Alright, if you've made it this far I'm fairly certain that you know that I disclaim all DC characters, so let's move on.
The swim back to Raven's den was calming for the older mer. The familiar sponges and polyps gave her a sense of contentment, and with the sunlight now streaming down, the reef was quickly blooming into life once more.
Melvin was also enjoying the ride; she was still hanging onto her mentor's shoulders, and she was being relatively quiet, partially from exhaustion, partially from knowing that she was still awaiting punishment, and mostly because she was still upset that she had not managed to find her friend.
She did however point out a friendly turtle and a couple of striped snakes to the older mer, for even Melvin was not immune to the charms of the reef, especially at her young age.
When Raven neared the corals surrounding her den, she spotted a flash of her leader through the foliage and called out a greeting.
He nodded as she settled herself, and the two boys flanking him, each with one of his fins in hand, raced forward to greet her.
"They were quite worried about you."
Raven nodded as she hugged the little mers; "I'm afraid I had a little moonlit swim to interrupt this morning," she replied as one of her tentacles slid Melvin off of her shoulders and gently pulled her in front of their leader, "Melvin went to the Deep last night and I left to retrieve her."
The armored plates along Robin's body clicked softly as he pondered the situation for a moment; he looked over the girls and was thankful neither of them appeared to be any worse for wear.
"Did you have any trouble?"
"A little, of which I'll tell you shortly," Raven replied while giving Melvin an affectionate pat, "After I make sure everyone is alright, if that is fine by you."
His dorsal fin smoothed itself along his spine in an affirmative while he replied, "The boys have already eaten, as Star's the one who found them this morning, and you know how she is;" to which Raven hummed accordingly, "She also left me with a little something for Melvin;" he handed her a bundle wrapped with kelp leaves with Raven took graciously; it was not was not hard to find food in the Reef, but Star had correctly assumed that Raven had not yet had time to forage for anything.
"They did not give her any trouble I hope?" she asked as she delegated the bundle to one of her tentacles.
"Nah," he replied happily with a shake of his head, "Once she offered to let them braid her hair they were right as reeds. I only stepped in when it was time for her to patrol the kelp beds."
"You must remind me to thank her then, and yourself, for that matter."
He grinned again and nodded, politely dismissing her; "I'll be out here when you're ready," he offered.
With a final nod, Raven scooped up the kids, a tentacle around each, and brought them back into the den.
She released them as gently as she had gathered them, and the boys wasted no time to start circling about their sister in greeting.
Teether, the youngest, still had a little trouble maneuvering and therefore settled for hugging her from the sand, but he was growing strong and Raven had no doubt that once he was developed enough that he would be more than capable of pulling off every move his siblings could.
Their friendly reunion was cut short however, as Raven called Melvin back over to her.
Reluctantly, the young mer girl swam forward.
"Melvin."
"Yes mam?"
"Before I say anything about rules or punishments, I would like to know why you felt the need to swim off alone last night."
"Well," Melvin began, with a hand stroking one of her arm fins absently, "I wanted to see Bobby."
"We've seen Bobby plenty of times," Raven countered.
"No we haven't!" Melvin shouted; her fins flared and her eyes grew wide, "He's afraid of anyone seeing him so whenever I go with the others he never shows up," as she continued she deflated a bit, and her fidgeting increased, "So I thought that if I went on my own that I could bring him back here and show you that he is real. And it would be nighttime so everyone else would be sleeping and he wouldn't get scared."
Raven held her tongue between her teeth and breathed deeply. She was silent save for the sounds of sand being brushed against her tentacles.
Timmy hugged his sister's arm, and she smiled at him halfheartedly.
Teether was still resting on the floor, now with his shell in his mouth. His tail fins slapped the sand gently whenever he found a particularly nice section to bite.
She let go of her breath.
"Melvin."
"Yeah?"
"Going off on your own is a very bad idea, which is why there are rules against you doing it and while I am very thankful that neither the sharks or the HIVE got you, I'm pretty sure you realize that it would be very possible for them to do so?"
Melvin nodded.
"And I don't want to punish you for trying to be considerate of your… friend, but you did do something very dangerous," she continued.
Melvin nodded again with more vigor.
"So what do you think? What do you think would be a fair punishment for this problem?"
The girl stopped and thought about it for a minute, her face scrunched up and her tail flicked steadily as she worked something out. When she came to a conclusion her eyes lit up with a bit more confidence, she replied, "Maybe I can make it up to you by helping extra hard? And I can promise not to go off on my own again?"
"That sounds reasonable," Raven replied, with a smile, and Melvin brightened slightly.
"And maybe, in a few days, if you've behaved really well, you can be ungrounded," she added quickly, "alright? So now going past the Reef or to the Surface or anywhere else unless someone from our pod is escorting you, do you understand?"
"Alright," the girl replied reluctantly; she had gotten off easy, but there was only so much one could look forward to barnacle hunting with Robin or kelp tending with Starfire.
"Now did you get hurt at all?"
The girl shook her head, "No, I'm fine."
"Alight then, now I'm sure you're tired from your adventure so go ahead and take a nap. One of the others will be around when you wake up and if you're hungry there's whatever Star's left for you this morning."
Melvin nodded and Raven handed her the kelp wrapped bundle.
She swam to her side of the cave, where there was a perfectly shaped crevice for her in the sand and she unwrapped the kelp from the prize within.
It smelled like swordfish from what Raven could make out, which was a treat for the pod left over from the hunt a day prior; their cybernetic friend had really outdone himself on that account.
The boys, having not been a part of the events were now looking at her expectantly.
She held eye contact for a few moments with a raised brow, making them shift uneasily before she smiled and nodded.
The two boys raced out of the cave, ready to properly start their day.
As they were still quite young, their day mostly consisted of them playing hide and seek in the kelp forest or racing around in the reef, which taught them valuable skills like where to hide and how to maneuver in tight places.
They were also quite good at finding useful items that the others didn't have time to look for, such as shells and the occasional sand dollar. Pretty trinkets could be traded or used for ornamentation and their pod always looked forward to seeing what the children could find.
Starfire's hair was filled with things woven in from their scavenger hunts, and despite Raven mostly sparing herself of adornments; she kept a small pile of treasures that they had given her at the back of her cave.
Timmy's blue security shell was one such find, and after discovering how useful it was for carting treasures around that day, it had quickly become their favorite object. Raven had attached a strap to it and now it was used for the older children to carry Teether with them, rather than leave him with their mentor which excited them and the youngest mer greatly.
They had also been the ones to present Robin with his harpoon, which they had dug up in the grass bed. He had been carrying it proudly ever since, and it had definitely helped cement their place in the pod, which Raven had feared for when she had first brought them in from the Deep.
Sometimes they caught and brought back small crustaceans such as crabs or crawfish for the pod and one time, impressively, a very sizable lobster.
Mostly they would collect shells and shiny rocks, and using his amazing sonar ability Timmy was able to stun fish, which Raven only permitted him to do one fish at a time to keep the Reef from collapsing, which Melvin usually enforced as the sonar sound was quite painful to listen to for too long.
They were also still learning which species were toxic to eat, and under Raven's orders, if they didn't recognize it, they weren't allowed to hunt it until she or one of the others had identified it for them.
As a result Timmy tended to only stun enough to tide himself over until supper and Melvin was left to hunt manually for herself.
Teether, whom Raven was convinced was part cookie cutter shark, had no trouble stuffing things into his mouth, alive or not, and there was really nothing anyone could do about it, although Raven and Melvin did try their best to keep him from eating anything that wasn't digestible.
Raven watched them for a few moments and then turned back to Melvin who was now nibbling on the kelp wrap.
She swam forward and hugged her again; she held her until the girl relaxed and returned it.
She kissed the girl's head and released her, and tucked Melvin into the sand like she used to do when she was younger.
"Sleep well little limpet, I'll likely be back for supper."
Melvin's reply was lost in her yawn and so Raven took her cue to leave the den.
True to his word, Robin had remained a few tail lengths away from the den and was awaiting her report.
"Everything sorted out?" he asked, while his large fins rippled to keep him in place and his forespines twitched with interest.
Raven exhaled, displaying the wariness of the day's events and Robin smiled knowingly.
"That bad huh?"
"Two sharks and a HIVE member."
The smile instantly fell off the alpha's face and his brows knit in worry.
"Explain."
Raven sucked in a large drawl of water into her gills to begin regaling her tale; "I woke up last night when I got the feeling that something was wrong. I tucked the boys in knowing that they were safer asleep and in bed then going with me in the middle of the night. I didn't fetch anyone because I didn't have that kind of time. The closest would have been Gar and he's in the complete opposite direction of the Drop Off."
"Alright," he replied begrudgingly; he was never fond of anyone going out near the Deep on their own, even on the Shelf he preferred when his pod kept to pairs at minimum as the HIVE scavenged it at will.
"And when I got there I saw Melvin being shielded by Jinx," Raven continued while Robin's curiosity peaked and his frown worsened.
"She had apparently found Melvin wandering in the Deep and was bringing her back to the Reef when a shark started to follow them. By the time I got there it was ready to make one of us lunch and there was another one on its way."
"Odd, they usually prefer to scavenge."
Raven shrugged and continued, "Maybe they were drawn in by the smell of our hunt the other two days ago."
"Perhaps."
"At any rate she took one and I took the other while Melvin hid at the bottom of the Shelf, er, Reefside that is," she clarified.
"Naturally."
"Once we fought them off she went her way and I took Melvin home; she's going to tail the others on chores for the next few days by the way."
"I'll have Garfield pick her up later; he's needed to do the clams for a while anyway."
Raven hummed an affirmative and Robin continued, "The fact that she ran into Jinx though worries me. It's more likely she would have ransomed the girl if you hasn't shown up if not have killed her up right."
"They're poachers Robin, not a war band."
"They are whenever they get a new headmaster."
"Can a shoal be blamed for following their alpha's example? They don't have much of a choice Robin, it's do or die out in the Deep."
Robin scowled, causing a deep drumming sound to verberate through his chest and Raven conceded the argument with a tilt of her head.
"I'm just saying that if she has been inclined towards harming Melvin, she would have done it before I had arrived and she certainly wouldn't have helped me with the sharks."
"She was likely priming the Shelf for a blood frenzy. No telling how much her friends could scavenge out of that."
"Reward enough for the life of an innocent I would hope, I'm fairly certain she threw out her shoulder in the ordeal."
"If that's the case then hopefully we won't have to deal with the HIVE until she's healed, knowing them though, they'll try to pull something just to show they can. I'll start my patrol earlier today just to make sure. Also I like the new look."
"New look?"
He gestured to her chest with a nod and Raven blanched; true to her alpha's word, the string of blue beads was missing from her breast.
"I must have lost them in the fight," she replied sadly, "I'll see if I can find them."
"I'll tell the others to keep an eye out for them. I'm sure they'll turn up."
Raven nodded dutifully before asking, "Anything you would have me do today?"
"I would rather you rest up yourself, since you've been fighting sharks all morning."
"I wouldn't have offered if I didn't know I wasn't capable."
"Alright, but take it easy for my sake at least," Robin offered; his hand held in the way of peace, "There's only so much I can worry about in a day."
"Fair enough," Raven replied contently, being more agreeable now that her pride was still intact, "I could always help Victor check the net."
"Sounds good," he replied, "The net always needs fixing; I'm going to get started on that patrol and see if there's anyone up to anything they shouldn't be."
"Have fun."
"I should be so lucky," he bemusedly replied.
It was then that a familiar shade of green caught Raven's attention and nodded in its direction, "Is that Garfield?"
He put his hand to his eyes and gazed intently at the growing figure and thrummed affirmatively.
"I do hope he hasn't gotten himself knotted up again. He's going to lose a leg one of these days."
Robin's face remained passive as the changeling arrived quite out of breath.
"What's wrong Gar?"
"The HIVE," the managed between huffs, "They're at the Reef."
"What did I tell you, eh?"
"Something about bad luck I would imagine."
"I'm pretty sure they're looking for a fight," the still very much out of breath octoboy relayed.
"Then we'll give them one," Robin replied strongly; his armored scales clicked as he sounded a mighty thrum through his chest; "TITANS TOGTHER!"
Side note, Robin is a sea robin, which is quite close to flying fish; which I found amusing because of his parents being the "flying graysons".
***Special Edit Notes***
A SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO Sky66 FOR CORRECTING CHAPTERS 1-3, which meant a lot to me, as no one has ever done something like that for me, and I also apologize greatly for the trouble it likely took in doing so!
Also, to answer a few of the questions posed:
The "skirt" to which Jinx is referring to is the webbing between Raven's outermost tentacles, as it gives her the look of having a skirt, despite it being made of her flesh. The webbing is actually called a cape according to the vampire squid's wiki, but I refrained from using that term due to orientation of where it was located on Raven.
Clothing does exist in this underwater world and are largely used as displays of status, or armor, and are made out of things found underwater. Nets, woven grasses perhaps, or skin taken from sharks, whales, and sea lions. Those sorts of things. If mers live inland within rivers or near populated shorelines, those mers could have access to more humanized clothing, although not all of it might survive well underwater.
I'll be touching on underwater cities briefly, but they do exist in small numbers due to their large sizes. Gotham Deep and Mertropolis, will be two examples. These cities are densely populated and contain a large number of adult mers. The residents of these cities often fight each other to gain better status. To keep from completely destroying local ecosystems, adolescent mers are encouraged to leave home and either establish their own colonies or join shoals or cities elsewhere although not all of them do. On the plus side, cities are great places to trade for materials or medicines, which are always in high demand.
The story does in fact take place on Earth, but on an alternate one with more than .1% of the reef systems still thriving and one where corals are more adaptable to begin with. The humans, upon discovering mers, strived to maintain as pollution free as possible as a whole throughout the ages.
There are still "unfortunate accidents" however, as this is the human race we are discussing.
As far as direct positioning goes, Titans Reef is technically a barrier reef, though they wouldn't come into contact with humans naturally. They could easily run across a boat during its travels, especially barges, or an occasional fishing boat.