Minato was standing at the one side, Hamuko on the other. Junpei and Mitsuru had taken position o the other entrance of the 'room'. The two wild cards nodded at each other and attacked the first two shadows.
This got the attention of the other shadows, as they charged towards the siblings. This is the time, when Junpei and Mitsuru jumped in and took care of the rest.
"Woohooo, we kicked some serious ass!" cheered a certain cap-wearing teen. The rest could only shake their heads. Apparently Junpei still didn't know the terms of stealth.
Minato just went on, ignoring him like always. Really from outside you would think the only person he cares about is his sister, because he always gives other boys terrifying glances, when they come near her.
The next floor was cleared out, because many shadows were weak of ice and no one wants to get Mitsuru's execution. Really, the next floor happened to be a lack of shadows. Minako sometimes had a feeling shadows would communicate with one another. If this was the case, than many of them had been warned of Mitsuru's wrath.
Well this time she was wrong partially. The shadows hadn't been hiding because of Mitsuru (although all that were present had no ice weakness), but to ambush them.
The group was soon split into two groups.
"Junpei, senpai, move to the access point. We'll distract them!" shouted Minako.
"But-"
"No buts or I'll execute you!" threatened Minato. He doesn't seem to fear anything. Some people doubt he has any feelings at all. Some think he and Minako were part of an experiment, where Minato lost all his emotions and Minako got them all. Apparently part to create the ultimate weapon.
Talk about school gossip.
Eventually the two other SEES members followed their given orders, promising to come back with help. The chances were slim that the twins would make it through them. Eliminating all of them was out of question.
In the end, the two were leaning against a wall. It was a dead end they had ran into.
"Sorry, sis. I failed to protect you, again."
"Don't think that way. You did your best. At least...we're going to see mom and dad." she said, before they were overwhelmed.
As promised Mitsuru and Junpei came back, too late. When SEES arrived the only things they could find were their leader's weapons with blood on it. Human blood, that is.
"Nooooo!" shouted Aigis. She let her hardware run into overdrive, although even then Fuuka's persona abilities were still stronger. Everyone else just looked down, feeling miserable. Especially Junpei and Mitsuru.
"We have to find them! They gotta be somewhere!" exclaimed Ken of all people.
"Ken, they are-"
"They're not dead! Okay, they're weapons are here, but what about their corpses?!"
That was right. Although shadows were quite a mystery, they weren't known for eating bodies. Well, no one can proof the difference, but at least there was hope, as small as it seemed to be.
Minato felt groggy. Really this is how you feel, when you're dead? He preferred a five hour nap. He opened his eyes and looked directly into the yellow moon of the dark hour. So the afterlife was the dark hour? Fail? He played too many video games.
"Damn you Junpei! I'm gonna haunt you, as soon as I find out how to do so!"
He placed a hand on his head. It felt strange. Looking at it, his hand had claws! Looking down at him he was wearing some kind of black armor, letting out some strange of blue aura. He also noticed, black wings on his back, with a taint of blue.
"What the..? Nothing surprises me anymore."
Looking around he found his sister just standing up. Like him she wore some kind of black armor, but with a red aura. Her hair was loose, due to the fact she didn't wore her hair clips. She also had black wings, with a taint of red. It looked bloody. Minato found it cool.
What he immediately noticed, when she opened her eyes, was that they were yellow glowing like the shadow's eyes. Dang, had they been transformed into some kind of shadow?
Checking his mind, Minato still found his personas.
"Minato?" his sister asked while getting up. She was studying him, although she always returned to his face. His eyes must be yellow glowing too.
"I wouldn't have thought the afterlife would be like this." he stated calmly.
"Actually I feel kinda a bit too alive to be dead." Minako said while looking down on her. "Where are we anyway?" she asked.
"Somewhere pretty high. I can't see the ground though. This darkness doesn't help." He pointed out over the edge.
"Hey look! An access point!" Minako pointed out. She immediately ran towards it, without thinking how their friends would react, when they would see them in this state.
"It's not working." she pouted.
Her brother let out a silent sigh of relief. She was sometimes a bit hasty.
"Oh I know, we have wings! We should try to fly! We're on top of Tartarus I think."
Minato face palmed. "First: we don't know how to fly and second: even if we do find out, we don't know how high this tower is and don't know how long we'll be at this state. Maybe it only lasts until the dark hour ends!"
Minako pouted at her brother's pessimism, but he had a point.
"So, what do we do now?" she asked. He honestly had no idea.
At that moment they heard a light chuckle. Both looked up and saw two figures coming down. One was female and was wearing the same stuff as the twins, only with a mask and the other was a two headed dog thingy?
The 'dog' somehow turned into a man and the woman took of her mask. Both the twins gaped at the two.
"Mom?"
"Dad?"
Both almost fell, while stumbling towards their parents. They were caught by them and almost immediately started craing, even Minato couldn't hold his emotions anymore.
It felt like hours, as they stood like this-
Finally Minato broke the silence. "Mom, Dad? Are we dead?" he asked. Both parents looked at each other a bit uncomfortable, before their mother spoke up.
"There's something we need to explain to you."
"You two...and we..are not humans." their dad said.
To make things easier for the reader: the twins' parents will speak one after another starting with the mom.
"My actual name is Nyx."
"And mine is Erebus."
"We're gods, you probably know from Greek mythology."
"My and your mother's role is to bring to an end to humanity, when the time comes."
"However, a man wanted to use our power for himself."
"Not that he would have been ever able to do so, but we have our pride."
"We started to track him down."
"At the same time, we decided to look how the humans themselves are doing."
"Not so well."
"In the meantime, you two were born."
"When we found the man, we decided to bring you home first, but then the explosion on the bridge occurred."
"We had to retreat due to the fact we didn't want to be discovered."
"It was then we found out, your older brother Thanatos was used in experiments."
"He escaped and we wanted to help, but a line of complicated situations occurred."
"In the end he was sealed in you two, each of you carrying a part."
"You, remember when you fought the shadows on the full moons?"
"These are parts of your brother. When you have defeated them all, he will be able to leave."
"You may know him as Pharos."
"We wanted to stay with you,-"
"-but the Kirijo group was watching you. Although this is no excuse."
"We're sorry." they said in union.
Silence...
...
"Minako?"
"Minato?"
...
"As I said before, nothing surprises me anymore. Minako?"
"I'm trying to count our other brothers and sisters. But there were multiple family trees on the internet. I am lost."
Both shook their heads clear and looked at each other. Then they nodded. Twins-telepathy can be awesome at times.
Discovering some new kind of energy within them both let out a megidolaon, which combined into a gigantic megidolaon. Fuuka sensed a strong energy signature.
Nyx and Erebus were taken aback.
"We're even." they grinned and hugged their parents. They were simply happy that they still had parents.
"So uh, mom, dad? The chairman said the dark hour would disappear once all the shadows disappeared. Did he lie?"
"Yes. I will be able to use your brother as an avatar to destroy earth. However, now is not the time."
"And it is not like your mother is listening to anyone, anyways." Erebus added with a smirk.
"Don't worry about the shadows and the dark hour. Defeat the rest and we'll take care of the rest. We have already begun to eradicate the hour."
"But we wanted to ask you, since you have the most human experience. Do the two of you think, there is still hope?"
...
"'M not sure." replied Minato.
"As much as I would like to say yes, I have to agree with my pessimistic brother. There's just...too much. We never considered this...ummm...give us some time, okay?"
Their god-parents nodded. Next they showed them how to use their powers and to go back to their human shapes. Yay, no longer buying new clothes if you want some.
After the 'lessons' and wishing their children good luck (by the way, they asked about their grades in school; why do they care? They're all gods!) Erebus activated the access point and the two gd-siblings left.
Downstairs, SEES was retiring for the day. The dark hour was coming to an end. Everyone was tired and injured at some point. No one wanted to give up, but they wouldn't be of any use, when they were tired or dead.
Suddenly a green light eliminated into the room, signaling the teleporter had been used. Everyone looked at it.
"That was a close call..." panted Minako, pretending she was exhausted. They reopened some little wounds, to be a bit more believable.
And after testing out their new powers, they actually were tired, because even if you're a god, a human body still gets tired after using it.
Everybody cheered at their returned leaders. When they asked what happened, both replied, they found a traestro gem, but one of shadows attacked and somehow they found themselves on an unknown floor and they searched a couple of floors for an access point.
After this episode, Mitsuru promised the two to pay for their weapons and give them the next day of school off.
Meanwhile Minato and Minako secretly planned their revenge on the chairman and about how to tell their lover about their origins, as both had problems keeping secrets from their lovers. Well Minato had, Minako still had to confess, and still she had this problem too, which was crap, because it got in her way on building up the actual social link.
Yeah, another crazy idea, that got in my head. I better continue my Maiko story.