Chapter 3: Cages
Her eyes fluttered open as she struggled to fight back the drowsiness of sleep. Almost immediately, her body unconsciously seized up, quickly curling up as she began to tremble.
Her memories were fuzzy, but she remembered waking up and then, pain. Her sides hurt, where she'd been manhandled quite roughly. Tears threatened to come to her eyes for a few seconds before they indeed did come as she burst out crying.
It was only after several minutes that her cries subsided into small sniffles, and that she took the opportunity to look around.
Compared to where she had been before, she could see so much more clearly. Hesitantly, she moved around, bumping into something once again. However, unlike before, she hadn't hit it quite as hard as before, and she could now see the thing blocking her from the outside.
It was clear and very hard to notice. Still, as she rubbed her hand on it, she couldn't help but grow curious. She tried to scratch it, but the noise that came from that quickly stopped her from further experimenting.
Suddenly, movement caught her eye. There was a person coming, and she somewhat recognized him as one of the men who'd hurt her, something that immediately caused her to shy away.
The man walked up to the tank, his gaze locking onto her even as she moved as far from him as possible, which wasn't very far considering the strange thing blocking her.
The man's mouth opened and sounds came out, but she couldn't understand what they meant. Besides, her young mind was still stubbornly associating him with harsh pain, and thus, she didn't even want to try and understand him.
Meanwhile, Marcus could only sigh. Learning from the two previous mutants that they'd created, he'd already been told that they learned much, much faster than any normal human ever could. However, that didn't mean they wouldn't act like children in some cases.
His lips curled upwards as he watched the young mermaid retreat to the back of the water tank, her worried eyes darting around yet never leaving him out of her sight. She had good instincts, if nothing else. He could work with this.
It would be a lie if he said he hadn't been disappointed in her, earlier on. An exclusively aquatic mutant was much, much more limited in usage than either of the two previous lab-borns had been, but after thinking over it for a bit, he'd come to a different conclusion than what many expected him to reach.
Sure, she might be less useful than the others, but from what he'd seen so far, the girl was an absolute monster in terms of strength. Despite having literally just awakened, she'd been able to contend with three grown adults while on the verge of death, without any training.
Thus, as he gently placed his hand on the glass separating him from the mermaid within, he couldn't help but allow his lips to curl even more as her eyes zoomed into his hands, her suprisingly expressive face clearly showing the struggle between fear and childish curiosity.
He waited patiently, not moving from his position as he kept his eyes on her. While the two previous mutants had been practically human in all aspects except for their incredible power, he didn't know whether this girl was more human or more beast.
Thankfully, both humans and beasts answered nearly the same to body language. It was a convenient way to communicate even with a lack of common language. However, he had to immediately establish himself as a non-threat, but he also needed to show her he was worthy of respect.
Eventually, a couple of minutes later, the fish-tailed mutant hesitantly detached herself from the opposite corner of the tank, slowly and cautiously approaching his hand.
He kept waiting patiently, and when she eventually reached him, he put his other hand on the glass, watching for her reaction. The girl hesitated, her eyes darting between his face and hands. Eventually, she put her own hands on the wall between them, her smaller hands hidden behind his large ones.
He let out a soft hum, slowly moving his hands to the side and watching as she also moved her clawed hands to follow his.
"Good." He said, his voice breaking the silence. The young mermaid jumped back, clearly startled as her eyes shot up to look at his own.
Marcus tilted his head to the side, glad that she could hear him well enough. He smiled gently and, from his pocket, took out a plastic bag containing numerous fish corpses. He'd been told by the scientists that, while it wasn't sure what exactly this new mutant could and couldn't eat, fish should have been a safe enough bet.
He clicked the button he'd been shown when they'd dumped his mutant in the tank, and watched as she practically scrambled to the floor from the abrupt sound of the opening trapdoor above her.
He watched amusedly as, after a while of wide-eyed 'hiding', the mermaid curiously swam up a bit, poking her head into the air through the now open trapdoor.
She was quick to return to the water though, evidently disliking the sensation... or something else. Marcus didn't exactly know how mermaids functioned, something he'd have to correct rather fast if he didn't want her dying to his ignorance.
He opened up the plastic bag, fished out one of the fishy corpses within and, after a bit of stretching, gently placed it into the water tank, watching the mermaid for any reaction, be it positive or negative.
The newborn mutant hesitated, clearly unconvinced and scared by whatever had just been put into her little home. After a moment of hesitation, she swam over to the fish that had by now landed onto the floor and sniffed it.
Marcus watched with a raised eyebrow as she practically gulped the 15-cm fish down in one bite. She wasn't supposed to be hungry yet, since she'd practically been pumped chock full off nutrients and X-genes not longer than a day ago, but apparently they'd been wrong... Or maybe she was just gluttonous.
His lips curled up even more as the mermaid now openly stared at the bag in his hands, clearly eyeing the fish in it. He gave it a small shake before putting his hands on the glass once more before giving a curt command that he knew she couldn't understand... Well, at least not yet.
"Follow." Her eyes snapped to his face for a moment, less startled than she'd been at the beginning, but still clearly unsettled. Then, her eyes slowly trailed to his hand, then to the fish bag, then back to his hand.
Like a light bulb going off, she eagerly swam over to his hand and placed her hand opposite to his own. He nodded, giving her an encouraging "Good, very good".
He threw another fish into her tank, and watched as this time, instead of gulping it all in one bite, she caught the thing with her hands, biting off small pieces one at a time. Her teeth easily cut through bones, he noted, silently promising himself to be very careful with her lest he lose a hand.
He waited patiently as she enjoyed her meal. It was an interesting show, simply due to the oddity of seeing a human, well, a half-human, so eagerly and easily rending apart raw flesh.
Still, when she finally finished her last bite and licked her lips with a far too flexible and long tongue, he once more put his hand on the wall. As expected, she was quick to mirror him, looking at both his face and hand with desire.
However, he didn't immediately reward her this time. He slowly moved his hands to the left, observing her as she confusedly watched his hands move away before scrambling to follow it.
She was clearly lacking in knowledge of how to make use of her tail to swim, which was yet another thing he'd have to correct. Thankfully, while mutants grew fast, he wasn't expected to have her combat and mission ready for at least another five years. Thus, he still had plenty of time to train her.
After a bit of simple maneuvering his hands around to make it a challenge for her, he threw in another fish. She devoured this one too, eating it slowly yet happily.
He did a few more exercises like this, happy to see that she was both very much an intelligent little creature. When he finally finished his bag of fishes, he decided that he'd done enough for the day, and after a quick 'goodbye', left.
He'd given the order that nobody was to have any contact with the new mutant other than him until he said otherwise, and thus, he wasn't worried of some of the suprisingly incapable eggheads messing up his progress with her.
Something to consider, however, was the fact that he'd need to get her examined soon. They hadn't had the time after she came out of the incubator, but it needed to happen soon...
Marcus allowed a pleased smirk to appear on his lips as a plan began hatching in his mind. He would've laughed evilly for the dramatics of it, but even he felt that was a bit too excessive, so he satisfied himself by simply doing it in the safety of his mind.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone