*Appears wearing a pretty dress and holding an envelope* Ahem! The winner of the First Fan-Picked Fan-Girl Story Contest is… *opens envelope and gasps* Wow…NONE OF THEM! Guess what? IT'S AN INUYASHA STORY! I think that you fans of Inuyasha are going to be super pleased with what I've been writing…it's going to be fabulous! But seriously, the winner of the contest was Kung Fu Panda, so following the Inuyasha story will be a Kung Fu Panda story, with Monsters Inc. not too far behind that. And Alicia, in answer to your question…no, I was not watching Godzilla, ha. The line is actually from an old comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes. Thanks for reviewing! You rock!

Okay, also, I'm so sorry for not updating after I promised I would…I've found two ways to make money: one by training and walking a rescue dog my neighbor owns, and another way is to sell old video games to my classmate. So between these two things, my school and other fan girl stories, updates have been weird. But cross my heart and hope to die: DAILY UPDATES WILL RETURN. Starting…tomorrow!

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It took an eternity, but Alicia finally arrived. "I almost had to wait!" Gurgle pouted when she appeared, hovering over them. "What happened? Where were you?"

"Oh, something," she said, her mind elsewhere. To be honest, her thoughts were with the migrating, which was something that the rest of the pelicans—especially Maria and Nicole—couldn't stop talking about. "Okay," she said, looking at the bags. "This could be a little tricky. And you're not helping at all, you dodos!" She shouted at the seagulls, who only cocked their heads to the side and stared at her.

"Go dodo, go dodo, do that dodo doodad that you dodos do," Lulu hummed, trying and failing to dance inside of her plastic bag. But…after getting more cautious and weary stares from the rest of the Tank Gang, she fell back into her silent phase. She had stayed silent for the past hour, as she had resolved to do, but when that hour ended, she became talkative once more, trying to get rid of the boredom that was slowly falling over the rest of her friends. Most of them were too tired to answer her strange questions or make conversation, and when they did, they only spoke of how they would probably die in their bags, alone in the water.

Alicia only chuckled at the remark, but then sighed as she glanced at the sky, which was becoming dark as the sun set slowly. "Nigel should be here soon. I think that I know what to do to help out. We'll carry the bags over to the dock, and we can free you there." She glared at the seagulls again. "SHOO!" She shouted, trying to scare off the unwanted idiot birds, but they didn't budge. "They may be stupid, but they're determined," she noted, mentally making a new goal, which was to find a way to scare the pesky pigeon-brains. Even ostriches were afraid of something. (But ostriches didn't live in Australia, so she digressed.) "If they start to follow us," she continued, pointing at them, "I'm going to eat them."

"You will not," Lulu snickered.

"Okay. I won't," Alicia admitted, laughing too. "But I wish I could." And then it hit her, out of the blue. Why not trick the seagulls into thinking that the pelicans would actually eat them? They'd be too afraid to come near them again! She shared this idea with Nigel, who joined her and the Tank Gang after a few minutes to more waiting.

"I can't get over how weird you all look in the ocean," he gushed, examining them with wide eyes. "I've seen you in water before and outside of it, but it just feels weird! I don't know what to think about it…but I think that that's a good idea, Alicia," he added, causing her to shrug modestly. "We'll have to try it out later. In the meantime, let's get these fishes out of these…things."

"Can you believe how sick I am of the ocean already?" Gurgle whined as his baggie continued to bob up and down.

"If you don't like it, then you can just LEAVE," Lulu said through gritted teeth, trying hard not to bite his purple head off. She was strongly tempted to tell him how sick she was of him, but decided not to. It would ruin the happiness that they'd feel once they got in the water.

"No, I mean, I'm just sick of the top of the water," he corrected, glaring at the waves. "Once we get out of these bags, I am never going to see the sky again!" Lulu rolled her eyes, but decided that it was time to get everyone focused on what they had been working on for quite some time.

"You said that you could carry us over to the docks and free us there," she reminded Alicia. "But how many bags can you carry at a time?" She estimated around two at a time, and even though they were nearly through with the waiting...they didn't want to wait even more.

Nigel shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. We'll get you all over there and let you go free."

"Just be QUICK about it," Gurgle moaned. Bubbles, it seemed, shared his hatred of the situation, as he was pretending to float upside down and play dead. Every once in a while he complained about the lack of the bubbles inside of his bag. Alicia sighed and picked up his bag in her mouth and flew it over to the dock. Nigel did the same with Lulu's, and this went on for less than ten minutes. Lulu smirked at Gurgle, as if she was trying to ask him whether or not that was really worth complaining about. He avoided making eye contact with her. Using the utmost care, the two pelicans pecked at the plastic bags until fairly sizeable holes appeared in them so that the water and the fish spilled out of them and into the ocean water. The leader of the gang was one of the first ones to be released, but he stayed by the dock for a while longer, chatting with the leader of the pelican flock.

"Thanks for all your help, Nigel," Gill told him earnestly. Lulu sensed an emotional goodbye between the two of them, and turned to Alicia. She wasn't a big fan of long goodbyes, and she was absolutely positive that this was not the last time that they would see each other, so she kept everything short and sweet.

"I'll see you around, Alicia," she smiled at her friend. After that, she dove under the waves and waited for the rest of the gang to join her. Peach and Jacques were already there, staring up at the dock with impatient eyes, also expecting the others to swim into the big blue waters. And they did appear, one by one.

"It feels so great to be out here," Deb remarked. "I feel free!" She swam in a huge circle, gathering more speed with every lap. "I wish Flo could see this!" Lulu frowned as a dreadful thought occurred to her. The fish had spent a large portion of their time talking about what they were looking forward to in the ocean. What if they started complaining about everything they missed back in the tank? She realized that there would be one that wouldn't miss anything, except for the pelicans. He met up with the group and looked at them all with a bittersweet smile on his face.

"We are free," Gill said softly, letting the reality of the situation sink in. They had done it. This was real, not a fantasy.

"Where should we go now?" Peach asked from the bottom of the ocean ground, where he had landed after his bag had popped. Jacques was standing next to him, and Lulu realized that they would have to travel slowly to let those two keep up. Not that that mattered at all—they had all the time in the world to do whatever they wanted. And Lulu glanced at Deb, who nodded solemnly. They had to find Dory eventually and tell her about her past and reunite her with her family…if they could ever find them. But in the meantime—

"I know a place," Gill smirked. "It's got everything! Great view, great food, great fish, plenty of space…it's the best! I grew up there!" He sighed fondly, letting a wave of nostalgia rush over him. Lulu winked at the others, and they nodded. It seemed that they all knew where they were going next.

"You lead the way, Gill," Lulu said, gently taking hold of his fin—the broken one. He looked at her with surprise, but nodded and began to swim, with the others right behind him.

But even after the fish had gone, Alicia and Nigel remained on the dock, looking out at the horizon. "Think we'll ever see them again?" Alicia asked, watching the ripples in the water shrink and vanish, just like their fish friends. She hoped that Lulu and the others would be alright.

"Probably not for a while," Nigel said truthfully. "But I think that we will one of these days. I hope that none of those blokes will try to take a bite at them while they're out in the open." He coughed out a word that sounded suspiciously like Gerald's name. Alicia laughed. "Are you ready to go chase some seagulls?" He asked mischievously, and she snickered.

Review, please! :)