Chapter 20
Speed Up
"Hey, did you hear about the recital?"
"You mean the one with that really talented viola player? Yeah. I heard she bailed at the last minute. Something about not feeling well?"
"Seriously? How many does that make now?"
As Lily overheard every word nearby students whispered to each other about an abruptly canceled viola recital, she glumly stirred her cereal in the white, non-fat milk. She had not taken one bite out of it yet, but the cereal had already gone completely soft and mushy.
Across the table, Viv and Eddie watched her downcast face with concern. But neither twins could muster up something to say. Needless to say, they knew what was bothering her.
It's been a few days since Lily battled with the living bronze tiger statue and nearly lost. She and the gang had hoped that this mysterious Stone Man that suddenly showed up took care of the metal beast, but left and right, there was news of recitals cancelling, stage plays being delayed, singing contests losing competitors, and dance shows losing dancers. Word had also spread of sports stars, robot engineers, competitive chess players, and members of the Debate Team calling it quits.
"Even the kazoo player's out."
"No! Not the kazoo player! Anyone but the kazoo player!"
Eddie tried to make Lily feel better, saying, "Just because they're all canceled all of a sudden, doesn't mean the statue had anything to do with it. There could be lots of other reasons."
But then -
"You know, there's a crazy rumor going around about an evil statue having something to do with it," a nearby girl told her friends. "They say a bronze tiger statue comes to life and goes around stealing the talents of unsuspecting students."
The boy sitting across from her scoffed. "I can buy our school having its own masked hero running around doing good deeds, but an evil statue that comes to life and makes people just not good at something? Come on!"
But that's exactly what happened, Lily thought despairingly. And I couldn't do anything about it.
As if she could read Lily's mind, Viv leaned over and said softly to her, "Hey, you don't need to beat yourself up over this. This isn't your fault."
Lily, however, shook her head and said, "Maybe not. But I'm the only one who can stop it. I should have."
"Hey, don't worry about it," said Eddie. "You'll get it next time. All you have to do is find a way to keep it in one spot long enough to tag it."
Losing her temper, Lily snapped, "I tried! But not only is that thing super fast for its huge size, it's also super tough!"
"What's this about something super fast and tough?"
Lily jumped in surprise, whirled around and saw her Uncle Viceroy standing behind her.
"Uncle Viceroy!" the young girl cried out. "What are you doing here?"
"I spotted you and just thought I'd stop by and say hello before I head to the classroom," the history teacher explained. "Anyway, you said something about something tough? What are you talking about?"
"Well . . . " Lily hesitated, desperately racking her brain for something to say. There was no way she could just tell him about the tiger, but there was also no way that she could just make something up. Her uncle would just see through the lie.
Luckily, Eddie came to the rescue and said, "Say, Mr. Lin! If you were playing a video game and there was this boss monster that's too strong for you to handle, how would you beat it?"
Uncle Viceroy raised an eyebrow. "Is having trouble in video games what got you in a bad mood, Lily?"
Lily opted to hold her tongue.
"Well, it's not like I don't understand," her uncle said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How to beat a video game boss that's too strong, huh? Well, that's easy. You train and level up until you're strong enough."
"What if you don't have enough time to train or level up?" Lily blurted out. She knew they were just talking about video games, but she thought any advice was better than nothing.
Uncle Viceroy asked, "Are you in the middle of some kind of limited time event?"
"Well, no," Lily replied hesitantly. "But I'd like to finish what I'm on fast."
To her relief, her uncle didn't question further and said, "I see. Well, you'll probably still need to level up, but another way to even the playing field would be buffing."
"Buffing? What's that?" asked Lily.
Uncle Viceroy raised an eyebrow. "You play video games and don't know what buffing is?"
"I just don't know a lot of video game lingo, okay?" Lily snapped. "Is that so bad?"
"Okay! Sorry! My bad!" said Uncle Viceroy. "Geez! No need to get all testy. Anyway, buffing means a boost to your stats."
Lily blinked. "Stats?"
"How strong you are or things like that," Uncle Viceroy explained. "Anyway, even if you're a bit under-level, you can still overwhelm the enemy with a good buff or buffs. Though, of course, the higher your level, the better the buffs, and the better your chances of winning."
"So, like," went Viv, "you can use, like, a magic spell to make yourself faster if you need to be faster?"
"Like, yeah," said Uncle Viceroy. "Something like that."
A magic spell to make you faster? Of course!
Lily sprung to her feet, feeling like she could just kick herself. She felt she should have realized it right away. The answer was so obvious. If the tiger was faster than her, then she should have just used magic to make herself even faster!
"Thanks, Uncle Viceroy," she said. "You've been a big help!"
Uncle Viceroy smiled and replied, "Sure! No prob - Hey! Where are you going?"
Lily had suddenly run off. Not stopping, she turned and replied, "Just remembered I needed to go somewhere."
Viv and Eddie followed close at her heels.
"Don't spend too much time on games!" Uncle Viceroy called out. "It'll be both our skins if your mom starts hearing you're late on your homework."
The trio replied back, "Got it!"
With a bemused smile, the history teacher watched his niece and her friends disappear out the door. Once they were gone, he turned to leave himself when he happened to overhear some students whisper about something interesting.
"Did you hear about that boy who's really good at painting?" asked a boy.
A girl replied back, "Yeah! They say he got a mental breakdown, screaming something about how he can't paint anymore because of a giant, talking tiger."
Eyes furrowed, Viceroy Lin's smile dropped into a grim frown and he continued to walk away.
**********
Night fell once more over Bluestone Academy and under the cover of darkness was Lily and her friends on the lookout for the bronze tiger.
After that talk about video games with Uncle Viceroy, Lily, Eddie and Viv met up with Oliver at the Sapphire Society's secret chamber where Lily told him her plans to meet the tiger again and how she planned to beat it this time. Oliver had been flipping through an old Sapphire Society yearbook when his juniors came in.
He was all on board with the idea of magically boosting speed to beat the tiger at its own game, but -
"Don't you think it's too soon to go after the tiger tonight?" he asked. "I think you could do with some practice before facing him. Especially if its as tough as the parrot. And unlike that time at the forest, you'll be facing the enemy alone."
"But we don't have time to practice!" Lily argued. "The longer we put this off, the more people end up the tiger's victims! We need to stop it now!"
Reluctantly, Oliver backed down.
"Alright," he said. "We'll go find the tiger tonight. But only because things are more urgent now with the kazoo player out. That dude deserves the Nobel Prize."
The gang slowly made their way down the road, each holding a part of a single blue rope that Lily pulled out of the magic bracelet.
"Sooo, remind me again why we're all holding a rope?" asked Eddie.
"Well," said Oliver, "last time, Lily got separated from us and pulled into some kind of parallel dimension we're calling the Blue World, where she had to face the tiger alone."
"And this rope is supposed to stop that from happening again?" Viv finished.
Oliver nodded and said, "Right-o. And since this is a magic rope, we shouldn't have to worry about anyone cutting it."
A voice from above spoke up and said, "That's clever of you, young detective."
Oliver and the twins looked up and spotted a huge, blue parrot sitting on top of a lamppost.
It looked down at them with eyes full of contempt and said again, "That's clever of you. But not clever enough."
"You again!?" Eddie cried out, throwing the bird a hateful glare.
"Me again," said the parrot, taking the boy's hate with indifference.
"What are you doing here?" Oliver demanded to know. "And what do you mean by 'not clever enough'?"
"Just take a look behind you," said the parrot.
Oliver, wary of any tricks, slowly looked over his shoulder. And then he whirled around, frantically looking left and right.
"Lily's gone!" he cried out. "She's disappeared again!"
**********
Lily stood in a world that looked exactly like her old one, except this one was covered in a blue glow. She was back in the Blue World, once more alone. And laid out in front of her, staring back at her with its head lifted was the bronze tiger.
"Took you long enough," said the tiger. "I was beginning to worry that I might run out of people to steal talents from."
Lily glared at it. "Oh yeah? Well it ends tonight! This time for sure, I'll take back everything you stole!"
"Oh?" The tiger stood up. "Do you have some kind of special plan this time?"
Choosing to keep her plan a surprise, Lily responded menacingly, "Just you watch."
"Very well, then," said the tiger. Its tail whipped to the front, balancing a large coin. "Same rules as last time. We start when the coin hits the ground."
"Got it," said Lily. She pulled back her sleeve, exposing her bracelet and its shining jewels, and got ready to run.
The tiger flipped its tail up, flinging the large coin high into the air, which spun one, two, three times before dropping back down.
While the coin was still halfway in the air, Lily silently had the bracelet activate the magic spell. Suddenly, the whole world around Lily looked bluer and more wavey, as if blue jelly covered her eyes. And in an instant, the coin's fall slowed until it was hardly moving at all.
Well, at least I know it works, Lily thought while staring at the coin with a bemused smile.
Thanks to her new magical superspeed, everything looked like it was moving in slow motion. It took several minutes before the coin finally hit the ground, although it probably only took a second or two in reality.
DIIIIIING!
Lily sprang into action. She leaped forward to slap the tiger by its snout. But before her hand could land on it, the tiger jumped back fairly quickly, putting several feet distance between them.
"Wha-!?" Lily cried out.
"Oh, don't look so surprised," said the tiger. "You already know how fast I can go. It's why you came up with that spell in the first place."
"I guess the cat's out of the bag then," said Lily. "But that's okay. At least now we've got an even playing field."
The tiger sneered. "That's what you think."
And then, in the blink of an eye, it disappeared.
Lily stared with dismay and horror at the empty space the tiger left behind.
"Where'd it go?"
Panicked, Lily looked left and right, searching for the tiger, only to find it sitting behind her at the end of the road several meters away. After blinking once, all she could see was the tiger's bronze face while feeling the hot air venting out of its nostrils.
"Foolish child!" the tiger roared.
Startled, Lily fell down. She looked up, dazed, as the tiger exploded into a rant.
"Did you really think you could make yourself faster than me just like that? Magic like that takes more than just telling some toy what to do. Like with all things, you need to put your heart in it! Draw out every last drop of power! Magic spells are meaningless without power behind them!"
The tiger inched menacingly closer to Lily. She wanted to crawl away, but she was paralyzed and could not move.
"And now," said the tiger, slowly lifting its right paw over its head, "because you didn't understand such a simple thing, you . . . LOSE!"
The tiger brought its paw down, fast as lightning. Lily flinched, expecting her cranium to go splat. But instead, she felt like someone had gently stacked a pillow on top of her head. It didn't hurt at all. However, that was little comfort to Lily who knew what came next.
"Now," said the tiger, "one of your friends is going to lose something special, just like the singers, the dancers, and the kazoo player!"
Lily said nothing and simply stared at the ground.
"I wonder whose beloved talent should I go for? Eddie's drawing talent? Or maybe Oliver's detective skills?"
So racked with guilt, Lily pressed her fingers hard against the rough pavement, hard enough to break skin. But it was hardly enough to distract her from the feeling of her stomach twisting in guilt.
Above, she heard the tiger mutter, "Hmm. I suppose that's enough. Now - !"
BOOM!
Both Lily and the tiger turned their heads.
BOOM!
There was a flash of blue light.
BOOM!
Cracks appeared in the air with bright light seeping. They started small. But with each impact from out of literally nowhere, they got bigger and bigger. If this was anything like last time, then Lily had a feeling she knew what was going on:
The Stone Man was coming.
"Not again!" groaned the tiger. "But at least this time, I ended the game before he showed up. That's good timing."
More like bad timing, Lily thought bitterly. If only the Stone Man had showed up just a little bit earlier, she might not have lost. Seriously, this was really bad timing.
And then her eyes lit up and she glanced at the tiger, distracted by the ever growing crack in dimensions.
Maybe it's not bad timing after all.
"Anyway, I must bid you farewell, Lady Sapphire. But we will meet again. I hope you'll do better next time. I would hate to run out of people to steal talents fro-!"
With no time to lose, Lily sprang, literally and latched onto the tiger's hindleg.
Dismayed, the tiger cried, "Hey! Let go! Let go now!"
In defiance, Lily shouted back, "No!"
The tiger tried to shake Lily off its leg, but she stubbornly clung on.
"Let go! This is no joke! That stone menace will be here in any moment! No one controls him! He will destroy everything in his sight, including you!"
But Lily just kept holding on and shrieked, "I DON'T CARE!"
And she meant it. This was probably her best and only chance to protect her friends and prevent them from losing something important. There was no way she was going to let it slip by.
A big stone fist burst through the crack. That was when the tiger finally gave in.
"FINE!" it shouted. "What do you want?"
"You already know," screamed Lily.
"Okay! One final game! One week from now. You lose, I really WILL take your friends' talents!"
Lily was hoping for it to give up on taking them and give back the ones it already stole. But she figured this was probably the best she was going to get, so she shouted, "Deal!" And she finally let go.
"Ow!"
After hitting the ground, the world around her was no longer blue, the tiger was gone, and she was surrounded by her friends, looking at her with a mix of worry and astonishment. Past them, she saw a familiar blue parrot take off.
After watching the parrot disappear into the night sky, she turned her gaze back to her friends and asked, "So, what did I miss?"
"That," said Oliver, "should be our line."
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