"She WHAT?"
Belle's cheerful smile upon stepping into NTAG was rapidly turning into an indignant frown.
"She auctioned her off," Nano repeated, grinning and taking a bite of some cheese. "There was a huge commotion about it, too. I bid on her, but I didn't win the auction. That's okay, though; now I have more Neopoints to spend on cheese!" The blue Shoyru took a great chomp of her beloved dairy product.
"She auctioned off a precious Belle doll? The nerve!"
"Yup. It was Leah, after all."
"Where's Nut now?"
"Dragonfly got her for five million and one NP. Only she didn't pay any of it. She took Nut and ran off."
"And where is Dragonfly?"
Nano shrugged. "She went through that door over there."
"And Leah?"
"She and Sage followed Dragonfly."
Belle hurried towards the door in question. "Wait till I get my hands on Leah!" she exclaimed.
"Wait!" Meep cried, leaping in front of the Water Faerie. "You can't go in there!"
"Why not?" Belle asked with a frown.
"You—you just can't!" Meep pushed past Belle and darted through the doorway, shutting the door after her and leaving the Water Faerie standing outside.
"How rude!" Belle grumbled.
Nano watched, chewing her cheese in quiet fascination. "I'm betting someone ish going to be turned into a mercreature for this." She nodded to herself, pleased with her prediction.
"Probably two mercreatures, at least," Slamina voiced her opinion.
"Think so?" Nano asked. "Who?"
With an aggravated glance at the two, Belle blasted a streak of magic at them. Moments later, a pair of oysters sat where Nano and Slamina had been, one of which was trying to get her shell around a piece of cheddar.
The other oyster looked down at herself. "Make that at least four."
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Meep stared in horror at the uncovered hole in the wall, with the bookcase pushed to one side of it. "They found it," she whispered in dismay. "Our secret is out."
A Rabid Shadow Meepit hopped up to her and gave her a worried glance. The Silver Lupess sank to the floor. "All the time we spent digging the tunnel… the care we took to hide it…"
The door began to open. Meep jumped; Belle was coming in. The Lupess rushed to the hole in the wall and ducked through it, uttering a quick command to the RSM as she went running down the tunnel. The RSM nodded and scurried off, barking a call to the other Meepits.
Belle walked into the room to find a crowd of Rabid Shadow Meepits panting as they pushed a bookcase into the corner of the room. Those creatures had such peculiar behavior sometimes. She looked around quickly, and gritted her teeth as she realized that Meep had vanished.
The Silver Lupess ran down the dark, narrow tunnel, her heart pounding. The bookcase had slammed into place behind her. Meep seemed to know exactly where she was going as she ran through the twisting underground corridors. She took a quick glance at the ground and frowned. There were fresh tracks in the dirt. Pillow tracks.
"Sage is going to get it!" Meep shrieked, anger filling her thoughts. She quickened her pace, running through the earthen halls at a breakneck speed. She heard loud meeping and squealing coming from somewhere up ahead. The Lupess turned livid. "If he's done anything to my RSMs—!"
Some distance up ahead, a voice could be heard calmly counting. "One hundred and twenty-two, one hundred and twenty-three…"
Screams of anguish came from the pit below her. The unprotected human's worst nightmares were coming true. The Meepits were attacking him, with no thought of mercy.
"One hundred and twenty-five, one hundred and… oh, darn, is that the same one? I can't tell. Oh well, one hundred and twenty-six, one hundred and…"
"LEAH! Stop counting Meepits and HELP ME!" Sage screeched. "For the love of cheese, throw Pillow down here!" He cast a hopeless glance upwards. Through the screen of Rabid Shadow Meepits that covered his face, he could just barely see his steel-plated Meepit attack Pillow sitting at the top of that forty-nine-feet-and-a-quarter-inch-tall cliff.
"I haven't finished counting!" Leah protested.
"Who cares? Just—AAAAAAAH!" Sage screeched as he felt more little claws digging into his skin. He wondered how easily rabies transferred.
"Now you made me lose count!" Leah grumbled. Heaving a great sigh, she said, "I'll have to start all over again. One… two…"
Sage cried out in dismay. He desperately wanted to escape. Run, his instincts told him, but he couldn't get his footing on the Meepits that surrounded him—and besides which, he was far too scared to try. Surrender, was his next thought. "I give up!" he yelled. "Stop! Let me go!"
The Meepits only pressed on. Angry Meepits never listen to pleas for mercy. Sage hated to think what this would be like if he were a Feepit.
"SAGE!" came an outraged yell as a furious Lupess burst into view. "HOW DARE YOU! Trespassing in my personal Meepit hideout! Disturbing my Rabid Shadow Meepits! Defiling the tunnels with pillow tracks! For THAT—" The enraged Lupess sent a blast of magic down into the pit of Rabid Shadow Meepits.
Sage felt himself shrinking and changing form as the Meepits clawed at him. In his last seconds of being a human, he shrieked, "It wasn't my idea! Leah dragged me down here! She pushed me off the cliff! I never—Feep! Feep!"
Oh, no, not again, Sage thought in horror. The RSMs's eyes widened at the sight of their mortal enemy lying helpless before them. With several loud meeps, they set in on him even more relentlessly.
"That'll teach him to dive in a pit of my Rabid Shadow Meepits!" cried Meep triumphantly.
"Why d' ya think he dove in, anyway?" Leah asked with a falsely sympathetic glance at the place where the Feepit had been before he had been pulled under a blanket of RSMs.
"I don't know. He's just crazy or something, I guess. He got what he deserved." Meep shook her fist.
"Yeah, pretty sad. Poor guy must've felt so hopeless after losing that last Super Smash Brothers match that he was driven to desperation." Leah shook her head.
"That makes sense. By the way, why are you down here?" Meep asked politely.
"Oh, just an errand," Leah said.
Meep nodded understandingly. "I can't believe Sage dared to trespass into the private tunnels of the RSMs."
"Yeah. I think Dragonfly's been around this place, too," Leah added.
Meep's eyes widened. "How dare she! She's asking for the Feepit treatment! Where is she?" the Lupess demanded.
"Well, that's what I'd like to find out. Want to help me look for her?" Leah asked.
"Yes, come on! Dragonfly will pay!" The Lupess hurried away, with the Weewoo by her side. Neither gave a thought to the fading feeps of anguish coming from the RSM pit.
Forty-nine feet and a quarter inch above, a Rabid Shadow Meepit came hurrying through the tunnel on some nefarious mission or other. It was headed towards the RSM pit to talk to its cohorts. Just before it reached the place, it stopped in horror at the sight of the large metal-plated thing sitting up ahead. Enemy forces had invaded their tunnels!
The scent of a nearby RSM tickled Pillow's nose. The Meepit tried to run, but Pillow was faster. He leaped, landing smack on top of the RSM. Terrified meeps ensued, but the attack pillow would not be swayed from his duty. They fought hard, but Pillow clearly had the upper hand. The RSM's only hope lay in its fellows. "Meep!" it cried shrilly.
The distress signal reached the ears of the RSMs in the pit. Waves of Meepits tore up the forty-nine-feet-and-a-quarter-inch cliff face, pouring into the tunnel and bearing down on Pillow. The steel-plated cushion took them all on, boldly attacking the squadrons of RSMs. More reinforcements had to be called out of the pit, but Pillow would not be defeated. A full-scale war raged in the tunnel—hundreds of Rabid Shadow Meepits versus a single steel-plated pillow. And Pillow was winning.
Down below, a lone Feepit, covered with bites and scratches and generally hurting all over, realized that the slashing claws were gone. All of the RSMs had rushed out of the pit.
"I'm safe!" he cried.
Alone in a pit, with a forty-nine-foot-and-a-quarter-inch-tall cliff around him, surrounded by darkness, with no food or water, in the form of a tiny Winter Petpet, and severely wounded.
Things were looking up.
------------------------------------------
"Let me out!" yelled the Belle doll, beating her tiny fists against the sides of her tank.
"Let me out!" bellowed Dr. Sloth, pounding on the locked door.
Dragonfly only laughed. "I'm so good at this; I should really be a jail warden." The elf was busy sprucing up several clumps of Shimmery Seagrass. The plants had lost a bit of their shine after being shut up in a drawer for weeks after that day they'd been hauled out of the Underwater Fishing Hole, but Dragonfly was fixing that. "Toenail polish is good for everything these days," she smiled to herself as she finished work on the last plant and screwed on the cap to the bottle of polish.
The elf advanced towards the tank in which a very angry Nut was held. Dragonfly held the doll with one hand to keep her from escaping while she dropped the seagrass into the tank and arranged it around the Belle doll. Then, taking a bucket full of liquid from nearby, she filled the tank with the clear fluid and placed Nut back in.
Happy for the first time since this whole ordeal had started, Nut reveled in the wonderful wetness creeping up her scales. "At last!" she sighed. "Water!"
"It's not water," Dragonfly said.
"What is it, then?" Nut asked, wondering if this might be related to why her eyes were starting to sting.
"As I said, toenail polish is good for everything these days."
"… I'm swimming in toenail polish?" Nut screeched.
Dragonfly shrugged. "I had a lot of it on hand."
"What, and getting some plain water from the sink is too difficult for you?" Nut choked as she tried to inhale oxygen from the liquid surrounding her. "Isn't nail polish poisonous or something?"
"The bottle says 'Keep out of reach of children', but it doesn't say anything about not swimming in it."
"They probably figured nobody would be crazy enough to think of swimming in it in the first place."
"Well, your magic will protect you, right?" Dragonfly said with a shrug. "Besides, then I won't have to polish the seagrass again."
The mention of seagrass distracted Nut as she turned to look at the shimmering plants. "Ooh, pretty," she said dreamily, watching their leaves bend and sway in the water—er, toenail polish.
Dragonfly grinned wickedly to herself. "She's too much like Belle for her own good. She just can't resist pretty, shiny things! Now that I've got her mesmerized with the seagrass, I can take her on tours and earn millions. Imagine how many people will want to see a living, moving, talking Belle doll that lives in an aquarium full of toenail polish! It'll be a sensation!" Dragonfly cackled gleefully. "And at night I can keep her beside my table while I do my homework and watch her swim. I always wanted a pet fish, but a pet Belle doll is even better!"
From the other side of the wall, Dragonfly heard Belle calling, "Where are you, Dragonfly? What have you done with Nut?"
"MUAHAHAHA! She'll never get in!" Dragonfly laughed to herself, looking at the hidden door with a pleased expression. Belle couldn't possibly find the cleverly disguised entrance, and even if she did, it would open only to an elf.
Belle did not find the hidden door. However, Dragonfly found herself watching in astonishment as the entire wall she was staring at rippled and dissolved. Water began to gush from the ceiling in its stead, and a certain Water Faerie stepped through the pouring sheets of droplets. "Dragonfly!" she exclaimed.
"No fair!" the elf yelled. "You can't turn the wall into a waterfall!"
"Of course I can." Belle glared at her. "You should know that nothing limits my abilities in water transformation magic!"
"I mean that you can't just step through the waterfall like that!" Dragonfly protested.
"Well, I did." Belle crossed her arms. "Where's Leah?" she demanded.
A grin spread across Dragonfly's face. "SHE'LL NEVER FIND ME! MUAHAHA!"
"Uh, so do you know where she is?"
"THE PLAN WAS BRILLIANT! MUAHAHA!"
"Right… where is she?"
"SHE FELL FOR IT COMPLETELY! HAHAHA!"
"Okay… where's Sage?"
"THAT OLD TRICK WORKS EVERY TIME! WAHAHA!"
"Will you give me a straight answer?"
"HAHAHA!"
"Stop laughing like that!"
"I CAN'T! IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN—I CAN'T STOP—I—HAHAHA!" Dragonfly collapsed on the floor, laughing insanely.
"Stop this nonsense!" Belle fired magic at the elf, reducing her to the form of a Crabula. The watery Petpet promptly dissolved into a giggle fit.
"Nut's got to be in here somewhere," Belle said, looking around. Her eyes lit up as she spotted the tank. "Found her!" The Water Faerie crouched down in front of the glass, intending to take off the lid and save Nut. She found her eyes attracted to the shining seagrass waving in the liquid. "Ooh, pretty colors," Belle breathed, sitting down to admire the arrangement.
ZAP! Belle whirled around just in time to see a door at one side of the room shrink down into a tiny piece of unvarnished wood. Dr. Sloth stepped over the babyfied door, looking as mad as a green chicken. He was holding Leah's ray gun in one hand and gingerly carrying an infant in the other.
"There are NO spare diapers in that room!" Sloth yelled, clearly distraught.
Belle wrinkled her nose. The rumors about Sloth's lack of deodorant seemed to be true. Perhaps he'd be more willing to take showers if he were used to the water…
One flash of magic later, the green man was gone and a sea turtle sat in his place. The child took one look at him and burst out crying.
"Poor baby. Here." Belle turned the babyfied boss into a tuna. "Is that better?" she asked with a smile. "By the way, Sloth, would you care to join the Water Tribe?"
The sea turtle just turned and rushed away, looking embarrassed.
"Sloth always was a coward," Nut said, watching through the glass of her tank. "He looks better as a turtle than a chicken."
Belle smiled. Stepping over to the tank, she lifted off the lid and took Nut out. "What is this stuff?" she asked, wrinkling her nose as she put her hands into the liquid. "It's not water."
"Clear toenail polish," Nut grumbled.
"What?" Belle's eyes opened wide. She whirled to face the giggling Crabula, wrath burning in her eyes. "Dragonfly! Your inhumane treatment of this Belle doll is inexcusable!"
The Crabula turned into a tadpole. Satisfied, Belle turned away, only to find that the floorboards were lifting in front of her. A trapdoor swung open, and a Silver Lupess and a White Weewoo stepped out of it.
Leah spotted Nut in the Water Faerie's hand immediately. She flew up and grabbed the doll in her talons, wrenching her away from Belle. "I got her!" Leah exclaimed triumphantly. She looked around, intending to glare at Dragonfly. "Uh—where is Dragonfly?"
Belle pointed to the tadpole.
Leah glared at the tadpole. "You're not getting this doll back unless you pay me those five million and one Neopoints. Plus tax."
"I don't think so." Nut focused her energy, willing herself to transform.
Leah's eyes widened as she found herself clinging to a very large Purple Kiko. The Kiko gave a powerful bounce, flinging the Weewoo off. Grabbing her Meepit launcher in one fin, she trained the weapon on Leah, her frown set. The pink head of a Meepit poked out of the barrel of the loaded and ready launcher. "Now who's…" Nut found herself suddenly unable to come up with a suitable cliché line. "Now who's… um… now who's at the other end of the launcher?"
Leah rolled her eyes. "Lame, Nut, lame. You need lessons on trump lines."
Nut frowned and tightened her grip on the trigger of the Meepit launcher.
Leah smirked. "Hah, you think I'm afraid of some puny Meepit? I'm a Weewoo, and we totally pwn those Meepits."
Belle nodded in agreement.
Meep stared at the Weewoo in disbelief. Anger boiled up in her eyes once more. "Puny Meepits?" she exclaimed. "PUNY MEEPITS? So you think you pwn, huh? You pwn us puny Meepits, huh? That's what you think?"
"Yeah," the Weewoo said. Leah would be Leah, after all.
"GET HER!"
The Rabid Shadow Meepits dived on Leah. "Hey, keep off!" she said, flying away quickly. "Don't you see my shades? I'm a cool jazzy Weewoo, so, like, lay off!"
The Meepits growled. Nut took aim. Belle sighed and fired a blast of magic.
The Weewoo fell from the air as her wings and tail transformed into fins. Belle caught her in a jar full of water and screwed on the lid.
"HEY!" Leah the Merweewoo yelled.
"That was for auctioning off a priceless Belle doll in the first place," the Water Faerie informed her.
Nut took the jar, a ruthless grin forming on her face. "I know what to do with you now…"
A few minutes later, NTAG was abuzz. Members ran to and fro, yelling out prices and counting their Neopoints. A Purple Kiko stood at Leah's podium, grinning widely as she clutched the gavel. The jar of water containing a struggling and rather angry Leah sat beside her.
"Fellow NTAGers, what am I bid for this unique Merweewoo?" Nut cried. "Do I hear 100 NP?"
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Down in the depths of the Meepit tunnels, surrounded by piles of unconscious RSMs, Pillow finally managed to pull Sage up from the pit.
"Feep," the little creature panted in gratitude, rubbing his Meepit-given wounds. He looked around the dark tunnels uncertainly. How do we get out of this nightmarish place?
Pillow, like a true padded friend, heard Sage's thoughts. "Don't worry," Pillow whispered. "Just follow me. We'll be out of here in no time."
Sage smiled gratefully. He could always count on Pillow. Obediently the little Feepit trotted along behind Pillow as they headed down the tunnels.
Five hours later, they were still in the dark labyrinth. Despite Sage's exhaustion and pain, he felt he had learned valuable lessons from this ordeal.
Never trust a Weewoo wearing power bracelets…
Never tell a Meepit you surrender…
And above all, Sage thought wearily as he followed Pillow around one more corner…
Never assume that a bedding accessory has a better sense of direction than you do.
The End