🧬DNA Jellyfish🧬

Hundreds of pencil-thin tendrils hung down, piercing into the flesh of a squirming flesh abomination. The poor creature had once been a sea slug but now it had the DNA of an oyster. It was hard to even call it an oyster though, as it was so twisted and disfigured all over with sprouting, mismatched limbs and extra body parts.

The tendrils piercing its body twitched; so too did the abomination, its body mutating further with every movement. If you followed the tendrils upwards, you would eventually find a creature just as horrifying. DNA Jellyfish, an enormous blue and pink Nomura Jellyfish, floated silently, in the waters above.

He hummed to himself as he dug through the flesh of the oyster, only half paying attention to the work he was doing. His main focus was on his surroundings. He was keeping a (metaphoric) eye out for a particular fish to swim by. His nerve centre lit up, shining cheerful blue bioluminescence, in tune with his wordless humming. The humming stopped abruptly when he spotted the fish he was waiting for swim by.

“Destiny Fish, might I have a moment of your time?” He called out, flinging aside the poor creature whose genetics he’d been altering.

The Golden Barramundi turned to him and said, “YOOOO Dee eN Ayyy! What’s up, dude?”

DNA Jellyfish looked upwards, confused, “The sky?” he asked.

“LOL! You got it! Anyways, you need something?” Destiny Fish smiled.

“Right, I was hoping we could pair up for the genocide. Most of the others are already paired. I’m quite eager to get my tendrils on some Smarties,”

Destiny Fish cocked his head, “Why?”

DNA Jellyfish waited several seconds for the second half of Destiny Fish's question, before realising that there wasn't one. His glowing nerve centre dimmed a little in frustration, “Are you asking why I want to pair up, or why do I want Smarties?” he asked.

“Yes!”

His nerve centre glowed a little brighter again, this time in annoyance, but he kept his voice steady and answered, “To answer the latter question first, I’ve been investigating the origin of non-magic supernatural abilities for the last few centuries. My goal is to replicate such abilities within my creations. These powers are really quite fascinating in that they both appear related to DNA: a power can be passed down from parent to child, and yet also completely unreliant on DNA: I have completely altered the structure of a creature possessing a power before and discovered that they retain the power after the change."

"Another possible genetic link I've discovered is that members of the same race tend to have similar powers to one another. Which leads me to why I want to get ahold of some Smarties. Smarties typically have powers related to the mind. I intend to discover if this is a genetic factor or a cultural one before the race vanishes,”

DNA Jellyfish paused his long-winded explanation, bringing his attention back to Destiny Fish. Destiny Fish was floating upside-down, cross-eyed, trying to blow ring-shaped bubbles.

The glow within DNA Jellyfish turned from blue to red, his body trembled and every one of his countless tendrils twitched towards Destiny Fish, wanting to stab the stupid look off of his face.

Destiny Fish spun up the right way and had the decency to look apologetic, "Sorry, dude. I'm listening. Go on."

After taking a moment to calm himself, DNA Jellyfish continued, “As to why I want to pair up with you, I am a big, glowing, target for lasers and don’t have scales to protect me like you. I was hoping you'd cast [Destined to meet again] on me and then go hide yourself in a hole somewhere so that I can work in peace with the immortality granted by your magic!"

“Oh! [Destined to meet again]? Nope, can’t. Sorry!" Destiny said.

DNA Jellyfish lit up, becoming an angry beacon of red. He swam closer and loomed over Destiny Fish, “Why not!? You cast it on World Fish before. Am I not fish enough for you?! Do you want me to die in laser fire like Weather Fish did?!” He hissed.

“Yoooooo, chill your nips, dude. It's nothing like that. I literally can't cast the spell. I used it back on earth, on my bro, Wally. And, like, the spell only works on one person at a time. So I gotta go to Earth and meet Wally again before I can cast it again. And that's a big problem because …"

The light in DNA Jellyfish’s nerve centre dimmed. He cut off Destiny Fish, saying, “Oh, I see. That’s easily fixed then,” He spun about and called over Gate Fish, “Gate Fish, come give Destiny and me a portal over to… Earth, was it? We have an important mission to take care of.”

“Ummm, DNA…” Destiny Fish tried to interrupt.

“gAtE fIsH, dO tHiS. GaTe FiSh Do ThAt. Why don’t you make your own portal, you jiggly butthole,” Gate Fish called out.

“Yo, DNA…” Destiny tried again.

“How dare you! You think you’re better than me just because you have a spine? How about I rip yours out, punk?”

“Guys”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“DNA JELLYFISH!” Destiny shouted, finally getting attention.

"What!?" DNA Jellyfish growled.

“Dude, oh my Goddess! You gotta get better at listening! I’ve been trying to tell you, you're wasting your time: A) the spell doesn't make you immortal. That dude who I was telling you about; he died! And B) there's no point in going to Earth because, guess what, that dude I was telling you about died! You can't get the spell! OK!?"

DNA was about to say something but Destiny Fish kept talking, cutting him off, "Besides, I can't pair up with you anyways, dude! I’m already paired up with Time Fish! Jeez, you went and ruined my chill. Not cool, dude; not cool. I’m out of here!” Destiny Fish turned and swam off.

“You look like an escaped breast implant!” Gate Fish said, then teleported away.

DNA Jellyfish floated alone for a while, glowing an angry red.

👽Fred👽

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

“NO!!! HOW?!” Fred screamed into his pillow. His ears stung. He sat up, fumbling for the alarm clock hidden somewhere beside his bed. When he found it under the bed’s side table, he quickly snatched it up and began smashing it repeatedly into the wall. Gears and springs tumbled to the floor like rain.

There were three reasons why this innocent alarm clock was currently being murdered. First, its alarm was so loud that Fred’s ears were going to ring for the rest of the day. Second, the day hadn’t even begun yet, Fred had only slept a few hours before this rude awakening. Maintaining a rigid day/night schedule during space flight is essential to mental stability; something Fred had been failing to do because: Third, This was the tenth time an alarm clock had reached its end at Fred’s wrathful hands in the past two weeks. Fred had no idea how Edison kept finding all the parts and putting them back together, but somehow he did and somehow he made the alarm louder each time.

As the last bent remains of that poor clock trickled from his hands, Fred turned to stomp back his bed. He stopped before reaching it and let out a furious growl. His rage at the clock had activated his powers. Unfortunately for Fred, this meant he wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep until he invented something.

He kicked the broken scraps of alarm clock once more for good measure before he marched over to leave his room, pressing the door’s button. The door slid open, revealing the hideous creature that was waiting just outside in the hallway.

“AHHHHHH!!!!” Fred screamed, throwing himself as far as possible away onto the floor.

Metal Fish! It was Metal Fish! The giant iron barracuda had been lying in ambush outside his door! This was bad, she was ranked 10th on the secret magic fish danger ranking list for her magical control over metal. With a swing of her wand, she could easily tear this whole ship apart. They were doomed!

Fred scampered back away desperately, looking for a way to escape. He glanced back at the evil fish and stopped his scampering. His eyes narrowed. Metal Fish was still by the door.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Fred cursed.

Upon closer inspection, the fish floating ominously in his doorway was not the dreaded Metal Fish. In fact, it wasn’t a real fish at all! It was a mechanical construct, a fish robot. Fred saw what looked to be a camera focused on him from within the mechanical fish’s mouth. With his whole body shaking in anger, Fred hissed, “Edison, you son of a..!”

Since revealing his plans to make Fred’s life miserable, Edison had been doing just that. This robot outside his door was just another in a long line of pranks Fred had suffered since his secret’s exposure.

The worst part about them was: they were working. Fred’s powers had never been pushed this far before. Within his mind right now was an ingenious idea to turn the fake fish outside his door into a highly efficient, evil kill-bot, set to murder Edison in the most scientifically horrible way possible. Removing all the evil aspects of the kill-bot would provide Fred with some interesting insights into making a powerful A.I.

He got up off the floor and instead of repurposing the robot and killing his teammate, he instead, picked it up and repeatedly smashed it against the wall, much as he had done to his alarm clock earlier. Several minutes of smashing later, the fish-bot lay in pieces on his floor. Fred let out a sigh of satisfaction and left for the ship's bridge.

His first stop was the scanner. The ship was fitted with the latest in magic fish detection technology. The scanners were able to detect fish magic at an enormous distance. According to the latest news, this technology had allowed the Smarty military to locate the magic fish homeworld. Fred’s phobia had given him the habit of checking in on the scanner first thing every day to ensure he was safe from fish.

He tapped the screen of the scanner and it flashed a bright red message, “Magik Fish erywhere, Ur screwd”. Fred gasped, then ground his teeth. Edison had outdone himself. The amount of time and effort required to hack the fish scanner on top of building the fish robot outside his door and repairing his alarm clock was actually quite impressive. It was a disturbingly high amount of work enthusiasm, especially considering it came from Edison.

Instead of being impressed at Edison’s hard work, Fred was pondering over dozens of ways to permanently cripple his teammate using the scanner. Among all the brutal and bloody ideas that popped into his head, one stuck out. An idea to increase the scanner's power, concentrate the scans into a singular beam and then direct the beam at Edison to give him cancer. If Fred ignored all the parts involving weaponizing and cancer, he had just come up with a brilliant idea to increase the scanner's power.

He grabbed a tool kit and went to work immediately. He tinkered and fiddled with the inner workings of the scanner, took a space walk out to add some improvements to the scanning dish, and even un-hacked the screen. An hour later Fred stood back feeling quite pleased with himself. If all worked as planned, he had just improved the scanner’s power tenfold and improved fish scanning technology by decades!

Flipping the power back on he touched the screen to begin the scan. Sirens began blaring throughout the ship. A recorded message played over the siren, “Warning, Multiple Magical Fish Detected. Warning, Multiple Magical Fish Detected.”

The blood drained from Fred’s face. The scan showed that the magic fish were only a hundred thousand light-years away. That triggered a full-blown panic attack in Fred. His eyes closed and his hands came up to cradle his head as he fell to the floor in the foetal position, “NO NO NO,” He cried, rocking back and forth.

🐙Tomas🐙

A solid 14 hours of sleep later, Tomas was awoken by his stomach crying out in hunger. Both the river and the weather had calmed down while he slept. The sun shone down through the water. While Tomas unwedged himself from his spot, he noticed something in the water nearby. A plump fish was swimming about a few metres away and It apparently hadn’t noticed him yet.

That fish looks like breakfast. Time to reveal my fishing skillz, he thought, coming up with an elaborate fishing plan. Careful not to alert the fish, he slowly stretched all of his tentacles upwards. They surrounded the fish from every direction and began to draw in closer. The fish eventually noticed one in front of it and turned to swim away. This was all according to plan; his trap was sprung, “I’ve got you now!” Tomas boasted, twirling his tentacles together all at once, forming a tentacle cage.

To his great embarrassment, the fish easily swam right through a gap between two tentacles and got away. So much for your skillz, a voice in his head mocked. He grumbled about stupid fish luck and made his way up to the surface.

Upon emerging from the water, Tomas almost inked himself at what he saw. A mythical creature of legend was standing on the river bank nearby, ripping up his robes and eating his sandals. The two-and-a-half metre tall, bipedal creature was covered, head to foot, in long, dark, shaggy fur. Its pitch-black, simian face expressed anger at the lack of flavour provided by the sandal it was currently chewing on with its pointed, oversized teeth. There was no mistaking what he had just bumped into. A Yowie.

Yowies are extremely rare, Australian yetis. Their existence, a common topic of debate for cryptozoologists. Sightings were almost non-existent; this is likely due to the fact anyone unlucky enough to run into one was undoubtedly eaten soon after.

Before today, Tomas had actually known that they were more than just a myth. Tales of The Matriarch hunting them were recorded in the New Wolf Chronicles. Yowie stories were so frightening that they had given him nightmares as a child.

Here's a summarised version for you: The Matriarch considers yowies to be the greatest hunters in the world (after herself of course). She claims that not only are a yowie’s natural senses supernatural in nature, but they also possess a 6th supernatural scene which allowed them to become aware of her as soon as she laid eyes upon them. One time, she defeated a yowie by throwing it down a cliff. As it was no longer able to fight, she considered the hunt over and left it down there. She then travelled elsewhere to begin her next hunt. Days later and over 300km away, she was suddenly attacked. To her surprise, it was the same yowie she had thrown down the cliff. It had not only recovered from its injuries but somehow tracked her down over such an extreme distance. She discovered that the only way to stop a yowie from coming back again was to end its life.

Tomas cursed his luck. He may have considered himself a great hunter, but he was no Matriarch. There was no way he was going to risk going against a yowie. He tried to sneak back into the water but it was too late.

The yowie’s 6th sense, the one that lets them know when they are being looked at, picked up Tomas’ brief gaze. It stopped chewing on his sandal and looked straight in his direction. It let out a wild roar that shook the very air. Throwing the rest of Tomas’ ripped-up clothes into its mouth, it dashed for the river, kicking up dirt with the sheer force of its acceleration.

Tomas stopped trying to sneak and quickly dove down, shooting ink up behind him. When he reached the bottom of the river, he kicked up as much dirt and rocks as he could before camouflaging himself.

The yowie dove into the water and shot downwards. Because of its crazy strength, it was a very strong swimmer. It passed through the ink and arrived at the river bed in moments. There it stopped and looked around. Fortunately, its enhanced senses didn't work well underwater. Octopi are masters of camouflage so Tomas felt confident that he was now safe. He closed his eyes and waited for the yowie to go away.

It didn’t go away.

The yowie started digging and smashing random rocks off of the river bed together, probably assuming Tomas had buried himself. This put Tomas in quite a predicament; if he moved now his position would be given away, but every moment he stayed, increased the odds of the yowie grabbing him at random.

He wisely stayed still and prayed, despite his instincts screaming at him to flee. This act of patience paid off as eventually as the yowie eventually ran out of air. It had torn up a huge part of the riverbed before being forced to swim back up to the surface, but thankfully, Tomas was safe. He opened his eyes and took the opportunity to swim away. He didn't get far before having to hide again. The Yowie swam back down soon after taking a breath and started smashing rocks again.

For hours this game of hide-and-seek continued. Every time Tomas looked back to see if he was clear, the yowie would sense him again. It took him way too long to realise he was giving his position away each time. He eventually did however, and with an embarrassed grimace, kept his eyes forward, away from the yowie's general direction as he continued his escape along the river. It ended up taking him the entire day to get far enough away from the yowie to consider himself safe.

That night, he got lucky and spotted another fish. He was too hungry and tired for elaborate tricks and so went for a much simpler tactic than last time. Simply by camouflaging and moving close enough he was able to snatch hold of the fish with a single tentacle from behind. He wanted to kick himself for not trying the simple method the first time but didn’t have the energy for it.

Too starved and exhausted to even care about preparing the fish, he stuffed it into his mouth and ate it raw using his octopus beak. It was so gross and bloody, Tomas wanted to puke. But hunger won and after a few bites, it grew on him. He thought that might even enjoy the flavour more this way. Hunger satisfied, Tomas fell asleep quickly, camouflaged on the bottom of the river.

He awoke to another beautiful day, whatever that storm was a few days ago, it seemed done now. He found and caught another fish for breakfast. Then, because he felt like he had gotten far enough away, he decided to leave the river and start travelling on land again to make up for lost time. There was no way the yowie could pick up his trail after he’d moved so far underwater. Leaving the river, he transformed and began walking naked along the river bank.

He was wrong.

After a short time, he heard a thundering sound of something large charging in his direction from behind. Despair gripped him. He already knew what it was but turned to look anyway. The yowie had tracked him down and was sprinting his way.

It was almost upon him. There wasn't enough time to dive in and hide in the water. Tomas transformed and used his paired limb trick to dash away like a racehorse. His long strides let him outpace the yowie. When the distance between them grew enough that Tomas couldn’t hear it behind him anymore, he dove in and hid back into the river.

Apparently, the stories of Yowie's relentlessness were not an exaggeration. For now, he had no choice but to continue his journey underwater. But what about after that? It was going to take a few days to reach the lake that the river was fed from. From there he had no choice but to travel overland to reach his next landmark. Which meant he had to do something about the yeti sooner or later, but what? He planned as he swam:

I could try hurling rocks at it… na, if I miss it's game over. Besides, what I really need to do is get close to it and grab it with my tentacles. Stealth would be best but its senses are OP. I could build a trap to hold it in place but it's too strong. Hmm what to do, what to do?

Days later, he reached the lake, but had yet to come up with any good ideas. While he swam in the lake thinking, his thoughts were interrupted by something that caught his eye. Everything at the bottom of the lake was either green or brown. However, through the murk, Tomas spotted something bright and white. He swam over to investigate.

He was surprised when he came across a stunning marble statue of a strange and beautiful fish on the bottom of the lake. His eyes sparkled as they got lost in the statue’s life-like appearance. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Divine inspiration came over him, “Yeah! Octopi are awesome! This could work!” he exclaimed.

Not only was the statue an inspirational masterpiece, but it would serve as the centrepiece in an elaborate plan Tomas had just thought up. He grabbed it and began dragging it behind him as he made his way out of the lake.