Hey everyone! I know it's been a while... sorry about that. To make up for it I have a nice long chapter for you guys though:) Hope you enjoy!
The rise of the next full moon was foreshadowed by confusion. The group of merpeople couldn't seem to decide which of their human friends the water dragon would target this month. Everyone seemed to be convinced that the dragon would be after their own families. And so, they all spent more time together at the cafe or more favorably Rita's grotto or the moon pool than they did at home.
Of course, they all felt the guilt of not being around their families, whether it was internal or little hints they picked up on. Nevertheless, much to their dismay the full moon did not care about their concerns and threatened to rise anyway.
Last month they knew that keeping someone away from Mako was not going to end well, considering they had no idea how to fight against the dragon nor did they have anyone to protect. So they came up with a new plan: keeping the dragon out of Mako.
It would prove tricky getting past the pod but they all hoped that they would be too busy to be distracted by the full moon ceremony to notice them making their way to the moon pool. Once they reached Mako they would station themselves outside the entrance of the moon pool and defend the island that way. They way they figured it out was the moon pool was only active for about twenty minutes while the moon was over the cone of the volcano. If they could fend off the dragon for that amount of time then they could buy themselves another month in how to get rid of the dragon once and for all without having to worry about a new merperson to train and help learn the ropes.
The plan worked in theory but had to be executed exactly right in order for it to work. So as night fell, the group of mermaids and mermen dove beneath the waves off the shores of a secluded beach and swam the long way around to Mako.
By the time they reached they reached the underwater entrance to the moon pool and stationed everyone in their proper positions, the full moon was almost directly overhead. They had their group spaced out in increments out in front of the moon pool so that the dragon would have to endure waves of attacks, and they were hoping that this would delay it enough that the creature would be too late in reaching the moon pool while it was still active.
Zac and Mimmi were the frontlines and the furthest out since the group had agreed that the two of them were the most powerful of them all they would be in the first wave of attacks. A little bit further along the dragon would run into Ondina, Sirena, and Weilan. They were all pod born mermaids with moon rings and enough training to fend off the dragon for at least a few minutes. Evie was also in the second group with her moon ring and ready to listen to any instructions that were thrown in her direction. Finally, right at the entrance of the cave was Cam and David, the last resort. (Chris was left back at Rita's since he was still the newest merman with little training and it was still his first full moon.)
Cam and David hung still in the water, their tails swishing back and forth beneath them to keep them steady and at a certain level in the deep. Everything seemed quiet, too quiet for it to be the ocean. With a glance upwards, Cam could see the full moon looming overhead and in an instant, his merman instincts told him that the moon pool was active. He glanced over at David who gave him a nod of affirmation. They both knew that it was time.
They poised themselves, ready to attack at a moment's notice. But after a few minutes, they both seemed to relax. Maybe the others out at sea were able to hold off the dragon more easily than they could have imagined. Ten minutes had gone by before something happened, there was a shimmer in the distance and all too quickly did the mermen realize what was happening. The dragon was coming at them at full force!
Cam and David both stuck out their hands and hurled their magic in the direction of the dragon to hold it off. They didn't stop it but did succeed in slowing it down a bit. In the much farther distance, six merpeople were swimming in their direction. Backup was on the way but hopefully, it wouldn't be too late by then.
Even with the magic being hurled out by David and Cam, the dragon reached the opening of the cave to the pool a mere seconds later. The dragon, although entirely made out of water, was easy to see under the ocean's surface. The skin glistened in hundreds of tiny rainbows despite only the faint light of the full moon above them. Underneath the hard clear skin of the beast, the water trapped inside of it swirled around with strong force, spinning around with froth and bubbles. The dragon was at least 30 feet long from snout to tail and had dozens of tendrils reaching out from its body.
One of the dragon's tentacles reared back and snapped forward at David, who had enough reaction time to throw his hand out to blow the blow with his powers but he wasn't fast enough and the tendril still struck him. Hard.
David swam back for a moment to recover. The dragon shifted its focus towards Cam, and the two of them sized each other up, trying to figure out what their respective next moves were. Cam scanned the body of the dragon looking for its weak point, looking for something that he could attack that would at least buy him and the others some time.
That's when his eyes landed on one of the tentacles that was floating in the water behind the body of the dragon as if it was trying to be protected. There was an outline inside the water tentacle and the more that Cam squinted the more that he was able to make out the outline of a human body. The dragon shifted in the water and bright blonde hair caught the light of the full moon.
Cam's heart dropped down into his stomach. He tried to swim closer to the dragon to get a better view and there she was. It was Carly. His girlfriend. The one he was trying so very hard to protect. And there she was, sitting in front of him in the very position that he was trying his hardest to make sure that she was never in.
A wave of rage washed over Cam, and he suddenly couldn't control himself. He started attacking the dragon with everything that he had, frantically firing magic out not even hitting the dragon half the time. He recklessly swam closer and closer to the creature, yelling crude insults out into the ocean water. He was vaguely aware of the others who had appeared behind him, urging him to calm down and not hurt himself.
He didn't care if he got hurt anymore. He swam close to the large tentacle that held Carly and reached inside of the air pocket trying desperately to free her and get her to the surface. The dragon felt Cam reach inside the tentacle and whirled around and came face to face with him. The two stared fiercely into each other's eyes.
The moon was about to disappear from over the volcano, time was running out. Cam knew it, and that meant that the dragon knew it too. Cam started fighting like crazy, doing anything that he could to distract the dragon for the precious minutes that remained.
The other merpeople behind Cam got the same idea and began to gang up on the dragon, using any power that they had to slow it down. Cam stayed face to face with the creature to distract it. But unfortunately, Cam was also pretty distracted and the dragon knew this. It slowly raised one of its tentacles behind Cam, and with the speed of a snake lashing out to devour its prey, the tentacle snapped and struck Cam in the back of the head.
His surroundings began to grow fuzzy and muffled through the water he heard someone shout his name. That's when everything went dark.
The first thing that Carly noticed was that it was morning and that she had no idea where she was. She rose to a sitting position on the soft warm sand of the beach that she found herself waking up on. She examined herself, she was still in the clothes she was wearing last night and her pale skin was tinged pink from sitting out in the sun for so long. The sun was high in the sky, it was late morning. Carly stood up and looking behind her she saw the very recognizable Mako Island volcano. Okay, there is something seriously mermaid happening here. Last night was a full moon, wasn't it?
Carly began to walk down the beach and wonder how she got there and also wonder how she was going to get back home. As she wandered down, a figure started to take shape in the distance. The figure was resting just onshore, with the lower half in the water. Carly got closer and saw that the figure was a man, no wait, scratch that, merman. She got even closer and a familiar blonde head came into focus. Even though he was turned away, she would recognize him anywhere. There's no way it could be…
"Cam!" She found herself shouting.
Cam stirred at the sound of his name coming from his girlfriend's voice, lifting his head from the sand he felt the waves gently lapping up against his lower half. Cam saw Carly running at full speed toward him, and his very groggy mind quickly put the pieces together. He fearfully considered swimming away but he knew that it was too late. Carly had clearly already seen and recognized him.
She arrived in front of him, panting and out of breath. She stared in awe at the tail attached to his lower half. "C-Cam?" She stammered. "What happened to you last night?"
Cam hung his head. She thought that he had only been transformed last night, not months ago and had been lying to her for all that time. He knew that he didn't need to tell her, Carly was smart and she'd put it together for herself within seconds. Cam watched the gears turn in her head and saw on her face the moment when everything clicked together.
"It wasn't last night, was it? That's why you've been avoiding me so much lately, isn't it? Why you've been dodgy and why you've been acting so strange around me. It all makes sense now!" She rambled, "But, why would you try and keep everything from me?"
Cam sighed, "It's complicated, there were a lot of reasons. You told me once that you liked me normal. I was afraid to tell you because I didn't think you wanted to date a merman."
"Come on, Cam," Carly softened, "You don't think there's anything more to this relationship. I care about you, I wouldn't have let something like you being a merman get in the way.
Cam sucked in a deep breath before the next part, "There's more. I also wanted to protect you."
"Protect me from what Cam?" Carly said taking a few steps toward him and the water.
"No! Stop! Don't come any closer!" Cam exclaimed, the outcomes of last night's events were still very fuzzy and he didn't want either of them to be caught off guard.
"Cam, what is going on? What did you want to protect me from? Why are we here?" Carly asked, growing weary. She was asking all the right questions.
Cam saw no other option but to come clean and tell her everything. She sat down on the sand while Cam filled her in, starting with his transformation and then the dragon and who it was targeting and why he tried to keep his distance from her.
"But, Cam, what happened last night? Why are we here?" Carly asked.
Cam didn't meet her eyes.
"Cameron," she asked more forcefully this time, "What happened last night?"
"I don't really know. The dragon knocked me unconscious before I could stop him. He had you, Carly. He had you and I couldn't stop him. I'm so sorry." Tears pricked at Cam's eyes.
Carly paled at Cam's confession, the blood running cold in her veins. The sight of the ocean water just beyond Cam made her want to vomit. "N-now what?"
"Well, you touch water and we hope nothing happens," Cam said, backing up into deeper water to make more room for his girlfriend.
She shook her head vigorously, "No way, Cam. This isn't happening."
"Carly, we have to find out if something happened last night. We don't know if anything even did. I'll be by your side the whole time."
Carly nodded, clinging to the hope that nothing had happened to her last night. She stuck a toe in the water and gaining a bit more confidence waded out further. She began to smile and speak when an unfamiliar feeling swept over her.
The sick feeling that she had grown stronger as her legs gave out from underneath her. She felt like she was being molded from the inside out, as her legs took on an orange hue and stitched themselves together. Scales sprang up from her skin and her toes elongated into a large fin.
Carly gasped and yelled at the sight. As bad as she felt, guaranteed Cam felt worse. He watched on helplessly as his worst fear came true right before his eyes.
After the transformation was complete, Carly coughed and spluttered her way to the surface, rubbing the salt water from her eyes she angrily looked down at her new appendage.
"Carly, I -" Cam began, swimming closer to her.
"Stop!" She said angrily, the rage seething out of her, "Look at what you've done to me. This is all your fault!"
Cam shrank away as if he'd been slapped, "I'm so sorry, Carly. I tried everything I could to protect you. I really did."
"Well, it wasn't good enough," the mermaid retorted through clenched teeth. She whipped around and flipped her new tail and shot out to sea back towards the mainland and back home, leaving Cam completely miserable and alone.