The blue Shoyru was struggling along the platform, and dropped everyone in
the waiting room, on a cushioned chair.
"Twenty minutes," she murmured, as the group fell asleep on top of each other.
"That's plenty of time to wait for the next train."
Meanwhile, the once hurt group of pets restored slowly to good health. The
train arrived as predicted, and after using a few loose Neopoints and a few
that her old group had given her to buy the ticket she bundled the heap into
the carriage, and chose some seats. She opened a satchel she was carrying with
her and took out a pack of cards.
Wingman, Shoyru and Kacheek looked around, confused. They were recovered, but
were paying no particular attention to their surroundings earlier on.
"Wha...What?" Wingman stuttered. "Is this the right train?"
"Sure," said Felicity, shuffling the deck and tossing the cards into four different
piles, "Neopia, southwestern Central. It's not so far as the South Eastern train,
which goes way down to the south, which is about four hundred miles."
The train had begun to move, slowly from its departure point, and faster, as
it left the station.
Wingman gaped in horror at Shoyru, and Shoyru did likewise. Kacheek grabbed
hold of the map again and pointed.
"This isn't the right one for us," he said, perplexed. "Our destination is
the far South."
Wingman banged an angry fist on the table and turned all red at once. His eyes
turned bright orange; a fiery spark glowed in the vicinity.
"WHAT?" he growled. "We had this all planned out! WE'RE ON THE WRONG TRAIN
NOW!"
Felicity gasped at Wingman. Turning bluer with fear, she stumbled back and
tipped the cards all over the table, and over the floor. All the pets in front
and behind in the same carriage began chattering.
"TAKE IT EASY!" Kacheek said, with great restraint. "We'll just manage without.
Our next destination might be a surprise!"
THUD!
Wingman was lying on the floor, having fallen in shock. The pets continued
chattering, and turned to see what the commotion was about.
Shoyru stared at him for a brief moment, then looked at Felicity. Felicity
was standing on the table and quivering with terror, pulled herself together
and sat back down at the table. She picked Wingman up and propped him up on
a seat. She gathered the scattered cards and began shuffling.
"I'm very sorry," she said weakly, between shuffles. Shoyru gave her a look
of sympathy and sat down with her.
"It's typical him," he explained. "He's very touchy at times, especially when
planned things go really wrong."
***
Wingman was lying on the train's long, stretched carpet, and many pets on the
train kindly offered a helping hand, but Shoyru told them to stay back. Then
Wingman pulled himself together, and stood back up.
"OK, OK," he said, gruffly. "I guess I was a bit hot-tempered. But we've suffered
enough since we left our vacation, and I don't want any more trouble." He sighed.
"OK, we'll go where this train's going."
Kacheek, who was busy tutting at him before, sat quietly, and slammed down
a card from his pile.
"SNAP!" he shouted.
Wingman jumped in shock and nearly fell again.
"Good, grey grief Kacheek!" he said, gripping onto the seat behind him to avoid
collapsing. He straightened himself again, and sat down with his pile of cards.
They played for a long twenty minutes before falling with exhaustion onto the
table.
An hour or two later as the team pressed against the glass impatiently, the
train had arrived in the station for Neopia Western Central. As it screeched
to a halt, the team stumbled out of it before it had a chance to stop properly.
It gave Shoyru a rather nasty shock after stumbling into a pillar.
"I knew that wasn't a good idea," said Shoyru, quivering.
Suddenly there was an echo of laughs rumbling down the station hall. Kacheek
dashed up to see what the commotion was about. Then he called back to Wingman.
"Those voices sound familiar," he gasped. He looked round again to study them
properly. Then he slipped behind a pillar to keep watch on them.
"Be careful, Kacheek!" Wingman warned. He too hid behind a pillar, separately.
Felicity decided to take a look. Worriedly, she hid behind Kacheek's pillar,
shivering.
"Sssh!" warned Kacheek. He returned to watching. Suddenly, out of nowhere,
a black-and-yellow Shoyru darted down on Kacheek with such force that it knocked
the pillar right off, hitting all of the others and scaring away passengers
who were white in the face and screaming. Shoyru, who was staying behind them
at the time, had to leap up and down, left to right to dodge the chain-reaction
of pillars. Then he came face to face with the lunatic Shoyru.
"Wha...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Shoyru screamed in its face and with a powerful
THWACK knocked it into the last standing pillar, which came crashing
down with the roof. Shoyru seeing this lunged for Wingman, Kacheek and Felicity
and flew above the disaster, which spread all the Neopians in the station out
onto the streets for safety. The Shoyru and Kacheek stared at each other breathlessly,
all except Shoyru and the black-and-yellow-Shoyru, which lay underneath the
rubble. Suddenly from underneath a half-standing pillar and broken roof, the
leader of the laughing group pointed with a quivering finger at Felicity.
"GET HER! And knock that wretched Shoyru out of the air! BAG THEM!"
Breaking out from underneath the rubble was the electric-like Shoyru. It stood
up shaking then raised its arms. From the hands a spark flew like a rocket at
the leader and his gang. The leader fell in a flash along with his group. Angered,
the electric Shoyru stomped back and sat down on the rubble.
"I bet it was him who hit me," it said, electricity flashing from its hands.
"That little two-timing GIT!"
"But why did you hit me?" Kacheek asked. "I was only watching them!"
"I thought you were part of it," it said.
"Not a bit of it!"
Shoyru gaped. He straightened himself and stared wide-eyed at the electric
Shoyru. In sudden realisation, he fell faint. The electric Shoyru stared back,
confused.
"What's wrong with him?"
Kacheek gulped.
"It was him," he said, "that hit you."
There was a ghastly pause.
"W...What?"
To be continued... | 
