Untold Truth

#4 The Accident (Part 2)

“Her body temperature is increasing rapidly - Go get some ice.”, Zac instructed Tyler and Alison. Because he was the only one in the room that knows more about merpeople than any of them, they had no choice but to listen. “It’s alright Skylar. You’ll be just fine.”, he attempted to lessen her worries.

Skylar was feeling a little fainted as he spoke to her. The pain was killing her from the inside. The tranquilizer that Tyler had injected her with was slowly fading off that made her feel more pain that she couldn’t tolerate. It was like life itself was sucked out of her body that she couldn’t help but cry. 

Zac used his powers to try to take away some of the pain that Skylar was suffering. But the moment he held her hand, he felt the presence of an uninvited guest in the mansion, so he released her hand with a gasp. He dashed out of Skylar’s bathroom to find a young man in his twenties with dark brown hair, wearing a suit,  sitting in the living room with Carson, Cody, Elyssa, Alec, Tyler and Alison. “What is he doing here?”

“Oh how great it is for you to join us, Zachery.” Damon said while pointing to the armchair that was empty. 

“What the hell did you do this time Damon?”

“I didn’t do anything, Zachery, or do you go by Zac now? I'm just here for a chat.”

Zac looked at the rest of them and realized that he had placed a possession spell on all of them so that they’ll cooperate. “So why did you decide to show up now - after leaving your mom in Hell? Must be serious for you to show up at the Frost’s Mansion.”

“On the contrary, I’ve come to collect my end of the bargain. When Skylar and Carson came to me the other day, I granted their request to keep Cody and Tyler busy in exchange for a favour. So I am just here to ask for that one favour.”

“Spit it out, Damon. You know how I feel about having to wait on your little requests which take you forever to explain.”

“Oh come on, Zac, it’s not like we don’t have the time. We are what our parents turn us into anyways. You for one also became your father though he had been keeping a secret - All that deceit and lies - from you for all that time while you were just a hatchling. But yet you also still follow in his footsteps - becoming the highest ranking of the guards of Coaratis. You still took over your father’s legacy despite knowing about his lies.”

“Enough!”, Zac exclaimed. “State what your price or I’ll kick you out on my own.”

“Zachery, oh, Zachery. Always letting your pride and ego take over your life. Guess it just runs in the family, doesn’t it?” Damon’s eyes continued to peer over to Cody and Tyler, who were seated side by side. “Alright since you are so eager to know. You might know that my mother had taken most of my birthright including some of my powers since I had left Hell behind-”

“Skip to the point.” Zac intervened. 

“I need a pureblooded mermaid to help me gather some rare stuff in the deepest part of the ocean. When I said pureblooded I really really mean it.” 

“Are you intending on using my sister again? She isn’t in the right mind or the right condition to swim to the Mariana Trench at the moment. She’s only been a mermaid for a month and you and I know that she doesn’t have the strength to swim that far and I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything were to happen to her.”

“I have the cure to ease her pain and to enable her to become human without any issues. Though she might still hold some power over the sea, it would help her slowly regain her strength. - You know that the only way for her to really be herself right now is by sending her to the ocean. - So let me talk to her to convince her to retrieve what is required and I, in exchange, would give her the antidote.”

“How do I know if you are lying?”

“Do you think I would dare to lie to you?” his face turned serious for once just to convince Zac that he wasn’t joking. 

“Let my friends go and I’ll bring you to her.” He said pointing to the rest of them who were frozen in place. 

“Very well. You have a deal.” Damon continued to wave his hands to remove the possession spell placed on them and followed Zac to the room where Skylar was placed. Zac knocked on the door to not intrude on Skylar’s privacy. But the moment there was no reply, he immediately barged in and saw Skylar, who was trying to bear the pain and the heat that she had to endure. 

Damon stepped in and poured an algae green solution into the bathtub. Over time her body temperature regulated itself and she felt absolutely no pain whatsoever. She slowly got the strength to talk. She thanked Damon and looked over to Zac. “What was that?”

However, Zac couldn’t answer because Damon was the mastermind behind the potion that had absorbed into her tail. Zac noticed that Skylar’s tail was still there so he protested. “I thought you said that the elixir would work to turn Skylar back to normal? So why is she still a mermaid?”

“Of course it didn’t work. This elixir is only supposed to ease the pain but the moment she sets foot in the ocean again - When she tries to get out, the same torture would come back to torment her life until I give her the actual antidote that would slowly bring her back to being herself. - But for now, she only has one shot of transforming human. One false move the agony and tail comes back to haunt her.”

Skylar tries to get up but her arms were already weakened by the pain of the blast and the transformation. Before she fell back into the tub, Zac caught her and helped her to get out to transform. “It’s alright, I got you.” Once she was out on her feet, he went to get a towel to help her dry up. At that moment he realized that Damon was already gone. 

“Impressive.”, came a familiar voice from the door. It was Tyler. Zac was shocked to see Tyler had seen all that. Tyler continued to walk towards the tub. “How did he manage to gather all that and still know that exact composition of the ingredients required potion to bring Skylar back to her human form? I’ve underestimated Damon. - Zac, you don’t mind if I take a little bit of the bath water to bring to run a test on, do you?”

“Wait, what - You have a laboratory?” Zac was just about to bring Skylar to her room. “Do what you have to. I still need to deal with Damon’s end of the bargain after Skylar and Carson had made a deal with him a few days ago.”

“What did he tell you exactly?” Tyler was collecting some of the sample from the bath water using a pipette. After collecting just about enough, he continued to put it in an already sterilized test tube. “You know - It’s actually hard to be cursed with knowledge.” That was when he realized that he was talking to himself so he left with the many components of the water and also the residue of the potion that Damon had poured into the bath water. 

“Did you try to confront him?” Alison jumped on him. 

“No but Skylar is alright. She should be resting in her room right now. Here is what I found out. - Elyssa’s brother definitely had something to do with whatever has happened to Skylar. Though it was prophesied by Angelica, he knew something about it. He had the temporary cure but we need to go to my lab to get this water tested to find out what he put in the elixir.”, said Tyler while giving the test tube to Alison.

“Where are you going?” Alison saw how he was rushing, like there was something that he was trying to hide something. 

“I have to get Cody updated on all this. Because Sapphire has been found unconscious without any form of struggle, we still need to find the culprit for all this. Especially with a thief, already brought to justice who apparently got bailed out, but is now on the loose in the human world we are currently in a bigger threat than we can imagine. - I’ll see you at the lab afterwards.” Tyler kissed her on her forehead before continuing to walk towards the living room where the rest were. 

“Skylar, I don’t know how to put this but you still owe Damon a favor for the favor he had granted you. However, it requires you swimming to the Mariana Trench all by yourself and I know that it is scary for you-”

Before he could continue to babble on, Skylar shushed him and said, “It’s alright. I knew the risks of asking Damon for a favor and I knew that I would have to take this road on my own. I know that I may be young but the truth is that this isn’t the first time I’ve been to the Mariana Trench. Though most of the prisoners of Atlantis who are exiled take refuge in the trench, I can handle myself. I am not a little girl anymore. You have to trust me. There are things that I have done that you would have never expected me to accomplish.”

“I do trust you.” he said while reaching for her shoulders. “But are you sure you’ll be alright on your own?”

“Why? Do you  wanna come along?” She looked into his lake blue eyes. It appeared to look like two deep pools that if she dived too far in she would end up drowning and not being able to get out. She was somehow possessed when she was looking into his eyes so she tried to snap out of it. 

“Damon didn’t say that you can’t have any form of help on the way there. Plus this would be a great bonding time for the two of us - I mean to get to know each other better.”

“Wait, you are taking her back to the ocean?” Alison stood by the door looking at them. “I thought we were all in agreement that she remains in the human world while she is recovering.”

“She isn’t recovering yet.” Zac protested. “She needs to go to the Mariana Trench to retrieve a rare item for Damon in exchange for the elixir to ensure that she transforms without any harm brought to her.”

“How is bringing her to the Mariana Trench going to solve anything? How sure are we that we can trust Damon? He was the one who got all of us possessed just so that he could get us to cooperate. Or was it just so that he could get you to talk?-” That was when she realized. “Unless you are working with him. - Now it all makes sense. All this brotherly act, it was for nothing. You have been working as a double agent all along, haven’t you?”

“Wait, what Alison?”, said Skylar in a questionable tone. “You sound crazy.”

“Think about it, Skylar. This guy shows up out of nowhere claiming to be your brother just after what his mother said and you believe him? Do you really think that the world is that straightforward? It took me years to find my brother and yet, I found him with his identity changed completely and his actual identity totally wiped clean of the face of the human world.”

“Alison, look, I know you don’t trust me but you have to calm down. Though I know that you are obviously really protective over Skylar but you have to remember that it wasn’t my choice to send her right into this wave of Hell. It had been destined since the moment she was born. I also had no idea of any of this until Cody filled me in on all this. I also never knew who Skylar really was until Cody told me about it a month ago. I am serious that I would never let Skylar down in the dust just as Cody has. I just want to get to know her.”

Alison’s werewolf senses began to tingle as he said that. There was one part of her that wanted to believe him but the other side told her that there is no one in the world that she could trust. She still backed down to not scare Skylar too much. She had already been through enough trauma for a day. “I’ll let her go to the Mariana Trench if I could go along too. There is no way I’m letting her out of my sight anymore.”

“Fine. I’ll gather the rest for a family trip to the Mariana Trench. Knowing Cody and Tyler, and their betrayal to Skylar for the past month, they might want to come along too.” He continued to walk out the door to go and discuss this rescue mission with Cody and Tyler. 

“How is it that it is so easy for you to trust people?” Alison looked at Skylar. “Before you even knew that you were related, your life was less complicated.”

“That’s the thing. We can’t know if we can trust someone until they have shown that they could be trusted and though Zac had had me kidnapped, but soon after Cody had told him that we were related, he turned over a new leaf - sworn to protect me.”

“Skylar, oh Skylar.” Alison started. “What about Cody, he has been linked to your family through your parents' marriage and yet he takes advantage of the fact that you’re his half-sister. Though he had said that it was to protect you, I have a feeling that there’s an exterior factor.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that but there are times that you just have to see the bigger picture. You may see them as somewhat of a burden but these guys, despite having feelings for me, still, they protected me from a lot of things including demon attacks. - Elyssa told me that this ring was what had protected me from all those demon attacks, Cody knew of that plot against me and my family’s lineage so to protect me, he gave it to me in the silliest way ever. Though we don’t really trust them, we don’t really have much of a choice at times because we don’t really know that much about the demon world.”

“Correction. You don’t really know that much about the demon world. You just waltz in thinking that you can really control what you are but the truth is that you can’t. You think that the world revolves around you just because you have been blessed by the angels - handpicked by the Gods and delivered to the doorstep of your parents’ home - but the truth is that you have to wake up to see that the world isn’t all rainbows and sunshines.” 

Skylar realized that there had been a change in her tone but just kept quiet about it because she didn’t want to bring up any conflict with her. Just then, Zac came knocking on the door, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you needn’t worry about Skylar’s situation because Cody and Carson had decided to tag along - But the bad news is that you can’t come along because this might involve demon business and by bringing you it may just slow us down. In addition, Tyler needs you here to extract whatever Damon had put into the test tube of bath water which is currently in your possession.”

Alison took a deep breath, “Very well, I guess I’ll just get to work immediately. Need to get things running in the lab so that it would make the other’s lives easier once they begin running tests.” She continued to march to Tyler’s room.

“That was easier than I imagined. - So when shall we begin?”, said Zac.

“Immediately. - We don’t have much time to waste, especially when we have till the next time I turn into a mermaid again, which would be forever. So what do we need to retrieve for Damon?”

“I’ll fill you in on that afterwards. We’ll need to get a portal potion to the Mariana Trench from Elyssa then. Remember, you don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to. There are risks and if something were to happen to you, I would never forgive myself for it.”

Skylar took his hand to try to stop him from talking, “I’ll be fine, Zac. If we don’t retrieve the required items, I’ll just stay with you in Coaratis. There are times that I have to make hard choices.”

“That’s out of the question, Skylar.”, came a voice from the door. It was Cody. “Sorry for ruining the moment but I think this is what we need to portal our way to the Mariana Trench. Are we ready to get this show on the road? Or do I have to give the two of you more time to think this through?”

“No, we are ready to go.” Skylar's reply was short. Though she knew that demons had their ways of tricking humanity into doing their bidding, and she knew that there was a slight chance that she wouldn’t make it back with them, she knew that she didn’t really have much of a choice especially when her family was somehow already relatively related to Cody’s. Now having yet another threat from the demon realm was not good news.