Well, here's the 2nd installment. Sorry if I rushed into the story really fast. It's kinda hard to come up with an intro, ya know? I may pull in what happened previously to get them on the boat in later chapters, though. Bon apetit!
P.S. I'm reposting this because of inconsistencies. Feel free to tell me more in reviews.
2: Sinking
Adriane jolted out of the dream, her limbs no longer heavy. Kara shifted next to her, pulling out of the spell as well. In fact, almost all of them had woken, with the exception of Cribby and Cribby Jr.
Help me. The words drifted into Adriane's thoughts, bringing pictures of deep, soulless black eyes and tails of washed out green, blue, and amber that slapped the water eagerly. However, Adriane focused on the greenish aura that surrounded them, spiking violently and painfully with every aquatic movement. There was something different about these mermaids.
"EMILY!" Adriane ran, her ears guiding her to the starboard railing just in time to see Marlin clambering over the rail, ready to dive into the seething mass of tails, fins, and hair as the healer was pulled beneath the waves.
"Marlin, no! They'll just pull you down too!" Kara called as she jogged up behind them.
"I can hold my breath for 25 minutes," Marlin growled, drawing his dagger. "She can't."
"Don't let him dive," Adriane ordered Kara. "I'm going to try to contact Emily, pull her out of the trance." The blonde leapt over to the prince and grasped his arm. Their bickering became background noise as Adriane and Dreamer dove down the connection to the healer and broke the hold on her mind, only to feel her get forced underwater again. Adriane pushed deeper, ordering Emily to fight harder while she drew on Kara's strength. A familiar and unwelcome sting met their magic as she gave Emily strength and let the magic surge over the mermaids. They flipped away, even as Kara pulled back. Adriane let out a strangled cry and was thrown back into the cabin of the ship as a wave of magic swept into the healer's body.
Emily thrashed to the surface, gasping for breath, but more mermaids swarmed her, their hands leaving sickly green burns on her skin that were healed momentarily by Emily's magic.
"Black fire," Kara murmured to Marlin. "If you had jumped, you'd be dead by now." Kara glanced as the merprince to see that he had gone pale, well, gray at least. She felt a tug on her magic and watched as Emily thrashed more wildly. The mermaids were now unsure, their prey giving more of a fight than they expected, yet something pushed them forward. Kara recoiled from Adriane's mental grasp as dark magic surged over the unicorn and wolf magics. She turned her attention back to the redhead, however, to see that the blast had worked; the mermaids were retreating. A young siren with full peach lips and a shimmering amber tail suddenly surfaced and wrapped her arms around Emily squeezing with strength that would crack ribs. Marlin struggled to free himself from Kara, but she wrapped her arms around him to keep him in the ship. Kara couldn't see it, but she could feel the blast building, fueled by all of the mermaids and the dark magic. "Emily, swim!" she yelled, but the healer's struggles were in vain. The power surged through the redhead with devastating force. Her heart-wrenching scream echoed in all of their ears as the mermaids disappeared and Emily sank once again.
TBC