Taken By The Shark

Without another word, Mark turned golden, and suddenly appeared in front of the last remaining shark, surprised to see that it wasn’t Bully. In a loud, booming voice he shouted, “Boo!” and the shark swam off faster than the speed of light.

All right, everyone, we should be safe for now, he typed into the communicator. Let’s all get inside before those guys decide to come back.

Nobody stood around trying to figure things out. They all headed for the relative safety of the station as fast as they could, steering clear of the golden duo as they went. Once they were inside, all they could do was stare as Mark and Chelsea took off their suits, looking the same as every other person in a wet suit had ever done before them.

“What are you?” Nancy wanted to know.

“Well, I was born as a member of the race of beings the Greeks and Romans once called gods,” Mark explained. “I’m well over three thousand years old by your reckoning, and—I’ve finally found a worthy bride.”

At this last, he looked over to Chelsea with a smile.

“And you can give that power to humans?” Erik clarified, his eyes covetous.

“To my mate only,” said Mark, even though technically that wasn’t true. He didn’t need all of them trying to get transformed. “A gift I must be granted the right to give by the King of the Sea. So please, do not ask to be transformed as well.”

“But there must be others with this gift, right?” Erik persisted. “Some female who would be willing to give it to me?”

“The gift is meant to be used only for the good of all,” Mark told him sternly. “I do not think it would be wisely used in hands such as yours. Your intentions are often far too self-serving for your own good.”

“Yes, they are,” said Jill speculatively from somewhere behind them. “My kind of guy.”

Mark and Chelsea gasped, but held their tongues. If that was the direction Sirenia’s mind was going, the last thing they wanted to do was encourage her by protesting. However, most of the others seemed to have gotten past their initial shock and were now asking them so many questions they couldn’t follow when Erik figured it out.

Seeing the look on Jill’s face, and the shocked look on theirs, Erik had little trouble discerning the nature of their distress. He caught up with Jill a little ways down the hall. They heard the pair stumble and hit the wall, and flashes of gold light lit up the corridor, followed by footsteps running down the hall.

“Well, so much for going after him, I guess,” Angel commented with a smirk.

“Yeah, no doubt,” Dante agreed. “But, not to worry, sweet thang, there’s a perfectly willing brother here to help you out.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be rich,” she smirked. “Heaven and hell together at last. So, shall I find your serpent in the greenhouse of Eden?”

“Yeah, and then you can tell me to get naked, too,” he chuckled. The two of them walked off together then, giving the others no more thought as they went.

“Well, that was sure weird,” said Melissa as she watched them go.

“Since we’re all pairing up now, you guys may as well know Nancy and I have been together for about two weeks now,” Tom added, holding out a hand to her. Smiling, Nancy stepped into the man’s embrace.

“It’s only temporary though, since we all know he’s heading back to space,” she added with a sigh.

“Who knows,” he said. “Maybe I’ll be able to convince you to come along for the ride. It’s not a whole lot different from being down here, when all is said and done.”

“Maybe,” she agreed with a shrug. “I mean, if my best friend can suddenly get turned into some sort of a god, who knows what the future can hold?”

Those two wandered off as well, and then the rest of the crew left, too, leaving Chelsea and Mark standing there gaping. It didn’t look like any of them had really cared at all.

“Now that was totally weird,” Chelsea commented.

“It was,” Mark agreed. “It really, really was.”

“Aren’t we going to ask Sirenia to help with the sharks?” Chelsea wanted to know.

“She’s out there right now,” he said, waving a hand to create a viewing portal. “She must only be paying half her attentions to Erik right now.”

“No, look,” Chelsea said, pointing out another shark at her side. “Do you suppose she used her own powers to transform him?”

“Yes, she must have done,” Mark agreed. “Erik certainly couldn’t know how to do it himself just after transformation.”

“Unless—”

“Unless—” Mark repeated, and together they said, “She gave him the gift already.”

“But I didn’t sense it,” Mark added. “When could it possibly have been done?”

“It could have been over the break,” Chelsea pointed out. “He didn’t seem like he was still jealous during the trip down, did he?”

“No, but I thought it was your ring that put him off,” said Mark. “Maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe it was because he already had a girl of his own.”

“Why wouldn’t Sirenia have said anything?”

“You know how she is,” he scoffed. “She loves the shock value, after all. But she must have cast the undetectable spell for him, he couldn’t have learned that so soon.”

“This is absolutely incredible,” Chelsea told him. “I really can’t believe this.”

“Well, everything seems to be under control around here, doesn’t it?” Mark said then.

“It does,” she agreed.

“Prince Caerulus and Princess Chelsea haven’t gotten to enjoy their feast very much so far,” he pointed out. “Maybe we should rejoin them and help them enjoy the dancing.”

With a snap of their fingers, the two rejoined their other selves just in time to swim out with the other merfolk to the center of the city. There, glowing fishes of every kind had gathered together to offer the gifted their light. After all, it wasn’t every day that the prince and his lovely bride finally came home.

The end.