Emma crawled across yet another rock, looking for the algae that Lewis described to her. She had a picture printed off of it but none of the algae she'd seen so far—and she'd seen a lot of algae in the last hour—looked anything like it.

Another rock up ahead was partially submerged in the ocean water and there was some green growing on it that looked promising. She jumped across the rocks until she reached it and whooped in delight. It was the blue algae she'd been looking for!

Unfortunately there didn't seem to be enough of it. She would need a cup of the algae to complete the spell properly, and there probably wasn't even half a cup on the rock. She put down the tongs and the plastic bag she'd brought and searched the nearby rocks for more. Still no luck.

"What are you doing?" A taunting voice called to her from farther down the beach. Emma looked up and locked eyes with none other than Charlotte Watsford.

"Um...nothing." Emma said. "Just trying to get over these rocks."

"I swear, you and your friends do the weirdest things sometimes." Charlotte was now close enough that Emma could see her rolling her eyes. "So I suppose Rikki would've told you by now that your little plan to stop me failed."

"She did." Emma confirmed. "Congrats, or whatever."

"I even got a power of my own." she continued to boast. "It's way better than any of yours."

"Once again, congrats." she said, trying not to let her annoyance show in her voice. She wished Charlotte would leave so that she could get back to algae hunting, but instead she climbed up on the rocks with her.

"Don't you want to see it? Or are you still mad that I told Cleo your secret?" she smirked.

"Fine, what is it?" she didn't want to play Charlotte's game anymore but the sooner she would leave, the sooner she would get back to hunting for algae.

"Watch." she made a hand motion similar to Emma's but her palm faced up. Her fingers began to curl and Emma looked out to the ocean, waiting for something to happen.

"Wow, great power Charlotte." Emma said sarcastically. "Definitely better than mine."

"Look at your feet, you idiot." Charlotte shot back.

Emma did. Weeds had grown between the cracks of the rocks she was standing on and they had begun winding around Emma's shoes without her noticing. They were surprisingly strong, but Emma was able to break her feet free from the tendrils. She had to admit, it was a cool power. Of course she would never tell Charlotte that. She began to get an idea...

"Does it just work with weeds, or can you make, for example, flowers or trees or...algae?" she said.

Charlotte stuck her hand out and a beautiful rose began to grow out of the sand. Emma sat down on the rock next to the blue algae that she needed, and hoped Charlotte would try to impress her by growing it. The plan worked. All of the algae on the rock, some that she needed and some that she didn't, began to grow with incredible speed.

"It works with trees, too, but that takes longer." she said. "Anyway, have fun with your...whatever it is that you're doing. We should race sometime. I bet I'm better than you."

Emma resisted a smile and instead waved goodbye to the redhead. She didn't know it, but she was lending a hand in the creation of a potion that would take away her power for good. The moment Charlotte was out of sight, Emma grabbed all the blue algae that she could. It looked like there would be enough. She put the bag of algae and the tongs in the bag she'd left on the other side of the rocks and ran to Rikki's cafe to meet up with her friends, who hopefully were also having luck in finding their ingredients.

Xxx

Luck was definitely on their side. Emma had found the algae, Lewis managed to order some dried sea urchin powder from a science website, Cleo stole a vial of box jellyfish poison from the Marine Park laboratory, Zane ordered a bottle of ambergris online, and Will and Bella succeeded in obtaining a crystal from the Moon Pool. Everyone flaunted their ingredients and told their stories of how difficult it was to get them. Emma's was by far the best; Charlotte helping out with her own demise had everyone laughing.

Rikki was the only unsuccessful one. Getting a scale from Charlotte was far harder than she'd imagined. She had experimented on her own tail and it took an incredible amount of force to pull out a scale, plus it hurt a lot. There was no way she could get one from Charlotte without her noticing.

"Maybe if you follow her around she'll hurt herself and you could get a scale then." Cleo said.

"Cleo, we've been mermaids for how long now? How many scales do you remember loosing?" Rikki rolled her eyes. She was in a very bad mood, being the only one without their ingredient.

"I've lost at least one...remember, Denman found it?" Cleo reminded them.

"Whatever, Cleo. I think we all have to hold her down and I'll have to force it off of her." Rikki slumped her chin on her hand. "That might be a tip-off that we're up to something though. Just maybe."

"There's got to be a way." Emma could almost see the gears in Lewis' brain turning. "Maybe she would do it for me, if I told her I'm doing some more experiments on mermaids and I want a sample from each of you?"

"Hey, that could work." Emma said.

"Except she hates us and would never want to help us." Rikki said glumly.

"I don't think she hates Lewis." Emma argued.

"But I don't really want Lewis talking to Charlotte..." Cleo added.

"Girls, girls..." Lewis held up his hands. He directed his next sentences to his girlfriend. "Which is worse: having Charlotte be a mermaid forever, or having me talk to her for a few minutes?"

"I still don't like it. She's gotten even meaner since she lost her powers."

"Agreed." Emma said.

"You still haven't told us what secret she found out about you." Lewis reminded everyone. Emma cursed in her mind. She was hoping she could get out of this without everyone finding out.

"Yeah, Em, are you ever going to tell us?" Rikki asked playfully. "Let me guess. You got a B on a test, right?"

"No." she answered softly. "It's a bit more serious than that."

"Emma can tell us when she's ready." Cleo stuck up for her. "I'm going to get another juice, anyone else want one?"

Bella and Will chimed in with their drink orders and soon enough everyone forgot the topic of Emma's secret. Everyone except Emma, that was. It was going to come out eventually, and she could either do it on her terms or Charlotte's.

Rikki's phone chimed as she received a new message. "My dad wants me to go home and help him with something." she said. "I'll talk to you guys later. Let me know if you have any ideas for getting a you-know-what from you-know-who."

Emma suddenly found herself standing up. This wasn't going to be pretty, but it needed to be done.

"Rikki, I need to talk to you."

Sorry this chapter is so short! The next one will be much longer, I promise. Hope I'm not annoying you too much with the cliffhanger ;) Please review!

Thank you mermaidbyheart, HermioneWP, Return to Neverland, MBB, H2o fan, and AudreyCariba for reviewing the last chapter! I've taken all your thoughts about how Rikki will react into consideration.