The Murder Challenge

[Florien]

Eh... I have my siege and medical specialists. I cannot familiarize them yet, because that would erase their skills. 

They think I am just another imitator, another spend-happy source of revenue who'll be gone within the year, leaving a world half-conquered which returns close to the status quo within a few months.

Then I have the Zhin, who follow me like rats, those half-a-nobles. They stalk me and establish themselves in the places I leave behind, to guard the towns so no one can hide before I come back and familiarize them when the job is done. They think I leave opportunity in my wake for their own gain. They are wrong.

I will succeed where everyone else failed. I will be the third and final unifier, because there will be no other minds but mine to stand against me.

[PopcornPie]

"Oh. So you have insecurity problems."

[Florien]

What? No. I'm going to win. I've solved the faction problem that stopped Avanyiss the Claimant, the Disloyal Army problem that stopped Orei Krakenbane, the Cash-Flow problem that stopped Ivariel Lefwin, and even the time-and-age problem that stopped Khralym the Old.

There is nothing left in my way except finishing the war, which will take a few decades at worst, throughout which I shall live unageing. Victory is inevitable. I am the third unifier. I breached Helsgrant Pass Fortress. No other can claim that in all of history. I won't have to ever talk to another person again because all people will be me.

[PopcornPie]

"Oh. It just seemed to me that you were feeling a little small due to how other people call you. Like you're trying to prove yourself more than attain power."

[Florien]

Maybe once. But if so, not anymore. I wouldn't remember anyway. I've overwritten what was there once. I am the future. I do not need a past. What others think doesn't matter. I just am amused how they think I'm the same as every imitator before me, when I am the third unifier. They serve me and do not know it.

[PopcornPie]

"What if someone else is trying to become the third unifier, too?"

[Despair's Archon of Memes]

Kanade is just... Lying down... On the floor... Trying to contemplate everything... That has transpired this far...

[Florien]

Well, that's what all the ones I mentioned said they were and were trying.

But I'm the one who's going to do it. I fixed all the problems they ran into by figuring out how to have infinite familiars. I am going to win. I got through Helsgrant. No one else has done that, ever. Not even the second unifier did. The first unifier was from before Helsgrant Pass Fortress was built.

[PopcornPie]

Entrapta gazes down at Kanade. "...Is there really nothing we can do to stop the last murder from happening? I don't...I mean, Selenium was a good friend, it wasn't her fault she murdered them..." She wiped a bead of sweat from her head. "What if I don't get the right person? We still have two candidates for the last killer."

[Florien]

...we have three candidates for the last killer.

[Florien]

Oh. And the last killer is probably Ctharlak. That is my guess.

[TenOfSwords13]

Lucintsea, you are letting your arrogance get ahead of you. If I was a killer, surely I would have let Michelle die, instead of stopping your foolish mistake and persauding an execution on one of the other two - thus ending my alleged accomplice! I cannot say who the last killer is, but it would be foolish of you to suggest it would be I!

[PopcornPie]

Entrapta hums. If Selenium could turn out to be a killer, anything goes.

[Dookie]

This game is on hiatus until further notice.

[Dookie]

Ending 1

Suddenly...

"Put your hands up where we can see 'em! We're the cops!"

"...Wha?"

*BANG*

He's shot dead, and everyone is safe.

Except for Neptune, who is found guilty in trial later and sentenced to 5 years in prison for manslaughter.

Ending 2

Suddenly...

BANG

The entire world is blown away. Every living being is dead. Every cow on the planet has farted at the same time.

The end.

Ending 3

Suddenly...

Shrek wakes up from his slumber.

"What an odd dream I had..."

"Shrek?" Barry sounds worried.

"Barry? What are you doing here?"

"Shrek! I thought you were dead! You've been in a coma for a week. We didn't even know if you'd be alive."

"Well...I am, aren't I?"

And then they make out.

The End.

Ending 4

The tape shuts off, and we pan out to a television show pitch.

"So? What did you think?"

Two investors on the other side stare at the pitcher, obviously not impressed.

"You're coming here, to pitch a show to Netflix, using nothing but the badly made home movie you made when you were 12?"

"Yes."

"A home movie whose plot seems more like a random stream of consciousness than an actual story, and which that story slowly devolves into blandness?"

"Yes."

"And you think this will work?"

"Yes."

There's silence.

"You got the job. Don't disappoint us."

Ending 5

A screen flashes up as you try to get to the next level of the game.

OOPS! PLEASE PRESS A

You do so.

THIS COPY OF THE MURDER CHALLENGE IS PIRATED. PIRACY IS A REAL CRIME THAT AFFECTS REAL PEOPLE. THE FACT THAT YOU DO SOMETHING SO HORRIBLE JUST TO PLAY A VIDEO GAME IS FOOLISH. THAT'S A MISTAKE. YOU'RE A MISTAKE.

You press A again.

THIS COPY OF THE MURDER CHALLENGE WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN 5
4
3
2
1

Ending 6

Dookie: So for future of the game itself...i'll probably cancel the Forum version and work on the rewrite.
Kennifer: Michelle strikes again
PointMaid: So not a hiatus then, huh?
Kennifer: All jokes aside it's kinda disappointing considering we only had one baka left.
MP: Yeah, same.
Truth be told... The game's pretty much a town victory since the Bakas (or in this case, Baka SINGULAR) are SO utterly outnumbered...
But if you do want to cancel this, you might as well bring closure to the forum version...
Kennifer: It's a shame since especially at the start it was really fun and involved
and I worry that I did something by being concerned over the "kill Michelle" plan since all it would've done was prove one character was inno if she'd been sus anyway
Florien: Who's the murderer then?
Or are you saving that for an actual end thing
Kennifer: Yeah at the very least make a finale post for the game instead of leaving everything hanging.
like idk... have the cops catch up with Jamie, the last baka get caught and all the innos go free or something
doesn't have to be a big fancy ending but after getting so close it does deserve to have some kind of ending beyond "this is cancelled now sorry".
use your creative writing to make an ending post even if it doesn't end up going along with whatever you'd do in the rewrite, but people deserve closure.
Dookie:...
Dookie: Man fuck you guys I'm doing no ending lollllll eat a dick

Ending 7

The end screen for the video comes up.

"YOOOOO! THANKS FOR WATCH ANOTHER CRAZY VIDEO! LEAVE A LIKE, SUBSCRIBE AND HIT THE BELL ICON FOR NOTIFICATIONS FOR OUR NEXT ADVENTURES AND GOOD LUCK! TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO SEE ME FILL MY UNDERPANTS WITH WHIPPED CREME! JAMIE OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTT"

Ending 8

Jamie appears somber at the start of the next day.

"Sadly, due to YouTube's demonetization system, I cannot show the next part of my video without being demonetized, banned, and possibly arrested. If you would like to see the rest of what happened, please SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PATREON! LINK IN THE DESCRIPTION!!! IT'S ONLY $31 A MONTH! SUBSCRIBE! NOW! JUST FUCKING DO I-

Ending 9

"..Huh." A woman is watching the past footage on her phone, just outside a bar near Freemont Street in Vegas.

"what is it?" A man half a foot taller than her says.

"You know that Murder Challenge show?"

"Of course. It's viral."

"I just saw the new episode. The Special Effects are really good, but the story's declined in quality."

"Huh."

A bus honks from outside.

"Whoops. That's the hotel bus. Are you coming?"

"No. I wanna stay just a little bit longer."

"Alright. See you on the flip side."

She gets onto the bus. After that, she rests her head as the bus picks up more passengers.

A figure in a black coat gets on the bus.

That's odd, she thinks.

Then, it throws the driver to the ground, and multiple cries are heard.

"AAAAAAAH!"

"What the fuck?"

"Jeepers!"

And then, she's unconscious.

[Dookie]

The end.

[PopcornPie]

//So Entrapta's just...gone?

[Dookie]

//So Entrapta's just...gone?

I should explain. Ending 1 is the canon one (For now), and the other 8 I wrote as jokes.

[PopcornPie]

/Oooh, okay.

...Within three minutes of freedom, Entrapta remembered she had no way home whatsoever and wandered the city.

Within six hours of freedom, she learned her final lesson: Busses can stop for someone who idiotically leaps in front of them and shouts. Subway trains can't.

[Florien]

Cool whatever. I win.

That was abrupt. Guess I'll continue building the nation of one then.

Lucintsea eventually pries a hole in reality and goes back home to go pick up her chained to conquer the world.

She does not become the third unifier, nor does she manage to break back through to earth. Her chaining technique had the slight flaw where brain damage could rapidly propagate through the chains if not addressed by repeatedly killing any one of the chainers suspected of having sustained brain damage to recopy over the damage. She had failed to notice that until it was far too late.

Her direct above her and herself got caught in a loop, and the damage propagated throughout her army. Eventually, effectively unkillable, unaging, and barely capable of stringing thoughts together anymore, she and her army disappeared into a vast cave system and were never officially seen again. Her unfamiliarized siege engineers and medics laughed as they pocketed her riches as the situation returned to only-slightly-different-than-before over a few years. The White Chevron was torn down and the old flags flew once more, as they always did in the end.

She goes down in history as "just another imitator", though she does get noted as accidently paving the way for a massive social reformation in the century after her disappearance. One that she would likely have opposed, but nonetheless certainly one she accidently led to. Her disappearance, several centuries down the line, repeatedly gets treated as some big unsolved mystery on all the TV shows of her home world, but is actually pretty obvious if anything about her and her processes is looked up.

[Kennifer]

Michelle's ending, meanwhile, is... Well, she survives.

She makes it back home, probably bullshitting something on her channel and letting everybody know she's okay, she promises, with a smile as fake as the clip-in streaks in her hair. She says she needs to take another break and she hopes people will wait for her.

She re-connects with her family, with her in-person friends.

And she gets some therapy to try to help her work through the trauma of having been abducted and forced to play a killing game. Oh, and that whole lack of self-worth thing, she'll be working on that too. It's... going to take a while, but she hopes she'll break through and be okay again.