1942 part 10

Diana stood on the deck of the Sea Tiger watching the squadron winged reptiles emerge from the towering citadel. Her god-given hunters eye spied how their riders were armed with what the Amazon recognised as Atlantean weaponry. Across the waves she watched as the Annunki's legendary vessel the Kraken slipped beneath the waves, descending into the deep blue. Diana was in no doubt that both this aerial and naval force were allies, and both were coming against the Sea Tiger. Staring upwards Wonder Woman sights Superman. The Man of Tomorrow fights on against the Lizard Luthor. The Chimera appearing more dinosaur than man, kin to these creatures from prehistory. His body crackled with magical energy as the two men wrestled. Great red arcs of power sparked from the reptilian's Blood Stone heart, as if the hybrid man-beast were a flying Tesla-coil.

A creature of power great enough to fight face to face the Man of Steel.

Taking a tactical decision Diana took to the air, charging at the coming airborne force. Wonder Woman felt the wind under her invisible wings as she soared towards the cavalry of Pterosaurs Knights above. Ever vigilant and using her god-mother Athena's gift of strategy the Warrior Princess calculated her options. This was to be a three dimensional battle fought above and below the waves. Kal was occupied. The air was all hers. Diana sighed. Destiny was the business of the fates. The Sea King, Aquaman, must stand with the Sea Tiger and her crew, together against the Typhon and their Kraken.

As Wonder Woman dove toward the flying horde the Anunnki submersible resurfaces beside the American boat sending waves of white water explosively washing off its polished body. Turning as she surfaces the Kraken presents its rounded rear, which strangely glows purple. Then creeping from this domed structure stretch tendrils of purple mist glowing with light. In all becoming very much like the arms of the deeps great gigantic squid. These great tentacles reach out to catch hold of the Sea Tiger.

On the deck of the American Submarine the Sea Tiger's bow gun emerges from an unfolding hatch in the smooth hull. The cannon turns remotely to face the coming attack. Diana Prince as a lieutenant in Military Intelligence, understood that shells were delivered to the barrel by an autonomous system designed by Crane and Worthington. The gun snaps, recoiling against sprung mounts as bright loud explosive projectiles shoot into the path of the enemy. However it's not enough to halt the Kraken. Its plasma like tentacles intercept the volley, and in a series of flashes the America shells burst against the strange tendrils. Tearing the purple tentacles apart, only for them to reform once again from the scattered purple mist.

Closer still the Kraken's arms come. A tentacle of energy wraps itself around the still firing bow gun. The very metal of the cannon begins glow hot at its touch. The purple pink plasma warps the barrels shape. Molten metal drips onto the deck, blistering the unique high tensile aluminium plastic. Others tendrils begin encircling the stricken boat, and then like so many other ships over the years the Sea Tiger is dragged towards the ancient craft as an octopus might draw its prey to mouth. The body of the Kraken cracks open, two halves of the armoured hull slides open to reveal a fortress like construction within, bristling with guns manned by hooded robed figures, as others of their brotherhood mass, ready to board the captured submarine and plunder her.

Aquaman seizes this moment, and as the belly of the beast opens, as it's secret is revealed, the Sea King drives through and around the purple tendrils, an angry warrior rising from froth of the waves. Aquaman darts and dives through the thrashing tendrils, all the while fighting the purple haze, yet this mist has both substance and power. A tentacle strikes lucky, and slams the swimmer deep into the sea. Aquaman catches his breath, and comes back once more.

Aboard the Sea Tiger, its Captain makes a last desperate decision. Diana imagines Sherman giving the command. She sees torpedoes entering the water. These are like the Sea Tiger herself, unique weapons. Robert Crane and Charles Grayson had outfitted these blunt instruments with an automated control system, and with robotic efficiency the torpedoes now alter course on the fly. Twisting through the boiling water, churned by the Kraken's extend purple plasma tentacles, some of the Sea Tiger's torpedoes are caught and explode, blasting apart the purple tendrils to mist. Yet these allow thos following to find their target. The Kraken is rocked by the American weapons. Water is sent flying outwards and upwards. Robed figures on deck tumble and shout, falling as the Kracken is shaken. Smoke begins to rise from the newly exposed interior complex. As the Anunnki Vessel is shaken by the explosions around her Aquaman makes his move. The Sea King punches through the broken tentacles, shaken to a mist. Diana watches the golden green swimmer leaping from the water. He lands on the gilded deck of the pirate vessel.

Wonder Woman can only glance furtively at the Sea Tiger. She must struggle on alone. Diana concentrates on her own problems, and they are multitude. Her bracelets dance, meeting the onslaught from the weapons of old Atlantis. The Venturian spears only resemble the archetypical bronze age lance. They far more than a simple edged blade. Diana's only visible confirmation of this hidden potency is the briefest of flash of light from each polished tip. Energy surges forth like lightening. Energy that flashes from these luminescent spears, snaking towards her like jagged serpents. Wonder Woman feels their power even through the adamant of her god forged vambraces. It is a bite, she knows, that should it find meat and bone, would be both viscous and deadly. It does not, all her skill – the focus of Amazon training amplified by Hermes speed, directs the reforged metal of Zeus's Aegis. Wonder Woman's bracelets do more that deflect the attack away. Diana reflects the Venturians' weapons back against them. She adjusts her wrists so the onslaught snakes back, snapping into the path of her mounted attackers.

The pterosaurs are wise enough to recognise the danger the barbed beams represent. The great winged reptiles stall, fall, swoop and scatter. The first charge falters before the Princesses of Themyscira.

"Queen Clea!" Diana hears the words called out. "She rides the air currents on invisible wings and deflects our lightening as one blessed by Zeus himself." A leading warrior shouts to the brightly gilded warrior, their commander.

Diana sees Clea. The Venturian Monarch is dressed for war, she rides her own Pterosaur, while directing her soldiers from the saddle. Her shouted commands echo on the wind. Voice given to followers. Clea points with her spears three barbs at Diana.

"This one has great Magic – but we are older and greater still!" Clea shouts. The face of Venturia's statuesque ruler was contorted first by incandescent rage, then by determination. "Ha-Mazon! For Venturia and for Ares!" Clea cries. "Knights to close quarters."

"Great Hera." Diana gasps. She had guessed as much, but had hoped she was wrong, that the legendary history of the time before the Amazons was wrongly told, but Clea had confirmed it. With her own voice she had spoken the word; Ha-Mazon.

In the Venturian Queen's right hand she bears the Trident of Posideon. In her left the reins of her flying animal. Clea's Warriors do not hesitate to answer her command. Pterosaurs rise and turn, wide fingered skin covered wings beating against the sky, as her minions fall upon Diana. They abandon any attempt to use Atlantean technology to attack the Amazon from afar, instead relying on their weapons more primitive form for function. Like desperate soldiers in the trenches fixing bayonets in place of bullets they stab at Diana with their spears. Wonder Woman becomes a dazzling blur of colours and reflected light as Diana flashes past them. Grabbing the shafts of the incoming blades, fluidly countering and disarming, yanking and dispatching the tall Venturians from their saddles out into the air, and down to sea below.

Diana fights to free herself of the relentless waves of determined flying warriors, jerking away from their reptiles snapping jaws. She sees their leader, Queen Clea flying above the melee, holding forth the now brightly glowing Trident of Posideon. Wonder Woman recognises the tell tale aura of old magic emanating from the ancient object of power.

Diana bites down angry. Knowing that the Venturian Queen was summoning from the ages long past, the old magic.

Desperately Diana fights to push through this aerial Armada, to stop Clea's spell being cast, stop the power that pulses through the gilded Trident being directed.

"Athena!" Diana gasps as she calculates Clea's strategic purpose. Even now as the battle between the Sea Tiger and the much larger Kraken was all but won. As Aquaman tremendous strength was scattering the robed reptilian minions across the deck on the gilded vessel. As they fight Wonder Woman can see the vast waters below being bent to the will of the Tridents wielder.

Diana sees it clearly - Clea means to use the Tridents power of water against them all. Diana sees through the blur of translucent wings, the snapping jaws and stabbing spears, that the Venturian sea is beginning to boil as Clea unleashes the great magic force of Posideon's Trident.

Wonder Woman punches herself free from the swarming Venturian Warriors, only to see Superman and the Lizard Luthor now fall from a sky. Together a fiery pulsating orb of red energy, within this ball of magical fire. To her horror she sees the Chimera has his claws tight around the man of Steel's throat. Together they tumble away towards the coast.

In a heartbeat their advantage over the enemy had been lost.

"Damn the Fates." She spits.

-'S'-

The Vigilante skirted the corridor along which the glowing figure of Cyclotron had led the Automatons carrying the captive Mystery Man – the Mighty Atom. Crouching in the shadows he used the polished barrel of his six shooter as a mirror to glance around the corner, and through the door way. The distorted image revealed a chamber carved into the bedrock of the mountain. There strapped to some apparatus that looked as if it had been borrowed from Doctor Frankenstien's Laboratory by way of Ming the Merciless, evil ruler of Mongo, was the diminutive pugilist. Al Pratt had been relieved of his distinctive cape and cowl, and his face was a mask of pain as electricity or something like it passed through his body, causing him to twitch and strain against the bonds that held him fast to the angled table. Wires lead from his body to an apparatus, where Cyclotron stood. The glowing man was watching the machines array of instruments, Terry Curtis, the jump suited scientist's luminescence shedding an eerie light onto the bank of switches and dials. Large needles flickered and pulsed behind glass accompanying each strangled scream from the Atom's lips. Across from him, between the tortured red haired Atom, and Ultra's man was a long release lever attached to the table. Greg peered around the corner of the doorway he had to be certain. A marksman eye assessed the exposed gears and linkage between the lever and the bindings that held the Atom fast. It was a gamble, but the Vigilante liked the odds, and reaching to his belt he hefted the rope into his hands, loosing the lasso into the air.

Cyclotron turned only as the rope snagged tight around the lever and Greg Saunders stepped out into the light. With one hand the Vigilante held onto the rope coiled around his wrist and arm, with the other he held his gun. Bearing down on the lasso the Vigilante pulled and turned, yanking the lever past the v stop and like a Barber's chair the table hissed up right. At the same time the metal bonds opened releasing Al Pratt just as another surge of power pulsated through him. Cyclotron cursed and intinctively reached out as the table moved, his face registering panic. In that moment the Atom both tensed in pain and slumped unrestrained. The smaller man fell forward against Terry Curtis's outstretched arm, and the power from the Ultra Humanite's improbable machine surged through them both. The Atom and Cyclotron both screamed.

The Vigilante raised his arm to shield his eyes as Cyclotron glowed all the brighter, power seemed to surge back and forth quickly between the men and the strange apparatus, so much so that the light flickered quickly enough to create a strobe effect throughout the cavernous chamber. Sparks rose from towering Tesla coils, crackling like lightening amidst the pulsating forms of the Atom and Cyclotron. Then sparks gave rise to smoke, and a loud bang. The Vigilante saw both men fall. Neither were illuminated any more, and when they hit the stone floor sudden darkness held sway over the vast laboratory chamber.

Greg could hear his own heart beating ever so fast. Adrenaline trumped fear of the unknown, he abandoned the lasso, letting his hand take up the second six shooter from it's holster. Then in the darkness he saw two red lights burning, the adamant Cyclops - the Ultra Humanite robotic henchmen. Their torch like fire pierced the gloom, like searchlights the Automaton's fiery eyes fell upon the glimmering chrome of his lawmakers.

"Come and get it." The Vigilante spat.

-'S'-

From the bridge of the Sea Tiger Captain Sherman falls against the guard rail while trying to keep his eyes on the periscopes view finder. Outside he catches sight of the submarine being parted from the Kraken''s purple tendrils by a wall of water. Suddenly Sherman feels the Sea Tiger lurch once more, but the sensation is like being snatched by an elevator.

Sherman cries out. "All hands brace for impact."

Beside him he hears Steve Trevor curse, and Colonel Darnel whisper a prayer.

To his right Lieutenant Holden hits the klaxon and the emergency is sounded from prow to stern. Sherman steadies himself, his knuckles white as he hangs onto the periscopes twin handles, even as his body is pulled hither and thither, the Navy man manages to keep his eyes pressed to the glass. Sherman watches as the distant land appears suddenly in his field of view, arriving all too quickly. In those desperate seconds the submariner reflects that it was like the sea itself had snatched up his boat and hurled her forward. There was nothing he or his crew could do, but hang on, hope on, and pray the HiTAP hull was strong enough to resist whatever forces were being directed against their submarine.

-'S'-

Diana bursts angrily out of the writhing flock of flying lizards - from the out between the Pterosaurs jaws and their riders flashing lances. Wonder Woman, knows these Warrior Women will follow. These Ha-Mazon were all Warriors – just as her Mother's people were, but rather than Athena's Wisdom, or Hestia's warmth, the embodied the blood lust of Ares, they were a cartoon caricature of the divine feminine, brutal, bloodthirsty, and cruel, they sought her death without mercy, there was no compassion or love, no peace through strength – the Amazon way; only eternal conflict and fear. These giants were determined. She was their quarry.

The hunted was the hunter. Diana was Artemis's daughter.

Wonder Woman speeds forward – she focuses on Clea. The Warrior Queen is using the Trident of Posideon to direct the waters below her in incredible ways.

Wonder Woman can see now she is free of the Ha-Mazon horde, as she rockets towards her nemesis, how Clea makes the sea rise against the Sea Tiger. Yet the same terrifying waves seem to embrace the Kraken protectively – as a babe rocked in a cradle.

Too late Diana realizes that Clea has summoned a vast wave. The Venturian monarch magically controls and aims the saltwater as an extension of her hands. Diana is so close now she can see Clea's glee. The Queens excitement as the waters below obey her beck and call, lifting and carrying the American vessel so high that the sea spray fills the air around them all, Clea and the Venturian Pterosaurs Knights, wet like rain. Wonder Woman has but a split second to decide what she must do. For Diana the choice is between the heat of battle and innocent lives. For an Amazon heart the choice is easy. Wonder Woman dives toward the stricken American boat.

Aquaman powers up from below as she falls to the Sea Tiger. The Sea King emerges into view at tremendous speed, swimming through the tortured wall of water in which the American boat rode. The gold and green Atlantean armour catching the light of the sun in the crest of the wave. The Swimmer pulls towards the boat – his intentions clear to Diana, they are merciful and selfless, the same as hers, to try at all costs to save the submarine and her crew; her colleagues and her friends.

Diana releases her Lasso. The god-given golden and unbreakable line wraps around the tubular hull of the fish shaped vessel. Aquaman catches hold, as she braces against the shining lariat. Together they try to defy the laws of physics. The Sea King sharing his ability in the water, and she her herculean strength to lift the submarine free of the seas grasp.

However the sea obeys Clea, and the Venturian Queen has other ideas. Diana realises this too late. As the Sea Tiger rises into the air with her, a second wave of even greater strength appears from no where and like a second hand, slaps both her, Aquaman, and the submarine down hard. Together they fall driven towards the coast. The wave crashes down, engulfing the beach and land beyond, flinging the Sea Tiger on shore. Here the submarine hull buckles and cracks as it smashes against the ground, taking with it both Aquaman and Wonder Woman.