Voltober - 1. The Beast of Pirates' Bay: The Adventurers
Author's note: Let's GOOOOOOOOO IT"S SPOOKY SEASON! I started working on these prompts yesterday so let's see if I can keep up.
Challenge Masterlist
Adventurer's Masterlist
Content: Mer whumpee, pirate whumpers, harpoon, bound, suffocation, semi immortal whumpee, implied past murders and trafficking
Nonhuman Whumpee|Harpooned|Netted/Trapped
@voltober
Mer were going missing. Usually the Underwater City Forces would deal with this, but there were some jurisdiction issues that kept them from working together well enough to solve the case of missing mer. It didn’t help that mer were going missing in the more rural areas where the ocean floor was too far down for any proper farming besides certain animals that were hard to keep in the first place. No witnesses, isolated waters, and a population of terrified mer who didn’t dare leave the cities anymore.
So, they had called the Kahtir, begging the organization to send someone to help out, and Matsu went. There weren’t any mer in the Teliar forces of the Kahtir since they were notoriously ocean bound, and ocean planets usually had things covered. That left the two half mer in the Teliar, which included Matsu. The other one was busy, family vacation, otherwise he would have come with Matsu on this mission as backup. As it was, no one was too worried about Matsu going alone. He was, after all, an Adventurer. One of the best teams in the whole of the Teliar, capable of solving nearly any problem. Add to that his rare exponential healing factor and he was easily prepared to handle any solo mission.
Anisha was going to come with him, able to breath water herself as a scaleon descended from a water dragon, but the Kahtir had needed her elsewhere dealing with a problem in a cliff face community that only she had the flying skills to really get to in the first place since their bridges and walkways were taken out during a recent disaster.
Matsu swam leisurely, tail sweeping back and forth gently as he made his way through the darkened waters of the Berian oceans of Cumenah. He hadn’t seen anything strange, watching the regularly scheduled ships passing by gently overhead, their caged off propellers spinning serenely.
Mostly, it was just quiet, and Matsu allowed himself to enjoy the quiet as the ground below began to slope down and away, the kelp farms fading into rocky outcroppings and small pastures for crab like creatures. Out a little farther, and even those pastures disappeared as the bottom became too far away to see. This was where people were going missing.
Matsu pulled himself out of his serene state and put himself on alert, feeling out the currents for any creatures or machines moving nearby as he swam out farther, lazily and slowly, it seemed, like he was just enjoying himself or perhaps just looking for something.
He felt the currents above him shift and look up to see a ship, set to pass right above along side him.
He swam a bit quicker to make sure they wouldn’t pass too close to him, but the ship changed course just enough to stay in line with him.
“Gotcha,” Matsu muttered to himself, pleased. He reached up to his throat where he had a communications band and touched his thumb and forefinger to the stones on either side of his wind pipe. “This is Matsu to home base. Possible suspect has been identified. A fishing ship at coordinates-”
Pain pierced through his torso and overwhelmed his senses as he screamed and let go of the comms band. He grabbed onto a cold metal rod that had been shot through his side and gasped, his damaged gills fluttering and twitching around the metal as his muscled cramped, trying to heal around the intrusion.
He felt along his other side to find what had pierced him and felt barbs on the other end. Barbs that sank into his skin as the harpoon was pulled on hard, dragging him up through the water and putting extra force on his wounded body.
His vision vanished for a moment as pain dragged through his torso and side where the barbs bit into his rib gills, his throat gills fluttering urgently as they tried to keep up with his demand for oxygen. With great effort, he pulled himself from the edge of unconsciousness and grabbed for the smooth end of the harpoon, latching onto it to take some pressure on his gills. He could feel the wounds where the harpoon’s hooks had slid through healing around the pole and hooks, his gills repairing a little, but the pain still shot through his insides like lightning as he held onto the harpoon and tried to make himself more aerodynamic so he wouldn’t be dragged so harshly.
The surface was approaching quickly now that he’d grabbed the line and turned himself to glide through the water and quickly broke the surface.
He chose not to switch to his lungs, still able to breath with his gills as long as they were wet. He knew for a fact that the harpoon had pierced his lungs and breathing might actually make him pass out.
“We got ‘em!” a loud voice called as a huge net was scooped under him to help haul him out of the water.
Matsu tried not to writhe, holding onto the rope, desperate to keep the harpoon from moving, but as he was dragged over the railing, the harpoon jolted out of his grasp and levered up through his organs, causing him to spasm as he was dumped onto the ship deck.
His gills flapped as he tried to collect himself, fighting the urge to have his legs back and breathe through his lungs.
“He’s a pretty one,” someone said, grabbing his finned ear to check out the patterns there. “Too bad he’s dead. He would have-AUGH!”
Matsu snapped his pointed teeth deeper into the woman’s fingers, determined to take a finger for his trouble.
Something hard smacked painfully into the top of his head, causing him to let go of the finger as his vision spun again, pain rippling through his skull and chest.
“He’s still alive! Wait, look at that.”
everyone went still and quiet, watching Matsu as he regained his senses, grabbing onto the smooth side of the harpoon, and just waiting for the strength to come back to where he could try and push it through and cut the rope.
“He’s healing,” someone breathed and Matsu stiffened, snapping his head around to look at the man. His eyes, changed to manage sight underwater, weren’t quite adapted to out of water and he could only make out the blurred colors of brown skin and hair and a bright blue jacket.
“Crap, look at the markings on his arms! Isn’t this one of the Adventurers?”
Matsu’s heart sank. Being caught out as one of the adventurers was not a good thing usually. It typically meant he was about to be bound up and sold on the Darke Market, or he was going have to wriggle out of an attempt on his life.
“It is! Crap! He’s going to tell them we’re here. We need to get out of here!”
“Cut the rope!” someone called as blue jacket grabbed his hair and forced his head down, turned away to where he could only see feet.
He tried to shove the harpoon through, but someone grabbed his wrists, binding them together behind his back as his headband and carack, a cape-like mer-shirt, was torn off of him, his bags undone and tossed away and his comms band cut off his throat, the scissors cutting harshly through his throat gills in their haste.
He choked, his drying out gills already having a hard time keeping up with the demand. He coughed, a small amount of liquid trickling out over his gills to help with his breathing as they finished stripping him. Two people grabbed either end of the harpoon, someone hooking their arm through his elbows and another grabbing his tail and he was lifted up off the slimy deck, set on the railing, and shoved over the edge.
He writhed, trying to dive gracefully into the water, but he smacked into it on his upper back, leaving him disoriented as bubbles went up around him.
By the time he regained some semblance of his senses, he realized that he couldn’t control his decent. The harpoon was too heavy for the movements he could manage while cosplaying as a fish kebab and all he could really do was to try and direct himself. It was going to hurt when he hit the ocean floor.
He looked down, writhing as he shot for a higher point of the sea floor, and curled up just in time to hit it.
The harpoon knocked into a rock, stirring his guts again, causing Matsu to gag and go blind with the pain. He lay still on the sand and rocks, gills flapping gently as the ones on his neck healed up.
He finally lifted his head, coughing through his gills to get the small particles of sand out after they’d been stirred up by his crash landing.
He clicked softly to himself as he gently twisted and tested the range of his movement.
After several gently maneuvers, he got himself on his stomach, the sand tickling his gills as he reached for the smooth end of the harpoon. With his hands bound behind his back, he was able to get a hold on it, but he wasn’t able to push it through.
Undeterred, he reached to the other side, trying to catch the rope on one of the hooks on the harpoon to cut the rope, but of the two rows of hooks, the tip hooks were too small and far away to reach, and the closer ones were buried deep in his flesh. He tried to pull or push it out a little, but once again, he couldn’t get enough leverage to do so.
He finally relaxed, laying his cheek in the sand with a little groan.
He took in his surroundings. His hit off of that rock had rolled him closer to the cliff that led down deeper in the ocean. He could actually peak out over it if he stretched his head a little.
He did so, looking down into the depths as his flesh cramped and grew around the harpoon, sending twinges of pain through him. He didn’t see anything moving down there and wondered how long it would take for the team at home base here on this planet would find him. Hopefully not too long. Or maybe he’d find a sharp rock to cut the-
Matsu startled as something moved under him, an unhappy flat bottom feeder fish who was tired of being laid on.
It moved again, tickling along Matsu’s ribs and making him lash out with his tail. Unfortunately, he tired to escape the sensation in exactly the wrong direction and he yelped as the sand slipped out from under him and he went down over the edge, the harpoon happily dragging him down again.
He had a lot more time to position himself for impact, turning himself onto his back to keep the harpoon from hitting anything first, though it was a constant struggle to hold the position as the hooked end was heavier than the other side.
Finally, the ground met his back, hard knobs of rock meeting Matsu’s spine as he landed heavily.
Matsu gaped, gills flapping in confused shock as pain shot up and down his spine. He held very still until he was certain his back wasn’t broken before he tried to move.
The water weight on top of him was extremely noticeable now, as he was laying at the edge of his depth limit. His gills fluttered and worked harder against the weight on top of them, and every movement sapped more from him.
He finally fell still once he was laying in a slightly more comfortable spot, looking up at the dim light that filtered through the water. If he had his pack, he would have liked to light a glow stick to make it easier to find him, but as it was, all he could do was lay there and hope he would be found. This far down, he knew his red and orange skin wouldn’t be seen that well, with red and orange light waves being unable to penetrate as deep as he was now.
He waited, dizzy and tired, occasionally keening at a frequency he hoped would be heard by rescuers or by a friendly motherly sea creature. He knew there were quite a few around here.
As much as he wanted to stay awake and make sure no predatory fish took their chances with him or smaller bottom feeders had a nibble, the weight of the water and the difficulty breathing lulled Matsu to sleep.
………………………………………….
Matsu was found by home team and thanks to his healing factor did not suffer ill effects. In fact, he commented on how good that deep sea nap felt and was perfectly capable in directing home team to the pirates who had been killing and selling mer. Local police forces could take it from there to track down the people who facilitated this market while Matsu went home and treated himself to several massages and expensive potion ingredient shopping.
I realized I was mostly thinking about tails for mer whump, but consider: arms? Do they need to use them for swimming? How about hunting? What if their arms are broken? What if you put a harpoon through their shoulder? What if their arms were zip tied behind their back?
-🍓
Harpoon through the shoulder is such a lovely image <333 aaaa i did that to Blue one time, it would hurt so bad and DEFINITELY affect their ability to swim, if they got away at all.
Broken, injured, or restrained arms would have so many repercussions in addition to the pain - balance, swimming, holding onto anything, defending themselves. Also imagine a mer swimming with a broken arm hanging by their side, the bones jostling with every movement.
Matt survives being impaled and he acts like everything's fine, but Tom can tell that Matt is wary of being around Tom for a while, even if he tries to hide it. His son being afraid of him absolutely destroys Tom and he spends a lot of time desperately trying to make up for it but only makes Matt feel uncomfortable.
