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A Load of Carp

Herbie the Goldfish wants more.

Sure, he's not the only one. The Immortal pilot Gelaris wants his old body back, to not be a shattered wreck of a protoss piloting a cybernetic war machine. Something tells Herbie that he didn't want a goldfish as a companion either, supposedly dropped into the liquid of his 'prison' as a joke by his fellow protoss. Herbie doesn't think the Firstborn had a sense of humour, and Gelaris only contributes to this belief. Still, if the stories are true...

...well, he doesn't know what had happened exactly. He's a goldfish, and has the memory of one.

Yet he remembers his dreams...of being free, of swimming in a river where he doesn't have to worry about Zukar eels or hydrolysks. Gelaris can't help him, but even if he could, Herbie doubted he would. All he cared about was protecting the types of fauna the former belonged to and, far more commonly, taking death to the species of the latter. Seeing the same things his host does, Herbie doesn't blame him. Sure, he forgets the details of the critters quickly enough, but they come back so often, it's as if he never forgot them in the first place.

And so the years drag on. Gelaris gets grumpier, the zerg (and hybrids now, for some reason) get more numerous and to his frustration, the protoss are feeding him less and less, not to mention checking the pH levels. Apparently humanity is on its way to extinction and producing fish food isn't on their list of priorities, let alone trading it to another species where it's a case of every race for itself. Herbie begins to wonder if he will ever achieve his dream in this ever darkening galaxy.

But eventually the day comes.

Herbie doesn't know what planet he and Gelaris are on. It's a jungle planet, but he's been on so many by now, he can't tell the difference. And even if he could, he'd just forget about it. Just like those green zerg things that are making their way to the line of Immortals and terran mercenaries allied with them. He forgets the names of the zerg scuttling towards them but he somehow remembers that they're bad. As in, very bad. As in, if the Immortals don't get out of here soon, the sea of green will overcome their shields and-...

Boom!

...destroy them.

Herbie is rocked around as Gelaris's Immortal collapses under the volume of acid. The pH rises, Gelaris is dead and as far as Herbie can tell, so is every other terran and protoss in the immediate vicinity. As for the zerg, either they're all dead as well, or have moved on. But it's a moot point. He's stranded. And if the acid doesn't get to him, starvation will.

Unless...

Herbie lets out a stream of bubbles as he sees the faint rays of light shining through the Immortal. An opening. A passageway to escape. They made their stand by a river...if he could jump through the opening and land in it...well, he's got nothing left to lose. Swimming back past Gelaris's corpse, straightening his fins, Herbie makes his dash for freedom. A flying fish, swimming through the air...

...and landing in a fish bowl.

Or a terran's helmet.

Letting loose on what a load of carp this all is, Herbie knows that the difference is moot.