Never Wish to Fly: Part Six

      Her internal clock told her it was about 9 AM when mouth-watering smells of breakfast drifted in from outside the room. Pangra licked her lips, becoming even more ravenous. It smelled like bacon. And eggs. And pancakes. She could hardly contain her drooling! Then her breakfast came.

      A small, cracked, blue bowl full of some sort of unidentifiable, odd-smelling brown and green slop was shoved into her face. Yum, breakfast, thought Pangra sarcastically. Her empty stomach continued being ignored. Growling, her stomach protested the lack of attention. Pangra reconsidered eating breakfast. Until she inspected the "food" again. Ew, was that an eyeball?! Hearing footsteps, she looked up. Oh, not a big deal, thought Pangra, just a Gelert. Realizing that this Gelert was wearing an identical collar and had the same backpack as her sister Glia, Pangra felt a sense of relief. Making as much noise as she dared, she got the pet's attention. Regardless of whether this Gelert was Glia or not, maybe they could help her escape!

      "Pangra?! So it was you they abducted!"

      "Get me out of here!" Then she became curious. "Just, err, how would you happen to be standing in front of me now?"

      Glia hurriedly told her story. "I went to the lab ray and found a map piece and got zapped this way until noon and asked about the map and got told that I needed to find the other one so I flew to Mystery Island but," she started in one breath. She caught her breath and continued, "Got a gem stolen from me by someone named Scepton and he told me to go to this house so I did but they gave me a sleeping potion and then I woke up and stole back the gem and last map piece and I got a faerie quest and got transported to the Space Station," she rambled on, starting to slow down her speaking. "I got here, so I went looking for the scientist, but I couldn't find him. Then I found this jail and came looking for you... How do I get you out?"

      Pangra blinked a few times, feeling completely lost. "The grundo master has the keys... He walked out of here awhile ago. I don't know where he went, sorry!"

      "Ok. I'll be back!" whispered Glia as she snuck back out of the room.

     ***

      About forty minutes later (it was hard to know exactly how long, since she didn't have a clock to look at), Glia rushed breathlessly back into the room. She opened her backpack and thrust a stone into Pangra's hands. "Hold this!"

      She dug back into the bag and pulled out a large ring of keys. After trying five keys, she found one that turned smoothly in the lock. "Hurry!" exclaimed Glia as the two went towards the room's exit. Once they were just outside the door, back in the hallway, they saw the grundo master heading towards them!

      "Why can't I finish a meal today? I just dug into my vegetable deluxe!" he mumbled, annoyed. Before they could react to him, the stone in Pangra's paws glowed orange and caused the grundo to stop moving. Slowly at first, then more quickly, the grundo started to turn gray and gained some small cracks. The gem had turned the grundo to stone! Both pets gasped, but then quickly started running down the hallway.

      "We need to find the moon machine!"

      Coming up on the left was a large sign for the control room. The siblings figured that looking there was worth a shot, and they entered. Sure enough, there was a large machine containing a piece on cheese which was connected to wires.

      "Ok, now explain this to me?" questioned Glia, while dropping her backpack onto the floor.

      "We need the two map pieces with Kreludor on them. To make a long story short, Kreludor is going to crash into Neopia, and we need those map pieces to operate this machine!" After quickly retrieving the needed map pieces, the sisters looked for where they would go. A part of the machine that looked something like a scanner was found, and the map was hurriedly shoved in. No sooner were the map pieces safe inside the machine when Sloth showed up!

      "Ah, sneaks and trespassers, I see!" Sloth snapped his fingers and had them surrounded. Within minutes, ropes had them bound. "So you two are the ones foiling all my plans! I told all these people to go after you and stop you, but I swear, these days, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself! Well, I've got things to do, see you later! I'll be sending in some soldiers in awhile to put you both in cages!"

      "Um... isn't this supposed to be the part where you tell us your evil plan before getting rid of us? That's how it always goes!"

      "Well, I really am busy, but I guess, for tradition's sake..." He sighed. "Um, well, basically, I built this machine and I'm going to crash Kreludor into Neopia." Pangra raised one eyebrow. "Ok, so I'm not very good at this! I just make the evil schemes and follow them, I don't explain them!"

      Just then the Haunted Woods scientist entered the control room. "Good. There you are! Less than two hours until collision," Sloth greeted him.

      The scientist glared at them. "How did you escape? Oh well, at least you didn't get your precious gem and map piece back!" More mad laughter. Glia wanted to scream from the overdose of evil laughter for the day.

      "Map piece? I thought I told you to destroy them?"

      "What's the point, if they're going to be destroyed when Kreludor crashes?"

      "Because, what if the collision doesn't hit Neopia out of its orbit the way we planned, and they're not in the spot that's hit? Then they still exist!"

      "Wow. I didn't think of that... I'll have to do it once I get back to Neopia."

      "Ugh, you're not going back to Neopia, remember?"

      "Right... Forgot about that! ...Wait! That gem Scepton confiscated! I left it back there!"

      Sloth rolled his eyes. "You're always acting like a little child, saying you've left something behind and now you want to go get it!"

      "I do not!"

      "Do too!"

      "Do not!" As the do-not-and-do-too-ing went on, someone else walked into the room.

      The arguing suddenly ceased. "Hello, Scepton." Scepton?! This was no more than a simple blue Lupe! No wonder he had worn a dark cape before! "He left the gem back on Neopia," Sloth childishly accused the scientist.

      "What?! I swear, I leave it alone with you for a second, and..."

      "It's not my fault! You know I'm the youngest here!"

      "What has that got to do with anything?"

      At the same time, Sloth said, "And that's why we treat you like it!"

      "No, you're just jealous that my owner got me a puppyblew when I was little, and you couldn't have one!"

      "Pfft! Yeah right!" The three continued to argue with each other, but they eventually turned to Glia and Pangra, still on the floor. "Shouldn't we take care of these...delinquents?"

      "Yes, thanks for reminding me!" Just as they were about to be seized, the three villains just...froze! They didn't turn to stone the way the grundo had earlier, but it was enough to give Glia and Pangra a chance to escape from their bonds. Using her extended claws (those were REALLY coming in handy today!), the ropes were sliced. They went back to the machine, and Glia was relieved that the villains hadn't discovered the location of her backpack.

      Pangra was now operating the machine, pushing random buttons and pulling levers. Another button was pressed, and on the machine's monitor, they saw the moon start speeding towards the planet. "I thought the robot said that the orbit speed couldn't be increased!" cried Pangra.

      Suddenly, the robot was just... there, flipping more switches and buttons. "The-or-bit-is-back-to-nor-mal-now," he announced. And sure enough, it was! Pangra and Glia started to celebrate, but Sloth moved! The villains were unfreezing!

      When Sloth woke up and saw what they had done, he rushed over and started hitting buttons all over again! As Glia and him struggled against each other at the control panel, Pangra and the robot bound the Ixi and Lupe, who were just starting to move again. With both of those threats out of the way, they turned their attention back to Sloth.

      "What?!" Sloth was still hitting buttons on the control panel, but couldn't align the moon's path again. "How embarrassing... I can't even operate my own machine! Where was that owner's manual I wrote?" As he was mumbling more about finding the owner's manual, the robot used his hypnotic powers again. While he was dazed, the robot sped him back to the jail cells.

      Between the two of them, they got the orbit back in order, but remembered that the Ixi and Lupe were still in the room!

      "Now, what to do with them?"

     ***

      "Move over, Sloth, you're hogging up my cell space!"

      "Nuh uh! You move over!"

      "I still think you're jealous of my puppyblew!"

      "Be quiet!...Am not!"

      "Are too!"

      And that, my friends, is where the story ends, for now. At least, I'm pretty sure. But you may wish to go outside and check the size of the moon anyway...

The End