Author's Notes: Oh look, I'm speaking at the beginning of a chapter for once!

Well, my reason for this is quite simple, I'm here to give a heads up on how exactly I'll be incorporating music into these stories. Credit to Itherael's stories for giving me this idea, so I've come up with a way to hopefully make following the story less confusing when the music gets involved.

Performances, Openings, and sometimes Outros will still have the lyrics going along with what's happening as the song's playing. However, I've decided to no longer do that with every song (especially since some of them will have no lyrics), instead, I'll be simply putting in "(Song #1): *Song Title Name Here*" and if you'd like to use the song I've intended for the scene, then you can go onto my profile and click on the corresponding link. When you play it, You can stop the song when you feel like there's a good stopping point.

So the announcement that my profile will contain the links to the songs I'll list here is why I started the chapter this way since it's going to come into play.

Plus this goes without saying, but I don't own the concept of Total Drama as that belongs to Fresh TV, The OCs are from their creators, The songs belong to the people who made them, and there's one more credit I'll be giving but that's going to happen during the chapter. Why am I saying what goes without saying now? Because I've forgotten to say it before this point and it would feel disrespectful to not give credit where it's due so that's why.

If you get confused by the format of when someone's speaking, thinking, or other things then hopefully the examples here can make things easier to keep track of since they'll be used often.

"This is used for when characters speak normally or when they feel like increasing their voice THEIR WORDS WILL BE BIGGER!"

'This is used for when characters think to themselves.'

"This is used for when characters are whispering or are quieter than normal volume, whether someone can hear it or not will be confirmed in the description after the quote."

"Italics are also used for flashbacks but the description will confirm when this is the case and if the description is also in italics," just like this, "Then it's also a part of the flashback." (And if the flashback is from a previous episode, it will be listed here).

"Whenever there are parts of regular speaking which have italics mixed in, the italics are there to show which words the character is emphasizing intentionally."

"Whenever bold text is used, people are normally saying something important or whenever someone is enraged enough to speak this way."

"Whenever there's a bold and italics combination like this, it either means someone really wants to emphasize something in their rage or When they're just below-average volume level but are enraged or There's something important being said in a flashback."

"This is used for Leon speaking when he becomes the Monsterheart Brawler~"

Hopefully, this helps clear up most of the confusion going forward even if it's a lot to take in. There's going to be another addition to the format here, but it's just going to be a one-time thing for this episode only so putting it here I think is unnecessary.

There's not much more for me to say now, so, time to get into the chapter!

*After Elimination*

Although the night should've ended earlier, it's only begun for some people and this was evident by all the running noises being made from the contestants. Leon seemed to be ahead of everyone else and currently, he's running with purpose and focused eyes, at this point he seemed comparable to an actual lion chasing down its prey. Not far behind him is Evan, as expected he seemed to be going at the same pace as the person ahead of him, and just like the brawler, there's a reason he's running, to prevent any potential murder that's going to happen.

"W-Wait for... M-MEEEH!"

Alex seemed to be the slowest of the people running he seemed to already be running out of breath even though he seemed closer to the people behind him than the people ahead of him. He tries to at least somewhat pick up the pace but he trips over some kind of branch on the ground which leads to him just eating dirt by sliding on it.

Seconds later, Sunny and Chloe catch up to him and they both sigh at the sad sight in front of them, the drummer continues to walk ahead as the delinquent grabs Alex by his leg and drags him ahead. During this, the delinquent mutters to himself until he's walked off-screen, "Nice to know that Jared can piss off my first ever soon-to-be two-time victim since Alex here is unable to compensate for anything."

'Tonight just sparked so many questions for me.' Kyle passes by the same spot not long after, unlike everyone else it seemed his reactions to the events of tonight were less obvious, but that was probably because he seemed confused on why things happened in particular. Truly, the number of questions going through his mind was more than he's ever used to, and with Hannah, not far behind him, he chooses to not speak to her. Instead, he continues thinking to himself, 'Wasn't the move which was made tonight a dumb one on Jared's end? Are people that desperate to make quote-on-quote "big moves" for the sake of the camera? Does this blonde girl behind me have any clue on what happened tonight?' For the time being, however, there were no answers.

The person who caused these varied reactions currently walks in front of everyone else with his eyes closed and hands in his pockets. While footsteps behind him were rapidly approaching, he opens his black eyes and despite being the reason for everything being chaotic, the perfectionist seemed completely calm about the move he's just made. Jared lets out a sign that signaled that he had a pretty good idea on what's exactly going to happen when the person who causes these footsteps does eventually catch up to him and try making him pay for having eliminated a friend of theirs.

"Now, the show truly begins," Jared states to the camera, flashing a smirk with these words coming out his mouth.

"I'm gonna enjoy this!~" Leon's voice, as expected, had lots of anger behind it, but oddly enough he seemed to be chomping at the bits to hurt the person he's chasing after. Jared's smirk goes away and now he seems to have finally realized what was going to happen to him.

"Oh, crap." Jared simply blurts out before an arm wraps around his neck, leading to the perfectionist already taking a deep breath to get some air. Much to his surprise, he felt his legs suddenly be swept off the ground which could only mean one thing. Before being able to do anything to even have a chance at the counter what was going to happen to him next, he's slammed into the ground by his neck which leads to a crater being made in the ground below him.

It didn't take long for the pain to settle in for the person on the receiving end of the attack, a sharp wave of hurt was felt from his back and his neck had been shaking from getting choked for a moment. Some attempt was made to move his body but every time he felt like moving, Leon only tightened the grip around his neck even when he tried breathing. Although the person in front of him had been hurting and was suffering right in front of his eyes, the brawler could care less and somehow the already wide smile spreads even further apart.

"From the moment you betrayed my friend, your fate was sealed... after all, traitors like you deserve the worst of beatdowns~" Leon explains with drool even starting to slowly drip from his mouth. Normally, Jared would point out this, but what primarily prevented him from paying attention to this was the look in the monsterheart's eyes. People shouldn't be able to look so heartless and bored while simultaneously having rage and animosity, yet the person in front of him looked both lifeless and malicious at the same time which made him genuinely worry about if Leon Salvatore was genuinely a human being or something else that only Kyle could begin to truly understand.

"Wh-What a-are y-you?" Jared could barely ask.

"I'm the Hero of Spain who's planning to become a hero to Justice everywhere, which means traitors like you and Chloe, and non-threatening pushovers like Sunny will all have to answer to ME!~" Leon declares before lifting the perfectionist into the air by his throat once again.

"W-Wait! Pl-Please d-don't-!" Jared tries pleading, out of everyone left in the game he and Sunny were the two people who knew just how badly beatdowns from the brawler could be. Under normal circumstances this would allow him to try coming up with an idea to defend himself against the 'Hero of Spain' but at this point, he knew there's no way for him to possibly counter Leon after what happened at Tug-of-War. So this last-ditch attempt was out of desperation and in the hopes that maybe there was a little bit of sympathy within the being in front of him.

"SH-SHUT UP!" His plan completely backfires and a completely enraged Leon only choked the perfectionist even harder which leads to more veins popping out his right arm. Without being able to stop what happens next, Jared's eyes widen before they go completely white right when a kick is delivered right into his stomach. Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of his pain since the kick launches him through the air and he continuously soars past the tress and through the air... until-

*The Merge Cabin*

Jared obliterates part of the wall to this cabin by crashing through it back first which is followed up by him bouncing off one of the beds and landing on the floor. Limp is the only way to currently describe the perfectionist who'd broken through part of the cabin due to a kick that shook him to his core, nothing from him is moving one inch. This left him all alone to close his eyes and take in the familiar feeling of pain which Leon has once again put him through before closing his eyes and laying his head on the ground.

"I'm not finished with youuu~" Moments later, the brawler jumps through the hole in the wall to taunt the now unconscious contestant even further. Both his fists were clenched and he picks up the person who's the sole reason for what had happened earlier tonight by his hair. Although his voice sounded sadistic and joyous as always, his body expression seemed to express more anger with how tense he seemed to be and it even had been shaking a little.

"I've gotta do what needs to be DONE!" Leon screams out before he slams Jared's head into the wall which seemed to get the perfectionist's eyes to open. All he can notice and feel is his head bouncing off another part of the cabin's walls which makes a tooth fly out from his mouth. Luckily he can stand on his feet after this, however, his glasses pretty much break in half before falling off his face.

'Wh-What's h-happening a-anymore?' Jared could only stand in place whilst trying to regain his blurry vision by attempting to focus on the person who's currently attacking him.

"A hero needs to do what's right NO MATTER WHAT!" The Monsterheart Brawler screams out once more before running up to the person he's speaking with(?) and swinging his arm up. Having no frame of reference of where the next attack is coming from or how close it is to landing, Jared's hit by the uppercut attempt which once again sends him flying off the ground. This time around he crashes into one of the ceiling lights before falling back towards the ground.

'Th-That's right, h-he wants to be... an h-hero, which makes me the villain wh-who provoked him...' Jared continues thinking to himself, just like earlier he couldn't feel anything and so during this fall back to the floor, his body just moved with the momentum.

"Never again will I let anyone take me down or doubt myself!" Leon continues to extend the beatdown by kicking his target's back which slams him straight through the floor below them. Jared suddenly begins falling down some kind of black void that has no visible ending point to it.

'So th-this is how f-far Sunny has broken h-him? W-Wait, didn't he say something about Chloe e-earlier-?' Jared seems completely detached from his surroundings and is just focusing on what's been said to him. He seems to completely ignore the irregularity regarding the fact he's falling down a place that's pitch black and has nothing to it.

"I'll make sure that no one like Evan experiences what I've gone through!" Abruptly, the brawler furthers his assault while turning around the perfectionist before sending him a punch to his face. Once this punch is delivered, the black void flashes to the two contestants being inside the Merge Cabin for a moment. After the punch sends another tooth flying out his victim's mouth, both of them are seen once again in the bottomless void.

'E-Explains why he'd ch-chosen Evan t-to test at th-the merge party because he does want to h-help h-him o-out.' Jared only thinks to himself because right now he could do nothing but take the punishment being delivered to him.

"Faltering shouldn't be a thought! I'll show Evan how to protect his loved ones and win this season to give hope to EVERYONE!" Leon delivers another punch that produces the same results as the previous one.

'Pr-Protecting loved o-ones? Heh, wish I could do th-that s-same th-thing...'

"So for the sake of my goals, my friends, and Evan's sakes-!"

'Who am I kidding? If I can't even protect myself, how can I protect the people closest to me?'

"I'LL DESTROY ANYONE WHO GETS IN MY GODDAMN WAAAY!"

"Leeeoooooo~" Another voice interrupts what's happening which causes the black void which the two competitors were just in to finally disappear. Now that they were both back in reality with there being nothing in their minds to cloud what's happening, both of them take in what's just happened. Jared closes his eyes and passes out once again, multiple teeth were missing from his mouth, he had a black eye, there were tears all over his clothes, bruises were seen on both of his cheeks, and countless other injuries finally makes him pass out.

Meanwhile, Leon slowly looks around the place while he gets off from on top of his victim to look around to notice that his assault has led to the wall having a giant hole in it, some of the lights were smashed, and a hole is currently present in the floor. If he was being honest the amount of damage he's caused to the surroundings was overboard considering the person in question lacked many physical attributes and yet he arguably hurt him as if he was Sunny.

"Took you long enough to stop your beatdown, it looked like you were going to murder him at the rate your angry ass was going at. Looks like my words finally helped you out for once." Speaking of the devil, Leon looks at the voice which brought him out of his trance. Of course, it belonged to Sunny who just shook his head at what'd taken place.

"Watching what just took place makes me regret associating myself with you, even if it would make for a good origin for this cabin potentially being haunted in the future," Kyle explains with his arms crossed and back against the wall.

"I-I c-can't d-do an-anything." Hannah collapses onto her knees at all the abuse that she'd seen a friend of hers just suffer through, horror and defeat were present within her eyes that were glued to the unconscious contestant. Suddenly she felt a touch on her left shoulder which catches her attention enough for her head to slightly turning to the person who'd done this.

"Kyle and Hannah, we'll make sure to all look for each other right? Just to make sure the same thing that's happened to Jared doesn't happen to us." Chloe asks her two remaining closest allies left in the game.

"Y-Yes! Let's be th-there for each other!" Hannah swiftly agrees with the offer that the drummers put out by nodding her head, her voice sounding desperate in this response.

"...Sounds like a good deal to me." Kyle answers after taking a moment to analyze the heartthrob's response, at the end of the day he found it hard to deny the offer considering Hannah's reaction.

"E-Evan!?" Alex looks over to see his friend not speaking, moving, or breathing as he took in what had gone down.

'Not a-again, I've failed to even pr-protect someone from the person I'm trying to h-help.' Evan internally reacts before finally giving a physical response to the moment which reminded him of something else. This response was of him falling onto his knees and he formed fists with both his hands before punching the ground in frustration. Ever since the two contestants had run off he knew that separating them would've stopped Jared from potentially ending up inside a coma, but even with that knowledge, he'd failed to do anything to prevent it.

"What's going on?! If this is about what's happened then don't feel bad, there's not much we could've done to help out Jared! You're not alone in being horrified by this sight, but if you're going to try and help out Leon then-!" Alex tries comforting him by standing in front of him, placing his hands on the officer's shoulders while making sure he's turned away from the body. Anything that had been going through his mind stopped once another voice had yelled out.

"Where the hell were you for me?!"

Leon's voice roars throughout the entire island, now he diverted his attention to the only person in the room with their back turned to him.

"Keep my name out your mouth, because you best remember that NO ONE truly helped me when Sunny had been torturing me! The only thing on your mind was getting enough people onto your side to keep yourself inside the damn game."

Alex froze up completely and he silently listened to everything the brawler had been venting out to everyone present.

"You weren't there for me and so all of you who believe yourselves to be innocent should reconsider because your inactions forced me to deal with that bastard by myself. Evan over here wants to 'fix' me and while I'll admit my assaults can go too far at times, You can't fix what ain't broken and thus my goal is to make him understand is that he's the person that needs to be helped. People WILL keep getting hurt around him if he just keeps remaining a pacifist and passive in his decision-making, just like how you were when it came to me... Alex Jones."

Evan slowly moves his head to make sure it's facing the person who's filled with anger and resentment.

"In fact, how about I'll target someone even closer to Evan to finally make him learn my lesson?!~"

Finally, Leon comes up with a disturbing idea that causes another devious grin to start forming on her face and he seems to entertain the idea quite heavily. Knowing that he's going to be targeted next causes, Alex, to finally turn around and look at the contestant who's planning to now attack him this contestant seems to take joy with the implications. Evan gasps before slowly shaking his head since the last he wanted were to see someone he's gotten close with get brutally beaten down to a bloody pulp.

None of this mattered to the monster in front of them, Leon giggles to himself before taking a step forward to prepare himself for another assault.

.

.

.

"...Is this worth it?"

Within the moment of silence when time stood still for everyone standing in the cabin, a voice had whispered out which broke the silence but also caught everyone's attention. At this moment the Monsterheart Brawler's sadistic smile had turned away and he's the last person in the room to look at where the voice had been coming from. When seeing who the person that spoke up was, Leon's facial expressions were harder to figure out since he seemed to be blank in his body movements too.

"I'm asking if hurting everyone in your way to achieving your goals is worth it, because if it is then I've got a proposition for you."

Jared speaks with hard-to-tell emotions also, his hair was covering his eyes and although there was plenty of damage done to his body he stood on his feet and spoke to the person responsible for his condition. Even though his glasses weren't on, he slowly moved his head until he was able to look straight into the eyes of the person he was questioning. Behind his eyes were the passion and seriousness he's gained to have this one-sided conversation.

"What's your deal?" Leon simply questions in his normal voice, which meant less joy and anger were heard in his voice when saying these words.

"Tomorrow, one of us WILL have to go home and so if one of us wins invincibility then the other one's gone, however, if none of us wins then may the best leader win."

"Deal~"

In almost no time, the conversation between the two leaders had come to an end with both of them agreeing to the offer that the perfectionist had offered up to stop what was going to happen if he didn't get involved. This offer seemed to have pleased Leon who grinned once more at the mere idea of finally being able to send home the person he'd been targeting this whole time, along with having the chance to avenge Lia.

However, whatever feelings which Jared has on the matter are unable to be figured out because he falls back onto the floor with his injuries finally catching up to him.

Rather than going through with hurting Alex, Leon seems pleased enough by his new rival to walk away from the non-stereotyped contestant and the officer-in-training who both watched him walk away before Alex chooses to look at the unconscious pessimist with an analytical look.

Hannah rushed over to Jared before pulling out her phone and calling the host of the show to send an ambulance she's quite concerned for his well-being.

Watching this leads to Kyle running out of the house to help out with finding some way to help out the unconscious teenager, however, Chloe shows no remorse at anything that's happening and instead glares at the person who'd been beaten up badly.

"Jared August Monuel, I'll make sure to watch you from here on out. If these are your final moments in this game then I can say for sure that you've kept me entertained so thanks for that... and for helping me come up with a plan~" Sunny whispers to nobody but himself before staring into the camera with his green eyes and a wide smirk.

Shiena Nishizawa-The Asterisk War [From Gakusen Toshi Asterisk]

"[Soft Opening]"

Kennedy, Li, Brooke, Rae, Ciara, and Jun were each shown standing in front of different colors on the screen on top of a stage (Kennedy's background color is shown to be purple and she puts on a devious smile as she appears to be creating something in her hands. Li is the next one up with his color being rainbows and he gives a regular smile towards the camera. Brooke's color was gold and there was a confident smile on her face. Rae's was completely black and showed no emotions on her face. Ciara stood in front of pink and she winked at the camera while giving a seductive smile. Jun's color is shown to be white and he had an emotionless look on his face).

"[Instruments Kick In]"

Jackie, Vince, Fergy, Rainy, and Ingrid are all sitting in front of a black background which has a sort of red string going across it before they all intently stare at the television screen on the stage once they noticed the light from it turning on (Jackie got on her knees and had been smiling...only for her leg to fall off and she faceplants on the ground. Vince put on some sunglasses and he stood up to watch what was going on. Fergy blushed and he started crawling over to the television screen, however, Ingrid wrapped herself around his arms which stopped him and she closed her eyes before looking away from the TV. Rainy is lastly seen gulping and sweat began immediately rolling down her face).

"Senjou no taiyou wa takaku yurete, Kanjou ni sumitsuku kage wo otosu, [The sun above this battlefield sways on high, casting away the shadows settled upon our emotions,]"

The camera zooms into the screen before revealing Chloe, Kyle, and Miriam standing all across from each other to form a triangle shape between them in the middle of the woods.

"Shiranai mama itami ni kawaru koto satoru you ni. [As if it's aware they'll someday turn to pain unknowingly.]"

Suddenly the screen glitches up and Hannah, Jared, and Red-Eyed Lia all replaced the previous trio and were standing inside of the building where they'd all partied at.

"Kanashimi kara umareta yume mo...Sekai to kimi ga yurushite kureru [Even the dreams born from sadness...Will be forgiven by the world, and you,]"

Once again the screen glitched out but this time Sunny, Evan, and Leon formed the triangle each of them took a step back and looked like they were ready to leap towards one another.

"So mabuta no ura de kurikaesu, Kono sora ga yobu koe ni. [So take note as it reoccurs behind your eyelids, responding to the voice of this summoning sky.]"

Alex appears from out of thin air and he holds a book in his hand before some kind of magic circle appears below him and he levitates off the ground, once he does this he flies towards the camera.

*Song Skip*

"Hibiite, [Ringing out,]"

Evan pulls out a giant bow before jumping right into the air.

"Kono te no naka de kakushin ni naru shoudou, [That impulse took certain form within my hands,]"

A bunch of projectiles is seen getting fired off at Alex which he dodges, Evan and Alex are now seen battling in the sky while it's nighttime and the sharpshooting loner fires off a bunch of projectiles at once which the guy-with-no-stereotype blocks using another magic circle.

"Namida norikoete, My star will shine forever! [Overcoming my tears, My star will shine forever!]"

Hannah and Chloe are both on a stage and glaring at one another all the while a large audience surrounds the two of them and were all clamoring while the spotlight was on both competitors.

"Unmei ga dashita kotae o, Tsuyoku kowashite yuke, Yume no tame ni ima! [I'll go forth powerfully, breaking the answer fate has given - right now, for the sake of my dreams!]"

Jared's entire body is shaking while Red-Eyed Lia stares intently at him and the two of them seemed to be in some kind of courtroom, sixteen stands formed a circle however they both stood right across from each other.

"Yomigaeru, Jikan kono basho de, Bokura zettai yuzurenai negai o! [At the past revives, in this very place, I have a wish from which I'll never back down!]"

Miriam's seen jumping into a giant red dragon-looking mech-suit that lunges forward while Kyle is seen already inside of a green humanoid mech-suit with wings which is seen trying to block a strong blast of fire from Miriam's suit's mouth which is pushing him back. This battle seemed to be taking place in a desert.

"Tada hitotsu kono koe de tsuyoku kizande yuke-!: [I'll etch it powerfully with my one and only voice-!:]"

Sunny charges at Leon with a twisted smile on his face but The Lionheart Brawler chuckles before he runs towards The Delinquent and a red fire-like aura surrounded the two of them before their fists clashed with each other, however where they were deemed to be too dark to identify.

"This is The Asterisk War!"

Everyone remaining in the competition all walked into The Final Reckoning before all of them faced the screen before it glitched out once more, this time it goes along with the song right before showing the title card.

Total Drama: Move Along

Episode 17: Jared August Monuel

Another morning presents itself with a sunrise to everyone that was inside their beds, some people had been sleeping soundly but two people, in particular, were completely unconscious. Alex shows himself to be one of the people who got too caught up in his thoughts. With everything that took place last night of course the number of topics surrounding his mind was keeping him awake. He seemed to nearly close his eyes multiple times but prevents himself from potentially getting a dream that could turn into a horrifying nightmare that'll make sure to keep him awake. Once he does start remembering he's on a tv show, he puts on his glasses after scrambling around for it blindly with his hands.

'Yesterday, Jared returned around nighttime, that much I know now from whatever my conscious could've picked up from then. This means that he should be on his way over to this cabin... When that does happen, I'll confront him about what happened.' Alex internally explains once he's placed his glasses on.

Unfortunately, this allowed him to search around the room where he noticed that Leon had been sleeping soundly, in fact, the brawler seemed to be pleased during his resting. Watching the teenager who'd threatened him yesterday causes chills to go down his spine and he swiftly turned his head away from the monster who's most likely looking forward to today. However, this does cause him to think about last night even more.

'While Leon has lost his mind and has turned into a tyrant of some sort, it must feel awful to feel like you had to overcome your abuser and suddenly people start turning against you. That shouldn't mean he's allowed to constantly injure others and take out his rage on people who haven't hurt him but there is some logic to his mindset at least... although that probably makes him scarier.' The non-stereotyped-teenager reflects on what was yelled at him last night.

Slowly he searched around the room more to see the people around him before stopping his eyes on the person who was affected by last night's events too. Evan's laying on his bed but he's currently staring at the ceiling and is currently deep in thought.

'From the moment that Jackie got eliminated from the game he's made sure to attempt to help out the people closest to him. Doing that inside this game is difficult and at this point, he probably feels like he's failing in trying to become the officers which he looks up to. Add that along with what Leon's teaching him... then, well let's just say that if things keep going at this point then he's either going to break or become corrupted. I'd like to help him out right now but we'll need to get rid of that monster first since if I try anything and he finds out about it, then he could easily beat me up. My safest bet, for the time being, is to try and eliminate Leon, because in my eyes... you can't save everyone and if the choice is between helping out Evan or Leon, then I'll choose my true friend.'

Alex declares in his head before standing up and he walks out of the cabin soon after.

Once he left the room, another person rose from their slumber and one thing which immediately stuck out about them was how casual they seemed. This person stretched out their arms and a smile seemed to be plastered onto their face which remained as they looked around the room. After doing this they stood up from their bed and began walking over to one person in particular.

"Today will be the day I've waited for, This will be the day I open up the door~" Chloe began singing to herself while she seems to be approaching the sleeping brawler by skipping her way over to him.

"I don't wanna hear your absolution, Hope you're ready for a revolution!" Leon starts to loudly whisper to the point that the drummer stopped completely and giggled at this response.

"Looks like someone's got good taste in music, maybe that could help me wake you up... WELCOME TO A WORLD OF NEW SOLUTIONS-!" Suddenly the girl raised her voice loud enough to match pre-depressed Leon.

"Welcome to a world of blood evolutiiion!" Leon almost immediately gets up from his bed and begins singing along with the song he's heard before. It didn't take long for him to stop singing and he looked over at the person who's woken him up by singing.

"Nice to see you in a better mood than you were yesterday, hope you don't mind me waking you up to discuss something important~" Chloe innocently responds with a tilted head.

"You're aware that you don't need to act nice around me, right? I'm well aware of what you're truly like so you can drop the act around me." Leon harshly comments, it was almost like her feigning innocence triggered something within him to react in such a visceral manner.

"I don't appreciate the tone you're speaking at me with, but I'll gladly drop my act mainly because I've learned from experience that trying to fool an actor with acting usually doesn't work," Chloe admits with a defeated tone and a sigh exiting her mouth.

"Sounds like you and Hannah know each other more than people would expect, and although it's not completely unexpected I'm curious as to what connection you two feel with one another. Considering that she seems close with Jared it's interesting for her to willingly pair up with you and even help out with making sure Kyle follows your plans like what happened last night." Leon raises an eyebrow during his questioning.

"How the hell did you even figure that one out?! Weren't you busy with trying to find another target for your rage to notice what we were doing!?" Chloe loudly questions him out of frustration at the fact he exactly figured out what happened last night.

"Hannah's an excellent actor no doubt it's easy to tell that she probably utilizes that aspect of herself every day which explains how she can pull it off so smoothly. When it comes to Total Drama, however, it seems that she's been showing more cracks recently, and combine that with your decent-but-not-good redirection of what had been happening, it wasn't too hard to put the pieces together when I'd calmed down to think about it." Leon explains with a grin.

"...Fuck your detective-level deductions." Chloe blurts out, crossing her arms in her response.

"You're one of the easier people to figure out left in the game. Now would you like to explain to me how exactly the two of you became the secretive dynamic duo you two currently are?" Leon sits back down onto his bed before his face made a neutral expression once more.

"There's no reason for me not to if you're just gonna figure out every fuckin' thing about me by using that big-and-small brain of yours." Chloe answers in a grumpy-toned voice, she seemed to be getting annoyed by the brawler.

"Okay then, I'll stop you in case anyone else is listening into your story but for now go on ahead and tell me the truth and nothing but the truth," Leon states with seriousness present on his entire face.

"You better do that... anyways, both of us never actually started interacting until the swap happened. Me and Grimmy were hanging out like usual and that screen-hungry-host temporary-host had given me a flute to play, but we eventually noticed Hannah had been listening in onto our conversation. When we'd seen her she requested for me to not brutally hurt him using another flute which I'd eventually agreed to, and our first conversation went like that."

"Quick question: Why do you keep calling Ingrid by Grimy? Isn't that something used to describe someone covered in dirt?"

"It was somethin' her shitty goth friends came up with for her, funny thing is she never really was into that kind of crap and yet she still became friends with an edgy person, life is strange in silly ways. Also, it's pronounced Grim-E but either pronunciation works for me no matter the meaning, I've already burned my bridge with her so it's not like acting somewhat nice will fix my actions to her."

"...What actions are you referring to?" Leon felt his entire body tense up at these words.

"I'm getting there... not long after our first interactions, she fell for some dude who had a hard time saying his stupid name who eliminated himself to make sure neither Hannah nor me would go home, after that moment she began secretly teaching me how to improve my acting skills which continued until... The Final Reckoning event happened. I'm sure you already know what mostly happens here."

"Yeah, I know all too well about what happened during that challenge," Leon admits before his eyes start drifting towards the ground.

"By the end of everything, only three people were left standing: Me, Grimmy, and Rival. Luckily for us, we'd been able to allow him to stop becoming the second coming of Christ without the 't' but even with that he'd still been stealing the spotlight with my 'best friend' and he was trying to teach her some kind of lesson. Naturally, I tried beating him up but he was able to take me down and chose to threaten my life to 'help' out my friend... and unlike what happened with you, she knocked him out." Chloe glares at the person listening to her story.

"If my memory serves me right, Ingrid probably got severely injured during the battle and willingly chose to eliminate herself to probably go join Fergy outside the game?" Leon guesses while closing his eyes to think about what happened next.

"That lie had been completely made up by Hannah, so I'll have to thank her for that one."

"Wait, what reason would she have to lie about how Ingrid had been eliminated?" Leon seems puzzled by this reveal.

"Because she was conscious throughout the entirety of the showdown and witnessed everything that happened next. Grimmy hadn't been hurt all that much and for being the contestant who landed the knockout blow, she'd been given the power to eliminate anyone remaining in the game by touching them via a knife. However thanks to her acting lessons, it helped me in convincing my 'bestie' to hand over the knife to me... and yet even with me having the power to single-handedly eliminate anyone in the game all the cameras were focused on her conversation with that screen-hogging guitarist. I'm sure you know what comes next~"

"Y-You d-didn't-!" Leon seems to get baffled and shocked by the drummer's implications.

"No one had their eyes on the real show and so I've decided to finally take some measures to make sure that the spotlight will be on me, my goal in this game is to draw attention and I'll do anything to finally get the recognition I deserve. I'm sure you understand what it's like to, unfortunately, need to brutally damage others to reach your singular goal, and Hannah's the same way."

"What do you mean?" Leon starts to calm down but he still seems puzzled by what he's been hearing.

"When it comes to Hannah's goal, hers is to not be alone and so she'd chosen to align with me within that moment in The Final Reckoning because unlike that pussy of a goth I'm not someone who hesitates in doing what needs to be done. This means I'm more likely to stick around as long as someone's there to help me out in covering up for my actions, which means we complete each other. Both of us are aligned because we're both selfish people who're willing to betray unsuspecting victims to get what we want, which means that it'll be a little hard when my time comes to finally take her out."

"You're not planning to take her out now?"

"Right now she's not the person who's stealing my screen time, people like Jared are and so to make sure that I'll get more eyes on me, I'm going to work with you in tonight's elimination!~" Chloe cheerfully declares while changing the topic of discussion.

"What makes you think I'll work with someone like you? You're exactly the kind of person I've sworn to destroy and the fact you've betrayed someone else besides me shows me that you're not worth trusting in this game." Leon responds harshly with a dark aura starting to fade into existence around his body.

"Normally you wouldn't trust someone like me, but right now you'll need enough numbers to make sure that you'll be able to even make it near the end of the game. As much as I hate to admit this I'm a number that you can use as another stepping stone to your quest into becoming this quote-on-quote 'hero to the world' you have been speaking up. Lastly, just because you're voting with me now doesn't mean that we're working together, it just means that we're both trying to take out someone who's got the ability to single-handedly eliminate others and from your yelling last night it's clear he's even been messing with your head which will give him only more of the attention in this game... so to put a long story short: The enemy of your enemy, Turns into your temporary friend~" Chloe gleefully proclaims this last part.

"Why are you the person who's made the best case for me bending my morals yet?" Leon grits his teeth and it looks like he begins feeling contempt at the prospect of the drummer out of all people making sense.

"...Let's just say that my attempts to impress my parents caused me to be quite smart, however, I've only ever used my intelligence for matters related to me. Besides, to achieve your goals sometimes you need to make exceptions or go against what you've stood for to reach the desired result." Chloe initially seems a little hesitant to answer the question but by the end of her response, she smirks at the brawler sitting in front of her.

"I guess you're right about that and knowing Jared he could get enough people to turn against me, there are only eight people left so considering that he's got Sunny the bastard and Alex the bystander, that's three votes and he could get one of your friends to turn against you like Kyle or Hannah, but if he gets both then he's got enough votes to dominate the game." Leon analyzes the current game situation.

"Well if Kyle wants to switch then I'm going to need to find a way to erase his memories again, so he's not much of a concern for me," Chloe admits with a confident grin.

"...What about Hannah?"

"Oh, let's just say that if she even thinks of switching sides and turning into a simp herself then I'll make sure to eliminate her because she should know more than anyone else that all I want is the attention to be on me. From what I've seen she already gets all the attention in the world back in her home, her family treats her ridiculously well over her siblings and the last challenge showed me how many people she's got wrapped around her fingers at school. This means that compared to someone like me who's worked my ass off in trying to get all eyes on me, she's had to do less than me and so if that bitch even thinks of betraying me... then let's just say what happened to Ingrid will be fuckin' humane compared to what'll happen to Hannah~" Chloe takes no time in giving her brutal thoughts on the possibility.

"You don't mince words and you're very focused on achieving your goal, those are things I can respect." Leon tries dwelling more on the positive parts of the drummer.

"You're just saying that because you're the same way, aren't ya?" Chloe immediately responds.

"Most likely. Anyways, I'll reluctantly work with you so we can both get closer to achieving our goals... but you best not betray me as you did before." Leon states before he stood up from his bed.

"Oh, believe me, I'm making it public knowledge of when I am going to take my shot at you so you won't have to worry about betrayals this time. How about we talk about one more thing?" Chloe asks.

"What else would you like to discuss?" Leon accepts the offer with a raised eyebrow.

"How come you took what Jared did last night so seriously? My actions in response to his game move would've been similar to yours but for completely different reasons, so what was it about what he'd done which made you so passionately angry?"

"...Throughout this entire game people kept holding him up in high regard, he's outlasted both Jun and Sunny with being a leader with Jun having turned everyone against him before he got eliminated and Sunny still being in the game but more as a background character than anything else. From the moment he told me to target Lia, I'd known that he wasn't the person people built him up to be, and yet before her elimination, Lia and he were on the best of terms. The main reason for me hating him is because I'm admittingly protective of my friends back at home who I'd hate to see get hurt which explains why seeing Lia get eliminated left a bad taste in my mouth, however, the other reason is that he represented the person I wanted to be. To so many people he'd become the best guy remaining in the game and even some people outside of his friend circle found themselves admiring him, he became the light in the darkness... he became a hero. Last night betrayed any respect for him remaining and a part of me realized that in this game there are no more heroes, which means that now more than ever I'll need to become one!" Leon takes his turn in going on a long ramble.

"Your perspective on the game is definitely a questionable one but I'm not going to complain if your reasons match up with my goal, so for today we'll work together to take another step towards the end of the tunnel." Chloe seems pleased by this answer before looking around the cabin.

"Don't worry, it doesn't look like anyone else's currently listening in and so I'll go look outside to make sure that Alex didn't come up with some other way to spy in on our conversation." Leon focuses on something else and so he begins walking away from his current ally.

"What an idiot, you believe you're some kind of hero? Okay then eighth-grader syndrome, keep your delusions up because one of these days you'll realize how futile playing the 'good guy' really is when placed inside some kind of game like this. Both of us do have goals we'd like to reach no matter what... so you better be ready for our true battle~" Chloe whispers too quietly for the brawler to hear, but she doesn't seem to care about this fact. Her eyes closed and a wide grin formed with her mouth before the door to this building finally closes. Once this happens, the drummer opens her eyes and lays back down on the bed she'd woken up on which slowly reveals itself to have some kind of phone placed beside her which she picks up.

Not too long afterward, someone else wakes up from their slumber.

"Considering my name it's quite ironic that I'm not the person who gets up, right when the sunrise starts to show itself." Sunny casually remarks after looking around the cabin to notice how half of the remaining contestants were all awake and active. Now that last night comes back to him, he nods instinctively since this makes him understand why so many people were active this early in the morning. Someone, in particular, did catch his eyes and so he closes them to analyze the situation before chuckling to himself.

'This puppet's going to be useful in helping me with my plan to break Leo.' The delinquent internally confirm before standing up from his bed and looking at the person across the room.

'Obviously, he's getting out of hand and I'm too pathetic to even try confronting Leon after what happened after the party... if things between him and Alex continue then I'll have to choose who-' Evan continues to reflect about what's happened.

"Hey dickhead, you're meant to be a police officer, not a private investigator!" Sunny's voice cuts off any train of thoughts going through Evan's head before he looks over at him. His left eye starts twitching and he sits up to look over at the person who he found to be annoying for many reasons.

"What the hell do you want?" Evan speaks with nothing but hostility towards the delinquent.

"So you're playing bad-cop right now? Guess that'll make things easier for me, although wouldn't you say that method's a bit much for someone whose only goal is to speak with ya?" Sunny responds with some questions and some clear annoyance heard in his voice.

"Considering your history with Leon, the random hatred you harbor for Kyle, and the fact your sister knew that getting away from you would make her happier, there are very few reasons you've given me to treat you any better than any other criminals like you." Evan doesn't seem to even entertain the idea of using the 'good cop' for a confrontation with Sunny.

"Why you care about those things confuses me, but then again you're trying to help out someone that's been going down a road which he can't return from once completed so your logic being flawed isn't unexpected at this point." Sunny comments before sighing.

"Are you implying that helping someone out is something you deem 'illogical'?" Evan simply questions and he clenches both his fists. Right now he could feel more anger and resentment for the contestant he already hates start building even more.

"How exactly are you helping him? As far as I'm concerned he's doing the same thing which I'd done!" Sunny begins getting frustrated by the words of the officer-in-training.

"There's no way you can possibly-!"

"When breaking down Leon, my goal had been to help him unlock his full potential to maximize his usefulness to me and in the hopes that someone like him could create the future he wanted. Of course, my plan's succeeded but only if we're taking the whole 'create the future he wanted' crap, with you it's not all that different. All he's doing is forcing you to suffer and feel like a failure to show you that with your current mindset, you can't do what you truly want which means he's trying to make you into the person he believes will benefit you moving forward." Sunny calms himself down to give a good and detailed response.

"Nothing about what you've said-!"

"You want me to spell it out for you?! Well, ME AND LEON BOTH TRY MENTALLY BREAKING OUR SLAVES SO THEY COULD BECOME SOMEONE WE BELIEVE WILL BE BETTER THAN WHO THEY WERE BEFORE!" Sunny is unable to stay calm much longer and he instead breaks out into yelling.

"So you think of me as a slave? Well then, I'll make the decision alone TO FINALLY TAKE SOME REVENGE!" Evan finally gets enough of the name-calling and badmouthing getting sent to him. In the next moment, he kicks off from his bed and tackles his current opponent to the ground, beginning this battle between them.

(Song #1): Chorus of Carnage

This tackle had so much impact that the two contestants had been tumbling on the ground. Evan didn't let go of his target and he makes sure to wrap his arms around his stomach to try and squeeze him.

It didn't take long for the tables to get turned and Sunny spins around once they've bounced off the ground again. With each spin, the grip around his mid-section had weakened and so the delinquent broke himself out of the officer's grip. In an attempt to get revenge, he gleefully smiles before grabbing onto Evan's hands and he throws him into the wall.

Evan grits his teeth once he felt his back bounce off the wall, but he makes sure to land on his feet soon after. Looks like the attempt didn't do too much damage and he glares at Sunny who got back onto his feet. Now the two of them could release all the anger that's been building inside of them and do it to someone they hated.

Without wasting much more time the current fighters charge at one another with devious intentions on both of their minds.

Quickly they reach one another and this time around, Sunny counters a punch that Evan tries throwing at him and he does this by smacking his left arm away. Another punch is dodged by the blonde and this time around he ducks below the attempted right hook.

The window of opportunity opens up for Sunny and he lands a hit onto his opponent's face. His eyes widened when seeing that the punch's only effects were that it caused Evan to stumble back because his opponent just shakes his head after the blow's landed and it looks like the attack did almost nothing.

Again, the delinquent gives in to his anger and he rushes towards the person who'd been barely affected by his attack with narrow eyes. Evan tries to quickly think of some kind of way to get back at the guy who landed a punch on him. An idea quickly pops into his head and he rips off the fake police badge from his grey hoodie before throwing it onto the ground.

Thanks to his accuracy, Evan's able to throw it right below the contestant charging at him who accidentally steps on the badge. This leads to Sunny slipping on the ground which launches the fake object back at its owner who simply catches it. However, this also causes the delinquent to fall onto his back.

"Oh what? Did your precognition not work?~" Evan takes the time to taunt his opponent before dropping his fake badge onto the ground and running over to kick the downed opposition.

Quickly detecting that he's in a dangerous position, Sunny rolls out the way right before he could get stomped on. Again his opponent tries stomping on him and he kept rolling away, this continued a few times until Evan's right foot stomps through the floor.

Soon after he falls onto the ground which caused Sunny, who has reached the walls, to smirk. Next to him, he notices a katana that has somehow been stabbed into the wall which had a hand-mark on it. Predictably enough, he grabs onto its handle and continues to deviously smirk before turning around.

Much to his surprise, Evan isn't in the same place where he remembers last seeing him and he starts walking over to where the small hole in the floor is. But it didn't take long for him to find out where exactly he's gone next.

Without needing much time to think things through, he slides backward while an arrow flies right at his face. Although he's able to mostly get his face out of the way, the tip of it just barely cuts his right cheek before it continues flying off.

Of course, this did cause a bit of pain to Sunny but he chose to ignore it for the time being and instead turn right to look down at the person who's fired the arrow. Evan growls once he's noticed that his shot has missed before pulling out another arrow from under his bed. Seeing this causes the delinquent to begin running towards him with both hands holding the katana.

Both of them are truly beginning to get into the heat of battle and right now they wanted to take each other out.

Another arrow is fired off and this one is aimed towards a different area of the charging teen's body, this time it gets launched by the bow towards Sunny's body. The aforementioned person moves out the way of this shot but he noticeably stumbles with it and nearly falls onto the ground.

"Let's see just how well you can swing that sword around!" Evan shouts while grabbing a handful of arrows with his right hand, making sure to pay attention to the bow his left hand is holding. All six arrows are placed on the bow and he efficiently fires all of them off at once with enough force to all be sent flying at one person. This singular person scowls to himself before tightening his grip onto the katana even more.

"Your aim might be good, but-!"

Before being able to finish his remark, one of the arrows abruptly pierces his left leg which causes him to feel another wave of pain go through his body. This snapped him back into the battle where the five other arrows were close to stabbing his chest.

In the hopes it'll work he swings the long sword at the arrows and is luckily able to focus enough to slash and smack three of the arrows away from hitting him. Unfortunately, this had been his only chance to do something which meant that two arrows remained. It didn't take long for these to make their mark by gashing themselves into his arm which blocked his chest.

Not long later, Sunny yells out in pain as two arrows were now stuck in his right arm and one more had been impaled into his left leg. Pulling out the objects were out of the question which meant for the time being they'd have to stay in his body-

"I'll make sure you're never hurting anyone AGAIN!"

Without being given anytime to let things sink in, Evan rushes over and delivers a punch to the delinquent's face that causes Sunny to drop the katana and fall onto the floor. For the time being, it seemed that the officer was holding the upper hand in this battle, and right now he glares at the downed contestant.

"You want to protect everyone-?" Sunny whispers with a grin, currently he's laying on his stomach and has his hair covering his eyes. This raised a huge red flag for Evan who began looking at the contestant to see what made him so confident.

Before he could exactly figure things out, a familiar noise entered his ear that made him completely freeze up.

Click.

Followed by some last words.

"Protect yourself~"

POP!

A flash and loud noise coming from within the cabin catches the attention of everyone inside of it. Chloe snaps out of her thoughts and is the first person inside the building to look over at the battle which has taken quite a dark turn. Hannah and Kyle opened their eyes almost immediately, between the two of them it looks like Kahlin's the first person to pick up on what happened thanks to the smell of the room.

"Sunny, d-did you ju-Wait why's his blood pink?" Kyle initially starts getting nervous by the sight in front of him, only for his attitude to change completely when he notices something off.

"W-Wait! The only other time that's happened..." Hannah trails off and a look of dread starts emanating throughout her entire face, unlike the other person who's woken up she seems to recognize what all this means.

"Jesus Christ, you destroyed his head with that single shot. It's overkill even by my standards." Chloe comments with a cringing face that fades away not long after.

"You all seem to be calmer than I'd expect for people having witnessed a murder, also would anyone here mind giving me some kind of exposition dump for what's going on?" Kyle tries asking all the other three people inside the place. Some sweat started to roll down his face but he made sure to wipe them off before looking over at Evan whose hands weren't moving at all. Considering how the non-moving contestant seemed to have pink in odd places on his body, this partially convinced him that maybe murder wasn't just committed in front of everyone which the other people in the room were ignoring.

"We're all inside a Virtual World which means that this annoying wannabe-officer isn't dead, although he's going to feel what death is like so it's not like he's getting off lightly... and before you ask how I'm aware of all this information, it's because we've all competed in this fake world before which means we've all experienced death before, so it's something that Officer Herbert Hoover should get used to by this point." Sunny explains the situation while getting to his feet and dropping the object in his hand.

Of course, it turned out to be a handgun (specifically an S&W Model 500) which now had steam coming out from it.

"Doesn't that mean you essentially killed Evan? Sure he's not dead but his mind feels the same effects a normal person would if it happened to them." Kyle points out, raising his left eyebrow in response to this explanation.

"Honestly do you really believe I'd care about something like that? I've accepted my role as the villain by disregarding the only relationship which even mattered to me, just for me to be in the right mindset to mentally break Leon. Eliminating someone close to him inside a virtual world is the optimal move and so how that arrow-shooting bastard feels doesn't matter to me because... he's just a disposable pawn." Sunny heartlessly states before the gun he drops finally lands on the ground.

"If you want to make him pay for saying that, pull the arrows out of him." Chloe casually suggests with her eyes primarily focused on the objects which the 'arrow-shooting bastard' had pierced into the delinquent.

"Don't even think about doing that to me." Sunny shifts the conversation to the girl who suggested a way to hurt him further.

"We don't know anything about why we've been brought back here or what the challenge will be, which raises the question o-WHY'D YOU KILL EVAN?!" Hannah breaks out into exasperation, with so much uncertainty about the challenge and the fact a virtual killer's in front of them, this made it hard for her to remain calm.

"Never thought you'd care about someone you've never spoken with, freaking out shouldn't be your first thought though, all I've done is kill someone without any regard for their life because of how useless they'll be and I'll confess that the kill had been done in the heat of the moment so, of course, it wasn't my most well-thought-out plan. However, we'll need to redirect our attention to the people not in this place, because they're the smartest people in this game and so we're going to need to find them in order to-" Sunny begins walking over to the cabin door to focus on what's going on outside.

"Upupupu~"

Suddenly, a laugh that sounded high-pitched and had malicious intentions made everything come to a complete halt.

Instead of grabbing onto the door as he intended, Sunny heard some footsteps come from behind the door which sounded like they belonged to a person. Something sounded off to him and although it was unclear what exactly is going to go down, his precognition warned him to just stay away from the door and he takes little time in turning around and sprinting away from it. This turned out to be the right move since the door flies off the entrance and the blonde-haired contestant spins out the way before it could hit him. After missing the contestant, the door shatters the window into pieces and falls into pieces that left nothing left of the object.

Chloe, Hannah, Kyle, and Sunny each turned their heads to focus on the person/thing which destroyed the entrance. Smoke covers the person in particular which confused both boys but the girls instead tried to figure out what kind of being caused that bit of devious laughter. Initially, the figure appeared to have a bear-shaped body, only for it to form a more human shape when the smoke starts clearing around.

"All you students must be confused, so allow me to introduce myself..."

Things started to become clearer and the being in front of them who's revealed to absolutely be human finally is discernible to the people all looking at them. Something which stood out about the person was their hair which seemed to have been half-black and half-white, that and their left eye had been a demonic red color. Oddly enough the rest of their body had clothing that all the remaining contestants recognized all too well.

"Chris-?" Hannah started to question.

"I am McLeanokuma!"

"...What?" Everyone asked in unison with very mixed reactions from each teenager. Chloe got amused slightly by this reveal and even giggled at the absurdity of what she was seeing. Hannah swiftly regains her composure and directs her attention to deciphering what this all could mean. Kyle couldn't help but to clap at the grandiose entrance and his confusion quickly had been replaced by amazement. Sunny remains completely baffled and knowing that the host can kick down doors made him frustrated at why this has suddenly become the case.

"ARE YOU HIGH?!" Sunny couldn't help but to loudly blurt out.

"That's quite a cruel way to greet your supervisor for today's challenge, but knowing you, that shouldn't be surprising." Chris suddenly starts sounding more like his usual self, but his voice did have more joy in it than normal.

"Oh right, about today's challenge, can you fill us all in about what exactly it'll be about?" Hannah takes the chance to find out what challenge have they've been placed into now.

"...Go outside, you'll find your answer then~" 'McLeanokuma' vaguely answers before turning around.

"NOT AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!" A loud voice abruptly shoots into the cabin which made everyone's eyes widen.

"Fuck you for that door, by the way!" Sunny gives some last words for the 'supervisor' before sprinting out of the cabin.

"I've got a bad feeling about all this," Kyle says to himself before sighing and running out seconds later.

"Time to see which casualty has been caused now." Chloe carelessly mutters, just like the boys before her she ran out of the place.

"Ithinkthatyoulookgreat!" Hannah leaves the place complimenting the black/white-haired host, she made sure to keep her head facing away from the virtual corpse in the room with them. Soon after giving the nice gesture, she follows everyone else in a hurry which McLeanokuma watched before slowly turning to look at Evan who still hasn't moved this entire time.

"Let the games begin~" McLeanokuma states before summoning a book in his hands and once he does this, he gives the camera a devious smile. Slowly the camera pans down to reveal the title of the book to be: Necronomicon.

*Challenge Time*

Sunny continues running around the place and he tries searching around the island in order to find the person who screamed so loudly earlier. Only three people could've logically made those screams and those three were Leon, Alex, and Jared, two of those people he hated but the third person is someone he's got interesting thoughts on after last night. If he was being honest though, the culprit of the scream could only be between Alex and Jared so he kept searching around with this knowledge in mind. Other questions started to enter his mind, however.

'During the fight with Evan earlier, that gun already had a bullet missing which is definitely strange but that combined with that random cool-looking katana I've found and things start seeming off.' Sunny thinks in his mind while the search continues. This train of thought is soon interrupted.

"It would appear that the game's already started."

"Da-Dammit, I know this i-isn't real b-but this still h-horrifies me!"

"Just be glad that Chris isn't a full-blown killer to have us kill each other... for now."

"Why are you so c-calm?! Haven't you also di-died inside this virtual world be-before?! You sh-should know what dea-death in this world is like!"

"Well you're right about the previous version of me having died here before, but I've grown from the moment, and now seeing this dead body just tells me one thing: There's absolutely a killer among us."

'Suddenly I've grown the urge to groan at the wording he used to describe the situation.' Sunny internally remarks before coming out from behind a tree to confirm who the people having the conversation were. It was obvious who the two people were to him thanks to the way both people were speaking, there was also the fact that it could only be between three people. Rather than immediately reveal himself to the other two people he instead takes his sweet time walking towards them.

During this walk, the arrows which had been planted into his body broke like glass before breaking into small particles which fly off into the sky.

"Looks like the second dead body has been discovered by Sunny and The Mongrels!" Sunny began announcing with lots of sarcasm heard in his voice. Both people who'd been speaking stopped their conversation to sigh in disappointment at the person that's approaching them. They both soon turned around and the delinquent takes his turn to sigh upon seeing his guess had been right.

"Looks like you're still caught up on those annoying dog metaphors." Leon remarks with some obvious annoyance in his voice.

"Of course, after all, you'll always be my drug-enhanced big bit-" Sunny starts smirking when saying these words.

"A DEAD PERSON IS LAYING BY US!" Alex gets between both bickering contestants to turn their attention towards the relevant thing near them.

"Good point, I'd rather not deal with your hassling so let's observe the body." Leon verbally agrees with what the non-stereotyped contestant has non-verbally offered the two of them.

"If you're both here then that means this body could only belong to one person..." Sunny quickly walks past the two teenagers with his eyes closed before slowly opening his eyes. It wasn't hard to exactly figure out who the victim currently is and knowing the answer made opening his eyes more reluctant than normal. Why exactly this is the case is revealed, 'And just when he finally backstabbed someone, I'd loved to have seen more of that from him.'

Jared appears to now be laying on the ground with the camera partially glitching out to not reveal all the wounds that his body seems to have obtained. It zooms in to reveal that his left hand had been completely censored, there seems to have been a slash made across his chest, bruises were transparent all over his head, his glasses were missing now, and a rope had been tied around his stomach which held him off the ground. This is everything that's able to be shown before the screen slowly reveals Sunny to be motionlessly staring at the body before slowly turning around to look at the people standing behind him.

"A body has been discovered!~"

A voice which the delinquent automatically identifies cheerily says before McLeanokuma's seen jumping from out the ground.

"Wow, you are literally high." Sunny remarks when seeing the sadistic person in front of them jumping above the trees before landing on the ground effortlessly.

"Somehow the host has now simultaneously aged significantly and insignificantly, funny enough that's one of the more normal things I've experienced on this show." Alex didn't seem too surprised by the appearance of the host-turned-supervisor.

"That's weird, your appearance seems familiar to me which means that what's going to happen next won't be good." Leon chose to think things through and attempt to remember what is it about McLeanokuma's looks that he recognized.

"My Sunny dear, how about you introduce me to our guests?~" McLeanokuma requests with some giggling heard in his sentence.

"This prick is Chris-o-Kunta or somethin' like that and he's apparently going to be personally overseeing today's challenge." Sunny wasted no time getting back at the supervisor who he's not getting along with.

"I hope you lose today's challenge even more, now." McLeanokuma angrily whispers before slowly raising his right fist which suddenly has claws sticking out from his knuckles specifically. Some kind of dark aura starts surrounding him and as he continues his wolverine pose, his right eye starts glowing brighter.

"Quick, everyone! I'm sensing a menacing presence from this direction." Kyle's voice abruptly interrupts everyone before he arrives with Chloe and Hannah right after. Alex sighs in relief when seeing other people arrive because this caused McLeanokuma to retract his claws and the dark aura around him along with strange Japanese writings all poof away. Leon noticed someone missing from the group which has arrived.

"That's strange, I'd expected Evan to be with you all by now." Leon seems confused by the disappearance of the officer-in-training.

"Yeah, actually where is Evan?" Alex took note of the missing person, during this he makes sure that his glasses stay on.

"Let's focus on questions like those later, for now, I've got a question for everyone here..." McLeanokuma diverts everyone to focus on him which worked immediately. Although most of the people here remembered the last time they participated in a virtual challenge, that didn't mean the challenge would exactly be the same this time around and so they needed to hear the announcements. What exactly is in store for everyone here? Well, that's going to be answered very soon.

"I want to play a game, This one which you're all going to be playing will belong to a franchise made by Spike Chunsoft which has recently released a summer camp game. This franchise already has three mainline games excluding the spinoff game, multiple anime adaptations, and other stuff. Some viewers might know it while others won't but hey, we're getting paid for sponsoring this so frankly, I don't give a damn if you're aware of the franchise known as... Danganronpa!" McLeanokuma proudly states which series is taking over the episode.

"Guess that explains why I recognize it, isn't that the game about fifteen students that attend a school for the best of the best suddenly getting trapped inside some kind of Killing Game in which the only way to escape is to kill someone and get away with it?... also why were my words bolded that entire time?" Leon contributes to the sponsoring of the episode accidentally.

"Correct-o-Mondo!~ Nice to see someone here already knows the basic gist of the challenge, basically you're all going to have to figure out which one of you killed Jared August Monuel!" McLeanokuma announces before pointing at the censored body still hung up off the ground.

"J-JARED!" Hannah screams out in shock now that she notices the perfectionists' current state, after what happened the previous night the fact he's been offed immediately by someone made the heartthrob feel awful. She felt sick to her stomach about the sight in front of her and she tries covering her mouth in an attempt to not throw up all over the ground.

"...Damn, first one out again, it's not entirely shocking after what happened last night but still," Kyle comments at the sigh before blinking once he'd noticed something that came out his mouth. It's something that Alex quietly gasped at before walking over to whisper into the baseball player's ears.

"Did you just say again? Does that mean you remember what happened in the last challenge?!" Alex tries his best to stay quiet, but his voice had some excitement behind it.

"Not entirely, but my memories of what's happened in this competition are slowly coming back. Although it feels like my memories are scattered all over the place unlike before when I just couldn't access them." Kyle does a much better job at being less suspicious in this secret conversation.

"Weird, if your memories were lost before then they should remain gone, and yet they're not..." Alex begins pondering potential reasons for why this could be the case. Eventually, he does walk away to prevent any suspicion from anyone who could've caught the two of them speaking. Something did go through the mind of only person here with no stereotype, 'I'll have to put a pin regarding [Kyle's Memories], it's just too strange to not think about.'

"Hold on a goddamn second! I've got so many questions about this!" Chloe bursts out demanding now that she realizes that everyone there is here to solve a murder.

"I'll give each of you one question, I'd rather see you all throw each under the bus in an attempt to avenge one of your fallen contestants sooner rather than later!~" McLeanokuma exclaims with a wide smile.

"...Anyone else wanna go first?" Chloe immediately looks at everyone else for questions.

"If this is like the games then is there a motive for the kill?" Leon asks which made multiple of the other people raise eyebrows.

"Glad you asked, for those of you not-in-the-know killers are given 'motives' for wanting to kill other people inside the games beyond simply escaping back into the real world. For this case, I'll reveal [The Motive] for this kill which is the main reason for this killer having done what they did... [Lia's elimination]." McLeanokuma confirms for everyone.

"THAT BARELY EXPLAINS ANYTHING!" Chloe frustratingly points out how vague the 'motive' sounded to her.

"Actually. it explains quite a lot if you take the time to think about it~" McLeanokuma remarks before looking over at one person in particular.

"Contrary to what you're trying to imply, murdering other people isn't a line which I'm willing to cross." Leon tries countering by closing his eyes and crossing his arms.

'We're technically inside a game though, so technically he wouldn't be killing someone which means that technically [Leon's Moral Code] wouldn't apply to this situation.' Alex decides to keep to himself, everyone else seemed to be taking a similar approach with there being a lack of responses to what's been said.

"I'll ask the next question: If there are two dead bodies then does that mean we're going to need to find the killers for both bodies in case they're different people? Or will only one person count?" Sunny wasted no time in asking the next question.

'Sounds like an oddly specific question for the situation...' Leon and Alex internally remarked to the question.

"Yaaay!~ You're finally not being mean for once! To answer your question, only the killer assigned by me to carry out the murder needs to be found out." McLeanokuma reveals which leads Hannah, Kyle, and Chloe to stare at Sunny.

'Sounds like someone's been chosen by Chris to again be the murderer, however, that means whoever did this to Jared were only [Chosen by Chris].' Alex closed his eyes to once again make another mental note.

"I'm starting to get bored by all these questions, so until the trial I'll only accept one more question from all you potential murderers," McLeanokuma confirms before yawning at how despairingly boring he found these questions to be.

"Because I'd like for at least get the answer to one of my questions, I'll take this last one." Chloe volunteers and closes her eyes in order to think of which question, in particular, she's going to ask. Not much time passes before she opens her eyes and her mouth, "Why were there katana's and guns present in the cabin?"

"Well I can't answer your question because those objects might pertain to the murder, and details about the potential weapon which dealt the killing blow are classified." McLeanokuma avoids the question entirely.

'There were extra weapons inside the cabin? Actually, I do remember a sword vaguely catching my eye earlier so maybe the [Strangely Placed Katana] which I didn't think wasn't there and the [Random Gun] both contributed to the murder, but if so then how?' Alex took no time internally marking down the details.

"Dammit, one more question then!" Chloe demands.

"Fine, just make it quick! I'm already getting impatient you know!" McLeanokuma's tone starts sounding more annoyed at this forceful request known as a demand.

"Is it possible for the victim and killer to be the same person?" Chloe blurts out her next question.

"Once again that's information something which I'm not exactly able to answer, but it should be obvious what exactly that means." McLeanokuma has no choice but to give a semi-answer.

'Sounds like there's the chance which this could just be a [Potential Suicide] but even with that, it's just as likely that the death was caused by some kind of [Mastermind] who's smart enough to make this case look unsolvable.' Alex continues to observe the situation before someone else speaks up.

"Now a part of me wishes that Evan was a private investigator instead of a self-righteous officer because that would help out our damn situation," Sunny says which caused Hannah to gulp and Kyle's left eye to twitch slightly.

"Oh right, I forgot one more thing~..."

'Are those footsteps?' Sunny and everyone else could hear something quickly run towards them.

"A double kill can't happen this round, which means if anyone else dies then they'll simply get resurrected."

"Wait a sec-" Sunny seems to realize what exactly this means.

POP!

Before the bullet could get fired, the blonde-haired steps to the side once he saw a familiar-looking gun shape in the hands of someone who stood mere meters away from everyone. When the gun fires off another bullet this next shot barely flies by his stomach. But, Sunny starts running away until he's able to get behind a tree in order to take cover from another shot.

"If it's not obvious by now I've reversed [Evan's Death] caused by Sunny right before all you found this body!~" McLeanokuma states before intentionally stepping backward while everyone gave their reactions to the reveal.

"W-WAIT, YOU DIED EARLIER EVAN?! ARE YOU OKAY NOW!?" Alex focuses on his newly revived friend who still held the gun that'd been used to kill him earlier. Evan's eyes were covered by his hair which still had some pink on them, and the officer-in-training is currently frowning.

"DID YOU ALL KNOW ABOUT THIS?!" Leon gets pissed off by this reveal and he glares at the three contestants who didn't say anything.

"On the bright side, at least I'm unable to kill you again!" Chloe optimistically makes the brawler in front of her even angrier.

"L-Look! If we told you about what had happened it would've only made things worse, s-sorry for not telling you but seeing people die whether it be virtually or realistically, isn't a comforting thought people like to remember!" Hannah tries to explain her reasons.

"...S-Someone else is de-dead?" Kyle began to stumble around, it seems that he's once again forgotten events which leads to him beginning to hyperventilate.

"HOW CONVENIENT YOUR MEMORIES FORGOT ABOUT BLOODY MURDER COMMITTED USING A GUN!" Sunny could be heard remarking at Kyle having forgotten a kill that happened earlier.

"Silence. Killer." Evan simply states when hearing the previous holder of the S&W and he aims the gun at the tree which the delinquent had been hiding behind. Right now his focus seemed to be entirely on the criminal that he felt deserved death for what he's done to him and everyone else in the game. So he begins pulling the trigger in the hopes that this shot will be successful in at least severely injuring him, "Die."

Click.

Everything stopped once again when all the contestants heard a familiar sound go off by Jared's hanging body.

"Have fun, kids~"

McLeanokuma states with a wide smile at the potential destruction his actions were gonna cause since no one could stop it. Because it didn't take long for the inevitable to happen.

BOOM!

The next thing they all knew, an explosion erupts from underground which blows off multiple trees nearby and caused others to catch on fire. What's more, is that everyone was sent flying from the impact due to how big it'd reached, and of course, it burned parts of the contestants' bodies. Currently, it was safe to say that the land mine which had been triggered by the supervisor left an impact on all the 'students' who had no shot at avoiding it.

"Upupupu~"

Familiar faint laughter is heard from the smoke before the gas finally disappears to show that the person who caused such havoc, has disappeared once again.

One of the first people which could be caught on camera is Alex who lays on the ground and all he could currently do is silently accept the familiar feelings of pain and burning. Unlike last time he knew all too well what the consequences of something blowing up from under the ground could be and yet he'd been barely given any time to avoid the same outcome. Hopelessly, all he did was lay on the ground and no part of his body could move to the point that although he's once again died within this virtual world... but he wasn't waking up from the nightmare this time and instead nothing else processes through his mind or body.

Sunny slowly rose from the ground and remnants of the previous virtual challenge come flooding back once he'd seen the temporarily dead body of the person in front of him. Initially, a part of him pitied the non-stereotyped contestant for having suffered the same fate as he did last time. Any ounce of sympathy dissipates once he remembers the words spoken to him yesterday and the fact that Alex isn't anyone of importance, but rather another tool he'd like to use to help him break the one person who's worth caring about.

"Today is the day you prove if you've got more potential than I see from your weak, frail, and unremarkable body." Sunny coldly states when remembering that the person laying motionlessly in front of him did have some mental potential. But for the time being, he's an absolute nobody and so the delinquent turns around to look around at the people more relevant in the moment.

"...A-Alex?" Evan's hair has been blown off enough to reveal the hazel eyes behind them which were directed towards one person in particular. For the time being his hatred against the person who's killed him seems to have calmed down, instead, the officer-in-training runs over to the newly-made corpse which he held in his hands. Fear and Regret were the first emotions that he could identify now that he's seen his friend get severely hurt, even if it's only virtual.

"Looks like Chris is getting into character with this one because now he's another villain which I'm going to need to take down!" Leon had scars and marks on his body due to the explosion which happened. But he seems to have remained standing even with what happened and right now his legs firmly planted themselves into the ground. Instead of tending to the other people he seemed completely concentrated on taking down the new 'bad guy' that's gotten onto his list.

"D-Damn, that certainly left a mark... I'm fine though, pops, it's all just another game after all!" Kyle also got damaged by the explosion which left such a massive mark on their surroundings. Steam flew from his back and his clothing now had some tears in them, plus it seems that he's only now gotten back on his two legs. Even with all this, he looked at the camera before giving it a smile and thumbs up.

"W-WHERE'D JARED G-GO?!" Hannah begins to search around the place, rather than focusing on herself the focus of her actions were primarily on finding the perfectionist's body.

"Who cares? Right now we need to focus on-!" Chloe grabs the blonde-haired girl's shoulders and attempts to hold her back from running off.

"It's gone."

Sunny and Leon both spoke together for the first time, this wasn't the time to start celebrating due to what their words meant. Hannah stops moving entirely when hearing the observations made by two people who could be relied on to be intelligent in assessing situations to an extent. There wasn't a body left behind since any trace of one seems to have gone away alongside the supervisor.

Everyone knew that [Jared's Missing Body] could've helped them out majorly, but now it's completely evaporated with there being only a black outline of it.

"Sc-Screw... tha-that... bear." Another voice weakly comments on the situation and it's soon revealed that Alex is the culprit who'd spoken these words. At this time he's able to open his eyes but he struggles with moving his arms at all.

"Don't rush it, just stay down a-and wait until your body feels restored." Evan takes the time to give his friend some advice. All he could do is stare at the ground afterward so he could reflect on his actions.

"That explosion was pretty cool." Kyle abruptly blurts out, everyone wasted no time in staring at him.

"How is that the first thought that came to your mind?" Sunny asked for everyone's sakes.

"Because it distracts me from thinking about the possibility that urban legends could be completely real in this world," Kyle answers with his face looking off into the distance, which seemed odd but then again this was Kyle they were speaking with.

"And what makes you think about-?" Sunny began to ask after letting out a sigh.

"IS THAT ME?! I'LL FUCKING KILL ME!" Chloe blurts out, these words made everyone look off in the same direction. Not too far away to their left, all the contestants could see someone else standing in the distance and they looked exactly like the drummer standing near them. Out of anger, Chloe grinds her teeth and takes a step forward so she could confront this faker.

"Don't!" Kyle suddenly gets right behind the triggered girl and he grabs onto her right hand to stop her from taking another step forward.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU-?!"

Before she could finish asking her question, the clone of her in the distance walks behind a tree but by the time it fully passes behind it, a coyote walks out from behind. Almost as if he knew what this meant, Kyle looked around the place frantically until something seemed to click inside his mind and he steps to the right before pulling the girl with him. His timing couldn't have been any closer since, in a blink of an eye, one lightning bolt had struck the spot which the drummer had stood in, and after they dodged this both contestants fell onto the ground.

CRACK!

"EEEEEEP!" Chloe wastes no time in freaking out and she grabs tightly onto Kyle with both her hands, her eyes were even closed and it seemed her entire body had been shaking.

"Afraid of thunder?" Kyle identifies immediately what had caused the girl to react in such a way. He made sure to look at where the coyote had been last seen and noticed that it'd disappeared.

"N-No! In fact, it didn't bother me in the slightest!" Chloe tries to deny what happened despite the blushing on her face. To further this lie she even lets go of the baseball player and stands right back up.

"Denial. It's always the first stage of grief." Kyle doesn't seem to believe the lie at all which caused the girl in front of him to puff out her cheeks.

"Damn that was bright, looks like your [Urban Legends] theory has some weight now." Sunny comments after finally regaining his vision, everyone else got blinded by the quick flash and was visually recovering from it. Thankfully it took no time for everyone there to finally gain back their ability to see with the delinquent being the first person to do this.

"Perfect, I think I'm able to think about which one that had been but I'll need to double-check if my guess is correct," Kyle responds, deciding to withhold his guess on what exactly that'd been for the time being.

"You better have a damn answer when the time comes," Chloe mumbles too quietly for anyone to hear her out.

'From what my memories are recalling, the [Previous Virtual Challenge] definitely didn't have something like this happen.' Kyle attempts to use whatever memories he's got, in case they could help him with this challenge.

"Unfortunately you'll be useful this time around, it seems. Now let's all turn our attention back to solving this murder!" Sunny turns around to face everyone else and all of them could see once more.

"Actually, we don't need to take any time in figuring things out because let's just say someone had given me a heads up during my moment of death." Evan inserts himself into the conversation, he made sure to stand in front of the person who redirected the topic.

"Well then, how about you all tell us who the culprit is so we're not wasting any more time with all these shenanigans?~" Sunny remarks, he is smirking and has his arms crossed.

"Due to the rules given to him he couldn't exactly tell me the killer but [Jared's Words] to me before I'd been told to get back into the virtual world were: I'll give you a riddle that'll help you out: When the temperature reaches its peak and you truly start feeling the heat, Which killer are you going to meet?" Evan tells everyone what he'd been told.

"...You think it's me, don't you? Isn't that a little obvious of a riddle to give?" Sunny understands exactly what's being implied.

"When your name relates to the big giant yellow ball in the sky which everyone in the world knows about, and the fact you killed me earlier makes it impossible to not make up anything that obvious." Evan counters the argument and he glares at Sunny for good measure.

"...Worst part about your words is that you're making completely valid arguments, my best defense is saying I've not committed the virtual murder which we're all going to have to solve." Sunny admits, sighing in defeat that he'd been defeated verbally.

"There's one more reason I'd bring up, but we'll save it for when the time comes." Evan cryptically states before turning around and walking away.

'Looks like we've got our current top suspect for this case, however, I'll have to invoke the 'innocent until proven guilty' argument here.' Alex holds off on believing the same thing that his friend seems to think.

"..." Most of everyone else continued to remain silent, unlike last time most people were keeping to themselves and weren't making their stances obvious. Of course, not everyone's going to have the same thoughts but each person tried putting the pieces together so they could think of the correct answer. It didn't take long for someone else to let out a gasp and speak out right after a moment of realization hits them.

"Hold on a second! This couldn't possibly be a suicide, from what I'd un-unfortunately seen of Jared's body some of the damage done to his body was clearly from some of the weapons we'd found in the house. This means that the killer must've [Moved the Weapons] into the house after they brutalized their victim." Hannah had been the one to speak out.

"If that's the case then don't you think someone here at least has an inkling of an idea of who came into the cabin to 'quietly' stab a sword into the wall in the middle of the night?" Leon seems skeptical of the idea.

"A part of me does remember something from last night!" Hannah declares which made Leon tilt his head.

"Aaand you didn't tell us this until now because?"

"Taking in the death of a dear friend, even if it's not real, isn't the easiest thing to do! Luckily my mind has suddenly remembered something that happened after everyone had fallen asleep from the events which transpired." Hannah answers and stares at all the people there to make her point clear. Her eyes seemed to be wider than usual and she even grabbed onto a tree branch.

"If it's going to help us out, feel free to share!" Leon suddenly begins getting enthusiastic from the heartthrob's words.

"Time to present [Hannah's Perspective] to all of you-!" Hannah starts her sentence off dramatically.

"Why'd you phrase it like that?" Sunny decides to once again question things.

"Last night my mind had been racing after what'd gone down last night and when resting on my bed, I couldn't get any sleep, and eventually Chris had brought in some VR headsets. Kyle wasn't there though and so he was brought back later after sleep-walking through the night."

"Sounds about right." Kyle nonchalantly verifies the likelihood of the story happening.

"After retrieving him I'd been given instructions to not tell anyone about my experiences last night and to fall asleep immediately, of course, that took a while. He never informed me about this challenge but I knew to follow the rules to avoid getting eliminated and besides, I'd faintly heard someone enter the virtual cabin before falling asleep. Who the person was I don't remember, I know it's inconvenient but it's the truth." Hannah finishes her explanation.

'Her story seems to completely check out and there's no sign of her lying.' Leon internally analyzes the perspective they've all been told. All the expressions which the heartthrob displayed and her words all seemed to check out which meant that he had to believe her on this one.

"Your story's the only thing we've all got to work off on, so until anyone's got anything to counter that we're taking it as the truth?" Alex asks the question directed towards everyone else. When no one speaks up, he nods and chooses to mentally write down the story they've been told.

"Apologies for not telling you all my story sooner, but now I'm making sure we'll find the killer who did this." Hannah's mood entirely shifts when these words exit her mouth, a smile appears on her face but it's combined with an empty look within her eyes. When walking forward her body seemed to be far less stable than it normally was but the heartthrob seemed to not care about this in the least. Most of the reactions she received were of people backing up, "And when we find them the person that did this... Hahaha~"

"Took you long enough to go insane." Sunny and Leon were the only people that looked unaffected by the drastic shift in tone.

"Are you the killer?~"

"Even if I was, I wouldn't answer-"

"Evan."

"Wait, wha-?" Sunny seemed confused but within no time he felt something blast through his chest and a loud bloodcurdling scream erupts from his mouth at the pain. Once the initial pain subsides he fell onto the ground and could barely remain conscious, within his vision he noticed a familiar bullet that was rolling on the ground. Emptily he lays on the ground before the blonde girl skips her way over to him.

"If you're truly the killer, then I'll make sure you suffer over... and over... and over... and over... and over again. So you better pray that you're not the killer~" Hannah gives him some final words before Sunny fell unconscious.

"T-Take... ta-ta-take th-th-that." Evan mutters out some words, his entire body seemed to be trembling and even his grip on the gun lessened to the point he dropped it. Even though he wanted to shoot Sunny and get revenge for earlier, memories of the previous challenge begin flooding back and he drops onto his knees and hands. Watching the mental toll taken on his friend, Alex ran over to him and he wraps his arms around him.

"Don't worry, he's not really dead, it's all just a game!" Alex attempts to cheer up his friend while continuing to hug him.

"Thanks for the help, Evan!~" Hannah did the exact opposite, in fact, she seemed too happy and satisfied with what's occurred. After saying all this she looked up into the sky without a care in the world, "I'll make sure to inquire your services again for when we find the real killer~"

"NO! He can't and won't virtually kill anyone else!" Alex yells out and he stood in front of his friend to say these words.

"I-I'll not dis-disappoint you..." Evan instinctively spoke from behind, even he seemed completely surprised by what he'd said.

"Excellent, let's all get to the trial!~" Hannah happily spoke.

"I couldn't have said it better myself~," An equally sadistic voice says before the ground below everyone began to shake which caused all the contestants to stumble around.

Each of the nearby trees suddenly rockets themselves into space itself before breaking into a bunch of little pieces and falling back down to earth. Everyone watched all the debris reach terminal velocity and crash into the ground all around them which leads to the ground flat out breaking apart. Now everyone was falling through a bunch of codes which were mostly typed in green.

"U-Ugh... Th-The hell?" Sunny regains his consciousness and seems puzzled by what's going on.

Soon after, everyone lands within some kind of elevator that had no roof on it which further confused all the contestants. Leon got up first and sees a roof abruptly appear when a bunch of zeroes and ones gather up above it to create a roof.

"Yep, that was one of the weirder things that happened." Leon couldn't respond with much besides these words.

"Yeah, it almost feels like whoever made this challenge couldn't come up with a smooth transition and just added all that stuff in." Sunny suddenly blurts out before grabbing onto his chest. His wound seems to have closed up but the pain in there remained.

"I've got the sudden urge to break the fourth wall now." Kyle comments after looking around the elevator.

"De-Despair." Evan just whispers to himself and he looks to the ground when saying this single word.

"Hope!~" Hannah continues to be unreasonably optimistic but her words sounded more forced than normal.

"This place feels completely right for me!" Chloe proudly states once she's gotten onto her feet as everyone else has.

"What are you all talking about? I just feel completely normal." Alex didn't seem to be affected by the sudden urges building inside of everyone. Most other people here seemed to have a hard time resisting their urges and most of them just seemed to do what felt like the right thing to do.

"Hold on a second! We need to turn down the Danganronpa Disease." McLeanokuma's voice is heard over a speaker by the door of the elevator.

.

.

.

"There we go, the forced references have been turned down." The supervisor's voice is heard after a bit of waiting.

"...Why did doing that make me feel less normal than before?" Alex points out while scratching the back of his head.

"I think we should all focus on finding the murderer of the faker rather than sweating all over the little details," Leon suggests which leads to everyone nodding.

"Sounds like a plan to me, time for all of us to prepare ourselves for the mystery-solving we're all going to do." Kyle agrees before leaning against the wall of the lowering room.

It didn't take much longer for everyone else to follow suit and silently take in all the information which they've gained today to make some judgments. Chloe yawned during her thinking process and she seems to have been the least interested in what's going on here. Evan still has some sweat leftover from returning the favor but he closes his eyes and tries calming himself to think properly about the case. Hannah simply tilted her head and only furthers her creep factor by continuing to smile at the prospect of catching the person who stained their hands red. Kyle didn't take much time to dig into his thoughts to think about all the evidence and weirdness that have gone down today, this combined with the fact he's beginning to remember the competition and it's no wonder why he took little time getting into thinking mode. Leon looks around the room and his approach to all this seemed more focused on how the contestants around him are reacting and what they're doing. Sunny makes sure to keep his distance from the heartthrob before sighing and trying to think of some kind of way to defend himself in this trial.

This left one person.

'Now here we are, all of us are preparing ourselves to potentially solve the murder of Jared August Monuel.' Alex thinks in his mind with closed eyes.

(Song #2): Zetsubousei Hero Chiryouyaku/Despairity: A Hero's Treatment

Chloe, Evan, Hannah, Kyle, Leon, and Sunny's faces all quickly pop through his mind.

'For the time being, they're all suspects, which means that one of them is blackened.' Alex states to himself before opening his eyes.

'And whoever is the person that committed murder... we're going to find them!'

Once these thoughts were said out loud inside his mind, the elevator finally stops as it seems to reach the floor it'd been destined to stop at. Slowly the doors began to open with a bright white light blocking out what was inside the floor until the doors open up completely.

"Prepare to despair!~" McLeanokuma's cheery voice greets all the contestants.

Soon after these words were heard, the blinding white light dissipates to reveal the place which everyone has just reached. Sixteen podiums formed a complete circle in the middle of the room, the floor was checkered with repeating black and white squares, the walls are blue with there being yellow pillars to mix up the color scheme. What made too much sense however was how there's a throne that currently is occupied by McLeanokuma.

"Someone went all out with replicating the games." Leon remarks before already taking one of the podiums.

"Glad to see someone here respects all the hard effort I've placed into making things like these," McLeanokuma says, obviously he was pleased by the compliment.

"I'd be more inclined to do the same thing, but right now I've gotta recover from death!" Sunny yells out with frustrations before taking another podium.

"Oh, believe me, it was satisfying seeing you get shot like that!~" McLeanokuma gets even happier and he even laughs at what happened to the contestant.

"Did you turn up your sadism meter or something? You're more forgiving of murders and fights than usual." Chloe questions, like the boys before her she took another podium.

"I've been going too soft lately, so naturally I'm trying to truly replicate Danganronpa's mascot to get my love for pain back!~" McLeanokuma proudly announces.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea, how about I'll play my role in this ripoff of a simulation?~" Hannah didn't light up for a single moment.

Instead of giving her a response, all the people in this place just looked on in horror at the girl who'd changed so much within the course of this single challenge. Unlike before she didn't seem to be changing attitudes but rather stuck to just being spiteful and filled with glee over the prospect of this trial. Eventually, she took a podium that had [Cracked Glasses] on top of one of them.

"..." Hannah remains completely quiet before she shoves the glasses into her pockets.

"Is it me or does she seem like someone possessed her? I'm pretty sure she never acted like this before." Kyle chose to question the supervisor about the heartthrob.

"Well, my forgetful contestant, you should know that death affects people in different ways whether they're real or not~" McLeanokuma explains with some amusement in his voice.

"I de-definitely agree with that," Evan adds on before taking a podium, his head facing the ground as he walked over. Kyle took no time in choosing another of the podiums without even needing to think.

"If more courtrooms looked like this, I'd be down to become a lawyer for cases that don't involve murder." Alex couldn't help but be impressed by the room.

"No matter how creative rooms can be, the stressful situations of trials and the feeling of despair will always be present!" McLeanokuma declares.

"Hopefully all that stress and despair won't overwhelm me. If that happens then I'm sure the killer's going to easily slip into the background, so for the time being, I'll make sure to take your words to heart." Alex responds with clenched fists. Just like everyone else he soon took a podium of his own.

All seven contestants took their spots and no one was sitting right next to each other. In fact, there were missing spots around everyone except for Alex and Evan who were the only people to stand by one another.

"I'll give each of you a few more minutes to gather your thoughts, and then we'll begin!~"

Once everyone heard these words, they remained completely silent as the music in the background continued.

.

.

.

.

.

"Screw it all, let's all just get right into this!" Chloe declares.

"Alright then, What exactly are we going to start the discussion with?" Leon seemed curious about this decision.

"I'm willing to discuss the motive because it just points to one person," Chloe confirms, she then turns her head to look over at the person she's accusing.

"You really believe that because of that single reason, that I'm the culprit of this case?" Leon catches on quickly to what the drummer's implying.

"Don't tell me you thought that no one would suspect you after hearing the motive." Chloe furthers her accusation with one smirk spreading across her face.

"It'd be stupid of me to not consider that possibility but wouldn't me killing that faker be a bit too obvious?" Leon tries his best to remain calm. For now, he seemed to keep his cool as he showed no signs of anger.

"Sometimes it's the obvious choice which is the correct one. Ever heard of reverse psychology? And if you'd like to say that I'm wrong then how about we'll get other people's thoughts on all this?" Chloe requests before looking at Sunny and Evan who both nodded.

'If this is my best chance of getting the suspicion off me, I'll gladly join in.' Sunny internally explains.

'I'd like to believe that Leon didn't do the murder and that he wouldn't break his moral code, so I'll join in too.' Evan had a completely different mindset.

"Now to let the debating truly begin!" Chloe announces, which was a signal for the others to begin speaking.

"Gladly... from what we'd seen of Jared's body earlier there were bruises on his face, you were responsible for those bruises, weren't you Leon?" Sunny brings up his first point.

"Considering how brutal the beating was last night, I'd think the same thing. Beyond those bruises, though just because he caused those bruises doesn't me he killed him, though!" Evan tries defending his friend.

"Oh come on, just admit that besides his words there's nothing to really defend Leon here. It's clear as day that because of the motive, he's the only person who could've done it."

"SORE WA CHIGAU YO!" Alex finally yells out loud enough, during his yelling a bullet noise goes off before the screen cracks in half at his yelling.

BREAK!

This single word shows up on the screen before everyone looked over at the person who'd randomly pointed out something wrong with what Chloe had said, and he did it in Japanese.

'I had to double-check myself if anything wrong had been said. And just as expected, Chloe said something wrong and I'll be here to clear things up because that's my role for this! I'll shoot through any errors, lies, or even truths to reach the correct conclusion that this trial has presented us. There's an answer and I'll try my best to find out what exactly it is!'

Alex makes a declaration inside his mind and he looks at everyone before pointing an accusatory finger at Chloe, right now he's planning to be the person who'll figure it all out. However, the camera cuts to black before anything else could be shown.

To Be Continued...

Truth Bullets:

[Kyle's Memories]: Remnants of the competition are beginning to come back to him, even though they should be completely erased or lost. Why are his memories acting up now? Can he remember anything that could've happened last night after the beatdowns? How much can he remember? There are so many questions I've got.

[The Motive: Lia's Elimination]: Last night, Lia had been eliminated solely by Jared only which upset everyone, Leon even bruised him over this. After the assault, Leon attempted to threaten Alex for Evan's "sake" but was stopped. We all don't know much beyond that, but two people last night did catch my attention and I think they could be suspects.

[Leon's Moral Code]: "Murdering isn't a line I'm willing to cross." To put it simply, Leon states he'll never kill but would that apply to a virtual world?

[Chosen by Chris]: Similar to what happened the last time we all ended up here, the killer has been chosen by the host. Last time, the person chosen had been Jun Kamoshida but that was before he turned into The Ultimate Cosplayer over here and so whoever "McLeanokuma" has chosen, is the person that did this.

[Strangely Placed Katana]: This morning I barely remember seeing it, but this weapon had been stabbed into the wall and Sunny used it to aid him during the battle in which he'd seen that it's been previously used.

[Random Gun]: When the gun had been used, there was a bullet missing from the chamber with its last usage being today, when it was used to kill Evan.

[Potential Suicide]: One possibility to take into consideration is that Jared chose to make himself the victim of this case. This means that even he's a possible suspect in this case.

[Mastermind]: Something else to consider is that the person who did this must be intelligent to have been chosen if Chris believes their murder would be good enough for a trial. Or maybe we're looking at it wrong, 'Mastermind' doesn't necessarily have to mean they're the killer, they just have to be the person that triggered these events to happen.

[Evan's Death]: Earlier today Sunny and Evan got into a fight which resulted in Evan dying, albeit temporarily before he'd been brought back from virtual death. It was only after his death is when McLeanokuma revealed to most of us that no one else can die which means eliminating other people from this challenge is pointless.

[Jared's Missing Body]: Jared's body got blown up after everyone began to bicker about the death which took place earlier. The only remnants of the body we have left is a black outline of where it once had been.

[Urban Legend]: None of us here knew what happened when that strange Chlone showed up but that creature could have something to do with the case, and if Kyle really does know what it is then we can probably figure out how it ties in with everything else.

[Previous Virtual Challenge]: In the previous challenge, Jun had been chosen to be the murderer in which everyone except for Miriam fell victim to the self-proclaimed god who became a temporary god of one world. This challenge was the last time we've competed in this simulation and it left an impact on everyone and especially Leon in particular.

[Jared's Words]: "When the temperature reaches its peak and you truly start feeling the heat, Which killer are you going to meet?"

[Moved the Weapons]: Two of the weapons which had an involvement in the murder of Jared were found inside the cabin today, which means the killer stabbed the katana into the wall and either forgot to hide their gun or hid the gun in Sunny's pocket. Either way, the weapons were nowhere near where we'd found the body and thus they were moved by someone.

[Hannah's Perspective]: If her words are to be believed, she'd been awake when we all were placed into this world and was told to not disrupt the challenge. Barely, she remembers someone entering our cabin but couldn't figure out who it had been.

[Cracked Glasses]: When we entered the trial room, Jared's missing glasses already to have been there, Why? For now, we all have no idea.

Potential Killers:

Alex Jones, Chloe Broderick, Evan Herbert, Hannah Jordan, Jared Monuel, Kahlin Mora, Leon Salvatore, and Sunny Persnisky.