I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 57: First platoon

It took him a few seconds to remember that there was one more fish whom lended a hand in battle before these tough shells came by.

Spinning around in his spot, Timmy finally managed to find where that particular fish was and rushed towards her, separating from the crowds of friends be it new or old.

After reaching the orange fish, observing a dead fish whom died in his cause was hard on the subconscious.

But he still couldn't help thinking out loud, "Why would you fight that old hag? I don't even know you."

Afterwards he felt pressured to add, "Now you're dead... because you wanted to help me."

"I'm not dead, was just resting." The orange fish answered, turned around and then shook her head. "That bag of bones was like a swimming rock."

"Oh you're alive... either that or I'm still high. Am I high?? No... the coral is yellow again." We can consider this half of a self debate, but one needs time to recover after consuming odd coral that came out of a pufferfish.

"She's alive." Amie assured as she swam near them, afterwards adding. "Isn't she the one who escaped from the tiger grouper's den?"

"I have absolutely no idea who she is, that's what I'm trying to figure out." Tim answered, more genuine than ever, the needlefish didn't make sense at this point.

Able to face these fish eye to eye after shaking away the dizziness enough, the orange fellow assured. "Yes, I am the grouper who escaped, your friend is right."

Although more stable than ever at this point, the sea disk was still dumb enough to ask. "Oh that means I have to kill you now. Why did you bother to follow me?"

"I'm not a big fan of stingrays but you killed a terrible person today, the tiger grouper was a menace. Most of my friends were beaten into slavery before you came and killed them all." Rather direct but transparency is what everyone needed after such battle drama.

But confused like most times, Timothy wanted to figure out more in a way of terrible self expression. "So?"

Confused how someone so gifted can be so dumb, the lady tried to hold back her sass and further explained. "So, I wanted to thank you for wiping out his evil ways. But also, I want to be your friend."

"Girl the only way you can be my friend is if you join my tribe, otherwise you can't beat around this bush." Perhaps misused the saying in several ways but at least his point was made.

Painfully direct, the blacktipped lady expressed. "Oh I stalked your friends long enough to know about that. I have no idea what your tribe is for but sure... anything to leave the north side."

"Okay miss orange. Your first task as my friend is to take all of these new friends to our hidden den. You just need to protect them and stuff, do you think you can do that?" At this point he felt like a master negotiator, seeing all these new faces around aided that thought.

But the lady ended his winning streak by answering, "That's not how friends work but sure."

As she swam towards the rest of the group, whom stood behind near the corpse, she turned around once more and recited. "I'm Osira by the way."

"I'm Tim." He answered and then tried to remember what had run through his pea sized mind earlier. "Uhh what did I want to do? Sleep? No no... I slept enough."

Then he got interrupted by Amie, who had to contradict the boy's choices. "Are we really travelling without you? It isn't safe."

Although he hated to be interrupted, his attention span wasn't strong enough to remember why he would be mad. So instead, the pancake focused on answering the question. "It's not safe at all but you saw what those crabs could do, they killed a monster and shit. You'd reach the den feeling fresh as a daisy."

Assuring the rate of success, he also added. "Koob and Konon have travelled enough to know exactly where the den is, follow them and you should have no trouble."

...

After a few minutes of adjusting and brief planning, the rather decent in number group of marine animals started their way to the reef, specifically heading towards what we can call the far south considering the current location.

The closest new friends insisted for Tim to join along, but he felt like the results so far aren't so great to build a large tribe that can fight off big bad sharks.

So going with them could eventually lead to making all that travel just to get back here... not to mention, Alba is out here somewhere, obtaining recruits of her own.

The last thing he would need is to get back at the den and see that the biggest enemy yet had out performed this mission.

So by all means, he had to stay here for a while... But the far north isn't a place he was much used of, residential areas specifically, are hard to decipher which one would be best to have a temporary stay in.

Going back in all that weird explosive gas would be a horrible idea, so he decided to go back to the only other discovered decent den here... the same one where the tiger grouper had been slaughtered.

The fish's tail remains there, ready for consumption and after losing 5 more health points, it would be best if he got back there and consumed it.

Eventually, he got into the largest room of this den and right then, a thought he had forgot, came back. "Dang, I forgot to ask those pufferfish about that weird explosion!"

But then counted facts again and decided that it might not be too important to understand that weird part of nature right now, so he decided to follow another thought. "System, what upgrades are there left?"