sass to rival its rider, swam up beside it like it was daring someone to look at it funny.
Vulko pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Your Majesties, for the record: this is a terrible idea."
Arthur and Marella exchanged matching grins.
"Those are the best kind," Marella said.
With a crack of water and a burst of speed, they shot forward—riders, mounts, and a dozen Sea Guard behind them, slicing through the ocean like a battle ballet.
Far below, the trench shuddered.
The crater was no longer just a crater.
It pulsed. Glowed. Shifted.
It began... humming louder.
The melody was not pleasant. It was the sound of ancient engines waking up, of something alien stretching after a long nap and realizing it was hungry.
And it had just noticed company.
—
132 Miles Off the Norwegian Trench. Impact Crater "Event Horizon". T-minus 4 Minutes to First Contact
If ocean trenches had Yelp pages, this one would've just dropped to one star, and the review would've read: "Smells like seaweed armpits, haunted by doom, would not recommend. P.S. it ate our sub."
The darkness wasn't just dark—it was the kind of pitch-black that made your soul itch. The kind that whispered terrible bedtime stories to the fish. It pulsed with a low, broken hum—like a haunted cathedral's bell got dumped in a black hole and decided to start an experimental noise band.
Approaching in a tight V-formation, the Atlantean convoy looked like a bioluminescent pack of apex predators. Their tridents glowed soft blue. Their armor gleamed like the carapace of very angry, very shiny beetles. Leading the charge were Arthur and Marella—one on a war-seahorse the size of a Dodge Charger, the other on what might've once been a plesiosaur, if plesiosaurs wore battle armor and had a nose ring.
"We're close," Marella said. "Smells like burnt kelp and bad decisions."
Arthur sniffed. "Yeah, that's me. New cologne. Limited edition: Regret. Top notes of sea salt and trauma."
"You should've gone with Reckless King Energy."
He grinned. "Was out of stock."
Then came the ping—not sonar, not magic, just good old-fashioned smugness wrapped in a comm signal.
"Unidentified submersibles," said a voice over the comms, smooth as eel oil and twice as slippery. "This is Captain Lennox, aboard the LexCorp Research Submarine Perseus. You are encroaching on a civilian scientific perimeter. Please state your intentions before entering LexCorp jurisdiction."
Marella's eyes narrowed. "Did that guy just LexCorp-flex us in front of a glowing death crater?"
Arthur tapped his comm bead. "Lennox, buddy. This is King Arthur of Atlantis. That 'glowing perimeter' you're sniffing around? That's sitting on our front lawn. So unless you want to meet our neighborhood fangtooth—who's very bitey—I suggest you reverse your toy boat and try not to implode."
"King Arthur," Lennox repeated, voice like he was taste-testing the name. "International waters fall under the jurisdiction of the LexCorp Maritime Doctrine. Section Nineteen. Clause Eight. Subclause—"
Arthur cut the line. "If he says 'Clause Nine,' I'm throwing my trident through his signal array."
"You mean aim at the signal array, accidentally punch a hole in his sub, and call it diplomacy," Marella said.
He smirked. "Hey, I'm evolving."
That's when the trench growled.
Not metaphorically. Not like "oh, it's dangerous down there." No. The planet growled. The ocean compressed like it was holding its breath. Then—boom. A sonic gut-punch sent currents rippling outward like Poseidon just drop-kicked a mountain.
Every commline screeched into static.
Lights flickered. Fish yeeted themselves away in panic. Something moved in the crater.
It rose.
Fifteen feet tall, maybe more, the thing looked like a biomechanical nightmare. Its black armor was plated like volcanic scales, pulsing from the inside with angry red lightning. It had no face—just a smooth helmet that felt like it was staring at you through a thousand invisible eyes.
"Containment suit," Vulko had called it earlier.
Great. That meant whatever was inside hadn't even gotten started.
The Perseus moved first—always a mistake in horror movies and apparently real life. The sub's engine flared as it tried to backpedal, but the creature moved faster. One punch. Just one.
KRAKOOM.
The sub crumpled like a soda can in a neutron star. Imploded, folded, and then exploded in reverse. Debris sprayed the trench. Fire. Shrapnel. Shockwave.
Arthur and Marella were tossed like action figures in a washing machine.
Arthur shook it off first. "Marella—"
"I saw it," she said, already grabbing her trident. "Guessing that's not a friendly neighborhood cyborg."
The Atlantean Sea Guard surged forward—but so did someone else.
Commander Clydos.
Armor cracked. Shoulder bleeding. Jaw like a cliffside.
He stomped in front of Arthur like an ancient sea golem with a bad attitude. "You two. Back. Now."
Arthur growled. "Clydos, move."
"You're the King. She's the Queen. That thing—whatever it is—it'll kill royalty last. That's protocol."
Marella barked a bitter laugh. "I hate protocol."
"You'll hate dying more."
Clydos turned to his troops. "Form up!"
Seventeen warriors. Seventeen spears of defiance. You could practically hear the slow-motion trailer music building behind them.
They charged.
For about thirty seconds, they made it look good. Sparks flew. Tridents clashed. Energy rippled through the water.
Then it went sideways.
The creature moved like a nightmare in a ballet class—graceful, unstoppable, utterly terrifying. It twisted through attacks, cracked armor like lobster shells, and threw warriors aside like they were bad sushi.
Clydos held his ground. Roared a war cry so loud it shook the trench. Speared the thing through the ribs.
For a second, it looked like he'd done it.
Then the creature grabbed him. Lifted him. And pulled.
Just—pulled.
Arthur turned away. Marella swore violently in three languages.
"Now," she said.
They ran.
Tunnels blurred past. Pressure vents hissed. The mounts screamed beneath them, propelling forward with tail-whips of pure panic. The creature didn't follow—not yet.
Instead, it turned.
Upward.
Toward the surface.
Toward the world.
—
Miles away. Surface breach. Calm waters. Cold silence.
Arthur and Marella gasped in air. Steam rose from their armor. The sky looked normal, which was frankly insulting.
They drifted in silence until Marella spoke, her voice low. "We lost them."
Arthur didn't answer.
She reached over. Squeezed his shoulder. "Talk to me."
He looked up at the sky, jaw clenched tight. "We just watched a LexCorp sub get popped like a zit. Then seventeen of our best went down in under a minute. And that thing? It didn't even try."
Marella nodded slowly. "So what's the play?"
Arthur exhaled. "We call the League."
A beat of silence.
"You know they're going to blame you, right?"
"Oh, I hope they do," Arthur said, voice like a wave hitting granite. "Because I'm in the mood to ruin someone's day."
---
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