The muscular mermaid by kraken, kraken58@yahoo.com Be careful what you dump in the ocean nowadays. Disclaimer- 1) Though the idea for this story was jump-started by the Disney character, it is not related to that character. 2) The main character is referred to as "teenage." This is meant to mean 17 or 18 years old. Like many of the other great civilizations of history- the Greeks, the Roman Empire, the Mayans, the Incas, the native Americans- the city-state of Atlantis was fading. Once, millennia ago, it reigned as the center of world power and culture. But it succumbed to a simple tectonic shift at its prime. Unlike the romanticized stories of the modern era its citizens by and large did not survive. There was no great glass dome that held the ocean at bay, no great scientific marvel that preserved the populous. Fully three-quarters of the Atlanteans were lost in a week when their world ended. The only survivors of the cataclysm were the societal elite- the royal family, the ruling court, the top scholars and artisans and their families. Though the citizens liked to boast that they had overcome base, evil impulses, the leaders of Atlantis were all to quick to abandon their subjects and save themselves. They retreated to secret underground chambers built in case of war, not unlike bomb shelters during the Cold War. There they survived when all others perished. It is there in their sealed chambers that a few hundred Atlanteans remained. Using their advanced technology and intellects, the men and women adapted to their new environment. Food was engineered to sustain them, and eventually their bodies were similarly engineered. Human Atlanteans became mermen and mermaids, adapted to survive under the Atlantic Ocean. This new community continued to live and adapt, making little or no contact with its surface- dwelling counterparts. Yet anonymity does not always mean security. Beginning shortly after the Industrial Revolution, ever increasing levels of surface refuse was raining down to the ocean depths. As the garbage piled up, the Atlanteans became more distressed. Though their outrage grew with each decade, there was nothing they could do. It was impossible to stop an entire world. The best they could do, the rulers decided, was catalog and contain the mess while working on a permanent solution. It was that dictate which brought Rythana to the latest sunken hulk that littered the border of Atlantis. An industrial cargo carrier had recently capsized in an offshore gale and gone down with all hands. The young mermaid's job was to investigate the ship for usable materials and inventory the findings. With orders in hand, as well as her scouting equipment, she swam toward the ship. The ship wasn't as large as others she had inventoried. The hold probably held only about 200 barrels or so. Spying an open hatch on the upside-down deck, Rythana entered the hold. Just as she thought, oil barrels littered the floor, just under 100 of them. There wasn't much else useful to be salvaged. But when she looked up, Rythana spied a large metal crate strapped to the inside of the hull. Curious, she pulled out a light orb from her investigator's satchel and swam closer. The gray metal crate was hanging by steel bands bolted to the bottom. But the bands were beginning to pull away from the bolts. Rythana saw no markings on the top of the crate. On the side were letters. Reorienting herself, the girl saw bright red English stenciled on the side. It said: "Danger! Do Not Open!" Rythana had a split second to reflect on the pros and cons of learning the surface languages before disaster struck. The sea floor began to shift, the beginnings of a quake. The ship's bulk started to shift, the deck tilting further downward. Rythana's entrance suddenly closed as the hatch was filled with sand. The oil drums rolled about, creating new obstacles along the bottom. And somehow, above it all, Rythana heard the sound of metal snapping. After the creaking of metal and the rumbling of bedrock, the silence still seemed to be deafening. The mermaid slowly felt her senses returning, bringing wit it the feeling of being trapped. Opening her eyes didn't help as all outside light was cut off and her orb was mostly buried alongside her. She wriggled her body a bit and could feel some of the sand fall away. A little more effort and she could slide her tail free. She pulled the orb free and finally looked around. Everything has shifted; sand now filled almost half the cargo hold. Oil drums littered the bottom. Rythana couldn't see any immediate doors or hatches, but she knew that the water pushed out by the sand must have gotten out somewhere. Hopeful, she swam toward the top of the ship. As she ascended, the girl noticed a soft green glow coming from over a sand mound. That didn't seem possible so she approached the light very cautiously. Cresting the mound, the mermaid found the metal crate embedded in the rubble. It must have landed hard after breaking free from its restraints because one side was jarred open. Inside the crate Rythana saw more barrels. But these weren't like the scattered oil-filled barrels. These were blue and were marked with bright yellow and black symbols. Rythana immediately recognized these symbols. Every scouter knew them by heart and sight. They stood for biohazard material, toxicity and radiation danger. Worse yet, a few of the barrels had broken open and were leaking their contents into the water. Green-glowing liquid swirled around the young mermaid. The water seemed to grow warmer. Every instinct told her to run away, to swim to the opposite end of the ship as fast as she could. But something was robbing her of her senses. She felt lightheaded, weightless. Yet she felt herself sinking, settling on the bottom. For the second time in 10 minutes, she blacked out. She awoke with a tingling sensation all over her body. Opening her eyes, she sat up and looked down at herself. Rythana saw her normal, slender torso, small breasts and sleek tail. Nothing looked different. Nothing besides the fact that her skin seemed to be glowing: her arms, her fingers, her stomach, all the way down to the tip of her tail. Her shin now had a pale green hue to it. What was that stuff in those barrels? The tingling sensation suddenly jumped in intensity, feeling more like she had swum too close to one of the city's sunglobes or an underwater lava flow. The glow from her skin also became brighter. Rythana suddenly felt as though her skin had become tighter, like it was being stretched. Something was happening to the young mermaid that she didn't understand but was beginning to feel good about. Besides her skin, Rythana then felt her bra grow tighter. Looking down, she saw that her chest had swollen a few inches. Though her breasts had gotten a little bigger, most of the size came from her pectoral muscles. As she watched, they began to grow again, obscuring her view of her lower half. At the same time, she felt the same sensation in her arms. Looking to her right, Rythana saw that her shoulders seemed to be wider. The mermaid's right arm, once as smooth as glass, was showing bulges all along its length. Those small curves were getting bigger, the biceps beneath the green-lit skin inflating like a puffer fish. In a matter of seconds, the muscle had nearly reached the size of one of those fish and it wasn't done yet. The faint sound of cloth slowly ripping drew the girl's attention back to her chest. She absently watched her bra tear apart under pressure from her expanding chest. Striations were beginning to appear beneath the glowing skin. Glancing past her expanding breasts and pert nipples, she saw that her tail was also changing. Bulging muscles were standing out there too, giving the scaled skin irregular new curves. In another few seconds, the glow from her skin faded away and she felt her muscles stop expanding. The mermaid's light orb was still glowing beside her. Its white light revealed the full extent of the changes to her body. Her slender teenage tail was now as thick as an oil drum. Muscles bunched and bulged along its length, which also seemed to have increased. The green scales seemed to her deepened in color, glimmering with a bright new luster. They shown like emeralds and were nearly the color of the gems. It was difficult to see her stomach past her enlarged chest. The pec muscles alone were larger than her breasts had been before. Each boob had only upgraded about a cup size or so (the surface equivalent of a large A to a decent C) and rode upon a solid striated foundation. Rythana rubbed her hands up and down her front, feeling her stomach muscles enlarged beneath her skin. The rubbing motion was also causing her arms to tense and relax. Each flex caused the biceps to swell and shrink. Even unflexed, they were of impressive size, almost as large as her head. Tensed, they were nearly as tall as an oil drum lid was wide. A fine network of veins ran all over Rythana's body, standing out under the thin, stretched skin. Curiously enough, instead of the normal purple color, the veins had a decidedly green tint to them. A broad smile slowly formed on Rythana's face. All her life she'd felt helpless, unable to help save the oceans or her home. She was only 7 when her mother had been killed by surface refuse. That's probably what had led her to become a salvage investigator: she wanted to make a difference. But so far the job had only left her feeling more useless, more powerless. But now it appeared that that was no longer the case. She now had power and she intended to use it. In fact, she could make use of that power to alleviate her present condition. With the hatch buried and no other visible exit, Rythana was sure that she was trapped and canned like a sardine. But if these muscles were half as powerful as they looked, this might be no problem. She could just make her own exit. Instinctively, she reached for her light orb. It was resting in the sediment near the toxic barrels where she'd dropped it. Without thinking, Rythana firmly grasped the orb, shattering it to pieces. The glass particles sank down into the sand while the luminescent fluid floated around her hand. Quite embarrassed, she released the rest of the debris from her hand and rubbed it in the sand. Obviously this new strength was going to take a lot of adjusting. Looking back up, Rythana made another discovery: the darkness didn't look so absolute. She squinted, rubbed her eyes and looked across to the far wall. She could see every seam between the metal plates and the rivets holding them together. Somehow that toxic waste had enhanced more than her physique. It had also enhanced her sight. Smiling again, she thanked the gods for this gift as it revealed the near- invisible cracks in the hull that had allowed the water to escape. With a little help, they would soon allow her to escape as well. Flipping over onto her ample front, the mermaid braced her hands against the sandy bottom. She slowly began to pump her now power-filled tail up and down. She slowly increased the speed, faster and faster, building up more power. Her hands were digging deeper into the sand as she reached top speed. When her tail had become a green blur, Rythana yanked her hands free and rocketed toward the hull. At the last second, Rythana thrust her fists ahead of her. They struck the ship's hull with more force than a torpedo. An earthshaking boom sounded across the ocean floor. She was sure that they probably heard the impact all the way in Atlantis. An impressive sound for an impressive effort. The girl saw that she had created a dent nearly 20 ft. across and 2 feet deep in the steel. But more importantly, she'd created a 2-inch gap between some of the plates. Her plan was off to a good start. Now was the harder half of the plan. Rythana rubbed her hands together a few times, cracked her knuckles and shook out any kinks. She thrust her left hand into the crack and did the same with the right. She curled her fingers around the edges, noting that the jagged metal was barely scratching her skin. Finder a comfortable grip, the mighty mermaid set her back, her chest, her shoulders and arm muscles, tightening them in anticipation. Grunting with resolve, she flexed her muscles and began to pull the plates apart. Surface-dwellers sure knew how to construct ships. The metal didn't give easily. It almost seemed to be physically fighting against her strength. That only served to steel her resolve. Rythana fought even harder, pulling and pulling and pulling until she felt like her muscles would tear apart. And she was about to give up the fight when a familiar green glow reappeared. The teenager's shin slowly began to glow with its own light. As the intensity of the light peaked, she felt her skin stretch again. Every muscle tensed and bulged. Suddenly the metal seemed to offer less resistance. It felt no harder than the cloth that had made up her former bra. With a final heave, the metal gave 'way and was thrown aside. Without thinking, Rythana let out a roar of triumph that was also probably heard in Atlantis. As the flushed color drained from the girl's even more impressive form, she considered how her life had just changed. Within one hour, she'd gone from a helpless, trapped mermaid to a muscular, capable aquatic Amazon. As much as she didn't want to admit it, she had to thank the surface people. They had given her a gift. And she intended to use that gift. She shouted once again. "Beware surface-dwellers! Beware Rythana, Guardian of the Seas!" All around, the denizens of the water knew that a new force had emerged on Earth. And it meant trouble for those above. The End . . .. or The Beginning?