Frejean, after receiving a single nod gesture from Yrevia, pressed and swiped something on the tablet that she was holding. On Asceia’s left side, a big monitor lit up, catching everyone’s attention. It displayed a surveillance camera footage of Troy locked in a cylindrical glass tank. Asceia, instinctively swam closer to the wall to confirm if what she was seeing was true. A foreign feeling swallowed her whole system, fear of seeing him trapped and unconscious. She smashed the glass wall with her balled fist in anger, but it didn’t cause anything. She kept on pounding the tank, trying to break free, but it was too strong.
“Surrender your powers or he will face the consequences,” Yrevia said,
She ignored her and telepathically asked Frejean, “what do you get from this?”
She smiled. “Medical and technological advancement. Actually, your Crown of the Order here is very generous, she has been providing us with sercean samples. Because of your kind, we are one step closer to curing diseases, improving human life, and…evolution.”
“Yrevia is planning to flood this planet, Frejean! She wanted to own this world!”
And she was baffled to see that it didn’t bother her. Right that moment, she realized this person she was talking to was very far different from the woman she met a week ago.
“Like I said...evolution. One day, no human will ever live on land. All of us will be capable of breathing underwater… one big step to human evolution. Do you want a demonstration?” She pressed something on her tablet again.
Asceia quickly turned her gaze to her left, to the footage of the monitor that started moving, and was horrified to see how the water flowed in Troy’s tank. The cold woke him up and he started panicking when the water just rose quickly. It instantly reached his knees. Judging from the rate of increase it won’t be long before the water fills up the tank full. Watching how Troy struggled in there, how he kept banging the glass and calling for help, breaks her heart.
The water kept rising and the next thing she felt was his fear and heard his voice calling her name. She closed her eyes and the familiar connection that tethered them resurfaced, she held on to that connection, and opening her eyes, she found herself standing in front of Troy.
“Asceia! Please, help me!”
“Troy, I need you to stay calm. I will get you out of this.”
“I don’t want to die, Asceia!”
Right that moment, seeing and feeling Troy’s fear, she felt her world turned upside down. The water level finally reached the roof of the tank. Troy struggled, gasping for air that wasn’t there anymore. He kept knocking on the glass, coughing, and asking for help until he ran out of energy and air. His eyes widened and with one last cough, he sank to the bottom of the tank, lifeless. Her heart skipped a beat and everything just went blank. Their telepathic connection was severed and she found herself back in the glass tank again.
“Watch him, Asceia,” Frejean said.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Just watch him!”
She looked to her left and the surveillance camera focused and zoomed closer to the dead body of Troy. Asceia looked at his eyes that were still open and noticed something strange. He blinked. He suddenly gasped for air and he started breathing like the water was air. She paid close attention and saw something different under his jaw. It was moving in rhythm with his breathing. And then she realized, he got gills.
She turned her attention to Frejean. “What did you do?”
“Two decades ago, the Wave Foundation adopted a boy, a human and sercean hybrid, and they named him Troy. My father put me close to observing him, I’ve been studying him for years and I found out his sercean traits were suppressed. And your blood and his near-death experience triggered it to come out. Now, we can start replicating this mutation in other human subjects. If this will turned out to be successful, then flooding this planet wouldn’t turn out to be a bad idea at all.” Frejean smiled.
“It’s time,” Yrevia said, focusing her attention on Asceia.
Frejean once again swiped the screen of the tablet she was holding and pressed something. It activated the helmet, it lit up, and Asceia just froze when her telepathy was amplified. She sank to the floor staring blankly at the roof of the tank with her pupils dilated. A chemical substance was released into the water of her tank and it was introduced to her system through her gills and breathing. She panicked, her mind was hearing a lot of voices and thoughts, and she can’t do anything to stop it. She badly wanted to move but she can’t, as if her mind was taken out of her body.
“We are giving you the drug that we finally perfected after several trials. The drug that can enslave any sercean mind.” Frejean chuckled. “This is getting exciting!”
“We are indeed going to the most fun part of this day.”
“Go get that energy source, Yrevia.”
“Asceia, establish a telepathic connection to all of the serceans in the water,” Yrevia ordered.
Asceia closed her eyes and started linking her mind to her kind, it was against her will but she lost control of her body. It felt unexplainably good to just do what she was told to and attempting to disobey it will bring pain to her. Right there, she exactly felt what it was like to be enchanted by her voice. Yrevia, on the other hand, was approached by an assistant bringing the same helmet Asceia was wearing. She took it and put it on her head. Frejean activated her helmet and she gasped as her telepathy was powered up too. She also invaded the mind of the serceans Asceia was controlling.
“Bring all of the serceans to the trench,” she telepathically ordered. Together, they brought hundreds of serceans around the mouth of the trench at the safest water level where they can still withstand the pressure. “Sing the Song.”
Asceia hummed the Song to her mind and shared it with the other serceans that served as a medium of her voice. The serceans started singing the Song and the water around the trench began bubbling and swirling around; it affected the tide and the waves of the sea. While Asceia continued singing, Yrevia extended her hands and moved her fingers, the serceans also did it, and together they controlled the water. From the surface, the water just started separating, appearing like a crack that stretched down to the deep, until it reached the bottom — the ocean floor of the trench. The space started expanding until it became a big hole, which then allowed the sunlight to penetrate the exposed ocean floor.
“Yrevia, I’m seeing what you are doing right now. Impressive. Get me that energy core,” Frejean said while watching what was happening through live footage taken by the drones sent to the location.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get what you deserve today.”
YOU ARE READING
Ever After #7: Waves of Scales
FantasyAsceia, a powerful mermaid, was sent to land to investigate what happened to her kind and to bring them home. ••°°•• After the telepathic connection between the mermaids in the sea and on the land was severed, the Order found this to be very alarmin...
