This chapter's done. I quite frankly think it's a bit crappy and something you'd find in all Mary-Sue MM stories, but oddly, I like it…I think that's because I didn't think. Review responses are at the bottom!
…….
"Rose, what are you doing?" Orabelle yelled as she went after the pink mermaid.
"We need a pearl radar!" She called back. "And the only place I can think of to find one is at my kingdom!"
Orabelle increased her speed, almost losing the princess. "And when did you plan on telling me this? And you know going back isn't safe right now!"
Rose bit her lip as the yellow princess swam up beside her. "I thought that you knew by now that I kinda don't plan anything."
"Yeah, that's the problem. And what about it being dangerous?"
"Well, we either win, or we go down kicking ass. What are you, my mother?"
Orabelle frowned, confused. "What are you talking about? We're mermaids, we don't have parents."
"Exactly."
"…I don't get it."
"And now you do."
She shook her head. "What are you talking about?"
"It's not supposed to make sense. Therefore, it does. Does that make sense?"
"No."
"Okay then."
Orabelle sighed in defeat and continued on with silence for the rest of the trip. An hour later, they arrived at a large, shimmering pink castle with more than enough windows and pillars to fill the Roman Colosseum. Contrasting shades of yellow light painted the roof and yellow sand covered the sea floor leading up to the entrance of the castle, lined with pink coral.
"Wow…" Orabelle gaped, staring intently as they swam closer to the entrance. "It's so…"
"What?" Rose asked, paying almost no mind to the yellow mermaid's amazement.
"Different!" She replied. "I mean, we share the same ocean, I thought the castles would be somewhat similar…and it's not. It's still beautiful, though."
"I'd say thanks for that, but I didn't build it."
They entered the castle, arriving in a large pink hall with plenty of windows, second-floor balconies that overlooked and pillars. Rose expected to find Orabelle looking around and taking the sight in, but not herself.
"That's…what the Hell?" She mumbled as she swam along. "I...I don't get it…"
"Get what?" Orabelle asked cheerily.
"M…my castle!" She exclaimed, stopping in place and throwing her arms out. "What happened?"
"Halt!" A male voice yelled. Someone with a torso of a human man and what looked to be the bottom half of a snake in knight's amore with an axe swam, or rather, slithered, up to the mermaids. Orabelle froze as the serpent-man approached, and it was quiet clear that she changed from herself to a shy little girl.
"Who goesss there?" The serpent-man asked, swinging the axe around like it was a pointing cane.
Rose put one of her hands to her forehead. "Who the Hell are you and what are you doing in my castle?" She asked.
"Excussse me? Your castle?" The guard replied, taken quiet (no pun intended) off guard. "Intruder! Anssswer the question!"
Rose shook her head and glanced over to Orabelle. "I feel like pulling a Queen of Hearts and yelling 'off with his head'. Would that be wrong?"
"A little bit." She replied.
Rose looked back to the guard. "I'll only say this once, so listen up; move your ass. You are in my way, and last I checked, I outrank you greatly. Princesses are like that, you know."
The guard did not respond, only narrowing his eyes. Mermaids of every color swam out onto the higher balconies and watched on as the ocean's princess had a stare-down with the guard.
A moment later, she said "Fuck it," and swam forward. The guard swung his axe.
"NO!"
Rose blinked. One second she saw an axe coming at her throat, and the next a wall of golden hair blocked her view.
What the guard had intended to be a warning to stop the mermaid from advancing into the castle turned into something horribly wrong. Orabelle brought her hands to her neck while a shocked look formed on her face. Every mermaid who had seen what just happened froze in shock or swam down, crowding around the three.
Where Orabelle had swum out in front of the pink princess, the axe blade was closer to her neck and sliced it. Blood flowed out between her fingers.
"I-I could use a me-medic…"
Overcome by sudden rage, Rose swam out from behind the yellow princess, pulled her arm back and with all she had, punched the guard on the side of his face. He fell –Or rather, sunk- to the floor. Rose looked down and glared.
"Do me a favor, would you? Get your worthless and pathetic ass OUT OF HERE and go get eaten by a shark! Go die in the deepest pits of Hell under the sea, go get caught in a fishing net and sent through a grinder, I don't give a fuck, just get out of my sight before I kill you myself! What the fuck do you think you were doing, threatening your own princess?"
"Rose…" Orabelle managed to get out. "I think you knocked him unconscious…"
"I don't care!"
Whispers filled the hall as the scene went down. Rose grabbed one of Orabelle's blood-covered hands and bolted through the castle, looking for the hospital wing. She found it, in the same place it was when she last visited, only it looked different than she remembered.
Several minutes of near-chaos and screaming later, Orabelle was being taken away on the mermaid's equivalent of a stretcher, made of coral and seaweed.
…….
Maria sighed. "Why am I even looking for it? Why's it important now? It's just a necklace, it's not like I don't have other ones…"
She frowned slightly and pulled her other boot on.
"And what's the point of having a princess that's too shy and too weak to do anything? There's none…and why am I still going over this? It doesn't matter. I'm not a princess, and I can't find that necklace because I don't have it."
She stood up, brushed her skirt down and turned to leave her room, but the front off her boot got caught on the carpet and she tripped. She tried to grab onto her dresser, instead knocking down several jewelry boxes, perfume bottles, a mirror, a pair of reading glasses, a string of beads and a small wooden box.
She landed on the floor before the objects, all crashing down quickly after her. The wooden box hit the floor on its side and popped open, and out came a shell necklace like Orabelle's and Rose's, only dark blue in color. It landed on the floor, popped open, skipped twice and stopped next to the box.
"Ow…" Maria groaned. She lifted her head slightly and the shell came into her sight. She sat up and grabbed the open locket.
The inside was a slightly lighter color than the outside and had four teardrop-shaped jewels in it, lighter than the wings on the locket, and there were four yellow lines, swirled at the ends. In the middle was a small, rounded out yellow hole.
"It's empty…"
…….
As Orabelle had become unconscious and Rose could do nothing but worry in there, the pink princess returned to her throne. She sat and waited silently, chewing on her nails.
After about half an hour of sitting in silence, three mermaids, no doubt her servants, approached her cautiously.
"Um, Princess…" One of them began, nervously twiddling her fingers. "Princess, it is great that you have returned, but…"
"But what?" She asked, utterly void of emotion.
"What just happened, well-"
Rose cut her off. "Only happened because I can't handle things like a civilized being."
"Th-that's not it..." One of the other pink mermaids began, only to stop mid-sentence.
"Of course it is." She replied in monotone. "Instead of acting like the adult princess I am, I dealt with that like a child. And in front of my own people, no less. And if I didn't handle that like a jackass, one of my only two friends wouldn't be hurt again and…"
She trailed off and looked away with a sigh. The three mermaid servants stayed silent, in case their princess was going to continue; she didn't, instead starting a new sentence.
"What happened after I left?"
"About that…" The last servant said, immediately cutting herself off. There was another moment of silence before one of the three was brave enough to talk.
"The night you left, um, th-the castle was attacked and destroyed…"
Rose's eyes widened. "What?"
"We began rebuilding it, but we didn't have the original blueprints, and that's why it is different from how you remember, Princess. We wouldn't have finished rebuilding it by today if hundreds of fleeing mermaids from the other destroyed kingdoms did not help…"
Rose rubbed her eye. Even though no one could see it very clear underwater, she was crying. "Why did no one alert me?" She asked. Despite her attempt, her voice still trembled.
"We didn't know where to find you." The second servant said.
"…Is that guard gone?"
"Yes, I sent him out of here when he awoke." Another servant said. The other two looked at her.
"What are you talking about?" The one on the left end asked. "I sent him out before coming here."
"No, I did…" The one in the middle said.
Rose 'jumped' from her throne. "Shit!" She exclaimed, swimming out as fast as she could. "Belle!"
…….
Orabelle stirred from her temporary sleep and promptly jumped back, just barely missing the front end of an axe.
"What the Hell?" She exclaimed, backing against a wall. She quickly regretted yelling, as it hurt her throat too much.
The half-snake guard pulled his axe out of the bed Orabelle had been sleeping in and frowned, showing off a pair of fangs.
"Troublesssome mermaid." He hissed.
"What do you want?" Orabelle asked, grabbing her locket with one hand.
"I've been undercover for weeksss to get you mermaidsss, only to be knocked out by the kingdom'sss brat." He complained, slithering closer to her. "Give me your pearls and I'll make thisss quick."
Her fingers tightened around the wings of the yellow clam-shell pendant as she slid down the wall. She couldn't sing due to the stitched gash, and worried that if she tried to swim away, the axe would get the best of her.
What to do… She wondered worriedly. She could feel her fingers loosen around the shell. All three options sucked.
"Die."
The guard turned to find Rose, already transformed and glaring. Orabelle thanked the mermaid gods that she would be out of trouble.
Rose brought her mic to her lips and began singing. There was no live stage or music; only vocals. Cold, beautiful vocals.
The castle began to shake and the snake began screaming, covering his ears. Suddenly, he turned into red bubbles and foam, leaving the axe to fall down and the armor to hit the ground.
"…Watashi wa wasurenai."
The castle ceased its movement when the pink princess finished her song. She lowered her mic and looked over Orabelle; slightly shaken, worried, but somewhat relived.
She stepped forward, through the puddle of foam and blood still floating in the water, over the axe and stopped in front of Orabelle. She pulled the yellow mermaid into a hug, catching her off guard.
Inhabitants of the pink kingdom swarmed around, looking for the source of the commotion. Mermaids of other colors flooded in after. Rose quickly let go of Orabelle and whispered, "Stop getting hurt, okay?"
Orabelle shook her head as the pink princess turned around to face everyone. Rose rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand, cleaning blood off with her glove. The crowd looked on with expressions of confusion, worry, admiration and mixes of the three.
"She's so pretty…" One of the mermaids whispered. More not-so-quiet whispers filled the room, half wondering what happened, and half admiring Rose.
She blushed slightly and said nonchalantly, "No need to worry. There was some trouble, it's gone now, you can return to your lives."
That didn't happen.
Half an hour later, after billions of questions and fawning, Rose just barely managed to escape from everyone and find the resident fortuneteller. She left four minutes later with a rectangular pink device in hand.
"Belle, we're going." Rose called up the hall.
Orabelle was sitting on the railing of a second-floor balcony with another blonde-and-yellow mermaid. She waved goodbye and swam down to Rose.
"Ready?" She asked.
"I've got the radar." She replied, holding up the pink rectangle. There was a black screen on it with green gridlines. Two dots blinked green on it, with those dots obviously being the yellow and pink pearls. "I've also got a bit of information."
"Can I know?" Orabelle asked as they swam out of the castle.
"First off, the orange princess is missing. Nothing we can do about that until she turns up…"
She shrugged. "I assume the indigo princess was missing, considering she didn't know she was a princess, but we found her easy."
"True…also, I know why we didn't turn into bubbles. Legend thing says that only happens if you give up your identity willingly."
Orabelle brushed some golden hair out of her face. "We slipped, we fell, I would say that's unwilling."
Rose nodded and then they continued on in silence. Halfway back to land, Orabelle knew something was up. The pink princess was quiet, almost uncharacteristically so.
I might know what this is about… She thought, not noticing that she was falling behind slightly. But some, please tell me that isn't it…it would just seem weird, right? But then, I've only known her for a few days, and it sorta feels like forever. Maybe it's a mermaid thing? Ugh! Get your thoughts straight! Okay, from what I know, Rose is loud, doesn't mind being ignored, and she's a little cold and cynical, but a protector type, right? Gah! What am I thinking, anyway? Just knock it off and stop thinking!
…Damn it! I said stop thinking! Stop being stupid and stop thinking!
"Hey Orabelle?"
Her thoughts stopped as Rose's words entered her ears. "Yes?" She responded, lifting her head.
"Are you all right?" She asked. "You're falling behind."
The yellow mermaid looked around, and then cursed herself. She was at least two feet behind the pink mermaid. She gave her tail a kick for a burst of speed and pulled up beside Rose.
"I'm fine, just got lost in my thoughts…" She replied. "Are you okay?"
"…What?"
"Are you okay?" She repeated in a cheery voice. The first time she asked, it just slipped out. She gave the repeat a cheery tone, as to not have Rose wonder if something was wrong.
She ran the fingers of her free hand through her bangs and gave a small smile. "Perfectly fine."
A smile! Orabelle thought as Rose looked ahead. Not a smirk, but a smile! I think that's the first one I've seen! Oh Hell, thankfully no one can hear my thoughts, they sound so childish for an adult mermaid…why am I even thinking that? Stop it, Orabelle!
"Almost there." Rose said to herself.
…….
Grah I forgot to make clear that a few chapters back, when Orabelle was acting like an idiot, that she was very loopy from bloodloss. It's based on my own behavior when I'm crazy from bloodloss. I bleed a LOT, even if it's a tiny cut -~-
Mo12341234: Thanks! I have a lot of fun writing her, too~
Princess TMN: Shhhhh! While I cannot comfirm of deny that (But you did in one of the chapters! Oh shut up! Grah stop talking to yourself!) you're veeery smart.
Also, I didn't try to make Umi like Kaito. I kinda don't like Kaito, to be honest ^^; But thanks anyway! If you start a fanclub, I wanna see! XD
And Rose seems to be the crowd favorite~ That makes me happy. While she isn't the main character, I know that I'm doing something right!
I'd write a Tokyo Mew Mew/Mermaid Melody fic, but I've only seen like, four episodes of TMM ^^; And that's of the bad dub.
Lastly, thank you very much, and I think I juggle them so easily because I live with eight other people, who all happen to be family XD When you live around so many, you get a good idea of how you're supposed to write it.
Okay, that's the end of this long A/N, if the next chapter isn't up by the end of the month, send sharks after me.
