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NEOPIA CENTRAL - It's that time of year when pets all over Neopia wander around
singing, "Here Comes Jurples Cottontail, Hopping Down the Cybunny Trail". Fluffy
Neopets, newly painted with a baby paint brush, eagerly await the arrival of the
Easter Cybunny. But who exactly is the Easter Cybunny? What is his connection
to the Negg Faerie? Where does he live? And why in name of twirling Tuskaninnies
did he hand me a Floral Easter Negg in DECEMBER?
I guess it was that last bit that first made me start to wonder about the
Easter Cybunny. He popped up just as I was checking out the Wooly JubJub Hat
and Jelly Bean Stocking I had gotten off of the Advent Calendar. Don't get me
wrong. I was pretty happy that I got a free negg as a random event instead of
a visit from the Ice Devil. But I guess I figured that a visit from Santa Kaus
would have been a tad more appropriate at that time of year.
Anyway, that's when I started checking up on the Easter Cybunny. I was hoping
to find out more about him so I could catch up to him to thank him. So the first
thing I did was to buy the book "How to Catch a Cybunny". Unfortunately, the
book is about how to play tag with a Cybunny so it wasn't quite what I was looking
for. I think my Lupe committed the book to memory, but I didn't find anything
in it helpful at all, except maybe the chapter on how to count backwards from
100.
I did find manage to locate this bit of information about the Cybunny species,
however:
"Cybunnys live in the coldest regions of Neopia, their thick fur coats
keep extremely warm and they can easily disguise themselves amongst the snow.
Young Cybunnys love to frolic in the cool winter air, and like nothing better
than a good game of Snow Wars."
If you are like me, you found this incredibly confusing. I mean, is the plural
Cybunnys or Cybunnies? I spent an hour trying to track down the proper pluralization
of Cybunny before I realized something very important. I am a slow-witted idiot.
After slapping myself on the forehead and saying "Duh", I went back and read
the species information on the Cybunny again.
Suddenly the connection seemed very clear to me. Cybunnies live in the coldest
regions on Neopia in the snow. The coldest, snowiest place in Neopia
is Terror Mountain. And-- take a deep breath everyone-- that's where THE NEGGERY
is! So my next stop on my quest to find out everything I could about the Easter
Cybunny took me straight to the Ice Caves section of Terror Mountain.
And do you want to know what I learned about the Easter Cybunny from visiting
the Negg Faerie? Okay, I'll tell you. I learned zippity-doo-dah. Nada. Zilch.
Nothing. Easter neggs aren't listed in the Neggery's catalog. So I had to track
down Easter Neggs by checking out some privately owned shops. I guess you might
say I went on an Easter negg hunt.
The first thing I discovered was that there were a lot more of them than I
had anticipated. Here is the list of the ones I found:
Checkered Easter Negg
Chocolate Orange Easter Negg
Chyrsaberry Surprise Easter Negg
Combomelon Easter Negg
Cornupepper Easter Negg
Dancing Daisy Easter Negg
Faerie Easter Negg
Fishy Easter Negg
Floral Easter Negg
Fruity Faerie Easter Negg
Lemon and Lime Easter Negg
Lemon Sherbert Easter Negg
Lovely Lime Easter Negg
Luxury Chocolate Easter Negg
Mint Chocolate Easter Negg
Pastel Swirl Easter Negg
Peachpa Easter Negg
Phear Easter Negg
Pink Swirly Easter Negg
Pretty Pink Easter Negg
Purple Swirls Easter Negg
Sardplant Easter Negg
Scented Easter Negg
Spring Flowers Easter Negg
Spotted Easter Negg
Strawberries and Cream Easter Negg
Strawberry Swirl Easter Negg
Stripy Easter Negg
I counted 28 different kinds of Easter neggs and I'm not completely sure I
found them all. Some of them just have little messages with them that say how
yummy it is and how much your pet will like eating it, but there were also a
few of them that had messages like these:
"This extraordinary pink Easter Negg is very special. If your pet has one
of these it means it has probably been visited by the Easter Bunny, which is
very rare indeed. *** WORTH 18 NEGG POINTS AT THE NEGGERY ***"
"This Mint Chocolate Easter Negg is incredibly rare. If your pet has one
of these it means it has probably been visited by the Easter Bunny, which is
very special indeed. *** WORTH 26 NEGG POINTS AT THE NEGGERY ***"
At least this proved something without a shadow of a doubt. I wasn't hallucinating.
There really IS an Easter Cybunny, and he not only gives out free neggs but
he doesn't seem to own a calendar because he gives them out even at Christmas.
Since I now had proof that the Easter Cybunny existed, I decided to see if
I could find out what he looks like. My search lead me to NeoGreetings. There
was a card there that was labeled "Easter Cybunny". I was sure I had found him
until I noticed that there were also Neogreetings that had "Easter Bruce", "Easter
Poogle", "Easter Blumaroo", "Easter Grarrl" and "Easter Chia" on them.
I thought at first that maybe they were the Easter Cybunny's helpers, kind
of like the Felfs that Santa Kaus has. I could actually visualize a Blumaroo
bopping down the Cybunny Trail with a basket full of Easter neggs. But it's
when I tried to picture a Grarrl with big floppy ears stamping through Neopia,
snarling and hurling neggs at unsuspecting Neopets, that I realized that maybe
the Easter Cybunny on the Neogreeting was "AN" Easter Cybunny, not "THE" Easter
Cybunny.
I guess it was at this point that I realized that I would probably never find
any REAL information about the Easter Cybunny. But I did dig up enough information
about Cybunnies in general to help me come up with a theory about him.
First of all, there are only 280,000 Cybunnies in all of Neopia. They are
Limited Edition pets. But every year about this time, new Cybunnies pop up out
of nowhere so that people can have the chance to own one. So why do they pop
up at this time of year and not any other time? And why does the Cybunny Carnival
happen to fall during this month as well? Here is something from the Neopedia
about the Cybunny Carnival:
"The origins of the Cybunny Carnival are a bit fuzzy. Some say it was a
sneaky scheme to try and trick Cybunnys in to revealing the secrets of the legendary
golden carrot. Others believe that the carnival was created for one reason only:
FREE FOOD. Today, most Neopians agree that the carnival started as a way for
all Cybunnys to come down from the freezing mountaintops and take the spotlight
for a day, and, of course, it's just another excuse for Neopians to throw a
huge party."
My theory is that there are more Cybunnies hiding up on Terror Mountain than
anyone realizes. They hide out in the Ice Caves because they are shy and don't
generally like the crazy, noisy, busy, bustling world of Neopia. The Negg Faerie
obviously uses her magic to help them remain almost invisible. The Cybunnies
paint all of those neggs in the Neggery for the Negg Faerie so she can sell
them to raise enough Neopoints to buy several hundred tons of carrots a day
to feed them. But every year, when there are too many of them to all live together
without stacking up on each other like bricks, the bravest ones are sent out
into Neopia to find new homes.
So where does the Easter Cybunny fit in? Well, he paints a bunch of neggs
and hops around Neopia giving them out so that people won't forget that Cybunnies
exist. It's sort of a year-round promotional tour for the Cybunny Carnival.
Since the new Cybunnies are released from the Ice Caves BEFORE the Cybunny Carnival,
it's my guess that the whole thing is like a big Cybunny family reunion. The
Cybunnies come out of hiding once a year to get together with their friends
who have been living with human owners for a year. It also gives them a chance
to say goodbye to their friends who are going off to live in Neopia with new
owners.
So that's my theory on this whole Easter Cybunny thing. If you were expecting
a big conspiracy or something, I guess you're disappointed. Of course, there
is still that one teeny tiny question that has been bothering me. Is the Fake
Lucky Cybunny Foot made out of a real Cybunny foot but it's not really lucky,
or is it made out of something that LOOKS like a Cybunny foot but isn't? Maybe
that would explain why there aren't a whole lot of Cybunnies in Neopia...
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