Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

Thanks to the following for reviewing last time: Invader Johnny, MonstrousThings, Phantom J. Ryder, DPN2012, JayBorb, KnightOwl247, OnlyProbably, ARTiculate3267, FearTheFuzzyBear, IceDragonGirl36, gothgirl124, ImpudentMiscegenation, ThisAccountNoLongerExsistsssss, DevotedReaderForYou, Aquariuss, Ashes, Spaceoddity9t, CalmMelody, ChaoticMinds, Olliepops16, Little Waterboiler, Mickey NC, Guest, Mercedes0606, IronBanana, Guest, no1ghoul, Draginwells, too enigmatic 2 b urs, and Vin. I appreciate it!

Vin asked a question about why would Vlad head the Global Oceanic Defense if he is a merman himself. I just wanted to note that the story will be answering this question as certain details get revealed.

Really appreciate the several people who reached out and reviewed several times in want of another update. Apologies it took me so long. Thank you for your support and kindness. :)

Beyond the Depths

Chapter 9: The Humans and Their Summer Jobs

Time passed.

Nearly a year went by with the true story of the U.S.S. Titan carefully hidden away from the paranoid eyes and ears of media outlets. The Global Oceanic Defense paid off the coastguard and offered impressive retirement packages to the surviving crew members of the U.S.S. Titan, who underwent witness protection.

The story of the rising merfolk never reached a TV or radio.

The Global Oceanic Defense, confident that it had struck ground zero, maintained that the ocean was still safe for all, even for dinner cruises.

"—Profits soaring despite next month marking the one-year death of famed millionaires Jeremy and Pamela Manson in a tragic boating accident. Their daughter, Samantha Manson, remains at the helm, representing her family's controlling interest in Manson Industries with the backing of Vladimir Masters himself—"

One eighteen-year-old Samantha Manson raised up the remote and shut off the TV, her purple lips pressing together in pain. She set down the remote and turned back to the lab before her. Her shirt gleamed with a G.O.D. tag that said Ethical Control Intern. "Why do they always stick their nose in other people's business."

Nearby, Madeline Fenton turned the knob on a microscope, peering through curiously. Her voice was distant. "That's what media is for, dear." She pulled away, her purple eyes focusing sharply upon the young woman. "Are you alright?"

Sam turned away. She tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear and then grabbed a nearby file to feel busy. "I'm fine." She swallowed hard. "How is Trial 5 coming along?"

Maddie eyed her in a knowing concern, her red brows knitting together. "There is still no change in neurotransmitter or leptin response. But Sam, really dear, you look exhaust—"

"—I'm fine." She opened up the file, glancing over the inside pages. It was one of many readouts for their failed experiments to provide a possible cure for the merfolk's cannibalistic insanity. The research was, in part, frustrated by the fact that they had no possible means for running a clinical trial. So far, no merfolk had reappeared.

The radars were completely silent, which made the research increasingly less important in the eyes of G.O.D.—a little, theoretical pet project, like a vaccine for an illness no one cared about.

Sam swallowed hard. "I just…with summer getting closer and our budget getting tighter, I want to have something ready. Just in case."

Maddie eyed Sam one more time before she began to pull off her gloves. "Dear. You know that I care about this project as much as you do." Her aged face tightened in sorrow. "But you can't rush these things. And you've been so helpful—you really have. Don't lose sight of that."

The young woman fell silent. She suddenly thought of her mother's frightened face, and she recalled the crunch of bone. And then a sweet boy with blue eyes and a bright smile. Her purple lips pressed together as her head pulsed. "But…it's not enough." Her voice strained. "If they come back, then…"

The mother reached out to her, face breaking with pain. "Oh, Sam." She gently grabbed the girl's hand and squeezed. Over the months, the young woman had become something of a second daughter.

"You never know," Sam said, voice shaky. "They might still be out there. Your son might still be alive. And if we don't have an antidote to whatever this hunger is, the whole war could start up again."

Maddie's hand slipped away from the girl with a small, curt pat. Her face had tightened with great emotion. "It's unlikely, dear."

Sam's eyes snapped up to the mother. "What's unlikely—that your son might still be alive, or that this war isn't over? Because people thought they were gone once. Somehow, a whole tribe came back to life, right under the noses of the Global Oceanic Defense. There's nothing to say that couldn't happen again." Her breath hitched. "And if we're not ready, then so many people will get hurt again. On both sides."

The older woman paused for a time. "What we're doing," she said, voice halted. "Is a precautionary measure, in case more merfolk manifest as time goes on." She swallowed hard. "But my son could not have survived that blast or that poison, and our scanners suggest the same."

Sam stepped forward, fervent with emotion. "Come on, you know that blast blitzed the scanners for a long time. And these merfolk…they'd gotten smarter. They'd been evolving with the technology that G.O.D was using to track them last year. We have every reason to believe they're still out there and growing." The memory of bright, blue eyes burned her. "Some of them could have survived."

A silence came over the small lab for a time.

Maddie picked up a notepad and a pen. She returned to her microscope, peering in to it with a narrowed, watery eye. "I've lost him before. And if this antidote doesn't work, then perhaps it is for the best, Sam. I wouldn't want my baby to suffer."

On the far side of Amity Park, one Tucker Foley grumbled as he pounded yet another nail into the pier's underside to replace a rotting board. The pier was abandoned that day, with yellow tape blocking it off. Supposedly, others were coming to work and had yet to show. It was just him—and always just him. "Stupid summer job," he muttered under his breath, his teal eyes narrowed from behind his protective glasses. The nail above him was being stubborn, and he slammed it harder with the hammer to drive it into the new wood. "Two months before I go to college, and I can't even enjoy it."

His voice raised in a frustrated mimic of his mother's voice. "You should get a summer job. A scholarship isn't an excuse to be lazy." He huffed, his voice dropping back down to his usual, gruff tone. "Yeah, right. She just wants me to suffer."

As he worked, he accidentally pounded his thumb with the hammer. He flinched and dropped the hammer in the water, the heavy end striking his foot with a splash. His eyes blew wide, and a squeak escaped him as he stumbled back, holding onto his injured thumb. His back hit a pillar as he stumbled down into the water.

The miserable, pained boy sat there for a time, his lips pressed tightly together as he held his injured hand and closed his eyes, fighting down a cry from his pained foot. "…Oh man," he moaned. He leaned his head back against the pillar. The ocean water slipped against him up to his torso in a silent apology, cooling the ache in him.

Tucker moaned again, opening his eyes to stare at the rotted underside of the pier. His albatross for at least the next few weeks. Then he sighed dramatically. "This is torture. I'm gonna die here. I'll never see my computer again."

The tides crashed gently against the beach, lulling him with a natural rhythm that seemed to sigh along with him. That they were both caged in some way.

The boy looked down and dared to inspect his injured thumb, the buzz of pain now wearing away. His dark skin was unbroken, his thumbnail still whole. A relief worked through him. He wiggled his injured foot and found that his toes were still there and working fine.

But as he checked over himself, he failed to realize he was not the only being in the water.

A slight splash, and the resounding ripples, caught his attention.

Tucker looked up.

And then his jaw dropped, and he froze.

A merboy—a man, really—held the hammer in his webbed, clawed hands. He stared at it in interest, then looked up, his alien, green eyes focusing hard upon Tucker, his white hair glowing in the sunlight drifting down from the wooden planks above.

This human, Phantom noticed curiously, was very different from Sam. Not only was he male, but his skin was dark as night, and his body was clothed differently. His hair was pulled back in dreadlocks beneath a red cap.

And he seemed very terrified.

"Oh, man," the human breathed, teal eyes wide. "Oh, man—holy shit—" He held his hands out, fingers trembling. "Don't eat me!" he begged. "I'd taste awful! There's no way you'd rather eat me over a chicken sandwich or something. I swear, you just gotta try out the options? Maybe I could grab you some fast food from Nasty Burger—I'd give you my hat or something—"

Phantom stilled warily at the babbling of the human.

His breath hitched. "Please. Man to man here—I'm still a virgin. I can't die yet! I can't die. I got my whole life ahead of me! And I don't wanna be eaten!"

Phantom blinked and tilted his head, not unlike a dog. Then he sighed, blowing a strand of white hair from out of his eyes. This human was absolutely terrified, speaking almost incomprehensively. He could barely understand the words coming from him, whatever a Nasty Burger and a virgin were.

And so he warbled a bit, clicking out soft, comforting noises, hiding his fangs. He began to drag himself forward, his black claws sinking deep into the ocean sand to propel himself.

The human boy squeaked and flinched into a ball, sinking against the pillar. The action was one of self-preservation and fear. He was most certainly not a warrior, despite the odd tool Phantom had watched him wield to repair the great human structure of the pier.

But this human was isolated, clumsy, out of screaming distance and away from the great ships manned by other humans. The pier hid them both. He was young as well, like himself and Sam. Perhaps a little impressionable still—not like the hardened humans who shot on-sight

Phantom tentatively held out the hammer to the boy, patient and waiting.

Tucker inhaled shakily. And he blinked at the image of the supernatural being before him. "You're not gonna eat me?" he whispered. He laughed nervously. He collapsed against the pillar, his cargo-covered legs sinking beneath the cool water. He felt like jelly. "Oh, good. Damn, man. I've never seen a merperson up close. What is this even. I thought all you guys did was eat people."

Phantom sniffed, and raised his chin, as if offended. His neck gills flared in irritation, even as he inhaled through his human nose and exhaled out in a huff.

Tucker raised his hands, eyes still blown wide. "What? Like, come on. All the reports. And the history lessons in school—man, like you look pretty badass and wild, but I know those claws and teeth are for something. And I don't usually hang out with predators, you know what I mean?"

Phantom was not the most decorated merman of them all, but he had a deadly sense about him that was all his own. He preened under the fearful attention of the boy, his tail moving side to side, swishing in the shallow water. His black scales gleamed with a green that matched his eyes. And he smiled. His fangs were a bright, sharp white.

Tucker held onto the hammer tightly beneath the water, as if he would use it as a weapon.

But then the merboy seemed to recognize his skittishness, and his fanged smile faltered. His dark fins dropped, his black tail stilling. He swallowed, his gills flaring with the action.

Then the merboy lifted up one of his strong arms and spread his clawed fingers. Down his hand and forearm were a collection of small scars and nicks in his skin, as if he had survived a great fight. The action seemed to be an invitation for a handshake, and when Tucker did nothing, Phantom clicked in frustration and pushed his hand closer to the boy.

"You…want me to shake your hand or something?" Tucker asked incredulously, staring the merboy up and down.

The being paused, and then nodded slowly. He had seen this gesture used between human friends. He wanted to use it now to prove his good intentions.

Tucker blinked several times. And then his breath hitched again. "Have you been watching me? Us?"

Phantom's bare chest expanded and then contracted with an enduring sigh. He nodded and fervently continued to hold out his hand.

The human swallowed hard. "And you're…you're not gonna eat me, right?"

He shook his head no.

There was another pause before the boy whispered, "Okay. Okay. Whatever you want, man. Just don't eat me or claw me to death, please." He raised up a free hand from the water and leaned forward, his dark, shaking fingers pressing against the mer's.

Phantom's own breath seemed to hitch at the contact, his eyes widening at the lost memory of human heat. His long, wet fingers hesitated for a second, and his face pulled into a great concentration as he attempted to mimic the gesture of gently shaking the human's hand, being careful of his claws.

Tucker's eyes had blown wide.

He pulled away in shock.

Phantom's clawed hand sunk back down against the warm sands, his tail splash gently in the water. He made a soft clicking noise, tilting his head.

"What…" Tucker's voice strained. Over a decade of teachings about the total inhumanity of merfolk made him sit up a bit straighter and narrow his eyes at the boy before him. "What are you? I mean, I know what you are. But…" His face twisted, and he looked around in fear they were being watched. Seeing no one, he breathed out an exhale of relief and refocused back on the merboy. "But, like, you just shook my hand."

The merboy nodded and gave him a cheeky, close-lipped smile. Despite the attempt to hide his alien features, the action itself still made his fangs pop against his thinned lip.

The veneer of docile behavior from the image of such a predator sent a chill up Tucker's spine. "Don't tell me now all those protestors were right about you guys," Tucker murmured, still staring at the being in his eyes. The more he stared, he more saw a human soul reflected. "I thought they were quacks and stuff. You know, like wearing tin-foil hats."

Phantom made a noise, as if attempting to agree or be amicable, but his eyes carried no light. The words themselves were not difficult, but he did not understand how the boy was using them. Perhaps, he thought, a tin-foil hat was a protective device.

His tail awkwardly splashed in the water. He raised a clawed hand to his chest, patting himself over his heart a few times. Then he pointed to the boy insistently.

"…You wanna know my name?" Tucker asked, his brows knitting together.

A light appeared in the being's eyes. He nodded encouragingly.

For the first time, the human smiled at him. It was a tentative, small smile—but a genuine one. "The name's Tucker," the boy said hesitantly, setting aside the hammer. He raised up his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees. "Tucker Foley, as in Too Fine. Or at least that's what I tell the ladies. But…it doesn't really work out." He laughed nervously, then looked away awkwardly. "You could probably find a cooler human than me to hang out with."

Phantom gave him an odd look. Was the boy's name Tucker, or was it Too Fine? The latter did not seem to be an acceptable name.

"So," Tucker asked, tilting his head, growing more and more curious of the merboy, "You got a lady friend? A tough guy like you, you probably do."

Phantom lazed about in the shallow water, looking pensive. He understood the words lady and friend. His tail splashed water thoughtlessly. He scratched at his gills. Then he nodded slowly.

"You do?" Tucker looked almost sad and jealous. "Damn. When a fish can get a girl but I can't, there's just something wrong with the world."

Phantom's face twitched, and his lip curled in irritation lightly at the boy, swiping his paw through the water to surge it at the boy's face.

Tucker barely managed to raise his arms in time, and the splash of water struck him hard, soaking his hair and face and shirt. "The hell, man? What'd I say to you?"

He lifted his nose. I am not a fish, he seemed to huff.

"How could you be pissed? You're the one with a girl." Tucker sighed dramatically as he popped off his hat to wring it out. "I got nothing. A dead-end summer job and a local commute to the community college. Geniuses like me usually get a harem and a degree from MIT. What do I get? Nothing." His face pulled in pain. "All because the really cool schools stopped giving out scholarships with all the economy-rebuilding stuff, and I'm stuck here in Amity Park, all in the name of not getting screwed over by student loans."

Phantom clicked at him, looking almost amused at the glum look on the human. Then his face twisted in great concentration. He tentatively opened his mouth. "Tu," he said, his voice dropping from a high click into the deep resonance of a human voice. "Tu…ck. Er."

The human boy's jaw dropped.

Phantom made a noise at him, trying to obtain approval. Was he saying it right? Was he understandable? Was his accent too boorish? "Tuck," he said, almost petulantly. "Tuck—er."

"Damn, man, don't wear it out," Tucker said distantly. He looked quite shocked. "You said my name. Holy shit, dude. You can speak. Like you can speak human."

Phantom paused. And then he smiled. He moved closer. "Tuck," he said again. He bit his lip with his fang. He patted his chest again, his webbed fingers glimmering in the soft light. He opened his mouth to try and say his own name. "N-na. Me."

He said name like nah-may, and his face twisted hard in dislike of how his own merfolk vocal cords altered human language.

Tucker leaned forward, eyes blown wide in consternation. "Name?" he echoed. "You got a name yourself, man?"

The merboy swallowed hard and then nodded. He patted his throat. He whined lightly, his human voice a low, mournful sound along with an inhuman click or two. The phrase for Phantom seemed far too difficult to try. The human syllables like their "t" and "k" seemed easier than trying to curl his lip to make an "f" noise, which was awkward with the length of his fangs at the edge of his mouth.

His black tail swished in light frustration.

He turned big, green eyes to the boy. "T—teach?" he murmured, raising his voice in a plea.

The human sat there in the water, silence, his lips dropped open. "Teach. You want me to teach you? Like, to talk?"

Phantom nodded earnestly.

And of all things, Tucker began to laugh. It was a nervous but excited laugh. "Okay, mer-dude. You're crazy coming up here like this." He ran his hand through his dreadlocks. "And damn, I gotta be crazy too. But…" He eyed the supernatural being with a critical eye. "I don't work for free, you know? I could get in trouble for all this. Probably need to buy, like, a beginning teacher kit or something. What would you give me back, huh?"

The merboy hummed, curiously narrowing his gaze as he considered Tucker's words. He supposed it was a fair request—an exchange of some kind.

He hesitated, then raised a clawed finger as if to say, Just a moment.

Then he quickly turned tail and sunk beneath the waters, his fins skimming the surface for a time before he lowered down into the reeds and the increasing depth of the ocean.

Tucker remained sitting in the water, sighing. "Okay, cool. I'll just stay right here, awkwardly not working. Trying not to think about you bringing up some more of your friends or something. Gah, this is like, nerve-wrecking, man." He wiped his forehead of water. "Please tell me you found like, a fork or something Like that Little Mermaid movie. Something innocent, please."

Before long, the waters shifted, and the merboy's dark fins popped up above water, hidden by the wooden slats of the pier.

Tucker swallowed hard.

The supernatural being clicked at him curiously, with wide, hopeful eyes. Then he raised his scarred hand, his claws opening up.

In his palm was a golden necklace from an odd, wooden chest at the bottom of the ocean floor.

Tucker's eyes widened again, and he reached out. The necklace was smooth and long, the gold of it still of great integrity. The small tag on the clasp stated it was 18 karat gold.

And then he smiled, a financial glimmer in his eye. "Okay, then. Mr. mer-dude. Bring me something like this for each lesson, and you got yourself a teacher for the day."

He freely held out his hand this time. "Deal?"

The merboy smiled brilliantly, and he clasped his hand and silently shook it. "Tuck. Er."

"…Okay, dude, but, uh…just call me Tuck."

"Tuck?"

"Yeah, you got it."

And on the other side of the town, deep within the headquarters of G.O.D., Sam stared at the output results on her computer. Her purple eyes narrowed at the scanner. Down by an old fishing section of the beach was a pier, with several buoys stretching out across the waters as part of the Global Oceanic Defense's warning and tracker systems.

One of them was strangely malfunctioning.

Her dark brows furrowed, and she hummed. "Mrs. Fenton?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Buoy 23 isn't working for some reason—it's showing as offline."

The mother paused in her work for a time. "Buoy 23…23…is that the one by the abandoned fishing market? The one they're trying to reopen this summer?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

Maddie bit her lip. "And it's just that one?"

"Just one."

She turned back to her work. "Then it's probably nothing, dear. That area gets some strange tides—the fishing boats tend to hit those buoys on occasion too. It should come back online within an hour or so."

Sam's face twisted uneasily. "How can you be so sure?"

"That one's always been a bit glitchy for some reason. But the area's so well-protected by other things, I suppose no one's been bothered to go out and fix it." Maddie looked up and smiled gently. "Try not to worry about it, dear."

The young woman bit her lip. She hesitated on logging a report, and then her fingers fell away from the keyboard. "Well, okay. But…I'll keep an eye on it."

Maddie sighed. "Sam, if it were merfolk tripping that buoy, we'd have alarms from six other defense systems well before buoy 23 went offline." She waved a gloved hand. "At worst, it's likely that its solar panel has a short-circuit somewhere, resulting in an intermittent signal."

Sam swallowed hard. The merfolk she remembered had been clever. Even Danny had been clever, despite his ignorance to human things.

But she knew better than to bring him up, and so she fell silent and smiled weakly. "Of course, you're right. Maybe…I'll just talk to Mr. Masters about getting funding to fix it, then. Can't have malfunctioning tech, right?"

Maddie hummed, distracted by her research into the leptin hormone.

Sam, meanwhile, continued to eye buoy 23. A short-circuiting solar panel seemed logical enough as an explanation. But she decided she'd go out to it herself soon.

Just to make sure everything was as it should be.

A/N: Hi, all. I'm a garbage can of hiatus disasters. There was a serious death in my family late 2017, and then in 2018, I fell into the Voltron fandom as a new thing to kinda distract myself. But that show and its fandom has been particularly triggering to me for several reasons at this point, so I'm trying to get back into my love for DP, which has been a safe space for me in the many years I've been writing fanfiction. So apologies for the long wait on this, and thank you for your patience. I wanted to celebrate MerMay with you all!

For anyone still reading, I do hope you continue to enjoy the story. Please let me know your thoughts! Thanks!