Mermaid Melody

Dragon Pitch

Hanon Hosho, Rina Toin and Lucia Nanami stood in line outside of Saunders High School. The three of them were Mermaid Princesses, though they kept it hidden from the students around them. Hanon stood at approximately 5'3", with short blue hair, brown eyes and glasses, as a human. In her mermaid/idol forms, she was about 5'6", with long blue hair, blue eyes and glasses. She was the Aqua Pearl Princess. Rina was 5'6" with long, seaweed green hair in both human and Idol had grey eyes as a human, and green eyes as a mermaid/idol. She was the Green Pearl Princess. Lucia was about an inch shorter than Hanon in both human and idol forms. In her human form, she had short blond hair and brown eyes. In her mermaid/idol form, she had ridiculously long blond pigtails and blue eyes. She was the Pink Pearl Princess. Each of the girls had a seashell pendant that matched the color of they're pearls, and kept the pearls safe.

A year and a half had passed since the seven Mermaid Princesses had defeated Michel. After 18 months of peace, a new threat was rising, and an eighth princess was discovered, this one a dragon. Hanon, Rina and Luchia had been sent to America to find her.

"What if she doesn't have a pendant with her?" Lucia asked. "How will we be able to find her?"

"The color of her hair." Rina said quietly.

"That's right." Hanon agreed. "Mermaid Princesses have hair and tail colors, or in the new girl's case, hair, wing and tail colors, that match the color of their pearl." Hanon looked around. "But a lot of Americans dye their hair, right?"

Rina nodded. "We have to be careful when approaching a possible match. Especially if she has no pendant."

"What's with this line, anyway?" Lucia asked. "We've been out here forever!"

"It's only been five minutes." Hanon said. "But that's a good point. Why are we out here?" The answer came another five minutes later. The school was running a security check. The girls went through and pulled out their schedules. "Aww, we don't have any of the same classes!" Hanon whined.

"That's good, we can cover more ground that way." Rina said. "And I don't have a class sixth period, which is when you two have lunch, so we can all meet then." The girls headed off to their classes, Hanon had math first, Lucia had fashion and Rina had ECC.

Flare Natsuha was the student who had held up the security check line. She had to remove her mechanical prosthetic right arm, the empty each individual weapon from it, then dig through her book bag for her wallet to get out the license she had that legally allowed her to carry and conceal the weapons. After the check, which almost got her suspended because she had forgotten to take out her Colt Anaconda revolver, she had to reload her arm and reattach it. The whole process took seven minutes, after which she went to her first period class, ECC.

Flare was about 5'8", with long red hair and red eyes. She had bangs that covered her left eye, and a small mole under her right eye. She wore a Japanese school uniform and her book bag was slung over one shoulder. She adjusted her wire-frame glasses as she walked into the classroom and took a seat by the door. As she sat, she reached into her shirt and brought out the pendant she was wearing. It was about an inch and a half thick, with a reddish tint and something resembling wings on the sides. The "wings" were a darker red than the rest of the pendant. Flare had had the pendant her whole life. So far as she knew, she'd been born with it. But she'd never been able to open it, and she could only assume it was related to her natural talent for singing and playing guitar, drums and electric keyboard. And to her being a half-dragon mermaid.

As Flare sat looking at the pendant, she thought about her past. She was illegitimate. Born in Tokyo, Japan, her mother had been raped during a trip to the grocery store. Flare's father had murdered his wife after Flare was born. Everything after that was a haze of abuse and rape. She did remember having at least one friend. A boy she'd met in preschool, who had a weird face. While other kids teased him, Flare had slowly fallen in love with the boy. Then in the sixth grade, his father talked him into getting an operation to have his face fixed. Flare was against it, saying he shouldn't be ashamed of being a freak. She wasn't, so why should he? The boy had asked what she meant, but something in the back of Flare's mind had told her that it would be fatal to tell him what she really was. He went through with the operation, and died. That same night, Flare's house caught fire, and her father was trapped inside. Flare had run off to America, taking the family fortune with her. She bought a house in Yonkers, New York, finished middle school, lost her arm, built the replacement, applied for her weapons license after getting a green card, started high school at Saunders, and...

The pendant started glowing, jerking Flare from her thoughts. She quickly stuffed the pendant back down her shirt and looked around. All the students had arrived, and no one seemed to have noticed the glowing pendant. But, was that new girl, with the long green hair staring at her?

Flare was the first person to leave at the end of the two period class. She hung around until she saw the green haired girl, according to attendance, her name was Rina, leave the room, Flare continued walking. She suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Your name was Flare, right?" The girl asked.

"Yes." Flare replied.

"I noticed your pendant, earlier. Where did you get it?"

"Oh, some souvenir shop in... Puerto Rico." Flare lied.

"Cool." Rina said. "It makes a good flash light, too, it seems."

"What?" Flare asked.

"You forgot to make it stop glowing." Rina pointed at the feint red glow on Flare's shirt. "You should turn it off before the batteries die." Flare hesitated, then took the pendant out.

"Umm... I don't know how to work it." She said weakly.

"You're a bad liar." Rina said. She reached into her own shirt and took out a pendant almost identical to Flare's, except it was green. And glowing. Flare got a nagging feeling in the back of her mind.

"Maybe this isn't the best place to discuss this." She said. Rina nodded. "I have sixth period lunch, we can discuss it then." Flare turned around and walked away.

How did she know I would be available sixth period? Rina wondered. Then she realized she was holding her schedule.

"Rina!" Lucia called. She and Hanon ran up to Rina, who was standing outside of the CID classroom on the basement level of the school, staring into the cafeteria. "Any luck?" Lucia asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact." Rina said. "She was in my ECC class. Our pearls reacted to each other."

"Odd." Hanon said. "Like, they both started glowing?" Rina nodded. "I hope that didn't attract attention."

"I don't think so." Rina said. "There she is now." Rina pointed across the cafeteria. Flare was on the other side, eating a chocolate bar and walking towards them.

"Let's get some food." She said. "We can talk outside." The four girls got their lunch and Flare led them out of the building, across the soccer field, passed two baseball diamonds and across the track-encircled football field, to the stone bleachers. Once they sat down, Flare introduced herself. "My name is Flare Natsuha." She said. Rina then introduced herself, then Lucia, then Hanon.

"So you're the eighth Mermaid Princess?" Lucia asked.

"Apparently." Flare said, unwrapping her ham and cheese sandwich. "I'm also a half-dragon." She started eating her sandwich, staring at the ice cream truck across the street from the parking lot, watching security guards coming from and going to lunch. "I'm guessing there is a reason you three came out here looking for me?" The girls nodded.

"We may need your help." Rina said.

"The fortune teller at my kingdom predicted a threat to both the human and mermaid worlds." Lucia said.

"And my kingdom was attacked." Hanon said.

"Attacked?" Flare asked, almost choking on her lunch. "How? Why?"

"I don't know. But we were attacked by several giant monsters, and some kind of black cloud." Hanon hesitated, adjusting her glasses. "But... The cloud happened before, when Gaito tried to kidnap the seven Mermaid Princesses..."

"Talk about Deja vu..." Flare said. "Wait... That can't be right. Deja vu means a glitch in the Matrix... But you said there were dragons involved?" Hanon nodded. Something was eating away at the back of Flare's mind again.