Prologue: Sea of Stardom (Part 4)
Warning!
This is a Danganronpa Fic, so expect dark and serious themes! And also expect some choice words that might upset people - thanks to a certain Gas Station Manager! But also expect fun and whimsical themes as well! I hope you enjoy!
[???]
Pheme watched her screen with squinted eyes as she witnessed the latest four stars leave. She was very excited and stimulated by what she saw sure, but she also felt... unfinished. Perhaps not the right word to use, but it'll do. She stomped her foot on her carpeted floor a few times. And there was something else. Something about that girl, Catherine Munchkin that she couldn't put her finger on... Hm. She'll think about that later.
"Say... didn't that feel a bit... anti-climatic? The great and powerful monster appeared... for barely any time at all. And they escaped rather easily. Don't you think?" She turned her head towards the other figure in the room.
They didn't respond to her for a moment, as they were busy on a phone call. "Yes. Yes. Right, just move the truck to the back of the studio, there'll be a person to help you there. Got it. And yes, you'll get paid for the work. Exactly the amount we agreed on yes. W-what? N-no you won't be-" The figure shook their head. "We haven't even started doing that properly just yet. Calm down. Okay. Alright good. Perfect. Thank you and take care." They finally hung up the phone.
"So? Are you having a rough time of it?" Pheme decided to forgo her previous thoughts and reclined in her chair.
"Not exactly." They looked down at their watch. "But besides, it isn't some thing you need to worry about Miss Pheme. We should be moving along with the final preparations." They picked up a piece of paper that had a schedule on it. "The first twelve stars have been waiting in the Grand Theater for long enough. We should get a move on with our final studio." They looked directly at Pheme.
"Oh, don't worry! I know what our final studio is this time! It's the...
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Mystery Studio!" She shot her hands up in the air.
"Oh I love a good mystery! So much suspense and drama! And the plot twists are to die for! I love not knowing what is coming next! Or not knowing if the person right next to you is secretly the killer! There is so much intrigue in a good mystery!" Pheme was very happy, in case that wasn't obvious.
And like always, the figure just went along with Pheme's excited rants, and just waiting for her to calm down. "Quite right Miss Pheme. Now, it is time for the last signal. Care to do the honors?" They raised an eyebrow and slightly smiled at Pheme.
"Do you truly need to ask?" She smiled resoundingly.
"Ready..." She paused for dramatic effect, for one last time. At least for now.
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"Action!"
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"Alright then, the final four stars should be in the Mystery Studio now." The figure spoke up, and as a result prolonged this scene so it's longer than it usually is.
"And with that... I'd say it's time we make preparations for the main event. Right Miss Pheme?" They held out a hand towards her.
And Pheme took it. "Indeed! Oh I'm so excited to get this show on the road! It felt like I had to wait two whole months for this!"
"Quite right Miss Pheme. Let us-" The figure stopped talking as they glanced down at their watch. "Ah, I think I shall go on ahead. I'll get started on the bulk of the preparations." They walked towards the exit of the room, leaving Pheme behind. "Don't keep me waiting Miss Pheme!" They left her with as they departed.
Pheme pouted. She didn't like being left behind. Or abandoned. "Hmph." She sighed and headed back to her computer. Well, she could probably catch a glimpse of the final four stars experiencing the Mystery Studio at least! She went to open the camera feed for the studio, but she stopped as she got a sudden notification. Someone was attempting to video call her.
She hesitated. The internet they use is very encrypted and secure. So it shouldn't be anyone who could be a hinderance to her plan. But at the same time, very few people could actually video call her. And it certainly wasn't the figure, who had left the room just moments ago. The call kept ringing. Then... perhaps... against her better judgement... she answered it...
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And when she saw who it was, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was merely their "contact." Their hired hand who handled the kidnapping of their sixteen adorable stars.
The contact's eyes widened at the sight of Pheme, as they had never actually seen her face before. They definitely didn't expect to see... that... covering her face as well. But at the same time, it wasn't the weirdest person they've worked with. They cleared their throat. "Hey uh- it's Pheme right? I gotta let you know something." They whispered ominously.
Pheme had an inkling of what it was, so she got a little excited. "Oh? Oh?! What is it? Tell me!" She leaned closer to her screen.
The contact then wordlessly opened the back of their truck. It was where he was storing the sixteen stars until it was their time to be dropped into the studios. So one would expect there to be four left in there right? Well... "So I know you wanted this to be a secret right? I didn't tell your little co-worker about it. But I got them. I got what you asked me to get." They stepped out of the way of the now opened up truck trailer, and revealed that there was seven unconscious people in there instead of the expected four.
But to Pheme, that was exactly what she was hoping for. "Oh my! You got the extra two stars I asked for! What a wonderful job! I'm so proud of you-" Pheme stopped herself. She did indeed asked specifically for two extra stars. But she asked for two. Not three.
"Erm, say, Mr. Contact? I must ask, but why are there seven people in the back of your truck and not six?" Pheme was agitated at the sight, but she tried her best to hide it for now.
The Contact started to sweat a bit. "It's a wild story. I was driving the truck here, with all eighteen of them in here yeah? Then I roll over a nail or some shit on the road, and I pop my tire. I was so fucking annoyed, but this chick rolled up and offered to help me." The contact looked back at the mysterious seventh person in the truck. "But that bitch went right to the back and opened it up, and saw all eighteen of these fucks." The contact sighed. "I didn't have a choice here. I knocked her the fuck out and took her with me. Luckily I just had a spare tire in the back anyway."
Pheme just stared dumbfounded at the screen. Did she hear him correctly? This seventh person is just some nobody who got too close to the truth? Someone like that isn't worthy of being in her magnificent death game! What garbage!
Pheme balled her hands into fists in frustration, but the contact kept talking. "Hey, uh, on the bright side, she kinda fits your requirements of whatever? She's an Ultimate I think."
That caught Pheme's attention. Her anger rapidly melted into curiosity. She moved her face closer to the screen. "Oh? You've piqued my interest. Show me her face." Pheme commanded.
Seeing no reason to deny her, the Contact moved his camera over to the unconscious face of this mysterious seventh person. Pheme's eyes lit up. "Ah!" She exclaimed.
Pheme rapidly started looking through a pile of documents she had sitting on a table near her. She thought she recognized that face...
After a bit more searching, she found it! The form she believed belonged to this girl. Pheme quickly skimmed it, eager to resolve this situation. "Huh. This might be alright. Hey!" She got the attention of the contact. "I have instructions for you. First, drop off the agreed upon four stars in the Mystery Studio. Then do you see that silver door near you? Just open it and put the agreed upon extra two in there. I'll deal with them from there..." She lightly giggled.
The contact nodded. "Uh, yeah, I got it. But what about her?!" He gestured towards the topic of their talk.
Pheme just giggled once again. "For now, stay there with her. I'll be down there soon. It'd be easier to explain what I want you to do with her in person..." Pheme trailed off, ominously.
The Contact scratched the back of his head. He didn't like just waiting around for her, but he didn't want to do anyone that might jeopardize the crazy cash he's getting from them job. He sighed. "Fine, whatever. I'll do the job. Just get down here quick! I don't got all day!" The contact cut off the call.
Pheme laid back in her chair. A lot had happened there. First, she had little hopes for her extra two stars to actually appear, but they did! She was so excited! She was very excited about the plans she had for them as well. Then she couldn't have imagined having to deal with another extra star on top of that. But... it might work out alright. Pheme chose to stay optimistic. And she could only imagine how they'll react to these plot twists. She giggled for a third time. Oh she just couldn't wait. To think that her plans have actually proceeded up to this point...
Pheme gave a wide smile. She was going to enjoy this. Enjoy this killing game. Enjoy watching these stars fight and conflict in the death game! The drama! The action! The bloodshed! She was so excited to give these stars what they deserve!
Her smile shifted into a smaller one. She closed her eyes, just to imagine the antics that might occur in the coming weeks.
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Ah! But before that, we have the matter of the Mystery Studio! Pheme turned on her video feed to the Mystery Studio. She'd watch these four stars explore the studio, then she'd go and grab those extra two and deal with the Contact. She took a deep breath. She was going to love this...
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My mind fluttered to a loose consciousness when a certain smell hit my nose. The smell of rot. It felt like I was so deep in the darkness of my mind, so when that smell hit my nose, it gave me an intense case of mental whiplash. My head shot up from where I was laying. Wait. Where was I lying? As a slowly grew more aware of my surroundings, I noticed more where I was.
I was lying facedown on a rotting, dirty, and slightly broken wooden floor. That explains the smell. Then when I took in more of my surroundings, I saw that I was in some sort of apartment. The walls, floor, and ceiling seemed to be wooden, and all of them were rotting to hell and back. Clearly some sort of abandoned place. Stray furniture was cast about the place, with chairs in random places, an old couch and coffee table, and topped off with a small wooden desk in the opposite corner of the room from where I was. There was a door way to the left of where I was laying as well. Huh, I should probably get off of this floor by now...
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With a groan, the person got up off the ground. He didn't really know where to start with this. "Well, I definitely haven't seen this place before..." He muttered. Hm. He must've been kidnapped. Not hard to reason out. And he couldn't lie to himself, he's surprised it took so long for something like this to happen to him anyway.
He stretched their arms. Well. Gotta figure something out here. He ignored the other room to the left of them for now, and opted to look more in here-
"Mm... Oh! You're awake!" Well, they wanted to look around a bit more, but a voice denied that want. He turned in the direction of the voice, and saw a girl coming from the neighboring room, and staring at him.
The girl's body seemed rather average, nothing particularly special about it. It was veering somewhere in between hourglass and rectangle figure. The girl had fair skin, dark blue eyes, wavy strawberry blonde hair in two messy thick twin-tails, that kept up by two black ribbons.
She wore a light pink blouse with a white cardigan, a long royal blue plaid skirt that went down to halfway below her knees, along with black tights, and white flats.
She had a rather cute appearance. It almost reminded them of- ah, nevermind. He wasn't going to reveal that in the narration yet. Anyway, he realized he needed to respond to the girl. "Oh hey. You've been kidnapped too I'm assuming? You alright?" He walked up to her.
"H-huh? Um... yes, I'm alright..." The girl's voice was fairly quiet, but he was still barely able to hear her. He almost started talking, but he realized she was still saying something. "Hey, wait... did you say "kidnapped?" How did you know that already...?"
He was surprised she was questioning that of all things. "It's obvious no? Have you seen this shitty run down apartment before? No? I didn't think so." He brushed her off before she could even properly respond. "But..." He decided to continue his thought. "It's even more obvious if you consider another factor."
The girl had a perplexed look on her face. "W-what do you mean... "another factor?"" She clearly didn't get it.
The man groaned. "You don't get it? Fine, alright. How about you introduce yourself to me?" It was less of an ask and more a command.
"Uhh...okay..." She cleared her throat. "You probably have never heard of me... but I'm Aelia Celani. A-and I guess I call myself the Ultimate Puppeteer." Aelia shook a little as she spoke.
"Thought so..." The man muttered, and started thinking about something. But Aelia kept standing there, still confused.
"Um... d-do you want to introduce yourself too...?" She asked, looking right at him. And her question snapped him out of his trance.
"Huh? Oh yeah. Ji-hoon Jo." He bluntly stated before he started thinking about something again.
Aelia just stood there awkwardly. She hadn't expected him to be so direct about it. And as Aelia looked at him more, his appearance did kind of fit his blunt and direct words.
Aelia had to admit that Ji-hoon was rather handsome. He was tall and muscular in a wiry way, with pale skin. He had a strong jawline and well-defined cheekbones, and he had light brown freckles across his straight nose. His short, thick and very tousled hair was a streaky brown, with a lot of different shades of brown.. He didn't have a fringe as such, but instead had two thick locks of hair that fell across his forehead. His eyes were bright purple and somewhat narrow and slightly downturned, giving him a sneery look, and he wore glasses with red and rectangular frames.
For what he wore, Ji-hoon wore a long-sleeved black pinstripe shirt that was unbuttoned over a plain, round-necked, short-sleeved black t-shirt. His cuffs were unbuttoned too. Then he wore dark blue slim cut denim jeans and white lace-up trainers.
Around his neck, he wore a number of cord necklaces. There were two short ones that have no pendant, two slightly longer ones that each have a differently coloured/shaped bead as their pendant, one being a round, dark green bead and the other was a star-shaped gold bead that's a little larger than the green bead. He also had a separate black cord necklace too. His only other jewelry was a black wristwatch on his left wrist.
Aelia still just stood there awkwardly watching Ji-hoon as he thought about something. But she didn't want this silence to continue! "Hey... Ji-hoon? D-do you have an ultimate talent too...?" Maybe it was a strange question, but Aelia was curious.
Upon hearing her question, Ji-hoon flashed Aelia an annoyed look. But after a second, he shifted his eyes as he thought about something. "Huh. I guess the situation would call for it then. I'm the Ultimate Celebrity Detective."
"Oh! O-okay..." Aelia looked at him. "Hey? C-can I ask you two questions...?"
Ji-hoon flashed her another annoyed look. He wanted to focus on figuring things out here, but... "Fine. What is it?" He opted to be kind to the timid girl.
"Well..." It took Aelia a second to collect her thoughts. "It's just that... I feel like you know a lot right now. L-like how you knew almost instantly... that we were kidnapped. I wondering... what all do you know?" Aelia gave a surprisingly serious stare to Ji-hoon.
Suffice to say, but Ji-hoon hadn't expected such a forward question like that. But he didn't mind it. "Well... if we really are in the same boat, I guess I oughta explain." Ji-hoon sat down on the dirty couch, and Aelia took a seat on one of the chairs.
"I... actually hold on. I'd like to ask you a question first Aelia." He pointed at the puppeteer.
Aelia widened her eyes. She hadn't expected to be asked a question instead. But she also didn't mind! "...What is it?" She pursed her lips.
"Well, if we want to figure this out, and if we want to get justice here, information is important right? So what I what to ask is..." Ji-hoon trailed off for a second. "Do you have your memories? Memories prior to being kidnapped I mean? If you do, tell me." He grabbed an old, faded notepad and a slightly chipped pen that was lying on the floor.
"My memories? I... t-think I do!" Aelia focused. If Ji-hoon thought that this would be useful, she wanted to contribute as much as she could. "I think I was... at home. B-by myself. L-like usual." She looked down at her feet. "I was cleaning and dusting off my p-puppets, Rodriguez and Eirene, at the time. But I stopped when... I heard a voice outside of my door. I was hearing... "Isn't this where the Ultimate Puppeteer lives?" and other similar things like that..." She looked up from her feet, then shifted her gaze to the side. "And... I know I shouldn't have done this... but I went outside to check on whoever said that..."
Ji-hoon rolled his eyes, but Aelia didn't see him do that. He scribbled down some notes, then motioned for her to continue.
"After I went outside... I didn't see anybody. I went a bit further out, but I still... didn't see anyone. In fact, I didn't see anyone at all." Aelia widened her eyes, like she only just now realized that herself.
Ji-hoon was intrigued by it too, and gave her another hand motion as a signal to continue.
"Then I guess... there's not much besides for that. After I was about a block away from my house... I saw a bunch of guys dressed in all black approaching me... and..." Aelia stopped.
Ji-hoon didn't like cliffhangers, but he could guess why she stopped. He set down the notepad and pen. "Is that all you remember?"
Aelia shakily nodded her head. Ji-hoon nodded his own head in return, and jotted down a few more notes. "Got it. That's valuable intel Aelia, thank you. We never know what might be useful here..." He whispered the latter half of his sentence.
Aelia smiled, then she asked Ji-hoon a question. It's turning into quite the back-and-forth. "Hey... Ji-hoon? W-what about... your memories?"
Ji-hoon looked up from his notepad and gave her a... rather frustrated look. "Yeah, that's a good question isn't it?"
Aelia tilted her head. "Huh? I don't..." Aelia was confused by what Ji-hoon meant.
Ji-hoon held up his hand, signaling for Aelia to stop. "You're wondering about my memories huh? I could tell you. I don't know what it is, but I think I lost some of my memories." Ji-hoon dropped that bombshell.
Aelia was thrown back. She hadn't expected to hear that. "W-what do you mean? Do you have... any memories at all?"
Ji-hoon gave a solemn nod. "Yeah. I have the important stuff like my family and friends and whatever. But I don't remember what I was doing before I was brought here." Ji-hoon looked around the room. "I don't remember this place, but I think that's a given. So I have no clue what I was doing before this. And that really frustrates me." He felt his hands turning into fists.
"But I do have some memories still." He continued his thought. "I asked you to introduce yourself to me remember? I think I remember you-" Ji-hoon was cut off by the sound approaching footsteps. He looked towards the doorway to the neighboring room, and saw a boy standing there. A boy he thought he recognized.
"Yo Aelia, you've been in here a while... are you alright-" The boy spoke, before he stopped himself at the sight of Ji-hoon. "Oh. You're up..." He raised his eyebrows.
Ji-hoon squinted his eyes upon seeing the boy. The boy had an ectomorph body type, long limbs that only had a little bit of muscle to them, and a rectangle-shaped frame which all came together to make him seem rather non-threatening, especially with his pale-ivory skin rounding things off to make him look rather... basic.
When it came to the rest of his body, however, his chin-length white hair stood out quite a bit in contrast to all of this due to it have a bit of a bed-head look. Even to the point where it almost got in the way of his Venetian-red eyes. All of this combined with the few sharp pieces of tooth in his mouth came together to make the boy look rather messy and haphazard.
Then for his clothes, he wore an unzipped black zip-up hoodie with grey lines on the sleeves, showing the white shirt beneath it. The aforementioned shirt had a blue collar and a cyan handprint in the middle of the shirt. On the lower part of his body, he wore dark grey jeans that entirely covered his legs, what looked like crew-length white socks that were mostly covered by his pants, and black sneakers that had red soles and blue laces on them. Lastly, he wore wireless red headphones around his neck which had black ear cushions and blue lines going across the headband.
Quite the interesting look. Aelia spoke up while Ji-hoon was looking a the boy. "O-oh! Hey Rival! Sorry, I just got... absorbed in a talk with Ji-hoon here." She motioned toward the celebrity detective.
The boy, whose name is Rival, walked fully into the room and closer to the duo. "Oh." Rival went a grabbed a chair, then sat next to Aelia. "So you're..." He stared at Ji-hoon as he trailed off.
"Yeah. It's Ji-hoon Jo. And I know you're going to ask, so I might as well just say it, but I'm the Ultimate Celebrity Detective." He held out his hand towards Rival. "She said your name already, but introduce yourself to me."
Rival blinked. "Uhh... I'm Rival Seizon. The Ultimate Backing Vocalist." Rival held out his own hand and shook Ji-hoon's, though it was a rather limp shake.
"Another Ultimate then? Right. And I assume you and Aelia woke up first in here?" Ji-hoon looked straight at Rival.
"Uh...yeah. Both of us were knocked out in the room over there." He said softly, then tilted his head towards the neighboring room.
"Y-yeah! We introduced ourselves to each other, then we... waited for you other two to wake up." Aelia chimed in on the conversation.
Oh? Aelia said something that piqued Ji-hoon's interest. "Other two? Who's the other person?" Ji-hoon looked up from the notepad and expectingly and Rival and Aelia.
Rival was the first to speak. "Well... she's kinda..." He drifted off with his words.
Rival then stayed silent, and Aelia as well. For a strangely long amount of time. Ji-hoon didn't like it. "Hello?" He snapped his fingers in front of their faces. He didn't like wasting time.
Ji-hoon's snapping his fingers brought them both back to reality. "I-it'd be easier to show rather than tell..." Aelia spoke up. "Just trust me." Rival still didn't say anything as Aelia just had an awkward look on her face.
Ji-hoon rubbed his temples. He was getting more than a bit annoyed with these two. He tried to just ignore the feeling for now. Instead, he turned his attention back to Rival, much to Aelia's dismay.
"So you were Rival right?" Ji-hoon pointed his pen at the backing vocalist then started tapping it against his own chin. "I thought recognized you..." Ji-hoon picked up the notepad and scribbled down some more notes.
"Hey Ji-hoon? Would I be able to-" Aelia jumped into the boys' conversation, but was cut off rather quickly by Ji-hoon. "Not now Aelia." He was straight to the point as he went back to writing some notes. Aelia just lowered her head.
Rival hadn't fully processed what Ji-hoon had said due to Aelia's interruption, so when he did, he widened his eyes. "Huh? The hell...? You recognize me?" Rival hadn't expected to hear that.
"I do." Ji-hoon was blunt about it. "I'm still missing some core memories here... but before I was taken, I think I was investigating you." Ji-hoon hadn't looked up from the notepad as he spoke.
Rival was instantly weirded out. "What? Why?!" He raised his normally rather soft voice to something a bit louder.
"Ah, I should clarify, it wasn't just you." He pointed at Rival. "I think I was investigating a lot of missing ultimates. Both of you had gone missing recently, so I was trying to find out what I could." Ji-hoon looked around the dirty room. "And this is what I get for my efforts huh?" He sneered.
"Huh. So... are you thinking you got taken because you got too close to the truth?" Rival asked, leaning forward a bit in his chair.
Ji-hoon leaned back on the couch and sighed. "I'm assuming so. But just... damn it!" He hit his fist on the couch. "Shit is so frustrating!"
Rival said nothing as Ji-hoon released some of his rage. But Aelia wanted to ask him something. "H-hey... Ji-hoon? About what you said earlier... about looking into the missing ultimates...? Did you look into me too? What did you find... about me?"
Ji-hoon turned to the puppeteer. "Huh? You? Well..." he thought for a moment. What did he actually know? Hmm... "You want me to be honest? Not much. There were headlines like...
"Ultimate Puppeteer gone missing?!?!"
"Where have the puppets Rodriguez and Eirene gone?!?!"
and similar stuff to that." Ji-hoon recounted. "I don't think your name was ever actually mentioned anywhere. I might be wrong, but it was only ever your puppets or your talent. Made my job a bit harder to be honest, but I didn't mind it."
Aelia wasn't surprised by what Ji-hoon said. She expected it. A sad frown reached across her face as she reflected on what he had said.
Ji-hoon, satisfied that his conversation with Aelia was done, turned back over to Rival to ask him more questions. But Aelia still wasn't finished!
"Ji-hoon... can I ask you one more ques-" But Ji-hoon didn't care that she wasn't finished, so he cut her off with a hard blink and a stare.
"Not now Aelia. I need to talk to him." He pointed to Rival with his pen. Aelia just looked down at the ground dejectedly and sighed. "Oh, okay..." Was all she muttered as the two boys went on with their conversation.
"Now, back on topic." Ji-hoon lightly tapped the notepad with his pen. "Rival, tell me what memories you have before you were kidnapped." He gave the backing vocalist a neutral glare, but still one that demanded information.
"Huh...?" Rival let out a long and dragged out yawn. "What are you, the Ultimate Interviewer?" He said sarcastically, the yawn messing with the tone of his voice a tad.
All Ji-hoon did as a response was just lowering his head and giving Rival a sharp glare from above glasses.
And he held that glare while Rival just had an unassuming look on his face... that stayed unchanging.
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But even Rival couldn't stand that tension, so after a couple of seconds, he held out his hands in front of his body. "Alright, alright, calm down man. You said you wanted to know what I remembered right?" Ji-hoon's glare softened into an only slightly less foreboding stare as he motioned for Rival to get on with it already.
Rival cracked his neck as he started his story. "Just to warn you... I doubt mine is anything special. But I can see you're determined to hear it... so whatever." Despite how dismissive he might've sounded, Ji-hoon thought he could sense that he did legitimately want to help. But he noticed that Rival had started talking, so Ji-hoon quickly went and started jotting down some notes.
"So... my story is actually pretty similar to Aelia's." He pointed to Aelia with his thumb, who was sitting to the left of him. "I was just alone... in my apartment. I was... wait. What was I doing then...?" He trailed off as he asked himself that question. Rival stayed silent for a few moments as he thought about it, but Ji-hoon got impatient.
He snapped his fingers in Rival's zoned out face. "Hey? Earth to Rival? I don't want you to zone out here. I need you to answer my questions?" Ji-hoon's tone wasn't particularly angry or anything, but he was definitely annoyed.
But that was enough to bring Rival back to reality. "Oh, did I zone out? My bad." Rival shook his head. "So... let me continue then I guess." Ji-hoon just stared at Rival while saying nothing. And Aelia was actually surprisingly interested in Rival's story, so she was paying attention as well. She hadn't heard it yet.
"So... yeah. I was in my apartment by myself." He continued. "I was just minding my business. Then... I heard a voice outside my door." He revealed.
Ji-hoon raised an eyebrow. "Did you recognize it?" He asked. Huh. Maybe he had a little bit of an Ultimate Interviewer in him. But he was just doing this for the information though.
"Did I recognize the voice?" Rival asked while titling his head. "Uh..." He trailed off for a few seconds like before, but this time, Ji-hoon could tell that he was actually preparing an answer this time.
"I... didn't... recognize the voice." Rival talked so slow that it sounded like he was trying to sound out a word. Ji-hoon wasn't exactly convinced by his answer, but he didn't want to waste time right now, so he just motioned for him to move on. Rival gave a quick nod.
"The voice scared the shit out of me honestly. But it kept on saying things. Nothing that... I can remember. But I left my place to find the voice. I ended up... going down to the entrance of the building itself. I walked around the perimeter of the building to find where it was coming from. Then I got to the dumpsters. After that... a bunch of guys dressed... in black came out of nowhere and started running up to me. And that's it. I guess." Rival closed his eyes for a moment as he thought about his memory.
Since Rival had finished, Ji-hoon started looking over his notes from both Aelia's and now Rival's memory.
Rival was right, their stories were relatively similar. The main connections between the stories was that both of them were alone, they heard voices to drag them outside, then after that, men dressed in black approached them. And that's it. While Ji-hoon thought more about it, Aelia got up from her chair.
"Hey, m-maybe Ji-hoon should question the other girl that's in h-here... right Rival?" She asked the backing vocalist, who seemed lost in thought. "It'd b-be best to have all of the information... right?" He didn't respond to her. Neither did Ji-hoon.
Aelia frowned. She knew she could just ask the other girl that Rival and her saw, but if she was being honesty... the other girl was a little creepy. She didn't want to go alone. She looked at the boys again. She wanted to say something but she didn't know what to say.
"G-guys...?" She asked again, but the boys didn't look her way. She frowned again. Why was it always like this...
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"Aelia? Why are you... standing?" Rival suddenly perked up.
Aelia let out a small sigh. "O-oh, well I thought... we should go and t-talk to that other girl right? I asked you guys a couple seconds ago... b-but you ignored me." Aelia gave the third frown in a row. Rival seemingly didn't care, and Ji-hoon didn't care as well.
"Right, you mentioned the other girl here didn't you?" Ji-hoon got up off of the couch, apparently done with his thinking for now. And at least he wasn't ignoring Aelia now! "That's a good idea Aelia, let's go see her. Where is she?"
Seeing that Ji-hoon liked her idea, Aelia's frown streak turned into a nice smile."O-oh yeah! She's just two rooms over. I-I'll show you...! C'mon Rival!" She motioned for Rival to stand.
And Rival got up from the chair, but not without giving some exaggerated tired groans, like he was an old man. "Alright... yeah. Guess we should."
Rival quickly turned around and headed toward the neighboring room. And Ji-hoon joined him. Aelia hadn't expected for them to get moving so quick, but she started leaving the room with them too.
[Entryway]
When they entered the neighboring room, Ji-hoon immediately recognized it as a sort of entryway into an apartment.
It was basically shaped like a wide hallway. Just like what was probably the living room, the walls and floors were wooden and rotting. Just overall pretty gross. There was another door way on the opposite side of the entryway. To the right of them was small closet with a few stray boxes in it. Judging by the smells coming from the closest, they did not want to know what was in those boxes.
Then to the left of them was a door. He assumed it was a way out, but Ji-hoon reached for the nob and jiggled it a little, but it didn't budge. Ji-hoon saw Rival come up out of the corner of his eye and point at a device that was to the right of the door. It was a sort of computer monitor and keyboard fit into the wall. There wasn't anything on the monitor, just eight dashes. And the keyboard was just a normal keyboard.
"You two have any ideas on this?" He a quick point to the device. But Rival and Aelia shook their heads in unison.
"Man... I wish I did. I don't have a clue what to put in there. It's probably...our escape too. I think..." Rival scratched the back of his head.
"Y-yeah. I tried a few things on it earlier... w-when Rival and I woke up in here. But... nothing worked. After that, we just waited for you or the other g-girl to... wake up. It wasn't... very eventful." Aelia gave an awkward chuckle.
"Huh. Well that's good to know then." Ji-hoon wanted to mess around with this to see if he could figure anything out, but he wanted to prioritize the other girl Rival and Aelia mentioned.
Ji-hoon saw Aelia move over to the other doorway and poke her head in. He then heard her whisper something. "Oh..." She turned to Rival, still whispering. "R-rival... the girl is awake."
Rival slowly sauntered over to her and peaked into the room as well. "Huh... I guess she is." He whispered as well.
Annoyed by how slow they were talking this, Ji-hoon walked up behind them and looked into the room himself. And the room looked like a sort of kitchen.
Like the other rooms, it was rotting as well. But it had a chipped ceramic tile floor, still with the wooden walls and ceiling. The first apparent thing in the room was the small dining table, probably only able to fit three or four people. There were only three wooden chairs there in fact. Two of the chairs were missing a leg, and the other was still intact. The dining table was wooden as well, along with being upturned onto the ground, and it was laying on its side. It had various chips in the surfaces of it too.
To the right of the dining table was the kitchen itself. There was a small and cheap wooden island blocking most of the details of the kitchen. But they could still make out an oven with a stovetop, a few cabinets, some with open doors and some with broken doors, and an old fridge and freezer. The fridge and freezer was clearly broken though, as it had a massive hole in the side of it, where you could see inside. It didn't look like there was any food in there.
Then the biggest standout had to be the other girl that Rival and Aelia were talking about. She was sitting down in the kitchen area, seemingly using the missing fourth dining table chair. And as Ji-hoon looked at her, he couldn't help but think about what Aelia and Rival said. The stuff about her being creepy. Honestly, he could kind of see it.
For one, despite this girl clearly being around the same age as them, she still looked rather... old. The girl seemed to be on the thinner and gaunt side, and she wore loose fitting and baggy clothing. She looked frail and a little tired too. But Ji-hoon supposed he couldn't blame somebody for being the latter in this type of situation. But besides for that, the girl was fair skinned and she seemed quite pale. She had high cheekbones that frame a delicate and sullen face. Her eyes were a pale icy blue color, with heavy bags under them both of which he could barely see through the sunglasses she wore. Ji-hoon wasn't the type to judge someone for wearing sunglasses indoors. But her blood red hair flowed off of her head and to just about her mid back, and she kept it in a low ponytail. There looked to be a few grayish strands in her hair too.
For what she wore, she dressed in rather dark colors, so it was hard to tell what exactly she was wearing while in the darkness of the kitchen. She wore a black, long sleeve turtleneck, and over top of that a long, navy blue cardigan sweater. On her lower half was a pair of loose dress pants that were the same color as her turtleneck sweater. On her feet she wore a pair of black ankle boots. She had on a couple of accessories on her as well. She had on a pair of black leather gloves. She had the aforementioned pair of thick sunglasses. She also had a black parasol leaning on the side of the chair she was in too. Quite the appearance.
Wait. Why was he just staring at her like this? He needed to talk to this lady to get information and answers my Ji-hoon took a step forward into the kitchen, but Aelia whispered after him to stop him. "Ji-hoon! W-what are you doing?" She asked.
But Ji-hoon gave her a look like she had just asked a really stupid question. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm going to talk to this girl to get information!" Ji-hoon's voice raised a bit louder from a whisper.
"O-oh... well I'm coming w-with!" Aelia went to join him in the kitchen, but she was cut off by Rival.
"I thought you said that girl was creepy...?" Rival said curtly with a bit of snark mixed in.
Aelia frowned at Rival's comment. "Y-you said she was creepy too...!" Aelia didn't wait for a response as she went on after Ji-hoon.
Rival stood there for a moment, unmoving. "...I guess I did say that..." That was all he muttered as he went to join the two in the kitchen.
[Kitchen]
Not wanting to waste any time, Ji-hoon walked right up the girl, who was still clearly trying to get her bearings. "Hey, you alright?" Ji-hoon went up and leaned against the nearby counter as he began to speak to this girl.
The girl dressed in black looked up at Ji-hoon and blinked. It took her a second to speak, as she was still getting her bearings. Then it still took her bit longer to start speaking when she noticed Aelia and Rival right behind Ji-hoon. "Am I alright? You mean me?" The girl asked slowly.
"Y-yeah! Are you... okay?" Aelia chimed in from behind Ji-hoon. Rival just stood in the back and watched.
The girl rose her hands up and looked them over, like she was scanning for any injuries or ailments. "I... *cough* believe I am unharmed. Thank you for your concerned, but you *cough* don't need to worry about me."
But all three of them were still understandably worried. "If you're okay... what about your cough? You don't seem okay." Rival decided to comment in now.
But the girl just shook her head at Rival's remark. "It's not contagious or anything. I assure you, you don't need to *cough* worry about me." The girl gave a very thin smile at the trio.
None of them seemed to buy it, but they figured it'd be better to question it later. "Alright. Er-" Ji-hoon wanted to properly initiate what he came here to do, but he stopped himself. He's still missing a very important piece of information.
"H-hey, what's... your name?" Aelia stole the question Ji-hoon wanted to ask right out of his mouth. But he didn't really mind.
The placid girl's eyes widen a little at the question. "Ah, forgive me. I'm usually more proper with these things. I'm Rosalind Reinhardt, at your service."
Ji-hoon thought so. Rosalind wasn't necessarily famous where he was from or anything, but she still has a bit of renown. "Rosalind then? Alright, I want to-" Ji-hoon got cut off once again. And by who you ask?
"S-say, do you have... an Ultimate talent too?" He was cut off by Aelia again. She seemed rather eager to be in the conversation didn't she? Ji-hoon heard a small chuckle out of Rival from the back. Well it's fine. Ji-hoon figured he'd have to get this out of the way.
"An Ultimate Talent? I do. It's a *cough* bit of a mouthful, but I'm the Ultimate Cinematographer." Her cough combined with her raspy voice made Rosalind a bit difficult to fully understand, but the trio still listened to her intently.
With that out of the way, Ji-hoon took the reins. "Rosalind. I have some things I want to ask you. First, I'll be blunt. It appears that you, myself, and these two behind me have been kidnapped." Ji-hoon stated like it was no big deal, like it was just another causal fact.
Rosalind let out a dry laugh at that fact. "Oh yeah? I'm *cough* not surprised. I knew I didn't recognize this place. Heh." Rosalind looked around the room again. "If they're going to kill us, I just hope they get it over with quickly..." Rosalind intended for that to be a joke, but it was clear that none of them found it funny, judging by their faces. Admittedly Rival found it a little funny, but he chose not to share that.
Ji-hoon himself coughed, but this time just to clear the air. "Anyway... Rosalind. I need to know something." Ji-hoon had set his notepad and pen on a nearby counter, so he grabbed them and faced back towards Rosalind. "Can you tell me what you remember prior to you being taken? I'm collecting information here. We are not just going to lay here twiddling our thumbs while we wait for some ominous and mysterious voice to give us further instructions." Ji-hoon tapped his pen against his notepad. "So. Tell me." Ji-hoon prepped himself to start writing down some notes.
But Rosalind let out another dry laugh. "Wow, you're quite gung-ho aren't you? Not lying here and waiting for our fates? I'd agree with you, but I feel it'd be much easier to just wait here and-" Rosalind stopped talking as she looked over the three ultimates standing in front of her. "Forgive me, I didn't catch your names?"
Aelia stepped up and decided to inform the cinematographer of their names. "O-oh! I'm Aelia Celani, please remember it! And he's Ji-hoon Jo... a Celebrity Detective. And he is-"
"Rival Seizon. Backing Vocalist." Rival went and did his own introduction, which got a small frown from Aelia. "Rosalind was your name...?" Rival asked, but he kept on talking anyway. "I gotta say... it'd be better to just go along with whatever he says. He's not the type to back down." Rival rolled his eyes. He didn't explicitly point at or gesture towards who he was talking about, but it was obviously Ji-hoon. All the while, Ji-hoon was just sitting there, holding his head in his hand. He wasn't saying anything.
"You said your name was Rival? It's a pleasure to meet you, as well as you other two, Ji-hoon and Aelia." Rosalind was attempting to be cordial, but it still came off strange. "Anyway... you might have a point Rival. I see *cough* what you're saying." Rosalind closed her eyes. "You want my *cough* memories you said? Give me a second to think."
Ji-hoon looked up at Rosalind when he heard that she was going to cooperate. He didn't understand why something as simple as just asking for what is essentially just a testimony could end up so difficult. Ji-hoon sighed. "Get on with it then." Ji-hoon urged Rosalind to tell her story.
"You are a little *cough* impatient, aren't you Ji-hoon. Well, no matter." Rosalind cleared her throat, which set off a few coughs accompanied by an awkward silence. "So... my memories. I'll keep it brief." She closed her eyes. "I remember... that I was *cough* leaving work. I was at my production company, "Little Roz Pictures" all day. I still had more I needed to do by the time I left, but my coworkers insisted I go home and get some rest. Ridiculous. There's no rest for the wicked after all." Rosalind kept her eyes closed as she continued her story.
"But I did indeed leave. I was intending on... *cough* walking home that day. So I did. But I didn't make it very far until... I heard a voice. And it was of *cough* someone I knew. I'm sure."
Ji-hoon's raised an eyebrow at that fact. That's another interesting connecting factor between these memories.
"After I heard the voice, I decided to follow it. I can only move so fast, but I caught up with it eventually. But when I thought I found it, all I actually found was *cough* an empty back alley. Then soon after, I spotted men dressed in black approaching me." Rosalind opened her eyes. "And I'm afraid that's all. Forgive me for how useless my story must be. If only those men killed me right then and there..."
Ji-hoon was busy jotting down notes like a madman, so he didn't hear that last remark. But judging by the concern on Aelia and Rival's faces, they definitely did. Joke or not, that's not a nice thing to hear. "Rosalind, I don't know if I'd joke about that. I assume you'd rather be... alive than dead yeah?" Rival asked, being a little serious for once.
"Oh?" Rosalind raised her eyebrows at Rival's comment. "That's quite the *cough* assumption you've made Rival. Heh." That was all she had to say. Rival didn't know how to process that, and neither did Aelia, who was still listening in.
"Rosalind-" Aelia was tired of just listening in and wanted to ask Rosalind about her dark humor, but she was cut off by seeing that Ji-hoon had finally finished writing his notes.
"Alright. So after hearing your stories, there are already some points of connection here." Ji-hoon abruptly started explaining his findings. Aelia stopped herself to listen, but it seemed like Rival and Rosalind were zoning out. "Hey." Ji-hoon snapped his fingers in front of the faces of the latter two when he noticed them not being engaged here. "Listen." That was all he said as he went back to his explanation.
"So the points of connection here are as follows. One, they caught everyone when they were alone. But that isn't a surprise. Kidnappers have a tendency to stalk their victims for bit prior to committing their crime, in order to actually commit their crime at the right time. And with you all being ultimates, that's made a bit easier." Ji-hoon sighed.
"Two, the voices. Rival and Rosalind heard voices of people they knew, and Aelia heard voices in general. I'm assuming that our kidnapped used a voice modifier, a voice recording, or something similar to lure us around then. Rival and Rosalind, for those people you knew, would they realistically be involved in kidnapped ultimate students?" He darted his eyes between the two, and both of them just shook their heads. "Like I thought."
"Then three, the men in black. You all experienced what sounds like the same people, or people from the same group approaching you before you lost consciousness. So it's safe to say we aren't dealing with a single perp here. Or maybe they're wealthy enough to hire people to kidnap ultimate students."
"Both of those are s-scary thoughts..." Aelia looked down at the ground.
Ji-hoon just solemnly nodded his head. "Right. And none of you having anything else to share?" He looked between the three of them, and all of them shook their heads. "Alright, now that the information is sorted out, now we try and see if we can find a way out." Ji-hoon stopped leaning against the counter and started walking around the kitchen.
"I don't know about that. It seems like the only way out... is the front door with the keypad. And we don't know jack about it..." Rival stretched and stood up himself.
Ji-hoon shook his head. "Be that as it may, like I said, we aren't just going to sit around and wait for our fate. We aren't going to play by the kidnappers's rules." Ji-hoon was determined to get out of this place. Not all of them were on the same level as him, but they could all respect that at least.
"Fine then... I'll mess around with the keypad door. Doubt it's going to work but whatever..." Rival muttered as he walked out into the other room.
Ji-hoon watched silently as Rival walked out of the room. He then turned his gaze to the girls. "You two get going and find some clues, information, whatever. I know what you said earlier Rosalind, but you're not just going to sit there and wither away, and you're going to have to deal with it." Ji-hoon embraced his sort of leader role as he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room a bit more to search there.
That left Aelia and Rosalind alone in the kitchen. Aelia turned towards Rosalind and extended her hand. "So... do you want t-to get going then... Rosalind?" She tried to be assertive but kind at the same time.
Rosalind wryly smiled. "I don't have a choice here do I? Well, that's fine with me I suppose." As he started to get up, she pushed away Aelia's hand. "I appreciate it, but I don't need your help." She said flatly as she got up. Aelia wasn't going to say anything, but it definitely took her longer than on average to just get up out of a chair.
But anyway, Rosalind grabbed the parasol that was by her chair and started using it as a cane. Aelia again decided not to comment on it. Both of the girls got ready to really investigate the kitchen, but they stopped after a loud and grating noise started echoing throughout the entirety of this strange apartment.
Rosalind's parasol fell to the ground as she immediately brought her hands up to her ears to help block out the sound. Aelia did the same, but she just how much Rosalind looked in pain. "R-Rosalind! A-are you okay?" Even with this horrible sound, Aelia tried to see if Rosalind was alright. But she didn't respond, clearly being too pained by the sound.
Rather soon after, Ji-hoon and Rival came rushing into the room. "The hell is this?!" Ji-hoon looked frantically around the room for a source, all while Rival just looked... done. Perhaps due to having a musical related talent, he had better hearing?
Well, no matter what the truth of the matter was, all four were grateful when it stopped after a few seconds. But what replaced it was arguably more chilling.
"Ahem! Hello in there my wonderful stars! I hope the audio troubles weren't too disturbing for you!" An oddly eager and chipper voice echoed out from somewhere in this apartment.
They all looked around, trying to find its source, but to no avail. So instead, they just focused on what the voice was saying. Rosalind was still reeling from the noise, so Aelia was comforting her.
It was Ji-hoon and Rival handling the voice. "So... you the one who kidnapped us?" Rival spoke first.
"Indeed! Good job Mr. Seizon! I'm so proud of you for making that deduction!" The voice seemed both enthusiastic and sincere about her praise of Rival, which only served to weird them out.
"So you are our kidnapper then. Cut to the chase, don't play any games with us. What do you want from us?" Ji-hoon cut straight to the point, not wanting to deal with any potential antics. And he could just sense the antic-ness emanating from the voice.
"Well that's no fun Mr. Jo! I want to play with you! I want to play with you all! I love to watch my precious stars squirm and rise to the occasion!" The boys were weirded out by her wording, but Ji-hoon took a mental note that she called them "stars."
"But I digress. I do indeed have a game I want to play with you all! Including you two girls as well! This involves both of you too, Ms. Celani and Ms. Reinhardt!" The voice announced, catching the attention of the girls.
Thankfully, it looked like Rosalind was doing better. "A game? I'm afraid that wouldn't be good for me. I can make anything dreadfully *cough* boring..." Well, better enough to quip anyway.
"Nonsense Ms. Reinhardt! Now, I ask you four to make your way into the living room! Your game will await you there..." The voice left off on an ominous note as it went silent.
The four ultimates looked at each other. Maybe it was Ji-hoon's insistence finally getting through to be the more apathetic ones in the room, but they all gave each other a nod as they left the kitchen, went into the entryway, then... they made their way... back into the living room...
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[Living Room]
Ji-hoon was the first one to enter the living room. And once he saw what this "game" was, he froze. He had expected a variety of things to happen due to being kidnapped, but he hadn't expected that so quickly.
Rival was next. He froze up at the sight of the game as well, with his mouth slightly agape. He wanted to look away from it. He wanted so badly to look away from it. But his damn brain forced him to look at it. Painful memories trickled out as Rival tried to surpass them.
Aelia entered third. She stayed behind a little to make sure Rosalind got there fine, but when Aelia herself reached the game, she felt a spike of sheer horror run through her body. She didn't say anything. She didn't move at all.
And Rosalind was last to enter. As soon as she saw what the game was, she immediately looked down at the ground. Anything to avoid looking at this horrible game. She tried taking deep breaths to calm her down. She tried internally telling jokes to calm herself down. But it barely worked...
All four stared at the sight of the wretched game that loomed before them. Suddenly, the voice came back.
"Ah, have my wonderful stars seen the game I want you to play? Oh, I'm so glad! And luckily for you, the rules are simple. All you have to do is...
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find out who did it!" The voice let out a regal laugh. "And once you do, simply input the name into the keyboard near the door. Then you can leave! Easy and simple, right my darlings?"
The room stayed dead silent.
"Wow, tough crowd, eh? Well that's okay! I'm sure you'll warm up as the game gets going! Anyway, toodeloo!" The voice signed off, for what sounded like for good.
Still though, no one said anything. But despite the lack of words, all of their brains were slowly working on acknowledging the supposed game that lay before them. It was no game. Not in the slightest. The horrible sight all four were looking at was a...
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dead body...
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[???]
Pheme's smile grew to an unprecedented degree as she signed off from talking to the stars in the Mystery Studio. She knew seeing their reactions to the body would be delight to witness, and it indeed was!
But she couldn't dwell on it for too long, as she had business to attend to. The matter of her two extra stars, and the one uninvited star. Pheme hopped up out of her chair, and left her room, eager to get to work.
Upon leaving her room, all Pheme had to do was to take a quick elevator ride to reach her destination. She needed to get her hands on the extra two quick, as she didn't want their presence known just yet. She needed to deal with the contact as well. She left the elevator at a brisk pace and quickly made it to where she told the contact to drop them off.
Pheme breathed a sigh of relief when she saw them there, both barely stirring to consciousness. She wanted to grab them right now but... it might be entertaining to just watch them for now? She absolutely adores watching her magnificent stars. She pulled out a device and she checked the time. She wagered she had a little bit of time to watch them wake up. And the she didn't care if the Contact waited for longer either. Pheme gave a bright smile as she accessed the remote camera feed to watch them. This'll be so much fun...
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[Hallway]
A cold and hard floor. That was all that I felt when I woke up from what felt like my deepest sleep ever. I rose my head up from the ground, and all I saw was just cold and hard stone walls on each side of this... hallway? It seemed like a hallway at least. I slowly stood up from off the floor. I was a little unsteady on my feet, so it took a second to get my bearings...
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As the girl got up and looked around, she saw that she wasn't hallucinating where she was. She and another boy were indeed in a very dull and grey hallway. The floor and walls were stone, like she saw. She saw two doors on either side of the hallway they were in, but she didn't want to mess with those just yet. First, she wanted to make sure the boy with her was okay.
Admittedly, the boy was slim and small, having a little amount of muscle. He had fair skin with a pale undertone. Then he had blue almond shaped eyes, a brown bowl cut at short length, and he wore a pair of rectangle glasses. He also had acne scars on his forehead and cheeks.
His clothes weren't anything too fancy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. He wore blue t-shirt with a yellow book graphic design in the center, cargo pants with a brown leather belt attached to it, and red sneakers. A simple look.
And with some remarkably good timing, the boy was stirring awake as she was looking him over. "Hmm...?" The boy muttered as he looked around the hallway. It took him a second for his eyes to land on the girl. "Oh, um, hey!" The boy blinked.
The girl smiled and lowered her hand to the boy. "Hello there! Are you alright?"
The boy subsequently took the girl's hand. Once he was up on his feet, he patted himself down. "Um... I think I'm alright! I don't feel any problems in my joints, m-muscles, ligaments, or anything else. So yeah! I-I'd say I'm alright!" He turned to look at the girl.
The girl slightly widened her eyes. She didn't say anything for a few seconds. She hadn't expected him to be so... descriptive about how he feels alright. But upon realizing she was zoning out and that the boy was still staring at her, she shook her head. "Ah, alright! I'm delighted to hear you're okay!" She gently smiled. "Can I ask for your name?"
The boy also smiled and nodded his head "Ah yeah, I s-should introduce myself shouldn't I? M-my name is Adam Brooks! I graduated from Hope's Peak Academy as the U-ultimate Academic!" He scratched the back of his head "So uh... if you need any help with studying or anything like that... just call on me!"
Upon introducing himself, Adam started taking a good look at the girl. She had fair skin which was clear and crisp, and it seemed like she wasn't even wearing makeup. She had amber eyes and dark red hair which had a natural wave to it. He noticed she had a perfect hourglass figure, which he quickly felt embarrassed that he focused on that. All in all, she appeared to manage her appearance quite deliberately.
Next, he focused on what she was wearing. She had on a light brown blouse which was tucked into a thigh length black skirt with a diamond belt around her waist. Around her neck she had a matching light brown choker and a thin wire necklace which ended in a pale yellow flower inside an orb pendant. Around her shoulders, she wore a black suit jacket with a silver leaf pattern and purple flowers on it, but she doesn't wear the sleeves. She also had on white heels with gold detailing, as well as a purple ribbon leglet on her right leg. Her hair was partially pulled back into a braid with the other half of her hair resting around her shoulders. She wore green leaf and flower shaped hanging earrings and gold hair clip with pink flower beads hanging on a chain from the clip.
Adam had to admit that she had quite the beautiful appearance. He was about to stop staring like a weirdo and actually say something, but his eyes landed on something on the ground to the left of the girl. It was a red parasol with a hydrangea pattern and various hanging ribbons.
"Oh, um, is that y-yours by any chance?" Adam pointed at the parasol.
The girl gave a quizzical look before turning to see what Adam was referring to. Upon seeing the parasol, she let out a small gasp. "Ah yes, that is indeed mine!" She turned to look at him again. "Thank you for pointing it out to me Adam." She smiled at him before picking up her parasol. Adam blushed a little, but he quickly shook his head. He didn't want to be weird here. Especially because he still doesn't know where they are. He hadn't even questioned it yet. But he needed to do something first.
Upon seeing that the girl turned back around to face him, now holding her parasol, Adam asked her an important question. "Hey, uh, could I know y-your name too?"
The girl let out a small gasp of shock and gave a small bow after hearing the question. "Yes of course, forgive me for not telling you sooner. I am Aurora Beaufort. Just like you, I am an Ultimate. The Ultimate Starlet. It's very nice to meet you Adam." Aurora gave a gentle and soothing smile, like she evidently usually does.
But after Aurora introduced herself, Adam narrowed his eyes. "Hmmm..." He let out, like he was thinking deeply about something.
Aurora was confused by Adam's body language. "Is something the matter Adam? Are you thinking about something?" Aurora tilted her head.
Adam didn't mean to keep on zoning out. But after hearing Aurora's name, so dots connected in his brain. He recognized her! "Oh, I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare or look weird..." Adam looked away, embarrassed.
But Aurora didn't seem to mind it at all. "It's not a worry at all Adam. What were you thinking about?"
Adam was still a bit embarrassed, but, "Well... it's just that I realized that I recognized you! I thought my brain would've known sooner if I recognized you, so I was a bit thrown off." Adam awkwardly chuckled and turned back to face Aurora. "I've seen some of your movies. And the girls at school just wouldn't shut up about your modeling, so I kind of grew to know you against my will." Adam rolled his eyes after his last comment, but Aurora could tell it wasn't him attempting to be mean or anything.
"Ah, is that the case? Well I'm flattered that you know me!" Aurora gave a small curtsy. "And..." Now Aurora narrowed her eyes. Adam talking about how he recognized her caused Aurora to think about something.
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Ah! It was a faint memory but, "Excuse me, Adam. I think I might recognize you too! I'm not just trying to nice. I think... I've heard of you!" Aurora lifted her pointer finger to her mouth, tapped into against her lips a few times, then pointed at Adam. "Yes... you..." Aurora trailed off as she spoke. She was about to mention a story she heard that she believes was about Adam, but Adam's body language stopped her. He looked real nervous. As the story she heard sunk in a bit for her, she realized why he was nervous.
Aurora brought her pointer finger back to her lip and let out a small chuckle. "A-ah, never mind. I believe I was thinking of a different person. Forgive me." Aurora shook her head.
Adam was relieved that she hadn't explained what she meant. He had an inkling what it was, but he didn't want to be reminded of it, and especially by a girl as pretty as Aurora was. "O-oh, okay! That's fine! I'm not bothered at all!" Adam wiped a stray bead of sweat from his forehead.
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Adam and Aurora's conversation had turned into an awkward silence, so Aurora decided to break the mold by addressed the elephant in the room. "Say, Adam. I love talking with you, but perhaps we should focus on... where we are?" Aurora looked around the hallway they were trapped in.
Like being struck by a bolt of lightning, Adam's eyes widened. "Oh, uh, you're right!" Now Adam looked around the hallway. "H-how could I not focus on that? U-usually I'm more organized and aware..." Adam frowned.
Aurora giggled at Adam's frustration. "You don't have to worry about that at all Adam. Perhaps we should get to investigating this place now? I don't want to assume the worst, but we should get more information on where we are." Aurora ran her hand down the wall of the hallway. "Though I suppose there isn't that much to actually investigate here."
Adam was still a bit annoyed that he wasn't more proactive in this situation, but Aurora's comments had him thinking about more things. I mean, she was right. Nows not the time to get frustrated, or to assume the worst. He hadn't even acknowledged the situation they were actually in yet, so he wanted to remedy that. "Well let's just see w-what we can glean from this place before we d-draw any conclusions."
Once she saw that Adam was ready to investigate, she gave a relieved smile. "You're right Adam. How about it then, should I take this side and you take the other?" Aurora gestured towards each side of the hallway.
Adam nodded. "Yes, splitting u-up the work is the smart way to work here." Adam smiled. He was excited to focus and get to work. Aurora walked over to her designated side to start her investigating. But Adam was still looking around the hallway itself. Like they've noticed, it has stone walls and floors. He looked up, and saw that the ceiling was stone as well.
He gave a light knock on the wall. It seemed pretty thick. It didn't seem like the walls were hollow or anything like that. So ignoring both of the doors, it didn't seem like they were going to literally break out of here. He wasn't even sure if Aurora and himself had enough strength collectively to break out of here. He investigated the walls as much as he could, but Adam couldn't notice any weak points.
"Hmph. It looks like we won't have any luck with the walls in the place. They don't seem to be hollow or to have any hidden tricks." Adam crossed his arms and sighed.
"Right. It unfortunately seems like there aren't any secret passages out of this place." Aurora shook her head. "But we still have these doors to look at!" Aurora chose to stay optimistic.
"Right." Adam gave a determined nod as he turned towards the door. The first thing he noticed was that it was metal. He wasn't an expert on metal or anything, but if he had to hazard a guess, it seemed like it was titanium. It had a metal door handle as well, with a keyhole in it. Adam jiggled the handle.
"D-damn it..." He was trying to hold out hope, but the handle didn't budge. He put his ear to the door. He wasn't able to hear anything past it. It seemed like a rather thick door, just like the walls.
He turned towards Aurora. "Have you learnt anything Aurora?"
Aurora had her ear to the other door, just like Adam. She was silent for a moment, before she let out a small gasp. "Adam! Come over here and listen!" She beckoned him over.
Eager to see what she had found, Adam rushed over to the other door she was at. The door itself looked relatively similar to the other one. But Adam wasn't focusing on that, as he went and placed his ear on the door. At first, it was just silence.
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After a moment of silence, they both had finally heard something. "That's fascinating... is that a bird I h-hear?" Adam whispered.
Aurora slowly nodded. "Yes. It sounds like a bird chirping. It's awfully muffled, but we can still barely make it out..." Aurora whispered as well.
In addition to the bird, the duo could just barely make out some more sounds. Like the distant blowing of leaves, various animals cries, and more. Did this door lead... outside?
Both Adam and Aurora's breathing got faster as they got excited at the prospect of getting out of this place. Neither had explicitly said it yet, but they knew they must've been kidnapped. That's not exactly a nice thing to think about.
Aurora took her ear off of the door and went to try and open the door. And...
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Just like the other one, it was locked.
"Damn!" Adam cursed in frustration as he stomped his foot.
Aurora simply looked down at the ground, clearly trying to hide her despair. She didn't say anything.
But Adam was still talking. "So c-close... damn it!" He stomped his foot again.
Aurora still wasn't saying, as she was still looking at the ground. At this point, Adam was getting concerned. He tried to reign in his anger. "H-hey, uh, Aurora? What's going on? Are you alright?
It took a few seconds for Aurora to respond. "Say, Adam? Would you mind stomping your foot down on the ground once more?" She looked up at him.
"W-wait, what? Why?" Adam was clearly confused, and he didn't like being confused.
"Please, just trust me." Aurora gave Adam a gentle smile to reassure him.
Adam still didn't know what Aurora was after here, but her smile eased his concerns, and he gave a determined nod. He raised his foot up... and stomped again. He looked at Aurora.
All she said was "Once more, please."
So Adam stomped again. And again. And again. After a few stomps, Adam was getting a bit tired. But luckily for him, all it took was a few stomps for Aurora to get what she wanted. "It's alright Adam, you can stop it now. Look." Aurora pointed at the ground, and at what she was seemingly so interested in.
After seeing it, Adam immediately understood what she was doing. "Oh, that's interesting..." Adam bent down to look at it. "A s-stone?" Adam went and felt the stone. It wasn't gigantic by any means, but it was still fairly big.
"Yes, it is indeed a stone. I had seen that a portion of the stone floor looked a bit loose. And after you stomped your foot in frustration, it looked as if the ground had loosened a tad. So I asked you to keep on stomping in order to loosen it. I believe it may be valuable." Now Aurora bent down to get a closer look at it.
"T-that's impressive Aurora! G-good thinking!" Adam went to pat her on the back, but pulled his hand back at the last moment in fear of being awkward. "Now... what shall we do with it?" Having something like this definitely has its uses, but he didn't know what those uses were right now.
Aurora shook her head. "I have an idea for a potential use. See here?" Aurora got up and gestured towards the handle on the door that seemed to lead outside. "Adam, please try to open it. Just trust me." Aurora reassured the academic.
Adam, intrigued, went and did as she asked. Well, it was still definitely locked. But Adam noticed something else about the handle. It seemed rather loose. Like the handle was broken in some way, or it was a size too small for the door itself. Adam quickly put two and two together to realize Aurora's plan. "Um, so are y-you implying we should attempt to break the handle and lock with the stone?" Adam looked quizzically at the stone, then back to Aurora.
Aurora gave a quick nod. "Indeed. Would that not be possible?" Aurora tilted her head. "I may not have been in very many action movies or anything similar, but is this not a tactic they use?
Adam thought for a moment. Breaking a lock with a stone is usually something that's shown off in movies. And in those situations they are breaking padlocks and not door handles. Adam closed his eyes. But from what he felt of the handle, it was indeed fairly loose. Would it be possible to break it? Adam felt confident saying that there was at least a non-zero percent chance of success with this. And besides, what did they have to lose?
Adam smiled and nodded. "I think we should give it a shot. We n-never know until we try."
Aurora breathed a sigh of relief. "Very well then." She spoke resolutely as she bent down to pick up the stone. Adam wanted to stop her and say that she should attempt to break it off first. But he stopped himself. Aurora was at least six inches taller than him, and seemingly had more muscle. He internally sighed as he realized she'd be an infinitely better candidate for this. But he didn't let that get him down. "Alright Aurora. I'll stand back a bit." Adam, as he said he would, took a few steps back. "Now, uh, h-hit it with as much force as you can m-manage!" Adam tried his best to sound cool, and he wasn't sure if he actually did or not.
And he couldn't tell if Aurora noticed or cared, because all she did was give a determined nod. She took the stone above her head, and prepared to bring in down onto the lock. She did an internal countdown.
1...
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3...!
And Aurora used all of her strength to bring the stone down onto the door handle. And...
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It actually fell off!
Aurora wiped a bead of sweat from her face and she set the stone down on the ground. "Wonderful!" She exclaimed.
"W-w-wow Aurora, great job!" Adam got visibly excited from behind her. "Now, let's get out of here-" Adam got cut off.
But Aurora unfortunately didn't notice as she picked up her parasol once more and pushed open the door. And just like they thought...
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It actually led outside! It was currently nighttime, and Aurora saw a variety of little creatures scurrying around, as well as pretty birds flying between the trees. It looked like they were in a sort of forest.
Aurora took once step forward, but she suddenly stopped when she felt a stinging pain in her neck. "Wha-?" She turned around, and she immediately saw Adam, who was knocked out on the floor once again.
Aurora looked up in fear, at what had stabbed her neck. But she didn't have much time to focus on the details of the assailant... as she felt herself... slipping further and further...
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Into unconsciousness...
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All she saw... before her brain shut off...
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were glowing blue eyes...
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[Hallway]
Pheme stood over the now knocked out Aurora with her arms crossed. "Foolish Ms. Beaufort." Pheme shook her head. "And you are foolish as well Mr. Brooks." Pheme shook her head again as she talked to the unconscious duo.
Pheme was indeed rather disappointed with the duo for actively trying to escape, but she also thought about the fact that they almost did. That was rather sloppy on Pheme's part. She had been working on getting the door that led outside fixed and reinforced, but it completely slipped her mind as of late. If Aurora and Adam had actually managed to escape, that'd have been quite the problem she would've had to deal with. And Pheme couldn't imagine how they would react to it.
But luckily for her, they did not escape. And now they get to be a part of her wonderful game! Pheme's anxiety turned into a bright hope inside of her. She took a deep breath. "Alright! I've been distracted by these splendiferous stars for too long! Now it's time to-" Pheme's talk with herself was cut off when her device started to ring.
She felt her heart skip a beat at the sudden sound, but she grabbed it and quickly answered it. "Hello? This is the Goddess of Fame speaking?" She asked, like she didn't already know who it was.
"Pheme? Where are you? I need you over here to finalize something." The voice was tired and impatient.
"Hm? Ah! Don't worry, I'll be there soon. I was just... dealing with another matter." Pheme held in a chuckle of delight at the situation. She was still so glad that they didn't know about her extra two stars just yet.
"Oh? Well get done with it quick and get over here! The stars in the Mystery Studio have been given their task correct? They can handle it and move on." They tried to assure Pheme. "The stars can handle it, so please get over here quickly now! We're already behind schedule!" They insisted.
But Pheme just smiled and shook her head. "You needn't worry! I'll be over there shortly! In the meantime, could you fetch something for me from my room? I'm afraid I left it in there and I do so want it with me you see." Pheme attempted to draw them away.
"Get something for you? ... Ah. That? Hm..." They thought for a moment.
"Yes I can fetch it for you. Just get over here quick!" They insisted once again.
"Of course! I'll be there in a jiffy!" Pheme hung up and pocketed her device.
"Alright then. I don't have a lot of time, so let's get moving shall we?" Pheme first collected Aurora's dropped parasol and stored it the best she could on her person. After that, she hauled Adam and Aurora's unconscious bodies out of the hallway and into the neighboring room.
Now that she was here, all she had to do was drag the bodies into the elevator. Thankfully for her, Adam and Aurora weren't very heavy.
"And... there." Pheme got the bodies into the elevator. She was about to head on up, but she almost forgot about the contact. She sighed. She's quite the busy woman with a busy schedule. Pheme looked at Adam and Aurora's bodies once more before leaving the elevator, and actually heading outside of the entire studio. From where she told the Contact to park, he shouldn't be too far away from this entrance.
[Outside]
The beautiful night sky. The cool and crisp air blowing through the trees. She saw and felt those things when she stepped outside through the bow broken door. She looked back at it. Yeah, she'll probably have to expedite getting that fixed, just to be safe.
But she couldn't focus on that right now. She walked on the cold and hard dirt around the studio to find where the Contact was. And like she thought, it didn't take long for her to find where he was.
Just a little away from the door, the Contact was leaning against his truck, cigarette in hand, and stomping his foot. Pheme could tell he was getting impatient. But like the narration said earlier, Pheme didn't really care.
"Oh hello Mr. Contact!" Pheme called out to him, which startled him enough to drop his cigarette.
The Contact looked at Pheme, then to his cigarette now in the dirt, and frowned. He didn't expect this job to be so... frustrating. But that's what big-payers are. Frustrating. He shook his head, and looked back over at Pheme. "You sure took your sweet time! Now I don't want any small talk, just what the fuck do I do with her?!" He borderline shouted as he pointed towards the mysterious seventh girl.
Pheme just giggled at his outburst. "You're quite a bit impotent aren't you? Just relax. Take it nice and easy for me okay? This'll be over quick..." She said ominously as she walked at a strangely slow pace towards the Contact.
The Contact immediately felt weirded out. He had a gut feeling that he shouldn't be here. He felt like he should run. But he didn't. It's like he... couldn't give that order to his brain. He felt stuck in place as he watched Pheme approach. "W-what are y-you doing?" He stammered as Pheme sauntered over to him, the fear slowly growing on his face.
Pheme covered her mouth and gave her signature giggle. "Oh don't be so afraid. I merely want to ask you a question! Tell me, do you know what this is...?" Pheme slowly pulled a certain something out of... somewhere.
The Contact didn't blink as he stared at what she had brought out. "D-do I know what it is? Of course I d-do. That's a dagger you're h-holding. W-w-what about it?" He tried his best to hide and suppress his stammering. The dagger itself had a pretty and shining blade, with a white and gold handle to match. It was rather fancy.
Pheme smiled. "That's correct. Good job! And do you know what daggers do...?" Pheme lowered her talking speed as she had finally reached the Contact, and was standing right in front of him.
And the Contact really didn't like her standing so close to him. "U-uh, c-can you b-back off?" He tried pushing her away, but Pheme stood in place, unmoving.
"Answer my question." Pheme's voice grew deadly cold, her eyes devoid of any emotion in the slightest.
"U-u-uhh I u-u-uh..." The Contact tried his best to speak, but he just couldn't get the words out. He really tried but he just couldn't. What was wrong with him? He usually wasn't this scared of things. What was it about this chick?
But as the Contact's fear slowly rose to consume his body, Pheme just let out a long sigh. "You don't want to answer? That's fine by me. I'll just tell you the answer. Is that alright?" Pheme asked, even though she wasn't expecting an actual answer from the Contact. "They cut things. They stab things. Isn't it amazing? That something so sleek and beautiful can be such a tool of death and destruction?" Pheme tried to suppress a laugh. "Perhaps I'm over exaggerating a bit, but it's still something to think about isn't it?"
Pheme held the dagger in her left hand, and slowly brought up her right hand to caress the Contact's face. "Perhaps this isn't a popular opinion, but can't death and destruction be beautiful? Can't it be an absolute spectacle. Well, I think it can be. Do you see what I'm getting at?" Pheme stopped talking as she rested her right hand on the Contact's cheek.
"..." The Contact didn't say anything at all, still absolutely paralyzed with fear. Pheme shook her head, disappointedly. "You again don't want to answer? That's okay. I'll make this easy for you. What I'm getting at is... this." Pheme brought up her dagger, twirled it around in her left hand, and...
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slashed the Contact's throat.
Blood started spraying everywhere immediately, so Pheme ducked down and got behind him, and shoved him to the ground, so the dirt will soak up all of his nasty blood.
Pheme just watched as blood seeping from his neck, and at how it slowly surrounded his body as he tried his best to cling to his last dregs of life. The Contact tried to speak, but all that came out was gross and gargled sounds. Pheme giggled at the idea of how much blood he must be choking on right now.
But over the course of roughly a minute, Pheme just watched emotionlessly as so much blood seeped from his body. And after a while, it stopped, along with any of his movements. He...
had died.
Did Pheme feel anything? Regret? Remorse? Grief? Of course not! "When you work for me, just know that I don't tolerate failure." She said pointedly as she hovered her foot over his head, then promptly stepped down hard, smashing his head a bit further into the dirt. "Hmph. Piece of human trash. Greedy filth." Pheme muttered as she dragged the Contact's body into a thicket a bit into the woods. She didn't like doing the dirty work, but she didn't have a choice in the matter this time.
Now that that was done, it was time to address the other matter. The case of her "bonus" star. She walked back around to the truck and looked into the back of it. That girl was indeed still lying there, and still unconscious as well. "I wonder what that idiot used to knock her out... ah well. What do you do?" Pheme said with an oddly chipper tone as she stepped into the back to get a better look at her.
The girl had a very fit and busty body with a light pale skin tone. She had almond-shaped turquoise eyes and on the right side of her face, she had a butterfly wing tattoo. She had shoulder-length dark green hair with dark blue strands with a long braid on the left side that reached to her chest. Lastly, because she was sleeping deeply with her mouth open, Pheme could see she had a forked tongue with a silver ball piercing in the center.
For her clothes, she wore a dark green dress shirt that was unbuttoned until her stomach, then underneath the shirt was a dark green transparent sleeveless high collar tight turtleneck, and hanging loose on her shoulders was a white and light grey long leather trench coat with white cuffs with grey lines. She also wore a pair of dark gray trousers and black with chain laces combat boots. And finally, she wore a pair of dark-tinted sunglasses and a silver cross necklace. To Pheme, it look felt like a sort of fusion between a business person and a punk. She didn't hate it.
Pheme walked up closer until she was right in front of her body. Pheme gave her a light kick. She didn't know what method that now dead brute used to knock her out, so Pheme actually wanted to talk to her. Pheme kicked her again. Then a third time. Then a fourth time.
Kick.
Kick.
Kick.
Luckily for Pheme, it didn't take too many kicks for the girl's eyes to flutter awake. Her eyes darted around, clearly confused at where she was.
It didn't take long for the girl's eyes to land on Pheme. Her eyes squinted as she tried to adjust to the darkness. "Who the fuck... are you?" She said softly, like her voice itself was still waking up too.
Pheme thinly smiled at the sound of her voice, and at the sight of her finally waking up. "Ah, are you awake sleepyhead?" She said condescendingly. "To answer your question, you don't need to know that for now. Just tell me one thing. What's your name?" Pheme may have technically asked her, but it was clear to the bound girl that it was more of a command.
But despite that fact, and despite her obviously being in a disadvantageous position, the currently tied up girl chose to stay defiant. "Fuck you. I ain't... listening to your ass." She remarked as she looked away from Pheme.
Now, Pheme was one to enjoy a little banter every now and then. It can be fun at times! But right now, she was not in the mood for it. Killing the Contact barely five minutes ago probably had something to do with it. So, she wasn't going to deal with this girl's nonsense.
"Listen." Pheme said flatly as she bent down to be more on the tied up girl's level. "You will tell me your name. This isn't an ask. This is an order. Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?" She said everything with a chilling tone as she gripped the bound girl's chin in her hands.
All the girl did in response was to promptly spit on Pheme's hand.
Pheme immediately slapped her, and kicked her in the stomach. "Insolence!" She yelled. "You will listen to me! Understood!" Pheme was done playing nice. She was already stressed because she had to deal with the arrival of an extra star, but now that star has an attitude? Ridiculous.
"Don't fucking... say shit to me you damn slut..." The girl spoke with deep breaths in between her words, as she was still trying to recover from Pheme's kick.
Pheme wanted to escalate this, she really did, but she decided not to. Pheme really wanted to give this insolent girl who comeuppance, but she'd have other chances. Pheme would have better opportunities for it. Especially considering she's about to be a part of her killing game.
"Fine." Was all Pheme said as she bent down and injected something into the girl's neck.
"What the shit... are... you..." That was all the girl managed to get out as she fell back into a deep sleep.
"Ugh. Every day I get happier and happier that I'm doing this in the first place..." Pheme muttered as she hauled the girl's body off of the truck. She roughly dropped her body on the ground as she turned back towards the truck. She needed to do something to get rid of it... Ah! She got an amazing idea, like she usually does.
She got into the truck and turned it towards a better position. She made sure it was still on, then she went and grabbed that stone that Adam and Aurora had used to break the door. After a short walk back to get that stone, she stood in front of the open driver's side door. "I have to do so much around here. A Goddess's work is never done I suppose." Pheme remarked as she dropped the stone onto the driver's pedal, and watched the truck drive full speed into the forest. It was just small enough to where Pheme was confident that'd it would go for a while before crashing.
Pheme gave a satisfied sigh as she grabbed the girl's body once again and carried her inside of the studio. Once back inside, she saw that Adam and Aurora's bodies were still thankfully in the elevator. And now, they have another friend to join them! Pheme tossed the girl's body into the elevator, then she got in it herself. And once she was in, she took this chance to calm down. A lot just happened, and she still needed to be in good shape for the upcoming show.
With another deep breath, she pressed a button in the elevator. And now, all she has to do is just wait. Wait... in excitement for what she has in store for them... and the other stars too...
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And she arrived at her destination. Pheme had always been so grateful for the elevators in this place being so fast. But she only had one thing to do on this floor. She stepped off the elevator, along with the uninvited girl's body. She dragged the body a little ways until she reached a door. Pheme bent down and took off the girl's restraints. Then with reckless abandon, Pheme opened the door and tossed her through it.
This girl dared to be rude to her? To Pheme? The Goddess of Fame? Fine then. Let's see how she likes being thrown to the wolves then.
Pheme briskly walked away from the door and back into the elevator, along with her actual planned bonus two stars. She pressed the button, and up she went. She knew she didn't have a lot of time. So she sorted out in her head what exactly she wanted to do.
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Oh yes. This'll work great. They were relying on Pheme to handle the show, so she'll happily handle it then. It'll be so... much... fun!
So..
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As Pheme slowly went further up in the building on the elevator, she thought about how the four stars in the Mystery Studio must be doing...
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[Mystery Studio]
Ji-hoon, Aelia, Rival, and Rosalind still stood in shock at the sight before them. The mysterious voice had signed off mere moments ago. So now... what? The voice gave them instructions but... what even is this? Where even are they? They had so many questions. But... they had no choice but to face the one staring them in the face.
Who is this?
The group stared at the dead body of the unknown man as he lay on the coffee table in the living room. He had rather crazy spiked up hair, with most of it being black, but with a bit of the right side of his hair being white. He had bright yellow eyes, and a dark yellow suit vest, dress pants, and blazer to match. Then he had a white undershirt and tie. Then he had a brown belt, and at his feet he wore brown dress shoes. He had the look of a sort of business man. Ji-hoon tried to think, but he didn't recognize him. Perhaps he wasn't famous? Or perhaps he was. Who can say?
And because Ji-hoon was taking in the details of this unfortunate victim, he decided to be the one to break the ice here. "Alright. You heard the voice. Let's do it." He walked closer to the body to glean more details.
"Ji-hoon? A-a-are you... serious?" Aelia stuttered out, still having trouble comprehending what she was seeing.
Ji-hoon took a long and deep breath, then turned around to look at the rest of the group. "If no one else wants to do this, I can handle it." Ji-hoon was resolute. "But we're not going to let this voice win over us. End of story." Ji-hook turned back around, and walked up to the body. But to his surprise, one person joined up with him. It was Aelia.
"L-let me help you...! You're r-right about this! You... must be." Aelia seemed to regain a bit of her spirit. Ji-hoon smiled and nodded at the sight.
But Rival and Rosalind stayed back. "I'm afraid this sort of *cough* thing isn't exactly for me. Even if I myself look like a dead body... Heh." Rosalind remarked as she went and moved out of the room. "I'll be in here if you *cough* need my assistance!" Despite the exclamation point and the end of her sentence, her voice wasn't very loud.
"Yeah... I'll be with her to make sure she... doesn't get into trouble I guess. We'll investigate too." Then Rival left the living room and went after Rosalind. "Anything to not be in there..." Rival muttered, barely audible. But none of the three heard it.
Once Rival and Rosalind left the room, Ji-hoon started to really get to work. "I'm not an actual, proper detective. But I'll see what I can do."
Aelia nodded from behind him as they started to looked over the body.
First, Ji-hoon pulled out a pair of black leather gloves and put them on. "O-oh wow... those are some nice gloves Ji-hoon." Aelia complemented him, but he just brushed it off. "Eh, it's just for the job. Don't worry about it." The with a light clap of his hands, he got to work.
The very first thing Ji-hoon noticed was the massive gash the man had in his neck. It stretched across basically the entire front of his neck, and it seemed rather deep too. He wasn't bleeding from it though, and he didn't see any traces of blood around the wound.
"So... what d-does that mean?" Aelia questioned as she looked at the wound along with Ji-hoon.
"Well..." Ji-hoon had to think. "Well... it's hard to get anything definitive from just that. Those details can mean a variety of things. Let's keep looking for now." Aelia firmly nodded as they got back to looking over the body.
And now, Aelia spoke up with her own observation. "H-hey, Ji-hoon... look at this!" Aelia pointed at a slight tear in the man's shirt. And underneath that tear they could see a stab wound.
"Interesting." Ji-hoon examined it more closely. "Good find Aelia." He said, not even looking at her. But because he wasn't looking at her, that meant he missed Aelia's bright and beaming smile after being complimented.
"Hey, wait a minute." Aelia's compliment high was cut off as Ji-hoon made another discovery. In an act that looked very strange at first, Ji-hoon started pulling off the man's shirt, in attempt to reveal his bare torso.
"W-woah woah woah hey..." Aelia tried to stop him, but she herself stopped when she noticed what Ji-hoon had seen.
Underneath the man's shirt was countless stab wounds, all seemingly done by a relatively small blade, like a dagger. Aelia tried to count them all, but she had trouble doing so. "J-jeez... whoever did this really didn't like this guy..." Aelia quietly spoke.
Ji-hoon didn't say anything though. He was counting the stab wounds in his mind. "Jesus. 29 stab wounds huh?" Ji-hoon just shook his head as Aelia's eyes widened.
Ji-hoon noted down what he saw as he put the man's shirt back on. "Alright. I think that's all the injuries the man has. Let's start looking around the room more okay Aelia?" Ji-hoon looked towards the puppeteer, but he saw something he hadn't expected to see.
Aelia was... currently sniffing the man's open mouth.
Ji-hoon was too shocked for words. He just stood there in utter disgust.
It took a couple of seconds for Aelia to realize that Ji-hoon was staring right at her. "O-oh... that probably looked pretty w-weird didn't it? But I thought his breath smelt strange. So I, you k-know, smelt it." Aelia was clearly a little embarrassed by the whole thing.
And Ji-hoon was still weirded out by it, but what she said did catch his interest a little. Ji-hoon slowly walked closer to the man's mouth and gave the surrounding area a quick sniff. And... she was right. It did smell strange. And it wasn't just plain old bad breath. Ji-hoon got a better whiff of it. Then he got it. His breath smelt like chemicals.
Ji-hoon back away, not wanting to actively deal with that smell. "That's quite the find... good job again Aelia." Aelia smiled again as Ji-hoon went and started to note down a few more things.
"T-thanks for the compliment Ji-hoon...!" Aelia blushed a little. She wanted to continue focusing on that good feeling of being noticed, but she was actually getting more and more curious and the true nature of this mystery dead man. "S-so... does his breath m-mean anything...?" Aelia asked, legitimately wanting to know.
Ji-hoon slowly nodded. "Yeah, I think it does. If a victim's breath smells like chemicals, that's a sure-sign they've been poisoned." Ji-hoon dropped that bombshell.
Wow. Poisoned? On top of being stabbed 29 times and having his neck slashed. "T-that's scary... someone really hated him." Aelia didn't know what all to make of the situation, but she knew that fact at least. "Do you h-have any ideas Ji-hoon?"
"Do I have any ideas? You want the truth? I really don't." Ji-hoon just stared at the body. "A variety of injuries... and that's it." Ji-hoon walked around the living room, trying to glean any other clues. "There aren't any other clues or blood, or anything else here. It was like the body was dropped in her from out of nowhere..."
Sensing what Ji-hoon might be referring to, Aelia looked up at the ceiling... and saw nothing. Oh. Maybe that wasn't what he was talking about.
Well if that wasn't the case, then Aelia didn't know what to think or do. She looked towards Ji-hoon, and he seemed just as lost. "Ji-hoon...?" Aelia tried to look for guidance here. She hadn't expected to have reached a roadblock with this "game" so quickly.
Aelia didn't want to rely on Ji-hoon too much here, but she obviously wasn't used to this sort of thing. She wanted to help him and aid him and- Oh. He left the room. Why do people always leave her alone?!
Aelia stomped out of the living room and after Ji-hoon.
[Entryway]
Aelia followed Ji-hoon out into the entryway. "H-hey Ji-hoon! Can you please not leave me alone...?" She intended on giving him a piece of her mind, but she stopped when she saw Ji-hoon talking with Rival and Rosalind. And Ji-hoon was looking intently at something in his hand.
"W-what is that... Ji-hoon?" Aelia tried to peer over Ji-hoon's shoulder at it.
Although Aelia directly asked Ji-hoon, Rosalind answered instead. "Rival and I found that in a kitchen drawer. All dusty and *cough* dreary, just like me."
Rival rolled his eyes at Rosalind. "What we found was some sort of I.D.. Look at it..." Rival gestured towards it.
Ji-hoon held out his hand enough to where Aelia could fully look over it. Like Rival had said, it was indeed an I.D.. And she recognized who it belonged to. Judging by the picture, it had belonged to the dead man. But besides for the picture, it didn't show anything. The rest of the I.D. had been redacted, besides for two key details.
One, there was a governmental symbol on the I.D.
Two, while it didn't show his name, it did show his initials. The man's initials were K. M..
"K. M.? A-and he works for the government...? Does that t-tell us anything?" Aelia tried to be a part of the conversation after learning about this new piece of evidence.
None of them responded to her, seemingly because all of them were deep in thought. Aelia felt like she has been frowning a lot today, and right now was no different. She really didn't like being ignored. But she knew all three of them were thinking hard about this whole thing. So she wanted to think about it too!
...
So, the main thing the voice told them to do was to find out "who did it." So, they need to find who killed him then? But they didn't have any evidence at all. They had the various injuries on his body, and his I.D.. And that's it. How were they supposed to figure this out? This felt like a rigged game if anything. Did any of them even kill him?
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Wait. "Any of them?" Hold on. Maybe what Aelia was thinking about was stupid... but it was an idea nonetheless. Aelia wordlessly walked up to the keyboard on the door. It was a normal QWERTY keyboard, and there were eight dashes on the screen. So there's a maximum of eight characters for this? Hmm...
Aelia still didn't feel confident with this idea she had, but she wanted to try it anyway. She knows that there isn't a punishment for failing these guesses, so she felt alright trying it anyway. With shaky hands, she went and slowly typed out her answer...
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N.
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O.
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B.
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O.
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D.
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Y.
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She had typed out "Nobody."
Aelia felt like this had to be some sort of trick question, so she wanted to give a trick answer. She took a deep breath, and she clicked enter...
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And the screen turned green, and a sound emanated from the door. Did it actually work?! Aelia turned the knob on the door, and it actually opened! "G-guys! I-I-I did it!" She excitedly jumped up and down.
The three turned towards the puppeteer in awe. "Wow. Not bad Aelia. You're a lot better at this than I thought." Ji-hoon congratulated her. "So it was "nobody?"." Ji-hoon facepalmed. "Wow. A trick answer for a trick question." Ji-hoon noted down a few things then turned towards the remaining two. "Alright, let's go! This is a step closer to getting out of here!" Without even waiting for the other three, Ji-hoon left the room.
Rival sighed. "That was easier than we thought huh..." He walked up to Aelia. "Not bad..." Rival yawned as he walked out. And that left Aelia and Rosalind.
Rosalind was just leaning on her parasol for support. She waited for Aelia to turn towards her. "Hey. You did rather *cough* well Aelia." Rosalind hobbled over to her. "Here." Rosalind gave her the I.D. they found. "You solved this room, so I think you better hold onto it. It's better served in your hands compared to my miserable hands anyway." Rosalind lightly chuckled as she herself hobbled out of the room.
Aelia looked down at the I.D.. Then she looked at her surroundings. She... had done something important. She had helped save the day. It's... a nice feeling. Aelia smiled as she pocketed the I.D. and she left the room...
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[???]
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The first thing Aelia noticed were the bright lights. Compared to the dark and dreary atmosphere of where they were, this hallway had bright lights covered the ceiling. The walls and ceiling were painted a beautiful white, and the floor was lined with a nice maroon carpet.
Despite Ji-hoon and Rival leaving the place first, they weren't too far ahead of the girls, so they were able to catch up and walk together as a group again.
They wanted to comment on what they were seeing, but all of them were shocked. It wasn't a shock of fear or anything. They were just shocked by how pretty this whole hallway was. And the allure only grew as they reached a much bigger room...
[Grand Lobby]
When the four left the long and twisting hallway, they came into what looked like a grand and beautiful lobby.
None of them could estimate how big it was in terms of square footage, but the place was really big. It had a high ceiling, four marble pillars spread out evenly, a large receptionist desk against a wall to their right, some assorted couches and plants, and it was topped off with an absolutely enchanting silver chandelier right in the center of the ceiling, hanging over it all.
In addition to that, there were two other hallways across from them on the other side of this lobby, and another hallway to the direct left of them. Then there was another larger hallway to the direct right of them. Then also on the other side of the lobby was what looked like an ornate staircase, but it was shuttered off. A mirror image of the shuttered off staircase was to the left of them on their side as well. But the main thing that caught their eyes, were the large wooden double doors on the wall to the left of them, with a variety of lights surrounding it.
All four of them were speechless at this sight. It was... beautiful. For what seemed like just basically a fancy hotel lobby, it was really nice.
"What... is this place?" Rival slowly said.
Ji-hoon squinted his eyes. "I... don't know." He felt like he might've had some memories relating to this place somewhere in his head, but he just couldn't dig them out. "But this is an awfully nice place to be a kidnapper's hideout."
Aelia still had no words at this sight, but... Rosalind had some words. "I know this place. I've visited here before." She said rather casually.
The other three slowly turned towards her in even more shock. "What...?" Ji-hoon slowly asked her.
But Rosalind continued like she hadn't said anything that groundbreaking. "This lobby belongs to Asher J.'s Movie and Media Studio. I've *cough* visited here before. I know I have." Rosalind gazed out on the lobby. "And I hate to be rude, but before you ask, I do not know why we are we now. But this is at least a carbon copy of their lobby." Rosalind punctuated her statement with a light slam of her parasol on the ground.
Honesty, all three did want to question that, but after Ji-hoon decided to ignore it for now, Rival and Aelia followed suit. "Alright. That's enough gawking." Ji-hoon stated. "Let's get going on exploring this place. To make this easier, let's split up. I'll go with Aelia, and Rival will go with Rosalind. That works?" Aelia didn't have a problem with it, and Rival and Rosalind didn't show much of any emotion, so Ji-hoon interpreted that as a yes.
"We'll meet up back here in 20 minutes. Let's split up the work, it'll be easier for us then." Ji-hoon gave the orders to the group, and they followed them.
Aelia and Ji-hoon quickly headed off, leaving Rival and Rosalind behind. The apathetic duo watched as Aelia and Ji-hoon chose to explore behind the large wooden double doors first. As they disappeared behind those doors, the duo of R names turned and looked at each other. "Shall we go Rival...? May as well go and get this done now yes?" Rosalind leaned on her parasol.
Rival sighed. "Yeah... you're probably right. Let's get this done..." Rival cracked his neck and stretched. "Alright, where to first...?"
"If I may be so bold, I say we should *cough* check out the other side of this lobby. If my memory serves me, I think there should be something of interest over in that particular direction" Rosalind steadied herself and started slowly walking. Seeing he probably had no choice in this matter, he followed her anyway.
It was a slow and steady walk across the lobby. The two of them tried to listen on beyond those wooden double doors, but they couldn't hear anything. They didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing, but they decided to trust in the former. It's not like the lobby was a long enough trek to warrant a talk, but even Rival was getting bored of the silence. "Rosalind? Just outta curiosity... what do you know about this place...? Honestly." Rival chose quite the specific topic.
But Rosalind just looked away. "Perhaps I can tell you another time Rival. But I don't think this walk is long enough to warrant an *cough* explanation like that, so you'll have to forgive me." Rosalind shut down his attempts to make small talk quick. Well, Rival'll just try again later.
But anyway, like she said, the walk definitely wasn't long enough to warrant a long talk, as they were already encroaching upon their destination. "It should be right around... oh. Oh dear." Rival was behind Rosalind at the time, so he wasn't sure what had caught her attention. Once he had turned the corner with her, imagine his surprise when he saw a girl knocked out on the ground. Rival was both annoyed that he had to deal with this and concerned for this girl at the same time.
Rival lightly jogged over to the girl. Here is where I'd probably explain her appearance, but I already said her appearance earlier in the chapter, so there!
Rival didn't know what to make of her appearance as he looked over the girl. But he didn't have much time to think about it anyway as the girl woke up rather quickly, only in a matter of seconds after Rival and Rosalind reached her.
"The fuck...?" Was all the girl muttered out as she was slowly getting her bearings. The girl slowly looked around, then just slowly but still casually got up, not even noticing the other two people staring at her.
Rosalind was bit away from them, leaning against a wall. But Rival was still next to the girl. He sensed that he was going to regret this, but he couldn't just let this girl lay here in confusion, especially if there was a high chance she was kidnapped, just like them. "...You alright...?" Rival asked as he stared right at the girl.
The girl squinted her eyes in response and groaned tiredly, like she was still tired from however long she was knocked out. He supposed he couldn't blame her. The girl yawned before fiddling around in her pockets for something, after a few seconds, she took out a small lollipop, unwrapped it, and stuck it her mouth. Only then did she deign to start talking. "Alright, what the fuck is this stupid shit? Where the fuck is this?" She took out her lollipop and clicked her tongue, not even answering Rival's previous inquiry. Well judging by how she was acting, she was most likely find anyway.
Wow, getting right to the point I see! And with quite the aggressive vocabulary too. She'll be fun to deal with. Rival sighed. "We don't know the answers to your questions... we wish we did though..." Rival gave her the best answer he could.
But to the girl, that apparently wasn't good enough. "Oi. Pussy-lips." She stared directly at Rival. "I don't all the fucking time in the world to deal with your emo snark." Then she looked behind Rival and right at Rosalind. "And you, anorexia-bitch in the back! You think you're all cool and edgy hanging out back there like a school-shooter? Get your ass over here! Both of your asses will be answering my questions!" She commanded. But not in a goodwill sort of way like Ji-hoon. No, she was just a bitch.
Rosalind rolled her eyes and started to saunter over to the two. "Hurry it up grandma, I'm fucking impatient!" Despite the girl's insistence, Rosalind still went at the same pace. It only took a few seconds for Rosalind to arrive over to them, and she had something to say. "Two *cough* things. First, this is Asher J.'s Movie and Media studio. So that's where we are at present." Rosalind took a second to look around, then she looked back at the girl. "And second, I can only move so you know." She added with a slight eye roll.
"Tch, whatever." The girl turned away, now acting dismissively towards the duo.
Rival and Rosalind just stared at each other, not sure what to think after getting a taste of what this crazy girl had to offer. Oh wait, Rival just thought of something to ask. He might regret it but, "Hey... I know you like to cuss us out and all... but you could tell us your name at least?" He tried asking.
The girl turned back around towards the pair with an utterly done look on her face. "Seriously?" She groaned. "You seem like the type to fucking stalk a girl you want to fuck, so I don't know why I'm going to tell you and your little side chick, but whatever. You seem like the type that wouldn't understand the word "no" anyway." She rolled her eyes with an astronomical amount of snark.
Admittedly, Rival was actually a little hurt by what she said, but he didn't see a point in bringing that up. She didn't seem like the type to say "sorry." And Rosalind was next to him lightly laughing after that. She did have a strange sense of humor I suppose.
But anyway, "So you want to know who I am? Fuck it. Just call me Alpha. And you're probably gonna fucking ask me, so I'll just tell you now. I'm the Ultimate Gas Station Manager. Now could you fuck-buddies step off please and thank you?"
Wow. Quite the nameand talent for a chick like this, Rival thought. "That's your actual name...? Alpha..?" Rival whispered, just barely not audible enough for Alpha to actually hear, which he was grateful for.
But both he and Rosalind knew that they couldn't just "step off" yet. Rival groaned in preparation to ask Alpha more questions, but Rosalind butted in and did it for him. "Say, Alpha. I assume you've seen that you and us have been *cough* kidnapped? Do you have any information that could help?"
Alpha instantly backed away after Rosalind asked her that. "Gross, get you fucking Ebola-COVID ass away from me!" She scoffed. "But you asked if I know anything? No! I fucking don't! Happy?" She answered the question rather quickly. The r name's were both a little thrown back by this. They looked at each other. Is it even worth it to counting talking to this girl?
Well, Rosalind had another question she wanted to ask at least. "I just have one more question I want to ask you Alpha. I understand that being near me can't be pleasant, so I'll make it *cough* brief. Why are you alone? Just lying in this hallway?" Huh. Rival didn't think to ask something like that. That's a good question.
But Alpha just rolled her eyes. "Again, I don't fucking know! I just woke up here a few fucking seconds ago! Didn't your fucking idiot brains see that?!" Alpha stomped her foot. "And anyway, I don't know what the fuck happened here, but I'm going to find choke the shit out of whoever put their grimy little perv hands on me to take me to this stupid place!" In a strange act, Alpha rubbed her stomach for a moment, then winced in pain. Rival and Rosalind looked at her in confusion, but Alpha's sharp glare was enough to shut up anything they might've wanted to say.
"But alright!" Alpha stretched her arms high into the sky. "I'm fucking bored of standing around on this fucking place! I need to find the bitch who took me so I can beat the shit out of them!" Without a care for duo, Alpha just went off on her own. Coincidentally, she went right towards the wooden double doors that Ji-hoon and Aelia went through earlier. Rival and Rosalind looked at each other, then internally sighed. It's probably for the best to just regroup for now. They'd have time to more thoroughly investigate these other pathways later.
So while being both eager and not at all eager to catch up with Alpha, the two went to follow her through those wooden double doors...
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[Grand Theater]
"Alright, where are you you fuckwad-" Alpha came into this place guns blazing, but she stopped when she realized just what this place was. Rival and Rosalind stopped as well, and just stood there and stared in shock. Because what awaited them past those double door, was a very nice theater. One you'd go to watch a performance, a play, or something similar. But this theater in particular... was really nice.
Rows of seats were directly in front of the trio, all slowly leading ever slow slightly downward until it reached the furtherest part of the theater. There was a walkway that connected these double doors to bottom portion of the theater, so they could walk behind, to the side, and in front of all the seats if they so wished. But the main spectacle of the theater was the simple but very effective wooden stage that lay in the furtherest part of the theater. A large navy blue curtain in front of the stage, causing most of it to be obscured.
"This is quite the theater. It feels like someone like me shouldn't even be in a place *cough* like this." Rosalind remarked, mouth slightly agape.
"Didn't you say that... you've been here before? Did you not see this place or something...?" Rival asked, confused by Rosalind's comment.
Rosalind shook her head. "No... there wasn't anything like this when I was here last time."
Alpha didn't care in the slightest about what they were talking about. At the moment, she was just focusing on the other main aspect of the theater that the narration hadn't mentioned yet.
The fact that there were fourteen other people in the theater with them! And it seemed that Rival and Rosalind had finally noticed that fact after a bit.
There were some people sitting in the seats, some up and about, and others doing a variety of things. Of note, the trio saw Ji-hoon talking to a tall man with a blue suit and light gray hair and they saw Aelia talking to another tall man with short blonde hair and a stylish trench coat. Besides for those, they saw two buff guys arm wrestling closer to the bottom of the theater, and they saw... a Christmas cat girl chasing around a goth cat girl? Yeah they didn't know what to think about that last one.
The trio, including Alpha, still just stared at the unexpected sight of all of these people. It just... wasn't what they expected to find behind these double doors.
But they were brought out of their thoughts when the aforementioned cat girls had started running towards them. "What is your problem-nya?! What did I do to you-nya?!" The goth cat girl called out towards the Christmas cat girl.
"My problem is that ridiculous get-up you faker! Get back here, human!" The Christmas cat girl responded. They were about to continue their banter, but both of them stopped right before they ran into the trio.
The goth cat girl blinked in shock. "Oh wow-nya! More new people-nya?" The trio turned towards the cat girls.
"Oh great, more humans..." The Christmas one rolled her eyes at the sight of them.
Once again, the trio didn't know what to say. "-nya?" "Human" What? What does that even mean?
But they didn't have much time to think about it as it seemed that the rest of the theater had finally noticed their presence.
"Oh shit?! There's more people in this place?!" A massive guy called out.
"OMG, who are they? They are sooo chic!" A girl with purple hair commented.
As attention was drawn towards the trio, Ji-hoon and Aelia had finally noticed their presence as well. Both of them smiled at the sight of them, but those smiles turned into looks of confusion at the sight of Alpha. Wanting to know more, Ji-hoon headed up the aisle and towards the trio. "Good to see you've made it. Who's she?" He cocked his head towards Alpha.
"You know you can just ask me for my name like a normal human being you four-eyes fuck!" She glared at Ji-hoon, his eyes widening at the sight. Rival placed his hand on Ji-hoon's shoulder slowly shook his head. Ji-hook got the message.
"Well hey, looks like we're up to seventeen people now. Ain't that something?" The man in the blue suit who Ji-hoon was talking with earlier had headed up the isle as well.
Ji-hoon nodded. "That's right Kei. It's an awkward number though. I wonder if there's something more to it." Ji-hoon tapped the pen he had taken from the apartment to his chin as he thought about it.
Upon hearing the Kei's name, Rosalind chimed in with an important ask. "Say, it's probably a lot, but shouldn't we share *cough* introductions? Us three aren't aware of you all just yet." Rosalind pointed her parasol at the general crowd of people in the room.
"Yeah, probably a good idea. Best not to share information while being name-blind." The man in blue, whose name was apparently Kei said. "Alright, let's share our names again shall we...?"
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And so, after a few minutes of introductions, and explaining circumstances, everybody had finally learned each other's names. Rival and Rosalind explained the circumstances involving Alpha as well. It drew a fair amount of suspicious glances in Alpha's direction. But to be frank, she really didn't give a fuck. Everybody had moved to seats for the introductions, and Alpha opted for a seat far away from the rest of them. She just scoffed and turned her head away from the rest of the cast.
Well, for the actively smart ones in the room, they just chose to deal with her later. For now, they need to compare information. Ji-hoon had told them to wait until Rival and Rosalind showed up to start comparing information, though he did already say a few things to Kei.
"So Ji-hoon already explained most of the vital details about your guys' studio to us." Kei pointed at Rosalind and Rival.
"Wait... studio? What do you mean...?" Rival was confused by what Kei meant, and it looked like Rosalind was as well, judging be her expression.
"Didn't you read the sign on the door that you, Jiji, and Ellie left through? There shoulda been a sign that said "something studio"?" Yoshino chimed in and leaned back onto the back of a seat. "Kei, Genjiro, Roko, and I were trapped on the Horror Studio. Right?" She gestured towards her mentioned studio mates.
Both Kei and Kuroko nodded, the latter a lot more excitedly. But Genjiro wanted to do more than nod. "Damn right!" He slapped his hand onto one of the seats. "And you should've seen the way Yoshi was screaming about in the dark! Shit was fucking hilarious!-" Genjiro was going to continue, but he was cut off by Kuroko.
"Genjiro, you can retire that joke now-nya. It's not very funny-nya." She gave the wrestler a flat stare. Despite what she said though, Genjiro's comment did get a laugh out of Alpha, of which she tried to suppress. Everyone basically ignored her though, not wanting to set off that can of worms.
"Well as they explained, yes. Us four were in the horror studio. I'll be honest, the only scary thing in there was Genjiro. The apparent "killer" was merely a fake." Kei resumed his explanation.
"A fake...? How so?" Rival got a little intrigued.
"It's not really that important-nya. Right Kei-nya?" Kuroko brushed off Rival's question, then turned to look at Kei, who nodded in response.
"Right. Just try and remember that little tidbit yeah?" Kei continued. "But anyway, after we escaped the studio, us four were the first to end up in the theater. And... probably twenty minutes later about, the next group of four came in." Kei now gestures towards the group that were present in Prologue Part 2. The group of Joji, Lake, Raiha, and Bessie.
Joji stepped up to start talking. "Right, it's our turn. We were in the Comedy Studio. It wasn't very funny though. It just had a lot of alcohol everywhere."
Darren, who was sitting far in the back, away from the rest of the group, raised en eyebrow at that comment. That caught his attention. But Joji just glossed over that fact, so he chose to go back to being all apathetic like he usually is.
"Wait, Joji! I still think your... uh... joke? About the long pause or something? That was really funny Joji!" Lake tried to earnest to reassure Joji that his dad joke was indeed funny, but it fell on deaf ears.
"Could please you not remind me of that Lake?" Joji held his head in his hands. "At least it wasn't as bad as whatever Raiha tried to do..." He muttered, not intending for Raiha to hear.
But unlucky for Joji, she did indeed hear him say that! "OMG you did not just say that Joji? That is making me big mad! You're just delulu and jelly." Raiha turned away and crossed her arms.
Joji was getting ready to retort, but Bessie stepped in to stop him "Guys, we should get along, no~? There's no point... fighting. Right~?" Rival was a little weirded out by how eerie she made that sound.
"Bessie is right! I don't like seeing you guys fight. We should all get along!" Lake added, trying to help out Bessie's message.
For now at least, it seemed to calm down the two ultimates over their fight about... who was funnier. Nobody else in the room really understood why they had a brief fight over that anyway, but they were just glad it was done.
"Ok, sorry. Like I was saying, us four were in the Comedy Studio." Joji continued, trying not to think about his joke. "We got the task to make an audience laugh, but Bessie over that just broke a machine, and we got out safe. Weird shit." Joji was still a little baffled by how their studio ended.
The other three in Joji's group nodded. It was a very... abrupt ending. "I just used my star power to win the day~! There's nothing to it for Bessie B.!" Well, Bessie didn't seem bothered by it in the slightest. And with Bessie's comment, the room quieted down to an awkward silence. Well, I guess that was the end of that.
"Now I can take it from here." Damien stepped up, eager to be in the spotlight. "My group consisted of Myself, My dear Ayaka, Catherine... and... oh yes! Darren!" Damien seemed to somehow forget Darren's name for moment. But judging by the bartender's expression, he didn't really care.
Nonetheless, Damien continued. "We were the third group to arrive in this wonderful theater! And we came here from what was seemingly the Action Studio."
"I-it was a b-big city. The studio was, I mean. It looked like a carbon copy of Tokyo, t-though now I know that it was just a fake." Ayaka added.
"Quite right dear Ayaka! And our group ended up being chased out of the studio by what looked like Godzilla. But we were not afraid, and we left the studio quite quickly." Damien ran his hand through his hair then shook his head with a smile. "It was that easy. Nothing to it!" He announced proudly. "Now let's move on to the next studio-" Damien was eager to keep moving, but Ayaka stopped him.
"D-Damien, shouldn't we see if Darren or C-Cathy have anything to say?" She asked. She didn't particularly like Cathy, but she didn't want to leave her out. And Ayaka actually liked hearing Darren speak, so she wanted to know if he had anything to add.
Damien looked towards Cathy and Darren with a raised eyebrow. Cathy, who chose to stand and not sit, was currently way back in the furthest corner of the theater, choosing to not interact with any of them. In response to Damien's look, she just looked away dismissively.
And Darren did honesty want to add something. The maintenance room he found for one. And he wanted to mention how the Godzilla was a clear fake. But it was... too much effort.
Damien chuckled at their muted responses. But Ayaka looked up towards Darren. "Do y-you really have n-nothing to add Darren?" Ayaka was a little sad that he was just staying silent. But after Darren's response, which consisted of a curt "No.", she relented.
Now, back to Damien. "Now, with that distraction out of the way, let's talk about the last studio. Care to do the honors, dear Aelia?" He looked towards Aelia, who was sitting right next to him.
Aelia giggled at the attention, but she got herself back on track quick. "I-I think it'd be better if... Ji-hoon explained it. He did m-most of the heavy lifting, so he knows the most out of myself, Rival, Rosalind, then o-obviously Ji-hoon himself." Aelia looked at Rival and Rosalind, both of which just shrugged.
Ji-hoon, after seeing this, chimed in. "Yeah, I'll take it from here. I'm assuming that's fine Damien?"
Damien squinted his eyes a little, looked at Aelia for a second, then looked back at Ji-hoon. "Of course." Damien smiled. "Take it away." And that smile didn't last for long as the spotlight shifted towards Ji-hoon.
"Okay, let's not waste any more time. You all should know that myself, Aelia, Rival, and Rosalind were together as the, I suppose as the fourth group. And we were in the Mystery Studio. The other three must not of seen it, but there was a plaque with "Mystery Studio" right on it above the door we came out from." Aelia, Rival, and Rosalind all gave a nod of understanding at that information.
"The studio was this rundown, dirty, and rotting apartment. I'm still not sure what the apartment setting had to do with "mystery." But I know why it was called the "Mystery Studio." It was because..." Ji-hoon trailed off. The other three members of his group knew exactly what he was preparing to say.
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"It was because... there was a dead body in there. And we had to solve the mystery of who killed them." Ji-hoon's mic drop caused a cacophony of concerned and scared noises from the group of seventeen. Well closer to fourteen, because Cathy, Alpha, and Darren didn't react much.
Ji-hoon knew everyone would want to ask questions, so he held his hands up in front of them, as a signal for everyone to stop. "I'm sure the body was real. The guy had multiple injuries, ranging from a slashed neck, to a lot of stab wounds in his torso, and we think he was poisoned as well."
Kei looked a little sick to his stomach, but he still wanted to learn more. "Did you find out any personal information about this guy?"
In response, Ji-hoon gestured toward Aelia. "We found an I.D. for the guy. Most of it was redacted, but his initials are K. M., and the I.D. had a government symbol. So he was some sort of government worker. Aelia has the I.D. on her person."
Aelia took out the I.D. and passed it to those who were curious. Ji-hoon continued to explain while people were looking at the I.D. for the guy. "There was a keyboard and screen by the exit door of the studio. We needed to input who had killed him in order to escape."
"Holy shit? Did one of you actually kill this fucker?" Genjiro spoke while looking at the guy's picture on his I.D..
This time, Rival shook his head and chimed in. "No...at least I don't think anyone here did. Aelia managed to figure out the answer, and do something even Ji-hoon didn't do."
Ji-hoon could've done with less snark in that comment, but he decided to ignore it. "Like Rival said, Aelia was the one who figured it out. The answer was "Nobody". A trick answer for a trick question I suppose." The smarter ones in the room got their curiosities piqued by that. But at the moment, there wasn't much they could do with that information. "So we left the studio, and we split off to investigate the lobby. You all know that Aelia and I came in here first. Then a couple minutes after that, Rival and Rosalind came in, with the addition of Alpha."
The mention of her name prompted many of them to turn their heads towards the gas station manager. Alpha would've responded, most likely telling all of them to go fuck themselves, but she was too busy minding her own fucking business, so she stayed silent.
Ji-hoon, Kei, and a lot of the generally more proactive members of their group wanted to learn more about her. Her apparent circumstances here... are just strange. But talking with some like her is big pain. So they all collectively and internally decided to leave it for another time.
"And now, we find ourselves here." Ji-hoon officially finished, and so the relaying of everyone's information was now complete. And so, everyone then took a moment to sort through it in their minds. It was a lot to sort through but, like Ji-hoon had been insisting on throughout this entire chapter, it was important to have some information compared to having no information.
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After a couple quiet minutes of thinking, someone spoke up with a revelation. And... it was Bessie of all people. "So... all of these studios centered around fake games or tasks~? That's no fun!" She pouted.
And it was that... that got the gears turning for the group. Fake? That was a good word for it. All of the tasks and puzzles they had to solve and go through had rather... anticlimactic endings and answers. So... what was the point of it all? What were these studios for?
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"They were just meant to lead us along to here." Darren finally decided to join in. Everybody looked at him. Just to... lead them along? That made a certain amount of sense. But no matter how badly they wanted to think about it... something would soon interrupt them.
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"Congratulations Mr. Taylor! You are exactly right!" A voice came from behind the group. It came from the double doors. Everybody whipped their heads around to see the source of the voice. Because everyone already knew... that this was the true face of the mysterious voice that had mocked them from within the studios.
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All seventeen of them stared in awe at what they saw. It was a woman, standing in front of the double doors. She had long and flowing white hair that covered the sides of her head, and it went down to about the end of her back. She had eerie blue eyes, a beautiful white dress that covered her shoulders but exposed her long and shapely legs, and silver high heels. She also had on two thin silver necklaces.
For clothes, it looked like she was dressed for a formal gathering. But it was her accessories that sent a chill down everyone's spine. She had silver shackles around her the bottom of her legs and her wrists, with chains hanging off from the one's on her wrists. She then had on a metal choker around her neck. Lastly... she had on a metal mask that covered her face from her nose and down. The mask had four vertical slits, and strange bolt-like protrusions on each end of the mask.
She had a chilling appearance, and her creepy cheeriness didn't help with that at all. "Oh, I'm so glad to finally meet all of you in person my amazing stars! I just can't contain my excitement!" She started walking down the aisle towards the stage at the bottom. Perhaps they should've tackled her or attacked her while she was walking down, but none of them could seem to move. They felt... frozen. They felt helpless as all they could do was just watch as this clearly insane lady walked down toward the stage. Once she reached it, she stepped up on to it. Perhaps so she'd be heard a bit easier.
"Now, my darling stars, how are you?" She asked us all, like she wasn't even aware of the situation she had presumably put us in.
Nobody said a word... besides for Alpha. Upon seeing who everyone thought was the one who kidnapped us all, a fire started burning in Alpha's gut. "Oi! Don't try to play fucking nice with us! Who the fuck do you think you are?!" She yelled out to the woman.
The woman in white face looked a little disgusted at first when Alpha spoke, but it quickly turned into a smile. A... horrific smile. They couldn't see the smile from under her mask, but they could sense it.
"You wish to know who I am? Oh my darlings, I thought you'd never ask! You may call me...
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Pheme. I am the Goddess of Fame!" She reached her hands up into the sky in excitement.
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Everybody went silent once again. The "Goddess of Fame?" What a ridiculous name to go by. "Goddess of Fame? That sounds fucking stupid!" Oh, and Genjiro had decided to voice those thoughts aloud.
"You ain't some fucking Goddess! I'll make your whore-ass bleed all the same!" Alpha joined him, jumping out of her seat.
Some of the more level-headed ones tried to get the hot-headed ones to calm down for a moment, but, "So you're the one who kidnapped us?" Oh great, now Joji was joining in. "Give me one good fucking reason why I shouldn't beat your face in right now." Joji threatened her.
But Pheme didn't seem to catch about these threats in the slightest. In fact, she just laughed. Laughed at these foolish stars. "Please just calm yourselves my stars! I mean you no harm. I merely just wanted to play a game with you all! Where's the harm in that?" Pheme acted overly innocent as she spoke, much to the disgust of most of the group.
"Really? This hasn't been very fun so far..." Lake seemed to trust Pheme's word a bit too easily.
"Oh Mx. Beaumont, don't you worry. The game has yet to start! I could perhaps start it right now? Would you stars want that?" Pheme asked as she made eye contact with each and every one of them.
It felt like a trick question... but...
"Get it over with." Darren said those four words as he was still sitting in a seat way in the back. Everyone looked at him in shock, then they looked back to Pheme.
All Pheme said was "Good enough for me!" as she cleared her throat. Some of them had an inkling of what this could be... and others didn't. But they all sat waiting in their seat in suspense for what Pheme was about to say next...
"So, my darlings, like I said, I just wanted to play a game with you all! What is that game you ask? It's quite simple! I want to play a...
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killing game with you all! Fun, no?"
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A... what? "A... what? What the... fuck do you mean?" Yoshino asked, copying the question the narration had asked.
"I'm afraid I simply can't believe that. What a ridiculous notion." Damien shook his head, his confidence unwavering.
"You... can't be serious..." Raiha muttered, then cleared her throat. "Oh, that's not... are you deadass? You can't be serious?"
Ji-hoon bit his lip in silence. Damn it. His gut feeling was right.
Everyone was having understandably different reactions to it. I mean, who could blame them? But... there were the select few who weren't standing for it at all.
"Bullshit! The only thing I'm going to be killing is your bitch-ass!" Alpha didn't believe it.
"Nyahaha! What a silly threat! We aren't going to fall for that!" Cathy didn't believe it.
"Quite right Catherine. We aren't going to fall for a cheap scare-tactic like this." Damien didn't believe it.
"I think... I'm inclined to not believe it either. How do we know this isn't some elaborate song and dance?" Kei also didn't believe it, and proceeded to point at Pheme. "You give us fake and ridiculous trials, then you tell us that this is a "killing game"? Killing games haven't been around for ages!" Kei crossed his arms. He knew this was a risky move... but he didn't want to fall for this just yet.
"I-I think that... Kei is right. We aren't going to f-fall for your fake tricks!" Ayaka tried her hardest to be assertive.
"A killing game...? Eh, I doubt. Like he said... those haven't happened for a... long time..." Rival added while yawning.
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Huh. Pheme hadn't expected so much denial of it from the get-go. She... loved it. She loved seeing the sparks in their hearts! Sure, some seemed to already begrudgingly accept it. But for the ones who fought it, oh wow, she loved it! She loved it so much. Pheme's internal admiration and love started to trickle out as a steady and unnerving laugh. Everyone stopped talking as they watched in horror and anticipation at how Pheme might respond.
"So... you called the studios fake puzzles did you? Well you're correct! Like I said when I entered, Mr. Taylor had the right idea! Those studios were meant to lead you to this place!" Pheme spread her arms out wide. "But... you thought that the studios were the actual puzzle? Really? If so, that disappoints me! I'm not that lazy you know!"
Kei's eye twitched at her comment. "Not the actual puzzle? Then, pray tell, what is the actual puzzle?"
Pheme closed her eyes. Was it time already for the show? Well, who was she to keep her stars waiting? Pheme cleared her throat. "You want the actual puzzle? You want the real test? Well then! You ask, and I will deliver for you all! Now, are you ready for the Pilot Episode Climax?!" Pheme went and moved the curtain blocking the stage out of the way, so that that the stage could be exposed. And what awaited them on the stage was...
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water tank?
"That is a *cough* rather tame climax." Rosalind picked her her parasol and laid it in her lap
"Yeah, isn't a climax suppose to be exciting-nya?" Kuroko also wasn't very impressed by it.
But like she always does as a response to her stars, Pheme simply just laughed. "Oh? You think that's all? Oh my, I didn't expect all of you to be so foolish! Ah well, it appears I must show you just how wrong you are!" Pheme snapped her fingers... and just like that... a contraption, from near the ceiling of the stage, rolled on out.
And on it... were four people. All of them were bound and gagged, they were screaming for their lives. Upon seeing the seventeen stars in the audience, their screams only increased tenfold.
"Holy shit! Who the fuck are they?!" Genjiro ran up to the stage.
"Oh my! This... isn't good..." Bessie didn't know how to react to the sight.
Pheme put her finger up to her lips, signaling for everyone to quiet down. "Now now now. Just calm down. Let us go through them one by one, shall we?" Pheme stared guiding the stars through the identities of these new four victims.
"First, this young man is Adam Brooks! He is an Ultimate Academic! Exciting no?" Pheme struck a pose.
"He's an U-ultimate... like us...?" Aelia looked on in shock.
"Indeed Ms. Celani! But that's not all! Let's move on towards our second one!" Pheme walked a little more to the right, so that she was standing right under this second victim. "Now for this wonderful young lady, her name is Aurora Beaufort! Do you recognize here? Well you should! As she is the Ultimate Starlet!"
A few of the stars actually did recognize her, and hearing Aurora's name only confirmed it for them. Ji-hoon especially had an intrigued reaction to seeing someone like her here.
But Pheme didn't slow down to let Ji-hoon have a proper reaction anyway. "Moving on, we have this lady! She's clearly much older than our ultimates isn't she? But her name is Yukari Nakata! You don't need to know any details about her! And let's move on to our final one shall we?" Pheme didn't give them any time at all to even think about Yukari.
"Lastly, this large man is named Hiroyuki Yuto! Just like Yukari, let's skip any details about him!" Pheme walked towards the center of the stage. "Now, with that of the way, we are still missing one last key component!" Pheme snapped her fingers once again, and a large monitor descended from who knows where. Nothing was showing on the monitor just yet, but it looked to be some sort of timer.
"Whoo boy, that was a lot wasn't it? But we are now ready to start the Pilot Episode Climax!" Pheme announced, like anything of them actually knew what she was talking about.
"Are you gonna explain what this even is?!" Yoshino was clearly having enough of this tension.
"Yeah! Like, this is so not based." Raiha wasn't liking it either.
Pheme glared at the two girls. "Ms. Akiyama and Ms. Miyahara, you two are simply just impatient! But no matter, I shall explain it now!" Pheme giggled.
"You were sick of the fake games? Of the anticlimactic endings? Fine then! How's this for a real game?" Pheme turned towards the group of four suspended above the large water tank. "The instructions are simple! Out of these four, two of them, are going to be dropped into the water tank and drown. And do you want to know the best part? It's up to you to decide which two of these four live, and which two of these four die." Pheme snapped her fingers for a third time, which signaled the timer to show "10:00". "And you only have ten minutes to do so!" The timer had already started counting down.
"Hmm... and that's not all. Because you Mr. Aikawa decided to mouth off over how "fake" this was, how about you decide? You may discuss with the rest of the stars if you wish, but just know that you will give the final answers!" Pheme didn't slow down, she aimed to overwhelm them with information. "And if you fail to choose two of them when the timer is up, I'll simply drown them all! Oh, how delightful! Well, you better get to it!" Pheme stepped to the side of the stage, allowing the stars to get a better view of the stage. There were already just nine minutes left.
Nobody knew what to do. That was... a lot of information to take in at once. But the timer ticking down... and the struggles of the four people... slowly urged all of them to action.
Alpha was first. "Just fucking pick two of them, who gives a shit? The faster your limp-ass picks two, that faster this stupid fucking shit is done!" Alpha slapped Kei on the back, which almost caused him to tumble over. Well, that wasn't very helpful advice.
"Well, anyone else having anything to say? Let's think this through carefully." Kei was usually pretty good under pressure, but this was kind of getting to him this time. He looked back at the timer. Eight minutes left. He heaved a heavy sigh.
Ji-hoon stepped up to him. "We need think about this logically. Those Ultimates probably have more useful information. I know this is an evil choice but let's choose to save them." Ji-hoon stated as resolutely as he could.
Lake gasped. "H-how could you say something like that? All four are human beings!" Lake clearly didn't want to kill any of them, but they knew that they didn't have choice. But they tried their best to deny it.
Ji-hoon turned towards Lake with a deadly serious look in his eyes. "Listen. I don't want to make this choice as much you don't want to. But if we stammer and clammer, all of them die. Didn't you hear what Pheme said? We need to focus." Lake backed away from Ji-hoon in fear. They didn't... But they couldn't...
"I'm afraid he is right my dear Lake." Damien stepped up. "This isn't easy, but Ji-hoon is correct in his thinkings. I say we at least get rid of Yuto first." Upon hearing that, Yuto's struggled doubled. It was a rough sight... but they had no choice.
"Hmph. I agree with Damien and Ji-hoon." Now Cathy of all people walked up. "All of them are dirty humans... but Ji-hoon has the right idea. For once."
The more logic-oriented people were giving Kei solid advice. The more emotional people wanted to chime in just like Lake did, but... they all knew it wouldn't be worth it. They knew that... they couldn't fight it...
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"Alright. I've heard what you've said. Fine." Kei was deadly serious as he turned towards Pheme. His heart was beating out of his chest, but he tried to suppress his nerves. He glanced at the timer. Five minutes left. Shit!
"Pheme!" Kei called out to get her attention.
"Oh? What is it Mr. Aikawa!" She walked out onto the center stage once more.
"You... can drop Yuto in the tank." Kei said as calmly as he possibly could. Yuto was begging and screamed through his gag for Kei to not do this. But Kei couldn't hear a word he was saying...
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"So you choose to drop in Hiroyuki Yuto first? Perfect!" Pheme snapped her fingers for a fourth time this chapter.
It was like... slow motion. The restraints holding Yuto in place had unlocked, allowing him to fall into the tank. The splash was big. Some of the people who were in the front, like Genjiro, had to back away.
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His struggles didn't immediately happen. It was like it took Yuto a moment to even process what had just happened. But once he did... he started flailing like a mad man. His screams and cries became less audible due to the water slowly filling his lungs. Nobody could tear their eyes away from the tank. They didn't even know they already only had three minutes left. The whole thing was... it was... horrific. They were forced to look upon as a man was slowly drained of his life. Some closed their eyes. Some looked away in horror, and others didn't care.
But for one of the stars... they weren't going to stand for this. "I... I'm not going to fucking watch this shit!" Joji yelled out at this top of his lunges, surprising Pheme. Joji then jumped up onto the stage.
"J-Joji?!" Lake cried out.
"Mr. Kaneshiro, what in the world are you-" Pheme didn't get to finish her sentence as she was forced to watch something she truly did not expect to happen.
Joji ran up to the glass tank...
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and punched it. The glass instantly broke, launching shards of it into Joji's hand and forearm. Glass and water flowed like a waterfall. Joji got drenched, with some of his blood mixing in with the water. Pheme had retreated somewhere backstage, and the other stars had backed far away to avoid the water.
Everyone stared in amazement at what Joji had just done. "Oh my god..." was all Lake could say.
Joji got down to check on Yuto. He was still breathing... barely... "Shit..." Joji muttered. "What did I just do..." So many thoughts were bouncing around in his head. What he had done... was so insanely dangerous. Joji still needed to catch his breath. He didn't even notice all of the people running up onto the stage to check on Joji himself and Yuto.
"Joji? Joji! Are you okay?" Lake out their hand on his shoulder.
"The hell were you thinking Jiji? That was dangerous!" Yoshino put her hand on his other shoulder and shook it.
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Meanwhile, a group of others went to check on Yuto. He was still breathing. Most people were still frozen by the intensity of the situation, but Ji-hoon wasn't. "Stand back." He ordered the others. "I'm no doctor or medical expert... but I can do this." Ji-hoon bent down, intended to give Yuto mouth-to-mouth. But he was stopped by the sharp clicking of heels. He looked up, and saw Pheme walking back towards the scene. She started slowly clapping.
"Bravo everyone! Bravo Mr. Kaneshiro! What a wonderful show!" Pheme stopped her clapping and walked when she reached Yuto's barely conscious body. "This... wasn't how this was supposed to play out you know? Normally one would actually follow the rules?" She spoke condescendingly to Joji, but the carpenter just glared at her.
"Ah well, needs must." Pheme dropped down to her knees, so she was right next to Yuto's neck.
Everyone looked on in fear and intrigue at what Pheme was doing. Pheme positioned her mouth closer to Yuto's ear. "Thank you..." She whispered as she pulled out a syringe and injected it into his neck in the blink of an eye. In a matter of moments, Yuto's previously weak jolts and movements... stopped. His chest stopped rising and falling. Everyone knew what had just happened...
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Hiroyuki Yuto had died. And Pheme had killed him.
"Jesus Christ..." Even Alpha didn't have anything snarky or witty to say. No one had anything to say at all.
Pheme was a little cross at the muted reactions of everyone. "You stars need a bit more fire in your spirits!" Pheme shook her head. Ah! But wait! She had an idea on how to solve that problem. She looked up at the three others still dangling up high on the ceiling. "Let's not forget about those three!" We are now at five Pheme snaps this chapter, as she snapped once again.
But now, the restraints of all three of them in the air came off, causing them all to fall onto a pile of wet and broken glass. It looked like the impact of the fall knocked all three of them out. The people who were surrounding Yuto quickly went to surround Adam and Aurora to check on them.
"Hey, are you two okay-nya? Speak to me-nya!" Kuroko tried to get their attention, but to no avail.
Pheme sighed. "There is an infirmary on this floor. I'd recommend you take them there to help them. Mr. Kaneshiro included." She gestured towards Joji. Pheme lost the spark she had earlier.
After hearing what Pheme said, Lake frantically nodded. "Right, okay! C'mon Joji, let's go!" Lake took a dazed Joji's hand and started leading him out of the theater. "I'm sorry to ask you, but can you take Adam and Aurora, Genjiro? You look strong enough to lift them!" She pleaded with the wrestler.
Genjiro groaned and rolled his eyes. "Yeah I'll take them." He heaved up both Adam and Aurora's bodies over his shoulders and followed Lake and Joji out of the theater.
Pheme still had more she wanted to say but perhaps she could save that for tomorrow. "It seems you stars are rather fatigued. If you leave the theater, you'll see an opening where rooms have been prepared for all of you. Get some rest, and I'll speak with all of you more tomorrow." Pheme had turned bored with the situation rather quickly. Nobodies reaction was interesting or entertaining. Pheme pouted as she slowly stepped into the back of the stage... taking Yukari's body with her. No one seemed to notice, as the theater was just a grand and empty silence...
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[???]
After moving backstage, Pheme reached the opening for the elevator. She almost stepped onto it, but she almost forgot about Yukari's still unconscious body. Pheme looked down at it disappointedly. Pheme still wanted to kill her of course. But she wanted to make a spectacle out of it. She wanted her death to have that wow factor! But judging by how her beautiful stars were acting, it seemed like that wouldn't be possible now.
Pheme glance down at Yukari's body. At her sleeping, so soundly and deeply. Besides for the small cuts from the glass all over her, she seemed quite serene. Well, lets just this out of the way. Pheme pulled out another syringe she had, and injected it into Yukari's neck. It gave her a quick and simple death. Pheme was disappointed, but it needed to be done anyway. Pheme left Yukari's lifeless body there as she stepped onto the elevator.
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[Pheme's Room]
It didn't take long for Pheme to reach her room via the elevator. And sitting on Pheme's chair was none other than the figure.
"Miss Pheme. It's good to see you back." They spoke cordially, but you could tell that they were a bit upset.
"Hold on." Pheme cut them off before they could say anything else. "I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that I went off script, that I messed it up, yadda yadda yadda. Right?" Pheme put her hand on her hip.
But the figure didn't show any emotions in their face in the slightest. "Don't worry Miss Pheme. I'm not angry at all. You merely... made your own creative decisions. You merely... went against my judgement. You... messed it up. But you know what? That's alright." The figure stood up. They took Pheme's hand. "You don't need to worry. Yukari and Yuto were taken care of right? That's all that matters. Just go and rest for now Miss Pheme. Just... relax." The figure's words wormed into Pheme's brain like a bug. Feeling the effects of it, Pheme walked off to sleep...
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And now, the figure was alone. Seeing that Pheme wasn't near. He slammed his hand on the table. "Damn it." He swore. This game was supposed to run on a tight schedule, but Pheme taking things into her own hands by kidnapping Mr. Brooks and Ms. Beaufort ruined it. And after they had explicitly told her that Mr. Brooks and Ms. Beaufort would not be in the killing game. They groaned. They didn't expect her to act on her own. They'd have to think about that more later.
But they also had to deal with the inclusion of Ms. Alpha as well. That idiot Contact deserved to die for making a ridiculous mistake like that. And moving in three other rooms, and having to do extra construction was a massive stressor. But... they'll get it done. If they were going to face obstacles... they'd get past them. No matter what. No matter what, they'd stop at nothing to see Pheme's dreams fulfilled.
They looked over at the clock. It was about time. The figure pressed a certain button. It was time to start then. Despite the delay, it was time to officially kick off...
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"Danganronpa: Obscurity's Disgrace!"
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And there we go! Finally, this massive chapter is done! Boy, there was a lot in here wasn't there? Was it too much? Too little? Let me know!
And for the creators of the seven characters introduced, did I write your character's well? Also let me know!
Do you have any theories? Also also let me know!
But wow. The prologue is done! It's still insane to me that I've even reached this point. But I really hope you enjoyed, and I hope you look forward to chapter 1!
Glamorous Stars Remaining: 19
Adam Brooks - Ultimate Academic [PROJECT DRAMA]
Aelia Celani - Ultimate Puppeteer [theycallmewotch]
Alpha - Ultimate Gas Station Manager [Epifanio Therion]
Aurora Beaufort - Ultimate Starlet [WolfieRed23]
Ayaka Naganohara - Ultimate Violinist [Sempi]
Bessie B. Blossom - Ultimate Pop Star [CandleFire45]
Catherine Munchkin - Ultimate Cat Burglar [Nekoja]
Damien Lux - Ultimate Beautician [oddlyillregular]
Darren Taylor - Ultimate Bartender [Otterplay]
Genjiro Mashimoto - Ultimate Wrestler [Grandma Sue]
Ji-hoon Jo - Ultimate Celebrity Detective [TheRoseShadow21]
Joji Kaneshiro - Ultimate Carpenter [SureJahn]
Kei Aikawa - Ultimate Lawyer [theotakureader101]
Kuroko Kurobara - Ultimate Hypnotist [MrUtenaHolic]
Lake Beaumont - Ultimate Ballet Dancer [KadachiNova]
Raiha Miyahara - Ultimate Trendsetter [Prince PokePersona]
Rival Seizon - Ultimate Backing Vocalist [SinWriter7]
Rosalind Reinhardt - Ultimate Cinematographer [Orlando Butler]
Yoshino Akiyama - Ultimate Horror Novelist [DeathlyJazzHands55]