Tournament of Anime Heroines
Part 4: Legends of the Hidden Temple
Six lightning bolts struck the center of an ancient, circular room. When the bolts disappeared, the other six contestants appeared in their place. Kagome, Sango, Zoey, Sakura, Pan, and Sailor Moon found themselves in the center of what appeared to be an ancient temple. They stood in a circular, adobe room with vines growing from the wall. The dim light of torches illuminated the room, revealing six stone doors in the room.
Just then, The Mistress of Games magically appeared atop a small pedestal in the room's center. Everyone focused their attention on her.
"Welcome, fellow champions, to the second test," she announced, "the Test of Smarts!"
She held her arms in the air.
"You now stand in the center of an ancient temple" she said, "A mystifying labyrinth littered with hazardous traps, challenging obstacles, wild animals, and mind-boggling puzzles. You challenge is to navigate your way through here and find a way out. My advice: Keep on your toes, physically and mentally. This challenge is meant to challenge your body and your mind. Trying to take an easy way through the temple, such as transportation or blowing down walls, is strictly forbidden. Other than that, anything goes! Six of you shall enter, only four shall exit!"
With that, the Mistress laughed loudly and maniacally, disappearing in thin air. The others just watched in wonder.
Suddenly, the six doors began to open. The others were startled by this. The doors finally opened wide with large, stony "clangs".
"READY!" the Mistress proclaimed, "GO!"
With that, Sakura, Zoey, Sailor Moon, and Pan each raced to a door. Upon their entrances through the doors, the doors slammed shut behind them. Now only two were left. Kagome and Sango faced each other momentarily.
"Good Luck!" Kagome said, racing to one door.
"You Too!" Sango said, racing to another.
The two girls ran through the doors, making the doors behind them shut closed.
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Sango jogged through the maze, studying the different passageways carefully. When she reached a crossroads, she carefully checked down each hallway, and choose one cautiously. She traveled here and there through the ancient ruin.
In a few minutes, Sango made it to one particular hallway. She took one step; and suddenly, a razor-sharp pendulum came flying at her. She leaned back quickly, dodging the ever close blade. Any closer and she would have been done for.
Just as the pendulum made a full swing, five more pendulums appeared in a row. They swung back-and forth in a melodic pattern. The hallway was now blocked off by the pendulums.
Sango watched them carefully. She thought about timing them carefully and trying to make a run for it. But as she looked, she can see no clear pathway at anytime.
She made another decision. She thought of cutting away the pendulums using her boomerang. She quickly pulled out her boomerang Hiraikotsu and flung it forward. The boomerang flew towards the pendulums. Unfortunately, the boomerang bounced off of the first pendulum's beam. Obviously the beams holding the pendulums were too strong for the Hiraikotsu to cut through.
Sangro tried another plan of action. She walked back a few paces, and then charged forward. She then leapt into the air and landed atop the first pendulum. She straddled the beam as the pendulum swung. She braced herself and made a leap to another pendulum. She landed safely upon it, bracing it as it swung. She continued on, sucessfully jumping from pendulum to pendulum.
She managed to make it across the hall and landed safely on the floor. She got up and walked out the door.
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Meanwhile, in another part of the labyrinth, Sailor Moon walked casually through the many passages. She looked here and there in curiosity. She then stopped before a three way intersection. She stared obliviously at all three passages. She then pointed at one.
"Eeenie!" she said, moving her finger to the other, "Meenie, Minnie, MO!"
She pointed at one of the passages. She cheered and charged inside.
Seconds later, she ran out of it screaming and flailing her arms in fright. A gush of water surged out from the passage.
"NOT MOE! NOT MOE!" she screamed.
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On the other side of the labyrinth, Sakura raced down the ever twisting passageways. She turned this way and that. She then came upon a particular hallway. Sakura stopped in her tracks. Inside the hall were many lasers that crisscrossed the hallway's path. They would move, each beam crossing one another.
Sakura studied the laser beams carefully. She then took a few steps backwards. Suddenly, she dashed forward and leapt into the air. She somersaulted, cart-wheeled, and tumbled through and past the lasers. She gracefully avoided the laser beams, not going through a single one.
She reached the end of the hallway and landed upon her feet gracefully. She then dashed out the door.
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Zoey, meanwhile, navigated the labyrinth. After many minutes of wandering aimlessly through the passages, she came upon a hallway with a pit that separated one end from another. Inside the pit were a plethora of snakes, crawling all over one another. Zoey twitched in fear and disgust. She then surveyed the hallway carefully.
She then ran to the pit's edge and jumped. She leapt towards the left wall. When near, she kicked it, sending her to the right wall on the other side. She wall jumped her way across the pit in no time flat. She landed on the other side safely.
Feeling relived, she continued on her way.
Unfortunately for her, she stepped on a rigged floor tile. When activated, the floor on Zoey's side of the pit leant back. This sent Zoey sliding into the pit screaming in horror. She fell into the pit where she plunged into the bath of snakes.
She cartoonily jumped in the air covered head to toe with snakes, flailing her arms in midair.
"AK!" she screamed, "I HATE SNAKES!"
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Kagome wandered the labyrinth, running through the many passages. She then stumbled upon a quite peculiar passage. The floor was covered floor and ceiling with tiles of eyes. All the tiles were colored either red, yellow, or green. On the other side was a wall with a large eye. An opening in the center of it, which served as the eye's pupil, was the hallway's exit.
Kagome then stepped forward, stepping onto a green tile. Suddenly, flames sprouted from certain eyes on the wall, startling Kagome and freezing her in fright. The flames quickly blazed and then died down. This continued on in a distinct pattern. The madness then stopped.
Kagome then crept forward ever so carefully. She stepped upon a yellow tile and the flames came out of the walls again. She stopped in her tracks until the flames went away.
Kagome then thought to herself. She knelt down on her knees and picked an arrow from her arrow satchel. She then thrusted the arrow's edge into a tile with a green eye.
The flames appeared.
Kagome then thrusted the arrow into a tile with a yellow eye.
The flames appeared.
Kagome then thrusted the arrow into a tile with a red eye.
Nothing happened.
"I get it!" Kagome thought to herself, "The yellow and green tiles trigger the flames. Red is safe!"
Kagome then stood up and began to leap from red tile to red tile. She was a quarter into the hall when the door that was behind her shut closed. This startled her, almost to the point where she nearly fell over. The now shut side of the hallway then began to move in forward, into Kagome's direction. The hallway was closing in on itself! Kagome panicked and began to jump from red tile to red tile as quickly as possible. She was almost tripped by red tiles that turned over to yellov or green colored tiles. She would stop momentarily and chose another red tile to jump to.
She managed to make it to the hallways end, where the opening was begging to close. Meanwhile, the other hallway's end moved in closer and closer. Kagome had to make a jump through the exit; otherwise she would be squashed to death.
She leapt forward, making it in time through the window before it closed in on itself. The last thing Kagome heard before moving on was a loud thud in the hallway. She made it! She stood up and walked on.
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Running as fast as she can, Pan made her way through the labyrinth. She dodged through each and every passage, navigating here way carefully.
She then came upon a really long and wide hallway. Upon her entrance, the hallway began to rumble as if an earthquake was in effect. Startled, Pan braced herself from the tremors. She then noticed something that made her gasp: the walls were moving in closer and closer. The hallway was shrinking in on itself.
Pan froze in fear for a few seconds. She then snapped out of her shock and raced through the hallway as quickly as she could. The walls moved in closer and closer, inching away towards Pan. Pan was nearly out when the walls were fairly close to her. She had enough room to jump in the air and quickly place her left hand and foot on the left wall with her right hand and foot on the right wall.
She struggled to keep the two walls from coming in any closer and squashing her like a pancake. Being half-saiyan, she had enough strength to do this; however, she was beginning to become weak. The walls closed in upon her slowly. Pan would not give up. She struggled with all her might. Suddenly, she began to charge up with energy. Then, in a quick flash, Pan pushed both walls away from her with great speed, sending them flying back to their original positions.
She landed upon the floor on her knees, panting slightly. She then noticed the walls moving in on her rapidly. She jumped up and raced out the door before she could be crushed by the impact. She was safe at last.
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Sango continued on inside the labyrinth. She continued on until she came what appeared to be a dead end. She came into a fairly small room with two stone doors on the other end. The doors were each blocked off by a stone statue of a knight, standing firmly in attention with shield in hand and sword seethed by the side. Sango looked on in confusion.
"This is odd!" Sango asked herself. "Have I reached a dead end?"
"I'm afraid not, miss!" called out a voice.
Sango was shocked by where it came from. The stone knight guarding the left door began to move a bit in place. It reached for its sword and drew it out. The knight held his sword flat side out. The knight guarding the right door then "awoke" and did the same thing. Sango stood back in fright and took out her boomerang.
"Fear not, lassie!" the knight on the right said with a Scottish accent, "We mean not to fight you!"
"That is, unless you provoke us too!" the knight on the left said, "We are only here to guard these doors, for one is the way out!"
"And the other leads to a bottomless room, where one would fall for all eternity" the knight on the right said.
"Which one is the door out of here?" Sango asked.
"That is for you to figure out" the knight on the left said, "You may ask one of us a question, and one only. You can then figure out which door to take."
"However one of us tells only the truth," the knight on the right, "while the other one tells more lies than a politician!"
The two knight began to laugh hysterically. Sango just looked upon them curiously. She became startled as the door behind her closed shut. The knight on the left then pointed his sword at Sango.
"You have one minute to decide upon a question for each of us!" he said, "Run out of time, and we will force you to pick a door, no questions asked!"
An hour glass then appeared floating in front of Sango, pouring down sand from the top piece to the bottom. Sango dropped her head, placed her finger on her chin, and thought really hard.
"Thirty seconds!" the knight on the right cheered.
Sango continued to think.
"Twenty seconds!" the knight on the right cheered.
Sango then lifted her head and pointed at the knight on the left.
"You!" she exclaimed, "Would the other knight say that this door is the exit?"
"Yes!" he replied.
Sango then walked over to the knight on the right.
"I choose this door!" she said.
"How do you know for sure?" the knight on the left asked. "What if he's telling the truth?"
"Then you would be lying!" Sango replied, "When you said 'yes', you would really be saying 'no'."
"What If I am telling the truth?" the knight on the left asked.
"Then he would be lying!" Sango replied, "If he said 'yes', he would really be saying 'no'."
The knight on the right then moved over from blocking the right door and knelt on his knees.
"You may pass!" he said.
The right door then opened. Sango ran through it
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Kagome navigated the passages, running this way and that. She finally stopped when she reached a room. On the other side of it was a large statue of a sphinx sticking out of the wall. In the center of it's chest was a doorway.
"Finally!" Kagome cheered, "This must be the exit!"
Kagome ran forward to the door. But before she could get near it, the sphinx came to life and blocked the door with his paw. He roared loudly at Kagome, making her fall back. He gazed down at her.
"You have done well to make it this far!" the sphinx said in a booming voice, "But if you wish to leave this place, you must answer my riddle. Answer correctly and you may leave!"
"Wh-what if I answer wrongly!" Kagome asked, frightened.
The sphinx just glared down at her, licking his sharp fangs hungrily. Kagome gulped.
"What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noontime, and three legs at night?" The Sphinx asked.
An hourglass then appeared floating before Kagome.
"You have one minute to answer!" The Sphinx demanded, "If you do not answer by the time the sand runs out, I will have to eat you!"
Kagome shivered in fright. The sand in the upper glass then began to flow quickly to the bottom.
"Start thinking!" the Sphinx yelled.
Kagome then lowered her head.
"Okay Kagome, think!" she told herself. "Four legs in the morning, two around noon, and three in the evening…"
"Forty-five minutes remaining!" the Sphinx announced.
"I think I heard this riddle before!" Kagome thought to herself, "But I forget the answer. I even forget where I heard it…"
"Thirty seconds!" the Sphinx announced.
"Wait a minute! Now I remember! This is from that Greek myth I learned in class a long time ago. It's the one with Oedipius, right?"
"Twenty seconds!"
"He was in a predicament just like this! He was the one who could answer the riddle. But what is the answer?"
"Ten seconds!"
"Oh! I wish I paid more attention in school!"
"5…4…"
"What is it?"
"3…2…"
"I GOT IT!"
"1…"
"MAN!" Kagome screamed at the Sphinx before the last drop of sand fell from the top glass. Kagome stood up, pointing at the Sphinx.
"Man crawls on all fours as a baby" she explained, "When he become older he walks on two legs. When he finally becomes really old, he uses a cane: a third leg!"
The Sphinx was surprised by this. He moved his paw away from the door.
"Congratulations!" The sphinx said, "You may pass!"
The door then opened. Kagome squealed in joy, jumping in the air happily.
"Greek Mythology isn't useless after all!" she said as she ran to the door.
End of Part 4
Next: The Strategy Revealed
Well, four down and three to go! Hope you all liked this part! I admit it was a bit choppy, but it should be good none the less.
So which four will make it to the final round? Tune in and find out!
Review, Review, Review!