Young Justice: Poseidonis
August 27th, 2010
I really wasn’t sure what this whole giant ice cube thing was about, but if Black Manta had decided to stage an attack on an entire city to get it, then it was probably important, valuable, or dangerous. Whichever was the case, it was probably best he didn’t succeed in obtaining it. The man was a terrorist with a strong dislike for Atlantis, a Kingdom I currently had a vested interest in supporting. How else was I supposed to learn their magic?
Unfortunately the grunt I’d interrogated knew basically nothing useful. Black Manta ran a tight ship and made sure to compartmentalize important information. I’d actually gotten lucky with the man I’d chosen to interrogate. He only knew about the target of the attack because he’d overheard something from a higher-ranked grunt who was organizing transportation for the object in question.
I returned to the cluster of damaged buildings to find that most of the civilians had been herded into cover, the killed and wounded moved somewhere out of the way, and the handful of remaining guards vigilantly watching the waters with their bidents and other weapons held close at hand.
I waved as I approached and the guard––the same one who I’d spoken with earlier––saluted me. “The reinforcements are all taken care of,” I told her as I approached, and she sighed in relief, bubbles rising up from her mouth.
“That’s good to hear. Thank you, sir.”
I smiled at her tightly. “Good work getting people to safety. I don’t sense anyone else inside.” My revealing spell had mostly faded by now, but some awareness of the people I’d initially detected remained on the edge of my mind. Blue mana was very good at augmenting that sort of magic, I’d found. Too good, even, in some cases. My one and only time trying to use a supersensory charm with a mote of blue mana in it had left me with a raging headache that neither occlumency nor muggle medicine could abate.
She nodded sharply. “Just doing our jobs. It’s good to know we didn’t miss anyone. Thank you for the confirmation.”
“I’m just glad I was here in time to help.”
She clapped a hand against her chest. “We certainly appreciate it. My men and I won’t forget what you’ve done for us today.”
Something clicked inside me and I felt a new blueprint lock into place, but I didn’t have time to consider it right now, nor the implications of how I’d gotten it. “Right. Well, the attack isn’t over yet. The men I incapacitated are that way, about two-hundred yards between two buildings. They’re encased in stone and unconscious, but otherwise unhurt. You’ll probably want someone to move them to prison or whatever later. I interrogated one of them and it looks like their goal is the Science Center. Some kind of big hunk of ice they’re researching? I’m going to go see if I can help over there.”
“Understood. Do what you need to do, sir. I’ll pass the information along to my superiors.”
“Good. Then I’ll be off. Farewell.”
And then I swam off towards where I could feel Zatanna. She was next to one of the damaged buildings, using her logomancy to repair a damaged column that looked like it might give way at any moment.
“Zee,” I called out as I approached, not wanting to startle her right now.
She turned around. “Hydrys! Did you get them?”
“All taken care of, and I found their real target. They’re trying to steal some kind of ice block from the Science Center. I’m going to go try and help.”
“I’m coming with you,” she told me immediately, but this time I was much less willing to budge.
I shook my head. “They need you here, Zee. There’s like a half-dozen guards left and ten times that many people to protect. What will happen if more of Black Manta’s men show up and neither of us is around? They’ll get massacred.” It was mostly an excuse to keep her from coming with me. Zee was a powerful witch, but her magic was slower than mine and she still needed a lot more practice before I was willing to see her risk her life in a fight.
Zatanna cared about people. A lot more than I did, certainly. As long as I pitched things as helping people and not leaving her behind because I wanted to coddle her, she’d maybe understand.
Zatanna squeezed her eyes shut and I pounced. “Please, Zee. I’d feel a lot better leaving if I knew someone was here to take care of these people. They need a hero right now, and you’re the best option they have.”
“I don’t want you to go off alone,” Zatanna said softly. “What if you get hurt?”
“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “Whatever happens, I’m pretty sure I can at least get away. My shield is really good against those weapons they’re using, and I can always apparate or portkey away if I get in over my head.”
Zatanna swam forward and hugged me tightly. “If you get hurt, I’ll never forgive you, or myself.”
“Then I better not get hurt. Sounds easy enough.”
“Fine. Go, I’ll stay here.” She turned away and I just barely heard her final words, barely more than a whisper amplified by the charms on her rings. “I guess that’s something I should start getting used to.”
I pursed my lips. That…was not ideal. Then I sighed. “I’ll be back soon, Zee. I still owe you a round from this morning and there’s no way some stupid criminals will keep me from paying you back.”
Zatanna laughed and I smiled. Hopefully that was one issue at least moderately averted. Now on to saving the giant ice cube. I twisted and vanished, reappearing a moment later inside my dorm room. A flick of my wand summoned my broom and then I was off, racing out of the dorm and towards the distant dome of the Science Center.
I’d never been inside the building, but we’d passed it during the tour that Garth and Tula had given Zatanna and I. It was in the same general part of the city as the Conservatory, but on the far end of the district. Swimming manually, it would have taken me twenty minutes to get there. With hydromancy, I could probably cut that down to four or five minutes, but I’d arrive rather exhausted and in no shape to fight. With my seventh-generation underwater broom? I made the trip in three, zooming through the water like a torpedo.
I arrived to find a black submarine floating over the top of the science center, a large hole melted into the great glass dome that separated the top section of the building from the surrounding waters. There were dozens of Atlantean bodies floating through the water around the building, but I saw no other signs of Manta’s men.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
There was something hanging down from the bottom of the manta-ray shaped vehicle, a cable leading down through the hole and into the Science Center. How big was this ice cube anyway? Were they planning to haul it away like a carriage hanging from the claws of a dragon?
I swam towards the dome, intent on assessing the situation at hand before getting involved, when suddenly the inside of the dome was illuminated by orange light. My eyes widened and I slashed my wand through the air on instinct alone. “Protego horribilis!”
The spherical shield, barely big enough to fit me and my broom, snapped into place in the nick of time. A powerful shockwave slammed into the shield, sending it and me careening through the water wildly. The remaining glass covering the half-melted dome shattered, sending spinning chunks of razor-sharp debris flying in all directions.
The stabilizing charms on my broom steadied us before we could fly too far, and I watched as a black-armored figure wearing an oversized helmet shot up from the dome and swam rapidly towards the submarine.
Had they already retrieved the ice block and stored it away inside the sub? Had something gone wrong? What was that explosion?
A concealed door on the submarine opened and the man vanished through it. That helmet wasn’t like what the other men had been wearing, marking whoever that was as someone special. Perhaps even Black Manta himself. Letting him and whoever, or whatever, else was in that submarine get away seemed like a bad idea.
Single-handedly capturing the architect of this attack…now that sounded like the sort of thing that got a wizard unrestricted access to the really good stuff at the bottom of the Conservatory library.
I smiled. That certainly sounded like a fabulous idea to me.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really know too much magic that would help me out right now. A volley of bombardment spells or exploding charms would probably disable the ship, but neither spell worked underwater. It was too big to transfigure and I doubted any barricade I could conjure or create would be large enough to stop it either.
There was however one spell that would probably do the trick. One spell I’d been working on a lot in the past two months. One spell that was actually easier to work with underwater.
Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea. Perhaps it wasn’t the safest idea. Perhaps it would be better to try and come up with another plan. But it was a plan and it certainly seemed like a good way to cement my standing as a powerful wizard and valuable ally.
I took a deep breath. When the Atlanteans thought of pyromancy, they thought of spells that controlled heat. After all, fire could not burn in the depths of the sea, right? Well. Most fires couldn’t.
When I thought of pyromancy, I thought of just one spell. I extended the tip of my wand out through the dome of my shield. Protego horribilis was very useful because it was selectively permeable to magic. With focus, it could let your spells through, but stop the spells of others. Very, very useful in a duel or battle.
Sometimes though, it was better to avoid accidentally damaging your best protective spell. “Pestis Incendium,” I declared gleefully. It was so rare that a good opportunity to use a spell like this arose.
A scarlet droplet bloomed from the tip of my wand, then another, and another. I swiftly withdrew my wand and narrowed my eyes, my mind utterly focused on the nascent flames. Between one moment and the next, three drops became six, then twelve, then twenty four, and then they were no longer droplets at all but tiny sparks of flame rapidly swelling as they burned the water and magic around them for sustenance.
I fed more magic into the spell, both accelerating its growth and binding it more closely to me at the same time. That was one of the things you really had to be careful about with fiendfyre. You had to balance how much it fed and how much control you had over it. If it slipped for even an instant, you could be dead and reduced to nothing but more fuel before you had a chance to flee or regain control.
The cursed flames writhed and grew. In a handful of seconds, they went from a few drops to a roaring firestorm, the bodies and faces of magical creatures lurking in the depths of the fire. I pointed my wand at the submarine and gave the flames a single command, the only one they truly understood.
“Burn,” I whispered softly, and the fiendfyre jumped to obey.
Before my spark ignited, I never would have dared to use fiendfyre like this. Even now, I was slightly leary of the spell and I certainly would never fuel it with mana if I had a choice. It was simply too dangerous to everyone to use on a whim.
However, since I’d become a planeswalker, my control over my own magic had grown by leaps and bounds. Plus, while fiendfyre could burn water, it was far worse at doing so than burning most other things. Even if my control slipped, the flames wouldn’t go fully out of control and would eventually be smothered by the cold, dark waters.
Furthermore, Mera was here somewhere––a witch who I was fully confident could extinguish any blaze I could create even if I was unable to manage the feat myself. I’d tested it already and hydromancy absolutely could be used to extinguish the flames, though I’d only experimented with a tiny amount of the cursed fire, nothing like the storm I was using now.
The fiendfyre raced through the water, leaving clouds of steam and an empty vacuum of burnt nothingness in its wake as it consumed everything in its path. Water rushed in to replace what had been burned away, but my shield and ring protected me from the sudden currents and pressure.
It swelled as it moved, transforming from a loose cloud of white-hot flames into a roaring dragon soaring through the ocean. Then it reached the submarine and fell upon it with a vengeance. It wrapped around the submarine and began to burn it from the outside in, stripping away the armored plating and everything else it touched.
Through it all, I kept my mind firm and my control utter. I burnt away the surface of the submarine and nothing more, leaving the people and cargo inside undamaged. As soon as I was sure that the vehicle wouldn’t be going anywhere, I forced my fiendfyre back, crushing its every effort to break free and creating a cage around the remains of the submarine.
Several of Black Manta’s men poured out from the submarine and tried to escape from the cage, but their attempts were utterly futile. Their weapons had no effect on the flames and the gaps between the bars were too small to swim through. The one man who tried anyway was consumed in an instant, reducing his body to ashes and then not even that. The fiendfyre’s nascent will crashed against mine, the flames hungry for more, more, more, but I would not give in. I would not be bested by my own magic.
Eventually, Aqualad and Garth arrived, both dressed in the same armor as Black Manta’s men but without the helmets. Soon after, a large force of Atlantean guards arrived, these ones clearly better armed and armored then the usual men I’d seen so far. I created an opening in the fiendfyre cage for them, and they swiftly entered the submarine and began carrying out prisoners.
Last to emerge was Black Manta himself, the man I’d seen with the weird helmet earlier. He was bound hand and foot by cords of silvery water and flanked by four soldiers.
Aqualad swam over to me. “It is done. You may release your spell now.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. My mind ached from the strain of controlling fiendfyre for so long, but I would not be denied. Bar by bar, flame by flame, the fiendfyre flickered and died. The last flames were the hardest to dispel, the ones most fed on life and magic to extinguish without a fight.
I raised my hand, the one without a wand in it, and squeezed it shut. The water around the remaining flames mimicked my action, hydromantically enhanced water snuffing out the final embers.
I released a huge breath of air and sagged. Maybe fiendfyre hadn’t been the ideal tool here. That had been…a lot longer than I’d been expecting to need to control the flames. I was…very tired. Very, very tired.
Well. At least I knew I could do it now? That had been…how long? Minutes. Many minutes? I wasn’t really sure. But it had been a lot longer than any of my previous experiments with the cursed flames, that was for certain.
Eighteen years old and more proficient with fiendfyre than any wizard five times my age should be. Damn I was good.
Damn I needed a nap. Like, right now.