Journey for the Gem

Journey for the Gem- Chapter 4

                *~* JADE’S THOUGHTS

Three hours later, Jade lay in a pool of sweat on some gym floor Onyx had conjured.

“I can’t… take… anymore... of this…abuse!” Ruby panted, collapsing dramatically on the sweat-coated floor beside Jade. Jade tried to laugh but choked instead on the sweat pouring off her forehead.

First they had swum thirty laps while beating off piranhas in the process, and then they had hit punching bags that weighed about one hundred pounds that actually came to life and bit you if you didn’t throw a punch or kick exactly right. Later, they climbed a rock wall. That doesn’t sound hard? Oh, yeah, it steamed with lava. If you weren’t quick enough, your eyebrows would be singed off, and the tips of your fingers and toes were burnt. Did I mention the wall was nine hundred feet tall? After that, they had tried to battle Onyx, (which turned out to be a disaster,) and had epically lost.

Onyx had turned Opal into a sumo wrestler, Ruby into an obsessed tap-dancing girl, Jasper into an electrical eel with a serious unibrow, and just when Jade thought she was about to get blown up into nothingness, he placed her in an all-body cast that was next to impossible to get off. Jade was jarred out of her thoughts about Ruby in the miniskirt tap-dancing when Onyx came up and blew an invisible whistle. Everyone learned to respect the whistle when Onyx had banged Jasper over the head with it when he had refused to get up. Jasper had grown a welt on his now egg-resembling head and had to sit out for a while.

“Okay,” Onyx began. “Now, we are going to fight sphinxes.” Everyone groaned. “And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’.” More groaning.

“Why can’t we just take a nap?” whined Ruby.

“Yes!” Jasper shouted, making them all jump.

“What, that we should take naps?” inquired Opal.

“No, I just got a level up in Star Wars!” Jasper said excitedly, holding out some gaming device with Luke Skywalker grinning on it.

“OKAY,” Onyx said again, more impatiently this time. “You will go in this order. Ruby, Jade, Opal, Jasper. Fight the sphinxes until they are gone to the Duat or they surrender. Begin!”

A sphinx charged out, and whoa, this was not a cute little tiger-looking-baby-kitten-that’s-oh-so-adorable-how-could-you-kill-it. This thing was a sweaty beast, with matted, dirty fur, dark beady eyes, and blood-streaked white fangs.

“Gross!” Opal exclaimed, and Jade saw why. Wherever the sphinx drooled, massive spit pools sank through the floor, creating bubbling, sizzling ash.

“GOOO, RUBY! Yeah, Ruby Ra!” cheered Jade, breaking the silence by doing a nerd version of the tap dance that Ruby had been doing when Onyx turned her into that obsessed tap dancing girl. It must have looked pretty dorky, because everyone was laughing, and even Onyx cracked a smile. You definitely didn’t see that too often.

Then Ruby’s face became solemn as she turned to face the giant sphinx. They charged each other at the same moment, causing the sphinx to stop, and she could’ve sworn that the sphinx gave Ruby a look that said, ‘hey! That’s my tactic!’

After a couple quick thrusts with a borrowed sword (sadly, the pretty sword wouldn’t come out of Ruby’s pocket anymore) the sphinx vanished forever into the Duat. Jade almost felt sorry for him. (Or her.) Almost.

                *~* JADE’S THOUGHTS

Jade stepped up to the big X in the middle of the gym, palms sweating and throat dry. “Okay…GO!” Onyx said, whipping off the stage cover dramatically. What Jade saw made her mouth bang against the floor.