Under the terrified gaze of the six prisoners, a huge person appeared before them; he was at least three times taller than an adult man and had arms so long and shoulders so broad that he was forced to move on all fours. The body was naked except for two trousers and a brown, rumpled cloak, the legs were excessively short and stubby, and a tail also seemed to be sprouting from behind them. The face was ugly, so ugly that he looked like a monster: he had a wide mouth from which emerged two fangs that shone with an emerald green color, and he had two enormous ears similar to those of a dog; his eyebrows were at least twenty centimeters long and also glowed green, and his eyes also shone the same shade.
After seeing him, Amity opened her mouth and exclaimed: "Of course, how could I not have thought of it before! That's Otabin, the terrible Green Fisherman! Do you understand what that means?"
The other five kids showed no sign of understanding a word of what she had just said. Amity rolled her eyes in disappointment. "Every now and then read a book about the legends of Bonesborough!" she grumbled, then she began to explain: "Otabin was a fisherman from two centuries ago, nicknamed the Green Fisherman because due to eating seaweed his teeth, eyes and eyebrows had begun to show the green hue; he due to a dispute with a local witch was imprisoned inside the book known as the Wailing Star. It is called like this because every time this book is opened it releases an entire lake, precisely as if it were crying, and then it remains suspended in the middle of the water shining like a star. And in addition to the lake, it also frees Otabin, horribly deformed, who continues to live his life as a fisherman... with people!"
"Uh... ok, now everything is clear. How do we stop it?" Luz asked with a trembling voice as the monstrous fisherman approached.
"We need to do what we tried to do before, which is to close the book... but I doubt we'll be able to!" Amity replied in a cold sweat.
Otabin grabbed the huge fishing net and plunged his hand into it to catch the fish; the six kids moved aside as much as possible to avoid being grabbed by those bony fingers. "Now let's see what fish I caught!" the fisherman exclaimed, and took out a handful of trout; he looked at them and smelled them well and a pleased smile appeared on his face. "These trout are good!" he said, and then he poured them into a barrel.
He repeated the same operation over and over, and each time the six kids tried to avoid being grabbed. And for a while they actually succeeded, but they still heard the fisherman's voice getting louder with each comment, a sign that their mouths were watering.
"These pikes are tasty!"
"These salmon are exquisite!"
"These carp are delicious!"
"These sturgeons are dainty!"
"These tench are cute!"
In the end the only things left in the net were Luz, Amity, Edric, Emira, Boscha and Skara, so they could no longer avoid their fate: when Otabin reached out his hand again they tried to escape him once again, but this time there were no fish to distract him yet and inevitably one of them was caught. As fate would have it, it was Luz, who was pulled out and held upside down by one foot. When he saw her, an expression of dismay appeared on Otabin's face: "Huh? I've never seen you before! Tell me, what kind of fish are you?". Then he seemed to have an epiphany: "I get it: you must be a river crab!"
"But what crab! Are you blind or what!? Since when are crabs so big or have hands instead of claws!?" Luz exclaimed. "I'm a puppet, can't you see?"
"A puppet?" the fisherman repeated, rubbing his chin as if he was thinking hard. "Well, I've never eaten a puppet fish; you're the first one I've caught. I assume you are a cousin of puffer fish, or maybe guppies... well, it doesn't matter; the only thing that matters is that you must surely be a rarity! I got lucky today... let me check if there are any more of your kind in there"
"Wait! You didn't understand anything, I'm not a fish!" Luz screamed, but Otabin ignored her and threw her into the barrel along with all the other fish. Then he reached into the net again and this time he pulled out Amity, who was struggling so violently that she actually looked like a trout trying to get back into the water. "Yay! Another puppet fish!" the fisherman exclaimed joyfully.
"You stupid idiot, how can you mistake me for a fish!? Have you ever seen a fish without scales, or with hair!?" Amity protested. "I'm a girl! A human girl, you idiot!"
"A girl fish? I've never heard of you too. Given your color and this particular fin..." and he shook the ponytail with which Amity used her hair, much to the annoyance of the girl, "... I have to assume that you are related to the black bullhead, or maybe to the gudgeon, or why not, maybe even to the catfish... even if your mouth is too small and you're definitely too skinny. I'm really lucky, today I'm only finding rarity after rarity!" Otabin said with a monstrous grin, and he threw Amity into the barrel as well.
It didn't take long before in the order Edric, Skara and Emira met the same end; the last one was Boscha, who ended up in the barrel while she was still screaming: "Come on, you stupid overgrown fisherman, do you understand that we are not fish!?"
"It's no use. I don't think he can see the difference" Amity muttered, then she gulped when she saw the fisherman's shadow appear above them.
"What a wonderful catch, full of rarities! One puppet fish, one boy fish, and even four girl fish!. This is an extraordinary day, tonight I will celebrate with all these delicacies unknown to me until now!" Otabin exclaimed rubbing his hands. "Very good; since you are rare fish I will treat you with the courtesy that befits those like you, that is to say I will let you choose the method by which you will be cooked. Do you prefer to be fried in a pan or to be cooked in a pan with tomato sauce ?"
"Um… isn't there an option where you let us go free and we can go home?" Edric murmured.
"Yeah! Rare fish should be protected!" Emira supported him.
But Otabin obviously ignored their request. "Of course not, are you joking? Do you think I want to miss the opportunity to eat such rare fish? It's not every day that fish like you appear in this lake. Wait a minute... I have a better idea, no, a brilliant idea! Since I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings and surely each of you has different preferences when it comes to cooking, I'll put the two things together. I'll fry you in a pan, but I'll also fry the tomatoes with you. This way all of you will be satisfied and happy and you will meet your destiny with a smile on your lips! Oh, and obviously I'll fry you all together: being able to be cooked in company it's always a consolation"
And having said this Otabin took a large tray and filled it with flour; after which he took the six kids one by one and tied their hands and feet with ropes as green as his teeth, and then he floured them so much that they turned white. Then he took out a huge rusty pan and after pouring some oil into it he waited for it to start frying; when he was sure that the cooking was perfect, he reached out to take the kids and put them to cook. Seeing that horrible hand coming against them, they all desperately tried to free themselves, but it was all in vain: Otabin took all six of them together and prepared to throw them into the pan. But just in that moment the boat shook slightly, as if something heavy had just landed in it; Otabin was dumbfounded, but shortly afterwards the muzzle of a large white-furred dog appeared next to him, which evidently must have jumped onto the boat as it passed near one of the floating shelves. "Go away, you ugly dog! There's nothing here for you!" he threatened him.
But the dog didn't move. "I am very hungry, good sir, and as I cannot swim I cannot go back to my usual bowl; give me a morsel of fry, and I will do something for you in return"
The six kids opened their eyes wide as they recognized Slitherbeast's voice and all together shouted: "Help! Save us before he throws us into the frying pan!"
"Huh? Oh, but it's you guys!" the dog exclaimed recognizing them, and he looked at the fisherman, emitting a furious growl and showing his terrible fangs; Otabin backed away in fear and tried to kick him, but Slitherbeast launched himself at him and threw him to the ground, and then he carried the six kids still tied up on his back and leapt away from the boat, landing on a floating shelf, and continuing to jump from one shelf to another he put enough distance between them; at that point he finally got them off his back and started nibbling on the shorts that held them until they broke.
Luz was the first to be freed, and as soon as she was freed she jumped up and wiped the flour off her face. She would probably need a good bath to stop looking like she was made of plaster. "Wow, we were almost doomed!" she exclaimed with a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Slitherbeast! You're a friend!"
"You saved me once; the least I can do is return the favor" the dog replied as he nibbled on Amity's ropes and freed her too; the mint-haired girl (even though her hair was now completely white due to the flour) immediately stood up and took off her shoes to let out of them some of the spices that had ended up in them and which were clearly giving her a great annoyance. She then tried to help the dog free the others too, but the ropes had special knots that she couldn't untie and were too strong to break with her hands alone, so in the end she had to give them up and let Slitherbeast do it.
The dog was about to free Boscha, Skara, Edric and Emira with the same method, but just at that moment a large piece of wood landed straight on his head, so hard tha he fainted. The kids looked in the direction it had come from and they saw Otabin rowing quickly towards them, who must have broken off a piece of the boat's beam to knock Slitherbeast unconscious. "I don't give up such rare fish so easily! You won't have them, you damn dog!"
And having said that he took another net and threw it with extreme skill at the six kids, catching them again; he started to drag her towards the boat, but Luz had an idea: "Amity, help me! Grab one of the bigger shelves!". Amity obeyed and together they held on tightly to the biggest and heaviest shelves they could find, which were still anchored to the bottom; Otabin continued to pull, and they continued to resist, until the rotten ropes of the net could no longer hold and tore. Amity and Luz gave a shout of triumph and tried to grab their still tied friends to take them to safety, but Otabin was quicker and already had another net ready; seeing it coming at them, the two girls swam away, but they were unable to prevent it from capturing Edric, Emira, Boscha and Skara, who were dragged back onto the boat. "Only four? Well, never mind; they're still a succulent dinner!" Otabin commented when he saw them.
Meanwhile Amity and Luz swam as far away from the boat as possible and then, exhausted, they climbed onto the first floating shelf they found and stopped for a moment to catch their breath. The flour and spices combined with the water had reduced their look to a mess: their clothes seemed completely ruined and their faces and hair had become covered in a sticky white substance that was nothing more than solidified yeast. They both would have loved to jump back into the water and try to wash that disgust off, at least from their hair, but they didn't have time to think about that: they had maybe a few minutes before their friends were really fried.
In the original book, after escaping from Alidoro Pinocchio ends up trapped in a fishing net and meets the Green Fisherman, a crazy man with completely green skin, beard and hair, who mistaking him for a fish flours him and then tries to fry him, at least until Alidoro, attracted by the smell, arrives in his lair and, having recognized Pinocchio, saves him to repay the fact that he had previously done the same. In this AU the role of the Green Fisherman is a little different: to begin with he is not a real fisherman, but is materialized from the magical book Wailing Star (this name in the canon of The Owl House is that of the shooting star that animates the books) every time it is opened and the reason it mistakes people for fish is due not to evil or madness but to the magic of the book. The role of the Green Fisherman is played by Otabin, a character who appeared in the seventh episode of the first season, where he is a monster that emerged from a magical book animated by the Wailing Star that Luz and Amity must manage to face; furthermore he does not have green skin but his name refers only to the color of certain parts of his body such as his teeth and eyebrows. His green fishing nets are also a reference to canon, where Otabin uses green strings to trap Amity and Luz in a book.
