Those Pesky Merfolk

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"There you go, my treasured neighbor," Cell placed a bountiful basket containing a massive head of cabbage, plenty of carrots, apples, spinach, leeks, an entire pumpkin, two radishes, two cucumbers, and a handful of tomatoes as round and juicy as an ox's heart before its newly met friend.

A miserable-looking, old, and starving lion with a balding patch at the top of his head and teeth so rotten he couldn't have possibly used them for eating anything wept in equal parts of despair and utter confusion. Feeling content with the good work he's been doing, Cell took off into the sky only to be followed by a blank stare of a one-of-a-kind snail with a human skull instead of a shell while the gloomy elder lion stared at the basket of fruits and vegetables, feeling pathetic enough to try biting into some of that stuff just to get to eat anything.

Cell flew off to the edge of Monster Island and scanned the uneasy ocean surface with an ocular inspection. It noted seals catching the goldfish carps that looked and acted exactly like ordinary carps, except they had vivid orange goldfish-like scales and the survival instincts of a dodo bird. Just as Cell was about to intercept and scare the seals away so that they didn't continue hunting a much rarer prey than they were, Cell noted a vocal rumble to the rocky shore it just hovered off of.

A gigantic, black-colored whale looped over the surface, peeking with its head, flipping over its front, and then diving to the farthest depths available so close to the rocky shores that may have only been around twenty-to-forty meters deep, the colossal black whale slammed its tail into the ocean's surface and caused a bone fide ripple of tidal waves crashing against the mountainous section of the shores that even shook off a few pointy rocks and caused them to plunge into the ocean off the mountainside.

All of this commotion scared off the seals. With the black whale turning around and dashing straight for the deeper section of the ocean, which measured to kilometers in terms of depth, Cell noticed a bright orange metallic peek. With a bad feeling in its gut, the Bio-Android slowly flew all the way to the location where it just saw something metallic peeking from the ocean. Cell stared down, trying to peer into the depths to make out what that massive object was just before it emerged and nearly struck it with its nose—a large and armed orange submarine.

The surfacing watercraft shot with its nose into the air before flopping onto the water's surface, prompting Cell to dive to the side just in case the nose would end up bumping into Cell. While Cell felt good about its odds of suffering no damage after being hit head-on by a submarine, it didn't feel nearly as good about the odds of the submarine handling such a collision while emerging. Wasting no time, the lid at the top of the submarine shot off, revealing a bulky woman with a Monster Island Ranger uniform.

"Pirita-san?" Cell muttered. "You're handling this submarine all by yourself?"

"What can I say, I like brisk walks and excellent exercise. Besides, some of these leviathans require some heavy machinery to handle them, and it's not like we've got a handful of people here. Lapis is strong, but I hate to rely on him strong-arming the animals into submission every time. I'm the superior here so I should be useful sometimes too," Pirita laughed while wiping hot, pouring sweat off her forehead.

Cell could sense that this woman wasn't a martial artist, but her natural strength, speed, and ability to handle complex watercraft and military heavy tech machinery must have been second to none. She seemed to have things handled here if first impressions were to be believed.

"So, what's your deal here? Not thinking about running away already, are you?" Pirita smiled while using the excuse of small talk to get some fresh rocky shore breeze to cool her off after the grueling task of handling a submarine all by herself broke a torrential sweat.

"No. I'm just trying to do my part and be a good neighbor. Help the animals and beasts. I was going to scare these seals away from eating the goldfish carps, but it seems that leviathan whale did the trick for me," Cell replied, turning to where the colossal whale had dived off to only to see serene ripples on the surface and the dance of reflecting sun rays caressing its eyes.

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