The two balls shot directly out towards Helga. At the last second, she leapt out of the way. Rather than bounce off the walls, the balls exploded, creating a hole in the side of the building. The ball-monster then crossed his arms over his body, then uncrossed them and outstretched them into the air. A long line of black balls appeared overhead, then came crashing down upon Helga, who literally had to sprint across the playground to avoid being hit.
"I thought this stupid thing was supposed to protect me!" yelled Helga, the locket still grasped in her hand. She jumped up vertically as another black ball sailed underneath her legs. Suddenly, she remembered: "Oh, wait – there was something that I was supposed to say first…but what? AAH!" Helga leapt away again, narrowly missing a ball that instead struck the bike rack, causing metal and broken tires to fly everywhere.
"Was it…Moon Magic? No…Moonie Power…that's not it…Make-up Pyramid? Aargh, I'm never gonna get it right!!" In a fit of anger, Helga chucked the locket across the pavement. Only after it left her hand did she realize her colossal folly. "Arnold!"
Helga ran and jumped, sliding on the pavement and catching the locket just before it hit the ground. "Phew, that was close…" she said, sighing in relief. But now she was vulnerable, and the monster took the opportunity to fire a ball directly at her. Knowing that she couldn't escape in time, Helga could only close her eyes shield herself from the impending attack.
But the attack never came. Rather, the ball that was supposed to strike her had instead sailed up and exploded harmlessly in the air. Relieved, but at the same time confused, Helga opened her eyes to see what caused the amazing stroke of luck.
A blonde boy in a tuxedo suit, top hat, and cape was standing in front of her. He turned to look at her. "Are you alright?" he asked.
She couldn't see his face quite clearly, as he was wearing a half-mask, but his unique, football-shaped head looked strikingly familiar…
"Arnold…?" said Helga in utter disbelief.
The masked boy lifted Helga off the ground and into his arms; she was too awe-struck to make a sound. He then leapt high into the air, so high in fact that he landed on the roof of the school building. "You'll be safe here," he said, setting her down. "Let me handle the beast."
Helga, still stunned, could only nod slowly as he went back to the ground below to confront the ball-monster. He pulled out a black cane that she hadn't before noticed, and straightened in a fencing-like pose as he pointed it at the creature. "You want to play? Fine. Then play with me."
The ball monster growled in acceptance of the challenge as it held its arms out straight in front of itself, its palms now facing the boy. Several black balls appeared behind the monster, shooting out in a barrage. Unflinching, the boy took his cane and, with both hands, began to twirl it rapidly, like a propeller blade. As before, the balls were deflected in various directions before exploding without causing any damage.
"Come on," said the boy tauntingly. "Is that all you got?"
Angry, the monster roared and sent another barrage of balls at his opponent. This time, the boy had dropped the cane on the ground and pulled a dozen red roses from his coat pocket; he then threw them at the barrage. As they pierced each ball, they turned from black to red again, and then change directions so that instead they hit the monster dead-on. As the monster staggered back and forth, trying to regain its footing, the masked assailant had picked up his cane again and had lunged forward.
From the rooftop, Helga watched the monster hobble to and fro, unable to retaliate from the boy's relentless attack. Suddenly, she came to her senses. "I've got to help him!" she cried. "But what was that phrase. It was moon-something. Moon…moon…."
"It's 'Moon Prism Power, Make-up'!" yelled the boy, between jabs. Eventually, he struck the monster into submission and it fell backwards onto the ground. "Say it, now!"
"Right," Helga stood up straight and, with locket in both hands, outstretched her arms toward the sky and yelled the phrase. "MOON PRISM POWER, MAKE-UP!"
An enormous white light emanated brightly from the locket, washing over her entire body so that she could no longer be seen. Almost instinctively, Helga grabbed a nearby Frisbee that had accidentally flown onto the roof several weeks ago and jumped off the building. Rather than simply fall straight down, she floated until her feet gracefully touched the ground.
Struggling, the monster finally got to its feet. "Hey, ball-boy!" came an ethereal voice from the body of light. "Play-time is over." When thrown, the Frisbee had become a glowing disc of light. It flew true to its target, slicing directly through the monster's abdomen, causing it to give one final howl before dissipating into shadow, and then, nothing. The glowing disc then made a U-turn and flew higher into the air where it stopped at certain height before spinning rapidly and showered the entire playground with sparkling light. The hole in the wall of the school and the bikes on the bike rack were mended in an instant. The chalk drawings which covered the pavement had disappeared, and the children slowly re-appeared in unconscious heaps on the ground. The balls, which had caused so much carnage and mayhem, simply faded away. Finally, the disc glided back to the ground, becoming nothing more than an ordinary Frisbee, blue and plastic.
"Wow," was all Helga could say. "There's something you DEFINITELY don't see every day". Her eyes fell upon a red rose lying on the ground. As she bent down to pick it up, she noticed for the first time the changes that had happened to her. She was wearing boots, knee-high pink boots! Her elbow-length gloves were white, as was the bodysuit she had on, which was generously decorated with two large, pink bows, one in the back (which was fastened to a short, frilly blue skirt), and one in the front; attached to the latter was her locket, which was still heart-shaped, but now had an ornamented pink cover which held the emblem of the crescent-moon instead of Arnold's visage.
Helga turned and went to the window to get a better look at herself. In the reflection, she could see that she was also wearing a small pink band with a single crescent moon around her neck, a blue and white sailor collar, and a gold tiara with a gem on the middle of her forehead. Upon closer inspection, Helga could see that her blonde-hair pigtails had grown to double their original length so that they were down to her waist. On the inside, she felt stronger, like a soldier; on the outside, however, she felt completely different. She felt…pretty.
"I don't believe it…" she said, touching the reflection with her hand. "Is that me?"
"You did it." Helga turned just in time to see the masked boy exit the playground at the gate. "You saved your friends, and delivered the school from utter destruction." He turned and smiled, giving her a thumbs-up. "Good work…Sailor Moon."
She watched as the boy started to run, then leapt up high, to the top of a nearby building, and then out of sight. As her fellow classmates were coming to, Helga stood and looked on, in awe over what had transpired.
---
Helga finished her math test early that afternoon (the extra studying had apparently paid off). As the other students in her class were still solving problems in their heads, she wrote about her own personal dilemmas inside the little pink book that she kept hidden in her desk.
Well, it's been quite a week. One minute I'm flunking long division, and the next I become some sort of evil-thwarting super-heroine. Talk about your ups and downs. Boy, that monster was tough, but I think I showed him who's boss. The strangest thing about this whole incident, though, is that it only happened an hour ago, yet no one seems to remember, not even Arnold.
Helga looked up and saw that, two desks in front of her, Arnold was still working on his test; from the time they had come back to class, he had given no indication that anything out of the ordinary had occurred at all.
Could it be that I'm wrong? Maybe it wasn't him that saved me….wait, what am I saying? Of course it was him, who else could it be? Then why is he pretending like nothing happened? Does he know something that I don't? Perhaps…perhaps even he's not aware of what happened? But that doesn't make sense.
Helga looked up again, and this time, spotted Luna outside, perched upon the windowsill. She smiled and nodded at the black cat, who fully understood the meaning, and left.
Whatever the reason, it's too late to turn back now. I've got to get to the bottom of this mystery, and if using these new-found powers of mine helps me to figure it out, then so be it. Who knows? Maybe Arnold and I will finally become closer in the process. Only time will tell.
Helga
