The Twenty-Three Left/Two

Two. Threats & speculation.
<poem>
	___Every monster on the ship was called down to the trainers’ bunks. They were in serious trouble.
	“You may have noticed,” Calvin said calmly, “that Trainer Alexander is not here.”
	There was a general scuffling and grunting among the monsters.
	“It’s because he is dead. Samurott found him floating in the ocean with his throat cut.”
	The monsters could not speak any human language, but they understood it very well. Their expressions did not change, however, as each was terrified of being accused of killing the trainer.
	“The storm did not kill him. I did not kill him. My colleagues Catherine and Bernard did not kill him. Thus it would be apparent that one of you killed him.”
	Calvin surveyed the monsters one by one. “If one who did it could please indicate their responsibility now, it would be quite helpful.”
	No one moved.
	“If the guilty party does not do so, however, I’m afraid that that would show that their species of monster is in fact quite amoral, and thus I would have to recommend to my superiors that all specimens of their kind should be destroyed immediately. I know you can understand me. So why don’t you save your species a lot of pain and wave one of your little paws at me, let me know who’s responsible, hmmm?”
	Again, no one moved.
	“All right, then. You wasted your chance. We’re going to find out which one of you did it, and we’re going to throw you into the ocean. In fact, we may just start throwing more and more of you in the ocean until someone fesses up.”
On that ominous note, the monsters were sent back abovedeck to continue their work.
	___Quietly, they began to gossip.
	“I think Samurott did it,” said Drilbur frankly. “After all, he ‘found’ the body.”
	“I dunno,” responded Audino. “Samurott’s very dedicated to the humans. He wouldn’t kill one of them.”
	“We need to get everybody together and talk to them about what they might have seen during the storm… that’s when the human was killed, right?” Drilbur considered. “We’ll probably have a chance after the other humans go to sleep.”
	“Sounds good,” Audino said, fluttering around. “I don’t want them to kill the rest of us while trying to root out the killer.”
	Whimsicott wandered over and joined in the conversation. “But they’ll try to make the culprit’s species extinct if they catch him! Remember?”
	“I think they were bluffing,” Drilbur said with certainty. “They wouldn’t do something like that!”
	“But what if they do?” Whimsicott asked, sounding rather melancholy.
	“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” said Drilbur.
Category:Fan Fiction 2