[Fin] Murder U Too - Endgame

[Kennifer]

Alexis is just... idly doodling on a blank page of her notepad, waiting.

[wingedcatgirl]

Votes (7 to convict or skip)
Cookie Monster - Kellensea, Kai, Haruka, Ranma, Alexis, Komaru
Kai - Krabs, Cookie Monster, Bow, Rosa, Bakugo, Monika

Well, there we have it. All the votes are in and we have a perfect, deadlocked tie. I frown loudly at Kellensea. I had sort of been hoping for a more creative exploit, but this will do, for now.

With the killer's vote secretly... "secretly" removed...

... But before I can finish that sentence, reality shifts suddenly.

Eugene Harold Krabs (madface7) has been replaced by Ronnie Pines (MatthewLM).

Votes (7 to convict or skip)
Cookie Monster - Kellensea, Kai, Haruka, Ranma, Alexis, Komaru
Kai - Cookie Monster, Bow, Rosa, Bakugo, Monika

... Well. I could wait for Ronnie to weigh in. But, he obviously doesn't know anything useful, and y'know what, this trial has dragged on far too long anyway. The execution stands. Cookie Monster. Any last words?

[wahoothis]

Ranma just grumbled with annoyance. Not because Kellensea was right, but because he was the one who nearly got an innocent man killed. If he had just listen instead of believing the evidence staring him in the face, this would've been over a long time ago. And now the man- monster, the creature that murdered an innocent was now about to die. He knows even if he tries to stop it, there's nothing to be done. So he has only one question. . . "Why Cookie? Why the hell did you do this?" He asked sounding more like a disappointed mother than pissed and about to break his leg.

[Huney]

"We're... really dumb."

[Florien]

Kellensea says nothing for a moment. Then, a soft coughing noise from inside her helmet. It soon resolves from an odd coughing noise into laughter. A somewhat unpleasant laugh, but maybe that's just the echo in the helmet. There's also a faint note of, of all things, relief.

Right, Ranma, you owe me something of yours. I'll need to take inventory of your stuff to determine what I claim. We'll sort that out later, I think. Anyway, to those of you who doubted me, I will keep my gloating short. I WAS RIGHT! HA! YOU WERE WRONG! THAT WILL SHOW YOU! Anyway... I'm interested to see how this host of ours executes this thing. It will... give us an accurate gauging of how far... presumably "he", will take things. Helpful. Now... no doubt I've made some enemies today. However, as a show of good faith... I will consume one thing in your presence today, that I prepared in your presence, trusting that you have not poisoned it and will not immediately move to stab me in the head.

Kellensea takes her helmet off, lowers her scarf, and takes a spoon out from somewhere within her multiple layers of armor, and starts eating spoonfuls of the sweetener from earlier from the cup, for once, apparently unconcerned.

Looking at her face from a distance, everything looks normal enough. Just a regular, somewhat pale woman with messy brownish blonde hair and brown eyes. Anyone close enough to look at details, however, will notice that there are clear problems with her skin. For one, she looks like she hasn't slept once in her life. Also, there appears to be a constantly shifting network of faint bruises on her face, extending down her neck. Her eyes are glassy and don't look focused, yet somehow all the more piercing for it. Another disconcerting aspect comes to light as she puts her helmet back on and pulls the scarf up again. She didn't blink once throughout the whole two minutes.

Alright. There. Good faith shown. You people like people doing dangerous things around other people, right? That's... that's part of your culture? I was never the group diplomat, never learned how to gauge other people like the group diplomats did. I'll assume it was until told otherwise.

She then tosses the empty cup over the balcony, and returns to await the imminent execution of the cookie monster.

[wahoothis]

Ranma took a deep groan. "No one cares Kellensea that you were right." He grumbled, crossing his arms. " Besides, I don't even have anything to give you so. . ."

[Kennifer]

Alexis says nothing. She just... doesn't care that that annoying woman was right, doesn't care about the gloating... doesn't even care about the temporary face reveal. She's going to ignore the gloating for now, though she'll be writing some things in her notes after the execution.

She feels mostly numb right now, that the standoff is over. And a bit relieved that it... actually was that simple, that she hadn't made the same mistake again. Even that she'd held back and not jumped on a bandwagon even if in this case it would have been the right thing, presumably.

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

A man with a very disheveled appearance with long hair, a beard and Coke bottle glasses is right where Mr. Krabs was. Having a look that's so unclean, one would think he was homeless if they didn't know any better. He downs a can of Monster energy drink, and throws the used can on the ground and stomps it flat.

I just got here and they're about the kill the Cookie Monster. Why would the Cookie Monster kill anyone? That's not cool at all.

He opens up another can of Monster and begins drinking it.

[wahoothis]

"Wha-" Ranma was about to question the new man, but he was already tired from everything, so he just lets it go for now. He's just going to ignore the man with glasses that could give Mousse a run for his money. "Answer me Cookie Monster, why the hell did you kill him? It better be a good reason too, because I'd prefer to not break your leg." The martial artist glared daggers that could cut through the puppet, a little pissed that he lied to their faces and fooled him into thinking it was him. And nearly made him vote off someone completely innocent. . . No, even though Cookie Monster was the one who killed Doug and lied, Ranma was the one fooled by his seemingly harmless appearance and almost got Kai killed. He was going to apologize to the househusband the moment he gets to, but for now they must finish this trial.

[Dookie]

“Simple. Me wanted cookies.”

[wahoothis]

". . . . . . . . ." Remember how Ranma promised to not break your leg if your reasoning was good. "You blue bastard!" Ranma shouts, jumps off one of the table, and comes down in a dive kick to slam his foot into one of Cookie Monster's leg. "You killed an innocent man. . . .OVER SWEETS?!" Is it fair to say Ranma might be a little pissed?

[Caret]

Bow looks like she is about to snap.

YOU DID THIS ALL FOR SOME STUPID COOKIES? Why was I so stupid and believed that Kai was the one who killed Doug? Anyways... YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR WASTING OUR TIME!

Without hesitation, Bow then Double Kicks the Cookie Monster right in the face.

[Kennifer]

"You... killed somebody because you wanted cookies. Cookies. Not to avenge someone you care about, not for any other reason that could be considered an actual excuse, but... because you had a food craving. Holy shit, what is wrong with you?"

...and now the notepad comes out again.

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

Wow. You are really petty. Bigger things to worry about in the world and all you care about is cookies.

Ronnie finishes his can of Monster then throws it at Cookie Monster's head.

[wingedcatgirl]

"Me wanted cookies." Final words that will surely resonate throughout history. I roll my eyes. Well. With everyone's final affairs set in order... It's time for the execution.

The curtains draw shut.

[wingedcatgirl]

... and draw open once more.

Cookie Monster is strapped to a curious metal platform.

The platform is on a conveyor belt, being carried slowly towards a flaming-hot oven.

Can puppets sweat? The fur on the top of Cookie Monster's head is starting to singe.

All of a sudden, the conveyor shifts into overdrive, launching him into the oven in an instant.

If he screams, it's muffled by the sounds of the flames.

... the conveyor starts back up, and out the other end of the oven ...



And a second tray, of alphabet cookies, spelling out...

Cookie Monster was GUILTY of murder.

---

The curtains briefly draw shut, to re-open on the trial room, which is to say the kitchen. The cookies have been moved to a plate next to the emergency meeting button.

I must admit, I was hoping you'd pick wrong. My headmistress never got to see the appalled faces of a crowd who had just executed an innocent. I was so looking forward to telling her about it. Perhaps next time. In any case, I'll turn the lights out soon.

Lights out in Murder HQ at 23:59 CT (~12 hours from this post)

[Kennifer]

Alexis is both relieved that an innocent wasn't executed, and horrified at... well, the execution.

She hasn't eaten since the previous afternoon, but she's NOT about to go for those cookies. Maybe a sandwich again, but she's not going to be wanting cookies for quite some time.

[wahoothis]

". . . . . . What the actual fuck?" Ranma had seen many horrible things. Cursed springs, traumatic experiences with cats, many assassins. . . But never something like THAT. Cookie Monster might've been a killer, but what Ranma just saw wasn't justice. That was cruelty. Cruel, ironic punishment for the gluttonous killer. Ranma scrunched up his nose at the scent of singed fabric, melted plastic eyes. Just. . . what the hell. Normally he doesn't get too unsettled by stuff, but seeing someone get baked alive, killer or not, human or not, made him collapse on his knees and give a light dry heave. If Ranma wasn't going to eat cookies before hand, he sure as hell won't now!

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

That's one way to kill someone.... but hey, sweet. Cookies!

Ronnie rushes to the cookies and takes a bite of one.

[Kennifer]

Alexis... is now writing something about Ronnie on her notepad.

It is not something flattering.

[wahoothis]

"Man." Flabbergasted, Ranma just walked over and slapped the Cookie Monster cookie out of Robbie's hand. "Don't eat that! That was just a. . ." Well, it wasn't a person. "A living person just a few minutes ago!"

[Caret]

Bow simply stands in front of the cookies, horrified at what she just saw. After a while, she simply backs away and...

>try to find something to take your mind off the execution

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

Well, he's dead now and he was a killer, so what's the big deal? Cookies are good. Come on, dig in.

Ronnie picks the cookie back off the floor and finishes it off.

[wahoothis]

Ranma just had the biggest WTF look on his face (similar to the picture at the bottom page). "Yeah but. . You don't just. . ." Okay, yeah, he's going to have to splash some watch in his face later. "I swear to god if any of you kill after seeing THAT, I'm going to be really disappointed. . ." The martial artist grimaced as he walked to the kitchen, turning on the cold water for a moment as he takes the boiling hot water in the whistling tea kettle and sets it on the counter.






   

[Florien]

Well, I'm going to find out if those are edible actually. And I'm keeping at least one as a trophy. It's certainly not the most horrific death I've seen. Oh, remind me to tell you the story of wossername, that was a pretty horrific death. We got lucky there. She was an adventurer too, it turns out. Whole epic escape leading up to there, it was great. Probably my first big kill too. Not just a normal kill, like a kill of someone who was actually important.

Kellensea grabs some of the cookies and

>checks if they're edible.