Al and the Secret of Lupe by al_the_chia |  |
Al the Chia stood outside an ancient stone building on Mystery Island. He was
in his usual Lupological expedition gear, a crash-proof, waterproof, and pretty
much everything else-proof white lab coat with several high-gear pens inside
the pocket and his handy dandy tape recorder to keep up with his studies. An
enormous bag packed full of worthy and worthless junk was also attached to his
back. And Fluffy the Cobrall, in his Birthday Suit, was standing nearby, listening
intently to a instruction CD on how to shed your skin faster.
Fluffy, who shed once a month, found it very awkward and uncomfortable, and
was hanging onto every hiss the instructor gave. So far, he had spread banana
juice all over his skin and done several wiggling exercises. Al gasped as he
stared up at the masterful pawwork of the ancient building. "It's simply beautiful!"
Al remarked. Large, intricate portraits of Lupe kings from around the world
were etched onto the stone, even though it was on Mystery Island. TootinLupin,
the great sorcerer who ruled an area of the Lost Desert, Chief Mukalipawpaw,
said to be the first chief on Mystery Island, and the fabled council of the
Ice Lupes from Terror Mountain. They surrounded a huge stone door, depicting
a picture of a Lupe chasing a Chia. Strange scriptures were written around the
symbol.
Al put a paw onto his glasses and squinted as he looked at the writing. "Ancient
Lupish… It says, 'Only great Lupe rulers are permitted to enter the sacred Temple
of Conflict. That means stupid smelly Chias aren't allowed in, so there." Al
nodded. "This should definitely tell me the secret I've been searching for…
I can almost feel it in my paws…"
Al had been searching for the Temple of Conflict for years. As he admired it,
he reached into his backpack, pulling out a book called Lupe Legends.
He threw it open to a bookmarked page excitedly. "It was said that the oldest
Lupe kings and queens had built it as a fort to have wars with their conflicting
race, the Chias. The ancient King Tootinlupin, who recorded much of what we
know about ancient history today, was said to have stashed several documents
here that tell every single detail about why the war began and why it would
never end."
Suddenly, King Tootinlupin's picture glowed. The mouth opened up and a spear
shot out, thwacking into Al's book as he was reading. Fluffy gaped, wide eyed.
Al didn't even notice. "Of course, the temple is supposed to be riddled with
Booby Traps that only the Lupes knew how to avoid, to keep meddling Chias from
invading them." Another arrow shot from the mouth of King Mukalipawpaw, and
several more from the Ice Council, penetrating Al's book further as Al kept
on obliviously reading. "Well, those shouldn't be too much trouble. I know you'll
always stick by me, right Fluffy?" Al looked down to his Cobrall. "Uh… Fluffy?"
He was gone. Al looked up. Fluffy was sitting at the top of a tree, shivering
so hard that the leaves were shaking. Al sighed, giving the tree a hard kick
and sending the Cobrall plummeting back to ground. "Come on, don't be such a
Peadackle." Al put the book away and seized Fluffy by the tail, dragging him
over to the heavy stone door. "Hm… now how does this open?…" Al murmured. Suddenly,
it came to him. "Lupes rule and Chias drool!" Al bellowed prophetically. The
door flew open, and Al triumphantly marched in, a sobbing Cobrall dragging behind
him. As they walked into the dark corridor, the door slammed shut behind them…
Al looked around. "HM… kinda dark…" He reached into his bag, pulling out a
flashlight. "Ah, much better." Al shone the flashlight around the room as Fluffy
frantically pounded against the locked stone door. Bloody, gory pictures of
Lupes destroying Chias were imprinted on the wall with red paint. Al wandered
down the hallway, gazing at the pictures dreamily. "Oh, they're so graphic!
They must have been done by the Lupe warriors." Fluffy grudgingly followed along,
changing his CD to Leonardo Elena's Classical Music. They finally reached the
end of the long hallway, arriving at a huge, circular room. Al's paws were trembling
with excitement as he pressed the button on his tape recorder.
"It appears to be the main entryway. The walls are decorated with what appear
to be pictures of generals, and it looks like the Lupes ate here as well." Al
picked up the remnants of a Chia… made from chocolate, of course. He inspected
the teeth marks. "HM… very sharp… These marks were made by the most savage Lupes
imaginable, the Nezzarpawcians. The Nezzerpaw would carry captured Chias to
cliffs and hurl them into the sea below. There are also legends that say they
decorate themselves with the teeth of their victims."
Suddenly, a wild giggle emerged from nowhere. Al swirled around to see a frightening
sight. A ghostly white shadow floated before him, in the form of a Nezzarpaw
Lupe. It glared at him before disappearing in a cloud of dust. Al blinked. "Was
that me, or was their something there?…"
Suddenly, eight Nezzarpaw Lupes appeared from behind him. They bared their
sharp teeth, holding up their spears. Al turned around. They were gone. "HM…"
Al walked down the room, inspecting the closed door. "It's locked…" Al muttered,
looking at a keyhole. "I need a key to get through… where's my lock picking
it?" As Al dug through the kit carefully, twenty-four Nezzars swirled into existence
behind him. The leader put a paw to his mouth, indicating that they be quiet.
They nodded. The Nezzar pulled a pair of keys from his pocket, and tiptoed over
to Al, who was sticking a hairpin into the lock. "Lousy door…" Al muttered.
Suddenly, he heard a jangle behind him. "Oh, Fluffy, you found the keys, thanks."
Al took them, not noticing Fluffy tied up to a post nearby. He stuck one of
the keys in. It fit. Al turned it. "There we go." He was about to push the door
open, but it was stuck. "HM… that's bad…" Suddenly, the entire building groaned.
Al was thrown off his feet as the room began to shake. Suddenly, it began to
spin.
"HOLY PIFFLE!!" Al screamed.
It span faster and faster, until Al was slammed against the side of the circular
room. His glasses clung onto his face by a hair as Al's lips were blown back
by the speed of the spinning. Fluffy was pinned nearby, his hood flapping in
the wind. The Nezzar Lupes, who were safely levitated above the ground, cackled
gleefully as Al got dizzier and dizzier. Suddenly, Fluffy's earphones were flapped
off. They blared Leonardo's music, filling up the entire silent fort. Suddenly,
the ghostly Nezzar Lupes stopped laughing. A dreamy look went over their faces
as the music played. Their eyelids became heavy. The room span slower and slower
as the Lupes began to fade away.
"We like music," the leader sighed, collapsing onto the ground and flickering
away. "We go sleep now. Night night…" And with another cloud of dust, they disappeared,
this time for good. Al teetered around the room, clutching his stomach. "Wheeee…
that was… fun," he moaned. Fluffy picked up his CD player, smiling as he put
it back onto his hood. "Great work. Now we can continue." Al put his dizzy Cobrall
onto his head. Carefully selecting the other key, Al opened up the door to reveal
a new room. Al's flashlight had been lost in the spinning, and so he continued
into complete darkness. "That's funny…" Al muttered, as he waddled across the
floor. "I feel something underneath my feet… something hot… and sharp… and wiggly…"
Al reached into his backpack and pulled out a match, striking it. It illuminated
a room full of vicious Froilers. Al's pupils shrank. "Oh Piffle…" He muttered,
as the match blew out.
"AHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Al fled through the massive room, the Froilers hot on his
heels. Fluffy clung onto his head, screeching as they fled deep into the room.
Suddenly, spears began to shoot from the sides of the wall. One sliced a hair
off of Al's head, nearly causing Fluffy to go into hysteria. "I am a good Lupologist,
I am a good Lupologist, I am a good Lupologist…" Al repeated to himself, as
he leapt over several chasms with spikes on the bottom. As Al leapt over the
final one, the Froilers pursuing him fell into the pits instead, screeching.
Al paused to take a breath as he watched the froilers snarling from the other
side. "Whew… that was close…" Fluffy, shaking, climbed off his head and down
to the ground, where he curled up into a little ball, panting. "Well, I think
it's safe to say that was all the booby traps for today." Al nodded. "And I
wasn't even touched by one." Fluffy was about to point out the arrow stuck in
Al's backside, but decided to keep it quiet. "Well, let's continue!" Al ran
forward, stepping on a button. Suddenly, a trapdoor opened below him and Fluffy.
"HM…" Al looked down. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" He plummeted downwards, faster
and faster. There seemed to be no end to this drop, and he kept on bellowing
as he shot into the unknown…
A while later...
Al woke up, clutching his dizzy head. "Wha… where am I?" Al looked around.
He saw a bunch of chairs in a circle around him. Everything else was too dark
to make out. Al climbed onto his feet, brushing himself off. "Fluffy? Where
are you?" Suddenly, a blast of sand blew past. It swirled around one of the
chairs, until an ancient-looking Lupe appeared. He regally stared down at Al,
his pharaoh's crown gleaming in the dim light. "WHAT CHIA DARES TO…" he suddenly
broke into a coughing fit, hacking out cloud after cloud of dust. "BLEEAACH
COUGH COUGH HAAAAACK…" Pounding his decrepit chest, he cleared his throat, then
continued his speech. "WHAT CHIA DARES TO INVADE THE SACRED GROUNDS OF THE CONFLICT
TEMPLE?"
Al gasped. "Uh… well…I just…"
Tootinlupin glared at Al carefully. "Wait… I know you… You're that pesky Chia
that invaded my tomb! Not only that, you invaded the monument of the Ice Lupes
and destroyed the sacred idol of the Mystery Island Tribes!"
"It was just an accident…" Al shrank further, wringing his paws. "I was just
curious about the Lupe's past…"
Tootin stood on his chair, pointing a paw. "YOU SHALL…" With a sickening crack,
the king's arm broke off, landing on the floor with a splat. Tootin looked at
it for a second. "I'm getting too old for this…" He murmured, clearing his throat
and pointing the other paw. "YOU SHALL BE A PEST TO US NO MORE CHIA!! WE HAVE
PREPARED A SPECIAL PUNISHMENT FOR YOU!!"
Al recoiled, expecting the worst. Tootin snapped his paw. An ancient book appeared,
slamming onto the ground in front of Al. Al blinked. "What… what is this?"
"These are the records of the ancient world of Lupes! It will tell you exactly
when and why the Lupes hate Chias! If we give it to you, will you PLEASE leave
us alone?"
Al picked them up excitedly. "Oh, this is GREAT!! I'll start reading it right
now!" Al threw open the book. "HM… 800 AN? That's much too late. I'll go earlier."
Al paged back in the book as the King drummed his fallen-off paw on the floor.
"Could you hurry please?" he whined.
"I'm hurrying…" Al muttered. Suddenly, Al hit the spot he wanted. "999,999,999,999,999,999
BN!! This is it!!" Al looked at the page. "Lupes and Chias first created. Records
unknown." Al blinked. "That's it?" He looked up at Tootin. Tootin shrugged.
"Did I miss something important? You know, I was born in 999,999,999,999,999,998
BN. I don't know anything about what happened the year before."
Al sighed, slamming the book. "Well, thanks anyway Tootinlupin, but it's not
what I'm looking for."
Tootin sighed. "Great. Just great." He picked his paw up off the floor, and
tied it back onto his body with his mummy linen. "Well, I guess this shows that
it's impossible to kill curiosity." Tootin snapped his paw, and the book disappeared.
"You can continue your quest for knowledge, but just stay away from my tomb,
okay? I'm getting too old." Tootin snapped his fingers again, and Fluffy appeared
next to Al, a bit flustered but okay. "UNTIL OUR PATHS CROSS AGAIN, CHIA!!"
Tootin bellowed, coughing and hacking until turning back into dust and blowing
into Al's direction. Al shut his eyes and covered his face as the sandstorm
brewed around him…
Two Days Later...
Al woke up in his bed, scratching his head. "Huh?… what?…" He looked at the
clock. It was 8:00 AM. Al climbed out of bed. Fluffy was peacefully dreaming
in his Petpetbed2000. Sunlight was pouring in through the non-shaded window
as Al rubbed his eyes. "Was it all just a dream?" Al looked around. It was definitely
his room and his house. "Well… I guess it was…" Al sighed as he threw on his
lab coat. "Well, that's disappointing. Oh well. I guess another day is another
Neopoint." Al picked up his backpack from inside his closet, his mind racing.
"I can start my expedition to the Lost Desert today. Hey, maybe I could visit
Tootin's tomb!"
Suddenly, a blast of wind threw the window open. Al fell over, the gear in
his pack scattering as his eyes filled with horror. "ALL RIGHT!! I'LL STAY HOME!!
I'LL STAY HOME!!" The window slammed shut again as Al sat up on the floor. "Piffle…
I need a vacation…" The window threateningly creaked open. "At home…" Al muttered.
It shut a little further. "Without any Lupology whatsoever…" Al squeaked. It
shut. Al wiped sweat off his forehead as he got up. "Well... I heard there was
a Gormball special on NTV..." And so, Al began preparing for another day of
adventure… watching TV.
The End |
