FREDDY THE FISH AND THE INVASION (part one)

This is one of my favourite Freddy the fish stories. It's very long and so is split into two parts. The second of which I will post tomorrow to create some suspense for all of you.

Hope you enjoy!!!



Once upon a time in the land of the fishies. That's below the ocean for those of you who weren't aware of the living conditions required for a fish to survive. Anyway, once upon a time in the land of the fishies there was a large fish which some humans like to call a shark. This statement is technically true. Most humans don't call it a shark, they just merely call it a "Oh fuck what's th- " before dying. The rest of them who don't actually die just call it an "AAAARGH!" and run away. So technically it's only some humans who like to call it a shark, and even then they don't particularly like it.

This isn't technically fair on the shark who never actualy hurt anyone. Except for the people who died obviously, but they were asking for it. Think about it this way, if the shark invaded the beach it would die wouldn't it. So why shouldn't the same thing happen to us humans? Now don't you start going on about all that crap about people drowning because you can always pop your head out of the water. But if a shark suddenly appeared in the middle of a field it wouldn't be able to just pop it's head back underwater. Don't be facetious now by saying that there might be a pond. You know what I'm talking about.

Anyway back to the story. There was this shark. And he was feeling pretty lonely because all of these weird looking fish were running away from him and going "AAAARGH!" So he decided to go on holiday and visit some of his family. They were pretty mean and so this particular shark, who wasn't mean at all, had to pretend to be really mean. He started swimming off into the distance. Much to the relief of the panicky humans who, as it turns out, all died later on that same day when a freak coincidence caused a large wave of giant jellyfish to cascade over everybody on the beach, causing a slow agonizing death to everybody involved, many of whom wished that they hadn't ran from the shark in the first place. Interestingly enough, the only survivor of this incident was a young boy who coincidentally did like to call them sharks.

Meanwhile, next to a small reef not far from the beach. Before we go any further with the story this statement should be examined. The term "not far" is actually a very vague term without some sense of size. If for example you were the size of an amoeba then not far would actually be only a few meters. For humans not far can be anything from a couple of miles to a whole continent depending on who is giving the description (although to be fair "not far" is only as much as a continent when being given directions by a local), if you are considering the term from the size of the universe then it means several thousad million light years, which is not all that far when you think about it. So to give you a sense of where we are going I shall now repeat the original phrase with a bit more clarity.

Meanwhile, next to a small reef approximately 13 kilometers 786 meters 23 centimeters and 5.7742 millimeters from the beach. Two fish were arguing over a fragment of an alien ship which had recently crash landed on the border of their properties. The ship itself was lying on it's side not far from the fish but was too heavy for them to move, however the fragment which was had fallen off in the impact was easily moved and that is what the argument was about.

"It was on my property until you moved it over onto your side of the rock!" Shouted the more colourful of the two.

"No it wasn't. I came along and saw that it was here lying on my side so I claimed it as mine. Then you came along and started yelling." The dull gray fish retorted. The colourful fish sighed and looked over at the ship which was deifinately on his property and made the whole place look cluttered in his opinion.

The ship was a long cylindrical shape with various colourful patterns on the side of it. Some of these patterns stood out more and the fish assumed that these were some sort of alien language. At either end of the ship the colours faded and became a dull metallic gray. The ship was sealed at one end but at the other there was an open hatchway, the strange thing about this hatch was that it had two doors. One seemed to open inwards and was open right now, the other door had a large hole in it that could have been a window, this door appeared to rest up above the hatch but could be folded down over the hatch if required. Also the doorway appeared to be razor sharp. In the fish's opinion aliens were just a little bit too awkward for his liking. And they were polluting his land with a strange sticky brown fizzy substance which seemed to be leaking out of the ships hatchway.

The piece of the ship that had been on his land until recently was a dull white colour and was shaped like a series of six rings in a three by two block. It would make a good wall decoration for his little cave and would be an interesting conversation piece for when he had visitors. His neighbour however would probably like to use the debris as a necklace or something like that.

"It was on my land!" He shouted. Although he knew that without proof it was pointless to even bother arguing about it.

The argument was resolved before the dull gray fish could answer. A large blur flashed past the rock and everything vanished except for the alien ship which just rolled over a few times before coming to a rest next to the other five of it's kind which by a million to one chance had landed in such a fashion that anyone looking directly down at them would think that they said "444444.5%" which would be one hell of a drink.

In the reef itself, unaware of the alien crash site and the mystery of the vanishing fish, there was a celebration of sorts occuring. Apparently a fish had just returned from a two year long journey to find a safer place to live than the reef. It seems that the reef's mayorfish had decided that the homes of all of the fish in the area were open to attack by bigger fish if they decided to stay in this particular area. So the search party was sent out. It consisted of the ten strongest and best fighting fish in the area. These fish had been the sole protectors of the reef for many years as no other fish was able to take on several sharks at once.

The party had set out on a relatively sunny and dry day. Although they didn't care because they were underwater and so sunshine and rain don't really affect them below the surface. They had travelled in a slowly widening spiral around the reef looking for a suitable living area that was as close to the reef as possible. It was agreed that three of the fish would constantly circle the main search party of seven in order to locate any food that they would need as they searched. On the third day of their journey the three food finders suddenly vanished. There was a strange sensation of something massive swimming by the search party but they didn't see anything except for the sudden disappearance of the three food fish. After that incident the party stayed as close together as possible and searched slowly, stopping every now and then to hide and watch for whatever had swam past them. After a year or so of searching they believed they were far enough away from whatever had attacked them to begin searching properly again. The instant they came fully out into the open again something swooped down and ate another three of them. The remaining four were so shocked by this development that they didn't move quick enough and lost another two of their number to the unknown assailant. The last two had then spent three months in hiding, not wanting to even leave the large network of caves they had entered. They slowly explored these caves and found that they were very large and had sustainable food supplies. This was a good place for the fish from the reef to move to. But how would they be able to go out and tell the other fish about this area? With an unseen assassin chasing them how could they go back. Eventually they decided to draw straws (well draw little pieces of seaweed) and the one who got the short piece had to venture out of the cave. He did so and was fine. The other fish watched his progress as he left and wished him luck. The fish then turned to go back into the cave only to find a shark waiting for him at the entrance. This was no ordinary shark, this was Gargant, the leader of all sharks, he was a very large and very very mean shark with a grudge. He had a large scar covering one eye, that was a result of a meeting with the fish floating in front of him at this very moment. Taking him by suprise was a genius idea and Gragant was very proud of himself for thinking it up. He opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He chewed. He swallowed. He grinned. He headed back to his brothers. Sharks are very simple creatures and often work in short sharp bursts of activity.

And so the only surviving fish of the search party brought the good news back to the reef. However, in the time that he had been gone no attacks on the reef had occurred and so the mayorfish had decided that they should stay in the reef after all. You may be thinking that this is a pointless waste of nine fish lives, nine fish lives that could easily protect the reef against attack, and you would be right in thinking that, however, in the grand scheme of things this sort of thing happens all of the time.

Meanwhile, in a small cave in the reef two marine creatures were sitting with intense looks of concentration on their faces. Well as intense as any random creature can look. They stared at each other, neither daring to move in inch. They remained like this for several minutes, eyes squinted to mere slits as they weighd up the chances of surviving the battle at hand. Eventually one of them made a slight movement and suddenly spoke.

"Bee five" Freddy the Fish said cooly.

"Damnit! You floated my goldfish!" Sammy the squid excalimed as he threw the rock he was holding onto the floor in exasperation.

Freddy smiled and swam around in circles a few times.

"You don't have to be cocky about it." Sammy moaned. "I would have won if your clown fish had gone left to right instead of up to down."

"Yeah I guessed you would have." Freddy said as he stopped swimming. "But then again, if I had gone out swimming into a blue whales mouth then I'd have died. So I guess the world evens out in the end doesn't it."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sammy asked.

"It means that the world isn't run on if's." Freddy said and he continued his dance.

Both Sammy and Freddy were completely unaware of the celebration happening down at the reef cave as all of the fish congratulated the surviving warrior fish on a job well done in finding a new home (the mayor had yet to tell him of the plan to stay in the reef). Everybody was having a great time and were being altogether too loud. It was for this reason that the group of seven sharks lead by Gargant were able to easily swim down into the reef and hide among the general foliage. Only one fish noticed the approach of the sharks and he didn't really care. This fish's name was Gerald and the reason for his not caring was simple. He was in exile from the reef.

A few years ago Gerald had been an aide to the mayorfish. He had single handedly undertaken the task of appointing the ten warrior fish to protect the reef from attack. Nobody knew it but the ten fish chosen to potect the reef had all been given an interesting substance found by Gerald. This substance appeared to make any fish who took it much stronger and faster and generally bigger. He had found a large amount of it dumped in a place near the shore.

An interesting thing to mention at this moment is that the point at which the boosting substance was dumped is directly below the training area of the olympic rowing team. I will not tell you which country, but anyone who's met them will know who I'm talking about.

The incident with the boosting agent wasn't what had gotten Gerald exiled. What had gotten him exiled was the fact that he told the mayor that sending the warrior fish away was a bad idea. He did this because he discovered that if a fish stops taking the substance he rapidly becomes weaker and slower than a normal fish. Anyway, the whole idea of finding a new place to live was pointless anyway. Gerald smiled and swam away. Good ridance to the lot of them he thought.

It's interesting to note that a few days after this incident Gerald was sturck by an oar as he swam near the surface. Fish who get struck by oars usually just get a little dazed, however this oar was wielded by one of the athlete's who helped him make the super warrior fish and so Gerald was beaten so hard that he exploded. It just shows that karma does exist even down in the oceans.

Eventually the party in the reef cave ended and everybody headed back to their own caves. A few fish vanished as they wandered into the hiding sharks but in general everybody made it home safely. Nobody noticed the invaders waiting in their little hidey holes. In his little cave, Freddy slept peacefully, blissfully unaware that had he gone to the party he would at this very moment be being eaten by the shark who had hidden himself outside the cave. Sammy the squid, who shared the two branch cave with Freddy, was also sleeping peacefully. He may have had a bad dream about a tomato plant, the fact that he had never seen or heard about a tomato plant made this impressive, but then again it could have been one of those prophetic dreams.

To be continued...