this town belongs to OVERLORD - A Transformers Murder Mystery Wild West AU

innocent.

Red Alert sniffled as he daintily cried, and Starscream rubbed his shaking shoulders, his eyes filled with empathy. Overlord had called yet another town meeting, and now we were down a very important member. Megatron was heavily involved in solving the mystery.

Ratchet was pacing at the head of the room next to the other representatives of the groups, his optics furiously locked upon his suffering comrade. "That's who Reddie was imprinting on." He shook his head in disbelief.

"We should do the interviews again," Elita-One said.

"I refuse to go through that a second time," Cyclonus snapped, and he crossed his legs and arms.

"I understand." I stepped forward, and the audience's heads tilted towards me. "I do feel the information chart needs to be updated."

Swerve had made a larger version of the chart upon a chalk board, and our glossy pictures glinted as I rolled the display to the center of the chamber. Trailcutter had a printer at his home that he said was an "impulse buy from a couple years back". Well, it had finally come in handy. I stared at Megatron's picture, my breath caught in my throat, before I respectfully erased the chalk away. I undid the tape holding his image up and pulled it off the board.

Someone choked up, and Starscream's high pitched weeping overlapped Red Alert's.

"I'm so sorry," Trailcutter muttered to his best friend.

I shut my eyes, trying to block out the fountain of emotion erupting up inside of me. Logic had to come forth and just general faith in people. "Red Alert."

"Yes?" he replied.

"Come here."

I turned back around as he ambled through the aisle to me, and his soft, beautiful eyes jittered as terror flashed through him. His hands grasped each other and then let go before patting his sides and then crossed behind his back. Red Alert's anxiousness was evident, and he rocked slightly on his heels.

"How long do you usually take to imprint?"

"M-maybe about two days? I try n-not to go t-too long between guardians. I started imprinting on Megatron while waiting o-on my interview."

"How do you imprint?"

"I-I'm not sure. I just kinda g-get a good feeling about someone, and I get hooked t-to them. M-Megatron was nice. He had a good aura."

"Okay, thank you." I beckoned with my finger for Reddie to lean down, and when he bent over, curious, I whispered, "Do you have auditory hallucinations?"

"Sometimes," he muttered.

"What do you hear?"

"Just mean things. Like 'you can't do it' or 'no one loves you'. Sometimes I just hear incomprehensible whispering."

"Thank you, Red Alert," I said back at my standard volume, and as he returned to his seat next to Starscream, I removed his picture and information from the board. The voices never told him to harm anyone.

"Why?" Overlord inquired.

"No, no! Put him back up!" Sunstreaker launched up from his chair, and the feet of the stool squeaked in response to the sudden movement.

"Sunny!" I slammed the eraser back onto the chalkboard's ledge, and a cloud of thick, choking dust billowed upwards. "Enough! He's safe, and I know it. He has a disorder, but it does not endanger the rest of us. He just needs to be cared for."

Sunstreaker threw his arms into the air before he furiously kicked the underside of the seat in front of him, which Chromia was settled upon. She whipped around.

"The hell dude?!" she snapped.

"Stop it, all of you!" Overlord called.

He gazed upon me with large, bashful eyes, and I knew what he desperately wanted me to do. I gave him a small nod before I removed him from the suspects board, and outrage rioted through the people behind me.

"You think Overlord's innocent!?" Elita-One shrieked.

"The hell! Why don't we just remove everyone?" Trailcutter stepped into the aisle, and the generators embedded in his palms started to glow amber. He expected a fight to commence.

Airachnid began to laugh hysterically.

I stamped my foot. "Order, people! Order! I held him at gunpoint to confess and he just burst into tears."

Swerve gazed up at his intimidating leader. "Now, if I haven't known Overlord for the past 3,000 years, I would call bullshit. But that is honestly very fitting for him. He's not a coward, just emotional."

"Exactly. And a killer wouldn't start crying like that." I looked back up at the board with the remaining suspects, and I considered removing myself. But I was the main detective, so taking myself down would seem like a strange bias. I could be the killer for all they knew.

But I knew who I wanted to talk to next.