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Series One Side Story A Faerie Tale Once upon a time there was a good little girl who lived with
her mother and father and their very faithful pets. She was a pretty little girl, with golden-brown hair and sparkling
eyes, and she worked very hard in school and helped her parents at home.
Everyone said what a wonderful little girl she was. But one day, a wicked wizard came up with an evil plan, and he decided to make the good little girl part of it. Her parents, who were also good people, tried to stop him, but the wizard was too strong. He put a spell on them to keep them from helping her. Dr. F. Sloth strode up to the tables, engineers stepping swiftly
aside to let him by. "Now we shall see if this little diversion was
successful," he mused aloud. The room looked like a morgue more than anything else, with rows
of stretchers and tables and capsules extending back into the darkness. Pale
green light illuminated the two tanks on the tables nearest Sloth - identical
twin steel-grey containers with transparent tops revealing that they were
full of pearly liquid. Sloth flicked a pair of switches on the sides of the containers,
and the liquid began draining out through paired rubber tubes extending from
the backs of the capsules. When it was about half gone, exposing the
face and form of a man within one and a woman in the other, the tops of the
capsules began to slide open. "Will they awaken on their own?" demanded Sloth, turning to the
nearest convenient aide - a small but chubby green Grundo who hadn't stepped
back enough when the Doctor passed and was now the nearest one to him. "I
don't recall any procedures being mentioned . . ." "N-no, sir," the young Grundo replied, straightening self-consciously
and smoothing his shirt, which had an Ummagine pin on the chest. "They
should revive shortly." Sloth glanced back at the bodies. "They look as though they
might as well be dead. Can the process be hastened?" The young Grundo cracked a nervous half-smile. "Sir, you might
try shaking them." There was a collective suppressed gasp from the other attendants,
and the chubby Grundo cringed at his own forwardness, but - to the astonishment
of all present - Sloth didn't erupt. In fact, he smiled himself - an
almost unheard-of sight. "Your name's Blarthrox, isn't it? Good
work. I like that kind of outside-of-the-box thinking." Then he turned, put a thick green hand on one shoulder of each partly-submerged
figure, and gave them a good firm shake. Two pairs of eyes haltingly
opened. "Where - are - we," said the woman. The man's eyes focused more slowly, then centered on sloth. "Was
- the - op - er - a - tion - suc - cess - ful - sir." "Myora, Leelo," said the doctor calmly. "All indications are that your brains have been successfully transitioned into these human bodies." So the girl's parents told her to com quietly and let the wizard
cast his new evil spell on her. "And did she?" Of course. For what good little girl disobeys her parents? "Mommy!" screamed Ko-Kira, struggling against the Grundo's grip
as best she could in the small iron chains that bound her hands and feet.
"Mommy! Daddy! Daddy, help!" Her parents stood at the side of the chamber, behind the iron railing
on a raised platform that ringed half of the room, with eerily blank looks
on their faces. They were the only parents there; the other nine children
in the procession had no one to call to. Some were sobbing, others
determined to keep stoic looks on their faces, though these were betrayed
by their trembling lips and the occasional tear streaking down their cheeks. On the floor proper, Sloth paced back and forth from some boxes
of circuitry and computer screens to the large ray gun in the center of the
room. After a few minutes of flicking switches and adjusting dials,
he turned to the line of children; Ko-Kira had gone hoarse but was glaring
coldly at him, and he returned the glare calml. "This one first," he
announced. "Let's see what this ray can do." So the girl was dragged to the focal point of the beam, where a
set of magnets bolted to the floor caught her chains and held them fast,
nearly tearing her red checked shirt. Sloth stepped back to the ray
and slowly pulled down a large lever; the gun hummed to life, glowed faintly,
then fired. Crackling bolts of yellow and black engulfed Ko-Kira, who shrieked
in pain as the faces formerly linked to her parents' minds watched impassively,
the flashing light illuminating their eerily blank eyes. At last Sloth raised the lever again, and the ray faded. He pointed a palm-sized scanning device connected by a cord to the computers in Ko-Kira's direction and waited for its affirmative beep, then went over to the screen and scrutinized the results. "This can't be right . . ." he murmured, glancing back at the weary form that now lay limp, breathing shallowly, on the ground. The wizard's curse didn't seem to work. So angry was he that he sent the little girl home and tried to forget that she ever had been. Her parents went with her as well, although they had been forever changed. Thus the good little girl grew up into a beautiful young woman, as pretty girls are wont to do. But such curses as the wicked wizard's do not easily fade, and one day the young woman realized all was not well. "Ko-Kira?" called the nurse from the entrance to the doctor's office. The preteen in the waiting room with the cast on her left upper arm rose, putting down the issue of Neofashion! she'd been perusing, and followed the wocky into the doctor's office. "The doctor will be here shortly, dear," she said as she left, and sure enough the gelert doctor entered a few moments later. "Finally time to get that cast off," he said cheerfully. "Bet you can't wait to scratch that arm, eh?" "Darnit, you made it worse!" The girl winced. But when the cast came off and Ko-Kira reached out eagerly to scratch
her upper arm, her fingernails found something entirely foreign: a hard,
tough, red and shiny surface where soft skin belonged. "Hey, Doc, is
this normal?" The doctor looked. "Oh my. No, kid, I'm afraid it isn't." The golden-brunette's forehead furrowed. "Um, what is it then?" "I'll have to consult some others before I can make a diagnosis,"
the gelert replied evasively. "Don't worry about it, okay?" "It looks kinda like I'm growing scales." "Look, seriously - put it out of your mind." Luckily, the young woman found an ancient tome of wisdom with the answers she needed. Answers about the effects of the curse when she was a child, and how she ought to deal with them. After all, she realized that she had been cursed, but she needed to know the type of curse and if it could be cured. Sadly, like the curse on her parents, it was irreversible. But their curse was of the mind and heart - hers was of the body. Ko-Kira brushed the dust off of the book's blue - and scaly - cover, sitting back against a wicker chest and wincing as she sat on her newly sensitive tailbone. The pending tail wasn't the only new addition; she had full-fledged scales on her shoulders now, her spine often itched, and there was a small but undeniable horn appearing through the hair on her forehead. The wicker chest, full of old quilts, was one of many things in the cluttered attic where she'd taken to spending a lot of time since these increasingly visible mutations had started appearing. Long sleeves and a headband - or better yet, a hat - helped somewhat, but she didn't feel secure anymore in public. Scaled Magic? she thought, reading the title to herself. Didn't know we had anything like this . . . Ko-Kira flipped through the stiff pages. Most of the book's contents seemed to be spells or elixirs, but she didn't recognize some of the symbols and couldn't read a few pages at all. ...tails, and scales on their upper arms. The phrase caught Ko-Kira's eye, and she started paging backwards, looking for the passage. There is a rare human form of the Scorchio known as the Scorman, the book read. Although human in basic form, they have small horns, rudimentary tails, and scales on their uper arms. These scales, unlike those of Scorchios, are very valuable as a magical catalyst - see "Common Ingredients." Scormans are typically hunted and killed when young to obtain these scales. Ko-Kira's heart froze. A brief snatch of memory, intentionally suppressed, almost forgotten, came back to her - the tall, olive green bogeyman of every Neopian's nightmares giving a stern order to her parents. Her loving but grey-eyed parents with their monotone accents, so sharp a contrast to hers, which would have been called British had Britain been on Neopia. Had they always been monotone? No. She was sure of it. And she was suddenly just as sure that Dr. F. Sloth would hear about her latest developments. Someone would do the research, and someone would put two and two together, and they'd realize she was a scorman, and they'd come for her. That evening Ko-Kira took her biggest backpack and stuffed it with clothes, a few books and trinkets, a Rainbow Gun, and some food. She then struck out for her favorite hunting spot: Buzz Peak. The young woman got away none too soon, for the wizard had learned that his curse's effect had finally come to light, and sent his servants searching for her. Her faithful pet set out to look for his mistress, but the wizard's servants caught him and changed him into a horrible monster. Many months passed, and the young woman remained safe. One day she was at last reunited with her pet - but he, alas, no longer knew her. "Mommy!" called the young red scorchio cheerfully, soaring up through the branches of the tree. "Mommy, there's a Lupe down there!" From her perch on a high branch the teenage Ko-Kira swung around the trunk, hands gripping the rough bark, feet brushed by leaves. "Just a Lupe, 'Nite? Pets pass through here all the time." "But Mommy, it's a mutant!" That got Ko-Kira's attention. "I - maybe it's just a victim of Sloth's. Or some punk kid who thinks it's cool to be ugly," she theorized hurriedly, alternately jumping and climbing down through the tree branches. "It doesn't neccessarily have to be working for Sloth . . ." Twigs and shoots caught her denim shorts and tied shirt ans she dropped, landing on a makeshift platform whose weight was spread across several thick lower branches. From this she (and the little scorchio who was now hovering beside her) could see the ground. Sure enough, a large but surprisingly sleek mutant lupe was pacing at the front of the tree. Ko-Kira squinted at it for a few moments, then gasped. "Luplee!" she whispered. "Who, Mommy?" "My old pet, Luplee. Well, my dad's pet. He was painted Split back then, but he still has the same short ears, the same face . . ." He can't be an enemy, she told herself. Can't. "Luplee!" she called down. The Lupe's head jerked upwards and stared, wild-eyed, in her direction. Ko-Kira edged off of the platform and started moving down the trunk.
"Luplee, it's me!" she exclaimed joyfully as her feet touched ground.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was going, but--" "Do you know me?" asked Luplee. The young woman stayed with her faithful pet and found a spell to cure his changed appearance, but could not restore his lost memory. She knew that she would have to confront the evil wizard once and for all. "And did she, Grandmama?" Of course, dear. But not alone. She studied magic, and found friends, two things which are often equally powerful, and which together reinforced each other until they became an unstoppable team. And then together they confronted the evil wizard and fought him. "Did they win? Did they win?!" Well, yes, you silly goose! Or else he would have taken over here, and we wouldn't be here. "Then this really happened?" Of course, darling. Hundreds of years ago. Didn't you know? All faerie tales were true stories, once upon a time. Fin. |