Shadow Play, Chapter 14

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

They all burst into the room, weapons at the ready—and no one responded. Instead, Terra found herself looking at a suite that seemed like it hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Dirty laundry littered the floor and the furniture, crumpled pieces of trash were strewn everywhere, and the paintings on the walls hung askew. But someone obviously lived here, because the trash included stacks of empty pizza boxes and Neocola cans.

There was also a blue Kougra tied to a chair, his muzzle gagged. The Masked Intruder’s golden eyes widened when he saw the group, and his long tail lashed frantically.

“Is this a trap?” Isengrim asked him. When the Kougra shook his head, Isengrim moved to the chair and cut him loose.

“Oh—thank goodness someone came!” the Masked Intruder said, stretching out and rolling his shoulders. “They were going to use me as ransom against the other Defenders!”

 

“How in the world did you get caught, Masked Intruder?” Kourage Korbat asked. “You know this place like the back of your paw!”

“I wasn’t anticipating some of Vile’s lackeys to live here,” the Intruder said. “Caught me totally off guard.”

“Is zhe artefact here?” Zoltan asked.

“Yes,” the Intruder said, “it’s—“ He froze as footsteps and voices approached.

There was no time to hide, and at any rate Isengrim and Zoltan could not have hidden anywhere in the suite with their bulk. Two blue Aishas wearing black rounded the doorframe, accompanied by a muscular purple Eyrie in a dark suit and hat.

“Just ignore the mess,” the female Aisha said. “We haven’t gotten around to cleaning—“ She paused when she saw everyone.

“Surprise,” Isengrim said with a grin.

The Eyrie leaped for the Werelupe King. Of course Isengrim was anticipating this, and he brought up his sword to block the henchpet’s claws, throwing him aside and into a pile of refuse.

Zoltan lobbed a few blasts of dark magic at the Aishas, and they were startled but recovered quickly enough to dodge. The male jumped to a set of drawers near the beat-up couch, and Blynn fired a gumball at him. His female companion threw her dagger at the bright orange projectile, and the gum exploded around the weapon instead.

Suddenly Terra realised why these two looked so familiar—she’d seen them in the Neopedia. They were the Aisha Thieves, Meesha and Purrow.

Purrow reached into the drawer and Meesha stuck her paws in her short ears, rolling up her earstalks tightly. Terra only had time to wonder why, when Purrow pulled out a Virtupets blaster with an enormous focussing dish and fired it at them.

Terra brought up her sword to block any laser blasts, but instead of energy, the weapon emitted a horrendously loud, low-frequency noise that made the very windowpanes shudder. Terra and her companions let out cries of pain as they dropped their weapons to clamp their hands and paws over their ears. Terra’s sword dissolved into light as she let go of it, but she was too busy having her adrenaline jolted to take much notice. The sound was so loud that it made her tongue hurt, and so intense it felt like it rattled her bones.

She didn’t know what to do. In order to fight back effectively, she would have to unplug her ears, and that would make the noise unbearable. Would she be able to act in that state? Everyone else seemed just as perplexed—except for the Eyrie henchpet, who just looked furious at the Aisha Thieves for not warning him as he held his own ears.

Hyren scanned the rubbish on the floor and narrowed his eyes. Clenching his antennae in one fist, he reached down and grabbed a grease-stained pizza box, and held it in front of him like a shield.

Terra didn’t know what he was doing, but she figured he had an idea. And she was right. For some reason, Purrow winced and staggered back. His own short ears fell flat against his head and his earstalks rolled tightly, but he kept his grip on the blaster. The weapon began to shake in his paws. It sparked, the noise cut out, bits popped loose, and then it fell to pieces completely. Hyren grinned.

Before the Aisha Thieves could try anything else, Kourage Korbat jumped onto the kitchen counter and opened his mouth. He let out a piercing screech aimed at the siblings, and while Terra still had to cover her ears, it appeared to affect Meesha and Purrow differently. Even with their ears held, the knees of the two buckled and they collapsed limply into a pile of Cheesy Neos bags.

Their Eyrie companion lunged for the Korbat, but Zoltan stepped in front of the henchpet and thrust his paw, roiling with dark magic, into the Eyrie’s face. Immediately the Eyrie fell to the floor as well, out cold.

“Why don’t you use that trick more often?” Blynn asked.

“I need to actually be able to grab zheir face,” Zoltan said, using his thumb to wipe at his palm pawpad a bit. “Usually zhere’s a veapon in zhe way.”

“What was that?” Hyren asked Kourage Korbat as the two superheroes set to tying up Vile’s lackeys.

“Stupefying Sonar,” Kourage Korbat said, puffing out his chest a bit. “It’s my specialty! And what was that trick you pulled with the pizza box?”

Hyren looked over at the pile of parts on the floor. “That’s a Virtupets-make Sonic Melter,” he said. “I learned how to mess with those, too. See, in theory they work great, but in practice, if you can reflect their own sound waves back at them, it’s actually the perfect frequency to shake them to pieces. That explains why Sloth’s military doesn’t use them more often.”

“Well I’ll be,” Kourage Korbat said. “You really do know your stuff.” He sighed. “Sorry I doubted you. I was worried you were all talk.”

“That’s understandable,” Hyren said. “I’d feel the same way if I was you. You do good work, Kourage Korbat.”

“So do you,” the superhero said with a smile.

Isengrim put a paw on his owner’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

Terra nodded. “Just fine. Except for the awful noise from that stupid Sonic Melter.” She grimaced.

Her Werelupe gave her a hug and said, “At least now we know to cover our ears next time someone uses one of those.” He watched as the Masked Intruder slung Purrow over his shoulder. “It’s a shame,” the Werelupe King said. “I didn’t get the chance to try to talk to them and help them.”

“I don’t think we have the time for that right now,” the Intruder said, glancing over to where Zoltan used his amulet to search the suite. “I mean… you can talk to them later at HQ if you want. They’ll be going through our rehabilitation program, anyway, and there are plenty of Neopets there who will help them work through their problems.” He paused. “Sorry, by the way, for being kind of cold to you all before. I’m… not used to working with civilians. And I was worried you were going to be more annoying than you actually are.”

Blynn grinned. “Oh, I can be pretty annoying.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Isengrim said. “We’re just glad you’re safe.”

Zoltan, who had ducked into one of the bedrooms, came back with another Amulet of the Unblinking Eye – presumably the one the Masked Intruder had been using - and a small locked box. “It’s in here,” he said.

“Oh, I can pick that in no time,” the Masked Intruder said. “But let’s get it back to HQ first—I suspect that Vile’s waiting to hear back from these guys, and like before, he’ll send reinforcements if they take too long.”

“Right,” Zoltan said. He moved to pick up the Eyrie, but Isengrim had gotten there first, leaving Zoltan to carry Meesha.

“Eyries are surprisingly light,” Isengrim said as he shuffled the henchpet on his back a bit, so the Eyrie’s limp wings weren’t in the Werelupe’s way as much.

“Well, their bones are hollow,” Terra said as they made their way back to the lifts. Thankfully, no one else was in them. She hoped they would not arrive in the lobby to see more of Vile’s lackeys, although she guessed it was too early for that.

Thankfully, the only Neopet in the lobby was the receptionist, who again stared at them in confusion. “Are those… the Aisha Thieves?” she asked.

The Masked Intruder nodded. “Seems you had a bit of a pest problem,” he said. “We took care of it for you.”

Kourage Korbat struck a pose. “Just another day on the job for… the Defenders of Neopia!”

The Moehog put a hoof to her snout, as though she was stifling a laugh. “Thanks, Defenders,” she said. “I’ll let the manager know.”

Back at Defenders HQ, after they met with Judge Hog and put the criminals in his care, Kourage Korbat bid them a good morning, as he was ready to head home and go to bed, and the Masked Intruder took the others up to his office. It was a sleekly-decorated room with Jazzmosis memorabilia everywhere and a large fish tank that housed two Catamaras.

The Intruder pulled a lock-picking kit out of his utility belt, and motioned for Zoltan to hand him the box. “This’ll just take a second,” the superhero said.

“I am surprised zhis is not some sort of fancy Virtupets lock,” the Kyrii muttered as he gave the Kougra their hard-won prize.

“Virtupets tech is great,” Hyren said as the Intruder worked on the lock, “but most of Neopia just doesn’t have the infrastructure to support it. And with so many Neopians who use magic, the idea of technology that works through applied science has been slow to catch on. So in Neopia Central, you’ll see some Virtupets equipment scattered around, but it’s not ubiquitous.”

“Got it,” the Masked Intruder said as the box lid popped open.

Zoltan put a paw over the contents as if to shield everyone from dangerous magic. When nothing happened, he reached in and pulled out a golden disc carved with intricate patterns.

“That looks like the stuff you see around Geraptiku,” Hyren said. “I don’t want to know how Vile got a hold of it.”

“He probably has tomb raiders all over Mystery Island,” Isengrim said.

The battlemage inspected the talisman and nodded. “Yes, zhis is it,” he said. “Zhe final artefact. Now I can break zhe spell.”

“Can I watch?” the Masked Intruder asked. “All this magic stuff sounds interesting.”

Zoltan looked unsure, but then Isengrim said, “Zoltan, it may be a good idea if you broke the spell in the presence of the other Defenders as well. It would be nice for them to see that their efforts have a result. Only if you want to, of course.”

The Kyrii looked at his old friend for a long moment, then nodded again. “I think so, too,” he said. “Zhey are also involved in zhis, and it vould only be right not to keep zhem in zhe dark.”

And so it was that after they had lunch, everyone gathered in the Defenders’ conference room. Zoltan looked rather self-conscious as he stood at the table and arranged the five artefacts in a specific pattern, carefully adjusting their positions and distances from each other.

“Why is it,” Hyren said, “that with magic things like these there are always three, five, or seven of something? That seems like a recurring trend in stories I read, too.”

“Actually,” Terra said, “Pharazon explained to me that magical item alignments usually come in odd numbers because that’s the most stable arrangement. Something about pairs of items generating destabilising mana resonances.”

Zoltan stepped back and took a deep breath, and everyone fell silent as he looked as though he was about to do something important. Nostrils flaring, the Kyrii held his paws over the artefacts and concentrated.

His mane bristled and his magic-streaks surged with energy that also began to crackle around his trembling paws. He frowned, wrinkling his muzzle and furrowing his heavy brow as he focused further.

The air around the artefacts seemed to warp and shift, and lines of purple light arced between them. Zoltan bared his fangs and twitched his claws. The lines snapped, and a backlash of power swept through the room, so strong that Terra flinched and the hairs on the back of her neck rose.

Then the light faded and Zoltan leaned heavily on the table, ears low and shoulders sagging. “It’s done,” he panted. “It’s broken.”

Judge Hog began to applaud, and the other Defenders joined in, as well as Terra and her family. The Halloween Kyrii’s eyes widened in astonishment, and then a small, bashful smile worked its way up his muzzle.

“Thank you, Mr. Arnyek,” Judge Hog said. “You have done an invaluable service for Neopia Central—and for all of Neopia.”

“I—you’re velcome,” Zoltan said, sitting down slowly. “I am just glad to be of service.”

“What now?” Isengrim asked.

“I think our best bet,” Judge Hog said, “would be to question those who used to work for Vile, such as Miss Tally, who knows where Vile was just a few days ago. As for your family, please feel free to make the Headquarters your home until we have Vile apprehended. We will keep you updated on the situation.”

“Thank you,” Isengrim said. He put a paw on his friend’s shoulder. “Zoltan, what will you do now?”

Zoltan stroked his beard. “I shall stay here for a bit as vell, if zhat’s all right,” he said. “I should like to see zhis whole business vith Vile through to zhe end. Ve have made great progress, but the var is not von yet.”

Judge Hog nodded and said, “We will let you know if we require your help any further, Mr. Arnyek.”

From there they were dismissed to enjoy the rest of their day and await news on Vile’s capture. In the lift lobby outside the conference room, Zoltan turned to the others and said, “Again, I apologise deeply for distrusting all of you. Blynn, Hyren, if not for you, ve never vould have succeeded in zhis mission. And Terra… your greatest strengths are less quantifiable, but zhey are among the most valuable.”

Terra ducked her head modestly. “Thanks. I’m just happy I can be of some use.”

Isengrim gave her a squeeze. “You are of far more use than you realise,” he said before turning to Zoltan. “Don’t worry about it, my friend. We are all just glad you are doing better. It’s nice to see you happier than you used to be.”

The Kyrii tugged at his cloak a bit and looked aside, his ears drooping. “Yes, vell,” he said quietly, “happiness is… foreign to me. But I hope it serves some use.”

“Even if the only result is you feeling better about life,” Isengrim said, “it is worth it. You are worth it.”

Zoltan paused, his piercing eyes swirling with emotion. “Thank you.”

The Werelupe clapped a paw on the battlemage’s shoulder. “Well!” Isengrim said with a grin, his tail wagging. “The Defenders have graciously allowed us to use their training simulator room, and Hyren and I have been wanting to do another run through their sims. Would you like to join us? I think you’d enjoy it—and it would give you valuable practice.”

Zoltan’s ears perked. “That… does sound beneficial. And… enjoyable.”

“That’s the spirit!” Blynn said. “I wanna try, too!”

“What about you, Terra?” Hyren asked.

Terra rubbed her arm. “Ehh… I’ll watch. It’s not really my thing.” She appreciated the value of combat practice, of course, but she greatly preferred sparring sessions with Hyren and Isengrim, because they were actually nice to her and took it easy on her, while still teaching her valuable techniques and skills. She did not have that assurance from a cold, uncompassionate Virtupets machine.

“We always appreciate moral support,” Isengrim said to her. “I fight my best knowing that you’re cheering me on.”

Terra smiled. “Then I’ll put my all into that!”

They spent a fun afternoon in the simulator room, running through a sim that had them battling undead mummies in the Lost Desert, and it was clear that Zoltan was having more fun than he would let on. The only downside was that the simulator, being of Virtupets make, could not handle magic, so Zoltan was relegated to using his scimitar while Blynn relied on her trickery—and her fangs. And Terra did her best to cheer them on. Working together, the four fighters came out on top.

Afterward, they retired to the family’s suite for board games and takeout dinner. This time, Zoltan showed no reluctance to join them.

“You guys,” Terra said as she dug into her salad, “we really did a great job today. You’re all amazing.”

“Thanks!” Blynn said as she piled way too much cream cheese dip onto a cracker, while Zoltan devoured a burrito crammed with beans and cheese.

Hyren looked up from his Deluxe Elephante Burger. “I’m just glad this whole mess is almost over,” he said, wiping ketchup from the corner of his mouth. “From what I’ve seen of the Defenders, I think they can handle Vile no problem once they locate him. And then everything can go back to normal—and we can stop hiding like this.”

“Not just back to normal,” Isengrim said after swallowing a mouthful of a double chicken leg. “Better than before. Because Vile and his operations will no longer have a hold on Neopia.”

“That’s right,” Hyren said. “It feels good to help put an end to that.”

“Let me know when you guys want dessert,” Terra said, glancing over to a bakery box on the counter. “I’m really excited to try that Raspberry Gelert Cake—“

The room went dark.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14