/coc/ Aqua Ideas

Spearhead
After his origin story he does the crime fighting thing while dating Carrie and also helping to run the shop.
The first major arc of that would be him fighting against some crime ring of smugglers, the arc ends with Carrie learning Lance is Spearhead and also General Freedom finally returning to the United States after defeating the last of the Nazi robots in South America.

Arc two is making Lance and Carrie's relationship work and also Lance (as Spearhead) being invited to join the newly formed Justice Coalition. After seeing that Lance is actually doing good for the country and right by people, Carrie is finally able to accept Lance's double life. Lance then takes a more "reserves" position in the JC doing mostly covert work in tracking Korr. The arc ends with Lance proposing to Carrie.

Then it skips ahead like 14 or 15 years and it goes into Tides of Destiny with saving Mace

---------Spearhead & Harpoonist #1: Tides of Destiny-----------

Spearhead infiltrates this under sea lab after months of following leads, going through shell companies, and generally doing Batman-style interrogations.

He gets in there and starts sneaking around metal gear like, eventually he finds the mad scientist he's been hunting and sees her doing some inhumane things to a young lad in a tank of water.
Stuff like shocking him, or injecting him, or anything that looks painful for no reason.

So the fight breaks out, and the lad watches the whole thing. I have never been good as describing fights, so I'm not going to try in that area.
Once Spear head has pinned her, he gets the boy out of the tank and is checking him over.

Probably with gadgets, guns, syringes, live electrical cables, and possibly a genetically engineered monster which would be a look at what Mace would've ended up like if not for Spearhead saving him.

This is when round 2 begins, because it can never be that easy. The mad doc will need to have an escape pod, or a self destruct switch, or something to make this go for longer.

So when she goes to do that, and it's important the Spearhead should be in a lot of danger when this happened, maybe getting knocked down or blow backwards, that's when Mace should first show that he has hydrokinesis and form a harpoon out of water to attack with.
He should be the ever loving crap out of her, and right when he's about the kill her that's when Spearhead should talk him down. Convince him with words that this isn't the answer.

I guess that's about when Mace should just pass out and Spearhead should take both the boy and the mad doc and get back to the surface.

---------Spearhead & Harpoonist #2: Like Family---------

So then Spearhead will argue for custody of the clearly disturbed boy on the grounds that he does listen to him.
Or there could be something that happens in between where Mace doesn't do so well in foster care because of his trauma and powers.

So Spearhead has legal custody on grounds that the boy needs to be re-socialized, is dangerous, but he listens to him so that means he'd be able to reel him back in if he starts to lose control.

Spearhead takes the boy home, maybe he mentions on the way back that he has a kid about his age, and introduces him to the wife, then calls for his daughter to come down stairs and meet their new guest and there should be like a moment when Beth is coming down the stairs and Mace sees her and she sees Mace and it's like a still frame where it's obvious there's a connection.

Montage of Mace getting acclimated to normal life, rehabilitation, socialization, store management training, and ability control practice.

Ends with introducing General Freedom

---------Spearhead & Harpoonist #3: The Trial of Professor Manticore---------

Next is preparing for the legal court cases and that's the part that I never got much into except that General Freedom would be an attorney representing him.

And that always makes me think of a scene where GF is apologizing to Mace sincerely for all he went through and that the Coalition (and by extension himself) wasn't able to save him sooner.

The big day in court has arrived and Mace struggles to keep his emotions in check as he's faced with his hated creator.

All the TV stations and papers have something covering it, it's the first ever televised trial of a super villain.

---------Spearhead & Harpoonist #4: Boiling Pot---------

The trail continues, Korr finds her working strategy and begins to gloat about her achievements in an attempt to goad Mace into attacking her.

Details of Mace's life before his abduction go here.

---------Spearhead & Harpoonist #5---------

Korr makes her escape! Spearhead must come to terms that Mace is a fighter as they are assaulted by her mutant laser shooting sea scorpions.

Spearhead should still be hesitant about letting Mace be his sidekick until it becomes apparent that Mace is going to do this solo if he has to.


decades of time pass here with several Spearhead and Harpoonist stories, then Harpoonist solo stories.

----------Harpoonist Solo----------

Carver Medical, some little startup firm that came out of nowhere overnight revolutionizing the medical field, comes up on Harpoonist's radar during the early 1980s as one of the first stories of his solo super career.

He investigates and learns that one half of the scientist duo behind it is the daughter of the crazy lady who abducted him off the streets, put him under the knife and then into a tank, and that they're using Korr's research notes as the base of their own research.
So he goes to confront them and find out if like mother like daughter is true.

Harpoonist has a lot of power, a lot of hate and anger, but still a strong desire to do good.
I've just always hated the "trope" of "I don't like how this knowledge was discovered so we can never ever use it no matter how many lives it would save" and like to think of a story that tosses that right out the window.

Harpoonist comes to terms with it, he knows that people aren't their parents and that Korr's daughter suffered maybe as much as he did because of her mother. He finally get some better closure for that part of his life since he learns to let go. And so he doesn't prevent them from using Korr's research diaries for good.


------Aqua Coalition (of Super Friends)--------
Diving Belle
-granddaughter of Spearhead, daughter of Harpoonist
-Inherited hydrokinesis from her father, though much weaker than his
-Already a full member of the Justice Coalition at the start of the AC(oSF) story line


Bloop
-he's an octopus
-Diving Belle's sidekick?
-He does octopus things and says bloop a lot.
-Is smarter than your average cephalopod.


Caliber
-surfer from Hawaii who was getting mixed up in the League of evil surfers when Diving belle found her and the two started kicking butt together
-built like a tank
-heavy hitter or super strength
-might also have a hypersonic surfboard that she took from the league of evil surfers.


Reef
-from the great barrier, he has been protecting Australia from tidal waves and evil surfers when sharktopus threated everyone and he was called in
-has a temper, sees a big shark octopus monster about to wreck up his favorite spot and immediately swims out there to try and kick its ass.
-Not full Saxton Hale, but he'd probably look up to someone like that. "Some wanker's trying mess up my day, he's gonna get his ass handed to him."
-Power to make coral constructs


Leviathan
-from the Marianas Trench and her dad has just kicked her out of hell and she has been fighting some random street(stream?)level baddies when spearhead finds her and takes her in
-She's like a foreigner, she doesn't know much about the customs of humans and only really respects orders from people who are able to best her in a fight.
-she can choose how human or deep one she wants to look like.
-When she's as human as she make herself look, she's still got some scales showing here or there, has some oddly colored skin patches, and if she rolls her eyes up you can see that the whites of her eyes that are hidden under her eyelids aren't white.
When full leviathan.
-I'm thinking she's much bigger and the only really human thing about her is her nose and jaw (big angler fish mouth/teeth are over done). The rest is kaiju-like I'd imagine.


Jellybro
-from Florida and was swimming when a RADIOACTIVE jellyfish (or something) got him, since then he has just been chilling in the ocean and getting into trouble when spearhead finds him, he drifted all the way around the world
-kind of like he's stoned all the time, like he's in a weird daze, but when he snaps out of it he tries to make up for all the time he wasted in that daze all at once.
-If he's in the water then he's more like The Lizard, if he's on land and at human hydration levels, he's more like Spiderman.
-If he wears a dry suit or wet suit in the water then he maintains his shape better.


----Forming the Team Arc----

Diving Belle finally decides to join the Justice Coalition proper, goes through Liberty Lass' training regiment, graduates to full membership.

Puts out some fires started by Tinderella, but ends up out in the middle of the ocean doing whatever she usually did even before joining the JC.

This is where she meets Caliber and they really hit it off and end up taking down the League of Evil Surfers together. So now Diving Belle (and Bloop) and Caliber are bumming around the ocean fighting baddies wherever they find them.

Spearhead decides to go fetch his granddaughter because she hasn't come back to base in a while and comes across Jellybro who is just sort of drifting about in a daze after being mutated, so Spearhead brings him back to shore where he can get help, but Leviathan is causing trouble in town and no one has stopped her yet... so he PINS HER TO THE WALL and tells her to knock that shit off and that he's too old to be doing this.

Both of these events significantly delay Spearhead catching up with Diving Belle and by now she and Caliber are all the way on the other side of the ocean around the Great Barrier Reef where they meet Reef and come into conflict with sharktopus. By the time Spearhead gets there, Belle, Caliber, and Reef have been fighting sharktopus for a while, but haven't been able to beat it because their teamwork sucks.
So Spearhead acts like old Bruce and tells them what to do to beat this monster.

Reef and Caliber like the idea of forming a team with Belle and decide to head back with her and her grandad to see if they could join the Coalition themselves.
Back at home, Jellybro has regained his sense of self and Leviathan has decided that she wants to learn from Spearhead.

Spearhead decides to train a new group of supers so that he'll know for certain that his granddaughter will be in good hands with people that are dependable and that she'll learn how to work in a team.
Also because Liberty Lass' regiment is hellish and intense and Belle's stories of it have made the others take up Spearhead's tutelage instead.

Belle will really prove that she earned her JC membership with the Aqua Coalition (of Super Friends) and wasn't just grandfathered in. The other members of this group only have trial member status until Spearhead says otherwise.

Spearhead drills them all with safety stuff relentlessly because he feels Harpoonist might still be around (he's in another dimension, but they don't know that, he's presumed dead) if he had just pushed that much harder when he was training him.


-----Bloom Arc-----

The story starts with the AC(oSF) having just finished their training under Spearhead, they are on their first solo assignment.
And that is lifeguard duty at the beach.

It's boring for most of them, but Belle is upbeat about it. This goes on for a few weeks without incident until something happens.

So the AC(oSF) are on another boring day of lifeguard duty. There are no sharks because Levi can make them not come close to shore with whatever her anatomy consists of.

Reef is reading a paper (because I hate the idea of him looking at a smartphone) and there's another article about more people disappearing from ships in the area. He scoffs and says that's the sort of thing they should be involved with.

Belle chimes in with boundless optimism that if they make a good impression on the public, they'll get better missions in the future. Caliber also adds that Reef was singing a different tune when he was posing for those beach girls the other day.

Then they hear screams from the beach and take off down there, some guy is rising from the water who looks like >>84106848 and Jellybro is doing his best to keep him from hurting himself or others since he's started swinging around wildly as soon as he got on dry land.

Reef encases him in coral and they as Jellybro if he knows him. He just shrugs "I dunno this this guy." Belle makes the call to close the beach on the chance there's more of these things. Reef and Caliber take the man to a hospital to get him looked at while Belle and Jellybro head out into the ocean to meet up with Levi and see if she's noticed anything strange happening.

The story starts like that.

Reef and Caliber get the guy to a hospital, and they've never seen anything like it. The jellyfish is fused with this guy's head, its tendrils are all up in his nervous system. As far as they can tell the man is fully conscious, but has no control over his body. They put him in quarantine as they wait for a specialist to arrive.

Reef and Caliber had back to the beach to make sure no one else is getting into the water.

Diving Belle and Jellybro have found Levi, she's in her giant form and fighting a swarm of jellyfish that keep latching onto her, but then fall off shortly thereafter. The jellyfish begin swarming Diving Belle and Jellybro as well, but then ignore Jellybro. They can't get to Diving Belle because of her suit and she starts creating currents to force the swarms to disperse. Levi fills them in that the swarm came from the northwest.

Back on the beach, more people fused with jellyfish begin lumbering onto shore, there's an army of them. Caliber is evacuating the beaches while Reef does his best not to hurt any of the jelly zombies since there's still people in there who can feel everything happening to them. Reef starts making walls and encloses them, then channels to corral the horde. He's in full coral armor to avoid possible infection.

Diving Belle's group moves in the direction the swarms came from and finds thousands of jellyfish, as well as captive people being forcefully exposed to them. Below them there's an army of zombies slowly making their way to shore.

It looks like an old sea lab is the source of the jellyfish. There's a much larger one in a cage being shocked repeatedly right above the "production line".

First priority is saving the people who are still captive and have yet to be infected. Belle creates a sea current for Levi to ride on in her smaller form at high speed before transforming back into her giant monster form and grabbing the entrance to where the people are being forced out, clamping it shut.

Back on land, there are just too many jelly zombies, it's only a matter of time before they make it into town. Reef is holding them off the best he can, but the jelly zombies are starting to learn to climb over his walls.

Caliber grabs her sonic surfboard and acts as bait, luring the hordes back into the sea. Reef follow them. While the zombies are after Caliber, Reef goes below them and make a coral platform, lifting them out of the water as a cage forms around them. They now have a huge number of trapped zombies, but more are coming so there's very little time for high-fives.

Back on the seafloor, Jellybro has been getting odd impressions, sort've like memories, he asks Belle to give him a ride to the sea base with a current since he thinks he knows a way to get in there. After Jellybro is in, Belle begins making a wall of ice to keep the marching zombies from advancing any further.

Levi joins Jellybro inside the base (protocol dictates never to go it alone). While in there, Jellybro feels lightheaded, way more so then usual. His head feels like there's a thorn being pulled out of his skull, like there's a compass needle poking him in the brain telling him which way to go. They find themselves in what seems to be an observation deck that's right next to the caged giant jellyfish. The security finally kicks in when he touches the glass.

Antiquated automations like flying buzz saws with guns are released. Levi makes quick work of them while Jellybro is still staring at the queen jellyfish. Levi finally shakes him out of it and Jellybro directs them to a control room. The whole place is empty, there are notes on the wall with the word "Bloom research" written all over them. The notes are old, the paper they're written on has yellowed with age. Levi contacts Belle with their findings, it seems this is a lab dedicated to creating an artificial hive-mind using jellyfish, the clear option is to eliminate the queen to sever the link.

Belle and Jellybro are against this though, Levi decides to go along with their plan to free the queen on the grounds that she could always kill it later if it became a problem. Back outside, the cage opens and the enraged Bloom queen emerges, lashing out in all directions with no clear focus. Jellybro tries communicating with it, but all he's getting are strong feelings of hate emanating from it, though none of them are directed at them.

The Queen looks like it's going to attack them, but then it swims off in a huff, it breaks the hive-mind when it does so, for whatever reason.

The zombies are now aimless and mostly harmless.

Back on dry land, there's media coverage on the beach now as Reef and Caliber handle the last of the zombies on their end into a coral cage. Suddenly Levi rises from the water causes shock and almost panic from the civilians until Reef tells them to relax, that's their teammate, Levi has a huge hall of jelly zombies.

Belle briefs Reef and Caliber on what happened and notes they still don't know who turned the lab back on.

Then I figure it would go into another issue where they begin trying to cure the Bloom infected people and the Bloom queen might reestablish her link with them.

So next issue would be trying to remove the Bloom, the JC proper getting involved (maybe pats on the head all around, good job aqua guys or something instead of the usual "this is everything you did wrong" speech the big two always preach), trying to secure enough of that miracle cure to restore all the people, and tracking down the queen Bloom.

I think the only person who might catch flack is Belle for letting the queen go, but if she hadn't let it go, then it would've become more enraged and the hive-mind would be all the stronger.

----Bloom Arc, part 2----

A news report shows the aftermath of the jelly zombies marching on the beach and how the young heroes saved the day without harming anyone. Then it switches to reporting the cause was an old undersea lab and we see Carver Medical submarines all around the place and their staff inside looking for any and all research to be found within it to reverse the process.

The TV is shut off by Spearhead who tells the team they did good, but also that Belle is right to think this isn't over yet since they don't know who reactivated the lab. At this we should switch to the PresagiOil Corporation where some guy is yelling over the phone about how the beaches are now a media sensation and business is stronger than ever, something about super tourism. He says they'll need to try harder if they want that property for cheap.

Then we cut to the first patient they brought in infected with the Bloom and how he's in a vat of something. He's looking a lot better, much more human and less jelly. The process is taking some time, but the jelly fish finally detaches and is scooped up by someone with a pool net before it's placed in a smaller jar. They've been able to cure the man, but the process is time consuming and they simply don't have the resources available to treat everyone in a timely manner. The angle we're watching this from then shifts around and we see general Freedom was watching the procedure who then makes a call saying "Then we'll get you all the [miracle cure] you need."

The AC(oSF) are still patrolling the shores, looking for any other infected and also keeping an eye out for the Bloom queen. Jellybro had to go through even more tests since he seems to be immune to the Bloom, so he's rubbing whatever spot they drew fluids from him at. There'd be character interaction here, but I'm kind of bad at that.

The AC(oSF) get a call from Spearhead to come back to shore since something weird is happening. When they get there, all the Bloom infected at on the move again, and they're all facing the same direction when trying t bust out of their enclosures, it's making treating them impossible because they keep thrashing around. The group figures the queen has reactivated the hive-mind, Levi gives Belle some flack over not letting her kill the thing when they had the chance, but they don't have time for that now. Jellybro suggests they should just follow a zombie to the queen since she's probably calling them all to her location for something. This is something unexpectedly intelligent from Jellybro.

So the AC(oSF) have a zombie in a glass tank and are using it like a compass to figure out where to go. They're riding in a hydrofoil because
1. it's better to make sure the infected person doesn't get hurt, and
2. this is much faster than cutting it lose and following it.

It soon becomes apparent where the bloom zombie is trying to go when they see an oil rig in the distance and also pick up an SOS coming from it. The rig is crawling with bloom infected, the queen must be nearby.

Levi and Jellybro (along with Bloop) stay in the water to try to find the queen (as they are immune to Bloom control), Belle, Reef, and Caliber start working their way up the rig. The zombies are all crowding around the entrances and seem to be ignoring the aquas until they start getting close to an entrance and someone shoots a flare at them, causing the Bloom infected to go after them while whoever was inside makes a break for the higher platforms and offices (oil rigs have those, right?). There's also a helipad on the other side of the rig.

Belle uses some water to knock the bloom infected back and her group makes their way into the interior with Reef sealing the way in behind them with coral.

Back in the water, Levi is in fish form and on the hunt with Jellybro clinging to her to try to guide her in the right direction if he senses anything, and Bloop is clinging to Jellybro. What they see when they find the queen is a little different than what they saw last time they met, and it also complicates things significantly.

Back up in the rig, Belle's group has found an office that's being besieged. Reef forms coral over his arms and starts pulling the infected away from the door, riot shield style at some point to let the ladies enter. When inside they find a bunch of still uninfected people crudely armed and in various hiding places. The most important looking of them is hiding under the most important looking boss desk, and seeing that these are heroes and not zombies, he comes out and greets them "Heroes, good to see you, took you long enough to get here, we put out that SOS almost 15 minutes ago!" this guy is going to be a pain in the ass (and he's also Slick). Belle wants an explanation, but Slick brushes her off saying there will be PLENTY of time for finger pointing after they rescue them. Slick goes on to tell them they need to get to the helipad for an evac and could really use an escort.

Back in the water, the Bloom Queen now has a human body she's latched onto the head of like in her profile pic. This is a hostage situation. She also has swarms of Jellyfish buzzing around her, there are also zombies on the seafloor doing something to the base of the oil rig. If they don't act fast, they'll probably have an environmental disaster and a lot of dead people since they won't be able to breath oil. Levi goes to start getting the zombies away from the rig leaving Jellybro and Bloop to deal with the queen. Looks like it's they'll have to use diplomacy after all.

Belle, Caliber, and Reef at quickly getting tired of this business guy who won't stop being a smug asshat as he brazenly walks around corners expecting the heroes to save him from anything that might jump out from around them. He's seriously making this harder than it needs to be. Caliber is leading the group since she can get the bulkheads open the fastest while Reef brings up the rear, keeping their tail from catching up, Belle is protecting the 'flock' in the middle that they're herding. They've made it to the helipad, but the chopper there is only for two, and now there's bloom infected everywhere since Slick already started it up. One of his guys tries to get in the chopper with him, but he gets mobbed by the infected and stung enough times so we can see tendrils starting to poke out of his face, an early sign of slow infection, Slick kicks him back into the horde and also kicks another guy into the horde who was trying to get into the chopper saying "Sorry, not taking any chances!". Before he can take off, the whole rig tilts to one side.

Back down below, a few minutes earlier, Jellybro and Bloop are trying to communicate with the queen who is very much in a "NO PEACE" kind of mood. They begin trying to warn her about the dangerous oil that will come out of the ground if they continue their attack. Bloom queen agrees oil is dangerous, but the impression Jellybro gets from her is she thinks of oil as an individual, not a substance. Pressing this, Jellybro starts getting psychic imagines from the queen about this guy who caged her, zapped her, and was an oil mogul, as well as the land grab plan the queen heard him talking about. He wanted to use her to clear out the humans from some plot of land, she kept getting zapped meaning the hive-mind went on auto-pilot: assimilate, attack the enemy. Mogul is the enemy and is located on dry land, hordes go to dry land without her ordering it.

She gets freed from the zap cage, broke off the hive-mind to go find this man herself, and then called her hordes to her location when she found him.

Levi is having a hard time keeping the zombies on the seafloor away from the rig without killing them. She's pretty much stuck scooping them off of the sea floor and tossing them into open waters where they drift back to the rig after a while. She roars at Jellybro to hurry up, which knocks him back to his senses after the psychic jolt to his brain he got. Bloop as been slapping him for a while now to make him snap out of it, and the Queen is right in his face without him having noticed. Jellybro figures that if she can do that to him, he can do it to her and conveys images to her brain about what will happen if that rig gets damaged, oil spills are never pretty and there are better ways to catch this guy. Levi has lost patience and is making a charge at the queen, before she can stop, the swarm of jellyfish knock her into the base of the rig, causing it to tilt. We see some oil start to leak out of the bottom, though it's not moving like regular oil, it's twisting around the drill and oozing up it to the surface.

Back up top side, the whole rig is now tilted, Slick is still clinging to the inside of his chopper while trying to take off and is sliding across the platform ever so slowly. The bloom hordes are also now jumping off of the rig as something dark slithers across is, moving like snakes to barrels and popping them open making them grow fat. We're going full TOXIC LOVE here.

Enter the oil monster and Belle's "you gotta be blooping kidding me" face since this is so out of left field (if anyone has any suggestions to make it less "where the fuck did this come from?" I'm all ears).

The oil ripples and mimics the faces of Belle and Slick as it takes form and begins screaming. Belle nopes the fuck off the rig into the open seas and begins channeling water currents around the rig to keep the oil from spreading. She has to push herself beyond her limits.

Reef should be creates a platform under the rig made from coral to stablize the rig and to also plug up the leaks if all of the monster hasn't forced its way out of the ground yet.

Then they can start containing the thing on the rig.

While Belle and Reef are doing that, Levi and Caliber are trying to get the bloom infected away from the oil monster.
Jellybro finally makes some progress with the Bloom queen when she sees the monster forming and she pulls all the zombies back.

The rig is already pretty well trashed, offset, and being covered in coral to keep the oil monster from escaping. Profit isn't worth much if it costs Slick his hide, so he tosses a lighter into the oil monster deciding to just collect on the insurance.

The AC(oSF) have to bail off of the rig since it could explode at any time now. Belle is still preoccupied keeping the whirlpool going to prevent the oil from spreading to the surrounding seas.

As the rig burns, Slick gets to his chopper and starts making his escape. As he's in the air, the screaming oil monster roars and convoulses, then as the fire speeads up it, it hacks the mother of all lugies at the chopper, knocking it out of the sky.
Slick's chopper makes a crash landing into the water, he's in an inflatable life raft and is now surrounded by the Bloom. The oil shot at his chopper is clinging to Slick's raft to keep itself from dispersing. It's a double edged sword since it keeps the Bloom from infecting him, but now all this oil is slithering its way up onto the raft and inside of his body.

The rig is all burnt up and the oil monster seems to be dead, there's no sign of it coming back as a smoke monster at the moment anyway. Slick and his rig crew are brought back to shore, he mocks the heroes in private since with the rig gone, there's not enough evidence to prosecute him on the Bloom disaster, meaning Slick gets away with it all (thought we see oil dripping from under his sleeves as he walks away straightening up his tie).

Most of the bloom infected wash up on the shores or are rounded up by the AC(oSF). It's going to take a while to treat so many victims, but they're all expected to make full recoveries.

Though it's a victory for the group, it still feels like a defeat since the real bad guy got away.

---------CEO Slick----------
Barron Waste, a retired supervillain, washes up on shore with his lungs full of crude oil.

He's in costume so the Justice Coalition get a blip on their radar from this.

Spearhead never fought the guy personally, but Harpoonist used to regularly thwart him back in the late 70s/early 80s well before Belle was born.

Spearhead tells the team the backstory of Baron:

The Baron was a very cartoonish villain. So while he was evil, he was that reliable, amiable kind of evil, the kind you could send the Youth Coalition to battle and none of them will come back in pieces. His secret identity (along with Mace's and a bunch of other supers') was blown during the EXTREME age (90s), after that Baron Waste retired and fell off the radar.

The Coalition isn't happy to find out a retired villain has been murdered either, they push the idea that villains can safely reform if they want to - though it seems the Baron wasn't entirely reformed.

Maybe Diving Belle will be the one to point out that even though he was a super villain and an overall bad person who committed a lot of evil and her dad had to fight him, they still have to take this case seriously.

Given an oil monster was just discovered they can't help but feel there's a connection.
There's all kinds of boats out there guarding and researching the well the monster is still mostly trapped in, but some of it could've escaped.

They test the oil in the Baron's lungs to see if there's anything unique about it. Surprise, surprise, it's monster oil, how they know this?
We could say it's something unique to that particular well, like a certain type of microbe.
Once they've identified the oil, next they need to figure out where this happened.

They begin by check the sea currents and then plot out where he could've been carried in from.
That's not too terribly exciting.

While the kids are out, Spearhead gets a visitor, it's a representative from /co/ntainment, the current organization that usually cleans up the aftermath of these super skirmishes. She's claiming they have jurisdiction over this case since the oil in Baron Waste's lungs matches the oil in the haunted well, which they are in the process of securing. Spearhead claims this is a JC case since the deceased in question was a supervillain and supervillains, even retired ones, turning up dead is a sure fire sign of worse things down the line. When the agent doesn't relent and asks to see the body, Spearhead claims that he can't release the body to her anyway since he is not technically an active member of the Justice Coalition anymore and that she'll have to wait for his granddaughter to get back. The agent makes a phone call.

The AC(oSF) aren't finding anything and assume he was probably murdered on a boat, as they are deliberating their next move, a /co/ntainment ship approaches them.

We cut back to Spearhead, still stonewalling the agent at the door until he sees the kids coming back much sooner than he expected. Now he has no excuse to not let the agent in. The agent introduces herself as captain of /co/ntainment's R-Squad, code-named Rookie. Reef laughs a little at this "Captain Rookie" and asks how that happened, he gets a blunt nonchalant response that her first team all died on a mission before she got a new nickname and it stuck after that. She then explains that she was dispatched here since she has a minor psychic ability to communicate with ghosts, and that she's here to ask the Baron who killed him. At this, Spearhead walks off to make a phone call of his own, he comes back shortly thereafter and announces that the Justice Coalition is sending in their own specialist with a similar power who has met the deceased before.

Before too long a specter appears, a girl in a hood with a green glow about her. Spearhead introduces her as Wisp, a former member of the Youth Coalition and now an "afterlife counselor" (they go to haunted locations try to help the spirits of the departed move on, a dangerous job, as any horror film will tell you, but one that's important to her). She's not officially JC affiliated anymore, but when shit gets too paranormal for them she's usually available to lend a helping ectoplasmic tendril. She's mostly moved on with her life and isn't bitter like Liberty Lass, but she's definitely got reservations about how things were handled.

Diving Belle asks if they can get on with this already since she's seen enough flexing from both /co/ntainment and her grandad's ego/pride.

Rookie and Wisp approach the body and can tell the Baron's ghost is still hanging around trying to be unseen until he can depart this mortal coil. They can see him despite him not wanting to be seen by present company and introduce themselves. Baron has little to no interest in Rookie, but then takes notice of Wisp saying that brings him back to when he used to be a big shot in the super villain world, he goes on to say he always resented having to retire early when his secret identity got blown back in the 90s and his company was bought out from under him.


We then cut to Slick who is sitting at his desk in his big fancy office, his tie undone and his shirt wrinkled, he's coated in oil and probably has an open bottle of scotch or some other alcohol on his desk.

We flash back from here to Slick when he was just starting to drip with oil, his tie is straight, his shirt is pressed, and he's focused  searching the computers to see who discovered that well, who authorized that rig, and who messed up the situation so bad he had to go out there in person. While digging through the files, he finds some inconsistencies in the fiances, then he finds a backdoor into the system, Slick is now pissed. He discovers the company's former owner planted spies before he was ousted and set up the backdoor in the system so he could still subtly manipulate where the company drilled. Slick begins systematically eliminating the spies in his ranks, first calling them to his office and firing them for corporate espionage, then finding that he can move the oil oozing from his body at will to threaten them for information on who was giving them orders.

Slick takes a boat out to find a surveying ship he's found the Baron to be aboard. Baron Waste is waiting for him, in full costume, Slick is annoyed and asks him what he thinks he's accomplished with all this. Slick can't understand the Baron's motives since there was no profit in his actions. Baron Waste tells him he had been secretly plotting ever since he got outed and lost his business empire to young Slick, he's been playing the long con to get some of his more dastardly plans accomplished, the haunted oil well was something he discovered shortly before the super leaks of the EXTREME age, it was going to be his magnum opus to unleash a creature made of pure pollution upon the Earth, but he just didn't have the time needed to do it before he lost everything. He spent years using what remained of his influence worming his way through the cracks he put in his old empire until a rig was finally built over that well. The first oil samples from it were amazing, the black sludge would spread and seek out life to destroy all on its own. He then looks at Slick, who is now dark with an oil coat.

    "But you, you've exceeded everything I could've hoped for, now the monster is in you and you can control it."
    "I was never a great villain, but not because I wasn't the fastest or the smartest, I always thought there's no point in winning; what would a villain do without a hero? He serves no purpose, that is why I always knew when to pull back, to keep the game going for as long as possible, it was so much fun, which is why I couldn't accept that it ended in such an unspectacular way, I knew the end would come some day, you get older and tend to forget, but I wanted to never be forgotten. It should be the last act, even possibly the end of all, that is how I saw my last plan all this time, but I got something better, I created you, an immortal monster who'll carry the name of his creator."
    "NOONE WILL EVER KNOW."
    "But you'll know, and the world will know you, a shady business man turned into a cartoon villain, a source of endless contamination I unleashed upon the world, and now its your time to play the game for all eternity."

Baron begins to laugh and wheezes

    "I'm so jealous, my monster!"

And continues to laugh. Slick is now past his breaking point, he grabs the Baron by the mouth and begins shoving the oil down his throat (we could do a villain on liner here, but I'm not sure Slick is the type). Slick then tosses the body overboard and takes the ship back to port. Surveying ships are expensive after all.

Back in the present, we see Rookie and Wisp, they ask the Baron who killed him. He says nothing, then begins to laugh, a deep laugh free from any sludge in his lungs before saying "My successor!" as he continues to laugh before moving on.

We then see Slick at his desk again, now forming shapes with the oil and holding his head with a pained look.
    "I should've charged him for the free sample."

---------Stretcherous issue 2---------

>It begins with a fight in the /co/ floating island hanger fight club. Stretchy powers vs exploding powers.

>We enter in the middle of their match, Stretch has the edge on Bomb in speed and mobility, but Bomb is a fukken tank able to take anything she throws at him and then blow it up in her face. If Bomb could catch her he could win, and if Stretch could actually move him she could win. So it's anyone's match.

>Stretch tries wrapping around him, but he explodes causing Stretch the stretch out and go all wispy, like a flag in the wind, before getting one of her legs around one of his legs from behind and tipping him up, then using the ceiling as leverage to hoist him into the air and drop him out of the ring.

>As part of the fight prize, Stretch is given information about the location of a lab she inquired about. Bomb overhears this and follows her to see if has any clues about his own condition. It pans away from the floating city back down to the surface of the Earth in some rural area.

>Bombastic, being in his huge suit, cannot sneak around properly. He should seem very menacing, like he's holding a grudge for losing the fight, but that's only the impression created by his suit.

>Stretch finally takes notice of him, she immediately thinks he's here for a rematch. While she's jumping around trying to get a better tactical advantage, Bomb keeps trying to talk to her until she finally listens.

>Stretch comments that he should have his mouth visible so others can pick up on his facial ques (she's oblivious to his conditions).

>Stretch: "But hey, you're still a lot more sociable than that Nosefire girl everyone has to go through just to qualify for the hangar fights."
>Bomb: "She kept insisting her name was Arson-nasal when I had to fight her."
>Stretch: "Pffft, really? Like that's any better?"

>Time passes, the sun is getting, they're at the lab now
>Bomb: "So what's your plan here?"
>Stretch: "I go up to the front door and knock it down, then I start making demands."
...
>Bomb: "No, seriously, what's your plan? Are you going to sneak in through the vents? I saw you're able to flatten yourself during the fights."
>Stretch: "... yes, that is totally my plan. Then I just need to grab one of those scientists all stealthy like and make him give up the info. You can can go up to the front door and smash it down. It'll be great!"
>And Stretch is already gone before Bomb can protest to how poorly put together this all is
>Stretch makes it through the vents easily and grabs someone wearing a white coat who looks like he would know things
>As soon as she's wrapped around and gagged him, he starts freaking out
>When she finally lets him talk "Oh God no, not again. I'll do anything you want, just keep your fingers away from my nose." (the implication here is he's met BlackStrap before and she did stretch her fingers up his nose as a form of torture)
>Stretch is making him work some computer console one-handed, he's still mostly wrapped up until she gets a thumb drive and an alarm goes off
>While Stretch ditches the guy in a closet somewhere, she wonders what set it off since she hasn't heard any explosions yet
>Then there's a kaboom

>Stretch sees Bomb crashing through a wall
>She wasn't able to move him during their fight before, so she's not eager to see what did that
>Stretch ducks back into the vents just in time to be out of sight when a big smiling one eyed monster with some nasty looking appendages and a hole in its chest (Aorta) waddles over to where Bomb landed
>As it begins wrapping its tentacle looking fingers around Bomb's suit, there's suddenly an explosion from under Bomb shooting him forward and body slamming the monster back
>It staggers and grimaces a little from the noise before rebounding, it seems to have the upper-hand when it comes to raw power
>Bomb winds up for another slow punch since his suit is so bulky, but as his arm moves forward, there's another explosion, this time from his palm with a very bright flash
>The monster staggers backwards holding its eye/face in its hands
>One of the scientists appears holding a tube like vat, the monster smashes it open and grabs a heart that was inside of it, sticking it into the hole in its chest
>It begins to beat, the monster pulsates with it before it begins elongating like how Stretch can
>Bomb cannot move fast enough or release exploding jelly quick enough to fend off its attacks now, it's wrapped itself around him and is squeezing the suit

>Stretch then comes swinging down from the rafters (they're fighting in a tall ceiling area) with a large section of the vent in her other hand, she slams it into the monster with enough force to daze it long enough for Bomb to get it off his person
>Stretch and Bomb say "The heart, we have to attack the heart!" in unison with some variation before Stretch says "Jinx!"
>Bomb spews out exploding jelly and takes down some walls (and get the lab coats to leave) to give them cover while Stretch forms a slingshot and launches debris to knock out its heart

>Stretch them stretches through the hole and back up over the ceiling to hoist up the monster while Bomb beats on it like a speed bag
>Stretch drops it and Bomb delivers another painfully slow punch, this time is actually explodes and sends the monster flying through a few walls
>Stretch does the "yatta" jump animation and they high-five
>Bomb then slowly works his way over to where the monster landed and his eyes widen, not that anyone could tell
>Bomb: "This is what I came here for."
>Stretch: "First I'm hearing of it."
>In one of the rooms the monster flew through is a suit, a containment suit made of the same stuff his current one is made of, and it's much more humanoid
>With some difficulty and more than one explosion, he manages to get it into his current suit and slip into it, emerging with a bang
>Bomb moves around in his new suit, checking out his new appearance, he opens and closes the holes on the hands and feet with ease, much smoother than his old suit
>Stretch: "Who do you think they made this for? No way they were expecting you."
>Bomb: "No one good, I'm sure. Let's blow this place."
>Stretch gives him a shove for how bad that was, she's finally able to move him now
>Stretch: "Race ya out of here."

>Later
>The scientists have a work crew busy cleaning up the lab and fixing the damage, their monster is back in a stasis chamber
>"Why would she come back here for data she already got?"
>"I got a look at her during the fight, I don't think that was her. It seems the second specimen has become active."
>There's a clang noise that makes them all turn, a dark man has entered the lab and has just dropped Bomb's old suit in front of the scientists
>CEO Slick: "This isn't what I paid you people for."
>The scientists look terrified
>"But I guess there's always a silver lining." as four different colored slime-like things twist their way out of the suit

TO BE CONTINUED IN
Stretcherous #3
The Aqua Coalition (of Super Friends) #5

----Bomb Arc----
>Slick acquires Bombastic's old suit
>Learns of a new power to create soldiers when his oil mixes with the residue in the suit
>Each have unique powers, suits them up and sends them out to capture Bombastic to make a huge army of supers to do his bidding and corner the market
>AC(oSF) and Bombastic need to team up to stop this


It begins with the AC doing a patrol out in the ocean, they're still looking for the Bloom Queen and any new outbreaks. Treating those infected has been an uphill battle, but they've finally got a process down that involves a net casting robotic arm as the final phase of the treatment.

Jellybro has been especially fixated lately, his seriousness has the others concerned since it's so out of character for him. Usually he's in a daze most of the time, but he's alert, focused, almost obsessed since he believes the Bloom Queen is connected to whatever happened to him.

Belle has been more worried about what the ghost of Barron Waste told them, now there's someone else out there plotting something foul in all sense of the word.

Mid-patrol they get a call from Spearhead, the JC just sent them a heads up about some concerning occurrences that seem to be heading their way. There's apparently a new super group causing problems, they've yet to get a clear picture of any of them, but eye-witness accounts claim they were all wearing full body robotic looking suits and have different colored face plates.

they've been attacking other oil companies and now the JC believe they are targeting PresagiOil next?

We see Slick in his office looking at a map of all the attacks. His primary objective is profit, but he also has the secondary objective of capturing Bombastic so he can make more "bomblings".

While on patrol Reef spots a person matching the description heading for PresagiOil's skyscraper and moves to intercept. "Hold up, I got questions for you." Bombastic just shoves him to one side and continues forward. Reef spreads a layer of coral on the ground and catches the man's feet so he can't walk.
Bomb: "You don't want to do this."
Reef: "Oh, I think I do."

From a different city block we see an explosion with smoke rising in the distance as Belle rushes to the scene "What now?"
When she gets there she sees a crater in the ground with Reef covered in his coral for armor protection as Bomb climbs his way up and out. One of his arms is covered in coral and he makes an explosion happen around it to break it off.
Thinking fast, Belle takes control of a fire hydrant to shoot the water into the air and put out the fires. As the water rains back down, Belle forms a water sphere around Bombastic.
Belle: "I don't think you want to blow up in an enclosed area, you'll rupture your ear drums."
Bomb: "That's fine, I don't have any of my body left anyway."
The explosion almost bursts the bubble, but Belle pours on more water "No air, no kaboom."
Bomb raises up a hand and the opening in it produces a string of jell "That's not how it works for me."
Coral regrows around the opening, sealing them
Reef: "So you're just made of explodiem, huh? What would happen if it went off inside of your suit."
Belle: "What are you even doing this for?"
Bomb points to the skyscraper "That man is trying to kill me!"
Belle: "You have any proof?"
Bomb: "The proof are those four things he made FROM ME!"
Belle: "I think we just need to calm down, and talk. Do they also wear suits like yours? Because we're after them too."
Bomb lowers his hand "Hum-p."

Back at AC(oSF) HQ Bombastic tells them about how the Bomb-Squad were created by Slick infusing his oil with his bomb jelly body.
He tells them the four call themselves the Bomb-Squad and they do Slick's bidding. One is like puddy, one is like glue, one is like acid, and one is like ice. They've been hunting him since Slick wants to make more of them, he wants an army of "bomblings".



Fight goes down, Reef is able to coral coat some of their suits when they open forcing them to abandon their suits and form the super UNION form, but it's too unstable and water soluble.

Bombastic goes into protective custody.



------Shark Lass------
After the bomb-squad is beaten the AC(oSF) get reports of a new villain terrorizing Sunny Shore Island.
They go to investigate and find Shark Lass and her mutant shark with legs, Chomps.

Shark Lass is using tech that she shouldn't have access to, even the parts to build them are too advanced to build solo.

Investigate Shark Lass, find out she gets "care packages" from someone. There's a huge undersea black market arms trade with Squid Pro Quo at the top of it. Slick is also a client looking to buy new super suits for his bomb-squad.


------Water Wars-----
The Bloom are invading Levi's home after rallying or assuming control of other old undersea research bases Dr. Korr abandoned. While the Bloom and kaiju fight, the water fae plot an attack on kaiju city to seize control of all the ocean depths.

-----Dream Well----
After averting the water wars and earning some respect from the fae, Belle learns of the Dream Well which connects possibly to other dimensions.

Dive through the dream well, find the evilverse, retrieve Harpoonist. End game.