Making a Dark World in the ocean was a great mistake. Who knew that it would spread beyond the confines of the Dark World, with oceanic Darkners taking over much of the surface. But the sea monarch was not just a king of Darkner merfolk and the sea Dark Worlds. They were a tycoon, and entrepreneur, and decided that they wanted more subjects to join their eternal kingdom, and a factory to turn subjects into those who could habitat into their ocean kingdom that would soon consume the entire Light World. So on the border and entrance, the first merfolk factory was made, one with a mix of magic and technology. The captured Lightners who foolishly opened the portal would be amongts the first few hundreds to gain this gift.

Kris barely put up a fight as their turn on the conveyor came. What was the point? Kris wasn't even given special privilege, despite the monarch knowing they were amongst those who brought this kingdom to the lightworld to begin with. Just another number amongst countless soon to be subject, soon to be lost amongst a literal ocean of merfolk.

The cold chains were just slightly too tight, and Kris barely managed to adjust before their legs were raised up into the air on the conveyor belt. They looked at the line ahead, at many lightners scared, confused, or equally accepting of the situation. Some were all three. Kris managed to spot Susie, for she wasn't hard to miss, being the only one fighting. She even fought for a while once they reached the tanks, where the "fish" were. The fish that would become their second halves literally. Susie put up a great fighting, kicking and screaming, but of course it was futile, and soon she herself was another mermaid, before it moved to the next. Kris counted each and every one of the lightners ahead of them. Four. Three. Two. One.

It was their turn. They felt themselves hosted above the tanks, and Kris looked down to see thousands of fish, if one could call them that, swimming around and waiting eagerly for their "meal". More mouth than life, these things could hardly be called alive. Just instict waiting to "convert" an unwilling, or willing, subject. Kris closed their eyes and put their legs together, in order to make the inevitable faster and smoother. So it was, that one hungry fish jumped up, almost consuming their legs on first suck. Kris felt the fish expand as it climbed up to their waist, their legs now useless underneath gooey encasement, now no more than interior muscles.

Once the fish had fully "swallowed" their legs, the mouth fused itself around their waist. At this point, Kris' fate was sealed, and Kris knew that. Even if he had the energy or will to kick or push as hard as they could, the organic material, identical to that of an actual fish, is impenetrable in the inside. The fish is unremovable, now a permanent body part. Without giving Kris a room to accept or breathe, the conveyor belt continued.

Kris winced as they felt something inside the fish "pierce" them with tubes, and felt as if they would faint as the tubes went through their organs despite all logic, until they touched their lungs, and gave them the ability to breathe underwater. The fish would also enhance theirbody and youth, slowing down theirnatural aging by a considerable degree, for the monarch did not want one of their beautiful merfolk to die in a blink of their eternal existence.

Soon after this, the fish itself "died", even though it was never alive to begin with, and its eye dropped into a tray placed underneath. Through magical means, the neurons of the fish merged with their's, so Kris feels the tail of the fish, and would feel each sensation on each of it's scales, as it was a physical part of them, which it now is for all intents and purposes. Removing the tail at this point would damage them severely, if not kill them, the same way removing ones limbs would. Kris was no longer the angsty adult in Hometown, and once hero of prophecy, but now a proper and permanent merperson for the foreseeable centuries. They wondered how Ralsei would see them now.

The conveyor belt finally reached the end for Kris Dreemurr, and they were dropped into a pod that quickly filled with water as it closed. Kris found it impressive they could breathe, as well as see, submerged in water like this. Kris' pod was then carried by mechanical devices, into a room surrounded by shelves with hundreds of other pods, each one filled with a newly created merperson from a lightner, human or monster alike, to be awaited till they're brought into their mental correctional facility. Kris smiled at the thought of a slight silver lining, in that they will at least share this new life with their old friends.

One day, Kris would come to accept and even prefer this new life. One day. After all, they have no more choice in the matter.

Check out my acc for an alt version of the drawing with a slightly alternative story