Hi!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day or night (who knows XD).

This chapter took a while to write but I got it finished a few days ago, I just needed to edit it a lot.

Also, I just wanted to say, I have (believe it or not) had to do a lot of research about clams for this story and whilst doing this, I found out that some clams can attach themselves to the ocean floor using special anchoring threads called 'byssal threads'. Now, I don't know if giant clams have these but hey, this is a new species of giant clam so who knows what they're capable of. I decided that Ant and Madeline haven't bonded enough yet and how do we fix that? We put them in more danger! Just wanted to mention this so you understand a more a bit later on in the chapter.

I hope you enjoy!

"What? Oh," Kaiko said.

There were thick strings trailing from the base of the clam, down to the sea floor.

"What is that?" Finn asked.

"I don't know, I've never seen anything like it," Fontaine said as the three of them swam closer.

"Yeah, me eith - " Kaiko paused mid-sentence.

"What, Mum? Do you know what this is?" Fontaine asked.

"You know how regular sized clams and other mollusks have threads to keep them attached to rocks and the sea floor in strong currents?" Kaiko began.

"Yeah? I don't - "There was a pause as Fontaine processed this," because it's a giant clam, there's giant byssal threads, "

"You mean this stuff is designed to keep the clam attached to the floor?" Finn asked, poking one of the thick, rope-like threads.

Kaiko and Fontaine nodded.

"Well this is just great! How are we meant to move it now?" Finn signed in annoyance.

"I don't know but we'll find a way," Kaiko assured him.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ant asked, regretting it slightly when he saw Madeline's face looking like she was about to murder him.

"Will you stop asking me that?! I might be fine but you won't be if you keep asking!" She near yelled.

"I've never seen you be this quiet for this long, are you sure you're al - "

"If you'd prefer, I can SHOUT AT YOU LIKE THIS!" Madeline started off relatively calm but by the end of the sentence, Ant was feeling fairly deaf.

Ant let out a loud, exasperated sigh and moved away from her, back to his own corner of the clam.

It felt like he had been stuck in there for a lifetime, his mum had better hurry up or the pirate was right and only one of them would make it out alive.

And what was wrong with Madeline?

She was being annoying.

Check.

She was being loud.

Check.

She was being a terrible pirate.

Check.

So, she had all of her usual attributes, what was different about her?

One minute she was sat, quiet and still in a corner, the next, she's biting his head off: he could not figure her out.

Outside of the clam, things weren't going much better for Finn.

One minute, Fontaine was silently figuring out a way to move the clam or talking to Kaiko about how to fix her knight since she was worried it could break down again, the next, she was biting Finn's head off before returning to giving him the silent treatment: he could not figure her out.

Hammerhead and Will were still away, over the ridge, working on monitoring and delaying the volcano. No one had seen or heard them since they had disappeared over the ridge so everyone just hoped they hadn't bickered each other to death yet.

Kaiko, Finn and Fontaine had been trying to find a way to move the clam but so far, it wasn't budging.

"Can't we just cut them?" Finn asked Fontaine after they had spent a solid ten minutes trying to get it to move.

"Mum?" Fontaine turned to Kaiko.

Kaiko paused and then said.

"I suppose we could. I mean, we'd have to be careful, one wrong slip and we could kill the clam but I don't see any other way of getting it out of here,"

"You mean using the laser cutter?" Fontaine asked.

"Yes but the ones on our knights aren't strong enough, we'll need the big one attached to the rover," Kaiko said.

"I'll go!" Fontaine cried out, already on her way back to the Aronnax.

"Okay, great, we'll keep working on the clam," Kaiko told Fontaine through her communicator, "Finn, can you - where did he go?" She mumbled to herself and then let out a huge sigh when she saw the disappearing flash of grey entering the Aronnax's moon pool, where Fontaine had vanished just moments prior.

Oh well.

Fontaine could deal with Finn. He was smarter than Hammerhead and much less of a threat: she very much doubted he would be willing to launch an invasion on the Aronnax or try and steal treasure, especially whilst his sister was trapped in a clam. That being said, if Will knew Finn was with their daughter, things might get difficult.

They could worry about that later, currently, she needed to work out a way to get this clam out of here.

Ant and Madeline had been sat in silence for a while now, still not acknowledging each other's existence when Kaiko's voice came from Ant's communicator, once again uniting the two prisoners of the clam.

"Ant, come in,"

She sounded worried.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, thank you so much for reading!

Also, I know the laser cutter that gets put on the rover is actually a laser welder but oh well, the Nektons probably have a tool for everything and Ant uses the laser welder to cut metal in that episode so maybe it can be used as a laser cutter.

Please review, it always cheers me up!

Thanks,

Kiwi :)