Danganronpa: Algorithmic Alteration Chapter 12: Dual Disposition (Part 1), a dangan ronpa kibou no gakuen to zetsubou no koukousei fanfic

Chapter 2: Dual Disposition (Part 1)

Warning: This is a Danganronpa fic. There's going to be a good amount of blood, violence, gore, and a little more intense subject matter. You have been warned properly.

Through the mute silence, they wrest their steep way, arduous, dark, and thick with black vapours. They were not far from the border of the world above; here frightened that she might not be well and yearning to see her with his own eyes, through love he turned and looked, and with his gaze she slipped away and down. He stretched out his arms, struggling to embrace and be embraced, but unlucky and unhappy he grasped nothing but the limp and yielding breezes. Now as Eurydice was dying for a second time, she did not reproach her husband for what complaint should she have except that she was loved? She uttered for the very last time a farewell that barely reached his ears and fell back once more to the same place.

The scene was dark… Not because the lights were out or anything, but because the person in question was having a hard time keeping their eyes open. Every so often, they would flutter open, before they shut themselves again.

For some reason, the young girl could just not stay up.

"May…" She felt someone shake her shoulder.

Opening her eyes again, she looked over to her right, where her mother sat down in the chair beside her. "Yes…?" She mumbled out, letting out a small yawn.

"The doctor will be seeing you soon. Please… just stay awake a bit longer."

That's right… They had gone to the doctors. She had almost forgotten about it during her daydreams. Leaning back in the chair, she hoped her new position would allow her to stay up a bit longer.

As of late… She had been unable to stay awake, whether out of boredom, or something else entirely, she was unable to explain. "It'll… Be fine…" She could already feel herself drifting back to sleep.

"Hey!" Her mother shook her again. This had been going on for the past couple of months. At first, she had ignored it, thinking she had gotten it from overworking herself. But even after school had let out for the summer, she was still doing this.

"Miss Summers?" The voice of a nurse called out. "The doctor will see you now."
Standing up from her seat, she grabbed onto May, helping her onto her feet.

For a moment, she was fully awake. "H-hey!" She called out, breaking her arm free. "I can walk by myself." Although, she felt like she had already expended most of her energy. Slowly, she followed her mom into the doctor's office.

…

The doctor had looked through all his notes. It had been several days since they had gotten the results for May, and he was mulling over how to inform the parent. The conclusion they had reached was unwavering. Setting his clipboard down on the table, he turned to look at the mother. With a heavy sigh, he shook his head. "I regret to inform you that she'd been diagnosed with type one narcolepsy." That's what everything pointed to, after all.

"Type one…" The mother trailed off. She knew what narcolepsy was. But she had no idea that there were different types to it. "What makes it type one?"

Letting out a sigh, the doctor picked up; his notebook again. "Out of the two types there are, type two is the less severe one. Type one comes with a few extra problems, including moments of muscle weakness."

Something she had clearly seen with May several times already. "Is there a cure for this…"

"First, I should go ahead and provide you all the details, then we can think about what we can do for May over here." He went back to reading his clipboard. He was only doing this because he knew there wasn't exactly a cure for narcolepsy, so he was just delaying that for a bit. "She has narcolepsy because she lacks a required brain hormone that regulates the sleep cycle, more specifically hypocretin, which is also referred to as orexin." Both names that he knew she wouldn't be familiar with, but she didn't need to know exactly what they were.

"As mentioned before, it also brings with it random muscle weakness, and excessive daytime sleepiness…" Which once again, was something he picked on immediately.

While she couldn't understand what exactly the hormones were, the message she received was loud and clear. "So… Is there any way to give her the hormones she needs?"

While there wasn't a way to specifically give her hypocretin… There was still medication she could take. He wrote down something in a notebook. "For most, this is enough to fix the issue, but others might need something stronger. Of course, some of the stronger stuff comes with side effects." And given May was pretty young, he wasn't even going to consider giving her any of that medication. "This is a prescription for Modafinil. It's the first prescription we give out when someone is diagnosed with narcolepsy. Compared to other medications, it's less addictive." And as he mentioned, it doesn't have as many side effects. "This should help with daytime sleepiness, and improving her alertness."

Taking the note for the prescription, the mother stared at it intently. "So there is no cure, is there?" She had figured as much, but it was still disappointing to find out.

"I'm afraid not…" Checking his notebook again, he read off some other things. "As well as those pills, it might be best to change her lifestyle a bit. A lot of people have found taking short naps at scheduled times helped out with their condition. Exercising regularly can also help out with the conditions." There was a lot that could be done, but in the end, it didn't mean much if the condition didn't improve. "Having a regular bedtime, and not eating a lot of food before bed are also things that can help." Setting the notebook down, he turned his attention back to the mother. "That's all I can provide you for today."

She had expected that whatever issue May was having couldn't be fixed, but a solution like this was fine as well. Slowly, she stood up from her chair. "Thank you." She nodded her head before turning to look over at May. "May… It's time to wake up."

Slowly, she stirred from her sleep. "Hmm…? I was sleeping." She tried to push her mother's arm away.

Fortunately, she had grown used to these attempts, so she didn't budge. "We need to stop by the pharmacy now."

As the two left the office, she had to hold on tightly to May's hand to make sure she followed along.

Setting her down in the car, she took off to the nearest pharmacy.

It was hard to digest… May had always been a smart kid. She had a bright future ahead of her. And then, for her to get something like this… Studying would become almost impossible for her. Which only furthered her concerns.

This medication had to work.

May had to get back to a normal state… if not… There might be no hope to her years at school. "May." She called out softly.

After a few seconds, she slowly opened up her eyes. "Yes…?" She mumbled out, rubbing her eyes. "What is it?" She had to lean her head back against the seat just to try and stay awake.

It pained her to see May like this. "We're going to get you some medication. Everything will work out perfectly."

Or… At least she hoped…

…

May's Room

For once, May was lying down on her bed, eyes wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Normally, she'd still be passed out, judging by what time it was. It was only a little before eight.

Slowly sitting up in her bed, she rubbed her tired eyes, hoping to maybe just go back to sleep.

And yet… Despite being drowsy, her mind was occupied by something else entirely. "What a… weird dream…" Or at least what she liked to believe it was.

No point staying here. If she was up, might as well meet up with the others and see what they should do next.

Cafeteria

For once, May found herself up early, actually able to attend one of the morning meetings. This was unlike her, but she felt like she had no choice, given how the last couple of days had gone. Still, it didn't mean she wasn't tired.

When the elevator door opened up, she was greeted with a good chunk of people already being there. Seems even her early is late.

Stepping out of the elevator, she moved closer to the tables.

"Oh?" Gigi was a bit surprised to see her up so early. "I thought you were going to sleep in longer."

The sleepyhead let out a small yawn. "I couldn't sleep that well…" She sat down at the table, not bothering to get herself some food.

"That seems to be… most of us." Seira looked around the room, counting everyone. "We're just missing Lorelei, Gennosuke, and Dae-Hyun." But that's about what they expected.

Given that most people were here, Gigi spoke up. "So, something we all found out yesterday. Because the elevator is offline during nighttime, I think we should simply stick to the top floors around that time. I don't want another situation like yesterday." She crossed her arms.

"I'm just glad we figured that out now." Tatiana placed a hand on her hip.

The entire time, May watched on as the conversation went on.

It was so weird.

But she couldn't place a reason why just yet.

"So, what's our game plan for today?" Gemini placed a hand on his hip. "I don't want to be trapped here any longer than we've already been here for." Understandable, especially after what happened yesterday.

"But haven't we already exhausted all of our escape routes?" Hae-Won pointed out.

The escapist believed otherwise. "Nonsense! There's still plenty I can try out. I'm not the Ultimate Escapist for nothing." He delivered a grin to her.

May was going to speak up, but something interrupted her.

"Morning!" A very familiar voice called out, floating down towards them.

Suddenly.

Otter.

"What do you want?" Gigi looked up at him, a neutral expression on her face.

"Wow, already hate my guts?" He continued to float down, noticeably sadder.

"Of course we do." Hae-Won shook her head. "You're the reason we are trapped here."

Damn! They still believed that. "Well, who cares what you think! I actually came bearing news."

"Can't imagine it's good news…" Tatiana mumbled out.

Wow! They really didn't trust him one bit. "Don't worry! It's nothing horrible or anything! In fact, this is stuff that could help you."

"Help us?" Melody repeated. That sounded hopeful, so she smiled at the thought.

"Tsk!" Atlas wasn't as easily convinced. "Helping us escape, or helping us murder?"

Quickly, the smile on her face faded away. "W-wait! No, that's bad!"

Monokawa shrugged, landing on the table. "Well, it can help you escape! By murdering!" He was playing a dangerous game being on the table like that. "But I've decided to open up a new area for you all."

That definitely caught Gemini's attention. "A new area? So soon?" He hadn't expected they would get something like that.

May tilted her head to the side. "It makes sense." Especially because of the murder that happened not too long ago. "Where is this new section?"

Finally! Someone who was really interested! Floating back up into the air, Monokawa flipped his body upside down. "I'm glad you asked! It's connected to the Omicron Sector." Which meant on the upper floor.

"Do we really need to go check it out?" Atlas didn't seem interested.

"It would probably be for the best." Seira got up from her seat.

"Huh? But we're still missing three people!" Dolly pointed out.

Most of the people had gotten up from their seats. "It's fine…" Gigi stopped right in front of the elevator. "We'll pick them up on the way there."

Omicron Sector

True to her words, as soon as the elevator door opened, Gigi made her way to the three doors in question, knocking on all of them.

"Alright! Alright!" Lorelei was the first one to get out of her room. "Geez, you don't have to annoy the hell out of me." She placed her hands in her pockets. "Bitch…" She mumbled out as she saw that the entire group was here. "What? I thought you already all did your dumb morning meeting. What do you need me for?"

"Some areas opened up." Hae-Won explained. "So we're going to go explore them now."

"Ugh…" Annoying.

At the same time, Dae-Hyun and Gennosuke would leave their room.

"Did rescue finally show up?" The psychic asked with a grin on his face. Only reason he could think they would bother him this early.

"New!" Dolly raised one hand up. "Area!" She raised the other hand up.

"Oh." Gennosuke kept his smile, but his tone of voice was dripping with disappointment.

Dae-Hyun wanted to complain, but he couldn't exactly say no to an entirely new area. "Fine… Let's go…"

It took a bit for them to find the new area, given that the door was still closed for it.

"Wait." Gigi noticed something. "The display on the scanner is green now."

Choosing to test it out, Seira walked over and scanned her watch, causing the large door to open up. "Oh. We have access to the area now." She noted.

"Well!" Edison took a step forward for exploration. "What are we waiting for?"

With zero objections, the rest of the group slowly walked through the now opened door.

Psi Sector

Stepping through the newly opened door, the group of eighteen stopped only a few feet in.

"Should we try and figure out how to divide ourselves this time?" Seira turned to look at everyone. "We could do what we did y-"

Edison quickly shook his head. "No! Let's do something else!"

"H-huh? But it worked so well last time." The astrologist defended herself.

Ian stepped forward, stopping the two from bickering. "How about we just let random chance decide it this time?" He suggested, crossing his arms.

"And how do you propose we do it by random chance?" Gigi tilted her head to the side, keeping her eyes on him."

He moved his hand quickly, and suddenly there were cards between his fingers. "Let's just draw. We can make five groups. Three of four, and two of three."

Reaching into the cards, he pulled out eighteen cards. "I've taken out the cards we will need." Quickly, he shuffled them around and leaned the deck over towards Gigi. "You can pick first."

After looking at it for a few seconds, she reached over and picked out a card. The three of hearts. "Hmm…"

"Oh! Me next! Me next!" Laki called out, reaching over for the next card. She had received the ace of clubs.

"Ah." Gemini caught on. "Are we just going to group with whoever had the same value of card as us?"

"Exactly!" Given that he spoke up, Ian moved over to Gemini. "Pick one."

Well, the escapist wasn't going to say no. Reaching over, he pulled out the three of clubs. "Alright." Seems like he was going to be paired up with Gemini.

One by one, everyone slowly picked out a card until Ian was left with the remaining card. "Alright, let's form those teams now." He wasn't going to waste any precious time.

The group that had pulled the aces consisted of Gennosuke, Ian, Laki, and Lorelei.

The group that had pulled the two consisted of Atlas, Dae-Hyun, and Melody.

The group that had pulled out the threes consisted of Gemini, Gigi, and Seira.

The group that pulled out the fours consisted of Benoit, Edison, Hae-Won, and May.

Lastly, the fives were all pulled by the final group that consisted of Benjamin, Michael, Tatiana, and Winter.

"Guess it's settled." Ian put his card back into his pockets. "I'll be needing those back." He'd take them by force if he had to.

"When do we want to meet back up?" Hae-Won glanced over at him. "I don't want to spend all day exploring the station."

Checking his watch, Ian noted that it was already past noon. "Maybe at around six?" Then they could eat and go on with their merry day. "That sounds like a plan."

The tattoo artist had no objections, so she slowly nodded her head.

"You all better not be late." Gigi felt the need to warn. "See you all then."

One by one, the groups split off, checking out different parts of the new area.

Ultimate Gambler Station

Stepping into the room, an immediate sparkle appeared in Ian's eyes as he soaked it all in. "Now this is what I'm talking about." It's like he had been transported back to the old casino's he frequented around. "See this Laki? This is the best room in the entire station."

The dazzling gold lights made it feel like it was ripped right out of Vegas.

"Woah!" Laki stepped in, taking it all in. "There's so much to do!" She bounced around.

Gennosuke also couldn't help but flash a smile. "Wow, a place like this. I knew to expect something grand from the Ultimate Gambler. But to think we'd find entertainment for once."

Lorelei quickly moved over to one of the numerous tables. "What do we even have to work with here?"

The room had three sections to it, the first section was for the slot machines, where various machines could be seen. None of them were spinning, however, as nobody had sat down to use them yet. The second area was dedicated to more table based games like blackjack and roulettes. Several different tables lined up this section, with chairs present for each. Lastly, the third section was located at the end of the room. It was a rather large bar.

Ian spent some time looking around, eventually his eyes landing above the doorway. "This is more than just a casino." A small smile formed on his face. "This is my casino." Above the doorway, was a large image of a devil playing card. "Demon gambler, after all." He placed a hand on his hip.

"Oh! Oh!" Laki could barely contain herself. "Where should we explore first?" Although, her eyes were already looking at the slot machines.

Ian shrugged. "Just explore yourself." He didn't really care.

Quickly, she bounced off towards the slot machines, leaving the three of them alone.

Gennosuke, on the other hand, had been eyeing the card games. "I'll be right back. I've been bored for a while." He took a few steps in that direction.

"Hmm…" Seems Ian was left with Lorelei. "So, how about-" She was gone. Rubbing the back of his head, he decided he might as well see what Laki was up to.

Approaching the slots, he saw that she was already sitting down at one. "Are you-"

"Hey!" She yelled out, pulling down the lever. "Why won't it work!?"

Moving over, the gambler tried to pull down the lever, but it wouldn't budge. "Hmm… Did you pay to use the slots?"

"Oooooh! No. I thought it would work. We didn't get any money, so…" The lucky student trailed off. "You wouldn't happen to have your wallet, would you?"

He patted his pockets, before shaking his head. "No." Why would he? "There'd be no point in a casino if we can't use it, so let me see if I can find some sort of currency." He moved past her, looking around the casino.

Finally, his eyes landed on an area he couldn't see from the entrance. A game corner. "Ah!" He approached it, where Lorelei was already standing by.

"I told you!" Monokawa was on the other side of the counter. "I can't just let you have any prize you want! I've got a business to run!"

"Ugh!" The cyber girl rolled her eyes, placing a hand on her hip. "Nobody has to know!"

Watching the exchange go down, Ian decided it was best to eye what the prize corner even had to offer. All that stood between them and the prizes were the glass wall that Monokawa was speaking to Lorelei through. There was a small gap at the bottom of the glass, where it connected to the counter. Probably to make some form of exchange. Behind Monokawa, were all the prizes they could win, but on first glance, they all seemed to be things one could use in a murder. "Hmm…" He walked over to Monokawa, hoping to get him out of this conversation.

The otter was about to go on another rant before he finally noticed Ian. "Finally! Someone with some game senses! Get her away from me!" He pointed to Lorelei.

The computer girl crossed her arms. "He won't just let us have the prizes. Do you not want us to kill someone? You seem to be putting a lot of restrictions on how it can happen."

"We probably have to earn money via the games here." Ian put his hands in his pockets. "Speaking of which, how do we get money to start? We can't even start the machines."

"Oh! Glad someone took the time to ask!" Monokawa floated under the counter, eventually he floated back up with a box. Dumping the contents of the box, there were exactly eighteen pouches inside, all labelled with their names. "Here you go!"

"Ah, coin pouches." That made sense. They'd need coins to progre-

When Monokawa dumped the contents of the pouches, however, they appeared to be key-cards.

"Huh." The gambler wasn't following.

"Stick your arm in here kid!" Wise advice from a psychopath.

Not trusting it one bit, but still curious, Ian slid his hand through the gap in the glass.

Quickly, the card was scanned against his watch, and a dinging sound could be heard. "Congratulations! You have a new app you can look at now! The currency app!"

He pulled his arm out, looking over at it. "Hmm…" Looking at the currency, it seemed that he had a starting amount. "A hundred coins? Is that a good amount?"

The otter shrugged. "It's more of what you make of it that's important. It could be a good amount if you know how to use it!"

"Ugh, fine." If Lorelei had to earn her way to a prize, then might as well put in the effort. They stuck their hand through the gap too, having their watch scanned.

Ian had been taking the time to look through the various options he had available to him. "Oh, there's a transfer function." He noted, tapping on it. The only option that appeared at this time was Lorelei, given she was the only other person to even have the app.

Monokawa nodded his head. "Yes! You are able to transfer coins over to anyone you want!" After a few seconds of silence, he shook his head. "Which in my mind, is a stupid idea, but what do I know?"

Lorelei let out a small laugh. "Yeah. What do you know?" Still, that was a feature to keep in mind for the future.

"Tell me." Ian took control of the conversation. "What great prizes can we win here?" He had noticed a trade feature as well, but as he didn't have enough money to purchase anything, he couldn't see any of the available options.

Floating out of the way, Monokawa allowed a greater view of the selection. "It's not much! But we felt it would be great to allow more options going forward!"

There were two sections of prizes.

Taking a look at both, it became apparent why. One was labelled limitless prizes, while the other was labelled one of a kind. Each section held a total of five items.

Humming to himself, the gambler was pretty quick on why that was. "Are those one of a kind objects meant to mean that only one person can purchase them?"

"Exactly!" Glad that someone had picked up on it. "Once someone purchases it, it's completely out of stock! So make sure you remember stuff like this…" He trailed off.

Might as well take a look at the first section.

The first one was nothing to write home about. It seemed to be a large teddy bear, like one could win at a carnival. It was priced at around five hundred coins.

The second item was simply a lighter, and it was valued at five hundred coins.

The next item was a blaster, and it was valued at a thousand coins.

"Hmm… How easy is it to win coins?" With prices like these, it shouldn't be too difficult.

Monokawa shrugged. "You'll have to play these games to find out, I guess."

The next item on the list was something labelled Double or Nothing. However, Ian quickly picked up on what that was. "Let me guess, with that, we have the chance to double our coins?"

"Yup!" Monokawa moved over to grab it. "With this, you use it before making a bet. If you win, you get double the coins you bet, but if you lose, you lose everything you bet."

To him, that meant you'd make less than double normally… so this could help out a lot. Besides, it was only fifty coins. And since it could be used over and over again… Interesting.

Lastly, there were bullets. "Bullets?" But no guns. Besides the blaster, he wasn't sure if they would work for that. "We don't even have a gun."

"Oh? There's actually one available in the motive room. It's to load that one with bullets." The otter explained.

Each bullet seemed to be valued at two hundred and fifty coins. Not something he could afford right now.

Then, his focus shifted over towards the next section of prizes.

"Oh, these look more fun." Lorelei noted, placing a hand on her hip.

Fun, but far more expensive.

The first item was a key card, similar to the one that Monokawa had just used to scan their watches with. It was valued at… five thousand coins?

"These prizes are getting pretty steep." Lorelei pointed out. "Are they even worth it? Like what does that keycard even do?"

Monokawa let out a small laugh. "Thank you for asking! That keycard allows you to gain access to a temporary app! The app allows you to be able to imitate someone else's bracelet!"

That… didn't seem all impressive. "How does that help in the long run?" Ian felt the need to ask.

The otter shrugged. "It doesn't! But it's a cool feature, so why not include it?"

Ian let out a small sigh, trailing over towards the next two items. Both of which were keys.

The first key looked ordinary, with nothing wrong with it. It was only valued at a thousand coins.

However… The next one was the special one. It was some weird key. "What does that do?" Of note, there was no price under it. "And why can't we buy it?"

"It's a secret tool that will help you out for later!" Monokawa pointed out, before shrugging. "Nova and I haven't figured out a price for it yet, so for now, you can't purchase it."

The next item was similar to the previous one. Another key card. "Is this also an app?" He crossed his arms.

"Yes! It does! Eventually, you might find that this station is just way too big. This is a map that shows off everything you need to know about this place."

"Why is there only one?" Lorelei asking the real questions. "Wouldn't a map benefit everyone?"

"Well!" Monokawa didn't have an exact answer ready, so he was forced to make one up on the spot. "That's exactly why! It's too useful for everyone to have. Had to cut it down somehow." That was a lazy explanation if she's ever seen one.

That only left the last item… "Does that say…" The gambler began to say, before Lorelei cut him off.

"Escape?" If Gemini was here, he'd go mental.

The only problem was… "One million…" It was nothing compared to everything else they had seen. "How the hell are we supposed to afford that?" Not that he was planning on escaping soon. The game hadn't offered him the fun he wanted first.

"Well!" The otter shrugged. "It's a very steep price! But if you can somehow manage to get it, you are free to go. There are escape pods somewhere on this station. You've just yet to run into them, so."

Escape pods? That was the first he's heard of them. If that were the case, they could ignore the exit completely. That seemed far safer anyways. "Alright, anything else we need to know about?"

Slowly, Monokawa slid all the pouches to the other side of the counter. "I don't really feel like waiting for everyone to show up, so how about you deliver these to everyone."

He could do that, but that also meant that explaining all of this landed on him. He eyed Lorelei, who seemed to have moved onto the bar. From what it looked like, she wouldn't put in any effort. "Yeah, I guess I could do that." Might as well describe his own Ultimate Station to everyone else.

First stop! Laki! Who was still struggling at the machine. Before she had the time to pull down the lever again, he grabbed her arm. "Hey." He called out softly, reaching over into her pouch and pulling out her keycard. "Here you go."

Scanning her watch, she attempted to pull the lever again.

This time, it lowered, and the slots began to spin.

"How much did that cost?" Ian didn't see a price, so he was curious about the entire thing.

Taking a quick look at her watch, she shrugged. "It took five coins." She answered.

Wasn't bad, but that also meant twenty mess ups and you can't even play the game anymore. "Interesting."

As the slots slowly halted, Laki was met with a winning screen. "Haha! I won!" Said the lucky student, the luckiest of them all.

The gambler made sure he kept his eyes on her watch, only to see she gained three extra coins from this. "Ah…" This was the issue here. Gaining any amount of coins would be a slog.

Moving over to the side of the slots, he was able to find a legend. It seemed to specify all the different combinations, and what you can win. "The max is only a hundred coins?" He frowned, placing his hands in his pockets. "We'll be here forever." Oh well, that was fine.

Now that he at least got Laki settled with her slots, he eyed the room around, spotting Gennosuke having a similar problem at one of the tables. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out the corresponding key card. "I'll be back."

"Damn…" Gennosuke had been trying a bit, but he couldn't get any of it to work. Hearing some footsteps, he looked over at Ian, who had approached him. "Let me guess. You figured it out?"

Chucking his card onto the table, he offered no expression. "Something like that."

While he had no idea what the keycard was for, Gennosuke's first instinct was to scan it against his watch. Once it reacted, his charming smile returned. "Interesting. A lot of thought went into this station, then."

"It better." The gambler sat down besides the psychic. "I would hope that they put effort into mine."

Gennosuke looked over, eventually finding a scanner he could scan his watch on. Suddenly, a robot slowly rose out of the table. "Is that…?"

"The dealer?" Ian moved his arm over to scan his own watch. "Interesting. I guess we can't just play cards like normal here." Even if he had a deck of his own. "This must be another way we can win money, after all." He leaned his head on his hand. "I wouldn't mind playing a game or two."

Gennosuke had nothing better to do, and the thought of going against the Ultimate Gambler at a card game did interest him. "Yeah, I'm game." He flashed a charming smile. "But are you sure you want to go against me?"

If he was actually a psychic, this would be a problem. But Ian knew better to believe in such a thing. "Yeah, I think I'll be fine."

"So, let's just play one hand." Ian suggested, realising that they couldn't waste all of their time here. "How about that?"

One hand? That was a bit underwhelming, but Gennosuke wasn't going to deny it. "Sure thing."

Once the game was started, two panels opened up, both with a clicker of some kind.

"Hmm?" From the looks of the object, it looked like a long stick with a button at the top, almost like a weird buzzer. "What's this for?"

Gennosuke had already figured out what it could be. "If you see here." He pointed over towards the display on the table. "This is how you call and bet. And fold, which you'll be doing."

Right, pressing the buttons a certain amount of times in a row would cause different effects to happen. "But then, what about the amount we'd bet?"

The psychic wasn't too sure about that one. "I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually." Since it was his turn first, he decided to just check and let it pass over to the robot, who followed suit.

Ian, on the other hand, was a bit curious. When he hit the clicker twice to raise, he was prompted on the screen he scanned his watch to give in an amount. "Oh." He just put in fifty, which was half his money. "Alright, let's get started." He offered a cheeky smile.

Gennosuke wasn't too pleased about that, but he wasn't going to back down. "You might be the Ultimate Gambler, but you can't win every hand."

Oh. He could.

And he did.

As the game concluded, Ian had barely managed a better hand than Gennosuke. He had gotten lucky and had a better pair than him. "Sucks to suck." Now he had a hundred and fifty coins. A hundred away from affording a bullet. What a king.

Slowly getting up from the table, Gennosuke shook his head. "Alright, you got me there." He was done playing. It was hard to read the mind of someone like Ian. "I'm going to go see what else this room has to offer.

"Yeah, sure." The gambler didn't really care at the moment. He was too busy looking through the various other things he could do with the app.

Gennosuke had moved away from the card game. Seems beating Ian at his own game would be a bigger challenge than he would have thought originally. "Hmm…" The next area he had moved over towards seemed to be the bar, where Lorelei was hanging around. In fact, she already had a drink.

Raising an eyebrow, he sat down beside her. "Aren't you too young to be drinking?" He didn't know her age, but appearance would dictate she had to be on the younger side.

Looking over at him, she returned him a mocking face. "We're in space. We don't have any rules here." Unlike a certain other author. I condone underage drinking. Wait? What's that? That's illegal! Pfft! Who cares :D

True. There were several countries out there that had a low age limit for drinking. But space? Ha… There were no such restrictions here. "I'll take whatever she is having." He was too young to drink alcohol in his own country, but might as well indulge here. While here, he decided to scan the area. While there was a counter blocking them from simply walking in, there was nothing stopping them from jumping over the railing and grabbing what they wanted. "Hmm…" Lining the back wall were several different bottles of alcohol. "There are a lot of choices here. Have you drank before?"

"My parents always keep alcohol at home. Probably never noticed me stealing any." Still, the drink was a bit stronger than what she was expecting.

Moving his focus back over, he noticed the robot who was preparing the drink. It was weird to have one here, but there was also one at the table earlier. Maybe this whole place was supposed to sell the illusion of an actual casino. "Guess it wouldn't be one if we had to serve ourselves." As he spoke, the robot slowly approached him, giving him a glass of alcohol. It felt intimidating, so he turned his attention over towards the back of the bar.

Without taking a sip of his drink, he slowly got up. "I'm curious about this, so let me try something out." The psychic moved over to the other side of the bar, where there was a small opening. As soon as he attempted to enter the back of the bar, however.

"Not another step!" A robotic voice called out, quickly making their way over to him. "You are not allowed beyond this point!"

Still, he wasn't going to give up without- SHOVE! He felt himself fall down from the force that the robot exerted on him. "Well…" He winced in pain as he had landed on his back. "No easy way around that." Standing back up, he wobbled over towards his seat again.

"I think you should try that again." Lorelei had found it entertaining, so she was hoping to see a repeat."

Grabbing his glass, Gennosuke shook his head. "You're free to try it yourself."

"No way, I'm a delicate girl." She lied, sipping her drink.

Eyeing the bar one last time, that seemed to be everything that was here. Alcohol, and a robot who didn't want them moving to the other side. Taking a sip of his own drink, he quickly found the taste repulsive. "You drink this?" He raised an eyebrow, placing the drink on the counter. "I think I'm done with this room." He hadn't had a single good thing happen to him since getting here.

Quickly moving over to grab his drink, Lorelei rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Suit yourself." She wasn't going to let it go to waste.

Well, maybe there was another room he could explore out there.

However, his eyes trailed off to the side when he… noticed something off. "Is that… a metal cable?" He didn't know what it was for, but off in the back of the room, there was a metal cable protruding out of the ground, and attaching itself to the wall. That would be something he'd need to keep in mind. It didn't seem like the others had noticed yet.

Ultimate Referee Station

Opening the door, Gemini was the first person to step inside the room. "Oh." He looked around.

From the looks of it

It seemed to be some sort of game room. "Interesting."

However, it was Gigi who was able to figure out just exactly what it was. "Is this…?" While at first glance, it might not appear it, she quickly realised it was her station. "This room is mine."

"Huh?" Seira took another look around. "This isn't exactly what I imagined the Ultimate Referee Station to look like." Then again, now that she put some thought into it, she wasn't sure what a station like that would look like.

"As stated before, I'm more than just a referee for a specific sport. In fact, I'm more than just a referee for sports in general." She had been made to watch many different games. She'd be damned if she stopped at sports.

The entire station looked like a game room of sorts. In the back of the room were two sets of monitors, both displaying a different room somewhere in the facility. In a different corner, there was a table set up, with rows of games beyond that.

The group split up to investigate the Ultimate Station.

First thing Gigi did was approach the monitors. She didn't say anything as she stared at them intently.

"Huh… What are you looking at?" Gemini found it weird for there to be more monitors, given there was already a security room.

"Interesting." Was all she had to comment about at first. "These monitors…" She trailed off. "They're exactly like those one would find in a casino." She was staring at the Ultimate Gambler Station.

They were? Well that was probably cool. But it still raised the question. "Why?"

"Because…" She trailed off. "The monitors in the security room only show one camera for every room, while these ones show off multiple. All aimed at the various tables." More specifically, she could see Ian and Gennosuke playing against the robot. "It's to check for anyone who might be cheating." She kept her eyes focused on Ian, but he made no attempt to cheat, from the looks of it. "As mentioned before, sports aren't my only area of expertise. If there's someone to watch over a game, I can do it."

Soon, Gemini's eyes moved over to the next set of monitors. "And this looks like… a soccer field."

"These cameras work a little differently." Gigi moved over to the control panel. There were several commands that she could check out. Namely a rewind function, and a pause function. Testing it out, she pressed rewind under one of the monitors. Quickly, she saw the footage rewind. However, after a few seconds, it stopped. "Hmm…" The time stamp in the bottom corner indicated that it was an hour ago. "Interesting. Unlike the security room, we can actually check back on old footage." She did just that, but didn't find anything of note, given nobody had entered the room yet. "But the footage is only backed up to up to an hour." That's at least what she could find from quickly looking around.

Next, she paused the footage, which allowed her a few more options. Now she could navigate the image with the control panel, allowing her to zoom into the image. "Ah, I see."

This seemed way better than the normal security room. Then why was it only here? "What's the purpose of that?"

"Sometimes it's best to review footage on a game, to see if it's best to call for a penalty." She reached over to grab her whistle. "Most referees would need this to check, given their faulty memories. However I wouldn't need this at all." If she saw a penalty, there was no doubt in her mind. "However, I can see some people who might have problems with how I call things." Namely someone like Atlas stood out. "So this exists if I need to prove my claim."

Despite not wanting to, Gemini's mind had wandered off to how this would be useful in… Quickly shaking his head, he looked at the console. "Anything else of note with this?"

Gigi couldn't find anything, so she just shook her head. "No, that about sums it up." She stepped away from the monitor. "We should probably find somewhere else to check." Namely, she saw the corner with the table. "You're free to investigate my station, but please don't mess anything up."

Not that he would. "Alright." He stepped away from the monitors to go somewhere else.

Namely, there was a display of things that he had associated with Gigi already, like a whistle, and some more pairs or her black and white gloves. "Hmm…" He crossed his arms, but couldn't make out why they'd really be here. Gigi already had those in her room, did she not?

But, that wasn't the only thing that was here, there were also several different cards. More specifically yellow and red cards used for penalties. He grabbed one of the yellow ones, turning towards Gigi. "He-"

But she was already quicker on the draw. She had already presented him with a yellow card, blowing her whistle. "Penalty for impersonating a referee."

Oh! Well! Damn! Gemini let out a small laugh before putting away the yellow card, tilting his head down. "Was just messing around, hope you don't-" When he finally looked up, she had already gone off somewhere else. "Oh." Well that was no fun. Time to look further into this room, then.

Seira, on the other hand, had been looking through all the various games here. "There's a lot." But more specifically, there were a lot of rule booklets. "Why so many…?"

After a few seconds, Gigi approached her. "I'm not too into board games, but they still have rules, so it's fun to learn up on."

"Oh- you must really love rules." Not that Seira had any doubts, given how quickly she memorised the rules of the game.

"It's nice to know in case I'm placed in a position where my knowledge is needed." However, her eyes quickly glance behind Seira, spotting something. "Oh?" She reached over, pulling out a book. "They really…" She found it hard to believe that they'd know to put this in her station… "Dungeon and Dragons."

Now Seira was having a really hard time believing that. "Are you interested in something like that?"

The referee's eyes darted to the side. "Something like that." She opened the book, looking through the contents. Yup, this was the player's handbook exactly as she had remembered. "I've hosted a game or two." Long pause. "Or several."

"Huh?" That caught the astrologist by surprise. "You've hosted your own games?"

Quickly closing the book, she placed it down on the table. "Yes. Crafting a world like that has always been fun. As is running it." Besides, being in charge of the world was a bonus too. "Though I'm not an expert at it." She had received comments pertaining to the story she was trying to tell. However, not that she was thinking about it. "It's a great thing to pass the time, so if the people were willing, I wouldn't be opposed to running one here."

"Oh!" Well, Seira had never played before, but if some of the others wanted to, she could at least try. "If you get the people for it."

Gigi would want at least four people, but if she couldn't manage that, she'd settle for three. "First, we should get back to exploring the rest of the station."

Oh right, she had gotten a bit distracted. "I'm going to see what Gemini was doing." Mostly because he seemed to be investigating something else entirely.

The escapist was knelt down next to a hatch on the floor. "Hmm…" He reached over for the handle, but it didn't budge when he pulled on it. Not that he expected it to, given the lock on it.

"What are you looking at?" Seira leaned forward to get a better view.

"Trying to see if I can get this open." After all, the escapist wouldn't let something like this go unopened. "Maybe we should see if there's a key somewhere." He slowly stood up, glancing around. "Gigi." He called out in her direction. "If you find a key, let me know!"

She glanced at his direction, nodding her head. "Very well." At the moment, she was looking through the various things near the table.

Looking at it, Seira thought of an idea. "Maybe it leads to the lower floor?"

That wasn't a bad thought. "You might be right. But we're not above any location we have access to on the first floor." Did that mean that this wouldn't open at all until then? He didn't like the thought of that.

Still, focusing all his time on this area wasn't going to do him any good. Instead, he took a look around the area. Next to the hatch, was a large water dispenser. "Hmm?" It felt out of place, but as someone who works with sports all day, it might be vital.

Finally, his eyes glanced over to the side, to the one thing he didn't want to bring attention to.

A door. Slowly, he moved over towards it. It was all the other doors in the station; it had its own scanner. Bringing his watch to the scanner, nothing happened. "Ah."

"Let me try." Seira offered, but she was met with the same results.

"... Gigi!" Gemini called out, looking over at her. "Do you mind checking this out?" Besides, maybe because it was her station, it would work for her watch.

The referee put down what she was looking at, and approached them. "What is it?" That's when she noticed the door, and it didn't take long to figure out what they wanted. However, similar to the results of the other two, nothing happened when she scanned her watch. "It didn't even decline." She crossed her arms. She knew about the door in the security room, but that one at least told them they weren't allowed in. "Maybe this is something we should ask Nova about."

That's what he feared would be the case. "I guess so…" Would Nova even provide them the information they wanted? "I think that's pretty much it for the Ultimate Station." Compared to what they found in Dae-Hyun's Ultimate Station, this felt a bit underwhelming. Maybe there was more to it than meets the eye, however. Namely the hatch and door. "Are we good to go?"

"Oh." Gigi said flatly, staring straight at him. She wasn't sure she wanted to leave quite yet. There were several things she wanted to take a look at. But, for the time being, it made sense to move on. The things she wanted to look at were purely for her own interests. "We can leave now."

As the two of them, Seira couldn't help but take a look at the door. Something was bugging her in the back of the head. About this entire room, for that matter. Quickly shaking her head, she joined up with the rest.

Ultimate Physiotherapist Station

The next group to enter a room was the one belonging to Benoit, Edison. Hae-Won, and May.

However, upon seeing the room they had situated themselves in, Benoit's expression changed completely. "This is…" He trailed off, looking around in wonder.

This had been almost identical to the room he had worked in.

Quickly, the man took a few more steps into the room, looking on with wonder. "I think this is… my Ultimate Station."

"Huh… Looks pretty neat." Hae-Won looked around. "A room like this feels more welcoming than any of the other rooms we had seen." These Ultimate Stations sure were something, even if they had only seen one other so far.

May, however, didn't feel like doing any investigation at the moment. She approached the bed in the center of the room. "It doesn't look too comfy…" But she had slept on worse things, so she didn't seem to mind. Slowly she got on, lying down.

Benoit approached her. "That's an adjustable treatment table." He began to explain, even though there was a chance she wouldn't hear any of it. "It's used to tend to patients." More specifically one of the methods he did so, at the very least. "Do you… need treatment?"

Slowly, the sleepy girl raised her head up, thinking for a moment. "... No…" Although, something did come to her mind. "Can this help treat weird dreams?"

"Um…" Well he wasn't well versed in dreams at all, that wasn't exactly his domain. But he was always eager to help. "Can you tell me about your dream…?"

Letting out a small yawn, she lowered her head again. "They're hard to describe… Just a sense of… I don't remember what it was called." Which sounded like a small lie, but she didn't want to elaborate. "It's just a vague dream of memories."

While the two were talking about that, Hae-Won found it best to investigate the room for herself. Her first look was something in the corner of the room. Or… Several things. "Hmm… These are probably exercise balls."

Edison went moving one around. "Oh wow! They're bouncy!" He could take this entire thing seriously, but now he felt like a kid again. He picked one up effortlessly. "I wish they were bigger." There we go, Edison wishing for bigger b-

"Well…" Benoit spoke up, interrupting my narrative joke. "They come in various sizes… Those ones are smaller, but they should test the same thing…"

"Which is?" Hae-Won seemed at least a little interested about learning all of this.

"Balance, mostly. People who are recovering might not to… recover some motor skills, so these are a great way to do so.." He said in a soft tone.

Edison placed the exercise ball on the floor, and then sat down on it. "Haha! My balance is-" He was on the floor now. "Woah."

Well, Benoit wasn't expecting someone like Edison, who had full range of his body, to fall that easily. "Were you… injured at any point?"

Oh hell no. He wasn't getting physiotherapy! "I'm fine." He got back up. Adjusting his goggles, he looked around the room some more. "So this is all equipment for your job?"

"More or less, yes…" Benoit took a look around the room. "I can tell you what everything is, if you want."

Slowly, Hae-Won nodded her head. "I would appreciate it." However, before they could move on, she noticed that May was still on the table. "What was wrong with her?"

"Um…" Not even he knew. "She made a vague mention of a dream about… school… Or something." He wasn't sure what to make of it. "I think it's best if we just let her sleep."

The tattoo artist had no qualms with that. Moving on, she approached the next item on the list. "These are…?" From the looks of it, they were large bands that seemed like they could bend.

"Oh… Those are resistance bands." He grabbed one, and stretched it out a bit. "They are also used to treat patients…" Slowly, he let go so that it would accidentally hit someone. "Patients can use these to slowly stretch, and build back their strength."

At best, they seemed like a rather large rubber band, but if it helped with patients, she could see the appeal. Her attention was next caught by a weird device. "Your station has a lot of things"

Following her gaze, Benoit moved over to the device.

However, before he could say anything, Edison spoke up instead. "Oh! That's electrotherapy equipment." He took a step forward, getting a better look at it. He always loved seeing technology, so he recognised it on sight. "It works by sending gentle electrical pulses through the skin."
Slowly. Benoit nodded his head, happy that someone else knew what this did. "Yes… They are used to aid pain control… They are vital to the process and most physiotherapists will have one." He pulled out one of many wires. "It tricks the brain by interrupting pain signals… And also helps release endorphins."

Edison quickly nodded his head. "For those who don't know, that's a natural painkiller." Edison found himself in a room where two of the three other people would probably know what that is.

The only person who didn't seem to know what Hae-Won, but that wasn't her area of expertise. "Interesting…" She slowly nodded her head. "They send out only weak signals, right?"

"Yes." Benoit nodded his head. "Not enough to hurt someone…" He didn't want to think of a version of this that caused pain.

Next up, not far from there, were two sets of equipment. Treadmills, and some exercise bikes. "Ah, even things like this here." Hae-Won cracked a smile, seeing them. "I suppose this is for a more advanced level."

Benoit nodded his head. "Yes… One of the last things they'd have to use on their route to recovery… In the case of leg injury, this is what would allow them to have a safe environment to run or test out a bike."

Hae-Won moved onto the treadmill, starting it up. "Hmm…" She hummed out as she began to walk at a leisurely pace. "Are these any different from regular treadmills, or are they limited?"

"They… They should be the same." Benoit explained.

Good. She wanted a decent place to run a bit, and the exercise bike could be fun to use as well.

Having had her fun, she got off the bike, looking around to see if there was anything else of note in the room.

"Where's the mirror?" Edison finally asked, looking around. "I thought rooms like these were supposed to have mirrors."

"Oh… Um…" Well Benoit had a hard time to reveal that information, but he didn't really have a choice, didn't he? "Yes… They normally do. Mirrors are used to help with visual feedback. It helps a patient see how they are moving their body… However… I think it might be missing from here because I don't like having glass in my room." And from the looks of it, they lumped in mirror into that as well.

"Hmm?" Hae-Won raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Well… I had a really bad accident with glass years ago…" He lifted up his sleeve to reveal some of his scars. "Ever since then, I can't really go near glass without feeling uneasy."

Seeing how bad those scars were, Hae-Won could understand at the very least. "I'm sorry that happened to you." The world was a cruel place.

"I think that's about it!" Edison nodded, realising that they had investigated pretty much everything in the room. "Pretty interesting things." He adjusted his goggles.

"Should we…" Benoit's focus was changed over to May, who was still lying down on the table.

Realising that she was being spoken about, she slipped off the table. "Don't worry… I'm awake." She tried to fall asleep, but she had been having a hard time for once. Something kept occupying her mind. "Sorry I didn't help with investigating…"

"O-Oh! Don't worry about it." The physiotherapist shook his head slowly. "You don't need to investigate if you don't want to…"

"Although, it would have been better." Hae-Won pointed out, walking over to the door. "Given that we took the time to do so." Still, if she was tired, she couldn't exactly do something about that.

"Do you… by chance have narcolepsy?" Benoit felt like he might be the most qualified to ask questions like that.

"... Yeah… I was diagnosed while I was younger. And ever since then…" She trailed off, straining to keep her eyes open. "I've been like this…"

"I can't possibly imagine being like that." Edison shook his head, adjusting his goggles. "What about studying? Or school?"

"Studying…?" Oh no, she didn't do any of that. "I just go to school and take the tests." They were easy after all. So easy she could just do them in her sleep.

"H-huh?" This caught the chemist by surprise, given how much time he had dedicated to studying chemistry. "Haha…" He let out a rather nervous laugh, glancing off to the side. The very thought that someone could excel at school without even trying filled him with a bit of jealousy… But he would just cast that thought out of his head.

This was an interesting conversation, but Hae-Won did want to keep exploring around. "Alright…" She trailed off, taking another step towards the door. "You don't have to follow me, but a conversation like this can be had after we are done exploring this new sector." She didn't want to join back up with the group and only have the information about this one room.

"O-Oh!" Benoit quickly moved over towards the door. "Right, we can talk about this after…"

May joined up with the group, letting out another tired yawn. "Fine by me…"

Ultimate Soccer Player Station

Opening the door, Atlas was forced to remain in stunned silence.

While the station up to this point had felt cold and distant… For the first time, he encountered a room that had a welcoming aura. "This place…." He took a step into the room.

"Hmm…" Dae-Hyun hummed out, looking around. He was glad at the very least that his was not the only Ultimate Station to be accessible now. "Your station."

"Oh wow!" Melody looked around. While she wasn't the biggest sports fan, she could at least appreciate the room for what it was.

The room wasn't too big, and was much smaller than a standard soccer field. However, it was still large enough that playing on it wouldn't feel too cramped.

The field was made of fake grass, typical of an actual soccer field. On both ends, were goals for either team, as well as a scoreboard in the back. The score was set to zero for both sides, given no games had been played so far.

In the center of the field, was a single soccer ball.

Wasting no time, Atlas ran over to it, kicking it towards the goal. And he hit it dead on, scoring a goal. When the ball passed through the net, loud fireworks went off behind the net.

"W-woah!" Melody had a smile on her face. "Isn't that the bee's knees? Why Atlas, your Ultimate Station is amazing." And she hadn't even seen most of it.

Taking a moment to take it all in, Atlas started turning in place. "Finally!" Although it hadn't been that long since he got stuck here, he missed the thrill of playing soccer.

Around the soccer field, was an area dedicated for seating, so anyone could watch.

Lastly, out in the open, there was a door in the far right corner. "Hmm…" Atlas approached the door, taking a look at it. "Might be where they keep all the supplies." With a swift kick, he scanned his watch.

Except. The door didn't open. "Huh?" Instead, it made a different noise altogether.

"Oh goodie!" Nova called out, standing beside Atlas.

He almost kicked her, since she appeared out of nowhere.

However, she didn't flinch. "No need to get violent. I love explaining jobs as they pop up."

"Why the hell is there a job in my Ultimate Station?" He narrowed his eyes. All of this sounded like a poor idea.

"Well!" Nova didn't have the best explanation, but she tried to deliver anyway. "We try to open up two new jobs with each new section of the station. But there wasn't much here."

"What does this job allow you to do?" Dae-Hyun approached, having moved closer.

Happy that people wanted to learn more, she clapped her hands together. "It's pretty basic, actually. The job allows you access to the entire storage unit of this Ultimate Station. This is where all the sporting equipment is."

"And… you made that a job." Atlas narrowed his eyes. "What the hell? Why limit that to one person."

"Oh! Don't be mistaken! Two people can accept this job." Pfft. One person. "I would be too picky to only let one person have access to this job."

Oh, that made some form of sense. Quickly, he turned to the other two people in the room. "Do any of you want the job?"

"Not really." Dae-Hyun placed his hands in his pockets.

Melody shook her head. "I'd have no reason to."

Well, he didn't exactly want to leave it open for someone random to take it. "Tsk, whatever. I'll bring it up in the meeting." And since he was the only one who had access to this room…! He scanned his watch and moved in before the others could.

"Huh…" Melody just stood there, watching the door closed. "We aren't going to follow the fella?"

Dae-Hyun shrugged, turning towards the rest of the Ultimate Station. "We might as well just take the time to investigate this place." While they could see a lot from a cursory glance, there were bound to be things they missed.

The first place the two of them decided to explore was the large scoreboard. After Atlas had scored, one of the points changed to one. "Seems the score tracking is automatic." The talent manager noted.

"Oh! And did you see those fireworks? We just have to see how they work." Melody hummed to herself as she tapped her foot around. Seems she had a lot of energy this morning.

Energy Dae-Hyun could do without at the moment, but he wasn't going to ask her to stop. Stepping to the other side of the scoreboard, he didn't find anything near the ground. But the real interesting thing was what was behind it. "Hmm…" Looking up, he noticed a large box with wires coming out of it. "Is that what powers it?"

Asking out loud was pointless, because he was stuck with Melody, and she wouldn't know. "I would suppose so." She placed a hand on her hip. "Wouldn't it make sense for it to be?"

Probably. That wasn't the only thing he saw when looking at the back of the scoreboard. There appeared to be sensors on the back as well. "It's too far. We should see if there's a ladder nearby."

"Maybe in the storage room." Melody suggested. "We could ask Atlas when he comes back."

The question was more so how long it would take Atlas to actually navigate the room. Especially considering he was alone, and lacking important limbs. "I think that's all we'll find out from this scoreboard for now.

He stepped back on the field, glancing around at what else there even was.

"Shall we check out the goals?" Melody quickly moved over to the other end of the field, stopping a bit away from it. "When Atlas scored, the room really lit up."

Slowly, Dae-Hyun approached the same goal. "Probably just some form of theatrics." Still, the very idea that fireworks could shoot off in such a closed off space didn't make him feel great. One wrong step and he could see this killing someone. He didn't want to have to worry about that.

Kneeling down to get a better look, he noticed that there were sensors. "Hmm…" He stood back up, taking a few steps away. "Melody, could you kick the ball into the goal. I want to see what happens."

"On it." While she wasn't a soccer player, she was good at moving her feet around. While she wasn't as accurate as Atlas, she still managed to score a goal, given she was unopposed.

As soon as the soccer ball passed into the net, Dae-Hynu saw the sensors flash red before the fireworks went off. He was standing awfully close, so he was forced to take a step back. "Damn…" Really. Someone could die like this.

"Oh! The score went up again." Melody smiled proudly at her own achievement. "Hey, you should take a shot too, I'd hate to be the only one playing around, ya know?"

Slowly, the talent manager shook his head. "No. Maybe after we're done taking a look at the entire station." He didn't want to leave the risk of something going wrong.

The next spot was a little bit off the field, but it definitely had some allure to it. "It's just… A box."

Well, calling it a box wouldn't be the entire truth. It was more than just a box. It was more like a penalty box.

"But…" Melody walked around it, trying to find a place to enter. "We can't get in… This whole thing is baloney…"

Which was weird. "Hmm…" Feeling around the penalty box, he found that the entire thing wasn't completely connected. "This is the door." He banged on the side facing the soccer field. "But opening it is a different issue entirely." Maybe something around here could open it up. For now, it was pointless. "Let's just move on."

That left them with just one more area to check out before they had to go talk to Atlas… The audience seats.

Melody was the first one to make it there, walking up the stairs. "This sure is a lot of seats." She chose a random one, looking on at the game. "I wonder if we could have our own game here."

"If we did, I'd have to decline." Dae-Hyun slowly walked up the stairs behind her. At a first glance, he didn't seem to notice anything off about the seats. At a second glance, that stayed the same. At a third glance-

"These are just normal seats." He finally noticed. However, there was one area that caught his interest. "Hmm?" He walked over to an area that didn't have any seats. "This seems like a place someone would stand to watch the game."

"Huh?" Melody tilted her head to the side. "Why would you want to stand to watch the game?" That was confusing. There were so many seats that it didn't feel necessary.

However, Dae-Hyun quickly noticed why one would want to. "A control panel?" He mumbled out. He hovered his hand over some of the buttons. There were two that were meant to change the numbers, and one to change the colour to red or yellow. But besides that, he didn't quite understand it that much. He'd add that to the list of things he would need to ask Atlas about.

He tried pressing them, but nothing happened. "Whatever."

"Is that everything?" Melody stood up from her seat. "We should go meet up with him."

Not that they had much of a choice. It was all in the hands whenever Atlas left the room. "Yeah…"

Storage Room

Now that he was on the other side, he realised this might have not been the best idea. "Dammit…" There were a lot of things in the storage room, and most of it he wouldn't be able to sort through quickly.

"Honestly, sometimes I feel like you think after you act." Nova had followed him into the room.

"Nobody invited you." He barked at her. "What are you even doing here?"

She placed a hand over her heart. "Oh my." Her expression changed to sadness. "And here I was, offering my sincere help. Do you not want it?"

Mumbling something under his breath, he continued further into the room. "Whatever."

Quickly, Nova's expression changed back to joy. "Just ask me anything, and I'd be more than welcome to look around."

The problem was… there was just so much to sort through. "Just give me a minute, will you." He quickly glanced around the room. He recognised most of what everything was, given it was soccer related, but to see the room so disorganised. "Do you ever clean up after yourself?"

"Oh dear me… Monokawa loves playing soccer, so he must have messed up the room before you all arrived."

That was a funny thought. "He plays soccer?"

"Well!" She couldn't bring herself to lie. "He actually just likes floating around with the soccer ball. He finds it fun. However, he doesn't seem to have any spatial awareness when he plays around, leading to this…" She let out a sad sigh.

"Tsk." Atlas moved forward. The first place he wanted to check was in the far right corner. "Hmm…" It seemed to be a display of soccer balls. "That's a lot." About twenty different ones were on display, all identical. "Do we really need that many?"

"They aren't the most durable material, so I don't see the harm of having multiple." Nova shrugged.

What? Did she think he was going to accidentally explode a few of them? … Maybe. However, that wasn't the only thing he noticed in this room. "Huh?" Stepping over to the corner, he noticed something easily recognisable. A tube that went up into the ceiling. "Say… This is that locker room stuff, isn't it?"

"Yup! As mentioned before, these lockers connect to the entire station. You are bound to find them everywhere."

That was going to be important to keep in mind. "Right…" That was this corner of the room figured out, so moved in deeper into the room, eventually finding some lockers. Although they were different from the locker room. "Why have two locker rooms?"

"Oh!" She had followed him like a puppy. "These lockers here don't actually lock."

"... Then why make them lockers?"

Nova shrugged. "Aesthetic purposes. We didn't fully keep this in mind when designing the station."

Well, might as well take a look at them. Moving over, he peered into all the lockers. "Oh…" He nudged the locker open fully, revealing some jerseys. "That's simple enough." They all had numbers on the back like one would expect. "Do we need these?"

"While technically no, it makes using your station much easier if everyone has a jersey." Nova explained. "I just thought it would be neat to have."

If they didn't need them, then there was no point in having them. Atlas kept moving down, passing the rest of the lockers, until eventually he reached an area with an assortment of equipment. He saw things like a ladder, a large cart, air pumps, all just various things. "Nothing much of interest here…" He noted, stepping away from them. "Is that all?" Because now he was starting to feel like he wasted his time. Nothing here really screamed useful to me.

Nova shrugged. "Hey, not everything needs to be used in a murder. Is that what you are trying to figure out?"

"Tsk! As if." He pushed past her, making his way over towards the scanner, with another kick, he was able to get through.

Ultimate Soccer Player Station

Where he would be greeted by both Dae-Hyun and Melody. "What do you fucks want?" He narrowed his eyes.

Dae-Hyun didn't really care about the attitude, so he proceeded like normal. "We just wanted to know what was in that room. We're looking for a ladder."

"Yeah, there was one. Why do you want it?"

The talent manager nudged his head in the direction of the scoreboard. "We just want to check out the scoreboard. There was something that caught my attention."

"Oh!" Melody tapped her foot on the ground. "And ya can't forget about the penalty box we found."

"That too."

Damn… Seems they were able to find more than he ever did. "Yeah, let me get you the ladder." Moving back over to the storage door, he opened up the door with a swift kick.

Once inside, it didn't take long for Dae-Hyun to find the ladder. "Here it is." A bit bigger than he was expecting, but it wasn't too difficult to move. Besides, he didn't want to force Melody to help him. And Atlas… well… Yeah.

Once back outside, the talent manager moved over towards the back of the scoreboard. Positioning the ladder, he was able to climb up a decent amount of the way up. "Huh…" What he had seen earlier weren't sensors… In fact, from the looks of it, they were meant to push down onto something, in this case, a button. "Hey, Melody." He called out, but he had no urgency in his voice. "Mind telling me if the score board changes."

"Got it!"

Once he knew she was in position, he pressed down on the button.

"Oh! The score went up!" He had figured as much.

While up there, he turned his attention to the device powering the entire thing. It wasn't a device he had seen before, but it resembled a car battery that could hook onto things. In this case, it was hooked onto the scoreboard. "Hmm…" Slowly, he climbed down the ladder, moving back onto the center of the field. "There's one more thing I want your help with."

"What?" Atlas didn't feel like he should even bother helping more. And yet, here they were, demanding him to do so. "What is it?"

Covering his mouth slightly, Dae-Hyun's attention shifted over towards the penalty box. "I was wondering if you knew how to open that?"

"Like hell I would. I've never seen something like that before." Although, he could only assume it was a penalty box. But they were never like that before. "You didn't find anything for that around here?"

"Well!" Melody danced her way over, stopping only a few feet away. "We did find a weird control panel in the seats."

That caught Atlas' interest, so he moved over to the other side of the seats, eventually his eyes landing on the control panel. "Oh? This?" He hadn't seen anything like this before, but it didn't take long to figure out what it was for. Given that he was already wearing a jersey, maybe it would work for him. "Hey, change it to my jersey number, and give me a yellow card." Jumping over the wall, he made his way onto the field.

Melody seemed rather eager to help. "On it!" She quickly changed the display to his number, and quickly slammed the yellow button.

Quickly, the penalty box began to lower. "Penalty, two minutes." Was what was called out.

"Oh!"

Atlas knew what this meant, and approached the area where the box was. Quickly, it rose up, trapping him inside.

Dae-Hyun approached the box. "Can you hear us?"

"Hear you? I can fucking see you. This is a one way wall." The sound of him kicking the inside of the box could be heard. Then he realised something. "Wait. I have to stay here for two fucking minutes?" Bro was pissed.

Melody tried taking a look at the control panel, but there was no way to stop the timer. "Sorry Atlas, you have to wait." She wished she could help him out.

Once the timer was finished, the penalty box lowered, and Atlas was allowed to step out. As soon as he did, the penalty box rose back up.

"What the hell…" This was the stupidest thing possible. "What kind of bullshit is that?"

Dae-Hyun on the other hand, didn't really care. "Hey, at least you'd still be able to watch the game." But from the looks of it, that was all that they could explore in this room. "I think I'm ready to leave." He moved over closer to the door. "We should go meet up with the others soon."

Monorail

The trio of Gemini, Gigi, and Seira made their way to the end of the hallway, where a strange station waited for them.

"Huh…" Gigi placed a hand on her hip, looking in front of her. For the most part, it seemed like a train station. They could get a train currently stopped at the station.

Gemini scratched the back of his head. "What's something like this doing on a space station?"

Seira also found herself to be confused. "This… Doesn't match with how I think a station would work."

While it made next to no sense, Gigi approached the station, glancing over at the scanner in front of the doors. "Hmm…" She scanned her bracelet, allowing for the door to open up. "Might as well explore."

The two of them followed her in, taking in the surroundings. "Woah…" Not that they should be surprised, given how the station already looked, but. "This is really well kept." Gemini noted.

"Yes, I agree." Gigi walked down the aisles of seats, looking around. There were several other doors, all with their own scanners, however, the doors were blocked on the outside by the station walls.

"Why does this station need one?" Seira looked around at all the pretty star patterns on the seat. She wished the trains back home were like this.

"Oh! That's simple." A voice called out, startling all but Gigi.

Glancing over, Nova was sitting in one of the many seats. "Because of the conditions of the elevator, as you found out yesterday, we needed another method for you all to travel to the lower floor."

"Huh?" Gemini scratched the back of his head. "But I don't remember there being one downstairs."

"..." Nova's face vanished completely before reappearing with a worried expression. "W-well… Not yet at the very least! But when the station opens up more, there will be a method to reach those areas even at night."

Since she was here, Gigi wasn't going to waste this opportunity to ask her questions. "How does this work, anyways?"

Standing up, Nova began to move over towards the front of the train. "There are two locations where you can do this, but I'll just save us the effort and show you the first one."

Once she reached the front, a different scanner was visible. "Here, you are allowed to scan your bracelet and choose a destination."

Gemini wasted no time and scanned his own bracelet. However, nothing happened. "What's the meaning of that?" He crossed his arms.

Nova let out a small sigh. "Unfortunately, there are no other stations at this time. So this area is useless as of now."

That was disappointing to hear, but there wasn't anything they could do about it.

However, being the most observant of the three, Gigi moved even further beyond that scanner, looking over at the one at the far back. "There's one here too?" It led to a door, where the train conductor would normally be. She moved her hand to scan her watch. However, it made a much different sound. "Huh?" She quickly recognised that sound. "Did I just apply for a job?"

"Yes!" Nova clapped her hands happily. "You just applied as a trainconductor." Yippie!

Gigi wasn't exactly pleased, but she didn't let it show on her face. Now the full Pokemon Black and White train conductor joke could be completed. "What does the role of this job entail?"

"Hmm…" Nova tilted her head to the side. "Like I said, useless as of now, but you are able to control the monorail once it becomes fully active. You are able to block off stations, as well as lock other people out of using the monorail if you so please."

That seemed… Excessive. "What reason would there be to do that?" The referee glanced down at her watch.

Nova simply offered a weak shrug. "That is up to you to figure out."

"Hmm…" Gemini quickly thought of an idea. "Say, does this monorail connect to the lower floor?"

"Absolutely. The monorail runs through all of the station. Or, more specifically, the outer ring of the station. It never cuts directly through the station."

As of now, that information would be useless, but it was good to know nonetheless.

"Are we able to see outside while we travel via monorail?" Seira over here asking the REAL questions.

However, she would be let down by Nova's answer. "Due to safety reasons, we had to completely enclose the monorail. Thus, you are not able to see outside as you travel.

"Aww…" That was disappointing to hear.

"This place doesn't seem to offer much else." Gigi pointed out, stepping over towards the door. "We can probably return to meet up with everyone else." She didn't expect there to be many other areas to explore, so it worked out.

Garden

Stepping into the garden, the quarter was greeted by a completely different sight from the rest of the station. They needed to take a few steps down, given that the rest of the room was down a few small steps.

"Wow…" Winter hummed out, looking around at some of the flowers. "To think a place like this existed in this station."

Michael was mostly speechless. To this point, the station had been cold and foreign to them… To have a place be so welcoming. "Yeah… It's really…" He couldn't find the right words for it.

"Master! Master!" Dolly flailed around. "Look at all the pretty flowers!" She turned to look at him. "I want one in my hair!"

Tatiana stepped further into the room. While she couldn't see the flowers for their exact beauty, she could smell the fresh air. "This is one of the best rooms here!" She declared. "Until we find my Ultimate Station, that is."

Walking around the field of flowers, Winter hummed out in thought. "Why do you think this is here of all places?"

"Well…" Michael wasn't too sure, but given that this was the first time since being here that he felt like he got a breath of fresh air… "We need oxygen, don't we?" He suggested. Maybe Edison would be the better person to explain his thoughts, given that was the only idea he was able to verbalise.

"Makes sense to me!" Nope nevermind, Tatiana was quick on the uptake. "But is this entire room enough for the entire station?"

Winter hummed out, playing around with a strand of her hair. "No, I don't think so. There might be others in the station."

That made sense, so they should expect to find more. "Hmm…" Michael took a look around the area. Besides the multitude of flowers, he found a few more areas of interest. Looking up, he spotted sprinklers."I guess this is to water the plants."

Winter had followed his daze, before shaking her head. "No, I don't think those are to water the plants." She had spotted something else. On the ground in various areas, where sprinklers, routinely spraying out water onto the plants.

"Oh…" Then what was the point of the sprinklers? "I guess these aren't strong enough…"

Winter tilted her head to the side. "If I had to guess, the sprinklers above are in case there's a fire. They're probably much more suited to putting out a fire than these."

Slowly, Michael nodded his head. "Yeah, I can see it." The sprinklers on the ground were far weaker, now that he got a better look at it. "But…" Something did catch his attention. "Wouldn't the extra water need a place to go?"

"Over here!" Dolly called out, standing near the wall. The group joined up to check out what she had found. It was adrain. "This must be where the excess water goes to."

So this room seemed to function pretty well, all things considered. "I quite like this room." Winter smiled as she took in the entire scene again. "I can see myself hanging out here a few times." Besides, the flowers were just lovely.

"Hey! Over here!" Tatiana called out to the group. "The garden may be lovely, but we have something else to check out." She was standing in front of a door. However, there was something completely different about this door. For one, it wasn't made of metal like all the other doors were made of.

In fact, it was made of wood, and had a handle.

"Oh." Winter found it odd, and while the garden already contrasted the aesthetic (that's how you spell it, Extra) of the station, it was even more baffling that there'd be a wooden door of any kind. "Why would it be like that?" Not to mention it had a handle, while all other doors had a scanner.

Well. All doors except the bathroom in their rooms. But that doesn't count!

Tatiana shrugged. She didn't know why, nor did she care. She turned the handle, and they were allowed to enter the next room.

Shed

This only further contrasted the entire nature of the station. As when they stepped in, they no longer felt like they were in space.

"Woah!" Tatiana was amazed at what she was looking at. Not because it was cool or anything. It was just something different. "If I woke up here, I would swear we were back on Earth."

It looked identical to a typical shed, with various gardening tools littered around the area.

"So many cool things!" Dolly called out, forcing Benjamin further into the room.

Still, Michael felt a bit uneasy looking around. "A lot of… dangerous things…" His vision landed on the hatchet right away. "I don't know why we'd need something like that for a garden like this."

Tatiana frowned slightly, twirling around a knife. "I know right, they should really stop letting dangerous things lying around." As if the irony was missed completely, she continued to twirl her knife.

Winter, on the other hand, found it best to try and investigate everything the shed had to offer. "There are several hoses here." All of various lengths, but none of them seemed attached to anything. "But I don't remember seeing anything we could attach these too."

Thinking for a bit, Michael answered her worries. "Those sprinklers had to be attached to something, so maybe we can disconnect them and attach the hoses?" They hadn't gotten a full look at the room, since they had gotten distracted by Tatiana's discovery.

It would seem they needed to give the garden one last look after all of this. "Maybe." Besides, the shed was a little too dusty for her taste. She'd take any excuse to leave this place. "Let's head back to the garden." She flashed him a sweet smile.

He had no reason to turn down the offer, so he followed her out.

That left Tatiana with Dolly. An amazing pairing!

"Find anything?" Dolly had been looking around everywhere, but nothing really stuck out to her.

"Nope!" Tatiana said with absolute confidence. "Nothing of interest for me as of yet!" Although, she did find a few things.Long rubber gloves, rakes, watering cans, rope. "Hmm… Oh!" She knelt down, inspecting an area under the desk that was in the corner. "I found something here!"

Dolly moved closer. "Oh! Don't keep me in suspense! What did you find?"

Dusting it off, she got a closer look. "It appears to be…" Dramatic pause! "A tool box." Boring.

Letting out a sad sigh, Dolly slowly moved closer to Benjamin. "Can you believe her, master? Getting my hopes up for nothing."

The ventriloquist didn't say anything.

Well she thought her discovery was something! Without waiting for what the duo had to say, she popped it open. "Ah…" Only to be severely disappointed. It was a tool box, but most of the tools were missing. "That's…" She tried to think of a multitude of words, each one lamer than the last. "The only things of use in this are the hammer, a crowbar, and a measuring tape. There wasn't even a screwdriver they could use. Still! She wasn't going to let that sour her mood. "Haha! We have found so much!"

Dolly gave her a thousand yard stare, before slowly turning to look at Benjamin, who slowly turned to look at her, expressionless.

"H-hey! Don't mock me!" She didn't need to be tagged team by a doll and someone who didn't speak. "Not every room is going to be a winner!" Especially since none of them were her Ultimate Station.

"Is there anything else to check out on?" Dolly hummed out, completely ignoring Tatiana. "Hmm…"

Great, now she was being ignored by a doll of all people. But still, she still wasn't done exploring. There was one more thing she wanted to take a look at. More specifically the door. "Hmm…" She hadn't given it much thought when she first entered the room, but a handle really WAS weird. Slowly, she moved over to mess with it. It seemed like an ordinary handle, so nothing was off. When she opened the door, it opened towards the garden. "Well! Back to the true beauty of this station!" She abandoned Dolly.

Garden

After leaving the other duo behind, Michael and Winter entered back into the garden, once again, taking a breath of fresh air. "I wish the entire station had air like this."

Looking around, Michael couldn't help but share the sentiment. "It would be nice…" But they still had some things they needed to check out. "We should follow the sprinklers." He moved over towards one of the many at their disposal. Following the hose, he eventually found where it led to. "Ah, here it is." Kneeling down, he inspected the faucet. He attempted to detach the hose from the faucet, only for water to start pouring out. "Ah-" He quickly turned off the water. "I should have thought of that."

Winter made sure to stay a distance away so she wouldn't get splashed by some of the water. "I guess that answers whether there's a faucet here or not." Not sure what use something like that would have, but it's good to know. "Is that everything this place has to offer?" Then again, it was more than some of the other rooms had, safe for maybe the Ultimate Talent Manager Station, which had an overwhelming amount.

Slowly, the hooded figure stood up, wringing to get some of the water out of his cloak. "Yes… I think this might be it."

Shortly after, the other two would walk out of the shed, Tatiana speaking up as soon as she saw the duo. "While this place brings fresh air, I wish to see what else we have access to!"

Having gotten most of the water out, Michael slowly nodded his head. "Yeah. Let's go."

Vacant Room 1

What they found at the end of the hallway was…

"Hmm…" Tatiana looked at the display. "Odd. This appears to be a room similar to the ones we sleep in."

"Well, Monokawa did mention we would be able to change the location of our room." This must be what he meant. "But I don't really see a reason to change our location."

Still, Michael took a few steps forward. "But we should try and see if it works." He brought his watch over to scan it. Soon, the display that said "VACANT" switched over to saying his name. Then, he rescanned the watch, which allowed the door to open.

Stepping inside, he noticed something rather distinct. "It's… The same."

"Well duh!" Dolly rolled her eyes. "Why would you expect to get a different room than us?"

Quickly, the hooded figure shook his head. "No… I mean. This is exactly the state I left my room in." His attention was on his bed, which hadn't been made. "That's… weird."

"So it actually moves the room." Winter mumbled out, looking around.

"It must be silent too." Tatiana pointed out. "I didn't hear anything of the sort." Not this again.

Seeing what he wanted to see, Michael let the door close. "I think that's the end of this hallway…" He mumbled out, turning his attention back the way they came. "Should we go and see how the others are doing?"

The knife thrower let out a small sigh. "I was hoping for something more… I don't know. Exciting." A vacant room did not fill in that inch for exploration. "Then again, we can just investigate the other rooms ourselves after we meet up with everyone." So not all is lost.

"Either way, I am content with what we found today. I wouldn't mind heading back now."

"Yeah! We can tell them all about the cool things we found!" Dolly raised her hands in the air.

As the group left, Michael took one last look at the vacant room he had just claimed. He might move his room back to where it was before… But part of him liked the idea of having his be a bit away from the others. Especially close to something relaxing like the garden. Still… the idea of being isolated didn't sit too well with him.

When he noticed that his group had moved on without him, he moved quickly to catch up to them.

Vacant Room 2

Having reached the end of the hallway, the group was expecting something else… Not just an empty room that they could claim.

"Aww… Edison mumbled out, rather sadly. "That's all that's here?" Where was another cool room to explore? Where was his Ultimate Station?

"Well…" May trailed off, looking at the scanner. "Monokawa did make mention of this, didn't he?" Although, she had forgotten about it briefly, given it wasn't important.

"Should we… Test it out?" Benoit suggested.

"Hmm…" Hae-Won tilted her head to the side, before ultimately shaking it. "No. We can let someone else test it out. Unless one of us wants a room here."

"Nope!" Edison lifted up his flask. "I much prefer having a room with everyone else, after all."

Since they were all in agreement, they did the next best thing!

Fucking left.

Except for May, who spent a few seconds looking at the scanner. She had an idea in her head, but discarded it rather quickly as she turned to follow the group that she had came with.

Cafeteria

Given that everyone was done investigating all the new rooms, it was time to gather back up at the cafeteria like they had planned. Hell, even Monokawa was there for… some fucking reason.

Although, nobody wanted to speak up first, so Gigi took the liberty. "From the looks of it, a decent chunk of rooms has opened up. Maybe not as many as we started with, but I'd say it's still a fair amount."

"Hmm…" Lorelei moved her head to the side. "The real question is if those rooms are impressive or not."

Ian placed his hands in his pockets. "I'd like to imagine that mine was impressive."

"Oh?" Winter smiled in his direction. "You found your Ultimate Station?"

"Seems like we finally have access to more than just one Ultimate Station this time." Gigi pointed out, given she knew about three of them. Get out of the way, Dae-Hyun!

"Hey!" Atlas called out, somewhat excited to talk about his Ultimate Station. "Let me go first!"

"But…" Dae-Hyun cut him off. "You didn't even explore that part of the station. Melody and I did." Which meant they did all the observations. "So maybe we should handle this."

Atlas wanted to say something, but the two of them were already going to start.

"The room itself is a small soccer field." Dae-Hyun began his explanation. "Nothing too out of the ordinary, but there are a few things I wanted to bring attention to. First of all, every time a goal is scored, two things happen. One, fireworks go off right behind the goal post. Second of all, the scoreboard updates automatically. It does this because there's a sensor in the goal that trips up not only the fireworks, but a device that pushes against a button at the back of the scoreboard.

Now it was Melody's turn to take over. "As for the next thing, we found a penalty box." She began to explain. "At first we didn't know how to get it to open, but after testing it out with Atlas, it would appear to be only activated by the referee portion of the Ultimate Station."

"Odd…" Gigi mumbled out. "I actually found access to my own Ultimate Station too. I wonder if there's a reason for that."

Dae-Hyun couldn't think of a reason why, so he decided to move the conversation along. "To hand out a penalty, you have to match the number on the person's jersey, and either choose the yellow button, or the red one. After that, the penalty box will open up, and the player can step in."

"Tsk." Atlas stomped his foot down. "It's the shittiest penalty box I have ever seen. You can't see into it, but you can sure as hell see out of it."

This caused Gigi to frown slightly. "That does seem a bit… annoying." But it also completely cut off the player from their team, so maybe it wasn't too bad for a penalty.

"Oh!" Melody called out, remembering a vital detail. "The seats were pretty comfortable too."

Letting out a sigh, Atlas moved on. "There's one more thing. My room is attached to a storage room. However, to get into it, you need to assign yourself to the job."

"A job in an Ultimate Station?" Lorelei called out. "Sounds kind of unbelievable. Why would they have you do that?"

"Don't know, but two people can be assigned at a time." The soccer player continued on. "I was the only one who assigned myself, as Dae-Hyun and Melody refused." Which was fine, he didn't want them in his room. "The room didn't have much to offer. Just equipment. Replacement soccer balls, ladders, a cart, an air pump, and then some jerseys." Was he forgetting something? Oh right! He was! "There was also one of those tube things that connects it to the locker room."

"So now that makes the total amount of rooms three." Hae-Won pointed out. "It looks like there'll be many opportunities to use that function."

"Are you done yet?" Ian was growing impatient, and wanted to talk about the amazing room he had found. When nobody answered him, he took the silence as a yes. "Alright, my turn. We found my Ultimate Station. And let me tell you all, don't even bother trying to compare yours to mine."

Gennosuke shrugged, offering a smile. "His was pretty flashy."

"There's a lot to cover for my station." Well, mostly just the prize corner, but of course he'd go over that last to build up suspense. "Which reminds me." He revealed all the keycards he had collected from Monokawa. "To use my station, you'll need some of these."

Tatiana quickly picked one up. "What are they for?"

"They're to open up a new app on the watches." Ian opened his watch to show it off. "This is how you keep track of the currency used in my station. You all start off with a hundred coins."

Gemini swiped a card, scanning it against his watch. "Oh yeah, hey look at that." He messed around with it, seeing some of the other options. "Hey what are-"

But Ian wanted to save that for LAST so time to move on. "There's many different ways to earn money at the casino. There's an entire section dedicated to slot machines, but the returns on those aren't great."

Laki crossed her arms. "You tell me about it! I only earned a total of forty two coins before we had to leave."

That's because the real meat of this station wasn't the slots. "You can also play card games, as well as roulettes. That's where the real money from my station comes from. Because you can bet any amount of coins, your returns can be insane." He showed off his bracelet, revealing that he had already gotten double of what Laki had. "You play those games against an AI, or, I guess the house, in this case. However, you can also play against real people, and you can earn coins from them. I tried out the card games, and to use them, you have to use a button to make your choices. It's available when you enter a game."Now he was done with that, it was time to explain a bit more. "Although, that's not the only way to get coins from someone else. Laki." He called out.

Quickly, she moved by his side. He didn't even need to specify what he wanted. She had already opened up the app, switching over to the exchange mode. "You can exchange money!" She called out, giving Ian ten coins.

He did not return those once his demonstration was finished. "Anyone else have anything to add before I move onto the main gimmick of my station?"

Well, he wasn't going to turn down the opportunity. "Yes. There's also a bar here that serves alcohol." Gennosuke started off.

"Woah, woah." Gigi was the first to realise something. "There's no way we are all of age."

Lorelei shrugged. "We already had a deep conversation about this. It doesn't matter because we are in space. Have you forgotten that?"

"Wait, so it doesn't even check for age?" Hae-Won mumbled out.

The psychic shook his head, an amused look on his face. "Nope. I was able to get a drink from the bartender running the bar." Darren, how could you? "But we can't access the bar itself. If we try to, we get shoved outby the robot."

"Don't really see a problem with that." Gigi pointed out. "Especially if you can already get access to the alcohol no problem."

Lorelei placed a hand on her hip, rolling her eyes. "It's probably made like that so we don't go behind the counter and make a mess."

"Hey, Monokawa." Gemini called out, still a little unsure about the entire thing about alcohol readily being available. "What's the idea with all of that?"

The otter shrugged. "Hey now, Nova happens to like wine a lot, so she'd be devastated if there wasn't any on the station."

Luckily, Nova wasn't here to defend herself, so nobody could counter his claim.

"There aren't really any rules in space." Dae-Hyun pointed out, shrugging. "Who cares if someone gets a drink."

Given that nobody else had anything to say, it was time for Ian to take center stage again. "Alright, now let's move onto the main gimmick of my Ultimate Station. Namely, the prize corner."

"Guessing that's what the coins are for." Hae-Won crossed her arms. "Anything interesting?"

"Depends what you are trying to do." Ian shrugged. "There's probably some things you can use for murder if that's what you're into."

The sound of a whistle could be heard, caused by Gigi. "That's not what we're interested in. What items are there?"

Letting out a small annoyed sigh, the gambler shook his head. "You can check the selection from your watch. You can purchase them there, but you have to head over to the prize corner itself to collect." Some of these people needed to learn to look around themselves. There was no way he was going to remember every single thing available.

After a few seconds, Hae-Won reached over for one of the keycards. "Yeah, might as well." She scanned it against her watch, allowing the app to be transferred. "It's probably for the best if we all get one."

"Wait, what happens if we reach zero coins? Can we just not use the casino anymore?" Seira pointed out. Not that she had a crippling gambling addiction or anything. But if there was something to pass the time-

Damn! He had to answer everything. "Just have someone transfer money over towards you." Ian pointed out, shaking his head. "Or consider yourself unlucky." Sticking his hands into his pockets, he sat back down at the table. "That was all my station had to offer. Does anybody else want to take the lead?"

"I will." Winter had been wanting to talk for a bit. "We found a garden."

"A garden?" Benoit liked the sound of that. "But… what is something like that doing here?"

"AH!" Edison hummed out, swirling his flask. "It must be so we can breathe in this station. It's what creates the oxygen."

"Yes… that's what we think too." Michael spoke up. "There was a filtration system for the air."

"And a lot of pretty flowers!" Dolly jumped in, not wanting to be left out. "But that's not the only thing the room had to offer-"

"First." Winter cut her off. "Let's finish with the garden itself before we start talking about another area completely." Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, she let out a small laugh. "The garden comes equipped with two different water sources. The automated sprinklers that spray water occasionally to keep the plants hydrated, and then a set of sprinklers on the ceiling."

"From the sounds of it." Tatiana continued. "Those sprinklers will only go off in case of a fire."

"To prevent water from accumulating in the room." Now it was Michael's turn to continue their information. "There's a drainage system in place to get rid of excess water."

Now it was time for Dolly to finish up the explanation of the wate- "There's a shed!" She blurted out. Right! Nevermind the water system. The shed is what's truly important here.

After looking at the doll for a few seconds, Winter picked up where they had left off the water system. "You can also detach the automatic sprinklers to attach your own hoses. Which are in-"

"The shed!" Alright, now it's Dolly's turn. "... There's actually not much of interest in the shed." Goddammit-

Sounds like it was Tatiana's turn to take the spotlight. "There were several things inside the shed, like gardening tools."

"Mindy being more specific than that." Gigi narrowed her eyes slightly.

"Yes, yes. There was stuff like rakes, hoses, water cans, hatchets, rubber gloves, the works." If they really wanted to know, they could always investigate themselves. Oh! And a tool kit, but it was… severely lacking." The knife thrower shook her head. "Only a few things like hammers and crowbars were in there."

"Really?" Hae-Won raised an eyebrow. "I thought there'd be more. Not even a screwdriver?"

Monokawa shrugged. "Eh, we took out most of the tools to put them elsewhere. Sorry!" Is what he would say if he was sorry. "Does it really matter? You'll find plenty of other ways to have fun."

"Is that all the garden had to offer?" Hae-Won was just going to ignore Monokawa.

Slowly, Michael nodded his head. "Yeah… The only other thing is that the door to the shed was wooden, with a normal handle. Instead of the metallic doors we're used to."

Edison began taking some notes. "Interesting! What purpose does it serve?" At least the door wouldn't conduct electricity!

"While that is it for the garden." Winter had something else she wanted to talk about. "We encountered a vacant room."

"A vacant…?" Gigi mumbled out. "Right. They did mention that we'd be able to change our rooms if we wanted to. Did you try it out?"

Slowly, Michael nodded his head. "Yeah, I was able to transfer my room over to the Psi Sector… But…" He trailed off. "It was my actual room. The exact same one, everything was the way I left it."

"It was quite odd." Tatiana commented. "It made no noise when the room was transferred."

Gemini scratched the back of his head. "And it was quick as well?"

"Maybe it just remakes the room exactly as is." Seira suggested.

Slowly, Michael shook his head. "For one, it took a few seconds, and the room was exactly the same. It couldn't have been reproduced.."

"Hmm…" Gigi hummed out. "This could lead us into the next thing we found. I believe that around the entire outer ring of the station is a track that things travel on. After all, we found a monorail station."

"What kind of Ultimate Station is that?" Dolly raised her fist in the hair. "Monokawa doesn't deserve one!"

"I sure do!" Long pause. "Wait a few more chapters." He placed his arms behind his head.

Ignoring that very vague promise, Gigi continued. "For now, the monorail is inactive, as there aren't any other stations it can access. However when I spoke to Nova about it, she mentioned that it travelled on the edge of the station."

"Wait!" Edison realised something. "Is it always active?"

"We don't know." Seira let out a sigh. "We won't know until we open up another station."

"But!" Gemini brought some reassurance. "It might be able to switch us between floors… Eventually."

Edison slowly wrote some things down. "That's what I mean! If it can do that, it might be able to counter the nighttime rule for the elevator."

That was definitely something worth considering. "We're trapped on one floor during nighttime until then." The escapist placed a hand on his hip. "Oh, Gigi, you should mention the other thing about the Monorail."

Right, she had almost forgotten about that. "The Monorail also had a position open for a job. Which I took. It allows me to bar access to other people, as well as close down certain stations. As of now, however, it seems pointless to have."

But now she was running out of things to say about that room. Time to move onto her own room. "We also found the Ultimate Referee Station."

"Really?" Atlas seemed slightly annoyed at that. "Guess that makes sense if we found my station already." Still, he would have preferred if she didn't have to be involved. And judging which room they entered, her room was right across from his.

Gigi was going to ignore his mini protest. "The room doesn't have much to offer compared to the other two, but it doesn't need to offer much. There are monitors that keep an eye on both the Ultimate Gambler Station, and the Ultimate Soccer Player Station."

While Atlas seemed pissed off about that, Ian seemed amused. "Oh? That makes sense. It's to simulate an actual casino. There are cameras everywhere there."

"Wait." Edison hummed out in thought. "But why? We can probably already look at the cameras in the security room."

"I thought so too." Gemini crossed his arms. "But the nature of the monitors is what makes them unique." A grin soon appeared on his face. "The ones for the Ultimate Gambler Station are pointed directly at all the tables, allowing us to see exactly how the game was going on."

"It's to prevent anyone from cheating." Gigi continued the explanation. "I'd be able to catch anyone who does, after all. As for the one for the Ultimate Soccer Player Station, that one is to review plays, as well as review if something should be considered a penalty."

"Tsk!" Atlas didn't like the sound of that. "You need an entire camera system for that."

The referee slowly shook her head. "I do not. However it's still preferred to have them to prove whatever penalty you are giving. The camera feature allows us to rewind up to an hour ago. We have the feature to pause, as well." Oh, and there was one more thing. "Not to mention the zoom function that is available."

Seems this one had a lot of thought put into it compared to the simple security room. Although, it was more centralised.

"There were also board games." Seira jumped in after their explanation.

"Board games?" Gennosuke had to resist a laugh. "What's that doing in your station?"

Gigi was getting tired of explaining herself over and over again. "As stated, I can referee anything, including games like those."

Seeing that this wasn't worth the hassle, Gemini moved the conversation along. "There were two other things of note in the room. We found a hatch that led into the floor, but it was locked, so we weren't able to access it."

Right, she had almost forgotten to explain that too. Taking a deep breath, Seira continued on. "As well as a locked door. It has a scanner, but the scanner is inactive at the moment."

"Huh?" Edison looked up at Monokawa. "What's that about?"

The otter shrugged. "It's just not ready yet, I guess."

They could discuss it all they wanted, but nothing would come of it. "That's it for the Ultimate Referee Station."

"My turn!" Edison called out, before realising that he should probably let Benoit cover this one. "Actually, you got this!"

"H-huh?" Well, he didn't like being put on the spot, but it was his room after all, so he had an obligation to do so. "The room we explored was the Ultimate Physiotherapist Station."

"Oh, you found your room? Fascinating!" Tatiana called out, still slightly jealous that hers had yet to appear.

"The station was just like a normal room I'd have…" Benoit continued. "With all sorts of equipment used in helping someone recover."

"Like a table." May hummed out. "Well, that isn't exactly true. It was an adjustable table. Pretty comfy, all things considered."

"R-right… But there were also a few more things like exercise balls and resistance bands."

That first one made sense, but Gemini had never heard of the second one. "Resistance bands?"

"Imagine large rubber bands." Hae-Won found that the easiest way to explain it.

"Thanks, that helps!" Gemini flashed a smile. He was still lost.

"Oh! Oh!" Edison called out, stopping Benoit from taking his turn again. "There were also some electrotherapy equipment!"

"That's an earful." Melody commented on the name. "It's not… dangerous, is it?"

Benoit quickly shook his head. "No! The opposite in fact… It's actually to help fend off pain, and I've used one before. It's safe, so trust me."

"Oh yeah? How does it work?" Tatiana was eager to find out.

"By… sending electrical pulses into the body."

The knife thrower slowly nodded her head. "That… Sounds like the opposite of safe."

Edison adjusted his goggles. "As bad as it sounds, I've seen these used before, so trust me too."

"Lastly…" Hae-Won wanted to get this conversation over with. "We found some treadmills, and exercise bikes. If… Anyone wants to actually do that."

"That's it?" Gemini placed his hands on his hips. He was starting to lose out hope on an escape now.

"What?" Monokawa floated down towards him. "Did you think I was just going to let there be an escape route?

A small laugh came from Ian. "But there is an escape. It's only worth one million coins."

Everyone froze up upon hearing that. "W-what?" Benoit mumbled out. "An escape?"

"Why didn't you mention this before?" Tatiana took a step towards him.

The gambler shrugged. "Lorelei could have mentioned it too, but she didn't."

"As if anyone is ever going to get to a million coins. " The girl rolled her eyes. "You can try, but we only start with a hundred, so there's no point."

Ian shrugged. "Either way, Monokawa brought up something interesting while we were talking. There are escape pods."

"What?" Hae-Won eyes went a little wide. "Where?"

"Like hell I'd tell you where!" Monokawa rolled his eyes. "And even if you found out where it was, you wouldn't be able to activate them." He let out a small laugh. "Well, now that that's in the open!" He floated away to places unknown, leaving the rest of the people here.

"Shit…" Hae-Won tilted her head down. "Escape pods…? And we can't even access them."

Gemini had remained silent for a bit. "As soon as we find them, we have to try and open them up."

"Didn't you just hear him?" Lorelei glared at him. "He said we wouldn't be able to."

"Doesn't mean we shouldn't try." May mumbled out. "If we find them and don't try… we wouldn't really be trying to escape, would be." And she didn't want to stay on this station any longer than she needed to. She walked over towards the table that Ian had placed down the keycards on, and grabbed one. "It's getting late…" She pointed out. "We haven't found a way out, but maybe we should head to bed and try again tomorrow."

Looking at the time, it had gotten pretty late. "Right." Gigi slowly nodded her head. "We should all just head to bed now…" Before they got locked out by the elevator, that is.

"Boring." Laki commented, but she was still one of the first people in the elevator.

One by one, everyone followed suit and made their way up the elevator.

Vacant Rooms

Everyone had made their way out of the elevator, and towards their respective doors. "Alright, I'm going to check out the Ultimate Gambler Station first chance I get." Gemini commented. If they could win a way out, he'd have to try his best to get it.

Ian walked past him, glancing in his direction. "You know, it might not be so wise to try so hard to get it."

"Huh?" The escapist didn't know what he meant, but it seemed like some details were being hidden from him. "What do you-"

Slipping away into his room, it left Gemini alone. He was about to enter his own room when someone else stepped out of theirs. May? "What are you doing up?"

Oh. She hadn't expected anyone else to be still out. "I need to go get something fixed." She held out the keycard she had been giving. "This one doesn't work. I tried to scan it, but it didn't add the app."

Oh? That was weird. "Maybe it was already used by someone?"
She slowly nodded her head. "That's my guess… I'm going to get another card."

Soon, an announcement played out. "It is now nighttime, which means that certain facilities are offline at this time." It was Monokawa delivering the message. "I would advise you don't do anything too dumb if you plan on walking around at night."

Gemini was about to advise her not to go wandering alone, but he knew May wouldn't listen. "I'll go with you."

"Hmm?" She didn't exactly have a problem with that. Gemini seemed to be a dependable guy. "Alright." Some of the others she would have been more wary against.

Ultimate Gambler Station

While most facilities were still offline, it seemed the Ultimate Gambler Station, as true with most casinos, was still operating well into the night.

"Huh." Gemini wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't this. Even after he had seen video footage of the station. "This is pretty colourful."

May didn't answer back, instead, looking around the station. "Oh. There." She had finally found the prize corner, and was surprised that Monokawa was still there.

"What the?" And Monokawa was surprised that THEY were there. "What the hell are you two doing here? I just played the announcement."

May walked up to the counter. "Well…" She trailed off, tilting her head to the side. "You're still here, so you must be expecting some people…"

"GAH!" Well, she got him there. "This casino is open 24/7, so I'm expected to be here for customer service! Are you ready to buy something?"

"..." May shrugged. "I don't have any money to buy things."

"... What?"

She reached into her pocket, placing the card down onto the counter. "I tried to scan this card, but it didn't work with my watch." To demonstrate, she placed it against her watch, and nothing happened. "I don't even have the app." She opened it up to prove it.

"What the?" This made no sense to Monokawa, but maybe he had just made a mistake. "You!" He pointed to Gemini. "You try it."

When Gemini attempted it, nothing happened as well. "Oh, well. I already have the app, so."

"Dammit…" There goes that theory of her watch being busted. "Alright! Alright!" He did some digging around, before finally coming up with another keycard. "Try this one."

May grabbed onto the card, and scanned it onto her watch. This time, it seemed to react. "Thank you." Seems that's all she wanted to do tonight.

Gemini watched her, and then looked back at Monokawa. "You can't stack cards, right?"

Quickly, the otter shook his head. "Nope! Once a card is used up, it can't be used again. And, if you already used a card, you can't use another one. So it's truly odd how that happened."

Gemini had an idea. Given that Ian had given everyone the cards, he might have slipped in a faulty one, but he'd have no way to prove that. He was going to ask something else, but he noticed that May had walked off without him.

Quickly, he managed to catch up to her, making sure she wasn't left alone. "Going to bed now?"

"Yup… I just wanted to make sure that I could have the card before tomorrow." She didn't want to have to deal with it tomorrow, after all.

That made sense to him.

It didn't take long for the two of them to arrive back to the vacant rooms. "Alright, you have a good night."

May was about to respond, but simply nodded her head before entering her room.

Gemini soon followed suit, leaving the station in silence once again.

And that's FINALLY the start of chapter 2! Can't believe I'm already here. Not sure what my writing schedule will look like going forward, given I have a multitude of other things I need to finish as well. I once again put my Total Drama story on the side to write this. Oh well, that's life I guess. And then I also have a few commitments going on during the summer, so we'll see when the time comes.

Honestly, this chapter and onward I'm looking forward to, mostly because I have a much better idea on how the murder will be committed than I did with chapter 1, which should lead itself to the trial being longer as well. Had to save my more complex ideas for later, after all!

I just want to give a shoutout to SilverMark16. He's just getting to the end of his first Danganronpa SYOC, Corrupted Hope, and holy shit is it some of the best fiction I've heard had the pleasure of reading. You really should go check it out if you haven't already. He's two parts away from completing the ENTIRE thing. I could go on a two thousand word rant right here about all the good things about it!

But huh… I need to get this chapter finished today so maybe in a few years!

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and here's hoping I can get some more regular content out in the coming weeks! After all, my plan is to finish chapter two before the end of August. The only issue being the two trips I have to make, but I bought a laptop specifically to give myself more time to write! Let's fucking goooooooo!

Participants Remaining: 18

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]