Epilogue
"I was surprised, honestly." Ribbon Girl admitted as she looked over the cards in her deck. "I mean I wasn't really set on anyone yet, but I was leaning more toward Ninjara than Twintelle. Hell, I think I suspected Master Mummy more than her." She put a card down on the hotel room table and drew another from the deck.
"Toward the end there I was trying to figure out how the Snowman could have done it from within that chamber. That or maybe one of the staff did it somehow, maybe with some sorta artificial ARMS." Min Min rolled the hotel pillow mint around in her mouth. "Man, why didn't we consider that? The staff said 'they used ARMS to do it' and we just ruled 'em all out. That was dumb."
"Yeah, but it wasn't a staff member in the end!" She smiled.
"I know, but still." Min Min placed down a card in return.
"It's crazy how people are already trying to excuse Twintelle, though… She orchestrated that whole thing and yet they're still buying her crocodile tears as if she just made some sort of mistake."
Min Min sighed. "Well she said she'd spin it. Guess that's what she's doing." She put her card hand down and leant back on her chair. "That's acting for you, I guess. She must have been playing nice from the start. But after this? I doubt she ever cared about any of us."
"... Do you think we'll get over it?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"What, after all she did? I mean she was trying to ruin Mechanica's whole life! We can't just forgive her for that."
"I'm not saying we'd forgive her." Ribbon Girl leant forward, with her head on her palms. "I just think that, if she doesn't get done-in for all this, she's gonna be right back in the spotlight and in the ARMS league and we're gonna see her around just as much as we always have. How long is it gonna take for us to stop holding it against her and just get over it?"
Min Min bit her lip. "... Okay, yeah, probably not all that long. I mean we should stay bitter 'bout this forever."
Ribbon Girl snorted. "Yeah, and she should get proper jail time for what she pulled. I just think that isn't how things are gonna play out."
"Mm." Min Min shrugged, before jumping to her feet. "Well I can tell you one thing I'm certain of!" She extended a hand to Ribbon Girl, who was still sitting at the table.
Ribbon Girl took her hand and got to her feet. "And what would that be?"
Min Min pulled her in closely, staring deeply into her eyes. "She is definitely off the Christmas card list~"
And that my friends is the end of another fun ARMS fic! Did you have a nice ride?
I began it way way back in Octoberish of 2017 and I never intended for it to go on 'hiatus' for as long as it did. Most of the story beats were planned out back when I started, so sadly some things suffered from that break: newer characters like Misango and Dr. Coyle couldn't be woven in and part of Twintelle's motive (wanting a villain for the ARMS league) isn't quite as clever now that ARMS does have a canonical villain of sorts in Dr. Coyle.
But oh wellllllll. It's still a fun story, yeah? I think so!
Here's another fun little fact though - y'know Lola? She was never really a valid suspect, 'cause this story was first planned before she was introduced! But I liked her enough to weave her in here-and-there, enough so that she seems like she could have done it just like any of the others could have. But there had already been a version of this story in my head without her in it - the culprit had already been selected before she was included in the line up! Sneaky of me to slip her in there anyways, eh?
Two more fun little extras, since I might as well share them...
imgur /7iKcozg
This is the (very basic) map of the train I created back when I began formulating story! It was only really a rough guide to help me plan things and I imagine it's vastly inaccurate to how real trains might be laid out, but it's still a neat tidbit. As Lola was weaved into this story later on, this map doesn't account for her and the final story winds up shoving Spring Man and Ninjara into a room together to make up for that. You can also see that the original name for the train was Snowfall Express!
imgur /oVZOeqm
Here's a design of Snowman I made quite a decent bit before the fic! It was originally made as just an OC for in-game, without much of a story of its own aside from a small bit of ARMS Lab backstory. When I wanted to have the train derail for this story I decided it'd be an interesting addition and wound up including it mostly as it had been in my original design/idea for the OC.
Well I hope you came up with some good educated guesses and enjoyed the ride! Thank you all so much for reading and commenting 3
By the way... If you'd like to talk about ARMS fanon and headcanons with other fans, share and review fan art and fan fiction, and just generally have fun with ARMS world building then consider checking out my ARMS fanon discord server!
discord. gg/TsaFTSq