Sleeping with da fishies

Ah, the ocean. Vast, blue and filled with a menagerie of creatures. Everyone knows their role in the water, or at least they should. Before we begin, we need to establish our characters. After that you can take the plunge into our story, [[a tail of starfish crossed lovers who could never be together. ->begin]] [[Diavolo]] [[The dolphins ->dolphins]] [[The sharks ->sharks]] (Also an explanation of the frogs needs to go somewhere here.

Diavolo had been a simple shrimp, he was quite shrimple if you will. He was born fighting for his life. You thought those little baby sea turtles had it bad? Well shrimps have it way worse! They start at the bottom of the food chain and stay there. At least lobsters and crabs have their shells, shrimps? They had shells but if you'd seen them get chomped on the way Diavolo had you wouldn't think it. He knew something had to change so he worked his way up the food chain, blackmailing the local gang of [[dolphins]] until he managed to wriggle his way into the top of their ranks. Don't stress over the little details too much, that's how he got in, no one expected a cute shrimp to be orchastrating the biggest takeover this side of the seven seas. He was gonna rule it all as soon as he knocked down those blasted [[sharks]].

(set: $food to (either: "crab", "kelp salad", "fried eel")) Carlo remembered the day all too well. It was the fourth anniversary of his father's passing and he was spending it alone. Again. He collected a couple of shells and an octopus because that had been his old man's favorite. He didn't do anything too fancy with the meal, figuring that bottomfeeders would eat it anyway, so he salted it generously and tossed it with a bit of sea lemon. He headed out for the gravesite, which happened to be a fairly short swim. He rarely ventured into dolphin territory like this, but little seemed to matter with the threat of being overrun by frogs of all creatures looming in the back of his mind. He swam up to his father, fixed the sand that had piled up at the base of the coral headstone, then set down the dish of octopus. "Hey dad," he started as he set down the first shell, a whelk. "I tried to make it the way you like, but maybe I should've made $food instead." He set down another shell, a cockle. "Or better yet, the head of that little crustacean, yeah?" As he went to set down the last shell, a conch with a pinkish hue, he heard a whistle from far off. The shell dropped from his fins and unceremoniously landed in the sand as he turned around to face a group dolphins. [["You talking about our boss?"]]

The dolphins lead the biggest mafia in the ocean. They're clever, they know how to organize a crime. It always starts with a warning. Clearly the urchin infestation they placed in the former mayor's office wasn't enough to get him off their tails. Later he had to take a long trip to visit some family, got attacked by a colossal squid, didn't make it back to the surface. Neither did their squid, but after sending their condolences to her family all was swell. Nobody remembers how [[Diavolo]] came into power, he came around a bit and nobody minded him. He huffed pufferfish with the boss, Bottleface, a couple of times, but then one day he was annointed as second in command no questions asked. After that Bottleface got sick and instead of placing his good-for-nothing son in charge he had Diavolo put in charge. It wasn't like the change was minded, Diavolo was a great guy, funny and real cute. Regardless he got the job done, he kept the dolphins at the top of the food chain, and best of all he kept those filthy [[sharks]] in the slums where they belonged. [[Somebody needed to keep an eye on them...->begin]]

Nobody respected sharks much these days. With the [[dolphins]] in place nobody could stand up to them. They weren't even fish for crying out loud! How can you breathe air and have the gall to want charge of the ocean? And that little prawn Diavolo, somebody should've fed him to the gulls a long time ago. He was wiping out half the shark population. [[Carlo ->begin]] had seen his own father hunted down by humans. Despite being a mako he hadn't been fast enough to evade them in his age. Somehow he knew that [[Diavolo]] had something to do with it. He heard those dolphins saying it was in his blood to be done in by little guys. That was the day everything changed, for better or worse he still really wasn't sure.

Carlo resisted the urge to bolt when he heard one of the dolphins speak in that squeaky tone. He swallowed. "What makes you think that? I could be talking about any ol' crustacean." He tried to position himself over his dish of octopus, the last thing he wanted was for them to take his good whale bone plate. One of the dolphins who looked rather uninterested with the whole ordeal nudged the dolphin that had spoken, but the dolphin continued. "Nah, I know you were talking about Diavolo." She said, moving closer to look down at Carlo. "Is that Jaws grave?" "That's not his name," Carlo bit out. The dolphins laughed. Carlo could feel his anger bubbling to the surface, he didn't want to get in a fight, but the dolphins were asking for it. [[Stay calm.]] [[Attack!!]]

Carlo exhaled. He turned his back to the dolphins and let their jeers wash away as he tried to focus on his father. With his back turned the dolphins paused. One swam up close to him, whistled high pitched and long right in his ear. He ignored them. The dolphin that had started the whole thing picked up one of the shells he had placed down earlier, the (either: "cockle", "whelk", "conch"). Right as he got ready to snap at the dolphin's fin, the one that had seemed disintered slapped it out of her fins. "Just leave it alone," he said, "let the guy grieve." The dolphin scoffed and muttered a faint //whatever//. The other dolphins grew quiet and an awkward silence set in. Eventually they decided all the fun had been sucked out the game so they turned tail and began to swim away. A dolphin remained and Carlo was ready to bare his teeth at him until he left. "My dad was Bottleface," he said, "so I know what it's like." With that the dolphin joined the others, he gave one last glance at Carlo before they disappeared near the [[surface.]]

Carlo lunged. The dolphins easily moved aside from his charge. When he tried to spin around one of them rammed their snouts right into his gills. He stopped to regain his senses, but the dolphins were piling on the attacks now. All except one. As Carlo's head hit the sea floor he noticed that one of the dolphins were clicking furiously. Something about wasting time on a single shark and that they needed to get back. "Just leave him alone," he said, "let the guy grieve!" The dolphins did in fact not let him grieve. They dragged him by the dorsal all the way through town, he watched through bleary, watery eyes as others pretended to see nothing. He heard fish muttering to each other. He knew nobody was gonna help him. It was his own fault for trying to fight half a pod of dolphins. He closed his eyes, hoping that whatever they had planned [[they would just get it over with.]]

Carlo decided that he had to repay that dolphin back. Son of Bottleface or not, he had to thank him. Besides it was better to have one dolphin on your side than none. What was his name? Sebastian? Flipper? Bottleface Junior? Nah, he was pretty sure it was Tony. Suddenly that name sounded a lot more magical. He shook his head and focused on the task at hand. Time to make kelp salad! Now what was the order... [[Shred kelp.]]

With the kelp all shredded up Carlo decided to... [[Add sea mayo.]] [[Add sea raisins.]] [[Add salt and sea pepper.]]

Carlo added a couple spoonfuls to the kelp. Now... [[Sea mustard.]] [[Sea dill.]]

Nope, nope. Carlo had the sinking feeling that he had done something terribly wrong. Now he was going to have to [[start over. ->Shred kelp.]]

Maybe a little on the plain side, but dolphins aren't exactly known for having the best taste. Surely this'd be enough to show Tony how [[thankful->thank]] he was.

Sure, now it's a little messy, but what's the fun in eating if you don't get it all over your fins? Yeah, Carlo was pretty sure that this was the way to properly [[thank]] Tony.

Kinda fancy, but fancy is the way to go to win somebody over, right? Unless they didn't wanna be won over, Carlo was hesistantly optimistic that Tony would accept his [[thanks->thank]]

Carlo awoke to a stinging pain on the left side of his face. He raised his head and found that was the only thing he could move. He was tied down to a chair, in what he could assume was a cave, staring down at him from the open fin of one of the dolphin's that beat him down was none other than Diavolo. He couldn't think about anything other than how badly he wanted to throw that prawn as he watched him slowly, and sinisterly, rub his antennae. "I'm getting real tired of you //sharks//," he said, spitting the word shark. He paused to adjust his hat. "I could kill you for messin with my pod, but I've got a better idea." A dolphin came out of the dark holding a fish upside down. "Say hello to my little friend- the remora!" The fish was mercilessly slapped down on his stomach. Carlo was too shocked to speak.