Final Fantasy Oneshots and Drabbles

Sewers Are Fishy: FFVII Mermaid AU

*Laughs in fish puns*

Aerith hadn't expected anything too crazy to happen that day. Her life wasn't that crazy, after all. She had just been picking flowers in the slums of Sector 6, near her home.

Like she did every day.

But the second she heard the splashes coming from the small sewer in her old church, she realized that something was off. She shouldered her basket of flowers and padded cautiously up to the nearby grate. No one went near Midgar's sewers willingly. But Aerith wasn't anyone.

"Hello?" She called down, peering into the empty abyss. "Anyone down there? Did you fall in?" No response. The splashing had stopped as well. Aerith glanced again, shrugged, and walked off, heading back towards her house. No doubt her mother would get worried.

When Aerith arrived back home, she found her mother listening to an odd broadcast on the radio while she cleaned, detailing something about Shinra SOLDIERS being missing, or something like that. She didn't really care about what it was about either way. "You're back early." Elmiyra commented, and Aerith shrugged in response. "It's a long walk back home."

She went upstairs to her room and laid out her flowers, thinning about the odd splashing she had heard, when she noticed something hidden between the petals of one plant. "Is that a dead bug?" Aerith asked aloud, opening the flower gingerly. "I certainly hope not."

Upon further inspection, it wasn't a dead bug at all, but in fact a small, smooth black object. It looked like a snake scale, but it was much too large for any garden snake she had seen in the church.

"That's odd."

***

The next morning, Aerith headed off to the church early, almost having forgotten about the scale and the strange noises. Until she arrived at the church, when she heard the splashing again, this time much louder and much more furious. She questioned calling for someone again, but decided against it. "That probably scared whatever it was off."

Instead, Aerith put down her flowers, grabbed her staff, and walked over to the sewer door, hidden under some overgrown greenery in the west area of the church. She had killed invading monsters before, mostly ones that wanted to ruin her flowers. But she had never gone down to the sewers.

"Well, you only live once." Aerith said to herself, and she pushed open the door. The disgusting smell overwhelmed her at once, as she stepped into the mold-covered alleyway. The only light source was a barely working lamp on the ceiling, and the path curved downwards, with the splashing coming from wherever it opened it up.

She shook her staff, and it began to glow, giving more light to the dim passageway. Then the girl started downwards, ignoring the squelching sound her shoes made walking on the ground. "This was a mistake, this was a mistake, it is SO GROSS DOWN HERE." Aerith muttered, as she tried to not get her dress caught on anything.

After a long while, the passage finally opened up, and she stepped into a larger room, with the grate in the church letting in some faint sunlight. The rest of the room contained a pipe leading further into the sewers, and most likely the rest of Midgar, angled slightly above a large pool filled with disgusting, standing water.

None of that concerned Aerith more than the thing she saw in the pool. It was..something with a massive scaly black tail with a nicked and scarred fin at the end of it. She watched it swim under the water, trying not to panic, until it suddenly lunged above the water with an enormous splash, completely dousing her with the slimy water.

Aerith backed up, pointing her staff at the creature, until she saw what it was. It was a man with long silver hair and green eyes, struggling furiously to pull himself out of the water. The monstrous tail was his, where his legs should be.