second trial

[airlockedmods]

[With the announcement and evidence, the doors in the pool area are the next destination for anyone who doesn't particularly want to see what a punishment from PAL would look like. When the bonded champions make their way down the stairs and into the basement they'll notice some slight differences to the courtroom.

Two new greyscale portraits have joined Mikaela's in floating above the garish gold podiums, Mai, the Champion Scapegoat and Finn, the Champion of Resistance. Their names and titles are still brightly displayed but the harsh red is a painful contrast to the lively green of the living Champions' podiums.

Kip is waiting for them on the same platform from the previous week, already dressed in his somber black suit, black hair, and matching grim expression. He never put in an appearance outside his room during the investigation, but as the Champions enter he tracks Queenie and Church, making sure that they're okay (or, okay as they can be).]

Welcome, Champions, to the Rose Ceremony. Weed out the true culprit and they'll be eliminated, vote incorrectly and they'll be allowed to go home at the expense of the rest of your lives.

Oh, and don't bore me. I cannot stand being bored.

Comments

[scourgingstars]

We may as well not waste time. [the faster they solve this, the faster they can cope with what came next.] There was an arrangement of unwashed dishes in the sink, with something pink on them. I'm not familiar with what but it seemed as though someone was...baking something, possibly?

[people who don't know what a double boiler is: ardyn.]

What did the rest of you find?

[serrata]

Something pink... could you tell at all what it was? I don't think there was anything like that at the buffet so whatever it was, someone must've gone to make it once we were all finished eating.

[shikosuki]

Oh, the pink might be white chocolate. There was an open cookbook also in the kitchen and it was opened to a recipe for white chocolate popcorn where you dye the chocolate pink with food colouring.

[ he brought the book along just in case if anyone wants a look ]

tw: emetophobia

[misanthropicprinciple]

Does it match either of these samples?

[Junpei passes a piece of paper over to Ardyn with two streaks of pink on it. If Ardyn is gross and decides to smell it, one smells decidedly like puke, but the other is sweeter.]

[goteachother]

There was some pink... Somethin? In some cups that had been thrown out in the bathroom downstairs too.

[And she has cups, the other evidence is still in the bathroom though 'cause no one needs to see that.]

Couldn't really tell what it was though.

[marvelously]

[Mary's been carrying around a bowling ball with her all morning now, which is a little harder without superstrength. She sets it on her podium now, scanning the room critically.]

Now I know we're all under a lot of stress lately, but that's no reason to be sloppy and not put things back in their proper places. I found this in the storage room, on a shelf behind some boxes.

[daughterofthemark]

[Arianna is much closer to Mary than she might have expected, since she's decided to stand next to Yuuri rather than spend the whole trial staring at Mai's portrait.]

Do bowling balls have some use other than bowling?

[buddyoldpal]

Hey, girlie, how heavy was the ball ya found? That might help us figure how weak our weak-shit culprit was.

[desperateprayer]

[ Clarith can't do much, but she can make sure she's nice and close to Takumi to make sure he's okay. She is listening, though, and if he needs it, she can hug him. ]

[honoraryembryon]

[ ALSO KEEPING AN EYE ON TAKUMI and might actually not even be at his podium today just in case more than Clarith will be needed to hold the Taco down.

He's here for muscle. ]

[buddyoldpal]

Let's catch this fucker cause this shit was no accident.

[ Nishitani angles up to his podium. Being dead sucks, blah blah blah, he's more interested in getting whoever did this. ]

There was a bottle of some shit called zolpidem missing from the infirmary, as well as a book left open on what that shit does. It's fuckin' insomnia medicine by the way, but it can be used ta knock someone the fuck out. Our fuckin' culprit probably mixed it into some food or somethin', since I found some white powder on the counter next to the book, like somebody went and mashed up one of the pills.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Yeah. You definitely don't do that with meds you're planning on taking yourself.

[daughterofthemark]

Zolpidem? Like this?

[Here's your missing bottle right here in Arizona's hand.]

[serrata]

... does zolpidem taste particularly strong? Even powdered like that?

Mods?

[goteachother]

[She hauled a trashbag in with her, one she'd practically ripped out of Church's hands. It would be easier to dump it out but she won't do that to Finn's things. His jacket. hit friend's jacket.

Instead she pulls out the dusty unitard and offers it up as evidence.]

Church found a buncha clothes stuffed away in the pool locker room... some Finn's and some of it's pretty beat up?

Torn and...

[Then she pulls out a white, sleeveless formalwear top. She's pretty sure she recognizes.]

Lee... honey? [She can't even make herself ask a real question. Morgana, let her be wrong.]

[desperateprayer]

[ Clarith has somehow gone whiter than ever before. Because if Queenie brought up is true, Clarith would definitely recognize it. ]

...Lee... It... It isn't, is it...?

[honoraryembryon]

[ ... Roland is listening and glancing at Lee now with an expectant gaze. She would definitely fit the "potentially weak or small enough" bill so far, right? ]

[getgood]

[... well, now she's in for it. She bites her lip and looks down, unsure how much she should say, but the show's gotta be uncensored at this point.]

Yeah, I wore that last trial. I've been saving it for special occasions. Thought I'd start our night with, like, a little mystery.

tw: emetophobia

[everylittlesecret]

Okay then. I investigated the body, and Gibbs was nice enough to take notes when I asked. First. Finn was wrapped in a blue sheet in a room full of pink ones. He was shirtless, which showed off a rather badly bruised back. His spine was pretty close to crushed. When turned over there was bruising on his neck, but I don't think there was a tool involved... his throat was still intact, so maybe someone chocked him? I-[Wow, now she feels silly.]-I didn't even think to measure the bruising. Sorry guys...

[Okay. Now here comes the squeamish for some of the people in here part.] I pressed on his throat when I checked to see if it was broken, and pink vomit. There was a faint sweet smell to it. There was also pink residue that smelled like white chocolate on his fingers. Now what threw me off is that there was something slick on his hands, too... no idea what it was. Last but not least, a scrap of white fabric under one of his fingers. So... that's everything I found. I brought the fabric scrap.

[serrata]

I think we can probably agree that if he was sick, it was because of the chocolate -- it'd been laced with zolpidem. That would explain where the pink came from, too.

[goteachother]

There wa a sheet from upstairs in the bathroom too... someone had been trying to clean it and I guess they gave up. Looks like someone got sick on it? and yeah... everything's pink

[She's still wearing Kip's pink fluffy robe and she has never wanted to not be wearing pink so much in her life.]

Vaseline/wound check

[desperateprayer]

Okay um. It was mentioned that Vaseline can be used for wounds. So maybe we should... Check each other for the presence of wounds. Split off so girls check each other on one side of the room and boys look over each other at the other side. We can also check for any Vaseline that someone may have on their skin, too. .......Also, um. Please no peeking across the room at each other?

[brokencode]

[Whoever Angel shows her skin and hands to will find that she is free of wounds and vaseline. They will also find that her tattoos cover more than just her left hand and arm.]

[getgood]

[The change, when it comes over her after Junpei's words, isn't accompanied by a sudden change of background. The lighting at her podium doesn't turn red, or dim, or brighten. Instead, Lee squares her shoulders and steadies herself forward on the balls of her feet, one last deep breath before starting again on her quick, rude defenses. Her tone remains defiant, but the dismissive edge is gone, like she's taking this seriously for the first time.]

Okay, I knocked Finn out. I was planning on killing somebody, and he was the first person I saw out by himself. I made a snack I could hide some Ambien in so whoever it was would have a good last meal and wouldn't know what had happened to them.

But I’m sorry about what happened next. I couldn't do it. I didn't drop that ball on him and kill him. If you vote for me, you're all going down with me, so don't you dare decide to pin it on an easy target like you did last time.

[Machine Gun Talk Battle: START]

[myocordial]

So we're to believe that you left him like that and someone else took advantage of the opportunity. Really?

VOTING

[airlockedmods]

Well, well, that was quick. Time to place your votes, Champions.

[misanthropicprinciple]

>CHAMPION COMEBACK

EXECUTION: Step Into My Parlor [cw: a very large robot spider]

[airlockedmods]

[Once all the votes are in, the overhead lights in the courtroom go out, leaving each Champion illuminated by the light coming up from their podium.]

Processing...

[The rose on the front of Finn's podium lights up, and then begins to move clockwise around the circle, more and more roses lighting up as the lights spin around the circle. Finally, when the lights stop moving, there are 16 roses lit with rich, red light - leaving the three empty podiums, and Lee's, dark.]

Congratulations. The Champion Comeback has been found guilty. Now commencing execution.

[Like Mai the week before, there's an audible ZAP and Lee is suddenly no longer among the circle of podiums. The room behind the window to the execution chamber lights up to reveal an immense stage, with a spotlight on Lee, standing before a microphone. As she moves around the stage in a panic, thin shimmery filaments woven into intricate nets keep her from moving out of the center of the stage. She turns and looks upstage, and staggers backward, downstage, as eight red lights slowly blink out of the shadows, and a large, mechanical spider dangling from a web of wires and cables overshadows her in the spotlight. Lee turns back downstage, but before she can make it to the glass one of the spider's mechanical legs shoots out.

There's a moment where she stills, eyes wide in pain and shock and mouth open in a silent scream, frozen in place before the blade-like tip of the leg bursts through the front of her chest, spraying blood with enough force to make a sound as it splatters across the glass window. Lee slumps on the end of the blade-like foreleg, and the spider drags her back out of the spotlight, cutting the lights including the eight red shining lights of its eyes.

When the execution is finished, the lights come back on over the champions and the patio doors unlock with an audible click. Like last time, Kip isn't up on his platform anymore when the lights come back on. And like last time, the doors will lock again behind the last person out.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Junpei actually doesn't even bother watching. He turns away when the spider appears, sticking his pinky in his ear to clean it and walks over to the patio doors, waiting for them to open. As soon as they do, he's out.]