Colosseum Arena, School Outfit- This is Wasting Time
"I'm just trying to avoid wasting our time investigating people that have already clearly proven themselves," Makoto said to Silanea, before Caboose rattled off his descriptions without issue. "See? He appears to be real enough. There's no way he could have overheard any of that information." Blue pointed out that they shouldn't have grouped up in the first place, and Makoto crossed her arms and looked away. "That seemed like the quickest way to ask each other relevant questions, sorry..." she said to them. Lewis was... struggling to answer again. Seriously, was that not suspicious to anyone else?
Rex was pushing back against Brother Marcus's accusations of them sharing too much info with the clones, and Two was also comforting Yuna now. She was at a lost for what to do here. She really thought that she was doing a lot to at least move the investigation along, but now things were getting disorganized again.
"Just... say something, would you?" she asked Lewis. "So we can all move on to something else."
Annoyed Mode: ON
The second she felt a pair of little arms wrap around her, Yuna instinctively reached forward and wrapped her own around Ben. It was a good thing that he and the rest of her friends were around for her, since thanks to them she was able to compose herself relatively quickly. She was still sobbing, sure, but at least she'd been able to calm down quite a lot.
There was a little comment Two made that she found reassuring, if a bit unfortunate. In any case, she was feeling good enough to continue.
"It's fine, I'm not picky with food," she replied, recovering a bit of her usual attitude. "I can't taste anymore, remember? Anyway... thanks guys. I really needed that."
She finally let go of Ben and decided to address the group as a whole. It was finally time for her to prove herself.
"Sorry about that, I'm ready to answer questions now," she announced. "Caboose already answered a lot of stuff about the mind stuff, but maybe there's something you can ask me, Silanea? Or maybe about the day after, we were together back then too."
Edited by Katarsus on Nov 6th 2018 at 9:12:38 AM
THE SLORG!
"But we have to investigate people who were already cleared. That's all that's left" Silanea said to Makoto, now glaring a bit. "You seem awfully keen on this idea that we should only have to suspect someone one time each. I still see no reason for any of the real people here to want to avoid proving themselves as real" the lamia continued.
"Und it vas her idea to group up. Vould hef been an avfully konvenient tink for de fakes to learn about vat vas heppenink in de kity" Hartwig added in.
Meanwhile, Brother Marcus slowly turned his helmet towards Rex; even without his expression visible, there seemed to be a malicious aura radiating from the space marine. "If you wish to keep your head in place after the limitations on harming each other is lifted, then you will refrain from referring to the Emperor as such ever again, heretic" Brother Marcus said in the most teeth clenching hostile tone imaginable. "I have never been a fool; I have merely had little reason to ever prove that to you of all people" the space marine continued.
"Yes, you can have your books if you like" Miss Tairee answered from the sidelines.
"Rex, please, you shouldn't be trying to start any fights right now" Silanea mentioned to the Evo after hearing Marcus. "If you are really Rex; I think it's about time that you and Makoto proved yourselves more thoroughly. Using a test method like Marcus did before should suffice; going apart and writing the answer down" the lamia added.
"Yeah, I'm in favor of that, but what can we ask them?" John asked from next to Hartwig.
Silanea thought for a moment. "I know; I encountered both Rex and Makoto together on the twenty first day, when we all became someone different. The man I turned into had a particular weapon; the militia members outside the challenge can confirm the answer, since I had met with them on that day as well" Silanea explained after her thought.
"So they go apart and write down what the weapon was? I like it" Blue said cheerily.
"Then we will need that outside confirmation" Marcus stated, turning away slightly and activating his vox system. "This is Brother Marcus, asking for lieutenant Wells; are you still at the arena, Wells?" the space marine asked aloud, into the radio channel.
Those who were able to hear the militia channel would hear the response of, "Yes, I'm up in the stands" from Wells' voice.
"Please come down to the barrier at once; we need your assistance in confirming an answer" Brother Marcus informed Wells.
"Very well, I'll be there momentarily" Wells' answered. Up in the stands, currently in an old timey black and white striped swimsuit, Wells made his way down one of the staircases towards the barrier separating the arena and audience.
You are reading this.
For the Horde!
Ben smiled and let go of Yuna when she managed to compose herself.
"No prob," Ben told her. "We're your friends and we're always gonna be here for each other!" He looked over the remaining gathered individuals. He narrowed his eyes a little bit at Rex, who seemed to be trying to provoke Brother Marcus.
"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked. "You trying to get him to start hunting you down? Look, he might have a giant stick up his butt but we got more important stuff to do than make him mad for nothing!" He thought for a moment more as Marcus and Wells decided to test Rex and Makoto. While they were to do their own testing, Ben would do some testing of his own.
"Hey, Hercules," he said, turning towards his teammate. "Remember when I called back home on the campfire day? What were my cousin and my grandpa's names? Nobody else say anything."
Edited by AllHailThrall on Nov 6th 2018 at 9:12:17 AM
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
Dark Sun, what choices have I...?
Briefly distracted from my useless fumbling, I looked at Caboose with an 'it's been like an hour how have you still not gathered' look for a few seconds before remembering it was Caboose. "...Spoopy Pink Fred talked to the writer and now he's Normal Human Pink Fred. If he does something impossible he'll get to be whichever he wants whenever he feels like it. Dude, it's me." Ugh now I had to start over trying in vain to psych myself up. (But you don't have to prove anything, just let Silanea divert this and move on! What would this even do besides feed the clones?) Yes Rex please do answer my question for me.
"...You want, everything?" I broke eye contact, hands shaking, and backed away slightly.
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guess
"OK when you called them. I was at the same campsite as you, it was when I first arrived in the city and I called Meg to tell her I was alright. Your cousin and Grandpa. Gwen and Max right?"
Happy Box Hater
Colosseum
Caboose watched as Silanea made her case against Makoto. It sounded ridiculous at first, because the teen had been nothing but helpful this whole time, but the snake was making some good points. "Is that why you keep yelling at Lewis?" the soldier asked, sounding like he finally was beginning to understand. "He hasn't done anything that looked fake but you keep pushing him around. Was it only wasting time to ask me because you wanted to spend more time on him?" That made sense, didn't it? He wasn't entirely clear on how this game worked, but if you wanted to get someone out you would want to keep discussion focused on them.
He'd trust that the snake lady's plan would reveal the truth, though. Just had to wait. In the meantime he focused back on Lewis. "Oooooh! I get it now," Caboose remarked calmly. "But... something impossible? That doesn't sound very fair... are you sure you just aren't trying hard enough? Because you look like you give up easily, and I think that that is not very good. We are all here to do something that should be impossible and I think it is going pretty well. Don't give up, used-to-be skeleton!"
"And you!" he raised his voice at Rex. "Stop bullying him! And stop trying to make people mad! Marcus found one of them! So why are you trying to make him mad? All you did was make a good guess but he thought of something! Just... I don't know, I thought you were nicer than this." The soldier backed a few steps away from the teenager. "Please don't be real." These people were just tearing themselves apart. It was good that Rex and Makoto were being tested because if they weren't real than that meant they weren't really this bad.
Why is a yam attacking me?
"I was testing if you actually knew what I was talking about, but I'm open for a rematch whenever you want. Well, I may have to shift some things around in my schedule but I'm sure we can make it work"
Things spiraled out of control, and fast. Before Lewis could actually explain what he had done instead of filling the air with more of his useless babble, Silanea started doubting that Makoto's actions were just motivated by her seriousness. The lamia wasn't sure she was who she claimed to be and given that in-city knowledge was no longer the thing that could tell people apart from the copies, paranoia was slowly setting in.
Suddenly the narrative was that him and Makoto were clearly fake and the bad guys in this situation. Even Caboose—was he acting a little too lucid all of sudden or was that just Rex's anger trying to make sense of things?—hoped Rex wasn't real because he was acting like an idiot, insulting Marcus and all. And on top of that, he had the audacity to claim Rex had gotten lucky while Marcus was actually thinking. Fortunately, Silanea—for all the fire she had started—pointed out starting a fight was something Rex really didn't want to do right now. With everyone against him, the last thing he needed was to shoot himself in the foot and lose the trust of yet another person.
"Ok, let's all calm down. What are you guys trying to do here? Of course I'm myself. And I know what my girlfriend acts like! What kind of idiot do you take me for?" Silanea wanted to check if they were real with a simple question, but Rex didn't think that would be enough. And to be perfectly clear, Silanea hadn't proved her identity to that level either. He took out his phone and wrote down IT WAS A MACE on the screen. He then threw it in the lamia's direction "Show it to the militia. It doesn't matter anyway"
With that done, he took a few steps away from the people surrounding him. A little room to think wasn't so bad right about now.
"Tairee I want my book, and if you can, leave it open on the page that talks about my Hong Kong friends"
Edited by DeisTheAlcano on Nov 7th 2018 at 11:27:08 AM
Colosseum Arena, School Outfit—-> Phantom Thief Outfit —- Can't Stay Calm Forever
The more Silanea and Hartwig tried to turn her logic against her, the more agitated Makoto was visibly getting. She'd been doing nothing but trying to figure out ways to solve this challenge, and now they were acting as if she was the problem, because apparently no one else found it interesting how twitchy Lewis was being. Hell, he was still stalling on his answer. And now they were going to quiz her and Rex with the Militia to check on them? This was absurd. This wasn't fair at all.
"For the record, I never said that we shouldn't check people more than once," she snapped. Her clothes seemed to almost flicker for a moment. "I just thought that we were focusing on the wrong people, but if you don't want to believe me, then fine. This test of yours barely proves anything though. That was what, three days ago when you had that weapon? " Rex actually complied to the peer pressure and went with it, to her deeper annoyance. In a flash of blue flames, her school uniform became her leather and steel boots and armor, the iron mask covering her eyes. "That's what I get for trying to be useful here, right? Turned on as soon as the easy choices are gone. I see how it is..." She grit her teeth and walked away from the rest of the gathered people, pulling out her revolver to write her answer in the dirt. She grumbled to herself as she knelt to finish her "test". Seriously, how did they expect her to remember something almost irrelevant like that? This was such a ridiculous way to prove her innocence. Her answer to anyone that checked was A Blade.
Edited by ScorpioRat on Nov 6th 2018 at 11:21:43 AM
Dark Sun, what choices have I...?
"That is what you want, isn't it?" She didn't even answer me so much as go off in general and march away. I could do this, see!? "I can do that, if that's what needs to be done I can do that! In no particular order, yesterday I fucking left you to get dragged off by a shadow with some stupid head shit, and I felt awful because it was stupid and you didn't want anything to do with me anyway so I figured the best thing was to stay out of your way, but then I fucked that up because I'm just a failure on every level I guess. And over what? Oh this is gonna be a riot, I was tryin' to shoot a bitch. And not just any bitch, anyone wanna take a guess? Anyone? Too late, it was that piece of shit excuse for a knight, I'm not gonna dignify him by saying his name but yeah I already tried it before I came drunkenly offering because clearly the best penance for doing fucking nothing in the mind thing but bitch at people and feed the bosses was risking the thing that was the whole point of that quest in the first place. Idiot."
Now a normal ass person might have gone 'ok, there's the relevant part, just stop there' (and to be fair, there really wasn't anything being achieved saying any of this at all) but ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no, everything had to go out there, that was what I committed to, there was no going back, and so I kept yelling, at this point pretty unhinged-sounding. "Am I missing any, besides almost shooting Louie 'cause I got startled for a whole two seconds by nothing, or blowing up over like a phone or something, or damn near blowing everything in a mile radius to hell last night because I can't handle the fucking truth?" A bitter laugh. "None of you are gonna know this one but fuck, it's the most batshit one. Somehow, SOMEHOW I managed to delude myself that dear Arthur my so-called friend couldn't possibly have maybe not been in physical control of himself, in a cavern where we were specifically looking for things less than ordinary, back during...he'd probably be dead now if it weren't for sheer luck. From me. I had to be fucking told all this in written word, and even then I still..."
I about sank into the floor. "It's almost laughably stupid, all of it. Hardly even covers everything...I shoulda stayed in that fucking pit." Somehow I was still vaguely aware that I couldn't degenerate into a useless lump of tears again when everyone kinda needed to be able to talk, so I just knelt there, curled up, shaking, but not weeping outright.
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guess
Stop Killing My Titles
Two, Arena - Apply Friendship And Hugs
...somehow, she forgot that Yuna had no sense of taste. She let go of Yuna, kicking herself mentally for having ever doubted her. It must have been her. She was simply worn out from all that was happening around her. Two sighed and stood up, idly dusting herself off. "I'm sorry. I was overcome with doubt and had to confirm that you are your real self." She admitted, rubbing her arm sheepishly as she took in the revelations of now. Rex was being strangely combative all of a sudden - was this really smart to antagonize Brother Marcus of all people? - and Makoto too seemed to be acting strangely.
She didn't even think that these two could possibly be fakes, having caught on from the general murmur of the crowd that they have already proven themselves... or have they? The question that would decide their trueness was one that flew right over Two's head. She walked over to where Makoto was, unsure what to say. "Please don't take it to heart. Everyone is just stressed about this. If we can't win, we can't hope to save Yuna's world, after all." She sighed, watching her friend scribble "A BLADE" in the sand before offering a reassuring hand on the shoulder. "It says that it was a blade." She said louder after a moment as she let go, mostly for the convenience of others.
That was when Lewis started his tirade, clearly even more tired than everyone else here present. She didn't know exactly where all of it started, but now it was her mission to try and do something about this situation. Two marched over to the curled up Pink Fred Jones, kneeling by him and applying a hug to the troubled not-revenant. This whole setup was doing nothing but dragging out the worst in people, and it terrified her. There was no love lost between Lewis and Makoto, for one, but such outright hostility didn't sit right with the Intoner.
She said nothing, merely offering her body's warmth and the comfort of an embrace to someone deep in need.
grah
"Finally. That wasn't so hard, was it? Now stay out of our way if you know what's best for you" whatever Lewis was explaining about his murderer only added to the general idea that he was just a pathetic loser with anger issues. As if the long string of fuck-ups he brought up wasn't enough proof already. Rex had run out of sympathy for him a long time ago.
But he had enough to give to other people, like Makoto. She was naturally pissed after being irrationally accused of being a fake. But even then she went along with the test and wrote down on the dirt the name of the weapon Silanea was talking about. That was her, always trying to find the truth even with everyone against her.
"Don't say that. We talked about this, you are not useless"
Two went over to comfort her—of course—and check her answer. According to her, the ground read 'a blade'.
"You read that wrong"
A quick walk to where Makoto was revealed that Two maybe wasn't as illiterate as he thought. Maybe Makoto just had forgotten what happened—it had been a very stressing day and she had more important things to worry about than checking what Silanea had with her at the time. Maybe that priest looking guy actually had a blade that Rex had completely missed. It was unlikely, but it could be true. He could almost hear Mary's laugh echoing in the distance. No! That was stupid, Makoto had been with Rex all day. There was no way she could get replaced without him noticing. And he would have noticed. Then again, she was acting a little more receptive than usual, even as Queen. But that could easily be explained as her simply getting used to the idea of letting her guard down around Rex and not caring what everyone else thought about it. Something finally clicked in his head. It was so simple. Of course the answer was wrong.
"Oh I get it" a nervous giggle escaped his mouth "This is a little embarrassing. That's not how you spell 'mace' in English, Makoto. You got the vowels right, but the consonants are all mixed up" he crouched to draw a 'M' under the 'BL' she had written, and also a 'C' below the 'D'. Those last two in particular had a kind of similar shape. Rex himself wouldn't be able to write any Japanese symbols off the top of his head so it was logical that someone in the reverse situation would be just as confused. Besides, writing was the hardest part of language learning, right? He could swear he had heard that somewhere before. "You are the student council president, you should know this"
Edited by DeisTheAlcano on Nov 7th 2018 at 3:47:48 PM
Happy Box Hater
Colosseum
Everyone was just getting so angry now, huh? Makoto seemed very unhappy about this question and Lewis practically shattered before everyone's eyes, and nothing else was going well either. And Rex was... well, he wasn't listening to what anyone else had to say. That was pretty bad.
Caboose was about to join Two in trying to comfort Lewis, as he was clearly in a really bad place right now, but something else took his attention. Apparently Makoto hadn't answered right. And Rex wasn't accepting it. "Rex... Listen, I wasn't going to say this because I respected your opinions and thought you weren't so bad but... well, I don't really know if I do anymore?" he addressed the delusional teenager. "Um... So I'm not good at spelling, but I think that's a pretty weird mistake to make." He walked closer to check out this supposed answer Rex was messing around with. "Yeah, I think you might be lying to yourself?"
"And... maybe you let yourself get lied to?" he added. "Love and lies are like peanut butter and jelly sometimes, I think." That's how it seemed to work, from what he had seen. It wasn't a very delicious combination, though, unlike peanut butter and jelly.
Honestly, though, the way Rex was acting was also kind of scary. The soldier disengaged, moving back towards Lewis. Lewis was a huge ball of sadness and self-loathing, but he was also actually listening to people... even if he was cherry picking the bad parts. "Just because you messed up doesn't mean you need to keep doing that," Caboose offered the ball of angst. "We all make mistakes. I killed Church once, and I don't think it was my fault, but I still felt awful about it. But things got better. Talk to your friend and tell him you are sorry and if he didn't want to kill you then I bet he will be sorry too. If people just talk than a lot of problems aren't problems."
Why is a yam attacking me?
Colosseum Arena, Phantom Thief Outfit —- Trust?
"It's a bit difficult to not take it personally when you get accused of being fake for trying to solve the puzzle..." Makoto said to Two as she stood up again and holstered her gun. Rex could say she wasn't useless all he wanted, but that would not change the crowd's opinion of her. Lewis finally said.... a whole lot of something that caused Makoto to look back at him in confusion and what could possibly be described as pity. And now he was on the floor. Amazing. Two went over to comfort him, and Makoto went back to pointedly tuning out the rest of the group.
Rex then walked over and claimed that the answer she'd written was spelled wrong. Confused, she allowed him to write underneath her kanji. Wait was he...?
"You...still believe me?" she asked, looking at him with wide eyes. Caboose still thought she was a liar though, and she doubted that one person could change the tide of the voting once it started.
Edited by ScorpioRat on Nov 7th 2018 at 6:04:56 AM
THE SLORG!
Silanea was surprised, but managed to catch the phone, nearly fumbling it to the ground. "What, Rex, don't show it to me! I could be a fake trying to trick you for more information!" Silanea said in an exasperated tone, before letting out a sigh. "I would have gone and written the answer too to prove I already knew it, but I can't do that now since now I've possibly seen it from..." the lamia trailed off as Rex went over to where Makoto had written the answer down. Silanea slithered over to look, along with others coming over to check it out, then she face palmed.
"Rex, you two didn't even write in the same language" Thomas pointed out, in a dull tone.
"And 'a blade' is a non specific answer, probably used as a broad net in an attempt to be technically correct by coincidence" Brother Marcus noted, in a very disapproving tone. "Setting aside the boy Ben suddenly acting out of character in taking my side, let us have this matter settled" the space marine continued, marching over to the edge of the arena where Wells was waiting at the barrier.
"Lieutenant Wells, answer this: On the twenty first day, when we were all forced to occupy the body of another, the man that Silanea had turned into included the possession of a weapon. What was that weapon?" Brother Marcus asked the militia leader.
"... The weapon? Ah yes, he had a large mace, with a long handle and a heavy head" Wells answered, after a brief recollection.
"Then the answer wasn't even correct anyways" Brother Marcus said aloud, turning and pointing his arm at Makoto. "I vote for the girl named Makoto" the space marine stated simply.
"Yeah, I vote for her too" Thomas said, pointing to Makoto.
Meanwhile, Louie was watching Lewis' breakdown. The trainer scratched the side of his head slightly. "... Did you follow all of that?" Louie asked Ben, a bit confused in tone.
There was a blur on the ground to one side, as a book appeared opened to a certain page.
Blue
Brother Marcus
Caboose
Genji
Hartwig
Hercules
John
Lewis
Louie
Makoto 2
Morty
Rean
Rex
Rick
Silanea
Sir Redring
Thomas
Two
Yuna
18 votes remaining.
Edited by FirockFinion on Nov 7th 2018 at 6:09:33 AM
You are reading this.
For the Horde!
Ben grinned and gave a thumbs-up to the Greek hero.
"Yup, that's it! Okay, you're real, for sure," Ben said to him. He was about to turn and start questioning Louie next but apparently Makoto had answered her question wrong. Rex tried to defend her but Ben put a hand on his hip and pointed in her direction.
"Yeah, I'll vote for her too," Ben said. "She got it wrong. We need to find these shapeshifters anyway and—" With that, Ben was interrupted by Louie and looked in his direction. Ben blinked for a moment and glanced over at Lewis, who Louie seemed to be confused by.
"I wasn't even paying attention to Lewis," Ben admitted. "What'd he say?"
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
Happy Box Hater
Colosseum
So the truth was revealed! Makoto was a fake all along, no doubt about that now! Which probably meant Rex was only being so mean and jerkish because he was being manipulated, and not because this was how he always was... there was no way he was normally this bad, right?
"OK then... I guess I'll vote for her too," Caboose said, slightly lost in thought. So much was going wrong, how were they even going to fight whatever comes next if everyone was this bad at working together? Would they be able to pull it all together when it was needed like the reds and blues always did?
The soldier glanced to the side at Ben when he asked what Lewis was talking about. "He's made a lot of mistakes and he feels really bad about it," he explained very simply. "But I don't think they're bad enough that he can't go back."
Why is a yam attacking me?
"Yeah, you're cool," said Rick, looking a bit put out that his theory wasn't right. "Maybe we should-"
It was at that moment that another loud argument rent the already heated atmosphere, another batch of shouting that ended with Lewis curled up on the floor. "Oh god." mumbled Morty, as he surveyed the devastation.
"You know what?" said Rick. "I vote Makoto too. Just to get it over with, this is *uuurp* this entire s-situation is just stressin' me out. It's stressin' me out, Morty, do you know how I get w-when I'm stressed?! One of these fuckers ripped off my arm, my damn arm, like five days ago- he almost killed me, Morty-and now I'm not supposed to have an instinctual reaction to this?"
Rick growled and took a long shot from his flask to try and calm his evidently jangled nerves.
Edited by Locoman on Nov 7th 2018 at 8:12:36 AM
Annoyed Mode: ON
...Makoto was wrong.
It took Yuna a few moments to process it. The girl who seemed like one of the most driven to earn the wish turned out to be a clone... or was she? There was a chance she'd just forgotten what the weapon was. After all, she'd only seen it once, right? Forgetting a weapon you barely saw was rather different from forgetting about a ship you built alongside your group. Could it truly be an unfortunate coincidence... and was there any way to know for sure?
...well yes. Yes, there was.
"Hang on, I think maybe she could've actually forgotten about it," the young girl ventured, stepping forward towards the alleged clone. "I want to ask something to make sure it wasn't just an accident." She looked up to possibly Makoto with hopeful yet uncertain eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke. "You and I were together for a long while on that day they talked about. Can you write down three things you remember about what the person I turned into looked like? Some of the people here should remember too so we can check no problem."
"Of course. It's only fair after all you've done for me" he looked away for a second, hinting that he maybe wasn't being completely sincere "It was a dumb question anyway. I probably only remember that guy's weapon because I had to fight him inside Silanea's head"
That justification wasn't enough for Caboose, who went so far as to claim Rex was deluding himself into thinking Makoto was who she claimed to be. The soldier had slowly pushed his limits and Rex had ignored him because he wasn't completely lucid and because he was having a good time pointing out the doppelgangers, but now he had officially crossed the line. Who was to say he wasn't a copy enjoying too much being able to play such a ridiculous role?
"What do you know?! You are a danger to everyone around you and the only thing stopping you from killing someone with a stray bullet is the fact your gun has a higher IQ than you do"
Of course, that outburst wasn't enough to stop Caboose, or anyone else, from voting for Makoto. It was just a matter of time before the bandwagon claimed another innocent victim. Rex had to do something quick. Whatever his plan was with the book Tairee summoned, it had been completely overrun by his panic.
"Wait, wait, guys! Please stop. She's not a fake. She... she can't be"
Yuna was naturally a lot less quick to judge and actually gave Makoto a well deserved chance to prove herself she still asked about the minor details of what was generally agreed upon as an awful day. It wasn't anything the real Makoto would care about, just pointless descriptions she could have easily forgotten or had trouble recalling for some reason. If anything was going to prove she was real, it had to have a much bigger emotional impact on her.
"You don't need to answer that" he grabbed Makoto's hands, maybe squeezing them too hard "Just... tell them how we met. Wells was there, he can prove it"
Dark Sun, what choices have I...?
I felt someone there for some ungodly reason. Two? Well, she was a hugger, so that wasn't weird. She probably didn't actually listen to or grasp a word I said, just went 'aww bby' after, and we didn't actually know each other that well...I stiffened for a minute, though let her be. Just for a minute.
That wasn't so hard, was it? Now stay out of our way if you know what's best for you"
"...get off me." No. I didn't deserve this, and even if she didn't get that I did. I shouldn't even be here...
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guess
Colosseum Arena, Phantom Thief Outfit —- This Isn't Funny Anymore, This Is Just Depressing
Makoto seemed to be ignoring the votes she was getting until Yuna and Rex came over to them in an attempt to prove her innocence. Honestly, it was... too much. The way he was holding her hands like his life depended on it. Maybe it did? He sounded desperate enough. She shook her head before pulling away from Rex.
"...I can't answer either of those," she said, and then walked further off. She had her back to the entire group, not even bothering to look at them. The anger in her posture and voice was gone, replaced with a sort of sadness. Maybe it hadn't been real in the first place. "You guys got me, congratulations."
Snowy
And then things started to fall apart again. Ben made the mistake of asking Yuna about what happened to her world, and so she started crying. Rean instinctively patted Yuna on the head because Yuna just so happened to be about the same age as his sister, and this was the kind of thing he'd do to help her feel better. Meanwhile, Makoto pushed Lewis too hard and he burst into a rant about all the mistakes he made over the last few days...and something that was a holdover from home.
And then Makoto herself put down an answer that was apparently wrong given Rex’s frantic attempt to “correct” it. He then tried everything possible to keep her from having to answer questions and convince everyone she wasn't a fake. He even went so far as to insult Caboose's intelligence- which, while true, the way he put it was way harsher than necessary.
“...Rex, just let her answer the question." Rean said, glaring at the EVO.
Unfortunately, Makoto couldn't answer either question, sadly revealing herself to be a fake. "...Guess I'm voting for Makoto, then." Rean sighed. At least this round was over now, right? It kind of sucked that Makoto was a fake the entire time, though.
Happy Box Hater
Colosseum
Well, Rex did what he wanted when he insulted Caboose. The soldier fell silent. With the helmet being what it was, no one would have any clue just what he was thinking about. Small changes in posture did make clear that the dolt wasn't really happy, though.
And when Makoto just gave up... well, it did slightly embolden Caboose enough for him to speak again, if only because it meant he wasn't wrong. "I know you are smarter than me, but so is everyone else here," the soldier told him frankly, the normal childlike enthusiasm still present to a small degree but taking a backseat. "And none of them are treating me like this... All I did was say something you didn't like..." He sounded kind of lost. But one thing was certain, the man was done with Rex.
He stood around, waiting for the votes to go through.
Why is a yam attacking me?
"I'm trying to not let my emotions get the best of me and make us lose this challenge. I'm sure you know all about that"
At least, as Rex feared, Lewis was indeed who he said he claimed. None of the doppelgangers would be able to spill so many details about the mindscape and in fact, it was a little surprising how much Lewis could recall.
"I don't even remember half of those details but I think it checks out. I guess it's super easy to keep track of what's going on when you stay on the sidelines sitting on your hands, right?"
Caboose of all people jumped to his defense, claiming Rex and Makoto were unnecessarily picking on him. Rex had a few words to tell the soldier about how Lewis was anything but innocent even if he wasn't a copy, but Makoto quickly explained it away as her trying to be thorough. Silanea liked that idea and didn't see anything wrong with questioning Lewis further.
"Yeah, Lewis. If that's even your real name" at this point Rex didn't even care what Lewis did. He either admitted his errors in front of the entire city, he confirmed he was a copy, or he stopped talking altogether to hide his shame. Each of those was a fitting end to the conversation.
The lack of clear suspects lead Marcus to theorize that the remaining doppelganger(s) had managed to learn far more about their victims than the first two had, which he blamed on people freely sharing details about their lives. "Oh suddenly it's our fault? Let me ask you something, when did you grow a brain, Mark? You are acting a little less gung-ho than usual. Guess being away from your corpse of a boss is doing wonders for your peanut brain" Rex didn't make any effort to hide his smirk. Marcus would have to wait until this part of the challenge was over to be able to harm him. If he was who he claimed to be, that is.
Yuna started crying about the destruction of her world, which was a nice reminder of what was at stake here. As tempting as it was to keep attacking people, they would have to tone it down for now and actually think.
"Hey Tairee, can I ask for any of our books?"