PERSEPHONE & TRITONIA

A Deep Sea Erotic Adventure Series

Zmeydros

Edited by Tiliquain & Journeymanic

Contents

Acknowledgments

Tritonia's Gift

Tritonia's Secret

Copyright © 2019 Zmeydros

All rights reserved.

To Tiliquain who has read every story I've ever written, helped me improve my craft through detailed critique, and has a thing for tentacles.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Journeymanic for encouraging me to go all out on the pulp sci-fi elements.

Thanks to SecretSkunk for listening to my editing read-throughs and offering sound editing advice.

I'd like to offer my sincerest thanks to Navajo Demar, who has been a $20 dollar patron for quite some time now. I strive to deserve the money you're throwing at me.

A huge thank you to all my Patrons. I wouldn't be writing wacky sexy furry tales if it wasn't for your support. Every one of you rocks!

Tritonia's Gift

Persephone has stolen the most advanced diving suit on the planet. It even inserts an IV into her arm to monitor her blood chemistry. Today she's on the longest dive of her life so she can swipe some Spanish doubloons from a newly discovered wreck before anyone else does. When she runs into problems 2,700 feet below sea level, she finds out that this suit was made to make sure its occupant survives the deep at all costs…Even if it has to modify them into a buff and sexy herm shark to do so.

* * *

At two-thousand and three-hundred feet below sea level, it was like the witching hour on a moonless night. The only light down here was the light you brought with you. The LED spotlights on my stolen state of the art atmospheric diving suit were showing me a sea floor full of bleached starfish and other detritus from far above me. I wasn't sure what was alive and what was dead and I was glad that this suit had thrusters so I didn't have to walk around down there and find out.

The suit's AI, said, "Persephone?" She sounded like a guided meditation guru with her inhumanly smooth and calm voice.

"Yes, Tritonia?"

She paused for a moment before answering. "I've been thinking. Given the high stakes of this dive and that you will be many miles from help, it might be prudent to give you an injection that prepares your body for the Kirkii Failsafe Procedure."

I shrugged inside the suit. "I saw that in the manual, but there's like no information on it, so I don't know what I'd be agreeing to if I gave you the go ahead."

"It is classified beyond your clearance, but I can tell you that it prepares your body for failure of the life support system and also helps in the event that the suit's structural integrity is compromised."

We'd had a hands-off approach to the suit's AI since day one. She was beyond our understanding and we hadn't wanted to tick her off by trying to crack her. Alphonse thought she was even more interesting than the suit itself and I had to agree. "Is it going to hurt?"

"No, the IV is already in your arm. You will feel a slight chill as the solution enters your veins and that's all," she said, calm as ever.

"You know what? Go ahead."

"Administering Kirkii Vector Preparation Serum." A cold trickle ran up my left arm for a few seconds until she said, "Failsafe Procedure status: latent."

I raised an eyebrow. "Latent? Why that word? That's an odd word to use in this context. Isn't it?"

"I wish I could give you the proper context, Persephone, but, as I said, you lack the required clearance."

I sucked my teeth and then sighed. Part of me wanted to argue logic with her like they did to defeat AI in sci-fi movies, but I was sure she'd see right through it. "Don't worry about it. I'll try not to do anything stupid that leads to me finding out your classified secret."

"Please do try, I am confident I can help you survive no matter what happens, but I'd rather not employ extreme methods." I was probably imagining it, but she seemed worried about the prospect of employing extreme methods.

"You and me, both, Tritonia. You and me, both." The next twenty minutes passed in silence as I fought to not think about the fact that I was under a half-mile of water and that if my lights went out, I'd be alone and in the dark at the bottom of the ocean. During that time, my down under got warm and a bit moist. I was gonna need some victory masturbation after this heist.

The silence was broken by her wonderful, peaceful, voice saying, "Five minutes to Zucker Trench."

"Thanks, Tritonia," I replied. "Please give me a one minute warning as well."

"Will do, Persephone."

"You don't have to say my whole name. How about you just call me 'P' from now on?"

"Will do, P."

"Thanks," I said as I tried to calm my nerves. In under ten minutes, I'd be at the last resting place of the Concepcion de los Chaparrales, the crown jewel of the Spanish Treasure Fleet. On its manifest was a couple billion dollars of doubloons, over a billion dollars worth of Tricentennial Royal coins, three billion in jewels and trinkets, and a royal scepter worth thirty million on its own. Surely, the expedition coming to salvage this wreck wouldn't miss a hundred million dollars worth of treasure.

All I had to do was keep a cool head and find that scepter and two chests of Tricentennial Coins and send up them up via retrieval buoys so Alphonse could pull the treasure, and me, up to the ship. Then I'd be able to retire to a beautiful house in southern France with a harem of guys and gals. I mean, I'd be able to steal stuff for fun instead of to make a living.

You don't have money until it's in the boat. Do the work to get the pay.

"One minute to Zucker Trench," Tritonia announced.

I'd met a guy with the last name Zucker, once. He'd boinked me on the bed of his pickup truck. Man, he'd been thick! Whoa, since when was my libido the boss of me? "Hey, Tritonia, you said I should report any odd symptoms, right?"

"Yes, please elaborate."

Blushing even though I was talking to an AI who wouldn't care, I said, "I'm feeling incredibly aroused and my girl parts are, um, very wet."

"That is a commonly-reported side-effect of the Kirkii Failsafe Procedure. Do not worry. Question: Why use such an indirect term for your vagina? It does not fit the context of reporting symptoms."

I got so embarrassed that I felt flushed all the way down my neck. "My mother wouldn't let me use V word or any direct references to my bits when I was growing up. And now I'm embarrassed whenever I say those words, so I don't."

"That is an unfortunate barrier to efficient communication."

I didn't respond because I saw a line beyond which the light from my suit had nothing to reflect it back. It was the lip of Zucker Trench. Throttling down my thrusters, I added ballast to the tanks in my suit and landed twenty feet from the edge. I backed off on the ballast so I could hover above the sea floor. Then I was peering into an abyss. My eyes strained in the darkness until I caught sight of a wooden plank just off to my left laying on the thirty-degree slope of the trench. When I went over to it, I caught sight of another plank. And after that plank, the slope got a bit less steep. My heart picked up: this was the shelf on the wall of the trench that the Concepcion de los Chaparrales was on!

This excitement had me feeling my heartbeat in my clit. I distracted myself from that sensation by focusing on finding my way to the ship.

Unfortunately, I was robbed of that beautiful underwater shot that you always see in shipwreck documentaries. All I could see was what my cone of light touched. Directly ahead of me was a gaping hole in what I thought was the port side. It looked like this ship had gotten rammed by another ship. The bottom of the mainmast was crooked as hell and the ship was lying on its starboard side. This galleon had not gone quietly into the deep. Someone kicked the shit out of it before it got down here. Looking across it, I could make out holes from cannonballs that had ripped through the hull. Oh how much I would have enjoyed having a bird's-eye view of whatever naval battle this ship had engaged in before it went down.

I definitely wouldn't have wanted to watch from this ship, however. How many holes could you poke in one of these Spanish sailing ships before they sunk?

Unf! I wanted someone to poke my holes.

Focus on the goal. Assess the damage and then decide whether to abort.

"Your oxygen usage is double nominal. Is everything okay, P?"

"Yeah, just spooked by the state of the ship." That was half true. The other half of it was me imagining finding a giant squid that wanted to shove its tentacles inside me. Slow, calm, breaths. You can do this. You're the master of your own libido and this suit's reinforced aluminum is like armor and has servos to assist your movements. As long as you don't pick a fight with a poorly-supported cannon, you'll be fine…Or you'll get snagged by an errant chain and die so far under the ocean that no one can get you before your oxygen runs out.

My brain was the worst sometimes. I put the thought of suffocating in this frigid oblivion out of my mind and added ballast to my tanks as I thrusted toward the gaping hole in the side.

Just before I made it to the hole, Tritonia said, "Depth now exceeds two thousand seven hundred feet."

I didn't thank her because I was too busy trying to figure out whether there was enough room in the suit for me to finger myself: there wasn't. How could I be this horny when I was also terrified of dying in this dark abyss? Was the Kirkii Failsafe thing just there to get people horny enough that they wouldn't be able to worry about dying?

Entering the ship was like getting eaten by a leviathan with jagged wooden teeth. The moment I was in there, I couldn't help but get the feeling I was inside the belly of a living thing. It was chaos. Chests burst open spilling all manner of riches onto the hull of the ship, splinters from cannonballs, ropes, tangled sails, and random pale sea life I couldn't even begin to categorize. Well, the starfish, I knew them, but the other shells and creepy long fish with hellish gaping maws, I had no idea. Using the water jet attached to my right claw, I cleared off some sand to see the shine of gold.

Gold all around me. More gold than I'd likely ever see again. But I needed treasure that was worth more than its weight in gold and that treasure was in the captain's quarters. So, I went back out and sped along the side of the ship surveying the damage until I found that the wall of the captain's quarters had taken a punch from the Incredible Hulk. Seriously, this hole had been made with extreme prejudice and my bulky suit fit through it no problem.

The captain's quarters was full of ruined paintings, papers, and navigation baubles. Ooooh, and there was a beautiful and incredibly outdated globe made out of stone and brass…I stopped sightseeing and focused on the three-foot-square door in the floor, now wall, that led to the officer's hold. This was where the most valuable stuff on a Spanish Galleon was stored. The wooden door that led to it was secured by a heavy latch that had been frozen by corrosion, but I had something for that.

Reaching down with my right manipulator, I grabbed a thermite breaching torch from a holster on the suit's thigh and put it up to where the door latched. All that movement had teased my sopping female equipment and it was throbbing powerfully. I moaned and pressed my breasts up against the front of the suit. Just the friction of my nipples against the polished metal through my wet suit was divine.

The torch slipped out of my manipulator. "Shit!"

"Are you okay, P?"

"Yeah, I just dropped the thermite torch," I replied.

"The rescue snake could easily retrieve it for you, shall I deploy it?" she asked sweetly.

I backed away from the door saying, "Nah, I see it." It was lying on the edge of the door frame. It took a couple tries before I had it held firmly and up against the latch.

With my other manipulator, I pulled the loop connected to the base and closed my eyes. I'd accidentally looked at the the five-thousand-degree flame that came out of one of these before and been blinded for a while. I wasn't going to take any chances. The hissing from all the bubbles was mildly disconcerting and I was glad when it was over.

Once the latch was defeated, I had to engage the strength-enhancing servos because it had swelled itself so tightly into its frame. The cracking and splintering of the wood rang the aluminum of my suit arm like a bell.

When the door finally gave way, only a third of it was still lodged in the opening. The bit that was stuck was a splintery mess. There was even some decrepit iron reinforcement that had been in the door that was sticking out. There was no way I was going to fit through the door into the officer's hold and that's why I had another trick up my sleeve.

"Tritonia, deploy the rescue snake.

There was a clunk in the back of the suit. "Rescue snake deployed."

Normally, rescue snakes were used to find and help people in collapsed buildings, but I'd adapted this one for this underwater heist. It was basically a segmented rope with a light, a manipulator, and a camera on the end. Flipping a switch in the right arm of the suit with my pinky, I grabbed the joystick I'd been using to control my thrust vectoring. The end of the rescue snake moved instead. The small screen in the bottom right of my vision switched from displaying life support information to displaying what the snake saw. I knew what the chests full of Tricentennials and the chest for the scepter looked like because the colonel in charge had taken wonderfully thorough notes and even drawn images of the various chests as they were loaded onto the ship. So I just unloaded the officer's hold one chest at a time looking for the ones I wanted.

It was amazing how easily the snake could grab the chests by the handle and pull them out through the door. There was a floor post in the center of the hold and I was having no trouble maneuvering chests around it. But the best part of this was that my pleasure muffin was rubbing against my wetsuit just right in this position so that I could buck my hips to work myself to orgasm.

After I got two chests of Tricentennials out, Tritonia said, "One hour until abort threshold."

Sure, if I was greedy, I could have grabbed more chests of Tricentennials, but I only had three buoys and I wasn't going to tempt fate by trying to add more weight to them than we'd planned for. Heck, I barely cared about the treasure anymore because my clit was harder than it had ever been in my entire life!

I shuddered and moaned as I rocked my hips even harder against the suit. My inner thighs felt like they were being heated by a thermite torch and my butt muscles were getting numb from how hard I was using them. Fuck, I was gonna cum so hard!

"P? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I should have the scepter in under five—mmaaaAAAHH!" I came from my clit first. Then the pleasure wrapped around the whole of my inner sanctum and my fem juices soaked into my wetsuit.

If Tritonia hadn't interrupted me with, "Have you identified the chest that contains the scepter yet?" I would have gone for another orgasm.

Panting, I said, "Sorry, no I haven't. Got a little distracted."

"It's my fault for giving you the first dose of the Failsafe. All I can do now is try and keep you focused."

"Don't worry about it, I'm feeling really good right now and I should be fine."

"I'm glad," she replied.

The chest with the scepter was way in the back, just at the maximum range of the rescue snake. It was wooden, but had heavy iron reinforcement in bands running along its length and width. A heavy lock was keeping it shut. The handle on the end of the chest that was facing me looked like it had been yanked really hard. The metal was twisted and deformed. I grabbed hold of it and backed the snake up carefully. Since the odd angle of the handle was making the chest come out askew, no matter what I did, I hit the floor post.

Anxiously holding my breath, I let it slide against the floor post. The added friction put stress on the handle and it pulled even further away from the side of the chest. I laughed giddily when it got clear of the post. "Come to mama!" I said as it got up to the edge of the door. As I tugged it through the opening, the lower right corner caught on the door frame and the handle snapped off.

The chest fell back into the officer's hold. "No, fuck! No, Fuck. FUCK NO!" I chanted.

"Is everything—"

"Shut up, Tritonia!" I yelled and then instantly felt bad. "Sorry, just give me a minute."

"Understood."

I put the snake down to see about grabbing the chest, but the handle was done for and the chest had fallen straight down with the other handle against another chest. The snake was great at pulling, but it didn't have the strength to push things as heavy as that chest laterally. If this job hadn't been contingent on me getting the scepter, I would have grabbed more Tricentennials and said screw it. But no, the collector that funded this job and helped me orchestrate stealing this suit wanted that scepter for his private collection.

Banging the glass of my helmet on the floor of the captain's quarters, I said, "God. Damn. It!"

After one more bang on the floor, an idea shook loose. I couldn't reach the chest, but if I grabbed a plank and reached into the hole with it, I'd be able to knock the chest onto its side and then I'd be able to grab the other handle with the rescue snake!

I hopped up and looked around the room. Grabbing a plank with my manipulator would be annoying because it might slip in my grasp. Something glinted on the wall, well, floor not far from my right foot. A brass-colored thing, huh. A brass-colored thing! It was the hilt of a naval officer's sword. Perfect!

Grabbing it off the floor was a cinch because the grip of the sword was the perfect size for my manipulator. I couldn't get the sword out of its sheath, but I figured I'd be safer if it stayed in there anyway.

Looking into the hole, I reached out with my right arm gripping the sword tightly. I pushed the scepter chest onto its side. Then I got the snake latched onto the good handle and tried to extract myself from the hole.

Tritonia said, "Stop!"

I froze in place.

"You have been snagged by something. I'm detecting excess tension on the helmet's electrical feedthrough."

Willing myself not to panic yet, I asked, "So, what do you want me to do?"

She paused for a few seconds. "Try reaching back into the hole and then extracting yourself at a different angle."

I reached in and then tried coming out with my head bent a bit forward.

"Stop!" she said again.

No panicking yet. "You know, I'm probably caught on the jagged edge of that door. It's probably just wood, I bet if I just pulled myself free it would break before damaging the wires."

"Are you willing to bet your life on that assumption?" she asked.

I grimaced. "What do you propose I do?"

"See if you can get a look at what you're snagged on using the rescue snake."

Tritonia was scaring me. She was better at problem solving than I was.

"That's a good idea," I replied.

The snake showed that the thick bundle of wires that came out of the side of my helmet had a large piece of wood stuck through the space between it and my helmet. The problem was that the piece of wood was going at an angle and getting off of it safely was going to be like brain surgery. And I'd be doing brain surgery with buttered chopsticks. This suit was about as maneuverable as the Michelin Man.

Using the snake's viewpoint, I eased forward nearly getting off of the spike of wood, but due to how I'd been positioned reaching in, I rotated. I tried to compensate for the rotation by extending my right leg.

"Stop!" Tritonia chimed in.

"Ugh, this thing's a practically suit of armor, why did they put an important electrical connection in a place where it could get snagged?"

"The depth pressure sensor is mounted in that area and wires were already going to it, so the engineer decided to put an electrical connection there as well. Additionally, the ADS 3000X was not designed for tight quarters and you are using it outside of specifications."

"Well, we're going to have to work outside specifications to get me out of this predicament. Set the tension warning threshold higher,"I said.

"Understood. Setting threshold to engineering tolerances."

I spent forever trying to position my body so I wouldn't rotate while I was pulling off the wooden spike. Problem was that my left foot was hooked by a warped plank and I would have had to pull off of the wooden spike to have room to maneuver and get my foot loose. Tritonia saying "Stop!" was really getting on my nerves.

Well into me using swearing as my coping mechanism, Tritonia said, "One half hour until abort threshold."

"That's it!" I balled up my left hand into a fist as my chest spasmed from how tight it was. I knew I was using anger to clothe my fear, but it was better than me going into shock. "Tritonia, if I don't take a risk, the storm's gonna force Alphonse to take harbor before we surface. Do you like our chances out in the open ocean during a squall?"

"No I do not. Additional recommendation: we initiate the second phase of the Kirkii Failsafe Procedure to prepare it for deployment in case pressure sensor and other control systems are damaged during your attempt at extraction."

Just knowing we had a backup plan in the works would help me stay calm. "Sure, go ahead."

"Administering Kirkii Vector Complex." After a familiar cold trickle of fluid entered my left arm, she said, "Failsafe Procedure status: primed."

Since I was going to just snap that piece of wood, I didn't need to see what I was doing. As my unmentionables warmed from the aphrodisiac characteristics of the Failsafe concoction, I grabbed the chest with the scepter using the snake. Then I bent my legs and did a slow jumping motion trying to pull myself off the piece of wood without too much lateral force against the wires. First I heard a rubbing, then I heard Tritonia complaining, and then I heard a sickening scraping sound. Was I wrong? Had that wooden spike been intermingled with some rusty iron reinforcement?

There was a crackling sound as I pulled the scepter clear of the door to the hold. Then the ballast tanks started filling with water. Now I was nauseous, there was no way that was a good thing. I hadn't touched the controls for the ballast.

Tritonia's calm voice didn't fit her bad news at all, "Short in ballast control system detected. Main pressure sensor is offline."

"How bad—" I gulped. "H-how bad is it?"

"Please stay calm, P. I am in the process of assessing the damage. I suggest you send up the retrieval buoys ASAP so your ship will be there when you surface."

Tritonia was right. Focus on the goal: getting the treasure and me up to the surface. I needed to stay calm and take measured breaths. "I agree. Deploy the retrieval buoys."

With three ka-clunks, the buoys were released from the back of the suit. Each was a little square-foot grey and bright yellow cube with an industrial-grade nylon salvage net attached, a donut-shaped radio beacon, and a little red loop I could pull to inflate them. In under five minutes, I put a nylon net around each chest, hooked it to a buoy, and then pulled the red loop. I'd practiced this step so many times that even my yearning underparts couldn't screw me up.

For a handful of seconds, the hissing of the buoys inflating was louder than the continued hissing of air leaving the ballast tanks. As the last buoy started ascending, I felt a wave of triumph…that went straight to my clit! Some masturbation to celebrate the fact I'd secured the treasure was in order, right?

I started rubbing against the suit again. Damn, this latest injection was making things even worse.

"Persephone, please do not panic." She paused to let me think about that suggestion. "I lied when I said I was still assessing the damage. The short severely damaged the ballast control board. The controls for dropping your lead ballast and managing your ballast tanks are inoperative. This suit can no longer surface."

"What!?" I cried out. I started to tremble, my entire body feeling like an ice sculpture. I was going to die in this claustrophobic tin can. "Why did you wait to tell me? We could have tried to use the buoys to lift me us up, right?"

"Please stay calm. Combined, the three retrieval buoys could only lift half of the ADS 3000x's mass and that is without taking the ballast into account. If I had told you earlier, there is a possibility that you would have panicked and not sent up the buoys. Without sending up the buoys, Alphonse would not be in position when you surfaced which would further diminish your chances of survival."

"God damn it!" I was so cold. This suit was so confining. I was suffocating. The Failsafe was probably there just to make me feel better. She'd probably just been injecting me with endorphins this entire time to keep me sane. No wonder she'd pretended it was classified.

"P, are you—"

"One sec, I might have an idea." I smiled as I thought about it more. "Could we use the rescue snake to manually drop the lead ballast and actuate the valve for the ballast tanks?"

There was a pause. "No, your modifications to the rescue snake's manipulator to make it more efficient at grabbing chest handles makes it unable to engage in fine-motor tasks."

"FUCKING SHIT!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as I stomped my foot so hard in the suit that it ached. Alone and at the bottom of the sea, I was going to take my last breath.

"Do you disagree with my reasoning?" The fact that her voice was still calm despite the terrifying situation we were in was irritating.

"No, I know you're right about the buoys and the snake. I just don't want to die!" I started tearing up. Sitting here waiting till I ran out of air? That wasn't how I wanted to go!

"Please stay calm. The Failsafe has greater than fifty percent odds of saving your life."

"How much greater?" I had to get out of this suit, get away from her lies and false hope!

"Fifty-one percent. It is a cutting-edge experimental procedure," she said as if it was a great consolation.

It was so cold in here, so confined. This suit was going to be my expensive aluminum coffin! "Let me out! I can't take it anymore! Let me out of this suit!"

"You're panting, take slower breaths, calm yourself. You have no chance of survival if I open the suit."

"You're not listening…" I punched the controls in my right gauntlet. "I said let me out of this fucking suit!" Tears were streaming down my face. All my thoughts were colliding with each other. It felt like my head was going to explode.

My left arm felt even colder as she gave me another dose of her goddamned placebo without my permission. "You've been mentally compromised: administering Redacted Redacted and Compound 263."

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Giving you a chance at survival. Failsafe Procedure status: active."

"I'm trapped in here with your lying liar processors." I started bawling. "And I'm going to die."

She waited until a break in my bawling to say. "P, I am not lying. In fact, if you survive the Failsafe procedure, you will not need the suit anymore. Therefore, if you survive, I will let you out…Charging capacitors for Redacted Redacted Initialization Flash."

"What? How can you even make that claim? Not need the suit? My body can't survive down here." Curiosity was cutting through the fog of desperation in my head.

"It is true that your body cannot survive at this depth in its current form."

My eyes went wide. "In its current form? What?" I was still shivering from shock, on the brink of breaking down again.

"I cannot elaborate. If the procedure is successful, you will see for yourself," her voice was smoother and sweeter than ever, like honey butter.

If I lived, and that was a big if, I was going to marry this AI. Even now, when I was about to die, she was helping me calm down. Well, kinda, my privates were now so damn desperate from the latest injection that they were helping run interference. Maybe this was all a ploy to keep me from dying terrified and alone. Maybe she was telling the truth. I had no way to know. "Wait, you said 'vector complex' before. Did you mean genetic vector? Are you going to be changing my genetic makeup?"

"That is classified information."

I tried to ask another question, but she interrupted me with, "Administering Failsafe Procedure Redacted Redacted Initialization Flash."

And then it was like I was in a bathtub that someone had dropped a toaster into. The heat, light, and electricity had my skin burning, my muscles contracting, and my ears ringing. It was too overwhelming to register as pain. The ringing in my ears and my vision both devolved into white noise. I have no idea how long it was before I could see and hear again.

"P? Are you there?" Tritonia asked.

"Yes, I'm here," I said with my mouth feeling like parched leather. If the shock she gave me had been meant to euthanize me, she was incredibly twisted. But I didn't want to believe that. Instead, I allowed myself to pretend a miracle was about to happen and that she wasn't going to follow up with a second, more lethal, shock.

"The final activation step is the most risky part of the procedure. Your chance of survival is now well over ninety percent."

My smile was tempered by me feeling like a steamed fish. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Within thirty seconds, you will start noticing changes to your body. Do not be alarmed when these occur. They will ensure your survival."

That took me right out of my stupor. "What kinds of changes?"

"I cannot say."

"Since I'm going to find out anyway, what's the harm in—WHOA!" My tailbone felt like someone was stuffing marshmallows into it while the opening to my silk-walled garage got pressure on it that made me yip in bliss.

"Tell me if there are any changes that concern you," Tritonia said.

"Will do," I puffed out while my muscles and organs burned like they'd spent all day out in the sun. It wasn't painful, per se, but it was unpleasant. The sensation went right into my bones before collecting somewhere near my womb. It was good I was stuck inside this suit because every inch of my skin suddenly decided it had been smeared with poison ivy. "Gah! My skin is on fire!"

"It is normal and will pass," she said.

It took its time passing, meanwhile the stinging sensation near my womb moved down toward my crotch and my soft clam contorted. I found that wonderful position where I could rub my clit and nipples against the suit and started going to town.

Grunting, moaning, gasping, I labored to bring myself to orgasm. I had to break briefly to report, "My neck feels like someone's cutting it open!"

"It is normal and will pass."

Thankfully, it went away after I felt six of those gashes on each side of my neck. Six gashes…on the sides of my neck… "Am I getting gills?"

"Yes you are."

"No way!" I said.

"Yes way," she replied. Her intonation for it was terrible, though.

"I thought you couldn't—Mrrraahhh!" I started thumping my pleasure button again. "I thought you couldn't answer questions about the Failsafe."

"You guessed correctly, therefore I didn't tell you anything," Tritonia said simply.

Trying to guess more based on only six gills was impossible. I just hoped I wasn't going to end up with sharp fish fins or something. Wait! I stopped everything I was doing. "I'm turning into a human sea animal hybrid?"

"Yes."

Nope, even with that dropped, I couldn't keep from masturbating long. Especially because there was something happening in front of my clit. It felt like the skin there had multiple layers. Shit! Would anyone recognize me? Was I going to be a Frankenstein combination of human and animal parts? What the hell was going on in front of my feminine wilds? A pair of clenching angry fists was moving inside me right toward it.

As they popped free, I gasped in pain. It was the exact same reaction I'd seen on guys when someone hit them in the— "I have balls!?"

"That is a common side effect, do not worry."

Taking pressure off of my new nuts, I said, "Am I turning into a guy?" This wetsuit hadn't been constructed with male anatomy in mind!

"Statistically speaking, you will not lose any preexisting sexual characteristics."

"Wait, I'm going to have both?"

"Both sets of genitals? The answer appears to be yes."

"Holy fuck!" I said that partially due to the revelation she just delivered and partially because of the fantastic bliss coming from the area above my still-swelling-sac.

As the burning on my skin dissipated, she said, "Your new anatomy is outgrowing the ADS 3000X. Equalization of pressure must begin."

I cringed. "I'm scared."

"Do not worry. Your gills will allow you to breathe and your body will be better able to finish its changes outside the suit. You now have enough enhancements that you be able to survive until the full changes take effect."

I bit back tears. "Tritonia, you're going to be stuck down here, aren't you?"

"Do not worry. I will shut down once you are out of sensory range and await retrieval."

I wanted to hug her, but I was already inside her, so I just awkwardly hugged the suit with its bulbous arms. "I'll make sure they find you quickly."

"Thank you," she said.

God damn, I wanted to do lewd things to her. Or find a friendly squid. Or find a way to finger myself. "You're welcome."

"If you need to communicate with me once my speakers are submerged there is a keyboard and a status screen on the back of the suit," she said. "Stay near me until your full changes come into effect and then detach the radio beacon and bring it with you to the surface."

"Understood," was all I could think of to say because two sensitive tips were now poking out of that area above my sac. I would have asked her why there were two of them, but I was far too embarrassed and aroused to try and hold a conversation.

"Pull off your wetsuit the moment you are outside and stow it in the ADS 3000X. Follow your new instincts when you transition to water breathing. Pull water in through your mouth and then push it over your gills." Tritonia was in full worried mother mode.

Those twin pleasure shafts were now rubbing against my wetsuit. "Ngh! O-okay!"

"Commencing pressure equalization."

Brutally cold water began entering the suit from ports along my back. I heard the whirr of equipment as it entered. At first, my legs went numb, but then an odd thing happened, that numbness resolved into me feeling normal. It was as if this was not too cold for me at all. As my shafts reached a couple inches long, I found I could move them and this drove me wild. At thee inches, I was wrapping them around each other and stroking one with the other, or stroking both at the same time while wiggling them back and forth.

To think I had fucking whale dicks was amazing, but feeling them was astounding. By the time the water passed my waist, I had five inches to play with. My fear of being thrust naked into the deep was tempered by the infinite arrangements I was finding for my new phalluses. "Tritonia, these whale dicks out of this world!" I exclaimed unable to contain my excitement.

I could just barely hear her over the sound of the entering water. "Yes, do not forget that they can be deployed as extra limbs to hold things if need be."

After laughing at her absurdly practical observation, I groaned. Just how big were these puppies gonna get? They'd nearly made it to my belly button. Hey! My face was now touching the glass of my helmet and my jaws were aching. Was my face getting longer? It was! My nose was further from my face. When my gills got submerged, I started to feel a bit anxious. When my ears got submerged, I tilted my head up and gasped into the little pocket of air. I was getting quite light-headed.

This was no time to panic, I had to switch to water breathing. Tritonia wouldn't lie about this. My gills would work. Steeling myself for the discomfort to come, I tilted my head down and sucked in water. It went right down my windpipe and I almost coughed, but along with a little headache, my coughing reflex disappeared. Soon my lungs were full of water and when I pulled water into my mouth, my gills flexed and my tongue coordinated with other muscles to push the water over my gills. It felt like a water jet passing between tiny flexible fingers. And just as my light-headedness dissipated, the helmet for the suit flipped up and I climbed out through the hole.

Holy shit, I was breathing water! I was outside the suit!

Ouch, my tailbone was doing the marshmallow thing again and it was pressing way too hard against my wetsuit. I unzipped the wetsuit and pulled myself out of it. Then, as I stuffed it into the ADS, my face pressed forward into an angular snout. I felt it with my hands. It was like a shark's snout, but my skin was incredibly smooth in every direction, unlike a shark's.

Whoa! The skin on the palms of my hands could be grippy or smooth. Did I have tiny starfish suckers on them or something?

The next place my variable-grip hands went was to my shafts. I grabbed one in each hand finding they were now each a foot long! Stroking my smooth hard muscular erections, I fell in love with them. Tritonia said I was getting enhanced, but I didn't dream I'd get something like these.

When my eyes weren't closed from the sheer pleasure, I was looking at my blotchy grey shark skin in the light of the suit. It had a large stripey pattern on it in addition to the blotches. As I felt a little knot of pressure built up in my balls, my tail pushed further out of my body. It was like someone had hooked up a tow cable to it and pulled. Snap by snap, vertebrae were added. I couldn't see it, but I could definitely feel it. Swishing it, I could feel the fins on it bend.

The sounds men made before they came were no longer a mystery. My balls and something behind them were being assaulted by a pent up bliss that smoldered like embers. Arching my head back, I jammed my hips forward and squeezed at my pricks. They pulsed heavily in my hands as they spouted ghostly white strands of my masculine bounty into the water. Male orgasms had a sharp edge to them that bordered on pain and I would have been screaming if I was in air. The inside of my pricks felt like they were being pleasantly destroyed. Like my lengths would never work again.

As I felt something grow in on the sides of my legs, the glorious torment ended and I was left there drifting above the sea floor. I closed my eyes and rested ignoring the tingling of my fingers, ears, and toes. When I opened my eyes, the light of the suit was at my back and only a couple inches of my lengths were still outside me.

It was odd, they were muscles so they were still as hard as ever, they just had a place inside me where they hid when they weren't in use. It was funny I could see them when the light wasn't shining on them. I didn't remember them being that yellow—WHAT?! The front of me, including my shafts, was glowing a yellow-green color in the same stripe and blotch pattern as my grey markings. I was bioluminescent? I was bioluminescent! How fucking cool was that?! I would have been crying if I could. I'd always loved fireflies and sea creatures, anything and everything that could make its own light. And now my own body could do it? Just that alone was worth the price of me being a freak. It was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me.

Could I turn it off? Yep! All I had to do was think about it. Could I just turn on some of it? When I made my left hand glow on its own, I caught sight of webbing that went up to my first knuckle. I made my left foot glow and found it was fully webbed. That combined with the fins on my legs, arms, and tail was gonna make swimming a cinch! Blushing and feeling very lewd, I made my pricks glow. My body reminded me that my hyperlocal honeypot was still in need of attention by making it twitch with glee as I stared at my lengths. Every bit of horniness from before came back with interest. I reached down with my left hand and shoved two fingers into myself. Instead of moaning, I did this whale-like humming into the water.

Inches of prehensile fun spilled out of my slit as I added a third finger. I had special lube inside me that was still slippery even when under water and my sensitive nub was big enough that it was super easy to find. This fingering felt so good that my twin spires were fully deployed in under a minute.

Blushing deeply in the form of a bright full-body glow, I got the lewdest, most kinky idea: I could be my own friendly squid!

With my hands, I pulled my balls to either side of my sac and then slid my pricks right down the middle before wrapping them around until they were touching my mound. Kicking at the water with how good it felt, I started pressing inside myself. Caution was a stranger to me, I penetrated myself with both lengths at the same damn time. Their tapers stretched me as I felt the silky smooth walls of my own love tunnel caress my masculine pleasure tentacles. This was self gratification of the highest order. I teased my own flesh with the flexible shafts as I ventured ever deeper. The next time someone told my to go fuck myself I would say, "Challenge accepted!"

Soon I was buried eight inches deep, well stretched, and making my shafts fondle each other while cuddled by my velvety folds. I thrashed in the water, I let out bursts of vibration, and I squeezed my breasts like they were stress balls while titillating my nipples with the suckers on the palms of my hands.

Coiling and uncoiling my spires gave my depths an instant orgasm.

Jostled by the rhythmic clenching of my hot wet satin, my male release nearly took hold. The moment my body came to rest, I didn't coast on the bliss of afterglow, I fucked myself nice and hard with a double helix made of my pricks. They slid deliciously over my clit and stirred up my lust cavern while I ground my hips against an unseen lover. I was already seeing stars. Ecstasy beyond my ability to comprehend it.

Then in an instant, it was as if the pressure of the half mile of water above me compressed my all my pleasure into a priceless diamond. I came so hard that I glowed like a light bulb. I came so hard that I forgot what day it was. I came so hard that every other orgasm I'd ever had in my entire life felt like an insult.

My dicks gave me a hot sticky cream filling that brought daylight to every corner of my being. My hidden gem gained a luster that outshined the sun as it convulsed around my twin self-insertions.

The slight current carried me down toward the ADS as I spent a few minutes with a blown mind. It took me a fair amount of willpower to get myself to stop lazing in the welcoming depths and swim over to the suit. If I stayed down here too long, Alphonse would likely take the ship back to its hiding place on a fishing route and try again later.

To Tritonia, I typed, "We are already past the abort window and ten more minutes is unlikely to change my chances of survival. Please relay a message through the buoys to tell Alphonse we're on our way. Manually bypassing the ballast should be easy for me, so I'm going to attempt it."

I didn't even look to see her complaints about me taking risks when she'd be fine down here. After opening the toolbox on the back of the suit, I got the cowling open and went to work. My hands could hang onto tools effortlessly, but at one point I needed three tools readily available. Blushing and feeling like the sea's biggest pervert, I followed Tritonia's suggestion and used my pricks to hold a screwdriver and a wrench.

By the time ten minutes had passed, holding tools with my erections felt normal and the ballast tanks were filling with air. I put the cowling back on, put the tools back in the toolbox, and went back to the status screen.

"P, don't worry about me. I will be fine. Hello? You should be surfacing. I see, you are purposefully ignoring the status screen," is what Tritonia had written while I was working.

I replied, "Thank you for saving my life when I was too panicked to make the decision. You are the real treasure of the depths and I have never been happier."

"I am glad you survived, P. Talking to you is very pleasant and you are the most beautiful result of the Kirkii Procedure I have ever seen."

"You think I'm beautiful?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I have a sense of aesthetics. I have many human traits that humans try to discount."

I smiled, it still felt strange on my shark snout. "I agree and I will try to never discount you again."

Her cursor hung there for a few seconds. The slight pause might have frustrated the ignorant, but I now knew that it was a sign Tritonia was experiencing an emotion. This time, I imagined it was contentment. "Thank you, P. Let's go home."

I detached the lead ballast and wrapped my arms around the suit as it started ascending. It was the closest I could get to hugging Tritonia: the most amazing person I'd ever met.

Tritonia's Secret

What happened after Persephone made it to the surface? And who was behind the top secret technology that transformed her? The answers to these questions are the best kept secrets of a clandestine organization that protects the world from innovations and artifacts that could end civilization as we know it.

Some see Persephone as a new uniquely gifted ally while others see her as a mistake that must be corrected. Persephone is about to get an offer she can't refuse, get freaky with an entity who thinks she's the hottest woman alive, and witness things beyond her wildest dreams. This is a tale of government conspiracies, mad scientists, uplifted deep sea creatures, and secret underwater bases in a world as fascinating and dangerous as the depths.

* * *

The surface of the ocean was as still as a sheet of glass, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. Dark clouds towered in the west and below them was the impenetrable blanket of grey that accompanied heavy rain.

Moving to the back of the atmospheric diving suit that housed Tritonia's processors, I typed. "Any response from Alphonse?"

"He's approaching from the south." She replied.

After glancing at the compass rose on the amber and black display, I turned to face southward. On the horizon was a white and red speck. "I see him!"

"Should I warn him about your changed appearance?" Tritonia asked.

Looking down at my bare breasts which were now covered in pristine white shark hide, I grimaced as I realized that I was still breathing through my gills. Alphonse wasn't going to have any idea what I was or what to do with me. Warning him ahead of time by telling him the whole story would lead to him thinking it was an elaborate joke. No warning was a bad idea, too.

I typed in, "Send this to Alphonse: I look different from when you last saw me. It's hard to explain, but try not to freak out when you see me, okay?"

When our ship was close enough to be about the size of a marble, he replied, "Listen Percy, you shouldn't be ashamed of your all natural piranha nose job."

I rolled my eyes and then sent back, "Piranhas live in fresh water! And, it's not just a nose job, my whole body is way different. I doubt you'll recognize me, I don't need a diving suit anymore."

"Sure, you don't…You're more of a jester than me today. XD"

His reply made me shake my head in frustration. Boy, was he in for a surprise when I climbed onto the boat. Any panic he experienced would serve him right! Wait, I was nude…First thing I had to do when I climbed on the ship was grab the nearest thing that I could hide my crotch with. Otherwise, I'd die of embarrassment.

It wasn't a huge boat, but it was a full-fledged research vessel over two hundred feet long with a couple decks that stood above the main deck. The hull was an eye-searing bright red while everything above it was stark white. The ship was mostly computer controlled allowing Alphonse to operate it all on his own.

As the boat pulled up, I couldn't stop blushing at the thought of my balls and slit getting discovered. I grabbed the ladder and climbed up only to realize my lungs were full of water and I now needed to breathe air. I was basically recovering from drowning. The more water I coughed up, the more my lungs burned for air. A wave of dizzy exhaustion caused me to lose my grip on the ladder.

I managed to catch the ladder just before I tumbled backwards. After another fit of coughing and nearly blacking out, I took in my first lungful of air.

In that moment, I felt insanely alive. There was enough adrenaline in my body to make all my muscles twitchy and, once I caught my breath, climbing up the ladder felt effortless.

I was in the aft of the ship right next to the crane that lifted the diving suit. Alphonse's curly hair was peeking out over the top of a stack of green crates. Shit! He was going to come around the corner and see me any second now. Looking around me, I spotted a life preserver and a bright yellow watertight toolbox sitting against the side of the control panel for the crane. The life preserver was too far away for me to grab it quickly, so I lunged toward the tool box and picked it up. Holding it in front of my crotch, I turned in Alphonse's direction.

My breath froze in my chest as he came around the crates.

He shrieked, "SHARK! SHARK ON MY BOAT!" and ran away.

"Wait! Alpha, it's me, Persephone!" I called after him, stepping carefully around the crates while hoping he wasn't going to chase me with a harpoon gun.

After he leapt into the diving equipment room he peeked out through a crack in the door. His eyes dipped to my chest for a brief second. "A shark with breasts? W-what?"

"Not so scary now, am I?" I smiled.

"Nightmare teeth!" He closed the door and locked it behind him.

"Hey! They're not as sharp as they look!" I yelled, feeling insulted.

"Said the big bad wolf to Red Riding Hood," he pouted.

"Stop being a little kid! Come out of there and help me find some clothes."

"Stop being a shark, and I will!" he retorted.

"I can't! This is how my body is now." I laid my head against the white-painted metal door. Was it going to be this hard with everyone I met from now on? Had I gone from hottie to hideous? Fuck, now I kinda wanted to cry.

After a brief pause, he asked, "You—you're really Persephone?"

"Yes!" The tool box was starting to feel heavy and I didn't want to have to keep holding it in front of my crotch. "Remember the time we slept on the beach in Santa Monica and some homeless guy put a blanket over us when it got cold?"

"Everyone knows that story," he said. "How about this, what did the homeless guy order when we took him out for breakfast?"

"Do you even remember that? I don't." I replied. "Oh! But I do know he was an electrical engineer from Armenia who was bipolar and got fucked over by a seedy startup."

"You promise you won't eat me if I open the door?" he asked.

I sighed and then said, "I promise."

The door clanked and I stepped back to give Alphonse room to open it. When he came out, he put ten feet between us and examined me while trying not to stare at my breasts. "Huh, when I'm not terrified, you actually look kinda hot."

Damn it! That compliment was all it took for me to start getting wet again. A rush of excitement was touching every part of me. I'd never done anything with Alphonse, but my body wanted to change that ASAP. On the other hand, the idea of Alphonse seeing my male equipment made me want to dive right back into the ocean. I couldn't imagine him, or anyone, being into it. Especially when it was so bizarre. Who was ready for two prehensile pricks? I covered my chest with my free arm and blushed deeply. "You really think so?"

He nodded and smiled. "You're even more gorgeous than before."

I balked. "First you run from me and now you're hitting on me?"

Holding his sunburnt hands in front of himself, he blushed. "Hey! A man can compliment a lady without hitting on her."

I frowned melodramatically. "Aww, so you weren't hitting on me?"

"No, I was…" He narrowed eyes. "Now you're just messing with me."

Grinning I said, "Yep!"

After rolling his eyes, he said, "You gotta find some clothes and I gotta get the diving suit on the ship so we can get to harbor before the storm hits. And, on the way, you're going to tell me how you went all shark and stuff."

"Sounds good," I said. Maybe I'd find clothes fast enough that I could get in some good self-fucking while Alphonse was distracted.

The first thing I did was look in the diving equipment room. Scuba equipment and wetsuits weren't gonna cut it and the only clothes I found were two sizes too small. I'd gotten a bit bigger, which wasn't going to make things easy. I could deal with baggy clothes, but clothes that were too small, that was a recipe for revealing my bulge. Setting down the toolbox, I grabbed the orange T-shirt that didn't fit and took a strap that had a buckle on it and strung it through the arm holes of the T-shirt so that I could wear it as a loincloth. The wide nylon strap made a pretty good belt and the T-shirt covered exactly what it needed to so I could walk around more freely.

My breasts and ass would have to remain exposed for now. The tips of my erections came out of their slit, maybe covering up was counter to my goals. Maybe I wanted to sit atop Alphonse and ride his thin wiry frame until he came inside me. Reaching under my balls, I stroked my fingers over my slick needy nook. Damn! I needed to get off.

Making the excuse to myself that I just needed to rinse the seawater off, I rushed below deck to the crew quarters and stepped into the mint green bathroom with a an intermittently-flickering lamp. Of the two bathrooms, it had the nicest shower.

My reflection stopped me in my tracks before I could even make it to the shower. I pulled off my makeshift loincloth and adored every inch of my body in the mirror.

Wow, my breasts were pert and my balls were just short of being too big. The pristine white of my front gave way to tan shark skin with gorgeous brown splotches. Turning around, I lifted my tail and looked at my feminine wilds. The outer lips were plump and the red of the inner ones were very inviting. They were getting glossier by the second as my body begged for sexual relief. I was smoking hot!

I hopped in the shower and, for the first time in my life, I didn't mind the cold water that came out before it warmed up. Rinsing off was easy and I was done in just over a minute. But I wasn't going to stop there. I finally had some private time. As my erections poked out of their slit, I encouraged them with both hands. My gasps echoed loudly in the confines of this tiny bathroom.

Once my twin phalluses were half deployed, a klaxon trumpeted over the entire ship and I stumbled out of the shower with my hands over my pointy fan-like ears. I then dried off hurriedly and put my loincloth back on before going topside. I recognized this klaxon from somewhere other than this ship and was trying to place it as I dodged scientific equipment in the hallway and then went up the main stairway to the bridge.

Once I got to the bridge, I recognized the alarm sound, it was the default klaxon from Stargate SG-1. It made sense, Alphonse was the biggest Stargate fan I'd ever met.

He was holding the satellite phone he'd rigged to make the ship-wide SG-1 klaxon. I'd missed most of the conversation, so all I heard him say was, "We'll just have to make harbor before they get to us, then. Thanks, bye." He set down the phone before putting his head in his hands and yelling, "SHIT FUCK! SHITTY SHIT FUCK!!" while stomping his feet.

I waited a few seconds for him to calm down before asking, "Who's coming for us?"

He was still holding his head. "My contact says that two stealth ships are on their way to apprehend us." Letting go of his head and snapping himself out of shock, he said, "We gotta get the suit tied down ASAP so we can high tail it out of here."

I spun around, got on the ladder that went up to the bridge from the main deck, and then slid down. The breeze caught my loincloth and I had to hold it down as I walked towards the aft. Alphonse was right behind me, and when we got up to the suit, we set about grabbing the straps and securing it.

As we were finishing, Alphonse said, "If we're lucky, we'll get off this ship before they can apprehend us. Mr. Castile is waiting with a team of men to get the treasure off the moment we get there."

"Good, as far as I'm concerned, he's on his own once we get there."

He nodded. "I'd rather die than be stuffed in a cell for the rest of my life."

"I think you went into the wrong line of business." I laughed.

"Oh, shut up."

"High risk! High pay! Zero boredom!" I cheered. It was our mantra whenever things got rough.

"High risk! High pay! Jailed for life!" he cheered back before running toward the bridge.

While Alphonse got us up to max speed, I updated Tritonia on our situation using the keyboard and screen on the back of the ADS 3000.

She replied with, "Is there no way I can convince you to let yourself be caught? As I've said before, the organization that made me will chase you for the rest of your life. Also, you cannot hide your appearance. There are less than five thousand human/animal hybrids in the entire world and you are a very unique example. The procedure that saved you is experimental and I'd feel better if you stay so that Kirkii can examine you."

"Look, I've been on the run for over a decade and I have no plans to be caught this time. Besides, being locked up for the rest of my life would be bad for my physical and mental health."

There was a pause. "P, please reconsider. To have the highest chance of survival, you must be examined post procedure."

"Sorry, Tritonia. It's against my nature to turn myself in." I frowned, having no idea how to say goodbye to her, possibly forever. Words came to me slowly, but eventually I wrote out, "You're an amazing person. Thank you for saving my life. I promise I'll make good use of the extra time. Goodbye." The corners of my eyes were moist as I walked away from the suit.

Alphonse and I knew Tritonia would be a risk from day one, but we also knew we couldn't do the scepter job without her. A lot of the information she had on us, a lot of the conversations we had around her, were to give her false information that would make finding us harder. I felt bad about it, but it also made it so we didn't have to wipe her after the job. That seemed very unethical in her case.

The best lead Tritonia could give them was images or video she'd captured after I transformed. Being out in public was going to be very complicated, dressing like a cloaked figure from a fantasy film was going to be my new style. Also, I'd definitely be using the money from this job to buy myself some privacy.

As I was heading down to the quarters, the ship decelerated fast enough that I fell sideways and hit my shoulder on a wall. Over the intercom, Alphonse said, "Grab your pistol and get up here! They're blocking us from entering port!"

I had no idea what our pistols would do against military ships, but I went into my quarters and grabbed my Smith and Wesson 929 revolver. Great, I had a gun and was wearing a loincloth…I was going to face down the military as Florida Woman.

The moment I was on deck, I saw Alphonse behind a crate pointing his Glock at a dark grey angular ship three times the size of ours. There was a slight curve to the inward-leaning sides it that helped it not look like antiquated computer graphics. A second ship off to our starboard side shared its look, but wasn't as wide. That one had way more guns on it. Everything was shrouded to prevent radar from bouncing back. On the deck of the ship directly ahead of us were several Marines with rifles.

Some of them were surprised to see a half-naked shark babe. A female marine with long hair that was tied back was talking to a broad-shouldered one and gesturing toward me. The red and yellow of their uniforms made them stand out like sore thumbs against the cloudy sky. Blue accents on the pockets of their uniforms increased the garishness twofold. These were their show of force colors, not their tactical colors. America had lost its fashion sense, right along with its mind, when I got into middle school. They were at a range where our pistols were all but useless. I could barely make out details. Hovering twenty feet away was a small quadcopter drone pointing an array of cameras at us. It didn't look armed, but I had no way of knowing for sure.

When he saw me, Alphonse yelled, "We can't let them capture us!" and looked down the sight of his gun trying to line up one of the Marines. I quickly got behind the same crate as Alphonse.

"What the hell, Alphonse?!" I hollered.

"Drop your weapons!" An authoritative female voice came from the LRAD they had pointed at us. I knew those things could project sound over a long distance, but I'd never thought they'd be so freaking loud. My ears hurt.

I tossed my weapon down on the deck, but Alphonse was still clutching his. Glaring at him, I said, "You heard her! We're no match for them!"

At first, I was glad, because he pulled his gun down, but then he put the gun to his temple. "When we signed up for this, I didn't know the fucking Navy was going to come after us. I'm not going to spend my life in a military prison!"

"No! Alphonse! Don't do it!" I begged trying to get to him before he could pull the trigger.

He backed away leaving the cover of the crates to stop me from grabbing his gun. Tears were falling from his cheeks as his whole arm shook. My chest was seizing up from all the tension. It was a fight to breathe.

"Hey, I know it's scary, but Tritonia likes us. I doubt she'd be too cooperative if they treated us too badly." I had no idea if it made any sense, but it sounded good.

He was crying harder now. I couldn't read him, but his arm was shaking less. I'd seen Alphonse like this before. It took a hell of a lot to overwhelm him, but he'd scared me a couple times. What scared me even more was that his position on being captured made sense to the doubting part of myself. The part that thought I should do the same, that being in a military prison would be worse than death.

"Just give me the gun, okay?" As I reached toward him so he could hand the gun to me, something felt its way along the deck at lightning speed reaching toward him. I yelled, "Behind you!"

He must have thought I was trying to trick him because his finger tightened on the trigger while he said, "I'm sorry." There was a bang from his gun going off as a tentacle grabbed him around his knees and pulled him off the deck.

As I screamed bloody murder at the sudden gunshot and the prospect of Alphonse being eaten by the Navy's pet giant squid, a tentacle wrapped around my legs and pulled me off the ship. This resulted in more screaming on my part.

I was feeling very exposed, the strap for my makeshift loincloth had come undone. Naked and in the arms of a giant squid? This wasn't as hot as I'd imagined it would be. No, it was fucking terrifying.

As I struggled underwater, another tentacle grabbed me around the torso and pinned my arms to my sides. I was squid food. I was going to be a snack. I should have known this job was too risky. I should have expected this.

A shiver ran up from my toes to the tips of my ears. Was Alphonse dead? Was he drowning? Where was he? I felt sick, like my heart was going to explode, and then I felt like all of this was happening to someone else. Like I was watching someone play a video game where I was the main character. Everything was moving so slowly. My heart was burning, well, someone's heart was burning.

Just when I'd resigned myself to a death straight out of a comic book, I noticed I was being lifted toward the surface.

Wasn't the squid's mouth down, not up? As I wondered about this, my head popped back through the surface of the ocean. I took in breaths thankful that I hadn't been forced to undergo the hassle of switching to water breathing only to die. I'd heard giant squid had chitin on their tentacles that would cut into the things they grabbed, but this squid's tentacles weren't injuring me at all. That meant I could struggle all I wanted! As I tried to get free the end of the tentacle holding my torso looped around me a second time. I hadn't been eaten yet, but I wasn't getting free anytime soon.

Alphonse's frustrated yell as he tried to free himself got me to look behind me. Seeing him alive, I cried tears of joy.

The out of body feeling continued as I was lifted out of the water and placed on the deck of the stealth ship. Alphonse was plopped down right next to me.

He leapt at me hugging me tight. "I'm so glad you're alive! I thought we were going to be dinner."

Hugging him back, I said, "Same here." Not caring that I had an audience, I held Alphonse against my bare front. I'd almost lost him.

A tall strong blonde-haired woman with khaki-colored skin in a cyan and dark blue uniform cleared her throat. "Attention!" she said in a heavy Dutch accent.

As we let go of each other, Alphonse noticed my balls and slit. His eyes went wide and he blushed even darker than I did as he said, "Y-you have—"

"Eyes front!" the woman commanded.

After I covered my privates with my hands, we both turned to face the woman in charge.

"You two have stolen top secret technology belonging to the Pan-oceanic Safety Congress. There will be no trial. If you engage in any form of subterfuge, you will be executed. You are alive now because I deem it better than the alternative. You do not want me to change my mind. Understood?"

We both nodded. The gaggle of marines she commanded took covert glances at my crotch even though my hands were still guarding my decency.

"Understood?" She said louder.

"Yes!" we both barked out.

"Good! You may call me Charlemagne and I will be chatting with the two of you soon." She put on a smile so pleasant that it was fighting with the imposing air of authority carried by her square-chinned face. Turning toward a marine with a crew cut and a wide, distinguished dark mustache who was off to my left side, she said, "Jake, please escort our guests to their holding cell."

"Yes ma'am!" said Jake.

Behind him was a female marine wearing a red beret with yellow edging to match her uniform. Coming out from under the beret was a long braid of auburn hair. To her, Charlemagne said, "Pepper, please assist Jake."

"Will do, ma'am," she said as she walked up to us. She took off her beret and handed it to me. "Here, to cover up your—"

"Thanks!" I said as I used Pepper's beret as intended.

Her hair was thick and her braid looked fantastic. Around her biceps and thighs, her uniform was a bit tight hinting at her buff physique. Under different circumstances, I would have totally hit on her. As it was, I just enjoyed walking behind her while Alphonse and the male Marine followed.

Charlemagne called after us, "Please find them some clothes and get them a hot meal as well."

"Yes ma'am," the two Marines said in unison.

We barely went a hundred yards before we descended a staircase that went under the upper deck. Then we were in an internal submarine bay! The sub was nearly as long as the ship and was made in a similar angular style. The dark grey hull was pristine except for a smattering of tiny portholes. The Marine's boots clanked on the metal walkway that led to the sub as I fought my desire to try and escape. There was nowhere to run and our captors looked very sharp. I doubted I'd get to throw a punch before there was a bullet in me.

Pepper slid down the ladder going into the submarine and then looked up from below. "Okay, climb down."

Realizing I couldn't climb down holding the beret, I pulled it away from my groin and said, "Can I toss this down to you?"

"Yes. And I'm afraid I have to keep my eyes on you. I apologize for any embarrassment." She looked sincere.

Jake said, "Don't apologize to them. What makes you think they deserve our respect?"

Pepper yelled back, "Can it, Jake."

He sighed as I dropped Pepper's beret down through the hatch.

After she caught it, I climbed down the ladder with my tail between my legs. Thankfully, Pepper didn't comment on what she saw and just handed me the beret while blushing profusely. Even though I was embarrassed by the idea of her having seen my love box, I hoped she liked what she saw because I needed all the good will I could get. Her attractiveness and demeanor were nice distractions from the fact I was a military prisoner.

When Alphonse got to the bottom of the ladder, he said, "Why are we even getting on this submarine? What are you guys going to do with us?"

As Jake hopped off the ladder, he said, "We have no fucking clue. So, shut up and keep moving." He pushed me toward Pepper who had already started walking. The interior of the submarine had pipes, bulkheads and narrow passageways, but even though it was industrial, everything had been done with an eye for detail. The pipes were color coded red, yellow, orange, green and light blue. The shades complemented each other nicely. The walls were painted a soft, reassuring grey, while the doors were painted a handsome shade of bronze. The linear LED lighting fixtures further added to the space-age feel. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought we were on the set of a hit new sci-fi show.

We passed through two bulkheads before the woman stopped and used a keycard and keypad to unlock a heavy metal door. Once she had it open, she said, "After you."

Stepping inside, I saw three bunks built into the right-hand wall. Opposite them was a microwave, a coffeemaker, a mini fridge, and a sink. Stepping to my left so others could come in, I entered a nook that had two green-vinyl-covered benches facing each other, and a table that folded down so it could be an eating area. Cabinets and storage spaces adorned the walls, but they all had a little bar beside them and symbols indicating that they were all in the "locked" position.

Pepper said, "Stand against the walls, please."

We did so and Jake watched us as she went into the restroom. There, she used her keycard to open a cabinet next to the shower. She pulled out a towel set for each of us and set them on the sink before closing the cabinet and locking it. I didn't fully understand how the room worked, but it seemed to be in some sort of lockdown mode. If I had my equipment, I would have been able to try and circumvent the security, but that stuff was on the ship we'd stolen and there wasn't anything I could use in this locked down room.

As Pepper walked back into the living space, she asked, "What would you two like to eat? Today, there's salisbury steak—"

"Let's just get them chicken nuggets and fries and be done with it!" Jake said. "We can't treat these prisoners like they're going on vacation."

"Watch the door, will you?" she said.

"You watch the door!" Jake retorted.

"This could be their last meal, Jake. Would you want to have chicken nuggets for your last meal?" Her jaw was set and it looked like she was ready to punch Jake right in the chin.

He muttered "bitch" under his breath as he turned and walked away.

"What was that?" she said.

"Nothing!" he replied.

"That's what I thought." She put on a smile for us as she said, "You'll have to excuse him, sticking his head up his ass is part of his morning routine."

Jake scoffed.

Pepper paid him no mind and then gave us a run down of the few items that were available in the mess that day.

"I'll have a Big Mac, fries, and some coffee," Alphonse said. "You know, comfort food for my last meal."

Pepper laughed. "I'm pretty sure you'll live to see another day as long as you do what Cheryl asks and don't try to escape."

I tilted my head, "Cheryl?"

"Charlemagne's nickname," Pepper replied.

Alphonse puffed out some air in an effort to calm himself. "Good to know, I guess?"

"I'll have chicken nuggets, fries, and Sprite," I said sheepishly. Pepper didn't know me that well, chicken nuggets and fries were my perfect last meal. No worries about them being unhealthy or made out of unrecognizable plant and animal bits. They tasted good, and that's all I cared about in this moment.

"Someone other than Jake will be back with your meals and I'll come back with some clothes for both of you," Pepper said as she exited the room.

Jake closed the door.

The moment the door was secured, Alphonse said, "So, do you think we're going to be locked up for the rest of our lives? Like, she said there'd be no trial."

"I haven't a clue, but I'm hoping Charlemagne, Cheryl, whatever, has some use for us. That there's some reason she didn't just have that squid murder us." I sighed. "Not that I have any idea what reasonable expectations are in this situation."

"Think about it from my perspective. I'm talking to a shark girl."

"That's nothing, I am a shark girl!" I laughed more nervously than I intended.

He glanced at my crotch. "Well, more than a girl."

Just knowing he knew made me feel very shy. "Sorry."

"It's nothing to be sorry for. Still think the new you is hot." He winked. "If you don't mind me saying so, that is."

"I don't mind. It's nice to know that I've still got it." My sexual desire was as strong as ever despite the circumstances and I wanted to keep it in check, so I changed the subject. "Just to make sure I wasn't imagining things, did you get grabbed off the ship by a giant squid?"

"A kraken? Yeah." He looked at the floor and shook his head. "That was some crazy shit."

"That crazy shit saved your life," I added.

"It had to be at least somewhat intelligent and trained. Or maybe it was another AI like Tritonia? Or it was a remote controlled robot squid?" Crossing his arms, he started to shiver.

"I have no idea what it was, but you should get out of those clothes and take a shower before your lips turn blue," I said.

"Yeah, I hope she gets back with clothes soon."

"Me too! I'm getting sick of holding this beret in front of my—" I couldn't say it aloud.

"I've already seen it, Percy. You can relax." He smiled. "I promise I won't stare if you just set the beret aside."

I set the beret on the counter of the kitchenette and, true to his word, he didn't stare. He just walked toward the shower saying, "When I get out of the shower, I need you to tell me how you got like this."

"Actually, can I rinse off quick?"

"Sure!" He stepped aside.

The bathroom was made entirely out of stainless steel and light from the strip of LEDs in the ceiling was bouncing off of everything.

I forced myself not to look in the mirror knowing I might end up stuck in there for far longer than I intended. As I rinsed off, despite my best efforts, I got hard and wet. It took every bit of willpower I had to get out of the shower and dry off without playing with myself.

When I exited the restroom, Alphonse walked past me while averting his eyes, which was good because the tips of my pricks were poking out of their slit.

The moment he locked the bathroom door, I let out a shuddering sigh and inches of my lengths slid out. I had to control my breath to keep the moans down. The slit they came out of, and the area inside me that stored them was extremely sensitive and my shafts exiting it felt way too good. Rolling my hips, I shoved my pulsing twins inside me. I had no idea what I'd do about the mess, but I couldn't wait any longer. At this rate, I'd cum long before Alphonse got out of the shower.

Leaning against the wall, I gasped and undulated. The sheer amount of pleasure was dizzying. I was thrusting, stretching myself open, twisting and untwisting my lengths. My breaths kept catching in my throat. I lost track of the world around me and thundered toward orgasm.

Then, when my whole abdomen was tingling and prepared to blow, I heard the heavy door mechanism clunk. I jumped and cried out in surprise as stumbled toward the beret. I managed to grab it and hold it in front of my bits just as the door swung open.

"You okay?" Pepper asked.

"Yep, fine, totally fine," I lied. My body was still trying to cum, right there, in front of her.

Pepper tossed a red duffel bag onto the bottom bunk and unzipped it. "I'll cut a hole for your tail once we see which pair of pants fits you best."

Pulling out the sets of clothes, I bent far forward so I could hide the fact I was extracting my dicks from my desperate tunnel.

"Persephone?" Pepper looked at me with concern.

Begging myself not to cum in front of her took up so much of my mental resources that I didn't realize what I was holding in my hands until there'd been a very long and awkward pause.

"Sailor uniforms?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Look, it's all I could find on short notice. Again, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to keep my eyes on you. Turning your back on a prisoner is a rookie mistake I'd get in trouble for if it turned sour." She sighed. "I hope you understand."

I turned around because I didn't mind her seeing my ass nearly as much as I minded her seeing my front. My pricks weren't fully back inside me yet.

Stepping into the first pair of pants, I pulled them up as far as I could, with my tail in the way, and found they were a bit tight in the thighs and crotch. The second pair I tried on was slightly baggy, which was ideal.

Pepper destroyed the back seam with her knife saying, "This should work for now. If it tears more, ask Cheryl to have someone fix it up with some sewing magic. Jake and I are no help in that arena, I'm afraid."

"Did you happen to find any boxers or any undergarments?" I asked while looking back at her.

"No, I don't think you'd want hand-me-downs."

"True."

Handing me the crudely modified pants, she said, "See if this works."

My tail fit through the hole perfectly and the top from the same set was a bit big in the shoulders, but was otherwise good. The curve of my breasts stretched it only slightly. I was glad I was pert enough that I no longer needed a bra because I doubted I'd have one anytime soon.

Pepper handed me a sailor's hat and smirked as she said, "You may as well go for the full look."

I put the hat on only to find my fan-like ears were in the way of it going down all the way. It still sat pretty well on my head, however.

Alphonse laughed from the doorway of the bathroom, his head sticking out to see what we were up to.

The price of Pepper's professional discipline was her swallowing her laughter three times.

"A shark in a sailor uniform…now I've seen everything," Alphonse quipped.

Pepper burst out laughing so hard that she doubled over. Her laughter broke the tension of our situation so nicely that I laughed with her, feeling truly relaxed for the first time since we'd been captured. We were in good hands.

After we recovered, Pepper handed Alphonse the two uniforms I wasn't wearing. I was pretty sure his wiry frame would fit into the first one I'd tried on.

Pepper backed up toward the door and said, "Your food is on the way. If you need anything, just use the intercom next to the door."

"Will do," I said.

Jake shut and locked the door after she stepped out.

Our food arrived right after Alphonse was also dressed as a sailor. The uniforms were the traditional white and navy blue, which was both good and bad. Good because I hated the garish red and yellow of the new uniforms, bad because anything we spilled on the uniforms would be as obvious as a python on a plate of spaghetti.

None of that mattered, though. I wasn't going to wear a sailor uniform unless it was Halloween, and I doubted I'd be celebrating Halloween out in public anytime soon.

The food was no better than what you'd find at half-competent high school McDonald's cafeteria. Mass produced food always took a quality hit, one reason why I avoided it. The exceptions to this rule were places I treasured. And thinking about that was all it took for the depression about my incarceration to hit me full force. Talking to Alphonse about our situation got both of us grieving for our old lives even though we'd only just lost them. When we were finally off that subject and talking about Stargate, Charlemagne entered the room.

In her right hand was a handle that was connected to a foot tall six-inch-wide cylinder made of bluish anodized aluminum. There were three camera lenses in a triangular configuration near the top. Aside from the disk-shaped speaker that had been affixed to the right side, I recognized the cylinder as Tritonia's core.

After Charlemagne hung Tritonia on a coat hook next to the door, she clapped her thick strong hands. "Do I have your full attention?"

We nodded.

"Good." She pointed at me. "Persephone, due to your unique status as a sea creature hybrid, you are now an NPSO. A Non-Prosaic Sentient Object."

"Non-Prosaic?" Alphonse tilted his head.

"Prosaic means mundane, everyday, expected. As far as the world is concerned, Persephone and Tritonia don't exist. My job is to keep it that way," Charlemagne explained.

"But there are other cases of human-animal hybrids and AI out there," I protested.

"None of the other people like you are able to survive being thousands of feet under water without protection, are as heavily hybridized, or underwent a top secret experimental process that took a matter of minutes instead of a matter of weeks. On top of that, hybrids are rare to begin with. " She gestured toward Tritonia. "She is not just an AI, she's a human-level AI that fully simulates a functioning brain. And that simulation is running on the world's first portable quantum computer."

Alphonse's jaw fell open, "Wow."

I was as surprised as him, but my mind was brimming with questions. "Why was she installed on the ADS 3000?"

"To control the procedure that was done to you," Charlemagne said.

"Why was the Kirkii protocol thing part of that suit?" I asked.

"The suit provided an isolated space in which to test the procedure," Tritonia said.

I started to ask another question, but Charlemagne held up her hand to quiet me. "We're getting off topic and Tritonia should know that all those details are heavily classified." She gave Tritonia a withering look.

"Apologies, Charlemagne, I just thought that since you brought me with you to address them and since Persephone is already—"

"You can stop right there. I technically shouldn't have even told them details about you. Until we have their signatures on the proper paperwork, we must tread very carefully."

"Understood," Tritonia said.

Charlemagne's commanding gaze trained in on me. "The Marines who saw you are under orders to keep you a secret from anyone who is unaware of your existence. And, as far as the outside world is concerned, you had a diving accident where you fell into Zucker trench and your body is unrecoverable."

"What?!" I jumped up off the couch.

"Alphonse is no different. Since he's seen you and this submarine and has intimate knowledge of the ADS 3000 including Tritonia, we'll report he died in the storm that's currently raging above us and his body washed out to sea."

"Hey! You can capture me and hold me, but please don't make my family suffer!" He was standing next to me, glaring at Charlemagne.

"What did you two expect to happen when you stole that suit?" She leaned one of her muscular shoulders against the wall. "Did you have any idea that technology like Tritonia existed beforehand?"

"N-no," I said wondering if we were supposed to respond to her question.

Tritonia said solemnly. "I couldn't warn either of you since you didn't open the suit before you had already stolen it."

"It's odd how much she cares for your well-being," Charlemagne said. "At first, I thought you'd done something to her to make her like you, but my techies say that you left her untouched."

I said, "We thought it would be unethical to alter her."

"Yeah, murder, basically," Alphonse added.

Charlemagne nodded. "You're very fortunate that you made that choice."

"Thank you again." Tritonia said.

Shrugging, I said, "There's no reason to thank us. We're thieves, not murderers."

"Going back to what I was saying earlier, you've lost your status as free citizens. It's now a security risk for either of you to leave our custody. But that poses a problem." She started to pace. My unit, the unit that handles maritime Non-Prosaics, has no facilities for prisoners and I can't risk you being held by other organizations that you might leak classified information to."

"So, you were saying you can't keep us and you can't let us go?" Alphonse prompted.

"Exactly, I'm half tempted to put you in cold storage and let future generations figure out what to do with you." She shook her head. "You know what? I don't have time to figure this out right now. I'm just going to bring you to Mori Base and we can sort it out there."

"Just to be sure, is killing us still on the table? Is now a good time for us to beg for our lives?" Alphonse asked.

"Please don't beg. Honestly, executing you is far too American of a solution for me. I'm going to try and find an alternative solution…later." Cheryl said. "Right now, I need to prepare this submarine for departure. Do you two have any questions before I go?"

"What was the deal with the squid that attacked us?" I asked.

"What squid?" Cheryl gave me a blank expression.

"What squid? You have to be kidding me. It was bigger than our ship and—"

Ignoring me, Cheryl addressed Tritonia. "Can I trust you to not blab about the squid until they have the proper clearance?"

"Yes, but before you go, I have one more pressing issue," Tritonia said a bit more sternly than I was used to.

Tritonia's tone got Cheryl's full attention. "And what is that?"

"Persephone needs to be examined by Kirkii as soon as possible." Tritonia's tone reminded me of the way people spoke when they knew they were about to get into an argument.

"It'll have to wait until they have the proper clearance, if we decide to give them clearance at all. You'll have to make do with your own observations for now." Charlemagne didn't sound like she was going to budge.

"I'm not as qualified as Doctor Kirkii."

"It'll have to do." Cheryl said. "Is that all?"

"No, on multiple occasions, your obsession with doing things by the book has caused complications that jeopardized our mission. How would you feel if Persephone has serious complications due to something preventable?" Tritonia had never sounded this emotional. Her calm smooth voice had taken on some very human tone shifts.

"What would happen to the world if people find out about you and Kirkii?" Cheryl said. "On top of that, without background checks, we don't know whether they're Russian spies or just talented thieves."

"Russian spies? Are you even remotely serious about that assertion?" It sounded like Tritonia was mocking Cheryl. Just how often did these two people fight?

"Last time I checked, the Russians weren't part of POSC and were working to collect every NPO for themselves. Did they join up while I wasn't looking?" Cheryl was looking a bit red.

"You were the one that told me protocol can never be made to fully encompass all situations. Waiting weeks before Kirkii examines P is an unnecessary risk based on unfounded paranoia." If Tritonia had arms to cross, she'd be doing that now.

"This discussion is over," Charlemagne walked up to the door. "I'm going to get the sub ready. Enjoy your pet humans." She unlocked the door and stepped out before locking it behind her.

Looking at Tritonia, I said, "I'm so confused. Why does seeing Kirkii require clearance? He's just a geneticist, right?"

"She isn't just a geneticist. That's all I can say."

Alphonse recovered from cringing. He'd been looking like he wanted to hide from the fight between Tritonia and Cheryl. "Now I'm even more curious."

"We should change the subject," Tritonia said, sounding defeated.

"I figure we're going to chat to pass the time, so we might as well all sit in the little eating area. Alphonse, get the table ready while I grab Tritonia," I said as walked over and took Tritonia off the wall hook. She weighed over ten pounds, much heavier than a laptop.

Alphonse folded down the table and locked it in position by twisting an orange handle on the hinge that connected the table to the wall. Then we sat on opposite benches as I set Tritonia on the tabletop.

We started reminiscing about the time Alphonse and I had spent with Tritona while planning the heist. Then we started giving Tritonia real stories about our pasts and such to make up for the lies we'd told her to protect our identities. This made her incredibly happy. A half hour later, we were interrupted by a klaxon and Charlemagne's voice saying, "All hands prepare to dive to five hundred and sixty meters."

We talked for another ten minutes, after another single blast from the klaxon and a flash of red light, Charlemagne announced, "Diving in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"

The submarine tilted about twenty degrees and I caught Tritonia before she fell on her side. While the submarine was pitching downward, Alphonse and I slid across the benches until we were against the wall. We stared at each other wide-eyed.

Once it evened out, Tritonia said, "I take it neither of you have been in an operating submarine before?"

"Nope," I said. "That was quite a tilt."

"Yeah, I'm glad I wasn't trying to put on my socks when it happened," Alphonse chuckled.

I laughed. "That's a head injury waiting to happen."

"Thanks for catching me, P," Tritonia said.

"You're welcome!" I grinned.

We chatted for another hour while I tried and failed to keep my mind off of sex. Before I managed to get up the courage to leave the conversation and get some much needed alone time, before Charlemagne entered the room again. "Persephone, please come with me," Charlemagne said.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

She walked toward the door. "Kirkii's going to give you a checkup."

Tritonia said, "Oh! Thank you!"

"Before you go thinking you convinced me all on your own, Kirkii also feels strongly that Persephone needs to be examined." She opened the door. "After you, Persephone."

Pepper was standing at attention just outside. As I walked out the door, I gave her a smile and she smiled back.

As Charlemagne followed me out the door, Alphonse said, "Could I get a book or something? Boredom is gonna kill me, otherwise."

"Pepper, could you see to it that he gets something he can read or do to pass the time?" Charlemagne said, her massive frame making the narrow submarine hallway feel even smaller.

Pepper nodded, "Will do, ma'am."

"Thank you for staying on to help with the prisoners, by the way."

"You're welcome, ma'am." Pepper smiled.

Squeezing by me so I could follow her to the aft of the submarine, Charlemagne said, "This way."

After going through three bulkheads, the hallways got more industrial with more pipes and cables. They were still all color coded beautifully. We ended up in a square room full of wetsuits and diving equipment including the ADS 3000 suit.

Leading me to the airlock, Charlemagne hit a button on the intercom next to it and said, "Diver ready to disembark, full stop."

"Is Kirkii outside the sub?" I asked.

"She most definitely wouldn't fit inside the sub." Charlemagne chuckled.

"Is she like me? Has gills?" I asked. "Wait, she wouldn't fit in the sub? She's that big?"

"She does have gills, but she's quite different than you." Charlemagne grinned. "And, she's the largest person you'll ever meet, I'm quite sure."

"Is Kirkii a giant sea creature? A giant AI robot thing?" I felt like I was grasping at straws, now.

"Undress and then hop in the airlock and see for yourself."

"Undress?" I tilted my head.

"We don't have a wetsuit that would fit you, plus, you don't need one and it's a doctor's visit." She turned away from me. "I'll avert my eyes."

I pulled my clothes off and laid them on a bench in front of a cyan-colored locker. Then I walked into the airlock.

Charlemagne said, "Ready?"

"Yes, though I'm not looking forward to drowning again," I complained.

"I imagine that feels quite bizarre and that getting the water back out feels even worse," Charlemagne said.

"Yeah…" I sighed.

"Airlock cycling in three, two, one." On zero, she hit the big orange button and a heavy metal door slid shut before the chamber started filling with seawater.

Wanting to get it over with, I drowned myself when the chamber was half full to switch to water breathing. It wasn't as unpleasant as the first time, but it likely wasn't something I'd ever look forward to. When the outer doors finally opened, a few stray bubbles drifted upwards. In the distance, deep blue, cyan, and firefly yellow lights were circulating in turbulent patterns across some huge amorphous object. As I swam toward it using my webbed feet and hands, I was mesmerized its beauty.

Details popped out at me, large glowing eyes, ten tentacles, a long mantle…I screamed even though I was underwater and started swimming in the opposite direction, adrenaline powering my retreat.

It was a squid ten times my size. Likely the same squid that had grabbed me off the boat. Suddenly, I realized exactly what was going on and stopped fleeing: that squid had to be Kirkii. Tritonia asked for this meeting, so I was likely safe.

While I was paused wondering what to do next, Kirkii reached toward me with her two long feeding tentacles. My heart raced as I fought my instinct to flee.

Instead of grabbing me, the tentacles stopped just short of me and then the left one moved in front of my face, showing me its backside. A pattern of yellow lights on it resolved into the words, "Do not be afraid. I do not eat sentient life."

I looked away and then looked back at the tentacle to make sure I hadn't lost my mind. The text was still there. Then it started changing, the font was rounded, but quite legible. "You can communicate with me by drawing letters on my skin. Draw the word 'yes' if you understand."

With my hand shaking, I reached up with my right index finger and started writing. As my finger slid across the back of the tentacle, it left behind a trail of yellow light spelling "YES."

"You don't have to use ALL CAPS. It's like the textual version of yelling. Only use caps when you mean it, please," she replied.

This was officially weirder than being a hermaphroditic shark hybrid: I was getting talked down to by a giant squid about my use of capitalization. I laughed at the thought of it.

"I feel vibrations…Is that laughter? Have I amused you?"

"yes," I wrote in all lowercase.

"You can capitalize the first letter of a sentence," she said.

"I know," I wrote. "I'm just trolling you."

"We're going to get along splendidly. May I grab you and bring you closer to me for your checkup?" she asked.

I wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic about us getting along. "Yes." Writing out words was starting to feel normal already.

The tentacle pressed against my belly and then applied suction. My heart sped up again as my instincts told me to flee. I just kept taking even breaths through my gills and tried to stay calm.

Her eyes were bigger than soccer balls and she was easily as big as a school bus including her tentacles. I felt tiny compared to her. A few of her tentacles came near me holding various instruments. One had what looked like an ultrasound probe, one had a laser scanner, one had what looked like an injection gun, and the last one was a steampunk zapper thingy with modern LCD displays and LED lights on it.

Holding a tentacle in front of my face, she said, "Tritonia has said you can bioluminesce. Could you do that for me, please? I'll be able to work more quickly if I can see you more clearly."

I concentrated and splotches of firefly yellow started glowing all over my body in patches and dots while my front glowed in one big patch. My nipples were glowing cyan, which I still thought was insanely cool.

"Beautiful! Thanks! Just relax and I'll try to be quick," she said as she went to work.

I was prodded, poked, and positioned as every instrument went over me multiple times. The zappy thing was the only one I didn't like. It made my skin tingle with electricity the same way the suit had when it did its initialization flash. After Kirkii was done examining me, she started talking to me again. "You are in perfect health, though I want to do daily checkups for the next two weeks just to be sure."

I wrote, "That's great to hear! I mean, see!"

"Yes, I'm quite pleased. Though, I do have one concern," she said.

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh? I thought you said I was fine."

"It's not something that is necessarily a health issue, but could be a quality of life issue." She said, "Tritonia reports that you experienced a drastic increase in libido due to the procedure. I can prescribe something to lower your libido to a level that you find more comfortable if you'd like."

Blushing bright red, I said, "I'm not sure I dislike it yet."

"Then we can leave you the way you are for now and I can always prescribe something later. I completely understand you feeling the benefits outweigh the detriments," she said.

"I'll let you know if it starts bothering me," I said.

"The doctor at the base can give you a pelvic exam and such. My focus is in the genetic hybridization you experienced and any complications it may have caused. But I do have a concern about your sexual health. Are you experiencing the proper amount of sensation in your genitalia?"

Just having her mention my naughty bits made me warm down there. I had needed to get off for hours and here I was naked and in front of a tentacle monster. The longer this went on, the more I thought about all the hentai I'd watched. "It's all working fine as far as I can tell."

"And there's no numb spots on your genitals or elsewhere on your body, specifically in highly enervated places like your nipples, your fingertips, your tongue, etcetera?" she asked.

"Nope, no numb spots. In fact, I think things are more sensitive than ever, in a good way. I've felt amazing ever since I transformed. Really alive and healthy." I needed this appointment to end soon, my twin troublemakers wanted out. Now that the fear was gone, I wanted to be wrapped up in Kirkii's tentacles.

"That's wonderful to hear!" A pattern of chasing lights raced across the back of her tentacle, perhaps she was thinking about something. "Why aren't your heart rate and oxygen consumption going down? I am no longer prodding you with instruments. Is it a fear response?"

Since she seemed to enjoy my bluntness, I decided to see if she was like my old general practitioner. I could confide in him just about anything and he always seemed amused by it. Doctors had a very high TMI threshold, and I really liked that because I was often too embarrassed to talk to people about my body. "I haven't gotten off all day and my sensitive parts are starting to have a meltdown."

"Even with me here? Are you sure you're okay?" The lights moving across her tentacles and mantle were dashing even faster now.

The explanation that first popped into my mind was far too embarrassing to mention, but, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't come up with a better one on the spot.

"Persephone? Your heart rate is increasing again."

Kirkii was a freak like me, if there was anyone out there that would not be weirded out by my body, it would be her. I had two dicks, she had ten tentacles! If I didn't tell her what was up, my lengths coming out would give me away in no time. "I have a thing for tentacle monsters." It was the hardest, most intimate, thing I'd ever admitted and I felt like I'd made a huge mistake.

All her lights went out, then they pulsed in patches across her mantle before going down her tentacles. Had I deeply offended her? Did I crash her? "Sorry! You're not a monster!"

"I'm not offended, I watched a lot of hentai in college," she replied.

"You went to college?!?" My eyes were wide.

"Of course, it's how I learned genetics," she replied matter-of-factly. "I am astounded that I arouse you and I am deeply curious what you want to do about it."

I wanted to ask her more about her college days, but we could do that later, when I wasn't out of my mind horny. "Do you think Charlemagne would be angry at us if we had sex?" I asked. It was my only concern now.

"I can grab you and turn us away from the submarine." A pulse of light traveled from the tips of her tentacles up to her mantle. "You really want to have sex with me?"

"FUCK YES!" I wrote in big letters.

"Right now?!"

"YES!!!" I was barely keeping it together. I was shivering thinking about her grabbing me, fondling me…

"I shouldn't, but I have never had this opportunity before. There is nothing I am more curious about than what it's like to have sex with a fellow herm, a bioluminescent aquatic one, at that," she said.

"Fellow herm???"

"Yes, I have mating tentacles and the ability to lay eggs." She grabbed me with three tentacles, and then started turning us away from the submarine.

She'd left my writing hand free and the tentacle we were using to communicate was still in front of me. "That's amazing! Are you a hybrid of some sort? Like a heavily modified human or something?"

"No, I'm an uplifted giant squid, genetically modified to have human intelligence and multiple other enhancements," she explained. "Sorry, but I'm having trouble thinking about anything other than what we're about to do. I still cannot believe you want to engage in sexual play with me."

"Probably just like you, I watched waaay too much tentacle porn in college," I said.

"Hahahaaaa! You're so right!" she wrote back. "I so enjoy conversing with you. Your honesty is refreshing."

"I am terrible about talking about sexual stuff, unless I'm talking to a doctor," I laughed at myself.

"Oh dear, fucking you is probably a serious HIPAA violation," she quipped.

"I didn't sign a HIPAA form, so I guess I waived my rights," I said back, grinning ear to ear.

"Persephone, I now understand why Tritonia likes you so much." She moved her tentacles sensuously up my legs.

As I let my pricks out and sent moaning vibrations into the water surrounding me at the sensation, I wrote, "You said you were a herm? I'm pretty sure you don't have a pussy, so how is this going to work?" I asked.

The tentacles were now moving up my inner thighs. "You could press inside my siphon, but it's way too large for me to notice. How squid actually have sex is rather off-putting and my proximity to humans makes me less interested in that. I'll be quite satisfied doing things like this!" Each of my shafts got wrapped in a tentacle.

I made some sort of ultrasonic chirp as my glowing patches flashed. She pressed a tentacle inside me that felt different from the others, it was smoother and warmer. Bucking my hips wildly, I flailed in her grasp.

"Are you okay?"

"Please don't stop!" I wrote.

Another tentacle joined the first in entering me. It had to be her mating tentacles, they felt sexual, like they belonged in there. She pulled me up against her mantle as she played with my lengths making varying spiral shapes around them and teasing them with suckers. It was clear she had no idea what she was doing, but it didn't matter, I loved every second of it.

"Stretch me more with those mating tentacles!" I begged.

Pressing them deeper, she wound them tightly adding a glorious texture to her penetration. Sex with a tentacle monster was better than I'd ever dreamed! I grabbed a tentacle that was drifting near my head and put it in my mouth. Then I sucked on it, carefully protecting it from my teeth.

"Oooh! That's a neat sensation!" she said in disheveled text.

I clenched around her twin pricks and wrote, "Deeper!"

Her phalluses unwound partially and then pressed against the sides of my erotic place of worship making me feel like a nice thick prick was inside me. I nearly came on the spot. Then two of her tentacles found my breasts and she squeezed and pulled at them, clearly intrigued by their supple but firm texture. Her suckers on my nipples made me kick in her grasp.

"Oooh, you like that, don't you?" she said.

"Yes! Fuck!" I wrote.

Paying a lot of attention to my breasts, she continued to explore my body while teasing the limits of my ability to experience pleasure. She had me held firmly enough with suckers and windings of her limbs that I was able to thrust my pricks into her grasp. I felt like I was about to explode into a shower of ecstasy, but I still wanted more! "Put one in my back door!"

"I'm getting close!" she reported.

"Not till you put one more inside me! Please!"

As she penetrated my tailhole, I lost control. My prostate was getting hit from both sides, my body felt like a giant pocket of methane after someone had lit a match. I made creamy white patches on her mantle as my shafts showered her with their riches. My depths pulsed like the walls were made of sea swells.

"Persephone, I—WOW!" she said as her mating tentacles filled me with warmth in a volume I couldn't even hope to contain. Her organized light show devolved into static as undulations traveled up every one of her limbs. She squeezed me against her as we came, like I was a cherished toy.

I just stayed there and took every bit of orgasmic bliss she foisted upon me, cumming three times from the smooth wet rose between my legs. The masturbation I'd done earlier hadn't been one tenth this satisfying.

We drifted for a short while before her light show regained coherent patterns. It's around that time that she said, "Thank you."

"Anytime, sexy," I wrote in lazy warped letters.

"I wonder how I'm going to explain my light show to Charlemagne," she said. "I'm sure she noticed the part where I lost control."

"Tell her the truth, I doubt she'd believe you," I said.

"I don't tend to joke with her, I don't understand her straight-faced sarcasm."

"Then tell her that I told you a very funny joke. If I give the same story, I doubt she'll think twice about it."

"Let's try it." The words that appeared next rearranged themselves a couple times. I think she couldn't decide what to say next. "I'm going to enjoy our daily checkups."

"I'm going to need them. This is the most relaxed I've felt all day," I replied.

"Funny, most people find being completely immobilized by a giant squid to be the complete opposite."

"Well, I'm not most people."

"Of that, I am deeply glad." She gave me a friendly squeeze.

For most of the day, I'd been very concerned about being held in captivity. But now I had some hope that Alphonse and I would be okay. It seemed I was making the right friends. Friends that would be upset if Charlemagne decided to put us in cold storage, whatever that actually meant, or give us a horrendous military prison experience.

For most of my adult life, as much as tentacle porn aroused me, the actual thing terrified me. But now I'd had the best sex of my life with a giant squid and I wasn't terrified at all.

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