Way down deep at the lowest, darkest ocean point, far beyond the reach of humanity and all but the most alien of lifeforms, echoes of vibrations rose to meet a string of light xylophone tinkles and chimes. The low sounds reverberated less, but came from all around, where sources of higher plink-plunk tones might have been moving slowly everywhere at random about the pitch-black space.

“Hellooooooooo,” bellowed the whale-esque voice of Hunch. “You’ve been expeeeeeeeecting me, I’m suuuuuuuuuuure. Ah, we’ve booooooooooth been quite naughty, eh? Quite baaaaaaaaaad? Well, thaaaaaaaank you for making me feel weeeeeeeeeelcome now. I’ll get right to it. I haaaaaaaave a prooooooooblem.” Hunch paused, either to appreciate the echo of its own voice, which sounded very much at home here, or in hopes of being asked about its problem.

The hidden other party(ies) said nothing, though there might have been a sudden heightened beak-and-tentacle factor to Hunch’s surroundings.

“I’ve come to youuuuuuuu,” Hunch carried on, “because I knooooooooooow you once worked with my nemesis, the only oooooooooone who can defeeeeeeeeeeat me. And I seeeeeeeeeeee signs that I must soon face that foe agaaaaaaaaaain.”

The already impossibly murky water took a turn for the worse, becoming polluted somehow by a good deal more inky brine. This gave the sense that something even further disembodied than Hunch could be getting set to materialize across dimensions sure to put a piddly three or four to shame.

“I aaaaaaaaaask nothing of youuuuuuuuu but information,” continued Hunch, its timbre growing more somber now, and droll. “Are the legends truuuuuuuuuue? What have Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii to feeeeeeeeeear? I have heard that the oooooooooooone who was your comaaaaaaaaaaanion could wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipe out whole civilizations at will. Pleeeeeeease tell meeeeeee: Be such tales faaaaaaaaact or faaaaaaaaancy?”

Again, the silence that followed Hunch’s one-sided articulation bent toward creepy and . . . thick.

This place, down at the bottom of everything, might be where all manner gold, jules, and so many other treasures undiscovered by surface dwellers had long since sunk to and dissolved, melting back to baser elements before being reborn as resolved ghosts of silly wishes taunting Hunch unseen from all around.

“You aaaaaaaaaaanswer me not?” Hunch thundered. “And whaaaaaaaaaat if I were to briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing the good doctor all the way doooooooooown here? You thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink it impossible. Yet you have noooooooooo ideeeeeeeeeeeeea the power I have given him! He can reeeeeeeeeeach places normal huuuuuuuuuuumans never could. Maaaaaaaaaark my woooooooooods, foe! Tell me noooooooooow what I must know, or be waaaaaaaaaaarned! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat is my enemy caaaaaaaaaapable of? How shall Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii prepare? TEEEEEEEEELL MEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Maybe it was mention of Finnel’s ability to reach unreachable places, or perhaps the simple threat of having the likes of Hunch as opposition (or neither), but something did seem to cause the environment to continue in its shifting, congealing trend.

A light appeared, or was noticed. It led in a thin trail across sludgy grey ground the consistency of water-logged bone turned over centuries into mud. The light might have pointed (given enough imagination and bias) to a break in the soft ground almost the shape of a large, maybe formerly-metal wheel, a broomstick, two stools, and a shiny dark ball at one end.

“YOUUUUUUUUUU!” cried Hunch, obviously unprepared to see . . . what was there.

Nothing moved or changed. The rushed replica of a person from centuries before (or, random assembly of things amidst goop and grime) remained in place. But many lifetimes’ worth of seafaring adventures and fates-of-civilizations-determining battles stretched out in that moment to tell the story of Hunch’s enemy’s rise and decline. Somehow Finnel seemed to already be involved . . . or maybe an ancestor or something. Regardless, the idea of a pre-hunched (pre-Hunch) Finnel’s exploits had never been all that comforting.

“I knooooooooow your weakness nooooooooow, hated one!” Hunch erupted like an underwater volcano. “While Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii can go anywhere in an instant, and carry the full wiiiiiiiiiiisdom of history, youuuuuuuuuuuu are only as stroooooooooooong as those with whom you stay aligned. Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis shall be your downfall! The good dooooooooooctor makes for the perfect ally. For heeeeeee sees not the end to which he now carries meeeeeeeee, and to which the next (and the next, next after) shall carry me ever cloooooooooser, until I can mount the baaaaaaaack of the WHOOOOOOLE WORRRRRRRRRRLD! DO YOUUUUUUUUU HEEEEEEEEEAR MEEEEEEEEE?”

If Hunch’s old rival did hear, then keeping silent seemed the perfect strategy. For it only served to anger Hunch all the more.

“I goooooooooo now,” harrumphed Hunch with a scowling fed up sigh. “We shall meeeeeeeeeeet at the appointed tiiiiiiiiiiiiime.”

Once Hunch was gone, the black water carried no bubbles or waves . . . no motion of any sort, and no sound.

The place where a focused light beam could have looked as though it had led to stayed as it was.

Fallen or residual crud kept to its shapes as it had for what might as well have been forever. None of it resembled anything . . . certainly not the wreckage anchor of an ancient wheel holding down a crude model person that had seemed to so agitate the discarnate upper back of an elderly school principal.

And yet maybe somewhere else, somewhere far closer to home, a couple new friends just doing as new friends always do would result in Hunch’s adversary being recreated from scratch yet again to save the world.