It was around noon on a Saturday morning and Evie McLaren was ready to do some investigative journalism. Her journalistic skills kicking in, being the editor of the paper kept her mind keen. Now was the time to use those skills to actually understand what was going on. She had done all kinds of things with her moon ring. The only catch was that she didn't really understand mermaid history. She didn't understand anything that could help her better understand the moon pool and how Mako Island tied into everything.

Ever since Zac had learned about his parentage, he had went into some lockdown. He wasn't picking up any calls, answering any texts, and he hadn't been at school all week. She had to figure out the answers herself. Even if it meant hurting Zac in the process, even though it would hurt her too.

Now Evie was knocking on principal Santos's door. As soon as Evie rang the doorbell both Ondina and Sirena were standing right there. Ondina in a pink and white striped shirt and blue jean shorts. Sirena in a blue dress that Evie had sold to her.

"I thought you would be David. I thought you would be Erik," said both of them at the same time before letting her in. Neither of them actually seemed too thrilled to actually see her. They were hoping to talk to the boys.

This whole week was hard on them. Mimmi was trying very hard to do research on her mother and other mysteries she was confused about. Ondina was going to yell at Erik and probably stop talking to him all together. Sirena was just trying to relieve stress with David and singing at the cafe.

Evie was trying to piece this entire thing together. She had written up a list of questions she had wanted to ask Rita since turning into a mermaid. Other than the usual whining, such as why me? Or how did this happen? She was taking the advantage of her journalistic skills to figure out the mystery of Mako and such. The first step was into the past and knowing about her subject.

She wasn't going to press on about Zac and Mimmi's mum. All of her questions avoided the topic all together. They were more along the lines of what she could do with her powers. Why is Mako Island important? Could her tail change colors?

"Is Principal Santos home?" asked Evie. "I'd like to talk to you all at once and it's kind of important. It could take your mind off of what happened."

"Sure, Evie I'll go find her," said Ondina before sulking off. Sirena and Evie shrugged before the doorbell rang again. This time it was David with the food. Apparently, Erik wasn't trying to push himself to get the task. He was probably going to wait until Ondina was home alone to confront her. Or at least show up when she wasn't surrounded by the other girls.

They soon all sat around the grotto and the girls were going to try their best to answer her questions. Evie just asked them all at once and now her pen poised over the notebook. Rita looked over at Evie who had let out all of her questions. She had taken nearly an hour to ask everything. Much less have any of the girls answer them. Not more than an hour ago, Rita was working on the new time table. Now she was thinking of the best way to answer Evie's questions. Most of them where pretty basic to answer. All of them were about mermaids in general.

How do you keep yourselves from being caught? Where do mermaids come from? It was the usual questions a girl getting turned into a mermaid would ask. There were a few that were harder to explain or take a long time. The questions that were like that only took around fifteen minutes to explain otherwise.

Why is Mako important? What is the history of mermaids? Finally came the all-important question that only Rita would know. This is because the pod had only told a select group of people about the whole history. Members of the council knew to keep history from happening again. Rita had knew several members of different pods from around the world to piece together the entire story.

"So what even caused this entire war between mermen and mermaids anyway?" asked Evie.

Ondina, Mimmi, and Sirena only looked at each other. None of them actually knew the actual true, full story about the war. The most they knew was about the trident; the merman cave on the island took them by surprise. Rita only looked around the grotto before thinking and finally taking a deep breath.

"I don't know the merman's side of the story. I'm going to tell this story without any bias toward merman and the mermaids. Frankly, the entire thing was ridiculous to being with."

Rita closed her eyes briefly. Evie was clever and she could probably figure out what was going on. Everyone made themselves comfortable in the middle of the grotto. In the middle table sat a large plate of seafood. They were going to have to order more soon.

Evie only wished that Zac was here. Instead, he was too busy brooding over the fact that he wasn't human. Evie looked over at Ondina, she was probably hoping that Erik was here to share the merman side. Although, she was probably going to yell at him first and act all stubborn. Then she looked at Sirena who perched herself to get a good look at Rita telling the story.

Rita only thought for a moment, this story was long and kind of hard to tell. Mermen and mermaids had fought for many reasons. The war only amplified every problem they had with each other. Rita had sat down ready to tell the story.

"The most important thing to start with is Mako Island. It had been around since supposedly the dawn of time. A comet had come crashing into Earth's atmosphere and the shards formed moon pools around the globe. There's at least one for every continent in the world. Several of them owned by mermaids and others by mermen. Mako Island was actually owned by mermen first. Originally there was nothing wrong between the mermaids and mermen. They're leaders were king and queen of the southern pod. They were peaceful and when there was a fight between them

I'm going to start with the rift between mermaids and merman. It started for many reasons, petty little fights so to speak. A common belief is the way we reproduced with each other. The way mermaids mated with mermen was painful. Merman can be aggressive when it comes to the right to mate with other mermen and the mermaid. When merman and mermaids or mermen were starting to die out, we would forcibly mate to continue our species.

We also had the problem of who had the most power. Mermen had better control of their magic without the aid of a moon ring. They could also do more damage than five mermaids combined. Then…" Rita paused for a moment. Now would probably be the time to tell them the big reason behind this whole mess.

"At the time of war we had two monarchs of the oceans. They were blessed directly from Selene and Oceanus. Queen Coventina and King Havelock had ruled in opposite ways of each other. She favored the mermaids and their opinions above all others. He listened and took the merman's side of any petty strife.

Coventina was suspicious that her husband was seeing another mermaid. Instead, he was seen with a land girl. This had angered her to no end. In the middle of the night of a mating moon, Coventina went to her moon pool, and with magic from the full moon; laid an egg."

"So it was actually the mermaids that had started the war," whispered Mimmi thoughtfully to the other girls. Never once would a mermaid actually start a fight much less a war. Sirena had shushed her because Rita was still talking.

All of the girls took some more prawns off of the plate in front of them. By now it was almost gone and Rita would have to order more from David. Nearly all of the water from the pitcher was gone too.

"Havelock was furious that she had learned to have a child without him. Already convinced that Coventina could do without him. She had banished him from the waters around Mako. They had fought endlessly on who would banish who; on who had the right to stay around the waters of Mako.

Mako Island, as you can tell is pretty important. It was where mermaids and merman lived freely together. It was the central meeting place for southern mermaid pods at one point. Land people didn't go there often. It was also the place where it was thought to be believed Selene and Oceanus gave life to the first mermaid.

Anyway, the other mermaids and merman followed in suit of their rulers. Havelock had gathered some of his best merman and built the chamber on Mako. They had claimed it as a merman island without Coventina's permission.

On the night of a new moon, the merman had tricked one of Conventina's favorite mermaids, Undine, to come to the island. How, nobody really knows, they had either hypnotized her or she was smitten with one of them. Whatever the case she followed them on land. That night they had killed her to build the trident."

Sirena and the others had gasped at this. All this time in the chamber they were standing where mermaids were once killed. Rita's eyes skirted over to Ondina for a moment. Undine wasn't that different from Ondina. She had hoped that history wouldn't repeat itself. Otherwise, Ondina would be the first to go. Her lips parched, Rita took a sip of her water before continuing.

"Mermen and mermaids fought each other every day and into the night. Mermen killing mermaids and mermaids killing mermen. Ondina, that place you were that Zac sent you on Mako? It's widely believed by the mermaids that mermen had holding cell to contain mermaids that rebelled, to be killed."

Ondina's eyes grew wide but said nothing.

"It was a blood bath until one merman couldn't take it. Troy, the prince of the merman, had been in love with Undine. He had conspired with the mermaids that he could take away the merman's power. A few months after she had been killed, he had stolen his father's trident and locked it away. The other mermen learned about his betrayal and locked him away in a chamber on Mako. Coventina and Havelock eventually made up and fell in love with each other all over again. They decided to no longer use the chamber on the mermaids and no longer decided to use the trident.

A sea witch had prophesied that one the mermaid's descendants – a merman - would unlock his chamber. That he would sacrifice two mermaids that would help unlock his chamber. That he would avenge his capture and Undine's killing. Only one merman had been born between the first and today. He was eventually killed and the mermaids had driven the mermen left onto land soon afterward.

Before Undine was killed she had gave birth to a son. The son had mated with the egg that Coventina laid. They had a mermaid that started laying eggs until today. Mermaid council after mermaid council had raised each egg as one of their own, they named her Nadia. They had taught her and every generation that mermen were bad news. Eventually Nadia grew up and had a mermaid, who had a mermaid, who had a mermaid, yet no merman had come along since the first. It was easy to track each generation down, all of them were named after the sea. Nerice, Nerita, Nireta, Thalassa, Nautia, Marinochka, Lage and she eventually – She eventually had Nerissa."

Everyone looked at each other until all of their blue eyes settled on Mimmi. She had ignored what Rita had said about her mother. Instead, she was busy thinking about the story as a whole. It was a lot to take in, because the northern pod didn't tell this story to her. It took the longest time to expel mermen from the northern pod. Just about 300 years ago was when all mermen finally made it to land. The rest of the world put all of their merman on land much earlier.

This was just so much to take in. She could only handle one bit of information at a time. So Zac was prophesized to open Troy's prison on Mako Island. Without any merman presence it wouldn't open. As soon as Zac gained his tail though. It started to all make sense. They were descendants of powerful mermaids after the first of a rather unique birth. Both she and Zac were royalty and she could probably control some of the chamber. Maybe just a little bit of it to help them out if the time had come to it.

"What if a land person or even another merman got a hold of the trident?" asked Evie thinking about Cam and the trident last summer. He never acted himself around the trident and he was just so different. It was like he was being controlled somehow. He was willing to betray his best friend and gladly do it. Even Zac acted strangely according to Cam. There were times when Zac seemed like another person said Cam. His example was when he first came back to the moon pool. The way he talked, acted, and even looked was not like himself. He seemed to enjoy tormenting the mermaids: Lyla, Nixie, and Sirena. Same thing when they confronted him at his house. This was all before the seventh cycle so that probably had something to do with it.

"It's said that the trident stone is more than just a weapon. When the chamber was made so was the stone in the trident. There is a theory that the stone is one of the leading causes of the war. The stone itself is said to have possessive qualities that can give so much power that it would cause the merman's downfall.

It is also supposedly cursed and those that take possession by those that aren't part of the family, will be possessed. There was a case once during the war about this happening. It wasn't very well documented though. The only thing I remember was that he or she did not suspect a thing. Over time it changed their thoughts and did things but don't know why."

"We can't let Zac go back to Mako," announced Ondina. "Troy will be freed and destroy Mako forever and the pod will never come back. What time does the full moon come out tomorrow night?"

Evie looked down at her phone. She had recently found a calendar of the full moon cycle and put it on her phone. It had actually came in handy lately in more than just this situation.

"Around 3:35," said Evie. "We should make a plan about what to do. Even if Zac isn't talking to us, we should get him involved. Maybe we can snap his trance and connection to Mako. Like all of you tried to do in the first place. I can see now why Mako is dangerous."

"Wait, we should stay away," advised Sirena. "Troy predicted that Zac would sacrifice two mermaids to open his chamber. As long as no mermaid goes on Mako, it should be safe."

"We can't just stay away," said Ondina. "Merman island or not, Mako is our home and we were trying to claim it back."

"Well then we need a plan," said Rita.