Sloth is My Mindless Slave

      "Stupid Petpet hunters," I muttered. I handed my red Xweetok, Chlanga, a piece of Rotting Driftwood and asked her to run after Juley and the Petpet hunter, which she did.

      I, on the other hand, went to 251747 Main Street, Neopia Central. I'd left Kaliiox the Ultimate Genius at home, and of course I couldn't ask neon_silvertail to help me out. So I sent my blue Aisha scurrying off to Magical Road. About ten minutes later, he came back with the blue Shoyru and we all went to Altador--the Observatory, to be exact. I quickly shoved the plans for taking over Neopia under more innocent papers. Dragonfeather, my fellow Supreme Ruler of Neopia By Virtue of Her Pickle Eraser Armies, didn't want her pets to know that she was trying to take over Neopia. We were using the Hall of Heroes Observatory as our headquarters, but I was going to use it for other purposes as well...

      Neon and Kaliiox had soon rigged a camera on the Virtupets Space Station to follow Chlanga. They pushed a small monitor onto the table where I sat, holding a Pickle Eraser. I'd rubbed the piece of driftwood with the mind-controlling eraser before giving it to Chlanga. But I didn't think I'd need to use it on Chlanga. No, the pleasures of being brainwashed were reserved for that Faellie-snatcher.

      Chlanga finally caught up as the Petpet hunter stopped and looked around furtively, then transferred Juley to another net. That was when Chlanga stepped up and hit him with the driftwood. He fell to the ground, and Chlanga picked up the net.

      I let out a cheer... and then stopped and looked at the screen in horror: someone had thrown a Super Poison Dart at Chlanga! Hands picked up the net with Juley in it, but I didn't pay much attention to that. Chlanga was hurt! Without looking back, I ran all the way to Neopia Central--which is trickier than it sounds, since Altador can only be reached by a portal at the top of a tower in Faerieland--and checked to make sure Chlanga was alright. I revived her and put her on a course for home, and then picked up the driftwood. It was still endowed with mind-controlling powers, and the Pickle Eraser was in my pocket. I set off after Juley and the Mysterious Kidnapper. Nobody threw darts at my Xweetok and got away with it!

      I followed the tracks to a mysterious black building that I'd never noticed before. It must have been new. It had no windows, but someone had been in a hurry and forgotten to lock the door, so I waltzed right in.

      Inside I saw Sloth focusing a very painful-looking ray on Juley, who was strapped to a table. I threw the driftwood at Sloth. Though I can never throw the ball right in Wingoball, the driftwood hit Sloth and the Pickle Eraser-ness rubbed off on him. I quickly untied Juley and smashed the ray.

      "Thanks so much!" Juley said breathlessly. "I didn't want to be Sloth's mindless slave!"

      "Well, now Sloth is my mindless..." I began, then trailed off as it dawned on me what it meant that I had hit Sloth with my driftwood. I danced around the laboratory, singing, "Sloth is my mindless slave! Sloth is my mindless slave!"

      "That's great, Argetl," Juley said. Before I could reply, a squadron of Meepits broke into the laboratory, grabbed Juley, and ran out. After standing stunned for a moment--even I am occasionally in awe of how weird and random my life can get--I rubbed my Pickle Eraser to set Sloth to trying to find Juley, then conducted an investigation of my own.

      First I went home and grabbed the magical Meepit costume that Juley had once given me. I had been going to put it on a cheap Petpet and sell it, but that would be wrong. Besides, I'd realized how useful a Meepit costume could be. I pulled it on and it instantly made my much larger than Meepit-sized body shrink down and look perfectly like a Meepit. Yay for modern sci... er, magic!

      Now suitably attired, I returned to the laboratory and tracked the Meepits back to their lair. There was a giant jelly Chomby waiting outside. I passed it and went inside the Meepit lair. There were benches set in a circle around a crowd of Meepits, at the center of which was Juley, tied to a pole and frantically trying to cut the ropes with her wings. The Meepits all turned around when I came in. I waved and sat down on a bench in the back.

      "Don't mind me," I called. And because of my magical Meepit costume, that's exactly what they did.

      "Now we shall feed this prisoner of the Meepit-Faellie war to the giant Faellie-eating Chomby!" chattered the Meepit leader.

      "Oh, come on, not that guy," Juley moaned. "That's just archaic!"

      "How dare you insult the giant Faellie eating Chomby, you foul... winged... really, really cute... thing!" the Meepit leader growled. The Meepits began shouting, "Death to the Faellies!" as Juley was carried outside. I sauntered after them, rubbing the Pickle Eraser in my pocket.

      The Meepits laid Juley down in front of the Chomby. It stared at her, then attacked the Meepits. Juley cut the rope with her wings and flew away; I took a bow and scampered, wondering if Sloth and a giant Chomby would be useful in the future.

      I met up with Juley a while later while removing the Meepit costume. Her eyes widened.

      "That was you?" she asked. "I mean, of course that was you, I knew all along--you could never fool me."

      "Of course," I said neutrally. Juley looked at me long and hard, rightly suspecting me of being sarcastic, but eventually looked away.

      "I'm not getting attacked by anyone else, ever!" she declared. Just then, and Airax swooped down and tried to eat her. She shot it out of the sky with a Rainbow Gun and then holstered the smoking gun.

      "A wild west Faellie," I muttered.

      "What?"

      "Nothing."

      Now, this is where I would end this story but for that scourge of Neopian creativity, the word-count requirement. For the more interested of you, this sentence makes 1038 words, whereas 1200 are needed for a short story--although my word counter and TNT's seem to disagree on that number. Anyway, the less interested of you can start reading again now; I'm done being boring. Oh, wait, no, never mind. If you find my prattling mind-numbingly boring, you can skip to the next paragraph. If you are simply riveted to your seat in fascination, I will go on. Twice now I have been inspired in the middle of playing Turmac Roll and let the poor Turmac run into a tree trunk. I am sure that the Turmac will get me back for that, probably by refusing to catch any but the most worthless berries. Alright, boring done now.

      Juley and I walked to Tyrannia. Why Tyrannia? I have no idea. I was just following the Faellie. There we met a mysterious floating pillow, not unlike the Levitating Cake that has been released quite recently at the time I am writing this, but, by the time my submission worms its way into the Neopian Times, will probably have sunk into the murky quagmire of insignificance.

      Juley hopped onto the pillow, which was much too small for me. It began to float away, and I ran after it, managing to jump up and grab on right before it swooped very, very far upward. Juley looked back and hurriedly lassoed a cloud--wild west Faellie indeed!--and tied it to the speeding pillow. I climbed onto the mysteriously solid cloud, which was softer than the bed in my Neohome. The sleeping situation in my Neohome is uncomfortable, to say the least.

      "We're being kidnapped by a pillow," I surmised.

      "Don't worry, this is supposed to happen," Juley said.

      "Why are we being kidnapped by a pillow?"

      "It's not kidnapping us, it's transporting us to Faerieland!" Juley replied.

      "Alright then," I said, and watched the sky whip past.

      "Don't look down," Juley cautioned. Now, if she had not said that, nothing would have happened. But, she did, and of course I looked down and started screaming. We were HIGH! I could have seen my Neohome from there, but we were going to fast to see anything but a blur. That didn't decrease the impressiveness of how stinking--excuse my language--high we were.

      Juley quickly hopped onto my cloud and taped my mouth shut, despite the fact that tape apparently does not exist in Neopia. I began to try and chew through the tape. I might or might not have been foaming at the mouth.

      Juley hurriedly untaped my mouth. I began screaming again. Juley pressed her hands over her little Faellie ears and said, rather loudly, "STOP SCREAMING!"

      I left off screaming for long enough to say, "You don't have to yell. Anyway, what's so bad about screaming?"

      "It makes Faellies faint," she said and promptly fainted. She began to fall off the pillow. Now, I was going to rescue her, but she had taped my mouth shut, so I watched as my friend spiraled to ear--Neopia.

      Just kidding. I actually lunged forward and grabbed her. Asleep, she looked so sweet that I couldn't resist singing her a lullaby. My singing--whether good or bad--kept her asleep until we reached Faerieland.

      "What'd I miss?" she asked groggily.

      "Not much," I said.

      After a few more incidents that I won't go into here, we returned to our respective homes and I ate delicious vegetables while writing this story. What? you ask. That's it? Your story's done?

      Well, yes. You see, there are now 1710 words in it. Approximately. 1711.

The End