Chapter 25
"Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That's exactly what the majority of men do."
- Napoleon Hill
Sam watched helplessly as Danny flew out of the building on his unsteady glob of water, his merhunting parents hot on his trail. She rose from her hiding place, unaware that she was squeezing Tucker Foley's hand, even when he used his free one to tap her softly on the shoulder.
Mechanically, she turned to him. While he didn't look quite as appalled as Sam, he was pale, and his smile seemed like nothing more than a thin veil to hide whatever he was feeling underneath. "Hey. He'll be okay. Did you see how fast he was going? They're not gonna catch him on foot." Shaking his head disdainfully at the thought, he tacked on, "No way."
"Sure," murmured Sam.
"So," said Tucker, pulling at his captive hand, "Why don't you release your death grip, and we can grab Danny's stuff and get back to our rendezvous point?"
"Ah, right!" Sam quickly let go, and Tucker drew his hand back, hissing and massaging the circulation back into it.
"Yeowch! Who knew girls could be so strong?"
"Really?" Sam deadpanned. "Girl jibes? Right now?" Right now, while Danny might be getting murdered by his own parents?
The abashed technophile winced, and his smile vanished. "Yeah, bad timing. Sorry."
Sam shook her head at the floor, splattered with liquefied leeches and brick dust, and stomped off toward the restrooms. "Whatever. Let's just get out of here. And find him."
They found his backpack stashed in one of the stalls in the men's room, his 'civvies' safely inside. Sam had been the first one to storm into the room, despite Tucker's protests that she wasn't allowed in there, and she was the one to sling the backpack over her shoulder, even when Tucker offered to carry it. She gripped the strap in both hands so tightly that her fingers shortly went numb.
It was the only thing she had of him right now, like a token of his safety. It was silly, irrational, but while she held it, she felt like she would definitely see him again, to place it into his hands and return it to its rightful owner.
No one bothered them or even seemed to notice as they left the town hall. Most people were too caught up in their own private panics or in making sure that their friends, loved ones, and neighbors, collapsed unconscious on the floor, were going to be okay. People were crying, sobbing, devolving into hysterics. And all the while, Janus-faced Vlad Masters was circulating among them, playing the sympathetic savior while privately gloating over his victory. If Sam hadn't known he could kill her as soon as snap his fingers, she would have tackled him to the floor and strangled him.
In the back corner of the room, the conscious half of a baffled news crew was rewinding their tape of the evening and marveling at their luck. Sam couldn't help but notice that Vlad Masters's winding path through the crowd seemed to be aimed in their direction. Whatever had just happened here tonight, the evening news was bound to paint Vlad the hero and Danny the villain - regardless of the eight-foot fish monster that had actually started everything. In the aftermath of the zombie-leech infestation, Sam wasn't so sure anyone actually cared about the monster anymore.
And they would blame Danny for the leeches. Vlad made certain of that.
Sam felt bile rise in her throat. Powerless, she glared once more at the Siren King and left the building. By the time she and Tucker reached the crosswalk at the intersection, ambulances had begun to arrive.
It struck Sam as odd that there was anyone left to drive the ambulances, anyone not infected by the leeches, until she realized - of course Vlad wouldn't be a proper hero if the people he saved were left without medical care for an entire night. He wanted to wrap this up with a pretty bow for his gullible public and move on to his next scheme.
It was all so neat and tidy, like clockwork. Danny hadn't stood a chance.
Tucker's house was empty when they got there. Tucker looked around, bewildered, and then smacked a hand to his forehead. "Crud. Mom and Pops must've been at the town hall the whole time!"
"Makes sense," said Sam, shrugging. "It looked like almost the whole town was there." Sam had even glimpsed her own parents among the crowd as they left, her father trying to calm his belligerent wife who was shrieking her desire to "speak to whoever's in charge here!"
"I didn't even think…" Tucker collapsed onto his living room sofa. "I was so caught up in worrying about Danny I didn't even wonder if my folks were okay." He glanced up at Sam, eyes shining behind his glasses. "You think-?"
Sam told him the same words he'd told her about Danny. "They'll be okay. As far as I can tell, no one was seriously hurt. I don't think the leeches cause any lasting damage, and Danny made sure that monster didn't hurt anyone." She sat next to him and patted him on the knee. "Don't worry."
They passed the next hour in awkward and tense silence. Knowing each other only through Danny, Sam and Tucker were still practically strangers to each other and did not know what to say. At one point, Tucker got a phone call from his dad, who wanted to know if Tucker was okay and to tell him that he would be spending the night at the hospital with his mom.
Tucker was on his feet and almost sprinted through the door when he heard that, until his dad assured him that she had only suffered minor scrapes and bruises. The hospital was simply going to keep the leech-victims in observation until they could be sure of any lasting side effects.
Sam got a similar phone call a few minutes later, although there was a lot less love in the exchange:
"Samantha? It's your mother. Where in Heaven's name are you?"
"I'm fine," Sam snapped back. "I'm at a friend's house."
"Well… good. Did any of those horrible leeches get on you?"
"No, Mother. I'm fine."
"What a relief! Anyhow, your father and I are going to be away for some hours, to sort out this mess with the Mayor and Mr. Masters. How Montez could have let this happen is beyond me! Isn't he supposed to be our mayor? My goodness!"
Pamela Manson, being true to form and finding someone to blame - although it was clearly the wrong someone.
"Yeah, sure. See you sometime, then." And Sam hung up.
More time passed, and Sam was on her feet, pacing the floor and ready to go out into the night to look for him, when Danny walked through the front door.
Sam didn't think. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck, letting go immediately when he grunted and faltered at the impact. She took two quick steps backward and actually looked at him.
He looked terrible. His wetsuit was covered in dirt from the wrecked town hall and the crusted blue chemicals from his parents' gun. His shoulders sagged inward, and the way he held himself made it obvious he was in pain. His face - human - was pale and taut, and his eyes red and swollen from crying.
"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, wanting to reach out and touch him but not daring to.
He looked at her, shook his head, and dropped his gaze to the carpet.
"Dude," said Tucker, who had appeared at Sam's side. "What happened?"
Danny limped past both of them and gingerly lowered himself onto the couch, groaning at the effort. He laid his head back and closed his eyes, eyebrows creased in pain. Physical, emotional, or both, Sam wasn't sure.
Sam and Tucker both stood by, unsure of what to do or say. Sam wrung her hands in front of her, wishing she had something concrete to do or some way to help him. Tucker had taken off his hat and was twisting it between his fingers.
Finally, Danny spoke. His voice was quiet, rough. "The monster," he started. He opened his eyes and peered at the ceiling, seeming to look beyond it. "Vlad did that."
Tucker glanced at Sam, bemused. "Uh, yeah? I mean, we kinda figured-"
Danny interrupted him. "It used to be a merperson. Vlad, he… he's experimenting on his own people. That thing was… no, it is… a person. And he was in pain."
Tears pooled in his eyes again and slid from their corners, turning the skin they touched pearlescent.
"I helped him get back to the ocean," he continued. "But I don't know how long he'll survive like that. Vlad said he was a 'failure', whatever that means. And according to Vlad, all of the other failures died."
Sam sat next to Danny on the couch, deliberately leaving space between them. Part of her wanted to wrap him in a hug and wipe away his tears. The other part was frozen, and he felt miles away, not inches.
In the past two days, the three of them had begun to feel like a team. Now, another invisible barrier had appeared between Danny and his friends. It had been easy to design a superhero's costume for him and to help him train with rocks and bits of driftwood. But in the end, Danny was the one who had gone into the fight, and he was the only one who had gotten hurt. All alone, he'd had to fight a delirious mutant, Vlad Plasmius, his own parents, and the very people he had been trying to protect.
This was as much Sam and Tucker's faults as Vlad's.
"I'm so sorry, Danny," she whispered. "You should never have gone there."
"Yeah," he chuckled bitterly. "I played right into his hand."
Tucker frowned. "But if Danny didn't go, think of everyone who might have been killed! Like my parents! Danny saved people's lives tonight."
"And a lot of good it did him," argued Sam. "Now everyone thinks he's the one behind the leeches! They'll send out a lynch mob for him."
"So, Danny'll just have to prove them wrong! After J. Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle, the public didn't like Spider-Man, either, but he still-"
"Oh my god, will you listen to yourself?" Sam asked, shoving to her feet. She thrust her hands out to their mutual merfriend and fumed at Tucker. "Danny almost died tonight. Do you get that? He isn't Spider-Man, he's Danny Fenton! He's not a superhero - he's a kid!"
"Right," drawled Tucker, narrowing his eyes. "'Cause I'm the one that said, "You're a superhero" and threw the schematics for a supersuit at him."
"No, I know I'm just as guilty!" retorted Sam. She ran her fingers through her hair and squeezed her eyes shut. "That's not the point."
"Then what's your point, Sam Manson? I'm all ears."
"The point is," said Sam, biting back tears, "we're not the ones fighting. He is. And it's our fault he was out there in the first place."
"Guys," said Danny quietly.
Sam and Tucker both turned to their friend, and the steam evaporated from their argument. Danny leaned forward, hugging his crossed arms over his chest. He didn't seem angry at them, either one - just drained.
Patiently, he spoke to them: "Vlad Masters is planning mass genocide on a scale no one's ever seen. He's the king of a race of super-powerful magical creatures that like to eat people, and he's trying to get them here on land. We're the only ones who know what he's up to, and out of the three of us, I'm the only one who has the power to do anything about it. Even if I'd known it was a trap, I still would have gone there tonight. With or without a 'supersuit'."
"But Danny," said Sam, and finally the tears broke through, "you don't. You don't have the power to stop him."
The young man sighed and nodded, running a hand through his messy and grimy hair. "I know. If I fight him again, he'll probably kill me."
Sam did not know what to say, and Tucker was silently sober as well.
"That's why," said Danny after several more seconds, "I decided I'm going to go talk to someone that can stop him."
"You don't mean your parents?" said Tucker. "After what just happened? You think that's really a good idea?"
"Not my parents. Birghid."
Tucker's eyes widened, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he had a protest on the tip of his tongue.
Sam frowned. The name sounded familiar, but she was still too new to the game to immediately recognize it. "Wait, who's Birghid?"
Danny turned to her, and the lack of light in his eyes was vaguely disturbing. Even when she had known him as just Danny Fenton and seen him staring into space at school, troubled and lost in his own thoughts, he had never looked so defeated. This battle, this defeat, must have been hitting him harder than Sam could imagine.
"Kaima's mom. Empress of the Merfolk. I think, if anyone has a chance of stopping Vlad, it's going to be her. Once I tell her what he's up to, she'll have to step in and do something. If not for the humans, at least to save her own people. Don't forget that Vlad's planning to have my mom and dad slaughter them in the not too distant future."
"Wait, wait, wait, just hold up," interjected Tucker. "This is the same Birghid who, last time you met, threw you in merperson prison, right? You really think it's a good idea to just swim right up to her and ask her for help?"
Danny shrugged and winced in pain. Sam remembered the blast he had taken to his back from the Fenton Bazooka and, slightly nauseous, wondered what it must look like underneath his suit.
"I mean, I don't like her either, Tuck, but do we really have any other options at this point? Besides, she seemed… reasonable." Tucker raised an incredulous eyebrow, so Danny added, "At least she doesn't eat people."
"But, man, look, if you go there… We can't go with you."
Sam saw Tucker clenching his fists at his sides and finally recognized in him what she had been feeling all night - desperate powerlessness.
Danny nodded. "Good. I wouldn't want you to." Sam only had a second to be offended before he explained, "All of this is way too dangerous. I don't think I could stand it if either one of you got hurt."
Sighing, Danny drew himself wearily to his feet. "I'm going to go tonight, before my parents have a chance to realize I'm gone. Vlad won't expect me to make my next move yet either. He probably thinks I've given up after tonight." Baring his canines, he growled, "But I'm not done yet."
Danny ignored his friends' protests as he stumbled out of Tucker's house. Luckily Tuck only lived a few blocks away from Fentonworks, and from there it was a short elevator ride down to the beach. Danny couldn't say why, but he knew that once he was in the water his wounds wouldn't ache so badly. It was the same instinct telling him this that was always pulling him oceanwards. He hated to entertain the thought, but perhaps it was the merperson soul inside of him playing tricks to get what it wanted, which was to be back in the water -
Permanently.
Danny drowned that thought before it could frighten him out of the job he had to do. He didn't even know for sure that there was another soul inside of him. Just the thought of Kaima - the pink mermaid kid princess who, last seen, had busted him out of jail and led his parents away from capturing him at their buoy - feeding him a still-beating merperson heart seemed way beyond farfetched. It was some Vlad Masters level insanity.
So there had to be another explanation. And maybe while he was down there, he could finally find out what it was.
When Tucker and Sam had realized they weren't going to stop him, they trailed behind him all the way down the street.
"What do we tell your parents if they're looking for you?" asked Tucker.
"I don't know," he shrugged. "I'm at your house. I'm at Sam's house. I've gone to space camp. You'll think of something."
"And when exactly are you planning on being back?"
"When I get back," he said simply. Was he being flippant? Maybe a little. Did his friends deserve that? Probably not. He just couldn't think that far ahead yet. His only goal right now was getting to the Merfolk palace and getting an audience with the Empress. Everything else was unimportant.
"Danny," said Sam, clear worry in her voice. "I hate to be the devil's advocate and all, but what if you don't come back?"
That stopped his stumbling pace. Unbidden, his mind flashed back to the battle, when his parents had held the Bazooka up to his head and pulled the trigger point blank. He should have died right then. It was only thanks to his dad's absent-mindedness that he hadn't. And one of the loudest thoughts in his head, when he was so sure he was about to kick that proverbial bucket, had been - What happens when they find out what they've done?
"Tell them the truth," he told her. Then he smiled wryly. "But give me a few days before you write me off, okay?"
Sam didn't look particularly pleased with that answer. She stared into his face, eyes flicking back and forth like they were looking for something. Confused, Danny looked away and restarted his trek to Fentonworks. Something had been awkward between them since the moment he'd gotten back from the battle. Like it wasn't going to be easy to talk with her anymore.
Then again, with everything he'd gone through that night, he could have been imagining things. He wasn't exactly in the best place emotionally, and Sam couldn't have been either. And just like getting home in time for curfew, drama between him and his friends was pretty low on his list of priorities at the moment.
As expected, his parents weren't home yet - probably still out hunting for him and the Mernotaur. As for Jazz, who knew? She'd had the leeches on her head for awhile, so Danny was going to guess she was either unconscious at town hall or getting checked over at the hospital. Either way sucked for her but was good for him.
They made it down to the lab, where Danny scheduled some surprise maintenance for the buoy closest to Fentonworks. It immediately shut down and started scanning and scrubbing all of its drives, which would take it the next few hours to accomplish.
"They're gonna figure it out if you keep scheduling maintenance on their buoys," noted Tucker.
"It's not like I'm planning to do this all the time," grumbled Danny in response. "Besides, I was more careful this time. I only shut down the buoy I needed. They'll be too distracted with everything that went down tonight to even notice."
"Right. Whatever you say, man..."
Outside of the door to the lab, Danny walked straight out to the surf. It washed over his neoprene boots and slid back out, entreating him to go with it into the night-black sea.
"Hide my clothes and suit over at the cave, okay? I'll go there first when I get back."
"Alright, Danny..." said Sam, who was carrying his backpack.
Danny bent to take off his boots and tossed them one by one onto the dry sand next to his friends. On the next wave, his feet were washed over by pins and needles as webbing sprung between his toes and elongated his feet into something more like flippers.
He had just taken off his gloves when Sam pulled him into another hug. He hissed at the pain of her arms squeezing his back, but this time she didn't let go. "Be safe," she whispered.
His heart thumped, and he was sure he would have been glowing like a flashlight if he'd been in his merform.
"Yeah, I will," he said, hesitantly hugging her back.
He was even more surprised when, as soon as she let go, Tucker hugged him, too. Tucker. They hadn't hugged since elementary school. Because two dudes hugging just wasn't cool.
"Ditto on what she said," said Tucker, squeezing him once and letting him go. "You still haven't been my finman on any dates. So if I find out you've gone belly up, imagine how betrayed I'm gonna feel. You remember that before you go picking any fights with terrifying merman hunter jerkwads."
"So that's what I have to look forward to when I get back?" retorted Danny, rolling his eyes.
Tucker grinned, spreading his hands to either side. "What can I say? Simple guy, simple needs, and one of those needs just happens to be getting my merman best friend to help me pick up girls."
Even though it hurt his sides, Danny laughed. As soon as he started, it wasn't long before the other two were laughing as well.
"I'll come back as soon as I can," said Danny, giving them a hopefully reassuring smile.
"You better," said Sam, punching him lightly on the arm. Right on top of one of his bruises.
"Agh!" he yelped. "Are girls supposed to be this strong?"
Sam slung his backpack at his head, growling, "Not you, too! Yes, news flash: girls are strong. Get over it!"
Danny, laughing again, swatted away her attacks.
Then it really was time for him to go. "Erm, awkward request. Could you both turn around for a sec?"
"Uh, why?" asked Tuck.
"Think about it," said Danny, flicking his finger against the zipper of his wetsuit.
Sam's mouth rounded into an 'o', and simultaneously she and Danny flushed and found some very interesting sea shells to look at.
"Nothing to be ashamed of," said Tucker, grinning at their embarrassment. "In the immortal words of Tommy Pickles, 'Nakey is good, nakey is free.'"
"Kill me," Danny groaned.
"Nope, not gonna look," chirped Sam. "I'm turning around. See? Turned around. I'll even put my hands over my eyes."
Tucker winked and turned around, too.
Quickly, fumbling, blushing, Danny tugged the wetsuit off and tossed it onto his boots and gloves. Shivering in the sudden cold of the late October night, he sat down on the sand and wrapped the next wave around himself to pull him about fifteen feet out from shore.
Finally surrounded by saltwater, his body made the change in seconds. The shifting of his bones and muscles, the stretching of his skin, it all should have been uncomfortable, but compared to the bruises from the battle, the ache of the change came as a relief more than anything else. Cool water filtered over his gills deliciously, and it seemed to suck the pain right out of his limbs and back. For a moment, he closed his eyes and simply let the ocean hold him in her arms.
Remembering his friends, he briefly resurfaced, long enough to wave a webbed hand at them and say, See you soon!
Then they were gone, and the ocean was everything.
Danny swam as quickly as he dared, letting the senses of his water mode guide him east along the naturally sloping ocean floor. While he didn't think Vlad would attack him again tonight, there were other enemies he needed to look out for, and the way his muscles were clenching painfully around the Bazooka blast mark on his back meant he wasn't as agile as he should be. The moon was only half full tonight and waning, and it did little to light the water besides dusting its silver on the waves overhead. Danny's own bioluminescence cast a ghostly glow around him, a globe of light in the murk. He recognized that, unless he got deeper quickly, he would be a beacon to anything less-than-friendly to merpeople on the surface.
He reached the undersea cliff in short time and immediately swam down to its base. From there, he swam among the shadows of the tall sea grasses until his parents' buoy passed harmlessly overhead and was put far behind him.
But exhaustion began to wash over him. His eyelids started to droop, and his water mode constricted, giving him only fuzzy images of his surroundings.
Jeez, he thought, am I doomed to always fall asleep on this journey? The same thing had happened to him last time he'd gone out to find the Merfolk Empire - although drifting off while taking a relaxing break in the sun and collapsing after having the snot beat out of you were totally different reasons for it.
Resignedly, he cast a mental look around for a place to curl up for the night. A few hundred yards away, he detected a couple of boulders with a crack between them just big enough for a young merperson like himself to squeeze between. It would have to do.
He arrived at the rocks a few seconds later. They leaned against each other, pockmarked and patched with dark algae. There was a shadowy crack at their base which, yes, was big enough for a guy to squeeze into but looked way more claustrophobic in person. Danny decided to use his hydrokinesis to dig a bigger hollow into the sand there before he called it 'home' for the night.
Finally, he was able to lay down inside the little aquatic burrow by curling up there into a ball. He let his head drop against the soft sand and blinked a few times at his immediate surroundings. Granules of sand were settling around him, sparkling in the glow of his silver light. Through the gap between seafloor and the rocks, he could see the dark ocean stretching hugely into the distance. He breathed in saltwater and released it through his gills. Everything was immensely quiet.
This was peaceful. Unlike last time, when Danny hadn't trusted his gills to keep him alive, he now felt completely at ease in his merform and comforted by the water surrounding him. He could, for at least the moment, pretend that by escaping Amity Beach he had left all of his problems there on the land, too.
Relaxed, exhausted, he closed his eyes and slept deeply and dreamlessly for several hours. He didn't wake until one of the boulders hiding him was thrust to the side, and he was lifted unceremoniously out of his burrow, upside-down by the base of his tailfin.
Finally, exclaimed the merman, raising Danny to eye level. After weeks of searching, I've found you… abomination.
Disoriented, Danny blinked rapidly at the muscular indigo merman holding him. Even upside-down, he recognized the merman's predatory grin and jaguar-like golden eyes and immediately wished he didn't.
Skulker.
A/N: Surprised? You're not the only one!
First of all, no, I am not dead.
I owe you a severe apology and perhaps an explanation. In the last two years: I wrapped up my employment in Japan, moved back to America in Aug 2017, spent three months on some introspection (What the heck do I do now? What is my future?) and reverse culture shock, ran away to Seattle for a few weeks, applied for Arkansas Teacher Corps (similar to Teach for America), got a part-time job teaching English to Japanese and Koreans over Skype, went back to school for a semester, got accepted into Arkansas Teacher Corps, had surgery, went to a grueling 7-week-long teacher-training bootcamp (packing what's usually 18 months of schooling into less than 2), got a job offer, and two weeks later moved across the state to a tiny town on the Mississippi River that I'd never heard of to teach 8th grade English at a high-needs school where 75% of the students are reading below grade level. I've been working here for five and a half months, and when I'm not working, I'm usually collapsed on my couch in exhaustion.
It's been a turbulent couple of years. But things are finally settling into routine normalcy again, and I think it'd be possible to start posting again. Maybe once a month? I've still got so many ideas for Treading Water (and its sequel) that it'd be a shame to never finish. If it takes me ten more years - ...Heaven forbid... - I want to finish this story.
Thank you for everyone who is still here, and to those of you who kept asking about my well-being during my absence. I look forward to working with you again.
A million thanks to: Bouhoue, Invader Johnny, IceDragonGirl36, Izi Wilson, TeddyBear98, Jokul Frosti The Winter Child, ChangelingRin, Meet-the-Far, Foxprints, ImpudentMiscegenation, Kimera20, actresspdx, CheshireCatwoman, SCREAMINGx4, TimeZone13, Specter14, AlecGateway, RevyCaitEll, derpfangirl, TheSmilingRose, Bug Queen, Unlucky Alis, Fokron, A Funky Monkey, M-Iris009, CrackedCrow, HadesNightfury, Pterodactyl, M. Illusion, Matt, Kristen Lyn Silver, Pour, 16, EdgyAngel, roseofalltrades, Slenderbrine, Once and Future Dragon, guest, Guest(s), Cyroclastic, Lovepatrolalpha1344, CalmMelody, writergirl142, Retifer, DevotedReaderForYou, AzelforestdA, ChaoticMinds, MsFrizzle, PriscillaKing, MickeyNC, JacobPhantom, EllaDeWriter, Joey394, roseofalltrades, Black Sun Upon An Icy Sky, Pineapplebombgirl, Blitza, quaddles, PhantomOfProcrastination, AngieManson, Friendo, brooklyn1shay2black3, and MidnightWriter44678 for their reviews of Chapter 24!
Y'all are the reasons I came back to this story! I'm just sorry this author is the scum of the earth and you have to rely on me to get the story you want to read. In a more perfect universe, someone who's not me would be writing Treading Water, and it would have been finished back in 2015. T_T
Best wishes and much love,
T.F.C~