Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t every day that the Z-Team got the chance to collectively relax. The warm California sun beat down on their heads as they lounged around a pool, music pounding from a Bluetooth speaker Prism snuck in. Every few minutes, Malevola opened up a new portal to bring in cases of beer or fresh bags of chips, and no one was ready to ask where she kept getting them from.

With a name like Siren, everyone expected the standby team member to be completely inseparable from the pool. She was so rarely sent along on normal SDN business that took place anywhere other than the water that it was surprising she got asked here. What use would a person who can turn into a mermaid be in the middle of Torrance? The short answer was, not much. Siren spent a majority of her time in the office because Blonde Blazer liked being able to keep an eye on her. Ecoterrorism charges and a hypnotic singing voice were apparently looked upon as “potentially harmful”.

Prism’s voice rose slightly above the party. “Hey, you gonna quit pouting like a bitch or join the celebration already?”

Siren couldn’t deny that she wanted to take a dip, but the deep bruises all over her body from the battle with the Red Ring were sure to ache when exposed to chlorine. Plus, she had Beef in her arms! A mere hum of her hypnotic voice had sent the chubby chihuahua into a near-catatonic nap.

His dad was starting to get antsy. Robert managed to extricate himself from Blazer and Visi’s attention and came to sit on a lounge chair next to her. He reached out to scratch his dog on the exposed belly. “I thought you’d be showing off for everybody.” He glanced at the pool. “It’s Olympic diving depth, you’d actually have room to stretch out.”

“Yeah, but… it’s kinda occupied in there.” Siren glanced at the surface of the water and how it glimmered in the light. Some of the guys were already swimming. Royd, Golem, Phenomaman, and Waterboy were wrapped up in a game of Marco Polo, and even from here, Siren could guess that she’d get accidentally kicked. “Besides, it kinda looks like Golem is dissolving in it.”

Robert chuckled, but watched her face. “You sure that’s the only reason you don’t wanna swim?”

“Shut up, Blobert, you don’t know me.” She snuggled Beef up to her face to hide her expression in his fur. She knew exactly why she didn’t want to go in.

“Knowing how you tick? Yeah, kinda is.” He glanced up at the tall diving platform. It had lost most of its novelty by this point, and now served as a perch for people who wanted to smoke without risk of getting splashed. Sonar was the only one left up there. The rest had climbed down, or been pushed into the water. “You wanna tell me what’s going on? I thought you two were good now. Especially after you literally fished him out of the ocean when the Red Ring tossed him in.”

Siren huffed in displeasure and rolled onto her side, facing away from Robert. “Things were fine for like two seconds, and then it was right back to being weird again.” From the moment she was brought to the Phoenix Program, she had butted heads with the only other hybrid on the team. Something about Sonar infuriated her, but she couldn’t seem to make herself stop caring about what he had to say.

“I thought it was all water under the bridge.” 

“Seriously? Water jokes? You’re shitting me. Take your fat son and go.” She rolled back over and handed him Beef.

Robert took his dog and let him keep sleeping on a folded towel. “No way, not while you’re being the actual death of the party. You don’t have to like him, you just need to be able to coexist in the same space with him.” He gestured up at the platform. “He’s probably smoked at least three joints by now. Doubt his head is clear enough to fight with you, but I bet he’s still sober enough to at least hear anything you have to say.”

Siren’s eyebrow raised. This was a new side of Robert, she had never figured he could be this manipulative. She’d do it, but not without something in exchange. “And what are you gonna give me to make me go up there?”

“The clubhouse has a bar. I’ll get you your own pitcher of frozen daiquiri."

 …Welp. That offer was really good. “You drive a hard bargain, Blobert.” Siren sighed as she stood up. “I want to drink it out of the pitcher. Put in a bunch of those little umbrellas, and make sure they throw in a big handful of salt. And I want the stupidest curly straw they’ve got.”

“You got it, Siren.”

She was glad she had picked a cute bathing suit for the party. Her black bikini top was held together in the center by buckles, and some decorative scalloping along the bottom reminded her of a seashell (or, ironically enough, a bat’s wings). She’d paired it with high-waisted skirt-styled bottoms that breezed over her hips as she climbed up the warm metal ladder. The scent of weed got almost overwhelming once she reached the textured platform. 

Sonar was watching the party from on high, a joint slowly smoldering between his fingers. “So. Bobert bribed you to come make friends with me, huh? Wicked cringe.” He hadn’t turned his head to look at her yet. She hadn’t seen him without his suit before. There were only a few parts of his arms and torso that weren’t covered with dark fur.

“Dude, if you spy on me anymore, I’m not above kicking you off this thing.” Siren set foot on the diving platform, feeling a soft breeze catch her lavender hair. She went and sat down on the edge, letting her feet dangle out over the water. “Can we actually talk or are we just gonna be dicks to each other this whole time?”

His solid white eyes made it almost impossible to tell exactly what part of her body he was staring at. It was probably her tits, but she hoped it was her face. “Are we suddenly cool now?”

“Oh my god, Harvard grad, you need to actually use one of those degree-holding brain cells for a second, I’m here to put this whole fighting thing to rest!” Siren glared at him. “I’m part fish and you’re part bat. Flying and swimming are stupid different. But, like…you indirectly saved my ass a few times when the Red Ring tried to kill us all. And that was really cool of you.”

“There’s a shortage of perfect asses in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.”

So that’s what he was looking at. “Did you just simultaneously perv on me and quote The Princess Bride?” 

Both his ears were pointing at her now, meaning she had his full attention. “Wow, I didn’t know they got cable in fucking Atlantis.”

She reached behind her and jokingly flipped up the back of her skirt, briefly enough to let Sonar get a glimpse of the bikini bottom built into the garment. “And are you gonna listen to me now?”

“Siren, I have been locked the fuck in since I saw you stand up.” More than that, he looked like he was about to start drooling.

Siren let the black fabric settle back into place. “Despite your fucked-up habits, I’ve never actually said that I hate you. Cause I don’t. Coulda left you to drown when you got dropped in the ocean that one time, but I don’t fuck with that kinda shit.” 

She distinctly remembered the absolute chaos Torrance dealt with leading up to the SDN attack. Robert didn’t even need to order her to go dive into the bay and pull Sonar to shore. The second the distress call came in, Siren announced that she would go.

She didn’t like him but didn’t want him dead. Z-Team needed him. The city needed him.

Her six-foot tail thrashed as she tried to surface with the weight of two people. She bullied a raft of sea lions out of their place on the Yacht Club pier to get him hauled out of the water. A few frantic chest compressions later, he gave her the first, earnest statement she’d ever heard the bat utter: “Thank you.”

“All things considered, you’re pretty chill, and I’m over the whole fighting thing.” She reached out to him. “Can we actually be friends?”

Sonar’s gaze traced the length of her arm. Even in her human form, she still betrayed her marine side with the little patches of fish scales that glistened in the sunlight. “Like, my girlfriend?”

“Don’t fucking push it or I’ll undo my heroics. I’ll pull you right off this platform and drown you.”

“You’re gonna pull me off?” His pink snout crinkled into a smirk.

“Holy shit, I wasted my time with this.” Siren stood up, placing her hands on her hips. “Like, did I do something to you? Did I fucking piss you off and you’re just gonna take it out on me forever by ogling me every chance you get? Or can you drop it for once, you creep?”

Her voice was beginning to carry. The team below had eyes on her. He could no doubt hear the murmuring, all the jokes already starting. Siren couldn’t make out what anyone was saying, but she distinctly heard Malevola’s voice. She must have told Sonar something important, because his demeanor changed. “Wait, don’t jump!” He reached out towards her with an open hand. 

“I have gills, I can breathe underwater.” Siren frowned. “And why shouldn’t I leave?”

He didn’t stand up to meet her, but he stubbed out his joint. “Because my name is Victor. And when I smoke too much weed in the hot sun, I…” he shifted uncomfortably “I only end up thinking with my dick.”

A majority of the disdain left Siren’s body and was replaced by something else entirely. “Wait, you’ve been up here pouting all day, and you’ve been a dick to me before now, because you like me?” Things were all starting to make sense. “Bruh, just grow up and ask me out for real.” Her eyes slowly scanned across his body. His blue swim trunks were starting to get…really tight at the front oh dear God—

Time to go. Her daiquiri must have been ready by this point. Siren took up a diving position at the very edge of the platform, letting her heels dangle off the lip of the extended surface. “You gotta do it sober, or else I’ll turn you down.”

Sonar reached out for her hand again, but Siren was already falling backwards by the time he got close. She rotated herself in the air and extended her arms gracefully above her head in a perfect dive. She barely disturbed the surface of the water, sinking immediately to the bottom and taking on her hybrid form. Her legs lengthened and fused together as shimmering purple scales erupted from her skin, and her feet were replaced with a lunate shark tail. Her gills opened up along her ribcage, beginning to process the oxygen out of the chlorinated water. Ew, swimming pools always tasted like shit.

Up on the top of the high dive, she could clearly see Sonar’s gray head and long ears peeking over the ledge. She decided to test if he could hear her.

“Hey, Victor?”

His ears snapped to attention, pointing straight down at her.

“I’m Avra. Thanks for always having my back.” Despite the twenty feet of water and thirty feet of air separating them, she was sure he heard her words clearly. 

She swam to the shallow end of the pool and hauled out onto the edge, letting her long tail float at the surface.

Robert handed her the promised daiquiri. “So, how’d it go?”

Siren took a long sip and immediately regretted the brain freeze that came with it. “Ow, fuck!” She rubbed her forehead. “He’s an idiot, but I think we’re friends now.”

“About fuckin’ time!” Malevola grinned, holding up a beer as a toast. “She didn’t even have to hypnotize him! Pay up, assholes!” Most of the team mumbled as they threw bills in Malevola’s direction. The demoness gathered them up and stuffed them under one of the multiple straps on her swimsuit. She then leaned forward to look at Siren. “So… how’d it go?”

Siren pinched the bridge of her nose as she chugged her drink. “He’s stoned as shit. I don’t think he remembers what he had for breakfast, and he won’t remember anything I told him.”

“Didja flash him? He pretty much has a photographic memory when tits are involved.”

“Sooo, you of all people should know exactly how bad of an idea that is. He might actually die if he falls off the high dive.” She rolled her eyes. “He knows where we stand.” She just hoped that it was in a good place.

Things changed in the week following. Siren didn’t get assigned to much work at all, aside from the odd water rescue missions. That made it tough to actually talk to Sonar, because when they did get sent on a dispatch together, they were usually hundreds of feet apart and separated by the water. It was honestly starting to feel like Robert was fucking with them both.

Every day, Siren sat down by the shore or kicked around the office, just waiting  for calls to come in. Capsizes, kaiju appearances, anything to get her something to do. But, even with the weather warming up and more beach traffic than usual, there simply wasn’t enough work for Siren.

Finally, she’d had enough. She stormed into Robert’s cubicle and spun him around in his chair, grabbing him by the collar. “Am I a joke to you?”

“No?” The redhead folded his arms, seemingly unphased by the show of aggression.

“Then why do you send fucking Waterboy out on jobs more often than me? Is this some sort of new, fucked-up disciplinary action?” Her fist tightened in his blue shirt. “Just gonna try and bore me to death?”

Robert blinked at her in his infuriatingly cute, nonchalant manner. “I’ve actually been ordered to keep you out of the field.” (Damn, his stupid voice was like melted butter.) “This wasn’t my decision.”

Well, he wasn’t the only one around here with a good voice. Siren’s face changed as she started singing to him. “You should tell me why I’m not out there before I—hey!”

He hit a button on his headset, which activated a full noise cancelling mode, rendering her power completely useless. “Nice try. Guess I should thank you for not just punching me in the face.”

With a deep frown, Siren switched back to regular speech. She nudged the headphones off Robert’s ears. “I thought we were all supposed to be bettering ourselves, man. How am I supposed to do that if my job is the only thing I’ve got going for me and I’m just getting totally fucking shafted?”

He looked almost confused. “You mean you, the mermaid with an inexplicable taste for goth fashion, aren’t getting as much shaft as you can handle?” The quick, askant glance of Siren’s eyes told him everything he needed to know. “Oh. Do you wanna get a cup of coffee?”

She grinned. “Why, Blobert, don’t let anybody else hear you say that. People will talk.”

“I was thinking we just walk to the break room so you can tell me what you’re feeling without anybody else listening in.” He put his headset down on his desk and scooped Beef up into his arms. “Come on, you’re gonna be my therapy dog.”

“Fine, but you need to understand that the only fishnets I wear are real nets that I’ve taken out of the ocean.”

 When they went to get their coffee, Robert let the glass door swing shut. Chase and Galen didn’t need to overhear this conversation. “Are you seriously telling me that Sonar hasn’t made a move? The same bat who hits on any adult with a pulse? The same bat who got handcuffed to a squat rack because Coop merely implied he’d get to see something he assumed were boobs? Batboner hasn’t asked you out?”

“Fuck, Robert, way to fuckin’ rub my face in it.” Siren wasn’t much for coffee. She let the tap run until the water was hot, then poured a handful of sea salt crystals into her mug to make some hot seawater substitute. “Nothing makes you feel as unattractive as a known pervert completely ignoring you. I even told him clearly that he has a shot with me!” She sipped her saline angrily. “Literally my only caveat is that he’s sober when he asks me out. He doesn’t even have to be clean, I just want him to not be high at that exact moment.” She paced back and forth between the vending machine and the wall. “Like, I’ve been banned from every aquarium I’ve ever visited because I convinced all the fish to unionize. Why can’t I get an idiot to agree to my simple request?”

Robert gestured at the seat across from him at the little break table. “You may want to hold Beef while I answer that.”

With a raised brow, Siren bent down to pick up the little dog and let him sit on her lap. “Okay, shoot.”

“I’m pretty sure the prospect of actually having a shot with you has scared Sonar entirely shitless.” Robert took his coffee black and scalding like a complete psychopath. “You do mean it, right?”

“He’s hot when he shuts the fuck up.” Siren smirked, flashing her unusually jagged canines behind her black lipstick. “There aren’t too many hybrids out there. How lucky am I, the gothy chick, that I found a man-bat who would totally fold the second I put a platform boot on his chest?”

“...Yeah, I don’t need to know your kinks. I just need everybody to do their jobs. You’re lucky HR here is almost nonexistent.”

Siren’s smile dropped. “Fine, I can go back to being pissed off. What part of my job fucking entails sitting around the office with my thumb up my ass?”

Robert glanced around the room. “Visi, if you’re in here, you better fuckin’ not be.” After a moment of silence, he nodded to Siren and firmly planted his hands over his ears. She hummed loudly, the same note that always sent Beef into an immediate nap. The chihuahua fell asleep in her arms, but no invisible superhero came into view. They were alone. “You’ve been mostly off the duty roster, not because you’re being punished, but because we need you to be a mystery. Something big is coming, and you may just be the perfect hero to solve it.”

Just like that, she was able to put her annoyance aside. “Oh shit, really?”

“Yeah. Blonde Blazer is still gathering intel for you, but she’s gonna give you all the details once she has them. Think you can sit tight until then?”

Siren took her time petting Beef between the ears. “You’re killing me, Blobert. But, I’ll wait because you asked me so nicely.” 

“Thanks, Siren. You’ll get your assignment soon.”

Chapter Text

Siren liked being alone. It was part of her shark-like nature, after all. She liked being able to do her own thing and swim where she pleased. She didn’t need to have friends.

She did need rent money. And a hiring department that could look past her previous charges.

She wasn’t expecting SDN. Commercially-available superheroism was…oddly novel. She couldn’t explain what drew her to apply, much less what exactly happened behind the scenes that led to her sitting in a small office across from the most chronically-exhausted man she’d ever laid eyes on.

“I’m Robert Robertson, and I’ll be your dispatcher. It’s nice to meet you, Siren.” Robert’s brown eyes were warm, but flanked by deep shadows. “I’m in charge of handling your assignments when you’re on the clock.”

She crossed her arms in front of her, feeling a little uncomfortable about the whole thing. “Yeah, it’s nice to meet you too. Did your boss lady tell you about how I’m not actually a villain and that I’m doing this on a standby basis?”

“Blonde Blazer explained your scheduling needs, yes. But who said that you’re on my team because you’re a villain?” His head shifted slightly to the side.

“Because I can hypnotize anybody into doing whatever I want? It’s kinda in the name I picked.”

“I hope you won’t feel the need to do that with me.” Robert shifted in his seat and gestured to a remarkably rotund chihuahua sitting by his feet. “That’s Beef, by the way.”

Siren’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head at just how cute this fat little dog looked. “Wait, oh my god, lemme show off!” She put her fingers down for Beef to sniff, then sang in a gentle, low tone, “Go to sleep, tiny Beef.” With an immediate yawn, he laid his head down next to his master’s foot and conked out.

Robert looked at him quickly, then back to Siren. “Is he gonna be—?”

“Give him like, fifteen-ish?” She tilted her hand back and forth a bit. “Give or take.”

“…Uh-uh.”

“I’m not quite as bad as I seem. Go on, ask me about any of those bullshit charges that don’t mean anything because I never actually hurt anybody.”

Robert looked at a file on the desk. “Okay… says here you violated the MMPA. What does that stand for?”

Siren cleared her throat. “The Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed by Congress in 1972 to serve as a moratorium on the take of any marine mammals within the U.S. and also bans you from hunting, killing, capturing, or harassing them. Did you know that it’s illegal to hug a manatee back after it hugs you? Because that’s some bullshit, he asked me for the cuddles!” Her eyes flashed with emotion. “I’ve pet every single sea lion in SoCal and by God I’ll pet the rest of them.”

“Illegal underwater salvage?”

“Humans drop shit off boats all the time. Why is it a problem if I take what’s obviously not wanted anymore?”

Robert squinted at the sheet. “Disturbing the peace, nice.”

When she grinned too wide, Siren looked like she was baring shark’s teeth. “I bite catcallers.” Robert stared at her, brow slightly raised. “Okay, fine, I like to convince aquarium fish to unionize. Some of ‘em aren’t getting the care they need, man, and they gotta swim strong with one another!”

“Ecoterrorism?”

“Greenpeace!”

He sighed and ran a hand over his chin. “Okay. You’re still open to building a new future for yourself, so now it’s my job to send you where you’ll be most effective.” He tapped the papers for a moment and thought. “Because you’re a lot more specialized than your new teammates, I’d prefer you to spend time close to the water if you can. I bet you’ll be able to save a lot of lives.”

Siren let her arms relax, opening up her stance. “You don’t think I’m too much of a risk and need to stay directly under your nose?”

“I don’t. I think that you’re here because, deep down, you like helping the living things around you. You’re really passionate.” He was smiling gently at her. His voice was so warm, like the tropical shallows. “And I’m willing to bet that you’re smart enough to know what will happen if you start mind-controlling people.”

“I’d be so boned.” She nodded, tilting her head to match Robert’s look from earlier. He was surprisingly hot for a desk jockey.

“And that’s putting it mildly.” Robert stood up from his chair and extended his hand for a shake. “You wanna go meet your new team?”

Siren eyed his hand warily, but returned the gesture anyway. “Yeah, guess I gotta learn some names and faces now.”

“They’re all assholes. You’re gonna love ‘em.”

SDN Torrance didn’t have a pool on site, so Robert had Siren’s new coworkers, the Z-Team, meet up in a conference room. Siren stood awkwardly at the head of a long table as a group of nine heroes stared her down. Robert was introducing her like she was going to be anything other than a blip on their radars.

“Okay, listen up, because I’ve got someone you all need to meet.” He rapped his knuckles on the table to draw attention. “Everyone, this is Siren. She’s going to be doing some standby work for the team. Should anything go down offshore, she’ll be joining you on your call to offer aquatic support.”

She flashed a peace sign at the unfamiliar faces. “Sup. I’m gonna make sure none of you become fish food.”

The team went around in a circle and told her their hero names, and then unleashed a flood of questions for Robert. He fielded most of them, but a handful were actually directed towards her.

“So, if you’re a fish or whatever, how come you have legs?” Flambae sneered at her through a pair of polarized shades.

Malevola opened a portal just to reach through and flick the pyromancer upside the head from the opposite side of the table. “Oh my god, you can’t just ask a hybrid why they have certain traits!” 

Sonar, the other animal hybrid in the room, folded his arms. “We consider questions like that a microaggression. They’re a bad look.”

“Fuck off, it’s a real question!”

“Seriously, bro? It’s like an inch from racism.”

Siren snapped her fingers to get some attention away from the mounting argument. “I’m much scarier than a regular fish, dude. I’m part shark.” She snapped her teeth next, making a loud click. “And the reason you’re searching so hard for is magic. Ma-gic.”

At some point during the introduction, Invisigal had vanished. She reappeared directly behind Siren and gave her a hearty slap on the back. “Welcome to the team, Fish Bitch!” It didn’t take long for a chant repeating that new nickname to pick up. 

The meeting wrapped up quickly once Robert got the Z-Team to stop yelling. They lost interest in Siren fairly quickly once some calls started coming in.

A quick, high-pitched noise, almost like a screech, suddenly hurt her ears. “Ow, the fuck?” She rubbed the side of her head, looking around for who did that. Sonar, the bat-man, had his ears pointed at her. “Okay, did you just try to echolocate me? I’m standing right here.”

“My name is Sonar. I don’t know what you expected.” He shared a series of quick glances with Malevola, communicating something wordlessly with her, before straightening his tie and walking over to Siren. “But let me show you around the office.”

Robert had already shown her where all the important stuff was, and she honestly wasn’t planning on spending too much time in the office. But, playing nice wouldn’t hurt. “Uh, sure, whatever man.”

Sonar was a bat, but when he put his hand on Siren’s shoulder, she immediately thought of him as a remora. “Wonderful! Don’t you worry, I’ll show you the ropes.” He guided her through the Torrance HQ, pointing out basically everything that she had just learned a few minutes ago. “We’ve got all sorts of wonderful stuff here. Copy machine, staplers, a fully-stocked vending machine… Do you like Twinkies?”

She hesitated. “What?”

“Twinkies. The most incredible American invention—soft, perfectly golden snack cakes filled with a delightfully fluffy vanilla cream… you know? Blue and white box?”

Siren had seen people eating them. She knew what the boxes looked like. She’d never actually gotten her hands on one of the snacks—they didn’t do well when submerged. “No, they don’t have convenience stores where I’m from.”

He looked at her, tips of his ears twitching as he looked to be analyzing her truthfulness. “Where are you from, then?”

“The ocean, genius.” She smiled with too many exposed teeth.

Sonar blinked. Was this guy stupid? He was ignoring her thinly-veiled threat. “Cool, I love going to the beach. Love all the sand in my fur and the seaweed in my ears.” He fed a bill into the vending machine, waiting for it to whir to life and dispense the promised Twinkie. He snatched it out of the slot once it dropped and tore open the plastic, immediately surrounding himself with the scent of artificial sugar. “Fuckin’ love Twinks.”

“That’s…a weird name for these.” Siren hesitantly reached out when he offered one. She sniffed it hesitantly, a bit confused as to why it was so cloyingly sweet. A bit of the cream had leaked out the very end, and she hesitantly picked it up on the tip of her tongue. She noticed too late that Sonar was staring intently at her lips, watching every movement of her mouth. 

“So, whaddya think?” He was still holding his.

Siren immediately grimaced as the sugar left a cloying, gummy sensation in her mouth. “Nope. Nope nope nope.” She pushed the cake into his hands. “Take that.”

“Hell yeah!” He shoved both of the Twinkies into his mouth, swallowing them after only a quick chew. 

“I’ll be fine with some salt water for now.” She took a quick look at the cabinets, guessing that there had to be some sort of communal salt shaker somewhere around here. She found the ridged white plastic shaker over by the microwave, dispensing a few crystals into her palm, just to see what type it was. Table salt, she determined quickly. She licked the remainder of it off her fingers, muttering, “Ooh, iodized,” as she got the hot water running. Once Siren was able to get the water hot enough to dissolve the salt, she filled a mug and held the shaker upside down over it, letting the salt pour until it smelled good.

Her eyes glanced over at her new coworker as she took a long sip. Sonar was just…looking at her. Or, more accurately, staring. Maybe leering? It was tough to tell, since he had no visible pupils.

It didn’t sit right with her. “Do you show all the newcomers the vending machine?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter.

“Nah, just the hot ones.” He chuckled, matching her pose against one of the break tables.

“And are you, like, getting off on being the one who’s doing the staring instead of the one who gets stared at?” Siren didn’t know what to make of this situation yet. 

“I get off every day without fail, don’t worry about me.” He buffed his nails on his lapel a little. 

“What the fuck?”

He raised his chin. “I said what I said, and I know what I’m doing later.” Sonar scratched the thick gray-blue fur around his neck. “But seriously. You’re the only other animal hybrid on the team. I think it’s actually really good that they’re making the effort to give more of us these kinds of positions.”

Siren’s instinct was to circle him, to watch for any signs of weakness before striking. It would be so easy for her to pick him apart, to tear chunks out of his psyche like she were ripping bites out of her prey. But, she was in an office, not the sea, and this was a coworker, not her prey. She just wasn’t sure what to make of this guy. “You’re fuckin’ weird.”

“Half man, half bat, all freak, baby.” He grinned at her, raising one eyebrow and changing to a cocky smirk.

At that moment, Siren started imagining a way to take this loser down a notch. She’d tempt him into the ocean and flag down a passing whale. Surely, a man called Sonar would appreciate an example of real sound power when he feels his entire skeleton resonating.

“Ooh, someone’s fantasizing.”

The corner of her mouth twitched with annoyance. “Oh no, you caught me.” She replied, voice dry with sarcasm.

He uncrossed his arms. He was still leaning on the table, but now he was supporting himself by putting both hands on the edge. “I don’t blame you. We both understand the power of pure animal magnetism.”

There was no way this guy was for real. She had to be hallucinating. “You wanna know what I’m thinking about?” Her tone shifted, becoming smooth, almost a little dangerous.

“Every dirty little detail.” His chest was a little puffed out. God, what a loser.

Siren slowly crossed the break room towards Sonar, getting close enough to start making out the individual strands of fur on his face. “I’m thinking…” She purposefully rotated her wrist, and poured her mug of salt water down the front of his pants. “You stick to the sky, and I’ll stick to the sea.” She snapped her teeth at him, quickly enough to make his ear flinch. “Consider this your only warning.”

Sonar made an odd little chirrup before pawing at a napkin dispenser to start drying himself off. “Hot.” He muttered.

“Congratulations, this is my first and probably last day here.” Siren stalked out of the break room, turning on the little earpiece transponder that all field agents wore. She prodded the little button that opened up the radio channel, waiting for the chatter to die down before stating, “Uh, hey, this is Siren. I’ll go wait by Torrance Beach in case a ship sinks or whatever.” 

“Lemme know if the Yachties are doing anything weird.” It was impossible not to recognize Malevola’s voice immediately. “Those losers and I go way back.”

“Think they’ll be mad if I sink one of their stupid boats? I can make it look like an accident.”

Malevola sounded like she was smiling. “You should totally do it.”

“Nope, she just got here, don’t get her arrested already.” Robert cut in. “I have a different idea. I was thinking that the entire team could get together at the beach after the shift is over, so you can all get to know your new teammate in a place where she’s more comfortable?”

Siren was a little surprised at just how considerate of a suggestion that was. “Yeah, I guess I can show off a little bit.” She smiled as she hopped a shuttle bus to the beach. It got easier and easier to look past her rough start to the morning when the scent of salt air hit her.

Maybe this was going to work out after all.

Things actually did work out okay. Siren spent most of her day listening to the way her new coworkers spoke to each other on the radio, just starting to learn about their relationships with each other. Robert was completely right—the Z-Team were all assholes, but she liked them so far. Sure, they were abrasive and mean, but she also didn’t hear any of them hesitating to assist a teammate. 

Her radio screeched with an alarm she hadn’t heard before as the sun was setting. Siren nearly jumped out of her skin and hurriedly poked at the side of her head, trying to open her channel. “Oh my god, is it always that loud?”

“It’s designed to get your attention. Now, look alive.” Robert was all business. “There’s been a boating accident at a marina three nautical miles from your location. A pleasure craft struck a jetty and is now taking on water. We have multiple injuries and men overboard. Go fish them out. Sonar and Malevola are en route to assist with transporting the passengers to shore.”

Siren had no idea how those two were going to help her, but she wasn’t about to argue while humans were drowning and fuel was probably leaking into the sea. “Oh shit, moving now.” She ran down the beach directly towards the surf, staying on her feet until she got deep enough to swim. She ducked her head underneath an oncoming wave and allowed her true form to overtake her. 

God, it felt good to really stretch out and swim fast. Siren’s aquatic body measured about nine feet from head to caudal fin, and her tail was built for speed and power. If she had to draw the comparisons, she’d say that she was definitely a member of the mackerel shark family. When she swam, she relied on one dorsal and two pelvic fins to provide additional stability. Her arms mainly served as her pectoral fins for changing direction, and two smaller fins that extended from her forearms helped with tight turns. Her face, too, changed a little. When she opened her mouth, she displayed a full row of pointed teeth.

The thing Siren loved the very most about her body was her lateral line. Every little pore picked up on the electrical impulses created by muscle movements from the other creatures around her. She felt at one with her surroundings as she sped through the water.

A scent hit her nose before anything else—sharp, metallic tang. Blood and diesel fuel, mixing together. “Gotcha.” Her mouth reflexively watered a little bit as she honed in on the source of the scent. She couldn’t help herself; this level of commotion usually meant dinner.

Moving this quickly and with intent drew a bit of attention from the other aquatic beasts that called California home. Siren raced past shoals of surfperch and boosted past a barracuda. All around her, she could hear their voices reacting, calling her out for scaring them. She would come back to apologize once she fished the poor humans out of the water.

Siren had smelled the accident far before she could see it. She followed the natural upward shift of the seabed into the mouth of a harbor. A ferry was run half aground against a jetty, and she could smell the scent of burning fuel. By her best estimate, there were about six people already in the water. There was lots of kicking and screaming—

There was a body sinking downwards. Blood, so much blood, it filled her nostrils. Siren pumped her tail and darted to the victim’s side, hooking her arms beneath their armpits and hauling them up towards the surface. The incoming buzz of an outboard motor forced her to divert course as a fellow boater came to offer assistance.

“Watch where you’re fucking going!” Siren cursed, diving down to shield the victim from the propeller. She popped her head up a few feet away, getting the unconscious civilian up to the surface and supporting them, keeping their head above the water. She struggled with her radio, getting it switched on after a few tries. “I got a guy who’s not breathing, I’m at risk of getting hit by a boat while I tow him in. What do I do now?”

The line dinged as someone replied. “We’re inbound, just hand him to the big guy.”

A shadow flashed over Siren’s head, blocking out the setting sun for a moment. It deposited someone bright red on the sinking craft’s deck and then came back over towards her. Siren adjusted her guy as a massive bat monster hovered in the air over her. She got ready to push herself backwards and escape, because she was not prepared to fight a flying thing, but a hint of red drew her eye.

The bat monster was wearing a necktie.

“Sonar?” She asked incredulously.

“The one and only, baby. I’m gonna take him now.” His voice was different like this, much deeper and resonant. He extended his grasping talons as he dropped as close to the water’s surface as he could get. Siren pushed the guy upwards, allowing herself to sink down in order to get him as high up as possible. Sonar was able to grab him and flew him off towards the shore, where ambulances and fire trucks were waiting.

Siren hadn’t expected him to be capable of big heroics like this from the way he’d approached her earlier. She started to wonder if she’d judged him all wrong as they worked as a team to rescue the other boaters. Sonar was able to transport victims quickly to shore, and Malevola showed an incredible gift as she was able to take the wounds from anyone who had gotten hurt in the accident. Siren did a sweep of the seabed to make sure that everyone was accounted for.

She honed her senses as the water started to darken. Her body felt electrified as she searched for new pulses.

Something moved! Siren didn’t need her eyes to find it—her entire body was lit up as she tracked down the source. She dove down and closed in on her target. There was a little kid with a life vest on, stuck on a piece of debris. The buoyant device kept trying to yank them up to the surface, but it looked like something had snagged their clothing and kept them under.

Siren darted forth like an ambush predator, grabbing the child tight in her arms. She didn’t have eyes on her teammates, so she opened her mouth to scream for assistance, forgetting about her radio. “Kid drowning! Help!”

Sound crackled in her ear. “Toss him!” Sonar’s voice was strained, like he was flying hard. 

Siren kicked her tail with all her strength, rocketing towards the surface. She threw the child upwards the moment her head broke through, and had to hope he wouldn’t fall back down.

There was a great rush of wind as Sonar soared in for the intercept. His talons sank into the foam vest, securing the unconscious body. Malevola made a portal big enough for him to fly back through, and Siren watched from the harbor mouth as paramedics swarmed around them.

Rescue vessels, the harbormaster, and a Coast Guard vessel were still maneuvering the area. Siren ducked back below the waves and hid at the bottom to avoid being struck. There was lots of radio chatter coming through her ear, lots of overlapping voices. She laid flat at the bottom and watched the ships pass overhead, letting her body start to relax.

Robert’s voice came faintly through her radio. “Hey Siren, you still with us?”

She held down the button. “Yep. Just ready to get away from all the commotion.”

“Do you wanna go talk to the press and introduce yourself to the city? They write articles about big rescues like this, you could start getting famous.”

The very idea of being known was so distasteful that she winced. “I don’t want to start a mermaid craze. I’ll just have to haul more people out of the water.”

He chuckled softly. “That’s fair. But, I think your new team would like to celebrate with you. Want to tell us where to meet you?”

A small, private party was much more her style. Siren thought for a second and then told Robert about a certain section on a nearby beach where no one went but sea lions. Robert agreed to get the team together there with drinks and food in an hour.

Siren got to her beach ages before anyone else. Just as she had predicted, it was full of sea lions. She poked her head up out of the surf and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey! You guys wanna pick a new cove?”

A midsized male picked his head up and rumbled at her. “No. Too tired. We’re sleeping.”

She hauled out onto the shore, dragging herself forward with her arms. “Bro, there are humans coming. You want them to touch you?”

He looked around sleepily. “Eh. We can go around the corner.” The male started barking, which immediately set off the rest of the colony, and eventually they all managed to get up and walk a ways down the shore. Siren could still hear them complaining at each other even as they left her view.

The Z-Team arrived not too long afterwards. Siren was waiting for them in the water. They stood around in the relative darkness, almost like they weren’t sure they had the right spot.

Siren suddenly had a horribly fun idea. She moved to the shallows and let her dorsal fin gently crest the surface of the water, just enough to give it that classic “shark” appearance. The top of her tail fin followed it, and when she quickly turned around, it made a loud splash.

“Wha-what’s that?” Waterboy was the first to turn his head. “Is that…is that a sha, a sha—big fish?”

Siren dragged her tail slowly, just twisting it to play up the effect. She made another little splash, and then heard a loud “Fuck off, shark!” A rock broke the surface of the water and nearly hit her. She had to dart even further back when a giant glob of mud landed right where she had been swimming.

Siren surfaced and shook her fist angrily. “It’s me! I’m trying to be dramatic!” 

Punch-Up dropped a second rock back down into the sand. “Oh! Right, cause you’re a fish.”

Golem, too, reabsorbed a chunk of clay. “Yeah, we thought you were gonna eat somebody.”

“How can I do that when I’m all the way out here?” She asked, bobbing in the surf.

Invisigal and Prism shared a quick look. “Hey, you ever done the jump from Free Willy?” 

“Oh my god.” She rubbed her forehead. It wasn’t that bad of an idea—it would give everyone a good view of her tail so they could recognize her in the future. “You guys are gonna have to come out here if you wanna see it, I need deep water to launch from.”

Prism was already building a rainbow platform of solid light out over the water. “Bitch, I could make this happen in my sleep.” She extended it far enough and made two sparkling spotlight beams for Siren to jump through.

Siren couldn’t jump in slow motion, so she hoped everybody would pay close attention. She dove to the bottom and did a few quick circles to build up momentum before launching herself skyward, breaching the water’s surface in an arc above everyone’s heads. The sound of her re-entry drowned out the first reactions, but she came back up to some applause and a few exchanges of bills.

“So, everybody got a good idea of what I look like now?” Siren hopped up to sit on the edge of the platform. “I don’t want you freaking out if you catch me looking up at you from underwater. It’ll be such a pain to fish you out if you faint like little babies.”

There were mumbles of affirmation, then a group consensus to go eat all the pizza and beer they brought along to the beach. Flambae got a bonfire started quickly, providing light and warmth over the cooling sands. Siren exited the water, taking a moment to center herself as her tail shrunk up and became her legs once more. She always needed to remind herself to start breathing with her lungs again. She stood up, grimacing as a wave lapped over her and soaked her boots.

Siren trudged up through the sand to grab herself a beer. Despite magic making her clothes stay dry while transformed, her skin and hair were still wet, and when a breeze picked up she started shivering. She leaned in towards the fire as the talking and joking died down.

Robert stepped up on a rock that put him up to Golem’s height. “Listen up, I’m gonna be sappy for a second!” Invisigal and Flambae booed him in unison, but he held his hands out to pacify them. “Shut up, I’ll be quick. Sonar, Malevola, you guys operated as a perfect team when transporting the wounded to shore and assisting with first aid on site. I’m really proud of the way you two work like two halves of a whole.”

Malevola grinned and slung her arm around Sonar’s shoulder. “We’d totally fuckin’ die for each other and you know it.” She scratched the underside of his chin with her tail.

Siren felt a strange chill pass through her heart at the casual affection between them. She couldn’t tell if they were related, best friends, or an item. She still hadn’t decided how to feel about the way Sonar had acted around her earlier.

Robert continued, “I have to give a special shoutout to Siren. The paramedics said that if that kid had spent one more minute in the water, his brain would have been permanently damaged due to lack of oxygen. You got him out in time. I told you that you’d save lives.” He held his beer up. “To Siren!”

“To Siren!” Z-Team echoed, holding their bottles out.

Siren grinned, twisting a lock of wet hair around her finger. “Aww, I’m like, totally already changing from the Phoenix Program, that’s so cool.” She put on a mocking Valley Girl accent and cringed when she finished with it. “Ugh, someone kill me if I ever do that again.”

“Yeah, fish bitch, you did some actual fucking hero shit. You should get a celebratory dunk!” Flambae grinned, flashing a missing tooth before charging towards Siren. She took a step back in fear as he grabbed her under the arms and created an inferno around his legs so hot that it launched him into the sky. Siren screamed in terror as she rocketed into the sky, higher up than she’d ever been in her life. Flambae’s path took him out over the water, where he dropped her into the sea.

“You fucking asshole!” She screeched as she fell, taking on her hybrid form the moment she hit the water’s surface. The humiliation stung worse than the impact. Siren didn’t let herself sink, instead swimming away from the spot where all eyes would inevitably be watching for her to come back up. She swore at him a few more times to get the worst of her anger out before a horrible, terrible idea entered her mind.

Siren surfaced by the stretch of beach where she’d sent those sea lions. Most of them were sound asleep, but the largest bull lifted his head when she poked herself up out of the surf. She gestured for him to come closer.

The bull rose up on his flippers and walked a straight path to her, not caring when he stepped on the rest of his colony. “You again. The one who speaks both land and sea. What do you want?”

It took a second for her to translate her situation into terms he would understand. “I just joined a new colony and one of the bulls is not good to me. I would like you to scare him.”

His enormous, dark eyes stared at her as he took in her scent. This sea lion had a handsome set of vibrissae, and they quivered as he sucked in a deep breath. “Humans always move us around. I will move him for you.” 

Siren held her palms out, allowing him to scent her hands. “You’re a good guy.” The bull allowed her a single touch of his chin before pulling his head away. “The one who was unkind to me has the same colors as a male sheepshead. Not good eating, though. Too skinny.”

“I would not eat a human. But I would bite a human.”

She giggled a bit, then let him know of her plan.

Siren slipped back into the water and swam closer to the section of beach where she left her colleagues. There were a good amount of rocks that she could hide behind. She was too far to hear what people were saying, but it did appear that Flambae had been given hell over throwing the newbie into the sea. He was nursing a pizza slice a ways away from the others like he was in time out.

Her plan was simple. All she needed to do was raise her voice. 

“You who wield both fire and flame, hear my voice, say my name.” She sang out, proud of the rhyme she came up with so quickly. “Come to my side, warrior of the light. Come close to me, to do what is right.”

The hypnotic effect took hold the moment her words reached his ears. Flambae stood up with a dazed look on his face, pizza dropping discarded into the sand. He trudged into the water, focusing only on Siren’s voice. He got out to about knee level before the rest of the team noticed. Other voices rang out across the waves, trying to get his attention, but none reached him quickly enough.

The second Flambae got close enough to the rock, Siren signalled the sea lion. The bull jumped up and barked in Flambae’s face, breaking Siren’s control. He came back to himself the moment the piercing sound entered his ears and stumbled backwards in surprise, falling down into the shallow water. He picked his hands up in shock, splashing until he realized his chest was still above water. “What the—what the fuck? You! You fucking—”

The bull interrupted him by blowing a raspberry that lasted at least twenty seconds. Siren popped up next to him with a loud laugh, flipping him the bird with both hands. “Don’t fuck with the fish bitch, bitch!”

The water around Flambae started to simmer as he tried to activate his powers. He grimaced at her, jaw clenched so hard it looked like his teeth might crack. 

Siren swung around the other side of the rock and sat down in the water facing him. “Now we’re even.” She held out her hand to him. “I’d help you stand up but I don’t have my legs right now.” God, the warm water felt weird at this time of night.

Begrudgingly, Flambae reached out to touch her hand. He didn’t shake it—he kinda tapped it like a wimpy high five—but he got up on his own. “Whatever, I was just hazing you.”

“You’re so lucky I can breathe in the water. Anyone else would’ve, like, died.” Siren stretched out and started heading back for shore. When she got back out, she waved at the group and announced, “One of those pizzas better have anchovies on it!” Robert got her set up with pizza and another beer, and stayed close to her for a while, keeping a close eye on Flambae.

The party kept going long into the night. People kept leaving and coming back with more drinks and bags of takeout. Siren bounced between her colleagues, not staying with any one group for too long. There was a fine art to socializing, much like navigating a reef. She liked it. She liked having that feeling of control over who she associated with.

That being said, she was going out of her way to not talk to Sonar. It was difficult to pull off, because every time she caught him in her peripheral vision, she found that he was either looking right at her or pointing his ears at her.

Siren still didn’t know what to make of this guy. Malevola obviously liked him, and he sounded like he got along with everyone else on the team. It even sounded like he was overall quite effective at his job as a hero. So why did he set her scales on edge?

She glanced his way, eyeing him up. From a distance, and with his mouth blissfully shut, he was…oddly attractive? She liked his long legs. She didn’t think of herself as having legs when she pictured her own body. She always pictured herself with her tail. She liked the way he filled out that suit jacket too. 

Oh shit, his head was turning her way. She turned her head away so fast her ponytail swung. She didn’t want him to notice her noticing him.

He was coming over. Siren’s eyes dashed wildly around, looking for an avenue of escape—the surf! She’d go swim away and surface again when everyone went home. Perfect plan, a real ten out of ten, no notes.

Or, maybe she could just hope he’s here for Malevola.

“Hey, Siren!” Sonar practically jogged over, slinging one elbow around Malevola’s shoulders and practically hanging off her body. “I’ve been trying to get over to you all night.”

“Wow, it’s like I’ve been moving fast.” Siren leaned away a bit. “You good?”

He grinned, snout twitching as he inhaled. “Yeah, it’s all good here! I wanted to tell you, I heard what you did to Flambae over there. The song, from the second you started. I almost waded into the water myself.” He fixed his gaze on her face. “I was thinking, do you know how much people would pay to see a real mermaid? Or how viral you could go by releasing recordings of your song? Because I would make a great manager.” Sonar was speaking so fast that he was barely comprehensible. “I mean it, just say the word and we can start building you a fanbase.”

Siren quickly glanced up at Malevola, who was looking down at Sonar. “Is…is this normal?”

Malovola’s tail gently patted Sonar’s cheek. “Yeah, he’s fine.” She hooked her hand around his waist and shifted so he was forced to stand on his own feet. “You’re fine, right?”

“Never better!” Sonar chirped, voice ascending past the frequency people could hear.

“You drunk? On anything?”

“Drunk on celebration!” He laughed, almost stumbling in the sand. “And some beers. Nothing else, I promise.”

The demon’s face twisted into a frown. “Uh-huh.” She held up a hand to Siren. “One sec.” With almost no effort, Malevola pulled Sonar a few feet away and began whispering to him. Siren couldn’t hear their conversation over the sound of the surf, which seemed to beckon her with each splash. Malevola came back after a second, gesturing over her shoulder. “That idiot would like to apologize to you. He’s actually pretty whipped.”

Siren let out a snort of laughter, lower lip touching the lip of her beer bottle. “Is he always like this?”

“Yeah, but you’re allowed to hit him when he says something stupid.” She grinned, yellow eyes seeming to peer straight through Siren’s scales. “He’s such a little weirdo, but the two of us are ride or die.” Malevola made a beckoning moment with her tail. “He’s all yours now.” She strode effortlessly away, like the sand didn’t even affect her stride.

Almost immediately, Sonar took her place. “Heeeey.” He drew the greeting out a bit too long, straightening his lapels with all the confidence of a salesman. “I was totally a dick just now.”

“Trying to rope your brand new coworker into a scheme is a bad look.” Siren crossed her arms, but kept her stance loose. Her beer bottle dangled lazily from one hand as she shifted her weight back on one foot. Every part of her was trying to get away from him, but she couldn’t prevent the smile that tried to creep out from the corner of her mouth.

“Yep, I’m so cringe.”  At least he was honest. 

Siren wondered if she could keep this open streak going. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, hybrid to hybrid… why are you here? Why SDN?”

Sonar looked down at himself and smiled, and for a second, his energy changed. His persona seemed to drop away and show just an instant of true emotion. “Mal decided we were done with our old life.” He looked back up, and just like that, he was silver-tongued. “And just look at where it’s got me now! Got a sick gig fighting crime to occupy my time while my crypto portfolio grows.” His snout crinkled a little bit, becoming a smirk. “And it doesn’t hurt that everyone on the team is absolutely gorgeous.” He was staring at her again, and Siren frankly didn’t care for it. “What brought you here?”

“Everything costs money up here.” Siren shrugged. She didn’t need to tell him anything. She honestly didn’t have anything else to add.

“Cool, very cool… You ever been to Boston? When I was at Harvard, sometimes I’d go flying, sit on top of the John Hancock building’s observation deck in the middle of the night and just look out over the harbor, thinking…” He let out a wistful sigh. “Man, I love the ocean.”

Siren blinked, finishing her beer and taking that time to think. Sonar was probably trying his best to connect with her, but there was just something about him that kept getting in the way. “…I don’t get you.”

“Yes you could, I’m an open book.” He kept staring at her like he was tracking the sound of her blood circulating.

“No, you keep looking at me like you’re going to eat me.”

He chuckled. “Well, I’d buy you dinner first. But we could skip that step if you want.”

Siren contemplated hitting him in the face with her beer bottle, but refrained since she didn’t want to pick shards of glass out of the sand. Malevola had granted her permission to hit him if he kept acting up, but Siren wasn’t a fighter. The most damaging thing she could do to him was bite him with her sharp teeth, but this weirdo would probably be into it, and she didn’t know if she would be able to stop herself from killing him outright once she got him in her jaws.

She glared daggers at him. “Did you major in being an absolute dickhead at Harvard or something? In what universe is this an apology?”

He looked surprised, like he was used to this approach actually working. “No? I majored in finance with a minor in accounting.”

“Your ears are awful big for someone who doesn’t fucking listen to people either. Every time you’ve talked to me today outside of saving lives, you’ve managed to make whatever I say about yourself.” She couldn’t help herself, she was starting to raise her voice. “I was hoping we could actually understand each other and bond over the fact that neither of us are human, but oops! My bad! Looks like you’re no better than any other man.” She shoved her empty bottle into his hands. “Don’t fucking talk to me until you can be normal.”

Siren turned around so fast that her long hair whipped in the wind. Fury burned in her gut, filling her with white-hot sensation. She ignored any other attempts to call her over as she marched back to the waterline, meeting the rising tide. She disappeared beneath the waves the second it was deep enough to hide.