“Magikarps for sale! Fresh Magikarps, right from the river and ready for buying!” the Magikarp salesman yelled from his poorly built stand, numerous Magikarp flopping around him. But try as he must, not one customer would stop by to inspect or purchase one of the useless Pokemon.
Noticing a businessman passing by who potentially had loads of cash, the Magikarp salesman grabbed one of his stock and went in the path of the businessman. “Excuse me sir, but you simply must buy one of these Magikarps! When they lay eggs and produce more Magikarp offspring, you can sell them for a profit!” he explained, shoving in the businessman’s face one of floundering Magikarps.
“Uhh... sir...” the businessman said, “I’m here with my children, please, get that sushi out of my face.” He stepped out of the way, revealing the children behind him, each with a Dragonite stuffed figure. Their eyes frightened by the evil seen in the eyes of this Magikarp salesman, the enthusiasm he showed in selling his products towards the people was outstanding.
“But your kids can also buy some Magikarp! I have a buy two get one free deal going on!” the salesman explained, pointing to the numerous Magikarps he had behind his stand. “Really, I’m practically giving them away! Buy them now before I’m out of stock!”
“As if I would like to purchase such a delicate creature like that. Besides, we’re strictly a dragon type only family.” He pushed the salesman out of the way, his children following close behind, hugging their Dragonite toys for dear life.
“Racists! Water types are also cool!” The salesman shouted at quickly retreating family. Now he stared dejectedly at the Magikarp floundering in his hands. “What am I going to do now? I have no more money, and I wasted all my time catching you useless fish? What am I supposed to do?” he asked the Pokemon, as if it could answer his question.
The Magikarp looked at his captor, staring deep into his soul, the guilt was over running his mind, breaking his mentality down.
“Magikarp,” it said with a dry voice.
“Wait!” The salesman yelled at the almost gone family down the street. “What if my Magikarp beats your Dragonite? I’ll give you five for free if you win! If I win, you have to buy five of them! Deal?”
The businessman walked back, a pokeball readied in his hand, “Mister, you got yourself a deal.”
“Excellent! Magikarp, I choose you!” he yelled, throwing his Magikarp for battle. The water type Pokemon landed in between the pair and continued to flounder like a fish out of water... which it technically was.
“Go, Mister Puffins!” The businessman threw out his master ball, his Dragonite surrounding itself in a fiery aura, the ground’s life being sucked in by it’s lovely armour. The splendid dragon type Pokemon was not a force to be reckoned with, his level at 100 and his stats through the roof due to EV training (the most pretentious form of wasting your time battling Pokemon).
“Magikarp, use Splash!” The salesman shouted, his Magikarp using his power, slamming his water power into the fire lizard. It was uneffective, and Dragonite merely frowned in annoyance at getting wet.
“Mister Puffins, use Hyper Beam!” A ball of light began to form in Dragonite’s mouth, getting larger and more bright until he released an almighty beam of pure 150 damage. The beam glared highly, a light that could be seen from the next town over, it burned those around it with its godlike force, and with a 90% accuracy, it hit Magikarp with the force of a nuclear projectile.
As for the poor water type Pokemon, Magikarp was blasted clear into the sky, disappearing into the great blue yonder in a twinkle of light resembling a star. A certain pair of dastardly villains would certainly be proud.
“Oh...” The salesman sighed with grief. There goes his profits for the day.
“Is that all you got?” The businessman gloated, his Dragonite smirking as well.
Well, it seemed the salesman pretty much lost the battle, on the grounds of his Pokemon being blasted off into oblivion. “No, you win,” the salesman groaned. It was a pretty stupid idea to use Magikarp in a battle against a Dragonite. Actually, it was a downright idiotic move made in the heat of the moment.
“Yipee!” The businessman jumped in joy, he had finally accomplished his lifelong dream of winning five Magikarps with his overpowered Dragonite, it was such a challenge that even his children hugged their Dragonite plushies, filling their cold hearts with love and happiness.
But when the businessman ended his jump, he was shocked to discover the shack had a closed sign on it, all the Magikarp and the salesman mysteriously having disappeared.
“No... noooo!” The businessman fell to his knees, grabbing his hair and trying to rip it out as if it would solve anything.
Space. The final frontier. Or to the Magikarp now orbiting the upper atmosphere, its final resting place. But wait, this isn’t the end (because a story ending right here and now would be pretty boring). It was slowly descending back to Earth, a trail of hot fire following behind it.
The air particles around it were sent aflame as it picked up speed, rocketing closer and closer back to Earth. But luckily for it, being a water type, the re-entry back to Earth was ineffective. It just stood still as the G-force got stronger and stronger, the occasional “Karp,” sound leaving its lips as the ground soon got closer and closer.
If a Magikarp falls from the atmosphere at over 1,000 mph and there is no one around to hear it, will it make a sound? Well, this Magikarp was lucky enough for some ponies to hear him. And luckily for Magikarp, crashing to the ground, since it was a ground based attack, was ineffective as well. That’s one damn lucky Pokemon.
“Hey, Twilight, is it normal for comets to appear during the day?” Spike asked the unicorn, squinting to get a better look at the trailing fireball that mysteriously appeared in the great blue sky.
“Why, of course they are, Spike.” Twilight began, “It’s much less common during the day, but that’s only because of the light effects from the heat and the sun conflicting. Why do you ask?”
“Come take a look over here, Twilight.” She directed herself towards the very window that Spike had began his question from. Right before their eyes the comet approached closer to the ground, the sky lighting up from the fire surrounding it.
“Um, Twilight, is it normal for comets to crash land near town?” Spike asked, pointing to the fast approaching fireball.
“Not usually, no. I don’t recall many comets coming close to Ponyville, not even in a book about such a catastrophe happening.” Twilight rubbed her chin in thought, her mind perplexed at such a strange occurrence.
“Well, looks like it won’t exactly hit Ponyville,” Spike said, noticing how the comet’s path wasn’t directed right at the town. “More like it will hit--”
A loud bang could be heard by all, followed by a shockwave of force that cracked the earth and caused many a windowpane to explode in a shower of glass. “... the Everfree Forest,” Spike moaned, now against the wall, having been knocked backwards from the comet’s force of impact.
All around town ponies have been knocked aside from the shock wave, with much damage evident everywhere the eye could see. Broken windows, furniture strewn on the ground and food scattered haphazardly on the floor and its previous eater alike.
Spike got up from his fallen position. “Twilight?” But he was too late, for Twilight had already gotten herself out the door and into the streets of Ponyville. “Twilight, don’t go near random crash landings!” Spike shouted at the doorstep of the library to the retreating unicorn, but she didn’t listen.
Spike sighed and shook his head sadly, running after her while muttering under his breath, “Every week something like this happens. Is it too much to ask for a normal day in this crazy town?” Of course, nopony was around to answer his question. Not like anypony really did have an answer to it.
Twilight ran towards the crash site, sweat forming on her brow from the superb exercise that she had done just then, competing itself with the lack of activity due to the librarian’s habit of staying cooped in all day. Her legs ached, but she pressed onward, and onward she prevailed.
She dodged past confused and startled ponies, jumped over wreckage due to the comet’s crash, all with Spike struggling to follow behind her. Why she didn’t just teleport there, nopony knew. Eventually she ran past the edge of town, approaching near Fluttershy’s cottage which was near the crash site.
She found the location of the comet’s landing near the edge of the Everfree, with trees destroyed everywhere near the area; many were burned or had all their bark stripped from the trunk because of the sheer amount of heat the comet created when it landed. She kept towards the center of where it seemed to have been created from, and there she found what she was looking for.
A crater, its depth seemed to be enormous as she stopped in her path in case she accidentally fell. Smoke poured out from the middle, but still she could get a good look at what was at the bottom. The source of the crash.
“... What the buck is that?” she asked herself, at lost of words to try and figure out what exactly the comet was.
Spike finally caught up to her, huffing and puffing in exhaustion due to his short legs having to do twice the work of Twilight to run after her. “What do you mean?” he panted, wiping off a good amount of sweat from his forehead.
“It looks like a... fish,” she answered, pointing to the center of the crater. “But how can a fish create such a huge crash? And more importantly, how did it crash here in the first place?”
Spike stared deep into the crater, and was just as surprised as Twilight when he spotted what did indeed seem to be a type of red fish with white dorsal fins and yellow whiskers at the very bottom. “I think the better question would be how it’s still alive?” Spike spoke up, noticing how the fish still moved down there.
Floundering around, a noise could be heard from the red fish. It sounded almost like “karp,” for some reason.
“Can we keep it, Twilight? Can we, can we?” Spike begged, his voice sounding that of a filly or colt.
“Spike, that’s potentially dangerous creature that somehow survived a crash from outer space!” Twilight explained to her assistant. “Of course we can! What kind of pony would I be if I didn’t let my assistant have a pet? Plus, this gives me a chance to study it!”
Spike squealed in delight and raced down the crater, eventually reaching the bottom and picking up the mysterious red fish. Groaning from the heavy weight, he returned to Twilight and flung the fish onto the ground. Scratching his head as the fish just flailed on the ground, he said, “How exactly can it still breathe on land?”
“Magic. It would definitely explain how it survived that crash,” Twilight answered, leaving so many questions in Spike’s head. Twilight approached the creature closer, eager to study and inspect this anomaly more.
“Well, okay then. What shall we name it?” Spike asked, poking the fish with an ashen stick.
“Magikarp,” the strange fish said, that word evidently the only one it could it could say. It repeated it several other times, hopping up and down on the ground.
“Let’s name it Paul!” Spike shot out. A little part of Magikarp’s soul died just then.
“You sure?” Twilight asked, rubbing her chin in puzzlement. “It seems like a pretty strange name.” If Magikarp could speak it’d agree with her.
“You... you don’t like it?” Spiked asked, giving her a puppy dog like look.
“Well...” the disappointment in his creativity was clear through her nagging tone of voice, “It’s not bad, it’s just not fitting for a fish.”
“I know!” Spike yelled with glee. “How about Magikarp, you know, since he says Magikarp.”
“Brilliant!” The purple mare exclaimed, rubbing the head of her dragon companion, his scales leaving an odd feeling on her hoof.
“Magikarp! Magikarp!” Magikarp said loudly, its prayers heard by the great Pokemon in the sky, Arceus.
“So, um, you know if its a boy or girl?” Spike asked, poking Magikarp again with a stick, the fish like creature ignoring it as it just went on floundering.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Twilight started, she picked up the creature, moving her hoof down to its tail. “There’s... there’s nothing there!” she said, shocked.
Tugging at one of Magikarp’s whiskers, Spike said, “How about we just say its a boy and not question further?”
“But Spike!” Twilight whined, “It’s just going to pester me until we know for sure!”
“What about it surviving in space and crash landing to the ground and it still being able to live through that?” Spike asked, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Shouldn’t that pester you more than trying to figure out what gender it is?”
Twilight’s eye twitched, it flickered in a creepy fashion as if something inside her broke, perhaps a demon from her childhood being released from the thought of that very question. Whatever it was that caused her to twitch, she kept it barred inside of her, dooming it to never be revealed. “Not really,” she answered.
“Sweet!” Spike replied, hefting Magikarp over his shoulder and running off. “Now let’s go to Fluttershy’s place! Maybe she can tell us what type of fish he is!”
“... why didn’t I think of that?” Twilight asked herself, trotting behind her assistant.
And of course, Magikarp just spouted on about his own name. Well, at least this was better than the salesman... sort of.