The group made their way to the teleportation pod, Mari watching from her picnic basket with a small smile on her face. Humming a melody while tapping her fingers on her legs as if they were a keyboard. Kel remembers the melody she was humming well. It was a tune Hero would copy when chopping meat while cooking.
Kel shook his head, trying to shake the melody out of it. Now was not the time to cry, now was the time to do a memory puzzle he knows for sure he’ll fail.
They stepped on the pad and were teleported to a room with robotic worms. One on the left and one on the right. In the middle stood a red computer with an image shown on screen.
Walking up to the screen, Kel was able to see the image better. It was a photo of four circles. The left circle had one worm, the middle circle had two, and the right circle had three worms.
“Maybe it is meant to be an order?” Aubrey tilted her head.
“If that’s the case then we should go left, middle, then right.” Hero nodded in agreement.
“Alright, then let’s go!” Kel grinned, running to the pad on the left.
It teleported them into another room with two worms. They moved onto the middle pad, getting teleported into a room with three worms. They then moved into another room with a singular worm inside.
“Wait!” Hero yelled before they got on the right pad.
“What?” Kel asked, confused on why Hero stopped them.
“We’re doing the puzzle wrong! In the first room, we were meant to go up because there were-” “Because there were two. Of course, things can’t be easy…” Aubrey sighed.
“Yeah...wanna redo it?” Hero asked.
“How do we do that?” Kel looked around, not seeing a restart button anywhere.
Omori motioned for everyone to follow him as he jumped on the back pad. They followed and the next thing they knew, they were at the start.
“Oh, that’s handy!” Hero grinned.
Kel also grinned but then blinked, a sudden memory hitting him in the head.
~~~~~~
“Ugh! Sunny! How did you manage to solve this puzzle! It stinks!” Kel complained as he played a game he and Sunny got him from Hobeeze. Sunny played through it first, mainly because Kel figured since it was a puzzle game that Sunny would enjoy it more than him. He was right to assume so because he wasn’t having a good time.
“It’s actually kinda easy, you just need to remember the background colors. The enemies in front of you were made to distract you from the obvious.” Sunny explained calmly. Whenever Kel was stuck on something and it made him angry, Sunny always knew how to calm him down.
Following Sunny’s advice, Kel began to understand the puzzle a bit more. In the end, he managed to get it.
“Wow! Thanks, Sunny! You’re so cool!” Kel beamed.
Sunny looked at him with wide eyes before giving a thumbs up. Kel smiled even brighter. What would he do without him?
~~~~~~
Kel blinked a bit before smiling at Omori who didn’t even notice him. Oh well, he at least had an idea what to do now.
After some more teleporting the group seemed to be growing tired.
“I thought this was going to be something like, memorize the number of what wire you need to cut. Not teleport fifty places with absolutely nothing but metal worms inside!” Aubrey complained as she ran up to a robotic worm and smashing it in half in annoyance.
“Aubrey! What if we needed to remember that!” Hero shouted, his hands pulling his hair.
Omori just looked at Kel and Kel looked at him. He was pretty sure Omori also knew what to do by now but both were relishing the fact they solved a puzzle before Hero.
Kel grinned and Omori gave a thumbs up. Ah, being smart for once felt nice! And the fact that he solved it thanks to a video game he used to play. Take that parents!
Kel walked over to Omori while Hero and Aubrey bickered on what their next move should be.
He looked at Omori and grinned, “Should we tell them we know? Or should we wait a bit and see if they figure it out?” Kel whispered, not too low so Hero and Aubrey could realize they were talking.
They turned to the duo and Kel had to repress a snicker, “What are you two talking about?” Hero asked.
“N-Nothing!” Kel was trying so hard to hold back his laughter. He could see in Omori’s eyes pure amusement as he watched the scene unfold.
“No, you whispered something. Spill it Kel!” Aubrey shouted, annoyed at Kel’s on-purpose, terrible job of hiding what he knows.
He chuckled a bit, “I may have solved the puzzle five teleports ago. Same with Omori.”
“...no, you didn’t.” Aubrey sighed, thinking Kel was playing a joke.
“Yes, I did.” Kel chuckled, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
“No, you didn’t.” Aubrey’s voice became more firm.
“Yes, I did.” Kel was cracking up.
“YOU DIDN’T”
“I DID! I KNEW FOR A WHILE AND SO DOES OMORI!” Kel pointed to the black and white boy who gave a thumbs up and nodded.
“I don’t believe either of you…” Aubrey glared.
“I think we could give it a shot.” Hero shrugged. He just wanted to finish this.
“Look, if it blows up, I give you full permission to kick my butt if we don’t turn to toast.” Kel grinned.
“Fine, only cause I want to kick your butt,” Aubrey grumbled as they exited the teleportation room.
Kel and Omori led the way, climbing up the ladder and staring at the wires.
“To prove that me and Omori both know the patterns, we shall cut it together!” Kel smiled and Omori nodded.
“Alright, Omori will go first then you.” Hero decided the pattern.
Kel and Omori nodded and Omori made his way to the blue wire, cutting it with ease. He then handed the knife to Kel who walked over to the green wire, he cut the wire but it wasn’t as smooth as Omori.
Omori took the knife back and walked over to the red wire and cut it, handing it back to Kel who cut the white wire.
Aubrey and Hero closed their eyes, waiting and bracing for an explosion.
The explosion never came.
They opened their eyes to see the platform lowering as a small jingle played. The bomb came back up and the red computer screen now had a smile on its face.
“See! Nothing happened! Told ya I solved it!” Kel beamed proudly as Hero ruffled his hair.
“Good going Kel!” He smiled as well and Aubrey let out a sigh.
“Guess your brain can work sometimes. Nice job.” She smiled, happy to not have been blown up.
Kel felt a wave of proudness hit him as he felt satisfied. He looked over to Omori who gave him another thumbs up.
Maybe these puzzles won’t be so bad.