The White Elephant in the Room Playground

[Fusion]

"I will remain adamant and blame those consoles," Lee huffed. "But yes, it's starting to sound like Santa is the culprit behind all this... and maybe we should try to vote him off?" he sighed, shaking his head. "I have no idea, honestly..."

Speaking of ideas, Lee looked to Za- Zeke. "You heard about Santa getting killed, right? And how we, not including you, were wrapped up in solving his murder?"

 

[IFBench]

"Of all the people here, Gen, you are sure to be safe. Take a deep breath. You'll be fine."

Gen took a deep breath, in and out. His shaking slowed, then stopped.

A small smile appeared on his face. He was really grateful for Abigail's presence here.

As he stood with her, a worrying thought crossed his mind.

Did we ever clear Jesse?

 

[Tanuki]

“Sant—” there was a thud, and then silence.

Zeke glanced at Lee with the full brunt of confused skepticism he’d built up with this group so far. “I’m... a bit old for Santa, dude. Saw those news stories, yeah, but c’mon.” He shook his head and chuckled, “Who would really believe that Santa died? I’m sure it’s just a dumb marketing ploy.”

He looked back at “Pallister” with a quirked brow. “You all right, buddy? C’mon, don’t—“ an evil grin stretched his mouth wide, “—space out on me.” He laughed, but kept his fist behind his back. Maybe he would activate the ski lift for an old friend?

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Did we ever clear Jesse?

Jesse gave Gen an odd look.

"You remember Abigail and Palkia both cleared me, right? We saw each other's alignments when I sacrificed my turtle doves. Abigail even named my original gift as proof. You wanna stop givin' me funny glances?"

“Sant—” there was a thud, and then silence.

Jesse's face assumed a placid neutrality. "Folks, I'm under the strong impression that our friend Elbert was just murdered. Not what I was hopin' fer."

 

[IFBench]

Gen wanted to slap himself in the face, but his arms were too short for that. How could he have forgotten?

"I forgo—"

Gen cut off as he heard Elbert cut off. His expression paled, and his hold on Abigail tightened.

One of their biggest hopes for survival, gone.

 

[Tanuki]

"Folks, I'm under the strong impression that our friend Elbert was just murdered. Not what I was hopin' fer."

“No,” Elbert grumbled. “Not unless idiocy can kill.”

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Oh thank fuck, yer still alive and as aggravatin' as ever. What just happened to ya?"

 

[Tanuki]

“Frustration.” Elbert’s voice was muffled, like his face was still laying on his desk. “Why did no one think of Santa? Wait—why would Santa do this?”

 

[Fusion]

“Not unless idiocy can kill.”

"And what do you mean by that, smartass?" Lee growled lowly.

 

[Tanuki]

"And what do you mean by that, smartass?" Lee growled lowly.

“I meant ours, you defensive pricks.”

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Ain't no Santa in my world. And I barely remember my home world. I can't begin to speculate why yer Santa would be fuckin' with us. Anyway you'll forgive us some tetchiness, it's been a stressful few days here."

 

[Fusion]

“I meant ours, you defensive pricks.”

Lee snickered. "It's always a relief to hear someone from your committee admit to your own ineptitude. Makes these few days a bit easier to stomach." He put his paw to his chin and hummed, thoughtful. "I have the faintest idea of why someone like this Santa would do any of this. Taking a look at all or most of us... it'd be some annoying form of character development. Self improvement. Or whatever bullshit like that."

Lee shook his head and shrugged. "Or maybe Santa is a twisted son of a bitch and likes to see people stressed out of their minds for his enjoyment," he chuckled. "Maybe I could take a few notes from him when confronting the committee."

 

[Tanuki]

Zeke was experiencing the most confusing conversations of his lifetime. Only getting half of it killed any hope of having the slightest idea what these mental patients were on about while they talked to and about their mutual hallucination. The sheer level of their insanity made him wonder if they even operated on the same plane of existence as him.

They mentioned consoles, were they playing a game? How did so many adult people randomly decide to play imagination and coordinate a script they all reacted to in real time? Was he just some non playable character to them they didn’t expect to run into, forcing them to rewrite their entire story about being the only people left alive after Santa died fanfiction? Were they sapient? Did they think he was?

All the while, he awaited Pallister’s reciprocation of the behind the back fist bump.

 

[Tanuki]

A thought struck him. “Oh, Pallister,” he said, dropping his fist to grab a binder underneath his control panel. “I’ve been looking into it a bit more, and there was a flaw in one of the equations.” He opened his binder up to a page that... looked like math.

Sort of. It had mathematic symbols (plus, minus, multiply, divide), but no numbers. The entire alphabet scattered across the page, English, Galarian, Unown, Kantonese, it seemed he’d used every symbol set at his disposal. “For our experiment, it wouldn’t be an issue,” he started. “If we did it for any longer, though, the time dilation would go into retrograde. After about six or seven days, the spatial plane would collapse back to normal, no more instantaneous travel, but fragments of the past would infect the area.” He looked up with a bit of excitement. “Looks like we’ll be staying theoretical for now.”

 

[Chibi Pika]

Palkia picked up the binder, eyes shining. "Fragments of the past, you say?" While the spatial dragon was perusing the equations, the arm that it had crossed behind its back had somehow reached through space to tap Zeke's when no one was looking.

 

[Tanuki]

Upon closer inspection, Zeke had to be at least half printer type. He wrote every character perfectly legibly and spaced, even using different fonts to partition the page, and had evidently committed the first and second editions of the Wingdings character sets. It was the most legible writing possible, yet could not possibly be deciphered.

“That’s the simplified version, but you already know that,” Zeke explained. “And the next few pages are the potentialities if we removed the area from The Rope.”

 

[Fusion]

"Potentialities is not a word, I refuse to believe it as such," Lee huffed.

 

[Tanuki]

Zeke smirked at Lee and snickered, “🕈♒♋⧫✍ ✌❒♏ ⮹□◆ ♓●●♓⧫♏❒♋⧫♏✍”

 

[Chibi Pika]

Palkia tilted its head at him. "👍♋■🕯⧫ ⬧♋⮹ ⧫♒♋⧫ 🖐 ♋🔾📪 ■□📬"

 

[Tanuki]

Zeke rolled his eyes at Palkia. “🖐 🔾♏♋■⧫ ⬥□●♐📫♌□⮹📪 ♎❒♋♑□■ ♒♏♋♎📬”