TRIGGER WARNING! Assault, threats, injury, mild blood
You waited in front of the door nervously, rubbing the jar in your hands as you did so. Per Vanessa's request, you had come over to the library right away despite the sun having barely touched the sky in the rosy dawn. It was so early in fact, you'd only caught a glimpse of one or two people whilst you were on your way over here! Why did she need to see you right away? What kind of meeting were you here for? You didn't know, but it couldn't be anything good if anything you knew of her had anything to say about it. You nervously scratched at your neck and winced at the pain and the feeling of your dried blood under your nails. You really should've cleaned yourself up before coming here...
Why were you meeting here though? You thought before looking up at the door in front of you once again, hoping to find some answers to your question. She had said to meet her by an office in the back of the library, saying that there were some things you needed to be made aware of before going into a different meeting later. It had taken a little longer than you would've liked to admit, but you thankfully found the strange, worn office door. Its peeling paint and frayed edges looked terribly out of place next to all of the modern, well cared for doors around you which begged the question, why did it look like that? And perhaps more importantly, what secrets are hidden behind this door? You curiously leaned closer, trying to see once more if there was anything unique about this door before jumping back as the door was suddenly opened by Vanessa who seemed oddly pleased about something, but the look in her eyes didn't seem very happy to you.
"(Y/n)! Thank you for coming in such short notice." Vanessa said with a strange smile before gesturing to the door behind her. "Come in, come in! We have quite a bit to discuss before the team meeting later today."
Even if you didn't want to go with her through that door, the way she smiled at you gave no room for debate. Nervously you passed by her and slipped through the door, feeling her eyes on your back as you did so. Was it just you or did she seem a bit weirder than usual? You went through a short, dark metal hall lined with pulsing, purple lights before everything broadened out into another room and you gasped openly at what you found.
It was another lab, but this one was far bigger and more ominous than Henry's little lab. The iron walls looked darker here under the harsh purple lights that covered the whole place, making them appear black instead of grey. The strange purple lines reminded you slightly of Tron as you followed their crisscrossing lines with your gaze to a slightly elevated area in the far back of the room where every line inevitably led. There, you found a large computer made up of at least 30 screens that nearly took up the entire wall it was built on with a tiny, black office chair in front of it which seemed oddly bland when compared to the rest of the room. Each screen showed different things, but none that you could really make sense of. One held blueprints for something that looked an awful lot like the collars you had given Moon to destroy whilst another showed odd waves in green. The only thing you could say for sure was that no two screens had the same stuff on them.
Thoroughly confused, you shook your head to try and clear it turning around to look at the rest of the room. Lining the walls on both sides were about 10 strange tanks that reminded you of those circular aquarium exhibits except the water was far darker than it should be. Because of how dark the water was and the size of the tanks, you thought there was nothing inside that was of any interest to you. But when you saw something with a large tail move to the front of one of the tanks before swimming away again you couldn't believe what you were seeing. There were Mers here?! Why were they being kept here and not in the actual enclosures outside?! You thought to yourself before yelping as you suddenly felt hands on your shoulders and turned to find Vanessa there with that strange smile on her face.
"Welcome to the First Lab, (Y/n)." Vanessa said as she gestured to the strange and disturbing room around you both with one hand. "This is where everything began here in the Sanctuary and, as our newest Higher Up here, you've been chosen to set your eyes upon this place by the Boss."
"Wait, I'm employed? But I failed to put those collars on Sun and Moon! You said I'd be fired if I couldn't!" You said, shocked as you stared at the green-eyed woman whose smile grew bitter at your amazement.
"You were going to be fired and, if I'm being honest, I would prefer to fire you right here, right now." She confessed as her grip on your shoulder tightened, making you wince lightly. "Not only did you fail to put those collars on Sun and Moon, but you also went through my private messages and broke those collars I gave you." Your eyes widened as she said this and you cursed your past self in your mind. Gosh darn it! You should've been more careful! you should've known that she would be alerted to what you'd done! "But because Clide is nowhere to be found and you somehow caught the Boss' attention, here you are. However, he did agree to some...Changes to your duties. Everyone! Come out and introduce yourselves!"
You gave her a quizzical look before turning back to the tanks, gasping as you watched four Mers hidden in the tanks' dark waters reveal themselves to you, each more confusing yet amazing than the last. The first and biggest of the four was a golden brown Grizzly Mer with electric blue markings on his chest, eyes, and flippers in the shape of lightning bolts. The end of his tail and shoulders were a lovely shade of red which was also found outlining his eye markings. His electric blue eyes watched you curiously as he adjusted his little, black tie which matched his black top hat and spiked bracelets. When he saw you looking at him he beamed and waved at you which you nervously returned before turning to the next one.
The second largest one was a Gator Mer whose bright green scales glinted harshly against the purple light surrounding you all. His bright red spikes which ran from the top of his head to the end of his wide tail worked wonderfully next to his bright purple shoulders, claws, and fins which in turn contrasted beautifully with his yellow belly and darker green tail. He, like the Grizzly Mer wore black, spiked bracelets, but instead of a top hat and tie he donned a pair of yellow, star-shaped sunglasses with purple glass. When you met his eyes he roared and tried to charge at you, but the glass stopped him in his tracks, causing him to let out another roar of fury before he started pulling the glass with his fists. Not wanting to anger him further you quickly moved on to the next Mer.
She was a Lupus Mer with a brilliant, shiny grey coat and lovely white mane with a few neon green streaks in it. Little, black, tiger stripes littered her body and cheeks, but most were covered by her outfit as they covered most of her upper body and hips. She wore the most in comparison to the other two as she wore three, purple, tiger-striped leg warmers on her forearms alongside some of those spiked bracelets, which she also wore on her tail. Outside of that she also wore a red top with a strange, black marking in the center as well as a matching red skirt, the red standing out against the naturally cool colors of her fur. She seemed the most excited by your attention and immediately started to slowly spin around in her enclosure, allowing you to see all of her. You smiled and gave her a thumbs up, she was a gorgeous example of her kind after all! She smiled brightly at this before quickly squashing it down, huffing and turning away, reminding you of tsundere characters in anime. You chuckled at her response before moving on to the smallest of the four.
She was a Chicken Mer and, like the Lupus Mer, wore more clothes than she really needed to. She wore a light pink shirt with darker pink shoulders and waistband as well as those same, spiked bracelets right before a pair of neon green fingerless gloves. On her tail, she wore two leg warmers, one green with cheetah spots and one dark pink with tiger stripes. Finally, she had a pink bow tie in her hair and two triangular, green earrings which you didn't understand as she had no ears to attach them to. When you turned to her she started waving excitedly, her pastel pink claws and highlighted feathers clashing slightly with the darker pink eyeshadow and lipstick on her face.
Despite their many differences, there was one thing in common between the four Mers outside of their weird spiky bracelets, and that was the look each of their eyes had. You didn't know why, but something about their eyes didn't feel quite right to you. After all, every Mer you had seen even in passing had had a strange brightness there, one that made you wonder just how intelligent they truly were. With these four, however, their eyes seemed...Dull. It seemed as though there was nothing there behind those eyes and that wasn't normal at all for a Mer.
"(Y/n), meet Freddy, Monty, Roxanne, and Chica, our repurposed Glamrocks from Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. These are our experimental Robo-Mers to help Mers who feel ill at ease when alone as well as other tasks that may require help under the water." She explained and your eyes widened in surprise.
"They're robots?! They look just like actual Mers! How are they so lifelike?" You asked with stars in your eyes, astounded. This was incredible! You wanted to get closer, but the grip Vanessa had on your shoulder kept you right where you were as she gave you a dismissive wave.
"Fazbear Co. used to work on animatronics in the past, but instead of making them able to walk on land these are meant to live in the water to, as I said earlier, help with tasks we as humans cannot or find difficult to do." Vanessa said and you blushed in embarrassment as you remembered being told that. Right, Henry did say that not too long ago, didn't he? You wanted to cover your face in your embarrassment, but you couldn't as you were steered toward another tank that was hidden near the back of the lab.
"And what kind of animatronic is in there?" You asked as you were pushed towards it, your curiosity making you cooperative as you wanted answers to your questions more than anything else. Vanessa smiled at you before turning back to the tank only to scowl and quicken her pace, almost making you trip over your own feet in the newfound haste.
"That is not an animatronic, that is a part of your new duties." Vanessa said and before you could ask what she meant by that she gave you one last, hard shove towards the glass before banging harshly on the tank with a murderous scowl on her face. "ECLIPSE! Come out and meet our new friend here, lest you want to suffer the consequences."
You jumped in fright at the loud, violent threat before turning towards the tank, catching movement inside of a little cave you could barely make out. Slowly a fifth Mer came to the front of the tank and this one was real, but with how badly they seemed to be doing you nearly wished they weren't. It was a Celestial Mer hybrid, you could tell just by the colors and the crescent moon marking that took up the right half of their face as well as its size, which was well over 10 meters in length. Their rays were red, unlike Sun's and the nightcap-like fin that trailed on the back of their head behind it was a slightly lighter blue than Moon's which were both highlighted by the red ruffles on their waist where their tail began in that lovely blue with glittering star-like scales before turning into red and yellow stripes. The end of their tail was crescent-shaped, but instead of being sharp like Moon's it had beautiful, ruffled red fins which matched Sun's coming out on either end of the tail fin.
But what made Eclipse unique from the other two you cared for were their forearms and body colors. He had glowing scales on both of his forearms, yellow on his right arm that turned into pastel yellow which took up the right side of his body, and blue on his left which became black on the left side of his body. His face too was unique with the crescent part of his face the same pastel yellow as his body which matched his bright yellow eye, but the left part of his face was pitch black, matching that side of his body and clawed hands which contrasting against his red eye.
Despite how beautiful they must usually be, right now they were in terrible shape. They couldn't swim as their tail was broken in multiple places, meaning they had to crawl to move around in what should be their element. Multiple gashes were present on their tail, arms, fins, face, and everywhere else, most of them quite fresh if the brightness of them and the slight blood leaking out was anything to go by. Their claws were far shorter than they should be and their mismatched eyes seemed vacant and fearful as they watched you, flinching at every slight motion you and Vanessa made. Their fins were also torn on multiple places, some seemingly by fire as some of the torn edges of the bright fins were blackened, but they paled in comparison to their face where a large scar lay over the left side of their mouth and revealed their sharp teeth despite their mouth being closed.
You couldn't believe what you were seeing. How could a live Mer be kept in such a small tank in such a condition?! They should be in one of the medical wings! Or the special enclosures for severe cases! You balled your fists in anger the more damage you saw to the beautiful Mer, knowing that they could've been helped a long time ago to diminish the damage, and yet no action was taken, and instead it seemed that their condition was worsened by who knows what.
"What happened to them?" You hissed angrily as you turned to Vanessa who waved her free hand whilst squeezing your shoulder even tighter with the hand that rested there.
"They were used in experiments, but now that there's nothing left to take from them they've been tossed aside. So now, we need to work towards their release into the wild and because you not only were unable to do as was asked of you and snooped through my documents but also broke the collars they will be your responsibility." She said with a nasty smile before turning to Eclipse once more, making the large Mer flinch. "They will be transferred to a small, remote enclosure on the other side of the island where you will be brought every day from noon till five after which you will be brought back to your current home. But before all of that, you will be given orientation after the team meeting today as well as all of the information you could possibly need on Eclipse as well as Sun and Moon, but you are to share none of it with anyone. No one else knows of Eclipse's existence and we want to keep it that way." She said in a cool tone before suddenly spinning you around and pushing you against the glass of Eclipse's tank harshly, causing the Mer to jump back as she pressed her forearm against your throat whilst her other arm kept you in place, causing you to finally drop the jar of Sunny's eggs as she stared down at you with a crazy, predatorial smile which only grew as you failed to push her away or get out of her grasp. "If anyone finds out about Eclipse or if you snoop through or break any of my stuff again you will pay with your life (Y/n) (L/n). Do you understand?"
You nodded quickly, unable to think of anything else except for wanting to be let go and she removed her arm from your throat, causing you to collapse on the ground coughing. As you recovered you glared at the woman, feeling a burning hatred in your heart that you had never felt before towards the terrible woman in front of you, hating her for who she was, for the neglect she had shown you and Eclipse, and for threatening your existence over the care of a Mer that needed it more than anything. You would make sure she would receive justice. No matter what you would do all in your power to ensure that she would not get what she wanted and make sure that you, Sun, Moon, and Eclipse would survive the madness of this place and the people who worked there so that you could all be free.
"Now (Y/n), let's go and introduce you to the team formally at today's meeting." Vanessa said, voice suddenly normal again as she beckoned you to get up and follow her. Taking a deep breath to calm your racing heart you grabbed the jar you dropped and stood up, but instead of following Vanessa you turned to the tank behind you and placed your hand gently on the glass, feeling your heart break at how Eclipse flinched at the action.
"Don't worry buddy, she won't hurt you anymore. We'll get out of here, alright? You're going to be safe." You whispered softly as you placed your forehead against the glass, keeping your expression soft and calm so as not to scare the anxious Mer any more than they already had been. Eclipse stared at you for a moment and slowly, slowly placed their hand against yours. You stared at the black, clawed hand with stars in your eyes. You had never been so close to a Mer this size before and his hand...It was so much bigger than yours!-
"(Y/N)! NOW!" Vanessa thundered and both you and Eclipse flinched before you turned and started jogging after her, glancing back to find Eclipse crawling back into the cave in the dark water.
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When Moon first saw you come after you came back he knew something was wrong. Your hands were filled with a bunch of things that looked like those pieces in the thing you had spoken from a while ago, but unlike then your eyes were stormy and cold. He could also smell blood and a variety of other scents on you that made him furrow his brows, but he ignored it and instead thought of what he should do next.
He had originally planned to throw you into the water again today, but he felt that that wouldn't be a good idea with your current mood. Slowly, so as not to frighten you, he got out of the water and slithered towards you and failed to respond he grew more certain that he was right and that something was wrong. Usually, you would've noticed him by now, but you were completely lost in thought! He gently tapped your shoulder and frowned as you flinched before quickly turning around with a fearful look in your eyes. When you saw him though you took a deep breath and relaxed before turning to him with a tired smile which made his heart hurt.
"Oh, Moon, it's you. How are you bud?" You asked and his frown deepened at the strained sound of your voice.
"I am fine Starlight, but you seem...Stressed." He said slowly and you sighed before placing one of your hands on your forehead.
"That would be because I am. I had such a crazy day Moon, I don't even know what to do with half of what happened!" You said with a sigh before plopping your head on his shoulder tiredly, making him purr softly.
Despite how tall he was, he often bent down to your level to make himself appear smaller than he actually was and, though it was a pain sometimes, he was very grateful for that now because now you were able to lean on him. Without you saying another word he gently picked you up bridal style before slithering closer to the water, causing you to sigh and turn to him with a done expression.
"Sorry Moon, but I'm really not in the mood to be thrown into the water today." You said and he chuckled before pressing his nose to yours fondly, his smile growing as you scrunched your nose at him defiantly.
"Don't worry my precious Starlight, I won't throw you in today." He promised and chuckled at your distrusting look. "I know when it's a good time and when it's not to do so, I promise. Do you want to talk about what has upset you so?"
"I wish I could Moon, but I'm afraid I can't." You said with a loud sigh as you leaned into his arms more which made him quirk an eyebrow at you.
"How so?" He asked as he got into a somewhat sitting position and you huffed before crossing your arms, your stormy expression returning as you did so.
"It's confidential. So if I tell you any of the things that I want to talk about happened today I could get fired or worse." You grumbled out and he frowned again at how strange that was.
"That sounds unfair. Shouldn't you be able to talk about what is frustrating you?" He asked and you gave a bitter laugh in response, surprising him. After all, he was so used to seeing you happy and excitable that he had never really thought of what you'd be like frustrated or angry, but it was oddly endearing to see you like this.
"I should be able to, but hey, it is what it is." You said with a shrug before seemingly remembering something as you turned to him with bright, excited eyes. "That reminds me! I've got some really good news!"
"Oh?" He asked, feeling a smile of his own tug at the corner of his lips as he saw your usual expression return to your face.
"Yeah! I've been officially hired! So now, I'm your full-time handler!" You said and his eyes widened in surprise before a huge smile came to his face and he started spinning around with you in his arms, making you laugh before he hugged you to his chest.
"That's wonderful Starlight! Congratulations!" He said before nuzzling into your hair, making you giggle. His mirth quickly dissipated though when he smelled all of the strange scents on you that he had noticed earlier, making him growl which made you turn your head as you tried to look up at him, but due to the way he was holding you, you couldn't see his expression.
"Moon?" You asked before giggling as he started furiously rubbing his scent glands all over the top of your head, removing those putrid smells from you and replacing them with his own.
When he moved down to place his scent on your neck and shoulders though he felt you wince and he pulled away, concerned, before laying you down on the sand. You started to protest and tried to sit back up, but when he pushed you back down and curled his tail over your legs you stilled with a huff which made him smile as he knew that meant you would stop struggling. With one hand he gently grabbed your two wrists and placed his tail fin over them, keeping them stuck to your side before gently tilting your head up and to the side.
When he saw the faint, purple marks scattered across your throat and shoulder he growled loudly and you flinched, which made him purr softly instead to put you at ease. After all, he wouldn't want to scare his sweet Starlight! He quietly apologised before tuning to the junction between your shoulder and neck which had something strange placed over it. Ignoring your new protests he quickly grabbed it and pulled it off, causing you to yelp underneath him which made his heart break.
"Moon! You need to be careful, that hurt!" You whined and he hummed before cupping your face in his hands and rubbing your cheeks softly.
"I'm sorry Starlight, I'll be more careful." He promised before turning back to your neck, but what he found made him freeze up.
It was a bite mark. A big one at that, and it was bruising darkly around the edges. He couldn't help but notice how it looked shockingly similar to a mate mark and this realization made him growl loudly and felt you flinch underneath him as he turned his red eyes to you, not thinking of how he must be scaring you as his grip on your chin tightened, his instincts screaming in protest at the sight of the ghastly mark.
"Who. Did. This." He hissed out and you stared at him, shocked, before shaking your head to loosen his hold on your chin and meeting his eyes with your bright (E/c) ones.
"Well, the bruising around my neck and my shoulder is from Vanessa, but the bite mark is from Sun." You said shortly and his eyes widened in surprise. Sun had bitten you? That was...Odd. You probably saw his confusion and quickly answered his silent question. "Sunny went into heat this morning, poor baby, and needed some help. So I did what I needed to do and helped him through it, but the poor dear got really overstimulated and bit me, but he felt really bad about it and it doesn't really hurt, so it's fine!"
He was only half-listening as you explained what had happened as his own questions started popping up. Sun had gone into heat? That shouldn't be possible, he didn't have a mate! But what if... He thought back to the pearls he and Sun had given to you and realized with a start that they must've unintentionally bound themselves to you. He knew it could happen, but didn't think it would as Sun had seemed unaffected, but now it seemed that the two of them have become mated with you. After all, they gave a part of themselves to you and you had accepted the gifts! And then Sun must've gone into heat after having you so close after your threat was removed.
Knowing it was Sun soothed his instincts somewhat, but even the thought of Sun's mark on you made him want to roar in frustration and tear the threat to his mate to shreds. How dare anyone touch his precious Starlight?! He growled and was about to move to bite over the bite mark, but when he saw how you winced when he put even slight pressure on it his gaze softened. Right, now wasn't the time. For now, he would leave it be and ensure that you healed, but once you were healed he would make sure that his mark would be on you as well.
With that thought in mind, he lowered himself to your neck and gently licked over the mark and the bruising. He felt your small, (B/t) body shiver in response as he tasted you on his tongue, making him feel warm, but he pushed it down and instead focused on the task at hand, though the lovely taste of you made it very hard to do so. Once he'd cleaned the bite mark and the area around your bruises he, reluctantly, pushed himself away from you and let you get back up. As soon as you were up you placed a hand on your shoulder and turned to him with a confused but grateful look on your face.
"Thanks for the help Moonie, this feels a lot better than that alcohol and bandage they put on me." You said with a small laugh and he felt his heart grow warm in response which made him smile before he licked your cheek affectionately, making you giggle.
"It's no problem at all my dear. Now," He started before pointing at your nest. "Can you tell me another tale from that thing of yours in your nest?"
"Thing from my...? Oh! You mean the fairytale book from my room! Of course, give me one sec!" You asked before realizing what he meant and rushing off into your 'room' with an excited smile. He chuckled at your enthusiasm, but once you were out of sight, dark thoughts came back to haunt him about all that you had told him.
He'd need to have a word with Sun about this next dawn for if they were both mated to you, they needed to figure something out that would work for them that wouldn't cause them to grow violent with each other due to their instincts. But far more importantly, Vanessa had hurt you, threatened you once more, and given you more work than you should probably do on your own. He growled lowly in his throat at the thought of the injuries she had given you, wanting nothing more than to go hunt right this second, but he couldn't. For one, he was tired and he wanted to reap the rewards from his last hunt by spending time with you tonight as he's missed you all day. And second of all, he'd promised Sun that Vanessa was his hunt to take.
"Found it!" He suddenly heard you yell, jolting him from his dark thoughts as you rushed towards him with that lovely, bright smile of yours. Without missing a beat you ran over to him and sat down by his tail, making him chuckle as he curled up around you, tail over your legs once more as you leaned against his waist. "Which story do you want me to read first?"
"Read? What is that?" He asked curiously and you smiled before pointing at the weird symbols in your book.
"Reading is basically taking symbols to make words that you draw! For example, these letters, d-o-g, read 'dog'. So you spell it like this." You explained before grabbing a small thing from your pocket, dragging it over the paper and mimicking the symbols on the page, albeit more scratchy, and his eyes widened.
"So this is like speaking, but without talking?" He asked and you nodded excitedly.
"Exactly! If you want I could teach you how to read and write?" You offered and he smiled warmly before pressing his forehead against yours with a happy purr.
"I would love it if you would."
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IT'S FINALLY HERE!! Gosh, this chapter took a lot longer than I wanted it to, but nothing was really working until this draft. Congartulations on your position and wour new Mer friend! Wonder what this will lead to~ Thank you all so much for 1.79K reads and 129 votes! Have a wonderful day/evening!
~PeekaPen