Wally awoke in his cocoon. It stank in there so he lit up a cigarette. It didn't help with the smell but it did help him focus on more important things. He wasn't uncomfortable anymore, well, he was, but not in the same way as uncomfortable space made him feel. His cocoon rocked like driftwood floating on the waves. Any attempt to wriggle out of the cocoon resulted in sea water pouring in. He deduced that he was in the ocean somewhere in comfortable space. Nice detective work Wally! He couldn't escape fast enough without filling it with water and drowning himself but fortunately water didn't leak in as long as he stayed still. He tried to reach the knives strapped to his boots but he couldn't bend far down enough to get them. He tried calling out but no one was out there. And so there was only one thing left to do. Lay back and wait. A patient fisherman is a good fisherman.
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When humanity took its first step into the stars, something odd happened. Filled with a sense of destiny, mankind migrated outwards from Earth, but only in one direction. The intergalactic map of human occupied planets was a straight line that started with Earth and ended at New Siren.
New Siren was the ultimate paradise. Sun, sand, and sea. The food was delicious and the locals were welcoming. It felt like humanity was always destined to find it and settle in. It felt like home.
That's not to say it wasn't without its flaws. The main one being that you couldn't leave. After arriving and entering through the metal barrier that surrounds the planet ships would be swiftly escorted to land and then permanently disabled by magical fish. These magical fish that oversaw the planet were open about their plans to revive a long gone Goddess by increasing the soul density within the net. Many people were not happy with the idea of being a fish's Goddess's egg and tried to leave. Any escape attempt was quickly uncovered and put to stop. No one had ever left New Siren.
Even after this knowledge became commonplace outside of New Siren, people never stopped arriving. The pull of destiny was that strong.
Humans were the most numerous species on the planet, but there weren many others who came to New Siren as well. Alien races from all over flocked to the planet seeking their destiny. Some weren't even space faring yet but still arrived through sheer luck or other unusual circumstances. Each had their own unique cultural personalities and beliefs, which inevitably led to conflict.
For centuries, constant war plagued New Siren, which was completely fine with its magical fish overseers at first as war increased the rate the soul density accumulation they desired. But as time went one there was a concern that they would need to intervene as more people were dying than then there were being born or migrating in. Fortunately, they never had to, as the formation of four global factions put an end to the war. Each faction represented ideals and structure that people could rally behind and put their differences behind them. Tensions between factions was uneasy but at least, there was peace. A peace that the factions still maintained till today.
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Ricky was a simple duck farmer. He would never brag about it, but he and everyone else knew his ducks laid the biggest eggs. He didn't need to brag, it was obvious in the way he held himself and the energy he gave off. The man clearly had a huge duck egg farm.
Duck farming requires a surprising amount of physical strength to do well, and Ricky was the best. He stood 2.2 metres tall and weighed just over 150kg. He was a mountain of muscles that would put any body builder to shame. His wavy brown hair and light stubble made it easy to see, he was very handsome in a movie action star, kind of way. He was stark naked from the waist up except for his sunglasses which covered his dazzlingly blue eyes; his evenly tanned skin was on display.
Wanda had come to watch him work again. He loved his wife with all his heart. He sincerely believed that theirs was a story of true love taken straight from the pages of a fairy tale.
It wasn't just that that their love broke through the barriers of social class. She being the immortal leader of the WU-TANG faction and him, a simple duck farmer.
It wasn't just her stunning beauty. Despite being in her Early 2000s, Wanda didn't look a day over 21. She was a the most beautiful girl in all of WU-TANG territory, perhaps even in all of Siren. This was literal, Madame Wanda would have all the girls in her territory judged every decade or so, then the one she seemed most beautiful among them was kidnapped and had their soul switched out with Wanda's own. This is how Wanda had lived for 2000 years, and appeared so beautiful. Some may argue that this was quite evil and vain of her. But as wicked witches often appeared in the fairy tales Ricky read as a child, saw it as a plus.
Indeed, the strongest reason behind Ricky's beliefs was that he was a hopeless romantic. He was raised to believe in true love, destined love, and soul mates. Ricky's parents had met through a series of impossible coincidences and fallen in love with each other at first sight. As had his grandparents and great grandparents and so on for as long as his family could remember. It was as if the universe was behind them (or it was repairing from a paradox and taking away their free will, you decide). And so when Wanda had approached him and told him the story of how she first fell in love with him at first sight 2000 years ago, he knew she was the one.
She blew him a kiss, he caught it and put it in his pocket with a wink, then went about his work.
Ricky's family were big on soul mates, and higher purposes, so they had naturally joined the WU-TANG faction. His ducks provided eggs for several villages within the faction's territory.
The WU-TANG faction was one of two that had originated from Earth. It's philosophy was that living on Siren was desirable to elsewhere in the universe and had accepted that they couldn't leave. Additionally, they were happy that their souls would serve a higher purpose after death by reviving the Goddess. Their situation was a win win. As they welcomed the revival of the Goddess, they looked down on the other factions as being close minded or cowardly.
A commotion above Ricky caught his attention. Laser fire and explosions flashed through the sky. It was too far away to see what was happening, but it was safe to assume Laser Fish was involved.
"An escape attempt?" Madame Wanda said, walking over to stand next to Ricky, "It's been a while since anyone has attempted one of those."
"Yeah, looks like they're really going at it." Ricky commented.
Something large fell down from the sky in their direction. Ricky and Wanda both let out startled screams and his ducks quacked in excitement as it crashed in Ricky's duck pond with an explosive splash, throwing water up over everyone. Thankfully they had all been gathered around Ricky at the time, a safe distance from the pond.
They looked over into the water to see what on Siren it could have been. In the duck pond, a large fleshy cocoon now floated. Tentacles burst out of a sphincter hole in the cocoons and something pulled and squeezed itself out of it, dropping into the water and sinking out of sight.
Madame Wanda held on to Ricky's thick arm as they watched on in horror. A large tentacled creature slid up onto the bank of the duck pond. Its body twisted and morphed as it began to change shape. The monster became a muscular man laying on his back. Its right tentacle was the last to change. It held a pair of sunglasses that it placed down onto his face to cover his blue eyes.
Ricky and Wanda were frozen in shock as they stared down at the creature that had just transformed into an exact copy of Ricky.
The creature shouted into the sky "I'll never forgive you, you evil pile of junk!! It DID smell like farts in there!"
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The N.W.A. was the second faction originating from Earth. It vehemently opposed the revival of the 'fake fish goddess'. They already awaited a, in their opinion, far superior Goddess's return. Their opposition to adding their souls to the mix on Siren is what caused them to split from the WU-TANG faction after arriving on Siren.
It also put them in contention with the magical fish quite often. The fish were forced to ban immortality procedures after a NWA plan to turn all of its citizens into ever-living cyborgs. The fish allowed faction leaders the right to immortalization but denied it from the general population, as they needed those souls.
Even before siren, the NWA had always had two main tenets: faith and power. Thus they had two leaders, one for each.
The leader of faith was The Patriarch, he no longer went by any other name. His robotic body which housed his brain was shaped like a humanoid Wolf. None of his charisma or zeal was lost with the replacement of his body. If anything the strong symbolism and powerful form gave his words more strength as he impassioned his followers.
The leader of power was the ever-silent Scientist warrior, Edison. Rumour had it that he had fought the Matriarch in the past and survived. A rumour that he would neither confirm nor deny. He was known as a battle maniac. He had removed his own body bit by bit to make room for extra power and weight within his customised battle suit. Only his original brain remained. It was believed that the reason he didn't use a voice modulator was that it reduced his battle efficiency by a fraction of a percent. Truth was he was just too embarrassed to talk big and then risk getting his butt handed to him again. He was keen on a rematch though.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Together the leader's stood in a large open air training field as NWA soldiers practised combat drills. They watched the lasers which were now lighting up the sky.
"Now that's an impressive ship. Have you ever seen one like it before?" Asked the Patriarch
Edison shook his head.
With their enhanced robotic eyes they could roughly make out Laser Fish and Kinetic Fish doing battle with an odd shaped, red spacecraft. It was evading and returning fire seemingly holding it's own. Occasionally it looked like parts of the ship would occasionally shed off and launch down toward Siren.
"That part looks like it will fall nearby," The Patriarch said, marking a piece, "let's send a team to retrieve it."
Edison nodded, snapped his mechanical fingers and made some complicated hand gestures to a NWA member standing by.
"Understood sir!"
The man hadn't understood Edison's gestures at all, but had luckily been eavesdropping on the two.
The team that was sent out returned shortly with their report. Strange fleshy remains were found in the forest. Remains of what, they could not say. They had brought them back for analysis. The flesh was ripped and torn to pieces by the claws and teeth of a large animal. Odd because Siren didn't have any predators that large. The most disconcerting thing however was that some of the team were convinced that the claw marks had originated from inside the remains. Whichever the case there was something dangerous out there, in the forest.
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Fred's cocoon washed ashore upon a pristine golden sand beach. He didn't have claws or anything so he had to struggle and work his way out bit by bit. It reminded him of his own birth, which he remembered vaguely with his powerful Scientist memory. Finally after a last push he fell onto the beach exhausted and out of breath. He lay there recuperating, enjoying the sun on his face, the gentle crash of the waves, and the comfort of comfortable space. Then with his powerful Scientist memory, he remembered what lived in oceans.
"Nope. Nononono. Nope. Fish in the ocean. No thank you." Fred scrambled to get up and walk the opposite direction of the water. He looked back to make sure no fish were following him. Of course there weren't. The beautiful beach ended into a lush tropical forest. Fred didn't know of any fish that lived in palm trees so that was his destination.
A creature scuttled sideways from the brush and blocked his path. It was a man sized crab with oversized hands where its pincers should be. Funnily enough this didn't bother Fred in the slightest. It wasn't a fish and its strangeness didn't hold a candle to the creatures in uncomfortable space.
"Excuse me." Fred just kindly excused himself and tried to step around it. It scuttled sideways and stood in his way again. Fred felt a little annoyed but kept his cool.
"Fine, it's your home, sorry for intruding." Fred reasonably told the hand crab and turned to follow the treeline to his left, determined to get off the beach.
He startled as he turned because he ended up face to face with a second hand crab.
"Oh! You surprised me there, buddy. Don't worry I won't go into you and your friend's part of the jungle. I'll just follow the tree line and find somewhere acceptably far from the ocean." Again, Fred remembered his manners and tried to go around the crab, even risking a step towards the ocean to do so. The crab moved and blocked his path.
Biting back a growl, Fred simply told the crab, "Fine, have it your way." And turned to go the other direction.
Six hand crabs were standing behind him.
Fred breathed in and out slowly then pulled his fist back to punch the nearest crab in its eye stalk. Before he could land his punch a large hand shoved him and he fell onto his backside.
He looked up from his sitting position and the crabs had made a semi circle around him blocking the jungle. More had appeared.
He glanced towards the ocean, not a single crab was in sight. He looked back towards the crabs, "no" was all he could say.
The crabs moved in and started shoving him towards the ocean with their hands. Fred pushed and struggled but his feet always slid back in the sand ever towards the looming blue, fish-filled, jaws of the ocean.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!!!!!! NOoOOoOoo! I WON'T GO!!!"
When he was only a few metres away from the water, the shoving stopped. The Crabs formed their semi circle wall again and all of their eye stalks swivelled to look out into the ocean.
Fred turned to look too. Heads and bodies of enormous seahorses stuck out from the ocean lined up in two straight lines. They formed an aisle that led straight to Fred.
A ripple began moving down the aisle. Then the tip of a translucency blue head. Slowly it's whole form emerged as he drew closer and closer. DNA Jellyfish walked from the ocean and onto the land. Literally walked, his needle thin tendrils working as hundreds of long legs and carried him over the sand. He was easily 3 times as large as Fred; his body cast a shadow over Fred as he stopped to loom over him.
"What do we have here? It looks like a Scientist but it's far too small, far too green. Are you lost, little one? Came looking for your destiny did you?"
"I. . Uh.."
"Silence!" DNA whipped a tendril across Fred's legs, drawing blood. "I don't have time to waste taunting you and listening to your miserable whines! Tell me now, what in the Goddess's name, is that thing?"
A tendril raised to the sky where laser lights and explosions were flashing in the far distance.
"I don't understand what you mean."
A tendril pierced his shoulder.
"Ahhh shhhhience!!!"
"Ohoh? It's been a while since I've heard science's name invoked while I torture somebody. Maybe you really are a Scientist after all." DNA ripped his tendril out of Fred's shoulder. "The ship you arrived in, boy, what is that thing? It is up there with two... no, now three magical fish and it is dancing circles around them. Tell me everything about it. I must have its secrets!"
"I don't know anything, it's just a.."
Another tendril whip cut him off.
"Do you really want to test my patience?"
One of the hand crabs started bubbling at the mouth and clapping it's hands.
"What is it?" DNA demanded. He stabbed a tendril into it, piercing through shell and flesh and then cast a spell on it. It's body changed shape slightly as it grew lungs, a mouth and a tongue.
It spoke in the croaking water clogged voice of a drowned man. "Can make him talk. Know hims fear. Hear hims say 'fishes in ocean, me no want'. Him fear ocean. Hims fear fish"
"Oh is that right? You don't like the ocean and the fish?"
"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything I know!"
"Am I not fish enough for you?!"
"Please, it's called the xX_fishkilla_Xx!!! Erm.. I mean, now it's called the xX_scientistkilla_Xx... C'mon ask me anything about it..."
"Stallion, go get the walkers and call them onto shore."
One of the seahorses swam down into the water.
"IT HAS A STATE OF THE ART FUSION POWER CORE!!! ITS CAPTAIN IS A SENTIENT AI!!" Fred tried to kick DNA Jellyfish and got half a dozen tendrils through his leg for his efforts.
Hundreds of piranhas began walking up onto the shore. Well, not piranhas anymore, after having their DNA altered so much they were now essentially a whole new species. They had 6 long insect legs, could breath on land, and survive in ocean water.
Fred took one look at them and fainted.
A tendril whip woke him back up and the interrogation continued. Fred spilled everything about the ship, its crew; past and present; their journey through uncomfortable space. It was over quickly and DNA Jellyfish let Fred faint properly. Two names had stood to him.
He turned to leave, "Stallion, contact the leader of the S.N.O.O.P faction and tell her I demand a meeting regarding the xX_fishkilla_Xx. Also tell her she can come collect..." DNA realised that he had never learned the Scientist's name, ".. her green friend. Next contact Destiny Fish and tell him... actually never mind, don't bother with him."
He strolled back into the ocean with his walkers and left Fred with the hand crabs.
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The 'Sea Cucumber' was a large fishing vessel that belonged to the scaled tribe of the Notorious, Broad Independent Groups (B.I.G) faction.
Notorious for their lack of and real leadership, lack of uniformity, and lack of philosophic unity on all but one point: their dislike for the other factions. It was made up of a multitude of minority, alien species that had found their way to Siren and formed tribes based on shared features; scales, feathers, ECT... These tribes then formed the loose alliance that was the Notorious B.I.G faction.
The sea cucumber was trawling the ocean south of their home port when they caught something odd in their net. It was a large meaty cocoon. Something wriggled about inside, trying to get out.
"What d'ya reckon, Douglas, throw it back in the water before whatever's in there gets out and kills the crew?" A crewmate asked.
The skipper of the Sea Cucumber, Douglas, had a human shaped body and two reptilian heads. Both were staring down at the wriggling cocoon with concern. He spoke with his right head, "Na, I reckon we best cut it open and see what it is. If it's something nasty we can take care of it now before it grows big and ends up attacking some coastal villages. Everyone go grab a weapon or something."
The crew obeyed and rushed off to grab whatever they could find. After they'd returned Douglas pulled out his knife, stabbed it into the cocoon and then dragged it down the flesh, splitting it open. The smell was horrible. He jumped back as something moved inside.
Inside the cocoon, two legs kicked and tried to wriggle free. They were wearing rubber boots with a bunch of knives strapped on.
"Somebody is trapped inside! Quick, grab hold and we'll pull 'em out!" Douglas shouted.
The crew grabbed the legs, removed the hazardous boots and pulled the man out from the cocoon.
"It's a human! Well it looks like one, but it's so small and skinny." One crewmate commented.
"Is this where human babies come from?" Doofus, the stupid question crewmate asked.
Wally smiled up at the sun, never had he been so glad to see it. He sat up and looked around at the scaly men and women standing around him.
"Cheers for the rescue mates! Gotta say though, please be more careful next time, a few centimetres higher and you'd have lopped off me Dingle!"