Murder Mystery '06: The Story

[Killix]

It was almost midnight and Meowth4 still couldn't sleep. Insomnia came with being a werewolf...or at least she had always assumed. The silvery glow of the moonlight, even at its dimmest, was still irritating enough to keep her awake.

She sighed, and rolled over onto her back. Time to count ceiling tiles again. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5...This is so boring, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10..."

"Ahhh!! HOLYCLOWNS, what's that on the ceiling?" Meowth4 jumped up into a sitting position. Just as the others were about to question what it was Meowth4 had seen that was so shocking, she settled back down into a curled position on the floor.

"Mmm, okay mr. banana, I wont try to eat your necktie anymore," she mumbled. It figures, she was just asleep, and counting tiles really does work.

[My email doesn't work anymore]

Still sleeping fittfuly, even through Meowth's thrashings and the tortuous heat, Mindy dreamt of a wide, churning, frothing river of cream filled to the brim with salmon and tuna. Humming in delight dream-Mindy dove into the white, creamy depths and let the tide toss her about as she flipped and turned catching and gnawing on as many fishy delights as her tiny mouth could hold.

Finally dream-Mindy washed up on shore and she lied down on the shore letting the steamy sun dry her off. Lazily she grabbed one last salmon from the heavenly white stream. Licking her lips she bit down into the fishy flesh. But much to her horror and suprise her tastebuds did not meet a flavorful bite of fish but instead a dry and wooly texture. She tried to yank the nasty fish from her mouth but it stayed tight and even began to push down hard against the leopard-girl's face. She couldn't breathe or see or smell the sweet aroma of the river anymore. Her tiny lungs strained and screamed deperatly for air or any kind.

Suddenly Mindy awoke with a shriek and bolted across the room like a rubber band and clung to Spot. Groaning and yawning Spot snuggled her daughter and brushed her pink hair behind her spotted ears. "Oh sweetie did you have a bad dream? It's alright Mommy Spot's here."

Mindy opened her mouth to respond but all that came was a hacking dry cough. She fell out of her mother's arms onto the musty makeshift bed wheezing and coughing a storm until finally a large wad of red fabric spewed onto the couch.

Still somewhat groggy and not all there Stal scooped up the little leopard-girl and patted her on back. "Alright let's get some nice soothing tea for your throat shall we?" he cooed carrying her off to the Splatterboard kitchen in an attempt to find some warm beverage amoung the infinite stacks of cookiepies.

[Nimras]

She couldn’t sleep. For some reason the air just sat heavily; oppressive, and stale. This whole sleeping in one room for safety thing was driving her crazy – it always smelt of nervous people. Fear wasn’t the best of things to have to constantly breathe.

And her fur felt dirty.

What she really needed, the white Lupess decided, was a shower. Showers always made everything better, and she could clean her cheese grater while she was at it.

We’re not supposed to go off on our own, her conscience mumbled sleepily in the back of her mind. Looking around at the other people crashed out around the room, finding a chaperone shouldn’t be too hard, Nimras decided.

“Hey Spot,” Nimras poked the sleeping leopard. “Wake up; I need to go to the showers.”

Without waking, Spot bared her teeth at the annoyance, flexing her claws to show her malcontent.

There were less… poky people to bother into keeping her company, the Lupess wisely decided. Felines had an unfair advantage with five sharp ends.

“Ikkin,” she whispered while prodding the kitsune, “wake up.” The most she could get out of Ikkin was a snort and a batted away paw.

Getting frustrated, she moved onto the next person. Third times a charm, right? “Stal, wake up. I need to go to the shower.”

“Wha?” The human mumbled sleepily, looking about groggily.

“I can’t stay in here any longer, it’s driving me nuts. I need to go to the shower.”

“So go to the shower...” He was starting to fall back asleep.

“But Rider said…”

“You’re taking orders from Rider?” He drowsily interrupted, “You’re not a pirate… don’t need a babysitter.” And with that he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sitting back on her haunches, Nimras debated what to do. She wasn’t going to have much better luck waking any of the others. As long as she kept the shower short, as much as she may regret a short shower; it was better than nothing and she’d be back in plenty of time. She didn’t see anyone else missing in the dark room – and she had to get away from the constant reek of too many people squished into too little space.

Picking up her cheese grater, she headed out the door. She’d take the shortcut though Off Topic, she decided.

This was much better; you could almost pretend that everyone was here safe and sound; tucked into their beds and sleeping just like a normal night. Barring the lack of constant sound from the Tabloids, that is. A slight scuff sound on the floor startled her, causing the white Lupess to jump. Pricking her ears, she sniffed curiously; then relaxed as she recognized the scent of the person ahead.

“You know we’re not supposed to head out alone.” The shadowy person commented, rising from the floor where they had been writing.

Cocking her head, Nimras countered, “I could say the same to you. Can’t sleep either?”

“No. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately.”

“I don’t think anyone’s been sleeping very.” The white Lupess admitted, “I’m on my way to the shower, want to walk with me?”

Capping their pen, the other insomniac smiled, “I’d love too.”

******
Stal’s yell woke everyone the next morning. “No!”

Rider stumbled towards the horrified sound, “What is it…” Her voice trailed off as she rounded the corner and found Stal, frantically trying to revive a blood splattered white Lupess.

“Stal,” Rider grabbed his shoulders firmly, “Take a good look at her… it’s too late.”

“It’s my fault,” he choked, “I told her… I told her…” He couldn’t finish, he just looked at her helplessly.

“What is it?”

Ikkin shuffled into the room; closely followed by a more alert Crystal, who looked around the room and quickly figured out what had happened, “Aw man. What a way to go, stabbed to death by a pen. That must have hurt.”

“At least it looks like she got some damage in of her own,” Rider commented, picking up the cheese grater. Imbedded in the sharp slots were small reddish orange hairs. “I don’t suppose anyone knows where these came from.”

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]Things had gotten critical. Emergency lights flashed in Rider's head. She was never good at remaining calm, but...

Often times, Stal would sit in a room alone by himself for hours, seemingly doing nothing. Something was going on in his head. Ventratta saw this, and he didn't like it one bit.

Ikkin was doing slightly better. The initial shock of having her soul frayed was beginning to wear off. She still was by no means the same Ikkin.

Mindela spent a lot of time by Spot's side, not looking the other forumers in the eye.

Wanderer seemed a bit too detatched to be completely there. Rider hadn't heard a peep out of Kyubi. She thought that the demon-fox would revel in this chaos.

Sev had been spotted occasionally, but he never hung around to talk to anyone.

Compared to these people, Rider felt like she was holding up quite well.

Ventratta stared up at Rider from her handbag.

"We have no evidence that Stal did anything wrong, Ventratta."

Ventratta blinked once.

"He's concerned about Mindy, I suppose. The same way we're concerned about Ikkin."

Ventratta stared.

"Look, this doesn't have anything to do with your personal grudge against Stal, right?"

Ventratta stared.

"You're just not accustomed to being around men who show indifference. Stal doesn't like you, and neither does he hate or fear you. And you make it your mission in life to drive him mad!"

Ventratta blinked twice.

"You're right. That was a tasteless statement, what with Ikkin being the way she is... But still. Why would Stal attempt to kill his own daughter?"

Ventratta stared.

"All right, now you're just being ridiculous.

END CHAPTER TWO[/glow]

[Ikkin]

Sev was not pleased. He expected that he would be, but he wasn't. Apparantly, he was wrong about the effect that stretching his connection with Ikkin would have on him. He'd figured that since his soul had been split for so long, there wouldn't be much strain on it. Sure, it wasn't as bad for him as it was for Ikkin, especially at first. But it was still more than he wanted to put up with. And it wasn't like he could change his mind now- he'd decided to break with Ikkin, and that's all there was to it. Besides, he didn't want to go back now- that would mean reviving everyone who had been killed so far, and who knew if even that would be the end of it?

For all Sev cared, the others could stay dead. It was their fault they all got on someone's bad side and were foolish enough to get themselves trapped. He just wanted his freedom, not only from Ikkin, but also from being bothered by the others. Even that seemed hard to keep, though- no matter where he was, someone would always come in and he'd have to move to be alone again. It was infuriating. At least it was likely he wouldn't have to put up with it for long.

The strain on the connection, it seemed, wouldn't give Sev any peace, either. He was constantly annoyed at something, even things that wouldn't have bothered him before. He sometimes had strange flashes of emotion, usually anger or sadness, which irritated him even further. He figured those other emotions were from Ikkin, but there wasn't much he could do about it apart from trying to sever the connection completely, and that was far too dangerous for him. For now, all there was to do was to hope that he'd get some peace and quiet before it all drove him completely crazy. Because as much as he hated to admit it, Ikkin was right about the connection- he needed it to be whole as much as she did. But he certainly wasn't about to admit it. Besides, she'd overcome it somewhat... couldn't it be possible that he could do the same thing?

In any case, the phoenix didn't get any sleep that night. It was a good thing he could survive without it.

[Rider]

Chapter Three

[glow=red,2,300]Stal sat alone in Forum Events, sharpening a knife. The sound of his blade on the sharpening stone was a lullaby rhythm, another beat waiting to be broken.

All the while, he was being watched. Time was running out.

* * *

"Hiiiiiiya!"

Crystal's kunai buried themselves into the wall by Mindy's paw. Mindy responded by throwing shuriken, being careful to aim for the wall just above Crystal's head.

"We probably ought to train as well," Rider said to Tracy, Meowth, Wandy and Ikkin. "Technically, Ikkin is the only active pirate, but the rest of you probably own a cutlass, right? Well, not everyone, but Tracy could just bop people off the head with a mop..."

"I have a cutlass and I use it very well, thank you," Tracy said, a bit hurt.

"Silly doofus," Rider said, not noticing. "Of course."

"I'm not a doofus." Tracy mumbled. Then she started to go to the next room to sulk, tripped over a potted plant and rolled down the hall.[/glow]

[Ikkin]

"Training is starting to sound pretty good right now," Ikkin said. "Maybe not quite as satisfying as cutting that dratted bird down to size would be, but better than nothing." There hadn't been anything in the Tabloid Shop that gave Ikkin ideas for how to deal with the Sev problem, so she really needed to do something to keep her mind off of the fraying connection. Training didn't sound all that bad when there was a murderer out there trying to kill everyone... and a phoenix who could probably only benefit from a 'forced reset.'

Ikkin felt the anger rising within her again, and forced it back down. She didn't want to hurt anyone in her training exercises, after all, she tended to be a bit careless in regards to safety when she was angered, and that was not a good state to be in when training with sharpened weapons.

She decided that extra caution couldn't hurt here, so instead of using her normal cutlass (which was held to her left side by her belt), she drew her secondary weapon, a nearly identical cutlass that hung lower at her right side- nearly identical, because it was sharpened on the back side. While it felt a bit different than her other cutlass, it was fairly useful for dealing with the riggings as a pirate, and it doubled as a decent practice weapon, since strikes would be made with the dull side.

"I'm definitely in," Ikkin said. "Can't let the ninja have all the fun, after all."

[Killix]

Everything was quiet at the forum for the moment...but the silence was about to end.

Ikkin and Rider were both sitting on the dusty floor, playing a very slow and silent game of cards. Well, if you would call staring at the cards half-mindedly and asking every-so-often if the other had any threes or kings or the odd joker, 'playing cards', then that would be an accurate description. Playing cards wasn't the most productive thing to do, but it filled time and diverted their thoughts of recent events.

"Augh, stop it! You're hurting me," a voice shouted in protest. Ikkin and Rider were startled by the sudden screaming. Ikkin jumped a little, and Rider even dropped her cards all over the floor. The voice sounded like Tracy's, and it was coming from the next room.

"NO MEOWTH DROP THAT KNIFE! Augh! Stop!" she yelled in desperation.
The two only spared a second to exchange glances before they ran towards the door. Ikkin tugged at the handle, but the door itself seemed to be jammed. Without any hesitation, both mods simultaneously kicked the door with as much force as they could get. The door swung open with a loud *crack* and was thrown open with such force that it even came off one of its hinges.

There, in the middle of the room sat Meowth4 and Tracy. Each holding a portable handheld video game. They were playing a wireless 2-player coop sidescrolling beat-em-up game, and were tapping the buttons furiously. Both gamers glanced over their shoulders at the two intruders. At that point, Ikkin and Rider just stood in the doorway without making a sound.

Tracy quickly turned back to her game, "Meowth, drop that knife and pick up the metal pipe," she shouted and Meowth4 quickly focused back to her game aswell.

"The metal pipe is too heavy and slow," she said quickly.

"Yeah, but the stage 8 boss has little defence," Tracy commented.

"No Tracy, don't use that move, your HP is too low!"

"It wouldn't be so low if you hadn't hit me so many times!"

"Well then stop getting in my way!"

Rider and Ikkin didn't even bother exchanging glances to eachother, but instead slowly backed out of the doorway. Only people like Tracy and Meowth4 would even think of playing Streets of Fury at times like these.

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]Our first night without Nimras henpecking us and telling us not to drink coffee and to go to bed on time and to brush our teeth for a full three minutes and to wash behind the ears and to...

Dang, it was quiet.

Stal was, once again, catnapping in Forum Events. Ever since his daughter's near brush with death, he had been spending a lot of time alone...

He was drifting through the hazy mists of that world between sleeping and waking. Ghosts of ideas rose and fell in front of his eyes in a mournful rhythm. In the distance, a pair of drums beat in perfect time.

They made him anxious. He was just waiting for the rhythm to break.

There was a loud twanging sound. It was as if a giant hand pulled Stal from that mist-land and back to reality.

He rolled over and looked up. A knife was vibrating above his couch, its point buried in the wall an inch above his nose.

The breath caught in Stal's throat. It didn't look as if the knife was aimed to kill, only to threaten. Why?

Who would have anything against Stal? [/glow]

[Tracy]

The silence was so unbearable, so tense, that it felt nobody had spoken in nearly six days.

"We can't just sit here," Tracy finally protested, "We've got to do something! I mean, the batteries on my console are dead, and my blanket of artwork is starting to bleed all colours on my legs, and I'm bored and I want a sandwich, preferably with chicken and some mayo-"

"Ok, ok" Rider said. "Perhaps we should try doing some more training. You can never be too good with a weapon".

"Can I have this one?" Tracy said, picking up the largest, pointiest sword known to man, and nearly beheading Meowth. Ikkin managed to swipe it from her before she did any serious damage.

"Who needs murderers when we've got doofuses like you?"

Tracy pouted angrily. "Fine, whatever. Six more days of silence looks more fun right now anyway."

[Ikkin]

"Well, if you go around cutting everyone's heads off, you'll be having more than six days of silence," Ikkin muttered. "And I really can't see where you managed to procure that Masamune from. That definitely wasn't there before, and twelve-foot long katana are rather hard to miss."

She sighed. "Training still isn't a bad idea, though. Under one condition- we don't use sharp weapons." She tossed Tracy an old, blunt cutlass, then got into a ready position. "You ready?" she asked.

[Spot]

She could feel the warm tropical breeze ruffle her hair, the salty spray of the ocean make her nose tingle, and the glow of the sun radiate upon her skin. Spot was comfortably curled up in the corner despite the sounds of the other mods sparring, but the noise and the senses irritated Lycos to no end.

The black leopard opened her eyes again in the dark stale room, not well adjusting to the dim settings. Judging from what she could sense, Chelsey was having a wonderful time laying out in the sun on the vacation island with the rest of the forumers. A silent growl escaped from her throat, a sigh of annoyance at Chelsey’s pleasure and comfort when they were stuck here in this degraded pit of a forum. Lycos grew tired of sitting around, and decided she’d see if retreating to a darker corner would eliminate the sun glare that she couldn’t block out. Taking care to avoid being noticed, she slipped out of the room where everybody was.

Trailing through the rubble lined passages, Lycos quietly made her way to the tabloid shop, on the skirts of the splatterboard. She paused only a moment to enter the code on the giant lock now placed on the door, and slipped inside.

The store was still very much a mess, and would remain closed until it could be entirely fixed up. The others had helped Lycos to clean it up after the earthquake, but that primarily dealt with removing the hazardous spells and creatures that had been activated, and taking care of whatever else could pose a threat in the wake of the ‘quake. The store was by no means close to being its former glorious self.

Lycos stumbled over a binder on the floor. The inventory binder. She picked it up, flipped through it halfheartedly without actually reading it, and tossed it over her shoulder towards the counter. It was pointless to look at that now. Considering everybody had been in here at some point or another helping, the murderer could have grabbed a small weapon of his choice and smuggled it out with the discarded and broken stuff. There was no way one could even begin to sort through the remaining mess and figure out what might have disappeared. Even with the new lock now placed on the door, you could still root through the trash pile outside the shop, which might have something potentially dangerous in it. Besides, it had been discovered after the earthquake incident – Chelsey had left a backup key to the shop in mod squad for emergencies, forgetting to inform Lycos and Spot. Guess she didn’t realize that could cause an emergency as well… Anybody could have been in here before.

Lycos’ eyes were finally adjusting to the dim light, and she started picking up a few stray bottles and putting them in their proper places. She also came across the picture of the tabloid shop from when it first opened. Lycos picked the shattered glass off of the picture, and hung the image and frame back on the wall where it had been before it fell.

img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/spotthechelsey/Tabloid_01_shop.jpg

Lycos stared at the photo, and then glanced at the mess surrounding her. She suddenly decided she was tired of cleaning already, and exited the shop, bolting it shut again.

The black leopard treaded down the hallway, taking care not to injure her paws on the loose debris. She paused briefly, and for that moment again felt a light breeze on her face. Again, she growled at Chelsey, but …

This breeze was real and present around Lycos, not what Chelsey was sensing. It soon stopped, but it had to come from somewhere. Lycos searched around, clawing at various pieces of wallboard and pulling other blockages out of the way. She finally found what she was hoping for.

A vent. Not just a vent, but one which was channeling a natural breeze.

The cover to it had been twisted and warped due to the earthquake, and one screw was loose at the corner. Lycos extended her claws and worked at removing the screws one by one. A few were jammed too tightly, but with proper leverage, she might still be able to spring the cover off. A nearby piece of pipe wedged nicely in between the cover and the wall, and with a bit of maneuvering, Lycos could apply most of her strength in prying at the cover. She strained a bit, bracing her paws against the floor, claws digging in.

TWANG!

The metal cover flew off and ricocheted off the far wall, the sound echoing down the corridors of the forum.

“Let’s see if I’ve found an escape route,” Lycos grinned, and crawled into the vent.

[Crystal]

There was an odd clanging sound in the distance, much like that of some nasty old bent lid richocheting off some far wall.

Crystal paused to hear and nearly got a kunai in the face. A few meters away, Mindy crowed in happiness and wasted no time in slamming the other girl to the ground.

"Gerroff!" Crystal muttered. "I heard something." She struggled from the floor and headed toward the door, absently straightening clothing that didn't need any, given that scruffy, rumpled and magnificently brightly-coloured was how it came. It really sucked, Crystal reflected, having no other clothes except for that discarded (for a reason) laundry pile someone had found. "Coming, Min?"

Behind them, a shadow slipped quietly to it's feet.

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]Rider too heard the clanging. She saw Mindy and Crystal slipping away.

Very suspicious, Rider thought. Why slip off and not tell anyone? [/glow]

[Killix]

It was boring. Anything that was considered fun or entertaining was off
limits due to "safety reasons" or had already been broken by the 'quake.
Not to mention the silence was only worsening the extreme heat and
claustrophobic atmosphere of the small warm rooms.

Meowth was lounging in a chair, attempting to find a position within it that
was passable. It was warm, too warm, and Meowth didn't like feeling warm
and uncomfortable at the same time. She decided that what she needed was
some fresh air. It was a cool night, and anything was better than staying
in that cramped, warm room all night.

"Hey guys, I'm going to look for some fresh air, okay?"

Some of the other mods mumbled in acknowledgement, but noone offered to
go with her even though it had been decided that noone should ever go
anywhere alone. Meowth4 was actually glad noone had offered. She always
imagined that anyone eager enough to assist someone probably would be the
murderer. What better an opportunity to get someone alone and away from
the others?

Meowth stepped onto the dim hallway and just as she had remembered, there
it was, a small sized hole in the wall covered by a large cloth. She pulled
the cloth back, revealing the outdoors in all its glory. She leaned
carefully onto the hole, and breathed in the sweet scent of
the cool air.
"aaahhh," she sighed and leaned over the crack into the breeze.
The tall blades of grass were slowly waving back and forth in the wind,
and the trees in the distant forest were lined up like tall, silent green
soldiers awaiting the sunlight for a new day.

Meowth then looked into the sky. The clouds, no longer fluffy and cottony,
were slowly pulling away from eachother, revealing the moon in its full
glory.

"uh-oh, full moon," Meowth knew she shouldn't stare at it, but it was
impossible to resist the beautiful silver orb in the sky. She immediately
felt the changes. The transformation didn't take long, in a blink of the
eye she was a werewolf. Not the scary, weird, gross, or completely mutant
kind, her werewolf form simply consisted of eye colour becoming a peircing
yellow, some sharp fangs, claws, fur, pointy wolf ears and a tail.

It also came with something else, Meowth was hungry. but what to eat? What
will satisfy the werewolf munchies? Eating one of the forumers was
definitely out of the question, Meowth didn't eat people, they taste bad,
and nobody wants to eat their friends.

Meowth stepped back into the hallway and drew the cloth back over the hole.
"There has to be something I can snack on around here," she mumbled.
Every room she looked into as she walked down the hall revealed no food
whatsoever. Most places were blocked off due to the severe damage from the
earthquake, and that left a lot of potential food bearing rooms out of
question.

Meowth had just pulled her head out from an open closet door when her eye
caught a shiny metal object some way down the hall. Good thing for that
werewolf night vision. She immediately recognised the object as a lone
vending machine, and skipped towards it in excitement. It hadn't been
damaged at all from the 'quake, and was in perfect working condition. Meowth
wagged her tail in excitement and dug into her pockets for change.

After thorough digging, she was disappointed to find absolutely no spare
change on her person at all. "Nooooouuurrrgghhh," she wailed, hugging the
machine as if it would feel sorry for her and drop a treat down.

Meowth was contemplating attacking the thing with all of her werewolf teeth,
claws and might, when she felt something tap her shoulder. She jumped,
but when she heard the voice, she recognised it instantly as another mod.

"You're Meowth, right?" the other mod asked.

"Yeah. I had a little run in with the full moon, no biggie. but now I'm
just starving," she stated.

The other mod seemed a little nervous, "So, you're a werewolf?"

Meowth nodded. She thought everyone knew about that. Its not like she had
a reputation for running around eating forumers and clawing up the
furnature. (which would've been blamed on Spot, anyway)

"Hey, you still owe me $1 from that day we were playing Random Crap Poker,"
Meowth gave herself a pat on the back for remembering that piece of
information, and thus saving herself from begging for money.

"Oh yes," the other mod reached into their pockets and paused,
"I have your dollar right here," their voice was suddenly cold.

"What is that?" Meowth was questioning the metalic object the other mod
had pulled from their pocket. The other mod smiled and held up in the other
hand, a large silver dollar for Meowth to see.

*click* The mod had somehow loaded the silver dollar into the metalic
object. It was a special gun, but Meowth learned that too late. The other
mod took a quick step back and fired.

Meowth stumbled back in pain. It was worse enough that she had been shot,
but since the projectile was silver, well, everyone knows how lethal silver
is to a werewolf.

The other mod quickly turned around and walked away into the dark hallway
as if nothing had happened, leaving Meowth to die alone.
"I guess I should've asked for someone to assist me," she sighed.