"There's absolutely nothing on TV," complained Unirus2000. "Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing..."

"Gaaaah!" shrieked her brother, FirePrinse. "Would you please shut up???"

"But there's nothing to watch!"

"So I heard...about twenty million times." FirePrinse sighed. "You know they give out the Better Than You prizes today?"

"Ooh ooh! When?"

"Er...in five minutes." FirePrinse trotted off to the kitchen and examined the cupboard. "Nothing on TV but some stupid game show...nothing in the cupboard but Musho Mushy Peas...what is this world coming to?"

Nevertheless, he wandered back out with the peas and plopped down in front of the TV. The results of the Better Than You! competition were run, with plenty of lights, colors, and tacky music. Billy and Sarah, brother and sister Usuls close to the ages of FirePrinse and Unirus, had won a trip to the VirtuPets Space Station. Watching the smiles on the pets' faces, FirePrinse found them oddly familiar...

"Leslie."

"Huh?" asked Unirus.

"They smile the way Leslie used to, back when she didn't have any close friends and if she was happy. See how their smiles are all excited, but their eyes are kind of sad?"

"Um...no. When did Leslie have no friends? She has tons now."

"They're all the Sailor NeoPets. Back before she met them, Leslie didn't have any good friends."

"Oh." Unirus kept watching the TV, utterly hypnotized by the tacky music.

"Come on, shoo, go away, out of my way." Ji kept up an irritated chant as she shoved her way through. "Scram, leave, coming through, my way not yours, so move, aha!" She grabbed a slice from the omelette - one covered with cheese and onions. "There. Now scoot over - I want to get out!"

"Hey!"

Ji looked at the person whom she'd just shoved out of the way. It was Leslie.

"Ever wonder if maybe, just maybe, you aren't the only one who want's a piece of omelette?"

"Well, sor-ry," Ji snapped. "But it's hard to feed three pets with only three hundred NP and no skills at Kiko Match."

"There's always the Soup Kitchen," Leslie reminded her.

"...oh yeah."

"We can go to the soup kitchen?" asked Bilbo, a cheerful green Blumaroo. "They have chicken soup and chutney! My favorite!"

"I have supped at the soup kitchen many a day, and have found no fault with it," added Shoylana, a demure yellow Shoyru.

"I'll go there, then," said Ji, "just as soon as I can get out of here!" She returned to her shoving, pets trailing behind her. "And why, why, WHY do so many people bring all their pets here? It just makes the crowd bigger!"

"Ah...Ji?" asked Leslie. "You brought all your pets."

Leslie missed whatever Ji said next, because she was forging ahead to get a piece of omelette. As the jostling crowd shoved her this way and that, she was pushed into PallaMouse.

"Hey, Leslie!"

"Oh, hi."

"Have you heard the newest development from the Sailor NeoPets?"

I probably lived it, thought Leslie, but out loud she said, "No."

"They've been going around kicking people in the shins, insulting them, and leaving."

Whaaaat? "Whaaaat?"

"It's true!" exclaimed PallaMouse. "It happened to me."

"You're kidding. What was she like? The one that kicked you, I mean."

"A little shorter than you, a little taller than me, orange and black outfit, long pale orange hair...she looked kinda like Abbie, actually..."

"She was."

"Huh?"

Oops. "Ah, she was kinda like Abbie. That's Sailor Chia. She's the only Sailor NeoPet who's sided with Dr. Sloth; all the rest of them are good guys."

PallaMouse pondered this. "Okay, I'll believe that. But a lot of Neopians won't, or are Sailor NeoPet haters, or are Sailor NeoPet fanatics, or aren't sure WHAT to believe."

Her Aisha, blue Trinity_Empress, nodded. "So you need to be very careful about who you trust."

Leslie nodded, then jumped. "Why me?"

"Yes, why her?" interjected PallaMouse.

Trinity blinked. "I don't know. Why her what?"

"What you just said."

"I didn't say anything!"

"Yes you did, just now!"

Leslie sighed and left the general insanity of the Giant Omelette for her nice, normal NeoHome.

Leslie took out her communicator and pressed a few buttons to call Naomi, Kami, and Brooke. "Girls? Come and pick up your pets...as soon as humanly possible." She paused. "And call your sister, Naomi. We could use a Sailor NeoPets meeting about now."

"Well how was I supposed to know that Aca_ra_88's horns are growing in?" grumbled Unirus to herself as Leslie called the other sailors.

Zelda's face appeared on each one. "Come quick!" all the communicators chorused. "Hissladys at the playground!"

The six transformed together and ran out the door...

Of course, one hunge Hisslady could trap a crowd of scared young users and their pets inside the cage, while Sailor Zafara kept another one at bay.

"A little help here, please?" called Zafara as she dodged a snap from the Hisslady's huge lips.

"Lupe Lunge!"

The Hisslady turned distractedly as Sailor Peophin ran to help her sister while Sailors Wocky and Moehog took on the other one. "Moehog-"

"Careful!" Sailor Wocky pushed her sister to the side. "You don't want to hit the kids."

"Oh. Right."

Sailor Shoyru switched on her wings and flew over the playset. "I'm glad I don't have to climb on this any more," she grumbled. "Recess used to be so boring!"

"Are you kidding?" asked Sailor Lupe. "This place is great!"

Suddenly Sailor Shoyru gasped. "Mike!"

"What?"

"One of those kids is Mike, my little brother!" Shoyru dove down out of the sky into the crowd of scared children and scooped up her brother. Then she pulled away, flapping her wings hard - the Hisslady lunged!

The disoriented Hisslady's chomp missed Sailor Shoyru, but her fangs slashed a jagged tear in one of the cream-colored wings.

"Owwwwwch!" Shoyru tumbled to the ground, landing on her back in the wood chips of the playground but keeping Mike intact. "Are you ok?"

"Yuppies," chirruped Mike in the cute manner of four-year-olds, "thankies sissies!"

"...what did you say?"

"Thankies Ji!" Mike grinned. "Beat the baddies nowies, kaysies?" He jumped off of Sailor Shoyru's stomach and ran over to the side of the playground, out of the reach of the other Hisslady.

Shoyru looked down. She was still in Sailor form...so how had Mike known?... But she couldn't worry about that now; she had more pressing matters to attend to.

Over by the swings, Sailors Peophin and Zafara were doing pretty well against the smaller Hisslady. "One more shot should finish her off," Peophin observed. "Would you like to do the honors?"

"Sure--Zafara Flame!" The huge snake shrieked as she fell to the ground, charred and most certainly dead.

"Good," said Acara, although she looked slightly sick. "There must be someone else here. Little kids wouldn't be on a playground alone."

Then Sailor Lupe spotted three young adults collapsed on a bench at the edge of the playground: two women in jeans and a young man in a sweatsuit. She ran over and checked for pulses. "They're all alive; I can't tell what happened to them."

"I hhhhhappened to thhhhhem."

Acara, Lupe, Peophin, and Zafara all jumped--there was a THIRD Hisslady, curled beneath the park bench. "Like the other VirtuPetsssss, I wassssss dessssssigned to be a Neopet," she explained in a hissing voice. "Sssso we have sssssome usssseful inherent abilitiessss. One sssuch ability isss the Hisslady Health Transssfer."

"So you drained the health of these people," Zafara conjectured.

"Precisssssely." The Hisslady didn't even notice Sailor Lupe edging around behind her; she was too busy bragging.

"Lupe Lunge!"

Quick as a flash Sailor Peophin attacked with a Peophin Splash, hurling a beam of water at the Hisslady and finishing it off.

Meanwhile, the last and largest Hisslady was giving Moehog and Wocky a run for their money. It didn't seem to be affected by either of their attacks alone. But when the sisters were joined by Sailors Shoyru, Lupe, Zafara, Acara, and Peophin, the Hisslady realized it was outmatched.

"Sssstop!"

"Why?" demanded Shoyru.

"Becausssse," the Hisslady hissed, wrapping herself more tightly around the half-dozen children still trapped between her coils, "if you don't, I will ssssqueeze them even more tightly."

Two things happened at once then, so quickly that the Hisslady had no time to process them:

A tall figure in blue and white jumped down out of nowhere and scooped up half of the children. Seconds later, the figure jumped back in and left the colored plastic 'cage' with the rest of the kids.

At the same time, a ball of orange fuzz hit the Hisslady in the back of the head and exploded, creating a choking cloud of fluff.

As the figure landed, Sailor Lupe recognized her. "Kara Lynn!"

The tall girl smiled. "I'm glad I got here in time."

Disoriented and defenseless, the Hisslady was easily destroyed bye a combination of Acara Tumble, Wocky Pounce, and Peophin Splash. Lupe ran over to the children whom Kara Lynn had just rescued and began reassuring them.

"Where did that orange fuzz come from?" asked Sailor Zafara.

"Wasn't that one of your attacks?" asked a puzzled Kara Lynn.

"Not one of ours..."

"It was me," said an unfamiliar voice. Around the side of the playset walked a Sailor NeoPet in red-orange and yellow-orange with vibrant green hair. She looked almost like there was a JubJub sitting on her head. There was orange fuzz under her collar and on her bow button.

"Since when can you make these fuku trendy?" asked Wocky, tugging at her bow button.

"A-HEM," coughed Moehog.

"That's not trendy; that's tacky."

The new sailor laughed, ending the sisters' squabble. "You guys fight to protect Neopia, but you're fighting with each other like siblings or something."

"Actually, we are," Wocky admitted.

"So you're not perfect or anything?" asked the new sailor.

There was a stunned silence, broken by the stirring of the adults who were still collapsed on the park bench. One by one they sat up, looking startled, then ran over to gather up the children. They never noticed the Sailor NeoPets, who had quickly skirted around to the opposite side of the playset.

Sailor Shoyru stifled a giggle. "You think," she whispered, pointing to Sailor Zafara, "that SHE is perfect?"

"Has anyone ever told you," retorted Zafara, "that you look like Cardcaptor Sakura?"

"I do not!"

"Sh!" snapped Lupe, cutting them off. "We're a bunch of average girls who go to school around here," she explained to the new sailor. "We just happen to be superheroes also. What's your name?"

"Sailor JubJub. Jody."

"How about if we go back to my house and introduce ourselves?" suggested Zafara.