Cat: Poof! I'm alive! Sorry for my delay, writer's block really gets ya sometimes. Anyways, that being said, I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, and reviews would be greatly appreciated. Right, onto the story!

"Hi, my name is Luke." He said, glancing sideways at her as they walked outside. They had spent the day together, side-by-side, but hadn't actually managed to have a proper conversation yet.

"I know." She stated flatly. They stopped. "The teacher introduced you to the class." She heard him mumble something that sounded a bit like "oh, right". Giving him a small smile, she held out her hand. "My name's Kayla. It's nice to meet you."

A ghost of a smile twitched onto his face. A shy "it's nice to meet you too" was his response. He took her hand, and a feeling Kayla had never felt before seemed to flood her mind. He seemed to be having the same reaction, as both of them blushed wildly and quickly worked to hide it.

Snapping out of it, she made an offer. "C'mon, how bout I walk you home."

This offer seemed to snap him out of it, and an uneasy look worked its way across his face. "Oh, I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. It's kinda far away…" he stuttered.

"Nonsense, lead the way!" She exclaimed, not a moment's thought left on the boy's previous statement.

So, that's what happened. Together they walked through the woods (a pleasant surprise for Kayla) talking, laughing and blushing (though Kayla did notice that he seemed to want to veer away from any conversation concerning his home or his family). Along the way, she found herself realizing that Luke was actually a lot of fun to be around, which of course only made her blush more.

But the chattering came to an unexpected halt as they arrived at his so-called house. Standing beside a river was an old, beat down house. At the time it was built, it would have looked nice, a quaint little cottage. But now, at least 150 years later, the house was overrun with ivy and parts of the exterior were crumbling (though it seemed to mostly be decorations, not the actual house part so-to-say). A deathly silence, interrupted only by the movement of the water, echoed throughout the area.

Loud thumping came from inside the house and the door was slammed open. A rather burly man came out, agitation written all over his face, and stomped over to poor luke.

"Your late, boy." Kayla now understood why he was previously avoiding talking about his home life.

-Break-

Devland stomped up to Luke and leaning in close, breath smelling strongly of alcohol, whispered in a voice that could bring death to even the strongest of men, "Your late, boy."

Those words, those three simple words, struck fear into Luke, as they had done his whole life. Scared of what he would find, he quickly glanced down at his watch. 4:20. The time was 4:20. He was supposed to have been home 20 minutes ago. "Snap". His adoptive father raised his hand, which was now balled into a fist, ready to strike him. Luke knew what was about to happen. "Wait! I didn't mean to! I was just talking to my friend!" he pleaded, begging to God this would all turn out ok. He threw his hands in front of him, but the hit never came.

Instead, he found himself being shoved to the ground, Devland turning to Kayla. "No. Not her. He can hurt me all he wants but just not her."

-Break-

Luke's… dad(?) turned to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw luke scrambling to get up. As the first punch hit her, Luke's expression changed. His usually shy look was overtaken, morphing into something she had never seen oh him before. Anger. Absolute anger, with just a hint of concern of which was not lost on her.

Luke's father, however, took no notice. A second punch hit. Then a third. Then a fourth. With each hit more and more anger seemed to flow across Luke's face. She was at a loss. She could defend herself extremely well, but, despite his appearance, he was fast. She barely had time to block a move, let alone counter attack it, before his fist was impacting her again.

Just as what seemed to be the 1000th punch impacted her, a deafening "STOP" came from her left.

Cat: Ok, ok, I'm not that evil...yet… I would have left it here, but whatever. Here's more.

-break-

Luke raised his hand, angling it flat out. Instantly, the water seemed to still. Lifting his hand higher (this time in a fist), a bubble of water floated out of the river, levitating above it. In his mind, he was screaming, but on the outside, he was calm. It was as if they had separated. He had no idea what he was doing, but his body did. Almost like it was muscle memory. He felt whole, like this was what he should have been doing all along.

He threw his hand out again and closed it. Simultaneously, the water moved to Devlands arm and enclosed around it, preventing him from doing any more harm. At that moment, an overwhelming feeling, comparable to the shiver down your spine one might get with goosebumps, but 100 times stronger, engulfed him.

Bright blue light blinded him and water rushed over his body. The sensation left him and he looked down at himself. A combination of scales and skin covered areas that used to be entirely skin, and, looking down at his hands, he noticed webbing in between his fingers. His breathing felt different and he quickly realized that, alongside his normal human pair of lungs, gills covered his neck. Some sort of swimsuit-armour thing made of a material he would never be able to explain covered his chest.

He didn't know what compelled him to do it, but with emotions totally out of whack, he quickly grabbed Kayla and dived into the river.