The Beats Go On

Chapter 26: The Riddle

❄️Chapter 26: The Riddle

Cho cleared their throat.

"One of ice stood here so, to mourn the loss of a death blow..."

The group was silent.

"Well. That's a little um...scary..." Ami said.

"Let's walk back, I'm sure we can figure this out!" Digo exclaimed.

So the group headed back to Cho's house.

"High tears...home resides something...ugh, I'm getting a headache just thinking about it..." Ina mumbled.

"Hey, maybe when we get back, El and Pepe can figure it out!" Cas said happily.

"Maybe...hm, do you think Rey knows about this?" Ina asked.

"What make you think he?" Ari asked.

"Well...I dunno, maybe it's just me since he was able to talk with us about what happened here. Nobody else seemed to want to open up to us, so..."

"Sounds reasonable" Coco said.

"Well, we'll see when we get back" Cho said.

As the group re-entered the place, El ran up to them.

"Oh thank goodness you're back! I couldn't find you anywhere!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, we had a bit of an issue with fighting a corrupted spider, but we're fine now!" Cas explained.

"Well, I haven't seen Pepe, but maybe you guys can help me find him! El said.

"Alright then, let's go!" Digo shouted.

The group ran back into town and began searching streets. The citizens seemed to walk away from them quickly whenever the group approached, though. The group was suspicious, but made no move to call out to them as they did so. They checked the inside of shops, in alleyways, and anywhere else they thought of. The group then realized that El and Pepe weren't there when Cho recited the first part of the riddle.

"So El, we were wondering if you knew anything about "high tears", since that was part of a clue as to where the next treeangle piece was hidden" Ami said.

"High tears? well, the only thing that reminds me of is a waterfall...or maybe tears from a high ranking person, like a king..." El muttered.

"We uh. Kinda already said that" Coco sighed.

"This town doesn't have a king, though..." Cho said.

"Maybe it literally means high tears? Like rain?" El suggested.

"Rain...is there a place here where the rain falls the most?" Ina asked.

"As far as I'm concerned, no...we'll just have to keep on looking" Cho said.

The group searched down a different section of the town, and still had no luck. They went back to the fountain area, and Rey was surprisingly still there, just reading a book next to it. Thinking that he might have seen Pepe, the group asked him about it. Rey said no, but he added the fact that "if he was lost, he'd go to the library". The group decided to try it anyway, because they really had no clue at this point.

Cho led them over to it, because they had been there multiple times before. The group thought it was going to be a small, humble library containing only a few shelves and one floor. When they reached it however, they immediately regretted their thoughts. It was a three story, navy blue building lined with gold around its windows and other areas. They were almost scared to look inside.

Nonetheless, Cho pulled them inside, and the inside part of the library was indeed just as big as its outside appearance. Coco suggested that everyone split up amongst floors to find Pepe, but Cho said they could just ask the lady at the front register if she'd seen a triangle enter the place, so that's just what the group did. The lady replied that she saw a green one go up to the second floor, but no other triangles. That was perfect, so the group thanked her and ran to the stairs to the second floor, trying to be quiet as they went. Upon reaching the second floor, they immediately saw Pepe by one of the shelves, so they ran over.

They didn't want to shout Pepe's name and risk the library folk getting mad at them, so they just ran up to him.

"Pepe! There you are!" Ina whispered, though loudly.

"Oh. Hey guys" Pepe grumbled.

"Wow, I didn't think you were a book person!" Inigo said.

"Well, I'm not, but-"

"It's okay, we're all nerds inside" Coco mumbled.

"No I-"

"But...Ari not nerd...nerd is stick, Ari is tuff!"

"GUYS!" Pepe hissed.

Everyone shut up.

"I was in the library because I found this. I went home because I thought I saw something about it."

Pepe held up a piece of paper to everyone, and everyone squished in to try and get a look at it. It read:

"A long time ago, there was a corrupted lizard shape that lived when the first treeangle fell. He was small, and couldn't do much by himself. He watched helplessly as his corrupted allies fell around him, but he drained some of their power each time they were defeated and stored it for later. The sun, realizing what he was up to, spent ages trying to catch him, but to no avail. When the blue hero finally restored the treeangle, it gave the sun enough energy to finally capture the lizard, who had now grown a little after all the energy it had consumed. It trapped the lizard for 1,000 years spent in an icy prison, sure that by that time he would be cured or killed. However, prophecies foretold that he would break free again, stronger and more powerful than ever. No treeangle alone could stop him due to his increasing energy, except for a treeangle thought to have never existed: the lost rainbow treeangle, a weapon created by the sun long ago that would be used to wipe out any evil if the world came to an end. Heroes would need to unite to find the pieces, despite not knowing where they were. If they didn't make it, well.

The entire world might corrupt and all happy life would cease to exist as we know it."