Nexus: Well, here's chapter 2...

Zac: *reads over plans for this chapter* You're going to have me do what!?

Nexus: Shhh, don't let them know my plans for this chapter! Let's get on with it then. As you all known, I don't own Mako Mermaids and I plus everyone else who loves it wishes they owned it!

Chapter 2: The Beginning

A week or so had gone by since Zac had been transformed. And during that week, things had changed quite a bit around the coast. Three girls called Lyla, Nixie and Sirena had suddenly appeared, claiming to be the Principal of Sun Coast High nieces, Rita Santos. Yet they didn't actually go to Sun Coast High, they claimed to go to a different school, which seemed really odd.

Today happened to be the day that David's brother Joe had gotten a new Speed Boat and wanted to test it out. Not only had he convinced his brother to come along, but some how magnificently convinced Sirena to come along for a quick ride as well.

"You okay Sirena?" David asked as he looked his shoulder at her. She seemed a little pale and concerned.

"Oh, I'm fine," she replied putting on a smile. She had no idea herself how she'd ended up on a boat out in the middle of the Ocean with her crush and his annoying brother. She'd only agreed to come along because David was forced to beg for her to come with by Joe. Older brothers could be so cruel and controlling when they wanted/ needed to be.

"I just feel a little weird is all," she said clutching her stomach. She didn't feel too good.

"She's not sea sick is she?" Joe asked.

"Sea sick?" Sirena asked confused. She'd never heard of it.

"Do you feel a little ill, churning in your stomach?" David asked worriedly.

"A little," Sirena replied. "I don't want to sound mean but do you think we could turn around and drop me off?"

"Whilst you're at it, me too," David added.

"Fine," Joe sighed loudly. He was about to spin his boat around when his Fish Finder made a beeping noise, indication signs of movement below.

"Hang on a second," Joe said to himself, turning on the fish finder, only to see a big heat marked source that looked like nothing he'd ever seen before.

"David, are you seeing this? What is that?" He asked looking towards his brother.

"Maybe it's a dolphin," David suggested.

"It's not like any dolphin I've ever seen," Joe replied.

Sirena took a look at the object moving for herself and recognised what it was instantly. It looked like a mermaid swimming, and Nixie said she was going for a swim before she left the Ocean Cafe. Did that mean the moving object was Nixie? She had to find a way to get Joe off of her.

"Um, can we head back to land now?" Sirena asked sounding a little frantic.

Joe looked at her, then the moving object on the fish finder.

"David, go comfort your girlfriend for a bit, there is no way I am letting this thing go," Joe said as he sped up his boat a little to keep up with the pace the thing below was now setting.

"You are unbelievable," David glared.

Nixie, swimming below, could hear something above her and stopped for a second to see what it was. It was a boat. Nixie was feeling a little paranoid right now so she turned around and began torpedo swimming.

"Woah! Did you see the speed that thing just moved at!?" Joe exclaimed. Joe then kicked his boat up to a higher speed, one to match Nixie and followed her.

"Joe, if this is a Dolphin you know what chasing it is illegal right?" David explained.

"I don't care, this thing can't be a dolphin anyway, it's way too fast," Joe replied with determination in his voice. He was not going to let this thing get away.

3 minutes later, he'd managed to chase the creature all the way into the canals, the area where Zac lived.

"Could you at least dock me and Sirena off here?" David asked nicely.

Joe pulled his boat up along side the Dock, watching as Sirena and David departed from his boat.

Nixie on the other hand was pressed against the one of the legs that supported the dock. When she heard footsteps, she thought it would be a good chance to get away. She tried to push off, but she couldn't. The bottom of her fin had got entangled in the blue net that was wrapped around the dock legs.

The sudden movement alerted Joe's Fish Finder. "Woah hey, David! I think it's down under the Jetty!" Joe called to his brother.

"Just leave it alone man," David said tiredly. When was Joe going to leave this thing alone? "Turn your boat around and get out of here!"

"Are you crazy!?" Joe retaliated. "I'm not going anywhere until I find out what it is."

"You're the one who's crazy. Don't be a stupid idiot, you're scaring it," David fought back.

No sooner than that conversation was over did Zac walk out onto the dock. "What's up?" He asked.

"My idiot brother's chased something into the canal. It's down there," David explained.

"What is it?" Zac asked.

"I think it's a dolphin," David replied.

"And I told you, that there is no way that that thing is a dolphin!" Joe answered back. "Zac, come check it out on the finder. Maybe you can work out what it is."

Zac thought it was worth a try. He carefully hopped onto Joe's boat and took a look at the heat source that was creating an image. His eyes went wide like Sirena's did. "I'll... be back in just a minute," Zac said slowly before jumping off back onto the docks and making a run towards a remote location where he could dive into the water without being seen. *I know the shape of that image. It's someone like me,* Zac thought to himself.

At that moment, Lyla had also appeared. "Sirena, what's going on?"

"Joe's chased some kind of dolphin into the canals, it's stuck under the jetty, apparently," David briefly explained in place of Sirena.

The two girls looked down at the area of the canal David was talking about. A second later, Nixie appeared. She'd been using her powers to keep herself invisible.

They walked away to have a talk. "How did she get down there?" Lyla asked seriously.

"I was on the boat when something called a Fish Finder got an outline of Nixie and Joe's chased her all the way down to the canals. She seems to be stuck, one of us needs to help her," Sirena explained.

"Hey, David! There's two now!" Joe called, seeing another heat source image much like the one that was already under the dock.

"Another one!?" Lyla and Sirena asked in shock. "But, who else could there be besides Nixie? I mean, the pod left," Sirena thought.

Realization suddenly hit Lyla. Zac wasn't here and there was another merperson under the dock. "Zac, he's going to find out!"

Lyla was about to run off and dive into the water when Sirena grabbed her hand and held her back.

"What are you doing?" Lyla asked annoyed.

"Just leave it Lyla. Zac's already seen her by now, her secret will be out," Sirena told her in a calming voice.

Lyla was rather frantic right now. Zac would be down there talking to Nixie, what on earth they were saying was another issue.

Back to when Zac dove under the dock, he swam up to the dock leg but saw nothing. He was about to turn around but a second later he heard a noise. He turned around to see one of the girls that had mysteriously rolled up into town, as a mermaid.

Nixie's powers had to run out at some point and she was dead scared now that Zac had a full view of her, as what she was.

"Nixie!?" Zac asked incredulously.

"Like you're one to call a name, Zac," Nixie spoke back in a harsh tone.

"You're a mermaid?" Zac asked.

"So what? Like you're no different," she replied, glaring at him. Her face seemed full of worry.

He looked down at her tail to see that it was stuck in the netting wrapped around the dock leg. "So it was you Joe was following and now you're stuck?"

"Well done captain obvious! Now are you going to help me get out of this net before someone sees us?" Nixie asked, still pulling away at the netting.

Zac swam down and began pulling away at the net trying to free her tail. Zac would never had guessed that when there were other mermaids out there, that one of his newly found friends would be one.

"You don't seem the slightest bit surprised about me," Zac said in all seriousness.

"I've seen you around. I was just trying to keep my cover. After all, it's not everyday a merman just rolls up and ends up helping out a mermaid," Nixie replied. She couldn't let on that Lyla and Sirena were the same as him, or Rita.

After a few more tugs, Nixie's tail was free. She swam back a bit and stared at Zac. "Anyway, why would a merman like you help a mermaid? After all, you are our greatest enemy, we fear you."

"I don't care if you don't trust me. I had to get you or whatever was down here out of that net and not risk any of us being discovered. It's probably the last thing any of us would want right now," Zac explained. Then it hit him, what about the other two. "And what of Lyla and Sirena? Do they know that you're a-"

"No," Nixie interrupted. "They don't know what I am. We've been friends for ages and I've kept my secret. I can't ever risk them knowing," Nixie lied. She had to protect her friends, Zac couldn't know about them. She was fine keeping Zac off her shoulders but she was sure the other's wouldn't be able to if he ever found out.

"Well, at least we're on the same page here, now go, I'll find a way to take care of Joe," Zac told her with a smile.

"Thank you Zac," Nixie said quietly, hoping he wouldn't hear it. She refused to lose to a merman, especially the one who was the cause for her entire pod to have to leave Mako.

Up on the surface, Joe was studying his fish finder. It showed that Nixie had swam away and that there was still one there. "David, one of them's gone, there's just one left!"

"Well, at least one of them is safe," David murmured.

"Was it Zac or Nixie who escaped?" Sirena wondered. Her question was answered moments later when Nixie came up behind them, trying not to act suspicious.

"Hey guys," Nixie said cheerfully, putting on a fake smile.

"Nixie!" Sirena launched into a hug with her.

"Sirena, I'm fine, I was only gone for like half an hour, not like anything happened to me," she replied, trying to lead on that it was best not to try and make any note of this incident.

"Did Zac see you?" Lyla whispered.

"Yes, what's worse is he got me out of the net that I was stuck on," Nixie mumbled.

"He helped you?" Lyla asked surprised. "Why would he?"

"He said he didn't want to risk any one of us being discovered," Nixie replied.

"And he didn't say anything about us?" Sirena questioned.

"I managed to throw him off by saying that you were just my friends and that I'd kept my secret from you so far," Nixie briefly explained. "Speaking of all this though, where is Zac now?"

"David, that things still on my screen," Joe called."It's still there, jump in and take a look would you bro?"

"Moron, I can't believe I'm related to that," David said in disappointment.

"If you won't jump in, then I will," Joe remarked, stripping off his shirt and preparing to jump into the water.

"I tried my best," David said, walking away slightly, turning around. The three girls heard a splash noise and looked around to see that Joe had jumped into the water.

"What now?" Sirena asked worried. "Zac's still down there," she whispered to her friends.

When Joe jumped into the water and opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a blue fin, caught against the netting of the dock's leg. His eyes slowly traversed it upwards, his face full of shock and and eyes widened when he saw who it was Zac. He was staring right at Zac and he had a tail!

When Zac had gotten Nixie out of the netting and tried to turn around, he found that his own tail had gotten caught in the netting and now he was the stuck one.

Joe quickly surfaced, coughing out any water that might have entered his body and climbed back aboard his boat as fast as he could, his eyes full of scared looks.

"Well, what did you see down there?" David asked since Joe looked so shook up.

"Zac," he replied breathlessly. "It was Zac, and he had a tail!"

"Ugh!" David said in annoyance. "Am I seriously still related to you?"

Moments later than when David had said that did Zac free himself from the net and swam off out into the Ocean. Right now, he needed to get away, far away from Joe.

Joe looked over to see his Fish Finder beeping away as the figure he now knew as Zac began swimming away. "He freed himself?" Joe asked.

"Look Joe just leave it," David said to him before he noticed something odd. The last time he had seen Zac was when he looked at the image on his brother's boat and then went zooming off somewhere. In between this time, another 'fish' had appeared and one of them left. He had to find out for himself, but he would need his brother's help. Man did the thought of asking that shake him to the core.

"Joe, take me with you. I want to find out for myself," David said bravely.

Joe actually smiled at him and pulled his boat over to where David was. "Glad you're finally seeing reason with me bro!"

David put on a fake smile and hopped on board. "Alright, any of you ladies coming with us to find out what the heck is going on?" Joe asked them.

"Sorry, we're going to stay behind. After all, Sirena still doesn't feel well so we're just gonna take care of her," Nixie thought up quickly and nodded her head after saying it all.

David and Joe prepared the Fish Finder to track the now moving 'Zac' and drove their boat out of the canal.

Zac could hear their boat revving from up above him.

The chase, was on.

Nexus: This chapter actually took a little bit of a spin at the end there. What I put wasn't what I had planned originally, but I like this better so I'm sticking with it. Besides, next chapter we now have a chase on our hands. Joe's seen Zac and Zac knows what Nixie is without their being any kind of betrayely, yet...

Well, hoped anyone who read it liked it. Next chapter we should see some movement into the story and also meet our anti-protagonist of this little story.

Please, leave a review... It would be nice...