Nexus: Well, I couldn't upload this when I wanted to because every time I clicked to go into my account, it kept on blocking me out, saying no server was available. But a few days later, IT FINALLY LET ME BACK IN! Meaning I've been able to get this part out now...

Zac: Really sorry for the delay guys. She did put on her profile that it might be after Christmas day that this was uploaded...

Nexus: At least this chapter actually gets out. Right, this is the chapter where it all comes crashing down!

Chapter 11: The Confrontation

The rest of the week had flown by for the girls and Zac. They'd all managed to master their powers of Telekinesis, Levitation, Weather Control and the surprising Volume Reduction test... All the girls managed to squeeze the lemon that Rita had given them whereas Zac made it expand. And for those couple of hours each night, Rita was able to get Zac to learn his powers over Wind, Fire and Lighting and also how to combine them. The girls still knew nothing about his shape shifting or elemental powers. She told Zac to use them as a last resort against the Sea Demon when the time came around.

Right now, it was 11am Monday morning and everyone was sat in the Grotto, talking about what they should do next.

"Well, I'm going to go back and see my parents, I need to tell them I'll be staying for a little longer than expected," Zac mentioned.

"I'll go with you," Lyla said. "Can't risk anyone seeing you can we?"

"I'll be fine," Zac said determined.

"Zac come on, Lyla's right for once, you can't risk it," Nixie spoke up.

"What do you mean 'for once?'" Lyla asked, being offended slightly by it. Nixie just grinned at her in return.

"Look, I can just leave through the ocean and enter through the canal. Besides, barely anyone via me and my parents live out there," Zac explained.

Rita looked over at the arguing teens. "Zac will be fine on his own. I trust him."

The girl looked over at Rita. "Are you serious?" All three of them asked.

Zac took this moment to use another power he'd picked up without Rita knowing, teleportation. He clicked his fingers and ended up next to the ocean entrance.

Rita looked quite shocked for a moment, the three young mermaids questioning her confused look. "Rita are you okay?" Sirena asked.

Lyla whipped her head around to see Zac but instead saw no-one. Everyone else's heads turned when they heard a splash noise.

"How did he get there so quickly? We didn't even hear him move," Sirena wondered.

"Yes, I'd like to know too," Rita said distantly.

- At the canals-

Zac pulled himself onto the docks and quickly used his shape shifting powers to dry off, turns out doing it that way was faster than using Hydro-Cryokinesis to dry himself off.

He threw on his invisibility and walked over to the window of his parents house. He was glad to see they were in, including Evie for some reason. He stepped away from the window and rested by the door for a minute. He released the invisibility and pressed the door bell.

After hearing it, Zac's dad got up out of his chair and walked over to open the front door, Evie and Mrs. Blakely getting up with him since no-one had rung on them in ages. When Zac's dad opened the door, Zac stepped to the side out of view and clicked his fingers to teleport right behind the three.

"Miss me?" Zac asked, scaring everyone. Evie shot around the fastest and immediately launched into a hug with Zac.

"How did you-" Evie began to ask.

Zac answered her question quite quickly. "Powers."

"You've been gone for a week, we were a little worried about you," Evie said honestly. "Well, I was more worried."

"I'm alright though, Rita and the girls took good care of me," Zac replied.

"So what's your current situation?" Rob asked closing the door behind him, getting his family and Evie back down on the sofas/ chairs.

"Well, like Evie said it's been a week and since then I've learnt a lot of new things. But we've still got no leads on Joanna Fischer and the evil spirit inside of her. I'm almost thinking of going back to EC42 just to see if I can find her," Zac explained.

"No! I'm not letting you go anywhere near that woman!" Evie blurted out. "I don't want to lose you again." She gave him a quick hug.

"I understand."

"What are you going to do then? We all know you can't stay here, if someone comes around and sees you that's it," Mrs. Blakely pointed out.

"My only option is to remain at Rita's," Zac replied, Evie's face dropping a little.

"Do you really have to stay there?" Evie asked, pouting slightly.

"I've got no choice, Rita's house is the only place where I'm safe," Zac answered.

Just as they were finishing up their conversation, another person rang the door bell.

Zac threw on his invisibility which surprised Evie and Zac's mum a little. "Just in case, you know."

Rob walked over to the door and opened it to see a familiar face from the science community. "Marie?"

"Hi Dr. Blakely," she said enthusiastically.

"Marie Westhall?" Evie said to herself. "Aren't you in some of our classes at Suncoast High?"

"Yep, that's me," she replied. "Is Zac here?"

Evie was immediately taken back by her question. "He's been missing for a month now, of course he's not here!"

Marie's face dropped when she heard Evie say that. "Oh, of course, silly me."

Evie smirked.

"So, he's not hiding here using invisibility or anything?" She asked, smiling maliciously.

Now they all knew something wasn't right. How would Marie know that Zac had powers?

Zac threw off his invisibility in shock of Marie's question, she knew about him but surely no-one from EC42 knew about that power.

"Oh, there you are, my precious little test subject," Marie said, her voice changing to that of Joanna Fischer's.

Everyone froze when they heard Joanna's voice. Marie let out a set of laughs. "Oh, you fools. Did you honestly think that that was really Marie?"

Since Joanna got no response, she made her move. Marie's eyes flashed red, followed by her entire body. When the red glow faded, Joanna Fischer now stood in her place.

"What the hell did you do to Marie!?" Zac asked furiously.

"Oh her, she was part of the harvest. Turns out, she was quite handy in the end," Joanna briefly explained. "EC42 was getting to be too much with so many people asking about you, so I harvested all their souls and ate their bodies, meaning I could turn into any one of them."

Everyone was completely still. The sea demon in Joanna has just killed a few dozen workers at EC42 including Zac's newest best friend.

"Let's get back to how things used to be, eh Zac?" Joanna asked as she grabbed his dad's clothing and sent him flying into the nearest wall, the sound of bones breaking as he hit it.

"DAD!" Zac screamed in horror, his body frozen to the couch.

"No-one, and I repeat no-one," Mrs. Blakely began to say as she rose up off her chair to face Joanna, "throws my husband like that!" Mrs. Blakely took a good lunge at Joanna, who grabbed her arms and tossed her over backwards, slamming her into the floor, the same bone shattering noises filling the air.

Both Evie and Zac couldn't move, fear was taking over, freezing them to the spot.

"Now, how's this gonna work? If you try to defend him Evie, I will shatter more bones in your body than I have those two. So what's it gonna be?" Joanna asked as she slowly walked over towards Zac.

Zac suddenly snapped his fingers and teleported to the back of the room and decided to test his new powers out against Joanna. He clenched his right hand into a fist, flames encasing that hand. His left hand went into a point, a swirling wind appearing around it. Zac put his hands together and focused the now combined magic at Joanna, encasing her in a tornado of fire.

It was about 1 minute before the magic subsided, and when it did, Joanna came out of it completely unharmed. "Honestly Zac did you really forget how a sea demon works?" Joanna asked as her eyes began to flash red, and her voice began to meld with that of the sea demons. Shen then grabbed Zac by the collar on his shirt and lifted him into the air. "You can't hurt me whilst I'm in her body!"

She gave Zac an almighty punch to the chest, knocking the wind out of him and rendering him unconscious.

"Zac!" Evie screamed as she could only watched as Zac was dragged out the front door.

"So sorry to leave like this Evie, but this little fishy is mine," Joanna said as she waved good bye insultingly and hopped into her boat that she used to get here in the first place. "Off to EC42 we go."

As Joanna raced out into the open ocean, the sea demon couldn't help but wonder what would happen next. Should she go and take care of Rita and the gang or keep Zac under watch until the sea demon grew to full size and began its destructive ways? The sea demon decided in the end to race back to EC42 and drop Zac off in his new tank. Then it would come back to the Gold Coast and begin it's harvesting to speed up its growth. Without Zac, the three girls and Rita wouldn't have a hopes chance of defeating it.

- At Rita's -

Everyone was sitting out on the roof top, overlooking the ocean. Everything was serene and peaceful until Rita noticed a speed boat pass by. Inside of it, Joanna Fischer with a blanket covering up something.

Lyla noticed Rita's staring. "Rita? What's wrong?"

"We have to get to Zac's," she announced, leaping up off of her chair and heading down to the grotto, the three girls in pursuit.

"Why?" Sirena asked on the way down. "I thought you said he would be okay on his own?"

"I did, turns out I made a terrible mistake in the process!"

The four females jump out into the ocean and sped their way over to the canals where Zac lived. When they surfaced, they found the front door to Zac's parents house open with Mrs. Blakely lying there completely still with Evie knelt down beside her with a phone in hand.

"Yes, alright, see you in a few minutes then," Evie said down the phone, shutting off the conversation. She'd called an ambulance to take care of Zac's parents. Evie lied and said that she'd come round to see them, only to find that the door was open and that they were severely injured.

"Evie!" Rita called out to her.

Evie twisted her head around to see nothing.

"Down in the water," Nixie said.

Evie raced out to the edge of the dock to see Rita and the three mermaids floating in the water.

"Tell us right now, what happened here?" Rita demanded.

"It was Joanna. She came here disguised as Marie Westhall, who's body she's eaten as well as her soul. Some sort of harvesting. She then completely shattered a few of Zac's parents bones and threatened to destroy more of mine if I tried to defend Zac. She's taken him out on a speed boat somewhere. I overheard her say the name EC42." Evie rambled out quickly.

"Do we even know where it is?" Lyla asked.

"I do. I did work experience there once," Evie spoke up. "One second."

She ran back inside Zac's house and rummaged through her bag to try and find her key.

"This key will get you access to a secret passage around the back of the building," Evie explained. She was about to toss it down to the girls before Rita stopped her from doing so.

"I want you to go with them," Rita said suddenly.

"I'm sorry?" Evie asked in shock. "You want me to go with them?"

"I agree with Evie, you want her to go with us?" Nixie alliterated.

"I can guarantee that the sea demon will try its best to stop the girls from fighting it. She'll probably have Zac locked up tighter than before, so it'll be your job to try and get him free and make sure he can defeat the sea demon, he's our only hope. He needs you as well. He kept his secret from you for a long time, and I know for a fact that he's still not 100% sure that you accepted it. And that's because you're important to him, he doesn't want to lose you over this," Rita explained. She then turned her attention to the girls. "Evie will take Zac's boat out and you will follow her."

Evie looked down to the girls. She didn't trust them before, but given the situation, she was beginning to trust them just a little bit.

"Are you lot going or what?" Rita asked, folding her arms.

Evie hopped down into Zac's speed boat, placing her key card back around her neck. She turned her head to the three mermaids behind her. "How fast do I need to go so you can keep up?"

"If I can outswim Joe's boat, then go as fast as this thing will go," Nixie replied confidently.

Evie turned back around and began speeding out, sticking to the west coast, which was the easiest way to find EC42. The girls were swimming just behind Evie, perfectly fine with keeping up.

- 1 Hour later -

Evie suddenly stopped her boat and the girls surfaced in front of her.

"Is everything okay?" Sirena asked worried.

"Yeah, EC42 is just behind you," Evie replied, the three girls turning around to see the daunting Experiment Centre where Zac was being currently held once more.

"So why are we stopping then?" Nixie asked.

"The doc's passage has scanners that will see you if you stay in the water, you'll need to get into the boat," Evie explained.

Lyla began dragging herself onto the shore, her friends following her. Once they had all dried off, Evie had parked the boat next to the shore so the girls could easily hop on without getting wet. Once they were in, she began driving off before Lyla stopped her.

"Won't they see this boat coming in though?" Lyla asked.

"No, Joanna said that everyone except herself from EC42 is dead, she killed them all," Evie explained, lowering her head. "There's no way she can keep an eye on the entire of the centre. And only people with Doc Key Cards can get in, and as far as she's concerned, they're all dead. I supposedly handed my Key Card back in but I never did."

"Thank god you didn't then," Nixie remarked.

Evie revved the boat up and took it around the back of the centre to find the Doc's passage. When they got there, there was a massive iron gate with a small scanner and keyboard on the side wall. Evie walked over, scanned her Key Card and punched in her previous code. Turned out the code had never been erased from the system either. Lucky.

The iron gate opened up and Evie drove the boat through the passage until it came to a sudden halt. Everyone got off the boat and discussed their plan.

"So, what do we do now?" Nixie asked. "After all, none of us have an actual clue where Zac is being held."

"She's right, there are over 400 rooms here. What are the odds of us finding the right one straight away?" Evie remarked.

Lyla scanned the area around her and found a map on the wall, showing where all 429 rooms where.

"Sirena, take rooms 1-100. Nixie, 101-200. I'll take 201-300. Evie, you take 301-400. When we finish, we'll take on the last 29 rooms together, got it?" Lyla explained

Everyone nodded their heads, agreeing with her plan. "How will you open the doors though? You don't have a Key Card or anything?" Evie wondered.

"We have Telekinesis, so don't worry about us," Nixie answered, heading off down the corridors towards room 101.

Evie was the next to go, heading to room 301.

"You read for this Sirena?" Lyla asked.

"Yeah. But what will happen when one of us finds Zac, do we just run and try to find everyone else?" Sirena asked back.

"We can use invisibility. Evie will just have to come find us. But if we don't find him in any of our rooms or the last 29, we'll search through Evie's set rooms," Lyla explained. She began heading off the way she needed to go, Sirena going shortly after her.

Some time had passed, and all three mermaids had finished their 100 doors and headed off to try the last 29 rooms. By this time, Evie had finished 70 rooms and was about to move onto door 371. Lyla was the first to catch her.

"Find anything yet?" She asked.

"No, nothing," Evie replied, closing and relocking door 371. "Wanna stay here and help me open these last few doors before we do the 400's?"

Just at that moment, both Nixie and Sirena had found them.

"So, any luck?" Nixie asked.

"No, we're just about to stick together for these last 60 odd rooms," Lyla explained.

Doors 372 and 373 held nothing in them.

Evie swiped her card into door 374, the door not accepting it. "That's odd," she remarked.

"What is?" The three girls asked simultaneously.

"This door won't accept my key code," Evie answered.

Nixie walked over to the door and began using her powers to move the locks inside. "Man there's a lot of heavy locks on this door."

"Must be something behind it worth keeping there then," Lyla replied, helping out with the door locks.

Sirena used her powers as well, the light on the door lock finally turning green.

Evie slowly opened the door, only to see that the entire room was pitch black. She opened it widely, everyone staring into the dark room.

Moments later, a light flickered on in the room, the lights of the newly replaced tank that was.

Inside the tank, was a chained up Zac. He had two chains around his wrists and a chain around his tail.

"Zac!" Evie screamed once she saw him, running up to the tank.

"Evie wait!" Nixie called to her, realising seconds later that it was no use, following Evie to the tank, her friends in pursuit.

"Evie?" Zac asked himself when he heard his girlfriend's voice. He looked up to see Evie now at the tank's wall. "Evie!" He tried to swim over to her, but the chains had restricted him from getting anywhere near the tank's walls.

He quickly retreaded a little way from it so that the chains wouldn't pull too hard.

Suddenly, the whole room was filled with a bright light, as one other person now stood in the room.

"Joanna," Lyla said with a low growl.

"How did you get in here?" She asked, no hint of the sea demon in her voice.

"What's it to you?" Evie asked, her voiced filled with anger.

"It's important because I should have locked all the doors and all the systems code's to the dock's passa-" Joanna began to say before looking at what was around Evie's neck.

"I see, a never turned in apprentice Key Card. It would have been removed from the system after you finished and yet it still let you inside. How odd," Joanna said to herself.

"Enough of the games sea demon!" Nixie shouted. "Why are you doing this, to our friend!?"

Zac was a little shook when Nixie called him a friend. Had she finally accepted him after all this time?

"Sea demon?" Joanna asked confused.

Evie started to move towards her before Lyla blocked her with her arm. "It might just be the sea demon pretending to not know anything."

"Look, I don't know what games you're playing here, but you obviously know my friend in the tank over there," Joanna said, motioning towards Zac.

"Yeah, he's our friend. And we want, no, need him back," Sirena spoke up.

"Well sadly the last thing I remember is being here and Zac was in chains in a new tank! I tried to get them off of him, but they're too strong to remove. Zac's even tried fire and ice magic, but to no avail.

"Fire and Ice magic?" Lyla asked confused.

"I'll explain later okay?" Zac said as he took a good attempt at removing the chain from his tail with brute force again.

All of a sudden, Joanna suddenly disappeared, a horrible laughter filling the room.

"Honestly, if you think she's still all here, think again!" The sea demon said as it stepped out of the darkness, in the real Joanna's body.

"The what?" Sirena asked herself, confused as to how there were two Joanna's for a split second.

"That was just a hologram! I knew if I let Joanna take control once I got Zac back in his tank, then she would be bound to try and get him out. With all the information I needed there and then, I made a little holographic recording, anticipating this moment and conversation to arise. I just merely told the hologram what to say depending on how you reacted to the situation," the sea demon explained.

Without any warning, Joanna's body suddenly began looking as if it was being pumped full of air. After a minute or so, her body exploded, blood splattering across the floor and the walls around her in a circle, the real sea demon emerging from her remains.

It slowly but steadily grew up to its full heigh, which was around 100ft in the end. This was the only room in the centre that had an incredibly tall ceiling, which is why the sea demon chose it.

"I'll give you all two choices. Either leave Zac in the tank and just walk out of here like you didn't see anything or stay, try to save him and die doing so! I know what my option would be."

Nexus: I DID IT! I finally finished this god damn chapter! Well, next chapter should be the last fight, but it's not the last chapter, there will be two-three more chapters to come yet. xxx

I don't know when the next chapter will be out so you'll all just have to wait! Sorry...