DNA Jellyfish

Hundreds of pencil-thin tentacles hung down piercing into the flesh of a squirming creature that had once been an oyster. Now the oyster was so twisted and disfigured with sprouting, mismatched limbs and extra body parts, that it was beyond identification. The tentacles twitched. As they did, so too did the abomination they were stabbed into, its body morphing further with every movement.

Following the tentacles upwards from their victim, you would eventually find the horrifying creature they originated from floating silently, dozens of metres above. DNA Jellyfish, enormous Nomura Jellyfish hummed to himself as he dug through the flesh of the oyster. His nerve centre lit up, shining cheerful blue bioluminescence, in tune with his wordless humming.

He was really only half paying attention to the work he was doing below, his main focus was on his surroundings, keeping a (metaphoric) eye out, waiting for a particular fish to swim by. And as luck would have it, the one he was waiting for was swimming by now.

“Destiny Fish, might I have a moment of your time?” He called out, flinging aside the poor creature whose genetics he’d been altering.

The Golden Barramundi turned to him and said, “YOOOO Dee eN Ayyy! What’s up, dude?”

DNA Jellyfish looked upwards, confused, “The sky?” he asked.

“LOL! You got it! Anyways, you need something?” Destiny Fish smiled.

“Right, I was hoping we could pair up for the genocide. Most of the others are already paired. I’m quite eager to get my tentacles on some Smarties,”

Destiny Fish cocked his head, “Why?”

DNA Jellyfish waited several seconds for the second half of Destiny Fish's question, before realising that there wasn't one. His nerve centre began to glow a little angrier in frustration, “Are you asking why I want to pair up, or why do I want Smarties?” he said.

“Yes”

His nerve centre glowed a little brighter again but he kept his voice steady and answered, “To answer your latter question first, I’ve been investigating the origin of non-magic supernatural abilities for the last few centuries. My goal is to replicate such abilities within my creations. The powers themselves are fascinating in that they are both related to DNA: a power can be passed down from parent to child, and yet also completely unreliant on DNA: I have completely altered the structure of a creature possessing a power and discovered that they retain it after the change.

This brings me to the Smarties. Another oddity of supernatural powers is that members of a certain race tend to have similar powers to one another. Smarties, for example, typically have powers related to the mind. I intend to discover if this is a genetic factor or a cultural one before the race vanishes,”

DNA Jellyfish finished his long-winded explanation and brought his attention back to Destiny Fish. Destiny Fish was floating upside-down, cross-eyed, trying to blow a ring-shaped bubble.

The glow within his body turned from blue to red, his body trembled and every one of his countless tentacles twitched, wanting to stab the golden fish. Destiny Fish had the decency to right himself and look apologetic. DNA Jellyfish practically growled his next words, “As to why I want to pair up, I am a big, glowing, target and don’t have scales like you and the others. I want you to cast [Destined to meet again] on me and then go hide in a hole somewhere so that I can be immortal and work in peace!"

“Oh! [Destined to meet again]? Nope, can’t. Sorry!"

DNA Jellyfish became a beacon of angry red. He swam closer to loom over Destiny Fish, “Why not!? You cast it on World Fish before. Am I not fish enough for you?! Do you want me to die in laser fire like Weather Fish did?!” He hissed.

“Yoooooo, chill your nips, dude. It's nothing like that. I literally can't cast the spell. I used it on my bro, Wally, from Earth. The spell only works on one person at a time. It won't cast again until I meet Wally and since I haven't done that yet…"

The light in DNA Jellyfish’s nerve centre dimmed, “Oh, I see. That’s easily fixed then,” He said, spinning about and calling over Gate Fish, “Gate Fish, come give Destiny and me a portal over to… Earth, was it? We have an important mission to take care of.”

“Ummm, DNA…” Destiny Fish tried to interrupt.

“gAtE fIsH, dO tHiS. GaTe FiSh Do ThAt. Why don’t you make your own portal, you jiggly butthole,” Gate Fish called out.

“Yo, DNA…” Destiny tried again.

“How dare you! You think you’re better than me just because you have a spine? How about I rip yours out, punk?”

“Guys”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“DNA JELLYFISH!” Destiny shouted, finally getting attention.

"What!?" DNA Jellyfish growled.

“Dude, oh my goddess! You gotta get better at listening! I’ve been trying to tell you, you're wasting your time: A) the spell doesn't make you immortal, my bro who I was telling you about died! And B) there's no point in going to Earth because, guess what, my bro died! You can't get the spell! OK!?"

DNA was about to say something but Destiny Fish kept talking, cutting him off, "Besides, I can't pair up with you anyways, dude! I’m already paired up with Time Fish! Jeez, you went and ruined my chill. Not cool, dude; not cool. I’m out of here!” Destiny Fish turned and swam off.

“You look like an escaped breast implant!” Gate Fish said, then teleported away.

DNA Jellyfish floated alone for a while, glowing an angry red.

Destiny Fish

A few weeks later:

A magical gate opened up in an alley outside of a Smarty secrets facility. Destiny Fish and Time Fish swam out of it. Saying their goodbyes to Gate Fish.

"Third time's a charm. We'll get it this time," whispered Time fish, taking the lead. Throwing himself into his work had really helped him relax about the probable end of the universe coming from the split timelines.

"It's practically destined at this point, dude," whispered back with a wink.

This was the duo's latest attempt at infiltrating such a facility after several failed attempts. They had learned from their previous mistakes and were ready this time. Time Fish and Destiny Fish were practically ninjas now with how stealthy they'd become. They slipped into the facility, carefully avoided heavily armed guards and cleverly placed security cameras like it was a stroll through the park. They arrived in front of an unusual door with a suspicious amount of locks and keypads placed on it.

Time Fish whispered, “This is it. Careful, last time the booby traps went off as soon as we both entered. We're going with plan codename: trouble bubble, snatchy catch. You need to go over the plan again?”

Destiny Fish shook his head, “Na, I got it. Damn dude, look at you with the sick planning Skillz! Hehehe. You're so cool right now,” he said with a cheesy smile, “I feel it in my fins, man, this is the one we’re destined to succeed on… maybe. Hehehe. I’m ready when you are.” He bent himself ready to fish-slap the door as Time Fish spat out his wand.

“Here we go in, 3, 2, 1, HYPERTIME!” Time Fish spoke the magic words. Dozens of ghostly clocks shot out from his wand and spun around his body. Destiny Fish spun his body and tail-slapped the door off its hinges. This wasn’t magic; it was just something Destiny Fish was particularly good at. From Time Fish’s perspective, this all took place in super slow motion. [Hypertime] was a spell that would temporarily give its target more time to perform any action, at the cost of eventually having to give that time back later.

As soon the explosive force of Destiny Fish’s tail-slap dislodged the door far enough inwards for Time to squeeze in, he went for it. He pushed past the still-flying door and began snatching up documents as fast as he could with magic bubbles and throwing them back towards the door.

Explosive traps around the room started going off. Spheres of fire and destruction began expanding slowly like blossoming flowers. Time Fish focussed on areas where the explosions were first, rescuing those documents, then moved to the others. The slow-motion explosions continued to grow and fill the room, getting too big for him to avoid any longer. He swam for the exit with a final pile of documents and dove into a magical bubble that Destiny Fish was creating. Thanks to his magical time sense, he entered the bubble just in time for it to seal off and his own spell to change.

[Hypertime] entered its second phase. Time Fish's situation reversed. Now, he was trapped in slow motion and everything else appeared in fast forward from his perspective.

The explosions from the archive room broke harmlessly around Destiny Fish’s bubble, leaving the fish and the documents untouched. The fires were made to destroy documents, not fish barriers. Time had done an excellent job in securing as many documents as possible in what was literally a few seconds. It was a masterfully executed trouble bubble, snatchy catch.

While Destiny Fish waited for him to catch up in time, he decided to peruse some of the documents. Picking up a random file, He began reading, “Let’s see what we have here: the results of the next elections, space Illuminati, blablabla, shadow lords. Booooooring.” Destiny Fish tossed the document aside and grabbed another, “Super Weapon: ‘Project Milkshake’ created by ‘The Little Girl’s team’. HAHAHAHA! OMGoddess, those names…” he scanned the document further, “Awww, they were shipped away in a divination proof spaceship?! Too bad, I want to tease them about their team name. Cool weapon though!” He tossed that document aside too, picking up the next one, “Ohhhhh! Now we're talking:”

The Secret Magical Fish Danger Ranking List

Vegetable Fish Laser Fish Virus Fish World Fish Kinetic Fish Weather Fish Gravity Fish Pain Fish Divination Fish Metal Fish DNA Jellyfish Gate Fish Normal Crawfish Music Fish Narcissist Fish Sky Starfish Time Fish Dream Fish Mental Fish Yeti Fish Destiny Fish

“Heck Yeah! Secret Magic Fish Danger ranking list! Let’s see, number 1: Vegetable Fish, of course. Number 2: Laser Fish, Woohoo, You go girl! Where’s my name?” He read through the list. “Dude…”

Time Fish returned to normal time and asked, “What did you find?”

“Duuuuude, look at this. They ranked me last? I hate Smarties even more now” he whined, passing over the list to Time.

“Oh, the secret magical fish danger ranking list? Is this your first time seeing it? Divination Fish found it some time ago, probably while you were on Earth. We all had a good laugh at it when she showed us… Well, except Weather Fish. As you can imagine, she was pretty mad about only being ranked 6th.”

Destiny Fish picked up a new document and began reading, “C’mon dude, number 21? That’s not right! I should at least be higher than Yeti Fish!”

“I dunno… Yetis can be really frightening," Time Fish said, but upon seeing his friend's frown deepen he added, "Don’t worry about it, Destiny. They just haven't seen your magic in action. If it's any consolation, I’d put you at number 2.”

“Awww thanks, dude! I’d put you at number 2 too!” Destiny Fish's smile returned while he looked at a blueprint for a coconut milk power reactor. He tossed it aside with a shake of his head and reached for another. Upon seeing the next document his eyes went wide, and he used one of Wally’s favourite swear words.

“What’s that?” Time asked.

“This is bad, dude! We’ve should get out of here and show this to the others!” Destiny Fish held up the File for Time Fish to read. It was titled, “Operation foot odour: Secret plan to invade the magic fish homeworld”.

Time Fish repeated the swear word Destiny Fish had used and scanned through the document, “Fishsticks, they found our planet and… holy Goddess above, look at how many laser ships they've sent!” Time Fish suddenly stopped reading and snapped his eyes towards the exit, whispering, “My time sense is tingling. It’s time to go.”

The doors to the room slid open and all hell broke loose. Lasers slammed into Destiny Fish’s still-active shield bubble, thinning it rapidly. It seems they had overstayed their welcome. The whole facility turned into a hive of moving soldiers and flashing alarms. The magic bubble began shrinking as the two fish spat out their wands and charged forwards, ready to fight their way out. The high-tech battle suits the soldiers were wearing made the Smarties faster, stronger and durable enough to take a magic fish's tail-slap directly and not be turned into a paste on the wall. They were dangerous, but nothing a pair of magic fish couldn’t handle.

"Kung Fu, Keanu! Kung Fu, Keanu!" Time Fish desperately called out a plan's codename.

"Good idea!" Destiny replied, understanding what Time Fish wanted.

Destiny Fish kicked off the combo with a wave of his wand, “DESTINED MOMENT OF DESTINY!” he spoke the magic words and cast the spell onto Time Fish. Dozens of red strings shot out of the wand and wrapped themselves around the sunfish.

This spell turned Time Fish into an instrument of destiny. Sometime in the near future, he was going to do something impactful and epic.

Empowered by fate combined with the perfect timing gained from his [Time Sense], Time Fish became an action star. He dodged lasers and bounced off walls to perform awesome somersaulting tail slaps. With a flick of his wand, he summoned a grandfather clock to drop onto several enemies' heads.

Destiny Fish had to fight not just to survive but also to not get lost watching how cool Time Fish was. They made quick work of the guards in the hallway outside the secret vault, but they each received several laser wounds in the process. More guards were already filing in however so it was time to make a run for it.

They fought their way through the facility and reached the exit door that led to the rooftop. Time Fish held up a fin to stop them, “Wait!" He said [Time Sense] is picking up something,”

Destiny Fish felt it too, this was it, the destined moment. He formed a shield bubble behind them and waited for Time Fish's go signal. Tense minutes passed by as they waited by the door for whatever it was. Soldiers continued to pour in from behind, firing upon Destiny Fish's shields.

Time spoke up suddenly, “It’s almost time! Through the door in 3, 2, 1, Go!!!”

They both burst through the door, screaming, and out onto the roof, just as dozens of Smarty laser jets arrived at the facility. The two fish froze, caught like two deers in headlights.

Destiny magic was unpredictable at the best of times. The downside of using [Destined moment of destiny] was that the destined impactful and epic moment wasn't necessarily a good one. For example, instead of giving you an epic escape, leaping into the night sky on a motorcycle while an electric guitar shreds, the spell is just as likely to deliver you perfectly into an unwinnable fight where you'd have to make your epic last stand.

Destiny Fish raised his fins up as high as they could go, “We…Uh…Surrender?”

The laser Jets opened fire. Destiny Fish and Time Fish raised their bubble as they tried to escape back into the building. Their path was cut off as laser fire focused on the entrance; melting it away. There was nowhere left to hide so they turned and fought back. Time launched summoned clocks from his wand, flinging them at the jets and Destiny Fish fired red strings everywhere, both of which were effectively harmless against the powerful war machines. Every second that passed, several more lasers scored hits on their bodies. Death loomed before them.

A star lit up in the sky above. It spread out like a firework growing larger at an incredible speed. Moments later, the laser jets, the secrets facility and everything in the surrounding area burnt away to atoms as countless lasers rained down onto the battlefield. Everything in sight was hit; everything except the two surprised magic fish that is.

These were not weak technologic lasers either, they were genuine, full-powered, magical lasers. For several seconds, the downpour of beautiful light continued around them. Then, the laser show abruptly ended as quickly as it had begun. The fish had to blink as their eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness. They looked around to see that only they remained. The rest was molten metal, ash, and the smell of burning. Magma was beginning to rise from where the lasers had pierced through the planet's crust.

Destiny Fish and Time Fish swam up to get away from the intense heat below them. Swimming down to meet them was the angel of death herself, Laser Fish, a neon pink lionfish. Considered by most to be the most beautiful of all magical fish.

“Hello boys, fancy meeting you two out here this evening. Hope you don’t mind me dropping in unannounced like this," she said with a smile, "Funny that I happened to pass by when I did. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this is the power of… coincidence,” She gave Destiny Fish a wink

“Lashy!!!! That was so rad! Thank you so much for the rescue, dude!” Destiny Fish swam up to fish hug her.

“Thanks, Laser Fish!” Time Fish called out behind Destiny Fish.

She blushed and pushed Destiny Fish away, “You stink like cooked fish, get off. You’re most welcome my “dude”. You’re welcome too, of course, Time. That said, I’d appreciate it if you two took more care of yourselves in the future. I can’t always be here to save your fins. Were you on a mission? Did you guys find anything this time?”

“Ahhh! The documents!” Time suddenly remembered all the documents that had been burned up during their escape, “There’s an emergency! We gotta warn everyone. The Smarties are on their way to Siren.”

“What? Tell me the details,” Laser Fish demanded, growing serious.

Time Fish quickly explained what he had read.

“Oh! That’s not good at all! I’ll go get the others, You two wait here and I’ll have Gate Fish open a portal for you.” Laser Fish turned to leave but stopped and turned back, remembering something, “Oh, one more thing: Destiny, I thought I told you not to call me Lashy in front of the others… only when we’re in private. Don’t make me tell you again! Hmmph!” She gave him another wink before turning into a laser and flying off.

Time Fish’s eyes burned holes in Destiny Fish’s already hole-filled scales. Destiny Fish tried to avoid his gaze.

"So… ‘Lashy?!?’ But only in private?! Something you wanna tell me about buddy?" Asked Time Fish.

"Nah, ignore her, dude. It's nothing."

"Duuuuuuuude," Time Fish gazed even harder at his friend.

Destiny Fish held up a fin, "I am forever faithful to my one and only. Goddess Fish forever."

"You have another woman?! Teach me, oh great master!" Time Fish bowed down before Destiny Fish.

"Aren’t you like, thousands of years old? Why you acting so immature? She’s just as bad, flirting at such an inappropriate time."

"Oh, was she flirting? Is that what she was doing?! Destiny, I can't believe YOU just accuse ME of being immature?! Hahaha classic! Ooph!" Time winced from laughing so hard that he aggravated his laser burns.

“Hehehe. Everything hurts. I don’t like war, dude,” sighed Destiny Fish.

“Me neither, brother. Me neither,” sighed Time Fish back.

They waited, watching the stars together until a portal opened to take them home.