Chapter 97

"Do you think she changed in this room?" Arieta asked, looking around as if she was trying to see something she missed.

"Maybe…but perhaps in the previous room – there was a hole in the ceiling moon light could shine through. But then again, magic is anything but predictable, so…" Bella trailed off.

As Rikki pushed off from the wall she had her hands against, the rocks glowed brighter. Her eyes widened.

"Is it just me, or did the light get stronger?" Rikki asked. It faded a few seconds later. She moved forward and repeated the action – pushing off the wall backwards. Again, the rocks glowed blue, but this time, the tip of her tail fin accidently clipped the wall as she did.

"Ow," Rikki grumbled.

Suddenly, ripples appeared on the surface, a low rumbling could be heard from under the water.

"What did you do?" Emma asked in exclamation.

"I don't know! The only thing that was different this time was the fact that my tail touched the wall!"

The rumbling stopped. Arieta was excited. Freaked out, but excited. This was magic in action.

Rikki dipped beneath the water. Her mouth dropped open. She quickly shut it, remembering she was underwater.

Before her was a dark opening, an entrance to another tunnel or cave, a place hidden by magic. She surfaced again.

"I don't know how it happened, but I managed to open a cave," she said in disbelief. She did think briefly that in all her years as a mermaid, she really should not be so surprised.

"Epic," Arieta whispered.

"Should we explore it?" Bella asked.

"We don't know what's through there," Emma said. "It could be a bad idea…"

"But it also could be a fantastic idea," Jessie said, excited. "It opened for a reason, right?"

"It shouldn't be unstable," Arieta said. "The caves have been solid for hundreds of years. I might wait here though, I would need to know if there is an air pocket."

"Fair point." Emma said. "Maybe you stay here with the kids…"

A chorus of moans from the little mers interrupted her. "For everyone's safety," Emma continued.

"If it is safe, we promise to let you through," Bella reassured the youngsters.

"Why don't I tell you some legends about this place while we wait?" Arieta asked the kids. They all gathered around her eagerly.

Rikki, Bella, Emma, Cleo, Jessie and Anna submerged beneath the water, their head torches illuminating the entrance to the tunnel.

'This is exciting,' Jessie communicated. The others nodded in agreement. The mermaids tentatively swam forward, Rikki in the lead.

The tunnel was tight, easy for the mermaids to swim through, but narrow nonetheless. It circled around them, the flickering shadows dancing ominously. The tunnel took just over a minute to swim through, and the mermaids continued into the next cavern. Rikki swam up, her aim to figure out how deep the water level was and whether Arieta could comfortably swim through. The other mermaids followed her. Fortunately, it would be manageable for a free diver such as their companion.

They looked around. Although this cavern had a tall ceiling, it was a small space, maybe four metres in width. They felt slightly disappointed in it. Jessie swam over to the wall opposite the tunnel they had emerged from. Her torch highlighted a picture akin to a cave painting, just above the water level. The picture was drawn and scratched onto the rock; it displayed a silhouette of some kind of creature. It seemed similar to a scorpion, but its body was longer and it had ten legs, two of which seemed to have fins. Where the pincers of a scorpion would be, instead of being crablike, they looked like two circles. Its tail did not look to have a barb, but seemed more like a seal's tail in the silhouette. When Jessie called them over, Rikki joked it looked like a 'boxing scorpion.'

Above the picture was a moon crystal, just embedded into the wall. Bella noticed she was subconsciously playing with her own moon crystal necklace.

"That's a sign isn't it?" Cleo asked. "Our moon pools, both in Australia and in Ireland, both had this crystal."

"Do you reckon we've found Nana Levu's moon pool?" Anna asked.

"I think so," Cleo said. "I don't like the look of this scorpion thing though."

"Shall we go back and share our discovery?" Emma asked.

"Wait a minute, I don't think we've discovered everything about this place," Rikki protested.

"Well, I for one don't want to discover that creature," Emma said. "Let's go."

As Emma said this, Jessie reached out and touched the crystal. It began to glow. There was a large vibration and the rock began to open in front of them.

"Perfect," Emma said sarcastically. 'I wonder what trouble we'll bring ourselves now.' She thought.

"Whoa," Jessie breathed. "Another tunnel."

Of course it did. When was magical discovery anything but predictable in some manner?

An unearthly noise grew in intensity. Suddenly, a large shape moved out of the dark opening, casting shadows in the inconsistent light.

The mermaids gasped and dove beneath water in an attempt to reach the entry tunnel to escape. They felt the water moving against them. They were being sucked towards the monster; it was a vortex. The mermaids were spun and they tumbled around, like clothing in a washing machine. It was hard to think straight, especially with beams of light from the six headlights moved in a dizzying spectacle. Rikki caught a glimpse of the monster for a second for she spun again in the water.

It was indeed the creature from the cave painting, scorpion-like, with three eyes at the front of its flat head. The brief colour she noticed was surprising – it was blue, but it had patched of red that littered its scales. Instead of claws or crablike pincers, the two 'hands' of the 'arms' facing forward ahead of its ten legs, were cylindrical. They reminded her of cartoon rocket launchers, but instead of bombs, the creature was creating the whirlpool they were in.

'Please stop,' Anna attempted to use mindspeak to reach the creature. In response, the tornado like vortex began to squeeze in on them. It was becoming uncomfortably tight on the chests. They became afraid they would be squeezed to death, or at least that thought ran through Cleo's mind. This definitely was not on their minds when they came to Fiji.

'Please let us go,' Jessie attempted. 'We don't mean you any harm, we'll just leave.'

The creature seemed to tilt its head at that. It gave the mermaids encouragement – that it might understand.

'Yes, we'll leave,' Bella agreed.

It seemed to work. The vortex stopped. The mermaids flipped a few more times in the remnant current before trying to refocus through their powerful dizziness.

Their headlights illuminated the creature. Its red patches had faded to a pale orange colour, contrastive against the lighter blue. The mermaids were unsure of what to do, but they started to swim slowly towards the entrance.

As they did, they felt a voice press against their minds.

'You will not return?' It asked gently. The voice was rich and feminine, pleasant on the mind.

'Not if we are not welcome,' Bella responded.

Suddenly, blue lights floodlighted the cavern. The mermaids had to cover their eyes for a few seconds to adjust, even underwater. They swam to the surface. Glowing blue orbs illuminated steps a few metres up from the water level. At the top, a woman stood, radiant.

A/N: Hello again! I'm sorry that again it has been so long. My midsemester break was busy getting my assignments finished. I've had this chapter half written for so long. I really should have been writing my applied linguistics essay, that's due in a few days, tonight, but I felt like this needed to be done :D I hope I don't regret the time spent later on!

Thanks so much for the continuous support. I love you guys!

I love reading all of your reviews, it gets me inspired to write the next chapters :P So, I'd appreciate it if you told me what you thought :D

Thanks so much to The Writer Es, zikki 3, WannabeeAussie, YaleAceBella12, Guest #1, Guest #2, bethy679, CrazyHayniac, Starlightdreamer12, and HybridsRose for reviewing the last chapter. They, and you, mean a lot to me :D

I'll see you all next time :) I have a lot of stuff due in the next little while, so I'm not sure when I'll update, but you'll see me when you see me :P

P.S Castle season 8 airs in the States next week (not that most of you care) [and I'll be watching online :P ] and I am so excited! (it's my favourite TV show [and obsession] just so you know - shock horror it is not H2O anymore - but that is still high on my list :P) I just needed an outlet for my fangirling lol :P Next week! Yay :D