Stitches flicked her tail as she swam forward. She looked around for some fish. She saw something shiny in the distance. She swam toward it and saw a shiny silver fish. She sped forward seizing it and felt a net close around her. She struggled as the net lifted her up.
"We got a lively one!" Called Dr. Wingdings, the lead scientist of the team. Pulling the creature out of the water, revealed an adult siren. Undyne pulled out the tranq gun and darted the thrashing siren. After a couple of minutes, the siren calmed. They lowered the net onto the deck to take a better look. The average size for a mer was 14-18 feet, sirens were 16-21 feet, Selkies were typically 5-20 feet depending on species, and leviathans got upward of 50 feet. A measurement showed she was 15 feet and an average weight for her size. A look over revealed the siren was rather scarred, which wasn't uncommon for sirens. They found a metal plate on the right arm, which showed a crueler group had likely gotten to this siren, and that one eye was stitched shut. They didn't know what had happened there.
"Dave, the inks." Called Dr. Wingdings. They brought over a non-harmful ink that was made specially for marking mers and sirens for study. They tattooed a mark onto her side that would identify her if she was spotted and a small, light, almost unnoticeable tracker was placed on her.
The tattoo:
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After that, they lowered the waking siren into the water a released her from the net.
Stitches blinked her eyes open. She sighed, she wasn't happy to be captured and darted, but it could have been worse. She knew how to speak English from a family living on a nearby island, so she would have talked with them if she hadn't been darted. She looked herself over and saw the black tattoo. 'Well, it could have been worse,' she thought. She swam away, searching for more food.
