Fred felt the crash rock his whole body violently. Although the impact foam significantly reduced the damage, falling onto his back from that high up still left him critically injured. He could feel several of his bones shatter and move out of place. Suspended in the foam, hurting like heck, and unable to move, Fred began to regret his decisions. When the foam eventually dissolved, he grit his teeth as his broken limbs dropped down limp, the pain doubling.

With broken body and battlesuit, he was completely immobile. He looked up outside through the little window in the pilot seat and hoped that help was coming. Outside, he listened to the sounds of fighting, keeping an ear out for something that sounded like Einstein or Edison.

An earthling's voice shouted, “Matriarch! Tomas is nearby! Get him!”

A gasp left Fred’s mouth, cold horror washing over his body when he caught a glimpse of the giant monster-earthling he had been fighting, struggling to its feet and stumbling off. He shivered at its fearsome tenacity, “There’s no way! How is it still moving!? What kind of fish magic made that Earthling so strong? I want to go home,” he cried to himself.

His heart raced when he heard some nearby laser shots, giving him hope that his Einstein was still nearby in the fight. It wasn’t her who Fred saw when rescue finally came, however. A medevac flying saucer drone flew down and grabbed his battlesuit with its large three-pronged claw.

“Edison you marvellous idiot!” Fred exclaimed, “Thank science! You didn’t abandon us!” Tears of joy streamed down Fred’s face.

His suit rocked gently as it was lifted off the ground. Fred watched through the little window as his ship drew nearer. The drone carried him up through the hole in the bottom of the ship and whisked him through the interior tunnels too fast for him to keep track. The drone placed him down on the floor and flew off.

Fred waited in silence for Edison to come get him out of his battle suit and into the med-pool. Minutes passed, but Edison never came. Fred listened carefully, The machines in the med-pool room had a distinct hum to them, he did not hear that hum now. Instead, all he heard was the buzz of drones flying about, “Hello,” he called out, getting no answer, “Edison!? I need treatment!” Again his words were met only by the buzzing of drones.

Panic set in as Fred tried unsuccessfully to raise his shattered arms to open the cockpit. He heard the sound of more drones flying in and out of the room. Some stayed and hovered about, “ANYONE HELP ME!” he screamed. No reply.

He was trapped, broken, and alone.

It was getting harder to breathe. He didn’t know if this was because his suit’s ventilator was busted or if he was just having a claustrophobic panic attack. He couldn’t reach up to open the sealed cockpit either way. The edges of his vision grew blurry and dark. He felt himself start to drift off but was snapped back every time his eyes fluttered shut by the pain waking him back up again. He almost missed it when footsteps passed nearby.

"Hey! Get your hand out of my pants!" A man’s voice called out.

Fred called out, “Einstein? Edison? Is anyone there? I can't move. Please, anyone, answer me.”

“Hello?” The voice called out.

That voice wasn’t one of his team, but Fred wasn’t about to be picky, “Who’s that? I need help. It’s getting hard to breathe. Please, I don’t want to die,” he said.

“Uh.. ok. I’m Tomas. What do you need?”

Tomas? Who? Whatever, that wasn’t the priority now, Fred needed air, “Come, open up my suit, please. The ventilator is busted.”

“Ok hold on, it’ll take a few minutes to get there,” There were several squishy sounds nearby. Fred caught a glimpse of Earthling skin through his cockpit window, “Ok, I’m here. What do I do?”

“There should be an aquamarine button under a panel on the chest. Press it and type the code ‘√𖢘𖢐𖢤’ into the keypad that opens up.”

“Looks like the panel fell off because I can see the button already ‘√𖢘𖢐𖢤’ was it? Easy-peasy, done,” The Earthling, Tomas said as he entered the code.

Fred's suit cracked open as the emergency seals let go. As sweet, fresh air rushed into his cockpit, Fred spent several moments just filling his lungs and thanking science. He looked up at his saviour and was surprised that it was an Earthling, one that he actually recognised. It was the Earthling who had leapt off the bus and saved him from the monster back when he was first getting beat up. The man was looking quite beat up himself now, “Oh, it’s you. From Earth. Thanks for saving me. Twice now! My name is Fred. I owe you my life.” Fred genuinely thanked The Earthling, Tomas.

“Don’t Mention it. Wow! You're like an alien or something! This is so crazy. You are hurt. Do you need me to call an ambulance or something?” Tomas’ face was very expressive, shifting back and forth between surprised and concerned.

Fred agreed: he was hurt, “Uhh… Yes, I need help. Are we by the med-pool?”

“Umm... I don’t think so? We’re in some kind of jail. I was zapped by those flying saucer things,” he said pointing away where Fred couldn’t see, “and when I woke up I was here.”

Jail? Zapped? Fred tried to lift his head up to look outside his battlesuit. Tomas helped him into a sitting position. Fred’s mouth turned down into a deep frown when he saw that he was inside an alien containment cell. WHY EDISON!? He screamed internally.

The three other cells were occupied. The one to his left held a sleeping dark-skinned Earthling and a bunch of stun-drones, the one to the right held only drones, for some reason, and the final cell across from his held the monstrous, wolf-earthling he had been fighting on Earth earlier. He shuddered upon seeing it.

“Ok, I know where we are.” Fred told Tomas, “We’re on my flying saucer."

“This is your spaceship? Cool! Why are we here though?” Tomas asked.

“We came for that one,” Fred said gesturing to the hairy creature in the cell opposite his, “That monster over there has had a spell cast on it by one of the magical fish. You weren’t supposed to be captured, there must have been a mix-up.”

“Spell? Magic Fish?”

”Uh… magic fish are these evil, uh, fish. And they cast spells because… they are magic. Sorry, this all must be so confusing for a primitive creature like you. Anyway, my teammate IS AN IDIOT!” Fred grit his teeth and forced himself to calm down before continuing, “And he was supposed to capture only that one. Obviously, he messed up and captured all of us as well. Sorry again for the mix-up.”

“You came to capture The Matriarch?” Tomas exclaimed, “Oh! Maybe it makes sense why I was captured too.”

“What do you mean?” asked Fred.

“Well, she’s, uhhh… We’re related by blood,” Tomas admitted, rubbing the back of his head embarrassed. He then blinked as a thought came to him, “Do octopi count as magical fish?”

Fred blinked, “What?”

Tomas’ reply was cut short as the dark-skinned Earthling in the cell next to theirs startled awake with a loud snort, drawing everyone’s attention. It blinked its eyes a few times, pulled its hand out from the front of its pants, gave the hand a sniff, and then reached into its pockets. It pulled out a thin white stick and sat up.

It put the stick in its mouth then reached into its pockets again. Fred frowned when he saw it pull out a standard issue, Smarty laser piston. The dark-skinned earthling then aimed the laser pistol at the tip of the white stick and fired. The laser blast not only lit the end of the white stick but also hit one of the floating drones in its cell, blasting it out of the air. It tumbled down in a burning wreck and crashed right in front of the Earthling.

The Earthling leapt back and screamed, "GOAT RAISING, DRIED UP OLD HAG!" at the drone, kicking it away.

The destroyed drone looked offended at his words.

“Hey, I told you to stop smoking with my body!” Tomas called out to the guy.

The dark-skinned earthling ignored Tomas, instead, it looked up, spotting the other drones still hovering in his cell. It raised the pistol and shot repeatedly, knocking them all down, destroyed.

“Teach you to zap me you hippies,” the man got up with a pained groan and approached the bars of his cell and called back to Tomas "Hey, what have you been on about since before? Your body, your body. We can all see your body mate. Where are your bloody clothes?"

"I told you! I’m Tomas! That’s my body you're in. Wanda must have swapped our bodies by mistake. So stop smoking! I don’t want my lungs to be filled with tar. Your body here didn’t have any clothes on when I woke up in it,” Tomas Watched the man take another draw from his cigarette, “STOP SMOKING PLEASE!"

"Alright, alright, jeez,” The man took one last puff of his smoke before dropping it on the floor and putting it out under his slipper “Na, that ain’t my body. Dunno where mine actually is. That Wanda scares the hell out of me. Ya know, If anyone’s to blame for this mess, it's you for letting her take your soul out in the first place,"

Tomas did feel foolish for letting Wanda remove his soul in the first place, “Ok fine, once we get out of here, we’ll go find Wanda and figure it out. Just stop smoking and sticking your hand down my pants for now!” Tomas demanded.

“Yeah, alright, Let’s,” the man said, feeling a sudden itch in his groin.

“By the way,'' Thomas said, “What’s your name?. I’m Tomas, as you know, and this is Fred. We’re in his ship. ”

“Holy Mackerel, what in the goddess’ name is that thing!” The dark-skinned man exclaimed, noticing Fred for the first time.

“He’s Fred. He’s… an alien or something,” Tomas smiled at the little green man. Fred was staring open-mouthed at the pair trying to follow their confusing conversation.

“Oh! Uh, yeah, hi,” Fred the alien said, eyeing the laser pistol.

Shaking his head, the dark-skinned man muttered under his breath, “Not even the bloody weirdest thing to happen to me today,” before raising his hand, “I’m Wally, Gday.”

“G’day!” Beamed Tomas.

“Oh, uh, G’day?” Fred said.

“So, Fred, now that that’s out of the way, how do we get out of here?” Tomas asked.

“I’m afraid we aren't going anywhere until one of my teammates comes to let us out. Sorry,” Fred said.

“Not necessarily,” Tomas winked, “I think I can get us out of here,” He approached the bars and started to transform.

“Holy duck! WHAT?!?! UWEEEEHHH!!!” Upon witnessing the sight of Tomas’ large naked body shifting and contorting into a were-octopus, Wally, understandably, freaked out and vomited onto the floor of his cell. Tomas ignored him and focussed on squeezing through the bars, “No! That’s messed up! NO! UWEEEHHH!!!” The sight of Tomas’ head squishing and squeezing through the tiny gap in the bars made Wally vomit again.

Once through, Tomas transformed back and turned back to Fred with a big smile on his face, “Ok, I’m outside! How do I open the cell from here?”

Fred, who was trying to process what the hell he had just witnessed, snapped back to attention to answer Tomas’ question, “You can’t? You’re not a crew member. Only crew members can open the cells from outside,” He said apologetically. Tomas’ smile fell.

Wally wiped the vomit off of his mouth, "Urgh, Nope. That’s it, I’m done. I’m going home," He pulled out the laser pistol, then aimed it at the bars of his cell and started squeezing the trigger over and over. The lasers were able to melt the bars all the way through, turning them into molten slag. Bars clattered to the floor as Wally burned all the way through them, top and bottom. He eventually made a gap large enough for him to step through, which he did. Walking in the opposite direction to where Tomas was standing, Wally started searching for the exit to the room, only to find that there were none. In fact, there were no doors at all.

Wally spun around and looked at Fred, “Where’re the bloody doors?”

“There are none… unless you are a crew member. Gosh, guys, I’m sorry, I’m clearly not explaining properly. Until my teammate comes, we are all stuck here. But actually, if you can get me out of this cell with your laser, and assuming I am still classified as a crewmate, I should be able to free us,” Fred explained.

Wally sighed and opened fire on the bars of Fred’s cell immediately, swiftly burning a gap as he had before. He stepped through, went over to Fred, and looked down. Wally then reached down with his one hand, picked Fred up and flung Fred over his shoulder.

“Ow ow ow!” Fred complained, about Wally’s rough treatment. He was carried out of the cell through the same gap Wally had come in.

Standing outside the cell, Wally huffed, “There, you’re out of the bloody cell. Now what?”

“Ok, now put me down by a wall, gently, and I’ll access the computer,” Fred was lugged over to a wall and placed down with what he would describe as, ‘medium to low levels of gentleness’. He touched the wall with his forehead since his arms weren’t working and murmured, “Computer access: voice commands,” a space on the wall lit up with words.

Welcome back, crewmate: Fred

You have two (2) urgent notifications.

Say: [Continue] to read.

Continue→

“Continue,” Fred said.

Urgent notification (1 of 2)

Three (3) prisoners have escaped from the alien containment rooms.

Say: [Continue] to activate stun drones.

Continue→

“No, cancel.”

Unable to cancel.

Say: [Continue] to activate stun drones.

Continue→

“Uhhh, Wally, could you shoot down the remaining stun drones for me?” Fred asked.

“No worries,” Wally said and went to work, walking around the room blasting all the drones in the cells. Several fell down right on top of the sleeping Monster-Earthling, but it didn’t wake up.

“Okay, got them all? Continue.” Fred said. Several of the Drones sparked and jittered but none were whole enough to cause a problem.

Urgent notification (2 of 2)

One (1) prisoner's vital signs have reached critical condition.

The prisoner will die in approximately fifteen (15) minutes.

Say: [Continue] to mercy kill.

Say: [Dump] to Jettison the prisoner.

Say: [Options] to view additional options menu.

Continue→

Dump→

Options→

“Oh crud, that wolf-person is dying!” Fred informed the others.

“The Matriarch?” Tomas looked over at her, “What happened? Why?”

“She got worked over by an alien in a robot suit and rocketed into the side of the U.F.O.” Wally said, giving Fred an accusatory look.

“Hey, it was a life-or-death battle. That was self-defence!” Fred said, flustered, “Anyways I would feel bad if it died, Options!” Fred selected the options menu.

Options menu

Say: [Continue] to mercy kill the prisoner.

Say: [Store] to Cryofreeze the prisoner.

Say: [Zap] to activate stun drones.

Say: [Spare] to Transfer prisoner to Med-pool.

Continue→

Store→

Zap→

Spare→

“Who wrote this menu? Spare!” Fred ordered. A large transport drone flew in through the ceiling of the Matriarch’s cell, picked her up with its claws and flew her away, “Ok, I’ve had it transferred to the med-pool. It’ll be able to recover there.”

“Why did you do that? If she recovers, she’ll kill us all!” Tomas said.

“Oh, yeah… Ok, it’s not a problem, we can go over to the med-pool and turn on the sedatives. That should put it asleep until we get it back into the cell.”

“When are you letting us go home?” Wally complained with a frown.

“After this, sorry! You guys should come to the med-pool. You both look injured. It’ll fix those injuries right up.”

“Are you sure your sedatives will work on the Matriarch? Alien healing sounds cool and all but I don’t wanna get eaten while doing it.”

“Oh yeah, not a problem, it'll definitely work. Space sedatives are very effective,“ Fred assured.

“Ok I’ll come, please make double sure she’s asleep though,” Tomas said

“Whatever, as long as we leave right after. I’m not really into space drugs though, got any booze?” asked Wally.

Fred’s eyes darted around the room nervously, “No, ahaha, why would I have any of that! It’s super illegal!”

“Bugger!” Wally cursed, “Alright let's get on with it then,”

Fred steadied his breathing and ordered the computer, “Computer transfer the three of us in this room to the med-pool”

Affirmative

Three more drones came down from holes that opened in the ceiling and grabbed the trio. Fred cried out in pain as the claws gripped both of his broken arms. They were carried through dark tunnels in the ship's interior and quickly dropped off in another circular room, the same size as the alien containment room they had just arrived from. Within the room were several computer stations and storage boxes. Four large pools of light blue fluid, each large enough to fit the Matriarch three times over, were spaced evenly on one half of the room. The Matriarch was fully submerged within one of the pools.

Fred Dragged himself over to the pool containing the Matriarch and said, “Computer, adjust the sedative levels of this pool to keep the occupant asleep until ordered otherwise.”

Affirmative

Large pink bubbles rose up in her pool.

Fred turned back to the other people in the room, “Ok, that’s done. Let's jump in a pool ourselves for a bit and heal up before I drop you guys off. You can breathe normally in medical fluid even while fully submerged so just dunk yourself right in. It'll only take about 10 minutes or so until we’re done. It’ll take care of all your nutritional needs as well so you won't be hungry or thirsty from all the repairs your body has to go through. Jump in and enjoy!” He crawled over to a free pool and fell in gracelessly.

Wally looked at Tomas and shrugged, then walked over to a pool and stepped in. He let out a groan of relief as the pool's healing properties soothed his body. Tomas did the same right after in the remaining pool. It took some mental preparation to lower their heads under the liquid and try breathing, but once they did they found their lungs enjoying the soothing waters.

Within his tank, Fred was experiencing a little discomfort alongside the otherwise soothing feeling as his arms snapped back into place and started to mend. He closed his eyes at a particularly painful bone snapping into place. Then let out a sigh of relief as his body began healing fully. Smiling and opening his eyes gently to stare at the ceiling he noticed something amiss. Through the murky medical fluids, he could make out red lines coming out of his chest and joining a bunch of others near the ceiling of the room. This was odd because his blood was yellow and the interior of the ship was predominately white.

Fred emerged to get a clearer look at what was going on. He wiped the healing goop from his eyes and looked. He saw hundreds of thick red strings emerging from his chest and the other pools, winding together and stretching across the room to the computers. The strings were wound up into fingers and typing away at the console.

“W-W-What?!” Fred stammered.

Wally burst out of the liquid looking down at his chest where strings were also sprouting out, “Son of a preacher!” he screamed a curse.

The robotic voice of the ship's computer announced:

Affirmative

Sedatives activated for all tanks

Fish magic! Was the last thought that ran through Fred's mind before his whole body went limp and he fell back into the med-pool.

📖📖📖📖📖

Wow, Fish Magic! I’ve been wondering when we’ll get to see some magic in action! Hey there gang! It’s me, your old non-magical buddy, Narration Fish. Let’s pause the alien’s story here and learn about the Magic Fish! Who else is excited? See y’all next week!