(Possible trigger warning: references to Cory at the very end of the chapter)

“How did it go?” Froggy asked, when Chris, Darren, Kurt, and Blaine returned to the flying ship.

“Fine,” Chris answered, with a quelling look at the others.  “Our trip was completely uneventful.”

“Did you get the mirror?” Rachel asked.

“Yep,” Darren said proudly, holding up the purse.  “All of the pieces are in here.”

“Oooh - can I see?” Unique asked.

Darren opened the purse so that she could look inside.

“Wow - with that sparkle and my gold, this Wand of Wonderment is gonna have some serious bling!”

“Speaking of bling,” Chris said, “we need to get the Sea Witch's jewels next.”

“I hope this ship is sea-worthy,” Rachel said, concern evident in her voice.

“Don't worry,” Froggy said, wrapping an arm around her, “I'm sure it is.”

…

The flying ship hit the water with an almighty splash, drenching everyone on board.  

Darren shook his head like a wet dog.  “Wow - that was better than Splash Mountain at Disneyland!” he cried. 

Most of the others looked at him like he was crazy, but Chris tousled his curls affectionately.  “I'm glad you're having fun, sweetie.”

Rachel pointed over the side of the ship.  “Look!”

Chris gazed down over the railing to see a familiar face smiling up at him.  “Brittany!”

“Hello, dolphin,” the Little Cheermaid called out happily.  “I see you brought along some more gay sharks this time.”

Darren, Kurt, and Blaine waved down at her, grinning.

Santana popped up next to Brittany and gave her a kiss.  Then, catching sight of her audience, she dove back down under the water, only to reappear a moment later.  She surged powerfully upwards, propelling herself completely clear of the waves.

Darren gasped.  “Wow, Santana!  You've got a tail!”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Brittany beamed at her girlfriend, who continued to show off her new aquatic skills.  “The Fairy Godfather turned Santana into a Cheermaid, so we can be together forever.”

“Wait,” Froggy said, confused.  “How come I turned back into a frog when the Fairy Godfather was put into a cursed sleep by the Enchantress, but Santana didn't turn back into an ordinary human?”

“Yeah,” Rachel added.  “And why didn't you just fall asleep when she kissed you?”

“Why is the square root of four equal to rainbows?” Brittany replied.  “I guess we're just magic that way.”

“Or maybe the Enchantress's curse only effects the land, not the sea,” Santana said, wrapping her arms around Brittany from behind and nuzzling into her neck.

“Does that mean that Chris and I can kiss if we get in the water?” Darren asked excitedly.

Santana was quick to discourage him.  “I wouldn't risk it.  We don't know of any humans who've tried, and if you fell asleep in the ocean, you'd drown.”

Darren visibly deflated, as did the others.  They'd all gotten their hopes up for a moment.

Chris decided to change the subject.  “So, Santana, how are you enjoying being a Cheermaid?”

“It's great, except for one thing…  Scissoring is impossible without legs.”

Rachel turned as red as her cloak and cleared her throat loudly.  “We're on a mission, and we don't have time to stand around talking about, um, that.  We need to get the Sea Witch's jewels as soon as possible.”

“We can help you with that.  I've got these magic scallop shells that will let you breathe underwater,” Brittany said, producing four shells with seaweed straps that looked somewhat like surgical masks.

“And don't forget the fishnets,” Santana reminded her. 

“Oh, yeah.  You'll need those, too.”

Brittany dove beneath the waves and returned a moment later with four pairs of fishnet tights.  “As long as you're wearing these, the het sharks guarding the Sea Witch's grotto will leave you alone.”

“Just make sure not to snag them,” Santana warned.  “Or those sharks are gonna snag you.”

Darren reached down and grabbed a pair of the tights.  “I call one!”

Rachel gave him a curious look.  “What do you mean, you call one?”

“There are only four pairs, so we can't all go.  I called one for me.”  He reached back down and grabbed a second pair.  “And I call another one, for Chris!”

Rachel shook her head in disbelief.  “You think we're gonna fight over who gets to wear those trashy things and risk their lives going up against the Sea Witch?  You're out of your mind!  Froggy and I will stay here, thank you very much.”

Froggy gave the others an apologetic look (which he seemed to be doing quite a lot of, lately) and said, “Yeah.  If the four of you don't mind going, I'll stay on the ship with Red.”

“No problem,” Kurt said, taking the last two pairs of tights from Brittany and handing one to Blaine.  “We're not worried — we've got a secret weapon.”

“What sort of secret weapon?” Froggy asked.

“If we told you, it wouldn't be a secret, now, would it?” Blaine replied with a wink.

Chris, Darren, Kurt, and Blaine stripped down to their underwear and wriggled into the fishnet tights.

Chris gave Darren an appreciative once-over.  “You look like Hedwig.”

“Oh my god — so do you!  I saw that film when I was maybe 16, and I was like, ‘This is so cool!'  I would kill for a chance to play her on Broadway.”

“You would kill in that role,” Chris agreed, unconsciously licking his lips.

Darren stared for a moment at Chris's mouth, then let his gaze travel slowly down his bare torso to his long, fishnet-clad legs.  He took a step forward.

Brittany's voice broke the spell.  “Come on, dolphins.  Your carriage is waiting.”

A great sea turtle, nearly twenty feet in diameter, was floating next to the ship.  

“This is Lauren Zizes,” Santana explained.  “She'll take you to the Sea Witch.”

Chris grinned at Darren.  “Oh, I cannot wait to tell Ashley about this!”

Chris, Darren, Kurt, and Blaine slid down into the water and strapped on the magic scallop shells before lying down on the sea turtle's back and gripping the ridge of her shell.  Lauren swiveled her huge head around to make sure that everyone was situated properly.  Then she dove down under the waves, using her massive flippers to propel herself — and her passengers — through the water at a fantastic pace. 

“Wheee!” Darren called out.  “I feel like we're in Finding Nemo!”

“Well, if we run into Dory, I hope she doesn't mistake me for the sea monkey who owes her money,” Chris laughed, caught up in the exhilaration of flying through the water.

“Now that we're away from the others, I guess we can tell you about our secret weapon,” Blaine said.

“Yeah, we didn't want to say too much while we were on the ship, ‘cause we didn't want to trigger another one of Red's jealous fits,” Kurt added.  “But I'm not sure how much you want to hear; it's kind of a long story.”

“Well, I think we've got a pretty long ride ahead of us, so why don't you start at the beginning,” Darren suggested.

“Okay,” Kurt said.  “Well, you know that Blaine and I have been on the run from the law ever since we last saw you a year ago.  We had to keep moving to avoid capture.  Luck was with us until about six months ago, when Rum Chocolate Soufflé came up lame.  It was nothing too serious — just a stone bruise on her right front hoof — but I knew we needed to let her rest for a week or so to heal.”

Blaine took up the story.  “We were near a little seaside town in the Corner Kingdom at the time.  The local cottage industry there is fan-making.  Some of those fans are truly works of art.  We managed to befriend a group of fan-girls, who helped us hide.  They'd led quite sheltered lives, and were thrilled to hear tales about our adventures.  But it was our love story that really caught their interest.”

Kurt jumped back in.  “These fan-girls sold their wares all up and down the coast.  They'd just finished building a new ship, and they christened it Klaine, in our honor.  They invited us to join them on their maiden voyage, while Rum Chocolate Soufflé was recuperating.”

“An unexpected storm blew in,” Blaine said.  “It forced the ship further and further away from the coast, until we could no longer see the land.  A huge wave came and swept me off the deck.  Kurt grabbed onto me just as I went overboard, and we were both cast into the sea.”

Chris gasped.  He and Darren were both riveted by the story.

“We could hear the fan-girls wailing.  They started tearing their clothes off and flinging themselves into the ocean, crying out for something to save us,” Kurt continued.  “And something did.”

The way Kurt said “something” made the wet hair on the back of Chris's neck stand on end.  “What do you mean, something?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.      

“This is something that kind of grew legs of its own, and it has now become this other creature that's both amazing and crazy,” Kurt said.

“It's this monstrous thing that can do big things, but it's also a little scary,” Blaine added.

“Yeah.  It's terrifying.  You don't want to awaken it.”

“Yeah, you don't want to piss it off.”

“So many people sacrificed their naked selves to it.”

“To the Klainken.”

Chris and Darren exchanged a look, but before either of them could respond, Lauren Zizes surprised them by speaking.

“Hang on to your fishnets, boys,” the great sea turtle said.  “We're about to enter shark-infested waters.”

Up ahead, Chris could see dozens of great white sharks surrounding a coral archway.  Their flat, dead eyes were riveted on the four men riding the turtle.  Chris held his breath, paralyzed with fear, but the fishnet tights must have been working their magic, because the sharks allowed them to pass.

The coral archway was barely wider than the sea turtle, and Lauren had to tuck her flippers against her body to fit through.  Her momentum carried them along an underwater tunnel, which emptied out into a vast stone cavern.  They had entered the Sea Witch's grotto.

Chris was intrigued to discover that this cave at the bottom of the ocean was filled with air.  He and the others climbed off the sea turtle and stepped onto the rocky floor.

At this point in their adventure, no one was particularly surprised to find that the Sea Witch was yet another incarnation of Sue Sylvester, this time wearing a neon orange tracksuit that seemed to provide the only light in the cave.  As soon as she spotted them, she let out an evil cackle.

“Well, well, well.  Look what the overgrown turtle dragged in.”  Sue looked the four of them up and down in a manner that Chris found quite disconcerting.  “Let's get you out of those tights, so I can see your jewels.  I'd like to add them to my collection.”

“Time to call in our secret weapon,” Blaine whispered to Kurt.

Kurt opened his mouth, and Chris could not believe the sound that came out of it.  Nothing he'd ever produced — not the high F in ‘Defying Gravity' or even the high G in ‘Not the Boy Next Door' — could compare.  It was as though an entirely new scale had been created, and Kurt was hitting a high H.

Noticing the awestruck looks on Chris and Darren's faces, Blaine explained, “That's how we summon the Klainken.”

“But what is the Kainken?” Darren asked.  “Is it like the fictional sea monster, the Kraken?”

Before Blaine could answer, an enormous iridescent tentacle reared up out of the water.  It's tip was a good eight inches around, and it widened steadily to over three feet in diameter.  The entire underside was covered in suction cups with vicious-looking spikes at their centers.

Darren clutched at Chris, dragging him away from the horrific sight.  “Oh my god!  Oh my god!  This is so not the good kind of tentacle fic!”

Chris gave him a ‘we are definitely going to talk about this later' look.

The massive tentacle wrapped itself around the Sea Witch and gave one mighty squeeze before dropping her limp body to the ground.  Then it retreated from the cavern as quickly as it had come.

Kurt rushed forward and snatched up the Sea Witch's jewels.  “Success!”

Chris, Darren, Kurt, and Blaine climbed back aboard the sea turtle, who dove under the water, building up enough speed to carry them back through the tunnel.

Darren was giddy with relief.  He began singing at the top of his lungs:

Ding, dong, the witch is dead! 

Which old witch?

The Wicked Witch!

Ding, dong, the Wicked Witch is dead!

As he sang, Darren kicked his legs about in an exuberant dance.  Unfortunately, his wild flailing brought him into contact with the coral archway, tearing his fishnet tights and opening up a small gash in his thigh.  

Chris looked on in horror as a drop of blood welled up and entered the water.

“Lauren, we need to get out of here!” he yelled.

The great sea turtle cleared the archway and stretched out her flippers, putting on a burst of speed.  Attracted by the scent of blood in the water, and no longer repelled by Darren's ripped tights, the great white sharks gave chase.

They zoomed through the water, covering the distance back to the ship in half the time it had taken earlier.  As soon as the sea turtle surfaced, Chris, Darren, Kurt, and Blaine scrambled off her back and onto the ship.

“Thanks, Lauren!” Chris called out, as the turtle disappeared beneath the waves.

“That was a close one,” Darren gasped.

“Haven't you learned anything from all of our trips to Disneyland?” Chris scolded.  “Keep your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the ride at all times!”

Darren chuckled.  “All's well that ends well, though, right?”

“It may not be over yet,” Kurt warned.  “Look!”

Hundreds of sharks were circling the ship, their fins cutting through the waves.  If that wasn't disturbing enough, out on the horizon, in the direction from which they'd come, a funnel cloud seemed to be growing.  And it was heading straight towards them.

“I don't think the Sea Witch is dead,” Blaine said.  “I think the Klaiken only knocked her unconscious, and now she's woken up.”

“Uh oh,” Chris said.  “Froggy, can you get this thing airborne?”

“I'm on it,” Froggy said, firing up the hot air balloon.

They lifted off and headed for the shore.  Looking back, Chris could see the funnel cloud reach the place where the sharks had been circling.  As it passed over, it pulled them up out of the water.

“Oh no!” Darren cried.  “It's a sharknado!”

Froggy looked confused.  “What's a sharknado?”

Then he did a double-take.  “Oh.  It's a shark tornado.”

Dozens of sharks were spinning through the air around the flying ship.  Froggy did his best to steer away from them, but one particularly toothy beast slashed through the fabric of the balloon.  The flying ship stopped flying and began to plummet toward the earth…