AN: Hey, thanks for giving this story a look, it's my first one, so polite criticism is welcome, and always will be. I'll try to update this story biweekly or so, and with one more thing let the story begin.

I do not own Danganronpa, I think Spike Chunsoft does.

?, ? Hours

John felt consciousness return to him slowly. His brother was telling him to wake up, it was probably getting to the point they would be late for school, and…and…wait, that wasn't right. He had received an invite to a prestigious school, one of the best in the world, scouting out some of the greatest talent of this generation…of course; he couldn't remember the name of the school for some reason. Also, he wasn't really happy with the 'talent' he had been scouted for, the Ultimate Everyman. He was the average of almost everything he'd ever done. He was the average height for his age, average weight too, and he always placed the average in whatever class or sporting event he'd partaken in. Only in puzzles and games had he any success, and even then he was far from the best. He really wondered why they decided that there was an ultimate average person when the very title referenced the fact that he could have been replaced by almost anyone.

Anyhow, he was not in bed, it felt more like he had fallen asleep at a desk or table, and that was probably not his brother poking him. Forcing his eyes opened he was treated to five seconds of vision before a finger was jammed in his eye. Swearing loudly he shoved the offender backwards, sitting up straight, and ripping off a layer of skin from the drool that was sticking his face to the desk that he could now see out of the eye he wasn't covering. Rubbing his eye, he turned to face the short, abnormally pale boy that was laughing from where he fell. He was Caucasian like John, with brown hair and crooked teeth, and was wearing a grey hoodie with a green shirt underneath, where part of a graphic was visible, along with faded tan cargo pants and a pair of worn blue sneakers.

"Don't just stand there looking offended, give me a hand up!" he said sticking a hand towards John.

Sighing, John grabbed the boy's hand and pulled him…into the air slightly. John realized now that the boy was several inches shorter than he had even guessed as he sat the boy, still chuckling with his eyes closed, on his feet. Opening his eyes, the boy looked up at John. John did a double take as he registered the grayish film over the boy's eyes. It took the boy's eyebrows moving up for John to realize he was staring. Apologizing, he quickly took a look around the room, which seemed to be a classroom of some sort.

After a few moments the boy said, "I'm Ferris Dalton, a pretty big deal in chemistry, if we're done standing here in awkward silence."

Ferris Dalton

Ultimate Chemist

John recognized him, but not from any special interest in chemistry. He had done research on his classmates just to know what people to watch for, and he hadn't done much research on Ferris frankly because there wasn't much info. He had discovered his talent from wandering around the lab his father worked at, smuggling materials into an unused lab. He did this so well that they only found out when they found him passed out from fumes produced by a fairly unstable solution he had just created. After verifying he had avoided any damage from his unsupervised experimentation with the chemicals, he was allowed back, before he was employed by the American government. He was recently fired for insubordination although over what was unclear.

"John Smith," John said, looking back towards Ferris, who was giving the room a bored look around, suggesting he had already inspected it before he had tried to wake John.

"The Everyman guy, right? So this is probably uh, the school, right?" Ferris responded giving John another look over, "You do look like the average guy."

And John had to agree with Ferris's description, what with his brown hair and eyes, and the plain white tee he wore along with his blue jeans and worn gym shoes. His overall appearance meant that he could be mistaken for almost anyone in the right light, well any male.

Frowning he asked, "You don't remember the name either?"

"No, but it shouldn't be that much of a problem, although, the sealed windows are a little unsettling."

John blinked and turned to the sole window in the room which was covered by a blind. He moved to it and lifted the blind, revealing an imposing sheet of metal that looked welded into the wall. He turned around to find Ferris leaning against the door inspecting the clock above the chalk board.

He cut John off by motioning him out into the hallway where he began moving towards another door, moving fast for his stature.

"We have about ten minutes before orientation," he said as he looked into the next classroom, moving in and, ignoring the girl sleeping in one of the desks, wiped a message about an orientation starting at eight off the chalkboard.

John opened his mouth to ask why he was erasing the boards when Ferris preceded to poke the girl's shoulder, much like he had with John. Changing tact, John instead asked, "Why are you poking her?"

"To wake her up."

"Couldn't you achieve the same effect by shaking her shoulder?"

"Yes, but," Ferris said turning to John as he continued to poke the girl's shoulder, "I find this much more entertaining."

John once again got ready to question Ferris's reasoning when the girl stirred, sat up and turned towards them. Ferris didn't see this and poked her again, causing her to be instantly alert and mad enough to knee Ferris in a quite unfortunate place for the chemist as she stood up. This caused Ferris to double forward and crash into the girl, once again in an unfortunate place, knocking her back into her seat. All of this happened so fast all John managed to do was stand there with his mouth slightly open. John blinked once to let his mind to catch up to the present, where Ferris was on the ground in the fetal position, chuckling slightly, and the girl had a very stunned look on her face.

"OK," Ferris said in a strained voice as he managed to stand up, still bent over with his hands on his knees, "That was an accident and, your reaction, was fully understandable and will not be held against you in anyway whatsoever, yeah? I am going to ask that you understand what happened after your reaction was, unintentional, on my part, OK?"

Ferris stood up straight and offered his hand to the girl, which she took, and she gave a soft cry of surprise as he pulled her out of her seat and shook her hand with both of his after the girl found her center of balance. John took the time to inspect her. She was shorter than Ferris who was impressively short already, and seemed to be of Asian descent. She had black hair and hazel eyes, and like John was wearing a white shirt, but with a blue fluffy vest over it, and a turquoise skirt. She also had a red scarf around her neck and a pair of brown sandals.

"What's your name?" John asked her as Ferris released her hand from his vigorous handshake, "I'm John Smith, the Ultimate Everyman, and he's Ferris Dalton, Ultimate Chemist."

"'I'm Atsuko Miharu, Ultimate Lucky Student."

Atsuko Miharu

Ultimate Lucky Student

"That's Japanese right? Are you from Japan?" Ferris asked.

"No. well, yes, but we moved here when I was young for my father's job," Atsuko responded.

John did his best to remember something about Atsuko, but like him she was technically ordinary with no special skills except that she was extremely lucky because out of a lottery of almost the entire country, she was picked. It did make John feel slightly better that he wasn't the only average person in a class full of geniuses.

John blinked as Ferris called his name from the door and Atsuko plucked at his sleeve prompting him to follow them. He stayed quiet as Ferris lead the way to the gym where orientation was happening according to him. Atsuko also remained fairly quiet along the way, which didn't bother Ferris at all as he filled the air with inane chatter about the properties of alkaline earth metals. He didn't seem to care that none of the information was being absorbed by the other two, and seemed to simply be distracting himself by talking about the first thing that had come to mind.

Ferris came to a set of double doors, pushing them open to a quiet babble of conversation that quieted as the trio entered.

John caught a brief sense of others inhabiting the room before an imposing figure planted itself in front of him. John took a quick stock of the figure, a male in a crisp green military uniform, an albino John realized taking in the figure's red eyes and colorless hair that was styled into a buzz cut. It took John a minute to realize that he was being addressed, in fact ordered, to divulge any information he had on the current situation. Stepping backwards with his hands up John tried to form words but only ended up stuttering. He looked around for help from Atsuko, who had stepped behind him in order to avoid the man's interrogation, which was having the opposite effect she had intend as the man proceeded to step around John to yell at her.

"OI! Alexander! They're civilians, I've been with them as long as they've been awake and all they know I know and more," said Ferris.

John turned to look at Ferris as Alexander stepped around him again to glare at Ferris. Ferris stood looking Alexander in the eye as best he could as the taller boy towered over him. John couldn't help but hold his breath as Ferris glared at Alexander with just as much intensity as he was glaring at Ferris.

Finally, Alexander said, "Then, Scientist Ferris, what do you know?"

"Meet here at eight for orientation, that's all that is truly important," Ferris responded, "Beyond that, nothing, besides it seems this is the class assembled for…"

"I see," Alexander said after Ferris trailed off, "You don't remember the school's name either, I will need time to strategize."

With that, Alexander turned on his heel and strode past the other students to a corner of the gym.

"Alexander Hayes, tactical genius, just as much a solider boy as when we worked together."

Alexander Hayes

Ultimate Tactician

Before John could ask more Ferris gave a whoop and ran across the room. John turned to Atsuko, who simply shrugged and said, "He's the friendliest here as far as I can tell, let's stick with him."

Nodding they moved after him, finding him hugging a pale girl who was barely shorter than him, with blonde brown hair drawn into a pony tail and blue eyes. She had a spatter of freckles across her face, and was wearing a lab coat, and as she and Ferris pulled apart, a red sweater and black pants became visible. Turning to see them, Ferris gestured them over saying, "That's John Smith and Atsuko Miharu, the two 'normal' people, and you two, this is Skully, she cuts dead people up."

"Louise Sully, and I'm a Forensic Expert, so while I do cut up dead people as Ferris calls it, it's to help catch criminals."

Louise Sully

Ultimate Forensic Expert

John and Atsuko exchanged pleasantries with her and the four began conversing. John looked up after a few minutes as another group of people moved over to them. Ferris moved to the fore front and began introducing them to the new comers, while John simply observed them.

There were four in this group, and the most noticeable a girl slightly shorter than him with long, curly, black hair and striking violet eyes. She wore a green dress with matching heels, and now that she was closer, John saw that she was wearing makeup. The next person to catch John's eye was an African boy with dreadlocks, wearing a black Pink Floyd shirt and jeans, with flip flops. After him was a tall pale boy, easily the tallest in the room, with black hair that curled around his ears and curled up around his neck with green eyes. He wore a brown trench coat over a neat blue shirt and brown formal pants with black leather shoes. He seemed to be following Ferris's introductions and looking over their group, noting details like he was. The final was a girl about the same height as the first one, though this may simply be because the other was wearing heels, with an artist's smock on, she had red hair and freckles with hazel eyes. John could barely tell the dress shirt she was wearing had been white it was spattered with so much paint, and he could see jeans underneath her smock, as well as sandals.

Finally done with his observations he caught Ferris's last words of introduction. The girl in the smock, who had been in front this entire time but had been less eye-catching then the others, stuck out her hand and said, "I'm Mary Klee, nice to meet you all, and I'm artist."

Mary Klee

Ultimate Artist

John shook her hand when she proffered it to him, listening as the boy with dreadlocks stepped forward.

"I'm Billy Blake, Behavior Analyst, and it's good to meet you again Sully, and nice to meet the rest of you, I hope you're not as much of a tight ass as Chadwick."

Billy Blake

Ultimate Behavior Analyst

"Yes, we worked on a few cases together didn't we?" Louise said nodding at Billy.

The next forward to introduce themselves was the other girl, who spoke with a thick Russian accent, "I am Amelia Ivanov, and I am sure you have heard of me."

John had, and had been surprised. Amelia was one of the few classmates he hadn't had to research because she was an actress and he had already seen most of her movies.

Amelia Ivanov

Ultimate Actress

After shaking her hand everyone turned to the final one to introduce themselves. The tall boy stood there and watched them for a minute. Mary moved forward as if to elbow him to get him to speak but he spoke before she could elbow him.

"Rowland Chadwick. I'm told I'm smart."

Rowland Chadwick

Ultimate Brainiac

Now that the introductions were done, John took a second to remember what he had read about Rowland and Mary, since he only really remembered the crime stuff about Billy. Mary had made several masterpieces in several different mediums and they had been put in quite a few different museums. Rowland…Rowland was simply listed as his name and talent, which was a little strange. Then again, there wasn't much on Ferris and Alexander due to their military connections, so maybe he worked with the government.

"Are you British? Because you have an English accent," Atsuko asked him.

"Yes."

There was a minute of silence as the group waited for Rowland to continue, before Mary elbowed him, causing him to focus on the group.

"Oh did you want me to elaborate? I'm from London, and I came to this country to attend the school that no one remembers."

"And, how about you, Amelia?" Atsuko asked awkwardly as Rowland once again fell silent, "Did you come over from Russia to attend?"

"No, I moved here for my career as an actress," Amelia responded, "Of course, that's not to say Russia has a terrible film industry, I just really wanted to experience America's."

"Oh and how do you find it?"

John looked around the room again as Amelia described what it was like to work in the movies. He caught sight of two more students towards a corner of the room, a boy about John's height and a girl who was…husky. They were conversing quietly, and the boy was shooting glances towards the group he was in and Alexander who was standing off to the side, and had taken a pen and paper from somewhere and was writing stuff down. John shook his head putting Alexander to one side for now and waving towards the pair in the corner. The boy, seeing this, waved back and began moving forward. The girl stood still for a second before following.

"Hey there," he said as he reached John and the others, "Do any of you know where we are?"

"No, sorry," John said, before offering him his hand, "I'm John by the way, and these are, Ferris, Atsuko, Amelia, Louise, Rowland, Billy, and Mary."

After shaking his hand and following his introduction the boy responded, "Nice to meet you folks, I'm Barry Sweets, best musician out there according to the folks at the board."

Barry Sweets

Ultimate Musician

Barry had sandy blonde hair, and hetero-chromatic eyes, one brown the other green. His nose was crooked, probably broken at some point. His grey tee had stains on it, and his jeans were faded, and the shoes were also grey with caked dust. John remembered more on him, he had even downloaded a few songs from one of his albums. He remembered that Barry was a very frugal spender, only buying stuff when he absolutely had to and actually lived in an apartment building, stuff he had learned from an episode of a series he didn't really watch, but had watched because nothing better was on.

Barry continued shaking hands as the girl stepped forward. She was taller than Ferris by about an inch or so, and was wearing a gothic style black dress and matching shoes. She had red hair and green eyes with freckles spattered across her pale face. She put her hand out and spoke with a German accent as she said, "Hello John, I am Perdita Rutherford."

"What are you here for?" John asked, but he remembered her from the bios posted online.

"I am a singer."

Perdita Rutherford

Ultimate Vocalist

Perdita was primarily an opera singer but had also done more modern songs as well. She could reach any register and had almost complete control over her voice. John hadn't really heard much of her performances, but even her speaking voice had a melodic quality to it. Before she could continue Alexander spoke out.

"We are missing five."

"Yes," Rowland said, "there should be sixteen of us. We are missing the aeronaut, the wizard, the survivalist, the thespian, and the football player."

Alexander nodded his approval of Rowland's statement before continuing, "If they are not here soon I suggest we search for them."

"Oh quiet down solider boy," Ferris said, "I seriously doubt they're going to decide to beat each other to death. There's been absolutely nothing dangerous in this school so I seriously doubt we need to mount a rescue mission."

Alexander opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by the door banging open. Turning to look, a boy in all black, slightly taller than John, swept into the room with a shorter Asian girl and a boy in an aviator's jacket about in between their height.

"Greetings classmates, I am Adam Dakota! And I am the Ultimate Thespian."

Adam Dakota

Ultimate Thespian

Adam was to the stage what Amelia was to the screen. John knew this from the bio, not any actual like for theater. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, with a hooked nose. John could see one of his ears was pierced, with a few rings and studs. He continued striding towards the group, still speaking.

"I am sure you are worried by our lateness but be assured that-"

The door slamming open cut him off as a girl about the same height as the other boy barreled through the door and plowed him down. She had strawberry blonde hair cut fairly short, and had blue eyes. She was wearing a soccer jersey, with gym shorts and shoes, Nike, by the look of the logo.

"Oh, sorry, sorry! I was asleep and I just woke up and was trying to not be any later and-"

"Oh, it's fine, you did ruin the scene," Adam said dusting himself as he picked himself up.

"Oh, uhm, well-ah, ok, I guess," she said, before shaking herself and saying, "I'm Paris, Paris Prowse, the soccer player."

Paris Prowse

Ultimate Soccer Player

Paris was quite the success story; she had started out in a small town and had to commute to hours to school, where she was struggling. One day, she played a game of soccer at recess and played so well the coach asked her if she wanted to join the team. She quickly gained popularity and success after that. John was a fan and had been excited to meet her, and he was not the only one because, surprisingly enough, Rowland spoke up.

"You're Paris Prowse? Pleasure to meet you, I'm Rowland. You are one of the best football players there have been."

Paris smiled at him, and opened her mouth to respond when the boy in the aviator jacket spoke out.

"I'm Wilbur Hughes, pilot."

Wilbur Hughes

Ultimate Aviator

Wilbur had got his pilot's license at fourteen, and had performed in several stunt shows, performing many death defying stunts. He had brown hair and eyes and was missing a tooth. He wore a pair of googles around his neck and had jeans and brown leather shoes. He was also very tan. John had once watched one of his shows on television and had been amazed at the stunts he had been willing to perform. As he was remembering this, Amelia stepped forward and addressed the girl who had yet to speak.

"It is good to see you again Miss Batsu."

"Hello Amelia; and we should just use first names since we're classmates."

"Alright, Jane."

John tried to remember what Jane was known for. She continued talking to Amelia while Wilbur and Paris talked to the rest of the group and Adam was grilled by Alexander for why he was late. Looking Jane over, John took in her black hair and brown eyes, noted her bandana that she wore around her arm as well as her tie-dyed tee. She was wearing a black skirt and a pair of sandals. John still couldn't remember what she was known for but then he overheard Amelia say effects and he remembered.

She's the special effects specialist, he thought.

Jane Batsu

Ultimate Special Effects Wizard

John turned towards the stage set up in the middle of the room. No one had really given it much mind, because most assumed that it was for orientation. John now took a moment to inspect it because everyone else had dispersed into their own conversations, including Atsuko who had joined Ferris and Louise. Moving towards it, he realized there was something moving on it.

"Something's on the stage."

"What?"

John turned to Ferris, who was now looking out him, along with everyone else.

"Something is on the stage," he said again.

John stepped out of Alexander's why as he cut through the group from where he had been interrogating Wilbur as to why he was late, followed by Ferris and Rowland. He reached out to lift himself onto the stage when he suddenly got hit by a mop.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," came a voice as the wielder of the mop came into view.

A penguin, half white half blue, walked out from behind the podium, dragging a bucket of water into view, although how he hid behind the podium this entire time was unclear. It had a small hat with the word 'Janitor' written on it. The eye on the white side was a button while the eye on the blue was a cut out section of fabric revealing a lens with a green light shining through it.

"This stage is for staff, ONLY. No students, graduates, or drifters."

Alexander was the first to work through the shock of being addressed by a stuffed animal, asked, "Who are you and where are we?"

"I am Shi-ru and I do all the menial labor around this place," the penguin replied, tapping the hat, "and the other one will be answered by the principal during orientation."

The group relaxed noticeably after Shi-ru said this, but John felt that he had put an awful lot of venom into the word principal. Further questioning of Shi-ru was stopped by the sound of the gym door opening and everyone turning to catch a glimpse of the last student.

She looked surprised as everyone turned to look at her and paused in the doorway. She was almost as tall as Rowland, who was the tallest boy in the room. She was extremely tan, and her hair was sun-bleached blonde and pulled into a braid. She was wearing a western hat and had a brown jacket on over a green shirt. She was wearing a tan skirt, but John could see jeans poking out of her hiking boots.

She spoke with an Australian accent as she introduced herself.

"Well, looks like I'm the last one here. I'm Chloe Johnson, survivor extraordinaire."

Chloe Johnson

Ultimate Survivor

Before John could really think of any of the information he had read on her, a voice sounded through the PA system. Which, John could not locate strangely enough. Anyways the voice was very childish, like something from a cartoon.

"Attention all students! In the future lateness will not be tolerated. Orientation starts now!"

And another stuffed animal leaped out from behind podium.