This story is dedicated to the loving memory of SnowOhki
Who was taken by an owner from the pound
While trying to be sent to a certain account.
May your new owner treat you well,
You shall be missed.
Episode I: Heroes Meet Again!
Maybe you remember me, maybe you don't. I'm Brad, the person who
saved Neopia from the sorceress named Kisei, along with my friends
Ryo, Willie, Kage, and their NeoPets. Along the line we met Sakari, who, although
unable to help us, proved to be a great friend. Almost a year has passed since
then, and we have yet to travel back to Neopia. But that day is approaching
fast, and we'll have yet another task to complete...
***
Oh come on, get me out of here! I thought to myself as I sat in my
seat in math class. Yes, boring school. Something I did not miss much when I
was in Neopia on my summer vacation. "Quadrilaterals, perpendiculars, square
roots, this stuff makes no sense!" I muttered to myself as I tried to pencil
all the answers in. And then, the school bell went. The good news was that school
was over. The bad news was it wouldn't be a very good test mark. Oh well, nothing
new. I hastily ran out of the building, leaving any trace of homework behind,
jumped on my bike, and began riding home. Luckily, I lived just up the road,
so it didn't take long for me to back in my building and into my room.
"What a day... mum's not gonna be happy when she sees my test scores... then
again, she's never happy with anything about me!" I was quickly logged onto
to NeoPets(which was always my top priority), when I heard my phone ringing.
I picked it up, and to my surprise, it was Sakari.
"Sakari! Wow... this must be costing you a lot on long distance."
"Well, hello to you to Brad."
"Eh heh... sorry."
"Hey Brad, would you be interested in coming to Japan for a reunion? Everyone
else is gonna be here next Saturday!"
"It'd be great to see the group again! And I got the cash, but I'm not sure
if mum will let me travel halfway across the world. But, I'll see what I can
do."
"Great! Be sure to call me back ASAP, okay?"
"I will, Sakari. Bye." I really wanted to go. But it wasn't going to be easy
to let mum let me travel from Canada to Japan. And she wouldn't believe I saved
another world, so I needed a good reason. I picked up the phone and called mum,
who was at a friend's. I could've waited until she got home, but... nah.
"Hey mum? Laura's family is going camping next week, and I wanna go with them!
Can I?" Laura was my best friend, and I figured she'd have no objection. And
I was right. I hung up on her before she could even finish saying yes, booked
my tickets, and called back Sakari to confirm the reunion. I was going to Japan,
and I'd be able to see the friends I've missed for so long!
***
The week had passed by very quickly. In fact, the flight I took to Japan was
just about to land in Tokyo. It had been quite a long flight, and I couldn't
wait to see my friends. I had ended up getting a later flight than the others,
so we had all decided to meet at Sakari's house, which was relatively close
to the airport. And then the strangest thing happened. My NeoP0rt went off.
I didn't understand it, I wasn't in Neopia. The scanner was pointing right to
my left. And when I turned my head that way to look out the window, I couldn't
believe what I saw. A NeoP0rtal opening up, with a menacing looking Zafara halfway
through it. But, he was quickly sucked back in, and the portal closed.
Did anyone else see that? I wondered to myself. It had happened quite quickly,
maybe nobody had noticed. If someone did see it, it would probably be reported
to all the government agencies, and Neopia might be found. What a relief it
was to realise we were landing.
It was a pretty smooth landing, but when I got into the airport I was overwhelmed
by the crowds. I heard Tokyo was populated, but this was insane. I had to force
my way just to make it to my luggage. I finally grabbed it, and made it my duty
to get out of this airport as fast as I could. And after about walking around
for an hour or so, I finally made it to the streets of Tokyo. It was still pretty
crowded, but at least it was out in the open. And then, another appearance of
a NeoPet occurred. I looked up on a massive digital TV screen and saw an Ager.
It then changed back to its regular advertisements.
How come nobody else noticed that? At least a hundred people were looking
at it! I had to come to the conclusion that nobody really noticed it as out
of the ordinary, as they all probably didn't know what NeoPets was, or simply
thought it was an ad for NeoPets. As long as nobody panicked, all was well.
After about 20 minutes, I found myself at Sakari's doorstep. I knocked on the
door, and a woman in her early thirties answered.
"Hello. You must be Brad, right?" the woman asked me.
"Um, yeah, that's me. Are Sakari and the others here?" I found my heart beating
very fast. Perhaps it was the anticipation of seeing all my friends again.
"Yes, the others are out back. Here, right this way." She guided me through
the house and into the backyard, where everyone was waiting for me. Kage, Ryo,
Sakari, Willie, they were all there. The funny thing was, they hadn't noticed
yet. So I yelled out, "BOO!" and they all jumped up.
"Brad! There you are!" Sakari yelled, and almost tackled me to the ground.
"Don't get excited Brad, she did the same to all the rest of us," said Ryo.
"Hey, let him enjoy it. I did," said Willie.
"Willie, you're sick. Just plain sick," said Kage. Willie nodded in compliance.
It was so great to see them all again, none of them had changed. Especially
Willie. He was just as sick and dull as ever.
"It's nice to see you all again," I said, "but I need to talk to you about
something." When my face turned serious, the others seemed to look worried.
"Uh Brad... what's up?" Sakari asked me.
"Well... two NeoPet related incidents happened on my way here. One was when
I saw a NeoP0rtal open in the sky, with a Zafara half out of it. The second
one was when I saw an Ager appear on one of those big TVs out in the city."
They all looked at me in disbelief.
"By the way you described it," said Sakari, "it almost sounds like they were
passing through to our world." We all gasped. "Hey, calm down everyone, it was
just a theory! Maybe just some stray ones in the Internet." We all had nothing
to believe.
"I hope you're right Sakari. If the NeoPets find a way to get through to our
world... there could be problems."
"Big problems," Sakari said. "For one thing, how would I explain this to the
people that make the NeoPets site?" We all laughed.
"That's something I wanted to know. How does the NeoPets site connect to the
real Neopia, like, you know, feeding, Battledome, etc.," I asked.
"Like I stated before, part of Neopia is data. When the staff isn't around,
I check out all the scripts on the site to make sure they're connected to Neopia."
It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so I just smiled and nodded.
"Hey, what are we hangin around here for?" Willie asked to know particular
person. "This is a reunion, we need to get in some partying or something! Sakari,
don't you have any friends we can get to throw a party or something?" We all
sighed. Willie had definitely not changed.
"Well, I might have some..." Just then all of our NeoP0rts went off. We looked
behind us to see a NeoP0rtal opening.
"I knew it! I told you guys!" I yelled.
"This is impossible!" Sakari exclaimed. "I haven't been able to make a new
NeoP0rt that could open NeoP0rtals yet! So where is this thing coming from!?"
We were all at a loss for words. I wondered that if there was one here, could
there be others all over the world? There was no way we could fight a NeoPet,
we needed ours with us.
Episode II: Can We Find Our Way?
The NeoP0rt fully opened, and that same weird looking Zafara. It only made
it a little bit out before being sucked back into the portal.
"Now do you see what I was talking about?" I asked them. They all nodded.
"Well, while we're on the subject of NeoPets... I created a new version of
the NeoP0rts! Come on, I can get them for you in my room!" She ran into the
house, and we all followed.
***
"Ugh... too much pink and purple," said Ryo as we walked into Sakari's room.
"Oh put a negg in it. You won't be seeing it too long," Sakari said.
"But I will be seeing it many times to come," said Willie. Sakari slapped
him upside the head.
"Yeah right. Like I'd really go for you, William," she said, mocking him.
"Especially when I have these three." She laughed.
"Hey, didn't we come in here for a reason?" I asked, trying to get off the
subject before Willie hurt one of us (probably me, Ryo would destroy him, and
Kage... well.).
"Yeah, that's right," said Kage. "I'd be interested in seeing the new NeoP0rts.
Hey, what are they called?"
"NeoP0rt Version 2s. Or, you can call them ZeroV2s. Or just NeoP0rts. Or...
Well, you see where I'm going with this," Sakari said. I never realised how
much she talked. I felt like putting a sock in her mouth. But, using a more
polite method, we all nodded and hoped she would stop. "Hey Brad, give me your
NeoP0rt." I handed it to her, and she hooked it up to her computer. She then
put an Red Rom, and my NeoP0rt started to glow. It then morphed into a new type,
with rearranged buttons, bigger screen, more menus, and a weird tray and slot
on the left side that looked like something you would swipe a credit card through.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Isn't it obvious? It's a floppy disc drive!" It looked nothing like a floppy
disc drive. "I see you don't understand. I was able to make it so that instead
of being inserted, loading, and ejecting, you could swipe it through, it would
open the slot, read the data, all while it's in your hand. I'm not sure exactly
what I can do with the Disc Swiper yet, but I'm testing it's capabilities."
All the others held out their NeoP0rts, hoping to keep her busy. But she finished
converting them all too soon.
"Wow, these are cool!" exclaimed Kage. "I wonder if we'll ever be able to
get back to Neopia..."
"Don't worry," said Sakari. "I'm working really hard on getting back there.
I want to return to Neopia too. We'll see them all again someday. In fact, maybe
I'll do some work on the program now." She opened up a menu, filled with 1s
and 0s. She began busily typing away. Just then, the screen turned blue. "Bullseye!"
She downloaded the program's data to floppies, and gave one to each of us. "Everyone,
swipe away! Time to activate those things!" We all took the discs and swiped
them through. They all reacted to the light coming from the screen. At last,
we were going to return to Neopia.
"Get ready everyone! Here we go!" Kage yelled. And before we knew it, we found
ourselves... in a world of darkness? When we all regained our balance, we found
ourselves to be surrounded in darkness.
"Hey Sakari... you sure you got that code right?" Willie asked.
"I'd doubt it," she replied. It looked like the Internet, but all the binary
codes and file extensions floating around were missing.
"Everyone, check their NeoP0rts!" I said. I looked at my NeoP0rt. Apparently
Sakari had reworked it a bit. It took me a while to find it. "Location: Unknown,
[??]-[??]: ????" Well, that was helpful. Then, something unexpected happened.
Kage fell to the ground, just for no apparent reason.
"The Darkness... this is what I did to those NeoPets... the power from this
place is what I used to turn them into Darkness NeoPets!" Kage was in an insane
fit. It took my mind a while to comprehend what he meant, which my mind did
with most things. But then it hit me. This was where Kage had drawn the evil
powers that he had used to turn the NeoPets against all good.
"Hey, everyone register this place in their NeoP0rts as the World of Apocaly,"
Sakari commanded at us. She carefully explained to us how to register new locations,
which took a little extra care for poor William.
"Hey Kage, you seem to know more about this place than anyone. How do we get
out of here?" I asked. Kage was still a little freaked out, but was able to
give us some straight answers.
"I was the one who harnessed this power, which is what gives me my amazing
strength. I have diminished most of it's evil, but some of it still remains.
As for getting out of here, I can rip a hole like I did with the Ethereal Plains."
Kage put his hands out, and we saw a massive portal starting to open. "Everyone
jump through, I can't hold it much longer!" We all ran through, and I looked
behind me to see Kage jump through just as it closed. We emerged in an arctic
plain, where the air was bitter cold. I took out my NeoP0rt.
"Let's see here... Location: Neopia, [06]-[39]: Terror Mountain." I had no
idea what the numbers were for, but I didn't want Sakari talking anymore. I
would ask her later. "Come on guys, get your faces off the cold ground... where's
Sakari!?" They all got up at my desperate call. I saw her come through, she
came through before me!
"What do you mean!? Did we lose her!?" Ryo looked extremely worried, and so
did the rest of us. Just then, I heard a muffled screaming coming from behind
me. I turned around to see Sakari tied to an ice spire 20 feet in the air.
"Sakari!" I yelled out, as I ran towards the spire. She tried to reply, but
her mouth was taped up. Just then, I heard an icecicle shatter near by. Then,
I saw some ice moving on the ground. Something big was coming. And, as I looked
into the distance, six Snow Agers came into view. "Guys, Agers on the move over
here!" I looked up back at Sakari, she was shaking her legs wildly. Then, a
floppy disc fell out of her pocket onto the ground. I picked it up, it was labelled
"Auto-NeoPet Alert." I didn't have any other ideas, so I slashed it through.
Nothing. Great.
"Guys, what are we going to do!?" Willie exclaimed. "Kage is the only person
here that can fight those things!" I heard a faint, "Thanks a lot," which I
was sure came from Kage. Just then, I saw something that I couldn't believe.
A piece of ground beneath one of the Agers was scorched away. Just then, Ritsuzen
appeared from behind the creature.
"Long time no see!" he yelled. Just then, all the others appeared behind him.
Orichalkon, Cubix, SnowOhki, and Ritsuzen, they were all there.
"There'll be time for reunions later! Let's beat these things!" I took out
my NeoP0rt. I just hoped we weren't out of practice. "Let's go Orichalkon! Level
3 NeoWeapon activate!" Orichalkon responded by firing the energy cannon of Genshihou.
Another Ager was taken down, leaving four more. The others got their NeoP0rts
ready.
"Not so fast!" a voice yelled at us. We looked up at the top of the cliff
to see a boy holding out a NeoP0rt, a different model than all of ours. "NeoP0rt
Disrupter activate!" He yelled. Just then, all of our NeoP0rts went dead. The
screens turned off, nothing on them worked. "Let's see you save your friend
now!"
Kage ran up to the spire, jumped up to the full height of where Sakari was
restrained, cut the ropes with a dagger, and got her back down to the ground,
all in a matter of seconds.
"Thank you," Sakari said as she gasped for air after having the tape removed.
The boy just glared at us evilly. Then a smile slid over his face, oddly.
"You surprise me, but I'm far from finished! Capture activate!" An energy
net came out of the boy's NeoP0rt and surrounded our NeoPets. They were rendered
defenceless! And as the Agers got ever closer, things weren't looking too good
for us. No NeoP0rts, no NeoPets, and a maniac that was out of control. We were
in big trouble.
To be continued... | 
