The Strange Misadventures of Mr. Nice Guy: And There They Were, Two Against-IS THAT A BIG FISH

[WARNING: CONTAINS DEATH AND SOME DETAILS ABOUT BLOOD/GORE; IF THIS UPSETS YOU DO NOT READ]

Mr. Nice Guy didn't know what he'd done.

Truly.

All he knew is that he'd messed up. Big-time.

Zephyr had warned him to stay away from the television set. He'd said "Whatever that is, those don't grow on trees!"

Then added, "Do they?", which Mr. Nice Guy assured him that he was very sure they did not as well. 

Maybe it was his own stupidity and curiosity with that statement that had landed them here, just as well as him stepping forward, closer to the edge of the wooden, worn old dock, his claws sinking into the mossy growth as he reached over the rainbow waters that rushed beneath him to the tree that grew just off the dock. Its bark whirled and twisted just like normal---or at least what normal was here for the trees-he was quite sure he'd seen a tree that looked like a person earlier, but it hadn’t moved as he’d walked past, so he was pretty sure that it was still a tree. Trees were brown and had bark. Sometimes leaves. He’d seen trees without leaves before, back in the human land, Earth, where the only remaining trees who had leaves were red and orange and yellow, leaves that crunched under his feet when he stepped on them, shredding themselves into tiny little thin scraps of colors. And the grass-the grass was amazing, with their little shining dew-drops that dripped from their tiny little blades, cooling down his claws and making them shine against the glossy, red-stained surface. But his claws weren’t red. They weren’t supposed to be that at all.

Mr. Nice Guy stopped that thought in his tracks and turned that thought back to its surface, to where he’d been reaching out precariously for that tree. Zephyr had been speaking, but he didn’t really remember what about. Something about-oh yes! Something about eyes, lots of eyes, purple eyes that glowed a violent contrast against the black skin of a scaly snake that had lunged forward for Zephyr at the exact moment Mr. Nice Guy had reached for the tree.

Zephyr had flung themselves backwards, screaming a sound that seemed way too high for their ability as a furry death noodle, slamming themselves into Mr. Nice Guy and throwing him far off balance, straight into the strange television set he’d heard about in the human realm, though admittedly it had been a lot sleeker there and he’d only found out about it through one of those strange sleek black boxes, but anyways. Mr. Nice Guy had tried to turn around, catching only a glimpse of the strange black snake, its mouth open wide and ready to swallow Zephyr, before a flash of light caught them both and they’d disappeared entirely.

Oh, now he knew how they’d gotten here!

The only problem now was ‘how did he get out?’

Unfortunately, Mr. Nice Guy had no idea.

After he’d exploded back into being like a pinata spontaneously imploding, it had thrown him into a rock. Like, a big rock. And it had hurt. Like, a lot. 

Mr. Nice Guy made a noise that he hoped sounded really cool like a nice person’s would and pushed himself away from the swiss cheese looking rock, staring at it for a moment, his vision swimming like a rabid bat dunked into ice water. Eyes glinted at him from inside the rock, then blinked out again as Mr. Nice Guy floated there, his claws clenching down on the rock until his strength took hold and snapped one of the rocky outcroppings clean off.

“Oops!” he cried, grabbing it and jamming it back on (which worked about as well as one would expect), then paused, thrusting his hand back and forth again. And instead of the familiar push and pull of air, whatever it was, wherever he was, it didn’t behave like normal air. It was much, much thicker, and-and blue. 

“Blue?” he murmured, then glanced upwards, at the sky.

The sky wasn’t really a sky.

It was more of a surface. A surface that looked more like the surface of Wouagi’s waters, when he was under them. Where he’d first met Zephyr…two days ago now? He’d lost count. He was more focused on counting how long it had been since Dr. Crowell…created him. Creating him was one of the brighter aspects of that.

But anyways, that surface wasn’t the sky. That meant he was underwater.

Mr. Nice Guy frowned, then yelped, shoving his hand over his face and trying to block the water from pouring inside the endless abyss that he couldn’t close, then paused once more.

“I can…speak,” he exclaimed. His words echoed through the water just like it would’ve if he was above water. “But how?”

“Hmm…” muttered Mr. Nice Guy, trying to think for the reason why water wasn’t endlessly pouring into his mouth. And why he could speak underwater. And why his legs were gone.

Wait a moment.

Mr. Nice Guy let out another scream and stared down at his lack of legs, at the sleek, smooth surface where they had once been and how his body continued on far longer than normal, creating what looked like a serpent’s body. But with-a shark tail. A long, long, shark tail that arched like a crescent moon, slicing through the water as he moved it. 

He felt his spikes raise on his back as he thought about that, then twisted his head all the way around his back like he was an owl to stare at his brand-new old-blood colored spikes, at the pinkish webbing that connected them, then at the strange new webbing between his tentacles and the spikes that dotted them.

“How strange,” he murmured, then glanced around again, at the rock that covered a quarter of his vision, then behind him, where nothing but empty endlessness stretched out for miles and miles. 

He looked down, at the infinite abyss below him, dark and terrifying, completely unexplored and very much not habitable, as he learned from the rumbling scream that came from it when he looked.

Then he looked up once more, above him, to where the light was, the striking, painfully bright light, then frowned at what looked like pinkish, bluish, yellowish light that gleamed from up above.

“Am I going crazy?” he whispered to himself, then wrapped himself up into a ball and hugged his unnaturally long tail. “Could it be? Am I? Am I, Dr. Crowell?”

Dr. Crowell did not respond, as he continued to do and had done so for the past three months, twenty-four days, seven hours, eighteen minutes, and nine seconds, and suddenly, his very own emotions began to attack him.

“Why won’t you wake up? What did I do wrong?” he muttered, repeating himself over and over and growing in volume until he was screaming it, screaming it into the empty blueness. 

Eventually, he just screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until he couldn’t bring himself to do it anymore, wrapping his freakishly long arms around himself and shaking like Dr. Crowell had, wordlessly and silent. Dr. Crowell had never spoken a single word to Mr. Nice Guy. He didn’t even have enough time to, it seemed in hindsight. Mr. Nice Guy could’ve spoken. It had been a full two minutes of just staring. Maybe it took humans longer. A whole lot longer. That’s why he’s not responding, the eldritch creature told himself. Because it takes humans longer. I am being completely unreasonable and unkind right now. I’ll just wait till he talks for me to apologize, so I don’t cut him off and make him have to start over.

Mr. Nice Guy sat there, unmoving, for a long time. A really, really long time. Over six hours. He counted.

And during that time, his mind wandered. If his mind was an infinite desert, he’d found the ocean, the ocean of deep, dark thoughts and horrible sights that plagued him at every twist and turn he traveled to.

 

And then he was there, just as suddenly as his own emotions had turned on him, back that day three months, twenty four days, thirteen hours, forty-six minutes and thirty-nine seconds ago.

 

It was evident from the first moment he gained consciousness of himself that everything was not going to plan. He was nothing more than a puddle of things the human mind couldn’t comprehend, peeking at the scientist as he rushed back and forth amidst the disheveled, messy room. Pictures and awards on the wall were hung crookedly, and with every rumble of the building, they only grew closer and closer to falling off. Smart, scientific-looking instruments wiggled onto the floor and smashed into pieces as he watched the scientist, his hand covering his mouth as he glanced back and forth, his knees shaking so hard he could barely even stand. His black hair trembled so profusely it was a wonder that it didn’t wiggle straight off his head, his lab coat wrinkled and scuffed with dirt and strange marks. At the beginning of his creation, Dr. Crowell had paced back and forth, tearing at his hair and whimpering like a dying animal, before he turned to face the glowing, red box in the middle of the room he sat in, staring at the depths of the red fog colored like blood. 

That didn’t seem to be normal, he remembered thinking. Not at all.

Dr. Crowell sat there for a moment, his pale hands clenching into tight, white-knuckled fists as his striking, stormy gray eyes stared into the depths of that box as the smoke billowed away from the middle of the cubicle.

And in the next few seconds, something vaguely human-shaped stood up on shaky legs, brushed itself off, then turned around, its eyes and mouth nothing more but emptiness that even the shadows that covered its entire body couldn’t fill. Those eyes stared at Dr. Crowell, that smile drawing itself up into a large grin that confused Mr. Nice Guy to his core. The words it spoke, strange and unnatural, were even more so.

What does that mean?, he thought blankly. Later, he would learn this is what the humans called Anglerfish. That’s what they called their language. It was also a type of fish. But at the time, those words were as unfamiliar to him as he was to this world.

It pressed itself against the clear glass-like material and grinned at him, saying something that he didn’t understand.

Dr. Crowell clearly did, staring at it in absolute horror, then turned and staggered away, clutching his head and shaking. He stood there for a couple minutes, then fell to his knees, shaking his head wildly and messing up his scruffy, fluffy thick hair. His shoes glinted in the light as the whole building shook, sending whatever that ghostly-looking shadow retreating back into the shadows, its smile turned completely upside-down.

And then Dr. Crowell began to weep, tears dripping down his face slowly at first, then faster and faster, hitting the ground as something in the distance wailed. Rubble had already blocked off the exits to the room, and the single window was made of a substance even stronger than the walls, as Mr. Nice Guy later found out.

But something about his pathetic, hopeless form gave Mr. Nice Guy strength, enough strength to take on a physical form instead of just becoming one with the shadows.

He tossed up a wild strand of shadows that unraveled and spun as it moved, forcing itself to become solid and clawed like the hands that Dr. Crowell had, making him cry out and spin around, now on his feet as he stared at him, shaking so hard it was a wonder he didn’t just fall over.

If Mr. Nice Guy knew how to speak, he would’ve assured Dr. Crowell that he meant no harm, that he wasn’t there to hurt anyone. But he didn’t. And at the moment, Mr. Nice Guy thought about nothing more than simply creating a physical form for himself.

Then a form for him came out of the darkness he’d been spawned from, leaking from the side of the box, and he climbed out, his skin solidifying upon himself as he stared at Dr. Crowell, who stared back for two minutes. Almost exactly two and one third of a second.

Then he screamed and backed up at the exact moment that the building’s roof gave out and crushed them all.

Mr. Nice Guy climbed out of it easily.

Whatever was in that box—and Dr. Crowell—did not have such luck.

Mr. Nice Guy walked after the man after he pulled himself weakly out of the rubble, then staggered away, away from the bricks with red pouring from his neck. He didn’t know then that that had meant that Dr. Crowell was hurt. And even now, he had no idea how to help.

Only twenty-six seconds after Dr. Crowell had emerged from the debris, he collapsed upon the cool grass, onto his back, staring up at the sky with a glassy look in his vibrant eyes.

Mr. Nice Guy didn’t know then that that meant Dr. Crowell was going to die.

The eldritch creature awkwardly made his way closer until he leaned over the human’s face, staring into his impossibly wide eyes, his pupils so small you’d be hard pressed to compare that to a needle’s point. One of his arms was splayed weakly to the side, a dark gash in his forearm that rendered his whole arm useless. One of his legs was propped up; the other lying limply in the ground, a puddle of dark red blood spreading around him. His other hand was clutching at the back of his neck, at the red stain on the grass that continued to grow as Dr. Crowell stared at him, tears streaming down his blood-smudged face. Blood poured from the corners of his mouth like a bucket as he stared up at Mr. Nice Guy, his mouth opening wide as if to speak.

He never got the chance.

And as he watched, Dr. Crowell’s eyes grew unfocused and shut, leaving his mouth gaping as his chest stopped its unsteady rising and falling and he stopped moving forever. And there he laid, sprawled out in the grass as all his blood drained away and soaked into the red-stained dirt, his already pale skin growing whiter and whiter until he looked as white as the sun’s glowing apparition in the sky.

Mr. Nice Guy had sat there with him for a while, waiting for him to wake up. At that time, he didn’t know that Dr. Crowell was dead and truly gone. He didn’t even know what words were, let alone what death meant for either of them.

But that was where he’d learned Dr. Crowell’s name, from the nametag that glinted beneath the blood and grime that soaked its silvery-white surface. That sign, those letters, those two words ‘Doctor Crowell’, he had practically memorized by the time that he decided that Dr. Crowell probably wasn’t going to move again, with horrible certainty that made him cry, or at least as close to a cry that he could ever truly achieve.

With his newfound smile-disk abilities, after finding nowhere else to take Dr. Crowell with him, he put his stiff body into his mouth and swallowed. One of the biggest mistakes he’d ever made; no, scratch that, THE biggest mistake he’d ever made. Because now he couldn’t get him out, and now Dr. Crowell was stuck.

But he was going to wake up soon. Mr. Nice Guy knew it in his guts—or the lack of them—that he would. And when he did, Mr. Nice Guy was going to get him back home to the human that was his home, the dark-skinned, dreadlocked human who looked in every way Dr. Crowell’s opposite, framed in every picture that he had. One of them he kept too, to give something to Dr. Crowell when he woke up.

If he ever did.

Mr. Nice Guy opened his eyes (sort of-he didn’t have physical eyes but-okay get off my back his eyes are not physically there) and glanced around, watching the darkness he was swamped by slowly grow darker and darker.

Until he saw the lights again.

Those pinkish, yellowish, bluish lights glimmered closer and closer as they approached Mr. Nice Guy, becoming tiny little orbs that slowly morphed into glowing lanterns that made him unfurl from his tight little ball, tilting his head to stare at the odd new lanterns.

Then the lights flickered, showing about-okay, he didn’t have enough time to count but there was a LOT-of merpeople that surrounded him immediately, what looked like bundles of black string in their hands.

They moved so quickly that he nearly didn’t have enough time to watch them wrap the net around him, before he could even fully detangle himself from the little ball he was curled up into. Mr. Nice Guy yelped and began to thrash within the net’s hold, clawing at the nets and missing horribly until they pulled the nets so tight he couldn’t even move.

One of the merpeople paused right in front of him, with darkly tanned skin and white patches amidst their upper half, dressed in thick, baggy clothes woven of kelp, with a koi’s lower half, patched orange and white which whipped back and forth angrily.

“I think this is the thing that did it.” the merperson snarled, glaring at Mr. Nice Guy, who couldn’t speak at the moment, largely due to the single fact that he’d been muzzled, his smiley-disk shoved into his mouth, hovering there awkwardly.

“It might not be.” argued one of the mer-people sadly, glancing at him, then at the koi-merperson. “But to be sure, let’s bring it back to the Borealis Enclave, just to make sure.”

“It sure looks scary enough to have been nibbling on some kids.” commented one of the merpeople. “Look, it’s even wearing some poor soul’s jacket.”

“BARRAMUNDI!” barked the koi-merperson, who swam over to them and slapped them across the face. “Don’t be so blatantly rude! Do you know how worried we are all?!”

“Yeah, I know-” they began, then paused and sighed. “Fine. Let’s just get it back to the Borealis Enclave, okay, Amvia?”

“That’s what we’re doing!” Amvia hissed, then grabbed the section of net right next to his face and yanked it forward, dragging him slowly through the water.

The other merpeople grabbed the net as well and began to drag him through the water, where it promptly took FOREVER to get him back to what they called the ‘Borealis Enclave’ and drag him through the very, very long lines of traffic. Who knew that giant sea snails moved so slow?

He didn’t really see most of the movement, but he really, vividly remembered when Amvia the koi mermaid shut the door to a very large fish cage he was locked in, pointedly placed in the middle of a giant underground and underwater city, where the gaze of thousands of merpeople crawled under his skin and made him squirm uncomfortably.

“If you really did eat those children, or if you did something to them,” she hissed, her yellow eyes glowing malevolently at him, “You’re going to regret the day you ever hatched.”

And with those inspiring, heart-warming words, she swam off, leaving him to cower in the eyes of thousands for the rest of the night.