Once more:

STEP 1: MESS WITH FRED’S CLOCKS

The harsh, ear-piercing alarm sound of Fred’s new clock woke him in a bad mood. He grabbed it off the side table and began smashing it repeatedly into the wall. Ok, It woke him in a really bad mood. Fair enough, as he had only slept for a few hours before the alarm went off. This was the fourth alarm clock in a row that malfunctioned on him. Fred suspected foul play.

He threw his covers off and got out of bed. His rage at the clock had set his powers off. He wasn’t going back to sleep until he invented something. He stomped over to the door of his room and pressed the open button. The door slid open, revealing a menacing, magical fish just behind it, waiting for him, “AHHHHHH!!!!” Fred threw himself away from the door and onto the floor with an embarrassing scream.

When he finally worked up the courage to peek at the door, he saw that the magical fish was simply a mechanical construct, a fish robot. Fred saw what looked to be a camera focused on him from within the mechanical fish’s mouth, “Edison, you son of a buffoon!” A recent influx of pranks from his teammate is why Fred suspected foul play with his alarms.

Fred secretly suffered from ichthyophobia: an irrational fear of fish. Not so much a secret anymore though, Edison had found out and had been making Fred’s life miserable since. This robot outside his door was a long line of pranks Fred had suffered since the secret’s discovery.

The worst thing about it was that Edison was helping. Fred’s power needed stimulating in order to do its best work. Within Fred’s mind right now was an ingenious method of turning the fake fish outside his door into an evil artificial intelligent kill-bot and setting to murder Edison in the most scientifically horrible way possible. Which provided Fred with some interesting insights into how to make an effective A.I.

He got up off the floor and instead of repurposing the construct, he picked it up and smashed it against the wall several times much as he had done to his alarm clock. Several minutes of smashing later, he felt satisfied with its destruction and left for the ship's bridge.

Fred’s father, who was a member of the Space Illuminati, had ordered the ‘Little Girl's team' to be placed within a state-of-the-art, anti-divination, spacecraft at the beginning of the Smarty Vs. Fish war and launched them into the furthest reaches of space, far away from the fighting in order to protect the brilliant young minds on board. Much to the protest of both Einstein and Edison, who both very much wanted to be involved in the war. But to Fred, this was perfect; anywhere away from the fish was a good place to be.

The ship was fitted with the latest in magic fish detection technology to scan for the threat of magical fish from a distance. This was the technology that had allowed the Smarties to locate the fish’s homeworld. Fred had developed a habitual obsession with checking in on the scanner to ensure he was safe from fish before doing anything else. He tapped the screen of the scanner and it flashed, “Magik Fish erywhere, Ur screwd”. Fred ground his teeth. Edison had outdone himself. The amount of time and effort required to hack the fish scanner and leave this message on top of his other prank was actually quite impressive. He must have been waiting for the moment Fred fell asleep to pull it all off.

It was actually Fred’s obsession with the Fish scanner that had tipped Edison off in the first place. Now Fred was thinking of dozens of ways to permanently cripple Edison using the scanner. Among all the brutal and bloody ideas that popped into his head, one stuck out and caught Fred’s attention. An idea to increase the scanner's power, then concentrate the scans into a beam and direct them 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.

Fred grabbed a tool kit and went to work immediately. Less his anger fade and the idea slip his mind. 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 it. 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, Magical Fish Detected. Warning, Magical Fish Detected.”

The blood drained from Fred’s face. He looked at the scan and saw how close the magic fish was. This gave him a full-blown panic attack. His hands covered his ear holes and he fell to the floor in the foetal position, eyes closed, “NO NO NO,” He laid twitching and sweating.

His team rushed into the bridge soon after, “What's going on?” Einstein demanded. Fred was unresponsive so she ordered Edison, “look after him for a moment, I’ll figure it out.” She sat down at the scanner and began typing. After a minute the alarm turned off. Einstein let out an impressed whistle, “That’s an impressive upgrade, Fred, but you forgot to account for magical residue left behind after a fish casts a spell. This wasn’t a magical fish, merely the remains of one's spell. A false alarm.” She looked down at Fred on the floor. He was breathing steadier and his eyes had regained focus upon hearing her words, “What happened to you, Fred? Why are you acting like that?”

“Fish spook him.” Edison snickered.

“Ichthyophobia?” she asked, her forehead creasing in concern.

“What’s that mean? Here lemme show you what I mean. Check out this video,” He held up his smarty phone and showed the earlier recording from the fish robot. He giggled hard.

Einstein stood up on the fish scanner’s stool. She was much too short to perform what she planned without it. She leapt off and performed a perfectly executed spinning kick to the side of Edison’s head. His cybernetic neck took most of the blow, so she bounced back, landing on her feet, “You’re an absolute jerk! I knew something was up when I saw you building that in the engineering bay! You were just trying to torment Fred!”

“No, c’mon, Einstein, it’s not like that. It was just a harmless prank” Edison flustered.

“Computer, cut off Edison’s connection to space WiFi until I order otherwise.”

“AFFIRMATIVE!”

“Einstein please..”

Fred sat up, “Stop, both of you. Einstein, it’s fine, I made the mistake with the scanner. Edison, you’re fine too, I’m more angry about the clocks than the mechanical fish.”

“You don't need to put up with that kind of treatment Fred. We’re a team and we all need to treat each other with respect!” Einstein insisted

Fred sighed, “I know, but it’s Edison. This is his way of helping the team. Look at what he helped me accomplish with the scanner.”

Edison interjected, “See? I’m helping. No need to cut off my space WiFi.”

“Hmph, I don’t care. Don’t threaten our team’s integrity. Speaking of the Scanner, I wonder what you managed to detect,” she sat back down and typed on the scanner some more, “There’s a primitive planet called “Earth” nearby with the presence of fish magic on it. I wonder which fish cast the spell. I have an idea guys, we were banned from going anywhere near magical fish, but they didn’t say anything about going near magical fish magic! How about we go investigate this “Earth”?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea…” Fred worried

“Please, Einstein, the space WiFi,” Edison complained

Einstein ignored them both, “I’m team leader, so it’s settled, we’re going to Earth!”

Wally backed away from the lady in the sunglasses. She held a dragon statue and pointed the spiky end of the crystal it held at him like a knife, “Who the hell are you?!” she demanded.

“Who am I?! Who the bloody hell are you!?” he demanded back.

“Why have you taken Tomas’ body? Are you a demon? A ghost?”

“What are ya on about? I didn’t take anything! Don’t even know a Tomas! Where am I? I was on the lake a moment ago, then just woke up here in your…” he looked around the room taking it in for the first time. The gears in his head turning, “...Is this a brothel? Did I go too hard on me drinks again?”

“How DARE you. This is my mystique emporium. It is not to be compared to a, ” she couldn’t even say the word. Changing the topic, she held out her cupped free hand, “THIS is Tomas, and YOU are in his body!”

“No, I’m not.”

“YES, you are. Look at the mirror!” she pointed her chin at the wall behind him.

Wally took a careful step back in case she was trying to catch him off guard and glanced to where she had pointed, behind him. On the wall hung a mirror adorned with colourful fake jewels. Wally glanced at the mirror and saw a young dark-skinned man staring back at him, ”Eh?” he looked down at himself, back at the mirror, then back at himself again. He noticed the missing arm and uttered a word that made Wanda feel like vomiting.

He patted himself down, raised an eyebrow at the t-shirt he was wearing, pinched his own cheek, and pulled the front of his pants forward to see what was down there. Finally, he looked up at Wanda with wide eyes and asked, “What the shmuck is going on here?!?!”

Seeing how confused he was, she lowered the statue, “I don’t know. Why don’t you take a seat and let’s talk.”

A large black van with tinted windows pulled up across the street from Madame Wanda’s. The man who had spotted Tomas in the pub walked over to it. The driver had gotten out of his seat and was walking around to the back of the van. He was dressed in silver and blue body armour. The two men nodded to each other. The driver gave the back door two bangs with his fist before opening the door and entering, the man from the pub followed.

Inside the van were two more men and a woman, all in the same armour as the driver. They were preparing weapons and adjusting armour. A one-eyed man turned to the newcomer and greeted him, “Brother Charlie, good job spotting the target." This was Wolf Leader, the commander of the Church of the Wolf’s black ops team. His mere presence commanded respect, "Since you're not suited up I want you in charge of the van. Pierre, Give him the keys,” the leader gestured to the driver who handed over the van keys to Charlie.

He took them and saluted “You can count on me, Wolf Leader. Has the head priest given the go order yet?”

“Not yet, we’re expecting contact any moment now though.” as if on cue a screen on the side of the van lit up, indicating an incoming message. Wolf Leader pressed the accept button and spoke, "This is Wolf leader."

The screen showed an extreme close-up of head priest Roy's forehead, "Why can't I see anything?" He asked. The camera shifted from his forehead to up his nostril, "Is it working?"

Off-camera, muffled instructions to hold the camera further back could be heard. The camera shifted again, now pointing at the ceiling, "Ah there you are, Wolf leader. Can you see me?"

"Perfectly, head priest, sir," Wolf leader lied, "We're outside the building the target is in now, awaiting your instructions."

"Did you know I was the one who told everyone he'd go to Chook's Creek? I saw the newspaper he left on his computer and I said to everyone, 'I bet he's gone to see the circus.' It's every child's dream, you see. I told them that and had you and your team camp out there for the last two weeks to wait for him. I bet you thought I was wrong, didn't you? Yet there he is hohoho."

"We never doubted you for a second, head priest.” Wolf Leader lied again, “Regarding the target, what are your orders?" Wolf Leader had great skill and experience in interacting with the head priest.

"Good, good. Don't worry, the ones who DID doubt me will be found and punished. About the boy, I want you and your team to go in there and capture him. I’m coming to collect him personally right now so have him ready before I arrive. This is important, Wolf leader, DO NOT KILL HIM. Do you understand? I want him alive."

"Understood sir, we have the non-lethal weapons as requested. Is there anything we should know before engaging? We were told he transforms."

"Yes but only into an Octopus. He is no threat, the tranquillisers I had them send you will put him down. Good luck, Wolf leader. By the way, I'm bringing a 'very special' guest with me. You do not fail or there will be consequences! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

Wolf leader could hear, but not see Roy's face turning red in passion. His own face, he kept schooled neutral, "Of course, head priest. We will not fail you. We will report back upon completion of our mission and await your arrival.

"Yes, see you then," the camera shook about again, "How do I turn this thing off?" The call abruptly ended.

Wolf leader turned to his team, "you heard the head priest, we are to capture the target with non-lethals and await his arrival. Sounds like he's bringing the Matriarch herself along so no mistakes.".

"Poindexter, Ramirez, you're with me, we'll breach the front. Pierre, you'll circle around and come in through the back. Charlie, keep the Van running in case we need to give chase. Everyone understand your orders?" Nods came from everyone in the van, "Good, lock and load! Move out!"