Tales of the Disneyverse

Fish Are Friends

            "Marlin! Slow down!"

            It was the fastest Mindy ever swam with a mermaid tail, and she was not quite used to it yet. It was more exhausting than she realized, requiring a lot of lower body strength to get herself moving faster and faster to keep up with the frantic clownfish she trailed. If she were born a mermaid, it would have been a pretty easy task.  

            "I have to find my son!"  

            "He's not in this world anymore! He's been erased!"  

            "NO! I'm not listening to you! You're insane and a freak of nature!"  

            She would have accepted him referring to her as "insane," but a "freak of nature" was where she drew the line. She was angry enough to put more force into her swimming, almost becoming in sync with Marlin. But then the clownfish surprised her by stopping and diving into some seaweed below. "Get down," he desperately whispered to her.  

            "Oh, so now you want the freak to hide with you?"  

            "Right now, I'll take you over them!"  

            Mindy saw him point his right fin ahead and followed it to see a sunken pirate ship a short distance away. It was the same sunken ship where Flounder and Ariel went to early on in The Little Mermaid. However, due to current events, it was the site of interest for Bruce the great white shark and his comrades, Anchor the hammerhead shark and Chum the mako shark. Surprisingly, they were accompanied by Ariel, Flounder, Sebastian, and Dory as they entered it.  

            "There's nothing to be afraid of, Marlin." Mindy reassured. "Those are vegetarian sharks."  

            "There are no such things as vegetarian sharks!" Marlin barked in frustration. "I'm through listening to you. All you ever do is talk nonsense. Just being around you raises my chances for getting killed – it's already caused me to lose my son. So do me a favor and leave me alone!"  

            She knew there was no reasoning with the stubborn clownfish and turned her nose up at him. "Fine. I can take a hint. You want to be left alone? I'll leave you alone. Just be on the lookout for other sharks. Not all of them are the vegetarian type, and they just might bite when you're not looking."  

            Giving this warning, she noticed the growing expression of fear on Marlin's face before swimming away to join Bruce, Ariel, and their friends in the sunken ship. As she swam at a pace slow (but not obviously slow) enough to occupy time for Marlin to change his mind (as she anticipated him to), she quietly counted backwards from three just for fun. And, when she got to "one"...  

            "WAIT!"  

            She stopped and waited for the clownfish to regroup with her.  

            "You may be crazy...you may be a freak...but I'm not getting eaten today!"  

            Mindy smirked with satisfaction. "I'll get you your son back, Marlin. I promise."  

            She continued swimming towards the sunken ship, only to be stopped again by a still-hesitant Marlin. "Why are we going into the shark-infested ship again?"  

            "I'm going to leave you with them."  

            "What? You're not leaving me with a bunch of strange fish I barely even—"