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Les Scruples couldn't believe what his eyes were telling
him. He brushed his long Kyrii mane back, just in case it was causing a momentary
illusion, and rubbed his eyes a few times for good measure. The vision before
him didn't go away. Where Monty, the cheerful green camera Pteri had been, a
large green Chomby with a badly stapled pair of neon green cardboard wings was
standing, holding the camera. Stevo and Keri were presently setting up the Shidi
foam cut-out that had replaced the cardboard one - and didn't appear to notice
that anything was wrong in the slightest.
From the moment they'd arrived on Krawk Island
for their special expose on The Treasure of the Black Pawkeet, Les had been
having feelings of creeping dread. One of them was happening right now, as he
stared open-mouthed at the Pteri-turned-Chomby. How could this be happening?
"Um… Heh… Hello, mate…" Les said, cautiously approaching the Chomby. At that
size, if it got riled, he was in trouble.
"Hullo, Les!" the Chomby said with a bright
smile. "I'm your biggest fan!"
"Biggest? Well… I can see why…" Les muttered.
"Erm… you wouldn't happen to know what happened to Monty, would you?"
"I am Monty! See the wings?" the Chomby said
with a large, somewhat toothy smile.
"Rightttt… um… I didn't recognise you because
of all those late nights playing Florg…" Les gasped, backing up quickly. "I'm
just going to… uh… talk to Stevo and Keri about the show now. You just stay
right here, and get ready to …erm… film, okay?"
"Okay, Les. And you know, your hair looks really
swell today…" 'Monty' said.
Les hurried away from the Chomby and rushed
over to the Shidi cut-out, hugging it for comfort. Keri blinked, and smacked
Les over the head lightly. "Hey! It's bad enough Stevo has to hug that thing
for the commercial spot, you don't have to start, too!"
"Isn't she gorgeous?" Stevo whispered conspiratorially
to Les.
"Mrs. Furwin? Well, uh, despite those rumours,
mate, I've never been interested…" Les muttered in reply.
"No, the Shidi cut-out! It's even better than
the last, and absolutely decapitation-proof!"
"Oh, yeah. Huggable foam. Very nice…"
"Ahem!" Keri snapped, tapping her foot. "Can
we get on with taping the show now?"
"Noooo… we can't get on with the show..." Les
whimpered, pointing a finger in the direction of the rather large cameraman.
"Does anyone see the problem with that?"
"No," said Keri, shaking her head.
"Not really," Stevo said with a shrug.
"That's not Monty!" Les cried.
"Who?" said Keri.
"The last cameraman!"
"Was that his name?" Stevo said, shrugging again.
"Don't you remember what happened last week,
Les?" Keri said with a giggle.
"We didn't film last week…" Les said, rubbing
his head. "Did we…?"
Keri and Stevo looked at Les, pitifully. He
turned away to glance at the large Chomby again. It was smiling back disturbingly
in his direction. The words of the cameraman came back to haunt him… biggest
fan…biggest fan…had he done Monty in, just to get close to Les? Sure it was
great that he had his own personal fan, instead of Stevo and Keri getting all
the attention… but… this was disturbing! And what had happened last week that
he couldn't remember?
"Ohhh… last week. Right-o!" Les said, pretending
to have a sudden epiphany of remembrance. "Oh, yeah, that's what happened… how
silly of me to forget."
"Yep, and after you woke up in that club in
Tyrannia with your arm around the bloke, we just had to hire him," Keri said,
nodding.
"Dear faeries, what the heck…?" Les muttered
to himself. "I need to lay off the Florg."
"Places everyone!" Stevo called. Keri and Les
got into their places beside Stevo.
"Wait… if nothing bad happened to Monty, why
did the Chomby say his name is Monty, and what's with the bad cardboard wings?"
Les asked.
"It's to make the transition easier for the
audience," Keri snapped. "Now shut your yap so we can film!"
"G'day, mates, and welcome to the Krawk Files!"
Stevo intoned cheerfully, as 'Monty' the camera Chomby came in for a close-up
shot. " We've got an exciting special for you today! We're here on a remote
location on Krawk Island, to dig for the Treasure of the Black Pawkeet! Yes,
for once and for all, we'll dispel those nasty rumours that there is no treasure,
and this is just a pirate scheme to get all your hard-earned NP. Crikey!"
"That's right, Stevo," Keri said with a big
cheesy smile, "Many years ago, the captain of a pirate ship known as the Black
Pawkeet was thrown overboard during a storm!"
"His name was Captain Bloodhook," Les said,
though his mind was on other things, "and everyone thought that he died… much
like… a little Pteri cameraman, who no one but me seems to remember…"
Keri glared at Les, as Stevo stepped forward
to pick up a shovel. "Shut up, Les!" she hissed. Les clamped his mouth shut.
No matter what had happened to Monty, Keri was still the number one scary thing
in Les's life.
"His mutinous crew took all the booty in the
ship - that's pirate talk for treasure, mates - and hid it all around the island!
So Krawk Island is just choc-o-block full of buried loot. Whoo-whee! We're going
to find some right now." Stevo waved his shovel at the camera, and picked a
location to start digging in.
"When Captain Bloodhook survived his… mutinous
crew's vicious attack…" Les continued, "He climbed back on board, and started
fighting the traitors. No one was left standing… except for Bloodhook himself.
Too bad he had no idea where his treasure was."
"So now, industrious pirates sell treasure maps
to unsuspecting visitors, who dream of riches, and dig through the ground in
search of their fortunes! Let's see if Stevo's found anything, shall we?" Keri
said, smiling. The camera Chomby panned in on Stevo, who was up to his fourth
hole.
"Blimey! I think I've got something this time…"
Stevo said, hauling an object out of the pit. "It's a chunk of rancid meat!"
"Ew!" said Keri. "Disgusting!"
"Pirates must have ate this rotting, stinky
hunk, when it was fresh and yummy, and tossed the remains carelessly on the
ground like the slobs they are!" Stevo said, smiling. "Let's see what else we
can find… but first, a moment with our sponsor."
"If you need an author, like Hemmingway or Poe
- this is Neopia and not the place to go! But if you need someone addicted to
NeoQuest, who made our lost episode last week disappear like a pest - call Shidi!"
Stevo gave the foam cut-out a cheerful hug, while Keri growled. "She may have
an addiction, but unlike Les, she's not too proud to admit it!"
"I am not addicted!" Les said, though he was
starting to have his doubts, considering his whole blackout thing. Woke up with
his arm around a Chomby? Biggest fan? Agggh!
"Now, back to the dig!" Keri snapped. "Find
us some NP!"
"Yes, dear…" Stevo muttered, picking up the
shovel and heading for another location, a bit distant from the holes he'd already
dug. "Oh, here's something interesting!"
"A bag of Dubloons?" Keri guessed, eyes lighting
up.
"Monty's charred corpse?" Les muttered under
his breath.
"No! It's a stinking yellow growth! Phew-whee,
is this nasty!" Stevo hauled it out of the ground, and plunked it down. "I understand
that this grows between pirates' toes, because they never bathe, like the nasty
stinky blighters they are."
A rustling sound was suddenly heard from all
around the group. 'Monty' had no idea which way to point the camera, as suddenly,
pirates leapt out all around the group, brandishing dangerous-looking scimitars.
One of them, a nasty Krawk with a striped shirt and a gold earring, poked Stevo
right in the tail. "Ow!" cried Stevo, jumping up. "Blimey! Isn't this exciting?
The pirates are here to give us a hand with finding the treasure!"
"Avast ye scurvy sons of a Gelert!" the pirate
Krawk hissed, brandishing his blade. "Ye only paid fer one locale, me hearties!
One locale per three hours… can't ye read?"
"Of course we can read!" Keri snapped. "We're
not uneducated thieves who run around saying 'shiver me timbers' in silly outfits
all day!"
"Keri… shhh…these guys look a bit riled…" Stevo
cautioned.
"Well, of course we're 'riled'," said the pirate,
slamming his blade into the ground for a moment to make little quotey fingers.
"We heard yer disparaging remarks about us! Toe fungus indeed! Pirates are people
too!" He picked up the blade, grumbling. "You hurt our sensitive feelings."
"Well excuse the Juppies out of us!" Keri snapped.
"You pirates need to toughen up. What kind of whiny little cry baby gets upset
because someone said they smell bad?"
"Arrrr! Yer woman is a plague on the face of
Neopia the likes of which has ne'er before been seen!" the pirate snapped.
"Neopox pizza doesn't help. We've tried," Les
quipped, while Stevo nodded in silent agreement.
"Shut up!" Keri snapped, eyes starting to do
that red glow as she charged the pirate leader, picking up the shovel Stevo
had dropped.
"Blimey! It's a battle of epic proportions!"
Stevo said, hiding behind a tree. "Let me know when it's over, Les!"
Many hours of scuffle later found the Krawk
Krew in their worst predicament yet - aboard the Black Pawkeet itself,
being forced to walk the plank…
"Can't we talk about this instead?" Stevo said,
as the Krawk captain forced him down the narrow wooden board.
"Aye, we'll talk - after yer in the drink!"
he snapped, pushing Stevo off the edge. Les and the Chomby had already been
shoved, and were treading water as best they could, looking miserable and wet.
Stevo splashed into the water beside them.
Keri was next, and the pirates
seemed to be celebrating this fact by chanting, "Down with the scurvy wench!"
at the top of their lungs. 
Keri edged out onto the plank, and
looked around for some way to save herself. She couldn't find a way to keep
from going in, but at least, she'd have a bit of vengeance. One of the pirates
close to the plank was poking the Shidi foam curiously.
"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!"
she shrieked, and grabbed the foam cut-out as she leapt off the plank, making
a tremendous splash below. The ship started to glide away through the water,
as pirates laughed and jeered at the Krawk Krew.
"Blimey! This is a fine mess you've gotten us
into," Les grumbled.
"Shut up, hair boy!" Keri snapped.
"You can climb on my back, if you want to, Les…"
the Chomby offered with a disturbingly adoring tone.
"Uh… I think I'll take me chances with the water,
mate…" Les said, treading away from his biggest fan rapidly.
"Wait for me, Les!" the Chomby said, swimming
after.
Stevo, meanwhile, had noted that the Shidi foam
was floating, and climbed aboard. "Blimey, Keri - we've got our own raft! The
sponsor's really coming in handy this week, isn't she?"
Keri reluctantly climbed aboard the Shidi cut-out,
ignoring Les's screams of horror as his 'biggest fan' caught up with him. "Yeah,
I guess she did… but do you have to hold onto that end?!"
The End
The parody in this story is intentional, and the characters used in it reside
on the account Krawk_Files. As always, thank you for reading, and feel free to
Neomail
me if you've got a question, comment, or are just feeling a bit riled! | 
