Funky Fish and Fighting

Even with her limited understanding of genetics, Polly was aware that fish of the same species would have their differences. However the fish before her might as well have been a zucchini, given how different they looked from the other two royal grammas.

Rather than the simple, ordinary, normal, natural, average, conventional, commonplace, standard, generic, expected, typical, run-of-the-mill, routine yellow in the front purple in the back or purple in the front yellow in the back pattern that the hostage and Evangeline respectively sported, this fish’s scales were purple on the top and yellow on the bottom, with the violet color reaching down to their pectoral fins.

It gave Polly the impression that the fish had seen a coat they thought looked cool and were taking a stab at imitating it. To add to the oddity of the fish’s appearance, on its forehead was a plus sign that sent shivers through Polly’s spine. She hated math with a passion. How had Evangeline even recognized them as part of her clan?

“That bizarre being is asking for the release of the hostage,” Fethar informed Polly. “And now Evangeline is declaring in quite the enraged tone that she’s the one making the calls here. I’d expect nothing less from her given all that she’s gone through. She’s now demanding that the evildoer explain their actions.”

“I didn’t expect her to be willing to listen to them,” remarked Polly. “I thought it’d be something like a one and done, you know, like she’d beat them then beat it.”

“As did I,” replied Fethar.

“I wonder why they killed her clan,” wondered Polly. “Do you think they were working alone?”

“No, it’s unlikely,” answered Fethar. “An operation of that scale, why I’d say it’d need a group of three to come up with it at the very least. In fact, I’d wager that the one before us was the one who executed the plan but not the one who came up with it. Any good mastermind would be lurking in the shadows right now watching their plans unfold.”

Polly leaned down to get a better look at the fish and decided that Fethar had to be right. There was no way a fish that looked like that would be the brains of the group.

“If what you’re saying is right on, then where would the other cult leaders be? If they’re in hiding it sure can’t be anywhere nearby because there’s about as many corners for ‘em to tuck themselves into in these waters as there are in the empty hole that’s my stomach right now.”

Polly pictured Fethar’s nonexistent hands stroking their nonexistent gray, floor-length beard.

“I suppose they must trust that this odd-looking fellow will do his duty to the degree that they figured even if they hid somewhere far off, it would still be smooth sailing.”

“That’s possible,” nodded Polly, making sure her ponytail bobbed for emphasis. “So has that shoddily styled sinner confessed to their crimes yet or nah?”

“While I’m most flattered that you think I can carry a conversation with you and translate a conversation at the same time, I apologize to inform you that I am not quite at that level yet. I might be one day, but sad as it may be for you and for me, today is not that day.”

“Uh oh spaghettios,” said Polly. “It’d be real sad hours if we missed any of the good stuff.”

One of Fethar’s nonexistent hands moved to shush Polly, or at least that was what Polly figured was going on. It’s what she would have done had she been in Fethar’s place. Taking the hint, or the hint she assumed she was being given, Polly decided to lock her lips, toss the key, and let Fethar do their thing.

“It appears we did not miss much,” reported Fethar after a few moments. “The tacky transgressor is a mad lad who goes by Qwertyuiop, and as I figured, he was the one sent to carry out the deplorable deed. From what I have gathered, he refuses to elaborate on the motives behind the group’s plan until the hostage, who appears to have nothing at all to do with the situation, is released.”

The fish were at a standoff. Polly didn’t need eyes to see it or ears to hear it, the sheer bad vibes she was getting made it more than clear. Polly feared that if tensions rose any further, the figurative sparks flying between them would become literal and she would meet her end as an unfortunate victim of electrocution.

The poor pirate wasn’t a hundred percent sure if her boots would be adequate protection from an electric current conducted by sea water with a healthy amount of chloride, socium, sulfate, magnesium, calcium, and potassium ions in it, and she wasn’t fixing to find out.

Neither of the two looked willing to budge, and Polly figured that meant they weren’t going to be discussing anything anytime soon. If now wasn’t the right time for her to fish out the key she had thrown away and let herself back into the world of the speaking, then she didn’t know when would be.

“You know if that dude was so down to take out a whole clan, then why does he care so much about making sure that hostage who’s not even from his clan gets set free?” the adventurer asked. “The dots, they’re not connecting.”

“The duality of man,” sighed Fethar, sounding like a worn out English teacher. “Well I suppose we’ll listen to what he has to say so we have text based evidence to analyze his motives and their complexity with.”

The two went silent as Fethar processed what was going down below, and as she waited for an update, Polly wondered how the fish felt as they were being watched. She wondered if they felt like reality TV show stars. Polly pondered that for a bit and then decided that if anything it’d be actors in a low budget dark fantasy show or drama, the low budget bit being solely because of the villain fish’s cruddy character design.

For the life of her, Polly couldn’t recall having watched any reality TV shows that involved mass murder and hostage situations back when she’d wasted time as a lifeless, potato-like lump in front of her television back home.

But then again, she had only ever gone into that vegatative sort of state when her parents had put a hold on her roaming about as she pleased because she had supposedly caused “too much trouble”. Polly’s definition of causing a ruckus and her parents had never been one and the same, and there were a few instances in her life where rather than lining up, their definitions were like divergent tectonic plate boundaries.

“What a turn the situation has taken,” murmured Fethar.

“So you’re just going to leave me hanging like a banana from a corm (the above ground parts of a banana plant), huh?” frowned Polly as Fethar failed to elaborate.

“Speak not fool. You are being disruptive.”

Polly’s mouth took on the shape of the slash used in punctuation (she had tried shaping her mouth into a backslash, the slash used in computing, before and found it unflattering) as Fethar’s statement only further forced up memories of her parents berating her for her behavior.

“Great minds think alike but fools hardly differ,” said Fethar suddenly.

“What?”

“Evangeline just asked the question you had posed earlier. The one about why the cult leader would care so much about the life of a lowly hostage, if you recall,” replied Fethar. “However to call her wise would be to call you wise, and I hardly think one thought provoking question would be enough to elevate your status from circus clown to ringmaster.”

“Dude, what have I ever done to you?” huffed Polly. She would have given Fethar a solid kick to the shins if the offender wasn’t shin-less.

“Mister Qwertyuiop replied with, ‘Professionals have standards,’ and our dear friend is not taking that well at all,” reported Fethar, acting as if Polly had not just questioned the attack on her honor.

“Thanks a banana bunch for that quick reply that ten out of ten addressed my question,” sniffed Polly disdainfully, but not too disdainfully because she still needed Fethar’s translating skills.

“So has Mister Qw-whatever finally gotten to his motives yet. In fact what’s he been talking about this whole time if he hasn’t been talking about why he bamboozled Clan Swole into becoming fried fish sticks?”

“He has been making a valiant attempt at persuading our friend, who looks to be on the verge of murder right now, to release the capitve. Why I do believe he’s made the situation worse if anything. Oh! Evangeline says she’ll shred the hostage’s fins if that scoundrel doesn’t get to the point. She’s quite the vicious one, which I suppose I should have seen coming given all that she’s said and done thus far. Grief does drive one to act out, doesn’t it. I wonder what she was like before…”

Polly had never seen fish fight before, but her inner fortune teller told her that she was about to. She wondered if they would butt heads like goats or if they would be putting their all into slapping each other with their fins. She was absolutely not prepared to watch Evangeline launch herself as if she were a rock fired from a catapult in the direction of her target, who wasn’t a castle in this case, and chomp.

“You could have given me a crystal ball and taught me how to use tarot cards and I still would not have seen that coming,” commented Polly to an equally as stunned Fethar.

As if that hadn’t been enough to shock Polly, Evangeline made a speedy retreat and from her eye shot out a red beam that coiled around Qwertyuiop.

“She...she didn’t tell you about that did she?” Polly asked incredulously. “I mean yeah I thought her eyes kinda looked like laser pointers, but the beams from laser pointers can’t wrap around things, can they? Why would she even tell you that when she wants to she can make everything she sees look red? What did that have to do with anything? Why didn’t she say anything about being able to create literal laser lassos? Why did she even have to bite the other guy in the first place?”

“My good friend, I am just as much at a loss as you are,” replied Fethar. “Clearly she did not trust us as much as we had flattered ourselves into thinking she did, which I suppose is why she did not share such valuable information with us. Why she informed us of what she did though, I do not know. Perhaps she sought to create an illusion of weakness so we would let our guard down around her?”

“Oh well,” sighed Polly. “At least we’re not caught up in it this time. I guess if the hostage uses a brain cell or two they could try and swim away or something. They’re from Clan Vroom, no?”

Polly and the hostage must have shared a brain cell for that very minute, for as soon as Evangeline had gone on the offensive, he sped away faster than anyone with a good head on their shoulders would run after seeing a goose on the loose.

“Gosh, I hope everything works out for him,” said Polly as the escapee made like a chip and dipped.

“I fear you may have jinxed us,” said Fethar with a hint of worry in their voice which prompted Polly to cast her gaze down below. She was not at all pleased to find both fish looking dead straight at her.

Before Polly could even utter a complaint at the unjustness of it all and say something about how she was just a small island girl living in an ocean world taking the midnight ship going anywhere, she was dragged by one of Evangeline’s eyeball ropes down into the sea she had been so desperately trying to avoid.