Natant

A/N: Here it is, Part Two!

Chapter 1

The Transformations

Part Two

After the little incident with the water police the night before, Branch got up early the next day to go swimming at the beach by himself. He would've invited his family to come with him, since it was the weekend, but they were still sleeping. Plus, he could use some alone time after that slight chewing out from his parents when they picked him up at the docks. Apparently, the water police contacted them when they identified the boys.

Don't get him wrong, he loves his family. His parents, Rowan and Esmeralda Hawthorne, loved him and were very proud of him. However, it was a bit of a different story with his siblings. All six of them. 

Branch actually had four older brothers that he rarely sees anymore. All of them had a big falling-out when he was four years old, and because of the big age gap between him and them, they were all old enough to go their own ways. 

John Dory was the oldest, and he was currently living in an RV, travelling the country. Spruce was next, and last he heard of him, he was actually now married with quite a few kids, living in Hawaii. Clay was next, and he was living in Palm Springs as the assistant manager of a golf course. Finally, there was Floyd, and the brother that Branch was the closest to. He was currently working two jobs in Las Vegas, both as a bar singer and as a therapist. 

Branch also has two younger adoptive siblings, who sometimes gets on his nerves, but he still cares about both of them deeply. There was Harper, his artistic ten-year-old sister who always got paint on herself, and then Keith, his prankster seven-year-old brother.

Dressed in plain pine green swimming trunks, Branch found a nice, secluded part of the beach. He laid down his things onto the sand and then quickly ran over to the water. Once he was deep enough, he dove down, came back up and exhaled happily as he relished in the feeling of the ocean water around him. Nothing like an early morning swim to start off the day.

Suddenly, he felt a strange tingling sensation as thousands of bubbles started appearing around his legs. Once they faded away, he saw, much to his shock, that his legs had been welded together into an emerald green, scaly appendage with a dark blue ridge of fins along the back of it. At the bottom were two fluked fins of the same green color. It was almost like a fish tail.

(A/N: This and the next few pictures are the closest pictures I can find until I can actually draw their actual tails.)

Branch yelped as he frantically looked around the area, hoping that no one else was seeing what he was seeing. What really happened that night? Something must've, if now he has... that.

***************

Over at Ash's house, the teen in question was staring with wide eyes at the scaly sapphire blue tail with a pale red bumpy ridge along the back of it, where his legs used to be seconds ago while he laid in the bubble-filled bathtub. He felt like he couldn't speak, even when he heard his younger adoptive brother knock on the door, telling him to hurry up.

"Come on, Ash, you can't stay in there forever!" Peter called out to him. 

But Ash was just too stunned by his new scaly appendage to answer his brother. This was definitely something.

********************

At Adrien's house, or rather, mansion, the blond teen model was beginning to enjoy a nice warm shower when suddenly, he felt a strange, tingling sensation in his legs. Then, he lost his balance and fell backward, landing hard on his backside on the tiled floor. 

Slightly yelping out in pain at the rough landing, he slowly sat up and saw the shimmering silver tail with an ebony black fin ridge on the back of it that had replaced his legs just seconds ago.

"What the-?!" He exclaimed, quickly looking towards his bathroom door, hoping and praying that his father or his secretary, Nathalie Sancoeur, wouldn't knock and ask him what happened. There was no way that he was gonna to let them see him like this. They would freak out.

Now, he had to figure out how to turn the water off, and fast. Problem is, reaching the valve is a lot harder when one is stuck on the floor, with a fish tail. And when said fish tail is quite a bit heavier to lift than the legs.

***************************

Hiccup was just out in his backyard for some fresh air when he suddenly got sprayed by a neighbor's sprinkling system. "Oh, great." He muttered as he tried to shake the water droplets off his body.

But then, he saw that for a brief moment, his entire body, including his prosthetic leg, became thousands of droplets of water. Then afterward, he suddenly fell forward onto the lawn with a yelp. Picking his upper half off the ground, Hiccup suddenly felt like the lower half of himself was much heavier than before.

He slowly looked behind him and saw that his legs, both real and fake, had changed into a dazzling ruby red tail. A small section of it seemed silver though, right where his left prosthetic leg should've been, along with a silver bumpy ridge along the back of the tail.

Hiccup looked towards the back door, suddenly glad that his father wasn't around at the moment, since there was a town council meeting that morning. However, Steven "Stoick" Haddock had been basically drowning himself in his political work ever since he and his wife, Valerie "Valka", divorced when Hiccup was only ten years old. 

He and his mother were still pretty close, and Hiccup really loved the work that she was doing as a zoologist, travelling all around the world helping animals in need; particularly in the oceans. In truth, she was there for him more than his own father, having only his pet cat for company at home. However, this was one time that he was thankful that his father hardly ever paid attention to him.

Luckily for him, the only witness to his odd transformation was his cat, Toothless. The green-eyed, black-furred cat with a medium-length stubby tail just stared and mewed at him from the other side of the glass door. He only just waved awkwardly to the fluffy black, green-eyed cat from his spot on the grass.

**************************

About an hour later, Ash had sent a group text to the others, and they decided to meet up at Branch's house to discuss their strange new appearances, the person in question texting the younger guys his address. Hiccup and Branch had exchanged numbers with Ash and Adrien the night before after they were rescued. 

When they arrived, they were all talking at the same time, sounding a little bit frazzled because of what had happened to them. "It was blue and covered with scales!" Ash exclaimed.

"The minute that I touched water-!" Branch came in.

"I was water for a second!" Hiccup cut him off.

"I was a freaking fish!" Adrien chimed in.

"What just happened to us?" Branch asked the question that they all wanted to know as they came into the living room and sat down.

But then, they remembered something. Hiccup then turned over to Branch. 

"Hey, is there anyone else here?" He asked him.

Branch shook his head. "No." He said. "My dad's at work, and my mom took my brother and sister shopping." 

Rowan was a famous music producer who had his own music studio downtown in the city called Blue Sky Records. However, in order to make sure that his children wouldn't get caught up in the whirlwind of fame that his eldest three did, he had moved them to a more simple house to obscure them from that world.

"Okay." Adrien said, taking a deep breath to calm himself so that they can all think a bit more rationally. "What happened to us?"

Hiccup started thinking out loud. "About ten seconds after we touch water, we grow these..." He couldn't finish the sentence.

"And then it vanishes when we're dry." Ash added. "Same thing with you guys, right?"

The others nodded in confirmation. "The tails...." Branch said, looking deep in thought, "they looked like...."

"Almost like...." Hiccup tried to finish again.

But then Ash started smiling coyly, as if the realization was something incredible. "We looked like.... mermen." He said.

"Okay, that's not funny." Branch said, crossing his arms. "Mermen, and mermaids, don't exist."

"Well, what else could we have looked like?" Adrien asked him. "Squid?"

"Yeah. But.... mermen?" Hiccup questioned. "That's just.... way too weird."

Just then, a rhythmic knock came on the door, drawing their attention. Branch then flinched. 

"Aw, shoot." He muttered. "It's Poppy. I forgot that I was helping her with physics today."

"Branch?" A cheerful, peppy voice called out from the other side of the door. 

The person in question got up to answer it. But he didn't need to when he remembered that the door was unlocked, and the girl came inside.

Poppy Summers was an old friend of Branch's that he had known since they were children. While Branch was more serious and a little bit on the paranoid side, Poppy was pretty much the exact opposite. She was upbeat and cheerful, like a ball of pure sunshine. 

The high school senior girl in question had strawberry blonde hair with hot pink highlights in it, amber eyes and fair skin with freckles dotting her cheeks. She wore a turquoise blouse, dark jean capri, and hot pink sneakers, along with a purple string bracelet around her left wrist.

She smiled brightly when she saw her oldest friend, and then saw the other three in the living room. "Um.... I thought we said at ten." She said, walking towards the kitchen with Branch following her.

"We did." Branch said to her. "But something.... just came up and we might need to reschedule some other time."

Poppy then looked over at the other three boys. "Hey, Hiccup." She waved to the auburn-haired teen.

"Hey, Poppy." Hiccup greeted back.

"And who are the other two?" Poppy asked Branch.

"They're some.... new friends." Branch said, almost cringing at his word choice when he saw her gorgeous amber eyes light up like stars when he revealed that he made some new friends other than herself and Hiccup. 

"Meet Ash and Adrien." The two younger teens smiled politely and waved over to the strawberry blonde girl. 

She returned the smile brightly, and then finally seemed to recognize Adrien. "Oh, yeah! I remember you now!" She said. "You're Adrien Agreste, the famous fashion model."

Adrien smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "That's me." He said.

Poppy then looked over at Branch. "And why do you need to reschedule?" She asked him.

"It's something.... pretty important." He answered her vaguely. "I'll let you know when I'm free later today, I promise."

He then started guiding Poppy over to the door. But then, Ash came over to them. 

"Hey, Branch. Can I speak to Poppy for a minute?" He asked.

Branch raised a curious eyebrow, shared that same confused glance with his childhood friend, and then shrugged. "Sure." He said.

He left the two of them alone in the entryway. "What's up?" She asked the younger teen.

Ash briefly looked back towards the others, and then back at the older strawberry blonde girl. "Um, can you help me with a little favor?" He asked her. 

"Can you look up whatever you can find about.... mermen? Or mermaids or whatever."

Poppy raised a brow. "How come?" She asked.

Ash just shrugged. "You just seem to be.... interested in that sort of thing." He replied. "I saw your mermaid tail design on your sneakers." 

He pointed down to her shoes, where sure enough, there was a little mermaid tail etched in black permanent marker on the sides. Poppy just smiled, seeing how Ash was a quick study of people, just like Branch. 

"Plus, I would like some help for a.... mythology research project for my English class. Everyone else in my family is a little.... busy at the moment. And I feel like I can trust you already. Any friend of Branch's is a friend of mine."

The senior girl was still a little confused by his request, but then smiled. "I'll see what I can dig up." She said to him with a smile. Then, she left.

Once she was gone, all of the boys let out a sigh of pure relief. "Okay, back to what we were discussing before." Hiccup said. "The whole.... thing with the tails?"

"Right." Branch said. "Now, if anyone ever found out about this, we're all gonna be in big trouble."

"More like in hot water." Adrien grumbled.

"Now's not a good time for your cheesy puns." Ash said to him.

"Moving on now." Branch cut them off. "Look, guys. Something very strange happened to us. We don't know how, and we certainly don't know why."

"Well, there's only one way to find out more." Ash came back in.

"What's that?" Hiccup asked.

Ash raised a brow, as if the answer should've been obvious. "Get back in the water." He said.

"Are you crazy?" Adrien asked. "No way."

"He's got a point there." Branch said. "It's the only way that we know right that can help us figure out what happened to us."

Hiccup sighed. "Okay, but I'm not going alone."

"Sorry, but I planned on stopping by the juice bar today." Ash said. "My mom said that she needed some extra help today."

Adrien huffed. "Fine." He said. "We'll all meet at my house later."

"What about your father?" Hiccup asked.

"I'll deal with him and Nathalie." Adrien assured him.

**********************

Minutes later, Adrien, Branch and Hiccup were over at the beach again. Branch wasn't dressed for it, though. He was still wearing his normal clothes, while Adrien and Hiccup wore swimming trunks. Well, for the latter, he was wearing black swim pants, since he felt self-conscious about showing his metal prosthetic without covering it up.

"Why aren't you getting in with us?" Adrien asked the older raven-haired teen.

"Because I've got to time you guys." Branch explained, holding up the timer displayed on his phone. "And I can't exactly manage the equipment if I'm wet and I drop my phone and it gets ruined by seawater."

Both of them rolled their eyes at his excuse and then reached the end of the tide, being careful to not let the water or foam touch their skin. Branch checked the timer. 

"You said that it takes about ten seconds, right?" He asked.

"That's what I assumed." Hiccup replied.

"Okay, when I say 'now', step into the tide." Branch said, setting the timer. 

Once it was ready, he said, "Now."

At the same time when Branch started the timer and counting down, Adrien and Hiccup stepped into the seafoam of the waves. "Ten.... nine.... eight.... seven.... six.... five.... four.... three.... two.... one." 

Right after that, both Adrien and Hiccup fell backward with the waves, their tails in full view, making Branch slightly wince at their fall. "Well, that's ten seconds exactly."

"Great." Adrien muttered sarcastically, slapping his tail against the water and wet sand.

Hiccup stared back at his scarlet red tail with the small silver left fin and the matching silver ridge along the back of it. "Well, I guess now that we have them, why not try them out?" He asked.

"I thought you were against this." Branch said, raising a brow in suspicion.

The auburn-haired merman shrugged sheepishly. "Okay, maybe this whole tail thing is kind of starting to grow on me." He admitted.

Adrien looked back at his own glittering silver tail with the black ridge along the back. He had to kind of admit himself, this whole thing was starting to grow on him as well.

"You guys go ahead." Branch said. "I'm not going in there." 

The other two mermen just shrugged. His loss.

*********************

Minutes later, Adrien and Hiccup were exploring the reefs around Half-Point Island, testing out their new tails. They quickly learned that they were actually quite powerful, and that they could easily propel them into high speeds they never thought they could reach underwater. 

Also, most of the sea creatures allowed them to come near them and even swim with them, as if they were meant to be a part of life in the ocean in the first place. Almost like they actually saw mers more often than people think. 

It was almost.... surreal. And the way that they swam through the water. It was almost like they were built for moving through it, quickly figuring out the best way on how to swim in their new forms. They had their arms stretched out ahead of them while moving their tails up and down, which made them even more streamlined in the water. 

And it was so much easier for them to hold their breath. Easily, the two mermen found themselves enchanted by the world under the sea.

*********************

Meanwhile, back on land, Ash had arrived at the juice bar that his mother managed. He had sort of lied to his friends earlier, saying that his mom needed help. But he knew that since the juice bar was a popular place to hang out, he knew that he just might meet up with a certain someone, who he hoped was ahead of him in research.

Sure enough, he found her sitting over at one of the computers. "Hey, Poppy." He said, getting the strawberry blonde girl's attention.

"Hey, Ash." She said, turning around in her seat. 

Ash came over to her and saw that Poppy was on a mythological website concerning merfolk. "You actually found something?" He asked.

"Yeah." She answered.

"Thanks. I was actually.... nervous that you wouldn't help." Ash admitted.

Poppy just smiled kindly at him. "Hey. It's like you said before, any friend of Branch's is a friend of mine." She assured him, and then turned back over to her computer screen. 

"Check it out. I found some pretty cool stuff on this."

*******************

Minutes later, both of them were walking side by side near a bridge, Poppy explaining to Ash what she had learned. "Apparently, mermaid myths have been around for at least three thousand years, and judging from what I got from it, merman myths for just about as long."

"And people really believe in that kind of stuff?" Ash asked.

"Yeah. So it says." Poppy replied. "Sometimes, they brought good fortune. Other times, they were bad omens."

"On how big a scale?" Ash asked.

But before Poppy could answer him, there was the sound of a loud engine revving, and coming their way. Someone was driving a dark blue motorcycle. Ash recognized the driver, her blonde braid peeking out from under her helmet.

"Oh, no." He muttered when he saw her narrow her steel blue eyes at him from under her helmet.

"Just ignore her." Poppy said, knowing who she is as well.

"Let's go the other way." Ash said, already turning around, with Poppy following him. 

But the driver started revving towards them, making them split apart to avoid getting hit. She parked her motorcycle in front of them and took off her helmet, revealing herself to be a furious Astrid Hofferson. Poppy immediately stepped in front of Ash, hoping to prevent the older girl from picking a fight.

"Ash Ketchum, isn't it?" The blonde asked him.

"What do you want, Astrid?" Ash demanded.

"My parents and my uncle didn't really appreciate having the water police knock on the door in the middle of the night." Astrid explained.

"Well, it was thanks to your friend that I started drifting out to sea." Ash said. "I could've been shark bait if it weren't for Branch and Hiccup."

Astrid's eyes flared up at the mention of Hiccup's name. "Useless?" She asked. "That runt?"

Ash and Poppy's own eyes turned up. "What was that?" The former demanded.

"Stop calling him that, Astrid." Poppy said to her. "The two of you used to be best friends. Then you started giving him the cold shoulder just because you began thinking that he's not good enough for anything."

"As if I could care less about him." Astrid retorted back. "Plus, I'm not here to talk about him with you. I need to talk to this little shrimp." She then focused back on Ash, who was just silently glaring at her. "I don't like people making me look bad, especially young freshmen like you."

"You mean in front of your uncle, Astrid." Poppy corrected her snarkily. "Sounds like you're scared of him."

While the two girls were arguing with each other, Ash's eyes wandered around and found a nearby fire hydrant. Feeling his anger boiling through his veins, and not really quite sure of what he was doing, he subtly stretched out his palm towards it. The fire hydrant started to shake around, and Ash's eyes started to flicker and turn bright blue.

"You think you're better than me, Poppy?" Astrid challenged her.

"Almost everyone's better than you, Astrid. Personality-wise. Deal with it." Poppy replied.

Astrid narrowed her steel blue eyes dangerously at the usually upbeat strawberry blonde acting so snarky and tried to take a step forward towards the younger, raven-haired teen. But Poppy quickly stopped her by stepping in front of her new friend, narrowing her amber eyes at her.

"What do you know? You do have some spine." She said to her. 

Then she looked over towards Ash, not seeing that his eyes were flashing blue as he focused on the vibrating fire hydrant, slightly twisting his wrist back and forth.

"Got yourself a protector, Ash?" She asked him, but he didn't answer her. 

It was like he was in some kind of trance, glowing blue eyes focused solely on the nearby fire hydrant as he continued to slowly twist his wrist back and forth.

"Well, I'll tell you now, it won't change anything." Astrid continued. "Someday, with or without your friends, something bad could happen to you."

When she made that final threat, Ash then twisted his wrist sharply, and the hubcap of the fire hydrant immediately flew off. A powerful jet stream of water shot at Astrid, making her tumble down the hill and into the harbor below. Now, Ash seemed to have snapped out of his trance and realized what he had done.

He looked over with surprise at the fire hydrant, which was still shooting out water; and then down at his hand, which was slightly outstretched to it. He twitched a finger downward, his eyes quickly turning back into their usual shade of chocolate brown, and the water suddenly stopped. 

He did that. 

Feeling shocked and overwhelmed, Ash made a run for it over to Adrien's house before Poppy could start asking questions about what just happened.

********************

At Adrien's mansion, the blond model and the other two boys were about to head inside. "That was the coolest thing ever!" He exclaimed.

"I never thought that I would be able to swim with dolphins." Hiccup added before turning over to Branch. "You should've joined us."

"And who will be able to get those towels over to you so that you don't take forever to dry off if you just laid there in the sun?" The black-haired senior asked.

"But that's just it." Adrien said. "Once we're dry, it's like nothing ever happened."

"But it did!" Hiccup exclaimed as the blond model went to punch in the security code at the gate. "Swimming like that, as if there was never a care in the world; is there any words to describe it?"

"Wait!" A voice exclaimed. 

The three of them turned around to see Ash running towards them, looking pretty frazzled and out of breath. "You guys are not going to believe what just happened!"

***********************

Minutes later, they were in Adrien's room, and they were quickly greeted by Adrien's own black cat, Plagg. Plagg looked a lot like Toothless, except his tail was much longer, and he wore a little collar with a golden bell at his throat. His owner picked him up, put him on his bed and then shut the door. 

Ash then focused on the water in a nearby glass of water and started subtly twisting his wrist back and forth. His eyes started glowing bright blue again as a tentacle of water started rising out of the glass.

"And it just keeps growing." Ash said to his awestruck friends.

"Where's the extra water coming from?" Branch asked.

"I don't know." Ash answered.

"You know that your eyes are blue now, not brown?" Hiccup asked him.

"What?!" Ash exclaimed, losing his focus on the water column and his eyes immediately changing back to their usual brown shade. 

But because he was no longer controlling it, the water column was losing its shape and about to fall down on the others. The other three all braced themselves to get splashed by it, with Adrien holding his palm flat out to it.

Suddenly, the entire column froze within milliseconds. Everyone either flinched or just gaped at the sight of the frozen spectacle. Adrien blinked in confusion.

"Did I do that?" He asked.

"It wasn't me." Ash said, holding his hands up. 

Branch and Hiccup just shook their heads. Then they looked over at Adrien.

An excited grin then came onto the auburn-haired teen's face. "Okay. This is over the top." He said. "I'm getting goosebumps now."

Adrien looked down at his palm and then saw a nearby vase of water on the coffee table. "All I did was.... this."

He stretched out his palm towards the vase, and his eyes briefly flashed an icy silvery color before the water in the vase quickly froze over. 

"Your eyes turned silver for a second." Ash said. "Is that what you guys meant when you said that my eyes turned blue?"

"Yeah." Branch said.

"So, I guess our eyes change color.... when we use these.... powers?" Adrien asked.

"I think so." Ash replied. "And the colors match our tails." 

Then he turned to the other two. "What about you guys? Do you have any kind of powers?"

"Don't know." Branch answered. "Is there any more water around here?"

Adrien stood up and led everyone into the bathroom. Then, he started filling up the sink. Once it was full enough, he stopped it.

"Let's see what you guys can do." He said.

Hiccup tried several various hand gestures towards it, but nothing happened. "Come on!" He exclaimed. "How come the two of you have powers?"

"Chill." Branch said to him. 

Then, it was his turn. After trying a couple of hand gestures, he extended his hand, his fingers slightly splayed out and his wrist tilted to the side. Suddenly, his eyes turned lime green and the water in the sink turned into.... clear slime? 

"What is that?" Ash asked. "Goop?"

"It kind of looks like Jell-O." Adrien said. "Who wants to touch it?"

"It's still water; just in a different form." Hiccup said. "Anyone feel like sprouting a tail right now?"

"So I can basically turn water into jelly." Branch said sarcastically, his hand back at his side and his eyes back to their usual sky blue. "That's super helpful."

Ash then snorted. "You guys should've seen the look on Astrid's face when I blasted her into the harbor." He said with an amused smile. 

Both Branch and Adrien grinned mischievously at the mental image, but Hiccup narrowed his eyes. "I get it. You guys hate her." He said.

"She called you, 'Useless'!" Ash retorted, turning over to him. 

Hiccup's eyes widened in shock, and then his shoulders slumped down. Branch slightly winced at the cruel nickname.

"It's obvious she has changed." The older raven-haired teenager said to him. "Maybe it's time that you try to let her go."

Hiccup just nodded slowly. It was painfully obvious that Astrid Hofferson wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

"Back to the situation at hand." Adrien came in, changing the touchy subject. "I think it's pretty clear that we can't tell anyone about any of this."

"No kidding." Branch muttered. "So, this means absolute secrecy. Otherwise, we can either be dissected into pieces or be the latest exhibit in the marine park."

"So this stays between the four of us?" Ash asked.

"Our secret, our responsibility." Branch answered. "Whatever happens, we stick together."

"This doesn't mean that we have to move in with each other, right?" Hiccup asked.

Ash and Adrien snorted at the little comment, while Branch just smiled, holding back his laughter. "Now that was actually funny." He said. 

Then all four of them started laughing. It seemed that a strange but wonderful new friendship had just begun.

A/N: Talk about the surprises of their lives! But hey, at least they have each other. I always thought that these four would have been great friends if they ever met. I just love these guys!

And yes, I have changed up some things to make it a little more original. The guys have different colored tails instead of their tails all being the same color. And when they use their powers, their eyes glow to match their tails. Pretty cool, huh?

I've also included some OCs in here as well. Ash is not an only child in this series, he is part of a set of triplets; having a brother and a sister, as well as two younger siblings; one of them adoptive and the other one biological. You guys will learn more about their personalities as the series progresses.

Next chapter will be coming pretty soon, so keep an eye out for them. Although, there is no schedule for updates after that, due to the fact that I have tons of other projects to finish and start. But I hope that you guys will be patient for any future updates on any of my stories.

One more little thing. I plan on making videos to go along with the series, but they won't be very often, and they will just be little scenes. 

Well, that's all for now! I hope y'all enjoyed this first chapter! Please leave a comment about what you think, and remember to stay healthy!

Got to fly! ;)