The Game. [ATLA murder mystery]

Case One

NIGHT ONE

[00:20]

After twenty minutes of questioning both Zuko and Aang, Sokka had found out the story between the two.

He found out that Zuko was awake because he was thirsty, so he needed to go the kitchen for some water. Aang was awake because he needed to go to the bathroom but needed to go to one of the downstairs bathrooms to do so, since the upstairs one was locked for some unknown reason... Aang just assumed someone was probably using it.

With Zuko's travel to the kitchen, he had met with Aang after his bathroom trip. The two walked to the kitchen together, only to find Smellerbee's corpse and come rushing outside as they didn't know what else to do... And that was when they found Sokka... Or when Sokka found them.

So, that was their stories.

Sokka believed the two, as they were his best friends of course and there was no evidence against them. He had to think for a few more moments as to who the hell could have done something so... So wrong?! Who would even have the cold heart or courageous guts to commit such acts of crime? It was truly puzzling...

The three were now situated inside, sitting in the huge library. It took Sokka ten minutes to look for clues in the kitchen and gather Aang and Zuko. It took them all five minutes to get to the library and sit down, which explained the drastic change in time... They were sitting at a big, round dark oak wooden table with a dark wine-red tablecloth sitting on top of it.

Sokka had to ponder... He was stumped. He couldn't think of a singular person who might have committed such a thing, he couldn't think of a singular person who would have the motivation to do so. His mind was drawing a blank... He felt so stupid for this, despite being unable to help it.

He let out a long and dragged-out sigh before one of his legs swung over and on top of his other. His left hand was under his chin in a pondering motion while his head was tilted downwards to wonder. Sokka eventually lifted his head and placed his left hand onto the table in front of him while asking the two a question.

"Aang, Zuko, do you have any ideas as to who could have done this? All I'm getting is mind blanks..."

Aang was forced to think as well, lifting his shoulders into a shrug after a minute, Zuko doing the same. Zuko then answered Sokka verbally after another moment filled with silence passed.

"No ideas... Were there any actual clues while you were in the kitchen?"

Sokka listened to Zuko's question and shook his head, an exasperated breath leaving him.

"No... I didn't. All I could find was a blood covered body... Which isn't what I was really wanting to find."

There was a silence before Sokka confirmed something from his sentence as Zuko and Aang looked... Mildly confused.

"...The body was Smellerbee's."

An "oh" came from the two other boys with their confusion fading.

Each of the three boys were put into a long, deafening silence... None of them could think of a singular human! ... Until Zuko thought of some people...

"Y'know... Azula, Mai and Ty Lee are here... I think it might be one of them... Specifically Azula. She's definitely got the potential for it if she has the right motivation, along with Mai and Ty Lee..."

For once, Sokka didn't need to slowly fish information out from Zuko. This was the least vague that Zuko had been in the entire situation... He was always vague though... Both Aang and Sokka thought of Zuko's indirect accusation before Aang piped in a response.

"How sure can you be? Azula is definitely capable of murder to get what she wants, yeah... But how sure can you be that she specifically did it instead of other people?"

Zuko shrugged and spoke back to Aang. Zuko seemed to be quick to blame his sister, yet he had quickly thought of some things to respond to Aang with... All of said things were possibly reliable evidence.

"I've seen what she'll do because of what's around her. She's a complex person... Haven't you seen what she's done to the rest of Team Avatar? What she's done to hunt you down? She's also done many things to please my father... Like take over Ba Sing Se."

Aang and Sokka definitely remembered that day when Azula overtook Ba Sing Se under the Firelord's orders... They were definitely almost open to consider Zuko's accusation now... Sokka voiced his newfound feelings.

"I guess there's nothing saying that Azula wouldn't be the murderer... Yet there's nothing saying that she is. I think we need to find more evidence first before just jumping to conclusions like that."

Aang agreed, as he felt that they also needed a sufficient amount of evidence before accusing a person who could possibly be innocent. Despite Azula's mental issues plus her devotion to her father and her own power, she could have potentially been innocent in this case.

— — — — — —

[01:00]

After further discussions were made, the three came to a conclusion...

Based on Zuko's evaluation of Azula, Mai and Ty Lee, the three girls were on a list of potential suspects. They didn't have enough evidence to support Zuko's claim, so they didn't jump to conclusions in that moment.

Sokka decided he would search for more evidence that night and the next morning go around asking the others in the manor about their thoughts and where they themselves happened to be... In other words, he would interrogate everyone but focus on Azula, Mai and Ty Lee.

The three boys eventually decided that they should head off to bed, as it was one in the morning, and they didn't want to be too tired once the investigation itself had actually begun.

— — — — — —

Zuko and Aang started to head upstairs while Sokka headed towards the kitchen once more to check for if there was anything else except for Smellerbee's deceased body... He wanted to get to the bottom of this, feeling as if he needed to get to the bottom of this.

Once the coppery smell filled his nose again, Sokka's entire body shivered, and he couldn't help but gag. A murder mystery was never what he had imagined himself going through, but it wasn't good nor fun...

He slowly stepped towards the body once more with his face still scrunched with disturbance. The floorboards creaked with each step he took towards the beheaded corpse... Sokka was having trouble stomaching the scene, yet he was doing it to feed the devotion he had to the case. It was all for the investigation and bringing Smellerbee revenge...

Sokka would be spending the next twenty-five minutes searching for different clues and maybe some sort of hints. He looked high and low, even going as far as to inspect Smellerbee's corpse itself... He needed answers. All he could find the same stab wounds, yet no missing or misplaced knife.

The question was... Did Sokka even find any answers from his inspection? Well... There would be unfortunate news in response to that question...

Before Sokka went to bed that night, he had not found any sort of evidence linking to anyone or any clues to give Sokka even an ounce of an idea. His only ideas were Azula, Mai and Ty Lee... Yet he wasn't going to accuse. Not yet.

Sokka was stuck... He needed to go to bed to get his mind off of this. He deeply sighed and started to head towards his room...

He just really hoped he was doing the right thing in trusting Zuko and Aang.