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"It's never going to work," said Lightspeed after hearing
my plan.
He shook his furry head, sending shafts of neon
green light everywhere. His old, wise eyes filled with doubt.
"As long as we keep out of his sight, we'll be
fine," I said, trying to sound reassuring. Though in this strange atmosphere,
the word "reassure" didn't seem to exist.
"Alright, then. Let's go in and get this over
with." Still doubtful, the glowing Lupe trudged toward the silver version of
the Neolodge.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and walked
in.
***
A girl stood beside a shaggy mutant Lupe, stroking his fur. He was majestic,
noble, handsome; hauntingly so. His eyes were closed with pleasure, and he only
opened them when the girl asked, "So, do you think the Lupe will make it, Armades?"
The two had been sitting silently on a silver
bench, watching the Mage and her glowing Lupe. It had been interesting to watch
them, but it would be even more interesting to find out what would happen inside
the Neolodge.
"All I know is that whatever happens will be
for the best," said the Lupe. "I don't see why they would fail to rescue our
world, as they effortlessly saved theirs."
"What will we do if they don't make it?" asked
the girl. She clung to the icy bench as if it would tip over and try to throw
her off.
"This is an artificial world," said the Lupe.
"It was created, and all that is created will eventually be destroyed. We may
have to switch to a safer dimension. But that's if they fail."
"Can't we help them, Armades?" asked the girl,
becoming impatient, face full of worry. "Can't you use the charm?"
"She will learn to use the charm," said Armades.
"She will need it, and will teach herself. That is the way things work."
The girl was silent for a long time, and she
waited, nervously stroking Armades' head.
***
I crept into the room, quietly sneaking under a silver Pine Finish Table. The
silvery tablecloth that spilled over the table's sides proved to be an excellent
shield from the Shoyru's vision - as long as he could not see me, I would stay
alive. If he were to see even a single hair on my head, I would be imprisoned
forever in a little silver prism.
Lightspeed crawled under the table and sat beside
me, though there wasn't really enough room for that. His head bumped the table's
leg, and it went toppling over.
The robot Shoyru whirled around, sharp red eyes
piercing into the skin of a yellow Aisha who just happened to be sneaking around
on the table's side of the room. There was a scream, and the Aisha became a
frozen silver statue.
I grabbed Lightspeed's tail and dragged him behind
a Furry Sofa. Luckily for us, the sofa was so covered in fur that we were able
to comfortably burrow into it and out of sight just before the Shoyru leaped
behind the couch and threw himself against it. I burrowed deeper, becoming lost
in the maze of warm fur.
I could feel the Shoyru burrow around behind
me and grab something. There was a howl, and I believe at that moment Lightspeed
was turned into a silver statue, cold and frozen as a fresh ice cube. I almost
got out of the fur to help him, but I felt the Shoyru dive in again and squirm
around right beside me. I felt a sickening pain in my heart as I realized the
awful truth:
The sofa would not go on forever.
Trying to move quickly without making too much
noise, I swam through the thickening fur of the sofa. It felt odd to know that
I was really inside a sofa, and not inside a large animal.
I swam on until my head reached something hard
and metal. There was a loud thumping noise, and I felt the Shoyru turning in
my direction. I felt around, panicking. The metal was all around, marking the
structure of the sofa. I seemed to be in the bottom part, the little box-like
thing with only one entrance. I must have found that, and trapped myself in
it. I fumbled around, trying to find where I had come in. But soon I was forced
to draw my hand back.
The Shoyru was entering, and coming toward me
at an incredible speed. There was no escape now. I was trapped.
I had almost given up when I saw my charm, glittering
with a faint silver light. I clasped my hand over it, not wanting for the Shoyru
to see it.
But the light snaked through my fingers and began
to swirl around my body. It formed a cloak, sparkling and glittering like a
cluster of stars. I jammed it over my forehead, not wanting to see myself becoming
a statue. Maybe the cloak was just to block my vision?
It didn't block my vision, however. I could see
right through it. What a pointless gift, I thought to myself bitterly.
You'd think such a cloak would be of more use than to show where I was hiding...
I felt an icy cold hand grip my leg, and I was
pulled out of the Furry Sofa. I was thrown to the ground, and above me stood
the robot Shoyru. He looked down at me, menacing red eyes piercing into me --
and yet, I wasn't turning into an statue at all!
"Is this some kind of joke?" asked the robot
Shoyru, reaching into the Furry Sofa again. "I knew I grabbed you, I could feel
you." He poked my leg. "And I still can feel you, but I can't see you."
I examined the cloak again. It was thin, sparkly,
and glossy. There was no way it could hide me, unless...
It's magic, I thought to myself. I'm
invisible now... There's no other way to explain it. Why else would I not be
silver?
I slowly got up and crept behind the robot Shoyru.
There were many odd buttons and switches, the oddest of them all being a twisted
silver one, and at the top it was labeled "Freeze." The bottom was labeled "Reverse."
I noticed that the "Freeze" part was activated, and pressed "Reverse" to deactivate
it.
There was a clicking noise. The world spun. Colors
swirled around me, searching for things to attach themselves to. My arm turned
purple; my feet were green. I wiped off a light blue circle from my hair.
I watched as the silver statues began to move,
spotted with every color of the rainbow. They laughed and jumped and brushed
little blue spots away from their eyes. I grinned and smiled as Lightspeed greeted
a yellow Lupe with a silver dot on her cheek, which she wiped away quickly.
My cloak vanished.
And then, all of a sudden, the doors to the Neolodge
burst open, unable to contain the colors. Color flooded through the silver streets,
making them orange. Buildings turned yellow and the trees turned white. The
world was still spinning.
After a while the colors drifted toward their
proper owners and attached themselves. Pets and owners, glad to be unfrozen,
caught a few of the white blotches still floating around and shaped them into
clouds as if they were sculptors creating a masterpiece out of clay. I laughed
in delight; with the colors, this world was absolutely beautiful.
It was pretty much a blend of all the lands in
Neopia. There were the same shops that were in Neopia Central, but there were
also streets which were made of clouds, and smelled of pure magic. A beach was
nearby, with white sand and rippling crystal waters. Off to the left, the land
was sparse and barren. A giant omelette rested in the middle of a large, flat
rock.
A few robots, oddly out of place, wobbled around
in the dark Haunted Woods, and in a warm, sandy area with draped tents put up
all around. Off in the distance loomed gigantic snow-capped mountains, and right
before them lay long stretches of berry fields and a fancy castle.
"How lovely it is here," I sighed, sitting down
on a fluffy cloud.
"You bet it is. Thanks for saving it."
I turned around and noticed that a mutant Lupe
was standing behind me. He was majestic, noble, handsome. Hauntingly so.
"Hi, Armades." I greeted the Lupe with a smile.
"What are you doing here?"
"I created this world," said Armades proudly.
"It's a new dimension, a parallel universe to Neopia. I created it to get away
from that awful Nick Neopia."
"Nick Neopia?" I asked, surprised. "I thought
he'd been erased from Neopia forever."
"That's how it was supposed to be," Armades explained.
"But he escaped and started a rock band - the worst one in Neopia, by record.
His first song goes like this: 'Yo dudes la la la I forgot the words oops well
you can't get your Neopoints back even though the concert stunk, so ha, y'all!'
Quite awful really."
I giggled a bit, imagining Nick Neopia with his
thumbs hooked in his pockets and his baseball cap backwards, trying to maintain
absolute coolness while Boogie Berries and Crunchy Snotballs were thrown at
him. The thought alone was enough to make King Skarl laugh on a bad day.
"There must be some other reason, though." Lightspeed
was at my side, watching Armades with mild interest.
"Well, yes." Armades looked a bit uncomfortable.
"I was Thera's apprentice, remember? She had me build this dimension so that
she could have her own domain to rule. But now that she is defeated, the whole
of Neopia -- and here -- are at peace."
"Who was that Shoyru?" I asked him. "One of Thera's
more recent apprentices?"
The mutant Lupe nodded. "That was Koetsu, a very
powerful robot. He was not created as a robot; he used to be a yellow Shoyru,
and my best friend. When Thera captured us, she painted him robot to keep him
under her control. I escaped before she could do that to me. He was going to
avenge Thera's defeat, but it looks like that plan was cut short."
I looked around again, loving every bit of this
beautiful world. But I knew I could not stay. Neopia was my home, and it would
be forever.
"We'd best be getting back now, Armades." I hated
to leave, but my other pets would be wondering where I had gone.
"I have to keep watch over this world," said
Armades. "So I'm staying. But for you, just use the charm."
I fingered the silver Lupe charm that hung around
my neck. "How does it work?" I asked.
"Make a wish. How did you think you got the cloak?
You wished for it. Cloaks don't just go around appearing on people now, do they?"
"No," I said, a smile flickering across my lips.
"No, they don't."
And so I made a wish.
Holding the silver Lupe charm tightly in my hand,
I closed my eyes and whispered my wish: to go home. I could feel the charm growing
warmer in my hand and I smiled, opening my eyes.
The world around me was bathed in silver light,
and began to fade. I watched Armades slowly fade away, and just before he was
completely gone, I said, softly, "Thank you, Armades, for all you have taught
me. I'll never forget you."
I will never forget you, either. The words
were so quiet I could have imagined them, but something deep inside me told
me that it was Armades, bidding me farewell for the very last time.
The only thing that was visible now was Lightspeed,
and I called out to him. He trotted over to me and turned into a Yellow Snowball.
I wrinkled my nose and felt my hand become some sort of Gruslen.
I went through several different forms, fortunately
none of which were yellow, and patiently waited for them to stop. There were
no real surprises this time, and I was glad when the silver light dimmed, revealing
the forest which I lived in, and my other NeoPets sitting patiently in front
of me.
"So, where have you been?" asked Shiva, my Faerie
Peophin.
"Yeah, we've been worried, Ixi," said my electric
Gelert, Nexxus.
"That's quite a long story," I told them, quite
honestly. "Lightspeed, Laser, care to tell them?"
Lightspeed shook his head, eyes telling me not
to speak of the other dimension we had visited, and Laser was nowhere in sight.
I looked around, calling, "Laser! Laser!" until
she trotted over to me, her head hung, pouting.
She had been waiting away from the others, which
was quite unlike her, since she preferred to play with my NeoPets.
"What's wrong, Laser?" I asked.
"They don't believe I really am Laser because
of my new form," she said, jerking her head toward Nexxus and Shiva.
"Well, you are very much Laser, so tell them
the truth of how you became a Uni, and then I'm sure they'll understand."
I shot an angry glare at my other two pets, who were staring at the ground and
swishing their tails (Shiva had a rather large tail, being a Peophin, so the
entire movement of swishing her tail made the ground tremble).
So Laser talked, and I sat down, stroking Lightspeed's
glossy fur. There was certainly much to tell, not just to my pets, but to all
my friends, too. One thing was certain, though:
Laser would be talking for hours.
THE END
***
Note: Armades is real, thank you Terronta for letting me use him in my story.
Also I hope you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to Neomail me if you
have any comments or questions!
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