Tales of a Peculiar Pirate

14. It Was a Blast, It Was a Lightning Blast

As if a wise man had never spoken the wise words "curiosity killed the cat," Polly propelled herself toward Evangeline. Yet the girl had at least the good sense not to get too close, and approached only up to where she could clearly see the scene before her.

"You think he's dead?" Polly asked Fethar.

"No," Fethar replied. "If that was all it took to kill him I'd be quite surprised."

"What do you mean all it took?"

"Well from what I know, cult leaders tend to be much harder to kill than the average members of their species. I would expect Mister Qwertyuiop to be no exception."

Polly said no more, though she had been far but relieved from her doubts. If Qwertyuiop were a traditionally non-living object like Fethar, Polly would have agreed with the headwear in a heartbeat. Yet it was nothing more than the truth that Qwertyuiop was very alive and very sentient.

Qwertyuiop's tail fin twitched. Evangeline stopped her reeling. Polly waited with baited breath.

"Oh? You were dragging me in?" said the now awake and about fish. "Instead of swimming away while you can you're bringing me right to you?"

"I can't beat your fins off without bringing you closer," sneered Evangeline.

"Oho? That wasn't a problem when you were flinging your friends at me. Get as close as you'd like if that's what'll make you feel like you have a chance. I answer to a higher power; fools like you could never make me sweat."

The fish that spoke to Evangeline now wasn't the same relatively lax fish that had casually told his audience about his cult's upcoming dance competition and had taken a beating pretty much laying down. Before them now was danger personified.

Polly knew that it was time to go. Sure drama was fun to watch and even participate in once in a blue moon, but when the situation escalated too far, like now, was when she knew she had to get out. As discreetly as she could, Polly began paddling away.

"No need to leave so soon," called the 3-inch long ominous floating figure. "If you have any hard feelings about being used as a weapon against your will, now would be the time to say so, don't you think?"

"Forgive and forget," chuckled Polly, who nervously picked up the pace of her paddling a smidge.

"Please stay, we insist." Two new fish who couldn't be anyone else but Qwertyuiop's partners in crime had entered the scene.

These fish, like Qwertyuiop, bore little to no resemblance to the royal gramma Polly had seen before. Polly was starting to wonder if the royal gramma species just had extreme genetic variation and "normal" looking ones were the real outliers.

One had glaring fuschia scales instead of the traditional violet, but what made the fish's appearance something to marvel at were the asterisk and oval on its cheeks. Polly wasn't sure whether to assume the designs, like the plus sign on Qwertyuiop's head, were tattooed on or magic-ed on.

Polly hadn't been traveling for very long, but out of everywhere she had stopped by, these fish were the only species she had come across thus far with supernatural abilities. She was more than a little envious.

The other fish's purple scales were like Qwertyuiop's in the sense that they were more on top of the fish than to its front or back. What set them apart was the fact that this fish's scales were a purple so dark it might as well have been black. To add to this fish's peculiarity was its eyes, which unlike the barely visible dots of Qwertyuiop or the thin slits of the nearly pink fish, bugged out and bore an odd resemblance to googly eyes.