Meepits vs Feepits... Vs Dr. Sloth: Part One

Also by shirahli

“Platoon, ATTENTION!”

     The bossy, authoritative shout rang out across the small clearing in the Haunted Woods. Fifteen meepits, organised into three ranks of five, stood clumsily to attention. The green meepit who had just shouted out the attention order stood in front of the platoon, scowling at them. “Not good enough!” he snapped. “When I give you an order, you must jump to it!”

     “But you aren’t supposed to jump to the attention stand, you merely take a step!” interrupted a meepit in the middle rank.

     “No talking in the ranks!” snapped the meepit in charge. “Now, on to business. In a few short moments we will be visited and inspected by our head spy, Major General Roger.” At this, there was a collective gasp from the platoon. Most of them were only new recruits and had not yet managed to catch a glimpse of Roger, who was apparently very famous and clever indeed. As head spy he was in charge of all the top spying jobs and had many exciting adventures, much to everyone’s jealousy. “Accompanying him will be our leader His Majesty Lord King Dr. Sloth, whose business here is not yet known to me!”

     Before the platoon could utter another collective gasp, two meepits stepped into the clearing. One of them was blue, but dressed entirely in black with a slightly-off-centre fake beard and a large top hat. The other meepit was pink, but wearing a too tight crown and fancy clothes. “It is NOT Doctor Sloth!” snapped the pink one, making everyone jump. “It is Lord King Sloth. I do not wish to be compared to that idiotic green lump of stuff who thinks he can take over Neopia!”

     The green meepit took a cautious step backwards, his eyes slightly larger than normal. “I’m sorry...” he stammered. “It was a slip of the tongue. I promise it won’t happen again...” He trailed off as His Majesty King Sloth glared at him.

     “If it happens again, you might find yourself in serious trouble, Lieutenant Matthew,” he said coldly but rather pompously. He then turned to the rest of the platoon, who were all staring at him in awe. Even Roger, the blue meepit, seemed insignificant compared to his might.

     “Why aren’t they standing properly to attention?” suddenly demanded Roger, glaring at them through his large eyes. The platoon turned their heads slightly to stare at him properly, making him scowl.

     “I’m so sorry!” said the lieutenant in a rush. “I had them standing to attention but yours’ and his Majesty’s awesomeness must have distracted them slightly. They are mostly new recruits; I really do apologise.” He turned to face the platoon and quickly snapped an order. The meepits obediently stood to attention, this time less clumsy than before.

     “Now I expect you are wondering what we are all doing here,” said Roger. “We have an important task for one of you...” At this, every meepit stood up straighter and stared excitedly at Roger, each hoping they would be chosen. They had no idea what the task would be yet, but each had wild thoughts of it being a dangerous and daring task that would make them appear so amazing to Roger they would get an instant promotion. Noticing their excited faces, both Roger and His Majesty King Sloth smirked. Roger continued, “We need someone to be the face of our new recruiting poster.”

     ---

     Roger heaved himself onto a small cushion with a sigh. “What a day,” he said loudly to gain attention, and pulled his fake beard off. Four other meepits stared at him in amusement, one of them rolling her eyes. They were gathered around a short round table, waiting for Lord King Sloth to arrive and begin the High Council Meeting. Roger waited impatiently for someone to ask him about his day, but when nobody did, he was undeterred. He simply started to describe it anyway.

     “Do any of you realise how hard it is to organise a photo shoot with a bunch of new recruits? As soon as we offered payment, they all wanted to volunteer and it was chaos – chaos, I tell you!”

     While Roger was speaking, a pirate meepit opposite him pretended to doze off. Just as he was up to the point of loud snoring, Lord King Sloth burst into the room dramatically, slammed the door shut and took his place on the fanciest cushion. The other meepits stood up respectfully and only sat back down again after Sloth had made himself comfortable. “I am glad you are all here on time,” he said, opening a small folder in front of him. “Because there are a few very important things we need to discuss. Firstly, that fat green idiot from the Space Station who stole my name has found out about our Neopian Domination Plan.” At this, the pirate meepit smirked.

     “Something funny, Charles?” demanded Lord King Sloth.

     “Just the fact that Dr. Sloth has known about our domination plans ever since we first made them, seeing as you asked him for help.”

     “I did NOT ask him for help!” snapped Lord King Sloth, slowly turning from his pale pink colour to a bright, angry red. “I offered him help in order to find out his secrets. I took back my offer when I discovered he is even more useless than anyone realises.”

     “I am pretty sure Dr. Sloth rejected him...” a Tyrannian meepit whispered to the faerie meepit sitting next to her. Sloth glared at the two of them.

     “What was that, Lily?” he demanded.

     “Uhh, nothing, Your Majesty...” murmured Lily as the faerie meepit giggled, causing Sloth to scowl fiercely.

     “This isn’t a laughing matter, Daisy!” he snapped, while flicking through the pages of his folder. “I am now going to read to you the letter that Dr. Sloth has sent me. When I have finished, you have my permission to laugh at his stupidity.”

     The five meepits leaned on the table, getting as close to Sloth as possible. The meepits on either side of him, Daisy and Charles, did their best to read the letter over his shoulders. Sloth cleared his throat as loudly and as important-sounding as possible.

     “Dear Sloth and gang...”

     “See, now that is terrible for a start!” said Sloth, interrupting himself. “He didn’t even address me as Your Majesty Lord King Sloth!”

     “And he called us gang!” added a glowing meepit. “I find that insulting!”

     “You find everything insulting, Alex,” said Charles. “Let His Majesty get on with the letter.”

     “I know you are planning to take over Neopia. Congratulations on a brilliant idea. Unfortunately I cannot allow this because I have already planned to do so myself. I expect your plans would not work anyway but I must insist that you hand your plans over to me so I can use destroy them. If you do not give them to my agent who will be arriving to collect them in five days time at exactly 1PM Neopian Standard Time, I will be forced to take more extreme measures to get them, which you will not like.

     Yours sincerely, Dr. Sloth – Neopia’s soon to be Leader.”

     Sloth finished reading the letter and placed it down on the table, staring almost impatiently at the rest of the High Council. “Well,” he said after thirty seconds of silence. “You can laugh now.”

     “But... what’s funny about it?” asked Daisy. “This is very serious.”

     “Yeah. Sloth isn’t exactly the sanest... thing in the universe. Who knows what he will do to get hold of our plans,” added Charles.

     Sloth rolled his eyes. “Why on Neopia would you take a ‘threatening’ letter from that green lump of stuff seriously? I mean, what can he actually do to us? Alex, you are our head scientist. You tell them, there isn’t anything he can do, is there?”

     Everyone turned to look at the glowing meepit whose eyes, if possible, were even larger than normal. Of course, this may have been due to the fact that his new pair of glasses magnified his eyes to the size of tchea fruits. “Actually,” he said softly, pushing his glasses back up to the top of his nose, “there is quite a lot he could do.”

     “I can spy on him personally if you wish, Your Majesty,” said Roger excitedly. “I can wear a disguise, just in case, although really my spying skills are so great nobody would see me anyway.”

     “That might be an idea...” said Sloth thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “Anyone know what the time is?”

     Alex looked at a fancy device he had just pulled out of his pocket. “Well, according to my latest clock invention, which by the way is made of Old Left Boots, tea leaves and...”

     Getting impatient, Charles leaned over his shoulder. “It is nearly 1 PM NST.”

     “Wait a minute,” said Lily thoughtfully. “Dr. Sloth’s agent is supposed to arrive at 1 PM NST five days from when you received the letter. Your Majesty King Sloth, how many days ago did you receive the letter?”

     Sloth looked thoughtful for a moment. “Five, I think.”

     Everyone rolled their eyes at Sloth, before the thought struck them that Dr. Sloth’s agent should be arriving any second now. As one, they turned to face the door, just as someone knocked loudly three times...

To be continued...