Popplio- So Long and Thanks For All the Fish

The wide open ocean shone bright and blue under a sky that was just as clear and blue. Waves seemed to flow endlessly across an ocean so vast that it appeared to extend infinitely in every direction. Atop this churning surface, a Popplio floated on his back, with his fore-flippers folded behind his head and his eyes closed in serenity. Even as waves of varying sizes passed beneath him, pitching him up and down, Popplio calmly enjoyed his nap with a smile upon his face.

A loud gurgle suddenly came from Popplio's stomach, causing him to open his eyes and unfold his flippers so he could tread water and float in place. He barked to himself, acknowledging the existence of his hunger, and looked down into the water he was floating in. He stuck his head under the surface, and he quickly spotted a school of fish several meters below.

Popplio chuckled happily, and he gleefully clapped his hind flippers together as held them up above the water. The he tensed up his body a bit, then shot off like a coiled spring down towards the fish. He zoomed through the water with his mouth open wide, and ended up chomping down in empty water as the school promptly scattered. Popplio swiftly changed direction and took off in hot pursuit of the school of fish. The school spun and twirled through the water, each fish weaving in and out of the rest of the school in a series of complex maneuvers. The shining mass was slightly dizzying to Popplio, but he followed after them nonetheless, determined to catch one of them.

After some time, Popplio managed to put on a sudden burst of speed that once again put him in the middle of the large school. Popplio spun around quickly, his eyes darting around at the swirling tornado of fish. Popplio whimpered a bit, as he was at a total loss of which fish to go after, or even where one fish and ended and one began.

Popplio suddenly stopped and simply floated in place with his eyes shut and his flippers folded. He then gently slapped his forehead with his right flipper as he resigned himself to some thinking. Then his eyes snapped open as an idea suddenly occurred to him. Looking up above him where some of the fish had clustered together, Popplio opened his mouth wide, swished his tail fins, and shot upwards speedily using Aqua Jet.

Seconds later, Popplio broke the surface and shot up into the air in a arc. Eventually the Aqua Jet subsided, and Popplio found himself high and dry in mid air. Popplio flipped over once and looked up into the air. Popplio blinked his eyes, and then smiled at the rather large fish he held securely in his mouth. He smiled around it, greatly appreciating the fact that it was easily as big as his head. Popplio was still aware that he was quite a distance up in the sky, so he simply closed his eyes as he flipped his body forward and into flawless diving form.

Ears folded back, round pink nose down, flippers together and pointed parallel to nose, tail pointed straight up, hind flippers held together.

THWACK!

The oceanic marker buoy bobbed up and down slightly when Popplio landed onto it. He let out a noise that was half bark, half squeak of pain as he stood essentially on his chin, his tail still pointed straight up and his flippers spread out on either side of him. With eyes wide with pain, Popplio saw that the large fish that he'd caught had popped out of his mouth upon impact with the buoy, and it was currently flopping around on the buoy's edge.

Popplio's eyes blinked out of a sync, then he let out a soft gasp as tried to get his body to move. He managed to force his right flipper to move out of its sprawled out position to feebly reach out to the fish. The flipper gently stroked the fish once, only for the fish to flop itself off of the buoy and into the water.

At this moment, Popplio's body finally relaxed and slid down to lie flat. Popplio lay on his stomach, whimpering softly, which was soon drowned out by the sound of his gurgling stomach. Popplio sorrow soon gave way to anger as he suddenly flipped and landed on his tail fins. Standing up straight, Popplio turned to stare with narrowed eyed hate at the marker buoy he was standing on. He then raised his fore flippers in a fighting stance and let out a fierce bark, and then unleashed a series of Pound attacks on the buoy's tall frame. He then jumped up and flipped forward to use Pound on the top of the buoy with his tail.

The buoy was pushed down quite a bit from the attack, but then popped back up into position abruptly, which tossed Popplio right off and back into the water. Popplio's head popped back up to the surface as he barked irately at the buoy. However, Popplio's frustrations were forgotten when an extremely loud horn suddenly sounded from somewhere behind him, startling him so much that he leapt back onto the buoy and clung to it in fear.

Popplio lay tense and trembling for a moment until he recovered enough to open his eyes and look in the general direction of the sound. Some distance away was a very large ship. Popplio gazed at the vessel with wonder, marveling at its size. Then, his round nose began to twitch as it began to pick up an aroma that was very pleasing to him. At that moment, a huge net was hoisted out of the water by machinery aboard the deck of the massive ship. As the contents of the net were revealed, Popplio slid to the very edge of the buoy and leaned out as far as he could, his eyes wide as he beheld a sight that brought tears of joy to them.

The net being raised was jam packed with freshly caught fish, their silver scales sparkling in the sunlight. Popplio began breathing heavily as his mouth hung open, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as drool dripped out. He started to chuckle with happiness as his eyes grew moist with his joyful tears, his emotions all overcome by the sight of more fish than he had ever seen in his entire life.

In the blink of an eye, Popplio shot off of the buoy like a Decidueye's arrow. He shot speedily across the surface of the water, leaving a clearly visible wake behind him as his tail worked in overdrive. Popplio's eyes were still wide and filled with joy as he wildly stroked with his flippers, panting loudly with his tongue still hanging out as he maintained a very impressive speed.

Before long, Popplio was a few feet away from the factory ship, and the huge haul of fish. Once he judged that he was close enough, Popplio suddenly dipped down under the water, and then shot back up in a swift jump powered by the momentum he had from his mad swimming dash from the buoy. He reached out with his flippers as he sailed towards the net, but the joy in his eyes was snuffed out in a near instant as the net was hoisted upwards right before he reached it.

SMACK!

Popplio let out a whimper after colliding with the side of the ship. He remained spread eagled against the hull for a few seconds before peeling off and landing flat on his back into the sea. He floated back a bit, moaning as he slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the huge haul of fish right above him, and his stomach responded by growling let again.

Popplio barked to himself as he gently stroked his nose with his right flipper, taking a good look at how high up, and how far away, the net full of fish was from him. He extended his left flipper upwards, and the fish were several feet out of reach. With a nod, Popplio folded his flippers and took a deep breath. He then blew a bubble with his nose. Once the bubble was about the same size as him, Poppilo rolled over and positioned the bubble under the huge fishing net. He then climbed onto it and stood up on his tail fins. Once balanced, Popplio flashed a smile and hopped upwards, then came back down to bounce off of the bubble. He bounced off of it two more times, each time reaching upwards with his flippers, until he bounced one final time, springing up with enough force to not only pop his bubble, but to finally reach the net with his flippers.

Popplio was panting excitedly again as he hung from the net, his flippers each hanging onto the ropes. He licked his lips hungrily, and he strained to pull himself up towards the fish right above him. Popplio grunted, as he had some trouble pulling himself up, and as the net was slowly being hoisted even further up, he began to feel slightly nervous. Then a fish tail poked out from the net and dangled right before his eyes. Popplio gazed hungrily at the fish, but then the tail swung back and forth, slapping Popplio several times across the face.

Popplio barked out indignantly, and he so frustrated and tense that his slippery flippers lost their attempt at a grip. Popplio unceremoniously fell back down into with a splash. He sunk a few feet down under, before letting out a squeaky roar of rage and shooting back upward with Aqua Jet. Like a spear from a spear gun, Popplio shot right into the net, plunging into the mass of fish so that only his tail fins could be seen. Virtually immobilized, Popplio squirmed fruitlessly as the massive net was finally hauled all the way up and then swung over the deck of the factory ship. The massive net came to a stop over a large opening on deck, and then, the net opened up, dumping its contents down into the vessel.

A large bubble slowly pushed its way up through the pile of fish, then popped to allow Popplio to stick his head out. Popplio slowly took a look around at the massive amount of fish he was sitting in. He slowly dug his flippers into the pile and scooped up all the fish he could hold, then held them close in a loving embrace as he laughed euphorically. He tossed them up into the air and let them rain down around him as he continued to laugh. He then swiftly blew another bubble and jumped onto it, then grabbed several fish from the huge pile. Still laughing, Popplio began juggling the fish as he balanced and bounced on the bubble. When the bubble popped, Popplio let the fish fall down around him as he landed flat on his back, moving his flippers up and down so he could feel all the fish he was lying on.

Then, after folding his flippers across his chest, Popplio rolled himself down the higher pile of fish he was lying on, giggling all the way as he rolled all the way down. He ended up on his stomach, with a large fish tail sticking up right in front of his nose. Popplio's stomach gurgled, and he smiled as he grabbed the fish's tail with his flippers and pulled it out. He then sat up as he beheld the fish he was holding with innocent happiness, and he held it up to his open mouth.

A large and rather loud jolt caused Popplio to loose hold of the fish, much to his dismay. Also, Popplio felt himself begin to move, along with the fish he was sitting on. He nervously looked around him, turning to the left and right frantically as he was moved forward. As Popplio was conveyed onward amid the fish, he quickly came to a sudden drop in front of him, which lead to a large bin with a steeply angled conveyor belt leading down towards it. Popplio let out a frightened bark as he desperately tried to backpedal, but his fins and body slipped and slid over all of the fish, resulting in him face planting into the fish as he was conveyed onward and downward.

As Popplio slid down the conveyor belt, he saw that more fish were being dumped into the large, piling over each with loud, heavy slaps. Now becoming genuinely frightened, Popplio cried out and jumped off of the conveyor belt. He quickly blew a bubble and shot it out ahead of him, then landed on it to bounce forward. He repeated this with a second bubble, and then blew a third bubble, landing on it tail first.

Popplio wobbled a bit as he fought to keep his balance on, and then made one final hop off of it to land outside of the bin and onto the floor. Popplio gasped out in relief, but when he looked up, his eyes widened when he realized that he was being observed. He let out a small gasp, but then his stomach gurgled loudly, causing him to look down at it. His eyes lit up for a brief moment, then he looked back up and frowned, gently rubbing his tummy with a flipper. Then, he gazed back up at the group watching him and used Baby-Doll Eyes with everything he had.

Popplio slurped up yet another fish as he lay in one of the soft bunks in the factory ship's crew cabins. He then laid his head on the soft pillow as he sighed in contentment, resting a flipper over his full stomach as he proceeded to take a nap.