The Adventures of NTAG
Leah's Arrival
Disclaimer: I don't own Neopets or any of its characters—even if I am one of them
"Mom, you have to do this," a Kacheek pleaded to her mother.
"The know-it-all is right, Leah," the red Shoyru beside her said. "The guild you're in now is pushing up daisies. Smelly, ugly daisies."
"That's easier said than done. Every guild I've joined so far has become inactive after the first few months. I don't want to trap myself in that again," said their owner in angst.
"Then join a guild that's been around for a while. A guild that's been active for years," the young Kacheek suggested.
This seemed to open new ideas to Leah's mind, which was inexplicably vacant until then.
"Dear Din, you're right, Velria!" she exclaimed.
"What about NTAG?" the Shoyru suggested.
"What about a tag?"
"NTAG. It stands for the Neopian Times Appreciation Guild. Weren't you paying attention when we were searching for guilds?"
"We were searching for guilds?"
"Oh yeah!" Velria remembered. "That guild's been active for about four years. That's a good start, Veltru."
"Neopian Times Appreciation, huh? Sounds like my kind of crowd," said Leah.
"Then it's settled," Velria proclaimed, grinning.
"Wait a smidgen!" snapped Leah. "I never even got to say goodbye to my old guild."
"You'd be talking to the wall, Leah. Let's go," Veltru grumbled.
Much complaints and a high dose of tranquilizer later, Veltru and Velria succeeded in dragging Leah to the Lenny Library by her feet. The NTAG guild house was enormous, and boasted the appearance of a mansion. It clearly housed at least hundreds of members.
"I don't know guys...With all of those members, I may not be welcome. What if I feel uncomfortable?"
"Shut up, no one cares," Veltru mumbled.
"...Fine. But if I get even a glimpse of it being boring I'm going back."
But her pets knew better. Knowing Leah almost never went on her own word, they agreed and headed toward the entrance of the NTAG house. The door was locked, however, as it is with all people who try to come in a message board without proper membership. A rectangular device hugged the outside of the door. Leah had done this numerous times, much to her displeasure. She handed the box her now blank guild card. Within a few seconds, the box spat out the card with all of her guild info on it.
"Name: leah underscore 51293. Rank: Subscriber. Posts: 0. Joined: 12/9/05," Leah read aloud from her membership card.
"Let's go in, then," said Velria.
They opened the double doors and stopped in the doorway. At that moment, several dozen things were happening all at once. Cheese and celery were being chucked everywhere, people were severely tackling each other, some screamed "ROFFLE!" and "It splashes!", a ray gun zapped several others and changed their gender, and four girls were singing (terribly off-key) to the rest of the guild members. The family stood there in the doorway gaping at the situation in front of them. Before Leah knew it, her form was shifting dramatically. A swirl of colors and light morphed her into a...white Weewoo.
"Uh, why do I feel shorter?" Leah asked in a slightly more high-pitched voice.
"What is this here?" a mischievous voice said behind them. Leah pivoted around and came face-to-face with a blue Shoyru. The female Neopet gripped a cheese mallet and had a wide grin. "A Weewoo that has not been subjected to my cheese mallet? We must fix this problem immediately."
"I'm not a bird!" Leah bellowed. The Shoyru gasped and checked to see if she wasn't going insane. However, this was probably the most futile thing ever, since sanity was not welcome in the house.
"Did you just talk?"
"Of course I did! What do I look like, a Petpet?"
"Am I supposed to answer that honestly?"
Leah blinked for a few moments and then looked down at her body. She gave out a shriek that almost sounded like a chirp.
"Ah, I see, you're a new member. Welcome to NTAG!" she declared
"Wait, wait, wait, wait...wait. You mean you're a member too? But you're a Shoyru."
"That's the effect of the NTAG house. You become whatever you set your mind to. In my case I'm a blue Shoyru. With a cheese mallet. What could be better? Oh, dear me. Have my manners gone with all the dynamite? My name's Nano. I was gone for a while, but now I'm back to greet all my old friends again."
"Why were you gone?"
"...My account was frozen."
Leah stared at the Shoyru with concern. "Oh...sorry."
"Don't be, I'm okay with it. You learn from your mistakes, right?"
"I guess. By the way, I'm Leah. And, I'm not going to lie, but this is the biggest house I've ever been in."
"We have many rooms for special occasions. Take, for example, the washroom. The washroom is where you learn something so awful or unsanitary you must surgically remove your brain and leave it in a washer. If it needs deep cleansing there's some elbow-grease techniques for that, but as a newbie to the guild, you shouldn't be too disturbed." Nano paused and thought about what she just said. "Um...scratch that last part. Anyway, I'm going to the lounge. See ya 'round!" Nano flew off toward the staircase.
It wasn't until now Leah noticed her pets were nowhere to be seen.
"Oh snaps. Veltru? Velria?" the Weewoo cried out as she searched the Grand Hall. She bumped into a water faerie and let out another chirp.
The faerie gasped. "Hey! Watch where you're goi—Oh! I'm sorry! What's your name?"
"..."
"By the way, have I seen you before? I've never met any Weewoo members around NTAG."
"..."
"Well, from the way you're looking at me I can tell you're new. I'm Belle, the guild's official Water Faerie."
"..."
"Not much of a talker, are you?"
"...I'm Leah."
"Welcome to NTAG, Leah," Belle said, grinning.
"I'm responsible for all the water creature transformations in NTAG. I'm doing something special for the holidays, so I'll call you and everyone back here this afternoon, 'kay? Take care," The water faerie then went to another side of the house to chat.
"Well, that was an odd eight seconds. Oh, yeah, where have my demon children wandered?" The Weewoo wondered aloud as she approached the stairs. She hopped from stair to stair in a failed attempt to get to the next floor.
"You might want to try flying, dear."
The Weewoo looked up to see a girl smiling at the struggling bird.
"Flying? I've tried flying. Apparently there's more to it then just flapping your wings."
"It's like riding a bicycle, I suppose. Say, are you a new member?"
"Yeah. I'm Leah," She stated.
"Welcome, Leah! I'm Slamina." Then, much to Leah's surprise/dismay/vital organs, Slamina stood on the top stair and dive-tackled her. They bounced across the long stairs until they painfully hit the bottom.
"WHAT IN TED STEPHEN'S NAME DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" Leah shouted.
"That is a glomp. When you glomp someone, you hug them so hard you tackle them. The more pain a glomp brings, the better the glomp is."
"Well, that's great as far as that goes. But in case you didn't notice I wanted to go upstairs."
"No problem, I'll just carry you."
Despite the Weewoo's desire to choke Slamina with her bare feet, she had seen other people do this and figured it just was a part of showing affection in the guild. When they reached the top floor, Belle just so happened to be there and granted Leah the knowledge of flight. And thus, the Weewoo's search for her pets continued. Further into exploration she found a room with several beanbags, game systems, and an HDTV. Nano and human member wearing a red hoodie were playing against each other in a game of Super Smash Bros. Now this is my kind of crowd, Leah thought gladly. She flew on top of the blonde boy's head to get a better view.
"Nano, is that you again?" he asked.
"I'm the one playing against you, genius."
"Oh. Sorry, force of habit," he said as he swiped Leah of his head.
"Oh! That's Leah. She's my newbie, and I own her. Got that Sage? Mine. Not yours," growled Nano.
"The newbie of the guild, huh?" he said. He looked back at the screen and suddenly realized Nano had taken advantage of this and knocked his character off-screen.
"I win!" Nano yelled in triumph. She grabbed the cheese mallet she had left by her side and did a break dance on the floor.
"Oh, come on! That's the ninth time today," the boy protested, but took his attention back to Leah.
"I'm Sage. I'm uh…not really good at introductions…" he mumbled. In shyness, he hid under a pillow he had put at his side much like Nano had done. Leah, being herself, took this the wrong way and shrieked. She pulled out Boochi's ray gun from nowhere and zapped the pillow with it.
"My pillow!" Sage cried. He looked down at his baby pillow with mournful eyes. "What does everyone have against my pillow?"
"THAT PILLOW WAS NOT BORN OF MORTAL MEN! It came from an age of darkness when pillows could and did talk!"
"Talk? That's preposterous!" Sage declared, unaware that the pillow was now sticking its tongue out at the Shoyru and Weewoo. Nano started laughing maniacally while rolling across the floor yelling "ROFFLE! ROFFLE ROFFLE ROFFLE! For the love of all things good ROFFLE!"
"What's roffle?" Leah asked.
"Roffle is a different pronunciation for the acronym ROFL, or 'Rolls on The Floor Laughing,'" Sage explained.
"Oh yeah, I know that acronym," Leah said with elation, feeling as though she knew what was going on for once. She was about to continue her search for Veltru and Velria when she heard a noise coming from the ceiling.
"HOLY HAIL!"
A Purple Kiko and a girl were dancing on the roof.
"Hi Nut! Hi Luau!" Nano called to them. They looked up (or down from a grounded point-of-view) and waved to Nano.
"Hiya!" the Kiko said and jumped off the roof to glomp Nano.
"What's with the Weewoo?"
"That's Leah, my newbie."
"Okay, cool! I'm Nut. I'm a Purple Kiko and a Belle Doll."
"Belle Doll?"
"Yup. Belle is responsible for turning people into Belle Dolls. TNT calls them Rainbow Fountain Faerie Dolls but don't believe them, 'kay?"
"Sure thing. And who's..." Leah was interrupted by the remaining roof dancer, who jumped off the roof to glomp the tiny Weewoo.
"Hey there stranger! I'm Luau."
"Hi Luau. I'm hurting."
"Oh! Sorry about that." Luau apologized, standing up.
"I'm Leah. Um...have any of you seen my pets?"
"Are they the ones who wrote Hamlet on my hoodie in permanent marker?"
"Veltru and Velria have been here? What have they done now?"
"More or less what Sage said. They sneak up on you and write Shakespearean plays on your articles of clothing. Luckily I've been keeping an eye on my mallet until this very moment, and they haven't managed to..." As Nano picked up her cheese mallet, A Midsummer Night's Dream could be seen written across it. "HOW DID THEY DO THAT?"
"Where did they go?"
"Last time I checked they were in the kitchen," Nut said, looking into space trying to remember.
"You have a kitchen?" Leah whined.
"Of course we do. Where do you think we get all the cheese and celery and junk?" Sage replied.
"Where is it?"
"Downstairs, across the Grand Hall, to the right," Luau instructed.
"I'm probably not going to remember that anyway so everyone, follow me," Leah said, flapping in midair.
"But we're playing Super Smash Bros!" Nano whined.
"Would you rather play Super Smash Bros, or save all your cheese from disappearing?" the Weewoo retorted.
"Am I supposed to answer that honestly?"
"Just follow me!" So Leah, Sage, Nano, Nut, and Luau carefully made their way downstairs and peeked in the kitchen.
"Good glompers!" Nano shouted.
"Good what?" Nut asked.
"Look at what they did to my cheese!"
"Look at what they did to the kitchen!" Luau corrected.
"But look what they did to my cheese!" the Shoyru repeated. "It's all gone!"
"What do you mean? We have 5 tons of the stuff shipped here every two hours."
"I can't wait two hours, Sage! Are you insane? I NEED cheese! My whole world revolves around it!"
"Nano, calm down. Once we find my pets we'll punish them and make sure it doesn't happen again," Leah assured her.
"You don't understand, Leah. Cheese is like the air I breathe! You can't just go two hours without breathing!"
"In your case, you do," said an elf who stood by the fridge. She was wearing a chef hat and had her arms crossed.
"Dragonfly, did you see them do it?" Nut asked.
"No. I was concentrating on my Maine Lobster, but they ended up eating it raw after the cheese disappeared." Dragonfly took off her chef hat and showed it to the group. "Oh, and can anyone explain why Romeo and Juliet is written on this?"
"We'll explain later. Now, where do you think they could have gone?" Sage asked, trying to ignore Nano's scrunched position on the ground.
"No clue. They couldn't have gone far, though."
"Let's continue ze search!" Leah said in a random French accent.
They continued searching throughout the house, eventually having to carry Nano by her hands and feet.
"Hey, Sage? You know how I'm always a human?" Luau asked.
"Yeah. So?" he replied.
"I don't want to be a human. It's too weird. What should I be?"
"What's wrong with humans? Humans are fine. I like being human."
"Humans are inferior. No offense."
"You ARE human!"
"That's exactly why I want to change! Weren't you listening?"
Sage sighed. "I don't know. Why don't you just become an island Kiko?"
"That's it! Thanks Sage!" Luau said. She glomped him and transformed in a flash of light into an island Kiko.
"I was just kidding," Sage said, glaring at Luau.
"Don't talk to me, human."
They continued down the stairs trying to keep Nano from falling and getting in an even worse position. That is, until a brown Aisha came along.
"What are you guys doing to my Nanuub?" she asked suspiciously.
"You mean Nano? Oh, she's overreacting because there's no more cheese," Leah explained.
"No more cheese?" the Aisha gasped.
"No more cheese?" Sage asked.
"No more cheese?" Luau asked.
"No more cheese?" Nut asked.
"No more cheese?" Dragonfly asked.
"Why are you all acting surprised! You know there's no more cheese just as much as Fyora's the faerie queen!" Leah shouted.
"Fyora's the faerie queen?" the Aisha asked.
"The faerie queen?"
"The faerie queen?"
"The faerie que…"
"SHUT UP!" Leah retorted. She took a deep breath and continued. "You see, my pets found the kitchen and apparently ate all of the cheese, as they aren't too fond of celery."
"But we get five tons of it shipped here every two hours," Moofi reminded her.
"I know, that's why I said she's overreacting," Leah said. Nano responded to that by coughing dryly and whispering in a sickly voice, "It's the air I breeeeeathe."
"Be quiet Nano," they all said in unison.
"Well, I guess I'd better make a proper introduction. I'm Moofi, and as you can see I'm a brown Aisha. Nano and I go way back. Don't we, Nanuub?" Moofi said as she turned to Nano. Nano gurgled.
"We need more people to carry Nano, so can you help us find my pets?" Leah asked.
"I'd be happy to," Moofi replied, beaming. Moofi ran over and grabbed Nano's tail (which did little but it was something) and they continued to the first floor.
"Where do you think your pets are at?" Moofi asked.
"Don't you mean 'Where do you think your pets are?'" a voice behind them said. They all looked behind and saw a green Draik with her arms crossed and tapping her foot on the ground accusingly. "Ending a sentence with a preposition is like murdering the English language and then chopping it up in little pieces."
"Erm...who are you?" Leah asked.
"I'm Animageous, or Ani," she replied. "I'm the Green Grammar Draik of Doom! And I'm part of the Admin on the guild."
"Admin?" Leah asked.
"Yup. Like Slamina and Tdyans and the rest of the admin, we can ban members, delete messages, and raise people's ranks," Ani explained.
"Right. Have you seen a yellow Kacheek or a red Shoyru around here, Ani?" Nut asked.
"Or better yet, has anything of yours been written on?" Dragonfly added.
Ani sighed and turned around, revealing the words Julius Caesar on the back of her left wing. She then pointed to the washroom. "They went that-a-way."
"Nano, remind me again what the washroom is again," Leah said. Nano just gurgled on the floor from being deprived of cheese. After Leah kicked her in the shin Nano shouted, "IT'S A ROOM WHERE YOU WASH YOUR BRAIN! Geez…"
"Oh, right…" Leah suddenly perked up. "Oh, wait, troublesome pets and brain removal. BAD COMBINATION!" So Moofi, Sage, Nut, Luau, Belle, Dragonfly, Slamina, and Ani carried Nano and followed her down to the basement. When they arrived, the leader of the guild, Tdyans, was talking to another newbie.
"So you see, Chris, here in NTAG you can defy all of the laws of physics and some that don't exist," Tdyans explained.
"What about 'glomps'?" Chris asked.
"Heheh, I'll teach you that later. So here we have the washroom..."
"Tdyans!" Ani called out.
"Ani, what are you guys doing here?"
"We're looking for this Weewoo's pets. What are you doing here?"
"Tdyans is giving me a tour of NTAG. I joined a long time ago but I haven't been very active up until now," Chris said. He glanced at the blue Shoyru they were dragging and said, "Is that Nano?"
"Unfortunately, yes. She's a bit…spazzed out right now because there's no more cheese."
"No more cheese?" he asked.
"No more cheese?" Slamina asked.
"No more cheese?" Nut asked.
"No more…"
"DON'T START THIS AGAIN!" Leah hissed.
"Your pets ate all the cheese?" Tdyans said, confused.
"The air I breeeeeeeaaaathe…" Nano choked in her sickly voice.
"Be quiet Nano," they repeated.
"Well this is just peachy. We came all the way down here and the pets are nowhere in sight," Belle sighed.
"You mean the Shoyru and Kacheek? They're actually in the washroom putting potatoes in the washers and writing Shakespea-"
"Shakespearean play titles on everything. We know," said Sage.
They ran into the washroom to find the two messing up the washroom more than it already was.
"We really need to clean this place," Tdyans said to herself.
"Veltru! Velria! What do you think you're doing!" Leah yelled at her spawns.
"Doing what we always do in public," Veltru muttered, scribbling on a washer.
"If you don't stop this behavior right now I'll the Monoceraptor baby-sit you again," Leah threatened. Her pets sighed and dropped their spray paint and potatoes.
"What? Leah, we don't want them to stop, we were just trying to find them!" Luau said.
"Huh?" Leah asked with much confusion.
"This is how everyone is. We're all insane and we keep blowing up the guild house. Which is why it always looks brand new when someone joins! Because it is brand-spanking new!" Moofi said with a big grin on her face.
"Then this guild is perfect! Because everyone screws up just as much as we do!" Velria cheered.
"I suppose so…" Leah said.
"So?" Velria asked.
"So what?"
"You said if you got the slightest hint of NTAG being boring we would leave," Velria reminded her.
"Just letting you know right now, we're forcing you to stay even if you don't want to," said Veltru.
"I was going to anyway! Geez..."
"This calls for a celebration!" Belle said. "Everyone follow me upstairs!" So Leah, Tdyans, Chris, Sage, Nut, Slamina, Luau, Dragonfly, Moofi, Ani, Veltru, and Velria carried Nano and followed Belle upstairs to listen to her announcement.
"Alrighty everyone! As a special treat, I'm going to make everyone made out of snow! The humans will become snow merpeople, the Belle dolls will have snow fabric, and the pets and Petpets joined will become their snow color!" Belle bellowed. In a flash of light, every member of the guild became snow. Sage, Slamina, Dragonfly, Tdyans, and Chris became snow merpeople, Nano, still in her cheese-deprived state, became a snow Shoyru, Leah became a snow Weewoo, Nut and Luau became snow Kikos, Ani became a snow Draik, and Moofi became a snow Aisha.
"This should be a great step towards the Christmas spirit! Everyone have a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and all that other stuff!" Belle added.
"Huzzah!" the snow members shouted.
The doorbell rang and it turned out to be the cheese delivery. Nano magically came back to life at the sight of it and agreed to allow Leah in the cheese tribe as long as she didn't eat more than 20 pounds of cheese every day.
There was a huge party that night to celebrate the day. Before bed, Tdyans assigned Leah her new bedroom. Leah let Veltru and Velria decorate it because she could barely carry a glass of water in her Weewoo form. Before it was lights out for the night, Leah wrapped her wings around her two pets and said, "Veltru, Velria, this is the beginning of a beautiful membership."
The End