Shades of Darkness: Shadow is Arising - Part Three

I decided to go to Nfc40's house today. Nfc is a good friend of mine who lives in Neopia central, so, once again, I dragged a frantic Kougra across the ocean on the back of a Uni.

"Pudding, I see land ahead of us," I told my Kougra.

No answer.

"Pudding?" I turned my head around. Pudding was no where in sight.

"STOP!" I yelled to the Uni in a frantic voice. "My Kougra fell off!"

The Uni instantly stopped and flew down towards the water for a closer view. After a few fearful minutes of searching, we located Pudding standing on a sandbar.

"Sorry about that!" apologized the Uni.

"Let's just go to Neopia Central," Pudding said. "And when we get there, ask Nfc for a towel!"

Later on, the Uni finally flew down into the driveway of a small Neohome; Nfc's home. I thanked the Uni, who then flew off, and walked up to Nfc's door. I knocked on the door, then waited patiently while listening to Pudding shiver from being wet. The moment Nfc opened the door, the first words out of his mouth was, "What happened to Pudding?"

"She fell off the Uni Taxi, and before we come in, can she get a towel?" I asked Nfc. He ran and grabbed a towel and gave it to Pudding, who dried herself before she came into the house.

"So what's up?" I asked Nfc after Pudding was all dry. Pudding busied herself by joining Hop860 the blue Kacheek in a game of Chess.

"Lupenor is well. Nevony is trying to invent a Petpet morphing potion, and I made this cool Battledome potion, but it blew up when I added a new ingredient."

I laughed. Nfc and Nevony the green Uni loved to invent magic stuff, which sometimes blew up. And speaking of blowing up…

BOOM! BOOM! AHHH! Loud screams and booms were coming from Nfc's basement.

"Oh no," I said and followed Nfc to the basement.

As soon was we descended the basement steps, the air was filled with smoke. A knocked over table, broken potion bottles, and other random stuff surrounded a Slorg.

"Nevony, where are you?" said Nfc.

"AAIIIIIIIEEE!" said the Slorg.

"Hey, this Slorg isn't Slop..." Nfc said suspiciously. Slop was Hop's Slorg.

"Hey...didn't you say Nevony was working on a Petpet Morphing Potion?" I asked him.

"Uh oh. This isn't good. I have no clue how to change him back..."

"Well, how do you make a pet morphing potion?"

"Well, you need some bit of the pet you're changing into, a mote that represents the element that the pet is, which in Nevony's case would be Mud."

Nfc went on forever naming ingredients. I wrote them down on a piece of paper, then agreed to go out and find them. Nfc would try to find one of Nevony's hairs from somewhere in the house. I took Hop and Pudding with me so we would find stuff faster. After searching forever, the only ingredient we needed was a green paint brush.

"Okay Hop, you take the shops on the left. Pudding, you take the shops on the right. I'll look in the shops up ahead. If you find anything, report back to the center. If two of us buy the same item, we'll just sell the extra," I said, and then we split up and left.

I immediately began to browse through shops, eager for this trip to be over as quickly as possible. After fifteen minutes of searching in vain, I found the paint brush. I shoved it into my bag after I paid for it, and then ran to find the others.

I found Pudding first; she was still searching through a bunch of shops. Hop, however, proved a challenge.

"Where in Neopia could Hop be?" Pudding yelled at empty space as we were dashing through a back alley.

"AHHHH!" came a cry from an alley branching off of ours. We turned the corner to find two Lupes and a Skeith holding a struggling Hop. The attacker's eyes were grey and lifeless. The air in the ally became cold.

"Hey you!" yelled Pudding. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

"Okay, how about you!" yelled one of the Lupes, angry that their plan was discovered. He gave Hop to one of his buddies and charged at Pudding. Pudding kicked him in the stomach and made keel over. He fell next to two metal poles that were just lying in the alley.

"Pudding, catch!" I yelled, throwing her one of the poles. I picked up the other one.

"Hand the Kacheek over, or this pole is going to come down on your head!" I said fiercely. The attackers did not back off.

"Alright then," said Pudding. "Don't say we didn't warn you."

We lunged at them with our poles. I raised mine above my head and slammed it down on the Skeith, creating a large bump on his head. The air seemed to become colder as I got closer.

Pudding was fighting one of the Lupes. The other held Hop and was trying to stay out of the fight. I took care of him while the Skeith was still dizzy. I hit him on the head repeatedly until he dropped Hop and lost consciousness just as Pudding had finished with the other Lupe. I then faced the Skeith once again, only this time he was dizzy and his aim was poor. After he had lost consciousness as well, I turned my attention to Hop.

Pudding was already trying to fix Hop up. Hop was bleeding on the arm slightly, possibly because he was bitten. There were a couple of bruises on his chest, but other then that, he was fine, except the fact that he was shivering.

"Those weren't normal pets," I said.

"The eyes," Hop whispered. He was still shivering.

"Let's just get him home, I got the paintbrush," I said as I picked up Hop.

"Did you feel the air get cold?" asked Pudding.

"Yeah, and their eyes weren't normal."

"They weren't normal pets."

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We burst through Nfc's front door. I sat Hop down on the couch and covered him with a blanket when Lupenor the Christmas Lupe came in.

"Nfc's down in the lab. What happened to Hop?" he asked.

"Long story," I said as I went toward the basement steps.

Nfc had the entire potion making stuff already set up. Slorg-Nevony was sitting on the floor, sleeping.

"You get everything?" asked Nfc.

"Don't EVER ask me to shop for potion ingredients when we can just by a potion! Hop was attacked by a bunch of abnormal pets! Just make the potion and let's get this over with," I said as I handed the bag of ingredients to him.

"I'm cheap. And besides, I'm saving up for a Krawk," said Nfc with a smile. He knows how I hate shopping.

It took an hour for Nfc to brew the potion. During that time I grabbed Nfc's copy of Beasts of Neopia, sat down in a squishy armchair in Nfc's living room, and looked up the characteristics of the pets in the alley.

"Let's see here," I said to myself. "Grey eyes, cold air surrounding, hmm." I flipped a few pages. "Here we go," I found a picture of a blue Acara with lifeless gray eyes. On the top of the page it read: Shade.

Shades are one of the most evil beasts of Neopia. A Shade in its natural form is a grey shadow of whatever species it was born. They have the power to possess other beings, mostly Neopets, but humans if they can. Once a Shade infects a being, it is very hard to get rid of. A being that is being possessed by a Shade has lifeless grey eyes with no pupils, and the air surrounding them is stone cold. If a being stands next to a Shade for a period of time, they will start to feel cold and shiver for hours, sometimes

days afterwards. Shades can only be destroyed when the Lord of the Shades is killed by a special kind of magic to the heart. A Barrier was made long ago by the Faeries to keep Shades out of Neopia. When the Barrier breaks, the Shades will enter Neopia once again. The only know person with enough power to stop the Shades is the Guardian of Neopia.

It all fit. The attackers were Shades. But that means the Barrier must be breaking, or it had broken already. So Hop would be fine in a few hours, least that's one good thing, but Neopia wouldn't be safe unless this Guardian of Neopia destroyed these Shade things.

"YES!" yelled Nfc from the basement.

I ran down the steps to Nfc's basement with the book in hand to find Nevony standing where the Slorg had sat.

"Look at this!" I said as I handed the book to Nfc." These Shade things fit the exact description of the pets that attacked Hop!"

Nfc read the page with interest, but, soon, a look of horror came across his face.

"They didn't get Hop, did they?"

"No, they didn't, he's just got the shivers from being close to them. He'll be fine," Nfc gave a look of relief. "But we have a bigger problem, if they broke the Barrier, Neopia isn't safe!"

"Yeah, I know. What should we do?"

"First, let's call Dykred; he needs to know, as well as Bananagirl. Then we need to alert the faeries. They probably know about this Guardian person."

These weren't normal pets.

We weren't normal people.

To be continued...