Heh heh heh, it's been a while, readers. Hm? Oh no, the author is still preoccupied. It is I, your friendly neighborhood cat, The Judge! ...Of course, I am actually the merchant Zacharie - my clever disguise can't elude your prying eyes.

So, shall we get started?

The story is now on ON.

Chapter 9: The Unhappy Secret

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whirrrrr

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The monorail stopped.

The Batter exited the car, followed by his two - no, a trio now - Add-Ons, into the second area of Vesper. The humanoid purifier twitched his hand; it'd been a while since he last held a bat, and he desperately needed a weapon.

He marched his way upstairs. Despite how frustrated the Batter seemed to be, an Elsen manning the desk notes that: "Your footsteps make so little noise.. It's abnormal…"

Which is true. The Batter tends to be rather quiet when he isn't rambling.

"No need to be so quiet, Batter." said Epsilon, bobbing above his head. "You'd be way more cheerful if you make a little noise!"

"That'll get in the way of my mission." huffed the Batter, walking away faster.

"Forget it. That guy's too much of a miserable fuck to be happy." Alpha said to her.

They head upstairs to the ground level. Area 2 of Zone 3 connects to a large facility up ahead, where the sounds of mass activity and industry can be heard, with two smaller buildings floating out on the plastic, connected together via pipes transporting some sort of substance. In front of them, waiting, is…

"Ah ah ah, too bad, Batter and friends. It seems that I've reached here first.." I sa- I mean, said Zacharie. He gives them a concerned look under his Judge mask, trying to ignore the fact that Alpha was shaking with rage. "Oh, fret not. This was written in advance, so my victory was pretty much assured. But here, a consolation to soothe the wound of failure."

Instead of the Golden Flesh that was handed in the original game, Zacharie walked up to the Batter and pulled out something from behind his back: a new baseball bat.

The Batter nodded, takes the prize, and slung it over his shoulder. All is right in the world.

"So, now that you're in the treatment facilities, you can begin your search. If you find anything suspicious, please let me know." With that, the fake cat turned and retreated into one of the small buildings behind him.

Knowing that Zacharie had gone into that one, they enter the other small building.

They enter what looked to be a small storage facility. But in reality, it turned out to be Zacharie's stores, as he entered the building from a tunnel, now wearing his regular mask. Go consumerism.

"Funny thing, I just met the Judge back there." chuckled Zacharie.

"..." No one in the party was really interested in responding. Even Epsilon didn't want to play along with these shenanigans.

"...Anyway, show me your credits." the shopkeeper sighed.

After burning a hole through their hard-earned credits, the party leave, Alpha and Omega up to date, Epsilon now outfitted with her own equipment. Knowing that Zacharie would probably walk into the other building if they entered (probably with that silly cat mask), they decide to proceed to the main building.

There is no security in their way as they enter. The facility is a mesh of boxes full of unknown materials, switches and blockades, and pipes, pipes that runs on the floors, the walls, the ceiling, soft swishing noises - echoed by the material running through them - adding to the atmosphere.

Omega, the resident expert in things, floated over to one of the nearest pipes and took a gander at the strange noises. "This… this doesn't sound like the noise of rippling plastic, nor the squishing of meats… it… it sounds like a different substance altogether." He turned to Epsilon, hoping that she has any insight.

"I don't know what's in there." she would shrug if she had shoulders. "Haha… the silly guards kept me from exploring. Rude, isn't it?"

"If they kept you from exploring the first time, then we can find answers together - there's strength in numbers." said the Batter, a bit eager to jump back into the fray.

But of course, there's that stupid barricade in the way.

"Stupid switch puzzles." grumbled Alpha.

On the other hand.. "Ah, switch puzzles. I-I believe that I can cover this." offered Omega.

Nobody had any complaints, so the second Add-On went about that task. While the Add-On approaches the switches fixated on the walls, fiddling around, the Batter decided to interview the Elsen employees there, both of whom seeming a bit… out of it.

"If… if only I can pierce the pipes and…" one of the Elsens looks up at the pipes overhead forlornly. "...but I won't get it ever again…"

"If we keep working, we'll get more dessert!" the other Elsen is more cheerful. "All the more better to work productively and wholeheartedly!"

The Batter decided that they'll be getting nowhere if the only people they have to get information from were men obsessed with whatever was in the pipes and dessert. Haha, how disappointing.

Finally, a dinging noise comes from the barricade, receding into the ground; Omega came back, proud that he accomplished the small puzzle. Before they can proceed, however…

...some sort of ghoul appeared. The creature seemingly has no basis on anything in the real world, with hind legs, sensory feelers growing out of its head like tentacles, crazed eyes, abnormal claws. It screeches at them.

The Batter used a very quick Wide Angle as he held up his bat. "That is a Von Gacy, a ghoul with an unbridled hair cut." He doubted that it was hair though; it looked more like tentacles, which reminded him of…

…

They launch into battle…

...and the Von Gacy wasn't even a threat at all, the Batter and his Add-Ons defeating it before it could get an attack in. If there is any criticism to be held against the game this rewrite is based on, it's the fact that it gets really unbalanced in your favor toward the end - but of course, it's more about the story than the gameplay, heh.

"That thing is what you're scared of? Look, with your ear-bleeding stuff, you can take down pansies like these." Alpha said to Epsilon.

Epsilon remained silent, the other three party members waiting for an answer.

Then, unexpectedly, she started laughing. The Add-On bobbed in the air in fast intervals, having a great laugh. "Ha… hahaha! They aren't the guards! Ahahahahaaha!"

"Goddamn. Why can't we have normal people…"

They proceed into the next room. More machinery, more switch puzzles, more strange pipes, and more employees.

"Solving puzzles is such a joy~" Omega said, genuinely cheerful, setting off.

An Elsen in the corner twitched, hissing as the Batter, Alpha, and Epsilon passed by, investigating the place while Omega's off puzzle solving..

"It's such a pleasure to work everyday!" said one Elsen at a desk, unironically.

"Today's dessert was very satisfying." rambled one Elsen, who looked more focus than the ones in the room before. "It was a nice, big portion, much better than the portion sizes we had before.. We have the union to thank for that."

The Batter turned to walk away, but practically snapped his head around to look at the Elsen. "...Did you say union?"

"Yes yes… A group of like-minded workers arrived from Zone 1 a while ago. They negotiated with the director for better rights, dessert being one of them. Because of them, our curfew hours are better, the dessert is more rewarding, and as a result, our production rate has never been higher than before. Surely, nothing will go wrong" The Elsen was practically joyful in delivering that speech.

The Batter gritted his teeth and looked at Epsilon.

"He's right. These nice Elsens showed up and they went straight to Area 4! I haven't seen them since, but if the director is really giving out better benefits, then they must have done a really great job! "

The Batter nodded. Even if the union started over a silly joke, it seems to be beneficial.

Omega floated over, satisfied with his work. "Ah… I-I finished. We may finally press onwards."

They navigated across the room; on their route, they encountered two Von Gacys, who they practically battered. The purifiers, in front of a now open door, tried to go on through, but something stopped them…

"Entrance reserved to factory employees only." a voice said from nowhere in particular. "Security test…"

A faint silhouette appeared before them - the specter that they've been fighting all over Area 2.

"Please state the passname."

Alpha was ready for a fight. However, the Batter knew that this was actually a puzzle, and he didn't need Omega to solve it for him.

"Von Gacy." he stated, referring to the illusion before them.

"Code correct. Entrance authorized."

Then, they were allowed through…

The next room was sickeningly sweet, an appealing aroma wafting through the air. All about the room are piles of strange white substances (I know what some of you are thinking, but I assure you that OFF does not condone drug use). There are mountains and mountains of the stuff, like mountains of snow. However, that's not what the group was initially focused on; they were witness to a dispute between three Elsen employees and three Common Specters. They would have jumped in to take control of the situation, to prevent any Elsen deaths like the ones that died before, yet, there was something different about these employees…

"R...real friends don't haunt their friends supplies…" rasped one of them, realizing that the specters aren't as friendly as they thought.

"The su- the sugar…" the eyes of the Elsen saying that glanced at one of the piles of white. "Do-... don't touch the sugar…"

"Sho- shove off specters." the last one said.

The specters didn't budge.

Then, surprisingly, the Elsen that spoke last got enraged. "Get out! Get out!"

The crusaders watched in awe as that one lunged at one of the Common Specters with his bare hands. In mere seconds, he practically tore it apart. The other two followed suit, eliminating the specters, their clothes staining with red.

"Holy shit, you guys actually wrecked them!" exclaimed a very shocked Alpha. Oh, Alpha, Alpha, Alpha. Every time you underestimate somebody's strength, they end up surprising you.

The Elsens, realizing that there's visitors, turned to face them. However, their faces didn't spell any pleasantries.

One of the Elsens pointed an accusing finger. "You… you're after our sugar too!"

While the Batter would admit that the mountains of sugar gave off nice aromas, he was uninterested in it. The others were definitely uninterested, considering that they can't eat. "We have no int-"

"Sh-shut up! You c-c-can't fool us!" A second said, smoke spewing out of his mouth.

The last one just gave off a hiss.

Then, their heads exploded, thick geysers from their body throwing their work hats into the air. Then, they got on all fours, twitching erratically Their arms practically exploded, taken over by smoke and blood; the geysers formed around the arms and solidified into giant claws. This new type of Burnt is more bestial than the ones before, crouching, as if ready to pounce like a wild animal.

Then, Epsilon quietly said, "These are the guards I was talking about."

Omega seemed freaked out and ready to run, and Alpha was, as usual, seemed disturbed. Only the Batter and Epsilon were stoic (or seemed stoic) in this situation. The Batter threw up a quick Wide Angle. "Those are Cavalry Burnts… Burnts obsessed with sugar."

As sudden as it was, the purifiers adapted and hopped into action. Epsilon seemed to be singing to the Batter; he felt strengthened by the tune, his swings carrying more weight. Alpha and Omega struck back at the new Burnts, whose arms easily reached and clawed at them. One of them were eliminated when Epsilon resorted to producing a Tragedy, and the other two were bludgeoned by bat swings and Add-On strikes.

The blood smell after the battle was completely covered up by the sweet smelling towers of sugar. As they recovered and healed wounds, Zacharie walked in, wearing the cat mask.

"Mmh… it smells awfully good around here. Without doubt, that is due to these piles of immaculate white and granular powder." he said, quoting the game. "I think it's sugar."

"...What's sugar?" asked a dumbfounded Alpha. All he knows about is meat, which is a shame.

"It… it's an old mineral that sweetens foods… I… I thought that there w-was no more sugar…" said Omega, examining the grand piles.

"I know, it's surprising. I didn't expect to find such an ingredient in this place. Ah ah ah… Maybe we'll find the answers to that in Area 3. Video game logic obliges us to go to the third after the second, after all… well, I'll go on ahead. I'll meet you there, so please hurry up."

Zacharie left the room.

"...are they mining the s-sugar?" Omega openly wondered.

"I don't know, but it makes for good dessert." chirped Epsilon.

Then, Zacharie re-entered the room. He seemed a bit bruised. "By the way, I suggest you be careful on the way back. The employees seem to be feeling a bit under the weather."

The Batter rose an eyebrow, but Zacharie left again - running this time.

"This doesn't bode well." said the Batter.

They head back into the next room. For a moment, everything seemed fine, until the Elsen that was at the desk ran toward them, in a frenzy. With the deadly tone of an Elsen going Burnt, it said, "There's all this white in my head…"

Then, the poor pale man turned into a Burnt.

More Elsens approached, zombie like. "No, no… The phantoms are nice, they didn't attack the sugar!" One of them seemed to be saying, though, it seemed as if he was arguing with himself more so than with the heroes. "You're lying, you're lying!"

More and more Burnts. Then, the specters from the first area of the Zone started seeping through the ceiling, And just their luck, there was only one exit. It's a good thing that I got out of there, eh?

They had no choice but to fight through the initial waves. Epsilon's Tragedy competences were of great aid as they started swinging their way through, Omega throwing her competence healing fleshes as she burned through her competence. Not to say that the Batter and Alpha were useless, however; at this point in their crusade, they had accumulated so much power that the first two purifiers easily defeated a few specters in one blow.

Minutes of conflict later, all the specters and malignant beasts in the room were slain, freeing the protagonists to hurry into the next room. This one seemed no better; the Elsens were just as jittery as the ones before, muttering madly, on the verge of Burning up. This time, the crew decided to just run past them. They kept running out of the treatment facilities. They kept running and running until they were safely on the monorail.

They rested on the seats of the monorail car, dead tired after their escape. The Batter saved some bases, while also issuing out tickets. They were all silent as the monorail car chugged along toward the third area.

"...What the hell was that…" Alpha said, quietly, still unsettled that the place had quickly fallen into madness. Or into madness greater than the one that was already being suffered.

"They're all diseased by temptation and addiction." the Batter calmly said. "You've seen how they acted obsessed with the sugar, and how defensive they were…"

"Y-yes, b-b-but - what exactly could be in the sugar? It… it's unnatural." stated Omega.

"Maybe we'll get answers. Three comes after two, the masked guy said." said Epsilon.

The monorail continued chugging around until it grind to a stop.

"...Sometimes when I wake up, I'm afraid that my legs won't be there." the Elsen at the counter said absent-mindedly as they passed by; they hurried up in case he also went crazy.

Area 3 only really had one facility, a building with a smokestack that reached up to the sky, as if competing with the great library of Zone 2 in terms of height, from which specks of ash spewed out. However, there seemed to be a problem. There is no entrance to the facility proper.

In fact, the only way of progression is a ladder on the side of the smokestack.

"...Batter, what's wrong? You're twitching and stuff." said Epsilon.

"He… he has acrophobia. Fear of heights." explained the second Add-On.

"Do we have to carry you again?" grumbled Alpha.

The Batter clenched his fists. "...No. I need to conquer this fear."

He marched up toward the ladder. He stuck his baseball bat down the back of shirt and carefully gripped one of the ladder rungs.

The Batter grabbed the next one. Then the next one. He refused to look down.

"I'm proud of you, Batter." whispered Omega, floating alongside him, in case he fell, along with Alpha and Epsilon.

The Batter didn't answer, intensely devoted to trying to reach the top. He continued his ascension…

A minute or so later, he reached the top rungs; the air around the top of the smokestack seemed sickeningly sweet. It's only then he said something: "This… this isn't as bad as I thought."

'Congratulations! You did it!" cheered Epsilon. Omega felt happy for him. Alpha was also kinda happy.

The Batter then hoisted himself up.

And then fell into the smokestack, screaming. Haha, oh, poor Batter.

"Why." was all Alpha could say to that.

The Add-Ons flew above the smokestack. From their viewpoint, they could see the Batter falling, flailing around, his stoic shell broken as he screamed his lungs out; his conquering of his fear was unconquered and reaffirmed.

"We have to go after him!" said Epsilon, diving in.

The other two Add-Ons followed. They flew after their handler, the stack seemingly going on for forever. Epsilon was the first to reach him.

"I'm here fo- aaa!" Epsilon's grip on the Batter's arm was dislodged when a Common Specter appeared and struck him.

It occurred to the Add-Ons that they weren't alone in the vertical tunnel.

Epsilon flew past the specters, taking a proper hold of the Batter, dodging to the side as a phantom flew up toward them. However, the Batter was falling with so much momentum that he ended up pulling his third Add-On down with him; though, he was now falling at a much slower pace.

"You guys have to slow me down!" yelled the Batter, trying to calm himself down. He swung his body to the side, dodging another specter.

Alpha and Omega hurried on down, trying to dodge the Common Specters launching themselves up, while the Batter and Epsilon dodged on their own as they fell.

Alpha was second to reach the Batter. Despite him grabbing onto the Batter's other arm, the Batter continued falling, though he was slowed down - not slow enough. The bottom of the chimney was in sight...

"I-I got you!" Omega shoved aside a specter and managed to reach the others, holding onto one of the Batter's legs as they plummeted…

…

The Batter sat up, groaning. He felt a little pain - however, it felt as if he had fallen a few feet rather than a mile or whatever.

"Thanks." he murmured to his Add-Ons.

"...We could have let him fall and just use a Joker, you know." pointed out Alpha. The Batter glared at him.

The Batter observed his surroundings. They were in a hot room with metal plating, a few piles of sugar generated from below. Most notably, there was a helmeted Elsen shoveling some of the sugar into a hole.

The Batter cautiously pulled his bat back out as he approached. "Excuse me."

The Elsen looked at them, making the Add-Ons do a double take. The Elsen's eyes were unnaturally large. He huffed in an abnormally deep voice and turned to his work, ignoring the newcomers, even though they had fell out of the sky. Who would ignore somebody who fell from the sky? "The su- the sugar… in the tube. Put the sugar in the tube… tube…" He murmured as he went about his work.

"...I-I feel that we've reached s-some sort of crossroads at our journey…" Omega seemed to gulp. "It's… it's as if everything will t-turn to some surreal horror…"

"Pft. Nah, you're silly." said Epsilon. Though, even she felt some sort of foreboding feeling…

There was only one path: down. They walked down the stairs, descending into the ground as the heat got more intense.

The sight at the bottom of the stairs looked like Hell.

The bodies of Elsens littered the floor, the smell too intense to be covered up by any sweets. Some of them had unnatural wounds done by the hands of the specters; some of them looked as if they were on the verge of becoming Burnt but were put down; some of them seemed to have died in a legitimate accident; some of them appeared to be flat-out murdered. Regardless, they were all the same in death: thrown into piles, illuminated by a furnace with a blood trail leading to it, their final resting place.

They were too busy looking at the dead to notice the Elsen worker, with bloody work clothes, approaching them. "You… what… where did you come from?" He said in a deep voice as unnerving as the one above.

The Batter was unperturbed. His only fear lies in heights and falling, after all. "I am the Batter, and these are my Add-Ons, and we came in through the chimney."

"Ah." He treated it as an ordinary sight and turned around to continue his work.

"What… what the hell is this place!" screeched Alpha; he wasn't sure whether he was saying it out of outrage or fear.

"..."

Explanation time! Unfortunately, the Elsen seemed to have no diagrams at all. It's much too serious for that sort of silliness.

"Um, you're here in the sugar ovens of Vesper, the northern part of Zone 3. Here, we burn the corpses of people who have died, and, thanks to an ingenious sewer system, transform the vapor into sugar. The tubes which traverse the factory walls direct it to the Treatment Rooms, where it is washed and purified from the remaining ashes. Then the sugar is distributed to all the employees as reward for their work every day. It's a secret element… the fifth element… the most important element…

"Because without sugar, people could no longer bear reality, and they would go mad."

The Elsen finished his explanation.

The main party was completely revolted.

"Who… who is responsible f-f-for this…?" Omega shook as he said it, feeling a whole mix of feelings.

"Are… are you bringing me sugar?"

Alpha was further disgusted, as the man knows that the sugar is produced from his dead brethren. And asked for it anyway. "Hell no."

"...The director is responsible. He… he's in Area 4." the Elsen, disappointed, went straight back to work, dragging a body toward the furnace.

The party investigated the room a bit. There seemed to be a whole pile of bodies that all held name tags with words that looked faint but started with a "U".

The Batter, in a captain obvious way, confirmed that all the Elsens aside from the one working were dead. "Let's leave."

"H-h-how… revolting… sickening… we need to bring the director to justice…" muttered Omega.

Alpha remained silent.

They all headed up the stairs.

"...I'd still eat the dessert." admitted Epsilon.

The story is now on PAUSE, heh heh heh.

Author's Notes: This is Zacharie again, reading out the Narrator's notes. Hm, let's see: "I just couldn't wait to get to this part. Finding out the truth behind sugar is the most dramatic scene in the game for me, behind the stuff that goes on in the final stretch of the game. I always interpreted the Game of Mortal Fall as the Batter's Add-Ons flying below him and trying to slow him down enough to prevent him from smashing on the floor painfully." Hm. Interesting headcanon. "So: what will we find in Area 4? Will we encounter the guardian of Zone 3 in the next chapter? Will things just get more horrifying? Will anything be happy ever again? Find out in the next exciting chapter, which will hopefully come out in less than 3 months!"