AUTHOR'S NOTE -- Admittantly, I'm starting to run out of steam on this story and I am trying to get several Real Life things in order right now...namely, finding myself a new job. I promise I'll finish this thing, but guys, leaving snarky reviews demanding to know why I've not worked on the story and demanding a new chapter is really not influencing whether I sit down and work or not....and truthfully it kind of hurts my feelings to feel like you're all calling me lazy when fanfiction really isn't a top priority of mine at the moment. I'm flattered I've drawn you in with this tale to the point that you'd get angry that it didn't update, but the IM's, EMails, and reviews all asking "WHEN WILL YOU UPDATE??" are really starting to get to me -_- My material for the Times has to eat up my priorities first and by the time I get that finished, I find I really have very little free time to do other neopet-related things. But as I said, I will finish this eventually.
Anyway, unpleasantness aside, here's the new part.
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It took a lot of convincing, but eventually Glitz had managed to get Karma to lower her defenses as he explained his situation, beginning by going into a bit more detail about his first abandonment and finishing with his encounter at the battledome that afternoon. Though she had argued in the beginning, she eventually was able to simply listen, allowing him to tell his story. By the time he had finished, she had changed her mind about what she planned to give him as her final say on the matter, originally planning to tell him that poking back into Joey's life would cause more upset than good for both of them.
"I know it sounds selfish." he sighed, lying on his back, his head pillowed on Karma's lap. "Hell, he probably doesn't even remember me after all this time, but its just one of those things I need to do."
"Need to?" she pressed. He shot her a shifty look out of the corner of one eye.
"Alright, WANT to, I guess." he sighed. "Either way, I've already thought it through and I think the worst he can do is tell me to get lost."
"Or call the police and say you were trespassing." she pointed out.
"He's not going to call the police." he grumbled. "Not after the high-handed battledome champion title he's made out for himself. He'd let his pets deal with me...but I'm not going to let things get that far, Karma. If it starts to get ugly, I'll leave."
"I almost want to say that I should go with you..." she began, making him cringe slightly and get ready to tell her no. However, a loud crash from the kitchen saved him the trouble.
"Chomby did it!" Yahoo's voice filtered out.
"Nuh UH!!" the dinosaur argued loudly. Karma set her jaw and rolled her eyes.
"...and then I remember that I'm supposed to be playing petkeeper for Beezlebub and his minions." she finished with a sigh. In spite of himself, Glitz laughed softly. She leaned forward, touching noses with him. "I should go see what that was." she smiled, giving him a soft kiss. He took that as his cue to sit up so that he was no longer pinning her legs to the couch and allowed her to saunter into the kitchen where a verbal confrontation almost instantly began over a destroyed casserole dish.
He listened with bemused interest as Karma attempted to sort it out, and then turned his thoughts to where he planned to go from where he was. He had no idea where Joey lived, for one. For another, he didn't know what sorts of strings he'd have to pull to get at his former owner who, undoubtably, had bodyguards or at least burly and protective pets.
Maybe the information center would have an idea. He looked up as Yahoo and Chomby zipped out of the kitchen, diving into the den for cover. "And stay out!" Karma called after them. "Next time you want dinner, just ask me!" This was followed by the whisper of a broom against the kitchen's linoleum and the faint tinkle of glass shards being swept together.
"You want some help in there?" he called from the couch.
"I'm fine." she called back, sounding tired. It must be hard on her, he thought, to deal with three neopets in a newbie apartment. You couldn't walk five steps without crossing into another room and while it had been fine for her and Yahoo, adding Chomby and Candy to the mixture had made everything rather cramped.
"Have you looked into getting your neohome built yet?" he asked, deciding he may as well find out where that particular problem stood. He'd been badgering her on and off about it for the past couple of weeks. Now that Candy was getting bigger, she simply needed more space. The only reason the manager of the apartments tolerated her still living there was because she was never late with her rent and managed to get everybody to shut up and go to sleep by nine every night.
"I want to...I just can't afford it this month." she replied. There was more sweeping followed by a dull kerchunk as she dumped the full dustpan of glass into the trash. "Winnings have been a little thin." she explained as she returned to the living room and sat down beside him again.
"My offer still stands." he informed her, reminding her of the fact that he had told her that he would pay for the installation and first two upgrades of her home if she liked.
"I know." she nodded. "But I'm going to have to shoot you down again. I'll get to it on my own eventually." She followed this with a smile that he felt obliged to return as he settled an arm around her shoulders.
"Hopefully it'll be before someone decides to start whining about it to the pet organizations." he told her, nuzzling the side of her head.
"Hopefully...but we're getting off-topic here." she stated. "When did you plan on getting this visit done?"
"As soon as possible." he replied. "Within the week if I can." She nodded.
"Do you need me to do anything?"
"No...just be here for me when I get back." he sighed, pressing a little closer to her. "I have a feeling that no matter how well this visit goes, I'm going to need some support afterward."
"That I can do." she agreed, folding her arms around the techo and holding him. He made no move to return the embrace for the moment and simply relaxed against her, closing his eyes.
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"Sorry I can't go about giving out information like that." the fire faerie behind the desk at the Information Center said, looking at the techo as though he were an odd and disgusting bug of some kind.
"I don't need the exact address." Dr. Death tried to appeal to her. "Just the land he's in right now would be fine."
"No." the faerie replied firmly. "No offense, but you just don't know who's lurking out there anymore. Before you think so, you're not the first neopet to come in here playing the card of 'this person used to be my owner'. I could lose my job." He sighed deeply.
"Thank you anyway." he grumbled, stuffing his hands into his pockets and walking out of the center. He'd spent nearly an hour in line shortly after getting up that morning and going directly to there from Karma's just to be blown off...feh, what a waste of time. He cast a quick look at the clock tower that stood nearby, noting that it was now six forty-five and he had fifteen minutes to get to work. For once, he was going to be on time.
He walked with a casual gait, casting a look around himself at the early-morning streets of Neopia, and finding no one in the nearby vicinity who'd tell him that he couldn't, quickly dug into the breast pocket of his coat and withdrew a crushed box of cigarettes, pulling one out with his teeth and fumbling the lighter out of his back pocket. It had been days since he'd had one and the first rush of smoke as he inhaled after lighting was like an old friend. It was definitely something he could live without if he tried to strongarm himself into it, but aside from Karma and Rose voicing their displeasure in his habit, he really saw no reason he should try.
He approached the pound just as the cigarette had burned down to the filter and he dropped it to the pavement, crushing it beneath the heel of his shoe before entering the establishment. For a Monday morning, he noted, things were rather quiet and there were no people hovering around outside with pets they intended to dump once the doors opened for business. Rose sat at her side of the desk, carefully stacking and sorting the small amount of forms left over from the day before and looked up as he entered.
"You? On time?" the uni gasped, putting a hoof to her chest in mock dismay. "Be still, my heart."
"Rope it in." the techo replied flatly.
"Mm...pleasant too, as always." Rose nodded, smirking as she returned to her papers.
"Well, don't get TOO used to it." he told her as he sat down next to her. "I'm taking a couple of days off next time they'll let me."
"You are, huh?" she asked, quirking a brow. "What for this time?"
"I'd really rather not say. And its none of your business anyway." Dr. Death told her curtly.
"Is it more relationship stuff? Because, really, I think if you keep that up for much longer, the agency's going to can you..." the uni warned.
"Its not relationship-related." he informed her. "Just personal."
"Are you sick...?" the uni asked hesitantly.
"No." the techo snorted. "Time for a subject change." Rose was silent a moment.
"Is it your family...?" she tried.
"Rose..."
"Okay, okay, sorry." the uni said, putting up her hooves defensively. "Calm yourself."
"I'm not even riled." he replied placidly, taking a pad of abandonment forms out of the desk drawer and fishing a pen out of the cup on the desktop to prepare for the incomings they were undoubtably going to recieve.
".......you weren't at your house last night." Rose mentioned, smirking knowingly. The techo sighed loudly, thudding one hand to the desktop in exasperation and glaring at her. "Sorry." she giggled into her hooves. He rolled his eyes, shaking his head.
"One wonders when you're going to start acting your age." he remarked.
"Says the man dodging out of work every chance he gets to go play." the uni retorted, grinning. He momentarily pondered arguing with her, but decided against it. She had a point, as much as he hated to admit it. As they sat, the door swung open and a pair of blonde girls bustled in, both with large smiles.
"We just joined!" one of them squealed.
"Where're all the little cuties? Ooh I want to take home a baby shoyru SO bad!" the other said, looking already smitten with a pet she didn't presently own. Dr. Death and Rose exchanged a slightly uneasy look and blinked at the two humans.
"Right this way, girls." Rose said, finding herself finally as she got up and led them toward the kennels. No sooner had they disappeared into the back, the door banged open again, this time revealing a less-pleasant visitor behind it. Before he even reached the desk, Glitz knew he would be abandoning the dented and broken robot blumaroo he carried in his arms.
"Piece of junk." the blonde-haired human boy muttered, depositing the neopet on the counter with a dull metallic thud as if it were nothing more than a faulty toaster. Dr. Death's eyes crawled over the strange and still form of the robot blumaroo, having not seen many robot pets. For that matter, he was still hazy on where they had come from in the first place and if they should even be classified as honest-to-god neopets when they were no longer alive, but "automated".
"Abandoning, I take it?" he asked. The boy nodded with a stiff shrug.
"You can say that again." he grumbled. "Seven months hauling that waste of space to Mystery Island and back on a daily basis for that training school, digging in all the bushes for codestones people dropped, and for what? Nothing but embarrassment."
"Mnnh..." the techo grunted in reply, grabbing up the pen and scribbling the type and species of the neopet. "Its name?" he asked.
"I mean, you train for months on end and you think you're finally going to do something great in the battledome, and some jerk comes along and completely knocks you to hell in three blows with some muscle-stuffed scorchio." the boy continued, ignoring the doctor completely. "And what the hell kind of name is Fangpoint anyway??"
Dr. Death's mouth suddenly felt as though it was lined with cotton as he heard the name, his mind instantly recalling Joey calling the exact same name in the battledome yesterday....to likely the same muscular scorchio.
"Do you....know anything about the owner?" the techo all but squeaked.
"Joey? He's a jerk. Why? He in trouble with this place?" the kid inquired.
"I need to get ahold of him as soon as possible." the techo explained shakily, the abandonment form and the nearly-dismantled robot blumaroo forgotten for the moment.
"Sure. He lives over on the coast of Mystery Island where all the caves are. Likes to train his pets by making'em fight all the monsters that live in'em...feh....all the battledomers talk about him sooner or later. Like he's so friggin' special. Hey be sure to tell him he's a jackass for me when you see him, wouldja?"
"I.....I will...." the doctor nodded, not sure what he was agreeing to as he had only half-heard the boy.
"Sweet." the boy grinned, turning and leaving, neglecting to pay the abandon fine. But that didn't really matter to Dr. Death at the moment. He picked up the robot neopet numbly from the desktop and carried it, under his arm, into the back.
"---and they're very good with your furniture too. They don't claw or anything." Rose was explaining to the two girls who had come in, showing them a yellow wocky who purred enticingly and rubbed against their ankles. In a better frame of mind, the doctor would have sharply reminded her that she was not to remove pets from their kennels without a leash in case they attempted to escape. However, he paid the trio little to no mind at all as he sauntered past, selecting an empty kennel and unceremoniously depositing the robot inside of it, closing the door and locking it.
"Aww, he's so cute! I'll take him!" one of the blondes gushed, leaning down and picking the wocky up. The neopet gratefully nuzzled into her arms, giving her a large and happy smile. Rose smiled at the girls half-heartedly as the two of them fauned over the little wocky before turning to look at Dr. Death as he walked past.
"You alright?" she asked, noting the ashen tone of his face suddenly.
"I'm alright." he told her as he moved, not sounding at all convincing. Before Rose had a chance to question him further, he had closed the door and was safely back up front again. To his relief, no one had shown up to wait at the desk and he found himself completely alone for the moment. Not hesitating, he approached his side of the desk and threw open the bottom drawer, pulling out the directory listing and thumbing through the pages until he found the ferry station and dialed them up.
After a brief period on hold and negotiating travel times with an agent, he hung up again, his ferry tickets to Mystery Island reserved for Wednesday. That would give him tomorrow to get in touch with the Employment Agency and inform them he would be gone for a day. Possibly more, he wasn't sure. He didn't suppose Joey's dwelling would be right within plain view and could foresee himself having to search for it for a day or two.
He leaned back in his chair, staring into space and trying to convince himself that the wheels really HAD been set in motion. Tonight he would pack a suitcase and would get little sleep as he laid awake for hours, playing out two versions of his confrontation with his old owner...the one he wanted in which he and Joey both laid the cards out on the table and handled things with some degree of maturity, and the one he feared in which Joey became angry for finding him and attacked him with his battlepets.
No matter what the outcome, though, he promised himself that after all of this, he would lay this unclosed chapter of his life to rest.
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"You sure you're getting off here, buddy??" the ferryman, a blue kacheek, shouted over the loud sigh of the surf against the rocks.
"This is fine!" Dr. Death called back, bracing himself as the ferry rocked a bit.
"I dunno, those currents are pretty nasty! Don't expect me to dive in after ya if ya slip!"
"I won't!" he replied, though without much conviction as he eyed the wet rocks with uncertainty. What if he DID slip? He bit his lip, holding the bag he had packed in a white knuckled grip as he swung a leg over the side of the listing ferryboat and stepped awkwardly out onto one of the jutting rocks on the beach's shore. For one horrible moment, he nearly lost his purchase and then righted himself.
Breathing a sigh of relief, the techo carefully picked his way down from the rocks to the sand, the ferryman watching him intently until he was safely on the ground before putting the boat's motor in reverse and kicking up a coil of white foam as he puttered away from the shore. Glitz watched the boat disappear over the rolling green waves until it was no longer visible before turning his attention back to the matter at hand.
He was surrounded by a stretch, riddled with large boulders and, in the distance, large black hulks of crude sandstone mountains that were so full of holes and caves, they'd be better classified as "swiss cheese" than mountains at all. The air smelt stale....it wasn't the inviting odor of salt water and sunshine that most beaches had. This reminded him of sweat and the ghosts of dead fish that had washed up from the water to bloat in the sun.
There honestly seemed to be no sign of civilization anywhere and it occurred to the doctor that bringing a suitcase was probably not a good idea and a backpack would have been a much better option. Even as he stood pondering this, something tugged at his pantleg and he looked down, startled. An enormous crab had sidled out from beneath a rock and was now busily examining the intruder with its large claws. The techo gave an involuntary cry of revolt and stepped backward, his voice scaring the crab back into hiding.
"Just as scared of me as I was of it..." he assured himself. "Nothing's out to get you here, for chrissake....its just a beach."
"Didn't the kid at the pound say Joey keeps his pets here to fight cave monsters?" his mind inquired mockingly, setting his nerves on edge even further. Yes, the boy at the pound HAD said something to that effect. And if there were monsters here, he was most certainly in no situation to deal with them with no weapons and even less fighting technique....not in the light and even less in the dark.
Dark. How long was it going to be until night fell, he wondered? He guessed it was only two in the afternoon or so...he had left Neopia Central at noon and it had tacked an extra hour or so onto his journey to be boated nearly three-quarters of the way around Mystery Island from where the ferries usually docked and the jungle gave way to the long stretch of beach he found himself on currently.
Well, standing there and fretting about things he couldn't see or confirm even existed certainly wasn't helping matters. He laid his suitcase down, popping the latch and examining the contents. He'd not packed much....a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a book, and a bottle of aspirin, but even in traveling light, the case itself was large and awkward and if the need arose to run, it would impair him severely. At length, he settled on the bottle of aspirin and the book, deciding clean teeth and pristine clothes could slide for the little time he'd be here. Fastening the case again, he leaned it against a boulder and began to walk.
Instinct told Dr. Death that he would find what he was looking for near the mountains of holey sandstone up ahead and so he headed in that direction, ready to turn back at the first sign of trouble. In the distance, a bird of some sort let up a long whooping cry, adding to the alien quality of the beach. It was not at all like the rest of Mystery Island that was covered in lush jungles and bustling with natives. This all seemed...detached somehow. Uncivilized. Unhealthy.
As though to accentuate his feelings, something large stirred in a spindly tangle of Elppa bushes to his left, making him freeze in his tracks and stare. As he watched, a round crimson fellow with an elongated point for a head emerged from the grass. In all appearance, it looked like an enormous spirkle and chittered at him in a language he didn't understand, appearing to make rude gestures with its tiny legs.
As he watched the spectacle, puzzled, he was unaware as something larger slithered up behind him. The red creature, apparently pleased in distracting the techo long enough to be trapped, concluded its odd tirade with a half-hearted backflip into the air, a final squeal, and then it was gone again into the grass. No sooner had the notion crossed Dr. Death's mind to keep walking something hissed dryly behind him.
If he'd had hackles, the yellow techo was sure, they'd all have stood perfectly on end at that sound as he turned, not wanting to see but realizing he had to, and found himself staring directly into the dilated eyes of unquestionably the largest snake he had ever seen. Its forked tongue slid out of its pursed mouth idly flickering on the air for a split second before disappearing back into its maw again. It was black in color with evergreen-colored bands down its body and it stood nearly a head taller than he was.
Dr. Death, until that moment, didn't realize it was possible to literally feel the color draining from his face as he found that all of his muscles had locked firmly, stuck somewhere between "fight" and "flight".
"Its a wadjet" he thought to himself as the large snake dipped its head to the side, flickering its tongue again in an expectant manner, as though satisfied that its prey had been properly terrified and immobilized. "Its a wadjet, but damn, its HUGE!" The enormous black serpent began to slowly and lazily wind its body around him, entrapping him in its thick coils and preparing to squeeze the life out of him once it was finished.
The red imp that had jumped from the grass earlier watched from nearby with interest glowing in its beady eyes. By nature, imps were scavengers and it knew that whatever the wadjet found inedible would immediately become its dinner.
ZING!!
A white blur shot past the wadjet's head missing narrowly and attracting the large snake's attention. As it swung its diamond-shaped head after whatever had whizzed past, another missile flew forward, striking the snake squarely in the back of its skull. With a cheated hiss, the wadjet loosened its grip on Dr. Death as it sought its assailant. The techo blinked, shaking himself out of his shock-induced stupor as he realized, first, where he was and second, that he was in danger.
THOCK!
The wadjet wailed in pain, rearing as another rock struck it on the pearly ridge of scales just above its eye. The yellow techo wriggled, attempting to slide out of the serpent's hold on him, and realized that he couldn't. "Still too strong...." he thought distantly and with absurd astonishment. "Still too strong, I can't---"
And suddenly there was a sensation of being pulled, accompanied by an annoyed voice. "Come ON!! Do you wanna live or what, Mister??" And he realized that he did. Very much so. With a few frantic kicks, accompanied by whomever was pulling on him, he slipped free of the wadjet's coils, tumbling to the sand in a heap. His teeth clicked together on his tongue, drawing the faint coppery taste of blood as he half-crawled, half-scrambled away from the wadjet and out of reach.
The snake attempted to strike at him, fangs bared, but it was not at a good angle and nor did it have the proper thrust behind it. The wadjet sailed to his left, missing him by nearly an entire three feet and leaving a near-perfect streak in the sand behind itself. Glitz drew himself into a crouch, almost certain it would turn and try again, but to his surprise (and relief) it did not. The wadjet shot him a still-predatory but decidedly more casual glare, flickered its tongue out of its mouth once more, and then slithered off in the direction of a spindly gathering of bushes, disappearing with oily quickness.
"Geez....you okay?" the same voice that had yelled at him earlier asked, sounding winded. Dr. Death looked beside himself to see a small red kougra crouched in the sand, panting thickly and looking thoroughly frazzled.
"Yeah....yeah I'm fine." he assured the tiger neopet.
"You're lucky I was hunting out this way, Mister. Prey's kinda slim and those monsters'll eat anything." he looked the yellow techo over critically and chuffed with laughter. "Boy, he almost had YOU for a sandwich...."
"I told you I'm fine." Dr. Death replied indignantly. "And aren't you a little young to be out wandering by yourself?" The young kougra reminded him, in many ways, of Candy with the same look of impish amusement that only children seemed to be able to possess.
"Heh....I'm fine on my own. I look out for myself better than some grown-ups I know of..." he added. Glitz was about to argue when the kougra interrupted. "But yeah, I've got an owner and all, if that's what you mean. And he knows I'm out here. He sent me here actually."
"With all these monsters?" the techo asked disbelievingly.
"Sure! How else am I supposed to get stronger unless I battle? That's how my ancestors did it and all....there weren't any training schools and codestones back then and I've never taken the easy way once." The tiger neopet puffed his chest out proudly. "Besides, most of the monsters out here are stupid. You find their weak spot and its all over. They fall over like a sack of dung." He paused, sniffing the air. "Anyway, nice meeting ya. You should be more careful." He said off-handedly and turned to prowl toward the beginning of some dense undergrowth nearby where the beach ended and a spindly psuedo-jungle began.
"Where are you going?" Dr. Death asked, mildly curious.
"Huh? Oh...I gotta find and fight at least twenty more monsters before I get dinner. Its my quota."
"Your quota..." the techo repeated.
"Sure. My owner assigns me and my brothers a number of wins we have to get before dark and if we don't meet it, we're not allowed to have dinner." the kougra smirked.
"That's harsh, don't you think?"
"Nah not really. I usually just sneak over to the Tombola on the other side of the island or something if he doesn't feed me. He just does it to make us work harder, not to be mean." The kougra's tail twitched as his keen eyes caught movement in the grass. "You're gonna have to excuse me now, Mister." he added quickly, crouching and preparing to pounce on whatever it was.
Ordinarily, Glitz would have let it go there, but instead, he heard himself speak again. "Your owner's name happen to be Joey?" The kougra, his concentration broken, looked sharply over his shoulder, though he didn't appear to be angry.
"Yeah....but, how'd you know?" he asked.
"I need you to take me to him, if you can..." the techo told him. "Its pretty important that I see him." The kougra regarded him thoughtfully before shaking his head with a skeptical look.
"Nah, I can't do that." the cub said decisively.
"Why not?"
"Cuz he doesn't like fans."
"I'm not a fan." Dr. Death replied, growing quickly annoyed.
"Well then, his team's full. He doesn't want to take on any more pets."
"I'm not one of those either. I...." he trailed off, wondering how much he ought to tell the kougra. "I used to be one of his pets and I just need to talk a few things over with him."
"Hmm...gotta hand it to ya, that's a new excuse. You some kind of scammer?" the kougra asked suspiciously.
"No, but I *AM* bitter, if it helps." he replied, snarling a bit. There was a long moment of silence as the two regarded one another.
"Hmmmm...." the kougra muttered, narrowing his eyes in thought. "Alright, you win. But I gotta warn ya if you're thinking of pulling anything that Fangpoint and Scorchruff are pretty protective of our master, and pretty strong to boot. Follow me." he stated, padding off casually into the overgrowth.
Dr. Death hesitated only a moment before following after him, certain that if he lost sight of the young kougra, that he'd end up lost for days.
"What's your name, mister?" the kougra asked casually as they moved.
"Glitz." he answered reflexively.
"Glitz....heh....sounds like a girl's name." the kougra snickered. To this, the doctor said nothing, though it was sorely tempting to inform the young tiger that the same man that had bestowed such intimidating titles as Fangpoint and Scorchruff had, once upon a time, also given him HIS name. "I'm Bloodcloak"
"Charming...." Dr. Death sighed, his stomach turning a sour flip at the kougra's name.
"Yeah. Its mainly cuz of my coloring, but I kinda hope when I get older, it'll mean more than that." he grinned, purposely showing off his maw of fangs. "Anyway, its not far from here...just through those trees up there and then around the back of the big mess of boulders. Joey said he had to get a special permit to build his neohome all the way out here away from everybody. I heard a couple people say he had to fight the real estate agency and the property contractors and---"
As Bloodcloak trit-trotted off into a tangent about the trials Joey had gone through to be able to isolate himself from the rest of Neopia, the techo slipped into troubled thought again. For the umpteenth time, he tried to convince himself that coming all the way out here had not been a bad idea, and it seemed to be growing harder and harder with each attempt. He had, sadly enough, begun to hope that Joey would simply refuse to see him. At least then he could go back and tell everybody he'd tried. And maybe, over time, he could convince himself of the same thing.
"Glitz? HEY!!"
"Huh?" the doctor muttered, shaking himself back to reality.
"Stop spacing out. We're almost there." Bloodcloak chided impatiently. "Ya looked like a zombie just now."
"Sorry, I'm just thinking, I guess."
"Hopefully not about ways to run off with any of Joey's neopoints. I'd cream you myself if you tried."
"Look, I already told you I'm not a scammer." the techo groaned.
"Sure sure, that's what they all say." the kougra sighed. "Guess we'll see. Joey's house is right there, by the way." he added, pointing at a modest two-level white house that was half visible from behind an uneven clump of windsmoothed rocks as they exited the undergrowth, finding themselves on the crest of a gentle grassy slope.
"That's it?" Dr. Death asked disbelievingly.
"What do you mean, 'that's it'??" Bloodcloak snapped. "That's a nice home, you dork!"
"No....no offense meant." he said quickly. "I just....I had expected...." he fished for the words he was looking for.
"Lemme guess, big mansion with an elaborate garden and servants scuttling around training the other pets?" the kougra cub sighed, rolling his eyes. "That's what everybody expects. We don't need that junk...mansions are for rich and lazy snobs." He finished his statement with a decisive nod of his head and then broke into a trot. "C'mon! I'll race ya!"
Dr. Death watched the kougra run for a few paces and followed after him, keeping his pace at a sedate walk. He felt no desire to hurry things along any quicker than they absolutely needed to be. He reached the house's front walkway a few moments later, Bloodcloak already sitting on the porch, having caught most of his breath already.
"Wuss!" he jeered good-naturedly, poking a pink tongue out at the techo. Glitz's focus, however, was not on the red kougra cub. It was, instead, on the familiar human standing in the front doorway of the neohome, regarding him with thoughtful silence. The techo froze, much like he had when he had encountered the wadjet, unsure of what to say or do. At length, Joey made the first move.
"My cub there says you need to talk to me?" he said calmly. The yellow techo drew in a shaky breath, looking at the ground, and nodded once.
"This important?" Joey asked.
Glitz nodded again.
"Mm...." he muttered before moving aside. "Alright, come on in then and let's get it done." The yellow techo hesitated, gathering himself again, before slowly moving forward and walking past Joey into the house....
TBC...
Anyway, unpleasantness aside, here's the new part.
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It took a lot of convincing, but eventually Glitz had managed to get Karma to lower her defenses as he explained his situation, beginning by going into a bit more detail about his first abandonment and finishing with his encounter at the battledome that afternoon. Though she had argued in the beginning, she eventually was able to simply listen, allowing him to tell his story. By the time he had finished, she had changed her mind about what she planned to give him as her final say on the matter, originally planning to tell him that poking back into Joey's life would cause more upset than good for both of them.
"I know it sounds selfish." he sighed, lying on his back, his head pillowed on Karma's lap. "Hell, he probably doesn't even remember me after all this time, but its just one of those things I need to do."
"Need to?" she pressed. He shot her a shifty look out of the corner of one eye.
"Alright, WANT to, I guess." he sighed. "Either way, I've already thought it through and I think the worst he can do is tell me to get lost."
"Or call the police and say you were trespassing." she pointed out.
"He's not going to call the police." he grumbled. "Not after the high-handed battledome champion title he's made out for himself. He'd let his pets deal with me...but I'm not going to let things get that far, Karma. If it starts to get ugly, I'll leave."
"I almost want to say that I should go with you..." she began, making him cringe slightly and get ready to tell her no. However, a loud crash from the kitchen saved him the trouble.
"Chomby did it!" Yahoo's voice filtered out.
"Nuh UH!!" the dinosaur argued loudly. Karma set her jaw and rolled her eyes.
"...and then I remember that I'm supposed to be playing petkeeper for Beezlebub and his minions." she finished with a sigh. In spite of himself, Glitz laughed softly. She leaned forward, touching noses with him. "I should go see what that was." she smiled, giving him a soft kiss. He took that as his cue to sit up so that he was no longer pinning her legs to the couch and allowed her to saunter into the kitchen where a verbal confrontation almost instantly began over a destroyed casserole dish.
He listened with bemused interest as Karma attempted to sort it out, and then turned his thoughts to where he planned to go from where he was. He had no idea where Joey lived, for one. For another, he didn't know what sorts of strings he'd have to pull to get at his former owner who, undoubtably, had bodyguards or at least burly and protective pets.
Maybe the information center would have an idea. He looked up as Yahoo and Chomby zipped out of the kitchen, diving into the den for cover. "And stay out!" Karma called after them. "Next time you want dinner, just ask me!" This was followed by the whisper of a broom against the kitchen's linoleum and the faint tinkle of glass shards being swept together.
"You want some help in there?" he called from the couch.
"I'm fine." she called back, sounding tired. It must be hard on her, he thought, to deal with three neopets in a newbie apartment. You couldn't walk five steps without crossing into another room and while it had been fine for her and Yahoo, adding Chomby and Candy to the mixture had made everything rather cramped.
"Have you looked into getting your neohome built yet?" he asked, deciding he may as well find out where that particular problem stood. He'd been badgering her on and off about it for the past couple of weeks. Now that Candy was getting bigger, she simply needed more space. The only reason the manager of the apartments tolerated her still living there was because she was never late with her rent and managed to get everybody to shut up and go to sleep by nine every night.
"I want to...I just can't afford it this month." she replied. There was more sweeping followed by a dull kerchunk as she dumped the full dustpan of glass into the trash. "Winnings have been a little thin." she explained as she returned to the living room and sat down beside him again.
"My offer still stands." he informed her, reminding her of the fact that he had told her that he would pay for the installation and first two upgrades of her home if she liked.
"I know." she nodded. "But I'm going to have to shoot you down again. I'll get to it on my own eventually." She followed this with a smile that he felt obliged to return as he settled an arm around her shoulders.
"Hopefully it'll be before someone decides to start whining about it to the pet organizations." he told her, nuzzling the side of her head.
"Hopefully...but we're getting off-topic here." she stated. "When did you plan on getting this visit done?"
"As soon as possible." he replied. "Within the week if I can." She nodded.
"Do you need me to do anything?"
"No...just be here for me when I get back." he sighed, pressing a little closer to her. "I have a feeling that no matter how well this visit goes, I'm going to need some support afterward."
"That I can do." she agreed, folding her arms around the techo and holding him. He made no move to return the embrace for the moment and simply relaxed against her, closing his eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Sorry I can't go about giving out information like that." the fire faerie behind the desk at the Information Center said, looking at the techo as though he were an odd and disgusting bug of some kind.
"I don't need the exact address." Dr. Death tried to appeal to her. "Just the land he's in right now would be fine."
"No." the faerie replied firmly. "No offense, but you just don't know who's lurking out there anymore. Before you think so, you're not the first neopet to come in here playing the card of 'this person used to be my owner'. I could lose my job." He sighed deeply.
"Thank you anyway." he grumbled, stuffing his hands into his pockets and walking out of the center. He'd spent nearly an hour in line shortly after getting up that morning and going directly to there from Karma's just to be blown off...feh, what a waste of time. He cast a quick look at the clock tower that stood nearby, noting that it was now six forty-five and he had fifteen minutes to get to work. For once, he was going to be on time.
He walked with a casual gait, casting a look around himself at the early-morning streets of Neopia, and finding no one in the nearby vicinity who'd tell him that he couldn't, quickly dug into the breast pocket of his coat and withdrew a crushed box of cigarettes, pulling one out with his teeth and fumbling the lighter out of his back pocket. It had been days since he'd had one and the first rush of smoke as he inhaled after lighting was like an old friend. It was definitely something he could live without if he tried to strongarm himself into it, but aside from Karma and Rose voicing their displeasure in his habit, he really saw no reason he should try.
He approached the pound just as the cigarette had burned down to the filter and he dropped it to the pavement, crushing it beneath the heel of his shoe before entering the establishment. For a Monday morning, he noted, things were rather quiet and there were no people hovering around outside with pets they intended to dump once the doors opened for business. Rose sat at her side of the desk, carefully stacking and sorting the small amount of forms left over from the day before and looked up as he entered.
"You? On time?" the uni gasped, putting a hoof to her chest in mock dismay. "Be still, my heart."
"Rope it in." the techo replied flatly.
"Mm...pleasant too, as always." Rose nodded, smirking as she returned to her papers.
"Well, don't get TOO used to it." he told her as he sat down next to her. "I'm taking a couple of days off next time they'll let me."
"You are, huh?" she asked, quirking a brow. "What for this time?"
"I'd really rather not say. And its none of your business anyway." Dr. Death told her curtly.
"Is it more relationship stuff? Because, really, I think if you keep that up for much longer, the agency's going to can you..." the uni warned.
"Its not relationship-related." he informed her. "Just personal."
"Are you sick...?" the uni asked hesitantly.
"No." the techo snorted. "Time for a subject change." Rose was silent a moment.
"Is it your family...?" she tried.
"Rose..."
"Okay, okay, sorry." the uni said, putting up her hooves defensively. "Calm yourself."
"I'm not even riled." he replied placidly, taking a pad of abandonment forms out of the desk drawer and fishing a pen out of the cup on the desktop to prepare for the incomings they were undoubtably going to recieve.
".......you weren't at your house last night." Rose mentioned, smirking knowingly. The techo sighed loudly, thudding one hand to the desktop in exasperation and glaring at her. "Sorry." she giggled into her hooves. He rolled his eyes, shaking his head.
"One wonders when you're going to start acting your age." he remarked.
"Says the man dodging out of work every chance he gets to go play." the uni retorted, grinning. He momentarily pondered arguing with her, but decided against it. She had a point, as much as he hated to admit it. As they sat, the door swung open and a pair of blonde girls bustled in, both with large smiles.
"We just joined!" one of them squealed.
"Where're all the little cuties? Ooh I want to take home a baby shoyru SO bad!" the other said, looking already smitten with a pet she didn't presently own. Dr. Death and Rose exchanged a slightly uneasy look and blinked at the two humans.
"Right this way, girls." Rose said, finding herself finally as she got up and led them toward the kennels. No sooner had they disappeared into the back, the door banged open again, this time revealing a less-pleasant visitor behind it. Before he even reached the desk, Glitz knew he would be abandoning the dented and broken robot blumaroo he carried in his arms.
"Piece of junk." the blonde-haired human boy muttered, depositing the neopet on the counter with a dull metallic thud as if it were nothing more than a faulty toaster. Dr. Death's eyes crawled over the strange and still form of the robot blumaroo, having not seen many robot pets. For that matter, he was still hazy on where they had come from in the first place and if they should even be classified as honest-to-god neopets when they were no longer alive, but "automated".
"Abandoning, I take it?" he asked. The boy nodded with a stiff shrug.
"You can say that again." he grumbled. "Seven months hauling that waste of space to Mystery Island and back on a daily basis for that training school, digging in all the bushes for codestones people dropped, and for what? Nothing but embarrassment."
"Mnnh..." the techo grunted in reply, grabbing up the pen and scribbling the type and species of the neopet. "Its name?" he asked.
"I mean, you train for months on end and you think you're finally going to do something great in the battledome, and some jerk comes along and completely knocks you to hell in three blows with some muscle-stuffed scorchio." the boy continued, ignoring the doctor completely. "And what the hell kind of name is Fangpoint anyway??"
Dr. Death's mouth suddenly felt as though it was lined with cotton as he heard the name, his mind instantly recalling Joey calling the exact same name in the battledome yesterday....to likely the same muscular scorchio.
"Do you....know anything about the owner?" the techo all but squeaked.
"Joey? He's a jerk. Why? He in trouble with this place?" the kid inquired.
"I need to get ahold of him as soon as possible." the techo explained shakily, the abandonment form and the nearly-dismantled robot blumaroo forgotten for the moment.
"Sure. He lives over on the coast of Mystery Island where all the caves are. Likes to train his pets by making'em fight all the monsters that live in'em...feh....all the battledomers talk about him sooner or later. Like he's so friggin' special. Hey be sure to tell him he's a jackass for me when you see him, wouldja?"
"I.....I will...." the doctor nodded, not sure what he was agreeing to as he had only half-heard the boy.
"Sweet." the boy grinned, turning and leaving, neglecting to pay the abandon fine. But that didn't really matter to Dr. Death at the moment. He picked up the robot neopet numbly from the desktop and carried it, under his arm, into the back.
"---and they're very good with your furniture too. They don't claw or anything." Rose was explaining to the two girls who had come in, showing them a yellow wocky who purred enticingly and rubbed against their ankles. In a better frame of mind, the doctor would have sharply reminded her that she was not to remove pets from their kennels without a leash in case they attempted to escape. However, he paid the trio little to no mind at all as he sauntered past, selecting an empty kennel and unceremoniously depositing the robot inside of it, closing the door and locking it.
"Aww, he's so cute! I'll take him!" one of the blondes gushed, leaning down and picking the wocky up. The neopet gratefully nuzzled into her arms, giving her a large and happy smile. Rose smiled at the girls half-heartedly as the two of them fauned over the little wocky before turning to look at Dr. Death as he walked past.
"You alright?" she asked, noting the ashen tone of his face suddenly.
"I'm alright." he told her as he moved, not sounding at all convincing. Before Rose had a chance to question him further, he had closed the door and was safely back up front again. To his relief, no one had shown up to wait at the desk and he found himself completely alone for the moment. Not hesitating, he approached his side of the desk and threw open the bottom drawer, pulling out the directory listing and thumbing through the pages until he found the ferry station and dialed them up.
After a brief period on hold and negotiating travel times with an agent, he hung up again, his ferry tickets to Mystery Island reserved for Wednesday. That would give him tomorrow to get in touch with the Employment Agency and inform them he would be gone for a day. Possibly more, he wasn't sure. He didn't suppose Joey's dwelling would be right within plain view and could foresee himself having to search for it for a day or two.
He leaned back in his chair, staring into space and trying to convince himself that the wheels really HAD been set in motion. Tonight he would pack a suitcase and would get little sleep as he laid awake for hours, playing out two versions of his confrontation with his old owner...the one he wanted in which he and Joey both laid the cards out on the table and handled things with some degree of maturity, and the one he feared in which Joey became angry for finding him and attacked him with his battlepets.
No matter what the outcome, though, he promised himself that after all of this, he would lay this unclosed chapter of his life to rest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You sure you're getting off here, buddy??" the ferryman, a blue kacheek, shouted over the loud sigh of the surf against the rocks.
"This is fine!" Dr. Death called back, bracing himself as the ferry rocked a bit.
"I dunno, those currents are pretty nasty! Don't expect me to dive in after ya if ya slip!"
"I won't!" he replied, though without much conviction as he eyed the wet rocks with uncertainty. What if he DID slip? He bit his lip, holding the bag he had packed in a white knuckled grip as he swung a leg over the side of the listing ferryboat and stepped awkwardly out onto one of the jutting rocks on the beach's shore. For one horrible moment, he nearly lost his purchase and then righted himself.
Breathing a sigh of relief, the techo carefully picked his way down from the rocks to the sand, the ferryman watching him intently until he was safely on the ground before putting the boat's motor in reverse and kicking up a coil of white foam as he puttered away from the shore. Glitz watched the boat disappear over the rolling green waves until it was no longer visible before turning his attention back to the matter at hand.
He was surrounded by a stretch, riddled with large boulders and, in the distance, large black hulks of crude sandstone mountains that were so full of holes and caves, they'd be better classified as "swiss cheese" than mountains at all. The air smelt stale....it wasn't the inviting odor of salt water and sunshine that most beaches had. This reminded him of sweat and the ghosts of dead fish that had washed up from the water to bloat in the sun.
There honestly seemed to be no sign of civilization anywhere and it occurred to the doctor that bringing a suitcase was probably not a good idea and a backpack would have been a much better option. Even as he stood pondering this, something tugged at his pantleg and he looked down, startled. An enormous crab had sidled out from beneath a rock and was now busily examining the intruder with its large claws. The techo gave an involuntary cry of revolt and stepped backward, his voice scaring the crab back into hiding.
"Just as scared of me as I was of it..." he assured himself. "Nothing's out to get you here, for chrissake....its just a beach."
"Didn't the kid at the pound say Joey keeps his pets here to fight cave monsters?" his mind inquired mockingly, setting his nerves on edge even further. Yes, the boy at the pound HAD said something to that effect. And if there were monsters here, he was most certainly in no situation to deal with them with no weapons and even less fighting technique....not in the light and even less in the dark.
Dark. How long was it going to be until night fell, he wondered? He guessed it was only two in the afternoon or so...he had left Neopia Central at noon and it had tacked an extra hour or so onto his journey to be boated nearly three-quarters of the way around Mystery Island from where the ferries usually docked and the jungle gave way to the long stretch of beach he found himself on currently.
Well, standing there and fretting about things he couldn't see or confirm even existed certainly wasn't helping matters. He laid his suitcase down, popping the latch and examining the contents. He'd not packed much....a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a book, and a bottle of aspirin, but even in traveling light, the case itself was large and awkward and if the need arose to run, it would impair him severely. At length, he settled on the bottle of aspirin and the book, deciding clean teeth and pristine clothes could slide for the little time he'd be here. Fastening the case again, he leaned it against a boulder and began to walk.
Instinct told Dr. Death that he would find what he was looking for near the mountains of holey sandstone up ahead and so he headed in that direction, ready to turn back at the first sign of trouble. In the distance, a bird of some sort let up a long whooping cry, adding to the alien quality of the beach. It was not at all like the rest of Mystery Island that was covered in lush jungles and bustling with natives. This all seemed...detached somehow. Uncivilized. Unhealthy.
As though to accentuate his feelings, something large stirred in a spindly tangle of Elppa bushes to his left, making him freeze in his tracks and stare. As he watched, a round crimson fellow with an elongated point for a head emerged from the grass. In all appearance, it looked like an enormous spirkle and chittered at him in a language he didn't understand, appearing to make rude gestures with its tiny legs.
As he watched the spectacle, puzzled, he was unaware as something larger slithered up behind him. The red creature, apparently pleased in distracting the techo long enough to be trapped, concluded its odd tirade with a half-hearted backflip into the air, a final squeal, and then it was gone again into the grass. No sooner had the notion crossed Dr. Death's mind to keep walking something hissed dryly behind him.
If he'd had hackles, the yellow techo was sure, they'd all have stood perfectly on end at that sound as he turned, not wanting to see but realizing he had to, and found himself staring directly into the dilated eyes of unquestionably the largest snake he had ever seen. Its forked tongue slid out of its pursed mouth idly flickering on the air for a split second before disappearing back into its maw again. It was black in color with evergreen-colored bands down its body and it stood nearly a head taller than he was.
Dr. Death, until that moment, didn't realize it was possible to literally feel the color draining from his face as he found that all of his muscles had locked firmly, stuck somewhere between "fight" and "flight".
"Its a wadjet" he thought to himself as the large snake dipped its head to the side, flickering its tongue again in an expectant manner, as though satisfied that its prey had been properly terrified and immobilized. "Its a wadjet, but damn, its HUGE!" The enormous black serpent began to slowly and lazily wind its body around him, entrapping him in its thick coils and preparing to squeeze the life out of him once it was finished.
The red imp that had jumped from the grass earlier watched from nearby with interest glowing in its beady eyes. By nature, imps were scavengers and it knew that whatever the wadjet found inedible would immediately become its dinner.
ZING!!
A white blur shot past the wadjet's head missing narrowly and attracting the large snake's attention. As it swung its diamond-shaped head after whatever had whizzed past, another missile flew forward, striking the snake squarely in the back of its skull. With a cheated hiss, the wadjet loosened its grip on Dr. Death as it sought its assailant. The techo blinked, shaking himself out of his shock-induced stupor as he realized, first, where he was and second, that he was in danger.
THOCK!
The wadjet wailed in pain, rearing as another rock struck it on the pearly ridge of scales just above its eye. The yellow techo wriggled, attempting to slide out of the serpent's hold on him, and realized that he couldn't. "Still too strong...." he thought distantly and with absurd astonishment. "Still too strong, I can't---"
And suddenly there was a sensation of being pulled, accompanied by an annoyed voice. "Come ON!! Do you wanna live or what, Mister??" And he realized that he did. Very much so. With a few frantic kicks, accompanied by whomever was pulling on him, he slipped free of the wadjet's coils, tumbling to the sand in a heap. His teeth clicked together on his tongue, drawing the faint coppery taste of blood as he half-crawled, half-scrambled away from the wadjet and out of reach.
The snake attempted to strike at him, fangs bared, but it was not at a good angle and nor did it have the proper thrust behind it. The wadjet sailed to his left, missing him by nearly an entire three feet and leaving a near-perfect streak in the sand behind itself. Glitz drew himself into a crouch, almost certain it would turn and try again, but to his surprise (and relief) it did not. The wadjet shot him a still-predatory but decidedly more casual glare, flickered its tongue out of its mouth once more, and then slithered off in the direction of a spindly gathering of bushes, disappearing with oily quickness.
"Geez....you okay?" the same voice that had yelled at him earlier asked, sounding winded. Dr. Death looked beside himself to see a small red kougra crouched in the sand, panting thickly and looking thoroughly frazzled.
"Yeah....yeah I'm fine." he assured the tiger neopet.
"You're lucky I was hunting out this way, Mister. Prey's kinda slim and those monsters'll eat anything." he looked the yellow techo over critically and chuffed with laughter. "Boy, he almost had YOU for a sandwich...."
"I told you I'm fine." Dr. Death replied indignantly. "And aren't you a little young to be out wandering by yourself?" The young kougra reminded him, in many ways, of Candy with the same look of impish amusement that only children seemed to be able to possess.
"Heh....I'm fine on my own. I look out for myself better than some grown-ups I know of..." he added. Glitz was about to argue when the kougra interrupted. "But yeah, I've got an owner and all, if that's what you mean. And he knows I'm out here. He sent me here actually."
"With all these monsters?" the techo asked disbelievingly.
"Sure! How else am I supposed to get stronger unless I battle? That's how my ancestors did it and all....there weren't any training schools and codestones back then and I've never taken the easy way once." The tiger neopet puffed his chest out proudly. "Besides, most of the monsters out here are stupid. You find their weak spot and its all over. They fall over like a sack of dung." He paused, sniffing the air. "Anyway, nice meeting ya. You should be more careful." He said off-handedly and turned to prowl toward the beginning of some dense undergrowth nearby where the beach ended and a spindly psuedo-jungle began.
"Where are you going?" Dr. Death asked, mildly curious.
"Huh? Oh...I gotta find and fight at least twenty more monsters before I get dinner. Its my quota."
"Your quota..." the techo repeated.
"Sure. My owner assigns me and my brothers a number of wins we have to get before dark and if we don't meet it, we're not allowed to have dinner." the kougra smirked.
"That's harsh, don't you think?"
"Nah not really. I usually just sneak over to the Tombola on the other side of the island or something if he doesn't feed me. He just does it to make us work harder, not to be mean." The kougra's tail twitched as his keen eyes caught movement in the grass. "You're gonna have to excuse me now, Mister." he added quickly, crouching and preparing to pounce on whatever it was.
Ordinarily, Glitz would have let it go there, but instead, he heard himself speak again. "Your owner's name happen to be Joey?" The kougra, his concentration broken, looked sharply over his shoulder, though he didn't appear to be angry.
"Yeah....but, how'd you know?" he asked.
"I need you to take me to him, if you can..." the techo told him. "Its pretty important that I see him." The kougra regarded him thoughtfully before shaking his head with a skeptical look.
"Nah, I can't do that." the cub said decisively.
"Why not?"
"Cuz he doesn't like fans."
"I'm not a fan." Dr. Death replied, growing quickly annoyed.
"Well then, his team's full. He doesn't want to take on any more pets."
"I'm not one of those either. I...." he trailed off, wondering how much he ought to tell the kougra. "I used to be one of his pets and I just need to talk a few things over with him."
"Hmm...gotta hand it to ya, that's a new excuse. You some kind of scammer?" the kougra asked suspiciously.
"No, but I *AM* bitter, if it helps." he replied, snarling a bit. There was a long moment of silence as the two regarded one another.
"Hmmmm...." the kougra muttered, narrowing his eyes in thought. "Alright, you win. But I gotta warn ya if you're thinking of pulling anything that Fangpoint and Scorchruff are pretty protective of our master, and pretty strong to boot. Follow me." he stated, padding off casually into the overgrowth.
Dr. Death hesitated only a moment before following after him, certain that if he lost sight of the young kougra, that he'd end up lost for days.
"What's your name, mister?" the kougra asked casually as they moved.
"Glitz." he answered reflexively.
"Glitz....heh....sounds like a girl's name." the kougra snickered. To this, the doctor said nothing, though it was sorely tempting to inform the young tiger that the same man that had bestowed such intimidating titles as Fangpoint and Scorchruff had, once upon a time, also given him HIS name. "I'm Bloodcloak"
"Charming...." Dr. Death sighed, his stomach turning a sour flip at the kougra's name.
"Yeah. Its mainly cuz of my coloring, but I kinda hope when I get older, it'll mean more than that." he grinned, purposely showing off his maw of fangs. "Anyway, its not far from here...just through those trees up there and then around the back of the big mess of boulders. Joey said he had to get a special permit to build his neohome all the way out here away from everybody. I heard a couple people say he had to fight the real estate agency and the property contractors and---"
As Bloodcloak trit-trotted off into a tangent about the trials Joey had gone through to be able to isolate himself from the rest of Neopia, the techo slipped into troubled thought again. For the umpteenth time, he tried to convince himself that coming all the way out here had not been a bad idea, and it seemed to be growing harder and harder with each attempt. He had, sadly enough, begun to hope that Joey would simply refuse to see him. At least then he could go back and tell everybody he'd tried. And maybe, over time, he could convince himself of the same thing.
"Glitz? HEY!!"
"Huh?" the doctor muttered, shaking himself back to reality.
"Stop spacing out. We're almost there." Bloodcloak chided impatiently. "Ya looked like a zombie just now."
"Sorry, I'm just thinking, I guess."
"Hopefully not about ways to run off with any of Joey's neopoints. I'd cream you myself if you tried."
"Look, I already told you I'm not a scammer." the techo groaned.
"Sure sure, that's what they all say." the kougra sighed. "Guess we'll see. Joey's house is right there, by the way." he added, pointing at a modest two-level white house that was half visible from behind an uneven clump of windsmoothed rocks as they exited the undergrowth, finding themselves on the crest of a gentle grassy slope.
"That's it?" Dr. Death asked disbelievingly.
"What do you mean, 'that's it'??" Bloodcloak snapped. "That's a nice home, you dork!"
"No....no offense meant." he said quickly. "I just....I had expected...." he fished for the words he was looking for.
"Lemme guess, big mansion with an elaborate garden and servants scuttling around training the other pets?" the kougra cub sighed, rolling his eyes. "That's what everybody expects. We don't need that junk...mansions are for rich and lazy snobs." He finished his statement with a decisive nod of his head and then broke into a trot. "C'mon! I'll race ya!"
Dr. Death watched the kougra run for a few paces and followed after him, keeping his pace at a sedate walk. He felt no desire to hurry things along any quicker than they absolutely needed to be. He reached the house's front walkway a few moments later, Bloodcloak already sitting on the porch, having caught most of his breath already.
"Wuss!" he jeered good-naturedly, poking a pink tongue out at the techo. Glitz's focus, however, was not on the red kougra cub. It was, instead, on the familiar human standing in the front doorway of the neohome, regarding him with thoughtful silence. The techo froze, much like he had when he had encountered the wadjet, unsure of what to say or do. At length, Joey made the first move.
"My cub there says you need to talk to me?" he said calmly. The yellow techo drew in a shaky breath, looking at the ground, and nodded once.
"This important?" Joey asked.
Glitz nodded again.
"Mm...." he muttered before moving aside. "Alright, come on in then and let's get it done." The yellow techo hesitated, gathering himself again, before slowly moving forward and walking past Joey into the house....
TBC...