Chapter 9 - Flying the final Stretch

-Hole in the wall

Everyone in the restaurant who was watching the trial was deeply locked into the trial now. Not just there, but other places across the magical world where they get newscasts, from the Megas bazaar, to the New York leprechaun district, to the Florida Keys, to the bunyip reservation of Australia. Bets were being made like crazy from one creature to another.

-Trial dimension
“This is Lana T. Bell, reporting here where former member of the dragon council, Chang, is apparently challenging the candidate. I’ve heard that this girl took out the Dark Dragon, but that still doesn’t make the outcome of this obvious.”

-Hole in the wall

“Chang.....” Lao Shi and Jake said with the same hateful tone.
“Well, at least now we know how the others got in there.” Omina stated.

-Trial dimension

Rose got up, pulled out a pair of Hunts-staffs from her satchel, and took a battle stance. Chang flew down to the ground and assumed her human form. “Well well well, if it isn’t the Hong Kong Huntsgirl.” Bananas B said as he leapt from Chang’s shoulder to the ground.
“Don’t call me that,” Rose said sternly as she crossed her staffs; apparently, she didn’t want to be addressed as a part of her that she disliked. Chang chuckled, amused at Rose’s dislike of that nickname.
“I don’t think that she likes that, Channgity-chang,” Bananas B timidly stated, “she’s the one that took out the Dark Dragon, ‘membah?”
“Please,” Chang scoffed, “If she really had the potential to slay the Dark Dragon, or any dragon for that matter, the Dark Dragon would’ve been done for before the temple even disappeared,”
“Y’know, she’s go’ a point,” Bananas B chimed in. Rose raised her eyebrow and tightened the grip on her staffs.
“Are you underestimating me?” Rose inquired as she struck a fierce battle-stance.
“Mmm, maybe,” Chang retorted as she transformed back into her dragon form. “Care to prove me wrong?”
“Bring it!” Rose exclaimed, charging her staffs until they gave off a discharge of green energy.
Chang flew at Rose, claws barred, growling accordingly. Rose reacted by quickly by performing a high front-kick to knock Chang’s head upwards, thus exposing her underbelly for a direct roundhouse kick to send Chang flying back-first into a rock. Chang quickly got back to her feet and snarled, holding her staff out in front of her. “Had enough?” Rose asked. Chang answered by firing a small flurry of energy blasts from her staff at Rose, who repelled it by spinning one of her staffs in front of her. When the blasts stopped, Rose noticed that Chang was above her, swinging her staff down for an overhead assault; fortunately, Rose was able to block it with her staffs, and then she forced Chang off of her. Upon retaliation, Chang blasted one of Rose’s staffs from her hand, and then charged at her again. Soon after, they were locked in a blade-staff dual, their weapons clashing with each swing at one another.

Suddenly, Bananas B tried to ambush Rose by jumping her from behind, but was stopped when Fu grabbed the hip-hop monkey’s tail with his own teeth, causing Bananas B screamed in pain. Fu then hurled Chang’s simian assistant in the opposite direction. When Bananas B hit the ground Fu charged at him, but Bananas reacted by leaping onto Fu’s back and covered his eyes.
“Doggy don’t see what monkey do!” He exclaimed.
“And people say that I’ve got the lousiest quips,” Fu retorted. Fu started to flail around in an attempt to get the monkey off of his back like a blindfolded bronco.

Meanwhile, with Chang and Rose’s dual, Chang tried to impale Rose, but a quick parry solved that problem. Rose followed up by doing a double jump-front kick to Chang’s head, sending her flying backwards at least two yards. “You’re the one who sent those three fish-freaks out to get me, aren’t you!?” Rose cried out after landing. Chang got up, realigned her jaw, and began to chuckle.
“Took you that long to figure that out,” Chang replied, “I am also the one who used a beauty spell on that siren-girl,”
“I’m surprised you didn’t use it on yourself!” Fu yelled from a distance, only to get kicked by Bananas B.

- Hole in the wall

“Well, that explains a lot,” Spud said.

-Trial dimension

As Rose and Chang continued their dual, Chang flew skyward to gain distance between her and Rose. Rose, assessing the situation, reached into her satchel, pulled out at least a dozen huntsclan energy-ninja-stars, and then threw them at Chang. Reacting accordingly, Chang swung her staff, unleashing a wave of energy that burnt all of the ninja-tars to a crisp. “HA!” She exclaimed confidently, “Who do you take me for?! Your pitiful boyf–OOF!!” Chang was interrupted by a leap-front-flip-kick straight to the spot between the wings by Rose, and fell to the ground with heavy impact, dropping her staff. Rose soon landed next to Chang in a crouched pose, sticking a perfect dismount. When Rose got straight up again, She noticed that Chang didn’t revert back to human form, like when she did the same thing with Sun Park earlier when practicing. “I guess I didn’t hit her hard enough, or in the right spot,” Rose thought. She approached Chang to see if she was still conscious, and found out that she was... the hard way. Chang quickly came to and wrapped her tail around Rose’s body like a boa, and began to tighten it, attempting to choke her to death. “HA! You think that you’re so great, Don’t you?” Chang taunted as she got back up, “You’re noting but a hard-headed fool, just like your little boyfriend...” In response, Rose reared her head back, and then SLAMMED it into Chang’s forehead; the sound of the impact between the two skulls was enough to cause an echo.

-Hole in the wall
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!” Everyone in the restaurant exclaimed in unison, cringing accordingly.
“That’s gotta hurt,” Spud started.
“Tell me about it,”Lao Shi added, rubbing his forehead, “I still feel mine from this morning.”
“I think I felt that,” Sun said, rubbing his forehead.
“Ditto,” Jake, Trixie and Haley added in unison.

-Trial Dimension

Chang wobbled around in pain from her cranial impact with Rose, trying to restore her balance, accidentally releasing Rose, letting her collapse to her knees. “Thanks for reminding me,” Rose jokingly said after catching her breath, rubbing her forehead. Chang soon lost her balance altogether and just fell backwards. After her forehead pain passed, Rose dusted herself off and got back up. She turned to see Bananas B Holding Fu in a full nelson, Fu staining to get out and Bananas monkey-chuckling in confidence. Rose fired a blast from her staff at Bananas B, grazing his hat. At that, Bananas B and Fu stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to Rose. “Consider that your only warning shot, monkey,” Rose declared threateningly, “So why don’t you just take the hint?” Rose glared at the hip-hop monkey, who in turn saw that Chang was regaining consciousness and getting up, recovering her staff; He decided to play along.
“A-a-alright,” Bananas B convincingly stammered as he let go of Fu to put his hands over his head, “I-I-I’ll just side step off o’ da doggy,” He continued as he sidestepped off of Fu.
“Yeesh, talk about gettin’ the monkey offa’ your back,” Fu comedically stated after letting out a sigh of relief. Bananas continued to sidestep away from Fu, but Rose began to sense something fishy going on. Then, after a brief silence, Bananas made it al obvious.
“She’s all yours, Changity-Chang!” The Monkey yelled. Suddenly, Rose turned to see that Chang was flying at her. Reacting quickly, Rose back-flipped over Chang, letting Chang Fly directly beneath her; upon landing, Rose fired a direct, stun-shot from her staff at Chang’s wings, thus immobilizing them, then finished it with a straight kick. Chang, still being carried by her momentum, tumbled across the ground, and was going straight for the edge. Just as she was about to fall over, she quickly used her staff to fire a glowing snare at Rose’s feet. Suddenly, Rose was pulled down and quickly dragged to the edge, trying to get a firm grip on the ground, but she couldn’t stop herself from being dragged over the edge. When she was finally pulled over, she began to scream as she fell. Fortunately, she was able to think quickly enough to reach into her satchel and pull out a pair of Huntsclan energy daggers. She then jammed the daggers deep into the side of the hovering terra firma to create drag to slow down her fall; unfortunately, she stopped too close to the bottom of the land-mass, which was 20 feet bellow the flat surface.

- Hole in the wall

“Is that a close call? Or is she in deep now?” Jonathan asked Lao Shi.
“I believe that this time it’s both,” Lao Shi answered.

- Trial dimension

Rose kept her grip on her daggers while Chang dangled bellow, cackling like the madwoman she is. “Foolish child!” She shouted from below Rose, “Did you really think that you could defeat me that easily?!”
“Actually, no.” Rose answered. She then pulled one of her Daggers out and used it to try and slice off the net-snare.
“What are you doing?!” Chang cried out when she noticed Rose sawing at the snare around her ankle. Chang started to climb up her staff and snare-net in an attempt to stop Rose, but then a part of the snare’s fibers snapped and the line jerked down a bit, causing Chang to flinch for a moment. She snarled at Rose and began to slowly and carefully continue climbing the lengthy snare, ignoring the fact that she was afraid of plummeting into the bottomless pit due to her imobilized wings
“No worries Chang, I’ll save–YAHH!” Bananas B tried to rush to Chang’s rescue with a small potion-bottle, but Fu stopped him by tackling him and pinning him to the ground. Fu tried to grab the potion from Bananas, but he held it out of reach. Fu saw that the potion read “Essence of Dragon fl-”, he couldn’t read the last words because Bananas B’s fingers were covering the rest of the label, so he assumed it meant “Essence of Dragon Flight”.
“Gimmie...that...thing!” Fu grunted as he struggled with Bananas B.
Meanwhile, Chang was almost within arm’s reach of Rose, and Rose was almost done cutting the snare. Chang didn’t want to risk falling, so she leapt up with her claws beared in an attempt to grab and/or maul Rose. What Chang didn’t know was that Rose had anticipated that move. Suddenly, just as Chang was within mauling reach, Rose used the hand she was sawing the snare with to deliver a painful back-fist strike to Chang’s face, thus sending her to plummet down into the pit, screaming.
“I thought that I could defeat you THAT easily,” Rose said with a smirk.
“CHANG!” Bananas B cried out as he peered over the edge to see for himself, only to be pushed over by Fu Dog. The monkey fell shrieking as Fu grabbed the potion he was carrying.
“You okay down there, Rose?!” Fu asked from the 20 feet he was above Rose.
“I’m fine,” Rose said as she swiped her dagger across the snare on her ankle, cutting it off and letting the staff fall into the pit, “and for the record, I could’ve done that at any time.”
“You need help gettin’ back up?!” Fu shouted, “I nabbed this potion from the money and...!”
“That’s okay!” Rose said as she jabbed her free dagger into an un-scratched area of the terra firma, at least half an arm’s length in distance above the first, “I can climb!” She continued the alternating pattern to pull herself back up to the flat top of the land mass.

-Hole in the wall

“This is Lana T. Bell, reporting to you live where the knighting candidate has just survived a tussle with the fierce, former dragon councilor Chang, and is courageously scaling the side of the terra firma to continue her trial.” Lana Reported on the TV.
“Rose seems to be doing pretty well for herself,” Councilor Klude said. The others nodded in agreement and began to write more things down on the same sheets of paper as they did before.

Suddenly, they heard a blast and an explosion from the TV and everyone in the restaurant began to exclaim in shock and astonishment. When the councilors looked back up to the TV, they saw a cloud of dust and smoke from the explosion. When it passed they saw Rose dangling from the damaged Land mass.
“Rose!” Jake quietly exclaimed. Everyone else was in a commotion wondering what was going on. Despite the noise, Jake was able to hear a familiar language.
“Adnr! I deimss!” came the voice from an out of range distance from the TV.
“That voice...” Jake whispered to himself, “that sounds like the same guy who...” Omina once again used her mirror to get a clear visual on what the camera didn’t get. When Omina conjured the image at the best distance and angle, all it showed was a burn mark on the ground, as if a burst of energy took place.

-Trial dimension

Rose, considering that she lost her daggers in the explosion when nearly falling to avoid it, was holding onto a piece of rock that was relatively weakened by the explosion. She tried to use her feet to boost her upward, but the rock beneath her feet just broke, causing her to slip.
“Uh, Fu?” Rose called out with a hint of intimidation in her voice, “whatever you had in mind to use to help me before, now would be a good time to use it!”
“You got it, Rose!” Fu called back as he pulled out the potion bottle he took from Bananas B. Suddenly, just as he was about to uncork it, he felt it get violently slapped from his hand, resulting in him dropping it. It bounced across the ground and then fell over the edge. Luckily, Rose was able to catch it when it fell to her location.
“GOT IT!” Rose called out to Fu when she caught the bottle. Suddenly, out of nowhere a glowing, beeping ninja-star was launched and landed right above Rose’s head. When Rose looked up, she saw that the ninja star was an explosive device. Before she could even complete a full gasp, it detonated.

BOOM!!!!!!

The explosion was more than enough to force Rose off the side of the land-mass, and fall screaming.

-Hole in the wall

“NO!!!” Jake exclaimed, his face pale and clammy from what he had seen. The three dragon councilors silently bowed their heads in respect.

- Trial Dimension

Fu was blubbering up a storm.
“WHY!!!!!!!??????” He cried out, “The kid’s gonna saute me for sure,” He continued to sob, “I can still hear Rose’s screams echoing through that void,” oddly enough, he really could, “Only, these screams sound like Jake when he was first learning to.......” he was interrupted when he saw Rose rocket straight upward at high speed, screaming at the top of her lungs in panic. “....fly,” Fu finished with a flat voice. Rose was frantically swerving and spinning around and out of control in the air. She soon was able to aim herself at the land mass, but she wasn’t able to control herself all that well, thus a crash-landing was immanent.
“INCOMING!!” Rose yelled when she realized that she was on a collision course with Fu. All Fu could do was sit and watch wide-eyed as Rose flew in for the inevitable collision.
“Oh geez,” was all Fu had time to utter before Rose crashed into him with tremendous impact. While Fu was just knocked over backwards from the impact, Rose tumbled and rolled a few feet after hitting the ground until she came to a complete stop, face up with her back on the ground.
“Okay.... ow,” Rose muttered after a second of silence. Fu got back up and rushed to Rose.
“ROSE!” He exclaimed, “You okay?” Rose slowly lifted herself back up, dusted herself off and got back onto her feet.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” She replied, “Your potion worked just fine, take a look.” She pointed out a four-set of fanned-out insect wings, coming from her back. The sudden sight of that startled Fu to the point where it made him jump.
“How did that-?” Fu started, but his answer came quickly when Rose presented him with the bottle’s label, which read “Essence of Dragonfly”, which surprised Fu. “Ehehe, sorry, I thought it said ‘dragon flight’,” Fu chuckled nervously, “at least side-effects liquified essence exposure is only temporary,”

-Hole in the wall

“I did not see that coming,” Jonathan stated.
“Who cares, she’s alive!” Jake said excitedly.
“Oh sure, she gets a pair of wings, and I GET A TROLL FACE!!” Haley exclaimed, referring to a time when she was exposed to essence of troll.
“Don’t ask,”Sun told Susan and Jonathan before they could ask any questions.

-Trial Dimension

While stretching to recover from her crash, Rose flexed her wings up and down, and in and out to make sure that she could get a hang of them, and then pulled out her hourglass to see how much time they still had.
“Uh oh,” She gasped.
“What?” Fu asked.
“We don’t have a lot of time left.” She answered as she showed Fu the Hourglass.
“Yikes!” Fu exclaimed, “guess time sure flies when you’re fighting for your life, agu-gi-gu-WHOA!” Rose cut Fu’s laugh short when she ran by and picked him up.
Rose was really booking it at the speed she was running at, which seemed to be a bit faster than most humans. The reason for her speed was because she was flapping her dragonfly wings to buzzing point to give her a boost. When she got to the trail of smaller land masses, she leapt from one land mass to another, using her wings as a medium to increase the height of her jump, and soften the speed of her fall. She kept doing that for at least six jumps. When she got to the seventh jump, she leapt, but didn’t descend; instead, she flew straight over to the land mass that had her next destination on it: Hostility city.

“I think I’ve gotten the hang of these things,” Rose said to Fu, referring to her wings. When they got to the entrance of the city, Rose landed and put Fu dog down.
“Why we stoppin’?” Fu asked.
“I wasn’t raised to take shortcuts,” Rose answered. She looked up to see that hostility city definitely lived up to it’s name. It’s buildings were torn apart by it’s own residents, which consisted of the least desirable of magical creatures: biker trolls, gangster goblins, as well as a variety feral creatures, “.....even if those shortcuts avoid risky paths.” Rose finished nervously. There was only one road that lead to the exit of the city, so Rose and Fu took deep breaths and walked through it. While Fu was trembling with fear as he walked, Rose kept a calm, fearless expression, partially because she knew that she had the know-how on how to clobber most of them, and also because she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself and cause a fight. Unfortunately, she was to busy trying to avoid conflict that she didn’t see where she was going, and bumped into a large Biker Troll.
“Oh sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Rose said nervously. The troll looked down at her with a stern look.
“What’cha lookin’ at?” The troll asked in a deep voice.
“Nothing,” Rose answered.
“You callin’ me not’in’?” The troll replied in a threatening tone, cracking his knuckles.
“No, I was just saying that I wasn’t looking at anything in particular, just focusing on the general area and not a specific thing in particular,” Rose finished her response with a wide and nervous grin. The troll continued to leer at her for a second before responding with an “Okay,” and walking off. Rose and Fu let out a sigh of relief.
“Y’know, the last guys that made it this far just tried to beat us all up.” the Troll continued.

-Hole in the all.

“She definitely knows how to avoid unnecessary conflict,” Omina stated. The councilors nodded in agreement.

-Trial dimension

Rose and Fu got out of the city in one piece. After they left city limits, Rose picked Fu up again and quickly began to fly forward. She had really managed to learn how to control herself in midair pretty well. In no time at all, after swerving through a large thicket of trees, they were at the base of riddle-mountain. Standing in front of the mountain were a pair of cloaked goblins, and said goblins were standing in front of two tunnel entrances that were in the mountain’s side. Rose landed in front of them to see what she had to do.
“Greetings,” They both said in unison. “We are the riddle-goblins of this mountain,” They continued at the same time, “One of these tunnels leads to your doom, the other leads to a safe path to the other side of the mountain,”
“I think I know where this is going,” Fu mumbled as Rose put him down.
“We’ll tell you if you ask,” One said on it’s own.
“But keep in mind,” Said the other, “one of us is honest, and one of us is a liar, you’re allowed one question each, and each question should be chosen very carefully.”
“Ask wisely,” They finished in unison.

- Hole in the wall

Everyone in the restaurant was tossing ideas back and forward about what she should ask, but no one could agree on anything.

- Trial Dimension

Fu was also trying to figure out what they were supposed to ask. “Okay, If we first ask who lies and who’s honest, then we’ll be at a dead-end question since the liar with never admit to being the liar since he’d then be telling the truth, soooooooooo........ got anything Rose?”
“As a matter of fact...” Rose replied with a smirk. She picked up Fu and flew straight upward, then started to fly around the mountain.
“HEY WAIT!!!” One goblin shouted.
“YOU HAVEN’T PICKED A TUNNEL YET!!” The other finished.
“YOU NEVER SAID THAT I HAD TO!” Rose called back before she was completely gone. The goblins looked at each other in surprise.

-Hole in the wall

“Doesn’t the whole ‘pick-a-tunnel’ part go without saying?” Spud asked the councilors.
“Actually, listening for the details was part of the test.” Andam answered.
“And seeing as that was the last test of the trial, we must now go to Victoria Peak for Rose’s final judgement,” Klude stated. Everyone was getting up out of their seats, stretching from their prolonged lack of motion, and heading for Victoria Peak. What they didn’t know was that Rose’s troubles were not over yet.

-Trial Dimension

Still airborne, Rose and Fu were excited about finishing the trial. The Final Stretch was a tall, uprising hill that was topped by an arched rock with a swirling vortex within it, i.e., the way out. “WOOOHOOO!!” Fu cried out in excitement, “We did it! Sure, you did most of it, but still... WE’RE ALIVE! WOOHOO”
“I’m excited too, Fu Dog,” Rose calmly interrupted with a hint of joy in her voice, “But you don’t see me cheering load enough to knock the closest person into vertigo.”
Suddenly, a loud laughing noise came in out of nowhere and completely through Rose off balance, causing her and Fu dog to plummet to the ground. They landed with heavy impact, kicking up a small cloud of dirt when they hit the ground. Rose and Fu tried to get back up, but both their vision and balance were distorted; just trying to see what had happened almost made Rose puke from dizziness. She shook her head a bit, then opened her eyes to see what had happened. She was surprised to see that there was nothing there, but she was still braced for anything sudden. Unfortunately, she wasn’t braced enough to protect her from being smacked three feet across the ground. She got back up to see that some of the grass was pressed down in a weird foot shape. Assessing the situation and thinking quickly, Rose reached into her satchel and pulled out a small device and threw it. The device in question was a dye-pack, which sprayed a green ink everywhere, which helped Rose find whatever entity was smacking her around. After it was sprayed, the creature revealed itself to be a large, clown-like being standing at fifteen feet in height with a big, bent over, purple top hat, vest and puffy-pants, black gloves and shoes, spiral eye pupils, black/yellow stripes neck, arms, legs, and waist, black pony-tailed hair what ended in curled ends at the mustache, sideburns, eyebrows, and pony-tail, it also had a long and pointy black nose, and it’s wide grin of razor sharp teeth was decorated with purple makeup.
“A clown?” Rose asked.
“MASSACRE!” The clown shouted as it reared it’s arms over it’s head. It’s arms stretched to an incredible length before speeding back down, ready to slam Rose. Before they made contact, Rose remembered that she could fly, and she used that ability to dodge the clown’s giant fists. Unfortunately, the clown was persistent, it started swinging a flurry of stretchy punches that seemed almost spring loaded, giving Rose a reason to start playing on the defense. Utilizing her ninja-like reflexes, she used her battle staff to block the rapid punches. After two dozen failed punches, the clown-creature spread it’s arms sideways, palms open, then swung them in on Rose in an attempt to flatten her like an insect. Then, just before the clown made contact, Rose turned her staff sideways so that the blades faced side to side; When the clown made contact, he accidentally slammed his palms on the blades, then recoiled his arms in a screaming pain. It whimpered as it’s grin became a toothy frown of pain.
“Sting enough for you, clown?” Fu jokingly asked. The clown looked to see that there was a wet-spot on his shoe. “Sorry,” Fu continued, “I needed to drain the plumbing and, uhhh......” Fu was turning pale at the sight of the clown’s anger.
“Mmaaaaassssssaaaaaaaacrrrrrrrre!” The clown growled as his spiral pupils straitened into vertical slits, and it’s teeth bared in an intimidating snarl.
“Oh, Geez,” Fu peeped in fear as the clown stretched it’s neck upward and extended it’s jaw to at least three times the size of it’s face. Then, like a sling-shot, it launched it’s head at Fu, ready to chomp; luckily, Rose used her wings to speed over and use an adhesive Hunts-grenade to shut the clown’s mouth, who then struggled to get it off.
“Are you prone to ticking off large carnivores?” Rose asked Fu.
“Eh, it’s not always a carnivore,” Fu answered jokingly. Suddenly, the clown broke the adhesive using it’s laugh. Reacting quickly, Rose reached into her satchel, pulled out a handful of ninja-stars, and through them at the clown with great skill. Surprisingly, the ninja-stars were knocked out of the air in mid-flight by a flurry of throwing needles.
“What the–?” Rose stammered before a flurry of ninja-stars flew in her direction. She quickly spun her staff to bat them to the ground. “Where did those come from?” Her answer came when a pair of wooden hands with razor-sharp metal fingers and wires on the wrists fired themselves from under the clown’s hat, and took a firm grip on the ground in front of Rose. Rose and Fu visually followed the wire up to the underside of the clown’s big hat. Then, a pair of unjointed wooden fingers lift the rim of the hat to make room for the one under it to get out. The creature under the clown’s hat was revealed to be some type of wooden, puppet-like creature with six limbs (four arms, two legs). It slowly glided down it’s wrist wires into the clear, wires attached to it’s feet from it’s ankles still under the hat, revealing more of it’s features: a short top hat, short black hair, a pointy metal nose, a black vest over a grey, tattered, long-sleeved zip-up shirt, tattered black pants, a bat-like red bow-tie, razor-sharp metal teeth, the second set of arms having three non-opposable digits on each hand, it’s right eye was yellow with an X-shaped pupil and a dark circle under it, the left eye was just a big screw. When reached it’s hands on the ground, it grappled back it’s “feet”, which were like four-metal-fingered hands, from under the clown’s hat and snapped them back into place. It then sprung itself into an upright position, standing slackly, grinning viciously only because his wooden head didn’t have any flexible lips.
“Vandalize,” The puppet said in a slow and ominous digital voice.
“Yeesh,” Fu muttered, “looks like Tim Burton puked on Pinnochio, agu-gah-gu-gu-gu, WHOA!!” The puppet opened it’s jaw to reveal a bundle of revving buzz-saws. It tried to take a chomp out of Fu, but Rose grabbed Fu and flew backwards to dodge it. Growling, the puppet pulled out ninja throwing-knives from metal opening hatches on it’s hands, and threw them at Rose with incredible skill. Reacting quickly, Rose tossed Fu upward, who screamed accordingly, and used her staff to slice the incoming knives in half with just one swing, then caught Fu as he fell back down.
“Ugh, could you give a dog a little warning?” Fu said with a hint of queasiness.
“Sorry, I needed my hands free for— LOOK OUT!” Rose was interrupted when She saw the puppet creature fire a small flurry of throwing needles from it’s mouth. Thinking quickly, she swung her head to swing her braid in front of her to catch the needles, and then -before the braid hit her face- swung it in the opposite direction to fire the needles back at the two creatures. While most of the needles hit the puppet in the face, one nailed the clown between it’s teeth.
“Wow!” Fu exclaimed, “that was pretty awesome to watch,” He finished as Rose put him back down.
“VANDALIZE!!” The Puppet yelled as it pulled the needles out of it’s face, rotating eyebrows arched. Rose attempted a flying jump-side-kick, but the puppet creature used it’s secondary set of hands to grab her leg. Rose tried to use her free leg to finish the kick, but the first set of hands grabbed it.
“This is bad,” Rose stated. The puppet opened it’s mouth and ran the buzz-saws within it. It slowly lowered Rose’s legs to the blades, ready to make mincemeat out of her. Thinking quickly, she shoved her staff into the blades, jamming them and making the puppet creature spazz out and drop her. Taking advantage of the puppet’s current condition, Rose delivered a powerful spin-kick to knock the puppet’s head off of it’s body. While the head made good distance, it was still attached to the body by a mess of thin, black, wires. When the head began to pull itself back onto the puppet’s body, Rose and Fu tried to make a break for it.
“An invisible clown, a psychotic blade-puppet, what’s next!? A mime?!” Fu exclaimed as he and Rose ran for it. The answer came when a flash of green energy burst in front of them. They stopped to see what had appeared in front of them; It was a tall, skinny, scarecrow-like creature hanging on it’s mount with large four-fingered hands and three-toed feet in black, wearing all burlap clothing, a long, tattered cape, long, yellow hair that partially covered it’s face ,a goatee, a pair of peering yellow eyes, a curled , stitched pointed hat with a wide rim, and a mouth that was covered with cloth, but had a row of vertical opening slits that signifies the shape, and stitches under the eyes.
“Mime, no. Scarecrow, yes.” Rose said as she pulled out another battle-staff. The Scarecrow looked up at Rose and stepped off of it’s mount one limb at a time. When the scarecrow was completely off, he gripped a handle on the top, causing the foot and arm racks to retract into the main pole. The foot bars were replaced by a pair of large, quarter-moon shaped frames that were soon filled with green energy to form an ax.
“Mutilate...” The scarecrow-creature said ominously as it swung the ax over it’s shoulder.
“We’re in trouble!” Fu exclaimed as the scarecrow creature wound up to swing the axe at them. Luckily, Rose grabbed Fu and flew them both upward just before the axe made contact. The creature snarled and looked up at it’s airborne prey.
“Egt abck eehr ouy aalmms!” The scarecrow creature shouted, waving it’s fist.
“I have no idea what you just said!” Fu shouted back, “but I know that you can’t reach us, so NYAH!” Fu finished it by pulling his cheeks and sticking his tongue out.
“Real mature,” Rose said under her breath. The scarecrow growled as it reached for the part of it’s mask that covered it’s mouth, reached it’s fingers into the center crease, and pulled open the mouth portion of the mask to reveal three large and long flailing green tongues. Rose and Fu both let out a yelp of surprise at the sight of that.
“Didn’t see dat comin’!” Fu exclaimed. The scarecrow used it’s long tongue to snag Rose by the ankle, then slam her and Fu to against the side of the hill that lead to the exit, causing Rose to drop Fu on impact. Then the scarecrow creature flung Rose over it’s head, then slammed her back in front of it and the other two creatures. Upon seeing her, the clown cracked it’s knuckles at the same time that the puppet let out from it’s mouth and upper hand palms razor-thin black wires.
“Massacre,”
“VANDALIZE,”
“Mutilate,” The scarecrow-creature picked it’s axe back up.
“Get a vocabulary!” Rose exclaimed as she charged the blade of her staff with an energy discharge. She used that charged blade to send an energy current up the saliva-covered tongue as a means to stun the scarecrow into letting go of her. When Rose’s ankle was released, she grabbed the tongue and swung the scarecrow into the clown’s mouth, and pulled them both down on top of the puppet. Rose checked her hourglass, and gasped when she saw that the top was almost empty. She attempted to fly away, but the puppet creature squirmed out from under the clown, and fired an acupuncture needle from it’s mouth, which nailed Rose right in the center of her four wings, causing her to yelp in pain and fall to the ground with heavy impact. As she got up, the three creatures got back up and started charging at Rose; The puppet running on all six of it’s limbs, the scarecrow swinging it’s axe in front of it between steps, and the clown just stretching it’s own upper body in towards Rose’s direction. When Rose got back to her feet, she plucked the needle out from between her wings, grabbed her battle-staff with both hands, took her stance, and quietly said “Bring it on,” in a threatening tone. The three creatures leapt to pounce Rose.

- Victoria Peak

The Dragon council, Jake, and the others waited for Rose to appear. Jake was pacing the ground, Trixie and Spud were watching Jake pace back and porward, Lao Shi, Sun, Susan and Haley were busy with a magical creature flash card game with Jonathan, and the council was just standing patiently.
“What’s keeping her?” Jake asked, finally breaking the silence, “Shouldn’t she have been here by now?”
“He has a point,” Haley added, turning her attention to Jake and the council, “It’s not like she has to fight anyone else, right?” That last query spark something in Jake’s memory.
“That’s it!” He started, “Remember when the portal was opened and we were attacked?”
“Yes,” The three Councilors answered dryly at once, remembering the needles that stunned them.
“There were three guys that entered the portal,” Jake reached into hin pocket to pull out the napkin he sketched their likenesses on, “But we didn’t see them the entire time Rose took the trial, but I think I heard one of them when the side of the cliff blew up, and it was spittin’ some weird gibberish.” Omina pondered what Jake was saying, then used her mirror to see what was keeping Rose, and then gasped at what she was seeing. She projected the image so that everyone could see the combat between Rose and the three creatures. With all of them attacking Rose at once, it could’ve been anyone’s battle.

-Trial Dimension

“MASSACRE!!” The clown shrieked as it backhanded Rose across the ground with one slap; Rose retaliated by sticking her staff into the ground, and using it as a spring-load to launch herself back at the clown, using her wings to carry her the rest of the way, but the puppet was there to stop her.
“VANDALIZE!” Is cried out as it fired it’s upper hands like grabbling hooks at Rose’s ankles and grabbed them to stop her. It then slung Rose in the direction of the scarecrow, who was holding it’s axe over one shoulder.
“MUTILATE!” It shouted as it knocked Rose upward in the chin with the handle of it’s axe, then delivered a kick to her stomach that sent her hurdling in the other direction, then tumbling across the ground; she stopped dazed and face up. When she snapped out of it, the scarecrow creature slammed the axe to the ground to that the staff part of the axe had her pinned to the ground. She tried to lift it back out, but the scarecrow creature put his foot on it, pushing it harder on top of Rose. It laughed loudly in pride as the other two gathered around Rose. Rose strained herself to try and get out, but had no luck.

- Victoria Peak

“Can’t anyone do anything!?” Jake cried out in panic over the well-being of the girl he loved.
“Jakey!” Trixie chimed in with a tone of surprise in her voice, “Why can’t you show any confidence for your own girlfriend?!”
“IT’S NOT THAT I DON’T BELIEVE IN HER! It’s just...” Jake exclaimed, then calmed down to finish, “it’s just that I don’t want to lose her again.” Jake finished.
“I’ve been meaning to ask about that...” Jonathan started.
“It is a long story,” Lao Shi interrupted. Jake was still focused on Rose’s current situation, his fingers crossed for her (figuratively speaking).

-Trial dimension

The three creatures her laughing triumphantly at catching Rose, except for the puppet who revved it’s blades as a sign of laughter.
“ I acnt’ beeeilv ahtt eht eno-deey aiorrrw adn eht oru aelmt-ademr aemrst ghostu ouy as a aceeghlln, I ddint’ eenv aehv to esu my adeht-abehrt no ehr.” The scarecrow creature said.
“I don’t know what you just said, but whoever os going to kill me, do it quickly,” Rose fraudulently pleaded. The puppet creature extended it’s claws, as well as a pair of stabbing weapon’s from the hatches on it’s upper palms, it also ran the buzz-saws in it’s mouth, ready to maul Rose. As the puppet reared it’s weapons to strike, the scarecrow shoved it away.
“Ehy!” It started in it’s own language, “ahtw aekms ouy hiknt ahtt ouy aehv eht ghirt ot almu adn mutilate ehr? I dhlosu be eht eno oy ikll ehr! I’M GHNRUY !” The puppet buzzed and clicked as a method of talking back to it, but then the clown interrupted by using honking and laugh-like noises as a means of communication. Pretty soon, they were all arguing over who was going to finish her off.
“Hey, excuse me,” Rose interrupted, the creatures just shot glares at her, “Uh, yeah, could you take this argument somewhere else please? I feel caught in the middle.” After a brief pause, the three creatures walked a short distance away, leaving Rose unguarded and without the pressure of the scarecrow creature’s foot, allowing her to lift the handle off of her and slide out as they were arguing. As she attempted to sneak off, the scarecrow was first to notice that she was making a break for it.
“EHY!” It yelled, “EHSS’ EGGITTT AAWY!” reacting to that, the puppet creature launched it’s left upper hand like a grappling-hook, a black wire still attached to it, and landed it right in front of Rose. The creature then firmly gripped the ground with it’s grappled hand, then retracted the cable, pulling himself in front of Rose. She tried to double back, but the clown stretched it’s entire body to give it a 50-foot size all around, expanding it’s hands, feet, torso, pelvis, and head in proportion with the rest of it’s body in the process and stomped it’s foot in front of her to block her escape. The scarecrow creature just ran over and picked up it’s axe, and ran to block Rose’s remaining escape route. They had completely triangulated around her. Rose gripped her staff , and turned to see everyone around her. The clown was cracking it’s knuckles, the scarecrow was salivating, and the puppet whirred the buzz-saws in it’s mouth.
“So is anyone going to do anything?” Rose rhetorically asked, trying to get them angry. The clown reacted by throwing a punch in Rose’s direction, but she used her wings to dodge it, then used a ray her staff to freeze it to the ground. All three of them were surprised by that. “Oh yeah, didn’t I mention?” Rose started as she landed on top of the clown’s arm, “I acquired this gear from the Victoria Peak Huntsclan fortress. In other words, custom made.”

-Victoria Peak

“There’s a Huntscaln fortress here?” Klude asked.

- Trial Dimension

Rose ran up the clown’s arm to get to the face, her wings buzzing to give her extra speed. Noticing her approach, the clown stretched it’s neck to move it’s head towards Rose to attack her. Also, the puppet and the scarecrow pursued Rose from the other side. Rose noticed that she was being pursued from both ends, and that the clown was opening it’s jaws to attack, so she spread her wings and flew off of the arm to allow them to collide with each other. The puppet launched it’s head attached to a bundle of wires at Rose in an attempt to bite her, but instead got the rim of the clown’s big hat; meanwhile, the clown almost bit the scarecrow in half, but it reacted quickly enough to use it’s axe/pole to keep it’s jaw open.
“OUY ANRST-ADEIILMNNOS MNOOR! OUY ALMOST CDEHMOP EM!” the scarecrow shouted. The clown honked an apology, then spat out the scarecrow to it’s frozen hand. After hitting the ground, the scarecrow creature got back up, and used it’s axe to break the ice, letting the clown pull it’s hand back. Noticing that Rose was flying off, the puppet (who was still on the clown’s arm) fired a throwing needle from it’s mouth that was aimed at the spot between Rose’s wings in an attempt to immobilize her, but Rose’s reflexes were too quick for that. She used her staff to bat the needle to a tree that was a moderate distance behind the clown; the needle ricocheted off of the tree and hit the clown at just the right nerve-point to make it lose all mobility in it’s body, and collapse on top of the other two, who screamed as it was falling. When the clown was completely
“That was easy,” Rose chuckled as she continued to fly to the exit portal.
“WOOHOO! Way to show’em ninja-girl!” Fu cheered. Rose pulled the hourglass from her satchel, and gasped to find that they had less than a minute to get out of there, so she just high-tailed it to the portal. The scarecrow, however, managed to dig itself out from under the out-cold-clown’s armpit. It looked to see that Rose and Fu were moving for the portal, and decided to stop them. Using it’s two side tongues to hold the cloth mouth-seems of it’s mask open, it used it’s middle tongue to reach out, grab Fu, and drag him into it’s mouth. Fu was thrashing and screaming to get out.
“ROSE!!” He cried out, “I KNOW DAT FINISHIN’ THIS IS IMPORTANT TO YA, BUT WOULD YOU MIND HELPIN’ BE AVOID WHAT THE INSIDE OF A DEMON SCARECROW LOOKS LIKE!?!?” Fu was panicking at the sight of the scarecrow’s wide, and toothy jaw, while Rose was panicking on her ultimatum; Save her memories of the magical world, or save her boyfriend’s animal guardian. “ANY TIME NOW!!!” Fu was gripping the ground, trying to slow down the pull. Just when Fu felt done for, Rose flew in, used her staff to stun the scarecrow, grab Fu, then fly out through the portal.

-Victoria Peak.

When the portal to Victoria Peak from the dimension opened, Rose and Fu flew out screaming and tumbled across the ground from the force of the wormhole. When they finally stopped, Rose got up panting to face the three councilors. Omina, Klude, and Andam turned their gaze to show Rose the sunset; getting the hint, Rose pulled the hourglass out to see that she had run out of time. Her face turned pale at the situation.

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