//------------------------------// // PROLOGUE START: New Friends // Story: Super Ponyronpa: Cacophonous Symphony // by TrackdNTraild //------------------------------// "Ugh..." Starlight Glimmer feels her head aching as her eyes open. The sunlight hits her and she flinches, raising a hoof to cover her face. She recognizes the cold feeling of dirt and grass beneath her body. How did she get outside? She finally raises her head and forces herself to her hooves, stretching her back and legs. She feels like she's slept for days. She looks around, blinking her eyes and still trying to adjust to her surroundings. Where in Equestria is she? She looks up and sees a tall, black, gothic-style fence that stretches 3 times her height. She's never seen a place with this style of fence before, at least not in the places she's come from before. She walks to the fence and stretches up on it, trying to deduce whether or not she could climb it. It doesn't seem like there's enough space between the poles to climb, she thinks. She decides to step away from the fence, and turns around. The first thing she notices is the huge building behind where she had woken up. Its structure reminds her of the School of Friendship, but she's very sure it's not the same building. From this distance, she can't correctly deduce how big the school is. She begins to walk to the school, and quickly notices a path extending through the grass on either side of her. She looks down each path, and her eyes catch onto a small group of ponies gathered by a large gate. She feels a sigh of relief leave her body. She isn't the only pony here! Her hooves are brought into a run, entirely ignoring the path as she makes her way to the group of ponies. As she approaches, she hears the familiar sound of magic being shot from a pony's horn, and the unfamiliar sound of magic fizzling out against metal. When she gets close enough to the group of ponies, one of them notices her. A blue pegasus with a rainbow coloured mane and tail turns her head to notice her, then looks down at the group. "Everypony pause for a second!" She says, waving her hooves in front of her. "There's another pony here!" "Another pony?" A purple alicorn looks up to the other mare. She moves her navy blue mane out of her face as she turns her head to look at Starlight. "Oh, hello there!" "Hiii," Starlight waves a hoof awkwardly. "What are you all doing here?" "We've got no clue, to be honest." The alicorn shrugs her shoulders. "We all woke up here so suddenly, and we've been trying to get through this gate since the beginning. We can't remember a thing about where we are, or who anypony is, but we do know we want to leave." "We've been trying for Celestia knows how long to open this accursed gate," A white unicorn says. She huffs, flicking her curled, purple mane out of her face. "No matter what we do our magic is entirely ineffective. It bounces off like a ball." "We've done everything," the purple alicorn says with defeat, hanging her head and wings. "We've tried using the key slot and inputting our magic into it, and we've tried using destructive spells to blast it open. Nothing works." "I've even tried just flying out of here!" The blue pegasus flies up into the air. "Turns out some sorta 'magic barrier' is up around this whole place. Take a look." To showcase her point, she taps her hoof onto the sky itself. Under her hoof, a golden circle appeared. It quickly fizzled out, but it sparkled for the moment it was visible. There was definitely a magical barrier keeping even the pegasi trapped in this place. "That's so strange..." Starlight rubs her chin with her hoof. "Why would some pony want to trap us in here?" "That's what ah'm wonderin' myself," an orange mare speaks up. She sits on the ground and pulls her cowboy hat down over her face, which in turn drags her blonde mane over her muzzle and makes her sneeze. "This gate is locked up tighter than a chicken coop durin' a twister!" "Have you looked around any more before coming to the gate?" Starlight tilted her head to the side. "I looked earlier!" A pink mare pipes up from the back of the ground. She bounces forth to face Starlight eye to eye. "I was bouncing around while looking for other ponies, and I found a suuuper big stretch of restaurants near one of the fences! The sad news is, when I tried to approach it, I hit my nose on another magical barrier!" "What? Why would they block off the restaurants?" Starlight was more worried now than before. Blocking off their food source could mean only bad things. "That's what I said!" The pink mare complained, falling onto her hindquarters with a whine. "I'm sooo hungry after looking at those yummy dessert menus and the cute little icons on the signs! I've got the biggest possible craving for some Caramel Filled Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies with Pretzel Crusts! Curse you magic!" "It is strange though..." The purple alicorn said while patting the pink mare's head with one of her wings. "We aren't even sure how many more of us are in this place. So far, it's only been the 6 of us until you showed up. There could very well be other ponies in this place that we don't know about." "Well, if that's the case, then we should stop focusing on this gate." Starlight walked through the group to the gate, and tapped the keyhole with her hoof. "Obviously it's not going to open no matter what you do to it. There must be some sort of spell attached to it that repels magic and makes it immune to brute force. If that's how it's going to be, then we need to find out if there are other ponies here, group up, and try to find a new way to get out of here." "I'm with this pony!" The blue pegasus landed beside Starlight, and draped her wing over her back. "We're wasting our time kicking and fighting with this thing if it ain't gonna open for us!" "P-plus..." A light yellow pegasus finally spoke up for the first time. "I-if there are other ponies here, t-they could be hurt or just as s-scared as we are..." "I agree," The purple alicorn said, and nodded her head. "Once we've all grouped up, then we should get introductions out of the way. We want to be sure that every pony here knows every pony else's name, and it only seems fair to do that once we've confirmed how many of us are here." "And if we're lucky, some of the new ponies might be able to give us some info!" The blue pegasus lifted herself into the air again. "The sooner we can get out of here, the better for everypony, right?" "Darn tootin'!" The orange mare pulls herself to her hooves. "Let's get goin' y'all! Those ponies ain't gonna wait on us forever!" The group breaks out in a cacophany of approval before they set off. Starlight follows at the back of the bunch with the light yellow pegasus. The two exchange brief glances as they walk, but neither of them can make up much of a conversation topic. Starlight clears her throat every so often, but the whole group is silent for the most part. They're all focused on finding other ponies. "This campus is pretty big," The alicorn mare says to break the silence. "I've never been to a school that had such a wide space to roam." "Haven't you, darling?" The white unicorn hummed. "You look like the kind of pony who's gone to some quite large schools. Why, I've never heard of an alicorn going to a small school from any age." "Well, I used to go to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns," The alicorn responded. "That's the smallest roaming space I've ever had. We didn't even have a playground because we were so focused on honing our magical abilities. Of course, that was before I became her student." "You trained under Princess Celestia?!" The blue pegasus exclaimed. "Well, that certainly explains why you're an alicorn!" The white mare laughed. "I suppose it's only fair one of Celestia's students would become an alicorn! How did you do it?" "To be honest, I don't remember..." The alicorn mare sighed. "I suppose it's one of the memories that I've forgotten from being dragged into this place. I can only remember being a unicorn the day before, and the next day I woke up I had wings. I've got no clue what happened." "So strange..." The unicorn mused. "I do hope we all get our memories back soon." "I hope!" The blue pegasus groaned. "I'm tired of my head hurting like all hell whenever I try to remember how I got here." "Everypony, look!" The purple alicorn stopped the group, and pointed in one direction. Each head turned to where she was pointing, and even Starlight's eyes lit up at the sight. They had found 3 ponies near the restaurant part of the campus that had been blocked off. Two stallions and a mare! The mare was poking at the magical barrier, and firing beams of magic at it to try and break it. She appeared frustrated. The group began to approach the ponies at the barrier. "Wait, is that..?" The alicorn spoke again, before dashing ahead of the group with sparkling eyes. The stallions and the mare turned at the sound of hoofsteps close by. One of them, a white stallion, showed excitement seeing the purple alicorn. She leapt forth, hooking herself around the stallion and hugging onto him tightly. "Shining Armor, what the hell are you doing here?!" The mare laughed as she got off the stallion. "I could ask the same question to you, Twilight!" The stallion, Shining Armor, replied. "I never thought I'd get to see my baby sister in here, but it sure is a relief to see somepony that I recognize." "Your sister?" The other stallion spoke up. He was a golden stallion with fiery orange hair, though most of his body was covered in a dark teal cloak. He was a unicorn, just like Shining Armor. "Yeah, this is my sister Twilight Sparkle," Shining replied to the stallion. "And I guess she's made some friends in here." "Honestly, we don't know eachother's names yet..." Twilight scratched the back of her neck. "We've been waiting to see if there's other ponies before we get introductions out of the way." "Smart," The golden stallion spoke up. "I just happened to run into these two while exploring around, and we ended up finding this place." "Yeah, right after you bumped into it," Shining laughed. "I-I didn't do it on purpose!" The golden stallion's face bloomed with blush. "How was I supposed to know there was a magical barrier here? I-I've never been here in my life!" "I know, I'm just teasing." Shining rolled his eyes, but he still had a playful smile on his face. "That's my brother for you," Twilight snickered. "He's always been like this. When you've been his sister for as long as I have, you pick up a few things." "Classic boys," The mare spoke up. She was a lighter blue mare, but her distinguishing feature was that she was a unicorn. It seemed like this whole group was made of unicorns. "Well, that's 3 more ponies to our little 'pony arsenal,'" The blue pegasus chuckled. "How many does that make us now?" "Let me count..." Twilight stepped to the side to take a headcount. "1, 2, 3..." Her counting quickly turned to whispers, and eventually to lip-syncing until she spoke up again. "Including myself, that makes 10 ponies. We've got 8 mares, and 2 stallions." "Is that all of us?" The white mare spoke up. "We shouldn't jump to conclusions," Twilight replied. "There could very well be more ponies here. We need to search the entire campus before we do anything." "This might go a lot faster if we split up," Starlight chimed in. "We could go in small groups and search the whole campus, then meet up back at the gate with any ponies that we find." "That sounds like a smart idea." Twilight nodded to Starlight. "Let's decide the groups first." "Twilight, we can go together," Shining Armor tapped Twilight's shoulder. "Since we already know eachother and all." "Can I come along with?" The golden stallion spoke up. "I don't know these other ponies, and I've known you and this mare the longest." "I'd love to tag along too," The blue unicorn in question spoke up. "Sure, I don't mind." Twilight rolled her shoulders. "That's me, Shining, this stallion, and this mare. That makes a group of four out of our 10. That leaves 6, so you guys can split in half." "I'll stick with these two," The blue pegasus said as she flew down, dragging Starlight and the light yellow pegasus to her sides. "That leaves us," The orange mare said, motioning to the white unicorn and the pink mare. "I think this is pretty fair." Twilight nodded her head. "I'll head back with my group in the direction they came from." "We can head back to the gate and search the surrounding area," Starlight spoke up for her group. "We'll head towards the big fancy looking building!" The pink pony pointed to the giant school. "Who knows, we might be able to get inside!" "Alright everypony!" Twilight tapped her foot. "Let's get to work and find any ponies that we can! We'll regroup at the gate to report what notable things we've found on this campus, and bring back any ponies that we've found along the way." "Let's get a move on y'all!" The orange mare reared onto her hindlegs, and took off in the direction of the school. The white mare and the pink mare followed close behind her. "Shining Armor, you can lead the way." Twilight patted her brother's side, the closest part she could reach. "Can do," Shining Armor responded with a nod before he trotted back in the direction they had come. Twilight and the two other unicorns followed after him. "That leaves us to go to the gate," Starlight said to the remaining pegasus mares. "When we get there, we can take a final look to see if we can break it open, and then we can figure out where to go to search for other ponies." "Oh thank Celestia, I was hoping you wouldn't say we should just wait there for every pony else," The blue pegasus sighed in relief. "I'd rather not sit around." "Um, I wouldn't mind..." The light yellow pegasus said meekly. "I have to agree with the blue mare," Starlight said. "We shouldn't be sitting around if everypony else is doing something. We need to have something important to report back too. Or, well, somepony I guess." "Yeah, so we need to get going!" The blue pegasus began flying in the direction of the gate. She's fast, Starlight thought. She cocked her head, a silent motion for the yellow mare to follow. They both brought their hooves into a run to catch up with the blue pegasus. When they got to the gate, she was already waiting for them. "You're awfully quick," Starlight said when they got to the gate. She was a bit out of breath from running. "Of course! I'm the fastest pegasus alive!" The blue mare cackled, flicking her hair out of her face with quick turn of the head. "Now, what were we doing?" "We're going to try one last time to open up the gate," Starlight reminded her. "I'll use some of my magic to see if I can open the lock. If not, I'll try and use a spell to break the gate. After that, we could leave." "Mind if I try something first?" The blue pegasus rubbed her hooves together. "Um... I suppose?" Starlight tilted her head. "What are you going to do?" "You'll see!" The mare didn't give much explanation before she flapped her wings harder than before, and dashed off in the direction they came. Starlight and the mare waited patiently, before deciding to step to the side. They both had a decent idea of what this mare was going to do, but they weren't sure why. Of course, they were proven right as the mare began rapidly approaching again, a rainbow trail behind her. She turned onto her back in the air, extending her back hooves before slamming into the gate. A loud dong! rang through the air as her hooves collided with the metal. She pulled back, rubbing at her hooves; clearly that hurt a lot more than she thought it was going to. Despite her best efforts, not even a dent was left in the fence. "I-I suppose you were right..." The other pegasus tapped the area that had been hit. "Not even a dent, a-and she was flying so fast." "That must be a pretty powerful spell if even a pony of her speed couldn't break it," Starlight mused. "There's got to be some way to break the spell and this gate. Let me try my methods instead." "is it really worth it though?" The blue pegasus landed on the ground, and quickly sat down to get the pressure off of her aching hooves. "We were trying this for so long before, and nothing happened!" "There's always a second chance for everything." Starlight tapped her horn, blue sparks dancing off the tip and landing onto the stone path below her hooves. "You might want to stand back." The mares took her advice and scooted off to the side. They sat comfortably in the grass on the side of the path. Starlight took a deep breath, preparing herself for this spell. She couldn't remember the last time she had used it, but it had definitely been a while. She closed her eyes, igniting her horn and silently reciting the steps of the spell to herself. She tilted her head down, her horn pointed at the gate. She spread her hooves apart, giving herself plenty of support so she wouldn't go flying from casting this spell. She clenched her muscles, and expelled a large beam of magic towards the gate. It collided with the metal. Shocks of magic and lightning exploded from the spot, and sent dirt flying in smoke clouds around them. The pegasi flapped their wings, beginning to clear the smoke from the area so that they could see if any damage was done at all. As expected, not even a dent was left. Starlight sighed, and rubbed her horn, which had begun to turn red from the intensity of the spell. "It always hurts to cast that spell, and even that wasn't enough to do anything to it..." She shook her head, and stepped towards the gate. She waved her hoof in the air to clear some more smoke still left behind. "I'll just try opening it the normal way." Luckily, the keyhole was just big enough for a horn. She tilted her head down, pushing her horn into the hole carefully. She sighed softly so she wouldn't move too quickly. She ignited her horn again, pouring magic into the keyhole, in turn making it pulse through the gate like a river. She pulled back and stood back, allowing the magic to flow through. The gate lit up with the colour of her magic, glowing through the metal itself. It seemed like it was going to work, but then the light suddenly faded, and the magic was expelled back into Starlight's horn by force. She nearly fell back from the force of the magic being launched at her. "Well, that didn't work," Starlight grumbled in annoyance. "See, what did I tell you?" The blue pegasus clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth and shook her head. She flapped her wings and brought herself back up into the air. "C'mon, we should get going. I bet everypony else has already found at least one pony outside of the group by now." "Yeah, you're right," Starlight mumbled. Starlight couldn't help being disappointed, but she tried not to be. Twilight and the others had already tried countless times to open the gate, and the blue pegasus even had a new method to try that didn't work. They may as well push on if this gate didn't work. It couldn't be the only entrance, surely? "Don't be upset," The yellow pegasus said. She draped her wing over Starlight's back, and smiled sweetly at her. "We'll find another way out." "Yeah, I know," Starlight smiled gently at the mare. "Let's get going." The yellow pegasus nodded, and took her wing off Starlight's back. She stepped back, and the group began to walk forward again. Starlight had no idea where they were going, but she was sure nopony had explored the other side of the school. It would be worth checking out, at the very least.