The Good Intentions of a Cyborg Werewolf

All-consuming Abyss - XXIII

When Luke first comprehended what he was seeing he felt momentary elation. It was merfolk, all in one large tank, freely moving about. Even Mahi rushed forward with a smile at the thought that they may be rescuing his people, only for that smile to melt away. The merfolk inside moved oddly. They bobbed and swayed like limp puppets or dolls. Unnatural, unnerving, and their nature became clear as Luke followed their elongated bodies down to their tails which seemingly never ended. But the tails did end, or rather they joined, wadded together at the base of a massive, undulating body. The creature Luke had fought before was dancing these marionettes, formed of its own flesh, like they were playthings. They made basic pantomimed movements, their lifeless artificial features simplistic yet disturbingly accurate, even if the colouring betrayed their facsimile nature. The beast itself sat on the tank's bottom, its half-formed head slumped to one side as it regrew, but watching with its remaining eye as its twisted playthings performed for its amusement. Luke's internal reaction was a churning in his gut, but it was Mahi, normally calm and amiable, who put their feelings succinctly into words.

"It steals us," he uttered with a quivering tone, "murders us, then uses the likeness of our dead to entertain itself?" Luke at first thought the young mer was about to break down into tears, but that was soon rebuffed when Mahi lashed out in his true merman form and struck the glass. Blood from his arm wound spurted out, but he seemingly didn't notice or feel the pain. Instead the massive mer slammed his other fist into the glass with enough force to crack it, and Luke was forced to grab Mahi by the arm to hold him back.

"Don't!" Luke said, but Mahi didn't turn to acknowledge him, fighting against his grip. Luke applied more force, not wanting to hurt Mahi but also not wanting him to flood the room and release this thing. "I get it, you're pissed-"

"I'm beyond pissed!" Mahi snapped at Luke, his eyes narrowed into a furious glare, "this... this thing is perverting the image of my dead friends! Friends that it killed!"

"And that's fucked, I know," Luke tried to keep a calm tone. "You want to kill it, I get that. I want to kill it, but that thing beat the shit out of me even without a head. You pick a fight with it now-"

"That was before we knew how it worked," Mahi said, "but now we know it has brains in its arms. We can make sure to rip it apart properly-"

"And how will we do that, exactly?" Luke asked, "look at it! We can't just hack away until there's nothing left, we don't have the time, we have to find a way to kill it in there."

"If I might interject-" Mercer began to speak, but Mahi turned back to Luke.

"You don't understand," the young mer continued in a low, growling tone. "It's like... it's like it's defiling them."

"Guys!" Erin shouted, both Luke and Mahi flinching from the shrill assault on their ears. "Look at the tank!"

Luke turned to see the creature's face, or what there was of it, almost pressed against the glass. Its strange baleen smile and minuscule black eye made it seem like it was watching them. No, not just watching, but listening. It was entirely focused on them to the point that when Luke took a step to one side its tiny eye followed him, and when Mahi shifted on his tail the eye darted to him. It was entirely fixated on them, longingly, like a confused animal.

"I think we give this entity too much credit," Mercer's voice came over the comm. "I theorised before that this creature lacked a human base body. Its size and genetic diversity seem far too impractical to splice onto a host. I think it was created entirely from the ground-up."

"What does that mean?" Mahi asked.

"I don't believe this creature has awareness," Mercer replied sincerely, "without a host intellect its cognitive faculties must be absolutely rudimentary. I had doubted it would even be sapient, but now... the way it was behaving insinuates an underdeveloped mental level. Possibly no greater than a toddler's."