Sorry this took so long to make; it's about 1.5x as large as last time. I couldn't get to every single motive in this chapter, but I provided enough for each character to have a chance at being the murderer. Chapter Two will cover much more details on the characters I scratched the surface up, so I hope this will suffice until then!
If I haven't PM'd you yet, expect it tomorrow. I wanted to post this before sleeping and figured it won't change the future for your character. Thanks!
Chapter One
“Welcome one and all to the quarterfinals of the Pokemon Contest Spectacular!” a projected voice springs through the contest hall, with all of the fans structured like some sort of colosseum; in a very large circle. “Eight of the greatest contest superstars spanning from several different regions are here tonight, all with one purpose: the Final Four.”
In the crowds, female Pokemon screech and the males push to get a better view. Spotlights from above shine in every direction. Each level of the sidelines is protected by a window that separates the inside fans from the outside stage. A little Chingling gets pushed up against it and screams in fright.
“Because of a certain contestant, we have been ordered to put in glass protective windows for your own safety. In the final sixteen, a Simisear had sent two Sunflora and a Hoppip into the emergency room with second degree burns. Way to go, Simisear,” the voice trails. We’ve got plenty in store for you tonight, including an exclusive sweepstakes and an amazing lineup of talent. Who’s ready for some contests?”
The crowd screeches with excitement. Some of the guards standing nearby double check the glass to make sure it doesn’t break, but they are relieved to see it all still intact.
“Before we start anything, though, I’d like to give a nice DJ solo to the man with the music--Electrike!”
The spotlight lands at a table with a small, green, doglike Pokemon mixing some records and playing heavy metal. Hype intensifies as he gets out his headphones and slips them on, showing his likeable carefree nature and overall popularity. Soon, the spotlight moves from Electrike to the stage, which is elevated a good bit off the ground. Out comes the booming voice from before--Pidgeot.
Pidgeot is in her mega form to show off; she has the blue tipped wings and tail, the fancy hair, the works. “I’d also like to thank Rhydon for his special effects. Anyway, let me introduce you to the three judges of this contest! First up, we have Vivillon!”
In the crowd, an Aipom screams out about popcorn. “Two for three dollars! Get your freshly-popped popcorn!” As several small children come to the now-popular monkey, his eyes narrow down at the stage with a look of dread.
Outside the stands and right beside the bathroom is another concessions stand, this one labeled “La Smear’s Cake: Try a Piece!”
“Free cake!” cries out an artistic beagle. “You definitely want to try my cake! First bite’s free!”
A purple-winged butterfly smiles as she flies up from her seat and winks at the crowd cutely. She gets a very positive response. “Hello, everyone, I’m Vivillon the Elegant! Usually, I am the main judge in these contests, but I am only going to be a side one today! I’m looking forward to grading your performances!”
A depressed Croagunk thumps up the stairs and sits in one of the balcony seats. He looks at his hand and presses it against his forehead. Beside him is this obnoxious couple, a Togekiss and a Wargle, and the Togekiss notices him immediately.
“Have I met you somewhere before?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“Oh, sorry for the confusion,” she smiles.
Nearby, a frantic guard, a beautiful blue Vaporeon, scrolls through her texts from the past few previous nights.
“‘I love you, too,’ he said to me the other day,” she reminisces. “I miss Lucario so much…”
“I’m Carracosta, you all rock!” says a large, rock-shelled turtle.
Backstage, a Chandelure begins to perspire due to first round jitters. Because he had the lowest score last round, he’s going first this round. He tests out his flames and sees them working fine. He lets out a sigh and gulps loudly.
Back in the crowd, a shady crow sits in one of the rows counting stacks of bills. “I’m two stacks short. I’d hate to have to peck some eyes out. The boys are really getting it this time,” he mutters. “And that Goth chick is gonna be up soon. If she does well, I’ll be raking in the dough.”
Honchkrow laughs as he throws a few dollars in the air, watching others jumping out of their seats to grab at the worthless currency.
The spotlight turns to an empty chair in between the two other judges; the main judge is missing.
“Whaaat?” squawks Pidgeot.
The crowd goes silent.
“Just admit it now, Gothorita. You did it. You murdered my father and I need the closure! Don’t I deserve that much?” a dragonfly-like Pokemon pleas with a locked contestant’s room.
“Flygon, your father’s death was an accident. Nothing more,” a voice comes from inside.
“Well did you do it by accident?”
The private room’s door swings open and a cute little head with black pig-tails and deep, blue eyes pops out. “I can’t believe that after all of our time together, you would blame me for something like this! I don’t have the time to bicker right now...Please, Flygon, can we discuss this after the appeals round?”
“...Fine.”
Flygon zooms down the hallway, to the backstage area, and zip into her seat to introduce herself before people began to talk too much. She smiles and then allows Pidgeot to continue her own speech.
Gothorita shuts the door back and grabs the last few pieces out of her bag of popcorn. She plops a piece in her mouth and asks her personal stylist, a Mega Ampharos, to get her some cake from that La Smear stand outside the contest area. The Pokemon, annoyed, does as he is told while Gothorita powders her face.
The other contestants’ stylist, Leavanny, walks in the room.
“Leavanny, I told you--your designs aren’t my type. That fire dress you tried to use the other day could have killed me. It was too “cool” for the Cute Contest.”
Leavanny looks down at his poor cutters and frowns. “I just came in to wish you good luck. This stylist of yours, that Mega Ampharos, is definitely fabulous, but he isn’t known for his styling of others...Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“More sure than I would be if I had a fire dress on. I’m sorry, Leavanny, but it’s just too unfitting for me. Please give me some time to myself.”
“Well, think about my help after the appeals round! You might change your mind...Oh, and overeating before the contests is never a good thing. Just a word of warning!”
Gothorita spits out the piece of popcorn and throws it in the trash as the annoying stylist walks out of the room.
Chandelure starts his appeal out with controlling his blue, fiery Will-O-Wisps with a Psychic attack, causing them to encircle his body. He then brings them in closer and closer until they go through his body and into his skin, causing Flash Fire to activate and a stream of fire erupting from the candles of the Luring Pokemon. Chandelure is given two 8s and a 7 from the judges, the latter being Flygon’s score, due to him using the same technique in the qualifying tournament.
“Great use of your moves, but using it again? Kind of boring,” Vivillon smiles.
“You rock, but not that hard,” Carracosta remarks.
“I didn’t like it. Any Ghost-type can do most of that; it’s standard. Your ability changed that, but you have not grown as an individual. Thus, I believe a 23 out of 30 is perfect for you,” asserts the previously-upset Flygon.
Vaporeon walks around to the backstage area to make sure everything is working smoothly; she walks past a Noivern talking with a Minun and hears her talking.
“That Vaporeon is the one that they call the “Breathtaking Beauty” or something, right? I heard she got framed for killing people so her friend could snatch her boyfriend away. Yikes,” he whispers just barely in Vaporeon’s hearing distance.
“I don’t know, but I need to go to the bathroom,” a clueless blue-eared mouse springs up from her seat and runs to one of the rooms with a dance in her step.
“Did you say that the someone who made a rumor about me was my best friend?” Vaporeon asks angrily as she grabs the collar of Noivern’s fur.
“Uh, no! I said, uh, the Eon Pokemon! Like Latios and Latias?”
Vaporeon keeps walking and checks her phone again. After the breakup, Lucario never even explained why. Could this be it? Nearby, a shady-looking Umbreon snaps his eyes away from the scene, though it is obvious he listened to at least a fraction of the conversation.
Noivern’s performance came soon after Chandelure, and he got a surprising 27/30 for his Flamethrower / Dragon Pulse combination.
“Next in line is Gallade, a rather mysterious competitor! Will he get the top score of the night?” asks Pidgeot.
A very valiant figure can be seen in only a black outline, for he has cast a beautiful pink cloud of fog. The Misty Terrain brings many female fans to their knees; some are drooling at his manliness already.
Gallade jumps out of the mist and slices the fog in front of him. He uses Will-O-Wisp, like Chandelure, but destroys the wisps with a powerful Focus Blast that spirals into each one, causing little blue particles to sprinkle into the crowd and land on their windows. The judges give Gallade a 29/30, with Flygon upset by his rather short performance.
Minun steps up onto the sink and washes her face. She hums as she does it and finds herself massaging her cheeks, then her temples, then her own neck. She feels relaxed and closes her eyes momentarily.
“Hey Minun! Look at the mirror!” a voice whispers.
Minun opens her eyes and sees the familiar figure of her lifelong friend, Plusle. The Pokemon, whose appearance contrasts in red coloration where Minun has blue, smiles and they embrace each other through the flatness of the mirror.
“What are you doing here?” Minun asks.
“I know you’re in the competition, but there is a certain someone that is going to make you lose hands-down. We need to come up with a way to defeat this girl without her knowing about me. What do you say?” she smiles again.
“Which girl?” Minun asks. “There are several. I miss you so much, Plusle...you don’t even know. Day by day, hour by hour, I think about you.”
“I know, Minun.”
“No, seriously!” Minun says.
“Um, who are you talking to?” asks an incoming Sylveon.
“Take the threat out,” Plusle says, her body fading from view.
“I was talking to myself; trying to rid my brain of nervousness. Sorry about that, heh,” Minun shrugs.
“Whatever. I need to wash up before I go on. I’m right after Lopunny.”
“Lopunny?”
“Yes; she’s the fan-favorite, at least according to Pidgeot. Flygon and the others have always liked Gothorita much more, but Lopunny is definitely a threat.”
“What about Gothorita?”
“You can’t get more threatening than that girl.”
Minun frowns and steps out of the bathroom.
Lopunny High Jump Kicks into her Attract-created hearts, earning her 28 points out of the possible thirty. She cries a tear when two judges give her a nine, but she’s at least in the top two for now.
As Electrike changes up the music, a small, dark figure approaches. “Hello, Gothorita,” he smiles.
“Hi. Can I ask a favor?”
“Ask away.”
“Your music--it stinks. I need something more beautiful for my appeals round performance.”
“
Stinks?”
“Yes, I think so. If you don’t change it for me, I will have you removed and order my own personal DJ. Ask Leavanny, he got the boot.”
Electrike orders Gothorita to go backstage and he keeps the music playing on its current song. He jumps up the stairs and goes over to the very top area with the sound and lighting equipment. There, his friend, Rhydon the electrician, messes with some wiring.
“Rhydon, Gothorita just asked me to change my music. I have been a free artist since my parents started their physical abuse on me. I can’t take petty criticism just because she’s prissy! What do I do? She threatened my job!”
“I’m not sure what to tell you, Electrike. Do what she wants, I suppose,” Rhydon offers.
“You don’t understand! Can you....help me get rid of her, Rhydon? I can’t do it on my own. I can’t let her replace me over the one thing I love in life,” Electrike sobs.
“Of course I’ll help you. You just go DJ and I’ll make sure Gothorita’s ready for a
big surprise.”
Over the course of this conversation, Sylveon made a 25/30 and an upsetting sob story to try and get more votes afterward, which only made the judges shrug.
“You shouldn’t have tried to Bite your Moonblast. If you break your teeth, that’s your problem.”
Umbreon goes over to the sad Vaporeon sitting on the stairs. He sits beside her and smiles at her, though she does not brighten up.
“Vaporeon, what’s wrong?”
“My best friend has tried to ruin my life, and I think she succeeded.”
“Who?”
“Gothorita. She made me lose my ex-boyfriend and now everyone thinks I’m some sort of murderer. Imagine if Pidgeot finds out; I’ll lose my job. She would do that for me, you know. Get me fired. That’s a typical Gothorita thing to do,” she sighs.
Umbreon nods his head. “I can try and do something to make her regret bothering you ever again if you want me to. It involves one of my moves--it’s pretty cool. When it’s her turn, keep your eye out for some embarrassment! She’ll never make rumors again.”
Vaporeon smiles at him feebly. “Thanks, Umbreon. You’re a good friend.”
Good friend? Ow, he thinks to himself.
“Umbreon, you’re up,” Pidgeot grumbles from a distance.
“Coming!” he springs to his feet and darts up the stairs.
Aipom passes out more popcorn and then sees that
she will be performing soon. That stupid girl wants to get rid of his job, and selling popcorn isn’t exactly at the top of the food chain.
“Mister, can I buy two popcorns?”
“Minun earns a respectable 28 on her Swift attack smashing! Gallade still holds spot number one! Who will win the appeals round? Find out next!” Pidgeot says loudly into the microphone, causing it to give loud feedback that travels through the entire stadium. “Oops?”
“No. If you buy two popcorn bags, you’ll have to much butter in your diet and you will blow up like a blimp. Now, kid, run along so I can gossip to myself about the competition.”
The baby Pokemon runs away crying, much to Aipom’s satisfaction. “And they say therapy helps the mind. Arceus knows I’m not right in the head, but at least I only sell popcorn for a living and not something like knives. When this competition is over, I may just put myself back in that mental institution.
“Congratulations, Umbreon, you have tied with Gallade for the most points of tonight--29!” Pidgeot shrieks.
Mega Ampharos, Gothorita’s stylist, is only halfway through the line for Smeargle’s cake, and it has taken forty-five minutes to get there. He groans and thinks about eating the cake himself.
“And now for one of the more popular competitors, the one you’ve all been waiting for….it’s Gothorita!”
As Gothorita walks on stage and Pidgeot off stage, two small Pokemon--a Stunfisk and a Feebas-- crawl beside the judges’ table and hide behind Flygon. Flygon notices them and asks about their motive for breaking the rules.
“We like Gothorita,” Feebas explains.
“I like her hair,” Stunfisk giggles.
“She’s our hero!” Feebas cheers.
“She has really cool hair,” Stunfisk cackles, flailing on the ground in laughter.
“Well she probably killed my father, so…” Flygon sighs.
Both Pokemon look heartbroken. Stunfisk cries and flops back to wherever he came from, and Feebas follows. Flygon looks for them in the audience but can’t see anything.
Back at the stage, Gothorita steps into position and raises her arms up to a point at the tip of her head. A small orb of pink Heal Pulse is soon created around Gothorita, and it then spreads to the rest of the contest arena. Gothorita shifts her hands apart from each other and turns the orb light green. It then divides into thousands of light green Energy Ball spheres that are then given some force to move around, causing them to act like a rotating globe of green around Gothorita. She then strikes her hands upward, making two different piles of Energy Balls in the air, and then smacks them together to create a Psyshock animation.
The Energy Balls smash together in an explosive display, causing little green bits of glitter to emit from the explosion and dazzle the audience and judges. Gothorita gets straight 10s and is in the lead for the appeals round.
Pidgeot gets on stage and looks upwards for a second, but then looks back at Gothorita.
“I’m not sure how you did it, but you did something right. Do you have any last words before we go to a commercial break?”
“Yes, I d--” Gothorita chokes, coughing due to a popcorn kernel lodged in her throat. She gets on her hands and knees and hacks up as much as she can.
“Um, okay?”
Suddenly, one of the spotlights becomes loose and slams down onto the stage, landing right on Gothorita. Her body becomes limp and blood spills on the stage from impact. Pidgeot screams in disturbance and steps back in an attempt to clear her name.
Suddenly, a hollering Umbreon jumps on stage and uses Foul Play on Gothorita’s corpse, knocking it into the floor and leading blood to spill everywhere.
“Wait, why was she on the ground?” he asks.
“You just attacked a dead body, Umbreon. Did you have something to do with all of this?”
Umbreon backsteps and shakes his head vigorously. “I-it wasn’t me. I was just going to beat her up for Vaporeon!”
Honchkrow swoops on the stage and demands for an update on Gothorita’s checking account. “She owes me two Gs from tonight alone,” he says in a shady voice.
“Yes, because you’re not guilty at all,” Pidgeot asserts.
Meanwhile
Several guards evacuate the fans. Because they were all securely placed behind the window, none of them could have caused any damage. Aipom is taken into custody and is placed in the arena due to popcorn causing Gothorita to choke. Smeargle is almost taken by the arm, but he points out that he had cake. He and Mega Ampharos decide to go get some nice cocoa since they’re both temporarily out of work today.
All of the contestants and Vaporeon are brought out onto the floor. Rhydon, the judges, Electrike, Leavanny, and Honchkrow join them. In total, nineteen people sit in the hot seat of this murder, each with some sort of reason to kill, whether it be out of jealousy, hatred, or mentality.
As they are all rounded up, a lone Croagunk walks out of the fan area and towards the exit. “Good luck to you all,” he says. “You’re going to need it.”
“So who murdered Gothorita then?” asks Flygon, who seems quite chipper despite someone dying just before.
“Beats me. I just wanna go home and get some grub,” Gallade sighs.
“She probably killed herself to ruin my career,” Lopunny says with an eye roll.
“Seriously, guys. This has ruined my business! I’m going to have to resort to Plan B for
my success. As such, I will be the lead interrogator.”
“Why do you get to be the cop? I want to be the cop!” Chandelure sighs.
“I’ll be the cop since I’m just a salesman,” Aipom offers.
As they all bicker, Gothorita’s blood spreads more and more slowly. Vaporeon blasts it with water and rinses the blood off the floor.
“No, I’m a guard. I’m the closest to a cop. I’ll be in charge.”
No one objects, much to her surprise. “Now then, Rhydon, you’re the electrician; you checked on the equipment before we started the contest tonight, right?”
“Yes ma’am,” he replies.
“Then what were you doing when it fell, and why did it fall?”
Everyone stares at Rhydon, especially Electrike, and the Pokemon sighs.
“Well….”
Dead: Gothorita
Accused: Rhydon (Omega Soul)
Omega Soul, the earlier you PM me and the murderer PMs me (if it's not an NPC), the sooner the chapters will continue! Look in my OP if you need some guidance, or PM me and ask for an example from the first game we did. Thanks!