So sorry that I've taken so long…again. Life seems to always get in the way. However I'm making an exception and forgoing any form of sleep or other possible free time devouring activity because a good friend of mine who enjoys this story is becoming another year older. I'm unsure of how he feels about privacy and what not so I'll leave it at that.

Hopefully this isn't too awful of a birthday gift.

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Chapter 36: A Tale of Parallels Part 4

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"So Cassandra…what did you say your last name was again?" Barty Bondade asked as he suspiciously eyed the young girl sitting next to his son. If his wife and son hadn't sprung this on him, he'd have had her vetted by now. Unfortunately, he'd been blind-sided by the arrival of the too pretty girl and had only just managed to send off a background check request when he'd asked to be excused for a short trip to the rest room.

"Membuka," she replied carefully as she ate around the salmon on her plate. It smelled odd for some reason and while normally she would have gulped down the sea food she ate around the filet. Her stomach grumbled, it was not enjoying the mashed potatoes and gravy like a normal human teenagers would. She was no herbivore.

"What an odd name, I don't think I've heard of it before," Mr. Bondade remarked, "Where did you say you met this young lady, Luke Vincent?"

"At school Dad, and it's just Vince or Vincent if you absolutely have to," Vince grumbled as he stabbed a piece of broccoli and stuck it in him mouth.

"Close your mouth to chew, Luke Vincent," his mother reprimanded lightly, "And you know how your father feels about your full name."

Vince simply rolled his eyes while he and his brother declaimed in unison, "Luke Vincent was a great man. He died to ensure I wouldn't end up a fish slave and I should be proud to have him as a grandfather."

"Damn straight," Mr. Bondade agreed, "And don't you roll your eyes when you say it."

"Yes, sir," Vince replied doing his best not to roll his eyes once again.

The phone rang in the hallway and the family was silent for a moment, looking around to see who would answer it.

"That's for me, I'm expecting a call from work," Mr. Bondade announced as he wiped his mouth with his napkin and placed it back on the table as he stood up to accept the call.

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She could feel her Kemala radiate magic as it rested against her chest. It hadn't been cleansed in nearly five months and was almost at maximum capacity.

"Kirana?" Adon's voice called as he entered the library where they had their daily lessons. She fumbled quickly with her Kemala to get it back under the breast line of her chiffon.

"Yes, Adon? Are you ready for today's lesson?" She smirked. They both knew that these lessons were hardly necessary. She had already mastered the language barrier and was better than him in the other languages he'd been told to tutor her in by his mother.

Kirana had been living in the palace with the royal family for nearly four months now and there had been no word on her family. The search had been given up and it was decided that the fish demons must have gotten them.

That assumption grated on both the teenagers nerves as both had gone to the king with the information of Atlantis and it had been summarily dismissed as little more than a young girls fairy tale.

"So would you like to start a new topic or continue with the one we were working on yesterday before we were interrupted?" Adon smiled mischievously as he sat down closer than would have been appropriate in polite company.

White teeth flashed in a smile as the blonde grinned at him, "Yesterday's topic," she chose before pulling him into a heated kiss.

At the end of her second month in this too dry palace, the princess had decided that it would be prudent to have a human firmly on her side and began seducing the young prince. She refused to admit it to herself, but after another two months passed and her powers were still that of a hatchling she thought that perhaps if she could never escape it wouldn't be so bad to stay and spend more time with Adon.

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Selamat Bertakung would have slammed the door to his home if the Atlantean style of architecture didn't prefer to leave the living room and kitchen of homes doorless and open to the public. He would admit that he was not the most hospitable of Mers, but he did not think it necessary to allow any of the lower class free access to his home whenever they pleased. It was a good thing most of them steered clear of him because of his higher station or he'd have gone mad from having to entertain the idiots all the time.

"Cassandra, darling, Where are you?" he called up the stairs, "How did school go today?"

When no one answered, the wrinkles of his brow creased together with concern, "Cassandra Membuka? Young lady, if you don't answer me right this second you are grounded! Do you hear me?"

Heading quickly up the stairs he went room to room looking for his 17 year old daughter who had explicitly been told to be home before dark. If she was off with some of those hooligans from the earth clan again he was going to pop a vessel. Why couldn't that girl make decent friendships with the other Celiks in her own neighborhood. They'd be necessary for when she was old enough to apply for a position within the Safety Councils organization.

Damn that girl, he thought to himself, all of the rooms had been empty. Opening the last door that admitted entrance to his office, he immediately went to the tracking map he'd had set up and looked for the position of the emergency beacon he made her keep on herself at all times.

The light blinked steadily…on the mainland.

His worst fears had been realized. His daughter had been kidnapped by humans.

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Fury coursed through his veins, as he hung up the phone and silently opened the top right hand drawer of his desk.

Inside he gingerly picked up the Glock 45 and slide the corresponding hollow point filled magazine into its rightful place. The bullets had been dipped in holy water blessed by the aborigines. They were designed to shred fish flesh and the holy water made the piece de resistance as it would knock out any mermaid freak it came in contact with even if the wound was only a graze.

The call he'd received had told him exactly what he'd suspected. There was no Cassandra Membuka attending Gold Coast High School, and there was no record of her living as a human resident in or around the area.

Pretty little foreigner with no human background. Dead give away if you ask him.

As he made to return to the dining room he clenched the gun in one hand and the charmed silver pendant the Bosses had sent all of those living on the front line.

None of his family or the girl paid him much attention as he made his way past his eldest son. They weren't expecting him to stop, nor were they expecting the sudden scream of pain as the fish bitches flesh was scalded by the metal of the pendant in him hand.

That was all the proof he needed. Human's didn't burn like that when touched by the pendants.

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Twenty soldiers were scrambled as the emergency beacon rang out over the barracks. A girl had been kidnapped by humans and was in immediate need of rescuing.

Within minutes Prince Lelakin and Princess Cahaya were leading the charge past the outer gate, along with the obviously distraught father of the girl.

How could this have happened? Atlantis was so well guarded, how could the humans have gotten in and then escaped with a child without being seen?

These questions raced through the contingents minds as they burst out of the water onto the beach already dry as the Princess steamed the water from their bodies instantly.

"The beacon says she's two miles inland. Once we've gotten within 200 meters of the signal origins I want you all to fan out and go door to door. She may be in any of the homes and we can't take chances that she's right where the beacon is. Now move out!" Prince Lelakin ordered as he and his wife lifted off into the skies and were quickly followed by the shorter leaps of the soldiers.

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"This just in! It appears that over twenty armored and armed members of Atlantis have come ashore for an unknown reason. The group is led by the well-known royal figures of Prince Lelakin and his wife Princess Cahaya. The reason for this incursion on our soil is unknown but seems to be centered on the suburban neighborhood of Meadow Heights.

We'll bring you updates live as soon as our field correspondent Mickael DunDean reaches the scene. This is Jennifer Sweezy at Channel 17 News."

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Vincent shouted angrily at his father, "What the fuck do you think you're doing get away from her!"

"What the fuck do you think you're doing!? She's a fucking fish! I thought I trained you better than this? How could you not have seen it?!" Barty Bondade screamed back furiously.

"I did see it! I just don't give a flying fuck about that radical bullshit you're always spewing! You think I didn't know she was a mermaid? Of course I fucking did? She saved my life when I got pulled under by a riptide, it was kind of hard to miss the tail. But you know what I don't give a fuck. I love her and that's all that fucking matters!"

With that he lunged at his father, forcing him and the burning pendant away from the sobbing Cassandra.

Punching with all of his might, he still wasn't as strong or as well trained as his father and was swiftly knocked back to the floor, where his girlfriend had fallen.

"You little bitch! What did you do to him! He was my son!" he growled as he lifted the gun so that the muzzle was pointing at the pair. Cassandra threw herself in front of Vincent as the gun rang out, hoping against hope she'd survive this.

But the pain never came.

Instead she heard several tearful male shouts from different places in the room and when she finally looked up all she saw was Mrs. Bondade, lying in a pool of blood, a bullet hold gushing blood from the center of her throat.

Vincent pushed his way to his mother as she gurgled for a moment, her bloody hand reaching up to touch his shaking, tear covered face.

It fell to her side before it ever reached his cheek.

"Get away from her! This is all your fault," Bartholomew Bondade shrieked.

He kicked his son away from his wife's body and instead dragged the blonde girl forward until she was at the edge of the spreading pool of blood.

"Fix her! You did this! Fix her!" he cried incoherently.

Cassandra stared horrified at the dead women. She was no healer and even if she was, the woman was too far gone to help.

"I-I can't, I don't know how!" she sobbed.

The half-crazed man tossed her forward by her hair until she landed atop the woman and was slashed by her still warm blood. Those ten seconds it took her to change felt like forever as the man standing over her lifted the gun and placed it against her forehead as the transformation occurred.

"If you don't fix her, then you're going to have a hole to match right here in your pretty fucking head!" he threatened.

"Please! I don't know how! I'm not even a healer!"

The muzzle of the gun left her temple giving her momentary relief. The next moment the crack of the bullet leaving the chamber was immediately followed by searing pain as a hole was torn through her tail. She screamed from the burning agony. That was more than a bullet wound.

"Fix her damnit! I'm – Fuck, I forgot about the holy water!"

Cassy had collapsed atop the body of Vincent's mother, the shredded hole in her tail slowly pumping blood to add to the steadily growing pool on the floor.

Not more than twenty seconds passed before the front door to the house was blown off its hinges and two royal figures appeared flanked by half a dozen uniformed soldiers.

"Drop the gun and step away from the girl!" Princess Cahaya ordered as she called fire to her palm.

"Get the fuck out of my house you freak!" the man bellowed as he turned the gun back on the unconscious mermaid on the floor.

A slightly plain man with dirty blonde hair shot pass the uniformed guards and launched himself at the man pointing a gun at his daughter.

As the pair hit the floor the gunfire rang again.

Neither man got back up.

One smoking gun dropped from Bartholomew Bondade's lifeless hand as its victim, Selamat Bertakung collapsed to the side dead.

Whimpered cries brought all still conscious eyes to the young boy holding another smoking gun. The one that had killed the boy's father.

It took a moment for what had happened to sink in before the scene erupted into chaos as two of the healers set upon treating the unconscious Mer and checking the other three lifeless victims for signs of life.

Three bodies were removed from the house that night, two went to the county morgue while one returned to Atlantis.

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The next morning

"Hello Ivan."

"Princess Ndari, what a pleasure to see you again," the enormous Russian greeted, "To what do I owe this visit?"

"We lost one of our own today and nearly lost another. We need you, Ivan," Emma explained as she motioned for the guard to open the magically enforced cell door, "The investigation had been terminated and you've been fully reinstated. Welcome back Commander."

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Please Review with what you think

Sorry it's so dark but like I've said before, War isn't frills and rainbows.

Happy Birthday M