"Wow, Faerie City sure is beautiful," Alissa said, looking around and admiring all the beautiful shops that lined the fluffy lane.

"Sure is," agreed Tera, smiling at the pristine pink-roofed shops. Each one seemed to sparkle, and all of them were spotlessly clean.

Alissa, an Acara, turned a corner and headed down along another row of shops.

"Hey, where'd you go?" Tera shouted when she looked away from the glistening pink roofs and noticed that her friend was gone. "Alissa!"

"Stop shouting," the Acara said, peering back from the corner where she had turned and gesturing for her friend to follow. "Come this way; the map says there are more cute shops this direction."

Relieved that she hadn't been separated from her friend, the Kau headed over to the side street Alissa had taken and quickly caught up with the Acara. They seemed to be in an alley of some sort between the shops.

"Hmm, maybe I took wrong turn," Alissa said, grimacing at her map and turning it around.

Tera sighed. Her friend simply had a horrible sense of direction. "It looks like a dead end."

"Hey, wait! Look! We can turn left up ahead,” the Acara said, pointing. Sure enough, there seemed to be another narrow alley leading off from the one they were currently in. "Let's take a peek."

Tera nodded and followed her friend to the corner. Peering down the alleyway, they were shocked to see another row of buildings. Unlike those on the main street, however, these shops seemed to be dirty, cluttered, and well, darker...

"What is this place?" Alissa asked, startled by the severe contrast between the glistening, pink-roofed shops they'd seen earlier and the drab buildings that stood before them in their crooked row.

Tera crinkled her brow. "Let me see that map." Alissa silently handed it over, and Tera began to study it. She jabbed her hoof to a precise point on the map and began muttering under her breath. "I can't find it!" she said aloud.

Alissa jumped. "What do you mean?"

Tera showed her friend the place where her hoof rested. "Look, this is the street we were walking along right now," she said, tracing her finger down the said street, "and this is where we turned -- nothing there!"

Alissa's azure eyes widened even further. "B-but that's impossible!" the Acara exclaimed. She bent her head closer to the snow-white map. It was to no avail; the area in which they now stood was just a blank space on the map.

Tera folded the useless piece of paper up and stuck it into her pocket. "Way to go, Ms. Navigator," she said with a grin. "Trust you to get us lost within a few minutes."

Alissa shoved her friend playfully. "Hey! Don't blame me."

Tera rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's go into one of the shops and ask for directions out of here, okay?"

Alissa nodded. They both wanted to leave this dire alley as soon as possible. They went up to the nearest dusty little shop and opened its door. A bell overhead gave a pathetic, forced jingle.

"Hello?" Tera said hesitantly. It was awfully dark inside and silent as a grave. She half-wondered if the place was deserted. Just as she was about to voice her thoughts to Alissa, a voice sounded from somewhere in the shop.

"Welcome, welcome," it said in a crackling tone. "It's been such a long time since I've had any customers..."

Standing on glass shelves around them were an assortment of oddly shaped bottles, filled with equally enigmatic liquids of all colors. Some bubbled as if boiling; others seemed to be steaming within their flasks. Some were of many hues; others shone with the light of only one color. None of them had labels on them, but all of them added to the spooky aura cast by the shop and its owner.

The two pets turned their attentions back to the faerie before them. In all ways, she appeared to be the most frighteningly beautiful dark faerie either of the two now terrified Neopets had ever seen.

"Why the shocked faces?" the faerie asked, stepping up from her seat as fluidly as water. Her voice still crackled in a way that was more than just rasping. "You should really see your faces. You look like you both just stepped into the lair of a monster." Her eyes flashed on the final word.

Neither Tera nor Alissa dared to do anything more than breathe for several seconds, locked in the gaze of this terrifying faerie. Finally, the Acara mustered the courage to speak.

"Uh, Miss?" she piped in, softly.

"Yes, my dearie?" the faerie asked, a dashing silver smile appearing amidst her parted lips.

"Do you have any idea where we are?"

The faerie was quiet for a moment. "I don't know what you mean," she replied softly, but in a way that sent a fresh wave of shivers running down Alissa and Tera's spines. "We're in Faerieland... Surely you know that this is the Apothecary of the Moon?"

"Apothecary of the... Moon?" Tera repeated, almost sounding confused.

"Yes, you silly Kau," the faerie said with a laugh. "Polar opposite of the Apothecary of the Sun, that blasted potion-brewery down by Fyora's palace. Always getting the public eye... but that's a different story." The faerie's eyes flashed again.

"But what hostess would I be if I did not introduce myself? I am Madame Twaelesca, but you can call me Miss T. What may I do for you today?"

"We're actually not here to buy anything," Tera managed to squeak. And the instant the words escaped her mouth, she regretted ever speaking them.

"What? You don't want to buy anything?!" The faerie looked stunned, offended, and enraged all at once. Her shining violet eyes, once calm and frighteningly confident, glowed like purple coals. Her arms tensed; her lip curled. "Then why are you here?!"

"We just wanted to ask for directions," Alissa pleaded. "Please, we didn't mean to bother you. We're tourists, and we lost our way--"

Some of the hostility left the faerie's gaze and stance -- but not all of it. "I... see," Madame Twaelesca murmured. "I was rude to jump to conclusions. You see... Oh, never mind."

"We'll be going now," Alissa commented, feeling sick to her stomach with fear. Tera nodded frantically in agreement.

"Oh, don't speak such nonsense," Madame Twaelesca said with a scowl. "I'll help you out. Come with me to the back room; I'll pull out my map and show you how to get to where you're going."

The two pets stared at each other for a moment, then followed after Miss T, who was waltzing off to the back room with an air of royalty.

As they passed by an especially cluttered row of potion bottles, something stirred in the corner of Alissa's eye. Immediately the Acara whirled around to see what it was.

An empty bottle stood at one end of the shelf, looking aloof from the others. Alissa shrugged, passing it off as some illusion of the light, and shakily continued following Miss T.

Little did either of the two pets know the trouble they were soon to be embroiled in...

The back room was an expanse of violet elegance and exotic scents. Everwhere hung purple, silk curtains and draperies until it appeared that room was nestled in a rich cloud as wonderful fragrances caressed their noses like gentle, loving hands. Except for a large table that sat in the center, the room was only scarcely furnished, but that seemed to add to the elegance somehow.

"Wow," Alissa managed.

"The shop certainly didn't look this big from the outside!" Tera exclaimed.

"It's not that big," Miss T said, a gentle smile curving along the contours of her beautiful face. "It's a trick of using the space available and creating the illusion the room is bigger than it is. Here, let me see your map."

Alissa handed her the map, making a feeble attempt to smile. The Acara couldn't help but think that the room WAS bigger, and that it wasn't just an illusion of the use of space. Still, it would be rude to question their host, especially since she had offered to help.

Miss T took the map and spread it upon the table, which was draped in a velvet throw of a flawless, rich purple. With one well-manicured finger, she traced the map until it led to the blank space.

"This must be one of her maps," she hissed slightly. "Only she would go to such lengths to hide my shop."

"Who?" Tera asked, trembling slightly at the anger that had laced the rough voice like deadly venom.

Miss T blinked a few times as if she had forgotten the two pets were still there. "Nothing," she said quickly. "You just follow the path in front of my shop all the way to the end, and then you should see this alleyway." She pointed to the location on the map as she spoke. "From there you should be able to find your way."

"Thank you," Alissa said, relieved for the directions and the excuse to leave the shop. Miss T was beautiful, but there was something not quite right here. She took the map and started to leave the room. Tera followed close behind, obviously wanting to leave as well.

"Wait!" called Miss T. "I have something for you."

"For us?" Tera asked.

"It's okay," Alissa spoke up quickly. "We appreciate your help. You don't have to do anything else for us."

"No, I insist," Miss T stated, as her hand disappeared under the table. "Since I have trouble attracting customers, perhaps you can help me. I will give you a gift from my shop, and then you can tell all your friends about me. Sounds good, doesn't it?"

"Really, you don't have to give us anything," Alissa said desperately, trying to inch towards the front of the store and towards the exit. "We'll tell all our friends about you anyway."

Miss T laughed, the sound causing their fur to stand on end as if exposed to electricity. "Why are you so nervous?" she asked. "I only wanted to give you this..."

Both recovered their voices at the same time.

"Uh, thank you," Alissa stuttered.

"But... it's empty," Tera complained at the same moment.

Miss T threw back her head and emitted another high-pitched laugh that reminded the two pets unpleasantly of a witch's cackle. She placed her hand on Tera's shoulder and bent down to stare her in the face.

"Now, now," she said, smiling conspiratorially at the bewildered Kau, "you don't really think I would give you an empty bottle, do you? This flask contains a very special substance."

"What substance?" Alissa shot back suspiciously.

"Tsk, I don't want to ruin the surprise!" Miss T replied, ushering them out of the shop. "Thank you so much for visiting my humble shop," the faerie said, before sweeping back into the shop and slamming the door.

"Let's get out of here," Alissa said with a shiver, handing the mysterious flask to Tera. They had walked several meters down the alleyway before Tera suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"What is the matter?" Alissa demanded impatiently, whipping around.

Tera was staring transfixed at the bottle in her hooves.

"Don't you think we should try it?" she asked.

"No! Are you crazy?" Alissa shouted, but Tera was already wrestling with the cork...

The bottle was falling to the ground.

Alissa watched it as it seemed to fall almost in slow motion, turning end over end. It twinkled in the the light like an imperfect diamond before smashing on the ground.

"Alissa, what's wrong with you?" Tera demanded, "Now you've broken it. I know that Miss T was crazy when she gave us an empty bottle, but the bottle might have been worth something. Why did you knock it out of my hooves?"

The Acara's eyes were so transfixed upon the spot where the bottle had shattered that she barely heard her friend at first. "I didn't mean to make you drop it," she finally answered, "I just didn't want you to open it."

"But why? It was empty," Tera replied. As if to prove her point, she kicked at the broken shards of glass that littered the ground.

All at once, a strange smoke began to rise and swirl from broken glass. Transfixed, both pets watched as it lazily rose like a thick fog.

"It wasn't empty," Alissa whispered to herself as the smoke continued to rise and began to surround the pets.

"What? What's going on?" the Kau cried, as she tried to wave the smoke away, but it only got thicker and thicker until Alissa could no longer see her friend.

"Tera!" Alissa cried out and lunged into the smoke to grab her friend. Instead of Tera, her paws touched something soft and baggy.

A horrible laughter caused her to look up as she realized she was holding on to the violet robe of Miss T...

The dark faerie looked down at Alissa, her eyes filled with satisfaction and her smile literally dripping with poison.

"Well done, my precious," she hissed. "I've waited so long to get out of that place where SHE has kept me! Let's see how she manages now.'

Shaking and trembling, Alissa shuffled backwards, inch by inch, looking everywhere for Tera as she went. As the smoke began to clear, she could see that her friend was nowhere to be seen.

"Whe... wher... where is... is Tera?" she managed to stutter through trembling teeth.

"Hmmm?" murmured Miss T, staring with full concentration as the last wisps and vapour filled the almost overflowing bottle. Inside, the smoke continued to move, then thicken, as a dark shape started to form.

Alissa took a deep breath and gulped. "Where is Tera?"

The dark form continued to take shape, moving, struggling constantly.

"Oh..." Miss T sighed quietly, firmly shoving the cork into place and secreting the bottle in her robes. "I'm afraid she's feeling a little bottled up."

The dark faerie drew a deep breath and looked in contemplation at the alley way around her.

"This won't do, this will never do!" she screeched, focusing on a small patch of what might -- with a little imagination -- have been flowers. "The works of those too good faeries are seeping into even MY domain. But now that I've been set free, we'll see about that."

Scowling, shoulders hunched and fists clenched, she turned and strode, all energy and dark purpose, toward the pink shops of Faerieland...

"STOP!" Alissa cried without thinking, and dashed after Miss T, who had already entered the sunlight, hissing under her breath with displeasure at what she saw.

Alissa left the shadows as well, emerging onto a puffy part of cloud on the edge of Faerieland.

"Don't you dare try to stop me," Miss T said, whirling on her. "Don't you dare." Her eyes glinted ominously, and her her wings twitched threateningly.

Alissa hesitated, then desperately darted forward to jump at Miss T.

To her surprise, the dark faerie didn't move out of the way. Instead, she held one long arm out to the side, the one that held the bottle with Tara trapped inside, and held it out over the perilous drop at the edge of the cloud.

"Oh, go right ahead," Miss T said, smiling cruelly. "I'm not afraid to."

That stopped Alissa in her tracks.

Miss T muttered something, and little wisps of darkness gathered in her hand. Miss T clapped her hands together, and the darkness fell, seeping into the cloud beneath her feet, and turning it purple. To Alissa's horror, it began to spread, reaching out like dark fingers.

Cackling, Miss T said, "Now is the time for evil, the time for darkness, and..."

The darkness was moving fast, almost reaching to Alissa's feet. Miss T's eyes glinted again.

"Now is the time for revenge..."

The darkness soon enveloped the clouds around them, and the frightened Acara suddenly felt loads of animosity for Miss T. "Revenge?" she asked, attempting to keep Miss T's mind away from destroying the merriement that was once Faerieland.

"All my childhood, I was looked down upon because of my dark roots. I was given that shop, then trapped within it, while she got the Apothecary of the Sun. I was shut in, my place erased from all the maps so no one could find me. I told all the faeries that I would strike back... strike back for all the mocking games, the awful maligning. Looks like I wasn't lying." She grinned, an almost playful grin, the bottle still dangling between her fingers, threatening to descend down into non-existence.

"But... you lived up to your roots," Alissa pointed out, her gaze still held on the bottle. "This is just proving that they were right. All the rumors that you were nothing but a heartless, merciless being... well, they were right, weren't they?" Her comments elicited another malicious cackle, as the dark faerie threw her head back, letting her black, silky hair pour down her back. "Let Tera go..." Alissa whispered, watching the bottle with two wary eyes.

"With pleasure!" Miss T said, letting the bottle slip between her fingers a few centimeters. A cry escaped Alissa's lips as she dashed for the bottle that had not yet fallen, finding herself at the feet of Miss T. "You would really look dashing with a tinge of gray to your fur coat... in fact, all of your fur would look great consumed in it." The dark faerie raised her hands. To Alissa’s horror, her shimmering blue fur started to grow a dim gray color, but rolling around the faerie's legs, she managed to escape the dark purple stream protruding from Miss T's finger. "Hey! Where are you going?!" the dark faerie shouted as Alissa tripped her.

The bottle went down. Down... down... into the depths of... Alissa's paws! She caught it just as the seemingly empty bottle toppled from the dark faerie's fingers. However, Miss T soon regained her balance and swung atop the Acara, struggling to wrestle the bottle from Alissa's paws.

But, being much smaller and quicker than the tall faerie, the Acara managed to slip from the fight and frantically run. She had no idea where she was going, but she seemed to have the upper-hand on things, as the bottle was under her care now...

Am I dead? thought Alissa. Curious, she opened her eyes, and, to her even greater surprise, saw--

"Queen Fyora?" Alissa gasped, staring wide-eyed at the queen of faeries. Next to her was a incredibly beautiful light faerie, who had a look of something that resembled amusement on her face. Looking in the faerie's direction, Alissa saw Miss T, bound by strands of light, and hanging upside down. Alissa did her best to surpress a giggle.

Miss T glared furiously at her. "Silence, you little brat!" she hissed, "or I'll--"

"Turn her into a pile of sludge?" asked the light faerie, her small smile getting bigger. "Not today, sister dearest." Alissa's mouth dropped open. Miss T and this light faerie were sisters?

The Acara made a little coughing noise to get some attention.

"I hate to interrupt," Alissa began nervously, "but I have a couple of questions. First off, why am I not dead? The darkness was going to do something fatal to me, I know it was."

Queen Fyora chuckled. "Well, that's because I levitated you a foot off the ground so Twaelesca's magic wouldn't harm you." Alissa looked down at her feet. Fyora was right; she was hovering a foot off the ground. Well, that explained something. Still, she had some more questions.

"Second off," said Alissa, still a little taken aback that she was floating, "they're sisters?" she asked incredulously, pointing at the light faerie and Miss T. This time, the light faerie answered the question.

"Yes," the light faerie answered, "Twaelesca and I are sisters. We were also the owners of the Apothecaries of the Sun and Moon over 500 years ago as well. Allow me to introduce myself," she added, curtseying. "I am Lady Sistine R'ael, owner of the Apothecary of the Sun, and sister to... um, Madame Twaelesca, as she likes to be known." Sistine gave a puzzled look in Miss T's direction.

"Tweety, once this is all over, you're really going to have to think of a better name," Sistine said, arching an eyebrow. "I mean, c'mon -- Twaelesca? Even Tweety is better than that!"

Alissa burst out laughing. "Tweeyt??" she asked in a hoarse voice. "Your real name is Tweety?" Miss T's eyes were filled with fury.

"SHUT UP, YOU MISERABLE LITTLE PIPSQUEAK!" Miss T snarled at Alissa, struggling to get out of the bonds of light that tied her. She turned to her sister. "I swear, Sistine, as soon as I get out of these bonds, I will rip off your wings and throw you into the ocean below us!" Queen Fyora made a clucking sound at Miss T.

"The only one who is getting their wings taken off," said Fyora with a touch of sadness, "is you. I'm sorry, Tweet -- er, Twaelesca, but after your actions today, I really don't think that 800 years of house arrest is going to help you with your world domination problem."

Alissa arched her eyebrows, obviously confused. "Ah, will someone tell me what's--"

Sistine raised a hand to silence her. "I shall explain," the light faerie said in her ever-so-calm voice. "Over 500 years ago, one of my sisters, Miss T as you know her, came to me with an idea of creating to magic shops. They would be polar opposites to each other, one selling defensive magic items and healing potions, and one selling faerie weaponry and potions that would give the users great power. Miss T would run the defensive magic shop, the Apothecary of the Moon, and I would run the attack magic shop, the Apothecary of the Sun." Sistine sighed. "It was a wonderful idea, and naturally, I jumped for it. How naive was I.." she trailed off, looking very pensive.

"Well, what happened?" asked Alissa, snapping Sistine out of her reverie. She smiled and continued on with her story.

"Well, for about a hundred years, nothing out of the ordinary happened," Sisitine explained, brushing a strand of hair back. "Both our shops did remarkably well, bringing all types of customers from around Neopia. Happy just running my shop, I failed to notice what type of people were coming to Miss T's shop." Sistine's fair face darkened. "Her customers were of a darker sort. Mercenaries, those in exiles, criminals, even. And she began selling things that were far more darker than what she said she would sell, like that bottle that she's just trapped your friend in." Sistine explained, pointing at the bottle in Alissa's hand.

"I wasn't blind to my sister's shady business forever, though; eventually I realized that she was up to something. So I confronted her, and demanded answers." Sistine sighed. "That was when she revealed her whole plan to me. The apothecaries were just a way for Miss T to bring her minions together and give them the things they needed to help her bring darkness over Faerieland, and perhaps the rest of the world as well. The only reason why she made me open a opposite shop was so that Miss T wouldn't attract any suspicion from the queen.

"After explaining her plan, she unleashed all her dark magic upon Faerieland, and turned it into a place of wickedness and cruelty. There was hardly anywhere in Faerieland that wasn't covered by darkness, except for Queen Fyora's Hidden Tower, the only place powerful enough to withstand Miss T's magic. There, Queen Fyora and myself, along with a few other faeries, hid, waiting for the right moment to strike against Miss T.

"As luck would have it, the time to strike did arise, when Miss T foolishly went off alone to try and destroy the Hidden Tower. It took all of our most powerful magic, but we managed to cripple her magic greatly, and forced her into the alleyway where her shop was. Queen Fyora then sentenced her to solitude, to contemplate her actions against Faerieland. We then wiped every trace of her shop off all the maps of Faerieland, so that no one would find it." Sistine smiled at Alissa.

"Obviously, we were mistaken when we thought that no one would find it," the faerie added. Then, Queen Fyora and Sistine turned to Miss T.

"I am terribly sorry that we must do this, sister," Sistine said. "But we must." Miss T glowered at the sight of the two faeries.

"Fine then," Miss T spat, "Do it, rip my wings off with magic, you pathetic little -- ARRRGGGHH!!!" Miss T cried out as a blast of magic hit her. There was a tremendous cracking noise, a flash of bright light, and then there was silence. Where Miss T had once stood was a bottle with a pulsing gray light inside. Next to that was the shattered bottle that Tera had once been in, with Tera in her full form once more, blinking confusedly. The cloud was no longer purple, too, but its original bright pink shade.

Tera turned and stared wide-eyed at Alissa, obviously stunned that her friend was hovering a foot off the ground.

"What happened?" Tera asked. "All I remember was the smoke that came out of the bottle, then feeling terribly claustrophobic, and now I'm sitting on a cloud, staring at you hovering a foot off the ground!" Alissa laughed.

"It's a long story," the Acara explained. She turned to Queen Fyora and Sistine.

"Uh, could you guys put me down?" asked Alissa. Smiling, Queen Fyora waved her hand, and Alissa was lowered onto the ground. She picked up the bottle containing Miss T and gave it to Queen Fyora.

"So, what are you going to do with Miss T now?" asked Alissa. The Queen frowned.

"I'm not sure," Fyora said picking up the bottle. "We'll probably put her in the royal vault." Sistine spoke up suddenly.

"Which reminds me," the light faerie said, grinning, "you two came here to shop didn't you?" Tera and Alissa nodded.

"Well then," Sistine went on, "If it's all right, your Majesty, I think that after what's happened to them, these girls have earned a trip to, say, the Hidden Tower?" Queen Fyora winked at Sistine.

"You know, I think you have a point there, Sistine..." Fyora agreed, smiling as well. She turned around and began walking. Alissa and Tera stared at each other, then at the Queen's and Sistine's retreating figures.

"Wait a minute!" said Tera, running up to Fyora. "You're serious? We get to shop at the Hidden Tower?"

Fyora nodded. "I am always serious, Miss Tera," the queen replied. Tera broke into a grin.

"Alright!" she cried out happily, "Let's go!" The Kau ran out of the alleyway. Alissa struggled to catch up with her.

"Tera," Alissa panted. "Slow down! You don't even know where the Tower is!" Tera winked at Alissa.

"Well," the Kau said teasingly, "After what happened today, I believe my sense of direction is way than yours!" Laughing, Tera ran off to the Hidden Tower, followed by Alissa.

THE END