The Gup-K drove up the river at a snail's pace. Kwazi, Dashi and the captain were all sitting in the Gup-K, busying themselves with various little things.
"Uuuuhg," Kwazii groaned ,"can't we go any faster, I've seen this gup go faster than a speeding shark and you're making us roll along at walking pace. Also, why are we all crammed in the Gup-K? What happened to the Gup-G?"
"We're going this speed so as to not disturb the wildlife," the captain said.
"And Kwazii, the Gup-G is stuck in a hole," Dashi said ,"you crashed it last week remember? Tweak told you a joke and you lost controll of the gup."
"Oh yea," Kwazii said, remembering what was going on, "so what are we doing here?"
"For a while now i've been making a scrap book," Dashi explained, "with a picture of a creature from every country. I've got most of the countries but I still have a few countries left, one of them being India. So we're here to get a photo of some indian fish for my scrap book."
"i remeber now!" kwazii realised.
"I don't know why you thought that was quite so funny Kwazii." Dashi said ,"it was just a pun."
"Oi!" Kwazii snapped ,"I'll have you know that puns are the best kind of joke. I'll tell you one now. What do you get when you cross a duck with an octopus?"
"I don't know," Barnacles replied.
"A quack-en!" Kwazii yelled excitedly. No one laughed.
"I'll tell you another one," Dashi said ," what do you get when you cross a hairball with a hurricane and a bad sense of humor?"
"I have a sneaking suspicion I know what." Captain Barnacles said ,"We're here!"
(i've been told this is a bit too harsh on kwazii but i like this joke so it stays.)
The Gup-K docked at the edge of the river. Each back of the river was now thick with aquatic plants that provided shelter for little fish.
"But wait," Kwazi cried ,"what's the answer to the jo..."
"This should be the perfect place to take a quality photograph," Dashi said, cutting off Kwazii, "this shouldn't take long but i want to get a really good photograph. See you in a bit."
And with that Dashi put up her helmet and jumped into the river.
She swam over to the opposite bank of the river where there was thick vegetation. Little fish swum in and out of the plants. Dashi swum about taking pictures of the fish but the scene was kind of dull. It was a beautiful place with a thriving ecosystem but none of the fish really piqued her interest, they were just the usual shades of grey and brown for camouflaging in the water, Nothing really interesting. She took a few more photos anyway before swimming back to the surface.
"Get anything good matey," Kwazii yelled at her from across the river. He could only be seen as a silhuettet because the sun was setting.
"Nothing special," Dashi said ," just the usual ritas, tor tors and other fish."
"We've set up a temporary camp," Barnacles said, "we'll be camping out here tonight and returning to the octopod tomorrow. Meanwhile you can print off your pictures."
"And that's the last of them," Dashi said as the final picture was printed out the side of the camera.
She handed them out amongst the crew. The pictures were nothing special. The little fish swam too fast to get a good close up on them, and the...
"Matey!" Kwazii shouted ,"Look at this!"
Dashi walked over to where Kwazii was sitting and looked over his shoulder. He was looking at one of the photos of the fish that Dashi took.
"What is it Kwazii?" she asked.
Kwazii pointed at the top right corner of the page. There, half hidden by a water weed, seemed to be the skeleton of a fish. There was a strange pale aura around the fish in the shape of where the flesh would be on a normal fish.
"It's here as well," Kwai said, picking up another picture with the same skeletal fish in the frame, half hidden by water weed.
"What is that?" Dashi wondered
"Matey, that be nothing else but the vengeful spirit of an ancient fish! It lurks in the murky depths of the river and gobbles up any unsuspecting passers by."
"is this another one of your pirate tales?" the captain asked,"because if it is we might be able to get an idea of what this fish is. your storys do normaly have some fact to them."
"No captain, this be one that i made up," Kwazii said ,"pirates don't ever come this far upriver you see, so i'm working with what i've got. i mean look at it! it's as skeleton fish"
"it certainly does look like the ghost of a fish," the captain said, looking at the photo, "but we can't be sure. Whatever it is, we need to keep our heads on and not do anything rash. Dashi, see if you can get any more info from the pictures and Kwazii...KWAZII!"
But Kwazii wasn't listening, he was already running towards the river. He activated his helmet and did a front flip into the water.
"I'll get him Captain." Dashi said ,"you keep the fire going"
And with that Dashi ran after Kwazii and leapt into the river.
"Aahg it's so dark," Kwazii exclaimed, groping about in the darkness of the night.
"Good thing I brought torches," Dashi said, pulling two torches out of her belt and tossing one too Kwazii.
"Thanks matey," Kwazii thanked, flicking on his torch, "now to find that evil vengeful fish spirit thingy."
The two looked about for a while, flipping over rocks and looking amidst the water weeds. Eventually the two saw a small shoal of fish swimming about in the river.
"Lets go ask them if they've seen any skeleton fish," Dashi suggested
"Aye!" Kwazi agreed and the two swam over to the fish, "ahoy little mateys. Have you seen any vengeful ancient fish ghosts around here?"
"No," one of the fish said.
"Nothing much to see around here," another fish said
"Yea," a third fish said ," nothing around here except us little fish, lots of mud, snakehead trout... OH GOSH RUN FOR YOUR LIVES IT'S A SNAKEHEAD TROUT!"
The fish all darted for the vegetation and the octonauts wheeled around and saw a large snakehead trout heading straight for them.
( you'll hear more about these snakeheads in a later chapter)
Kwazii flailed about in panic, windmilling his arms and accidentally bonking the snakehead on the nose with the torch.
"Ouch," the Snakehead said ,"dagnabbit, i'll go find some less painful food somewhere else then,"
The Sankehead then swam away.
"Thankyou for saving me," said the voice of a small fish next to Kwazii
"No problem mate..."
Kwazii turned to face the fish and pointed his torch in the direction of the voice. He was greeted with a metre wide shadow of the skeleton fish, projected against the background
"AagagGAAgAGGAGAAAHHAHAAA!" Kwazii screamed, leaping backwards.
"Aaaaa," said the small fish and it swam away into the water weeds.
"Aaagh, you saw it," Kwazii cried to Dashi as he frantically swam away,"its back, and itsbigger!"
"Kwazii, relax," dashi said, grabbing his tail and pulling him back, "that was just the shadow of the fish, enlarged by the torch light.
To demonstrate Dashi did a shadow puppet in front of the torch. The shape of her hand appeared massive in the background because of how the torch shone on it.
"Oh," Kwazzi said ,"I knew that. Well in that case, FOLLOW THAT FISH!"
Dashi and Kwazii swam over to the closest water weeds and parted them, relieving the skeleton fish. It was only a few centimetres wide with a silvery head chin area with a large eye. However, the back section of the fish seemed to be merely a skeleton, with no visible muscles or organs, only a vague outline of where the flesh should be.
"Aha!" Kwazi said ,"I've found you, you evil spirit! I..."
"Kwazii," Dashi cut in ,"I don't think that this is really a vengeful fish spirit."
"What?" the fish said, " a vengeful fish spirit? Hahaha, no, I'm not an evil spirit, I'm an indian glassy fish."
(here i recomend looking up what an indian glassy fish looks like if you haven't already)
"You're a what!?" Kwazii questioned in disbelief
"An indian glassy fish," the fish said again ,"i'm just a regular little fish. I eat tiny creatures that live in the water, I wiggle about and I swim away from scary things."
"But why do you look like a skeleton?" Kwazii asked
"That is just how I am," she said ,"most of my body is completely transparent. I still have all of the muscles and organs that other fish do, but they're transparent. The only opaque parts of me are my bones and my face. It helps me to hide from predators, like a snakehead trout or... OH MY GOD A SNAKEHEAD TROUT!"
The octonauts wheeled around and saw a charging snakehead coming right for them. Kwazii and Dashi jumped out of the way of the snakehead and it swam right past them and right towards the glass fish.
"Mmm, i smell a little fishy," the snakehead said ,"where is it,"
The snakehead swam in circles around the glass fish sniffing the water (yea yea, fish can't sniff but they sniff in the show so i'm allowed to do this.)
"I can smell a little fishy," the snakehead said ,"but I can't see a little fishy. I will look somewhere else for a little fishy."
And with that, the snakehead swam away.
"You see," the glassy fish said ," predators find it hard to see me because I'm mostly transparent."
"Well i'm sorry i misjudged you matey," Kwazii apologized (i need to start thinking of less cheesy endings) ,"but at least we don't have to worry about being eaten by a vengeful fish spirit."
"Oh, and one last thing," Dashi said ,"I just want to get some pictures for my scrap book."
"I don't see why not," the fish said.
Dashi took a bunch of pictures of the fish shooting from different angles ,trying to get the right lighting.
"Thanks," Dashi said ," but we best be off now, Bye,"
"Bye," the fish yelled back as the two octonauts swam back to the surface.
"Did you figure it out," Captain barnacles yelled at them from across the river
"Yup," Dashi yelled back ," it was a glass fish."
"Speaking of fish," Kwazii said ,"did you bring any fish biscuits, I'm starving."
"The vegimals wouldn't let me leave without a weeks supply of them," the captain answered
The group all sat around the fire and munched down on some fish biscuits.
"By the way," Kwazii said ,"you never told me what the answer to that joke was, the one about the hairball and the hurricane."
Barnacles and Dashi just burst out laughing
"What? What's so funny," Kwazii questioned ,"is it the joke? Come on, just tell me the punchline!"
And with that, the screen fades to black.
~Creature Report~*
Calling all Octonauts!
Kwazii, Peso, Shelington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek
Tunip!
Kwazi, activate creature report!
Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!
Facts:
Glassfish live across asia
Check! Check! Check!
In slow flowing or standing water
Check! Check! Mee!
They have other adaptations too
Creature Report! Creature Report!
Most of their body is see-through
Creature Report! Creature Report!
It helps them to hide, so they
Check! Check! Chup!
Don't get gobbled up and become a snakehead's prey
Dance Break!
Go,Glassfish Go Glassfish,Go Glassfish!
Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!
We're done with our mission!
Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!