#SATCV Merms

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Merm forms for the swaps from todays SATCV chapter!!

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Swap Across the CrystalVerse Chapter 4: Merms

Read Swapboys | Crystal’s AUs | Read MerMay Stories

Read SITCV | SATCV Masterpost | AO3 Link

Bro lands somewhere completely unexpected, but also, beautiful. He's landed on a beach, looking out over a wide expanse of blue-green water. A bay? A lagoon? Something like that. Behind him are tall trees with vibrant green leaves. A forest. To the left and the right, at the far ends of the beach, are tall dark rocks--tide pools and little alcoves full of water. There are no people around. Or... even any signs of people. Where is he?

Bro blinks and pushes himself up, looking over the landscape with widening eyes. “…what the fuck? This-this isn’t home??” He has to admit it is beautiful but, “Where the fuck is this?!”

Everything is quiet and still, or as quiet and still as a beach and forest can be... until there's a splash over to the left, near the rocks. Bro can see someone grab onto one of the rocks and hoist themself out of the water. They're sort of far away, but it looks like a man with brown hair. He leans down close to the water, like he's looking at something still underneath the surface.

Bro is freaked out, frantically pulling out his phone to see if he can call Alt or Jackie. Something definitely wasn’t right here! He jumps slightly and almost drops his phone but manages to grab it before it slips into the water. He looks at the sound of the splash and sees the man. Not wanting to miss his chance- Bro flies over and lands a bit away so hopefully he can approach without startling them. 

“H-Hey! Can I ask ya something?” He shouts out, trying to sound friendly.

The man looks over at him, startled. And now that Bro is close, he realizes that something is off. There are... are those... fins? Poking out from behind his ears? That's definitely a long yellow dorsal fin going down his back. And his forearms are covered in blue and green scales. 

Bro skids to stop and stares with wide eyes, his jaw falling open. “W-What the fuuuuckkk….??” 

Before the man can respond, something shoots out of the water, grabs him, and pulls him back into the water. It happens too fast for Bro to really see what grabs the guy other than that it's green.

Bro shouts as he sees the man get dragged under water. He skids to the edge of the rocks and looks around frantically. Then, against his better judgment, he kneels down and then shoves his head under the water- trying to find any proof of what he just saw.

Underwater is blurry, of course, but Bro can make out what looks like two creatures fighting, both of them different shades of green. The darker-green one notices him and lunges forward, but the other pushes that one away. This whole time, there's a sound like... dolphin chatter? 

Bro blinks past the harsh burning of the water and tries to focus on what he can see-they’re- fighting? Why can’t he understand them??

Suddenly, Bro finds himself pushed back out of the water. While he recovers from this, the man--man?--from before stares at him, head and shoulders out of the water, looking worried.

Bro gasps as he’s pushed out and then blinks comically at the man- merman? That pushed him out. He waves, “uh…. Hi?”

The man waves--showing that there are more fins on his wrists. "H-hiii," he says. And then... then he makes some strange sounds. Random vowels interspersed with clicks, whistles, and chirps--in other words, the dolphin-like noises. 

Bro blinks in surprise at the new sounds and then holds up his hands. “Ahhh fuck- I can’t understand you… but- holy shit… you’re a merman…!” He laughs and pushes his bangs out of his face, blinking in disbelief. “I… I don’t know why I can’t believe this- I’ve seen weird shit before but- this!” 

Another head pops out of the water behind him. Someone else, with green hair, green-tinted skin, and glowing green eyes. There are fins behind his ears like this first... guy. The new one scowls and glares at Chase.

P

Chase tilts his head at the other figure. Huh… that green in his eyes almost looks familiar. “Um… you might not be able to understand me but um- I’m Chase! …and I’m so fucking lost.” 

"You're not Chase." Now that--perfect English--comes from the green-tinted one in the back. 

Chase blinks and then points at himself, "... Yes I am! I'm Chase- Chase Brody! Who the fuck are you-" Then he pauses and looks surprised, "Wait- you spoke English! Oh okay brilliant maybe you can-" 

"I don't know what sort of--of ssshhhit you're trying to pull--" The one in front turns around and splashes the other one, chattering in a harsh tone. The green one splutters and responds snappily in the same chatter. 

And the two of them have a quick back and forth. Then the green one sinks in the water. "...How did you get here?" he mutters, grudgingly civil. 

"Uh... well.. that's... complicated. But um... I came from another.. universe...?" Bro says. ...Why does the grumpy green one kinda remind him of Alt?

"Universe...?" the green one repeats, understanding the word but not the concept. 

The other one smiles at him. He points at himself "Dak." And then back at the green one. "Antee." 

Chase's eyes widen as he whispers. "...no way-" He stares straight at Antee- now clearly seeing the resemblance in the face- despite the green tint and scales. 

The green one protests in the chattery language, but the other one splashes him again and says something that asks like a question. 

The green one sighs. "Jack wants to know if that's somewhere far away, and how you got here if that's the case."

Bro slightly shakes out of his surprise and then nods, "Uh... yeah. R-Really far away. And uh- we got here by... magic mostly. A bit of tech- but mostly magic. My brother's a magician."

Jack's eyes light up. He chirps and chatters something, grabbing Anti and shaking him slightly. Anti rolls his eyes. "We know magicians," he mutters. "Didn't know humans could use magic, too." 

"Y-Yeah he's really good at magic! Best magician I know at least," Bro grins. 

Jack asks something. "He wants to know if your brother came with you." Anti interprets.

Bro quickly nods, "Yeah! He's... probably somewhere around here... we tend to get separated when we come to new places."

Jack and Anti look around. The lagoon is clearly empty of people. "Well. Good luck looking for him," Anti says, and starts to sink underwater. 

Jack makes an offended whistling sound--like putting voice behind a gasp--and grabs him, pulling him back up. "Look, if he's human then his brother is human, and probably on land! We can't help!" 

Jack slumps, then perks up again, asking something. Anti rolls his eyes. "Alright, Chase Brody. Why don't you use your metal slab to call your brother, then?" 

"Fon," Jack adds. 

"Your phone."

"Oh! Well... I could try? Wasn't sure it'd work here but- Guess they do exist here! That's handy-" Chase laughs as he pulls out his phone, trying to see if he can reach Alt.

It looks like cell reception doesn't translate between universes, but there is a tiny, tiny bit of WiFi that he can use to send a text. 

Anti swims a bit closer as Bro messes with the phone, trying and failing to hide his curiosity.

Chase curses as he takes the phone away from his ear and studies it- trying to send a message: Alt! I'm at a beach near a forest- where are you? Did the TRVLR glitch? Are you okay??? ...probably overkill but- just in case.

The text takes longer than usual to go through, but it does eventually. And now, they wait. 

----------- 

Alt lands on a solid surface, and Jackie lands right next to him. They've arrived on a... boat? Yes, a boat floating out on the water, with a distant, pier-lined coast in sight. They sky overhead is a bright blue, contrasting against the endless dark blue water all around them. A table (and two chairs) sits on the deck, pushed up against the metal railing, its surface covered in burgers, fried chicken, French fries, ice cream--basically any fast food you can think of. 

Alt groans and curls up as he lands on something solid, finding it hard to breathe momentarily. 

"Alt!" Jackie cries out and goes to help him up. 

Alt blinks at him in confusion. "J-Jackie? Wait... no.. what??" He looks out at their surroundings, his stomach dropping. "T-This isn't-!" 

"What the hell?!" a young man, leaning over the boat's railing, jerks backwards. "Where did you two come from?!"

Jackie and Alt both jump as they hear the young man. Jackie scrambles to say something and just blurts out, "Uhhh... from the sky??" 

Alt gives him a confused 'are you serious' look.

The young man laughs. "Yeah, right. Okay, where were you guys hiding? There aren't many spots on here. You know that trespassing is still illegal if it's on a boat, right? Cause this is my boat, and I didn't say you could be here." He frowns. "Why are you guys here, anyway?" 

“O-Oh fuck uh- sorry sir, we didn’t know!” Jackie tries to say, holding up his hands. “I was trying to make a joke- we uh… god this is gonna sound crazy but we couldn’t actually control where we landed? It’s uh- magic and shit. We uh… came from another universe…?” Jackie grins a wide nervous smile, looking very uncomfortable. 

But as they talk, Alt notices something. Some of the fries from the table have fallen onto the ground. And a hand reaches up from the side of the boat and grabs some of them.

Alt gets distracted from trying to diffuse the situation as he sees the hand reach up. His eyes widen and he glances at the man before hurrying over to the side of the boat to look.

"Another universe? Yeah, sure. You can at least try to--hey!" The man tries to grab Alt as he hurries over but barely misses. 

Down in the water beneath the boat are three--people? They're clearly not normal. One wearing a cap has orange fins behind his ears and white and black stripes across his chest and arms. One with a bag has blue-green tentacles poking out of the water around him. And one in a sleeveless woven hoodie has a dorsal fin sticking out of his back. That one chokes on the fries he hurriedly shoved in his mouth while the one with the tentacles shoves the other two underwater. 

"Uh--don't mind that!" the young man rushes over, pulling Alt back. 

Alt’s eyes widen and he wants to shout but he gets dragged away. 

"Those are, uh, my friends! We're--practicing for a--a stunt show! R-really real costumes, huh?" The man laughs nervously. 

Alt looks back up at the young man and gapes at him. “…mermaids- those were mermaids!” 

“What??? Lemme see lemme see!” Jackie says excitedly, running to the railing to look over.

"No! No no no, those weren't mermaids!" the man protests. "They were just--dressed like mermaids!" 

As Jackie peers over the side of the railing, some of the spray from the water hits his face, as it's splashing a lot. But there definitely seem to be both human-like limbs and fish-like tails under all that splashing. Briefly, the one in the hoodie breaks away from the struggle and waves at Jackie, allowing him a closer look at him. Long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, sharp teeth bared in a grin, and scars across his eyes. Yet, somehow, he looks familiar. And then a tentacle wraps around his chest and pulls him underwater again.

Jackie stares at the water and then the hoodied man before he pushes away from the railing. “H-Holy shit…!” 

Alt whips around at the young man, “Don’t try to trick me! I know what I saw! No costumes are that realistic! And an illusion wouldn’t hold up with all them moving like that-“

"I--uh--uh--" The young man pauses, clearly mentally scrambling for an explanation. Then he suddenly switches tactics. "Did you know this all along?! I-is that why you snuck aboard?! W-well, I'll have you know you have no way of proving it! E-everyone's gonna call the pictures photoshopped if you post them!" 

“Hah?!?” Alt says. He glitches slightly in anger and presses up against the young man, “You got sea water in your ears, kid?! We just told you we didn’t mean to come here! I don’t even know where the hell we are! I couldn’t care less about proving anything!” 

The young man's eyes widen as Alt glitches. His mouth falls open and he's at a loss for words. 

Again, the hoodied mermaid pulls away from the struggle. He grabs the edge of the boat and smiles. "H-h-hayy," he says to Jackie. "Yoo.. luck... layk mmme."

Jackie startles as the hoodied merman pulls himself up towards him. He bends down and cocks his head at him, looking confused for a second. But then it clicks and he gasps, pointing at the merman. “OH MY GOD!! Alt! ALTTT!! ITS ME AS A MERMAN!! I FOUND A MERMAN JACKIE!!!” 

Alt glitches again and glares at the man before glitching over by Jackie. His eyes widen. “Yo- what the fuck…?”

The man stands there, stunned, while Alt and Jackie move to talk to the merpeople. 

The mer-Jackie makes a startled sound when Alt suddenly glitches next to Jackie, jerking backwards and into the water. Then he looks excited, turning back to the still-splashing part of the water. And he makes some strange sounds, like dolphin speech interspersed with human-made vowels. Whatever he says, it gets the other two to stop fighting. The one with the cap swims over next to Jackie, looking back up at the two guys curiously. The other one stays where he is, just his eyes poking out of the water, darting back and forth between the guys on the boat and the merms in the water.

Jackie shakes Alt’s shoulder excitedly. “Look dude look!! A merman me!!” 

“I am looking dude- I still don’t believe it-“ Alt breathes. He kneels down by the edge again, tilting his head at the merms curiously. When he notices their strange way of speaking he knits his eyebrows together and then tries to see if he can cast a translation spell.

The mer-Jackie and the cap merman make an "oooo"ing sound at Alt's magic. They turn to each other and chatter. 

"--was--" 

"I--was--maybe?" 

"I--humans--not--use magic?" 

"--don't know that. Maybe they--know magic--forgot?" 

"Maybe we should ask Marvin later." 

The spell really struggles with this language, even more so than Glasish when they visited that fantasy world before. But it gets there eventually. 

"Well go on, Chase!" mer-Jackie says, shoving the other one. "Talk to them in human! Ask them about their magic!" 

"It's called 'English,' Jackie. They have a lot of languages." 

Alt honestly was afraid it wouldn’t work at all- but he seems to relax as it starts to make sense. He blinks then laughs and waves at them both, “Actually- it’s okay. I can understand you both now.” He grins. 

“What??? Alttt why’d you leave me out??? I wanna hear! Your doppelgänger isn’t even here!” Jackie whines. 

“Oh yeah- right… sorry Jackie-“ Alt says, quickly casting the spell on Jackie too. Then, Alt studies the capped merman. Is this one really Chase?

"Oh, you can?" mer-Jackie blinks. "Alright, how many fingers am I holding up, then?" He holds up three fingers. 

“3!” Jackieboy says excitedly, pointing down. Alt gives him another done look. 

The one in the back swims over and smacks the other Jackie in the back of the head. "That makes no sense! Idiot." 

"Owww! Don't be mean, Schneep!" 

Chase laughs. "Well, um... hi?" He waves. "We don't... usually see humans using magic like that. O-or looking like a broken computer."

Alt blinks back down at Chase and smiles, “Well- 1) cool that you know about computers! Didn’t think a merman would know that- 2) I’m a special case~ not many magicians like me exist! Anddd 3) we’ve never seen real life mermen before!” 

“Much less mermen that are us!!” Jackie grins, bouncing on the railing. “This is insane! It’s me and our friends as fucking mermaids, dude!!!” 

“Man Jackie you are bringing so much energy into these trips-“ Alt mumbles, rubbing at his ear.

Chase laughs, a sound that's sharper and more chittering than a human laugh. "Most merms don't know about computers, but I'm special. Oh, that's what the general term is, by the way, 'merm.' I-I know you guys tend to default to just mermaids but that's only for women." 

“Oh! That’s helpful to know!” Jackie says, “Mermmmm- heh- that’s fun to say! Merm merm merm merm-“ 

The one in the back--a mer-Schneep, it seems--eyes the two guys suspiciously. "Are you sure they can be trusted, Chase?" he mutters. 

"Schneep, they can hear you," Jackie points out. 

"It's fine, Schneep, I-I think they're different," Chase says. 

Alt hums, trying to ignore Jackie still saying merm over and over, “I know we look strange but- we know other people who look like you, and they’re our friends.” 

"Ollie?!" Chase calls. 

The young man walks over, looking over the railing. "These guys... are cool?" he asks hesitantly. 

"They're cool," Chase agrees in English. 

"O-okay." Ollie nods.

At the name, Alt’s eyes widen and he whips around, finally taking in all the features of the young man- he feels his breath get taken away ,a flush coming to his cheeks. “O-Oliver…?” He breathes.

"Uh... yeah? That's what Ollie is usually short for." Ollie laughs a bit. 

Alt is just staring at Ollie like he’s looking at a ghost. This is the first time they’ve seen someone else outside their friend group in another universe. He never thought he’d see a copy of his boyfriend?? This was super duper weird- and Alt can’t stop his cheeks from turning red. “U-Uh yeah… right… s-sorry… you just.. l-look like someone I… know.” 

"I do, huh?" Ollie smiles a bit. "I-I hope it's someone you like. It, uh, probably is." He doesn't want to comment on the obvious blush.

Alt makes a squeak at this. 

"Um... so... h-how'd you get on the boat? I didn't even notice you guys." Ollie asks.

"I think they just appeared," Chase says. 

"Appeared?" Ollie glances at Alt, confused. "Uh... sorry, I-I'm still getting used to the merm thing, people appearing and, uh, glitching around... is a bit much." 

Alt eventually shakes himself out enough to answer. “Uh yeah we.. just kinda do that… cuz of m-magic! Which I do- and used to get here- w-with this device.” He pulls out the TRVLR to show them. “But uh… we weren’t supposed to be here. I was sure I plugged in the coordinates for home.” 

As Alt looks over the TRVLR, he notices something. After tinkering with the settings between adventures, he'd found one that makes the current universe code show up in the top left corner. This... isn't the code for their world. Instead, it reads UA-0501019MM. 

He blinks and then narrows his eyes at the universe code. What the heck?? This isn’t even close to their code!

Meanwhile, mer-Jackie is joining in with his human counterpart repeating "merm merm merm merm." 

Schneep rolls his eyes at that and looks at Alt. "Who are you, then?" he asks. "Your names?"

Alt looks down and then lightly smacks Jackie to get him to stop. He gestures at Schneep then at Jackie. Jackie blinks then looks back at Schneep and grins, “I’m Jackie! Jackie Mann!”

"Jackie! Like me!" Jackie says. 

Jackie beams, “Yeah! Just like you! We’re like- the same person but from different worlds!” 

Alt raises his hand, looking timid. “‘M Alt… Alt Brody. But um… I-Im also known as Anti.”

The three merms glance at each other when Alt mentions his name. "We know an Anti," Schneep says. "That is funny. Names are funny." 

“Yeah… figured you would,” Alt mutters.

"Different... worlds?" Jackie repeats, uncertain. 

"Oh, like another dimension?" Chase asks. 

“Uhh yeah! I think that’s the same thing!” Jackieboy says, grinning. 

"What the fuck do you mean, 'dee-men-shun'?" Schneep asks. 

"Uhhh... it's hard to explain. It took me a while to get it." 

"Wait, you mean you guys weren't kidding about being from other universes?!" Ollie gasps. 

Alt laughs, “Nope- weren’t kidding at all. Where we’re from- mermaids don’t exist.” 

“As far as you know!” Jackie points out, “What if they’re just like- lurking so low we never see them? Like a giant squid! We’ve barely explored the ocean bro!” 

“Your wife is rubbing off on you,” Alt chuckles. 

“Hey! I have a fascination with the ocean outside of my wife too you know!!!” 

And shortly after, Alt's text tone goes off. The glitch then jumps slightly as his phone buzzes. He switches out the TRVLR for his phone, checking the message. Alt! I'm at a beach near a forest- where are you? Did the TRVLR glitch? Are you okay??? 

“Oh well- texting works here at least… that’s nice.” Alt comments. 

"Oh, your phone messages." Schneep nods. 

Alt looks back at Jackieboy. “Chase is on a beach somewhere-“

"I'm not on a beach, I'm right here," Chase says. "Or--do you know a Chase like we know a Jackie and Anti?" 

Alt blinks at Chase and then laughs shaking his head, “Yeah, we have a Chase too. He’s my older brother.” 

"Brother?" Chase repeats. "I have a couple siblings, but we don't really keep in contact. Maybe I should reach out to them. I think they all still live in the school we grew up in." 

Alt blinks, “huh- you might be one of the first Chases I met that actually has siblings too.” 

"A lot of merms have siblings," Chase says. "But you kind of drift away from them. In the ocean, at least. Everything's so big. It might be different for freshwater merms." 

“That’s so interesting…” Alt replies. 

"If your friend is on a beach, I can try to take you guys there," Ollie says, still barely grasping the idea of these visitors being from another world. "I mean, I can't really take you anywhere, but if it's nearby."

Alt can’t help but smile at Ollie- even if it feels weird to look at him for too long. Stop trying to heat up cheeks! “Uh- t-that’d be awesome if you could. He’s said he’s one the beach near a forest- does that sound familiar?”

"Oh!" Jackie's eyes light up. "A beach near land with trees? Is it the beach of a lagoon? With big brown rocks at the entrance and some deep tide pools?" 

Schneep looks at Jackie and frowns. "Do you think he found where Jack and Anti are?" 

"Yeah, I do!"

Jackie and Alt exchange looks. Alt seems uneasy for a second but- it’s not like they’re saying anything bad about this other Anti. He sighs. “If your friends live over there… then that’s probably where he is. We get drawn towards people we know when we drop into these worlds.”

Jackie blinks. "I don't think I'm really understanding this thing about worlds and 'oo-nee-versus' but we can take you there! Ah-lee can follow us in the boat!" 

"We are sure about this?" Schneep mutters. 

"I'm curious, at least," Chase says. 

"Come on, come on!" Jackie dives back underwater, swimming over to the prow of the ship. His dorsal fin sticks out of the water as he goes, highlighting that yes, he is indeed a sharklike merm, as opposed to Schneep's tentacles and Chase's more traditional fishy shape. 

Jackie laughs in surprise and delight as he sees mer-Jackie swim. “Oh my god!! He’s a shark!! That’s so cool!!!” 

Schneep grins at Jackie's enthusiasm. "Yes, Jackie is a yellow shark. Chase is an anemonefish and I am a great ocean octo." 

"Lemon shark, clownfish, great Pacific octopus," Chase says. "You guys have different words for us. Oh, and we're going to Jack and Anti, who are a discus and an electric eel." 

“That’s so sick!! You’re all so different!” Jackie says excitedly, “In cartoons and shit- all mermaids look the same!!” 

Chase laughs. "Oh yeah, we've seen some of your cartoons. We know. But it's fine, don't worry. I think it's great, actually!" 

"Well, if we are going, you should message your brother," Schneep says to Alt. "So he is not waiting and not knowing."

Alt blinks and then nods and texts Bro back: Hang tight bro- we landed on a ship and found help. Coming to find you. All safe 

Then Schneep looks at Ollie. "Can you follow us?" 

"No problem." Ollie gives him a thumbs up. "Try to stay slow, though. You guys are really fast." 

Alt hums in thought, shrugging his backpack off and starting to skim through the pages. He wonders if he has any spells that can help… Because… These guys know about magic- and there’s one other person from their world who’s left unaccounted for.

And with that, he and Schneep go join Jackie at the prow, and the boat heads off across the ocean. 

-----------

 Magnificent does not appear anywhere familiar. Or even anywhere he would want to be. He lands on a small beach. This is on the edge of a large body of water, surrounded by thin trees. Judging by the lack of salt smell, it's not the ocean, but an especially large lake. And one that people know about, since there's a small area with a picnic table and trash can nearby.

Magnificent rolls onto his stomach, growling against his binds and hoping he can get away from those pesky-! Wait- this… isn’t their universe. As Mag thinks this, Alt’s magic breaks apart, freeing him. He quickly teleports to his feet and dusts himself off. Then he hisses and scrambles back as he sees his close he is to the water. Fucking water- as much as he doesn’t want to lean too heavily into cat stereotypes… he can’t stand large bodies of water. And getting wet. But… new universe… what magic could lie around here..?

Well... there are pros and cons to him reaching out with his magic. Pro, there is a great deal of magic nearby, strong and deep and rippling with power. Con, it's clearly under the lake.

Magnificent starts to brighten as he senses the magic- then his face quickly falls as he sees it’s under the lake. He curses up a storm, kicking at the sand and basically throwing a fit. Once he lets out his rage he breathes and then braces himself before jumping into the water. He casts a quick spell to make sure he can breathe and see, while cursing whoever left this magic down here. He’s not a great swimmer but he pushes forward, aiming to follow the pull of the magic.

As Magnificent sinks through the lake, the light becomes dimmer, but fish become more plentiful--though they all scatter whenever he gets near. And as he starts to reach the floor of the lake, he notices something strange. Some of the plants are glowing. They give off faint magical signatures, but aren't really worth his time. There are also... glowing starfish? But those live in the sea, not lakes. And yet here they are, scattered about, getting closer together as the pull of magic becomes stronger. He comes to a spot clear of any plants, and finds something strange. A structure made of pillars and slabs of stone, most of it having no walls except for a single attached room. What is this? Some sort of ruin?

Magnificent swims past most distractions, eager to get a boost and then get out of this lake. But… the starfish are odd. And so is this… structure. Curiously, Mag swims towards it and tries to peek inside.

But then he runs into something coming out of the structure. It’s not immediately clear what it is, but as it makes some sort of chirping whistling sounds, the details sink in. It’s… a merman. That’s the only word for it. The bottom half is a silver tail with glints of yellow and blue, the upper half is mostly human (wearing a dark green cape) but has silvery fins trailing from the upper arms, and the face… is startlingly familiar. The merman trails off, fully taking in Mag’s appearance as he takes in his. Then his eyes widen in fear and he swims backwards, making a loud whistling noise.

Magnificent’s eyes widen and his jaw falls in disbelief. A merman… he thought those only existed in fairytales! And well, unfortunately, he knew this thing’s face all too well. But, the mad magician tries to put on his most charming smile and tries to back up, looking apologetic. “My apologizes, noble merfolk! I was just… searching the area. Did not mean to intrude~!”

But it doesn't matter how kind or apologetic he seems, the merm turns and darts into the structure, whistling and chattering loudly. Once inside, he grabs something from a shelf carved from rock and puts it on his face--a mask with four bits of orange sea glass embedded in the forehead--and starts rummaging through round stones on the shelves.

Mag’s face goes from cordial to dangerous in an instant. He growls and then darts to follow the merm into the structure. Once he sees him he lashes out to try to grab him by his wrist.

But the merman's wrist slips out of his grasp, the skin less grippy than Mag expected. He looks at the magician with wide eyes and grabs tight to one of the stones. Strange symbols carved on the surface light up with seafoam green light. And that's when Magnificent realizes. The power he'd felt--it wasn't one big source, it was a lot of sources gathered together. One of them being this merman. And many others being the little round rocks he was looking through.

Magnificent growls, his own eyes lighting up with magic. Then, he pauses as he reads the room. Oh… okay. He grins, then tries to grab one of the stones for himself.

The merman notices what he's doing and tries to stop him, going to smack his hand away. 

Mag is stopped and he yells out in frustration as he slapped away- but he manages to lash out again and grabs the merm’s hand. He laughs sinisterly, digging claws into his flesh. “Don’t worry, little fish… this won’t hurt a bit~!” And he tries to drain the merm of his magic.

The merm shrieks and manages to backpedal his way out of Mag's grip, tail pumping hard to push him through the water. But not without Mag's claws scraping down his skin--and not without some of his power being stolen. It flows into Magnificent like the water that surrounds them, bubbly as the seafoam its green color is named after. It's only a fraction of what the merm had, but it's something. The merm looks at him in horror, then turns and swims out of the structure.

Magnificent laughs, studying the magic as it flows through his veins. He laughs as the merm runs, going to scoop some of the power stones up for himself. Curious little things… worth studying he thinks. Hmm… should be off that little anomaly of him? Or capture it to see what it could explain about the magic here? …or- he could do both. He grins and then rockets after the merm, quickly trying to see if he can teleport to cut it off.

He’s surprised to see he can but grins menacingly as he appears in front of the merm, reaching out to try to catch him.

The mern shrieks again, ducking down to swim under him. And as it chatters, something happens. 

"--the--trying--me!--my magic! Where--you?!" Huh? The sounds are starting to make sense. 

Mag yells in rage and tries again, trying this time to throw out strings to catch it.

But the strings alone get pushed away by the currents of the merm moving. He circles around the structure to the more solid part--and something pops up from the other side of it. A person, just their head poking above the ceiling of the structure. He has brown hair and a thick mustache. His eyes widen as he sees Mag, then he looks at the other merm and makes weird gestures. The merm hurries towards him.

Magnificent is getting tired of this chase- he rockets back down and then conjures up a net with his magic, whipping it out towards his look-a-like.

The merm is too focused on reaching his friend to notice the net. It wraps around his body, pulling him to a stop. He shrieks. "No! You--! Let me go!--help!" 

Whatever magic Mag absorbed must be translating the chatter. 

Magnificent laughs and starts to pull the magic back towards him. “Well! That was a fun chase, Marvin.” He spits out his name. “But I’m afraid playtime is over, little fish~” 

The other merm dives forward, hurriedly trying to pull his friend out. This one is very different than the other, with strange wings attached to his arms and sides. A ray of some kind, maybe.

Magnificent finally takes notice of the other merm and he laughs, floating above him. “Now now little one- you can run along~! I’m sure I have no need for you~” He sends out a wave of magic, trying to push the Ray merm away.

The ray clings to the net but the magic pushes him away and he goes flying over the structure. "No! No! Jameson!" Marvin shouts, struggling. He looks back at Magnificent. "Wh-who are you?! How do you know my name?! Can you--can you even understand me?!"

Magnificent laughs, “Yes I can~ and since we can now hold a conversation… I think you will be such a good source of knowledge for me. So- why don’t we get to know each other, Marvin? You can call me Magnificent.”

"Magnificent? S-stupid name for a h-human." Marvin tries to smile smugly, but there is clear fear under the mask."I don't--I don't know what you could want. I just live here, I don't know anything a-about your human stuff."

“Oh my dear child, I am no human~” Magnificent laughs, showing off his fangs, “I am something so much greater.” 

 "Not human, huh? Th-that would explain how you're down this far and still breathing." He tries for a smile again but doesn't even manage a smirk this time. 

Magnificent tightens the net and brings Marvin close to his face, going to use his claws to turn his back and forth by his chin. He chuckles, tilting his head like a curious predator. “Why that’s okay, little fish. I think I will find what you know sooo much more interesting. Like- how these stones work- for instance? Or how you got your magic?”

Marvin swallows a lump in his throat. Tiny slits on either side of his neck open and close in miniscule motions."I--My magic, it--it's something I was born with, a-a lot of merms are, though most don't do anything with it. A-and the stones, they store power. You pour some of yours in and pull it out at later times."

Magnificent tsks, “It’s that trivial? Hm…” He twirls some of the strings of his magic with a thoughtful expression. “You said a lot of …merms- have magic? Where could one find a bigger source of that?”

Marvin opens his mouth to answer--and then realizes that it's probably not a good idea to give this guy what he wants. So he shuts his mouth. "I don't know."

Magnificent’s expression darkens. He grabs Marvin harder by the chin and forces him to look up at him as he whispers, “Are you lying to me, kitten?” His eyes start to spiral with magic as he chuckles, “I don’t think you should lie to me, Marvin. Because- I believe I can actually make use of you~ don’t you want to be useful to me, Marvinnn~?” He tries to pump the mark full of his influence.

Marvin blinks, confusion momentarily snapping him out of fear. "What d'you mean, 'chishin'?" he mutters, terribly mispronouncing 'kitten.' But then the spirals appear, and he gasps, closing his eyes immediately-- And before Mag can do much more, something slams into him from behind.

Magnificent growls, “that doesn’t mat-!” He gets cut off as he’s slammed into, dropping the net with Marvin in it. He growls and whips around to blast magic at whatever hit him. 

The magic hits his attacker point-blank--the same ray merm from before, who now gets flung into the ground. A cloud of sand flies into the air from the impact. "Jameson!" Marvin gasps, struggling to break free of the net.

Magnificent is quick to scoop Marvin back up and magic builds up behind him- making an even stronger spiral. “Enough games! You will help me find stronger magic or I’ll find bigger fish to fry after making you dinner! You will obey me!”

Marvin glances from Jameson to Magnificent--and freezes upon seeing the spiral. It flickers in his eyes. "I-I-I... n-no, I-I can't..." he says quietly, his struggles growing weaker and weaker. "I-I... Don't... hurt Jameson... please. I-I'll do... whatever you want, just... don't..."

“Is that all? Then of course, little fish… I won’t harm, Jameson. All you have to do is help me~” Magnificent giggles quietly.

"O... kay..." Marvin slumps entirely. "I'll... help." 

Jameson watches this happen in horror, frozen in plaze.

“Very good~” Magnificent grins. He snaps and the net disappears from around Marvin. “Grab whatever you need for the journey, Marvin. Then, you can lead me towards where this power is, hm?” 

"Okay." Marvin turns and swims into the structure. "We're going... to the ocean. Magic is stronger in deeper waters." He's grabbing a woven bag and filling it with things: a couple power stones and some kelp packages. 

Mag glances at Jameson, his eyes glowing unnaturally in the water.

Jameson tenses, and then abruptly turns and dashes away, keeping close to the sand. With the speckled pattern on his back he quickly blends into the ground.

Magnificent snorts with a smirk. Good. This Jameson was a coward. He wouldn’t get in the way then. Looking over himself he hums in thought. If he’s going to be down here… he needed a better way to swim and also not attract too much attention. He snaps and a burst of magic swirls around his legs and transforms them into a sleek black tail- resembling the tail of a pacific black dragon. He flicked the long eel-like tail and grinned as it lit up slightly green. Perfect. He abandoned his normal attire to have a material like his cape drape over his chest. Now- hopefully he wouldn’t draw too much unwanted attention…

Marvin stops, staring at Magnificent transform with shock. "S-so easy...?" he mutters, sounding in awe. "That tail... like a deep dweller." He shivers at the thought of them, then the hypnotism takes hold again. "Are you ready to go?"

Magnificent grins, “Yes. Lead the way, little fish~” He makes a sweeping motion like a showman, gesturing out towards the rest of the water.

Marvin nods. "Yes. The river to the ocean is this way." And he starts swimming, leading Magnificent there.

[huffle-dork]

Swap Across the CrystalVerse Chapter 6: Merms

Read Swapboys | Crystal’s AUs | Read MerMay Stories

Read SITCV | SATCV Masterpost | AO3 Link

The boat is crossing a stretch of open ocean. The sea floor beneath them is mostly sand with clusters of rocks and kelp. 

As the merms continue swimming, Chase dives down to grab some of the kelp, yanking it free and chewing on it. 

"Hey, can I have some?" Jack asks. Chase nods and hands it over. 

Jackie is getting better as he moves, hiccupping here and there but at least getting into a stride. He blinks down at Jack and Chase and tilts his head. "...does that taste good?" 

"It does to us," Chase says. "I don't know if it will to you, since you're human even if you're technically a merm right now. My kids say that it tastes like salad? And they're halflings which I think is similar to what you are right now. So... take what you want from that." 

"You can't eat fish, though," Jack says. 

"Right, yeah, even halflings need to have the fish cooked, they can't just eat them like we do," Chase agrees. 

"Oh really? Huh... that's interesting." Jackie says with a hum. 

"Are you all enjoying yourselves?" Schneep asks, tentacles clinging to the bottom of the boat. The bag he's wearing--human-made by the look of it--hangs upside down from his shoulder.

Alt can't help but laugh. "Are you, Schneep? cuz you look like a grumpy gills-" 

"Boooo!" Bro calls to Alt. Alt flicks him with his tail.

"Me? Oh, I am fine," Schneep says. 

Jackie swims back around to say, "That's just his face," before heading back to the front of the pack. 

"Hey!" Schneep snaps. 

Alt giggles. 

"Oh just like Alt!" Bro grins. 

"Hey! I've been getting better!" Alt snaps. 

Bro looks back to Schneep and then tries to swim upside down so he can look him in the face. "Does that make you dizzy or anything? You're also gripping on so well- but I guess that makes sense- cuz... octopus."

Schneep chuckles. "The non-octos are always so surprised." One of the tentacles peels away, showing the suckers on the other side. "It does take effort to grip, but I can hold on for a while before I need to stop." 

Jackie circles back around again. "Careful, Chase. If you swim with your dorsal upside down for too long it messes up your balance." 

"Oh? Really?" Bro rights himself and shakes a bit of vertigo off, dipping in the water before gaining his height. He laughs, "Thanks for the warning man."

Mer-Jackie looks at Schneep. "Talking about how great it is to be an octo again? How's it feel to be slow?" 

"Oh shut up." Schneep rolls his eyes. 

"Some octos can change color, y'know," Jackie says to Bro. "Like Schneep's neighbor." He looks at Schneep and grins. "Vea." 

"Yes, she can do that." Schneep's face is straight, but strangely, his tentacles shift color to a lighter blue. 

Bro looks very interested in this and then blinks at Schneep's tentacles and points. "Oh!! They kinda changed colors! woahhh" 

"Y-yes, that happens sometimes," Schneep says. 

"But it's not like what Vea can do," Jackie says, grinning. "She can camoflague into anything. Isn't that cool?" 

"V-very cool." The shade of blue is deepening now... like a blush. 

"Oh that is cool!" Bro says excitedly. He eyes the color with a slight knowing look. "That'd be such a useful skill!" 

"Like Peeta in the hunger games!" Jackieboy says, catching up to them. Bro laughs. 

Schneep blinks. "I don't know what that means. Chase? What human stuff is this 'hungry games'?" 

Chase frowns. "I don't know everything about humans. It's been years since I was one, things change so fast up there. Don't get me started on the way phones went from colorful flippy things to slabs." 

"Woahhh you were human once??" Jackie asks, looking at Chase with fascination. "Wait no okay that makes sense- cuz you said you had halflings- dude though that so crazy! It's like- real life little mermaid!" 

Bro bonks Jackie on the head, "Stop dropping pop 

culture references we gotta explain!" 

"Oh we know about The Little Mermaid," Jack says. "Stacy showed us." 

Chase gives a little laugh. "It was more like the fairy tale than the animated movie with the redhaired girl. I-I saw a cute human on the beach one day, a-and I kept coming back to see her. Until I decided I had to get to know her so I got Marvin to cast a spell on me to make me human for a year and a day. I-it was tough. Walking was hard, and I didn't know any human knowledge. But w-we got really close, and started going out, a-and um..." That blush is back. "But, uh, w-we were just seventeen so when the spell wore off she said I probably shouldn't turn human permanently until she finished school. And then stuff happened, and... now I have two kids." 

Mer-Jackie circles back again. "So romantic!" And back to the front. 

Jackie awwws, "That is the sweetest story I've ever heard!!" 

"I thought you always said nothing would beat how you met Zara-" Bro teases, bumping into him. 

"Well- getting my ass kicked isnt really romantic on my part-" Jackie snickers. "She did look like an angel that day though~!" 

"She beat you up?" Chase asks. "Oh, was it like--like a fight class?" 

"I'd like a partner who could kick my tail!" Jackie contributes. 

"Not many people can do that, though," Schneep mutters. 

"Oh!" Jack looks over at Jackie. "What about that orca? Margaret?" 

"Maggie likes girls, but she could kick my tail, so that's the idea." 

"Yeah it was a martial arts class." Jackie laughs, "First day- she and me were the only ones with fighting experience and I wanted to seem tough because well- I had recently decided I wanted to be more of a guy. That was a mistake and she humbled me realll quick. But... looking at her look at me so smug- ah... it was love right there." He sighs, looking up at the light filtering through the ocean. "So yeah- I guess you liking to be beat up by strong women is a universal thing!" 

Bro giggles. "The heart wants what the hearts wants, dude!" 

"Be more of a guy?" Jackie asked. "What do you mean? Just change to a guy." 

"I may not know as much about humans as Chase," Schneep says. "But even I know that they cannot change their gender so easily." 

Jackieboy bursts into laughter, "Oh man! If only it was that easy!" 

"I mean- technically it was for you- and Alt." Bro points out. 

"Shush- we still went through most of the things other people do! We just- skipped the surgeries." Jackieboy adds, touching the light purple scars on his chest- ones that were very similar to the ones Alt has. 

"All it takes for us is some will and a good night's sleep," Jackie says. "It just kinda... happens. We're very different." 

"No, what gave it away?" Schneep drawls. "Was it the tails or the fins?" 

"No, I get where Jackie's coming from," Chase says. "Humans think that merms are just like them, but underwater, but it's not like that at all. But you guys can probably feel the differences, right?" 

Bro chuckles at the sarcasm before looking to his other self. He swishes his tail as he thinks. "..Yeah- it's weird. You don't really think about how it would be, living underwater. But- even the way you breathe is different. The weight of the water and ebb and flow of everything around you. It's... really cool. But so so different from how things on land work." 

"Tell me about it," Chase mutters. "Balance is hard on legs." 

"It's hard even if you're used to having legs." Jackie grins. 

"Only for you, clumsy." Bro snorts, knocking into Jackie. 

The two of them start playfully bumping into each other, trying to throw the other off course. 

Meanwhile, Anti is swimming sort of near Alt, still trying to figure out if he should approach.

Alt feels a presence near him and he tilts his head, deciding to look back. He smiles slightly as he sees Anti. "Doin' alright?" He asks.

Anti blinks. He opens his mouth, closes it again. Blinks again. "You've... been... giving off... waves since you transformed," he says slowly. "Do you... know that? I-is it helping you... see?"

Alt blinks back and then looks down at his tail. He... kinda felt that. ...is that how he knew Anti was near? "...huh... I... I think I kinda noticed but... I didn't realize what that was." He tilts his head at Anti, "...see?"

Anti nods. He's sort of awkwardly playing with his hands, claws clicking together. "I can pulse electricity and... it helps me see. When I can't. M-my eyes aren't good. I'm supposed to be in dimmer light. But I can tell where things are. Is that what's happening?"

Alt looks thoughtful as he takes stock of himself. Experimentally, he tries to pulse some electricity out as well- though he's not quite sure what he's supposed to see. "Huh... like- echolocation almost. But, with electricity." He grins, fascinated. "I didn't know it could do that! I wonder if you could do that on land or- does it only work cuz we're underwater? dudeee that's so cool!"

"I-I don't know, I've never tried it on land," Anti says. "M--maybe? You need the inside parts to work." He gestures at his tail. "That's, um, all stuff to make electricity. So... if you turn human, pr-probably not." 

Alt hums in thought, "I'll have to try that some time... I can generate electricity normally. hm..."

"Oh right. I forgot." Anti smiles a little. He pauses. "It... probably doesn't really come through with your eyes open."

Alt blinks down at Anti and then laughs, "Oh yeah- I guess that makes sense. Lemme see..." Alt closes his eyes and tries again to pulse out his electricity.

Alt is momentarily blind, but then he realizes--the faint wave he's been giving off is bouncing back to him. It's like a sixth sense, like radar on a submarine, telling him the shape of the ocean floor below him, the outline of the boat above him, and the movement of the merms and fish around him. When he actively pulses out, the range increases. 

Alt is almost tempted to open his eyes, not liking the fact that he can't see when... he feels it. The wave of his senses reaching out, making sense of the darkness. 

"So... you can still see, see?" Anti says.

Alt starts to give off a bit more electricity in his excitement, laughing breathlessly. "Y-Yeah! Oh wow this is- this is so cool!"

"Y-y-yeah, it--I guess it is, I never... thought about it. It's always how it's been for me. I-I don't think you can shock like I can. Or... if you can, i-it's with your magic, not your insides. Right?"

Alt opens his eyes back up to look at Anti and smiles. "uhh no I don't think so... seems like I can do that to see but still- that's so crazy. I like it-" He grins. "I can't wait to see if I can still do that on land! ...thanks for showing me, Anti."

Anti blinks. Then he grins slowly. "Y-you're welcome. Gl-glad I could help." He clacks his claws together some more. "I... think I like... helping."

Alt's expression softens and he loops to be a bit closer to Anti. It's... weird. This Anti seems... more like him than the others he's seen recently. One that's grumpy and prickly but deep down... there's something good in there. He smiles at Anti. "...it's hard at first- but helping is kinda an awesome feeling. Especially if you have good friends who help you too."

Anti stares at Alt. "Friends..." He glances at the others. "I'm... not sure if I'm one of those. I, um... hurt them. A while ago. I was... scared. But I still did... more than I needed. But... they don't hate me. I-it's hard to understand." 

Alt's expression softens more and turns sympathetic. He looks up at Bro and Jackie and breathes, "...I know how that feels. I hurt my friends too. My brother, even. I was... angry. And confused. And I took things way too far. But... despite all that... they're still here." Alt laughs, shaking his head. "Somedays... I don't get it. Why they stick around... why they don't see me as... just a bad person. A monster. But... if somebody wants to see the good in you... I think you should let them." He looks back at Anti and smiles. "I think they can see that in you, Anti. That want to help. And that makes them friends. Cuz they're still here."

Anti listens to this intently. He lets out a breath, the gills on his neck visibly opening. "I... have a hard time understanding this," he says quietly. "I-I didn't think any of that was possible... for a long time. H-helping people, I mean. But... I like it. A-and I like that they're... willing to... help. I can... I can try. To be 'better.' I think I'm doing better. I-if they see that, I sh-shouldn't push that away." He nods. "Thank you. Not... I-I don't talk about this a lot. I don't think others understand." 

Alt smiles more and lightly bumps his tail against Anti's. "... I get it. I didn't think it'd ever be possible for me to help people but... I'm here. Trying to be a hero like Chase is. It's... insane. But deep down, anyone can change for the better- especially if they have people willing to stick around for the journey." 

Anti pauses. "Can you feel that? When you pulse. The land is sloping up. That means the coast is coming. We're getting close."

Alt pauses too and blinks trying to feel the slope. "Oh yeah- I do feel it." His eyes pulse with his magic as he starts to focus back at the task at hand.

"We're getting close," Anti announces to the others. 

"Really?" Chase says. He swims up to the surface, only his tail showing for a while, and then comes back down. "Ollie says he'll try to find somewhere on the coast to dock safely but it's pretty swampy." 

"Swampy? Sounds like we are getting close," Jackie says. 

Schneep detaches from the boat, flipping around right ways and swimming along with the others. "We are either going to find Jameson, or, perhaps, Marvin and that stranger. They may have beat him here." 

"What was his name again?" Jack asks. "Excellent, or something like that?"

The swaps laugh. "Magnificent," Alt says, grinning. He then looks at the water and squints. "...I don't know what to expect of him here... from what I knew- he hated water." 

"oh my god- could he be anymore like a cat?" Jackie groans. "Like- I get it, it's his thing but C'monnn"

"Jameson's message said he transformed into a merm," Chase recalls. "So, uh, I guess he knows the same sort of spell you guys do." 

"I wonder what he would become," Jackie muses. "You all didn't choose your merm forms, did you? Because if you did, he could become something pretty bad." 

"I can take him," Anti says. This doesn't sound like a brag, more like he's stating a fact. 

"We'll see," Schneep mutters. 

“Hmm… I wonder…” Alt muses, thinking. “He probably has more freedom… I wasn’t thinking when the spells were cast- I think it’s based off the soul. That’s usually how animal transformation works. Unless you’re mag and you deal in black magic.” 

The sea floor begins to slope upwards around them, but they stay in a slight dip of an area. Beneath them is a sandy floor with lots of green plants shooting up. The boat pulls to the side, not wanting to head down the river. 

Bro swims forward, momentarily fascinated at seeing the boat pulling off. 

Jackie looks down at the sandy floor and tilts his head. He dives down curiously. 

Is there something moving down there? Beyond just the plants and fish.

Alt blinks at this and uses his new skill as he follows after Jackie. Closing his eyes he- he senses a human like shape. “Oh! I think there’s a mer down here!” He announces.

"Huh, what?" Jackie says. The others all look down. 

"Jameson!" Chase gasps, and everyone dives down. 

Jameson jumps in surprise at the strange merms appear--but then relaxes when the others do. He swims up to meet them. The swaps see a merm styled after a stingray, with wings stretching from his arms to his torso and a narrow tail. His belly is pale yellow-white while his back is brown and speckled. He clutches a bag in his hands. 

"Are you okay?" Jack asks. 

"Do not worry, these are our friends," Schneep adds. "They are here to help." He pauses, then continues in a softer voice. "We are here to help. So... how are you?" 

Jameson tenses slightly, then rushes forward and wraps his arms around Schneep, squeezing him tightly. He looks visibly shaken.

The swaps all exchange worried glances. Alt approaches and adds in a quiet voice, “…I’m so sorry he took Marvin… but I swear- we’re gonna do whatever we can to get him back. I promise.”

Jameson looks at Alt curiously. He backs away from Schneep and starts making gestures. It’s lucky that Alt’s translation spell now works for non-spoken languages. The swaps see subtitles in their mind as Jameson speaks. Who are you? Do you know about that strange human?

Alt looks timid as he answers, “oh yeah s-sorry. I’m Alt- and this is Chase and Jackie. We’re actually from a different world- the same one that the strange human came from. And we know all about him… he’s hurt all of us before.” His eyes glow with anger, “We’ll make him pay for taking Marvin.“

Jameson blinks. World?

“It’s complicated, we can talk about it later,” Chase says. “The point is, they know this guy. He’s called Magnificent.” 

Jameson laughs—it sounds strained, and it’s not clear if that’s from the stress or if it’s just how his voice sounds. How arrogant. Well, he did seem the type to act like that. 

Bro and Jackie laugh. “Man I love how everyone points out his name is stupid and shallow. Ohh the vindication!” Jackie cackles. 

“So this guy is coming down the river soon?” Jackie asks. “And he’s bringing Marvin, who’s hypnotized?” 

“Oh they’re not even in the ocean yet? Okay good! We can get the jump on them!” Bro says cheerfully. 

“Yeah, let’s jump them!” Jackie agrees, whooping. 

Nodding, Jameson says, I brought some things that might help. He reaches into the bag and pulls out a couple things. A pair of round stones, some sharp, bone-like objects, and something pale red partially wrapped in a woven kelp blanket. 

“I know you said you were bringing the siren stone, but are you sure?” Jack asks. 

Maybe we can combat his hypnotism with it.

Alt looks down curiously at all the objects Jameson brought. He swims closer, “A siren stone? What’s that? Are these all magic?”

No, not all of these, Jameson says. He picks up one of the bone like objects. These aren’t. I brought them for the merms who don’t have natural weapons. 

Schneep makes a face. “Those are made from stingers, aren’t they?”

They don’t have venom in them after they fall off, but they’re sharp! 

“Oh, you all are going to love that,” Schneep says, glancing at the visitors. 

“Ohhh neat!” Jackieboy says, reaching to grab one. He experimentally jabs it through the water then giggles. “Like a knife!” 

“I’ll just stick with the stone.” Chase picks up the siren stone. For a moment, he touches it without the blanket acting as a barrier, and patterns of green light appear on its surface. So pretty… Then he realizes what’s happening and quickly adjusts his grip, the light fading as soon as he stops touching it. 

“The siren stone is something that merms with siren blood can use,” Jack explains. “It lets them have the hypnotic powers sirens did. Only Chase and Anti have siren ancestors, so only they can use it.” 

“N-not that I will,” Anti mutters, folding his arms. He seems a little… guilty?

Alt’s eyes widen at the explanation, glancing at the stone. He blinks at Anti then smiles softly at him, as if he understood. He nods to the others, “Mag isn’t used to others having mental magic- or using hypnosis. We should be able to catch him off guard!”

Jack grabs one of the stinger-knives as well, and hands another to Schneep with an insistent look. 

Schneep sighs, gills fluttering, and takes it. “If we are to catch them off guard, we should hide ourselves. Especially the brighter colored ones of us.” 

Bro nods, “Jackie that means you should hide- you’re like super bright.” 

Jackieboy grumbles but nods. 

“I could be a distraction,” Chase offers. “Maybe try to catch them with the stone.” 

What if his hypnotism is faster than you can speak? Jameson asks. 

“Well… that’s why you guys hide!” 

“Sounds like as good a plan as anything to me,” Jackie says.

Alt looks nervous but nods too, “an ambush… that could work. Just- tips for dealing with Mag- his magic is very powerful and is like a tidal wave… it’s very hard to resist. But like- if you try to fight it think of like random things! I do colors to help me- it makes it harder for him to latch onto something.” He looks around trying to see if there’s any hints of them coming. “…me and Anti could get closer to the mouth and warn y’all when we feel them coming.”

The other merms nod at Alt’s advice. 

“That’s a good idea,” Anti agrees. “I know where there are small alcoves in the rock. We can hide inside.” 

The brighter merms should find clusters of plants to hide inside, Jameson says. The rest of us can hide behind rocks, we’ll blend in more there. 

“Let me guess, you’re going to bury?” Jackie says. 

Jameson grins a little. It’s what I do. 

“Alright, that’s a plan, then,” Chase says. “What signal should we look for, Alt, Anti?”

Alt hums in thought, flicking his tail. 

Bro perks up, “What if we use Sam? She’s small enough that she can swim around to start alerting the others? Or-at the very least- I have very good hearing. Any knock or signal you all make I can probably hear- I can stick by other me to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

“Oh, uh… thank you,” Chase says. 

Jack blinks. “But I didn’t bring—” 

And then his bag starts fluttering in an unusual way. He looks down at it. “…no. No, you didn’t.” 

He opens it up and out swims Sam. 

“Seriously?” 

She bumps against him. 

“Oh- I wondered where she went.” Bro laughs, messing with his hair and looking embarrassed. 

“Awww she’s so cute though!” Jackieboy says.

“Well I don’t want to put you in danger. So back in the bag you go.” Jack says to Sam.

“Besides, Sam can’t swim that fast, right?” Jackie says. 

“Here, let’s test how good your hearing is. Anti, can you go find one of those alcoves and make some sort of noise?” 

Anti nods, darting away. He’s soon out of sight. After a moment, Bro picks up a faint—very faint—clicking noise that the spell translates as “Hey! Listen!”

Bro nods and listens. He perks up and then grins, “Yes! I heard it! Ha- you sounded like Navi-“ 

“Nerd-“ Alt coughs with a laugh.

"Alright, if that's sorted, let's all get into position, then," Jackie says. 

Good luck, everyone, Jameson adds. 

And the merms scatter. Jack takes Jameson's advice and hides in a patch of kelp where his green color won't stand out as much. Jackie and Schneep crouch together behind a rock, Schneep's darker tentacles helping them hide into the shadows. Anti stays where he is. Jameson finds a patch of sand and partially buries himself under it. And Chase hovers around, unsure where exactly to go.

The swaps all nod and scatter too. Alt follows Anti into one of the alcoves, closing his eyes and settling into the dark. Jackie searches around and finds a deep enough patch in the kelp to hopefully hide most of his tail. 

Bro rounds up next to Chase and puts a hand on his shoulder, smiling confidently. “Don’t worry- we got this! He won’t expect all of you- especially with that stone thingy!”

Chase smiles back at Bro. “Thanks. I-it has come in handy. Now you should get somewhere out of sight. I don’t think the distraction will work if there’s two of us and one is a shark. No offense. You’re just more intimidating than a clownfish like me.” 

“Oh- you know what that’s fair. I’ll be close by though! Just in case.” Bro grins and then ducks down to go hide by some of the rocks. 

Some time passes. Thankfully not too much. Hidden in the small alcove, Anti sends out regular pulses… and eventually two large shapes swim into range. “I think that’s them,” he whispers to Alt.

Alt feels the pulse and studies the new shapes closer, trying to see if he recognizes the feeling. The waves coming off one of them feels almost sinister- like the water is afraid of him. That could only be one person. He opens his eyes and nods to Anti. 

“It is. Get ready-“

Anti nods back and makes that same “Hey! Listen!” clicking noise to alert the others. 

Marvin has been perfectly complacent for Magnificent ever since that brief encounter with Jameson. He hasn’t said a word until now, when he simply says, “That’s the ocean in there.” 

Magnificent can see the widening of the river as the shore on either side turns away. And he’s been able to feel it coming for a while, too, as the tight feeling of freshwater fades away when more salt enters the picture.

Magnificent giggles and stretches out his tail, enjoying the feeling of the salt water. Much better. 

"Very good~! Now- how much further to this source? Should we pick up the pace? Or can you not handle that, little fish?" He asks with a hint of sweetness, almost mimicking concern. But, his condensation is palpable in his voice. 

Alt growls quietly, bunching up and feeling electricity bright in his veins. But, he needs to wait. Bro and Jackie brace themselves too, watching the water and Chase warily.

Magnificent can faintly sense magic in the distance, but it’s hard to gauge how close it is. 

“We should pick up the pace,” Marvin says. “It’s still far.” 

“Hm, alright- try to keep up-“ He starts to order Marvin before he slows and stops in the water- who is…?

Chase takes a deep breath. He’s been thinking about what to do, and decides the best approach us to just swim up to them. Which he does. “Hey Marvin, I was just coming to see you, who’s your—whoa!” And yet he stalls for a moment, taken aback by Magnificent’s appearance. He wasn’t expecting this stranger to look like a deep dweller! He clutches the wrapped siren stone close to his chest. “Uh—h-hi?” 

Marvin blinks. “…Chase?”

Mag glares at Chase and bares his sharp teeth for a second before his expression eases into a charming and charismatic one. “Oh! Marvin, is this a friend of yours? Chase is it? Well- how fun to run into you! Marvin was just helping me find some magic nearby~” He chuckles. His eyes flash briefly with spiraling magic, trying to subtly influence Chase to back down. “Nothing to worry about.”

Chase blinks. Is he... supposed to be feeling something right now? Is Magnificent trying his magic? Well, he doesn't want to be too suspicious right away so he'll play along a bit. 

"Oh. Yeah. Of course. Well... if you want to find some magic, I have something right here." He moves the kelp blanket away from the stone, not quite touching it yet but revealing its surface.

Magnificent raises an eyebrow skeptically. A chase? Knowing magic? Hard to believe… But he can’t deny the pull of whatever magic is coming from that stone so he swims a bit closer, tilting his head at it curiously. “Oh? Is that so?”

"Yeah. Watch this." Chase presses a hand against the stone, and the green light appears, dancing across its surface. "And if you keep watching, that'll be great."

Magnificent tilts his head more, gazing at the stone. For just an instant- he seems almost captivated. But, that quickly fades as he throws his head back with laughter. The pressure around them in the water starts to increase- and magic starts to bloom behind Mag is a bright spiral pattern. He shakes his head as he chuckles sinisterly, 

"Oh Chase... You're playing a dangerous game~" He looks up at Chase fully now- the same magic spiraling his eyes as he slams his magic down on Chase's will. "I think you'll find that watching and obeying me will be much more favorable for you~"

Chase is smart enough to not look directly at the pretty lights, but he does gasp at the wave of magic. He blinks for a moment, then struggles through. Alright, time for Plan B! He dives down to the ground. "Guys! Now!" 

Immediately Jackie bursts out from his hiding place and darts for Mag. 

"What?!" Magnificent snarls, backing up and then growls for Marvin. "Marvin! Keep your friends from interfering!" He orders. 

But, then, Bro comes rushing out with the same speed and roars in anger, diving to try to stop Mag too.

Marvin's attention darts to the side and he fires off a beam of pale green light--but he's not holding a power stone so it's weak and Jackie powers right through, shoving Marvin to the side. He gasps, drifting for a bit before recovering, reaching into his bag for a stone.

Alt gasps and narrows his eyes and goes to try to help Marvin and Jackie.

Bro for a second, startles Mag who whips to look at him with surprise. "Fantastic?!" He then whips out some magic to knock him back, making Bro summersault through the water. He soon rights himself and tries to charge at Mag again. Magnificent blasts Bro in the face with his magic, sending Bro back again as he curls up and holds it- the water around his face burning. 

While Bro is distracting him, Magnificent feels something grab his tail. It's Schneep, gritting his teeth with determination. 

Mag startles at being grabbed and growls at Schneep, flicking him off and back down towards one of the rocks. 

Marvin grabs a power stone and flings out a wave of magic, strong enough that it causes a current.

Alt tries his best to fight the current and tries to grab Marvin's tail- trying to give him a small shock to hopefully wake him up.

Schneep lands on the rocky ground, silt flying into the air. Jameson rushes over to check on him but luckily he recovers quickly and gestures for Jameson to go on. Jameson nods and quickly swims over to Marvin. 

Jack hands his bag--with Sam inside--to Chase and decides to rush Magnificent with the stinger blade. While Jackie is pushed back by the magic and the current, 

Alt reaches Marvin and grabs him. He yelps at the shock but his eyes don't even flicker as he looks down and blasts Alt with magic.

The magic hits Alt and he yells out in surprise and pain and tumbles away, disoriented by the water. 

Jack manages to stick Mag in the tail and he yells in anger, blasting magic towards him.

Jameson tries to grab Marvin from behind, his eyes glowing slightly blue, but Marvin whirls around and throws him off before he can do whatever he's trying to do. 

Meanwhile, Jackie helps stop Alt from tumbling, then rushes for Marvin as well. "Snap out of it!" he shouts as he tackles him. "He's in your head, Marvin! Like a siren!" 

Alt oofs and then thanks Jackie, following after him to try to stop Marvin too. 

Jack gets thrown back by the magic, landing next to where Schneep did earlier. "We're gonna get nowhere if we're separated!" he gasps. 

Chase looks at Jack. "I-I'll see if I can help get Marvin free!" he says, swimming over. 

While Mag is distracted, Anti darts for him, grabbing him from behind.

Magnificent laughs and then seems to feel the water shift as Anti darts out and he dodges out of the way. He growls and then snaps, making another big swirl of magic appear behind him, humming with power- lighting him up from behind in an eerie light. He growls, "You simple minded little fish aren't worth the water you swim in! You all will bow to me!"

But the merms know the ways of sirens by now. All of them looking at Mag--Jack, Anti, Jameson, and Schneep--quickly look away. 

Schneep's a bit slow, as he's too busy shouting "You cannot* bow in the water, idiot!" but he remembers. 

Anti laughs. "Let me tell you something you clearly don't understand. You're fucking outnumbered!" And all at once, the four of them rush Magnificent. 

Magnificent growls at Schneep and the others, trying to back away. Jackie- still hiding, springs up and throws his stringer blade and its slices across Mag's arm- distracting him as he yells out. Bro grins and headbutts him from behind- pushing him into the frenzy of the other merms that tackle Magnificent into the sand. Magnificent screeches like an angry cat, flailing and clawing to try to get free. 

Marvin throws Jackie off--something he normally wouldn't be able to do, but Jackie just can't bring himself to use too much force against his friend. 

"Marvin! Chase shouts, grabbing the siren stone. "Look at me!" And Marvin does. "Don't listen to Magnificent! He doesn't control you!"

Alt sees the others have things with Mag handled and goes to help Chase, leaning down by Marvin. "Hey yeah- l-listen to Chase, you don't ever wanna work for that psycho- trust me! Your friends need you, Marvin."

"Fr-friends...?" Marvin repeats. "Friends..." 

"Your friends," Chase repeats. "Us!" He swims closer, pointing to the side. "Look, we need help!" 

Marvin follows Chase's pointing finger. He sees the others all tackling Magnificent to the ground. And suddenly, everything snaps back into place. 

"No!" Marvin screeches, darting on over. The power stone in his hand glows brighter and brighter, and as Marvin plunges into the pile the others back away from Magnificent to make room for him. 

The water suddenly gets very cold and there's a flash of bright light--

When the light recedes- Mag is trapped, squirming on the sandy ground, his arms frozen to his sides. He growls and snaps like an cornered predator. 

"Miserable whelp! Unhand me! I'll fry you for this!" He hisses at Marvin. 

Jackie cheers and pumps his hand into the air. "Yeahh!! Go Marvin!!" 

Bro laughs and looms over Mag- "Best watch you say, Mag- a lot of us have veryyy sharp teeth." He playfully chomps towards Mag- making the mad magician flinch ever so slightly. 

Alt sighs in relief, letting himself sag in the water.

"Fucker," Marvin snaps, trembling with rage and adrenaline. "Fucking fucker fuck--oof!" He's cut off as Jameson suddenly tackles him, knocking him to the side. "Who--Jameson? Jameson!" Marvin laughs and hugs him back, the two of them flying head over tail through the water. 

I'm sorry I couldn't help you, Jameson says. I tried but he was too strong and I was so scared I'm sorry I'm sorry-- 

"No, no, it's okay! I would've felt horrible if he hurt you! O-or if I hurt you." They land in the sand, their tails wrapped around each other. 

Chase watches the two of them and chuckles, smiling fondly. 

Anti stares at Mag. "Can I shock him? Just a little?"

Alt grins, "Go for it, make it hurt." He tells Anti. 

"Just... don't kill him?" Bro asks timidly.

"I can stun him?" Anti offers. 

"That'd be helpful probably-" Jackie giggles, "We gotta get him back onto the boat to get him back home, right?" 

"Oh fuck right... we gotta get home." Alt sighs.

Anti grins. "Got it." He swims up to Mag, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Back away," he tells the others. And once they're out of range--ZAP! Magnificent slumps unconscious. 

The swaps all watch Anti shock him with wide eyed but impressed expressions.

"I underdid it a bit to avoid killing him," Anti says. "So he might wake up quickly. Get him on land soon, then." 

"Got it." Jackie grabs Magnificent--not touching him, just holding him by the ice--and starts hauling him up to the surface.

"Man... that was satisfying to see." Jackie grins. 

Bro laughs and then swims after Jackie, "I'll go help Jackie!" 

Alt looks down and then slowly goes to swim over to Marvin and Jameson. He hesitates then settles down in the sand next to them. "Um... hey Marvin- I know we didn't really get a chance to meet... I'm Alt and uh... I just wanted to see if you were okay?"

Marvin looks at Alt, then at Jameson. Jameson nods and scoots a little bit to the side but keeps one arm around Marvin, the connected wing acting like a blanket. "Hi, Alt. I'm not hurt. If I'm okay, though... l-let's say that I-I'll have to think a lot about what happened." 

Alt looks very sympathtic and he nods. "Yeah... I get it... it's not a great feeling." 

Marvin shivers. "But not now. You, um... know that stranger, then? He was human at first." His eyes dart up and down Alt then land on his bracelet. "Are... you, too?"

Alt blinks at Marvin's questions and then nods again. "Yeah... Mag comes from where he came from. We're human but... me and him are magic. Like you and Jameson. That's why he wanted to... to use you. I'm so sorry that he did..."

Marvin nods. "It's not your fault. W-we never expected something like that. You must come from somewhere very far, I've never seen a human with magic before." 

Jameson squeezes Marvin from the side supportively. Sorry, he signs again. 

"It's really not your fault. I know how you are with nets like the one he conjured." 

Jameson nods slowly, then looks at Alt and smiles. Thank you for help saving my life friend.

Alt looks surprised and then flushes slightly but grins. "I-It's so problem really... that's... that's what I do. Me and my brother, of course. G-Gotta try to use my magic for good, right?" He glances up at the water and deflates a bit before looking back at them. "... If we didn't have to deal with him... it'd be so cool to learn about all the magic and stuff you guys have here. You seriously havent seen any human magicians? All the magic is underwater? And that- that siren stone thing?? That's... so cool-" He grins, bouncing a bit. "Plus... swimming around like a merman is... really really brilliant." He laughs, "... gonna be hard to go back to being just- human." 

Just behind him, you can see Jackie just swimming around the area, like he's trying to make the most of the time they have left.

"My teacher told me that once, humans knew how to draw magic from the water like we do," Marvin says. "But they stopped around the shipwreck era--um, a-about four hundred human years ago. Maybe they can learn how to do it again." He laughs a little. "I-I'm happy you're enjoying it. I think merms don't have nearly as much fun when we turn human. Or at least, Chase and Anti didn't." 

Alt blinks, "Woah... that's so fascinating..."

Speaking of Chase, he swims down to join the others. "Hey... i-if you guys are okay, we're all going to the surface now," he says slowly. 

Marvin nods. "We'll be right up there."

Alt looks back towards Chase and smiles, "Yeah... coming." He sighs and floats up, flicking his tail. "Welp- guess it's time." He smiles at them then whistles for Jackie. 

"Hey speedy! We gotta get going!" Alt calls. 

Jackieboy stops a little bit aways, "What??" 

"WE GOTTA GET GOING!" 

"AWWW REALLY??" 

"YES REALLY YOU DORK- C'MON!" 

"FINNEEE" 

Alt rolls his eyes with a small laugh and then he surges up to the surface and Jackieboy reluctantly follows.

Back on the surface, Bro and Jackie have helped Ollie haul the unconscious Magnificent back onto the boat. 

"I hope you all have magic to dry people's clothes and stuff," Ollie is saying. "This is dripping all over my deck." 

Alt laughs and grabs Bro and Jackie and glitches all of them onto the boat's deck. They all still have some of their scales and fishy aspects but they at least have their legs again. Alt mutters a quick spell word and all of them get dried off and he beams at Ollie. "There you go! No issue!"

One by one, everyone else surfaces. 

"Ahlee!" Marvin says, delighted. 

"Hey there." Ollie smiles at him. "The others said you went through some stuff. So here. I know this probably won't help much but here." He crouches down and hands something out for Marvin. A paper bowl of ice cream with a spoon. 

"Oooo." Marvin takes it. "Than' yoo than' yoo!" he says in English. 

Alt  crouches down by Mag and pokes him slightly. "... guess Mag is stuck as a fish until he wakes up." 

"Can we leave him to suffoc-" Jackie almost says excitedly before Bro bops him on the head. "No Jackie-"

"He'll probably wake up soon," Anti says. "I didn't shock him that hard." 

"You know we can breathe air, right?" Jackie says. 

Schneep nods. "There are gills, but there are also lungs, though the airways close instinctively once the gills submerge." 

"Ohhh yeah- that makes sense." Jackie says. 

"Does that mean technically fish can breathe a bit of air?" Bro asks curiously. 

"Some can! Upwards of 30 minutes!" Jackie beams. "Just gotta keep their gills wet." 

"We're not fish, though, we're merms," Jackie says. "So we can breathe air for as long as we want!... but we'll dry out eventually. Like whales." 

Poor whales, Jameson comments sadly. 

"So... you guys are really leaving now?" Jack asks. "Are you... going to come back? W-we don't have too many human friends. It's just Ollie, Stacy and Roxy, and Lise... They all end in 'ee' sounds, weird." 

Alt smiles sadly and then nods. "Yeah... we gotta go. This one is real squirmy." He lightly kicks Mag, who grumbles a bit. But, his expression does light up. "...I... I wanna come back- someday. For sure this was... really fun." 

"I wanna take Zara and the kids sometime!!" Jackie shouts, stimming. 

"You'll need to get me sooo much food and energy for that to happen," Alt responds, but he does smile. "...but that would be awesome." 

"Do you guys need me to drop you off somewhere?" Ollie asks.

Alt then blinks and looks at Ollie before shaking his head. "Nah, we should be good. All we need is-" He finds his bag and digs out the TRVLR, "-this. Though- we should all change back into our clothes and shit." He giggles.

"Well, we'd love to see you again!" Chase says. "If you ever have a hard time finding us, I'm around Maya Beach a lot. That's where I met Stacy.” 

"Oh! Was that the beach I showed up on? Sweet! That'll be easy to remember then!" Bro grins. 

"Oh, no you showed up at the lagoon where I live," Jack says. "I don't know if it has a human name. None of them have showed up there... uh... ever?" 

"That one's called Brightwave Lagoon," Chase adds. "Because the waves glow bright with all the phytoplankton. It's hard to get to but they know about it." 

"Or if you want to stop by Jameson and me, we live in Lough Baintrie," Marvin says. 

Just wait on the beach, we'd rather come up to you, Jameson adds. 

“We, um... can't exactly call you. Phones don't work underwater." Chase says.

"I have a tablet," Anti says. "I can make the screen go white if I pulse." Not sure what that has to do with this. Maybe he just wanted to mention it.

Jackie blinks at Anti, "That'sss great?" He tries to say encouragingly. 

"Don't get near my tablet!" Alt says, slipping on his hoodie and shoes again. He grabs his marker and scribbles out the runes and soon enough his fishy scales and stuff turn blue then disappear. 

Bro and Jackie follow his lead, getting back on the clothes they took off and Alt makes quick work of getting rid of their runes too. 

Pretty soon they're all back to normal. Around the time they finish, Mag suddenly gasps loudly and then coughs, flailing like the caught fish he is. 

Alt glitches down by him and grins sinisterly. "Oh look guys! We caught a catfish~!" 

Mag growls and with a snap of his magic- he's back to his normal self but he's still caught up in Marvin's magic. 

Bro makes quick work of picking him up and holding him on his shoulder as Magnificent spits profanities and threats. 

Jackie leans over the rails and grins. "We'll be back to see you all again, for sure! And next time, we can all just have some fun, alright?" 

Alt grins and nods, "Yeah, for sure." 

Bro leans over Alt and looks at the screen as he sets up the TRVLR. "...any idea what got us sent here instead of home last time, Alt?" 

Alt frowns, "No idea... I was sure I had the right address." He makes sure to mark this one down in their favorites before finding theirs again. "Maybe... Anti-Virus just- shorted it out or something. I'm sure it'll work this time."

"I do hope your device works," Schneep says. "I do not understand it, but I am sure it was just a mistake." 

"Maybe pulse it extra hard," Anti suggests. 

"But not too hard, you don't want to break it," Jackie says. 

Alt can't help but laugh at Anti's suggestion but he nods, "I'll try."

Jack laughs lightly. "Well. I hope we'll see you again, wherever you find us." 

"Um... bye, I guess," Ollie adds with a wave. "Nice to meet you." 

Alt takes a second to smile at Ollie, his expression softening. "Yeah... nice to meet you too."

"And we'll remember all those places!" Jackie says, tapping his forehead. "Got it all up here!" 

"So it'll be gone in 5 minutes!" Bro jokes. 

"Hey! You're one to talk!" Jackie pouts, hitting Bro. 

"Hey careful! Holding a very squirmy villain here!" 

"I will cut all of you to ribbons!" Magnificent spits.

Alt rolls his eyes and grabs the others, "Yeah yeah- we've heard that before." 

"We'll make sure to find you again next time too, Ollie!" Bro grins cheekily. 

Alt elbows him in the ribs. "Okay we should go! Bye you guys!" And Alt tries to add a bit more of his energy and magic into the TRVLR as he pushes the jump button.

And they fall into the darkness and greenlight once again. But, just as last jump, their fall shifts slightly. Like leaves caught in a breeze, their course is diverted for a second time. 

[huffle-dork]

Swap Across the CrystalVerse Chapter 5: Merms

Read Swapboys | Crystal’s AUs | Read MerMay Stories

Read SITCV | SATCV Masterpost | AO3 Link

The two merms crowd close to Bro as he waits on the water's edge for Alt's reply. It takes a while--longer than it should have--but soon he receives it, phone making its text sound. Anti jumps a little, briefly disappearing underwater before popping back up. Jack laughs. Anti scowls.

By this time, Bro can’t deny his need to dangle his legs in the water. So he’s done so- rolling up his pants and enjoying the water a bit as he waits. He jumps too- but only cuz Anti did. He laughs along with Jack. Bro checks his message and then grins. “oh! Alt said he found a boat! He said we so I guess Jackie is with him-and he said that he found help so he’s on his way! Whoo!” He looks back at Jack and Anti, “Do you guys know anyone with a boat?”

Anti frowns, looking vaguely unhappy about the mention of boats. But Jack tilts his head thoughtfully. Then he looks at Anti and says, "Ah-lee?" 

"Right, that Ollie human." Anti nods slowly. 

Bro perks up and then smirks, “A human named Ollie huh? Hm… I wonder… does he have dark hair? Tan-ish skin? Glasses? Wears lots of yellow?” 

"Uh... glasses?" Anti glances at Jack, who says something. Then he nods. "Oh, those. No, I've never seen him with eye stuff, but that is what he looks like. 

“Eh close enough- oh I bet Alt’s gonna be real happy about that.” Bro snickers. 

"Or it could be a--" Anti shudders "--TridentCorp boat." 

Jack shakes his head. He chatters something. 

"Oh really?" 

A nod. 

"Oh." Anti blinks. He looks at Bro. "Some merms we know were visiting a human with a boat." 

"Shays, Daki, Neep," Jack offers. 

Bro blinks at the names, sounding them out himself then grins. “Chase, Jackie and… I’m guessing Schneep? Sick dude! Merman me- ha… that’s crazy.”

“Oh yeah, your name is Chase, too. But you're not literally the same as the Chase we know. You're human." Anti says. 

Bro blinks at Anti’s explanation then laughs, “Well yeah but- look at me! We probably look the same, don’t we? Same name? It’s cuz I’m him- but from a different world!” 

Suddenly, Jack 'gasps' and ducks underwater. 

Chase jumps a bit at Jack’s gasp then looks at Anti and points at where he disappeared. “…do you know what that was about..?”

Anti looks down into the water. "Yeah. He'll be back up in a minute." Then back at Bro. "You do sort of look like him, if he was human. But what do you mean, a different world? The land and sea can't be that different." 

Bro laughs, “I mean- I’m from a whole different set of lands and seas- ones you guys haven’t swam in at all. Cuz they’re like-places you can’t even go without magic!” 

Jack reappears quickly. He chatters for Bro's attention and points down into the water. Swimming in circles in front of him, hard to see because of being completely underwater, is a small fish, weirdly flat and circular, its blue and green scales patterned like Jack's. "Am! Thiz iz Am!" 

Bro looks back at Jack and then leans over the water. He smiles brightly as he sees the small fish. “Omg! It’s like a tiny you! Hi… Am?”

"Yeah, that's Sam," Anti says. "She's a discus like Jack, so they have a bond." Jack nods, backing him up. 

“Oh Sam! Well hello, Sam!” Bro says cheerfully. 

"Jack, do you know anything about... a different set of lands and seas?" Anti asks. "That you can only get to with magic? Or do you think the magic freshies would know?" 

Jack looks confused. He shakes his head and says something. 

"Yeah, I don't know, either."

Bro tilts his head. “Magic Freshies? What’s that mean? But uh- well I guess I’m not lying I’m just- trying to figure out how the hell I explain different universes to creatures that barely know human things…” Bro mutters, scratching at his head.

"Yeah, sounds real difficult," Anti mutters. "I'm not good with human shit. I can only speak your language cause of some magic that happened. And, uh, I mean our... some people we know--" 

Jack nudges him, saying something teasingly. 

"No, I'm not going to." 

More nudging and teasing. 

Anti scowls. "Fine. When I said 'magic freshies' I meant our... f-f-fr-friends." He stumbles over the word like he's not used to it. "They study magic. And they're freshwater merms, so 'freshies.' Their names are Marvin and Jameson." He sinks in the water. "They're not... they probably don't like me that much... I messed with Jameson a while ago..."

Bro blinks at all of this. “Huh… Marvin and Jameson… studying magic. Ha… that’s crazy too- mostly for Jay. But…” He suddenly pales, remembering something he seems to have forgotten. “Ohhh fuck- M-Magnificent! How- how did I forget he’s lurking around??” 

Bro scrambles to his feet and clumsily tries to shove back his shoes, looking for his belongings. “fuck fuck! I should have been searching! Uh! Fish dudes!! Is magic like- only underwater?? Or is there any on land? Do you know??”

"Mag... nificent?" Anti repeats, confused. "I-I don't know much about magic." He looks at Jack, who shakes his head and says something. "Jack doesn't think there's land magic. At least, not anymore. Why?"

“Because that fucker is gonna go after to biggest source of magic around here and fuck! Now he’s gonna put a whole other magical species in danger!” Bro curses, nearly falling back as he hops into his shoes and rolls down his pants. He grabs his backpack and hovers in the air for a second before he stops and thinks, floating back down. “…fuck! If it’s all underwater- I can’t fly to find him! Arghhh!”

The merms make surprised sounds as he hovers. The two of them glance at each other, having a brief conversation. "Um... so... you'd need a boat, then?" Anti asks. "To go find this guy? Aren't your friends coming here with a boat? What if you wait here for them to show up and you can use the boat to go looking?"

Bro deflates and slumps back down to sitting on the rocks, almost pouting. “Yeah… guess I have to wait now… I just- how can we use a boat to go searching underwater? We’d need like- a submarine or something. Maybe Alt knows a good spell…”

"We could go to our magic frie--freshies," Anti says. "Marvin knows a spell to turn merms human for a short time. There can be one going the other way. Of course, you'd need a boat anyway to come with us to them."

“Oh- sure we could try that! God… that’d be sick.” Bro grins, “if I didn’t have to chase after a madman, I’d love to chill as a merman. Though my friend Jackie would be wayyy more excited than me to do that. His daughters are obsessed with mermaids and his wife studies sea life.” 

Anti's expression darkens slightly. "How does she study sea life? Are they in tiny glass boxes? Do people stare at them? Do they deny that they're alive in the first pl--" 

Bro’s eyes widen slightly and he tries to interject, “what?! No-!” 

Jack reaches over and places a hand on his shoulder, calming him down. Grumbling, Anti disappears under the water. Jack looks at Bro apologetically and makes a chirp-'ow'-chirp-click sound that must mean "Sorry" in some way.

Bro watches the place where Anti disappeared and rubs his shoulder. “…she studies them on a boat and then… dives under to take care of them.” He adds quietly.

Jack nods understandingly. He holds up one finger, then dives under the water. Bro can see him and Anti under the surface. They seem to be gesturing. Having another conversation, maybe? And then both of them surface. "...sorry," Anti mumbles. "We... know some bad humans."

“I…it’s okay… I understand. I’ve met tons of bad humans too.” Bro tries to say with a laugh. “But- I fight off the bad humans- with my fists~!” He makes a few punching motions and then grins.

Anti grins, baring sharp teeth. "That's what you gotta do sometimes." 

Jack rolls his eyes. 

"Well. Looks like we're waiting some more. Boring."

“Heh… yeah.” Bro smiles. “Guess we gotta just… wait.” God- he hated waiting…

Looks like the merms also hate waiting. Jack swims back and forth a little, then makes an "oh!" sound and disappears under the water, swimming away. 

"Don't know what that's about," Anti mutters. 

But then Jack returns holding a couple of things. Paper? Green paper with drawings on it? He spreads them out on the rocks and chatters some. 

"He wants to show you some of the places he's been," Anti says. "Jack's an explorer. He makes maps. So I guess I'll stay to translate what he says." He sighs. "You all gotta get magic translations like me and Chase one day." 

Bro blinks and then smiles wide, leaning over to look at the maps eagerly, “Oh wow! Lemme see! These look so cool!” 

----------- 

The merms guide them to a part of the coast where there are no buildings or any signs of people. Soon, tall brown rocks appear in the water and Ollie has to really concentrate on following exactly where the merms go, as they show them the safest path between the rocks. And then the coast rounds into a large lagoon. 

Chase finds Alt and Jackie on deck. "This is it," he says. "I hope your brother is here."

Alt glitches to the railing and squints to look around. “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere…” 

“Unless he decided to fly off-“ Jackie chuckles, “You know it’s hard for him to sit still.”

“God, these rocks,” Ollie mutters at the helm. “No wonder merpeople live here, it’s so hard to get the boat through.” 

But get it through he does, pulling into the center of the lagoon and gradually getting close to the beach. Alt and Jackie can see Bro sitting on the beach with two merms in the water nearby. 

Jackie stands up and points over the edge, “I see him! BROOOO!!!” He calls, waving wildly.

For Bro’s part, he’s spent a while listening to Jack explain all the interesting man-made and merm-made things he’s found in the ocean when he sees the boat. And he sees a shark fin rapidly approaching through the water towards them.

Bro looks up from where he was listening to Jack and then grins and waves at Jackie. “YOOOOOAHHH-“ he suddenly screeches and pulls up from the water as he sees the shark fin coming close, “holy fuck a SHARK???” 

Alt and Jackie look at each other and then burst into laughter at Bro’s reaction. 

Mer-Jackie’s head pops out of the water, laughing. He waves. Jack seems excited to see him. He swims over and the two of them start chattering really fast together. 

Anti looks at Bro. “That’s just Jackie. He wouldn’t hurt you.” 

“Oh-“ Bro says simply, his face turning red. 

Two more shapes move through the water towards them. 

Ollie drops anchor. “This is as close as I get get without running aground,” he explains. They’re still about twenty feet from the shore. “So, uh… can you do your disappearing thing this far away? Like, teleport over there?”

Alt laughs and nods, “Yeah, I’ll go get him.” He gives a two finger salute and then glitches onto the shore. 

Bro blinks and then grins, getting to his feet. “Yo! Can you believe this dude?? Mermaid us-es!!” 

“Yeah- crazy right?” Alt chuckles. He quickly touches Bro’s shoulder and casts the translation spell so he won’t be so lost anymore. Alt bends down by the rocks and smiles at Jack and Anti. “Hi! I’m Alt- I’m Chase’s brother. Thanks for keeping him company. Who’re you guys?”

Once again, the merms all “ooo” at Alt’s spellcasting. “Human magic,” Jack whispers. “Wait, can you understand us now?” 

Mer-Chase, joining the group, nods. “Exactly! It’s magic!” 

“Whoa.” Jack whistles. “Well in that case, I’m Jack! And this is Anti!” Anti doesn’t say anything. He’s squinting at Alt suspiciously. Why does this human look familiar? 

Bro brightens and nods, “Yeah! I can understand now! Thank god- I could tell Anti was getting annoyed.” He laughs.

Alt looks over at Bro in confusion then looks down at Anti. His eyes widen. Oh… okay. …weird. But- he tries to smile at him and places a hand on his chest. “Hi Anti um… I’m also called Anti so…nice to meet you. Oh and nice to meet you too, Jack.” 

Anti tilts his head as Alt talks. “Why do you all have names like us? That’s so weird. And don’t say something about different worlds, your brother has been trying to explain it for a while and I just don’t understand.” 

Jack pats Anti’s shoulder sympathetically and smiles at Alt. “Nice to meet you too!”

“Are we leaving your other friend on the boat?” Schneep asks, confused.

Bro looks over and Jackie is still waving over at them. He laughs and then jumps up into the air. “Let’s all meet properly over there! C’mon!” Then he bursts into the air and heads over to the boat, landing softly on the deck. 

Alt snorts and rolls his eyes then smiles at the merms before he glitches over to get back on the boat too.

As Bro flies over all the merms gasp and chatter in awe, then swim back to the boat when Alt disappears. 

Bro grins at Ollie and extends a hand to greet him. “Hey! Ollie right? Thanks for helping my friends come get me! I’m Chase!” 

“Whoa!” Ollie gasps, then sighs and leans heavily against the wheel. “Flying people. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Fuck it. Nice to meet you, Chase.” 

The merms soon join everyone by the boat. Jackie reaches up and snags more fries that fell on the deck.

Alt can’t help but laugh, “It’s a hard concept to get. Don’t worry about it.” 

Jackie laughs, clapping Ollie on the shoulder, “Yeah don’t worry it’s hard to get used to!” 

Bro blushes a bit, messing with his hair. “Oh yeah sorry- uh- I’m a superhero back home so… flying~!” 

Once everyone is back over by the boat, Bro’s expression gets serious and he looks at Alt and Jackie. “…I think the mer-guys are gonna be in serious trouble… Jack told me all the magic in this world exists under the water. Which means…” 

Alt’s eyes darken and spark with power, “Magnificent.” 

“Exactly.” Bro nods gravely. 

Mer-Jackie blinks. “Magnificent?” 

“Fucking stupid name, right?” Anti mutters, and Schneep laughs. 

Alt, Bro and Jackie laugh too. “It is a stupid name!” Jackie grins. 

“From the way human Chase talked about him, he sounds dangerous,” Jack says. “Another human with magic. And I think he wants more.” 

“Well… fuck! How are we supposed to find him under water??? Do you guys have any idea how BIG the ocean is??” Jackie says, waving his arms out big and exaggeratedly. “We don’t even know where he landed! He could be anywhere!”

“We can ask Marvin and Jameson about where big sources of magic would be,” Chase suggests. “If anyone would know, it would be them.” 

“That’s a good place to start… if there’s magic to be learned, a Marvin is bound to know it.” Bro mumbles. 

As everyone talks, Anti squints into the distance, edging around the boat to get a better look at the ocean beyond. “Do you guys see that light?”

Alt glitches over by Anti and narrows his eyes too, “…what is that?” 

Something glowing blue is streaking through the ocean, just under the waves, coming towards them. The other merms also notice it. 

“That blue is the color of Jameson’s magic,” Schneep says. 

The glowing thing gets closer, surfacing once it gets near the merms. It’s a construct of some kind. Circular with a long thin strand coming off it like a tail. It begins to emit some merm noises, which Alt’s translation spell decodes into a familiar soft voice. “Human with magic came down into the lake, not needing supplies. Conjured strings and nets and transformed into a merm. Marvin got hypnotized and is taking the human to the ocean. I’m following. Meet up at the river mouth, maybe we can stop him. I’m bringing the siren stone.” And then the construct fades away, dispersing into the water.

The swaps all listen to the construct in horror. Alt’s eyes glow and spark dangerously with magic as he growls, “That fucking mangy cat!” 

Bro hurriedly whips over to look at Ollie, “How far is this river mouth? Will it take long to get there?” 

Alt grabs his spell book and starts to look again through it furiously. There has to be a spell to help! He might be able to go down there but… he can’t leave Bro and Jackie behind.

“R-river mouth? What?” Ollie stammers, confused. 

“Ollie still can’t understand us,” Chase says. He looks at Ollie and speaks in English. “That was a message from our friend. He and his, uh… life friend are in danger. We need to go save them. We can take you to the river where they are.” 

“Oh- sorry!” Bro says, looking embarrassed. Alt blinks and then casts the spell one more time on Ollie so he can keep up. He blushes slightly and then glitches back away to look through his book more. 

Ollie blinks. “Wow. Uh, okay. Magic. Cool.” 

“Okay, sure.” Ollie nods to Chase now. “Glad this happened early in the day, would hate to sail at night. Is it more TridentCorp?” 

“No, someone else,” Chase says. 

“Good. Those guys scare me a little.”

“Tridentcorp? That’s a corrupt business if I’ve heard of one-“ Jackie mutters. 

“TridentCorp is the worst,” Schneep mutters darkly. “They care so much about learning that they do not care what effect they have.” 

“Most of us have been, uh… affected by them,” Chase says. If the guys pay attention, they may notice a brief flash of fear on Anti and Schneep’s faces before they both sink down into the water to hide it. “But, uh, we have some people on the inside! Who realized their mistake once they figured out merms are people and not just smart fish.” 

Emotion flickers bright and quick on Alt's face, freezing as he hears of TridentCorp. Sounds just like Sclera... Anger burns in his eyes but he tries to hide it as he focuses.

“I’m gonna kill this magic guy,” mer-Jackie mutters, gripping the side of the boat. That draws attention to the fact that he has claws. 

“Not if I fry him first,” Anti mutters darkly. 

“What? No, I’m not being literal,” Jackie says. 

Anti pauses. “I thought killing the threats was allowed?” 

“If there’s no other choice,” Schneep stresses. “You cannot go in with intent to kill.” 

“Oh.”

Alt sighs and looks at Anti and Jackie, “As much as I’d love to see that… we can’t kill him. We have no idea what that would do to our world…” 

“Also I’m against killing!” Bro comments raising his hand.

“Are you against all killing?” Jackie asks. “How do you eat?” 

“Most humans don’t have to hunt, Jackie,” Chase says. “Remember the food shops I told you about? Some humans make the food and send it there for everyone to buy.” 

“Whoaaa.”

Bro can't help but laugh, "Yeah, what other-Chase said! When I say that I usually mean people. ...don't really hunt though- dunno how'd I'd feel about that..." 

"Even in school merms often hunt for themselves," Chase says. "I-it was so strange to hear that humans don't do that for the first time." 

After a bit Alt finally glitches to his feet, looking excited. "Hey! I found a spell!" He points and Jackie and Bro, "You guys- get in the water!" 

Bro and Jackie blink comically then look at each other before looking back at Alt. The merms also stare at Alt with comically wide eyes when he announces that. 

"You have a random 'turn into a mermaid' spell in that book?? In a universe where we don't even have mermaids??" Jackie asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Alt makes a face. "... it's experimental-" 

"No No! Hell no!" Jackie says, making an x over his chest. 

"C'mon! It should work! Look I have runes for water, breathing, fish, and transformation- if I can combine those it's bound to work!" Alt says earnestly, "Besides we can't stop Mag if we're stuck on a boat!" 

"Alright well then- you try it first! Then I'll believe ya." Jackie says stubbornly, crossing his arms. 

"I can already shapeshif-!" Alt tries to argue before he huffs and digs through his bag, "Fine fine! I'll show you-" 

Bro watches this exchange with wide eyes. He whispers to Jackie, "...you know you shouldn't push his buttons like that-" 

"I'm not fucking with experimental magic- I dealt with that enough in college." Jackie mutters. 

Alt takes the lid of a marker off with his teeth and then starts to scribble some runes on his bracelet. After a bit of doublechecking, Alt sets down all his stuff he doesn't want to get wet in his bag and pulls off his hoodie and shoes. He mutters some words and runs his finger across the new band of runes on his bracelet- they light up blue and so do his eyes. He then runs towards the edge of the boat and dives off into the water. 

Bro startles at this and leans over the railing to call over him, "A-Alt??" 

Jackie can't help but look over too- Then, he's splashed in the face by a long black tail with a curvy fin on the bottom and white bands at the end. Alt's face peeks up soon after, grinning smugly. "Seee?"

As Alt jumps into the water the merms all scatter to avoid getting hit. Once Alt is revealed to be fine, they gather around again. 

"Whooooaaa!" Jackie gasps. "You can do that? After drawing some symbols?! Whoa!" 

"I had to drink a potion that took forever to make to turn human for a day, and you can just do that?" Anti grumbles. "No fair." 

Now that Alt is actually in the water, he's more able to see all the little details of the merms, the fins and scales and bright colors. He also realizes that they're all actually pretty different in size. For once, he is not the shortest one in the room, as his new merm form is longer head-to-tail than both Jack and Chase. Schneep, Jackie, and Anti, meanwhile, are all bigger than him.

Alt grins bashfully and his tail reacts in kind, flitting back and forth. “To be fair- it’s taken a lot of practice for me to do stuff like this… it’s a lot of reading and studying to understand how differing magic interact and combine with each other… so you know… I guess I just make it look easy…” 

Alt does take better stock of himself and the others- noticing the size difference. Nice not the be the smallest anymore. He has scales going up from his arms and on his belly and chest. Even some creeping up on the side of his neck and face- and he can feel gills too, slowly opening and closing. That felt… so weird- He didn’t seem to have a tail fin like a stereotypical merman either- his tail just ended at a point, the whole body resembling a kitchen blade in shape. Except for the curvy frill like fin on his stomach and inner side of his tail. 

“Yer such a show off!” Jackie yells off the side of the boat. 

“Wha- I AM NOT!!” Alt shouts back. He looks to the others and then holds up a hand before he glitches back onto the ship. As he does- he seems to pop back into his human shape, except scales still crawl up his face arms and legs. He smiles smugly at Jackie and Bro and gestures at himself. “And see! It’ll only work if we’re in water~!” 

Jackie makes a face, “Are the scales permanent then?” 

Alt blinks and then feels his face and cringes a bit. “Uhhh- no? …we just gotta cross out the runes when we’re done and it should be fine!” 

Jackie is quiet for a minute before he eventually sighs and holds out his arm. “Alright- but if we gain any lasting fishy effects I’m taking you to court, Brody.” 

Alt rolls his eyes but grins and quickly starts writing down the runes on Bro’s and Jackie’s wrists. 

Once Bro has his written he looks back at Ollie. “…what should we do about Ollie though? …we’ll need a place to keep our stuff- but also I feel bad just leaving him here.”

Ollie laughs. "Don't worry, I'm fine up here. I'd rather stay with my boat than turn all fishy. Uh, no offense to you guys," he adds, looking down into the water. 

Bro laughs, “That’s fair!” 

Chase grips the side of the boat and pulls himself up. He grins. "You're like halflings! Half human half merms. They're pretty rare but the same sort of thing happens to them, changing shape once fully submerged in the water." 

Alt blinks and then grins, “Hey! Maybe that’s why this works so well! Since there’s something similar magically~!”

Jack pops up next to him. "Oh, you'd know, wouldn't you, Chaseee?" 

And then Jackie appears and nudges Chase. "You loooove your halfling pups more than you looooove your girlfriend." 

"Wh--shut up, bro!" Chase's face turns red, his blush strangely darker than a human blush would be. 

"We all know it, Chase," Schneep says. "And you know it, too." 

"I do! But you guys being all smug about it makes me defensive." 

"It's so romantic, though," Jack says teasingly. 

Jackie’s eyes sparkle, “Oh chase you’re a dad! Ha! Just like me! Except you know- my kids are human but- god Kelsie would give anything to be a mermaid.” He looks at Alt and smirks, “When we get home and tell this story- she’s gonna be begging you to try this on her.” 

Alt chuckles, “…maybe- I’m too afraid of Zara killing me though.” 

“That is a fair fear!” Jackie laughs. 

"Oh you have fries--kids too, Jackie?" Chase says, perking up. "Mine are Sereia and Muirin, they're twins! And they're so great, Muirin is so smart and Sereia is so energetic--" 

"See? He loves them," Jackie says, grinning. 

"I do, I really do." Chase smiles. "Their mom, Stacy, raises them most of the time since they grew up on land, but they visit as often as possible." 

Jackie beams at Chase and nods, “Yeah I got 3 lil guppies! Kelsie, Oliver and Penny- Penny’s the baby but she’s gonna be 2 soon! Kelsie is 9 and Ollie is 7! Kelsie loves everything magic and magical and cats and Ollie loves reading and drawing. And Penny’s a baby- but she’s such a little firecracker.” He laughs. “Their mom is away a lot but I don’t mind. She and the kids are my whole world.” He smiles, looking lovesick. 

Bro nudges him, “Okay Romeo, focus won’t you?” 

“Oh! Right!” Jackie gets up on the railing and then dives into the water with a cool parkour move. 

Alt snorts and rolls his eyes, “Now who’s the show off?” 

Jackie pops back up and has blue scales going over his eyes like a mask and red scales covering up his neck. His chest is mostly red too and a few blue stripes decorate his back. He has a thin almost see through back fin and a normal almost orange ish tail fin. He looks himself over and grins, trying out his tail. “Dudeee what?? This is sick!!” 

Bro watches and laughs and follows his friends’ leads, keeping his stuff on the boat with Ollie before diving into the water. Chase shakes out his hair and feels the gills on his neck, but he’s not covered in scales. His skin is smooth and gray in the places it transitions from human to fish- and looking at his mouth you can see his teeth are now sharper. He has a broad familiar dorsal fin- but his skin is darker than mer-Jackie’s. His tail ends like a shark’s marked with darker stripe like bands. Bro blinks down in disbelief. “Woahhh! Imma shark!!”

Again, the merms back away as the humans jump in. But they crowd back around to ooo and ahh at the guys' new fishy forms. Jackieboy is a little smaller than Alt, while Bro is tied with Schneep for biggest. 

"[Vent] yeah!" Jackie says, laughing. "You're a striped shark!" 

"Tiger shark," Chase says. "I dunno what Jackie is off the top of my head, but he's very fishy." 

Jackie looks over himself and then grins, “I thinkkk I’m a goby! Maybe… Catalina?” 

Alt grins and soon jumps back into the water. 

Jackie looks at him as he enters and swims around, studying him. “Oh! You’re a knifefish, Alt! A ghost knifefish! They’re electric just like electric eels!” Jackie says excitedly. 

“Someone has been listening to their wife more-“ Bro teases. 

“Hey- my wife’s interests are my interests!” Jackie says proudly, flicking his tail. 

Alt looks down at himself and flicks his tail, feeling a bit of a current. He grins, “huh- neat!” 

"Good to have you all here!" Jack welcomes. 

"Aw... I was hoping for another octo," Schneep admits. 

"Are any of you freshwater?" Jackie asks. "I know striped sharks aren't, but Alt? Other Jackie?" 

"It's not a problem if you're freshwater," Chase says. "You'll just feel a little off after a while." 

"Dry," Anti comments. "Even with the water."

As the merboys explain the freshwater thing, Jackie hums. “Oh! Knifefishes are freshwater-“ 

“Greatttt- that’ll be fun.” Alt grumbles, sinking into the water more, pouting.

"At least you won't be alone in that," Jack says. "Anti's a freshie too--" 

Anti suddenly shoves him. "Shut up!" 

Jack sticks out his tongue. "No." 

"Well, uh, we should get a move on, yes?" Schneep says. "You all look like fast swimmers, so I will hang back and attach to the boat. If I swim with you I will just slow the pace." 

"But we like having you around, Schneep!" Jackie suddenly hugs him, causing Schneep to make a stammering clicking sound in surprise. 

"You're our brilliant healer and best friend!" Chase chuckles. 

"Schneep's right, though, we don't all swim as fast as you, Jackie. And I don't know how easily these guys will adjust to their new forms. So it's something to think about, at least." 

The swaps all smile and laugh at Schneep and Jack’s interaction. “If we can we should all try to stick together, right?” Jackieboy says. “I’m a decent swimmer but… that was with legs-“ 

"Oooo, do you guys think your strange abilities will still work as merms?" Jack asks Bro and Alt. 

Alt and Bro look at each other and then seem to think. Alt looks down at his hands and they spark up with his magic. “Oh! My magic seems good- and I can glitch but… I dunno how helpful that’ll be underwater.” 

“I thought putting computer stuff in water would short them out-“ Jackie teases. 

“Shush-“ Alt replies but, he does look a little uneasy, wondering if his glitches would affect anything. Glitching from the water to the boat did feel kinda… bad. Like a shock in his bones.  

Bro’s eyes glimmer with sliver blue light as he tests punching. “Still got my super strength.” He then looks up at the sky and narrows his eyes like he’s concentrating, his tail flicking wildly under the water. Then he laughs and shakes his head, “no flying though- which is more than fair! Fish shouldn’t be able to fly.”

"Flying fish are a thing!" Jackie says. "I've seen them!" 

"And when the sirens first started, uh... making families with merms, their kids had wings," Chase adds. 

Anti makes a face. "Could you not phrase it that way?" 

"Even flying fish cannot really fly," Schneep says. "They glide for a while, that is all." 

Bro blinks then laughs, "Well I think I'm just too big now!" 

"...I was gonna be surprised that sirens were real but- that seems like a small thing now." Alt says, flushing a bit. 

"Hey!" Ollie leans over the side. "Uh... are we going? I mean, if you guys want to chat some more, that's fine, I just wanna know so I don't have to be on standby." 

"Hang on a second." Jackie lunges up the side of the boat, reaches up to the table, snatches a burger from its surface, and falls back into the water, quickly stuffing his face. 

"I never should've introduced you to that," Chase sighs. 

Jackie eats surprisingly quickly. "Now I'm ready. Race 

you to the front!" And he darts off.

The swaps giggle at Jackie grabbing the burger. "welp! Guess it's time to see how good of swimmers we are!" Jackie says as he dives under the water after mer-Jackie. 

Bro looks at Alt and smirks, "Craziest adventure yet, huh?" 

Alt laughs, shaking his head. "Yeah... let's hurry before Mag destroys the ocean." The Brody bros then dive after the two Jackies.

Despite his eagerness, Jackie seems to be having a hard time swimming like a merman. He's trying to approach it like you would swim with legs- lots of wide sweeping arm movements and its slowing him down. 

Bro on the other hand, takes to the water like he was born for it, gliding through the currents as easily as he flew through the air. "Yeahhh!! This is so awesome!!" 

Alt has trouble at first but manages to get the hang of it after a bit, grinning as it starts to get easier.

Anti watches Alt curiously. Now that he's paying attention, a knifefish is kind of like an electric eel. He hangs back, unsure how to approach. Unsure if he even wants to. 

Chase and Jack hang back a little, watching Jackie. Jack seems pretty amused by this. "H-here," he says, holding back his giggles. "Stop with the arms. Focus on the tail. Move it side to side." 

Bro laughs, "Yeah man, put your arms to your sides- they'll slow you down, by your side is more aerodynamic~" 

"Underwater it'd be hydrodynamic, Chase," Alt giggles. 

"Oh shush, know-it-all-" 

Jackie follows their advice and starts to get a bit better, though he has to concentrate a lot on moving his tail just right. 

"You got it!" Chase says encouragingly. 

And slowly, the boat heads off. 

----------- 

This river is wide and deep, no signs of any humans on the shore above. They're passing through a section with a gravelly floor, the stones beneath shades of brown, with a few tall reeds near the shores. 

Magnificent's merm form has no problem keeping up with Marvin. Though he does start to notice a strange feeling. Like his skin is too tight. Marvin seems unbothered.

Magnificent grumbles a bit, hating this strange feeling blooming across his skin. What could that be? "How much river is left?" He asks, glancing at Marvin.

"About... halfway," Marvin says slowly. "Are you a saltwater merm? Is the water bothering you?" The questions are delivered monotonously, automatically, like he's used to checking in on visitors. 

Magnificent hums in thought. "... I must be... is that what this feeling is? This... tightness?" He groans, "How inconvenient..."

"That sounds like it," Marvin says. "Once we reach the ocean you'll feel better. I'll feel worse." His eyes flicker, like he registers that that should bother him, but then it goes away. "That's fine."

"Mm.. poor thing~" Magnificent chuckles condescendingly, "As long as it won't kill either of us, then it'll be fine."

"It won't. Don't worry." 

Magnificent nods, satisfied with this answer.

You know, it's strange, the sunlight passing through the water makes it look like there's something moving on the riverbed below them...

Mag focuses on the path ahead for a bit before the sunlight seems to be playing tricks on him. He looks down at the riverbed, narrowing his eyes to see if he can detect anything down there.

...Nothing. It must just be tricks after all. But as soon as Mag turns his attention away, Jameson lets out a breath of relief. He wonders if he should try to get ahead of these guys. He knows where they're going, after all. There's only one way to go.

Magnificent snorts and focuses on swimming forward, annoyed he let the sun trick him. No need to be paranoid. He's never known Jameson to be brave, after all.

A moment passes. They continue swimming along. Jameson decides to wait until they reach the delta, where the water spreads out and there's more opportunity to go around them. As they go, the riverbed becomes less gravelly and more sandy, with some silt in the air. Surprisingly, it doesn't bother his eyes like it would have if it was dust in human form, but it does make it harder to see. The water becomes shallower. Reeds appear more and more frequently. 

"We're getting close," Marvin reports.

Magnificent tries his best to swim through these annoyances but ends up batting reeds and such away and out of his face instead of just, swimming around them. He grumbles but tries to keep his complaints to himself.

...He looks distracted. Jameson takes a deep breath, preparing himself, and starts to circle around Magnificent and Marvin.

And Magnificent does not notice. He is not used to the movements of reeds and fish and water. But Marvin is. He stalls for a moment, staring off to the side.

Magnificent pauses now and looks to Marvin. He narrows his eyes. "Do you see something, little fish?"

"I think something big is moving over there..." Marvin says. "There's not a lot of big creatures out here usually." 

Jameson tenses. He's about level with the two of them now, but about fifteen feet away. Should he speed up?

Magnificent's expression darkens. "See what it is, won't you?" He commands Marvin. "Capture it, if you must."

Marvin nods and starts swimming in that direction. 

Jameson panics internally. He would've been able to deal with the stranger coming close to fight him, but not Marvin! If Marvin tries to fight him, he's not sure he can fight back. If he'd be emotionally able to do that. So, instead, he darts forward, sending more silt into the air. 

Marvin reels back, surprised, and starts giving chase.

Magnificent shouts in surprise and then starts to chase after them too.

Soon enough, Magnificent teleports in front of Jameson, cutting him off and grabbing him. He giggles. "Well well! Jameson~! So glad you could join us!"

Jameson lets out a squeak and lashes out with his tail.

Magnificent grabs the tail to stop it and throws him back through the water. "Really Jameson~ You have two options here! You can either join Marvin and help me find this source of magic orrr you can leave! And that can be willingly~! or through your grave." He blasts out magic towards Jameson as he cackles.

Jameson's eyes widen and he starts to move, but he's not fast enough. The blast hits him and he goes flying through the water. It nearly dislodges the bag he's wearing but it barely stays tight. 

Marvin gasps. The spirals in his eyes flicker. "N-no! No, you said--" He grabs Magnificent by the arm. "You said you w-wouldn't--"

Magnificent growls as he's grabbed by Marvin and he whirls on him, grabbing him by his arm now. "You listen to me now, Marvin. I call the shots and you obey, got it?!" He pumps more influence into him, trying to drown out his resistance. He's too busy scolding his puppet to turn back on Jameson.

Marvin shudders, trying to resist... but he can't. He slumps, eyelids drooping as his eyes are locked on Mag. "Yes, Magnificent..."

Magnificent grins wide, "Good." 

Jameson recovers, watching this, horrified. He doesn't want to do this but--but he clearly has no chance with Magnificent. His only option is to get the others. Sorry, he signs, hoping Marvin can see it. I'll be back. And he swims as fast as possible downriver. 

Mag forcefully pushes Marvin back and turns to look at Jameson- only to see him swimming away. He hums and then shrugs, "See? No harm done, little fish. He swam off- never really met a Jameson who's a good fighter anyways." He laughs and then gestures for them to get going again. "Come along then. Maybe we'll see him again. And I'll consider the option of sparing him- if you're on your besttt behavior~"

"Yes, Magnificent," Marvin says again. He turns around and continues swimming, a bit less gracefully than he was before. "We're almost to the ocean."

"Perfect." Magnificent giggles.

[huffle-dork]

Swap Across the Crystalverse Masterpost

What is SATCV?

This is a crossover roleplay written by @huffle-dork and @crystalninjaphoenix and a sequel to SITCV! This time Jackie Mann joins Alt and Bro in their multiverse adventures- thinking this will be just a fun trip! But the TRVLR is malfunctioning and Magnificent has been brought along. Can the boys find a way to fix the TRVLR and get home?

Read on AO3

SATCV Tag

Septicheroes Revisited

Merms

PW Timeline

Shadow City

The Facility

The Bad End

The Rift

Many Roads Diverge

Epilogue

Swap into the Crystalverse Masterpost

What is SITCV?

This is a crossover roleplay written by @huffle-dork and @crystalninjaphoenix! Follow Alt Brody, Bro Fantastic and Magnificent from Huffle’s Swapboys AU as they travel through different worlds from Crystal’s JSE AUs!

Read on AO3

SITCV Tag

Prologue

Switch

Stitched

Paranormal Preteens

Septicheroes

Fantasy Masks

Horror Septics

Inverted

Epilogue