Frank was bored. He'd done too much good for the world, or at least he thought so. He was tired of being such a goody-two-shoes. Somehow he had to get rid of that reputation.

Then he heard rumors about a secret laboratory which contained a powerful mutating ray. There was a map that led to this ray, but it was in scattered expensive pieces. Frank didn't have the patience to hunt them down or the money to buy them.

Well, that wouldn't stand in his way.

Frank set to work building his own lab ray, a ray that would mutate and empower humans as well as pets...

Dr. F. Sloth groaned as he read the displays on one of his lab monitors. A few pets were no longer providing adequate energy; they were becoming a drain on the system. It was time to get rid of them.

Sloth dialed up a long-unused number and waited while the VirtuPhone rang. The audio/video conversation clicked on as a skeletal Kiko answered the insistent ring. "Yes, hello?"

"Klarko, I have another job for you," Sloth told the Kiko.

"More bodies?" asked Klarko wearily.

"Yes - still alive but no longer useful. Be off the coast of Neopia Central at 2100 hours and I'll have them transported down to your sub. Over and out." He switched off the VirtuPhone without waiting to hear Klarko's reply.

Atop Buzz Peak was a very odd sight. A Christmas Lupe and a red Scorchio were curled up asleep, with a not-quite-human person curled up between them. She looked almost like a cross between a Human and a Scorchio, with her red scales, tail, and the spikes running down her back.

The Human/Scorchio opened her eyes slowly as a buzzing sound woke her up. . .

She was staring into the eyes of a HUGE mutant Buzz.

The girl screamed at the top of her lungs, waking her pets. "Whaddizzit K'-Kira?" mumbled the Scorchio sleepily as she was dragged, along with the Lupe, down the slopes of Buzz Peak to the nearby Neopian Ferry Dock.

Daunted by the sight of civilization, the massive Buzz and its colony turned back. "We're okay now, Ko-Kira," the Scorchio said sleepily. "Can we go back?"

Not quite sure why, Ko-Kira didn't return to the mountain. Instead, she walked up to the tocket booth at the dock. The Flotsam inside smiled at her.

"What time does this ferry leave?"

"Four o'clock on the dot, miss," said the blue Flotsam cheerfully.

"And what time is it now?"

"Around three, miss."

Ko-Kira nodded and searched her memory for a long-unused sense of time, as measured by ticking clocks and not the sun and the stars. "Can I have three tickets? Two pets, one huma - um, user." The Flotsam politely ignored her hesitation over calling herself human, and handed Ko-Kira the tickets. She sat down to wait . . .

Melony and Naomi sat down in their berth on Ferry 505, and their pets Moehog374 and wo_cky_88 found places to sit. Melony had an over-the-summer assignment to do for school about the history of Maraqua, and Naomi had a photo shoot to do for the Koi issue of NEOFAHION!. Wo_cky_88 glanced at the pets in the berths next to theirs - a Christmas Lupe and a red Scorchio to one side, a faerie Koi and a red Peophin to the other - before settling down for a nap.

"I don't see why I have to come back to Maraqua," grumbled Melony. "We have tons of pictures from when we've gone there before with Mom and Dad."

Naomi ignored her little sister. She had her headphones on and was nodding to the beat of her new YBIC CD. Softly she started singing along: "You're, just like a pill...."

Melony reached for Naomi's CD player and turned the volume up. Loud.

"...you keep making meeeEEEAAAHH!" Naomi yanked off her headphones and glared at her younger sister. "WHAT is your problem?" she snapped. The boat had just left the dock seconds before the sisters started squabbling.

"Hey, evil worm dude!"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" shouted Sloth, looking up from his reviews of financial records. Seething, he snapped, "Did you want something?"

Sailor Chia lounged in the door of Sloth's office. "Oh, nothing much. Just wondering if there was anything you needed...heh, help with."

"If YOU feel competent to advise ME," began Sloth hotly, but he stopped when he recalled a neomail from the Chaos Faerie: 'She may be aggrivating, but she has her uses. Put up with her.' "Yes, perhaps you could help."

"Whatsamatter?"

Sloth gestrued to the financial records on his computer screen. "We're hurting for funds. Maraqua's King hasn't been paying what he owes us for calling off Mechachiazilla at the last second."

"So why don't you just take care of them in usual Sloth fashion?" Chia queried.

The doctor gave her a puzzled look.

"DESTROY THEM, obviously!" cried Chia impatiently.

"OH!" Amazed that the snob Abbie had actually come up with a good idea, Sloth pulled up the VirtuPhone and dialed up Klarko. He waited impatiently for the skeletal Kiko to respond.

"Yes?" Klarko seemed startled to get another call so soon after he'd dumped the unproductive pets on Sloth's prison-colony island.

"Go hassle the Maraquans a bit. They haven't paid their taxes. Oh, and - make a video recording. I want to see how it goes."

"Yes boss," Klarko complied.

"If you don't get them to pay up..."

Sloth paused. "Go on," the skeletal Kiko prompted.

"Eliminate Maraqua."

"Yes sir." Klarko accepted the work in a blank tone with a calm face. The VirtuPhone switched off and Sloth moved on to other matters. Meanwhile, Klarko turned to the Mynci pirate behind him. "Mynce, get me a line to Maraqua. We need to evacuate the city and surrounding suburbs - quick!"

Mynce entered the ferry passenger area and was met with silence. "None of you mind if we detour this ferry a little bit, do you?" he asked.

A storm chose that moment to start practicing its moves on the boat. It began to rock from side to side as light rain battered against the windows, much to Melony's stomach's dismay.

"We should call the others," Naomi whispered into Melony's ear.

"He'll see us!"

"Not if you distract him."

Melony moaned, then stood up and lurched out of their berth over to the pirate. Her face was fainlty greenish. The pirate looked a little concerned, then annoyed. "Ye'll find yer sea legs soon enough, landlubber," he laughed.

He stopped laughing about three seconds later, and stared at Melony's lunch, which had resurfaced to meet his shirt. "Get back to yer berth and sit still!" he snapped. "Then ya won't get quite as seasick. Stupid landlubber."

Melony staggered back to her seat as the pirate left. "Any luck?" she whispered.

"I managed to call a few, but my communicator's short-circuited." Melony tried her own communicator only to find that it merely fizzled at her. "Maybe it's the salt air, or the humitidy. Zelda would know," Naomi said regretfully as pirates steered the hijacked ferry on towards an unknown destination, away from the storm that was busily wrecking Maraqua...