Heroes United

《 Chapter 13: Skeleton Key 》

By the river near the city, a tall blue tail rises out and was holding something as it places it on the rock where all the other stuffs are before diving back inside. In the river is Nuo in her dragon form as she swims through, collecting all sorts of treasures that were hidden beneath the water surface since she had a "habit" of collecting shiny things. She sees a pink dolphin again and swims towards it. It sees her and makes a happy sound. The two started playing as they swim until Nuo rises out of the water and flips her fur hair back. She climbs up to the rock and looks around, admiring the view of the water. Nuo wonders how her friends and family in Kumandra are doing. She wishes they were here to see that there are other world out there that exists. She then dives back down into the river, creating a big splash. She swims down and get met up with a little yellow fish. It looks at her and smiles, looking at her upside down before swimming away, making her smile. Nuo looks down to see a Florentine Diamond and picks it up, admiring it. She was amazed at how big this diamond is before putting it inside her bag.

Her pink dolphin friend swims over and brings a rainbow gemstone, much to her surprise. She looks at it and gives her friend a thumbs and holds her bag up as the pink dolphin puts it in. Nuo waves the pink dolphin goodbye who waves back and swims away to look for more shiny things. She swims over a hole but checked down and saw something sparkling on it. She smiles and swims down. She digs through the sand and finds a metal case that looks very old and rusty. Nuo squints at it with curiosity on what this is. Later, she swims up to the surface and breaks out of the water, transforming back into a human. She grabs her clothes that she left and puts it on. She looks down at all the stuff she collected and smiles. Suddenly, she hears a little noise and looks down to see it is coming from her new mobile phone.

Nuo unlocks her phone to see a text message from Mei, telling her to meet her at Pigsy's Noodles as they're bringing out a ceremony for Mk by the Mayor. She was surprised at this and texted her back that she'll be there. She grabs all of her stuff, including the metal case before taking off.

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As soon as she made it back to noodle shop, Nuo sees the Mayor standing in the pedestal with Mk besides him. Though when she gets a look at him, she couldn't help but feel suspicious with this man and the way he smiles at her friends is just... creepy. She stands next to Mei and watches ad he makes his speech.

"Thank you for this amazing turnout." he said.

"Woo-hoo! Let's hear it for Monkie Kid! Hero of the city!" Mei cheered for her best friend.

Nuo awkwardly claps for her friend, still feeling suspicious.

"As mayor, I hereby give Monkie Kid the key to our fair city."

Mayor pulls out a skeleton key and hands it to Mk, who takes it with awe until he looks at him questionably.

"Um, uh, what does this key do, exactly?" he asked.

"Oh, you'll love this. It has the power to open anything!" Mayor said, smiling creepily.

"Ooh, anything? Like a pet shop full of puppies?" Mei asked.

"Yes. Or the door to a lion's cage, or an orphan's piggy bank, an imprisoned mistic power source." Mayor said rather darkly.

Nuo immediately catches those words and glares at him, which he notices and gets back to his joyful smile.

"Whatever you like! Today, you can do no wrong. You've got my permission. 'Cause... I'M THE MAYOR!" he said and let out a crazy laughter.

Just as he was about to leave, he turned to Nuo and smiled.