#dynamic dolphin

Upon entering the ruins, two things became apparent to them, the first being that they took their costume's powers for granted. Turns out that it's pretty hard traversing through Wonderworld without a costume. Even without their current predicament, trying to force themselves to swim through slidestreams and reaching higher areas are way more of a challenge than it used to be; it was never easy to begin with…

 After successfully not drowning, the group decided to take a break in a dilapidated ruin in a secluded lagoon, neither Leo nor Emma were comfortable with being seen in the states they were in yet, Haoyu however was having the time of his life even though he was soaking wet. This was also the moment they realized their second problem.

 Since entering, they were having trouble finding any Tims, let alone sick ones. One factor being that whenever they tried to approach a Tim it would fly away! It took them about fifteen minutes to try and see a group of them up close; none of them were sick. They ultimately decided to rest for a while underneath a gushsplash tree as they thought of their next course of action and dried up.

 “So…now what?” Leo asked, munching into a gushsplash berry Haoyu plucked from the coral-like tree.

 “Keep looking? We can’t just leave them by themselves!” Emma exclaimed as she messily wiped away gushsplash juice from her face.

 “But we looked all over the place, there’s none here!” Haoyu explained. He was jumping up to the tree and fetching the fruits, this time his descents looked like they were getting slower and his jumps got higher, this would have worried him if it weren't for the fact that he was absolutely milking his powers, bouncing up repeatedly to grab as many gushsplash as possible. 

 The group kept arguing back and forth when suddenly a few gushsplash fell from the tree, one landing on Leo’s head and bursting on impact. He pulled off the chunks off of his head and wiped away the juice from his eyes, all the while Emma and Haoyu giggled. Two more gushsplash fell, coincidentally, they fell directly on top of the pair, at which Leo laughed out loud.

 At that moment, something hard landed in front of them, the loud sound it made immediately caught their attention. It was a small white ball with gold colors lining a segmented set of plates, for a moment it swiveled for a bit and then uncurled to reveal itself to be…the armadillo! It had pitch black skin, yellow eyes and a broad smile across its face. Emma gasped when she recognized where he was from.

 “Hold on, I remember seeing this little guy back in your world, Haoyu!” Emma exclaimed. The cheeky armadillo hobbled around to look at them and his smile grew even wider. “I could have sworn he talked to me after we fe-“

 “Right you are! From the truth, you are not far!”

 Everyone screamed when it spoke, Emma accidentally stepped on the gushsplash pile, causing it to rupture.

 “Quite clumsy you are, a far cry from a supposed superstar.” The armadillo responded as it licked the splatters off its face plate.

 “Y-You talked! Your-Your mouth, words came out of your mouth-hole!” Haoyu shrieked out, he jumped up and wrapped his arms around a branch of the coral tree, but the moment his hands made contact with the coarse texture of the pink coral, his face immediately scrunched up in sensorial agony.

 Emma took a single step forward and slowly knelt down to its level, she inched her hand closer to his head. When she got close enough, the armadillo pushed his face into her hand and she slowly began to gently pet it. Besides the fact that it could talk, something about this peculiar creature struck her as a bit familiar but she couldn’t figure out why. “Who…Who are you?”

 “Why, I am me! There’s no question there as you can see.” The armadillo squeaked out before taking a bite out of a crushed fruit.

 “That…That really doesn’t answer my question.” Emma quietly responded.

“We saw you back in the garden. Why were you following us?” Leo asked, standing at his fullest height in an attempt to not show his fear, he ended up looking like a toddler throwing a fit.

 “Why not follow you? I wanted to know if all the stories I heard are true!” The armadillo replied. The little boy was starting to get frustrated with their spherical stalker, but Emma looked at it with intrigue, Haoyu even dropped down from the coral tree to inspect it up close. His increasingly slow descent let him land on his head without injury.

 The armadillo sat upright and looked at each of the children cautiously, his smile slowly growing more mischievous with their curiosity. He pulled another chunk of fruit close to him and continued to eat, waiting for another question. “…Well?”

“Well…what?” Haoyu asked.

“Do you not have any more queries for me to quell?” With this, the armadillo hobbled to face the floaty boy.

 Haoyu let out a sigh and said: “You’re just gonna give me a mathematician’s answer!”

 “Perhaps, young floaty chap.” The armadillo responded “Yet if you dare, a swell answer I may spare!” 

 The young inventor pinched the bridge of his nose and let out another sigh, Leo and Emma looked on in suspicion, still doubting if the armadillo will be legitimately honest. “Unless you know where a sick Tim is then I have nothing to ask you.”

 “Oh! A sick little Tim you say? I think I recall seeing one here around the sunken bay!”

 Everyone gasped and looked at the cheeky creature in shock. The armadillo beamed at them and said “Bye!”, It then rolled itself up and rolled away from the ruins as fast as possible.

 “Hey! Get back here!” The group got up and started to chase the living ball across the lagoon, the lazy waves brushed over their ankles as they ran, Emma had to pick up Leo so that he didn’t get left behind, they were having difficulty keeping up with the creature not only because of their new conditions but because of the fact that the armadillo was surprisingly fast, even nature doesn’t seem to slow it down! Its journey came to an end when it hopped on top of a rock and dove into the water. The group halted, Haoyu collapsed to his knees in defeat.

 “Noooo! We were so close!” He croaked out, hanging his head and arms in resignation before dropping his body onto the sand. The tips of his fingers touched the water with dismay.

 Emma put Leo down and hopped on the rock to see if maybe it was trying to swim away. She remembered seeing a documentary that mentioned that armadillos can actually swim in water, yet when she looked out into the sea, the creature was nowhere to be seen. However, she did see something else.

 From the water, a voice called out to them they could see someone waving to them. It was Fiona! She looked as if she were wearing a Dynamic Dolphin costume. Emma waved at her and at that moment. Fiona swam towards them, her costume making her go a lot faster than normal. When she finally reached them, she jumped out of the water and landed directly in front of them.

 “Hiya, guys!” The bubbly diver greeted with a gleeful smile. Her smile quickly faded when she saw the state two of her friends were in. In an attempt to not be rude, Fiona decided to defuse the awkwardness “Uh…Did ya get hair extensions, Emma?” Fiona’s hopeful smile faded when Emma solemnly shook her head, her heart dropped when they explained the situation.

 “We’re looking for any sickly looking Tims and an armadillo told us there’s one here!” Haoyu explained.

 “An…An armadillo?” Fiona asked, completely confused. She mostly understood everything they had told her beforehand, but the armadillo part caught her completely off guard. 

 “I know this sounds weird, but yes! A tiny talking armadillo told us there might be one here in the Bay Area!” Haoyu reassured her. His floaty powers have become slightly more apparent, his clothes and hair looked like they were being blown upwards by a powerful gust of wind. “Oh, by the way, I can do this now!”

 Haoyu leapt into the air, higher than ever before, practically surpassing the height of a nearby coral tree. Fiona gasped and awed at  the display. Haoyu’s performance took a lot longer to finish, even a falling leaf was faster than him! When he finally reached the ground, Fiona, Emma and Leo were almost falling asleep, they were rudely woken up when a wave crashed against the rock and splashed the three of them awake. While Emma and Leo jumped up in shock when the water hit them, Fiona lethargically woke up as if she was just nudged awake in the middle of the night.

 “Huh!? Oh yeah! You have floaty powers now! That’s so cool!” Fiona groggily cheered. “I want cool powers too!”

 “You really don’t, Fiona." Leo piped up. "Haoyu’s floaty powers, Emma’s hair and my…yeah…were caused by Wonderitis!"

 Fiona stood up on wobbly legs, and they all began making their way around the lagoon to continue their search “So what exactly IS Wonderitis?” 

 "Well it's…It’s uh…what caused all of our current states!" Haoyu vaguely explained. He was having trouble planting his feet on the ground to walk, it both felt and looked like he was walking through water while wearing rubber shoes.

 “So it’s nothing specific then?” Fiona continued.

 “Well the Aero Acrobats in the plains all lost their flight, so…I guess it causes costumes to lose their powers!” Emma chimed, she had to start wrapping her own hair around her arm to carry it, it was as if it was growing longer by the second!

 “But if all the Aero Acrobats lost their powers then how come-“ Fiona halted her sentence and froze in place, causing everyone behind her to knock into her.

 “Hey! What gives, Fiona?” Leo asked as he climbed up Haoyu’s sleeve to better see the commotion.

 They looked at what was in front of her and saw a large rock formation that was overhanging by the shore, it was marked by tiny yellow petals scattered around creating a bit of a trail. Fiona stood there silently, she didn’t appear frightened, it was almost as if she was entranced by it.

 “Wait, why does this place seem so…familiar?” Fiona asked as she slowly started to walk towards it, she was soon followed by her friends who had a bad feeling about that place.

 Upon close look, they could all see that there was a rope bridge that hung above a river that led to a dark grotto that was boarded up and covered in Tangle Kelp. There were small fish statues surrounding the sealed off cave each of them looking like a bloated beluga whale with its fins stretched outwards and they all had wreaths of Fluffy Feels draped over them and baskets filled with GushSplash.

 “What is this place?” Emma whispered out. Nothing about this place made any of them feel safe. It almost felt like they were back in the garden again.

 Even with their growing fears they kept moving onwards, following Fiona’s lead, it looked like she was genuinely curious about this place. They crossed the bridge and saw blackened sand that left the mouth with both Fluffy feels and GushSplash bobbing in the undertows, but the strangest thing of all was the slidestreams made of black water that floated around the mouth. They didn’t look like normal slidestreams either! They were neither round nor square, it looked like it wasn’t bound by the laws of gravity at all.

 “Hey, Fiona? Maybe it’s time we go back to looking for Tims.” Haoyu squeaked out. He grabbed Fiona’s arm and pulled himself down. He REALLY didn’t want to be here, the black goo that oozed out of the cave solidified that.

  “I don’t know…maybe we’ll find a little Tim around he-“ 

 A strand of Tangle Kelp lunged at Fiona and wrapped itself around her leg, pulling her closer to the cave. She screamed and tried to wiggle herself free, but it only resulted in the dreaded kelp wrapping itself around her other leg and forcing them together. Fiona shrieked out in fear and clawed at the ground.

 “Fiona!” Her friends cried out, they immediately grabbed her hands and tried to pull her free, but they were no match for the Tangle Kelp’s strength.

 The moment her foot touched the black matter her costume dissipated, leaving her in her blue wetsuit. The Tangle Kelp loosened its grip on her when a basket of Fluffy Feels poured out and landed on top of it, the kids managed to pull Fiona free. They dragged her away from the cave before collapsing in an exhausted heap on the ground. That didn’t last very long as when they saw the Kelp reaching to grab her again they screamed and ran back across the bridge, then they collapsed again.

 “Okay, we…we really need to stop doing that.” Leo wheezed out, when they fell Fiona accidentally landed on top of him.

 At that moment, they heard the sounds of shells rattling followed by someone running along the sand. A purple-ish JellyJolt strode up to them wearing pink glasses, a seashell necklace with a crescent moon pendant around her neck, and a shawl crochet with pink, blue and purple colors.