Bet on Blackened

Title card, designed by CSpratt

**Bet on Blackened** is the name of Celestia Ludenberg's execution, as featured in Blackened Skies.

## Sequence

*Excerpt taken from Chapter 17 of Blackened Skies*

The chain flew down from above, and in an instant, Celeste was gone.

Behind her, the screens once more crackled to life, a hellishly high-pitched and slightly out of tune song playing as an animation played of Monokuma walking up to Celeste and dragging her along.

CELESTIA LUDENBERG HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY.

TIME FOR PUNISHMENT!

The screens went black before bursting into brightness as a spotlight suddenly cut through the darkness, showing Celeste strapped by her arms and legs to a black wall with the number one written in white on it behind her. Another set of lights flicked on, followed by another, and continuing until it revealed that the Ultimate Gambler was a fixture of a giant roulette wheel, though with half the usual spaces. Fourteen of them were marked with cardboard cutouts of her other prisoners of the ship and a corresponding number, with one other slot featuring a sloppy pink X mark over its number instead, and two final green slots labeled as ‘LIFE’ and ‘LIFE + ESCAPE’ on opposite ends of the wheel, the latter almost directly across from Celeste’s space.

One more light flicked on to reveal a giant Monokuma leaning next to a black and red lever, the bear dressed in a green gambling visor and red vest with a devilish smirk. Behind him was a table similarly bearing pictures of the sixteen blackened fashioned in the style of a roulette betting board. Fifteen incredibly large monocoins were all stacked over Celeste’s portrait, apparently marking the universal bet of the class. Without further ado, Monokuma pulled the lever, and the giant wheel slowly began to spin.

A small bead of sweat trailed down Celeste’s face, but her calm mask remained in place even as the lethargically moving wheel began to speed up. At first, it was hardly noticeable, only moving an inch or two a second. However, as the moments ticked by, it began to pick up more and more speed, a few inches per second becoming a few feet, and then a few yards, and only growing faster from there.

Fear began creeping into Celeste’s expression as the air started blowing harshly against her, her hair drills blowing wildly in the artificial wind. It only worsened as the wheel sped up further. Soon, it was like she was in a hurricane, her drills blowing at practically a ninety-degree angle before suddenly blowing off entirely, the hairclips whipping away and revealing her natural bob cut. She couldn’t fully hide a wince, yet still her plastered smile held.

Soon, the wheel had become nothing but a blur, only the camera focused directly on Celeste able to provide a clear picture of what was happening. It was spinning fast enough that g-forces were starting to take effect, the gambler’s once flowing crinoline skirt crushed flat against her by the tightening pull of gravity. Her mask was beginning to slip, signs of discomfort peeking through the cracks as her features began to sink more and more.

Those signs of discomfort exploded into obvious agony as the speed became great enough that her earrings started to tug against her earlobes more and more until the thin metal managed to slice through completely. A strangled, almost silent scream hissed out of Celeste, her slashed ears bleeding profusely and eyes welling with pained tears as her skin seemed to take on an even more ghostly shade of white. The breaths she managed to steal in between her grunts and gasps of torment were becoming quicker and harsher, but it did little to stop the increasingly shallow amounts of air she could actually take in at a time.

Suddenly, Monokuma waddled to the rim of the roulette wheel of doom holding a large white sphere in his paw and began spinning his wrist. After building up a fair bit of momentum, he rolled the ball into the spinning wheel from the opposite direction. The ball flew into it, spinning around the track nearly as quickly as the wheel was moving. It was dizzying to try to follow, but Ludenberg attempted as best she could despite being completely frozen in place by the sheer speed of her deathtrap. Her ruby eyes desperately tracked it as it spun around, her face turning bluer and bluer with each cycle.

After a few moments, the ball started to slow down, its revolutions becoming longer and longer each time until it finally fell into the ring. It bounced out of the first slot, skipping over a few rows until it finally fell into the ‘LIFE + ESCAPE’ slot. Celeste’s eyes went wide, a faint glimmer of hope shining in them as the wheel finally began to slow down…

Only for Monokuma to slam his paw down on the table with a thunderous crash. The ball launched from the force of the impact, soaring through the air until it crashed down into Celeste’s slot, reducing the Ultimate Gambler to a bloody splatter with a sickening crunch .

After a few moments, the wheel finally came to a full stop. Monokuma reached into his vest, pulling out a small piece of paper of some sorts before picking up the ball that had killed Celeste and turning away from the camera. A second passed before he turned back with a monstrous grin, proudly presenting a queen of hearts… with the dark, unshapely red smear that had once been the Queen of Liars in the middle. With that, the screens fell black once more.