| Also by luvinnemiousis
Evil Incarnate
Thunder boomed so loud I was nearly knocked out of the
sky late on the night that trouble came about. Dripping wet, cold and miserable,
I shouldered the door open to our two-story house. By our, I mean Luvinnemiousis
and mine. My name is Alkuna.
A short time ago we were turned into Neopets
and pulled through our computers and into the world of Neopia. We had a big
battle with the Dark Faerie, along with many other owners who had also been
trapped in Neopet form. We won, thankfully, and for leading the battles, we
were dubbed the Guardians of Neopia by the Faerie Queen herself. After our war
with the Dark Faerie, Luvin and I pitched our Neopoints together to buy ourselves
a nice big house to put all of our pets in. But I'm getting distracted....
Luvin jogged in quickly and threw a towel over
my shoulders as I reverted to my human form and made for the bathroom. I could
tell she wanted to know what I had scouted out on this night but first things
first. I had to get warm. A quick hot shower and some dry clothes later I squeezed
in between Alkuna (my Lupe named after me) and Mercolagos and yielded my lap
to my Poogle, Vhai. LaCody, my other Gelert, trotted over and placed her chin
on my knees.
"Any sign?" Luvin asked me.
I shook my head, "Dark, rain and wet plants.
Not that I expected to really see anything in this kind of weather anyway..."
Something laughed hollowly in the darkness of
the hallway. My Lupe, Alkuna, sprang to her feet in an instant, always ready
for a rough fight with intruders. I put my hand on her shoulder to restrain
her as a softly glowing Lupe walked slowly out of the hall and into the dim
living room.
"Really... you would think the Guardians of
Neopia would have something better to do then chase around some petty pant devil
that took off with somebody's bike," the Ghost Lupe sneered, "Or coming after
me just because I chased a Chia around in his home...leave that to the newbies
who want to show off to everyone else as the Defenders of Neopia. I have something
far more challenging, and it's what you're supposed to be doing anyway..."
Alkuna pulled away from me, and the two slowly
circled one another as he talked. Alkuna was stiff legged and glaring while
the Ghost Lupe was lazy and sneering in contempt at her.
"And just what does the Ghost Lupe know that
is so important?" Luvin asked, raising an eyebrow, "Surely he has better houses
to haunt than a house where no one is afraid of him."
The Ghost Lupe glared at her, "You're right,
normally I do, but since I'm out to save my own phantom tail here in the deal
I just thought I might enlist some help okay?"
"Save your own tail? What could a long dead
spook possibly be afraid of? Surely there can't be much that can hurt the already
dead." I walked over to the creature and knelt down a little ways away.
The GL shuddered, "Nasty nasty creatures. More
alive. Far more powerful than the tame annoyances you see in the city that just
yank some money from your purse. I'm talking about Wraiths... The undead shadows
of evil that only faintly represent the living warm bodied creatures they once
were."
"Wraith as in a ghost? I'm a little lost. I
thought you said our ghosts are minor."
He looked quickly at me, "They are. I'm talking
about the big Kahunas of the undead. You ever feel the touch of the undead,
girl?" he demanded.
Before I could answer his put his paw right
through my arm. I gasped and jerked my arm back, feeling like I had dipped my
arm into a bucket of ice slush. "Brrrr."
"Exactly. Now imagine what would happen if something
undead decided to kill you instead of making you cold," he locked eyes with
me. "Wraiths are just cold. All they do is suck the heat out of your body. It's
possible to survive that...if you're lucky and the thing is distracted or if
you get immediate medical attention." He shuddered again, "But they're worse
for the already dead. They absorb ghosts and creatures like me and make us part
of them. For every one of us they get, the Wraith gets larger, stronger...and
more evil."
"HIIIIIISSSSSS-SSSSSSS"
A sound somewhere between oil hitting a hot
pan and a really mad Aisha hissing filled the room. The Ghost Lupe's eyes widened
in terror as a thing of pure darkness oozed under the door and reared up before
him. With a howl of terror the GL leaped through the back wall and vanished,
his echoing howls faded...leaving us alone with it.
The Wraith hissed again and oriented on me,
since I was the closest. I lunged to the side and barely missed getting hit
by the thing. The wooden floor crackled, and a sheet of ice was left on the
floor where it had been.
Luvin grabbed my arm and hauled me over the
back of the couch as the thing oriented again.
"Run!" I shouted at my pets, and there was a
scramble for the doorway. They knew we could fight to protect ourselves.
We morphed into our pet forms and screamed battle
cries at the Wraith. It answered with its own hissing roar and blasted our fur
and feathers with cold.
A head formed from the pool of darkness, looking
something like a Scorchio. But the head was all there was. The rest was just
a cloud of darkness. It passed over a table, leaving a sheet of ice wherever
it went like some sort of ice slug.
Luvin, in the form of a faerie Kougra, grabbed
her million-degree sword from its sheath on the fireplace mantle and drew it,
ready to fight ice with fire. Heat rolled off of the weapon in waves, warming
us a little, even though the room itself was getting unbearably cold.
I grabbed my own weapons, which I had acquired
after the whole Dark Faerie battle, a pair of fine chain mail gauntlets armed
with sharp steel claws that fit over my natural ones. I had every elemental
power at my call when I wore these. Now I charged up with Light magic. I hated
fighting, but there were times when it was necessary.
The Wraith lunged at us, engulfing us both in
its terrible cold. I screamed and heard Luvin do the same next to me. Desperate
for air in the suffocating cold, I fought to take a breath to activate my abilities.
Then Luvin gasped out "Sun Ray" and released
her ability through her sword. Light flared so brightly that I had to close
my eyes. The Wraith screeched in rage and vanished as the pure light energy
surged into the room.
To be continued... | 
