Potato Quest: Extreme Wishes

      "Many come for acceptance, but most do not deserve it," replied the Oracle, the legendary being that was hidden within the Tyrannian obelisk. "To welcome all would dishonor those truly worthy, so I cannot welcome you."

      "Dude!" said the Orange Wocky, throwing down the wooden skateboard in his hands so he could throw his arms up in exasperation. "I totally got, like, a lot of points! And I even did it by helping two poor, little Wocky girls that were starving and needed cake badly! And I don't even LIKE cake, so that's extra points because of karma."

      The Oracle shook her head. She was a creature beyond mere mortals, a being that consisted purely of light (Or at least of a light-like colour that made her LOOK like she was beyond mere mortals), and this was the thousandth complainer she had to deal with today.

      "Is it because of that blue 'Death' baby I kept leaping at?" EPC asked. "He totally had it coming. It's not my fault that my team's creature of fear wasn't, like, that green genie or that horrible flaming Wrath monster!"

      The Oracle shook her head once more, then closed her eyes and put her hands close together so she could give this Wocky his consolation prize. In a blinding flash of light, a book, entitled 'The Biographies of Mostly Important Neopians', appeared. She opened her eyes, and handed the book to the Wocky. Momentarily excited, he flipped through the pages, stopping when he saw none other than his own smiling face in the book. His own smile got even wider at the sight of, well, himself, but the smile fell flat when he remembered the book's title.

      "I'm only mostly important, man!" he despaired at the Oracle, throwing this book onto the ground and picking up the wooden skateboard again. "That means I just need a little boost to really be important! And that's why I need your help with your crazy powers!"

      The Oracle, having reached her limit, motioned a hand in front of her as if she was angrily slapping the air. With this, the Wocky blasted off into the sky away from her.

      "DUDE, THAT'S SOME SWEET ANCIENT MAGIIIIIC," the EPC Wocky optimistically yelled while he was hurtling through the air. As he was soaring, possibly while in serious and grave danger, he couldn't help but grin. His horrible and terrifying predicament reminded him of his one desire, the one wish he wanted the Oracle to help him with. Closing his eyes, he envisioned his dream.

      *****

      "Welcome to my super fun game," said the daydream version of the Wocky, who was still the same orange, sunglass-wearing, pink Mohawk EPC Wocky. He was, however, in his home of Meridell, standing in front of a big sign that said 'Extreme Potato Counter 2'. "Are you ready," he continued, "to count EXTREMER... er... EXTREMELYER... EXTREMEST... MAN, ARE YOU READY TO COUNT POTATOES THAT PUT ALL OTHER POTATOES TO SHAME!?"

      "Man, totally!" said the game player, whom in this fantasy also looked just like the EPC Wocky. "This is going to be totally awesome! High five!"

      The two dream Wockies high fived each other while screaming "YEEEEEEAAAAAH." Following this cry of excellence, the EPC running the game stepped back a few feet, and then yelled "COUNT THOSE POTATOOOOOES!"

      On this cue, potatoes and the distraction vegetables, such as carrots and corn on the cob, were flying everywhere just as they do in the original version of this game, except each vegetable was wearing a little jetpack. Some vegetables were zooming by very quickly, others were taking sharp turns and turning back altogether, and some were so crazy that they decided that normal was good, and thus flew by at a vegetable's standard moderately extreme speed.

      "How many potatoes!?" the game runner Wocky asked after all the vegetables stopped flying.

     "The answer's got to totally be..." the other EPC pondered. "...76!"

      "Dude, you just passed round one!" the Wocky game runner said. "Radical! Are you ready for THE BONUS ROUND!?"

      The other EPC eagerly nodded his head, and proceeded to fall, and thus be loaded, into a cannon that was hidden in a trapdoor underground. The game runner Wocky picked up a helmet, jumped onto the cannon head to attach it to the other EPC's head, got back down, pushed the cannon to aim towards the air, and screamed "BONUS ROUND, ACTIVATE!"

      The EPC in the cannon was shot up high into the sky and in mid-air saw many more rocket vegetables blasting around. Counting them as well as he could while hurling through the air, he passed through a giant floating ring that was on fire, and screamed "THIS IS AWESOOOOOOOME". After passing through the flaming ring, began to decelerate and fall towards the ground. Counting up the last couple of rocket potatoes, he put his arms out and enjoyed the plummet, without a care in the world. As he drew closer and closer to the planet, he noticed a trampoline on the ground, and widened his grin as he prepared for impact.

      "Boing," went the trampoline, which did not cause him to painfully collide on impact, but rather it stopped his horizontal movement as he bounced up high into the air, landing back on the trampoline. He bounced a few more times, a smaller and smaller bounce each time. When he stopped bouncing, the Wocky running the game ran to the trampoline and asked "How many BONUS potatoes!?"

      "105!" was the confident reply.

      "You're the best, dude," replied the game runner. "Also, you're right! Extreme potatoes foreveeeeer!"

      "Foreveeeeer!" copied the game playing EPC, as this daydream, having reached its end, began to fade.

      *****

      Shaking his head as his mind returned to reality, the grin on the EPC Wocky's face remained. "I'm gonna do it, man! And the Oracle is going to help." He didn't notice the fact that he was decelerating into the ground, but if he did notice this, he still wouldn't have panicked, as he was heading straight to a large, but neatly stacked, pile of papers.

      "Mild crash," went the pile of papers as the EPC Wocky crashed into them. It wasn't a painless and fun jump, but when the alternative is 'Trapped in the hospital for months while you heal', mild pain is perfectly fine.

      "Hm, oh dear," said a dull monotone voice. It came from a strange floating Lenny. His body was entirely brown, with a matching brown aura radiating from him. He wore a collared shirt, which matched the color of his body. However, despite all the other abnormal things about him, he was still the size of a normal Lenny. "Now, orange Wocky, that's why we don't try anything new," this floating Lenny continued. "It could end up in disaster. Now some of my paperwork is scattered."

      "Oh, Lenny guy, sorry about that," EPC said. "I'll help you pick some of it... paperwork? Out here?" EPC looked into the distance, and saw that while he was in a deserted part of the battlefield with nobody except this Lenny around, he wasn't too far from the obelisk where the Oracle was. He was staring right through this Lenny to view the obelisk, however, so he scooted over to his side a little bit to get a better view of the obelisk. The Lenny simply scooted himself to continue blocking his view.

      "Now now," the brown Lenny said. "I see where you've got your eyes at, and, take it from me, don't even think about it. Stick with what you've got."

      EPC became a little disturbed by this. He sidestepped a couple of yards in the other direction, only, again, for the brown Lenny to block his view of the obelisk. The Wocky sighed, and began to talk. "Look, man, I can take a hint," he said, mild shakiness in his voice. "You want me to stay here until, I dunno, I help you with something?"

      The brown Lenny would have given a small laugh if he could, but since he couldn't, he just said, "No, I'm here to help you. Of course, to start off my help to you, you can help me stack my daily paperwork so I have more time to prepare my daily 10% Tax Beast offering."

      "Daily 10% Tax Beast offering?" EPC asked, perplexed.

      The floating Lenny gave a little shrug, and said "Why not? I've always done it, and it's always worked for me. That's what I meant when I said help you. If you learn what I do today, you'll learn what I do every day. And it'll never fail if you yourself do it."

      "Look, dude," EPC said, gently clutching his chest as his face had the mildest expression of pain came onto his face. "I can help you, but I don't need you to help me. Trust me on this, man. I ain't perfect, but I love who I am. Now, if you'll excuse me," his voice trailed off as he tossed his wooden skateboard on the ground and skated off quickly, slipping past the brown Lenny towards the obelisk.

      Looking back while skating forward, EPC saw the brown Lenny just standing there and gazing back at the Wocky. EPC laughed, and he laughed, and he laughed, and he smashed into something hard. He fell off his board, but leaped back onto his feet and looked around. He appeared to be in an office cubicle.

      "DUDE!" he yelled. "This is just like that TNT Smasher game, with all those weird people and Neopets that pop their heads out of things that look like this!"

      "Game?" said a voice from behind EPC. He turned his head around, and found the boring brown Lenny blocking the exit out of this cubicle. "This is part of the lesson of being like me. You must sit in here for eight hours a day and shuffle around paper."

      EPC glanced at this... horrid monster, trying to keep himself composed. He had put it together and figured out what was going on, but he couldn't let it stop him. The Wocky picked up his skateboard, and in a voice that could only be described as fake acting, said, "Well, geez! I guess I should probably get started on shuffling those TPS reports right about... OH MY GOODNESS, ONE OF THE REPORTS FELL BEHIND YOU!"

      With more concern than he'd shown thus far, the brown Lenny looked back and located a piece of paper that fell behind him. With a little satisfaction, he went over it and picked it up. Reading it to see what exactly was on it, his mild satisfaction turned into mild frustration as he turned back to the cubicle to say, "Hey, this isn't a TPS report, it's a billing statement." When he did turn around, he saw that the Wocky escaped through the entrance of the cubicle. The Lenny sighed. "Lousy temps," he said.

      Booking it on his wooden skateboard, the obelisk was coming more into EPC's view. It was getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and suddenly disappeared as a small hill of unorganized papers appeared out of thin air a dozen yards ahead of him.

      "Right now, I need you to organize these files," commanded the brown Lenny's voice, which was coming from somewhere the Wocky couldn't see. EPC ground his teeth, picked up the speed, and hopped onto the hill. While in the air, he leapt off his board and grabbed it as he ran up the hill, ready to experiment and see if he could gain some serious speed from the slope. As he was getting to the top, a puff of brown appeared on it, and in the next moment the brown Lenny was standing up there. "I'm afraid I have to take you to my office and give you an official warning," he said as he reached for EPC. The Wocky threw his body to the side to dodge the grab, tumbled down the hill with skateboard still at hand, and not wasting a moment, jumped back on it and kept on pushing to the obelisk.

      With no word from this brown Lenny for a couple of minutes, EPC began to relax as other Neopets came into view. It was safe, it was very safe, the Oracle was within view, so he just had to ask her about his wish nicer this time, because the coast was clear.

      Spoiler alert: It wasn't safe.

      "I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull you into overtime work, Wocky," said the brown floating Lenny, having appeared out of thin air in between the Wocky and the Oracle. There was only thirty or forty feet between EPC and the Oracle. "ORACLE LADY, I WANTED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING!" EPC yelled, but to no avail; she didn't appear to hear him. EPC looked at this horrid Lenny and scowled at him, while nearby spectators, accounting for about a hundred or so various Neopets and owners, look at this scene, confused.

      "Dude, I get it," EPC said. "But I live my life to do new things! Things don't always have to work out as I perfectly planned, as long as I get to have a fun new day tomorrow!"

      The Lenny glared back at him and said, "Security is the most important thing in life."

      "Well, duh," EPC replied. "Sure, I'm not the best at security, but security and excitement aren't mutually exclusive. For instance..." he said while skating towards the Lenny quickly, then, with this boost of speed, leaped towards the brown Lenny. The Lenny closed his eyes, cringed and put his wings over his head to protect himself. After a couple of seconds of nothing, he opened his eyes to see that the Wocky was standing in front of him, having landed in front of the Lenny perfectly safe. The Wocky turned his head back, saw the skateboard slowly moving towards him, and put one foot on top of it to stop it.

      "Security is making sure that I've trained myself well enough to do the crazy stunts I do, and not to push it too far," EPC said. The brown Lenny returned to a standard pose and looked at EPC, pondering this slightly. "Now, doing new things, on the other hand," he said while grabbing his skateboard and, in one swift motion, shifted his body around 180 degrees while leaping high into the air, smashing this floating Lenny's head with his skateboard. "That's knocking out a personification of your fears with a skateboard," he finished.

      Striding with great moxie, EPC walked up to the Oracle, with these Neopets and their owners looked at him with awe. Having taken care of this problem, the Wocky said "Well, man, it wasn't as big as those personification of fears as these other war people fought, but I did take this test of yours out alone. So...?" he asked very hopefully.

      "Those that face the biggest challenges get the biggest rewards," the Oracle replied, "but even small victories are worth celebrating." She put her hands together, closed her eyes, and when the flash of light dispersed, in her hands there was a tiny jetpack that could be fit on a vegetable. Handing it to the excited Wocky, she added "All journeys start small. Any gift, no matter how miniscule it is, is vital to in the big picture.

      EPC, grinning ear to ear, said, "Man, you're the best Oracle ever." Giving her one last wave, he skated off back to his home on Meridell.

      *****

      "Hm," said the normally grumpy old Skarl, the king of Meridell. "I'm feeling pretty good today. I think I'll go out for a walk and enjoy my wonderful kingdom."

      He opened up the doors to his castle, took a few steps outside, and took a nice, deep breath of air. He smiled, and let the joy of his kingdom fill his entire being.

      "VROOOOOOOOM," roared a loud potato attached to a jetpack that flew ahead of the king. This was followed by a shouting of "Dude, this is so TUBULAR!" from the EPC Wocky, who was chasing it on his skateboard.

      The king, still glaring forward, took another deep breath, proclaimed "I quit!", then returned to his castle to continue being a grumpy king.

      The EPC Wocky, on the other hand, grinned as the rocket jet on the potato took a sudden turn downwards, grounding the potato and stopping the jetpack. The Wocky rushed to the potato, grabbed it, and muttered to himself, "Dude, this game is going to be the best someday."

The Ende