Deception, Suspicion, Alliance and Missions: Part Four

"You're a girl!" Lunor gasped, flabbergasted.

     "You're not just a girl, you're the Soup Faerie!" Blint added, as gobsmacked at the discovery as Lunor.

     The black ninja costume had been concealing a dark and dangerous secret. But now the yellow wings roamed free and brown locks of hair fell across a now feminine face. Stripped of her costume, the Big Cheese had shrunk to five foot tall and her once wrinkled face had smoothed out.

     "Oh no! Seize them!" The Soup Faerie's voice was much higher than that of the manly Big Cheese's but just as powerful and full of authority. An army full of petpets, mostly tennas, burst from a cupboard in the room in response to the call. But Blint and Lunor were ready: Lunor in a martial arts stance he had seen on neovision and Blint wielding a brass lamp as though it was the sharpest sword in the land.

     However, both neopets were facing the opposite direction, having assumed that an attacker would enter the room through the door.

     Blint didn't need to look behind him to realise their mistake and the fact that he and Lunor were seriously outnumbered. He turned to look to Lunor for guidance, but the Kougra had already sped off, away from the advancing battle. Blint quickly followed, anxious not to be left alone.

     The gap between the two pets was, to Blint's alarm, increasing, due to Lunor's long legs and Blint's short stumps. Nervously looking over his shoulder, Blint was surprised when he ran straight into Lunor with a loud crash! The two pets lay on the hard, metallic floor in a heap. Lunor threw Blint off of him with force.

     "It's a dead end, you idiot!" an angered Kougra growled. Blint groaned, adamant that they were doomed.

     However, both pets spotted the broom cupboard at the same time and made a mad rush to get inside first. They were awkwardly wedged in the doorway and Lunor had to let the smaller Lupe through before him, yet he made sure that Blint didn't have enough time to slam the door behind him. With both pets inside, Lunor locked the door and sat with his back against him, Blint sat facing him, just one and a half metres away against the opposite wall. The atmosphere was as tense as a bolt of lightning.

     "Look, Lunor, what's been up with you recently?" Blint asked, trying to put his last few minutes of his life to good use.

     "You know exactly what's wrong! You, Blint, are the saboteur! Why, Blint? Why?" Lunor bellowed, through clenched teeth. If the petpets didn't know where they were, they surely did now.

     Blint looked down at the floor at the knowledge that his secret was now out in the open.

     "I think it's time I told you about me..." Blint began, uninfluenced by Lunor's angry manner. "Back, when I was young, I had an accident."

     "What kind of accident?" Lunor butted in. Blint ignored his intervention.

     "I went near the Lost City of Geraptiku and found myself lured inside the deserted tomb by the forbidden magic that seemed to dwell there. The booby traps impaled me upon a spear. I was found there, five days later, by a man I have come to know only as Master. My insides were beyond even the skills of the Water Faerie. But my Master, he rebuilt me; gave me a body of metal."

     "You're a robot!" Lunor gasped, not out of anger but of shock. A tear rolled down Lunor's cheek at Blint's tragic tale.

     "But, what I hadn't realised is that he has been controlling me, making my body do things that I don't want it to. And I..." Blint hesitated. "And I hate him for it! He used me for his own selfish and wrong purposes!"

     It was at this statement that Lunor realised he had wronged his friend, jumping to conclusions too quickly. Those weird instructions – they must have just been the diagram of the circuits of Blint's body!

     "Look, Lunor, I'm sorry..."

     "No, I'm the one that should be sorry," Lunor replied, not allowing Blint to take responsibility for the misunderstanding. A feeling of guilt was felt by Lunor, right down to the end of his tail.

     "Now, haven't we got a battle to fight?" Lunor gave Blint a cheeky grin as he said this. Blint smiled in reply, glad that his revelation was over.

     Surprisingly, as neither neopet had noticed this previously, the cupboard they were hiding in happened to be storing many weapons; many of these were useless one neopoints bargains whereas others, such as desert arrow launcher which Lunor wore and the million degree sword wielded by Blint, were of great or moderate worth.

     Throwing the door open, the pair sped out into the corridor, shouting war cries that even Sloth himself would cower at.

     The petpet army, upon hearing this, turned around agilely and went back the way they had come towards Lunor and Blint. But the two pets were readier and more prepared than any nightmare the petpets had could have warned them of.

     Immediately, Lunor opened fire, decreasing the health of the petpets, picking them off one by one. Then it was Blint's turn. He ran forward, slicing through the army with his sword as though he was a cook slicing an onion.

     All of a sudden, the petpets seemed to disappear and then reappear, as though the film was stuck in the cinema. Lunor and Blint looked at each other, before glancing behind them.

     "Stupid thing!" The Soup Faerie was hitting a strange, magical triangular item which Blint and Lunor had never seen before. "I should never have traded my wand of supernova for this with Jhudora!" Realising she had spectators, the Soup Faerie looked up at the onlooking faces of Lunor and Blint. She turned a blood red colour.

     Nodding to each other, the Lupe and the Kougra walked up to the Soup Faerie, taking an arm each. They easily dwarfed her which made carrying her securely no problem. Walking back into the Soup Faerie's office, they tethered her to her office chair.

     "Look, guys, I'm sorry. Is there any way that we can come to some kind of agreement?" The Soup Faerie attempted negotiation although, not so far down inside her, she knew her fate was already sealed.

     Blint and Lunor tried to copy a scene they had seen on Neovision; Blint pacing up and down the office and Lunor sitting in front of the Soup Faerie, staring at her with a look that could kill with a glimpse.

     "So, why did you do it?" Blint began, raising his eyebrows in an awful attempt at the impersonation of a police pet.

     "I guess I'm just a 'bad' faerie." The Soup Faerie sniggered, as though sharing a private joke with her inner self.

     "So, exactly what were you attempting to achieve?" Lunor interrogated the Soup Faerie further, slamming his clenched fist down on the table and making her jump.

     "Power!" the Soup Faerie yelled. However, neither pet was so easily fooled.

     "Yeah, right," muttered Blint, raising his eyebrows. "Do you feel like telling us the truth now?"

     "Okay, okay. I just wanted to be noticed! Everyone takes me for granted – I received no thanks for preventing the biggest starvation epidemic in Neopia ever! If it wasn't for my Soup Kitchen, few new neopets would live past their first week!" The Soup Faerie burst into floods of self pity. Lunor, who could never be considered as a sympathetic neopet, rolled his eyes but received a sharp look of disapproval from Blint.

     "Please excuse us for a moment; I need to have a quiet word with my companion," Blint politely told the Soup Faerie. Blint strolled out of the office, followed by Lunor.

     "What are we going to do then, Boss?" Blint asked Lunor, using Lunor's superior position to his advantage due to his shortage of ideas.

     "Well, I.... um. I haven't actually got a plan as such," Lunor began, embarrassed that he had nothing to show his junior. "You know I'm a doing person, not a thinking one!"

     Blint laughed, amused by his friend's lack of brain cells. "Listen, I have an idea." With this he placed his mouth to Lunor's ear and whispered.

     Four hours later

     Opening the door of the Soup Kitchen, Blint took the Soup Faerie's coat and placed it upon a wooden hook on the wall.

     "Why don't you put your feet up and I'll make a nice cup of hot borovan." Blint ushered her towards the tattered plushie sofa, before making his way into the kitchen. He opened several cupboards before discovering the one he needed and pulled out a half full caddy of mint flavoured borovan.

     Meanwhile, in the sitting room, the Soup Faerie picked up a three week old Neopian Times and began to fill herself in on everything she had missed. She was just reading an article on the newly-discovered pastime of double painting when there was a loud knock at the door. Placing the paper back into its basket, she got up and made her way to the hall. Expecting it to be Illusen asking to borrow her brand new pair of heart shaped sunglasses, she unlocked and opened the door.

     "Surprise!" Lunor shouted.

     Before her, the Soup Faerie could see a huge crowd of millions of neopets and owners alike. Many were holding banners and balloons, others were deafening those around them using party blowers.

     "Right, everybody! What have we gathered here to say?" bellowed Lunor, in a shout even the Snowager couldn't have gone louder than.

     "THANK YOU!" the crowd shouted back. Clapping, cheering and chanting of 'Long live the Soup Faerie' followed.

     "Oh my goodness. This means a lot to me." The Soup Faerie attempted to hold back her tears of happiness.

     "Oh, and while I remember..." Lunor whistled loudly. Two young Kacheeks stepped forward, struggling to carry an enormous present. "Here you go."

     'To the Soup Faerie, from all the neopets in Neopia' the label on the gift read.

     The Soup Faerie unwrapped it eagerly.

     "My own book!" she exclaimed, ecstatically. "I feel so privileged! Thank you, guys." The inevitable waterfall began, spilling salty water onto Lunor's feet. Blint had come from the inside of the house and joined his friend on the doorstep.

     The Soup Faerie descended into the crowd and joined in the celebrations. Music was booming from a band somewhere and everyone was having fun.

     Blint and Lunor looked at each other, smiled and gave each other a high five.

     "Well, Lunor, what are we going to do now? We've got no job, no home, no nothing!"

     "Relax, mate. Have fun for once in your life. We've got each other, and that's all that really matters. Friends forever?"

     "Friends forever."

The End