Updating only a week later? ;) Man I'm spoiling you guys (throwback to when MSGO updates used to be weekly lmaoooo oh gosh good times)
[Soundtrack: Lounge - Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward]
Once everyone was seated, nobody said a word, all eyes trained on Maximillion Pegasus, unsure of what he would say to us, afraid even. It was like we all had our own ideas of what he would say, and none of us expected it to be good. As for myself and Rex, well, I believe we'd already discussed what we were afraid this was about. It was quite telling that many of the individuals present had featured in the nightmares we regularly had.
Kemo was standing beside the door like a statue, his expression passive. He was wearing his sunglasses indoors, which would have normally made me burst out laughing, but I had other things to worry about, and my stomach was too tied up in knots for me to let out any sounds other than anxious breaths.
It seemed like Pegasus was keeping us waiting on purpose, which was probably a 100% Pegasus thing to do. He had already said it wasn't going to be a duel tournament, so what was it? If it was related to the reason why I was still alive, then how could that possibly have been related to Duel Monsters? But I knew what I saw; that vision I had when I looked at Marik's face coupled with the crystal shard I saw him holding… It couldn't have been a coincidence.
Before anyone could say anything, however, there was a tiny knock on the door that Kemo was guarding. The dull metallic sound may not even have been audible had the rest of us not been as silent as death. I saw Pegasus nod to Kemo, who held the door open for the mysterious guest.
"I'm sorry for being late, Mr. Pegasus!" a timid feminine voice called out. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
The voice belonged to a very small girl with large doe-eyes and freckles. Her honey-blonde hair was voluminous yet soft and fell down her back in large curls. She was dressed in a baby blue sundress with a light pink about her screamed elegant, delicate, and beautiful.
Pegasus gave the girl a wide smile before saying, "Lia! Come inside. We were waiting for you." We were? "Actually, it seems like there aren't anymore seats, so you can come sit in my place." We looked on in confusion as Pegasus got to his feet chivalrously and pulled out the seat that was beside Seto Kaiba. The girl could only reluctantly shuffle over and do as she was told. I felt kinda sorry for her, being put in the spotlight like that. Maybe it was our fault for bringing along Weevil; Pegasus likely hadn't accounted for extra guests.
In a fluid and acrobatic motion, the host of the meeting then climbed over the desk where Lia was now seated and hopped into the cavity in the center of all the tables. He surveyed all of the guests and then spoke. "Well, I suppose I should explain myself, shouldn't I?" he laughed. "I must repeat that the reason I've gathered you here today has nothing to do with Duel Monsters. In fact, it has nothing to do with Industrial Illusions, or even me. I'm just the host and financer of this expedition."
"What expedition?" Mako's voice cut in, sounding impatient and annoyed. "Where are you taking us?"
Pegasus smirked. "That, I cannot say yet, Mr. Tsunami. In fact I will not be able to tell you until you're ready."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded; Mako's boldness had returned my confidence. "You can't just keep us on this submarine and not tell us where we're going."
He wasn't even fazed by my words. "Miss Vasquez, one day that impatience of yours is going to kill you." His words felt like a gunshot firing straight into my chest. How did he know?
Sera, wait, don't go in yet! Just wait!
I felt Rex's hand grip mine tightly and the flames that licked up my body returned to the deepest recesses of my mind where they belonged. My body was way too tense to even hit him back with a snappy retort, so I simply glared at him. The knowledge that Pegasus knew exactly what I was painted the morning in a much more grim light than before.
"Now, that I've said all I can for the moment, I would like the following people to stand up," Pegasus began. His eyes scanned the room again and then began to list off the names. "Mokuba Kaiba, Seto Kaiba, Mai Valentine, Ishizu Ishtar, Odion Ishtar, Weevil Underwood, and Ziegfried Von Schroeder." Around a third of the people present got to their feet without saying a word. The silent obedience sent chills up and down my spine. "As much as I appreciate you guests coming in to support your friends and loved ones, I must ask you to please follow Kemo as he leads you all to your rooms." All the guests shuffled over to Kemo as he held the door open.
It was then that one of the guests snapped. The young man with long, rose colored hair and a pristine suit, the one we knew as Ziegfried, scowled. "What? Are you expecting me to just leave my brother here alone with you and all these people? He's just a kid!"
The boy who was still seated next to Ziegfried frowned and looked up at his older brother and then at Pegasus with pleading eyes. He wouldn't say a word, but it was clear that he didn't want his brother to leave.
Pegasus simply chuckled. "Why, Zieggy-boy, don't you worry; we'll all take good care of little Leon, won't we, everyone?"
Everyone seated, including me and my friends, stayed silent. Nobody knew what Pegasus had in store, and none of us could make any promises, so our eyes just wandered around the room, avoiding Ziegfried's outraged face.
"Y-You bastard! If anything happens to Leon -" Ziegfried threatened, but his voice dropped back into his throat when he was pinned against the wall by Kemo.
"Word to the wise," Pegasus said, his voice taking on a slightly sinister tone. "I wouldn't threaten a man when his bodyguard is in the same room."
Ziegfried could hardly even breathe with the massive body of Kemo crushing his chest. He simply let out a couple of choked coughs before Kemo released him and roughly yanked him by his arm, pushing him out the door with the rest of the guests.
Once Kemo had shut the door to the meeting room, things were silent again. There were twelve of us sitting around Pegasus now: Rex, Mako, Enzi and I were sitting on one edge of the square; the three hooded people and Leon were occupying the second edge; Marik, Bakura, and the copper haired girl were sitting on the third edge.
Lia was sitting alone, on the edge directly across from me. Her eyes met mine briefly before she shyly looked away. She was the only one who seemed to have come alone.
"Alrighty then!" Pegasus exclaimed, sounding way too cheerful considering the circumstances. "There's an even number of you. Isn't that perfect!"
"Perfect for what?" Marik said. His arms were crossed and he was glaring daggers at Pegasus.
"Why, for a game, of course!" he replied as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "And to play this game, you need two teams."
It was at this point that Rex's calm was shattered. "Game? You're making us stay in this submarine for half a year for a stupid game? Are you shitting me? And it ain't even a Duel Monsters competition?"
The gleeful expression on Pegasus's face faltered such a brief moment that if I had blinked I would have missed it. "This isn't just some stupid game, Mr. Raptor. This is a test. Only those who pass can proceed."
"Proceed where?" I asked, forcing myself to sound more angry than scared.
Pegasus chuckled. "Remember what I told you about patience, Sera."
I narrowed my eyes at him and grumbled a string of curse words. He probably didn't hear them, but I wouldn't have really given a shit if he did hear them.
Moving on, he said, "First things first, though. Sun, Zephyr, and Rafael. There's no need to hide your identities. Why don't you take off those tacky robes and show us your faces?"
His words were directed at the three robed figures. We all watched them calmly lower their hoods without a word. They were two men and one woman. One of the men was burly and had short blonde hair and sideburns. The second man had a skinny face and messy black hair. The woman looked slightly older than her companions with inky black hair draped over one shoulder and plump bright red lips.
Pegasus nodded at them. "Now, I'd like to assign you to your teams. I'm going to pick two team leaders. The first will be…" He pointed, moving his finger over us in a counting motion before letting it stop in front of me. "Serafina. You will be in charge of Team Alpha" I felt a lump rise to my throat when I heard my name. "And since you're sitting all the way over there, why don't I make Lia the second team leader? Lia will be in charge of Team Beta." Lia also looked quite surprised to hear her name.
Pegasus proceeded to assign us all to our teams. My team was a total sausage fest, comprised of: Leon, Bakura, Marik, Enzi, and Rafael. While Lia's team had the rest: Rex, Mako, the copper haired girl (Serenity), Zephyr, and Sun. While I was a bit bummed to have been put against Rex, I was glad that at least Enzi was with me, although I didn't really know him that well.
"So what do you want us to do?" This voice was unfamiliar; it belonged to Sun, who was now standing, along with the rest of Team Beta, around Lia's table.
"Well, now that you've been split into two nice teams, I'm going to take my leave."
"You're going to what?" Rex snarled.
Pegasus shrugged. "I'm going to leave. For this next part, you don't really need me." He headed towards the door and opened it up. Standing behind the door was Kemo, with a large steel box in his arms that he was struggling to let Kemo in and allowed the man to drop the large case on the ground two meters in front of the door and just behind where my team was sitting.
Kemo stood again and barked out orders. "Team Alpha sit on the right and Team Beta, sit on the left." Each team did as it was told and occupied the right and left edges as ordered. Then Kemo spoke again. "Team leaders please come stand in front of the box."
I rose out of my seat and so did Lia, and we both slowly made our way towards Kemo. I could feel my neck sweating as I looked at the box; Lia looked very nervous as well. Kemo crouched down in front of the box and opened the latch in the center only to reveal a three digit lock.
"This box has a password that only Lia and Serafina are authorized to know," Kemo announced.
"What happens if we tell someone?" Lia asks innocently. "Is that against the rules?"
Kemo shook his head. "I can only tell you and Serafina this information, but what you choose to do with it afterwards is your choice." Lia nodded and Kemo proceeded to enter the password.
4 … 5 … 9
I committed those numbers to memory, unsure of what we needed them for. I then watched him open the box slowly, my breath catching in my throat when I realized what was inside: weapons -and lots of them. The polished silver glinted in the fluorescent light. There were spears, swords, axes and a variety of sharp things that only served to heighten my anxiety. One look at Lia's face told me she was thinking the exact same thing I was.
"Wha-" I choked on the words. "What are we supposed to do with this shit?" I sputtered, taking a step away from the box. "Why the fuck are you giving us this stuff?" Everyone's curious eyes shot towards me, likely wondering what had caused my extreme reaction.
Kemo said nothing. He simply closed the crate again and scrambled the numbers on the lock. He stepped away from us and towards the door, and I wasn't sure whether to keep my eyes on him or the enormous collection of dangerous objects on the floor right in front of me.
Once at the door, he said one more thing that answered one question and brought up another one. "Here are the rules of the game:
1) Once the lights go out, the game begins.
2) You are not allowed to speak once the lights are out.
3) The lights will only be off for five minutes.
4) When the lights come back on, you may speak but you may not hurt one another.
5) You are never allowed to hurt one of your own teammates.
If any of these rules are broken, you will be given one warning. The second offense results in expulsion.
Is everything clear?" No, everything was not clear, but nobody wanted to say anything, especially after listening to the confusing and slightly threatening set of rules we had been presented with. Kemo didn't seem to care that nobody had answered him as he said the last menacing statement. "The goal of this game is for one team to successfully kill the second team."
I shuddered involuntarily upon hearing those chilling words. Lia still hadn't said a word, her face as pale as a sheet as she stared at the ground. "Kill? What do you mean by that?" I asked, my voice shaking. "I don't want to kill anyone. This has to be a joke!"
Kemo might as well have told me to go fuck myself for all the attention he paid me. It was as though he were a toy that had said all it had to say and was now turned off. He retreated through the door and shut it behind him. Like a spring released from tension, I dashed to the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Following my example, Rex, Mako, Enzi, and even Marik all ran up to the door and tried to open it.
"Let us out of here, you bastard!" Rex howled, slamming his fists into the door.
Marik groaned as he pulled away from the door and punched a nearby wall. "It's no use! We're trapped."
I couldn't help but turn to the youngest person in the room, Leon, whose eyes looked like they were watering. He met my gaze and grimaced, wiping his face against his sleeve to hide his tears. "What's gonna happen to us? He was joking right?" he said.
Serenity from Team Beta clutched the table so tightly her fists looked white. "Pegasus can't force us to kill each other. We just have to refuse."
"This is messed up! Bringing kids into this!" Enzi growled. "But the girl's right. He can't force us to do anything."
Marik's face soured. "You're acting like we can just trust each other not to kill one another." I could see him looking in Team Beta's general direction.
Zephyr snarled at Marik, meeting his icy gaze with a frigid look of his own. "Hey, we're not the ones who killed Lorna." He only calmed down when Sun put a hand on his forearm
"Don't say her name!"
"Malik, that's enough!" Serenity cried.
And with that, the lights went out.
[Soundtrack: Solitary Deep Sea Fish - Umineko No Naku Koro Ni]
I wish I could say that when the lights came on, everything was still the same -that we were still the same angry group of twelve people who had no idea what was going on. It felt like cold water being dumped all over my body when the lights finally came back on. Some of us were still still in the same places that we were in when they went out, and some had panicked and changed places.
During the blackout, I couldn't bring myself to utter a single word. It was, after all, against the rules. Aside from some startled gasps, everybody else seemed to have followed the rules as well. I did hear, however, a panicked cry come from my team which sounded a lot like Leon. I also heard Lia yelp in fright as well, although it seems both perpetrators seemed to immediately remember the rules that Kemo had laid out. Rule Two was, "You are not allowed to speak once the lights are out."
It is with my deepest regrets and sorrow, nonetheless, that I tell you how utterly fucked everything turned out to be. Serenity was the first to scream when the lights came back on -or was it Leon? I couldn't even tell because their screams just blended into each other. I think I was the third person to scream, though I couldn't really recall hearing my own voice, just feeling the wind passing through my aching vocal chords.
"What the fuck!" was the first thing out of Rex's mouth.
After a certain point, though, I stopped really listening to how everyone reacted and instead looking straight ahead at the gory sight in front of me. For whatever reason, it looked like someone had taken Pegasus's game entirely seriously. I couldn't even breathe as I tried to make sense of it.
Lia was dead.
And not only that, but she had been murdered -of that, we all had no doubt. Her remains dangled from a short silver spear, which protruded from her gaping mouth. Whoever had killed her had pinned her to the leftmost wall like a butterfly. Her eyes were tightly shut and she looked like she had suffered quite a lot of pain before she died. Some of her blood, which was still wet, spilled out of her mouth and onto her dress.
I didn't want to look at her poor deformed face, stretched wide open by the metal rod, but I just couldn't look away. Someone had killed Lia. One of us killed Lia. How could I even begin to process that?
"Where did that thing come from?" Marik exclaimed, immediately taking charge of the situation. "Which one of you brought a weapon in here?" Naturally, nobody answered him.
Just then, I recalled the chest sitting on the ground beside me. It was closed, just as Kemo had left it, but hadn't it been filled with weapons? "I think I know where it came from," I informed Marik, dropping to the ground and entering the three-digit pin to open the case. I lifted the top and gaze down. "There's one missing…" I mumbled under my breath, upon noticing a compression in the memory foam lining the case, which looked like it once held a spear much like the one that was currently… well, you know…
A tanned arm pushed me aside gently. Mako's brow furrowed as he looked down into the case. "There are weapons in here!" he gasped. "So that's where the spear came from!"
I rubbed my arm anxiously as I watched the remaining ten individuals crowd around the steel case to look at the contents. There were various other remarks of anger and confusion from everyone around me. I had already seen the contents of the case so I didn't say anything, simply opting to skulk to the side and try to avoid staring at the dead girl.
Sun was the first to move away from the box, her long legs taking her towards Lia; I watched her warily, just in case she decided to pull anything. She then looked directly at me and scoffed. "So which one of you was it, huh?"
"How do we know it wasn't you?" Marik bit back.
She put a delicate finger through her hair and pushed it away from her eyes. "She's my team leader. I'm not allowed to kill her even if I wanted to. Nobody on Team Beta killed her. None of us stand to benefit from her death. So Zephyr, Serenity, Mako, Rex and I are all innocent."
I glared at her. "Are you saying someone on Team Alpha did it?"
She clicked her tongue. "That's exactly what I'm saying." She turned towards Mako and said, "Mako, you and Rex ran to the door just before the lights went out, which means you had a clear view of the weapon crate, right?"
Mako looked uncomfortable, but nodded. "Yes, but didn't you say we were innocent?"
"You are innocent. I just want to make sure of something," she reassured him in her cold and calculating manner. "Was the crate open or closed?"
"I… I can't recall," Mako mumbled.
"It was closed," I interrupted.
"Well, you're a suspect, so I'm sure you understand why I'd have a hard time believing anything you have to say," Sun replied.
I was about to insult her entire lineage for even suggesting that I may have had something to do with the murder, but Rex spoke first. "It was closed," he said bluntly. "I saw it."
Sun smirked, which looked quite sinister when she was in such close proximity to a corpse. "Well, then let's go to the next point."
"Next point?"
"The password lock on the crate. Only Lia and Serafina knew the password, correct?" she asked nobody in particular. "Team Beta, did Lia tell any of you the password?" Her entire team sombrely shook their heads, unsure of what to say. "Serafina, did you tell anyone in Team Alpha the password?"
I shook my head rigidly, part of me already piecing together what she was getting at. "I didn't have time to tell anyone the password. We all started banging on the door right after Kemo left and after that, I didn't talk to anyone on my team."
"Then I think it's obvious who did it," Sun spat. "Only one person could have opened that lock and had the motive to kill Lia."
I opened my mouth to defend myself when Rex stomped over to her. "That's enough, Sun! Sera didn't do this. Sure she had the password, but she didn't do this! I know her! She wouldn't kill anyone! Especially not like… like that!" He pointed towards Lia's corpse.
"How well do you even know her?" Sun shot back. "Maybe she's exactly the type to snap under pressure and kill other people. After all, it's only fair to assume that after dying once already, she's pretty fucked in the head."
I felt like an insect under a magnifying glass. I couldn't move or breathe, much less speak. It felt like I was drowning in cement. Why couldn't I even defend myself? Was it because she was right? No, I may have had my issues, but blacking out and murdering people was not one of them. I also remembered the blackout clearly, so there was no way I had done something like that; I hadn't even gone near the crate. Unfortunately, Sun was right about one thing: I was the only person with the opportunity to obtain that weapon.
"You wanna prove your friend innocent, then prove that someone else could have done it," Sun told Rex sternly. "Otherwise, can it."
"Sh-She's right," I said weakly.
"You did it?" Rex cried out incredulously.
"No!" I objected. "I didn't! But… if I didn't do it, then it's impossible for her to be dead!"
Just then, a suggestion came from the place we least expected it to -Leon. "Actually, there is one way that it could have been someone else."
"What do you mean?" Sun asked.
Leon looked at his feet nervously. "Well, I mean, what if… What if Lia was the one who opened the crate?"
"Why would Lia open it?" she replied, and I was just relieved that all her attention was now focused on Leon.
"Maybe she thought someone on Team Beta wanted her to open the crate for them… and so she opened it, but it was actually someone from Team Alpha who wanted to kill someone during the blackout. Lia was the easiest person to kill, because they had already asked her to open it, so she was already close to them… All the killer needed to do was to push her against the wall and do it…" he explained somewhat reluctantly. I could tell he knew he was casting doubt on himself and the rest of his team, but I was thankful that he had offered up a new perspective on the murder.
A long sigh was let out by Zephyr who crossed his arms and surveyed the group. "Well, looks like we're back at square one, huh?" I winced. The way he said it almost made it seem like he wanted me to be the culprit, but he was right. We weren't any closer to solving this murder.