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twilightprince101 · 6 years

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Singanronpa Ch. 1: What is True Friendship? (Class Trial)

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WOOO! Finally I was able to get this done! I hope y’all are ready for some thrills, chills and kills! I know I sure am, because this chapter took MUCH longer than I thought it would! However, let me just give a warning to everyone right now. Once this is up and posted, I won’t be posting Singanronpa stuff for a while. I wanted to get the entire first chapter out so people could just have a taste of it because I still have a lot of other writing projects to get done, not to mention I’m going to be going into a dual enrollment program for schools soon. So until I finish my main story and get back onto Some Moral Support, I won’t be posting anything for this. With that said, I hope this chapter can entertain you for until that time comes. Enjoy everybody!

ATTENTION!!! Danganronpa is home to lots of graphic content, particularly violence, death and graphic depictions of that death. If you are sensitive to any of these things and several other mature themes, DANGANRONPA IS NOT FOR YOU!!! You have been warned.

All of the animals present in the moment stand at their respective podiums, looking between each other with wary looks on their faces. A heavy feeling of tension lingers in the air as Monokuma restates what is spoken before every class trial.

Monokuma: Now then, let’s begin with a simple explanation of the class trial. During the class trial, you will present your arguments for who the killer is, and then vote for “whodunnit.” If you vote correctly, then only the blackened will receive punishment. But if you pick the wrong person… I’ll punish everyone besides the blackened, and that person will gain the right to leave the theater and escape to the outside world!

Riley, calling the robobear out, says that the trial won’t take too long so he won’t have time to enjoy it, since Meena already confessed to the murder. Mike mumbles to himself, saying that the fact is debatable, to which the actor lets the statement slide for the time being.

To begin the trial officially, Meena apologizes to everyone present, saying that what she has done was unforgivable and she is aware of that fact. Rosita tries to comfort to soprano, but she pushes her away and continues to talk, saying that she isn’t asking for forgiveness, but instead confirmation that Johnny will be safe.

But before anyone can confirm this fact, the hamster stops the elephant from continuing and orders her to stop lying to everyone. Since they found her clothes hidden away in the bathroom, she says “it’s obvious that you’re trying to cover for that edgy punk rock wannabe.”

This immediately sparks an argument between everyone, similar to the intensity back in the lobby with everyone present adding to the noise. The rocker continues to state that she doesn’t know how her things got in the bathroom in the first place, since she didn’t even leave her room since around 9:30 PM. When Ember asks the porcupine for proof of her claim and none is presented, the rapper tells everyone that “In class trials, evidence is everything!”

Buster sides with Ember this time, saying that he did see her peeking out of her room at around 10 PM. Ash once again tells Buster to stop pinning the blame on her, demanding that he stops lying, but a few animals from all sides ask for the details. The rocker begins to panic slightly from the amount of people siding against her.

Matt asks Buster if he thinks that Ash did it, but he still states that he is unsure. He may have seen Ash poke her head out of her room, but that isn’t exactly definitive proof that she was the killer. Gunter even says that, in a way, Ash was telling the truth since she didn’t exactly LEAVE her room. David bounces off of that, saying that paranoia is natural in these circumstances, he should know.

Gunter: Um... are you okay?

David: Define “okay.”

Ember, still persisting in her case, says that Ash is still the prime suspect because of her clothes being found in the bathroom. It doesn’t help that Ash doesn’t have any evidence proving that she stayed in her room the entire time. But the porcupine doubles down, saying that Buster doesn’t have any proof that he saw her too, so nobody can say anything.

Mike is about to say that double negatives like that don’t work, since once again, two pieces of evidence point to her being the culprit. However Nancy tells everyone that Ash does have a point. Buster may have seen Ash looking out into the hall, but the clothes and quills could have been put there by someone else, like the true culprit.

Jude asks once again that Nancy uses her talent to find the culprit, but once again she heavily denies this offer, with her volume increasing slightly while she says this. Riley once again states that, since Meena was the only one able to use the murder weapon, she is the only one that could’ve done the deed.

When Matt puts up the claim that Johnny could have used the bed leg as well, Riley points out again that Meena would have ZERO gain for helping him, and to that extent Ash, cover up the crime. Mike chuckles a bit and says “Who knows? They do say nowadays that young love is a force to be reckoned with.” Riley squeezes the sides of his podium and yells at him to shut up in response to this, saying that those arguments are useless in Danganronpa, once again prompting an argument.

Buster tries to wave the two down and offers everyone the simpler alternative of going through the facts one at a time to get everything straight. Both scoff at him for this and use their suspicion of him as a crutch to ignore the claim. Rosita, however, speaks up and says that it might be for the best. “With the tension being so high,” she says reasonably, “nobody will get anywhere with just arguing back and forth.”

Meena squeezes her shoulders, asking if they really have to do so. Her voice has a pained tint to it, as if just speaking hurts her internally. Ember tells Meena that, if she really is the culprit, then going through everything will help confirm it to everyone. With members from all three sides agreeing with each other, Meena sighs and agrees to go over everything.

To begin, everyone starts with the basics to get everything out of the way. Going over the crime scene, mostly everyone agrees that Meena’s room is the place of interest. Eddie, however, states the possibility of Steph being killed somewhere else, then being brought to Meena’s room.

Ash then retaliates and scolds the servant, telling him to use his eyes. Eddie flinches and apologizes, but then Nancy begins to understand what the rocker meant, since the room was so messy. Buster rebounds off of this, calling attention to the pools of blood around the room. David offers the possibility of some way to transfer the blood, such as a plastic mat, but Ember states that the splatters seemed too natural for it to be staged. Not to mention that nobody could find anything like this in the theater.

They use the splatters as a segway to the murder weapon. Playing the devil’s advocate just to be safe, Gunter asks if there was anything else that could have been used as a weapon instead of the bed leg. Julee suggests Ash’s quills, as if they were bundled up together to whack somebody with, to which the porcupine lets out a long groan of frustration at how everyone is continuously trying to pin the crime on her.

After a heated argument between the hamster and porcupine, Ash pinches off one of her quills and looks directly to Julee, then snaps the quill in half with ease. The voice actor tries to play the victim card and get others to protect her, but Jude lets out an “oh!” and tells the hamster that Ash actually gave a valid explanation.

With the help of Buster, the street performer explains that Ash’s quills, while they are sharp, must be fragile for her to snap in half like that. So if she did try to use the quills as a bat or something, then it would have snapped and cause more of a headache than anything.

Julee: O-oh. Oh yeah, I got that too, of course that’s what she meant; her quills being breakable, not wanting to break me like a twig, of course!

Ash: You know, I did hear that hamsters are naturally fragile animals too.

Julee: SHUT IT!!!

While on the subject of the Monokuma file, Mike states that something has been bugging him about it; specifically the censored time of death. Eddie did explain that it would make things less interesting if it was known from the get go, but that would mean that the time itself is damning evidence for the culprit. So all they gotta do is figure out the time and they should be good to go!

Meena, still in her pained voice, speaks up and says that she does not want the trail to go on for any longer either way, and tells everyone that she believes she had killed Stephanie around 11:00 PM.

Mike believes that, with that said and done, they could figure out the crime easily. But when Riley asks if he was keeping track of the time at all last night, the crooner’s look of excitement fades.

Riley: Nobody really knew that there would be a murder last night, so who would bother to keep track of the time?

With a gigantic grin on their face, Jude slowly raises their paw.

The jaguar then goes on to explain their night watch; what they did, how long they did it for and how they had to go to the bathroom at the end, along with David joining them. Ash complains to the bear that they seriously need to get some healthier food, to which Monokuma says they might get some if they survive.

While Riley becomes flustered about being proved wrong, Nancy decides to talk for him and ask if David or Jude had seen anything while going to the bathroom, as both of their excursions were close to Meena’s estimated murder time. While Jude admits that they didn’t see anything, David does say that he thinks he heard the sound of a door closing while walking down to the bathroom.

Rosita guesses that it might have something to do with the crime, like Johnny going into Meena’s room, but Buster says that it very well could’ve been someone like himself, paranoid that somebody might try to come into their room. Deciding that they can answer the question later, they begin to listen to Jude’s nightwatch report.

Jude first tells everyone about Buster sprinting to his office when Jude stepped out into the hallway. The showman is visibly embarrassed when the jaguar brings this up, but lets them continue how they saw Buster run to his office.

The showman is sent questioning glances by Eddie, Ash and Ember, but can only say that he stayed in the office until the murder. He is questioned by the servant, asking why exactly he did so. His tone sounds hopeful in a way, like he is silently praying that Buster didn’t do it, considering how he was one of the only people willing to trust him.

Worried that suspicion will fall to him as the culprit, he hesitantly explains that his office is, in itself, like his bedroom. One of the drawers is a bed he made for himself, and since he’s been working there his entire life, he almost feels exposed when he goes out for anything else, as if he’s standing in the middle of a crowd with just his undies.

Ember: Well, there’s an image that will never be able to leave my mind.

Buster, cautiously, also brings up how he saw Ash when he was about to make a run for the office, just in case. Ash once again retaliates, accusing him of trying to pin the blame on her.

Ash: What’s your agenda Buster?!

Buster: Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I’m barely even able to organize my office, how could I organize some sort of plot?

However, the jaguar does state that, when they just opened their door, they think they heard the sound of a door closing. The other members of the Ash Killed side jump at this opportunity, saying that it could’ve been the rocker herself. The rocker begins to fiddle with the pins on her shirt, stuttering out once again that she was in her room the entire night. With how often Ash has heard this explanation, a part of him becomes slightly unsure.

With no other evidence pointing to Ash actually leaving her room and committing the murder, Jude continues their report, explaining how they saw Meena leave her room to try and deliver a note. The elephant explains that, with all of the tension, she couldn’t sleep and needed somebody to talk to.

Gunter: Well, that lines up with the letter we found.

Rosita assumes that Meena slipped the note underneath Johnny’s door, considering what she had said in her confession. But as the soprano is about to confirm this, Jude cuts in and says that she slipped the note underneath Stephanie’s door.

After a bit of initial freakout and members from all sides trying to calm people down (Rosita, Riley, Nancy, Buster, Jude), Matt calls for everyone’s attention with a BANG on his stand, declaring “THAT’S IT!!!”

Buster and Matt begin to butt heads, with Buster trying to say that it was just a misunderstanding, but Matt going much farther with the given information.

Matt: Julee was right after all, Meena was hiding something! We all thought that it was either Meena or Ash killing Stephanie, plain and simple. But with the given information, an entirely new idea comes to the table; Meena MANIPULATING others to defend her and framing Ash!

Buster: But this is only one piece of evidence, and it very well could be a mistake. How on earth could this one thing be a detail that closes the case?!

Matt: Listen, here’s what went down! First, Meena invited Stephanie over to her room, then killed her so she could escape. Then right after that, she invited Johnny and knocked him out to make it look like an accident. Then finally, she stole Ash’s clothes and quills from downstairs and planted them in the toilet herself. That way we could TRY to defend her and prove her innocence, and shift the blame over to Ash since we found her clothes! It all makes sense, the evidence fits!!!

Buster stops Matt before he can continue, spotting a glaring contradiction in his theory; the invitation letter that they found. Despite them finding the letter in Stephanie’s room, it didn’t say who it was from or to. Meena even admits that she and Stephanie barely ever talked, and David says that he barely saw her talk to anyone, so the odds of her trusting the elephant are slim to none, especially considering the motive letters.

Riley, Ember and Rosita all scold Matt for his conspiracy theory, to which he apologizes profusely, saying that he really thought that he was onto something for a moment. He even bows over and puts his paws together above his head.

After taking a deep breath, Meena stops squeezing her stand and tells Matt that it’s okay, as it is only natural when everyone is so confused. She had assumed that she slipped the note under Johnny’s door, since he came to her room a little later. David offers the possibility of Johnny trying to go to Meena’s room in the first place, considering how close the two have gotten in such small time. The elephant agrees with this statement, but gives a quick glance over to the gorilla himself.

Julee says that, considering how close Johnny and Stephanie’s rooms are to each other, it’s only natural that she made that mistake. However, Buster pipes up in a small voice, admitting that he hasn’t exactly been paying attention to the room layout.

Mike criticizes the koala, saying something like that is one of the basic things to remember in the killing games. Ember agrees with this, even going as far to say that it was his own theater and he didn’t bother to remember these things. The koala begins to shrink down in embarrassment, silently wishing that he never said anything.

Eddie sympathies with the koala, however, and offers to draw up a diagram of sorts for him, if he had a pen and paper. Monokuma, butting in like it’s his business, says that he has it covered and yells to the wind “PEN AND PAPER!!!”

Suddenly, a canon-like sound fills the room, and the lights over head cast a shadow over everyone. Looking up, everyone spots a notepad and a pencil flying overhead. After a bit of clamoring, Matt steps up onto his podium and, with the help of Rosita boosting him up, manages to catch the supplies in mid-air. However with his trajectory, he crashes back down onto the floor with a groan.

Matt: T-take that dad, those stuntman classes WERE worth it!

The hedgehog hobbles over and passes the supplies over to the servant, and after a quick thanks, Eddie gets to work on his small diagram. He does have to flip to the other side of the paper though, as his drawing skills aren’t exactly perfect and he is working with a pen. When all is said and done, he rips out the paper and hands it to the showman so he can get a look.

Buster thanks Eddie initially as he is handed the diagram. After a quick glance at the paper the koala is about to put it in his pocket, but then something clicks for him and he goes back to take a more thorough look. Rosita asks if something is wrong and Ember complains about wanting to continue.

The showman gives a quick apology for wasting everyone’s time, but asks Eddie quickly if the layout is correct. Because when he saw Ash looking out into the hallway, she was to the immediate right of him.

All of the animals’ eyes widen, and Ember swipes the diagram from his hands to inspect it herself, pointing a claw at each individual room placement. She thinks to herself for a moment while handing the paper back to Buster, saying that the diagram is 100% accurate.

Ash talks about how his statement makes no sense, considering how far apart their rooms are for each other, and Mike says that he feels like something is going on, but he can’t put his finger on it. The koala thinks long and hard about this new info, staring at the paper while blocking out everyone’s white noise so he can think.

Buster: ‘Both Eddie and Ember said that the diagram is accurate, and yet I saw Ash at the room right next to me, despite her being at the end of the hall. I don’t think I was mistaken, even Jude admitted that they heard a door close and I left mine wide open. Not to mention that I had to run past her to get to the office. Maybe Ash went over to Stephanie’s room then? But David said that she barely talked to anyone. So does this mean that Ash was telling the truth? But if she was, then who’-

Buster freezes as the rest of the world becomes unmuted to him.

Nancy and Eddie are checking to see if Buster is okay

Mike, Ash and Riley are trying to talk down Matt as he begins to openly voice another theory of his.

Meena, Rosita and Gunter are trying to calm everyone down so they can get on with the trail. Meena is looking more anxious than usual.

Ember, Jude and David are all lost in thought, trying to process the information.

As the servant and negotiator try to see if Buster is having a mental breakdown, Buster mumbles something inaudible to the two. As Eddie is about to ask him to repeat what he said, the koala slams his hands on the stand and yells “THAT’S IT!!!”

Everyone is cut off by Buster’s triumphant yell, and a few of the smaller animals almost fall off of their respective podiums in surprise. Meena’s ears almost slap her face, Julee hides behind the steps to her stand and Monokuma complains about him wrecking his ears from the scream.

Before anyone can ask what Buster is so worked up about, he points to Gunter and asks “Do you remember what makeup tools were used up in Stephanie’s room?!” After putting his hands up in defense from shock, the dancer closes his eyes for a moment and says that the darker shaded contour were completely used up.

The showman shifts to Nancy and speaks with urgency “Nancy, the stains on the towel we found, what were they?!” After thinking for a moment, her eyes go wide and she says in a dawned upon tone “Brown. They were brown!”

Everyone else looks between each other and tries to ask Buster what’s going on. Riley and Mike are hoping that he isn’t going to state a conspiracy theory like Matt was.

Matt: They’re not CONSPIRACY theories!

But after thinking for a few more moments, the expression on Buster’s face was teeming with confidence and determination.

Buster: This entire time I was under the assumption that it was Ash I saw when I peeked out my door. She didn’t talk, but was the spitting image of the rocker herself. But when Gunter, Matt, Mike and I were looking through Stephanie-the Ultimate Makeup Artist’s-room, we found makeup supplies that were entirely used up. Not only that, but the room’s mess was made to hide the different things that we found. So that’s it; it wasn’t Ash I saw! It was Stephanie in disguise!!!

Julee stops Buster before he can continue with his explanation, saying that he sounds even crazier than Matt was when he “stole her idea.” Buster makes an effort to explain his claim, but once again she cuts him off, saying “What’s the use listening to a madman if all he’s saying is nonsense?!”

In an effort to continue with his explanation, Buster butts heads with Julee before she can discredit him any more.

Julee: Just stop and listen to yourself before you continue on with your stupid conspiracy theory! It’s clear as day that Ash is the real culprit here. Are you honestly trying to defend anyone that becomes suspected of being the culprit? Both who just so happen to be young girls? Well congrats, I hope you love running in a circle all day, CREEP!

Buster: P-pushing that creep comment aside; I looked over the evidence and came to my conclusion. If you take a moment to simply listen instead of critique me, then maybe you’ll understand!

Julee: Fine then, let’s hear your stupid theory then! You’re saying that Stephanie disguised herself as Ash, right? Then why does she look like STEPHANIE now?! Did she undress while she was in Meena’s room? Did she think dressing up as an antisocial prick would help her gain the trust of one of the most antisocial animals in this KILLING GAME?

Buster: Right now I’m not focused on WHY she did it. What I’m worried about right now is if Stephanie actually DID do it!

Julee: But again, what would be the point?! Fine then! Let’s actually use our brains for a moment; rare for you I know! So you found makeup supplies in the Makeup Artist’s room; So what?! So you found a wet towel in a bathroom; SO WHAT?! If you’re actually basing your theory only by the fact that a makeup artist has makeup, then I’m surprised YOU weren’t the first to go!

Finally putting his foot down against the voice actor, Buster tells Julee that, when he saw Stephanie disguised as Ash, she was picking at the fur on her upper arms. Everyone was a witness to this habit back when everyone was scrambling to get out after the motive letters; Stephanie was scratching her upper arms.

When Julee says that it also could’ve been Ash picking at her arms, Nancy explains that she has already witnessed everyone’s nervous habits, as it’s a part of her talent. Matt taps his fingers on different surfaces to create a beat, Julee tries to use voice exercises to calm herself, and Ash picks at the pins on her shirt. The rocker reflexively goes for said pins, but realizes her slip up and stops.

David also recalls the Monokuma File, restating that Stephanie had several other injuries across his body, including rashes on her arms. Not only that, but Ash also rolls up her sleeves and reveals that her arms, in fact, are devoid of any rashes.

Eddie also adds on that the theory makes sense, since the quills he had thrown away earlier had vanished from the trash can. After a bit of silence, Riley, Mike, Ash, Ember, Jude, Nancy and Julee ask collectively why he didn’t mention this before. While looking away and trying to loosen up the collar, he says he thought that it was some sort of “Killing game magic” or whatever, since he doesn’t really know much about what’s going on in the theater.

Monokuma: Nah, in the killing games we have less “movie magic” and more “murder magic!”

Mike: BOOO!! YOU STINK!!!!

So now with several pieces of evidence pointing to Buster’s theory being correct, Buster declares that Ash now has a valid alibi!

Ash takes a long sigh of relief and yells “IT’S ABOUT TIME!!!” After a harsh scolding to everyone on the “Ash Killed” side, the four begrudgingly accept the fact that they were wrong and apologize.

Rosita grieves for a moment, thinking about how the fox was willing to frame Ash for her attempted crime. Ember says that, it was most likely the usual story in the killing games; the motive letters.

Buster recalls the fact that Stephanie and her mother were very close to the point of being inseparable, despite the makeup artist’s own insecurities. Matt laments that, in a way, she was the most confident in herself during her final moments. Using her talent on herself to try and save her mother.

Matt: It’s a cruel sense of irony in a way.

Meena: Um… don’t you mean a “cruel twist of fate?”

Matt: ...so anyways-

With the mystery of Ash’s involvement seemingly solved, Meena asks everyone if they can continue on with the trial and go on to voting time. The murder weapon, place and circumstances were all solved, so she sees no need to continue any more. Jude, Ember and Rosita agree while others are silent. Whether they are thinking about the case or Stephanie, it is impossible to tell.

However, Mike speaks up as the four try to continue on to voting time, holding everyone back from continuing. He noticed that, as she was saying that, she was squeezing her stand a little tightly. The elephant reflexively lets go of her podium after being called out, but then asks what he means when he said that.

After looking the soprano up and down, he tells Nancy that he’s played quite a few games of poker and he also has a clue of other people’s habits. Before anyone can ask what he’s doing, the crooner directs his attention to Julee, saying that she actually did have a good point when she was debating with Buster.

Riley asks if he suddenly believes that Ash is the killer after it was proven, but he gets a little peeved and tells the stage actor to “shut his trap.” After a bit of recollection, he restates a claim said in the voice actor’s argument.

Mike: “If Stephanie disguised herself as Ash, then why does she look like STEPHANIE now?”

Everyone goes silent as a brick of tension falls upon the class trial room. It was so thick that it couldn’t even be cut by a knife; it would just break it. When everyone turns to Meena, she squeezes her stand and says that she doesn’t know why she looks like that. However with the possibility of Stephanie disguising herself being proven, the spotlight is centered on her.

Ember: But wait, if you’re saying that she wasn’t disguised as Ash, then why did you just let us argue about if she was or not?

Meena: I thought that it would just lead everyone to seeing that she didn’t!

Nancy: But the evidence clearly shows that she did; are you saying that she only disguised herself when she went out to the hall?

Meena: Maybe? I don’t know, maybe she disguised herself when she went to grab the quills. She just showed up to the door as herself!

Eddie looks to Buster, who is currently pinching his forehead while trying to think. When asking if he has thought of something, the koala nods and says “I already have an idea. But I’m just trying to think about how to present it to everyone.”

In his head, the showman looks over all of the pieces of evidence that they found. Testimonies, the crime scene, the bathroom and Stephanie’s room as well. He knows what he’s going to say, but he knows that as soon as he speaks, half of the animals will be on him because of how outlandish it seems. So he’s trying to think of a way to immediately prove that he is right.

Eddie puts a hoof on Buster’s shoulder, stating that he already knows what he’s thinking about, and will help him try to explain. They both give each other a comforting nod, then direct their attention to everyone. Speaking clearly, Buster grabs Meena’s attention from everyone else.

Buster: Meena. I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to look me in the eyes when you answer, alright? And as for everyone else, hear me out on this until the end.

Meena: …….

Buster: Meena… did you tamper with the crime scene?

Rosita: That’s quite enough Buster!!!

Cutting the elephant off before she can give her answer, Rosita slaps her hoofs on her stand. Buster and Eddie expected this outcome, but it coming from Rosita was a little worrying, considering that they’ve never seen her angry before. Speaking calmly to Meena, she says that she’ll stop the two from discrediting her any more.

The duo butts heads with the mother, and despite it being two against one, they still can’t help but tremble in the presence of the mother’s wrath.

Rosita: You two should be ashamed of yourselves! Meena has already confessed to her crime, and you want to make her seem like a villain as well?! Shame on you!!! The entire incident was just that; an incident! Besides, even if you two are confident in what you’re saying, then that circumstance would just be improbable!

Eddie: But Mrs. Rosita, I know what it sounds like, but we’re not trying to make Meena seem like a villain! What we’re doing is trying to figure out what is going on!

Rosita: How can you say that when your very first thought is to try to discredit the victim in this situation?! There very well could have been some third party or another logical explanation, and yet the first thing you attempt to do is blame the victim? How DARE you?! Can’t you see that she is already in pain?!

Buster: Rosita, you need to listen to us! We know our claim sounds crazy, but we do have evidence to back it up!

Rosita: But what evidence could there be?! Everyone did their own search of the crime scene, but could only find evidence pointing to the same conclusion; that Meena killed Stephanie out of self defense. You and the other four went to search Stephanie’s room as well, are you saying that she was the one that caused the mess?! We have seen all of the evidence there is in this case, so your point is absolutely ludicrous! So for the last time, all of this was just Meena’s mistake! My motherly intuition is never wrong!

Before they can face the full force of the mother’s wrath, the two present the evidence that they found in Meena’s bathroom; the wet towel. Ash says that he and Nancy had mentioned it earlier, but they didn’t fully understand what they had meant. The negotiator then explains that, when she found it in the bathroom, it was filled with brown and red stains all on one side, seemingly hidden away from view.

Adding onto the explanation, Eddie explains that they also found several large puddles around Meena’s sink, and when they looked into the drain, they found bits of fur that were brown-ish, but had an orange tint. Rosita is looking back and forth between the three and Meena, who is doing the same.

Putting the final piece of the puzzle into place, Buster forces everyone to recall Eddie examining the body; he had said that her fur was slightly damp, as if she had just been dried off. So with all of these pieces of evidence together, the sheep and koala reveal to everyone that Meena had taken off Stephanie’s disguise herself!

Meena winces and looks between everyone else for their reactions. Ash, Matt and Ember all agree that it does make sense, along with the evidence already presented. If the theory were to be true, then Ash’s clothes being in Meena’s toilet would finally have a reason towards it; she would be trying to hide it like everything else!

Buster also adds on that, when he was about to leave to investigate Stephanie’s room, he saw a strange bloodstain around the top of Meena’s door. He wasn’t sure what it was at first, but he bets that if they tried to match Meena’s hoof with the bloodstain, it would be a perfect fit. David understands what he’s trying to say, and says that it was put onto the door when she closed the door as he exited his room to go to the bathroom. If somebody saw Meena’s door open, then they would’ve immediately come to check.

A few participants still on Meena’s side (Rosita, Riley, Julee, Jude, Ember, Mike, Gunter) look to Meena for an answer to why these things were there. The rapper says that, since she was an eyewitness to the crime, she could easily discredit their arguments if they’re wrong. The elephant looks between everyone visibly anxious, before squeezing her eyes shut and screaming out “ALRIGHT, I DID IT!!!”

Silence washes over the class trial room as attention is directed to her. After taking a few deep, shaky breaths, Meena tries to explain her actions by saying that she did in fact tamper with the crime scene, but only so that Ash could avoid suspicion. She did find out that it was actually Stephanie under the disguise, but she knew that it would cause a lot of confusion. So she closed the door and washed all of the makeup off and used her key to snatch some clothes from her room, despite it already being messy.

Gunter and Ash state that the plan basically backfired in the end and Riley even tells her that she should’ve came clean from the beginning, and Meena states that she knew this, but thought that she could just get the class trial over with. She didn’t want anyone else to suffer through the pain of suspecting others, and she was guilty about the lie herself.

The rest of the participants look between each other with uneasy looks on their faces.

Jude, Mike and Nancy begin to question themselves with how hard they were persisting to figure out the truth.

David, Riley and Ash think that they should all probably try to stop and get on with voting time.

Even Buster begins to question his actions, adjusting his collar to allow a bit to loosen the grip he feels around his neck.

But before everyone can collectively begin voting time through majority vote, Eddie speaks up and calls attention to himself, snapping everyone out of their guilt party. He says that, before everyone votes, there is something that has still been bothering him.

This, however, sparks a bit of debate between the two sides. The ones that have stayed silent think that they should try to look over everything once more just to be sure, while those who want to get on with voting time say that they should just end the trial right then and there, since there doesn’t seem to be any more mysteries left to solve.

Eddie, however, points out that there are still two things that nobody has covered yet; the specifics of the murder weapon, and Johnny. Matt says that they did already talk about how the pipe was the murder weapon, but Eddie explains that they only talked about how the bed leg was the murder weapon, not how the bed leg was found.

Seeing her chance to help explain, Ember explains the specifics of the murder weapon: how the pipe had two significant indents on each side, how one half was spotless, and how said spotless half was chilly like a metal water bottle sitting in a cold fridge.

Turning to the soprano, the servant tries to ask about why exactly it was like that and, being upfront, Meena explains that when she first hit Johnny accidentally, she dropped the bed leg in shock. So when Stephanie came charging at her, she accidentally picked it up from the bloody side. She saw the pipe issue as just as confusing as the disguise, so she washed off one side to make it seem like she was holding it the entire time.

Once again the other participants scold the soprano for taking such unnecessary measures, but the elephant tries to say that she wasn’t thinking straight; she DID just kill somebody after all. While the animals are scolding her, Eddie tries to talk with Buster to figure out what was going on. Ever since the pipe was mentioned again he had been deep in thought.

However, Buster cannot hear him. He has muted out everything else so he can concentrate once more. He had completely disregarded the pipe before due to his guilt, but now he was fully absorbed into his mind.

Buster: ‘I don’t understand. This entire time, it seems like Meena has taken completely pointless steps in order to prove herself as the culprit. Was there a reason for doing so? Maybe I’m missing some sort of evidence that I’m forgetting about. Or maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe instead of trying to fit the evidence to fit why she CHOSE to take those seemingly pointless steps and think about why she HAD TO make those seemingly pointless steps. But if I were to think this way, then which piece of evidence did we not even remotely address? I think the one thing I forgot to mention was’-

As the final thought clicks into place, he suddenly becomes aware of Eddie’s existence. The servant himself, upon witnessing Buster snap back to reality, finds an expression that he had never seen on the koala before, even after finding the body; pure dread.

Buster: Eddie… do you remember what I saw when I looked at Johnny’s hands?

After thinking for a moment and closing his eyes, Eddie took a quick guess and said that “They… they were clean, right?” To which the koala mouths back, “spotless.” After exchanging a desperate look with the servant, the thought finally clicks into his mind.

It was at this point Buster realized that the entire class trial room had gone silent, and they were all staring right at the duo, expecting some sort of response for breaking the silence. Gunter and Matt try to ask for an answer as to what’s going on in his head. Taking a large gulp to prepare himself for the oncoming storm, Buster looks directly at Meena and asks as bare bones as he can.

Buster: Meena. Johnny killed Stephanie, didn’t he?

The entire class trial room goes absolutely insane right after letting out a deafening, collective “WHAT?!?!”

Riley, Rosita, Jude, Julee and Ash begin questioning Buster’s sanity

David, Ember, Eddie and Matt look back and forth between Meena and Buster

Mike, Nancy and Gunter look between each other, trying to think about how Buster came to that conclusion by frantically looking over the evidence.

Despite all of the clamor and Ultimates practically screaming in his face, Buster doesn’t stop looking away from the elephant. Meena, meanwhile, had her eyes widen to the size of bowling balls (elephant sized) and had caused a crack to appear on her stand.

Jude and Julee ask Buster what’s going on, and since he didn’t get a response, he began to explain his thought process to the rest of the participants.

Buster: “Meena had taken so many seemingly unnecessary steps that, when you step back and look at the scale of it all, it doesn’t appear to be a spur of the moment decision. After trying to figure out why she chose to do these things, I thought about why she had no choice but to make these decisions, and then it all clicked. From the start she had been trying to rush the trial and pin herself as the culprit, saying that she did these things to show that she was guilty. But if we were to try and think through the lens of Meena trying to actually PROTECT somebody, so much more makes sense!”

Finally breaking out of her trance, the timid elephant screeches for everyone to stop with a deafening “NO!!!”

Meena: Do you even realize what you’re implying Buster?! Are you actually saying that Johnny was the killer this whole time, and I’ve been lying to you all?! That’s absolutely INSANE!!! Why would I even want to do that; it would get me killed too!!! How many times do I have to say it?! I killed Stephanie!

Those that are on Meena’s side recoil a bit from Meena’s reaction, surprised that the elephant could speak with such intensity. Although admitting that he does sound crazy, Ash asks for the showman’s reasoning behind his claim, and he does give it despite Meena continuing to protest.

Buster goes through his list of suspicions, starting with Johnny’s paws. When he and Eddie were investigating, the koala had a look at the greaser’s paws because he thought he suspected something strange, and in the end he found it, or rather, the lack of it. Despite lying in a pool of blood and going into the fight with Stephanie, the gorilla’s paws are completely clean.

Eddie does admit that he saw that little fact, but is clueless to its relevance to the case. Using this as a crutch to continue, he brings everyone’s attention back to the bed leg. Ember is confused, thinking that the mystery behind it was cleared up. However, there are a few things that Buster wishes to account for.

The first fact being that Meena didn’t mention the side switch in her original testimony. The soprano calls Buster out on this though, saying that she didn’t think the detail was important at the time since, once again, she wanted to get the class trial over with. Riley agrees with this statement, saying that Buster trying to use such a small detail against them is pointless in the end. Even a few of the other participants (Julee, Matt, Rosita) agree that it seems pointless.

Matt: You did kinda say yourself that using small details wouldn’t help.

While the showman does agree that him using that detail would be trivial, he poses a theory to everyone: Meena washed the pipe on one side to erase suspicion from Johnny. Mike asks how that makes any sense, thinking that Buster truly is launching into a conspiracy theory.

Ignoring the comment and continuing onwards, the showman explains that, if Johnny did in fact kill Stephanie, then using the pipe would give a proper explanation to why no blood were on his palms, while also giving a reason for Meena washing the pipe.

Interjecting once again, Meena asks why she would even want to wash the pipe, “If Johnny was theoretically the killer.” The elephant says she sees no point to washing it off, as nobody even has access to fingerprint powder in the theater.

Ember: Which really needs to be fixed some time soon!

But Buster says that they wouldn’t need fingerprint powder, because if Johnny did use the bed leg, then they could identify that fact by aligning the bloodstains on the paws and pipe. But since that would be too much of a tell, Meena could have used the sink to get rid of any evidence pointing to Johnny!

Riley stops Buster before he can go any farther, saying that he sounds absolutely insane. Although admitting that he does have a point from a logistical standpoint, the theory doesn’t make a lick of sense applying it to a real life standpoint.

Pulling out the pamphlet for the killing game, Riley points out the exact location of a certain rule so everyone can read it. “In the case of the blackened gaining an accomplice to their crimes, only the killer, the one that has ended the victim’s life, will be permitted to graduate and escape to the outside world.”

He then goes on to read another rule, also stating the location. “If the blackened is exposed during the trial, then they alone will receive punishment. If not, then all of the spotless-AKA everyone else-will receive punishment and the blackened will be permitted to return to the outside world.”

Starting to feel the pressure, Riley ALSO points out that if all of the participants die, then their loved ones would die as well! So if Meena really was covering for Johnny, then dozens of innocent people would die! Suddenly for both sides of the argument, the tension rises swiftly. Even though they already knew that fact, Buster wasn’t considering that he’s essentially accusing somebody of being a mass murder.

Acting as if they’re a sort of tag team, Meena goes off of Riley’s claims and also adds on evidence relating to the crime, since Buster was focusing on those points. Meena states that, for the entirety of the crime, Johnny had been knocked out by accident, so there’s no way he could have even tried to commit the murder.

With all of the pressure from the raccoon and elephant duo, Buster and Eddie can feel the pressure that is centered around them. A few more of the other Ultimates (Gunter, Nancy, Matt, Mike), though wary because of Meena’s sudden outburst, begin to question their stances as well. After taking a deep breath, Meena has appeared to calm down and once again wishes for everyone to move along to voting time, still squeezing her stand tight.

With now a majority of the Ultimates against him, Buster and Eddie frantically go through all of the evidence they can find. He is certain that Meena is not the culprit, and while he doesn’t want to pin somebody else and send them to their deaths, if they don’t find the truth then everyone will die. But after going through all of the evidence that was found, they could not find anything showing signs of another killer.

So instead, Buster once again goes over anything that he might have overlooked. He first thinks about all of the evidence found at the crime scene, but cannot recall anything that has already been brought up. Doing the same for the bathroom yields the same results, so he tries to remember testimonies, looking for any small contradiction.

That’s when he finds what he’s looking for.

Standing his ground, the koala says that they cannot end the trial just yet. Riley groans in frustration, angrily spitting a “What now?!” out at him. Meena visibly tenses up as if she’s waiting for some sort of flu shot while everyone not on Meena’s side gives a wary look to the koala.

Buster tells everyone that there actually is one thing linking the crime to somebody else. Despite nobody saying anything, Buster can sense the situation; if he doesn’t convince everyone right away, then it would all be over. They would discredit him without a second thought. Eddie asks Buster if he’s sure that he has something, but even the koala admits that it might be a long shot.

Riley demands to hear an answer right away so they don’t have to waste any more time. Even though they “saw everything they could at the crime scene,” as the raccoon says. However Buster does not back down, saying that the last piece of evidence was not seen, but rather heard by everyone in the theater.

Meena: Stop. Just, stop.

Interrupting the explanation before anyone can process his words, Meena is squeezing her stand once again with her head down. With a shaky voice, Meena asks if Buster has some sort of vendetta against her. Not even waiting for an answer, Meena looks back up at the koala, with tears staining her determined stare.

Riley, after looking between the koala and elephant, tries to ask Meena if she’s okay and tries to calm her down, only getting ignorance in response. Meena then asks if Buster wants everyone here to die, since “it does seem like that’s what he’s aiming for.”

Those on Meena’s side back away from her, almost terrified seeing the timid teen suddenly gain a fiery look in her eyes. Buster tells Meena that he just wants to find the truth, but that’s when she snaps and creates yet another crack in her stand.

Meena: This entire trial, all you’ve been saying is that you’re trying to find the truth. But is that honestly your goal? Because this entire time, it only seems like you WANT everyone else to suffer! So how can you say that you care about everyone else when all you’ve been doing is making things worse?! I understand that what I did is wrong, and I get that I deserve to be punished for it! But all you’re doing is dragging everyone else into this! I already admitted it, I killed Stephanie! I’m sorry for tampering with the crime scene, I just wanted this trial to be over with! So please, let’s just get on with it! I’m guilty, I deserve to be punished!! Do you still not believe me?! How many times do I have to say it?! I killed her, I killed her! I killed her! I KILLED STEPHANIE!!! DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO DIE?! DO YOU WANT ME TO SUFFER?! THERE WAS NOBODY ELSE THAT COULD’VE DONE IT! ASH WAS IN HER ROOM THE ENTIRE TIME! JUDE SAW NOBODY ELSE! JOHNNY WAS KNOCKED OUT THE ENTIRE TIME!!! I just want this all to end! So for the last time, I! KILLED! STEPHANIE!

With the rest of the Ultimates practically hiding behind their stands from hearing Meena argue as if she’s pleading for her life, Buster still stands his ground. He listened to the entirety of Meena’s rant until she was done, making sure that it wouldn’t lead to any more chaos. Despite his legs wobbling underneath him-which he tries to smack to make them stop-he doesn’t back down and begins his counterattack.

Buster: Meena, I don’t know what you’re going through, but you need to understand that covering for Johnny won’t do anything! You’re saying that, since the beginning, Johnny had been unconscious because you accidentally hit him while defending yourself. But I know for a fact that, at the time, Johnny was wide awake, and the Body Discovery Announcement proves that!!!

Visibly flinching, Meena’s eyes go wide as her determined expression fades into the timid one from before. Those still on Meena’s side look to her for answers to why she suddenly froze instead of fighting back, but nothing comes out of the soprano’s wide, gaping mouth.

Julee and Eddie ask about the body discovery announcement, and do admit that they forgot about its existence in the spur of the chaos of the class trial. So after pulling out the pamphlet and directing everyone to its location, Buster reads the rule of interest: “The body discovery announcement will play when three or more animals discover a body, prompting limited time for an investigation to take place before a class trial.”

Already sensing where the koala is going, Riley says that maybe Meena could’ve counted in the announcement prerequisite. Before this can be used as a valid debate topic, however, Monokuma states that he forgot to list it in the pamphlets and announces that the blackened themselves do not count to the witness tally when the body discovery announcement is played.

Monokuma: Believe me, there were FAR too many class trials that ended in failure because of that one single rule. Like, I know that that’s pretty much what we’re hoping for, but after the twentieth time, it just gets annoying. Not to mention that it’s absolutely terrible for views!

Matt and Rosita ask what the context is for the debate between Buster and Riley, but before he can explain he asks Rosita about Johnny’s head injury, since she did say she went to medical school before. Specifically if Johnny could have been conscious at all before blacking out. After trying to recall the specifics about the injury, Rosita confirms that due to the location of the injury, Johnny could not have been conscious immediately after the blow was struck.

Meena is beginning to go back into her anxious state when everyone first found her, although it almost seems to be more genuine this time. A majority of the participants are now listening to Buster while a small handful are trying to comfort the elephant.

To end off his frontal assault, Buster asks Jude about their nightwatch; specifically when they found the crime scene and when the announcement played. Starting to catch on, the jaguar restates that after both themself and David saw the crime scene, the Body Discovery Announcement played.

Buster: Now I fully understand. After the murder had been committed, the only ones in Meena’s room were the soprano herself and Johnny. This entire time, Meena had been saying that Johnny had been knocked out, but that just doesn’t add up. Meena herself couldn’t have triggered the announcement, and it wouldn’t make sense for her to knock Johnny out afterwards either. So if only Jude and David triggered the alarm, then both Meena AND Johnny had to be fully awake at the time of the crime!!!

The entire class trial room goes insane as everyone is scrambling to try and figure out what is going on.

Meena is hyperventilating while Rosita, Riley and David try to ask her about what’s going on.

Ash, Jude, Eddie, Ember, Julee and Matt all are freaking out at how everything was twisted.

Gunter, Nancy and Mike all need to sit down for a moment to think.

But amidst the chaos, a weak and strained groan is released throughout the room, making a few animals go silent. After looking between each other for a moment to try and figure out who did the groan, a familiar voice speaks among the silent room.

“Thank ‘ya, Mister Moon… You saved me the trouble of explainin’ everything.”

Putting a bloodied, crusty paw on his stand, the previously comatose teenager manages to heave himself up to a standing position. It takes a few moments for him to do so, as the injury on his head makes the process all the more painful. The entire time, the other participants are staring in slack jawed awe, while Meena has her hooves over her mouth while tears trickle down her cheeks. Then finally, standing hunched over his stand with an elbow supporting him, Johnny gently waves his hand to everyone else, keeping one eye closed to prevent the blood leaking from his head to fall in.

Johnny: Sorry… that I’m late everyone.

With how loud and chaotic the class trial room had been earlier, the silence felt almost more unnatural. Trying to keep up his cheerful facade, Johnny congratulates everyone for figuring out what had happened without him, admitting that he’s impressed. Though he supposes that it wasn’t easy, considering that Meena was trying to protect him. He gives a sad chuckle before groaning again and holding his head.

Eddie and Rosita offer to try to help the gorilla with his injury. The servant had stuffed some medical supplies into his pockets in case of Johnny waking up, and Rosita says that she can fix him up. But Johnny denies the help, saying that “the supplies would... just go to waste.”

A moment of realization washes over everyone as they realize the meaning behind the greaser’s words. Trying to force down his trembling hands, Riley asks Johnny if it really was true: everything that Buster had said. Ashamed to look anyone in the eye, the teen looks down at his hands and nods his head without a word.

Unable to hold back the tears any longer, Meena breaks down crying, apologizing to Johnny over and over again while wailing out loud. Rosita and David try to cheer her up, but she continues either way, saying that what had happened was her fault; that if she had just defended herself, then none of this would even be happening.

Johnny, trying to reach over and put a paw on her back, says that none of it was her fault. “If you had done it… then you would’ve been the killer. No way in ‘ell I was gonna let a friend… go through with that.”

Upon hearing the word “friend,” Meena simply begins to wail louder, blocking out everything else in the room. Julee is shocked, because everyone thought that Johnny had said that in an attempt to console Meena for killing Stephanie. Johnny shakes his head once again.

After a few more moments of silence, Johnny turns to Buster and asks if he can try to recap everything that happened during the night, since he’s sure that a few animals probably still don’t believe the words coming out his mouth. The koala is about to reject the offer, but after looking around and seeing some of the participants’ blank faces (Riley, Mike, Rosita), he decides that it might be for the best and begins the recap.

“Yesterday morning, all of us were called down to the main showing area of the theater. Due to nobody willing to make a move to escape for the first few days, Monokuma decided to give us a bit of an incentive, or rather, a motive. In individual letters, it was revealed that all of our loved ones were captured, and the only way to ensure their safety was to escape the theater with their respective participant’s life. Most of us were able to resist this temptation, but there was unfortunately one that was unable to do so: the victim, Stephanie Hornbaker. So after our brief meeting and going our separate ways for the day, she began to hatch a plan to kill the easiest victim in her eyes: Meena Jones, the Ultimate Soprano.

However, Stephanie was aware that rushing in blindly would be foolish, since she would be spotted easily. So after stealing Ash’s lost quills, she began work on disguising herself as the guitarist herself in an attempt to frame her for the murder. It may have seemed impossible for others, but since she was the Ultimate Makeup Artist, the task wouldn’t even take a sweat. So using the quills, makeup supplies and a bit of her makeup magic, she had the perfect disguise.

Later that night at around 9:30 PM, we all went to our rooms to meet along with the curfew. But a little while later at around 10:00 PM, Stephanie attempted to make her move while fully disguised. However despite being practically an exact replica of the porcupine, there was one thing that differentiated her from the original: her nervous habit of picking at her upper arms. Since, at the time, I was trying to head to my office, I managed to spot this while the fake Ash was peeking out the door. I was lucky; if I hadn’t seen this, then we probably never would have figured out what happened.

Then at around 10:00 PM, Jude came out of their dorm to begin a nightwatch, also witnessing me do my… less than graceful escape to my office. So hiding near the stairs, they stayed for as long as they could. In this nightwatch, they witnessed Meena trying to deliver a note to her friend to meet up with her, but due to the street performer interrogating her, she accidentally slipped the note underneath Stephanie’s door before running back to her room. If Stephanie didn’t know who her target was, she certainly decided it then.

At 10:49 PM, all of our… less than average meals took a toll on the jaguar, and they rushed to the men’s bathroom downstairs. Then, whether he had been planning to beforehand or went out then by coincidence, somebody took this opportunity to visit their friend. This person, though not realizing it, would be the future killer in this case.

After meeting up, the killer and Meena talked to each other for a while, comforting each other about their motive letters. Then a little before 11:00 PM, there was a knock at the door, and right outside was Ash Spinosa, or rather, Stephanie Hornbaker in disguise. Most likely due to his kind nature, the killer opened the door to let her in. That was when the tragedy began.

It is unclear whether Stephanie anticipated another participant in Meena’s room, but despite the circumstances, Stephanie began her attack and stabbed her soon to be murderer in the leg using one of Ash’s quills. With the door open and her goal in sight, Stephanie sprinted towards Meena in an attempt to kill her. But fighting back, Meena’s friend tried to protect her, resulting in a scuffle. Then, becoming desperate, the killer tore off one of Meena’s bed legs and, using it like a bat, brought it down on Stephanie’s skull, ending her life.

Once the deed had been done, I’d assume that the two remained there for a moment in shock. After all, one had just been a witness to the other’s murder. But then, something happened that none of us expected. Meena picked back up the bed leg and brought it down on her friend’s head, knocking him unconscious. She did not intend to kill him, though; it was quite the opposite. Meena had attacked the killer in an attempt to save him. After all, it was revealed in her invitation letter that he was the only one that Meena had grown close to during their time in the theater.

With not that much time and so much to do, Meena got to work on doing the unthinkable: framing herself for the murder. She closed the door to her room first, causing the strange bloodstain to appear on the door. At this time, another unfortunate animal made a mad dash to the bathroom: David Flowerson. When he walked by the soprano’s room, he witnessed the door closing, but thought nothing of it as he left to get downstairs. After this, she tampered with the crime scene to shift all of the blame to herself. She took off Stephanie’s disguise, got replacement clothes from her room, flushed Ash’s clothes down the toilet, and washed the bed leg of any trace of another animal using it. Little did she know that this attempt to frame herself would cause everyone to believe that Ash was the true culprit all along.

Once everything was set into place, Meena opened her door a crack and let out a scream, alerting Jude and David downstairs that something had happened. Rushing from their stalls, the two hurried upstairs in a futile attempt to stop a murder from occuring. When the two got to Meena’s room and discovered the crime scene, the Body Discovery Announcement played, setting the soprano’s trap into motion. Though in a way, the one thing that set everything into motion was Meena’s greatest downfall. If it weren’t for David joining Jude in the stall, then none of us could have came to the truth in this class trial.

So then… Do you confess? It it true that you are the real culprit, Johnny Serafinowicz, the Ultimate Greaser?”

When the entire recap is finished, the room is quiet once again, save for a few sniffles from Meena. Johnny is looking down, contemplating something silently while everyone stares at him, waiting for a response. Then, looking up with a pitiful smile, he chuckles once again and thanks him. “You certainly explained it… better than I eva’ could’ve.”

Meena begins sobbing once again while everyone else is just staring in disbelief. Riley is looking at nothing in particular as he puts both paws to his head in an attempt to process what was just said. “Why?” he says, “why did this have to happen?”

Johnny, admitting that he’d love to explain why, requests for it to be saved for after voting time. He wants the pain of the class trial to be over for everyone. So by his request, the robobear starts up the clock and has everyone vote via a small panel that pops up on everyone’s stand. There are sixteen buttons, each one having the icon of each Ultimate being covered by the respective animal’s face in pixelated form.

Once the final vote has been cast, a screen descends from above Monokuma’s throne, lighting up as the lights in the room go dim. On the screen it shows sixteen rows, each having the pixelated faces from before. Fourteen red tally marks fill up Johnny’s row, while a singular tally mark falls on Meena’s row.

After an unnecessary drum roll sound effect, the phrase “A WINNER IS YOU!!!” appears flashing on screen with a golden tint surrounding it, confirming once and for all that Johnny was indeed the culprit of the case. Multicolored confetti falls from the ceiling as MonoCult members appear in the audience seating with the cameras, cheering and whooping as if they were watching a football game after the underdog scores the final point. Then with one gavel pound on his throne arm, everything goes back to normal and the animals are free to leave their podiums.

Once everyone is allowed to get up, Meena runs over to Johnny and hugs him tight, repeating “I’m sorry” over and over while crying into his arm. Gunter comments that, despite Johnny doing the deed, it seems like Meena actually does believe that she caused Stephanie’s death.

Johnny, while trying to comfort Meena, makes an attempt to explain what had happened to everyone else. He applauds him for getting most of the details right, but there was one part that he couldn’t have known. When he had killed Stephanie, he was planning on going to everyone to confess.

Johnny: I knew that the trials were painful. Sometimes… my pa’ would make me watch the channel so he could… get some ideas for his own jobs. That’s why I… wanted to tell all of ya’. But, that’s when...

Trying to find some way to understand, Eddie walks over to the two in order to ask why. But as soon as he places a hoof on Meena’s back, she spins around and slaps it away, revealing her enraged, tear soaked expression. Johnny is left back at his stand, only able to watch as the soprano lashes out at everyone.

Meena: HOW COULD YOU?! All of you, ALL OF YOU ARE MONSTERS!!! Johnny was my only friend and now you’re taking him away from me!!! Do you know what it’s like?! Growing up your entire life only to be neglected or manipulated purely because you’re an Ultimate?! Every person I met, PURELY because of my Ultimate status, could never treat me like a REAL PERSON! They all just tried to USE me or HATED me because of my talent! I WAS JUST A THING FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! My family all tried to put up an act, but I could see; they were all OBLIGATED to say I was good because I was their daughter! For my entire life, NOBODY genuinely cared for me except for Johnny, AND NOW YOU’RE ALL TAKING HIM AWAY!!! YOU’RE ALL KILLERS!!! MONSTERS!!! MURDERERS!!!

While the others are looking away in guilt or still in shock, Ember, Ash and Mike fight back, saying that if she had tried to make friends with everyone else in the beginning instead of waiting for others to come to her, then she would actually HAVE more friends. But the elephant continues to snap at them, while Johnny tries to reach out to her.

Buster tries to come in and sympathise with the teen, saying that he has been through something similar. A lot of people that he had met before were hard for him to trust, since he had lived practically his entire life shut in so nobody could treat him with respect. But Meena rejects his sympathy, saying that he shouldn’t speak as if he had known her all his life. Instead of trying to defend himself, Buster slinks back in fear, leaving Meena be.

After yelling at Buster some more, Meena suddenly drops to her knees and begins to wail again, repeating over and over that it was her fault. None of the other spotless make an attempt to comfort and support her after outburst. Some out of guilt, some out of fear, others anger.

Johnny tries to stand up to walk over to her, but collapses upon taking a single step. He groans and lifts himself up to his knees while Meena tries to help him up, apologizing even more with each passing second but after listening her for almost a full minute, the gorilla yells at her to stop.

Johnny: Meena, please… you need to understand. You, you didn’t kill me, you… you saved me! I was like you, growin’ up. Had no friends of my own. My fatha’ kept me close due ta’ our “family business,” and when I came of age, I was just anotha’ member. I did so many horrible things, and even after I ratted ‘em out, I still felt like I was nothin’ more than a criminal. But you-you gave me a chance to prove myself. When I protected ya’, I didn’t feel like a criminal; some, lackey to Big Daddy. I felt like me, like I was doin’ it because I wanted ta’! After all these years, I finally felt like I was worth a damn! I know it seems cruel, but you really did help me. So please don’t apologize, you gave me more freedom than any stolen buck ever could’ve done!

Unable to process the gravity of his words, Meena continues to cry into his shoulder while Johnny holds her close. Everyone else simply looks on, not moving an inch. They simply didn’t know what to do.

But then, interrupting the touching moment between the two, Monokuma slams his gavel again and calls attention to himself. Despite saying that he does like the drama that comes afterwards, it can get really annoying when it becomes dragged out, so he’s just gonna cut it off before that happens.

Everyone’s faces suddenly become grim; they know what’s going to happen next. Holding Johnny even closer than before, Meena pleads to the bear for more time to talk with the killer, but he just shoots it down in an instant.

Speaking to the cameras in the audience along with some straggling MonoCult members, Monokuma declares that he has “a VERY special punishment for Johnny what’s his name, the Ultimate Greaser!” The animals in the audience are pounding on their seats and banging their feet like they’re about to watch a football player do the first kickoff of the championship.

Knowing that his time is running out, Johnny gives Meena one final strong hug and pulls back. Meena is hyperventilating once again, but Johnny wears a somber smile as he tells her to not hold a grudge against everyone, as they were trying to survive.

As a large red button slowly rises from the floor in front of him, Monokuma tries to play the hype man role and takes out his gavel, swinging it like a baton twirler would right before pointing it to the sky.

Monokuma: Let’s give it EVERYTHING we got! You all know the words, so even those back home say it along with me!

MonoCult: IIIIIIIIIIIIT’S PUNISHMENT TIME!!!!!!!

As Monokuma slams his gavel on the button, an alarm sounds as MonoCult members from the metal doors come flying out, running past the other participants and directly to Meena and Johnny. Meena is begging them to not take Johnny, but they don’t listen, grabbing onto her as if she was a giant doll.

Right before the two are pulled apart, Johnny plants a gentle kiss on Meena’s cheek and, choking back tears, looks the elephant in the eyes and speaks to her one last time.

Johnny: I’ll, n-never forget y-you, Meena.

As the two are separated and Johnny is pulled to the center of the class trial stands, Meena makes one last attempt to pull away. But the animals holding her back are too strong. The gorilla looks at her one last time before letting the tears flow and closing his eyes. So, with no other options, Meena does the only thing she can do.

Meena: DON’T GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

WARNING!!! If you have never played/watched a Danganronpa game, then you should know that the next upcoming part is the execution, and it get VERY intense! If you are sensitive to blood, gore and all around brutality, it is HIGHLY recommended that you skip this. I’m going to make the entire execution bolded, so if you want to enjoy the story but have a sensitive stomach, skip to the point where the bullet points begin once again. I’ll have a summary segment for you to read so you can get a gist of what happened. For those who ARE interested in this, however, I hope you enjoy~

As the other participants look on in horror, Johnny kneels down in the center of the circle of stands, while the alarm sounding similar to the one made for hockey goals blairs into everyone’s ears. Popping out from behind one of the stands, a larger animal comes out holding a ball and chain, with Monokuma’s face painted over it, attached to a leg brace. Skipping over as if it were a child about to draw on the pavement, the animal latches the brace onto Johnny’s leg, then leaps out of the way. Meena is still wailing and reaching out to the gorilla, but the alarms make her screams inaudible. Johnny doesn’t look back.

Suddenly, the floor underneath him opens up like a trap door and, after getting a playful wave goodbye by the MonoCult members, Johnny is pulled down into the hole by the large iron ball, whizzing past the countless, colorful floors of the theater as he descends further and further down the hole. The other animals, meanwhile, are ushered into the elevator with minimal force as it drops down like an amusement park ride down to the bottom floor.

As everyone exits the wild ride, they find themselves in a big city alleyway, with trash cans and fire escapes alike. The main road is blocked off by a large chain link fence, and on the other side of the road sits a truck with an open sunroof resting near a bank. The large buildings stretch to the ceiling itself, and despite it all being several stories underground, the town looks unnaturally real, even though there are no other animals walking up and down the street. A painted skyline reveals that it is meant to be a cloudy afternoon, with grey fluorescent lights illuminating the underground expanse.

Then, from the ceiling, the gorilla falls down into the sunroof of the truck, placing him square into the driver’s seat and the iron ball preventing him from going anywhere else. He inspects the car with what little time he has, and after gripping the steering wheel, the realization dawns upon him. Meena clangs against the fence, shaking it to try and break it in order to get to the other side. But due to the sturdiness of it all, nothing can be done.

Before Johnny can get his bearings, another alarm rings out. But it sounds less like one used for celebration and more like one used to alert others of danger. Then, bursting out of the bank’s front door comes look alikes of Johnny’s gang, “Prey Gone Wild” In essence, they seem exactly the same. The only difference being that the masks that they wear are replaced from the bunny masks to Monokuma masks, with an eerie smile to boot.

The look alikes hop in and, without saying a word, point forwards aggressively. Not long after, police cars make chase, with the police officers also wearing the Monokuma masks. In Johnny’s eyes is both a look of sadness, but acceptance. Getting the signal, Johnny slams his foot on the gas, speeding the car down the street, leaving a lost newspaper to be caught along the wind and blow up against the chain-link fence, revealing the headline to Meena. “COPS AND ROBBERS.”

The police squad and preyed predators go in circles, both figuratively and literally, as they continuously go around the same few blocks multiple times. The mimic gang pulls out some guns and opens fire on the cops, but Johnny assumes that they’re firing blanks, as nothing changes about their situation; that is, until, some smoke begins to leak out of the front of the truck. The greaser can hear the engine spit and sputter, and despite trying all of the tricks he knows, nothing works. Then popping out of the hood comes a small MonoCult member, holding a sort of crowbar and wrench in hand before leaping out of the way.

Unable to control the car, Johnny fiddles with the controls in an attempt to find anything that might save the situation. The rest of Prey Gone Wild leaps out of the car as Johnny slams into a wall of the bank, utterly destroying the truck itself and letting loose a bunch more smoke. When it all finally clears up, Johnny is revealed to be lying down nearby in a heap of rubble, unable to move.

Not being able to take any more, Meena begins to climb the chain-link fence, despite everyone else trying to pull her back down. While she does this, shadows fall upon Johnny’s body. When he looks up, he finds both the mimic gang and the police, standing over him with weapons in hand. Having an idea of what comes next, Johnny closes his eyes and prepares for the worst as a police officer lifts up their nightstick for the first strike.

But it doesn’t come. Despite hearing the noises of weapons whizzing through the air, no pain comes to the gorilla. When he opens his eyes a crack to see what’s going on, they suddenly go wide like saucers as pecks of blood drip down onto his jacket. Directly above him and taking the brunt of the impact, was Meena herself. Her face was clenched in pain as she winces with each blow, letting another teardrop fall. Tasers, clubs, knifes, guns, nightsticks; anything goes. Meena was being mauled, all the while hovering directly over Johnny with her arms out wide in an attempt to protect him.

With one final gunshot to the chest, Meena lets out a bloodcurdling cry of agony as blood splatters all over Johnny’s face. With trembling arms, Meena takes one last look at Johnny with a pained, somewhat forced smile on her face as she flops over to the side. With what little strength he has left, Johnny picks himself up and holds Meena in his arms. Her body is unmoving in his hands. He tries to shake her awake; there is no response. She was gone.

Hunched over her body, Johnny could do nothing but stare blankly while cradling her in his arms. His breath steadily accelerates to the speed Meena has when hyperventilating while steady streams of salty tears wash away the fresh blood on himself. Meanwhile, the shadows of the two sides of the law loom over him. He is unable to even look at them and acknowledge their presence. As the shadows lift their weapons above their head, only one thing occupies the gorilla’s mind: despair.

All the rest of the participants can see from this point forwards is criminals and police collectively swinging their weapons at the remains of the Ultimate Greaser. Liquid crimson leaks from the rubble and flows down into the sewer grate below as all of the animals simply watch in absolute horror as, right in front of them, yet another life is taken from their small group. The grey fluorescent lights flicker off, leaving only the golden light of a streetlamp to show the goal they all worked for come to fruition.

SUMMARY: Johnny was pulled into a reenactment of one of his gang’s crimes. There were troubles with the car, causing it to crash, and both the mimic police and gang were ready to beat Johnny to death. But Meena, unable to stand by and watch, jumps in between them and takes the brunt of the entire attack to the point of falling unconscious from pain. Filled with despair, Johnny was next, and after what felt like ages, his life was taken.

Upon the ending of the execution, a heavy sense of dread fills the air. Similarly to when everyone had found the crime scene, nobody dared to speak, feeling like if they did, the MonoCult members would target them next. But just like last time, one scream was all it took to shatter the silence.

Riley: GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Buster, Matt, Mike, Jude, Julee and Ash are less than successful at holding back their lunch.

Eddie and Gunter just stare forward blankly

Rosita, Riley, Nancy, David and Ember simply scream and/or cry.

Buster, beginning to feel lightheaded, clings onto the chain-link fence for leverage. But since that only makes him face the now motionless bodies of Meena and Johnny, that only made things worse for him and he choked back some chips.

But as he is about to turn away, the koala spots something moving at the corner of his eye. As much as it pained him, he faced the horrific scene once more and focused his attention to find the source of the movement. He could see it clearly; Johnny was dead, there was no doubt about it.

But looking at what he had assumed was Meena’s corpse, he could spot the slightest hint of movement: breathing.

It takes a moment for him to realize what he was looking at. But when he finally sees what’s going on, he yells to everyone as fast as possible. “MEENA IS ALIVE!!!”

The other participants rushed to the fence, peering through the holes between to look at Meena, coughing up blood and struggling to breathe. Trying desperately to find some way over to the other side, Buster tries to climb the fence just like Meena had. But sadly, no progress could be made for the climb. He had very little, if not any, upper body strength due to being shut in for his entire life.

He turns to the others for help, wanting some way past the fence to make sure that Meena stays alive. But as much as he pleads, everyone else looks away from the scene. Not even a single participant is willing to look over to him.

However, there is at least one person willing to help and, using his hooves, takes Buster by his shoulders and lifts him up. After panicking for a moment, he realizes that it’s actually Eddie. He has the same frantic look on his face, and just as willing to help Meena.

After lowering him back and crouching down, Eddie heaves Buster up as high as he can up to the alleyway fire escape, leaving him dangling from the railing. After kicking himself up and a struggle of upper body strength, he manages to get himself up.

Buster sprints up the fire escape until he’s just high enough to get over the fence, then maneuvers himself to the other side and climbs down, rushing over to Meena’s side. Despite a stabbing feeling in his gut upon taking just the slightest glance at Johnny’s mangled body, he continues onwards to make sure that she’s okay.

Despite taking a brutal beating to protect Johnny, the elephant was still breathing. Her sweater was soaked crimson and a hint of red was escaping her mouth, but the slight up and down movement of breathing and a slight tremble proved that she was still hanging on. But with how rough the wounds were, Buster doubted that he had much time.

Turning around to ask Eddie for the medical supplies, he is stopped when Eddie yells up into the darkness for Monokuma’s attention. A small screen appears within the alleyway, revealing the bear’s face up close to the camera, letting out an eerie “yeeeeees?~”

Eddie, still trembling, demands that he sends MonoCult members to help Meena. With a playful tone and dangling upside down from his throne, the bear asks why he should. Before Eddie can explain why and reach into his pocket, Monokuma revises his question and asks why Eddie wants him to save Meena.

Monokuma: Look at yourselves! It’s clear as day that you all feel betrayed! Meena had manipulated you all for her own selfish desires; she was willing to leave you all in the dust for some boy toy! So tell me, why should I help her?

The duo looks to the rest of the participants, who are taking interest in literally anything else while they plead with Monokuma to save the killing game’s third victim. They can understand why they would feel betrayed, but all of them waiting around to just let Meena die was sickening to them.

Still trembling at the idea of what might happen to him, Eddie pulls out the pamphlet given to him, fumbling with it for a bit, and presents the page to the screen, saying with as much confidence as he can muster “Yo-your own rules!”

The robobear raises a nonexistent eyebrow.

Eddie: I-it says in your own rules that, that if the blackened is exposed in the t-trial, then only they will be killed! If you l-let Meena die here, then you’d be breaking your own rules. I don’t think the au-the audi-the viewers would want that!

Grumbling and showing some teeth, the bear presses a button on the other arm of his throne and, just like last time, his collar begins to beep and flash red.

Buster and Eddie both gasp and the other participants back away in fear. Despite shaking as if he was standing on a paint mixer, the servant looks at the screen and stands his ground. The look on his face makes it seem like he’d bolt at any moment, but he refused to move.

With an aggravated groan, Monokuma presses the button again, making the beeping stop. Eddie’s legs give out from under him and he collapses to the ground, breathing heavily from the adrenaline. Buster gives a large sigh of relief for his friend.

After yelling something off screen and clapping his paws, an ambulance suddenly appears down the road in the basement and stops right in front of the two bodies. Buster has to leap out of the way from becoming roadkill, but seeing help actually come does make himself feel slightly better.

Coming bursting out of the back of the ambulance, two larger MonoCult members come out with a single stretcher and heaves Meena onboard, with little regard for her safety. The duo winces at this, but stand back and let them do their thing.

After picking her up and throwing her in the ambulance, they drive off into a passageway that had not been there before, closing right behind them. They didn’t even give a glance to Johnny’s corpse.

Monokuma turns back to his servant and, in the tone of an annoyed mother giving a whining child what he wanted, asks if he’s satisfied yet. When he asks hesitantly about why they didn’t take Johnny with them, he receives a “You gotta be kidding me” look from the bear.

Monokuma: What do you expect me to do?! I can’t bring Johnny back from the dead! And besides, he got what he deserved! He broke the rules and received punishment; all is now right in the world! But just know this, EDDIE!

Monokuma leans in closer to the camera, making the servant scoot back to the wall.

Monokuma: I may have been willing to comply this time, but don’t you think that I’ll be so helpful next time. I only did this because we can’t afford any more budget cuts; we’re low enough on funds right now as is! So if you decide to cross me again, then I’ll be having SHEEP STEW for dinner! And as for the rest of you…

He turns his attention to the other participants, cowering in fear of the bear’s presence.

Monokuma: Congratulations on completing your very first class trial. It was certainly entertaining with how you were all scrambling around for the truth, so I’m sure that this will bring in more profits for the game! But let this be a lesson for anyone who violates the natural order of this game. If you are as sloppy as Stephanie had been today, then none of you will ever see the light of day again! I hope you all now learned now that in this world, MY world, only the powerful may survive! Puhu, puhuhu, pahahahah! AAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!

As the bear’s malevolent laugh echoed through the basement of the theater, everyone realized that, in the end, they did learn something: there was no longer any hope for them in the world of the living. Buster now knew that, in this place he used to call home, the happy memories were no longer welcome.

The only thing left for them all was an overwhelming feeling of despair.

CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP-END TO BE CONTINUED 14 left

OC Credits

Ember Gibson and Matt Pine belong to @elceetheporcupine Stephanie Hornbaker belongs to @mediasploshion Jude Therna belongs to @twilightprince101 (hey that’s me!) Jackson Riley belongs to ISmellOfStardustAndErasers (deactivated) David Flowerson and Julee Hartford belong to @superlevelup-reviews

Writing and editing

@twilightprince101 and ISmellOfStardustAndErasers (deactivated)

2 notes · View notes

twilightprince101 · 6 years

Text

⬆️⬆️⬆️THIS CAT⬆️⬆️⬆️

💚🖤💚AGENDER💚🖤💚

And there is

N O T H I N G

You can do about it

#jude therna #oc #ocs #my oc #furry #pride month #agender #pride #agender pride #my art #my drawings #art #((this took me two days))#sing #sing movie #sing 2016 #sing movie 2016 #some moral support

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twilightprince101 · 6 years

Text

Singanronpa: What is True Friendship? (Curtain Call)

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Finally able to get this out there, coming to the second most important thing about Danganronpa; the investigations! Lemme just say that I’m really excited for how this turned out, and although it was a long time coming (exams and family stuff happened, my bad), we can finally get back on this train! However let me just say that, while in traditional Danganronpa games, you were able to see what was concrete evidence via truth bullets, I think I might be best to take a more Phoenix Wright route and leave everything up to interpretation. However if you manage to correctly guess what exactly happens before it is revealed, then kudos to you! (if you’d like I could even do a shout out once the full chapter is over) The main thing I’ll retain from the original game is the point and click style format; you’ll know it when you see it. But enough talk, let’s get to it!

For what seems like an eternity, time stands still as all of the animals stare at the scene in front of them. Nobody knows how to react while looking down at the motionless bodies of Johnny and Stephanie. Meena is pressed up against the far wall, eyes staring at nothing while her breathing is as fast as a speeding train’s beat. Buster even refuses to believe it at first. But then-

Mike: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?!

Chaos unfolds and everyone freaks out.

Gunter, Nancy, David and Rosita scream in terror.

Ember, Jude, Matt, Ash and Mike all begin cursing up a storm and try to wake themselves up from the nightmare they’re in.

Buster and Julee try to hold back their dinner. Julee fails and sprints for the trash can.

Eddie and Riley go still from shock and are still frozen in place

Meena is now curling up and pressing her ears against her face.

While everyone is still freaking out, Monokuma appears, satisfied with the despair everyone is feeling. Although everyone keeps panicking and doesn’t acknowledge his presence, so the bear pulls out an air horn and honks it to catch everyone’s attention.

After tossing the horn, the bear comments on how the scene before them is a sight to behold at how the first murder happened so quick, yet so sloppily. However, he admits that he’s seen worse, and simply laughs, prompting a yell of denial from Mike.

Mike: IS THIS SOME SORT OF SICK GAME TO YOU?! TWO PEOPLE ARE DEAD!!!

Monokuma: Well, I literally called this the “Killing Game,” so…

The bear then prompts everyone that any questions about the oncoming investigation will refer to the black section of the pamphlets they were all given earlier. He also gives them a red folder with a black number 1 circled in white with the outline of the bear’s head, explaining that it is the Monokuma File, and “Gives all the juicy details on any murder that takes place here!”

Monokuma: We used to have a really cool digital version instead of paper but… well some budget cuts happened and now we’re here.

After wishing everyone (including the culprit) good luck, the bear vanishes once more, leaving everyone slack-jawed from their presented task. Riley is the first to speak up after the bear leaves, asking “Why… why did Johnny have to… how did this happen?”

Julee speaks up as well, stating that she had a slight feeling from the start that the quietest one would be the first to act. “It is the most common in these scenarios after all,” she says. “if there’s one thing I know, it’s that everyone has a dark side.”

But Buster immediately tries to counter this, saying that he’s researched everyone’s history, and Meena was one of the kindest people he scouted out, even going as far to list different charitable things she’s done like work at a soup kitchen. However, Ash and Gunter dismiss this statement as creepy, not taking it seriously. Rosita does jumps in, saying that she knows how certain people behave since she’s been around her kids for so long.

Rosita: I can say for a fact that Meena could not have done this on purpose. I’ve been around a lot of children throughout my life and I can always tell what exactly they’re like after being around them. My motherly intuition is never wrong!

This sparks a bit of debate between Rosita, Mike, Julee and Nancy while everyone else is still freaking out. Buster tries to think of any possible explanation for this situation, still denying in his mind that any of this was happening.

But once Meena begins to mutter “I didn’t mean to” over and over again, everyone stops and rushes to her side, asking her what exactly happened. The elephant is pulling her ears as close together as possible while streaks of tears wash away a bit of the blood splattered on her cheeks. Through a shaky breath, Meena begins to explain the events that had transpired in the room.

“Johnny and I… we were together in here, talking about the notes. Th-there was a knock at the door and, and Johnny opened it and-and she rushed in with one of Ash’s quills. She was trying to kill me I-I had to-... Johnny tried to protect me, but h-he was getting hurt and-and I tried to help but I hit him and then, Steph ran at m-me and… And I…..” She suddenly burst out sobbing again.

The room is silent once again. Everyone present is agape at the Soprano’s confession and doesn’t know exactly how to process what was just said. Even though it seemed like the most logical answer to some, they still couldn’t believe it.

Rosita and David try to comfort Meena, trying to calm her down while Matt sits down and chuckles in shock, trying to find some sort of humor in the situation.

Matt: The first murder of the killing game and it’s an accident. Haha… this isn’t even funny.

Mike then speaks up, saying that while it is shocking, he was silently expecting it due to Meena’s timid nature. “She was meek and quiet, it’s only natural for this to happen. It’s as they say though, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Buster, however, still states that something feels off about the situation, and all of the attention is turned towards him. Mostly everyone-save for Nancy, Eddie, Gunter and Ember-say that Meena had already confessed to the crime and question his morals.

David: Can’t you see she’s grieving right now man?

Ash: Figures, the morals align with the creeper’s actions.

Jude: What would even be the point of her lying right now if it would get us killed?!

After taking a moment of consideration from hearing Jude’s words, Nancy asks for what would happen if there was an accomplice involved and reaches for her pamphlet, reading the desired segment aloud. “In the case of the blackened gaining an accomplice to their crimes, only the killer, the one that has done the deed, will be permitted to graduate and escape to the outside world.”

While the other Ultimates become more sure than ever that Meena was telling the truth, Buster admits that he is still uncertain and asks Meena if she was certain that her entire confession was true. Perhaps she was mistaken at some point.

After jumping slightly, she stutters out a yes and states that she was absolutely sure. While this does cause more angered glances in Buster’s direction, the showman states that something else still could’ve happened. Gunter begins to catch on and states that, perhaps, Meena didn’t kill Stephanie and that she only THINKS she did so.

At this point, there are three groups;

Meena killed: Rosita, Meena, David, Riley, Ash, Jude, Julee

Something else happened: Nancy

Uncertain: Gunter, Mike, Ember, Matt, Buster, Eddie

After sides are taken, Buster requests that he takes a look around, since he assumes that these games typically include the investigations as well. Nancy confirms this, and also tells everyone siding with Meena that if they are way too hasty, then they’ll end up like Killing Game #14. Everyone in the room is sent a jolt of fear, and then after considering for a bit, Rosita reluctantly allows them their investigation.

Eddie, currently waiting in the hall due to concerns of being attacked, pipes up and says that he wants to help as well. Many are suspicious of him and are hesitant to this idea though.

Mike: Um, yeah, who ask you exactly?

Rosita: I mean… you don’t have to if you don’t want to, you could just leave it to us.

Ember: Yeah, I’m pretty sure we can handle it by ourselves.

Buster waves everyone down and asks that they listen to what he has to say. After giving a confirming nod to Eddie-who is visibly sweating from stress-the servant begins to explain himself.

Eddie: When Monokuma introduced me, he said I- he said I was supposed to obey him, but that I could be a p-player as well. A-and he also likes it when class trials are ex-exciti-cool, right? So maybe if I could-I mean, play too then, it would… be…. Alright?

The entire time he is saying this, he is staring at his collar, as if he’s preparing himself for the alarm to sound and to apologize. Everyone else feels his hesitation as well when they catch on to his worries. But then, the light on the collar turns green and emits a sound similar a the seat belt sign on an airplane, and the sheep gives a sigh of relief, followed by everyone else.

Those insisting that Meena is the killer grumble and go back to what they’re doing. Buster applauds Eddie for his bravery who, in response, blushes slightly and admits that he was scared to death the entire time he was saying that. But after a small talk, the two agree to investigate together, since both of them are the ones attracting the most suspicious glances.

Right before they begin, Buster remembers Crawley’s letter and tries to draw even the slightest bit of courage from it. He recalls Crawley telling him to not be afraid so he can end the killing games and lead everyone to freedom. So with a desire to prove himself to the Ultimates, the duo’s resolve strengthens.

-----INVESTIGATION START----

Monokuma File #1

To begin, Buster and Eddie read the Monokuma file aloud so everyone else can hear them. It contains a single laminated paper with a picture of Stephanie’s corpse, a grayscale photo of Stephanie with bits of pink highlights on her fur, and a list of notes. The following is a summarized version of the file:

“The victim is Stephanie Hornbaker, the Ultimate Makeup Artist. The victim's body was discovered in Meena Jones, the Ultimate Soprano’s room. The established time of death is [REDACTED]. The victim was subject to blunt force trauma to the back of the skull, resulting in cranial fractures and immediate death. Several miscellaneous injuries accompany the body as well, including significant lacerations along the torso and irritation on the upper arms.”

The two immediately take notice of how the time of death has been blacked out, despite all of the other details being so specific. To erase confusion, Ember states that different details in murders tend to be cut out in killing games, as they would be defining evidence to the Blackened. “It makes sense,” says Eddie, “since he also wants to make these games interesting for the animals watching.”

Mike is disgusted at how the bear treats the murder as some sick show and not-so-silently curses at the bear.

Matt then asks for what Johnny’s file says and the koala takes out the paper to look for the next but, to his surprise, he finds no such paper. The duo look around to see if the paper dropped anywhere, but once again find nothing. A bit of confusion is passed around to the animals, but then Riley gasps, realizing something that they don’t.

Riley: W-wait… does that mean…?!

A low groan of pain is emitted and everyone stops dead in their tracks. They look between each other for a moment, then once another groan is let loose, everyone looks to the floor to find Johnny struggling to get up. Johnny was alive!

Everyone scrambles around Johnny, Meena and Riley especially. He is still bleeding heavily and the metallic drops of red soak his fur. Rosita looks around the room and yells for “any medical supplies at all” so she can help him. Buster says that there’s some in his room and Eddie runs to go get it while the koala yells to him the details of its location.

The greaser flops to his back and everyone gets in his face, barraging him with a mini-gun's worth of questions.

Ember: What happened?! Did Meena really kill Stephanie?!

Riley: Please, please please, don’t go! You’re not gonna die too, right?!

David: Johnny, what happened here?! Are you alright?!

Amidst all of the animals clamoring to get an answer out of the gorilla, Johnny was only able to look at the soprano, who is currently leaking tears and gripping his paw while apologizing profusely. When he began to open his mouth, everyone went quiet once again. Right before he closed his eyes once again, Johnny spoke to Meena “It’s… n-not your… fault…..”

As the room goes silent once again, Eddie returns with the entire first aid kit. Rosita immediately gets to work, with nearly everyone working along with her. Meena, with a blank look in her eyes, goes back to where she was and begins to sob once more.

Once Johnny is patched up, the mother explains that Johnny will survive. He lost a lot of blood though, so it’s likely that he won’t wake up for a good while. But on the topic of the greaser, the participants talk about Johnny’s last words. Riley says that, along with Meena’s confession, it’s clear now what exactly happened.

This, however, sparks a bit of a debate between the Ultimates, with some saying that it didn’t clear up any suspicion while others say it’s the final nail in the coffin for the soprano. Riley, in an offended tone, accuses those not on Meena’s side for trying to drag out the elephant’s suffering, and tells the Ultimate that he’ll help her out. Meena says nothing in response to this, she simply looks at the stage actor, then looks back down to the floor.

Before the debate gets out of hand, Nancy and Ember calm everyone down and convinces everyone to get back to the actual investigation. Riley goes to Meena’s side to try and talk to her and see what he can do to prove her guilt while the rest of the Ultimates go back to what they were originally doing.

Stephanie’s body

Knowing that they should get it out of the way, the koala approaches the victim’s corpse, suppressing the urge to vomit. Buster looks at the Monokuma file once again and lists the different places that Stephanie was injured so he can inspect them, dreading the thought of even getting close to the body.

However as he’s about to put the file away, he spots Eddie approaching the body to inspect it without a smidgen of hesitation. The showman is astonished by this skill, but before he can say anything about it, Eddie explains the different details of Stephanie’s wounds.

Eddie: Everything in the Monokuma file does match. Bludgeoning to the head, lacerations across the body, significant rashes on the arms. But the one thing I don’t get is why the fur is wet-

Buster waves him to stop before he can continue, asking how he could have been able to just walk up to a corpse like that like it was nothing. A few of the Ultimates are also looking at the servant with a mix of shock and disgust. Eddie doesn’t understand why they’re shocked, but still apologizes.

Deciding it would be best to ask about it later, the showman asks about what he was going to say. Eddie then states that Stephanie’s entire body is damp, like a thoroughly ringed out towel. After trying to think of possible reasons for her fur to be damp, they consider asking Meena about it to clear the suspicion. But since Riley is still interrogating her, they save it for the trial.

Johnny Serafinowicz and Rosita Brown

The duo approaches Rosita, who is still trying to make sure that Johnny is safe and healing. The showman thanks her for her medical skills, saying that if she hadn’t been there, then Johnny most likely would have also went down with Stephanie. Rosita thanks them, but doesn’t think much of her skills, saying that it was just another thing that she needed to know to help her several children.

Rosita: Then again, I suppose that night school for my medical degree wasn’t all for nothing, so that’s nice.

When Eddie asks how long Johnny will be out for, Rosita admits that she isn’t exactly sure. The worst case scenario is that he’d be unconscious for the entire class trial, leaving the group without a key witness. However she still states with certainty that Meena’s actions were simply an accident, saying that the soprano would never do something so selfish willingly.

Rosita: I know for certain; my motherly intuition is never wrong!

The mother allows the two to check Johnny’s body, as long as they’re careful. After the two do a quick inspection, they find that many of the gorilla’s injuries are similar to those listed in Stephanie’s Monokuma file: cuts and bruises along the body and a blow to the head-the only thing missing is the rashes on the arms.

However in place of the irritation, Buster notices something about Johnny’s hands while the sheep and mother are talking about the injuries. He flips over the currently palm-down arm, much to Rosita’s disapproval, to find that the paw is completely clean. He flips over the other one as well, getting similar results. But due to Rosita heavily insisting him to leave Johnny alone to recover, the koala steps away and is unable to fully process what this could mean. He then leaves with Eddie to look for something else.

Ash Spinosa and Julee Hartford

Since he saw Ash right before he ran to his office, Buster tries to talk to the rocker and figure out what she might have seen or heard. The rocker is currently standing guard on the wall with Julee, making sure that nobody tampers with the crime scene in any way, while also talking about possible clues that could be useful during the trial.

When the duo approaches, the two are visibly disgusted by their presence and openly state this as well.

Ash: Ah look, the stalker and the creeper working together in arms. I honestly don’t know why I expected less.

Julee: Heh, to be honest I think they’re practically made for each other considering their hobbies.

The two pretend not to hear those comments and request that they ask the two some questions. Both of them clench their teeth in response to this, but since both of them know the gravity of their current situation, they allow the two to do their thing.

However when Buster explains what exactly he saw and asks the rocker about it, Ash has no idea what she’s talking about and thinks that the koala is spouting nonsense. When going deeper into detail about what he saw and what happened, Ash assumes that he’s crazy, as their rooms aren’t even remotely close to each other like he described.

Julee offers up the idea of Buster trying to pin the blame on her and Ash states that she wouldn’t put it past him. When Eddie tries to defend him by saying that it would only get him killed, the two say that they don’t really know what’s going on in the koala’s head so he can’t exactly say that. Deciding it would be useless to press any further, the koala leaves the two alone and investigates elsewhere.

Severed bed leg and Ember Gibson

In between Stephanie’s body and Meena, the giant bed leg laid on the ground just outside of the small pools of blood. Ember is currently inspecting the weapon herself as well, making sure not to touch it. The bed leg is half bloody and half clean and, due to Meena’s giant height, the bed leg was about as tall as the servant himself. Buster tries to lighten the mood by saying that it only helps with the investigation since he could crawl inside of it for clues.

Ember: You sound a little too enthusiastic to do that.

Buster: ...I like cramped spaces…

The rapper comments that she has finished her own inspection of the bed leg itself and shares her findings with the duo:

“The bed leg itself is the most likely candidate for the murder weapon according to Meena’s confession, the amount of blood covering the surface, and the indents aligning with the two head injuries. The indents themselves are strange though, as they’re both on opposite ends of the pole, even the clean part. It might be due to how tight Meena gripping the pole though; she’s naturally strong after all. However the most confusing thing is the heat of the pole. You would expect the clean part to at least be lukewarm, since Meena was gripping it while attacking. But it’s actually ice cold, like if it was left out during a snowstorm. *sigh* If I had some fingerprint powder this investigation would be done so much faster.”

Buster thanks Ember for the quick briefing and Eddie comments on Ember’s desire for fingerprint powder, saying that she sounds like a detective from an old school movie. The badger puts on a lax, smug expression, saying that before he came to the theater she was actually a pretty famous detective. But when Buster calls her out, saying that she didn’t work for the police, she begins to stumble over her words.

Ember: W-well, I, uh… I mean I still freakgigbph… why don’t you go investigate somewhere th-not here?

Jude Therna, Meena Jones, Jackson Riley, and David Flowerson

The showman and servant approach Jude and David, who are together comforting Meena while Riley asks her questions. When they spot the duo, they whisper something to the racoon and elephant, then get up to step in between the four.

David says that it would be best to leave the soprano alone for the time being, since she’s already on the verge of a breakdown because of Riley questioning her. He isn’t exactly being aggressive, but everything is a sensitive subject to her for obvious reasons.

Respecting their wishes, Buster decides to ask a few questions to the two, starting with who found the crime scene first. Jude freely states that they did, leaving the duo in slight shock. But before they can continue, the jaguar stops any suspicion towards them before it starts, saying that they have an alibi.

The entire night since 10:00 PM, they did a night watch to make sure that nobody tried anything. Although they do openly state their sorrow for not being able to prevent the crime in the end, David tries to comfort the street performer by saying there was nothing they could have done. Jude just shakes their head as if to shake away their doubts, then tells the three about the details of the night watch:

10:00 PM: Nightwatch begins. Buster is spotted running to his office, leaving his door open behind him. They checked his room for anything suspicious, but found nothing.

Buster looks away red cheeked at how obvious he must have seemed while he was “sneaking away.”

10:13 PM: Meena leaves her room while holding a letter in her hands, looking around as if she was trying to sneak somewhere. As she crossed the hall Jude intercepted her and began to ask where exactly she was going, startling her in the process. She then slips their note underneath Stephanie’s door and runs back to her room. Jude tries to knock on the door to see what the note had on it, but there was no answer.

10:59 PM: Jude does not go into too much detail about what happens, simply stating that they had stomach troubles and went to the downstairs men’s bathroom.

Jude: I swear we need more healthy things to eat in this stupid place.

Around 11:06 PM: David joins the jaguar in their bathroom suffering session.

11:13 PM: As the jaguar left the bathroom, a scream rang out, most likely Meena’s. They ran back up to her room, with David close behind, and then saw the crime already committed. Once the two had seen the scene, the Body Discovery Announcement played.

When asked by Eddie why the two went to the downstairs bathroom instead of their own, Jude states that their room was at the other end of the hall and they took watch by the stairs, as it was a better hiding spot. As for David, he simply states that his bad luck struck once again and leaves it at that. Buster guiltily admits that he hasn’t really been paying attention to the room layout.

When Jude complains about the lack of actual meals in the theater, saying that they could really go for a peanut butter-banana sandwich, Buster shamefully admits that he is used to eating the way he does.

Mike Maximus, Matt Pine and Gunter Schwartz

Over to the side, the Crooner, Drummer and Dancer are all talking together about something. From a distance, Buster can hear them saying something about Stephanie and the dorms, but once they spot the two listening in, they back off and don’t resume talking until the two leave.

Inside the bathroom

Deciding that there is nothing else in the main room to investigate, the two look inside of the bathroom for any more clues. Nancy is already in there by herself, climbing up one of the ginormous hand towels that’s the size of a refrigerator for her. When the duo comment on why exactly she was in there alone, she tells them that since everyone else is focused on the crime scene itself, nobody is looking for clues in other possible locations. She also states that her efforts weren’t fruitless, as she has already found something.

Nancy Addams

When the two join Nancy to try and figure out what she found, she climbs to the top of the rack holding the hand towel and shoves it off to the floor, sprawling it out for them all to see. It drops to the floor with an audible SCHLOP, getting a few drops of water on the two larger animals.

When the towel itself is laid flat, the trio finds that not only is the towel wet, it has a few faint red and brown spots sprawled across it. When trying to guess what exactly the spots could be and what the towel is used for, none of them can get a general conscientious. However Nancy does state that all of the spots were on the inside of the towel while it was on the rack. And because of how damp it is, the negotiator states that the towel was used recently, and it was also deliberately hidden from sight.

Eddie thanks Nancy for finding the towel, guessing that it is a very important clue. Nancy accepts the praise, saying that she had a sneaking suspicion that something else was happening. When asked by the koala HOW she knew, she looks away and rubs her shoulder, saying that she’s “had experience with liars before.” However she isn’t willing to go into more detail beyond this.

Messy sink

Spotting some puddles over by the sink, Buster walks over to investigate. There are several wet spots scattered about, with a few drops leaking from the sink itself. But because of the height, it takes the efforts of both Buster and Eddie to see what’s up top.

After being lifted up by the servant, Buster finds that the sink itself is empty, but very wet and slick. Upon closer inspection, the koala spots a tiny bit of fur near the drain and turns on the faucet to investigate, letting the clear water flow. Then, coming flowing out via murky brown water, several strands of small, brown fur come into view.

After being let back down, Buster (regretfully) takes a handful of the fur and tries to take a closer look. Due to the color of the water it appeared brown, but after being dried off by the bottom of Buster’s shirt, the three are able to spot a slight orange tint. However, none of the animals can think of who it belongs to or how it got there.

Exiting the bathroom

Finding everything they could in the bathroom, the three prepare to exit, but are interrupted by Eddie suddenly doubling over and clutching his stomach. Nancy and Buster can audibly hear his stomach gurgling as he winces from the pain.

Asking as nicely but desperately as possible, Eddie requests that the two leave him alone in the bathroom, deciding not to state the obvious. Nancy asks if the servant is okay, but Buster just decides to lead her out of the room for his friend’s sake, making sure to close the door behind them.

Spotting Mike, Gunter and Matt from earlier huddling around each other, the two decide to investigate and figure out what they’re up to. Once again they aren’t willing to talk to Buster, but with Nancy present, Mike suddenly grows a heart. The duo look at each other with the look.

Deciding it would be no use to argue, Gunter presents a small key chain that only contains a silver key and a plastic tag with a cosmetics kit logo on both sides. The dancer explains that, after inspecting Stephanie’s body, they found the key in one of her pockets. Matt also comments that they figured out that it was Stephanie’s room key, and were going to go to investigate.

The crooner then invites the negotiator to go with them and she says yes, but also offers that Buster goes with them. The three show hesitation at this offer and say that it might be best if not much of a big group goes at once, but then Nancy tells them about Buster finding the fur in the sink, stating that Buster is pretty skilled at finding small details.

Reluctantly, they agree. As they leave for the door, Buster feels like he should wait for Eddie to finish so he could come along as well. However considering the fact that they were already annoyed with him coming along and how long it took Jude and David to finish their “sessions,” he decided that it was for the best to just leave.

As the group heads for the door, with Buster being at the tail’s end, the showman suddenly stops and looks back to the door itself. It had a blood splatter along the bottom, most likely due to Stephanie slashing at the gorilla’s leg.

Going along with a hunch, the koala backtracks and closes the door slightly to peek at the other side. Then, not being sure if he should feel accomplished or anxious, Buster spots a bloodstain around the top of the door with a strange shape. It does not seem like it got there naturally from the fight from earlier.

As much as Buster wants to bring it up, something in his gut tells the koala he should leave it be until the Class Trial, and he runs to catch up with the others.

Inside Stephanie’s room

After unlocking the door and opening up the makeup artist’s room, the five enter to find a cluttered mess. Clothes are scattered around everywhere with no sense of order, a vanity nearby is covered with makeup supplies for different features, varying from fur to nails, and any previous ideas of a clean, orderly room were thrown out of the window.

Mike comments on how unexpected it was for somebody with an Ultimate talent designed to make things look pretty would have a bedroom belonging to a slob. However Matt states that it might be like this so Stephanie could hide something. Right before Mike can scoff at the idea for sounding childish, Gunter says that it might be a good idea to search through the stuff to find any clues.

The group then splits up for the time being, with each animal looking in different places for clues.

Stephanie’s Bed

After cleaning out a bunch of junk from on top of the bed and making sure that everything was tidy, the showman was not able to find any clues. However after looking under the bed, he finds a crumpled up piece of paper that he can’t reach. The two mice, however, help roll it out for them to inspect.

After flattening it out on the mattress, the group reads the hastily written note aloud.

“I can’t sleep at all, I can’t stop thinking about my family. I’m scared that someone might kill me. So far in this theater, you’ve been the only friend I’ve had and the only one I can trust. Please come to my room, I need somebody to talk to. I’m not sure how much longer I can stand being alone.”

The note itself had no signature saying who it was from, nor a name stating who it was addressed to. The group discusses to figure out where it came from, but only Buster manages to figure out that it came from Meena, as Jude stated earlier that she slipped the note underneath the makeup artist’s door. However due to underlying suspicion, he cannot bring himself to tell the others and saves that fact for the class trial.

Gunter Schwartz

After some more searching, the dancer calls everyone over to the vanity to show his findings: a large, thoroughly used set of makeup tools and cosmetics. The brushes had been frayed and worn down, and nearly all of the cosmetics were used to the last pinch of powder.

Mike thinks of this as strange, as he has never exactly seen her with any sort of makeup. However Buster suggests that the fox might have always had makeup on, and they didn’t even know it.

To prove the point, Nancy asks Mike if she’s wearing any makeup, expecting it to be a tough question. But then the crooner tries to pull a fast one and says that, either way, she’s still the most beautiful woman he’s seen. Everyone is taken aback by the suddenness of the comment; Matt whistles and says “smooth.” Nancy goes back to investigating her side of the room while power walking.

Matt Pine

After LOTS of cleaning later, Matt finds a bunch of garbage that he tries to shoot into the wastebasket like a basketball. He’s almost dunked everything, but as he gets to a crumbled up envelope, he stops to take a look inside. After he does so, he calls everyone over so they can all look at the evidence.

The envelope was the one Stephanie had gotten for her respective motive letter. The contents within were similar as well: a news article showing that Stephanie’s loved ones had been kidnapped and a letter from Stephanie’s mother herself. The contents of the letter goes as follows:

“Stephanie, Please, you need to help me. I’ve been kidnapped and I don’t know where I am or what’s going on. I’m scared and I want to go home, to see you again. I know that this may seem undignified for your mother to say, but I’m terrified. I’m not even sure if you’re safe, these men told us to write notes to you. Please be safe dear, oh god please be safe. My little munchkin, I love you. I love you so, so, so, so much. So please, you need to get me out of here. I’m not sure what these animals want; if it’s money, get the savings for my student loans from the safe, you already know where it is. Don’t even bother with the code, break it open and give them the money. I want to hold you in my arms again sweetie; I want to feel your warmth again and play bad board games like we used to. I’m sorry for always putting so much pressure on you, just please, help your mother and get me out of here. I love you my little munchkin. Always and forever. Your loving mother.

After a moment of silence, the five about the letter itself, with Nancy commenting on how sad it was. Matt says that he knows it’s supposed to be a motive letter, but that just seemed outright depressing.

Buster decides to explain to the others why it was written this way. The mother and daughter were always very close, as the father was emotionally distant while she grew up. She was supposed to inherit the family beauty parlor and walked in her mother’s footsteps, although it always caused her a great deal of anxiety to do so. In the end, though, it helped in a way, as that was her driving force to become an Ultimate.

Once again the Ultimates around him comment on how it was creepy he knew these things, but he shushes them and continues anyway.

Right as Buster is about to go into detail at how it caused Stephanie stress and what habits came because of it, a noise comes from the monitor up on the wall, showing Monokuma sipping martini from a fancy glass, despite him being a robot.

He tells everyone that he’s grown bored while the investigation has dragged on, so he’s gonna start the class trial right away, so all of the participants should meet at the front entrance of the theater.

Monokuma: I hope this turns out to be another thrilling, bone chilling, despair filling class trial for the ages! Puhuhuhuhu!

Despite having a lingering feeling of dread and a hint of there being something they didn’t get to in Stephanie’s room, the five head towards the front entrance after gathering all of the evidence that they found. Mike is relieved, as he was getting very tired with trying to clean garbage that was more than twice his size.

Moon Theater Lobby

When the group joins up with everyone else, they find the Ultimates loudly arguing amongst each other with no real side to the matter. Julee, David and Riley, however, are all talking to Ash, with all of them seeming downright furious.

Ash: So what are you saying I did?! Killed Stephanie, took a bath in Meena’s sink, dried off then walked back to my room naked?

Julee: I’m not saying it’s impossible!

Ash: AND I AM SAYING YOU’RE INSANE!!!

Stepping in to stop the fighting, the group asks what is happening to cause all of the commotion. Jude steps forward and points at the rocker, shouting that the porcupine had killed Stephanie. Ash yells back that they’re insane but Buster stops the fighting once again, asking Jude for proof.

The jaguar says fine in an aggravated tone, calling over Eddie, who is off to the side and holding something in his arms, looking deep in thought. The showman asks the servant what exactly is going on, to which the sheep steps forward and reveals what he was holding:

A wet set of Ash’s clothes and a bundle of porcupine quills.

Eddie explains that, right before he went to the bathroom, he flushed the toilet to make sure that it wasn’t clogged. “Just my luck it was…” but to his surprise, after he unclogged it, he found Ash’s clothes stuck in the toilet. It was clear that they were meant to be flushed away and hidden from view.

Ash butts in and tries to give her side of the story, which is simply “I don’t know how those got there, that sheep is trying to frame me!” which, sadly, isn’t much of a good argument in the killing games. As the group begins to argue once more, it becomes clear who is siding with who.

Meena Killed: Rosita, Meena, Riley, David

Ash Killed: Julee, Jude, Ember, Eddie

Something else happened: Buster, Mike, Nancy, Gunter, Matt, Ash

Eddie apologizes to Buster, saying that he can’t side with him this time. With the fur and clothes being in the bathroom and the hand towel being Ash’s height, he believes that the current evidence is leaning towards Ash being the killer. Buster does feel slightly hurt, but knows that he doesn’t mean it personally and focuses on finding the truth.

Johnny, meanwhile, is lying face up on a stretcher colored black, white and red. Rosita explains that, since it would be difficult carrying Johnny to the Class Trial, the MonoCult provided them with a stretcher. Unfortunately, Johnny has shown no signs of recovery, so it’s likely that they’ll have to do the class trial without him.

As the sides continue to argue, the iron plates on the front door begin to hiss and slowly open up, letting out a bit of steam for theatrical effect in the process. Once the steam clears, the hopes of the doors leading to their freedom is dashed, as on the other side is a rustic group elevator.

Feeling the tension lingering in the air, the participants are hesitant to step inside, as the bear obviously wants them to. However with the fact in mind that they are all at Monokuma and the MonoCult’s mercy, they all walk in, with Gunter and Meena holding the different sides of Johnny’s stretcher.

As the iron gate closes in front of them, the elevator begins to ascend higher and higher, making a few of the animals need to pop their ears due to the sudden change in pressure. Everyone is silent; the only noise is the clanking of the elevator as it rises higher and higher.

Ash, trying to not attract any attention to herself, nudges Buster and whispers to him if he believes that she killed Meena as well. Her wide eyes and shaky voice suggests that she is truly terrified, which is shocking considering how she tried to keep a calm demeanor the entire time she was in the theater.

Buster says that, even after looking over all of the evidence, he can not be certain as to what exactly happened. All he can truly say is that, no matter what happened and who is the killer, he’s going to try to find the truth. Ash does not know how to respond to this and steps away, going quiet once again.

Once the elevator screeches to a halt, the iron gate in front of them opens up wide to reveal the class trial room. Black and white checkered tiles on the floor accompany a red circle of carpet, lying underneath sixteen podiums similar to a witness stand in court. One of the podiums has a black and white portrait of the victim of the case, Stephanie, crossed off in red eyeliner and brushes painted over. David openly hopes that the red isn’t blood, but the bear simply chuckles in response.

Set aside from them all is a sort of throne designed for a small animal, and of course, Monokuma is sitting in it, drinking his martini.

Along the walls, blue wallpaper stood alongside golden pillars that reached to the high up ceiling, which stretched until one had to lie on their back to see the top. Along with the wallpaper, crimson curtains stood tall, hiding whatever could be underneath with an element of mystique.

Each of the podiums in the center were the same height, but a few had steps or ladders that allowed smaller animals to look over the stands. Along with being the same height, each stand had a brass symbol bearing logos that were similar to the ones on their key tags. The logos themselves were colored black, red and white. Buster begins to catch up on the theme of everything.

Buster: Two top hats and a cane Eddie: The iron collar he was forced to wear Meena: A treble clef Johnny: Their gang’s getaway truck Ash: Sheet music Gunter: Tap dance shoes Rosita: Plates and a soapy sponge Mike: A bass clef Nancy: A speech bubble Ember: Papers covered with lyrics and a magnifying glass Matt: Drums Riley: Comedy and Tragedy stage play masks Jude: A watch being held in a paw David: A stage light Julee: A microphone used for recording Stephanie: A cosmetics kit

Along the top walls are stadium-like seats, each filled with a different camera used for filming TV shows. When Riley asks what the purpose of them all is, Monokuma states that they’re used for broadcasting the killing game to their respective channels across the world. He wants to get the excitement at all angles, so he can get that sweet despair in HD.

Johnny, after being brought over to his stand, sat down by Meena in a folding chair. His body slides downwards awkwardly, and after a few attempts to sit him upright, she gives up. As the stretcher is set down and Gunter walks to his stand, Meena turns back to Johnny, gives him a hug, then walks over to her stand without saying a word.

With the tension lingering in the air, everyone can feel the stakes of the trail at hand; Buster especially. He thinks about how Stephanie’s death could have been avoided, and what he could have done to prevent it. But after grieving for a moment, he shakes it away, and focuses on the present.

“Somebody in this room killed Stephanie. Whoever had done it… I will find them. I’ll lead everyone to victory, and help everyone live on another day without fear. I’ll face this class trial head on, I won’t back down. This lingering dread, this despair… IT ALL ENDS TONIGHT!!!”

Ch. 1: What is True Friendship (Curtain Call) END

OC Credits

Writing and editing

@twilightprince101 and ISmellOfStardustAndErasers (deactivated)

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twilightprince101 · 6 years

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Sing Week 2017 Day 3: AUs

For those who have been following my blog for a while, you already KNOW what I’m doing for this day! An AU of my very own: the “Moral Support” AU!

For this alternate universe, Meena has a childhood friend that supports her throughout the competition. Her friend is a yellow and black spotted jaguar, Jude Therna!

(Picture drawn by @purplesce. Not showing my drawing because my art is terrible)

Jude is a timid yet headstrong and supportive to her friends, and cares more about the animals around them than themself. Meena and Jude have been friends since they were babies because their parents were friends with each other and talked often. They were set up for play dates often and became fast friends! Throughout elementary school, they were inseparable. If you saw one of them, the other was close behind.

But one day in 4th grade, something changed. Nobody knows exactly what caused it or why it happened, but Jude suddenly became overly protective of Meena. This became apparent when three sixth graders stole Meena’s lunch, and Jude sent them to the emergency room. I worked together with @stevetwisp for the @singminibang project, so if you want to witness the event for yourself click here! Here’s the picture that Steve drew too!

After that day, the two became more and more distant. Jude was suspended for a while and Meena’s parents refused to let the two close to each other, but came back in Middle School to try and patch things up. They tried, but still grew farther apart from each other to the point where they barely talked with each other once throughout High School outside of the occasional job run in.

But one day, Jude comes knocking at the door of Meena’s house with the flyer for the singing competition, eager to help her out for winning the competition, acting like nothing ever happened since elementary school. With both the pressure from her family and the lingering mystery of her old friend egging her on, she accepts, letting Jude support her throughout the competition. And so the events of the movie begin, with Jude trying their best to help out Meena in the competition and Meena’s journey to overcome her fear and learn the truth of her friend’s past.

I’m currently writing a story based around this AU, but it’s on hiatus right now since I’m trying to finish up one of my other stories that I’m writing. But once it’s finished I’ll put my full attention back onto it and deliver an amazing story for you all! (Here is the link to the story if you want to read the story so far).

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twilightprince101 · 6 years

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((I got a sketchbook for Christmas, and this is my first addition!)) Ever since high school, Jude would always climb to the roof and stare at the stars whenever they couldn’t fall asleep. They always saw the stars as comforting, and would often times try to make out the patterns in the sky. Jude now knows the placement and makeup of each constellation.

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twilightprince101 · 6 years

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Some peeps in the Sing Discord helped me figure out a ship name for Jude and Meena! I will now tag all Jude X Meena content as “Elespots”

#elespots #sing #sing movie #sing 2016 #sing movie 2016 #Jude x Meena #oc #OCs #my ocs #oc jude #oc jude therna #Jude therna #some moral support #sing Meena #sing movie Meena #sing 2016 Meena #sing movie 2016 Meena

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twilightprince101 · 6 years

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Sing Week 2017 Day 5: OC

Since I already explained my AU and Jude for day 3, I decided to do a drawing for today!

This is the most iconic moment in the story (so far), when Jude loses control and threatens Mike during auditions for shooing Meena off of the stage.

(To be honest Mike got what he deserved right then)

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twilightprince102-blog · 7 years

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I commissioned @purplesce for a drawing of Jude! Now you can see what they look like outside of my terrible drawing skills! Thanks again dude, this looks great!!!

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twilightprince102-blog · 7 years

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Literally the best thing about having OCs is finding that one song that fits PERFECTLY for their personality/situation.

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twilightprince102-blog · 7 years

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Some Moral Support

Summary: A “Sing!” (2016) AU in which Meena has a friend that supports her along in her journey. But at what point does it turn into too much?

Chapter Seven: Frustration

In which anger is lashed out and self-reflection is made.

[Previous] [Next]

Going home after the first day of rehearsals was not the most relaxing experience for Meena. After Jude’s argument with Mike, the two had dedicated the rest of the day to try and perfect the song. Meena tried to mix up her singing style each time she sang “Beautiful”, and Jude kept giving constructive criticism where it was due. Sometimes she tried to sing like the original artist, but it seemed a little too bland for her taste. Then Jude suggested adding Meena’s personal flair to the song, but then it just sounded like she was trying too hard. At the end of the day, Meena’s eyes were heavy. She had memorized the lyrics, but still did not know how to sing it. She was ready to lie down in her bed and let her pillow take her away. But as the bus rounded the corner to her street, the two friends quickly saw that dream fade away.

Apparently Meena’s grandmother had decided her granddaughter deserved another celebration for getting into the show. However, instead of simply baking another batch of her delectable sweets or inviting one or two of her school friends to join, she went above and beyond and invited the entire neighborhood to join in the festivities! Meena covered her face and tried to sink down into her seat and let the bus pass by their stop, trying to avoid the oncoming commotion. Jude considered that they sleep on the bus that night, but it was already too late. Her family saw the two through the windows and gathered everyone to the door. So the two stepped off of their quiet shelter and into the crowd.

“Hey, at least they brought the good pizza!” Jude remarked, munching away on their breakfast. Meena almost didn’t hear her friend, as they kept nodding off as the bus rode on. The night before was the complete opposite of what she had wanted to come home to: quiet. Instead, she was surrounded by relatives, friends, and friends of the parents who assaulted her with questions and pictures. The quiet she had hoped for was replaced with constant chatting and loud music. It took until an hour after midnight for the guests to clear out and give the elephant some well needed rest, giving her barely enough time to do so. Jude meanwhile seemed like they had an entirely different night, as they seemed just as well rested as the days before. They offered a slice of leftover pizza to her friend (all of which was placed in a pouch for the two to eat throughout the day), but Meena had fallen back to sleep. Honoring her unspoken wish, Jude kept quiet.

As the ride went on, more animals boarded the bus to ride to their jobs, just like any other day. But for some unknown reason, it seemed to Jude that almost everyone was extremely noisy that day. Talking loudly on their phones, conversing louder than needed with other passengers, watching things on their phones with the volume blasting; it felt to Jude that everyone was trying to get on their nerves that day! The jaguar looked back at Meena, who was starting to look very annoyed at the lack of silence. Jude knew that they had to stand up for her. When Ash got on the bus with headphones in her ears, blasting rock music so loud that Jude could even hear it, they felt like they had enough. Jude waved Ash’s attention over to them, trying to put on their happy mask.

“Hey, can you turn down the music please? Meena’s trying to sleep.” Jude asked while smiling, accidentally making it look menacing with their fangs. Ash looked down at her popped out ear-bud, slightly confused at the jaguar’s request.

“But I’m wearing headphones, and I can barely hear anything from it this far.” Ash commented. With Ash’s failure to go along with Jude’s simple request, the jaguar tried to hold in their anger and attempted to kindly ask again. Instead, they did the exact opposite.

“I think the loud music could have damaged your hearing since I’m pretty sure you listen to it all the time, so I think you should know that even though you had headphones in, everyone else could still hear the music, so I think it kinda defeats the purpose of wearing headphones, you know? So please turn down the music so I don’t have to ask again, alright?” The jaguar flashed their fangs at the porcupine, signaling that she goes along with their demands or else. Ash put her hands up and scooted backwards on her seat, getting chills from Jude’s icy glare.

“Okay okay! Sheesh, sorry mom.” Ash complained sarcastically. The rocker did what she was asked, then put her earbuds back in at a satisfying level of quiet for everyone else. Jude leaned back in their seat, still annoyed at the remaining noise on the bus. Some animals behind the three, however, had decided to quiet down after seeing the predator’s fierce behavior. It was completely fine by Jude, ‘Any quiet is good quiet.’ Next to them, Meena snored with a slight flick of her trunk, restoring Jude’s mood. But then it went back down again when they heard the familiar sound of three frogs arguing. Jude slowly turned their head, peeking out the window and hoping that it was just their imagination. But to everyone’s disappointment, the frog trio was there and doing the same thing as the past two days.

Jude pressed their hands against their ears, trying to block out the noise. But somehow, mixed in with the other passengers from the back, it was even louder. The jaguar barely even noticed Rosita sitting down in her usual spot, holding one of her many kids. The mother of many looked at the jaguar, seeing the anger in their eyes, and knew that the noise only meant trouble. But before Rosita could reach out and calm down the Jaguar, they snapped and stomped their foot on the middle of the aisle, stopping the frogs in their tracks. The force from Jude’s foot was so strong, that it caused the rest of the bus to shake, making the rest of the passengers stop what they were doing and look at the action that was about to unfold.

One of the frogs who were already angry pointed up to the jaguar, not knowing what they were getting into. But when he saw Jude’s fangs, his knees turned to jelly along with the other two. Having enough of the trio’s constant bickering, Jude flicked out a claw and knelt down to their level, growling so low that one could mistake it for the bus’s engine. The entire bus watched in horror, intrigue and satisfaction as the frog trio started to shiver in fear.

“Listen up you slimy little idiots.” Jude growled deeply at the three, pointing the claw in their direction. “Everyone around you is sick and tired of your constant arguments. Honestly, haha, I don’t even have a clue to how you three are even still together doing this since I’ve only ever seen you three yell at each other instead of actually singing! But don’t worry, I understand that you might not have noticed since all three of you are so DENSE to do so! So listen closely!” The claw crept closer to the trio, causing them to group together.

“I don’t want to hear a PEEP out of you three for the rest of the competition. The only time it will be acceptable for me to hear you three will be if you actually practice for the competition, and if I hear any of you arguing, or people complaining about your arguing ever again, none of you will be able to argue or sing in any other singing competition EVER AGAIN! Now, did that message reach through your dense skulls, or must I give an example of what might happen if you DON’T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS?!” Jude pressed the claw to the supposed leader of the trio, making him go stiff with fear. The frog trio shook their heads as fast as they possible could, hugging each other out of fear for what the jaguar might do to them.

“Good.” Jude retracted their claw and sat up straight again, still glaring daggers at the three while waving them off. “Now run along now. And remember! Not. A. Peep.” The three ran to their seats so fast it seemed like they had rockets for shoes. As they ran out of sight, Jude took a long, deep breath to try and calm down. The rest of the passengers all seemed to go dead quiet after the standoff between predator and prey; possibly too terrified to speak up in fear that the jaguar might go for them next. Said jaguar didn’t seem to care about that, as they were just happy to get some silence for them and their friend. Next to them, Ash, Rosita and her piglet all stared in awe at Jude. For Rosita it was mixed in with horror, for Ash it was satisfaction, and amazement for the piglet. Jude didn’t care about them either, nor did they try to start a conversation with any of them. Jude took a look at Meena, who to their satisfaction, was still sleeping. The jaguar considered their job well done, and soaked in the silence, save for the bus’s engine.

Little did they know that Meena was already awake, waken up from Jude’s stomp from earlier. She had stayed quiet to only observe her friend, and from what she saw, terrified at just how far Jude might go for her.

“Meena, if this is what you want then it’s fine with me!” Jude tried to reassure their friend. They flipped through the DVDs while sitting on the table, trying to find anything that Meena might like. But with each flip Meena felt more and more unsure about her choices. “If you want a different song, we can practice a different song. It’s your choice, not mine.”

“I-I know, I know. But I already know most of the lyrics from the song. Wouldn’t it just be easier to do this one then?” The elephant began to pace back and forth, thinking about what would be better for the competition. The two were just in the middle of practicing when Meena mumbled it to herself as she sang “Beautiful” for the twenty-seventh time. But it came out so suddenly for her, and before she knew it, Jude had already tossed aside the disk for the song. ‘I already know all of the words. So why doesn’t this feel right?’

“But you said yourself that we should try different songs. Plus, it looked to me like you were starting to get sick of that song too.” Jude put down the pile of disks, thinking that all of the songs Meena might like was sorted. “Alright, I think you might like these ones. Don’t worry, I got rid of those teen pop songs, so you don’t have to worry about those.” Finally looking at their friend, Jude saw that she didn’t notice them calling her over. She was still pacing and tugging on her ears, trying to clear her head and make a decision. Jude was concerned for her; they could read her like an open book, and this is the most stressed they’ve ever seen her since high school. So her friend stepped into her pacing path and grabbed her shoulders.

“Meena, listen to me. You choose a song that you like, not one that will help you win. This is a singing competition, so the only way you’ll win is if you’re comfortable with a song. Do a song that you want to do, not one that you feel like you have to do, alright?”

“But”-

“Miss Therna!” The two friends were interrupted by the owner of the theater, who just popped in to check on the two. Since he showed up, he had no idea what the two were doing. Looking as chipper as ever in his suit, he gestured to the door. “You ready to start your stagehand training?”

“Oh, just Jude is alright. And, uh, just a sec.” Jude turned back to their friend, who was still feeling unsure about the whole situation. Patting her on the shoulder, Jude put on a genuine smile.

“Listen, I’m going to go practice with Buster. How about you take a break for now and think about what to do? You’ve been singing for almost an hour now anyways, you deserve it.” Before Meena could get a word out, her friend was already leaving with Buster. Pulling herself out of her timid stupor, she tried to call out to them.

“Wait, Jude”-

“Just take a break for now, I’m sure that you’ll figure it out eventually!” They yelled from the hallway. Jude followed the koala through the halls of the theater to their first day of training, leaving Meena alone with her thoughts. Forced into solitude, she sat down and tried to think. She could finally think by herself, but she wasn’t sure if that was the best thing to do. Taking a deep breath, she focused and weighed her options.

On one hand, she practically mastered “Beautiful” by itself. She knew all of the lyrics and she could copy the singing one to one. If Meena stuck with this song, she would have much more time to do other things for the competition, such as picking out the right dress and make up some sort of routine for the show. ‘Jude did say that it would be a while before the actual competition, so I would be all set long before the actual competition.’

But on the other hand, something about this song just didn’t click with her. She may have mastered singing it one to one, but that just didn’t feel right. She couldn’t find the right way to convey it, but she just felt uncomfortable singing this just to sing it. A part of her wanted to try something new, but another made her feel obligated to stick with this song. The two thoughts clashed in her head until eventually, Meena flopped down and lied on her back, letting out a frustrated groan. She was absolutely lost.

She stared up at the ceiling, unmoving. A mix of various different music genres filled her ears, similar to the party from last night. Ash’s rock music mixed in with Pete’s opera singing, which didn’t mix well together along with Johnny’s piano upstairs. She suddenly felt tired again, but not exactly sleepy. It was after listening to the music mix of everything and thinking about her own frustration, she asked herself. ‘Why am I doing this?’

It seemed like it would be fun at first. She made new friends on her first day, she got to spend time with her old friend, and even got to do what she loved to do the most: sing! Sure, the tryouts were not the best, but she was sure that it would only get better from there now that Jude was at her side, promising that they wouldn’t do anything brash. But here she was three days later, wondering if this is really what she wanted or what somebody else wanted.

She thought about how she got into the competition in the first place. Jude showed up out of nowhere bringing the flyer so suddenly, her parents encouraging her to bring Jude along and her friend saying that they would support her. But she already knew that she was scared of crowds and people staring at her, and so did her parents. ‘I knew that everyone who has a TV would watch me on stage, and that I would just freeze up with people staring at me. So why did I decide to do it then of all times?’ Then the answer came to her.

It was Jude.

This was the first time ever since their High School graduation that they got to be together. It was like this ever since Freshman year. Meena saw them in class, but was never able to really see them. When they were paired in classes, they were always intent on trying to focus on work 100% and go for extra credit, never wanting to focus on the latest gossip of the school or talking. When they had lunch together, they could never sit together since her friend was working with the lunch-ladies. When they passed in the hall, Jude wasn’t even able to say hi to her. Their attitude changed completely seemingly overnight from the typical laid back attitude they had, to a student devoted to their studies and nothing else. She felt like her childhood friend was avoiding her, and it killed her not knowing why.

It was even worse outside of school. Whenever Meena tried to get together with Jude, they always said that they were busy. They were always busy no matter what day of the week it was, and no matter what holiday it could have been. But what was really strange was that sometimes, when her family all went out together, Jude seemed to be working everywhere. One day she saw them working at a movie theater, and the next Jude would be working at the local library, then the next day it would be at an ice cream shop! Sometimes Meena asked when they get off work so they could chat, even for a minute. But still, they only gave excuses.

“Gotta save up for college!” They said when they were found at a new job. “Saving up for student loans, you know?” Jude said when asked why they have so many different jobs. “Sorry, maybe some other time.” Jude said every single time they turned Meena down to catch up on life. It seemed exhausting to the elephant at how many jobs Jude had at once. She was worried not only that Jude could be overworking themself, but also that she might not ever meet with them ever again.

Jude showing up out of nowhere with the flyer was the first time in years she saw Jude outside of work. This competition was their first chance since high school they could talk together and hang out like old times. They got to sleep over, catch up on each others’ lives (even though it was mostly Meena doing that), and most of all, Meena got to see Jude give a genuine smile for the first time in years. It gave her a chance to be together with them, and that was what she had wished to happen for so long. ‘So I guess I did all of this, for them?’ she questioned herself.

‘...maybe I should go for a walk.’ she decided after pondering on that question for over a minute.

The elephant lifted herself up off of the floor and grabbed her phone from the table, checking it to try and distract herself for a moment before she headed out. Along with three missed calls, there were a couple texts from her mother. She opened up the messages and checked out what her mom had said.

“Hi sweetie! I hope you two aren’t too tired over there from the party last night. We’re sorry that you had to stay up late for everybody. So to make up for it, I got you a pretty dress that you can wear for the competition! I don’t want to give it away since I want to keep it a surprise, but I’ll just say this: it was my old prom dress! Can’t wait to see you tonight, love you! -Mom”

A tiny alarm went off in Meena’s head when she read the words “prom dress.” She had heard her mother talk about that dress before, several times. She said “I bought it last minute for prom on the day of the dance, trying to find something pretty enough to go dancing with your father. Then when I saw that dress, I KNEW that it was the one and bought it on the spot! I didn’t even bother to check the price tag or try it on in a fitting room, I just knew it was the one! So then when I walked into the hall and everyone saw me, they stopped dead in their tracks! Men, women, prey, predator, it didn’t matter who saw me, ALL of their jaws dropped for me!” Meena was worried that it might be too flashy and/or revealing for her taste, but she would just have to wait home to find out.

She texted her mom back, trying to sound polite.

“Thanks mom, I can’t wait to see it! And don’t worry, we were both well rested before we got here! Everything’s all good, I’ll see you tonight! Love you!”

Then stuffing her phone in her pants pocket, she walked out into the halls of the theater, hoping that she would be able to find a way to clear her head and make a decision on what to do for her song choice. However, the prom dress and thoughts of Jude didn’t exactly help the process.

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twilightprince102-blog · 7 years

Conversation

More Jude stuff

Meena: I have never done anything wrong in my entire life!

Jude: I know this and I love you.

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twilightprince102-blog · 7 years

Text

Some Moral Support

Summary: A “Sing!” (2016) AU in which Meena has a friend that supports her along in her journey. But at what point does it turn into too much?

Chapter Six: Strike a Deal

In which deals are made and suspicion rises.

[Previous] [Next]

Not bothering to clean up the mess that they made, Jude walked out of the office and down to the rehearsal rooms, passing by Johnny and Crawley. The old lizard was starting to tutor Johnny how to play the piano, and he was playing a quiet little tune when Jude passed by. But it was clearly obvious that he hadn’t played in ages, as he made audible errors every couple seconds. When Johnny messed up for the third time in a row and slammed on the keys in frustration, the passerby smiled to themself, giving them more confidence that Meena would win the competition.

Speeding down the steps, the jaguar saw that everyone was back in high spirits thanks to the power’s return. Gunter and Rosita were doing some warm ups together along to a beat, making Jude chuckle slightly. They ran by Pete, who was practicing one of his opera songs, as well as the dancing frog trio who were doing a routine together. But when the jaguar looked back into their room, Meena was nowhere to be found. But all it took was a quick look around for the jaguar to find their friend.

Meena was looking in on Ash the rocker’s guitar practice as she played high speed riffs. The porcupine was completely focused on her instrument, watching and making sure that each of her fingers hit the right string at the right time, which seemed almost impossible with how fast she was going. While she played, she stood on the top of a large case in her room, bobbing up and down slightly to the beat of her song. Jude wasn’t particularly interested in her type of music, so they went to the front entrance to go meet Mr. Moon again. Meena however, stayed and watched Ash play, enthralled by the high speeds and immense talent that the small animal held. She was even more impressed when she closed her eyes and looked away from her guitar, and still played with the same amount of talent she had!

When the final note was played, the guitar’s wails echoed throughout the room. Her exhausted breaths could be heard from outside the room, and certainly to Meena. Once Ash recovered from her practice, she almost dropped her guitar when she heard clapping from outside.

“That was really good Ash!” Meena congratulated the rocker, clapping for a bit. Ash wasn’t aware that she had an audience watching her performance, so it took a couple seconds of processing to ask the onlooker a question. Hopping down from the case, she pointed at Meena, slightly confused, and asked “How… long were you standing there?”

“Just a little bit.” Meena responded. She sidestepped through the non-elephant friendly door and went to sit by her side. Regaining her composure, Ash decided to sit down and lay against the case she was previously using as a platform earlier. Her quills pressed outwards when they pushed against the case, making them into a sort of peacock fan. Meena sat down next to her as she stretched and flexed her fingers to relieve the strain they got from her guitar.

“So where did you learn how to play like that? It was really good!” The elephant asked, causing Ash to be slightly confused by her genuine interest. Not that many people really liked her “Loud, obnoxious garbage” she played. And certainly not Mike, who came over to her room earlier to try and get her to stop, to which she just played louder. Smiling a bit from the memory, Ash responded.

“Nothing special.” She said casually. “Took some lessons in high school, online and from friends. I’ve been playing for a couple years and I eventually got good. Even tried playing in a band for a bit, but it wasn’t really my thing.”

“Oh, cool! I could never play an instrument, the sheet music was too confusing for me to understand.” The elephant scratched the back of her neck while she spoke. After getting nothing back but a “mhm” and some moments of silence, Meena tried to talk for a bit longer.

“Did you get lessons from your friend?” Meena asked, forgetting Lance’s name for a quick moment. When Ash heard this, she let out a chuckle, causing Meena to fold her ears in slightly.

“As if!” The rocker sounded slightly offended as she raised her hands slightly. “Everyone thinks that Lance is the leader between us, that he’s the one who starting this whole, thing. But nobody even realizes that I’m the one that taught him how to play, and they’re giving him all of the credit!” Ash kept gesturing to nothing in particular and pressing her hands onto her shirt for emphasis.

“Wait, really?!” Meena was astonished and confused by Ash’s statement. “But it sounds like he is the lead when you two sang, why aren’t you the one leading?” Ash groaned and sighed at the same time from the thought of people mistaking her for the inferior of the two. Pressing a palm to her forehead, she tried to relive the memory

“Well, even though I’m good at guitar, I’m not the best in the songwriting department. The last time I tried to write one, I read it when I was done and trust me, it was disgusting!” She scoffed at herself from remembering her first “song,” which pained her to think about. Raising up her knees and placing her arms on them, she continued. “Lance is better at writing songs than I am anyways, so who knows. I guess it makes sense why people think that. Doesn’t make it any less frustrating.”

“Well that doesn’t sound fair.” Meena said. But instead of Ash agreeing with her, she simply said “Well, that’s life” and started to inspect and tune her guitar for another song she would soon play. The elephant felt sorry for Ash, but she could see that the rocker wasn’t in the mood for talking anymore. For a while, they both just sat there, not knowing what to do. It was only when Meena spotted her friend walk back into sight with Buster that she decided to do something. Standing back up, she started to make her way out. As she walked through the doorway, she turned to Ash and said “I’ll talk to you later, you did really good!” then jogged to her friend. Ash smiled from the compliment, then went back to her craft.

“Okay, you get back to your practice with Meena, and we’ll get started tomorrow!” Buster spoke enthusiastically as he strided up the steps to his office. He wiped some dust and gravel off of his suit, making Meena wonder what exactly the two did upstairs. She suddenly wondered to herself if the two even came back through the rehearsal rooms or not. ‘What did the two do up there?’

“Alright, but I’m doing this for Meena, not you!” Jude yelled back to the koala as he stopped at one of the corners for the stairway to look back at them.

“No problemo, now go on and get to work!” Buster went back to walking up the steps, and disappeared from sight. The jaguar looked down and put a hand on their hip, lost in thought for a moment. Their face was unreadable to Meena, and she wondered at just what had happened when they and Buster were alone. As their friend approached, Jude snapped out of it and put on a smile.

“Oh hey Meena.” They greeted their friend with a relaxed nature, but grew confused when Meena started to show confusion.

“Jude, what were you and Mr. Moon talking about?” Meena asked, growing slightly more suspicious at what Jude had decided to do this time. Her friend tried to put on a calming smile to relax her, but that just made Meena even more skeptical.

“Don’t worry Meena.” The jaguar put their paws around Meena’s hands. “Buster and I were talking for a while and he said that he needed a little more help around the theater. So after talking it out, I said that I would help him out!”

“Help out as in, cleaning up and locking up the theater?” Meena had a bad feeling that she knew where this was going.

“Well, yeah,” Jude added on, looking away for a quick moment, “but I’m also going to be helping out with the performances and stuff! He said I could be stagehand for the show! Cool right?!” The jaguar raised both of their hands up and smiled like a little cub. But Meena started to look slightly anxious when Jude announced her new role. Cautiously, she slowly pulled her hands away, leaving Jude as confused as Meena was before.

“Jude, you’re serious?”

“Um, yeah?” The two lowered their hands.

“You’re telling the truth?”

“Yeeah? Why do you sound worried?” Jude asked.

“Well, I don’t know…” Meena looked away, not sure how exactly she should tell Jude the truth. “You aren’t really… the best at this, stuff? Like, remember the play in middle school?”

“Uggghh!” Jude slapped a paw to their head, painfully recalling the memory of that play. “Don’t remind me. I still remember that whole thing, no matter how much I want to forget.” they placed their paws on their right hip and shivered slightly. “I can still feel the penguins’ beaks.” But then they quickly shook their head to snap out of it and looked back at Meena with a determined look in their eyes.

“But trust me Meena, this time it will be different! Buster is going to show me what to do tomorrow, so it won’t be a last minute thing like last time! I’ll actually know what to do, and I won’t mess anything up! It won’t be like… the incident.” They squinted their eyes and peered behind them, as if another memory of the play was sneaking up behind their back.

“I hope so. All that glue was hard to get off of my trunk.” The elephant did a quick check just to see if any glue still remained after all these years, manually lifting it up without the need of her hands. But to her pleasure, not one dot of it was seen, and she took a sigh of relief. “But are you sure you’re ready? This is a pretty big job!”

“Look Meena, how about we get back to practice? We can talk about it a little more back at the house, but we need to focus on your singing for now. Is that alright?” The elephant looked into the sapphire eyes of her friend, which were piercing right into her head. Meena knew that look all too well. She saw that look not only at the diner from yesterday, but also many years ago before the incident. Once she saw that look on Jude’s face, there was no stopping her, no matter what anybody did. So, still holding some reluctance in herself, she nodded and said “Alright.” Jude gave a fangy grin.

“Alrighty then, let’s get back to it!” Jude cheered with immense glee. Their friend tried to shake off their doubts and put on a smile for them, but it was harder than it sounded. So instead, Meena quickly spun around and walked towards their rehearsal room in an attempt to hide the worry on her face. Meena knew that this was all for good intentions, but at times Jude could go a little too overboard. She just hoped that their friend was telling the truth, and that everything would be okay in the end. But the tiniest, strongest feeling on her gut told her that things were going to go wrong someway, somehow. But, for the sake of her friend, she tried to put on a smile, and marched back to her room.

As Jude watched their friend turn away and walk back, they couldn’t help but to get a bad feeling in their gut as well. Her fangy grin died down as Meena put up a clearly fake smile for their sake. Jude couldn’t be fooled easily, they already knew.

‘See? Even Meena doesn’t trust you with this. YOU don’t trust yourself with this! Why are you doing this if you KNOW something is going to go wrong?’

‘No, this time it’s different. It won’t be like all the other times where I screwed everything up. Buster is showing me how to do this, and he already needed the help. It’s better this way, I can help her through this.’

‘Isn’t that basically what you said last time?’

‘No. And this time I WILL do it right! No more screw ups, no more accidents, no more disappointments. I got it this time. I have to for Meena. I have to for Meena. I have to for”-

“Hey whiskers, you done?” An all too familiar voice broke the jaguar out of her mood, and put them into a defensive mode. Looking around for the smug voice, Jude found the red and white fuzzball trying to climb down the impossibly large stairway. The Jaguar scowled at the mouse in disgust, figuring out that he eavesdropped on their entire conversation. They were also very displeased by the nickname that he dumped onto them, not exactly leaving a good ring to it. Mike only rolled his eyes at what he thought was an overdramatic, young child. When he dropped down from the last step, he answered his question for the jaguar and said “I’ll take that as a yes then.”

Jude took their hands off of their arms, not even realizing how they got there in the first place, and then folded them together to try and look a little more intimidating. It didn’t work on Mike.

“Now listen here ya’ big cat, I”-

“Sorry, what? I can’t hear you!” Jude yelled down to the mouse below, unable to get rid of the light smirk on their face in the process. Jude smiled even more when they saw his unamused expression.

“I know you can hear”-

“Sorry fluffball, I can’t understand a word you’re saying from up here!” The jaguar continued to tease the tiny aggressor, who was growing more irritated by the moment. Their eyes suddenly beamed with the realization of a perfect opportunity. “Hold on one moment squirt.”

Jude bent down, went on all fours, then laid down on their stomach right in front of Mike, who had his arms crossed and was still not amused. Meanwhile the jaguar was just snickering as if they heard the funniest joke ever said. After a groan, Mike continued.

“You done?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just get on with it.”

“About damn time…” The mouse mumbled to himself, shaking his head. Then raising it back up with a strict stare (that of course the jaguar did not take seriously), he looked at the taunter in their gigantic eyes.

“I heard you talking back there, about you bein’ the stage hand? So this, THING, whatever you’re planning right now, stop it!” The mouse stomped a foot down onto the floor, giving off only the faintest of thumps. Still amused, Jude tilted their head to the side for a second. “Thing?”

“I already know what’s going on here kid!” Mike yelled in the jaguar’s face, which he regretted when he heard some conversations around the two suddenly cut off. So the mouse took a deep breath and put on a fake smile, whispering through his gritted teeth.

“You’re gonna try and ruin everybody else’s performance and MAKE dumbo win! For all I know, you’re gonna kill us to have Meena win, then take the money for yourself!”

“Alright little guy, calm down.” Jude’s grin went away, leaving an expression similar to Mike’s earlier. Mike was about to burst again and scream, but Jude put a finger to Mike’s mouth, muffling his speech. “Listen shorty, while it may come as a surprise to you, I have standards. I have friends. I have something other than money that’s driving me to do this, and it’s a little thing called family. Although knowing you, it’s unlikely that you would understand what those things are.” Mike pulled himself away, his rage growing to new heights. But once again before he let out another outburst, Jude scooted forwards and shushed the small, angry mouse once again.

“I’m doing this so Meena can be happy, because she’s not the most confident. I came along to help her through the contest, and that is all. I don’t care about money, I don’t care about anything else, and I don’t care about what you think. I don’t have some sort of scheme or whatever you’re thinking about in that tiny brain of yours.” Jude pushed out one claw of theirs and flicked off their hat, revealing a tiny cowlick of white fur. Mike scampered to put his hat back on, but the secret was already out. The mouse stomped his foot again and glared at the jaguar once they started to snicker again. Then, calming themselves down, they tried to talk to the mouse again.

“So how about this rat?”

“I’m a mo”-

“Don’t care. How about this?” It looked like Mike was going to explode any second. Jude wondered if they had to go get a wet tissue to wipe everything up. “You stay out of our stuff, I’ll stay out of your stuff. We just leave each other alone and be on our way; that’s it. That sound okay with you ya’ little fuzzball?” The claw from the finger retracted, and Jude held it out to see if Mike would shake on it and leave the two alone. Mike looked from the finger to Jude and back again, appalled that Jude would even try to do something like this. But after a couple seconds, he shook his head and shoved the finger away.

“Yeah, like I’d ever make a deal with somebody who tried to KILL ME the day before!” This time the mouse didn’t bother with keeping quiet, causing Jude to grow more annoyed. “If you wanna make a deal, how about this? Stay out of my way and rush your fat friend home before she runs off crying herself. You two don’t even stand a chance against me!” Not bothering to listen to anything else the jaguar has to say, the mouse starts off to his rehearsal room to practice for the rest of the day. Successfully raising his ego back up to its normal high level, he smiled as he ran, mumbling to himself “That prize is as good as mine!” Jude lifted themself off of the ground, going back to both feet.

“And don’t call her fat!” Jude yelled, to which Mike replied “What, you want me to lie now? What person do you take me for?” in an painfully sarcastic tone. The jaguar ran their paws down their face, frustrated by their fruitless efforts to try and make the ride to the end of the competition smoother. But the jaguar just tried to shrug it off, and turned around to walk back to their room to their friend. However, they were met with the not so pleasant surprise of said friend watching the two talk. This in particular did not make Jude that angry, but when they saw Meena looking down at their stomach, they were sure that Mike could feel the swords darting into his soul. Marching back to their room in a huff, Jude grabbed the elephant’s hand and brought them back into the room.

“Don’t worry about it Meena, let’s just get back to practicing.” Without debating, and taking one more look down at their gut, Meena closed the door behind them and did as their friend wished.

Later that evening, as the music throughout the theater died, all of the contestants were cleaning up for the day. Gunter, Pete and Johnny had driven home in their cars, Mike had disappeared to wherever he went off to, and the rest of the contestants all waited for the bus. As for Miss Crawley and Buster, nobody knew where they went that night. Some of the contestants wondered if the two even left the building at all that night. But eventually, the thought faded from their minds and they all stood at the station, eager to get onto the bus and back home.

Jude and Meena tried to talk to each other about the song choices over the frog trio’s arguing, which seemed almost impossible with the degree at which they were yelling. Thankfully, Rosita was able to come to the rescue to herself and Ash, offering some disposable earplugs for the two of them. Ash appreciated it, since her phone had died about an hour ago and she forgot her charger. Jude and Meena however, were left on the bad end of the scale. After far too much yelling on top of yelling, the two decided to give in and ask for more earplugs. Rosita gratefully gave them to the two teens, and they both marvelled in the silence that was given to them. Then, like a blessing from Dog himself, the bus rolled up to a halt and the frog trio immediately stopped their yelling, giving a sigh of relief from the others waiting.

Rosita and Ash slumped into their seats, Ash making her’s into a pincushion. The two friends also made their way up, but as Meena walked on board, she put her hands into her pockets and stopped dead in her tracks. After feeling around and patting her sides, she spun around to Jude and whispered “I forgot your phone inside!” Not even waiting a moment, Jude hopped down from the steps, leaping over the frogs, and yelled behind their shoulder “Hold the bus for me!” The horse driver inside groaned at having to wait a little behind schedule.

Rushing through the empty halls of the building, Jude let their dark vision do their work as they made their way to the rehearsal rooms. They weren’t worried about having to run into anybody, since they were sure that everybody had left for the day. However, once they ran backstage, they skidded to a stop once they saw a light coming from up the steps along with some whistling. It didn’t sound like anybody was coming back down, but Jude decided to be cautious anyways. ‘Don’t want them to think I’m stealing anything.’

The jaguar went down into all fours, carefully crawling into the room they had last. But the old building showed its strain on the old floorboards, causing them to creak slightly with every pawfall. So taking long strides, they crawled as fast as they could into their rehearsal room and swiftly grabbed their phone from the table, feeling proud in their sneaking skills. ‘Jude Therna: expert thief extraordinaire!’

As they started to make their way back out, Jude heard a voice that sounded perky, enthusiastic, and certainly coming from a koala say “Miss Crawley, could you go get me some tape from downstairs in the storage room? I need help with this pipe.” The jaguar tensed up in fear of getting caught. Once they also heard a weary, peppy, certainly coming from a lizard voice reply with “Right away Mister Moon!” they booked it for the exit! Still going on all fours, they raced through the halls and burst out from the front door! Breathing heavy, the junior thief felt hyped up on adrenaline from the thrill of the heist! Smiling to themself as they put their phone in their pocket, they started to march back to the bus before they all left without them.

“Hold it right there!” The jaguar freezes mid step, and almost loses her balance from the voice. Quickly finding the source of the voice, they looked at the requester in slight confusion. It was a rather tall, female llama who was almost twice the height as Jude thanks to her neck. She wore red glasses along with some formal looking clothes, as if she was from some sort of big business. The binder she was holding further proved Jude’s theory. The jaguar put on a slight pout as the llama eyed her up and down, inspecting her for something.

“Do you work in this establishment here?” The lady spoke down to Jude while looking back up at the theater; her voice giving off a vibe of higher authority. Jude, not exactly sure what to say, thought back to earlier that morning, when they had agreed to work as a stage hand. So not sure what else to say, Jude simply nodded their head slowly. They could see the buss driver behind the lady growing more and more impatient by the minute.

“Is the owner if this building still here?” As Jude opened their mouth to answer, the llama didn’t even bother to listen.

“Oh don’t even answer, I know what you’ll say! “He’s out to lunch, he’s out for a bike ride, he’s out seeing a friend of his!” or some other petty excuse!” The lady took out her aggression on Jude, who was growing more and more confused with each second. Their voice simmered with rage, as if this had been going on for a long, long time. Once the lady started to search through her binder for the right papers, Jude tried to speak up once again, only to be cut off before they could reply.

“Well the next time you see him,” they pulled out several papers that were filled to the brim with multiple different notes, stamps, and markings across each, and gave them all to Jude, “give him these and tell him that he has spent far too long on his worthless plays and shows! He is behind on several dues and if he does not pay by the end of the”-

“Dude!” Jude turned the tables, cutting the lady off, which only made her angrier. But the jaguar was already pissed, so that simply just evened their levels of rage. “I was going to say that he is still in there. He’s upstairs in his office, calm down.” Jude pulled open the door for the llama, who was astonished at Jude’s straightforwardness. Feeling embarrassed, the lady swiped the papers from Jude’s paw and walked inside, trying to find her way up to Buster’s office. “And it’s not “Dude”, my name is Judith!” Then, the lady disappeared in the darkness of the theater.

As Jude let go of the door and ran back to the bus, they wondered about what that whole thing was about. They weren’t able to get a look at the papers, but since she said “behind on dues”, they assumed it was something with money. Leaping back into the bus, they sat back down next to Meena, who had now taken the window seat and was listening to music with her headphones. It didn’t seem like she noticed what just happened, so Jude prefered it that way and kept quiet. As the bus rolled away from the Moon Theatre, only one thought went through Jude’s mind.

‘Not even a thank you?!’

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