The Sailor NeoPets RPG Series One Episode Sixty-Five Dear Journal, I had that dream again. The one with the vortex. In the dream, I'm always being sucked into some weird black hole. Then I pull out a sword and there's this flash of gold light. And then I wake up. It's so weird. I wish I knew what it meant. Maybe if I "Ko-Kira!" Ko-Kira Aiden looked up with a start, her eyes as wide as saucers. She ten turned beet red as she realized that she should have been paying attention to Mrs. P's history lecture, instead of writing in her journal. She didn't know why she couldn't focus lately. She loved history. And Mrs. P was always so nice to her. (Her real surname was Peedles, but she preferred it if everyone called her Mrs. P.) She was a hilarious teacher and always let them do fun things, like making plays and writing songs to act out different events in history. So why was Ko-Kira having trouble paying attention? She turned around only to see Allie Rider, who, of course, was snickering at her. She blushed and turned around to face the teacher. "I'm really, really sorry, Mrs. P! I - I promise it won't happen again--" "I don't want to hear it, Ko-Kira. You have been called to Mr. Cyrus' office. Get going. And when you get back, I expect you to pay attention." Mr. Cyrus? As in Mr. Jack Cyrus, the most ruthless man ever to receive a teaching degree? Oh, Donna! Now I'm in for it! Everyone had heard of Mr. Cyrus. He was the most dangerous man to ever walk the halls of NCH. He had been a pro Gormball player and had won the Gormball Championship twelve years in a row before retiring at the age of 35 and going to college. Before long he had become the most feared principal that NCH had ever seen. Rumor had it that he fed misbehaving kids to his Skeith, B0ne_Crushrr_1001. Ko-Kira gulped, stood up, and started to trudge toward her doom. In the principal's office . . . Ko-Kira sat down uncomfortably in the hard wooden chair facing the principal's desk. She felt as if a rabid Drackonack were gnawing at her insides. Mr. Cyrus closed the door to the cramped office and sat down in his seat. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Ko-Kira Aiden," he said with a smirk. "Anyway, down to business--" "Mr. Cyrus, please! I promise I won't fall asleep in class again. Just please, don't give me a detention!" "Sleeping? You're not here to talk about your sleeping issues! I'm talking about your letter!" "My letter?" "Yes," he nodded. "You sent in a letter two weeks ago about starting a student-run debate club." "Oh! Yes, that letter! You see, Mr. Cyrus, I think that this school needs to have a club that allows students to debate on topics that are important in Neopia and express their opinions on them. I've already contacted the NNDC, that is, the National Neopian Debate Committee, and I got rule books, and--" Mr. Cyrus held up his hand for silence. "I know, I know. I have a room assigned and you can post sign-up sheets throughout the school. Just tell the secretary in the office to announce when the first meeting is. But I must warn you: if not enough people join, the club will have to be shut down. So make sure you get at least twenty people to join." "Of course!" said Ko-Kira, standing up. "You can count on me." After school, one week later: Ko-Kira yanked open her locker and pulled her bag out. She had hung sign-up sheets in the hallway, and, to her surprise, forty people had responded, including Paul! She was anxious to see how he liked the club. She could hardly wait to get to the room that had been designated for the debate students. But before I go . . . Ko-Kira looked inside her backpack. Good. It's still there. Inside the backpack was a small, clear bottle filled with gold, swirling liquid. It had been a gift from her grandmother when she was four. She barely remembered it, but her grandmother had told her it would help her some day. She hadn't seen it in years and had almost forgotten about it. Now she wondered if it had something to do with the Sailor Neopets. I'll ask Kaen this afternoon. After the club. Five minutes later, Ko-Kira reached the room the secretary had told her to go into. It was dimly lit and filled with dusty boxes. "Hello?" Ko-Kira looked around the dark room. Oh no! What if nobody showed up? "Hello!" A peppy middle-aged grundo jumped out of a door marked Teacher's Office - NO STUDENTS MAY ENTER. Ko-Kira practically leapt out of her skirt in surprise. "I'm sorry, did I surprise you?" asked the purple grundo. "I do that to a lot of people. My name is Mr. Leroy. I've been asked to supervise the debate group. Are you the girl that started it?" "Yes," the scorman nodded. "My name is Ko-Kira Aiden. The people at the office didn't say anything about a supervisor." "Well, the school can't just let you kids run around unattended, can it? Follow me. I told everyone to go into the auditorium." Ko-Kira obediently followed him into the auditorium. Unlike the storage room that she'd been in before, the auditorium was large, filled with rows of red plush seating and a large clean stage shining under spotlights. About thirty people were already seated in front of the stage. That's weird. They're not talking or anything. "Okay, everybody!" exclaimed Mr. Leroy enthusiastically. "Allow me to introduce the young lady that formed this club. Please welcome Miss Ko-Kira Aiden." Ko-Kira walked up to the podium that Mr. Leroy was standing at. He moved aside as Ko-Kira adjusted the microphone. "Hello, everyone! I'd like to welcome you to the debate club, where we'll be debating some controversial issues in Neopia, like the legal age of adulthood, the existence of life on the other side of the planet, and whether or not all schools should have casual dress. And the best part is, if we keep practicing, we can enter the National Neopian Debate Tournament in Faerieland this April! Now, each of you has been given a packet with a rule book and information on some basic types of debates, such as the Cross-Examination Debate, and how you can use the Message Boards to have debates." Ko-Kira stopped and looked into the audience, her eyes scanning for the students' reactions. Are they even listening to me? She looked at the students a bit closer . . . and what she saw made her blood run cold. All of them were grey-skinned and sickly-looking. As she watched, a few slumped to the floor, including Paul. "Mr. Leroy!" Ko-Kira screamed. But it was too late. He too had passed out. Strange, he looks fine. But I don't have time for that now! This can only be the work of . . . "Sailor Chia." Ko-Kira turned and saw the black-clad soldier standing with a large energy-sucking machine of some sort. "Hello, freak. Or should I say Sailor Freak," sneered Chia. "Scorchio Neo Power, Make Up!" A flash of light surrounded Ko-Kira; when it faded, Sailor Scorchio stood in her place. "Scorchio Steam!" Boiling water flowed out of her hands . . . and was sucked up by Chia's machine. "Sorry, Scorchio! Guess your little attack didn't work. Too bad. I almost wish your little friends were here to see you get sucked dry. Oh well. They'll be joining you soon enough." Scorchio grabbed her bag and jumped off the stage, running towards the doors. As she ran, she began to slow down - something was pulling on her skirt. She turned. Chia had switched on the machine, and was aiming it at her. The colors before Scorchio's eyes began to fade. As she was about to faint, she pulled out her communicator. I hope someone else stayed after school today . . . The girls' locker room: The swim team was notoriously slow in the locker room, as they used the time to catch up with each other about the day's events. At last Jaime Manchot pulled her teal-and-grey NCH swimsuit out of her gym bag - and something else fell out with it. That something was flashing a RED ALERT warning. "Hey, Keiko, Tammy!" Jaimie ran over to her fellow swim team members and Sailor Neopets. "We gotta go!" Back in the auditorium: Scorchio felt the last of her strength fade. She closed her eyes and let unconsciousness take over. A tear rolled out of her eye as her last thought drifted away. Help me - somebody - please - "Quiggle Squirt!" "Acara Tumble!" A ball of water hit the machine, which spat a few sparks - and, with a final sucking sound, shut off. Acara's attack was not as effective: Chia nimbly jumped out of the way. Scorchio's eyes popped open as energy flowed back to her. "Bruce! Quiggle! Acara! Thank Donna!" "You okay, Scorchio?" Bruce said, helping the scorman up. "Chia Choas Ruin!" Scorchio slipped back to the ground as a black storm of energy hit the other sailors like a space shuttle. She propped herself up and gagged. The three others lay on the floor, knocked out by the brute force of the attack. That's it! Sailor Scorchio angrily grabbed her bag. She dug around in it frantically until she found what she was looking for. My grandmother's heirloom. It's my last hope. Scorchio stood up, anger pounding through her body. Sailor Chia's hurt them all. Innocent people who didn't deserve being attacked. My friends. My fellow Sailors. Mr. Leroy. Paul. She's going down. Scorchio gulped the golden potion and felt a power rush through her. She looked down at her uniform to see it dissolve into golden globes of light, which solidified into a solid gold uniform. Although she couldn't see it, her eyes had turned as dark as black holes; her scales and horn glowed white-hot. Chia squinted at the blinding transformation. When it faded, she looked at Scorchio's new uniform with a sneer. "Nice fuku. But it's not going to help you. After all, you broke my machine . . . and messed up my hair. You can't be forgiven. Chia Choas . . ." A black aura emitted from her body, swirling around her hands. "Not today, Chia." A black and gold sword appeared in Scorchio's hand. She pointed it at Chia's forehead; the sword's point glowed gold as Scorchio yelled her attack: "Scorchio Uneksia Nightmare!" The sword abruptly stopped glowing, and disappeared. Oh no. It didn't do anything. I'm dead for sure now! Chia, however, didn't start mocking her. In fact, Chia was staring at some unfixed point, eyes wide. Suddenly she screamed. "No! That's not possible!" She backed up against a wall, entire body trembling. "No! No, no, no, no, NO!! It's not true! It can't be!" Scorchio looked on in confusion. Wow. Whatever I did must have worked. As Chia slumped to the ground, she was teleported away. "Scorchio!" Sailors Lupe, Zafara, and Blumaroo had entered the auditorium, in time to see Chia vanish. Zafara and Blumaroo went to help Quiggle, Bruce, and Acara. Lupe, with Kaen on her shoulder, went straight to Scorchio, whose uniform faded back to its normal state, and then into her school clothing. The golden mist once again hummed in the little bottle; Kaen flew over to it. "This mist - it's the Uneksia (Finnish for Dream) Mist. It allows you to make someone see their worst nightmare - or the thing they've always dreamed of. It doesn't do any physical harm, but it's very powerful all the same." Ko-Kira picked up the vial and slipped it into her hammerspace locker. "It must be - I used it on Sailor Chia and she collapsed, screaming. I wonder what she saw?" Dr. Sloth's Space Station: Sailor Jetsam followed the sound of the sobbing to Chia's quarters. "Sailor Chia?" she asked, pushing opening the door. The detransformed Abbie was sitting in a corner, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth, muttering, "I don't have Lupe-tail hair, I don't have Lupe-tail hair, I don't have Lupe-tail hair . . ." "I told her I should have come with her," sighed Jetsam, and walked out. Dr. Sloth paged through the latest issue of Lenny Comics. He was just getting to the aprt where Doctor Lennard came into contact with radioactive goo and turned into Lenny Man, when his computer beeped. He quickly hid the comic behind his back and stood at attention in front of the screen - then relaxed when he saw that it wasn't the Chaos Faerie, just the grundo he'd sent out on assignment, Issralax. "Progress report, Issralax." Issralax smiled. "Excellent, sir. The scorman girl doesn't know a thing. I'd better get back, though; I have a cover to keep." The screen switched off. Later that afternoon: Ko-Kira hummed happily to herself as she left the auditorium and walked into the back room. Mr. Leroy sat there in a chair with an ice pack on his head. "You okay, Mr. Leroy?" The Grundo looked up, as if surprised to see her there. "What . . . oh yes! Fine, thank you! So, how did the practice go?" "It went great! A lot of people looked really interested, especially when we went over the legislative form of debating. I really think this club is giong to work!" "Excellent! Well, you'd better get going. I need to lock up." "Okay. See you next Wednesday, Mr. Leroy!" Ko-Kira dashed out of the office. She couldn't wait to get home and tell Melony and the pets about the first debate meeting. She's finally gone. Issralax Leroy took the ice pack off his head. These humans were so easy to fool.