Karma awoke the next morning to Yahoo nosing her cheek gently. She groaned and turned over, her back sore from the stiff cot she had slept on. "Mmmwhat?" the frog asked groggily.
"I'm hungry." the cybunny complained. "Could we go get something to eat?" Karma opened her mouth to answer only to hear an answering growl from her belly, stifling any complaints she might have had about sleeping in a little longer.
"Sure...where do you want to go?" she inquired. The cybunny grinned in reply.
"I was thinking the omelette. Not cuz we're poor, but I could really go for some eggs." Karma sat up, stretching and yawning.
"Alright...lemme grab a shower and then you lead the way."
"Yeah!" Yahoo cheered as he scampered into what would probably be the living room and sat down to wait as Karma stood and shuffled off into the bathroom. As soon as the door closed, Yahoo gave an energetic hop, wondering if he could reach the ceiling in the small apartment. He hit the floor with a thud and pouted. He had ALMOST made it...
As he attempted again, coming closer but missing, there came an angry pounding from beneath his feet.
"Keep it down up there, dammit!!" a voice growled. Yahoo felt a blush rise in his cheeks as he seated himself on the carpeting and made himself simply wait for Karma. No sense in getting them tossed out on their rears, after all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karma, after ten minutes or so, stepped out of the shower and toweled off, pulling on her clothes again. Alright, so it had been decided that part of the day would be taken up on a trek to Tyrannia...and after that she supposed the chips would have to fall where they may. She looked at herself in the mirror and wrinkled her nose in distaste, reaching for the small plastic hairbrush sitting on the sink. It had surprised her that, despite lack of furnishings, they had provided such creature comforts as cots, blankets, soap, shampoo, and even a hairbrush.
As she combed her hair, she began making plans. First they would go Tyrannia for breakfast....after that, they'd hit the gaming room for awhile so that she could try and replenish her sorry amount of neopoints and then maybe stop at the pound again because maybe Yahoo would like a friend---
She caught herself and laughed lightly. No...she wouldn't be pulled in by THAT excuse her mind was making. In fact, she decided it was in her best interest to stay far away from the pound for a few days until things settled down.
"Karma!! Are you almost done in there?" Yahoo called from the living room, sounding impatient.
"Almost!" she called back, quickly finishing her hair and pulling it back with the velvet tie she kept with her as she bustled out of the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The alarm clock blared on Dr. Death's nightstand as he groaned and reached out, swatting at it haphazardly until his palm found the snooze button and silenced its incessant buzz before sitting up. The first thought that came to his mind, as it did every day, was that he didn't want to go to work. He hated his job...and had tried to resign several times but had always been coaxed into staying by someone or other with the excuse that it would be hard for him to find another job given his present reputation and that it would be even harder to train someone else to take over his position and handle it as well as he did.
He eyed his reflection in the mirror on his dresser from where he sat in bed, sighing with disapproval. His gray hair had come in uncommonly early, making him look decades older than he was. He doubt people would believe that he was really in his late twenties and not that long out of Neopian Medical School, which he had continued to attend despite his newfound career at the pound some odd five years ago.
How quickly everything had gone to hell...his aspiration had been to work in the Neopian Hospital but his scores on the exams had been beaten out by an older green gelert and an enthusiastic blue elephante and he had left the medical field, with the title of a doctor, but no position to fill it with. The bitterness of it all had destroyed the cheery outlook on life that most neopets were famous for and he had been feeling it the rest of his life.
The pound had seemed like a good prospect at the time and gave him an opportunity to deal with all sorts of people and neopets...but the charm of uniting pets with new owners had fast been outweighed by the sheer frustration of being left with more neopets than he could keep track of by careless owners. In the end, he was a shadow of what he had once been. He didn't even go by his real name anymore and instead the nickname assigned to him by many of the pound's inhabitants.
Dr. Death, after a few more moments of mental debate, sighed and pulled himself out of bed, running a hand through his disheveled hair and began contemplating a hot shower as he headed for his bathroom. Twenty minutes later he emerged, toweled off and pulled on his usual pair of black slacks and grey turtleneck he wore beneath his white labcoat at the pound and gave himself a cursory glance in the mirror before heading out.
As he closed the door to his neohome behind himself and locked it, he cringed at the sound of a familiar voice.
"He-Hey! Its the Death Doctor! So, how many pets ya gonna kill today, bud??" an obese tuskaninny asked, sitting on his porch and sipping at a rainbow slushie. The doctor and Jespie had been neighbors for almost a year and ever since the overgrown sack of blubber had found out what he did for a living, he had constantly hounded him for it. More often than not, his day began with a fight with Jespie, despite his efforts to ignore him.
"Looking good, slim." Dr. Death replied sarcastically as he tugged the knob to ensure the door was locked and turned to leave. Maybe he could get out of earshot before Jespie said anything especially obnoxious today.
"So...has Doctor Sloth gotten back with ya yet on that apprenticeship? Or are ya still trying to overthrow him as Neopia's biggest jackass?" Jespie called after him. Dr. Death clenched his teeth against the retort welling up in his throat. One day he would just simply snap, he decided, and all of Neopia could read about Dr. Death finally living up to his name after they found Jespie's tattered remains strung up the Pants Devil's flagpole. Rapture. He quickened his walk a bit, hearing Jespie call something else after him but, much to his relief, he couldn't understand what it had been.
He had lucked out and had been able to establish his residence within walking distance of the pound...he didn't know what sorts of abuse he might have had to put up with if he had to take the bus to work. As he walked, he reached into the breast pocket of his labcoat and withdrew the slightly-crushed box of cigarettes he carried. More than anything, they were just a bad habit but they were calming as he fumbled one out of the box and poked it into his mouth, patting at his pants pockets for his lighter.
"Tsk...those are going to be the death of you." The doctor whirled to see RoseMadder behind him, smirking indulgantly as though he were a disobediant child.
"Sometimes I wish." he told her, as he found what he was looking for and went about lighting his cigarette. The pink uni snorted as the pungeant aroma of burning paper and cloves invaded her nostrils. "Don't start." he warned her. "I've had enough of your health lectures."
"I'm just trying to help." she replied. "Is it so wrong to worry about you? You'd think I'd earned at least THAT "esteemed privelege" working with you for two years."
"I'd hate to ruin your pristine reputation."
"Oh hush." she chuckled, passing his remark off as a joke though deep down she knew he wasn't. Things had always been rough between the two of them but Rose had always managed to keep a smile on her face. "Hey I have an idea. Why don't we switch desks today?" she suggested. "I'll take the abandoned pets, and you adopt them out. Would that get a smile out of you?"
"And maybe the pant devil will open up his own money tree." the techo replied. Rose shook her head, deciding that this wouldn't be one of the rare occasions she would be able to put him in a good mood.
"You know what you need?" she blurted. Dr. Death winced, knowing what she was going to say, because she had said it before and he wasn't liking it any better. "You need somebody to take care of you."
"I'm not a pet anymore, in case you've noticed." the techo snarled, pausing to take a drag on his cigarette. "I've not been a pet for quite some time and I'm nearly twice the size of most of the owners running around this crowded cesspool!"
"Oh no, not an owner." she laughed. "Why haven't you found yourself a nice lady to settle down with, Doctor?" she prodded. "There's got to be thousands of lonely girls out there." Dr. Death had never heard anything quite this ridiculous from her before. He couldn't help it and burst into laughter.
"That's your solution to everything, Rose." he snickered. "Love and cuddles. In fact, I'll bet we could bring about world peace if we just all get together for a big group hug and then--" Rose, having heard enough, quickened her pace until she was walking ahead of him and gave an indignant toss of her mane. His laughter quickly dried up as he finished his cigarette and tossed the filter to the sidewalk. The pound's tar-papered roof was in view between the gaudy pet stockhouse and the Coffee shop. Another minute or so and he'd be walking up the steps to the building and swallowed up inside for the day.
"Mommy look! Its the bad man from the pound!" a young usul exclaimed as he passed by, his owner, a black-haired girl, towing him along.
"Don't stare, Meeka." she commanded as she cast a slightly frightened look over her shoulder at him before they hurried away. Dr. Death sighed. Another typical day was about to begin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yahoo happily munched on his large portion of cheese omelette, getting crumbs of it all over his blue neckruff and heedless to the mess he was making. Karma had eaten most of her carrot and pea omelette before she had gotten full and pushed it aside. It now resided on the corner of Yahoo's plate which he seemed to have full intention of wolfing down as soon as he was finished with his own. She wondered idly where he was putting it all as he paused to burp softly behind his paw.
"I don't think I've had a decent meal in days." he told her. "If I had to eat one more jello square, I think I'd have turned into one."
"It shows." she smiled as he resumed eating. "So tell me about yourself." she prompted, suddenly feeling as though she was on a very bad date. The cybunny started to talk with his mouth full, and when he found he couldn't speak, swallowed and tried again.
"Nothing to tell really...I came from the stockhouse with a little girl as an easter present, she dropped me in favor of a peophin, I got picked up again by some Battledome-obsessed newcomer who ran me ragged for a couple of days and then got dropped in the pound again. I honestly thought that Ashley was my last hope, which is why I panicked so bad when she abandoned me." he laughed a little. "I must have looked like such a dork." he stated.
"I think I'd probably have done the same thing." she smiled. "And you're awfully eloquent for a neopet."
"Yup....if Ashley did one thing right, it was that she read to me a lot." he stated, giving a small sigh. "I don't want to offend you, Karma, but I DO still miss her."
"I imagine you will for awhile. Its alright." the frog assured her pet. And it was, really. She didn't expect Yahoo to simply forget about his previous owner just because she had been the next to have him. "Did they treat you alright in the pound?" she asked.
"The two times I was there? Oh yeah...it was a little scary and it sure was cramped, but all in all its not like pets get destroyed or anything." he shrugged, picking a long string of cheese off of the top of his omelette and placing it in his mouth. "Sometimes they forgot to feed us and that was my biggest complaint."
"What about that Dr. Death guy?"
"The lizard?" the cybunny asked, swallowing his cheese. "Pretty creepy. I don't think I've ever seen him smile. Sometimes he'd come in late at night and he'd, I guess, give us his version of a peptalk. What it came across as was him telling us we all had idiots for owners and if we played our cards right, more idiots would come to take us home for awhile before we'd be tossed back in...." he leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "I think he'd been drinking those nights." he whispered.
Karma laughed...she couldn't help herself. It was hard enough to take Dr. Death seriously with his constant looking like someone had given him a lemon-flavored swirly. Trying to think of him as being intoxicated was almost impossible.
"You know anything else about him?" she asked. Yahoo opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, favoring her with an especially odd look.
"Why're you so interested in that guy?" he asked.
"Oh...no reason." she shrugged, hoping it looked casual enough. A mischevious look played over Yahoo's face.
"Someone's obsessed." he grinned.
"I'm not." she insisted. "But he was one of the first people I met when I got here and I got a pretty chilly reception. I'm just curious about him."
"Get used to it." Yahoo nodded. "Everybody I've talked to says the guy's a complete creep...and on that note, I think I'll stop talking there. I've never been much for gossip. I'd like to leave that to the usuls and aishas if its all the same to you."
"Or I wonder if its just hard to feed a talking mouth." Karma said, reaching out and giving the cybunny's nose a playful poke.
"Yup that too." he agreed as he buried his face in his omelette again.
About twenty minutes later, Yahoo finally decided he had gotten enough to eat and volunteered to take Karma to the gaming center to see about solving their neopoints problem. It was a surprisingly short trip on the bus and they were dropped off in front of a crowded-looking center. The yellow frog's eyes settled on what looked to be a casino from which the mechanical beeps and bops of the slot machines, nearly drowned out by the sound of clattering money and chattering voices, eminated.
"Nah not there." Yahoo said, following her gaze. "C'mon. I'll show ya where the real money is." he said, motioning for her to follow. Karma had her doubts, but followed after him, deciding he HAD been in Neopia a lot longer than she had. They walked a short distance and then entered a building that stood apart from the others. It was dark inside and Karma could see several people huddled in booths. Yahoo led her around the corner and into a vacant booth with a headset that overlooked a large gray pen, in the middle of which was a yellow meerca, bouncing impatiently on his tail and wearing what looked to be an electric helmet on his head.
"This is Meerca Chase. Once you get the hang of it, it pays off pretty well." Yahoo smiled as Karma sat down and applied the headphones.
"Welcome." an automated voice greeted her through the phones. "If you've already played this game, please hit the red button on the console to skip this introduction." Karma eyed the console before her and reflexively reached for the red button before realizing that, no, she hadn't played this game before as she paused to listen. "The object of this game is to feed your meerca as many neggs as you can. The red neggs, which are some of the spiciest foods known to Neopians will render your meerca helpless and unable to continue. With every negg you eat, your meerca's tail grows a bit longer. If your meerca becomes tangled in his tail, he will be unable to continue and the game will be over as well. And finally, if your meerca hits a wall, the game will end. To control the meerca you see in the pen before you, hit the directional buttons." four triangular-shaped buttons glowed alight for a moment on the console to emphasize where they were. "The buttons will send the command to a speaker in the meerca's helmet and he will follow your lead. When you are ready to begin, hit the red button."
Well, it seemed simple enough. Karma tentatively struck the red button and, from the open ceiling of the pen, a happiness negg suddenly dropped to the floor. The meerca instantly dashed toward it, his tongue hanging out hungrily. Karma watched as he devoured it, never once stopping and he looked to be heading straight for the wall. She quickly punched the left key and the meerca veered off to the left, narrowly missing the wall as another yellow negg dropped into the pen. The meerca, apparently not noticing it, continued on his way to the south wall. A few keystrokes and he was corrected and happily gobbled up the second negg, his tail growing a bit longer as he did so.
Karma smiled...this wasn't very hard at all. As the meerca ate his fifth negg, however, things began to change. Two more ceiling panels opened, plopping two red neggs onto the floor along with a blue one. She navigated the obstacles as best as she could as her meerca continued to eat and his tail continued to grow. Yahoo watched wordlessly as she played, hoping the outcome would be good. At last, however, as the meerca scarfed down a green negg, a red negg was dropped right in front of him and before Karma could manuever him around it, he had grabbed it up and eaten it.
"YEEOOOWWW!!!" the meerca cried, waving wildly at his mouth and crying out for water as the "Game Over" icon flashed overhead.
"You have won 302 neopoints this round. Congratulations." the automated voice informed her as a piece of paper slid out of a slot on the top of the console. In neat black print, it read "Voucher -- 302". "Vouchers are redeemable at the front desk located in the lobby. Play again?"
By the time her third game had ended, Karma and Yahoo walked away with nearly a thousand neopoints to add to the four hundred she had come in with. While Yahoo didn't look especially interested, Karma was utterly thrilled.
"I can't believe it! I more than doubled my money and I didn't lose anything!" she told the cybunny.
"Well, keep in mind that a thousand neopoints won't get you very far..." he tried to tell her. Karma, however, was clearly not listening.
"Let's get some lunch!" she suggested, pointing in the direction of the food store. Yahoo, already starting to feel hungry again despite his enormous omelette breakfast, lit up instantly.
"I call dibs on a chocolate shake!" he announced as the two of them ran toward the store.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And you're abandoning this kacheek, WHY??" Dr. Death sneered, glaring at the boy holding the pet's leash.
"I don't want four pets anymore." he complained. "And this kacheek is stupid anyhow." Dr. Death flinched, forcing himself not to act on his impulse to take the owner and put him in a cage instead of the kacheek, who didn't look stupid at all. And rather than sobbing, the blue kacheek was simply staring at the floor, trying to be stoic as it awaited its fate.
Dr. Death forced himself to keep a firm hold on his anger, as he had been doing for years. It seemed the owners didn't even bother to come up with reasonable excuses anymore. When he had first started out, he had sympathized with the teary-eyed owners that couldn't afford to feed their pet and wanted to give it a better chance with someone else but now....
He finished filling out the abandonment sheet and collected the fee from the ex-owner before gathering the kacheek into his arms and carrying it into the back room. The boy, he heard, shot a final parting remark at the techo about how all kacheeks were stupid and he'd gotten that one from the stockhouse with intention to abandon it to begin with.
"Don't hurt me.." the kacheek whispered once they had arrived in the jungle of cages and sobbing neopets. The blue creature was trembling in his arms yet still trying to be quiet and reserved.
"I'm not going to hurt you." he told it curtly. "I'm putting you somewhere where you'll have a chance at an owner who's not quite as big of a nimrod as your last one was." The kacheek couldn't have been more than a baby....how could someone abandon a neopet so young?
"I'm very afraid..." the blue kacheek whispered. "Is it going to hurt?"
"Is what going to hurt?" the techo sighed, his eyes picking over the aisle of cages, looking for an empty one.
"Dying." Dr. Death paused...staring down at the kacheek for a long moment.
"That's ridiculous." he told the neopet. "You're not going to die." It cast its eyes downward.
"My owner said nobody'd ever love me and I'd stay here till I died...or till you killed me." the kacheek's glance darted frightfully upward again to look at him as though trying to confirm this. Frankly, the doctor didn't know what to say as his brain raced for an answer. "....but its okay. As long as you don't make it hurt." the kacheek continued.
Some inner restraint he had kept strong for years, wavered and then broke. Before he could stop it, or even acknowledge it was happening, his eyes stung with tears. "Mister?" the kacheek asked. "Mister, are you okay?" Dr. Death didn't answer....COULDN'T answer...as he strode quickly to a vacant cage, closed the kacheek inside, and turned and headed out.
He had to get out of there....just for awhile.
"Oh, nevermind, there he is." RoseMadder was telling someone waiting at the desk, a plump yellow kiko in their arms. "Oh Doctor, we have another incoming..." she began, her words trailing off as she noticed his bleary eyes and how he hurriedly moved toward the door. "Why, what's the matter?? Where're you going??" the pink uni gasped. Her questions were left unanswered as the yellow techo shoved open the door and was gone before it slammed shut again.
Rose stared after him for a moment, trying to piece together what had just transpired. It wasn't like him to take a completely unsolicited break or to go storming away like a tantrumy shoyru.
"Umm....I came at a bad time, huh?" the kiko owner asked.
"Oh no, not at all!" Rose assured her. "I suppose I can deal with you if he can't...." she moved to sit behind the abandonment desk and the kiko owner noticeably flinched.
"I think I'll come back later." she stated worriedly. RoseMadder looked confused.
"But if you need to get rid of your pet, I don't think you'd want to prolong---" but the Kiko-owner had already turned away and was leaving. Now, what on earth...? And then her conversation an hour or two ago with the doctor floated back into her head.
"I'd hate to ruin your pristine reputation..." He had said. It made sense now....the reason it seemed that owners didn't have a second thought about abandoning their neopets to Dr. Death was because of their ingrained dislike of him. They had grown accustomed to the idea that leaving their pet behind was almost like doing something to spite the yellow techo, but she bet that none of them would want to hurt HER feelings by abandoning their pet.
She sighed, the realization stinging her. Maybe the doctor had been right all this time in his assumptions about the pound-visitors of Neopia. Maybe all of them WERE callous and hurtful individuals. She shook herself back to her senses. No! She couldn't let herself think that way. It just wasn't true. She was shaken out of her thoughts by the front door opening. Hmph...and she was going to prove it, right now, she decided as she turned a cheery smile on the person who came in. He had three red bruces in tow and spared Rose a smile as he headed for the abandonment desk and waited.
Rose smiled back and headed over to the other desk, seating herself.
"And who are we leaving today?" she asked gently. The man blinked, stunned, as the pink uni reached for an abandonment form.
"Ahh...where's the doctor?" he asked.
"Oh...out and about, I suppose. I don't know really, but no matter. I can help you." she smiled sweetly. He took a step backwards. "....sir?" she asked, pausing in mid-reach for a pen to take down the Bruces' information.
"I think I'll come back another time." he told her. "Sorry to trouble you, ma'am..." RoseMadder made no attempt to stop him as she watched him leave as well. She felt empty....not angry, per-say....just extremely disappointed. She had always tried to believe that people who abandoned their pets did so out of there being no other choice....not just because it was convenient and certainly not with the intent of ruining another person's day.
"Miz uni?" a small voice asked. She turned to see a young girl, barely old enough to reach the countertop, peering up at her. "Miz uni, do you have any pets left?" she asked. Rose smiled through her sadness, relieved to finally have an adopter amid the abandoners.
"Right this way, my dear." she instructed, leading the little girl into the back to look at the assortment of neopets.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death had come to rest on the edge of neopia central on a grassy hill out of sight of the majority of the bustling owners and neopets. The urge to break down and cry as what the young kacheek had told him in the pound played in his head over and over had passed by the time he had gotten outside. Is that truly what people thought he did? Took pets away and then killed them?? He had never, in his history of working in the pound, put an animal to sleep for any reason. If the neopets stayed in the pound longer than the allotted period of time, they were either offered a job somewhere in neopia if they were willing to strike out on their own instead of being spoiled pets, or they were given to a rehabilitation program in the Neopian Plains to learn to cope with the wilderness and become wild again.
He had seated himself beneath a large shady tree and curled his tail tightly around his ankles as he tried to compose himself enough to return to work.
"Hot dogs! Nice and hot!! Plump when ya cook'em!" a voice rang out from behind him. The doctor looked over his shoulder to see a purple mynci in a paper cap at a stand not far off, eagerly holding up a hot dog in either hand and pandering to the crowd. "Hey pretty lady! Care to try our triple dog today? Hi kiddo! How about a bacon dog deluxe?" he called to the passersby.
The techo, after a moment of thought, got to his feet and headed toward the stand. Maybe some food was just what he needed to get his head on straight. "Fresh hot dogs, people! Fresh---oh! Heya!" the mynci greeted him as he approached. "Dr. D! I didn't think I'd see you again." Dr. Death froze, trying to place the mynci....he had seen hundreds of purple myncis in his time as a pound director. "Remember me? I was uglee2145672257!" he grinned. "'Course....nobody adopted me with a name like that...." he continued. "But I got a job and earned myself a better name." he extended a hand. "Name's Hubert now." the techo tentatively took the mynci's hand and gave it a shake.
"Nice to see you've made something of yourself..." he told the neopet.
"Heh...sorry about all the names I called you." the mynci admitted sheepishly. "Just...voices carry in there and people were convinced you were gonna sell us to Sloth or something." he cleared his throat, sensing that the conversation had taken an awkward turn. "So...umm...what can I do for ya?"
"Just a hot dog." he muttered, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.
"Nah, put that away." Hubert smirked as he went about preparing an onion dog. "The lunch rush hour's over so I don't think anyone's going to poke their head over my shoulder and whine that I'm giving out freebies." In a few moments, the dog was finished, wrapped in paper, and offered to the techo who accepted it slowly before dropping what he had been prepared to pay for the hot dog into the tip jar sitting on the bar of the hot dog stand. He didn't believe in freebies.
As he walked a short distance away to eat his lunch, he was brushed past by a girl and her cybunny as they approached Huburt's stand to buy some food of their own. He growled his disapproval at the fact that they had nearly knocked him over. Some people were utterly obnoxious, he thought to himself as he peeled back the paper from his hot dog and sank his teeth into it. He ought to be getting back to the pound soon, he decided. Rose was probably beside herself trying to deal with the incoming load and he was sure he'd have to hear about it from her up till closing time.
"Yahoo?? Yahoo, are you okay??" a female voice cried from behind. "Oh god...Yahoo...somebody help!"
The yellow techo turned his head to see the same girl who had brushed past him a moment ago, stooping on the ground and swatting her cybunny on the back. The cybunny's face had taken on an unsavory bluish tint and his eyes stared vacantly into nowhere. The neopet was choking.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You want me to call an ambulance?" Hubert asked, dashing out from behind his stand and kneeling beside Karma. The blue cybunny's mouth hung slightly open and a faint whistling eminated from his throat around the large bite of hot dog the cybunny had taken.
"There's no time for that!!" Karma all but shrieked as she gave the rabbit another whack between his shoulders. She felt the first stages of panic begin to engulf her as she realized that Yahoo was going to die soon if she couldn't somehow unblock his throat. Acting on impulse, she poked her hand into his mouth, wondering if she would be able to reach the offending hot dog that way.
Her arm was suddenly yanked aside and she was shoved over. "Get out of the way!" someone commanded as she struck her head against the side of Hubert's stand and saw stars momentarily.
"What the hell...?" she asked, pulling herself up again. The yellow techo she had met at the pound was busily pulling Yahoo into an upright position. As she watched, he wrapped his arms around him in what looked to be a bearhug and squeezed. Yahoo gave a dry barking sound and the bite of hot dog he had taken flew from his mouth and pelted soundlessly into the grass. The cybunny began to draw in great whooping breaths of air as the bluish tint left his face and he collapsed, panting, to his belly.
Hubert, deciding the situation had been dealt with accordingly, slowly went back behind his hot dog counter. Dr. Death reached out, helping the cybunny sit up.
"You're all right." he told the neopet as he stood, brushing the grass from the knees of his pants. Karma watched as Yahoo recovered before turning her attention to Dr. Death as he began to walk away.
"Thank you." she called after him. He froze as though he had been struck.
"You're....welcome." he replied with some difficulty, without turning around. A pause that only lasted a second but seemed a minute hung in the air before he continued on his way. He couldn't remember the last time someone had thanked him for doing anything and meant it. He didn't get a good look at the cybunny's owner but he was almost certain he recognized her as the girl who had been harrassing him the day before.
"Are you alright, Yahoo?" Karma asked as the cybunny sat up and coughed once.
"Geez...that one went down the wrong pipe." he remarked hoarsely, shaking his head to clear it. Karma, relieved, grabbed her neopet in an almost crushing hug. "I don't think I'll have hot dogs for awhile..."
"Hey now, they're not meant to be gobbled up in two bites." Hubert pointed out, in defense of his product.
"I can't help I was hungry." the cybunny shrugged. "Anyhow...how about we head home for awhile, Karma?" he asked. However, the tree frog seemed lost in thought. "Umm...Karma?"
"Shh I'm thinking." she said distantly.
"Umm yeah, I can see that..." Yahoo said, quirking a brow.
"I think we need to do something to thank him..." Karma stated matter-of-factly.
"Thank who?" Yahoo asked as Karma jumped up and scooped him into her arms. He never got his answer as they headed back for the gaming room.
TBC....
"I'm hungry." the cybunny complained. "Could we go get something to eat?" Karma opened her mouth to answer only to hear an answering growl from her belly, stifling any complaints she might have had about sleeping in a little longer.
"Sure...where do you want to go?" she inquired. The cybunny grinned in reply.
"I was thinking the omelette. Not cuz we're poor, but I could really go for some eggs." Karma sat up, stretching and yawning.
"Alright...lemme grab a shower and then you lead the way."
"Yeah!" Yahoo cheered as he scampered into what would probably be the living room and sat down to wait as Karma stood and shuffled off into the bathroom. As soon as the door closed, Yahoo gave an energetic hop, wondering if he could reach the ceiling in the small apartment. He hit the floor with a thud and pouted. He had ALMOST made it...
As he attempted again, coming closer but missing, there came an angry pounding from beneath his feet.
"Keep it down up there, dammit!!" a voice growled. Yahoo felt a blush rise in his cheeks as he seated himself on the carpeting and made himself simply wait for Karma. No sense in getting them tossed out on their rears, after all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karma, after ten minutes or so, stepped out of the shower and toweled off, pulling on her clothes again. Alright, so it had been decided that part of the day would be taken up on a trek to Tyrannia...and after that she supposed the chips would have to fall where they may. She looked at herself in the mirror and wrinkled her nose in distaste, reaching for the small plastic hairbrush sitting on the sink. It had surprised her that, despite lack of furnishings, they had provided such creature comforts as cots, blankets, soap, shampoo, and even a hairbrush.
As she combed her hair, she began making plans. First they would go Tyrannia for breakfast....after that, they'd hit the gaming room for awhile so that she could try and replenish her sorry amount of neopoints and then maybe stop at the pound again because maybe Yahoo would like a friend---
She caught herself and laughed lightly. No...she wouldn't be pulled in by THAT excuse her mind was making. In fact, she decided it was in her best interest to stay far away from the pound for a few days until things settled down.
"Karma!! Are you almost done in there?" Yahoo called from the living room, sounding impatient.
"Almost!" she called back, quickly finishing her hair and pulling it back with the velvet tie she kept with her as she bustled out of the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The alarm clock blared on Dr. Death's nightstand as he groaned and reached out, swatting at it haphazardly until his palm found the snooze button and silenced its incessant buzz before sitting up. The first thought that came to his mind, as it did every day, was that he didn't want to go to work. He hated his job...and had tried to resign several times but had always been coaxed into staying by someone or other with the excuse that it would be hard for him to find another job given his present reputation and that it would be even harder to train someone else to take over his position and handle it as well as he did.
He eyed his reflection in the mirror on his dresser from where he sat in bed, sighing with disapproval. His gray hair had come in uncommonly early, making him look decades older than he was. He doubt people would believe that he was really in his late twenties and not that long out of Neopian Medical School, which he had continued to attend despite his newfound career at the pound some odd five years ago.
How quickly everything had gone to hell...his aspiration had been to work in the Neopian Hospital but his scores on the exams had been beaten out by an older green gelert and an enthusiastic blue elephante and he had left the medical field, with the title of a doctor, but no position to fill it with. The bitterness of it all had destroyed the cheery outlook on life that most neopets were famous for and he had been feeling it the rest of his life.
The pound had seemed like a good prospect at the time and gave him an opportunity to deal with all sorts of people and neopets...but the charm of uniting pets with new owners had fast been outweighed by the sheer frustration of being left with more neopets than he could keep track of by careless owners. In the end, he was a shadow of what he had once been. He didn't even go by his real name anymore and instead the nickname assigned to him by many of the pound's inhabitants.
Dr. Death, after a few more moments of mental debate, sighed and pulled himself out of bed, running a hand through his disheveled hair and began contemplating a hot shower as he headed for his bathroom. Twenty minutes later he emerged, toweled off and pulled on his usual pair of black slacks and grey turtleneck he wore beneath his white labcoat at the pound and gave himself a cursory glance in the mirror before heading out.
As he closed the door to his neohome behind himself and locked it, he cringed at the sound of a familiar voice.
"He-Hey! Its the Death Doctor! So, how many pets ya gonna kill today, bud??" an obese tuskaninny asked, sitting on his porch and sipping at a rainbow slushie. The doctor and Jespie had been neighbors for almost a year and ever since the overgrown sack of blubber had found out what he did for a living, he had constantly hounded him for it. More often than not, his day began with a fight with Jespie, despite his efforts to ignore him.
"Looking good, slim." Dr. Death replied sarcastically as he tugged the knob to ensure the door was locked and turned to leave. Maybe he could get out of earshot before Jespie said anything especially obnoxious today.
"So...has Doctor Sloth gotten back with ya yet on that apprenticeship? Or are ya still trying to overthrow him as Neopia's biggest jackass?" Jespie called after him. Dr. Death clenched his teeth against the retort welling up in his throat. One day he would just simply snap, he decided, and all of Neopia could read about Dr. Death finally living up to his name after they found Jespie's tattered remains strung up the Pants Devil's flagpole. Rapture. He quickened his walk a bit, hearing Jespie call something else after him but, much to his relief, he couldn't understand what it had been.
He had lucked out and had been able to establish his residence within walking distance of the pound...he didn't know what sorts of abuse he might have had to put up with if he had to take the bus to work. As he walked, he reached into the breast pocket of his labcoat and withdrew the slightly-crushed box of cigarettes he carried. More than anything, they were just a bad habit but they were calming as he fumbled one out of the box and poked it into his mouth, patting at his pants pockets for his lighter.
"Tsk...those are going to be the death of you." The doctor whirled to see RoseMadder behind him, smirking indulgantly as though he were a disobediant child.
"Sometimes I wish." he told her, as he found what he was looking for and went about lighting his cigarette. The pink uni snorted as the pungeant aroma of burning paper and cloves invaded her nostrils. "Don't start." he warned her. "I've had enough of your health lectures."
"I'm just trying to help." she replied. "Is it so wrong to worry about you? You'd think I'd earned at least THAT "esteemed privelege" working with you for two years."
"I'd hate to ruin your pristine reputation."
"Oh hush." she chuckled, passing his remark off as a joke though deep down she knew he wasn't. Things had always been rough between the two of them but Rose had always managed to keep a smile on her face. "Hey I have an idea. Why don't we switch desks today?" she suggested. "I'll take the abandoned pets, and you adopt them out. Would that get a smile out of you?"
"And maybe the pant devil will open up his own money tree." the techo replied. Rose shook her head, deciding that this wouldn't be one of the rare occasions she would be able to put him in a good mood.
"You know what you need?" she blurted. Dr. Death winced, knowing what she was going to say, because she had said it before and he wasn't liking it any better. "You need somebody to take care of you."
"I'm not a pet anymore, in case you've noticed." the techo snarled, pausing to take a drag on his cigarette. "I've not been a pet for quite some time and I'm nearly twice the size of most of the owners running around this crowded cesspool!"
"Oh no, not an owner." she laughed. "Why haven't you found yourself a nice lady to settle down with, Doctor?" she prodded. "There's got to be thousands of lonely girls out there." Dr. Death had never heard anything quite this ridiculous from her before. He couldn't help it and burst into laughter.
"That's your solution to everything, Rose." he snickered. "Love and cuddles. In fact, I'll bet we could bring about world peace if we just all get together for a big group hug and then--" Rose, having heard enough, quickened her pace until she was walking ahead of him and gave an indignant toss of her mane. His laughter quickly dried up as he finished his cigarette and tossed the filter to the sidewalk. The pound's tar-papered roof was in view between the gaudy pet stockhouse and the Coffee shop. Another minute or so and he'd be walking up the steps to the building and swallowed up inside for the day.
"Mommy look! Its the bad man from the pound!" a young usul exclaimed as he passed by, his owner, a black-haired girl, towing him along.
"Don't stare, Meeka." she commanded as she cast a slightly frightened look over her shoulder at him before they hurried away. Dr. Death sighed. Another typical day was about to begin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yahoo happily munched on his large portion of cheese omelette, getting crumbs of it all over his blue neckruff and heedless to the mess he was making. Karma had eaten most of her carrot and pea omelette before she had gotten full and pushed it aside. It now resided on the corner of Yahoo's plate which he seemed to have full intention of wolfing down as soon as he was finished with his own. She wondered idly where he was putting it all as he paused to burp softly behind his paw.
"I don't think I've had a decent meal in days." he told her. "If I had to eat one more jello square, I think I'd have turned into one."
"It shows." she smiled as he resumed eating. "So tell me about yourself." she prompted, suddenly feeling as though she was on a very bad date. The cybunny started to talk with his mouth full, and when he found he couldn't speak, swallowed and tried again.
"Nothing to tell really...I came from the stockhouse with a little girl as an easter present, she dropped me in favor of a peophin, I got picked up again by some Battledome-obsessed newcomer who ran me ragged for a couple of days and then got dropped in the pound again. I honestly thought that Ashley was my last hope, which is why I panicked so bad when she abandoned me." he laughed a little. "I must have looked like such a dork." he stated.
"I think I'd probably have done the same thing." she smiled. "And you're awfully eloquent for a neopet."
"Yup....if Ashley did one thing right, it was that she read to me a lot." he stated, giving a small sigh. "I don't want to offend you, Karma, but I DO still miss her."
"I imagine you will for awhile. Its alright." the frog assured her pet. And it was, really. She didn't expect Yahoo to simply forget about his previous owner just because she had been the next to have him. "Did they treat you alright in the pound?" she asked.
"The two times I was there? Oh yeah...it was a little scary and it sure was cramped, but all in all its not like pets get destroyed or anything." he shrugged, picking a long string of cheese off of the top of his omelette and placing it in his mouth. "Sometimes they forgot to feed us and that was my biggest complaint."
"What about that Dr. Death guy?"
"The lizard?" the cybunny asked, swallowing his cheese. "Pretty creepy. I don't think I've ever seen him smile. Sometimes he'd come in late at night and he'd, I guess, give us his version of a peptalk. What it came across as was him telling us we all had idiots for owners and if we played our cards right, more idiots would come to take us home for awhile before we'd be tossed back in...." he leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "I think he'd been drinking those nights." he whispered.
Karma laughed...she couldn't help herself. It was hard enough to take Dr. Death seriously with his constant looking like someone had given him a lemon-flavored swirly. Trying to think of him as being intoxicated was almost impossible.
"You know anything else about him?" she asked. Yahoo opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, favoring her with an especially odd look.
"Why're you so interested in that guy?" he asked.
"Oh...no reason." she shrugged, hoping it looked casual enough. A mischevious look played over Yahoo's face.
"Someone's obsessed." he grinned.
"I'm not." she insisted. "But he was one of the first people I met when I got here and I got a pretty chilly reception. I'm just curious about him."
"Get used to it." Yahoo nodded. "Everybody I've talked to says the guy's a complete creep...and on that note, I think I'll stop talking there. I've never been much for gossip. I'd like to leave that to the usuls and aishas if its all the same to you."
"Or I wonder if its just hard to feed a talking mouth." Karma said, reaching out and giving the cybunny's nose a playful poke.
"Yup that too." he agreed as he buried his face in his omelette again.
About twenty minutes later, Yahoo finally decided he had gotten enough to eat and volunteered to take Karma to the gaming center to see about solving their neopoints problem. It was a surprisingly short trip on the bus and they were dropped off in front of a crowded-looking center. The yellow frog's eyes settled on what looked to be a casino from which the mechanical beeps and bops of the slot machines, nearly drowned out by the sound of clattering money and chattering voices, eminated.
"Nah not there." Yahoo said, following her gaze. "C'mon. I'll show ya where the real money is." he said, motioning for her to follow. Karma had her doubts, but followed after him, deciding he HAD been in Neopia a lot longer than she had. They walked a short distance and then entered a building that stood apart from the others. It was dark inside and Karma could see several people huddled in booths. Yahoo led her around the corner and into a vacant booth with a headset that overlooked a large gray pen, in the middle of which was a yellow meerca, bouncing impatiently on his tail and wearing what looked to be an electric helmet on his head.
"This is Meerca Chase. Once you get the hang of it, it pays off pretty well." Yahoo smiled as Karma sat down and applied the headphones.
"Welcome." an automated voice greeted her through the phones. "If you've already played this game, please hit the red button on the console to skip this introduction." Karma eyed the console before her and reflexively reached for the red button before realizing that, no, she hadn't played this game before as she paused to listen. "The object of this game is to feed your meerca as many neggs as you can. The red neggs, which are some of the spiciest foods known to Neopians will render your meerca helpless and unable to continue. With every negg you eat, your meerca's tail grows a bit longer. If your meerca becomes tangled in his tail, he will be unable to continue and the game will be over as well. And finally, if your meerca hits a wall, the game will end. To control the meerca you see in the pen before you, hit the directional buttons." four triangular-shaped buttons glowed alight for a moment on the console to emphasize where they were. "The buttons will send the command to a speaker in the meerca's helmet and he will follow your lead. When you are ready to begin, hit the red button."
Well, it seemed simple enough. Karma tentatively struck the red button and, from the open ceiling of the pen, a happiness negg suddenly dropped to the floor. The meerca instantly dashed toward it, his tongue hanging out hungrily. Karma watched as he devoured it, never once stopping and he looked to be heading straight for the wall. She quickly punched the left key and the meerca veered off to the left, narrowly missing the wall as another yellow negg dropped into the pen. The meerca, apparently not noticing it, continued on his way to the south wall. A few keystrokes and he was corrected and happily gobbled up the second negg, his tail growing a bit longer as he did so.
Karma smiled...this wasn't very hard at all. As the meerca ate his fifth negg, however, things began to change. Two more ceiling panels opened, plopping two red neggs onto the floor along with a blue one. She navigated the obstacles as best as she could as her meerca continued to eat and his tail continued to grow. Yahoo watched wordlessly as she played, hoping the outcome would be good. At last, however, as the meerca scarfed down a green negg, a red negg was dropped right in front of him and before Karma could manuever him around it, he had grabbed it up and eaten it.
"YEEOOOWWW!!!" the meerca cried, waving wildly at his mouth and crying out for water as the "Game Over" icon flashed overhead.
"You have won 302 neopoints this round. Congratulations." the automated voice informed her as a piece of paper slid out of a slot on the top of the console. In neat black print, it read "Voucher -- 302". "Vouchers are redeemable at the front desk located in the lobby. Play again?"
By the time her third game had ended, Karma and Yahoo walked away with nearly a thousand neopoints to add to the four hundred she had come in with. While Yahoo didn't look especially interested, Karma was utterly thrilled.
"I can't believe it! I more than doubled my money and I didn't lose anything!" she told the cybunny.
"Well, keep in mind that a thousand neopoints won't get you very far..." he tried to tell her. Karma, however, was clearly not listening.
"Let's get some lunch!" she suggested, pointing in the direction of the food store. Yahoo, already starting to feel hungry again despite his enormous omelette breakfast, lit up instantly.
"I call dibs on a chocolate shake!" he announced as the two of them ran toward the store.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And you're abandoning this kacheek, WHY??" Dr. Death sneered, glaring at the boy holding the pet's leash.
"I don't want four pets anymore." he complained. "And this kacheek is stupid anyhow." Dr. Death flinched, forcing himself not to act on his impulse to take the owner and put him in a cage instead of the kacheek, who didn't look stupid at all. And rather than sobbing, the blue kacheek was simply staring at the floor, trying to be stoic as it awaited its fate.
Dr. Death forced himself to keep a firm hold on his anger, as he had been doing for years. It seemed the owners didn't even bother to come up with reasonable excuses anymore. When he had first started out, he had sympathized with the teary-eyed owners that couldn't afford to feed their pet and wanted to give it a better chance with someone else but now....
He finished filling out the abandonment sheet and collected the fee from the ex-owner before gathering the kacheek into his arms and carrying it into the back room. The boy, he heard, shot a final parting remark at the techo about how all kacheeks were stupid and he'd gotten that one from the stockhouse with intention to abandon it to begin with.
"Don't hurt me.." the kacheek whispered once they had arrived in the jungle of cages and sobbing neopets. The blue creature was trembling in his arms yet still trying to be quiet and reserved.
"I'm not going to hurt you." he told it curtly. "I'm putting you somewhere where you'll have a chance at an owner who's not quite as big of a nimrod as your last one was." The kacheek couldn't have been more than a baby....how could someone abandon a neopet so young?
"I'm very afraid..." the blue kacheek whispered. "Is it going to hurt?"
"Is what going to hurt?" the techo sighed, his eyes picking over the aisle of cages, looking for an empty one.
"Dying." Dr. Death paused...staring down at the kacheek for a long moment.
"That's ridiculous." he told the neopet. "You're not going to die." It cast its eyes downward.
"My owner said nobody'd ever love me and I'd stay here till I died...or till you killed me." the kacheek's glance darted frightfully upward again to look at him as though trying to confirm this. Frankly, the doctor didn't know what to say as his brain raced for an answer. "....but its okay. As long as you don't make it hurt." the kacheek continued.
Some inner restraint he had kept strong for years, wavered and then broke. Before he could stop it, or even acknowledge it was happening, his eyes stung with tears. "Mister?" the kacheek asked. "Mister, are you okay?" Dr. Death didn't answer....COULDN'T answer...as he strode quickly to a vacant cage, closed the kacheek inside, and turned and headed out.
He had to get out of there....just for awhile.
"Oh, nevermind, there he is." RoseMadder was telling someone waiting at the desk, a plump yellow kiko in their arms. "Oh Doctor, we have another incoming..." she began, her words trailing off as she noticed his bleary eyes and how he hurriedly moved toward the door. "Why, what's the matter?? Where're you going??" the pink uni gasped. Her questions were left unanswered as the yellow techo shoved open the door and was gone before it slammed shut again.
Rose stared after him for a moment, trying to piece together what had just transpired. It wasn't like him to take a completely unsolicited break or to go storming away like a tantrumy shoyru.
"Umm....I came at a bad time, huh?" the kiko owner asked.
"Oh no, not at all!" Rose assured her. "I suppose I can deal with you if he can't...." she moved to sit behind the abandonment desk and the kiko owner noticeably flinched.
"I think I'll come back later." she stated worriedly. RoseMadder looked confused.
"But if you need to get rid of your pet, I don't think you'd want to prolong---" but the Kiko-owner had already turned away and was leaving. Now, what on earth...? And then her conversation an hour or two ago with the doctor floated back into her head.
"I'd hate to ruin your pristine reputation..." He had said. It made sense now....the reason it seemed that owners didn't have a second thought about abandoning their neopets to Dr. Death was because of their ingrained dislike of him. They had grown accustomed to the idea that leaving their pet behind was almost like doing something to spite the yellow techo, but she bet that none of them would want to hurt HER feelings by abandoning their pet.
She sighed, the realization stinging her. Maybe the doctor had been right all this time in his assumptions about the pound-visitors of Neopia. Maybe all of them WERE callous and hurtful individuals. She shook herself back to her senses. No! She couldn't let herself think that way. It just wasn't true. She was shaken out of her thoughts by the front door opening. Hmph...and she was going to prove it, right now, she decided as she turned a cheery smile on the person who came in. He had three red bruces in tow and spared Rose a smile as he headed for the abandonment desk and waited.
Rose smiled back and headed over to the other desk, seating herself.
"And who are we leaving today?" she asked gently. The man blinked, stunned, as the pink uni reached for an abandonment form.
"Ahh...where's the doctor?" he asked.
"Oh...out and about, I suppose. I don't know really, but no matter. I can help you." she smiled sweetly. He took a step backwards. "....sir?" she asked, pausing in mid-reach for a pen to take down the Bruces' information.
"I think I'll come back another time." he told her. "Sorry to trouble you, ma'am..." RoseMadder made no attempt to stop him as she watched him leave as well. She felt empty....not angry, per-say....just extremely disappointed. She had always tried to believe that people who abandoned their pets did so out of there being no other choice....not just because it was convenient and certainly not with the intent of ruining another person's day.
"Miz uni?" a small voice asked. She turned to see a young girl, barely old enough to reach the countertop, peering up at her. "Miz uni, do you have any pets left?" she asked. Rose smiled through her sadness, relieved to finally have an adopter amid the abandoners.
"Right this way, my dear." she instructed, leading the little girl into the back to look at the assortment of neopets.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death had come to rest on the edge of neopia central on a grassy hill out of sight of the majority of the bustling owners and neopets. The urge to break down and cry as what the young kacheek had told him in the pound played in his head over and over had passed by the time he had gotten outside. Is that truly what people thought he did? Took pets away and then killed them?? He had never, in his history of working in the pound, put an animal to sleep for any reason. If the neopets stayed in the pound longer than the allotted period of time, they were either offered a job somewhere in neopia if they were willing to strike out on their own instead of being spoiled pets, or they were given to a rehabilitation program in the Neopian Plains to learn to cope with the wilderness and become wild again.
He had seated himself beneath a large shady tree and curled his tail tightly around his ankles as he tried to compose himself enough to return to work.
"Hot dogs! Nice and hot!! Plump when ya cook'em!" a voice rang out from behind him. The doctor looked over his shoulder to see a purple mynci in a paper cap at a stand not far off, eagerly holding up a hot dog in either hand and pandering to the crowd. "Hey pretty lady! Care to try our triple dog today? Hi kiddo! How about a bacon dog deluxe?" he called to the passersby.
The techo, after a moment of thought, got to his feet and headed toward the stand. Maybe some food was just what he needed to get his head on straight. "Fresh hot dogs, people! Fresh---oh! Heya!" the mynci greeted him as he approached. "Dr. D! I didn't think I'd see you again." Dr. Death froze, trying to place the mynci....he had seen hundreds of purple myncis in his time as a pound director. "Remember me? I was uglee2145672257!" he grinned. "'Course....nobody adopted me with a name like that...." he continued. "But I got a job and earned myself a better name." he extended a hand. "Name's Hubert now." the techo tentatively took the mynci's hand and gave it a shake.
"Nice to see you've made something of yourself..." he told the neopet.
"Heh...sorry about all the names I called you." the mynci admitted sheepishly. "Just...voices carry in there and people were convinced you were gonna sell us to Sloth or something." he cleared his throat, sensing that the conversation had taken an awkward turn. "So...umm...what can I do for ya?"
"Just a hot dog." he muttered, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.
"Nah, put that away." Hubert smirked as he went about preparing an onion dog. "The lunch rush hour's over so I don't think anyone's going to poke their head over my shoulder and whine that I'm giving out freebies." In a few moments, the dog was finished, wrapped in paper, and offered to the techo who accepted it slowly before dropping what he had been prepared to pay for the hot dog into the tip jar sitting on the bar of the hot dog stand. He didn't believe in freebies.
As he walked a short distance away to eat his lunch, he was brushed past by a girl and her cybunny as they approached Huburt's stand to buy some food of their own. He growled his disapproval at the fact that they had nearly knocked him over. Some people were utterly obnoxious, he thought to himself as he peeled back the paper from his hot dog and sank his teeth into it. He ought to be getting back to the pound soon, he decided. Rose was probably beside herself trying to deal with the incoming load and he was sure he'd have to hear about it from her up till closing time.
"Yahoo?? Yahoo, are you okay??" a female voice cried from behind. "Oh god...Yahoo...somebody help!"
The yellow techo turned his head to see the same girl who had brushed past him a moment ago, stooping on the ground and swatting her cybunny on the back. The cybunny's face had taken on an unsavory bluish tint and his eyes stared vacantly into nowhere. The neopet was choking.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You want me to call an ambulance?" Hubert asked, dashing out from behind his stand and kneeling beside Karma. The blue cybunny's mouth hung slightly open and a faint whistling eminated from his throat around the large bite of hot dog the cybunny had taken.
"There's no time for that!!" Karma all but shrieked as she gave the rabbit another whack between his shoulders. She felt the first stages of panic begin to engulf her as she realized that Yahoo was going to die soon if she couldn't somehow unblock his throat. Acting on impulse, she poked her hand into his mouth, wondering if she would be able to reach the offending hot dog that way.
Her arm was suddenly yanked aside and she was shoved over. "Get out of the way!" someone commanded as she struck her head against the side of Hubert's stand and saw stars momentarily.
"What the hell...?" she asked, pulling herself up again. The yellow techo she had met at the pound was busily pulling Yahoo into an upright position. As she watched, he wrapped his arms around him in what looked to be a bearhug and squeezed. Yahoo gave a dry barking sound and the bite of hot dog he had taken flew from his mouth and pelted soundlessly into the grass. The cybunny began to draw in great whooping breaths of air as the bluish tint left his face and he collapsed, panting, to his belly.
Hubert, deciding the situation had been dealt with accordingly, slowly went back behind his hot dog counter. Dr. Death reached out, helping the cybunny sit up.
"You're all right." he told the neopet as he stood, brushing the grass from the knees of his pants. Karma watched as Yahoo recovered before turning her attention to Dr. Death as he began to walk away.
"Thank you." she called after him. He froze as though he had been struck.
"You're....welcome." he replied with some difficulty, without turning around. A pause that only lasted a second but seemed a minute hung in the air before he continued on his way. He couldn't remember the last time someone had thanked him for doing anything and meant it. He didn't get a good look at the cybunny's owner but he was almost certain he recognized her as the girl who had been harrassing him the day before.
"Are you alright, Yahoo?" Karma asked as the cybunny sat up and coughed once.
"Geez...that one went down the wrong pipe." he remarked hoarsely, shaking his head to clear it. Karma, relieved, grabbed her neopet in an almost crushing hug. "I don't think I'll have hot dogs for awhile..."
"Hey now, they're not meant to be gobbled up in two bites." Hubert pointed out, in defense of his product.
"I can't help I was hungry." the cybunny shrugged. "Anyhow...how about we head home for awhile, Karma?" he asked. However, the tree frog seemed lost in thought. "Umm...Karma?"
"Shh I'm thinking." she said distantly.
"Umm yeah, I can see that..." Yahoo said, quirking a brow.
"I think we need to do something to thank him..." Karma stated matter-of-factly.
"Thank who?" Yahoo asked as Karma jumped up and scooped him into her arms. He never got his answer as they headed back for the gaming room.
TBC....