Chapter 6: Can't Remember A Side To Be On: Hope Or Despair (BEGIN)
Day 19
"Gah, this sucks!" Skywarp yelled as he walked through the forest in the VOF at 5 in the morning. It seemed like whenever he gets close to someone, or at least get an understanding, they end up dying. Skywatch, Counterpunch, Nightbeat, Ratchet, maybe Starscream and Thundercracker… life sucks right now. To go along with that, Smokescreen's reveal as the serial killer was genuinely unnerving. He couldn't actually believe the thought process going on through his cold, twisted mind. The fact that they had to sacrifice Ratchet instead of him made him incensed. Of course, the reason they had to sacrifice Ratchet was because of that mentally disturbed nihilist. The fact that those two were still alive and Ratchet was dead was a fragging crime. Add Laserbeak's injury to all that and he had reached the absolutely lowest point of being in this damn place.
He made his way out of the forest to reach the large door to the next area. If he couldn't sleep, than he'll just check the next area out. Who knows what new ways of killing people he'll find in there. He went over to the control panel and press the open button, letting the door open up to an atrium of some sort and five more doors, appearing to resemble the previous building except with the addition of one more door. The signs appeared to say 'Laboratory,' 'Cleaning Room,' 'Music Room,' 'Combat Room,' and 'Foundry.'
"What an odd mix," he immediately said before walking over to the combat room. He loved fighting, so it makes sense. He apparently wasn't the only one, as he entered to find Bludgeon practicing. The room had a variety of arenas with Bludgeon on a raised platform in the middle of the room fighting against a holographic swordsmech. He blocked an overhead strike with his sword before deftly dashing to the right and swing his sword at the hologram before it can react and sliced the arm off at the elbow. The hologram stumbled as Bludgeon brought sword back and cleaved through the neck, beheading it and sending it to the ground as it disappeared. Bludgeon sheathed his weapon as he shifted his glare over to Skywarp.
"Foolish one! Why do you bother me?" he questioned him as he stepped off the arena.
"Hey, I'm just here to check the place out," Skywarp said as he looked around. "I'm seeing a lot of arenas, but no weapons."
"They expect us to bring our own. If you don't have one, then you have to fight in hand-to-hand or use the virtual interface," Bludgeon told him, giving a nod of his head towards the directions of computers all together.
"Virtual interface?" Skywarp asked he looked at it.
"You inject a cord into you and you engage in a virtual combat simulation. I've done one and it is quite realistic. You will feel pain, but you won't die," Bludgeon told him.
"Really? That's cool. There really isn't any place to fly except for the outdoor facility, but that isn't really free and I don't want to run into a wall by accident, so it's good to finally have a place to spread my wings," he said. "You know if flyers don't fly for a while, they start to lose their mind. Losing the ability to use one's wings would pretty much destroy a flyer's life."
"Don't lose yours. We already have too many cracked minds in our mist," the swordsmech told him.
"No kidding. Wildrider, Dead End, Smokescreen… they're freaking insane," he muttered.
"Yes, they are. The only good thing from that last trial is that we can now strike Smokescreen off the mole's list since he was the serial killer in Scavenger's secret," Bludgeon said.
"Yeah, that's true. So who does that leave?" Skywarp wondered.
"Of the ones alive, only one possible suspect remains."
"Only one?"
"Yes. Since Smokescreen is revealed to be the serial killer and Mirage, Nightbeat, Chromedome, and the recently deceased Ratchet are all dead, that leaves Perceptor as the only living suspect," Bludgeon told him.
"Dammit, you're right… he's the only one left alive that isn't Smokescreen," Skywarp murmured. "Do you think he's the mole?"
"I don't know. I don't believe any of them could be the mole considering how they acted, but Perceptor doesn't really have a close relationship with anyone. He's cold and distant to almost everyone here. I would be the least surprise if he was the mole," the metallikato expert responded. "I would keep my distance from him until we can find out if he's on our side or Monobear's side."
"Yeah, probably a good idea. He's the only suspect left, so we should be careful around him," Skywarp agreed.
"Now then, why are you out so early?" Bludgeon questioned him, crossing his arms.
"Huh?" he gasped. "What do you mean?"
"You don't get up this early, especially without your living alarm clock injured," he said, referencing Laserbeak and Skywarp had to scratch the back of his head at that.
"I can't sleep. Too many bad things have happened to me and I just think about it, so I have to get out to clear my thoughts," he told him.
"You've been close to some of the deceased, am I correct?" Bludgeon questioned him.
"Yeah, and I'm worrying too much about my trine outside of this building. I'm afraid of the bad things that could've happened to them during the time we lost out memory," he said.
"Hmm, yes, the outside world. One of the great mysteries here," he muttered. "We still haven't found any conclusive evidence in the area for what happened there."
"Yeah, that and what happened here at the school like that mass suicide," Skywarp muttered.
"Suicide. An honorable way to die," Bludgeon muttered. "To convince others to go along with that? A great dishonor."
"I don't think I can agree with that… say, why are you up as well?" Skywarp questioned him.
"No reason," he answer quickly looking away and Skywarp had a funny reason that he knew why.
"Is it about Nautilator?" he asked cheekily and Bludgeon flinched at that. "Hey, it's alright. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"It is! I'm letting my emotions takeover. I need to remain stoic," he said with a clenched fist.
"If your version of stoic is to be silently angry at everyone, sure, go ahead, but there's no way of hiding your feelings here," Skywarp told him.
"I have to. I may only get close with my master, who doesn't exist anymore. I can't make friends, only enemies," he told him.
"That's… a weird way of living life," Skywarp muttered.
"Look at what happened to you. So many of your friends dying while I haven't had to live through it," he told him, irking the flyer.
"So what? People die. You get used to it. May take a while to get over their deaths, but that takes time. It's a fact of life that one can't deny… or are you still not over Jhiaxus' death?" Skywarp questioned and Bludgeon gave him the angriest look he could deliver.
"He was my master. I sacrifice my life for him and then he dies instead of me? That's not what supposed to happen. I should die protecting him. I shouldn't even be alive!" Bludgeon growled before he turned away. Skywarp guessed he found his answer. Bludgeon was still feeling guilt over Jhiaxus' death and couldn't get over it. Now, with him getting close to Nautilator, he's afraid of it happening again.
"I'm afraid to die," Bludgeon spoke up again, surprising the jet. "It's a weakness of mine, but it's the reason I haven't atone for my failure."
"Atone for your failures… what do you mean by that?" Skywarp questioned.
"When one's master dies, there only way to regain your honor and is through a self-inflicted death," Bludgeon told him.
"Suicide?" Skywarp questioned.
"Yes. It's what one does when their master dies through the failure of the protector. I failed to get him out of the ship and he was crushed into particles. Therefore, in order to regain my honor, I have to commit suicide."
"And yet you're still here…."
"Yes, I am, dishonored."
"Are there other ways of atoning?" Skywarp questioned him.
"Only partially. Once every year, I pay my respects and burn an effigy on the day of his death. I don't know what the date currently is, but I know that when I came here, it was twenty days away," he told him.
"Twenty days. What day is today?" he questioned him.
"Today will be day 19," Bludgeon said as he turned back towards him. "19 days of living in this hell. 19 days of fighting for not just my life, but everyone here."
"That's one way of putting it," Skywarp agreed. "So, going to burn an effigy tomorrow?"
"Yes, I am," Bludgeon agreed.
"Well… that gives me an idea," Skywarp said with a smirk.
"Idea? What do you mean?" he asked, garing at him.
"Well, why don't we make it festive and not for just Jhiaxus, but for everyone that died here." Skywarp recommended.
"Huh? Why?" Bludgeon asked, confused.
"Look, a third of us are dead, okay," Skywarp reminded him. "We need something to remind people what's happen. The ten that died are all because of this sick game. The east we can do is honor the, wouldn't you agree."
"How… thoughtful of you," Bludgeon muttered.
"I have a good idea every now and then, now you want to help me with that?" Skywarp questioned him.
"Hmm, we should probably get the permission of the majority of the teachers first," Bludgeon muttered. "There is some bad blood among the dead with the living, particularly with Shockwave and Vortex. Those two weren't particularly well-liked."
"Well, that's true, but we still need to ban together under something. We have to discourage a murder so we get our hands on the mastermind," Skywarp told them. "Some people may not care about some of the dead, but we all have to get under something. I may not like everyone, but we need to work together."
"True, to defeat the mastermind, we need to trust one another, which is close to impossible. Still, we have to give it a try," Bludgeon agreed. "If we can get them to agree to it, we can make the effigies and burn them in memoriam."
"Great. Tomorrow, let's see if we can get him to agree to it," Skywarp nodded. "Still, this does leave me with one more question."
"What's that?"
"What exactly is your relationship with Nautilator?" Skywarp questioned him and Bludgeon gave him an evil glare before he responded.
"I don't know, but I don't like it. I care about him, but I don't want to. I already gave everything I had for Jhiaxus, so to care for him would be to betray Jhiaxus. I can't do that," he told him, sounding conflicted.
"He's dead. I'm sure he wouldn't mind… nah, I can't say it. I heard Jhiaxus was a bit of a aft," Skywarp muttered.
"He was a complicated individual. Trust me, he used to have a kinder spark before his experiments spiraled his sanity down to madness. And through it all, I was always by his side, keeping him safe, until he died," Bludgeon muttered. "He was all I was allow to get close to. No one else."
"Look, this whole order, clan, whatever that you were with has probably been destroyed, so I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't mind if you got close to someone else," the jet continued to attempt to calm him.
"It's not about them. It's about Jhiaxus. I can't just betray him like this, and yet and I can't deny that I feel something for the small fool. It's not much, but I do want to protect him like I protected Jhiaxus. It would be something that gives me purpose in life," Bludgeon muttered.
"Then do it!" Skywarp told him. "If Jhiaxus cared about you, then he would let you be able to move on. If he didn't care about you, than screw him. He didn't deserve your protection," the prankster badgered him. Bludgeon kept quiet, keeping his head down as he thought it through. Skywarp knew that this must be emotionally troubled about this.
"We'll… figure this out later," Bludgeon told him. "Once we kill the mastermind, I'll make my decision. Besides, we need Nautilator to wake up first."
"Yeah, he's still in his coma," Skywarp agreed. "Hope he wakes up soon."
"As do I, as much as I usually wouldn't want to," Bludgeon agreed. "Now, you want to do a combat simulation together and spread those wings of yours?"
"Frag yeah," he agreed. "Let's go."