Aquaria Watches The News

[Avenger Assembled]

So it was done, and good for him - the Freedom League had another Atlantean member, continuing an honored tradition that went past longer than the lifespan of your typical Surfacer. (Or Atlantean, for that matter.)  

 

Aquaria turned off the television and hopped over to climb into her armor, telling her roommate she was going for a scuttle.

 

So Sea Devil left Singularity to her work, a painting of a primal scream that Jessie had been dueling with for some time, and hopped outside to the roof, clinging to the outside of the DuChamps castle as the freezing rain poured down on her green and white skin. (It was cold, but she'd felt colder in her time, down in the abyssal depths.) 

 

He's up there with them, and not us. 

 

She clutched her trident in a three-fingered hand as lightning boomed around her, pondering her feelings as her therapist had warned her would be a problem. She knew Singularity had little interest in public work as a superhero; now that her time with Project Freedom was up, like her warrior sister, she had settled down to home and work and family. She had no interest in being on the Freedom League.  

 

No, us, wasn't the right word. 

 

He's up there instead of me. 

 

So many years on the Surface - in the Hell Above, as her people called it. Visiting their temples, saving the weak among them from monsters, fighting her own people in their name - 

 

And here she was, watching an Atlantean take honored place among them. She could hardly fault them; she knew Artificer and his sister, and knew that they were both among the ranks of good ones among the sons and daughters of whore Posiedon and blasphemous Amphitrite, names that even to think made her stomach church with righteous fury, 

 

But the thought came again. 

 

It should be me up there. 

 

She remembered a conversation, many years ago, with the Surfaceman whose transformation by Deep One blood had led to her making the journey to the Surface, what felt like a lifetime ago. 

 

Deep Ones are taught to reach out with their hand and take what they want - 

 

She detached her left forelimb's grip from where she held onto the castle's side, and held it out to the sky above. What do you want? It was a question that had been asked of her many times over the years, in many tones and by many people. 

 

She closed her fist and saw the vision that had haunted her across so many dreams since she'd come here - the sea, roaring in its joy, flooding the streets below, window glass shattering, the screams of Surfacemen giving way to the ululations of joy of the transformed throats below as Hydra's tentacles - 

 

No. No, I don't want that either. I love too many people here. 

 

She dismissed the thought, even as it made her heart pound wildly in her muscular chest, her trident writhing encouragingly in her grip like a puppy. Hydra wanted to grip - as ever. Reach out with your hand, and take what you want. 

 

She took the trident and held it between her teeth, as she would a squirming young spawn, until it was calm. 

 

I want respect. I want them to know me for what I am. All of them. Not just here, but everywhere else. I am Aquaria Innsmouth! I have taken what I want and I have a place! I have a home! When I call in a voice to ripple the sea of stars - I want them to call back! I want - 

 

She sighed softly; in the sense that the throb wasn't actually audible through the glass windows. 

 

I want.  And a Deep One reaches out her hand - and she takes what she wants.