After ACX: Part Seven

      It’s the last day of play. Finally, it’s day 28 and soon, oh, so very soon, we will be free. I’m not the only one feeling like this, I can tell. The Snow pen, nearest us, have the same feeling of ennui, they’re practically drowning in it.

      In contrast, the Fae we were pushed past this morning are full of beans. Their pen was constantly shifting, never ceasing flow of pastels and chatter. Even though it’s illegal for us as Yooyus to place bets, it didn’t stop them speculating about the victor.

      Although they did manage to take a break to ask why we were in a trolley being carried down to our pen, as opposed to just bouncing or flying like the rest of them, who did we think we were, royalty or something?

      “Just one more day,” I mutter, and hear my fellow Clockworks agree. We’re all exhausted.

      I uncurl and lie flat on my back, carefully stretching my metal casing away from my mechanical joints. This would not have possible in previous years, all the other colours are packed tightly into their pens, with barely enough room to breathe.

      It was a week before I realised that the pen was only a touch bigger. There just aren’t as many of us Clockworks as there were Snows last year. Maybe that’s why I’ve not enjoyed the tenth Altador Cup.

      The rules here literally set in stone. They were chiseled eons ago, and initialed LJ, we were shown them on our first day of basic training. Although that was years ago, I still remember how excited we were, a nervous cloud of Normal Yooyus quivering through the massive stadium.

      They showed us everything, even the stuff we didn’t need to know about, like Make Some Noise. There is no way any Yooyu alive today has needed to know anything about Make Some Noise, but we do anyway.

      Likewise with Slushie Slinger, which has even less to do with us and our abilities that Make Some Noise, but we still get the full tour of the premises and a complete rundown of how it worked.

      My train of though reaches a sobering station; They probably don’t bother to show the newbies that anymore. Why would they? Why did they, in fact. My train of thought gives up here, too tired and bored to carry on.

      The games have started, the first Fae is being lifted onto the pedestal. I can just about see what’s happening from the corner of my upside down eye. As always, the babble rises to fill the space left by the departing pedestal, replacing the roar of the stadium with the hum of expectant Yooyus.

      But almost immediately, it dims again, and I am vaguely aware of silence falling, of every other Yooyu stopping and turning, watching someone moving gracefully through the pens.

      She stops in front of our pen, lovelier than anyone we have seen before, and smiles at us. She is so natural that we all clamber up to smile bashfully back. Naia. More beautiful this year than any year previously, although I decide not to tell her this very corny thought of mine.

      “No Clockworks in this bracket today, will you please follow me?” She turns and flows around our pen, and through the door that no one ever looks at. It takes a moment, but we do follow her, although we can’t flow quite as quickly as she can.

      We end up in a room very similar to the Used Room on the other side of the stadium. We huddle, barely inside the doorway, watching her settle herself at the table opposite us.

      “Who’d like to go first?” she smiles at us.

      As one we retreat, all too terrified at what may be about to happen. We squash back against the door that closed behind us.

      “Oh, dear ones, don’t be scared!” she cries, sensing our fear.

      “You are just getting a new life. Trust me.” And all of a sudden, I’m rolling forwards to her, my metal clanking on the concrete floor. I do trust her. I’m ready for whatever she is going to give me, or take away. I have had a good time as a Yooyuball, but now it’s time for a change.

Two months later:

      I have a name. And a colour, against all the odds. I am now Dodger, the Rainbow Yooyu, happy petpet to a wonderful Neopet, ecstatic owner of a cheery Mootix.

      I have a family, something I never thought I would. I thought that my year of being a Clockwork, all the stress that placed on my body would mean that my last year in the Cup would be my last year generally.

      And now look at me. I’m resting on my own bed, leaning back and watching my Mootix leap around our Neopet, as she reads. With a quick flick of her tail, my Mootix is caught, perfectly trapped, and slowly lowered back to my waiting paws, with only the tiniest hint of a smile peeking out from behind her book to betray how pleased she is with herself.

      Yesterday, we took a trip, renting a boat from the strange Governor of Krawk Island. We collected our special ticket, that grants us one time access to an island that only the few live on. We only got the ticket because of who I am. Who I was, I should say.

      Yesterday’s excursion showed me, more than anything else, that the Cup is behind me. I can finally move on, instead of waiting anxiously for my marching orders. I always wondered if the fans knew that training started the month of Gathering.

      While the rest of Neopia flocked to the Faerie Festival, the neomails would start trickling in, ‘requests’ from the coaches that were never really requests. Cold orders of 1 Normal, 2 Fae, 4 Mutant and the like, that would get posted on the board by the dock, along with the departure times for each team.

      We were shipped in total secrecy. Every year they would paint a different food item on the outside of the ship that we huddled in, unable to look outside at the changing scenery. When we finally arrive at whatever strange and, to our eyes, alien location, we would explode out in all directions.

      I miss that feeling of exploding out. Not out of the cramped, nervous box, the exploding of the Clockwork that hasn’t scored. I know that’s not normal, but there was such a relief in that moment. The knowledge that you hadn’t upset one team to make another team happy was intense, the feeling of being fair to all was a nice change after years of inevitably scoring for the team who managed to grab you first.

      I always thought that, if I had the opportunity to go back to the Isle after, I would explode off the boat and race around the little land mass. I would whiz through each of my old haunts, and remind myself what it had been like to be Normal and trapped in the nursery, to be Fae and want to spend all my time by the still pool waters.

      I thought I would want to see the caves where I had explored both the natural caverns and my strange new nature. I thought I would skid over them to the field where, as a Darigan, I had spent weeks practicing the quick unpredictable turns that were so predictable of the Darigan in play.

      I had made these plans as a Fire Yooyu, when I had loved the beach, each lap attempting to get fast enough to turn the sand to glass. I revisited my farewell tour as a world-weary Snow, thinking quietly to myself that it might be nice to go back and see hill where I had slept most days, avoiding the burning midday heat in the shade of the various trees holding the land together.

      In the end, I don’t do any of that. I take my new Neopet, my mootix and my new colour to the far side of the Isle, the beaches where no Yooyus ever bother to go. My mootix isn’t happy about this, cowering in my ear and clinging tightly with tiny claws, clutching every time a happy yelp drifts over the sand dunes.

      “Don’t be afraid,” I whisper. “The Isle is full of strange noises. It’s just more Yooyus like me, nothing to be scared of.”

      Our Neopet scoops us up, and cuddles us. “Why here, Dodge?” she asks. I look out to the view for an answer, but struggle to find the right words. I’m not one for baring all, but I had said a little about my plans for our day trip to my old home.

      However, the second we got here, it didn’t feel right to take them to my old hang outs. The Isle is full of beautiful views, of caves and beaches, fields and trees. Each and every one they would have appreciated.

      “There’s nothing here but sea and sky.” I eventually say. “On the other side of the Isle, where we docked, and everywhere I used to play and train, there’s something to look at, something hemming you in. Here?” I gesture to the infinite sea spread out at our feet.

      “Here we can be free to be and think and say what we want. Like my future.”

      “My little poet!” she giggles, and hugs me tightly. I squeeze her back, thanking my lucky stars I got her after the Cup. I have a future with a wonderful family, and who knows? Maybe I’ll be back at the ACXI, as a spectator of course. The young’uns can race around the pitch. Us old folk are quite happy to sit and cheer in the stands.

      The End.