Chapter 29
Tiger Hunt
"There's a tiger by the Science Building, but it looks like it's just there for a quick stroll. Head over there quick before it goes away."
From the safety of her dorm room, Tanja had her eyes glued to her computers that showed her every inch of the school grounds. Beside her on the bed laid her smartphone on speaker so she may speak with her hands free as they danced across the keyboard at almost impossible speeds.
"Got it," said Lily. She was riding on a flying carpet high over the school, phone in hand to her ear.
By her command the carpet made a turn and she soared down to the Science Building. It didn't take her long before she spotted the beast slowly making a turn at a corner. But before completely disappearing to the side, it stopped and turned, and then bolted.
Lily swore. The beast had noticed her and was making a break for it.
She urged the magic carpet to fly faster and zoom after the tiger, catching up just in time to see it disappear at another turn.
"Oh no you don't!" Lily shouted.
She quickly reached the corner the tiger had disappeared around. But as soon as she made the turn herself, the tiger pounced on her.
Startled, she shrieked. "Eek!" She raised her arms over her head as the tiger lashed out. A wall of light appeared out of Lily's bracelet and wrapped itself around her, taking the attack in her place. But when the tiger's paw struck the wall, Lily was sent flying back and hit the ground.
"Lily!" Tanja cried through the phone. "Are you okay? Answer me!"
Lily remained silent, her heart pounding fast and hard. She was not only overcome by a sense of dizziness, but also a wave of fear that made her nauseous. Honestly, she felt like throwing up.
She hated the idea of actually fighting a full-grown tiger. She wanted to run away from it, badly. But then images flashed in her mind, memories of her friends now as cold stone statues and the fact the only way to save them was those charms the tigers all wore.
Fear of losing her friends forever pushed aside her fear of tigers and gave her renewed energy to go after the tiger again.
After getting back up, she took a look around and swore. The tiger was no longer anywhere to be found. Looking around some more, she found her phone lying on the grass, no worse for wear except a little wet from dew. Tanja's voice could be heard squeaking from it. The phone's speaker mode had probably been turned off when it fell.
Lily scooped the phone up, put it to her ear and told Tanja on the other end, "I'm okay. But the tiger's gone. Did you see where it went?"
"It went bounding over to the next building to your left," Tanja told her. "You can still catch up to it."
Lily was already flying on her carpet again. She swooped over to the shorter box-shaped building next door, circled around it once and spotted the tiger running around the left side and disappear around the corner.
Once again, she chased after the beast. And when she turned the corner, it was there waiting. But this time, she was ready for it.
The moment the tiger pounced and swiped its paw at her, Lily swerved away out of the beast's reach. And then, she stood up and jumped off the carpet. She landed right on top of the tiger and clung onto tufts of its fur as it lurched and bucked around to try and shake her off. Her legs flailed about, but she hung on tight until the tiger tired out.
Once the beast paused to catch its breath, she seized her chance to grab hold of the glass ball charm on its collar and yanked it off. Smoke exploded out of the tiger's fur and Lily fell to the ground. Pain shot up her elbow.
"Ow!"
She gingerly sat up. Looking around, she noticed the tiger gone. Lying on the ground in its place was a plush toy.
"That's one down," Lily muttered to herself.
The next tiger, according to Tanja was lingering behind the Castle.
Learning from her earlier battle, Lily landed a few feet away where she wouldn't be noticed. Inspired by a comic book, she asked the bracelet to erase all sound around her and make herself invisible. The bracelet complied and Lily's hand disappeared right before her very eyes. She tried testing the spell out some more by shouting, clapping her hands and stomping her feet, but nothing could be heard.
Satisfied, she finally went over to the back of the old building that served as the heart of the school where she found the tiger laying down, apparently napping.
This is my chance! Lily thought to herself.
Slowly, she approached the beast, tiptoeing despite knowing she would make no sound anyway. She was just a foot away when the tiger suddenly lifted its head and opened its mouth wide.
Startled, Lily froze and was about to retreat when she realized that the tiger was only yawning. When it was down, it lowered its head back down and resumed snoring with its collar's charm tucked beneath it.
Now what do I do? Lily wondered. She racked her brain for a few minutes, but then came up with an idea.
She had the bracelet shine a ray of blue light around the tiger which slowly lifted the beast up into the air. But almost instantly, the tiger's eyes flew open and it jumped to its feet with a roar.
Her spell broken, Lily sprang forward and reached out. The tiger reared its head back, but with magic boosting her speed, Lily was in time to snatch the charm off its collar. Like the first one, the tiger disappeared in a puff of smoke and was replaced by a plush toy.
"That makes two," Lily said. "Alright Tanja, where's the next one?"
The next tiger was in the green house where plants of all shapes and sizes lived normally under the students' care. There were the usual colorful flowers and ferns, but also vegetables like carrots and potatoes, trees with fruits like apples and oranges, and a field of herbs for tea.
Lily found the tiger lying in the middle of a paved circle surrounded by white steel benches that the plant life's caretakers used during breaks. Tanja had explained that the tiger had crashed through the front doors of the building, but Lily could see as much when she walked through the gaping opening over broken glass and bent steel. Unlike Tiger #2, Tiger #3 was wide awake and staring off into space.
Perhaps it was enjoying the scenery, Lily thought. She, herself, found the surrounding plants to be very pretty, their leaves practically shining under the light of the blue moon.
As she wondered what to do next, she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket.
"Hello? What is it, Tanja?" she whispered.
Tanja's voice came through and said, "I just got an idea. Think you can do this?"
Lily nodded as she listened to Tanja's suggestion and went, "Uh-huh, uh-huh. That's . . . actually a good idea. Let's try it!"
And then she leaped out from the bushes she had been hiding behind. The tiger jumped up, startled. But before it could flee, Lily slapped her hand on the ground and shouted, "Vines!"
Light flashed from her bracelet and suddenly, dozens of large, thick green rope-like plants burst out of an explosion of concrete bits and dust. They swung over the tiger and in the blink of an eye trapped it in a tight, tangled mess.
The tiger bit and pulled at the vines with all its might. But no matter what it did, it could not break free. The vines had been reinforced by a force field of magic energy that glowed blue around the writhing beast.
Still, the vines' protection would not last long. That's why, as soon as the tiger was ensnared, Lily leaped and then dropped down, sliding across the floor. She passed beneath the tiger, through a tunnel the beast made with its legs, and reached up, snatching the charm off its collar.
"And that makes three. Two more to go."
Lily pulled out her phone again. "Alright, Tanja. Next."
**********
Perched on the edge of a nearby building's rooftop, the blue parrot watched as Lily scurried out of the green house. It heard the sound of rustling cloth, giving away that someone was walking up to the bird from behind. But knowing who it was, the bird did not bother to turn or look. Its eyes remained glued to the girl down below as she flew off on a magic carpet.
"How goes the child?" spoke the Schemer.
The parrot replied, "Doing a lot better than I thought. I expected her to turn into a blubbering mess when her friends turned into stone before her very eyes, but she was quick to start doing what needs to be done. Not only that, she's already gotten three out of the five charms. She'll be done long before the sun starts to rise. I must say, she's a lot more powerful now than before."
"But not enough," said the Schemer. "She needs to struggle some more."
With another flutter of his robes, he walked away and disappeared.
**********
Lily was on her way to the school gym while riding her flying magic carpet when suddenly a bundle of cloth appeared in front of her. It was a person dressed in robes whose face hid beneath the shadow of their hood, floating down like a marionette on strings dropped down onto the stage by giant hands above. No introductions were needed. There was only one person Lily knew dressed like that. She had only met him once before, but it was an unforgettable meeting.
"Schemer!"
"It has been a while, Lady Sapphire," said the antagonist.
Lily glared at him and snarled, "Unless you're here to say you'll undo the curse on Oliver and the others, get out of my way."
"Don't worry, child," said the Schemer. "I will be out of your hair shortly. I just came because I was worried this challenge was too easy for you."
Lily's face flushed red with anger. "Easy? You think chasing after five runaway tigers is easy!?"
The Schemer nodded and then pointed a black gloved finger at her. "Take a look at your phone."
"My phone?" Puzzled, Lily glanced down at her smartphone and her eyes flew wide in surprise. Rapidly, the time shown on the phone's lock screen changed. After a few seconds, the big, bold white numbers showed one . . . two . . . three hours had passed. And then it stopped.
"Hey, hey, hey! What's going on!?" Lily shouted, phone pressed to her face and right over her eyes. "What did you do?"
Coolly, the Schemer said, "I suggest you take that phone off your face. That's really bad for your eyes."
But Lily didn't care and asked again, "What did you do?"
The villain explained, "I slowed everything in the Blue World, including us. It is basically no different from fast-forwarding time, but much easier to do.”
"He's not kidding," Tanja said to Lily's phone's speaker. "I still have access to the Internet and all signs point that it's almost morning! Time really did speed up!"
“Why would you do that?” Lily shouted indignantly.
“Why, to make it harder for you to rescue your friends of course! I am the bad guy, remember? Now, you only have a few minutes before sunrise. If you do not gather all the charms in time, your friends will forever remain stone statues!”
The Schemer then cackled wickedly as he slowly rose up to the sky which had noticeably gotten brighter, a clear sign that night was soon changing to day.
"Good luck!"
The Schemer gave Lily a cheery, mocking wave and then disappeared in a flash of blue light. Lily had to turn away from the brightness. When she looked back, the Schemer was gone.
"That . . . that . . . !"
Lily had a few choice words she wanted to call the Schemer. But she swallowed them all back down, telling herself that now was not the time for futile insults. She still had two more tigers to find and not a lot of time left to find them.
"Tanja, is the tiger at the gym still there?" she asked on the phone.
Tanja replied, "It is. But hurry! It's already leaving!"
Lily was already flying on her magic carpet again and headed straight for the gym building as fast as she could. She reached it just in time to see the tiger running across the field towards the forest beyond the wall.
Like before at the green house, Lily used her magic powers to make vines burst out and wrap themselves around the tiger, tethering it to the ground.
"Yes!" Lily cheered. "Now I just have one more to go!"
Or so she thought.
One second the tiger laid pinned down on the grass. The next, there was a flash of light and it disappeared, only to reappear a few feet away as free as a wild bird.
A stunned Lily cried out, "What in the world?"
Tanja's baffled voice came out from the phone's speaker. "Did that tiger just teleport? Since when do tigers teleport?"
The Schemer's voice came from the sky and said, "Oh, I forgot to mention that I gave the remaining tigers superpowers. They can teleport and do a whole lot of other stuff."
"Ugh! WHY? JUST WHY?"
The Schemer didn't answer Lily's scream at him in the sky. Instead, he mockingly sang, "Tick-tock, tick-tock. The sun's almost up!"
His cackling faded, leaving Lily's face as red as a tomato as she bit on her lower lip. The corners of her eyes were moist.
She quickly rubbed her eyes dry with her sleeve and turned to see the tiger bounding for the wall again. Lily chased after it while commanding the bracelet to bring out more vines again and again. The tiger hopped left and right, jumping out of the vines' reach. One vine managed to snag the tiger's leg, but it just teleported out of the snaring plant's grasp. Not even a net made out of metal mesh could hold it down long.
Desperate, Lily jumped off the carpet and dove down to the tiger below. But just as she was about to land on top of it, the tiger disappeared in another flash of light and she hit the ground instead.
"No!"
Lily looked up and spotted the tiger getting close to the wall. In moments, it was going to jump over and disappear into the forest, beyond the school cameras' range. And with the dense foliage of that particular neck of wilderness, even with Tanja's drones, it would be hard to find the beast again.
But before the tiger could leap out of school grounds, nearby lights suddenly turned on, shining a ray of white light directly into its eyes. That was Tanja's doing, she came up with the idea while racking her brains for a way to help out beyond just navigation.
The tiger reared back with a pained howl.
"Lily, now!" Tanja screamed.
Lily scrambled back up and ran. Through her mind, she spoke to the bracelet.
I don't care how, just get me to that tiger!
The bracelet answered with light flashing from its jewels. In the blink of an eye, Lily found herself right next to the tiger. Only later after her adrenaline rush died down, Lily realized that she had teleported.
All her thoughts were on the charm dangling off the tiger's collar. As soon as she saw it, she reached out and grabbed it. The charm snapped off and the tiger transformed into a plush toy.
"That's it!" Lily shouted. "Just one more! Where is it, Tanja?"
"It's at the main road, headed for the main gates. No, wait! Now it's by the boy's dorms!"
Lily stopped the flying carpet and made a turn.
"Now it's in a first floor lecture hall at the history building!"
Lily turned again.
"Now on the roof of the music building! It just keeps jumping from place to place with that teleportation power!"
Shoulders slumped, head tilted back so her face pointed to the sky, Lily moaned, "Now what do we do?"
She felt frustrated enough to throw her phone down.
"Hold on," said Tanja. "It looks like it's teleporting around in a pattern. If I can just figure the pattern now, I can figure out where it'll be next. I just need a little bit of time."
"We don't have time!" Lily snapped. "We need that last charm now!"
"I know!" Tanja snapped back. She turned right and left, up and down, down and up, and left and right, looking from one computer monitor to the other. "So, it started there, went there, popped up here, and . . . Got it! I know where it'll be! Head to the history building, Mr. Lin's room. Hurry!"
"Uncle Viceroy's classroom. Are you sure?"
"Positive!" said Tanja. "The tiger'll be there in a minute, so you gotta get there fast!"
"I'm already here," said Lily, sitting on the table beneath the movie screen her uncle always used for his lectures.
Tanja blinked. "Wow, that was fast. So you can teleport now?"
"Looks that way," said Lily. She glanced out the window and then gave her phone a look. Time was running out for her and her friends. "Hey, Tanja, are you sure the tiger will - ?"
Up the back the room elevated from the teacher's podium, there was a flash of light and the tiger showed up. Lily acted as soon as she saw the light and appeared next to the tiger in a flash of her own. She reached out to grab the charm, but it jumped away before she could touch it.
The tiger crouched low with a noticeable halo of light around its fur.
Realizing it was going to teleport away again, Lily cried out, "No!"
But before it could disappear to who-knows-where, a classic shrill school bell rang and startled the tiger. Its concentration lost, the teleportation spell broke before it could be triggered.
The bell also gave Lily a jolt to the heart, but she was quickly snapped out of her stupor by Tanja who screamed from the phone, "Go, Lily! Go!"
Lily dropped the phone and leaped. At the same time the phone hit the floorboard, Lily's outstretched fingers wrapped around the charm hanging from the tiger's collar and yanked it off. In an instant, the tiger disappeared again, but this time it left behind a plush toy in its place.
"I got it! I got the last one!"
"Great!" cheered Tanja. "Now hurry back to the others!"
"On my way!"
Lily turned to put the charm in the pouch with all the others when suddenly, the whole world started spinning like it was in one big, supercharged washing machine. She tumbled over and hit the wall with her shoulder before slowly sliding down to her knees.
"Lily? Lily! Are you okay?" Tanja's voice came through the phone's speaker full of worry.
Lily shook her head furiously, but could not get rid of the vertigo hanging over her head. Her fingers also felt weak and numb, making it hard for her to pick the phone back up and faintly replied, "Yeah. I'm fine."
An unconvinced Tanja argued, "You don't look fine."
"I'm fine!" Lily aggressively repeated herself. Her legs felt like jelly, but she managed to stand back up and happened to glance up at the window. "Sun's almost up. Need to get back to that jungle. Break the others' curse."
**********
The Schemer had a clear view of the room from a nearby rooftop. He watched as Lily disappeared in a flash of light like the tigers did earlier, and then turned around only to run into a wall of blue feathers.
He slowly turned to see the parrot in its giant form looking back at him with a stern gaze.
Coldly, the parrot said, "I think she's had enough for one night, don't you think?"
The Schemer replied back with a, "Hmm." And then he turned and walked away.
**********
With the power of the sapphire bracelet, Lily went from her uncle's classroom at the history building to the platform between floors at the Castle in the blink of an eye. She slapped her hand on the painting of the tiger and was once more whisked into a jungle where her friends still stood frozen in stone.
After taking out all the charms she had collected, she placed them bunched up together on the floor. And then she shouted to the sky, "Okay! I got all the charms! Now what do I do?"
She didn't get an answer back, but she didn't need one. Almost as soon as she asked, light shined from all five charms. It got so bright that Lily had to look away for a bit.
"Huh? What happened?"
Hearing voices, Lily peaked over her shoulder, and then did a full one-eighty turn.
"Guys! You're okay!"
Beside herself with joy, Lily jumped and caught Oliver, Viv and Eddie in a hug. They and the other Sapphire Society members were completely back to normal. No longer covered in cold stone, but actual warm flesh and blood.
Oliver, Viv and Eddie gaped, bewildered. But then they returned Lily's hug with an embrace of their own. The other members watched.
"So . . ." Hassan spoke up, breaking the heartfelt moment. "What did we miss?"
Everyone gave him a glance. Some rolled their eyes, while others giggled.
But when Viv turned back around, that was when she noticed something was wrong.
"Lily? . . . Lily!"
Lily had fainted.