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

set aside our differences.

Overlord screamed shrilly in response to the sight, and he bounded towards the slaughtered Red Alert. He undid the chain and coddled him in his arms before he slumped to the floor, fat tears sliding down his distraught face.

"Reddie, no! No, no, no!" Overlord cried, and he began to slap Red Alert's drained cheeks. "Wake up, wake up!"

I rushed up to them and kneeled before the mourning leader and his fallen friend. I felt tears pop into my eyes as well; Red Alert had also touched my spark. He was kind and just seeking someone to care for him.

"Arcee, this is my fault!" Overlord shouted.

"Dear, no it isn't!"

"No, he imprinted on me and I didn't take care of him! I should have always been with him!" He glared down at the ink on Red Alert's still chest. "And what's this bullshit?! 'Do you like this?' Fuck no, I don't! We are figuring this out tonight, Arcee!"

Overlord placed Red Alert onto the ground, and drops of his tears splattered across the words, making black droplets run across the red Cybertronian's sides. Overlord locked his hands onto Red Alert's round shoulders, and his head hung. I slipped my hand over my lover's white cheek, rubbing his skin with my thumb. He pushed into my grasp.

"Arcee, this is demonic. It has to be. Even Airachnid said it was dark. The system must just be whoever is 'worthy' for sacrifice."

I shook my head. "No, there has to be something that makes sense."

Overlord gazed up at me. "That does make sense! It's the only thing that fits. I am going to prove it tonight. For Red Alert. We have to save his spark!"

"No, we need to think! No more of this interviewing or looking to see who fits the profile. What do all the victims have in common?"

Overlord shifted his position so he could sit cross legged, and he coddled Red Alert against his giant chest, rubbing his hand up and down Reddie's limp back. "Nothing! It's all random."

"There has to be a pattern! Here," I grabbed a digital pad off the table in the center of the room and began to write. "we are making another chart. Okay, we know that Magnus had OCD, was stable, was a great leader, liked following the law, and was a newcomer. Agreed?"

"Yes."

I scribbled it down onto the chart. "Now, help me with Megatron. He was the blacksmith, he was antisocial, he made the chains, was a townsperson, and enjoyed helping solve the murder."

"He was also hard working, an amazing person..." Overlord's voice trailed off as he began to sob quietly into Red Alert's neck, and I gently hugged him.

"I'll add that." I wrote some more before starting Red Alert's section. "Hang in there, Overlord. Red Alert was schizophrenic, imprinted on others, a newcomer, and close to Magnus. Okay, and I'm going to add how they passed." I turned the chart so Overlord could read it. "Now, what do they have in common?"

He stared, and his eyes flicked back and forth as he mentally consumed the information. "I don't think Magnus was hung."

"What?"

"I think the scraplet poison killed him. If he had the poisoned tea, then he would have died from that. If Tarn, who was bigger than Magnus, got extreme internal bleeding after a day of drinking it, then Magnus surely would have died within a few hours. I think he was hung for show."

I processed the suggestion before I nodded in agreement and altered my writing.

"They all had some sort of disorder. Magnus and OCD, Megatron being a hermit, and Reddie and his schizophrenia," Overlord suggested.

I started a list of similarities at the bottom of the page. "But what's the reason to kill them for that?"

"I don't know. Airachnid said the reasoning was dark, and it must be pretty screwed up if she thinks it is."

"Okay, good point. Anything else they have in common?"

Overlord thought as he gently stroked Red Alert's forehead, and he suddenly halted his loving pets. "They were all put on display."

My spark did a little jump. He was right. Magnus was poisoned and then his body was put up in the air in the center of town, waiting to be seen. Megatron was positioned at the bottom of the hole and killed very dramatically and unusually, and Red Alert was put up in Overlord's house with writing.

"But why?" I asked. "And I think they want you to see it. They even asked you indirectly if you enjoyed what you were seeing."

"But why would I want to see people dead?" Overlord muttered. "What hint have I ever given I want people to die?"

"I don't know, but we are getting somewhere. Now, how do these people supposedly benefit you, specifically, being dead?"

Overlord shook his head, his great blue horns bobbing through the air. "Maybe Red Alert told someone that I wanted to be alone with you? Maybe whoever heard thought that I saw him as a burden?"

I added that to my notes, putting it in a phrase that the perpetrator would think of. "What did you think about Magnus and Megatron?"

"Arcee, I don't know. I never knew Magnus. All I knew about him was that he looked like..." Overlord's optics widened, and his pinkish pupils shrank startlingly as a grand insight washed over his mind. He pressed his hand to his trembling lips and looked at me. "Arcee, I know who it is."