//------------------------------// // May the Best Pony Survive - Daily Life 1 // Story: Danganronpa vP: Harmony of Despair // by witegrlninja //------------------------------// My slumber was disturbed by strange dreams. I saw nothing except darkness, not even my own body. I kept hearing faint, disembodied voices, as if from a great distance away. They spoke not in sentences, nor words... only a single syllable at a time, seemingly at random. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make out who the voices belonged to. Even when I tried to piece the few syllables together, they spelled out nothing but gibberish. The voices haunted me throughout the night. Though I tried to dream of something, anything else, they always led back to the darkness, to the voices, growing ever more frantic but sparse all the same. What is the meaning of this? ... No... it's just a dream. ...just a bad dream. ~ *ding dong, bing bong* "Goooood morning, everyone! It is now 7am and Nighttime is officially over! Time to rise and shine! Get ready to greet another beee-yutiful day!" As grating as Monokuma's voice had been, it was nearly intolerable as his morning announcement graced my ears. The sun's sudden rising was dimmed by my tightly-clenched eyes. Princesses Celestia and Luna were dead. Dead... nopony had thought it possible, but it was the truth. My mind decided to flash back to the discovery of Celestia's body and the explosion that tore Luna apart as proof. I shook the memories from my head as quickly as I could, but it helped little. My stomach growled loudly. Two of the most important ponies in my life had perished, but that didn't change my need for food. With a heavy sigh, I left my bed and began making my way towards the cafeteria. I gently shut my door and locked it, and walked quietly. As I passed the stairs to the upper rooms, I couldn't help but gaze sadly up them towards Celestia's room, then Luna's, both now locked tightly shut. Just before we had all gotten onto the elevator out of the courtroom, Monokuma had so gleefully informed us that since the trial was over, he would... "dispose" of the corpses. Dispose... like trash. How disrespectful. None of us even had the time to mourn our Royal Sisters properly. My hoofsteps echoed softly as I entered the cafeteria. As I got some food and sat down, the others began slowly trickling in until we were all present. Everypony looked equally depressed. "I can't believe this isn't a bad dream..." Coloratura sighed. "We're all still here... and yesterday... really happened..." "I c-can't take this..." Fluttershy whimpered. "It's t-too cruel..." "Well... now what should we do?" asked Flam. But before anypony could answer... *boing!* "Goooood morning, my lovely little students!" Monokuma suddenly leapt onto the table with a clatter, causing quite a disturbance. "What do you want, you little bastard?" Lightning Dust growled through her teeth. "My goodness! Looks like someone's not a morning person! You know, a good dose of morning exercise'll cheer you right up and get you going, am I riiight?" he grinned. "YEAAAAAH!" Bulk Biceps agreed enthusiastically. "...BUT WE'RE EATING RIGHT NOW. WE CAN'T WORK OUT FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR OR TWO AFTER WE EAT, OR ELSE EVERYPONY'LL HURL EVERYWHERE!" "I... really don't think our personal health is the reason why he's here," Nurse Redheart shook her head. "Of course not!" Monokuma shouted. "You think I have that kind of free time on my hands?!" "Then why are you here?" asked Rainbow Dash. "Ah, I'd like to make an announcement!" he beamed. "Every time you overcome a class trial here at my School of Despair, a whole new world will open up to you!" "A whole new world...?" Discord asked with skepticism. "Ooh! Shining, shimmering splendor?" Pinkie Pie chirped. "It'd really suck if you had to live here forever with nothing new to stimulate you! Besides, I know how you kids get these days with your ADD and ADHD... I gotta keep you motivated!" "We ain't kids..." Applejack grumbled. Redheart and I sighed in annoyance simultaneously at his choice of mental conditions. "So go ahead, look around all you want! Enjoy the brave new post-trial world 'til you explode!" "What- NO, don't even mention 'exploding' again!" Trixie shrieked. But it mattered little, as Monokuma hopped back beneath the table and disappeared during her protest. We were left to ponder what he meant. "Oh, please tell me he's talking about a way to leave!" Coloratura clapped her hooves together. "Yea, no, why the hell would he let us leave now? Are you really that stupid?" Fleur snorted. Coloratura gazed sadly at her plate. "Ah wonder whut he meant by that," Applejack rubbed her chin. "We've all already been 'round the school a couple times." "Ho! Maybe he means we can go to the second floor of the school," said Flam. "Our access has been barred this whole time, after all, and there can't be much else he could be talking about." Oh... and there was another tunnel entrance on that floor! Maybe... "Then let's split up and investigate," Redheart stood up. "We'll meet back here when we're finished, and maybe we'll be able to come up with a new plan." ~ Rarity ultimately partnered up with me as we left the cafeteria and entered the school. Indeed, to our distant right, the shimmering barrier that had blocked our way to the second floor earlier was now gone. "Well now, I wonder just what that dreadful bear has done to the next floor," she mumbled as we ascended the spiraling staircase. Once on the 2nd floor, I glanced over to the next set of stairs, finding access to the 3rd floor blocked by the same barrier. No going up any further... Probably not until- no! If this is what Monokuma meant, then seeing the next floor would be really bad! I looked around. The hallways were decorated much like the first floor, except an unsettling shade of glowing blue rather than green or fuchsia. There was nothing else around other than doors to the unexplored rooms. Two were close by on the right, leading into empty classrooms, and the closest on the left led to... ...An art studio! The room was filled with wooden tables and stools splattered with rainbow shades of paint. Shelves along the sides of the walls held various supplies: canvas, paper, paints and brushes, chalks, pencils, clay and shaping tools. A modestly-sized electric kiln sat in the corner closest to the far wall, its chimney hooked up to vent the heat and smoke outside, and a full-sized ponnequin with fully-articulate joints sat in the opposite corner beside another shelf full of fabrics and sewing supplies. "Ooh! Well, it's a far cry from my own studio, but I suppose this will do while we're all stuck here," Rarity smiled, examining the shelves. I walked around the room inspecting everything closely, finding only more art supplies and a can of turpentine for oil painting. The smell was quite strong; I found a switch for a large ventilation fan above the windows along the far wall and turned it on. Once I had finished looking around (and had managed to drag Rarity away from the sewing corner), we left the room and continued down the hallway. Just past the art studio was a pair of restrooms, and then past that was the last room on the left: a library. Now it was my turn to say "Ooh!". "And I bet this will be your new favorite room, right Twilight?" Rarity smirked as I inhaled deeply. The scent of the books was like the finest of perfumes to me. Dark wooden shelves stretching up to the ceiling lined the walls entirely except for the thickly-curtained windows and another large ventilation fan above them... excess moisture was a book's natural enemy, after all! But as I examined my new reading materials... Hm... um... oh... All of the books were either murder mysteries, or reports on true crimes, or textbooks about pony anatomy and physiology, or how-to guides about creating poisons, crafting weapons and casting destructive spells... just about the only books not entirely devoted to helping us kill each other were a woefully-incomplete set of five Daring Do books, within which the plots had featured creative murders. Even more annoyingly... I've already read the majority of these in the past for fun... and I don't exactly want to learn about poisons or weapons... or methods of committing murder... Sighing, I left the library with Rarity and we walked across the hallway to the last remaining room. This room had been brand new in my School of Friendship, and had cost me quite the pretty bit to put together - a media room. Dimmable lights shone down upon long desks and ergonomically-cushioned chairs sitting in perfect rows, with the highest-quality, freshly-reverse-engineered computers bits could buy atop them. The chairs all faced forward towards a blank, perfectly-white wall, where a high-tech projector overhead pointed. Sometimes, it's pretty nice to be a Princess... While Rarity looked around, I moved towards a supply closet next to the teacher's desk. I held my breath as I opened the door, and exhaled in a deep sigh when I found it entirely empty. I scanned the closet with my magic just to be sure, but it was, indeed, gone. "Ugh... this tunnel's gone, too..." "Twilight, darling, I've been meaning to ask," Rarity peeked inside the closet as well. "You've mentioned something about secret escape tunnels before..." "Yea?" "Well... why do you think we could escape using those? Wouldn't they have just led into the mountain behind this school... the mountain that isn't even there anymore?" "Ah, that is a good point," I conceded as I closed the door. "It's true there were secret passages into the mountain behind my school, but those aren't exactly what I'm looking for." "Oh? What, then?" "Well..." I motioned for Rarity to lean in closer so we could whisper. "Given how often Equestria seems to be under threats of various kinds, I cast a number of spells on these entrances. Runes one can simply touch to be teleported a safe distance away or to a specific place, portals to pocket dimensions where useful supplies have been stored... I believe I put at least three of each such spell on each entrance. There's even an enchantment where if somepony other than myself finds them, not only does the spell hide itself, that pony is also instantly charmed into forgetting their existence once they look away." "Ah... you do have a habit of planning for every possible contingency," Rarity nodded. "Yes," I sighed. "Unfortunately, seeing how the secret entrances in my office and this room are no longer here, it would seem that Monokuma knows about them, and dispelled them all after sealing up the entrances. I'm guessing he's done the same to the ones on the upper floors as well..." "And your magic is stronger than anypony else I know... just how powerful is that brute?" "Too powerful..." We finished checking around the room in silence. After a few minutes, concluding that we had seen everything there was to see on the 2nd floor, we left the media room and - after checking that the staircase on this side of the building also barred access to the next floor, descended. But as we reached the 1st floor, I noticed that the door ahead of us was cracked ajar. It led to the Scrollwork Classroom, which was previously locked. Perhaps it was unlocked now? "Ah! This room was off-limits to us before, wasn't it?" Rarity asked as we stepped inside. The room was furnished with wooden floors, wooden walls covered in wooden bookcases and wooden ceilings. Tall stacks of parchment and vellum sat on wooden desks each supplied with a wastebasket, while numerous dusty spellbooks sat on the bookshelves along with quills and fortified inks. With the sunlight from the window, the entire room appeared parchment-colored. "Yes... it was!" I quickly grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill in my magic, having been desperate for this moment for the past few days. With haste I scribbled out a plea for help to Spike, telling him as much as I could about our location, that we were in grave danger, and that Discord, and Princesses Celestia and Luna... could not help us. As soon as I wrote the last word I dropped the quill in order to focus my total concentration on my next spell. My horn glowed brightly as I willed the parchment to its recipient; the parchment combusted within a small, green flame a few seconds later, leaving only a scant layer of ash in its place. "You sent Spike a message?" Rarity asked. "Oh, I do hope he receives it..." "I hope so, too," I agreed. "Oh, my widdle Spikey-wikey... I do hope he's okay... or I swear on the goddesses I will tear that terrible bear apart myself, bolt by bolt, consequences be damned!" she growled, her eyes smoldering. We waited in silence for a few minutes, eagerly awaiting a reply. However... no scroll ever materialized itself in midair. My lips pursed together in concern. Spike usually responds to my scrolls very promptly... I don't like this... "Shouldn't we have received a reply by now?" "Yea..." ...I really don't like this... "Perhaps he's in the middle of using the little dragon's room?" "Maybe..." We waited for about ten minutes more. I even sent another two scrolls, just in case. But there was still no response. Maybe... maybe he's consulting with Starlight on what to do next... maybe he's contacting Princess Cadance and my brother for help... yea... that's it... "Well, while we wait for a response... I think we've seen everything there was to see," I sighed. "We should meet with the others, maybe they found something we didn't." ~ We arrived at the cafeteria, finding a few of the others already present. The rest joined soon after. "Alright, so... let's all go over what we found upstairs," Redheart started. "Well... there's a really nice media room upstairs!" Coloratura smiled. "The computers even have microphones and all the software I need for making music!" "There's also an art studio full of supplies," smirked Fleur. "Perfect for some of you to indulge in hoofpainting." "HEY! DON'T KNOCK IT UNTIL YOU TRY IT," Bulk responded. "HOOFPAINTING IS GREAT FOR STRESS RELIEF." "And there's a library, but it's pretty fuckin' lame," muttered Lightning. "Only thing worth checking out are the Daring Do books, and they're all fuckin' old..." "Ooh!" Rainbow's eyes lit up, but she changed her expression almost immediately. "Uh, I mean... ha! Only eggheads read that kind of lame shit..." "But Dashie, I thought you loved Daring Do!" Pinkie grinned innocently. Rainbow hissed at Pinkie under her breath to shut the fuck up. Lightning smirked. "There, um... wasn't anything special about the two classrooms... or the bathrooms," Fluttershy spoke quietly. "Trust us... we looked real up close at every little crack and cranny," Discord added. "I see... and none of you found any sort of clues as to why we're here, who the mastermind behind this could be, or what this is all about?" asked Flam. Everypony shook their heads sadly. "...Drat. Any sort of clue would've been nice..." "Oh! The Great and Powerful Trrrixie! ...found something helpful!" she raised her hoof. "Trixie discovered that the Scrollwork Classroom is now open!" "Scrollwork?" Redheart asked, sitting up in her chair. "Yes! And Trixie has already sent out a scroll for help! We shall be rescued any moment now!" she beamed. "Er... you didn't happen to get a response, did you?" I asked. Trixie's puffed-out chest sank. "Well... no. I sent a scroll to Starlight... I still have yet to hear back from her..." "I see..." That's... really not good. "Why do you ask?" "I sent three scrolls to Spike a while ago, and I haven't heard back from him, either," I explained. "Letting us send scrolls to the outside world would defeat the purpose of Monokuma's game," Redheart sighed, slumping back down in her seat. "He's probably intercepting them somehow." "True, that would be too easy, now would it...?" agreed Discord. "So, in other words... we ain't got shit," Lightning stated. As we sat in silence, the air suddenly grew thick and heavy. Was this the mastermind's plan? To give us a brief glimmer of hope, only to snuff it out in front of us? "Well... I suppose we should just carry on, then," sighed Flam. "Try to peacefully pass the time until somepony does manage to find something..." "There's not much else we can do... damn!" Applejack nodded before losing her composure and slamming a hoof on the table. "Ah hate bein' this helpless..." Coloratura moved to put a hoof around Applejack's shoulders. "It's okay, Jackie... we'll think of something." "J-Jackie?!" Applejack sputtered before wrapping a foreleg around Coloratura's neck and pulling her close. "Ah thought ah told ya not to call me that out loud!" she hissed, embarrassed. "I-It's just a cute nickname," Coloratura coughed. "...Like you call me 'Rara'?" "That's entirely different!" she argued. "'Jackie', eh?" Flam chuckled. "You don't call me that!" Applejack flailed, her cheeks almost as red as her Cutie Mark. "An' none 'a you can call me that, either!" While hints of a smile were beginning to return to our faces, a most unwelcome voice chimed in. "Aah, some things truly never change..." *boing!* "Is this the blossoming of young love I see?" Monokuma suddenly appeared atop a neighboring table. "I'll admit... seeing how you students of mine are ponies rather than people, I didn't really know what to expect! But now I see that you guys flirt and get embarrassed by trivial matters just like teenagers do! Ooh! I wonder what other similarities you guys have!" "Now why are you here?" Rainbow grumbled. "And it better not be about love... comin' from you, I think I'd barf..." "Oh, no reason..." Monokuma grinned. "Juuust seeing how my wonderful students are getting along with each other... becoming friends, establishing strong bonds... upupupupu." "What's so funny?" Fleur sneered. "Mmhmmhmm... and now I see that some of you are already so close to each other, like you've already known each other for years!" he giggled, his laughter growing slowly stronger. "It makes me almost hate to give you this little hint..." ...Hint? Wait... "What exactly are you getting at?" Redheart asked, glaring at our captor. "Oh, it's not that much of a hint... I just think it's funny that despite how close you all previously were, one of you is secretly taking advantage of that," he smiled. T-Taking advantage... does he mean...? "You're... you're not insinuating..." Flam spoke, his eyes widening. "That's right! None of you realize that a traitor is hiding among you, riiiiight?" Monokuma squeaked with glee. "A... a t-traitor?!" Fluttershy gasped. "Oh, come on!" Rainbow yelled angrily. "Do you really think we'd believe something that stupid?!" "Oh? How can you be so sure?" the bear continued. "I mean... do any of you know exactly how you wound up at this school of mine?" "Yea! You brought us here!" Trixie scoffed. "Oh, no... I am but a simple Headmaster, waiting patiently for my students to arrive so the games can begin. One of you... shall we say, enrolled you all and dragged you into coming here?" No... somepony brought us all here...? "That... that doesn't make any sense!" Coloratura shivered. "I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HALF THESE PONIES UNTIL COMING HERE!" Bulk argued. "Yes... one of you went out and gathered the rest of you, and brought you to my school. Isn't that just a gosh-darn shame? Pretending to be your ally and tricking you guys... it makes sense for someone like that to get killed, right?" Monokuma's grin grew dark and sharp. "Alright, which one of you half-wit lowlifes did it?!" Fleur glowered as she stared us all down, her horn alight. "Ooh, just wait until I get my hooves on you..." "You... you utter fuckin' bastard! Or you fuckin' bitch! Fess up and I'll let your parents have something left to bury!" Lightning punched her front hooves together menacingly. "Now wait just a moment!" argued Rarity. "He's clearly tryin' to drive a wedge between us all!" Applejack spoke up. But it seemed as if Monokuma's words had already had their intended effect. Everypony was eyeing each other with a newfound sense of apprehension and suspicion. It was all I could do to hide a deep sigh within myself. ...Sometimes, I wish we ponies weren't so easily influenced... "Upupupupu! My, you're a spirited bunch," Monokuma chuckled. "C'mon! Make the preemptive strike! It's first come, first served, and the winner takes all! If you want to survive, you gotta find that person before they find you..." "No... no...!" Fluttershy cried. "This cannot be! The Great and Powerful Trrrixie... simply cannot comprehend it!" "AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Monokuma howled with laughter as he disappeared underneath the table and out of sight, the damage already done. I, along with everypony else, was frozen in shock. It... it can't be true! The deceit... the breach of trust...! And... and if there is a traitor among us... they're already responsible for Celestia's and Luna's deaths...! "Seriously, you guys... think about it," Rainbow crossed her forelegs. "We're all in the same boat here, right? He's obviously lying..." "Oh?! Sounds exactly like the sort of thing a traitor would say!" Fleur snarled. "Why would anypony do this?!" Coloratura gasped, holding the sides of her head. "W-What did I do to deserve this?!" "No... there can't possibly be a traitor! That bear must be lying!" affirmed Rarity. "But we don't exactly all know each other..." Redheart stated blankly. "Wouldn't that leave some of us more likely to be a traitor than others?" "Or maybe one of you is some sort of sick freak who gets off on shit like this!" Fleur shrieked, pointing her hoof for a few moments at everypony. "That could be any of you! Hiding it deep down... I-I know a freak when I see one!" "There's no traitor! There's no traitor nowhere!" Applejack stomped. "Monokuma's just tryin' to get us to kill each other fer no good reason!" "Yes... what he's saying just doesn't make sense," agreed Flam. "I honestly can't believe, in good faith, that one of us brought us all together just to participate in this house of horrors!" "Me either!" said Pinkie, pouting. "Because that would mean I would've made all kinds of spooky-themed treats, and then I'd not only know where we were all going and who all would be there, but I'd also know all the tricks and spooks!" "Eh... Pinkie, I think you took away the wrong notion from the prior sentence..." nudged Discord. "But more on point, suspecting each other of being a traitor will not help our chances to survive." "Discord is right," I finally spoke, after mulling over my thoughts for a few moments. "If we start distrusting each other now, it'll only lead to bad things happening." "Something bad already happened! Our Princesses are dead!" Fleur snapped. "And it's up to us to make sure nopony else joins them!" argued Rainbow. "Traitor or not, nopony else is gonna die!" "Monokuma wants us all to suspect each other," I said. "We may not all be friends just yet, but we all need to trust each other. As long as we believe in each other, we'll all escape from here alive!" "Easy for you to say..." Trixie whimpered. "You're the Princess of Friendship..." "...I AGREE WITH TWILIGHT!" Bulk shouted after a moment. "WE GOTTA STICK TOGETHER, LIKE WE'RE ALL PARTNERS IN A RELAY RACE!" "Yea... we gotta just ignore that stupid skunk-bear," Rainbow nodded. "We might be stuck here, but we don't have to kill each other to get out!" "Pff..." Fleur muttered, rolled her eyes. "So fucking stupid... it's your funeral." ~ Despite our resolve not to let Monokuma's threats of a traitor in our midst get to us, our evening meal was nearly silent. Some of us even elected to take our food to our rooms to eat in solitude. Deep down... I couldn't blame them. I didn't want to believe it was true, I couldn't believe it was true... but why did Monokuma seem entirely honest then? One of us was a traitor... I couldn't shake that thought from my mind. One of us willingly subjected the rest of us to this deadly game. But who? It couldn't possibly be any of my friends... could it? And it couldn't be any of the others... right? Even the most suspicious and argumentative of us, they would never do such a thing... would they? Why... why did this traitor have to do it? Did they know it could result in Princess Celestia's and Luna's deaths? Did they want all of us to die? And what about the mastermind of this whole school? Just... why...? Before I knew it, Nighttime had arrived. A hot shower did little to clear my mind of worries, but it did allow my tired body to relax. After drying off I slipped under the covers, hoping that sleep would push those thoughts out of my mind.