“This is the kitchen,” Destiny pointed his fin, “I know I’m like, a fish or whatever and we’re totally underwater right now, so I can't really hold a knife or cook anything over a fire. But the marble for the countertops is imported from Italy on Earth.”
Destiny was giving them the grand tour of his place. His house was an Earth-style family home that looked to be designed in the 1950s. It was built right on the ocean floor. Everyone was standing in magical air bubbles Destiny had created for them. They had about 20 minutes until their oxygen ran out.
“Oh, you gotta check this out!” he spun a lazy susan on the table around “it’s one of those spinny table things!.”
Being in the ocean, underwater, surrounded by fish, guided by a magical fish, was not good for poor Fred’s mental health. They had found the best solution was to blindfold him and for S.S. Happiness Tugboat to sing soothing songs to drown out all other noise.
Upon waking up both Tugboat and Ricky were able to put aside their differences and felt an inexplicable comradery between each other. Ricky stood Shirtless and stunning, in his bubble, glaring at Tomas. He still felt that his doppleganger was somehow trying to seduce Wanda away from him.
Tomas shivered. He was standing naked, doing his best to ignore Ricky and Einstein's gaze while nursing his chewed on arm. His powers helped him heal faster but it still stung like heck. Einstein stood beside him with her sketch pad, designing sunglasses that would transform as Tomas. She didn't have any measurement tools so she was doing it with her fingers, poking and prodding him.
The only two who were fully paying attention to Destiny’s home tour were Dogalogue and Sonia who both looked on with keen interest as Destiny spun the lazy susan as fast as he could then hopped on it to make himself dizzy.
*DING DONG*
“Whoa!” Destiny exclaimed, “That’s my doorbell. You guys are so lucky! Noone ever uses my doorbell. Be right back dudes, gonna see who it is.” He swam off to check his front door. Only Tugboats singing and Einstein's furious pen scratching broke the silence.
Destiny opened his front door and was met by Teleport Fish and Divination Fish. “Hello Destiny Fish.” Divination greeted.
“Dude’s! Have you finally come for the house tour I invited you to a thousand years ago? Crazy timing! Must be the universe at play.” Destiny was his usual self.
“Not today, we’re here for another reason today. You're magic is one of the types that can interfere with Divination’s, have you been investigating any of the strange lifepods that fell the other day?” Asked Teleport Fish
“Life pods? Hehe dudes, that sounds a lot like work. You both know how I feel about that noise. Is something up?”
“We’re not sure. Some strange things have been happening recently and we believe someone is up to no good. It's uncommon that I can't just see everything and figure it out. Have you met or seen anyone unusual recently?” Divination answered.
“Ummmm, well I did meet this depressed octopus just yesterday. He lost his octopus sunglasses or something and he was...”
“Well we gotta go,” Teleport Fish cut in, “If you do see something weird please let us know.”
“Oh, ok dudes, sure thing. Don't forget to swing by for that tour later.” They both left without another word. ‘Hmmm, Tugboat, Ricky, the evil howling, Tomasactually being a human, and the two dead DNA minions were all pretty weird now that I think about it. Wonder if that’s the kind of thing I should have told them about?’ he realised too late after they were gone. “Nahhh it’s probably not that.” he said out loud and swam back in to finish his tour.
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“Good evening, Headjob!” Wally greeted with a large cheerful smile. A small army of wild and dirty looking people from all the races of New Siren stood on the dock behind him. The lights of the burning city lit them ominous from behind.
Douglas raised his shotgun and fired upon the man. Wally had already leapt aside out of the way as he pulled the trigger. Douglas hit a dishelved, homeless looking, former Scientist slave instead.
Wally leapt forward and started to climb up the side of the Sea Cucumber, leaving holes all up the side of the hull where his hook had pierced. One of the few crewmates who hadn’t fled tried to knock Wally down with an oar. He got a hook through the ankle as Wally swayed to the side to avoid the oar and yanked the man off board for the attempt. He made it on board and stood, dusting himself off.
“You really came back for my head.” Douglas said, his four eyes wide open.
“What? Yer head? Oh! Your knob was what I said. Na mate, don’t worry, I was just excited when I said I’d rip one off. She’ll be right. I’m here for your triangle hat actually.”
Douglas reached up and touched both of his heads “You mean a tricorne?I don’t have one. I have two heads so triangle hats make them bump into each other. I wear caps.” Douglas was now unsure what Wally had promised to rip off earlier but was very relieved to hear he was keeping it.
“Bugger, Doofus said you’d probably have one since you're a captain and all.”
“Doofus, you traitor!” he murmured to himself before addressing Wally, “I’m more of a skipper than a captain.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The hats. What exactly happened when doofus took you to the slave office, Wally?” Douglas looked down at Wally’s hook and then over to the crowd of rioters and looters.
“Oh, I became a pirate! Just need a triangle hat and a ship to complete the look. No offence, but I'm not gonna take the Sea Cucumber, It’s crap.” Wally made it sound so… undesirable, that Douglas felt sorry for his fishing boat. “And since you don't have a triangle hat, I’m gonna have to take your head. Left one, you said?” Wally took a step forward.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Whoa whoa whoa, Why?! I never specified sides. Let’s talk about this, Wally!”
“Well, if I don't take something, thenI came down here for nothing. The crew would look down on my lack of productivity. Reputation is very important for a pirate.”
“What crew?” The fear of losing a body part reignited in Douglas. He was looking for a way out.
Wally gestured to the hundreds of unsavoury folks looting and rioting on the dock. He took another step forward. A laser pierced the night sky. “Ohoh, I think that’s the guest I’ve been waiting for. We’re gonna have to finish this later, sorry Headjob.” Wally jumped down off the boat.
Douglas ordered the ship depart immediately. He was going to go live with one of the factions where things were safer he vowed.
Wally strolled confidently through the crowd. He held out one hand and a random person placed a large cigar into it. He placed it into his mouth and a laser fired from the sky, lighting it for him. He took a puff and smiled at the flamboyant pink fish that descended in front of him.
“Hope you don’t mind me giving you a light.” Laser fish said with a cheeky smile.
“Not at all, Darling. I thank ye, in fact. The name’s Wally.” Wally bowed with a flourish, and held out his hand.
“Laser fish.” She purred her introduction and placed her fin in his hand. Wally gave her a formal kiss on the back of the fin. It tasted fishy. Laser fish continued, “We have a lot to talk about.”
“That we do, my dear. That we do.”
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DNA Jellyfish had no interest in being ‘diplomatic’ like Laser Fish. He was out for blood. He had been embarrassed by Einstein. Then embarrassed again in front of his magical peers when his minions had been found dead. When it was suggested that he had been manipulated by Fred into attacking the SNOOP faction’s capital, he trembled in rage. This intruder was going to have a bad day once they met.
He was at the head of a group of 50 walkers, the walking piranhas. They emerged on the beach where he had left Fred. the moon lit up the sands. A large dark shadow was sniffing around the battlefield from earlier in the day. It was just as Divination had described it, a powerful wolf-person. DNA Jellyfish was looking forward to twisting its form into something weak and helpless. It noticed them emerging from the waters and stood up on two legs to look at them. Yellow eyes reflected the moonlight ominously.
“Go.” DNA ordered, and the walkers started sprinting around him, towards the beast. They gnashed their teeth and squealed into the night air.
The Matriarch growled and hunched back down on all fours ready to strike. Jellyfish was quite confident in his walkers, they weren’t as strong individually as one of his elite, but as a group they were much more brutal and dangerous.
They were about to reach her when she burst into motion. She ignored the walkers, knocking them aside, and charged straight towards DNA. She received several cuts and scratches from the walker's sharp teeth as she past them but quickly closed the gap. DNA calmly held up two dozen tendrils straight forward, creating a wall of spikes.
Before reaching the spikes she shot her arm out to the side and dug her claws into the side of a walker and spun around it. It was much smaller than her so she had no trouble planting her feet, grabbing it with her other claw as she spun, picking it up, and hurling its entire body into the awaiting tendrils. Its body pierced all the way through and bumped into his main body with a thump, It was already dead.
DNA flicked it off with a growl, and turned to the Matriarch who had circled around to throw another minion at him. He activated his magic and began to levitate. He whipped his magically enhanced tendrils through the flying minion like a hot knife through butter. It split apart and flew to either side of him. The Matriarch was right behind it and swiped down with her claws. DNA had its other tendrils stab up and peirce into her claw. They couldn’t pierce through as easily as with the minions but managed to stab deeply. Her claws scratched his main body once and then she leapt back dislodging the tendrils and holding her claw. He had altered the flesh of her hand to send signals of pain instead of touch.
She was obviously in pain but it didn’t seem to slow her down at all. She turned and started tearing apart the walkers behind her and hurling their bodys at DNA who quickly followed, drifting like a ghost. “Get out of here. You're useless! I’ll take care of her myself!” He shouted down to the walkers, as he cut another in half.
The Matriarch spun around as the walkers scattered and swiped her claws at his tendrils this time. She managed to tear through approximately ten of them, but DNA had hundreds more. They stabbed up at her hand now and altered her hand structure.
She leapt back with two powerful leaps as the claws fell off her hands. DNA followed right behind her trying to pierce her again. She stopped and leapt straight up. So high that she couldn't even reach him, or so he thought. Her whole body transformed into that of a long, skinny, disformed, human woman and a fist came down on the top of his head like a cannonball from a very long range. His whole body slammed into the sand underneath. The punch was so powerful that even her own body flew off course and landed several metres away. She landed in a graceful somersault and got down to all fours shifting back into a wolf.
Both her and DNA noticed something at the same time. She raised her hand up and looked at it. She still had some unhealed wounds from where the tendrils had pierced but the claws were back and the pain was gone. Her transformation powers negated his DNA altering magic.
“This is going to be fun.” The matriarch growled with a lupine grin.
DNA Jellyfish’s whole body pulsated in anger. This was not a lifeform he could allow to exist. It stood against the natural law of things. The law in which he was the god of flesh and bone and she was a lowly insect to be crushed at his whim.
He pierced his own body with his tendrils and began to change. His flesh warped and contorted into a mirror of the Matriarch. He got down on all fours and growled at her. She growled back. The fight began. Launching at each other they clawed and bit each other repeatedly. DNA had chosen her form as it was the fastest and strongest living creature he had ever seen. His claws had the advantage of messing with her DNA everytime they landed, forcing her to shift back and forth rapidly during the fight. But the matriarch had the advantage of having centuries of experience hunting and killing in this form. For every blow DNA landed she landed three, much deadlier ones. DNA had the advantage of magic to give him a sturdier body and tricks like levitation and minor telekinesis, but they couldn’t beat the raw power of the Matriarch's deadly natural weapons.
The fight continued for almost an hour, each warrior torn bloody and ragged. The Matriarch swung her claws up in a bladed uppercut slicing DNA’s throat and forcing his head up. Then she stepped back and shifted as she spun her body. Her leg extended in a deadly arcing kick and came down on the back of DNA’s neck like an axe. He went limp as his neck snapped. As he was still technically a Jellyfish he only needed a moment to regain movement but he never got that moment. She was on his back in wolf form in moments tearing his body to pieces. She ripped off his arms and legs and finally his head. She lifted the head up over her own like a trophy and howled at the moon.
DNA magic rippled out across the universe. Undeveloped planets had a sudden rapid increase in evolution. Plants grew wings, animals started talking, Snails grew speedy. That sort of thing.
She placed the head in her mouth and bit down, crushing it. She tried to take a step forward and fell into the sand unconscious from blood loss.