The Arrow of Time

Second Coming

The way up from floor H seemed to be locked as well. The fifteen people who remained set to trying to find the key in the manufacturing room. In each workstation, there were a series of letters welded into strangely-shaped sheets of metal. Assembling the sheets created the phrase "THE KEY IS IN THE BLANK LABYRINTH" which naturally prompted the group to go to the white room in the back of the library.

Dark Meta Knight put his foot down. "Okay. Here's an idea. Because of how fucking annoying this place is, it'd be faster to split into two groups."

The idea sounded okay enough, so they split into Elfilin, Flamberge, Francisca, King Dedede, Gooey, Adeleine, and Ribbon, with the other group being Meta Knight, Kirby, Magolor, Taranza, Dark Meta Knight, Zan Partizanne, Rick, and Marx.

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"Oh, it's right here!" Taranza picked up a key in a small cubby hole in the wall. "Let's go back and call for the others." They somewhat disorientedly made their way back to the door.

Marx called out to the other group. "Hey guys, come back! We're done here!"

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Ribbon batted her wings. "They found it! Let's go!" The rest of the group immediately turned around and began going back.

Dedede stayed behind the others, wanting to make sure he could see them well. "And let's be careful. It's easy to fall in here."

As if on cue, Adeleine slipped on what didn't look like a ledge but was. "Augh!" She fell several feet into a pit. "U-unhhhh..."

"Everyone stop!" Dedede shouted before jumping into the hole behind her. "You okay? I'll get you out of here-" He was interrupted by that crashing sound he had grown to hate. "Uh oh." He quickly grabbed Adeleine, and jumped to get out of the pit. Immediately after his feet left the ground, his abdomen was pierced by an unseen object. "Not again..." He groaned as the sudden overwhelming feeling of lethargy spread through his body and he fell back down.

"Hey! We need to help them!" Flamberge swiftly went down, ready to face the attacker. She was quickly joined by Ribbon, Francisca, Gooey, and Elfilin. She hesitated for a second when she saw who the enemy was, sheerly out of bewilderment. "What is that?"

"𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥'𝕤 𝕨𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘? 𝔻𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕣𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕞𝕖?"

"No time for this!" Francisca shouted, as she rushed headlong at it with her axe. Flamberge Joined in with her sword, Gooey stayed behind them and fired lasers, and Ribbon and Elfilin tried to get Adeleine out of the now useless Dedede's grasp. The new and improved OSO responded by grabbing the axe just below the blade and snapping it like a twig, and in the same motion, doing the same with the blade of the sword. They then fired a much stronger laser back at gooey, knocking him out of the air. The two mages didn't quite know how to react to having their weapons destroyed, but they no longer had to think about it after being forcibly restrained. The same then happened to Gooey, then Ribbon, then Adeleine and Dedede.

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"I really don't like the sound of that." Taranza shuddered.

"GUYS! CAN YOU HEAR US!" Magolor screamed until his voice was hoarse. There was no response.

Meta Knight exhaled loudly. "So what now? What are our options?"

Magolor hung his head. "Isn't that obvious? We can either leave them to die, or keep going and hope we can save them." He opened the door out of the room, then turned around and pointed accusingly at Dark Meta Knight. "And we're never listening to HIM again."