The two of them enter a vast slightly crumpled city, buildings being renovated and altered to fit their environments a lot. Leading to a high street of sorts with all sorts of vendors ready to sell their goods. Aquatic lights illuminate the second floors of each vendor's repurposed building with people living on the second floor.
The barricade guarding all of scavengers reef wraps all the way around the repurposed crumbled city. The debris had long been swept up and repurposed along with the buildings. Leaving only cleared and marked paths routing people through the reef with ease.
With the barricade wrapping around the reef the main source of light shines through the opening of the reef sunray managing to travel even this far down still. The first thing the two of them are greeted with is a young fishman having a swaying lantern above his cute maw full of fangs.
"Extra extra! The Abyssal Pearl strikes again only to be thwarted by an unknown merman!" A young fishman calls out cupping his finned hands around his mouth. Holding up a newspaper made out of kelp paper.
"You seem to be the talk of the reef." Serena says, nudging Rain with her elbow.
"Yeah, that seems to be the case." Rain says letting out a sigh of bubbles, before getting a good idea.
"You better prove it before anyone else tries to claim it." Serena says encouraging Rain to get his name out there
"Sure why not. Hey kid, I'm the one in your story right?" Rain calls out as usual struggling to swim through even calmer waters.
"Wait are you!? You're that merman people said you have an odd lustre of blue scales. I can't believe I found you." The young merman cries out in joy, his lantern bobbing with his excitement.
"You were looking for me?" Rain says pointing a finned finger at himself.
"Yeah if i can find out who that merman was i can get a big bonus even a promotion." The young fishman says, clamping his jaw down in excitement.
"Ho, well why not?" Rain says with a smile rubbing the kids head.
"Wait, are you serious, you don't mind!? Can I take you to my news office?" The fishman child floats up about half a mile in the waters.
"Go on kid its good advertising for me as well." Rain smirks, already taking Serena's advice in stride.
"Okay just follow me sir!" The fishman swims along the lit up pathways of the reef guiding the three of them towards the news office.
"Right behind you come on Serena." Rain says struggling to gain any momentum in the water as usual, only now managing to coordinate with his tail.
"Already ahead of you literally. You catch on quickly, at least you can't get work without decent advertisement." Serena says already ahead of rain passing ahead of him teasing him on the way.
"Just this way sir!" The fishman says with excitement swimming faster then Rain can keep up with.
The three of them swim through the reef with relative ease following the lit up paths of the reef. Rain still struggles to get used to using his fins, only managing to coordinate his tail to help aid him swim a little.
"First day on your fins?" The young fishman chuckles to himself as he easily outpaces the two of them.
"Something like that kid." Rain chuckles scratching at the scales on the back of his neck.
"Well try to keep up at least we're almost there." The fishman chuckles once more, almost increasing his swimming speed to tease Rain.
"Yeah I'm trying, I'm trying." Rain calls out still floundering in the open water barely managing to keep a decent swimming pace.
"Here we are the Flyfish News office" The young fishman says full of pride as he finally slows down in front of his workplace.
"Wow they really renovated this whole building, this must've taken at least a year or two." Rain says in awe getting a flashback to the origin of the building once being a corner store in a convenient section of the neighbourhood.
"Yeah and a whole lot of shells." Serena pipes in knowing full well how much a renovation like that usually costs.
"Boss hey boss are you in!?" The young fishman calls out through the news office, the scattered kelp papers strewn everywhere.
"Yeah yeah I'm here don't rupture my damn eardrums Melvin im coming." A scarred merwoman floats her way out from the back of the news office. Her lower half being a shark's body with a jet black colour to her scales.
"Boss this is the guy that has the whole reef talking about him." Melvin says, his lantern still swinging to his excitement.
"Oh you actually managed to find the loose fish and here I thought it was just another red herring." The shark woman says surprised.
"So you're the one that managed to stick it to the abyssal pearl. The name is Erin I've never seen you before so you must be new to the reef in general." Erin says looking Rain up and down for some semblance of familiarity.
"Something like that." Rain says with a cheesy smile trying to stay humble.
"Rain dont be modest, we need the advertisements." Serena's arm nudges him in the side once more.
"Yes I managed to take them on and one of their lieutenants, I think it was, didn't quite engrain with the battle to the death with the battle to the death and all." Rain says still trying to downplay himself.
"You actually managed to take one of their lieutenants!?" The shark woman says floating over to Rain sizing him up and down.
"Yeah he was leading a squad of fishman i think 6 all together if we include the lieutenant." Rain says trying to avoid being modest now.
"That's a really good joke kid, I'll give you credit for constructing a good story at least." Erin says struggling to hold back her laughter at the absurdity of the story. Wiping a tear of laughter from her eyes.
"Mam if i may, i can back this up i was there, Rain saved my life from the abyssal pearl. He stayed there against all odds to try and save me. He isn't just saying this for the sake of fame this genuinely happened." Serena says delivering her account of everything firmly without wavering in the slightest.
"Serena!? You're really giving your word for this. I wouldn't take in such a fairytale for a story but If you're giving your word this has happened then i'll trust you hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me in the fins.
"Alright then if you're willing can you give your statement on the matter we will need a picture of the reef's loyal soldier." Erin says still trying to shake her disbelief over the tale.
"Fine by me." Rain smiles awkwardly trying not to brag or case any trouble.
"I still can hardly wrap my head around how you managed that it feels like a tall tale, but thank you for saving Serena. She runs one of the best general stores in the are and gives a fair price to anyone no matter what race they are." Erin says already taking notes from their conversation in her kelp paper notepad.
"She's a good friend of mine, there was no way I would be leaving her behind. So I gave it my all to protect her in the end." Rain says solemnly, wanting to be able to do something for someone this time.
"Thank you, I'll try my best."
"Still it's a stunning feat for sure to be able to fight off and win against six fishman at a time." Erin says still writing away in her kelp notepad with her squid ink pen.
"One thing still sticks out to me, I haven't seen you around before, where did you come from? Your not from the reef that's for sure." Erin says looking up from her kelp paper notebook. Her Azure eyes try to analyse Rain.
"Oh I'm actually a local of sorts." Rain says not wanting to hide anything that's happened to him, wanting to lead his new life with courage.
"Local? But I've never seen you here before and I've normally seen everyone unless you don't come out of your house. How can that be?" Erin says her Azure eyes staring at Rain with confusion.
"Well I lived here before the floor had hit." Rain explains.
"Wait you were one of the residents of this place when did you wake up then, it must have been a jarring transformation?" Erin says quickly scribbling down as much of their conversation in her notebook.
"I only woke up a week ago still getting my bearings on everything." Rain continues to explain.
"YOU ONLY JUST WOKE UP!" Erin nearly tears a hole through her notebook from the shock of the achievement she's hearing.
"Is that a bad thing!?" Rain worries knowing he should have been more modest.
"No no just most people take a long while to even get used to the new environment but you seem like this is nothing." Erin says completely blown away by what she is hearing. Not expecting someone with this kind of potential.
"It's not nothing, I just accept what I've lost and I'm hoping to find some answers and closure." Rain says, his yellow eyes not trembling in the slightest.
"You're something else kid for being able to do that most people who wake up are lost, some even end their own lives from the horror of whats happened to them. You're something else, your name is Rain right?" Erin says blown away still.
"Yeah it is."
"Well rain to put it bluntly, would you care to sell your story to us?" Erin says barely able to tear her azure eyes away from her notepad.
"Sell it?" Rain says.
"Yeah it basically allows us the rights to publish it" Erin manages to look up from her notebook to explain, whilst her hand still continues to write as if possessed.
"How many shells are we talking about here?" Serena asks, taking over the haggling by second nature.
"Oh don't worry Serena its a fair price around 10,000 shells."Erin says already knows Serena too well having prepared a fair price for them.
"10,000!! That's half of what I make in two weeks…" Serena says stunned.