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.
"Sure thing," answered Polly who reluctantly steered herself in the direction of the kiwis who were more interested in what was going on than fleeing the scene.
As she joined her bird buddies, Qwertyuiop joined his fish friends. The two groups and a lone Evangeline eyed each other warily. Diplomat had never been one of Polly's top picks when she was drafting her career plans (her number one had been pirate from day one), but had she known she'd be finding herself in tense situations at every island she landed in, it would have scored second place easily.
"Let's try to talk things out," suggested Polly. "You know, I'm sure we're all mature and respectable folks here, so I'm sure we can reach a mature and respectable compromise."
"Would someone mature and respectable heartlessly besiege someone else in the middle of a conversation?"
"Mature and respectable people don't really go about wiping out whole clans either, but let's not go picking at details," snapped Polly.
Polly had a sudden flashback to the conflict mediator program her first school had hosted that basically trained a few students to deal with problems between other students. She had always seen it as useless and unnecessary because the supposed conflict mediators never did much for her when her classmates were snickering about her dream of becoming a pirate, and she always had to take care of things herself.
Her teachers foreseeing her winding up in her current situation was most likely not the reason they had established that pointless program, but Polly had always been one to give others the benefit of the doubt. With that in mind, she called upon every last memory of a conflict mediator trying to convince her that her pride being insulted wasn't good enough reason for her to retaliate with scathing insults she had picked up from the neighborhood pirates, and decided it was her turn to be the dealer of justice.
"Hi I'm Polly and I'll be mediating this conflict," the seafarer began. Though it was a bit late in the game for introductions, Polly figured they couldn't hurt. "Evangeline and Qwertyuiop already introduced themselves to each other, so who are you guys?"
"Clowngician," answered the possibly tattooed fish.
"Yellatmi," answered the googly-eyed fish.
"Great. Let's start with Evangeline who is arguably the victim in this case. Evangeline, please share your side of the story."
"I was swimming in the sea, late one night, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight. For my clan from the waters began to rise, and suddenly, to my surprise. A lightning blast, it was a lightning blast. A lightning blast, it killed them in a flash. A lightning blast, they died so fast. A lightning blast, it was a lightning blast."
"The scene was rockin', currents were churning around. I knew who to blame, they just had to be found. It was a cold truth, that I was the last one alive. It was that cult leader, who murdered my tribe."
"So I see you know it too," said Qwertyuiop. "Do not dare lie and say that was not to the tune of the 'Murdered Mash.'"
"Quiet Qwertyuiop, you'll get your chance, and thank you Evangeline. Alright Qwertyuiop, you're up."
"From my secret lair in the ocean east, to the land of the clan that was the perfect piece, these fish and I left our humble abode to do what we had to for the sake of our show."
"It was a blast, it was a lightning blast. A lightning blast, it came down with a crash. A lightning blast, solo kills are a thing of the past. A lightning blast, it was a lightning blast."
Perhaps when she had decided to mediate a conflict with one party that openly admitted to murdering the precious people of the other party, Polly had bitten off more than she could chew.
"Evangeline, is there anything you'd like to say about this. Maybe if you verbally assault Qwertyuiop it'd make you feel better than if you physically assaulted him."
"I'll let my powers do the talking," growled Evangeline.
"Yeah, um about that, can you guys use magic or something like that?" asked Polly who assumed they could, but wanted to confirm her suspicions. Not that it had any relevance to the current situation, but she thought it'd be cool to know.
"Most fish in our clan can," responded the hot pink fish. "Some of us are just better at it than others, like me for example."
"Oooh, cool. Wait, I'm getting off topic. So, um, Evangeline, I totally feel you wanting revenge. You know, don't dish what you can't take and all that. You cult leader fish, I think it's very reasonable for Evangeline to only ask to beat you guys up instead of asking to kill you...at least I think that's what she's gunning for."
"I think I'll have to pass on that," stated Qwertyuiop plainly with the other two fisn bobbing in agreement. "Good talk, but we'll be heading out now."
With absolutely no regard to Polly who had all but given up on her half-baked attempt to work out a solution between the fish, because she knew in her heart of hearts that there wasn't one, the fish trio zoomed away.
"Well, uh," began Polly, casting a glance to a fuming Evangeline. The seafarer's words received no reply, for Evangeline wasted no time in pursuing her query.
"Looks like that's that," said Polly to the kiwis and to Fethar. "I guess we'll just have to figure out how to get back to The Birbalinda from here. Do you know da wey?"
"We know da wey," replied SAT, "Or at least I think we do."
"Do you know da wey," asked Polly to Fethar, hoping for a more definitive answer.
"If the route we take is by air, then I most certainly do, but by sea, I am afraid I cannot be of much use."
"Alright then. May the odds be ever in our favor. Kiwis lead the way!"
"Roger that cap."
The birds were able to move surprisingly fast in the water despite their feathers, which really should have totally created a ton of drag slowing them down horribly.
"Where did you guys learn to swim?" asked Polly as they paddled.
"Ahh, back in the day when The Dictator had just risen to power and the future of Sea Island 4 was uncertain, there were a number of us kiwis who attempted to flee before conditions could worsen. Obviously we were less successful than we anticipated, but it was during those days that we perfected the art of swimming," reminisced Ed.
"But if you guys were able to swim, then what stopped you guys from swimming your way to freedom?"
"Do you recall the barrier that was constructed to prevent ships from being able to enter? Well would you believe it, but we had a traitor in our midst. The very day of our grand escape, the barrier was put up, for the treacherous traitor had revealed our plans to The Dictator. We never figured out who they were though, The Dictator made no move to take us captive, she didn't have to. The island had become our prison, and so there we were until you came and rescued us."
"Oof, that's awful," commented Polly with a shake of her head.
"So then what's going to happen to all the kiwi who are still on the island?"
Ed shrugged nonchalantly. "They made their sandwiches and now they have to eat it."
Polly felt that Ed's response was a tad cold, but then she remembered how only those three kiwis had actually strived to escape. She supposed it was only natural they would bear at least a small grudge.
To everyone's pleasant surprise, SAT's memory was actually reliable. Their swimming, which was more than enough to tire out Polly, had brought them back to their one and only partially damaged ship. However, The Birbalinda wasn't the only thing waiting for them.
* * * * *
Sometimes school is rough and all you want to do is read trashy shoujo manga, and sometimes that sometimes is uH this week for me tee hee >:D If you haven't listened to the Monster Mash before I'm begging you to pLEASE check it out it's like one of my favorite songs of all time plus uH you might enjoy this chapter a bit more if you did ^u^
(☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞ (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞ (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞ (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞*
*the lenny faces suggest you click that spicy spicy vote button or leave a comment!!