I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 35: Recruitment and solidarity (3)

Through a bit of back and forth conversation, the dilemma of these dungeness crabs was laid out like a 10 foot tall canvas.

Well for a start, these 3 crabs are brothers who apparently have more family members hidden somewhere else.

But the main dilemma was the smaller family members that had fallen down a hole, that was rendered unnoticed by its surrounding coral.

5 of the smaller dungeness crabs had fallen down in a deep hole and getting them out wasn't easy, at all.

As a reward, Amie broke down the deal. "If you reunite the little ones with these crabs, they will get 10 more bigger family members and join your tribe."

Intrigued by such an offer, Tim couldn't help asking for reassurance. "Really? So that's like 23 staby crabs that will join our army?"

"18, but it's still a good number." Rummy corrected, thankfully a hunch better at mathematics, that made the young stingray think that maybe there was more to these 'fish schools'?

"Okay okay then it's a deal!" Tim declared and heard one of these crabs interrupt right after. "Ragadagadagada!"

"Well shit." Rummy cursed out and felt a tail smack on the but by his sister.

"What?" Tim questioned, fearing that these crabs chickened out from the deal.

"The hole they fell into, is flocked by blacktipped groupers." Amie explained, her tone shaking a tad bit upon deciphering.

Absolutely never hearing about such fish before, Tim asked. "Is that bad?"

"Yes it's bad! They can pretty much kill you." Amie assured and her brother seconded that by a worry of his own. "It's probably best if we ditch these losers. These groupers are known to terrorize our fish communities."

"Coward aren't ya? I killed a dang barracuda! And I'm not backing out from the deal, that wouldn't be what bosses do." At this point he felt like everyone was his inferior, but second thoughts arose about bringing these needlefish in the tribe.

"Okay then, the hole is right over there." Amie nodded, at a direction just 3 meters away from the dungeness crabs.

"Alright." Tim answered as he started off slowly, with a bit of hesitancy.

And then questioned in his head, "System, are those groupers really dangerous?"

[Such information isn't available to you, as you never bit on these specific fish before.]

[And you don't have the purchase to obtain information about fish you haven't bitten.]

[As for the deal, it's great for the faction you assigned to.]

[However, these decisions are solely based on your choices.]

"Again with the greedy play?" Tim complained and with a grunt poked his head in the foot wide entrance.

It took a couple of meters to understand how those small crabs just fell into this thing. But the cave looking result deciphered that puzzle, although the young stingray didn't really care much about it.

Hidden underneath this particular yellow, circle shaped coral, specifically where Tim's starting point of this journey was. Lays hidden the cave we just mentioned.

Well it was not much of a cave considering it being 3 meters across, but it gave such a vibe to a 17 centimeter long stingray.

It even sunk about 5 meters deep so at this point it felt more like a ditch. Timothy expected to be welcomed by those enemies, the name grouper sounded big.

But there was no enemy to provide a bitty welcome, no little dungeness crabs either. The only thing welcoming here, was the natural architecture of this little opening.

The yellow coral had somehow merged with stone, creating half s foot thick lines that either pointed straight down or made slight turns.

Truly beautiful, made Tim wish that he found such a den in the very beginning. The sand colouring the very bottom increased that urge to live here, as sand is a perfect place to sleep on.

But yet, the tribe would be too far away at this point, therefore living here would just be playing dumb.

However, the little crabs not being here, made Timothy think that they had already been eaten. So that meant that this task would automatically be terminated.

He wanted to turn back, but as he swam to the bottom, a couple of tunnel looking, foot wide holes revealed their selves... which gives a hunch that those crabs might have crawled down there.

So he pushed hesitation back and thought in repetition, "Bosses don't quit. Bosses don't quit. Bosses don't quit."

As his head dipped in the left tunnel, what captured the eyes that were placed in the middle of his eyes, was an orange fish.

Making the young boy think, "Oh look, a clownfish."

But through that same second, the entire body of his felt lunged behind, pushed away by this orange fish and led back to the entrance of this natural structure.

As he got pushed out, getting a better view of the now, labelled enemy, was the inevitable.

Well it looked like a clownfish, but there was far more orange colour on this one, a few thinner stripes of yellow and nothing about this fish was white.

"Ho ho ho, overgrown clownfish wants to test me? Okay." Tim spoke out, his confidence arising as he charged towards the fish that struck more than twice the stingray's size.

And the enemy had the courage to lunge forward as well, Timmy could see it's short tail slapping the water rapidly, left and right.

Taking a swift turn up right before what could have been a head to head collision, Tim's agile tail danced across the momentum and smacked the fish right across the face.

This time however, he didn't manage to stab. But the built up momentum and tail speed, left another wound.

Similar to being sliced with a knife, his tail ran across the fish's face and most definitely poked one of this enemy's red eyes, out.

Looking back after delivering the blow, Tim could see the 'overgrown clownfish' twirling in place, rageful indeed and perhaps in pain at that same pace.