Anchovies

Anthropomorphic fish hooligans native to Hilnburgia, but they've also managed to infest most of the other WTF Realms. They scour the realms for carry out food to devour be it burgers, tacos, or crunchwraps. Their hunger knows no bounds, and they always travel in immense swarms of hundreds of thousands of ravenous individual anchovies.

## Description

An anchovy stands between 3 and 5 ft tall and is equipped with great agility, gaping mouths, finned limbs, and boundless appetites for anything fried, grilled, or cooked. They typically wear a white t shirt as their sole apparel, but they are too deeply afraid of pants to wear them. Their slimy skin colored either sky blue or tan, and they view the world with big, bulging eyes. They vocalize entirely by saying 'meep', and this one word is yelled continuously when the anchovy is hungry. When they crave food, their speed and agility enhance greatly, and they let nothing more powerful than themselves keep them from eating whatever they smell and or see. A single anchovy is of little danger as long as a traveler keeps a cautious eye on it and doesn't stop it from eating what it wants, but a lone anchovy is as rare as a good review for The Booty Burger! Should one hear an endless uproar of 'meep', get far away from water and take cover immediately! A carefully planned escape or battle scheme must be on your mind even if the attack is not anticipated for certain!

## Dietary Habits

Anchovies feed primarily on food from restaurants such as cheeseburgers (cheese is MUST on a burger lest the cook has a death wish) as well as anything else that's hot, fresh, and greasy! Even the well hated restaurant named The Booty Burger will be targeted by a hungry anchovy swarm! Food is devoured quickly, and no scraps are left behind; only drool. The good news is that they at least pay the full price of their meals and spare no expense, but that doesn't really make up for their grotesque table manners and obnoxious babblings of 'meep' which never stop until their appetite is sated. Remarkably, an anchovy swarm is a decently organized force that can morph together into a crashing sea and or destructive tidal wave of those fishy hooligans! Only when they've eaten their fill does the assault and meeping come to an end.

## Anchovy Swarms

The blue and tan colored anchovies or Commoner Anchovies are simply one of a few different swarms (also called tribes or clans) of anchovy in the WTF Realms. Each one of these swarms a distinctive coloration, favorite food source, and even special ability. The Commoner Tribe, for example, raids in the largest and most unpredictable swarms despite being the weakest type. They could raid any eating establishment at any time, and they inhabit a myriad of watery habitats.

### Booty Swarm

The Booty Swarm of anchovies is easily recognized by green and grey skin colors. As their name suggests, this veriant is the one that attacks the Booty Burger most often. It will also feed from other fast food chains just like the other anchovies, but it seems that these sickos have a special taste for the worst of them all... They're also distinguished from other anchovies easily for having the most smelly smell smelling extremely smelly... They also only pay half the price of their food! Then again, why would anyone pay anything at all for food from the Booty Burger? Be wary of this swarm should you venture into the putrid swamps near which the Booty Burger stands.

### Crunchwrap Swarm

Any one of the anchovy swarms could succumb to the Crunchwrap Craze, but it is the notorious Crunchwrap Anchovies that are best known to do so! This is perhaps the most aggressive and violent group of all anchovies, and even another swarm best give the Crunchwrap Swarm plenty of distance lest they be torn limb from limb! If an adventurer traverses the bogs around a Taco Bell and sees anchovies colored orange and cream with yellow, veiny eyes then he/she must get the f\*\*\* ready to defend themselves!! As if all anchovies already never stopped at anything to fill their bellies, they're even more tenacious and formidable when the ones of this particular clan wish to devour an alluring AM Crunchwrap!! And the worst part is that they never pay the full price for their food! They're always a nickel short! Why? We'll never know...

### Shadow Swarm

Shadow Anchovies are creatures of the night who spend the days in sea caves and emerge at night to feed. Colored indigo and black and especially fond of seafood, their ability to create tidal waves and raging floods with their sheer numbers to overwhelm restaurants is the best of all anchovies. They sweep into their targeted food joints like a dark tide and sweep back out leaving behind a ruin deprived of food. They will certainly pay for their food like most other anchovies, but they only pay in coins! Some argue that the Shadow Anchovies are the most evil tribe of the piscine hooligans seeing as they feed solely at night, glare at their world with piercing red eyes, pay only in coins as stated already, and send shivers down the spines of those who hear their high, raspy meeps.

### Noxious Swarm

No anchovies are more deadly than the toxic members of the Noxious Swarm! Members are colored red and yellow. In addition to coloring, Noxious Anchovies are also easily distinguished by green eyes with horizontal, squid like pupils as well as the ability to spit poison. They thrive in humid, swampy forests and have a special liking for bleu cheese and hot dogs! Some scientists argue that mixing hot dogs and bleu cheese results in both foods becoming poisonous, and this may be the secret to this anchovy tribe's toxicity. The good news is that their poison can be combated with eating purple cheese or dancing like an idiot to polka versions of Steve Winwood's best hits while wearing an axolotl costume; both methods done at the same time are highly recommended though. However, the only aspect to them that is even more toxic than their poison is the fact that they pay for their food solely in pennies!!

## Weaknesses

Even in their massive swarms, anchovies are not unstoppable. As stated before, they are deathly afraid of pants, so throwing a pair of those at them will certainly send them running off in terror. They also are horrified of napkins; even a single one can make them flee. They also are aquatic creatures and cannot stray too far from large, deep bodies of water. Fire and electricity are also powerful weapons against anchovies and either one guarantees victory over them every time; so do large creatures that wield these elements. Anchovies are also vulnerable to being hit in the head with a coconut, and a sneak attack via dropping these onto their heads is a very effective way of culling their numbers. While the anchovies' vast numbers and meeps can be overwhelming to the unprepared challenger, whoever is well prepared with their aforementioned fears and or vulnerabilities can at least ward off even the mightiest of swarms if not slay them.

## References

The anchovies originally hailed from the popular Nickelodeon show Spongebob Squarepants by Stephen Hillenburg; particularly the pilot episode Help Wanted where the anchovies stormed the Krusty Krab in a massive, meeping swarm which flooded the restaurant in a stormy sea of the fishes.

Sauce: https://spongebob.fandom.com/wiki/Anchovies

Reminder: Anything you read here and not in the original Spongebob wiki page is simply made up. For example, their fear of pants came from the fact that they don't wear any themselves.