Six


Everyone stared in shock as the screen in front of them switched to static, removing the image of what remained of Ash from their vision but not from their brains.

Tommie dropped to her knees and sobbed, trembling violently.  Evan seemed to have completely broken character, his expression petrified.  Jax had his face buried in his dog's fur.  Amy had looked away.  Alister's hands covered their mouth.  Dawn's eyes glimmered with unshed tears.

Stratus turned away.  If he hadn't stepped in, the supposed "quick and easy" suicide trial would have been much more than just one person getting executed.  It was funny how badly everyone had wanted to believe that nobody could be a killer.  But Stratus wasn't surprised; everyone had seemed very on-edge after the DVD incident.

"Woo!" Ace cheered. "Well, seems like I'm the only one absolutely pumped!  That's okay, we all have our things.  If you kids didn't like that, then you should just choose to live peacefully here in this school for the rest of your lives!  Easy as pie!"

"You're a monster!" Jax suddenly yelled, taking a dangerous step towards the dragon-creature.

"Hey, no." Amy grabbed the back of his sweatshirt and pulled him back with ease. "Remember the rule about actions against the headmaster."

At her words, Jax seemed to remember and let his shoulders slump.

"Wait, I just realized!  Why haven't we thought to just call the police-" Tommie cut herself off as she figured out exact why while trying to search her clothes for her phone.

"You hadn't tried yet?  It's the first thing I did after getting here, man.  Gotta check my feed," Alister said, putting their hands on their hips. "Then after that, I think I took a nap or something at some point, and my phone went missing."

"Congratulations, you found out that you can't call the authorities," Ace chimed in sarcastically. "Give it up for this dumb*ss, everybody."

Stratus was the first to leave.  He didn't need to be there for whatever happened next.  He'd done what he'd needed to do, and that was that.  It did become clear that he'd missed something important, though, when he stepped out of the elevator and heard the sound of grinding gears down the hall.  Curious, he followed the source of the noise to the base of the stairway.  He was met with a pleasant surprise: the metal bars that had blocked them off were gone, allowing the students to explore the next level of the school.


He didn't feel the need to wait for the others, so he simply ascended the stairs alone and stepped out onto the second level.  The first thing he found was a hallway across from the staircase.  Knowing that there was more to explore, though, he continued towards his right first.  He discovered another classroom, a staircase that seemed to go up to the third floor but was blocked off at the moment, an archive, a library, and another classroom before hitting the end of the hallway.  By the time he made his way back to check out the first hallway he had seen, everyone else was beginning to arrive on the second floor.

"Anything cool?" was all Amy asked him.  Her eyes revealed that she didn't have it in her at the moment to say anything else.

"Library, archives, more classrooms, and I'm about to check out this hallway." Stratus pointed at the unexplored corridor.

"Let's check it out, then," she suggested.  They began to walk in silence.

"Are you doing alright?" he asked.

Amy seemed a little caught off-guard by his question. "Honestly?  Hell no."

"It's been a crazy few days," he agreed.

They stopped walking to find themselves standing outside what appeared to be the girl and boy locker rooms, some sort of panel next to each that seemed to require a keycard... or digital handbook.

"Maybe it's better that Ash didn't make it to this part," Amy tried to joke.  They both laughed half-heartedly.

Stratus pulled out his digital handbook and went to go use it to unlock the boys' locker room when a reflection in the screen caught his eye.  He looked up to see a large machine gun hanging down from the ceiling, positioned towards the doors.  As if sensing his confusion, Ace's voice echoed from the loudspeakers.

"It's a good thing you saw that, otherwise you might've tried getting into the girls' locker room and found out the hard way!"

Stratus thought for a moment before turning back to a startled Amy. "Looks like we can't try to get into the wrong locker room."

Amy snorted. "As if I'd want to go into your smelly locker room.  You guys act as if deodorant doesn't exist."

He chuckled. "Hey, I do!  Can't say the same for Evan."

They both laughed, but stopped abruptly at the sharp gasp that came from behind them.  They turned to see a very betrayed-looking Evan standing there, his arms crossed and his expression hurt.

"Well you could've said it to my face!" he said. "This is why I should've packed some Axe body spray."

After a brief silence, the three of them began laughing together.  Stratus had to admit, the moment felt nice.  He stood there for a moment as Evan peeked into the boys' locker room and returned a few minutes later to inform them of the pool on the other side of the locker rooms.

"Good to know," Amy said to herself. "I haven't gotten a good workout for a bit now."

While she went to go check out the girls' locker room, Stratus returned back down the hall to the library, where he found Alister fishing through books.

"Looking for anything?" he asked.

Alister glanced over her shoulder at him and nodded. "Yeah.  Specifically slow-burn fantasy romance.  I'm really into those at the moment."

Stratus didn't feel like saying that he felt the exact opposite about both fantasy and romance, so he instead did a brief check of the room.  All of the books were in alphabetical order by the last name of the author.  Otherwise, there was nothing special, so he turned to leave but stopped when he saw a paper on the table in the center of the library.  Curious, he picked it up and scanned the document.  It seemed to be a letter of indication, clarifying that Hope's Peak Academy had shut down school operations until the "issue" had been resolved.  Unsure by what this could mean, he decided to fold it up and tuck it into his flannel pocket before leaving Alister to find her fantasy books.

"Students!  Gather back up in the gym; I think it's time we kick things up a notch!" Ace's voice once again filled the air.

Stratus froze in place.  Things had already been kicked up a notch; how could it possibly get worse?

Alister emerged from the library behind him, also seeming confused.  Up ahead, he saw Amy, Evan, and the others descending the stairs already.  Unlike the first few times, everyone arrived in the gym much faster now, as if wanting to get whatever was about to happen over with.  As soon as the last person entered, Ace jumped out from behind the podium, waving a stack of envelopes.

"Guess what I have~!" they sang happily, skipping towards the group and beginning to hand them out. "One for you, and one for you- and don't think I forgot about you!  You all get one!"

"The hell is this?" Amy demanded, beginning to open the one handed to her.

Ace giggled. "I figured after what happened with Narwhale and Ash, nobody would want to play my game anymore.  How rude is that?  Even though I already gave you plenty of motivation to kill?  Well, I can't let that happen.  You'll find your most embarrassing secret in that silly little envelope of yours.  If someone is not killed within the next twenty-four hours, I will reveal EVERYONE'S SECRETS!"

"That's fine!  No secret is worth killing anyone over!" Tommie argued.

"She has a point there," Dawn agreed. "Two deaths was more than enough."

Stratus nodded in agreement.  It seemed decided that they all would wait it out and let their secrets be known.  Still unsure of what could possibly be in his envelope, he gently ripped it open and unfolded the paper neatly tucked inside.

And what he saw made his heart stop.


***

(1358 words)

Oh no!  Blackmail!  Surely Tommie's right....

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