AN: Things are going down.
Day 40, the South Halls, 1645 Hours
Paris and the others hadn't lied, yet they hadn't told the full truth. They had told him the school was booby trapped and that all the traps had been armed. They had told him they were rigged to also go off randomly. They hadn't prepared him for just how randomly though.
One time the walls just behind them had smashed together a second after they had walked through, releasing a purple gas they had fled from as quickly as possible, only to nearly run directly into a pit that closed after a few seconds of waiting, sealing the inside of it away from any aid that could have been offered if one of them had fallen in.
The nightmarish school had become a full blown slaughterhouse which they had to traverse if they hoped to find anything they might have missed. They hadn't run into any of the animals that Mary had encountered yet but for all they knew the next corner would reveal a herd of them. They finally made it to the dorms, arming themselves with their specific weapons.
John grabbed his knife, Paris her mace, Atsuko came back with a gun that could only be fired after spinning the barrel, and Mary came back wielding a massive pair of hedge clippers.
"Topiary styling, which is a form of art so it does technically work," she said, clicking the clippers half-heartedly.
Now armed in case of further incident, they moved together avoiding the traps until the hallway split, Atsuko and Mary moving off back towards the library while Paris and John moved deeper into the complex from the relative safety of their rooms and the nurse's office. When they reached the Central Hall, a nightmarish series of pendulums swung lazily through the air, glinting with malice. John and Paris did their best to navigate the blades carefully, until the floor began to spin. Losing any feeling of safety that moving slowly had given them, they now dashed between the blades, doing the best to not lose their destination in the rapid crossing.
They reached the North Wing, and began moving towards the storage room.
"What the hell is Monokuma's play here?" Paris said, scanning for any traps as they moved forward.
"Probably trying to get one of us to off someone on accident," John muttered, "that, and with traps like that pit we could probably actually dispose of the body instead of leaving it out where it can be easily found."
Paris grimaced but didn't try to refute what he was saying. Thinking practically was what was going to get them through this time and getting worked up right now might result in a horrible error that could cost them their lives. John could still tell she didn't like what he was saying, so he didn't try to continue the conversation further, and neither did he.
As he walked further John paused a moment distracting Paris as a thought occurred to him. He started moving again right after but before he could reach where she had paused a metal wall dropped between them sealing them off from each other. John swore as he moved forward to pound on the metal, Paris answering him with her own pounding from the other side, which stopped suddenly to be replaced with her yelling a wordless exclamation.
John called out to her and continued pounding on the door, but there was no response. After a second he turned from the metal wall in disgust he was on the side that led away from the wing, meaning that Paris was alone on the side with access to the Monokuma Room. But, there was another way. John spun and did his best to locate a vent, spotting one in the ceiling and beyond reach. Growling he moved into the closest room.
He froze as the mechanical beasts modeled off various animals within turned to face him.
John slammed the door shut and wedged the knife in the jamb, barring it as best as he could as the door shuddered.
Right, bad idea.
Grate in the hall then.
He would need something to pry the grate off.
…
God…fucking…damn…it.
The door looked sturdy enough.
Wait, Monokuma wouldn't program them to use door handles, right?
….
FUCK.
And shouldn't there be traps? Or did the mechanical beasts count as trap enough?
One thing John was certain of was that standing around figuring out all the stuff that could kill him wasn't going to get him out of here any faster. With one thing confirmed without a doubt John thought of a second: He would need a boost to reach the grate.
Turning to the classroom opposite the other, John threw open the door and dashed inside. There was a loud hissing noise and reflexive John let himself fall to the ground. As he lay on the ground, he could hear things whizzing through the air above him, probably darts. So not this room's grate either. Reaching forward he grabbed a desk and slowly began dragging it out into the hallway.
The thudding hadn't let up by the time he reached the hall, and the door was shuddering quite violently. Lining up the desk, paused to observe the haze that had settled over the hall. It wasn't affecting him in any way that he could tell but he wouldn't put it past Monokuma to make it some tracking formula that the robots could follow.
Or it could just catch fire and incinerate him.
He seriously needed to stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
John moved over to the door and yanked at the knife, for it to stick in the door, and crush his fingers as the door banged into it. John turned away as he grabbed his throbbing hand, in time to see a section of floor farther up the hall retract back into the wall.
Monokuma had to be doing this on purpose.
Turning back to the door he grabbed the knife as tightly as possible and pulled the knife from the jamb on the second try, getting his fingers mashed again. He leapt onto the desk as the door made a splintering noise, but held. The floor was still slowly retracting further down the hall and the grate was slowly coming off.
He really hated Monokuma.
REALLY hated Monokuma.
The grate bounced off his head as the door finally broke, but luck was on his side as it slowed the robotic beasts down enough for him to boost himself up into the grate.
He was going to be-
SOMETHING WAS ON HIS FOOT.
John screamed as his foot was mangled by whatever beast had grabbed onto it. He began kicking wildly and futilely at the creature savaging him creating a loud banging sound. He was suddenly pulled downward by the entire weight of the metal beast as the floor retracted and removed the desk from underneath the beast. Now his arms were screaming in agony as they were pulled from their sockets.
Tears blinded him as the pain of his foot being torn apart and his arms slowly tearing off reached a peak and blackness started to take over. Finally, the weight vanished and John sucked in a breath of air to clear his head. Pulling himself forward sluggishly, John entered the grate fully. He was fairly certain he was going to have trouble walking, lifting things, and man were his lungs shot.
He resumed dragging himself forward while wheezing horribly. It was cramped and he could barely move his arms, there was no way he was going to be able to put them by his sides. If there was a corner it was going to be really hard to turn. Maybe he should have turned around and braved the traps back towards Mary and Atsuko. But then he would have abandoned Paris.
Well, he wasn't going to be much use if he bled out in a ceiling vent.
Come on, Ferris managed to do this, John thought.
That's because Ferris is so messed up by horribly unbalanced chemicals within his body that he probably doesn't even feel pain, John responded.
Fair enough but that doesn't mean he wouldn't feel fatigue from bleeding out.
He managed to not feel fatigue when he was literally rotting on his feet.
Why am I arguing with myself?
You're losing a lot of blood.
Oh, right.
On the bright side we aren't going on about the word wonky again.
Yes, but it is unlikely that Paris is going to be able to give me help if I need it like last time.
Look just focus on moving forward.
John bit down on the knife, reminding himself that it was still present. It was his only defense and now he was wounded. Or more wounded, he guessed. He was still feeling the aftereffects of the gas Monokuma had exposed him to. What he would do to have Atsuko's talent. Luck sounded way better than being able to scale his skill level to those around him. He didn't even get to be the best, just not the worst. Any talent would be better than his, since it also worked in reverse.
He wasn't intelligent like Ferris or Rowland had been, wasn't anywhere near as athletic as Paris or Chloe.
Perhaps the thing that pissed him off the most was the fact that he could never truly help because his talent meant that there was always someone better present than him.
It really sucked, he wasn't actually special because he was good or anything, just that he managed to find the god damn middle ground of any group and exist. He could never excel by his own skill except when he was alone by himself or with only one other person. And even then he still was pretty damn average. His entire life was basically doomed to mediocrity.
Or to die of blood loss in the ceiling of a murder arena.
Not what he was expecting but then again who really excepts to die?
Okay probably a lot of people but still, the murder arena was a surprise.
It occurred to him that he should probably start calling out to Paris, otherwise he was just going to be banging around in the vents slowly dying of having his foot destroyed by a killer robot. He could drop out of the vent and limp around the halls…and there were spears erupting out of the floor. That trap again.
He could just stab Monokuma the next time he saw him.
It would probably be a fairly quick death, seeing as he had already lost quite a bit of blood.
Okay he needed to get out of the vent and bandage his foot so he didn't die in here. Or out there for that matter.
Fuck how was he supposed to get the grate off the vent so that he could give himself first aid? Ferris had just kicked the vent off, but he had been able to turn himself around without having to utilize an intersection.
He wondered if the afterlife was better than this.
Yes, he decided but he wasn't ready to go to it yet.
It took him a couple of tries but he got a vent off in a classroom that seemed to be fairly trap free before falling to the floor and almost knocking himself unconscious as pain radiated up his leg from his foot.
He took a moment to hate himself and the entire world.
But not too long. He was still bleeding. And still had no idea where Paris was. Maybe he should scream until she showed up. That didn't sound too bad actually.
John carefully took his shirt off, wrapped his foot in it and tied it off with his belt. He then began screaming as many cuss words as he knew at the top of his voice.