Water and Earth (The Four Elements: Book 2) (ON HOLD)

Chapter Eighteen: Realization

This time, when I came out of the passage, I didn't tumble over anybody. To be honest, I actually almost fell on top of Brandon who was only four feet away from the portal exit.

"What the heck, Brad?" I exclaimed as I stopped myself just in a nick of time.

"Wonder what took you so long, little sis," he teased.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. "It was only just a few seconds, I had to promise Kai something."

"What did you tell him?" Chelsea asked in curiosity.

"I'm keeping it a secret from all of you for now," I stated. "Anyway, we need to find those time turners before Amaya gets here and takes all of them, preventing us from completing the quest and rescuing Elias. And Brandon, do you have a habit of standing in front of doors so people won't get through?"

"Maybe, and doesn't it sound familiar?" he quizzed, which I replied with a shake of my head. "I used to always block your way when you wanted to go outside and play and let's not forget the few times when you had to use the bathroom so badly."

"You're mean," I snarled. "Can we just get back to what we doing?"

Brandon nodded without argument. From our location, we saw that the merfolk town we have been trying to get to for the past few hours was only about a hundred feet away. I can see the skyscrapers and towers that are made of very durable seashells and giant bunches of kelp surrounding the vicinity. The tallest structure among all was the palace. Though it may not seem fancy on the outside, once you get closer, you can see that it was made of the highest quality of seashells and is accented by tiny pieces of moonstone, pearl, and emerald.

"That's the palace up there?" Carter asked, pointing to the structure I just mentally described.

"Yes, it is," I replied. "This is where the merfolk royals live. I don't know much about it but I heard the queen seems to be a hot-head when it comes to foreigners."

Brandon chimed in again. "That's true; when Queen Nyssa was chosen, she completely changed at least half of the laws that the merfolk lived upon. For example, Queen Meredith, the ruler before Nyssa, she welcomed every merfolk and foreigner with open arms. She also offered a variety of job choices that fit each of the merfolk's potential and only planned curfews during the weekdays. She even gave each of them the freedom to choose their spouse."

"That's incredible, but what's with Nyssa these days?" Chelsea questioned.

"She just simply revoked the laws of freedom Meredith laid out. And about 500 years before they ruled, a nymph prophecised that a long time from when she made the prophecy, a new ruler would rise up and win the hearts of the merfolk, but will soon regret giving their blessings to him or her when he or she modifies the law to discourage freedom among the town." He sighed. "And this is the time it came true."

"It's similar to what Kai warned us about, but is there something positive behind it?" I asked. A prophecy, from what I know, is nothing without the conditions of reversing the effect of what Queen Nyssa would do.

"I don't know if I'm right but, the Kraken may be right; the merfolk realm is probably what we need the time turners for and in turn, save it from those insane laws!" Brandon exclaimed.

"Brad, you're a genius," Carter raised a hand to high-five him and they both did.

"Alright, now can we go ahead and--" Chelsea was cut off.

"Hold that thought Chels, we can't just go into the town without going through the security check. The security check just involves DNA testing but it's going to be hard on our end because we come from a different realm." Brandon sighed.

"That's true," I nodded sadly. "If only we had some kind of thing to disguise our DNA with..."

* * *

Kai's POV

After I closed the portal, I decided to unwind and relax with a cup of fire coral tea. It seems ironic because our species try our best to avoid them; but when you brew this type of coral the right way, it makes a great counterpart of herbal tea that Elias and his friends have. Well actually, he's the only person that I know of that drinks herbal tea and Kayla never mentioned it. I guess she doesn't know about his tea-drinking habits yet.

As I was about to start crushing the coral, I sensed a magical force coming from my head. Before I looked into my mind, I covered the coral with a see-through bowl and focused on whatever's calling me.

"Hello?" I mentally called out.

I heard chatter in the background and then died down. It still seemed that none of my friends heard me. I decided to do another method.

"There's fire coral by your tails!" I exclaimed as loud as I could.

"WHAT?!" The platinum-blonde girl, whom I recalled as Chelsea, screamed. She frantically looked around before pointing at my reflection, attracting the others' attention.

"You guys just noticed me now?" I questioned.

Kayla turned to me. "Really sorry about that, Kai! We were just deep in thought and... erm, we need your help in something."

"Sure," I then started listening to their request.

Carter chimed in. "According to Brandon, there's some type of security check at the merfolk town involving the examination of DNA and the rules that Nyssa enforced prohibits foreigners from entering. Is there a way to manipulate our DNAs so we can enter the town?"

"Good question, let me think about it for a second."

I looked around my kitchen to see if I could get ideas. The stuff in my fridge can do some forensic exercises but not strong enough to manipulate strings of DNA. My cupboard also has potential ingredients but none of them are also strong enough to do the job. Then...

"I got something!" I exclaimed.

"Spill it, Kai," Chelsea said.

"Remember my advice to avoid fire coral?" I received nods from everyone. "Most of the time, you have to but right now, you don't have to. I'm brewing fire coral tea right now and..."

Kayla raised an eyebrow. "...And?"

"Fire coral can be used for many things besides tea; making ointments and vaccines, brewing tea (obviously), and transforming it into a forensic agent powerful enough to manipulate y'all's DNA."

"That is fascinating, but how are we going to pick fire coral from the ground without burning ourselves?" Brandon asked.

"We can't have both Carter and Chelsea pick 'em for you because once you make the agent, it will only sense the DNA of the both of them," I explained. "And it would be useless for Kayla and Brandon since the coral would have never touched them."

"Okay, so are we just going to take our time picking them?" Kayla questioned.

I shrugged. "If you want to do it at a faster pace-- wait, I know a trick. Just follow my words carefully."