Magikarp: Cream of the Crop

Chapter 8: Magikarp creates TROUBLE!

Twilight's head thumped painfully against the single step leading to the doorway, and once Spike got the door opened her face was tugged across the hardwood floor to the inside of the house.

"Okay, Magikarp, you're home!" Spike called over his shoulder, heaving Twilight in the center of thelibrary. Fluttershy followed close behind, unsure where to set Magikarp down.

"Spike, should I get Magikarp some water or... something?" she asked, noticing the fish hadn't done much of anything except flop around. And repeat his name over and over again.

"Nah, just set him down," he called out, waving his claw as he departed to the kitchen.

Shrugging, she gently set the floundering red fish creature on the floor next to Twilight. Magikarp stared with his impossibly large and never blinking eyes right at the drooling face of Twilight, a noticeable bump on her head from where Magikarp hit her before.

Fluttershy's eyes glanced left and right awkwardly, the only sound in the room the occasional 'Magikarp, Magikarp' that Magikarp blurted out as he flailed weakly on the floor.

With a faint flutter, Twilight's eyes opened. Blinking to clear her fuzzy vision, her first sight was the open mouthed, oblivious face of Magikarp, only inches from her face. A tense silence fell as Twilight's pupil's slowly shrank. Even Magikarp stopped flopping to stare at her, eye to eye, unmoving.

Then, of course, Twilight screamed with all her might.

"THE FISH IS STILL HERE!" she yelled, backing up quickly while still on her side, her hooves desperately pushing the floor to get away from the red menace.

Magikarp flopped happily, or as happily as he could manage. His face was as expressionless as ever.

"Hey, Twilight's up?" Spike asked from the kitchen, returning back to the room with a tray laden with sandwiches. "Oh good, she is!" he said cheerfully, making his way to her cowering form and holding out the sandwich filled tray to her. "Hey, Twilight, I made some sandwiches for–"

"What is that thing still doing here?" Twilight interrupted, getting back on all fours and pointing a shaking hoof at Magikarp.

"What, Magikarp?" Spike asked, Twilight's glare directed at him answered his question. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, "Well, since he's my pet now, I thought I might as well as show him his home."

"Magikarp is not staying with us!" Twilight said, shaking her head furiously. "Not going to happen! Never!"

"Twilight, please, Magikarp can hear you," Fluttershy said, resting a supporting hoof on Magikarp's side as she stared disappointingly at Twilight. "You just hurt his feelings."

"He's a fish! He doesn't have feelings!"

"Twilight, I think you just need to calm down," Spike suggested, holding his palms forward. "Obviously that concussion you got has scrambled your brains."

"Magikarp gave me that concussion!" Twilight reminded him, pointing to the bump on her head. "He ate my hair and whacked me across the head! There's no way he's staying here!"

"But, Twilight..." Spike's eyes widened to saucers as his pupils filled the white of his eyes. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"

"No, Spike."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"Yet again, no!"

"Come on, I know you'll grow to love him!"

"I'm definitely not loving that bump on my head."

Spike tapped his claw to his chin, running over potential plans in his head to get the unmoving unicorn to agree to his pet living accommodations. Luckily for him, Magikarp was already way ahead of him.

"Oh dear Celestia, he has my hair again!" Twilight shrieked, Magikarp once more eating part of her mane. Like before, she shook her head in a desperate attempt to remove the hungry Magikarp.

Fluttershy helped with the removal process, tugging painfully at Magikarp as Twilight screamed. "Twilight, please, stand still! He's going to rip your hair out if you keep on moving," Fluttershy ordered, pulling with all her might as Magikarp kept his bite grip firmly on Twilight's mane.