Shelleylou, a female, shadowed Gelert, grinned wickedly
as she prepared to finish off her Battledome opponent, an over confident Shoyru.
She narrowed her emerald green eyes in concentration as she loaded her Snowball
Slingshot and fired, loosing an icy barrage of sleet into the Shoyru’s stomach.
With a small cry, the Shoyru slumped to the ground, his health completely drained.
Shelly clasped her smoky black paws above her head as she howled her victory
to the Battledome’s huge ceiling.
"Woooohooo! Shelly wins again!"
The Gelert smiled as she watched her Battledome
score advance from nine thousand, eight hundred and forty two to ten thousand
and twenty three. Shelly retrieved her weapons and packed them up in her bag,
swishing her long, ribbony tail from side to side in a small victory gesture.
Shelly knew that her weapons had led her to victory, they were so much better
than her old ones! A snowball slingshot, a hand painted scarab and a black frost
cannon were just some of the new additions to her arsenal that the Gelert had
purchased earlier in the day.
Of course… She thought to herself as she
gazed lovingly at her Snowball Slingshot, I did have to take a couple hundred
thousand Neopoints out of our bank account… But of course, that would be
fine. After all, owners could just conjure up Neopoints out of the air, couldn’t
they? Shelly removed all those annoying thoughts from her mind and pranced out
of the Battledome, pausing to glance back and smirk at the ill-fated Shoyru
who was having a Healing Potion dribbled down his throat by his worried looking
owner. The midnight black Gelert shook her sleek head and chuckled softly, the
inexperienced Pet never should have challenged her.
Shelly trotted confidentially down the dusty
path to her NeoHome, her bag of weapons slung over her back. She whistled a
merry tune, her long ears waving gently in the cool spring breeze and her bright
green eyes twinkling. When she got within a block or so of her NeoHome, Shelly
caught sight of her owner, Sunny. She was framed in the open doorway, with a
scowl on her face and her hands on her hips. Shelly winced. Sunny didn’t look
very happy…
"Shelly…" she began, in a dangerously low voice.
"Something very interesting happened today." Her eyes flashed angrily. "Mordegan
had an unfortunate run-in with a Reptillor down in Tyrannia and caught a nasty
case of Reptillioritus. However, when I went down to the bank to withdraw the
money with which to buy the cure, I realized..." Sunny paused for dramatic effect.
"That we were broke! We have no money whatsoever! Which is very odd, because
this morning we had over three hundred thousand! Now how do you suppose THAT
happened, Shelly?"
The usually brave Gelert trembled with fear under
her owner’s steely gaze. Sunny was really the only being in existence that could
frighten her, and at this moment, Shelly would have rather faced the entire
Meridell garrison then to have to answer her. Shelly gulped, sweat running down
her matted ebony fur.
"Uh… I haven’t a clue…" she stammered, suddenly
becoming very interested in something on the ground. Sunny glared at her as
a low growl escaped from her throat. It was remarkable, Shelly observed, how
similar her owner was to enraged Skeith when she was mad.
"Answer me, young Gelert!" Sunny said, a distinct
hiss evident in her low voice. Shelly sighed in resignation; there was no getting
out of it now.
"I spent it," she admitted, fervently wishing
that she possessed the ability to burrow into the ground.
"On what?" Sunny asked, clenching her fingers
together.
"Battledome equipment," Shelly squeaked. Sunny’s
jaw dropped open in astonishment.
"You spent over three hundred thousand Neopoints
on Battledome equipment?" she howled. Shelly smiled weakly.
"It was, uh, really good Battledome equipment…"
the unfortunate Gelert trailed off as Sunny's icy stare penetrated her eyes.
Sunny still looked partly shocked, though that was an emotion that was quickly
replaced by fury.
"Alright Shelly, that is it! I'm tired of your
reckless spending; you have to learn that money doesn't grow on trees!"
"What about the money tree?" Shelly cheekily
quipped, though she immediately saw that it had been a mistake. Sunny's eyes
blazed, and, if the Gelert hadn't known better, then she would've sworn that
smoke was pouring out of her ears. Sunny raised her hand as if to strike the
cowering Pet, but she didn't. Instead, she brought her hand back down and shoved
it into her pocket, pulling out a frayed ring bound notebook. She swiped the
ever-present pen from behind her ear, and hastily scribbled down a few figures.
"Okay Shelly," she mumbled as she wrote, the
blue tipped pen a mere blur as it whizzed across the page. "Let's just see how
many Neopoints you spent..." She paused, chewing the tip of the pen in concentration
as she crunched the numbers in her head. Finally she stopped, wrote a final
total on the sheet of paper, ripped it off and shoved it into Shelly's paws,
a malicious smirk forming on her face.
"You owe me roughly around three hundred thousand,
twenty seven thousand and thirty eight Neopoints. I suggest that you start making
that money back now." Shelly's face turned a ghostly white, a very unhealthy
parlor for a shadowed Gelert.
"Th-- three HUNDRED thousand Neopoints?" she
sputtered, her eyes wide and unblinking as she stared at the paper in disbelief.
"And twenty seven thousand and thirty eight,"
Sunny promptly added. "But, since I'm nice, I'll only make you earn back the
amount of Neopoints that it would cost or me to heal your unfortunate brother."
Shelly sighed with relief, wiping the sweat off of her brow with a smoky paw.
"Oh, that's okay, then. How much does the cure
cost?"
Sunny smiled sweetly, "About seven thousand Neopoints,
give or take a few hundred or so."
Shelly frowned. It was a much smaller amount
than three hundred thousand, but seven thousand Neopoints was still no sum to
sneeze at. Besides, she had assumed that it would only cost about two hundred
or so Neopoints, or an amount that was small enough to earn from the Games Center,
and a few rounds of Meerca Chase.
"How am I supposed to get all that money?" she
asked, doing her best to look cute and apologetic. Sunny glanced at the rapidly
dipping sun.
"Use your imagination. You have until seven o'
clock, NST. I'll keep dinner warm for you."
Shelly's ears perked up. "What are we having?"
"Asparagus casserole with eggplant chutney."
The Gelert groaned in despair, sinking to the
ground on her shadowed knees as she buried her face in her paws.
"This day just keeps on getting worse!"
To be continued...
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