Krabby

Mike the Krabby didn't feel good, but he didn't feel bad either, which was an improvement. A few days ago, he had lost his left claw when a much bigger and nastier sea Pokemon tried to eat him. Letting the claw snap off was worth it as he could escape with his life. But there was a price to be paid for that. It left him feeling drained when one of his claws was growing back in.

Not to mention how hard it was to get around with just one claw. It offset his balance terribly, making it difficult to walk straight. Especially when he tried going sideways; the missing claw would invariably cause one or more of his six legs to fumble. While he could still swim fairly well, that limited him to hunting for food underwater. When he didn't hunt, he had hid to conserve his energy for the regrowth process.

On the sandy sea bottom, he held his claws up and walked around for a while, assuring himself that things were back to normal. After another day, he might even be feeling good again. He was satisfied for now, so began swimming towards the shallower waters and shore. His buddies might be wondering where he was. As long as he didn't get into any fights, he should be okay.

As he swam along, he thought over a conversation he had while recovering. A Staryu had come by his hiding place, but it hadn't been interested in hunting him. Rather, it had tried to talk with him about the future, how he ought to plan in case things turned out even worse than just losing a claw. And how he should ask himself if he was really happy, among other such strange things.

That Staryu had been almost like an alien. Mike had never considered the future before. Most of the time, he was concerned with having a shelter, getting food, and trying to be impressive for the female Krabbies. He also spent a fair amount of time thinking on how to avoid fights and keep on living. But all that other stuff, about finding inner balance, searching for his soul, considering that life itself may be art… it was all hogwash. Mike wasn't even sure what exactly the word 'hogwash' meant, but the Staryu had said that his words were not hogwash, which made the Krabby think that it was.

He had his claw back and the ocean looked to be safe. That was all he needed to be content.

Along the way to the beach, Mike swam into a strange shadow in the water. He looked up to see the source and spotted a peculiar form up there. Thin but sturdy legs stood on a sandbar, one narrow foot just touching the ocean surface. From there, a black form stood over the water with a strange angular form that jutted out and extended beyond where he could easily see now. Whatever it was, it was big.

Was it a predator? Alarmed, Mike hastily blew bubbles, forming them into a cloak around his body. To the eyes of many of his fellow sea creatures, this made him look like a bigger threat. He then walked along the seafloor carefully, ready to scurry away should this thing lunge.

It didn't do anything. Considering that it could be a patient predator that would snap the moment he relaxed, Mike felt it might be smarter to stay away. But then, what was that thing? If it was a new predator, he wanted to know about it so that he could avoid it. And if it wasn't a predator, it would be good simply to confirm that.

Seeing that the sandbar was long, the Krabby crawled over to the far end of it and climbed out of the water's surface. After taking a moment to get used to seeing out of water, he checked on the other side. It turned out to be two black things sitting on the sand. One was smaller, on four legs with a long and narrow top, covered in some kind of padding. As for the bigger thing, it must have been what he saw from the water. It was also on four legs, but it was wide and deep, with its body standing high off the sand. On both things, their legs were perfectly straight, not jointed at all.

So this wasn't a predator, Mike concluded. It seemed to be some object. Probably made by the humans, as they were capable of strange things like this. But what was it doing here?"

His cloak was wearing thin in the air and some bubbles popped. It wasn't important now as he didn't seem to be in danger. Climbing some rocks near the foreign objects, Mike managed to jump onto the smaller thing. Although it too was up off the ground, it held him well. He could see now that the larger object had an extra strangeness. Right in front of him, there was a long row of was seemed to be long and flat teeth. Some were black too, but most were white. But they were on the outside and not attached to any mouth. There did seem to be a slit where a mouth could be. None of it had yet moved.

Feeling fairly certain that this was a non-living object, Mike readied himself, then jumped onto the large object. His landing pressed several of the teeth in, causing the thing to make a multi-tone plunk sound. This startled him, so he moved sideways; the teeth kept pressing in and causing those plunking sounds from inside the body of the object. However, this didn't seem to be anything bad. Just, strange.

He turned about with more plunking and climbed onto the main body. Finally, the noises stopped. The rapping of his feet against the wooden surface seemed to indicate that this thing was partly hollow inside. He rapped his claw against the surface, getting a vibration sound that was like the plunking. More importantly, there was no reaction other than nonthreatening sound. These things weren't dangerous.

Satisfied with that finding, Mike climbed back onto the bench, then hopped down onto the sands. He still had no clue as to why the humans would make something like that and then just leave it here. All that he could figure was that humans were even more alien than Staryu.

...

Krabby Heart Gold entry: If it senses danger approaching, it cloaks itself in bubbles from its mouth so it will look bigger.

The piano on a sandbar thing was inspired from a real life event (it was in the news this past winter).