Chapter 2: Cradle to the Cave.
-Port Poseidon, Present Day-
"Sirena, that's enough, stop telling them the gory parts. You're scaring the kids." Will called from the study as Sirena told their twin son and daughter: Raja and Jasmine, the story behind the story of how their mother and father met.
"Sorry, dear!" Sirena called back sheepishly, taking a little too much enjoyment in the bloody parts of how they first met.
Raja and Jasmine were kids who were around a year old, almost two. They were shark-human hybrids like their mother with their father's hair and eyes, and their mother's skin and features–more specifically her Tiger Shark skin. Hence their Indian and Arabian names.
"I swear, Sirena, you are such a blood dork." Jacquelyn commented with a shake of her head as she read a book in a chair on the other side of the room.
The woman was currently five months pregnant. She'd gotten that way after Will and Sirena got back from the UK, and decided to add her to their harem.
"No fighting you two!" Civil called from the study as well, she was nursing her child: Evie.
"Oh shush." The blunette huffed before turning back to her kids. "Where was I? Oh right!" She remembered before going back to where she left off.
(Flashback)
The camera of Remora zoomed in as both Scaly Pete's severed hand and little pup Sirena slammed into the water. The disoriented shark pup shook herself out of her daze before the scent of blood hit her nose and she immediately lunged at the hand, devouring it whole.
But damn, did it taste awful!
"A local marine biologist one posited that when an animal tasted human flesh, they would forsake their natural prey in a dangerous single minded search for 'the most dangerous game'." Trip commented.
Deciding to continue forward, Sirena started swimming through the bayou, devouring catfish and turtles that got in her way while also staying low to the freshwater floor.
This allowed her to essentially escape the notice of several large alligators by using her dark layer of skin as camouflage in the murky depths. As she swam, she came across a box with a blinking red light.
Presently lacking the mental processes to wonder what she was looking at, she opened it and downed the contents without a second thought, as expected of newborns.
"This nutrient cache contains no additives, so the shark doesn't have to worry about flavoring or hidden artificial flavors." Trip stated as the pup continued swimming on. Soon enough, she reached a grotto that she could feel safe in. "It's here in the grotto where the shark can experience the wonders of self love."
After resting for a moment, the sea wolf then concentrated and suddenly used a Sonar pulse. Much like the one her mother had.
"Displaying behavior more common to whales and dolphins, the shark can use bio Sonar to locate potential prey." Trip noted.
Detecting some catfish, the pup proceeded to go after it and maul it, eating every last inch of the common fish and found it even better in flavor compared to Pete's hand. Seeing more catfish and a few turtles, she proceeded to feast on every single one of them.
Then she proceeded to go on a hunt for anything that caught her young eyes. Soon, she found a pop plug drain of all things at the bottom of one part of the Bayou.
"I have one of the pop stopper plugs at home, and let me tell you, those things are just a magnet for hair and debris." Trip commented knowingly.
Continuing on, the creature then chomped down on another nutrient cache, causing its contents to become devoured.
"This cache acts as a 'between meal' supplement. To help the shark put on some serious mass…" Trip stated.
This pattern went on for a good while–several weeks, in fact–the shark exploring the Bayou and finding all sorts of oddities and eating nutrient caches scattered all over the swamp for reasons unknown. The last landmark in the Bayou was…
"If a group of consenting adults want to perform cryptic rights to shadow forth a prophecy of the Great Old Ones, heh, who am I to judge?" Trip mused as the shark stumbled across a ritual site in front of a statue of a Great Old One of all things. "But really, why is this thing here, anyway?" He wondered.
Next on the pup's agenda was to get some more food–and she knew just where to find it.
Swimming towards one of the abandoned barges and found an area absolutely teeming with catfish of all sizes, ripe for the pup to devour. Without a second thought, she swam into the school and started feasting.
"The over hunting of Fawtick Bayou's predators has led to an abundance of catfish. Which is just fine with local bully Rosie the alligator." The narrator noted.
(Elsewhere)
Meanwhile on the shore of Port Clovis–specifically in Golden Shores–Trip and Will were looking over some of the new footage, when Will saw the landmark of the abandoned Rosie the Alligator plushies.
"... Should we make our own plushies of our little girl?" The younger man questioned.
"Oh yeah. That's too good an idea." Trip nodded, already drawing up plans for said plushie brand. The two men just knew that after a while, there was going to be an influx of demands for them.
"What should we call her? Can't just keep calling her "The shark"." The billionaire continued.
"Not sure." Trip shrugged before a comment from one of their few but steadily growing in number viewers suggested one. "Ooh. Sirena sounds like a good name." He whistled.
"Huh?" Will uttered before he saw the comment. "Hm. Yeah, it does sound good, actually." He nodded.
"Alright then." The man nodded as he started piecing together episode two…
(Elsewhere)
Meanwhile, back in Fawtick Bayou. After eating the catfish at the barge, the sea wolf returned to her grotto to rest. It was during this period of respite that she matured into a teen. This was likely due to all the mutagen she had been eating accelerating her growth.
"The shark is now a teen, so we should expect much angst, ennui, and poor decision making." Trip commented. "And to the viewer who gave us a name for our shark, congratulations. Her name is now Sirena." He added.
Sirena swam happily through her watery home, before another of her adaptations activated. That being protein digestion, allowing her to absorb more of the nutrient from her latest meal.
She then kept swimming again until she started to glow, and then slowly gained a new color scheme. Specifically, a tiger print one.
"Hm? I know she was eating nutrient caches, but this is a little odd." Trip commented, sounding confused about Sirena's sudden color change.
Sirena kept swimming about the swamp, and after a while, she came across an unusually large Muskellunge.
Deciding to test her newly empowered tail, she waited for the creature to rush her–and slammed her tail into its snout. This dazed the fish and caused it to flounder about, and allowed Sirena to dig into its midsection and start devouring its innards.
"The Muskellunge, or Muskie, is a fish that's typically found up north in the Great Lakes region. So I have no idea what it's doing here." Trip stated as the fish in question was eaten.
After Sirena's midway meal was done, she came across a grate leading to a new area. Smashing her way through, she swam through a small tunnel and was greeted by an environmental disaster.
There was radioactive material everywhere, and nuclear reactors had sunken under the water.
Paying no heed to her new surroundings, she proceeded forward with the intent of finding a new grotto in this area.
Swimming and coming across a wall blocking off the quarantine zone from the rest of the lake, she jumped over it and ate several groupers that were in her path while avoiding the alligators of the area.
It was then that she found a curious landmark. It was the wreckage of a Horzine facility, extremely radioactive and leaking chemicals everywhere.
"We'd like to thank Horzine Industry's Sunshine Solutions that made this show possible." Trip began. "We'd also like to assure the public that mass gene editing for today's military–is safer than ever!" He added.
Sirena kept swimming forward and eventually managed to reach her next grotto… which had a lot of garbage in it, much to her chagrin.
"Dead Horse Lake acts as a saline reminder of the role of human fallibility in the face of avoidable catastrophe." Trip noted.
After a bit of resting, Sirena left her grotto to explore the lake and see what she could find. And she found a… decent bit, for a heavily polluted lake.
There were a few weird things in the lake, including a landmark of a garbage man who was tossed into the lake by local drunkards and another related to tires, even having a statue made of the rubber material. There were also some nutrient caches, but a few of them were locked behind reinforced grates that she couldn't get through as she was yet.
This continued a while longer, with her devouring an entire school of irradiated grouper.
"Several groupers make a home at the demolished nuclear plant. This could act as a chance for Sirena to test the theory that exposure to Gamma rays gives you superpowers." Trip explained.
It was directly after this that she was suddenly attacked by two Alligators and a barracuda!
Growling, and knowing that she couldn't take on these three predators at once, Sirena focused on outmaneuvering them while she ate the groupers she was targeting. The three larger predators got a few hits in, but she was able to evade them otherwise and eat her rather fatty meal.
She then went on the offensive and decided to make the alligators injure themselves by slamming into each other–allowing her to attack their vulnerable underbellies and begin to eat them alive.
"The word Alligator comes from the Spanish word 'Alligarto' which means "The lizard"... Which really isn't that interesting." Trip quipped before deflating as his quip slipped.
The barracuda was all alone now, following the deaths of its two reptilian allies. Sirena glared at it, as if daring it to make a move. The barracuda immediately swam away from her, seeing that it was outmatched.
The sea wolf then decided to return to searching for more things to eat, which led her to finding and digging into sixteen nutrient caches.
"This mineral supplement wouldn't be necessary if Sirena here ate a more balanced diet." The narrator tsked.
Feeling full for the time being, Sirena returned to the grotto… and suddenly started growing again! She was an adult now!
"Now an adult in a shockingly short amount of time, Sirena should really focus on spending less, saving more, and working on financial management and such." Trip remarked, shocked at Sirena's fast maturity.
With a quick shake of her head, Sirena then groaned as her teeth suddenly started changing shape!
They slowly became much more needle-like and slowly started to even become overgrown to the point that some poked through the gums.
After this startling event, she started out back to the lake when a duo of barracudas had the audacity to swim into her place of rest.
Feeling suitably pissed, she chomped down on one of the two intruders and flung it into the other via whipshot, the impact being hard enough to kill both of them. Sirena happily dined on the two dead idiot fish before swimming back out into the lake fully.
After a few days of swimming around, she was suddenly shot at by a gunner in a boat, the bullets narrowly missing her and gaining her ire.
Deciding to teach her assailants a lesson, she got below the boat and then swam to the surface at full speed, breaching the water and flipping the boat over in one move. A shot that Trip made sure to capture for the show's opener when it Aired on the Discovery Channel next week.
The people that once crewed the boat were easily knocked into the water by the surprise maneuver and were now making a desperate effort to swim for the shore. Sirena stalked them from below and contemplated killing them for attacking her. Remembering the good human's face, and thinking that he wouldn't like it if she killed them here, she decided against it and swam away.
But if this happened again, she wouldn't hesitate to defend herself.
"I've heard a lot of bad stuff bein' said about Mama Maybelle. Don't know if it's true, but she always gave me good prices on fins." A soundbite from Pete sounded.
(Timeskip)
It was a few weeks later, and sure enough, some jackass tried her patience again. This time it was in a settlement of hobos that huched around makeshift barges and docks made of salvaged driftwood.
Feeling rather toasty by the shotgun pellet slight she just endured, Serina decided to retaliate–with extreme prejudice.
She jumped out of the water at the hobo on the barge that shot at her and snatched the gunner off of it with her teeth, causing them to scream in pain from the shark biting down on them before they were flung at another gunner, the force behind the attack being hard enough to kill them both.
Deciding to eat them, she did so, and continued to do the same with twelve others that shot at her or threatened her with fishing harpoons.
"Say what you want about them hobos, they do good work. Unlike my so-called son Kyle. So I pay 'em extra to keep an eye out for that shark." Pete mused.
As she swam away to a different part of the lake to rest after her meal, she stopped at Flamingo Joe's. It was a restaurant that hunters frequented and always tossed out scraps she could gorge on.
However, as she rested herself for a bit, she suddenly had to dodge when someone shot at her with a pistol from the restaurant's balcony.
"Check it out! It's that shark Scaly Pete rambled on about! Let's steal her from him!" Some idiot with blonde hair and a goatee exclaimed as he pointed his pistol at Sirena, getting a chorus of agreement as they scrambled for their jetskis.
"The locals of Port Clovis never miss an opportunity to engage in mindless, gratuitous slaughter." Trip stated.
Sirena, fully fed up with this shit, decided she was done playing nice. Rushing at two of the hunters and leaping over them, using her tail to swat them off their rides–and skewer themselves on the exposed "Anti-shark" wall Flamingo Joe's had on the edges of the balcony.
She then ate these two as they said unto the water, then proceeded to dodge a bundle of dynamite thrown at her–before returning it to sender with a tail whip–destroying three jetskis and killing six people. Which she promptly ate.
The blonde idiot, Bayou Billy, was the only one left. Instead of running away and living like anyone with common sense would, he brandished a harpoon gun as he sat on his jetski.
"The Scourge of the swampland, Bayou Willy." Trip introduced.
"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!" The low level hunter exclaimed. Calling it a fight would be an overstatement, since the only thing Sirena had to do was breach the water and snatch him off his jetski before devouring him, marking the beginning of her infamy.
"Throwing caution to the wind, the big fish continues her fight against Port Clovis." Trip commented.
It was then that her teeth began to change shape again, turning instead into what looked like bioelectric teeth. Chomping down, Sirena discovered that instead of poison like the other teeth, these shocked things.
Though she decided to swap back to her normal teeth and leave them for later…
(Later)
It was late at night and now Will was at Flamingo Joe's having a drink. Specifically he was having a Caribbean Daiquiris (sugar, lime, and rum over crushed ice), specifically so he could try to forget the shit fest he just endured.
For the past several weeks, he'd been trying to get his friends in animal control to try and capture Sirena when she was a pup–but due to some corporate meddling from the mayor and several others–it was stopped by too much red tape.
The man then spent some time walking along the shore of DHL with his drink in hand, when he stopped. "Why do people feel the need to ruin marine habitats like this?" He wondered, looking at the sorry place.
Then out of nowhere, Sirena breached the water and beached herself in front of him after chasing and eating a grouper. She was about to leave when she noticed Will standing there, causing her to stop for a moment.
Will, meanwhile, paused at the sight of the rapidly maturing Tiger skinned Bull Shark female. "Um... Hi?" He said awkwardly since he didn't expect this to happen.
Sirena, in a moment of shyness, retreated back into the water and swam off.
"... Was it something I said?" The young man questioned as he went back to the bar.
Meanwhile, Sirena was trying to calm her nerves from the shock she had gotten as she swam back to her grotto. The good human was right there, and she just swam away because she got shy! She wasted an opportunity to show him how much she liked him, and didn't know if she'd get another chance!
She really hoped more chances would come…
(Flashback End)
Back in the present day, Sirena smiles as she took her son and daughter into her arms while Civil and Jacquie sat with them, baby and book in hand.
"I'm the happiest shark around." She sighed as the twins nuzzled into her chest, having fallen asleep.
"I think it's safe to say that all of us are happy because of Will." Jaquie smiled.
"Indeed." Civil nodded as she got up. "We should probably put the little ones down for bed." She added.
"Yeah. They look pretty tuckered out." Sirena nodded in agreement as she stood up and walked to the twin's room. Setting her little pups in their small bed, she smiled as she tucked them in, before feeling two arms around her.
"Enjoying your storytelling, love?" Will asked softly as he held his precious sea wolf close.
"How can I not? I have so much to share with our darling children." Sirena smiled.
"Come on. Let's get some sleep." The man smiled before he and his lovelies all retired to their bed.
"Yes." The women nodded as they went to their bedroom.
Dragon Emperor0: Chapter 2 done. At this point, Sirena will probably be able to get all of her evolutions and take down all of the Apexes before facing off against Pete again.
ThermalsniperN7: I dunno about all of them, but I do know that the Apex Barracuda is gonna get mauled since Sirena became an adult pretty quickly.
Dragon Emperor0: Well I mean the early ones. Ya know, the Mako, Alligator, Hammerhead and probably Great White. Then she'll fight Pete, and then she'll take down the Orca and Sperm Whale.
ThermalsniperN7: And let's not forget how Sirena spared a few Antolinis because of Will's influence on her. But even that wasn't enough to save the other idiots that attacked her. Bayou Willy brought it on himself, though. And it looks like Will made an attempt to have animal control capture Sirena so she wouldn't have to go on as she has, only for the mayor and several others to meddle in it and put it to a stop. Dumbasses like them are what'll keep Sirena's rampage going… At least no innocent civilians will be targeted by her; she'll stick to being docile.
Dragon Emperor0: Yeah, which makes her much more sympathetic than the garden variety "eat all humans" variant. Anyway guys, see you all later.