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

[inaclearing]

[Brett's just. Bitterly disappointed here.]

.....what was the point of telling me any of that, last Friday?

[asymptotes]

You're actually the only one who might understand why this was necessary.

[inaclearing]

[Brett recoils, pale and starting to get angry. And hey, you gave that other exposition in song form, so:]

I thought you told me the story,
Told the whole story for a reason.
Like you were moving past it all, maybe cared just a little.

A man who'd let himself be saved.

[asymptotes]

"Pain is good," he thinks? I know.
"Hurt is real."
Oh, he ought to feel every ache that I feel-

I want to sit in the dark with him,
In the dark with him,
Spare Zordon's kids all the tears that they've cried.

[inaclearing]

Even here with us,
In the dark with us,
No one and nothing can break through that darkness inside.

[Brett goes silent, hands curled into fists at his sides again. His cuts sting.]

There is something so pure, how you see the world,
Like control's something you can achieve.
All the warnings were clear, I guess I'm to blame here,
But I always still doubt, I just tuned them all out and -

[Well. It was stupid. We've established that.]

You've hurt too many people to talk about sparing kids now. You hurt those exact kids, didn't you?

cw uh. sui......cide.....???

[asymptotes]

[ A dark chuckle. ]

More than I care to admit. But usually it was myself that I killed. I'm almost sad to deprive them of the chance to kill me themselves at this point.

I guess??????

[inaclearing]

You could have helped us. We all knew you were - [you know, patently evil] - and we didn't -

[He's right; Brett was the person who knew the most about what Tommy had done. And he hadn't told anyone. He'd kept it to himself, because he'd thought - ]

[asymptotes]

If it helps, Brett? You couldn't have stopped me.

[ Does that help, Darkkon? Fucking does it??? ]

I picked one of the two who I thought stood a chance of stopping me on purpose. It wasn't just pride. Part of me hoped to ride out the time limit. So I wouldn't be tempted by that old blue man behind the glass. But I am who I am: the weakest Tommy Oliver in the multiverse.

[inaclearing]

Too weak to resist temptation.

[He sees what you're doing there.]

You could've stopped
You could've stayed
This could've been different...

[fuckingguy]

[ he's just looking back and forth between the two of them like this is a tennis match ]