[center][h1][color=AQUA]Lizard's Icy Adventure[/color][/h1] [img]http://www.bestourism.com/img/items/big/7847/The-Sea-of-Japan_Beautiful-coast_14358.jpg[/img][/center] [Color=GREENYELLOW][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H1]Pacific Ocean:[/H1][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][INDENT][sup][COLOR=SILVER]May 20[SUP]th[/SUP], ???? - ???? | ??? - ???[/COLOR][/sup][/INDENT][/COLOR] After the recovery from the scuttled Russian submarine, Admiral Halifax had organized for a deeper scan of the area - utilizing drones and satellite imagery to get a better reading on what they had in the deeper bottom of the ocean. Namely, in essence the scans had come up with an intact but sunken Atlantean ship - a rare find as any in the world, since most of them were either scuttled and destroyed or recovered and made unreachable. It was a rare find, and one the Russians had spent some time trying to keep hidden. But now, with the US Navy ‘increasing patrols to secure Japanese territorial waters’ the Russians had backed off wisely. With that done, Task Force Leviathan had been organized and namely, had been given orders to deploy Lizard into the deeper waters and recover the sunken ship and any technology from on-board the vessel. In an unknown swamp in Louisiana, the Society composed of some of the world’s most threatening individuals were gathered by the son of billionaire tech mogul and enemy of Superman in the 80’s and 90’s Lex Luthor. Lex Jr. stood at the head of a monitor room of sorts in their HQ that oddly resembled the helmet of Darth Vader mixed with something out of an anime. It was submerged in the waters and slushy Earth beneath the surface with crocodiles swimming nearby. If not for the Enchantress’ spell the stealthy fortress would fall victim to Swamp Thing or another avatar of the green. Icicle Jr (son of the original Icicle and legacy criminal like Luthor Jr), Warp (teleporting super thief), Akando (animal powered criminal with ties to the Red), and Solomon Grundy were gathered around when Luthor mentioned something about a sunken Atlantian ship found off the coast. “This ship could be the key to getting the drop on the League and all of the tech that they keep in their vaults. I could tap into the Multiverse like I have before…” Luthor Jr. began before being interrupted by a fresher looking Icicle Jr. “You never tapped into the Multiverse Lex. Are you going insane?” Icicle asked. “SHUT UP! Go get me the tech on that ship, ANYTHING I can use against the rest of the Justice League…” Luthor commanded at the head of the Monitoring station. “I still remember… the blue man that waved his hand. The Nth metal we gathered… what happened…?” Luthor thought after Warp and Icicle put on aquatic gear while Akando powered up with the abilities of a shark. Grundy just hulked around not needing air or equipment underwater. Warp began teleporting everyone to the coordinates given to him by Luthor. In three long ports he got to where he was going in the middle of the ocean it seemed and placed each member of the squad. Akando first who went in with the best chance of immediate results. Then Grundy who sank to the broken down ship. Warp and Icicle Jr were last in with their abilities still in tact with their aquatic gear on. Icicle simply armored up with ice and used the breathing face apparatus that was said to last an hour and a half before needing new oxygen. Warp already wore armor so the face apparatus sort of went with his look. The team was deployed. What on Earth could they find? They would soon get their answer in the form of Akando suddenly heard fighting something, although by the time they got there - they would notice that Akando had been knocked out by…something. Namely something had knocked him unconscious, while his natural abilities had left him unable to drown - it also likely left him vulnerable to such creature’s own weakness. Since he had a black eye, a bloody nose and a bruise on his neck - all consistent weak spots of a shark - eyes, gills and snout. It seemed that they weren’t alone in this old wreckage. Someone had gotten here first and they had been rather unsupportive of the idea of having another group come here and try to steal ahead of them. As it was also, down below at this level - the whole ship was dark with low visibility. Leaving them namely able to only see as far as the nearest hallway would take them. Although not allowing them to see anything beyond the corner or in the likely abandoned rooms of this ship. “Warp… you seeing this? Akando is out of action and it looks like Grundy went through the bottom of the ship. I still don’t know what’s down here.” Icicle said into his communicator. “I’m trying to find Solomon, Popsicle. Akando will be fine when he wakes up. Look for something useful so Lex Jr. pays us. I’ll be there when I find our monster…” Warp replied teleporting a bit slower in the water until finding the brute. “Here we go… Grundy’s on the scene! What’d we miss Icebox?” Icicle was floating in a jacked frozen form akin to something out of a fantasy movie. An ice golem of sorts with spiked ice shards out of his shoulders and upper back. As Warp and Solomon walked about the place, the zombie-man stepped on a placed boobytrap; namely an explosive. While not doing much damage to Grundy it did make him get sucked out of the ship - to the far deeper bottom, where water pressure itself would make it harder for him to move or move at all. Warp would be affected by having the entire pressure wave of the explosion transferred onto his body - which was much more dangerous underwater. If not for instinctively porting out of there it may have killed him. [hr] The behemoth had once again been sidelined, or low-balled, whatever you want to call it. Warp disappeared in a port just before Grundy was sucked out of the ship. Nobody noticed Akando waking up after tapping into the healing abilities of a lizard before triggering the strength and power of a killer whale. As Icicle began to come back to the conscious world something caught his eye. What looked like a wand or weapon from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. “Akan… think I got something over here….” Icicle mentioned. As Akando and Icicle were gathering their thoughts on their prize, they soon enough heard beeping coming from somewhere nearby. From one of the rooms - which in this case could belong to their mysterious enemy or namely some kind of defense system that had been activated. Either way, one of them likely would need to investigate what the thing was - otherwise they might be in for a nasty surprise - if it happened to be a bomb. Icicle moved forward after hearing something. It turned out to be a strange golden artifact making the odd beeping noise. An other-worldly cube shape that vibrated, however it looked broken, was in a containment pod in the Atlantian ship’s lab. The dumbfounded member of the Society had no idea what he was looking at WASN’T Atlantian, but something far more powerful in it’s days before being damaged. “PNNG! PNNG!” the box continued to ring out. Before he could even begin to pry the artifact from it’s place in the odd Atlantian tech pod, the iced up villain was smacked back with a large scaly tail. All that Icicle Jr saw, was the silhouette of an underwater figure, dressed in all black and sporting a tail. The only thing that gave ‘it’ a more grounded reality, was the fact the eyes were resembling regular crocodile eyes - so it wasn’t completely an alien beast from the depth. Just someone from Earth. Although, the figure didn’t stay to talk - they soon enough, struck at his shell. While the two initial strikes didn’t do much to pierce Icicle’s added armor - the figure, quickly responded to that situation - before even Icicle could. In essence, the figure smashed something into his shell - before kicking off him. As it was, Icicle Jr would notice that a grenade had been lodged into his icy armor. In a matter of moments the thing went off and the figure was feeling merciful - the grenade hadn’t been an explosive one. If it had been, the metahuman criminal’s icy shell likely would’ve cracked and perhaps even his suit - to suffer the effects of both drowning and pressure. Instead it had been something equally worse - as when that thing went off, it gave off the worst pinging sensation into his ears. A sonic grenade, plus with him being literal ice - the vibration and sounds kept bouncing around and around - until he’d suffer motion sickness and simply black-out from the trauma to his inner ear. While the black figure, quickly swam over and gently pried the golden thingy from it’s resting place, with a knife - she had it sealed inside a container. Before the black ‘lizard’ spun around, as even Akando would have heard the short skirmish between the two. Thus the animal-man would soon find Icicle Jr knocked unconscious and floating about - while he came face to face with their ‘enemy’ - a humanoid creature covered up in black camo and sporting a K-Bar knife in her hands. The only visible thing were her slitted eyes looking back at him. Akando was blocking the exit and the figure soon gestured with her knife to move. Akando was completely healed from the encounter before and smarter for it. He had began tapping into more than one marine animal’s abilities before entering the Atlantian lab to face the black clad ‘hero’ in a sense. Absorbing what seemed like a large piece of trident tech from a smaller melee weapon of sorts, he tapped into another aquatic animal’s ability to digest food much slower. His red hood had long since fallen off in the depths, his scarred face looking uglier than ever. He was tapping into the bio-electric energies of an electric eel as well as the strength and durability of a whale-shark. “You can tell Batman and the League whatever’s on this ship belongs to us now.” he began to taunt as energy cracked around his arms and from his eyes. Solomon Grundy was making the ground beneath the ground the remains of the ship rested on unstable. The whole thing began moving back and forth, Atlantian metal creaking and cracking. Bubbles floating from within every new opening. With the speed and bio-electric energy of an eel coursing through his body and fists with the strength of a whale-shark, Akando struck down at the lizard-like ninja with what amounted to a ‘taser fist’. [hr] Metro Tower had been quiet for most of the day until Wonder Woman got the call from a fisherman claiming supervillains were “messing around with stuff in the middle of the ocean…” “I will lead a team myself to investigate, and assure your safety. Keep as far away from the commotion as you can..” Naomi responded on the visual two way communicator. “Code YELLOW. I repeat… Code YELLOW. Assistance is required in the Pacific. It looks like the Society may have discovered some old Atlantian tech.. All available heroes report to the teleporters...” Wonder Woman spoke into the intercom throughout the HQ. Comet was one of the first guys to show. [hr] The two metas were almost at a stalemate. The ground beneath them continued to crack and crumble due to where Solomon Grundy had landed earlier. Icicle was still out. And Warp was nowhere to be seen. The masked figure, eventually decided to stop playing around and soon pulled out a detonator and pressed it. In that moment, any idea or belief that the person in front of Akando was a hero was shattered. As one could hear multiple explosions going off all around their location - both inside of the ship and outside of it. The ship had been grounded on an edge already underwater and now the figure had in essence detonated any support it had. As soon enough what followed was a grenade literally thrown at Akando - detonating in his face. Although, against his tough skin it, luckily, didn’t do much damage. Yet it gave the figure time to escape - leaving behind him and Icicle without bothering to look back at all. Thus confirming, that they were NOT a superhero or member of the JL at all - rather they might have been a villain themselves, a mercenary, a third party operative or even a rival itself. As the situation was though, the ship was slowly lurching downward to depths that could crush even Akando and Icicle - despite their currently tough exterior. Thus Akando had to either run, grab the tech or grab Icicle and hope to escape the ship, before they reached crushing depths and were turned into tomato paste. He chose to let Solomon Grundy get buried by the ship and what was left of it’s support, while pulling on Icicle after making an opening in the side of the vessel. With his ice armor, the frosty villain simply floated to the top. Warp was waiting for them but when the Justice League hit the scene minutes later, he chose to grab only Akando who had swallowed an artifact earlier while leaving Icicle and Grundy to be dealt with by the heroes and international authorities. As this was happening, Lizard by herself swam away into the waiting submarine several miles away - an unofficial official part of the United States Navy, thus it had legal protection against unlawful search by heroes. Without much hassle, she got on board and soon debriefed. [hr] A few days later, such an object was stored in a briefcase and was brought by Admiral Halifax - namely to DARPA’ Black Operations Division. Where Department of Defense, developed technology from highly advanced or alien races. Thus, one such object was designated A-1X - or the device recovered from the sunken Atlantis ship. A basic scan of the item showed it to be somekind of data storage device, one which had been made from rather advanced materials. Thus, under heavy guard and through several checkpoints - Admiral Halifax, soon entered the BOD Wing of DARPA. Towards the lab of the head scientist. [center][i]Scanning. Welcome. Admiral.[/i][/center] Once the scanner finished processing him, the doors opened and the guards allowed him entrance. “Evening. Got something for you egg-heads. Straight from the bottom of the sea,” spoke Halifax, soon depositing the briefcase on a table and opening it up.