"WAHOO SHOYRETTANI, YOU are da bomb! Woooo!" screamed Shoyrittik. Shoyrittan
and Shoyrianta were hugging each other, jumping up and down. Shoyraitti was
looking sulkily on.
"One-hundredth straight sparring victory!" shouted
Shoyrettani as she was lifted into the air by her admirers. Her opponent, a
dim-witted Faerie Grundo, looked evilly at her. She seemed to be plotting revenge.
Sulking away from the cheering crowd, she walked to the courtyard and sat down
with a sigh.
"You seem to have a lot on your mind." The Faerie
Grundo jumped. She then saw that a Halloween Kougra was sitting across from
her.
"You don't go to this school, do you?" the Faerie
Grundo asked.
"I'm thinking about it," replied the Halloween
Kougra. "Do you happen to know a Starry Shoyru named Shoyrettani? I hear she's
a great fighter, and I'd love to meet her."
"She's not that great," grumbled the Grundo.
"Oh, what's--" began the Kougra, but was quickly
cut off.
"Grutinadi? Are you here?" asked a voice. The
Kougra muttered, "Drat," and melted into the shadows, just as a Starry Shoyru
came out.
"Grutinadi?" asked Shoyrettani.
"Whadda you want?" growled Grutinadi, turning
her back to the Shoyru.
"I want to say I'm sorry. I didn't realise I
hurt your feelings, and I want to give you this," Shoyrettani replied, holding
out a wrapped item. The Grundo suspiciously took it, unwrapped it, and gasped.
It was an extremely expensive Malice Potion! She looked at Shoyrettani, tears
in her eyes.
"I just ran out and bought it with the last of
my allowance," Shoyrettani said. "No hard feelings?"
"None," agreed Grutinadi. They hugged and then
Shoyrettani jumped up.
"Want me to teach you some strategies?" Shoyrettani
asked. "I don't do that with everyone I defeat you know, or I'd have no time
to train."
"You bet!" shouted the Grundo excitedly.
Drat! I thought we had them! Oooh, I'll get her
someday if it's the last thing I do, thought the Halloween Kougra. She sulked
away in the shadows.
***
"So, you mainly go on the offensive?" asked Grutinadi a few hours later.
"Unless my opponent is stronger than me. Then
I go on the defensive. Limited offence, big time defence. I use my defensive
ability, Shoyru Hover, one defensive item, and one attack item. That Malice
Potion would be extremely useful. It's terribly strong, and can cause tons of
damage to almost any creature, Light or Dark," Shoyrettani advised. "Another
thing to help is to feed the noggin. Read lots of books. They increase your
ability to problem-solve, and help you be able to switch strategies in the middle
of a battle to trip up your opponent. I use several strategies in my real battles,
tripping up my opponents by randomly switching between them."
"Wow. I guess I have a lot to learn," Grutinadi
said. Then she screamed.
"Whoa, what?" Shoyrettani looked around, and
then gasped. The Shadow Usul was standing right behind them.
"Shoyrettani… How pleasant it is to finally meet
you face-to-face. We weren't exactly face-to-face when you stole my lunch."
The Shadow Usul's red eyes flashed, and Grutinadi screamed and froze into a
solid block of ice.
"WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!?" Shoyrettani screamed.
"YOU COWARD!"
"Coward, am I? I seem to remember in our first
encounter, you were the one who ran away," the Shadow Usul said casually, buffing
up her claws with her icy breath. Shoyrettani's hair began to stand on end from
anger, and she began to hiss and spit like an angry cat.
"Shoyrettani, you okay? It sounds like your having
a fit of some sort." The door began to creak open.
"Don't come in! The Shadow Usul's here, get the
Master!" Shoyrettani screamed at Shoyrianta as the door swung open. She began
to run away, but the Shadow Usul froze her before she could take two steps.
Shoyrettani now turned to the Shadow Usul, eyes red with anger, lightning and
dark clouds gathering outside, and lightning flashing around her. Her birthmark,
a diamond in between her eyes grew brighter and whiter. Finally, it became a
real diamond imbedded in her skin.
"No. No... this cannot be. No!" screamed the
Shadow Usul. Shoyrettani's power was still growing, however. The floor beneath
her began to crack, and she heard screams from below. Realising what was happening,
Shoyrettani floated into the air.
"It's time to make you pay," she growled. The
Shadow Usul fled, leaving her frozen victims behind. Once she was off the Training
School grounds, her victims thawed. Shoyrettani calmed down and returned to
normal.
"Wha-what happened? Where's the Shadow Usul?"
asked Grutinadi. Shoyrianta nodded.
"I'd like to know that too," she said.
"Ummm… Would you believe that the Shadow Usul
fled from me?" Shoyrettani asked. The two Neopets looked puzzled.
"Shoyrettani. Always showing off her stuff."
Shoyraitti came out of the shadows. "Pity the Shadow Usul was so scared, you
could really show off if you beat her up."
"Hey! What happened to the floor?" Shoyrianta
asked.
"The quote-on-quote 'Battledome Queen' here cracked
it with some sort of supernatural thingy. That birthmark is now a real diamond
too, in case you were going to ask," Shoyraitti sneered. "I'm off to dinner,
I'll see you suckers later."
"Wait up! I'm starving!"
***
"Her… power… It's… incredible!" gasped the Shadow Usul. "She… She's the… the…
the…"
"The what?" demanded Count von Roo.
"The… Chosen One… the Legendary Fighter… It was…
It was a fluke that the Chia Clown won the one time, she's… She's invincible!
Nothing can… Nothing can stop her when she sets her mind to defeating someone,
unless… Unless they run away. She… She could take over Neopia if… If she wanted,
but she… She won't, she's too pure-hearted."
"No! The Chosen One isn't due to arrive until
Year 4!" yelled Balthazar.
"Um, this is Year 4," said the Spider Grundo.
"Oh! Never mind me, then!" said Balthazar, clearly embarrassed.
"What does the Prophecy say about her weakness?"
the Pant Devil asked.
"The only way to make her as weak as any Shoyru
is to take the Diamond off her. That is, if it is right, and if we can get that
close to her," Balthazar said.
"We'll attack her when she's sleeping then!"
said Meuka eagerly.
"You can't Meuka, you haven't challenged her
yet," the Ghost Lupe said. "I can however, since I never challenge Neopets."
"No fair! I don't wanna be left out!" Meuka cried.
"Then we'll wait until you can challenge her."
***
Several days later, Shoyrittik came down with the NeoFlu. Meuka challenged
Shoyrettani and she began to worry for the first time in her life. She asked
the Techo Master for bodyguards, which he supplied because word had spread of
Shoyrettani's legendary stature. He did not want his favourite, most loyal pupil
to be injured in her sleep, as Shoyrettani had told him of the meeting she had
a premonition of.
"Make way for Shoyrettani, the Legendary Fighter.
Make way for Shoyrettani, the Chosen-"
"Shut up! I don't want that kind of attention,
just stop anyone from hurting me. You don't need to make way for anybody," Shoyrettani
snapped.
"Sorry, Ms. Chosen One," sneered the bodyguard,
a new student Halloween Kougra named Kougrittono.
"That's it, you're fired," snapped Shoyrettani.
All of a sudden, Kougrittono launched herself at Shoyrettani, who nimbly stepped
aside.
"You wanna fight, huh? Well, let's go to the
sparring grounds then," Shoyrettani said casually, flicking a bug off her shirt.
Other Neopets around them were screaming things like "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"
and "Go get 'em Shoyrettani!" and "You show 'em how it's done, girl!" Shoyrettani
smiled.
The Kougra spat out a mouthful of dirt, glaring
at Shoyrettani. Shoyrettani squared her shoulders and prepared for a fight,
not for the Kougra to go peacefully to the sparring grounds. Sure enough, the
Kougra launched himself at Shoyrettani, who knocked him down easily. Then she
felt her power being drained. She looked and saw that the Kougra had gotten
her diamond.
Focus. Focus, Shoyrettani thought. She
felt a warmth spread over her body and a stabbing pain on her forehead. Creatures
around her gasped as she "regrew" her Diamond, and regained her power.
The Halloween Kougra looked dumbfounded.
"Bu-but the Prophecy never said…" His voice trailed
off.
"You didn't expect the Prophecy to tell you Evil
creatures everything, did you?" Shoyrettani sneered. "It knows who's reading
it, and it changes depending on how pure someone's heart is. I read the Prophecy
myself, for pleasure reading, as I didn't know I was the Chosen One back then.
I learned that little trick from it."
"No. No!" screamed the Kougra as Shoyrettani
came closer. "Please, please don't kill me!"
"Kill you?" Shoyrettani asked, puzzled. "I'm
not going to kill you, I going to turn you over to the Pteri Police. Faerie
is part of that Police Force. She'll make sure you get your just desserts."
The End
Now nobody dares cross my Shoyrettani. She's the toughest little mujer
out there, and she never gives up on her goals. | 
