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"I-I don't understand," said Nate, looking at all of
the potions around him. Sven's eyes narrowed and he swam to the top shelf,
"Does this look familiar?" the Krawk hissed.
He tossed Nate a small bottle with blue liquid inside. Nate caught it and examined
it. It was a replica of the potion he had drank to become a Maraquan Kougra…
the potion that Annah and Kylie had given him.
"Nooooooo!" he yelled. "Annah and Kylie deceived
me!"
"It's not that they deceived you," Sven corrected,
"the Neopets down here are different from those who walk on land. With Maraqua,
our beloved home gone, there are few of us…" Nate was still looking at the bottle
but when Sven cleared his throat, Nate gave him his rapt attention, "and since
there are so little of us…they are lonely."
Nate was outraged, "Lonely or not, they made
me think that I could live down here and survive!" He slammed the bottle against
the wall and it shattered, causing the blue liquid to ooze down. Sven winced,
but he did not go to retrieve the shards of glass or clean up the mess. Instead
his crooked smile widened and he circled the Kougra.
"They need friends to make themselves happy,"
said Sven.
"But I'm not happy. And I would be if I wasn't
down here anymore. Down in the darkness like some homeless Neopet. Why, I…"
Nate stopped abruptly. He was a homeless Neopet now. Forcing him not to think
about that, he asked Sven, "How long have you been making these?"
"For a while. Ever since our kind disappeared."
"But convincing innocent Neopets to turn Maraquan
so they can have friends is wrong! You can't just go around making magical potions
and having us drink them!" Nate yelled.
"The sea is big, you know. And it has many traps.
No place in this world is safe," Sven replied and he turned away, focusing on
the bottles.
There is one place that's safe… Nate thought
miserably, Home. With Melody. A full day had passed and he hadn't thought
about her at all. Not until now. She would have been feeding him and reading
him his favorite Kougra stories right before bed. But now he was trapped inside
this Maraquan body and angry. He missed her kindness to him and how she said
that she loved him and that she always would.
She must have known. Melody did know that Nate
was playing on those rocks. That's why she warned me, Nate thought, And
I wish I would've listened. Before he could stop himself he started to cry.
Huge sobs shook his body and the tears blended with the water around him. He
didn't care that Sven was still present. He swam over to a corner and covered
his head with his paws.
Nate felt the slight movement of the current;
someone was swimming into the cave. Nate hid himself behind a large rock and
watched Sven swim to the entrance.
"Hello, old friend," Sven greeted someone in
an unusually pleasant voice.
"Sven, nice to see you again…" Nate caught a
glimpse of the Neopet as it shook hands with Sven. It was large and green and
had two vast tentacles sprouting from its head. Its eyes were yellow and bubbly.
It had tentacles for limbs and webbing between its ears. This Neopet made Sven
look like a prince. Its face was squashed like he had been smashed into a stone.
Despite his small mouth, his voice was loud and booming. He looked like a Neopet
that would do great in the Battledome.
"What can I do for you, Rayzi?" asked Sven.
"I talked to a Mynci today near Mystery Island.
She needs one of your potions." He chuckled as if it were some joking matter.
"She seems nice and I think she'd make a great addition.
How in the world could this guy talk about
an innocent Neopet as an addition? Nate thought, and he felt furious. He
growled, and the Neopet's ugly head peeked around his hiding place. Nate though
that it resembled an Acara.
"Who do we have here?" Rayzi asked. "Sven, who's
this young fellow?"
"An acquaintance of mine. Nothing more," said
Sven, giving Nate a look that said plainly: Don't mess with this guy. Sven swam
over to Rayzi and said casually, "His name's Nate."
Rayzi thought about it, as if considering Nate's
name. Nate would have said something about Rayzi, but since he didn't trust
Sven yet, he didn't want to be an annoyance. He didn't say anything and waited
for Rayzi to speak.
"New to these parts?" Nate nodded. "Good. The
more of us the better." Nate wanted to disagree, but again, he said nothing.
Rayzi turned his attention back to Sven. "So, about the Mynci potion?"
"Right," Sven hissed and he swam to the farthest
shelf and removed a bottle filled with pink liquid. Rayzi thanked him, and Sven
bowed dramatically as his friend turned to go.
"Wait!" cried Nate. Rayzi turned and looked at
him, perplexed. Nate swam out from behind the rock and took a deep breath, "I
won't let you leave with that."
Rayzi stared at Nate. His cold yellow eyes burned
into Nate like lasers. Nate stared back at him, wondering what Rayzi was going
to do.
"Of course I can," Rayzi said at last. He turned
to go, but Nate was quick, so he swam in front of him blocking Rayzi's only
exit. Rayzi's eyes narrowed, "Move out of the way."
"No."
"I said move!"
"NO!"
Rayzi grabbed Nate's shoulder with one of the
tentacles sprouting from his head, holding the Maraquan Mynci Morphing Potion
in his free tentacle. He slammed Nate into the stonewall, making Sven's bottles
rattle on the shelves. Nate swiped the Acara's ugly face with his front paw,
making Rayzi yell in agony and drop the potion. Nate pushed Rayzi into the shelves,
causing several bottles to collide and shatter. Sven cried frantically and tried
to catch the falling bottles.
"Let me go, fool!" Rayzi shouted at Nate, wrapping
his tentacles around Nate's neck.. Nate slipped out of his reach and was about
to veer out of the way of the potions, but Rayzi's tentacles seized his tail
and flung him against the wall…Sven screamed and tried to stop the bottles that
were slowly sliding off their shelves.
"Enough!" shouted Rayzi, and he swam angrily
from the cave. "I'll come back later, Sven, I can get the Mynci to wait longer…"
with an evil grin he slipped from Sven's cave.
Both Nate and Sven were breathing hard. Nate
sank back against the wall, only to be yanked up by Sven.
"See what you did?" he roared and he flung himself
at the glass on the floor. "My beautiful potions…gone!"
"Nate?"
Nate spun around to find a Maraquan Aisha watching
him-Kylie, with Annah close behind. They swam over to him, "Nate, what happened?"
"You!" Nate exploded at Kylie, "This is all your
fault! I'm stuck like this and it's all because you convinced me to drink that
potion! I can't believe I trusted you, why, I ought to…"
Kylie's eyes widened with sorrow, "Nate, I'm
sorry. Annah and I just wanted a…"
"A friend, I know. But I had friends back in
Neopia, too. People who cared about me. Like Melody," Nate said angrily, "get
out! Just leave me alone!"
Annah swam forward and put her fin on Nate's
shoulder, "I'm sorry, Nate. We thought that your life would be better in the
sea. I'm sorry we caused you all this. Are you still our friend?"
"I told you to leave me alone. I am not your
friend. I was never your friend," Nate chased them out of the cave, "Stay away
from me!" His voice cracked, "I don't want you as a friend!"
Kylie gasped and fled through the darkness. Annah
gave him a sorrowful look then reluctantly followed Kylie. "I understand," she
whispered back to him. "We'll never see you again."
When Nate got back into the cave, Sven was still
looking around at the mess all over his home… the broken shelves, the glass
and the liquids that filled the bottles… it looked like a whirlpool came through
here.
Nate started his apology, "Sven, I'm sorry, I
really didn't mean to do all of this. But… turning Neopets Maraquan just for
their friendship is wrong. I understand that you're lonely, but what you're
doing is not the answer to your loneliness." Sven barred his teeth and said
sarcastically, "Thanks for the advice!"
"At first I did want to be Annah and Kylie's
friend," Nate continued. "They told me that I was a good friend, and that I
would love it down here in the sea. The also said that I was such a kind person
for befriending Maraquan Neopets…"
Sven's eyes stabbed at Nate, "I don't care what
they told you! You destroyed our hopes of ever finding more of us! I have to
make everything from scratch again!" As he was talking, his leering face made
Nate back up all the way until he was out of the cave and falling down into
the black. "Now let me give you some advice," yelled Sven. The last thing he
heard the Krawk say was, "Never trust a Maraquan Neopet!"
To be continued...
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