The next little push from the universe to get Destiny Fish and Wally to meet took place at the Church of the Wolf.

The Church of the Wolf is what some people would call a cult. It was hundreds of years old. Members claimed to be led by an immortal she-wolf called the Matriarch. Once every one hundred years, she would give birth to a ‘chosen’. The chosen was blessed with fantastic shape shifting powers. They would grow up in a secret church compound until their soul reaches maturity at which time they will offer their bodies up to be consumed by the Matriarch. She would add their powers to hers and would one day ascend and lead the Church to conquer the universe.

As crazy and unbelievable as it sounds, it was all true. Tomas was the chosen and was just now learning about the part where he gets eaten.

"And so you see, Tomas, by consuming your body, the Matriarch will absorb your power and strength. This power will ensure our clan's prosperity for another hundred years! In these troubling times it's so important to know we can rely on her to guide us. We're all so grateful to you." Roy, the head priest, explained Tomas's soon to be fate with Great enthusiasm.

"No Roy, I really don't see how this is beneficial to me. I do not wish to be eaten."

" Ohohoho but you must! It's predestined!"

"Nothing is predestined! Surely there must be another way!"

Roy slapped Tomas ``Whoops, that's blasphemy. You must not blaspheme. The Matriarch herself made the prophecy and so it's predestined. Ok?"

Tomas rubbed his face, "Ok. Damn."

"Very good." Roy beamed. "I shall be back tomorrow morning to take you to the ritual site. Rest well now, young chosen, it's a big day tomorrow!"

Tomas didn't say goodbye as Roy pranced out of the room, locking it behind him.

Tomas had quite a luxurious room. It was quite spacious and had a separate room for the toilet and shower. It was decorated in the church's colours of blue and silver, and several luxuries that a young man would enjoy: Tv, internet, games.

Tomas walked over to his mirror and inspected his face. He was a thin, native Australian, 20 year old man. He kept his hair short, as was church policy and he wore a simple shirt and pants in church colours. He usually had a cheerful, likeable face but now it looked frightened and sore.

"YoU mUsT nOt BlAsPhEmE." He muttered to himself.

Next, he went over to his laptop and opened up a web browser. Not knowing what else to search for he decided to try 'how to cure a curse on your soul'.

He found a bunch of song lyrics, Non-church of the wolf religious propaganda, erotic fanfictions, and many other useless sites. He was on the 3rd page of search results (practically the dark web) when he came across something promising; a recent news article.

Local 'curse buster' de-flowers tree man.

Tomas really hoped that meant she curse busted some flowers off him and wasn't just an elaborate dirty joke. He read on.

Who you gonna call? Madame Wanda! Locals in Chook's Creek, WA, are hex-cited about their neighbour's unusual talent. Madame Wanda, is a witch's worst nightmare. When celebrity freak David 'tree man's Douglas walked into her neighbourhood clinic, he did not expect to turn a new leaf. Internationally known for his freaky bark-like skin and leafy hair Mr. Douglas is now a new man, literally. After what he described as 'Madame Wanda scrubbing the curse off of my soul' Mr. Douglas is now back to normal. Not everyone is happy for him though we interviewed a local grump and this is what he had to say: "I preferred it when I could laugh and throw tomatoes at him. Now he's no fun!"

Tomas decided to stop reading there. He had a place and a name: Chook's Creek, Madame Wanda.

It was good to know, but seeing as he would have to escape to get there. And as escape was impossible he decided to go to sleep instead.

The next day Roy came to get him bright and early. He had some heavy chain manacles for both Tomas' hands and feet.

"Really Roy?" Tomas asked

"They're traditional, the chosen must be taken to the ritual site in chains. Please hurry to put them on!" Roy insisted.

"Didn't you say the chosen 'offer' themselves? Why the chains? "

Roy shrugged, "They're traditional." He repeated.

They walked together very slowly. The chains made walking difficult and clinked with every step. They were extremely uncomfortable.

"Maybe we could take them off and put them on once we're closer?" Tomas pressed.

"Traditional" was Roy's response.

After an unnecessarily long walk Roy perked up and smiled brightly. "Here we are now, hurry along and please do be quiet for the ritual."

Tomas clinked his chains together to reply.

'Why did I never notice something sinister was going on here?' Tomas thought to himself. 'It's so obvious in hindsight. The crazy look in everyone's eyes. The obsession with taking over the universe. Actually, while I'm thinking about it, why did I agree to come quietly again?' He looked up and saw the Matriarch. 'Oh. That's why.'

The Matriarch was a terrifying alpha predator. There was no escaping her. If Tomas ran, she would hunt him down, and she would catch him. Her nose could smell him from miles away. Her ears could hear his panicked heart beat no matter where he hid. She could even taste his fear on her tongue. She was the absolute power that held the Church of the Wolf up. Tomas knew there was no escape and so had resigned himself to fate.

She stood now at the opposite end of the open ceremony grounds. She was a giant covered in powerful muscles and blue and silver fur. She was about 3 metres tall while standing on 2 legs and towered over everything in the complex. She had both wolf and human features. There was a long snout filled with sharp teeth and sharp bright yellow eyes. She stood up on her two rear legs. Her long hands and feet had fingers and toes that ended in wicked claws.

She had dressed up for the occasion. She wore an intricate white ritual dress tailored to her size and features. Bit of a waste, Tomas thought, as it would undoubtedly get stained with his blood during the proceedings. On her head she wore the Matriarchal iron crown. It had several jagged teeth-like spikes pointing up over her head. It was adorned with Flowers to give her a more 'feminine' feel. It was impossible to tell at this distance, but Tomas was sure that her eyelashes were done up nicely.

Looking at her, the obvious comparison would be to a werewolf, but she hated that name. She would punish any who used it. She was 'The Matriarch', the only one of her kind. Tomas couldn't turn into a wolf, but he suspected that she was a shapeshifter like him. He wasn't sure though as he'd never seen her outside of wolf form. And that made sense, she was the symbol of the Church of the Wolf after all, not the church of the sometimes-a-wolf. She'd be an awfully big lady if she could change into one.

It was a nice, sunny day out. A good day to die. The last three days had been chaotic. There was snow, rain, fog, and even tornadoes, so today's peaceful skies were welcomed by all.

He looked down at his chained hands and feet. It was such an odd thing. Surely Roy knew that he could escape the chains at any time. He transformed just his arms and legs into his animal form. It was especially good at being slippery and squeezing through tight spots. The chains slipped off and fell to the ground.

Roy swung his head back to glare at Tomas and hissed through his teeth. "What are you doing?!"

"We're at the grounds already. My arms are sore. Besides, you didn't expect her to eat the chains too did you?"

"Ah, good thinking!" He whispered back with a wink and motioned for a nearby church member to come collect the chains."

Several performers were in the courtyard dressed in blue and silver. They danced and played music and sang the song of the wolf. It was going to take a while for Tomas to get eaten.

A strong wind blew through the courtyard all of a sudden and the sky that was clear a moment ago filled with dark clouds seemingly from nowhere.

"So much for the weather" Tomas said looking up.

Roy looked very concerned that the performance would be affected as thunder rumbled in the sky.

The Matriarch must have had the same concerns and started forward to hurry things along.

Lighting struck.

Dozens of bolts at once, all striking towards the highest metal object in the area: the Matriarch's crown.

The world turned white as everyone was knocked down. Moments later, the thunder roared like an explosion had gone off.

Roy stumbled to his feet. "Matriarch!" He screamed as he rushed forward.

Tomas sat up, mouth agape. The Matriarch was sizzling. Streams if black smoke coming off her body. He shielded his eyes as another bolt struck down on the Matriarch again.

He made the quickest, easiest decision of his life. He ran away. When he reached the transformed and stretched his long arns up the tall wall of the compound and wrapped it around a flagpole, pulling himself right up. He landed in a squishy heap outside. He then transformed back to his human form because it was far better suited for running. And away he fled, out into the Australian desert, praying that the lightning wouldn't hit him.

For reasons he would never know about, involving magical fish and destiny, the universe saw to it that Tomas, the were-octopus, was not to be eaten on this day.

Dear Wally,

I know I keep saying this in all my letters, but I miss Earth. War sucks dude! There's so much blood and screaming and like negative vibes. It's a real downer.

Also, I don't wanna speak poorly about someone, even super buttheads like DNA Jellyfish (lol). But seriously bro, I don't think he even really understands what the word 'subterfuge' means. Neither do I to be honest hehe.

The dude keeps sending me and Time Fish on these outrageous, like, suicide missions. Just 2 days he ordered us to sneak through ANOTHER active battlefield. It was filled with these flying laser drones that sting like heck and have about a million sensors on them. So of course they spotted us immediately. We accomplished zero sneaking. What we did accomplish was tons of fleeing for our lives and sick narrow dodges of deadly lasers. All this to plant a car bomb on some poor middle managers dude's Toyota Prius. Oh by the way, crazy coincidence, The Scientists have a crappy flying car called a Toyota Prius. Crazy Right? Anyways, I just dunno dude, sometimes I feel like DNA is putting us in danger on purpose for no reason.

It was a super crappy day. We lost Sound Fish that day. I'm gonna miss that guy so much. We used to jam together back in the day. We were gonna start a band together someday. Goddess, he was so cool.. and now he's gone.

See what I'm saying bro? These are the negative vibes I was talking about. Enough about me dude. How's it going over on Earth? I've been getting real curious about you these days. Did you reincarnate or whatever yet? You strapping knives to your little baby boots yet hehe? Honestly dude, take your time coming back. Hopefully this whole war business will blow over by then and we can go back to fishing together again. Miss you bro.

Love,

Destiny Fish

Earth was going through some turbulent times. Every magic fish that died created an unpredictable, universe-wide ripple effect.

When Weather Fish died, global weather was completely random for five days straight. Rain, snow, tornados, and lightning everywhere, all the time, without any rhyme or reason.

About a week later, all of the wasps and kidney stones in existence disappeared all of a sudden. This was because Pain Fish fell in battle. There were a lot of mixed feelings about this one.

Shortly after, horrifying nightmares kept everyone awake for three continuous nights after Dream fish also passed on. Dark rings under the eyes could even be seen on animals.

And most recently, there was the hour of silence. Absolute silence, not even your own heart beat could be heard. Deaf people got through this one pretty well. Most of everyone else went a little crazy.

These hardships continued to afflict the good people of the universe interfering with their day to day lives. Oh how they wished they could be a disembodied soul drifting around without a care in the world.

Approximately 2000 years in the future, outside of a hidden bunker, on a small moon, in an uninhabited system. Church soldiers lined up outside preparing to breach.

Deep underground, the walls shook as explosives tore away the surface door. The last remnants of the rebellion rushed furiously to finish their work.

Conner and Ricky bolted in the last component together. Conner looked over to Jessie who had just finished typing into her console. She gave him a thumbs up.

"I'll go get the leader. Ricky, you get in position."

Ricky moved to the centre of the machine as Conner went to knock on the leader's door.

"We're ready." He said.

The door slid open and gently out swum the last living magical fish. He wore a patch over one eye. His face and body were covered in horrific burns and scars. Almost none of the original gold scales remained. His fins were mangled and he was missing half of his tail. He looked out with his remaining eye upon the last of the rebels.

Destiny Fish spoke. His voice a croaky whisper.

"Thank you, for never giving up on us. This is it. We will never get another chance to make things right."

He swam up to where Ricky stood.

"You understand the consequences should you succeed and the consequences should you fail?" He asked.

"I do. I won't fail. But either way I'm not coming back." Ricky said

"You are the bravest amongst us." A tear rolled down Destiny Fish's face. "I only have one spell remaining that may help you."

Destiny cast 'lucky find' on Ricky. A spell used for finding lost keys and dropped coins.

"You may give the order. I wish you all the luck in the world, bro."

The room collectively gasped. Everyone knew that there was only one other person in all of history whom Destiny Fish had called bro.

Ricky just smiled, stuck his chest out, and shouted. "Conner! Jessie! Hit it!"

The machine whirled to life and began spinning around Ricky. Faster and faster and began lighting up the room. Sparks flew and the sound reached a crescendo. The ceiling lights dimmed then there was a blast. Knocking everyone in the room down.

The lights came back on. The machine and the computers were completely ruined. In the centre of the room. Ricky was gone.

Everyone was silent as they stood to their feet. From above a new sound began. It sounded like paws digging through Earth.

"So she came personally. Good. Everyone to arms! It's time to make our last stand!" Destiny roared.

The room cheered.