Chapter Text
It begins with blood in the water.
3:12 am, the alarms at the Hamilton-Rosberg Institute for Marine Coexistence blare, a heavy sound that pierces the silence of the night. The seawater licks the shore and the sky rumbles overhead- the seas are angry. A speedboat cuts its way through the black waters as it races towards the facility as fast as it can, and a merman swims beside them, keeping pace with the vehicle.
Lando is working the night shift in the facility. The medbay is mostly empty; he knows that some of them are on call, but not present on the facility. Anyways, emergencies rarely present themselves at night, and he finds himself in the weirdest group talk he has the privilege of being in.
Fernando, their merfolk representative on the surface; Oscar, a marine biologist intern, and Lando himself, HRIMC’s rising marine researcher; the three of them sitting in a circle in the underground research lab, gossiping without a care in the world.
Go figure.
“And let me tell you- fighting mers the size of goddamn killer whales was not great,” Fernando’s saying, shaking his head slightly. The lights are off in the lab and the only source of illumination on the floor is from the tanks that surround them- huge floor to ceiling tanks opening up into the ocean, mainly so that they could bring in any injured merfolk or if they had anyone visiting them; they always liked having close access to the water. The light from the tanks reflects onto Fernando’s face, highlighting the crease lines on his face, reflecting the bright, animated sparkle in his eyes as he tells his story. Of course, Lando has heard that a billion times before. The story of how he and Sebastian defended their kingdom against a pod of deep sea mers; and a bunch of other stories from his time as a warrior. Oscar hasn’t though- and Fernando insists on telling him the story himself.
Lando’s fine with it. After all, it gives him something to be invested in during his absolutely boring work hours, and it beats clock watching. He leans back and observes how Oscar listens to Fernando; leaned forward, eyes focused in rapt attention, and the occasional nod and ‘mhm’ here and there. It’s cool. The green light from the tank kind of looks nice on his features, actually.
At precisely 3:12 am, the alarms go off.
Injury, a smooth, robotic female voice calls out over the speakers present in the lab, interrupting their story time. Lando’s head jerks upwards towards the source of the sound, and Fernando stands up. Merman injury. Prepare medbay.
“Oh, fuck. Fuck.” Lando gets up, his chair scraping against the steel floor. He needs to step up and fast; he’s the closest thing to a mer expert they have right there at the moment (barring Fernando, of course) and of course this makes him nervous.
“We’ve dealt with mer injuries before,” Fernando notices his distress and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t be very serious, probably a skirmish around the reefs. Mark’s on patrol, yeah? He’s probably dragging in someone against their will.”
“Yeah. Right, right.” Lando nods. “It’s probably just-”
“Nando!” Not even a second later Lance swims into the tank behind them, going at a speed that almost makes him crash against the wall. The merman’s dark green tail thrashes in the water in an attempt to put a brake to his speed, causing the fish to scurry away. Fernando leaves Lando and steps up to the tank instead. Lance’s gills open and close rapidly, possibly due to him rushing into the facility at breakneck speed, his eyes wide with distress.
“Lance, calm down,” Fernando urges, his palm splaying against the glass, a motion which the younger merman copies. “Who is it?”
“Pierre,” he huffs, and he turns to look at the opening. “Pierre got hit. They’re almost here, quick, open-”
“You’re right, right-” Fernando turns to look for a stretcher, motions slightly frantic. “Oscar! Get me a stretcher. Lando, you set up your station, we can’t waste any time at all.”
Lando nods and jogs off towards his workstation. The alarms have alerted the rest of the active staff there as well and the lights come on; flooding the place with white light. The other researchers present- only a couple more, other than the three of them who were already there- they help him gather his tools and equipment.
Lando feels his hands slightly tremble as he pulls on his gloves. Pierre getting hit is bad, terrible news. Pierre is a high ranking court official in the Aurelian court and he maintained a good relationship with their facility. Considering most of the reefs and water in a good few hundred mile radius remains either under Sebastian’s rule or his protection, attacking someone of his court is not a nice diplomatic gesture. He hopes it’s just a skirmish, though. Or one of the stupid egoistic duels they have, or a sparring match, whatever.
Anything as long as it isn’t what he’s thinking of.
Lance is frantic in the tank. He disappears for sometime as Oscar and Fernando wheel out a stretcher and a few guards follow them out; and Lando sees him follow them in. It’s chaotic. There’s a lot of shouting. Soon, the injured merman comes into view.
HRIMC made most of their merfolk specific stretchers to accommodate the merpeople with their huge length and tail; and yet as Pierre comes into view Lando can see that quite some part of his long tail hangs off the end. Oscar has a straight face as he leads the stretcher at the front, and Fernando’s muttering something to the merman to soothe him. Behind them, Lando identifies Mark’s patrol crew- all of them in the HRIMC-issue grey suit- and a short, half naked man, covered in merely jewellery and a towel around his waist, locked in a fierce conversation with Mark. He can make out only parts of their conversation, which grow clearer as they come close. Lando runs up to them.
“- could’ve fixed it!” Now that he’s closer he notices the shorter man- Yuki. Pierre’s partner. They’d talked only a couple of times when he’d visited the surface, and he in general had a sheer distaste for humans- the only reason he even came to the surface was because of Pierre, and because human cuisine was interesting to him.
Pierre is panting on the stretcher, and Lando has to resist the urge to wince when he finally notices his wound. A deep laceration along his rib cage down to his side, blood spilling freely from the gaping wound. Multiple cuts along the shoulder blade, a huge streaked cut down his tail. The merman’s skin was pale under the ceiling lights, and his usually vibrant pink-purple tail seemed to have lost its usual sheen, coated in red blood now.
“Fuck- they were there! You wouldn’t have made it back, don’t you fucking get it-” Mark’s voice is strained, like he’s holding back on the urge to go full ballistic on the merman. He looks up and his eyes lock with Lando’s. “He’s the best guy we have. He’s gonna patch up Pierre.”
Lando feels his throat go dry almost immediately, but he nods anyway. Yuki looks at him, beady eyes full of anger and worry. “Fix him,” he snaps, sharp teeth bared in an almost-snarl. “Please,” he adds as an afterthought.
“Can you turn into a human? Now?” Lando urges him as Fernando and Mark delicately put Pierre on the table so that it’s easier for Lando to work. The merman merely gives a shaky exhale through his mouth, his lips trembling, and shakes his head.
“No, no, not at all,” he murmurs. His breaths are heavy- his gills open and close rapidly, and his chest rises and falls as his body tries taking in air whatever way it can. “Please, please just stitch me quickly, and put me in the water…”
Lando nods, taking a steadying breath to begin working. It’s fine, he just needs to stitch him up. A billion fucking stitches, yes, but nothing he couldn’t work with… he’s done this before. He’ll be alright.
“Fuck!” Pierre hisses through grit teeth as the needle goes into his skin, and Lando doesn’t need to look up to know that Yuki is staring daggers at him. He feels Pierre’s muscles tense- poor guy’s doing a mega effort trying not to scream the entire facility down when he must be in so much pain.
“Fucking RISE hunters,” Yuki mumbles as Lando stitches up the cuts, and his body goes still for a moment. Oh, fuck no. “I’m gonna fucking kill them. I swear. I swear Pierre, I’m gonna kill that fuck who did this to you, okay? I’m gonna hunt him down and chop him up and-”
“Okay, babe, calm down, I’m fine-” Pierre says, but Lando’s brain blocks out the extra talk. RISE. Good lord.
“Who’s here?”
The voice makes all conversations immediately drop dead as they turn. They hadn’t even heard him coming- of course they wouldn’t. He’s barefoot, in his pajamas. Eyes wide as he peers over them, and Lando and Oscar obediently move aside to give him space.
Lewis Hamilton, co-founder of the HRIMC, down here at an ungodly hour of the day- it was half past 3. “How?” He looks up at Yuki opposite him, just one word enough to voice the multiple questions he feels at the moment.
“RISE,” says the merman, barely veiled contempt in his voice, and Lando is sure he just hears his boss’ breath hitch for a second.
“You couldn’t have pushed a bit harder?”
George’s shrill voice cuts through the silence of the sea. The boat rocks in the turbulent waters, but Max manages to hold steady as he steps out of his gear. He is dripping wet- as expected- and as he shakes his head to get rid of some of the water, his hair sticks up like wet spikes. He doesn’t consider George’s words as he keeps ranting.
“Did you see how he defended that pod? We need that guy, Max. If you’d just held on for some more time I could’ve taken care of that other mer and those pesky bastards-”
“Why didn’t you jump in?”
Max’s voice is cold as he interrupts George’s rant. His eyes, icy cold, search his; and the other man goes silent. They stand face to face for a few moments, tension so thick between them it could press them down. George’s upper lip twitches with indignation, and Max steps back, still glaring.
“Thought so,” Max says in a low, condescending voice, and walks off, leaving George fuming on the deck. His hands ball to fists, pressing so hard that he can feel his nails even through the gloves. He takes a measured gulp to steady himself. The ocean feels like it reflects internal turmoil- the way the waves build up and crash against their boat. It is a full moon night; but the storm clouds block out most of the moon.
It’s fine. It’s fine. He tells himself like a mantra in his head. He is the one heading this mission; he isn’t going to disappoint, no. He hasn’t. They haven’t caught any mermen, true. But they have information, and knowledge is wealth at RISE.
He’s sure Toto’s going to be excited to have that, if nothing else.