ZANE

The café was back up and running smoothly, Zane hated to take help from other people, but he needed his café, which was why when a man walked in and offered him enough money to keep the café running smoothly if they sold nothing, the boy gladly sold him 49% stock. Zane had used some of the extra money to upgrade the sound system, and had ordered new computers,

It worked for Wilfred, the boy had thought , internet access was a big part of the Juicenet, and it might bring in more business. The next step was revamping the prep counters and refrigerators. This had all been done without Sophie's knowledge, and Zane intended to keep it that way. Sophie was a good worker, but he knew bringing her back in would end any efforts to get Rikki back.

"This is her café, I named it after her for a reason." he was mumbling when a certain redhead stepped inside.

"Hey, I saw all the stuff outside, and wondered if you needed a hand." Sophie's ambition was evident in her words.

"The sound technician is coming in five minutes, he'll get it set up. Thanks though."

Sophie noticed Will sitting in the room, drinking his smoothie. She walked over to him and sat down.

"Where have you been, it's been three hours."

"Here."

"Will, you've been here for three hours?" Sophie knew there was a problem. Will never just sat around. Sophie stood back up.

"I'm heading to the beach, you should come. You haven't been to the beach in a long time." the redhead turned around and headed out, leaving Will and Zane alone inside.

"She misses all of this." Will mused

"She's got her ambitions, but then again, don't we all." Zane responded "The sound tech is coming in soon, so it may be a little inconvenient around here for a while."

Will stood up, handed his empty cup to Zane and turned to leave. "No worries, I'm heading out anyway, the beach sounds like a pretty good idea."

The sound tech arrived shortly after Will had left, and Zane started helping the man set up the speakers.

TAKURA

The house was purchased, in Takura's name no less, so now he had a place to stay. Takura had bought it furnished, so Cleo, Rikki, Bella, and Takura were sitting around the living room talking about nothing when the doorbell rang. Takura went to get it, and invited in his new guest.

"You're early sis," he remarked as he and Emma walked back into the living room.

Cleo and Rikki were overjoyed, both quickly jumping up and wrapping their old friend in a group hug. Bella was standing back, having never before met Emma, she was a little nervous.

"Emma, this is Bella Hartley, Mermaid number four." Takura introduced. The two girls smiled at each other, and everyone sat back down.

"Ok everyone, I didn't come back early for fun, I came back early because of what's happened. I was at a party, and there was this guy, he was nice, we danced a little bit, and he ended up walking me back to my hotel. Well, he tried to attack me on the way, and I froze him. I hadn't ever done any snap freeze that powerful before, when we froze Miriam, it only took a little bit to unfreeze her. This guy was frozen solid, then he fell over and shattered."

"We should've been there, our powers worked on Miriam, and now we have Bella and Takura's powers too." Rikki muttered sadly, knowing something terrible, that she had the power to stop, had happened.

"What do you mean, Takura's powers? Takura's just a normal guy."

"Actually, sis, I have a tail too, I just wanted to keep it a secret until all of the mer-people were together." the Japanese boy told Emma, who almost visibly flinched in surprise.

Before Emma could get too angry though, Cleo's phone started to ring.

"Hello." Cleo answered, quickly after seeing the call was from Lewis.

"Cleo, Denman's boat is in the harbor. Stay away from Mako for a while." Lewis almost seemed in a panic.

"Ok, Lewis, calm down. When do you start working with her?"

"Monday morning."

"Ok, we'll get back to you, I'll see you at the café tonight."

"Wait, what time?" Lewis asked, having been away had caused him to forget the little things, Cleo understood.

"The band starts its show at eight, but there's another one before them, so be there by six."

Lewis thanked her and hung up. Now everyone was a little worried. Takura was the first to speak.

"I'm going out to Mako, there's something I need to look for." the boy stood up, with the four girls right on his heels.

"What are you looking for?" Rikki asked

"In the Japanese Moon Cave, there was a chamber, near the bottom, on the opposite side of the island. The chamber is some sort of temple. I found the one in Japan by accident, but it was a perfect find. Takura showed off a small gold ring he had been wearing. There was a yellow topaz set in it.

"I found this ring in the Japanese temple. It increases my thunder powers to high enough power to run America's electricity needs for about three hours."

"Do you think there might be more rings in our island temple?" Emma asked faithfully

"There might be."

Takura and the girls headed out to the water, dove in, and headed off to find the Sunken temple on Mako island.

Shortly after they arrived, Takura managed to find a small tunnel on the back of Mako island. He swam through it, and hefted himself into the main room. The girls came up after him. After they all got out, Rikki dried everyone off, and the team started moving through the temple. The center room had six rings on six pedestals scattered around the room.

The rings seemed to call for the girls, each moving to a ring. Emma's ring held a light blue stone, Cleo's held a dark blue stone, Rikki's had a red stone, and Bella's had a green stone. Takura took the other two rings, claiming he knew the perfect people to wear them. Then the girls started looking more closely at their rings.

"How does it work?" Rikki asked, attempting to throw fire through the air like Takura's electricity.

"If you power up your ring by putting a bit of your power in to activate it, and sends you more power, watch." Takura held his ring and focused on it. Eventually it lit up, and Takura threw a lightning bolt at the wall.

"There's more though," the boy continued, "pumping more energy into the ring will cause you to take on a ferocious form, meant for battle. Watch." Takura pumped energy into his ring, until it passed the light up phase, and began to flash.

"Thunderstorm!" Takura shouted, electrifying the walls. Electricity formed bits of armor on his body, covering his arms and legs.

"This is what I call Storm Power. It takes quite a bit of energy, but it's really powerful."

Takura turned back to normal after his demonstration. Then turned to face the girls.

"Your rings act as Temple Keys. After we leave, the temple will seal up. Denman doesn't know this is here, and even if she finds it, without one of us, she cant get in."

"So for the time being, we can meet here." Cleo affirmed.

"I need to go find Will, we haven't talked at all today. Bella announced to the group, diving back into the water, and heading off.

"Go with her, sis, we shouldn't be traveling to and from Mako all alone." Takura told Emma, who jumped in after Bella. Cleo, Rikki, and Takura were standing in Mako Temple. All three were silent, until Takura spoke.

"The two rings I picked up represent Light, and Dark. I planned on giving the Light one to Lewis, I'll let you handle that, Cleo, if you don't mind." Takura pulled the Light Ring, a glittering diamond set in a gold band. To the giddy girl. "Don't go proposing with it or anything, it's for the temple, and moreover, we need all the rings to have a host."

"Who get's the Dark Ring?" Rikki asked, hoping it wouldn't be him.

"The guy that owns Rikki's Café. His personality is perfect."

"No, not Zane, anyone else, I do not want to have Zane around me on a daily basis."

"I understand, the Dark Ring is the most minor ring, hopefully Zane wont have as much brewing inner turmoil as I think he does, then he wont be able to use the ring, and you will be off the hook."

Takura looked up, noticing Cleo was nowhere to be found. Rikki came to that realization as well a few seconds later.

"You have more power than the others. I can feel it."

"I bonded with the water tentacle the last time Eva's Comet went by." Takura nodded.

"Try to power up your ring."

Rikki began to focus, then her ring began to glow a vibrant red color. Rikki thought about what she wanted, a fireball in her hand, and it happened. She threw the flickering mass at the wall, then looked back down at her hand, in a bit of disbelief at her newfound powers.

"Try using your battle form." Takura instructed her, so she tried it, and when her ring started to flash, she had fire wrapped around her, in a full armor suit.

"Flash Fire." she chuckled. "It seems right, don't you think?"

Takura smiled. "It fits, now purge the energy, we need you to get back to normal so we can leave."

Rikki pushed all the energy out in a single jet of fire, she put a black mark on the wall in the process, but she was returned to normal.

"You know something, you're different than most girls." Takura mumbled, trying to find the right words.

"Ahh, you've noticed." The blonde chuckled

Takura started to blush a bit. Talking to girls in this sense was not his strong suit.

"Look, Rikki, talking to people like this is the hardest thing ever for me, so I'm just going to come right out and say it. I really like you."

Now it was Rikki's turn to blush. "Well, I've never had someone be so, I don't know, direct. Even Elliott was more subtle."

"I've always been one to speak my mind."

"So it would seem."

"I should have kept my mouth shut, don't worry about this, ok?" with that Takura ran off, dove into the water, and swam as fast as he could. The boy wanted his robes. His captain's robe made him feel a little better, like his old life, his school, wasn't completely gone. I was a champion there, here I can't even tell if a girl likes me or not. What a way to screw up a friendship. Takura hauled himself onto the sand. The beach he landed on was secluded, so all he had to do was lay there and dry.

"Well hello there." came a slightly familiar voice from behind him.

The boy flipped over as quickly as possible, and was ready to fight when he saw an old friend.

"You live here too?" he asked the girl standing above him.

"A little ways away actually, I come back here to paint." she smiled, holding a miniature easel.

"You don't seem to be surprised that my lower half is that of a fish."

"I've had my own run in with the Mermaid club." she scowled at that, recalling the memories.

"I missed you Charlotte." Takura chuckled

"I missed you too." She smiled back, starting to sketch Takua's outline onto a blank canvas.