Fifth Trial

[bathymetric]

[ There's a long while of examination before the Mayor speaks up. There's plenty of evidence to pick up yet again this week, after all. ]

Annnd that's going to do it. Wrap it up and head to the bathyspheres, kids, you've got some business to attend to.

[ The bathyspheres take you all down, down, into the now-familiar dome below the city. The similarly familiar red glow persists until the lights properly turn on - the projection of Fontaine's silhouette is gone, of course, replaced by that same flickering "please stand by" message. But your mayor's voice is still the one that speaks over the increasingly empty circle of podiums. ]

If you somehow need a reminder of why you're here, three of you are dead. Get away with it, killer or killers, and the execution room gets to really work overtime today. But I guess if you wanna live, you should find who murdered three people. Could be important for you guys.

[ Welcome to your fifth trial. ]

Comments

Misfire Evidence, part 1! cw: robot gore

[capreelcious]

So... Moon Jellyfish and I found Flying Fish in the fields. He was missing his head and an arm. Looked like someone tore them off him with an applied force instead of bein' sliced off.

He also had a whole pitchfork run all the way through his body, and into one of those fiberglass cows. He was pretty dented up, too.

[ He pauses, trying to remember things. ]

He was definitely dragged through the field from the barn because it was a mess, and there were pink blood drag marks leading into it. There were also smushed veggies on his feet, and when I went to look, some of the pumpkins had a bunch of holes in 'em? And the squashes were well, squashed.

cw: robot gore

[onemillion]

[Flying Fish is Misfire, right... Anyway, Rossiu is also here with poor Misfire's head which he is going to set on Misfire's podium so anyone else can look it over if they want to. Also so he's not just. holding the poor guy's head through this trial.]

I can confirm that; Misfire's head shows signs of being torn off. It was leaking pink in the shallows of the lake where I found it.

[It's no longer leaking said pink stuff, though it is still wet.]

[inaclearing]

What the fuck?

[Brett rarely says a fuck, but THAT IS HIS FRIEND'S HEAD!]

[onemillion]

[these things happen!!! sometimes you just bring a head to a trial, It's Fine.]

cw: robot gore

[specialyellthing]

That’s… a lil over the top, ain’t it?

[onemillion]

Agreed. I'm not sure what the point of it was.

[Yes, some parts of this had to be done in order to actually kill Misfire, but like??? C'mon???]

[allatonce]

I'd personally just say that was practical. Removing a robot's head is pretty normal to ensure that they're "dead."

[onemillion]

Why throw it in the lake, then? Not to mention whatever it was they did to his arm.

[specialyellthing]

That’s the part that just seems disrespectful.

[allatonce]

You usually have to separate the head from the body so a robot can't self repair—which I'd normally say was a "power" but in this case it might have been a "biological" function like Nandor's blood drinking. I assume the arm was to weaken him.

[howveryglib]

…

Why did you bring his head to the trial.

[onemillion]

In case someone more knowledgeable with technology could learn something more from it than I could.

[howveryglib]

…

Would you bring the head of a flesh and blood person in the event that someone with more knowledge of human anatomy could discern something.

[LIKE… HE’S FULL OF PINK ROBOT BLOOD THIS IS WEIRD]

[onemillion]

[listen he owns a head-in-a-jar, what did you expect of him.]

[fuckingguy]

He also does have a head in a jar, so.

[inaclearing]

.....what?

[howveryglib]

…

[rossiu he though you were normal what the fuck]

more misfire evidence ft. your good friend cw: robot gore

[sastruga]

Mm. I saw the trail of energon in the barn. And I found... ah... Misfire's arm was in the woodchipper. It was still running when I got there... It looked like... his arm was torn from the socket.

There were also holes in the wall near the woodchipper... right?

[Looking at Mielle briefly for confirmation.]

Like... about the size of the pitchfork.

cw: robot torture

[allatonce]

[Joy wrinkles her nose and then asks, clearly not wanting to:]

Like... close enough that he would have been held in place by the pitchfork while someone fed his arm into the woodchipper?

cw: robot torture

[honeyedtea]

. . .

W–well, I don't know that I'd put it like that...

[ But that's not a 'no'. ]

[allatonce]

Kind of explains how they overpowered him, I guess. From the way Misfire talked about it, the... pink stuff is basically blood so I can't imagine that leaking it all over the place would be good for him.

[honeyedtea]

But– who here would be insane enough to come up with a plan like this? If they were going to kill someone, why make such a spectacle of being so cruel about it?

[allatonce]

[deadpan:]

Gee, I don't know. How would you kill an alien robot, Mielle? This doesn't seem cruel so much as practical.

[inaclearing]

And why pick Misfire at all?

[He says it like he's just upset about it, which he definitely is, but also:]

Not for nothing, but I think anyone else would be easier to kill.

cw: robot gore

[inaclearing]

[Brett doesn't really say anything, just puts his head down on his podium. Give him like two minutes here.]