“What do you want to talk about?” the big goldfish asked Finster.
Chapter 15
Good, good, good! Finster thought as he excitedly clapped his hands. The Blue Ranger will be paralyzed for at least a few minutes, so here’s my chance to turn things around.
Trying to seem friendly, even though he wasn’t quite sure how, the alien inventor stepped closer to the big goldfish and patted him on the side. He gave him his widest grin and said, “I’m not the bad guy. Far from it! I’m your friend. That Blue Ranger lying there, he’s the bad guy! If it were up to him, you’d probably have been a prisoner in that tiny fishbowl for your whole life. Not me, though. I want you to be free! With me, you could have all the world’s oceans to swim in!”
Goo Fish Junior wriggled uncomfortably. “The ocean has salt water. I can’t breathe in salt water,” he said.
Good for you! Billy thought. You remembered!
But Finster didn’t seem to care. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” he said. “Well, a nice, big lake then, one that’s as large as an ocean. How about that?”
Goo Fish happily bounced on his feet. “Yes, please!”
Finster went on. “What else do goldfish like? Castles? I’ll put a great big castle right in the middle for you, with all the food you can eat.”
Being hungry all the time, hearing that made the large goldfish very excited. “Food! Food!” he said.
But then, remembering again what Billy had said, he stopped. “I love food, but too much is bad for me, isn’t it?”
Finster moved easily from one lie to another. “Nonsense!” he said. “Someone only told you that because they didn’t want you to be happy!”
Goo Fish Junior blinked his big round eyes. “They didn’t?” he asked.
“No,” Finster said. He pointed at himself and added, “But I do!”
He blinked again. “You do?”
Uh-oh, Billy thought. His hunger takes up most of his goldfish brain. He can’t resist!
Goo Fish Junior, after thinking about it, started rubbing against Finster like a happy dog.
“Friend! Friend!” Goo Fish Junior said.
The slime felt uncomfortable, but Finster kept smiling and tried to pet him again.
This is terrible! Billy thought. I’ve got to do something!
He fought to get his muscles to move, any muscle. Even though his shocked body didn’t want to obey, he kept at it.
“I am your friend, your only friend,” Finster said. “And as your friend, there’s one little thing I want you to do for me.” He pointed a furry finger at Billy. “Destroy the Blue Ranger!”
But then Finster gasped. The Blue Ranger had started to move again.
“That’s impossible!” he said. “No one can recover that quickly!”
Billy was still groggy and his body ached, but despite the pain, he got to his feet.
“A Power Ranger can,” he said.
Not knowing what a Power Ranger was, the big goldfish stomped toward him, saying, “Destroy! Destroy!”
Hoping to make him understand, Billy started to gently speak. “Goo Fish Junior—”
But it was too late. He saw a flash of goldfish tail.
THWAM!
The Blue Ranger hit the heavy Plexiglas of the tank containing the large dolphin. For a moment, he looked as if he was stuck there by the moisture. Then his body made a squeaking sound as it slid down to the concrete floor.
Now Billy’s muscles didn’t only ache from the shock Finster had given him, but they also ached from the new bruises.
Goo Fish Junior clenched his fists. “I can eat all I want!” he said.
“But that will hurt you!” Billy insisted.
“No, it won’t!” Goo Fish Junior said. He stepped closer, then turned sideways to make it easier for him to hit the Blue Ranger again.
Still dazed, Billy definitely did not want to take another blow from that tail. He spotted his Power Lance lying nearby.
As the tail came at him, the Blue Ranger grabbed the Power Lance and used it to block the blow.
When his tail hit the lance, Goo Fish Junior screamed, “Agh!”
Billy tried to be as gentle as he could, but the goldfish had never encountered that kind of resistance before. It didn’t hurt so much as it surprised him. It also made him very angry.
He shook his fist and stomped his feet. “Destroy! Destroy!” he said.
The Blue Ranger backed up, but Goo Fish Junior kept trying to hit him. Billy had no choice but to keep using his Power Lance to deflect the swiping tail.
And that made the creature madder and madder!
Finster cheered on his creation. “That’s it! That’s it!” he said. “I’ll make the perfect monster out of you yet!”
Chapter 16
A good distance from the tanks and the battle between Billy Cranston and the former subject of his science experiment, the students were having much better luck with their fight against the Putty Patrol.
Thanks to the glue, stink bombs, and flash firecrackers, the simpleminded monsters had no idea which way to turn. They tried to fight back, but wound up hitting one another much more than they did anything else. Disorganized to begin with, the clay-faced foot soldiers were even more scattered and helpless!
“We’re doing it!” Ira proudly said as he threw another stink bomb.
Pouring more glue onto the ground, Alani agreed. “Not only did we stand up to those bullies, we’re actually helping the Blue Ranger!”
And they were helping—until Bulk and Skull ran back in.
“Eeep!” Skull said when he saw the fight. “We must have gotten turned around!”
“I told you this was the wrong way!” Bulk said.
They tried to stop, but before they could, they hit the oily part of the floor.
Skull slid along, finally stumbling to a stop in front of some canisters that were so tall they stretched to the ceiling. They were connected to a thick hose that was used to put clean water into the tanks.
Bulk had a much harder time stopping. Just as Skull managed to turn to head back, Bulk ran into him. Together, they crashed into the controls for the water canisters, accidentally flipping a lever.
The thick hose filled and then splashed them with a gushing stream of water. It knocked them to the floor. They tried to get back up, but the hose was pointed right at them. The force kept them off balance, so they lay there, soaked and sputtering, as the water kept flowing. Soon it covered the entire floor.
Seeing it, Ira realized what would happen. “Watch out, everyone!” he warned. “That water will melt the glue!”
“I knew we should have used a stronger formula,” Randal said. “But who knew we’d be using it on terrifying monsters, not bullies?”
As the water flowed along the floor, not only did it melt the glue, it drenched the students and the rest of their makeshift pranks, making them useless.
Fortunately, Bulk and Skull still couldn’t stand up.
Unfortunately, once the smelly smoke and bright flashes cleared, the Putty Patrol realized they were free and ran toward the students!
A terrified Randal grabbed Ira around the wrist and screamed, “Now what do we do?”
Ira, trying to pry his friend free, gave what he thought was the obvious answer:
“Lose, I guess!”
Chapter 17
Back among the tanks, the angry Goo Fish Junior came at the Blue Ranger, swinging his big, deadly tail this way and that. The Blue Ranger kept stepping back, ducking, or blocking the blows with his Power Lance.
Every time the Power Lance touched Goo Fish Junior, no matter how gently, the goldfish became more upset.
“You hurt me!” Goo Fish Junior cried.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I’m trying not to, but you have to listen to me!” Billy pleaded. “Fi
nster said he would set you free, but he works for an evil space witch named Rita Repulsa. Together they’re planning to take over the entire planet and make everyone their slaves, including you!”
“Ahhh! Too many words!” the goldfish shouted. Frustrated, Goo Fish Junior tried to grab his head with his hands, but his arms were too short to reach. “What’s a witch? What’s a Rita Repulsa? What’s a planet?!”
Billy backed up farther. Realizing he was trying to explain too much at once, he said, “Let me try to make it simple.”
“No!” Goo Fish Junior howled. “No more talk! I don’t like to talk!”
Rather than hit the Blue Ranger with his tail, the man-size fish swatted a heavy cart full of scientific equipment. It soared into the air like a big cannonball, heading right at Billy. At the last minute, he knocked it aside with his lance.
With so many things flying around that might hit him, Finster decided to watch from a safer distance. The dog-faced alien couldn’t hear exactly what the Blue Ranger and his Enhancified monster were saying to each other, but with all the backing up and ducking the Ranger was doing, one thing seemed perfectly clear.
Goo Fish Junior is winning the fight! he thought. That makes this the perfect time to contact my wicked queen, Rita!
Finster grabbed the communicator that hung among the tools on his smock. Like the teleporter, he’d used a combination of magic and alchemy to protect it from the solar flares.
Certain that it would work, he flipped it on and said, “My queen? Your most horribleness?”
Rita Repulsa’s drowsy voice answered. “Finster? Where the heck are you? This better be good; you woke me from my nap!”
“Oh, it is good, your wickedness! It’s very good!” Finster said. “Excellent, in fact, your excellency, so excellently excellent that I can barely contain myself!”
“Get to the point!” Rita snapped. “My head hurts!”
“Yes, your dreadfulness, of course!” Finster said. “If you’ll just walk over to the observation balcony and point your long-range telescope at the Marine Island Research Center on Earth, you’ll see my latest and, if I may say so myself, greatest creation, beating the dickens out of a Power Ranger!”
“What? Where?” Rita said. She already sounded excited. “Oh, I’ve got it. There you are! What is that, a goldfish? Kind of slimy, isn’t it? Oh, who cares? It’s trouncing the Blue Power Ranger! Finster, you brilliant devil, how could I ever doubt you? My headache is gone!”
Finster was so relieved, he exhaled in relief. “Thank you, your badness, thank you! Your approval is all I ever—”
Rita cut him off. “Oh, shut up, Finster, and let me watch!”
When Goo Fish Junior’s tail hurled a heavy barrel of fish food into the air and the Ranger ducked again, Rita Repulsa cackled.
But her face soured when the Blue Ranger advanced. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you hurt anyone else!”
Nearing Goo Fish Junior, he threw himself onto the floor and rolled into his former pet’s stubby feet. Goo Fish Junior threw up his arms and fell backward.
Dazed and nearly unconscious, it would be easy now for the Blue Ranger to tie him up and keep him under control.
But Rita had other ideas. “Finster, you know what this calls for?” she asked.
Finster didn’t have to guess. He knew what she was thinking. “Using your wand to make my creation supersize?” he asked.
“Exactly!” Rita answered. “Magic wand, make that monster grow!”
Although the Moon Palace, being on the moon, was very far away, the wand’s magic allowed it to travel the great distance in an instant. Crashing through the building’s domed skylight, it bathed Goo Fish Junior in a sorcerous glow.
Recognizing that glow, the Blue Ranger knew what would happen next. No! he thought. How can I save Goo Fish Junior and the research center now?
At first, the glow frightened and confused Goo Fish Junior. After all, he’d already been through a lot. When the Enhancifier made him grow the first time, breaking his bowl and leaving him stuck in that small lab room, it was very uncomfortable. But there was a lot more room here. As he grew again, and kept growing, and everything around him got smaller and smaller—he started to enjoy it.
“Whee!” he said. “I’m not just getting bigger, I feel like I’m getting a little smarter!”
Thrilled, Finster pointed once again at the Blue Ranger and said, “Destroy!”
But Goo Fish Junior’s booming voice answered, “No!”
Hearing that, Billy smiled. “Then you’re on my side again!”
But the still-growing Goo Fish Junior again said, “No!”
Both Finster and Billy furrowed their brows and craned their necks to look up.
“I don’t understand,” the Blue Ranger said.
“Whose side are you on?” Finster asked.
“Mine!” Goo Fish Junior answered.
Chapter 18
Goo Fish Junior had grown so large that the dorsal fin on his long back actually touched the 150-foot-tall domed ceiling. He looked way down at Billy and Finster. They seemed so tiny, as if they were the goldfish and he was the human.
So why should I listen to them? he thought.
“I’m tired of not knowing who to trust,” he told them. “From now on, I’m just going to trust myself and fight everyone!”
His body now stretched halfway across the vast space. It only took a single swish of his gargantuan tail to hit both the Blue Ranger, who was pretty close, and the whole Putty Patrol, which was pretty far away.
THWACK!
They all splatted against the same wall, like heavy raindrops.
The tail barely missed Finster and the students, surprising them.
“Well, that was unexpected!” Finster said.
The monster was so big now that whenever Goo Fish Junior moved, even a little, the entire building shook. Terrified, the cowardly Finster ran off. The students had seen what that big tail had done to the Blue Ranger and the Putty Patrol. They still wanted to help, but they also realized they couldn’t possibly hope to fight that huge monster. So they ran off, too.
The only people left in sight were Bulk and Skull. They were still flopping in the gushing stream of water from the hose, trying to stand.
Noticing them, Goo Fish Junior tilted his head down for a closer look.
“I know you!” he said.
A single step put one of his big feet on the hose, stopping the flow of water. Bulk and Skull could stand at last. Dripping wet, they’d been temporarily blinded by the rushing water. Despite all the noise, they hadn’t seen exactly what had happened, and were planning to go back to running away from the students. Once they wiped their eyes and saw the huge foot on the hose, though, the bullies froze, too terrified to move.
The colossal fish kneeled a little and scooped up Skull in his hand. “You fed me!” he said happily.
“Help!” Skull screamed. “Help, Bulk!”
“Sss-sorry!” Bulk called back. He looked as if he really was. Skull was his only friend, but Bulk was no hero. He’d never even really fought anyone, let alone a giant. Plus, he was still too scared to move.
Goo Fish Junior raised the squirming Skull up to one of his enormous fish eyes.
“You fed me a lot!” he said. “That makes me like you!”
The grip was slimy and uncomfortable, but hearing that the monster liked him made Skull feel better.
“Yeah, yeah! I did feed you a lot,” Skull said. “So does that mean I’m, like, your master now? And you’ll, like, do whatever I say?”
For the first time, Goo Fish Junior laughed. Becoming giant had really lifted the fish’s mood.
“No, no,” the huge creature said. “But I will keep you as a pet!”
“Wait . . . what?” Skull said, no longer feeling quite so good.
As the grea
t fish stretched, his fin burst through the domed skylight. The building shook so much that earthquake alarms went off all across the island. As pieces of glass fell from the broken skylight, the Blue Ranger dove toward Bulk, pushing him out of the way.
But the monster’s stretch had damaged more than the skylight. Out in the halls, Billy saw research scientists and staff running as falling bits of plaster rained down around them.
I need help, Billy thought. Badly.
He looked at his wrist-communicator. The signal strength had increased like crazy!
But how? he wondered. Then he figured it out. Whatever Finster used to enhance Goo Fish Junior also enhanced my experiment! The wrist-communicator is designed to piggyback on any signals available nearby, so it’s using that. But is it enough to get through the solar flares and reach the others?
“Jason? Zack? Anyone?” the Blue Ranger said.
He heard a crackly voice answer, “Billy, what’s up?”
“Jason! Thank goodness!” the Blue Ranger said. “Finster and Rita have unleashed a giant monster here at the center. Unfortunately, they used Goo Fish Junior to create it!”
“We’ll get there as soon as we can,” the Red Ranger said, “but you’ll have to deal with things on your own for a little while. Those solar flares are still interfering with the teleporter!”
“That makes sense,” Billy said. “Finster’s device may have enhanced my communication equipment along with Goo Fish Junior, but that wouldn’t change the Command Center teleporter.”
He thought about it for a moment. “Finster’s alchemical tech, that’s it! That must be how he teleported here in spite of the solar storm. Zordon, is there anything like that you can use on your end?”
As they spoke, everything began to shake. Uncomfortable with all the walls that surrounded him, Goo Fish Junior was pushing his way through the building.
Zordon’s deep voice answered. “I’m afraid I can’t help, Billy. Being trapped in a time warp prevents me from interacting with your reality. But we’ll keep trying. In the meantime, I have faith that you can handle this until the others arrive.”
Fish in Troubled Water Page 6