Take Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And once the allotted time for investigating comes to a close, those elevator doors at the end of the first-floor corridor open up; the ride down is fast, smooth, and understandably tense as far as atmosphere goes. You're down to less than half of your original number. The doors slide open and the podium circle comes into view, standing stark against the black-walled courtroom and encircling that pit in the center; Misa and Aqua have joined the ranks of the deceased, photographs in greyscale watching the proceedings from their podiums draped in black. Of course and as always, the deceased aren't the only ones watching; the Kingmaker will make his presence known once everyone has settled at their podium, his voice sounding out through the room for all to hear. "Resilient has been taken from you. Maybe this time the guilty party will actually succeed at fulfilling Rule Seven, seeing as this is the sixth try and all. Whether they manage it is up to the rest of you." Thirteen Survivors remain. However many will be down by the end of the day is up to you.

Comments

[ratingspoint]

God. Do none of you understand dramatic tension or what? You can't just beat around the bush forever, darlings – the audience is getting bored! It demands – no, it deserves more!

[Mettaton just kind of shifts back a bit, hands at his hips; he's clearly trying to not just roll his eyes at all of this, and he's failing pretty hard.]

Since all of you are so clearly dying to ask but no one is willing to do it, why don't we pick up the pace a little bit – if you think you're so smart, clearly you won't mind playing a bit of a memory game with me! I know several of you have the answers, so it shouldn't be too hard if you've been paying attention!

The rules are simple: Answer correctly... or we'll all die!

[ SORRY, FOLKS, THE OLD SHOW'S BEEN CANCELLED; COMMENCING NEW PROGRAMMING IN ]

[3 – 2 – 1!]

The first question should be easy for those of you who have playing along at home: What's the primary reason Mettaton can't possibly have killed Aqua?

A. Her soul is stronger than his, and she could easily defeat him in a fight!
B. He cared about her like he would family – he didn't hate her, so he wouldn't be able to fight her in the first place, much less kill her!
C. The incentive didn't work on him and so he had no reason to want anyone dead, so he couldn't have struck a killing blow on her anyway!
D. All of the above!

Think carefully! Answer correctly, and it'll lead you to one basic conclusion - I couldn't possibly kill her.

[cherryblooded]

[Cherryblod wants to answer this quiz. He really does. He wants to say 'D', or literally anything.

Instead he just pushes the bloody objects on his podium aside so he can rest his face on it.

He's really glad Sigrun's not right next to him and it's only Speedwagon who can see exactly how badly he's trembling.]

[isafraid]

[....Oh.

Yeah. Yup, he sees you there, Cherryblod. You can sit this one out, and everything else out for the rest of your life if you can help it.

They can handle this on their own. There will be plenty of crying to be done after this mess is sorted out at last.]

[cherryblooded]

[It's very much appreciated.]

[captainobnoxious]

[-- What the fuck is this bullshit. She's lucky she's still in his podium, but he's not, because hes getting the smallest of shoves.]

Mettaton, why can't you just tell me!? What happened to not performing in front of me? Just say you didn't do it, give me a reason why you couldn't have, and-- and we'd find someone else!

[Anyone else.]

[garudynamic]

What's he talking about, not being able to kill if he didn't hate her? Is this some monster thing?!

[ratingspoint]

You'd better believe it is, sweetheart! Our ability to fight drops along with our will to do it - so if I didn't hate her, I couldn't have killed her like that! Simple. As. That.

[garudynamic]

... does that even still apply here though? I mean, the Kingmaker wants us to kill, why would he keep you like that? We already know he'll change things to allow someone to kill.

[isafraid]

[...]

You're saying a robot can't just pick up a damn wrench and do someone in with it?

[captainobnoxious]

[Hnnnhnhnn. She doesn't want to say anything.]

Yeah. They can't hurt anyone they don't want to. If he really didn't want to hurt Aqua, he couldn't have, much less kill her.

[isafraid]

[Speedwagon brings a fist down on his podium, knocking the toolbox right off of it. Whoops.]

Is this what you bloody call acting innocent then?!

[ratingspoint]

[...Smooth, Speedwagon.]

This is what I call trying to make sure we don't all die! That is the penalty for a wrong vote, right?

[isafraid]

[HE HAS NEVER CLAIMED TO BE SMOOTH BEFORE]

Course it is, that just means that there's always an excuse to get someone not to vote for you.

[amygdalae]

[Well.

Here we go.

He knows that this will hurt - and it will hurt. But they have to do this. There's no way to turn back.]

A wouldn't apply because she most likely didn't attack you back in the first place.

[Not to mention that while yes, she did put up with a struggle, all there are on her are injuries on her.]

[captainobnoxious]

Shut up! He wouldn't have in the first place!

[amygdalae]

I don't want to believe it either, Captain. But there's too many suspicious clues stacked up against him right now.

Either we clear this up right now or let this mistake spell the end of us.

[ratingspoint]

BZZT! Wrong!

[...He just made the fucking noise, god help us, he just made the fucking noise.]

From what it sounded like, her body showed clear signs of a fight that spanned a lot of the room. Think again! Do you really want to try to tell me that she didn't fight back?

[garudynamic]

But wait, you're made of metal- even if she did would it even hurt you?!

[amygdalae]

She was injured, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she had been fighting.

There was a giant bruise on her left shoulder. In all likelihood, she was merely defending herself. That would explain why her right side was more significantly bruised in the first place; she was using her right to defend.

[notjustawriter]

[God, he wants to answer "D", he wants to believe that Mettaton couldn't have killed Aqua, he doesn't want to believe it.

His hands shake on the podium. He can't answer.]

[penduli]

[ ...well, the first question seems debated hard on, but that was just the first question, right?

...so there's more, right? Black's gonna raise his hand like you do in school and raise his voice. ]

What's the next question? [ ...assuming that Mettaton's sassy reply to Gabriel wasn't the second question, actually.

Because he's right, it doesn't matter who started the fight, a fight was had. ]

[ratingspoint]

[OH FUCKING GOOD, someone who gets the point.]

Short essay. I'll allow verbal submissions for now, though!

I'd like to hear what you think actually happened, because as far as I can tell no one has a damn clue outside of "We'll figure that out later."

If you're going to accuse me, I'd like to hear what I'm being accused of. In exact terms.

[garudynamic]

[Can we answer 'legs'?]

[captainobnoxious]

[... She's gonna lean against him a little. Very quietly:]

Did you ask the Kingmaker if you could save someone else's world? I was thinking about it myself.

[It's not an essay, but it's a question that she wants answered. It might be sealing something for her.]

[amygdalae]

[LET'S TRY AND PIECE THIS TOGETHER...? I should not be doing this at 5AM, save me.]

You and Aqua were in the music room for some reason, and there a fight broke out between the both of you for some reason. You struck her left at some point so that she couldn't defend herself anymore. She tried to run after that, toppling and generally using the music instruments in the room in order to hinder you, but you caught up to her and stopped her from running by hurting her legs too - that's why there were bruises there. After that you ended her life; most likely with the wrench that Captain Eide found in the restroom.

Once she was down, you then went around using Aqua's blood to fabricate the other evidence - you're the only one among us that doesn't bleed, which is why there are so many items that have blood on them. It wasn't to hide the murder weapon, it was to throw off any suspicion on you. Once that was done then you wiped up the remaining blood with Aqua's clothes and changed her into the attire that we found.

Obviously, doing all of this would have stained you quite thoroughly with blood, which is where the peroxide comes into play - you used a liberal amount of it in order to get rid of it from you, and since you are made of metal physically, it wouldn't leave any trace on you.

...is there anything I'm missing in terms of the order of events?