The beautiful Fire Faerie was dressed in a very old fashioned
orange toga, her ginger hair was tied with a black string, and she had small
bright orange highlights that were braided. We were all gazing at her thinking
it was the most beautiful vision we've ever had, when the faerie opened her
eyes. She blinked for a second and then sat, looking at us confused.
"What are you?" She touched my fur with curiosity
and looked at Grargadon amazed, "I don't recall any creatures like you in Neopia!"
"Hello Venera," Maelstra greeted, flying near
the Fire Faerie.
"Oh, you're a faerie! What are you doing here?
Who are all of you weird creatures? Where am I?" She looked like she had amnesia.
"You don't remember anything?" Sloth asked,
a tad annoyed that she called him 'weird creature', "Don't you remember the
Crown of Ultimate Power? Fyora? Your exile?"
She really didn't seem to remember anything,
but those words clicked. Her innocent sweet expression turned to a cold and
mean look and she stood up abruptly, shaking her wings.
"Fyora... Don't even say that name in front
of me," Then she looked at Sloth and the rest of us and realised that we had
released her, "You released me..." She gazed at each of us thankfully before
shouting, "The guards!"
As soon as she said it, two faeries flew in
the cavern as quick as the wind and grabbed Venera by the arms.
"Fyora was right!" One of the guardian faeries
said, "Someone freed Venera."
"Our Queen's instincts are never wrong!" The
second one replied.
"You silly creatures, can't you see I'm no longer
prisoner? My powers are back!" Venera yelled and pronounced some ancient words.
With that spell the guardians turned into stone statues and fell on the ground
with a loud bang. Venera flew back to the ground and laughed evilly.
"Silly Fyora. Didn't you think those two guards
would be easy for me?" She freed them from the stones but enchanted them to
go back to Fyora and tell her everything was okay and Venera was still captive.
"Impressive," Sloth said to Venera once the
guards left the cavern.
"Who are you?" Venera was thankful that we had
freed her, but she didn't trust us.
"I am Dr. Sloth and these are Dalí, Maelstra,
Grargadon and the Ghost Lupe. We want to defeat Fyora and take over Neopia,
maybe we could help each other out."
"Interesting. Tell me your plan."
"Remember your artefact, the Crown of Ultimate
Power? I need it to take over Neopia. You help us get it and we will lead you
to Fyora, leaving her for you to crush. Then we will rule Neopia!" Sloth was
excited, and Venera seemed to like the plan too.
"Humm... I could go fetch the Crown and keep
it to myself, but since you released me, I'll reward you with it. As long as
you leave Fyora to me...." She grinned evilly, and shook hands with Sloth.
The deal was sealed. Venera was with us. Her
powers were immense and she was able to teleport us right back to the headquarters.
Sloth set up a meeting for that same afternoon with the army and the thieves,
where Venera would be introduced and the next part of the plan was to be settled.
The thieves arrived quickly and so did the army.
I was amazed at how improved the beasts' strength and stats were; they were
really training hard. This Fourth Reunion was held in a different room and everyone
that went in the Venera freeing expedition was sitting on a throne-like chair,
next to Sloth. Not only were we the most important allies, we were friends with
Sloth too. Venera was sitting by his left, and I was at his right. Sitting at
that honoured place, I felt the most important creature in Neopia. I didn't
even notice Eclipse wasn't there. Just like I wouldn't notice her absence in
the next meetings.
Sloth was cheerful and greeted the crowd happily.
"My dear allies, thieves and bests of Neopia,
today the first part of our plan was completed. We found and freed Venera,"
He grinned and stood up holding Venera's hand, "This Fire Faerie by my side
is Venera, the creator of the Crown of Ultimate Power!"
Everyone cheered and Venera stood up, smiling
with joy. Then she began her speech.
"Greetings, dark creatures. I know you need
the Crown. But unfortunately, I don't know where Fyora sent it," She sighed,
"But I do remember hearing the faeries talk when they were casting the spells
that retained me in that cavern. One of them said that Fyora was the only one
who knew about the location of the artefact. Fyora doesn't have a very good
memory, she always writes important stuff so she won't forget it. I know she
did the same with the artefact's location. She wouldn't risk forgetting and
accidentally sending someone there, who could possibly discover it."
"That means we will have to visit the palace...
and steal the maps," Sloth concluded.
"But, Frank, Fyora's in there, how will we be
able to search it without her stopping us?" I asked
"Well, well, Dalí, you know those faerie guardians
are nothing without Fyora! We just have to take her out of the palace and then
the army will dominate the faeries for us while we get the maps," Sloth sat
down again, "We just need to get Fyora somewhere else..."
Venera sat down too, and everyone brainstormed
ideas to bring Fyora out of the palace long enough for us to take over it. It
was Grargadon who came up with the almost perfect idea.
"What if we used Venera to attract Fyora somewhere
else? If one of us told Fyora that Venera had been seen, she would leave the
palace to investigate that same second. Then the army would invade the palace
and hold down the guardian faeries until the thieves find the maps."
"Good idea, Grargadon, but much could go wrong
there. What if Fyora managed to catch Venera? And what if she returned to the
palace while we were still searching the maps? She can't crush the entire army,
but we would still have to retreat," I examined Grargadon's idea. But I also
though of something that could make the plan perfect, so I added, "But what
if we used Hidden Tower items against her?"
"Hidden Tower weapons?" Sloth seemed to like
the idea, "Yes, yes... Fyora could never fight our army if they had hidden tower
weapons... But we would still have to get her out of the palace for long enough
to break in the Tower."
"I think it's risky for me to face Fyora right
now," Venera said, "But we could trick her into thinking it was me. I used the
holographic spell when I tricked the earth faeries to gather power for the Crown.
I projected the hologram of a monster, and they attacked it thinking it was
real. They used so much power I was able to gather it from afar. I could project
a hologram of me; it would work well with Fyora."
"Venera, I love you so much right now!" Sloth
said, hugging Venera. We all loved Venera so much that moment - she just had
the brilliant idea that would allow our plan to work, how could we not love
her?
"Oh, Frank, behave," Venera blushed slightly
and pushed Sloth away. He didn't mind, he was too happy to mind anything.
Maelstra opened a map book, and pointed the
faerie palace in Faerie City.
"See the palace is right in the middle of the
city. It will be kind of hard to get there without being noticed..." Maelstra
turned the page and showed a very detailed map of Faerieland, "But there is
this desert cloud underneath the palace's cloud. See, right there. We could
fly up there, and wait. Then when Fyora is out of the palace, we just break
through the clouds and attack. Of course, we'll have to be really careful when
we get there, so no one would see us."
Maelstra paused and made a face that indicated
she was forgetting something really obvious.
"Or we can just use the Winged Invisibility
spell," She said with a sight.
Sloth giggled and Maelstra blushed a little.
"We'll use the spell, Maelstra," I said to the
embarrassed faerie, patting her hand.
Maelstra turned the page again and showed us
the map of the palace. It had so many divisions, it was hard to locate Fyora's
office and library.
"Will we steal the Hidden Tower or search for
the papers first?" A disco Zafara asked.
"Maybe it would be more prudent to get the weapons
first," Another thief replied.
"How about we split the army in half and the
first half goes to the Tower and gets the weapons and the other half takes care
of the guardians and faeries inside the palace? Then the thieves go in the office,
library and other rooms and search for the maps, covered by the second half
of the army," The Ghost Lupe suggested.
"That sounds good," I agreed
"Okay," Sloth began to resume our plan, "Venera
will project a hologram of herself somewhere far from Faerieland, and one of
our thieves will rush in the palace and tell Fyora an evil Fire faerie is tormenting
Neopians. Fyora will check it out immediately when she figures it's Venera.
Tell me, Venera, will the hologram stand still or move?"
"Um, it can really be a projection of my self.
I can be here and project my hologram somewhere. As long as I am able to see
what Fyora is doing, I can talk to her, attack her, and everything. She won't
be able to damage me, because the hologram will absorb the spells. So yes, Frank,
we can make it seem like I'm really there. The only thing we have to watch out
for is that Fyora can't touch the hologram ever, or else she'll notice it's
a fake."
"I guess you'll be able to do that, won't you,
Venera?" Sloth smiled at her, confident and proceeded, "So Fyora will be busy
fighting the hologram while our invisible winged army will break into the Hidden
Tower and the palace. Remember to steal all the artefacts there, okay? Equip
yourselves and get weapons for the other half too. The thieves enter the palace
after you and search every corner of it. Look harder in the library and office,
that's where most of the papers are. When you have the maps, Maelstra will immediately
teleport you back here, where we will study them and head to part two of our
big plan: the quest for the artefact."
Sloth smiled in a very evil way and laughed.
I accompanied him in the laugh and so did everyone else in the room. We looked
like a bunch of crazy people shouting 'Muah ah ah ah' but we were really happy
with the plan that was so perfect.
Maelstra blessed everyone with 100 extra HP
and we prepared for the attack that was to be made in the morning.
To be continued...
Author's Note: What are your comments on this part? Are you enjoying the
series so far? Any advice on what I could have done to make it better, any feedback
or comment, Neomail
me! Everything is greatly appreciated! | 
