"The Faerie Queen... she's gone!"

"Gone?" asked Blanche. "Surely... she can't be..." Blanche turned around, horrified that it might be true. "She's gone!"

"What's happened?" BeatofSaint01 asked.

"Transportation," Jhudora said angrily. "Normally used for inanimate objects. It takes a great deal of power to transport animate ones, like faeries..." she shuddered.

"What? What is it?" tigger2002guy asked.

"What if..." she thought, her mind obviously coming up with some sort of theory.

"What if what?" asked Blanche impatiently.

"What if," replied Jhudora, "They were draining away Fyora's power reserves, to Maelstra? Fyora couldn't defend herself, after all... what if they were draining her power to Maelstra... and what if Jahanara's merely a puppet queen, to be disposed of when the real Faerie Queen is a Grey Faerie?"

"What if this is much more than a matter for Faerieland?" Blanche asked, having caught on to the train of thought.

The court was having a dinner break, to (surprise surprise) eat dinner. The group was in their cell again, aussiejewel peacefully knocked out on the bed. Jess was very worried. The court case was doing slendidly - if you were the prosecution. It wasn't fair, she thought, how could they let the person who implicated aussiejewel argue a court case against aussiejewel... and herself and her friends? It just wasn't fair!

Zoe said, rather suddenly, "Well, that went badly."

"I know," Jess muttered. "How can they let that idiotic Techo prosecute against us when we know that he is the guilty one? How can he be so... ugh!"

"I don't know," said Zoe.

"Ugga," added Alexa.

"Alexa?" Jess asked hopefully.

"Well... ugga one thing," Alexa said, breathing deeply.

"Go on!" Zoe yelled excitedly.

"Ugga Faerie Queen," Alexa said, "ugga impostor... ugga kidnap the real Ugga Queen... as that's ugga crime, more important ugga case ugga robbery."

"The Faerie Queen's an impostor and the real one's been kidnapped and that's why there's this bungled up robbery case, so no one's paying attention to the more important one, which is the kidnapping of the Faerie Queen?" Zoe asked super-hyper-quickly.

"Ugga!" Alexa agreed triumphantly.

"You mean..." Jess said, horrified. "We'll almost certainly going to be found guilty, and then Zoe and I will be frozen for scamming the Hidden Tower, and you guys will be thrown into either jail or the pound?"

"Uh oh," Alexa said sadly. "Ugga hadn't thought ugga..."

"Ugh!" Zoe yelled angrily. "I don't want to be frozen for something I really didn't do!"

So, Zoe stood up and tried to climb through the bars.

"Zoe!" Jess said. "You're going to be seen!"

"No," Zoe replied. "Alexa has air and water elements in her Uni magic. Alexa, if you would be so kind, turn me invisible."

Alexa sighed resignedly and Zoe faded away.

"Cool!" Zoe said cheerfully. "I look so awesome... I'm completely invisi- oops..."

Zoe suddenly remembered the Grundo Guards, who were bound to hear her.

"Wish me luck," Zoe whispered, as she carefully crept through the bars - and made a huge clang noise. To cover up for her friend, she shook the bars to make it look like she was just frustrated and that no one had turned invisible and was escaping from jail right now.

"Ugga luck," said Alexa worriedly.

"Just us two now," Jess mumbled unhappily.

"Ugga," Alexa agreed.

Blanche was on the verge of crying by eight fifteen. "I feel so utterly useless," she complained.

"We're not doing nothing," Jhudora argued. "Hopefully we should be able to do something a bit more useful soon."

"Argh, I agree with Blanche," BeatofSaint01 complained. "And what are you doing anyway?"

"Trying to thing of a way to rescue and revive Fyora," Jhudora explained.

"Why?" Blanche asked, enlightened with a single ray of hope.

"Well, I do think Fyora's a stuck-up, prejudiced brat, but we have to rescue and revive Queen Fyora and then get her to sort out our Maelstra and Jahanara friends."

"But we don't know where she's hidden!"

"No... but there is a way to find out. Goodness, why didn't I think of this before? I don't have long to sort this mess out in..."

"How long?" Blanche asked.

"About as long," answered Jhudora, "As your friends' and family's court case."

"You sure can come up with good cliffhangers," tigger2002guy laughed.

Jhudora glared at him angrily.

He stopped laughing.

"You three keep well out of sight. I have a vision to make."

The three pets went to the other end of the raised path, out of eyeshot but still in earshot.

"I would like to join you," they heard Jhudora say.

"No, I'm serious! What was I thinking, yelling at you? I mean, yours might just be the best world domination plan ever! I mean, think about it! Starting a major war would be a perfect way to snatch the planet out from under them while they weren't looking, right? Brilliant!"

A pause.

"No, I am not just saying this so I can pass it off as my own idea. How daft do you think I am? Not that daft, surely!"

Another pause.

"Can I come, see you in person? Just so I can be sure you trust me, of course."

Yet another pause.

"Thank you," Jhudora said, and turned away.

"You've done it?" Blanche cried excitedly. "We can save the whole of Neopia from war?"

"Within reason," Jhudora said. "But we must remember this: we have - oh - maybe an hour or two to save Neopia in. These could well be the most exciting two hours you've seen in a long time."

"Yay!" tigger2002guy yelled. "I love adventures, and action, and lots of fun stuff. We could even be in the Neopian Times one day, wouldn't that be fun? Ooh, this is going to be so fun, just like the Faerieland chapter in NeoQuest II! Saving the whole of Faerieland from Dark Faerie rule... awesome, and so much fun!"

All at the scene rolled their eyes.

"Where is Zoe?" Jess demanded, as court resumed at eight-forty. "Surely, she can't miss her own trial!"

"Ugga hope she didn't ugga trouble," Alexa said nervously. "Ugga sleeping, ugga gone, what a great start!"

"I hope aussiejewel wakes up soon, too," Jess said. "She's my first Neopet, after all."

"Well, technically, aquablue200 was your first Neopet," Alexa pointed out.

Jess glared at her. "Hey, I owned her all of one day! Besides, who said you were allowed to get better?"

"Nobody," Alexa said, smiling. But then she stopped smiling. "Court's going to resume soon. If you get frozen, Jess, along with Zoe, I..."

"Don't think like that," Jess replied resolutely. "We're going to be fine."

Christie the Puppyblew woke up and yawned. She was inside Jhudora's Cloud still, but she sensed something wrong... there was a loud noise, a consistent banging. Christie thought about what the noise that sounded suspiciously like someone knocking at the door could be.

Kaiulani the Angelpuss woke up too, but she was more intelligent (for a petpet) and knew what the noise was.

"Christie don't you fink we should get dat door?" Kaiulani said hurriedly.

"No," Christie said, yawning still. "I fink noise go away if us don't get door. If open door, noisey fing come in and me can't sleep! Sleep good."

"Guys!" Zoe's voice came through from behind the door. "Guys, let me in. This isn't funny..."

Her talking prompted FeiFei the Feepit to wake up.

"Zoeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" FeiFei said cheerfully. "Zoe, open door!"

"I can't open the door," Zoe complained. "It's locked. Where are Blanche, BeatofSaint01, tigger2002guy and Jhudora?"

"Dey went out," said FeiFei. "Jhudy say somefing bout evil plan dey need stop. Den we have naptime."

"What?" Zoe complained. "Who else am I supposed to ask about the plot to overthrow Queen Fyora?"

"Library Faerie?" suggested FeiFei. "She know lotsa stuff, she help!"

Zoe weighed up the odds. She'd escaped while arrested, and the Library Faerie might know that and send her straight back. On the other hand, who else might know?

"For my second winess," announced Techo Lawyer, "I call up Miss opalgirl26."

Jess walked up to the witness box, although inwardly worrying about the questions she might be asked.

"Firstly, Miss opalgirl26, I hear you were the one aussiejewel first met with her loot."

Loot. Already with the stealing.

"No," replied Jess. "I was the one she first met with her purchases."

"But," warned Techo Lawyer, "how do you know she bought and did not steal?"

"She wasted 30,000NP of my money," Jess said. "Check my bank statements, if you wish. I rarely spend so much."

"But just a few days ago, you spent 130,000NP."

"That's not fair, I spent the money on two paint brushes."

"You didn't send out your pet to steal them for you?" laughed Techo Lawyer. The whole crowd laughed with him.

Jess felt like kicking Techo Lawyer. He was so biased, and he even knew they weren't guilty, and he knew about the plot and everything... but she needed to get the message out!

"No, I didn't," Jess said, panicking slightly.

"But back to the matter at hand: you were the first aussiejewel shared her items with."

"Well, yeaaah...."

"Partners in crime!" Techo Lawyer cried, amused. Jess felt a twinge of impatience.

"Look, shut up and listen," Jess said, rising. "There's something wrong. Seriously wrong. The Faerie Queen is not in this room. No, she's not. The Faerie Queen's been kidnapped and that impostor up there is our judge and jury! And not only that, but sooner or later, people are going to find out who that impostor up there is. Neopia could descend into waaaa-"

Jess was cut off mid-word by another glowing eye strike by the Faerie Queen. Jess slumped, unconscious, in the witness box, knocked out in a fixed court, unable to not only save Neopia but also to defend herself against being frozen.

Alexa looked out through tearful eyes as her friend was taken away to their cell. She was the only one left now.