Sanity is forbidden Circulation: 145,228,152 Issue: 305 | 17th day of Hiding, Y9
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The Unpainting


by mystery_island111223

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“Close your eyes, Jay!”

      The ghost Koi sighed. He should really know better than to trust his owner. The last time MI made him close his eyes, he gave him a mutant Puppyblew that enjoyed biting everybody it met. Fortunately when MI wasn’t looking he’d put the Puppyblew at the Money Tree. However he closed his eyes anyway.

      He felt a shrieking pain in his fin. He opened them and glared at his owner.

      “MI, what is the Puppyblew doing here!?!”

      “Oh, I found him down by the Money Tree. He didn’t have his collar either. You’d better be more careful, Jay. Someone might’ve picked him up!”

      “What a shame,” snarled Jay.

      “Okay now close your eyes again!”

      “Never!”

      “Fine.” MI looked hurt. “I guess you don’t want this other present!”

      Jay’s curiosity got the best of him.

      “What present?”

      “It’s a surprise! Close your eyes!”

      Jay sighed, shook the Puppyblew off his fin, and closed his eyes. He felt MI place something in his hands. It tickled a little.

      “Surprise!” smiled MI. “I got you a Mystery Island paint brush!”

      Jay grinned and hugged his owner. He ran off to the Rainbow Pool, jumped in with a splash, and was painted.

      “This is fantastic!” cried the happy Koi. “I’m going off to show everybody!” Jay headed for the park. MI sat down feeling pleased with himself, and sipped a cup of Weevil Coffee. This joyous feeling wouldn’t last long however. Another of MI’s pets walked up. This was Apoc, a Christmas Bori who didn’t particularly like Jay.

      “Hey MI,” Apoc sat down in the grass beside him. “Why are you so happy?”

      “Oh Apoc, it’s great! Jacko gave me a Mystery Island Paint Brush! I gave it to Jay and he’s ecstatic!”

      Apoc frowned. “That’s not fair!” he whined.

      “Sure it is!” MI smiled. “You got painted Christmas!”

      “Yeah, and how much did that cost you? 100 000 NP at the most! But Jay’s colour is worth millions!”

      MI’s eyes widened. This was news to him. “How many millions?” he asked, shaking slightly.

      “I don’t know.” Apoc shrugged his shoulders. “About 3 million!”

      MI spewed his Weevil Coffee everywhere, including onto Apoc’s face. “Sorry, Apoc!” MI handed him a napkin. “I have to go find Jay!”

      Jay was meanwhile showing some cute Usuls his new colour.

      “Sure, ghost was a fine colour.” Jay smiled as the Usuls swooned. “But I didn’t think it suited me. Now this colour on the other hand is terrific!” He paused to see his owner running towards him.

      “Jay! Jay!” MI paused. He had a mild fear of Usuls and didn’t like being too close to them. But this was important, so he’d just have to swallow his fear.

      “Jay, I need to talk to you about your colour. It- STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!” A blue Usul had walked up to him to say hello.

      Jay rolled his eyes. “MI, can this wait?”

      “No, Jay, it’s really important. You see, that paint brush is worth a lot of neopoints. I think that- DON’T TOUCH ME!!!” A green Usul had walked up to him and tried to shake his hand.

      “Anyway,” he continued. “Your colour is worth nearly 3 million neopoints. Do you know how much- THE USULS ARE ATTACKING!!! RUN JAY, RUN!!!” The Usuls were actually walking towards him to see if he was feeling alright. However MI was too busy grabbing Jay and running away as fast as he could to notice.

      “MI, what are you doing!?” Jay yanked his fin away from his owner. “You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends!”

      MI smiled apologetically. “Jay, you know ghost isn’t really that bad a colour!”

      “Sure it was fun for awhile, but I like my new one much better!”

      MI groaned. This would be tough. “Well, then maybe your new one will get boring soon too!” MI smiled hopefully at the Koi.

      “What are you saying?”

      “Did you know that paint brush was worth 3 million neopoints? Just think of all we could buy with it if we had the money back!”

      Jay frowned. He did not like where this was going.

      “Jay.” MI looked his pet in the eye. “Do you think it might be possible to get your new coat off? I’ve never seen it done before, but maybe we could scrape the paint off. We could unpaint you!”

      “MI, unpaint isn’t a word. Secondly, it isn’t possible to do so. Finally, have you been talking to Apoc?”

      “Maybe,” mumbled MI.

      “Well, forget it!” Jay walked away, angry at his owner for trying to take the gift back.

      “Jay, think about it. That many neopoints for any one thing is impractical. With that much money you could train at the Academy for a year, buy tons of toys, visit the Lab Ray, and put the rest in the stock market so we could make even more money!”

      Jay paused. This did sound tempting. “Okay.” He grinned. “I really don’t think it’s possible, but let’s go see if we can unpaint me!”

      “Great!” MI smiled. “Let the unpainting begin!” He ran off towards the southern part of Neopia Central.

      “That isn’t a word either!” Jay shouted, and ran after his owner.

      The two were walking for a while. Jay had no idea where they were going. MI was following a very old map. Finally he stopped.

      “Here we are!” The teenager grinned. “This is the neohome of Sarah the Zafara. She’ll help us!” MI ran up and knocked on the door. A snarling and tired Zafara answered.

      “Hello!” MI waved at her. “We have a question!”

      “It’s my day off. Ask me tomorrow!” Sarah tried to close the door, but MI put his foot in the way to stop her.

      “Please? It’s an emergency!”

      “Fine.” The Zafara opened the door again. “What is your question?”

      “Can I unpaint my neopet?”

      Sarah stared at him quizzically.

      “You want to change your Koi’s colour back to its former colour?” MI nodded.

      “Well that’s impossible!” Sarah smiled. “Think about how it would lower the value of paint brushes. If you wanted your pet to be a faerie for just one day, you could do just that, then resell the paint brush for its full value. Besides, paint brushes are magic. You can’t remove magic! Now then if you have no more questions, I’m trying to nap!” She closed the door.

      “Oh well,” said Jay. “It’s true what Sarah said. “You can’t remove magic!”

      “That’s true I can’t!” MI smiled. “However, there is someone who can!” He grabbed Jay’s fin and dragged him off again.

      Soon they were in Faerieland.

      “I get it!” Jay smiled. “You’re going to ask the Faerie Queen to help us!” Jay was very excited about this. Fyora was very pretty and he had always wanted to meet her.

      “Nope,” mumbled MI, who was looking at his map again.

      “Well then, who are you asking?”

      “Jhudora. The Faerie Queen is probably busy. However no one ever wants to visit Jhudora! Ah, there’s the place!” MI walked towards a purple cloud. Jay didn’t think it was a coincidence that there was a huge lightning storm taking place there.

      “MI, I don’t think that’s a really good idea!”

      MI wasn’t paying attention. He had already walked up to Jhudora and was greeting her. “Hello there!” He smiled. “My, don’t you look nice. Barely a day over 100!”

      “I’m not nearly that old!!” Jhudora bellowed in rage. MI stepped back.

      “Of course you’re not!” MI laughed nervously. “Anyway, I was wondering if you could remove my Koi’s current colour and replace it with his old one. Could you do that?”

      “Why do you think I would have any knowledge about painting Neopets?” Jhudora asked.

      “Well you seem to know a lot about changing colour. That’s not your real hair colour is it?” Both Jhudora and Jay were shocked. “I mean you have grey hair, don’t you? It looks like you used a Purple Paint Brush on your hair. You missed a spot!”

      Jhudora began chanting. The cloud began to glow. MI decided that Jay had the right idea and began running.

      When they were a safe distance away Jay stopped and turned to MI.

      “Okay, that went badly. However, I may have a plan! Think about it, which faerie is known for painting pets?”

      “Dr. Sloth?” asked MI hopefully.

      “No. The Fountain Faerie!”

      “Great idea, Jay!” MI smiled at his neopet. “Let’s head over there right away!”

      “What’s the rush?” asked Jay.

      “I think Jhudora spotted us. Now run!” With a yelp, MI was off. Jay followed closely behind.

      “All the magic has been used up!”

      These were the words of the Fountain Faerie when MI and Jay went to visit her.

      “That’s fine,” said Jay. “We’ll just wait here until they’re working again!”

      “You can’t do that!” said the Fountain Faerie. “It’s unfair to the people behind you. Move along please!”

      “We’ll just sit off to the side. When the fountain’s working again we’ll come and ask you our question!” Jay smiled.

      “You can’t do that!” said the faerie.

      “Why not?” MI asked. “We won’t be bothering anybody!”

      “You just can’t! Now get out of here before I call Jhudora. Did you know she has a group of Dark Faeries out looking for you two?”

      That was all the two needed to hear. They ran off.

      “What do we do, Jay?” MI asked. “I’m all out of ideas!”

      “Me too,” sighed Jay. “Ouch!” Something hit his back. It felt like a snowball.

      “Take that!” laughed Jhudora. “How’s that for revenge!?”

      “You threw a snowball at me!” said Jay. “It didn’t even hurt!”

      Jhudora grinned evilly. “Why don’t you have a look on the ground?”

      Jay looked down and saw the remains of a paint brush. He turned to MI, whose eyes had widened in horror. He pulled out a Red Mirror and looked at himself.

      He gasped. He had been painted ghost again.

      “How’s that for evil?” laughed Jhudora.

      “Not all that evil, honestly!” said MI. Jhudora turned to him. “Think about it. You could have painted him a much worse colour. Maybe a basic one, like red or yellow!”

      Jhudora stared at them for a moment.

      “Could you stay there for a moment?”

      They decided not to. They ran off, with Jhudora throwing numerous deadly weapons at them.

      They managed to lose Jhudora at the Soup Kitchen by informing the Soup Faerie that Jhudora wanted to volunteer her time to help the pets there. The kind faerie hugged the evil one, who struggled to escape. After the two were safely at home, and MI had upgraded their security system, Jay turned to him.

      “You’re in a pretty good mood,” he commented. “You just wasted 3 million neopoints!”

      “Well, I’m just pleased that we got to spend some quality time together! Although that Laugh Grenade Jhudora threw at me may have had something to do with it. Now come on Jay, let’s go spend some quality time at the hospital!”

The End

 
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