New to Neopia

      There was no way I was gonna trust this guy. I had long since found out that people with cheesy grins were either evil or had no underwear. But hey, how could I resist? People are incredibly greedy.

      "Well," I said, faltering slightly, "I've always really wanted to have a great sense of hearing- and to fly."

      "We'll soon fix that, won't we?" he said, his incredibly cheesy grin suddenly twisting into an evil snarl. Yup, I was right. He was evil. Trying to suppress my feeling of killing myself very dead for telling a complete (and evil) stranger my greatest wishes, I focused on the fact that, just perhaps, he wasn't wearing underwear and the evil personality was just to cover it all up.

      Grabbing my wrist, he yanked me into a separate room. Inside, a great deal of equipment was piled up. Had I been in Neopia, an evil scientist would have been incredibly normal, but as I was not in Neopia, and was only a human I was inclined to stare- a lot. Yanking on my wrist again (that really hurts, you know), he pulled me to a gigantic ray- also not unusual in Neopia. With a grin (not cheesy this time) he shoved me onto a black marble slate. Directly below the ray.

      Disoriented for a moment, I couldn't move, not even when I saw giant creeper plants coming up to secure themselves around me and keep me from moving. Wondering if I had somehow walked through a portal to a different dimension, I stared at the evil cheesy grin no underwear man. He pressed a button and I suddenly felt like all my wishes meant nothing, that I would never see them again. A strange tingling suddenly burned through my body.

      How could I imagine that they were about to all come true?

      I rolled over weakly. I was still on some kind of stone, but I felt colder, as if I was suddenly outside. Reaching out with a groan, I seized the thing closest to me and hugged it against my chest. Little did I know that I was holding a Faerie paintbrush, that I was a green Zafara, I was in Neopia, and was rolling straight for the Rainbow Pool. (quite nice, I know.) With a sploosh that I hardly noticed in my weakened and very tired state, I rolled in, still holding the Faerie paint brush. Relaxing as the bright colors of the paintbrush swirled around me, I fainted.

      I came to in a cage. Not knowing as such, and never having been in a cage before, I promptly banged my head and newfound wings against the strong steel bars. Feeling like fainting again, as you couldn't really hurt when you had fainted, I fell over where I was safe from the treacherous barred ceiling. Naturally, of course, the cage fell off of the shelf and I found myself upside down.

      Sighing, and realizing that I wasn't going to faint again anytime soon, I glanced around and told myself that I was as crazy as a flock of feral flying fizzing faellies. I was a person! And unless people came around randomly picking people up and stuffing them in cages, I was dreaming. As footsteps came down the hall, probably to see what in the world had made that gigantic crash, I scowled and prepared to do some kung-fu (although I didn't know a single kick).

      *****

      "I wonder what happened to Dark_Belaia," Terril mused as she brought her nose closer to the window. Her sister Aitlia, a green Bori, looked up from the map she was drawing. Both sisters were lovers of adventure, and their owner, previously mentioned as Dark_Belaia, was no different. Thankfully, their home on Mystery Island was right on the verge of the jungle, and so the three girls were prevented from causing havoc with adventure not far away.

      "She probably went to her own world for a while, Terril," Aitlia replied somewhat unconcerned as she returned to her map. "You know, that planet called Eerth, or something like that."

      "Yeah, but she's never been gone for this long," was Terril's sharp retort.

      "Even when she's on vacation or something, she always comes back to feed us." Aitlia pondered this for a moment before grinning, a sparkle in her eye.

      "Maybe she was on her way to see us... but something else got her instead," Aitlia said severely. "What if she's waiting for us to come and save her or something!" Terril's response was to leap to her feet. The adventurous nature of the red Zafara sometimes got the better of her, and unfortunately, this was one of those times.

      *****

      I tried to show no surprise as a yellow Techo towered over me. Oh yes, I knew what a Techo was. I often played Neopets and had heard of Dr. Death before. I had never seen him; I wasn't one to visit the pound. It was too heartbreaking for me.

      "The great Zafara finally awakens!" he snarled, kicking the cage so that it skidded across the floor with me still upside down inside.

      That was it. I was definitely not happy. "For your information," I said, my voice dripping with poison, "I am not a Zafara, I will not be mocked, and I definitely do not approve of being kicked across the floor!" The whole kennel suddenly became deathly quiet. I don't think anyone had ever talked to Dr. Death like that before, and no one wanted to.

      Dr. Death surprised me with a laugh. "How wonderful, little Zafara. Have you gotten amnesia? Because you are, most definitely, a Zafara, and I say and do what I please." I stared at him, dumbfounded. "It was time you came out anyway," he cackled. "There is much I would like to know about you. Oh, yes, very much..." he trailed off as he hefted my cage and carried me into a nearby office.

      "Well, then," he said as he watched me carefully, "what is your name?" I was not willing to tell him, and I was still rather angry towards him for kicking me across the floor. I just scowled at him. "I said," he rumbled in displeasure, "what is your name?"

      "Dark_Belaia," I growled, still staring him down.

      "How old are you?" seriously having no idea, I simply shrugged. He narrowed his eyes. "As you still seem to think that you are not a lowly Zafara, I will ask this. When did you become a Neopet?" Thinking this over for a moment, I simply replied, "How long have I been out?"

      "About three hours."

      "Then I am three hours old." He watched me with suspicion.

      "If you're so young, then how do you actually speak?"

      A plan was brewing in my mind, a most wonderful and delightful plan. "Oh, I am a quick learner, sir. I've learned five million eight hundred sixty-six words in a mere five minutes, and how to count to sixty billion in two minutes. Want a demonstration? One, two, three, four, five, six..."

      "Stop!" he screamed. It was just as well, because I could only count to five thousand.

      "In fact," I whispered, "I've already found out how to break this lock." He panicked, just as planned, and opened the cage, yanked me out, and threw me into one of those little baby play pen things. How did he have it? I don't know. But, unknowingly, he had thrown me into a place with even less security as he hurriedly searched for a different lock.

      Quietly, carefully, I raised my wings and tried to fly away while his back was turned. As I had only just realized that my wings existed, much less tried to fly with them, my liftoff could hardly be called "graceful." I was absolutely sure that my maiden flight would end in my maiden crash, which didn't help matters one bit, but I did manage to fly out an open window.

      Stupid, I thought as I soared away. Despite everything they said about Dr. Death, he was extremely stupid. As soon as I escaped through that window a new thought bounced into my head. Terril and Aitlia! They deserved to know that I was a Faerie Zafara more than anyone else, and so I would have to find them. But first I would learn to fly.

The End

Author's note: I shall not write, “Yay! I got into the NT! Because I probably haven't, and if you're reading this then it is an absolute miracle. Instead, I will inform you that Terril and Aitlia do exist, they're on a side account named Dark_Belaia. (Unfortunately, I'm having trouble logging in. Hee hee!)