Fontaine is basically a cartographic genius (she love love loves the study of maps) and her friendship with Jess is just as beautiful.

"Hello! Earth to Fontaine?" Jess waved up at the preoccupied girl whose lap her head currently rested in. Fontaine jerked out of her reverie, ceasing the unconscious stroking of her bandaged knuckles.

"I asked you which Jisung fit you prefer," she poked a painted lilac fingernail up at her best friend's face. "Levanter was cute, but I seriously think God's Menu was absolutely superior. Opinions?"

They sat on the carpeted floor of Fontaine's room in the Arronax. Books and magazines were splayed over the desk, Fontaine's album collection lined up nicely on the shelves above. Currently, multiple photocards belonging to both girls occupied the rug beside Jess' outstretched legs.

Fontaine looked down at the tablet Jess held, images of idols being shoved in her face. Mulling over the soft vs hard concept of the boyband, she seemed to take too long to answer because next thing she knew, Jess was rolling out of her spot on Fontaine's floor to switch off the stereo blasting NCT's latest single.

With a click, silence filled the room. Her best friend turned to fix Fontaine an intense look, crystal blue eyes unwavering. Immediately, Fontaine knew Jess meant business.

"Okay so something's clearly bothering you. What going on?" Jess demands, arms crossed over her 'Save The Bees' tank top.

Oop. Where would she even begin? Fontaine had always been a pretty private person. Some would say introverted. This week had tested her patience to the limits.

Since somehow having beat up a gang of notoriously dangerous pirates and now probably having a bounty on her head, the Nektons had decided to lay low for a while. Dad had suggested going to visit his elderly uncle, Nereus, for the weekend which had resulted in Fontaine being subject to his disturbed rants about the oceans.

"Remember Fontaine," the words echoed uncomfortably in her head as she recalled him grabbing her shoulders with a crazed look in his eyes, "the sea is the key."

So, although Fontaine liked spending time on land, this holiday left her wishing she was back on the Arronax.

Sighing, she looked up at Jess whose hands were on her denim-clad hips, giving off more Karen vibes than the secretary of the World Oceans Authority whose name was actually Karen. Both women were menaces.

"So?" Jess persisted, adamantly trying to extract Fontaine's latest tale.

Picking at a loose thread in her jeans, the Nekton girl knew in her heart of hearts that Jess Gorman would not give in until she knew what was going on. Today, like many other days that had come and gone over the past 18 years of their friendship, would be one for spilling all the tea.

So, with an eye roll and a sheepish smirk she began.

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

By the end, smug expressions had been wiped off both girls' faces, with Jess only able to stare wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the story of her best friend's crazy escapade.

"Wow..." she uttered quietly. For the first time in a long time, Jess Gorman was at a loss for words, eyes unfocused as her brain tried to comprehend how huge this was for her usually quiet and reclusive friend. Fontaine had always been more than happy to spend hours studying maps and rehabilitating coral reefs, unlike Jess who liked her parties and nights out on the town. To say Jess was shocked at hearing the ass-kicking Fontaine had given to a band of pirates was an utter understatement.

The moment of peaceful quiet was fleeting however, as Jess launched herself forward excitedly, crawling on petite, rosy hands and knees towards Fontaine.

"Girl, do you have any idea what you've done?" she squealed, "you showed actual pirates- oh my God you're such a badass! Bestie Fontaine is an inspiration." She wiped away a faux tear of pride.

Fontaine shook her head, groaning, "I didn't even want to be perceived by the damn pirates and now they're probably offering South Sea pearls for my capture."

Jess sniggered, nudging her sulking and indignant recluse of a best friend, "well hey, I'm sure that Finn guy would pay at least 5 camels to say 'I do' to you..."

"ARGH!" Fontaine bellowed in frustration, kicking out in Jess' general direction. Scrambling to their feet, they ended up chasing each other around on the floor until both girls dropped in a heap on the carpet, with Fontaine delivering Jess some serious noogies between shrieks and giggles.

Once the cackling faded out, the room fell still, with the music having also been switched off.

Jess sighed, her blonde head shifting onto Fontaine's (unfairly chiselled) stomach.

"Ugh, you're so lucky Fontaine," her eyes drifted shut, "you go one all these adventures and- ...and LAUGH in the face of danger!" she threw a hand over her face dramatically, muttering "my dad doesn't let me do anything, he's so annoying."

"Hey," Fontaine berated in a low murmur, "you know he loves you. And anyway, we both know you still have LOTS of fun whether he knows about it or not. Have your clap test results come back from the college nurse yet?" she teased, snorting.

"Oh my God, stop!" Jess groaned. "I told you a hundred times that I totally did ask Jacob beforehand, and he told me he was clean. How was I supposed to know the little piece of ass was lying? Not even kidding, when Tessa told me I nearly passed out from the shock-"

Jess' whole skull began bouncing up and down with the force of Fontaine's silent laughs. "HEY!" she shrieked, unable to hold back a grin at how stupid they were both being.

"Anyway, that was weeks ago. I never want to see that rat's face again," she sat up, flipping her blonde locks over freckled shoulders.

Sometimes Fontaine found herself drowning in Jess' long golden hair, her own being short, choppy and plain-old manageable. "Wait, aren't you guys on mid-term holiday right now?" she inquires, sitting up to lean back on her hands.

"That's right, I'm back to living at home with dad because my dorm's rent lease ended last week," Jess rolled her eyes, "he wants to go check out some giant plumose anemone at a conservation site this weeken- wait! Oh GOD, I was meant to see Marcus this Saturday! Oh my gosh, what am I gonna tell him?" she groans into a facepalm, nattering on about her new man-crush whilst twisting her mood ring round and round a pink finger.

Jess' parents were marine botanists, having met each other and Fontaine's mom in college. They'd all been close friends until Jess' mom had passed away, when she and Fontaine were barely 3 years old. Ever since, it had been difficult for Bob, her father, to give his daughter the freedom she so craved. He loved her dearly and couldn't bear to lose the other precious woman in his life. However, this only made Jess more rebellious and crazy. Fontaine sometimes felt she was there solely to restore balance to the universe after Jess' wild antics. Fontaine poked her best friend with a painted black toenail to pass the crisps.

"Owww," Jess wailed, clutching at her side. Her eyebrows were tilted up at a comical angle, "I was creasing so hard I've got a cramp!"

And with that, for the 97th time that day, they both burst into laughter.

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

Stretching her arms, sore from Jess laying on them all night, Fontaine led her friend onto the main bridge to see Will and Ant poring over some dusty-looking maps on the white centre table, with Ant being less than helpful.

"The scale makes no sense!" Will had his head in his hands, "there's nothing there. Even with the reversals in magnetic polarity of the seafloor, none of this makes any sense..."

"Maybe try turning it around?" Fontaine quipped sarcastically, walking past with Jess to get her jacket from its spot on the floor, not expecting her Dad to actually pick the map up off the desk in frustration.

The mid-morning sun filtered through the front glass panels of the submarine, illuminating the already bright white deck floors. High-tech equipment lined the many walls and numerous screens were installed behind comfortable crash chairs, to allow seamless navigation of the magnificent Arronax. It was an orange and silver miracle of industrial proportion, a gift from Professor Fiction (another family friend) to the Nektons.

Slipping tan arms into her blue and orange jacket, Nekton crest embroidered over the breastpiece, Fontaine asked her determined father, "Hey Dad, where's Mom?"

Will threw the map onto the table behind him, swivelling in his chair to face the two girls.

"She's outside, fixing that tear in the hull from yesterday," he explained, rubbing at his tired face.

"God, Dad, did you even get any sleep last night? Your eye bags are making another guest appearance."

He raised an eyebrow indignantly. "Well, I could ask the same of you, young lady. I heard plenty of giggling at all hours of the night."

Jess chuckled sheepishly, "Sorry, Mr Nekton. That'll be my fault."

"Aha, I'm just kidding!" Will laughed, "you guys enjoy your youth before you get all old and wrinkly like me."

"So dramatic, you're barely 45," Fontaine muttered, rolling her eyes in amusement. "Do you want me to take a look?" she offered, being the most interested in maps and navigation systems of her family, after her father of course, "I might be able to spot something you guys missed."

Ant scoffed from the other side of the desk, tongue stuck out as he tried to balance 3 pencils on top of each other. "That's hardly likely, Fontaine. We were very thorough!"

"Hmm," she grinned, stepping forward, "this does looks really weird."

"I'm focusing on these Lemurian symbols first," Will explained to his daughter, "I've seen them on a few of the ancient maps I've collected over the years, so I want to understand what they mean."

Fontaine scanned the practically moulding map. No gridlines, no coordinates, no North and South, no key. Just outlines of land and circular symbols scattered with a random distribution across the paper. Her brows furrowed as she traced the familiar and yet completely foreign contours.

"Hey, did you guys try inverting the Mercator projection?" she suggested, "somehow, I don't think ye olde pirates used conformal cartographic systems."

"That's not a bad shout actually. Let me just...." Will swung around in his chair rejiggle the map software on the screen inset on the left side of the computerised desk.

"Well, whaddya know?" her Dad breathed out in pleasant surprise, as the map flipped in on itself, and suddenly the outlines of the land and sea border started looking more familiar. The symbols also reshuffled and it all became clearer. Fontaine accepted an underhand high five from her less-nerdy-but-here-for-the-wins best friend.

"But that's... present-day Central America," Will pointed at a taupe circle with a zigzag inside it overlayed on the edge of an area of land. "This is the area of interest I've been studying for a while. Looks to be somewhere in the Caribbean Sea between Mexico and Belize. But there's nothing there except a bunch of underwater caves."

"No, wait-" Jess interrupted, staring fiercely at the outline of the land as if she could teleport herself there if she tried hard enough, "I- I know that place! It's famous for these rare species of crab. They're only found in that area of the North Atlantic and this one other place off the Cayman Islands... hang on, isn't that the same symbol?'

"It could be what we're looking for?" Fontaine added.

"Wait... all these symbols match up!" Ant cried out, "they're all underwater caves! We cracked the secret code! Woo!"

He reaches out for a high-five, to which only Jess reacts.

"Okay well, it was great solving yet another mystery with you all, but I have to be off now," Jess waved at the group as Ant groaned in shameless disappointment. "My dad wants me to attend the seminar he's going to be delivering at IMU and I'm already so late."

"Give him my best!" Will flapped a hand in Jess' direction, eyes still glued to the map almost involuntarily.

"See you babes," she hugged Fontaine tightly before giving a last wave to googly eyes Ant. Pulling her black duffel bag over her shoulder, Jess saw herself off the moored vessel.

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

"It won't fit through the hole!"

Ant signalled an X to his parents in the Rover from inside the sleek Shadow Knight bodysuit. The vehicle was too large to get through the cave entrance, they all realised, perhaps a tad too last minute. Kaiko reversed, sending air bubbles into the kelp growing up from the seabed.

Ant had convinced their parents to put other missions on temporary hold and their dad had finally agreed to go investigate the symbolised areas on the map. So, here they found themselves, at the entrance of a chain of underwater caves off the coast of Belize City.

They weren't too deep underwater, but sea life here seemed sparse regardless. The colourful schools of fish and numerous vibrant habitats found by the coast were absent here, the dark insides of the cave absolutely uninviting.

But they had to know what was down here. This could be an important clue to finding the lost city of Lemuria and potentially even their grandparents.

With a steadying breath, Fontaine radioed into the Rover from her own Knight. "What now?"

The Arronax was parked too far up to justify heading back for the rest of the Knights. Anyhow, finding clues would be a one or two-person job at most.

"Why don't you guys wait out here?" she suggested, "you can send in the pingers to keep an eye on us."

"Are you sure?" her father hesitated. She knew he had wanted to be the one to go inside, but he'd need his Knight which was back on the sub moored at the surface.

"We got this, Dad," Ant reassured, eager to get going.

"Okay," Will nodded, conceding.

Not even a full minute later, Fontaine found herself regretting everything. Because within the narrow cave passages there was no respite from Ant.

"Are we there yet?" he pestered.

"That's the tenth time you've asked that, and the answer is still NO, Ant," she ground out.

They both trudged through the water-filled trails, only the lights from their mechanical suits illuminating the natural corridors lined with green ocean shrubs and algae. There were no fish here again, an observation which seemed odd to Fontaine.

"Do you see anything?" their Dad asked, also possibly for the fifteenth time as they turned a corner, "Any symbols etched into the cave ceilings?"

"No, Dad," Fontaine felt herself starting to get a headache from this back-and-forth. "Like I said before, I'll let you know the second I see anything that isn't cave wall."

But the second the words had left her lips, something caught her eye in the distance. A flash of light.

Frowning, Fontaine turned off the in-head electronic visuals and looked again. There seemed to be a shimmering gleam on the ceiling ahead of them. As they neared, Fontaine couldn't help but let her eyes widen as Ant gasped loudly.

"Aliens!" he whispered in wonder.

At that, Fontaine's smile dropped.

"Dad, there's something ahead, like a weird light coming from below."

"Be careful," was the only response they got before a deep rumble was followed by a loud crackle of static resounding over the radio. Then all communications went out.