The Siren and The Sun

5) Atlantis, Atlantica

Atlantis turned, already knowing who she would see. Hermes politely waved and folded his wings, dropping to the ground.

"How long have you been here?" she snapped to the god.

"Long enough."

"Why are you here? And do you have any food?"

"To take you off this island. And here." He tossed her a bag of pretzels, but was clearly irrated with her attitude.

Atlantis nibbled on them between words. "You're not taking me off this island. I'm waiting for my parents to get back."

"Your mother explicitly told me to take you off the island and to Olympus. And because we both know you wouldn't believe me, (cause you're a stubborn teenage girl)-"

"I heard that."

"-your mom gave me this." Hermes showed the siren the back of his left hand, which had a large wax seal on it. His skin was bright red.

"I hope that hurt." She commented. "But I guess I can't argue with the family crest. Unless of course you forged it." The siren glanced up at him.

"I promise on the River Styx I did not forge your family crest." Thunder boomed in the distance.

"How do you plan to get me there?"

"It's too far to swim so," Hermes smiled wickedly. "we're going to fly."

Several minutes later, both of them were airborne. Hermes carried Atlantis with one arm and held his staff in the other.

Atlantis made the mistake of looking down. They were flying over the ocean, but there was a gigantic black blob in the middle, shimmering rainbows in the sunlight. "Oh no."

The god stopped and hovered there. "What? It's just some oil."

"Just some oil?!" The siren repeated. Atlantis wiggled out of Hermes' grip rather easily and dove toward the black water.

Hermes frowned and the siren hit the waves in a perfect 10-point dive and disappeared, somehow without breaking anything.

Hermes groaned and wavered for a second before diving into the water as well. He wasn't going to let her get hurt.

Underneath the waves, Hermes turned and saw large, black clouds coming from somewhere far below him. Atlantis appeared covered in oil and coughing. "Are you going to help me or what?! Get as many as you can out of the oil. I'll try to contain it." The siren sped away, making large loops around the blackness. Hermes took great offense at her demand, but the faster this was over, the faster they could leave. He swam lower and entered the oil. The god couldn't see a thing outside the protective water bubble around himself. He swam around for a while, until something appeared in the bubble. A hand. Creepy. Hermes pulled it and the attached mermaid into his bubble. She coughed black stuff and pointed to the left. "There's more." The god left her in a bubble of clean water and immediately came across more merpeople.  He put clean bubbles around groups and groups of more and more merpeople and animals. Gradually, Atlantis contained the oil behind a giant wall of bubbles by swimming around and around and around it. She was probably dizzy.

Hermes looked below her and realized that all the oil could never be contained. It would just keep seeping out a hole in some black orb about the size of a bowling ball. Turns out it was extremely heavy, and he could only slowly roll it along the sea floor. "Atlantis! Come look at this!" he called to the siren.

She swam down to him and looked at the dark orb. "The oil's coming out of this hole. But how do we plug it?"

"I don't know, come up with something, siren." Hermes snapped rudely.