Chapter 11:

Tari's Enemies

Never before in their lives have Senbo and Aibo been so scared—and they snuck into plenty of horror movies they were too young for. The panicking couple once again met at their favorite grassy field once Tari's funeral was done, but they didn't feel like sitting down at any of the picnic tables, instead frantically pacing across the grass, knowing they wouldn't be safe there forever. Sooner or later, Meggy would find the evidence to put them away.

The couple weren't sure what the consequences for their machinations were going to be. They hadn't done something like this before. They knew Saiko was going to be so mad at the prospect of someone sneaking into her house and making her think her friend was dead, and Mr. Monitor wasn't going to show them mercy. They doubted mercy was even in his programming.

One way or another, they were going to be punished for this. They just knew it.

"I don't like Meggy sticking her nose into this," said Senbo fearfully. "Maybe this was all a big mistake."

"No shit, Sherlock!" concurred Aibo. "We never should have done this in the first place! It was stupid!"

"I didn't mean for this to happen," said Senbo. "I mean, I did mean to make Saiko cry, but I didn't mean to drag you into this dark path with me."

"It's a little late to grow a conscience, Senbo," said Aibo. "We may not have killed anyone, but we still broke quite a few laws these last couple of days. We could go to juvie for this, and our parents will be so mad that they would have us…"

"Don't say it!" blurted Senbo.

"…separated," finished Aibo.

She said it.

"They can't do that!" panicked Senbo. "We've been together for a year! I love you!"

"I love you too," said Aibo, "but the fact is, my parents always had their suspicions about you. They said you were a bad influence on me, and that I should be using my smarts for something more productive than helping you with your 'stupid schemes'. And as much as I hate to say it, all the trouble we caused Saiko gives my parents a good case."

"Uh-oh," said Senbo. "There she is."

Immediately, Aibo turned to where her boyfriend was facing and could see the very enemy that they were talking about approaching their favorite grassy field, accompanied by Shroomy and Whimpu.

Speak of the devil.

"Hide!" urged Aibo.

Quickly, the two hid behind the nearest bush they could find, remaining out of the sight of the three band members, who were none the wiser as they continued to approach the field.

Yes, you read three. Meggy was nowhere to be seen among the band. The eavesdropping Senbo and Aibo found this peculiar, since Saiko and her band do everything together when it came to performances and rehearsals. Though, considering the vow Meggy made at the funeral, it wasn't hard for them to put two and two together.

Although the former Inkling wasn't present, her drum set was. It was being painstakingly carried by Whimpu in a wagon big enough for it. The wagon also had room for his keyboard, which was wireless for this occasion. Saiko and Shroomy, however, were content with carrying their guitars, specifically to take a load off of Whimpu's shoulders. After all, the last time he had to pull something heavy on a big wagon, he almost got a hernia.

Once the science nerd's tedious labor was finished, he took both instruments off of the wagon and rearranged them accordingly. It looked like the band was performing in the outdoors, which was definitely outside their comfort zones—though Shroomy was an outdoor person regardless, being a boy scout and all.

To Saiko, it had been a while since she blessed the world with her music. The last time her band got together and performed was when they played for Fuego and Toast Guy's wedding, which was two days ago. Two days may not seem that long, but with everything that happened in those two days—including the elephant in the room—it certainly felt like it's been that long.

"My queen," said Whimpu, "may I ask why we're rehearsing here?"

"Because," explained Saiko, "Tari used to come here a lot during duck season. Right behind me is a pond that she would often feed the ducks at. This song we're doing will be dedicated to her memory. We're playing for Tari, so we have to think like Tari."

Shroomy and Whimpu could indeed see the duck pond she was directing them to, and they have seen Tari there tons of times. Their band leader's line of thinking made perfect sense.

…which made Senbo and Aibo feel all the stupider for overlooking the fact that their secret hideout wasn't entirely secret. Once they realized they definitely wouldn't be safe in their favorite grassy field, they silently agreed to sneak out as quietly as they could, careful not to do anything to alert the rest of the band. Luckily for them, they weren't seen or heard by the time they made their getaway.

"Has Jeeves booked us for her memorial service yet?" asked Shroomy.

"He has," replied Saiko, "which means we have to be ready to perform by tonight."

"That's not a lot of time to prepare," said Whimpu, worried as always, "especially with Meggy doing her police work."

"Relax, Whimpu," reassured Saiko. "I know Meggy, and she can balance out her police work with band practice."

"Yeah," agreed Shroomy in his usual optimistic way, "good ol' Meggy's a strong, independent woman. If anyone can track down Tari's killer, it's her."

"I also brought a metronome with me to help us keep a steady beat to this song," continued Saiko as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the very metronome she was speaking of.

The anime girl placed the metronome on one of the picnic tables to keep it sturdy, and released the needle to activate its ticking sound.

TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK

Now that the band had a steady beat, they were ready to rehearse. All that was left was Saiko's cue.

"One. Two. One-two-three-four…"

After a good five minutes or so of running, Senbo and Aibo have eluded Saiko and her merry men. They got so far away that the song the band was rehearsing was a faint sound from a distance. But they knew their worries were far from over.

"I'm not ready for separation, Aibo," panted Senbo.

"Well, what can we do?" the bespectacled girl asked.

"I'll tell you what we're gonna do," declared Senbo. "We're gonna run! Run far away from here!"

"Run away?" asked Aibo. "Where?"

"Anywhere," replied Senbo. "Just someplace no one will ever find us!"

"Running away it is," agreed Aibo, "because I don't want to lose you, honeybunch. I'm closer to you than I am to my own family."

"That's my girl," said Senbo.

To show his appreciation for his lady agreeing to run away with him, he gave her yet another kiss on the lips. Then, they kept running to prepare for their new lives on the road.

You wouldn't think someone as sweet and kind as Tari would have had very many enemies who would want her dead—and you'd be right. Try as she might, Meggy couldn't put her finger on who killed Tari on that fateful day, let alone who would have wanted to. The memorial service—and by extension, the band's gig for it—was tonight, and while Meggy thought she could find the murderer in time for band practice, it has proven to be quite a frustrating job, due to the alibis the potential candidates had.

Yes, Tari had enemies, and they did have alibis regarding her death. But due to the gamer girl's kindness, the enemy list was tiny, and their alibis were ironclad. Donning the police uniform Mr. Monitor gave her, Meggy spent a good portion of the day staring intently at a giant corkboard in her living room that contained a list and information of Tari's potential murderers. She made sure to include their alibis when she pieced it together.

The first suspect that came to the former Inkling's mind was the man who gave Tari life; the mad scientist Dr. Sheridan. As Tari's creator, he knew her hot buttons and weaknesses, and was also experienced in manipulating people for his sick experiments. As such, Meggy wouldn't put it past the madman to exploit Tari's kindness by making her think someone she cared about was sinking in the very quicksand pit he would theoretically push her into when the timing was right.

As to why Sheridan would do that…in the beginning, he made Tari to show the world what she could do with her AI programming and gaming skills. But the process of putting her together was both dangerous and made him go a little loopy—which wasn't helped by all that coffee he drank. Or that explosion. Unfortunately for the mad genius, he also gave Tari a heart. So, when his criminal history became too big of an issue to ignore, the gamer girl wanted nothing to do with him—which would logically make her a failed experiment in his eyes, subject to immediate termination.

Yet…something about this wasn't right. Tari's unique gaming abilities could have been useful for further experimentations if he needed to, say, transfer her abilities to someone who would want them. He was less likely to orchestrate her death and more likely to capture her for the sake of resuming experimenting.

Meggy still remembered the SMG4 crew's glorious battle with Dr. Sheridan. How the mad scientist had Tari captured and restrained to an operating table for another one of his ghastly experiments. He even found a way to make her compliant, thanks to his special mind control technology. Fortunately, after conquering Sheridan's forces, the ever-protective Saiko not only brought the experiment to an abrupt halt, but also choked the cure for Tari's mind control out of the mad genius.

What else? Ducks.

After the defeat of yet another foe of the Glitchy Gang, Sheridan was arrested by Officer Meggy and sent to an insane asylum then and there, with Tari escaping safe and sound. And because he remained in that asylum even on the day of Tari's murder, the cop-in-training had to eliminate him as a suspect. She even asked the asylum if they still had Sheridan on the day of the murder, and they answered yes. Naturally, he was singing "Steady" in a straightjacket while laughing maniacally. And of course, can't forget about all that coffee in his cell.

So, Meggy really didn't know why she thought of Sheridan first when she should have thought of a more personal enemy of Tari's.

Someone like…Evelyn Claythorne.

A spoiled diva if there ever was one, Evelyn was one of the few people in the world who outright hated Tari, often for the most irrational and stupid reasons. Who could forget the fellow gamer girl's childish tantrum over her defeat in that Super Smash Each Other in the Ass Bros. tournament? Every future interaction between Tari and Evelyn after that was nothing short of unpleasant, from unsportsmanlike conduct during gaming to cyberbullying on all of her social media platforms to setting her apartment on fire. It was a miracle both Tari and most of her possessions survived, but she was still devastated someone would do that, and it wasn't an easy thing for the already-sensitive android to get over.

These unpleasant interactions led Evelyn to cross paths with Dr. Sheridan, his promises of vengeance on his failed experiment and to give her everything she ever wanted too big of a temptation to turn down. From there, Evelyn became Sheridan's apprentice and trusted partner-in-crime. She obeyed his every command and every evil thing she did was in his name—including trying to stop the Glitchy Gang's aforementioned rescue of Tari.

No atrocity was beneath Sheridan and Evelyn. Whenever one was incapacitated, the other was there to make life miserable for anyone who dared to oppose them. As such, Meggy wouldn't put it past Evelyn to personally push Tari into the quicksand. She did hate the "freak" that much.

And yet, despite being basically the only person in the entire world with 100% hatred of Tari, even Evelyn had an ironclad alibi. The Claythorne family was robbed by burglars days before the murder, and among the things they took was their youngest child. They were holding her hostage and demanding $500,000 in return for her safety, which the parents tried desperately to raise in order to get their precious Evelyn back.

No. They didn't, actually. The money was actually for replacing the furniture and other possessions that were stolen. Evelyn's kidnapping didn't faze them nearly as much. In fact, nobody really cared about Evelyn's kidnapping, as her hostility towards Tari made her hated around the world. It was understandable that her own parents wouldn't care if she was hurt or killed, since her selfishness even drove them crazy. She was an accident, after all.

Other candidates considered didn't have as much hatred for or even as much interactions with Tari. She had plenty of gaming rivals, like Bubble Bass, but none of them wanted her to die. They just wanted to beat her ass. There's a huge difference. And that wasn't even getting into the rivals that saw her as a friend, like Belle.

This wasn't making any sense, Meggy thought, so she had to think outside of the box. Looking back on when this happened, it was around the time Saiko's music fame was really growing, and after the young rock star upgraded the security system.

Then suddenly, it hit her.

Tari doesn't have very many notable enemies, but Saiko does, and they had to deal with one of those enemies not so long ago. Meggy was surprised it took her this long to realize it, as evidenced by Senbo's profile not being on the corkboard.

Senbo has proven his obsession with getting that guitar, thinking it's the key to Saiko's success. But the more Meggy thought about it, the more reason she had to believe that Senbo wanted to create a distraction to lure Saiko out of the house so he can sneak in and play her guitar. And what better way to do that than to put her friends in danger? And not just any friend—a friend whose kindness makes her easy to manipulate. A friend she's been extremely protective of. This would ensure that Saiko won't even have time to close the front door, resetting the security system.

This line of thinking made sense, but it was also depressing. As desperate as Senbo was, Meggy didn't think he was a murderer. And yet, the evidence pointed to no one else. Whether she liked it or not, Senbo was the prime suspect. And there was only one way the cop-in-training could be sure.

Even when Saiko's security system is not activated, it can still film you inside the house. Using the entry code Saiko gave her earlier, she made the decision to get into the anime girl's house, find the computer that displays the camera footage, and look for Senbo on it. If she saw him, then they would have their murderer.

But first, she would head over to the grassy field for band practice. Like Saiko said, Meggy could balance out her police work with band practice. And that's just what she was planning to do. She would have both the identity of the murderer and the song for Tari memorized by tonight. And how hard could it be to memorize the song, since it was one that she was familiar with? Plus, she was the drummer of the band, which was an easier job than those of the two guitarists and the keyboard player.

No one killed her friends and got away with it. Absolutely no one.

No, she wasn't just trying to avoid investigating Evelyn's kidnapping. What gave you that idea?

I do hope you enjoyed that chapter, because of all the chapters in the story, this one easily went through the most revisions, both in terms of writing and its illustration on DeviantArt. But in the end, I think I'm happy with how it turned out.

Stay tuned for Chapter 12 next week!