The Rise of Rulers

18.

Third person's pov:
"Pearl!" Ara cried out, and opened her wings in an attempt to fly back up. Her wings unfortunately gave out and she fell back, Xor catching his sister before she hit the ground.

"Pearl..." Lizzie exhaled, and everyone stared in disbelief towards the maze that was now above them.

Scott was the first one to look around the new room, and he saw a poster on the wall and a large puzzle.

"Uhm, guys? Why is this a picture of all of us together?" He said, and the rest went over to look at the picture.

What they saw, shocked them. The poster showed all of them in a circle, with Ara at the top, her brothers on either side and the rest filling out the circle, and a dark grey background behind them. What was the strangest, was that the people not in the room had their faces blacked out (sorta like the picture up top). Then, Lizzie noticed something on the poster.

"Uhm, Ara? Why is Olivia there?" She asked, and pointed to a ginger haired, blue eyed, fox hybrid girl with freckles beside Ara in the picture, hanging on to her arm.

"Uh, I don't know" Ara answered hastily, and looked at the picture.

Then, Fwhip turned around to see a big puzzle behind them. Suddenly, a voice was heard.

"I see you've made it this far" the voice chuckled, and Ara's face filled with rage.

"Who are you and what have you done to out friends?!" She screamed, and Xor grabbed her so she wouldn't charge in the voice's direction.

"You'll see that soon enough Araya, now be quiet" the voice said, and Ara somehow immediately fell quiet.

"So, your task in this room is to complete a puzzle. But not just any puzzle, the one behind you"

They all turned around, and saw a giant puzzle behind them.

"There's only nine pieces, and once done it'll depict the poster you see on the wall" the voice continued, and sounded like it was smirking.

"Oh, and be careful so it doesn't, tip, over...good luck..."

"Well, what do we do now? Pearl's gone, we have to find her!" Scott exclaimed, starting to drag Lizzie towards the puzzle.

Lizzie angrily pulled her arm away, and glared at him.

"No Scott, we keep moving. For Lauren's and the others' sake" Xor said to his triplet, somehow still sounding calm.

"Wait, Lauren? Who's that?" Fwhip asked in confusion.

"It's the purple haired girl, our sister. He's done something to her..." Xor answered him, and walked over towards the puzzle where his brother already stood.

"The only thing we can do now is finish this puzzle, and keep moving" said Lizzie, and started moving the first piece.

The rest started helping her, and after struggling a bit, the first piece landed in place.

After that, and a while of hard work, they had managed to get eight of the nine pieces in place.

The pieces were heavy and difficult to carry. That, combined with the fact that they were only five, caused the, to all be exhausted.

They were sweating like they had just ran a marathon, but there was still one piece left to be put in place.

The piece was lying upside down, and with two on either side trying to flip it up, while Fwhip was pushing the forward edge up, they finally managed to get the puzzle piece into an almost upright position.

Suddenly, Xornoth slipped. With him no longer carrying the piece, the others failed to hold it up and it tipped back, falling on Fwhip.

As the piece landed flat on the ground, a small dusting of black smoke could be seen escaping from the edges.

Frantically, the four that were left tried to lift the piece up, only to find their friend had vanished.

"Wh-what? Where did he go?!" Ara exclaimed in a worried tone.

"Uh, guys? The picture...it looks different" Lizzie stuttered, frozen in place.

The others turned to look at the picture, and saw what she was seeing. Looking at the picture, another face was blacked out. It was Fwhip's.

Before they could react, the picture spit in half and opened, revealing a tunnel behind it. They all looked at each other in confusion, not knowing what to do.

"What do we do now?"

Scott's voice sounded far away, almost as if he felt lost. Before anyone could answer him, Ara started running towards the tunnel.

"What are you doing?!" Xornoth exclaimed, grabbing her arm.

Ara looked back at him, and pulled her arm out of his grip. She again started sprinting towards the tunnel, with, Xor following to stop her.

Scott was about to follow his siblings, when Lizzie stopped him. He turned his head to look at her.

"Wait, I don't think this is a good idea" she said, looking straight at Scott.

"I know, but what choice do we have?" he answered, looking back towards the tunnel.

Before either of them could say anything else, the picture started closing in front of the tunnel.

Lizzie grabbed Scott by the arm and summoned water under her, gliding towards the tunnel while dragging Scott behind her.

The pair managed to get through the opening right before the picture closed, and they ran along the tunnel to find Ara and Xor.

"You can let go of my arm now you know?!" Scott shouted angrily at Lizzie.

"Alright, sorry for saving you life you ungrateful little sh*t!" she yelled back, and the pair stopped once they had caught up to Ara and Xor.

"What was that Ara?!" Xor yelled at Ara, while stopping her from running further down the tunnel.

"She was right there, didn't you see her?!" Ara shouted, crying and desperately trying to get out of her brother's grip.

"Who was?" Scott asked her, looking around him for a sight of this person.

"Lauren was, she was right down the tunnel! She just went around that corner!" Ara exclaimed desperately, and they all went silent.

"Uhm, sorry to burst your bubble but aren't we missing the bigger problem here? We're stuck, the entrance is closed!" Lizzie pointed out angrily.

The others turned to look at her, and realized the trap they had fallen for.

Well, it's been a while hasn't it? I'm really sorry for taking...oh wow 1,5 months. Again, I'm really sorry for taking so long. I'll hopefully see you soon in the next chapter, but until then, bye!
Edit made right after posting: btw, the oc Olivia was created by imanalienhybrid so a big thank you to them for making me an oc for the story. You'll see why she was added later on
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