#29—Mermaid Transformation

The chunk of crystal looked like obsidian dipped in blood. Dark in the center, the glassy edges caught the light so sharply that they seemed to glow, a burning red line. Pins and needles burned on the drunken reporter's skin, and she began to feel...queer.

"Luthor!" Mercy Graves shouted as she slammed her fists on the door. "Let me out! Let me oooughgh..."

The bodyguard doubled over, and Lois Lane knew why. Pain stabbed through her guts. The prickle on her skin had passed beyond the point of a sunburn, for all that her skin still looked pale...it itched. It felt too tight. Lois squirmed on the ground, scratched at her legs trapped in the tight red pants...and then she saw Mercy on the ground as the bodyguard struggled with her boots.

Which is when the reporter saw her feet.

The toes were longer than they should have been. Pale pink webs of flesh between each toe...and as Lois watched, the toes grew longer, the webbing stretched. Mercy Graves ripped at her belt, her pants...and drunk as the reporter was, Lois figured she had the right idea.

Especially when she scratched at her crotch, and felt the hard edge of scales in place of the carefully-trimmed tuft of pubic hair.

Without pants on, Lois Lane could see and feel her own feet stretch and skew. Her legs seemed longer, and the pale pink skin dimpled and darkened until they became clearly delineated fishscales a metallic black...but the changes didn't stop there. Lois could feel the itch beneath her ribs as she pulled off her shirt, and exploratory probes with her fingers found red, sensitive slits in between the bones. It took the reporter a moment to realize what they were.

"Gills!" The reporter said. She felt less sober now...the room spun slightly, and she gulped for air, lungs working harder...and then she glanced at Mercy Graves to see how she was doing.

The answer was, not terribly well.

While Lois Lane's pale legs remained bifurcated, even if they were now webbed and scaled tails, Mercy's had fused. The bodyguard flopped on her belly, but from the waste down she looked like a sturgeon, body smooth and with distinct fins and a raised spine. Worse than that, though, were the slits that opened and gulped at Mercy's neck. The bodyguard's mouth opened and closed in ragged gasps...and Lois knew what she needed.