With help from muffinman77
VIRTUPETS SPACE STATION - Almost every Neopian knows the name of Dr. Frank
Sloth, but they do not know the inside story. They do not know the names of
the two conflicts he created, and the peaceful alien planet that he enslaved.
My two Neopets, Anthem and TheGoldenSoljaJr, and I decided to take a closer
look at the doings of the evil Doctor.
Sloth first entered Neopia in the Year 2, and launched his giant Space Station
into orbit. There he transformed all of the captive Grundos into tools of war.
His ramblings about VirtuPets were all a lie, they were merely the designs of
what the Neopets would look like after he transmogrificated them. He pointed
his massive laser at Neopia, and all of our faithful pets were saying their
prayers when the Space Faerie put an end to his plans. It looked like the end
for Dr. Sloth, but he managed to get away, not to be seen for another two years.
In Year 4, Sloth returned after he had rebuilt his army to the newly found
commonwealth of the Lost Desert. He found the Great Staff locked away in the
Pyramid, and walked down to Sakhmet to destroy all that lay before him. Luckily,
Brucey B was able to rouse up enough troops to defeat Sloth before he took over
Neopia. Lucky is right, if Sloth had had enough time to regenerate the Rock
Beast who knows what might have happened? So Sloth fled once again, maybe not
to be seen for years.
But where is he now? Has he given up? Or is he just biding his time, waiting
for us to lower our defences? Well, the only way to find out is to interview
the people who had come in contact with Sloth personally. We knew no one who
had ever come in contact with Sloth and lived to tell the tale. Then it hit
us- Brucey B! But where was Brucey B? All we knew about him is that he was a
famous Cheat champion. We looked into the records, but the last game he had
played was the contest that he won the Lucky Coin in. So we did a little snooping.
We figured he would probably be living in the Lost Desert as have saved it from
mortal peril. So we took a shuttle down and landed on the outskirts of Sakhmet.
We asked around and they said that Brucey lived up in the Royal Palace with
the Queen as a reward for saving their city.
There would be one problem. Perhaps we were not admitted to the Palace? They
would probably be very strict on security after the King was murdered. But my
Eyrie, TheGoldenSoljaJr, came up with an idea that blew us away. We would paint
Anthem, my Chia, Desert coloured and he would sneak in the Palace and pretend
to be Brucey's new servant. Well, we supposed that this idea wasn't worth a
beheading, so we set it as a last resort. We marched up to the palace gates
the next day and asked if we could be admitted to question Brucey B. And of
course, they said no and shook a long spear under our noses. So we put TheGoldenSolja's
plan to work.
We went to a Paint Brush shop in Sakhmet, and bought a Desert Paintbrush for
99,999 NP. And went to the Desert Rainbow Pool to get him painted. After that,
we bugged him so that we could hear any conversations that he had with anyone
else. We sent him to the palace gate and TheGoldenSolja and I hid behind a large
rock, watching to see what happened. Anthem went up to the guards and told him
that he was Brucey B's new servant and that he should start tending to him immediately.
They let him in and we could hear him walking down a large hall, then walking
up a staircase, and entering a room. We heard him call out 'Brucey?' and he
told Brucey B that he was his new servant. The following interview is that of
Brucey and Anthem.
Anthem: Sire, down on the street yesterday I heard that you saved the
Lost Desert from Dr. Sloth a couple months ago. I was wondering if this was
true?
Brucey: Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Me and my friends Capara and
Princess Fernypoo found the Lost Desert in search of my Lucky Coin. We saw what
Sloth was doing and decided to help fight his army. We won in the end, but Sloth
escaped.
Anthem: Tell me about when you saw Sloth, when you lunged at him for
your coin.
Brucey: Well, I can admit, he is pretty ugly. He's got this big disgusting
green face, and these little tentacle things coming out of his head. He's really
tall, and always wears this long black cloak. When I attacked him, his hands
felt like big scabs. He pulled away and I grabbed my coin from his pocket. He
dropped the Great Staff, so he couldn't recreate the Rock Beast as he planned.
He fled, leaving his army behind. I guess he's out there, waiting for his powers
to regenerate.
Anthem: That's all I wanted to know! Thanks, bye!
Brucey: I thought you were my servant! Guards!
So Anthem had to sprint through the palace, nearly colliding with Queen Vyssa
and throwing several senators flying. He ran past our rock and we congratulated
him as we took off for our shuttle on TheGoldenSoljaJr's back. We reached the
shuttle and surprisingly, we made it back to our hotel room in the Space Station
safely. That was the last time we could ever go back to the Lost Desert. So
now we knew what Sloth was like, and one theory of where he was. Some of the
residents of Sakhmet who had fought in the battle said they saw Sloth's capsule
heading toward a red moon in the northern skies, but when we looked for records
on it, we found none.
We were back to point one. When we were walking to the cafe for breakfast
the next day however, we stumbled onto an important clue, literally. Anthem
had jogged ahead and tripped on a loose bolt holding the floor together. He
fell headfirst down a ventilation shaft, and we thought he was a goner. We called
his name and he said 'Hey! I found something! Someone pull me up!'. I sent TheGoldenSolja
to the Battledome Store across the hall to get a rope and he came back holding
one in his beak. We lowered it and pulled Anthem out of the dark crevasse.
The thing he had in his hand looked like a faded piece of paper. He handed
it to me and I read the faded words:
Come See the Fascinating Spider Grundo -
Sloth's Latest Creation!
Located in scenic Sector 49, the Spider Grundo
in by far the most gruesome thing you'll ever experience!
If you don't like Spyders, then don't come and see!
What could this mean? I had heard of Sector 49, it was an old abandoned zone
where all of the entertainment used to be held for Sloth's army of Mutant Grundo's.
I decided that we should go down and investigate, maybe the Spider Grundo could
tell us about Sloth, if it was still there.
The next morning we used the elevator to go down to Sector 49, but an automatic
locking system locked the door of the elevator so we could not get in. The flimsy
sheet metal was no match for TheGoldenSoljaJr's Grand Lightning Beam, it bent
away as though it was paper. We stepped out into the dank, dark room and I lit
a candle. I found a power switch and turned the light on. What we saw shocked
us after that. There was a gigantic web from the ceiling which rose over a hundred
feet to the floor. In the middle of the web was the horrible Spider Grundo.
It had eight long, green legs and two piercing red eyes. It had two huge pincers
as a mouth, which were a purple colour. We tried our best with the interview.
Superblitz268(sb): S-So, you're t-the Spider Grundo?
Spider Grundo: Yes, I am. Welcome to my lair. I was originally put here
to guard a stash of Dr. Sloth's secret files and potions, but he later used
me as entertainment for his army of stupid, slobbering Grundos.
SB: How did y-you get this way?
Spider Grundo: Sloth did a bunch of experiments on me and other Neopets,
looking for some kind of superweapon. It never worked, so he had to settle with
the Grundos and Clones.
SB: Okay, what h-happened to all of the secret files?
Spider Grundo: Sloth took them after he was defeated by the Space Faerie.
After that, most of the army was destroyed so I remained down here, forgotten
and friendless.
SB: Where did he make you?
Spider Grundo: Some place on Terror Mountain. There was a basement lab
and everything. It was disguised as a simple Ski
Lodge, but it wasn't. He moved me here after the Neopets Team bought
it. They never found the lab though, at least I don't think they did. That's
where he made all of the Transmogrification Potions and tested them on pets.
SB: Oh, okay. Well, we best be going...
Spider Grundo: Oh no you're not.
SB: Why not?
Spider Grundo: I haven't eaten in soooooooo long. You don't think I'd
let you just slip through my pincers, did you?
We managed to escape by running to the elevator and pounding on the UP button,
although Anthem did get slimed by some sticky secretion from the Spider Grundo's
mouth.
Now we knew one more thing. So, of course, the next day we loaded up our shuttle
and landed on a launch pad on Terror Mountain. We saw the Ski Lodge looming
in the darkness above. We walked up to the door, but it was locked. I sent my
two pets to search the outside of the house, and TheGoldenSoljaJr found a door
to a basement on the right side.
I picked the lock on the door and we descended the stairs. When we reached
the bottom, we gazed at what was Dr. Frank Sloth's secret lab. There were criotubes
each holding a preserved mutant lining the ceiling. It was so horrible, I told
Anthem to go and wait by the landing while me and TheGoldenSoljaJr searched.
I found a stash of Transmogrification Potions in a cupboard by the entrance.
TheGoldenSoljaJr, however, found something of much more relevance. He found
a pile of papers with the ingredients of all of the Transmogrification Potions
on it, even the recently made ones, which means that the lab had been entered
since then. But, the one thing that puzzled us the most was an insignia, but
it wasn't just any insignia. It was the shape of a moon, and the colour was,
red. Just like the red moon that the Sakhmetians had described Sloth's getaway
shuttle aiming for.
As you may have seen in my last article,
I sum up all of my information in the last paragraph. But this is not so this
time. All of the information I have collected is to shrouded in mystery, and
although the information provided by Brucey B and the Spider Grundo seems genuine,
it may not be. And what about this red moon? What significance does it have
with Dr. Sloth? Is it the location of his new empire, where he will unleash
his wrath once again? Only time will tell, until then, this is Neopian Times
Reporter Superblitz268, signing off.
Thanks to muffinman77
for help with the theme and plot with my article, and future articles. | 
