Mission 1: Wisdom to Thrive - Part 7

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Part 7: Sliding Tile Puzzle of Doom

The bull stumbled back a few steps from the blast of the Hyper Voice. Ryoshi, who had been too far away to do anything suddenly found the strength to run even faster than he was, harder than he'd ever run before.

"AMY-SAMA!"

Any and all strategy, training, or common sense were clouded out by sheer emotion as unbridled anger peeled away into his inner core, leaving only courage and instincts in its wake. He had failed his training anyway.

"GET OFF OF HERRR!" screeched the Mawile as he jumped on the Minotauros' back, climbed up on top its head and literally grabbed the bull by the horns. The beast flailed about, even ramming itself against walls in an attempt to shake its assailant off, but to no avail. The Mawile's hands were glued on with the heat of revenge, and the need to reclaim some shred of honor. Ryoshi yanked on the horns with all his might as if trying to pull them out. The Minotauros cried out in pain, and desperately began charging into the walls with greater force and speed.

"THIS IS WHAT YOU GET! THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE!" Ryoshi hissed as he yanked on the right horn so that the bull instinctively turned a sharp right and smashed into the last target before collapsing onto the ground without moving again.

All the panels were uncovered, but... at what cost? Ryoshi hastily scooped the collapsed Jigglypuff into his arms and ran to the pedestal Amy had found with the smaller puzzle and yanked the lever so that the gate slammed shut, denying the Minotauros access should it recover from that, and then gently placed Amy on the ground.

He wanted to shake her and get her to open her eyes, but was afraid doing so might hurt her even more. Instead, he called out in a faint voice, "...Amy-sama. C'mon, you have to be okay… I'm so sorry, I failed you... And I failed my training. Please... At least let me know that you're okay..."

"Mmmgh..."

It took all the Jigglypuff's efforts to blink her eyes open. Gosh, she was in so much pain. "Ryoshi, I...I'm fine..." She coughed. "The puzzle...I have to..." She carefully pointed a shaking hand at the mini-puzzle.

Oh, if only she didn't get hit, she'd be able to solve it right away! But noooo, she just had to get hit at the very last second. Her face was full of conflicting emotions. She was grateful that Ryoshi did what he just did, but also ashamed that she had done so well, only to fail them both at the end. Well, no matter. She intended to see this through to the end no matter what.

"Oh, thank god, you’re alive." His heart leapt. At least his stupid idea to bring her into such a dangerous place hadn't gotten her killed, but she was still pretty hurt. "Listen, you're hurt too badly. You need to just stay there. Just...tell me what I need to do in order to get us out of here. At this point, the only honorable thing left I can do is get you out of here."

She knew the wisdom in his words, but still felt like she had to make one more try, as she knew how she was going to attempt to solve it. "No, just...pick me up...so I can finish that puzzle...to get out of here..."

Ryoshi ignored her pleas, for her own good, and walked up to the raised pillar which held a small, scrambled tile puzzle.

"It's this thing, right? I have to solve it somehow?"

"Yeah..." She groaned in disappointment, but hey, at least she tried. "Make it look like...that picture of Uxie we saw above that gold door. At least, I think that's Uxie...well, whatever. Just make it look...you know...like an actual picture, and not messed up."

"Right. Just a puzzle."

Ryoshi grasped at one of the pieces, but found it wouldn't come up. He tugged on every piece, but the tiles refused to let him remove them, except the top middle one which was somehow down below the others out of reach.

"Hey, what gives? How do I put them back in the right place if I can't pick them up?"

Amy's eyes widened. So it was that sort of puzzle after all. At least she now knew how exactly it worked. It was almost like those circular maps she assembled recently, only with tiles, and there was a lot less room to maneuver.

"I think...you see that empty spot at the top? I think you're supposed to move a piece into it, and move another piece into the gap THAT makes, and so on and so forth until you have the whole thing make sense. I can imagine...how that would be hard..." She weakly chuckled before coughing a bit. "And I'd really like to help...but don't give up."

"Oh. Strange... I told you I wasn't good at puzzles. But if it's the only way we can get you out of here and get you some medical help, I'll figure it out."

Boy, was he wrong. The concept itself was simple, just slide the tiles until they worked themselves out. But no matter which tile he moved, the puzzle never seemed to be getting any closer to being solved. This process of frustrating tile sliding went on for several minutes before Ryoshi let out an aggravated sigh. "How do you solve this thing!?"

Amy struggled to sit up. "Nngh...I could totally help if only—"

But the pain made her lie back down again. She sighed. "Okay. Um...let's see. You can't just slide them around randomly. You have to...well...imagine what goes where. Like...see how he doesn't have the top part of head? That means the chest is in the center, right? Try to...um...get his limbs in the right places and base it off of that."

Ryoshi slid the tiles around until he managed to make the two arms rest in the correct positions. But he hit another problem. Ensuring those two to remained stagnant meant that he couldn't move the other pieces, so that was out of the question. Bah, what to do?

Strategy. He needed to think things out. It was the Trial of Wisdom; it only made sense to have to think things out. The thought crossed his mind that if he could manage to make two of the four outermost lines match up correctly, he'd be left with a two by two that he would only have to spin in a circle. The top row always had a correct tile, so it would be the most logical to use it as one, and then he could use... the left column.

Slowly, he slid each piece around, taking time to think everything out thoroughly before making any move. It was slow going, but eventually, he managed to line the top row and left column up correctly.

"Amy-sama! I think I got it..." he declared as he spun the final four around.

No sooner did Ryoshi say that when they heard a distinct noise of a bunch of larger stone tiles being clicked into the ground, and a slow creaking noise from the general direction of the column outside.

"Yes! ...Now come on...let's go..." Amy had regained a bit of energy during this time, but only enough for a slow crawl.

"That's not going to work." Ryoshi shook his head slowly before kneeling down in front of her. Climb on my back, and I'll carry you out. You're still not in great condition, you know."

"Nngh...fine." She groaned in disappointment, but all the same, she climbed on his back anyway. It wasn't like she really had the energy to just get up and walk by herself yet, despite how much she wanted to.

The lever was flipped once more so that the gate opened once more, and the Mawile darted out with the Jigglypuff. Luckily, the Minotauros was still blacked out, so they had no trouble getting into the newly opened housing, where they found a pair of crests similar in design to the one that Pausanius guy wore.

"These must be what we're looking for..." Ryoshi muttered as he looked over it. "Ready?" He asked as his hand hovered over the pendant.

Still clinging to Ryoshi's back, Amy reached over him and held out a hand over the other pendant. "Ready! And about time, too. Like last time, on three."

"1...2...3!"

As soon as they both grabbed the pendants, a bright white light enveloped them both, and in the next moment...they were gone.

NEXT PART >>>

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This is a prose-with-picture collab for Mission 1 of #Pokemon-of-Avalon.

Featuring *Amy-the-Jigglypuff's Amy Apirana the Jigglypuff and =ChicoChikorita's Ryoshi Sumiura the Mawile: 



Table of Contents for Amy Apirana: fav.me/d61kc40

*Amy-the-Jigglypuff's comments:

And this was yet another unexpected result! I originally planned for Amy to solve the sliding tile puzzle since, well, she was good at puzzles, but due to that injury, Ryoshi ended up doing it instead. It works in terms of the story, though; better to have the warrior guy try to solve a puzzle for once. And considering how Amy already saved the guy from death once (indirectly) and getting hurt badly (directly by the Minotauros), it all balances out anyway. Just one more part to go~!

=ChicoChikorita's Comments:

Yowch, poor Amy! You should not have done that Mr. Minotauros, you made Ryoshi go completely insane butt kick on your behind! Unfortunately... Letting Amy get hurt and failing his training seems to have broken his spirit quite a bit... Hope he's okay. And don't make fun of Ryoshi's puzzle solving skills; all that matters though is that he solved it in the end. (More than I can say for me! XD)

Story by both of us!
Art by *Amy-the-Jigglypuff, unless otherwise specified.

The Minotauros (who is a Tauros) is an official NPC belonging to #Pokemon-of-Avalon.

Word count for this part: 1,433 words = 1,450 Cressents.