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Potato Quest


by garfield22222

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“Hey there, dudes! Up for some Extreme Potato Counting!?” exclaimed a ridiculously excited (and, as some would argue, awesome looking) orange Wocky to a passing Zafara and her owner.

      “Oh, not today, I’m afraid,” the owner replied. “But there is a good chance that I’ll end up here tomorrow, so I’ll look forward seeing you then.”

      “Okay, dudes! I‘ll see you then!” The Wocky knew that, since it was the last day of the month, things were going to be slow. They always were. But tomorrow, when the high score tables were replaced with fresh ones, causing many of the competitive owners of the world (along with some hopeful Neopets) to come to earn themselves a new shiny trophy? That’s when everybody would be participating in the art of counting extreme potatoes. He always adored the first of the month, but the few days before it were just so... slow.

      “Hey there!” he shouted to a passing owner and his two Myncies. “You wanna count some flying potatoes?”

      “Ah!” the owner shouted. “No... no no no no.”

      The two pets both had looks of terror to match their owner's feelings.

      “No, I’m not sure I want to-” the one Mynci started.

      “-this doesn’t seem like a good idea,” the other one finished.

      “I gotta say, guys, that wasn’t a very good sentence.” the extreme Wocky replied. “You two really have to work on this finishing each other’s sentences thing.”

      “That one time!” the owner yelled with quivering in his voice. “The machines that throw the vegetables... they went crazy... so crazy...”

      “Oh man! I remember that! That was so awesome. Potatoes EVERYWHERE!”

      “Yes! Potatoes everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I didn’t think... it would be possible to think one could be afraid of dying via potato... BUT IT IS!”

      “But you got to admit that it was so fun!”

      “No! I did not and still do not! In fact, you just standing around there so excited and loving the same moments that I thought would bring my doom instead of trying to turn those... weird potato launching machines that makes the potatoes, as you put it, ‘totally and awesomely extreme’, off just made everything worse!”

      “You don’t think it was fun even in retrospect, dude?”

      “No!” came from the owner.

      “I agree!” came from one of the Myncies.

      “I guess it was a little bit exci-”

      The speed in which one hand and one paw traveled to hit the other Mynci’s mouth broke records.

      “Well,” the EPC Wocky said, “if you didn’t like it... why are you here, dudes?”

      “To get to the non-killing counting potatoes,” the owner replied. “The doctor says it’s the best way to overcome my ‘irrational’ fear. I... can’t believe I forgot that this was here.”

      “Oh. I see,” the Wocky replied with a tone that implied he was completely offended. “Just leave, then. Count your pathetic potatoes while I’m all extreme, man!”

      “Oh, I will! I will, you crazed little... Wocky!”

      The three left hastily, and the EPC Wocky felt glad that they did so. They weren’t even close to the type that could appreciate the true glory of what he offered. As his frustration at lame people like those started to cool, he noticed a yellow speck in the corner of his eye, and when he focused on it, this yellow speck turned out to be a lone armor wearing Grarrl that seemed like he was standing there for a little while.

      “Oh, hey, man!” he yelled to him. “You wanna count some flying potatoes? It’s totally tubular!” One could say that this Wocky was more anxious and excited than usual at any people participating in what he considered the most awesome game ever, but he was sort of like his usual self, just with a couple extra pinches of excitement, give or take a few extra drops of energy.

      “Ah...” The Grarrl hesitated for a second. “Yes. I think... I do think I would quite enjoy to play this game of yours. I’ve heard quite a bit about it, and I felt that it was about time that I should give it a try.”

      “Oh man, that is just so... so great! It makes me feel so-”

      “Yes, yes,” the Grarrl interrupted. “So, how does this work? I stand a little bit away from...” Looking around, he noticed a few interesting looking mechanical devices that looked like they could launch some stuff. “Those?”

      “Oh yeah, man! They throw most of the potatoes and, when needed, other vegetables! Heck, it could throw almost anything that wasn’t big! Though, to be perfectly honest, sometimes I get so pumped by all of this that I have to throw a few myself!”

      “I see,” the Grarrl said with a deep look of interest clearly on his face. “I see...”

      “Hey, is something... wrong?”

      “Ah, no, no, I was just... pondering.”

      “Oh, cool. You pondering anything awesome?”

      “It could be awesome. It could be.”

      “Oh, great man. Sounds potentially... awesome.”

      The two just stood there for a few seconds, with hints of awkwardness in the air.

      “So...” the Wocky said. “You going to start now?”

      “Ah, yes, right. Of course!”

      The EPC Wocky went to the side of one of the machines and pushed a button. This seemed to have turned all the machines on, as they started pumping out potatoes (with the Wocky himself tossing in one or two, of course).

      “Four... five... six... er, nine...”

      When the potatoes stopped, the Wocky was having some sort of joy overload.

      “How many potatoes?”

      “Nine!” the Grarrl replied with complete confidence.

      “OH SNAP!” he screamed. It was so loud and sudden that it knocked the Grarrl off guard. “You won ten points. You now have ten points. Next round?”

      “Ah, yes... yes. I think I’ll try this for as long as I can keep it up...”

      The potatoes started flying again, and the Grarrl dedicated himself once more to counting them.

      “Seven, no, six, seven, eight...”

      “How many potatoes?”

      “Nine this time!” He was just as confident as before.

      “WRONG!”

      “WHAT!?”

      “Correct answer: Ten!”

      “Gah! Too fast for me. They flew... too fast for me...” He was quite impressed at how the potato tossing machines were able to fool him.

      “Would you like to try again!?”

      “No. I have more pressing business for now.”

      “Well, OK, man! Thanks for playing! I hope to see you sometime later!”

      “Oh, yes. I’ll see you... no, that’s not right! This business is with you! I wish to make a business offer! How much do you wish for those potato machines!”

      “Even more potato machines, man!”

      “What?”

      “I wouldn’t trade them unless you were to, like, give me even more than I gave!”

      “Why would I do that?”

      “I have no idea! But who am I to judge, right?”

      “Look. Since you seem a bit on the... well... not the type to notice most obvious things, I will explain. I am the owner of the Battle Magic shop. Listening to that terrified person and his pets, I am confident that those machines would undoubtedly make for a great product to sell. They may potentially be one of the most powerful items in Neopia, who knows? A modification or two will most likely needed to make them... well, more battle worthy.”

      “More battle worthy? Like, what sort of modification?”

      “Oh, you know. Maybe “break” them on purpose so they fling potatoes like crazy as their norm.”

      “Oh man, that would be so wicked! So awesome!”

      “But only if I purchased them from you to sell to others.”

      “Yeah, that’s the problem. I’m going to have to deny this, man. I’m keeping them. Besides, even though they’re totally awesome, there aren’t THAT many; I only have, like, a few. Wouldn’t you need more to sell them?”

      “There’s not too many, no, but I’ll mark them at r99 and figure things out from there.”

      “Nope. I can’t sell them. They’re just so... SO EXTREME, MAN!”

      “Well... in that case, who built them?”

      “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “You see, it was one fateful day, dude! I was just a regular (But still awesome) Wocky, and I was visiting the king of Meridell, in hopes of making the king laugh and getting myself something really n-”

      “Sum this story up into fifty words or less, and now!”

      “Er, yes sir. I, er, give him a super funny joke, he laughs harder than he has ever before, then he grants me one wish. I loved potato counting when I was a young and simple kid, but it sort of got dull when I got older and, as a result, more extreme. So, I made my wish to make potato counting a little more extreme, and ka-lapowaboom, man! The king provideth to me my wish! Was that short enough?”

      “NO!” the Grarrl exclaimed. “But... I’ll excuse you, I suppose. So... you have no idea how to make these yourself?”

      “Nope!”

      “And getting more from Skarl is out of the question?”

      “Well... he did once say that if I told him the joke again, he could provide me with more of the machines if I could tell him the wish again.”

      “Oh? Well, good news! Just tell him this joke again and we’ll be all set!”

      “Actually, no man. One little problem.”

      “Let me guess; you forgot the joke.”

      “Man, it’s like we’re already soul brothers!”

      “My last straw has been broken. I want these badly, even more so since I feel that a fool as yourself does not deserve them. You probably don’t even understand their full potential, do you?”

      “I know that they’re potentially awesome.”

      “I thought as much. I’ll make this as simple as possible for a... weird one like you. I will take them by force, unless you change you mind and wish to sell them in a legit manner?”

      “Oh, no, man. You’ll have to take them by force.”

      “Take them by force, then, leaving you what seems to be a fair amount of NP for them so that you can‘t say I have been a complete jerk. How does that sound to you?”

      “Oh, sure, I guess. If you... want them that badly. But... you’ll have to beat me up first!

      “Very well! How badly will I have to destroy you?”

      “Oh, I’m sort of a weakling. A single good punch should do the tri-OOF!”

      “Hahahah! Easy!” The Grarrl laughed as the Wocky fell straight to the ground. Continuing to laugh, he turned his back to collect his first machine. Unfortunately for the shopkeeper, the Wocky was vaguely smarter than he looked. He got up to his feet rather easily and lunged towards the Grarrl’s back, claws at the ready.

      “COWABUNGA, DUDE!” he screamed.

      Pro tip to all the readers: Never do this.

      To sum up the events that followed, a couple of hours later, the Wocky groggily woke up with no potato throwing machines nearby, having have been beaten and thrashed at least a dozen times “just to be sure”. There was a bag with some NP inside, but, more importantly, there was a red Pteri nearby which was causing any people passing by to scowl with disgust.

      “Oh... down for maintenance guy... thanks for covering me... for whatever just happened... um...” The orange Wocky looked a little confused. “What did just happen?” He got to his feet (which took him about a minute or so) and tried to think. The first thing he noticed (aside from the much hated red bird) was the lack of his beloved machinery, so he worked from there.

      “I don’t remember the machines asking for time off... oh, right, machines. They’re not known for taking vacations. Um... bringing back my memory... person coming tomorrow for trophy, lame person that didn’t know awesome when it was assaulting him, yellow armor dude played the game AND FORCED ME TO SELL ALL OF MY MACHINES! Oh man, it is SO on!”

      He then became aware of the fact that he was looking straight at the red Pteri, who was giving him a look along the lines of “o_O”. However, Mr. EPC was not in the mood to back down from anything.

      “SO ON, MAN! Just... well, I guess it could wait for a little while, since you’re helping me now and all. But later we’ll fight, OK?”

      The Pteri replied with one of those “Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay” type of nods. Satisfied, the orange Wocky responded with an “Alright, man; it’s totally on some time in the future,” and then he planned ahead for his current adventure. There was something he would have to get ready first...

      Meanwhile, a little while later, at a certain battle magic shop...

      “GRAAAAAAAAA!”, an enraged Grarrl politely (comparatively politely, at least) yelled. “I understand that the system is built like this to prevent... well, something like what I’m doing, but still. I was so excited to get this done as quickly as possible.”

      “Er, that’s great,” said a pet owner that was waiting for the battle weaponry place to finally restock its inventory so that he could get himself some nice stuff. “Wait, no. That’s bad. I wish that things would work more in your favor.”

      “Indeed!” The Grarrl was in a bit too much of an anger to notice any sort of faked emotions. “I signed whatever paperwork I needed to approve of new items; now it’s just waiting for whatever department that does important stuff to do something important!”

      “And that is?” questioned the human.

      “Me getting those potato machines on the market.”

      “Oh, right!” The person’s tone of voice raised genuinely this time. “From what you’ve said, they could be interesting. Not counting on it, because if a pea in a cape is insanely awesome, then-”

      “GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!” countered the Grarrl.

      “I assume that every fight that I go into without this potato launcher is a fight that’s not complete perfection,” finished the human.

      “Ahaha! Indeed! But you’ll have to wait... with how this is going, you may not even be able to get your hands on one of them until tomorrow!”

      “Tomorrow, man?” said a voice coming from the doorway. Both the Grarrl and the potential customer turned around to see... Queen Fyora without any make-up on! The horror!

      Nah, just kidding. It was just the EPC Wocky with a green glowing axe, a bag on neopoints, and a vengeance.

      “I don’t know about tomorrow. There’s going to be plenty of people that’ll want to get a cool trophy from me, and I’ll just have to make sure everything’s up and running by then, you know?”

      “Ack!” replied the Grarrl. “I... misjudged you. I figured you to be a complete fool that couldn’t do any sort of logic whatever. I never expected you to find me!”

      What the Grarrl would never discover is that the Wocky was just planning on going random places until he found who he was looking for, and it was just pure coincidence that the first place he checked happened to be the right place to be.

      What he got instead from the Wocky was this: “Well, now you know what happens when you mess with the cool, dude. You get totally surprised!” He threw the neopoints that the Grarrl left behind towards him, making it clear what EPC’s intentions were.

      “Yes. Well, I see no need to bring this out any longer than it has to be. We will fight now!” He rushed over to his stock and grabbed a Wooden Grarrl Club. “Of course, since we’re not in the Battledome, we don’t need to abide by their annoyingly orderly rules! We’ll have at each other... NOW!” he bellowed as he pounced.

      With a smile on his face and a gleam in his eyes, the Wocky prepared his glowing green axe, a well constructed replica of Magax’s axe. His hero Magax was only be slightly less awesome than potatoes that are going at high speeds, so he made sure to get a handcrafted version of Magax’s amazing ghost slaying axe to put on display at his house so he could bask in part of Magax’s glory. It wasn’t designed with battle in mind, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be used for beating up a guy or two if the need came.

      Both of them flew at each other, weapons at the ready. When they collided, they smashed each other with their weapons. They both fell into the ground, both were hurt, but, by the way the Grarrl seemed like he was hurt more, it seemed that the axe, while a fake, was still far more powerful.

      “...Best two out of three?” asked the Grarrl.

      “Oh, sure. Sounds good,” replied the Wocky.

      So the two repeated themselves, leaping towards each other like before, and... the axe proved to trump the club once more, bringing the Grarrl back down to his knees.

      “Ahaha! Not bad at all...” said the Grarrl ”But... ARE YOU READY FOR ROUND TWO!?”

      Picking up every snowball and muffin in the area, the master of battle magic just lobbed them at the master of potatoes. The Wocky was great at this sort of stuff; he could dodge things with his amazing reflexes. There was no way nothing was going to be hitting him. He prepared himself as the attacks were coming... but it seemed that his foe’s forte was clearly not throwing stuff, as EPC was dodging everything just by standing in the same spot.

      “OK,” the Grarrl angrily yelled. “ROUND THREE?”

      “Wait? It’s round three already?”

      “Well, um... you’re far more evasive than I thought. Yes.”

      “Good point, man.” If the EPC Wocky wasn’t going to win by using his skills, he was at least going to pretend that he did. “What do you have for round three?”

      “I was hoping that you’d be too busy peeing your pants to ask that.”

      “Well, this is just me, but you know what I’d do for round three?”

      “What is that?”

      “Something completely predictable.”

      “I beg your pardon? What’s so completely predictable?”

      The Wocky motioned towards one of the vegetable throwing machines. This one was, by chance, pointed straight at the Grarrl.

      “Oh, right.”

      Before the armored Neopet could really react (which is not to say that things were moving fact; he was so stunned that he missed this obvious chance that he stood there for about thirty seconds), the EPC Wocky took everything from the shop he could and loaded it up on there. Slingshots, lightning stuff, swords, you name it; he put it on the machine, and it shot it all out at one scared Grarrl. Terrified, he ran out of the shop, screaming, “I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET! NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT TIME!”

      “Hurray!” exclaimed the Wocky. He was quite glad to have outsmarted his foe, to have claimed his prized machines, to have been called such a great name, and to have done all this before the trophy reset started, too. But, just then, before any celebration could really be done, the shop owner returned with his eyes filled with red anger!

      “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR! I DO BELIEVE THAT... well, this is my shop. I think it might be a good idea for me to stay for a while. You’re welcome to leave whenever you want, though. Claim your vegetable throwing machinery if you want; I will claim it sometime in the future.”

      “Oh yeah, you‘ll claim it the day that you will defeat me. Which, by my calendar, will be the twenty-second of NEVER.”

      “Ha! That is what you think. I’ll be back... possibly.”

      “Wait, only possibly? Man, you better make that for sure, because it was awesome getting the better of you!”

      “You... enjoyed all of this? Well...” The Grarrl briefly considered everything that just happened and came to the conclusion that he was quickly developing a huge dislike for this particular Neopet. “In that event, I suppose the best course of action will be to do nothing

      “Aw, man. You’re like the worst villain ever, dude. What’s next; you’ll steal candy from a baby only so that you can hand it to an orphan?”

      “Just leave. Now.”

      “Alright, man. But know this; no matter what, you ain’t ever going to get the best of me! Even if you don’t do anything at all? I’ll still be on top! So booyah!”

      With a triumphant look covering his entire self, he tossed what he came for into his inventory and went out of the shop, leaving behind one vaguely villainous shopkeeper and one human that was impressed by the scene he just saw. A few seconds later, this human was joined by his pet Skeith.

      “OK, so it took me a little while,” said the Skeith. “But there’s one hot dog for you, and twenty-seven for m... What’s with that shocked look on your face?”

      Not entirely sure if his pet would believe him, the owner explained what just happened, hoping that his pet wouldn’t think that he was lying. After the brief summery was over, the owner finished it off with “It was over... just so fast. But it was still rather interesting to see. I wish you could have seen it.”

      “Yeah, I don’t believe you,” said the Skeith.

      “Oh... I see. Well, while that’s understandable, that’s still quite a shame.”

      “Nah, just kidding. I know you’re telling the truth.”

      “Really?”

      “Nope!”

      “What!?”

      “I don’t believe you! Or maybe I do? Who knows? Not you! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the mood for some chocolate.”

      Leaving his quite peeved owner behind, the Skeith, who was chuckling slightly to himself, happily hopped over to the chocolate factory, quickly emptying it of everything it had.

      Meanwhile, one very happy orange Wocky was joyfully skipping back to his beloved game in Meridell. To sum up a rather lengthy and boring ending, he got back to see the poor red Pteri being attacked by angry protesters (very few there actually wanted to play Extreme Potato Counter; most just liked being mean to the much disliked bird at every single chance possible). He set everything back up to where they were supposed to be, and had fun as people successfully and unsuccessfully counted his potatoes. Before he knew it, the new day was almost among them. A couple of minutes before the current month ended and the new one started, there was a huge line of people waiting for their shot at a trophy. The Extreme Potato Counter Wocky looked at them with a crazy huge grin on his face, and, under his breath, he whispered a couple little sentences to himself.

      “It’s gonna be a fun day, man. It’s gonna be such a fuuuuuuuun day.”

The End

 
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