Invisible Paint Brushes rock Circulation: 149,520,230 Issue: 285 | 30th day of Running, Y9
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A Negg Tale


by evilhamster13

--------

Ding-dong.

      Wisp took her finger off the doorbell and then wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “Ugh.” She turned to her companion, Lorissa, and said, “Have you ever wondered why most Negg faeries live on Mystery Island, tending the Negg plantations, but our leader lives up here on Terror Mountain?”

     “Hmm,” said Lorissa. “I don’t really know, but maybe the answer is in this book they gave us on the boat.” She took a small blue book from her pocket, titled 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Terror Mountain And Would Never Had Known If You Hadn’t Read This Book – Isn’t it Wonderful?!

     “I think it’s because she’s a lazy-”

     Just then, the door was opened by a smiling white Acara. “Come in, come in,” she cooed, and they followed her through the back door of the Neggery.

     The pet led them to a warmly-colored room with several squishy couches, a cheerfully crackling fire, and a pile of dusty magazines. Then she gestured to one particularly squishy couch and said, “You can wait there – The Negg Faerie will see you shortly.”

     Lorissa sat down and began to thumb through her Terror Mountain book. Wisp watched her turn pages and said, “Wow. You should really slow down and enjoy the book. It’s much more fun than just plowing through it like a... plow.”

     Lorissa smiled and nodded without really listening. “That’s nice. Ooh, did you know I’m allergic to plowers?”

     “You mean flowers?

     “No, I’m pretty sure it was plowers.”

     Just then, the Acara showed up again and offered them a tray of tea and sugar cookies. Wisp politely refused, while Lorissa asked if they were made with plowers. (“You mean flour?” “No, no, I mean plowers!”)

     “Hold on a second,” called Wisp as the pet turned to leave. “Can you answer a question for me? You work here- do you know why The Negg Faerie won’t tell anyone her real name? I mean, that silly title makes it look like she’s the only Negg faerie in existen-”

     “Er, I’m really busy, I have to... rake the snow! Yes, that’s it, rake the snow,” said the Acara, and quickly walked out of the door as though she wanted to be anywhere but there.

     Wisp opened her mouth, closed her mouth, and then sighed and picked up a magazine (“Neopian Living”, Month of Swimming, Y2.) Meanwhile, Lorissa was beginning to realize that her book was very, very boring, and she started to look around the waiting room for a distraction.

     The walls were a dull off-white, lacking in any decorations – indeed, the room itself was pretty empty, with nothing of interest other than the couches they were sitting on, the table of magazines, a frosted window, and two doors – the entrance they’d used, and...

     Keeping one eye on Wisp to make sure she was still engrossed in her reading, Lorissa slowly put down her book and then, softly placing one puffy green boot in front of the other, crept across the floor to the second door. Then she eased it open with one hand.

     Unfortunately, the hand she used was covered with grease from the Fruity Snack-um Grease Chipz offered on the boat from Mystery Island to Terror Mountain. The Negg Faerie lost her grip on the door and fell through the doorway faster than an asparagus Chia fleeing a hungry Adam.

     “Ouch,” said Lorissa in a muffled voice from her position facedown on the floor. She put out one Chipzy hand and slowly rolled herself over. And then gasped.

     Looking down at her in a bored sort of way was a Negg faerie – but not just any Negg faerie. The Negg Faerie. Lorissa stared at her, amazed, and then gave her a very confused salute. Then she got up and curtsied. Then she tried to bow, and fell over onto the floor again.

     “It is such an amazing, wonderful, enormous honor to meet you,” she spluttered, facedown on the floor once again.

     The Negg Faerie yawned and scratched her nose. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my private office?” she asked. She wore the same outfit of light-green tights and puffy green shoes as Wisp, Lorissa and all of the Negg Faeries that lived on Mystery Island, but her hair was cut much shorter than theirs and pulled back into a bun. And on top of that, there was just something about her that gave off an air of power (or at least an air of conceitedness).

     “Er, well,” said Lorissa as she picked herself up off the floor, “I’m Lorissa – I’m one of the faeries you sent for from Mystery Island, remember? I came here with my friend Wisp...”

     “How did you get in?”

     “Oh, that little white Acara let us in. She’s so sweet-”

     “Wait, what Acara? There’s no one here but me.”

     “Hmm? No, I’m quite sure there was an Acara. She let us in, and then she brought us some cookies, and then she went out of the door...”

     “Where have you gotten to, Lorissa?” said Wisp, who had just poked her head through the door. Then she saw The Negg Faerie and said, “Oh, hello.”

     The Negg Faerie (this is quite confusing – let’s call her TNF from now on) sniffed and said, “So you’re finally here. Well, if you’re finished falling through doors, I did call you here for a reason.” She crossed the office and sat down behind a rectangular lump of wood that Wisp decided was supposed to be a desk. “Before your friend bumbled in, I was very busy finalizing the plans for your trip.”

     “I’d be very interested,” said Wisp, looking at TNF’s desk, “in knowing how you were working on those with the cap still on your pen.”

     TNF seemed flustered for a second, but went back to her indifferent look a second later and said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “Magic, of course.”

     Wisp raised an eyebrow at her, while Lorissa fell head over heels (sort of – she was already on the floor) gushing about their leader’s amazing talent and how lucky they were to be in the same room as her, until finally TNF waved her hand and said, “Enough – all this flattery is... flattening me. Now, about this trip... did you hear about Fyora’s announcement?”

     “Yes, I read about that in the paper,” said Lorissa quickly. “The Queen wants to remove one type of faerie quest from operation, and rumor has it that now all of the different elements are getting ready to have a big fight for their right to stay... well, that Smelly person doesn’t want them to, but no one’s listening to her.”

     “Precisely,” said TNF. “Now, how many elements will be involved, if this were to erupt into some sort of war?”

     “Er...” Lorissa counted them up on her fingers, silently mouthing the numbers, and said, “One hand and a toe. I mean six.”

     “Ah, but what about us? Most Neopians don’t even realize the existence of Negg faeries... except, of course, me, because of my hard work and dedication.”

     “Or maybe it’s because you soak up the attention like a Grundo bath sponge and don’t lave any for the rest of us,” said Wisp.

     TNF ignored her. “Don’t you see? See, this total lack of thinking skills is why I’m the leader. This is our chance to make ourselves known! If we were to join the war, we could show the other faeries that we mean business.”

     “That’s brilliant!” cried Lorissa.

     “That’s stupid,” said Wisp.

     “In order to do it, though, we’ll need some extra Negg magic. I’m sure I could think of some way to distribute the necessary energy to all the Negg faeries, but we’d need a source of raw power first. That’s where you come in – see this picture?” TNF grabbed a sheet of paper from her desk and held it up in front of them.

     Wisp stared at it. “It’s blank.”

     “Oh.” The faerie quickly grabbed a marker off her desk and drew an oval on the paper, then held it up again. “Anyway, now. do you see the picture?” They nodded. “It’s the legendary Supreme Ultra Power Negg, and it contains a massive amount of magical energy. I keep it hidden in the Ice Caves for safekeeping, and I want you two to fetch it for me-”

     “Wait a minute,” said Wisp. “If you needed something right here on Terror Mountain, why didn’t you just get it yourself? We had to come all the way from Mystery Island, and you were here the whole time!”

     Their leader looked annoyed. “Why? I’ll tell you why - we faeries help each other out. We’re selfless people. There’s no ‘I’ in faerie!”

     Once again, Wisp opened her mouth, and then closed it again without saying what she wanted to say.

     Instead she asked, “So, when do we leave?”

     ------

     “Ugh... I feel ill,” said Wisp, slumping over onto a pile of straw. She and Lorissa were traveling through the Ice Caves, away from the Neggery, in the back of a cart pulled by several enormous Yullies. A chubby Bruce (the owner of the cart) was sitting in front, holding the Yullies’ reins and calmly chewing on a piece of straw.

     “Really? My nose is sort of runny,” said Lorissa. “But I think I know why. It’s my allergies.” She pointed to the front of the Yullie-cart, where several pieces of wood were attached at an odd angle. “I think this cart is also used as a plow...”

     “You ladies’ll want to be careful,” said the Bruce gruffly. “Here in the Ice Caves, we’ve got all sorts of nasty monsters and things.”

     “Really? Like what?”

     Suddenly, Hannah the Brave ran by screaming, a ferocious snowbeast chasing close behind her.

     Lorissa shrieked and dived into the straw. “Augh! What was that thing?! It was hideous!”

     “Wow, that’s the biggest snowbeast I’ve ever seen,” said Wisp, looking off in the direction it had run.

     From under the straw, Lorissa said, “There was a snowbeast, too?”

     ------

     “Well, here we are,” said the Bruce as the Yullie-cart slowed to a stop.

     They were parked outside the entrance to a particularly dark and scary-looking cave. With some hesitation, the two faeries got off the cart and tiptoed inside.

     It was a fairly normal cave, as caves go, filled with wetly glistening stalactites and stalagmites. (“Hey, Wisp,” said Lorissa as they crawled under a row of unpleasantly sharp icicles, “Do you know the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?” Wisp thought for a moment and told her one was more likely to fall down and impale them if it broke.)

     “I’m starting to wonder if that Bruce brought us to the wrong cave... there should be a tunnel right around here.” Wisp leaned against a wall and promptly fell through it. “Uff...” She picked herself up out of the slush. “Well, I guess we’re in the right place.”

     The cave they were now entering was just like the one they were leaving, but a little smaller and not quite as nicely lit. “Alright, so we’re looking for something that looks like this,” said Wisp, taking out the drawing from earlier.

     They both stared at it. It was a simple and slightly lopsided oval.

     “Er, on second thought, let’s just keep an eye out for anything that looks like it deserves a name like “Supreme Ultra Power Negg”... there can’t be too many things like that, can there?”

     Suddenly, they heard a scuffling sort of noise nearby. “Wisp, what’s that?” said Lorissa, taking a step backwards. “It isn’t another one of those horrible things we saw on the way here, is it?”

     “No, no, there’s only one Hannah,” said Wisp, squinting into the darkness. Now that she thought of it, bringing a lantern or torch would have been a very, very good idea.

     They heard a small, squeaky cough, and then a short figure in a hooded cloak shuffled out of the shadows, heading towards the mouth of the cave. It looked like whatever was under the cloak was thin and scrawny, except for the smooth, round lump in its stomach area.

     The figure noticed them staring and squealed, “What’s the matter? You’ve never seen a chubby individual before?”

     “Not one with a glowing stomach, no,” said Wisp.

     “Well, gee, talk about rude!” it whined. Just then, its hood fell off (probably from whining too fast or something) and they recognized the little white Acara from earlier.

     “Hey! You’re the little white Acara from earlier!” cried Lorissa, rather uselessly.

     “White Acara? That’s absurd! I don’t see any white Acara!” screamed the pet and ran for it as fast as her small, stubby legs could carry her.

     Lorissa suddenly grabbed a lump of snow from the floor, packed it into a quick snowball, and threw it at the fleeing pet, which stumbled and fell, then lay on the ground without moving. Then she pointed at it and shouted, “Stop right there!”

     Wisp sighed at her.

     “Oh, oops, I always get confused about which one you’re supposed to do,” said Lorissa.

     A large, glowing Negg slowly rolled out of the fallen Neopet’s cloak and slid across the floor in their direction. Lorissa bent down and picked it up. “Well, I think this is the Supreme Ultra Power Negg... it looks like it’s the right shape, anyway. But what did that pet want with it? Maybe we should question her-”

     “-which would be easier if she wasn’t getting away!” Wisp pointed in the direction of the Acara, who had started running again. She was also mumbling words like “won’t be happy about this, wanted the Negg faeries out of commission” and “hope she still pays up, those cookies were hard to bake”. The faeries began to give chase, but before they could stop her, the Acara had jumped into the back of the Yullie cart and given the oversized Petpets a swift kick, and the cart was now clattering away at a remarkable speed.

     ------

     “And then I hit her with a snowball, and she went right down! And then we got the Negg, but she jumped in the Yullie cart and rode away.” Lorissa finished her story, which was full of dramatic hand gestures, and sat down.

     TNF yawned. “And what was she saying again, as she was running away?”

     “Apparently, someone wants us out of the war – I think whoever it was hired her to make sure of it,” said Wisp.

     “Hmm. Interesting,” said the TNF, who was apparently trying to look interested and failing miserably. “Well, I appreciate the effort on your parts, but I’ve decided that we won’t be entering the war after all.”

     “What?!” said both faeries, staring at her in disbelief.

     She shrugged. “Well, if the other faeries are going to be doing annoying things like this the whole time, a war could get really complicated, couldn’t it? I don’t want to do something like this if it’s going to take up too much of my time. But don’t worry, you’ll both be rewarded for your efforts.” She opened the drawer of her desk and took out two Negg-shaped plushie keychains, then tossed one to each of them.

     “But we went through all that hassle just to come here and bring you your useless Negg,” growled Wisp, squishing her keychain in her fist.

     “Now, now,” said Lorissa, who looked very happy with her new keychain. “We can’t just think of ourselves. After all, as our wise leader once said, there is no ‘I’ in faerie!”

The End

Author’s Note: I’m really excited about the new Faerie Wars plot, aren’t you? It looks like it’s going to be really fun, but I couldn’t help wondering what the faerie elements that weren’t taking part in the war thought of the whole situation... anyway, good luck to everybody who’s going to participate. =)

 
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