“You’ve said that I can use a spell to leave it K.O., right?” I shouted while jumping from building to building in a pair of boots that were amazingly shock-absorbing. “Which one?”

“Just a couple of sentences”. Pipoh waited for me and found a better view from the moving creature so he could point at it before completing his explanation. “Once you tire it out, you’ll need to throw the baton at it and say the following: Grief is brief; love is forever. Time to wake up now, light as a feather”.

Very poetic. I thought.

“Alright. Now I only need to know how am I going to tire him…” I looked at the baton in my hand and I knit my brows. “I suppose… I can’t simply hit it with this as if it was a piñata”. I swang it up and down. “What do I do?”

“Well… there’s a technique that the old Majorette used. She called it ‘the Boomerang’”.

I rose an eyebrow. “Will that really work?”

“Only a way to find out” he replied. “The procedure is nearly the same as the ‘Wake-up’ spell”.

“Alright”. I stepped onwards and prepared myself. I can do this, I thought while trying to convince myself.

I felt like the knight facing a big ugly dragon and it wasn't a pleasant feeling. From the top of that building, the people running away seemed so small… and the monster soooo imposing. I swallowed and tried to concentrate on my first attack; then took the baton by one of its ends and threw it at the creature while shouting the word ‘boomerang’.

Even if I was kind of far away, its efficiency was amazing. The baton reached the giant snake-thing in the cheek and made it roar while coming back to me. “Yeah, I did it!” Majorette: 1 point. Problem was... I’d given myself away and now I had a 50-metre-high beast staring in my direction with an open mouth and a very angry face. “Oh, oh…”

When it propelled its upper body to me, I scarpered in the opposite direction like Tom Cruise in one of his ’Mission impossible‘ movies.

“Now what?!”

Pipoh was flying at the same speed while holding his hat. “You have to exhaust its energy before it kills us!”

“I already knew that!”

We jumped to the other terrace but soon reached a dead-end when the next building became a large empty space of a street. The only possibility was to jump to the second edifice, but I couldn’t get that far by myself, even with my new boots. Fortunately, my powers had another ace up the baton.

“Shout ‘extend’! Cried the pixie.

“Why?!”

“Just do it!”

And I did.

“E-extend!”

Just as the word got out from my mouth, the baton enlarged until touching the ground. He didn’t need to say anything else; I jumped and let it drive me to the other side like a pole athlete before reducing it again with a loud and deductive ‘Shorten!’. Just in time, for the monster was already there. It actually felt down after me, but its silhouette quickly rose again.

We weren’t fast enough, so it finally caught up with us but, instead of attacking from the back, it blocked our way up front.

I was really scared at that moment, but it was even worse when I saw that long tail moving towards me. I dodged it miraculously, but the ground didn’t. The crash was so strong that it made a giant hole and I had to grip the edge not to fall down, hanging like a fish from a rod.

After a few seconds of falling pieces, my surrounding became quieter… but then I flinched when I saw a group of people in the middle of a meeting, staring back at me and the incredible opening in their room with their mouths wide-open. It was one of those weird situations that you may use as a funny anecdote to tell your friends and have some laughs, but for me it was the first time to be seen in my uniform. Way to make a first impression! At least, nobody was hurt.

“Em… sorry to interrupt but… you should evacuate this building; for your safety.” And when we heard something moving over our heads, I insisted. “Please, get out of here. I’ll take care of the rest”.

The people stood up fast and run away from the room as I pulled myself up. Out again, I realized that Mr. nightmare, now with its back facing me, had slithered away a bit, probably thinking I was gone.

Looking at the results of a simple tail-kick, I didn’t want to imagine the disaster that could follow now that the monster was on top of a 10-floor structure. Heaven knows how many people were still inside, and my efforts would be useless in such a limited space. How could I exhaust it when I couldn’t move myself?

I looked around and got a quick view of the city. I knew I had to take the fight somewhere else; a wide-open space, away from the buildings and crowds that were now trying to take the best shots for their social media.

Soon enough, I recognised a clear spot in the distance, near the river. It was the central park.

“Bingo.” I whispered.

“Thank the gods you’re ok!” Pipoh appeared in front of me all of a sudden and I nearly screamed.

“Do you really have to surprise me like that every time?”

“Sorry, I had to hide but I feared you were gone...”

“Well, that thing almost killed me indeed.” I replied. “And it’s a miracle that it didn’t hurt anybody else. We have to get it down and away from the center as fast as possible.”

“I totally agree with you.” He moved to my side. “Question is: how do we do that?”

I looked down to the street and saw a bunch of police cars with their respective agents beside. My lips curved into a smile. “I have an idea”.

Using the baton as an improvised elevator, I went down and approached the first car. The officer stopped talking on his walkie-talkie and gave me a confused look.

“You shouldn’t be here… madam”. He muttered while not certain how old I was. “Please, leave.”

I went straight to the point. “I need your megaphone, officer”.

He looked at his partner with a sceptical look and she came to me.

“Miss, please, this is no joke. You have to leave immediately.”

“I’m here to help” I insisted, still getting the same disregard from the first.

“This isn’t a place for kids… or wannabe-heroes” he added, arrogantly. “Just leave and let us do our work.”

“O-k…” I knew I wouldn’t get anything from those two ‘pros’, so I took charge of it without permission. In fact, Pipoh did.

Still invisible, he took the megaphone away from the man, who stood in shock as it floated into my hands, and I smiled back before adding: “Thank you for your help, officers. Now let me take care of this and stay safe.”

I went past the cars with everybody looking at me and stopped at a certain distance.

This better work. I thought while launching another boomerang to the visible beastly head on the skyscraper and hitting the target.

When the monster roared and the baton came back to me, I used the megaphone to call for its attention.

“Hey, you! Yeah, you!” I shouted, when I caught its eyes. “Did you miss me?” The answer didn’t take long. The creature moved away from the building and let its body down in my direction. “Fine, come and get me if you can!”

I used the expand spell to catapult myself backwards and kept on running along the street, glad that it was wide enough not to destroy any more architecture.

The beast followed me like a cheetah after its prey and I used another bunch of catapults before I made it to the entrance of the central park. However, a familiar sound reached my ears and I knew my plan was about to be interrupted.

A couple of helicopters appeared in the sky and began to shot at the beast, just like in the movies.

“Great… now I have to deal with the air force...” Then, I remembered something. “If they shoot at it… can they kill it?”

“Well…” Pipoh gave it a thought. “Technically… they could if they use powerful weapons...”

“Then we have a problem”. I stated, looking at both.

The creature wasn’t intimidated though. It moved the tail from one side to the other, trying to scare away those ‘mosquitoes’ and I could imagine the conversation among the pilots telling each other how to strike. Point is, the attack didn’t work as expected and I saw the failure coming before it happened.

The monster used a building as a wall to corner one of the helicopters and trapped it with its tail. The pilot couldn’t escape and ended up jumping. I acted by instinct and used the extended baton again to catch him in the air before there was an accident. He was quite confused about me being there, but didn’t say no when I told him to put himself to safety.

Now, there was one helicopter left… and the group of police agents that had relocated near us.

“Go away, please!” I tried to prevent them, but nobody was paying attention to me and I was running out of time. Somebody would die soon because of ignorance… However, things were about to change too.

The beast used the helicopter he had as a projectile and threw it against the police cars. Everybody survived, but the damage was quite impressive. The police officers used their guns and forgot about the danger of a long tail, that finally wiped them all away. I’m pretty sure some of them got broken bones.

As for the second helicopter, the creature used a simple ear trick to create a wind blow and make it spin. The pilot couldn’t take control of it but the machine landed, incredibly, with a small crash on top of a building, which made it possible for him to survive.

At that moment, I knew it was my chance to finish it.

I didn’t know if they had actually tired him a bit, but I took the megaphone again and called the monster one more time. It still had the anger to follow me to the park.

I shouted around so people in the zone would run away and got lucky that there weren’t much, apart from the usual irresponsables that wanted to get the most likes in their Instaframe profiles.

“Good job!” Pipoh stood on my shoulder. “You drew it here!”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what to do next!” I admitted, panicking. “And I have to take it down before they send the damn fighter planes!”

The snakey being found me fast and stroke. I was lucky to dodge it and began to run among the trees. “Maybe…” I said between breaths “if I make it run in circles... that’ll do something…” and that was the most absurd idea I had. Not only it didn’t work, but I also got stupidly tired.

Then, as if the situation wasn’t hard enough, I stumbled on my feet and fell down. Crucial moment that got me caught.

“Majorette!” cried Pipoh.

The monster used its tail as a hand and lifted me in the air with such a strength that I’m pretty sure I heard my bones crack. It was awfully painful and it made me scream in agony, but I couldn’t give up yet; my own life was at stake and I could see that disgusting mouth wide open, ready to gobble me down.

I looked around and discovered a fire hydrant. My chances were low, but I had to try. I used all my might and threw the baton one last time. It worked.

The cover broke and it shot a fast and powerful jet of water that hit my attacker, making it lose balance and collapsing on the ground.

It was so effective that I was also set free. And given that chance, I wasn’t going to lose it. Remembering the wake-up spell I’d learned from Pipoh, I got up as I could, leaving my pain out for a second, and pronounced the words before giving that jerky nightmare a last punch.

“Grief is brief; love is forever. Time to wake up now, light as a feather!”