Scenario Dreams 2, Part 1: The Forgotten

 

            "Oh no you don't!" I said, holding out my hand in Spock form and looking my opponent in the eye. The goat facing me calmed down slightly and decided that I was not trying to invade its territory. I breathed a sight of relief. It was a Saturday morning and I was out doing my morning chores, feed the goats, feed the ducks in the goat pen, and make sure there is fresh water out. I held a cup of duck food in my left hand and calmly walked over to the duck pen and musingly wondered to myself why I had adopted such an odd hand signal for calming the goats. I did have an explanation for that, but that was just fragment of dream I remembered having one night when I had somehow fallen asleep outside during a surprise snowstorm. "There you go ducks." I said, pouring the food into their trough. The older ones quacked and the younger ones squeaked in delight, all feasting on the grain that I had put out. They were really fun to watch but I knew I had to get everything ready for the big tournament I was going to today.

            Every week I like to go to a card tournament. I have to drive a far piece to get there and the road is a bit curvy at a few points, but it is well worth it. Springtime had come and the weather was excellent. It was cool outside but not too cold so I wore my favorite blue and yellow jacket. I went inside and grabbed my keys and my cards then hopped in my truck and drove off.

            I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but there had been something odd about things in general lately. I felt... odd, almost as if I wasn’t really myself. Of course all this I merited to the change in weather, sure I created scenarios of my story being true but I was far to practical for such things as to actually believe them.

            In my dreaming I had failed to notice that I had taken a wrong turn onto a road right beside a long cliff going downward. The road was much more curvy than my usual route and though it was a shorter distance it would take a lot longer to get there this way. At that moment I noticed something out of the corner of my eye in the cliff, kinda reddish in color. The entire truck shook from an impact and went off the road. As you can imagine I was greatly panicked. The vehicle reached the bottom of the hill, a crumpled mess. I opened my eyes and found that I was not injured at all, not even a scratch. I looked in the passenger side to find that my backpack with all my cards was torn to pieces and all my cards were gone. How irritating. With ease I pushed the side of the door out from the truck and exited. The thing was completely decimated. Remembering that there was a possibility of it exploding I ran away as fast as possible, slamming right into a small tree and knocking myself silly.

            "Well, that was intelligent, wasn’t it, Jay" I said to myself. Looking back it seemed the truck was fine, I decided to leave it and seek some assistance though, just in case.

            A few hours later I arrived at a small gas station in the north side of the city I was going to. I really didn’t want to be there, not all that great of a neighborhood. I had no money on me. That too had been thrown out in the crash. In the station I was able to call for someone to get the truck out and have someone to come and pick me up and go back home, it would be pointless to try to compete now.

            I felt a small tap on my shoulder and turned around to see some raggedly dressed man holding a knife. "Give me your money, and I will let you go free." He said to me in his snarlish, snide voice. I tried my best to explain that I had no money but he cut me off saying, "No money, eh? Looks like there’s nothing to save you then." With that he attacked. I couldn’t say much for his fighting skills, not all that great, but he did have a knife. I managed to dodge out of the way once or twice but he then got a solid scrape to my hand. To my eternal amazement the steel blade barely scratched my skin. With this I delivered a quick chop to his head and knocked him out cold.

            As I was walking away from the scene I couldn’t help thing how odd this day was going. First I survive a terrible crash off the side of a cliff, then I find my skin to be able to resist the blade of a sharp knife, then I deliver a one hit KO to a frenzied maniac. All that and not to mention the odd thing that had caused my truck to go out of control in the first place, it had felt almost like an attack of some sort. I decided to brush all this off and mention as little of it as possible. The rest of the day was completely normal, got a ride home, played on the computer some, and go to bed early.

            The weekend passed and school started again. All my classes were relatively easy and school passed in no time. After school was my first track meet. I got dressed and headed over to the competition area. I had decided this year to try my luck at the long jump. I hadn’t really been able to practice my form for lack of facilities, and my preliminary distance was only 13 or 14 feet. I approached the stands, my coach right beside me and I watched the other events run.

            "Jay, your not actually going to try something you haven’t tried before after your record last year are you?" The coach said to me. It was true, last year I had run the 400m dash, coming in last place by 25-50 meters every time. I guess I was just there out of will and to be the entertainer again.

            "I suppose I have no choice at this point," I said, "the event is about to begin and I am already here."

            With that I walked over to the track. The run to the sand was somewhat odd. Instead of running sideways like in a standard track I was to run in the direction of the bleachers. After a few moments went by I was called up. You can imagine how nervous I was; the people in front of me had done much better than even my best jumps so far. I though to myself, "You must run as fast as possible. When the sand comes, fly. Don’t worry about competition, just do the best you can possibly do." Praying for a miracle I started my dash. The sand came up much faster than I expected it to. I reached the line and jumped closing my eyes as I went into the air.

            A few seconds passed and I opened my eyes, very confused. The ground was many meters below me and I had cleared the sand, still advancing in flight. Looking ahead I saw the stands approaching and a crowd of people running from their seats. Screaming all the while as I hit the metal bench, bending it greatly but being unharmed myself. All eyes were on me, as if I had just... well, jumped from the ground into the stands at a high speed. I grabbed my bag with all my normal clothes and my jacket and ran away from there, not stopping to look back.

            Along the side interstate I ran, my mind filled with questions that had no answer, "What is going on? How did I get like this? Why am I just showing these abilities now?" I watched the traffic pass behind as I was outrunning the cars. A police officer turned on his siren but in panic I outran even that. By the time I arrived home I was almost in tears. Everyone was looking for me, and I knew they would ask me the same things that I couldn’t answer myself. I got back into my outfit, green collared shirt, jeans, jacket, and my favorite shoes. Grabbing another bag I packed much food and some book about edible things in the wild. I had to get away; no one could know where to find me.

            I left the house, not knowing when, or if ever I would see it again. If I had only known how dramatically right I was. For days I walked, taking small roads and back paths. Sleeping in the tops of trees, finding myself able to climb with much more ease due to some kind of strength boost. When I did go into an inhabited area it was only for a short while. All the newspapers and television stations had my picture and a version of the track incident. It is usually not like me to avoid society in such a way, but I had so many things on my mind that I really didn’t care.

            Many days passed until I came to a cave north of my hometown location. I decided that it would make a good spot to reside away from sight. There were plenty of edible herbs around and there was a small stream nearby. Life became easier, my own story was getting less and less attention until I could finally visit the nearest small town and become a bit more social. One day however, in the late spring something very peculiar happened.

            I was out picking berries to sell at the local market when some weird blue swirly thing appeared in front of me. The enigma of such an occurrence caught me off guard. Perhaps I had completely forgotten about my own freakishness. Ignoring it I went on back to my cave. The vortex followed. I started to run. It still followed at the same speed. Running now at close to 100mph I jumped off the side of a rock high into the air. There was no luck; the vortex positioned itself to catch me in my fall. All around me time and space seemed to bend in an unnatural way. I felt myself being dragged away from anywhere that seemed even close to familiar in this wormhole like environment. Minutes passed and an unnaturally sky blue light appeared in front of me. I went into the light and emerged crashing into perfectly green grass. It was then, from a mixture of fatigue and shock that I completely passed out.

            Dreams filled my mind. I was in a unbearably scary place. The ground was as black as the darkest night. The sky above me was the same, with traces of crimson red. I was not alone; there were four others with me. Before I had a chance to see who they were I started to drift slowly back into reality.

            "Hey, come over here, check this thing out." I heard, still a bit dazed.

            "Whoa, what do you think it is? Do you think it's alive?" another voice said.

            "I don’t know. It does look a bit like an owner though." The first voice replied.

            "No way! Owners aren’t real, he must be some kind of weird looking Tiki Tack Man."

            At this I moved my head slightly. I immediately heard two small creatures jump back in surprise. "Did you see that?"

            "Yeah, Hello there… whatever you are. Are you okay?"

            I opened my eyes and looked up at the two voices. The first voice belonged to some large cat like thing with huge paws. The other voice belonged to a creature that looked like a dog with very odd long ears that ended in what seemed to be a very long point. The both of them were sandy in fur color and wore islandish accessories. "What on earth are you?" I asked sitting up slightly.

            They both backed off very startled and then ran off. "It is an owner!" the dog said. "I told you so." said the cat. Needless to say I was even more confused that this point. Getting up and brushing myself off I examined the area around me. I was in some kind of grove of a jungle. From behind a few of the trees I heard the sounds of waves crashing. I walked over to the trees and looked through them. There was a beach with many strange creatures walking around. A moment or so of pondering went by and I remembered something that I had almost completely forgotten about since the track meet. Those creatures were neopets! There were lupes, myncis, kyriis, a few draiks and krawks, gelerts, and many, many kougras like the one I had seen earlier. There was no possible way this was happening… yet it was.

            I took the inside of the woods, constantly watching the beach until I saw a humanoid figure at some kind of stand. "Yay, I am not the only human here!" I said excitedly as I rushed toward the figure to greet him. Hearing the noise of me coming the man turned around to reveal that he had a wooden mask on.

            "Ahhh!!! What on earth is that thing?" He yelped out in surprise, backing over into the display, knocking over many different bottles of sand, a few worthless trinkets, and one or two codestones.

            "Wait, don’t be afraid! I... I don’t know how I got here, can you help me?" I said slowing to a dead halt. By this time I had realized that the one whom I was talking to was none other than the Tiki Tack Man, a native to Neopia.

            "You, you are lost?" he said, "I have never seen such as you before." his mask kinda freakishly changed from surprise to a grin, "I can see that you are similar to myself in a way, but I cannot help you. It took ages for the residents here to become used to me, the out of place one. The only advice I have is to search the beaches. There is one house here whose residents are very peculiar. It is rumored that they once left Neopia and came back with paranormal powers. It will be a plain hut with a little anubis guarding it. I am afraid there is nothing more I can say to advise you. Please go now, and stay out of sight. If someone sees you there will be trouble."

            "Odd... family?" I questioned to myself, "Umm... thank you for your help, I will be leaving now." I said aloud. A couple of tourist chias were heading toward the display, which I now recognized at the tombola stand, so I ran back to the cover of the trees. Hours passed by in my search. I had never imagined Mystery Island to be so huge. At last I came to a small hut on a deserted section of the beach. Lying asleep in front of the house was a small desert shoyru.

            The world around me faded and for just a second or so I saw something, almost as an echo from the past, or perhaps future. A battle was going on between two good friends. On the sidelines was a juvenile shoyru, not a child, yet not yet fully grown. I reached out the part the bush to see better. My hands... they were silver...

            The vision ended just as quickly as it started. "What was that?" I wondered to myself, "Have I gone crazy or something?"

            It really didn’t matter at this point. I had to find out what it was about this shoyru that had caused such a reaction. As quietly as I could I cantered over toward the sleeping creature. He was still young, though not as young as the one I had seen. Suddenly something pounced me. I fell over and was being held down somehow by an insanely strong anubis. The little desert petpet barked loudly, waking the shoyru. Upon seeing me he yelped himself for a second before gathering his wits.

            "Scout, down. He is a friend." He instructed. The anubis barked playfully and hopped off. "Strong little pup you have there." I said dusting myself off and getting into a sitting position, eye level with the standing shoyru.

            "Yes, Norvil did good training him to be a guard dog. How exactly did you get back to this RP, Jay?" He asked me.

            "RP? You mean Role-play?" I asked confusedly. It then dawned on me, "Hey! How do you know my name?"

            The shoyru looked at me oddly. He sat down and sighed, "Not Role-play, Reality Plane. I don’t see how you could forget me, we did go on an awfully massive adventure once."

            "Reality Plane? Adventure?" The past events were becoming all too frazzled. Any question I asked only gave way to hundreds more. "What is your name?"

            He quirked a brow, "I’m Lonely of course."

            Now that rung a bell. Lonely was one of my pets in neopets, and also one of my favorite role-play characters. "Lonely_Shoyru2000!"

            "Yes, finally, he remembers me! Now, surely the Guardian of the RPs has some task that needs to be done, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

            Before that last remark all the senselessness was starting to make sense. Sure, I could accept the fact that Neopia was real. I could understand this little dog was stronger them me. And I could understand a bit about Lonely being a real shoyru. The one thing that made no sense was the whole Guardian and RP stuff.

            Lonely caught my confusion, "Uh, oh. You have no idea what I am talking about do you. That would explain you not knowing me or recognizing what an RP is. Apparently, though you have much of your strength and speed of the Guardian, you haven’t gotten your memory back. There must be something seriously wrong if that is the case."

            "I'd say there is something wrong. If what you say is true and I have lost some of my memory, how do you think I should go about getting it back?"

            "We have to find Norvil and Malee, then the three of us can make a portal to the RP garden. Lets find Norvil first. He is the easiest to locate in his little cabin at Terror Mountain. He also has taken up potion making so that would really come in handy here."

            I honestly couldn’t understand why the fact that Norvil had become a potion maker would help out, but I nodded anyways. "How are we to get there? This is Mystery Island; Terror Mountain is on the other side of Neopia... I think."

            "Oh that’s no problem at all, thanks to you anyways." Lonely said, his eyes starting to glow sky blue. This character was starting to scare me slightly; he seemed to know more about me than I knew of myself. Suddenly Lonely’s body began to emit tons of sky blue light, which to my best guess was air elemental energy. The energy stopped and curved back toward him, starting to change him dramatically. His skin, usually the color of the desert sands, became a brilliant shade of sky blue. Markings appeared on him, the shape and color of lightning in the sky. Most impressive of all his dragon-like shoyru wings started sprouting hundreds and hundreds of pure white feathers until he had massive wings as a bird. The transformation stopped, I myself had backed off a piece during this, I wasn’t sure whether it was out of fright or awe.

            "Oh, don’t worry," He said, his eyes seemingly nothing but sky blue light, "I wont hurt you. You see after you left and we had out elemental abilities given to us we discovered a way to concentrate them, turning ourselves into pure elements of the type we used. They are a relatively difficult to cancel though and a few of them have ill side effects, but they are useful nonetheless. Ready to go?"

            Nervously I nodded. Lonely smiled in response, "Lets see, to help to carry you I think I will use... Wind Shell!" In saying wind shell his words became odd, as if they were echoing across space. Nothing seemed to happen for a second, but then I felt a breeze. The winds picked up around me and started to swirl. I was picked up off the ground and a solid shell of air energy surrounded me. Lonely hopped up into the air with ease and took off, taking me with him.

            At first I was really nervous, I never have liked heights all that much, but once I saw the view all my worries went away. Below me flashed beautiful ocean views. Packs of flotsam jumped in route to who knows where. Pteris flew the air, looking for a place to land. We passed slightly over a beautiful city on the clouds. Little creatures that looked like fairies darted in and out and around the buildings. "Watch out!" Lonely said down to me as he veered to the right. My shell hit something that didn’t seem to be there and then went on. "How curious," I though to myself, "I didn’t see anything but this thing definitely his some kind of building." More ocean view passed until we reached a snowy region. Down below I saw wockys and bruces ice skating on eternally frozen ponds. I saw a little cave with much activity going on inside. I even saw an elaborate mansion sitting on top of one of the tallest mountains. Lonely passed all of these until we reached the rural area. Down below was a quaint little village. Lonely slowed down some and dropped altitude, flying low over the village and to some kind of path. The only thing of major note on the path was an unnaturally large hot spring. It looked almost as if someone had designed it to be there. Finally we reached a small cabin in the middle of a flat stretch of land. Looking in the window I saw what looked like a desert aisha.

            It happened again. The world blanked out and I was in a dark dank place. There were crates around and knocked out on the floor was what looked like a bladed monster from another planet. I saw an aisha sitting in front of some kind of computer system, without looking up it said, "Yes, It's me. I have been trapped down here hiding for quite a while now. Whoever these… things are they sure have some cool technology...There, I sabotaged all the data in their system, I am ready to leave now."

            It stopped. I saw Air Lonely standing over me, looking at me with those eerie eyes. "You okay, Jay? You passed out for a second. It was probably just flight sickness or something. Lets go inside." I looked around. I was sitting on a bank of snow in front of the hut. It was really cold out, I was glad I had brought my jacket. Getting up I dusted the snow off and followed Lonely, who opened the door of the cabin.

            "Lonely?" I heard a voice inside say, "Don’t tell me you used your air form just to get to my cabin. I still say all three of you are crazy. Our abilities were a gift; we shouldn’t be going and manipulating them to create new abilities. Besides, look what happens to Malee when something goes wrong in his elemental transformation. Hoy, I guess y'all will never learn." A voice inside lectured Lonely. "Take a subdue potion and go back to normal, shut that door too, my Infernostone heater cant heat all of Terror Mountain... well I guess it could but I’m not going to modify it to do so." I saw a small orange potion fly into Lonely's hands. He drank it and immediately he went back to his normal desert shoyru self.

            "Umm... Norvil, we have a bit of an odd situation here." Lonely said as I walked into the room, bumping my head on the ceiling in the process. I sat down on the floor and looked around. There were many chemistry supplies around and a few crates; one caught my attention in particular. It was a black chest that was tightly locked, bolted, and chained. I could only wonder what was inside. To my left beside a one-person bed was a doublewide staircase leading down to who knows where. In front of me standing at a table that had even more potion making supplies was a desert aisha, whom I had to suppose was Norvil.

            "Yaah! How'd he get here? You didn’t call him did you?" Norvil said, shocked at my appearance. Lonely shook his head.

            "He just appeared here in Neopia. He has no memory of us, or any of our past adventures. I was thinking that we should find Malee so we can take him to the Ellimist to figure out what is going on." Lonely explained.

            "That could be a problem. Neither of us has seen Malee since he gave you his weapons and said he was quitting the battledome. Even more of a problem is trying to find him with the obvious owner here. That one however I think I can fix..." Norvil said. That last sentence had a mysterious voice infliction in it, made me a bit uneasy. Norvil walked over to the black chest that I had noticed earlier. Minutes passed as he opened locks after locks. Finally the chest opened to reveal tons of differently colored potions. He looked around a bit inside until he found what he was looking for. "Ah, this'll do. Drink this, Jay." He said tossing me a silverish potion.

            I caught it gently. The bottle it was in was only large enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Seemingly it was supposed to be swigged. I really was unsure about drinking that thing, but with both Lonely and Norvil there I felt I didn’t have much of a choice. I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, uncorked the potion and drank it. Very tart... followed by a falling sensation. Wait? A falling sensation? I looked around me as the room seemed to grow bigger. My sight became much keener as my eyes grew. I felt something come out from my back. My middle finger and index finger fused, as did my ring finger and small finger, seemingly keeping them eternally in the "Spock" hand position. My skin started to sine and change color. After I felt myself stop changing I stood up, the ceiling now well over my head. Norvil showed me to a mirror and I looked inside. There I saw myself as a silver shoyru. The shock of this caused me to faint on the spot.

            In my unconscious state I dreamt of an unknown past. I was in some construction area at night. There were five others with me of my same size... then there was some kind of alien. He held a bluish box in his hand and we all touched it. Everyone else got blue hands, mine flashed green and I started to change into a desert shoyru...

            I woke up with a start. I pulled off the covers and breathed a sigh of relief. "All the madness of the past weeks has been nothing but a dream." I thought to myself, getting out of the bed onto a cold floor. "Wait? I have carpet in my room, the floor shouldn’t be cold" I thought again looking around. Alas, there were Lonely and Norvil standing there. I looked down at my hands. As I halfway expected at that point they were silver with three fingers on each. Norvil and Lonely looked at each other sensing my emotions.

            "What was that potion you gave me? Is it... permanent?" I asked

            "No, don’t worry. It's just one of my weeklong Morphing potions. As long as we can find Malee within 7 days you should be completely fine with anyone who hasn’t had contact with the owners as we have." Norvil replied calmly.

            "A WEEK!!! I am stuck like this for a week?" I exclaimed.

            Lonely stepped in, "I kinda know how you feel, Norvil once accidentally got me with a week long lupe MP, luckily my good friend Exo was there with me and took the potion as well to keep me company. It was a long week, but by the end of it we liked our lupe forms so much that we had Norvil make a potion from some really rare ingredients that would allow us to become lupes any time we wanted.

            "I... remember a bit... that was a neat week to RP..." I said, feeling a bit homesick.

            "Hmm… hey, quite a snooze you had. You were out for hours. Have any dreams?" Lonely asked, trying to change the subject.

            "Yeah, not the first one either. Ever since I came to Neopia I have been seeing bits of... something. I cant quite put all the pieces together though." I said stretching my new wings.

            "That is odd, we had better head out, no use wasting our time talking." Lonely said. At that moment a Halloween krawk burst in through the door. The most obvious detail about him was that he wore a sheathed sword on his back. He looked familiar in some odd way. I looked up and saw a little green dogglefox resting on his head. The dogglefox immediately jumped off of the krawk and happily bounced over to Norvil, promptly chewing on his ear.

            "Hey, cut that out Pine, Norvil isn't a chew toy." The krawk said. He then noticed me, "Oh hello there. Visiting Norvil I assume. Don’t doubt it, anyone who knows him knows that Kauvara has nothing on his skills."

            "Bremen," Norvil said, "for the last time it's not necessarily my skills are that much better than Kauvara, it’s just that I have access to much better ingredients. That silver shoyru is Jay."

            "Ah nice to meet you, Jay." He said shaking my hand while I stood there dumbfounded, "My name is Bremen and that little creature there is my very own petpet, Pine. You are lucky you don’t have ears, Pine loves to chew on people's ears."

            "Wait," I said suddenly remembering something from my RPing days, "I think I know you... Bremen_of_Fire! Yes, You are Lonely's partner, right. After he saved you from some zombies in the haunted woods and helped you learn about friendship you have almost become part of the family."

            Bremen just stood there, his jaw dropped slightly, "How do you know me? I haven’t met you before have I?"

            Yet again Lonely stepped in to help explain, "Well... do you remember me telling you that Norvil, Malee, and I had once gone on some huge adventure with the Guardian of the RPs?" Bremen nodded slightly. "And do you remember us taking you to the RP temple which further proved our story and gave you your fire abilities?" Again Bremen nodded. "Well, this Jay here is really the Guardian of the RPs, though most of him memory is fried so we have to try to find Malee so the three of us can form a portal to the garden." Lonely finished.

            "Whoa, cool! I never though I would get to meet the Guardian you were telling me about. Its an honor to meet you sir." He said to me.

            "Umm... no need to be formal," I said, "I have never been one to let some random fact go to my head. Do you know anything bout Malee's whereabouts?"

            "Oh yes indeed. I remember him saying that he was going to go to some kind of island eyrie clan to meet someone who had helped get him out of his Dark elemental transformation. I think it was Karinet or something. It seemed really odd to me, I though lupes didn’t get along with eyries. I could be wrong though."

            "Of course!" Lonely interjected, "Amras was one of the key parts of our plan for saving Malee, he probably went to Karambeht. Lets go!"

            "Don’t forget me!" Norvil said as he rushed over, "If we do find Malee You will also need me to help open the portal."

            With that we all stepped outside. Without my coat on it was even colder than I expected. Norvil locked up the cabin and said, "I wish I had something a bit better to guard this place, to many valuable things in there.

            "Why don’t we leave Pine behind, he could be a good guard." Bremen suggested. Norvil assented to that. I couldn’t tell whether he though Bremen was right or if he just wanted to avoid having to deal with Pine the entire trip.

            "Everyone gather in, I’m going to take us all to Karambeht island clan." Lonely said. "Teleport!" He shouted, again in that odd echo voice. Suddenly it became much warmer. There were trees all around us and green grass below our feet/paws. "Hey, why didn’t you just do that when you were taking me to Norvil's cabin, Lonely?" I asked.

            "Erm... I guess I kinda forgot, it was a fun ride though, right?" Lonely replied, blushing a bit from embarrassment.

            We started walking around a bit. It was somewhat like Mystery Island, but a lot less noisy. You could much more easily hear the sounds of nature without all the tourism. Bremen had stayed back a bit to grab some fruit off one of the trees. Norvil had us all stop without warning.

            "Someone else is here." He said.

            I stopped in my tracks, "How can you tell? I don’t see anyone."

            Norvil smiled a bit at me and said, "What? You think that my two extra ears are there for decoration?"

            Before we had gotten more than two steps farther a green eyrie dropped down from the trees. He wielded a bow and quiver both held on his back. He seemed almost itching to use them. Looking sharply at us he said, "Who are you three? Your entrance here was next to impossible not to notice, the teleportation maneuver precedes its destination with a loud boom."

            Lonely looked at his feet and said to the rest of us, "Erm... it seems I forgot about that one too."

            At that moment Bremen returned, carrying tons of fruit in one hand, and in the other his sword. Now that the sword was unsheathed I noticed something very peculiar, the blade was covered in pure fire. He noticed the eyrie and sheathed his sword, exclaiming happily, "Amrond, It’s been a while, how have you been."

            Amrond grinned slightly at seeing Bremen, "If you are friends of the crazy krawk then I guess you are fine. Bremen once gave me a bunch of odd rocks that worked extremely well in a few of my arrows. I think my brother said they were called glowrocks. What brings you here anyways?"

            Lonely looked up again and addressed Amrond while Bremen rejoined our group, munching away at the fruit, "Well, we are looking for my brother, Malee, and were wondering if you knew where he was."

            Amrond seemed to immediately know who we were talking about, "Yes, I know Malee he is a friend of my brother, Amras. Follow me and I will take you to them." With that he jumped up into the trees and started a combination of running and flying through the branches. I did my best to keep up but couldn’t quite do it on foot. Finally Lonely grabbed me by the arm and took off flying, dragging me through the air. The other two being natural ground creatures could keep up with ease. We arrived at a small clearing where a blue eyrie and electric lupe sat talking.

            Yet again and hopefully for the last time I lost consciousness. I was in some kind of templish place. There in front of me a golden chomby walked up to a pedestal. A voice from nowhere spoke to him, "Malee, heart of conflict...To you I will grant abilities of the light. The only problem is that when I do this, you will also unintentionally create a few abilities of the darkness. It is up to you to keep these in balance and not let the darkness overcome you." The chomby looked slightly disturbed as he glowed and got a mark of green and blue fire on the back of his right hand.

I woke up suddenly and looked very carefully at the lupe. There on his right forepaw, quite distinctly, was a mark of green and blue fire.

"That has to be Malee!" I said aloud to myself. Lonely and the others looked at me and I looked at their hands/paws as well. On the back of Lonely's right hand was a green triforce with a blue center. On the back of Norvil right forepaw was what looked like a green book with blue pages. Upon looking at Bremen I saw nothing but a krawk with fruit stains all over his mask.

"Apparently Bremen wasn’t with me when we were all sent to different RPs" I said aloud. Now Lonely and Norvil really stared at me, and Malee stopped his conversation in the middle of a sentence. I wondered to myself how I knew what I had just said and I could tell that Norvil and Lonely were thinking the same thing.

            "Jay?" Malee said, walking over, "Is that you?" I was seriously confused, if this was Malee then why was he not a chomby as I had seen in my dream. Malee sensed my confusion and said, "Yes, its me. I quit the lab and settled in as a lupe. It is a very nice form I'd say, a lot more versatile too. So in any case, what brings you to our RP?"

            This time Norvil broke his silence streak by jumping in and explaining everything. Malee looked somewhat worried, Amrond looked nothing but confused, and Amras seemed to know exactly what was going on for some odd reason. "Well we should probably be going as soon as possible." Malee said as he bid the two eyries farewell.

            Malee Norvil and Lonely gathered in a circle and closed their eyes. They each held out the paw/hand that had the various markings on them. Slowly a green and blue swirly thing appeared out of nowhere, just hovering in front of them. It very much reminded me of what had brought me to Neopia in the first place. All the others jumped in immediately as I hesitantly walked over. Amrond was even more shocked than before and Amras mused quietly but audibly, "Be brave Malee, don’t fear if my other self is somehow involved in this." With that I jumped up and into the vortex myself.

            Again I was in that odd area where space and time bent over and under and around and even in directions I hadn’t even realized existed. Ahead of me I saw the exit and was dragged into it. I landed on some kind of marble pathway. Looking around I saw... a dying garden. I looked down at the marble. Even that was dull and worn. All the flowers around were wilting and the grass was brown, as if it had been winter for weeks. The temperature was fine, but there was no sun, only a glow around, like the Earth on a cloudy day. All the others looked flabbergasted; I could tell immediately that there was something very wrong about this place. There were areas that looked like they had once been beautiful fountains but now had run dry. In the middle of the garden I saw the only think that looked like it was still somewhat close to its optimal condition, a large building made from pure marble. The glass on the building was decorative, but whatever had caused the garden to loose its glow had affected the glass as well.

            In the dismal scenery we all started walking to that one remaining structure, each and every one of us with a solemn countenance. Slowly walking up to the solid oak door we all pushed it open and walked in. The inside was very interesting to see. It looked old and worn at the point at which we entered, but slowly as we went further toward the back of the one room it started to look more and more well kept. There in the back of the place was a pedestal with what looked like an old elf sitting next to it. As we walked close to him he raised his head and smiled. I could tell that he as well was weakened by the condition.

            "Welcome, Guardian. I wasn’t sure if you would be able to find me. As you can see something has happened that has weakened my influence over the Reality Planes, making them very susceptible to attack. Some... outside force has sent minions to the four RPs that you visited in saving your friends. From there the minions are beginning to start massive chaos, and are somehow channeling it to be used almost as a weapon. I will need you to re-visit all of those affected RPs and get rid of the minion unleashed on its peace. Have you any questions before you go?" I heard him say in some powerful and unexplainable voice.

            "Why can I not remember you? I am completely lost on what I am supposed to do. All I know is that I recently got some superhuman abilities in speed, agility, strength, and resilience, then I somehow got transported to Neopia where I turned into what I am now thanks to Norvil. What is wrong with me?" I almost exploded out, hoping to finally find my answer.

            "Alas, it seems that it was even more fortunate than I thought that you arrived here. In my weakened state I tried to give you every advantage possible to get you here where my power was strongest. Your memory seems one of the things that I have yet to awaken. You will remember everything now." The creature said as he started to emit blue light concentrating on me. Now I blacked out again.

            Scenes and images flashed before my eyes like lightning. An odd spaceship... desert shoyru wings... Visser three... Golden Guardian... Guardian of the RPs. Lonely... Norvil... Malee... Kargupi... they were all my partners... I saw fierce battle with Dr. Sloth... A shapeless evil high on a throne... The Sage of Chaos... My friends all gone... Animorphs RP... Hyrule... Middle Earth... Alternate Earth... Finally I saw a flash of light from Norvil and Malee, My staff became a sword and I thrust it into the heart of chaos... I depart, my powers dormant, my memory gone... I recognize it only as a dream...

            I woke up, remembering every detail of my past, understanding fully my mission. Concentrating I shed my shoyru form. I grew taller, a silken mithril tunic covered my skin and pants of the same make. On my feet appeared Hylian style boots. My ears appeared again and became pointed, like those of the Ellimist. My eyes became smaller, but more powerful as they obtained their green color. A silver sash appeared around my waist. My hand reformed into normal, though now a green staff mark could be seen on the back of my right hand. I was the Guardian, and I was ready to protect the very thread of something even more complex than time itself.

            Lonely, Norvil and Malee smiled at this. I wondered where Bremen had gone off to and I saw him unconscious on the floor. I really couldn’t blame him. If I had seen someone do what I just did for the first time I would probably faint as well. "Hmm, this might be a good way for me to test out my powers to make sure they still work." I said aloud to myself. I held up my hands and touched the mark on the back of my right hand. Immediately a green staff with a deep blue shard attacked to the top appeared in it. Touching Bremen on the head with the shard I said, "Full restore". Bremen woke up immediately and got up, brushing himself off.

            "Whoa, I just had the weirdest dream," he said obviously not noticing me yet, "I dreamt that this silver shoyru transformed into some kind of freaky looking owner right in front of me." He started pointing to everyone in the group, "You were there Lonely, and you too Norvil, also you Malee, and you..." He stopped suddenly getting to me on his little list. His eyes widened considerably, "It wasn’t a dream... was it?" He asked. I shook my head.

            "Hey, Mr. Ellimist, Can we go too?" Lonely asked excitedly.

            "I am afraid I can only transport one right now. Once the Guardian fixes all four RPs I can let all of you help him track down who caused all this. For now you can stick around here and wait, watch the temple slowly regain its beauty as chaos is suppressed. I believe that there should be no more questions, it is time for you to go Guardian, I wish you luck."

            I nodded. I was kinda sad that my newly rediscovered friends couldn’t come, but I was really happy that I could do something to help. It had been way too long since I had been able to surf the RPs. Waving goodbye to everyone I held out my hand in Spock form, aiming it at the Animorphs RP, the one I had visited first in the search for my friends. A green vortex formed in front of me. Remembering that I may want to be able to take whatever came my way with the best agility possible I switched to silver shoyru again and jumped in.