Chapter Two: Snakes 2

"Are you okay?" Lace asked.

Scott had lingered in the trial room, staring at the now despondent Doge mascot.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," Scott said. "What about you? You looked freaked out."

"I'm okay."

Scott was silent for a moment, then clicked his tongue. "You know, you had a vote against you."

"I know…" Lace crossed her arms. "What's weird is, I voted for Brubles."

Scott raised his eyebrows. "So she lied? Why didn't you call her on it?"

"I didn't want to make it a big deal."

"Fair enough."

Scott only believed her because she didn't have the snake vibe. See, he was so good at picking out snakes he didn't even have to try anymore, and Lace was definitely a certified Not Snake. If anything she was a mouse… a poor, pathetic, sad little mouse… somebody had to save her from her constant victim state.

"Anyway, just thought I'd check on you," Lace said. "Let me know if you need anything."

Not a snake… nope. She's a simp.

"Goodbye," he told her, tipping his hat to her. He was a true gentleman, just like you'd see in an anime.

"Bye!"

He watched her bounce off, then retreated back to his room.

~~~

There was only one thing Michael and Scott could agree on— and that was that Lace was a simp.

Michael, with his hotness and Ultimate Flirt skills, had wooed her into doing his dirty work. They'd decided to turn the whole game against Scott, for it'd be better to die than continue to be in his presence.

"I told him," Lace informed Michael in the hallway between their dorms.

He flipped his beautiful hair. "Good."

"Hopefully he doesn't manage to take Brubles down with him."

"I don't care if he does. More power for me that way."

"You know, she looks a lot like that famous cult leader, DD…"

"Yeah, I figured that out already."

Lace rolled her eyes. "I was just pointing it out."

"Point better stuff out."

"Anyway. Do you think she's DD in disguise?"

"She's not hot enough," he said, inspecting his obvious perfect nails.

"Oh okay."

~~~

Scott had taken up a side quest; he was going to save Lace from Brubles' snakey manipulation.

"Lace," he called, tapping her shoulder.

She turned, pausing her conversation with Michael, who rolled his eyes. "Yes?"

Scott ignored Michael. Michael was just a pretty loser who thought he was smart. Not even cool enough to be a snake. "Would you like to hang out?"

She glanced at Michael, then smiled at Scott. "Sure! What do you want to do?"

"Ah… let's just play pool."

Michael huffed, crossed his arms, and sashayed off.

"Pool sounds good to me."

So the pair departed to the game room, where they played pool for the rest of the day.

After a couple of hours of playing, Doge's voice came over the intercom, "Bedtime bedtime pls."

Scott chuckled. "Ah, time got away from us."

Lace glanced up at the speaker. "I guess so. Thanks for playing with me!"

"Sure." Scott managed a small smile. He was usually too cool to smile, but this was important. "Hey, by the way… do you trust Brubles?"

Lace blinked. "I've known all of you for five days, tops."

"… oh. I suppose it has. Fair enough. Anyway, goodnight, Lace."

"Goodnight!"

Scott put his hat back on and left the room.

~~~

"Scott!" Brubles waved. "Would you like to hang out with me and Alexx?"

Scott scoffed. "Why would I hang out with a snake?"

Brubles just continued smiling, unaffected. "I'm not a snake. I'm an angel."

"I can confirm," Alexx said, pulling a pair of glasses out of his pocket and putting them on, just so he could push them up on his nose. "She's been perfectly angelic for the past five hours, twenty-two minutes, and three seconds. You have no reason to believe she's a snake. And if you do, well that's just kinda racist."

Scott rolled his eyes. "I think the Ultimate Snake Hunter would be better at finding snakes than some amateur simp."

"Ah, that is where you're wrong. I do not simp for anyone, after all, why would a narcissist simp? It's just not in character. I have to keep up with my programming, Scott. I figured someone so keen on human personalities would know that, but perhaps you're not as keen as you once believed yourself to be. Perhaps I am not the narcissist but instead, you are, Scott."

Brubles just continued smiling soullessly.

"Whatever." Scott tilted his hat so they couldn't see his face (Scott needed to keep up his mysterious act) and quickly walked away from them.

~~~

Michael pushed open the door to the cafeteria. On one of the tables was Adorbsunicorncutie's dead body.

"Body discovery announcement pls," Michael told the intercom.

"No," said the Doge.

Michael burst out sobbing. He was only doing this to guilt the Doge into doing what he wanted.

"No," said the Doge.

He cried harder.

Lace burst open the doors. "I heard your distress Michael! What is wrong?"

"Ew shut up not you."

"Excuse you." Lace noticed the dead body. "Oh. Rip."

"Very dead body found in cafeteria," Doge finally said.

The students came flooding in. Michael dabbed away his tears with his hottie handkerchief. He turned to Lace.

"We need to frame Scott immediately."

~~~

"Do you need someone to investigate with?" Liv asked Scott.

Scott shrugged. "You can come along if you want."

"Alright."

Liv and Scott investigated together in mostly silence. Liv pointed out a couple of things to Scott, Scott pointed out a ton more to her with his super hood investigation skills.

It appeared that Adorbsunicorncutie had been killed but blunt force trauma. Scott couldn't find a murder weapon, perhaps it was hidden in the murderer's room. That's definitely something a snake would do. Maybe Brubles did it, in that case.

Liv had pointed out the fact that Adorbsunicorncutie had a fistful of dark brown hair in her dead clenched hand.

Scott scanned the room. Many of them had dark hair. What a shame. It was a good thing he had black hair (like a snake's soul), this hair was just a few shades too light.

Doge announced that it was time for class trial. Scott steeled himself, and headed to the trial room.

~~~

"Very class trial time." The Doge used the gavel once again to signify the beginning of the trial.

Michael lazily leaned against his stand. "Let's go over the evidence pls."

Alexx pushed his stupid glasses up like an anime character. "Brubles and I found out that the murder weapon was a crowbar. We found it in the game room, hidden under the pool table, with blood on it."

Brubles nodded along.

"Scott and I found a fist of brown hair in Adorbsunicorncutie's hand," Liv said.

Pelican nodded. "Then we can narrow down the killer to whomever has brown hair."

Scott scanned the students. Michael, Santa Papi, and Lace all had dark brown hair.

"It must be Brubles!" Scott announced.

Brubles laughed. "HOW?"

Michael facepalmed.

"Brubles is framing Lace!" Scott said, heart filled with hope and determination. "Just like a snake would! She voted for Lace last round, after all!"

Brubles tilted her head. "I didn't vote for Lace?"

"I did the math," Scott insisted. "There was no way you couldn't have voted for Lace."

"I voted for myself. I said that last round."

"Yeah? Lace told me she voted for you! So you must have voted for Lace!"

"She lied," Brubles deadpanned.

Scott turned to Lace.

Lace looked up from her stand. "I never said that."

Scott's eyes widened. Suddenly, it truly dawned on him— he was alone, they were all snakes.

"Yes you did! You told me after the trial!"

"You must be remembering wrong," she waved her hand dismissively.

"Or maybe you are," Alexx said smugly. "You do have dementia after all. Besides that, narcissists can't keep up with their stories, and you're not special enough to escape that rule of thumb. So it's entirely possible you both are completely delusional and remembering wrong. Perhaps you never even actually interacted. Perhaps your narcissism has affected both your brains so terribly you made the whole thing up—"

"Can we get back to the case?" Pelican asked, annoyed.

"Ah, only three of us papis have brown hair," Santa Papi deduced. "So I suppose we have tres suspects to focus on."

"Yes," Liv said. "Do we know the time of the murder? Then we could go into alibis."

"No clue when the murder was," Pelican said, sighing. "The blood leaking from her head was fresh, though."

"Ew don't say it like that," Dylan said, nose scrunched.

Pelican rolled her eyes at him.

"It couldn't have been me," Michael said. "I'm far too thin and hot to hit somebody with a crowbar."

"And I have a joint disorder," Lace added. "So I'm certainly not strong enough."

Brubles smirked. "Oh? But Lace, you are strong enough. I've seen you lifting things I couldn't, and I mean, look at all this muscle." Brubles flexed her bone-thin arms. "So you must be decently strong."

"No," Lace said, annoyed. "You're just weak."

Brubles gasped dramatically, then growled at Lace.

"What is this??" Scott asked, revolted.

Brubles smiled, suddenly normal. "Don't worry about it. So Michael's probably not the killer, right?"

"Right," Pelican agreed.

Scott retreated into his really good brain, thinking through it all. Suddenly, he got it!

"It's Lace!" He announced, pointing at her. "She lied to me about Brubles voting her to make Brubles look more like a snake than her, so that we'd all think she was an innocent little girl who could never hurt anybody!"

Lace laughed. "No??"

Michael chuckled condescendingly.

"This guy thinks he's smart," Alexx said, hiking his thumb towards Scott. "What a narc."

"Nark," Lace said.

"No," Brubles said.

"I think it's Santa Papi," Liv said. "I mean… look at his muscles."

Santa Papi sighed, looking down at his beautifully toned arms. Scott didn't care about toned arms, only snakes. "It is true that my arms are fabulous. But I am no killer. I am a lover indeed."

"Sure you are," Michael said. "Anyway, I think it's Scott."

Scott stumbled back as if hit. "Why?!"

Michael smirked, almost proud of Scott's fluster. "Think about it. Adorbsunicorncutie's hand was tightened unnaturally. The rest of her body was relaxed, but her arm was propped up. I suspect the hair was added after the death to frame Lace. Scott keeps spinning these random stories about Lace, and weirdly enough, despite having been a loner for the past two weeks, asked Lace to hang out. He was probably just trying to get information on her."

Scott grasped his stand. "No! I was trying to free her from Brubles' snakiness!"

Brubles threw her hands up. "What did I do????"

"Be a snake!"

"DUDE!"

"But it can't be me!" Scott said, despising the desperation in his tone. "I wouldn't kill someone! That'd be snake behavior! The snake hunter can't be a snake himself!"

"Your talent doesn't override evidence," Michael rebutted.

Scott took in a breath, gathering his very smart thoughts. He knew deep down he was the most intellectual person at this trial, he just had to use it.

"I don't have the strength to kill someone with a crowbar either," Scott said, reveling in the chill of his own tone. "I am a Youtuber who watches anime, so it's pretty believable that I wouldn't be strong."

"Why should we believe you?" Michael asked. "You could just be bluffing."

"To prove it, I will hit someone with the Doge. I can tell you now I won't even be able to knock them out."

"Hit me pls," Michael said. "I want to see you prove your own theory wrong."

Scott nodded and grabbed the Doge, who barked and growled. He stalked over to Michael and swung the Doge as hard as he could at Michael.

Michael fell over from the impact, but was indeed still conscious.

"That proves it then," Pelican conceded. "Scott can't be the killer."

"It must be Santa Papi," Dylan said. "I mean, Lace is a girl, so she can't be that strong."

Lace blinked. "Excuse me??"

Liv clicked her tongue. "I think it comes back to Santa Papi being obviously stronger than both Lace and Michael, on top of the fact that he wasn't seen like, at all for the past two days."

"I think we should vote Alexx," Aurellia said, sticking her nose in the air. "He's Asian after all. Disgusting."

"I think we should vote Alexx too," said Alexx. "He's like, totally annoying."

"So we agree it's Santa Papi?" Nosepickerfart asked.

Santa Papi let a tear roll down his cheek. "It's true… I just… couldn't take the harassment anymore! So I slayed the senorita."

Brubles held her hand to her heart. "You poor soul."

"Let's kill him already," Michael said.

Aurellia shrugged. "Alright." She started voting.

Scott, this time, voted according to the popular idea.

"Very show the votes." Doge showed the votes, which were all against Santa Papi.

"I must go." Santa Papi waved. "Dearest goodbyes, amigos."

Brubles reached out and cupped his face. "Have a wonderful time in the shadow realm, my amigo."

He nodded, then stepped back. Doge pounced and ate him as well.

Scott tipped his hat to Santa Papi's corpse respectfully.

"So, wait," Brubles said. "Who did vote for Lace?"

"I did," Michael said. "But whatever. It doesn't matter now."

Scott narrowed his eyes at the pair of snakes, Michael and Lace. How dare they deceive him.

He would exterminate those snakes for good.