A Not so Little Mermaid

Fishing Trawler Kono
Somewhere on the Hudson River, 7pm

A late middle-aged Bill and his crew waited anxiously on their fishing trawler on the Hudson. The call had been frantic and sudden, but the need in his nephew’s voice was undeniable. In what felt like no time at all, Bill had gotten his smuggling crew together, a crew that doubled as fishermen, and readied their private trawler to set sail from New Jersey.

Bill was smoking his cigarette and was watching his Hudson boys bring out crates of conventional weapons, when Ted rolled up on his hog on the pier. He had no helmet on and his clothes were torn. Even gasping for breath, he quickly stammered out, “Bill!… Go now!”

Bill came over and placed his armed on his large nephew. It took a certain threat level to scare a wershark, especially one that got big as Ted. “Jeez Ted. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Where’s your brothers?”

“She’s coming! She killed… she killed Gordon and Jeremy… we have to go… get to the lady Ariel’s territory…”

A younger man would have stopped to ask who was coming, but Bill didn’t get to his age in the smuggling business by asking who’s coming, or if their operations had been found out. When his friend said run, Bill started shouting at his crew to their stations, while he rushed to the bridge. The Trawler’s engines roared to life below, and slowly it pulled itself out to the water. They’d need to sail further down and get to the other side of Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Swimming under the cover of the Hudson and the darkness, June’s leads had lead her to the KONO, the trawler in question. She could hear that the crew onboard were now frantic and rushed to get the ship moving. June tensed a bit, wondering if she’d been found out, but no rain of bullets were forthcoming. The anchor was being brought up as quickly as the ship began moving, and she barely caught the back of the ship, hanging on by some netting hanging on the side. She climbed up, onto the fishing position, coming face to face with an armed fisherman/smuggler. Before he could make a sound, or even shoot his gun, DG was on him, chucking the submachine gun into the water and a very firm grip over his mouth. Terror filled his eyes as he realized this woman was super powered.

She could feel the softness of human muscle and bone in her grip, and toned it way, way down. “Let’s have a talk.” She said, gesturing for the man to cooperate.

June was not their only pursuer, just the only one to reveal herself. Rai was busy tracking and had only gotten on the trail at June’s discarded corpses. Luckily it wasn’t the weresharks Rai was after… it was the stench of infernal magic that had her on their trail.

Upon Grimmorah she’d caught up with June and the smugglers rather quickly, but not fast enough to catch the boat as it pulled out of the docks. She kicks Grimmorah into a brutal pace, hooves hitting the cement hard enough to chip it in several hoof tracks as he lets out a triumphant squeal at the idea of a chase. Squeezing in her heels she urges him on faster to keep up with the engines coming parallel with about the middle of the flat bedded boat trawler before letting Grimmorah take the bold leap.

His hooves hit the wooden deck with a violent thump, whipping the stallion around violently as if to dare these smugglers to do anything about it. She felt the same awful prickling of rage in the back of the mind that only the presence of a demon brought on, yet saw no demons around, only the looks of mortals willing to aid one.

The men raise their guns at her only for her to raise in her saddle, one boot against the pommel and the other against the swell, both scythes gleaming with moonlight at either side as she draws them out. “Say when." Rai growls, waiting for someone to take the first shot. They may be aiding and abetting a demon, but they were still mortals, therefore she’d give them the chance to surrender if they were smart enough to take it.

She hadn’t noticed June amongst the commotion, however, only really the crewmen who were still armed.