The captain wakes up after being knocked out but this time, he was in an even worse situation than before as now it wasn't just his arms that were pinned down, this time, his legs and arms were both tied to a chair along with the bag still being on his head and worst of all ARG-05 wasn't even there. There are the muffled sounds of birds which sound to be almost like they're talking before they remove the bag revealing several Osserva goons, glaring at him and standing in the centre of all of them is an Osserva whose glasses had a shimmer that the captain immediately recognises.
It was Squinty.
Squinty approaches him and says in a mocking tone "well look who's finally awake, had a nice sleep, William?". The captain is caught off guard at the fact that Squinty called him 'William', he didn't remember anyone saying his name after Squinty interrupted the dinner. Whilst thinking of how Squinty knows the captain’s name, Squinty continues to taunt him "you think that you could save Avvoltoio by hitting me in the head with a plate". Some of their goons begin to chuckle but immediately stop when Squinty raises their wings and yells "SILENCE" before they continue "albeit it was smart in the short term, I'll give you that, unfortunately it's going to cost ya, boys you know what to do".
As they're slowly pushing the captain towards a makeshift guillotine, Squinty begins walking away and the captain finally realises something, those glasses they were in Passera's room. "SQUINTY" yelled out the captain as Squinty continued to walk out, "SQUINTY WAIT I'VE SEEN THOSES GLASSES BEFORE". Almost immediately, Squinty spins around to face him and motions to their goons to pause as the captain continues "th-they were in Passera's room, weren't they?". Squinty looks at him and then their goons before they motion to their goons to put him down and leave, which they do before they close the door behind them. Squinty walks closer to him and asks, "how do you know about Passera?" to which the captain immediately responds "Pavona told me about Passera and it kind of puts two and two together along with bring it down to only two suspects of who it could be."
Squinty scoffs and says, "well who are your 'two suspects'?"
"Well, you're either Merlo or Passera”.
"And which one of your suspects do you think I am exactly?" said Squinty as they walk to the captain’s left and pour a glass of something which looks similar to grape juice before slowly drinking it as the captain deadpan stares at them. There's a brief pause between the two before the Captain breaks the pause by saying "well considering how you, first, called me by my actual name despite no one saying it at the party after you broke in and the fact that Avvoltoio said that you go into Passera's room often and the glasses you are wearing were in there then I'd have to say you're Merlo". Squinty immediately stops drinking their drink and places the glass down as they give the captain a caught off guard look.
The captain had them and Squinty knew it.
"I- excuse me for a second" said Squinty as they left the room and shut the door. The entire room was quiet for a few seconds before it's broken by the loud cursing of Squinty for a few minutes. Squinty slightly creaks open the door so they could fit their head through before they quickly ask the captain "you won't tell my d-Avvoltoio right?". The captain shakes his helmet as he says, "no I wasn't planning on telling anyone anyways". Squinty smiles and walks behind the captain and cuts through the rope with one swoop of their claws. Squinty motions to the captain and says, "follow me, I'll show you a secret entrance to the house". The captain stands up and begins walking next to Squinty, they open a door which leads to a hallway, going left and right, they both begin walking to the right leading to a large circular room with several layers as it opens, everyone in the room stares at the Captain before Squinty says "he's with me", causing all of them to continue what they were doing.
As they're walking up a flight of stairs, the captain notices something, a portrait of an Osserva in a red outfit. He stops and stares at it for long enough that Squinty notice and walk over to him as they ask, "what are you looking at Willi-", they pause noticing what the captain is looking at before continuing "oh... that's Passera portrait, to be honest it was pretty hard to get that one out before they scratched out her face on the rest of them". The captain looks at Squinty as Squinty asks "shall we continue going to the secret entrance?"
As they get to the top of the staircase, Squinty puts in a pin, making the door at the top swing open revealing another hallway with a ladder at the end. As they're walking through the hallway, Merlo takes off their glasses and climbs up the level opening the hatch slightly to peek around before fully opening and climbing out as they say, "looks like the coast is clear, you can come up now William". The captain quickly climbs up the ladder, noticing that on the outside, it looks like a regular hedge before Merlo shuts the hatch and they begin walking through the garden.
"So, what did you think of my secret entrance, pretty cool right?" said Merlo enthusiastically.
"Yeah, I guess it is."
"Yeah, I know right, it's so cool, almost like when the glass broke, and I flew down onto the dining table?"
"I mean it was pretty cool until you nearly murdered your dad."
Merlo scoffs.
"You know I didn't want to attack him, despite how I made it out to be, I was kind of hoping that someone would, I just wasn't expecting you to throw your plate full force at me," Merlo chuckles before continuing "oh here we are, my window should be unlocked, and the vines should be stable enough". Merlo points to a window which has red climbing roses on it before both Merlo and the Captain both climb up the vines and go into Merlo’s room. Once they walk out into the hallway, they can hear the muffled yelling of people downstairs before they ultimately decide to grab ARG-05 before heading downstairs. They open the door, revealing ARG-05 with a fearful expression on his face before it switches to a happy expression as he shouts, "oh Captain, thank goodness you're okay I was a bit worried when you got attacked but I couldn't reach you to do anything". The captain walks up to ARG-05 and re-equips his life support system whilst saying "remind me to keep you in arm's length next time I go to sleep". ARG-05 switches back to his neutral expression and immediately replies "okay Captain".
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"Shall we go downstairs and see what the commotion is downstairs?" Merlo asked.
"Yeah, probably should for all we know Avvoltoio could be fighting someone" said the captain with a slightly worried tone.
They all walked through the empty hallways towards the source of yelling before it led them to the bannister near the front entrance. The clearer the voices became; the more anxious Merlo's expression became. Once they're downstairs, they walk towards the underneath of the bannister where 3 doors lie, Merlo opens the door, revealing a second kitchen & dining room mix and Avvoltoio getting yelled at by two Osservas, one wearing a dark red outfit and the other in a dark purple outfit, as Pavona is sitting on one of the chairs in silence. The moment they open the door, the Osserva in dark purple gives the captain a death glare before they notice Merlo and rushes over to them. The Osserva in purple hugs Merlo with slightly too much force as they yell out "Merlo, how my sweet little nephew?".
"I'm fine, Aunty Tacchina" said Merlo, clearly trying to escape from the hug.
Tacchina lets them go and yells "good well, I'll have you know that you are 3 minutes late which is simply unacceptable although I guess I can't blame you as you have some of your father's genes”.
Avvoltoio goes to say something but is immediately shushed by both Tacchina and the Osserva in red. The Osserva in red comes up to Merlo and says in a soft voice "well Merlo at least I got some good news which is that your father is so incompetent, you and Pavona are going to live with us instead".
"Oca you can't do that" yelled Avvoltoio as they stood up from their chairs with an angry look.
Oca side eyes them as they say, "or what, what are you going to do Avvoltoio, throw me out onto the streets again?"
"You only have yourself to blame for that after all-" said Avvoltoio, their gaze getting more intense as they approach, stopping at the kitchen's island before yelling as they point to Oca "YOU WERE THE ONE WHICH CHEATED".
"Well, it's not my fault that you're bad at everything you do," Oca sneered.
Avvoltoio glared at Oca before walking over to Pavona "hey are you-"
Oca cuts Avvoltoio off, yelling out "stop trying to coerce my sweet little child into taking your side”.
Avvoltoio gives Oca an unimpressed look as they say, "I'm not, I'm simply asking if my daughter is okay, clearly nobody properly taught you how words work."
"Uh mum?" Merlo said, causing Oca to immediately turn to Merlo.
"Yes deary?" said Oca back in the sweetest voice they could muster.
"Um what do you mean by I'm going to be living at yours now, I thought that-"
"Oh well you could ask me instead but we found a new place far far away from Avvoltoio so you can no longer be in fear of him" said Tacchina as they cut off Merlo in a melodramatic tone.
"What? Now this is the biggest load of bulls-" said Avvoltoio in an angry tone before their cut off by Oca and Tacchina telling them to "shut up”.
"But I'm not af-" said Merlo in a very confused tone.
"No no" Tacchina said as they put one of their claws on Merlo's beak before continuing "you don't have to lie to your own mother or your own aunt."
"I'm not ly-"
"Oh, can you believe this Oca, lying to his own Aunty and his own mother, clearly, he must have gotten it from his dad”.
"It's disgraceful" says Oca as they scoff.
"Oh, so now you’re ganging up on your child, he's not even an adult yet, how ladylike" Avvoltoio sneered as they comforted Pavona.
"Oh, shut it, Avvoltoio" Oca snapped.
"You know what Oca, this is getting no-where, I'll be waiting outside, c'mon you" said Tacchina as they grab Merlo's wing.
"Ow that hurts" Merlo winced as Tacchina dragged them.
"Out of the way you" said Tacchina as they pushed the captain out of the way, almost causing the back of his helmet to collide with the wall, as the captain helplessly watched Merlo get dragged outside. He turned to see Oca push Avvoltoio out of the way as they approached Pavona and say, "c'mon it's time to go". Pavona hesitates for a second before quietly saying "no... I don't want to go". Oca pauses for a second to glare at Pavona before yelling "now listen here missy, you are leaving with us where you like it or not, now c'mon". Pavona slowly begins following Oca towards the door and as they get closer and closer towards the front door, the more Pavona looks to the Captain or Avvoltoio for help, but they couldn't do anything, and they knew it. Pavona slowly saunters to the front giving one last look for help before they walk through before Oca follows them, giving one last glare at Avvoltoio before Tacchina slams the front door shut with a resounding thud.
The captain looks over to Avvoltoio who has a speechless look on their face. "What was that about?" asked the captain however Avvoltoio said nothing as they walked back into the kitchen, opening a door to a basement which was filled with a wide variety of drinks before Avvoltoio walks in and then walks back out to their kitchen island whilst holding onto a bottle. Avvoltoio opens one of the cabinets and takes a glass as they walk over to one of the chairs as they open the bottle. They sit down and go to pour the dark red liquid inside the bottle before deciding to just drink from the bottle in silence. The captain sits next to them as Avvoltoio ignores him and drinks from their bottle.