Book 1 - The Rose-Red Tyrant: Chapter 18; A Surprise Tip

The screen turns on as the chapter title plays "Chapter - 18; A Surprise Tip".

Ace had marched back into the rose garden, still extremely angry. But before he could go all the way back to the tea garden Yuu and Deuce had stopped him.

Having just been stopped and annoyed he shouts out "Rrrgh! I hate that little ginger megalomaniac! Does he think HE's the Queen of Hearts?" Deuce gets kinda depressed as he says "Banished by the housewarden from my own dorm… My dream of becoming an honor student is slipping further and further away…" Grim also complains "Stupid collar! It's so tight! Grrr…" Yuu, who had gotten away the best, considering the little she had said and done was sad to see her friends like that. So she ended up looking at the ground disappointed in herself for not stepping up and helping when they needed it.

A head with mostly purple pink-ish hair and cat ears all of the sudden appeared with some humming. The ear on the right had a single earring in the shape of a chat bubble with the word "UP" carved into it. Then on the left ear there were three earrings all in the shapes of different types of arrows or directional pointers. The arrow type earrings also had words carved into them but they were too small to read. In the hair there were three barrettes on each side. Then in the hair at the bottom there was also a bit of blue and a full extremely light or white strands were mixed in with the hair. The head had yellow eyes and a big smile as it said "You're really racking up those collars. Quite the impressive collection."

This caused all of them to look up at where the sound was coming from and once they saw it was from a floating head they all screamed "BWAH?!" Grim then yelled in a panic "Myah! A ghost head!"

The head looked down and saw that it was in fact only a head and as it said "Oh dear. It seems I'm not all here." the rest of it's body appeared.

It was a boy who wore a large and loose purple and pink striped shirt and an even larger white button up shirt that was used in the same way as a jacket. There was a purple belt that had a strand going down his right leg. He had regular jean pants but they had a lot of random iron on patches for design as well as purple boots. Then to go along with his cat ears there was a matching purple and magenta striped fluffy tail that faded into white at the bottom.

Deuce surprised asks "What?" But manages to get his head kinda back on right as he asks the person "Er, so you do have a body, then? Who are you?" The boy answers "The name's Artemiy Artemiyevich Pinker." He then gives a mysterious smile as he asks them rhetorically "Am I a cat? Am I a purrrson? A mimsy borogove, perhaps? A mome rath with a knack for magic?"

Ace then tries to talk with the boy as he tells him "Uh, look, Ar…Arte…" Before giving up on the name and asking "Run the name by me again?" The boy simply smiles as he chuckles and says "Hah heh. People usually just call me Chenya. Let's just say I'm not from the other side of the looking glass."

Yuu thinks to herself 'Yet another weirdo…' but just asks Chenya "What dorm are you from?"

But Chenya just gives that Cheshire cat grin and asks them "Why don't you try to guess?"

This makes Grim shout out "Oh, I know! He's got animal ears, so he's gotta be from…uh.. Bananaclaw, was it?" Chenya tells Grim "Bzzzzzt! Incorrect. Bananas grow on trees, do they not? I, on the other hand, am a cat." Deuce, knowing what dorm Grim was thinking of tells him "And besides, other dorms have students with animal ears, too."

But Ace is still not in the mood as he tells Chenya "After the insanity that teapot tyrant put me through, I'm not in the mood for whatever this is. Just leave me alone."

Chenya thinks for a second as he mumbles out "Riddle the teapot tyrant…" He then laughs as he says "Heh heh. Well, I can't dismiss that perspective as wrong. He's always been quite strict."

Deuce hearing the fact that Chenya said that Riddle was always strict, infers that he must have known Riddle for a while so he asks "Do you know something about him?" Chechnya puts his hands behind his head as he mysteriously says "Perhaps there are things that I know, and perhaps there are things that I don't."

This makes Grim shout "That's not an answer!" at him with his arms crossed. Chenya then asks them "Is there something you wish to know about Riddle?"

Ace, annoyed bites the bullet as he says and asks "Yeah, what created such a control freak?"

Chenya seems slightly disappointed in the question as he tells them "I believe his four-eyed friend may have the answer." Deuce thinks for a second as he asks "Four-eyed friend? You mean Trey?" Chenya confirms Deuce's deduction by telling them "He's known Riddle since we were all little boys. If you want to know more about Riddle, I would begin my quest there."

Deuce puts a hand to his chin as he says "They're childhood friends? I didn't really get that impression." Chenya then tells them "If you're so perceptive, then what are you asking me for? Buh-bye!"

As his body disappears again and Deuce shouts "H-hey!" But Chenya simply hums a tune and laughs lightly as his head now disappears as well, leaving them alone.

Grim then says "I tell ya, no one makes any sense around here." Deuce shrugs as he tells them "Well, we're not going to be able to do much in the way of schoolwork with these collars on." Then taking leadership continues with "So let's go see what Trey has to say, then…"

Ace still bothered by both what just happened and the collars cuts Deuce off saying "If you're gonna say 'apologize to Riddle,' you can forget it!"

Yuu then mumbles out "Maybe we need to set up a little ambush…" slightly hoping they wouldn't hear it. But they did as Deuce got into a position to fight almost while Ace was still just annoyed.

The screen then fades to black as "To be continued" shows before it fully turns off.