The Grand Battle [Game Over!]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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For quite some time, Eximo had been detecting five life forms.

Three of them seemed to move about quite randomly, but the total number appearing on its sensors had been consistent for quite some time.

Now there were only three. It knew where Aeon's signal was, and which ones had moved erratically. It knew only one of those had vanished.

The myriad voices in its mind spoke as one.

Amethyst!

***

"It's temporary, but for as long as it lasts, they'll be so still Eximo won't even register them as alive," Arnold explained. "It won't be so easy for Aeon - we won't be able to retrieve the mirror if it's frozen solid with him."

"Can't you just write it out of his possession?" Drake asked, skeptically. "Seems to me that would be easier."

"No. It's not part of the library."

"And why, exactly does that matter?"

"This entire library is, in essence, one gigantic illusion, so strong that in some places it can become 'real'. That's what allows me to affect it in the first place." He froze the two again; he couldn't just sit around talking until the spell wore off. "If I wrote that the mirror was in my hand, I would get a fake mirror, and as part of the illusion, it most likely would give false information. And the real mirror would still be in Aeon's pocket, because both he and the mirror aren't part of this library."

"So what do you suggest? I doubt we could offer a trade, that would only tell him the mirror's important."

"You're right. We'll just have to keep him busy. Maybe we can get that spider of yours after him."

"That thing's so slow, I don't know why I bothered with it," Drake grumbled. "Maybe we should have stuck with your evil clown."

"Right, let me just make a quick change..." Arnold pulled out the book of biographies.

"The spider sought out the one who had hurt it before. The man with a tool that could repair anything..."

***

Aeon was startled to see the spider turn towards him.

Or more precisely, that it didn't turn - one moment it was facing away, the next it was facing him, with the change being instant. It was as if it had always been facing him.

"I get the feeling somebody's not playing fair," he muttered, as he readied himself for the approaching beast.