MCYT RANDOMNESS 2

Fishy Business pt 2

Tango, Skizz and Bdubs had all told Impulse he'd been working on the cyberpunk city for too long and needed more sleep. He tried to explain that he always intended to get to sleep at a normal time, but kept underestimating how long stuff was taking, and being up longer than he wanted trying to finish projects.

And then his base had been invaded by fish.

At first, he'd noted, accepted and then decided to handle them later, before continuing on his base. But, over the next few days, whenever he wasn't looking, the pile grew. At first, just a little, but then a lot. And it didn't take much for Impulse to connect the dots and figure out that something was going on. And his accidental lack of sleep became a very intentional look out for when and how the fish were arriving.

7 days had passed, and the fish had just launched their biggest attack yet.

Impulse stared, overwhelmed, exhausted, and more terrified than he'd admit, at the sheer mountain of dead cod gathered at the back entrance of the city – right at the base of Joel's city. There had to be thousands, if not tens of thousands. With no clear cause and no clear goal, in the not-entirely rational mind of Impulse, except all-out invasion.

As he stood, staring, one particular cod flopped off the edge of the pile and towards Impulse, coming to a stop at his feet. The only thing Impulse could do was pick up the dying creature, look it in the eyes and, voice shaking, ask:

'Why are you here?'

The fish did not respond.

'Who sent you?'

'Um, Impulse?'

Impulse screamed, turning, cod flailing in one hand, and far from any rational response, smacked Cleo in the face with it.

'I HAVE A FISH AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!' Impulse yelled. Cleo, left somewhere between fury, shock, and concern, rubbed her injured cheek.

'Why!?' Cleo burst out. Impulse immediately dropped the fish. 'Why?! Just- why?!'

'The- the fish, Cleo!' Impulse insisted pitifully, pointing to the mountain. 'I don't know what to do about them! They just keep coming!'

'The fish?!'

Impulse nodded seriously, eyes wide. Cleo frowned, taking in his's rather dishevelled appearance – his ragged shirt, unkempt hair, and the shadows under his eyes.

'Have you been sleeping well recently?'

Impulse slowly shook his head.

'I don't want them to do something.'

'Them being...'

'The fish,'

'Yep, the fish. I mean... they're right at the bottom of Joel's base, have you tried speaking to Joel about them?'

'No...?'

'Well, that seems like a good first option. It's just a 2 minute flight up, ease your nerves, and then get some sleep. Off you go. Come on.'

Silence, in which Impulse was supposed to move, but instead just kept standing there. Another cod landed at his feet. Cleo sighed.

'Why are you scared of Joel?'

'He controls the fish! Or... or he's controlled by the fish...'

'I think you need more sleep, Impulse. Come on, into your base. Get some rest.'

'But- but the cod...'

'I'll speak to Joel, get him to handle the cod, and then when everything's sorted, I'll tell you. Ok?' Cleo consoled him by saying, gently leading Impulse away from the mountain, and into his base to sleep.

'Ah, Joel. There you are. And...' Cleo, having successfully pacified Impulse, paused as she landed next to Joel, wheeling a wheelbarrow overflowing with cod out of a building, and dumping the contents on the road, where they rolled down towards Impulse's base.

'Hey Cleo, Gem and Wels summoned billions of bloody cod into my base so I'm turning it into Impulse's problem,' he explained.

'What if Impulse... doesn't want it to be his problem?'

Joel shrugged.

'His bloody base.'

'Yeah, but they're your cod.'

'They're not my bloody cod, Cleo! They're Wels's cod and he bloody summoned them in the middle of my bloody base, do you know how long I've spent getting rid of these bloody cod and now you're blaming me and I've bloody had it up to here, Cleo and-'

'Hello, Cleo!' Gem appeared, beaming with a bucket full of dead cod. 'Would you like some fish?'

'I've just come from Impulse's base. He's scared of the cod.'

Gem stopped.

'Scared?!'

'Yep. He's scared of the cod. So I think you should probably stop tipping them into his base.'

'What we were actually doing was getting them all into one place, outside, where we could see how many we really have, before we try to handle them. Wels failed to do magic and summoned cod instead.'

Cleo opened her mouth, before quickly closing it again, giving only a concerned 'Hm.'

'Have you tried messaging Scar and getting Scar to handle the weird magic thing? Because that's normally Scar's area of expertise.'

'He's busy.'

'Ah! Hey Cleo! Don't mind us, we're just ruining Impulse's day for the greater good of the server!' Wels explained as he appeared, lugging his own barrel of fish. 'We had a fish problem.'

'So I heard.'

'And we decided to sort that problem... I believe by turning it into Impulse problem?'

'We're getting it in a place we can handle!' Gem poured her lot of fish down the mountain before turning to Cleo. 'Would you like to help us?'

'How long have you been doing this for?'

'A week,' Gem replied. 'But we've almost finished... oh, hey Impulse!'

'Hey Impulse! What happened to the idea of you sleeping until this was over?' Cleo asked.

'The fish have always been here.'

'Ok...'

'The fish have always been here.' Impulse repeated, as if it would make any more sense the second time around. 'Perhaps they've not always been there in my base, that's a new problem, we can handle that later but the FISH... there's something going on with the fish, and we all need to work together and stop it.'

'Impulse, I think what we all need to do is go back to our home and...'

'No!' Impulse slapped Gem's hand away. 'Bad Gem! Don't let the fish control you like that!'

'What do you mean?!'

'These fish are smart. They know when we're not there to slowly sneak up on us and advance their attacks... Joel?'

'Yeah?' Joel stepped back. 'What's up, Impulse?'

'What happened here... what you've been involved with, and have been forced to handle for so long... it's not ok. Gem, you've known from the start that something was up, and no one listened!'

'Have I?'

'Impulse, the cod were my fault. There's no fish conspiracy,' Wels explained.

'How do you know that?' Impulse challenged, eyes wild. 'How- how do you know? The fish have been here from the start and no one noticed! We let them in, and we need to fight back!'

A pause. Impulse nodded, as if anyone knew what he was talking about.

'That's right. I'm suing the fish.'

I love this oneshot.