//------------------------------// // ACT 2: INVESTIGATION // Story: Super Ponyronpa: Cacophonous Symphony // by TrackdNTraild //------------------------------// Starlight's world roared with the sound of pony hooves colliding with the stone path as they all galloped down it. They had only barely heard Philomena's announcement, only catching wind of the fact that the pony was in the market plaza. The rest of the announcement was drowned out by their hoofsteps. Among the crowd, Starlight noticed once more that some were missing, including some that had been at the table. She was silently hoping that none of them had died when they left. When they arrived on the scene, Starlight had to push her way through to the front of the crowd, past the shocked ponies. When she saw the scene, her eyes too widened, and mouth dropped. The pony that had died... ...was Cheese Sandwich, the Ultimate Party Planner. "H-how?!" Starlight heard herself yell before she realized she even opened her mouth. "How did this happen?!" "H-he was just here this morning..." Twilight mumbled in the crowd behind her. "H-how could this have happened?" Starlight looked around the group of ponies, hearing their confused murmurs and the terrified whimpers from very few. Starlight's eyes caught onto one pony who seemed the worst affected; Pinkie. She looked almost as stiff as a statue, with tears dribbling down her face. Her ears were pinned to the sides of her head, and her mouth was just barely open; her teeth were barely a centimeter apart. Her mouth suddenly shut, as she lifted her head and let the tears flow more than before. She stepped forth, going by the body, and sitting down near the stallion's head. Her eyes screwed shut, and it seemed like every pony fell silent seeing how she moved. She took a shaky breath, her eyes screwing shut before she let out a wail that wanted to echo through the entire school. Her frizzy hair collapsed and hung limply around her body like a wet towel. She let the tears flow and sobs wrack her body as her hair surrounded her. Starlight had never seen Pinkie so distraught, and it broke her heart to see her like this. She could truly feel the pony's despair, and when the mare opened her eyes, Starlight could see pure terror in her eyes. "P-Pinkie-" Starlight lifted her hoof and took a step forward. "Don't," Pinkie snapped at her, flinching away from her touch. "D-don't you dare touch me." "Pinkie?" Starlight blinked, shocked. The mare glared back at her, her entire body shaking. She went silent again, staring down at the Stallion's body. Starlight knew that they had to investigate the scene, regardless of how Pinkie was feeling right now. But... "Pinkie." Twilight stepped forward. "I-I know this... this is really hard to take in right now, but if you don't let us look at the scene ourselves, we're not going to find out who did this. If we want to be able to avenge Cheese, then we need to know what happened." Pinkie was still tense, but with Twilight's words, she seemed as though she had begun to calm. Gentle sobs still coursed through her body, wave by wave, and tears continued to flow. Her sobs faded into white noise in the background. She sniffled, rubbing her eyes to clear away the tears. She looked at Twilight, and one could easily tell how sore her eyes were. "I-I'm scared Twilight," Pinkie said. Her voice was raspy already. "S-so far the only ponies that have d-died have been party ponies, like me. W-what if I'm next? What if t-these targets are i-intentional? I-is the pony running this place... is Celestia a-against us?" "We shouldn't be thinking like that," Feather Bangs said as he walked forward. "We don't know for sure what she wants, or why we're here." "I want to promise your safety," Sunburst spoke and came to the front of the crowd. "I-I really do, but... nothing is for certain. What I do know is that I want to make an effort to make sure your safety can be guaranteed." "Every pony who is part of the Student Survival Committee wants that too," Starlight continued. "We want to keep ponies alive the best we can, even if they aren't one of us. And when ponies do fall, it's our duty to take down the pony that let them." "B-but..." Pinkie coughed, and covered her muzzle. She wiped tears and snot from her face once again. "P-pinkie." Fluttershy walked next to the mare, and hesitantly lifted her hoof. When Pinkie didn't shy away, she rested her hoof on the mare's shoulder. "Let's... leave. W-we can give them time to i-investigate. I-I'll help you calm down. D-does that sound okay?" "L-leave..?" Pinkie sniffed, looking down at the stallion's body once again. Tears still pooled in her eyes, but she clenched them tightly shut. "...Thank you, but... I... I wouldn't feel right sitting around. My friend just died, I can't do nothing." "B-but you're hurting... w-we all are." Fluttershy stepped back. "You shouldn't f-force it..." "But I don't need to be happy either," Pinkie said back, some frustration in her voice. "I-I need to be focused like everypony else. Whoever did this needs to pay. H-he... he promised me he'd stay alive, so we could bake and party together on the outside. He Pinkie promised me. The pony who did this broke the promise we made. And nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise." Fluttershy flinched away as shadows cast over Pinkie's face when she said that. She whimpered, her wings shielding her body as she vanished into the crowd again. Starlight could understand; she had never seen Pinkie like this. A bright and sunny pony like her wouldn't normally act like this. Cheese's death was affecting her more than she thought it would. "We need to get started investigating," Sunburst said. "We've wasted enough time already. Everypony, spread out! We don't have much time left!" "Philomena only gave us an hour!" Trixie stomped her hoof on the path. "We've already spent 10 minutes watching Pinkie break down!" "Then we just need to work fast," Twilight spun around to respond to Trixie. "Search the entire academy!" "Ah ah ah!" Philomena's voice rang throughout the area as she appeared on top of one of the speaker poles. She was twirling the truth bracelet around her wing and giggling. "You all need the Phoenix File before you can investigate!" "Then hand it over!" Pinkie shouted at the bird. "Yeesh, who pissed in your pancakes?" Philomena snickered as she flew down from the pole, summoning a box full of Phoenix Files to her side. It appeared in a flash of fire beside her. "Come take one! Remember now, you don't have much time!" "Philomena, while you're here, I need you to confirm something," Starlight said as she grabbed a Phoenix File from the box. "My, you ponies are awfully questioning," Philomena mumbled before she looked at Starlight. "Well, shoot! What is it?" "The motive." Starlight held the file close to her chest as it turned on. "What was it? Tell me word for word." "Weird question," Philomena hummed. "But, if you need it for your investigation... the motive was simple; if you killed a pony, I'd tell you how you got here. In exchange, I would help try to 'cover up' the murder a little bit. And so you could confirm I wasn't lying about how you got here, I wore a truth bracelet that would shock me if I told a lie." "Thank you, Philomena," Starlight said as she pulled out her Phoenix Pad, and began recording the information in a new notepad. When she looked up again, Philomena was gone. She sighed, looking at the information on the Phoenix File. 'The victim is Cheese Sandwich. The time of death was 7 am. The body was found in the market plaza. The cause of death was drowning. He has a broken jaw.' She wrote it down as she read it. So he died by drowning... that's weird. He died in the morning, too. How did no pony notice until now? Starlight walked over to the body, seeing Pinkie was investigating herself. It was the first time that she had seen the mare be so focused on a case. She hated to interrupt her, but she had to ask a few things for her own investigation. "Pinkie? Can I have a moment?" Starlight asked nervously. "What?" Pinkie lifted her head, staring back at Starlight. She still tried to sound polite in her tone, despite the expression on her face. "I-it might hurt to talk about, but I do need a bit of information for my own investigation," Starlight explained. "Firstly... a-at the feast table, I noticed that your tail was twitching a lot. Is there any reason for that?" "Oh, that's my Pinkie Sense," Pinkie said with a weak smile. "Pinkie... Sense?" Starlight raised a brow. "It's a special ability I have." Pinkie swished her tail and turned to the side. "Whenever something goes wrong or is about to go wrong, I get super duper twitchy. My Pinkie Sense has helped me avoid a lot of bad accidents because I can predict when bad things are going to happen right in the moment." "And... your Pinkie Sense as you call it, it was going on throughout the whole breakfast." Starlight wrote down the information. "I think it was because Cheese's murder was being carried out," Pinkie said with a sigh. "I thought something bad was going to happen at the feast table. He left early in the morning to go to the fruit tree orchard, and said that he was going to see if the trees had any fresh ingredients he could use to cook with. After he left, my tail started twitching like crazy. I should've followed him..." "Don't blame yourself." Starlight patted the mare's back. "No pony could have known." "I know, I know." Pinkie pushed off Starlight's hoof as gently as she could manage, but it was obvious she was frustrated. "But, yeah, that's what the tail twitching meant. Is there anything else you wanna know?" "Just a few more things," Starlight said. "I just... always saw you and Cheese together for breakfast, and wanted to know more about that." "We both woke up early," Pinkie said with the faintest hum. "Since we were cooking for everypony, we started waking up before the morning announcements. Applejack started joining us after we could go to the second floor, she said she would start collecting ingredients from the greenhouse for us. While me and Cheese cooked, she would usually be out looking for things that were just perfect. We told her that we'd send her to collect things when we asked, but she's a stubborn mare. She probably would've gone on her own, regardless of what we'd say." "That sounds like her," Starlight responded to Pinkie's explanation as she wrote it down. "And did Applejack bring back any ingredients today?" "Actually, she did." Pinkie nodded. "If you want to look at them, they're in the kitchen. I only used the celery and carrots she picked to add a little bit of flavor to the egg dishes. I was hoping to show Cheese how to properly peel the carrots to cook them, but... you know." "Thank you, Pinkie." Starlight quickly tried to distract the mare. "I think I need to go talk to Applejack myself to confirm this. Is there anything else you'd like to add?" "Umm... not right off the top of my head. Oh!" Pinkie suddenly got an idea. "When you're done talking with Applejack, you should go talk with Twilight and Doctor Whooves. They both wake up early too, they like to wait at the feast table for every pony else to show up." "I'll make a note of that." Starlight finally put the Phoenix File away after giving it one more look over. "I'm going to do a bit of examination here before I head out. I-is that okay?" "It's necessary, so I don't mind," Pinkie said with a wave of the hoof. "I'll... I'll try not to get mad." "Thanks..." Starlight cleared her throat as she came to the scene. She looked at the information she wrote from the file, and compared it with the state of the body. She hated the fact that his eyes were open... She could see that his jaw was broken, just based on the shape. She took notice of the blood puddle surrounding him, and the water puddle around his head; it must've been caused by his wet hair. She supposed that's where the drowning part came from. But if he had drowned, why is he here where there isn't any water? Starlight began scribbling down the information, trying to keep herself somewhat organized. Starlight took another glance over the body, and became aware of one stand out detail; hoof marks. They were embedded in Cheese's jaw, chest, and his side. She cringed. Brutal. She forced herself to write down the information. Starlight took a closer look at the body, and something else stood out to her. It looked like his torso had been crushed. One pony would have to have enough force in their legs to be able to crush a pony's torso. The thought made her sick, but she swallowed down her feelings to focus on the case. She couldn't help thinking that some pony must've really had it out for him to kill him in such a horrible way. She took a deep breath, and decided that she was finally done with the area. She passed Pinkie a gentle look before she stepped away, deciding that now was the time for her to go look for Applejack. She was worrying about how much time was left, so she ran to her destination. She found Applejack at the feast table, talking with Sunburst and Twilight. "Applejack," Starlight called out to the pony. "Hiya Starlight," Applejack turned around to respond to the pony. "I need to ask you a few things for my investigation," Starlight said. "Ah'm all ears." Applejack sat down in one of the seats bringing her full attention to the pony in front of her. Sunburst and Twilight watched the two with curiosity in their eyes. "Firstly, I want to say that Pinkie told me to come talk to you," Starlight began. "She told me that you, her, and Cheese would always wake up early to prepare breakfast. Is that true?" "Sure is." Applejack nodded her head. "Ah offered to get em' new ingredients. They said they'd ask for em' when they needed em', but Ah didn't feel like waitin', so Ah grabbed a few things anyways." "And you confirm that these ingredients you grabbed do exist, right?" Starlight tilted her head, letting it be known that she was suspicious. "Of course!" Applejack got out of her seat, as calm as ever. In her eyes, Starlight could see that she was uncomfortable, and she couldn't blame her. She could only imagine that, as a farmer, Applejack has had to deal with things like this for cases on the farm. Being a farmer meant being a business pony, so she just hoped Applejack was used to things like this. The pony in question lead the group of 3 into the restaurant, and into the kitchen. "There it is," Applejack said and pointed to a basket on the countertop. "Ah got a couple grape bunches, celery, carrots, lil bit of lettuce, and Ah'm pretty sure there's some tomatoes in there. Ah don't know how much of the ingredients they used, so some stuff might be missin' or depleted." "I'll look," Starlight said. She walked to the counter, and peeked in the basket herself. Sure enough, the exact things that Applejack and Pinkie had mentioned were inside. Some of the celery and carrots were missing, matching up with Pinkie's account. Dammit! Starlight couldn't help but feel frustrated; she wasn't getting much out of these leads. She hadn't found anything that could lead her to a potential culprit. "You doin' alright, sugarcube?" Applejack walked over and put her hoof on Starlight's back. She jumped, not expecting Applejack so suddenly interrupting her thoughts. "I-I'm fine," Starlight said, waving her hoof to try and hide her nervousness. "I'm just trying to think about the case. This looks like it's going to be... really hard to figure out, and we're running out of time." "You best be goin' then," Applejack said. "Ah'm sure you got other ponies to be talkin' to instead of lookin' through a basket of veggies. Go on and get what ya need, Starlight." "Thank you, Applejack," Starlight smiled at the mare. "Though, there is one more thing I want to ask you..." "What is it?" Applejack tilted her head, and adjusted her hat to keep it from falling off with the tilt. "It's actually about these ingredients." Starlight motioned to the basket. "You said you went regardless of what Pinkie and Cheese said, but did they ever mention being low on ingredients?" "Well, now that ya mention it..." Applejack scratched her head as she thought. "Ah guess Ah didn't really go of my own free will to get them ingredients... Yesterday, Ah heard em talkin' before breakfast, sayin' they were gettin' low on fruits and what not. Cheese said he wanted to go see the fruit tree orchard, see if there was anythin' growing yet. Ah didn't look myself, but Ah would've collected some if there was somethin' there. Guess Ah figured Ah'd top off their veggies if they were gettin' fruits." "That makes sense," Starlight said as she wrote the information down. "You never know what you might use in your stews or soups, or whatever else you could use fruits for. I guess those aren't really good comparisons... but it's just better to make sure you've got everything before you do something." "It's like buying extra cheese when you want to make a cheese dish," Sunburst spoke up. "Whenever I've wanted to make something cheesy, I always buy an extra packet just incase the first turns out to be not as much as I expected." "Same thing with buying more eggs," Twilight added. "There's always the chance that you'll boil them wrong, or you'll drop them, or pop a yolk in your pan. With more spares, you don't have to worry about messing up!" "That's why ya buy spare tools too!" Applejack said. "That way if somethin' happens, like they get stolen or they rust up too dang quick, ya always got a backup pair to keep the job goin!" "You all are right," Starlight said. "But... we're really wasting time sitting here and talking about this. Twilight, I actually need to talk to you too. Pinkie asked me to, same situation." "Why?" Twilight fluttered her wings. "Pinkie told me that you and Doctor Whooves tend to wake up early and wait at the feast table for other ponies to wake up," Starlight read from her notes. "Is that true?" "Yep!" Twilight nodded. "Personally, I wake up early to keep tabs on every pony. Usually, I'm joined by him, Pinkie, Cheese, and Applejack. While Cheese and Pinkie went into the kitchen, Applejack would go off on her own to get ingredients, and I would stay to chat with the Doctor. Um... today we got a little distracted this morning." "Distracted?" Starlight asked. "What do you mean?" "W-well..." Twilight laughed nervously, and flapped her wings. Her face was bright with blush and the tip of her horn was sparking. "I... found a really good book in the library yesterday. I was reading it at breakfast, and Doctor Whooves joined me. We both were so engrossed in the story and talking about it, we didn't pay attention to anything that was going on. I was sitting with Applejack and him, and when I looked up, I saw that Trixie, Sunburst, and Feather Bangs were with us." "If I can, I'd like to add to that," Sunburst piped up. Starlight was ready to write her own notes. "When I was coming to sit with every pony, I had Trixie and Feather Bangs with me. Applejack came from the garden to join us, having that ingredients basket that she showed you earlier." "Why the garden, Applejack?" Starlight asked the mare. "Easiest way to come out," Applejack said. "It's right behind the stairs goin' up to the second floor, might as well take it instead of spendin' so much time walkin' out the front door." "It is a shorter walk, I will admit," Twilight said. "And the garden entrance is closer to Restaurant Row. I'd like to think that you'd also be able to wash off the vegetables in the garden's fountain." "Ah do that." Applejack nodded to Twilight's comment. "Y'all gotta have your food fresh and clean, you don't want it covered in mud n' dirt, do ya?" "No way," Sunburst laughed. "That's really smart thinking, Applejack." "Call it my farmer's intuition." Applejack tapped her hooves and nodded. "Is that safe?" Starlight wondered. "I thought it would be better washing them in the sink." "The fountain must have a filter system," Twilight said. "The water would be much fresher in the fountain than in the sink. I think it has less potential contamination that way." "Y'all and your fancy sinks." Applejack blew a raspberry. "On the farm, we used buckets of rain water to wash our crops. Ain't nothin' better than good ol' fashioned rain water washin'! Granny Smith says she used to do it when she was a filly, and that was a looong time ago, hoo boy!" "I guess I can excuse that." Starlight rolled her shoulders. "Well, that was a lot of useful information. Thanks for helping out the investigation everypony. I'm going to go look for other ponies I can talk to, and places I can explore." "Good luck, sugarcube." Applejack patted Starlight's back. "Ah know you'll figure things out." "Thanks Applejack," Starlight smiled. She began walking out of the building, thinking of what to do next. She didn't have much time left before the class trial, she knew that much. She was panicking; she didn't have a single hint as to who the culprit could really be, and she was running out of ways to figure it out. She tried to connect the dots in some way, but was distracted when a pony called out to her. "Starlight!" She recognized Rainbow Dash's voice. The pony landed in front of her, with Double Diamond and Shining Armor following. "Where the hell have you three been?" She asked. "We've been investigating for almost an hour!" "It's embarrassing," Double Diamond said and scratched his head. "We ended up sleeping in," Shining Armor confessed. "We woke up to the body discovery announcement. We were at the back of the crowd, so we only ended up seeing what happened when ponies began to leave." "Yeah, I saw how Pinkie was." Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Poor girl... I can't even begin to imagine what she's going through right now." "Did you see her hair, Starlight?" Double Diamond asked. "It was so... flat. It looked so strange." "I know, it's awful," Starlight whimpered. "You should've seen when she first came out. I'm surprised it wasn't her wail that made you guys wake up instead. It hurt my ears, and my heart." "We've been looking around for her sake," Shining Armor said. "We came to find you because we found something in the garden that you might want to look at." "You did?" Starlight was curious now. The ponies didn't elaborate, only urged her to follow them. The group raced to the garden as quickly as they could, and they lead Starlight to the fountain. "It's on this side, right?" Rainbow Dash asked to the rest of the group as she flew to the side of the fountain. "It's the one by the fence," Shining Armor corrected her. "Oh." Rainbow Dash flew to the other side. "Right, whoops. My bad." Everypony sure is messing up today... "Anyways," Double Diamond said and rolled his head, his neck popping. "We went through here after we woke up. Rainbow Dash caught this at the corner of her eye, and had us take a look." The ponies pointed to what they had found. Starlight wrote down in her notepad as she looked. What? On the side of the fountain... there was a splatter of blood. "Why the hell is this here?" Starlight wondered. "We found Cheese Sandwich in the market plaza, so why is this here?" "Maybe he or the culprit got hurt here?" Rainbow Dash mused. "And then he got killed in the plaza after trying to escape while injured," Shining Armor thought out loud. "Surely he would've tried calling out for some pony if that happened?" Double Diamond pondered. "No, he most likely couldn't," Starlight said. "According to the Phoenix File, Cheese Sandwich has a broken jaw. He couldn't scream even if he wanted to." "That's dark," Rainbow Dash said with a shudder. "What kind of pony would do something like this?" "That's for us to find out," Starlight said and shook her head. "And I'm running out of time! I need to go talk to one more pony, you guys keep looking around and see what all you can find. Actually, have you seen Doctor Whooves at all?" "We passed him when we came here the first time," Shining Armor said. "He's with Cheese's body, if I remember right. He might've moved now, but that's where we last saw him." "I'll go look. Good luck on your own investigation!" Starlight didn't let the ponies respond back to her before she began running down the road. She couldn't let time run out before she finished her investigation! She didn't know how much time she had left, but she didn't dare look and waste time. She ran down the path, and arrived at the market plaza once more. She took deep breaths, having to calm her heart after that running. "Starlight!" The Doctor called out from his spot beside the body. Pinkie silently waved to her. She hadn't moved much since Starlight left. "Doctor Whooves, I need to talk to you," Starlight said as she caught her breath and galloped over. "Pinkie told me," The Doctor said. "I can tell you only my alibi from this morning, as I believe it is all we have time for." "Whatever, I'll write it," Starlight patted her chest with her hoof, trying desperately to calm her heart. "Tell me everything." "Well, I usually wake up early with Twilight, Pinkie, Cheese, and Applejack. I tend to wake up as the last of the bunch," The Doctor explained. "Twilight and I were reading a very interesting book she said she had gotten from the library upstairs. We got so distracted, time flew. Before we knew it, half the table was filled with ponies." "That checks out with Twilight's alibi," Starlight said, finally having caught her breath. "Thank you, Doctor. I can use this well." As the conversation came to a close, Philomena's voice rang out over the speakers again. Starlight had finally run out of time. "It's time everypony!" Philomena cawed happily. "My feathers are falling out from excitement, hoho! Please report to the Trial Waiting Room for the class trial! It's time to decide if another pony gets to be executed, or the new blackened graduates from this academy! Just be quick, I don't have all day." "It's time to go," Pinkie said. "And just so you know, Starlight..." "Huh?" Starlight looked to Pinkie, and flinched seeing the shadows cast over her face again. The fury buried into her pupils was just barely visible from the glazed, saddened look her eyes sent out over any other feeling she had for this case. Starlight felt like she could truly feel the hatred that was bubbling within the pink mare. "Just call me Pinkamena from now on," she said flatly. "I... the name Pinkie is too cutesy and jokey for this situation. I want to take it seriously now, so... don't call me that again. Okay?" "Ah..." Starlight wasn't sure if she could really do that, since she had become so used to the nickname. She gave a silent nod, not wanting to frustrate her when she was already in a bad mood. She couldn't tell behind her hair, but she could feel Pinkamena's eyes trying to burn through her soul. After the last trial, Starlight could suspect that Pinkamena was counting on her to find the culprit of this case, and not get them all killed. The pressure would weigh on her forever, but she believed she was up to the task. Every pony came together in groups into the waiting room. Most ponies didn't bother splitting between the free ponies, and those from the Student Survival Committee anymore. Everypony was confused, and some of them flat out didn't care. Starlight watched the crowd get bigger as more ponies filled the space. It was just a little bit cramped, but she didn't mind. No pony said anything as Philomena appeared and activated the elevator. They fell into it in single file, casting looks at eachother. No pony knew who to trust right now. The room was filled with a dark aura, a bubbling mixture of despair and hatred. Starlight glanced at Pinkamena as the elevator began to go down. Their eyes met momentarily, and Pinkamena had allowed them to soften. Starlight felt bad; she felt as though that look was Pinkamena's way of silently begging her to make the right choice. Starlight knew she couldn't disappoint her. She nodded her head firmly, trying to give her the best confirmation she could. Before the doors opened, she saw the slightest smile on the party pony's muzzle before her head shot up, and she walked out of the elevator with the others. One by one, they walked into their podiums. Even in this wide, open space, the air around still felt suffocating... A cruel trial... A cruel deception... A cruel betrayal... Cruel mysteries... Cruel lies... Cruel truths... A cruel...class trial...