Chapter 14 - Monokuma's Riddle (Part 2)
Okay so I disappeared for literally 3 months... hehe sorry about that. I've been busy with school and I have been trying to improve my grades (most of them improved! Yay!). And since now my school is finally closed, I will be able to write until at least the end of this case, which will be a crazy one for sure. Speaking of which, one specific reviewer is so going to kill me after this chapter. But I'm ready to face my fate with my head held high... Okay now onto the fic, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Blossom was heading to the canteen, at the moment. It had passed two days since Monokuma had given them the motive and nothing had happened, which gave Blossom a slight sign of hope.
She arrived at the place, finding Robin, Bubbles, Steven, Dexter and Dee Dee. Robin, Bubbles and Steven were seated on a table while the other two were on other one. She went to seat with her friends.
"Hey, guys." she said while taking a seat.
"Good morning, Blossom." Bubbles smiled "How are you?"
"I'm fine. Nothing horrible really happened these days so that's nice." she replied.
"I hope it remains this way. I don't think I can deal with more deaths." Steven said.
"We can still beat the mastermind. We just have to work together. All of us." Robin said, confidently.
"I think Robin's right." Blossom said "We just have to convince three certain people to work with us." the other knew exactly who she was referring to and nodded in agreement. "I will talk to them later."
As time went by, more pupils started entering the place and took a seat on their usual tables. The only exception being Mandy, who hadn't arrived yet.
Blossom was reunited with her friends, while Dexter, Dee Dee and Finn were eating on different tables. The pink powerpuff girl was just staring at the void while her friends were chatting.
She sighed "I miss school." she kept on staring at the void thinking about the friends in school that she had left and all the good grades she always had. She was called the smartest girl in Townsville for a reason. Her grades were off the charts and for a kid of her age, those grades were unthinkable. In fact, with her capacities, she could've been already on eighth/ninth grade.
She suddenly noticed there was just silence around her and stared up at her friends. Gumball and Darwin were looking confusedly at her.
"What did you just say?" Gumball asked, raising a brow.
She was confused by that sudden reaction "Uh, I just said I was missing school... Why?"
"How can you actually miss school?!" Gumball asked.
"Yeah, school's the worst!" Darwin exclaimed.
"Well, Blossom's kind of a nerd so it doesn't really surprise me." Buttercup said, shrugging. Blossom rolled her eyes at her sister's comment.
"How can you even like school though? The boring classes-" Darwin was cut off by Gumball.
"The horrible grades-"
"The annoying teachers-"
"The P.E classes-"
"And the most important: The homework!" the two brothers finished.
"I actually don't mind most of those things." Blossom said "I'm a pretty good student." she smiled proudly.
"I wish I could relate." Gumball said.
Their conversation continued for a while until something happened with Dexter and Dee Dee. The latter had just got up from the place she was seated on with a revolted look that was rare to see since she was almost always with a happy face.
"Wait what?!" she exclaimed, looking at her brother with both anger and disbelief "How can you just say that?!"
"Dee Dee, stop making a scene, calm down!" Dexter said, while gritting his teeth.
"Calm down?! How do you just want me to calm down?! Are you not understanding what's going on? We're all gonna die here, eventually!" she continued shouting.
"Only if you keep on shouting like some crazy lunatic!" he exclaimed back.
"Ugh, forget this!" she stormed out of the room, carrying her angry expression.
After that, everyone just stood there staring at each other, trying to guess what were the two siblings talking about that made Dee Dee have such a strong reaction.
"Should we go check on her?" Bubbles asked, visibly worried about the happy ballerina.
"Ignore her, she's just being childish. She'll be okay in a minute." Dexter said as he too walked out of the canteen. "I'll be in the library, if someone needs my services."
The canteen was left in silence for a moment until Gumball decided to break it "Well, Darwin and I are going to the arcade now, if someone want to come with us-"
"I'll go too." Buttercup said "I need to distract myself from… whatever happened here. Plus I bet I can kick your asses just like I did yesterday!"
"You're on, Green!" Darwin exclaimed before they dashed out of the room, towards the arcade.
Blossom looked at where Finn, the only one left who wasn't at her table, just to see that he had already vanished from there. She sighed.
One hour later, Blossom was peacefully reading a book in her room. It was a book about how a deadly virus takes over the world and how humanity is disappearing faster than ever. She always liked reading, it would make her calm when she was stressed. So, in a situation like that, it's clear that she would spend most of her time reading.
Though, she couldn't stop thinking about a lot of things. Like, what were Dexter and Dee Dee talking about at breakfast and why did Dee Dee react like that? Where had Mandy been during those two days? How long has she been inside of that school? What was happening on the outside world?
That last question was what kept Blossom and possibly everyone else awake at night. Blossom, along with her sisters, were the saviors of Townsville. Without them, that city wouldn't even be a city anymore. They were the reason Townsville hadn't fallen apart. But now they were stuck on that school, for who knows how long. Weeks, months, maybe an year already!
Townsville... Professor... Everything could be ruined and we can't do nothing! Ugh!, she threw the book aside and laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
"I can't do this anymore..." she confessed "If I think too much about this I'm going to get crazy. Ugh, I wish I didn't overthink so much!" she grabbed a pillow and shoved it in her face, screaming to it.
Then, suddenly she heard a sound that had seemed to come from her door, so she went to check it. She noticed that there was a kind of paper note on the floor that had seemed to enter her room from behind the door.
"Huh?" she picked it up and noticed that there was something written on it. She read the message aloud "This is a little gift from your master Monokuma! Since I can't see anyone killing someone at this point, I'm going to let you guys free if you solve this simple riddle:" she stopped reading right there.
"No...way... No, this can't be..." she murmured. She immediately got out of her dorm and went to find someone else.
"What the heck is going on-" she stopped when she saw Robin also walking out of his dorm, apparently reading the same ticket she had received.
"Hey, Robin!" she called while walking towards him "Did you also receive this note?" she showed him the note.
"Yeah, I did, Weird huh?" he rested his hand on his chin.
"Yeah, why would Monokuma give us an opportunity to escape when his evil game is at its peak?"
"Maybe he's just messing with us to give us a false sense of hope." Robin said.
"That's the most likely option... I'm still going to search for something though." Blossom said, smiling slightly.
"Me too." he smiled "Have you read the riddle?"
"Not yet. Let me see." she cleared her throat and started to read:
"You want to escape, You want to be free, But only solving this riddle, you will find the key. In normal school places to have fun, you'll find the answer to your freedom, Though not on the danger above, there you'll just find boredom."
"... This riddle doesn't make any sense." said Blossom.
"I think it's pretty clear, actually." Robin said "It says that we can find the key to our freedom only on normal school places where we have fun, like, libraries, music rooms, pools, art rooms and chemistry labs. Those places are on the first and second floors. Right?" he paused to make sure Blossom was understanding.
"Hmm..." she tapped her chin with her hand in thought.
"And when it refers the danger above, it refers the rooms on the third floor like the armory, the weight room and the dog room. There he'll just find boredom, meaning there's nothing in there. So,"
"So we have to search all over the first and second floors! Robin, you're a genius!" she exclaimed "We have to tell the others." she said as she picked up her handbook to tell everyone to meet at the canteen.
"So, we have to search for a key on the first and second floors and if we do find it, we can leave this school for good?!" Buttercup basically resumed what Robin and Blossom had told them.
"Yes." Robin responded, he turned to his fellow peers, they were all there, with the exception of Mandy and Finn. "Since Monokuma didn't really give us a time limit for the search, I think it would be for the best if we spent the rest the of the day looking for the key to see if we can return to our homes."
"Well, Robin, that is a great idea but how can we be sure Monokuma's serious. I doubt he would set us free at this point of the game." Dexter said.
"Maybe he just, you know, decided that it was too much." Gumball shrugged.
"Yeah right, doubt it." Dexter replied, folding his arms.
"I think he's doing that because he's running out of food, honestly." Steven said "There's barely any food left in the fridge."
"The reason why he did this doesn't matter, what matters is that we finally have an opportunity to escape... Let's not waste it." Blossom said, feeling her hope slightly coming back.
"What about Mandy and Finn though?" Dee Dee asked.
"I will try to talk to them later." Robin said. "I'll try to make them understand that we gotta stay together."
"I'll go with you." Blossom told him and then turned to the other students "As for everyone else, let's find this key!"
With that, everyone else went to search for the key to their freedom.
Blossom and Robin had decided to head towards the library since they thought that it was the place where there would most likely be some kind of answer. Apparently, they weren't the only ones to have that thought, since Mandy, who no one had seen for two days, was already there.
"Woah, I hadn't seen her since Monokuma gave us the motive." Blossom whispered to Robin.
"It's our chance to talk to her." Robin replied as they walked towards her.
"Hey, Ma-" Blossom was about to greet her when suddenly the blond girl spoke up.
"What do you two want?" she rudely asked, a frown on her face, as usual, and not even facing the pair.
"We just wanted to talk to you about what's been going on." the powerpuff girl said.
Mandy remained silent, still not looking at them.
Robin continued "This situation has been a complete caos and we think that if we all tried together we could-"
"Let me stop you right there." she interrupted again "You know, just because you two were the leaders of your respective 'super hero' teams back on your places, it doesn't mean you have to try to lead everyone here and make them work together."
The two leaders seemed taken aback by her statement but Blossom responded "Mandy, this is not about leading everyone, we just want everyone to work together so-"
"For what though? Why do we need to work together? As if working together will suddenly open the door of this school so we can get out. That's not how it happens. This is the real world, not a cartoon." she said "I don't have to follow you. We don't have to follow you." she coldly said, staring right at their souls, before walking deeper into the library.
The two just watched her walking away, without saying a word. Not like they had anything to say though.
"Damn..." Robin muttered.
The two were now heading towards the chemistry lab. When they entered they saw the person they were exactly looking for.
"Hello, Finn. How are you doing?" Blossom asked calmly.
"...Fine, I guess." he calmly replied "Well, bye." he started walking towards the exit.
"Wait, Finn." Robin called him "Can we just talk for a second?"
He sighed "Fine. What is it?"
"We just wanted to say to tell you to not give up on hope. Things might look horrible now and we know you lost two important people in your life but we have to work together if we want to get out of this school." he said.
"Let Jake and Bubblegum proud and avenge them." Blossom finished with a determined look.
Finn shed a tear or two with that "You're right..." he looked determined for a second but then he put on a frown. "But what about the murders? How can we all work together when everyone keeps on stabbing each other's backs, huh?! How are we even supposed to trust each other?"
"Well... we... we can't." Blossom lowered her head in defeat. He's right... We cannot fully trust each other here... How can I convince the others to work together like this?
"That's what I thought. Bye, guys." he walked out of the room leaving the other two there.
Moments later, Blossom and Robin were in the Art Room searching for the supposed key silently. Their hopes of finding it were slowly fading since they had searched for almost all rooms of the first and second floors.
"I'm starting to think Monokuma only did this so he could give us a fake sense of hope." Blossom said.
"Me too." Robin replied. He sighed "I can't believe how horrible it went with both Finn and Mandy. And the worst part is that they are right in a way. We can't convince everyone to work together when we keep killing each other. There's just no trust in here and I can't blame anyone. I'm disappointed at myself, honestly."
"Don't be. We are super heroes and we're leaders." the redhead said "We were always taught that teamwork was the key to success. But now I see that it isn't always like that-"
*BAAM*
An ear piercing noise was heard throughout the entire school.
"Please tell me that wasn't-" Blossom started, afraid it was actually what she thought it was.
"A gunshot? It most likely was." Robin finished. "It came from the third floor, let's go!" the dashed out of the room.
"No way..." Blossom muttered as she stared at the scene in front of her, letting a few tears escape.
On the floor of the arcade there were...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Gumball and Dee Dee's dead bodies.
Dee Dee's body was mutilated while Gumball had a simple gun wound on the middle of his forehead, his body on a pool of blood.
"Another double murder?! I thought everything was fine!" Robin exclaimed, confused on why not one but two people had died again.
"Ding Dong! Not one but two bodies have been found! Finally!" Monokuma's squeaky voice blared out from the speakers "After a set period of time, that will be used for your investigation, another class trial will take place! Upupupu..."
Shortly after, Mandy appeared on the arcade and stared at the bloody scene. "I was wondering when it would happen. It took longer than I expected." she said "Now I will solve this case and find the murderer. And then I'll leave this hell of a school."
Alive: Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, Robin, Darwin, Mandy, Steven, Dexter, Finn
Dead: Jake, Rigby, Connie, Mordecai, Ben, Princess Bubblegum, Mindy, Dee Dee, Gumball
Will I regret posting this chapter later? Yeah, probably. But was it essencial for the story? Definitely.
I'm particularly sorry for the guest 'Amber' because of Gumball's death. I know you didn't want him to die but this was already planned since september of last year :(
Some people were already expecting Gumball to die (I think I made it kinda obvious when I gave him more 'screentime' than usual on the previous chapter. But I hope Dee Dee was a surprise.
Now, who killed them both? And why? Was it the motive? And what's with Monokuma's riddle? Hopefully I'll be able to answer this soon. Now that school was canceled I can finally write more.
Please share your opinions and predictions on the reviews! See y'all soon!