Summer 1999, Cape Catfish Oregon

It was high noon when a young couple and their baby girl came to enjoy the beach, the salty winds of the bay ruffled the husband's dark curls, and those of the blue eyed daughter in his arms. The clear blue sky matched the wife's blue eyes, the sun shoneas
/bright as her smile.

"Ah, yes; clypeasteroida, Melanie." the husband exclaimed as he bent down to pick up a sand dollar as the two marine biologists scanned the beach with beyond casual interest.

Their baby squirmed in the husbands arms as they sat down on the sand to check their specimen. When she was free, she contented herself with playing in the sand.

"Quite the best example yet, Kirk." Melanie said with a glimpse at the sand dollar. "Oh no, a stranded asteroidea!" she picked up the starfish as she stood to return it to the surf. She walked over to the waters edge and chucked it into the surf.

She turned back to her family, but only saw Kirk. "Where's Bridget?" She asked turning pale with worry.

After a few minutes of searching, the couple heard a cry. "Bridget!" they both called as they scrambled to find their daughter, following the wails they found a smiling Bridget on the other side of a driftwood log, but then a cry from elsewhere.

The couple followed the crying to three lumps of seashells, tangled together with kelp; the first one they looked into contained a baby with a black lobster tail in the place of legs. The second basket harbored a baby with a golden manatee's tail, and
/the third had a baby with a silver fish tail.

"They look like mermaids, Kirk!" Melanie commented in confusion as she picked up the crying lobster baby. "What are these things?"

"That's anyone's guess, Melanie." Kirk as equally confused as his wife. "But how did these babies get here if they really are Merfolk?"

"Well it couldn't have been for anything good." Melanie felt it hard to figure out why they found three humanoid fingerlings washed ashore.

"In mythology, mermaids always did possess interest in humans, it was never said that they would send their children to the surface world so they could learn." Kirk explained.

"We have to protect them, don't we?" Melanie had a bad feeling about the answer and the reason behind it.

"Melanie, we may not ever know why they need us…" Kirk grasped his wife's shoulder with one hand before gently picking up the lobster-tailed baby.

• "… They might want to know…" They watched the girl's lobster tail transform into the chunky human legs a baby would have, Kirk already knew what they would have to do, but now he knew howthey would have to do it.

"We'll raise them as our own until whatever brought them here comes back with answers for them."

"Well if we are going to do that, they'll need names." Melanie took the girl that once had a lobster tail from Kirk. "I think we should name this little one… Talia." Kirk picked up the manatee tailed boy as his tail also turned into legs. "Toru." Kirk
noddedin agreement as he set the newly named Toru on his wife's lap to pick up the silver fish tailed boy. "And Rien."

20 years passed with as much change as being studied in a benign manner, the children grew up and asked questions that couldn't be answered without a search, but they complied with life on dry land; all three used martial arts and the tests they took
tocope with being different, but Talia still struggled to figure it all out.

One summers day, Talia was swimming in the ocean, twice as strong and graceful as any competitive swimmer.

She looked at the shore and noticed one tourist in particular standing on his feet and holding his phone up for a photo of the one and only Talia, she rolled her eyes, smiled and headed for shore.

"Hey, you enjoying the view, fellow blond?" she asked as she turned her tail into legs, made her way onto shore and found the tourist.

"You have no idea, Talia." the tourist answered.

"I might not even want an idea." Talia snickered, the tourist laughed as well. "It's nice to meet you… uh…"

"Hunter." the tourist answered.

"Nice name." Talia responded as they took a walk to the pier.

"Not as nice as Talia." Hunter smiled as he saw the blood vessels in her cheeks dilate in embarrassment, their way to the pier just made itself.

"Hello?" They heard a young boy's voice rip through the air despite the crashing waves. "Natalia?"

"Who was that?" Hunter asked, Talia shrugged.

They looked to the ocean and saw a flash of fiery red and emerald green amongst the sapphire waves and white gold foam.

"C'mon, that might be someone in trouble!" Talia urged, as she started for the beach underneath the docks; she turned around and saw Hunter looking at a phone-like device. "Hunter, you coming?"

"You go on ahead, I'll catch up!" Hunter replied looking as if he had a feeling that he should bring friends.

"Okay." Talia sighed, jogging to the bottom of the docks.

The familiar sight of two blond men was seemingly waiting for her.

"Rien, Toru; did you guys hear a little boy calling the name, Natalia?" Talia asked, not noticing the two-toned flash coming closer to them.

"No, but we did see a flash of Christmas in the water." Toru, with honey blonde hair replied.

then, the sound of someone clearing their throat, they turned to the water and they saw a ginger boy with a green piranha tail. "Natalia; siren; princess of the Mariana trench; I am Eddie of…"

"Whoa there, little buddy; what are you talking about?" Rien, with sandy blonde hair asked.

"Oh right, you guys were raised by humans, they probably gave you guys different names."Eddie replied. "Sorry about that, what names did the humans give you?"

"Talia!"

"Toru!"

"Rien!"

"Nice to meet you guys." Eddie said.

"It was Eddie, right?" Talia asked, Eddie nodded. "What are you doing here?"

He watched the three blonds as they got down on their knees "Is it something you think our adopted father should hear?" Rien asked as he and his adopted siblings turned their pairs of legs into tails.

"If it's something bad, he did prepare us for something like that." Toru said, they crawled like newly paraplegic soldiers into the water, dove into the water and waited for Eddie to follow before making their way to the isle off of cape catfish's coast
thatthe Morgan family call aquarium island.

Meanwhile, on the aforementioned aquarium island…

"My; how they've grown, Melanie!" Kirk said to his wife as they looked at a photo of the family in his office from the loveseat.

Even if three of the children were adopted, it was still a picture perfect scene, the children were five years old when it was taken, the girls sat on Kirk's lap while the boys sat on Melanie's lap.

"I know, so fast!" Melanie chuckled in her husbands arms, her hand rested on his chest and her head on his shoulder, his hand at her back holding her close to him. "still seems like only yesterday, they were so cute."

"It'll be 20 years ago tomorrow." Kirk smiled, before remembering a thought still in his mind to this day. "But there still might be something out there that brought them to us." he looked at his desk where a large shell-shaped box lay on it, it was whitewith
/some décor in various shades of gold.

"Mom, Dad." they heard their daughter shout, they turned their heads to watch the door open to reveal the woman Bridget had grown into, from her father's brunette curls and soft jaw to her mother's sky blue eyes and lean frame. "We have 24 hours untilthe
/anniversary beach party and there are some unfinished details that need to be taken care of!"

"I commissioned some presents." Kirk said with pride.

"I posted the event online." Melanie's words also dripping with pride.

"Are you kidding me? No decorations? No food? No music?" Bridget felt aghast at her parents, they both shrugged, a nervous chuckle escaped Melanie's lips. "Okay, my turn to contribute to this shindig." She reached into the pocket of her pink sweatshirtand
/pulled out her phone before walking out of the room.

The couple let a side-splitting laugh escape their lips, as Kirk rose to his feet, walked to his desk and picked up the box once the laughing died down.

"Maybe the time is about to come, maybe it's already come; but like I said: there might be something out there that brought them to us, with that in mind, I prefer they be prepared for it." Kirk said, opening the box and looking at it's contents.

"How do you plan on preparing them more than they already are? By turning them into Power Rangers?" Melanie's words oozing curiosity, as she walked over to the wall sized window to open the blinds.

The sight they saw was three blonds and some little ginger boy approaching Bridget, each face looking like they were about to ask her something.

Melanie looked at her husband and the expression on his face answered her question.