Chapter 7: Mermaid's Choice (Part 1)
Hey Aqua here ;) So, I decided to post this Ch now due to the fact I'm going to be SUPER busy for the next couple of days preparing for this online Pokemon tournament that's happening next week. (for those of you who don't follow or play Pokemon, you seriously have no idea how hard it is to train 6 Pokemon to Lv 50 all at the same time -_-)
Anyway, just a little tidbit to know for those of you who've read the original story. Like I said in the first ch, I've made a few considerable and major changes to the story and you're going to see some of them in this ch. Well, that's it for now, enjoy ^_^.
The first period bell had just started to ring as both Kaitlyn and Kira walked into science class together, and neither of them looked very happy.
"Kira, for the last time, no way," Kaitlyn shook her head with an irritated sigh, taking a seat next to Conner. "I'm not doing it." She told her, shooting a frustrated look at Kira.
"it's just for one night," Kira shot back, taking a seat next to Ethan.
"Not doing what?" Conner asked, an eyebrow raised at the two female Rangers. Kaitlyn just shot him an irritable glare before turning her attention to the window.
"Uh Kira?" Ethan turned to the Yellow Ranger, hoping to get some clarity on to what was going on.
"Don't ask," The singer said curtly, not bothering to look up from her notebook. The two male Rangers looked at each other with confused and slightly concerned expressions right as the late bell rang and Dr. Oliver walked in and stood in the center of the classroom.
"Alright, today we'll be doing something special today," the science teacher smiled. "but first, I'd like to introduce a new student that will be joining us." Walking over and opening the door, Dr. O kindly motioned for someone to come in.
As they watched the new student walk into the room, the whole class's eyes widened. She was 18, 5'2, slim figure, light purple highlighted streaks could be seen at the tips of her long wavy dark brown hair.
"This is our newest student," Dr. Oliver introduced. "Demi Galen" The new girl just gave a small wave and a slight smile.
"Demi, you can take a seat over there at least for today," the science teacher said, pointing at Cassidy's empty seat. Demi just nodded with another slight smile before politely walked over and took her directed seat.
"Okay, now let's get started with what we're going to do today," going over to the board and grabbing a piece of chalk, the students watched their science teacher write and underline the words; Ocean life onto the board.
"For the next week, we will be going over the subject of oceanography," Dr. Oliver explained. "so to start it off, I've got a project for all of you that involves using; a microscope and a couple of test tubes."
"What you and your table are going to do is take the test tubes and determine the exact difference between; clean, mildly polluted, and seriously polluted water is," he continued on, unaware of how pale Kaitlyn, and strangely enough, Demi had suddenly become. "Now, your table need to choose who handles the water, and who handles the microscope and writing the results. And I want those results at least in a good detail. Okay grab your test tubes and get started."
"I'll write the results," Kaitlyn volunteered quickly, earning raised eyebrows from the other's, who thankfully didn't object.
"Okay, I'll handle the microscope," Ethan nodded.
"I guess that leaves me and Kira with the dirty work," Conner sighed, getting up to go get the test tubes. As she watched the Red Ranger return with the test tubes and carefully set them down on the table, Kaitlyn had to use every ounce of her will not to panic and bolt out of the classroom.
"Cleo has a job at a marine park, come on you can do this!" she thought quietly to herself.
Everyone began to work quietly on the project while Tommy casually walked around the room, checking to see if anybody needed help with anything. Kaitlyn made pretty sure she was far enough away from the test tubes as Conner and Kira took the samples from them and then gave the slides to Ethan who would analyze the water samples with the microscope and then give the results to Kaitlyn who would write them down in her notebook. Everything was going smoothly until the sound of glass breaking broke the working silence and everyone looked up in time to see Demi suddenly bolt out of the classroom.
"What happened?" Tommy asked, instantly at Devin's table.
"I-I don't know, a-all I did was accidentally drop the test tube and some water got onto her arm," Kaitlyn looked up sharply, her eyes widened in alarm. No. She couldn't be, could she?
"I'd better go find her before Randall hears about this," Dr. Oliver sighed, knowing how the strict principle would react to a student bolting in the middle of class. "everyone stay here and don't do anything until I get back," he instructed firmly, heading for the door, but he was forced to stop as Kaitlyn shot up from her seat.
"Um Dr. Oliver, it's probably a better idea that I go," Kaitlyn said quickly, ignoring the questionable looks she was getting from the science teacher and the rest of the class. "you know she's probably just hiding in the girl's bathroom." She explained, again ignoring the looks she was receiving from her friends.
"Fine," Tommy sighed, walking over to his desk and wrote out two hall passes. "just hurry and bring her back here." He instructed, handing the hall passes to Kaitlyn, who simply nodded and walked out of the classroom.
Demi breathed out a sigh of frustration as she laid in the center of the cold tile floor in the girl's bathroom, scrubbing the front of her bright orange tail with the few paper towels she had managed to grab before she had transformed and crashed to the cold tiled bathroom floor with a loud 'flop!'
"I'm getting tired of this," she stated with a growl, bright tears formed in her green eyes, threatening to spill out as she continued to scrub harder.
This was what her life had been subjected to for the past five months. And she was damn well getting tired of it.
A sudden knock on the door made Demi's entire body freeze instantly, her mind and heart were hammering hard. "Demi, are you alright in there?" a girl's voice whispered quietly through the door. "my name's Kaitlyn and I'm from Dr. Oliver's class, he sent me out here to see if you're alright." Demi chewed her lip nervously, what was she going to do? But before she could even give out a response, the bathroom door slowly opened, and a girl whom she did recognize from science class quickly walked in and shut the door.
"I-I can explain!" Demi stammered out, trying to figure out what words that would be sufficient for an excuse, but unfortunately due to all the stress and adrenaline that was running through her brain, she was coming up with nothing. "I-I'm-"
"Demi, relax," Kaitlyn interrupted her, a gentle smile on her face. "I'm not going to expose you."
"Wha-" Demi began to screech out, but Kaitlyn clamped a hand over her mouth and pressed her finger against her own lips, gesturing for the brunette mermaid to be quiet, Demi nodded slowly in understanding and Kaitlyn carefully removed her hand from her mouth. "why not?" Demi asked in a quieter tone, her green eyes slowly started to fill with tears again. Her worst fears from over the past 5 months were about to come true.
"I can't explain right now, but right now I need to know did anybody see when you ran in here?" Kaitlyn asked, her eyes were serious and firm.
"No," Demi shook her head, and Kaitlyn let out a sigh of relief.
"Good. Now we'd better get you dried off right now before Randall has a chance to show up," Kaitlyn said, extending her hand over Demi's tail. "now this may sting a little," she warned, before curling her hand into a fist and clenching it tightly. Ignoring the stinging pain in her tail, Demi watched with complete amazement as steam began to come off of her tail, and then a second later, her legs were back.
"No way, are you-" Demi started, but the look she saw in the Silver Ranger eyes immediately answered the new girl's burning question as her eyes widened in total shock and her hands flew to her mouth.
"H-how? Where? When?!" Demi stammered out, clearly in complete disbelief.
"Two and half years ago I was living in Australia, some friends and I accidently stumbled onto this strange cave with a pool on this deserted island," Kaitlyn told her, as she held out a hand and helped pull Demi back to her feet.
"Woah, that's totally different then from what happened to me," Demi blinked. "so you've been a mermaid for two and half years?" she asked, and Kaitlyn nodded with a grin.
"Yup, so how long has it been for you?" she asked curiously.
"About 5 months, my family and I were living in Ireland last year and I found this strange sea cave one day and decided to go explore it and I found this strange pool." Demi explained, and Kaitlyn let out a whistle.
"Wow, I never thought that there were other moon pools in the world," she admitted. "we'd better get back to class before Dr. O decides to send someone out for me." she joked, and Demi giggled before the two hurried back to class.
As the two stood in front of the classroom door, Tommy was standing at the front of the class, finishing his explanation of tonight's homework assignment. Kaitlyn quietly waved her hand for the science teachers attention, he nodded as he spotted before walking out into the hallway.
"Good, you found her," Dr. Oliver smiled with relief, as Kaitlyn handed him back the hall passes. "but I can't say that was a very smart thing of you to do on your first day Demi," he said, frowning at his new student.
"I'm really sorry Dr. Oliver," Demi apologized sheepishly. "I was just feeling really nauseous and needed some air." she explained, hoping that he would buy the lie. Tommy glanced at Kaitlyn, as if looking for some confirmation to the story, the Silver Ranger simply nodded, and the Black Ranger sighed.
"Why didn't you go to the nurse?" he asked, and Demi bit her lip, trying to come up with a good excuse for not doing that.
"She looked completely better when I found her Dr. O," Kaitlyn stepped in, earning her both a grateful smile from Demi and a slight frown from Tommy.
"Alright, just promise that if you'll feel sick that again you'll come to me or go straight to the nurse's office, okay?" Tommy sighed, looking at Demi, whom nodded. "alright, get back in there." He instructed. And both girls nodded and headed back inside the classroom, immediately going back to their seats.
"Care to explain what that was all about?" Conner whispered.
"No," Kaitlyn answered firmly, then sighed quietly as the other's continued to look at her. "look, I know what's it like to be in a totally new school and I was just helping her out, okay." She explained. Conner was about to press for more when the bell rang. "I'll catch you guys later, okay?" Kaitlyn told them, quickly gathering up her stuff and hurrying off to her next class before any of them could stop her.
"Do you guys get the feeling that she's keeping something from us?" Ethan asked in a low tone, gathering up his stuff as well. Kira only nodded in agreement while Conner just stared out at the classroom doorway, with two questions burning in his mind. What was Kaitlyn hiding and why couldn't she tell them? Or better yet why couldn't she tell him?
It was after school when Demi and her dark purple sedan pulled up and parked in front of the beach. Grabbing her bag and the towel that she had managed grab from home, Demi stepped out of the car and started heading toward the farthest and secluded part of the beach, while walking through the sand, Demi felt her mind wander back to the moment in the girl's bathroom with Kaitlyn. How much it boggled her mind that she wasn't the only mermaid anymore.
"Maybe…maybe I don't have to deal with this alone anymore," Demi thought. Although she would rather give up the whole thing altogether, It was pretty nice that she now had someone to turn to. It was after 5 minutes of walking that Demi finally found a secluded part, where she neatly laid out her towel on the sand and sat her bag down on the towel.
"I gotta admit, not a bad view," Demi stated with a grin, shading her eyes as she looked out at the sparkling ocean, enjoying both the silence and the calming sound of the waves. With a bright smile, Demi ran toward the water at rushing speed before diving perfectly through the ocean's waves.
Taping her pencil back and forth between her history book and the bar, Kaitlyn suppressed a frustrated huff as she stared irritably at her unfinished history paper.
"Ugh, I'm never going to get into MBU if I keep procrastinating like this," Kaitlyn thought bitterly, setting her pencil down. Despite the fact that Mariner Bay University was still her ultimate dream college, keeping up with the school's at least straight B+ requirement was becoming extremely difficult for Kaitlyn since becoming a Ranger, but that wasn't the exact reason why Kaitlyn was so upset and left unable to finish her homework. And she knew it too.
She absolutely hated and loathed herself for still not having told Conner and the other's about being a mermaid, but despite that fact, she just wasn't ready, and after the super close call with Demi earlier, Kaitlyn wasn't quite sure she'd ever be ready to tell them.
"I really hate keeping this from them…" she muttered sadly, laying her head against her folded arms. "but I just know they'll hate me if I do tell them." She thought.
"Hey Kaitlyn," the Silver Ranger looked up to see Trent smiling at her from behind the bar.
"Oh hey Trent," Kaitlyn grinned back, unfolding her arms. "what's up?"
"My shift just started," the young boy explained. "can I get you anything?" he asked, and Kaitlyn tapped a finger against her lips, as she thought about it for a few seconds. "Actually yeah, a coconut and banana smoothie would be great, thanks," She grinned, Trent simply nodded and went off to make the order.
"So, is your dad still mad about the whole city council thing?" Kaitlyn asked curiously, suddenly remembering a few weeks ago when Trent's dad had attempted to purchase the cybercafé and put Trent in charge of it but failed do to the help of one of the city councilwomen.
"Nah, he understands that having this job is really important to me," Trent smiled, then suddenly got a slightly disturbed faraway look, like something was clearly bothering him.
"Trent? You okay?" Kaitlyn asked, noticing her friend's troubled expression. This seemed to snap the black haired teen out of his daze as he looked at her with a smile, although it was forced.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just thinking about something," Trent said, quickly finishing making the smoothie. "So, what are you up to?" he asked, handing Kaitlyn her order.
"Well, other than failing at trying to finish up my history paper that's due tomorrow, nothing much," she explained with a sigh, once she had paid for her smoothie.
"Why? What's bugging you?"
"Nothing's bugging me!" Kaitlyn told him quickly, blushing red as she took a sip of her smoothie.
"Come on," Trent shot her look that told Kaitlyn that he wasn't buying her excuse. "I know we've been friends for only a short while, but I do know the only time you can't do your homework is when something's really bugging you." Kaitlyn bit her lip nervously, unfortunately, Trent had hit the nail right on the mark.
"But there's no way I can tell him what's actually bothering me…I'd better go with plan B," she thought, before speaking out loud. "fine, Kira and I sort of got into an argument last night." She told him, which actually was the truth.
"What were you guys arguing about?" Trent raised an eyebrow, clearly a little baffled that the two girls would have something to argue about.
"Well…" Kaitlyn paused as she began to explain what happened last night. Apparently just for fun, Kira had suggested a round of Karaoke which Kaitlyn reluctantly agreed to do and when it came for her turn to sing, while Kaitlyn thought she did okay, Kira on the other hand thought she was absolutely amazing and suggested she do a solo performance at Hayley's, but Kaitlyn plain out refused the offer and that's when the two started to argue.
"So? Why don't you just do it?" Trent asked curiously, his arms folded.
"Honestly, I have no idea," Kaitlyn admitted, taking another sip of her drink. "Well, I mean with Kira, she knows why and enjoys getting up on that stage and singing her heart out. Me? I do that by dancing."
"I can totally understand that part, everybody's got something they're really passionate about, myself included," Trent nodded. "but did you ever considered doing it not for the passion but as something that's crazy, fun, and spontaneous?" he asked.
"Well, I guess I never thought about it that way," Kaitlyn paused, then smiled. "Wow thanks Trent, has anybody told you how really awesome you are?" she grinned thoughtfully, causing the olive toned boy to blush brightly at the compliment. "Well I guess I've got a quick call to go make." She said, quickly up from her seat and went over to the couch, where it was quieter as she pulled out her phone and started dialing a certain phone number.
It was after two hours of swimming and playing with an eager dolphin that Demi decided that it was time to head back. As she started to swim toward the shore, something buried down in the sand instantly caught the brunette's attention as she gracefully swam down toward it. After reaching the bottom and she began brushing off the sand, revealing a small light purple gem.
"Huh? Who'd wanna throw this into the ocean?" Demi thought curiously, managing to pull the gem out, leaving a deep dark indent in the sand showing that the gem had been stuck in there for quite some time. As she started to examine it, the gem started glow brightly, as if reacting to Demi's touch. "wow, how cool," the girl smiled. "this will definitely make my collection special."
Back when she was living in Ireland, sometimes while out on a swim, Demi would find and collect things that really caught her interest, stuff like; seashells, oddly shaped rocks, or pearls, and she'd take them home with her. Her mother always teased her about secretly being a mermaid due to her little ocean collection, completely unaware that Demi was indeed a mermaid.
Clutching the gem tightly in her hand, Demi went back to heading toward the beach, as she reached it, Demi quickly dried off the gem and then her tail with her towel. Once she had her legs back and the gem safety secured in her pocket, she gathered up her stuff and started heading back to her car. It wasn't until she was halfway there that she saw something up head that forced her to come to a screeching halt, and her green eyes widened in shock as a gasp escaped her lips, Elsa stood, sneering a few feet ahead while a small horde of Tyrannodrones stood growling from behind her.
"I believe you have something that belongs to me," Elsa sneered, unsheathing her sword. "hand it over now!" she snarled, pointing the sword at Demi, who gulped hard and clutched the gem in her hand tighter.
Annnd that's a wrap up for this one folks ;)
Love or hate the changes? Remember to PM or Review me your opinions :)
Well my lovelies I must be off, lots of training to do, wish me luck and to anyone who's also competing in the tournament, I wish you the best of luck and may the best Trainer win ^_^
Aquaprincess3 signing out ;)
