Start: 12-5-10 Finish: 12-30-10

Finally, an update! Sorry it took so long.

Constance Faye Dyer: I understand. I had to deal with the Christmas stuff myself. And chill, I'm continuin' the story. I just gotta work on what happens next in the next chapters is all. Surely you understand that.

Whoanessness: Their secrets are bound to come to light sooner or later. The merfolk'll try to blend in for just a little longer, just with a little human support. And don't worry, this story's gonna continue. I've planned on doin' a few more chapters of it, anyway.

Brace yourselves, y'all. You in for a couple surpirises...

Chapter 12: Tension at the Pool

The mermaids -and Broseph- hauled themselves out of the water. In a matter of seconds after putting their necklaces back on, they regained their dressed human forms.

Then Ripper asked Kendra a question that stoked her.

"So Kenny, I was wondering, see, since the Beach Bash is coming up this week, I was hoping you'd, uh... will you go to the Summer Beach Bash with me?" Ripper asked her. Kenny's face lit up at the sound of the question. Ripper had been trying to find the nerve to ask out for weeks, and he finally got it.

"Yes, yes, and yes, I will go out with you!" Kenny exclaimed with excitement in her voice as she hugged Ripper tightly, almost choking him briefly before letting go. The others were pleasantly surprised by this.

"Uh, Kaycee..." Lance uttered. Kaycee set her attention on him. Lance took a deep breath and went ahead with what he had hoped to say to Kaycee.
"Look, I'm not sure if you understand this whole dating thing now, but... would you like to go out with me to the party this week? Look, I don't care if you're a human or a mermaid, I just like ya for who you are. In fact,..." Lance took a deep breath. "I love you, Kaycee. Scales & all. I always have ever since we first met." Kaycee was downright stunned at what she just heard. So were the others.

"I... I don't know what to say." Kaycee managed to say. "Except..." Lance gazed upon her intently. "of course I would love to go with you!" Kaycee squealed as she hugged Lance firmly, right before kissing him, which thrilled Lance, even though he was just kissed by a mermaid, and a willing one at that! He & Johnny were SO out of the friend and single zones at last! Ripper & Kenny cheered for Lance in that he finally he finally got his dream gal.

"You see, Lance? What did we tell you?" Ripper inquired encouragingly.
"Et tu, Kaycee?" Roxxie & Jess asked in an annoyed tone. Then Jess turned to Emma, who now had her head rested on Johnny's shoulder.

"So I guess this mean you're not focused on getting with Ty anymore?" Johnny inquired.
"As of now, not anymore." Emma answered. This was music to Johnny's ears.
"New question: Would you like to go to the beach party? With me?" Johnny asked. At the sound of that question, Emma lifted her head and looked into his eyes intently.
"Yes, yes, YES, I will go out with you to the party this week, Johnny!" Emma replied and kissed the concierge again. That really made Johnny's day.

"You girls do realize King & Queen Requin aren't going to approve of this when they hear about it, right?" Jess pointed out. The mermaids & Broseph frowned in admitting so, indicated by their fingerscales in indigo.

"You have a good point, Jess." Fin admitted. "But I'd rather you let me explain this to my parents. After all, I did spill the shells, or as the humans would put it, spill the beans."

"Fair enough." Jess agreed. "But I refuse to show my secret to Ty unless I absolutely have to. Clear?" Jess insisted sternly.

"Crystal." her fellow merfolk & humans replied.

FIVE DAYS LATER

"This time I'm sure I've got it!" Amber called out. She was working on how to crash the Ridgemount's party at the height of their glory. For the past four weeks and five days since the surf competition, she had been off her game lately. Good news for Surfer's Paradise so far. This was largely due to her desire to defeat Fin bordering on obsession.

"That'sss what you sssaid two weeksss ago, and we were sssore for a week." Betty complained. "Ssso, what'sss your plan thisss time?"

"We still have the last byatis in existence to call upon. We could unleash it on the suspecting party, send the partygoers running in terror, and put the Ridgemounts out of business. What do you think?" Amber suggested.

"But wouldn't everybody sssee it coming a mile away? It doesssn't have camoflauge, you know. And it'sss pretty big" Tuna pointed out. Amber bitterly admitted he had a good point.

"Oh, what's the use?" Amber howled in frustration. "It's just too high-profile and I haven't even figured out where the beach bash is gonna take place!"

"I bet Ursssula coulda done that." Tuna whispered to his girfriend. Unluckily for him, Amber caught wind of his comment, and perked up, then slowly turned to face him.

"What. Was. That. You. Just. Said?" Amber hissed in agitation, eyes narrowed on Tuna.

"Nothin'." Tuna retorted, hands held up defensively. "We're jussst sssayin'- woah!" He and Betty suddenly ducked as a dried, stuffed porcupine fish flew past them and stuck its spines into a wall.

"Don't you dare criticise me!" Amber yelled out. "All mother & father ever did was criticise me." She picked up what appeared to be a few mako teeth.
"With them, it was either 'Ursula this,' 'Ursula that,' or 'Our dear Amber Green, why can't you be more like URSULA?'" Amber shouted as she threw the teeth like darts at Tuna & Betty, who ducked again, leaving the teeth to hit a tacked-in-place picture of what looked like some overweight humanoid resembling Cthulhu on Amber's surfboard, but with a purple hide, black wings, a white-ish forehead and what appeared to be oily, matted white 'hair', and green eyes like Amber's, but paler.

"Well, it'sss not our fault we lossst in the contessst." Tuna complained. "It wasss thossse four new girlsss and that pretty boy in black. They were harder to hit than the othersss."

"EXCUSES!" Screamed Amber. Tuna & Betty crouched & trembled defensively. Then she walked to a wall looked to see if the coast was clear, which it was, and pulled it open, revealing a secret passage.

"Tuna, Betty, come." Amber ordered. The couple followed her. Then Amber pulled the wall shut and walked down the hall. The passageway was stony, cave-like and eerily empty with only a bright light and a door at the end. Amber opened it and walked in, followed by Tuna & Betty.

At the end was a big cave for a room with a few holes in the walls showing they were underwater along with a couple holes in the floor, a set of monitors along a side, a Cthulhu-themed cabinet, a large pool of water in a corner, and a giant crystal ball in the center. This was, in fact, the same room used by their boss, the man in the shadows. This was in fact the inside of Cthulhu's Grotto.

"Are you sure he'd want usss here without hisss permission?" asked Tuna. "Thisss isss hisss headquartersss."
"Well, he ain't here, now, is he?" Amber inquired. "You might wanna hold your breaths." Tuna & Betty's eyes widened in shock as they figured what he she meant and then took a deep breath.

Lo & Broseph were in the pool area of the penthouse. From the accomplishents she managed to pull off that pleased her father, he was decently impressed and allowed her back in, with the condition of taking Broseph & Jess with her, which, given his gratitude for his rescue effort six years ago and the support he had given her since, along with Jess's sense of responsibility and friendly nature, he approved.

Broseph was now swimming around in the pool, while Lo was sitting on the rim and Jess was floating from the waist up in a corner, watching over them in mermaid form. Lo had fully accepted that her boyfriend turned out to be a merman, but kept her promise to keep his mer-existence a secret. Too bad it wasn't going to last forever, because she was unaware her family came back to the penthouse, and heading to their area! Ty opened the door without getting their attention and saw them having a good time, his sister & Jess especially. Then he noticed Jess wasn't wearing her necklace like she usually was, but before he could utter a word, he heard Jess's conversation with Lo.

"So, let me get this straight. Ty's had a thing for me?" Jess inquired.
"Ever since he first met you." Lo answered.
"It's just that, I can't believe that he was trying to win my affections and I was totally blind to it for the past month!" Jess exclaimed.
"You certainly got his attention without even trying or knowing, and I was totally surprised with that." Lo said.
"Now I understand what the fumbling was about. And now, I can't believe I'm feeling affectionate about your big brother. Ever since my realization, my heart pounds at the very sight of him, especially his well-toned muscles, his coppery hair... his deep, lovely, sensitive eyes... his calm, well-meaning voice..." Jess trailed off happily.

"Uh, Jess, you realize you're droolling over my brother, right?" asked Lo. Jess snapped out of it, and realized something.
"But then there's that stupid mer-law!" Jess said in frustration.
"Only if he knows if you're a mermaid." Broseph said. Ty anonomously gave them a puzzled glance at Broseph's comment.
"Yeah, that's comforting. Kind of." Jess stated.
"You're torn that Ty's in love with you?" Lo asked.
"That and the fact that I'm finally in love with Ty!" Jess exclaimed. Those words cheered him up greatly. Then his face changed to concern for Jess.
"I've never had any luck getting my dream guy back home at the Kingdom of Paradise Reef!" Jess stated. "But here, that's changed. So it turns out my lover's a human. I sure never saw this coming." Ty was baffled by her words in that she used 'my lover's a human' in her sentence and baffled him as to what she meant.

"Well, this is no longer a problem between me & Lo." Broseph stated. Then Ty watched as Broseph did a somersault in the pool... as a merman! Ty's eyes popped open and his jaw dropped at the sight. He couldn't believe that a merman was among them for the past six years!

"That was great, Broseph!" Lo exclaimed enthusiasticly as she clapped her hands and then asked, "Can you do that again, this time with a ball?" Broseph swam up to up and they smooched again, unknowingly in front of Ty!

"I'll give it a shot, my dear." Broseph replied.
"Great. Wait here. I'll get the ball for you." Lo told him. With that, she got up, turned around, and walked off to get a beach ball while Broseph floated by in waiting. Jess mumbled "Show-off."

Nancy & Archimedes, followed by George, curious why Ty's standing there and what their son was staring at that shocked him, came into the pool room... and saw the trio having fun in the pool, minus the exposure of their mer-tails.

"Hey Broseph, here's the ball I promised." Lo called out. She tossed it over to Broseph, who leapt clear out of the water and smacked the ball with his tail, sending it into the pool's goal with pro accuracy. Mr. & Ms. Ridgmount and George let out a gasp of shock, grabbing Jess, Lo & Broseph's attention, catching them off guard.

'Uh-oh' Broseph, Lo & Jess thought. There was now heavy tension in the air. Lo gulped at the reality of the situation they were in right now and let out a nervous laugh.

"Ty, before you and your folks run off, at least give us a chance to explain." Jess cautiously told them, holding up her webbed hands defensively, the sight of which freaked out the parents and their sons, Ty especially.

"Lauren, how long have you known that Broseph was a merman?" asked Mr Ridgemount.
"At least five days ago, at the cove of The Office." answered an apprehensive Lo.
"YOU MEAN YOU'VE BEEN KEEPING SECRETS FROM US ALL THIS TIME?" Archimedes bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"And you kept us in the dark about this the whole time? Not fly, girlfriend!" Ms. Ridgemount inquired in disbelief.
"Like you would have believed me if told you about this. You would've thought I was crazy if I said 'Hey daddy, mom, guess what, my boyfriend's a merman.' I mean, come on, who's gonna believe that?" Lo explained.

"You know, you just made a valid point there." Mr. Ridgemount admitted as he simmered down. "We're just in shock from seeing actual mer-people and knowing you kept a big secret from us."
"And I can't believe my sister's been making out with a fish!" Ty exclaimed, still recovering from the shock from the aforementioned sight.
"Or the fact that you're currently dating one!" Nancy Ridgemount put in. Lo rubbed the back of her neck as she laughed nervously.

"Ty..." Jess called to him. Ty turned his attention to her. "There's something a part of me now wants to show you..." Jess reluctantly swam to the rim of the pool, then lifted herself out of the water to show Ty her tail, which flabbergasted Archimedes, Nancy, and Geroge, and especially Ty.

"I can't believe it!" Ty exclaimed. "You mean to tell me I've been trying to win the heart of a mermaid!" Jess nodded. There was an awkward silence for a few moments before Ms. Ridgemount broke it.

"Sooo... what do we do with this situation?" Ms. Ridgemount wondered aloud.

"Well, I'm thinking ..." Riddgmount assumed, provoking worry in Lo and especially Broseph & Jess. Starting to panic about what he was about to say, Lo ran up to her father, dropped to her knees and begged, hands clasped.

"Please, please, please Daddy, don't send them away to some freak show! Especially not Broseph! They're people, too! I beg of you, PRETTY PLEASE don't take him away! Daddy, I love him!" Lo blurted out before clasping her hands over her mouth from what she just said. Her parents and brothers were shocked, jaws dropped, that she confessed she was in love with a merman!

"Suddenly, I feel like I'm living in that 'Little Mermaid' fairy tale." Ms. Ridgemount managed to say, still in shock form her daughter's words.

"Well, I was gonna give them an interrogation instead of sending them away somewhere, but given that Broseph's the reason you're still here alive and well, and he had always been there for you for the past six years, I suppose we'll just try to keep your secret safe for as long as we can." Mr. Ridgemount told Lo. Lo's face lit up.

"You mean that?" Lo inquired, face starting to beam with hope.

"Yes, we mean it." answered Mr. Ridgemount. Lo, Broseph, and Jess let out a sigh of relief.
"We have a question, though: Why all the secrecy?" Ms. Nancy Ridgemount asked in wonder. Broseph and Jess explained that disrection was the merfolk way of life, as they felt humans weren't quite prepared for a world they believed was myth, especially considering how destructive and violent humans can be. Mr. Ridgemount admitted they had a good point, but assured them humans weren't all bad, which Jess agreed on as well. The mer-people also explained their marks, their aversion to violence, and of course, the laws involving interactions with humans.

"Sooo, Jess," Ty started to say, getting Jess's attention. "There's this party coming this week and I was hoping you'd go with me. You in?" Jess couldn't believe what she hearing. Her answer was "I-I think... yes, I accept." Ty grinned greatly at the sound of that.
"So, this doesn't bother you?" asked Ms. Ridgemount.
"What?" Ty inquired.
"The fact that you just asked a mermaid out." Ms. Ridgemount pointed out.
"So? I don't care if Jess is a human or a mermaid. Mer-law or no mer-law, I'm taking her to the party." Ty insisted.
"And there's nothing your father and I can say or do to change your mind?" Ms. Ridgemount asked.
"Nope." Ty answered confidently. "So, Jess, what do you say we start with knowing each other first? Our interests, likes, dislikes, stuff like that."
"Love to." Jess replied.
"First, why did you and your merfriends come here in the first place?" Ty asked out of curiosity.

All of a sudden, the room was flooded with seawater. Then something freaky happened. The trio willingly transformed.

Betty & Tuna's hair retracted into the heads, their necks grew slightly longer, their ring & pinky fingers retracted into their hands, leaving just three fingers, thumbs included, all of which sprouted dark gray claws. Webbing emerged from between their fingers. And then a long, sinuous tail with paddle-like end appeared, growing big & strong enough to hold their torsos up without legs, which retracted back into their hips, their heads lengthened, reptilian scales grow over their skins, and their eyes turned yellow and their pupils grew into vertical slits.

Betty's form became yellow with black stripes, snake tattoo -or rather mark, as it turned out- still present on her left hand, while Tuna's turned a bronze-ish color above and a creamy white below, and grew a hood that fanned out of his neck from head to shoulder, cobra mark still shown on his chest.

But Amber changed most of all. Her pupils lengthened horizonatlly, eyes brighter, her skin turned a sickly green, her nails grew slightly longer, more pointed, and turned black. Then one-foot black tentacles, four on each side, formed around her mouth, where her teeth become sharp points, her hair become oily and matted, even started writhing like they were alive. And Amber even grew eight tentacles from the waist down, also black but six feet long with teeth-lined suckers and even hooks along . Where legs used to be, there were now longer grabbing tentacles, like a squid's. She now had what looked like a black dress stopping just below the shoulders, with an urchin-sheel top. Amber even sprouted a pair of big, bat-like wings out of her back. Her mark was still present on her belly, now with a pale outlining along the black tentacles of her mark.

Tuna & Betty were sea nagas, a race of humanoid snakes that specialized in sea life, hence the hissing in their speech. They used to be enemies of merfolk and even humans, but centuries of living alongside and even among merfolk improved their views of merfolk over the centuries, also encouraged by the need to band together to fight Cthulhu's forces of darkness. Nowadays, sea nagas were wise, humble and seclusive hunter-gatherer tribes that try to avoid contact with humans but interact and get along fine with merfolk. However, there were still some bad sea cucumbers (the oceanic term for 'bad apples') among the nagas. Tuna and Betty were among those bad sea cucumbers.

There were different types of naga. Betty was a krait naga, whereas Tuna was a water cobra naga. Still, like all nagas, they still hated & feared starspawn, which, as it turned out, was Amber's species, albeit more cephalopod-like in her case. Tuna & Betty trembled in her presence. There used to be loads more starspawn, but not anymore. Amber was the last of her kind. The starspawn were a race of evil, insane, slavedriving humanoids that, like their long-dead god Cthulhu, were a menace to the balance of life, to civilization, to everyone they encountered and everything good, and as a result, merfolk, sea naga and even human alike joined forces and exterminated these unholy horrors and even their works in the distant past, to the point of reducing them to myth. Well, almost.

"Ah, how I missed this beautiful form." Amber vainly said to herself. The sea naga duo trembled in her presence more than before due to her now-revealed ugliness. This was the reason and cause of those vibes of suspicion and discomfort in her aura and also what creeped out whole crowds of people, along with Reef's instinct to reject every single time, even though he never knew or even suspected this.

"Now, then, do you two serpents have any better ideas you'd like to share?"
"Well," Betty started. "I heard the beach bash wasss going to take placcce on shore with a lagoon and their now-repaired ship nearby."
"Ah, excellent. Now, how to crash the party there. So many methods to choose." Amber pondered. Then Amber called out "Flostam, Jetsam!" Two long, sinuous shapes emerged from the hole in the floor. They were eels, but these were not normal morays.

They were twenty-foot-long thulhu eels- also the last in existence. They were dark green with yellow stripes & fins, yellow eyes gleaming with a cold, semi-sentient intelligence, one of which glowed more brightly then the other (Flostam's right eye and Jetsam's left eye). Their snouts had four four-foot tentacles along each side of the upper & lower jaws, for a total of eight. Their mouths were full of needle-sharp teeth, another set of which was set in its throat. They had muscle blocks in their tentacle tips, torsos & tails that produced electricity for navigation, offense & defense. These unnatural sea horrors were in fact, the cause of the suspected 'bail-outs' at the contest, the thing Reef's surfboard hit, and what pulled Kelly down.

"How are my little poopsies doing today?" Amber asked them, petting Flostam's snout and Jetsam's forehead. The sea naga couple shuddered from the sight and presence of Amber's pets.

"Wee'rre juusst fiinne." The eels replied in sly, sneaky tones as they slithered about.
"What taassk do you haave for uss?"

"Good, because I've got a new, big plan, and it's including you two, the byatis, and even our biggest 'pet'." Amber announced. Tuna & Betty widened their unblinking eyes in shock at what Amber meant by their 'biggest pet'.

"What?" They reptilian couple exclaimed.
"You cannot be ssseriousss! That thing'sss immensssely powerful and gargantuan! If that thing breaksss free-" Betty protested before Amber cut her off.
"Relax. It's mind-controlled. As long as we have this," Amber commented, one of her tentacles holding what looked like a reddish crown fashioned after an octopus in the tines and a squid in the bottom rim with blank, glowing pale orange-ish 'eyes' on the sides. " and the reciever's embedded in its head, it'll just do our bidding. Besides, it'd take a good deal of force or precision to remove the neural-control reciever from its thick hide, especially without killing it."

"Well, it'sss not like we know of anything elssse ssstrong enough do that, anyway." Betty admitted.
"Then we give them a literal sinking feeling. We'll give the Ridgemounts, and those possible mer-girls a party they'll never forget! One with fear and chaos at the peak of their glory! I'll soon dominate the seven sea by the end of the summer, and I'll have my race revived and the city of R'lyeh back to their former glory, with Cthulhu's power coursing through my veins! And no one, human or mer-person, is going to stop me!" Amber tacked on, cackling like crazy afterwards, joined in by her thulhu eel partners. The sea naga couple trembled and the gadren of sea worms cowered in in her presence. Amber was already insane, but now she was losing more of what sanity she ever had to begin with!

Holy moly! Didn't expect THAT from the minion trio now, did y'all? The Thulhu eels I came up with, so for all it's worth, I think it's safe to say they're my creation.

And Lance finally has a date with Kaycee, and Ripper and Kenny, and Johnny with Emma. Congrats to 'em! And Ty actually asked Jess out as well! But what about Reef & Fin? Will they kiss? Will they go datin' as well?

So, now the Ridgemounts know of Broseph and Jess's secret. How is this going work out for them all? How much longer will it last before someone else discovers their fishy secret? What's Amber's connection to this Ursula (seriously, no spoilers on this one)? How will shehave her dead god's power and revive her abominable race & city? Is Amber just an evil knight or the real mastermind of this operation (see previous)? And what is a byatis, and what's this 'biggest pet' Amber reffered to (no spoilers, seriously)?

The Ursula in this story will only be mentioned, not featured.

Oh, and to Cullens of Death Metal, you guessed right as to their connection to Cthulhu's Grotto.

Y'all are welcome review your thoughts on Tuna, Betty, and Amber's true forms, along with my thulhu eels, in this story as well. I thought it be nice to name the eels after a certain eel duo, thus their names. Just no flames, a'ight?