HERE WE GO, THIS IS A GOOD CHAPTER LENGTH. Also, before this chapter gets started, I'd like to thank everybody who's taken the time to review, or even just to come back every chapter. Your support really means a lot to me.

Ty woke up to Sky's face inches from his own. "Ahhh!" he screamed as he flew back in surprise, vaguely noting that there was something off about his voice. The sun had risen, and Ty realized he was partially submerged in the sea, and Sky was lying down in front of him. Sky got up, brushing sand off his clothes.

"Sorry. I had to make sure you were still breathing. You really scared me last night. Are you feeling okay?" Ty rubbed the side of his neck gently, feeling his new gills.

"Yeah, I think-" Ty clasped a hand over his mouth, startled at the sound of his voice. "What was that?" he said shakily. His voice was almost unrecognizable as his own. It was oddly pitched and grated on his ears. He sounded just like a squid. "Hang on, maybe I can fix this a little." Ty said. He started experimenting with his voice, ignoring Sky's barely held back laughter as he worked to control his voice. As it turned out, he could make himself sound normal for the most part, but whenever his concentration lapsed, he would slip back into his squid voice. "It's kinda like puberty all over again." Ty joked. He was a lot more shaken by the change in his voice than he let on. He felt as if a piece of him had been removed and sloppily replaced.

"Well, looks like everybody else is starting to get up." Sky said. Sure enough, the rest of Vision Squad was starting to get out of their tents and pack up for another day of traveling. Sky frowned. "But if you can't breathe air anymore, how are you going to come with us?"

"Can't I just swim along the shoreline as you walk?"

Sky shook his head. "I wish you could. You see, I'm kinda worried that the transformation might start to…" Sky broke off uncomfortably, gesturing towards his head. Ty got what Sky meant. If the transformation started to affect his brain, it was too risky to leave him in the sea. "Do you have any ideas?"

"How about a giant fishtank?" Ty meant it jokingly, but Sky's eyes brightened at the idea.

"That could work! Hang on for a moment!" Sky ran off, and Ty could see him starting to give orders to the half-asleep team. Before long, a tank was built and dragged towards the shoreline. It was made of glass and filled with water right from the sea. The wheels were made of wood, and there was a rope attached so that everybody could take turns pulling it. It was quickly slapped together, but it would hold together for the trip to the Northern Fang, after which it (hopefully) wouldn't be needed anymore.

Ty got up out of the water. He jumped and clung to the edge of the tank, dangling there for a moment until Jason ducked down to grab his feet and push him up forcefully, sending him tumbling into the tank. Ty was absolutely soaked. Normally, he hated being wet, but he hardly noticed unless he came out into the air, and he had to admit that the cool water felt good on his gills. As the tank started to move, Ty fell asleep, exhausted by his long watch shift last night.

(A week later)

"We've made it." Ross was the one to say that, looking up tiredly as he saw the sea on one side and the ocean on the other. Sky saw the Veraform stone first, sparkling on the sand, just a few feet away from the water on each side. There should have been some celebration, or at least some sense of accomplishment, but everybody was too tired to be excited. More nights than not, everybody was walking throughout the night, racing time as best they could.

All eyes turned towards Sky. "It was your idea to come here," Jason said. "You should be the one to bring him over to the stone. Sky turned hesitantly towards where Ty was huddled in his tank. Ty's vision had been changed on the third day of travel. It made his night vision near perfect, but the brightness of sunlight started to hurt him, so for the most part he lay huddled at the bottom of the tank, shielding his eyes. Barney had suggested that they make something to block the sunlight from the tank, but it was decided that that would take more time than they had.

Ty uncurled from his position to look at Sky, and as he did every time he saw Ty in this state, he had to bite back a scream. Ty was covered in slimy blue-gray patches of skin that contrasted sharply with his more human skin. His hair was starting to fall out in clumps, and his clothes only loosely fit him as he had shrunk. His teeth had started to change, sharp, large, and pointed teeth sticking out among human teeth. His left arm was a tentacle, but Ty still had bones in that arm, unlike his right arm, which was now practically useless. Ty's shoes had been thrown out when his feet disappeared, his legs now tapering to a flexible point, with the faint outlines of suckers along the back. More tentacles had started to grow out of his sides, getting larger with each passing day. Sky noticed that Ty took care not to move those tentacles when anybody approached him. Sky knew that he could, because he had seen Ty moving them when he thought nobody was watching, expression full of morbid fascination. If Sky had to guess, he would say that Ty was trying to avoid freaking out his friends. It's way too late for that. Sky thought sadly. Whenever he looked at Ty, an ancient instinct reared up in him, warning Sky that what he was looking at was wrong, something that shouldn't exist, and that if Sky didn't stay away, it would happen to him. Of course, Sky knew that Ty wasn't contagious, and that right now Ty needed Sky by his side more than ever before, but the urge to run was hard to fight.

"You ready to be completely human again?" Sky tried to put as much happiness into his voice as he could, trying not to show how utterly exhausted he was. Ty nodded enthusiastically- he hadn't spoken a word since he completely lost his ability to speak in his human voice- and Sky picked up the rope. He pulled the tank towards the stone, his muscles shaking slightly. Ty was swimming quickly in circles around his tank in excitement, and then leaped out, flying over Sky's head and landing right in front of the stone. He scrambled to grab it, and everybody turned to watch as the stone started glowing, rising into the air. It shone brighter, and brighter, and…

…And stopped glowing. It stopped floating too, plopping heavily down into the sand. Everyone stared at the Veraform stone in shock, trying to absorb what had just happened. Did it really not work? Ty's form started to shift, and Sky leaned forward hopefully. He then realized which way the transformation was going. Ty shrunk out of his clothes, and after a brief struggle to free himself from his fabric prison, crawled out to reveal he had fully turned into a squid. No one spoke as Ty dragged himself across the sand to where he had dropped the Veraform stone. He picked it up in two of his tentacles, curling another around his headphones at the same time. For what seemed like an eternity, nobody moved or spoke.

"This can't be happening." Ty said. Whether it was the squid-like sound of his voice cementing everything, or just how broken he sounded, he broke everybody out of the trance. All of Vision Squad rushed forwards, talking on top of each other, struggling to express in words what they were all feeling. Only Sky held back, and that was because there was one question on repeat in his mind. Why didn't the Veraform Stone work? He got his answer quickly.

Squids burst out of the water. Taken completely by surprise, Vision Squad fell back, easily pinned down by the squids. As Sky tried to fight off his unexpected attackers, he saw Ty being dragged into the ocean, kicking and screaming the whole way, still clutching his headphones. That momentary distraction was all that it took for Sky to be overwhelmed. Sky narrowed his eyes as he saw King Squid emerging from the water. "What did you do to the Veraform Stone!?" Sky snarled, only held back from charging King Squid by the squids holding him down.

"Nothing." King Squid replied simply. Sky blinked, taken aback.

"What?"

"The stone didn't work because it never worked. It was nothing but a story. It took only one little trip to your lab to nudge your mind towards the idea that it could possibly work."

Sky was silent for a moment as he realized that there had never been any real possibility of getting Ty back to normal, that he had been led on a wild goose chase. He chose his words carefully before he spoke. "Why do all this? Why not just brag about what you've done from the very beginning."

"I needed Deadlox at the end of his transformation, and I couldn't be bothered to keep him with me for the time it took for him to transform."

"You're taking him for no reason. You couldn't take his mind, and he'll never join you."

"Did you really think that was why I wanted him?"

"Then why?"

"Well, if you want to replicate the results of an experiment, you need the results of said experiment, don't you?"

"You're planning to do this again!?"

"Of course! A lot more, if I plan to entirely replace humans with squids. I need a few more test subjects to learn how to streamline the process… which is where the rest of your friends come in. Revenge and a step towards world domination all in one! Isn't that great?"

"You'll never get away with this!"

"Look around you. One of your friends has already been turned into a squid. The rest are soon to follow. You're unarmed, and miles away from any of your recruits. So, I hate to be cliché, but…" King Squid leaned in close to Sky, grinning madly the whole time. "…I already have."