Meanwhile with the parents...
"Have you heard anything, Daddy?" Ariel asked her father. "We've been searching everywhere, but we-Flounder!" she then beamed and swam up to the small fish and hugged him.
"Daaaddy!" The fish cried out and swam away, hiding behind a rock.
"That didn't sound like Flounder." Atticus said.
An older fish soon came out to see what scared the guppy.
"Sorry." Ariel smiled sheepishly.
"Ariel?" The fish replied.
"Flounder?!" Ariel beamed.
"Flounder?" Atticus smiled.
"Atticus, is that you too?" Flounder asked.
"Sure is, buddy!" Atticus smiled to the fish.
"Oh, I've missed you," Ariel smiled as she hugged Flounder. "Boy, you're sure not a guppy anymore."
"He sure isn't." Atticus smiled back.
"You can say that again." Flounder smiled to them.
One of the guppies soon grabbed Sebastian and they all kicked him around like he was a toy. Seeing this caused Mo to giggle.
"Children, what did I say about playing Kick the Clam on the reef?" Flounder asked the guppies.
"Sorry, Dad." The guppies told him.
"Kids..." Flounder smiled and shook his head.
Ariel frowned at that however, feeling even worse about Melody now. Mo frowned, feeling the same as she was worried for the kids.
"I'm sorry about Melody." Flounder softly said to his best friend.
"Flounder, is it? We really need your help." Cherry said to him.
"Wild seahorses couldn't stop me." Flounder smiled.
"Great." Atticus smiled back.
Flounder looked to his guppies and then gestured for them to come along. They soon swam away just as Melody came with Tip, Dash, and the others.
"This is so great." Vincent smiled.
Melody swam and explored while taking in all of the sights and sounds that was Atlantica. "It's so beautiful!" she then smiled before bumping into a merboy in front of her without noticing him until now.
"Whoa! Sorry, my fault!" The two spoke at the same time.
"Hi!" The merboy smiled to Melody.
Melody waved while looking unsure what to say.
"I don't think I've seen you around here," The merboy said to her. "What's your name?"
"I'm Mel-Mel..." Melody said, a bit nervous about saying her name to this boy.
"Hey, guys, meet Mel-Mel!" The merboy told his friends as they came to see him.
"Hi." One of his friends greeted.
"Hey, you wanna hang out with us?" The other friend added.
Melody smiled and nodded as that sounded like a lot of fun.
"All right, all right. Break it up. Break it up!" Tip glared as he swam in front of Melody and shooed them away before taking her hand and dragging her away. "There's nothing to see here. Move along. Come on, Miss Popularity. We have a previous engagement. Remember?"
"He's right." Akito said.
Melody frowned and looked back to her possible new friends.
"Maybe I'll catch ya later!" The blonde merboy smiled and waved.
Melody smiled and waved back.
"This is what happens when you bring a country fish to the big city." Tip sighed to himself.
"I think I know where to find the trident." Estelle said.
"Oh, trust me, I know exactly where I'm going." Tip replied.
"So where are we going?" Felicity asked.
"We-Uh... Um..." Tip stammered slightly.
"You have absolutely no idea where the trident is, do you?" Vincent asked, unimpressed.
"Uh, you tell me where you think it is, and I'll tell you if you're right or not." Tip said to Estelle.
"It's in the throne room." Estelle told him.
"Uh, yeah, she's right, follow me!" Tip replied.
Estelle just rolled her eyes to that and shook her head.
They soon came into the throne room in wide wonder.
"Wow... Nice crib!" Tip smiled.
"You said it." Vincent nodded.
They soon went to hide away as merpeople were organizing some furniture inside of the throne room.
"Come on, follow me!" Melody whispered to the others.
They soon swam in and hid underneath a table with a tablecloth. Triton looked miserable as he came to the throne and came to sit down. The group soon snuck a peak to see Triton miserable.
"That must be him..." Melody said, but couldn't help but frown. "He looks so sad. He doesn't look like a thief."
"They never do." Tip whispered to her.
"But he looks so miserable." Estelle frowned.
"Look! There it is!" Melody gasped once she found the trident beside Triton's throne.
"A fork?" Tip scoffed. "We're risking our tails for a fork?!"
"I have a feeling it's more than just a fork." Vincent said.
Triton was looking at something which looked like a picture of a baby girl with black hair. He then looked to the other merpeople at work and soon complained to them. "We haven't time for this. I want every available merman searching!" He demanded, pounding his fist on the table and whacking it out of the way, but never saw Melody with her group as he stormed off. "Find her! Find her!"
The group soon split up into different directions. Tip and Dash went to hide back under the table. Melody soon went to hide behind a plant as Triton was about to storm off until he saw that the table was shaking. That was, indeed, very bad news for Tip and Dash.
"Dash, if... If this is the end, I just want you to know, pal, I'm sorry I said that thing about the blubber." Tip frowned.
"Well, I'm sorry about the fish breath." Dash replied.
"Wait, you never said anything about fish breath." Tip told him.
"But I was thinkin' it." Dash smiled sheepishly.
Tip glared at him, but they soon both shivered as they were about to be exposed.
"King Triton!" A seahorse soon swam in with a smile. "Your daughter and nephew have returned."
Triton soon followed the seahorse to greet his daughter and nephew. Melody soon swam towards the trident once the coast was clear.
"Something does not feel right..." Felicity said to herself. "We are stealing..."
"But he stole first!" Melody defended. "Morgana said so."
"Yeah, but I just have a bad feeling about this." Akito said.
Melody reached for the trident, then found herself hesitating.
"Oh, sure, that's it. Take your time. Kick back. Relax," Tip told her calmly before snapping. "Let's all just linger here and die!"
Akito knew this was wrong, but since this was 'stolen' from Morgana, he knew that this had to be the right thing to do, so he grabbed on the trident and took it while also accidentally bumping into Melody as the trident cut her locket free.
"I'm sure they'll turn up soon." Triton soothed his daughter and nephew as they came towards the throne room.
"He's coming back!" Dash panicked.
"My necklace!" Melody gasped, about to go and get it until Tip and Dash moved her out of the way now that they had the trident.
"They must be somewhere." Mo said.
"Yes, but where?" Atticus asked.
Cherry soon gasped before panicking as she saw the trident was missing.
"Use your words..." Atticus told Cherry.
"The trident is GONE!" Cherry soon blurted out.
They all saw that Cherry was right as the trident was missing.
"But that's not possible!" Sebastian gasped. "Nobody can remove the trident from the stand except you, sire. You or one of your descendants!"
"Atticus, how could you?" Cherry asked.
Atticus looked unimpressed with Cherry with that question. Mo soon saw Melody's locket. She then picked up the locket and showed it to Ariel.
"Melody..." Ariel whispered as she held the locket.
"Who I was supposed to be watching," Sebastian groaned before falling flat on his back in misfortune. "Go ahead, crack me open. Make a crab cake out of me, sire."
"But how could she get here?" Mo asked.
"Morgana..." Triton grumbled as he had a suspicion. " If she gets her hands on my trident..." he then thought about it before looking horrified and soon commanded to his merman army. "Double the search parties! I want every creature in the ocean on patrol!"
"Yes, sire!" The mermen replied before swimming away.
Ariel, Atticus, Mo, and Cherry soon noticed two manta rays. Cherry seemed to shake a chill from the rays as she had a bad feeling, but tried to hide it.
"Wait a minute... I know those two." Ariel said before swimming after the manta rays.
Atticus and Mo soon followed after her along with Cherry.
"It's all my fault," Sebastian sulked. "If I had just paid a little more attention... Instead of blabbering on and on and on and on and on."
While he kept sulking, the parents were following after the two manta rays.
"From now on, Your Majesty, nothing gets past-" Sebastian continued until he noticed he was alone. "Hmm?... Me..."
"You sure that Evil Manta guy won't come out?" Cherry asked Atticus. "He still kinda gives me the creeps."
"He changed to good, remember?" Atticus reminded.
"I know... But I just want him to make sure to watch out for me..." Cherry smirked. "I might've been scared back then, but I could handle him now."
"Cherry, look out!" Atticus gasped.
"What?! WHAT?!" Cherry panicked. "What is it?"
"A bubble." Atticus smirked.
"You sick merman." Cherry glared.
"Sorry." Atticus chuckled sheepishly.
Mo frowned a bit.
"Oh, Mo..." Atticus frowned back to her to comfort her. "It's okay, I'm sure the kids are fine wherever they are."
"I hope so." Mo sighed.
Atticus gave her a comforting hug as they continued onward.
"Your kids know about their heritage, right...?" Ariel asked her cousin.
"Yep." Atticus nodded.
Ariel frowned as she felt worse for not telling her daughter about hers.
"Aw, Ariel, don't let it bother you..." Atticus soothed.
"Let's get back to following after those two manta rays." Mo suggested.
Ariel wiped her eyes. Atticus soon hugged her with a small smile and she gave one back before following.
Meanwhile with the kids...
Tip soon sky-rocketed out of the water as they came out onto the surface. Dash then joined him and they both splashed among the water.
"We did it!" Tip smiled before low-fiving Dash.
They soon saw that the kids weren't celebrating. They soon swam up beside them with small smiles to cheer them up.
"All this time, Atlantica was never that far away from home." Melody said to the penguin and walrus while looking to her home.
"Guess it was closer than we thought." Vincent said.
"This is your home?" Dash asked out of amazement.
"It used to be." Melody said softly.
"Whoa, what a pad!" Tip smiled. "Talk about your curb appeal. But what's with the wall? I know good fences make good neighbors, but isn't that a bit much?"
"Yeah, what you tryin' to keep out?" Dash added.
"It wasn't trying to keep something out." Estelle said.
"It was built to keep me in," Melody added before deciding to ignore it for now. "Come on! Let's go."
Dash looked concerned, but he and Tip soon followed after Melody with the trident at hand. They soon made their way back to Morgana's place.