Neopets Undercover
Chapter 2: Count-down
Author's Notes: Oooh, now it gets serious for you Neopets readers...
What is this Xenias Crystal doing to the Owners? Who is Cypriot? Why is Feldene so interested in the last Rebel: )
The unnatural lights in the room flickered densely, highlighting the malicious smirk of Feldene. As his eyes glow vivid green, Feldene crossed the room and inspected his struggling bounty. The powerful force field around the victim grew stronger than ever, as a teenage girl with red streaks in her brown hair shouted for mercy.
"Let me go! I know what you want!" a bold female voice yelled, "You are Feldene, the Shadow Master! You won't get your hands on the Rebels!" Just then, the shadows intensified as a young male voice snarled deeply, like a throaty roar unlike any person.
"You are the final Rebel and you have the last crystal with you… Did that Quinn give you a new lease at life? That helper won't help you anymore. In that case- I won't let you or your –Superior Neopets go!" A glittering blue Lupe with iron claws and a whiplash tail whimpered beneath the girl's feet.
"Madison, run! RUN!" pleaded the multi-haired teenager. Madison obeyed her as the dark figure turned its unseen head. Without a word, the figure blinked its eyes and the Neopet froze in its track, turning to stone as she watched.
Before she could scream, Feldene penetrated the force-field and pushed a harshly pulsating crystal into her hands. Pain immediately wracked her body; such intense pain tingled and seared wholly before her mind descended into an endless darkness…
Meanwhile, in another part of Alternate Neopia
A dark-haired, tall girl was running with her Gnorbu towards the place of the Alverine Library. "Rachel Rosetta!" called the aged Lenny Librarian outside the reading centre… The day was stormy, and thunder cracked occasionally across the sky.
"I do not want you running around the Library after ten; and do you understand me at all?" The girl was holding something in her hand that seemed like a shard of an unknown substance. The librarian squawked with fright, flustering his feathers.
"Come on," mimicked Rachel, she imitated the librarian perfectly with a mocking Asian accent. The spectacled and light blue Lenny could only gape widely at this convincing effort of a satire. "Don't you understand I have other matters to attend to-?"
"Come back here!!!" The aged and cracked voice called as the Gnorbu and her Owner ran on… They laughed at the Lenny's futile efforts to catch them in vain. After a few minutes they gave up and rested in the shade of a tree, as other Owners passed by unknowingly…
"Brill!" smiled Rachel, "We have lost him, that misery old, unplanned Lenny!" The young teenaged girl laughed and her Gnorbu giggled along with her.
"Now, I wonder what this stone does." As she touched it, there was a loud and extreme ZAP as though lightning had struck! Confused, her Gnorbu looked around, shaking its hooves in fear. But it relaxed when a voice shouted.
"HEY? WHAT HAVE I DONE-?" It was Rachel's voice but very different!
"MEEE-PIT! MEEP! MEEP! Meeeeeeeee-eep..." cursed Rachel in her new tiny and pink form… (She was now talking in Mephenesin, a language only Meepits knew…)
"Help me out of this!" called Rachel, waddling over towards her stocky Neopet.
Suddenly, there was a dark shadow cast over her small form… "My, my, who have we had here?" chuckled a tall and seductive teenage girl with long white hair.
The girl was wearing some dark trendy blue jeans, with some golden meandering bracelets on her slender wrists... Rachel's Gnorbu shrieked with anger at the handling of her Owner...
"Oh, it's a cute little Meepit! Just as well, Feldene will be pleased with me…" cooed Cypress. The girl picked up the stone beside Rachel-Meepit. The unnatural girl chuckled evilly, the leek-green slitted eyes glinting with... Hunger.
"It seems our little Meepit friend has been messing with the Dark Arts again… And the Xenias tomb awaits all Neopets to undergo a metamorphosis unlike any seen before." She spoke directly to Rachel, fixing her eyes onto her victim…
"Dark Arts?!" whimpered Rachel.
"Like I said to you before, Rachel Rosetta… Metamorphosis awaits all Neopets!"
Cypress crowed with glee.
"Like my new form that he fixed for me…? And you won't tell anyone!"
It was then that Rachel realised what the bracelets had now represented… Why didn't she see the significance before-?
Rachel screamed with an unbound terror as Cypress transformed into a monstrous being...
The last thing she saw was Cypress licking her lips as her Gnorbu gasped with horror...
"Ye Ixis! Scoundrels," yelled the Salvadorian shopkeeper as he shut his shop down for the day…The mean-spirited Owner chuckled, soon it would be time for his gift… He glanced at the unusual stone that they almost 'stalled' –
Well, there won't be any thieves around his store for tomorrow…He made sure he had put a darkly fearsome Bearog Pet-pet at the door! Sneakily he looked around, no one was browsing his wares - or pinching any items from his dusty inventory…!
'YOU WON'T need that stone! Now, drop it…' There was a voice in his head as the Salvador dropped his stone in surprise… It sounded inhuman, almost bestial. The stone rolled to the floor, rounded edges glinting with a sort of power-rush…
Power-rushhhh, the stone seemed to speak…Feeling the edges of his desk, Owner clung to the remaining Neopoints of his account.
"Who or what are you?" asked the Owner in a paused surprise, the words were rolling out on their own… He must have sounded ridiculous talking to himself… The invisible being did not answer the question; instead the male Owner was confronted with… His Fire Neopet, Gnol.
Sighing with relief, the Owner could only cry out his warning… "Gnol, you have to-" The Owner swallowed suddenly, his own fear was paralysing him…With approval, the Neopet smiled eerily, revealing sharp teeth…
'Do what?' The Neopet spoke slowly, accenting her anger. 'Feldene is calling me about that stone… That Crystal Shard… All Neopets will transform… Into the ultimate combined creation…! Human owners will be ruled by their elemental Neopets.'
Gnol's voice sounded harsh in the darkness, the only voice speaking, spelling out words of darkness, words of whispered unknowns… "No… Feldene told you of these things…! Stop it," The Owner whimpered…Holding his hands over his ears.
Still the Gnol's deathly tone continued…'Sun of the Xenias tomb, Feldene's prevailing over all snares of power… What will come of you, my once dearest Owner…When the Deceiver of Alternate Neopia... Slays those of the Rebel's time-line?'
The Neopet charged at her former Owner… The last thing he saw was his fire Neopet burning like an unquenched flame… Merging into the night, the sharpness of his screams couldn't stop the storms from coming from tumbling down...
The whole Alternate world was awakening to the recent disasters; heart-breaking cries were heard in the street as the Deceiver was carrying out his commands. Several Neopets were announcing their return to the Xenias Tomb, to the bewilderments of their Owners…
Still the whirling and powerful storms raged, pouring down their wrath onto the Neopian continents… Such a whirlpool of betrayal, such unquestionable power was demonstrated on this day that the Owners had no doubt what was going on…
Someone or something was deterring their Neopets… Transforming them into monsters of Owner-destruction…
And who ever was responsible for this mayhem must be stopped at all costs…!
No matter what the consequences…!
"It has begun, the countdown has started…"
