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Series One Episode Twenty-Three It was snowing in Neopia Central! Leslie woke up to the happy shouts of FirePrinse and Unirus2000. She clambered out of bed in her flannel nightgown and rushed to the window to see the white flakes that had so excited her pets. "We can go skiing!" cried FirePrinse. "And skating!" chimed in Unirus. "Guys, guys," laughed Leslie, "we could go to Terror Mountain any time we wanted and do that stuff." "But that's different!" her Lupe exclaimed. "Yeah," echoed Unirus. "Different." Their mood was echoed by pets all across Neopia Central. My_Lil_Zaffie woke Zelda and Zoe by jumping on them; Moehog374 tried to do a cartwheel and nearly broke his tusks; Aca_ra_88 went hyperactive and destroyed Lu_pe_88's snow fort; and Ferboll and his siblings made up several gymnastic excersises only safe for large living balls of fluff. The joy spreading through Neopia Central did not reach Dr. Sloth's space station. "Go out? In this weather? What are you, COMPLETELY fashion-impaired? Think of what this snow would do to my boots!" Sloth sighed. "Listen, Abbie. Our current position in relationship to Neopia leaves us unable to transport anything to most of the planet. All we can currently reach are the Haunted Woods, Neopia Central, Faerieland, the Lost Desert, and some frozen wastelands at the South Pole." "Why can't we attack Faerieland then, evil worm dude? Have some class!" "That's where the Faerie Queen and all the Uber-Faeries live, and the Chaos Faerie's current powers can't handle that. Have some sense." "The Lost Desert then?" "They have their guard up after that disaster you caused - remember?" "It's not like you were winning anyway, evil worm dude." "Don't call me that! Now, would you rather see what energy you can scare up, pardon the pun, in the Haunted Woods? Or go to Neopia Central? The Chaos Faerie won't wait forever." "What exactly is she waiting FOR?" "Didn't you hear me? Energy." "Yeah, but why?" Sloth glowered at Abbie. "I don't believe I will divulge that information to you just yet." "Fine. I'll ask her myself." Abbie turned on her heel and left. The Chaos Faerie, of course, refused to reveal her intentions. Abbie should have expected no less. Leslie didn't feel like working very hard at lunch, so she took her pets to the nearest Hubert's Hot Dog Stand. Hubert himself couldn't be at every stand; he ran othe one in the Neopian Marketplace, but this particular stand in the growing chain had a staff of two humans, a Mynci, and a Buzz. "I want a Chili Dog," FirePrinse entreated. "Can I have a Triple Dog, pleeeeeeease?" begged Unirus. "All right, all right," laughed Leslie, and began haggling with the Buzz over the price of the Chili Dog. FirePrinse sat back in the snow outside the stand and began patting a snowball into shape with his paws. Suddenly Unirus let out a squeal as a jet of water hit her in the back, freezing almost instantly in the chill air! Leslie and FirePrinse spun around to face whatever this new threat was, but they relaxed when all they saw was a smallish Cloud Quiggle looking up at them. Squiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrt! The Quiggle blasted FirePrinse with another jet of water. He growled and threw the snowball, but the Quiggle darted away. It didn't get far, though - a girl, with large glasses and a distinctive tall white ponytail streaked with blue, blocked its path. Although bundled up well in a thick ivory-colored anorak, the girl reached down and scooped up the Quiggle with surprising swiftness. "I'm really sorry!" she called to Leslie. It was Tammy Naeco, a girl in Leslie's class. "MrSippy here has a mischevious streak. But he isn't really mean." "We'll be fine," Leslie called back, and handed FirePrinse his Chili Dog. A few bites later the red Lupe was smoking at the ears, and Tammy and MrSippy had gone. Sailor Chia muttered darkly to herself as she rode an overlarge Devilpup (about four feet high at the shoulder) through the snow. "'Just get some energy', he says. 'Doesn't matter how', he says. I'll have to devise SOME way of lowering that worm's ego." She was in a small grove of trees in Neopia Central, a little ways away from the school she had once gone to. There was a snowball fight going on in front of the school, with at least three dozen players and more joining in as they passed by. Sailor Chia scowled as she noticed Zelda and Brooke - Sailors Zafara and Usul - having a great time pelting the other side's snow fort with snowballs. Suddenly a particularly fast snowball thrown by Brooke hit one of the weaker spots in the opposing side's snow fort, knocking it in. A Bruce who had been behind that part of the snow wall got buried in a flash. The game ground to a halt as a few players rushed over to dig him out. "Are you okay?" asked Brooke, who had been one of the first to rush over. The Bruce, who was painted Electric, nodded as his head was dug out. "Fine, fine," he said, brushing the snow from his face. "Five minutes' time out to rebuild the snow fort!" someone shouted. Sailor Chia didn't bother to watch. She'd gotten an idea from watching that scene, and had pulled out her magic sack. By the time the snowball fight resumed, she was out of sight, scooping snow into the bottomless bag... Leslie was walking down the path to the marketplace with the intention of buying some gloves and a hat. Her pets followed behind her, and FirePrinse's petpet Tigger trotted alongside him. She passed under a frozen tree. "Hey, Lupe-tail hair!" Leslie looked up. Sailor Chia and a Devilpup sat in the tree. "Catch!" called Chia, opened her magic sack, and poured the out onto Leslie and her pets the contents: thirty-odd cubic meters of snow. Diving to the ground, Leslie pushed her pets aside and crossed her arms in front of her as the snow landed... Cold. It was so cold under the snow. Leslie could barely breathe; Chia had been packing the snow for the five or ten minutes during which she had been unconscious, and there was barely any air coming in. She was trapped. Could she transform and blast her way out? No; her arms were firmly fixed in position, crossed in front of her - and if she tried a Lupe Lunge, she'd hit herself in the face. Were her pets all right? There was no way to tell. It took Leslie a few minutes to realize that her communicator watch was right next to her face. She wiggled her hands a bit until she could press some buttons. She was in such a cramped position that she couldn't see which one she was pressing... "Leslie? What is it?" asked Brooke's voice. "I'm trapped - Sailor Chia," Leslie explained. "Under a big pile of snow..." "Where are you?" "Near the Marketplace...the side with the clothes shop...I'm running out of air..." "I'll be right there," Brooke said. "C'mon, Zelda - Les needs us!" The communicator fizzled a bit, then died. Leslie was alone. She closed her eyes and began breathing slowly to conserve her oxygen... "Usul Bite!" Sailor Chia whirled around, but not quickly enough. A fiercely sharp ball of energy hit her in the side. "We've called the others," Sailor Zafara called defiantly at Chia. "You'd better run while you can." "Where's Leslie?" demanded Sailor Usul.  Orange energy hit Sailor Usul in the stomach, but she recovered quickly and ran at Chia with Zafara just behind her. Usul and Chia began grappling with each other while Zafara started digging in the snow. She didn't make much of a dent. Stepping back, she aimed for the top of the pile and shouted, "Zafara Flame!" Before she could repeat the attack, an overlarge Devilpup leapt over the melting snow and tackled her. "Usul Bite!" "Zafara Flame!" "Chia Giggle!" Magical attacks flew back and forth across the snow, but the battle had come to a stalemate... Crash! The Devilpup was knocked backwards by a silver-painted Zafara. "Thanks Zaffie!" exclaimed Sailor Zafara as My_Lil_Zaffie and the Devilpup tussled. Then she turned back to the snow pile. "Zafara Flame! Zafara Flame! Zafara Flame!" The snow melted rapidly now, leaving Leslie, FirePrinse, Tigger, and Unirus2000, all unconscious, very wet, and lying in puddles of dead grass. "And then Sailor Chia ran off," Zelda finished. She, Leslie, Zaffie, FirePrinse, Unirus, Brooke, Kami, Jody, her JubJub Ferboll, and Kaen were in Leslie's NeoHome, where Leslie and her pets were recovering. Zelda was relating the story to Kami and Jody, who had arrived on the scene in Sailor form just as the battle was ending. Ferboll was dozing on the coffee table, and close inspection would reveal that Tigger the Gruslen was curled up in his nice warm fur, fast asleep. Kaen, of course, was fretting. "I should have been with Leslie when she went out," she said as she hovered by Leslie's coffee mug. The three who had been frozen were wrapped in blankets and sipping some special herbal tea that the little Earth Faerie had made. Kaen had been on Mystery Island collecting those and some other herbs, so she hadn't been with Leslie when she was frozen. "Don't blame yourself, Kaen," Kami said soothingly. "Hey, look!" Jody pointed to the window. "The snow's melting!" And so it was. "Oh goodie, the snow's going away!" exclaimed Unirus. Then she blinked. "Did I just SAY that??" FirePrinse and Ferboll started laughing, and then the whole room burst
into good-natured chuckles and the pain and fear of being frozen was over.
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