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“Waaah! It’s broken!” Mithos wailed as he stared at the remains of the DDR machine.
Keyblade was just as upset about the DDR machine’s fate as he was, although she didn’t wail about it. Instead, she clapped her hands and transmuted the demolished DDR machine, returning it to its original form.
“Ooooh! Shiny!” Mithos hugged the DDR machine. “Wanna play? I saw how Other Mithos plays this and it looks like fun!”
“You saw his memories?” Shade asked curiously, wondering if this included the memory of her turning him into banana-scented goo.
“Uh-huh. You and Keyblade are good at DDR. But you suck, Bookworm!” Mithos grinned.
“You are dead!” Bookworm screamed at him, grabbing her kunai.
“No! Don’t kill him!” Keyblade tried to stop Bookworm.
“At least wait until we leave the mall!” Shade said as she tried to take the kunai away from Bookworm.
“Meep!” Mithos ran away from where they were attempting to restrain Bookworm. He remembered something else from the other Mithos’s memories. “I’m gonna go get some pocky!” He ran away to a nearby FYE store.
After much fighting and threatening, Bookworm promised not to kill Mithos, at least, not yet. They followed Mithos into FYE, where he was eating pocky and drinking from his water bottle. Unknown to them, his water bottle was still full of cactus juice. By drinking from it, he was prolonging his drunkenness.
He looked up as they approached. “Hi everyone! How are you?” Before anyone could answer, he started jumping up and down and pointing at something behind them. “Look! Look! The loud box thingy is talking about me!” They turned around and discovered that the “loud box thingy” was a TV. The news was on and it was indeed talking about Mithos. In fact, pictures of all four of them appeared on the TV screen as the reporter talked.
“They have been missing for three days now. Bookworm, Keyblade, and Shade met at the mall in the morning. Witnesses saw them spending a lot of time in the arcade. Three hours after their arrival, a disturbance occurred in the arcade. It is estimated that Mithos arrived at approximately this time. Police suspect that all four left the mall shortly after. None of them have been seen since. Various people were shown these pictures and asked about their experiences at the mall on the day of the disappearances. Their answers were… interesting.”
A scared-looking woman appeared on the screen. “I was going to pick my kids up from the arcade. When I entered, I heard a loud noise, like an explosion. Angels were attacking one of the games. I didn’t see any of the girls, but I think I remember that boy talking to the angels. The angels are kidnapping people and destroying our machines! They’re trying to destroy the world! We’re all doomed!” By now, she was panicking and screaming.
The next witness appeared. He was a little boy who looked about elementary school-aged. “I was gonna play in the arcade, but there was a really creepy guy there. He looked at me scary and I ran away. I think he was a monster or something. My big brother says monsters eat people. Do you think that guy ate the missing people?”
The final witness was a security guard. “I remember yelling at those girls for sitting on the railing. Later, I heard a loud noise coming from the arcade. I went to investigate and discovered that the Dance Dance Revolution machine had been destroyed. Many people were rioting. A silver-haired boy was telling my colleagues that his friends had accidentally broken the machine because they were from very far away and were unfamiliar with that technology. He heard his friends outside, so he went away to find them. After the riot calmed down, things were mostly peaceful for a few hours. Then I received reports of thefts all over the mall. We managed to apprehend the thief, a very short person carrying several pouches filled with stolen items. We were then interrupted by a large group of people, including the silver-haired kid. I think the three missing girls might have been in the group too, but they were wearing very outlandish clothing so it’s hard to tell. One of my colleagues recognized two of their companions as the people responsible for the disturbance in the arcade earlier. Before we could arrest them, a girl resembling Keyblade took a ring from the pile of stolen goods. We are not sure exactly what happened, but they somehow managed to escape. Not long after, a man was said to be frightening children near the arcade. When we went to find out more, we saw a group of people explode the DDR machine again. They vanished shortly after, carrying an unconscious boy who may have been Mithos.”
The reporter appeared back on screen. “If anyone has more information on the disappearances of Keyblade, Shade, Bookworm, and Mithos, we urge you to please contact the police. And in other news…”
Everyone stared at the TV. They were completely stunned. Eventually, Mithos broke the silence by saying, “Do you think the unconscious guy got kidnapped by the midget? Or did he get eaten by the monster?” He paused and thought for a second. “I’m gonna go fight the angels before they destroy the world. And I’ll use my shiny sword! Shiny!” Silver angel wings appeared on his back and he flew out of the mall, waving his sword excitedly.
Bookworm, Shade, and Keyblade stared at where he had been. “I guess we should go after him before he does any damage,” Keyblade said.
“Yeah,” Bookworm said. “We need to find him really fast. And we should just focus on that and wait until later to do DDR and stuff like that.”
“Wow… I can’t believe it’s been only three days. We were in the other worlds for months,” Shade said.
“Wait a minute… Three days… That means today’s Wednesday! There’s a Teen Advisory Group meeting at the library today!” Bookworm gasped. All thoughts of focusing on finding Mithos fast left her mind as she ran to the mall exit.
Shade shook her head at Bookworm’s behavior. “I’m going to visit my parents before we go after Mithos. If we’ve been away for three days, they must be worried.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll go home for a while too,” Keyblade shrugged. She hoped Mithos wouldn’t cause too much chaos in the meantime.