Hyperion: The Beginning

     "Hyperion," the yellow Shoyru said as she hung from Dr. Death's left hand, "what's happening?"

     "I don't know, Anthea," the green Shoyru in Dr. Death's right hand said to comfort his sister.

     "Quiet, you two," Dr. Death grumbled and the two Shoyrus said nothing more.

     The dark-spirited Techo entered another room and threw the two pets into a corner. "Stay there," he said and left the room. This room, like the hallway, was poorly lit. The wallpaper was peeling. And the carpet smelled of old Petpet stains.

     "What's going on, Hyperion?" Anthea whimpered as she cuddled closer to her brother.

     "I think we're getting adopted," Hyperion answered and sighed. A few weeks before, he and his little sister had been abandoned by their owner in favor of a rarer pet, one that wasn't as common as they were. Since then, they had been caged from the world and fed only morsels a day, what little Neopians gave to the pound aside from their pets.

     But now, they were finally getting out.

     The door swung open a moment later and the gruff Techo entered carrying a large, black sack. "Get in here," he commanded and when the two Shoyrus did nothing, he picked them up and threw them inside. Another moment later, they were tossed onto a sofa, unable to get out of the bag, and they heard the door swing open once again.

     "Anthea," Hyperion whispered while there was still silence, "hold on; we'll be okay."

     "But, Hyperion..." Anthea cried.

     "Just," her older brother said, "be quiet for a moment. We'll be okay. I promise."

     There was silence again. Hyperion pushed his ear closer to the black fabric of the sack. He had to hear what was being said... he had to know what was going on.

     "Here's the Neopoints you wanted," a voice said, a voice that wasn't Dr. Death's. "All ten-thousand like you wanted for these two." The next moment, Hyperion heard a bag of Neopoints get passed from the unseen Neopet to the Techo.

     "Take good care of them," Dr. Death sneered.

     "You know where they'll end up," the second voice said. "Where all the others do."

     Dr. Death said nothing in response to this.

     The very next moment, Hyperion felt the talons of the Eyrie grab the sack and heave him up from the sofa. Beside him, Anthea cowered into a tighter ball. Hyperion heard the door swing open one last time as he was carried out of the room with his sister.

     He had no idea where they were being taken. Or what would happen to them.

* * *

     "Anthea," Hyperion whispered, "wake up." He poked his sister lightly. They were still in the black bag, but they had finally stopped moving. He knew that his sister needed to be ready for anything. He knew that she had to ready, just in case.

     Surrounding them were loud buzzing sounds. He had heard nothing of the sort anywhere before in all of his life. He had no idea what it could be. He was afraid of what it might be.

     "Hyperion?" the yellow Shoyru whispered as her eyes fluttered open and closed, "Where are we, Hyperion? What's happened to us?" Her soft voice was still draped in sleep, yet her fear was evident.

     Hyperion wanted to give her answers, say that everything was alright.

     But he had no answers to give her, and he wasn't sure that everything would be.

     Anthea let out a scream, rather, a terrified whimper, as the bag was lifted up and pulled open. The crazed gaze of a yellow Scorchio met their eyes and clawed hands reached into the bag, pulling them out of it. For a mere second, Hyperion glimpsed an amazing sight--dozens of machines buzzing and whirring with flashing lights and blinking screens everywhere--but then they were carried into another room, a dark, cold room, and tossed into another cage. The metal bars slammed shut and automatically locked. Without hesitation, the Scorchio turned his back on the two and walked out of the room.

     Angry snarls echoed around them as the inhabitants of the other cages noticed their presence. In the darkness, though, Hyperion could see nothing but gleaming eyes and dark, bulky silhouettes. For his sister's sake, he turned Anthea away before she could see.

     "Hyperion," she whispered, clinging to her brother, "I'm scared."

     "I know," Hyperion whispered, resting his chin on her forehead, "I am, too."

     "Where are we?" Anthea hugged her brother tighter.

     "I don't know, Anthea," the green Shoyru comforted, "but we'll be okay. I promise."

* * *

     "Hyperion!" Anthea screamed as the Scorchio's gloved hands reached into the cave and woke the two from their sleep. Before he could resist, the green Shoyru was pulled out of the cage and the metal bars were slammed shut in Anthea's face. "Hyperion!" the yellow Shoyru wailed once more amid a barrage of tears before her brother was pulled out of the room and unable to hear anything but the buzzes and whirs of machinery.

     Amidst his fear, Hyperion was amazed and awed by the sight that befell his eyes. Silver and copper objects were everywhere. Red and green and blue lights flashed on almost every surface. Large monitors glowed with images. It was as if he had entered a dream world where everything that did not exist, existed. And yet, this dream was a nightmare.

     In his stupor, he was unable to resist as the mad scientist strapped him onto a metal surface. Above him, an ominous machine rested. It was shaped like a giant pencil in the sky, but instead of innocence and creativity, it hoarded darkness and terror.

     Hyperion glanced around him, trying to escape, but his struggles were futile.

     Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the yellow Scorchio, the mad scientist, pull a lever.

     The machine above him whirred to life. Its noise was almost too much for him to bear and he could hear nothing else as its buzzing became louder and louder still. Lights running up and down its sides were ignited as the machine's electrical charge lit them from the inside. At its tip, a sphere of yellow light gathered.

     In a moment, it flashed before his eyes. It was the last thing Hyperion remembered.

* * *

     "Huh?" Hyperion whispered as he woke up. He was lying on a cold, metallic surface. He vaguely remembered what had happened in the last few days... "Anthea!" he shouted and jumped up, suddenly alert. He looked around frantically, but she was nowhere inside his small cell. A new cell. One different from the one that he had shared with Anthea.

     This new cell was higher from the floor and farther from the door than the first one. In silent fear, he crept up to the metal bars, grasping them with his paws, and stared into the mad scientists' laboratory. His mouth fell open. Strapped in the laser's path was Anthea.

     "Anthea," he yelled, his voice swallowed by the sudden sound of the laboratory ray's ignition. "Anthea! Anthea!" But his screams were consumed by the machine's droning.

     A moment later. The flash. His eyes burned from staring straight into the light.

     When the stains upon his eyes finally faded, he recoiled in horror. Strapped beneath the laser, where Anthea had been a moment before, was a mutated Neopet, an Ixi mutant.

     "No!" he yelled, falling to his knees, "Anthea, no!" Hyperion's eyes flooded with tears. "Anthea," he cried, "what have I done?" He wiped away the tears, but more only came. "Anthea, I've failed you." He whimpered again. "Anthea!"

     He jumped up when he heard the door swing open. The Scorchio entered, carrying the mutant Ixi at arm's length, careful to not let himself get injured by the creature's thrashing claws and teeth. "At last," he muttered in an evil tone, "success. Yesterday was failure, but today was success!" He left the room howling in sinister laughter.

     "Anthea," Hyperion yelled, trying to see his deformed sister. "Anthea," he cried, but it was to no avail. The scientist had thrown her into the cell that they had been in the day before and he could no longer see her. But hearing her was enough. Coming from the cage, he heard her enraged howls and barks. What had become of his sister?

     Hyperion clenched his paw into a fist, overcome by a new sense of purpose. A new emotion he could only call vengeance. He would avenge his sister. He would save his sister. Around his fist, an electrical glow sparked and Hyperion jumped in shock.

     Hesitant, he clenched his hand into a fist once more. The white lightning returned. To his amazement, though, it neither burned him nor was in any way painful. He suddenly felt as if the scientist had not been as unsuccessful the day before as he had initially thought.

     Directing his electrical charge to the metal bars, Hyperion forced his new emotions through his fist and the lightning expanded and tripled in size--it blasted through the bars and the cage's door swung open, its hinges creaking loudly.

     Hyperion knew that he had to act quickly; the sound of his escape would surely have been enough to alert the mad scientist of his new powers. He jumped from his cage and landed easily on the floor.

     Rushing in front of Anthea's cage, he could not bear to stay long, but whispered quickly, "I'll save you, Anthea, and that's a promise I intend to keep." With that, he had to go.

     He turned his back upon the laboratory's door and rushed down the long hall of cages. Hundreds of more pets growled at him as he passed; others whimpered in puddles of tears, knowing that they had lost everything.

     What cruelty could seed such things?

     Hyperion had no time to wonder as he heard the door swing open behind him. He turned down another hall, also full of hundreds of cages, and ran forwards. He turned twice more before he found himself near another door.

     As quietly as he could manage, he pushed through it.

     He seemed to come out in a lounge of some sorts. He found another door and ran through it, into another hall. He ran the length of the hall, thankfully free of the Scorchio's sight, and entered yet another room. This room was empty aside from a circular hole in the floor that was filled with water.

     Hyperion crept closer to the pool and peered into it. He saw fish swim beneath the water's surface. He knew it could only be one thing: the ocean. Behind him, he heard the door at the hall's far end swing open. The mad scientist was hot on his trail.

     With nothing else to do, Hyperion jumped up and plunged into the pool, into the ocean.

* * *

     The water rushed around him as he swam towards the light. The air in his lungs had grown stale, yet he refused to breath in the air of the ocean. Such air was not for his lungs. The light ahead of him grew brighter... he knew it would not be long...

     His head broke free of the water and Hyperion gasped to catch his breath. He stared around him, glancing in every direction. He was out at sea, lost amid the ocean's churning waves.

     Grabbing another breath, he dove back under the water and spun around. He flapped his wings and flailed his arms, rushing back towards the light--he broke the water's surface and flew higher into the sky, the water flying off of his fur as the wind wound its way around him. Instantly, he began flying forwards.

     It was not very long until his wings grew tired and he was forced to land. Thankfully, in his time flying, he had found a city of some sort, on an island probably.

     "Excuse me," he gasped as he ran up to a tan Elephante with a flower in her hair and white marking upon her skin, "excuse me, where am I?"

     The Elephante looked down at him and stared. Making a scoffing sound, she turned away and walked off.

     Hyperion saw no one else on the street. Reluctantly, he began following the broken cobblestone path through the city.

     "You there," an exuberant voice yelled and he turned to his left, where the strangest Neopet he had ever seen talked to him through a mask. "Step right up and play a game of Tombola!" Hyperion stepped back; maybe this being wasn't a Neopet at all.

     "No thanks," Hyperion whispered and turned away from the strange creature.

     "It's free," the man added hopefully. Hyperion continued walking away. "Kid, you look down. Come and play a game; it'll cheer you up."

     Reluctantly, Hyperion turned back to the man and walked up to his booth. Instructed by the man, he reached his hand into a white barrel. Inside, he felt dozens of paper tickets. He moved his hand through them, but at last chose a single ticket and pulled it out.

     "Twelve," he whispered and placed the ticket on the table. Saddened, he turned to leave.

     "But wait," the Tombola man said, his enthusiasm growing, "that means you've won!"

     Feeling somewhat better, Hyperion turned back to the strange-looking man. "Really?"

     "Absolutely," the Tombola man said, "You've won a Codestone, and a Bottled Faerie, and one-hundred, forty-three Neopoints!"

     Hyperion's eyes widened and he reached for the prizes before him, but then he said, "I'm sorry, but I can't accept this." Saddened, he began to turn away from his prize.

     "I insist," the Tombola man protested, but Hyperion continued on leaving. "At the very least," he said, "take the Codestone and the Bottled Faerie; I can accept the Neopoints as a generous donation from a grateful young boy."

     "Alright," Hyperion mumbled, turning back and grabbing the Bottled Faerie and the Codestone, both of which comfortably fit in his hands. Not looking back at the Tombola booth, he walked away and turned around the corner. Walking a bit farther, he found a bench and sat down.

     The bottle made a popping sound when he pulled out the cork, and then a yellow creature flew out of the bottle. "Thank you," the Light Faerie said as she flew in front of Hyperion's face. "Thank you for releasing me. For doing such a wonderful deed, I shall grant you the ability of the Magic Torch!" The little Faerie waved her arms and Hyperion felt a tingling sensation roll across his body as he received the Light Faerie's blessing.

     "You must be a hero among Faeries," she said. "What's your name?"

     "Hyperion," the green Shoyru answered slowly, "but I'm no hero."

     "But you must be," the Faerie pleaded, "you've been blessed at least a dozen times already! I can recognize the Air Faerie Magic flowing inside of you--don't you dare claim to me that you have never been blessed by at least a dozen other Faeries!"

     "But..." Hyperion whispered, "but I haven't been..."

     "Whatever you say, Shoyru," the Faerie muttered and flew off angrily.

     "Or," Hyperion wondered aloud a moment later, "have I?" He flexed his hand again, summoning the white lightning. ...Spark... He thought a moment of how far, how easily, he had flown earlier... Flight... and how fast he had traveled... Haste.

     Maybe the Lab Ray had done more than he had at first thought.

     "Hey, you," someone hollered and Hyperion looked up to see a red Nimmo wearing black garments standing down the street, "is that a Codestone you've got there?"

     "Yes," Hyperion answered, stiffening in apprehension.

     "You should take it over to the Training School sometime," the Nimmo yelled back.

     "Can they teach me to fight there?" Hyperion asked, feeling suddenly hopeful.

     "Absolutely."

* * *

     Hyperion flew through the air, the sun directly above him. He had spent a few hours at the Training School and had quickly learned how to fight as best as he could.

     He was ready now to save his sister.

     He clenched his paw into a fist and a bubble of winds surrounded him. Turning his body vertical, he began his dive. He never heard the water's splash. Beneath the waves, the air shield created a pocket of air for him to breathe as he dove deeper, swimming towards the hidden laboratory of the mad scientist Scorchio.

     Swimming beneath the massive, metallic structure, he found the familiar port hole and swam up to it, flying out of it and landing lightly on the floor. He shook himself dry before he pushed quietly into the first hall between him and his sister.

     When he reached the door at the hall's end, he put his ear to it and listened intently. He heard breathing. The scientist was in his lounge. Hyperion slowly, quietly, pried open the door and gazed inside. The mad scientist faced away from him, furiously writing notes at his desk.

     Calling upon his new powers, Hyperion slipped inside the room, suddenly invisible.

     As quietly as he could, he sidled across the room.

     Quieter now than he had ever been before, he opened the second door and slid out of the lounge.

     After listening once more to make sure the Scorchio had not noticed his presence, Hyperion ran the length of the first hallway within the catacombs of cages. He wandered around for a while until he recognized the last stretch of cages before the laboratory itself.

     The green Shoyru quickly found the cage with his sister in it. Ignoring her growls of anger, he grabbed the metal bars, flooded them with an electrical charge, and pulled them free of the cage. He dropped the bars to his side, but thankfully its clatter was not much louder than the growls and the cries already echoing out of the other cages.

     Dodging the mutant Ixi's thrashing, he grabbed his sister and flew into the next room, the laboratory itself. He flew Anthea up to the Lab Ray and, with a little struggling, strapped her beneath it. Turning his back on his sister, he glanced out of the laboratory's door once more: the hall was empty except for his mess. He still had time to act, to save his sister.

     Hyperion turned back to the machines, searching for the lever that he had seen the mad scientist pull when he himself had been strapped to the machine. He located it. The Shoyru flew past a dozen other machines until he stood before it.

     He placed his paws upon the lever and pulled down upon it. It didn't budge. He tried again, pulling harder, but he wasn't strong enough. That, or the lever was locked in place.

     Hyperion jumped up and somersaulted in the air, a bolt of lightning enshrouding his tail as he slammed it down upon the lever--a scrap of metal went flying as the lock broke and the Lab Ray was switched on. The room was suddenly filled with buzzes and whirs.

     There was no way that the scientist heard none of this.

     After a moment, the flash.

     Hyperion flew up to his sister and started unclasping the binds that strapped her onto the table. She was now a Gelert, a brown Gelert the color of milky chocolate.

     "Hyperion..." she whispered in confusion. "What's going on? What's happened?"

     "Not now, Anthea," Hyperion said quickly. "There's no time."

     He pulled his sister free of the firing pad and flew her back into the cage-room. The mad scientist stared down upon them from the hall's opposite end. His crazed eyes had never looked more psychotic than they did in this instant.

     Hyperion pushed Anthea aside and jumped forwards, punching the air ahead of him--a bolt of white lightning jumped from his fist and collided with the Scorchio, stunning him.

     Jumping into the air, Hyperion unleashed another thunder tail upon the wall of cages. The ensuing wave of lightning unlatched every single cage there. After a moment, enraged pets were flooding the hall and Hyperion was flying away with Anthea in his grasp.

     "This way," he yelled to the Neopets as he left the catacombs and flew through the scientist's lounge, into the second hall, and back into the escape room. He waited a moment for a dozen or so Neopets to join them, but then he saw the mad scientist running down the hall and knew that it was too late to save anyone else.

     Hyperion jumped into the ocean and called for everyone to follow him. As the Neopets, Anthea among them, plunged into the water after him, he gathered his powers and a bubble of air enshrouded them. As he flew away, the shield followed them until everyone was able to walk upon dry land once again, finally freed of the Scorchio's grasp.

* * *

     Hours passed before Hyperion and Anthea arrived back in Neopia Central. During their flight, Hyperion had told Anthea everything. She was finally able to cope with the fact that she was now a Gelert, even though her last memory said that she had been a Shoyru.

     The two landed towards the center of the Neopian Plaza amid a mild-sized crowd. The sun was setting across the horizon, casting long shadows around them.

     "What are we going to do?" Anthea asked quietly, her eyes looking at the ground beneath them.

     "I don't know," Hyperion answered as the two walked through the plaza, "but we'll figure something out. I promise you that Anthea."

     "Hyperion, is that you?" Startled, the Shoyru looked up and saw Judge Hog standing before them. They had walked in front of Defenders Headquarters without even realizing it.

     Hyperion nodded nervously.

     Judge Hog continued, his regal voice powerful and loud, "I've received word of your rescue of dozens of Neopets from the mad scientist's laboratory and I want you, Hyperion, to join the Defenders of Neopia.

     "We'll even be able to give you and your sister a place to live here at Headquarters," Judge Hog continued, "and you'll get a substantial amount of the reward money for every mission that you complete."

     There was silence as astonishment kept Hyperion from speaking.

     "Well, Hyperion," Judge Hog prodded, his expression hopeful, "will you join us?"

     Hyperion glanced at his sister. Anthea nodded.

     He turned back at Judge Hog and nodded himself.

     "Well, then," the Moehog said exuberantly, walking up to the green Shoyru and grabbing his paw and his sister's as well, "let's get inside and fill out your paperwork and make it official. Nah, forget the paperwork for now--let's eat! You've got to be famished after everything you've been through today. And you've got to be tired, too, so we'll let you sleep. And I'm sure you're curious about trophies and all that other stuff, too, so, and--"

The End