Sea Devil imagined how he might address his mother if he had the time to write a letter.

[I]Dear Mother,

It's funny how these little moments can change your entire worldview. When you're clinging for dear life to the appendage of a flailing starfish monster while he seems to do the Harlem Shake, you begin to realize how abstract the world you live in is. You realize just how imaginary the concept of safety is. There is no safe zone in this world, no matter what your parents or your government tells you.

No police man can protect you when death comes. No amount of ointment can extract the suffering from your soul. One thing in life is certain for most, and that is pain. Even death has proven to be a revolving door. Mama, we all go to hell. Actually, hell comes to all. There is no safe zone free of danger. But you could get by a lot easier if you become the danger that dominates the once safe zone.[/I]
[hr]
Shibuyu Crossing, Tokyo Japan
[hr]
He'd been afraid of death for so long that it no longer mattered. As a younger man, he avoided high risk confrontations. But now, Jack lived for them. He considered himself the guardian of Gotham's bay. Despite the time and place, this very much seemed like the sort of beast that he would be required to face off against. An aquatic type monster for the amphibious vigilante. A very appropriate way to die if he had to go.

Starro raised the tentacle that Jack stood on. He imagined the acceleration was something like what a fighter pilot might experience. And his feet departed from the tentacles surface. Many of the other heroes were shielded by some sort of force field. With them temporarily inaccessible, that attracted the tentacles that had been designated for the others to an all out assault on Sea Devil.

So, while seemingly suspended in the air, he watched another of the tentacles launching towards him like a fly swatter,[Color=Firebrick][B]"Here we go."[/B][/Color]

[Sup][B]CH-[I]EENK[/I][/B][/Sup]

His grapnel line fired perpendicular to another tentacles path, the appendage that seemed poised to swat at him next. It was impossible for him to dodge the one immediately rushing him , so instead he bent his knees and leaned back before feeling the serpentine arm strike him like a tidal wave made of concrete. As expected, it threw him across the sky, like a birdie being struck by a racquet. That was, until his line was intercepted by the tentacle it had been shot in front of.

Without being wrapped around it at all, the steel line was  yanked. And so Sea Devil was yo-yoed into the distance. Soaring with his grapnel's handle between all of his fingers and his palms. With aching knees, he assessed his trajectory. It seemed he was destined to land directly on top of a mob of enslaved citizens, right outside of a convenience store. Consequently, he almost wished that he would simply land on the blacktop.

Without the ability to reel his line in quickly enough, he was stuck. But when he was beginning to descend above the crowd, his line snagged on something. By some miracle he'd managed to maintain his grip before swinging into the side of a building.

His body ached. With the sort of pain that filled his spine and stung in his lungs. This was the way he imagined that Dr. Mid Nite must feel. [I]Wonder what the old timer is doing right now?[/I]

More time for that later, but Sea Devil now had the opportunity to pause for a moment. At a distance from the Conqueror that deceptively suggested itself to be safe.

Then he heard a gunshot before a bullet landed next to him. "Come at me!" A woman shouted. [I]I really don't have time for this.[/I] The woman was surrounded by Starfish-lings. Was she in league with them? He couldn't be sure. Only one way to find out.

[Color=Firebrick][B]"As you wish!"[/B][/Color]