For a moment after the crash all was silent, the many guests too stunned to react. Then with a voice filled with pain and loss, Sunflora jumped from her chair, knocking it over, screamed Chimecho's name and ran to her fallen friend.
Sunflora struggled to move the heavy mass of twisted metal off Chimecho's prone form. Her actions helped shake the others from their stupor and Loudred and Sol ran over to help. The three of them were able to pick up the chandelier, the once beautiful decoration now an instrument of misery.
"Chimecho!" Sunflora cried.
The small, white Pokémon lay motionless and unresponsive amid the shattered remains of the chair. A quick check revealed the Chimecho was irrevocably dead.
"Dusknoir KILLED Chimecho!" Loudred yelled.
Sol glanced over to Grovyle to see how the Pokémon would react to discovering that their nemesis had indeed not changed. If anything, he had gotten worse. Grovyle seemed stunned, his expression frozen in a state of disbelief.
"ZZZT. I will aprehend the criminal. ZZZT." Magnezone said.
"Screw that! I don't want to die! Let's get outta here!"
In a panicked stampede all the Pokémon dashed for the exit. The sky flashed with lightning and boomed with thunder as heavy rain pelted down. Heedless of the weather, they all ran for the bridge, the Kecleon Boln leading the pack.
Suddenly, their was an intense flash of lightning, arking down directly in front of them. The bolt struck a tree with a crack, the leaves bursting into flames before being put out almost instantly by the falling rain. With a sharp snap the tree toppled over, slowly then picking up speed. It crashed against the stone bridge, the construct crumbling under the weight of the dense, heavy wood trunk.
Boln screeched and scrambled back, fighting against the momentum driving him forwards. He stopped just short of the edge and looked down at the raging river below. There was a moment of shock as all the Pokémon could only stare at the destroyed bridge.
"We're trapped!" Bidoof exclaimed.
"We're DOOOOOOOOOMED!" Duskull cried.
"Everyone, please, try to remain calm," Chatot said. "Let's get back inside and figure out what to do next."
They clustered in the foyer, scared, cold and soaken. No one knew what to do, and those not supplying impossible plans remained in fearful silence. Except for Sol, who stood darkly in the corner with her arms crossed while she muttered 'I told you so' s under her breath.
Then Celebi burst into the room.
"Oh dear, what happened? I didn't see anyone in their chairs when I got back, and thought that maybe you all decided to leave..."
"Hey, hey! We would have if the bridge hadn't been destroyed! Now we're stuck here with that lunatic!"
"Please! Can't you give him a chance-"
"A chance to kill us all?! Chimecho's already dead!"
"What?! But... Dusknoir wouldn't do that!"
"ZZZT. Her body is still in the dining room, the scene of the crime. ZZZT."
"You didn't see it when you were there?"
"I left when I didn't see anyone in their chairs! I can't believe this. Grovyle?"
"I... Something happened. I don't know what to think. It may not have been Dusknoir..."
"When one hears hoofbeats in a Ponyta's home, do not think Stantler."
"Yeah, what he said! I think. Was he saying go with the obvious, less complicated answer? See, Ren, this is why you have to learn how to speak plainly!"
They went back to the dining room and Celebi gasped and covered her mouth at the sight of Chimecho.
"Why... There is no reason why he would do this!" she cried.
"He's insane! He doesn't need any other reason than that!"
"How do we know it wasn't an accident?"
"Unless the accident just happened to coincide with the creepy voice, I think not."
"What's going on in here?"
They all jumped at the sound of Dusknoir's voice in the doorway.
"Murderer!" Sunflora screamed.
"ZZZT. You are under arrest! ZZZT."
"Dusknoir, please tell me it wasn't you," Grovyle pleaded.
"I don't know what you're talking about! I-" he stopped upon seeing the body. "What happened!"
"What happened is that you showed your true colours!"
"You think I did this? I invited you all here to make amends!"
"And we're supposed to believe you?!"
"Please, please! Everyone just calm down! At least let him try to explain himself!"
"And give him time to finish the job and kill us?!"
There was a flash of lightning outside, intense enough for Eevee's attention to be drawn to the large window set in the wall. The heavy rain and darkness made it difficult to see what was out there, but Eevee made out a shape hurtling towards the window.
"Everyone! Look out!" Eevee cried.
A large, thick tree branch, carried by the fierce wind flew through the window in a shower of broken glass. Screams could be heard as the wind blew out the candles around the room, plunging the world in darkness. There was the sound of scuffling feet, a yelp, the sound of something hitting the floor.
The sudden light from Jak's summoned flames hurt Corphish's eyes. He blinked, becoming accustomed to the light, and gasped.
"He's dead!" Corphish yelled.
Dusknoir lay on the floor, the handle of a steak knife protruding from his back.
"Oh my dear!" Celebi screamed, then promptly fainted. Grovyle caught her before she hit the floor.
"He... He wasn't the killer?"
"Eek! We're, like, all going to die!" Sunflora raved. "We're all going to die and there's nothing we can do about it!"
"Get ahold of yourself!" Loudred said, shaking her.
"Stop doing that!" Grecks said, pushing Loudred away.
Loudred stumbled back and lost his balance. He grabbed onto a set of curtains to steady himself, but instead ended up tearing them down.
"Look!" Eevee said, pointing the now revealed wall. "What is that?"
They crowded in close. It looked like the chandeleir winch had been hidden behind the curtain, but the rope was cut, which had caused it to fall. Something was connected to the rope, however, some sort of small contraption made up of a timer and a guillotine like blade that must have been what had severed the rope. Small pieces of greenish glass littered the ground.
Eevee's eyes followed the path from the winch to where the chandeleir had hung. Directly over the chair Dusknoir was to be sitting in.
"Chimecho... she wasn't the target," Eevee said.
"I recognize this," Grecks said, gesturing to the glass shards. "They're left over from a variation of the decoy orb. They... remember sounds, and can be set to repeat them at a certain time. They're very slow to dissolve, hence the shards. Those will turn to dust in about an hour."
"So... Someone wanted to kill Dusknoir, but Chimecho got in the way. Then, when the candles were blown out, they took the opportunity to finish the job."
"Golly, we all had reasons to hate Dusknoir," Bidoof said. "How are we supposed to know who did it?"
"Hey, hey! Someone hated him enough to do something about it. Didn't he say we all had reasons beyond just the what happened with the Time Gears?"
"ZZZT. Perhaps if we search around we will find more clues. ZZZT."
"Precisely what I was thinking," Chatot declared.
The guild's second in command led the way out of the dining room and into the hallway. From what Eevee saw, he didn't think Chatot had any idea where he was going and instead had just picked a direction at random.
Wigglytuff picked up his pace until he was at the front of the group but still behind Chatot. Quietly, he closed the distance until their was barely any distance between them...
"BOOOO!" the Guildmaster yelled, throwing his arms in the air.
"Squawk!"
Startled and frightened, Chatot started flapping his wings, jumped to the side and ran right into a bookcase. The shelves trembled and all the books toppled over and fell out, except for that remained standing perfectly straight by itself in the center of its shelf, not disturbed in the slightest.
"What the..."
Xatu stepped forwards and pulled on the book, revealed not to be a book at all but a lever of sorts. The top tilted forwards whilel the bottom stayed in place. There was a click and the book shelf began to creak outwards.
