Pearl Diver/Stirrings
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Perspectives Marathon 2010
Childhood Moments
| Memento
| Hero, Interrupted
| Fan
| Injuries
| Training
| Where Are They Now?
|
Hide and Seek (Androgyne) Fastball Special (Gx the Space Gremlin) | The Tie that Binds (Gx the Space Gremlin) | April Fool (Androgyne) | ani r u ok? (Androgyne) | Little Things (Androgyne) | A Lighter Touch (Androgyne) | Stirrings (Pearl Diver) |
Pearl Diver is an idea I've wanted to roll up for ages, but didn't have a full concept for until recently: the embittered, long-lost Aquaman of the Freedom Phalanx. While it wasn't quite what the topic was intended for, I used the Marathon's bonus topic of "Where Are They Now?" as an excuse to officially introduce him after Vesveras latched onto the idea, decided The Noisebomb was Pearl Diver's biggest (and only) fan to this day, and gave him a cameo to deliver a pearl of wisdom to The Noisebomb to keep him in the fight during Farewell Tour.
-- AlwaysAPrice
Steel Pier, Independence Port. May 11th, 2010.
Ready or not, here I come! A playful voice burbled just beneath
the sounds of the dock. A jolt of surprise shook through Morgan Murphy,
and he nearly veered his forklift into a transport container in
surprise, and brought it careening to a stop several feet from where a
few of the other longshoremen were sitting around an upended crate
playing cards on their break. They bolted to their feet in preparation
to run before realizing he'd regained control.
"Jesus, Murph!" shouted one of them, but he had already clambered out of
the forklift, wiping distractedly at the coffee that had spilled onto
his pants leg. He reached back in and pulled the insulated tumbler out
of the cup holder to take it with him as he waved an apology to the guys
on break. "Be more of a fuck-up, why don't you!"
Morgan walked along the empty side of the dock, looking down into the
water, as his co-workers continued to yell and berate him irately.
Their words reached his ears but he wasn't listening to a one, it was
nothing he hadn't heard a hundred times before. Instead, he tried to
filter out their angry voices and the sounds of containers thudding
against the ground and each other, the mechanical whining of the crane's
cable as it methodically unloaded the cargo ship on the opposite side.
He listened instead to the ocean, the lapping of the waves against the
pier, and turned his awareness deeper, listening beneath the
waves.
There she was. Almost there! They're gonna be so surprised!
She was closer now, much closer, and Morgan picked up speed, ducking
around power jacks and climbing over crates in his path as he ran
towards the end of the docks, eliciting more annoyed shouts.
Morgan reached the end of the dock and stepped to the concrete lip,
looking out over the waters of Independence Port. Now he saw her, the
dark and massive silhouette drawing slowly nearer under the water.
Despite the threat he knew she posed to the workers and industry here,
he could not help but smile. It had been too long since he'd heard her
voice, as long as it had been since he'd attempted what he was about to.
It hurt at first, subjecting his vocal cords to the exotic tones needed
to translate his intent to vibrations she would understand after so, so
many years without exercising the talent. "They certainly will. Don't
you know by now how little these people like surprises?"
Beneath the waves, the gargantuan silhouette drifted to a halt. She
spoke again, her playful mood thrown off a little by uncertainty. That
voice...who is that...omigod! A keening squeal of delighted
recognition set Morgan staggering, covering his ears but laughing
despite the ringing it set off. He was just as delighted to be speaking
to her again. Where have you been? Are you here to play?!
"Those days are behind me, old friend. I work here now, among these
people."
But...why? They're so dry and, and boring! This isn't where you
belong.
Morgan's brow creased sadly, and he rubbed absently at the bushy beard
he'd grown to obscure his face. Not that it mattered anymore. There
didn't seem to be anyone left in the world who would recognize his
face. "I don't belong anywhere else, either, anymore. My day is long
past."
A gruff voice behind him bored into his awareness. "Murphy, you
planning to do any work today or is that gonna get in the way of your
daydreamin'?" Morgan could feel the foreman's glower on the back of his
neck and turned, looking embarrassed.
"Yeah boss, I was just, uh. I had to answer a call," he began to mumble
defensively.
"Then where the hell's your phone? Listen shithead, I've cut you enough
slack with all your screw-ups, I am not going to stand for you just
standing around and not doing your job then lying to my face about it.
Get back to work or OH HOLY FUCK!"
A horrifying warbling wail filled the air behind Morgan, and he glanced
calmly over his shoulder, sipping his coffee as his boss staggered back
against a crate screaming, the smell of the foreman's own befoulment
filling the air for a brief instant before the sea air whisked it away.
Out past the end of the dock, a massive, bulbous head covered in
mottled red skin surged up out of the water, accompanied by several
equally enormous wriggling tentacles. Two of them lunged forward and
slapped down onto the end of the dock on either side of Morgan with wet
thuds that reverberated down the entire length, causing everyone working
on the dock to start crying out in fear and flee for safety. A gleeful
chortle filled Morgan's hearing as the foreman scrambled away,
occasionally looking over his shoulder as if expecting Morgan to flee
with him and confused and scared further by Morgan's complete lack of
concern.
Is that what you left us all for, to be bossed around by the likes of
a timid airbreather like him?
"Hey. I breathe air."
You know what I mean, silly. Why have you been silent for so long?
Morgan turned back and stepped up onto the dock's edge, gazing down
sadly into the nearer of Lusca's curious black eyes. "I don't know. I
left that life behind when I returned. With my home gone, I guess...I
guess I stopped listening. I haven't been able to hear..." His voice
trailed off. He hadn't been able to hear, at all. That was the
reason he'd left, come to live here, adopted the name of Morgan Murphy.
His hand shot into the pocket of his heavy overcoat and felt around for
the object that, despite being useless to him for several years, he kept
with him at all times. His hand coiled around it, afraid at once to
draw it out. Afraid, because for the first time in eight years, it
was warm. Finally he steeled himself and withdrew his hand,
clutching the dark sphere up in the sunlight.
For eight years, it had been not just dim, but coal black, giving off
nary a gleam. No longer. As he turned it slowly in the sunlight, the
faintest iridescent shine glistened over the surface of the black
pearl. It was impossible. The Pearls of Power, of which this was the
last, were entrusted only to members of the sunken nation of Iridia's
royal family, who were charged not only with their kingdom's governance
but also with defending Iridia and her citizens against all threats.
The Pearl bequeathed unto them mastery of the Iridescent Force, that
gift from the gods that shielded Iridia itself, and allowed them to
leave its confines, sheathed in iridescence that protected them from the
crushing depths of the deep and let them breath miraculously in the
water.
This gift and responsibility was what gave the last Prince of Iridia his
name on the surface world: Pearl Diver.
To protect Iridia herself and the rest of the world in case a tyrant
should come into mastery of such an awesome power, the Pearls of Power
came with a caveat: should the people of Iridia lose faith in their
leaders, the pearls would darken, and their connection to the Iridescent
Force and all its gifts severed. With Iridia now gone, and Pearl
Diver's cachet on the surface world long eroded, his power was gone.
Or, it had been. Morgan's mind desperately sought an explanation -- he
knew that Iridia was no more, he was the last of his kind, and on the
surface world Pearl Diver had been all but...
...the previous day, Morgan had been walking home through Kings Row and
come upon a bizarre spectacle. Dozens of people had gathered to observe
some kind of impromptu wrestling match between a monstrous mutant shark
and a slightly less monstrous mutant bat.[1] The bat had clearly been the
underdog, but that was not what had drawn Morgan's attention to the
fight. The bat was wearing a faded cerulean T-shirt, and there was
something familiar about it Morgan couldn't place at first.
Morgan had recognized it when the bat had come tumbling into the crowd,
and several of the spectators around him who were worked up by the
energy of the event started to stomp and kick at the pathetic thing.
Morgan had shouldered his way angrily between them and reached down,
grabbing the bat by the arm and helping him back to his feet. In the
process, he took a look at the shirt and what he saw sparked a grim
smile of recognition. Emblazoned on the bat's chest was the trident
crest of the Iridian nobility, the emblem of Pearl Diver himself.
He'd always thought the licensing company had shelved that line for lack
of interest.
The bat-man looked at him as he caught his breath, grateful for the
brief respite from his beating. Morgan was overcome with the sudden
sensation that he should offer the mutant some words of encouragement,
especially since no-one else seemed to be on his side. His grin froze
as his mind raced, but then the inspirational message on the side of the
cup of coffee he'd stopped for on the way home had caught his eye. "Winners
are not those who never fail, but those who never quit, son."
Now, those words, that moment drifted back to him. The bat didn't know
who he was, but he knew who he used to be. He'd fought on, and he'd won
despite horribly unfair odds that day. Despite all the travails and
years of absence and powerlessness, that scrappy bat-thing still
believed in Pearl Diver. Again, the words echoed in his mind, and he
realized. Even with his kingdom gone, stripped of his power, the only
reason Morgan Murphy was no longer Pearl Diver was not because of his
many failures, but because he had given up.
Morgan clenched his fist around his Pearl of Power and looked again into
Lusca's eyes. "I think you're right, Lusca. Come on, they'll be
sending heroes soon. Let's go play somewhere else." Without further
ado, he threw aside his coffee tumbler and dove off the end of the dock
into the water.