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Series One Episode Nine The Sakhmet Trilogy I "What is it with Brucey and that coin?" grumbled FirePrinse. "He's been kissing it after every move." "He's just superstitious," replied Leslie_83 as she entered the room. "He's also winning." "Still?" Leslie dashed over and stared at the TV. "He's having phenomenal luck...especially since he's not one of the greats..." All across Neopia, pets and owners alike were feeling similar disbelief as Brucey B slowly played card after card until his hand was gone - round after round after round. Jaws dropped and eyes popped as Spectre and Kalora found themselves desperately calling Cheat! while Brucey put down his last card, waved to the cheering crowd, revealed that the card was in fact what he'd said it was, and kissed his shiny gold coin. Brucey won, of course, and was presented with a huge shining gold trophy labeled YEAR THREE CHEAT! CHAMPIONSHIPS - FIRST PLACE WINNER. Two pairs of eyes, however, stared at the television without astonishment as Brucey waved to the crowd and displayed his trophy for the photographers. One pair was cool, calculating, and red; the other was brown and utterly bored.
The user abira88, called Abbie and better known as Sailor Chia, rolled her eyes lazily over to the person in the chair and said drily, "So he's a superstitious nut with pretty pictures on his fancy coin. So what?" Dr. Frank Sloth seriously considered strangling Abbie with his bare hands, ripping off her head, and hanging it on his front door as a warning to others...but decided against it. She was his edge against the Sailor NeoPets. Unfortunately, she knew it. Keeping his voice steady, he explained, "The coin that Brucey B has is a relic from the ancient city of Sakhmet." "Eh? Sock met who?" "No! Just listen, will you? The city was called Sakhmet. It's a monarchy, or at least it was, and the kings were entombed in big stone pyramids." "Big? I didn't think that word was in the Evil Genius' Dictionary." "Large, then! Happy now?" "Quite. Continue." "Thank you. The kings of Sakhmet were entombed in LARGE stone pyramids full of gold." As he had expected, Abbie's eyes lit up. He had her attention. Good. "I've studied everything this planet has recorded about Sakhmet, and what Brucey believes to be his 'lucky coin' is described several times as a 'key' to a pyramid. In addition, that particular symbol indicates that a powerful weapon is buried inside the pyramid that that coin represents." "So does this mean we're going after the gold?" asked Abbie. "Yes. But to get the gold, and the weapon, we need that coin." Abbie performed a mocking salute. "Sir Yes Sir! What can I do for you Sir?" "I was hoping you'd ask. Your job is to get that coin." "On it Sir! Formulating a plan Sir! Permission to excecute Sir!" Sloth stifled a laugh. "Permission granted. Dismissed." Three shady characters who work in Malkus Vile's ring - a yellow Chia thug, a scrawny blue Techo, and a scarred purple Jetsam - did the trick. After one game of Cheat! with Brucey B and a deck of marked cards, and a promise of untold riches, the coin was in Sailor Chia's hands. "I don't like this," grumbled Ji. "Brucey should've been elated in all the follow-up interviews. Instead he got depressed, then vanished." She was lounging on a beanbag chair in front of the TV watching a rehash of one of the follow-up interviews. "Did you say something?" called her fifteen-year-old brother James from the kitchen. "Yeah!" Ji shouted back. Socks_25236, who was relaxing next to her, winced and covered his ears with one paw. "I said it was weird that Brucey vanished!" "Duh!" James replied. "Socks, do you want ham or tigersquash on your sandwich?" "Ham," James' Skunk Lupe called back. "Got it. I'm finished with the snacks. Come on." "Where are you going?" yelled Ji as Socks stood up and stretched. "oO_scorch200_Oo's Little League game." "Okay." Socks and James left, and after firmly establishing that there was nothing good on TV, Ji decided to follow them. She was about to turn off the TV when it beeped loudly and blared, "ATTENTION ALL NEOPIANS! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST! A LARGE NUMBER OF PETS HAVE BEEN ABDUCTED FROM THE POUND! A LARGE PURPLE FLYING CRAFT WAS AT THE SCENE, AND WITNESSES HAVE IMPLICATED DR. SLOTH!" The TV displayed Dr_Death, the Techo who had replaced Mrs. Worley as coordinator of the Pound. "If it was in fact Dr. Sloth, all Neopians must be doubly cautious," he intoned. "Don't go out alone, but avoid large social gatherings, as they are likely to be targets. We'll give you more information as we get it." He froze in place and the warning played again: "ATTENTION ALL NEOPIANS! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST! A LARGE NUMBER..." Ji gaped. Then she snapped back to reality as she realized: "The baseball game! It's a gathering! And it'll be big!" She turned off the TV and ran out the door, her communicator materializing in her hand as she went. A huge purple spacecraft hung over the baseball field. Two doors were open below it, and a powerful air suction was tugging everything below upwards. All the pets in the Little League teams, along with their siblings and owners, were huddled in the middle of the field, holding onto each other. Together they weighed too much to be pulled up by the suction. Of course, they were stuck in one place until the suction let up, and if any of them let go even by accident, as a JubJub had just done, they were pulled into the ship like specks of dust into a vacuum cleaner. Ji was running hard, and skidded to a stop, heels digging into the turf, before she ended up underneath the updraft. She noticed that bits of grass and dirt were being pulled up constantly like rain, only the wrong way around. Ji pressed some buttons on her communicator and the faces of Leslie, Zelda, Brooke, and Kami appeared. "There's a big purple spaceship stealing pets from the Little League field just off Aisha Avenue!" she explained. "On my way!" Brooke shouted. "You should probably transform first," Leslie pointed out. "Oh, right. Usul Neo Power-" "Zafara Neo Power-" "Acara Neo Power-" "Lupe Neo Power-" "-Make Up!" Ji's communicator glowed blindingly bright for a second as the transformations took place. "We're coming," Sailor Lupe assured Ji. "Ji!" shouted James over the soft howl of the vacuum. "Get out of here! You need to warn everybody!" "I did!" she yelled back. "I called some friends! They're coming to help!" "Are you kidding? Those blonde bubbleheads couldn't-" Most Neopians could have recognized Ji as Sailor Shoyru, because of the time when she'd first transformed in front of the crowd by the Giant Omelette. But nobody seemed to be able to put two and two together; they didn't realize that her friends were also Sailor NeoPets. And since she'd escaped from the original surge of News-a-Roo reporters by flying, and never given them her name, nobody identified Sailor Shoyru with the name Ji Kouryunno. Her mom and brothers had never figured out that it was her, so of course James wouldn't realize that the 'friends' she meant were the Sailor NeoPets, and not her usual airhead crowd. "Not the bubbleheads!" Ji cut her brother off. "What she said!" added the voice of Sailor Usul. "We're the Sailor NeoPets!" "And bubbleheads we are NOT!" Sailor Lupe added. Four of the six Sailor NeoPets had shown up, and were together on the side of the baseball field opposite Ji. They did a few quick speeches to give the brunette time to murmur "Shoyru Neo Power, Make Up!" and turn into Sailor Shoyru while nobody was looking. "Glad you're here," Shoyru said as she jogged around to join her friends. "Where's Sailor Moehog?" "Doh!" Sailor Zafara smacked her forehead. "I didn't give her a communicator!" "Well, we can't go hunt her down," pointed out Sailor Lupe. "We don't have the time!" "Usul Rage!" shouted Sailor Usul. Her eyes sparkled as her power-up came into play, and she faced the purple ship to perform her offensive attack. "Wait!" exclaimed Sailor Acara as a Wocky was sucked up into the ship. "There are pets up there! We can't just destroy the ship; we'll destroy them with it!" "She's right," Sailor Lupe agreed. "We'll have to get inside." "I'll go," Sailor Shoyru offered. "No; I will," protested Sailor Lupe. "I have the most experience." "Shoyru Hover!" said Shoyru in reply. "True, but *I* have the wings." "She has a point," remarked Kaen from Lupe's shoulder. Lupe nodded resignedly. So Kaen fluttered over to Shoyru, and the pair spread their respective wings and flew up into the suction. Five minutes later, Sailor Shoyru flew back out, slowly because of the suction but steadily. Under her arms were four pets; three more clung to her legs, and one rode on her back. She made it out of the vacuum area, set the pets down, and flew back in to get the JubJub who remained. But as she entered, the ship jolted wildy in the air and began to close its doors. "Hey!" cried Sailor Usul. "They can't close now! Shoyru's still in there!" Sailor Lupe made a fast decision. "Come on!" she directed, and ran beneath the closing doors. She was swept up into the craft instantly. Sailor Zafara shrugged and followed, and Acara and Usul made it in just as the JubJub was shoved out and the doors snapped shut, ending the suction. "Now what do we do?" asked Sailor Acara. "I guess we wait," Shoyru replied with a shrug. Nobody had a watch in their sailor form, and nobody really wanted to detransform only to check the time, but Kaen was able to keep track very accurately. By her internal clock it was almost an hour after they'd taken off that the spaceship landed. The girls heard footsteps outside the dark chamber they were in, and as the steps approached, half of a conversation: "How can there be no pets? What are the life signs, then?" Pause. "We might have picked up a user. Any idea who?" Pause. "I'm checking, I'm checking." The door slid open, and the Sailor NeoPets saw, of all things, a mutant Grundo holding a cell phone. "Um, Dr. Sloth?" said the Grundo. "We have a problem." "Lupe Lunge!" Two green Lupe paws knocked the Grundo out. The sailors ran forward, jumped over the Grundo, and turned down a few passages, panicking, looking desperately for an exit. "You realize (gasp) that we're running (gasp) around like a (gasp) Peadackle (gasp) with its head cut off (gasp)," panted Sailor Zafara. Sailor Acara stopped, and the others stopped also. "You're right," Acara said. "The analogy works," said a familiar voice. "So glad you could join us." "Hello, Abbie," Sailor Lupe hissed. Sailor Chia stepped out of a side corridor. "Looking for the way out? I'll be happy to show you. But first allow me to gloat a bit while I show off this ship to you." She held up a little remote control gizmo and pressed a button. Click-click-click- A dozen machines that looked suspiciously like guns poked out of the wall and trained on the five sailors. "What, pray tell, are those?" asked Sailor Shoyru sarcastically. "My little insurance policy. If you attack, I have only to press one button to make so much dust out of you." Sailor Chia started walking down the hall. After a few steps she turned back and queried, "Well? Aren't you coming?" Sailor Usul shrugged and stepped forward. The guns moved slightly so that they were still pointing to her, but didn't fire, so her fellow sailors followed. "You've been in the suction room," Sailor Chia chattered as she walked. "We used it to get about half of the pets in the pound. That's plenty for our purposes, but when we saw the Little League game, well, when opportunity knocks..." "Witch," hissed Sailor Shoyru. "This room, however," continued Chia, ignoring Shoyru, "is my favorite. It's called the Transmogrification Room." She opened a door to reveal several dozen mutant Grundos beating the stuffing out of punching bags and lifting huge weights. "These are all the pets from the Pound," she explained. "Did you know that a few Pan Galactic Gargle Slishies are very effective at suppressing the ability to think? Their effects are rather like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. In other words, these pets dimly remember not being mutant Grundos, but it'll take weeks for them to be able to concentrate on anything. Meanwhile, they just do what we tell them to." "You did that - to all those pets?" asked Kami in disbelief. 'No, not me; one of the real mutant Grundos was in charge of that. Fellow named Truggdon. Nice guy." She looked into the Transmogrification Room. "Hey, Truggdon! You in there?" "Yes!" shouted one of the Grundos. "Need anything?" "Nope. Carry on." Sailor Chia closed the door and continued down the hall. "Now that you've seen our army, I hope you're feeling a proper sense of hopelessness and utter despair. So this seems like a good time to let you go." She pressed a button, and a door in the wall opened onto bright sunlight. The five soldiers and one faerie stepped warily out the door and fell a meter or so to land, unhurt, in...hot sand? "Ta-ta!" called Sailor Chia as the purple spaceship closed its doors and took off, leaving the girls stranded in a desert surrounded by sand and heat as far as any of them could see. "We've been walking for hours," moaned Sailor Lupe. "There must be something out here, or why would Abbie want to come here?" "It's only been half an hour," Kaen said, concerned. "Leslie, are you okay?" "No. I'm hot and thirsty. And I have a headache." "Me too," Sailor Usul complained. Her lack of hyperness was another cue that something was drastically, dreadfully wrong. "You're getting dehydrated," Kaen diagnosed. "We need to find you some water, fast!" "Looks like there's an oasis over there," Sailor Zafara said, squinting. "Pond and a few palm trees." "No. It's just a mirage." "Are you sure?" "I'm sure," Sailor Acara confirmed. "Well then, where are we supposed to get water?" Sailor Shoyru complained grumpily. "It would be nice if it were cold," Sailor Lupe murmured sleepily. "Ice-cold." "That's it! Sailor Zafara," said Kaen urgently, "do you still have the Sakasa Mist?" "I think so." Sailor Zafara pulled the bottle of silver mist out of the air. "Well, whaddaya know. How do we do that, anyway?" "Being a Sailor NeoPet, you have a little subdimensional storage locker. The opening follows you around, so you can pull things, like your transformation pen, out of it from wherever you are." "Oh. Okay." Zafara gulped down the mist, and it surrounded her to turn her uniform and hair sparkling silver. As Sailor Sakasa Zafara she pulled out her wand. "Is this in my locker too?" Kaen nodded, looking a bit exasperated. "Got it." Zafara pointed her scepter at a random patch of sand and yelled, "Zafara Ice!" Ice shot from the scepter and formed a fair-sized iceberg on the hot sand. 
"Much better," said Shoyru. "Now how are we supposed to drink it?" "We could lick it," Usul suggested. She was being quiet and calm; it was eerie. The heat was so strong that already little rivulets of water were running down the sides of the chunk of ice. "If only we had a cup," mused Sailor Acara. "Well..." said Lupe slowly, "we...sort of do." She reached into her subdimensional locker and pulled out the Sacred Chalice. "It's basically a wine glass. But with a cap." "A magic wine glass," Sakasa Zafara reminded her. "A really ornate magic wine glass," Shoyru continued. "With a cap." Lupe opened the Chalice. Everyone instinctively squinted, being accustomed to bright light coming from the open cup, but nothing happened. Sailor Lupe held the Chalice under one of the miniature waterfalls for a few seconds, then brought the cup to her lips and took a swallow of water. She'd expected a thunderbolt, a flash of blinding light, a sudden downpour, an earthquake, or something equally impressive...but nothing much happened, except that she felt much better. "Ahhhh. It's good. Have some, Sailor Usul." She handed the Chalice to Usul, who filled it and took a drink. They passed the cup around and quenched their thirst one by one. As she was filling the Chalice, Acara remarked, "There's still the questioin of how we're going to get anywhere." "It's past noon," Kaen remarked. "We can walk towards the sun, due west, and at least we won't be going around in circles." "Sounds like a plan!" said a reperkified Sailor Usul. "Let's do it! Come on! By the way, did any of you bring any Baby Bottle Pops?" Sweatdrops reigned all around. When Brucey B, Capara, and Princess Fernypoo came across the shrinking block of ice a few minutes later, they didn't question their luck. 
Five teenagers and an Earth Faerie rounded a rise of sand...and were astonished
at the sight that greeted them. A river flowed through the sand, and tents
were set up around the river, and on the opposite side was a full-fledged
city inside stone walls.
"I've never heard about a desert, much less a desert city," said Sailor Lupe dumbfoundedly. "It's a whole new world!" Sailor Shoyru exclaimed. "Come on, what are we waiting for?" demanded Sailor Usul. "Let's check it ouuuuuut!" She took off towards the tents. "How can she run in this stuff?" wondered Sakasa Zafara as she and the others stumbled through the sand after Usul. |
The owner of the red eyes pushed a button on the huge computer console surrounding
the TV screen. A section of the display was surrounded by crosshairs, and
expanded to fill the whole screen; another push, and one of the symbols on
the edge of Brucey's coin was zoomed in on. The television cut to commercial;
another push of a button, and the symbol that looked like a warped Z was frozen
on the screen.