Taking Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And a while after that strange, dark floor is accessed, after you've had time to look things over and get some idea of what's happening...well. There won't be any sort of official announcement to tell you to get downstairs, nor will there be a personal invitation for you to do so. Instead, the doors at the end of the corridor (were they there before? You find that you don't remember. It doesn't matter anymore, though-) slide open, as they always do, and the elevator ride to the courtroom is probably the first familiar thing that's happened all day. It's smooth and quick, though it seems to take a bit longer than it usually does. And when the doors open at the end of the line, the courtroom looks different. The dark, weirdly cylindrical room is largely the same in and of itself, but the usual twenty-seven podium circle is gone; instead, there's a smaller setup in the center of the room - ten podiums total, and you'll likely find the way your spots have been distributed to be very familiar indeed. Of further notice is the balcony - there's a structure that wasn't there before in view of the courtroom, situated high above, barred-in by a railing that'd probably be at about waist-height on your average person; there's no one up there just yet, however. There are so few of you now. It seems that today there are no speeches to give; maybe the Kingmaker is absent, maybe he just doesn' have anything to say. Either way, however, the implication in the fact that you're here at all is clear. For one last time, make the guilty take responsibility.

Comments

[notjustawriter]

The profiles in this journal don't match with what Stan and Bruce found.

[...Please get what he's implying.]

[garudynamic]

It might have a distributor's mark on it, but yeah, none of us here probably have that kinda nerd-knowledge to know for sure either way.

[cherryblooded]

Doesn't get much more fun.

[Even if it is 'useful'.]

[goodforsomething]

......you know, kinda seems like an AI shouldn't be able to write on a whiteboard.

[Turning to Mouri now, because are you a psychic, man?]

[pokexplorer]

[Colress' attention immediately snaps to the Pokedex.

He isn't 100% sure at first, but...]

Mr. Pines, could you pass me that device? I would like to have a closer look.

[isafraid]

[Ah.... Speedwagon's looking as if he's about to come down with a headache.]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that bit with Glory.

[sleepingkogoro]

[Artificial intelligence? What is this madness? Mouri is not technologically ignorant but do you know how rare something like AIs are?]

That explains why she couldn't reveal much. As far as I know AIs are bound by all sorts of rules.

What I'm not sure is for what purpose Glory would be included in this mess. Was it just another way for the Kingmaker to toy with us? I don't know, I think there's something I'm not seeing here.

[garudynamic]

He WAS a hacker though- if any of us could mess with them it was probably him. Like hell I know HOW though.

[What is this the Matrix?!]

[goodforsomething]

Yeah, here. [Passing it to Bruce to hand over.] It still turns on. I messed with it a little, couldn't find anything in there.

[captainobnoxious]

[-- Oh holy shit she actually recognizes one of these.

Holy shit, Mettaton would've fucking killed Kingmaker if he knew, holy shit.]

This-- I know this person!

[She's holding up Reticent's folder, annoyance clear.]

This is Dr. Alphys. Mettaton's creator. He drew her once for me.

[... And she was in a fair amount of the pages of his sketchbook along with Napstablook after she searched his room, but that's a secret.]

[isafraid]

... Ah, no harm done. Just thought that if we saw any interesting landmarks we could try to piece it together from there. [but they're all from different worlds... so how well would that even go?]

We'll just figure it out some other way.

[cherryblooded]

...Kind of seems like entire rooms shouldn't be able to move or disappear, either.

That virtual reality theory is holding some water.

[goodforsomething]

[Oh, right.]

It's like if someone made your phone come alive or somethin'. We don't have real AIs where I'm from - [That he knows about] - but they're in movies and stuff.

[cherryblooded]

[Well now he's paying attention to that one-]

Oh, she's cute.

...And also probably dead...

[amygdalae]

[Bruce hands it over.]

It's nothing like what my own world would have, so I'm pretty stuck myself.

[Can you make it work, Colress...]

[sleepingkogoro]

No way!

[Mouri is definitely going to lean forward to take a look at Reticent]

...huh. Doesn't look like I expected Mettaton-kun's creator to look like. I thought she'd look more like a mad scientist, not...

[Not this slightly cowering creature. Welp]

[captainobnoxious]

Like I said, they help the Kingmaker out. They deal with the upkeep of the vault and stuff.

[... But Black'll probably have most of that to deal out tbh.]

There's no rule against them helping us, and the Kingmaker wants the game to end. Simple as that.

[cherryblooded]

...Actually, that might explain where he got the guns from, if that pit's dealing with holograms anyway.

[goodforsomething]

I could buy magic on that one, or demons. But AI's a whole different can of worms.

[garudynamic]

Mettaton's mom is a raptor?

[Yosuke, I am seriously starting to wonder if you know what a raptor is at all.]

[amygdalae]

[Wow, Cherryblod.]

I heard about her before too.

[He certainly didn't expect to... well, see her like this, though.]

She was singled out along with the other two. Why was that?

[sleepingkogoro]

Don't look at me. I don't know more than you about how AIs work.

[amygdalae]

Its weird that the phone was blank, though.

[Why even leave it there at all?]

[goodforsomething]

Maybe 'cause someone here knew her? Pass around the other two, see if either of them pops out to anyone.

[captainobnoxious]

She's very cute, and very powerful. Good with technology and magic, but she doesn't like to fight.

[...]

If she's not, then I'll have to apologize to her for Mettaton.

[She means in Mettaton's place, but it could very well mean apologizing for the fact he's dead, which is great.]