I was trying to pick up fur off the carpet of my NeoHome
when I heard the doorbell ring. That's odd, I thought. Hardly anyone visits
me, except for jamezbfod,
my brother, and he "lets himself in." Puzzled, I walked over to the living room
and opened the door.
"Excuse me, Miss," said a large, fearsome-looking
Mutant Grundo. "Would you be interested in buying a vacuum cleaner?"
"A-a-a what?" I asked, shocked. "I didn't order
one."
"Um, it's for the Save-Our-Sloth foundation.
They support the upcoming Medieval war."
"Well, in that case, I'll take one," I said,
thinking of my recent Battledome weapon that had been reduced to a pile of sludge
by Sloth's ray. "How much are they?"
"Well..." For the first time, I noticed that
he had a wheelbarrow full of boxes leaning on my front steps. "The only ones
left are 200 NP."
"Okay," I said. I paid him and brought the box
inside. My Desert Aisha, Li, came to see what was up.
"I just bought a vacuum cleaner from a Mutant
Grundo," I explained, like it was no big deal.
Li's eyes widened. "Leb388! That could've been
extremely dangerous..." she rambled on about how I collaborated with evil forces
and whatnot, and eventually she insisted that Pegasusmon3, my White Tonu, open
the box with her Tonu Golden Blade--just in case.
"You guys worry too much," I muttered, watching
them open it. "After all, I have to deal with Jamez on a daily basis."
Pegasus ignored me and focused on the package.
"It's a vacuum cleaner all right," she said, taking out the manual. "You have
to assemble it, though. It's a Virtuoreck, I believe. Here's the instructions."
She handed me the small booklet.
"What's it say?" Li asked, trying to get a glance.
"'You have just bought a Virtuoreck, a Virtupets
Vacuum Cleaner from the Save-Our-Sloth, or SOS, foundation,'" I read. "Look--there's
an address, too. Do you know what this means?"
"Ugg...we're not going to see Sloth, are we?"
Li moaned.
"That's insane!" Pegasus yelled. Then she thought
for a moment. "I'm comin' with you, for protection," she insisted.
So we made a deal. I'd go with Pegasus, and if
I didn't come back within an hour, Li would Neomail Jamez. Pegasus and I trekked
up to the Virtupets Space Station, where, just as it had said on the booklet,
Sloth's ship was at 999 Destruction Avenue.
"Excuse me, I'm here to see Sloth," I told a
Mutant Grundo standing guard.
"He doesn't want any visitors."
"Well..." I felt the manual in my pocket, and
what the other Grundo had said about the Meridell Land War. "I'm his...shipper.
I ship in his Crown Roast Beef, and we have an order to deliver. Unless, of
course, you want Sloth to be without--"
"All right then! Go right on in!"
After passing a few safety guards, Pegasus and
I inched our way into the Control Room that was Sloth's main plotting room.
"Crown Roast Beef?" Pegasus asked sceptically.
"Think like your enemy," I said with a shrug.
"Whatever, leb388. I--" Pegasus suddenly gasped.
We were in the presence of Sloth! He was in one of those cool swively chairs
with backs on them. He turned around to face us. "Maybe we should leave," Pegasus
whispered.
"No," I whispered back. "Um...excuse me, Dr.
Sloth?" I asked. Instead of seeing red eyes glowing with evil, by the look in
his eyes he was kind of...annoyed.
"Yes? What do you want? I have plotting to do!"
"Well...I've been wondering about that Land War
for Meridell, and one of your Mutant Grundos sold me a vacuum cleaner, and he
said something about the war, and you sort of destroyed a Battledome weapon
I bought when I was about to equip it to Pegasus, and...well, what I mean is,
can I interview you?"
"I have no time for your interview nonsense.
What will I get if I comply with you mortals?"
I reached into my pocket. I had the vacuum cleaner
manual, a notepad, some pens, and some Neopoints. "Um...327 Neopoints?"
"Neopian currency? Bah!"
"I--I'll buy you a Crown Roast Beef," I promised.
"Well, then, what are you waiting for?"
With Pegasus standing guard, I found a chair
and started the interview.
Lebki: So, why are you selling vacuum cleaners?
Sloth: I need to make money one way or another!!!
Lebki: Understandable. So, why was the
Meridell Land War put on hold?
Sloth: Don't blame me for that! An evil mastermind
can only try so hard! Whenever I attack, the Neopets Team covers it up and sends
me threatening letters that I suspect are from some of those angry programmers.
They keep saying, "Hey, we'll delete you--we're not ready for the war yet."
Lebki: Ouch. They have the power to do
that?
Sloth: Of course not! I shall never be destroyed!
But when they don't care that I burn their asparagus and mess up their programs,
what can I do?
Lebki:I see. The Neopian Times is the only
reliable thing around; the worlds are getting kind of boring, with you not attacking
anything--I mean, with the Neopets Team covering it up.
Sloth: Don't talk about The Neopian Times!
I hate that! Everyone in there complains about how mean and evil I am!
Lebki: So...you're not mean or evil?
Sloth: Well...I am, but as evil dictator
I should have supreme control over what they say, think, and feel!
Lebki: Uh-huh...so, when can we expect
the war?
Sloth: You Neopians actually want to be attacked?
Lebki: Yeah, so we can fight.
Sloth: Why--
"Laura! LAURA!"
"It's Jamez and Li!" Pegasus shouted, running
towards Sloth and I. She had her Tonu Golden Blade ready.
"Leb388, I got Jamez!" Li exclaimed.
"Laura, are you okay? Your pet said that you
were captured by Sloth!" jamezbfod said.
"I wasn't," I replied angrily. "I was interviewing
him."
"Oh..." Jamez, with an Attack Fork in his right
hand, motioned with his left arm. "Then what do I tell all of these guys?"
My eyes widened. There were about a thousand
in all of Desert-painted Neopets, some Tyrannian pets, Meridellers, and Grundos.
Even some Neopians I knew were there. More filed in through the steel-grey corridor
to Sloth's plotting room, which seemed to be brimming with Neopians.
"I couldn't rally up everyone," Jamez said, "but--"
"Jamez! You have to call everyone off! I'm okay!"
He gave me a puzzled look. "But--"
I knew what he meant. All of the pets and Neopians
had started to attack, lighting fire to most parts of the ship, but otherwise
just whacking and zapping things.
"Neopia shall be mine!" Sloth yelled, running
out.
We ran out, too, to let all of the angry pets
and Neopians sort things out--I mean, mess things up.
"That was close," Jamez said to me.
"It would've been better if you hadn't come,"
I insisted. "You overreact to everything."
Jamez and I were arguing all the way to our homes
in Neopia--mine was two streets after his--while Pegasus and Jamez's Blumaroo
(he was a Blumaroo then because of the Lab Ray), SiX75, were arguing. So everything
was back to normal.
As I walked into my NeoHome, I remembered the
fur all over the carpet and the vacuum cleaner. "Hey, Li, can you help me figure
this stuff out?"
"Sure." She reached over to help me put together
the vacuum cleaner. "It's a good thing Lebmon and CP30 are on vacation at the
Neolodge," she remarked.
"Yeah," I replied, thinking of what my two pacifist
pets would do if they were there. I sat down to help her assemble the vacuum
cleaner, and after a few minutes, we had it working (that's space-age technology
for you), but then we had to clean up all the Mutant Morphing Potions it emitted
from its battery. Li started to bottle and discard them, so I took some outside
to put next to the garbage bins.
When I got back inside, Pegasus was at the table
wrapping a package with a card that said, "Happy Birthday, Six."
"What's that for?" I asked her, puzzled. "It's
not his birthday, and you two always argue."
"Well...I wanted to make it up to him, and the
birthday card was the only one I could find," she said. That made sense, but
it seemed a little too generous...
Fast-forward a week. I was over Jamez's house
playing Cheat! with and two of his pets and he, when the Delivery Horus (the
Horus only Jamez and I can see that delivers packages) swooped in and dropped
SiX75's package from Pegasus.
"It's for Six," Jamez said. "He must be in his
room. ObiGrarrl and Wingston, show Laura where it is."
"Okay," I said. I kind of wished Jamez would
use leb388, my screen name, instead of Laura, my real name, but oh well. Jamez's
Grarrl and Scorchio led me to Six's bedroom, where we found him reading a book.
"You've got a package," Wingston told him.
Six flung the book down and ran over to Jamez's
living room. His Blumaroo feet sort of bounced when they touched the carpeted
floor.
When we got to the living room, all we could
see was a cloud of green-grey smoke.
"Jamez, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "This thing tastes
just like the time I tried to drink a Shoyru Morphing Potion, only...I dunno,
yuckier."
I gasped. "Pegasus must have sent Six a Mutant
Morphing Potion! And you drank it!"
"Wicked," Six marveled. "Jamez, man, you just
took a greenish-grey bullet for me."
"But you are unharmed," ObiGrarrl added.
"Maybe the morphing potions only work on Neopets,"
I suggested.
Wingston shook his head. "Nope. Jamez was blue
for two days after he drank that Blue Shoyru Morphing Potion. This thing had
no affect on him."
"So I'm mutant already?" Jamez asked.
"Of course! That makes a lot of sense!" I laughed.
As always, just another average week in Neopia
for my crazy pets, my brother, and I, leb388, crazy-stuff extraordinaire.
The End
Author's Note: Thanks to scriptfox who helped me with the idea of this story--the
Save-Our-Sloth Foundation! Everything else my brother (jamezbfod) and I made up.
Enjoy! | 
