A/N: A small plot bunny that, with enough sleepless nights, eventually evolved into a dinosaur.
Warning: Made for my own enjoyment, written at random, may contain ooc...
Disclaimer: I don't own the Persona series, if I did then I'd be swimming in the Collective Unconscious.
The streets were loud, crowded, and full of lights all over. People were all over the place, from some shady looking teens in the alleys, to some corporate businessman looking guy, to an awkward group of students just walking around at random with their dog, all the way to store owners closing up shop. Iwatodai was just like any normal city on any normal island, with just a tiny bit more…
Midnight came, and the hour and minute hands both grabbed each other at the twelve. The city turned silent. The world turned acid green, the moon became a disgusting yellow, and any and all water became a substance that looked not unlike blood.
The people had all been replaced with coffins suspended as if standing. The world around was completely silent. As all went dark and anything electronic seemed to stop working.
All except for the barking of a small dog and the conversation of an awkward looking group of what looked to be students…well most of them…walking around at random. Composed of a few teens, a kid, a thug looking guy, and a dog, the group stood out like a sore thumb.
"Like I said dude, we can totally cash in on this situation!" a teen wearing a baseball cap was discussing to no avail with another blue haired teen, it seemed he was being ignored.
"…" the blue haired teen responded by putting on his headphones and toying around with the buttons on his no longer working music player in hopes of somehow managing to turn it on.
"I'm pretty sure that means "no" Stupei" a girl wearing a pink sweater retorted.
"Aw c'mon Yuka-tan, Mitsuru's finally gone for once. This is probably going to be our only chance!" the baseball cap wearing teen Junpei turned towards a white haired teen, "You agree with me don't you Akihiko-sempai?"
"Junpei...the last time we listened to you…" the white haired teen Akihiko took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for the incoming memories. "…I got executed. After that I vowed to never listen to another one of your insane ideas ever again."
"Besides, you remember what Mitsuru-san said don't you?" the teal haired girl Fuuka nervously asked.
"Oh right…" Junpei thought back to the meeting that morning.
Flashback…
Back at the dorm the SEES members were all gathered in the lounge. Everyone gathered around Mitsuru as she let out a volley of coughs. Ironically enough the ice user of the team had caught a cold.
"Now…" she momentarily paused and let out another violent string of coughs before continuing, "…Now while I'm gone I want to remind you guys that I will not tolerate abuse of the Dark Hour for your own purposes- a-achoo!" she grabbed a tissue from Akihiko and turned towards Junpei. "That especially goes to you Junpei"
Present time…
"But she's not here now is she?" Junpei pulled the visor of his cap down and smirked. "...and to quote Fuuka…"Now's our chance for an all out attack!"
"H-Hey I don't sound like that!" Fuuka retorted, but Junpei wasn't listening.
"Hm...maybe not now, but maybe in the future..." their blue haired leader looked up to the green sky with a distant look.
Flash forward…to…?
"ACHOO!" Rise Kujikawa suddenly felt a chill down her spine as she sneezed.
"What's wrong Rise? Catch a cold?" a short haired girl wearing a green and yellow sports jacket asked as she walked alongside her friend.
"Nah, probably just some boy talking about me," Rise gasped "It might even be sempai! That's possible right Chie?"
Chie sweat dropped. "Uh…yea…?"
Elsewhere…
A young silver haired teen sneezed. "…" he grabbed a tissue from the table and blew his nose.
"What's wrong Big Bro?" Nanako looked worriedly at him. "Did you catch a cold?"
"…Maybe…" the silver haired teen smiled and reassured his cousin. "It's nothing."
Back to wherever we left off…
The blue haired teen thought to himself, 'hm…maybe not afterall…' and continued walking.
The group ended up at Paulownia Mall. Usually it was fairly busy, but today was a Sunday and many stores closed early and were already locked up. There weren't many people, shown by there not having been any noticeable coffins in the area.
The group searched around, originally they had thought the shadows were supposed to be here, but there was no sign of any ridiculous monsters nearby.
"Guys you know what this means?" Junpei was jumping for joy at the empty mall. "No shadows, no people, no Mitsuru, we can do whatever we want dudes! Right leader?"
"…" Minato had gotten tired of listening to Junpei's begging, but there weren't any shadows in sight. He mentally sighed and gave up. 'Whatever happens now isn't my problem.' Closing his eyes he walked around surveying the area.
"I'll take that as a "YES!"" Junpei was ecstatic about finally getting a chance to exploit the Dark Hour. "Yo Ai-tan! Akihiko-sempai! I need your help! Help me pick these locks to this videogame store here!"
Akihiko from past traumas didn't feel like trying his luck. "You gotta be kidding me, no way man, I don't want Mitsuru to execute me, right Aigis?"
Their blond haired robotic companion didn't answer. "…Aigis?"
"…completed" Unfortunately for Akihiko, Aigis had a hobby of picking locks. Moreover she seemed to feel like a track runner in regards to the time it took for her to finish.
"Nice Ai-tan!" Junpei tried to open the door, but found that it was also chained. "Ah what the hell, why not?" he took out his sword and hacked at the chains until they broke.
"W-wha!? No that's wrong! Don't pick the locks. We shouldn't even be doing this! C'mon guys...guys?" Akihiko's turned around to see the girls in a corner of the mall.
"Yukari...those dresses are rather nice aren't they?" Fuuka was staring intently into the window of a clothing store.
"Oh you're right! These would go perfectly with the clothes you and I already have...but they're so expensive...Aigis!" Yukari shamelessly changed sides at the drop of a hat.
"You girls…Hey Minato, tell them to stop, for their own good!" Akihiko turned around and found that their leader wasn't there.
On the other side of the mall, inside the now closed music store, their blue haired leader just stopped caring. 'Ah, just screw it.' He took up a pair of headphones, and put them down. 'Nah, Fuuka already made me a pair…'
Looking around the music store, he noticed something in the corner. "…!" 'Oh? New reincarnation tracks? Right the premium release is tomorrow...they must've put them on the shelves before they left…I'll take a few copies thank you very much...' grabbing the CD's he put them in his jacket.
Walking towards the exit, the blue haired boy stopped at the register and opened it. Putting in the total payment for the CD's he closed the register and continued to walk out of the store. '…I'm glad I read that book on how to pick locks…'
Akihiko face-palmed, 'that's not the point…' sighing to himself he took refuge in the thought that the other three wouldn't do something like that.
"Guess I can only trust you three huh?" when Akihiko heard no reply he asked again. "…guys?…Shinji?...Ken?...Koro!?" turning around he saw a tumbleweed rolling on the floor. How or why there was a tumbleweed in the mall he had absolutely no idea.
A not so morally righteous looking teen stood in front of a locked store full of cooking utensils. His name was Shinjiro Aragaki.
Currently Shinjiro was talking to himself and debating. "Hm...I should get that pasta cooker...but I gotta make sure I can also bring those cookbooks along with me...hm...that mixer looks pretty good too..." After five minutes of fighting his inner demons and another three minutes of planning he came to a conclusion. "Ah well, people already mistaken me for a thug, guess I can act like one just this once..."
Picking up a nearby bench, Shinjiro threw it into the windows of the empty cooking store. He then climbed in and proceeded to grab everything in sight. "Koro-chan's sure gonna be happy."
Right across from Shinjiro was a pet food store. And right in front of the pet food store was a dog named Koromaru. Wagging his tail he seemed to be holding a conversation with Aigis.
"Bark! Bark!" Koromaru conveyed his message while wagging his tail.
"I see…so you wish for me to create an unnoticeable doggy door into this shop?" Aigis calculated the amount of time to make the door. "Please give me five minutes…"
After five minutes, a doggy door was installed into the pet food shop. Koromaru went in and came out dragging three bags of Gourmet Dog Food. "Bark! Bark!"
"I see…I wish you luck on your task…" Aigis waved to Koromaru as the dog ran past Ken and out of the mall with the bags of dog food.
Akihiko neither understood nor wanted to understand. Instead he focused on finding their youngest member before he committed a morally questionable act.
Inside a now unlocked comic book store, courtesy of Aigis, stood a young boy. Ken Amada currently had stars in his eyes as he picked up a box of DVD's. "Yes! Yes! Yes! A Phoenix Featherman R limited edition box set!"
"No, No, No, KEN!" seeing that even the youngest member of the team was now stealing Akihiko completely gave up.
"Ah…screw it…" Akihiko gave in and walked towards the locked fitness store. Jabbing a fist straight through the door he felt around and turned the knob from the inside. "…I tried to stop them…" Finding his way in, Akihiko took a paper bag from the checkout area. Walking towards the shelves he started grabbing protein shakes and putting them in the bag. "If anyone asks it was all Junpei's idea…"
The next day…
The now completely healthy Mitsuru stared icily at Akihiko and Junpei. When she spoke, they both felt like jumping out the window. Sadly not even that would've saved them.
"I am very disappointed in you two…" Mitsuru looked towards the two with even more killing intent.
Mitsuru thought back to the shock she had received this morning. To Junpei and Akihiko's horror her killing intent increased.
This morning…
Mitsuru was surprised when Officer Kurosawa came into the dorm so early in the morning. She had been told that there had been no shadows the previous night and hoped that was true. What she heard in the next ten minutes was even more terrible.
"It seems as if there were multiple alleged theft crimes in the previous night, and it just so happened that they seemed to be in between 12:00am and 12:01am..." Kurosawa looked at her with interrogating eyes. "Funny thing is that it seemed like everything just up and disappeared without a trace..."
"Officer you wouldn't be implying that-" Mitsuru was cut off.
"Even funnier is that what was missing was a large number of videogames and protein shakes..."
"Oh god no…" Mitsuru was almost wishing that she was back to being sick.
"Yea and the funniest part of all…" Kurosawa held a bunch of papers in his hand. "According to this there were, sword marks and boxing glove fibers found at the scene of the crime. Didn't I sell you guys a sword and a pair of boxing gloves? I wouldn't suppose you'd know anything about these incidents, would you?"
"No sir, I made sure that the others were all firmly told to not abuse the Dark Hour-"
As if on cue, Junpei and Akihiko both came into the lounge.
"Man sweet! These new videogames I bought are AWESOME~ dude! gotta say SMT has come a long~ way!" Junpei said while playing on his handheld game system.
"Morning guys…" Akihiko suddenly froze when he saw Kurosawa and Mitsuru talking. Putting down his protein shake he nervously shook inside. "…Did something happen…?"
Back to the present…
"W-Wait the others stole stuff too! I mean for goodness sake Shinjiro-sempai stole a friggin' pasta cooker!" Junpei cracked under the pressure of Mitsuru's intimidating gaze.
"Junpei's right for once! What about the others?" Akihiko couldn't believe it himself, but he agreed with Junpei for once.
"So you admit to having abused the Dark Hour, when I specifically told you not to." As Junpei and Akihiko freaked out Mitsuru answered their question. "Also according to Kurosawa-san, nothing other than what was mentioned was seen missing, care to offer evidence?"
Flashback…to afterwards…
"I-It won't fit…" Fuuka suddenly burst out in tears and ran out the mall.
"Aigis fix the locks!" Yukari yelled at Aigis before running after Fuuka.
Flash...
Walking out of the music store, Minato saw Fuuka run out of the mall. 'This isn't good…' thinking about chasing after her he noticed that he needed to fix the locks. Following what he learned in that book about breaking and entering he quickly returned the locks to their original state and ran after her. '…Scathach!'
Flash…
Koromaru moved as fast as he could. Taking the Gourmet Dog Food to the nearest park he could find, he dug a hole as deep as time would allow and buried the three bags of dog food.
Flash…
Ken was in a comic book shop in Paulownia Mall. After seeing Fuuka run out in tears and their leader run after her, he figured she'd be okay. Grabbing the box set, he cursed and put it back.
"This is terrible! They call it "Limited Edition" but it's the exact same thing we got last time, except for a few extra scenes and better packaging! They don't even include an action figure or a figma!" Ken started thinking. "If I take this, they'll notice it's missing…moreover it's not worth it when I already have it."
Putting the box back he noticed something next to it. "Ah whatever I'll just take this Cycloid V box set, no one would notice, but it's actually pretty deep…" Ken then fixed the locks, courtesy of Aigis, before leaving with the nostalgic series in hand.
Flash…
Shinjiro didn't pride himself on being a genius, but he did know that he was in deep waters now. The windows were trashed, and the store was practically devoid of the cooking tools it prided itself in. "Crap…"
Shinjiro took a moment to think and noticed that Fuuka was running out of the mall in tears. 'Sorry, but I got bigger problems to deal with…' "Wait a minute…that might just work…"
Placing the bench back where it was before he threw it, Shinjiro took out a piece of paper from his pea coat pocket and a pen from the other pocket he then started writing
"Dear…um…cooking store...I...um...humbly apologize about falling into your...um...window...I accidentally tripped on myself...and...er...smashed it all...sadly I don't have insurance...so..."
"Heh, this ain't too shabby…" he looked over his note and had a bit of pride in it. Leaving the note on the table, he then climbed out the window a third time. He made sure to get out of there before the Dark Hour had ended.
Montage End…
The TV was loud in the room as Mitsuru stared hard at Junpei and Akihiko. She seemed to get angrier as the news continued.
"In other news, two mysterious cases of break-ins occurred last night at between the times of 12:00am and 12:01am, the robbers allegedly broke into a videogame store and a fitness store in Paulownia Mall and managed to steal a large number of objects in a single minute…we believe that the cameras may have malfunctioned but currently it is unknown how it was managed…"
Akihiko shot Junpei a dirty look that said 'this is all your fault!' before looking back down when noticing Mitsuru's anger escalating.
Mitsuru's lips curved upward in a perverse smile. "...Any last words before I execute you two?"
Junpei and Akihiko could only gulp in unison and hope that they somehow lived through the ordeal.
"…Next up a slip and fall accident occurred in a cooking store in the same mall right after, where a person allegedly slipped and somehow smashed all the windows and supplies. No traces of the supplies have been found so far, we believe that they were smashed very thoroughly and hence cannot be found…"
The rest of the news was not heard due to the screams and cries for mercy…
A/N: If you like it? review If you don't? criticize, I always appreciate any feedback to improve my writing in the future.