Sailor Lupe, Sailor Acara, Sailor Zafara, Sailor Shoyru, and Sailor Usul had been dumped in a lost desert by a spaceship run by Sailor Chia. They'd quenched their thirst with a block of Zafara Ice from Sailor Sakasa Zafara, and walked west until they came to what appeared to be a city. Sailor Usul took off towards one of the tents, and the other sailors followed.

They stumbled through the sand up to the nearest tent, where a pretty tan Peophin sat amidst a group of cute little animals. "Excuse me," said Sailor Shoyru. "Do you know where we can get some food and shelter?"

The Peophin smiled prettily at them and said something in a sweet voice and an utterly foreign language.

Shoyru turned to Sailor Lupe. "What did she say?" Lupe shrugged and turned to Sakasa Zafara, who shrugged and turned to Acara, who shrugged and turned to Usul, who shrugged and turned to Kaen.

"I think I recognize the language," the petite Earth Faerie admitted. "Faeries used to have the gift of languages, but few do anymore. Let me think." She fluttered over to hover before the Peophin and said something in a rapid, rolling tongue.

"Ah!" the Peophin exclaimed. "You speak Neopian! I thought nobody else was fluent in such an archaic language. That's why I didn't recognize it at first. What was your question?"

"We'd like food and shelter," Leslie repeated.

"How much money do you have?"

"Actually...none with us," admitted Zafara.

"There are inns within Sakhmet, and a friend of mine owns the stall over there, which sells food - but without money they won't help you. You might try the Fruit Machine."

"What's the Fruit Machine?"

"You'll see when you get there."

"Where is it?" pressed Shoyru impatiently.

The Peophin pointed with one gold hoof. "If you walk in that direction for a few minutes, you'll come to it. Good day." She turned away to tend to the PetPets, obviously miffed at Shoyru's rudeness.

"Way to go, Ji," said Zafara sarcasticaly as they followed the Peophin's direction. "Irritate everyone we meet, why don't you."

"You're all so slow!" interrupted Sailor Usul. "C'mon! I'm hungry!" She started jogging, and her companions were obliged to speed up to keep up with her.

"Usul," panted Acara, "please (puff) slow down."

"Yeah," Lupe agreed. "We (gasp) can't all (huff) be track stars (puff) like you."

Sailor Usul began to slow down.

"(puff) Thanx," gasped Zafara.

"Eh? We're here."

"Oh," Zafara huffed. "So you weren't slowing down in response to our moans of pain."

"Nah, To tell the truth, I like watching you guys suffer."

"Pardon me," said Lupe to the assorted pets next to the bronze and gold contraption. "Is this the Fruit Machine?"

Kaen put in a quick phrase in the rolling language, and one of the pets - a Kau - nodded. "Ei see," she said in a slightly weird accent. "Yew asked if this was the Fru-it Macheine?" Leslie nodded. "Yes, it is. Wud yew leike a spin?"

"How does the Fruit Machine work?" asked Zafara, intrigued.

"Oh, it's very simpull. Yew spin thei wheill; thei macheine spits owt three cards; three of us take thei cards and show them to yew. Two in a row or three of a keind gets yew a preize."

"Why not?" asked Sailor Zafara. Lupe shrugged, and reached over to spin the wheel.

Whir...slap--slap...whirr...clink clank sproing...slap Crash!

The three slaps were three cards being spit out; the crash, as the Kau explained it, was something breaking. Sure enough, the Fruit Machine was broken, and it would probably take weeks to fix.

"On the breight seide," the nice Kau reassured them, "yew have wun a Cheops Fru-it and 400 NeoPoints."

"Well, it wasn't our fault," Shoyru snapped.

"Shoyru!" exclaimed Zafara. "She never said it was!"

"Have a neice day," said the Kau in a clearly final tone.

"Thank you." Lupe grabbed the NeoPoints and the odd red fruit and they left in a hurry.

"Why couldn't you have kept your mouth shut?" Zafara demanded of Shoyru as they left. "I might have been able to help!"

"Hey!" Shoyru retorted. "If you'd rather tinker with that stupid thing than stick with your fellow soldiers, go ahead!"

"Oh, stop arguing," snapped Acara. "It's getting annoying."

"You wouldn't say that if you were me," Zafara grumbled.

"Stop it!" yelled Leslie. "We're all hot and tired and lost and grumpy. Including me. So just don't say anything more, or I just might snap right here right now and start Lupe Lunging the lot of you. Got it?" A faded pair of Lupe paws drifted from her fists as she said her attack, underlining her point.

There was silence.

"Good. Now stay that way."

The girls were quiet as they entered the city, bought some cheap food, found the desert version of a motel (a large group of rentable tents) in which to stay for the night, and paid for their rooms. There didn't seem to be any running water; it was brought to the tents by a group of Kacheeks who were apparently unpaid laborers. So showers weren't an option. Fortunately detransforming put the girls back in their normal clothing, which was pretty much clean, and Kaen was almost certain that the next time they transformed they'd end up in freshly laundered uniforms.

The two-room tent they'd rented had four beds, but they weren't double beds; there was a minor argument over who got to sleep on the couch. Kaen of course didn't take up enough room to count. Leslie finally relented, on the conditions that she got all of the extra pillows; each bed had two or three. Zelda and Ji were worried about their families worrying about them, Brooke complained that the beds were too squishy, and Kami was exasperated by all of the arguing, complaining, and worrying that was going on. So nobody went to sleep in a very good mood.

He smiled - one of his first genuine non-smirk smiles in the past decade.

Plus she had rolled from the narrow couch onto the pillows during the night, and her torso ached from sleeping without enough support.

So Leslie woke up in a pretty grumpy mood.

The other girls woke up similarly grouchy, but perked up somewhat as they realized that the fruit they'd bought for breakfast tasted like chocolate. It seemed that 400 NeoPoints was enough to last for quite a while if they spent it wisely.

"The big question today," Leslie said once they were all awake, "is: Do we go look for Abbie...or do we play tourists?"

"Tourists!" Brooke shouted immediately.

"Sounds fun," Zelda agreed.

"But...we can explore later, while if we let Sailor Chia run loose, she'll be free to do whatever she wants while we're playing," Ji pointed out. "We can't take that chance."

"She's right," agreed Kami. "We need to go on a Chia hunt."

Leslie was left to break the tie, so she decided that they would go looking for Sailor Chia and find out what she was up to. The five girls transformed into the Sailor NeoPets, gathered up the fruits and NeoPoints they had, thanked the owner of the 'motel' for renting them rooms, and left the city of Sakhmet.

"Back to the PetPet Peophin. Maybe she can give us a tip," Sailor Lupe replied.

Sailor Zafara stopped in her tracks as the PetPet Stall came into view. "Wait, everybody! Kaen, can you get a peek in there without being seen?"

"I think so," the petite Faerie admitted. "Why?"

"Go in there and tell me who's in there. Because I think I've puzzled who it is, but I need to be sure."

Kaen hesitated, turning to Sailor Lupe. "Should I?"

"Go ahead. I'll admit I don't know what you're thinking, Zafara, but I never was one for puzzles," Lupe replied.

The faerie flew away and returned a minute later. "I don't believe it! It's Brucey B! Along with Capara and Princess Fernypoo! Fernypoo's in a ridiculous dress-"

"More ridiculous than ours?" interrupted Sailor Usul.

"It's pink and fluffy."

"Ah."

"-and Capara's backing away from a bunch of the little snakes. Oh, and Brucey's showing the shopkeeper a picture of a Jetsam holding what looks like that coin from the Cheat! championships. I must say, Brucey can't draw."

A whistle came from inside the tent, and a few moments later the sailors stepped behind another stall as Brucey, Capara, and Fernypoo stepped out.

"I knew it!" Zafara whispered as the three pets passed them. "That coin's got something to do with why Abbie and company are out here. And Brucey's out looking for it. I bet Abbie stole it - which was why Brucey was so depressed after his big win! He had lost his lucky coin! So he's here, which must mean he followed some clue, which means there's reason to believe that Chia and her gang are out here. Now all we have to do is find out where. We might as well follow Brucey; he's probably got a better idea of where he's going than we are, even if we have a better idea of why!"

"Wow," said Shoyru, stunned. "I never would've thought of that."

"I didn't really follow what you just said," Sailor Usul admitted, "but it must make sense, because Lupe has that, whazzaword, appraising look in her eye. Soooooooo...off we go!"

"Shush," cautioned Lupe. "We don't want them to notice us." They started discreetly crossing the rolling sand after Brucey and his friends.

"Well, you've got the dialogue down pat," Sailor Chia's voice came from somewhere behind him and off to the left. "All evil villains like to speak their motives out loud. It heightens the drama."

Sloth ignored her. He walked between the kachspinx's leg and pressed the panel next to it triumphantly.

Nothing happened.

"Er--?"

"Try it again!" shouted Sailor Chia helpfully.

He tried it again, multiple times. "Grrr! Open! Open! Open!"

The door still refused to move. Sloth turned and walked back to his army of Grundos. "Minions!" he shouted. "We've come a long way, and I WON'T go home until I have what is rightfully mine!" It was a phrase that Sailor Chia wasn't expecting, something which Sloth rarely had the opportunity to use. "Prepare for Plan B," he told his army, then moved out of the way as every Grundo drew its gun.

"FIRE!" Sloth shouted, clenching his fist.

POWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOW!!!! Streams of blue and white fire battered at the door, stirring up a thick fog of sand. When at last he was satisfied that the guns must have done theirjob, Sloth shouted, "Hold your fire!" As the sand cleared, he watched eagerly..."What the--???? The surface is untouched!" Mentally he bonked himself on the head for stating the obvious out loud. Then he bonked himself mentally again for using the word 'bonked'. As Sailor Chia would have said, it wasn't in the Evil Villain's Dictionary.

He wished wholeheartedly that she was more like the Grundos: stupid and willing to do whatever he asked. After all, she was technically his sidekick, and he preferred lackeys to apprentices. (The third type of sidekick, a consort, was just too revolting to think about. Even an evil genius bent on controlling a planet has his limits.)

Apparently reading his thoughts, Sailor Chia said in her deepest foreshadowing voice, "This isn't over, yet..."

Fortunately, Melony ran up to the clothing shop just as the clock struck eleven. "I'm glad you made it," the Uni said. "I've got the cloth you asked me to order. You can borrow one of my sewing kits and some patterns. It's in the back there; ask one of my assistants to get the special order for mel20022, and they'll find it."

"Got it." Melony went behind the counter into the back room and got a pile of cloth and patterns pretty quickly. She scanned the patterns: a shirt with small sleeves with bows on them; a skirt, about twice as long as the sailor skirt; and gloves. "These are perfect!" she said as she came out of the back. "Do you have any shoes? The sort of square kind?"

"Oh, sure. Go back and say I said to get square black shoes for you. Then say 'grumpus'. It's the password for the week."

As Melony went back, she wondered how much inventory the clothing shop had lost because of Pant Devils coming in and claiming they were picking up something they'd ordered. On reflection, that was probably why they were called Pant Devils; they'd originally stolen pants.

"The Uni said to get square black shoes for me. Grumpus."

The assistants - all young female Unis, Usuls, and Kaus - giggled in unison and set about searching the storeroom. It wasn't long before Melony was on her way out. As she passed the Uni, who was haggling with a user over a Sun Hat, she asked, "By the way, why the word grumpus?"

"Oh, that," replied the Uni, rolling her eyes. "It's their nickname for me. Call me if you need help with the sewing."

Melony left.

"Now really," Sailor Chia said, rolling her eyes, "what kind of an evil villain are you?"

"A rational one, or at least I like to think so. For example, ordering my army to chop you into little bits, starting with the feet and working upward, would not be rational. That's why I don't order them to do that."

"Fine with me. When the Sailor NeoPets show up-"

"They will NOT show up! They don't even know this place exists!"

"Au contraire," said Chia in a voice that absolutely oozed contempt. "I dumped them in the desert, remember? They could be watching us right now, for all you know."

Sloth sighed. "You miserable brat. All right, I'll do it the evil villain way. Maybe I'll use the speech I'd rather give you." He walked over to the Grundo army, which was still standing in front of the kachsphinx because they hadn't been told to move.

"You miserable weaklings have failed me," he intoned. Pointing to the kachsphinx, he hissed, "I will enter that Pyramid today or you will all feel my wrath...even the megablaster5000 didn't make a dent," he muttered to himself.

Chia rolled her eyes. "Lupe-tail-hair, Mutant-cybunny-ears-head...what's the difference?"

"We need another plan," Sloth continued, "for I will not be defeated! You puny mortals had better think of something fast...or you will all pay dearly for this failure!"

The word 'mortals' was always a good one for striking fear into the hearts of your enemies...or minions, as the case may be. But of course Sloth wasn't expecting the Grundos to think of anything, no matter how intelligent they'd been as other pets. He was talking to Sailor Chia...and the scarred purple Jetsam who sat before him.

Sloth started to toss the coin up and down with one hand. The coin had brought him so far..."How on Neopia do you open the cursed thing?" he demanded of nobody in particular. 'Cursed' was one of Sloth's favorite words, since anything stronger was generally censored ;) "There has to be a way!"

Then he whirled around. "Arrrgh! I want that door open now!" he shouted, throwing the coin at it in frustration.

The coin slid into a slot by the door. With a noise that resembled "Cha-ching!" the door slid open.

Sloth laughed his best deep evil-villain laugh. The things I do for power, he thought ruefully as he walked up to the kachsphinx and led the mutant Grundos, Sailor Chia, and the purple Jetsam in.