Sleeping in The Cold Below
Lucy swam deeper and deeper into the murky depths of the ocean, having tied Parfait's halo to her hair to act as a light source in the growing darkness of the sea. Though Ami couldn't help but think Lucy resembled one of those angler fish she read about in school, granted she'd only ever seen most kinds of fish in books.
"So... H-How h-have you been?" The little oracle asked as she delightfully twirled around in the bubble of air that floated just beside the leviathan. "Just great." Lucy responded rather flatly as she swam pass a school of fish.
"Q-Quick question.... A-Am I still a-a domain leader? I-I still count as one, r-right?"
"I plan to change the entire system when I get back. So no." Lucy remarked with a pointy teeth filled grin. Ami, not really one to argue, kept silent for awhile as they slowly drifted further and further below.
"D-Do you t-think there are m-mermen d-down here w-who'd date me?"
"Will you stop bothering me with pointless questions if I agree?"
"Uh... Y-Yeah."
"Then yes. I'm sure there are plenty of men in the sea just dying to be with you."
Ami didn't really know what to say at Lucy's comment, so decided to only speak when needed from then on. After a bit more time traversing through the sea, the young oracle pointed out that there was a sunken ship nearby that would help guide them to Penumbra.
As Lucy swam over to the wreckage, her titanic shadow easily dwarfed the wreckage of what looked to be an old navy boat. "S-Should I t-try looking instead, Pan- I mean, Lucy?" Ami fumbled her words, trying her best to seem strong in front of the woman she both feared and respected.
"No need... I have a contract just for this kind of size related situation."
With a light sigh of a white mist that warped the surrounding water, Lucy took a deep breath through her gills as she walked along the ocean floor, slowly shrinking with each step until she was just slightly taller than her usual 5'9 frame.
As Ami trailed behind inside the bubble, she couldn't help but ask about the Leviathan form. The demon let out another sigh, though less mist filled as she gave a light recap of her encounter against Cyel.
"W-Wait, y-you have eye lasers!" Ami exclaimed with a confused yet giddy look as the two walked through a large hole in the wooden hull of the ship. "I suppose 'eye laser' is a very gross underestimation of my power. But yes." Lucy remarked as they reached what was presumably the captain's quarters.
"Oh, b-by the way... Y-You're going to lose one of your second glass e-eye in t-three..." Ami counted down from three as she rolled her bubble ever so slightly to the right before a spear suddenly shot past her, piercing one of Lucy's glass eyes.
"A-A young mermaid i-is going to attack you from the broken window. Y-You'll realise that y-your chains are useless down h-here. So, i-if you could use a tentacle, y-you'll knock her out or kill her in the next t-ten seconds."
Lucy quickly turned around to see a mermaid with shining pink scales charging at her with a mouldy wooden spear. Heading Ami's words, she quickly jerked forward as two of her tentacles quickly launched forward, grappling the mermaid before slamming her head against a jagged piece of wood.
"Hmm... I don't know why I even thought this would serve as a challenge." The demon sighed, slowly swimming over and lifting her bangs to reveal her pinkish lower left eye that seemed to send the woman into a trance.
"T-That's new..."
"I recently became aware of how... Hypnotic I am to weaker creatures." Lucy said with a hint of embarrassment, remembering her time as Deus as she summoned a contract for the mermaid to sign.
"Now then, my little fish. I haven't tortured a poor soul in ages now... So be a lamb and scream." The miniature leviathan began to cackle with demonic as her tentacles slowly reached around the barely conscious maiden. "W-Wait!" Ami squealed. Lucy's neck ever so slowly creaked over to the oracles direction with a hideous smile.
"What?"
"Uh... S-She's n-not in any state t-to talk..." Ami muttered with an awkward laughed, looking away from the demon. "Wow, t-this f-furniture s-sure is nice? D-Don't h-hit me!"
"Then what do you propose we do? Thanks to the fish, I'm down a glass eye." Lucy grumbled and dropped the woman, letting her slowly drift to the side of the room as the two began to argue.
After a bit of time, the two settled down and waited for the mermaid to awaken until Lucy suddenly came to a very obvious realisation. "Why do you not look into the future and guide us to Auntie?"
"Uh... T-That's not h-how it works... I-I c-can only see up t-to a minute normally... Ten i-if I p-push it. It's n-not helpful in t-this kind of s-situation." Ami stuttered out. She floated around in her bubble while Lucy could only try and heal the mermaid with her ego.
With every attempt though, Lucy just couldn't get it right. She wasn't a healer, she was a tormentor, a harbinger of doom, a Cruel and twisted being of pure malice! Well, it's what she told herself anyway.
"L-L-Let me try..." Ami seemed to smile. She began seemingly gagging before a glitching mass of ink like void launched from her empty face. It splattered against the bubble in a sickly fashion, yet Lucy remained as stone faced as usual.
"Why did you do that?" The demon asked, swimming to the side of the bubble to peer inside at the Oracle, who was hunched over and continuing to vomit up more of her void.
"Just... POUR IT ON her." Ami's voice distorted for a moment, yet Lucy just stared at the inky mess inside. "I'm not touching your vomit."
"P-Please, j-just DO IT, YOU INFERIOR DEMONIC INSECT."
The demon took a deep, watery breath and shot one of her tentacles through the bubble, smearing a piece of the substance on it before reinforcing the bubble to stop it from popping.
Lucy could feel the ink practically moving. It felt alive and hostile to her tentacle.
Once she sealed it back up, she slowly made her way to the mermaid and applied the vomit to its wounds. The mermaid suddenly began jerking about, her limbs contorting in unnatural ways. With audible snaps of her bones and a blood curdling screech, she finally fell limp again.
"WHY DID I LISTEN TO YOU!" The demon yelled at the still vomiting oracle, but she turned around after feeling a small poke on her shoulder. There the mermaid stood, her once shining pink eyes were gone, replaced with a cold, empty void that resembled what remained of Ami's face.
"I... Am... S-Sorry, I d-d-didn't t-think s-she'd h-have s-such a violent r-reaction!" The mermaid stammered out with a familiarly pathetic tone. "What did you do?" Lucy questioned, looking back at the still vomiting Ami with a confusion.
"Oh... S-She was a-already dead... A-And I-I figured w-why n-not g-get a cool m-mermaid instead o-of... Me?" The mer-Ami nervously giggled as the bubble suddenly vanished, an old gold coin left in its place that she swiftly picked up.
"Let me guess. You figured that since Penumbra could possess things, you tried it yourself, you're now going to be a mermaid and keep your main body as a gold coin and... I'm assuming the main plan for this body is not to recover Penumbra, but instead to meet a 'cute merman'. Am I correct?"
"Uhm... I-I wasn't g-going to meet a g-guy like t-this. It's what's inside that counts." Ami sputtered out before grabbing the mouldy spear and pointing south.
"O-Okay, s-so there's a nearby village of fish folk. W-We h-have to there first." She said with a playful twirl, only to bump her head against a stray shard of wood that dug into her head. "C-Could y-you pull t-this out?" She nervously laughed.
With a sigh, Lucifer wrapped a tentacle around the wooden spike and yanked from her mermaid's head, letting an oozing black blood drift around them in the water.
"That should have killed her... She's nothing but a puppet now, correct?" The demon questioned as they began making there way to the village down south.
"Y-Yeah... B-By the way..." Ami mumbled before taking a deep breath and explaining as fast as she could; "Y-You're going to call me Dropllet, I-I'm a n-new recruit of t-t-the Shellton H-Hunting s-squad, m-my parents are the rule of the sea, I-I'm a tough, n-no nonsenses girl w-with a h-heart of gold a-and I like s-sea horses."
"Is this another one of your... What did you call it? Roleplaying games?" Lucy asked with a light snicker as they made there way closer and closer to their destination. "N-No... I-I just h-have to act l-like a completely different person in f-front of people... Or else the king will kill us."
"Your talking like I understand what is going on in your little head."
"I... Think I'm possessing a princess going through a rebellious phase."
Lucy's face immediately dropped as Ami explained that she had the memories of the girl who was once Dropllet, The Heir of The Sea. A girl who had, just so happened to be rebelling against her father by joining The Hunting force for the quietest sector of the sea...
"Oh... My, well that certainly isn't how I expected this to go." The demon sighed.
With little else but the simple undersea Town in sight, the two went off to try and hide the mild act of accidentally killing royalty. The second time in Lucy's life that she's had to hide something like this surprisingly.