(Quentin's POV)

I winced as Dillon squeaked shrilly; enhanced hearing was definitely not my favorite part of being a mudkip. Actually, I didn't like it at all; my tail kept getting in the way, the fin on my head made it harder for me to balance, my slightly webbed hands made it virtually impossible for me to do anything with them except for picking things up. But I had to deal with it.

Ty was pacing back and forth in the living room, trying to get an idea. Now that everybody else had left the house, he hadn't bothered to keep his collar pulled up so high and I could see his own gills straining madly for air; the same way that mine were. “How are we going to do this?” he asked without looking up or stopping.

“I don't know.” I had no clue whatsoever as to how we could go about attacking the squid's secret underwater lab. For one thing, only Ty and I could breathe underwater. For another, from what Ty had said, attacking with a group short of eight would be suicide.

“That's helpful,” he said sarcastically. I smiled; I was fairly sure he had been trying to lighten the tension.

“Seriously, we need to find a way to do this. And we have to figure it out and get it done within, like, a month. They already can turn people into amphibians, for Notch's sake. How long do you really think it is before they perfect the technology?” He looked at me. I was biting my lip from the moment he had mentioned amphibians. Ty's expression softened just a fraction. “Sorry.”

“It's okay,” I said.

“What we need is a larger group of people with access to more technology,” he mused. “The people who control the town, basically.” He shot me a sideways glance.

“No!” I blurted. “I mean, Dan's nice and all, but...” I trailed off. But what? But I would never accept to being shown to all of my coworkers that I had been turned into some pokemon-human thing.

Ty sighed. “Well, that's just great.” Dillon squeaked again, and I winced as the sound echoed around my head. “The only way we could even get everybody else underwater would be knowing magic. Do you know magic?” It was a rhetorical question, just to prove his point.

I curled my hands-or what could be called hands-into fists. “It's not a good idea,” I warned. It sounded ridiculous, a hollow threat.

Ty smirked, like he was finally getting fed up with me. “I'll bet that sounded a lot cooler in your head.” He added as an afterthought, “Fish.”

Something inside me snapped. I don't know what, but I know that everything went blue and rage boiled up inside me. Somewhere from outside my own body, I heard somebody who sounded vaguely like me say, “I'm not a fish.” Whoever it was sounded more threatening than me; they scared me. Almost of it's own accord, my mouth opened. I felt humidity soak the air around my face, and then the blue tint that was obscuring everything died down. I gasped, forcing my mouth shut, and closed my eyes. “I... I'm sorry.”

Ty didn't say a word.

Almost scared of what he would do to me, I looked up slowly. I had to catch my breath when I saw him; he was dripping wet from his head to his shoes, a puddle forming on the carpet beneath him. Ty was just staring at me in astonishment, his hair slicked to his face, water dripping slowly out of his headphones.

Quentin used Water Gun.