NTWF Mafia II: The Idyllic Village of Wafflenet

[Avery]

One second it was just Britknee and Dove and the little child, and then like, there were a bajillion people around. Yay! Britknee felt a rush of relief, because now she like, probably wasn't going to get murdered! And neither, it seemed, was the little girl, who was cheerfully reunited with her mother. Britknee beamed, feeling like a hero. Who knows what that Dove chick would have done to that like, precious child, without Brit's interference?

"What's its name? It's SO cute!!"

"His name is like, Snuggles!" Britknee squeaked, her chest swelling with even more pride. Like, no one in this dumb town had ever said anything nice to Snuggles. Normally the only time people said anything about him at all was to like, kick him out of public buildings. Which was so totally unfair! Snuggles was like, cleaner and more civilized than most of these stupid country people! If they were allowed into Waffles, No Nets and other such establishments, why did she have to hide Snuggles to bring him in!?

Anyway, Dove's compliment made Brit totes feel that she'd been all wrong about her kidnapper/murderer suspicions. Anyone who noticed her awesome little doggy was definitely kewl!

Brightly, Britknee said to Dove, "I like, still have half a plate of waffles at Waffles, No Nets! I'm like, sooo stuffed, do you want to come back with me and you can have the rest? They're diet waffles, made special for me! Because like, the servers there are so kewl!"

Could it be, she wondered? Finally a like-- friend?

((Narrator Reminder: Execution votes are due tonight [Sunday] at 8pm EST, or 5PM NST))

[icon]

Well, this was turning out to be quite the day, Osilon thought.

The two loaves of bread had been pretty easy to purchase, although he had run into Dove. And there was that part where the shopkeeper tried to hug him. He'd tried to duck out of that right quickly.

Now he was halfway down the street, loaves of bread in bag, trying to count the sparrows in that alcove on the Diner roof; about eighteen. That was odd; there were usually no more than half a dozen up there at most.

They were huddled, he could see- nervous, twitching, paranoid creatures, ready to scatter at a moment's notice. Osi mused on that as he continued down the street- he'd never been one for poetry, but it certainly seemed some sort of lyrical. He stopped, deciding he might as well get a closer look at the nest. Stop, turn, grin, head towards the diner. Down step, forward step, cross the street, take care to not to step into the ditch with a sad lady inside, step, turn--

wait, that was new. He paused, mid-stride, backed up. Yes, that was definitely the bookish lady from the pharmacy in the ditch; O'Hara, her name was, or so he recalled. From the looks of it, she'd had a nasty fall; ankles were not supposed to turn like that. He should probably help.

He looked around; the sparrows had scattered from their alcove. There were some people on the street, a few by the diner; he dropped the loaves of bread, waved his arms frantically in the hopes that someone would notice, slid into the ditch to help her up. She looked like she would survive, but he couldn't really tell...

[Gelquie]

Julie didn't have much of a chance to reply between the time where Dove managed to get out some of a reply and the little girl found her mother. Julie gave a smile and wave to the child in the distance before turning back to Dove, who had refocused her attention on Britknee's dog. She decided to speak up anyway.

"I'm glad that turned out alright. I'm guessing she just lost her mother... Right?"

Julie paused for a moment before she realized that the other two were probably busy conversing with each other. She decided not to press it; the girl losing her mother was probably all it is. She began playing a bright tune on her mandolin again.

"It IS a cute dog," she mentioned. "I should be on my way though. I have a lot of deliveries to make still. ...Oh, wait! Britknee!"

Julie stopped playing and let the mandolin hang from its strap before she opened the satchel on her side. She sorted through some of the letters inside before she pulled one out.

"I got this letter for you today. Says its from Courtknee."

She handed the letter over to Britknee happily, while keeping the other hand open and to the side in case of any possible tips.

[Fraze]

"Mony, please wear this, on the house, it'll keep you safe! Mony, please also give this to Ms. Palladio (that's her name, right?) when she gets back--it's important."
Mony took the two hats with as much grace as she could muster. "Thank you very much," he answered Tracy with a smile, and put on the one intended for her. "I'll make sure she gets it."

His ears perked up again. That idiot with the self-important misogyny complex looked to be causing trouble. Mony thought it best to make her presence known. He strode quickly over to the counter, picking up a heavy glass pitcher of water on the way. "Pardon me sir," she began. "My restaurant has only four rules. First, do not harass the workers or customers. Second, if you want to fight, take it outside. Third, don't leave without paying. And fourth, don't commit any indecent acts outside of the restrooms. You've already broken the first rule several times over, and you're well on your way to violating the second one as well. So I will say this exactly once: either leave, or order something and stop looking for trouble." He raised the pitcher. "Can I get you a glass of water?"

[Tiger]

Mick scowled and tried to squeeze the beer out of his hair - how had the pistol gone from squirting water to beer, anyway? - as THE PYTHON rambled nonesensically for a bit about his costume and his looks. Nevermind that anyone with a brain could distinguish between the screams of people who were scared and fangirlish shrieks.

"Wait a second. Dude, aren't you like...a dude?"

Mick almost said something sarcastic, but realized this was the sort of guy who would react to sarcasm the way Mick's most well-cooked eggs reacted to the floor; they bounced back and smacked Mick in the eye. His hesitation gave Mick no time to try and stop the idiot's tirade, which ended in a truly horrific offer of becoming his protegee. Just thinking about it made Mick's skin crawl.

Finally, he got an answer to his question, but it was pretty mcuh useless in terms of figuring out who it was and where they were. Mick's head hurt - he wasn't sure if that was stress or dealing with PYTHON.

Wait, now I'm thinking his name in capital letters?

"Hi, Mick, please wear this, it's free and will save you from being brainwashed."

"Brainw- oh. Thanks, Tracy." He took the proferred foil hat, surprised to recognize a waffle in the design. Looking around, he realized most of the hats were shaped in some way. ...Just how long had Tracy been planning this attack of tin foil?

To Mick's relief, 'Mony took over handling THE PYTHON, and Mick retreated to the kitchen. Normally, he wouldn't have left his boss to fight Mick's battles for him, but today... Mick hung Tracy's tin foil hat over the corner of one of the ingredient racks, and pulled the window shut. It was much quieter now, just the hum of the ice chest.

Two people dead in less than a few hours...what's going on? And what're they going to do with the bodies? We really should've looked at that budget bill more carefully. I mean, Conedavers is a great ice cream place, but who knows how much of the morgue they took over..."

Ice cream. Mick looked up at the ice chest, humming and vibrating in a slightly disturbing way. Of course. So obvious...

Three spoonfuls into a box of Mortuary-berry ice cream (a Conedavers original flavor), Mick realized something else - the ice chest could probably be used to store the bodies. He managed to unload the ice chest's supply of ice cream, meat cuts, and the frozen dinners one of the servers kept to avoid ever having to eat the actual food served here, within ten minutes. He used a tub of ice cream (Double Chocolate Coffin Chunk) to prop the back door open and shoved the ice chest outside. He was sweating by the time it was over, but he'd been afraid to go back, ask for help, and risk THE PYTHON destroying the restaurant by trying to carry the ice chest over his head or something equally stupid.

Now...to find the bodies.

((If the execution round comes up before I get a chance to post again, feel free to assume Mick did manage to find and bring the bodies back to the ice chest of ultimate horror =P))

[Chao]

Suddenly a gentle shake by the shoulders roused Kay O from her desperation.

"You alright girl? Can you walk? My practice isn't too far away from here."

The shock of the surprise momentarily overrode the pain and the urge to sob. "Doc!" she gasped in surprise. "Here I was looking for you all over the town and couldn't find you and now you found me." The attempt to smile was countered by the shock dissipating and the pain returning, so it is safe to assume that it looked more like a grimace out of a second rate horror movie.
Trying her best to keep the control over her voice she said slowly: "Walking I fear is out of the question. But if I could lean onto your shoulder I could try hopscotch style..." The idea of getting her ankle set was not a pleasant thought, but the alternative was much less pleasant and Kay tried to be reasonable... Not that she was any good in hopscotch... Last time she had played it she had been eight. And she didn't make it to the nationals back then either... She could just hope that she'd somehow manage and not end them both in the ditch again.

[Celestial]

Diana saw that she was making Blaze even more confused. That gave her an odd satisfaction. You could never be too opaque when it came to academic theories and since she had just confused an...well, not an ordinary member of the public but a member of the public still, she was clearly doing something right and her hypothesis was worth investigating. Before she could say anything else, the wolf girl left, looking for a second opinion. Diana grinned proudly. Well, Blaze was definitely not a lost cause. If she was thinking about things critically instead of accepting what even a reputable historian was saying at face value, she could be educated yet. Now if only she could get a grip on her anger problems...

Seeing Mony approaching her table, hopefully with her coffee, she dashed back again and sat down just as they came forward. Diana flipped a new page in her notebook and began feverishly taking down notes in shorthand, not missing a single scrap of information, in particular finding the mention of economic paradoxes fascinating. She wondered if perhaps they could be explained by the changing modes of production and the interacting forces of human relations inside the community. She ignored everything except Mony's talking as she got into her zone, her brain racing to make connections between events to formulate as complete a picture as she could. It helped Diana forget the day's events and the now two murders that had taken place in Wafflenet. It helped her stay detatched, as she should have done.

As soon as she had finished her note-taking, she felt an uncomfortable sensation, as though she had sat down on something hard in her rush to start her note-taking. Diana shifted in her seat to find the crushed tinfoil laurel leaves that had been left there by Tracy, no doubt to protect her from whatever it was that the conspiracy nut believed in, even though there was no logical, sound academic proof that there were aliens, let alone any ancient conspiracy that said aliens had landed. There would be some kind of logical evidence of this, peer-reviewed articles and scholarly works which were not founded on insanity and paranoia. Diana herself was only going to believe this when the majority of the academy agreed with Tracy thanks to dilligent research and discovery of proof, real proof, that the conspiracies were all correct. Until then, she would treat it as a mild nuisance at worst.

But she reluctantly admitted it was well-made, although she did not deserve them, having not one any atheletic victory or martial victory. Nor was she a citizen of ancient Greece or Rome, plus being female would exclude her from recieving them anyway. Diana put the mangled laurels down on the table next to her and, trying not to let the uneducated misogynistic oaf or anybody else distract her, she signalled over to Mony again. She made Diana feel weird but as long as there was an untapped source of informaiton, Diana was willing to feel as weird as needed. That was the sacrifice of the historian, having your mode of thinking turned upside down.

"If you would be so kind as to tell me more about the economic paradoxes of farming communities. I would be happy to try and explain them, although please keep everything in the past tense. I am not a historian of economics but I must nevertheless examine all the details of this community and try to make sense of them all," she asked him, preparing to take down more notes and get so lost in her work that she forgot all about these horrific murders.

[Avery]

Britknee was eagerly awaiting Dove's reply when the singer lady, Julie, handed her a letter from... Courtknee. Oh my gawsh! Brit felt like she'd been punched in the stomach as she gingerly accepted the note into her hands and tentatively unfolded it. The letter was written in pink glitter pen, and each 'i' was dotted with a tiny heart:

Like, hey Brit! I am writing because like, I won't ever have the guts to call you but like-- remember your ex-boyfriend Dustin Blieber? The one who like, totes cheated on you with like a bajillion women? Well he and I are like, fell in lurve! And are getting MARRIED! But like, he said he thought you would be totes jealous, and he doesn't want you ruining our perfect happiness, so like... I can't really talk to you anymore ever. OKAY! HUGS AND KISSES! Have fun in the country, lol!!!!!

Lurve (but don't like, contact me again),
Courtknee

Britknee blinked back tears and tried to keep from fainting. Like, and she Court had spoken little since Court moved away but never contacting her again!? Even once Britknee got out of this horrible country town and moved back to the City? All over Dustin-lousy'-Blieber? Omigosh!

Britknee wanted nothing more than to flee home and bury herself under her Gucci quilt but like, then she remembered the waffles at Waffles, No Nets and realized she hadn't like, paid for them. She'd gotten away with non-payment at the bakery but the owner of Waffles, No Nets was like totes harsh about ditching out on checks. So, turning away from Dove, and with fat tears rolling down her cheeks, Brit strode back over to Waffles, No Nets in order to pay her bill before going home and like, never coming out again because she was so sad.

But Brit couldn't even make it inside the diner because in the doorway laid that weird Alex guy, totes unconscious! And like, no one was even paying attention to him! What the what!

"Ummmm," Britknee bleated, sounding like a dying sheep, "Ummm is he dead!? Why is everyone in this town like, unconscious or dead! I JUST WANT TO LIKE PAY MY MONEY TO YOU HORRID PEOPLE!"

[Dan]

"I don't know what's happening, guys, but I think we ought to go see."

Don Dan followed his wife and sister-in-law to survey the scene unfolding outside the coffeeshop. A girl, loudly sobbing, was being escorted across the town square by Dove, who was attempting to console her but failing miserably. As they watched, they saw a crowd of townspeople amass around the girl who, unfazed by the attention, simply continued to wail, "Yoyti, Yoyti, dead dead Yoyti!"

He put an arm around his wife as she brought her mouth to her hand in a gasp. Two murders in the span of a few hours, and a courtesy brick through their window. These were the markers of a new force in town, one that intended to make life very difficult indeed for the townspeople of Wafflenet. The why of it was unknown, the who even less so, but the fact of the matter was that the what was quite clear indeed. These people were not here to play around, they were not here to make idle threats or toss bricks willy-nilly. They wanted to make a scene, it seemed. And they were succeeding wildly at that, Don Dan noted as he watched the small groups of people with the girl, at the diner, and even those just milling around in a daze. These people were shaken.

And what's more, no one seemed to know what to do about it. No one had proposed a way forward, of what to do about this inexcusable crime. It was clear what they had to do, wasn't it? They had to find who was responsible and report them to the proper authorities. Which, in a town that had eliminated any sort of law & order, was the townsfolk themselves.

It was an odd feeling come over him, Don Dan realized. For years--decades even--he had run with his tail between his legs from the first sign of trouble. Any time people so much as hinted at their distrust of him, he had packed up and shipped off, looking for safer haven. But the thing of it was, the ironic thing that hit him now like a ton of courtesy bricks, was that there had never been any real danger in those situations. He couldn't have known for sure, of course, but time after time he ran at the first sign of potential trouble rather than the first sign of trouble itself.

And now here was real trouble. Real danger, real threats, and much to his surprise, Don Dan had no intention of fleeing. No, the only thing that he felt like doing at this moment was standing his ground.

With that he strode forward, a newfound sense of purpose taking hold of him. He knew what he had to do.

"Citizens of Wafflenet!" he shouted from the center of the town square, where he hoped most people would hear him. He turned, directing his calls to the diner, to the group surrounding the girl, and lastly to the two women he called his family in this small town. "This is the bloodiest day in our town's history! Two people have been killed; we can't allow them to take any more! We need one thing, and one thing only: we need a plan of action! Who's with me?"

[Jayeee]

OFFICER PYTHON watched with confusion as Alex Louis Rockefeller screamed and fainted. He was not impressed. "Dude, OFFICER PYTHON had such high hopes for you. If you're gonna make an exit, at least punch a wall first or something. Seriously uncool, bro."

"Sorry, I don't have time for cooking, we have an extremely dire intergalactic situation, these tin foil hats are our only hope against them, we've got to defend ourselves, and you all have to help me."

OFFICER PYTHON slammed his fist onto the counter before turning fully around to face Tracy, who was dashing around the diner, handing out tin foil hats. "You don't have time for COOKING?" he shouted, his lips quivering in anger. "Did OFFICER PYTHON just hear you right? A chick doesn't have time to be a chick?" he took a step forward, but not before glancing at Mick and adding, "watch and learn, bro. This is how OFFICER PYTHON takes care of women in this place."

"Sir, please wear this, your wearing this hat will help ensure the safety of the entire town!"

Before OFFICER PYTHON had the chance to do anything more, he was handed his own tin foil hat. He looked at it with a raised eyebrow. Far be it for him to expect a woman to give him anything that actually looked good, but at least it was tinfoil - something usually found in the kitchen. She wasn't a lost cause after all. "Thanks babe, OFFICER PYTHON will wear it later - can't ruin the hair." He stuffed the hat roughly into his pocket and then continued to advance towards Tracy. "Now, OFFICER PYTHON needs to have a word with you."

Reaching her with his swaggering walk, OFFICER PYTHON wrapped his arm around Tracy and pulled her towards him, and with the other hand he lightly took hold of her chin and pushed her head up so that it was facing him. "OFFICER PYTHON thinks that you seem like a nice chick. It'd really mean a lot to him if you could make some food. If you do, OFFICER PYTHON just might be persuaded to give you some time with this-", he paused and once again gestured to his body. "Because OFFICER PYTHON would really hate to smash that pretty little head of yours up against the wall, you hear?" He released her from his grip, grinned and had turned around to explain to Mick his delicate way of female-persuasion when he noticed that his new pupil had made a deft escape.

OFFICER PYTHON returned to his place at the counter. "Yo, bro," he called out, hoping that Mick would hear him - because the male sense of hearing was way better than any woman's. "You missed it, dude. But don't worry, OFFICER PYTHON will make a man out of you!"

"Pardon me sir," she began. "My restaurant has only four rules. First, do not harass the workers or customers. Second, if you want to fight, take it outside. Third, don't leave without paying. And fourth, don't commit any indecent acts outside of the restrooms. You've already broken the first rule several times over, and you're well on your way to violating the second one as well. So I will say this exactly once: either leave, or order something and stop looking for trouble." He raised the pitcher. "Can I get you a glass of water?"

OFFICER PYTHON would like to have listened to a word that Mony had said, but he knew that the most important rule when meeting somebody new was to figure out if they were worth anything. In other words, their gender. He stayed silent for some time after Mony had stopped talked, but eventually could only manage, "What?"

He shook his head. "Dude...what?" OFFICER PYTHON took a step back, gave Mony the once over, stepped forward again and continued to stare. "Bro, you are blowing OFFICER PYTHON's mind. You're like, breaking all of the rules in OFFICER PYTHON's head right now." He pulled at the handcuffs attached to his belt. "OFFICER PYTHON should arrest you for public indecency due to the fact that you're, you know, alive. But OFFICER PYTHON would really like to save the cuffs for the ladies. There ain't nothing better than a chick who's been cuffed to a lamppost and left there for a couple of days."

At this point, OFFICER PYTHON finally noticed the pitcher of water hanging dangerously close to his hair. "WATCH THE HAIR, BRO. The waterproof gel totally makes OFFICER PYTHON's hair look weird, so he just uses the regular kind." A grin snaked across his face. "IT'S A SHOOTOUT," he called and dived into one of the booths nearby, pushing a small child onto the floor as a result. He hid behind the table and held his gun out towards Mony. "It don't have to end this way, brochick." He squeezed the trigger of his gun, but nothing came out. "Dude, it's empty. That sucks, man."

He climbed out of the booth - stepping on the child he'd previously pushed to the ground - and walked over to Mony with a dejected look. "You sell beer here, brochick? Will you fill a guy up?" he asked, stretching his gun-toting arm out to Mony. "Owe ya one, brochick."

[Lizica]

Tracy had been relieved to see Mony and Mick accept her hats. But then she was a little taken aback by THE PYTHON's treatment of her. While he was talking at her, she spent most of the time trying to discern traces of alien movement in his face.

Certainly he looked normal, like a regular human being, but there was something slightly off about him. But he was from out of town, so maybe that would influence the way in which his mouth opened so incredibly wide and was able to produce such unnaturally loud noises.

"...Because OFFICER PYTHON would really hate to smash that pretty little head of yours up against the wall, you hear?"

Huh, what? Was that a threat? Tracy then watched as Mony and THE PYTHON had an odd little exchange. Mony looked very good in his tin foil hat. THE PYTHON, however, in his uniform, faintly reminded Tracy of the only person in Wafflenet she truly disliked, the town detective, who had once tried to force her to go to Taco Seaport's asylum when she insisted that the destruction of the Johnsons' corn field was due to an extraterrestrial attack instead of a wildfire.

Tracy remembered hearing in whispered rumors that the detective had fled town after Stal's death. And for the first time that day, she felt just a little bit better. There was a slight, very slight silver lining to all this horror. She turned to leave the diner and continue her tin foil hat route.

She nearly tripped over Alex Louis Rockefeller's unconscious body. Ooh. When did that happen?

After a pause, Tracy tapped Alex's rocky tin foil hat onto his head. When that didn't seem to help, she crossed the diner to an unbused table, took a glass of water, and threw it in Alex's face. Maybe that would wake him up?

"I JUST WANT TO LIKE PAY MY MONEY TO YOU HORRID PEOPLE!"

Courtknee had returned to the diner to pay her bill, and she looked quite distraught. Tracy pulled Alex aside and let her in.

"They're not horrid people," Tracy said soothingly, picking up her bag of hats again. "There are just some awful, diabolical extraterrestrial waves going around town. That's why people are acting so strangely. It's not their fault, it's 'theirs.' "

And then, with the door open, a voice unexpectedly poured into the diner.

"This is the bloodiest day in our town's history! Two people have been killed; we can't allow them to take any more! We need one thing, and one thing only: we need a plan of action! Who's with me?"

Spirits continuing to rise, Tracy hurried out of the diner and towards the new gathering crowd.

"I'm with you!" she said brightly. "I have a plan, too! These murders are being caused by alien brain interference, so if everyone wears these hats, the murders will stop."

She started handing out hats again. An Erlenmeyer flask for Mrs. Maphia, and a sunhat with her cat on it for Penny. Tracy didn't know Mr. Maphia very well; she gave him a generic tin foil hat, which was in better condition than the one she had given THE PYTHON, but it still had been slightly crushed on one side, giving it the unfortunate appearance of a silver fedora.

She waved at Mr. Maphia to continue his speech and went back into the crowd; she was not there to steal his thunder.

[Alyssa]

Penny sat silent, and tried her best to listen to Dan as he talked.
"I don't know what to think, honestly. When we talked about where to live after the wedding, Ginz had assured me this place was-"
Despite the gravity of the situation, she found herself simply gazing at Dan and Ginz through bleary eyes and not comprehending a word either of them were saying. She picked at her lemondrop sandwich and tried to collect her thoughts. The shock of having discovered a dead man outside in the street, in the town she'd grown up in, it was almost too much to comprehend at the moment. 

Her brain automatically tried to think back to a happier time, maybe in order to keep her from losing her mind completely. 
Childhood had not been a joyous time for her, though it wasn't exactly bad, either. 
She was just... there. 
Her big sister had always been the genius of the family, the one who was going places, the favorite child. 
Penny loved Ginz, she really did. They'd been relatively close, and she loved to listen to Ginz whenever she had something to say.
The problem was that 
She just knew she could never match up.  

And stupid Marvin, she envied all the attention he'd received. 
Sure, it was all negative attention, since even as a child he'd been a massive jerk, but at least people payed attention, however grudgingly. 

Penny, on the other hand, had always been the odd one out. 
From the beginning, she realized now, even her parents had not loved her as much as they loved their other two children (or at least Ginz).
Her very name, the awful thing, was a testament to the neglect- no, not neglect so much as apathy shown towards her.
Everyone knew her by Penny, but her given name was something no one but her closest family members knew. 
Well, Maurice knew, but he was a cat, so her secret was safe with him. 

She supposed she'd always been an odd child, but being alone had made her even odder.
She eventually stopped caring whether anyone else cared and began to do whatever she wanted. 
If no one was going to pay attention, why try to be normal for them?


Her reverie was broken by the sound of voices yelling outside. 
She looked up quickly, hoping that her sister and brother-in-law hadn't noticed that she wasn't listening, but they appeared unaware. typical. 

"I don't know what's happening, guys, but I think we ought to go see." 

Penny agreed morosely. A man had died, and she was sitting there moping about herself? 
She rose from the table and followed Ginz outside, towards the crowd gathering around whoever was screaming. 
A few feet away from the crowd, she remembered that she'd forgotten to feed Maurice that day and stopped short. 

"You guys go on ahead," she called to Dan and Ginz, "I'll be right back."
She hurried back to her shop and retrieved her cat and a small plastic cage swarming with live crickets. 
Deciding to feed Maurice on the way, she hoisted him up onto her shoulder and made a note to clean up the mostly untouched food, and then exited her shop again. 

Maurice licked his eyeballs solemnly as she returned to the crowd, as if he too felt the tension in the air. 
She arrived at the edge of the mob just in time to hear the end of Dan's announcement, and turned away quickly.

Dan had mentioned making a plan of action?
Penny was no leader, and she figured that no one would hear her if she did speak up, so she backed away quietly and headed off to Waffles, No Nets. 
Maybe she could find whoever was giving away all those cool tinfoil hats. 

[Fraze]

Mony watched OFFICER PYTHON's display with a growing expression of contempt, with one thumb hooked through her pants pocket, until the OFFICER finally finished and asked for a glass of beer.

"Yeah, no," Mony answered with a deadpan. "You've done nothing but cause trouble since you walked in. Harassing my staff, bullying my customers, and now it looks like that kid needs to go to the hospital." Mony nodded down at the crying child who had been stepped on. "So my suggestion to you--" Mony grabbed OFFICER PYTHON's arm, turned him around, and gave him a rough shove toward the entrance, "--is to walk out that door and never set foot in this restaurant again."

With that dealt with to the best of his abilities, Mony ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath, then turned to Mick. "If that guy comes back here again, you have my permission to beat him up."
Next, for Alex, who other people were already trying to wake up. Hooking his arms under Alex's shoulders, she pulled his hefty bulk onto a chair. "Give him half off on a waffle meal when he comes around," he added to Mick. The half-off offer was in effect anyway, but Alex probably didn't know that.

That city girl looked to be upset about the goings-on. "Thank you for your patience, ma'am, we apologize for the wait. One--um, diet waffle, that'll be five shinies, please. And I see you haven't finished that, would you like it to go?"

Scrambling between customers and settling down upsets was at least helping to keep Mony's mind off of, well, everything that was going on. The academic lady had asked him a few questions back there. "Where was I--oh right, economics and paradoxes and all that. It's simple, really. If the harvest is bad--wait, you wanted past tense. If the harvest was bad, it was bad for everyone. Prices on crops were high because there wasn't much supply, but since there wasn't much supply, nobody earned very much money. If the harvest was good, it was good for everyone. Lot of supply meant competition, and so low prices; so even though there was a lot of supply, nobody earned very much money. So good harvest or bad, you couldn't earn a lot of money from farming. That's about it. If you'll excuse me." Mony rushed back to see what else in the restaurant had broken in the time he had been talking.

[Avery]

After the murders of Stal the Salesman and Yoyti, the town of Wafflenet was lusting for revenge. They could not stand idly by as their fellow townspeople were slaughtered. No, not they! But alas traditional methods had abandoned them—primarily in the form of the town’s official (and only) police detective skipping town way back when the mafia’s crimes had been mere muggings and vandalisms. Thus, in the absence of conventional law enforcement, just one option remained: vigilante justice. If the fuzz wouldn’t help them, then the town of Wafflenet would help itself.

When the citizens first began bandying about the names of potential suspects, the accusations were flung left and right, from person to person, in a cacophony of noise: “It was you”—“no it was you”—“but what if it was him”—

This continued on for quite some time, until finally one of the townspeople ended all quibbling with this firm statement: “We lob about accusations like baseballs, from one man to the next, with no particular logic given to any one charge. But think about the people here, friends. Or, should I say… think about who is not here. Who in our town is not here today? And isn’t that lack of presence the most suspicious of all?”

The town agreed that non-presence was the pinnacle of suspicion, and as such quickly did a headcount (which wasn’t very difficult in such a tiny town). It soon became apparent that of everyone in town, only a handful of citizens were missing: the elderly and homebound retired schoolteacher, Mister Malak, who was paralyzed from the neck down and thus clearly could not have physically performed the murders; Miss Patricia Jade, who was eight months pregnant with twins, on bed-rest, and thus equally as incapable; and finally…

Thundy.

Thundy, who had no reason not to be present. Thundy, who was young and strong and easily capable of killing Yoyti and the Salesman both.

“It was him,” the townspeople decided. “It was him!”

And so they marched to his farm at the very edge of town, and knocked on Thundy’s door. Once, twice, thrice, before finally he answered. He looked… sleepy. Disheveled. And very, very confused.

“Ummm… hey guys,” he murmured drowsily. Unbeknownst to the townspeople, he had spent a very late night tending to one of his pregnant ewes, whose labor had been difficult and lengthy; he hadn’t slipped into bed until after dawn, and ergo hadn’t even yet heard of the vicious murders that had shocked the quiet town.

“Hey,” spat back one of the townspeople. “Where have you been all day?”

“Asleep,” said Thundy honestly.

“Sure!” cried back the town. “It’s nearly two o’ clock in the afternoon! Asleep!? Hah! I bet you were actually just hiding from us, afraid to face us after committing such horrible crimes!”

And then, as the befuddled and still very sleepy Thundy inquired as to what horrid crimes the townspeople were referring, the aforementioned townspeople dragged him to the town square, in which some of the more industrious of the crowd had already begun to construct gallows. Thundy was so sleepy as they dragged him… could barely keep his eyes open… and decided, as they started to string him up, that this was all just a dream. A stupid dream! And once they hanged him, he would wake up back in the real world, and laugh it off, and maybe get a nice plate of waffles at Waffles, No Nets as he shared with his beloved friends and neighbors the story of his ewe’s difficult labor.

“Any last words, you brute?” asked the town.

“No,” said Thundy, closing his eyes, ready to wake up already. Then, under his breath, right before the trapdoor dropped beneath his feet, he added: “Stupid nightmares. … eh, oh well.”

Afterward, his body was cut from the gallows and temporarily interred in the freezer at Waffles, No Nets, along with the bodies of the other two dead. The coroner was expected well-- no one really knew; apparently Wafflenet was low on the priority list. And 'till any sort of official got around to retrieving the corpses, it was up to the townspeople to preserve them... just like it was up to them to preserve justice in their wee little town.

**

The mafia found the town’s rationale for hanging Thundy absolutely hilarious. Shortly after the execution, they all broke away for the briefest of times to gloat about escaping justice.

“What silly logic!” said the one.

“I know,” agreed the second. “We love watching the havoc we wreak—why in the world would we hide away instead of reveling in it!?”

“I would feel bad for the guy,” said the third. “But then again… I am pretty evil.”

“Long live the mafia!” cried the fourth.

They all smiled at one another, and had one last laugh, before disbanding their small gathering, lest they spend too long together and attract any attention. Still, they’d be back together soon. Plotting. Planning.

Ready to kill again.

Thundy was an innocent townsperson.

[Draco]

Alex Louis Rockefeller sits up rubbing his head. He was wet. And he had something on his head... This was defiantly not the royal thing to do. He should have had people helping him up or something. Not him getting up by himself after being splashed in the face with water! The nerve of some people. Wait, this was used water! THE HORROR!

He was beginning to believe that the people of this town really didn't pay any attention to him. He was royalty and people needed to treat him as so! That needed to change, but he was unsure how... Then it came to him. With a royal smirk he stood up and dusted himself off. He would need to ask his servant sister to burn these clothes later since they were dirty.

He walked over to THE OFFICER PYTHON. On the way he notices his tin foil crown and adjusts it a little. When he reaches OFFICER PYTHON he removes a glove from his pocket and slaps OFFICER PYTHON.

"I, Alex Louis Rockefeller, challenge you to a duel! It will be held on main street tomorrow at noon, you may choose the weapon of choice."

He turns on his heel and walks out of the diner.