[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/HS4Hboq.png[/img][/center]
[b]Amnesty Bay, Maine[/b]

Black clouds hung over the small coastal town. Black waves crashed against its cliffs. There was a storm in the air the likes of which Amnesty Bay residents swore they hadn’t seen for years. Only the light of Amnesty Bay’s lighthouse could be seen through the torrent of rain and wind. Out at sea, the trawlers that had braved the storm charted a desperate course back to shore by that light. Over the years it had seen many a trawlerman, young and old, safely home. Yet tonight safety was in short supply in Amnesty Bay.

From the depths of the sea, musclebound Atlantean soldiers came marching. They were clad not in the proud, regal armour of the Atlantean honour guard but the black, featureless combat suits of Orm Marius’ stealth unit. The blackened water disguised their approach as they climbed the jagged cliffs and stepped onto the shores of Amnesty Bay with silent determination. It was for most of the unit their first contact with the surface-world. The respirators pumped water into their lungs and protected them from the noxious gases the surface-dwellers inhaled. They had fifteen minutes.


The unit leader, Iqula, had cut his teeth serving under Orm at Xebel. Time and time again, he had proved his worthiness in battle – laying waste to the Xebellians, sacking their temples, and exacting the bloody revenge that Orm had demanded for the colony’s support of the traitor Atlan. Though the war was ended and the throne returned to a leader that was truly deserving of it, Iqula’s unit had been called upon on countless occasions since, most notably in the struggle against Black Manta and the Drowned. They had managed to push them back, indeed they had almost wiped them from the face of the Earth, until their attack on New Atlantis. Sixty-two dead.

Iqula and his men wanted blood. Orm demanded revenge. The king would rest on his laurels no more – he would strike against all his foes in one foul swoop, above sea and below it, and Iqula’s unit had the honour of striking first. Amnesty Bay would be the site of King Namor’s revenge. The honour of all Atlantis would be restored. The boy, whose existence was spoken of only in treasonous whispers, would be killed.

A sudden beam of light shone towards Iqula’s unit and he signalled to his men to get down. They clung to the rocks and waited for the lighthouse’s rays to pass over them. Satisfied, Iqula climbed to his feet and surveyed the approach to the lighthouse. There were no signs of life for as far as he could see. He signalled once more to his five insubordinates to follow after him silently.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ZTAnsJu.png[/img][/center]
They ran across the shoots of green towards the lighthouse, each staying low to the ground as they did so without losing speed. Once at its large doors, Iqula reached for the handle with a cautious look. His hand hovered over it as if he expected it to be booby-trapped or wired. When his webbed fingers wrapped around it safely, he breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the door open. A purple eye looked in, scanning the first floor of the lighthouse, before being trained on his men. Two slimy, scaly fingers commanded soldiers to climb the outside and a simple point of the head insisted the other three stick with him.

[color=#ffffff]The four Atlanteans stepped inside Amnesty Bay Lighthouse quietly with their weapons primed. Iqula, the largest of them, silently directed two of the soldiers towards a door at the other side of the ground floor room that seemed to serve as a greeting area. He pressed on with the other at his side and quietly inspected the room. He was taken aback by its contents, offended by the smell of the place that permeated even his respirator, and desperate to see his general’s orders out.[/color]

[color=#ffffff]A shock of lightning made the soldier look out of the lighthouse window and out at the sea. There was a truck out on the road that seemed to slow as it passed the lighthouse. Iqula’s finger tightened around his trigger as he prepared for battle. The driver, a fat mustachioed man with a red hat on, peered out of the passenger side window, squinting in an effort to see through the rain, and then shrugged and carried on. Iqula’s finger relinquished its suspended grip on the trigger and was about to relax when a sudden static noise sounded.[/color]

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gKmmaZrJpc][center][color=#ffffff][b]“Well, you've got your diamonds and you've got your pretty clothes
And the chauffeur drives your car
You let everybody know
But don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire”[/b][/color][/center][/url]
[color=#ffffff]He looked at the other Atlantean and was met only with a confused look. They both hugged their weapons tighter and began looking for the source of the noise. Iqula lifted what looked to be a toaster to his ear and shook it. Old toasted crumbs came tumbling out and he wrinkled his nose, aghast at the scent. The other Atlantean soldier pointed towards a box that he deemed to be the source of the noise and Iqula nodded.[/color]

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gKmmaZrJpc][b][color=ffffff][center]“Your mother she's an heiress, owns a block in Saint John's Wood
And your father'd be there with her
If he only could
But don't play with me, 'cause you're pla-”[/center][/color][/b][/url]
The soldier clamped his fingers tight around it and the music stopped dead. The other soldiers on the ground floor returned and shook their heads to Iqula to confirm that they had found nothing. He grimaced and then walked towards the stairs slowly with the soldiers following after them. Despite their efforts, their feet made the slightest of squelching noises as they climbed the steps of the lighthouse. Two-by-two they entered rooms as they ascended, each confirming upon their reappearance that they had found nothing. When Iqula reached the last door he found it open and the two soldiers he had sent to climb the lighthouse from the outside were stood inside.

It was a teenager’s room. There were clothes scattered across the floor and the walls were adorned with pictures. Iqula entered slowly, making sure to inspect every last inch of the room as he walked, before stopping in front of a cabinet covered in medals. He lifted a trophy to his eye and made an effort to read it. The words “All-State Swimming Champion 2018” were engraved into the base. He threw it contemptuously to the ground and then ran his scaly fingers along the dozens of golden medals that adorned the cabinet. 

The scaly fingers formed a fist and Iqula sent it smashing through the cabinet. The trophies and medals fell into a heap onto the floor among the broken varnished wood. The soldier turned, breathing heavy with frustration, towards the table beside the unmade made in the corner of the room. There was a picture atop it that Iqula’s fingers seized upon angrily and lifted to his purple eyes.

“Bay Harbour High School” read the words across the swim team’s chest. They were all dark-haired and unimpressive looking, even to Iqula’s untrained eye, but one among them stood out. There in the centre stood a teenager that looked more man than boy, with hair as fair as the sun. Iqula’s eyes looked down at the names that were listed beneath the boys and rested on one: Curry, A.

“Kordax,” Iqula murmured as he stared at the picture of the surface-dweller he was there to kill. “The pretender bears the curse of Kordax.”

Iqula smashed the frame and pulled the picture free from it. He took one last disapproving look around the room and then signalled unhappily to their men that they were leaving. They made their way down the stairs and out of the lighthouse. As they approached the sea, Iqula thought only of the punishment they would face at Orm’s hand when they returned to Atlantis. 

If he were to return home empty-handed, he would enjoy [i]some[/i] destruction tonight.

He lifted his weapon from beneath the waves and held it at chest height pointing at Amnesty Bay Lighthouse. One of his long fingers flicked a button on his weapon and it made a confirmatory noise. With a squeeze, a blast of energy was launched from the nozzle of the weapon towards the lighthouse. There was a loud boom as it tore into the side of it and sent the light atop it dark on impact. The building set fire almost instantly and piece by piece it crumbled, falling into the sea.

A smile crossed Iqula’s thin blue lips and he turned to follow his soldiers into the sea. One by one they disappeared beneath the waves leaving only a crumbling lighthouse in their wake. The fire raged so strong that even the tempest looming over Amnesty Bay could not extinguish it.

Some fifty metres or so along the shoreline, two shivering figures watched on in silence. A young red-haired woman named Mera hugged Arthur Curry close to her with her hand clamped around his mouth. She felt the soldiers stalking through the sea on their way home, using her Xebellian gifts to bend the water around them and hide them from their gaze

Amid the rain, she could feel the surface-dweller’s tears against her hand as he watched the only home he had ever known burn to the ground.