Neoangel sat in her favourite tree outside her room,
her eyes closed and her chest rising gently with every breath she took. She
was asleep. And dreaming.
Neoangel was sitting at a small, polished Marble
Desk which was cluttered with various papers and objects. In one hand-like paw
she held a crystal vial, filled with a dull orange liquid; in the other, she
held an uncapped jar of small brown flakes. Holding her breath, she tapped the
jar lightly and let a few of the flakes fall into the vial. She let out a relieved
sigh and smiled as the liquid in the vial turned a frothy mixture of purple
and red.
"Alithiora," someone called behind her. "I
have a very important job for you."
The Zafara turned around, still holding the
vial, and curtsied politely. An elegantly dressed Light Faerie was standing
there. Her straight blond hair fell back to the middle of her back, and she
had piercing, yet gentle, forest-green eyes. She was the leader of all the Light
Faeries.
The Light Faerie held out one yellow-gloved
hand, and Neoangel stepped forward to take the rainbow brooch inside.
"This belonged to the last Light Faerie leader,"
said the Light Faerie softly, "the one before me. I want you to take it back
to her."
Neoangel nodded obediently. "Where is she?"
The Light Faerie smiled. "It will be hard
to find her. She gave up her Faerie Wings for a simple life as a human on Neopia,
and she does not remember her Faerie past."
"She could be any of the owners in Neopia?"
"No. There is something. Look in the mirror
on the pendant, Alithiora. You see yourself, right? A true Light Faerie leader
will see… something different."
"What will she see?"
"I'm sorry, Alithiora. I can't tell you yet.
I am not absolutely sure, myself."
"I understand."
"Come back when you have finished," said the
Light Faerie, taking out a bottle of highlighter-yellow, slightly glowing dust
from the Marble Desk. "I will try to land you in the general area that the light
Faerie is." She took a pinch of dust out of the bottle between two slender fingers,
and blew it gently on Neoangel. "Goodbye…"
Neoangel woke up with a start, her eyes a bit
wider then their usual small size. She brushed a tuft of hair gently out of
her face, and realized that she was clutching the pendant. "I've stayed too
long," she whispered, rubbing her thumb slowly over the trinket, and understanding
why NSQ had been able to see the volcano instead of herself.
She stood up on the branch gracefully, spread
her feathery white wings and flew off towards Mystery Island. 'Alithiora…'
Neoangel thought to herself sadly, 'I never really liked that name.'
***
The spaceship touched down lightly somewhere hidden in the Virtupets Space
Station, sending billows of dust flying up around it. The same two purple Grundos
rushed to open the main door, and bowed clumsily as Sloth walked slowly down
the thick steel ramp. At the sides, his troops of Mutant Grundos stood, their
heads bowed to their leader.
When Sloth reached the cool metal floor he turned
back to the doorway and called uninterestedly, "Transfer the prisoners to cell
A61R3." He smirked as he began to walk away from the spacecraft towards an ever
larger one, his main headquarters. His long black cloak fanned out slightly
behind him, blowing more dust across the floor. "I have plans for them…"
The purple Grundos bowed yet again, and ran off
to the prisoner's cell. Neofaerie was pacing restlessly around in circles, looking
agitated. Happiness was sitting calmly against the cell wall, finishing up her
muffin, and NSQ was watching Neofaerie with glazed-over eyes. When the Grundos
came in, she glanced at them briefly, and then stood up wordlessly to allow
them to take her away. Her pets did the same.
The Grundos took them inside a larger spaceship,
and shoved them inside a larger cell. This one had an Iron Bed tucked away in
one Spyder web covered corner and an Iron Rug lying haphazardly on the floor,
that blended in so well with the dusty iron floor that NSQ almost missed it.
It seemed that this cell was temporary.
"Your new home," squeaked one of the Grundos,
pushing them inside. The huge steel bars clanged shut like before, and the Grundo
punched in another security code before they scuttled off.
Happiness jumped onto the bed and looked down
at the corner of the room curiously. "Hey," she said, "there's a hole here!"
In a flash of green, Neofaerie was across the
room and peering at the hole. It was tiny, about the size of one of Happiness's
paws. He clawed at the hole with his paws, and even tried to slice apart the
iron with NSQ's Lost Desert Dagger, but the iron would not come apart. The hole
was too small.
Neofaerie looked around gloomily and planted
himself on the Iron Rug.
"Don't worry, Faer, we'll be out of here in no
time," NSQ consoled him optimistically.
"I know," sighed Neofaerie, "but this is just
a horrible way to spend the afternoon."
NSQ grinned hopefully at him, dug around in her
Punchbag Bob Back Pack, and pulled out a Bottle of Water. She unplugged the
cork to take a drink, when she noticed that Neofaerie was staring at her. "What?"
"Look," he said oddly, pointing to her feet.
NSQ looked down and saw that a few drops of water had dripped down onto the
floor, causing those areas to immediately turn brown.
"Rust?" NSQ said perplexed."Why dust it rust
so fast?"
"Doesn't matter!" said Neofaerie eagerly. He
grabbed the bottle and rushed over to the hole in the wall at once. The Kougra
poured the entire contents of the bottle out onto the iron, and the instant
the water touched the wall or floor, the spot rusted instantaneously. Neofaerie
easily bashed through the rusted area with one clenched paw, and Happiness cheered.
NSQ came over, looked at the hole, and said immediately,
"It's too small. I won't fit."
She was right. While the hole could easily allow
Happiness to hop through, and possibly Neofaerie if he didn't mind getting a
few sharp cuts on the jagged metal, the hole was still not large enough to let
NSQ fit through.
Neofaerie reached towards the back pack for another
Bottle of Water, but NSQ stopped him. "Listen," she said urgently, "go back
and find Neoangel, she'll be able to get me out. And you might want to stop
by the Defenders of Neopia too. I'll stay behind and… I don't know, feed the
Grundos some kind of story about why you're not here if they come by to check
on us."
"NSQ-" Neofaerie started restlessly.
"Faer, don't worry," said the owner quickly,
"just hurry up and escape!"
Neofaerie seemed concerned, but he raised no
further objections. He squeezed through the hole, and NSQ gave a sharp intake
of breath as the broken iron raked against his sides.
"Are you okay?" she asked anxiously, as the Kougra
squirmed through and landed softly on the other side.
"It's nothing," he assured her, "just a few scratches.
Much better than all those battles with Skeith Soldiers you forced me through."
NSQ smiled tensely, and watched as Happiness
hopped effortlessly through the hole.
"Okay," whispered NSQ, without knowing why she
was whispering, "get out of here, fast!"
Neofaerie nodded briefly, let Happiness jump
onto his back, and took off down the long steel hall, which was lined with many
empty cells. NSQ watched them go, her eyes on her pets instead of the security
system that the Grundos had punched their code into. There was, of course, no
reason why she should have been looking at the security system, but if she had
been, she might have noticed that a dull green light beside the #6 button had
just turned into a shiny red.
***
Neofaerie streaked through the long hallway, turned left at a fork, ran down
another long, empty hallway and came to a dead end. "Darn," he muttered, "should've
turned right…"
He turned around, but Happiness said cheerfully,
"look Neofaerie! The wall is lifting!"
He turned around and saw that the great steel
wall was indeed lifting, and he grinned and put a paw forward to run through.
But when the wall finally came to a screeching halt at the top, he saw that
continuing down the hallway would be quite impossible. An organized row of mutant
Grundos stood waiting, leering and cracking their knuckles. Behind them were
another row, and another, and another, until Neofaerie couldn't see how many
rows there were anymore.
With absolutely no time to yell out some sort
of curse, the Kougra spun around and took off down the hallway, running as fast
as he could, his paws almost a blur.
"Hang on tight!" he roared to Happiness, and
he felt the Cybunny's front paws tighten on his furry neck. He raced past all
the cells with only one thing on his mind: to put as much distance between him
and Happiness and Sloth's mutant slaves as possible.
***
Sloth leaned back in his favourite tall black leather chair, the tips of his
long fingers together, and one leg crossed over the other. He glanced at one
of the shiny metal knobs in an organized panel on his huge silver desk and shook
his head pitifully as it turned from green to red.
"So they've escaped, have they?" he sighed. He
leaned forward casually, flicked on a thin black switch and spoke into the speakerphone
beside it, "Slaves, two of the pesky little prisoners have escaped, a Kougra
and a Cybunny. Find them."
He smirked as he flipped off the switch, and
opened one of the desk drawers. He rummaged inside it for a second, before carefully
pulling out what looked like a thin sheet of clear glass and laying it gently
before him on his desk.
The Pant Devil had stolen it once from the Hidden
Tower, and although he was usually an irritating wannabe-villain, he had proven
himself worthy this time. He'd stolen them all, all 30 of them, so that Fyora
was forced to pretend that she'd never had any and stop selling them.
With a bit of tinkering from certain evil geniuses
like Sloth himself, the holders of the glass sheets could communicate with each
other whenever they wanted. All villains worthy of one were given one, and the
extras lay collecting dust in Sloth's closet. Although some villains, like the
Ghost Lupe, had never used them, and most preferred to take over the world by
themselves and avoid contact with rivals, Sloth had to admit that he'd found
his to be useful at times.
Sloth traced the sheet absentmindedly with his
finger as he waited for it to connect. Maybe the Shadow Usul would have use
for the prisoners… or perhaps Balthazar would want them… "I wonder how much
they'll be willing to offer," Sloth mused to himself, as an evil grin spread
over his face.
To be continued...
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