"Bodies" does not, technically, require that they be dead... but yeah, these corpses seem odd, I doubt that Dio would have gone after the two of them together without a fairly impressive advantage.
No-Leaf Clover (Virtue's Last Reward) (Clover SI)
- Thread starter Flairina
- Start date
Yana
Super High School Level Paranormal Investigator
- Location
- Somewhere in Asia
... What the fu-
Actually, this feels par the course for a VLR thing. Thinking about it...
My head hurts.
Actually, this feels par the course for a VLR thing. Thinking about it...
This could very much be NOT the work of Dio. Radical-6 after all, speeds up when a person is put under stress. J-er, Tenmyouji could have been overwhelmed by Radical-6, leading to hysteria and... um... S tendencies.
That leads to the question though, "What actually happened?" Luna should have likely been in the Infirmary, but isn't present. Then again, the Cliffhanger could very much be not being shown the whole picture.
While I wouldn't put it past Dio, I'm a bit more inclined to believe that this is because of Radical-6 than a work of Dio.
It's been a long, long time since I read VLR. But correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the time, they don't open the 3rd Door before things go to heck, right? So that means, time to jump again.
That leads to the question though, "What actually happened?" Luna should have likely been in the Infirmary, but isn't present. Then again, the Cliffhanger could very much be not being shown the whole picture.
While I wouldn't put it past Dio, I'm a bit more inclined to believe that this is because of Radical-6 than a work of Dio.
It's been a long, long time since I read VLR. But correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the time, they don't open the 3rd Door before things go to heck, right? So that means, time to jump again.
My head hurts.
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
You're welcome, and glad to hear! You'll be seeing more new stuff soon, as the next chapter is actually already done (barring minor edits), so please look forward to that!
In other words, he is a Kotaro Uchikoshi protagonist. 'Nuff said.
(Let's all remember this is the guy who still earnestly believes he was once granted the ability to speak the language of felines by a magical talking cat, only to be cursed with cat pun speak when he couldn't keep the secret to himself. Hell, maybe he was, it's not like we have any real way of knowing.)
I feel like I say this every other comment on these threads, but the number of people who read, or even just gave this fic a chance despite knowing nothing of the source material is just...
. Thank you so much for reading regardless of your initial unfamiliarity; it's... very gratifying. ☜(⌒▽⌒)☞Same... though, I think keeping track of character deaths is perhaps one of the few aspects of this fic that's easier to keep track of/understand reading just this than having also played the game's first, as Clover!me's perspective has — at least thus far — been completely linear, barring the end of timeline SHIFTs. This is in opposition to the game, where plot locks often require jumping out of one timeline to another, then jumping back to that previous timeline much later, having likely at least partially forgotten what's gone on in it before. Whether or not Clover!me will need to do this myself at any point remains to be seen, as I operate somewhat differently than Sigma or Phi, but I certainly wouldn't discount the possibility...
No matter what the answer to this is, this facility probably should have incorporated a mop or something into one of its escape rooms. The people in them just keep getting blood like, everywhere.
Very true. Thankfully, like Clover!me mentioned, most of that information was true, so even if Alice does end up feeling particularly candid with Sigma for whatever reason, the charade in question won't immediately collapse unless a few fairly specific, disparate details are both mentioned and noticed. And how likely is that, really...?
I generally try not to meddle with established canon details beyond changing the circumstances in which they arise/collide, For Want of a Nail style. The exception is if I find the alternative to have been a pretty clearly missed opportunity, or else simply too potentially interesting to pass up. The secret archives being actual objects in this fic that the characters can read (rather than simple game abstractions) is one such instance. Alice, on the other hand, is...
...well. I'll just say that if you're right, we'll undoubtedly be getting to her deal sooner or later.
Clover!me would certainly hope for that too, but...
...judging by canon patterns, the prognosis isn't great. We'll see~
Favoritism is an... interesting word to use when they're all technically me. But hey, maybe Clover!me will get cut a break and SHIFT into Jubileus!me at some point!... and be confronted with entirely new problems that I'm not even caught up on now, which also span the universe rather than just the local planet, but hey, I suppose that would still be "nicer"... right? ^_^;;;
Chapter 14: Behind the Eight Ball
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
I stumble several steps back, utterly horrified. What the FUCK?! This wasn't-
"Oh god!" Alice shrieks. "Are they-?!"
She hastily moves to Quark and Tenmyouji's side, doing her best to skirt around the mess scattered across the floor, before kneeling down and checking each of them for a pulse.
"...nothing." she hisses after a moment.
Quickly rising back to her feet, Alice returns to the door we just entered through and gives me a hard look.
"Clover, stay here for now." she orders. "If whoever did this comes back, drop the act and drop them. I'm going to go collect anyone I can find nearby... and possibly take down whoever did this myself."
It doesn't even occur to me to object that I by no means possess the capabilities to "drop" anyone before Alice has booked it back out of the room. I'm left utterly alone in the infirmary, with nothing but a pair of fresh corpses to keep me company.
Feeling tears beginning to form at the corner of my eyes, I try to hold them back as I did earlier, but it's too late — the traitorous beads of liquid are already starting to fall. No, no, no, cut it out with the crying already! Stressful, horrific situation or not, I can't keep doing this! Hell, why do I keep doing this?! I've never been one to hold back my tears, but I don't cry THIS much! Is Clover's body just that much more inclined towards this than mine is, or-
Comprehension abruptly dawns. No, scratch that — rather than being specific to Clover, far more likely to blame for my recent weepiness is the fact that crying usually reduces stress, at least in part, by literally releasing some of the chemicals causing the stress from one's body via the tear ducts. But every time I SHIFT back to a timeline where I haven't had a breakdown yet, those chemicals are coming right back. So while I'm getting the emotional benefit from crying my eyes out every time, the physical benefit is resetting, making the tears considerably more likely to later return for a repeat performance. That is beyond annoying...
And I'm avoiding the actual subject.
I wipe my face with one arm and sniffle as I glance back up at the bodies, the sight of which is no less appalling than it was a minute ago. I very nearly wretch when I focus on the details — Tenmyouji's head is badly bloodied, to the point his hair is now more red than white, while Quark...
Appears to have had his throat cut open.
I shiver uncontrollably, the memory of the very same thing happening to me replaying in my mind against my will.
It's Dio. It has to be, right? Suicide wouldn't look like this, and no one else here has any reason to kill these two, let alone in such a violent manner. Hell, in the original game, I'm pretty sure Quark was never explicitly shown or confirmed as dead in any timeline, even when everyone else was — and I think I now understand why.
My grief begins to give way to rage, my contempt for Dio somehow swelling even further. Just when I thought I couldn't hate him any more, he does this. It's not like I didn't realize he was willing to kill a child, but to actually see it, especially in this form, is just...
Tearing my eyes away, I look around the room again, taking in the details I passed over during my initial horror. Aside from the bodies, the floor is covered in numerous shards of glass, along with a large puddle of off-color liquid that's seeping into the puddles of blood. The source of both is obvious — lying on the floor nearby is a broken bottle of white liquor, presumably taken from the lounge at some point. The bottom half of the glass has been smashed to bits, leaving the remaining half with a makeshift crown of sharp, jagged edges... several of which have been stained with an already-drying crimson coating.
I grit my teeth and turn away. I'm such a fool... I shouldn't have believed we were safe from something like this just because Dio didn't have a blade. Nearly anything can be a weapon if you apply enough force, and apparently Dio is willing to improvise when deprived of his usual tools. Hiding the knife and scalpels may have made things less convenient for him, but ultimately didn't stop him from just finding something else — it's like I didn't learn anything from my first death at all.
My self-flagellation comes to an end a couple minutes later as the door behind me slides back up, Alice returning with the others in tow even faster than I'd expected... barring the likely culprit, that is. Perhaps that's for the best though, if he's resorted to this.
Everyone is rightfully horrified by the sight of the bodies, with Sigma and K letting out near-identical gasps of horror, and Phi flinching back like she's been physically struck. Luna is the only one who immediately rushes forward, deftly evading the puddles of blood and alcohol as she searches Quark and Tenmyouji for a pulse.
"I already checked." Alice says solemnly. "They're gone."
"How horrible..." Luna says quietly as she steps back from the bodies. "Who would do such a thing...?"
I struggle not to just blurt out the answer here and now, but figure we need to all be on the same page first.
"This can't have happened long ago." Phi says, directing it at everyone in the room. "What has everyone been doing for the past 30 minutes or so?"
"Luna and I have been together since the end of the AB round." K says, glancing over at her.
Luna nods. "It's true."
"Sigma and I met up at the treatment center before we came back up here." Phi adds, narrowing her eyes at him. "I don't know what he was doing immediately after the AB round ended though..."
Sigma sputters. "Wait, you suspect me?!"
"I suspect everyone until proven otherwise." Phi sharply replies. "We need to establish alibis before we can make any real conclusions, so if you've got one, say so."
Sigma's gaze flickers to me. "After the round ended, I went back to the laboratory with Clover so we could talk about... something."
Phi and Alice both give me odd looks at that, but I nod in confirmation.
"We did, and it wasn't a short discussion. Unless you only just met up with Sigma before Alice found you, he's clear."
Phi turns to Alice. "What about you then?"
Alice lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Are you serious? You don't honestly think I'd have found and brought you all back here if I did this?"
"That's not an answer." Phi replies, sounding almost disinterested.
Alice glares at her and folds her arms. "Clover and I were talking by ourselves for at least fifteen minutes before we came across these two. She can vouch for me."
"I'm sure she can," Phi says in a low tone, "but that still leaves a period of time beforehand that no one seems to have had eyes on you."
I almost groan. Really, Phi? Yes, I guess Alice theoretically could have done this, and was apparently even the last person here to have seen Quark and Tenmoyuji alive, but like hell do I believe that this was her. This is just wasting time!
"Look, does it really matter?" I interrupt before this pointless inquisition can continue. "I'm pretty sure that if this was done by anyone here, that person would show some sign of it. Quark and Tenmyouji don't exactly look like they died... peacefully, yet none of us are spattered with blood, or hurt in any obvious way."
"And there's someone else that we seem to have forgotten." I add as the others process that, deciding that if no one is going to bring it up, I will. "Someone who seems to be missing from this group?"
"Clover's right." Alice concurs. "I didn't find Dio anywhere, and he was the first one out of the warehouse, meaning he'd have had time to grab a bottle while no one else was in the lounge to see it. Assuming he's not dead somewhere as well, he's obviously the most suspect."
"Perhaps," K says, hand on his chin, "but regardless of who truly did this... why do it? What was their objective in murdering these two?"
He has a point. Were Quark and Tenmyouji just targets of opportunity, like I was? Or did Dio specifically target them for some reason-
"Where are their bracelets?"
Phi's words cut through the room like a knife. Glancing back at the bodies again, I realize she's right — both corpses' wrists are now bare of the watch-like device that the rest of us still wear.
My mind whirls as Sigma puzzles aloud over the equipment's absence. The bracelets come off after death, so if they're not here, then Dio must have taken them before he left. But why? What's his plan-
I freeze.
"He killed them to kill us."
Alice's eyes snap towards me. "What?"
"Quark was half of the magenta pair, and Tenmyouji was half of the cyan one-" Phi says with widening eyes, clearly in the process of arriving at the same conclusion I just did.
"-and since Dio himself is one member of the yellow pair, then as long as he doesn't show up at the next set of doors, we won't have a complete set of any of the pair bracelets!" I frantically follow up, almost breathless. "Meaning no one will be able to pass through, and we're all going to get lethally 'penalized'!"
Fucking SHIT, he's unbelievable!
"Are you sure...?" Luna asks, her voice trembling slightly. "He'd die too, wouldn't he?"
He would... but I'd bet he's willing to.
"We need to find him now!" I all but scream as I whirl towards the door. "Quick, everyone split up, I'll search-"
Someone grabs me and spins me back around, my shoes causing me to totter for a moment before I re-stabilize.
"No way, that's a terrible idea!" Sigma protests, his hand still latched onto my arm. "If we're right about this, Dio has already killed two people! None of us should be looking for him on their own!"
"We might not find him in time if we don't!" I retort, frantically fiddling with my bracelet until it displays the time we have remaining. "We've barely got five minutes left before the doors open, and they'll only stay open for another five after that!"
Sigma grits his teeth, knowing I have a point.
"In that case-"
"We split into pairs of two and search this place systematically." Alice orders, not allowing time for anyone to contradict her. "Clover, you and Sigma check the magenta and green door paths. Luna, K, you've got cyan and blue. Phi and I will check the Floor A warehouse and red. If you find Dio, incapacitate him by any means necessary and get those bracelets off of him. Regroup at the next set of doors when the announcement goes off, whether you've found anything or not — hopefully at least one of us will have."
There's no time to argue about it, and at the moment I could hardly come up with a better plan anyways. Immediately grouping up, all six of us rush out of the room with our respective partners, sprinting through the halls and rooms as quickly as possible to find our wayward player, and likely murderer.
Somewhat absurdly, my primary thought as we blitz through the empty lounge and down the elevator is that I really must be getting better at running in these shoes. Without Sigma literally towing me along, I don't trip even once, allowing us to make it through the green door in record time — but the room we find beyond is just as empty of human presence as the lounge was, the treatment center no different than when I passed through earlier. And before we can do more than confirm that-
Chromatic Doors have opened. Five minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close.
Sigma and I look at each other with identical panic-stricken expressions, then book it out of the room's other door.
By the time we make it to the entrance of the Floor B warehouse, the three minute warning has also gone off, as the hallway leading to it from the treatment center is stupidly long. Sigma and I are left panting as we burst through the door into the meet up spot, where we find-
"DIO!" we shout in tandem.
He's leaning up against the wall between two of the pure white doors, his expression the picture of pure nonchalance — this in spite of his blood-covered clothes, the ragged scratches covering his face, and the six-foot lance that he apparently picked up from somewhere.
"Well well," Dio drawls, tipping his hat to us in greeting, "look who finally decided to come join the party. What took you so long? These two already beat you here."
He gestures to K and Luna, who evidently did arrive first, but are stuck uneasily hovering around Dio's periphery, unable to get closer to his rather lengthy weapon. K looks as though he's considering risking it, hunched over in a highly aggressive stance, but isn't moving just yet.
"You know perfectly well what kept us!" Sigma yells as he stomps closer, while I cautiously follow on his heels. "You're going to pay for what you've done!"
Dio smirks. "Doubt it. All I've done is saved myself some valuable time."
"You-!" Sigma spits, warily eyeing the lance. "Where did you get that?!"
"The rec room." Dio easily replies, leaning the haft against his shoulder. "Would've been nice to have upstairs if I'm honest, but... well, I made do."
I grit my teeth. Damn it, why didn't the treatment center have any weapons? Should've grabbed a bottle myself on the way out of the lounge; at least I'd have something to throw at him-
Another door slides open, and Phi and Alice come bursting into the room. They freeze momentarily upon spotting Dio- then immediately start picking up speed again, both of them wearing the same perfectly furious expression. Surprisingly, Dio doesn't even seem to care, merely laughing as they approach.
"Hey now, what's the rush? Don't you want to hear how it happened? How I killed them?"
The pair of women stutter to a halt.
"Honestly, it wasn't even that hard." Dio shrugs. "Had more difficulty figuring out what I was gonna use to do it than anything else. Gotta hand it to the kid though, he was fast. Little bastard nearly clawed my eyes out..."
He smirks. "Well, at least until I finished off his gramps. One quick whack to the side of the old fart's head, and the kid fell apart. Dropped to his knees and just started bawling his little eyes out. Gotta say, it was real nice of him to practically present his neck to me like-"
Alice abruptly resumes her charge, sprinting at Dio full tilt. He startles a little and grabs up his weapon, thrusting it forward as she comes in range — only for Alice to smoothly duck underneath the stab, grabbing the lance's handle as it passes by her head. Yanking the weapon out of Dio's hands, she snaps it in half over her knee, giving Phi the opportunity to rush forward as well and shoulder check Dio in the sternum.
Dio wheezes as he's sent crashing back into the exact same wall he was just leaning against. Momentarily dazed, he's unable to stop K from striding over and restraining his arms, his suit-granted strength locking Dio's limbs over his head like manacles... not that Dio seems terribly worried about it, not even struggling in the man's grip once he recovers.
"Heh, did I hit a nerve...?"
Luna frets silently and Sigma growls impotently as Alice and Phi start rapidly rifling through Dio's coat pockets. They toss aside his cyanide pill, a small rectangle I recognize as the password input device, and a pair of handcuffs that I didn't even know he had... but no detonator, oddly.
And no bracelets.
"Where are they?!" Phi snarls into Dio's face.
"What, those glorified watches?" Dio smugly replies. "Sorry, guess I must've dropped them at some point. And if I'm not mistaken..."
"Ten seconds remain until Chromatic Doors close."
"...time's up, fuckers."
A growl works its way up my throat even as panic settles in my mind. Shit, he planned this too well, we really are going to die to these stupid bracelets-
Wait, the aluminum foil!
I plunge my hand down into my back pocket, frantically searching for the only thing that can save us now. Come on!
"Nine… Eight… Seven…"
My breath hitches as I realize I don't feel the foil present. What? Where the hell is it?! Did someone pickpocket me, or-
My blood runs cold.
I... I didn't take it. I was so frantic to get out of the crew quarters earlier, so incredibly on edge at the idea of staying in the room where Dio slit my throat open for even a second longer, that I completely forgot to grab the foil again before I left-!
"Six... Five... Four..."
"Luna, quick! If we drag him through one of the doors then we can still-"
I hear what sounds like a foot hitting flesh, followed by a cry consisting of more rage than actual pain — neither of which I actually see as I spin on one heel, starting back towards the elevator on pure frantic instinct, even as the rest of my mind tells me there's no point.
"Three... Two... One... Chromatic Doors closing."
The trio of doors slides shut behind me-
*Ptch-!*
-and I gasp as something sharp slides into my wrist underneath the bracelet, the sudden pain causing my heel to slide out from under me, sending me toppling to the floor. Fuck!
Gritting my teeth, I try to stand back up, but a haze has already started descending over my mind, my limbs going numb alongside my thoughts. I manage to get one leg back underneath me, but it crumples the moment I try to put weight on it, and I'm left sprawled out on my side on the warehouse floor, lacking the strength to even attempt to get back up this time.
No... this can't be happening again...!
All around me, I hear the others begin to fall to the floor as well, groaning as the anesthetic sends them first to their knees, then to their stomachs and backs. From where I've fallen, I have an obnoxiously perfect view of a now-released Dio as he willingly follows the trend, calmly, if shakily lying down on the floor some twenty feet in front of me.
"Clo... ver..." Alice moans from somewhere off to my right.
I open my mouth to respond, but the words won't come.
"Why... do this?" I hear Phi manage to spit out, though I can't actually see her from where I've collapsed. "You'll die... too..."
Dio laughs drowsily.
"That's... what you think..."
Through eyes that feel like they're being weighed down by ever-heavier sandbags, I watch as Dio slowly reaches into his boot, then just as slowly pulls out something that, through my increasingly bleary vision, I can only tell is vaguely gun-shaped. Rather than try and point it at any of us however, Dio raises it to his own neck, and, with what looks like a truly monumental effort, depresses the trigger. I hear a sharp rush of air, followed by a small, satisfied sigh.
What... was...?
"Swiped... from safe..." Dio says as the object falls from his nerveless fingers, clattering to the floor beside him. "Counter for... tubocurarine..."
Fury flies through me, even as my mind continues to cloud over.
That was the... neostigmine gun...!
Dio lets out a single, almost choked-sounding chuckle, his head lolling back up to face the ceiling.
"We're all... gonna sleep now..." he whispers, a contented smile on his face. "But I'll be... the only one... to wake up..."
I'm... going to...
Through the twin fogs of unconsciousness and anger seeping into my brain, I barely even register the feeling of the second needle piercing into my skin, injecting a tiny stream of deadly fluid directly into my veins.
...KILL him...!!!
My last, fragmented thought before my eyes permanently seal themselves shut, is that I think I was supposed to do something the next time this happened...
"Oh god!" Alice shrieks. "Are they-?!"
She hastily moves to Quark and Tenmyouji's side, doing her best to skirt around the mess scattered across the floor, before kneeling down and checking each of them for a pulse.
"...nothing." she hisses after a moment.
Quickly rising back to her feet, Alice returns to the door we just entered through and gives me a hard look.
"Clover, stay here for now." she orders. "If whoever did this comes back, drop the act and drop them. I'm going to go collect anyone I can find nearby... and possibly take down whoever did this myself."
It doesn't even occur to me to object that I by no means possess the capabilities to "drop" anyone before Alice has booked it back out of the room. I'm left utterly alone in the infirmary, with nothing but a pair of fresh corpses to keep me company.
Feeling tears beginning to form at the corner of my eyes, I try to hold them back as I did earlier, but it's too late — the traitorous beads of liquid are already starting to fall. No, no, no, cut it out with the crying already! Stressful, horrific situation or not, I can't keep doing this! Hell, why do I keep doing this?! I've never been one to hold back my tears, but I don't cry THIS much! Is Clover's body just that much more inclined towards this than mine is, or-
Comprehension abruptly dawns. No, scratch that — rather than being specific to Clover, far more likely to blame for my recent weepiness is the fact that crying usually reduces stress, at least in part, by literally releasing some of the chemicals causing the stress from one's body via the tear ducts. But every time I SHIFT back to a timeline where I haven't had a breakdown yet, those chemicals are coming right back. So while I'm getting the emotional benefit from crying my eyes out every time, the physical benefit is resetting, making the tears considerably more likely to later return for a repeat performance. That is beyond annoying...
And I'm avoiding the actual subject.
I wipe my face with one arm and sniffle as I glance back up at the bodies, the sight of which is no less appalling than it was a minute ago. I very nearly wretch when I focus on the details — Tenmyouji's head is badly bloodied, to the point his hair is now more red than white, while Quark...
Appears to have had his throat cut open.
I shiver uncontrollably, the memory of the very same thing happening to me replaying in my mind against my will.
It's Dio. It has to be, right? Suicide wouldn't look like this, and no one else here has any reason to kill these two, let alone in such a violent manner. Hell, in the original game, I'm pretty sure Quark was never explicitly shown or confirmed as dead in any timeline, even when everyone else was — and I think I now understand why.
My grief begins to give way to rage, my contempt for Dio somehow swelling even further. Just when I thought I couldn't hate him any more, he does this. It's not like I didn't realize he was willing to kill a child, but to actually see it, especially in this form, is just...
Tearing my eyes away, I look around the room again, taking in the details I passed over during my initial horror. Aside from the bodies, the floor is covered in numerous shards of glass, along with a large puddle of off-color liquid that's seeping into the puddles of blood. The source of both is obvious — lying on the floor nearby is a broken bottle of white liquor, presumably taken from the lounge at some point. The bottom half of the glass has been smashed to bits, leaving the remaining half with a makeshift crown of sharp, jagged edges... several of which have been stained with an already-drying crimson coating.
I grit my teeth and turn away. I'm such a fool... I shouldn't have believed we were safe from something like this just because Dio didn't have a blade. Nearly anything can be a weapon if you apply enough force, and apparently Dio is willing to improvise when deprived of his usual tools. Hiding the knife and scalpels may have made things less convenient for him, but ultimately didn't stop him from just finding something else — it's like I didn't learn anything from my first death at all.
My self-flagellation comes to an end a couple minutes later as the door behind me slides back up, Alice returning with the others in tow even faster than I'd expected... barring the likely culprit, that is. Perhaps that's for the best though, if he's resorted to this.
Everyone is rightfully horrified by the sight of the bodies, with Sigma and K letting out near-identical gasps of horror, and Phi flinching back like she's been physically struck. Luna is the only one who immediately rushes forward, deftly evading the puddles of blood and alcohol as she searches Quark and Tenmyouji for a pulse.
"I already checked." Alice says solemnly. "They're gone."
"How horrible..." Luna says quietly as she steps back from the bodies. "Who would do such a thing...?"
I struggle not to just blurt out the answer here and now, but figure we need to all be on the same page first.
"This can't have happened long ago." Phi says, directing it at everyone in the room. "What has everyone been doing for the past 30 minutes or so?"
"Luna and I have been together since the end of the AB round." K says, glancing over at her.
Luna nods. "It's true."
"Sigma and I met up at the treatment center before we came back up here." Phi adds, narrowing her eyes at him. "I don't know what he was doing immediately after the AB round ended though..."
Sigma sputters. "Wait, you suspect me?!"
"I suspect everyone until proven otherwise." Phi sharply replies. "We need to establish alibis before we can make any real conclusions, so if you've got one, say so."
Sigma's gaze flickers to me. "After the round ended, I went back to the laboratory with Clover so we could talk about... something."
Phi and Alice both give me odd looks at that, but I nod in confirmation.
"We did, and it wasn't a short discussion. Unless you only just met up with Sigma before Alice found you, he's clear."
Phi turns to Alice. "What about you then?"
Alice lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Are you serious? You don't honestly think I'd have found and brought you all back here if I did this?"
"That's not an answer." Phi replies, sounding almost disinterested.
Alice glares at her and folds her arms. "Clover and I were talking by ourselves for at least fifteen minutes before we came across these two. She can vouch for me."
"I'm sure she can," Phi says in a low tone, "but that still leaves a period of time beforehand that no one seems to have had eyes on you."
I almost groan. Really, Phi? Yes, I guess Alice theoretically could have done this, and was apparently even the last person here to have seen Quark and Tenmoyuji alive, but like hell do I believe that this was her. This is just wasting time!
"Look, does it really matter?" I interrupt before this pointless inquisition can continue. "I'm pretty sure that if this was done by anyone here, that person would show some sign of it. Quark and Tenmyouji don't exactly look like they died... peacefully, yet none of us are spattered with blood, or hurt in any obvious way."
"And there's someone else that we seem to have forgotten." I add as the others process that, deciding that if no one is going to bring it up, I will. "Someone who seems to be missing from this group?"
"Clover's right." Alice concurs. "I didn't find Dio anywhere, and he was the first one out of the warehouse, meaning he'd have had time to grab a bottle while no one else was in the lounge to see it. Assuming he's not dead somewhere as well, he's obviously the most suspect."
"Perhaps," K says, hand on his chin, "but regardless of who truly did this... why do it? What was their objective in murdering these two?"
He has a point. Were Quark and Tenmyouji just targets of opportunity, like I was? Or did Dio specifically target them for some reason-
"Where are their bracelets?"
Phi's words cut through the room like a knife. Glancing back at the bodies again, I realize she's right — both corpses' wrists are now bare of the watch-like device that the rest of us still wear.
My mind whirls as Sigma puzzles aloud over the equipment's absence. The bracelets come off after death, so if they're not here, then Dio must have taken them before he left. But why? What's his plan-
I freeze.
"He killed them to kill us."
Alice's eyes snap towards me. "What?"
"Quark was half of the magenta pair, and Tenmyouji was half of the cyan one-" Phi says with widening eyes, clearly in the process of arriving at the same conclusion I just did.
"-and since Dio himself is one member of the yellow pair, then as long as he doesn't show up at the next set of doors, we won't have a complete set of any of the pair bracelets!" I frantically follow up, almost breathless. "Meaning no one will be able to pass through, and we're all going to get lethally 'penalized'!"
Fucking SHIT, he's unbelievable!
"Are you sure...?" Luna asks, her voice trembling slightly. "He'd die too, wouldn't he?"
He would... but I'd bet he's willing to.
"We need to find him now!" I all but scream as I whirl towards the door. "Quick, everyone split up, I'll search-"
Someone grabs me and spins me back around, my shoes causing me to totter for a moment before I re-stabilize.
"No way, that's a terrible idea!" Sigma protests, his hand still latched onto my arm. "If we're right about this, Dio has already killed two people! None of us should be looking for him on their own!"
"We might not find him in time if we don't!" I retort, frantically fiddling with my bracelet until it displays the time we have remaining. "We've barely got five minutes left before the doors open, and they'll only stay open for another five after that!"
Sigma grits his teeth, knowing I have a point.
"In that case-"
"We split into pairs of two and search this place systematically." Alice orders, not allowing time for anyone to contradict her. "Clover, you and Sigma check the magenta and green door paths. Luna, K, you've got cyan and blue. Phi and I will check the Floor A warehouse and red. If you find Dio, incapacitate him by any means necessary and get those bracelets off of him. Regroup at the next set of doors when the announcement goes off, whether you've found anything or not — hopefully at least one of us will have."
There's no time to argue about it, and at the moment I could hardly come up with a better plan anyways. Immediately grouping up, all six of us rush out of the room with our respective partners, sprinting through the halls and rooms as quickly as possible to find our wayward player, and likely murderer.
Somewhat absurdly, my primary thought as we blitz through the empty lounge and down the elevator is that I really must be getting better at running in these shoes. Without Sigma literally towing me along, I don't trip even once, allowing us to make it through the green door in record time — but the room we find beyond is just as empty of human presence as the lounge was, the treatment center no different than when I passed through earlier. And before we can do more than confirm that-
Chromatic Doors have opened. Five minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close.
Sigma and I look at each other with identical panic-stricken expressions, then book it out of the room's other door.
By the time we make it to the entrance of the Floor B warehouse, the three minute warning has also gone off, as the hallway leading to it from the treatment center is stupidly long. Sigma and I are left panting as we burst through the door into the meet up spot, where we find-
"DIO!" we shout in tandem.
He's leaning up against the wall between two of the pure white doors, his expression the picture of pure nonchalance — this in spite of his blood-covered clothes, the ragged scratches covering his face, and the six-foot lance that he apparently picked up from somewhere.
"Well well," Dio drawls, tipping his hat to us in greeting, "look who finally decided to come join the party. What took you so long? These two already beat you here."
He gestures to K and Luna, who evidently did arrive first, but are stuck uneasily hovering around Dio's periphery, unable to get closer to his rather lengthy weapon. K looks as though he's considering risking it, hunched over in a highly aggressive stance, but isn't moving just yet.
"You know perfectly well what kept us!" Sigma yells as he stomps closer, while I cautiously follow on his heels. "You're going to pay for what you've done!"
Dio smirks. "Doubt it. All I've done is saved myself some valuable time."
"You-!" Sigma spits, warily eyeing the lance. "Where did you get that?!"
"The rec room." Dio easily replies, leaning the haft against his shoulder. "Would've been nice to have upstairs if I'm honest, but... well, I made do."
I grit my teeth. Damn it, why didn't the treatment center have any weapons? Should've grabbed a bottle myself on the way out of the lounge; at least I'd have something to throw at him-
Another door slides open, and Phi and Alice come bursting into the room. They freeze momentarily upon spotting Dio- then immediately start picking up speed again, both of them wearing the same perfectly furious expression. Surprisingly, Dio doesn't even seem to care, merely laughing as they approach.
"Hey now, what's the rush? Don't you want to hear how it happened? How I killed them?"
The pair of women stutter to a halt.
"Honestly, it wasn't even that hard." Dio shrugs. "Had more difficulty figuring out what I was gonna use to do it than anything else. Gotta hand it to the kid though, he was fast. Little bastard nearly clawed my eyes out..."
He smirks. "Well, at least until I finished off his gramps. One quick whack to the side of the old fart's head, and the kid fell apart. Dropped to his knees and just started bawling his little eyes out. Gotta say, it was real nice of him to practically present his neck to me like-"
Alice abruptly resumes her charge, sprinting at Dio full tilt. He startles a little and grabs up his weapon, thrusting it forward as she comes in range — only for Alice to smoothly duck underneath the stab, grabbing the lance's handle as it passes by her head. Yanking the weapon out of Dio's hands, she snaps it in half over her knee, giving Phi the opportunity to rush forward as well and shoulder check Dio in the sternum.
Dio wheezes as he's sent crashing back into the exact same wall he was just leaning against. Momentarily dazed, he's unable to stop K from striding over and restraining his arms, his suit-granted strength locking Dio's limbs over his head like manacles... not that Dio seems terribly worried about it, not even struggling in the man's grip once he recovers.
"Heh, did I hit a nerve...?"
Luna frets silently and Sigma growls impotently as Alice and Phi start rapidly rifling through Dio's coat pockets. They toss aside his cyanide pill, a small rectangle I recognize as the password input device, and a pair of handcuffs that I didn't even know he had... but no detonator, oddly.
And no bracelets.
"Where are they?!" Phi snarls into Dio's face.
"What, those glorified watches?" Dio smugly replies. "Sorry, guess I must've dropped them at some point. And if I'm not mistaken..."
"Ten seconds remain until Chromatic Doors close."
"...time's up, fuckers."
A growl works its way up my throat even as panic settles in my mind. Shit, he planned this too well, we really are going to die to these stupid bracelets-
Wait, the aluminum foil!
I plunge my hand down into my back pocket, frantically searching for the only thing that can save us now. Come on!
"Nine… Eight… Seven…"
My breath hitches as I realize I don't feel the foil present. What? Where the hell is it?! Did someone pickpocket me, or-
My blood runs cold.
I... I didn't take it. I was so frantic to get out of the crew quarters earlier, so incredibly on edge at the idea of staying in the room where Dio slit my throat open for even a second longer, that I completely forgot to grab the foil again before I left-!
"Six... Five... Four..."
"Luna, quick! If we drag him through one of the doors then we can still-"
I hear what sounds like a foot hitting flesh, followed by a cry consisting of more rage than actual pain — neither of which I actually see as I spin on one heel, starting back towards the elevator on pure frantic instinct, even as the rest of my mind tells me there's no point.
"Three... Two... One... Chromatic Doors closing."
The trio of doors slides shut behind me-
*Ptch-!*
-and I gasp as something sharp slides into my wrist underneath the bracelet, the sudden pain causing my heel to slide out from under me, sending me toppling to the floor. Fuck!
Gritting my teeth, I try to stand back up, but a haze has already started descending over my mind, my limbs going numb alongside my thoughts. I manage to get one leg back underneath me, but it crumples the moment I try to put weight on it, and I'm left sprawled out on my side on the warehouse floor, lacking the strength to even attempt to get back up this time.
No... this can't be happening again...!
All around me, I hear the others begin to fall to the floor as well, groaning as the anesthetic sends them first to their knees, then to their stomachs and backs. From where I've fallen, I have an obnoxiously perfect view of a now-released Dio as he willingly follows the trend, calmly, if shakily lying down on the floor some twenty feet in front of me.
"Clo... ver..." Alice moans from somewhere off to my right.
I open my mouth to respond, but the words won't come.
"Why... do this?" I hear Phi manage to spit out, though I can't actually see her from where I've collapsed. "You'll die... too..."
Dio laughs drowsily.
"That's... what you think..."
Through eyes that feel like they're being weighed down by ever-heavier sandbags, I watch as Dio slowly reaches into his boot, then just as slowly pulls out something that, through my increasingly bleary vision, I can only tell is vaguely gun-shaped. Rather than try and point it at any of us however, Dio raises it to his own neck, and, with what looks like a truly monumental effort, depresses the trigger. I hear a sharp rush of air, followed by a small, satisfied sigh.
What... was...?
"Swiped... from safe..." Dio says as the object falls from his nerveless fingers, clattering to the floor beside him. "Counter for... tubocurarine..."
Fury flies through me, even as my mind continues to cloud over.
That was the... neostigmine gun...!
Dio lets out a single, almost choked-sounding chuckle, his head lolling back up to face the ceiling.
"We're all... gonna sleep now..." he whispers, a contented smile on his face. "But I'll be... the only one... to wake up..."
I'm... going to...
Through the twin fogs of unconsciousness and anger seeping into my brain, I barely even register the feeling of the second needle piercing into my skin, injecting a tiny stream of deadly fluid directly into my veins.
...KILL him...!!!
My last, fragmented thought before my eyes permanently seal themselves shut, is that I think I was supposed to do something the next time this happened...
Don't you just hate it when the asshole cultist who's already killed you twice turns out to be considerably more competent at his whole suicide/assassination mission than you ever expected him to be?
(Fun fact: Dio tries to steal the neostigmine gun in canon as well, in the line where Sigma visits the rec room. Nothing ever comes of it, as Clover and Phi both noticed him squirrel it away, and call him out on it not long after, but it seems K and Tenmyouji weren't paying quite as much attention...)
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @Captain_Skipjack, Henry Branscombe, Leaf, Bertucchi, BlackEagle91, Jordan Juengel, Stays Secret, Alxariam, Nubcaekz, and my nine other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives an injection gun, as well as several of the small medicine vials it's used with. The needle is capable of pre-numbing its area of entry, and will adjust its angle as best it can to make sure it enters the nearest vein when used, making it quite foolproof and relatively painless. However, I still wouldn't recommend actually using this thing to be perfectly honest, as it's rather hard to monitor dosage when something is literally being shot into your veins from an unmarked jar. If you choose to do so anyways, just... careful with it, alright? 💉
(Fun fact: Dio tries to steal the neostigmine gun in canon as well, in the line where Sigma visits the rec room. Nothing ever comes of it, as Clover and Phi both noticed him squirrel it away, and call him out on it not long after, but it seems K and Tenmyouji weren't paying quite as much attention...)
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @Captain_Skipjack, Henry Branscombe, Leaf, Bertucchi, BlackEagle91, Jordan Juengel, Stays Secret, Alxariam, Nubcaekz, and my nine other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives an injection gun, as well as several of the small medicine vials it's used with. The needle is capable of pre-numbing its area of entry, and will adjust its angle as best it can to make sure it enters the nearest vein when used, making it quite foolproof and relatively painless. However, I still wouldn't recommend actually using this thing to be perfectly honest, as it's rather hard to monitor dosage when something is literally being shot into your veins from an unmarked jar. If you choose to do so anyways, just... careful with it, alright? 💉
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A few useful additions to the checklist this time through, most prominently I feel to find and clone the cure to the plague, but yikes, trauma is not good for the memory...
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
They're on the moon with likely no way to get back to Earth, so yeah. The door leading outside the shelter should also be locked and won't open at all without the passcode bracelets, which are now all invalid/not working.
So Clover is gonna jump to another timeline now, of course, as otherwise the story ends here. I do wonder what she'll do next, overall, beyond be even more paranoid about Dio.
- Location
- America
Acquire a Weapon to incapacitate Dio? Get the Aluminum Foil?
She now knows that she can't just deprive Dio of weapons, She has to Deal with Dio. I don't know what Dio's exact deal is, but ideally, if she could somehow reveal Dio as a Hostile Actor to everyone in the first encounter, that would probably be the best way. But I haven't Played the game so I don't know if such a method exists. (Like, if he were a part of that cult or something and there was a way to prove that immediately)
She now knows that she can't just deprive Dio of weapons, She has to Deal with Dio. I don't know what Dio's exact deal is, but ideally, if she could somehow reveal Dio as a Hostile Actor to everyone in the first encounter, that would probably be the best way. But I haven't Played the game so I don't know if such a method exists. (Like, if he were a part of that cult or something and there was a way to prove that immediately)
It is tricky. I believe that very few participants know about the cult, so there are very few people who can competently vouch for the cult being a problem, nor would any identifiers of cult membership be confirmed by numerous sources. Even if they managed to trick him into using cult rhetoric, I doubt that it would be accepted because most could not identify it as such, and even if they could reveal it, then I think that to most it would just identify him as a member of some random organisation, not a murderous cultist.
I can't think of much that would reveal his murderousness directly that wouldn't be extremely dangerous, difficult, and an extreme long-shot to boot. He is unlikely to attack without the use of bait, which endangers the bait, and he has no need to take every single opportunity to kill someone. Setting things up so that he would be caught in the act, would fail to actually murder the bait, and would be confident enough to act on it, would be where extreme difficulty comes into it, because everything done to secure proof and safety of the bait would risk tipping him off that it was a trap, or just being dubious enough that he wouldn't feel comfortable and would thus look elsewhere for his opportunities. Or he could just not know about the trap and thus never be lured into it.
I could see it being possible to get Alice to help, but without revealing the SHIFTing, it would require a convincing cover-story, and Alice knows Clover, so providing a whole cover-story without revealing that she isn't actually Clover is, well, it runs into the problem that Alice should be much better at this than clover is. It is not an insurmountable problem, Flover has time to prepare, and, potentially, multiple attempts, so just trying to spook a professional spook while pretending to be their best friend is not entirely a quite completely doomed prospect, but it would be challenge... . It does help that they probably only need to suggest that he is suspicious and needs to be investigated rather than outright condemning him in the span of a single conversation...
Of course, all that would do is get Alice on-side. Now, that opens up a lot of options, true, as Alice would(narrative pressure notwithstanding) be the best candidate to make him disappear, and could likely frame him or similar, but it is not an automatic solution, and until he actually kills someone, nobody will be expecting a murderer.
Stuff Clover can do on her own seems a bit strained. Bashing him over the back of the head with a heavy object, while a good approach, is far from guaranteed, and would almost certainly be discovered, which would in turn almost certainly compromise her ability to escape the experiment. I do not recall any good opportunities pull a "Oh no! Poor Dio stumbled into the automangler and was converted into vindaloo! What a tragic accident that I in no way am responsible for!" . Flover doesn't seem to possess the combat acumen to have much chance in a fair fight, especially if narrative force is in play(he is the horror monster), although I suppose that SHIFTing theoretically offers the ability to have an assassination-training montage...
The absolute certainty that he needs to die, does not actually change that making it happen is extremely difficult, and would compromise other priorities which, ultimately, are probably higher priorities than Dio is. Dio, theoretically, might never kill anyone, while the game already has a bodycount and will not be releasing anyone until it is solved...
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
As Clover!me has said before, "Well of course it's Dio's fault. What isn't, in this game?"
Brutal indeed. Though, from a certain perspective, one could actually say that Dio's helping, since Clover!me still has no idea how to eject from a timeline at will, so... silver lining? ^^;
I'll say that I have most definitely been keeping plot locks in mind, particularly for Sigma and Phi. Right now however, Clover!me doesn't really have reason to revisit a timeline I've already been through/been killed in if I can at all help it.
(Right now.)
Clover is wearing... minimal amounts of clothing, but she is a secret agent. Perhaps Clover!me should take a closer look at some of her accessories...?
Depends. The Nonary Game only really "ends" when either everyone is dead, or someone opens the number nine door. Once Dio wakes up, he'll theoretically be free to participate in as many AB rounds as it takes for him to get 9 points — which will be only one, with him the only remaining player — then leave. However, that does assume that he can get another AB round going in the first place, as with the Chromatic Doors closed, they may not ever open again to let him through to the next puzzle room, stuck eternally waiting for someone to get out with a new keycard and swipe it back at the AB rooms. It's entirely reliant on what the contingencies were, if any, for no one being detected as going through any of the chromatic doors, but someone in the facility still being alive. Given the Neostigmine gun was deliberately placed in a safe, and there's an AI "running" things that could probably pop back up whenever, you'd imagine such contingencies may exist, but a lack thereof may be the entire point. Regardless, Dio obviously either felt it was worth the risk, or simply saw an opportunity he couldn't pass up, not considering the ultimate consequences of taking it.
(If the game really does just get stuck in a holding pattern in that situation, then that one canon timeline where Sigma saves Phi with the Neostigmine gun was, uh... awfully pointless, so I'm not really willing to say there aren't any.)
No, the bracelets all still work. They're very intentionally meant to keep working even after they come off, so that groups can still pass through the chromatic doors with them even when they're down a member for... whatever reason. As such, assuming the above occurs, Dio may still very well get outside, where he has a radio receiver set up not far away to deliver the news of his mission's success. Whether or not someone is supposed to then come pick him up is unclear, as he may just be meant to take the cyanide pill at that point, but the possibility exists that he just got away scot free, both from the facility and with killing everyone.
...well. Minus the one who's just pretending, that is.
NuclearBurrito said:
Why thank you; I felt rather clever writing it. （￣︶￣）I always thought it was a bit of a wasted opportunity that in the game, the Neostigmine Gun never actually... did anything, at least from Sigma's perspective. As noted above, it saves Phi in one end, but everyone else is already dead, so how's that actually help anyone, even her? As such, I decided to try and utilize it a little more interestingly in this story, and since Dio already tried to steal the gun in canon... well.
NuclearBurrito said:
More like RIP Clover!me just in general — but, you're correct. Now it's likely up to what matters more for SHIFTing: concentrating on a specific time and place when doing it, or the "epiphanies" that have happened since. We shall see...
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Yana
Super High School Level Paranormal Investigator
- Location
- Somewhere in Asia
You can't do that for Three reasons.
1) The Bracelets are, for most of the cast, set flush against their skin.
2) If the Bracelets sense any tampering, it will immediately inject the poison into you.
3) There are four needles in the bracelets. Even if you block one with a butter knife, you have to deal with three others.
The only known reliable way to release the bracelet is through the Aluminum Foil. It reflects the sensors back into the bracelet, tricking the bracelet into thinking the wearer's life has expired (since it can't sense the vital signs), releasing the lock, and not triggering the tampering fail-safe.
...
I just remembered something from the combined lore of the Nonary games. Even if I was in the IClover's position, I'd also refrain from inspecting my clothing too... In-case of a closet malfunction.
For anyone confused, Flairina's quote is an understatement.
Chapter 15: Back to Square One
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
...here... again...
Vague shreds of thought flit through my mind as I float within the void, staring down at the crooked, shining line below for the third time now.
...or. Is it the third time? I feel as though that's true, but I also feel frayed. Scattered and loose, like an errant breeze. Perhaps I've simply forgotten the countless other times I've been here prior? Or is this the first time after all, and I merely dreamed the rest?
Unless... this is the dream...
Something compels me to try to reach out; to grasp at what lies below — but of course, I don't have hands, making such a thing plainly impossible.
I'm not even sure why I tried.
The node below looms large as I slowly, placidly drift downward. Though tiny and dim compared to those that stretch out behind it, the leaking trail that caps the sphere seems strangely beautiful all the same.
And yet...
...no...
The downward drag ceases.
...wanted...
...return...
...the start...
My course adjusts, and I begin gently floating towards a different node, much closer to the far end of the line. It's considerably brighter than the one I was falling towards before, with many more connections.
Which is... important, isn't it?
I'd frown, if I had a mouth. My memories feel like I'm peeking at them from behind a curtain, just transparent enough to know there's something there, but too opaque for me to catch an actual glimpse. I just can't seem to grasp any of them...
What were they...?
The question leaves me as I fall again, my thoughts seeming almost to break free of me entirely as I do, trailing behind me like the tail of a comet.
Oh well...
I snap back into awareness just as furious as I left it, every muscle in my body tensed, still hopelessly attempting to combat the Tubocurarine flowing through my system. My eyes dart around wildly, narrowing into thin slits as they zero in on the top-hatted murderer to my right, the sight of him contorting my expression with hatred-
"Good? Excellent. It looks like none of you have any questions. Yay."
Startled, I instinctively look back at Zero Jr.
Who's... on the wall again.
And I'm standing up, and have a folder in my hand.
Wait... then...
My breath hitches as an announcement plays.
"Chromatic Doors have opened. Five minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close."
I look over just in time to see the doors — the Warehouse A ones, which is where we apparently are — slide up into their frames, and my anger instantly flips over to nigh-ecstatic glee.
I- I'm back! Before the first chromatic door choice, before Akane's body was discovered! I have another chance to reach the true timeline, another chance to live! And considering how relatively lucid I just realized I was in the MGF, despite not managing to focus on a specific moment before being ejected into it, epiphany theory has been proven! Or, well, at least really heavily supported? Maybe just highly correlated, assuming the cause wasn't- oh who even cares right now, I did it!!!
Not wanting to give away my rather tonally-inappropriate mood to the others, who I initially all but glossed over in my fury, I take a few steps back as Dio starts yelling at Zero Jr. again. Phi is standing next to me, so I turn slightly away from her to keep my expression hidden, knowing that I'm at risk of breaking out into a face-stretching grin at any moment. Even as the artificial rabbit reveals the death penalty for not being inside the doors on time, my mind is a million miles away.
I'm here. I'm- well, not safe, but I've finally made it back to the starting line. Now I just have to succeed where I failed before, and navigate my way into the bomb timeline.
...or rather, the timeline where Akane is alive, as the two may not actually coincide anymore. Frankly, I've changed too much to take anything for granted at this point. With the MGF and SHIFTing in play, the effect of my actions in the timelines I've already been through could easily have altered the others into something completely unrecognizable to me.
In fact, based on the future Phi I met, I'd count on it.
I slowly draw in a breath. That's okay though — if I can control my SHIFTs now, even if only well enough to get myself back to this single point in time, then I can try again and again, until I eventually find the timeline where Akane is safe to reveal herself. I doubt it will by any means be pleasant, at least not given the way I've had to exit the last three timelines, but so long as I don't just repeat the same actions, I will get there eventually.
And, speaking of not repeating actions...
I do a quick mental review of what all I'm supposed to know right now, not wanting to accidentally give myself away again like I did with Sigma. It's... basically nothing, right? Pretty sure it's literally just that I woke up with K in a fake elevator, the bracelets are dangerous, and I got the secret archive. We don't even know the AB game rules yet. That should be simple enough to keep track of, right?
I turn my attention back to the group at large. Zero Jr. has already left, and Phi is going over our group options again. This is right about where I cut in last time, but I don't really know what door choice would be best for me at this juncture anymore, so...
Perhaps I'll just go with the natural flow of things?
The warning of our depleting time rings out again. When Luna desperately asks Sigma to pick a door this time, I keep quiet, for once simply waiting to see what happens.
"...I'm thinking we'll go through the yellow door with Tenmyouji." Sigma says after less deliberation than I expected, looking to his teammate and the man in question. "That sound good to you guys?"
Phi answers in the affirmative, as does Tenmyouji, though he doesn't look terribly happy about it.
I look around. If Sigma is going with Tenmyouji this time, that means K and I are paired with...
"Clover, Luna, and I will be going through the cyan door then." K surmises.
...yeah, I can work with that.
"Sounds good to me." I say.
"I'm alright with that." Luna adds, smiling gently at me, though I think that might just be her neutral expression.
Alice turns away from a shrugging Dio to give me a pointed look, rapidly shifting her gaze between my partners, then back to me. I nod as subtly as I can, acknowledging what was undoubtedly a non-verbal order to gather information on them, as usual, which Alice responds to with an even subtler one.
"Ten seconds remain until Chromatic Doors close. Nine… Eight… Seven…"
"We need to go! The doors are closing!" Tenmyouji shouts.
"C'mon guys, move!"
We hurry to our respective doors. Feeling considerably steadier on my feet than I was three timelines ago, I manage to make it to the cyan door a solid two seconds before it slams shut, though I'm still the last member of our trio to make it inside.
The three of us wait through the scanning process in silence. It feels a bit odd to have completely ceded any influence on the door decision this time, but considering just how many timeline splits I may have prevented from forming before, I'm mostly just glad that Sigma got to make the ultimate decision again this time.
...unless my choosing to stay quiet technically still made that my decision?
I shake my head. No, that's silly. All that really mattered for the splitting of the timeline here was that we went to a different door than last time, not who specifically decided which one, and assuming otherwise would be pure egocentrism. Besides, my initial concerns about that were predicated on thinking I couldn't just jump back in time myself, and seeing as that future Phi managed to travel to a branch I was already in while fully aware of the trip she'd just made, I clearly can't be impacting the other two SHIFTers' development all that badly, no matter how I may have muddled things. I've probably been a little too worried about this for the last couple timelines, frankly...
The door in front of us slides up, and we collectively step into the small, circular room preceding the one we'll actually be spending an extended period of time in. Neither of my partners this round seems particularly inclined towards conversation at the moment, so I just silently follow after the robot and the man who looks like a robot as we pass through the second door.
Within moments, we arrive at our actual destination — a short, dull gray hallway, containing four numbered metal doors I'm already unfortunately familiar with.
I shudder behind the other two, but do my best to repress my nerves. I'm really not keen on the idea of being locked in here, even for just a short while, but being so unnerved by this place screwed me over in a big way last timeline. If I don't want that or something similar to happen again, then I've got to get past it somehow.
...besides, I've died three times now. The first time only even still stands out because of how personal, painful, and drawn out it was. If anything, I think I'm kind of growing numb to it.
"This is a somewhat smaller space than I expected." K notes, comparing his own height to one of the doors. "The door said that this was the 'Crew Quarters', correct?"
"Yes." Luna confirms. "Do you think that means people might live here?"
"Hmm..."
K steps forward and turns the wheel of the door with the large white "01" printed on it. It swings open with a creaking noise, revealing the minimalistic room within.
"This does indeed appear to be a living space," K glances at the bed built into the wall, "but I cannot imagine only four of these rooms to be enough for any manner of 'crew'."
"Maybe there's more of them elsewhere?" I suggest.
Not that I don't know full well there are, having already seen the Floor A map. We can't access them while the game is ongoing, but they do exist... which actually strikes me as a bit strange, given only three people and a bunch of robots ever actually did live here. Maybe at one point Sigma and Akane considered having guests over.
Maybe those guests are us.
We shuffle to the end of the hallway, where I commence the now-familiar ritual of trying to open the still-locked door.
"No good." I say, not that I expected any different. "Looks like we'll need to find a key."
"Indeed."
"I'll try my best to help... or to at least stay out of the way." Luna adds.
I barely refrain from rolling my eyes at that, knowing perfectly well that she likely knows literally every solution to every puzzle in this entire base, having undoubtedly assisted in setting most of them up to begin with.
"Given how small these rooms appear to be, it may be prudent for each of us to take a separate one, if only so we do not end up crowding each other."
While I don't necessarily agree with K's assessment, I nod anyways. K enters Door 1, and Luna enters Door 2 a moment later, leaving me with Door 4 by default, since the wheel to Door 3 is currently tethered shut by a familiar pair of handcuffs.
So that's where Dio got those from...
A scowl works its way across my face.
I have to do something about Dio this time. Something more direct than just hiding potential weapons from him. He's essentially killed me three times over, and I refuse to leave him free to do it again. Though, I suppose I only have myself to blame for this latest one. The one time I actually needed the foil, and I didn't have it...
I step into Room 4.
Not letting that happen again.
Vague shreds of thought flit through my mind as I float within the void, staring down at the crooked, shining line below for the third time now.
...or. Is it the third time? I feel as though that's true, but I also feel frayed. Scattered and loose, like an errant breeze. Perhaps I've simply forgotten the countless other times I've been here prior? Or is this the first time after all, and I merely dreamed the rest?
Unless... this is the dream...
Something compels me to try to reach out; to grasp at what lies below — but of course, I don't have hands, making such a thing plainly impossible.
I'm not even sure why I tried.
The node below looms large as I slowly, placidly drift downward. Though tiny and dim compared to those that stretch out behind it, the leaking trail that caps the sphere seems strangely beautiful all the same.
And yet...
...no...
The downward drag ceases.
...wanted...
...return...
...the start...
My course adjusts, and I begin gently floating towards a different node, much closer to the far end of the line. It's considerably brighter than the one I was falling towards before, with many more connections.
Which is... important, isn't it?
I'd frown, if I had a mouth. My memories feel like I'm peeking at them from behind a curtain, just transparent enough to know there's something there, but too opaque for me to catch an actual glimpse. I just can't seem to grasp any of them...
What were they...?
The question leaves me as I fall again, my thoughts seeming almost to break free of me entirely as I do, trailing behind me like the tail of a comet.
Oh well...
I snap back into awareness just as furious as I left it, every muscle in my body tensed, still hopelessly attempting to combat the Tubocurarine flowing through my system. My eyes dart around wildly, narrowing into thin slits as they zero in on the top-hatted murderer to my right, the sight of him contorting my expression with hatred-
"Good? Excellent. It looks like none of you have any questions. Yay."
Startled, I instinctively look back at Zero Jr.
Who's... on the wall again.
And I'm standing up, and have a folder in my hand.
Wait... then...
My breath hitches as an announcement plays.
"Chromatic Doors have opened. Five minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close."
I look over just in time to see the doors — the Warehouse A ones, which is where we apparently are — slide up into their frames, and my anger instantly flips over to nigh-ecstatic glee.
I- I'm back! Before the first chromatic door choice, before Akane's body was discovered! I have another chance to reach the true timeline, another chance to live! And considering how relatively lucid I just realized I was in the MGF, despite not managing to focus on a specific moment before being ejected into it, epiphany theory has been proven! Or, well, at least really heavily supported? Maybe just highly correlated, assuming the cause wasn't- oh who even cares right now, I did it!!!
Not wanting to give away my rather tonally-inappropriate mood to the others, who I initially all but glossed over in my fury, I take a few steps back as Dio starts yelling at Zero Jr. again. Phi is standing next to me, so I turn slightly away from her to keep my expression hidden, knowing that I'm at risk of breaking out into a face-stretching grin at any moment. Even as the artificial rabbit reveals the death penalty for not being inside the doors on time, my mind is a million miles away.
I'm here. I'm- well, not safe, but I've finally made it back to the starting line. Now I just have to succeed where I failed before, and navigate my way into the bomb timeline.
...or rather, the timeline where Akane is alive, as the two may not actually coincide anymore. Frankly, I've changed too much to take anything for granted at this point. With the MGF and SHIFTing in play, the effect of my actions in the timelines I've already been through could easily have altered the others into something completely unrecognizable to me.
In fact, based on the future Phi I met, I'd count on it.
I slowly draw in a breath. That's okay though — if I can control my SHIFTs now, even if only well enough to get myself back to this single point in time, then I can try again and again, until I eventually find the timeline where Akane is safe to reveal herself. I doubt it will by any means be pleasant, at least not given the way I've had to exit the last three timelines, but so long as I don't just repeat the same actions, I will get there eventually.
And, speaking of not repeating actions...
I do a quick mental review of what all I'm supposed to know right now, not wanting to accidentally give myself away again like I did with Sigma. It's... basically nothing, right? Pretty sure it's literally just that I woke up with K in a fake elevator, the bracelets are dangerous, and I got the secret archive. We don't even know the AB game rules yet. That should be simple enough to keep track of, right?
I turn my attention back to the group at large. Zero Jr. has already left, and Phi is going over our group options again. This is right about where I cut in last time, but I don't really know what door choice would be best for me at this juncture anymore, so...
Perhaps I'll just go with the natural flow of things?
The warning of our depleting time rings out again. When Luna desperately asks Sigma to pick a door this time, I keep quiet, for once simply waiting to see what happens.
"...I'm thinking we'll go through the yellow door with Tenmyouji." Sigma says after less deliberation than I expected, looking to his teammate and the man in question. "That sound good to you guys?"
Phi answers in the affirmative, as does Tenmyouji, though he doesn't look terribly happy about it.
I look around. If Sigma is going with Tenmyouji this time, that means K and I are paired with...
"Clover, Luna, and I will be going through the cyan door then." K surmises.
...yeah, I can work with that.
"Sounds good to me." I say.
"I'm alright with that." Luna adds, smiling gently at me, though I think that might just be her neutral expression.
Alice turns away from a shrugging Dio to give me a pointed look, rapidly shifting her gaze between my partners, then back to me. I nod as subtly as I can, acknowledging what was undoubtedly a non-verbal order to gather information on them, as usual, which Alice responds to with an even subtler one.
"Ten seconds remain until Chromatic Doors close. Nine… Eight… Seven…"
"We need to go! The doors are closing!" Tenmyouji shouts.
"C'mon guys, move!"
We hurry to our respective doors. Feeling considerably steadier on my feet than I was three timelines ago, I manage to make it to the cyan door a solid two seconds before it slams shut, though I'm still the last member of our trio to make it inside.
The three of us wait through the scanning process in silence. It feels a bit odd to have completely ceded any influence on the door decision this time, but considering just how many timeline splits I may have prevented from forming before, I'm mostly just glad that Sigma got to make the ultimate decision again this time.
...unless my choosing to stay quiet technically still made that my decision?
I shake my head. No, that's silly. All that really mattered for the splitting of the timeline here was that we went to a different door than last time, not who specifically decided which one, and assuming otherwise would be pure egocentrism. Besides, my initial concerns about that were predicated on thinking I couldn't just jump back in time myself, and seeing as that future Phi managed to travel to a branch I was already in while fully aware of the trip she'd just made, I clearly can't be impacting the other two SHIFTers' development all that badly, no matter how I may have muddled things. I've probably been a little too worried about this for the last couple timelines, frankly...
The door in front of us slides up, and we collectively step into the small, circular room preceding the one we'll actually be spending an extended period of time in. Neither of my partners this round seems particularly inclined towards conversation at the moment, so I just silently follow after the robot and the man who looks like a robot as we pass through the second door.
Within moments, we arrive at our actual destination — a short, dull gray hallway, containing four numbered metal doors I'm already unfortunately familiar with.
I shudder behind the other two, but do my best to repress my nerves. I'm really not keen on the idea of being locked in here, even for just a short while, but being so unnerved by this place screwed me over in a big way last timeline. If I don't want that or something similar to happen again, then I've got to get past it somehow.
...besides, I've died three times now. The first time only even still stands out because of how personal, painful, and drawn out it was. If anything, I think I'm kind of growing numb to it.
"This is a somewhat smaller space than I expected." K notes, comparing his own height to one of the doors. "The door said that this was the 'Crew Quarters', correct?"
"Yes." Luna confirms. "Do you think that means people might live here?"
"Hmm..."
K steps forward and turns the wheel of the door with the large white "01" printed on it. It swings open with a creaking noise, revealing the minimalistic room within.
"This does indeed appear to be a living space," K glances at the bed built into the wall, "but I cannot imagine only four of these rooms to be enough for any manner of 'crew'."
"Maybe there's more of them elsewhere?" I suggest.
Not that I don't know full well there are, having already seen the Floor A map. We can't access them while the game is ongoing, but they do exist... which actually strikes me as a bit strange, given only three people and a bunch of robots ever actually did live here. Maybe at one point Sigma and Akane considered having guests over.
Maybe those guests are us.
We shuffle to the end of the hallway, where I commence the now-familiar ritual of trying to open the still-locked door.
"No good." I say, not that I expected any different. "Looks like we'll need to find a key."
"Indeed."
"I'll try my best to help... or to at least stay out of the way." Luna adds.
I barely refrain from rolling my eyes at that, knowing perfectly well that she likely knows literally every solution to every puzzle in this entire base, having undoubtedly assisted in setting most of them up to begin with.
"Given how small these rooms appear to be, it may be prudent for each of us to take a separate one, if only so we do not end up crowding each other."
While I don't necessarily agree with K's assessment, I nod anyways. K enters Door 1, and Luna enters Door 2 a moment later, leaving me with Door 4 by default, since the wheel to Door 3 is currently tethered shut by a familiar pair of handcuffs.
So that's where Dio got those from...
A scowl works its way across my face.
I have to do something about Dio this time. Something more direct than just hiding potential weapons from him. He's essentially killed me three times over, and I refuse to leave him free to do it again. Though, I suppose I only have myself to blame for this latest one. The one time I actually needed the foil, and I didn't have it...
I step into Room 4.
Not letting that happen again.
Wasn't sure about posting this yet, but I figured it'd be nice for Clover!me to finally get to wake up from euthanasia. ^^; As demonstrated by how brief this update was, chapter lengths may occasionally get a little wonky from here on out, owing to the way I structured the titles and time blocks. Next one should be up within a week or so however, and of a more typical size.
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @CCBubba, @Captain Skipjack, Leaf, Bertucchi, Jordan Juengel, Alxariam, kleinerToaster, and my seven other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives a single second chance at something they once failed at, and wish to redo. Yeah, I'm getting more abstract with these now! I take no responsibility for any resultant ripples to the time stream, though in all likelihood you won't make any anyways, you'll just create a bunch of branching timelines and- ah, forget it, you'll figure it out. ⏳
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @CCBubba, @Captain Skipjack, Leaf, Bertucchi, Jordan Juengel, Alxariam, kleinerToaster, and my seven other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives a single second chance at something they once failed at, and wish to redo. Yeah, I'm getting more abstract with these now! I take no responsibility for any resultant ripples to the time stream, though in all likelihood you won't make any anyways, you'll just create a bunch of branching timelines and- ah, forget it, you'll figure it out. ⏳
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Oh boy. I'm looking forward to Clover actually being competent this time around.
Chapter 16: Of Two Minds
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
My immediate plan to remedy my lack of foil is, itself, foiled by the fact that there isn't any placed under the glass top of the desk jutting from the wall yet. Instead, there's a tiny metal cylinder that's rather obviously meant to be the end of a key set atop it.
I pick the cylinder up and slip into my now empty pockets, taking note of the horizontal markings carved into the wall above the desk this time. The fold out "bed" hasn't been pulled down out of the wall yet either, so I do so, revealing the expected dull white outline of a human body, a hole in the fabric where the right ankle should be. Creepy as ever...
Tossing the archive file I'm still holding on the bed for the moment, I pan my gaze around the fairly bare room. Whatever puzzles this places contained, they must not have been too memorable, because I don't recall any of them — though I can't imagine the important bits will be hard to find, given how bare bones these quarters are. Other than the desk and bed, there's just a landline phone sitting on a small table extending from the wall, a tall locker with nine buttons set near the handle that I'm pretty sure I can't open yet, and...
A wall poster of a tanned, red-headed woman posing on a beach, her chest and pelvis obscured by silvery gray scratch-off foil.
Who I can't help but notice looks more than a little like a slightly older Clover.
Shaking my head, I step up to the poster and mechanically start scratching off the silvery section, my fake nails more than long and sturdy enough to serve this particular function. Leave it to Sigma to include a set piece like this in his escape room puzzle. There better be a swimsuit under here...
As I work at the poster, I frown, still considering the Dio problem. I need to strike first this time, somehow — maybe even ensure that he dies early, just so he can't cause any more problems. Is that even possible to do without his fail-safe setting off the bombs though? I'm pretty sure he was killed by K in at least one timeline in canon, and it didn't kick in then... maybe it only works if he's already armed the bombs? Might actually be the same with the detonator, given he apparently removed it from his person last timeline...
I exhale. God, I can't believe I'm seriously considering the logistics of committing premeditated murder. Would that I could think of a better option, but Dio has been more actively hostile thus far than even the game proper led me to expect, and I don't know how else I could possibly-
The phone suddenly rings, startling me out of my morbid thoughts. Breaking from my task, I walk over and answer it.
"Hello?"
"Ah, hello Clover." K's voice says from the other end of the line. "I take it your room has a phone as well? It seems the numbered buttons at the top connect them to each other."
"Guess so." I reply. "I take it it's not usable as an actual phone?"
"Not so far as I can tell. I of course tried several emergency numbers first, but this phone does not appear to have an external connection, nor a way to type in more than four digits at once. I also attempted to call Room 3, but there is apparently no number associated with it."
"Meaning you can only call Rooms 1, 2, and 4?" I summarize. "Feels like it'd be simpler for you to just walk over here and talk to me in that case."
In fact, even in the context of the video game, a phone line connecting rooms all of fifteen feet away from each other seems incredibly pointless. There's undoubtedly some other purpose to them, I just don't recall-
I glance back down. Ah.
"Wait, the display on my phone changed."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it says '25**'." I read off. "Probably part of a code or something? I'm guessing Luna's room has a phone too, maybe call her and see if the same thing happens."
"I shall."
I hang up, turning back to both the poster and my prior thoughts.
Seriously, is there any better way to deal with the threat Dio poses other than just... killing him? I suppose I could let the others know of the threat he poses early, but they'd have no reason to trust my word over his, other than his general unpleasantness. Could I maybe trick him into revealing his true intentions somehow? I'm pretty sure Sigma did something like that in the game, though I'm not sure it would work for me even if I remembered the specifics. The easiest way I can think to get the threat Dio poses across would be to get proof he stabbed Akane, but I don't actually know if she's dead yet, and in fact I'm really hoping she isn't in this line, since this entire endeavor becomes kind of pointless otherwise.
My eyebrows scrunch inwards. Whatever I do, I need to do it soon. Dio almost certainly can't have planted any of the bombs yet, and everyone is still alive at this point, meaning this first round is undoubtedly the best time to deal with him-
The phone rings again. Blinking, I do the same as before.
"Yes...?"
"It seems you were correct, Clover." K's voice sounds out again. "Luna's phone gave me the other half of the code. I managed to connect to Room 3 with it, but it seems we will need a tape for its 'answering machine' to function."
"Huh. Good to know. Keep at it."
I hang up and again return to my previous task, shaking my hands to remove some of the silvery gunk that's accumulated under my nails. It's proving surprisingly slippery, but I'm making headway, having gotten most of the foil off the poster by now. However... well, there IS a bikini underneath, but unless there's information secretly hidden in this woman's tan lines, I don't think there's anything actually useful accompanying it. I must be forgetting something again; what is this poster actually fo-?
The ringing of the phone once again crashes straight into my train of thought. Narrowing my eyes, I pick it up for a third time.
"Clover, have you heard of-"
I hang up before he can finish his sentence and leave the room, deliberately not closing the door this time, and walk a few feet over to throw open Room 1's as well.
"Hey, so maybe we just leave the doors open?" I suggest, raising an eyebrow at K.
"...I suppose that would make more sense, wouldn't it." he admits, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head through his suit as he hangs up his phone, the receiver of which has a little three part screen attached to the back of it.
"Yeah, probably."
Even for something this, I don't need to be updated on every little bit of potential progress via a phone call that could just as easily be conducted through some cups and a piece of string.
"What were you saying again?" I ask.
"Ah, well, I found this."
He holds up a book with a stylized illustration of a pair of cats sitting on the cover. The one on the left is pure black, while the one on the right is pure white, and also upside down. Both of them are surrounded by their opposing color, akin to a yin-yang symbol, and the pair are facing each other.
"It appears to be about a rather fascinating quantum physics thought experiment called 'Schrodinger's Cat'." K explains as he leafs through the pages. "Have you heard of it?"
"...I am familiar with the concept, yes." I dryly reply.
Considering its relevance to Akane, the axis this whole situation hinges on, I'd be kind of screwed if I wasn't.
"Oh?" K hums. "Perhaps you can assist me then. I imagine this book being placed here signifies that it is a clue of some sort, so I'm reading through it right now."
...that's a logical thought, but even if it was used in escaping this place, I'm pretty sure the game did not actually require you to read it to do so. In fact, I think it was just here to bring attention to the concept and coincidentally activate Sigma's cat-speak tic — so I should probably steer K onto other things.
"You might be right, but it'd take you a long time to read through that entire thing, and we don't even know if it's important." I point out. "Maybe save looking through it in detail for if we get stuck?"
"Hmm... it seems a bit of a shame, but perhaps you're right." K admits, closing the book and setting it back down on the safe for the moment.
"Find anything else?"
"This-" K motions to the cushioned slab behind him, which looks just like the one in my room, save that the hole is positioned over the silhouette's left knee. "-and these-" He gestures at the symbols above the glass-top desk, which look more like odd triangles than the horizontal lines I saw in Room 4. "-though I'm not quite sure what they mean just yet. There is also another safe..." He points at the metal safe beneath the phone desk. "...but we obviously cannot open it yet."
I nod. "Shall we go see what Luna's doing then?"
K nods back, and we leave the room to join Luna, who startles slightly as the door to Room 2 swings open behind her.
"Oh- hello you two." she greets us. "Is something the matter?"
"No, we just figured this would be easier if we talked to each other." I explain, stepping inside while K lingers in the doorway. "Find anything yet?"
Luna shakes her head. "Just that."
She points to the desk, where a small piece of metal that looks a bit like the pin to a wind-up toy rests. Recognizing its likely use, I pick it up, fish the other piece of metal from my pocket, and slide the former into the latter, causing them to snap together with a satisfying click.
"A key." K notes with what sounds vaguely like delight. "What could it be for?"
"I have an idea." I reply. "There's really nothing else we can do in here though?"
Luna shakes her head. "Not yet, I don't think."
I glance around the room. It's just as sparsely decorated as the others, with the familiar desk-phone-bed-locker combo, and I admittedly don't see anything to do either, beyond to pull the still-folded wall bed out. I quickly do so, revealing the same chalk-like outline as both other rooms I've been in, this time with a hole in the left arm.
"How morbid..." Luna says quietly. "These rooms are already so colorless and somber. It feels like too much to add this."
"Morbid?" K repeats. "My room had an outline like this as well. Is there something particularly strange about it?"
"Oh, um-" Luna stutters, seemingly caught off guard by the question. "Well, they usually signify... do you really not know...?"
Ignoring Luna pretending like she doesn't know exactly why K would be ignorant of such things, I brush past the latter, stepping back into the hallway, and slide the tiny key into the handcuffs locked around Door 3. A quick twist, and the cuff locked around the bar on the wall opens, leaving the chain dangling from the front of the door. A very simple solution, for this place.
Turning the newly-freed wheel, I walk inside without fanfare, and find... a room nigh-identical to the others, as I already knew it would be. K and Luna follow me in a moment later, once again proving that splitting up for this game's escape rooms will never actually last — though true to K's earlier concerns, having all three of us in the room at once does make it feel a bit cramped, especially once he pulls out the bed again.
"The right arm this time." K says, hand on his chin. "What exactly are these meant to signify...?"
I ignore him, my focus instead on the locker at the back of the room. It looks different than the others for some reason... are the lights around the buttons supposed to be lit up?
Suspicious, I walk over and try the handle — and the door swings open.
"It was already unlocked?" Luna says with clear surprise. "I don't think I ever would have noticed that."
I narrow my eyes where she can't see them. Yeah, I'm sure you wouldn't have, but only because you making major progress on your own would sort of defeat the point of making everyone else go through this in the first place. The espers need to solve puzzles and have epiphanies, and since Luna is a GAULEM, she's more of a proctor than a participant. It's literally more helpful for her not to be helpful, so I can't exactly blame her for not handing us the answers.
...and yet, knowing that, her acting impressed that I noticed something that I was clearly intended to notice feels just a little condescending. She might even actually mean it, but...
Shaking my head, I look down, any irritation I might feel at being patronized vanishing the instant I notice the large roll of silvery sheets stuffed into the locker. Yes-!
I grab the roll of foil in a sudden fervor and almost frantically start unrolling it, hardly even caring who's watching as I move to tear off a piece. Not going anywhere without a piece of this again, Dio will have to tear it away from my-
"Um, C-Clover?" Luna suddenly interrupts. "Maybe we should be a little more careful with that?"
"Yes, those markings look rather important." K adds.
I blink at the two of them, confused, until I realize there's a bunch of shapes and lines marked on the outside of the aluminum. Oh, right, this wasn't just for the bracelets, it's for- eheh.
"Fair point." I say, feeling slightly abashed. "Hold that end for me?"
Luna obliges, taking hold of the foil's end as I roll the rest out over the floor, forcing K up against a wall as he tries to get out of the way. By the time the foil starts "running clean", we've discovered four distinct sets of symbols, separated and grouped together with clear purpose. I move to tear the foil apart-
"Allow me." K breaks in, holding up what I first identify as a large USB drive, only to realize upon spotting the edge sticking out of it that he's actually holding a box cutter. "This was on the desk when we walked in. I imagine this is why."
He kneels down and slices the foil with the blade, making four perfect cuts through the thin metal... though to be honest, I think just folding and tearing it would have worked just as well. Hell, I could probably have used the tip of my nail to split it, it's just aluminum foil.
Whatever the case, we're left with four large marked sheets of foil, and quite a bit left on the rest of the roll. Setting the latter aside for the moment, I select a sheet that looks like a bunch of vertical lines next to half a K and an R, and — having already seen and remembered how this worked from what was left behind in previous timelines — slide it under the glass top of the nearby desk. The flipped reflection of the symbols carved into the wall above the desk join with those of the foil beneath it, clearly forming the word "LOCKER".
"This does not seem like a particularly necessary message." K comments. "Perhaps those in the other three rooms will be more useful?"
"Shall we check them then?" Luna asks, hand over her heart... or, where her heart would be, I guess.
"Yes." K replies simply, looking down at the thin sheets of metal. "...though, ah, perhaps one of you should carry the foil? This suit does not seem made to handle more... delicate tasks."
"I'll leave that to Luna, if that's alright." I cut in. "I want to take another quick look around before moving on. Just to make sure we haven't missed anything."
Thankfully, neither of my partners questions me as they leave to check the other rooms. The moment K and Luna are no longer in line of sight, I scoot behind the door with the roll of foil in hand and quietly tear a generous chunk of it off, sliding the resulting square into my back pocket.
Phew. Safety net reacquired... not that it'll save me from-
-The slamming of a metal door. Blood seeping through my fingertips. Gasping for air that will not come-
The roll of foil drops from my suddenly-nerveless fingers as I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself against the wall. No, don't think about it, don't think about where you are right now; think about something useful, something actionable, something-
Forcing my eyes open, I grasp at the door and pull myself around it, latching onto the handcuffs still hanging off of the handle.
-something like these, maybe? Could be useful... can I take them? Even if not to use on Dio, then at least to keep him from finding and using them on anyone else, as he pretty clearly planned to last timeline. I just need-
I pat at my pockets, only to once again find myself stymied by my outfit's total lack of storage space. I could maybe just barely fit the cuffs in my back pockets if I put a single cuff in each one, but the chain would be left hanging out, and it would be incredibly obvious I had them if anyone saw me from behind. Unless I stuck them down my- no, no, that's not gonna fly. Scratch that idea; I can't use these, or at least can't carry them around.
In which case...
I pull the key still set inside the right handcuff out and slip it back into my pocket, leaving the handcuffs themselves hanging right where they are, one side still locked around the handle.
...neither can anyone else.
I pull back from the door just as K suddenly reenters the hallway, walking back over to Room 3 with a black square in hand.
"A cassette tape?" I question as he re-enters, feeling obligated to at least ask what he's doing.
"Yes, this was in the locker in Room 2." K says, setting something in his other hand down on the shelf as he does so. "I believe I need to place this in... here."
He slots the cassette into the top of the phone, then immediately leaves the room without further comment, leaving me staring at his retreating back. Huh. Can't complain about his efficiency I guess, but somehow I expected slightly more commentary? Also what did he just-
My eyes widen as I realize what K just left behind. Wait a sec...
I walk a few steps forward and lift the box cutter from its perch. The tiny rectangle is heavier than I'd expect from something its size, the metal dense and high-quality. While it's considerably smaller than the handcuffs, even this would be too bulky for me to keep in my skin-tight pockets without it being obvious I have it.
However...
Carefully retracting the blade, I lift the tool to my collar and gently, hesitantly slip it into the left side of my top. The tightness of the fabric keeps it in place as I straighten back up, while the fur collar outlining the cups hides the concealed weapon surprisingly well.
...this might actually work. I do feel slightly humiliated to be resorting to Victoria's Secret Compartment, and it's a little uncomfortable, but I can deal with that. Better than being left defenseless again.
The cassette in the phone abruptly starts spinning, and I wince as the sound of Zero Jr's voice breaks out over the hallway, pointlessly tinny and needlessly pre-recorded. Man, how loud is that message meant to play? Maybe leaving the doors open wasn't a great idea after all.
Deciding I should probably get back to actually helping, if just because I can only realistically pretend I'm still checking this room for so long, I leave Room 3 and walk back over to Room 4, where I started. Luna is inside of it now, staring at the now mostly scratched-off poster. To my surprise, not only has the correct foil sheet has been placed on the glass desk in my absence, but the locker has also been opened.
"Huh, good job Luna." I say idly, having been almost certain I'd have to enter the code and open the latter myself.
Luna looks over at me and... blushes? Wait, did Sigma seriously give her the ability to do that? I mean I guess he did want her to be lifelike, but I thought her skin was-
"T-thank you..." Luna mumbles, breaking my train of thought. "Here."
She pushes an oversized plastic coin into my hands, refusing to meet my eyes for some reason.
"I think it's for that poster?" she continues, still acting weirdly embarrassed. "Though you seem to have already made significant progress without it."
I turn the coin over, then glance down at my nails. Is that really what this coin was for? If so, feels like this particular section of the game really kind of skimped on the internal logic. Both this and the box cutter are kind of extraneous for the tasks they've been set out for, so long as you have access to... well, hands.
"I just didn't think you were the kind of person who'd appreciate something like this."
I stare at her cluelessly, glancing back and forth between her and the poster. Appreciate- huh?
"I'm afraid I am still unable to open the locker in Room 1." K announces as he walks into the room and rejoins us. "It appears to at least be active now, and I have discovered a sequence of shapes, but the code itself remains-"
He trails off as he spots the poster on the wall, staring silently for a moment before resuming.
"...Clover, did you model for this?"
"Do I look that tall or tanned?" I ask with half-lidded eyes.
"No, but I noticed the resemblance too." Luna chimes in. "They even have the same little pink sticker under their eyes."
Hey, my sticker is a flower, hers is a star! If you're gonna slander me at least get it right!
"What's this?" K asks before I can protest this point, rubbing his armored finger over the fragments of silver-gray still clinging to the paper.
"It's scratch-off foil. It's commonly used on scratch cards, or to obscure information that isn't meant to be seen." Luna answers.
"I see." K glances back at me, posed in such a way that I can practically feel the raised eyebrow. "...this doesn't particularly feel like the time for this sort of thing, Clover."
This sort of- what is he implying-
"I didn't expect it either." Luna agrees, hands clasped together. "She doesn't really seem like she'd be her own type, does she-"
"HEY!" I shout, flushing. "What are you two insinuating?! It's not like I put the thing here, and of course I scratched off the foil, it's part of this room's puzzle!"
...I think. It is, isn't it? Surely it's not just decoration for- I mean just because I didn't find anything under the foil doesn't mean-
I glance back at the outline on the pull-out bed, then back at the cutesy accessories and tattoos the woman on the poster is wearing. Oh RIGHT!
Shoving K aside — or rather, K lets himself be shoved aside as I raise the plastic coin and use it to scratch at the woman's cutesy arm and leg accessories, which are positioned in the same places the torn away sections of the beds were. Sure enough, they peel away just like the other foil — I just didn't remember or realize they were foil, because they were deliberately made not to look like it. They're actually pretty well hidden even to senses other than sight; the accessories aren't raised above the paper at all like the other foil was, and they don't even have a noticeably-different texture from the material around them.
The coin does actually make the task slightly easier, if only by degrees, so within short order I've revealed a 6 in a star on the woman's right bicep, a 1 in a circle on her left forearm, an 8 in a diamond on her right knee, and a 9 in a triangle on her left calf.
"See?" I say, relieved. "We actually needed to scratch all this off!"
"Yes... though not the foil that existed over her torso or hips. Which appears to be the only part you initially made any effort to remove."
The audible mirth in K's usually monotone voice brings the red right back to my face.
"Because it was way more obvious! And it's not like I would've known until- oh, forget it!"
I shove the fake coin into a pocket and pout as both my partners visibly hold back laughter. Stupid Sigma, your horny puzzle prop is getting me accused of your vices in your stead! And really? Out of everyone in this game, this pair is the one to stab me in the back like this? Luna could be innocently vicious at times — I distinctly recall her implicitly agreeing that Sigma looks he lives in a garden shed — but this almost feels targeted, especially since she should already have known about this poster!
"Ahem... all humor aside, I believe this may be the final code we need." K says, blessedly dropping the previous topic. "The shapes line up with the ones from the foil, which I imagine will open the locker in Room 1."
All too happy to move on from the prior subject, I let K take the lead as we move back to the locker in Room 1. He starts punching in the numbers via the its strange, addition-based lock, but I frown upon noticing what he's punched in actually adds up to.
"Shouldn't it be 1689?"
"Two of the shapes on the poster were upside down, compared to the sequence on the foil." K calmly replies. "I took that to mean that their numbers should also be flipped. Do you disagree?"
"Oh... no, I just hadn't noticed." I backtrack, glancing over at the foil in question. "Nevermind."
He's right. Pretty sure that detail tripped me up when I first played the game as well, so you'd think I'd have remembered the trick. I don't feel like I'm really on my A-game right now... possibly because the closer we get to solving this room, the closer I in turn get to discovering if I'm now in the correct timeline. To discovering if I'm talking to K right now, or to Akane.
It's starting to weigh rather heavy on my thoughts.
The lights on the locker turn blue, and K pulls it open, revealing a small, glowing green screen, already lit up with the trio of symbols we need. I move over to the safe beneath the phone and punch the combination in, revealing the same combination of key, keycards, and page of rabbit-speak extra rules I recall obtaining from the lounge, what feels like a small eternity ago. I pass one keycard to Luna and pocket the other, letting my partners discuss the page of rules I already know on their own.
"Before we proceed, I feel I should point out there may be another code for us to find." K says just as I'm about to walk out and unlock the door. "Clover and I discovered as much back in the room we awoke in, which led us to discover the file you saw her holding earlier."
He looks to me, I suppose for additional input, but I've got nothing to really say to that anymore.
"What did the file actually contain?" Luna asks.
I shrug. "Just a bunch of terms and explanations we all heard a few minutes later anyways. Nothing useful."
"A different one might be more so, however." K points out.
Luna nods. "If it could have additional information about our situation, we should probably try to find it, shouldn't we? It could be important."
"Maybe?" I reluctantly admit. "We can stick around and try to find another secret safe code or something if you two really want, but we might want to hurry up as well. Just because that rabbit didn't give us a time limit to get out of here like he did with those fake elevators doesn't mean there isn't one."
I also already know what the Crew Quarters file covered, and it was nothing I really feel needs to be brought up or reiterated this timeline, so I'm not exactly keen on going out of my way to help find it this time.
"A fair point." K muses. "I'm not certain how long we've been in here for either... perhaps we would be better off safe than sorry. That said-"
He leans down, grabbing the Schrodinger's Cat book from the top of the safe again.
"-I shall be taking this with me, I think. While apparently not needed for this room, the fact that it was deliberately placed here leads me to believe it still might somehow be related to our larger situation."
...you have no idea how simultaneously wrong and right you are, K.
Despite her previously-stated opinion, Luna doesn't seem too upset by K's change of heart, and we all file out into the main corridor. I twist the key in the lock, and the exit slides open, ejecting us from the Crew Quarters' hallway back into a slightly-less dingy one.
The moment of truth approaches...
I pick the cylinder up and slip into my now empty pockets, taking note of the horizontal markings carved into the wall above the desk this time. The fold out "bed" hasn't been pulled down out of the wall yet either, so I do so, revealing the expected dull white outline of a human body, a hole in the fabric where the right ankle should be. Creepy as ever...
Tossing the archive file I'm still holding on the bed for the moment, I pan my gaze around the fairly bare room. Whatever puzzles this places contained, they must not have been too memorable, because I don't recall any of them — though I can't imagine the important bits will be hard to find, given how bare bones these quarters are. Other than the desk and bed, there's just a landline phone sitting on a small table extending from the wall, a tall locker with nine buttons set near the handle that I'm pretty sure I can't open yet, and...
A wall poster of a tanned, red-headed woman posing on a beach, her chest and pelvis obscured by silvery gray scratch-off foil.
Who I can't help but notice looks more than a little like a slightly older Clover.
Shaking my head, I step up to the poster and mechanically start scratching off the silvery section, my fake nails more than long and sturdy enough to serve this particular function. Leave it to Sigma to include a set piece like this in his escape room puzzle. There better be a swimsuit under here...
As I work at the poster, I frown, still considering the Dio problem. I need to strike first this time, somehow — maybe even ensure that he dies early, just so he can't cause any more problems. Is that even possible to do without his fail-safe setting off the bombs though? I'm pretty sure he was killed by K in at least one timeline in canon, and it didn't kick in then... maybe it only works if he's already armed the bombs? Might actually be the same with the detonator, given he apparently removed it from his person last timeline...
I exhale. God, I can't believe I'm seriously considering the logistics of committing premeditated murder. Would that I could think of a better option, but Dio has been more actively hostile thus far than even the game proper led me to expect, and I don't know how else I could possibly-
The phone suddenly rings, startling me out of my morbid thoughts. Breaking from my task, I walk over and answer it.
"Hello?"
"Ah, hello Clover." K's voice says from the other end of the line. "I take it your room has a phone as well? It seems the numbered buttons at the top connect them to each other."
"Guess so." I reply. "I take it it's not usable as an actual phone?"
"Not so far as I can tell. I of course tried several emergency numbers first, but this phone does not appear to have an external connection, nor a way to type in more than four digits at once. I also attempted to call Room 3, but there is apparently no number associated with it."
"Meaning you can only call Rooms 1, 2, and 4?" I summarize. "Feels like it'd be simpler for you to just walk over here and talk to me in that case."
In fact, even in the context of the video game, a phone line connecting rooms all of fifteen feet away from each other seems incredibly pointless. There's undoubtedly some other purpose to them, I just don't recall-
I glance back down. Ah.
"Wait, the display on my phone changed."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it says '25**'." I read off. "Probably part of a code or something? I'm guessing Luna's room has a phone too, maybe call her and see if the same thing happens."
"I shall."
I hang up, turning back to both the poster and my prior thoughts.
Seriously, is there any better way to deal with the threat Dio poses other than just... killing him? I suppose I could let the others know of the threat he poses early, but they'd have no reason to trust my word over his, other than his general unpleasantness. Could I maybe trick him into revealing his true intentions somehow? I'm pretty sure Sigma did something like that in the game, though I'm not sure it would work for me even if I remembered the specifics. The easiest way I can think to get the threat Dio poses across would be to get proof he stabbed Akane, but I don't actually know if she's dead yet, and in fact I'm really hoping she isn't in this line, since this entire endeavor becomes kind of pointless otherwise.
My eyebrows scrunch inwards. Whatever I do, I need to do it soon. Dio almost certainly can't have planted any of the bombs yet, and everyone is still alive at this point, meaning this first round is undoubtedly the best time to deal with him-
The phone rings again. Blinking, I do the same as before.
"Yes...?"
"It seems you were correct, Clover." K's voice sounds out again. "Luna's phone gave me the other half of the code. I managed to connect to Room 3 with it, but it seems we will need a tape for its 'answering machine' to function."
"Huh. Good to know. Keep at it."
I hang up and again return to my previous task, shaking my hands to remove some of the silvery gunk that's accumulated under my nails. It's proving surprisingly slippery, but I'm making headway, having gotten most of the foil off the poster by now. However... well, there IS a bikini underneath, but unless there's information secretly hidden in this woman's tan lines, I don't think there's anything actually useful accompanying it. I must be forgetting something again; what is this poster actually fo-?
The ringing of the phone once again crashes straight into my train of thought. Narrowing my eyes, I pick it up for a third time.
"Clover, have you heard of-"
I hang up before he can finish his sentence and leave the room, deliberately not closing the door this time, and walk a few feet over to throw open Room 1's as well.
"Hey, so maybe we just leave the doors open?" I suggest, raising an eyebrow at K.
"...I suppose that would make more sense, wouldn't it." he admits, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head through his suit as he hangs up his phone, the receiver of which has a little three part screen attached to the back of it.
"Yeah, probably."
Even for something this, I don't need to be updated on every little bit of potential progress via a phone call that could just as easily be conducted through some cups and a piece of string.
"What were you saying again?" I ask.
"Ah, well, I found this."
He holds up a book with a stylized illustration of a pair of cats sitting on the cover. The one on the left is pure black, while the one on the right is pure white, and also upside down. Both of them are surrounded by their opposing color, akin to a yin-yang symbol, and the pair are facing each other.
"It appears to be about a rather fascinating quantum physics thought experiment called 'Schrodinger's Cat'." K explains as he leafs through the pages. "Have you heard of it?"
"...I am familiar with the concept, yes." I dryly reply.
Considering its relevance to Akane, the axis this whole situation hinges on, I'd be kind of screwed if I wasn't.
"Oh?" K hums. "Perhaps you can assist me then. I imagine this book being placed here signifies that it is a clue of some sort, so I'm reading through it right now."
...that's a logical thought, but even if it was used in escaping this place, I'm pretty sure the game did not actually require you to read it to do so. In fact, I think it was just here to bring attention to the concept and coincidentally activate Sigma's cat-speak tic — so I should probably steer K onto other things.
"You might be right, but it'd take you a long time to read through that entire thing, and we don't even know if it's important." I point out. "Maybe save looking through it in detail for if we get stuck?"
"Hmm... it seems a bit of a shame, but perhaps you're right." K admits, closing the book and setting it back down on the safe for the moment.
"Find anything else?"
"This-" K motions to the cushioned slab behind him, which looks just like the one in my room, save that the hole is positioned over the silhouette's left knee. "-and these-" He gestures at the symbols above the glass-top desk, which look more like odd triangles than the horizontal lines I saw in Room 4. "-though I'm not quite sure what they mean just yet. There is also another safe..." He points at the metal safe beneath the phone desk. "...but we obviously cannot open it yet."
I nod. "Shall we go see what Luna's doing then?"
K nods back, and we leave the room to join Luna, who startles slightly as the door to Room 2 swings open behind her.
"Oh- hello you two." she greets us. "Is something the matter?"
"No, we just figured this would be easier if we talked to each other." I explain, stepping inside while K lingers in the doorway. "Find anything yet?"
Luna shakes her head. "Just that."
She points to the desk, where a small piece of metal that looks a bit like the pin to a wind-up toy rests. Recognizing its likely use, I pick it up, fish the other piece of metal from my pocket, and slide the former into the latter, causing them to snap together with a satisfying click.
"A key." K notes with what sounds vaguely like delight. "What could it be for?"
"I have an idea." I reply. "There's really nothing else we can do in here though?"
Luna shakes her head. "Not yet, I don't think."
I glance around the room. It's just as sparsely decorated as the others, with the familiar desk-phone-bed-locker combo, and I admittedly don't see anything to do either, beyond to pull the still-folded wall bed out. I quickly do so, revealing the same chalk-like outline as both other rooms I've been in, this time with a hole in the left arm.
"How morbid..." Luna says quietly. "These rooms are already so colorless and somber. It feels like too much to add this."
"Morbid?" K repeats. "My room had an outline like this as well. Is there something particularly strange about it?"
"Oh, um-" Luna stutters, seemingly caught off guard by the question. "Well, they usually signify... do you really not know...?"
Ignoring Luna pretending like she doesn't know exactly why K would be ignorant of such things, I brush past the latter, stepping back into the hallway, and slide the tiny key into the handcuffs locked around Door 3. A quick twist, and the cuff locked around the bar on the wall opens, leaving the chain dangling from the front of the door. A very simple solution, for this place.
Turning the newly-freed wheel, I walk inside without fanfare, and find... a room nigh-identical to the others, as I already knew it would be. K and Luna follow me in a moment later, once again proving that splitting up for this game's escape rooms will never actually last — though true to K's earlier concerns, having all three of us in the room at once does make it feel a bit cramped, especially once he pulls out the bed again.
"The right arm this time." K says, hand on his chin. "What exactly are these meant to signify...?"
I ignore him, my focus instead on the locker at the back of the room. It looks different than the others for some reason... are the lights around the buttons supposed to be lit up?
Suspicious, I walk over and try the handle — and the door swings open.
"It was already unlocked?" Luna says with clear surprise. "I don't think I ever would have noticed that."
I narrow my eyes where she can't see them. Yeah, I'm sure you wouldn't have, but only because you making major progress on your own would sort of defeat the point of making everyone else go through this in the first place. The espers need to solve puzzles and have epiphanies, and since Luna is a GAULEM, she's more of a proctor than a participant. It's literally more helpful for her not to be helpful, so I can't exactly blame her for not handing us the answers.
...and yet, knowing that, her acting impressed that I noticed something that I was clearly intended to notice feels just a little condescending. She might even actually mean it, but...
Shaking my head, I look down, any irritation I might feel at being patronized vanishing the instant I notice the large roll of silvery sheets stuffed into the locker. Yes-!
I grab the roll of foil in a sudden fervor and almost frantically start unrolling it, hardly even caring who's watching as I move to tear off a piece. Not going anywhere without a piece of this again, Dio will have to tear it away from my-
"Um, C-Clover?" Luna suddenly interrupts. "Maybe we should be a little more careful with that?"
"Yes, those markings look rather important." K adds.
I blink at the two of them, confused, until I realize there's a bunch of shapes and lines marked on the outside of the aluminum. Oh, right, this wasn't just for the bracelets, it's for- eheh.
"Fair point." I say, feeling slightly abashed. "Hold that end for me?"
Luna obliges, taking hold of the foil's end as I roll the rest out over the floor, forcing K up against a wall as he tries to get out of the way. By the time the foil starts "running clean", we've discovered four distinct sets of symbols, separated and grouped together with clear purpose. I move to tear the foil apart-
"Allow me." K breaks in, holding up what I first identify as a large USB drive, only to realize upon spotting the edge sticking out of it that he's actually holding a box cutter. "This was on the desk when we walked in. I imagine this is why."
He kneels down and slices the foil with the blade, making four perfect cuts through the thin metal... though to be honest, I think just folding and tearing it would have worked just as well. Hell, I could probably have used the tip of my nail to split it, it's just aluminum foil.
Whatever the case, we're left with four large marked sheets of foil, and quite a bit left on the rest of the roll. Setting the latter aside for the moment, I select a sheet that looks like a bunch of vertical lines next to half a K and an R, and — having already seen and remembered how this worked from what was left behind in previous timelines — slide it under the glass top of the nearby desk. The flipped reflection of the symbols carved into the wall above the desk join with those of the foil beneath it, clearly forming the word "LOCKER".
"This does not seem like a particularly necessary message." K comments. "Perhaps those in the other three rooms will be more useful?"
"Shall we check them then?" Luna asks, hand over her heart... or, where her heart would be, I guess.
"Yes." K replies simply, looking down at the thin sheets of metal. "...though, ah, perhaps one of you should carry the foil? This suit does not seem made to handle more... delicate tasks."
"I'll leave that to Luna, if that's alright." I cut in. "I want to take another quick look around before moving on. Just to make sure we haven't missed anything."
Thankfully, neither of my partners questions me as they leave to check the other rooms. The moment K and Luna are no longer in line of sight, I scoot behind the door with the roll of foil in hand and quietly tear a generous chunk of it off, sliding the resulting square into my back pocket.
Phew. Safety net reacquired... not that it'll save me from-
-The slamming of a metal door. Blood seeping through my fingertips. Gasping for air that will not come-
The roll of foil drops from my suddenly-nerveless fingers as I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself against the wall. No, don't think about it, don't think about where you are right now; think about something useful, something actionable, something-
Forcing my eyes open, I grasp at the door and pull myself around it, latching onto the handcuffs still hanging off of the handle.
-something like these, maybe? Could be useful... can I take them? Even if not to use on Dio, then at least to keep him from finding and using them on anyone else, as he pretty clearly planned to last timeline. I just need-
I pat at my pockets, only to once again find myself stymied by my outfit's total lack of storage space. I could maybe just barely fit the cuffs in my back pockets if I put a single cuff in each one, but the chain would be left hanging out, and it would be incredibly obvious I had them if anyone saw me from behind. Unless I stuck them down my- no, no, that's not gonna fly. Scratch that idea; I can't use these, or at least can't carry them around.
In which case...
I pull the key still set inside the right handcuff out and slip it back into my pocket, leaving the handcuffs themselves hanging right where they are, one side still locked around the handle.
...neither can anyone else.
I pull back from the door just as K suddenly reenters the hallway, walking back over to Room 3 with a black square in hand.
"A cassette tape?" I question as he re-enters, feeling obligated to at least ask what he's doing.
"Yes, this was in the locker in Room 2." K says, setting something in his other hand down on the shelf as he does so. "I believe I need to place this in... here."
He slots the cassette into the top of the phone, then immediately leaves the room without further comment, leaving me staring at his retreating back. Huh. Can't complain about his efficiency I guess, but somehow I expected slightly more commentary? Also what did he just-
My eyes widen as I realize what K just left behind. Wait a sec...
I walk a few steps forward and lift the box cutter from its perch. The tiny rectangle is heavier than I'd expect from something its size, the metal dense and high-quality. While it's considerably smaller than the handcuffs, even this would be too bulky for me to keep in my skin-tight pockets without it being obvious I have it.
However...
Carefully retracting the blade, I lift the tool to my collar and gently, hesitantly slip it into the left side of my top. The tightness of the fabric keeps it in place as I straighten back up, while the fur collar outlining the cups hides the concealed weapon surprisingly well.
...this might actually work. I do feel slightly humiliated to be resorting to Victoria's Secret Compartment, and it's a little uncomfortable, but I can deal with that. Better than being left defenseless again.
The cassette in the phone abruptly starts spinning, and I wince as the sound of Zero Jr's voice breaks out over the hallway, pointlessly tinny and needlessly pre-recorded. Man, how loud is that message meant to play? Maybe leaving the doors open wasn't a great idea after all.
Deciding I should probably get back to actually helping, if just because I can only realistically pretend I'm still checking this room for so long, I leave Room 3 and walk back over to Room 4, where I started. Luna is inside of it now, staring at the now mostly scratched-off poster. To my surprise, not only has the correct foil sheet has been placed on the glass desk in my absence, but the locker has also been opened.
"Huh, good job Luna." I say idly, having been almost certain I'd have to enter the code and open the latter myself.
Luna looks over at me and... blushes? Wait, did Sigma seriously give her the ability to do that? I mean I guess he did want her to be lifelike, but I thought her skin was-
"T-thank you..." Luna mumbles, breaking my train of thought. "Here."
She pushes an oversized plastic coin into my hands, refusing to meet my eyes for some reason.
"I think it's for that poster?" she continues, still acting weirdly embarrassed. "Though you seem to have already made significant progress without it."
I turn the coin over, then glance down at my nails. Is that really what this coin was for? If so, feels like this particular section of the game really kind of skimped on the internal logic. Both this and the box cutter are kind of extraneous for the tasks they've been set out for, so long as you have access to... well, hands.
"I just didn't think you were the kind of person who'd appreciate something like this."
I stare at her cluelessly, glancing back and forth between her and the poster. Appreciate- huh?
"I'm afraid I am still unable to open the locker in Room 1." K announces as he walks into the room and rejoins us. "It appears to at least be active now, and I have discovered a sequence of shapes, but the code itself remains-"
He trails off as he spots the poster on the wall, staring silently for a moment before resuming.
"...Clover, did you model for this?"
"Do I look that tall or tanned?" I ask with half-lidded eyes.
"No, but I noticed the resemblance too." Luna chimes in. "They even have the same little pink sticker under their eyes."
Hey, my sticker is a flower, hers is a star! If you're gonna slander me at least get it right!
"What's this?" K asks before I can protest this point, rubbing his armored finger over the fragments of silver-gray still clinging to the paper.
"It's scratch-off foil. It's commonly used on scratch cards, or to obscure information that isn't meant to be seen." Luna answers.
"I see." K glances back at me, posed in such a way that I can practically feel the raised eyebrow. "...this doesn't particularly feel like the time for this sort of thing, Clover."
This sort of- what is he implying-
"I didn't expect it either." Luna agrees, hands clasped together. "She doesn't really seem like she'd be her own type, does she-"
"HEY!" I shout, flushing. "What are you two insinuating?! It's not like I put the thing here, and of course I scratched off the foil, it's part of this room's puzzle!"
...I think. It is, isn't it? Surely it's not just decoration for- I mean just because I didn't find anything under the foil doesn't mean-
I glance back at the outline on the pull-out bed, then back at the cutesy accessories and tattoos the woman on the poster is wearing. Oh RIGHT!
Shoving K aside — or rather, K lets himself be shoved aside as I raise the plastic coin and use it to scratch at the woman's cutesy arm and leg accessories, which are positioned in the same places the torn away sections of the beds were. Sure enough, they peel away just like the other foil — I just didn't remember or realize they were foil, because they were deliberately made not to look like it. They're actually pretty well hidden even to senses other than sight; the accessories aren't raised above the paper at all like the other foil was, and they don't even have a noticeably-different texture from the material around them.
The coin does actually make the task slightly easier, if only by degrees, so within short order I've revealed a 6 in a star on the woman's right bicep, a 1 in a circle on her left forearm, an 8 in a diamond on her right knee, and a 9 in a triangle on her left calf.
"See?" I say, relieved. "We actually needed to scratch all this off!"
"Yes... though not the foil that existed over her torso or hips. Which appears to be the only part you initially made any effort to remove."
The audible mirth in K's usually monotone voice brings the red right back to my face.
"Because it was way more obvious! And it's not like I would've known until- oh, forget it!"
I shove the fake coin into a pocket and pout as both my partners visibly hold back laughter. Stupid Sigma, your horny puzzle prop is getting me accused of your vices in your stead! And really? Out of everyone in this game, this pair is the one to stab me in the back like this? Luna could be innocently vicious at times — I distinctly recall her implicitly agreeing that Sigma looks he lives in a garden shed — but this almost feels targeted, especially since she should already have known about this poster!
"Ahem... all humor aside, I believe this may be the final code we need." K says, blessedly dropping the previous topic. "The shapes line up with the ones from the foil, which I imagine will open the locker in Room 1."
All too happy to move on from the prior subject, I let K take the lead as we move back to the locker in Room 1. He starts punching in the numbers via the its strange, addition-based lock, but I frown upon noticing what he's punched in actually adds up to.
"Shouldn't it be 1689?"
"Two of the shapes on the poster were upside down, compared to the sequence on the foil." K calmly replies. "I took that to mean that their numbers should also be flipped. Do you disagree?"
"Oh... no, I just hadn't noticed." I backtrack, glancing over at the foil in question. "Nevermind."
He's right. Pretty sure that detail tripped me up when I first played the game as well, so you'd think I'd have remembered the trick. I don't feel like I'm really on my A-game right now... possibly because the closer we get to solving this room, the closer I in turn get to discovering if I'm now in the correct timeline. To discovering if I'm talking to K right now, or to Akane.
It's starting to weigh rather heavy on my thoughts.
The lights on the locker turn blue, and K pulls it open, revealing a small, glowing green screen, already lit up with the trio of symbols we need. I move over to the safe beneath the phone and punch the combination in, revealing the same combination of key, keycards, and page of rabbit-speak extra rules I recall obtaining from the lounge, what feels like a small eternity ago. I pass one keycard to Luna and pocket the other, letting my partners discuss the page of rules I already know on their own.
"Before we proceed, I feel I should point out there may be another code for us to find." K says just as I'm about to walk out and unlock the door. "Clover and I discovered as much back in the room we awoke in, which led us to discover the file you saw her holding earlier."
He looks to me, I suppose for additional input, but I've got nothing to really say to that anymore.
"What did the file actually contain?" Luna asks.
I shrug. "Just a bunch of terms and explanations we all heard a few minutes later anyways. Nothing useful."
"A different one might be more so, however." K points out.
Luna nods. "If it could have additional information about our situation, we should probably try to find it, shouldn't we? It could be important."
"Maybe?" I reluctantly admit. "We can stick around and try to find another secret safe code or something if you two really want, but we might want to hurry up as well. Just because that rabbit didn't give us a time limit to get out of here like he did with those fake elevators doesn't mean there isn't one."
I also already know what the Crew Quarters file covered, and it was nothing I really feel needs to be brought up or reiterated this timeline, so I'm not exactly keen on going out of my way to help find it this time.
"A fair point." K muses. "I'm not certain how long we've been in here for either... perhaps we would be better off safe than sorry. That said-"
He leans down, grabbing the Schrodinger's Cat book from the top of the safe again.
"-I shall be taking this with me, I think. While apparently not needed for this room, the fact that it was deliberately placed here leads me to believe it still might somehow be related to our larger situation."
...you have no idea how simultaneously wrong and right you are, K.
Despite her previously-stated opinion, Luna doesn't seem too upset by K's change of heart, and we all file out into the main corridor. I twist the key in the lock, and the exit slides open, ejecting us from the Crew Quarters' hallway back into a slightly-less dingy one.
The moment of truth approaches...
...I really don't know why I didn't release this like. Three weeks ago. It was all pretty much ready to go, I just... didn't do it. Sorry? ^^;
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @CCBubba, @Captain Skipjack, Leaf, Bertucchi, Jordan Juengel, Alxariam, kleinerToaster, and my seven other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives three full sets of press on nails, color, details, and variety chosen at random. Surprisingly, these things are strong enough and sharp enough to scratch, slice, and serve as emergency self-defense tools, all at the literal tips of your fingers! The extra-strength glue ensures that they will not be coming off however, and they can be a bit inconvenient for tasks requiring fine motor skills, so please be sure you know what you're doing before applying... what? You thought I'd be giving you a box cutter? No, I'll be keeping that close to the chest for now, I think... 📦🔪💅
A huge thanks to @Pheonix14, @Warclam, @ScorpioBot, @CCBubba, @Captain Skipjack, Leaf, Bertucchi, Jordan Juengel, Alxariam, kleinerToaster, and my seven other Patrons not named here, as well as an extra special thanks to a certain generous patron who wishes to remain unnamed. Each of them receives three full sets of press on nails, color, details, and variety chosen at random. Surprisingly, these things are strong enough and sharp enough to scratch, slice, and serve as emergency self-defense tools, all at the literal tips of your fingers! The extra-strength glue ensures that they will not be coming off however, and they can be a bit inconvenient for tasks requiring fine motor skills, so please be sure you know what you're doing before applying... what? You thought I'd be giving you a box cutter? No, I'll be keeping that close to the chest for now, I think... 📦🔪💅
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Lepidoptera
Mother of Monsters, Unverified Impuritas Civitatis
- Location
- Indeterminate Unknown
Lovely work on the chapter as always, Flair! This one was more of a break chapter between the more dramatic moments, though of course that doesn't mean Clover!Flair is getting a break from the constant stress and anxiety.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
Some of the puzzle props are kinda superfluous when you factor in the protagonist having hands to do stuff with, yeah. Limitations of the videogame medium, I guess?
I can't recall why it's important whether K or Akane is within his big suit, tbh.
I can't recall why it's important whether K or Akane is within his big suit, tbh.
- Location
- Elsewhere
JBcristal
Bring Me All The Puppies!
- Location
- Somewhere that doesn't have enough puppies.
I don't know guys, I've tried scratching off that foil with my nails before, and what an absolutely pathetic and miserable experience it was.
Fake nails sounds about enough, while a cutter can easily damage the surface underneath... it's not a perfect scenario, but I can appreciate both some wariness to not destroy parts or the puzzle, and arguably the more blatant mental connection of "scratch off scratcher with coin".
Anyway... still patiently expecting the wide-reaching repercussions of Cloverina's fuck up!
Fake nails sounds about enough, while a cutter can easily damage the surface underneath... it's not a perfect scenario, but I can appreciate both some wariness to not destroy parts or the puzzle, and arguably the more blatant mental connection of "scratch off scratcher with coin".
Anyway... still patiently expecting the wide-reaching repercussions of Cloverina's fuck up!
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Thank you! It's nice that even with this story's glacial pace, there are still readers around willing to stick with me. d(OuO)b
And here it is! And here's me replying to you after the fact, so it doesn't make any sense! o(≧∀≦)o
Indeed — 21 chapters later, we have finally arrived back at a point where Clover!me could, at least theoretically, survive to see the game's end. Let's see how I do!
I mean, it's based on a concept that can't really be proven or disproven in either direction, so maybe! Would be nice I could peek through the MGF to figure out when I'm going to actually finish this story though; maybe steal a few already-written chapters from myself? Ah, how convenient that would be...
Catch me in the alternate timeline with my Danganronpa SI, where I undoubtedly ended up as someone who dies in canon. It'd be par for the course.
Hey, I'm doing my best here! Cut me some slack! (≧ ﹏ ≦)
Yes, something like that would be quite the grenade to throw into the middle of the group, now wouldn't it~
If K is in the suit, that means Akane is dead, meaning the time loop that led to all this cannot complete itself and the game most likely cannot be finished (at least not with everyone still alive). Clover!me's hopes also currently rest on Akane technically -knowing- about the existence of the player/higher-dimensional beings (based on her words in the bonus scene at the end of VLR, in which the consciousness of what is implied to be the player themselves ends up inside K), so without her I've got little hope of understanding how I could have even come to be in this situation, much less how to escape it. Suffice to say, she's important.
I'd argue the poster's mere existence is revenge enough. Seriously, Sigma and Akane presumably had to make that print themselves, so why make it look like Clover of all people, like the damn flash game wasn't bad enough as is *grumble grumble*
What, you think things can't ever just be easy? Hmmph! Maybe for once I'm going to give Clover!me a break! Maybe the situation -isn't- actually that complex! Maybe someone smiled on me and decided I've struggled enough as is, and it'll be an intentional irony of how I'm now more prepared and better equipped when nothing goes wrong at all! I'll show you! 😤
I mean, there were only two espers actually SHIFTing around, and by the time Sigma and Phi both realized what was actually happening, they were a little more concerned about keeping Dio alive long enough to give them the codes to disarm his bombs. Also, while Dio was still an ass to them, he wasn't quite as direct a threat as he's proved to be for Clover!me...
Maybe we just call it "future-proofing" and leave it at that?
I mean hey, Clover!me's pockets have been shockingly functional for all the tinier bits and bobs I've been collecting! Just, not anything more substantial than paper, foil, keycards, etc. As such, needs must when the character designers fail to provide — and so down my top the box cutter goes. ^^;
JBcristal
Bring Me All The Puppies!
- Location
- Somewhere that doesn't have enough puppies.
Oh, I'm not talking in future tense, I'm patiently waiting for something that already happened.
Alice can hold one hell of a grudge. And nevermind what she'd feel if her "best friend" asked the dumbest thing she can possibly ask her to show herself to not be an impostor, yeah? It'd suuure be a shame if such a thing could have far-reaching consequences~
Hey at least that wouldn't be as bad of a deal as the protagonist of "I'm Who Now?" Gets.