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"NO, DAMIYÉ!" shrieked the Uber Dark Faerie's Faerie
Meerca. "DON'T DO IT!"
"Oh, be quiet, you stupid Meerca," she snapped.
The dark magic in her hands grew in size and began to crackle with power. She
brought her hands together and lifted them over her head, in order to catapult
JC, a striped Shoyru and her main annoyance in life, off the cloud of Faerieland.
"You pushed Casidrelle off Faerieland, I will
not let you do the same to me! And I will certainly not let you destroy an innocent
Neopian family who has done nothing to you!" cried the white-winged Shoyru.
"Well, I can't let them survive. After all, if
I cause you to fall, they will be witnesses, and will probably run and
tell Fyora. We can't have that," explained Damiyé condescendingly. "Now, if
you'll excuse me, I have an annoying little brat to knock off this cloud." She
took aim at JC.
"NO!" screamed her Meerca, disentangling herself
from a leg attached to Mysinell, Damiyé's sister, as the Uber Dark Faerie took
aim. "YOU SHALL NOT HARM JADECRYSTAL!"
The ball of crackling dark magic, glowing in
its strange dark way, departed from its creator's hand. Time seemed to move
in slow motion as Damiyé's Meerca pushed the white-winged Shoyru aside and was
hit by the blast herself. She fell slowly and silently, like a drifting leaf,
her wings- the main injured area- damaged beyond repair.
"Curses! Damiyé, can't you see that your stupid
blast cost us our Meerca?" exclaimed Mysinell in fury. When would her sister
learn? Blasting before thinking never helped anyone. She shot a similar blast
at the striped Shoyru, lying in a heap on the edge. JC nimbly leaped out of
the way, and the dark magic continued past her.
"Well, I say we first remove her little
friends and then start on her!" cackled Damiyé madly as she tried to grab the
nearest Shoyru, who happened to be StarSkyFire. She and Mysinell used their
magic to create a floating cage for her siblings and owner, imprisoning them
high in the air. Shaylily, though, flew out as it was forming.
"Forget the others, go for the disco one! That
Shoyru can see the towers!"
But Shaylily seemed to have incredibly quick
reflexes, flying out of the way a spilt second before she was hit. She muttered
something, and the blast simply dissolved instead of continuing on until it
hit the distant side of Terror Mountain.
"You're not touching my family!" she hollered.
The two Dark Faeries glanced briefly at each other, and then nodded.
"Your family will fall from Faerieland, and so
will you and Jadecrystal!"
"I don't think so!" She took out a Shoyru Grappling
Hook from her- wherever pets store their equipped items. Launching it at the
nearest tower, she head a clunk as the hook latched onto something.
Shaylily grabbed JC, and the two Shoyrus climbed
to the top of the Air Tower. A blue haze formed around them, shielding them,
as the disco Shoyru muttered something under her breath. However, it could not
stretch far enough, with the relatively small amount of magic it was allotted,
to accommodate the grappling hook. How long would it be before Damiyé and Mysinell
noticed this and aimed a deadly blast at their support?
Meanwhile, inside the cage, Furbyfun, Aerolani,
Starilya and StarSkyFire watched helplessly as the two Dark Faeries bombarded
the disco and striped Shoyrus with magic. And not just dark magic, either; everything
from a jet of purple fire shot from some kind of water pistol to floating bubbles
of boiling water struck what looked like thin air but was really the Dark Tower.
A sudden realization dawned on StarSkyFire.
"They stole my portable invention kit!" the shadow
inventor yelled. The Baby Fireball by his feet growled.
"What can we do about it? We can't leave the
cage," answered Aerolani as she put a white hand on his dark shoulder.
"No, but Azamanti can. And please take your hand
off me."
"Sorry. How so?" asked the white Shoyru as she
removed her hand.
"He can slip through the bars, and fly over to
wherever they put it. Then, it should be no problem to get back in here."
"Fly? How can a Baby Fireball fly?"
"Remember what Furbyfun told us? Hot air rises.
Azamanti can heat the air underneath him and go soaring through the air."
"What if one of them tries to grab him?"
"They'll get a burned hand." The shadow Shoyru
produced a tiny bottle filled to the top with a bubbling yellow-orange liquid,
although no one was quite sure where he had been holding it.
"Did you get that out of the toilet?" asked Starilya
with disdain.
"No. It's basically fire in liquid form. I call
it fireacid." He gave the little bottle to his Petpet, who poured three drops
on one of the tightly spaced bars and jumped out. There was a barely audible
sizzling sound in the air as Azamanti literally zipped there and back, popping
out of the hole with a slightly singed board game-sized box labeled "Property
of StarSkyFire".
"Good job! Now, let's see what we got in here."
He opened the box.
As all this was going on inside the cage, Shaylily
and JC were in trouble outside it. Damiyé had noticed the exposed grappling
hook, and shouted to Mysinell. Together, the Dark Faeries hit it with raw dark
magic that went off like a fireworks display and knocked them loose.
The event unfolded slowly. First they fell, then
Shaylily grabbed hold of the tower with her wingtips, and JC caught hold of
her friend's feet. The shield had dissipated completely, and was of no help
now.
The Uber Dark Faerie cackled as she aimed at
the two Shoyrus hanging only from the wingtips of Shaylily. The disco Shoyru
whispered to the former pet of Casidrelle, "JC, I'm going to let go. I know
your wings are-"
"They're fine! The magic of Return of a Faerie
cleaned and straightened them as we arrived."
"Well, then, just let go of me and I'll let go
of the tower. Damiyé is aiming at us."
"Okay!" The two let go then, and flew in wild
patterns of swoops and dives to keep away from the horrible rays of dark magic.
As Shaylily hovered for a moment over the bubble,
which was fading, StarSkyFire shouted to her, "Shayster, catch!" and tossed
her a tube of purple fluid.
"What's this?" asked the disco Shoyru as she
snatched it from the air.
"Shielding Pop. Drink it and all magic will bounce
off of you, at least for 24 hours. That's when it wears off," whispered the
shadow Shoyru. He gave another vial to her, for JC.
Shaylily lightly tossed it to the striped Shoyru,
who downed it in one gulp. She drank her own, and the effect was instant. Her
stomach began to fizz and tingle, and she saw that she had a faint orange glow.
"Why are they glowing?" screeched Mysinell. She
sent a beam of purple magic flying at them, but, to her bewilderment and StarSkyFire's
amusement, it bounced off and hit her in the face. The Dark Faerie shrieked
madly, more in anger than pain. She shouted a vile curse at no one in particular,
shocking Starilya.
"Faeries aren't even supposed to know
that kind of language!" she hissed.
"Can you concern yourself more with getting out
of this cage?" asked Furbyfun.
Suddenly, Aerolani's snow-white eyes lit up.
"The cage is made of light!" she exclaimed. "Or, rather, a sort of dark light.
Those Dark Faeries must have quite a bit of power."
"And how exactly does this help us?" asked StarSkyFire
cynically.
"My element is light. I can probably use
light to bend the bars of the cage." She took a deep breath, and began to glow.
No particular colour; just bright, pure white. The white Shoyru stepped through
the wall, and, hovering outside, bent the bars enough for two Shoyrus and an
owner to get out. The glow faded, and she flew down to gently land on the cloud.
Her brother and sister followed, and their winged owner flew out last.
Knowing that trying to sneak over to the tower
would be no use, they ran to Fyora's tower, simply guessing where it was, with
their arms out so as not to break noses when they did find the tower.
Suddenly, they found it, in a quite comical manner. First, Starilya slammed
into it, then Furbyfun, her momentum a bit too much, crashed into her. Aerolani
and StarSkyFire slowed down, but, inches from the tower, they tripped over Fyora's
front porch and fell over.
The white Shoyru, on top of her brother, stepped
gingerly onto the invisible porch. She blindly knocked on what seemed to be
nothing but was actually the Faerie Queen's front door.
Fyora stepped out, and there were two Shoyrus,
opposite in color and element. She looked over their heads to see the two Dark
Faeries dueling with Shaylily and JC, having what would have been a full-scale
Battledome match if they were in the Battledome instead of on the open cloud.
"Leave them alone!" shouted the Faerie Queen.
Damiyé and Mysinell, startled by the way their captives had escaped and alerted
the Queen, lowered their blasting hands.
"Guards! Escort these two to the Dark Tower,"
she said calmly, and a pair of muscular Faerie Lupes marched out of her royal
residence and took hold of the Dark Faeries. They took them to the Dark Tower,
which looked like nothing in particular to Furbyfun and all her pets but Shaylily-
and JC, if she counted as a pet.
It seemed to be over, but there was still some
activity left for the harried group.
To be continued...
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