Day at the Dock

** Just a quick note because so many people don't like reading the Authors notes. If you have questions about a POV change or something out of the ordinary I recommend reading my author note's. I feel inserts like this or ones after a chapter kill a story's immersion. I will never beg or harass my readers for stones or Patron subscriptions. That crap belong in the synopsis on the story home page, so if there are Author notes in my story, they are worth reading. Thanks for reading.**

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Hearing Mera scream Arthur's name I turned and saw a black monster biting his shoulder. Aquaman tensed his muscles and that stopped the things attempt to rip his shoulder open. Reaching around with his right hand he grabbed the thing by its neck and squeezed until it screamed. Having made it let him go Aquaman then threw it in front of the Shield agents, he then charged it pulling his Trident from its sheath on his back he pierced the monstrosity's chest pinning it to the dock. Agent Lance ran up and unloaded his pistol into the thing's head, leaving no doubt that it was dead.

Panting, Arthur pulled his Trident from the corpse and thought to himself, (I had not realized just how much weaker I have become by not swimming for the last week or so in the deep ocean. The moisture being baked out of my body has easily reduced my strength by 60%. I did not realize just what the true strength difference was before my body was submerged in the efforts to stop the war and save my mother.)

(I am embarrassed to say I had started feeling better, like my old self lately. Now I understand that this was not a good thing if I planned to continue my line of work. Is Mera being affected the same way? Maybe that's why she has been spending time away from me and out in the Ocean during the day.)

Mera rushed to him, "We should get you in the water to heal, it will only take moments. Wait let me do this instead." Mera started waving her hands in a pattern and water rose from the Ocean and covered Aquaman, speeding up the healing to the point it was visible to the naked eye. But what wasn't visible was the strength returning to Arthur's body. With just this simple submersion he was back to 80% strength.

Agent Lance, "Good thing Shield was here, or you would have died like a fish out of water."

Before Mera or Arthur could reply to the arrogant agent, the Golden Retriever rushed beside Arthur and barked towards the dock end.

J'onn shouted, "I feel a LOT more hunger coming this way."

It suddenly seemed like 100 more of the same monsters came leaping out of the water grabbing at people and trying to bite anything in sight.

After a brief moment of surprise, I smiled and quickly decided I would show them what a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth looked like. I went straight to the shape of the Indominus Rex and started snapping my jaws at those nearest to me. I let out with a roar and several of the monster's changed direction, but they didn't run back to the water like I had hoped. Instead, it seemed like my roar had panicked many people on my own side causing some to lose focus and get hurt by the swinging claws and snapping teeth.

Seeing a group of monsters together I moved towards them but as soon as I lifted my foot the other one that carried all my weight fell through the wooden dock. Realizing my mistake, I quickly turned back to normal and tried to come up with another form that would work. Deciding to just go with the best form of strength and speed I knew, I went with a Silverback Gorilla but not stopping there I increased my density by 50%. A peak Silverback can generate 2,500 pounds of force with its arms and weighs just over 400 pounds. But with my powers I weighed closer to 600 pounds and could generate almost 4 thousand pounds of force per arm.

I went in swinging and was much more effective in blasting these monsters away. I noticed that some of the monsters that were heavily wounded were being eaten by their brethren right on the spot or being dragged away the same as the people. Farther out I saw Arthur fighting one of these monsters that was almost two feet taller and looked much more robust than the rest. He must have been the group leader.

As the shock wore off and we started fighting back more effectively, the big one fighting Aquaman let out a shriek and then spit some florescent liquid onto Arthur's chest. He then retreated making sure to grab the body of one of his brethren, the fact it shoved his fellow monster in his mouth for hands free carry said he wasn't taking him back for medical attention. They slipped into the water as silent as they arrived.

Shifting back to my normal body I moved to J'onn who was with the wounded using his telepathy to ease their pain as the medics tended them. I did the little I remembered from my first responders training in the military, but it was more of a patch job until the wounded could be moved to where the real doctors were.

Seeing Agent Lance and Aquaman standing over one of the few bodies of these monsters that were left behind, I went over to see if I could nudge things a bit.

Agent Lance, "We need to get this thing back to the boys and girls at headquarters, maybe they can tell us what the hell we are looking at."

Mera, "They resemble the Trench we fought at the Mariana Trench, but they didn't have this Bioluminescence."

Arthur, "It resembles the Benthic Anglerfish on the ocean floor. They have to be from somewhere deep. We..."

Agent Lance interrupted, "We've got this under control Aquaman. I'm sure your intentions are good, but we don't know what those monsters are, and you couldn't stop them. But you gave it a really strong effort and Shield appreciates that. We all do. And when the time is right, when we get through this, we will tell the reporters you helped us out, okay? We will put you in a good light for once."

Logan, "Hey you glorified boil popper, why are you talking like you can only get information by running off with the evidence? Have you even taken 5 minutes to look over the creature you are standing over? 2 seconds was all it took for Aquaman to start answering questions about it, but you want to interrupt his efforts? Perhaps you don't care about the missing members of this community but I'm sure many here still care, Agent Lance of Shield." I said the last couple of sentences more than loud enough for the surrounding crowd to hear and hear they did judging by the grumbling of the crowd.

Agent Lance, "Shut up kid or ill have you arrested for trying to incite a riot."

Logan, "Or you could give us 10 minutes to go over this creature and see if we can learn anything that could help. That won't spoil your precious specimen and it could lead to information that could help us find where it came from. Then maybe we can investigate and save the resident's taken from here."

Agent Lance, "Fine but this means the Justice League is taking responsibility for any losses."

Ignoring the Shield agent, I turn to Arthur and Mera. "How much energy would it take to generate this amount of Bioluminescence?"

Arthur, "Comparing its size to known generators of this type of Bioluminescence, I would say twenty or thirty times its own weight per day just to function normally."

Seeing Deputy Wilson, the officer that came to Arthur's lighthouse, I called him over. "Could you touch this fluid along the base of this things teeth please."

After reluctantly doing so he said, "My fingers are tingling."

Logan, "Some kind of paralyzing agent maybe? Did it affect you when you were bit Arthur?"

Arthur, "No, I would have appreciated some numbing agent when that fucker bit me, must not be too strong."

Thinking for a moment I said, "Or it used it very recently. So a paralyzing agent combined with the shell or cocoon the dog was in before the attack I would say they were taking food back home for something, like ants maybe? Feeding a queen or something that can't move much?"

Mera hunched over and ran her finger through the things gills, "These gills are crusted with sulfide minerals, the same kind that can be found in hydrothermal vents. Black smokers I think you surface dwellers call them."

J'onn came over, "There was some recent seismic activity when Darkseid attacked in the past, he was trying to bore to the earth's core and that could have opened some thermal vents near here."

Logan, "The four of us could swim down and take a look. We obviously wouldn't be looking to engage in battle but a rescue search while a team of heavy hitter's forms to teach these things that food in this direction costs too much shouldn't be a big deal."

Arthur nods his head, "Its worth a look if nothing else. You think you can keep up Logan, and stay quiet enough to not draw attention?"

Logan, "Well I know a form that looks a lot like these guys but its white with a black tail and its face has more of a bulldog look than a giant piranha head. It even comes with its own light."