“Lydia!” someone screamed. “LYDIAAAAAAAA!” the shrill
scream came from a small yellow Korbat.
“What is it Olivia?!” A girl appeared at the
top of the stairs. Her auburn hair had fallen in front of her brown eyes. “Lydia!
I wanna have a soda! At the mall!” Olivia demanded. Lydia sighed.
As they drove to the mall, Lydia started thinking
about Olivia. She’d become such a spoiled brat since she’d gotten her. Ever
since she’d found Neopia and adopted Olivia, she’d spoiled her to the bone.
The poor Korbat had been such a shy lil thing and Lydia had told her she needed
to stand up for herself. After that she’d started giving her everything she
wanted in an attempt to build her self-confidence. Unfortunately Lydia had gone
too far. She needed to start saying no.
At the mall they got a couple of Neocolas and
walked around. nEoLeCtRiCs, an electronics store, had the new Alien Aisha Farm
CD in. Lydia remembered when Alien Aisha Farm was the biggest thing in Neopia.
Every time they had a new CD it would be sold out within minutes. Olivia too
had been one of the fans. That fad had lasted about a year and after it was
over she’d gotten bored with Alien Aisha Farm and moved on to something else.
They passed NP Toys, a small branch of the main
Neopian toy shop. The newest Usuki was on display. “Faerie Godmother Usuki,”
Lydia read on the box. “With wing flapping action and real working wand.” Lydia
rolled her eyes and moved on. The Usuki craze had gone as quickly as it had
come. All of Olivia’s 26 Usukis and outfits had been shoved to the back of her
closet with all of her other ‘out of date’ things.
They kept walking passing more and more stores
when Olivia suddenly said, “Lets go in here!” she flew into a dark looking store
with some lava lamps in the front window. The store was lit with dark purple
lights that made many of the items in it glow different colors. Olivia picked
up a globe shaped thing with a little ball of electricity on the middle. When
you touched your hand to the dome, the electricity would seem to follow your
hand.
“I want this one,” she announced. Even with
the knowledge this thing would probably end up meeting the Usukis sometime soon,
Lydia opened her wallet and pulled out a 1000 Neopoint bill.
“Ahhh… good choice!” the cashier said. “One
of our most popular models!” Now Lydia knew it was going to shake hands with
Ladybug Usuki and her friends. She paid the 560 Neopoints and they left the
store.
On the drive home Olivia talked about school,
her friends, what she wanted for her birthday (which was 5 months away), and
the newest fads. Lydia’s mind was wandering back Olivia’s bratty-ness problem.
She couldn’t think of anyway to say no to things without hurting Olivia’s feelings.
They got home and Olivia ran upstairs to play
with her new strange looking crystal ball. Lydia immediately dialed her best
friends number.
“Hello, home of Lee and Meryl. Lee speaking.
How may I help you?” A boy’s voice picked up.
“Hey Lee. It’s Lydia. Got time to talk?” Lydia
responded.
“Oh hey Lydia. Meryl and I were just about to
walk out the door. What’s up?” Lee was always one to listen when Lydia was having
problems. That’s why they were best friends.
“Oh, I won’t keep you long,” Lydia said. “I
just wanted to talk to you about Olivia. She’s getting really bratty and the
only way I can un-brat her is to start saying ‘mo’ sometimes. I’m not sure how
to do that without hurting her feelings.”
Lee thought a second and said, “You can’t be
her best friend all the time. You hafta say ‘no’ sometimes and know that she
might be mad at you. You can’t help that. But Olivia will eventually get over
it. No one can hold a grudge that long, Lydia. Stop being her best friend and
be her mother.” Lee was wise too. That was another reason Lydia liked him.
“Thanks Lee. I appre-,” Lydia was cut off by
another piercing scream.
“AHHHHHHHHHH! HELP! NOO! Nooo! Leave me ALOOOOONE!”
It was Olivia again.
“Call you back in a few!” Lydia yelled and dropped
the phone without hanging it up. She dashed upstairs to find a shadowy figure
cornering the panicking yellow Korbat. It was about half the size of Lydia and
was holding the crystal ball laughing. It muttered something and out of the
dome shot a purple bolt of light. The light shot at Olivia and formed a purple
dome around Olivia, enclosing her between the wall and floor. She flew toward
the dome and when she touched it she bounced off it and slammed into the wall.
She fluttered around panicking.
Lydia gasped and the two foot figure turned around.
“Hubrid Nox!” Lydia screamed and grabbed the thing nearest to her, which happened
to be a chair. She tried to hit him with it but she had really bad aim. Hubrid
aimed the crystal ball at the chair and whispered, “Fire.” A purple light came
out of it and hit the chair shattering it into a million pieces.
Lydia’s eyes grew wide. The bubble around Olivia
was slowly shrinking. Hubrid gave an evil laugh. “Yes,” he said. “When that
bubble gets small enough it will pop. And your precious little Korbat will pop
with it. Do you know where a bubble goes when it pops?” he asked Lydia tauntingly.
Lydia’s eyes only grew wider.
Hubrid’s voice grew softer. “To nowhere. With
nothing.” Lydia’s eyes filled with tears now. “Have you ever been to nowhere?”
he gave a sly grin. “It’s so empty,” he laughed.
“Why Olivia?!” Lydia started crying.
”Why do you think it was Olivia? Or don’t you
think at all?” Hubrid laughed at his own stupid joke. “Olivia was the holder
of the crystal. I lived in the crystal and needed to get out. You bought it
for her so I had the chance to escape. Whoever is the owner of this crystal
has part of the power over it. I have the other part of the power. So when Olivia
came up here to play with it I had my chance to escape. And if I hadn’t trapped
her in that bubble she might have overpowered me.” He seemed to skip from one
thing to another and back again when he talked. “Now I need to get rid of you,”
he announced.
“What?! Why me too?!” Lydia’s heart was racing
and she felt as if she so much as breathed she’d be blasted to pieces like the
chair had been.
”Well isn’t it obvious?” Hubrid sighed. “Haven’t
you ever watched any movies?” Lydia shook her head. “Okay, let me explain. If
I let you go then you can go tell someone what I’m doing and they’ll try to
stop me. If I get rid of you that can’t happen. Got it?” Lydia shook her head
‘yes’.
“The more time you talk, the more time is wasted
for Olivia,” Hubrid said with a sneer. This realization had just come to Lydia
minutes before. Still ducking under the desk where the chair had come from,
Lydia thought. Suddenly it came to her! If she could jump Hubrid and get the
crystal she might be able to save Olivia. It was a crazy plan, but it was her
only one.
Minutes later, Lydia was pinned to the wall,
trapped in a slowly shrinking purple bubble. She was trying to remember why
she had tried that insane plan that had come to her head a few minutes before.
She was about to give up on escape when she heard a crash. She looked around.
The door was open. Had Hubrid left? Lydia turned. Nope. He was still there.
But who was that?
Two figures stood across from him. One was human
and the other was slightly taller then Hubrid, but not as tall as the human.
Lydia blacked out.
“Is she gonna be okay?” Olivia’s voice asked
nervously.
“She should be. She really only had a scare there,”
a boy’s voice responded.
“And why shouldn’t she be scared?” a third voice
chimed in. Hubrid’s a right scary character! His mind’s totally twisted from
all the horror movies he’s watched.”
Lydia opened her eyes and saw six people standing
above her. Two were boys and four were pets. The two boys held up their hands
and asked, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Lydia counted. “Six,” she said.
The boys shook their heads. “Double vision. Should
be gone within a half hour. Get her a cool wet cloth Olivia.” Two Korbats flew
off and returned with a wet cloth. Lydia held it to her head and closed her
eyes for a few minutes. When she opened her eyes her vision was back to normal.
“Lee?”
“Hey Lydia. You certainly had a scare there,”
Lee replied smiling. “At least you’re okay now.”
The third voice revealed itself to be Meryl the
green Eyrie. “You are okay, right?” Meryl asked.
“I… I think so…” Lydia said. “What happened?”
Olivia proceeded to explain how Lee and Meryl
had come to save them. She explained in great detail the heroic battle that
had taken place between Hubrid and Lee and how Meryl had battled Hubrid and
won. After giving a complete play-by-play description of all the action that
Lydia had missed after she’d passed out, Lydia had some questions.
“Where’d Hubrid go? How’d you know to save us?
What-,”
“Whoa there! Slow down!” Lee laughed. “Meryl
has this strange sixth sense or something. He can always tell when trouble’s
brewing. After you dropped the phone and I told Meryl he seemed suspicious.
I dragged him to the grocery store anyway. And when we got back and there was
no message on the answering machine Meryl suggested that we go make sure everything
was okay in person. So because of him Hubrid didn’t blast you into nowhere.
Speaking of Hubrid, after we beat him in battle he fled back into that crystal
dome thingy. So we smashed it to pieces. Hopefully that’s the last we’ll ever
see of that spooky guy.”
Days later, everything was back to normal. Everything,
that was, except Olivia. After almost losing her owner and mom, Olivia decided
to stop asking for everything. All she really wanted was Lydia.
Far off in the distance a short shadowy figure
stood on top of a castle laughing softly. “Fools,” he muttered. “I’ll be back…”
The End
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