Time: A Gelert's Tale - Part Four

The Cybunny strolled along in front of the cave whistling rather loudly to make sure that everyone would hear. "Huh, what a stupid looking cave. I bet the buffoon that lives inside doesn't look much better," Desmond shouted loudly and obnoxiously to attempt to aggravate the Draik. He picked up a rock and threw it inside the cave. "Haha, you're too big of a wimp to come outside, aren't you?"

     The Draik heard the disturbance and let out a low rumbling sound in annoyance. The shadow rushed to the opening of the cave like a swift cloud and roared loudly at him as a warning.

     Desmond began to feel afraid for his life. But he would not allow himself to run away. The Cybunny stood his ground and stuck his tongue out mockingly. "Look at the big stupid Draik too afraid of his shadow to come outside." That was probably a mistake.

     The Draik emerged from the cave, gliding just above the ground with its shadowy matter dancing like a fire. "I have no shadow, foolish Cybunny. I am a shadow," the Draik said with a deep and powerful voice that carried through the trees like a god. "And now you will suffer for your insolence." Desmond's eyes widened in fear as he awaited the Draik's next move.

     Ven launched himself on the back of the shadowy figure at that moment and sank his teeth into what would be his skin. The Draik let out a roar of pain, and in Nestoria, all of the spirits flashed and flickered before disappearing. They weren't real; Desmond was right. It was the Draik's own projection.

     The Cybunny ran at the Draik, yelling, and began throwing failed swings at its gigantic limbs. When Marleena saw that he was preoccupied, she ran straight into the darkness of the cave. The Aisha glanced back at them before setting her eyes on the darkness. She felt along the walls and turned the corner. The ground was steadily going deeper and deeper into Neopia. There was no light. The Aisha was in total darkness now, and her eyesight was no good to her anymore. If not for her ears, she would not have been of any help.

     The peaceful silence broke with the scuffing of something's feet. The Aisha panicked and tiptoed over to the wall to lean against it. She could sense where the walls of the cave were and their depth with her heightened hearing as the scuffing continually echoed off the rock and mud. She heard a strange noise, almost like talking, and then another and another and another. Soon, she could hear at least a hundred whispers being shared amongst the unknown beings. But they were so soft and didn't make any sense. They weren't speaking any language that she could understand. The Aisha held her back up against the wall, holding her breath, waiting for something to happen. One of the creatures approached her unknowingly. She tried to move to the side silently, but could not evade it in time. It bumped into her and made some sort of startled grumbling noise like it was angry. Then another one repeated the action and another and then all of them started noisily grumbling at once. "Shh!" she said to them. They obeyed, except for a few strays in the far back who continued to mumble nonsense.

     The Aisha didn't know what to do. This was not at all what she was expecting. She slowly crept back the way she came, touching the wall to confirm her direction. All of the creatures shuffled to follow her. "No!" she whispered as loud as she could at them. They mumbled in response. The Aisha shushed them again, and they obeyed. She continued along the cave wall with the hundreds of creatures following her until she could see the Draik battling her friends again. What was she going to do?

     Desmond found himself under the belly of the humongous Draik during the fight. The Draik snapped at his ears, and Desmond slipped on the ground, barely making it away. Ven was attempting to blind the creature, covering its eyes with his arms.

     "Fools! I am of the shadow, I do not require a useless sense such as sight," the Draik roared at them spitefully. He swung his head back and flapped his wings rapidly, knocking the Gelert onto the ground. It sure didn't feel good when his head and back hit the cool grass.

     The Cybunny ran to his side upon seeing him fall. "Ven! Are you okay?" The poor Gelert's vision was blurred with the pain caused by the fall. He blinked a few times to try to regain his senses. He attempted to get up, but couldn't. This felt all too familiar. When he propped himself up with his arm, his hand slipped on the cold grass and he met the ground again.

     The Draik was laughing at them from above. Desmond looked up at the menacing laughter and glared. "Back off!" he threatened him. There was little that he had to offer in terms of strength or wits compared to the Draik, so his threat was more of a bluff.

     The Draik cackled once more. "Fools, they never learn."

     The shadow Draik swooped down, a trail of darkness following behind his tail and crash landed on the two Neopets. The crash looked like a thick, black cloud of smoke shooting outward in the surrounding area. The Draik slowly reformed his shape above where he crashed, flapping his wings gracefully.

     Marleena covered her mouth in shock and horror at the sight of this; her poor friends.

     Underneath the Draik, her friends lay unconscious and looking paler than usual. On each of their hands was a marking, a Gremble. Now the Gelert remembered. He cried out to the Aisha in agony. She didn't know what to do. Marleena looked back and forth in a panic as she tried to think of something. The creatures around her made excited noises, but were hiding in the shadows. The Draik angrily looked about for another Neopet, but could see none. "Who are you talking to?" the Draik roared in a voice filled with rage. Ven laughed at him with what little energy he had left.

      In anger and desperation, the Aisha rushed out of the cave towards the Draik. She had no weapon, no plan and nothing going for her. But suddenly, a bright light appeared in her hand. It was blinding and powerful. The Aisha shielded her eyes with her other arm and faced the light towards the Draik. It roared and screamed in pain. In her hand was the Wand of Supernova! When she peeked at what she was holding, she smiled maliciously. She had the upper hand now. "Stay away from my friends!" the Aisha yelled as she cast a powerful and blinding spell in the shadow Draik's direction. It flapped its wings in a panic as it tried to get away, but it was too late. The spell blasted the shadowy creature and the light consumed it.

     "NOOO!" a woman's voice screamed at the top of its lungs. The cry could have burst the Aisha's ear drums. A faerie rushed towards where the Draik had been destroyed and began to weep. The Draik had been her pet when she was a child. "What have you done?" she spat at the Aisha in an echoing voice, who was still holding the Wand of Supernova in her hand staring at the faerie in disbelief. Who the heck was this faerie anyway?

     "Look, lady. I don't know who you are, but that Draik was trouble." The Aisha attempted to justify herself for this. That Draik had done awful things to many people, and she suspected that this dark faerie was no different.

     The faerie glared at her. Who was this Neopet to speak to her in such a manner? She flew up to the Aisha quickly to get in her face. "You think you can get away with something like this? I don't think so!" The dark faerie summoned shadowy figures from the ground and the Aisha backed away quickly. She shot bolts of light from the wand at the shadows, which diminished them quickly. But the shadows kept coming one after the other.

     Desmond finally convinced himself to open his eyes. He felt a little queasy still, but when the Draik had diminished he felt a bit of relief. The Cybunny sat up and saw his friend fighting off new shadow creatures and a dark faerie commanding them. "Ohhh no, not my friends," he said as he stood up, becoming quite annoyed by these villains. Who the heck did they think they were, messing with his friends?

     "Hey, faerie!" Desmond shouted at her, sounding angry. "Back off the Aisha, would you?" This was another mistake on the Cybunny's part. He was in no condition to be making demands or to be taking on faeries.

     The dark faerie spun around sharply with clenched teeth and an angry look on her face. "The name is Neyra, and I don't take demands from petty Neopets like you!" the faerie hissed at Desmond as she rushed at him with fists clenched. Surrounding her fists was a growing dark aura, some sort of energy. The Aisha saw this and zapped the last shadow beings away and rushed after her.

     "Stop, Neyra! If you come any closer to him, I'll blast you into another dimension." The Aisha squinted at the dark faerie, who came to a stop in front of the Cybunny. She had a smirk on her face and gently set her feet upon the ground. She circled Desmond mockingly. He nervously looked at Marleena. What was she going to do?

     "I'm warning you!" the Aisha threatened her again. She really didn't like this evil faerie. The faerie laughed at her. She knew that Marleena couldn't do it, and besides, Neyra was too powerful. The faerie spun up in the air faster than the Aisha could register and then began to dart towards the Gelert as fast as she could. When Marleena saw her, it was almost too late, but not quite. She sent a blast just above Ven on instinct. The faerie was already there and saw it out of the corner of her eye. "AHHH-!" the faerie tried to scream, but was cut short with the supernova blasting her away. She was destroyed, but not totally, however. Only half of the faerie's spirit had diminished, and the other half found its way into the nearest body, which happened to be Ven's.

     There was fire everywhere, and it was too late for her to gather her belongings. Neyra searched frantically for an exit. How could he betray her like this? She had loved him, cared for him. She even turned a pesky Neopet into a Gremble and gave it to him as a gift. But that wasn't enough.... Why?

     The faerie flew as fast and high as she could out of the burning village, in tears and alone. There was nowhere for her to go. She was not accepted in Faerieland for her monstrous magical experimenting on Neopets. Perhaps this was payback for what she had done to Shadow....

     "Is he going to be okay?" Desmond asked as he kneeled in front of Ven and across from Marleena. There were villagers crowding around them in a group, all with worried looks on their faces.

     "I think he's going to be fine..." The Aisha's voice faded out.

     Neyra had never felt so betrayed. She decided that she should pay Shadow a visit. So she flew down to the Draik's cave where he slept. When she arrived she had found hundreds of Grembles walking around the area mindlessly. What was going on? "Shadow?" the faerie called out to her neopet. He appeared out of the darkness of the cave, looking down upon her with those bright red eyes of his. The Draik didn't understand. "What do you want?" That was no way to speak to the person who raised him, but he didn't care. He had lost all caring for her long ago when she started experimenting on him.

     "Shadow, what is all this?" The faerie motioned to the Grembles walking about everywhere. She had not seen so many in one place before. The Draik studied all of them for a moment. "They're mine," he replied. "Those foolish villagers won't be bothering me again."

     The dark faerie frowned. He turned the villagers into Grembles? "You idiot! Turn them back right now!" the faerie demanded this of her Neopet. She had granted him magical abilities, but not for something as reckless as this. What if they traded with other towns and they found them all missing? He could have very well started a war with his actions. The Draik yawned, bored with his self proclaimed 'former' owner. "No. Leave my presence now, faerie."

     The Draik had never called her 'faerie' before. He had always called her by her first name. She was distraught in that moment, and in her desperation to win him back, she did something that was not going to her help. She blasted him with dark magic in an attempt to get his attention. The Draik turned around sharply and glared at her. He roared and jumped in front of her, casting an evil spell on her that made her go insane. Her eyes turned red much like his, and her once beautiful voice was now more like a plague to the ears. As she fell to her knees in shock, she whispered something to him, but he could not hear it. "You will be mine again..."

     The Draik was already in the darkness of his cave and all the Grembles had followed him inside.

     The Gelert opened his eyes. He was in a restaurant. He turned his head to the side to spot a window; there was snow falling gently outside.

     "Ven? Uncle Ven? Hello?" An Aisha was speaking to him. Was that his name? Ven? And who was this island Aisha? He shook his head. "I'm sorry, what?"

     The Aisha smiled and rolled her eyes. "You ordered the cup of borovan, right?" She was holding a mug in her hand that was hot to the touch. It was perfect for a cold day like this. The Gelert's face looked baffled as he looked back and forth between the mug and the Aisha. "Yes, I did," he replied, deciding to play along. She smiled again and set the mug down in front of him and walked back to the kitchen. The Gelert picked up the cup and realized how incredibly thirsty he felt. He took a sip of the hot liquid and found it delicious. His thirst was quickly overcome as he continued to drink the cup.

     A young Aisha with short black hair approached him; she looked rather excited and winded. "Hey Ven, where's my drink? Have you seen my pirate sword?" the young girl demanded. Did he know this Neopet, too? "How am I supposed to go on adventures without a sword?!" she continued to whine and crossed her arms.

     "I don't know," he replied rather truthfully. The Aisha pouted and jumped up on her seat across from him. He wasn't sure what he should say. "What's your name?" he inquired, hoping that it wouldn't offend her.

     The Aisha laughed at him. "Don't be silly, Uncle Ven. You've known me my whole life!"

The End