👽Fred👽

The invention convention was the greatest annual event in all Smarty society. It was a high-profile, extravagant gala, where the brightest Smarty minds would come together to show off their newest and greatest inventions. To be given an opportunity to present at the convention was a lifelong dream of most Smarties. So naturally, the little girl's team was super excited and super busy right up until the night before the convention.

Fred was sleeping deeply after a long night of putting some finishing touches on the Milk-Shaker. His peaceful slumber was disrupted by his door getting kicked in again. Einstein flew furiously into the room, looking ready to murder him, “FRED YOU MORON! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WAKE EVERYONE UP! WE’RE LATE FOR THE CONVENTION!”

Fred bolted upright and looked at his clock, “OH MY SCIENCE! WE’RE SO LATE!” he screamed, waving his arms about, “I’m sure I set my alarm properly last night, What happened?! Why didn’t anyone wake me?!” He tried to jump out of bed but tripped on his blankets, slamming face first into the floor.

“Dammit Fred! You’re the oldest! You're supposed to be the responsible one who wakes us up! We’re late because of you!” Einstein shouted at Fred’s limp form on the floor.

Fred lifted his head off the ground and looked at her in disbelief, “Wait, what? You didn't set your own alarm? You were relying entirely on me just because I’m older?”

“Of course! I’m team leader, I delegate minor tasks and focus on the big picture!”

“What about Edison? He and I are the same age!” Fred protested.

“Your birthday is 2 months earlier than his! You're still oldest and so you should be in charge of alarms!” Einstein rebuked stubbornly.

Ideas for an alarm clock that leapt off the table in the morning and stabbed Einstein with needles to wake her up started filling Fred’s mind. He shook his head to clear away the anger. It wasn't healthy to imagine hurting a 10-year-old; no matter how annoying they were.

He took a deep breath, “Ok Einstein, I’m sorry. We can still salvage this. Let’s go get Edison and try to rush over to the convention while we still can.”

They left Fred’s and hurried over to Edison's room. Einstein didn’t have to kick the door in as it was already wide open, they found Edison sitting on his bed playing with his smarty phone. He looked up, “Oh, hey guys, is it time to get ready?” He greeted them, waving a robotic hand.

“Edison you're awake? How long have you been up?” Fred asked.

“Only a few hours. Why?” Edison said. He looked down, tapped at his phone a few times, then frowned, “Oh… damn! We’re late! Fred! Why didn’t you come wake me up?!”

Fred's face began turning yellow in anger. He thought up a fantastic little device that could be attached to a smarty phone. It would release a single-atom-thick carbon thread, invisible to the naked eye, that would wrap around the user’s neck and pull tight, decapitating them.

“We don’t have time for this. We need to get the machine onto the space truck and go to the convention now!” Einstein fumed.

“Oh, speaking of the convention. We probably don’t wanna go downtown right now. I was just watching the news and they said it's super dangerous there right now," Edison turned his phone to show them the screen, "Apparently, Weather fish is going nuts and killing a bunch of people down near the convention hall.”

Fred swallowed a lump in his throat at the mention of the magic fish. Then he realised something about what Edison had just said. He grit his teeth and asked as calmly as he could, “Edison, am I to understand that you’ve been watching news reports about the invention convention for hours before we walked in here and somehow didn't realise we were late?!”

Edison ignored the question; too engrossed in his phone. He continued reporting the news, “They’re saying it looks like she wants to destroy the whole city. Uhh, we're in the city, right? Should we get out of here before she makes it over here?” Edison got up and pressed the button to open his window. His mechanical eyes telescoped out of his head to look into the distance, “Oh na, we’re fine. There's a bunch of laserjets flying towards the convention centre,” he jumped back on his bed and went back to playing with his phone. Einstein also pulled out her smarty phone and hummed a tune while watching the news.

Fred stood there with his mouth open. Had they just forgotten about being late? Didn't they care that an insanely dangerous magic fish was currently going wild in their city? Were these two really geniuses?

Emergency sirens started wailing throughout the city. More laser jets flew over the university heading to join the ones already out in the city centre. Fred looked out the window and could see storm clouds billowing out in the distance.

“Haha cool, they got her!” Edison declared, still staring at his phone.

Fred’s head snapped to Edison, “What do you mean ‘got her’? Like scared her off?”

“Na, pretty sure they killed her. Good stuff! Smarty technology rules!” Edison raised his hand and Einstein gave him a high five.

“...Are you serious right now?” Fred said incredulously, “Oh science! Those fools! What have they done!” He started hyperventilating and pacing the room.

“What’s the matter, Fred? We killed the terrorist. Why are you acting like this is the end of the world?” asked Einstein.

Fred stopped pacing and glared at his idiotic teammates, “Because it is! How do you think the other magic fish are going to react once they find out we killed Weather Fish?”

His teammates stopped smiling. Edison even put down his phone and murmured, “Oh… yeah that's pretty bad.”

⏰Time Fish ⏰

Time Fish’s eyes were bugging out of his head. The usually calm, white sunfish was swimming back and forth screaming.

A working analog clock made of black pigment stood out on either side of his body. It was glitching out, sometimes showing two times, sometimes flickering between one time and another, and most frighteningly, sometimes showing no time at all.

A dark purple vortex opened up in the water a few metres away. Out of it swam Gate Fish, a butterfly goldfish with scales so black, that they absorbed all light. He looked like an empty black void within the water. In his mouth, contrasting its body, was a pure white, magic wand. He swallowed the wand and looked around.

“Ugggh, more trouble,” the ever-moody Gate Fish sighed, as he spotted Time Fish freaking out, ”Hey, Time Fish, what’s wrong?” he called out.

“What’s wrong? WHAT’S WRONG?!!! Can’t you feel it?! Everything is!!” Time Fish stopped swimming and screamed into Gate Fish’s face, “Oh Goddess, how could this happen?”

“Calm down, jeez. Does it have something to do with Weather Fish?”

“What? Weather Fish? No… It’s time! Time has been ripped into two,” sobbed Time Fish. He resumed swimming back and forth.

“That sounds… like a big deal, I guess,” Gate Fish sighed. He followed Time Fish swimming back and forth with just his eyes.

Gate fish cast a magic bubble to hold Time Fish in place, “Time, listen, Weather Fish has gone missing and now there’s weird weather going on everywhere. Could you come with me to where the others are? You can freak out there and help them figure out what's going on,” he said.

Time Fish babbled incoherently and didn’t move so Gate Fish magically picked him up and flung him through the portal, following behind.

Several magic fish were already gathered on the other side. Among them, thankfully, was Mental Fish, a glowing translucent parrotfish. Gate Fish swam over and whispered into her ear. They both glanced at Time Fish before Mental Fish nodded. She spat out her magic wand from within her body and cast a spell aimed at Time Fish.

Time Fish felt himself calm down, the built-up stress melted away. Even the clock motif on his body returned to normal.

With a clear head, he could now see what a fool he'd been. Screaming and panicking wasn't going to solve the potentially reality-ending problem, “Thank you, Mental Fish,” he said, “You too Gate Fish. What did you say earlier about Weather Fish? She’s missing?!”

Gate fish closed his eyes in annoyance and shook his head, “I’ll leave him to you,” he sighed, then promptly teleported a couple metres away.

Mental Fish gave Time Fish a calming look and sent her words directly to Time Fish’s thoughts, -Yes, even Divination Fish can’t find her.

“That’s weird,” Time Fish said, looking around. He spotted the green glow of Divination Fish easily enough, “I’ll see if I can help, thanks again, Mental Fish!”

-You’re welcome.

Time fish bowed and swam over to where an emerald anglerfish and a large barracuda made of iron were talking; Divination Fish and Metal Fish.

“Time Fish!” Metal Fish greeted, “Good, you’re finally here. Share your magic with Divination Fish. We need to look into the past and see where Weather Fish has hidden herself,”

“Hello to you too, Metal Fish,” Time Fish smiled at his bossy friend before turning to the other fish, “Hi, Divination Fish,”

Divination Fish had stopped paying attention while Metal and Time Fish were talking and was staring deeply into the green light of her esca (the glowy thing attached to her head).

Metal Fish cleared her throat loudly.

“Huh, what?” Divination Fish asked, looking away from the light and blinking.

Metal Fish sighed, “Just cast your spell, Time Fish,”

Time Fish spat out his wand, a thin, red hand of a clock, and said the magic words, “Ghost of Christmas past!” with a wave of his wand. The spell’s original purpose was to remember important things like email passwords and where you put your keys by forcing the target to relive the past again. Combined with Divination Fish’s magic, it was possible to spy into the past of anyone. It was a major breach of privacy, but fish care not for that kind of thing.

The three gathered fish, stared into Divination fish’s esca. Mental Fish, Gate Fish and a few others swam over to get a look as well. Within the swirling lights of divination magic, they witnessed Weather Fish's past.

☀️Weather Fish⛈️

The vision slowly zoomed in towards the planet ‘Bryan’ zooming further until it reached the venue for the Smarty’s greatest annual event, the ‘Invention Convention’. A recent trend in Smarty technology had been to emulate the fantastic magics performable by the renowned magical fish. As such, all magic fish were invited to attend the convention! Magic fish weren’t interested in science however as science and magic never mixed well. So the open invitation was typically ignored in lieu of some other magical hijinks. There was always one exception; Weather Fish.

Weather Fish was a fantastic bright-yellow, hammerhead shark. On the secret magic fish danger ranking list that the Smartys had, she ranked number 6. The secret danger rankings were not so secret, to be honest. Divination Fish had spotted it years ago and told everybody their rankings for a laugh.

Weather Fish hated that list. She held a strong belief that she deserved to be much higher than number 6. After all, the weather was something that affected the lives of everyone on a daily basis. Surely it deserved a spot in the top 3, right? So swimming into the convention with her nose held high, one of the things she had planned for the day was to show off her powers and hopefully raise a few ranks. She had even placed this task on her ‘to do’ list. A list she considered far superior to the danger ranking list.

The Smarty military had developed powerful laser weapons based on the spells of a magic fish named "Laser Fish". Weather Fish considered this to be an outrageous insult to her comrade, Laser Fish. The very thought of technology-based Lasers was an aberration to the natural way of things; lasers were meant to be magic! And the worst part about it was that Laser Fish still ranked higher than her on the Danger ranking list! Outrageous!

“High intelligence clearly doesn’t equate to good list making,” Weather Fish grumbled to herself

She swam past an empty area of the convention floor with a sign placed in its centre informing her the area was reserved for an absent team of scientists named ‘the little girl’s team’. She scoffed, shaking her head at the terrible naming sense the Smarties had and moved on to the next display. This one had at least bothered to show up. It was manned by a smiling male Smarty, standing by a metal sphere. The sphere had several antennas sticking out at random angles. She swam over to get a closer look at the machine and talk to the Smarty.

“What does this quaint little thing do?” She asked him.

To be honest, Smarties should have known better. Weather Fish’s pride was legendary after all. She was known to brag for hours about how amazing weather magic is to anyone who would listen. She had self-nominated herself ‘The Queen of Weather’ throughout the universe. There was a ceremony and all, where she crowned herself with a little crown of thunderclouds. All this nonsense and more was just to make one thing clear; she alone controlled the weather; no one else. The Smarties are intelligent. It should have been abundantly clear to them what not to invent with her attending the convention year after year. But high intelligence doesn't necessarily equate to good decision making.

The Smarty smiled wide, “Oh! Miss Weather Fish! I have been so excited, awaiting a chance to show you my invention. I am certain that you will like it very much! Behold!” the Smarty pulled a level with dramatic flair. A rain cloud formed in the air above the sphere, “A weather machine!”

Through her grit teeth, Weather Fish managed to squeeze out one word, "Oh."

Then she casually spat out her wand from within her body and pointed it at the man. His eyes went wide, “Wait! What are you doi…?”

His words were cut off as bolts of lightning shot forth from the wand, incinerating him, the weather machine, and a dozen more unfortunate Smarties who just happened to be standing in the general area. Weather Fish breathed erratically, her teeth bit down hard into the metal of her lightning-rod-shaped magic wand. With bloodshot eyes, she stared down at the charred remains of the Smarty heretic.

Screams filled up the convention centre. People fled as fire took a hold of several nearby inventions. Weather Fish stayed eerily still, continuing to look down at the dead inventor. She screamed at the corpse, "A weather Machine?!? How many others saw it? How many machines did you make?!?!"

The burnt corpse didn't reply.

A convention security guard ran over and levelled a laser pistol towards Weather Fish, “F-f-f-freeze!” he called out.

Weather Fish turned her wand towards him and launched another lightning bolt. The twitchy guard pulled the trigger of his pistol at the same time. The impacts were almost simultaneous. The guard was, of course, turned into a smoking pile of ash as thousands of volts passed through him. But surprisingly, Weather Fish discovered that she too was injured. The laser had left a small round burn mark on her face. Her expression grew even darker, “How dare you use lasers against me!” she screamed at the sizzled remains of the guard.

More guards were arriving. Weather Fish didn't even give them a chance to unholster their pistols this time.

“EYE OF THE STORM!” she spun her wand and spoke the magic words. Hundreds of dark clouds shot forth from her wand, filling the convention centre.

A lot of Smarties were about to die.

Imagine the worst storm possible. [Eye of the Storm] is several times worse than that, centred entirely around Weather Fish. Snow, hail, lightning, everything, all at once. It wasn’t the kind of spell that could destroy a planet, at least not right away. That's the kind of magic that gets you into the top 5 of the secret danger list. But still, the spell was obscenely dangerous.

Weather Fish made short work of the convention centre, reducing it to rubble in mere moments. But she was far from done. Winds toppled sky-scrapers, rivers froze, and lighting struck out constantly killing Smarties by the thousands. Weather Fish's tantrum looked posed to destroy the entire city. The more she destroyed, the more she wanted to destroy. She never grew less angry about the weather machine.

In a hidden room filled with shadowy figures, a unanimous decision was made, “We, the space-illuminati, hereby authorise the full might of the Smarty military to engage and bring Weather Fish down. May science have mercy on our souls”

Laser jets scrambled. Tornadoes ripped the city apart on the ground below, as rain, wind and snow spun around chaotically in the sky. This made pinpointing the magical hammerhead an arduous task. The Smarties had a solution to this problem, however; shoot lasers everywhere.

Above the ruins of the convention centre, countless deadly beams descended upon Weather Fish's general location. In return, she filled the sky with a myriad of forking lightning that knocked jets out of the sky like leaves falling in autumn.

Despite her enormous power and how viciously she fought, Weather Fish was slowly overwhelmed. Each successful blast of laser fire burned her scales and damaged her wand a little more. Her pride and fury blinded her to the danger. She wouldn’t stop now. She couldn’t stop now. She kept launching spell after spell, blasting jet after jet out of the sky until one wave of her wand produced no lightning. Her wand snapped and hung limp in her mouth. The magic that had been protecting her seeped away and her body tore to pieces under sustained laser fire.

Weather Fish fell from the sky, dead.

With nothing to contain it, Weather magic exploded out from her corpse. It shot out in all directions, out across the galaxy. Suddenly, strange weather phenomena were witnessed all over. It was an unparalleled galactic disaster.

Ironic that in her death, Weather Fish’s magic grew so dangerous that fear and respect for it reached far greater heights than it had ever done during her life. After that day, many Smarties believed that Weather Fish was worthy of a much higher rank on the secret danger list.

⏰Time Fish (again) ⏰

The divination ended. The silence was deafening.

Eventually, Divination Fish spoke, her voice sounding hollow, “The reason I couldn’t find her before, was that there's nothing to find anymore. Oh my Goddess, Weather Fish is dead!” she burst into tears and threw herself into Time Fish’s fins.

The other fish weren’t keeping it together much better. Metal Fish was physically incapable of crying so she took charge, “Gate Fish, go gather everyone,” she ordered.

Gate fish looked ready to complain but Metal Fish gave him a warning glare. He nodded and left.

The other Magical Fish got to work preparing for their first-ever funeral.