I do not own H2O: Just Add Water—that is rightfully owned by Viacom. I, however, own the storyline. Because if I did own H2O: Just Add Water, I probably wouldn't be sitting here at my computer writing this, now would I? ;-)
Summary: When a rare full moon takes a dramatic turn, causing the girls' powers to go haywire, can they make it through the night with friendship prevailing? Or will things take a turn for the worse?
Author's note: Takes place post season two. Season three has not occurred yet.
Chapter 1
"Premonition"
Cleo Sertori smiled at the by-now-familiar yet still exhilarating tingle as the crisp, cool water ran through her thick, long brown hair. Coral reefs housing brightly colored fish of all shapes and sizes passed by slowly as she rolled her body in a wave-like motion, arm extended and joined in front. Streams of sunlight sliced easily through the clear water and danced along the scales of her orange tail that covered the length of her body from the waist down.
Cleo glanced to her right and was met with an equally as joyful Emma Gilbert, her long and athletic figure mirroring the movements of her fellow mermaid's.
Mentally (as it's hard to do so underwater, despite being able to hold her breath for a whopping fifteen minutes), Cleo laughed at how far she had come, how drastically her life had changed in a single event that seemed to have occurred so long ago now.
Of course, whilst the change could easily be classified as "for the better" in a sense, avoiding every single drop of water in a foot diameter around other people—including her parents and downright annoying sibling—could be a challenge. Lucky she and her two best friends could rely on people like Lewis and Zane to watch their backs and keep their rather extraordinary secret... well, exactly that: secret.
Still, Cleo felt like the shy, rather awkward girl who had actually been less-than-enthusiastic towards the idea of swimming was a total stranger to the girl she was today; a mermaid with—as Rikki would most likely put it—seriously cool kick-butt superpowers. Well, I suppose controlling water is pretty cool, Cleo thought as a sleek dolphin twirled playfully alongside the duo.
Waving their arms backwards to slow down and become stationary in the water, Emma grinned and jerked her head in the general direction of the moon pool; a silent challenge to race. Cleo rolled her eyes and snorted in response, resulting in a stream of bubbles to issue forth from her nostrils; but she nodded anyway. A little friendly competition could be fun, even if she didn't stand a chance against the prior swim team champ.
Emma counted down from three on her fingers. As soon as the last one receded, Cleo pushed off a small mound of coral and took off in pursuit of Emma, tail pumping profusely with only minimal effort. Sure enough, she was already lagging a good couple meters.
The increased speed left a streamline of bubbles in their wake. Swerving and spiraling and blinking away the bubbles left from Emma's path of underwater acrobatics, Cleo almost missed the rocky outline of the underwater entrance to the moon pool and glided to the surface.
Emma leaned back against the rock on her elbows. "And the champion remains undefeated." She laughed. "I even held back on speed for you, Cleo."
"Well who's to say I didn't go easy on you?" Cleo challenged, feeling clever with herself. Surely Rikki could've come up with something more creative to throw back at Emma were she here. Speaking of which...
"Where's Rikki? She never misses our swims," Emma noted, and it was true. Rikki was usually the most eager of them all to go bounding into the water. Well, she was the most enthusiastic about becoming a mermaid in the first place, so it was only to be expected.
Cleo shook her head. "She didn't answer her phone, and I couldn't find her after school."
Emma frowned at this piece of information. Rikki usually had her phone on her at all times—or at least most of the time, if you count the wardrobe change that comes with being a mermaid. Unless she was out with Zane or had something going on, one could usually reach the devious blonde.
A thought struck Emma. "Maybe she's at the Juicenet."
Cleo nodded. "Yeah, it's worth a shot. Plus, I know you just want to see Ash," she added, wiggling her eyebrows.
Emma flushed. "N-No, I just... I mean, it's a full moon tonight, so I figured, why not? We'll be stuck in my house till tomorrow so I want to see him before—"
Cleo laughed. "So I'll take that as a yes?"
Emma and Cleo walked through the beaded entrance of the stylish cafe known as Juicenet and scanned the many tables for Rikki. They found her and no other than Lewis in the booth in the corner of the room; Rikki disconnectedly stirring her juice with her straw and Lewis rapidly rambling and typing away just as fast on his laptop, undoubtedly about something scientific by the way he was gesturing with his arms.
As they approached they caught bits and pieces of what he was saying; or rather, what they could understand.
"—and with the alignment of this particular group of celestial bodies, I predict—"
"Lewis!" Rikki said tiredly, annoyed. "For the last time, speak English!" As she noticed Cleo and Emma for the first time, she sat up a little straighter. "About time somebody erased me from this picture," she said casually, with a flair of her usual sarcasm.
"Yeah, we just got back from our swim. Where were you, by the way? You just kind of vanished after school today," Emma remarked as she and Cleo slid into the booth.
"Yeah, well, Captain Boredom here—"
"That's Mister Captain Boredom to you."
"—insisted on dragging me off to show me his latest science fair program," Rikki continued as if Lewis hadn't just tried to interrupt.
"It's state-of-the-art!" Lewis said in defense of his machine.
Rikki leaned forward and raised her eyebrows in mock enthusiasm. "Wow, state-of-the-art you say? And is state-of-the-art geek for 'able to control the actual moon'?"
Lewis opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it again. "No," he admitted.
Rikki pretended to dust off her hands. "And at long last, I rest my case."
"Wait, you didn't let me finish. There's more," he added excitedly, knowing full well Emma and Cleo were in the dark.
"'Course there is."
Lewis ignored Rikki, but Cleo couldn't help laughing at their light back-and-forth banter; the majority of which Rikki had the upper hand. Go figure. Lewis turned the screen around so they could see what was on it. It appeared to be the paths of travel of all of the planets in the solar system. He took a deep breath and launched into a long explanation.
"See, tonight the full moon rises at precisely... eight thirty-seven P.M.," said Lewis after checking his watch, "and sets at seven fifty-two A.M. Exactly when the moon rises is also the time when Neptune and Mercury are in perfect alignment with each other."
"So...?" Emma prompted.
"So, since Mercury is the first planet from the sun, and obviously the hottest, and Neptune is one of the coldest planets being the eighth from the sun, not to mention having some water-like qualities, I think it could possibly affect your powers or throw them out of balance." Lewis's gaze traveled to settle primarily on Cleo as he finished, her being his girlfriend and everything. And since they had grown up together as close friends, and been the first to know of the whole mermaid ordeal, there would always be a certain protectiveness there.
But by now he's learned when too much is too much and was determined not to hover around her ears, or so they say.
"Don't worry, Lewis. We've got everything under control," Emma reassured him. "All the windows are boarded up, all faucets plugged up; no moonlight can get in, no water will be sitting around, and mum and dad are away for the whole weekend. Everything's according to plan. Right, Cleo?"
"Yup. Nothing to worry about," Cleo agreed.
Rikki—surprisingly enough—hadn't commented. Cleo and Emma looked at her. Rikki twirled a strand of her curly hair between her fingers and had apparently found something incredibly interesting in the table in front of them.
Emma nudged her. "Hey."
Rikki's pale blue eyes snapped up to linger on Emma's darker ones. "Everything all right?"
"Yeah, yeah. Great. Never better."
Had Emma not known her any better she might have bought it. But the slightest change of tone of voice and how quickly her eyes broke contact gave it away and immediately contradicted her words.
"Come on, if something's bothering you, you can tell us," Cleo told her as she reached across the table and took her hand. Rikki instinctively tensed at the contact, having not always been the touchy-feel-y type, but realizing she could be read like an open book right now, succumbed to her friends' concerned attempts at discovering the reason for her unease. Secretly, she was touched to have such great friends who she shared such a big secret with.
It's funny, Rikki thought. One minute I'm messing with Zane Bennett's dinghy, the next I'm growing a tail after being hit by a sprinkler. Now if that wasn't big news, she didn't know what was.
"I just..." She sighed. "I'm scared, that's all."
The two mermaids just sort of looked at her. After all, you normally don't find those words coming out of the mouth of Rikki Chadwick often.
But nobody is invincible. Everybody has some sort of fear; even Rikki.
"Every time I get moonstruck, it's... dangerous."
"It's not that bad—" tried Emma.
"I incinerated the forest on Mako and gave Zane the tan of his young life."
"Okay, so it wasn't exactly good, but we've faced the full moon since then. The worst that could happen is that we get a little... loopy," Cleo said truthfully.
"You mean develop a first-grader personality?"
"Yeah, that."
"But I just have this feeling. Like something unexpected is going to happen or something."
Lewis grinned. "So does that mean you're finally taking my words seriously?"
Rikki rolled her eyes to heaven. "If I say yes, will it make you happy?"
"Extremely so, yes."
"Then yes, this one time, I do," Rikki said with a sigh. Then she smirked her typical smirk and hit his shaggy blonde head upside the head lightly. "But don't get used to it."
As the four prepared to leave the Juicenet and go to their respective houses to stock up for the long night ahead, Ash popped his head out of the back room.
"Hey, Em!"
Emma turned before the doorway and smiled at him before looking back at the others. "I'll meet up with you guys later."
"Okay. Later," Cleo agreed, but Rikki paused halfway in and halfway out the doorway. "Don't get carried away, you two," Rikki said with a wink and was shoved out the door by an apologetic-looking (but amused) Cleo.
As Emma pushed open the door to the back room, she was suddenly swept off her feet by a maroon-and-blue-striped employee and had her lips pressed to another set of smooth ones. After a moment she pulled away from Ash with a look of surprise.
"That was my 'Thank you, Ash' for having me cover your shift tonight," Ash said flirtatiously as he set her back down on her feet. Emma still had her arms locked around Ash's neck.
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but it's a full moon and now that you're in on the whole—" she dropped her voice to a whisper, "—mermaid thing... I mean, I really appreciate it and I promise I'll make it up to y—"
Ash stopped her motor mouth with a laugh. "Chill out, Em," he joked, using the reference to her power. "I'm happy to help in any way I can." Emma beamed as he continued, intertwining her smaller fingers with his larger ones. "Now, you should go back to help the girls, and I have to get back to work. Can't have the manager slacking off, now can we?" He pecked her on the lips, causing a blush to appear on her cheeks.
Emma deflated and detached herself. "All right," she said, if somewhat reluctantly. Her cheerful demeanor quickly reignited though. "Be seeing you."
Ash stopped her briefly on her way out the door. "We're still on for tomorrow, right?"
Emma turned and grinned over her shoulder. "Dinner and a movie, right?"
Ash smiled in turn. "Dinner and movie—your shout."
"Cool. Can't wait." And having the final word, Emma let the metal door swing closed behind her.
Little did she know that getting through tonight would be harder than anyone had expected and that Rikki's gut instinct would end up becoming more than she'd bargained for.
To be continued...
The start of my first H2O: Just Add Water fanfic. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I plan on making this story multi-chapter in the future. But I'll leave it up to you guys.
Do you think I should continue?
No clue on how often I'll be able to update. I suppose it depends on how much progress I'll have made on the next chapter. Plus, I've got my other fan fictions to worry about, so we'll see how it all works out!
Reviews, comments, questions, concerns—any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading and please feel free to review! I promise to reply to each and every reviewer personally!
