I am Aqua: Part Four

     “Those clouds aren’t edible; it’s just softer, but it is just as clean as Neopia Central’s sidewalk.”

     I blushed. “Sorry.”

     She nodded, her gold earrings clinking. “It’s ok; you must be a land-liver if you’ve never been on a cloud.”

     I opened my mouth to answer, but I looked down instead, eyes glistening.

     “Oh, I’m sorry.” She put a pale hand over her mouth. “Here.” She gave me a trading card.

     “Thanks,” I murmured, unsure of what to do with it. Ellen never collected them.

     She suddenly glowed brightly. “Oh, I simply must go. Apologies, young neopet, farewell!” Her wings fluttered and zoomed off into the air in a blur of sunny colored light.

      I stared at the card. Reeses saw it and smiled. She told me that it was just for collecting. I carefully placed it into my bag and she showed me the way home. We walked on cloud way bridges. Gosh, there weren’t even path ways! At last she stopped at a medium sized house. Unlocking the door, she led me inside.

     Almost exactly 1.001 seconds later after we entered the abode, a red Chomby with large, flaming wings loomed in front of me with a smile. On her neck was a necklace with a bright orange flame gem.

     “Hi! You must be the new foster!” She spoke in a hyper active voice, just like Dolphinoras when she met a new person.

     Dolphinoras...

     I blinked. “Um, hi...” I had never seen a Chomby that wasn’t a rare color with wings before.

     Then a starry Xweetok came in. “Sis! Don’t freak out everyone you meet!” he cried. He touched something on his neck which I saw was another necklace, this one also having a cyan teardrop.

     ...And he had shell faerie wings.

     “Oh be quiet.” The Chomby sniffed in a joking matter. “So! What’s your name?”

     “Aqua,” I said slowly, “Aqua with a bunch of numbers after it.”

     Reeses appeared next to me. “Flame, calm down; sometimes you freak everyone you meet!”

     “Exactly...” The starry Xweetok groaned. “Anyways, hey.” He smiled and waved to me.

     “Um... Aqua, meet my four pets... my other eight are living in my side home. This is Flame.” She pointed to the red Chomby who beamed and waved enthusiastically.

     “Hello!”

     I smiled weakly and waved a hoof. “Hi...”

     Reeses continued. “Star is the Xweetok; they are twins but Flame’s been labbed.”

     “Which is awesome by the way!” the Chomby added happily.

     “Hey...” Reeses looked around and frowned. “Hold on... REESES! LUCKY! OUR NEW FOSTER IS HERE, SO COME DOWN NOW!”

     I stared; who knew a girl like her could scream so loud?

      Suddenly a Faerie Xweetok swooped down the stares, his wings like that of earth faeries. Around his neck was that same necklace, a single glimmering jade colored leaf charm swaying as he hovered in mid air. He looked at me one second then blinked. The Xweetok landed next to Star and smiled.

     “Hey there. If you’re our foster, I must warn you-”

     “Oh put a sock in it, Reeses!” A glamorous striped Xweetok with a necklace on underneath a purple feather boa (her necklace had a wind symbol) zoomed up to the Faerie Xweetok with cumulus wings from the stairs and hit him on the nose.

     Reeses_pet looked uncomfortable. “Erm... yeah... The striped one is Lucky.” Lucky waved hi, then stuck her tongue out at her brother before readjusting a pink knit purse on her shoulders. “And the Faerie Xweetok is Reeses who I named after myself.” She giggled slightly. “Hey, I was a newbie when I created him!”

     Lucky snickered. “Yeah, like when I was green and you painted me with a starter green paint brush because you thought it would make me sparkly!”

     I couldn’t help but snort slightly. “That must’ve been a nice surprise,” I remarked.

     “I suppose so,” Reeses_pet said a little bit unhappily. “Anyways, to make sure there aren’t confusions, you can call me Pet.”

     I nodded. “Okay.”

***

      For a long time I lived with Pet, and everyone treated me as if I was a permanent pet. I actually felt loved ever since Ellen left. Ellen’s remembrance or memory no longer made me cry, though I still missed her dearly. I stayed in a room reserved for fosters, and it was quite comfy. Pet bought me some books that I hadn’t read and every now and then she’d take me to the Training School to boost my stats a bit.

      Like all of her other fosters, she gave me the choice of a morphing potion or the lab. Instinctively I said lab, and each day I looked forward to daily trips. The zaps didn’t really make me back away in fear- it was pretty cool. Like being zapped by lightning in a mild form...! I got discouraged, however, as the only things that happened were stat changes.

     Then I became a boy.

      The scorchio scientist pulled the switch as he did every day, and the zap hit me. But instead of feeling a little stronger or weaker... I felt... indescribable. Then Pet told me I had become a boy. At first it was weird. It didn’t feel right. Then she told me if I really wanted to become a girl I could battle the lab ray scientist (an automatic lose) and take the chance of becoming a girl.

      Naturally, I said yes, not knowing the consequences to take my prize. I battled him and felt a whole new world of pain. He shot at me with expensive ray guns and healed himself over and over with a scorchstone. Lucky for me, the battle ended on the first round and he zapped me so I turned back into a girl. Pet bought me a healing potion immediately

     And I doubted it would be worth it next time.

      I was a little hesitant to go after that, but I wanted to still enjoy the exhilarating feeling and the time when I would finally get a true home. One day while at the lab the ray shot at me in a different way, striking me and giving me a different feeling than I had ever felt before. My tail went numb and I looked down and saw it divide into two short legs. Suddenly my hooves turned into normal hands and my shoulders began to feel like they had grown fans. My nose shortened and my whole face contorted. I grew a tail and my eyes widened in shock. All of my hair shrank into my skin and a large fin sprouted out of the top of my head. I put my hands up to my face, my mouth open wide. My skin was still green; just a darker shade.

     “You’re a green Shoyru now,” Pet said slowly. “Cool!”

     I nodded numbly, looking at my new body. “It feels weird standing,” I admitted, then stumbled and fell, my belly hitting the ground, quickly followed by my face. I groaned; this would take much adjusting to- which I was obviously not looking forward to.

      Pet chuckled, then helped me up. It felt good to have wings, though, and made up for the fact I couldn’t breathe underwater or swim as fast due to my lack of fins. With instructions from Pet’s winged neopets, I soon learned how to fly like a pro. It was thrilling to be swooping up and down and all around in the skies, defying gravitational forces. Haha, look at me now, Carl! Carl was a blue Pteri who teased me about being able to fly and would always take the chance to throw something at me while hovering in the air. I shouldn't have blurted out I always wanted to fly. I suppose even in the Pound there are mean people.

     Life was, overall, normal with my occasional gender switches. I began to suspect that my life would go on like this for a while- the lab just didn't want to give me a rare color. Oopsy had already gone through multiple species- more than me. It must be a nice life as a petpet- minus the part where you get thrown into Safety Deposit Boxes, galleries and bargained for at shops or at the Trading Post by someone who is likely to do that all over again. Pfffff. Anyway, life was normal and I became ignorant. How could I expect something exciting to happen? Eh!? But happy surprises are good- not that I would know I would encounter a surprise, because how would it even be a surprise?

     I like happy surprises, but there's a thing I don't like about surprises- you never know if they're good or bad until they happen. Of course I would be in for a good surprise, which would have been to my delight if I knew it was coming. But like I said, in a normal everyday schedule that never seemed to change, it was very surprising to what happened next.

To be continued...