Author's note: You're going to have to bear with me on this one. I just found out why Strafer hasn't been reviewing my stories as thoroughly as he used to: he isn't that interested in them. You can imagine what that did to my confidence, but then he submitted a review to Saul, and he seemed more interested than before, so now I'm all confused, and I don't know what to think. Oh well.
Segment 5: From Bat to Curse
Chapter 5: The Plan
(Kim)
Amy went in first, but instead of just rushing in and getting noticed by the demons, she swung around and jumped onto the wall; I could hear the satisfying sound of her claws digging in. Peeking into the doorway, I could see that the demons were too busy with the ceremony to notice.
From there, Amy jumped to the nearest pillar, climbed around it so D-Mariko wouldn't see, and jumped across to the next one. She continued this pattern, and managed to reach the pillar nearest the ladder as D-Mariko began to ascend it. All this time, I watched and waited for our chance.
This was it. D-Mariko was at the top of the ladder, ready to cut the rope that stood between Rouge and her fiery demise, and Amy was in position. All at once, Amy jumped off and grabbed Rouge, and the two of them swung back and forth together like a giant pendulum.
"Now!" I whispered to Leo. The demons were so startled by this new turn of events that they didn't notice as Leo and I sidled along the outside wall, continuing around until we were within reach of the treasure.
Meanwhile, Amy had somehow gotten Rouge swinging in a circle. D-Mariko just stood at the top of the ladder, speechless. With just the right timing, she leaned out and pushed D-Mariko from behind.
D-Mariko shrieked as she plummeted into the fire. The demons could only watch as she met her death in the flames. This was perfect. Leo took the Black Emerald, while I picked up one of the golden feathers from the treasure pile.
Still swinging, Amy watched as Mariko suffered the same fate as was intended for Rouge. Then, she used her own claws to slice the rope, and she landed neatly on the ground with Rouge and dashed through the crowd of demons toward the way she'd came in. She reached the exit at about the same time we did.
At that moment, one demon turned and saw the four of us at the exit. It pointed at us with its arm and yelled out a bit of language that I couldn't comprehend; it must've been a demon thing. My guess was that it meant something along the lines of "There they are! After them!"
In a second, the entire crowd of demons was running after us. Leo was in front of me, while I had Amy by the arm. Amy was dragging Rouge behind her; there was no time to get her untied.
"We've got to get back to the entrance," Leo called out, "before those black monsters catch up to us!" I wasn't too happy about his pointing out the obvious, but I didn't say anything.
Leo made a perfect left turn, with the rest of us following. The door to the treasure room had closed! It took a few seconds for us to locate the hand brick and push it, and by then the demons were closing in.
As soon as the secret door slid open, Leo made a dive for the crystal ball. Instead of reaching it, he knocked the pedestal over, causing the ball to drop, but I lunged forward and caught it.
In a flash of light, the four of us were sucked into the ball, and in my heart, I knew that we were finally safe.
Back in the light-world treasure room, Amy carefully cut the ropes on Rouge as Leo and I smugly watched the dark crystal ball shatter itself. The demons had no chance of catching us now.
Once Rouge was free, Leo approached her. "The map, bat girl. Hand over the map!"
Rouge angrily took the map out of her pocket and shoved it into our hands. "Take it, red. As much as I like jewels, I'm not going to get myself in one of THOSE situations again!" And with that, she was gone.
After watching Rouge run off, I took out the golden feather and held it up. "Princess Mariko said this thing would undo the curse. I wonder how it works."
"Give me that," Leo interjected, snatching the feather from my hand. I was about to protest, but he had more experience with feathers than I did, so I let him take it.
Leo calmly approached Amy, asked her to hold still, and- of all things!- tickled her nose with the feather. Amy was noticeably affected by this. "Leo! What are you… ah… ah… WAH-CHOO!"
Amazingly, it worked. The instant Amy sneezed, all traces of her cat body vanished, and she was back to her normal self. Time seemed to stand still for a moment before Amy spoke again. "Leo? I'm back! What did you do?"
"Nothing much- just this," Leo replied, tickling Amy's nose again. What a goof. Inevitably, Amy sneezed again, and this sneeze somehow caused her cat body to restore itself.
Sensing a bit of fun, Leo leaned forward for a third tickle, but I stepped in and separated the two of them. "All right, that's enough, Leo. This is serious business." I then snatched the feather back and tickled Amy's nose myself, returning her to normal once more.
That done with, I gave Amy the feather, so Leo wouldn't mess around with it any more. Then, the three of us started to leave the pyramid.
It's not normal for me to kill off a character like that. Still, writing this chapter felt somehow liberating, although I'm probably never going to hear the end of it from Strafer about how I undid the curse. I'm a humorist by nature, okay?