Chapter 1: Continuity Error (Deadly Life Part 1)
Warning: This is a Danganronpa fic. There's going to be a lot of violence, gore, and blood. And maybe a few other things. You've been warned (somewhat)
What did it mean?
Alan had been pacing back and forth in his own room, mumbling things under his breath. He kept tapping the pencil against his head, thinking of something. "Well…" He had already made some connections, hadn't he?
Turning towards the wall, it was littered with scribbles and papers that he had attached there. "The hallways are based on Greek letters…" For now, that didn't do him much. That could be something useful that they could use later…
"The locked room and cabinet…" Why were they locked? There was a scanner on the door, so clearly someone was supposed to be able to go through that. But neither Nova or Monokawa had a watch they could scan, did they? Did it only work for one specific watch? Was there someone controlling the entire game that wasn't Nova or Monokawa?
No, that couldn't be it… Maybe it was an area that they could explore later? If that was the case, was he wasting his time right now? As for the electronic lock, was it running on the same power as the station?
He doubted it, given he hadn't seen any wires when he investigated…
Not to mention the rules. It all seemed so weird to him. Switching his focus to his watch, he loaded up one of the apps, looking at it. "Not to mention this…" How did it factor into the game?
There were many different ways it could factor into it, but it felt counter intuitive with what the goals of the overseer was. "It seems like an easy task to…" But what were the criteria…
Not getting anywhere, he turned off that app and switched over to the rules instead. A few more questions popped up in his head. "I know May didn't find it strange… but two different rules that would cut the cast in half…" It was odd, and made little to no sense. As if their lives had no value, and they were expendable in the long run. What kind of killing game was this?
Pacing back and forth some more, he turned his attention back over towards the writing on the wall. "I'm close to something here… I think… I think I just needed more time."
But time wasn't something he could afford right now. With tomorrow being the day the motive ended, he was running out of options. "Just… Just need a bit more…" He was so close…
Tomorrow, he knew he could make a breakthrough. At any cost necessary.
Standing solemnly in the doorway, almost as if unable to move, Dae-Hyun kept his eyes fixated on the body in front of him. He wasn't sure what to make of it, besides the fact that they were dead.
His emotions didn't seem to alter much as he looked on. Given that he was seemingly the first person on the scene, he tried to scan the body itself for anything of interest.
However, his observation was cut short by footsteps just outside his ultimate station. It didn't take long to process who it could be, given they had just been chasing him moments ago.
"Melody-" He tried to stop her, but at this point, it was already too late.
She stepped right behind him in the doorway, panic in her voice. "Dae-Hyun… There was some-" Even if she wanted to, she wouldn't have been able to stop her eyes from glancing behind him, soaking in the entire scene. "W-what…?" Her expression paled up as found it difficult to process… much of anything at this point. She let out a scream as she took a step back, tripping on her own legs.
Suddenly, the intercom of the station went off with a ding.
"A body has been discovered!" It was Monokawa talking. "An investigation will begin shortly. After a certain amount of time, a trial will begin. Would everyone please gather in the cafeteria."
That confirmed it, not that he needed much confirmation. Quickly, Dae-Hyun moved over to Melody. "Are you alright?"
She had fallen onto the ground out of shock, mostly hiding her face so she didn't have to see that scene again. "He's… He's really…"
Offering his hand, he helped her onto her feet. "Are you alright…?" He felt like leaving to the cafeteria right now, but he had to make sure Melody could at least stand up.
Slowly she managed to pull herself onto the ground, keeping her eyes away from the scene in front of you. "Y-yes… I'm alright. It was just…" She couldn't quite put it into words. All she knew was that for the time being, she wanted to get as far away from the body as possible.
Seeing that she was able to stand on her own now, he turned towards the cafeteria. "Let's go to the cafeteria for now." Far away from this scene at the very least. She'd probably need a moment to recover.
Cafeteria
"A body…?" Seira mumbled out, having joined everyone in the cafeteria. It had only been a few hours since the results had been given. For someone to have died in such a short period of time…
"Who's dead?" Sakura surveyed the room, but there were still four people missing. Alan, Dae-Hyun, Melody, and Michael.
Making the same observation, Ian shrugged. "It only seems to be one body, so we have no choice but to wait till Monokawa gets here." Given he was the one who did the announcement, he was unsure on whether Nova would appear or not.
"Did anyone here see the body?" Gennosuke felt the need to ask.
Gigi thought for a moment. "Rules say that three people have to see the body for a body discovery announcement to go off. If none of us did, then that means that three of the people missing must have seen it." The silence gave her the exact answer she wanted. "Got it."
After a few seconds, the elevator door opened, and Michael stepped out. Damn. Forgot to kill him off. "I…" He didn't seem to be doing well.
Winter approached him. "Where have you been? I hadn't seen you all day."
He placed a hand on his head, shaking his head. "My body has been sore ever since that fight…"
Atlas rolled his eyes, annoyed. "It's been two days, get over it, will you?"
Gigi wanted to get straight to the point. "Were you one of the people who discovered the body?" He had to have been, but she felt the need to ask anyway.
"What…? No?" He had only just heard about the body from the announcement, how would he have had the time to see it?
"Huh…?" That did confuse her a bit, but asking too many questions now wouldn't do her any good.
Finally, the door to Tau Sector opened up, and Dae-Hyun stepped into the cafeteria with Melody behind him. After looking at everyone, he decided to break the news. "We found a body."
"Yeah no shit nobody else did." Lorelei rolled her eyes.
With everyone else here, it was apparent that Alan was the victim.
"They got him…?" Edison mumbled out. Just yesterday, they had been trying to figure out a way into the cabinet. How did this happen?
"Oh look!" A voice called out from above. Looking up, it was Monokawa. "How nice of all the alive people to be gathered here. Must feel great being alive! Haha." Long pause. "Alan's dead." He floated down until he was floating only a few feet above one of the tables. "But isn't that great for all the truth people?" Long pause. "Well, minus Alan." Longer pause. "He's dead-"
"Enough!" Seira quickly called out. "We get it!" She didn't need to be reminded at every turn.
Letting out a sigh, Monokawa floated down until he was on the table completely. "You really are a boring bunch. You should just be grateful to be alive!"
Sakura moved over to the table, towering over him. "Have you come to mock us, or give us information?"
"Both!" He floated back up so he was above everyone again. "But hey, what's the point of running a killing game if you can't have a little fun. But you probably don't care about how I feel."
"Why the fuck would we?" Atlas narrowed his eyes. "If I could, I would kick your head so far up your as-"
Monokawa quickly raised up his paws. "Woah there! Language!" As if he didn't swear all the time. "But fiiiine." Why couldn't he get a more willing group of participants. They really could use more Ian's in this world.
Suddenly, everyone would get a notification on their watches.
The first to check it out was Gemini, who opened it up. The notification was coming from the Station Report app. Wasting no time, he opened that up to.
.
Station Report #1
.
The victim this time was Alan Buteaux, the Ultimate Conspiracy Theorist. He was discovered in the Ultimate Talent Manager Station. Cause of death was strangulation. He has marks all around his neck. A few more injuries are of note on his body. He had a slash wound on his right hip, as well as small puncture wounds in his stomach. Time of death was at 1:32.
.
"Hmm…" The escapist mulled over the information he had read. "Your Ultimate Station?" He looked over at Dae-Hyun.
"... Yeah. I was heading there to spend the rest of the time limit, and that's where I found him." He crossed his arms and looked the other way. "Not sure how he ended up there."
"Then…" Gemini trailed off. "We should probably go there right now."
"Uh…" Seira glanced away. "I'm not sure if I want to… see a body."
Laki was going to say something about seeing a dead body, but the words she originally wanted didn't come out of her mouth. Almost as if the words got caught up in her throat. Finally, after a few seconds, she managed to say something. "I think we should go investigate it, at the very least!"
"We don't all need to head to the body, right?" Edison pointed out. "Shouldn't we split up for an investigation?"
Gigi slowly nodded her head. "Right, we don't know how much time we have for this investigation. So we should make the best use of our time."
"Alright." The escapist had no problems with that. "Then everyone who wishes to check out the body, follow me." Not that he wanted to check it either. "Let's go."
Ultimate Talent Manger Station
Despite how bad of a sight it was going to be, there were still a fair amount of people who came over to check the body. The loud noise from the walls shifting could still be heard, almost overwhelming anyone else speaking.
"Honestly…" Gemini trailed off. "I thought only five other people would show up." The escapist turned to look at the rest of the group. The people who had joined him consisted of Atlas, Benoit, Dae-Hyun, Gennosuke, Gigi, Hae-Won, Ian, Laki, Lorelei, and Melody. More than he was expecting, to be honest.
"So it's in here?" Laki pointed out with a neutral expression on her face. However, the moment her eyes landed on the body slumped over in the chair, the sparkle seemed to leave her eyes a bit.
"Hmm?" Gennosuke had been too intent on staring at the body before his focus changed over to Laki, who almost seemed frozen now. "What's wrong?"
Realising that she had been staring off into space for a while, she quickly shook her head. "N-nothing!" She took a step back.
An interesting reaction… But what a sight this body was. "So how exactly are we going to go about this? Any volunteers for the body itself?"
"Um… We can't just ask that…." Benoit mumbled out. He had no idea why he had shown up to inspect the body. He knew he wasn't going to be helpful, and yet here he was.
"Thank you for volunteering." Ian tried to shove him, but the gentle giant didn't go anywhere.
"H-huh?" Him? He couldn't do such a thing.
The gambler glanced to the side. "You work with bodies, don't you?" Live ones! "So maybe you could use your expertise to see if anything is wrong with it."
"Um…" Oh, but he wasn't even close to being qualified for this.
Stepping up, Hae-Won stood beside him. "I'll investigate it." It was a grim sight, but she knew she would be able to handle it compared to others. "Nobody else has to…"
"Before we start." Gigi spoke up. "I think we should get to the other elephant in the room first."
The constantly shifting noises of the room were getting a little too overwhelming.
"Hey." Lorelei spoke up. "The sound doesn't seem to be coming from the walls themselves."
Upon further investigations, the sound seemed to be coming from the speakers off to the side.
"That would explain why it's so loud…" Dae-Hyun mumbled out. Approaching the shifting walls, he knelt down to pick something up. After a few seconds, the sounds decreased in volume significantly. When he walked back over to the group, he was holding a microphone. "This is what was causing the increase."
Finally, Lorelei could get that damn pain out of her head. "Good. Now we can actually investigate."
Speaking of which, there was a lot to even go over.
For one, Gemini found himself transfixed on the shifting walls. More so, the area behind the walls. "There's extra room back there?"
"Yes…" Dae-Hyun mumbled out. "It's probably where they store all the things needed for the room shifts."
That got him thinking. "Are we able to explore the area behind that?"
There was enough room to walk around behind there, so the talent manager didn't see why he couldn't. "Knock yourself out."
"It seems dangerous, however." Gigi pointed out, approaching the two boys. "One wrong move, and you'd be crushed between the walls."
Ha! He had this in the bag. "Did you seem to forget who I am?" As if a mere wall could hold him back. Taking a deep breath, he switched his focus completely on the timing of the walls.
Once he figured it out, he waited a while longer to be certain of his next move. Once he was confident, he quickly moved towards the wall, passing right through the opening before it closed behind him again. "Nailed it."
"Alright." Gigi called out. "Then you and Laki-"
"Huh?" Gemini glanced to the side, only to see Laki inexplicably there too.
She waved at him. "Hi."
Letting out a small sigh, the escapist looked around the room. The area wasn't too big, but many of the props used in the room were here. However, the thing that really caught his eyes were the wires running along the floor. He decided to follow them to their destination. He had to use his flashlight given that there were no lights around here.
The closer he got, the more apparent the sound of static could be heard.
"Oh!" Laki called out, seeing just what was making that noise. What she approached was a control console. More specifically, there seemed to be sparks flying out of the console. "Ah-HA!" She pulled out an object, which revealed itself to be a taser. "Hey wait a second! This is what I used."
Having witnessed the game between her and Alan, Gemini could confirm it was the same taser. "What's this doing here?"
Because the taser was removed, the very faint light coming from the main ultimate station was quickly cut off, leaving the flashlight as the only source of light. "Huh…" That seemed to be what was causing the walls to glitch out. "But what else can this do…" He examined the control console more. However, given his general lack of knowledge involving this, he couldn't quite make out any of the features. "We might need to get someone who can tell us what this does…"
After a few seconds, the walls rotated around. But given that Gemini hadn't done anything, he could only assume it was someone using the computer.
"Hey!" Laki called out, moving over towards the back of the area. "There's something else here!"
That caught his attention, so he moved over closer to the back to inspect it a bit more. "Is this… a generator?" It looked like one. And if it was, it was hooked up to the control panel. "Then did it run off this instead of the station's power?" However, he ran into the same problem as before. He wasn't able to figure out what it powered exactly. But he knew someone who might have some knowledge in it. "Laki, can you stick the taser back into the console?"
"On it boss!" She thrusted the taser back into it, causing the walls to glitch out again.
Now that the way back was easier, Gemini approached the walls. "Lorelei!" He called out, figuring she might have been the best person for the job.
The girl had been standing next to the computer that Dae-Hyun was on when she heard her name. "What do you want?" She was busy, so she didn't want to be disturbed.
Luckily, Gemini was a master at persuading. "There's some technology I want you to investigate."
"Cool. Where?" Lorelei was now on the other side with him.
No longer feeling special about his initial stunt, he just shook his head. "It's this way." He motioned to where Laki was.
While everyone was off doing some good investigation, Dae-Hyun had opted to sit down at his desk, looking through the computer.
"You aren't going to investigate?" Ian raised an eyebrow, looking down at him.
"And what are you doing?" Because to him, it looked like fuck all.
The gambler let out a little laugh. "Someone is already checking out what I wanted to. If I think of anything, I'll be sure to go and investigate."
After this morning, the talent manager wasn't sure how he felt talking to Ian. The man had put his life on the line. All for some dumb gamble. "I'm just checking out the program that runs my station." More specifically, he wanted to know what the room was last set to.
"Find anything?"
"Hmm…" From the looks of it, it was set to Ryom Eun-so's room. More specifically, the room with the stage. "The speakers and microphone would be active in this room." Why the killer chose this room specifically, he didn't know. Nor did he care at the moment.
"Say, how many rooms does this station have?" He had never gotten the chance to check it out himself, given that Dae-Hyun was being a little bitch the last couple of days.
"Five. It has the default one, and then four rooms representing my students." That was going to be the only information he would divulge at this time.
Taking a look over at the screen, he could see three names. However, the last option was just gibberish, so he couldn't quite make out what it said. "What about that bottom option?"
The talent manager responded by saying- nah he didn't say anything. Instead, he completely ignored Ian.
Sensing some hostility, Ian decided it was best to back off a bit. "Well, you keep doing… whatever you're doing." He wouldn't really call it investigating.
Still, the gambler couldn't just sit still. Moving to the other side of the desk, he opened up one of the drawers, but didn't find anything of note in there. "Just pen and paper?" More specifically a notebook.
"What else would I need in there?" Dae-Hyun mumbled out, trying to see if he could change the program. However, with the walls still flipping wildly, it was near impossible to do so.
"Nothing, really." And yet, Ian noticed something. "A page has been ripped out of the notebook." He noticed.
Dae-Hyun still didn't really seem to care. "So what? It might just mean nothing. That paper was available in all the rooms, so it could have been used at any time."
The gambler shrugged. "Just stating my observation." He was making it nearly impossible to investigate the area around here.
Not far from there, Gigi was humming in thought.
Atlas had been standing next to her, but he was clearly getting annoyed by the humming. "What…?" He narrowed his eyes on her.
This snapped her out of her thoughts. Turning to look at him. "Nothing that concerns you."
"Like hell it doesn't concern us. We're in the middle of an investigation! Any information could be vital."
True, she couldn't exactly hold back her thoughts at a time like this. "I'm trying to figure out how much the black out factors into all of this. Clearly it had something to do with everything, given the state of the station. However, I want to know exactly what was offline today, and at what time they became active again."
And what? She expected to think of the answer on her own. "Like hell you're going to be able to figure that out. Go ask someone else."
"You don't have to tell me that. I was already considering asking Nova about it." The only problem was figuring out where Nova even was.
Hearing that, Atlas grimaced. "Seriously? I doubt she'd want to help us out. She wants us to die, so she's against us."
The referee didn't hold that same belief. "No. I think she'd help. If there's any information that is vital to the trial, it's to her to divulge such a thing." To at least give them all a fighting chance. "I just don't know where to find her. Although, I doubt she'd put herself in an area unreachable."
"Can't you just call for her?" Atlas suggested. "I doubt she'd ignore a call."
True, but… "I don't want her appearance to get in the way of the investigation." Thinking about it some more, an idea slowly appeared in her head. "I think I know where I should go if I wish to meet her." It's where she found her last time, so it made the most sense. "Make sure the investigation continues on. I will go find her."
As he left, Atlas only had one thought in his mind. "Like hell they'd even listen to me." Not just that, but the idea of investigating didn't entice him that much. "I'm going for a walk…"
As for people who were actually doing the heavy lifting with the investigation, it was time to follow Hae-Won and Benoit.
Hae-Won had approached the body, looking down at him. She couldn't help but have a frown on her face when she looked upon Alan. They hadn't really spoken much, and he seemed more on the lunatic side, but that didn't mean he deserved to be dead.
"Um…" Benoit spoke up, having followed her. "Are you sure you want to investigate him…?"
In truth, not really. But someone had to do it, so she was fine with volunteering herself. "It'll be fine. Don't worry about it." Before she even got to investigating his body, something stood out to her right away. "It's gone." She noted, inspecting his arms.
Benoit was a bit slower on the uptake, so he had no idea what she was talking about. "What's gone…?"
"His watch."
"Yeah, I was confused too." A voice called out.
Slowly turning her head to the side, Hae-Won came face to face with Monokawa. "You mean you don't even know where it went?"
"Nope!" The otter shrugged. "But it's just a watch. It was going to go to waste anyway."
However, that did raise an interesting point. "I thought you couldn't remove them."
"Yes! You can't remove them…" He trailed off. "While you're alive. As soon as you die, the watch slips off your arm. So honestly, anyone could take it."
That was interesting information to be learning now of all times. "Why wasn't this mentioned before?"
"Oops?" Monokawa didn't have any better excuses. "Who cares? All that matters is that you know now."
Letting out a sigh, Hae-Won shifted her focus back over to the body in front of her. "This might get messy…" Given how much blood was on Alan, she was sure some of it might transfer over to her.
"You… You don't have to." Benoit took a step forward. "Or… At least let me help you investigate."
She had no issue if he really wanted to help. "Don't do this because you feel like you have to." Even if she was doing this because she felt like she had to.
Given that she was still focused on the arm, she took a moment to investigate the arm that had his watch. "Hmm…" Looking closely, she noticed two small puncture wounds in his arm. "That wasn't specified in the file."
"Of course not." Monokawa rolled his eyes, and with them, his body. "That's how the watches stay attached. It hardly felt relevant to add it to the Station Report."
That was fair. The only thing that should be included should be stuff relevant to the murder itself. Or at least Hae-Won thought so.
Next, onto the main focus of Alan's body. The cause of death. Strangulation was what was marked down, and looking at his neck, it was pretty obvious looking at the rope marks. But that wasn't the only thing visible. There were also bruise marks. "Hmm…" She found that interesting, but wasn't able to comment on it further. "There was a rope around here, right?"
"Um…" Benoit glanced around, before his eyes finally landed on a rope. "Yes, but Melody is taking a look at it right now…"
"Then we'll go check it after." Hae-Won didn't mind waiting.
Speaking of Melody and the rope, it was time to see how her investigation was going.
The tap dancer was doing her best effort trying to ignore the body completely. She had her back facing towards Alan as she glanced over at the rope. "Hmm…" Looking at the ends of one of the ropes, it seemed to have been snapped off of something. That's at least the observation she had made. "What do you think of this, fella?"
Gennosuke was with her, and while his eyes had been glued to the body for a while now, he spared some time to look at her. "I'm not quite sure. I'm not going to be taking this investigation too seriously." Not like he had to.
Now this didn't sit right with her one bit. "But we have to figure out what happened to Alan." She pointed out. Or else they'd die…
The psychic didn't seem too interested in investigating. Instead, he scanned the room. More specifically the people gathered here. "Hmm… No. I'm good." He flashed her a smile.
Which meant that she'd have to do all the work! "Alright, then sit down and continue to beat one's gums. I'll put the effort in myself." While one of the ends of the rope had clearly snapped off, the other end was completely intact. "What does it mean?" She pulled out a magnifying glass to inspect the ends closer.
Raising an eyebrow, Gennosuke took a step forward. "Since when did you have that?"
"Hmm? Oh! I'm a big fan of the mystery genre!" She put down her magnifying glass. "It's my favourite type of book. The allure is just too much." So if she could just ignore the fact that there was a body only fifteen feet away from her, she could pretend that she was actually in a book just like that. "I don't know what it is about them." Thinking about it some more made her nerves calm down from earlier. "Agatha Christie is probably one of my favourite authors." It helped that she started publishing her books in the 1920's.
That was interesting and all, but since Gennosuke himself wasn't going to be doing any investigation, he at least wanted Melody to keep her mind focused. "Shouldn't we try and figure out where it was snapped off from?" The psychic suggested, to at least help her in the right direction.
Brilliant deduction! "Yes, I think that would be a great idea!"
However, finding it proved to be a bit more difficult. Not because there were too many places to hook the rope, but because she hadn't even considered the possibility of where it was.
"Here." Gennosuke called out, standing by the part of the wall that would flip in and out.
Moving over to investigate, Melody spotted it immediately. "Ah!" She called out. "The latch!" The latch that would connect the two walls had a tiny piece of rope tied to it. Turned away from the wall, she noticed that it lined up with where Alan was. "You don't suppose this connects to the other wall, do you?"
The psychic shrugged. "Only one way to find out, right?" He grabbed onto the frayed end, tying it back to the latch.
Doing her best to ignore the investigation currently going on around Alan's body, Melody moved over to the other side. The rope was long enough to reach, and she was able to tie up the rope.
"Hmm…" Hae-Won had been silent this entire time, watching them set this up. "It lines up." The rope itself passed right in front of Alan's neck.
Messing around with the rope a bit, Gennosuke spoke up. "Not just that, but there seems to be a bit of slack." Although with the walls moving around wildly, that slack didn't last for long.
The tattoo artist moved over to one end. "I want to try something out."
"Huh…" Melody had no issue, and moved out of the way. "Try whatever you want."
Untying the rope, Hae-Won moved over towards the body. Slowly, she wrapped the rope around his neck, before moving back to where Melody was. There was barely enough rope left to tie it back to the latch.
"Um…" Benoit was unsure how to feel about what he was looking at.
The rope would tighten whenever the walls would open up, prompting the rope to constrict Alan's neck. "Hmm…" The tattoo artist watched the scene in front of her. "This might be how it was done…" It would make sense in the long run. Still, she needed to get some work done. "Can you untie the rope now?" She hadn't finished investigating his body, so she wanted to finish that up as soon as she could.
Gennosuke had no problems, and untied the rope. "We were just done on our end as well."
Now that the body was back to normal, Hae-Won could continue her investigation.
Given that the neck was done being investigated, she moved away from it to investigate the blood all around his body. They were present in four separate spots. His mouth, his right hand, near his feet, and lastly, around the slash he had received.
"Isn't that odd…?" Benoit mumbled out, looking at the body.
"Hmm?" She didn't see what was odd. "What about it?"
Oh… maybe he had seen something wrong. "Nevermind…" He glanced away.
Looking back at the body, Hae-Won inspected the cut. It wasn't too deep, but it was more than likely caused by a knife. "The kitchen would be a good place to check." Given that was the only place she could think of to get a knife. Although, her assessment could be wrong in the first place.
She only had a few other places she had to check out. Namely, his right hand. "Hmm…" A lot of blood on it too. "Might have used it to cover his wound." Only reason he'd have blood on him in the first place.
Benoit slowly nodded his head. "Um… If you say so." Although he had a different idea brewing in his hand.
Next, she wanted to make sure he didn't have anything in his pockets. She had seen him writing things down, so she wanted to check to see if he left any kind of message behind.
As luck would have it, she found a note in his pocket. "What's this…?" It didn't seem like some dying message… Instead, it almost felt like a… threat of some kind? The writing was very hard to read. "Whoever wrote this has shitty handwriting."
.
"There's going to be a confrontation at -. If you don't step in to stop it, someone will die as a result."
.
It was very short for a note, but it was also missing a word. In fact, it was scribbled out completely. "Hmm…" Hae-Won hummed out as she read it over a few times. It was hard to grasp where the area could have been. The word removed seemed to be on the shorter side. Maybe only about one word long.
"Did… you find anything interesting?" Benoit tried to peek over, but even he had a hard time reading this.
She shook her head. "Not yet. But we should bring this up during the trial when the time comes." Lastly, she eyed his pants. There were various splatters of blood on his legs, growing more intense as it reached lower to the ground. "Hmm…"
"Um…" Eyeing the blood a bit longer, Benoit's mind began to wander. "Are you good with finishing this up…? I want to go check out something else."
She didn't have an issue with that. "Go ahead." She figured that he didn't want to be next to the body anymore.
Ian had been watching the entire time, and when Benoit stepped away, he glanced over at Dae-Hyun. "I've got to go figure something out." Might as well use Benoit as cover.
"Whatever…" The talent manager didn't want to be anywhere near Ian anyways.
Still, Hae-Won wasn't done investigating Alan. There was only one more place she wanted to take a look. "The file mentioned…" She lifted his shirt a bit, spotting the puncture wounds in his stomach. "Got it." They were different from the ones on his arms, and there were more.
From the looks of it, there were two sets of small puncture wounds, spaced out the same exact way. "No idea what could have caused this…" It seemed similar in size to the one caused by the watch, but different.
With that, she felt like she had successfully investigated the body. So she stood up straight, looking around the rooms. Most of the investigation here had ended. But she didn't really feel the need to go explore anywhere else. She had already gathered a decent amount of information.
Now that Lorelei tagged along with the duo, most of it was starting to make sense.
"Basically." Lorelei had finished her investigation. "This is a generator that runs on a completely different power system." Pretty easy to understand, but having the confirmation was always nice. "Which means, in the power outage, it would have still been functioning."
"But why…" Gemini hummed out to himself. "Why would this room have its own generator?"
They didn't know why, so they didn't care. "Beats me. Not like it's important right now." The only important thing was getting to the bottom of what it gave power to.
Something she had already figured out on her own. "It powers the entire room. Props and all." She placed a hand on her hip. "So everything in this room would have been fully functional."
It was good hearing that from an expert. "And it doesn't appear damaged?" Gemini asked her.
She rolled her eyes. "Nope. The only thing that was damaged was the console."
"With the taser, right?" Laki held it out, a little too close to Lorelei.
They took a step back. "Yes, what else would have done it?"
Seeing as she knew some stuff, no harm in asking her more. "How many voltages does a taser have?"
"Well…" That was a rough question, which meant he'd get a rough estimate. "It takes about fifty thousand volts to make it worth anything. But anything more than a hundred thousand would be deemed too much. So! Anywhere between that range. Either way, I'd consider it high voltage." She crossed her arms.
The escapist slowly nodded his head. He knew for sure that'd be good to know. Slowly, he turned his attention over to Laki. "Laki, put it down."
She had slowly approached the generator, letting out a sad sigh as she had been stopped.
"You know." Lorelei decided to strike up a conversation with her. "I'm surprised you went here. I thought for sure you'd want to explore the body."
"Huh!" Well the lucky student didn't know how to answer that right away, so she fiddled around with the taser. "Going through an obstacle like this wall is much cooler!"
Still, Lorelei wasn't stupid. They could tell something bugged Laki. "I'll keep that in mind."
Given that there wasn't anything else of note around here, Gemini let out a sigh. "Alright, I think I'm going to head out. I want to take a look at the places around here." If there was blood on the elevator door, he was curious where else blood would have ended up.
Lorelei let out a small yawn, clearly tired from investigating this room. "I might do the same. The security room is someplace I want to go to."
Seems like they had their plans figured out. Gemini turned to look at Laki. "And what about you?"
"Hmm…" Well, she didn't want to leave this area. "I'll stay right here."
That was all fine and good, except for one part. "Hand over the taser." The escapist extended his arm.
Ah drat. They had seen through her plan. "Fine!" But she had something else in mind that she wanted to do instead.
Now that it was settled, Gemini slipped back into the main portion of the room. Reaching over into the desk Dae-Hyun was still next to, he pulled out some pencil and paper. "I'll be back."
"Whatever."
Opening the door to the security room, Winter stepped inside. "Now, if I had to wager a guess…" She glanced around the room until her eyes landed on what she was looking for. "Here."
Behind her was Michael and Sakura. Michael followed her because she was the closest person to him, and Sakura because she was already heading this way. "What did you want to take a look at?" The security guard put a hand on her hip.
The love guru stopped right in front of the power supply. "I remember when we first explored this, Nova made a comment about this being what supplied the station with its power."
"Ah. Yes." Michael walked over towards her. "I do remember her saying that. However, when he took a look at it, he knew what she was talking about. "It's… damaged. But Nova said…" He trailed off, realising this kind of discussion would be better suited for the trial.
"Is that all you wanted to take a look at?" Sakura crossed her arms. On an initial glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Except for all the flashlights missing, but they had done that this morning.
"No, I think…" She trailed off as her eyes focused on something nearby. "Hmm?" It didn't take her long to figure out just what it was. "Blood…?" But why here?
"I thought the scene of the crime was… The Ultimate Talent Manager Station…" Michael knelt down to investigate the blood. It seemed to be a rather large puddle, but the most interesting part was that it seemed to be cut off. "Hmm…?" Looking a bit further, it seemed to leak under the door. "Have we ever been able to open this door?"
Sakura shook her head. "No, not to my knowledge. That door has been locked since we've gotten here."
That was interesting. Since he was already knelt on the ground, he decided to inspect the door itself. From the looks of it, it was pressed against the floor in such a way that there left no gaps. Not only that, but the door itself had no blood on it. "Odd…" Michael had been out of it for most of the day, so he felt the need to ask. "The power outage… What exactly did it affect?"
"Well, from what I've heard, it locked everyone in their rooms." Winter informed him.
Sakura nodded her head. "I wasn't able to access my room at all, given I was trapped outside."
Then did that apply for all of the doors? He couldn't quite tell. "Hmm… I'm not sure if there's anything else of note around here."
Winter moved over towards the security system. She went to access it, but it blocked her off, given that she didn't have the job requirement. "Ah… I wanted to see if there was something on the cameras."
"Here…" Michael scanned his watch just so she was given access. "But I'm not sure if anything of value will be showcased on it…"
As Winter shifted through the various monitors, she would come to the same conclusion. "Yes. Nothing of note." Not that she expected too much, she was actually just making a mental note of something else. "Is there anything else worth checking out in here?"
"Ah damn." A voice called out as the door opened. "Didn't think anyone else would check here." Turning their heads toward the new voice, it would be Lorelei. "Thought I'd give this room a check before anyone else."
Sakura crossed her arms. "This room has already been investigated. You won't be needed."
That was hurtful, but she felt like she could be of some use. "Are you sure? None of you three seem well versed in technology."
"Well…" That was true. Michael couldn't argue against that. "You're free to keep exploring if you want…" He wasn't going to stop her.
Walking around like she owned the place, Lorelei moved over to the back to check out the power supply. "Wow, someone really fucked this up."
"Yes. We noticed." Sakura found it pointless to even let her investigate this place. But it might be for the best for more people to know about the evidence beforehand.
"Honestly, I just wanted to confirm something, that's all." And given that they got the answers they wanted, they were getting ready to leave."
"If you want to know more…" Michael mumbled out. "You can check out the blood on the floor."
"Blood on the…?" Lorelei turned to look at what he was talking about. She hadn't even spotted that, given how little it covered. ."Oh. Interesting." A small smile formed on their face. "Alright, keep doing what you were doing." She waved them off, walking out of the room.
Winter watched her leave. "I don't trust her one bit."
Sakura crossed her arms, glancing off to the side. "Yeah, well I don't trust most of you."
It was to be expected for there to be a lot of distrust after a murder. Michael just wished it wasn't the case. "Now's not the time…" He mumbled out, stepping over towards the exit of the room.
Kitchen
There was one place Edison wanted to check out. Especially with a slash wound being mentioned in the Station Report. "This investigation thing shouldn't be too bad." There was just one small problem… He stopped walking, to turn to look at his follower. "Why are you here?"
"Huh… well!" Seira didn't have much of a good reason. She didn't want to see a body, so she tagged along with whoever went somewhere else. And given Edison was the first person to split off, she had made up her mind. "You went alone, so I'm just making sure you weren't thinking of changing some evidence."
"Nonsense…" He adjusted his goggles. "I'm here to gather evidence for the trial. I'm hoping to be the one to lead!"
However, the astrologist didn't believe that one bit. "Then, wouldn't you have investigated the body? Wouldn't that hold the most answers?"
"..." He remained silent, keeping his eyes fixated on his flask.
It would appear that he didn't like that comment at all. "Nevermind. Are you just going to stay there or investigate."
"I'm not ignoring you…" Instead, Edison was looking at something beyond his flask. "On the side of the counter…" He pointed next to where Seira was standing.
"Huh…?" She glanced over towards where he was pointing. Quickly, however, she realised just what it was. "A-AH!" She moved back, stepping away from the streak of blood on the counter. "W-what's that doing here?"
Edison was slowly realising the truth. "Yes… This is where Alan was murdered. It all made sense now." It didn't seem like he was talking to Seira. Instead, he was talking to himself.
Well, if he was going to be mouthing off to himself, she was going to leave it to herself to investigate the blood further. Taking a better look, there didn't seem to be a lot. Although she wasn't sure how much blood Alan had on him, she was sure that this didn't count as strangulation. "But don't you remember the cause of death?"
He quickly raised a finger. "Let's save this debate for the station trial, alright?" He needed to focus on other things, after all.
The astrologist let out a sigh. "If you say so." She was starting to think following Edison was a bad idea. But if she just left him alone, she knew things wouldn't go well for him.
Having finished his conversation with himself, he moved over towards the knife rack. "Let's see what's so interesting about this." Of note, none of the knives were missing. One by one, he pulled each one out.
"What are you doing?" Seira approached him. The knives were also clean. "If there was any blood on them, don't you think the killer would have washed them off?"
At this point, he had completely tuned her out. He reached over for one of his vials, before finding the correct one. Out of nowhere, he pulled out a spray nozzle. Quickly, he screwed it onto the vial. "Watch and be amazed!" He sprayed each knife individually.
And… after a few seconds…
Nothing.
Seira was still waiting for something to happen. When it became clear that this led to nothing, she looked over at the chemist. "Was… something supposed to happen?"
Slowly, he turned to look at her. "Of course, someone with a fake science like that wouldn't know what I'm doing." He adjusted his goggles.
"F-fake science?" She didn't take too kindly to that. "All I see is that you didn't do anything! What does that prove?"
Yes, to the untrained eye, these knives didn't change a bit. But boy oh boy did Edison have some news for her! … At the trial. "Later. Now is a bad time."
"Huh?" Now she was really starting to regret coming to investigate with him.
Quickly, the chemist turned to walk away from her. "You heard me. Later. Now is a bad time."
Honestly, she wasn't sure what she expected. "I came here to help you, and this is the thanks I get."
"You came here to help me?" Because Edison didn't see any of that. Maybe he had simply missed it! "Then carry on. Help me then."
Oh well! She didn't exactly know what else to investigate. "There's a trash chute here, shouldn't we check it out."
"Hm… But then wouldn't any evidence be gone?" That's what a trash chute would have done, after all!
"Ugh… Just." Fine. She'd check all the cabinets then.
Only to find nothing of interest. "This would be so much easier if you told me what you found."
"I will!" Long pause. "At the trial." He was unbearable. But she didn't know what she expected from someone who was an aquarius…
Cafeteria
With everyone else gone to explore the station, this left two people alone in the cafeteria. Or… three.
"You aren't going to explore the place?" Dolly asked Tatiana, who seemed content on standing around.
"Haha!" She let out a laugh, striking a pose. "I have no need for that, as what I seek lies in this very room!"
Oh! What a mystery! "What do you seek?"
"Food!" She had been standing in front of the feeding station, waiting for food to pop up. "It should be dinner time, so I'm surprised that nothing has appeared yet."
The doll thought of an easy answer. "Maybe it's halted during investigations?"
The knife thrower let out a dramatic gasp. "They'd remove that during such an important time." Seems like she had no choice but to investigate. Although, she didn't feel like going far in case the doll was wrong. "Well, do you see anything of note?"
Dolly saw two things of note, actually. Both were the same. "I see blood!"
Yes. Tatiana saw that too, but she was just choosing to ignore it. "Very well, we shall investigate the blood!" The closest to them was in the center of the cafeteria, right next to one of the tables. It was a puddle of blood that seemed to have splotched all over the place. "Yes. This is indeed blood."
But how could she know? "Did you taste it?"
"I- That's insane. Why would I taste it!" Dolly must have been some lunatic. "You are free to try it yourself."
"Sorry, I'm on a strict diet. No blood."
That wasn't the only blood that was visible in the cafeteria. The other blood would be located at the elevator. "Hmm, how did nobody notice this?" It was very obvious now that the lights were back on.
Of note, the blood was to the right of the buttons, about halfway up the door. The blood seemed to leak down the door, forming a small puddle at the bottom. The blood here was splotched on as well.
"Normally elevators have ups and downs… But I don't see the upside in this." Dolly pointed out.
"It's odd that there are two blood spots." Not that she had any idea why. "As for the elevator itself, it's a shame, but I was trapped on it when the power went off."
"Oh, is that what happened?" Dolly hadn't really cared about the whole power outage thing. "You must have been scared to be alone!"
The knife thrower let out a laugh. "Nonsense, for I had May to keep me company!"
"Really? She wasn't just sleeping?"
"W-well!" Tatiana kept the smile on her face. "Even if she was, it was still nice to have somebody else around me!" Still, it would have brought her peace of mind if May was up. Unfortunately she saw no merit in waking her up. It wouldn't have worked anyways.
"Hmm…" Now her eyes were locked on the other feature of the elevator. "Spikes, huh." They were on the outside of the elevator shaft, going from the bottom to the top of the entire shaft. Guess she never noticed this before. "What are they for?"
"Atmosphere?" Dolly shrugged. She wasn't really an expert on spikes. "But they look big enough to be able to grab!"
Still, Tatiana couldn't see the relevancy of it all. "I think that's all we'd be able to find now." She made her way back over to the counter, still being greeted with no food. "Perhaps we simply must make our own." She regretted not getting any food before the games this morning. Even so when she missed lunch.
Tau Sector
Given that everyone else seemed to have things handled inside the Ultimate Talent Manager Station, Atlas stepped out into the hallway, hoping to maybe find another area to investigate.
Not that he knew the first place to even begin.
So instead, he wandered aimlessly around the hallway, checking every inch of the hallway. That is, until he stumbled upon something. "Hmm?" It was at the cross in the road, down one of the small paths. "Blood…" He mumbled to himself. Kneeling down, he inspected it. There was a splotch of blood that formed into a puddle. Although, it was in a weird spot. He wasn't sure if anybody had noticed it.
Slowly standing up, he walked off towards the cross in the road again, only to see someone walking off toward the cafeteria. It was May.
Although, based solely on how her hair looked, it's as if she just took a shower. "Where were you?"
"Showers." Was the short answer. She let out a yawn.
That ticked him off. Here he was, trying his best to investigate… "A shower…?" He repeated, anger fueling his voice. "Did you forget a body dropped?"
"Hmm… No." How could she forget something like that? "I was thinking of starting my investigation soon. I was just on my way to take a shower last night when the elevator stopped working, and then I was too tired to move after that…"
What was with this girl? For someone who was supposed to be smart, she wasn't taking any of this seriously. "Well. Showers done. I advise you get to investigating."
What was his deal? She just said she would. "If it makes you feel better… I found something while in the showers."
"What did you find?" That at least caught his attention.
"Blood."
Now that really caught his attention. "Blood?" He repeated, a bit of disbelief in his voice. "In the girls' showers?"
She turned to point down the way she came. "I can show you, if you want."
While it felt weird going there, this was purely for the investigation, so he had no reason to turn it down. "Alright."
Once there, he would realise that she was telling the truth. "There really is…" How the fuck did it end up here? Alan was the one bleeding, wasn't he? Inspecting the blood, it was similar to the other blood pattern he found. A splotch of blood pooled in the center. "Hmm… And you took a shower anyways?" If he found blood here, he wouldn't have bothered.
"Hmm… Didn't really see an issue…" It creeped her out, but she was set on her mission. She placed her hands in her pockets. "Someone should really keep track of all of this blood…"
That sounded like a job for anyone but Atlas. "Yeah, whatever. You should be able to remember." He turned around, heading off back to the hallway.
However, on the way out, he ran into Gemini, who was looking around. "Huh…" The escapist narrowed his eyes, seeing Atlas walk out of the girls' shower. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Investigating!" He barked out. "There was blood in the room."
Blood? "Huh…" Gemini pulled out a piece of paper. "I'll mark that down, then. I'm trying to figure out where there might be blood." It seemed like he might have just come from the security room.
"Oh." Atlas calmed down rather quickly. "I found some more blood near the cross of the hallway, if you want to mark that down."
That seemed to have caught his interest. "Yes, show me it if you would." The fact that he kept finding more areas with blood was suspicious. This made figuring out the location of Alan's death much harder.
The trio walked over towards the spot Atlas had found. "Here."
"Wow…" May hummed out. "It's really out of the way… Isn't it?"
"No kidding." Gemini knelt down to inspect it. But it looked like the other ones, so he marked it down. "This only raises some more questions…" Then, the escapist turned his attention to May. Given she was practically a ticking sleep bomb, he needed to throw some questions her way. "May, what were you doing on the elevator?"
She had already told Atlas, but she didn't see any harm in also telling Gemini. "Last night I was on my way to take my shower. However, when I entered the elevator, it stopped working."
"Hmm…" The escapist was under the impression that the showers wouldn't work at night. Not that he hadn't tried it himself. "Why go so late at night? Sounds dangerous."
"Eh…" The academic prodigy, genius be onto her, didn't seem to care. "Nobody really goes out at night, so I wasn't worried."
"What about Tatiana?" Gemini was curious about her too, but felt like she wouldn't give him a straight answer.
Tapping her chin a few times, May shrugged. "I don't remember much about her. I remember waking up, and she was in the elevator. But she could have been there before I joined." She rubbed her eyes. "Sorry… if that doesn't help any."
This was on par with what he was expecting, so he had no issues with it. "Thank you for telling me what you know." Then, his focus shifted towards Atlas. "Do you have any other plans for investigating?"
"Tsk, as if. I've done my work." He found a puddle of blood. And if they wanted him to investigate more, they better take that problem up with him. There were eighteen other people who could investigate.
Letting out a small sigh, Gemini was slowly growing the idea that it was going to be difficult to get half of these people to investigate. "Alright, then I'll be on my way. If you find anything else out, please make sure to let me know." He wanted as much information as possible before entering the trial.
"Sure…" May hummed out. Although he knew she probably wasn't going to offer him much of anything.
"Right…" The escapist shook his head before making his way towards the cafeteria.
Motive Room
As she knew it, this is where Gigi found Nova. "You must really love this room." She crossed her arms, greeting the overseer.
Nova was looking at the monitor. After a few seconds she turned to look at the referee. "Well, it's the only place that has a good atmosphere that you can all access." Eventually they could reach her office! "But what brings you here?"
There was only one reason she would be here. "Do you have a full report on the power outage?"
That was an odd request. "You're going to need to be a little more specific than that."
"What I mean, is…" The referee trailed off. "I want to know at what time certain things were fixed, as well as a detailed list of what was fixed."
Oh, well that's a large request. "Let me see…" She started tapping away at her screen. After a few seconds, something began to print out of the lower portion of the screen. "Something like this?"
The idea of her being a robot only solidified with that one. And yet, Gigi made no reaction to that. Instead, she grabbed the paper, inspecting it.
.
12:57am: Power Outage Occurred. This rendered all normal facilities offline. Please note that some facilities have their own generators, and were therefore unaffected.
Vacant Room doors stayed shut.
8:50am: First fix was allowed, which reset all doors to their default state, as well as unlocked the scanners.
9:50am: All power restored to the second floor.
3:36pm: All power restored to the first floor.
Here's what functions would have been unusable during the power outage for every room:
Motive Room: The monitor in the back, and the buttons on the table.
Cafeteria: Food services, and the monitor in the back.
Cleaning Room: The glass door would not be usable.
Locker Room: The additional function of sending your storage would be unusable.
Kitchen: All appliances, including the trash chute.
Ultimate Talent Manager Station: Props requiring electricity would have been unusable.
.
However the paper seemed to be cut off. "Huh… Did you run out of paper?"
"I might have, are you missing any rooms?"
Slowly, she nodded her head. "Yes. The security room."
"Ah, right. Obviously the security system would not have been able to be used during the blackout. That is it." Nova had given her all the information that seemed necessary.
That was an interesting list, she'd make sure to take note of it. "Alright." She rolled it up, and placed it neatly in her pocket. But she wasn't done with asking questions. "There's one more thing I want to ask you."
Oh? More? Ah. Seems like Nova wouldn't know peace today. "Yes? Anything to help."
Eyeing the table, Gigi spoke up. "I want to know exactly how this table functions."
That is a bit confusing for the phrasing, but she would try and grasp what she meant. "Are you talking about the buttons?"
"Yes. From my knowledge, we couldn't access any of the buttons unless they were used in the motive, correct?"
Ah yes, that's what she meant. Slowly, Nova nodded her head. "Yes. Until a game was chosen, the button was locked."
That's what she figured, but it was nice to have confirmation about it.
Glancing off to the side, Gigi slowly nodded her head. "Thank you for your help." To others, it might have been weird to thank the Overseer, but Gigi wasn't like that.
Nova's expression turned to one of joy. "I'm always happy to help in any way I can." Still, she couldn't be biassed. She had to give the killer a chance after all.
Omicron Sector
After the elevator opened up, Benoit stepped out, with Ian right behind him. "Why… Did you follow me?"
"Oh, don't mind me. There's something I wanted to check out, so I figured I'd tag along with you. But it won't be whatever you're probably investigating."
There was a chance that Ian had caught onto the same thing he had, given how smart he seemed to be. "I'm going to the cleaning room."
Quickly, the gambler shook his head. "Nope. I'm going somewhere else." He glanced to the side. "Namely the locker room."
Oh wow, that was completely different from him. "Any reason?"
"Can't be sure just yet. But I felt like it's worth a check. Tell me if you find anything of value in your search." The gambler began to walk down the hallway.
Watching him leave for a few seconds, Benoit turned his attention over towards the cleaning room. It was always good to just double check things…
Stepping inside, he moved to each bottle he had access to. Screwing off the lid, and checking the contents inside. "Ah…" However, each bottle seemed to be unused. "Maybe that's not…" Was his idea wrong? Probably… He didn't know much when it came to stuff like this.
However, his focus slowly shifted towards the locked case of chemicals. He knew scanning his bracelet wouldn't work at all, so he didn't even bother this time. "A bust…" Maybe he should go check out what Ian was looking through.
Stepping out, he made his way over towards the locker room, only to see the gambler walking out, reading a piece of paper he had on hand.
"What's that?"
Seeing the tall man approaching him, Ian put the paper away in his pockets. "Just taking notes for the trial. I was just curious, but nothing of note popped up."
Suddenly, an announcement rang across the station. "Would all participants please gather back up in the cafeteria? Your investigation period has now concluded!" It was Monokawa talking.
Letting out a sigh, the gambler headed towards the elevator. "Shame that it's already over." He barely did any sort of investigation, so he knew he would have to rely on what other people said. Not his style, but he'd make it work.
Benoit had the thought of going into the locker room to see what Ian wanted to check out, but he felt it was more important to listen to the announcement. Especially with how strict they were on the rules, he wouldn't want to break one.
"Don't just stand around." A voice that wasn't Ian's called out. Looking over at who, it was Gigi. "I don't believe they'd start a trial without us having all the required evidence." To her, the real goal was the trial. Having a trial where one side doesn't have a fighting chance… It didn't feel fair to her.
"R-right…" He would just need to assume they had gotten everything up to this point.
However, as the trio arrived at the elevator, they would be greeted with somebody else stepping off.
"Oh." Ian hadn't expected to see her here. "What brings you here, Laki?"
She eyed the two people behind him before stepping off the elevator. "Oh! Not ready for the trial quite yet!"
Gigi would have stayed behind to see what the two were talking about, but she didn't want to be late, so she moved on with Benoit.
Once the two were gone, Laki's eager expression quickly faded.
Something Ian found odd. He had never seen her like this. "What's on your mind?"
She knew Ian would be able to see right through her. "It's about… What happened." She didn't even know how to describe it, because she couldn't even explain what was wrong.
It didn't help that Ian himself just wasn't getting it either. "Yeah. Someone died. There was a motive, so it was only reasonable that someone died."
But for someone to actually go through with it… It felt weird. "They killed because of the motive, didn't they?"
The gambler felt like that was pretty obvious. "They wouldn't have had any other reason to kill, so I don't see why it wouldn't be because of the motive." Seeing Laki like this was weird. "Don't let this beat you down. You must just be disappointed that you didn't get the first kill." The game was young, and the opportunity would arise once more in the future.
"Huh…" Here Ian was, trying to help her by being positive. Of course! Being positive was the solution. "Right! We have a murderer to catch!" Yet, despite the face she just put on now, she felt like something was still wrong overall.
Although, Ian didn't seem to care about any of that. "Right. We have a game to win, after all." He patted her on the back. "And we can't win if one of us winds up dead."
Still… The entire time her time here had been fun and games. To have someone end up dead because of it. "OK!" She quickly ran after him, entering the elevator.
Cafeteria
The last people to join up with the group were Ian and Laki given that they were on the top floor. Seems like nobody else considered investigating up there.
"Oh good!" Monokawa saw that everyone was here now. "Glad to see everyone-" He stopped himself before counting. "Wait, there's only nineteen of you. We're still missing one." … "Oh wait! Yeah, Alan's dead. Forgot."
Hae-Won let out a sigh. "I'm getting tired of this joke of yours. Can you just get along with it?"
"Fine, fine! Sheesh… Tough crowd. You all act like you saw a body or something." He floated over towards the elevator. "Nova and I have deemed that you have found all the relevant pieces of evidence for the trial! Such a trial may be started."
Seems Gigi was right. "That's why the time for an investigation was vague, wasn't it?"
"If we gave you a time limit for the investigation, you'd all wound up dead by the end of the trial." The otter shrugged. "Well, all except for one of you, but!"
"I have a question." Seira called out. "Where will this trial be happening?" She couldn't imagine it happening in the cafeteria.
"Oh!" Monokawa liked that one. "What a good question! And I have an answer for you." He moved over towards the elevator, attempting to press one of the buttons. However, he missed completely and landed his hand in blood. "Oops! Wow. This must be Alan's. He's-"
"Enough!" Atlas was going to stop him before it even started.
"Fine! Fine!" He pressed the button, opening the door. "The trial grounds can be accessed via the elevator. So everyone, pile on in!"
As everyone entered into the elevator, it felt a bit stuffed, given the nineteen participants. However, it seemed to be made for a large group of people, so thankfully nobody was pressed against each other.
"Is there a button for the trial grounds?" Gemini called out.
Seira, being the closest person to the buttons, took a look. "No, I don't see any-"
At that very moment, the entire elevator shook to life, before slowly descending further into the station.
At first, the elevator was silent. People were still coming to terms with the death. Not just that, but they were coming to terms that one of them might be the killer.
To be trapped on an elevator with someone who took a life.
And then having to expose them to save your own skin.
Difficult to put the emotions into words.
Gemini let out a small sigh. "I know this atmosphere is gloomy… But…" He might get yelled at for saying this… "But we're all still alive at the moment." He wanted to remain optimistic. This was the better outcome than ten of them being dead in a few hours.
"I'm inclined to agree." Oh brother you don't want Ian agreeing with you- "Though one body on its own would have been far superior."
"But…" Melody trailed off, looking around. "Now we have to figure out which one of us…" She couldn't even finish the sentence. She knew what awaited for the killer at the end of this trial… An execution.
"I don't feel bad." Lorelei shrugged, laughing a bit. "They killed someone. If they really felt bad, they'd just admit it right now." She waited for a few seconds, only to be met with silence. "See? They want to get away with it."
"Hey now…" Hae-Won mumbled out. "Now's not the time for that shitty attitude. Someone just died."
And that was her problem… how? "Whatever." These people were no fun.
Right before silence would overcome the elevator, a voice spoke up.
"Now entering Trial Ground Zero." It was the voice of a girl. However none of the people here seemed to recognise who the voice belonged to.
Before anyone had a chance to react, they all felt their feet lifting off the ground.
"W-what's going on?" Benoit began to panic, trying to have his feet touch the ground again.
"Weeee!" Laki had the exact opposite reaction. Now that she was floating, she spun around in the air a bit, kicking Edison in the face.
"H-hey!" He flew back a bit, hitting the wall behind him. "Watch it!" Adjusting his goggles, he looked around. "It appears that we are in zero gravity!"
"Pretty fun." Gemini spun around just as Laki had, but he was careful not to hit anyone.
"Master! Master!" Dolly called out. "Isn't this the most fun you've ever had?" He remained neutral.
As the fun of zero gravity finally set in for everyone, it was sadly short lived as gravity slowly returned to everyone.
The only difference was that instead of pulling them down to the ground, it pulled them to the ceiling instead.
"Woah…" Edison had a bright smile on his face. "We're walking upside down now."
Sakura crossed her arms, not too impressed. "That's certainly an entrance."
Once the elevator stopped, the doors opened up, revealing to them the trial ground.
Seira stood there, frozen, looking at the scene in front of her.
If there were any doubts before about their location, it would all be washed away now.
Staring up at the glass dome above their head, they'd be met with more stars than one could count.
"It's…" The astrologist mumbled out, staring intently at the stars in front of her. Calling it beautiful now would be in bad taste, given what just happened, so she kept her mouth shut.
The room they were in was encased completely by a glass dome. The elevator to this room was located in the center. When they stepped out, the doors closed, and the elevator rose back into the ground.
Around them, there were twenty podiums. They were all empty except for one, which clearly belonged to Alan. On the podium, there was a black and white picture frame of his face, with a red X across it.
"Why… is that there?" Benoit felt creeped out just looking at it.
"That way it's like they've never left you!" Monokawa cheered out. "It also adds to the atmosphere."
Most people stayed exactly where they were, except for Gemini, who moved over to inspect one of the podiums. "They have names on them." He had no idea why there was an intended order, but he wasn't going to deny it. "Everyone, find your spot." He didn't want to rush them, but he also wanted to get to the bottom of this entire mystery. He wanted to figure out who killed Alan.
One by one, everyone slowly moved to their respective podiums.
Once they all stood around their podiums, their order was clear. Edison, Benoit, Seira, Winter, Gigi, Gemini, Benjamin and Dolly, Alan, Lorelei, Michael, Melody, Dae-Hyun, Laki, May, Ian, Tatiana, Atlas, Gennosuke, Hae-Won, and Sakura.
Lorelei didn't seem to mind standing next to the picture frame of Alan, while Dolly seemed a bit more bothered by it. "Can someone switch with me?"
"Yeah, gladly." Unfortunately, it was Lorelei, so it didn't fix the problem.
Soon, a silence crept into the room, eyes all fixated on the center of the room.
.
Soon, several pictures appeared, each with one of the twenty participants.
.
An image of Laki, filled with glee as she looked upon the danger ahead.
An image of Dae-Hyun, looking indifferent, covering his mouth with his hands, and his eyes obscured.
An image of Hae-Won, her hands in her pocket, leaning back against a wall.
An image of May, eyes closed, engrossed in a nap.
An image of Sakura, flashing her flashlight forward, looking for anyone of suspicion.
An image of Benjamin standing in the background, with Dolly taking the foreground.
An image of Seira, gripping onto her Leo necklace, looking up into the stars.
.
The first murder here on this space station, and it was committed by someone here…
.
An image of Lorelei, not paying attention. Instead, opting to mess around on her watch.
An image of Gigi, whistle in mouth, and a red card at the ready.
An image of Atlas, irritated, glaring down at whoever would even bother looking his way.
An image of Ian, cards in hands, having a mischievous grin on his face.
An image of Michael, hood obscuring his face.
An image of Edison, inspecting one of the flasks, which appears to be bubbling.
.
One person amongst them had viciously murdered Alan, leaving a bloody scene behind.
.
An image of Gemini, one hand on his hips, the other one holding onto a slice of pizza-
An image of Benoit, looking around nervously, rubbing the arm with his scars.
An image of Winter, eyes closed, slowly sipping away at a cup of tea.
An image of Melody, a bright smile on her face as she danced away.
An image of Tatiana, one hand covering her eyepatch, while the other twirled around a knife.
An image of Gennosuke, hands close to his head as he attempted to read someone's mind.
A̶n̶ ̶i̶m̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶A̶l̶a̶n̶,̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶e̶b̶o̶o̶k̶,̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶c̶e̶r̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶e̶.̶
.
And now it was their job to figure out who it was, and avenge their fellow Ultimate.
And wow, that concluded the investigation portion of this story! I'll be honest, I had no idea what was going to be most of the evidence going into this chapter, so I was pleasantly surprised I was able to get this chapter done pretty quickly. Now it may not have been posted quickly, but that was because I wanted to finish up most of the trial parts before I posted that. Wouldn't want there to be mistakes after it's too late to fix them!
As for the chapter themselves, I was really happy to finally be able to unveil the trial grounds! I had an idea for the glass dome for a while, but a few days before starting the investigation, I got the wild idea to include zero gravity on the way there. Then, came the idea of the trial grounds being held under the ship. Naturally, combined, I made it so the trial was happening while everyone was technically upside down! At least if you orientate yourself with the station.
Besides that, I don't really have much else to say! I hope that people are starting to get the bigger picture of what this trial might entail. I saw a lot of predictions on my discord, and in my reviews, so I'm excited to see how this evidence shakes things up!
The other trial parts are pretty much done, so expect part 1 in about two days… Or around that time!
God, I need to start working on the epilogue of this chapter soon. Peace out!
Oh wait! And how could I forget the most important part! I was finally able to read the last two daily life parts of Twisted Tragedy, which means I'm contractually obligated to send a shout out to my good friend SilverMark16! As always, he really knocked it out of the park, more than I ever could. Now if I could just muster the time to read the deadly life, and then we'd be golden. But huh, I wonder what other stories he has going on- Is he writing for Corrupted Hope now? Let's fucking GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! CORRUPTED PEAK!
Participants Remaining: 19
Edison Thompton - The Ultimate Chemist [SilverMark16]
Benoit Chevalier - The Ultimate Physiotherapist [Epifanio Therion]
Seira Natsume - The Ultimate Astrologist [WolfieRed23]
Winter Hibiscus - The Ultimate Love Guru [Grandma Sue]
Giustina "Gigi" Giulio - The Ultimate Referee [Nekoja]
Gemini Strela - The Ultimate Escapist [secretnobody]
Benjamin Mason - The Ultimate Ventriloquist [NSPunny]
Lorelei Kaiser - The Ultimate Computer Security Specialist [CandleFire45]
Michael ? - The Ultimate ? [Omakin]
Melody Eleanor Hopkins - The Ultimate Tap Dancer [Prince PokePersona]
Kim Dae-Hyun - The Ultimate Talent Manager [oddlyillregular]
Lakshmi "Laki" Krishna - The Ultimate Lucky Student [Sempi]
May Summers - The Ultimate Academic Prodigy [KadachiNova]
Ian Santiago - The Ultimate Gambler [Animeboy15]
Tatiana Novak - The Ultimate Knife Thrower [ExtraMeme]
Atlas Constande - The Ultimate Soccer Player [ComplicatedYetSimple]
Gennosuke Yagami - The Ultimate Psychic [theotakureader101]
Kim Hae-Won - The Ultimate Tattoo Artist [Weekaro]
Sakura Gambino - The Ultimate Security Guard [PROJECT DRAMA]