Don’t Drink The Gene Juice

Jenna dove into the water, welcoming the pull into the underwater world.

Within moments, she felt the pleasing feeling of her legs joining together into one whole, and then her tail further growing its large, flowery fin.

She giggled, as she saw Tommy swishing his own tail over to her.

He smiled, looking over her special aqua blue mermaid dress.

"You look very beautiful Jenna," he smiled.

"Thanks Tommy," she grinned even wider, "I don't know where Bethany got it, but I love it."

"How do you like mine?" he asked.

He was bare chested, except for wearing some straps and stuff with fake weapons on them, to make it look like he was some kind of warrior merman.

"You look very handsome," she said. "I'm sure all of the little boys will walk away today wanting to be just like you."

They swam around the tank for a bit, amid the passive marine life that dwelled in this tank. They practiced some of their routines, working especially hard on the part where they had to swim in a circle formation, but in sync so that they would be opposite each other as they swam.

After a half an hour of going over their ten minute long routine, Jenna was exhausted, and they swam to the exit of the tank, pulling themselves up onto the deck on the edge.

"This is the most annoying part about being a merperson," Jenna said. "You have to get out of the water, and sit in the chill as you wait for your tail to disappear, and you don't really want it to..."

"Yeah," Tommy said, "but it's a small price to pay to be a mythical creature. imagine what it would be like if someone from a hundred years ago, in the 2020s saw what we can do."

Jenna laughed. "They'd probably go nuts."

Tommy laughed in return. "Have you read anything about that time? Those people already were nuts."

They laughed some more, as they saw Bethany walk through the door into the room.

"Hey fish friends," she waved.

"Hey Beth," Tommy greeted their fellow employee. "Everything ready to start in an hour?"

"Yeah," she smiled, "you two are drawin' a bit of a crowd. There's already people waiting outside in line."

"Gosh," Jenna exhaled, feeling a bit of stress coming on. "I feel ready, and I don't think I'm gonna mess up, but what if they aren't very impressed. We are just swimming to music."

Beth shrugged. "While gene changes are becoming more common these days, merpeople are still surprisingly uncommon, at least in the sense that people are used to seeing them. The novelty will wear off in a while, but hopefully, we can have more merfolk by then, and make this a lot more interesting."

Jenna and Tommy smiled warmly at the thought. Having a whole team of a dozen or more merfolk, all trained in the art of underwater dance.

"There's some other people waiting to see you," Beth said.

"Who?" Jenna asked.

Beth walked back up to the door, and opened it a bit. "You can come in now," she said through the opening. Beth walked through the door and left the room.

The door swung open to reveal...

Cathy.

Jenna squealed in delight, leaping onto the tile floor with her tail still drying, and her friend knelt down to hug her.

"You're finally a girl!" Jenna grinned.

"Yeah," Cathy said with a smile, in her new feminine voice, "and it only took, what, a month of indecision about coming out, then another few weeks to convince my parents to let me change."

"Well you look very pretty," Jenna said.

Cathy was wearing a print t-shirt that had a painting of a mermaid on it, with a yellow skirt. And she had her hair back in twin braids.

"Thank you," she blushed.

Someone else came in. It was Wyatt, his now usual furry self. He wagged his tail, and while he licked his nose, Jenna noted that he didn't pant. He'd been doing less of that recently. He'd kind of learned to control it.

Jenna's mermaid tail now had separated into legs, and she stood up and hugged Wyatt.

"Ugh," he grunted a little, then chuckled, "I thought I told you that I don't like getting my fur damp."

"Sorry," Jenna laughed a bit.

She heard Tommy pull himself off to the side, where there was a changing room. Jenna had her nice mermaid dress, and like her casual swimsuit, it would adapt nicely to let her tail through, while keeping her modest.

While Tommy's swimtrunks acted similarly, they looked slightly skirtlike when he became a merman. They were hoping that a merman swimsuit could be made eventually that could be scrunched up into a sort of belt after changing, but for now, Tommy would have himself covered when going in the water, then ditch the cover after he'd transformed.

To Jenna's delight, Wyatt gave Cathy a little peck on the cheek. They held hands, and smiled at each other.

Tommy came out of his little changing area, adjusting his shorts. "So I take it," he said, "that you two decided to be a couple?"

"We went on our first date last night," Wyatt said, "I agreed to take Cathy on one after she got to change. We had a good time."

"But we just wanted to stop by and wish you luck before your show," Wyatt said.

"Well thanks guys," Tommy said. He tried his best to make his wet hair presentable. "I hope you like it."

"We're seated in a good spot, I think," Wyatt said.

"You better be honest about it," Tommy said. "If we mess up, or its boring, I don't want sugarcoating."

"I won't sugarcoat it," Wyatt said, "but I will try to insult you in a creative way."

"You better," Tommy laughed.

"There's... there's also another reason why I wanted to come talk to you guys before the show," Cathy said.

"What?" Jenna asked.

Cathy took a deep breath. She backed up away from them, closed her eyes, and clasped her hands in front of her.

Soon after, Jenna noticed it begin. Little hairs sprouting on Cathy's arms. He ears looking a bit out of place. Her nose looking a bit darker.

A minute or so into her transformation, Cathy briefly unclasped her hands to reach behind her, and pull out a long fluffy tail. I smile came to her face, and she started wagging it.

She kept her eyes closed and hands clasped as her changes continued. A thick coat of fur covered her skin. Her ears moved higher on her head, and became larger and furrier, flopping down.

Finally, her face pushed out into a muzzle, and her nose became dark, turning into a snout.

Cathy the golden retriever opened her eyes.

Jenna realized, seeing Wyatt's expression, that this was a big reveal for him too.

Cathy smiled bashfully, looking towards the ground. "How do I look?"

"Like a very cute doggie," Wyatt said, licking her on the cheek. Cathy licked him back.

Jenna didn't really get the appeal of their transformation, but they seemed to like it, so she was fine with it.

"I've been practicing changing back and forth since Monday," she said. "Now I think I might be as good as you Wy."

"Do you like it?" Wyatt asked.

"I love being a cute little doggy," she said, making a playful bark. "I've especially loved my tail. It feels so good to wag it."

"Yeah," Wyatt said, "I love it too. I also like being able to smell and hear better. And... you smell very good."

"Thanks," she smiled. "I've been trying to clean my fur really well."

"Get ready to go through tons of shampoo," Wyatt laughed. "That is..."

"Yeah," she smiled, "I'm probably going to be my furry self most of the time too."

They shared a heartfelt hug. Jenna wondered what that felt like, with both of them basically wearing blankets as skin.

"Well we better go get to our seats," Wyatt smiled, "I don't want to deal with walking around the crowds of people."

"Well thanks for wishing us luck," Jenna said as they walked back to the door, "And congratulations Cathy."

"Arf!" Cathy barked happily at them, and then she and Wyatt left the room.

******

Jenna and Tommy swam in arcs over the glass bubble surrounding the audience below. Holographic effects made it appear as though Beth, playing the role of an indignant sea witch, was summoning a horrible storm.

Before being able to become a real mermaid with gene juice, Beth had been adept at swimming in a mermaid costume professionally, and had trained Jenna and Tommy on their routine.

The story of their show wasn't extremely original - like some combination of The Little Mermaid and Rome and Juliet, but their choreographed swimming, combined with the effects seemed to impress the audience.

They also mimed comedic moments as well, and though muffled, Jenna could hear the audience laughing.

As the sea witch's storm snaked its holographic clouds to wrap around them, a light effect appeared around Jenna and Tommy, as they embraced and kissed - Jenna's favorite part of the show.

But the "power of their love" was not able to stop one tendril of the storm from wrapping around Tommy, and then using some holographic effects to hide that he was swimming normally, and instead look like he was being dragged to the sea witch, Tommy was pulled up to Bethany.

Through more advanced holograms, Bethany transformed into a massive sea monster, and Tommy and Jenna began to "fight" it - also known as swimming in a pretty way around it, but having angry faces.

The hologram tracked Bethany's movement as she swam, and she was able to make very subtle movements that made the large sea monster look all the more menacing.

Finally, Jenna and Tommy took out the sea monster by, kinda violently, stabbing it simultaneously in the eyes, which created an abstract looking explosion, and the audience cheered and aplauded.

The dark holograms faded into a tropical turqoise light, making it appear that the audience was underwater, and holograms of sea life moved just above the audience.

In the glimmering light, Jenna and Tommy made a last dramatic kiss as the music swelled, and finally the show ended, fading the light inside of the audience area to black, but leaving the inside of the tank lit up.

Jenna was exhausted. She sank down for a second to gather her breath.

"You guys did amazing!" Beth swam over and hugged them. "For a few guppies that is."

"And," Tommy breathed hard, "you want to do a show eventually that's a half hour long?"

"When we get more mers maybe," Beth said, "then we can switch out roles. There's just so much possibility. You could do a whole play like this."

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming," Jenna laughed nervously to herself.

"But really," Beth said, "you guys did fantastic."

The light in the audience area came back on again, and Jenna swam forward, bowing, as she heard the little earbud she was wearing announce her name to the audience.

Tommy and Beth likewise bowed when their names were said, and they all felt giddy as the audience applauded.

They stayed in their pose, until the announcer finished thanking the audience for attending the show, and giving instruction to the audience about leaving in an orderly fashion.

The aquarium had at first wanted to just fade back to black, so all that the audience saw was the show, but Beth had been insistent that she wanted the audience to have a chance to just come up to the glass and say hi to the performers.

As the announcer finished speaking, Jenna relaxed, and began swimming lazily around the tank, though putting a bit of flair into it for the people watching.

Tommy followed her, while Beth swam in the other direction.

"I told you they'd love it," Tommy said, "they're just infatuated with the story of our undying love."

"Ugh," Jenna giggled, "I'm surprised someone can be so sappy when they're covered in water."

Tommy laughed. "Well you did wonderfully. And you look very beautiful in that dress."

She spun around and let it twirl, noticing some young girls grinning and clapping.

"You know that Beth's talked about making more advanced sound systems, so that we can actually have spoken dialogue and singing for this."

Jenna laughed. "I better be the evil witch for those ones then."

"Nonsense," Tommy hugged her briefly, "you have a wonderful singing voice."

They held hands, and swam together, doing some basic acrobactics to entertain the little girls around the edge of the tank. Interestingly, There was also a lot of little boys, and Tommy pulled out his prop sword and swung it around a bit for them.

Jenna felt a little chill, a mix of delight and stress. These kids might idolize her. They had talked a bit about merchandising this, and so there were going to be kids walking around with t-shirts with their rough likeness on it.

That was going to be weird. But there was also something thrilling about being able to make little kids, and big kids, so happy.

"I can't believe that this is going to be pay for my college," Tommy smiled.

"And my share of it will help you pay for it as well," Jenna smiled.

Tommy had a knowing smile on his face.

"Hey Jenna."

"Yeah?"

"I'm trying to remember... can transformations be passed on genetically?"

"With two people of the same transformation they can," she smiled back.

As they swam around, they saw some familiar faces waving behind the glass. Their families clapped enthusiastically, and Lily gave Jenna a little heart shape.

The glass made a thud as Tommy fist bumped one of his brothers.

And then Jenna saw her two friends, though, out in public now, they had changed back to their human forms. They gave her and Tommy thumbs up.

She waved by to them all as they left.

And with a grin, and a kiss on his cheek, she swam around some more, just having fun with her boyfriend, and fellow mer. The person who understood her the most.