Author's Note: I have counted the reviews!
Insane Pirate Dragon and Tinks-Belle85: Since you guys both reviewed with different choices, I'm doing both. Please don't be mad!
Disclaimer: I do NOT own any Finding Nemo characters. Andrew Stanton and his Pixar crew do. I do own Marquella and the new character in this chapter.
Chapter Six: Dante
Anchor and Marquella were returning to the ship near sunset. If they had told anyone about what happened, their names would be in the Book of World Records underneath the category 'Longest Kissing Sessions in History.'
"So," Marquella began, "Where's the surprise?"
"I'm not telling you." Anchor said. "Maybe if you gave me something…"
Marquella gave Anchor a quick kiss and said, "Okay. So where's the surprise?"
"Here's the truth… I don't know." Anchor replied, smiling.
"So you made me kiss you for nothing." Marquella said.
"Yep." Anchor said. "Pretty smart huh?"
"You know what?" Marquella said in feigned anger, "I don't like you anymore." She then swam away, leaving Anchor behind.
Anchor believed Marquella when she said her statement. She made it sound so believable. "Wait! You don't mean it… do you?" He called out.
Marquella just turned around and laughed at him before swimming away.
By the time Anchor and Marquella got home, it was nighttime. Marquella was almost bursting with excitement. She loved surprises.
"About time you guys got home." Chum said, swimming out the doorway. "We were about to leave without you guys."
Marquella smiled. "I'm glad you didn't."
Chum then noticed how close the two were. "Not that you two would've minded being alone and 'close' for a few more minutes." He added with a sly grin before dashing back into the ship.
Anchor just made a 'o' shape with his mouth and Marquella looked surprised. Bruce soon came out the exit and said, "Let's go."
The F.E.A. swam in the East direction.
"Pleassssssssssse!" Marquella was saying. "Tell me where we're going! I'm about to die over here!"
"Fine, we'll tell you!" Chum gave in. He moved close to Marquella's ear and whispered, "Where we're going… is a secret." He then swam up beside Bruce.
"Oh c'mon, that's not fair!" Marquella protested.
"Life's not fair." Chum said.
The F.E.A. kept swimming along, and Anchor was getting bored. He wasn't going to sing though Thank God!; he was going to do something different. He swam up to Marquella and whispered in her ear,
"Hey, you wanna have some fun with Bruce and Chum?"
"Sure. What're you thinking of?" Marquella answered. She was bored as well.
"Well, I was thinking…" Anchor told Marquella the rest of his plan.
"Great idea!" Marquella whispered back. "When should I say it?"
"On the count of three." Anchor said.
"On the count of three what?" Bruce asked.
"Uhh… nothing!" Marquella said. She was relieved when Bruce just shrugged and kept on swimming. 'The only downside for sharks having great hearing. They can hear whispers too.'
Marquella looked at Anchor and saw him mouth the words, 'ready?' She nodded with a smile, and Anchor mouthed, 'okay. One, two, three…'
"ARE WE THERE YET?" Marquella and Anchor shouted.
"No." Bruce said. "Its jus' a few more 'inutes swim…"
"WHEN WILL WE GET THERE?" Marquella and Anchor shouted again, barely able to keep from laughing.
"We'll get there when we get there, so stop acting like annoying pups for Pete's sake…" Bruce grumbled, getting annoyed.
"WHEN IS THAT?" Anchor and Marquella shouted in perfect (annoying) unison.
"Oh c'mon mates." Chum groaned. "Do you have to torture us like this? It's not fair!"
Marquella suddenly looked serious and crossed her fins. "Life's not fair."
Anchor laughed and Bruce was going 'ooooooh." Chum smiled and said, "Touché."
About five minutes later, the F.E.A reached their destination, the E.A.C. Though it was a common sight in the morning, it was beautiful at night. It seemed to glow as the moon's rays reflected off it.
"Whoa." Marquella said in astonishment. "It's beautiful."
Bruce looked at her and grinned. "This isn't the best part."
"Well when's the best part coming?" Anchor asked. He had never seen the E.A.C. at night or this place before.
"It should be happening right about…"
Just then, everything turned pitch black. The four friends couldn't see their fins in front of their faces.
"Now." Chum finished.
Right after Chum said, 'now,' it was like someone flipped on the light switch. Right before their eyes, were millions of tiny sea angels (Sea angels are real. They come out at night and have a light that is created by glowing bacteria. Thank you Discovery Channel, for helping me learn something) floating in front of them.
"Oh." Marquella whispered. It's… it's…" Marquella shook her head. She was speechless.
"Fintastic?" Anchor said.
Marquella smiled. "Yeah that… ooh, look! They're changing colors!"
The bright white light turned into a blue glow. The glow shone off the F.E.A's face. Anchor and Marquella looked at the glowing sea angels with an excited twinkle in their eyes. Bruce and Chum had seen this before, but they watched it with so much enjoyment it was as if they had never seen it before.
"Look you guys! They're changing colors again!" Marquella said in excitement.
The sea angels changed from a glowing blue to a dark, fiery red gleam. It wasn't beautiful anymore. It was scary. It was as if the fiery lights from hell came out.
"I don't feel right." Marquella whispered to Anchor. "Maybe we should go."
"Aww, don't worry, I bet it's just a part of the show." Anchor assured. "Right?"
"No. It's not a part of the show." Bruce said in such an ominous voice that it sent chills up their spines. "It doesn't happen every time you see this show. They say that when this happens, it means something bad's going to happen. I know it's true… when I first saw this as a pup… I… something bad happened to me…. Wahhh!"
Bruce had started to cry. Chum and Anchor had moved in a position to comfort him.
"C'mon, don't cry." Anchor was saying in a soothing voice. "We're all mates here mate."
"What's wrong with him?" Marquella asked.
Anchor was still comforting Bruce, so Chum was going to tell her.
"Erm, you see… he never knew his father." Chum said in an uneasy voice.
"He never knew 'im?" Marquella asked in an almost whisper.
"Well, actually he did know him, his father was just a little… abusive… but he never told us the whole story, and we didn't have the guts to ask 'im, so we just said that he never knew his father." Chum finished.
"Oh." Marquella said, going over to the still crying Bruce. Her life wasn't exactly a trip to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory either, but you'll find that out later. "Hey," Marquella said to Bruce, "Don't be sad. I'm sorry about your father, but if it makes you feel any better, my life wasn't exactly a trip to candy land either."
Bruce sniffed. "It wasn't?" He asked.
"Nope. It was…" Marquella shuddered, like the memory of her life was scaring her, "Challenging." She finished, though Anchor had a feeling that 'challenging' wasn't even close to the right words.
"Well thanks mate." Bruce said, sniffling. "You guys are the best."
"Yeah, we know." Chum said before getting slapped upside the head by Marquella.
"Oh well, Marquella said, swimming away from her friends to get a better… seat… "At least we still have the rest of the show... help!...mmmph!"
Bruce, Chum, and Anchor turned around to see Marquella wrestling with divers with sharp knives. It looked like they were trying to cut her open for her liver. (Note: Some products do have shark liver in them. I learned this from Nauticus.)
Bruce and Chum swam over to help Marquella, but they were hit with bright, glowing, stun rods and were knocked into a rock. They were conscious, but disoriented.
'Bruce was right. The sea angel's color can tell if bad things will happen!' Anchor thought. He was scared, he didn't want to see Marquella die… then an anger switch seemed to turn on. 'They're gonna kill 'er! Grrrr…' he got even angrier when he saw one of the divers about to slit her throat.
Even though a knife was at her throat, Marquella was still trying to wriggle away from the divers. She managed to bite two of them, there were three divers, but that only resulted in getting her side cut by the knife. It was a deep cut, and it made Marquella dizzy. But before she was overcome with dizziness, she saw a flash of grey and heard the diver's screams. 'It must be Anchor.' She thought happily. The next thing she knew, she was on her back in the sand.
"Ohhh…" Marquella groaned in pain. She tried to get up, but she felt a flash of pain overcome her body. "Oww!"
"Marquella, you're awake!" Anchor said cheerfully. Marquella turned around, still lying on the sand, and saw Anchor. "I thought you were gone for sure!"
Marquella smiled a weak smile. "I'm okay. I'm just cut… though I probably would be gone if you hadn't come…"
Anchor smiled back at her. "It was nothing. Besides, I wouldn't let anything bad happen to you."
"I love you SO much right now." Marquella said.
"I know. I'm just too adorable. So…" Anchor said, suddenly becoming serious. "How's your side doing?"
Marquella looked at her side. Her wound still fresh, and grimaced. "It hurts." She admitted truthfully.
"Oh." Said Anchor. "Sorry, but since there aren't any kelp beds around here… I can't make one of those bandages. So I guess you'll have to deal with the pain until we get home."
'Great.' Marquella thought. She suddenly realized something. "Where's Bruce and Chum?"
"They went home." Anchor replied. "They're probably trying to get rid of their headaches."
"Well then why'd you stay?" Marquella asked.
"My head didn't hurt." Anchor said.
Marquella smiled and began to swim off towards home. It was around midnight and she was feeling sleepy. "Let's go home then. I'm tired…" She was going to continue her sentence, but was cut off by a voice.
"Marquella! There you are!"
Anchor and Marquella turned around and saw a male Leopard shark heading for them. Anchor's face held a look of bewilderment, but Marquella's face had an expression of fear.
"There you are!" The Leopard shark said. Without any warning, he went up to Marquella and kissed her.
Anchor was irate. He was about to go up and punch the guy out. Thoughts of 'How dare this guy come up and kiss her like that?' flashed through his mind. But somehow, he kept his cool. While he was telling himself, 'Don't lash out, don't lash out,' Marquella was hoping that he did.
"Excuse me? WHO are you?" Anchor asked with a slight snarl in his voice. He was trying to keep his temper under control, but was barely making it.
"Oh, I'm sorry. We haven't met." The Leopard shark said with a smile. "I'm Dante."
Anchor saw Marquella flinch at the name. 'She should flinch; this guy has something about him, something dangerous…' But he dismissed the thought and thought that he was just her brother. 'But then again,' he thought, 'A brother wouldn't give his sister a lip lock like THAT…'
"I see." Anchor said with annoyance and anger in his voice. "And you kissed her like that because…"
"Oh, don't you know?" Dante said with fake innocence. "I'm 'er boyfriend."
Dante's words hit Anchor like a rushing train. Out of all the answers in the world that Dante could've given, that was the most unexpected. Marquella could only watch Anchor's face turn from anger to pain. She couldn't say anything because she remembered that she hadn't really broke up with Dante. Both Hammerheads looked distressed, but Dante seemed to be enjoying every moment.
"She disappeared one night while I was resting." Dante continued. "Maybe she was nervous about the wedding…"
'A wedding?' Anchor thought. 'She was engaged! She never told me that she had a boyfriend! I thought she cared about me. I was played…' Marquella was feeling two feelings at once. One of her feelings was despair, because she could do nothing to make Anchor cheer up. The other feeling was fury, because she wasn't engaged to Dante.
"He's ly…" Marquella began, but Dante brushed his fin on her wound, and she was too hurt to speak.
"But either way, I finally found her, and that's all that matters." Dante continued. "Sorry about the confusion, I hope I didn't cause any trouble in coming here. Besides, it's not like you loved 'er or anythin', right?"
Anchor was hurt and angry. He felt betrayed and tried to hide the tears that were welling up in his eyes. "No, I don't." He managed to choke out. He then began to head for home.
Those words broke Marquella's heart. The sorrow was evident in her eyes as she said, "Anchor…"
"Don't worry about me. I hope you have a fun time at your wedding." Anchor said bitterly. "Wouldn't want you to stab anyone else's heart." And with that, he headed for home.
As soon as Anchor was out of sight, Marquella tried to swim after him, but Dante grabbed her, hurting her in a million places, and dragged her to his face. The terror in Marquella's eyes grew bigger as Dante hissed evilly in her ear,
"You didn't think you were getting away that easily, did you?"
TBC…
Well, that's the end of the chapter. Flames are welcome. They'll be helpful; I'll be directing them to my backyard so I can light the grill and have a barbecue party. For now, it's time for…
Reviewer's Choice!
Who should I check up on in the next chappie?
Anchor as he feels sad
Or
Marquella as we learn more about her story and as she's terrorized by Dante
That's it people! R&R please!