Chapter Text
The sun was at its peak when the crane and truck came. It was heading for the 30 foot tall tank. The factory was already moving and working as the truck came to a stop in front of a mostly full tank of mer’s. The tank was full of different mers swimming around looking curious about the large truck. The truck itself was a tanker truck. It was restock day for the tank.
“What did we get today?” One of the workers yelled to the man getting out of the truck.
“Got some beauties this time. One is a very unique looking mer too.” The trucker walked over to the truck's controls. The top of the truck opened to reveal sloshing water and many tails and fins splashing about.
The crane dipped in and grabbed a white scaled mermaid. The men watched as the crane dropped her into the other tank. She was disoriented at being in a new place. The men watched for the inevitable.
Like lightning the other mers in the tank descended on her. The water was full of blood in seconds as they tore into the disoriented female. “Happens every time,” The operator mutters, grabbing another mer. “Cannibals.”
“If you’d feed them they wouldn’t do this.” The trucker pointed at the tanks as the second mer met the same fate.
“And waste money?!” The operator laughed, “Nope, they are going to be beautiful purses, jewelry, medicine, or furniture.”
The crane grabbed another mer. This one was unique with gold stripes and long fins all over. “Ah, that's the unique one I got today. The fishermen said it was tangled in the nets pretty badly.” The crane dropped the mer into the water.
The mer was quick to recover as a couple of other mers came close to him. He fanned his large fin’s out, an intimidation display from what the humans could figure. Two mers weren’t deterred and went for him. Both yelped and moved away from the other mer. Said mer swam and laid behind one of the filter’s fins still flared.
“Interesting, I think he’ll make a great piece, wouldn’t you say?” The humans walked away after dropping the other eight mers into the water.
On the other side of the tank a small group watched curiously. The two that had attacked the unique mer swam over. Muscular grit his teeth looking down at the large scratch on his arm. “Bastard.” Moonfish just grumbled as he laid down.
A white and black spotted eel tail twitched, “That was interesting." The mer had red eyes and light blue hair.
Next to him a small mer with blonde hair and large fangs sniffed, “He smells different.”
Another mer moved from their small pile, “He’s possibly from a different farm.” His green scales reflected the light coming in, “That or from someone’s personal tank.”
“My dears,” a silver finned mer moved, “I believe he might be from the sea.”
“Compress, explain.” The spotted eel mer glared at his barracuda pod mate.
Compress bowed jokingly, “Of course Shigaraki, the different smell points to a different place he came from.” He pointed to the vampire fish mer, “Toga here confirmed it. Next is his little display and recovery time, he easily moved to defense and didn’t just freeze.”
“So we went for someone who's fought his whole life for survival,” Muscular rolled his eyes, “Great.” He crossed his arms and let out a loud yelp, “This sting fucking hurts!” Next to him moonfish twitched as well in pain.
“You're fine,” Another eel mer moved out of their little pile. He was a black dragon eel with bots of white along his body. The lower part of his face, arms, parts of his chest, neck and upper chest and below his eyes were black scales.
“Shut up Dabi!” Muscular growls at the other mer.
“Please do not start fighting,” One of the last members of their pod huffed, next to him the clownfish mer mumbled to himself, “They should stop fighting, Yes fight to the death!”
“Kurogiri, Twice,” Shigaraki looked at the other two before sighing. He glanced at the unique mer who hadn’t moved yet. All around the other mers have moved to other pods for protection or were just swimming around. “Let's ignore them.”
Hours later Muscular and Moonfish were acting odd. They kept yelling and fighting with each other, everyone and themselves. It started to make Twice look sane. They even started to pace the tank relentlessly. At one point Musclar ran into the glass yelling at no one.
Dabi and the others watched with interest and a bit of concern. It finally ended at sunset when they both seized. They stopped moving and making a sound. The humans had noticed this and removed the two from the tank. Moments later the humans shook their heads and the bodies were moved into the factory.
Shigaraki growled, “We lost two more of the pod.” His glare turned to the unique mer, “He killed them.”
“Temura,” Kurogiri moved next to his pod leader, “We’ll deal with this in the morning.” He brushed his fin against Shigaraki’s back, “Rest now.”
Shigaraki listened and the pod moved back into a pile. He didn’t want to lose more of the pod he created. Thinking back he remembered where everyone was from, mostly. Toga and Spinner came from different breeding farms. Twice and Moonfish came from a very bad breeding farm that had family breeding with family. Shigaraki and Kurogiri were from an old man's precious collection before he died and Shigaraki and Kurogiri were sold. Compress and Muscular came from a traveling entertainment place before they went bankrupt. Dabi, he never told anyone where he was from, he was bounced around so many times before ending up here. Then there was Magne, she was from the sea, she didn’t last long in this tank.
As night descended and all the mers finally turned in, there was movement. The unique mer swam up to the surface. The opening to the tank had been sealed shut for the night. He moved around studying the seal of the tank. Moving from one corner to the other he frowned at what he found. No obvious way out, well none that was going to be easy.
He swam to the back of the tank. His eyes moved along the back, looking for the weak point of the tank. He found that there was a gap where the filter came in. The gap will be tight but still do-able. Next was making the path out. The factory had made the tank close to the drainage system. The dirty water was pumped out into the drainage system to go down a pipe. If he was lucky it emptied into a system of pipes that would lead to the sea.
“What are you doing?” He jumped as Toga tilted her head.
“I’m looking for a way out.” He pointed to the gap, “If I can get through that I can then make it to that drainage ditch over there and get away from here.”
“You mean escape?!” Toga squealed, and her mouth was covered quickly from behind.
“Toga quiet,” Shigaraki moved forward, all around him his pod breached the surface. “You want to escape.” The mer nodded, “You know how to escape?”
The mer nodded again, “Not my first time being caught and escaping.”
“Ok, you're taking us with you.” Shigaraki motioned for the mer to get a move on.
The mers gold eyes widened, “Wait you all want to get out? That's a bit of a problem, it’s one thing for me to escape but it’s a lot more risky if we all go.”
Dabi moved close to the mer who flared his fins out as he was backed into the glass. Dabi noted how the mer has small and large spines along his fins and back but none in the front. “You take all of us or you don’t leave either.” He wrapped his hand around the other's throat and squeezed lightly at the trapped mer.
The mer swallowed, “Fine, but you do what I say.”
Dabi looked at Shigaraki who nodded, “Deal.” He let the other mer go.
The mer grumbled and ducked under water. He came up quickly and grabbed the edges of the gap. He worked carefully and quickly to squeeze his way through, his tail flicking quite a bit. Once up, he moved his tail out of the gap and looked around the tank. There was a pile of rope at the bottom. The fall would hurt but the ropes would cushion it a bit. ‘Thank god for strong bones.’
“Ok, who’s first?” Compress goes first, he struggles through the gap but with the others help he gets out. “Land on the ropes and head for the ditch over there.” He points to the water system. Compress nods and carefully falls off the tank.
Toga, Spinner and Twice were pretty easy. Well it was easy before Twice squealed when he jumped. Everyone froze and listened to see if any of the security had heard. There wasn’t anyone yet but now it was pressing to move quickly. Kurogiri easily made it out next.
It was when Dabi was about to jump down that they heard security coming. “Move!” Dabi was pushed by the other mer who then turned his attention to Shigaraki. “Come on!” Shigaraki kept looking at the light from the flash lights coming. The mer reached down and tried to pull him up. It snapped him out of it and Shigaraki managed to squeeze through.
“There!” The humans were shouting now and running. Hands resting on their hips over what could only be a gun.
“Jump!” Shigaraki was pushed by the mer who jumped after. They crawled quickly through the grass and dirt toward the water. Dabi stopped at the edge but ducked into the water when the first shot happened. “Get down!” Shigaraki was jumped onto by the other who gave a small jerk.
It was only seconds that Shigaraki doesn’t even remember before he was in the water with the others. The mer made it next but didn’t stop, “This way quickly!” He moved into the pipe, his tail disappearing. The others didn’t wait before following after. “I forgot to mention,” His voice echoed back, “My name is Hawks, what are yours?”