Nexus: I'm back! Man, Holiday was good and I even managed to plan out what would happen in the remaining chapters of this story. Knowing me, things will change here and there but it's all good for now

Zac: So hopefully you'll be nice and let me free soon

Nexus: ... lets just skip back to the action with Lyla and Joanna. Here's Chapter 6!

Chapter 6: The Broken Promise

- With Lyla -

Once Lyla began speeding out of the entrance to the Moon Pool, she felt that something wasn't quite right. Mermaids were born to sense sea creatures, including deadly ones, ones that can threaten and harm them. And it's exactly what Lyla could feel, there was something just off the Gold Coast area that seemed like a rather large threat right about now. She began speeding over in the direction that she sensed the danger coming from.

After a few minutes, she could finally see what she sensed coming into sight. And the event before her was not pretty.

Dr. Joanna Fischer, Lyla recognising her as the Marine Biologist who caught Zac, was struggling to hold onto her breath for dear life as a small sea creature was fighting with her.

"A sea demon!?" Lyla asked herself in shock. Much like mermen, sea demons hadn't been seen for centuries. They were small creatures, no larger than the size of a starfish, that seemed harmless to begin with. Until they began fighting their way inside of mermaids and taking refuge in their bodies, feeding on their life force until they had enough energy to free themselves of the body there were in and became much larger and deadlier, worse than a Great White Shark. They'd been supposedly exterminated and made extinct, but here was one right before Lyla's eyes.

There wasn't much Lyla could do about the situation since Joanna was still kicking. The sea demon managed to get what it finally wanted and ripped Joanna's stomach open using its sharp claws, which knock Joanna completely unconscious, since the demon was using a little bit of its power to not let any of her blood flow out. Whilst it was working its way into Joanna's body and began to try settling, Lyla used her powers to freeze the demons tail and ripped it off of its body. Sadly, the demon still got settled in and sealed up Joanna's stomach, causing her to open her eyes for a second before passing out from extreme pain and need of air.

Lyla immediately swam over to her and surfaced near to where her boat was. She carried Joanna in one hand and used her other hand to pull her boat to the nearby shore.

Once she'd gotten Joanna and the boat on land, she dragged herself up and dried herself, reverting to human form.

"Well done Lyla, look at what you've gone and gotten yourself into," she told herself, giving herself a minor slap on the head for this. She couldn't believe that she'd really just let a sea demon enter a humans body. That demon was going to feed on Joanna's life force until it had enough power to break free and wreak havoc.

There was only one thing she could do right now, leave Joanna where she was and hope she'd be alright, and go back to Rita and her friends and tell them the truth, everything that had happened and has happened thus far.

Wasting no time, she dove back into the waves and headed straight for Mako to get a nights sleep and then when the sun rose, head straight over to Rita and explain.

Just after she'd dove in, Joanna slowly stirred awake and took in her surroundings. "How did I end up here?" She asked herself in disbelief. One minute she remembered being knocked into the water by something and was trying to fight it off before having her stomach ripped open and now she'd woken up on a beach not too far from EC42, with her boat right next to her and her body looked perfectly fine, like nothing

She'd heard the splash and could only assume that someone had helped her. But who? Joanna didn't want to think too much on the matter and quickly got her boat back into the water, the engine and motor working perfectly fine once again, and headed back to EC42, to Zac.

- In Rita's Grotto, the next morning -

Nixie, Sirena and Rita were getting really worried at this point. Lyla had been out for a whole day and hadn't returned at all, things weren't looking up for them.

"Only going out for a walk, yeah right," Rita said as she paced up and down the grotto.

"Look Rita, we need to tell you something," Sirena spoke up.

"Sirena?" Nixie wasn't prepared to get a lifetime lecture from Rita over what was about to be said.

"No, this needs to be said now!" She firmly stated, standing up. "Lyla didn't got out for a walk, she went out to Mako to see if Zac was out there."

"She did what!?" Rita screamed. "What in her right mind was she thinking?"

"Don't blame her completely, we all had the same idea, we let Lyla go though because she's better at invisibility than us," Sirena explained. "Rita we're so sorry."

"Sorry doesn't even begin to cover what might have happened here! For all we know, Lyla might have been captured by going out there," Rita scorned whilst trying to calm herself down.

"And there's a possibility that Zac's been captured, or both of them have, or nothing at all," Nixie added.

"Not helping Nixie," Rita warned her. "I'm going to quickly see Zac's parents, ask them about him. You two stay here and stay put, no more hair brain schemes for now."

Rita hurried out of the grotto through the book case entrance and began rushing over to Zac's house.

Once she got there, she rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer whilst she caught her breath back.

After a minute or so, the door opened to see Zac's mum.

"Principal Santos?" Zac's mum asked surprised.

"Hello Mrs. Blakely. This is nothing serious, just, is Zac alright?" Rita asked, still getting her breath back.

"Maybe you should come inside and we can discuss the matter, you seem to know something." Mrs. Blakely sat Rita down on a couch facing another one which herself and her husband sat on.

"So, Zac?" Rob began.

"Yes, something strange has come up and I don't know if you have noticed it either," Rita began.

"It's plain to see Principal Santos, Zac's gone missing," Rob replied sounding slightly frantic.

"Yes, I'm worried myself for him, he is one of my top students as you well know. You know I usually go for a walk around a lot on weekends and I nearly always see Zac at some point, but I haven't so far this time. And you've just cleared up my point," Rita lied as best she could. "There is something we can do though."

"Yeah, contact the police for a missing person. It's been 24 hours after all," Rob pointed out.

"Listen, Dr. Blakely. We don't need to call the police. I have a plan. As a Principal, I have a very long list of contacts with connections to Zac, and it'll take less time to find him than a full scale police search. And I won't charge or anything, I want him to be safe just as much as you two do," Rita explained.

The couple looked at each other with a nod and turned back to Rita. "Alright, we'll let you handle the matter then. Just keep in touch with me on this... I want my son to be safe," Rob thanked Rita, a small tear being brought to his eye. This was the first time something major had happened to his son for him and he would admit it, he was scared.

"Just leave it to me," Rita replied, thanking them for the talk. When she left, instead of walking back to her house, she dove off of the docks when no-one was looking and torpedoed it back to her grotto.

When she surfaced and dried herself off, she walked into her grotto to find Lyla sitting down, with tears in her eyes.

"Lyla?" Rita looked at the state of her, she looked restless, worried and seemed like she had a lot on her plate. Even though deep down Rita was as furious as hell, she couldn't bring herself to be so mean right now.

"Rita I have a lot to explain to you. And I should start by saying I'm sorry for lying to you," Lyla spoke up.

"It's alright Lyla, tell me everything in your own time," Rita comforted her, sitting down next to her with Nixie and Sirena by their sides, all ears too.

"I'll keep it short... Zac was captured out at Mako and the last thing he saw before being caught was me. He's figured out about Sirena as well. That's only the beginning to the bad news. I stayed in the Moon Pool for a while, unable to forgive myself about not being able to do anything about the situation. Then I felt this strange presence, an evil one. When I found the source of it, it was a sea demon-"

"A sea demon?" Rita asked in shock. "They were supposed to be extinct!"

"Yes, but there was one making its way inside the body of a human... the Marine Biologist lady, Joanna. I managed to freeze off its tail so it'll take it ages to try and draw life from her but we still need to do something and fast!" Lyla finished.

"Well I went to see Zac's parents earlier and they've entrusted me to find him," Rita said.

"How will we find him?" Nixie asked.

"As a person of high power on land, I have lots of contacts for many different things. The best part being that I have one or two mermaid contacts on land who should be more than willing to help me find out where Zac is. As a Marine Biologist, she wouldn't be keeping Zac at an Experiment Centre that would be on the list of official sites, she would use a private one. This is where my contacts come into play, they have lots of unofficial information for me," Rita explained.

"What are we waiting for then?" Nixie asked standing up. "Let's get started already."

Everyone left the grotto and moved into Rita's lounge, Rita quickly firing up her laptop, ready to get some extensive research done.

- Back at EC42 -

The door to room 347 opened up with a large clank as the bolt was removed, waking up a sleeping Zac.

"Um, morning," John called as he walked over to Joanna's desk, Zac remaining quiet with his eyes fixed on the man who just entered the room.

"I'm John," he said as he looked over his shoulder at Zac, still not able to get a response.

He sighed. "Look, I know we have to do these scans this morning but there's no need to ask so cold okay?"

Zac suddenly remembered Joanna telling him about John, the supposed kindest of her men. "Sorry if I seem that way, it's not like I've had the comfiest nights sleep."

John smiled seeing as how he managed to get the merman to talk to him. "So, you're Zac right?"

"Yeah," he replied plainly.

"Okay, you know the whole thing about the scans, I'll just open up the tank and then you can steam dry yourself and meet me down by the desk," John said as he walked over to the ladder and began climbing it, Zac following him to the top at the same speed.

Once John opened the lid, he slid back down the ladder and retrieved the information that Joanna left him so that he could get his work done.

Zac climbed out and steam dried himself, climbed down the ladder and met John by the desk.

John looked over his shoulder again at the now human Zac and turned his head back a second later.

"So, these scans... I just lay under a machine and let them do their magic?" Zac asked, just to be sure.

"Yep, that's all you gotta do," John clarified.

"And how long will each scan take?" Zac asked.

"About an hour for each one," John replied.

"Right, you'll need to keep me wet for the second scan then," Zac began. "I don't remain a merman forever, once all the water on my body is dried off, back to being human."

"I'll tell the boys to add a mist setting to the scanner then so you'll be constantly sprayed with fresh water then. Thanks," John replied. The last thing they needed was any of these scans going wrong.

Once John had finished looking over all the documents and notes he'd been given, he lead Zac off to the scanner room.

- After the scans -

The scans had gone off without a hitch and Zac was being lead back to his tank room by John. When they reached it, the door was already open.

Walking inside, the lights switched on.

"Oh, Joanna," John called. "You took long enough to get back."

"I ran into an issue along the way, my boat's motor gave in and I kinda fell off my boat during an incident. Though someone saved me and my boat was all fine then," she explained, glazing over Zac. "Scans go okay then?"

"Yeah, they were fine," Zac replied, walking over to his tank. "So, how long will it be until this is all over?"

"Once I've taken a scale you'll be all good," Joanna replied in return, finding a pair of pliers from her desk. "Well come on, lets get it over and done with then."

Zac walked over to the chair by Joanna's desk and waited as water was poured onto his arm, his long tail flowing in turn of his legs.

Joanna decided to take a scale from the central area of his tail, Zac wincing in pain as it was ripped from him. As Joanna transferred it into a little dish of water, Zac steam dried himself, a scab appearing on his right leg where the scale from his tail was taken.

John during this time had gone back to work elsewhere, leaving just those two in the room.

"Alright, I'm all good to go now right?" Zac asked excitedly.

"Ye-" Joanna began to say before she felt an immense pain in her chest, she herself hunching over due to this pain.

"Joanna?" Zac asked worriedly.

The sea demon inside her had already began to work its magic. At this point, it was just about to begin feeding on her life force, and decided to have some fun. By taking control of the victim.

When Joanna turned around, her eyes were blood red and her teeth had become rather pointy.

Zac began backing away until he hit the edge of his tank.

"This is how things are going to go merboy, so listen up!" Joanna cried, as her voice overlapped with the sea demon's own. "If you thought I was going to let you escape you should re-think your calculations in this bargain!"

"Joanna what is wrong with you?" Zac asked in disbelief.

"I had this all planned you know," she began. "Ever since you landed in that Moon Pool, I was waiting for the opportune moment to ruin you. It was the likes of your kind that destroyed my kind and pushed us to near extinction. Seems like your capturing by this Marine Biologist was the moment I was waiting for."

Zac had no clue on earth what was going on.

"To put it short, the Joanna you knew is no longer with you. Although, the sea demon controlling her is very much in control right now!"

"A- a sea demon?" Zac asked himself. He'd never heard of one before.

"Oh come one, did those mermaids on land not tell you anything?" The sea demon asked.

Zac just looked away in disgust.

"Oh, they didn't. That's right... they betrayed you and kept their secret from you, only for you to discover them eventually. Don't you feel so ashamed of them, don't you just never want to see them again?"

Zac still didn't look back at the controlled Joanna.

"If I'm to take it as a yes, then that's fine. Alister, Thomas!" Joanna called for two of her men, the two called appearing at the door a few seconds later.

"Lock Zac here back up in the tank but tighten the tank seal and only allow one port hole for feeding," she commanded.

"What!?" Zac screamed as he was grabbed by the two men. "Let go of me."

"Not going to happen," the sea demon taunted.

Zac was forcibly shoved back into the tank and whilst Alister held him down under the water, Thomas lowered down the new lid which only had that tiny hole for feeding.

"Why are you doing this, whoever you are? I want to know!" Zac demanded.

"Simple, with you locked away here, your little fishy friends will be suspicious of where you are and come looking for you, not forgetting about your parents and that girl, Evie. Ooh, if only she were to learn what you'd become. We sea demons feed on the power of people and then grow to full size, able to wreak immense havoc."

"What I'm here for... is revenge that transverses a few centuries!"

Nexus: And its done! Finally time to explain the lateness of this chapter. Number 1) I was only supposed to be going on a 4 day holiday but since it was the last day of the holiday season, we were allowed to have the extra day free. Speaking of our extra day, we won £176.60 on bingo, woohoo! So, I didn't get back off holiday until late night Saturday. Number 2) Too tired on Sunday and Number 3) The college week has not been kind, I've been getting lots of eye strain spending all my 6 hours of college in front of screens and coming home to them too, it bloody well hurts ya know!

But nonetheless, Chapter 6 is finally here! And I think this marks the midway point of our story. It's all action and drama from here.

Zac: Why did you have to go and do this to me?

Nexus: My story...

Even so, I'll see you all for Chapter 7 some time, can't make any guarantees when it'll be up