Let us all thank L. VanDattae
Slade scanned the island carefully.
They shouldn't have been able to escape. Not with all the nets surrounding the land. Yet all of his men had said they hadn't seen either the small mermaid or the large one. Of course, they could be hiding. If so his men should have found them. A part of Slade told him that he should just leave well enough alone, but the other part of him was stubborn and refused to give up.
As he stared out at the island where the bombs continued to explode in the water, a voice spoke: "You know, you're pretty brave, mister."
Slade looked down to see a little boy standing there in old faded jeans and a red hoodie. Strange. What was a child doing on his ship? The little boy looked at him with a smile, tilting his head when he didn't answer, before reaching out to tug at his shirt.
"Mister?"
Looking back at the sea, Slade smirked. "Bravery has nothing to do with it. I want what I want, and I always get it in the end."
"But you're going after The Bat," the boy said.
"The Bat?" Slade chuckled deeply. "No one has seen that mer-monster in years."
The kid shrugged. "They say he's still out there."
A true fact. The so called Bat was a powerful being, said to have destroyed many ships, submarines, and various other vessels that had been trying to capture mermaids. Powerful he might be, but even he couldn't stop them all. Yet no one had been able to see or catch one in thirty years, and mermaids grew slowly. So either way he could still be alive, and if so, then that meant the ones Slade had caught could be the sons of The Bat… if that were true, he may have angered the mer. However, it could be just another mermaid, because many of them had the same coloring and the three he had seen didn't have black tails. The little one's fins might turn black when he grew older, but there was no guarantee that they would either.
Still, the possibility was a high one. No one had ever seen The Bat up close, so it could be true. As Slade pondered this, a large bang hit the side of his ship, causing him to grip onto the railing. The kid slipped off the deck. Another bang followed and this time he recognized it as something hitting the side of the ship harshly. Looking over the side of the ship, he saw a shadow in the water rush forward and hit the side.
The bang happened again as the shadow came rushing at them. It was clear what the merman was up to. He was trying to flip the ship over. As the bangs continued, the alarms started to blare. Leaving the deck, Slade went to the other side while all the sailors started to prepare to fill the life boats. He scanned the water and almost barked a laugh as he saw a green-tailed mermaid sneaking past the distracted men and trying to escape.
"Found you." Slade chuckled darkly before yelling at some men. "Get the cannon net ready!"
"But sir! The ship!"
"I don't care!" Slade yelled. "I'm not leaving without that mermaid! Get the cannon ready!"
Jericho cut the fresh-out-of-the-oven loaves of bread into small pieces before putting them into a bucket wrapped up in a cloth towel. He had finally figured it out. Red Hood liked bread. That was something he could use to get the mermaid to listen to him and hopefully do some tricks.
Grabbing his things, he walked out of his house before getting into his jeep and driving the ten minutes to his father's new theme park. They would be done soon. That meant once the water filled the giant tank and the tubes the mermaids would be expected to preform. No doubt his father was already selling tickets and had thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. The scales they had pulled off the mermaids were already selling for a great amount of money.
Pulling into the parking lot, Jericho got out of the jeep, making sure to grab the bucket of hot bread. Twirling his keys, he headed to the door, punching in his pass-code before entering. Once inside he heard wailing screeches.
Eyes wide in worry, he ran down the long hallway, following the wailing, when he came to where they kept Nightwing and Red Hood at night and slammed the doors open.
Red Hood was thrashing around at the bottom of the water-less floor of his tank. For a second Jericho thought that they had left him out of the water until he saw that trainer, Grant, standing there, holding a cattle prod that was crackling. Nightwing was looking on in horror from his own tank, scratching desperately at the glass, trying to get to his friend.
As Red Hood continued to thrash around, his body racked with pain, he attacked anything around him. Once it started to subside a little, Red Hood turned on Grant, hissing in anger before swiping at him when the man took a few steps closer. When Grant aimed the prod at him though, Red Hood backed away, growling, his eyes holding hate for the man and maybe even the desire to kill.
Angry himself, Jericho stepped forward. "Enough!"
"I have orders from Mr. Wilson to help with their training," Grant said.
"I'm in charge of their training." Jericho glared. "I didn't approve this."
"I have permission from your father." Grant took out a paper. "You can read it over if you like."
Taking it, Jericho started to read through it. As he did, he failed to notice that the water in Nightwing's tank started to drain. Nightwing noticed and started to panic, swimming around the small tank before curling up in a corner, deeming it slightly deeper as the water lowered until he had none left to swim. He screeched when Grant came closer.
Head snapping up from the paper, Jericho yelled, "Leave them the hell alone!"
"I'm training them."
"No, you're not!" Jericho said, pushing the man away. "I'm in charge of their training and no one else!"
Slamming his hand on the button that refilled the tanks with water and opened the sliding glass doors that lead out to the pool, Jericho looked on as both mermaids scattered away. Red Hood's body still twitched as he left, speeding so fast that Nightwing had trouble keeping up.
Turning back, Jericho confronted Grant. "How many times did you shock him?"
"Not enough to kill him."
"How many times?" Jericho demanded.
"Twice."
After yelling at the man some more, Jericho went out to the pool. Out there Red Hood was on the water platform, twitching and rolling over, shaking his head before going back under the water only to continue to thrash around before getting back on the platform and jumping back off. Nightwing looked on, worry written all over his face.
Finally Red Hood left to haul himself up onto the fake rock near the other side of the pool and laid down on his stomach, breathing deeply with his arms crossed, face hidden. Nightwing peeked out of the water before pulling himself out, laying next to Red Hood and nudging closer, trying to check and see if his friend or brother (Jericho had yet to figure it out) was all right. When Red Hood didn't respond, Nightwing got closer, their sides touching.
Suddenly Nightwing was knocked off, letting out a loud yelp. Red Hood looked pissed off as he pushed his friend off before going back to trying to recover from being electrocuted. Less than a minute later Nightwing peeked up over the rock before slowly pulling himself up. Even slower this time, he scooted over to Red Hood. When Red Hood glared at him, Nightwing went limp, turning his head away as if the bigger mermaid wouldn't see him that way.
Sitting down, Jericho frowned, his eyebrows knitted. Something was going on here. The way they were acting. Did they understand what had happened? Could it be…? Watching closer, he saw them having a conversation through the sounds they made. Each sentences that sounded like cooing echoes held emotions. Emotions of concern, anger, and hurt.
The sounds stopped after Red Hood shoved Nightwing off the rock three more times, before he finally let the other back on. Jericho let them rest for about an hour, just watching them. It was clear that Red Hood didn't want to accept the help and comfort Nightwing was trying to offer, but after he did let Nightwing help, he seemed relieved.
Kneeling down, Jericho ran his hand over the water before patting it.
Nightwing sat up immediately, looking at him. He had learned the signal easily enough, knowing that that was when he should go to Jericho. However, he stared at him not moving this time, so Jericho hit the water a little harder. Nightwing's tail swished back and forth for a few seconds before he jumped into the water and swam over.
"Hey, Nightwing," Jericho said softly. "Is Red Hood all right?"
Nightwing made a noise that Jericho took for a 'No' before tossing a piece of bread at him. The mermaid looked at it before taking it back to the rock, placing it on there and waiting for the other to look at it. A few minutes passed with Red Hood just staring at the little piece before he ate it slowly. After that he went back to just staring out at the water.
"Red Hood," Jericho called, patting the water. "Come here, buddy… you can have the bread and you don't even have to do a trick."
Red Hood just looked at him before slowly swimming over, taking the offered food and eating. Jericho had planned on using the bread to get the mermaid to do tricks, but after the torture it was all right to just give him what he liked to eat. Red Hood ate most of the bread before going back to the rock, laying down with Nightwing lying next to him, chewing on the last of the bread that Red Hood left behind.
A few seconds later Red Hood shoved Nightwing off again and stole the last few bites that the blue-tailed one had made into a little pile.
Jericho laughed. "I guess he really loves bread."
Tim swam carefully through the water. Looking back a few times, he saw Bruce distracting the land dwellers when something let out a loud bang. Jumping over the net, Tim started to swim away when something snagged his upper body. A net wrapped its way around his upper body.
"Bruce...!" Tim screamed, as the weights on the net started to drag him down. "Bruce...!"
"Hold on, Tim!"
Strong arms pulled the net off him and Tim grinned up happily at his father. The merman was amazing, the best person in the entire world. Yet it seemed the entire world was bent on taking this powerful merman away from him. In a split second, Bruce grunted, eyes wide and staring at Tim before the water began to turn red with blood.
"No!" Tim screamed, arms reaching for Bruce when another hand dove into the water, yanking him out. "Bruce! No, Bruce!"
Someone wrapped him into a net while a man with a white beard and an eye patch pulled out a gun.
"Now then," Slade said, firing two rounds into the water. "Now that that's taken care of..." He pulled the small mermaid up, net and all. "We can get you to your new home... Robin."
"Bruce...?" Tim whimpered. "Bruuuuuuuccccccceeeeeeee...!"
The boats pulled away with the mermaid screaming and crying for the loss of its father. Thinking himself successful, Slade pulled the small mermaid around in the net before holding it by the side of the boat.
"You're mine now. Might as well accept that..."
A black tail rose out of the sea, knocking Slade across the other side of the ship, where he barreled into several actual barrels. Men scrambled to him, since the man seemed to be out cold.
A large upper body hoisted itself up from the water, a pure devil form hell with all the blood that surrounded him. With one hand he snatched up the small merchild, tearing the net open, before plunging back into the water.
Tim swam as fast as he could next to Bruce when they saw someone up ahead floating in the cold water. Someone must have fallen out of the boats. However, the body was small. For a second Tim wondered if the other child was dead, but they had no time to stop, so Bruce grabbed the child by his waist and used the other one to grab Tim, swimming off as fast as they could. On the way there, Bruce left the child on the island for his own kind to find before grabbing Tim and making a break now that the humans were highly distracted.
"Bruce, are you all right?!" Tim cried, still seeing the trails of blood. "We need to stop somewhere so I can heal you."
"There's a place we can go. Just about an hour's swim."
"No! It has to be sooner!"
"I have an idea, Tim, and I need you to listen to me before it's too late."
I fell out of a tree today... because of a stupid bet... please enjoy and drop a comment.
To REBD: I just tossed the names in there.
To L. VanDattae: I hope I did the connections thing right. I'm not sure if I did. Thanks you for your review it has give me ideas on other things I wish to add to the story. You wrote a Mer-fic? Awesome! What's it about?
Okay since iM a little bit high at the moment from the meds they gave me at the hospital I want to answer some questions:
1. Yes they can speak Human if they wanted they just choose not to.
2. Cooing (Orca sounds is how their able to talk to one another under and above water./p
3. Yes, Tim, is very cute, no I will not have Tim getting raped.
4. Bruce is powerful but he's not a god in this story (Sorry Diana)
5. Please leave nice long reviews because galling out of a tree for something dumb and than having your back feel like it's on fire sucks and they won't let me leave here. Make a stay in a little more fun, huh?