Julie and the Monkey Queen

Chapter 7

When Julie and Unaki had entered the structure, they were surprised to find themselves confronted by undead monkeys, people and walking skeletons. Literal walking skeletons, of course. Julie pretty quickly realized it wasn't going to be as easy as she hoped, but put her dukes up, ready to go.

"Uh, when did this turn into a movie?" Julie asked, earning a confused look from Unaki. "Sorry."

"It is alright," she replied.

A simple smile shared between the two was all they needed before they got down to the dirty work. Being the better fighter, Julie did most of said dirty work with Unaki right behind, cleaning up after her. It was okay, there was no real conflict. Unaki was a little beat up herself, so it was probably best that she lag a bit.

There were so many of these things that Julie and Unaki had to skip a few baddies just to get past. The urgency was turned up when they heard a light scream coming from the end of the hall. They started to run faster not just to get there, but to escape the skeletons and non-contagious zombies.

But before long, as they ran through the halls, they heard it. As they fought against another group of zombies and skeletons, a chilling scream echoed through the stone halls, not just interrupting the two humans, but the skeletons and zombies as well. Julie's eyes widened in horror as the scream faded.

"That's Manti," Julie breathed, her bones chilled to their core.

"She must be starting the transformation process," said Unaki.

"Oh, no," Julie breathed. "COME ON! We've gotta get going!"

The two girls fought harder to get past the guards, knowing they were running out of time. They fought harder and ran faster. Julie cursed the situation, muttering something about how she forgot her machete. Or she could at least use a sword! There was a member of the research team, who, aside from being a zoologist, happened to be good with sword.

But she remembered she still had a problem to deal with, and that was the bone and zombie guards. They were starting to swarm the two of them, and although Julie could easily break all the skeletons, there were too many of them. They were backing Julie and Unaki into the wall. The jungle girl looked around, looking for a way out when Unaki stepped forward, pushing against the guards and forced them to fly backwards into the wall.

Needless to say, Julie was shocked. "Um, what was that?" she asked. "Why didn't you tell me or imply you had that earlier?"

"What?" Unaki asked.

"YOU JUST PUSHED THOSE GUYS INTO THE WALL!" Julie wailed. "What was that!?"

"Magic?"

"Unaki... what are you not telling me?" Julie asked.

Unaki ignored her and ran off towards the room where Manti was. Another blood-curling scream forced Julie to forget about the magic and keep going.

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Despite Kaitan's best efforts, the skeleton and zombie guards were not going away. They just kept coming back to life—er, undead life—every time he defeated them. He was running out of energy and getting exhausted. He panted heavily, covered in sweat that dripped from his forehead and his chin. His chest felt like it was on fire.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER, JUNGLE LORD!?" Oranta shouted mockingly. "GETTING TIRED?!"

A yell from the jungle hero was enough. He got up, punched a guard and pushed his way up to Oranta. Though she stood there as if to taunt him, she held her hand out to keep him still. The young man pushed as hard as he could against her magic. Though he tried, his bare feet had a hard time keeping their grip in the dirt. But that's not what usually happened. She must've been using some kind of magic to make him slip.