Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Octopod was sitting on the seafloor in the Gulf of Carpentaria and business was as usual. Captain Barnacles was in the HQ surveying the monitors.

“Dashi,” he called, “let’s check up on Shellington and Peso’s progress with the creature survey.”

“Aye-aye captain,” she said and pressed a button on one of the control panels. Soon Shelington’s face appeared on one of the screens above.

“Shelington, do you read me?” Captain Barnacles asked

“I hear you loud and clear captain,” Shelington replied.

“How’s the creature survey going?”

“It’s all going well, I've been cataloguing all of the different creatures and Peso has been giving them a quick checkup and a sticker for their time. I’ve been wanting to see some sharks but sadly, none yet.”

The two octonauts had set up their base of operations in a coral reef and there was a long queue of various sea creatures lined up waiting for their turn to see them. Shelington and Peso had been slowly surveying the health of the ecosystem in the gulf. Shelington had a table in his notebook with all of the different creatures of his book and peso had a clipboard summarising the health of each animal

“And what creature might you be?” Shelington asked the creature at the front of the queue.

“Oh, I'm just a cuttlefish,” it said.

Shelington placed a tally mark in the cuttlefish box and the cephalopod swam over to Peso.

“Hello there,” Peso said ,” have you been feeling well?”

“Oh yes, I feel just fine.” the cuttle fish replied.

“Ok, this won’t hurt a bit,” Peso said ,”now said aaaaaaaa”

“Aaaaaa” the fish said, opening its mouth. Peso inserted the tongue depressor into its beaked jaw. Peso inspected the fish’s mouth and then pulled out the tongue depressor.

“You’re all, good,” the medic announced, “here’s a sticker for being so brave.”

Peso plonked a sticker on the side of the cuttle fish but the sticker didn’t stick properly and began to sink down through the ocean.

“Oh no!” the cuttlefish exclaimed “ I'll get it.”

The Cuttle fish swam its way down after the sticker. The sticker continued to drift downwards, slowly falling towards a patch of sand, just next to an overhang of coral. The sticker was close to the bottom now and the cuttlefish was about to catch it when it was an eye from the sand looking back up at it .

Suddenly the sand itself seemed to jump up at the cuttle fish and try to clamp its jaws around it. The cephalopod tried to swim away but it seemed to be getting sucked into the gaping mouth by some sort of current.

“Oh no,” the cuttlefish said ,”it’s sucking me in!”

But soon the strange current that seemed to be pulling the cuttlefish in stopped and it fled.

***

“... And then a strange creature, that seemed to be part of the sand, tried to eat me. It tried to suck me into its mouth but luckily i got away, oh it was really scary.”

A handful of the octonauts were in the HQ gathered around the cuttlefish that was in a fish bowl.

“Shelington?” Barnacles asked, “Do you have any idea what this creature might be?”

“As of now, no,” Shelington said ,”there’s just not enough information but it seems like some sort of ambush predator.”

“Ahh matey,” Kwazy said ,”this be no ordinary predator, this creature is none other than the Terrible Sand Beast!”

Peso gulped and Kwazi continued.

“aye , the Sand Beast lies in wait on the see floor, waiting until an unsuspecting ship strays too close. The beast then opens its massive mouth and creates a massive whirlpool, that sucks the ship down. Never to be seen again.”

“Kwazi,I don't think we’ll be dealing with any giant sea beasts,” the captain said, “but there is something out there, and we need to find it before someone gets hurt. Peso, sound the Octo-alert!”

Peso Jumped over to the button and sounded the Octo-alert.

“Octonauts! To the launch bay!”

(I'm not going to describe the process of the Octo-alert because ,if you’re reading this, you know how it works already.)

***
All of the octonauts soon arrived at the launch bay.

“Octonauts, we have an issue,” Captain Barnacles announced ,”our cuttlefish friend has been attacked by some kind of creature that hides in the sand. Our mission is to find it, before someone gets hurt. Peso Kwazi and I will travel to the reef in the Gup-A Shelington, Dashi and Tweak, into the Gup-C and Inkling can hold down the fort. Octonauts, let's do this!”

***
The two groups of octonauts soon arrived at the reef and fanned out looking for the creature. Each was equipped with a net

(time for a searching montage!”

Scene 1:

Tweek swam to the sea floor and picked up a large rock, underneath it were loads of tiny crabs which panicked and started scuttling away in every direction.

“Oops,” Tweek apologised ,”sorry little fellas.”

She placed the rock back and swam off.

Scene 2

Kwazi was cautiously stepping across the seabed keeping his eyes out for the sand beast. Suddenly, Kwazi spun around and brought down his net on…

Absolutely nothing.

“Doh,” he said defeated

Scene 3

Shelington was scanning the sea bed with his magnifying glass. All he could see was sand until suddenly he saw the massive mouth of a creature lunging towards him.

“AaAaAaAAAAAaAaaaaA” he screamed Jumping backwards and taking the magnifying glass away from his eye. However, once he was no longer looking through the magnifying glass, it was revealed that the creature was actually a tiny little fish, being enlarged by the magnifying glass.

“Oh,” Shelington sighed, “it’s just an Australian Goatfish.”

“Yea, and what’s it to ya!” the goatfish shouted back and then swam off.

Scene 4

Peso was swimming about, keeping his eyes trained on the seafloor, when he saw some movement, a little rustle in the sand. There was also a prominent bulge in the sand in that area. Peso gulped and tentatively swam down and raised the net over his head. He swung the net down and the creature in the sand jumped up and screamed “YOW!!!”

Once the sand had settled, Peso could see that he had not caught a monster, but instead he had caught a Kwazi

“Matey!” Kwazi exclaimed ,”what are you doing, you scared the life out of me. Uhhhh, i mean *Ahem* you gave me a little shock.”

“Kwazi,” Peso replied, shaking her head ,”what were you doing under the sand?”

“Aye, I was thinking. So this beast ambushes its victims. So how do you find it? Well you beat it at its own game.”

“So, you’re trying to ambush the ambusher,” Peso said

“Yes, now I must get back to work, this sand beast won’t capture itself.”

And with that Kwazi buried himself back into the sand.

Scene 5

Dashi was swimming along until she saw a patch of sand, just next to an overhang of corral.

“Hmm, I might as well check here.” she said.

She touched down on the seafloor and crouched down to look into the alcove that was created by the overhanging coral. At the back of the little alcove, there was a little fish, swimming back and forth aimlessly.

“I know,” she said ,”i'll ask that fish if they’ve seen any sand beasts around.”

Dashi started to swim into the alcove when suddenly the sand beast jumped and bit her leg.

“OUCH!” Dashi shouted. Using her hands and her uninjured leg she managed to swim away from the overhang and to safety.

“Octonauts,” Dashi said into her comm microphone ,”requesting backup.”

***

Back on the Octopod, all of the octonauts were gathered around Dashi who was sitting on a sick bed while peso looked at her leg.

“Hmm, looks like it needs a bandage,” said Peso. he went and got his bandages and then applied them with a “hup-cha-hoy-a”

“Thanks Peso,” Dashi thanked.
“Now Dashi,” Captain Barnacles asked ,”tell us what happened.”

“I was looking for the creature,” Dashi told ,”when I saw a little overhang of corral. I looked underneath it and there was a little fish swimming at the back of the alcove. I tried to ask it if it had seen anything but, that was when the creature attacked.”

“Hmm,” the captain pondered ,”Shelington, Kwazi, to the Gup-A. We’re going to find this sand beast once and for all!”

***
The Gup-A shot from the Octo-hatch with Barnacles, Shellington and Kwazi inside. Shelington pressed a button on the control panel and Dashi’s face appeared on screen.

“Dashi,” Captain Barnacles said ,” Tweek has installed a camera on the front of the gup so that you can see where we are going without having to move.”

Dashi was still in the sickbed, resting her leg. There was a laptop on her lap that she was talking to Captain Barnacles through. She switched to a different tab which already had the new view loaded.

“I got it cap,” She affirmed.

“Ok, would you be able to guide us to the place that you were attacked,” the captain asked.

“You got it!”

The gup began its journey to the place of the incident. The gups turns were erratic and crazy because there were communication issues.

“Ok, now to the right,” Dashi said as the gup shook violently, “now up. No, you went too far, go down now. Ok, now go towards that ridge. NO! Not that ridge, the other ridge!”

Eventually the Gup-A made it to the site and the octonauts got out.of the gup.

“Now no sudden moves mateys,” Kwazi said ,”this sand beast could be anywhere around here.”

“Actually,” Shelington corrected ,” ambush predators usually don’t move very much. It’s probably right by that ledge, where Dashi said it was.”

The group swam down to the ledge and treaded water just above it. Captain Barnacles reached into the little bag that is attached to his belt and pulled out a fish biscuit. He dropped the biscuit and watched as it slowly sunk to the bottom.

Suddenly the sand beast leapt up from the sand and ate the biscuit.

“Hold it right there!” Barnacles shouted

“Uh oh,” the creature said, and swam back into the alcove.
“Follow that thing!” Kwazi shouted and the team swam after the creature. They looked into the alcove but couldn’t see the creature anywhere.

“Where’d it go?” Kwazi exclaimed ,”I saw it go in here.”

“We know you're here,” the captain boomed ,”show yourself.”

“Oh alright alright,” said a voice from the sand and out came the beast.

It was a very flat fish. It had a mottled sandy coloured body and lots of little hanging tassels around its mouth, like the fraying edge of a carpet. It had a long tail lined with stubby fins.

(idk if i can attatch images but you can do some more research for yourself if you want.)

 

“Hmm,” Kwazii hummed inspecting the creature ,”you don't look very beastly. I expected more from the Terrible Sand Beast.”

“Terrible sand beast,” the creature, “nahh mate, i’m just a Tasselled Wobbegong. The name’s Wally.” ( Wally has an australian accent because he is an australian fish, i’ll try and make the accents match the region because i want to)

“Hello there Wally,” Shelington said ,” may i ask you why you have been attacking octonauts and innocent stickers.”

“Ah well, for the sticker, I just did what I always do,” Wally said ,”I'm an ambush predator. What I do is I lie in wait until the food comes to me. That sticker just looked like food. As for your friend, she looked scary, I was only trying to protect myself. I’m sorry if I hurt em.”

(If this all seems really cheesy, i bid you watch an actual episode of Octonauts with the same mindset.)

“Aye, that’s ok matey,” Kwazii said ,”but how do you keep disappearing? It’s like you can turn invisible.”

“Ah ,well, that's my best trick.” the wobbegong said ,”my skin is the perfect colour to blend in with the sand.”

To demonstrate Wally swam down to the seabed and nestled himself in. in the sand he was almost invisible, blending in with his surroundings.

“ My flat fins and my tassels also help me stay hidden, so the fish I eat can’t see me and the fish that want to eat me, also can’t see me. I can also wave my tail about in the water. It looks like a fish swimming back and forth, which can fool actual fish into thinking the area is safe.”

The wobbegong waved its tail in the air, showing how it looks like a fish.

“So that was the fish Dashi was trying to talk to,” Captain Barnacles said.

“Fascinating,” Shelington said, inspecting the wobbegong with his magnifying glass, “all of these features make wobbegongs a very efficient hunters, it’s amazing to see one in the wild.”

“Well, it’s my pleasure,” Wally replied

“Shelington,” Barnacles said ,”so you know what this means?”

Shelington was about to reply but Kwazii cut him off.

“What is it captain!” Kwazii said excitedly.

“It means, you can finally add that shark you were looking for on your survey.” the Captain answered.

“You’re right,” Shelington said. He pulled his notebook out of his pocket and drew a new box. He wrote above it ‘Tasseled Wobbegongs’ and put one tally mark in the box.

“Anyway,” the captain said ,'' we best be going. There's only eight octonauts to monitor the entire ocean so we are rather busy.”

“Well, I won't keep you,” Wally said ,”bye then.”

“Bye!” The octonauts shouted and swam back to the gup.

“Can I drive back, captain?” Kwazii asked.

“No Kwazii, last time you drove there and back,” the captain replied.

“But I wanna drive,” Kwazi complained ,”here now just let me…”
As the two squabbled over the controls, the Gup-A spiralled out of control and crashed into the seabed as 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:

Wobbegongs are not very large

Check! Check! Check!

So they rely on camouflage

Check! Check! Mee!

Instead of having to chase after prey

Creature Report! Creature Report!

It waits for prey to come to the place it stays

Creature Report! Creature Report!

If it waves it’s tail, through the sea

Check! Check! Chup!

It looks just like a fish, to give a false sense of safety

Dance Break!

Go Wobbegong, Go Wobbegong,Go Wobbegong!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We’re done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

Chapter Text

Captain barnacles was watching from the Gup A as tweak lifted the octo-lab from the surface of the ocean, using the gup H

"Is the movement of the Octo-lab going well Tweak?"

"All going smoothly cap'," she replied ,"by moving the Octo-lab, we will be able to study creatures on the floor of the Atlantic much more easily."

"Need anything else matey?" Kwazi asked.

"Nope,'' Tweak replied ,"I've got it all figured out. I've installed light buoys on the surface of the ocean so i can see what i'm doing during the lowering proses, i've got Shellington and the professor checking out the area around where we're lowering the lab, to check for any unstable land or to clean up debris from the seafloor and i've stocked up on carrots."

Tweak pulled a carrot out of nowhere and took a hearty bite out of it

"Safe travels," the captain yelled as Tweak turned the Gup H and flew west, towards the Atlantic

***

Shellington put on his deep sea diving suit and then pressed a button that retracted the protective dome over the top of the gup D. He and Inkling swam out into the dark ocean and turned back to look at the state of the gup.

"How about I drive next time Shellington?" Inkling offered ,"I feel that your expertise is focussed in other fields, apart from driving."

"Oh, I'm just a bit rusty," Shellington dismissed ,"now let's get to work."

The two turned on their torches and inspected the seafloor that they were commanded to clear of rubble. It was pristinely flat, with silky sand stretching for as far and the torch beam would reach, the only rubble being the gup D.

"This shouldn't take too long," Inkling said ,"we'll just drag the gup out the way and once the lab is down here we can call Tweak to fix it."

The two walked over to the gup D and pulled with all their might, managing to slowly drag the broken sub along the seafloor and out of the way of the Octo-lab landing spot.

"Ok," Shellington said, pulling out a rolled up checklist from his belt ,"now we just have to check the area of water above the landing spot for any other obstructions."

Professor inkling looked around at all of the creatures of the deep, with the flashing lights and their dark bodies that infrequently were visible from the flashlight.

"Shouldn't we warn these creatures that there will be a huge green lab falling from the sky?" Inkling asked.

"We don't need to worry about that," he replied ,"most of the creatures down here will be pushed out of the way by the water displaced by the lab. We only have to look out for any large creatures like a giant squid or a sperm whale who won't be pushed aside."

The two began to swim up to the surface and saw no large obstructions. The sun was low in the sky now and

"This is perfect." Shellington said ,"this will give me a nice window to study some of the fish in the area before the others arrive."

"Haha," Inkling laughed ,"you remind me of me when I was younger. Always itching to do more research. Let's go."

The two dived back into the ocean.

***

Shellington and inkling were scoping out the ocean ecosystem, not looking for anything in particular, just checking for any particularly interesting creatures of phenomena.

"Seen anything professor?" Shelington asked.

"No not yet," answered inkling ,"just hatchetfish, copepods, segmented worms, that sort of thing."

"Ah well," Shellington said ," new stuff will swim past here some other day,"

As the two talked, all of the fish in the area all, one by one seemed to realise something and then begin swimming up. Shelington turned around and noticed the change in the fauna of the ocean.

"Where are all the fish going?" he questioned.

He looked around and saw that there were a lot of creatures all swimming upwards, almost every creature in the deep sea was actively swimming to the surface.

"Umm excuse me," Shelington said, stopping to ask a passing hatchet fish ,"but why are you swimming to the surface?"

"I do this every night," the fish replied ,"Whenever the sun goes down, we all go up."

"Fascinating," Inkling remarked ,"I've read about this. All these creatures are taking part in the diel vertical migration."

"The dial verticular what-what?" Shellington replied.

"The diel vertical migration," inkling said again ,"every night, many creatures from the twilight zone rise to the surface to feast off the food rich waters, without the danger of being spotted by predators that depend on the light to hunt."

"Fascinating," Shellington remarked.

Inkling and Shelington swam up into the sunlight zone, which was completely dark because it was night. They looked around at all of the deep sea creatures all swimming about near the surface.

"Wow," Shellington said ,"Wait until the other octonauts see this."

"Yes," Inkling agreed, "and we'll be able to see them much more clearly when we turn on Tweek's ocean floodlights, we'll be able to see all these creatures in perfect clarity."

Shelington stopped in his tracks (i know they're underwater but it sounds stupid if i say it any other way)

"If those lights will let us see all these deep sea fish better," Shellington reasoned ,"that would also mean that any predators that might be around here will be able to see them too."

"Oh my!" Inkling exclaimed ,"and they won't be able to defend themselves because they are not used to dealing with sunlight zone predators. In the deep, fish don't swim as fast as they do up here because of energy conservation. All these creatures won't know how to deal with a fast moving hunter like a shark or a swordfish, they'll be doomed."

"We have to save them," Shelington said ,"sound the Octo-alert."

Inkling pulled a portable Octo-Alert button from Shelington's pocket and pressed it.

"Octonauts," he commanded ,"to the HQ"

(cue Octo-Alert sequence)

Inkling and Shelington were both on a screen in the HQ.

"Shellington and Inkling what's happening?" the Captain asked.

"Me and inkling have been inspecting the area around where the Octo-Lab will be placed and have been observing creatures that are taking part in the diel vertical migration.

"The veal hurtling oojamaflip?" peso questioned.

"The diel vertical migration," Shelington corrected," there's no time to explain, just make sure that the lights here don't get turned on!"

"Wait a minute.." Dashi interjected ,"where's Tweak? She should be appearing on one of the screens for the Octo-Alert."

"Hmm," the captain said ,"the communicator in the Gup-H must still be broken."

"Good thing she doesn't have the light control," Kwazii announced, holding up the remote control for the lights, "catch!!"

He tossed it to Peso who fumbled it over to Dashi who fumbled it to Barnacles who fumbled it over to turnip who then tried to fumble it to the next person, but there wasn't one. Resulting in the controller falling to the ground and breaking in half.

The octonauts looked at the broken gadget and then back at the screen. To their horror the ocean floodlights slowly began to flicker and then turn on, then fill the surrounding ocean with ungodly bright light.

"Jumping jellyfish!" Shelington cried, "you need to get that thing fixed and fast before some predators turn up. Shelington out."

The screen turned black.

"Kwazii!" the captain commanded ,"take the Gup B and drive as fast as you can to where Shellington and the professor are. Bring the broken remote with you and give it to Tweak once she arrives. If all goes well Tweak will have the remote fixed before anyone gets hurt. Octonauts, let's do this!"

***

Kwazii rushed down to the launch bay and hopped into the gub B.

"Tweak open the Octo-hatch!" he yelled. He sat in his gup for a few seconds, waiting for the Octo-hatch to be opened before remembering that Tweak wasn't there.

"Doh!"

He hopped back out of the gup and ran over to the control panel. He pulled on the lever that opens the Octo-hatch but it was super stiff. He repositioned himself and pulled with all his might slowly managing to turn the lever.

After he had successfully opened the hatch he leapt back into his gup and shot out the hatch at top speed.

***

Meanwhile, at the Octo-lab landing spot Shelington and Inkling were left treading water, wondering what to do. They popped up to the surface of the water and saw on the horizon, silhouetted by the moon the approaching form of the gup H, carrying the Octo-lab.

"Look!" Inkling exclaimed, "here comes Tweak."

"That's not the only company we've got." Shellington warned.

Inkling dropped back below the waves and saw a small shoal of tuna approaching.

(Now, I couldn't find any information on whether tuna need light to hunt, I know that they do hunt in the day but I'm not going to spend ages researching a single unimportant fact. If i'm wrong, please correct me.)

"Oh," one of the tuna said ,"looks like it's time for a midnight snack!"

The fish swam in, intending to eat a hatchet fish. The hatchet fish shrieked with alarm and tried to swim away but it was orders of magnitude slower than the tuna. At that moment, Shelington dived in between the two fish, blocking the tuna from eating the fish.

"My eyes!" exclaimed a passing bristlemouth ,"My eyes!"

"Oh my!" Inkling exclaimed ,"lights this bright could easily blind these creatures because their eyes aren't adapted to handle this much light!"

Suddenly a flash of orange came zooming past and then slowed to a halt, it was the Gup-B. Kwazii jumped out the cockpit and landed in the water.

"How can I help mateys!" Kwazii asked

"Help me fend off these tuna," Shelington said, trying to block the path of three tuna simultaneously.

"On it!"

As the three octonauts tried to protect the helpless deep sea creatures, Tweak began to close in on the place the Octo-lab was to be dropped. She hovered over the spot she was meant to drop the Octo-lab but she stopped when she saw the Gup-B, wondering what was going on down there

"TWEAK!!!" Kwazii yelled, "DOWN HERE!!!"

Tweak looked at the ocean where Kwazi was resurfacing.

"Oh me, oh my!" She exclaimed, "what's going on down there?"

Kwazii clambered on top of the Gup-B and took the broken remote from the glove compartment.

"No time to explain!"

He leapt from the gup to the top of the Octo-lab and then from there, he did a huge summersault into the Gup-H.

"You have to fix this remote!" Kwasii panted ,"you have to turn off those lights *gasp* before the tuna eat *gasp* the fish or the fish go blind!"

"Sure thing," Tweak replied ,"but you'll need to pilot the Gup-H while I fix this thing."

Tweek handed the controls over to Kwazii then grabbed the broken remote, emergency repair kit and jumped down onto the Octo-lab.

She opened the repair kit, grabbed a carrot and bit down on it before starting work. Tweak worked at top speed, soldering, screwing and fiddling, almost certainly violating many safety codes. The Octo-Lab swung about, the Gup-H wobbling slightly from Kwazii's lack of practice. Down below, Shellington and Inkling continued to try and get in the way of the tuna fish but there were too many for them to be reasonably held back.

"I've got it," Tweak said ,holding up the fixed remote. She pointed it down at the ocean and pressed the off button. All the floodlights instantly went out, plunging the ocean into darkness.

"Huh," one of the tuna said ,"why is it dark now."

"Dunno," replied another, "but I can't see my food anymore. Let's scram."

And with that all the tuna turned and swam away.

"Thankyou!" said a passing viperfish ,"but my eyes! I can barely see!"

"Oh me, oh my!" exclaimed Tweek, jumping down into the water, "those bright lights must have blinded some of these poor creatures."

"Without working eyes," the viperfish explained ,"we'll all be doomed because in the twilight zone, having good eyes is vital for survival."

"Hmm," Inkling said ,"I think I know someone who can help.

***

In the morning, the Gup-A trundled into view. Once it had arrived to where Kwazii, Shellington and Tweak were waiting, Peso hopped out the gup and landed in the water.

"Ok, where are my patients," Peso asked.

"They've gone back down to the twilight zone." Tweek answered ,"Inkling should be waiting there."

Peso swam down to the twilight zone and was greeted by Inkling who had gathered all the hurt creatures into a single file line.

"Ok," Peso said, "what seems to be the problem here."

 

"Our eyes!" all the creatures said simultaneously.

Peso brought out her special Ophthalmologists medical bag and started work on curing the first creature.

Meanwhile Shelington, Tweak and Kwazii all swam down, past peso and all the way to the newly installed Octo-lab.

"Well that went well," Shelington remarked, "now we have a new place we can do research from in a completely new environment. Think of all the undiscovered creatures out there!"

"Umm, Shellington?" Tweak asked ,"I hate to ask this but, where's the Gup-D?"

"Ummm."

Shelington pointed out the window of the Octo-lab at the silt covered wreck that was the Gup-D.

"Don't worry matey," Kwazii said, patting Shellington on the back, "you'll get the hang of driving one day.

*~Creature report~*

Calling all Octonauts!

Kwazii, Peso, Shelington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek

Tunip!

Kwazi, activate creature report!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

Facts:

Every single night

Check! Check! Check!

When there is less light

Check! Check! Mee!

Creatures from the deep decide to move

Creature Report! Creature Report!

To the surface, in search of food

Creature Report! Creature Report!

They only come up when it's dark

Check! Check! Chup!

So other fish can't see them, and can't gobble them up

Dance Break!

Migration, Migration, Migration!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

Chapter Text

The vegimals were excited at their new fangled kitchen. It had been set up by Tweak on a small oceanic island for one purpose: to construct the world's largest fish biscuit. The vegimals all mixed bowles full of dough, kneading all the ingredients together.

Meanwhile, tweak was constructing a metal frame for the fish biscuit.

"Wonderfull," Shellington exclaimed, surveying the area, "at this rate we, the octonauts will hold the record for the largest fish biscuit!"

"Umm, sorry to break this to you Shelington," Dashi said, "but we already have the world record for the largest fish biscuit. Remember that time when Grouber was so hungry he shaped a whole batch of fish biscuit dough into one big one to save time."

Everyone turned to look and Grouber, who was licking all the mixture off the wooden spoons. Grouber looked up at them and shrugged, as if saying: why are you looking at me?.

"With this here, reinforced metal frame," Tweak explained, patting her creation, "you can make the biscuit ten times bigger than before."

Her construction loosely resembled a fish skeleton, with a lattice of metal poles designed to improve the structure."

"Vegimals!" Shellington announced, "it's time to assemble the fish biscuit!"

Tweak suspended the metal frame in the air and the vegimals all took globs of biscuit dough and moulded it around the frame, creating the shape of a massive fish biscuit. After that process, the vegimals collectively carried it to a massive open air grill, also constructed by Tweak, and placed it on the rack.

Kwazii and Captain barnacles swam along the Atlantic sea floor. Both of their arms were completely full of tiny vials.

"These sand samples are really hard to hold onto." the captain said.

"You said it matey," Kwazii agreed, "I guess I shouldn't have wasted the Octo-bot's battery. They could have done this for us."

"You know," Barnacles said, "sometimes I wish these moments of realisation will influence you then next time you want to do something stupid."

"Let's not dwell on the past, ok?" Kwazii suggested, "let's just get these sand samples into the Octo-Lab and then we can hop in the Gup-A and go back to the Octo-pod."

At that moment the captain sneezed and dropped all of the glass vials of sand onto the floor.

"Doh!"

The vegimals triumphantly carried the massive fish biscuit down the beach and tied it to the top of the Gup-X.

"You sure you're up for driving Shellington?" Tweak asked, "I don't want to have to fix another gup on the bottom of the atlantic."

"Oh, i'll be fine," Shelington replied, "i want to be the one who delivers the largest fish biscuit ever to Finnish World Records and receive the honorary plaque that comes with this great achievement."

"Well, ok then," Tweak said, "your route has been plotted on the gup's computer. safe travels."

All of the octonauts on that island waved Shellington goodbye as he drove off in the gup.

Shelington drove the gup steadily through the ocean. It lurched and swerved like mad but there wasn't exactly much to hit. His route was shown on the monitor of the Gup-X, plotting his course from the tiny Caribbean island to finland, where the Finnish World records had their headquarters. It placed shelington's position as in the mid-ish Atlantic, generally on course.

Suddenly, something started to beep on some screen on the other side of the gup. Shelington lent backwards to try and get a look at it and was just able to tell that it was the SONAR that was beeping and also the SONAR that showed a large shape closing in on the ship.

"Jumping jellyfish!"

The Gup-X rocked with the impact from some unseen object. Shelington pressed a button and brought up the view of all the ship's cameras, lighting up every monitor with many different camera angles of a Great White Shark.

"Mmmmm, I'm so hungry!" the shark said, its voice echoing strangely through the gup, "and this tastes good!"

The shark lunged at the giant fish biscuit and took a bite out of it. The shark swallowed the chunk of biscuit and got ready to get some more. It went for another bite but instead of biting the biscuit, it struck the cable that secured it to the top of the Gup-X.

The cable snapped and the fish biscuit slowly slid off the back of the gup and sank down into the depths of the atlantic.

"Uh oh," Shellington said to himself, watching as the giant snack slowly disappeared into the murky blue.

"Well," Kwazii said, his arms completely full of sand samples, "i think that's all of them."

"Nice work," the captain replied, "now just to get these things back to the Octo-Lab."

The two started to waddle uncomfortably back towards the Octo-lab, trying not to drop all of the sand vials again.

Just as they were about to reach the Octo-Lab's entrance, a huge fish biscuit fell from en high. It dented the door of the octo-lab, Crushed the gup A and flung Kwazii and the captain backwards with the force of the displaced water. They both dropped all the sand vials which all scattered in different directions and out of sight.

"Yow!" Kwazii exclaimed, "what the heck was that!"

"It looks like a huge fish biscuit," Barnacles said ,"but what's it doing here?"

"Let's call HQ and find out." Kwazii said. He pressed the button on his communication collar and began to talk.

"Hello? HQ? Kwazii speaking!" but all he got in return is static.

"I think it's broken," Captain Barnacles said, "i'll try my Octo-Compass."

He got out his Octo-Compass and tried to sound the Octo-alert but to no avail.

"The deep sea must be messing with our comms," Kwazii theorised, "let's try the Octo-Lab comms, they're made for the deep sea."

The two swam over to the Octo-lab entrance and noticed that it was quite damaged.

"I don't think that door will open, captain," Kwazii remarked.

"Nonsense!" the captain dismissed ,"it just needs a bit of polar bear strength."

The captain planted his feet either side of the door and pulled with all his might. It did nothing.

"Hmmm," Kwazii thought ,"at least we still have the Gup-Aaaaaaaoooh no."

Only then did Kwazii realise that the Gup-A had been completely crushed by the giant fish biscuit.

"I'm afraid that we have a problem on our hands," the captain realised, "we only have an hour or so of air left. If we don't get a stable supply of air soon, we'll both suffocate."

"You know," Kwazii reminisced ,"I used to like fish biscuits."

Meanwhile, on the surface, Shellington was tearing his hair out over his predicament. Suddenly, the crackly voice of Kwazii came in through the comms.

"ɦĘIIÒ!" his voice crackled," ÄņYÔʼnə! Ć ʎØu ĦÈąɾ ɱę?!"

Shelington pressed a button and spoke into a microphone.

"This is Shellington i hear you loud and unclear."

"Ɱɘ ÄʼnĎ ʗåpŧAÏn * Ňɵ ɑīʀ * ŝʊʄFÖɔàŤe * ʙį5Čʉĭť"

"Uh oh!" Shelington exclaimed ,"Sound's like they're in trouble. I need to sound the Octo-Alert!"

Shelington pressed the big orange button in the middle of the Gup-X controls.

"Octonauts! To the HQ!"

(queue Octo-Alert sequence)

Shelington's face flickered onto one of the monitors in HQ, greeting the other octonauts (except Kwazii and the captain of course) who were standing to attention.

"What is it shelington?" Dashi asked.

"Did you manage to crash the gup in the middle of the open ocean?" Tweek asked.

"Chupa chup?" turnip also asked

"No turnip," Shelington answered, "i didn't eat the whole biscuit, but i maaaaaay have dropped it."

All the octonauts gasped

"And Kwazii and the captain both seem to be in trouble, I received a distress call from tem not long ago."

All the octonauts gasped again and Tunip feinted.

"Can you send us the recording of the message?" Dashi requested.

"Yup, sending now."

Shelington tinkered with some buttons and managed to broadcast the call to the octo-pod for all to hear.

"Hmmmm," Tweak thought, "from the sound of it Kwazii and the captain seem to have some problem with air supply. I don't know how dire the situation is but it's likely that if we want to save them, it would take too long to send a gup from the Octo-pod. How close are you to the Octo-Lab Shellington?"

Shelington checked the map on the Gup X and saw that he was directly above the Octo-Lab.

"I'm right above it!" he exclaimed

"Ok," Tweak said, "we'll send Peso and Dashi out to the Octo-lab as a backup. But chances are, you're the only one close enough to save them. Let's hope you've been practising your driving skills. Tweak out."

Kwazii sat dejectedly on the sea floor next to the fishbiscuit.

"I sure hope someone got our message," Kwazii said ,"or we're in big trouble."

The captain was pacing in slow circles, scratching the part of his helmet that was close to his chin.

"Agreed," he said ,"we need a way to get air and fast."

He pulled out his Octo-compass and checked his air levels. They weren't good. Suddenly the Octo-Compass began to vibrate, it was a call from Shellington. Barnacles quickly answered the call and was greeted by Shelington's voice clear as day.

"Captain? Kwazii? Do you read me?" He asked

"Yes," the captain replied, "we hear you loud and clear!"

But on the other side of the line, all Shellington heard was

"Yɘ5 *Ħęɒʀ yÓ*ɭŎʊđ á*ÆŖ"

"I'm not sure if you heard me," Shelington said ,"but if you can. Please tell me how you got into trouble

"ʛïåŇɫ *$ĥ BÌşčūĭŤ!"

"A Giant fish biscuit!" he exclaimed ,"whoops, i must have dropped it on you, it's world record size. Don't worry,I'm coming to save you in the Gup-X, just watch out for sharks."

"5årķz!"

"Oh yes, when a huge amount of food appears at the bottom of the ocean, where there is very little food at all, creatures from miles around will come and feast. This usually happens in an event called a whale fall, when a whale dies, and then sinks down into the depths. Would you be able to do me a favour and observe what sort of creatures come to feed. It would prove useful for my research.

Well, i'd better get to saving you, good luck!"

Shelignton ended the call and then sat in the driver's seat of the gup-X wondering what to do.

"Sharks!" Kwazii yelled excitedly, "I didn't know there were sharks down here. YOW! And I thought the deep sea was a whole lot of nothing."

"Let's just hope the sharks are only hungry for fish biscuits," Barnacles said.

At that moment a shadow passed over the two of them, they looked up and saw a shark swim over them.

"Don't move," the captain commanded

"It can see us regardless of whether we move or not!" Kwazii pointed out.

"Yes, I can see you," the shark answered, "but why would I bother chasing you down when there's perfectly good food just sitting there?"

"Any idea what kind of shark it is?" Barnacles whispered

"No," Kwazii replied, "I like sharks, but not enough to learn anything about them."

The shark continued on swimming. It soon arrived at the fallen biscuit and began to dig in. Soon more sharks began to close in, appearing from the inky black and feasting on the giant biscuit. Soon more creatures began to approach. They looked like a cross between an eel and a slug.

"I know who these are captain!" Kwazii exclaimed, "it's the slime eels!"

(better known as Hagfish but they call them slime eels in the show)

"Hello again," one of the slime eels said, "no time for chitter chatter we have eating to do."

The hagfish swam up to the biscuit and began taking bites out of it, latching onto the side of the biscuit and tearing off chunks. The water filled with crumbs as the predators took messy bites out of their food. Neither of them had ever seen so many deep sea creatures in one spot, they were normally incredibly sparse.

"Should we be writing this down?" Kwazii asked, "so we don't forget which creatures we've seen"

"i'll record some messages on my octo-compus," the captain replied.

Shelington was unsure of how to get the gup-X to the bottom of the ocean.

"Hmmmmm," Shelington thought to himself, "how to get to the bottom of the ocean."

After a few minutes of scratching his head over the issue, he decided to just wing it. He grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it downwards. The Gup-X shot down into the depths. The ship swerved and dipped as Shelington tried to keep the gup pointing straight down. He couldn't really see where he was going but he didn't worry too much about it.

He looked out the window, expecting the water to be getting darker but, while the water was darker than before, it seemed to be getting lighter.

The Gup-X burst through the surface of the water and landed with a loud splash on the top of the ocean. He had done a huge loop underwater and ended up back where he started.

"Oooooh!" Shelington groaned, covering his face with his hands," what am i going to do now!"

The captain and Kwazii were both sitting cross legged on the floor. Barnacles checked how much air they have left on the Octo-compass. The air wouldn't last much longer.

The fish biscuit had been reduced to its metal frame, aside from little crumbs and pieces still clinging to the skeleton. After the majority of the biscuit had been gobbled up, all the deep sea scavengers filed away, continuing their unending search for more food.

"They can't be done eating yet!" Kwazii exclaimed, "there's loads of food still on there, i thought food was rare down here and it's just being left to rot."

"Not if we have anything to say about it!"

The two Octonauts looked behind them to see where the voice had come from. Assembled there was a larger crowd of countless sea animals of all shapes and sizes. Among them were octopi, crabs, shrimp, deep sea fish and all manner of other things.

"March my brothers and sisters!" shouted a large crab, "we shall comb this place for every morsel of food we can! Sift the sand, filter the water, suck these bones dry! The deep ocean is no place to go wasting food."

The hoard of creatures travelled over to the metal skeleton of the biscuit and licked it clean. Crustaceans combed through the sand, picking up crumbs and debris and eating them. Eelpouts and octopi methodically nibbled clean the internal frame of the fish biscuit. All in all it was a midnight zone food fest.

Suddenly, an indecent beeping sound snapped the octonauts out of their peaceful spot of Fish-watching. He checked his Octo-Compass and saw a minute long count down for how much air they have left.

"Uh oh," the captain said ,"Shelington better arrive here fast, we don't have much air left."

Kwazii squinted up into the dark sea, trying to catch a glimpse of the gup-X. As he squinted, he thought he saw a vague outline of something but it was a much thinner shape than the Gup-X. But as he watched, the form got larger, and redder. At the last second Kwzii realised that it was the gup, but just on its side, and falling fast. He grabbed the captain and leapt out the way, the gup slamming down where they were standing. The Gup-X landed on its side and then flopped back upright and the two saw Shellington in the driver's seat, looking like he'd just seen a ghost.

Kwazii and Barnacles swam over to the gup and dropped through the hatch. They took off their stuffy helmets and took a big breath of air.

"Hello!" Shelington greeted cheerfully, still slightly shaken ,"I realised that, to get the gup down here, i just had to sink it!"

"Well, whatever works for you matey," Kwazii said , "The important thing is, you saved us. I'm glad the last thing I had to see wasn't a half eaten biscuit."

"Oh, that reminds me!" Shellington exclaimed ,"i want to check it out!"

Shelington plastered himself against the glass of the gup-X and gazed in awe at the crew of sea creatures, all eating the remnants of the biscuit. "Ooooooooh!"

"We should probably get back to the surface and tell HQ, we're ok," the captain said ,"and, if you don't mind, I think I'll drive."

A while later, Shelington requested an expedition back down to the site of the biscuit incident.

"I don't see why you want to come down here matey," Kwazii said, as he piloted the Gup-A into the deep, with Shellington riding shotgun, "I mean, it's just going to be a pile of scrap metal. Speaking of which, we should probably clear it out so we can go back to using the Octo-Lab"

"Think again!" Shelington exclaimed ,"while all of the nutrients may have been stripped of the fish biscuit, the metal structure of the internal frame will prove a solid anchor for filter feeders, As the majority of the deep ocean is a vast plain of sand with no good place to settle down. This usually happens with whale skeletons but here we have made our own skeleton, or an artificial reef, if you will."

As the gup approached the ocean floor, the Octo-lab came into view, along with the pile of metal that once held together the world's largest fish biscuit.

Kwazii landed the gup next to the frame and both octonauts plastered their heads up against the glass of the gup to try and get a look at what happened to the skeleton.

Various deep ocean stationary filter feeders were all stuck to the whale skeleton.

"These creatures all feed off marine snow," Shelington explained, "they start their lives off as plankton but once they find a secure place to call home, they grow into these things. We had to make the Octo-Lab especially so that creatures like these don't grow all over it."

"There's sure a lot of life from just one fish biscuit." Kwazii remarked ,"i guess a little goes a long way in the deep sea."

"That's the jist of it!" Shelington replied ,"now I'm going to go study the creatures on our brand new artificial reef. We know so little about the deep sea that there is a good chance that there is an undiscovered species on there. Isn't that exciting!"

Shelignton then donned his deep sea suit, jumped out the hatch and swam towards the frame of the world's largest fish biscuit, ready for discovery.

~Creature report~*

Calling all Octonauts!

Kwazii, Peso, Shelington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek

Tunip!

Kwazi, activate creature report!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

Facts:

In the ocean deep

Check! Check! Check!

There's not much to eat

Check! Check! Mee!

So when theres lots of food, creatures gather

Creature Report! Creature Report!

Around the food and devour

Creature Report! Creature Report!

This often happens when whales become dead

Check! Check! Chup!

And it's called a whale fall, unless it's a biscuit instead

Dance Break!

Go Whale Fall, Go Whale Fall,Go Whale Fall!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

(as you may have noticed, i drasticly sped up the Whale fall process and skipped the sulphophilic stage. both for the sake of the narative.)

Chapter Text

Peso Inspected his new patient in the Gup-W. The gup was currently based by the side of an african river, helping any injured or sick animals that pass by or ones that has been brought to him by the other octonauts that had fanned out to find any other fish in need of aid.

One of these fish that had been brought to him was an eel looking creature, with four tentacle-like appendages and a finned tail.

"Hello there," Peso said, looking at his patient ,"what creature might you be?"

"I am Lungfish." the Lungfish said in a toddler like voice ,"I lungfish nameded Larry."

(once again i can't input images so just imagine or look it up)

"Ok," Peso replied, "what seems to be the problem?"

"My fin hurt," Larry said.

Peso looked closely at the lungfish's thin tentacle-like fins and noticed that one of them had a pink tinge. A tell tale sign that that area had been hurt and needs to be bandaged.

"Looks like you need a bandage," Peso said, he opened his medical bag and took out a bandage and wrapped the fish's fin in it.

"Thank you," the lungfish said, "it feel more better ."

"You're welcome," Peso said, picking up the fish and placing it into the recovery tank, "next patient!"

Kwazii and the captain walked into the Gup-W carrying a huge fish that looked very sick. They plonked it into the tank in front of peso. It was a large catfish that had a sickly looking green tinge to its face.

"What happened to you?" Peso asked

"I feel sick," the fish groaned, "and I don't like it."

Peso gave the fish a quick check up, checking inside its mouth, having the fish explain how it feels and inspecting the fins.

"I diagnose you with Mcguffinitis, it makes freshwater fish very sick. Luckily I have the cure to it, I just need to remember where I put it."

Peso walked over to the cabinets on the other side of his medical room (IDK what to call it. Maybe a clinic?) and started opening draws. He opened and shut five before finding a small plastic jar full of standard looking white pills.

"Two of these pills should do the trick," he said, walking back over the sick fish."

Peso tried to twist the top off the jar but it was stuck fast.

"Let me try," Kwazii yelled, snatching the pot out of Peso's flippers, "there's nothing a little pirate swashbuckling can't handle!"

Kwazii tried to yank the top of the medicine pot but to no avail. Kwazii slumped and wordlessly handed the jar over to Captain Barnacles. The captain twisted the lid with all his strength, cracking the plastic with the force of it but still the lid did not budge.

Suddenly the pot slipped out of the captain's fury hands, flying across the gup.

"I've got it!" Kwazii yelled, leaping for the jar and missing it entirely, basically just belly flopping onto the floor."

"After that jar!" the Captain ordered.

Peso and Barnacles turned and ran after the pot of medicine which was bouncing at speed towards the river. They both leapt for the jar at the same time but they collided mid air, allowing the medicine to bounce into the river and get swept away.

"Uh oh," the captain said ,"looks like it's time to sound the Octo alert!"

Captain Barnacles pulled the Octo-Compass out his pocket and pressed the Octo alert button.

"Octonauts, to the Gup-W!"

(Cue Octo-Alert Sequence)

"Octonauts, we have a problem," the captain announced, "there is a very ill catfish in the sickbay and the only cure for its disease in a pot of special medicine that is currently being swept downstream. We need to find that medicine fast before it's too late.

Dashi, are you able to show us where the river leads?"

"Aye Aye captain," Dashi replied and then entered some commands into an electronic interface and and making a map of the area flicker onto one of the screens in the gup ," the river lead all the way down to a large african swamp. That's where I'd recommend you search."

"But that place is massive!" Kwazii pointed out, "it would take months to find that pot."

"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" Shelington squealed, raising his hand like an excited schoolboy.

"Yes Shelington?" the captain said

"I have something that might help," he yelled, walking over to the fish recovery tanks and picking up the lungfish, "this little fella is a master of survival, they've been around for hundreds of millions of years and survived four mass extinctions. I'm sure he can help you in your search."

Kwazii looked uncertainly at the fish, with it's odd appearance and a look in its eyes that indicated a lack of anything behind them.

"I'm not so sure about that matey," Kwazii said ,"that fish doesn't look like the swashbuckling type."

"Well what's the harm in bringing him along anyway," Shelington reasoned ,"just put him in a fish pack and take him with you. Pleeeeeeaaaaaas?"

"Oh alright," Kwazii caved in, "we'll bring the fish."

Kwazii and Peso were both crammed into the Gup-B as it shot down the river. The Gup-B wasn't meant for more than one passenger so Kwazi was struggling to drive and see with Peso squishing him against the wall and obstructing his view.

"Could you try and keep you're flipper out the way matey," Kwazii asked ,"i can't see a thing."

"Well at least you got the chair,"Peso replied ,"I'm squashed against the ceiling."

"True, but I still need to drive," Kwazii rebuked ,"and if I can't see while I'm driving,we'll both end up wedged in the riverbed."

Despite the penguin obstructions, Kwazii managed to safely manoeuvre the gup through the river. The river opened up into a large expanse of swamp. The water stretched for miles with lush vegetation growing throughout. And somewhere in amongst it all was the pot of medicine. Kwazi got out the gup then reached up and turned on his radio.

"Ok," he said ,"we've arrived, now where's the thingymabob?"

"You have to find it," Dashi said, "we don't have a tracker on everything we own." (although some episodes make me think they do)

"So how the heck am I meant to get the medicine," Kwazii exclaimed, "this place is huge."

"I guess we should start looking then" Peso suggested.

Just as Kwazii was about to end the call Shelington's voice came through yelling "WAIT WAIT!"

"Don't forget about the lungfish," the scientist reminded.

"Yea yea yea," Kwazii replied dismissively and then switched off the radio.

Kwazii and Peso began to search through the wetland to try and find the bottle of medicine but it was hopeless. They searched under every rock, and checked in every patch of reeds but this method had its drawbacks as after an hour they had only gotten about 5 metres from the gup-B.

After rummaging about in some vegetation, Kwazii felt the lungfish bumping its head against the glass as if trying to get out.

"Oh what the heck," Kwazii said, pressing the button on the side of the fishpack, releasing the Lungfish into the water ,"What's the worst that could happen."

The fish swam about a bit and shook its head about as if waking up.

"I see you have finally called on the survival expert," the Lungfish said, now with a rugged african accent.

"Have i?" Kwazii said, slightly baffled by the fish.

"Well you released me did you not?" the fish replied, "now what is it that you endeavour to do in this swamp."

"We're looking for some medicine," Peso answered, swimming over to Kwazii, "could you help us find it."

"That can be arranged," Larry said, "though we lungfish are almost blind, we have an excellent sense of smell."

The lungfish began to sniff the water and listing of what he smelt

"Strange cat, mud, plant, mud, weird bird, fish, can, shugar, catfish, m..."

"Wait!" Peso exclaimed, "what did you just say."

"Sugar?" the fish replied quizzically, "i though we were looking for medicine."

"The pills are sugar coated to make them taste better," peso explained,"But you shouldn't be able to smell anything, those pills are in an air and water tight jar."

"The captain cracked it remember," Kwazii reminded, "there must be a leak for the smell to escape from."

"Do you think the medicine will be viable?" the fish asked.

"Yes," peso confirmed," they're made to last, even under water, we still have a few hours to find them before they disintegrate."

"Well then," the fish said, "times a waisting."

The fish swam off into the murky water and vegetation. Before the octonauts could even process what had happened, the fish was gone. After a few seconds it poked its head out from behind some reeds and rolled its eyes.

"Well come on then," the fish urged ,"try and keep up."

The octonauts struggled to keep up with the fish. Though it didn't swim particularly fast, the water was murky and the octonauts kept getting tangled in weeds, losing the fish, or swimming into rocks.

"How the heck can a blind fish like you navigate through this place." Kwazii wondered after getting his foot stuck in some reeds.

"It's my modified fins," said the fish waving his tentacle like appendages about, "they let me feel my surroundings and navigate my way through my environment. Now hurry up, we're close."

The trio continued swimming through the swamp following the fish's nose until Larry suddenly stopped just as they were about to round a patch of plants and signalled to the others to stop as well.

"What is it little matey," Kwazii whispered.

"The medicine is right around the corner," he said ,"but I can sense something else too."

"Is it something scary?" Peso asked fearfully.

"Yes," the lungfish replied," using these things called electro receptors that are one my nose can sense the little electrical currents that almost all animals use to send messages through their body and using special sensors called lateral lines, I can pick up tiny disturbances in the water. Using these senses i can see that there is a large creature just around that corner that seems to be lying completely still, which probably means it's a..."

"Crocodile," Kwazii finished the sentence.

"We'll continue slowly," the lungfish planned, "no sudden movements."

The Octonauts tiptoed forward and peeked around the water plants and saw a napping Nile Crocodile, sleeping right next to the pot of medicine.

Larry silently gestured to continue towards the crocodile and the trio cautiously approached the sleeping predator. Kwazii reached his hand out to try and grab the medicine but Peso began to make a strange noise behind him.

"ah-Ah-AH-AHCHOO!"

Peso sneezed and bumped into Kwazi while doing so. The pirate then lurched forwards and onto the croc. The crocodilian woke with a start.

It whipped its tail around and accidentally smacked the jar of medicine out the water and into the sky. Kwazii frantically swam to the surface to see where the pot had gone and was not happy by what he saw. The pot had flown in a high arc through the air and landed on the back of a passing goose. That goose then flew into the distance and just at the edge of Kwazii's vision he saw the medicine fall from the goose and land somewhere over yonder.

"Doh!" Kwazii said in annoyance as he descended back into the water, "now we have to go all the way over there to find the medicine."

"K-K-K-K-Kwazi-i!" Peso stuttered ,"look!"

Kwazii looked up and saw a very angry looking Nile Crocodile staring back at him.

"Hold tight matey, this requires a little pirate cunning."

Kwazii grabbed Peso's flipper and Peso grabbed the lungfish. Kwazii then reached behind him and unplugged his oxygen tank.

A flurry of bubbles immediately filled the water. The plan was that he'd angle the tube to steer himself but that all went to pot and the three of them were manicly propelled through the water.

The tank eventually ran out of air, dumping them right by the edge of the water. Kwazii took off his helmet and breathed in fresh air. He plopped Larry back in the fish pack and then surveyed the area trying to remember which direction the bird had gone.

Using his memory, he eventually managed to position roughly where the bird had gone and waved his crewmate over.

"I think that the pot of medicine is just over there," Kwazii said, pointing into the distance.

"Looks like this is where my usefulness ends," Larry said ,"lead the way."

The octonauts trekked through the african terrain, constantly stumbling and tripping on tufts of grass and divets in the ground. They all soon arrived at the rough area where Kwazii saw the Pot of Medicine fall.

The two wandered the area looking for the pot, checking inside of small shrubs and on the dusty floor. After a while the two weren't sure what to do. The area that they needed to check was over 500M2 making it highly likely that they'd never find it in the wide expanse of the wild.

But just as peso was walking along he noticed a damp spot on the floor. He walked over to it and saw that it was spreading outwards from a small shrub. Upon closer inspection, amongst the branches of the shrub was the pot of medicine releasing a slow trickle of water onto the hard soil

"Kwazii!" Peso yelled, "'I found the medicine."

When Kwazii heard Peso's call he began to jog over. Peso inspected the pills and concluded that they were still viable, though they certainly wouldn't pass any hygiene tests.

As Kwazii was running over, he accidentally tripped on a stone and fell forward, smashing the fish pack to pieces and spilling Larry onto the mud

"AAAH!" Both the cat and the lungfish screamed.

"Flappity flippers!" Peso exclaimed ,"fish need water to breathe. This is bad!"

"No," the lungfish said raspily, "I can breathe air, but I need to make sure that I stay moist. If I get too dry I can die."

"Well what should we do!" Kwazii asked frantically. The wetland was too far away to take the fish without it drying out in the hot sun and neither octonaut had any water.

"Oh you don't need to do anything ," Larry assured ,"I have one more trick up my nonexistent sleeve."

The water that the Fish-pack spilled had turned the ground where the lungfish lay into mud. Larry turned to look at the mud and wedged his head into it. He then began to eat the mud and then excrete in out his gill, slowly digging himself deeper into the mud. Soon he was out of sight.

(i know you can't just pour water onto dry ground and make mud but the actual show's done so much worse and i'm not rewriting the plot because of mud)

The two stood there for a moment, not sure what to make of the situation but Kwazii finally took the initiative and called base.

"Kwazii to Gup-W, Come in Gup-W"

"We hear you loud and clear Kwazii," Replied Dashi through the speaker."

"We need an inland pickup," Kwazii explained.

"You sure?" Dashi asked ,"it will take a while. We need to send someone back to the octopod to get the Gup-H and then drive it all the way out to you."

"It's special circumstances," Kwazi replied.

"Ok then, Tweek will be there not shortly."

The Gup-H Slowly descended and landed on the hard earth to the cheers of Peso and Kwazii who both had gone over an hour without water.

"Good job in finding that medicine," Tweak congratulated," not sure why you ended up over here but i'm sure there's a reason. Also, where's larry?"

"Umm," Kwazii said ,"he's down there."

Kwazii pointed down at the floor where Larry had buried himself. It had now dried up in

The sun.

"In the floor?" Tweak questioned, unsure how a fish could manage to get stuck underground

Peso and Kwazii both nodded in sync.

"Ok then..." tweak said, still uncertain,"I do have some digging tools in the back of the gup-H from that problem with the razor clams but I can't be sure we won't hit the fish."

The three thought for a moment before Kazii had a bright idea.

"What if," he said ,"we give ourselves a bit of leeway."

The Octonauts looked up in awe and confusion as the Gup-H descended from the air, carrying a huge clog of dirt on the end of a rope using a suction cup.

Captain Barnacles detached the huge lump of soil from the helicopter and inspected it.

"Any idea what this could be Shelington?" he asked

"Well to me it looks like a lump of dirt," he replied, "but from certain angles it looks kind of like a dinosaur."

The captain tilted his head slightly to get a better look at the cold of earth.

"My gosh! It does look like a dinosaur!"

"That's not why we brought it here though mateys," Kwazii said, walking over to the others from the Gup-H which tweak had landed a little distance off."Larry the lungfish is in there, he wiggled into some mud and we weren't really sure what to do."

"Ah , I see he pulled a lungfish on you!" Shelington said ,"come inside, i'll show you what happened.."

The crew followed Shelington inside the Gup-W where he switched on one of the screens and began to show what happened with a visual aid.

"When the dry season comes ," he explained, "Lungfish need a way to stay moist even though there is no water. Because of this, they have evolved a remarkable skill called aestivation. When their water evaporates and lakes become mud, the fish burrow down into the mud and make a kind of cocoon out of hardened Mucus. In this state they drastically slow their metabolism and can stay like that for over two years and still, as soon as the rains come, wake up and continue with their life."

"Wow," Kwazii exclaimed ,"all these tricks certainly made him a big help on our mission."

"We couldn't have done it without him" Peso announced "Oh, that reminds me, we still need to make that fish better."

Peso walked over to the catfish which had a sickly green parlour to its face and pulled the medicine out his medical bag.

"Say ah," Peso commanded

"AaAaaahhHhh!" the fish replied shakily

Peso tried to unscrew the lid but it was still stuck fast.

"Oh," he said defeatedly ,"I still can't open the jar."

"Maybe Larry has one more trick up his sleeve that may help." Shelington said ,"Vegimals! Get some hoses!"

The Giant lump of dirt was still where the octonauts had left it but now it was being showered with water pumped up from the river. The vegimals danced around in a circle spraying water all over the hunk of soil, progressively making the hoses more and more tangled.

As they sprayed, bits of the earth started to splat to the floor as mud, slowly eroding away at the huge wad. But after many circuits around the dirt, the hoses finally reached the end of their reach and the vegimals all fell to the floor, jolted by the sudden halting of the hoses. At that moment a small mound appeared at the top of the now pile of mud. It rumbled a bit and then out popped larry.

"Hello," he greeted ,"what year is it?"

Kwazii chuckled, "it's still the same year matey."

"Well that's good," he said, relieved ,"you never really know when you're wake up next."

"By the way matey," Kwazii mentioned ," would you be able to help us open this here jar of pills we've been chasing, none of us have been able to open it."

"Oh, well of course,'' Larry assured ,"my mouth is specialised for cracking open the hard shells of mollusks, and your pot is no different. Give it here."

Kwazi put the jar into the Lungfish's mouth and then Larry bit down, making a clean split through the middle of the jar.

"Wow!" Kwazii exclaimed ,"you know what matey? You really are quite some survival expert."

And with that the screen fades to black, showing a wide shot of all the octonauts and Larry the lungfish, still sitting atop his mound of mud.

~Creature report~*

Calling all Octonauts!

Kwazii, Peso, Shelington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek

Tunip!

Kwazi, activate creature report!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

Facts:

Lungfish have lots of tricks

Check! Check! Check!

To get them out of a fix

Check! Check! Mee!

Thought they are blind they have a good sense of smell

Creature Report! Creature Report!

And electroreceptors as well

Creature Report! Creature Report!

And when their home starts to dry

Check! Check! Chup!

They can cocoon underground, for a very long time.

Dance Break!

Go Lungfish, Go Lungfish,Go Lungfish!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

Chapter Text

The octonauts all waited expectantly in the launch bay, anticipating the arrival of their guest. Soon the Octo hatch opened and in drove Tweak with another passenger in the back of the gup-C.

Once the gup surfaced, Tweak opened the back door and Pinto excitedly leaped out, parkoured off the small fin on the side of the gup and landed on the side of the pool.

"Peso!" He cried, running up and giving a big hug to his older brother.

"Kwazii!" he yelled, jumping up to hug his pirate friend.

"Welcome back pinto!" Peso said.

"I think you'll find the Octopod ship shape ready for your stay," Kwazii replied.

"I Can't wait to look around and see what's new!" Pinto squealed ,"I love sliding through the Octo-chutes."

Pinto ran across the room and jumped into the octo-chute before being sucked up and shooting up the tube.

"Woooo!" he shouted as he went.

"I'm right behind you matey!" Kwazi yelled, launching himself up the tube after the penguin.

Kwazi and Pinto stood in racing stances at the end of the hall.

"Alright!" Pinto announced ,"I've used snot sea cucumber mucus which I found in Shelington's cupboards to slick the floor so we can do some ice sliding!"

"I'll race you to the other end of the hall!" Kwazii challenged.

"Oh you're so going down Kwazii!" Pinto exclaimed ,"I've been practicing. 3, 2 ,1 GO!"

The two daredevils both launched themselves forward, sliding along the goop. Just as the two were about to reach the end of the hallway, Captain Barnacles came round the corner holding a huge stack of boxes.

!CRASH!*

They all landed in a large heap with the contents of the boxes being spilled everywhere.

"You know," the captain suggested ,"Maybe you two should play outside."

" Aye aye captain," Kwazii replied shakily, his pupils rolling about his eye sockets.

The Octo-hatch opened and Kwazi drove out of it in the Gup-C.

"Too bad the Gup-B can only fit one person." Kwazii said ,"I could have shown you the ropes. Luckily the Octopod is in the Philippines so we can find ourselves an island to play on."

Kwazii drove about until he found an island that seemed suitably empty with a couple coconut trees on it.

"This looks like a good spot matey!" Kwazii announced opening the hatch on the roof and somersaulting up onto it, "well, what should we do?"

"Can I show you something I've been working on for ages!" Pinto asked ,"It's really cool."

"Let's see it Matey!" Kwazii said, intrigued.

Pinto ran into the back of the ship and grabbed a cardboard box with lots of interesting stones tied on the sides of it using seaweed fibres,making the box look like some ritualistic item.

"It's a time machine," Pinto said, "we can travel back in time with it."

Kwazii ,happy to play along, helped Pinto carry the box on the island and placed it on the sand.

"So how does it work matey?" Kwazii asked, inspecting Pinto's odd creation.

"You have to get in it," Pinto said ,"and then you press the big red button and then you will be in the past!"

The big red button seemed to be a brick coloured pebble that was tied to the box with some text scrawled next to it that read "time macheen start button" .Pinto hopped into the box and gestured for Kwazii to follow him. The pirate followed suit and pinto shut the lid of the box and poked the red button.

As the two were sitting in the blackness of the box a particularly large wave washed up the beach and picked up the box. It washed it out to sea causing water to seep into the box.

"Gah!" Pinto yelled bursting out the top of the box, "Wooo! We time travelled!"

Kwazi poked his head out and noticed the completely different landscape.

"Where the are we?" Kwazi questioned, having lost all sense of direction.

"The real question iswhenare we!" Pinto said excitedly, " I guess the scenery was different in the past. now let's go find some prehistoric creatures!"

The duo jumped out the box and began to tread water in the ocean. Kwazii placed the "time machine" on the top of a little inflatable raft that he had in his pocket so it wouldn't get soggy.

"Not sure if we should be staying out here for long matey," KWazi said ,"you don't have any swimming gear."

Pinto reached up and pressed a button on his collar, causing one of the Octonauts bubble helmets to appear over his head. Kwazi also noticed an oxygen tank strapped to his back.

"I packed my own!" Pinto exclaimed, "now let's go!"

The two dived into the ocean and began to explore around. They saw many fish but none that looked prehistoric. Kwazii knew it was all make believe but it was still enjoyable to look at all the different fish.

"Do you know what the prehistoric creatures will look like?" Kwazii asked ,"There's fish everywhere but there's always been fish everywhere so what are we looking for?"

"I brought my pocket guide." Pinto said, pulling a small book out his pocket.

He opened it up and showed Kwzii some pages with pictures of plesiosaurs and orthocones, each with a short paragraph of info next to it. Pinto and his friend continued through the ocean, checking creatures against Pinto's guide.

After searching for a while, Pint saw something strange in the distance. It looked like a floating sea snail.

"Look over there!" Pinto yelled ,pointing at the creature, "that's an interesting creature!"

The duo swam over the the creature and on closer inspection it seemed to be a strange squid thing with a spiral shell on it's back.

(since i can't put any images in i found some aski art)

(better than nothing i guess)⠀⠀⠀

Kwazii and Pinto snuck up behind the creature and Pinto flipped through the book trying to find something that matched it.

"Look," Pinto whispered ,"that's an ammonite."

Kwazii looked down at the page and saw that the creature roughly matched the image of the ammonite.

(just look it up if you want)

"I guess there are still some around," Kwazii said, forgetting that he was trying to play along in Pinto's game.

"No," Pinto disagreed, "look."

Kwazii took a look at the page and saw that underneath the picture was written "Extinction: 66mya"

"No way," Kwazii said to himself "did we actually time travel?"

"Excuse me," Pinto said ,"wh-

"GAAAH!" the creature screamed and retreated back into its shell, a strange hood thing on its head completely concealing the creature.

"It's ok," Pinto said," we're time travellers, who are you?"

"I'm Nelly," the creature replied.

"Just checking," Kwazii asked the creature ,"but are you from the past, like you only exist millions of years ago."

"Um no," the creature replied, "I exist now."

"I mean do you exist in the past for us," Kwazii explained as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

"Well, when are you from?"

"The future."

"Well I guess I am from the past then,"the creature said ,"if you're from the future."

"Well shiver me whiskers," Kwazii exclaimed, genuinely convinced ,"that time machine actually works!"

Pinto circled the mystery creature and looked at its features. It had tiny little tentacles which seemed too small to give any kind of propulsion. It seemed about as mobile as a football.

"How do you move around?" Pinto asked, "your tentacles look too small to move you around."

"I don't use my tentacles to move around," the creature said ,"they're just for grabbing things, they have a special glue on them so I can pick stuff up. I move about by shooting water out of a special organ called a siphon and that lets me swim about."

"Wow! ," pint exclaimed, "I bet Shellington would love to study you."

"That's a great idea!" Kwazii exclaimed, "we have to show this to the rest of the crew."

"Oh! Oh!" Pinto said excitedly ,"Can I sound the Octo-alert."

"Sure thing matey."

Kwazii reached into his boot and pulled out a Prototype Octo compass that he had persuaded Tweak to give him. He held it out to Pinto who promptly slapped his flipper against the big orange button in the middle of it.

"Octonauts, to the launch bay!"

(cue Octo alert sequence)

"Who sounded the Octo-alert?" the Captain asked. Looking around.

"I did!" yelled a crackly voice from the speakers. Dashi turned on the big launch bay screen which showed Pinto's face, viewed from a camera with awful quality (like 144p).

"Pinto!" Peso yelled ,"I told you not to play with our equipment!"

"He isn't matey," Kwazii said, poking his head into frame ,"we went back in time and found this really cool prehistoric creature and we thought that you guys might want to check it out."

"Prehistoric creature?" Inkling questioned ,"is it a fossil?"

"No," Kwazii said ,"Pinto made a time machine and we found real living ammonite. Get Tweak to invent one and come and find us."

"are you sure you traveled back in time kwazii?" the Captain asked

"as sure as the sea is blue cap'n," Kwazii crackled, "come quickly, i'm sure shelington would love to see this.

The Kwazii's pixelated image disappeared off the screen and the crew stood around in confusion.

"Cheepa?" Turnip chirped, very confused.

"I agree Tunip," Shelington said ,"what was that?"

"On the ride here Pinto did mention that he had been working on a time machine but i didn't expect it to actualy work."

"Hmmm," Barnacles thought ,"Dashi, can you find Pinto and Kwazii's location."

"Aye Aye captain!"

Dashi pulled up a map of the area and off in the philippine area were the two markers of Kwazii and Pinto.

"Found them captain," Dashi said ,"looks like they didn't go back n time after all."

"Shelington!" Captain Barnacles ordered ,"go out in the Gup-A and see what those two are up to. Everyone else, resume business as usual."

Shelington approached Kwazii and Pinto who seemed to be floating in the water with an odd looking sea creature. Shelington parked the gup and swam out to greet the time travellers.

"I see you were able to figure out how to time travel," Kwazii said ,"how was it?"

"You didn't actually time travel Kwazii, i just drove here,"

"But what about this prehistoric creature," he said gesturing to the spiral shelled animal next to him "is called am anommite"

"First of all," Shelington said ,"it's pronounced Ammonite. Second of all you haven't gone back in time at all. That there's a Nautilus."

"But look," Kwazii yelled, holding up Pinto's prehistoric creatures pocket guide, it matches the Amonamimanonite!"

"The ammonite is an extinct relative of the nautilus." Shelington Explained ,"it's an easy mistake to make."

"Oh," Kwazii said defeatedly ,"I knew that, I was just playing along for the little matey you know."

"Despite all that, I have been meaning to get a closer look at Nautilus anatomy so this is actualy realy usefull."

Shelington turned and addressed the nautilus.

"You don't mind if I examine you quickly do you?" Shellington asked

"Oh, of course not," Nelly said, "just don't keep me too long, us nautiluses don't do well in captivity."

The small group swam back to the gup-A and clambered up through the hatch at the base of the gup. Kwazii and Shellington walked to the back of the gup and placed the Nautilus in a fish bowl which they found back there.

"Pinto, do you know how to drive?" Shlington asked.

"Umm, maybe." Pinto replied.

"Ok good, drive us back to the Octopod would you, I need to get some equipment.

Pinto uncertainty stepped into the front of the ship and sat down in the driver's seat.

Meanwhile in the back, Shelignton was examining the shell of the nautilus.

"So what is so special about this nautilus," Kwazii said ,"no offence to you nelly, but it does look fairly primitive. Like a prototype squid."

"Well that's because the nautilus is an incredibly ancient creature, older than trees even. Using their specialised shells, they were one of the first creatures ever to be able to swim freely through the water."

"But how does a shell help something move through the water?" Kwazii asked ,"it's not like it does anything except sit there."

"The sell functions as a buoyancy regulator," Shelignton explained, pulling a diagram of a nautilus from his little bag that he keeps around his waist

"The body of the nautilus only takes up the front most portion of the shell. The rest of it is filled with chambers that contain both air and water. When the nautilus wants to rise through the sea, it takes some of the water out of their chambers using salt in their blood, making them less dense. This makes them float higher in the water. But if they want to sink they fill their shell with more water, increasing their density and making them sink.

The reason they are so interesting to study it just how unique they are. No other living animal uses a method like this to move about. They have unique eyes, unique tentacles and unique defence mechanisms that have all persisted for milenia!"

"So if i actually went back in time, i'd still find nautiluses,"

"Yup,"

Meanwhile, in the front of the gup, Pinto was driving the gup forward. He was able to start the gup and begin to drive but he couldn't figure out how to work the map. Therefore, to figure out which way to go, he employed a special navigation technique used by hte best penguin swimmers.

"Eeny meeny miny min, Catch an orca by the fin. Let go when orca starts to sing. Eeny meeny miny min."

Pinto used this advanced method to pick a direction and set off driving. However Pinto soon got bored of just driving in a straight line and took the gup for a proper spin.

He dived downwards and pulled up when he was about to hit the seabed. Kwazii and Shelington slid about in the back of the gup, both of them trying to prevent Nelly's bowl from sliding off the table.

Pinto, exhilarated by his previous stunt, divided again but before he could pull up he heard a loud

KLUNK!

The gup bounced off the sea bed, jolting the entire gup. The jolt also sent Kwazii and Shellington flying in the back of the gup. The fish bowl also went flying through the air, only being saved by IKawzii's desperate dive.

When the gup hit the floor, pinto was thrown into the air. When he landed, his flipper accidentally pressed the Gup's power button.

Suddenly the lights of the gup shup off, plunging it into the twilight of the ocean. Then, the windshield, bottom hatch and back window of the gup all opened letting in a rush of water. The entire gup was filled with water in an instant.

Kwazii and Shellington both donned their helmets and took a deep breath.

"Pinto! What happened!" Kwazii yelled at Pinto, who had also activated his helmet.

"I was just trying to have fun ," he replied innocently.

The gup, now dead in the water, rolled along the sea floor until it reached a steep decline. It then began to roll down the steep decline, deeper and deeper into the ocean. Everything in the octopod was shaken about, disorienting the crew. In the chaos, Shelington got his foot wedged behind one of the chairs trapping him.

Kwazii swam to the control panel, the gup rotating around him and turned the power back on. The map flickered into view and showed the position of the gup to be very far away from the Octopod.

"Jumping jellyfish!" Shelington exclaimed, still stuck under the chair "we're falling down the Philippine trench, how did we get over here?!"

"No one showed me how the map worked ," Pinto said ,"I didn't know where to go."

"Just ask next time matey!" Kwazi yelled, getting into the driver's seat and starting the engine, "we don't want to end up in this situation again."

Kwazii yanked on the gup's joystick and tried to drive the gup-A up and out of the trench but the gup didn't seem to want to move.

"Something's wrong with the gup!" Kwazii yelled, "it won't move."

Meanwhile Pinto frantically swam over to Shellington and tried to yank him free from under the chair but it was no use, he was very much wedged

Meanwhile in the back, Nelly had a splitting headache.

"I don't feel too good," she groaned.

"Uh no!" Shlington exclaimed, "Nautiluses can't survive in deep waters. If they go too deep their shells will implode from the pressure, we need to get this gup to the surface and fast and we can't just get out because i'm stuck"

Pinto pondered the situation for a second before getting an idea.

"Shelington," Pinto said ,"didn't you say that nautiluses can move up and down in the water by changing the amount of air in their shells?"

"Yes I did," Shelington confirmed ,"but what has that got to do with anything."

"What if" Pinto suggested ,"the gup can't go up because all the water inside is making it too dense, causing it to sink faster than the engine can move it up. So what if we fill this place with air from our tanks so we can decrease our density and rise through the water like a nautilus!"

"Well i'll be a sea monkey's uncle," Kwazii said ,"that might work,"

"Kwazii!" Pinto commanded ,"close every opening except the floor hatch and keep the gup upright!"

"Aye aye captain." Kwazii replied.

The pirate pushed the engine to its limits, just managing to steer the gup away from the ledge it was rolling down and into the main body of the water where he could keep it stable.

"I've got it little matey!" he yelled ,"now work quickly!"

Pinto took one of the spare air tanks off the wall and opened the valve to let the air out. The air from the diving tank slowly began to fill the interior of the gup. As more air was released into the gup the water was forced out the bottom.

Shelington scooped up some water in the fish bowl that had rolled over to him and placed Nelly the Nautilus in it just as the last of the water drained out the bottom.

"Remember Pinto," Shellington warned ,"do not take your helmet off. Those tanks were full of pure oxygen which is poisonous."

"Ok," Pinto agreed, "now bring her up Kwazii!"

Kwazii shut the bottom hatch of the gup and then tried again to drive the gup and this time it worked. The gup shot up through the water and arrived back at the surface in no time.

Kwazii opened all the windows and let in the fresh air, as opposed to the hyper oxygenated kind.

"Phew!" Pinto said ,"that was a close one."

"Maybe next time I should drive." Shelington said, "at least i can work the map. And, um.. Can someone help me out from under this chair now?"

Kwazii pressed the eject button on the control panel which opened hatches in the roof and launched all the chairs up and out, freeing the otter.

"Thank you," he said ," i think we've caused enough problems for our nautilus friend for today so what do you say that we drop you off by the closest reef."

"That sounds great!" she answered ,"just don't drop me down another chasm and i'll be fine!"

"We'll try not to do that again!" Kwaziii replied.

Kwazii drove the nautilus back to the spot she was found and dropped her off.

"Goodbye octonauts!" Nelly yelled, waving goodbye with one of her tentacles.

"Bye" the octonauts shouted back, with some extra enthusiastic waves from Pinto.

After the nautilus sunk out of sight Pinto walked up to Kwazii and asked "can i drive back. Pleeeaaaase? I promise i won't crash agian."

"I don't think so matey," Kwazii replied ,"tweak will be angry enough with all the scratches."

"And also you with losing the Gup-C," Pinto pointed out ,"you don't remember what island you left it on do you?"

Kwazii paused for a second and sighed.

"I probably have a week to find it before someone notices," Kwazii reasoned dejectedly.

With that Kwazii drove off towards the distant octopod and out of sight.

~Creature report~*

Calling all Octonauts!

Kwazii, Peso, Shelington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek

Tunip!

Kwazi, activate creature report!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

Facts:

Nautiluses are ancient creatures

Check! Check! Check!

Which have many interesting features

Check! Check! Mee!

They control their buoyancy

Creature Report! Creature Report!

Allowing them to float freely

Creature Report! Creature Report!

Their tentacles have glue instead of suction

Check! Check! Chup!

And they don't use them to move but instead use jet propulsion

Dance Break!

Go Nautilus, Go Nautilus ,Go Nautilus!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

Chapter Text

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.

(this is a snakehead trout. you hear more about them in a later chapter)

Kwazii flailed about in panic, windmilling his arms and accidentally bonking the snakehead on the nose with the torch

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 its bigger!!!"

"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."

(like before, here are some images of said fish)

"You're a what!?" Kwazii questioned in disbelief

"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.

****

*~

~*

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!

Chapter Text

Tweek was down in the launch bay, tinkering with some mechanical bits and bobs when she heard her Octo-Tablet ringing. She hopped over to it and saw the name Ranger marsh. She answered the call and was greeted with an image of her father's feet.

"Hey Tweek," the ranger said, "how 'r you doin'."

"I'm doing great, Pa," She answered, holding in her laughter ," i think you're using the wrong camera. You have to press the button in the top left of the screen to switch cameras."

Ranger Marsh then proceeded to use trial and error to find the button, turning is camera off and on again, muting and then unmuting himself and eventually finding the correct button, switching to front view so that Tweek could see his face

"Thanks Tweek," Marsh said ,"I never could get the hang of these fancy gadgets."

"So what brings you here?"

"It's the results of my biodiversity investigation," he explained ,"there's something i think your Octonaut friends might want to see."

Ranger Marsh adjusted his grip on his tablet and pointed it at a cork board with a map pinned to the wall. The map had a view of multiple bodies of water and little notes next to them but many had huge red Xs through them.

"You see those red marks," he said ,"each one is a lake or river where biodiversity is extremely low, meaning there aren't many different types of animals and plants living there and what's worse is that i found some new type of predatory fish in every lake on this map."

"Oh me oh my!" Tweak exclaimed, "What type of fish was it?"

"That information is beyond me," he said ,"i couldn't capture a specimen and believe me i've tried. They chew through my nets, escape my tanks, and bite me if I try to grab them. I've done a sketch but i'm no artist."

Marsh held up a piece of paper with a drawn image of an odd looking fish on it. It looked like an eel that had its head smashed in. It also had a rounded tail fin along with a prominent pectoral one too.

"That doesn't look like any fish I've seen before," Tweak said, looking at the sketch,"i'd better get the other octonauts in here."

Tweak put down her tablet and leapt over to the Octo-Alert and slammed her hand against it.

"Octonauts, to the launch bay!"

(Octo-alert sequence)

"What is it Tweak?" asked the captain.

"I got a call from my pa about a sudden drop in biodiversity and some mysterious fish that is appearing in lakes."

Shelignton barged his way to the front of the crowd.

"Let's see this fish!"

March held up his sketch again and Shelington went pale.

"Jumping jellyfish!" he exclaimed, sitting down on a chair ,"this is bad."

"What is it?" Peso asked fearfully.

"That peso, looks to me like a Snakehead,"

Shelington pressed some buttons on the launch bay control panel and brought up an image of a snakehead.

"I've seen one of them before!" Kwazii exclaimed ,"we were talking to some see-through fish. What's the big deal?"

"Snakeheads, just like any animal have their place in their ecosystem." Shelington explained ,"but the natural place for a snakehead to like is in asia and africa, and this one is in america."

"So an invasive species," dashi said ,"an animal that has colonised a habitat it is not native to, often causing ecological harm.

"Exactly."shelington agreed ,"snakeheads like these are incredibly voracious predators. In healthy ecosystems they are introduced to, they often drive out all of the native hunters and become the apex predator but in habitats that are fragile or already struggling, snakeheads can off balance the ecosystem causing it to completely collapse."

"What should we do about it," Ranger marsh asked, "if we let them stay here for too long they'll only wreak more havoc."

"Correct," Shelington answered ,"they'll spread throughout the waterways of America, killing local wildlife and damaging the fragile balance in these ecosystems. They might even be able to reach all the way up to the great lakes and disrupt their fragile ecosystem."

"Sounds like you could use a helping hand managing all these invasive fish," the captain said, "Dashi, pilot the Octopod as close to the everglades as you can, we'll meet up with ranger marsh there."

"Already on it captain"

"Tweak, make sure all the gups are in good condition and bring some of your specialty fishing gear"

"You got it cap,"

"Octonauts, to the everglades!"

The Octopod touched down in the gulf of Mexico, just by the Florida peninsula.

"This is as far as we can go captain," Dashi said ,"we have to travel the rest of the way with the gups."

"Ok then, everyone into the gups." the captain ordered ,"you too vegimals we need all help we can"

Turnip gasped and pointed at the image of the snakehead, chirping fearfully.

"Don't worry turnip," Shelington comforted ,"snakheads are carnivores and don't eat vegetables."

Turnip breathed a sigh of relief and then hopped in one of the gups, the other vegimals close behind.

The rest of the octonauts piled into the gups A,B,E,K and C and then all one by one shot out of the Octo-hatch and off to the everglades.

The gups soon entered the large waterways of the everglades and were peacefully driving along the murky water.

"It's amazing how everything has completely regrown after the fires," Dashi remarked, taking some pictures," this place is so lush."

The Octonauts continued until Captain Barnacles saw something huge swim underneath the water in front of the gups. The captain waved his hand to halt the gups.

The gups all stopped in their tracks and waited for a few seconds to see if the fish would surface again.

Kwazii jumped onto the top of the gub-B and gestured to Shelington to give him the giant fishing net in the back of the gup-A. Once Shelington had given it to him, Kwazii stood on the edge of the gup waiting silently.

Suddenly, a ripple in the water. Kwazii swung the net picking up a huge long fish. Dashi wheeled around and snapped a picture of the massive eel-like fish in the net that was too small to hold it whatsoever.

"It's a snakehead!" Paso exclaimed, quivering with fear.

"That's the biggest snakehead i've heard of!" Shelington exclaimed, "it must be one from the giant snakehead species."

(as of now there have been no reports of giant snakeheads in the everglades and from the research i did, they could probably survive there but i'm not certain)

The fish was five feet long and had the characteristic smashed in head look and a noticeable, trapezium shaped caudal fin. It had a pale underbelly and a much smaller fin down its spine compared to the one Shelington showed a picture of .

"Good luck next time buster!" the snakehead shouted before easily escapeing the net that was minute in comparison and hopped back into the water.

"Oh me oh my!" Tweak exclaimed, "is that what we're up against?"

"not all of them are that big," Shelington explained ,"but that's the sort of fish we'll have to capture."

The octonauts forged onwards and soon arrived at Ranger Marsh's house. Marsh looked the crew, up and down, noticing how soaked Kwazii and Shelington were.

"I see you've met our new neighbour," Marsh chuckled ,"she's a feisty one."

"Well I'll say," Kwazii remarked, trying to pick the wet debris off his uniform.

"Well you all better come inside," he said ,"we have more than just one fish problem."

The ranger invited his guests inside and explained to them the situation.

"Up north are lots of smaller 'snakeheads'," he explained.

"Those would be northern Snakeheads," Shelington interjected

"I need a group of you to gather them up as best as you can. Then we have the huge one here in the everglades and tweak, i'd like you and your gup-K to help me capture this slippery fish."

"You got it pa!" tweak replied.

"And the rest of ya," Marsh said surveying the rest of hte octonauts,"you head up north and deal with the infestation up their. I trust that tweak knows what we'll need to catch the big one."

"Mm hmm," tweak relied, nodding ,"i've filled the Gup K with everything we will need, you can take the rest of the gups and all the equipment inside."

"I think we'll need it," the captain remarked ,"these fish sound slippery."

"We'll meet back up once our missions are complete," the ranger said ,"but make sure you don't underestimate these fish, they'll get the better of you."

The octonauts (minus tweak) manoeuvred their gups (minus the gup K) out of the everglades, along the coast, and up one of the rivers that lead into the north america mainland.

Ranger Marsh had given the octonauts a paper map of the area and Dashi had spent the last half hour tearing her hair out trying to find the exact location of the infestation but it was pinpointed in time and the crew were following a path to the area up a large river .

"We're here!" dashi announced and everyone stopped their gups,

Teh octonauts got out and regrouped on the river bank.

"Octonauts," the captain announced," the most important thing right now is to be careful. These fish can be aggressive so.."

"I GOT ONE CAPTAIN!" Kwazi yelled from the river.

He scrambled out the water with a huge wiggling fish in his arms. The ran over to his crew and dumped the fish into the giant water cooler the octonauts had set up to hold the snakeheads.

(like a giant version of one of these without a lid. It's not meant to cool the water I just imagined the tub having that sort of look)

"This is false prosecution!" the fish shouted, swimming about the cooler,"i'm innocent."

"I'm not fooling for your tricks you scallywag!" Kwazii replied, very much proud of himself ,"i know your secrets mr snakehead."

"Actually that's not a snakehead," shelington pointed out,"that's a bowfin. It's a native fish but is often mistaken for Snakeheads."

(a snakehead compared to bowfin)

"I told you, I committed no crime! Now let me go, you have no right to keep me in custody" the fish complained.

"Oh," Kwazii said defeatedly ,"sorry about that misunderstanding Mr Bowfin."

Kwazii then picked up the fish and released it back into the river.

"As I was saying," Barnacles continued ,"be careful and don't detain any innocent bowfins. Look out for the concave skull and the extra long anal fin. Now let's do some fishing."

Peso pulled a giant net out of the back of the gup and waddled over to the closest little pond. He put a morsel of food in the bottom of it and let the end if hte net sink into the water.

"Oh, this isn't so bad," peso remarked, sitting down on the grassy bank, "we should have land adventure more often."

As he was just relaxing, peso saw a dark form under the water slowly swim into the net and ate the little bit of food that he had put there.

"GAAAAH!" he yelled instinctively bringing the net upwards trapping the fish.

"GAAAH!" The fish also yelled squirming about in the net.

Everyone turned to see peso holding the captured snakehead high in the air danging in the mesh of the net. Everyone gathered round and looked at the fish writhing about in the net.

"Well that's one down," the captain remarked ,"it's a good start."

The fish seemed to be gnawing on the fibres on the net glaring at the octonauts with its beady eyes.

"Umm.. Now just take it over to transportation tank matey," Kwazii suggested , seeing peso still just lying on the floor staring at the snakehead. Peso shakily stood up and as he did the snakhead suddenl dropped out of the net.

"Your nets are no match for my teeth, Panda bird!"

The Snakehead began to wriggle back towards the water but Dashi stepped in and picked the fish up with one of tweak's grabbers and with the fish loudly shouting kid friendly swears, she dropped it into the water cooler.

(it'd shout things along the lines of: "oh you cheesy mud faced minnow, free me dagnabbit!")

"What have you done!" the fish yelled ,"why have you put me in a square pond!"

"We're taking you back to your natural habitat ," the captain explained, "we mean you no harm."

"I don't believe ya," the fish replied ,"I think that yous are gonna try and eat me."

"As a matter of fact," Shelington mentioned," Snakeheads are used in culinary..."

"Not the time Shelington," the captain cut in, "On my honour as an Octonaut, i promise that i won't eat you"

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!"

The fish, evidently not trusting the octonauts leapt out the tub and began to wriggle towards the river.

Kwazii ran over and tossed it back in the container, much to the frustration of the snakehead.

"Vegimals," the captain ordered," your job is to keep the snakeheads in this water cooler, try and build a makeshift cover to help keep them in."

"Cheepa Cheepa," Tunip replied dutifully.

"everyone else, fan out and catch as many snakeheads as you can. Octonauts, let's do this."

(this will be a three parter special so vote if you liked it and follow me for more. bye!)

Chapter Text

*!MONTAGE!**

Scene 1:

The captain is in the gup A with peso and Kwazii, all watching the water tentatively looking for snakeheads. They were standing there very still for a while but soon a snakehead swam to the surface to eat the morsel of food they had placed there.

They all swiped at the same time with their nets, catching the snakehead is three nets simultaneously.

Scene 2:

Shelington is doing some lure fishing with Codish by his side. He attached a fishing lure to the end of the hookless fishing rod and threw it into the water. He then gently reeled in letting the lure glide through the water as if it were a fish.

Out from the depths of the pond a snakehead emerged swimming after the lure and biting down on it.

Once he spotted the fish, Codish took a step back and leapt over the water landing on top of the snakehead in a belly flop.

Shellington raised up the fishing rod and laughed as he saw Codish holding onto the fishing line with a big wrigley snakehead in his other hand.

Scene 3:

Dashi put on some scuba gear and dived down into the river and began to slowly march along the river bed waving her arms about and yelling melodramatically.

All the fish in the river, snakhead or otherwise, were mortified by this foreign menace and began to swim away, further up the river. However, waiting for them upstream was inkling with a net in each arm, he swiped and swivelled and managed to catch every snakehead that passed him and dodge all the other fish.

"Thanks, " said a bluegill ,"those guys are nightmares."

"I'm glad to help," Inkling replied.

Scene 4:

The vegimals are marching around the cooler that now has a reasonable amount of fish in it.

"We jump on three," one snakehead said ,"1, 2 3!"

Simultaneously all the snakeheads leapt out of the tank and landed on the grass. They frantically wriggled to the water but were quickly picked up by the vegimals who put them back in the water cooler and gave them a condescending shake of the head.

Scene 5:

Peso is rummaging about in the gups when he finds a gigantic version of the Egg vacs from the Jawfish conundrum.

Peso grabbed it and jumped into the water immediately spotting and vacuuming in a snakehead. He then continued to swim around the pond vaccing up snakeheads and storing them in the oversized glass holding cell where the fish could swim about and loudly complain.

Scene 6:

Kwazii leapt into the water of the river and grabbed a large fish with his bear hands. he then ran over to the snakehead containment tank and plopped the fish in.

"This is a false accusation!" yelled the bowfin whom Kwazii had just dumped in the cooler,"get me out of here."

Turnip made tutting noises and shook his head as he took the bowfin out the tank and put it back in the river.

"Cheepa cheepa,"he said distastefully, looking at Kwazii with indignation.

"What?" Kwazii replied, "their basically the same"

Scene 7:

Shelington looked into the gup C and saw that there was an unusually large suitcase stashed in the back.

He yanked it out and plonked it on the river bank, trying to figure out how to open it. After a while he found a discrete button on the side and out of curiosity he pressed it.

Suddenly the bag exploded open revealing a mechanical mess of grabbers and cameras, all on spindly mechanical joints, hanging out like the arms of a basket star. Mechanical legs burst out the bottom allowing the insane looking machine to walk around.

Once all its limbs had been extended it promptly waddled along the riverbank using various cameras to scan the water and giant grabbers to pluck any snakehead out of it.

The octonauts all stepped back from the river bank as the robot shambled past sieving the water of any and all snakeheads.

"Tweak never runs out of tricks up her sleeve does she," Kwazii remarked watching it awe.

The octonauts stood proudly around the captured snakeheads who were swimming restlessly around the tank.

"Good work everyone," congratulated the captain, genuinely impressed ,"we've managed to clear this place of snakeheads."

"What do we do with them now,"Dashi asked ,"we can't just leave them here."

"That's right," Shelington answered ,"what we need to do is to load them onto the gup H and take them over to their native habitat in the rivers of china. Over there they are a balanced part of the food web and will not cause any ecological harm."

"We'll ferry them over the Atlantic ocean, make a pit stop in the British isles for a night's rest and then continue our journey over the continent of asia." the captain planned "I sent Kwazi off to get the Gup-H so we'll have to keep an eye on these fish while he does.

"So tweak," Marsh said ,"what fancy doohikies have you brought to catch this."

"I've packed three different gadgets to let us try three different fishing methods.

"What will we be starting with?" asked marsh

"Electrofishing"

Tweak pulled up a diagram of an electrofishing boat on her tablet

"That looks pretty comlpex."

"It is ," tweak agreed "but i'll try and break it down"

"On the boat there is a battery that connects to two electrodes that are hanging in the water, one is called an anode and the other is called a cathode. This means that when the battery tries to make a circuit the electricity must pass through the water to make the circuit"

As tweak was saying this she set up a mini version of this kind of circuit in a glass jar

(these diagrams are important so i have a link to them so you can see. https/r/Octonauts/comments/1fbu4cj/if_the_octonauts_could_crossover_with_any_other/ )

Tweak flipped on the switch as watched as the lightbulb lit up. (this is back to some ks2 physics but the big x in the circle is the light placed there with my godlike editing skills)

"Interesting, ranger marsh remarked ,"but how will this help us catch fish"

"Now here's the interesting bit," tweak said ," if you put something that is more conductive than the water in the area the current is passing through, the electricity will flow through that instead."

Tweak demonstrated this by dropping an LED into the water and watched as it lit up.

"Fish are more conductive than the water meaning that the electricity will pass through them instead of the water. Once this happens the fish pass out and float to the surface where they can be easily fished off the top of hte water with a net."

(i may have some faulty info here i'm not an expert, i'm an idiot with an internet connection)

"I guess I'll be the net person," Marsh said, picking up the fishing net ,"I hope I don't get electrocuted."

"Don't worry pa," tweak said ,"we're both too large for the current to have any real effect on us. I have to keep the strength low so I don't seriously injure any small fish, come i'll show you!"

Tweak jogged outside with her dad hot on her heels over to the gup K. tweak pressed a button on the dashboard and watched as the gup modified itself to become an electrofishing boat. The anode extended from the front of the gup and hung in the water as some plates shifted about underneath the gup exposing the cathode to the water

"Fancy!" Marsh remarked, "now lets see this thing in action."

The two rabbits hopped in the gup , tweak took the wheel and set the gup going while Marsh stood back with his net ready. As the gup trundled forward Marsh watched as fish of all shapes and sizes floated limply up to the surface of the water, all soring loudly as if the were in a deep sleep.

After a few seconds of lying on the water's surface, the fish wake, first the large ones wake up followed by the smaller fish. They then swim back down into the water again only slightly confused.

"What the heck happened?" asked one fish

"I don't know," answered another ,"and I don't really want to know."

"Is it working?" tweak asked ," I didn't have time to test because this tech doesn't work in salt water since the water's too conductive"

"It's working like a charm tweak," the ranger said ,"it's just a matter of time now."

The Gup K continued through the swampy landscape of the everglades stunning fish the whole time. Alligators watched from the river bank, mildly intrigued by the events and then went back to sleep .

The duo went on for hours down every waterway with the only sounds being the splash of the propeller and some background noises of the birds and bugs.

Suddenly a huge fish leapt out the surface of the water and flipped wildly in the air.

"GET IT GET IT!" Tweak yelled looking back at the giant snakehead.

Net forgotten, Ranger Marsh reached out and tried to grab the fish with his hands. The fish was falling fast and was also slippery so when Marsh tried to grab it's body, the fish slipped through and splashed into the water.

"Gaaah!" the snakehead exclaimed swimming away to the boat," what did you do to the water!"

"Uh oh, Tweak said, "the voltage wasn't enough to stun the snakehead, we just annoyed it."

"Right you did!" the snakehead yelled before swimming right down the river.

"Quick!" after him!" Marsh yelled ,"turn up the voltage."

"I can't do that," tweak admitted. "If I turn up the voltage any higher I risk hurting all the other fish in the river."

Marsh sighed sadly, looking at the retreating snakehead.

"Don't worry pa!" tweak comforted ,"i have some more ideas

Tweak and ranger marsh were back at the swamp hut

"So then, what's next," asked the ranger

"The fish trap"

Tweak placed a tablet on the table and pulled up a blueprint

"Hmmm, ok," the ranger said nodding as if he was pondering this plan ,"what does this blue paper screen mean"

Tweak sighed

"The way this trap works is it has a simple funnel at the front wish allows fish to easily swim it because the opening is big and easy to see but once the fish get into the trap the way out does not have any funnel leading to it meaning the exit is small and hard to notice. This makes it so that the fish will not be able to escape."

(i explained it best i could, if this was a cartoon there would be visuals but if you want to learn more there are plenty of videos)

"Ah, I see," ranger marsh said ,"this doesn't seem very techy to me. "

He poked the screen of the laptop and up popped an image of one of the trapps

"See, it's made of woven wood, that's not technology."

"Oh pa," tweak said, shaking her head ,"technology doesn't have to be fancy electrical stuff, all it has to be is a tool to help you complete a task. This house is technology ,this chair is technology, technology is everywhere."

"I never thought about it that way," Marsh said, "well then, let's start laying down these traps

Tweak jogged over to the gup K and pulled out a stack of flat packed fish traps.

"I flattened them out for transportation," tweak explained ,"to expand then you just pull on the corners,"

Tweak tossed one to her dad who tugged gently on the vertices allowing the trap to gracefully unfold into a large rectangular fish trap.

"All we gotta do to set these up is..."

Tweak walked over to the river bank and picked up a decently sized rock.

"Get a rock and a fish biscuit and place them in the trap"

After putting the stuff in the trap she then tossed it into the water

"Then after you toss it into the water, mark the spot on a map"

Tweak pulled out her tablet map and set a marker for where she was standing.

"Easy as pie!"

"I guess we'd better get started," ranger said we've got a lot of traps to set down

Tweak and ranger marsh tossed the final few trapps into the water and tweak marked it on her tablet map and marsh used a pencil to mark his off on a paper map of the area.

"Well, looks like we're done for now," marsh said ,"what should we do in the meantime

"Just relax for a bit," Tweak ,suggested ,"i remember some of the board games you had in the hut , they were fun

The two trekked back to the stilted house and ranger marsh began to rummage through some old boxes. After a few seconds of rummaging tweak pulled out a game of chess.

"Oh hey, I remember trying to get you to play this with me," tweak said , looking at the dusty box ,"do you remember the rules?"

The Octonauts only noticed the gup H when it was only a few hundred metres away from them.

Instead of flying it, Kwazii had dragged it behind the Gup B attached with a tow line. The Gup H wasn't exactly streamlined so it bounced and skipped along the water's surface like some drowning windsurfer.

Ahoy mateys" Kwazii yelled bringing the gup B to a stop, causing the gup H to sink into the water, "i got the Gup H!"

Turnip face palmed and sighed disappointedly.

"Kwazii," Captain Barnacles said ,"why did you drag the gup H here instead of driving it?"

"Well I couldn't leave the Gup B behind," he explained.

"But why didn't you use the Gup H to carry the Gup B over here," Peso asked ,"now the chairs are all wet."

"Ummm, I wanted to take the scenic route."

"Nevermind," the captain sighed ,"Kwazii peso and inkling, you three will come with me to help transport these snakeheads back home. Dashi, Shalington and turnip, your job is to tend to any ecological damage caused by the snakeheads and try and get these ecosystems back up and running."

"Got it captain," Dashi answered .

"Ok then," the captain said ,"I'm piloting the Gup H. vegimals, you help attach the snakeheads to the harness and add some sort of top to the cooler to stop the snakeheads from escaping or falling out."

The vegimals did as they were told and swiftly and messily nailed a metal mesh to the top of the water tank. They then attached the snakeheads to the base of the gup H. Peso and Inkling hopped in with him just as the captain took off

"Thank You vegimals!" he yelled as the gup H flew off over the land towards the atlantic. Kwazii jumped in the gup B Because he insisted that he didn't leave it behind and was certain he could keep up despite having to go round continents..

Once the gups were far away, the remaining group of octonauts were not sure what to do next.

"Shelington," dashi asked ,"how exactly are we meant to repair the ecosystems."

"Well," Shelington began, "over thousands of years the native creatures of these waterways have developed a stable way of coexisting with each and every organism. But when an invasive species like the snakehead is introduced, it throws the whole system off. So to fix this, we must remove any destructive invasive species and reintroduce the creatures that once lived here so they can rebuild."

Shelington beckoned his team over to a pond wish was completely chock full of one type of plant.

"This plant is called hydrilla," Shelington explained ,"it is not native to here and has taken over this entire pond creating a monoculture where it is the only plant that grows."

"It's absolutely terrible," said a fish from the lake, swimming up to the surface ,"I don't know how to eat this stuff, i'm starving."

"This place needs a serious cleanup," dashi said ,"or all these fish won't be able to live here any more."

"Cheep cheep," Codish agreed

"Well then" Shelington announced " Vegimals! Let's clean up this town!... Or pond"

The vegimals all leapt into the water and began to yank the hydrilla out the pond bed (now I know that this wouldn't work IRL because of seeds and stuff but don't worry about it).

The Gup H flew gracefully through the air, still dripping sea water but doing its job nonetheless. They flew all through the day, the tub of snakeheads sloshing back and forth and only approached the British isles at sunset.

"What!?" Kwazii exclaimed into his radio ,"sunset already, it's barely past noon!"

"It's because we're moving through time zones,'' Inkling explained ,"it's only about 4 o clock back in north america but here it is night ."

"Well you won't *yawn" catch me being tired yet."

"Regardless we still have to stop here," the captain said ,"we need to charge the gup H."

The octonauts landed fairly far inland by a large river so that the gups could dock.

"Kwazii, you set up the charging turbine," the captain commanded ,"Inkling and Peso, you set up the tents and I'll try to start a campfire.

Kwazii pulled a folded up windmill from the back of the gup H. He unfolded it, plugged it into the gup and stood it up so that the blades at the top of the turbine spun in the wind, changing the gup.

Peso struggled to get the tend poles in the right holes due to his lack of opposable thumbs but inkling pinked up the slack by constructing tents at breakneck pace, using his dexterous tentacles to thread the tent poles through the fabric loops that keep them in place.

Soon the camp was all set up. The captain had a decent sized campfire going, the wood sputtering as the surroundings were very wet due to recent rain.

"It really is muddy here," peso remarked ,"I hope our tents are OK,"

"I'm sure they'll be fine, these are designed to survive floods and gails, a little mud won't do much."

"Well then," the captain yawned, "I guess it's time to clock out for tonight. Come on Kwazii off to bed."

" whadooyameen" Kwazii yawned ,"i'm not tired yet. i'm sock-turnal."

"You mean Nocturnal." the captain corrected, "I guess you could stay up a little longer. Just put out the fire when your done."

With that ,the captain and the rest of the crew all went into their respective tents and zipped them shut, leaving Kwazii by the fire."

"Whywouldtheythinkthati'm tired." Kwazii said, sluring his speech he was so tired " tigers are experts at.. Staying.. Awake...zzzzzzzzz"

Kwazii fell asleep, falling backwards off the stool he was sitting on and snoring loudly.

In the dead of night the snakeheads grew restless. They swam about, itching to escape their watery prison

One extremely determined snakehead swam down to the bottom of the water cooler and then shot up, launching itself up against the wire mesh covering the top of the water cooler. the metal clunked loudly and dented with the impact.

The fish once again dove to the bottom of the tub and rammed into the metal mesh again. At this point the other fish had caught on to what was happening and joined in the clunking.

The makeshift lid of the water cooler warped and misshaped as the fish continued to clobber themselves against it. Eventually due to continual impacts of the snakeheads, one of the nails holding the top on popped off, leaving a gaping hole between the water cooler and the mesh lid.

And as the octonauts slept, the snakehead trout, one by one began to slip out their enclosure and wriggled away towards the river.

Chapter Text

(Final part! i know the plot is a bit of a mess but it works.)

The cleanup group looked down at the cleaned out ponds which looked murky and lifeless.

"It looks worse than when we started," dashi remarked, "at least all the hydrilla looked alive."

"I know it looks bad," said a perch from the water ,"but that hydrilla was taking up all the space the good plants used to grow in."

"That's right," Shellington said ,"now we have a blank slate which we can fill with native plants and animals that all work together to make a great ecosystem."

"Cheepa cheepa?" Codish asked.

"We'll get organisms to populate these waters from healthy ponds and rivers where the snakeheads have not invaded." Shellington answered

"Well go on then," the perch said again ,"get going, us fish can only survive in a broken ecosystem for so long."

Shellington and Co tracked through the American countryside looking for healthy waters.

"Have you seen this fish?" Shelington asked the inhabitants of one river, holding up a snakehead picture.

"Yea, i know those dudes," a bass said ,"they ate all my food, but a penguin caught them all."

"Ok then, thanks for your help," dashi thanked and the group moved on

"Miles of walking and nothing," Shelington complained crossing that river off on the map

"We certainly cleared a lot of snakeheads," dashi commented

The group approached another waterway and greeted the resident fish.

"Hello there. Have you seen this fish?" Shellington asked once again holding up the picture of the snakehead.

"He that kinda looks like larry," a catfish said ," hey, larry come check this out!"

Larry swam to the surface and all the octonauts breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that Larry was a bowfin not a snakehead.

"What do you mean, that looks nothing like me?" Larry said ,"honestly you people!"

"So have you not seen any fish that looks like this?" dashi asked

"No I don't think so," Larry said ," it looks like I swam into a wall too quickly."

"Perfect! " Shellington yelled ," clapping his hands, "how would you fish like to have a new home."

"Hmm," thought the catfish ,"I'm interested. Tell me more."

"Well it's a bit of a fixer upper," Dashi explained, "but I assure you it will be a great place to live."

"Well count me in!" Larry confirmed, "how do we get there."

"Chaipa Chaipa," Codish explained, activating the fish pack, and gesturing to it.

"Sounds good to me," the catfish said, "let's go."

Barrot opened his fish pack and let the fish

"Looks like we got our first takers," dashi said ,"vegimals, you keep persuade more fish to come and help populate the ponds while me and Shellington take plant cuttings to replant "

The group all dived into the water and swam off to do their various things.

The vegimals began to pitch their offer of free real estate. Many fish were interested in the deal and the vegimals quickly filled up loads of fish packs. Each vegimal had one on their back and one on their front to carry maximum fish-idge. They were also the jumbo fish packs instead of the regular ones.

Meanwhile Shellington was picking sprigs of healthy water pants and giving them to dashi who potted them into little seedling modules.

They were soon all done, all the fish and plants collected.

"Everybody here!" shellington ascked.

The fish all babbled various versions of "yes" or "yea" in reply.

"Great then," off we go! To your new homes."

"And checkmate!" tweak announced.

It was dusk in the everglades and the two rabbits had just finished their game of chess

"Huh," Marsh said confusedly, "but my king's all the way back here!"

"That's your queen pa," tweak explained, "that's your king here, between your pawn and my knight."

"Oh,well, good game," he said ,"now I think it's time to check the trapps."

"Not yet I set an alarm...

BEEP BEEP* *BEEP BEEP*

"Well there goes your alarm." ranger marsh said "come on, let's see if we caught ourselves a snakehead."

The two walked along the riverbank pulling up all the fish traps and checking their contents. Most of them were full of very annoyed native fish.

"What's the big idea," complained a yellow bullhead as tweak took her out the trap

"Sorry," tweak apologised ,"we were looking for a different guy."

They continued checking each fish trap, well into the night. It was almost pich black when tweak reached one that was particularly heavy.

"Hey pa, help me with this one, I think we caught a biggun."

Ranger marsh, pointed his torch over to where Tweak was went over to help his daughter pull up the trap. The water around the trap was agitated, indicating there was a large fish down in the trap

"I think this one might be our prize!" he said excitedly ," three two one pull!"

The two bunnies yanked on the fish trap but when they did pull it was somehow miraculously light. Tweak looked quizzically at the fish trap that had a massive hole in the side of it containing only one young redfish flopping about at the bottom.

"Stop gawping!" the redfish yelled ,"he's getting away."

"Who?" they both said.

"The snakehead!"

Marsh and Tweak turned sharply and saw a large form in the water quickly swimming

"Oh,carrot tops we were so close," the ranger exclaimed in annoyance

"Don't worry pa," Tweak said ,"i've got one more trick up my sleeve. You'll see what I mean tomorrow. Now i think it's time for some *yawn* sleep"

The captain woke up at the crack of dawn and stretched his arms and legs. He got up and took a swig from his octo-bottle to wash the taste of morning out his mouth.

He yawned and unzipped his tent, walking out into the tepid damp of the UK. he looked over at the snakehead tank and saw the busted up top of it. He ran through the wet grass and looked inside the tank and saw it was all empty.

Kwazi! Peso! Inkling!" he yelled ," the snakeheads have escaped!"

The rest of the crew scrambled out of bed and ran over to see for them selves

"Flappity flippers," peso cried ,"we just caught them all."

Kwazii looked around frantically and noticed a fish on the floor a while away from the tank. He ran over and picked it up and it was a snakehead.

"Oi, what are you doing out here!" Kwazii accused

"Doh you caught me," the snakehead said defeatedly ,"I was trying to escape."

"Also how are you alive, you've been out of the water for ages." Kwazii asked

"I know why," Inkling perked up, walking his way over to Kwazii, "snakeheads are able to breathe air for multiple days, it's one of the things that makes them such versatile creatures."

"More importantly, where did the other snakeheads go?" the captain demanded

"Oh they went to the river," the snakehead said ,"they left like an hour ago."

"Oh no!" Inkling exclaimed ,"the weather on the British isles are suitable for snakeheads to live in, if we lose them then they could wreak havoc on the native ecosystems, just like they did in america."

"We have to act fast," the captain said ,"I'll pilot the Gup H and Peso, you use the Octo-goggles to track down and locate the fish. Kwazii and inkling you take the gup B and catch the snakeheads. Octonauts let's do this."

(i know they primarily only do that once per episode but it'd be dumb not to use it here)

The captain piloted the gup H through the air at Max speed the gup tilted in the air at a precarious angle.

Peso was struggling to stay on his seat with the erratic movements of the gup and the intense tilt that it had. he had also accidentally set his octo-goggles to mega zoom before he was ready and as a result was grabbing frantically onto his chair in fear and confusion

"Focus up peso," the captain said ,"i need you to spot the snakeheads from up here."

Peso took some deep breaths and stabilised himself in the chair. He then nervously peaked his head out the side of the gup H and looked down at the river below which looked jarringly close with the zoom of the octo-goggles.

The Gup B was trailing along below the gup H. Kwazi was in the cockpit steering the gup and Inkling was latched onto the top of the gup with his tentacles, and using all his spare tentacles to hold fishing nets

"See them yet matey?" Kwazii asked, talking into his communication collar

"Not yet..." Peso replied.

"I hope we find them soon," Inkling said ,"freshwater makes me feel weird."

"There up ahead !" Peso yelled ,"i see a group of snakeheads!"

The snakehead were in a loosely knit shoal and were swimming downstream at high speed.

"Keep swimming," yelled the lead snakehead ,"we've got to get as far away from those octonauts as possible."

Kwazzi accelerated the gup B towards the snakeheads and inkling readied his arms to catch the fish.

"Hey snakeheads!" Kwazii yelled ,"try wriggling out of this one."

The Gup B shot right through the middle of the snakehead shoal, inkling's tentacles moving in a blur, swinging about like mad to catch all the fish. Kwazii piloted the gup towards any stray snakeheads, doing figure 8s in the water while Inkling fished them out .

In one of his turns Kwazii miscalculated how close he was to the river bank and bashed the tail of the Gup B against it, breaking the engine and mangling the tail.

"Doh," Kwazii exclaimed.

"Oh don't worry Kwazii," Inkling comforted, "I think i've got them all."

"Actually there's one left," Peso pointed out, looking down at the River, "it's still swimming downstream."

"I don't think me and inkling will be able to get this one matey," Kwazii said ."the gup B is damaged and inkling needs to get out the freshwater."

"It's giving me quite the headache," Inkling remarked.

(i know that actual dumbo octopi would be dead by now but inkling is just different he lives out of water)

"Peso," the captain said ," your going to have to dive for it."

"Oh that shouldn't be so bad, we're only a bit above the river."

The captain reached over and took the octo-goggles of him, revealing that they were about 20 metres above the river.

"FLAPPITY FLIPPERS!" Peso yelled, "i can't dive from up here."

"I believe in you Peso," the captain comforted ,"you can do this."

"You've got this matey, just go for it ," Kwazii urged

"Ok." Peso said reluctantly ,"I'll do it."

Peos poised himself at the edge of the gup H in a diving position and looked down, catching sight of the snakehead swimming below. He took a deep breath and jumped head down and eyes focussed on the fish.

He hit the water with a quiet *bloop, disappearing underwater and taking the snakehead down with him. Moments later, he appeared back at the surface, snakehead proudly clutched between his flippers.

"Way to go matey!" Kwazii congratulated, bobbing to the surface," that should be all of them."

"Actually," inkling said crossing some stuff off on a clipboard," we seem to still be missing ten."

"I know where they went," the snakehead peso caught said ,"they wents upstream."

Everybody gasped

"UPSTREAM!"

"What now?" aske one of the snakeheads

"I don't know "said the other one.

A Group of ten snakeheads that had gone upstream were swimming uncertainty around in the plunger pool of a waterfall.

"What is this thing?" wondered another snakehead ,"water is supposed to be horizontal."

One snakehead tried to swim up it and just ended up wiggling about on the surface of the water looking stupid.

Soon a fubbing sound came from above as the gup H descended, landing on the river bank.

"BOOOOO!" the fish shouted as all the octonauts climbed out of it,"no fair!"

"Sorry snakeheads," the captain apologised , "but you need to go home."

"hurumph ," one snakehead huffed ,"boys, the jig's up let's get in the water tub."

There was much groaning and complaining from the snakeheads but they calmly filed into a line and the octonauts put them into the water tub.

Kwazii nailed the mesh back onto the top of the tub .

"Now now more trying to escape," Kwazii warned ,"because this pirate is well rested and ready to deal with any sort of shenanigans you might be causing."

"Come of Kwazii stop taunting the fish," the captain said, waving him over to the gup H door, "we have to get these guys back to their natural habitat."

"Got it captain" he said Hopping into the gup H just as it took off and flew further due east

It was morning in the everglades and Ranger Marsh was itching to see Tweaks third and final fish catching technology.

"Ish ik kime yek?" he asked, his mouth full of breakfast.

"In a moment Pa," tweak chuckled ,"just got to finish my porridge."

Tweak soon emptied her bowl and then brought over her tablet and pulled up the blueprint.

"The next fishing method we will use is called spear fishing."

"Sound's violent," marsh said disapprovingly ,"we don't want to hurt the fish?"

"I've made some modifications." tweak explained, "spear fishing is one of the oldest fishing methods in the whole world. To do it you must position yourself above the water on a ledge or in a tree, and make sure you have a spear with you. Then when you see a fish you jump down from the tree and catch it with the spear. Now normally this would hurt the fish (that's an understatement) but i've invented a new method."

Tweak reached behind her and pulled out what looked like a long metal plunger.

"Ooh!" Marsh said, clapping his hands excitedly.

" the suction cup at the end should effectively latch onto any fish you jab it with. It also works with some other things."

To demonstrate, tweak walked outside and stuck her modified spear against the side of the gup K. she then jumped up onto it and balanced on the long handel, bouncin up and down to prove its strength.

"Ain't no fish swimming away from that." ranger marsh remarked smirking.

"You got that right pa," tweak said, pressing a button on the handel and unsticking the plunger/spear, " i'll use the gup K and try to scare the snakehead into the place where you are set up and then you will use my modified spear to catch the giant snakehead."

"I'm not sure about this tweak," marsh said ,"i'm not good with technology, i kept having to call you to help me fix stuff i broke on my octo-tablet."

"Don't worry pa," tweak comforted ,"it'll be fine, you helped me set out traps and electro fish, I've seen you work technology, just believe in yourself."

Tweak handed the spear to the ranger to take it tentatively and seemed to gain confidence as he got more used to feeling it in his hand.

" i know a good spot where i could stand," marsh said ," a kilometre down this river, and to the right there is a big charred tree trunk, i'll stand up there and you can try to lure it over there."

"You got it pa!"

Ranger marsh was standing atop the charred tree trunk holding the long plunger up ready to strike. He was used to waiting, there was a lot of it when doing surveys and managing the health of the everglades and this was just another to the list.

In the distance he heard the sound of approaching churning water. Moments later the Gup K burst round the corner with the giant snakehead frantically swimming in front of it, trying to get away from the gup.

Once tweak saw her father ready and waiting with the snakehead in the area, she parked the gup, gave some thumbs up and jogged off into the woods to wait.

Ranger marsh kept his eye on the fish as best he could, hoping it would come near his spot. He watched as it swam about the wide sluggish river fairly aimlessly, swimming through the dense weeds and cloudy waters drifting in and out of sight in the water.

After a long while the fish meandered over to where ranger marsh was standing. It swum lazily right below the charred tree and began to slowly swim about the reeds.

Ranger Marsh took his chance. He jumped, the wind in his ears, eyes focussed on the fish below, spear pointed towards it best he could and...

!SPLOOSH!

Ranger burst to the surface and triumphantly held up the plunger spear, which was now complete with a massive snakehead on the end of it.

"Release me!" the snakehead yelled ,"let me go! What is this thing that i'm stuck to

"Woy to go pa!" tweak congratulated running out from the everglade woods.

"All in a day's work," he said proudly ," now let's get this fish home,"

The gup H touched down in eastern China, the snakeheads still swimming about in the tub. The octonauts all got out and unclipped the water cooler from the gup H.

"Welcome home snakeheads," the captain greeted them, pulling the nails out from the top of the plastic tub using the back of a hammer ,"do you like the look of it?"

The snakeheads all poked their heads over the edge of their holding tank and began to ooh and aah at the surroundings.

"Feels like home," one snakehead exclaimed excitedly ,"come on gang let's go explore."

With that the snakehead all jumped and flopped out of the water cooler and began to wriggle towards the nearby river. Once they plunged in they began to swim about happily exploring the various nooks and crannies of the river.

"Thank you for bringing us to our natural habitat, Octonauts," thanked one of the snakeheads ,"i feel so much more at home here."

"No need to thank us," the captain said, "we're the octonauts, it's what we do."

The octonauts all bid farewell to the pesky snakeheads and waved them off as they swam off ready to continue life in their natural habitat

Suddenly, Captain Barnacles' octo-compass buzzed. He plucked it off his belt and saw then it was a message from Shellington.

"Octonauts!" he announced ,"Shellington said to meet back at the place we caught the northern snakeheads. So everyone back into the gup H.

The octonauts filed back into the helicopter and took of once again,

The Gup K skimmed over the ocean, propellers whirring loudly. Tweak has secured the giant snakehead in a giant transparent fish tank that was installed on the back of the gup.

"Let me out!" the fish yelled ,"and turn up the heat as well, it's so cold."

"Don't worry," tweak said ,"we're taking you somewhere nice and warm."

"Oh really?" the snakehead questioned ,"will i be going back to the rainforest back in my home in Java."

"You sure will," tweak answered, "pa plot a route to the island of Java."

"Omm ok, i'll try."

Ranger Marsh looked at the screen on the gup K which was already displaying a map. He clicked on the island labelled Java which was in Australasia and then clicked the button that read, "plot route."

Once he did, an orange dotted line appeared, showing the best route to the island.

"Hey they weren't too bad," he said, sitting down on the driver's seat and guiding the gup along the line.

After a long while on the ocean, the gup finally arrived at the island of Java. It trundled up one of the main rivers until it was deep into the rainforest.

"Looks like this is your stop," ranger marsh said.

Tweak popped off the lid off the fish tank and the giant snakehead immediately leapt into the water.

"Thank you," the snakehead said ,"i never thought i would be able to get home again."

"It's my duty to protect and help the everglades and its inhabitants even if they're an invasive species."

"Thanks again!" the fish said before swimming off into the rainforest.

After the two bunnys had finished waving goodbye, Tweak's octo-tablet vibrated. she picked it up and saw that it was

"Looks like we have to drive all the way back to north america," she said ,"Shellington said that we should all meet up back there."

Marsh groaned

"It'll take ages to go all the way back there."

At the moment, Marsh and Tweak heard a voice from above say ,"looks like you could need a lift."

They looked up and laughed when they saw captain barnacles piloting the Gup H that was hovering above.

"Ahoy matey," Kwazii called ,"we'll get you back over there faster than you can say bruch a punchey lump of shallots."

Shelington , Dashi and the vegimals were playing piggy in the middle. Turnip, Barrot and Grouber were currently in the middle in a vegimal stack, as to get extra height. Dash tried to throw the ball over them but Grouber used his flippers to fling Barrot up into the air where he was able to catch the ball.

The vegimals all high fived each other as they switched places with dashi.

"Hey look," Shellington said ,"it's the captain and the rest of the crew!"

Everyone turned to see the gup H, carrying the gup K, flying low over the land towards them.

"Ahoy mateys," Kwazii called, leaning out the side of the helicopter ,"I like what you've done with the place."

"Oh yes," Shellington said ,"we've restored the ecological balance in these pools.

The once barren ponds full of snakeheads and malnourished fish were now full of life, with a huge variety of plants all growing throughout the pond all still seedlings making the water look young. The water bubbled with life, fish swimming about happily, frolicing between the reeds.

The gup H landed and everyone filed out onto the river bank.

"You guys have done a fine job at cleaning up this area," Ranger Marsh complemented "there's now way i would be able to do this all on my own."

"Well if you ever need us again," the captain said ,"be sure to call, and we'll be ready."

"Well then it looks like our work here is done," tweak said ,"it's been great to work with you pa."

The two hugged and then Tweak stood back and looked at all the gups that were lined up in the river."

"Say Kwazii," she asked ,"where's the gup B"

"Ummm," Kwazii hesitated ,"well we had a bit of an incident. It's currently at the bottom of a river ont hte other side of an ocean."

"Kwazii!" tweak groaned rolling her eyes.

All the octonauts burst out laughing and 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:

Snakeheads are resilient

Check! Check! Check!

So they can live in places that they shouldn't

Check! Check! Mee!

They are able to breath air for days

Creature Report! Creature Report!

Letting them move between waterways

Creature Report! Creature Report!

They are effective predators

Check! Check! Chup!

And in many places they are damaging invaders

Dance Break!

Go Snakehead, Go Snakehead,Go Snakehead!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

Chapter Text

(Final part! i know the plot is a bit of a mess but it works.)

The cleanup group looked down at the cleaned out ponds which looked murky and lifeless.

"It looks worse than when we started," dashi remarked, "at least all the hydrilla looked alive."

"I know it looks bad," said a perch from the water ,"but that hydrilla was taking up all the space the good plants used to grow in."

"That's right," Shellington said ,"now we have a blank slate which we can fill with native plants and animals that all work together to make a great ecosystem."

"Cheepa cheepa?" Codish asked.

"We'll get organisms to populate these waters from healthy ponds and rivers where the snakeheads have not invaded." Shellington answered

"Well go on then," the perch said again ,"get going, us fish can only survive in a broken ecosystem for so long."

Shellington and Co tracked through the American countryside looking for healthy waters.

"Have you seen this fish?" Shelington asked the inhabitants of one river, holding up a snakehead picture.

"Yea, i know those dudes," a bass said ,"they ate all my food, but a penguin caught them all."

"Ok then, thanks for your help," dashi thanked and the group moved on

"Miles of walking and nothing," Shelington complained crossing that river off on the map

"We certainly cleared a lot of snakeheads," dashi commented

The group approached another waterway and greeted the resident fish.

"Hello there. Have you seen this fish?" Shellington asked once again holding up the picture of the snakehead.

"He that kinda looks like larry," a catfish said ," hey, larry come check this out!"

Larry swam to the surface and all the octonauts breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that Larry was a bowfin not a snakehead.

"What do you mean, that looks nothing like me?" Larry said ,"honestly you people!"

"So have you not seen any fish that looks like this?" dashi asked

"No I don't think so," Larry said ," it looks like I swam into a wall too quickly."

"Perfect! " Shellington yelled ," clapping his hands, "how would you fish like to have a new home."

"Hmm," thought the catfish ,"I'm interested. Tell me more."

"Well it's a bit of a fixer upper," Dashi explained, "but I assure you it will be a great place to live."

"Well count me in!" Larry confirmed, "how do we get there."

"Chaipa Chaipa," Codish explained, activating the fish pack, and gesturing to it.

"Sounds good to me," the catfish said, "let's go."

Barrot opened his fish pack and let the fish

"Looks like we got our first takers," dashi said ,"vegimals, you keep persuade more fish to come and help populate the ponds while me and Shellington take plant cuttings to replant "

The group all dived into the water and swam off to do their various things.

The vegimals began to pitch their offer of free real estate. Many fish were interested in the deal and the vegimals quickly filled up loads of fish packs. Each vegimal had one on their back and one on their front to carry maximum fish-idge. They were also the jumbo fish packs instead of the regular ones.

Meanwhile Shellington was picking sprigs of healthy water pants and giving them to dashi who potted them into little seedling modules.

They were soon all done, all the fish and plants collected.

"Everybody here!" shellington ascked.

The fish all babbled various versions of "yes" or "yea" in reply.

"Great then," off we go! To your new homes."

"And checkmate!" tweak announced.

It was dusk in the everglades and the two rabbits had just finished their game of chess

"Huh," Marsh said confusedly, "but my king's all the way back here!"

"That's your queen pa," tweak explained, "that's your king here, between your pawn and my knight."

"Oh,well, good game," he said ,"now I think it's time to check the trapps."

"Not yet I set an alarm...

BEEP BEEP* *BEEP BEEP*

"Well there goes your alarm." ranger marsh said "come on, let's see if we caught ourselves a snakehead."

The two walked along the riverbank pulling up all the fish traps and checking their contents. Most of them were full of very annoyed native fish.

"What's the big idea," complained a yellow bullhead as tweak took her out the trap

"Sorry," tweak apologised ,"we were looking for a different guy."

They continued checking each fish trap, well into the night. It was almost pich black when tweak reached one that was particularly heavy.

"Hey pa, help me with this one, I think we caught a biggun."

Ranger marsh, pointed his torch over to where Tweak was went over to help his daughter pull up the trap. The water around the trap was agitated, indicating there was a large fish down in the trap

"I think this one might be our prize!" he said excitedly ," three two one pull!"

The two bunnies yanked on the fish trap but when they did pull it was somehow miraculously light. Tweak looked quizzically at the fish trap that had a massive hole in the side of it containing only one young redfish flopping about at the bottom.

"Stop gawping!" the redfish yelled ,"he's getting away."

"Who?" they both said.

"The snakehead!"

Marsh and Tweak turned sharply and saw a large form in the water quickly swimming

"Oh,carrot tops we were so close," the ranger exclaimed in annoyance

"Don't worry pa," Tweak said ,"i've got one more trick up my sleeve. You'll see what I mean tomorrow. Now i think it's time for some *yawn* sleep"

The captain woke up at the crack of dawn and stretched his arms and legs. He got up and took a swig from his octo-bottle to wash the taste of morning out his mouth.

He yawned and unzipped his tent, walking out into the tepid damp of the UK. he looked over at the snakehead tank and saw the busted up top of it. He ran through the wet grass and looked inside the tank and saw it was all empty.

Kwazi! Peso! Inkling!" he yelled ," the snakeheads have escaped!"

The rest of the crew scrambled out of bed and ran over to see for them selves

"Flappity flippers," peso cried ,"we just caught them all."

Kwazii looked around frantically and noticed a fish on the floor a while away from the tank. He ran over and picked it up and it was a snakehead.

"Oi, what are you doing out here!" Kwazii accused

"Doh you caught me," the snakehead said defeatedly ,"I was trying to escape."

"Also how are you alive, you've been out of the water for ages." Kwazii asked

"I know why," Inkling perked up, walking his way over to Kwazii, "snakeheads are able to breathe air for multiple days, it's one of the things that makes them such versatile creatures."

"More importantly, where did the other snakeheads go?" the captain demanded

"Oh they went to the river," the snakehead said ,"they left like an hour ago."

"Oh no!" Inkling exclaimed ,"the weather on the British isles are suitable for snakeheads to live in, if we lose them then they could wreak havoc on the native ecosystems, just like they did in america."

"We have to act fast," the captain said ,"I'll pilot the Gup H and Peso, you use the Octo-goggles to track down and locate the fish. Kwazii and inkling you take the gup B and catch the snakeheads. Octonauts let's do this."

(i know they primarily only do that once per episode but it'd be dumb not to use it here)

The captain piloted the gup H through the air at Max speed the gup tilted in the air at a precarious angle.

Peso was struggling to stay on his seat with the erratic movements of the gup and the intense tilt that it had. he had also accidentally set his octo-goggles to mega zoom before he was ready and as a result was grabbing frantically onto his chair in fear and confusion

"Focus up peso," the captain said ,"i need you to spot the snakeheads from up here."

Peso took some deep breaths and stabilised himself in the chair. He then nervously peaked his head out the side of the gup H and looked down at the river below which looked jarringly close with the zoom of the octo-goggles.

The Gup B was trailing along below the gup H. Kwazi was in the cockpit steering the gup and Inkling was latched onto the top of the gup with his tentacles, and using all his spare tentacles to hold fishing nets

"See them yet matey?" Kwazii asked, talking into his communication collar

"Not yet..." Peso replied.

"I hope we find them soon," Inkling said ,"freshwater makes me feel weird."

"There up ahead !" Peso yelled ,"i see a group of snakeheads!"

The snakehead were in a loosely knit shoal and were swimming downstream at high speed.

"Keep swimming," yelled the lead snakehead ,"we've got to get as far away from those octonauts as possible."

Kwazzi accelerated the gup B towards the snakeheads and inkling readied his arms to catch the fish.

"Hey snakeheads!" Kwazii yelled ,"try wriggling out of this one."

The Gup B shot right through the middle of the snakehead shoal, inkling's tentacles moving in a blur, swinging about like mad to catch all the fish. Kwazii piloted the gup towards any stray snakeheads, doing figure 8s in the water while Inkling fished them out .

In one of his turns Kwazii miscalculated how close he was to the river bank and bashed the tail of the Gup B against it, breaking the engine and mangling the tail.

"Doh," Kwazii exclaimed.

"Oh don't worry Kwazii," Inkling comforted, "I think i've got them all."

"Actually there's one left," Peso pointed out, looking down at the River, "it's still swimming downstream."

"I don't think me and inkling will be able to get this one matey," Kwazii said ."the gup B is damaged and inkling needs to get out the freshwater."

"It's giving me quite the headache," Inkling remarked.

(i know that actual dumbo octopi would be dead by now but inkling is just different he lives out of water)

"Peso," the captain said ," your going to have to dive for it."

"Oh that shouldn't be so bad, we're only a bit above the river."

The captain reached over and took the octo-goggles of him, revealing that they were about 20 metres above the river.

"FLAPPITY FLIPPERS!" Peso yelled, "i can't dive from up here."

"I believe in you Peso," the captain comforted ,"you can do this."

"You've got this matey, just go for it ," Kwazii urged

"Ok." Peso said reluctantly ,"I'll do it."

Peos poised himself at the edge of the gup H in a diving position and looked down, catching sight of the snakehead swimming below. He took a deep breath and jumped head down and eyes focussed on the fish.

He hit the water with a quiet *bloop, disappearing underwater and taking the snakehead down with him. Moments later, he appeared back at the surface, snakehead proudly clutched between his flippers.

"Way to go matey!" Kwazii congratulated, bobbing to the surface," that should be all of them."

"Actually," inkling said crossing some stuff off on a clipboard," we seem to still be missing ten."

"I know where they went," the snakehead peso caught said ,"they wents upstream."

Everybody gasped

"UPSTREAM!"

"What now?" aske one of the snakeheads

"I don't know "said the other one.

A Group of ten snakeheads that had gone upstream were swimming uncertainty around in the plunger pool of a waterfall.

"What is this thing?" wondered another snakehead ,"water is supposed to be horizontal."

One snakehead tried to swim up it and just ended up wiggling about on the surface of the water looking stupid.

Soon a fubbing sound came from above as the gup H descended, landing on the river bank.

"BOOOOO!" the fish shouted as all the octonauts climbed out of it,"no fair!"

"Sorry snakeheads," the captain apologised , "but you need to go home."

"hurumph ," one snakehead huffed ,"boys, the jig's up let's get in the water tub."

There was much groaning and complaining from the snakeheads but they calmly filed into a line and the octonauts put them into the water tub.

Kwazii nailed the mesh back onto the top of the tub .

"Now now more trying to escape," Kwazii warned ,"because this pirate is well rested and ready to deal with any sort of shenanigans you might be causing."

"Come of Kwazii stop taunting the fish," the captain said, waving him over to the gup H door, "we have to get these guys back to their natural habitat."

"Got it captain" he said Hopping into the gup H just as it took off and flew further due east

It was morning in the everglades and Ranger Marsh was itching to see Tweaks third and final fish catching technology.

"Ish ik kime yek?" he asked, his mouth full of breakfast.

"In a moment Pa," tweak chuckled ,"just got to finish my porridge."

Tweak soon emptied her bowl and then brought over her tablet and pulled up the blueprint.

"The next fishing method we will use is called spear fishing."

"Sound's violent," marsh said disapprovingly ,"we don't want to hurt the fish?"

"I've made some modifications." tweak explained, "spear fishing is one of the oldest fishing methods in the whole world. To do it you must position yourself above the water on a ledge or in a tree, and make sure you have a spear with you. Then when you see a fish you jump down from the tree and catch it with the spear. Now normally this would hurt the fish (that's an understatement) but i've invented a new method."

Tweak reached behind her and pulled out what looked like a long metal plunger.

"Ooh!" Marsh said, clapping his hands excitedly.

" the suction cup at the end should effectively latch onto any fish you jab it with. It also works with some other things."

To demonstrate, tweak walked outside and stuck her modified spear against the side of the gup K. she then jumped up onto it and balanced on the long handel, bouncin up and down to prove its strength.

"Ain't no fish swimming away from that." ranger marsh remarked smirking.

"You got that right pa," tweak said, pressing a button on the handel and unsticking the plunger/spear, " i'll use the gup K and try to scare the snakehead into the place where you are set up and then you will use my modified spear to catch the giant snakehead."

"I'm not sure about this tweak," marsh said ,"i'm not good with technology, i kept having to call you to help me fix stuff i broke on my octo-tablet."

"Don't worry pa," tweak comforted ,"it'll be fine, you helped me set out traps and electro fish, I've seen you work technology, just believe in yourself."

Tweak handed the spear to the ranger to take it tentatively and seemed to gain confidence as he got more used to feeling it in his hand.

" i know a good spot where i could stand," marsh said ," a kilometre down this river, and to the right there is a big charred tree trunk, i'll stand up there and you can try to lure it over there."

"You got it pa!"

Ranger marsh was standing atop the charred tree trunk holding the long plunger up ready to strike. He was used to waiting, there was a lot of it when doing surveys and managing the health of the everglades and this was just another to the list.

In the distance he heard the sound of approaching churning water. Moments later the Gup K burst round the corner with the giant snakehead frantically swimming in front of it, trying to get away from the gup.

Once tweak saw her father ready and waiting with the snakehead in the area, she parked the gup, gave some thumbs up and jogged off into the woods to wait.

Ranger marsh kept his eye on the fish as best he could, hoping it would come near his spot. He watched as it swam about the wide sluggish river fairly aimlessly, swimming through the dense weeds and cloudy waters drifting in and out of sight in the water.

After a long while the fish meandered over to where ranger marsh was standing. It swum lazily right below the charred tree and began to slowly swim about the reeds.

Ranger Marsh took his chance. He jumped, the wind in his ears, eyes focussed on the fish below, spear pointed towards it best he could and...

!SPLOOSH!

Ranger burst to the surface and triumphantly held up the plunger spear, which was now complete with a massive snakehead on the end of it.

"Release me!" the snakehead yelled ,"let me go! What is this thing that i'm stuck to

"Woy to go pa!" tweak congratulated running out from the everglade woods.

"All in a day's work," he said proudly ," now let's get this fish home,"

The gup H touched down in eastern China, the snakeheads still swimming about in the tub. The octonauts all got out and unclipped the water cooler from the gup H.

"Welcome home snakeheads," the captain greeted them, pulling the nails out from the top of the plastic tub using the back of a hammer ,"do you like the look of it?"

The snakeheads all poked their heads over the edge of their holding tank and began to ooh and aah at the surroundings.

"Feels like home," one snakehead exclaimed excitedly ,"come on gang let's go explore."

With that the snakehead all jumped and flopped out of the water cooler and began to wriggle towards the nearby river. Once they plunged in they began to swim about happily exploring the various nooks and crannies of the river.

"Thank you for bringing us to our natural habitat, Octonauts," thanked one of the snakeheads ,"i feel so much more at home here."

"No need to thank us," the captain said, "we're the octonauts, it's what we do."

The octonauts all bid farewell to the pesky snakeheads and waved them off as they swam off ready to continue life in their natural habitat

Suddenly, Captain Barnacles' octo-compass buzzed. He plucked it off his belt and saw then it was a message from Shellington.

"Octonauts!" he announced ,"Shellington said to meet back at the place we caught the northern snakeheads. So everyone back into the gup H.

The octonauts filed back into the helicopter and took of once again,

The Gup K skimmed over the ocean, propellers whirring loudly. Tweak has secured the giant snakehead in a giant transparent fish tank that was installed on the back of the gup.

"Let me out!" the fish yelled ,"and turn up the heat as well, it's so cold."

"Don't worry," tweak said ,"we're taking you somewhere nice and warm."

"Oh really?" the snakehead questioned ,"will i be going back to the rainforest back in my home in Java."

"You sure will," tweak answered, "pa plot a route to the island of Java."

"Omm ok, i'll try."

Ranger Marsh looked at the screen on the gup K which was already displaying a map. He clicked on the island labelled Java which was in Australasia and then clicked the button that read, "plot route."

Once he did, an orange dotted line appeared, showing the best route to the island.

"Hey they weren't too bad," he said, sitting down on the driver's seat and guiding the gup along the line.

After a long while on the ocean, the gup finally arrived at the island of Java. It trundled up one of the main rivers until it was deep into the rainforest.

"Looks like this is your stop," ranger marsh said.

Tweak popped off the lid off the fish tank and the giant snakehead immediately leapt into the water.

"Thank you," the snakehead said ,"i never thought i would be able to get home again."

"It's my duty to protect and help the everglades and its inhabitants even if they're an invasive species."

"Thanks again!" the fish said before swimming off into the rainforest.

After the two bunnys had finished waving goodbye, Tweak's octo-tablet vibrated. she picked it up and saw that it was

"Looks like we have to drive all the way back to north america," she said ,"Shellington said that we should all meet up back there."

Marsh groaned

"It'll take ages to go all the way back there."

At the moment, Marsh and Tweak heard a voice from above say ,"looks like you could need a lift."

They looked up and laughed when they saw captain barnacles piloting the Gup H that was hovering above.

"Ahoy matey," Kwazii called ,"we'll get you back over there faster than you can say bruch a punchey lump of shallots."

Shelington , Dashi and the vegimals were playing piggy in the middle. Turnip, Barrot and Grouber were currently in the middle in a vegimal stack, as to get extra height. Dash tried to throw the ball over them but Grouber used his flippers to fling Barrot up into the air where he was able to catch the ball.

The vegimals all high fived each other as they switched places with dashi.

"Hey look," Shellington said ,"it's the captain and the rest of the crew!"

Everyone turned to see the gup H, carrying the gup K, flying low over the land towards them.

"Ahoy mateys," Kwazii called, leaning out the side of the helicopter ,"I like what you've done with the place."

"Oh yes," Shellington said ,"we've restored the ecological balance in these pools.

The once barren ponds full of snakeheads and malnourished fish were now full of life, with a huge variety of plants all growing throughout the pond all still seedlings making the water look young. The water bubbled with life, fish swimming about happily, frolicing between the reeds.

The gup H landed and everyone filed out onto the river bank.

"You guys have done a fine job at cleaning up this area," Ranger Marsh complemented "there's now way i would be able to do this all on my own."

"Well if you ever need us again," the captain said ,"be sure to call, and we'll be ready."

"Well then it looks like our work here is done," tweak said ,"it's been great to work with you pa."

The two hugged and then Tweak stood back and looked at all the gups that were lined up in the river."

"Say Kwazii," she asked ,"where's the gup B"

"Ummm," Kwazii hesitated ,"well we had a bit of an incident. It's currently at the bottom of a river ont hte other side of an ocean."

"Kwazii!" tweak groaned rolling her eyes.

All the octonauts burst out laughing and 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:

Snakeheads are resilient

Check! Check! Check!

So they can live in places that they shouldn't

Check! Check! Mee!

They are able to breath air for days

Creature Report! Creature Report!

Letting them move between waterways

Creature Report! Creature Report!

They are effective predators

Check! Check! Chup!

And in many places they are damaging invaders

Dance Break!

Go Snakehead, Go Snakehead,Go Snakehead!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

Chapter Text

(i didn't inend this to be a two parter but it was like 20 pages long so i sliced it in half.)

The Octopod cruised through the Atlantic ocean towards the east coast of North America.

"We're on course captain," dashi assured ,"by evening we should arrive at the horseshoe crab spawning beach, or probably... we're still not exactly sure where we will find them."

"Just get us as close as you can dashi," the captain said ,"we'll take the gups the rest of the way to the beach anyway."

"This is going to be great!" Shelington exclaimed ," we'll be able to witness first hand one of the greatest spectacles the ocean has to offer!"

"I know," Dashi agreed ,"I can't wait to take some photos."

Kwazii wandered into the room, clearly having just woken up even though it was the afternoon.

"What are we doing again?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, " weren't we going to see a Donkeyfoot crab spawning."

"Horseshoe crab," Shellington corrected, " each summer on new and full moons, thousands of Horseshoe crabs all come up onto the beach to lay their eggs. This year I got the crew together to go see this site but we have to find the right beach first."

Once the Octopod was just off the coast dashi brought it in to land. It settled in the sand and the octonauts all went down to the launch bay and into the gups. Tweak flicked open the Octo Hatch and jumped in the gup D.

The octonauts all filed out the Octopod with Kwazii zooming ahead of all of them in the gup B.

"Keep up Mateys,'' Kwazii yelled ,looping and spinning about in his gup.

"Not everyone has a gup like yours Kwazii," the captain said.

"Well then you're missing out!" he replied, once again shooting off and doing tricks in the water.

As he was off on his escapades he saw a domed shaped creature crawling along the seabed. He leapt out of the top of the Gup B letting it naturally come to a stop and landed right behind the creature.

"Who goes there," it questioned , slowly turning around.

One it had done a full circle Kwazii leaned too far forward and said in a voice that was too loud ,"hello there little matey."

"GAH!" the crab yelled and to kwazii's surprise it began to frantically swim away, flipping over so the dome of it's shell faced the seabed and waving it's crab like lims about in a rhythmic motion

"What have you done now Kwazii," the captain asked catching up to the pirate, "you scared away the horseshoe crab."

(Surprisingly there was also a horseshoe crab toy they made which was never in any episode. I used to have it but loads of mould grew on the insides so i had to throw it out. there was also a drawing of a Horseshoe crab in the Gup-X video on youtube)

"So that's what a horseshoe crab looks like,'' Kwazii realised ,"i was only saying hello. also how is that thing swimming, it doesn't have fins or anything?"

"Horseshoe crabs swim using their gills," Shellington explained," they have gills underneath their body and they flap them to move through the water. Here i'll show you!"

Shelington retreated back into the gup and came out with what looked like another horseshoe crab but it was a lighter colour.

"Is it alive?" peso asked.

"This?" Shellington said, holding up the thing that looked like horseshoe crab. "No, this is just an empty horseshoe crab shell, they shed them as they grow ."

Shelington swam over to Kwazii and showed him the gills on the underside of the crab's body

(if you've seen the underside of a Horseshoe crab, the gills are the bits that look like scales between the legs and tail)

"Hey!" dashi perked up ,"what if that horseshoe crab could lead us to the right beach."

"Great idea dashi!" the captain compliments ,"let's go ask."

Since horseshoe crabs don't exactly swim very fast the octonauts easily caught up to it.

"Umm, excuse me?" the captain said, swimming alongside it, trying to get its attention, "would you be able to help us with something."

"Can't!" the crab panted, clearly tired from the swimming, "there was a scary orange seal with legs"

"Don't worry that was just Kwazii," the captain explained ,"he was just a bit excited."

"You sure?"

"On my honour as an Octonaut, I'm sure."

"Phew!" the horseshoe crab sighed landing back on the seabed upside down, "swimming's really tiring."

The crab lay there for a few seconds, catching its breath before trying to flip itself over again. It flexed its body trying to right itself for a while. It tried to push itself over with its tail but wasn't able to.

"Here," the captain said ,"let me help you."

"No no no,"the horseshoe crab rejected, "I've got this."

The crab once again used its gills to swim a bit forward and off the sea bed. It then managed to right itself in the water and landed back on its front.

"There we go," she said ,"sorry, where are my manners, my name is Hannah, now what did you need help with."

"I'm Captain Barnacles and these are my friends, the octonauts. We were wondering if you would be able to lead us to the beach that you horseshoe crabs lay your eggs on."

"Oh of course just follow me!"

The horseshoe crab travelled slowly, which just annoyed Kwazii more.

"Uuuuuugh," he groaned, looping about restlessly, "are we nearly there yet?"

"Still no Kwazii," the captain said, "Hannah is still searching."

"I'm gonna see if I can speed up the process." Kwazii said, shooting forward in the gup B

"Kwazii..." the captain started and then realised it was futile to try and stop him.

Kwazii brought the gup up next to the horseshoe crab and slowly stepped out, trying not to startle the horseshoe crab.

"Hannah," he said ,"I'm sorry I startled you before, I was just a bit excited."

"It's ok."

"Anyway, how would you like to move faster than you've ever imagined?"

"Sure ok."

Kwazii picked up the horseshoe crab and placed her on the hood of the gup. He then got in the gup and accelerated forwards at top speed. The gup blasted forward leaving a trail of bubbles behind it.

"Wooo!"the horseshoe crab yelled ," this is fun!"

The Gup B broke the surface of the water, skimming along the sea.

"Keep an eye out for good beaches matey," Kwazii said

It was evening and the sun was beginning to set meaning the nocturnal spawning of the horseshoe crabs was due to happen soon.

"What about that beach." Kwazii suggested pointing to a gravelly beach with small gentle waves."

"Hmm, no, too stoney," the crab said.

Kwazii continued along to a muddy beach with big crashing waves.

"What about this one matey?" he asked

"Hmm, no the waves are too big."

Kwazii continued along the coast until something caught Hannah's eye.

"There!" she yelled ,"that beach over there."

Kwazii looked where she was looking and saw the perfect beach. It was made of soft brown sand with the odd jet black grain and the waves were soft and calm.

"In an hour or so that place will be filled with crabs," the crab said

Kwazii dipped the gup back below the waves and landed on the seabed. He hopped out of the gup and placed Hannah onto the seabed.

"Thanks for the ride," she said ,"it would have taken me ages to get here on foot. Oh and look, the others are arriving!"

Kwazii looked out into the ocean and saw thousands of horseshoe crabs all approaching the beach.

"Well shiver me whiskers!" Kwazii exclaimed ,"look at the sight of them,"

"Amazing isn't it," Shellington remarked, finally catching up along with the rest of the crew.

"Sure is a sight to behold, right matey?"

"It sure is Kwazii," the captain agreed ,"right everyone lets dock at the island.

The octonauts all docked at the island and got out their gups before setting up a little base of operations consisting of a table and some lights.

"What now?" peso asked looking at the empty beach.

"Now we wait for the sun to set and for the spectacle to start," Shelington explained.

The octonauts unpacked some chairs and set them up and began to watch the crabs arrive. Once the full moon rose the crabs really started to arrive en masse. They swarmed the coast so no sand could be seen.

"Well i'll be a sea monkey's uncle ,there must be... 1,2,3,4,5... a bajillion crabs! Uhg, probably"

"There's probably not that many Kwazii," the captain said ,"but ther certainly is a lot."

"It's wonderful to see this many horseshoe crabs," Shelington remarked ,"all these crabs have come here to mate and lay their eggs. Horseshoe crabs used to be endangered but now thanks to conservation efforts, their numbers are beginning to increase again."

(only this species which is the Atlantic Horseshoe crab)

Shelington came very prepared. He had a box of Popcorn, a clipboard for notes and a water bottle full of undiluted cordial which he only drank on special occasions.

The octonauts watched the spectacle continue through the night, one by one drifting off in their chairs. First went Kwazii, then peso, tweak had the foresight to pack a sleeping bag and was able to comfortably sleep in that, after tweak went the captain and then finally shellington's eagerness to watch the horseshoe crabs was overridden and he fell back snoring in his chair.

That left dashi who was still wide awake, sipping hot chocolate from a thermos.

In the early morning dashi was still awake and still perfectly content. Many of the crabs had once again returned to the ocean leaving their eggs on the beach by the million.

She shook the drowsiness out her head and got up for a walk along the beach. The ocean waves had washed most of the horseshoe crab eggs into a thin line spanning the beach as that was the highest point the waves had reached.

Dashi bent down and looked closely at the eggs. They were tiny teal orbs about half the size of a pinhead

"Well hello there little ones," she said, mostly to herself smiling at the thousands of eggs in front of her.

She looked up from the eggs and saw a full grown horseshoe crab lying upside down on the sand.

"Um excuse me," dashi said walking over, "do you need any help?"

"Nope I'm perfectly fine," replied the crab, flexing its tail and trying to flip itself over. ,"just having some technical difficulties."

"Aren't you the crab that helped lead us here?" dashi asked, "Hannah right?"

"yes, " the crab answered "and i am perfectly *umph*able to flip myself over."

Suddenly, dashi hear squawking in the distance. She looked up towards the ocean and saw a huge flock of birds heading right for the beach.

"Uh oh." she said ,"this doesn't look good. Sorry Hannah gotta go"

Dashi quickly flipped Hannah over and then jogged back over to the rest of the crew and gently shook Shellington awake.

"Shellington." she said, shaking him awake.

"Hugdabuhudumbawha?" he murmured,"I mean, what?"

"Those birds," Dashi said pointing to the horizon ,"are they bad."

"No, I don't think so," Shellington replied ,"those are just some migratory birds ,they come to these beaches to eat horseshoe crab eggs... Wait! They eat Horseshoe crab eggs! Dashi! Sound the Octo-alert!

Dashi plucked the Octo-compass of the captains belt and sounded the alert

"Octonauts, to the.. Umm... to the.. Uhg.. WAKE UP!"

Chapter Text

It was late afternoon in the Atlantic and Peso was sitting in the Gup E just off the US coast.

“Right O ,looks like that was the last fish on my checkup list,” Peso said, ticking off the final box on the piece of paper he had next to him ,”I think I'll head back to the Octopod and have a nice relax.”

As Peso was stowing his Medical equipment back inside his medicine bag, the Gup began to plot the course back to the Octopod which spanned across the Atlantic as the Octopod was stationed by morocco.

After checking that everything was in order, fired up the engine and the gup shot away from the coast and into the wider atlantic.

***

Peso Hummed to himself happily as the water rushed past the window. The open atlantic was basically as empty as it gets so there wasn’t much to pay attention to or look at. The journey stretched on as Peso made his way closer to Morocco but just as he was nearing the coast of Africa, the gup seemed to inexplicably slow down.

As Peso looked around in confusion, the engine began to sputter and squelch with obscene noises and the whole gup drifted to a halt.

“Oh no,” Peso sighed ,”what’s wrong with this gup?”

Hoping for an easy fix, Peso dropped out of the little hatch and paddled around to the back of the gup.

The Gup E is propelled by a sleek set of flippers which are generally very reliable but, today, when Peso went back to check on them something was clearly wrong.

The green mechanical flippers seemed to be gummed up by some ethereal looking blue slime. The translucent goo wobbled about in the gentle current, warping the light in strange ways.

“Yuck!” Peso exclaimed ,”what is this stuff,”

He swam over to the goo and poked it with his flipper. It had a thick snot-like consistency and seemed to immediately stick to peso’s feathers. He tried to shake it off but the effort was futile and the goop was there to stay

“Ohh,” peso lamented ,still trying to get the goo off his flipper, “how am I going to get back to the octopod now?”

Then, from the other side of the Gup, Peso heard some ecstatic cackling echoing through the Gup’s hull.

“Woooowey! Would you look at that catch.” said the strange voice as it very slowly swam around the Gup E.

The creature, as it came into view, just looked like a white haze in the blue of the ocean. Peso squinted at the thing as it drifted slowly towards him, its form clearly moving about within the mirage though it was really hard to see.

Peso kept waiting for the creature to come into view but it seemed to be drifting towards him at a snail’s pace.

“Looks like i caught two in one,” the shimmering creature announced ecstatically, finally drifting close enough to peso that he could see it.

Surrounded in an aura of the same goo, Peso could see a cuttlefish-like creature with a single long tentacle , extending out of its group of other tentacles. It swam through the water backwards, its body like a 40cm torpedo, its tentacles trailing behind it.

The main tentacle was longer than the whole rest of the creature’s body and it had a flared tip with fin-like structures extending down its length, kind of like an eel tail but with suckers. The tentacle was pale which like the rest of the body and had chaotic grey-blue patterns all over it, like the pattern light casts when it shines through the waves

“Hello?” Peso called to the creature as it arrived, the slime surrounding it still giving the creature a strange refractive look, “who are you,”

“Glad you asked,” the creature ,”I'm Sera, the Atlantic Cerapod. How are you talking when you're already covered in my deadly goo?”

“Well I only got it on my flippers,” Peso explained ,”wait what? DEADLY GOO!”

Before Peso could swim away the Cerapod fired a spurt of goo at him, the pale blue substance completely engulfed the penguin.

“Haha!” Sera laughed crazily, ”now my deadly goo will take effect, blocking your gills so you can’t breath! There’s no way you’re surviving this one! Looks like i’m eating good for months.”

Peso looked down at his goo-covered body and then back at the Cerapod.

“Sorry Sera, i’m a penguin and I don’t breathe using gills,” Peso apologised, even though it was an active murder attempt, “I'm Peso, I’m an Octonaut, now why don’t we calm down and talk things through.”

“Phooey!,” Sera swore, “I guess I don't have to eat you when I already have this Massive fish!”

Sera turned and gestured dramatically at the Gup E with her tentacle.

“I’m gonna take a bite!” Sera said, her voice gleaming with mania.

Sera turned to face away from the gup and then using her large, central tentacle like a dolphin’s tail, began to very slowly swim towards the Gup which was only like five meters away from her

“Umm, Sera,” Peso began, wiping the slime off himself “that’s not a fi…”

“Shhh! Don’t rush me” Sera hushed, still making her way to the gup which was now around two meters away, “Cerapods like me aren’t the best Swimmers, we’re ambush predators you see, using the slime to capture fish that stray too close, like you and this great big fish.”

Sera finally reached the gup and laid her large tentacle on it, the suckers on the flared head of the tentacle sticking to the gup

“Well that’s the hardest fish i’ve ever felt,” Sera remarked ,”but waist not, want not,”

Before Peso could stop her, Sera tried to take a bite out of the gup, her beak scraping a huge gash into the metal of the gup.

“Sera, that’s not a fish!” Peso warned and waved his flippers, a bit too late as sera spat out pieces of green paint and metal before taking one last bite just to make extra sure it wasn’t edible., “here have some fish biscuits instead.”

Peso flipped open his medic bag and pulled out a couple fish biscuits which the Cerapod quickly caught sight of.

“OOH! Fab!” Sera said, her excitement still seemingly at a peak, “don't move. I’m on my way.”

Then as Peso watched with suppressed exasperation, Sera turned and began to slowly paddle towards him at her painstaking pace of around a meter every 4 seconds.

(if they really try they can go faster than this but they don’t do it very often.)

 

“Don’t worry,” the Cerapod reassured ,”I'll get there.”

“Why don’t you use your other tentacles to move faster,” Peso suggested, as Sera continued to inch through the water.

“Sorry, no can do,” Sera replied in a sing song voice, “I have to use the long one because, if i lose the others I'll lose that cloud of goo around me. That stuff isn’t free to make so I have to conserve it for things like hunting. This stuff also helps me camouflage in the open ocean, as you couldn’t see, so if i lose it both predators and prey would be able to see me from a mile away”

Sera finally arrived at Peso’s position and Plucked the Fish biscuits from his flipper with her long tentacle. Then the cerapod pulled the food into its aura of goo, its multitude of other stubby tentacles grabbing it and stuffing it into her mouth.

“You know,” Sera began, her mouth full of fish biscuit, “cerapods like me got our name from this tentacle. Cerapod means “horned limb” and this thing sometimes looked like a horn.”

Peso tilted his head, looking at the tentacle from a different angle and Sera was right, it did look like a large rhino like horn, especially with the bone white colouration

“Anyway,” Peso said, looking back at the Gummed up Gup E ,”I still have to get back to the octopod.”

“Why? it’s great out here!” Sera said ,”the ocean currents around here bring in nutrients which brings in loads of fish. They just swim right into your goo!”

“Sorry Sera, but Penguins don’t do so well living in the middle of the ocean,” Peso explained, “looks like i’ll have to sound the Octo alert if i want to get back before night.”

Peso turned towards the gup E and shot towards it’s under-Hatch. The hatch Opened and Peso popped up inside the gup before promptly waddling over to the control panel, pulling up the Octo alert button on the screen and slamming his flipper down on it.

“Octonauts, to the launch bay!”

(cue octo alert sequence)

“Peso” the captain said into the launch bay screen which now proudly displayed Peso’s face. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Well captain, I was driving back to the Octopod when an Atlantic cerapod attacked the gup with its goo and got the engine all slimed up,” Peso explained.

“Oh, an Atlantic Cerapod,” Shelington piped up excitedly, “i haven’t seen one of them in a long time. There’s only two species left on earth.”

“Very interesting Shelington,” the captain replied ,”Peso, what do you want us to do?”

”Could one of you come and pick me up,” Peso requested.

“Sure thing Peso,” the Captain answered ,”Tweak and Kwazii, can you two go and pick Peso up in the Gup A.”

“Sure thing cap,” Tweak agreed, Taking a bite out of a carrot she had on hand, “we’ll get over there faster than you can say bunch ‘O munchy crunchy carrots.”

“We’re coming to get you matey,” Kwazii declared, swinging his fist in a squash buckling kind of way

“Ok then,” Barnacles said, looking around at the other octonauts to make sure that everyone was on the same page, “Octonauts, let’s do this!”

***
The Octo Hatch opened and out popped the Gup A with Kwazii in the driving seat.

“Looks like Peso isn’t too far off the coast,” Tweak said, checking the gup finder and seeing the Gup E out in the ocean around 40 miles off Africa.

With Kwazii driving, the Gup A shot through the water, only slowing down when Kwazii wanted to try a trick or two. Within the hour the two reached Peso and Sera who were floating by the Gup E waiting for them.

“Hey Matey!” Kwazii called, Waving out of the front window as he fast approached Peso waved back.

“Hi Kwazii!” he called back as the Gup A kept rushing towards him ,”Umm, maybe you should slow down a bit?”

From the Gup Tweak looked confused at Peso who seemed to be floating alone in the water, next to some weird smudge of white in the water, which tweak just assumed was a trick of the light.

“Wait a minute,” Tweak said, “didn’t Peso say he was with a cerapod.”

“I guess it left,” Kwazii shrugged ,”anyway, watch this!”

Without slowing down at all, the Gup A shot past Peso and Sera sending a great wave through the water knocking them backwards as the Gup then turned 90 degrees and drifted to a sharp stop.

The Wave knocked Peso back in the water a little but he was quickly able to regain balance with his flippers.

“Hi matey!” Kwazii called, opening up the front of the gup and swimming out the greet peso

“Oh Kwazii,” Peso said playfully, shaking his head ,”you need to be more careful, You almost hit Sera.”

“Oh, sorry,” Kwazii apologised, looking around ,”but I didn't see any Sera around here.”

“What do you mean?” Peso asked in confusion, “she’s right here…”

Peso looked next to himself where he expected Sera to be but she was not there.

“Sera?” Peso called turning around to look for the Cerapod

“Help!” Sera yelled back “I can't stop!”

Behind Peso, Sera was tumbling backwards through the water, completely out of control, her one tentacle flailing frantically in the water.

“Well I'll be a sea monkey’s uncle!” Kwazii exclaimed ,flipping up his eyepatch for a better look at the strange mirage like blob ,”that’s the strangest beast i’ve ever seen. It's like a Ghost!”

As Peso watched Sera flail in the water, he caught sight of something else. A powerful ocean current was coursing through the waver behind Sera. the torrent of water gushed endlessly, pieces of seaweed and debris flying past Peso’s view faster than he could register.

“Sera, look out!” Peso called, “Ocean current!”

Sera, with her two bulbous eyes looked at the current and panicked

“Help me!” she yelled now flailing her single tentacle even more frantically as she tossed and tumbled closer and closer to the current, “I'm terrible at swimming!”

“Use your other tentacles!” Peso cried back swimming towards the helpless creature.

“I DON’T KNOW HOOOOOOOOOO00000000000oooooooow…”

Before Sera could finish that phrase, the ocean current swept up the Cerapod and rocketed her down stream.

“OH NO!” Peso said in despair, “what are we going to do now?”

“Everyone into the Gup A!” Tweak called from inside the Gup, “we're going to catch that Cerapod.”

***

Sera was at the full mercy of the current, its twists and turns buffeting her about. As the water carried her along, the aura of goo that surrounded her saw gradually torn off, glumps of music drifting off into the churning mess of water leaving her only with a thin covering.

“Noo, my slime!” she cried, the slime cloud slowly depleting.

Meanwhile, on the outside of the current, the Gup A was racing along beside her.

“Sorry about the wave thing little matey,” Kwazii called out sheepishly, “it was only a joke…”

“Saving first, forgiveness later!” Sera called back as she rotated madly in the water.

“How will we get her out?” Peso asked.

“The best way would be to tie a rope around someone’s waist and dangle them in the current,” Tweak proposed, struggling to keep the gup out of the current ,”but we don’t have any rope.”

“What if we become the rope!” Kwazii exclaimed, “Tweak can hold my tail and I can hold your feet and together we should be long enough to swipe that critter right out of the current.”

 

“But who will steer the gup?” Peso asked as Tweak fought with the controls to keep the gup from falling into the same fate as Sera.

“I could engage the Autopilot,” TWeak suggested ,”but the code is still in a prototype stage.”

“Go for it matey!” Kwazii said, “we’ve got to save Sera.”

With a deep breath, Tweak reached over and pressed down on a large purple button on the dashboard and within an instant, big white text that read “Autopilot engaged” spanned the main screen.

The peso and Kwazii both Activated their helmets as Tweak stood over the exit hatch.

“Ready mateys?” Kwazii asked.

“Ready.” they both replied.

And with that, Kwazii and Peso Both dived into the ocean.

The cool water hit them like a frying pan and they immediately felt the pull of the powerful current. Just Before Peso was swept away, Kwazii grabbed his feet with his paws and then as the ocean tried to pull Kwazii away from the Gup, Tweak grabbed Hold of His tail, creating a chain of octonauts long enough to reach inside of the current.

“I’ve got you matey!” Kwazii shouted as water rushed past them ,”Now try and grab Sera.”

using his flippers to paddling Peso swam towards the speeding water of the current and the white form of Sera that was still being thrown about within.

Back inside the gup, Tweak was straddling the hatch out of the gup, Holding Firmly onto Kwazii’s tail with both her hands and anchoring the whole chain in place. While she was busy with that, the Autopilot Kept the Gup steady enough as it skirted the very edge of the current. The whole thing was a very sketchy equilibrium.

Peso swam into the heart of the current and Saw Sera up ahead.

“Sera!” He called waving his flippers about, “I'm here to Get you out.”

“Peso!” she called back, “thank god, i’m ready to be off this wild ride,”

With all his might, Peso paddled forward with his flippers until he was right up Close to Sera. Then with a final push he reached out with both his flippers and grabbed her.

But To Peso’s horror, the slimy Cephalopod slipped out his grip, flying out of reach as Peso’s flippers closed on nothing.

“Sorry, i forgot to mention,” Sera said, her tone of voice far too whimsical for hte situation she was in, “my goo is designed to be slippery so it’s harder for predators to take a bite out of me, how inconvenient!”

Peso sighed in exasperation as he and the gup slowly caught back up with Sera.
Back inside the gup, Tweak was Focusing on Staying balanced over the Octo hatch as Kwazii’s tal was yanked about but the twists and turns of the current.

But suddenly she heard a dreaded robotic sound from the Front of the Gup.

“Auto Pilot Failing,” a Robotic voice called from the Gup, “Please resume Manual controooooOODOX3^*)FJ(*OEPhd⌝↸↧dsaFAǓʨŜʈű⅐≭⊀⊄⫵⫯ΔΙϏϼ100001010110101011010110…”

“Oh me Oh my!” Tweak exclaimed as she felt the gup slowly drift towards the current, now driving with no driver, “Yall better hurry up down there.”

Back in the current Peso was pulling up behind Sera once again. He reached out once more but still couldn’t get a hold of the creature that seemed to slip through his fingers like the slime itself.

“Sera!” he called, “i’m going to need you to grab my flipper.”

“I do like a challenge, but that’ll be hard,” Sera replied, still rotating at around 120rpm, “I'm used to hitting targets while still.”

“Just try your best,” Peso reassured, Extending his flipper as far as he could ,”you’ve got this.”

Back on the gpu Tweak watched the steering stick slowly tilted to the side, glued to the spot by the obligation to not drop her friends. She tried to lean to the side to get the Gup back on course but it was no use, the Gup E was curving into a collision course with the current.

Sera tried to grab at Peso’s Flipper but missed, swiping again and again but to no avail. Peso strained to keep his arm stretched out. He could feel the pull of Kwazii on his foot slacken as the Gup was gradually being sucked into the current.

Tweak could see that if she didn’t act now, everyone would be stuck in the dangerous current. She steadied herself momentarily Before Releasing her right hand from Kwazii’s tail, reached her pockets and pulled out a carrot.

Then, Just as the Gup was passing the point of no return, falling into the current, Tweak threw the carrot at the steering stick.

The carrot made contact with the steering stick, torquing it away from the current.

The Gup immediately swerved away from the current, almost throwing Tweak off her feet.

Peso reached one last time towards Sera as he was dragged away and with a loud clap, his flipper made contact with Sera’s tentacle. He felt the suckers on the end of the limb grip tightly to his arm as both penguin and Cerapod were pulled out of the current

Now completely out of the influence of the current, Tweak dropped Kwazii’s tail and rushed to the front of the gup and turned off the engines, breathing a huge sigh of relief.

“Well that’s the last time i use that prototype,” Tweak remarked, shutting down the corrupted application.

In the ocean Below the Gup, Kwazii, Peso and Sera were catching their breath

“Phew! That was close,” Peso said, sighing with relief.

“Yea, sorry again for all that matey,” Kwazii apologise, “i should have kept a better lookout while driving.”

“Eh, don’t sweat it,” Sera replied, “you may have doomed me but you also saved me. Also, do you have any food?”

“Umm i have some fish biscuits,” Kwazii said ,pulling some fish biscuits from behind his back.

He dropped them in the water and Sera immediately gobbled them up.

“Thanks,” She said, “now watch this.”

Sera Closed her eyes and strained, her primary tentacle clenching into a fist. Then after a few seconds, Blue goo began to ooze from her skin and quickly engulfing her once again a
in her aura of mucus

“BIG thanks Octonauts,” Sera thanked, her usual tone of mania tipped joy returning ,”There was no way I could've escaped that current without you.”

“Well if you ever need our Help again,” Peso said, “we’re always around if you need us,”

Then From the Ship, Tweak called.

“Kwazii, Peso, we’re going to have to get going now if we want to make it back before dark.”

“Coming!” Peso called back ,”bye Sera,”

“Bye Peso,” Sera waved, as he and Kwazii swam back over to the Gup A. Then as Sera watched from the water, the gup A drove off, leaving the Gup E behind in the water.

“Umm, mateys, aren’t we going to bring the GupE?” Kwazii asked.

“I think i’ve had enough that goo for one day,” Peso replied as a the gup drove off to the Octopod and the screen fades to black

*~Creature report~*

Calling all Octonauts!

Kwazii, Peso, Shellington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek

Tunip!

Kwazi, activate creature report!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

Facts:

Cerapods are unique creatures.

Check! Check! Check!

The big tentacle,one of their main features

Check! Check! Mee!

They catch fish using their special goo

Creature Report! Creature Report!

It also helps them disguise in oceans blue

Creature Report! Creature Report!

But here's the final fact you can't resist

Check! Check! Chup!

I just made them up, and they don't really exist!

Dance Break!

Go Cerapod, Go Cerapod,Go Cerapod!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

(Happy April fools! I hope you got a good laugh out of that. Sorry there aren't any images since i made up cerapods entirely. In the future i may do a drawing of them but i didn't have time this week.)

Chapter Text

"Whah, what's going on?" Kwazii questioned, only half awake ,"this isn't my bedroom."

 

"Octonauts, we have a problem," Shellington said authoritatively ,"we have a flock of migrating birds approaching fast. These birds love to eat horseshoe crab eggs as food for their long migratory flight. We have to stop them. Everybody, let's Go!"

Awkward silence.

"I think what Shelington means is," the captain inverveined ,"Octonauts, Let's do this."

***

Tweak immediately bolted for the shoreline. She leapt into the Gup D and powered it up. She switched the gup into land move and walked it onto the beach.

The rest of the octonauts scrambled about fro anything that they could use to scare away the birds. As the seabirds finally arrived at the beach the octonauts were ready. As they descended through the air towards the beach the octonauts attempted to scare them away.

Tweak waved the arms of the gup D around manically, scaring the birds away from a large portion of the beach. The captain was waving his arms about trying to look menacing and scaring all the birds away from his area. The birds didn't even seem to go near Kwazii, who was showing off his swordsmanship using a piece of driftwood.

The birds having been shooed away from the beach all perched on the tufty grasses just beyond the sand.

The octonauts all stopped moving and looked at all the birds.

"Well it looks like that's sorted," Kwazzi said with an air of finality.

He began to waltz back to the chairs they had set up, content that his job was done. Suddenly there was a frantic flutter of feathers behind him. Kwazii leapt back into position, scaring away the seabirds that had tried to encroach on the eggs.

"Looks like we'll have to stay here a while," Tweak remarked ,"or these birds are gonna have horseshoe crab eggs for lunch."

"Do you think these birds will ever leave?" dashi asked.

"They'll have to move on soon." Shellington answered, "they have a migration to finish."

"I don't think these birds are gonna be doing any migrating Shellington," Peso said ,"they look so thin, and hungry,"

Sure enough the birds all looked very weak and hungry, eyeing up the food with big tired eyes.

(I will not be giving these birds voices as seabirds are not generally given voices. Like in The Baby Sea Turtles where the seagulls simply make regular seagull sounds)

"Well let's give them some fish biscuits and send them on their way." Kwazii said pulling some biscuits out his pocket

"I don't think that'll work," Shelignton said ," when birds migrate their anatomy changes a lot. One of the things that happens is their stomachs shrink to make way for wing muscle and fat stores. That's why these birds stop at these beaches each year to feed on the horseshoe crab eggs, because it is one of the few things they are able to digest"

"I'm sure the vegimals would be able to make something with the same consistency and nutritional value as these eggs," dashi said.

"Great idea Dashi!" Kwazii complimented ,"I'll go and tell them."

Kwazii began to jog towards the Gup B before remembering the birds and scrambling back into opposition, scaring the birds away from the eggs.

"Don't worry everyone," the captain said ,"I'll just call them on my Octo-compass."

The captain reached down and tried to grab the Octo - Compass, but it didn't seem to be there.

"What? Where's the Octo-Compass."

"Um about that," dashi said ," i think i left it by our camp."

The octonauts all looked over and sure enough the octo-compus was on the table by all the chairs.

"Tweak are you able to call the Octopod through the Gup D?"

"I'll try cap."

Tweak connected to the octopod's screens and immediately fizzled up onto the screens.

She was shown a view of the HQ and saw the chaos that lay before her. The vegimals had a rave going on in HQ, with a makeshift foil disco ball hanging from the ceiling with coloured lights and loud music bouncing all around the room.

A table for snacks had been set out which Grouber was in the process of demolishing. Barrot was standing on the control panel singing back karaoke of the creature report song. Turnip was absolutely feeling the beat dancing and squealing for joy.

"Umm Vegimals?" tweak asked but not one vegimal heard her, "hello?"

As Grouber was eating he accidentally slipped on some seaweed sauce sending a bowl full of coral crunches flying through the air and straight into the screen, lodging itself firmly in the now shattered glass.

All the vegimals stopped dancing. They stared fearfully at the broken screen.

"Uh oh," Grouber said.

"Oh Cheepa!" turnip said dismissively ,"ISA FUNTIME!"

With that the vegimals continued partying as if nothing happened.

***

"Errrm, comms are down cap," Tweak explained ,"there is.. Umm... there are radio ghosts!"

"Radio ghosts?" Kwazzi asked ,"What are you on about?"

 

"You wouldn't understand."

"So are we just going to have to stay here until the birds leave." dashi said

"And if they do leave, they'll all starve," peso said solemnly.

"Don't worry everybody," the captain assured ,"we'll think of something."

The octonauts all stood there waiting. They were in a lose lose situation. Let the horseshoe crab eggs get eaten and the birds fly on and complete their migration safely, or save the eggs and the birds won't make it through the rest of their migration.

"Are you guys need some help," said a voice behind them

All the octonauts turned around and saw Hannah, the horseshoe crab still present.

"Well I'll be a sea monkey's uncle," Kwazii exclaimed ,"you came back."

"Well actually i never left," she said ,"but anyway, would you like some help getting out of this little pickle."

"Yes please," the captain said ," Tweak, try and guide Hannah to deliver a message to the Octopod."

"Ok then," Tweak replied, "so Hannah, I need you to go over to the orange gup that looks like a shark."

"The one that Kwazii was in?"

"Yes, that's the one," Tweak affirmed, "once you're in there press the big green button that says, Return home."

The Horseshoe crab crawled into the ocean and saw the Gup on the seabed where Kwazii had left in. she crawled across the seabed and then swam into the gup. She landed on the control panel and looked around at all the buttons on it.

She soon caught sight of the green button with "Return home" written on it. The crab turned away fromming and used her long tail (telson) to press down on the button.

Suddenly the gup jumped to life. It lifted off the seabed and shot off into the ocean. Hannah was flung off the controls and onto the chair as the gup drove towards the Octopod.

"There she goes," Kwazii said watching the gup B dart off ,"I hope this works.

***

In the Octopod the Vegimals were still having the time of their lives. Grouber had eaten all the snacks so he just bought bags of the raw ingredients out, he was currently demolishing a bag of flour with no second thoughts.

Suddenly a loud *BANG* reverberated through the Octopod.

"Cheepa?" Turnip questioned looking around

*BANG*

Turnip went over to the controls and saw an alert going off that something was trying to get in the Octo Hatch.

Turnip jumped down Octo Chute and landed in the launch bay as the banging continued. He pressed some buttons on the control panel down there and pulled up some live camera feed from just outside the Octo-hatch.

The Gup B seemed to be Repeatedly ramming its nose into the closed door.

"Cheepa?" Turnip Questioned pulling the lever to open the octo-hatch

As soon as he did, the Gup bobbed up to the surface and the top opened. By this time, the rest of the vegimals had begun to file down to the launch bay and saw the Gup B.

From inside the Gup clambered some weird black insect thing that crawled out of the cockpit and fell into the water. It swam towards the vegimals on its beck, causing all the vegimals to back away because it looked kind of creepy.

"Don't worry i;m not gonna hurt you," said Hannah, now swimming in circles franticly to stay at the surface, "could you help me out of the water."

Turnip gingerly stepped forward and picked the Horseshoe crab up by the tail

"Ow, OW ,OW, not the tail!" Hannah yelped and Tunip quickly put her down.

"Sorry," turnip Apologise.

"Don't worry about it," Hannah replied ,"we've got work to do. Your friends, the octonauts sent me to tell you that they need your help,"

A Murmur of confusion went through the crowd of vegimals

"There is a flock of hungry birds that want to eat all my and my friends' eggs and the octonauts need you to make loads of food to feed them instead.

"FIsh biscuits Cheepa?" Grouber asked

"No we have to make something that mimics the eggs," Hannah replied ,"they have to look the same, feel the same and have the same nutrients. You think you can pull that off?"

Turnip thought for a moment.

"Cheepa Cheepa!" he said definitively, "Vegimals, Letsa Do this!"

***

 

Codish was cleaning and inspecting the outside of the Gup B when he noticed a tiny green orb that was stuck in the seem between the top half on the gup.

"Chiapa Chiapa!" he yelled, jumping up and down and waving the other vegimals over.

(I am terribly sorry to say that in the Snakehead invasion chapter 3, I put it that Barrot said "Chiapa '' when it is actually Coddish that has this specific accent. I know this was a huge blunder that i have now fixed and i hope in time that you can forgive me)

Using his flippers he gently picked up a green ball and held it up for all to see.

"Egga?" Tomminnow asked.

"Cheepa!" Coddish answered happily!

***

The vegimals all paraded into shellington's lab all sinning the vegimal song

(you know the one. The one that goes "Brinky ding Ghidorah Brinky ding Ghidorah")

 

They placed the egg gently in a machine that looked a bit like a water bottle refiller, with a raised pedestal in the middle where the egg was put. Turnip pressed a big red button on the side of it with the word "Analyze" written on it.

After a few seconds of loud wiring a small wight light flashed on and suddenly, red lasers began to shine on the egg from all angles. The lasers swivelled about scanning the egg before quickly turning off again. After that a large screen lit up on the front of the scanner full of text and pie charts about what the egg contained and was made of

"Yousa, need to make dis," Turnip said pointing to the list of data and the egg.

All the vegimals nodded like they were students in a class.

***

In the kitchen now, the Vegimals were mixing ingredients, seemingly at random. Bottle's of Shellington's chemicals, ingredients from the cupboards, veg from the garden, nothing was safe.

Whilst they worked the vegimals chanted their song which was slightly diminished by the din of all the clattering kitchen ware as the vegimals tried to concoct the perfect Horseshoe crab egg substitute.

Grouber didn't really seem to be trying very hard. To be honest it looked like he was making fish biscuits instead of eggs.

Tominnow was looking back and forth from a chicken egg to the Horseshoe crab egg, trying to figure out why they were different. They were both eggs right? Shouldn't they be the same?

Barrot seemed to be making decent progress. He had sculpted some green balls and rushed down to the Lab to test them on the scanner. He placed the green ball he had made on the little pedestal and pressing scan

The lasers shone about and did their thing and the results popped up.

It was only 50% metabolic match in terms of nutrition and a 13% for texture

Tomminnow sighed and took his little green ball back upstairs.

Meanwhile, Codish was was mixing up a huge batch of green sludge that smelt of vinegar and yeast. He leaned over the bowl and took a deep sniff of it, expecting some culinary masterpiece. Instead he fell backwards and fainted

Tunip was standing on the counter, supervising the other vegimals and nodding at their hard work.

"Gooda, jaba." he announced ,"we will be dona, in noa tima!"

***

Meanwhile on the beach the octonauts were beginning to grow tired.

"How long is it taking those vegimals," Kwazii asked wearily, "a pirate without a full night's rest is only half a pirate."

"Be patient, Kwazii," the Captain said ,"I'm sure they'll manage it."

As the octonauts were talking the seabirds began to hop forwards and try to nab some of the horseshoe crab eggs.

"Ah, shoo shoo," Peso shouted, stepping forward waving his flippers at the birds which all flapped away, "I hope the vegimals get here soon, those birds look really hungry."

***

The kitchen was a tip. The floor was covered in splotches of green substances from the vegimal's failed attempts at making the eggs. Most of them were lying on the floor, staring into space but some were still mixing listlessly.

Barrot had just finished his batch and picked up one of his creations. It was a tiny wet ball about half the size of a pinhead. It was a bright blue and slightly squishy. The vegimal gently held the orb and stumbled down to Shlington's lab, placing the ball on the scanner.

He pressed the button and watched as the machine scanned the ball. As the lasers shone and swivelled, the other vegimals filed into the room slowly forming the crowd. Soon the lasers shut off and the results popped up on the screen on the side of the machine

95% metabolic match 93% texture match

"Cheepa cheepa!" the vegimals all cheered

The vegimals all dashed up to the kitchen, newly invigorated by the discovery. Barrot lead the way and directed the vegimals to what they should do.

He sent Pikato and Tomminow to the storage cupboard to grab more of a specific chemical. Turnip and Codish both swept up all the mess in the kitchen and set up mixing bowls

Grouber was sent to harvest some plants from the garden pod with specific instructions not to eat the produce.

Once all the vegimals were done with that, they all crowded around Barrot who demonstrated how to make the vegetarian horseshoe crab eggs. He furiously mixed the ingredients using a spatula and then scooped the mixture into a piping bag. He then got a pot of boiling water and dropped them in, the droplets forming into the tiny horseshoe crab eggs

"Tada!" Barrot exclaimed , fishing the balls out the water using a sieve and holding them high up for all to see.

All the vegimals applauded and got to work making a Bulk Batch.

***

The birds were beginning to get braver.

They hopped closer to the eggs and were harder to scare away.

"We can't stay here for much longer captain," Shelington said ,"these birds will soon realise that we aren't a threat and will stop being scared of us."

Tweak pulled up the Octo-map on the Gup D's screen and smiled at what she saw.

"Help's on the way," she announced ,"it should be here any moment now."

"I don't think they'll be here soon enough," Kwazii yelled ,"LOOK!"

Kwazii pointed to the ocean where another flock of seabirds were flying in, eyeing up the egg-filled beach.

"Flappity flippers!" Peso said, quivering.

"Get ready everyone," Captain Barnacles commanded "prepare to defend"

The second flock of birds descended down onto the beach. The Octonauts waved their hands and shooed them off, keeping them at bay in the sky. But while they were doing that the flock of birds that was already there began to creep forwards towards the eggs.

Dashi tried to turn to scare off the birds that were walking down the beach towards the eggs but the other birds tired to swoop in from the air, forcing her to shoo them off again

"There's too many of them, captain," Dashi said "what do we do?"

"Don't worry!" he said ," it looks like help is here."

At that moment the Gup X burst through the top of the water to the epic Gup X music (you know the one). On the top of the gup was a huge pile of the blue, imitation Horseshoe crab eggs, tied down by string.

"Hello everyone!" Hannah yelled, sitting on top of the pile, "I like this gup, it's like Me but bigger!"

The seabirds all turned their heads and daw the huge pile of easy food, just sitting there on top of the Gup which was stationary in the shallow water. The seabirds all squawked loudly and flew over to the Gup X landing By the pile and eating their fill.

"Good work vegimals," the Captain congratulated, "and good work Hannah, you managed to save all these eggs."

"Oh shush," she dismissed ,"it was a team effort, without you and the vegimals the birds would have eaten my eggs."

"Wait, everybody got on top of the Gup X," Dashi said, " we need a group photo."

The octonauts and the vegimals all scrambled to the top of the Gup X and shuffled about until everyone was visible.

"Say seaweed,"

"SEAWEED!"

Dashi snapped the picture and everyone burst out laughing as the triumphant closing music played and the screen faded 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:

Horseshoe crabs have a tough shell

Check! Check! Check!

The ocean floor is where they dwell

Check! Check! Mee!

On summer nights they come up to spawn

Creature Report! Creature Report!

But they always leave at dawn

Creature Report! Creature Report!

They can also swim on their backs

Check! Check! Chup!

And migrating seabirds, eat their eggs as snacks

Dance Break!

Go Horseshoe crab, Go Horseshoe crab, Go Horseshoe crab!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

(Horseshoe crabs are one of my favourite creatures and I loved researching them. I'd like to credit NOA and their Webinar for providing me with almost all of the info used here
I'd also like to promote the Just Flip 'Em movement. Basically if you see a Horseshoe crab that's upside down on the beach. Grab it's shell and flip it over, don't grab the tail tho

Well that's it from me, i'm gonna go and research Penguin illnesses. Bye!)

Chapter Text

(this chapter will be slightly less goofy than the others as it is a different style of plot and i thought i should have some fun with it.)

It was a hot day as ever in the amazon and the newly renovated Gup-w was stationed at the bottom of a river. Far too hot for the tastes of a certain penguin

"I've got another lot for you matey!" Kwazii announced ,striding into Peso's heavily air-coned sickbay. He was holding a glass tank full of some dazed looking fish that were swimming lethargically around the tank.

The sick room was filled with empty wrappers of medicine and other medical equipment. A stark difference to the organised and ordered stat is is usually in. there was a fan balanced on the pile of books behind peso, blowing air furiously at his back

"Bring them over here," peso said, standing by the large fish tank on the other side of the sickbay. The tank itself was full of dozens of dazed looking fish. Around the room, tanks with more fish in were stacked

Peso inspected all the fish and them placed aloof them gently into the large tank.

"Have you figured out what has happened yet?" Kwazii asked looking at the many fish stacked haphazardly around the room, all swimming about dissorientedly."

"The river seems to be contaminated with some harmful chemicals that's messing with the fish's minds" peso said ,"if we didn't find out so soon many of these fish would have died. I've fed them some oil to try and flush out the chemicals and some painkillers. I'm filtering all the water to remove the toxins from the water."

Suddenly from outside the room Tweak's voice called

"Kwazii, we've got al lot more fish to get!"

"Climbing matey!" he yield, leaping out of the room

Peso slumped over the edge of the tank and looked concernedly down at the poisoned fish.

"Oh, i hope you're all alright." peso said, looking at his patients, "I'd hat to see anything happened to you."

As peso was looking around his sickbay, making sure all the machines were running right, he felt his stomach rumble.

"Oh dear, i haven't eaten all day," he remarked, "I'd better go and get some food."

Peso waddled out of the room and out of one of the hatches. He swam up to the surface to where the vegimals had set up a mobile cooking raft

"Hello Vegimals," Peso said, climbing onto the raft, which prompted a reply of many happy cheepas.

"Fishbiscuita?" Grouber asked peso, holding up a freshly baked tray of biscuits

"Don't mid if i do," Peso answered, grabbing one and taking a big bite out the crumbly snack. After grabbing a few more biscuits peso leaned back against one of the counters

Without realising, Peso placed his flipper against a plate of Kelp cakes, jolting the pyramid of cakes the vegimals had stacked. From the top of the pyramid one kelp cake fell off, tumbling onto the floor of the raft.

"Oh dear," peso said ,"sorry, here, I'll clear it up."

Peso bend down and picked up the smooshed kelp cake .he then waddled over to the bin and opened the lid with the little pedal. As he was dropping the cake in he inadvertently got a good whiff of the bin's contents

"Eew!" Peso exclaimed, reeling backwards and looking at the mouldy decaying content of the bin, "you should really clean that out."

As the smell wafted over to the vegimals, they all covered their noses and nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, thank you for the biscuits" Peso thanked before putting his helmet on and jumping back into the water.

***

Peso woke up the next morning and yawned loudly. Or at least he tried to as his yawn was cut of by a series of retching coughs.

"Oh dear, i appear to be ill" Peso said in a raspy voice, "it's probably nothing serious."

For this expedition, Tweak had set up temporary bedrooms for all the crew as it was going to be a long ordeal to get the fish and river healthy again

Peso hopped out of bed and waddled to the Medical room, still in his pyjamas. Even after just that short walk, Peso felt out of breath.

He checked up on all the fish. They still were swimming about as if they were drunk. He completed the general rooteen that he'd been doing for hte past few days. He fed the fish in the big tank some algae pellets and then fed the carnivorous fish in the separated taks some crumbled fish biscuits, all of wich began to be slowly eaten.

After that peso felt well and truly exhausted.

"I guess i could go for a little lye down," he said and began to waddle back to his room

"Hiya matey!" Kwazii yelled somersaulting next to peso, "i think we've got all the fish we can out the river. We've just got to move a couple more buckets to move into here. Mind lending a hand!"

"No sorry, i think i need a little lie down" Peso explained in his still raspy voice

"Are you alright matey," Kwazii asked " you sound sick"

"It's probably nothing," peso dismissed, "i just have a bit of a cough, I probably need a quick rest, then I can get back to helping my patents."

Peso waddled into his room and shut the door, leaving Kwazii looked concernedly at the shut door.

"Hmmmm?" Kwazii thought, "i wonder what's got peso so down. Maybe i can find out."

Kwazii strolled into the sickbay and checked in one of the cupboard. Inside was pile of medical books, all of which Kwazii immediately swept onto the floor and began to sort through,

"Lousectomy in depth, starfish wasting disease, fish anatomy for dummies," Kwazii listed going through all the books, "AHA! Disease in penguins."

Kwazii flipped open that book and began to check the different diseases

Avian Malaria

Symptoms: Acute death

Cure: none

Description: Just give up, your done.

"Yow!" Kwazii exclaimed quite taken aback, "these penguin diseases really aren't for the faint hearted." he continued shakily

(this is mainly a comment on how most penguin diseases i found were incredibly gory. Luckily i found one that wasn't quite so bad)

Kwazii flipped through the rest of the book, comparing Peso's symptoms to those described. Soon he landed on a page that looked Promising. He skimmed through the page and he eyes lit up.

"Gotcha!" Kwazii said dramatically, pointing at the blurry microscopic image of the culprit microbe.

Kwazii leapt out the sickbay and burst into peso's room

"Matey! Look," Kwazii yelled excitedly holding up the book, "i found it!"

Peso sat up groggily and looked at the page in the book

"Pulmonary Aspergillosis" Peso started to read croakily

"Symptoms: coughing, difficulty breathing, altered vocalisation, tiredness, Dyspnea, loss of appetite.

Cures: Itracozonol

Description: fungal infection of the lungs, common for penguins in unnatural warm climates. Is is caused a mold called Aspergillus Fumigatus that thrives in composts and soil.

"Flappity Flippers, i think your right!" Peso exclaimed ,"quick, sound the Octo Alert."

Kwazii sprinted over the other side of the med-bay and slapped his hand down on the Octo Alert Button situated there

"Octonauts, to the sleeping quarters!"

***

"Kwazii," the captain commanded ,"what happened."

"Peso has Aspergilapila..." Kwazii began to fumble," oh I'm not even gonna try. He has this!"

Kwazii held up the book and pointed to the page in question.

"Jumping Jelly fish, Pulmonary Aspergillosis," Shellington exclaimed ,"thank goodness you noticed it early we can easily treat in now . It's a nasty sickness so you have to rest Peso."

"It's not so bad," Peso rasped, panting as if he was sprinting, "just, get me some of the Itracozonol and I'll be good as new"

"Ah, yes, the Itracozonol." Shellington piped up ,"do you have any?"

 

Peso shook his head, "i can't remember the last time i used Itracozonol, if I've ever even used it."

"I could try and make some," Shellington suggested ,"how hard can it be."

"Don't be silly Shellington," Dashi dismissed, "your a marine biologist, not a chemist. Plus you don't have any of the right equipment."

"I know!" Captain barnacles announced, "Professor Natquik! He's been working with hundred's of penguins for years. He's bound to have some."

"Great idea captain," Peso commented, "now while you get that, i better look after my patien-

Peso sluggishly got out of bed but Kwazii stepped in front of him

"No you don't matey!" Kwazii yelled ,"you need to rest."

"Kwazii, you look after Peso's fish," the captain announced, "Shellington and Dashi, you try and find the source of this Asperkimbledimblewajama-call-it. You know the fungus that causes this, make sure you get rid of it safely."

"Got it captain," the both said.

"Tweak, you come with me to find Professor Natquick,"

"You got it cap!" Tweak answered

"Ok then," the captain finished ,"Octonauts, let's do this!"

***

Tweak and the captain both swam out of the Gup W and into the river where the Gup A was bobbing about in the water.

"Give me a sec cap," Tweak said, clambering into the gup, "just gotta install the booster."

"The booster?" the captain asked ,"do you have it here?"

"I always keep the booster in the gup," Tweak explained opening up a hatch in the floor and pulling out the long metallic tube of the booster.

He hopped back out of the gup and held it up, just in front of the engine. The metal tube was immediately sucked form her hand and cemented in place by strong magnets.

"Ok cap, it's all done, fire up the engine." Tweak announced.

Tweak had only just planted one foot into the gup, when the Captain send it jolting forward, almost sending her flying.

"Whoops, sorry tweak" he apologised ,"I'm not used to the booster."

"Never mind that." Tweak dismissed, properly climbing into the gup and buckling up," we've gotta get to the Antarctic soon to get the medicine in time."

"Ok then, Tweak open the Octo hatch!"

Tweak just stared at her captain, very much confused.

"Oh right, we're in a river," the captain realised, "off we. go!"

***

Kwazii strode into the Med bay with the final box of intoxicated fish. He checked their gills and teeth, just like peso had told him with great detail. All the gills looked healthy enough so Kwazii placed all the fish with blunt or no teeth in the large communal tanks and the sharp teethed ones in separate tanks which he stacked wherever he could.

After that was done, Kwazii jogged back into Peso's room and stood to attention

"What's next matey," Kwazii asked, saluting.

"Next you need to *cough* install a water pump with a chemical filter on the end" Peso explained.

"How do i do that?" Kwazii asked. he was unexperienced in fish care

"Come on I'll show you." Peso wheezed,

"Oh ok the- wait a minute!" Kwazii replied, figuring out peso's game, "you need to stay here and rest matey."

"I appreciate you helping Kwazii," peso said ,"but your not exactly a doctor. My job is to help any creature that is hurt of sick, no matter what. Plus some exercise would do me good."

Peso got up out of bed and took a deep breath.

Big mistake.

The penguin immediately erupted in a fit of coughing that lasted a full 20 seconds. Kwazii stood awkwardly on the other side of the room while peso peso coughed violently into the crook of his flipper.

The coughing fit ended with a small burp and a very shaken peso

(you know you're coughing is serious when you burp afterwards.)

"Flappity flippers." peso said, slightly woozy, "i think i need some water."

Peso took a swig from the plastic tumbler of water and sat back down.

"You good matey?" Kwazii asked.

"Just some coughing," Peso replied, "I'm better now, now let's go look at my patients."

***

"Any luck finding the source turnip?" Shellington asked.

Turnip shook his head, examining the corner of the sickbay.

"This ship does sit about in the Gup Station i wouldn't be surprised if mould has started to grow about this place." Dashi said

Shellington, the vegimals and Dashi were al wearing protective face coverings as to not inhale any fungal spores while searching. They scanned the entirety of the Gup W, Head to toe, but found no sign of any mould.

"You sure you looking in the right places matey!" Kwazii yelled from across the sickbay. He was trying to open a packet of fish food without scissors. "Tweak already told you that she made these gups mould proof."

"It's still worth a check," Shellington answered ," I'm securing the most high traffic areas first so that we can use them again. "

"Wait a minute... Kwazii," Dashi realised "your not supposed to be in hear without a face covering, you could catch it too."

"I can!" Kwazii exclaimed. The cat then immediately held his breath and ran over to Shellington and the vegimals, gesturing that he needed a face covering.

"Sorry kwazii." sheling toon replied ,"the rest are in the control room."

"MMMMMMMMMM" Kwazii screamed in frustration, his lips still pursed tightly together. He then sprinted out the room looking for the face masks.

"Cheepacheepa?" asked turnip, looking up at Shellington pleadingly

"Yes, i guess we could go have a break," Shellington relented, "its not like we're any closer to finding that mould."

 

"CHEEPA CHEEPA!" the Vegimals all cheered.

***

Peso sitting back on his bed. Kwazii had insisted he can look after the fish and Peso was waiting for the results.

Suddenly Kwazii bust back into the room wearing a face mask and a beat up bag of fish food.

"How do you open this thing?!" he chouted confussedly, holding up the bag, "this things mad of steel"

"You just have to pull on the tag." Peso replied, taking hte bag and pulling on the small red tag, easily tearing a slit in the bag, "now come on, i need to see my patients."

Peso waddled into the Sickbay and breathed in the smell of

"Hello everyone," peso greeted, his voice still croaky, "how are you doing."

None of the fish replied. They were all still swimming about their tanks erratically flopping about gormlesly. Peso waddled over and looked at the fish who all seemed to show no change whatsoever.

Peso yawned loudly by tiredness wouldn't stop him, his patients needed him. Peso looked about the Sickbay and saw what an absolute mess it was.

"Looks like this place needs a good clean," Peso commented, "Righto o, let's get going."

Kwazii, who was gingerly following behind Peso, stood around awkwardly as peso began to pick wrappers and empty bottles off the floor.

"You need any help ,matey," he asked uncertainty.

"you can help me pick up the rubbish," Peso offered, "there is quite a lot of it."

"Got it matey!" Kwazii exclaimed, leaping into action ,"once we've go everything here cleared up then your going to go back and rest."

Kwazii reached out and Grabbed Peso's hat from his head and put it on "Doctor's orders."

Peso Chuckled and Kept picking up rubbish from the floor, diligently working away.

***

Up on the food raft, Shellington was pacing back and fourth, munching on a fish biscuit.

"Where could it be," he thought aloud ,"i searched this ship from top to bottom and there's no sing of the Aspergillus."

"Cheepa?" turnip asked

"Yes Tunip, I've checked in the toilets, I've checked under the tables, inside the cups, even in my sock draw."

Shellington threw up his arms in frustration, forgetting he had a fish biscuit in his hand. He watched as the biscuit arced through the air and landed on the floor of the raft.

"Whoops, i guess is should be more careful," Shellington said, reaching down and picking up the fallen snack.

He scooped up all the crumbs and then walked over to the bin with them. He stomped on the bin opening pedal and then was about to show the solid biscuit when he noticed something.

"Everyone!" Shellington commanded, "protective gear on."

Dashi and The vegimals quickly slid on their face masks and then crowded round Shellington when was staring transfixed at the bin. Inside the bin, atop the pile of decaying much was a sickly looking green blue mould.

Shellington quickly reached into his pocket and fumbled out not one but two magnifying glasses. He held both up so that the lenses aligned, magnifying the mould massively, revealing the cell structure and confirming his suspicions.

(Shellington's magnifying glasses are just build different)

"Yes! If found it!" Shellington exclaimed, "oh, i should have known, Apergillus loves to grow on rotting food or leaves."

"Cheepa Cheepa!" the vegimals all cheered

"Quick, let's take some samples and quarantine this area, we need to make sure no one else gets hurt."

***

Down in the Antarctic, the Gup A leapt out of the water and slammed back down on the sea ice. The gup skidded along the surface of the ice like a hockey puck, spinning and sliding inland

After a few seconds of violent spinning the Gup ground to a halt, spitting ice crystals everywhere.

"Oh me oh my!" Tweak exclaimed woozily, clambering over the controls and stumbling out the front of the Gup ,"that was quite an arrival."

The captain tried to climb over the controls but lost his balance, falling onto the ice and sliding slowly along. The two stood/lay there, regaining balance as the harsh winds blasted them with bitter cold.

"what now," tweak asked ,"we didn't bring any coats."

"Don't worry tweak," the captain said, undeterred by the sharp cold ,"I've made a call."

Suddenly, from the icy haze loomed the Gup I, slowing rolling towards the Gup A. it drove right up to the two octonauts before retracting the legs and opening the hatch on the front (on the head bit of the gup)

The door flipped forward and extended into a ramp that landed firmly on the white ice. At the top of the ramp stood a jolly arctic fox, holding three hot chocolates.

"Barnacles, Tweak, it's so good to see you!" Professor Natquik greeted ,"what are you doing out there without a coat. Come in before you get frost bite."

Tweak and Barnacles jogged up the ramp and the door snapped shut behind then, trying to keep in hte warm air.

"Here, i made you Hot Chocolates," the professor said, handing his guests a warm cup of Chocolate, "or more accurately, the machine made them."

The group all sat down by a radiator, sipping their drinks.

"So Professor," the captain began, "do you have the medicine."

"Yep, I've got it right here," he replied holding up a sealed packet of pills ,"if Peso takes one of these each day for a week or two, he should be right as rain in no time."

"Thank you professor," Tweak tanked ,"your a lifesaver. Literally!"

The three all chuckled

"Well, you two must be off," Professor Natquik said ,"it is of utmost importance that you get this medicine to your friend as quickly as possible, the earlier you treat it , the easier it is to treat."

Tweak and Barnacles got up once again and headed for the door.

"Wait!" Natquick interrupted, "on more thing."

The fox ran off into another room, rummaged about for a bit and them re-emerged with two fluffy coats.

"I don't know what your doing here without coats," he said ,"this is the coldest place on earth, you'd get frostbite in minutes."

"Thanks," again professor ," the captain thanked.

"All in a days work," Natquik dismissed ,"now you go help Peso, he needs you."

***

CHOUGH CHOUGH WHEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHCH COUGH

Peso was wheezing and coughing by a table, his lungs seemingly gummed up by some irremovable tar. His throat was raw, impervious to lozenges and painkillers and each breath was only half a breath making the penguin feel constantly out of breath

"Ok Peso, you really need to go to bed and rest," Kwazii said, firmly," this exercise is not doing you any good."

"But...

"No buts."

Kwazii reached out and picked Peso Up and then marched him over to the sleeping area. Kwazii goose stepped into Peso's room and plonked him onto the bed

"You need rest matey, and you know it." Kwazii said authoritatively,

"But my patients are sick too," Peso complained ,"i cant sit here resting when there are other creatures just as sick as me that need my help."

"Don't worry Peso," Kwazii replied ,"I've got Shellington on the case."

Suddenly Kwazii heard a loud crash from the sickbay.

"You need to pull the red tag Shellington!" he explained loudly

"Thank you," Shellington replied

"Plus," Kwazii continued, "if you rest now you can help thousands of fish later instead of still being sick."

"I guess your right," Peso croaked, his normal breathing slowing turning into a pant, "i do feel quite under the weather."

"You don't say."

Suddenly a ringing sound reverberated through the ship.

"Must ba a call from the captain" Kwazii said ,"I'll get it."

Kwazii leapt out the room and answered the call.

"What is it captain?" he asked as Barnacle's face fizzled up on screen.

"We're in a bit of a pickle," the captain replied ,"we accidentally damaged out engine while on the sea ice, and..."

"Why were you on the sea ice in the Gup A" Kwazii asked ,"the gup A is only meant for water.

"Nevermind that," the captain said, "we're stranded in the Atlantic. I need you to come Over in the Gup B and pick up Peso's medicine."

"I'm on it captain!" Kwazii said saluting before hanging up.

Kwazii sprinted off through the gup W, Running for the Exit.

"Shellington!" Kwazii called ,"you look after Peso!"

"Huh?" Shellington replied trying to work his way out of a pile of medical rubble, "where i are you going."

"I'm getting the medicine," the pirate explained ,"call me if anything goes wrong."

Kwazii sprinted to the front of the gup, where the exit was and opened up the door. He swam out and burst though the surface of the river, quickly catching sight of the vivid orange of the Gup B bobbing on the river surface.

He clambered into the Gup and shot off down the river at top speed.

The gup sliced through the water like a torpedo, startling many a fish and leaving a trail of bubbles behind.

On the control panel Barnacle's icon popped up and Kwazii answered the call.

"I'm on my way captain," Kwazii informed him, "where exactly are you?"

I'm sending you my location now" Barnacles said ,"we managed to make it most of the way."

On Kwazii screen a Map of South America popped up with the Gup A, slap bang in the middle of it.

The Gup rocketed out of the mouth of the amazon river and into the Atlantic ocean, heading towards the Gup A.

***

Captain barnacles was thoroughly bored.

"How long do you think it will be until you get the engine running again tweak?" the captain asked.

"Should be done in about a day," tweak answered, rummaging about in the guts of the gup with a blowtorch and a carrot, "i may have to repurpose the roof a wiring."

The captain looked out at the ocean boredly and caught sight of the Gup B bouncing over the top of the Ocean.

"Kwazii!" He exclaimed.

"Ahoy matey!" Kwazii yelled back,"i hear that you found the medicine."

The Gup B pulled up next to the Gup A and Kwazii jumped out onto the hood of his Gup.

"Here quick, gimme the medicine," Kwazii said Holding out his hand, "I've got to get back to Peso as soon as possible."

At that moment a call came through on the Gup B. it was Shellington.

Kwazii reached down with his foot and tapped the screen.

"Hello?" Shellington said, looking at the empty seat of the Gup B ,"Kwazii are you there?"

"I'm up here," Kwazii answered bending over so his now upside down face was level with the screen "what's happened."

"Peso is getting more sick," Shellington explained, "you'd better get back here quickly."

"On my way," Kwazii replied and ended the call.

Captain barnacles handed over the packet of pills and Kwazii began to get back into the gup when Tweak interrupted.

"Here, you can use the turbo booster," she said, jumping into the ocean and snapping the turbo booster to the Gup's engine.

"also," the captain butted in ,"Peso needs to have one pill per day until he is better."

"got it."

"Tanks tweak, gotta go no, bye mateys!" Kwazii yelled revving up the Gup and shooting off back to the Amazon basin.

***

Peso retched and coughed in bed, Shellington had balanced some ice cubes on top of Peso's forehead to try and dumb down the fever he had.

"Shellington," Peso called in a rasped voice ,"you should replace the ice cubes with a cough cough COUGH

"With a what?" Shellington Questioned poking his head around the corner.

"With a CHOUGH CHOUGH CHOUGH

Peso gave up trying to talk and lay back on his pile of pillows and tried to fall asleep. His breathing was laboured and he had to be careful not to breath too hard, otherwise that would immediately set him off coughing again

He was incredibly tired but unable to sleep, only able to sit in bed wishing that sleep would come.

Out of nowhere another explosion of coughed rocked peso and reset all his progress he had made towards a possible rest.

"I'VE GOT IT!" Screamed a voice from above.

There was some loud clanging on the top of the Gup W before an audible rush of water by the entrance, followed by an exited Kwazii rounding the corner skidding into the room.

"I've got the medicine matey," Kwazii announced ,"one pack of itracoco-whajacallit."

Kwazii opened up the packet, which was full of individually packaged pills and tossed one to peso.

"swallow one of these each day and you should get better in... I don't know how long."

Peso swallowed the pill with a sip of water.

"do you feel any better?" Kwazii asked.

"no, not yet of course," Peso replied, still with a frog in his throat, "not everything works as fast as as my bandages, all medicines take time to work, we just have to wait a bit.

***

A few weeks later Peso woke up ,yawned and took a deep breath to test. No coughs.

Peso got out of bed and waddled out of his temporary bedroom and into the main body of the Gup W.

"Hello?" he asked looking around the empty room, his voice now back to normal, "where is everyone

Peso waddled across the Gup W's main room looking for the rest of the crew.

"where is everyone?"

Peso stepped into the Sickbay that was oddly dark and looked about for the light switch. He soon found it and switched it on to reveal.

"SURPRISE!"

Peso Jumped at this sudden greeting.

All of the octonauts had prepared a party for Peso with some hand cut buntings made of some artful scalene triangles and wonky trapezoids. Party poppers popped and cofetty was thrown.

The oconauts weren't the only ones there, all of the fish that peso had helped recover from poisoning were all in their tanks , swimming around regularly and smiling and waving

"congratulations on your recovery matey!" Kwazii said Leaping forward and putting his arm around his friend, "we put together a little party for you so we can celebrate."

"Aww," Peso squealed ,"thank you guys."

"thanks for looking after us Peso," one of the fish said ,"you saved us all from the poison."

"but, I got sick and couldn't help you," Peso replied ,"it was the others who did all the work."

"what are you talking about Peso," the captain said (he got back btw) "your the one who set up all the tanks and the filters and everything. We just fed them."

"realy?"

"you don't give yourself enough credit matey," Kwazii said ,"every person here owes their lives to you (except the vegimals). You helped all us get better, and it was time to help you get better. Speaking of which, I think Shellington has prepared something for you."

Peso looked about, looking for Shellington who didn't seem to be in the crowd

"Shellington, that's your cue," Kwazii hissed.

"oh oh! Over here peso!" Shellington called, remembering his role

Peso waddled over to Shellington who seemed to be standing next to a glass tube with a lever on the side. That was full of rubbish.

"look into this tube," Shellington said

Peso looked into the tube and at the garbage and caught sight of the blue grey mould, that was seemingly pedestalled on top of a pile of garbage.

"is that..." peso stammered ," the mould..."

"that's right," Shellington said ,"and you see that lever."

Peso nodded.

"pull that lever and it'll incinerate that fungus for good," Shellington explained ,"do you want to do the honours?"

Peso reached out with his flipped and pulled down on the lever. From four different angles blowtorches lit up the mould, burning the ominous teal fronds into charred charcoal twigs.

"haha!" peso laughed triumphantly and all the octonauts cheered as the screen faded to black

*~Creature report~*

Calling all Octonauts!

Kwazii, Peso, Shellington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek

Tunip!

Kwazi, activate creature report!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

Facts:

Aspergillus Fumigatus

Check! Check! Check!

is a Teal coloured fungus

Check! Check! Mee!

It is a type of mould

Creature Report! Creature Report!

That grows on soil or food that's old

Creature Report! Creature Report!

If you inhale it's spore filled fumes

Check! Check! Chup!

You should get treated quick, or it will spell your doom

Dance Break!

Go Fungus, Go Fungus ,Go Fungus!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

Chapter Text

"Where's the next stop Dashi," the captain said into the speaker of the Gup-A.

"Umm," Dashi said, flipping through some pages in her notebook, "next stop on your ecological checkup is a mudflat on the east coast of North America. The one with all the soft shelled clams. I'm sending you the location now."

Captain barnacles was piloting the Gup-A through the northwest Atlantic with Kwazii and Shellington. As the location of the mud flat popped up on the screen at the front front of the gup, the captain turned to head for the coast.

"I'm so excited," Shelington exclaimed ,"It's been so long since I've been here, I can't wait to say hello to my clam friends."

"Shellington," Kwazii asked ,"what actually is a mudflat?"

 

"Good question Kwazii," Shelington said, going to the front of the gup and bringing up some images of mud flats on the screen above him.

"Along many coastlines the ocean deposits sediment like sand which forms beaches but in some sheltered areas like estuaries or lagoons, the smaller pieces of sediment that would normally wash away, like clay particles, are deposited making a kind of beach made of mud."

"So will it be all gloppy muddy," Kwazii said, "pirates don't do well in mud,"

"Some mud flats are made of very thick, more liquid mud, the one we're going to is firmer than that, around the same texture as a beach. Here, I have some pictures from when I last visited a few years ago."

Shelington pulled up a picture of him standing on a mudflat, smiling at the camera holding a clam.

Firm enough to stand on but you'd leave very visible footprints like a regular wet beach)

"Phew, so just like a darker beach," Kwazii sighed "Who's that calm your holding?

"That's Gary the sand gaper," Shelington explained ,"Sand gapers are a type of burrowing clam found on coasts all around the northern hemisphere.he helped me with my ecological examination last time. I hope we'll see him again."

"Looks like you won't have to wait long," the captain said ,"we're here."

The Captain parked the Gup A in the shallow waters just off the mud flats. The flats were a dark brown with a visible glisten which was unlike the picture.

"Woo! Mudflats" Kwazii yelled, jumping out the front of the gup and into the shallow water .

"Shellington!" Kwazii yelled indignantly from outside the gup, "You LIED to meeee!"

Shlington poked his head out of the side of the gup and saw Kwazii shin deep in gloopy mud.

"Sorry Kwazii. It wasn't like this before," Shelington remarked, "guess we should have bought wellies."

The captain and Shelington both lowered themselves into the mud and began to wade the shore. The stagnant mud tried to suck you down with every step making an disgusting gurgling squelch every time you lifted your foot

The shore was not any better, just a large flat plain of mud, hence the name.

"Shiver *pant" Me Whiskers *pant*" Kwazii said huffing and puffing, "that was the most tiring 50 metres of my life."

"Oh no, this really isn't good," Shelington said, "Sand gapers can't live in mud this wet."

"I don't think anything can live in this mud matey," Kwazii said, using his paw to dig a bit into it, "it's disgusting,"

"These flats are actually very rich with life, animals feed off the organic waste in the mud and a complex food web is built off of that."

As Kwazii was digging the captain noticed something bright pink in the pile of dirt where Kwazii was flinging his dirt. He waded over and picked it up in his paw.

"Looks like you found some life already Kwazii," he said, holding the creature up to his eye. It was worm like and around 20cm long with lots of tiny limbs growing out it's side

"Looks like you found a segmented worm," Shelington said, squinting his eyes at the worm that was a few metres away from him ," let me get a closer look

As Shelington waded through the mud, the worm suddenly began to writhe in the captain's grip. Out of nowhere a long meaty mass shot out the front of the worm, as if the worm was literally turning itself inside out. As the meaty tube grew longer, ejecting itself up the captain's forearm, four dark black teeth, hooked like fangs, were unsheathed.

"Jumping Jellyfish!" Shelington yelled, "drop it! Drop it!"

Before the captain could react, the worm latched it's ungodly jaw onto the captains arm

"Aaag!" Barnacles exclaimed, reaching up, pulling the worm off his arm and flinging it into the mud.

"You alright, captain!?" Kwazii asked, turning around, "what was that."

"That's a blood worm," Shelington explained, Rushing over to the captain, "they hunt in this sludge like mud for small invertebrates. They also have a venomous bite"

"What kind of venom does it have?" the captain asked, looking at his arm which clearly had four evenly spaced puncture marks where the worm had bit him."

"Nothing serious," Shelington explained, "much like a bee sting actually."

"Hold on," Kwazii said "since when did worms have teeth and venom?"

"Actually, a surprising amount of worms have teeth but not many have the kind that can administer venom like that. Blood worms have specialised teeth made out of protein, melanin and copper.

"copper!" Kwazii replied, "You mean the stuff I used to collect because I thought it was gold."

"Yes, it makes their teeth stronger," Shelington explained ,"the strength allows for the teeth to be hollow to allow injection of venom."

"Let's try to get to some dry land," the captain suggested, "maybe then we can have a look for you clam friends."

The three octonauts all waded inland through the mud and after a few minutes of intense trudging they reached some firmer ground, complete with some scrawny grasses and scraggly shrubs. Once they arrived they plodded up a small mound and looked out over the flats.

The area looked beautiful in some ways. The entire floor was a huge flat mirror making the dim sun glint off the surface.

"Look over there!" Kwazzi said, pointing to an area around half a kilometre down the coast, "that bit looks less shiny."

"You right," Shelington said, squinting at the patch of land, "let's head over there and see if I can find any of my clam friends."

The octonauts all jogged over to the area of firmer beach. It was a relatively small patch of coast slightly lighter in colour than the gloppy mud and much more like a beach.

"Haha! Look!" Shelington exclaimed, dropping to the floor and looking at the mud, "holes."

"What do the holes mean," The captain asked, looking at the many little tunnels in the sand.

"They're called syphon holes. Sand Gapers use them to suck in water when the tide is in and filter it for food," Shelington explained.

The otter then reached into his little bag and pulled out a trowel and began to dig down at the spot of one of the so-called syphon holes.

"Gah! Why's it so bright!" yelled a voice from the sand

"I recognise that voice!" Shelington said, filling with hope,"Garry is that you?"

Shelington reached into the loose sand and pulled out a Sand Gaper. the shell was a dark sanddy colour, lined with layers of rings that made the surface bumpy. out of the side protruded what looked like a sausage about half the length of the clam

(They don't have eyes but for octonauts they'd just be slapped on top like what they did with the starfish or comb jelly)

"Shellington?" the clam said it's eyes opening. "It's a long time so see my friend."

"I'm so glad I found you, I was beginish to worry," Shellington said before turning around to his crewmates, "Kwazii, Captain; this is Gary the Sand Gaper."

"Great to meet you matey," Kwazii greeted ,"Shelington thought he wouldn't be able to find you because of all the sludge."

"Ooh, the sludge," Gary said lamentfully ," this beach used to be firm mud and sand as far as the eye could see, but over time it got wetter and wetter until the beach became a sludge pit, and then the worms came. Us clams can't live in such conditions as the mud smothers us."

"Yea!" yelled a voice from behind the octonauts.

They all turned around and saw a bloodworm slowly undulated onto the surface of the mud and looked at them.

"The weather's changing, my shelled friends, and soon, this whole beach will be ours. Shiny sludge stretching unbroken and that sandy scum you call home will be no more."

Then the worm slipped back into the mud dramatically.

"Captain, we've got to get these clams out of here now," Shelington said ,"before their habitat is lost to the sludge."

"Looks like it's time to sound the Octo-Alert.

The captain pulled the Octo-Compass off his belt and Pressed the big orange Octo-alert button.

"Octonauts," he announced, "to the HQ"

(cue octo Alert sequence)

All of the octonauts that were in the octopod gathered in the HQ as the Captain's face popped up on the big screen.

"What's the problem, cap?" Tweak asked ,"did you get your boots wet already?"

"Thankfully not," the captain replied.

"Speak for yourself," Kwazii commented

"The real problem is about the clams we were meant to be surveying," the captain explained, "their habitat is disappearing and we need to find them a new place to live. Tweak, I need you looking for suitable beaches for the clams in the Gup H."

"You got it cap"

" Peso, I need you here in the gup E to ferry these clams to their new beach."

"On it Captain,"

"Me, Kwazii and Shelington will collect up the clams," the captain finished ," will we need anything else Shelington?"

"One last thing!" Shellington said ,"Can Peso pack Tweak's new prototype."

"Yup, I can shove it in the trunk," Tweak replied

"Ok then, we'll prepare for your arrival."

***

The Gup E trundled through the water and soon arrived at the mud flat where Shelington and Barnacles were both waiting at the shore. Kwazii, on the other hand, was still standing at the patch of firm sand.

"Welcome to the mudflat Peso," Shelington greeted

"Looks shiny," Peso remarked, "so how many clams are we talking about moving."

"I'd say a few hundred... or thousand" Shelington answered timidly.

"Flappity flippers," Peso commented ,"good thing I brought backup."

Peso opened up the back of the Gup E and out poured the vegimals who immediately leapt out and started playing in the mud.

"Cheepa cheepa!" Tunip greeted enthusiastically, jumping up and down in front of Shelington

"I've got these things as well," Peso said, "clambering out the gup with some cumbersome bundle of tools just over a metre in length and around 10 in number. the main body of hte tool was a long metal pole with a handel across the top, making T shape and at the base was a section of tube, hollow and painted in the signature bright orange of the octonauts.

"Oh ooh!" perfect!" Shelington squealed excitedly "Come on everyone! Let's get to the clam spot and get started."

***

"Soo, what exactly is this matey?" Kwazii asked as Shelington approached the beach and handed him one of the tools ,"looks like a plunger,"

"It's called a clam gun," Shelington said ,"it's used to dig up sand gapers like Gary here."

Shelington pointed over to a little jar of seawater that he had placed on the sand with Garry the sand gaper in

"Hello everyone," he greeted ,"it's great to meet you all."

"A gun?!" Peso asked concernedly, "Isn't that a bit dangerous?"

"It's nothing like an actual gun," Shelington chuckled, "Here, I'll show you how it works."

Shelington picked one up by the handle and quickly located a clam syphon hole

"First you have to place the circle bit of the clam gun over one of the syphon holes," he explained, while also doing so.

"then you have to push and wiggle it down into the sand," he said shimmying the cylindrical section of the clam gun into the floor so that only the slightly conical top could still be seen

"Next you have to cover the little hole under the handle aaaand..." Shelington continued ,"pull!"

Shelington yanked the tool upwards and the octonauts looked in astonishment at the perfect cylinder shaped hole in the sand where the tool was placed.

"Then finally take your finger off the hole and find your clam."

Shelington took his finger off of the hole and out flopped a cylinder of sand that slumped down onto the floor.

"Oi what's the big idea!" yelled a voice from the pile of sand.

Shelington reached into the pile of sand and pulled out a disgruntled Sand Gaper.

"Ta da!" Shellington said, holding the clam up triumphantly

"You can just place 'em in a pile," Gary piped up ,"us clams can stay out of water for a long time as long as we stay wet."

"Thanks Gary," Shelington said placing the clam down on a patch of sand that didn't have any clam holes on it

"Well come on everyone," Kwazii urged, jumping forwards and picking up a clam gun, "let's get digging!"

–**^MONTAGE-TIME^***-

1:

Peso grabbed a clam gun and wedged it into the sand and then pulled it up again, pulling out a column of sand with a loudly complaining clam inside of it. Peso pulled out the clam and placed it on top of a sizable pile of clams that was starting to build up on the sand

2:

Tunip pushed the tip of one of the clam guns into the sand and then tried to push it further but was not able to.

Seeing Tunip struggling, Barrot walked over and shook his head at Tunip. He was doing it all wrong. Barrot climbed on top of the clam gun and began to jump up and down, Jamming the clam gun into the ground.

Then both vegimals lifted up the clam gun, pulling up a tube of sand and successfully finding a clam

3:

Grouber was pushing a clam gun into the mud, he caught sight of movement in the shrubbery a little ways off. Then from the bush, out wandered a racoon. The vegimal watched as it capered calmly towards the pile of clams.

Just before it was about to reach out and grab one of the clams, Grouber charged at it, scaring the racoon away.

4:

Shelington tiredly pushed the clam gun into the mud, slumping on the handles to push it down into another substrate. He was surrounded by four other clam gun holes that he'd dug and was already out of breath.

He looked over at Kwazii and his eyes widened in shock as he saw the pirate cat in a field of 20 odd holes, running back and forth, pulling out clams wherever he could see holes at breakneck pace.

***

Soon, all the clams had all been gathered into one large pile around as tall as a vegimal and as wide as a peso.

"Looks like that's all of them matey," Kwazii said looking at the pile

"and not a moment too soon." Shellington said, looking out at the ocean which was now only around metres away, gently rolling its waves over the smooth mud, creeping ever closer."

Suddenly Shelington's coms buzzed and he reached up to his neck to answer it.

"Yes?"

"I think I found the perfect beach Shellington," tweak said.

She was hovering the Gup H over a long stretch of beach. The beach was sandy in nature and already peppered with clam holes

"I'm sending the coordinates to the Gup E. have a safe drive"

"Peso," Shelington said, ending the call ,"can you drive the gup E closer so that we can move these clams faster."

"On it," Peso said wading off across the mudflats that were now submerged in a shallow layer of ocean

Shellington looked down at the pile of clams and saw that there were waves lapping at the side of them, dislodging them from their positions and dragging them slowly, wave by wave, out to sea.

"Help meeeeeee!" a clam yelled as it was rolled off to sea

"Quick everyone!" Shellington yelled, jumping forward and grabbing the rolling clam from the wave, "grab as many sand gapers as you can.

The vegimals, Barnacles and Kwazii all sprang into action, picking up as many clams as they could but there were still a huge amount left in the pile. Shelington watched in horror as more and more screaming clams were slowly rolling out to sea.

"Jumping Jellyfish, there are too many!" Shelington yelled ,"we can't hold them all."

"Looks like we won't have to ma..."

Just as Shelington turned his head, a violent spray of sludge and salt was blasted in his face. Shelington spat out some salt water and tossed a bloodworm off his hat as he looked up at Peso, Who had driven the gup hard into the mud.

"Come on!" Peso said ,"We've gotta save these clams."

Everyone unloaded their armfulls of clams into the back of the gup which Peso had filled with seawater during his epic entrance. Then Kwazii waded out into the flats to pick up any stray clams that had rolled away as Shellington and the Vegimals gathered up the rest of the pile.

The Octonauts all bundled the clams into the back of the gup and then Gave the vehicle a good push to un-wedge it from the mud.

"Not about to forget you Gary," Shellington said, dropping back and picking up Gary's jar

"I was beginning to worry," Gary joked as Shellington Jumped into the very crowded front of the Gup E as Peso drove off.

As the Gup E meandered away two bloodworms popped their heads out the mud and looked at the departing gup.

"Good riddance," said one of the bloodworms ,"those guys were weird."

***

As Shelington, Kwazii, Barnacles and Peso were unloading the clams, the vegimals were running around with the clam guns, digging new holes in the shallow water and placing the clams in them.

(I have 0 clue if this is a viable way to return soft shelled clams to their natural habitat. I did a bunch of research and found nothing because you normally just eat them. I saw a study that said that they are not good at reburying themselves so i assume that digging a hole in shallow water at high tide would be the best way to go. )

"Looks like that's the last of them," Kwazii announced feeling in the murky water in the back of the gup.

Shelington swept his arm along the bottom of the pool and encountered one final clam. He pulled it out and it was Gary.

"Fancy seeing you here," Shellington chuckled.

"Thanks for doing this Shelington," Gary said ,"nothing can compare to a good beach full of sand with water ripe for the filtering."

"No problem Gary, i'm an Octonaut," Shelington replied, "and as an Octonaut, I have an obligation to help any creature whenever I can, or something like that I can never really remember it."

"Well I still owe you and your Octonaut friends some thanks," Gary reiterated ,"now, if you don't mind, I have some water to filter."

"Of course old friend," Shelington said, wading off into the surf and digging a hole with his hands. Then with a hasty farewell, he placed Gary in the hole and covered it up with a quick brush.

"Well that was a fun day out," Shelington said walking back to shore.

"Speak for yourself," Kwazii said trying to wipe the muddy sludge off his fur, only to spread it around, "I really hope there's a fish in trouble in a spa somewhere close."

"Oh Kwazii," the captain sighed playfully before the four of them all burst into laughter as the screen fades to black.

*~Creature report~*

Calling all Octonauts!

Kwazii, Peso, Shellington, Dashi, Inkling ,Tweek

Tunip!

Kwazi, activate creature report!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

Facts:

Sand Gapers live buried in the land

Check! Check! Check!

They don't like sludge, they like firm mud or sand

Check! Check! Mee!

You can spot them by their tiny syphon hole

Creature Report! Creature Report!

And then dig them up if that's your goal

Creature Report! Creature Report!

You can find them in beaches up north

Check! Check! Chup!

Where they're filtering seawater, to find their food source

Dance Break!

Go Sand Gaper, Go Sand Gaper,Go Sand Gaper!

Creature report! Creature report! Creature report!

We're done with our mission!

Octonauts at ease, until the next adventure!

(sorry for the long wait. i had exams and stuff to do and the reaserch for this one was a pain. my origional plan was to do it on the bloodworms but i couldn't think of a plot based around them so i switched to clams.

also, some info here may be faulty as i used this study here (https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/library-bibliotheque/37401.pdf) which is from the 1950s and has aspects that are outdated )