Chapter 20: The Terror of Training!
Author's Note: I've deleted two chapters that used to be in here, which were between Chapters 20 and 21 and Chapters 22 and 23. Forgive the mess if the chapter numbers from here on out are a little off…When I create the abridged comic version on Deviantart, I'll update them.
"They are right behind you, Amy! Move it! Faster! Faster!"
Yeah. Right. Easy for you to say, Master Kel-Zich.
That's right: The Ylla guy was making me call him Master now, as if he had the right to supersede me, whom he personally called the Master of This Universe.
I was in the middle of a five-mile run, and Master Kel-Zich suddenly thought it would be fun to motivate me to run for my life from more of those Vulpimancer-creatures. To top it off, he made me wear this ridiculously heavy pathetic excuse of a "Power Suit" that kept making these annoying Game Boy noises reminiscent of Metroid battles from Metroid 2: Return of Samus whenever I moved around in it. I'll admit that the sounds were pretty addicting for the first five minutes, but after that…it was really starting to get on my nerves. I wondered if that was what a knight in armor felt like, without the music. The convoluted suit did way more harm than good; it severely restricted my movement, its defensive value was questionable, and it didn't protect my face at all. Oh yeah, and did I mention that the temperature and humidity were off the charts that day?
So how did it come to this? Let me explain. I finally had the most amazing dream ever in which I was able to play a bit of Metroid: Other M, but right when I was about to start the game, Kel-Zich shouted a really freaky noise that sounded like "YODILAHIHOOOOGABOOGA!" or something like that in our faces, knocking Big Amy and me off the bed. He suddenly announced that we were to begin our training immediately and call him Master Kel-Zich. Before I could complain about him interrupting my dream, he shoved the suit on me, which felt more like a ton of bricks falling from the sky. Finally, he ordered me to run two laps around the village. So here I was.
"The only reason you, Amy [you know who] are still alive, is because Queen X wanted to keep you alive until the moment she herself could kill you. The moment she discovers you are still alive now, she will attack at the worst possible times, when you are least prepared, under the worst possible conditions for you! She will exploit any weakness you have, use any distractions possible, and above all, will not hold anything back. She will strike you mercilessly until you are dead! GOT IT?"
"I got it! I got it!" I'd said that five times already. In my head, I tried to hum the Son of Man song from Tarzan to pass the time, but those Game Boy sounds kept annoying me, and besides, I realized the lyrics didn't quite match up with the situation, if you know what I mean. I wondered what my friends were doing at the time…
Meanwhile, Amy Purima the Jigglypuff is busy with problems of her own. She's bouncing on huge springy mushrooms in the forest reminiscent of the Mushroom Forest from the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles when Celebi flies up and shoots her with that spell!
Celebi: Ala-kablooie!
Yes, it hits and turns her from a Jigglypuff back into a human in midair. She quickly loses her balance.
Amy: Wh—what the heck? OW! Ow ow ow!
She falls down, hitting all the mushrooms on the way, until she lands on the ground hard.
Amy: Ooow…huh?
Platinum Chest stands over her, with Celebi floating behind him.
Platinum Chest: Amy Purima! Queen X already knows how weak you are in human form! She's going to do whatever she can to turn you back like this! You have to be able to move just as well as you did as a Jigglypuff. Now get up and try again!
Celebi: And work on your air dodging skills, too! You're too easy to hit up there, sister!
Amy: GAH! Okay, okay!
As for Chikorita, she's on top of the mountain (actually a volcano), in an extremely cold area. She's facing a terrifying Acid Worm named Mua that's 100 feet long that's coming from the crater.
Chikorita (whimpering): …! …! …AAAAAAGH! Amy! Where are you? HELP!
She freaks out and runs around, desperately dodging the worms aggressive lashings like Fire Fangs. Sitting on top of the Acid Worm, controlling it by the reins, is Shining Flame. She stops to give a word to Chikorita.
Shining Flame: Chikorita! Now that you have Metroid DNA, you are now four times as weak to fire and ice! Furthermore, you can't afford to be afraid of cute and cuddly monsters such as this little guy. Queen X knows it, so you must conquer your fears and fight him!
Chikorita (wailing): Wha—wha—what do you mean, "cute and cuddly"?
Shining Flame: I mean that there are creatures far more threatening than him. If you really want to be worthy of being a Space Warrior, you have to be prepared for anything!
Finally, Grovyle is locked deep underground close to a magma chamber in the mountain. He is blindfolded, and is trying to attack random magma worms crawling all around him. Some are real, and some are fake. The real ones die normally, while the fake ones blow up in his face.
Grovyle: I don't get this at all!
Another benevolent Chozo trainer, Whispers of the Stars, appears from out of nowhere. She gives him some advice.
Whispers of the Stars: Grovyle. Your combat skills are extremely impressive already, and so is your willpower and determination. But Queen X will know about all of that, and will use it against you. You have to forget everything you have ever learned about who can be trusted and who cannot…and learn to recognize the ways in which she will try to bring back your worst fears.
Grovyle: But how am I supposed to tell which is real and which isn't?
Whispers of the Stars: Close your eyes and focus harder. Try to learn how to detect the X Parasites' aura. When your soul is able to grasp upon the essence of your enemy, even you will be able to attack an enemy without form.
Grovyle (in realization): Oooooh…! So you mean, like, Foresight! Or maybe it was Odor Sleuth. Sorry. I don't think my species can naturally learn those moves.
Whispers of the Stars: Which is all the more important for you to learn them.
Grovyle: But that's like saying I can learn how to breathe fire! It's just not possible, y'know?
Whispers of the Stars (finally losing her patience): Yes, yes, I am well aware of that…but this is a strategy all life forms can learn. SO JUST DO IT!
Grovyle: Okay, okay! (Sheesh…)
That was sooooo brutal! But not long after I finished running laps, Master Kel-Zich carted me back inside…the Chozo School. He then began to drill me in really complex Calculus problems, alien texts, and hypothetical moral dilemmas. It was only two hours, but my brain was already fried by then.
At least they actually let me eat my favorite food for lunch. Spinach quiche, turkey-and-cheese omelets, steamed brocolli and carrots, rice balls...the selection went on and on. I was initially confused as to how they would come up with any food for humans, much less ones that I liked, but I then realized that Master Kel-Zich probably had something to do with it. We might've been sitting in a cafeteria inside the building...but there were these dragonfly-like flying insects that I've never seen before swarming all over the place. I mean, these bugs were anywhere from 2 to 3 inches long, and they were trying to swoop down at the food. Some of the people there actually did leave their leftovers for the insects, but I suspected that the rest simply used them for dodging practice.
Grovyle, Chikorita, Big Amy and I discussed everything the Chozo put us through that whole morning, while dodging the insects at the same time. To be honest, I didn't know if any of their experiences were any more grueling than mine. They all seemed about the same level. I was worried I'd get a stomachache from eating, talking, and dodging at the same time, but luckily for me, it never happened. After I finished, I asked, "Hey. Where's Samus?"
Turned out she was just sitting outside Old Bird and Gray Voice's house, playing something on my pink DS Lite. "Samus? Why aren't they making you train?" I asked.
"Huh? Oh." She looked up and laughed. "Old Bird and Gray Voice trained me for 11 years. The Galactic Federation trained me for the next two years after that, and I was the best out of everyone. And I've been completing missions for 9 years after that. I think that I should take a break now!"
I smacked my forehead. "Right! I knew that!" I then bent down to take a look at the DS screen. "You're playing Metroid Fusion?"
"Yeah. This primitive device is surprisingly addictive. Too bad I can only control myself in 2-D."
She let me have a closer look at the screen. I saw that she was in Sector 6 (NOC), and my eyes widened when I saw what she did. "You got that Power Bomb tank! I could NEVER get that Power Bomb tank!" I exclaimed in shock.
See, I never knew how to break Speed Booster blocks from above. Turns out all Samus had to do was charge up the Speed Booster, start running on a slope, and then use the Screw Attack to jump in and smash the blocks from above! All this time, my brother and I have been at our wit's end trying to get that last Power Bomb expansion. We were always at 99% completion and could never get that one!
"Wow. For real? That was way too easy," she replied. I then heard Master Kel-Zich's voice in the distance echoing, "Amy [you-know-who]! We have not finished your training yet!"
I groaned. Samus laughed. "Playing hooky, huh?"
"N—no, wait! Look, I was never the type to play hooky from school, okay? It's just…" I sighed in exhaustion. "You won't believe what I've been through today."
"Bet it was nothing compared to my training."
Before I could ask her exactly what her training entailed, Master Kel-Zich telekinetically dragged me by the collar away to the next lesson. Samus chuckled and continued playing, and I was pretty sure she was speedrunning in the game, too. There was no way she could've gotten that far and played it so expertly otherwise.
Finally, evening came, and we all finally had a chance to rest around the giant crystal in the middle of Town Square. But before we knew it, all the Chozo (and Master Kel-Zich) decided to gather there and perform another song and dance. I asked Old Bird, and he explained that they celebrate like this every night. It was exactly like in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, only without the whole purify-the-crystal-with-Myrrh thingy. In terms of dancing styles here's how it went: Everyone danced like Yukes, I danced like a Clavat, Samus danced like a Selkie (somersaults are nothing for her, obviously) and Big Amy, Chikorita, and Grovyle made up their own moves. Master Kel-Zich was surprised that I still had so much energy for dancing even though I was so obviously dead tired from the whole day, but I suspected that this was part of the training too, judging by the way he had the Chozo musicians play all of these ridiculously catchy songs on purpose.
Eventually, we all had to go back, and so did the crowd. By that point, the sun had completely set, and millions of stars lit the sky. Only torches were available to light the way back. I took it all in, marveling at how beautiful it was compared to my old home back on Earth in the past.
I was about to crash on the bed in my room when Master Kel-Zich had other ideas. He shoved a whole notebook of paper at Big Amy and me. "Wait, wha—? What now?" I groaned.
"I want you two to write down everything that happened to you since the day you first came onto this adventure. Soon, it may come to pass that these written records will be the only proof that you ever existed at all," he explained.
His words made me shiver. This was exactly like in the Pendragon series of novels by D.J. Machale that I read one time. Big Amy yawned and asked, "B—but why? I'm tiiiired…"
"Endure it for just a while longer, girls. You will find often that life will require you to have last-minute stamina to achieve necessary goals. This is merely training. Good luck." With that, he left the room, leaving us to rack our brains and write everything that happened. Now you know how I started writing these journals. I only got to finish Chapter 3: Welcome to Gaijin City! before I couldn't take it anymore and conked out. [Note that it was only later when I factored in everyone else's stories that I decided to change it to Chapter 4: F-I-R-D.]
So that ended up being our daily routine for the rest of the week. I was grateful for an actual routine since the past four days were nothing but chaos for me. Even now, I could hardly believe that it took 14 [actually, 19] chapters to fill up four days worth of adventures. On the other hand, the training was, to say the least, agonizing. I thought my school's cross-country training was grueling. Obviously, I hadn't seen what cruel training really was until now!
Here's how it went for me:
5:30 am: Run 5 laps around Yamamori Village while dodging boulders and Vulpimancer dudes.
7: 30 am: Eat breakfast.
8:00 am: Solve psychology puzzles, Calculus equations, and moral dilemmas.
10:00 am: Train in the jungle (in other words, learn how to swing like Tarzan).
12:00: Lunch (includes hungry alien insect-dodging practice).
12:30 pm: Mental training, including, but not limited to maintaining focus in the face of emotionally wrenching situations such as teasing and bullying.
2:00 pm: Martial-arts combat lessons, including but not limited to Aikido.
5:00 pm: Dinner (more dodging hungry alien insects).
5:30 pm: Storytelling.
6:45 pm: Singing and dancing.
8:30 pm: Journal writing.
10:30 pm: Conk out on the bed.
So, yeah. I only got 7 hours of sleep per night on average. I was so tired! After only four days (my watch said June 30), though, something different happened. Master Kel-Zich brought Grovyle, Chikorita, Big Amy, and me together that morning.
"Huh? Why are we all here?" asked Grovyle.
Master Kel-Zich explained, "Judging by the amount of progress you all have accomplished, I believe it is time for you the four of you to finally practice an exercise together. After all, you all need to learn how to work as a team."
Big Amy and Chikorita cheered, "YAAAY! Finally!"
"What're we gonna do?" I asked.
He pointed to the mountain and explained, "I want the four of you to climb Mt. Chorshire and reach the top in less than 10 minutes. And I mean all four. The timer will not stop until all four of you step in the glowing space we've designated at the top. Ready?"
"Yeah!" we all shouted.
"Then three…two…one…start!"
Master Kel-Zich brought up a hologram countdown clock and made it float in midair. We took off running to the mountain. I came across a boulder that was hard for me to climb over. "Help me get up, will ya, Big Amy?" I asked.
"Jigglypuff Jiggly!" she replied.
Huh?
"Uh…say that again?" I asked.
"Chiko chiko chikori?" repeated Chikorita for Amy.
My face froze. "…Uh-oh."
"Grovyle? Grovyle?" screeched Grovyle in confusion.
There was only one explanation why they were suddenly talking like real Pokémon. I gasped, "…No way. They turned off our translators. I can't understand a thing you guys are saying!"
"Jigglyyyyyy!"
"Chikooooo!"
Yeah, they were freaking out. I pleaded to them, "Guys, guys! Calm down. We've gotta think this through."
They did. We sat down for a moment and looked around the mountain. There was a glowing orb at the top of the mountain that looked like a force field of some sort. Actually, make those four force fields; one in red, one in blue, one in yellow, and one in green. Lower on the mountain, there were four levers in corresponding colors.
"Grovyle! Grovyle Grovyle Grovyle! Grovyle Grovyle—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry, Grovyle. I thought I told you I can't understand what you're saying!"
He looked confused and tilted his head. "Grovyle?"
I paused. "Wait a second. You can understand ME?"
He nodded. So did Big Amy and Chikorita. I slapped my forehead. Pokémon can understand humans, but we can't understand Pokémon! "Of course! Okay, got it."
I stood up, and they looked at me expectantly. If this one-way conversation would work, I'd have to do it right. "Since you can understand me, but I can't understand you guys, just listen closely and do what I say, okay?"
Big Amy and Chikorita nodded enthusiastically. Grovyle did too, but a little more hesitantly.
"I can understand your gestures. That's good, that's good. Okay. See those levers? We have to get up there and push them. I think that'll make the force fields go away. Then we run up there and step on that glowing spot they're blocking. I'll take the red one. Big Amy, you take the blue one. Chikorita, you'll take the yellow one, and Grovyle, you'll take the green one. Got it?"
They all nodded.
"Then let's go!"
We ran. Big Amy had a bit of trouble finding the blue lever since it was behind the mountain, but other than that, the climb up the mountain went smoothly. Sort of. There were too many boulders bigger than my height to climb, so Grovyle had to help me out. Chikorita could always use her Vine Whips and Big Amy could just bounce that high. When Grovyle was confident that I could make it the rest of the way, he ran off to the green lever.
All I had to do was push the red lever the other way, and the red force field disappeared. As I ran up the mountain to the peak, the other three force fields disappeared. I looked at the clock in the sky. Six minutes left. Cool! I wondered why they gave us ten minutes to do what we could do in five.
Unfortunately, the answer came just as we reached the peak. I probably should've suspected it when I saw four flashes in the sky…or that crash that knocked us off our feet. About a minute after I saw those flashes, all four force fields rematerialized one by one. We skidded to a halt in dismay. I looked down and saw four new people, one pushing each lever back, that weren't there before.
"No way…" I gasped. At the blue lever was a puffball with light blue skin and dark blue feet whom I recognized as Kirby, and his Formula Star Air Ride Machine lay buried close by. At the yellow and green levers were two Wuudites. Unless I was hallucinating, I was pretty sure they were Plu-thrim and Los-Nom, respectively. Their ship was shaped like a giant seed pod, and it lay at the base of the mountain. Finally, at the red lever was a humanoid creature about my height (maybe a little taller) with translucent purple skin. I could red and blue blood vessels, as well as an elastic skeletal structure, under her skin. It made for a creepy effect. Wasn't that Gandrayda? Wait. I thought she was dead! I mean, didn't Dark Samus from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption personally take over and kill her on the Space Pirate Homeworld?
My friends groaned in frustration.
"We don't have any choice. I think we have to fight them or something. Or at least convince them to stop messing things up for us," I observed. They nodded. We dashed down the mountain to our respective levers. As I ran closer to the purple shape-shifter lady guarding my lever, she smiled nastily at me. I gulped, and realized that maybe running straight at her was a really stupid idea.
It was. In more ways than one.
I planned to duck behind a boulder and run at her from the side, but running down a mountain was more hazardous than running up, and I tripped. At the same time, she charged at me in a blast of purple energy, but since I tripped, I fell out of her way, but not for long. I scrambled up to the lever, barely dodging another attack, my head still throbbing. I managed to leap at the lever and push it back. Right then, Gandrayda cartwheeled in front of me and slammed the lever back.
"HEY!" I shouted.
She giggled and shot a snappy remark at me…in an alien language. All I could utter was, "…Huh?" She cackled again and reclined against a rock, using the lever as a footrest…the wrong way. I growled in frustration and tried to kick the lever the right way. It didn't work. It didn't occur to me to check the clock until I realized that I only had one minute and 30 seconds left!
In desperation, I pushed the rock around so Gandrayda would hold the lever down the right way. Hoping that she'd stay asleep, I ran for it. I looked up at the force fields. The red one dissolved, and my friends immediately jumped in. Apparently, they've already beaten their enemies and were waiting for me. Right when I reached it, the red force field re-materialized. I shouted, "AAARGH!" in frustration. Apparently, Gandrayda woke up.
Chikorita couldn't take it anymore. She shot a Razor Leaf…and the leaves sliced right through the force field. Half the leaves smacked Gandrayda, while the other half hit the lever. I jumped through to my friends before Gandrayda could bring the force field back up. Our combined weights pushed the huge glowing spot (that I found was actually a button) down, causing the glow to fade entirely, turning the force fields off permanently. The timer stopped with five seconds to spare. "WOOHOO!" we cheered.
We?
"I didn't know I could shoot a Razor Leaf through that force field!" exclaimed Chikorita.
"Yeah, I saw that! Why didn't anyone tell me?" exclaimed Big Amy.
"I think only the yellow force field affected you, Chikorita," suggested Grovyle.
My jaw dropped. "I can understand you guys again!"
They turned to me, their jaws dropping too. It looked like they were trying to say something, but all they could do was stutter and twitch. I heard clapping from down the mountain.
"Good job, good job! You did way worse than I thought you would, but you did it, anyway!" congratulated Gandrayda.
One of the Wuudites spoke up. "Yes, it was all a test. Kel-Zich shall explain."
We recognized the voice. "So it was you, Plu-Thrim! I knew it!" gasped Chikorita.
Master Kel-Zich floated down from the sky on his magically glowing eight wings that never failed to take my breath away. "Correct. Perhaps one of the most important skills you need to learn in order to defeat Queen X is teamwork. It is likely that she will disable your translators just like in this exercise, so you need to learn how to still function as a team even when you cannot communicate. Luckily, you have all passed. Now come to the Town Square, children. We shall explain everything."
Los-Nom and the blue Kirby woke up, too.
That evening, we were all gathered at Town Square. The four of us sat down in exhaustion. Gandrayda, Los-Nom, Plu-Thrim, and the blue Kirby were dancing around the crystal in front of us.
The village elder, Essence Sight, announced to the Chozo crowd around us, "Fellow villagers! We have gathered here today to welcome four new visitors to our humble village. Old Bird, Gray Voice, Kel-Zich, and I have selected them for the express purpose of assisting in the training the four children."
Interesting…I knew that the four of them suddenly arriving in the middle of our training exercise couldn't have been a coincidence. They planned this all along. Master Kel-Zich then introduced the four new arrivals from right to left. "This is Kirby from the Planet Popstar. He passed the test to become a Space Warrior—or as he calls it, a Star Warrior—a year ago and regularly comes by here to ensure that no malicious presences detect Planet Chozodia."
Big Amy smiled. "So your name's Kirby?"
The 1'4" blue puffball bounced in front of her and squealed, "That's wight! You're weally weally stwong. What's your name?"
"Amy!"
I cut in, "H—hey, my name's Amy, too—!"
Kirby cheered "Amyyy!" and hugged her. He cheered "Amyyy!" again and hugged me. Then he exclaimed, "TWO Amys!" Everyone doubled over in laughter. Even I could help but be amused, if not a little intimidated by his little-boy antics and speech patterns. Was he really a Space Warrior—I mean, Star Warrior—whatever?
"Kirby? Wait a second here…aren't you supposed to be pink?" I asked.
"Huh?" He tilted his head in confusion.
I smacked my forehead for not realizing this sooner. "Oh, I get it! There are eight of you, right? You're just the blue Kirby. The original pink one is somewhere else, right?"
"Yeah! Yeah! I know him! He's still on Pwanet Popstar!" he replied in enthusiasm.
So it was just like in all those Kirby games. I responded, "Oooooooooh, okay! That makes sense."
"Er-hem. Right. Moving on." Master Kel-Zich continued, "This is Los-Nom and Plu-Thrim, Wuudites originally from Planet Wuud who lived outside Gaijin City. They say they have already met the children."
"Correct you are," agreed Los-Nom.
"Yes. Kel-Zich decided that he needed our assistance for your training, so he called us, and we have finally arrived," explained Plu-Thrim. I was amazed at how the three of them (all of the Chozo in the village, for that matter) were able to speak so formally, with no contractions at all. If I didn't watch myself, I'd end up speaking like them too. Not that it'd be a bad thing, of course.
"And finally…This is Gandrayda, a biomorph. She was a bounty hunter of the Galactic Federation who has extensive experience with the Space Pirates." Gandrayda performed a few cartwheels around the crystal and giggled in delight. Despite her mature appearance, she acted just as immaturely as Kirby, maybe even more so. I groaned on the inside. Half of our new training helpers were way below us in maturity levels? That didn't make much sense.
Right then, I heard Samus' voice float through the crowd, muttering, "…I can't believe this! This is such a rip-off!"
I ran up to her and saw that she was holding my pink DS Lite and glaring at the upper screen in disgust. "What? What's wrong, Samus?" I asked, genuinely concerned.
She replied, "Oh! There you are, Amy. Look at this! Just look at it!" So I did, wondering what was the problem. Did the game glitch up or something? It was an old Game Boy Advance cartridge, after all. The top screen made my jaw drop. It said:
CLEAR TIME:
1:54
YOUR RATE FOR COLLECTING ITEMS IS:
100%
It also showed a picture of Samus with her armor completely off. For a moment I was flabbergasted. "How is this a rip-off? You're amazing, Samus! You got the best ending ever! I could only ever get the 3rd or 4th best—Waaaaait a second…" I then held my tongue when I realized exactly why she was glaring in the first place. I pointed to the picture of her and trailed off, "You don't mean—?"
"That's exactly what I mean! I completed the entire game in under two hours like you said AND collected every single freaking Missile and Power Bomb tank! And what do I get? A pinup of me in that ridiculous outfit that clearly panders to you-know-what-kind-of-guys-I'm-talking-about! For shame, those early 21st century-people had no sense of gender equality! I mean, what the heck is…" Her rant trailed off as she emerged from the crowd and saw the new arrivals. She stopped right in place and gasped, "Gandrayda? I thought you were dead!"
"That's what I thought too," I added.
Gandrayda squealed, "Sammy! So this is where you're hiding!" She cartwheeled to us, glanced at the top screen of the DS, and remarked, "What are you talking about, girl? You look gorgeous!" Samus and I exchanged worried glances. I bet we were thinking the same thing about Gandrayda's questionable tastes in fashion.
My Pokémon friends were stunned. "You called her Sammy?" asked Big Amy.
"Yep!" She then turned to me and remarked, "So you're the famous Amy [you know who]! I've really gotta thank you. Those Space Pirate boys tested that revival liquid of yours on me first, and it worked so well, I busted out of there! Oh yeah! They never saw it coming!"
Grovyle asked, "You mean you were on the Space Pirate Homeworld too? How come we never saw you?"
Gandrayda bounced in front of him. She morphed herself into a Space Pirate, freaking my Pokémon friends out. She giggled and morphed back. "You were all in that dream device thingy. I thought I'd hang back and see how you'd escape." She ran up to Samus to have a final word with her. "Nice to see you again, Sammy."
"Who is Sammy now?" emitted another latecomer. It was Celebi. She flew through the crowd and finally found us. "Oooooooh. Samus Aran. Gotcha. Nice one, purple!"
"Yeah, that's right. Me and Sammy go waaaaaaaay back."
Before she could explain any further, Master Kel-Zich called for the official song-and-dance conclusion to formally initiate the four new arrivals into the village. This time, though, Los-Nom and Plu-Thrim were able to lead. As we danced, I noticed several things (other than the fact that Big Amy turned back into a Jigglypuff, of course). She and the blue Kirby seemed to be getting along pretty well. Samus switched to playing my Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky DS game, muttering something about how she hoped it would be more fun. And at the same time, Celebi and Gandrayda really seemed to be hitting it off with each other. Little did I know just how much trouble and insanity those two giggly girls would cause for Big Amy and me…
The morning of July 2 (and yes, I am keeping track of the days now), we answered the usual knocking at the door. It was Gandrayda and Celebi. They stood there (or at least, Celebi floated in midair) with big grins on their faces. I rubbed my eyes and asked, "Celebi? Gandrayda? What is it?"
Gandrayda answered, in a bit of an odd voice, "You know…a little birdie told me…that you, Little Amy, wanted to learn how to ride an Air Ride Machine."
I replied, "That'd be cool and all, except I can't really…fit."
Celebi added, "Also, we've been thinking…about those names you came up with. Little Amy and Big Amy? I mean, how the heck does THAT work out?"
Gandrayda continued, "So we got to thinking. I'm sorry, but those names…they're just way too ludicrous. So we thought about switching 'em for you."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She morphed—more like, shrank—into a green, two-headed alien whom I instantly recognized and panicked. "Swapper?" I exclaimed. I mean, Swapper, Experiment 355 from Lilo and Stitch: The Series, the guy who could swap people's souls! "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! Hang on a second! What are you trying to do—?"
She did it.
I knew it when I realized that everyone looked much taller than before. I knew it when I heard my voice exclaim, "Hey! How'd I get way up here?" I knew it when Gandrayda reverted to her normal form, towered over me, and exchanged hi-fives with Celebi. And I definitely knew it when Gandrayda held a Chozo mirror in front of my face—body—whatever, and did the same for a certain human in a sailor suit that I personally picked out myself.
It was just like in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.
"H—hey, Little Amy? I think…I'm you now."
To be continued…
Coming up next: How to Be Puffball, huh? Hopefully, that'll be easier than How to Be Civilized. Wait…what is this…?