Meepits vs Feepits... Vs Dr. Sloth: Part Four

“Daisy, you are head warrior, what do we do?” demanded Alex from under the table where he was hiding. The High Council had locked the doors and window of the room and from outside they could hear something ramming the front door. Things were being flung at the window to try and break it, but the window was high and the feepits, apparently, did not have great aim. Rocks were being catapulted in the general direction of the building and the occasional one was even hitting it. An army of feepits could clearly be heard lining up in ranks outside.

     “In an emergency like this with danger at our front door, there is only one thing we can do,” said Daisy decisively. “Run – through the back door!”

     “Great idea!” exclaimed Charles, making a dive for the back door. Just as he managed to unlock the tenth and final bolt there was a large splintering sound from the front door. All the High Council turned around in fear to see that a large crack had appeared through the middle of the door.

     “A couple more hits from that ram and the door will split open!” screamed Alex, pushing past Charles to be the first out the back door. He fled deep into the trees, closely followed by the others.

     ---

     “We have opened the door!”

     The excited shout of the six feepits who had been holding the ram came from inside the building. They had run extra fast on their last charge, the door had broken and the ram had gone straight through. Not being able to stop in time, the feepits had gone through the door with the ram, creating an extra large hole for everyone else.

     “Quick! Everybody inside! Take the meepits hostage before they try to escape!” shouted Leader George as loudly as possible in order to be heard. He ran inside, closely followed by his entire army of feepits. “Well?” he demanded, looking around. “Who has the meepits? Where are they?”

     “They don’t appear to be in here, Leader George...” said a nervous Lieutenant. “Captain Josh just discovered an open back door – they must have escaped through it.”

     “Wow,” said Leader Helga sarcastically, “ten out of ten for observation skills. But this means we have made another pointless attack! George, I told you we should have checked first to see if they had a back door! And what idiot ordered the whole army to come inside? Everybody, GET OUT! There isn’t room to swing a mootix around in here! OUT! OUT!”

     Most of the feepits filed back out through the hole in the door, one by one. After they had left, George, Helga and a couple of other feepits who had been told to stay made a thorough search of the room. Every drawer was pulled out, every cupboard was opened, every shelf was checked, and every stone in the floor was checked to see if it was a trap door or contained a hiding place of some sort. When the feepits finally prepared to leave, the room in a mess, it was without the domination plans or anything of use. They were just about to leave when a blue Grundo stepped through the door, covered from head to toe in gadgets.

     ---

     “Is your room to your satisfaction?” asked Dr. Sloth in a mocking voice. “Would you like a cup of tea? Anything to keep you comfortable and happy during your little stay with me?”

     “A cup of tea sounds nice, but I don’t think much of my room; you have a very poor taste in interior design you know!” snapped King Sloth, growing angrier by the second. He was sitting on a small, surprisingly comfortable bed in a cell somewhere, he wasn’t sure where, in Dr. Sloth’s prison. Dr. Sloth had kindly provided him with a bedside table consisting of a meepit lamp and a few books to read. Unfortunately, the books were all about Dr. Sloth so King Sloth had become bored of them rather quickly. Around his ankle was a chain, which was attached to his bed.

     “Uhh, Lord Sloth sir?” came a soft voice from outside.

     “Yes?” asked both Dr. Sloth and King Sloth at the same time.

     “What is it, Donna?” asked Dr. Sloth, glaring at King Sloth.

     “I have a message here, a letter, from the feepits. It is addressed to you, sir.”

     “Well, what does it say?” demanded Dr. Sloth.

     “I have not yet opened it. It was addressed to you. You know you do not like me opening your private mail, so I didn’t,” answered Donna quietly, at the same time holding out a small envelope with “Dr. Sloth” written on the front. Dr. Sloth snatched it from Donna and tore it open angrily, nearly ripping the letter at the same time.

     “Dr. Sloth,” he started to read in a loud voice before remembering that he was still in King Sloth’s cell. He removed himself quickly, and read the rest of the letter outside.

     “We cannot allow you to take over Neopia any more than we can allow the meepits. We are holding your agent Ralph hostage. He will not be returned until you give us your Domination Plans. We would also like your captive, the meepit leader Sloth, to be handed over to us at the same time. If you do not hand them over to us, we will take more extreme measures – such as planting a bomb in the Space Station. In the canteen. Yes, we know you like your hotdogs. So if you do not hand over Sloth and your plans, it will be bye bye Ralph and bye bye hotdogs.

     Yours Sincerely, Feepit Leaders George and Helga.”

     By the time he had finished reading the letter; Dr. Sloth had turned bright red in anger. “The cheek of it!” he spluttered, “the absolute cheek! How dare they? Donna, write a reply and use these exact words; tell them to GET STUFFED!!!”

     “How many exclamation marks was that, sir?”

     ---

     “Alright, so what do we do now?” asked Lily softly, sitting down heavily on a small tree root sticking out from the ground. The other meepits sat down next to her along the tree root.

     “Well, I say if the feepits want a war they can have a war!” exclaimed Daisy.

     “But what do we do about Dr. Sloth and King Sloth?” asked Alex.

     “I don’t think we need to do much at the moment,” said Roger. “My spies inform me that the feepits have taken hostage Dr. Sloth’s agent Ralph!”

     “Ralph?”

     “The blue Grundo with all the gadgets and stuff. Anyway, they have told Dr. Sloth that if he does not give them his Neopian Domination plans and also hand over King Sloth, they will blow up the Space Station canteen and not return Ralph!”

     “And this can help us how?” asked Charles.

     “Not sure, really...”

     “Well, why don’t we do nothing about it for a bit?” suggested Lily sensibly after a moment of thought. “We can continue training our apprentices and do most of our normal tasks, and let Dr. Sloth and the feepits fight out their argument. Once they are finished with each other, we might not have to deal with both of them!”

     The High Council looked at each other mischievously. “We can keep spying on them, just to know what is happening!” said Roger excitedly.

     “Or we could be the catalysts of the fight!” pointed out Alex.

     “Catalyst?” asked Daisy curiously.

     “We could be the cause of them. Send letters to both sides pretending to be the other side, stuff like that!”

     “You know... I think we could really work that idea to our advantage!” exclaimed Charles. “Why don’t we send a letter to Dr. Sloth, pretending to be the feepits, and say that we have changed the time and place we want him to deliver his plans and King Sloth. Then we can dress up as feepits, be there and collect them!”

     “But what if Dr. Sloth has no intention of handing them over?” asked Lily.

     “We will keep threatening him, and I am sure the real feepits will too, until he does!”

     ---

     “Your majesty sir, what are you going to do about Ralph?” asked Donna quietly. Dr. Sloth was in a good mood because he had just eaten a good dinner, hotdogs from the canteen, and so Donna thought it was probably the safest time to ask.

     “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We can survive without him surely!” he answered, followed by a large belch.

     “But, sir, you will have to get a new agent!”

     “You will be my new agent and still also my assistant. Ralph may have made everything seem difficult, but it isn’t really a long or hard job to be my agent. You should manage way better than him anyway.”

     Donna started to look worried. “But sir, I don’t know how to use any of the equipment Ralph used. All I know how to use is the computers.”

     “Well, I can show you how to use them easily,” said Dr. Sloth, getting up. “I have ordered some new equipment and fancy gadgets for you already. Come with me and I will show you how to use them.”

     Donna sighed. It would be a lot easier if they just rescued Ralph; she doubted Dr. Sloth could use the equipment any better than she could.

To be continued...