73 Attack on the Palace

Ocean-Master, "The hour is close at hand, the Prince is away and by the time he returns, Poseidonis will be purged of the Impure. Since he will be King and is pure himself, he will recognize the Wisdom in what we do tonight. Our actions are for the betterment of Atlantis as a whole." 

  Ronel, "What of Kaldur'ahm and his surface dwellers?" 

  Ocean-Master, "With a group this size do you need to fear a magic school dropout and two surface dwellers? You are PURE Atlanteans!!! DEPART!!!" 

  Using the shadows of the night the group of Purists approach the east side of the Palace. Ronel takes out a small square and floods it with his magic. He then waves it in the direction of the two guards at the palace entrance. One of the guards sees the light only one with a specific tattoo can see and wipes his hand across his chest in acknowledgment. 

  The guard looks at his beak-faced fellow guard and slowly swims in his direction. "Kaloon, what is that in the shadow of the wall?" He points over the shoulder of his partner who turns to see what his partner pointed at. As his back is turned, he is easily struck at the base of his neck with the Morningstar wielded by his fellow guard. 

  His uniform is roughly stripped away from his lifeless body and put on by a Purist who then enters the Palace to lead his group toward the royal bed chambers. With this subterfuge, they made it with no one able to raise the alarm. 

  Ocean-Master, "In the Palace no offensive magics can be used by anyone but the King and Queen, but with your help I can use a potent sleeping spell on the Queen." He used his trident to draw out a bit of magic from all 30 of the Purists in the hall and built his spell so it could be unleashed at will. 

  Everyone clutched their chests and groaned in pain as their magic was taken but they stayed quiet as they could, to not wake the occupants in the room. Slowly Ocean-Master and 5 others entered the room as quietly as they could. 

  As they approached the bed, they did not count on Queen Atlanna's awareness she had built living for years in the treacherous trenches. The very quietness woke her, and she called out in her mind to any guard with the royal symbol on them. 

  Ocean-Master, "Sweet dreams my Queen!" He released the spell as two other Purists held down a panicked Tom. His human strength is no match for even the weakest Atlantean. 

  As her eyes glazed over the three other Purists grabbed her from the bed and started to leave the room. Ocean-Master placed his trident on the chest of Tom and said, "You two leave us as I give this Earther his instructions." They quickly left the room as instructed. 

  Tom, "Who are you and what do you want?" 

  Removing his mask Chancellor Orm looked at Tom and said, "I want to be King, now for your instructions lightkeeper." Ocean-Master shoved his trident into Tom's chest piercing his heart. "Die!!!" 

  Putting his mask back on and cleaning his trident on the bed, Ocean-Master left the room and closed the door. "He took to his instructions rather well. Let's go." He told the Purists, and they made their way out of the Palace as quickly as they could. 

  ** (Scene Shift) ** 

  After the dinner with the Queen and her prince consort was over Kaldur showed Logan and M'gann to their rooms but all three gathered in Logan's room to talk for a while before going to bed for the night. As they were discussing Kaldur's childhood, he suddenly looked up and shouted, "MY QUEEN!!!" 

  M'gann, "What is it Kaldur?" 

  Kaldur, "The Queen is under attack here in the palace. We must help her." 

  Charging out of the guest wing of the palace we follow Kaldur and see a group of at least 30 people come out of the hallway to the royal residents. Kaldur called out, "There, they have the Queen." We followed where he was pointing and saw two figures holding the Queen, one on either side as she was unconscious. 

  Kaldur, "Hold their Traitors!!!" 

  Three figures rush towards us but Kaldur takes out his water weapons and slams one figure into the wall with a Morningstar he created. M'gann grabs one with her telekinesis and bangs his body into the ceiling again and again until there is no movement from him. I use the martial arts I have learned and punch the joints of the figure that tried to stop me. In five swings I separated both arms from his shoulder and popped the thighs from his hips. Leaving him floating limply in the hallway as I brushed past him. 

  A figure wearing purple and black carrying a fierce-looking trident shouted "DELAY THEM!!!" as he swam away with the ones carrying Atlanna. Seven of the group turned and faced us at the urging of the one with the trident in an attempt to delay us. Not willing to take the time to battle them I turned into an octopus and grabbed the seven with a tentacle each, then I used my last one to start hitting their head until they were unconscious. Kaldur and M'gann started to pummel them as well, once they were all unconscious, I changed back to the form I was using and all three of us charged out of the palace. 

  Kaldur shouted as soon as he saw them, "You will stop and release my Queen!!!" 

  Ocean-Master, "You know what to do, give me your power!" He sucked in a mass of energy from the remaining twenty people, and it gathered in his trident. "So now a fishhead issues commands?" 

  Kaldur looks for a path around this purple armored figure and now that I am out of the confining palace walls, I start thinking about going big. 

  Ocean-Master, "A little time among Royalty, and you believe yourself worthy to give orders to me? The OCEAN-MASTER!!! Well, proximity does not create Majesty, Fish-Head. Nor apparently wisdom, son of the Devil-Ray. The Royal Palace has spells in place allowing only the use of defensive magic's!" A chain of lightning lashes out from his trident at each of us and we all lose consciousness. "But outside the palace is quite a different story!" 

  Ocean-Master slowly moves towards the three limp bodies gripping his trident in both hands but noises from the palace corridors alert him that more are coming. He turns to follow after his Purists but sees a group of guards between him and them. Cursing, he quickly swims toward a servant's corridor and disappears into the palace. 

  I jerk awake all at once grabbing my chest where the lightning spell hit me and groan in pain. "Fuck, magic hurts!" I look around to see M'gann rubbing her head with a pained expression on her face. "Where is Atlanna?" 

  Guard, "Do not speak the Queen's name with such familiarity Earther." 

  Logan looked at him with a hard glair, "I will tell her that a simple guard's command supersedes hers, how about you give me a name to report to her, so she knows the chain of command better next time." 

  Orm, "We have bigger things to figure out than your pride boy." 

  I recognized Chancellor Orm who was standing near Kaldur's prone figure and nodded my acceptance of his words. Suddenly Kaldur jerked awake and yelled "THE QUEEN!!!" 

  A short time later we were in a briefing room and M'gann was crying at the loss of Tom. We didn't know him long but his devotion to the Queen and his son was unquestioned. His loss would hit Arthur particularly hard. 

  Chancellor Orm, "I have sent word to Prince Arthur, but I understand he is off-world on a Justice League mission and cannot be reached. So, it is up to us to save the Queen." 

  Kaldur, "And the Heir she carries." 

  Chancellor Orm, "Of Course. Now, my sources inform me that there are two possible Purist strongholds. The issue is, we don't know if the Royal Guard was infiltrated, they were far too complicit at the time of the abduction. So, I will have to investigate one location with people I trust implicitly, while you and your two surface friends investigate the other. 

  Kaldur, "Swim carefully Chancellor Orm. This Ocean-Master is formidable and dangerous!" He then motions me and M'gann to follow him out of the Palace. 

  Orm looks on with a smile, "I'm sure he is." 

Once Kaldur and his friends left the confines of the Palace he pulled an object from his weapon pack and whispered for a moment before swimming in the direction he was told by Orm.