My muscles tensed up as we approached the water, although the shuttle was slowing down very smoothly. It gently splashed into the surface. The low gravity still sent massive waves rolling away from the ship.

We all got to our feet, and Isla reclaimed the stone. The boys grabbed their chainsaws and dove into the water ahead of us. Isla and I followed. A shimmer of heat gave me my tail back. I twirled around, simply relishing the feeling of water flowing over my scales.

"Why isn't the ship leaving?" Corvus asked.

"It takes a few minutes to reverse whatever magnets it's using," Isla replied. "Thankfully, Sealantis is so much smaller than Mars, so we don't need a launcher to give it enough thrust to get free of the gravitational field."

I decided to take her word for it.

We waited where we were, and it wasn't long before it started to lift away from the water. It gained speed as it returned home.

I eyed up the glowing stone in Isla's arms. "Let's get that thing back where it belongs." Especially before it decided to glitch again.

We began swimming as fast as we could to the pedestal. Beryl was lounging on the sandy seafloor but quickly headed toward us when she spotted us.

"You made it back!"

"Yep!" I told her, watching Isla put the stone back in its place.

She paused before asking me, "Why does Arai have a slinky in his hair?"

He tugged at it, but it was still firmly tangled.

I shook my head. "It's a long story. You're good at styling hair. Do you think you can get it out?"

Her ability to make her hair stay in any style she chose was almost magical. Although, I wasn't sure if she had ever encountered a knot before. It wasn't something we usually had to worry about. Although, judging by how a few strands of hair were already floating free, the salt water might be undoing the unintentional magical knot now that the stone was back in the water.

"I can try," she replied doubtfully. She swam over and began trying to untangle the metal from Arai's hair.

"Did anyone come looking for us?" I asked her.

"A couple of people, but I distracted them so well that they immediately left!"

"Good job! How did you do it?" The best way to praise her would be to ask for the fine details and compliment her choices. If she happened to get excited and tugged on Arai's hair a few times, it didn't really bother me.

"Oh, it was simple! I told them that you were practising your singing over here!"

I closed my eyes and counted to five. "Oh."

"It worked really well! They all decided to go somewhere else!"

"I bet..."

She frowned at the slinky. "This is worse than one of those IQ puzzle toys. Can I use his chainsaw to cut it?"

"Uh, that may not be a good idea." The chainsaw was possibly heavier than she was – I doubted she could even swim with it. "I think we'll go return these weapons and use one of the coral trimmers to cut through the coils."

"The fewer questions, the better," Arai muttered. "If any adult sees us with these chainsaws, they'll immediately make us cut down more kelp."

Considering the slinky was still in his hair, the adults would probably assume we were playing some sort of game. Then probably put us to work, slinky or no slinky.

Beryl came with us, and we managed to get to the tool sheds without being spotted.

I looked around the shed and rolled my eyes. Corvus had been right – he had found the biggest chainsaw.

I pulled the axe out and gazed at it ruefully before putting it away. It was terrible to think that I had used my hairpin more than I had used the axe.

Beryl found a coral trimmer and began cutting Arai's slinky into tiny pieces. Isla grabbed another cutter and joined her. Even with both of them working, it took them several minutes to get it out of Arai's hair.

I began to wonder if the Unobtanium stone had intentionally managed to magic it into his hair. Had it been a coincidence? A joke? Or had it somehow known we would encounter that man?

Could a magical rock be aware or have a sense of humor? Even if it had just been a fluke, that fact that the stone had glitched and done something on its own was even more worrisome than a merman with a slinky in his hair.

Isla and Beryl drifted away from Arai, whose hair was now floating freely without its coiled chains. With the slinky now subdued, we swam over to the storage area to return our borrowed leather clothing.

Beryl bobbed around in the water of the air chamber's entrance while we put everything back in its place. With the evidence of our trip gone, we swam through the kelp forest.

"Why don't we go to my place and find some snacks?" I said, looking at everyone.

Corvus nodded. "That sounds good." Isla and Arai also nodded.

As we reached the edge of the kelp forest, we saw the King and two of his advisors swimming toward the Unobtanium stone.

We hesitated and slowed down.

"Let's sneak through the kelp and follow them," Arai suggested.

For once, I agreed with his plan. All of us ducked back into the kelp and followed behind the three mermen.

"Not sure where the rumors came from," the King said, "but now that I think about it, placing the Unobtanium stone here isn't that safe. Let's put it in the Council Chambers. It can't get much safer than it can in there."

"Good idea," one of the advisors said, picking up the stone.

My friends just stared at one another as the three mermen swam away. After everything we went through, now they decided to put it in a safer place?

Of course, any adult would hear that the King had moved the stone and would assume that our group had mistakenly thought it had been stolen. This was just a teenager's typical sort of luck.

Corvus swam forward and took my hand in his. Beryl's eyes became as big as an inflated pufferfish as she stared at us. She quickly glanced towards Isla, who was wearing a smug expression.

Isla quietly told her, "Corvus is my brother. Although I suspect he will likely become your sister's boyfriend now."

"He should put a crown on," Beryl said, "because Lucy always daydreamed about a prince coming for her."

Corvus started laughing and even Isla was snickering. I tilted my head in confusion, wondering what I was missing.

Corvus grinned at me. "Did you know that my middle name is actually Prince?"

My eyes went wide as I joined in the laughter. "No – but this means I get to marry a prince after all!" I grinned at him, and his grin got wider.

And choosing him was even better since it lacked the responsibilities that the royal family had.

Beryl frowned slightly, then asked Isla, "Does this mean they are going to kiss?"

"At some point, very likely."

She rolled her eyes. "And, of course, they lived happily ever after."

Isla smiled. "Indeed. The End."

If you actually read this entire "spoof", my deepest apologies for the ordeal you just underwent.

If you prefer a real story, I have several of those!