It was a not a good day for Nessie. "They freeze my side accounts again… and again… and again… well no more! I QUIT NEOPETS!" Pop! New e-mail! Nessie opened it… "Dear Nessie, You have been selected by Neopets to take part in a very special Beta Test going on in your area. You are the only one selected for this area, so consider yourself very lucky!" Huh? An e-mail from Neopets right after she denounced them? Huh? It felt to Nessie like Neopets were watching her from her screen… it was scary. Nessie kept reading… "You'll be Beta Testing a brand new entertainment experience that lets YOU enter the world of Neopia. You will be able to step into the shoes of great neopets, thanks to the latest technology. We're sure you'll enjoy it!" Attached was a note indicating the date and place of the Beta Test. The plan was set! The day of the test. Nessie had put on some of her favourite clothes, such as her black leather fingerless gloves, comfy shoes, and a white t-shirt reading "THIS T-SHIRT LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK". Oh, her T-shirts were a laugh. She flipped on a baseball cap, and started her journey. After an hour's walk, Nessie had arrived at the address, an unlabelled, inconspicuous white building, with a sign indicating to her a bell to ring, next to a set of frosted sliding doors. *brrrrrrrrrring!* "Are you Nessie?", said a voice coming from an intercom. "Yes… can I come in? I'm here for the Neopets Beta Test." "Yes, please do enter…" The door slid open to reveal a spacious white lobby with strip lighting and a queue snake that wound its way to a long desk at the front, however, the desk was unstaffed. "Don't worry… we're still constructing the building. It will be a lot brighter and bustling once we've opened. Just skip the queue snake and head down the escalator on the far left." In the building's basement, were a series of doors with another empty snake queue leading to them. Nessie approached one, and saw it had a LED panel on it, which read: "THE NEOPETS EXPERIENCE: BETA TEST. For this Beta Test, you will be given the chance to relive the events of several famous Neopets. Yes, you will be stepping into the shoes of one of the following Neopets. It's all up to you. Just touch the one you want, and hit OK. The door will then unlock, revealing a booth. Beyond this is the corridor to Neopia, and to your Neopets Experience." Nessie scrolled through the list. There were plenty of recognisable names there: Jeran, Hannah, Roxton A. Colchester III, Clara Chatham… but the name that took Nessie's eye was Brynn: well, it was pretty much the name on everyone's lips, alongside Hanso and Xandra, after the events of The Faeries' Ruin, and the collapse of Faerieland and its revival. Nessie thought… "Hmm… a great warrior of Brightvale? I'm sure I do need a bit more adventure in my life…" TAP! After a few seconds, the door slid open to reveal a clean white booth with a few scanners on the ceiling and walls. What were they for, wondered Nessie? She entered, and the door slid back, closing her in the booth. Despite being closed in, the room was ventilated, allowing breathing. Suddenly, the scanners engaged! They turned and slid, scanning Nessie from all angles. Why? How would this contribute to the experience? The scanners completed their job and returned to their position, and another door in the cubicle slid open to reveal a plain white tiled corridor. "So this is the corridor to Neopia, huh? Looks pretty bland… let's see where it leads…" Nessie walked down the corridor. It seemed to stretch a mile. On and on she walked, wondering what lay at the end. But as she did so, her pace slowed down. Something was putting weight on her feet. She stopped and looked down at her shoes to see if anything had happened to them… and was amazed to see that the leather was becoming steel. She felt it with her finger. It felt strong, firm, and cold. To test proof of concept, she stepped backwards. The shoes became leather. She stepped forwards, and they firmed up and started to metallise once again. She kept on walking; yet, as she did, she felt a tingle in her feet; it seemed her shoes were starting to grow comfortable, despite their metallisation. She checked them once more, and noticed that they had taken a new shape, more akin to a boot, rising up to below her knee. They were reinforced and armoured around the heel, and she noticed that the toes of the boots were open. Peering at the opening, she noticed her feet were… odd. Her socks seemed to have vanished, revealing three-toed paws coated with orange fur. She touched them with her still-fleshy hands: yup, real fur, real soft. So that explained how comfy the boots were: a soft layer of fur, plus, presumably, the broken socks had merged with the boots to create a soft inner. Nessie kept on walking, thinking about her transformed boots. They continued to envelope her legs, almost up to the knee. Suddenly, something threw Nessie off balance, causing her to fall onto her knees. Curiously, the knee knock on the floor caused no pain. She stood up to inspect her knees, and saw that steel kneepads had risen from inside the boot. The appearance of these must have caused Nessie to tip over in imbalance. Also, her jeans seemed different. She felt them around the knees: they WERE different! They were becoming chain-mail trousers; the fibres of the denim were unravelling, fusing together, and becoming metal chain links. And eventually, as the fusion continued upwards as Nessie walked, the same happened to her T-shirt… in a different way. It seemed to have split into two; she was now starting to be wearing two t-shirts. The inner t-shirt was stretching out longer, and the looser fibres were becoming metal chain links, while the outer t-shirt seemed to be changing colour in patches: green dye was spilling out of nowhere all over it, creating a new pattern: green with a thick white stripe running vertically up the middle. The material seemed to be changing as well, to something more rough and rustic. All the while, Nessie could feel the fur growing up under her new clothes, making wearing chain mail no matter at all. In fact, she really enjoyed the jangle of the mail. Suddenly, she stopped and stooped once more as she felt an odd pressure around her waist. From the back, a tail grew; it slithered out behind her chain-mail shirt, long, orange with purple sprites. She touched it with her fingers, feeling it soft, and wagged it. However, the pressure was still there. She looked down at her outer blouse to see a thick leather belt around her waist. As she walked on, she easily got used to the pressure. Nessie could now make out the end of the corridor, a door with light shining from the edges. As she advanced, so too did her transformation. Her blouse now featured a golden eight-point star on it, and the sleeves seemed to be shortening to non-existence. A second belt had formed, a sash going diagonally around her body. The chain-mail armour was becoming something more substantial around Nessie's neck: plated, with a reinforced steel collar and shoulder pads. Looking at her blouse, she recognised the design and knew instantly what was happening. She was becoming Brynn. She was changing, this was what she had chosen; she was being prepared for Neopia. Orange fur grew down her arms, and she felt weight on them: metal bands were coming into existence. She moved her arms about to get a feel for them. The fur growth snuck under her fingerless gloves, brushing under the smooth black leather, which seemed to melt away into nothing. Her fingers fused together and reseperated to four-fingered paws. The little black leather that was left expanded, thickened, and turned brown, and spread to create thick, fully-fingered, bulky brown gloves. The fur had now reached her face, coating it and changing her head to that of a Kougra's, with a short muzzle, large distinctive ears, and large blue eyes. Her hair started changing, pushing her baseball cap off. It became ginger, and twirled to create a ponytail fastened by a thick green hairband. She looked at her head in a smooth mirrored tile, and swished her hair. She noticed that she had lost her baseball cap, and crouched to pick it up, but instead discovered a helmet with a green feather stuck in the top. She instinctively put it on, and as she did, she felt an immense headache; it seemed to wipe her mind clean… Brynn's headache calmed. Where was she? In some strange white corridor with a door at the end. She looked around over herself… where was her sword? Could it be beyond that door? She opened it and stepped through… She entered a field, ravanged by purple phantomlike monsters. Suddenly, Brightvalian soldiers ran across, shouting "Brynn! Where did you get to?" "We have your sword! Go forth into battle!" Brynn collected the sword. She had fought with it so many times before, it felt at home within her gloves. And with it, she charged into battle. And there was no trace of a door anywhere in that field anymore.