I don't own Negima, To Love Ru, Lyrical Nanoha, Sailor Moon, My Little Pony, Batman, Game of Thrones, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Oh My Goddess, Tenchi Muyo, School Days, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Haganai, My Little Sister Can't be that Cute, Sailor Moon, Ranma One Half, The World God Only Knows, the Disney Animated Canon, Aika, Uncle Grandpa, Steven Universe, Harry Potter, Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Dresden Files, Fate Stay Night, Judge Dredd, Kill La Kill, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Bible Black, The Terminator, Fairy Tail or any other well known work of fiction, or else this would be canon. Thank God for the small miracles.
I make no money from this.
Irredemediably Collateral and Supplemental.
Chapter One: Happy's Little Job.
The small blue cat sat on the table, looking up with gigantic, watery eyes at the kitchen's stands, which had been completely emptied after last night's huge banquet. His stomach chose that moment to roar like the cat himself never could, and he, the cat, not the stomach, took a paw to his empty belly and meowed pitifully.
My name's Happy, and I'm a proud member of the Fairy Tail Guild! Fish is one of my favorite things in the whole world, but...
Sobbing to himself, the small blue cat jumped off the table and made it to the building's main hall, which was completely desolated save for the curvy woman with long and wavy brown hair, in a white brassiere and tight pants, who snored at a corner hugging an empty bottle. He looked up at the board of announcements, until his eyes shone in glee. He jumped up and snatched the piece of paper that had caught his attention, holding it with fierce determination.
One day, while looking at the requests board of my guilt, eager as ever to take a new job to protect the helpless and innocent, I found one of the most incredible jobs ever seen! Seriously, it was AWESOME!
"Red Marimo? What the heck's that?" asked the blond and young Lucy Heartfilia, following Happy out of the guild's headquarters.
"Don't you know what's the Red Marimo? For shame, for shame!" happily sing-san Happy, holding the rolled up paper in a paw and wagging his long tail. "It's a dish of a legendary flavor that surpasses any other known meal! They say once you've eaten it, it's impossible to forget its taste!"
"Okay, if it's so great, then why haven't I ever heard about it, wise guy?" asked Lucy.
"Because you don't know the first thing on good meals? That must be why you're so skinny..." guessed the pink haired Natsu Dragneel, marching at the back of the trio.
Lucy turned back to face him. "What the hell, if right yesterday you were mocking me over being overweight!"
"Yeah, you're overweight, but just because all your excess weight goes to your boobs!" Natsu replied, gesturing over his own chest as if to draw the imaginary lines of titanic breasts on himself.
Happy rasped loudly, then petulantly lectured, "Years and years of overexploitation all but annihilated the Red Marimo, the proud flying fish of the East! But recently, they found a new colony at the mountains of Volang, where it's said an evil warlock named Dial is hoarding them! Our mission is to defeat the evildoer and retrieve the wonderful delicacy for the consumption of the masses!" he cried, shaking a tiny fist high.
Lucy blinked. "- whoa. I don't think I had ever heard you being so verbose anytime before..."
"Scary, huh?" Natsu nodded, and then yelped back in actual terror when he saw Happy had led them to a train station... "No way! Aren't we taking a whaleship, at least?!"
"Volang Village is a tiny town in the hillside, so it has no airport!" Happy seriously declared. "But that doesn't matter! For the Red Marimo, I'd get there even if I had to crawl through shredded glass on fire, on my stomach and pregnant..."
"You can't get pregnant, but I'm sure having babies if I have to ride that damn thing!" cried Natsu, stubbornly hugging a nearby tree like an overgrown koala, his eyes streaming waterfalls of tears.
Happy and Lucy exchanged jaded glares, and then Happy snapped his stubby fingers. "Do it," he said, tossing a crowbar to Lucy.
She caught it in the air and nodded. "Gotcha, I'll make sure to- Hey, why do I have to do it?!"
The bipedal kitten folded his arms and looked away into the horizon line. "I'm the brains of this operation, I can't be bothered with the menial work meant for underlings..."
"I don't remember ever signing to be your underling, period!" cried Lucy as she regardless began prying Natsu off the tree with the crowbar...
"So this is... the infamous Dial's evil hideout?" Lucy asked, as they stopped before the gates of a decaying, wrecked ancient castle on the skills of a dry hill, overlooking a dead river.
Crickets chirped.
Natsu began picking his nose.
"Ain't much of an evil lair, is it?" he finally asked.
"You can say that again!" Lucy nodded.
"But why? Oh, well. Ain't much of an evil-"
"That's not what I mean!" Lucy snapped. "The people at the village must have given us wrong directions!"
"I don't think so," Happy said, checking his map again. "The directions seem legit, so maybe Lucy misread them while bringing us here..."
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, IF IT WAS YOU WHO LED THE WAY?!" Lucy yelled at him.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here?!" asked a voice coming from behind them.
It was... not Dumbledore!
"Oh hey there!" Natsu cheerfully turned around, waving a hand at the short old man standing down the hill and staring angrily at them. He wore a gray tunic with a tall and pointy hat, shiny black boots, and a white cape. His eyebrows were very bushy and thick, and he held a cane with a red jewel at the end of it. There also was a large, fat gray rat perched on his right shoulder. "I'm Natsu of Fairy Tail, and these are Lucy and Happy!"
"You idiot, how many times I have to tell you that-!" Lucy began screeching at him before the old man slammed his cane down on the rocky ground.
"Fairy Tail!" he shouted. "Why are the guilds meddling into my business now!? Leave now, before I kick you out, punks!"
Lucy gulped. "Now, mister, there's no need to get pushy, we're just investigating rumors-"
"Give us the Red Marimo!" Happy urged, pointing a paw ahead.
"YOU TOO, HAPPY?!" Lucy cried.
A full white eyebrow was raised. "The Red Marimo? Oh, so it's about that. You foreigners wouldn't understand the first thing about the Red Marimo! Stop nosing around and head back, before something very bad happens to you! Now step aside, I've got business to attend to!" he began walking past them and towards the castle.
"Sure thing, if you want to make it hard," Natsu shrugged, stepping aside. "But we aren't going back without those fish!"
"Bah! Try it and you'll regret it!" the old mage grumbled, entering the castle and slamming close behind them without ever looking back.
Lucy gulped. "Cranky old fellow, isn't he?"
"You can say that again!" Natsu nodded.
"Why? Didn't you hear that he is a cranky old- Ohhh, forget it!" she snarled while Natsu laughed at her. "Anyway, don't you think that hideout is too crummy for a mage of any power whatsoever? Maybe he isn't the man we're looking for anyway."
"Or that castle might just have a cloaking glamour around it," Happy suggested.
"You may be right," Lucy conceded, "but without a magic cancel item, how can we even know-"
"There's a way!" Natsu said, picking a stone from the ground, twirling it between his fingers until it caught on fire, and then tossing it at one of the castle's ruined-looking towers. "Ai-hop!"
"Wait, what are you doing, you idiot, you-!" the curvy blonde screeched, while the flaming rock hit the tower... and then it collapsed unto itself.
"Whoa, it looks like it's a ruin for real," Natsu commented.
"THIS IS A DECLARATION OF WAR!" the old man's voice roared from inside the castle, as two hulking armored gargoyles flew out of the wreckage, extending their wide black wings around.
"Oooohhhhh!" Natsu said, starry-eyed, before Lucy grabbed him by the scarf and dragged him along with her, in her mad dash downhill for dear life, Happy clinging to her heels. "A seven for henchmen, a two for decoration!"
"And a zero for your brains!" Lucy growled at him as she ran.
"Well, that was easy enough," later commented Happy, as he stood on the smoking ruins of the warlock's ancient manor, overlooking the fertile spawning grounds ahead. "Ah, the power of driven courage sure works miracles...!" he sighed.
"Hey, I did all the work here," grunted Natsu, holding the battered old man by his collar, on top of the remains of his alchemy laboratory. "So don't get so smug about it..."
"I think this made for a longer and better story back when Lina Inverse was doing it," said Lucy, straightening her microskirt back down and sighing heavily. "Okay, where's that wonderful ultra-tasty fish, then...?"
Happy pulled a fishing rod out and slammed it against the ground. "Old man!" he told the defeated warlock. "Summon the Red Marimo you've been hiding!"
"Fools!" Dial spat poisonously. "I've told you, you'll never have the Red Marimo! Not as long as there's any life in this body...!"
Natsu headbutted him.
The old man cried bitterly, now with two band-aids crossed over his forehead. "Why, you inhuman monsters! Very well, I'll summon them! But you'll only have yourselves to blame over what happens then! You are bringing a great evil upon your miserable hides!"
Natsu shook him. "Why are you calling Lucy a brainless boob monster of a miserable raspy hide and an empty skull you jerk!"
"... you made up more than half of that yourself..." Lucy growled as the old man closed his eyes, brought his hands together, and chanted a spell that quickly brought dozens of large flying fish around...
... and then they all swarmed on Lucy, biting on her all around her body.
"WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME?!" Lucy yelled, madly waving her arms and legs around.
"I knew it!" Happy gushed, throwing his bait and hook at the school of Lucy-attacking fish. "Oh, Red Marimo, my dream catch, here I come forth! I'm going to give you everything I've got! I want to eat you! AND I'LL DO IT NO MATTER WHAT! From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hunger's sake I spit my last breath at thee! Ye damned fish!"
The Red Marimo just kept ignoring him and chomping at the screaming Lucy.
Happy turned around and began walking away, downtrodden. "... I give up."
"What a weak-willed little critter!" Dial gasped aloud.
Happy stopped and sniffed. "But none of them are biting, so what's the point...?"
"NO, ALL OF THEM ARE BITING!" Lucy disagreed.
"What's the point?" Dial asked Happy. "If it happened to be an easy task, do you think I'd have undertaken it myself? Do you think I'd have bothered to amass on fish anyone could catch and eat? FOOL! Where's the fighting spirit a magical warrior from a Guild should have? Even if you're a cat, show some of that courage! Look into the beasts' eyes and laugh at them, and then show them who's the master! That's the way of the Red Marimo connoisseur! Any man brave enough as to toss that into his stomach should be able to stare into the devil's eyes and laugh at him!"
"Grandfather...!" Happy looked at him, now suddenly moved to tears.
"You remind me a lot of myself when I was your age, boy!" Dial told him. "Only without fur, and with better whiskers! Believe in yourself and the world will bend to you! And then, you can gently caress its face as you take it from beh- URGK!" he said as a fish slapped him across the face.
"Lucyyyyyy!" Natsu whined. "What do you think you're doing, interrupting a man's heartfelt encouragement speech?"
"Yeah, seriously, Lucy!" Happy nodded.
The wheezing angry woman, her clothes ripped to shreds, bite marks all over her skin, just tossed two of the fish she had just beaten down at their faces as well.
And so, when all was said and done, I had caught a huge cartload's worth of Red Marimo! Alright!
"Well then!" Happy finished tying a rag around his neck, then grabbing a fork and knife, licking his mouth all over. "Before delivering the Red Marimo to the customer, let's give it a toasted test taste!"
"Yippi-yay, yi-peee..." Lucy groaned as she took her own place at the guild's main dinner table, accepting her own plate of the well cooked fish. "This better be really, orgasmically delightful, after all I had to go through for-" She took her first mouthful, and then her face went green and purple all over. "- it, it is TERRIBLE!" she cried, spitting the fish she had been gagging out on. "Seriously, old man, why did you do to these fish?!"
The old man chained at the corner and waiting for delivery to the proper authorities sighed. "I didn't do anything to them, little lady. You'll see, the Red Marimo had been missing from menus everywhere for so long, no one ever realized it had always been an acquired taste from ancient times with very different preferences. That's why I just kept it hoarded without ever selling it! Once I found it myself, I realized I never could profit from it!"
Lucy groaned. "This is why, when anyone tells me all past times were better, I laugh at them..." She looked at Happy, who kept on stuffing his mouth at her side, and added, "Well, it's different for a cat's tongue, isn't it? I'm glad at least you could find some pleasure from this whole mess..."
Happy turned his own swollen, tear-stricken and green and purple face at her. "No, no, it's just awful, but I'm not going to turn back after getting this far..."
"IT'S TERRIBLE EVEN FOR YOU?!"
The Red Marimo... truly, a taste you'll never forget after trying it...
The END.
Natsu never stopped eating. "I don't find it bad at all..."
To be Continued.