Avenger Assembled

"Well, you are a dancer, so that makes sense," said Judy with a nod, not sounding at all surprised at her friend's words. Ashley swallowed back a chuckle at her sister's comment, not wanting to get into what could potentially be a long conversation in front of Corinne."Lots of people at Claremont are like that." Judy, Corinne had been able to pick up on, was decidedly not like that - and it had sometimes been an obstacle for her making friends. They drove around the city for a while, Ashley occasionally cursing when traffic or a wrong turn lengthened their journey, but soon they were pulling up behind the venue for the concert Corinne had picked out. Ashley finding them a decent parking space in the middle of the small lot.

That provoked another reaction from the Claremont faculty, and Ben had the distinct impression the headmistress was watching him - an impressive bit of body language given that he hadn't been able to hear anything from that side of the room (or in fact any other sides of the room.) "Small male" Aquaria croaked firmly, her voice perhaps a trifle louder. "You asked if I had eaten anything that could talk. To Deep Ones, everything that swims in Hydra's sea can talk. Every fish, every crab, every beast that lies below. Even dolphins can talk, and they do not say the things they say in the stories you tell. All the things that the people of the Surface kill in their millions can speak." She took a breath, her throat swelling and deflating, and said, "I was not here when my people attacked your city, but I know what happened. It was seen with eyes, and heard with ears. I have told why it happened." "But it will happen again?" pressed Dalekos, raising his voice from the back, who for his part seemed to fully approve of Ben's question. "If there is another Lemurian incursion here, then Deep Ones will kill and eat the innocent civilians of the Surface?" "...no," croaked Aquaria, obviously profoundly ill-at-ease with the question, over the murmur of voices in the back. "Because if there is another attack, they will be stopped, because I know their ways, and I know how to send them elsewhere. Deep Ones do not attack the Surface because they are evil, they do it for reasons, and it is knowing those that will make things better."

The Sea Devil paused, evidently considering this question carefully. "The Golden Sign is a mark of great power," she finally said, emphasizing the description with great care. She sniffed in the boy's direction, trying to get a feel for him as she listened to his voice. "It is not something you should touch. If you see it," she went on seriously, in a tone that sounded a bit like a parent speaking to a child about guns, "You should tell an adult who has power, so they can decide what to do. You can also tell me," she added, "I will be happy to help. There are Surfacers who speak Lemurian, but it can be unhealthy for them," she went on. "The sounds are very powerful and it can hurt their brains. Reading it is better but sometimes even then it can be bad."

"It is hard!" croaked Aquaria with great force. "It took me a long time to learn. I have to close my throat when I talk, and use my face in strange ways, and sometimes I forget and make sounds like brekekekèx-koàx-koáx when I am trying to speak your words. It ifeels bad but I am used to it. Lemurian as I learned it sounds like this - " she opened her mouth, planted her two feet, and began to sing in a low, bass rumble that did indeed resonate deep into the subsonic and infrasonic. All told, it sounded something like this: Hello! This is my Lemurian, it has my favorite soundings. (The room's subtitler kept up with the shift to the black tongue of Deep Ones - evidently Crimson Spoke really _could_ speak all languages!) Down in the subsonics, even the infrasonics, the proud defiance in the words came through, the tone of a flag planted and a voice crying "here I am, world!") When Aquaria was done with her singing, she took another drink from her now-almost empty jug and said, "People ask about my tongue. It is in the front of my mouth and not the back, see?" She opened her mouth wide to point to where indeed it was suspended in the reverse of the usual way. "That made learning the words hard. But it means I can do this!" She reached into her armor and pulled out a bizarrely out-of-place object - a wet, silvery fish about as big as a human hand. Without another word, she tossed it in the air, leaped slightly - and caught the fish with the tongue that erupted from her face like a fifth digit - a long, muscular limb that caught the fish and pulled it back down into her mouth with a single gulp. She chewed, noisy crunches, swallowed, and made a gesture with her hands as if to say "Ta-da!"

"Because they could...think," croaked Aquaria automatically, taken briefly off-guard by the question. "From ancient times, Atlanteans have heard our songs and called us killers, and thieves, and monsters, and killed us in their sport. Lost Lemuria was the land of the gods that made us, its people blessed by Dagon and Hydra. We sided with our kin and our gods against our enemies, just as all things do." She assumed a facial expression like a frown. "Even now, Atlantis grows fat in the best places Below while we hunger in the worst. I am sure you are one of the good ones, but if I came to the place where your people live, I would be killed." "Ms. Innsmouth?" General Dalekos had actually raised his hand for the question - and with some reluctance, Aquaria pointed at him. "Thank you. Dalekos of the Atlantean Defense Force. Tell me, if you would be so kind - what would happen if an Atlantean, such as myself, or like Mr. Stylanios, came to the place where your people live? Wouldn't we also be killed out of hand - and then have our bodies eaten afterwards?" Aquaria was silent at that, staring at the Atlantean man, her throat bulging and deflating noticeably, before she croaked, "The only time that has ever happened to me, the Atlanteans came to kill our adults and burn our eggs. I never saw the place where I was hatched again."

There was a brief stir from the Claremont faculty bench at that, but it didn't seem to bother the Sea Devil at all. "That is a very good question!" croaked Aquaria without hesitation. This was evidently a question she had been asked before. "Deep Ones only eat meat." She opened her mouth wide, very wide, impossibly wide, to reveal rows of jagged, serrated teeth, then closed her mouth again. "My teeth are only for biting - your teeth are for crunching and crushing." She spread her long limbs, gesturing with three-fingered hands. "I only eat things that are not meat when I need to vomit." She hesitated, hand where the chin of a Surfacer would have been, then went on - they probably did not want to hear about her vomiting - few Surfacers did! "Our food speaks to us all the time, because Hydra lets us hear the things that live Below." She tapped the side of her head. "And there is the other thing." She hesitated, taking a deep breath that made her throat swell and close, then said, "We believe that the souls of the dead are contained within their flesh, and by eating them, we free their souls and keep a piece of them within us. We do this to honor the mighty dead, and remember those that are gone. I..have done this, and I hope it will be done for me if I die. But the people who live on the Surface, and also the Atlanteans, do not believe this, so it is wrong to eat them, even when they are already dead."

"Yes!" Aquaria croaked animatedly - this was evidently a question she'd come prepared for. "Let me sing you the song of my people!" She took a deep breath, swelling her throat, and began to tell her story: "In ancient days, Dagon and Hydra looked upon the world and saw it nearly lost. So they reached out and took some of the beings of the world. They took them below and brought them to understanding. They gave them their power, and their glory, and so made them Deep Ones - with their eye, their hand, their skin, and their power." She croaked at that, then went on, "But the Deep Ones were born in the midst of a great war between Lemuria and Atlantis - Lemuria knew the gods but had become weak, and Atlantis was..." She croaked again, distinctly fixed her eyes on the Atlanteans in the audience, then went on, "brek-kek-, coax-coax, Atlantis had...lost its way." She took another drink from her jug and went on. "Then came the Great Change, when the gods tired of the weakness of Lemuria and the sin of Atlantis. So they pulled them below, hoping to give them their might down under the sea." She inflated her throat in a noise like a great sigh, then said, "Things have been bad since then. Lemuria is lost, and many of our people scattered. Even in our great cities, there is not much food, and there is no safe harbor. Our enemies destroy us whenever they can, and many of us fight to die because there is nothing better. That is why I came here. Because I wanted there to be something better."

Nice. I'll text you that time - maybe not tomorrow, but soon. You're the most fun I've had in a LONG time. A crazy face - and then a blown kiss. Later. Ashley hung up the phone, made sure it was turned all the way off, then leaned against the glass of the bathroom mirror. "Well goddamnit." She was smiling anyway, though.

You're sweet. Ashley realized, standing in the privacy of her shared bathroom, that she was grinning. It had been a long time since she'd been complimented on her body by someone who meant it, wasn't immediately trying to get her into bed, and was actually a full-grown adult. Maybe I can show you how I use it next time you're on Earth. Oh Jesus what if she beams down in her underwear Ashley took a moment to reassure herself that was very unlikely, because who ever heard of anyone getting weird and clingy over the Internet? Dammit! Just let yourself have something good, one time! She leaned against the counter and texted I want to do this again, but I have to go. When are you free next?

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A few more minutes went by, giving other students a chance to make their arrivals - though nobody was quite as spectacular as Octoman. With snacks provided and seats taken, everyone was at some variety of ease when Headmistress Summers took to the stage and the lights in the room dimmed considerably. "Good evening," she said, in a low, quiet voice that nonetheless demanded attention. "I'm glad to see so many of you here - students, parents, and friends of Claremont alike. The Ambassador Program was created so that Claremont students have an opportunity to meet people they wouldn't otherwise encounter - to make sure that your educations are as complete as we can make them. Our guest tonight is the heroine known as Sea Devil - Aquaria Innsmouth, or Ackweera in her own language. A graduate of Project Freedom, she has earned the trust of the heroic community and many people in Freedom City. Without further ado..." She stepped back as the door behind the stage opened, and an unlikely figure walked out. Clad in opalescent armor that glittered oddly in the dark room, the figure walked out into the middle of the room and tapped the side of its helmet with a three-fingered hand. The face inside was - well, like a monster. Aquaria was perhaps more frog than fish compared to what the Claremont students had seen in their textbooks, but she was clearly not human - staring at them with huge black and gold eyes that goggled further apart than a human's would be. Her green and white skin glistened wetly, marked all over by blue arcane tattoos of a squamous sort. She exhaled, a noise like a seal snorting, and then spoke with a voice like booming bass, from a mouth wide enough to swallow a human head and with a flash of serrated teeth sharp enough to bite one off- "HELLO!" she croaked. "I AM" She caught a look, then modulated the deep croaking rumble of what must be a very impressive voice. "Aquaria! It is nice to see many beings here!" She turned her upper body and eyed the Atlanteans in the room, giving another great sniff, before she spoke again, her voice slow and throbbing as she picked out the words of an unfamiliar language. "I am what you call a Deep One. I am here to tell you that we are not your enemies! We are born like you, and we die like you, and we want our -children to be happy like you." Well, sort of, she thought. She stopped and opened the jug of water on the stage and raised it in the air - some she poured into her mouth, other parts she let splash on her face. She had a distinct but not necessarily unpleasant order - smelling distinctly of fish. "I have a dog! He is my friend's dog, but he is also my dog! I like to feed him meat and take him for walks. I am different than you but I am not very different from you - just as you are different from each other ." At least, that was what she assumed. She went on, throat sacs notably bloating as she made points. "Many Deep Ones have done bad things. I am sorry for what my people have done to your city. But Deep Ones are not monsters. We are not your enemies because of who we are. Some are your enemies because of what has happened. But we can make new things happen, to make things better. Does anyone have any questions? They told me to ask you questions so that I do not monopolize the evening." She laughed, throat throbbing again. "I thought that was just a game, but it means something else! Your language is funny!" Aquaria's accent was decidedly odd, her loud, croaking speech unfamiliar to human ears - and some in the audience didn't have those! Just before she'd begun speaking, one of the big display monitors on the display had come alive and begun displaying her words in big white letters, albeit with a slight delay - sharp-eyed students could see Crimson Spoke, the tech savant student from France, typing away on one of the keyboards built into the room as he provided Aquaria's translation.

As it turned out, there wasn't much to see in either direction. A quick trip by car or foot could tell the heroes that the churches threatened by the monster were all still intact; thankfully none of them occupied during the storm. There wasn't much they could do without breaking through barred-up windows or boarded-up doors, but they were able to find historical plaques nearby that said that there'd been churches on these sites (though not in the same building) for over a century. Whatever that monster had been, it had targeted some of the oldest holy sites in Vibora Bay. As for heading into the swamp, superpowers made flooded roads and streets passable - but also made clear the devastation wrought by the creature's wake. Maybe it had stuck to the middle of a fairly large road (the only reason it hadn't done truly apocalyptic damage to the city in its wake) but the smashed cars and overpasses as it went showed the human cost of its rampage. There were wounded here, and dead, the former shocked to find Vibora Bay turned out to have a lot more heroes than anybody was expecting. Without the ability to offer significant aid, and with real metahumans in his company, Woodsman pressed on to the bridge where it had all begun. All he'd seen was still there - the smashed cars, the dead cops, the blood and the carnage - and a new body. The new corpse was laying on his back in the middle of the road, still warm enough that Riley's infravision had just about been able to spot him. Big dark eyes gazed sightlessly up at the black sky overhead, a tufted beard over an open-collared shirt that couldn't quite hide the bone-deep slit in his neck. The note pinned to his chest hadn't run in the rain - not yet, anyway. YOUR ENEMY IS DEAD. "What - what the hell?" growled Woodsman.

"Ah promise Ah won't tattle," whispered Judy with a smile. "Ah'm not such a goody-two-shoes as everybody thinks, anyway. Ashley, um, sneaks out at night too sometimes, and Ah don't tattle on her either." She folded her hands before her and admitted, "Ah don't know anything about magic, so Ah'm sorry if witch is a bad word. Normally it's what you use to avoid bad words." She turned her head as Ashley stirred in her sleep, the older teen swiping at the air for a moment. "Don't, um, don't worry about that. She gets these dreams, sometimes, it's okay." Judy fiddled for a moment with the gold cross around her neck, then said, "Ah never really meant anybody who does magic. Ah met that one boy who had demon powers, but he doesn't like to talk to me, Ah think."

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So if I have the timeline right, he went from 1965 to the present?

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That's smart thinking. Problem here is that lots aren't stopped by hand weapons. She wasn't sure how much the other woman knew about Earth, so she went on - Energy weapons cost $$$$$ - and some people here can take anything up to one of our nukes without flinching. So you have to figure out smart plays. She thought for a minute more, then said BRB. A few more minutes of silence - and then a picture came through - Fa'Rua couldn't make out the face of the woman in the image - she'd taken it in front of a fairly crude reflective surface in what was maybe a bathroom, with her back to the camera she was holding over her left shoulder. But she could see shoulder-length black hair dyed pink at the tips, a white shirt that showed off the kind of upper body development that you wanted to take with you into a good bar brawl, and a right arm flexed to show the muscle. A moment or two later. If we're gonna talk 'guns', I owe you a picture. That's Earth slang for muscles, by the way. ?

We're actually in our bedroom - she's a little too young to work. Where I'm studying for a test in high school calculus, because I am a goddamned lunatic who makes stupid decisions. Why don't you tell the cute spacewoman you're not even sure you like girls that way. That'll make you lots of friends. I had a lot of anger when I was younger, about a lot of things. Learning martial arts let me use it for something. And it's honestly pretty fun. So do they teach you anything like that in the scout service? You look like you could lay somebody out.

Prince Telemachus shot Heroditus a wide-eyed look "N-no," he said, his voice soft. "P-please stand up." He looked at Dalekos, who had adopted a deferential posture but was decidedly not kneeling in his presence, and said, "General, I'm g-going to be returning to my s-seat now. I will ss-summon you if needed." He said it in a tone that suggested he would sooner gargle with leeches. "Well-met, C-citizen Stylanios," he added politely to Heroditus before he did just that. "His majesty prefers the role of observer to debater," said Dalekos politely, not commenting on Telemachus's stutter while speaking English. "A wise thing, if you ask me. Well, I won't keep you from your chums, Stylanios, go and take your place." He smiled, folding his hands before him. "It should be an interesting show."

"Ah, young Heroditus," said Dalekos with a smile. "I knew a smart boy like you wouldn't stay away from an event like this." He patted the chair next to him, looking surprisingly at ease with conditions on the surface. "Would you care to join me here in the adult section? You might find yourself appreciating Atlantean company once the guest of honor begins her...talk." Summers' signs to Nick were slow enough that he could tell she wasn't quite fluent - but she was certainly far better than the average hearing person, and ahead of even many of his students. Good to see you. Do you want a snack? The snacks were all of the sort that could be eaten quietly - cookies and hors d'oeuvres. On the room's stage stood a gallon-sized plastic jug of water.

"Excellent. I'm very glad to hear that, Heroditus," said Marquez after a time. "I will keep what you have told me here under the veil of confidentiality between therapist and student, and suggest to Headmistress Summers that you be allowed to attend The Sea Devil's talk. There is one thing I would...suggest," he said frankly. "I do not believe that Ms. Innsmouth believes that her condition is in need of 'curing', and it would be...discourteous of our school to allow any of our guests to feel attacked here. Do you understand?"

https://www.freedomplaybypost.com/topic/12522-dagon-the-king-ic/ - of possible interest!