Status – Unfinished.
Chapter 50
The temperature was very warm, and the sound of bubbling potions could be heard. Calixa stealthily moved through the shadows, of the room. Whoever had those potions going could be back at any moment. She really enjoyed these types of recon missions, they were easy and proved helpful in her hobby of being a mischief maker. You wander around make mental notes, sometimes physically notes, and then report back to the castle with your information.
She was currently exploring a new tropical world, very warm and humid, mostly tropical forests with some beaches. She stumbled across this lone cabin, that looked very cluttered and messy but certainly lived in. Somebody had obviously started brewing up these potions very recently. Calixa picked up a glass vile with some blue liquid in it and examined it at eye level. It was a cloudy liquid but still somewhat transparent, and she had no idea what it did. She knew better though, then to try or smell random potions, so she set the vile back down on the table and picked up some type of necklace. The golden chain was tacky, and hanging around the chain was a golden bling about the cylinder size of a soda can. It had writing engraved on it but it was in some language she didn't know.
"I wonder how much munny I could get from this?" she asked herself placing the golden chain around her neck. It was very heavy and she wondered why anyone would want to wear it at all.
Calixa took another look around the darkened room, debating in her mind if she should steal the bling or not. Unfortunately she accidently jostled the table making a yellow potion that was sitting on the shelf fall down smashing a purple potion that was bubbling on the table and knocking over a pink potion. The three potions mixed together and the result was a loud blast that made Calixa fly across the room. She smashed painfully against the shelves on the opposite wall and landed on the ground.
ORGANIZATIONDAYS
"No freaking way, you're such a cheater!" Neox yelled while he stared intensely at his television screen.
"You just don't want to admit that someone might actually be better then you at this," Roxas laughed also staring at the TV.
Both boys held X Box controllers in there hands, leaning forward pressing the controller buttons rapidly. "No way, you are so cheating. Last time I played this game I owned every level, now I'm getting my backside handed to me." Neox complained looking like he was ready to throw the controller at his television screen.
"You play with your girlfriend too much. She grew up in a world where videogames are non existent. Anyone who plays against her would look like there good at videogames," Roxas said smirking when he gave another hard blow to Neox's character.
"Hey!" Neox yelled defensively. "Careful that's my girlfriend you're talking about."
Roxas was about to make another witty comeback, but the sudden distraction that entered the room took away all significant conversation and the game they were playing. A portal opened and someone jumped out of it and landed on the ground with a loud thud and the portal closed again. Both Neox and Roxas dropped their controllers without even pausing the game and looked down at the intruder. The carrot orange hair quickly gave away it being Calixa, though they were alarmed to see the condition she was in. Calixa was lying on her belly in the middle of Neox's floor, her breath coming out in harsh wheezy gasps "What's wrong with her?" Roxas asked voice full of concern
Without responding to his question, Neox jumped off his bed and dived to the floor next to her. His mouth dropped open at the sight of a large fish fin sticking out of the end of Calixa's long organization coat. Roxas joined him on the floor on Calixa's other side and together they rolled her over so that she was lying on her back. This revealed that Calixa now had a large fish tail instead of legs. "What the heck!?" Neox asked.
ORXANIZATIONDAYS
Roxas teleported back into Neox's room carrying a glass of water in his hand; Neox was still sitting on the groud next to Calixa who was now propped up against Neox's bed. Through her wheezing gasps she managed to choke out the word "water" indicating that was what she needed. She gratefully accepted the glass when it was offered to her, but after one deep gulp she gagged violently on the water spitting it up onto the floor and coughed. "S-S-al-t," she coughed, "It needs salt!"
"Hurry go get some salt from the kitchen before she suffocates!" Neox ordered, practically in hysterics out of fear that his best friend was going to die. He didn't know much about mermaids outside of being one in Atlantica, but all that he did know was that once upon a time he owned a fish that lived for 3 hours. It wasn't totally his fault, he didn't know anything about fish and assumed that it would want to go on a walk just like a dog. Maybe it would have lasted longer if he hadn't taken it out of the water… The point is that he learned the hard way that fish don't survive outside of water.
Roxas had quickly teleported out of the room again, and came back a few moments later with a container of salt. He poured some of it into the glass he had brought before and swirled the water with a pen before handed the cup to her again. Calixa downed the whole glass in less then thirty seconds and handed the glass back, "More," she said huskily, "and more salt next time."
With a sigh Roxas handed Neox the glass and teleported once again out of the room. Calixa's breaths were still coming out alarmingly raspy, but the glass of water did seem to help some. While he was waiting for Roxas, Neox took a moment to look more closely at Calixa's transformation. It wasn't just her bottom half that changed; looking closer at her hands, he could see that her fingers were now webbed together. What else was changed under that coat? He could have laughed at his thought that maybe sea shells were now fused over her bust area. Roxas teleported back in a moment later with a large pitcher of water and a large serving spoon, "Pour some salt in," he ordered.
Neox grabbed the salt container and started pouring a generous amount of salt into the pitcher while, Roxas swirled the water in circles with the spoon he brought. "All right that's good," Roxas announced, and Neox closed the salt container and set it aside. Roxas grabbed the glass cup and began pouring more salt water. Calixa however didn't seem to want to deal with a glass. She grabbed the whole pitcher of water from the older boys hand and began downing it with loud gulps. "Watch out," Neox spoke up as water started pouring out too fast and dribbling onto his floor.
She didn't pay him the slightest attention, so Neox just sighed, figuring he could mop it up later. She stopped drinking when she got through about 3 quarters of the pitcher, then set it down on the floor next to her breathing deeply but more smoothly. "Thanks," she said breathily.
"Ok Cali, what the heck happed?" Neox asked.
"Neox, she's a fish right now. Fish don't last long without water, we can interrogate her when we have her in a fish tank," Roxas cut in.
"A fish tank! Where are we going to find something big enough to fit her?"
"Guys would you stop talking like I'm not here!" Calixa glared at them annoyed.
Roxas ran a hand through his hair, sighing with distress. "Lets just put her in the bathtub, it's not a permanent fix but it will at least due for right now." Roxas ran into the bathroom with the salt, first making sure that the tub was plugged before turning on the water. He ripped the whole lid off the salt container and poured the entire container into the tub. Then he went back into his room, "Ok you grab her tail."
Neox hesitated, as he watched Roxas put both hands under each of Calixa's armpits. "Wait a minute, she has a tail. How am I supposed to know what's not appropriate to touch?"
"Neox!" both Calixa and Roxas yelled at the same time, sounding exasperated.
"Just don't think about it too much, and grab her tail!" Roxas rolled his eyes.
Neox wrapped his arms around her tail, and lifted it off the ground. Roxas at the same time picked up her torso, and they started moving toward the bathroom. They didn't get very far before her tail slipped out of Neox's arms and she fell to the ground with a loud thud. "Ouch! Neox!" Calixa glared at him.
"I'm sorry, but your kinda slippery," the boy picked up her tail again.
"Are you sure you got a good grip this time?" Roxas asked.
Neox have him a poisonous look, "Let's go."
They managed to bring her into the bathroom without dropping her again, and they dropped her into the still filling bathtub with a big splash that got water everywhere. With her thick organization coat still on, she filled up the tub to the point where she had barely any room to move. Roxas turned off the water when it was about an inch under the tub brim. Both boys gave a sigh of relief, "All right Cali," Roxas looked at the girl sitting in the tub, breathing deeply. "Are you good now? At least for a little bit?"
Calixa nodded gratefully. She pulled up the zipper of her organization jacket until it unclasped, revealing the black shirt she wore underneath. Roxas moved to help her wiggle out of the completely soaked and soggy jacket. She had a little bit more room in the tub with that thing off. "Ok, now explain what happened exactly?" Roxas asked placing the sopping jacket in the sink.
Looking down at her webbed hands, Calixa sighed. "I'm not totally sure…" she rubbed one of her hands over the smooth scales of her tail. With the coat now off, Neox and Roxas could now get a good look at her fish tail. It was quite beautiful actually. Not all one color, but smooth transitions from blue to turquoise to green. There also seemed to be the pattern of a necklace shown across the tail. "While I was on my mission, I was exploring this cabin. There was an armature lab inside, and I knocked over a few potions and then…"
ORGANIZATIONDAYS
A few hours earlier
When Calixa managed to gain her boundaries again, she realized that her legs felt really weird. She tried to move her right leg, but she found that she couldn't do it. Upon looking down at her legs, or more like where she legs should have been, she screamed. The standard organization black onyx plants weren't on her anymore, understandable because she now had a fish tail instead of legs. This was when she realized that the air somehow felt thin. She tried to take a deep breath, but it was like there wasn't enough oxygen the air. Calixa knew exactly what was wrong; it didn't take a genius to realize that she had turned into a mermaid.
Mermaids needed water; she was going to suffocate without water. She rolled over onto her stomach, to give herself the ability to move some. She planted both of her palms on the ground and grunted as she lifted her body up, using her muscles to drag her body forward a few inches. At this moment Calixa realized that her hands felt a little weird also, and on closer examination finding out that they were now webbed. "Ew! Gross!" she said grimacing.
The air kept getting thinner and thinner, inside Calixa's lungs. Her breaths were already started to come out as raspy gasps. The beach was too far away to drag herself all the way there, she wouldn't make it in time. Her only chance was to go through a portal and hope there was help on the other side. Unfortunately it was almost always a hit or miss with finding someone in the castle. It was so big with so few people living in it, even trying someone's own bedroom you only had about a fifty-fifty chance of them being in it. Neox wasn't on a mission today, though that didn't necessarily mean that he was in his room. Half the time he was in Calixa's room, even when she wasn't. He could have been in Roxas or Xion's room also.
She settled on trying Neox's room first. Hopefully being transformed like this didn't have any effects on her powers. Lifting up one hand she created a portal and started dragging her body towards it. A sudden noise made her halt, "Who are you! What do you doing here?" a rough voice asked sharply from behind her.
Apparently the person who owned this shack had come back. Calixa looked around at the guy who had just walked in. His voice was somewhat deceiving; by the gruffness she'd have thought he would have been a huge muscle. Someone who would do the dirty work in the mafia; he wasn't a scrawny guy either. About average height and weight, worked out enough by the looks of his body, in fact if it wasn't for his untidy wild hair, and the look of psycho in his eyes, she might have thought him cute. "What did you do!" he shrieked running over to the table that had all the potions. From Calixa's current angle, it didn't seem like many of the potions had survived the blast. She didn't know what this man was going to do once he found out what happened, but she didn't want to stick around to find out.
Moving as quickly as possible, while the man was distracted by the damage she caused, Calixa got close enough to the portal, and use all her strength to make a big lunge through the portal allowing it to close behind her.
ORGANIZATIONDAYS
"And I think you can probably figure out the rest of what happened," Calixa finished the story with a sigh.
Neox and Roxas just looked at each other at a loss for words. "Well I guess we should go get Vexen," Roxas said with a shrug. She was a mermaid; he had no idea how to change her back. From the sound of her story, it most have been the mix of those potions. Everyone knows that when it comes to potion problems, Vexen is the one to go to.
"What! And let him experiment on me; no way!" Calixa objected.
"Well what other option do we have Cali?" Neox asked somewhat agreeing with Roxas's mindset. "Do you want us to just leave you in the tub and hope it goes away?"
She glared at them, but sighed in defeat knowing that they were right. Roxas closed the lid of the toilet seat and sat down. "Neox you go get him, I'm tired of being the running man."
Normally Neox would have given him a witty comeback, or argued but at the moment the stress of the situation made him tired enough that he just obliged without word or complaint. He teleported right into Vexen's lab, not giving a damn about how he felt about it. Vexen's reaction to this was as expected, "What do you think you're doing here! You know you're not supposed to enter my lab." Vexen fixed him with an icy glare.
Zexion happened to be there too, and he also give the boy a "you better have a good excuse" look. "Something happened to Cali, we need your help now," Neox explained after shrinking back a little under their glares.
A look of concern crossed Zexion's face after hearing that. Despite all stress and frustration Neox and Calixa had put on him since they had joined the organization, the Cloaked Schemer had come to think of them as his own children, or at least younger siblings he needed to teach and protect. Vexen however didn't give a crap on either of them, and barely blinked at this news. "What happened to her? Is she hurt?" Zexion asked sounding emotionless but his eyes betrayed his true emotion.
"No- well… maybe kinda- I mean- just come with me," Neox stuttered grabbing Vexen's hand and pulling him through a portal with surprising strength for someone so young. Zexion followed behind them.
They all reappeared inside Neox's now cramped bathroom. Both older men looked somewhat confused at first, probably wondering why they were all standing in a bathroom packed like sardines. One look at Calixa, however, gave them all the answers they needed. "What happened?" Vexen asked while Zexion gave Neox a look that clearly said, "you better have a good explanation for this."
"Hey don't look at me! I'm not the reasons she's like that," Neox interjected defensively.
ORGANIZATIONDAYS
Calxia was now in Vexen's lab, sitting on his lab table with her back propped up against the wall, and a glass of salt water in her hand. Every minute of so, she took a gulp of the water. Explaining the story to him and Zexion, she was brought to the lab for a full examination and get an idea on how to fix this problem. Neox, Roxas, and Zexion were waiting outside on Vexen's orders. Part of a full body examination required all of her clothing to be gone. Mainly her shirt since her pants were already gone. It wasn't just her legs that had transformed into a tail, her fingers were webbed together, and she had gills on each side of her ribs. He was currently examining the scales of her tail. He rubbed one finger over the golden necklace pattern that was on her scales, "Do you know what this is?"
"I don't know," Calixa admitted taking a drink of her salt water. It looked like the bling she had picked up right before the explosion that caused this to happen to her. "It kinda looks like this necklace I found in the shack I was in. It was sitting with the other potions."
"Did you touch it at all?" Vexen asked.
"Yeah, I even tried it on. It was horribly heavy, and tacky. I don't know why anyone would ever wear such a thing."
"Where you wearing it when the explosion happened?"
Calixa was silent for a moment. She had forgotten that little detail, "Actually yeah…" she had been wearing it, and it only just dawned on her that when she got her bearings again after the explosion she was no longer wearing it.
"This is actually the necklace," Vexen explained taping the golden disc with a fingernail and it gave off a distinct sound that it was something solid not just her scales. "It's been fused to your tail somehow. I believe that it has something to do with your transformation."
Calixa downed the rest of the cup in her hand, and she handed it to Vexen indicating that she needed more. Vexen accepted the cup with an annoyed sigh and handed her one of the gowns he requires to be warn for anyone who's admitted into the medical center. "Put that on," he ordered then picked up the pitcher of salt water that was sitting on the desk and refilling it. Calixa assumed that he was going to bring the boys back in, and since the black shirt she was wearing was now soaked, it made more sense for to her put something dry on.
The gown was now covering the upper half of her body when Vexen handed her back the now filled cup of salt water. When the took the cup off his hands, Vexen opened the door to his lab, "Number 6 I'll be requiring her assistance now."
"Can I come back in also?" Neox's voice asked.
"If you must."
Both Neox and Zexion came back into the lab. "Do you know how to change her back?" Zexion asked him.
"I have an idea that may or may not work," Vexen took the cup out of Calixa's hands, she was already half way done with it. It was a little weird how much salt water she was consuming, and under normal circumstances this would have been alarming. "Lie on your back," he ordered Calixa then looked at Zexion. "I want you to hold her shoulders down.
Calixa gave a little squeak of fear, when Vexen pulled out a sharp looking surgical knife. "This isn't going to hurt is it?"
"Do not concern yourself," Vexen replied offhandedly. "Just let me know the moment you feel pain and I will stop."
"But what if you cause some horrible damage that cant be fixed!" Calixa was now freaking out at the aspect of her lying helpless on a lab table with Zexion holding her shoulders down, and Vexen holding a knife.
"Relax, I suspect its protected and I wont be able to do any damage. Just don't look and make a noise if you feel pain."
Calixa whimpered fearfully, and squeezed her eyes shut tightly. She was sure that at any moment excruciating would come from her tail. Why was Zexion allowing this to happen? He heard Vexen shifting his weight, and then a moment later the sounds of Vexen and Zexion yelling was heard followed by the sounds of crashes. Calixa peaked her eyes open to see what had happened. Zexion and Vexen were both crumpled against opposite walls of the lab, slowly getting to their feet. Neox still stood where he had been before with his mouth hanging open.
She opened her mouth to ask what had happened but Vexen beat her too it. "Number sixteen, I told you to tell us when it hurt not throw us back."
"What did I do?"
"Well you kinda electrocuted them, and they both flew back," Neox interjected as way of explanation.
The carrot haired girl gawked; she had no idea how much power she must hold now. She did that without even realizing it or trying for that matter. "I swear I didn't mean to do it," Calixa defended herself.
"It was mostly likely the amulate protecting itself," Zexion added helpfully then turned to Vexen. "So what now?"
"I will need some time to do research, and figure out how to change her back," Vexen explained.
"So I have to stay like this?" Calixa looked less then thrilled at the prospect of staying part fish for however long it takes for Vexen to figure out how to change her back. "For how long?"
"However long it takes, I will need to do research on the amulate that's fused to your tail."
"So what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Stay in the bathtub."
ORGANIZATIONDAYS
Calixa, now wearing the top part of her two piece swim suit, was dropped into the organization's swimming pool. After months of begging Xemnas finally put in a swimming pool for Demyx; he didn't look particularly happy at the current moment. He was standing by the edge of the pool, with Zexion and Neox. "Ok Demyx, do it," Zexion ordered.
"But… it wont be as much fun to play in," the satirist whined sounding very much like a four year old.
Zexion gave him a look that you would probably give to a four year old that was whining, "Its Xemnas's orders. He gave you this pool; he can take it away just as easily. And for Kingdom Hearts sake it's just temporary, you'll get your pool back soon enough. Now do it!"
Still pouting somewhat, Demyx started plucking strings on his sitar and the pool water started bubbling. After a moment he stopped, "Ok I did it."
Everyone looked at Calixa who knew what she was supposed to do next. She dunked her head into the water and took a very cautious breath. To her relief the water entered her lungs and passed through the gills on her sides, meaning that this was salt water. If it was flesh water, that would have been a very painful thing to do. She surfaced again, making a thumbs up to indicate that it was fine. Zexion nodded his approval, "Thank you number nine," he told Demyx then turned back to Calixa. "Vexen is working as fast as possible to change you back. Until then you can stay here."
With that he left without another word, and was followed by a still pouting Melodious Nocturne. Calixa didn't really look any happier then Demyx had, she looked up at Neox with a saddened look. The boy sat down by the edge of the pool, "Its not that bad," he reasoned trying to cheer her up. "I could go get my swimsuit on and come in the water and play with you?"
Sadly this is another one I can't remember where I was going with it. There might have been plans to have Calixa getting kidnapped by the man who owned the lab, and he planned to cut her tail off, but I'm not sure about that. I think it obviously would have ended with Calixa going back to normal. I vaguely recall this one being inspired by the Charmed Episode (Original series) where Phoebe was changed into a mermaid.