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Prologue
It's happened at last... Come on, admit it, you knew it was coming... It happens
all the time in these types of stories... Impossible to miss really... Things
start to heat up, and then WHAM! You wind up waking up tied to some pole or
chair or something like that in the enemy's office... So now Viper is finally
in the claws of the enemy and things aren't looking too good... This chapter
is once again, COMPLETELY accurate, as I had Viper snag the files for me to
write this with every detail (It was rather hard considering they were locked
in the Police's headquarters, guarded by more security systems than my computer
files)...
Chapter VIII-Truth
I have been here before... realised Viper as
he regained consciousness quite some time later. The scent of the room was so
strong, so familiar.
The mutant groaned painfully. Every square inch
of his body ached and burned. Once again, he felt that he was handcuffed to
a chair, but this time he was blindfolded as well.
Without warning, the blindfold was lifted off
his face. It took a few seconds for his eyes (or rather, eye) to adjust. The
room was hazy and shifted in and out of focus, but at last Viper saw that he
was in a small room with none but a single light on. The chair he was attached
to was sitting behind a table much like the one in the interrogation office.
To the right of the table was a maroon swivel chair with its back turned. It
was facing a complex computer system that Viper doubted that even Einstein couldn't
figure out.
Viper gasped when he saw three Neopets that
he recognised well, standing near the door. One of them was the flame covered
Gelert he'd seen at the pound; another was the cowboy hat-wearin', Texan-Mafia
talkin' Kougra that he'd beat at the Battledome; and one, he'd seen in the water
at the dock. It was himself... except it couldn't be! But it was. The Lupe had
the same scars and even the same bandages.
Noticing that Viper was looking at him, the
double grinned and pulled up the metal shoulder-plate, stretching the strap,
then let it snap back on his shoulder. He was faking the injury!
"WHO ARE YOU!!!" roared Viper, his head fully
clear now, and straightened himself in the chair.
"Why should I tell you my name," asked the leader
coolly, "when you have clearly abused your own?"
The mutant shuddered at the sharpness of the
commander's voice. "What do you-"
"However," interrupted the boss, "as you will not be with us for much longer,
I will... introduce myself." Slowly, very slowly, the chair began to turn around.
First, the right side of a green Shoyru's face was revealed; then, the left
side was uncovered, causing everyone, including his own agents, to flinch. The
entire left side of his face was covered in grotesque burn scars, causing his
eye to be shut to a slit. Also, he had to long canines overlapping his bottom
lip. And that wasn't it. The most frightening thing about him was the fact that
he had no arms, giving him the impression of a terrifying snake.
The boss slid out of his chair, causing the
three agents to back into the wall. Viper wished he could do the same. "The
name's Constrictor, Boa Constrictor." Introduced the commander with the air
of the way James Bond introduced himself on countless occasions. "The leader
of the Serpent Thieves."
"Catchy," growled the Lupe sarcastically, beginning
to lose his fear.
The Shoyru, however, ignored the comment, his
face starting to get dark and angry. Using his powerful tail, Constrictor pulled
open a drawer under his desk and removed a file from it. Written on the front
of it was 'Viper' in quotation marks.
"It seems," explained the commander, opening
the file, "that you started working as an intelligence agent at a very young
age." Viper was puzzled, but he got the feeling that Constrictor knew about
his true identity. The Shoyru removed a paper off the top of the file and looked
at it. "1987." He slammed it hard on the table. On the paper there was a bunch
of complicated information and a picture. A picture of a mutant Lupe. It had
no scars and appeared very young, but Viper could tell that it was, in fact,
him. "Just six months after you were born, you applied for a job at the NSA-the
Neopian Security Agency. To them you gave the name Vali."
He picked up the next paper and slammed it on
top of the other. This one's picture was a picture of an older, more mature
looking Viper. This one had only one scar on his muzzle. "1988. You became an
agent for the NCIA-the Neopia Central Intelligence Agency. You entrusted them
with the name Wolfram."
Constrictor leaned in closer to Viper. "Just
two years later, they both discovered you passing their highly-confidential
intelligence to one another. You were sacked by both the NSA and the NCIA."
For a moment a smirk flickered across his face
as the commander removed a few more papers from the folder and slammed them
down, one after the other. They were old, yellowing posters. 'Wanted' posters.
Each one of them had a photo of Viper on them with incredibly high prize fees.
In these photographs Viper was very scarred, just as he was now. Listed under
the pictures were a variety of charges such as armed robbery and First-degree
murder. "1991 through 2000. That's when you turned criminal. You joined gangs
and even the Neopian Mafia. You used a variety of aliases including the Jackal,
the Ripper, and your favourite, the Viper. I understand you got yourself some
unwanted fame, causing you to abandon your life of crime. You lied low for a
while before joining us, the Serpent Thieves. You kept your old alias and called
yourself Viper. What we didn't know was that the only reason you joined us was
to rid the city of crime! Every time you knew the location of one of our high-level
agents, you'd tip off the police, anonymously of course, and Bam! Just
like that they'd wind up in the slammer! A clever plan, I must admit, but that
wasn't the end of it! On your first field mission, just over a week ago, in
fact, you were working with Draken to steal the Rainbow Swirly Thing from the
Neopian Museum. You succeeded to get it out of the case, but just as you were
about to waltz out of the museum, you tackled Draken, threw aside the Rainbow
Swirly Thing, and sounded the fire alarm, causing him to flee empty-handed.
We had our revenge though, or so we thought. One of our agents drove you off
a dock, and we'd thought you'd drowned. But, no. Afterwards, not even my assassins
succeeded in disposing of you."
Viper's mind was spinning uncontrollably, and
he forgot about his pains and injuries completely. Constrictor had just explained
his forgotten identity, and Viper didn't especially like half of what he had
heard. So he was some sort of criminal? No, he had changed once upon a time.
Then he was some type of hero?
"So what's our mystery-man's real name?" Viper
perked up. "I did some poking around, and guess what I found?" He removed the
final paper from the folder. "A birth certificate, that's what! You're real
name is hmm... let's see... Allegron Khon Lupas!"
"Why didn't the cops find that out?" Viper finally
managed to choke out.
The armless Shoyru snarled and whacked the table
with his tail. "Because you stupid file had more security codes than every computer
system in Neopia put together! It took me four full days to hack into it, and
I'm better than expert!" He chuckled maniacally to himself.
"What do you want of me?" asked Viper, getting
annoyed at Constrictor's super-high self-ego, and the fact that he still hadn't
got to the point of kidnapping him.
"Revenge."
The mutant rolled his blue eyes, well, eye.
"Could you possibly be any more specific!" exclaimed the Lupe sarcastically.
It seemed that no situation, life or death could dampen his sarcastic tone.
The Shoyru growled. "You shall steal the item
that you failed to steal before. The Rainbow Swirly Thing."
Viper snorted. It would have sounded very menacing
except the name 'Rainbow Swirly Thing' sort of ruined the threat. "And why would
I do that?"
Constrictor simpered and, with his tail, pressed
a button on his computer. One of the blank monitors switched on. A room, no,
larger than a walk-in closet appeared. Lying on the room's floor was a human
girl and an electric Eyrie. Raven and Einstein! They both appeared to be out
cold. "Because your dear owner and brother's lives are at stake!"
A boiling fury erupted inside of Viper. "You
do anything to them and I'll-"
"Oh I won't... unless you fail to deliver me
the artefact! Then I will press this little red button, and the fumes of a thousand
Poison Snowballs will be released into the room."
To be continued...
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