The new chapter is up! ENJOY AND BE AMAZED AT THE FEELING YOU'VE HAD NO IDEA CHARLOTTE FELT WHEN SHE LEFT!

Previously...

Charlotte didn't want to hear it. She quickly started walking away from Laguna, not wanting to hear any more of her "advice". She didn't want to be special. Special was bad. As in like, no good, bad luck, no luck, just anything not good. It's bad enough that's she's a mermaid, but now she was gonna cause more trouble than needed.

And this is NOT how she wants to spend her life.

Just as she got off the last step of the patio, she bumped into Brendan, who was carrying a crate of wet crabs. As they collided, the crate spilled, the crabs and the water pouring all over her.

"Oh, sorry. Are you o.k.?" he asked as he wiped the crabs off her and tried to help her up. But Charlotte's mind was screaming three things: water, ocean, RUN!

She got up quickly and made a mad dash as she ran to the beach and immediately dived into the water.

Present Time...

Great, Charlotte thought, now I'm back on the "no-touching-water" policy, AGAIN!

She started to swim deeper into the ocean. She needed to get to dry land quickly and find a way to dry off.

Then, she heard a voice.

Move to the boulders

Move to the boulders...

That voice. It was helping her?

Charlotte did what it said and swam to the surface. She saw a few boulders at the edge of the beach. They were large enough to hide her. She went back underwater and swam towards the rocky shore.

A few minutes later, she dragged herself behind the boulders and hid her tail as best she could. She looked at it and noticed something strange.

For some reason, her tail was glistening and changing colors. Her dorsal fin was changing from scarlet red to violet to red again and her tail was changing from its deep magical blue to indigo to blue again.

Weird, she thought.

WOOF!

WOOF!

Charlotte turned her head and saw Thomas effortlessly climbing over the boulders, trying to get to her. And by the looks of it, he snapped his leash off. By the time he got to her, Charlotte scowled at him.

"Thomas! I told you to wait for me! Why don't you listen?!" she exclaimed. However, he took offense to this and kept barking at her.

WOOF!

WOOF!

"Stop Thomas! I said STOP!" Charlotte exclaimed, trying to stop him from attracting anybody and she did not plan on ending up in an aquarium or a laboratory anytime soon. But he kept on barking.

WOOF!

WOOF!

WOOF!

WOOF!

WOOF!

Suddenly, Charlotte made her hands form a closed fist and threw them into the ground hard.

"STOP!"

Almost immediately, a huge fire started to aflame aside her. Charlotte jumped, but since she was in her mermaid form, she couldn't go far. Then, she looked at her hands.

"Did I just do that?" she muttered to herself. Then, she noticed that her hands were still closed and remembered something.

This was Rikki's hand gesture.

She looked at the fire, then her hands, and looked at the fire again. Carefully, she opened her hand towards the fire and pulled it back, like she was pulling something towards her.

The fire disappeared.

Starting to feel giddy, a feeling that she hadn't felt in a year, she concentrated as she put her closed hand near her tail and watched as it got covered in steam and disappeared, leaving her dry and back in her original clothes.

She couldn't believe it. She had gotten her one of her old powers back. What did she do? Jump into a moon pool with similar powers or something? Though part of her, probably the old Charlotte, was doing a happy dance as she was felt the magical surge flowing through her again, the new Charlotte was terrified.

That night at Paradise Cove...

Laguna was pacing back and forth in the family office, having a "discussion" with her family.

And by "discussion", they were talking about their new favorite topic at the moment: Charlotte.

"I'm... I'm... I can't even begin to describe how today went! One moment, I'm telling her what could be her past and the next thing I know, she's talking and going on about being average and ordinary! ORDINARY! That's the last thing she doesn't have time for! And you heard your son, Karen. It usually takes 10 seconds for the transformation to occur. It took Charlotte longer to change! I swear-"

"Mother!" Karen interrupted rudely, "I think you're going at this the wrong way! I mean, you can't blame her! Denial is what makes a person human. And just hearing that you're a reincarnation of a mermaid, one that almost tried to destroy civilization, well, not only is that unbelievable, it's really hard to deal with, even IF she believes it! And what's so wrong about being ordinary? The idea of having friends, going to the mall and having to be invited to parties with kids your own age, and having a boyfriend for Pete's sake!

Compared to being a mermaid, land-dwellers have it well, especially when their teenagers. When you're a mermaid, you have to choose your friends and HOPE that you don't have to go through betrayal, you can't go anyplace fun without hoping that one drop of water won't touch you, and having a boyfriend... I'm not even going to name the horrors of that. But being a mermaid and dating is probably the deadliest thing close to being experimented on in a laboratory or on display in an aquarium. And so what if it took 20 seconds to change? For the moment, she's lucky."

Jonathan and Brendan just sat on the couch and watched as the two women argued in silence. Karen was usually the one to keep her cool when her mother was ranting. But it seems that tonight, the tables were turned. Both were shouting at each other and everything.

"Soo, who's side are you on?" Brendan asked his step-father quietly.

"Easy. I'm on my own team," Jonathan replied as he watched the women fight.

"First of all, young lady, if it took her longer to change, then she going to be used for deadly, and it always is, " Laguna said, "secondly, ordinary means trouble! Do you think she can have fun, like go to a pool party and not get wet? Or what if she does get a boyfriend? Don't you know that trusting a land dweller with the secret is practically suicide?! Every mermaid that gives up the secret is practically endangering every mermaid that has tried to stay hidden, whether they live on land or in a pod!

Heck, do you know how many of your 'suitors' I couldn't trust for the sake of our safety? Even Brendan's father, damn that man to hell, could have reported us the moment he found out that he helped sired a merman with a mermaid and we would've ended up in a laboratory or something! And she's rising-"

"Mother! I've kept up this charade for long enough and I have to say it: It's Marana! The mermaid you were once friends with, the mermaid that needed an attitude adjustment, the mermaid who turned and used her little sister into a weapon of mass destruction, the mermaid who fled from her sister to avoid her own undoing, and the mermaid who possibly has complete control of Charlotte!

Think about her, Mother. Any moment, at any time, Marana could get into her head and Charlotte could never know what she was going to do! Mother," Karen pleaded, "Charlotte is, in her own way, just a girl. A girl that doesn't need to be told that a mermaid has possible mind control over her or that the fate of the world is in her hands, or a tail. She just doesn't know what world she just entered. Just give her some time to get used to it. She just needs time."

Laguna looked at her daughter. She had lived for many centuries and Karen proved to be the only one to go as far as begging. Karen started to cry and stress, which was something a 7-month-old pregnant woman didn't need. Karen begged for only two things in her life: the first was to not go after Brendan's biological father after he left her 18 and pregnant and the second time was when she begged her for her blessing to marry Jonathan, a man who she thought was supposed to never show any love towards anyone, let alone Karen. Those decisions made her who she was Today. And now she was begging, no, pleading for something to happen under her own mother's agenda.

As Laguna turned away to leave the office, she said "She'll come when she wants to. But if Marana starts controlling her too soon, I'm finding that girl's address and dragging her down here against her will."

As she left, Karen sighed in relief. Despite just meeting Charlotte, she had already begun to like her. She wasn't sure why, but she just did.

At Charlotte's house...

Lewis managed to get back to her and through a secure Skype link, Charlotte told him the legend and everything.

"Amazing! I never thought of the connection. And though there's obviously more to the history, I think you can trust her," Lewis said.

"Really? Trust a crazy woman who just claimed to be almost as old as Earth with... you know. And if you forgot, I spent almost a year as an ordinary girl. I don't need a legend, much less, a tail, to destroy that. I'm a normal, ordinary girl who has a life to live you know," Charlotte said.

"You can still live your life and be normal. All you have to do avoid touching water in places like pool parties and beaches unless you plan on taking a swim by yourself. It can't be that hard."

"Lewis, don't you remember what I did too, oh, I don't know, end up back to 'normal' in the first place?" Charlotte asked sarcastically.

There was a pause for a moment.

"Yeah, I thought so."

And Lewis answered. "And what's so great about being normal. Just being an average, ordinary, normal girl?"

Charlotte was quick to point out the pros and cons of that question.

"Easy, when your not a mermaid, you have: normal high school problems, make friends and enemies easily, go to pool parties and have fun, at least try to get some bonding done with your parents, go to college and get a normal college experience like the others, and get a boyfriend and break up over and over again until you find yourself wearing a long, white dress, walking down the aisle and saying ''I Do''!

When you are a mermaid: you have absolutely no idea if your friends are your enemies and your enemies are your friend, can't go to any water-related social activities and have fun without getting wet and running for your life, can't tell your parents a thing about it, I don't think I can name the horrors of college, and for a boyfriend... you would either face rejection or be called a freak, end up on human display in an aquarium, or find yourself being cut open on a lab table! So, to sum it up, my life would be ruined as a mermaid and I can't live my life like that!"

For a moment, Charlotte turned away from the screen. She felt her eyes watering up and felt like crying. Didn't the universe know that she learned her lesson?! She suffered from depression, and possibly still is, had a shitty life for the rest of her Junior year of high school, got herself admitted to the hospital, and finding that she had a tail again was the worst thing that could happen now!

She was insanely depressed and tired of living as a result.

By the time she looked at the screen, Lewis could visibly see that she was about to cry and looked at her in concern.

"Charlotte... are you crying?" he asked her carefully. This was an entirely new view for him. He had never seen her cry and it broke his heart a little. To be honest, he expected her to cry when she lost her powers to the girls, and though he wasn't sure of it, he still wondered if she cried herself to sleep afterward and when she gave back the locket, she didn't even shed a tear. (1)

Though the others would kill him for thinking this, when he asked for the locket back, he thought he was overstepping his boundary there. After all, despite the locket being given to Cleo by Miss Chatham, its original owner was Charlotte's grandmother, Gracie Watsford, one of the mermaids 50-no 100 years ago, if you count the moon occurrence last year.

So, taking away Cleo and the abuse of Charlotte's powers, the locket was practically Char's birthright that had missed a generation and was given to her, taking away that she actually stole it, but still. He saw the hurt and pained expression that she had when she returned it, and for a little while, it bothered him.

Finding out Gracie's past and literally living it out had given Charlotte more of a connection to her, and after losing her powers, that locket was all she had left and by giving it back, all she had left were memories of her. And now that Cleo switched lockets with Emma and practically forgot about it, he wondered, if she still had it, would she notice it went missing, saying that it probably got lost but it was actually sent to Charlotte? (2)

But knowing this Charlotte and the present moment, by the time it got to her, in two weeks tops or more, he would open his front door, find a package, open it, and find the locket returned untouched along with a note saying if he tried it again she might consider swimming all the way to Queensland just to actually attempt to kill him. (3)

"You know what Lewis?" Charlotte asked, causing him to break out of his thoughts and look to see her tears slowly falling down her cheeks, "some things are just worth crying over! Why don't you tell the others that! I'm so sure Rikki and the others would love to see me so upset, or better, crying over them like the wicked witch that I am!

After all, I practically tried, and almost successfully, ruined Cleo's life, possibly hurt a potential relationship between Emma and some boy she liked, yes I noticed that, and pretty much got on Rikki's last nerve and deserved every wave of emotional abuse that she sent me! Admit it Lewis! I'm the bad guy! I'm the evil villainess that ran away home crying and let the good guys have a well deserved happy ending!

The water princess got her knight in shining armor, her locket, and her life back, the ice princess kept her tail and her guy, and the fire princess never had to deal with the evil witch ever again. All well it ends well, doesn't it! I mean, look at me!

My only friends are a dog and possibly my bully, I rarely paint or have anything to do with art, my mom is rarely home and when she is, she ignores me, I've been hospitalized twice and..and... I'm a mess, a nobody, a loser and that's all I'll ever be! If I get one good thing, something bad happens, and I'm lost! You.. your special! You have a mermaid for a girlfriend, have mermaid friends that you do 'tests' on, your smart like crazy, you.. you.. you guys are the special ones! The ones with a purpose in life! I'm...I'm a waste of space..."

And that's when the waterworks started.

She busted into tears and started to let out soft wails, something that kept her from completely losing all her bearings. A stream of tears came pouring down her face, but no matter how much she wiped them or how quickly she did, the tears kept falling.

But what shocked and shook her to her core was that she was spilling her guts out to a guy who's supposed to be against her and she started to cry harder.

Man, she was pathetic.

But Lewis...so many emotions were going through him that, he knew that the next words that he said might dictate whether or not the next time he hears from her, it's a funeral invite.

"Charlotte Watsford!" he growled, catching her attention, "don't you dare think like that! To be honest, I'm taking away every reason from last year and stating this: Charlotte Watsford, don't even think about killing yourself! Your not a loser, or a nobody, or whatever you just called yourself! Believe me, when I say this, nobody is perfect. Everybody is born with a unique trait that everybody loves. Take away everything that happened between you and the girls, I believe that you are just born one of the few people who have good sides and bad sides. For example, from the moment we met and the moment we last saw each other in person, I knew that the girl I met on her first day of school and the girl that I saw loses her powers were two separate people.

Yeah, maybe you did go a little crazy, and I'm using that term politely, but that crazy girl wouldn't have tried to make as you did. That girl wouldn't have given up that locket as you did, she didn't try to move on as you did, and as a result, this happened. And you think my life is normal?! Yes, I have a mermaid for a girlfriend, and her friends are mermaids too, but do you think that's easy!? On full moons, I get my butt kicked before and after they see it, the 'no-touching-water-policy' can get way out of hand and you would NOT believe how many close calls we've had when Rikki's not around to help, after a few days since Emma went away for her family's European trip, there's already another girl their hanging out with!

My point is that you are unique and were born to do something great and from what I'm hearing, it seems that Fate has watched over you and decided that you were ready to have your tail back. Maybe in some twisted way, you were born to do some special task and if it requires you to have a tail, then it means that you're truly ready to redeem yourself. And that's the reason you can't be normal. Because, no matter what you do, you will never be normal. You're... a treasure."

Charlotte stared at him. Halfway through his speech, she had stopped crying. Those had been the best words that anyone has spoken to her so far, in a day in her life. She wiped away the remaining tears and smiled.

"Lewis, you're a philosopher."

Lewis smiled. "No, I'm just your average, normal mermaid researcher and expert. Though, if I didn't have Cleo, I'd be-"

"A dead man in a lonely sea grave with nothing to do," Charlotte teased. Lewis made a goofy face and was about to retort when her vision fades to black...

A storm. That was what the sky looked like. The sky held grey clouds that heavily rained and unleashed lightning and thunder. As the storm clouds grew darker, almost black, flashes of lightning bolts appeared everywhere.

Charlotte looked around. She could see the sky, but saw walls of water circling around her, the size of the Hoover Dam. Se held up a closed fist and opened it towards the side of the rushing water. A lightning bolt appeared and hit the side of the whirlpool, she assumed she was in the middle of, causing the pool to become electrically charged.

Charlotte smiled. She felt an extremely powerful surge of magic flow through her. And then she moved the clouds with a wave of her hand, not only moving the clouds but creating a waterspout on the outside and a tornado on the inside.

Then, the moon came into view. It was glowing electric blue in all its glory and she knew what she had to do. She raised her hand to the sky, in the moon's direction. She knew what she needed to do.

Then, she heard a small cry.

"Ana'lie...STOP!"

She turned around and saw a young woman-no, a young mermaid with black hair and blue eyes, manipulating the electrically charged water as she made an effort to come towards her. Her face was tear-stained and it broke Charlotte's heart.

"STOP!" the mermaid screamed, "you don't have to do this! You don't have to listen and bow to your sister's every will! You can fight this and end-all of this madness!"

"I can't!" Charlotte yelled, "If I try, I would lose everything that I trained for and all of my sister's love and trust in me. To have more powers than any merperson and be in control of them. We merpeople shall not be harmed by any land dwellers!"

"But that's not your dream, it's hers! She's using you, Ane. If she really loved you, she wouldn't have left you to die! And even if you lived, you would be hunted down, exiled, or worse, there'll be no more merpeople in general if you let her win! PLEASE, you were blessed to use these powers. Don't abuse them!"

Charlotte looked at the mermaid's face and looked around. There was not a merperson in sight, except for those two. Everything was so dark... empty. The mermaid was pleading at the mercy of her friend to stop her plan.

Her friend...her...sister?

How could she be so stupid?

Her best friend. The one who always helped her with pranks since they were mergirls. The one who saw what she did to that shark and wanted to have her powers rendered for her sake. The one who she avoided under the command of her sister. The only one who had the power to face her at this time instead of fleeing for her own good.

She was Charlotte's true sister.

Charlotte looked up at the moon. It was giving off a powerful aura that she knew would decide everyone's fate.

And she knew what it was.

She had to make a vow.

She raised her hand to the moon and said "By the power vested on myself, by the High Mermaid Council and the moon..." she knew what she was about to say next would change everything, but it had to be said, "that I shall die at this moment, but shall forever will my reincarnations and my descendants live as land dwellers and never touch the sea as a merperson FOREVER!"

There was a loud thunder-clap after her vow was made.

It was eternal.

As she readied herself for her ultimate sacrifice, she heard her ''sister''s voice and completely unexpected words.

"By the power vested on myself, by the High Mermaid Council and the moon, that I will spend my days on land and sea, have children and descendants that will help me as I age to watch over Ane'lie's reincarnations and descendants to prevent the Great Storm from ever happening again!"

Ane'lie?

Charlotte looked at the mermaid who, despite her tear-stained face, was smiling at her.

She smiled back, knowing that they will never be separated again.

(THUNDERCLAPS)

Charlotte closed her hand toward herself and looked at the moon. It was glowing dangerously blue, due to too much power from the two vows.

She looked at the mermaid and whispered,

"Goodbye, my sister."

She opened her hand and lightning, combined with the moon's energy, immediately struck her.

All fades to black...

"Charlotte!Charlotte!...CHARLOTTE!" Lewis yelled.

Charlotte snapped out of her trance and looked at Lewis, whose face was filled with panic and anger.

"Charlotte, what happened? Do you know or have any idea how much trouble you nearly gave me?! While you were having some sort of 'blackout', my mom almost walked in and saw you! And believe me, if she saw me talking to you, she'd tell Cleo and it's all over!"

But she wasn't listening. Instead, she asked Lewis to do something for her.

"Lewis, I have some homework for you. Look up anything to do with storms or moon occurrences recorded before or after 1010 A.C. and please tell when you can that you'll find something."

Lewis looked at her skeptically. "Sure, Char, but what does this have to do with the legend or the 'Great Storm'? And why did you space out?"

Charlotte looked at him carefully and revealed her revelation.

"I...I...I think I just had a flashback or... a memory."

His eyebrows widened a little. "Of what?"

She gulped. "The day the storm was created... and the vow."

"What vow? You didn't..." then his eyes widened in shock, "Charlotte you didn't..."

But she nodded, knowing what he meant.

"I really am Ane'lie's reincarnation."

"Wait! But if you're really her, then, if possible, then that makes Laguna your..."

Lewis didn't need to say it. It was already confirmed.

Charlotte Watsford is the reincarnation of the mermaid, Ane'lie.

Laguna wasn't named after her namesake. She was the real Laguna and Ane'lie's guardian.

And Charlotte's life was in danger.

WOOOO! Sorry for taking so long! I've been busy with school and all, but now, I'm back.

Now I need your honest opinions. P.S NO BASHING CHARLOTTE!

1. Now can you, and the haters, really see how Charlotte felt about the whole ideal?

2. Don't hate me, but can you see the logic I put when I was writing about the locket! Because, to me, it made NO sense for Char to give it up only for Cleo to ditch it later.

3. Can you honestly see Char strangling Lewis for sending the locket to her? LOL ;) :)

Don't reply to me with 'good story' or 'I like it' or ect. Tell me how you honestly feel about it.

What did you think of the flashback?

MOST OF ALL...

READ & REVIEW!