September 26, 2015 – Saturday, Morning – Cloudy
After her business in the Velvet Room was done, she went over to Damien's house, where an unexpected guest was waiting for her alongside the rest of the crew: a young Asian woman as tall as she was, with a pair of brown horn-rimmed glasses and her hair in a ponytail. She wore a white sleeveless shirt, gray shorts, and a pair of pink ankle socks instead of shoes.
"Oh, she's here... you must be Lydia. I'm Lin, Damien's older sister. Now I know what you're thinking: how can someone who looks like me be the sister of someone who looks like him? Sorry if this sounds like I'm insulting your intelligence, but our parents adopted me when I was just two years old. After Arielle was born, they started having problems with infertility; since they thought that might've meant they couldn't have children anymore, they looked into other ways of having them – so one thing led to another, and now I'm here. Of course, the fact that Damien exists tells you what became of that issue, right? Anyways. I wanted to wait until all of his friends were here before telling you all why I'm here, so take a seat and I'll tell you what's up." Lydia handed everyone their newly enchanted clothes, an action that Lin noted by adjusting her glasses. She sat down on the left side of the couch next to Allie and watched as Lin picked up Damien's sun-shaped mirror from the table. She went on and began to recount the entire story as her brother had told it to her, going on for several minutes before coming around to her point.
"...which leads me to why I'm here today. Damien told me that he willingly let himself be taken into the Valley of Idols because of what happened to Allie – an action that I understood, but have no interest in replicating myself." She gave the mirror back to Damien, who had a disappointed expression on his face as she adjusted her glasses again and turned her attention to the rest of the group.
"I don't want to join QIB. You guys might do some good work, but... I don't think facing my Idol is something I want to go through. It's not that I don't trust you all – you guys saved my brother and he thought you all were worth trusting. It's... well, honestly, I don't want the responsibility that you guys have. You all are the only ones doing anything to prevent people ending up in the woods and Narcissus Syndrome, but every time you go into that valley, there's a chance you might not come out. From what I understand, there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to who the valley takes, only that it does so on a predictable timeframe. So if it ends up taking me regardless, well... I might change my mind. But as of right now, I'm not going to become one of you." Lin went over and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, opening it and drinking it as the high school students mulled over her words to them.
"You're still going to keep our secret, right?" Damien asked. Lin put down her bottle of water on the counter next to the kitchen.
"Well, yeah. I already told you that, but I guess you wanted your friends to hear it too. I mean, it's not as hard of a secret to keep as you think. I don't think anyone would believe that story without proof – they'd just think you're making stuff up. Sure, the mirrors you all have hint towards the truth, but in the real world, they're just ordinary mirrors. I guess if someone was considering the possibility that something unnatural was afoot, they'd look more into it, but you guys have been pretty good at keeping things under wraps so far." The comment about the mirrors being ordinary in the real world raised a question in Lydia's mind: were they just ordinary mirrors, incapable of doing anything special? No one had seemingly ever tried to summon their Persona in the real world, probably because there wasn't any reason to do so.
"Ordinary mirrors..." Lydia mumbled. She put her mirror in front of her and tried to think of Hua Po, who would be small enough to fit in the room without breaking anything. She felt her stirring within her mind, and was surprised to see her appear in the mirror in place of her own reflection.
"Hi! Is it time to fight already?" Hua Po spoke within her mind. The others had their attention turned to Lin.
No, I was just... trying to see if I could see you in this world. If I can do that, then maybe Personas can be summoned in this world, too. And if that's possible, then maybe that also means... we'd have to fight in our world sooner or later. I have to know that.
"I can see where you're coming from. I don't know if I would've been eager to get into this whole business if uh, the business didn't get into me first." Nathan said, eyeing his mirror. Allie shifted in her seat and spoke.
"As for me... I guess if I had somehow known what was going to happen to me before I made Lydia help me test out the mirrors in the girls' bathroom at school, I'd probably have had second thoughts, too. Still, it's not like anyone else had thought of my idea – that people with Narcissus Syndrome always being drawn to their own reflection might've had something to do with how they were taken away." Allie turned her attention to Lydia and saw that she had a different expression while staring into her mirror.
"What is it, Lydia? I think what Lin was saying made sense, right?" Lydia blinked, Hua Po's visage reverting back to her own.
"Um, about not joining the group? Sure, I understand it. I didn't think other people would be lining up in front of a mirror and come face-to-face with their Idols just so they could join us. Damien was probably the only person to do something like that. You're probably also wondering if there is any way you can help us, Lin, since you're understandably worried about us going in and out of the valley. I can't think of anything off of the top of my head except to be on the lookout for anybody who looks like they could be really stressed about something, and to let us know as soon as you can if a disappearance happens. We had planned on going into the valley today, since a disappearance is supposed to happen this week and this is certainly the day it's going to take place." She stood up from the couch and raised her mirror in front of her like she was going to summon a Persona.
"But before we do that, there's just one thing I want to try." Lin tilted her head in curiosity as the other Persona-users were beginning to get an idea of what Lydia was about to do. Nathan was the first to respond, and got out of his seat to move behind the counter where Lin had set her water bottle.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're gonna call a Persona right here? What if you catch something on fire? Our Personas are way too big to fit in a house like this!" He said as he scurried away. Allie and Damien also stood up and backed away.
"Hold on, Lydia, why are you doing this? If it's to show Lin what a Persona looks like, I've already told her about everyone's Personas!" Damien said. Lydia moved to the most open spot in the living room, where there was several feet of nothing but floor surrounding her. She gripped her mirror in her right hand and took a firm stance where she stood.
"One of the new Personas I obtained from the Velvet Room is real small. She's only a couple feet tall, and someone might see us if I do this outside. I just have to know, one of these days we might actually have to fight in the real world! I promise I won't damage anything. Let me do this, okay?" The Hall siblings' eyes met, Damien's full of nervousness and apprehension while Lin's reflected curiosity tinged with a touch of fear.
"It's not going to... be hostile or anything, is it? Your Persona?" Lin asked. Lydia shook her head.
"Hua Po is very kind. She wouldn't hurt a fly unless I asked her to. I only need to see this once, okay? I won't make a habit of it, I just need to know whether or not this is possible."
"Alright. Go ahead. You have a point. I think it's something we're all wondering, anyway." Damien relaxed, remembering that he had once asked her to do a lot more for him without much of a reward.
"Thanks." Lydia turned her attention back to her mirror and focused, seeing Hua Po in it instead of herself after a few seconds.
"I don't need you to fight right now. I just want you to meet my friends. Be careful, though. We don't want to damage anything in their house."
"Okay! Sure, I'll be as careful as can be!" Lydia took a deep breath and focused on bringing her out of the mirror. The flow of energy that was normally quick and unobstructed felt like it was trying to work its way through a ton of thick vines now, meaning that Lydia had to keep staring into the mirror for several seconds before a tinge of blue flame appeared on the mirror.
"That's weird. It's usually a lot quicker than this." Damien mumbled to Lin as everyone watched Lydia try to summon her Persona. Lin watched in awed silence as blue fire slowly began to consume the white-bordered mirror with the fancy design that Lydia held, without harming her whatsoever as it did so. Once the flame had completely consumed the mirror, Lydia let out a heavy breath as a pixie-like young woman with red skin and tied-up black hair appeared before everyone, wearing a white jacket and fluttering about on transparent red wings.
"Wow, so this is your world, huh? And this is where one of your friends lives... hi, Damien!" Hua Po flew over towards Damien, waving at him.
"Uh... hi. What's your name?"
"Hua Po! It's nice to meet you!"
Lin scratched her head, took off her glasses, breathed on them, and wiped them clean before putting them back on to make sure she was seeing this properly. Indeed, there was a red-skinned pixie with a perky attitude and some kind of white martial arts clothing flying around and greeting everyone. Hua Po came over to her and asked her name after she had gotten the names of everyone else.
"My name is Lin. So... you're a Persona. You're really an aspect of Lydia's soul? That's... pretty cool, I have to say."
"Thanks! You know, it's really something living with all those other Personas. I mean-" Hua Po suddenly faded before Lin's eyes. Lydia's mirror reformed in her hand, and she looked down at it, disappointed and panting.
"That's... enough. Our Personas... can only be active for so long at a time. We have to summon them the way you just saw every time we take an action. It's... a lot faster and a lot less strenuous in the valley than it is in the real world, though." She explained to Lin.
"I see. Well... I guess if I had any lingering doubt, it's completely gone now. All of you can do that? Just like she did?" Lin asked. The others answered affirmatively to the question, with Allie telling her about what set Lydia apart from the rest.
"Lydia's unique in that she can have multiple Personas and switch between them whenever she wants. Normally she uses Ophelia, the first Persona she obtained, but she's around seven feet tall, so it wouldn't have been as easy for her to move around in here like Hua Po just did."
"I see. Why is she the only one that can do that? Does it have to do with something in the valley, or..."
"Something about a mysterious benefactor named Philemon and his mysterious agenda. That's literally about all anyone knows about it." Damien said hastily. He had a feeling that that question was starting to get old, and that continuing to ask Lydia about it would eventually get on her nerves.
"Oh. Well, I hope this Philemon really is a good guy. Sometimes these 'mysterious benefactors' aren't so benevolent; they're really just using the protagonists to achieve their own ends while pretending it's for the greater good. Not that I'm saying Philemon's bad! It's just... I've seen that kind of thing before."
"We should get going. We don't want to waste any time." Lydia said. Damien told Lin that they'd probably be gone for about a half hour or so, and to prepare drinks and put on some movie to watch when they returned.
The group changed into their newly enchanted clothes and left for the valley, where F.Z. materialized near them wearing the same purple dress as before. Lydia gave the ghost girl her new outfit – a blue-green dress with the designs of white flowers decorating it, which she happily changed into.
"Uh, so what am I gonna do with the other dress?" She asked, holding Lydia's old purple dress in her hand.
"There's a bunch of racks in the Velvet Room that Victor's called the Velvet Wardrobe. I haven't really used them since I figured everyone would want to be able to wear their enchanted clothing in everyday life, but since you don't exactly have a place to put your clothes... I guess now I have a use for those racks. I'll go put it up, be right back." Lydia took the dress from her and made a quick trip to the Velvet Room. When she had returned, F.Z. crossed her arms and looked towards the dungeons that QIB had cleared out already.
"There hasn't been anything new going on here... it's gotten pretty boring without any new Shadows or Idols showing up. But I think you guys feel it too – like there's gonna be someone new here pretty soon. I hate to just stand around and wait, but I don't need to remind anyone what happened last time we tried to get some training done at the end of the week. I don't know what else to do. You all got any ideas?" Everyone looked at each other, trying to come up with some idea of what to do other than training.
"We could just sit and talk for a while." Lydia suggested. F.Z. sighed and shrugged, before setting up a quartz table and chairs for everyone.
"Talk about what? I guess you all do have lives when you're not running around in here doing QIB stuff... so what the hell, tell me about them." For a while, the group told F.Z. about what they were doing at school, as well as some of the activities they did outside of school, like Allie's eSports club and Nathan's health club. At some point, Lydia mentioned that they had ran into Lynne and Corbin in the real world, which caused F.Z. to fashion a four-pointed throwing star in her hand and plant it into the table.
"Oh, hell. Seriously? They're our age? They're still assholes in our world, aren't they?" Lydia decided to answer her question.
"Well... Corbin kind of was, but Lynne acted a lot differently than I expected her to. I only got to talk to her for a few minutes, but something about her demeanor towards this place is telling me she's not as enthusiastic about it as you would expect given what she did to us. It's like she doesn't really want to do it. They both look pretty normal on our side – compared to looking like supermodel adults on this side, which is apparently what their Idols looked like. I told her that something bad could happen to her if she and Corbin continued to help out the Idols, and then she said she had to go to class and she gave me her phone number. She hasn't responded to any of my texts, though."
"You forgot to mention she was in crutches. Apparently she was helping her dad fix a roof and she sprained her ankle, which means she can't go into the valley until it heals." Allie added. F.Z. took the throwing star out of the table and chucked it away, deciding to create a five-point star to replace it.
"Well, that's some good news. That's one less psycho bitch we have to deal with. That just leaves that other idiot and Valerie, I guess." F.Z. disintegrated a hole in the middle of the throwing star and spun it around on her finger.
"I guess I should have asked Lynne about her. Corbin said that she'd 'be ready when she's ready', which means even they don't really know when she'll join them. Considering how Sycophanta seems to actually integrate new members, we won't see her until her Idol comes back to her and gives her that transformation power and a Persona." Lydia said. Damien put his hands behind his head and looked up towards the sky.
"Idols and Personas. That's something we have in common, I guess. Both us and Sycophanta got our Personas from our Idols, just in different ways. Makes sense, I guess – both Idols and Personas are supposed to represent parts of our inner selves. But the big difference is that we were able to stand up against our Idols, while Sycophanta gave into theirs. What doesn't make sense to me is why their Personas are stronger than ours. I mean, doesn't it take more strength to realize who you are is good enough than to give in to the temptation to chase some false image? Something's not right about that." Allie crossed her arms and put them on the table, leaning her head down on top of her arms.
"Well, maybe it has something to do with the Shadows. They certainly don't seem to like us barging into dungeons and wiping them out, so maybe they favor people who give into their Idols rather than resisting them? I don't know."
"And another thing. Before you guys came along, I counted five people that landed in here and met their Idols. I'm glad we don't have to deal with it, but you'd think Sycophanta would have had, I don't know, five people rather than just two when we first met them? The hell is going on there?" F.Z. said, deciding to create a copy of the five-pointed star with a hole in it and twirl both on her finger.
"So many questions... where are we even supposed to start with finding any answers?" Nathan asked.
"I mean, here we are just sitting around waiting for someone to drop in here so we can save them. There's nothing in the dungeons, right? Besides Shadows and the occasional useful item? Our enemies seem to know more than we do and as far as we know, they've only been here once!" He continued.
"So... what do you think the 'big thing' Corbin mentioned was? If he was actually telling the truth and no one shows up today... he said this place was gathering power for something. F.Z., have you felt anything out of the ordinary lately?" Allie asked. F.Z. shrugged and crumbled the throwing stars in her hand, leaving a pile of quartz dust on the table.
"It's been more dead than me in here. If this place is planning something, I have no idea what it is."
For a while, the group sat around the table of quartz and made small talk, wondering if anything really was going to happen. After long enough, they began to get the feeling that they probably could've done some training and not missed anything, but no one wanted to take that chance a second time. After long enough, F.Z. stood up from her chair and tossed it away, turning it into dust and scattering it on the ground.
"I can't believe we're just sitting here waiting for something to happen. Lydia, why don't you take these guys and go to the warehouse, or something? Leave me behind, and if something pops up I'll rush over here and get you guys. It's not like you need my help to take down Shadows you've already fought before, anyway." Everyone else stood up, looking past Lydia towards Allie's dungeon, which was the smallest compared to the others as it was just a courtyard and one big room.
"Sounds good enough to me. I'm starting to get bored just waiting. If something pops up, we'll probably see it and be there in two minutes, tops." Nathan said.
"Okay. F.Z., we'll leave you on lookout duty. Once we clear out the Shadows crawling around the warehouse, we'll come right back here." Lydia turned and led everyone to the vine-fence surrounding the warehouse, where Shadows popped up in anticipation of their return.
"Don't push yourselves too hard. We'll need to conserve our energy."
F.Z. watched from a distance as the rest of QIB summoned their Personas and went to town on the waves of Shadows surrounding the warehouse. She knew that even after they'd taken down every last Shadow in there, that they'd just come back once they'd left the valley. The Shadows were always drawn to people, as well as anything that was made from people. Yet in every single instance after her death, they had completely ignored her, unable to even register her existence. As the Persona-users disappeared into the warehouse to dispatch the remaining Shadows, she watched and waited around where people normally would get thrown in here, entertaining herself by chucking throwing stars at walls of quartz. It occurred to her that doing this in particular probably meant she liked ninjas, or something to that effect – which was yet another piece of information regarding her previous life that she had gathered.
"I wonder if it even matters who I used to be. It's not like learning that is gonna bring me back to life." She muttered. Soon enough, Lydia and the others came walking back towards her, and she disintegrated all the various quartz implements she'd used to pass the time.
"Nothing's happened. I guess you guys can clear out the first floor of Damien's place, and whatever's in the front of Nathan's. That's far enough away that you can still get out quickly." Lydia nodded and took the group to the parking lot in front of Damien's skyscraper.
F.Z. continued to satiate her boredom by fashioning various weapons out of quartz – knives, hammers, saws, spears, swords, putting all of them onto a quartz table and wondering where exactly she picked up an affinity for sharp objects. Did she watch a bunch of action flicks or something in her previous life?
"Doesn't matter. None of this crap helps anyone, anyway." She pounded her fists on the table and in an instant brought all of her creations to dust. Again, Lydia and the group returned to the entrance and were told the same thing – that no one had shown up, and that nothing had happened while they were gone.
"We'll go to the stadium, then. I've actually picked up some more Personas to use for fusion – and a couple of items, too! We'll have you tell us what they do once we get back."
"Yeah, yeah. Go do what you gotta do."
Another round of killing time was had by the ghost girl. Rather than mess around using her powers, she decided to just lay down on the grass, staring up at the perpetually blue sky with its never-moving sun pouring out endless sunlight.
"...the hell. Since when was there a cloud?" In the distance was a small, puffy white cloud. It was isolated, without a single other cloud in the sky. That had to mean something. Not once had there ever been any changes in the weather of this place, and although something as small as that singular cloud wasn't going to do anything, it might not stay a singular cloud for long.
"So... I wonder what it means when this place is full of clouds. Or if it starts raining... probably something stupid." F.Z. pouted, glaring at the little cloud. She had never really needed to attend to any sort of bodily need ever since she died, which included showering. Being rained on would almost certainly ruin her hair and clothes.
She sat up and created a quartz umbrella, making one large enough to pass for a beach umbrella. After realizing that holding it the whole time was annoying, she sharpened the end and planted it into the ground, only to have the umbrella tip over and make a divot in the ground where the sharp end had turned over. She then took a few inches off of the handle and tried again, where the umbrella stayed put this time, blocking the sunlight from reaching her.
"Going to the beach wouldn't be so bad. Too bad there's no beach or even a lake or anything around here." F.Z. muttered, sprawling out her limbs on the ground and waving them back and forth on the grass. She lay there bored until Lydia and the rest of QIB finally came back, with Damien the first to make a comment about her position.
"Looks like all you need is a pillow and a beach towel." F.Z. sat up and smirked, for once not finding his remarks annoying.
"I wouldn't mind if you brought me a pillow and a beach towel. I don't sleep, but that doesn't mean I can't relax."
"I guess everything's been okay while we were gone." Allie said, observing that there hadn't been any change in their surroundings. F.Z. laid back down on the ground and pointed towards the sky.
"There's a cloud over there somewhere. I don't know what it means, but any changes to this place mean something, so... I guess maybe Sycophanta were onto something after all." The group looked up and saw that there was indeed a small, puffy white cloud in the sky that had formerly been entirely clear.
"Uh, yeah, I guess. Hopefully it doesn't start raining Shadows or something." Nathan said, imagining the cloud developing into a thunderstorm and dropping black Shadow blobs instead of rain as precipitation. Everyone got a similar image in their heads and gave him a nervous look, which caused him to raise his hands and take a step back.
"Hey, hey, I wasn't serious! I mean, the Shadows come out of the quartz here, don't they? Why would they come out of clouds? I mean... that wouldn't make sense, would it...?" He nervously tried to pass off the possibility. Lydia gathered the items that the group had collected and put the new ones next to F.Z.
"Well, let's not worry about that right now. F.Z., we've brought you some items. We know what a couple of them do already, but we found some that we haven't seen before. Mind telling us what their names are and what they do?" F.Z. picked up the first item set next to her, which was an orb brimming with fire. It felt warm, like a singular flame ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice.
"If you toss this at an enemy, it'll deal fire damage to them. I guess you can call it an Agilao Orb, whatever 'Agilao' means." She put down the orb and picked up a clear gem with a cloudy interior. It felt like the mist within could obscure enemies' enhancements.
"This thing... if you activate it, it casts a spell that removes any buffs enemies have on them. Yeah, it's... a Dekaja Gem." The third item was a lilac-colored stone that pulsed with what felt like a heartbeat, its touch radiating energy.
"And this thing... it heals, plain and simple. But it's like... its healing is dependent on who uses it. It wouldn't matter if Allie or Nathan used it, it'd make either of them feel the same amount of better. I don't know exactly how else to put it. Call it a Life Stone. Is there anything else?"
"No, we know about the other items we got – a Goho-M and another one of those things that heals our mental energy. Actually, you... never got to name it. It was the one full of glowing powder inside." Lydia handed F.Z. a familiar tulip-shaped container.
"Oh, yeah. Uh... it's a... Snuff Soul? You're supposed to snort this crap? Whatever, here, take it." She gave it back to Lydia, and Nathan made a face at the item he had consumed one of in trying to keep his healing up after being stomped by Rosalia.
"I don't know about snorting it, uh... I just ate it like it was powder candy. It tasted pretty good, actually." The former football player said, scratching his head.
"There really hasn't been anything happening, huh." Lydia said, wondering what the group should do now that they had gotten in some training and spent some of their energy. To do any more training would possibly deplete their reserves to the point where they wouldn't be able to complete a dungeon if a new one popped up, but what else was there to do?
"I think I heard you guys once mention that time is wonky between this place and the real world. Something about it being faster here than on your side. If someone is gonna show up here today, you guys could be waiting here for a lot longer than you would in the real world." F.Z. said, closing her eyes and resting underneath her quartz umbrella. Damien put his hands behind his head and looked off in a direction where there were no dungeons.
"Yeah. She's got a point. I mean, it probably hasn't even been a half hour back in the real world yet. There's no rule against checking this place every ten minutes or whatever, just so we can keep an eye on things here without being bored out of our minds. We can take turns popping in and out so that any one person only has to come here every so often."
"Whatever works. You know where I'll be." F.Z. said, continuing to lay on the ground with her eyes closed.
The group then agreed to leave the valley and send someone to check on it regularly. They came back to the house, where Lin met them with worried and curious eyes.
"Nothing's wrong. No one has disappeared yet, but we're going to take turns checking on the valley to make sure we don't miss someone." Damien said, assuring his sister that they were all okay and starting the next movie from his family's huge collection.
Saturday, Afternoon – Cloudy
After several rounds and two whole movies later, there was still no sign of any disappearances. Damien's parents had finally come home, allowing the group to meet them for the first time. Now that there was someone around whom QIB couldn't let see what was going on, they had decided to all return to their homes, continuing the routine of making regular rounds into the valley throughout the day while being sure to do something they could drop if they needed to.
Saturday, Evening – Clear
"There's really been nothing. All day, just nothing. Ugh, maybe Sycophanta wasn't trying to trick us this time. But why would they help us?" Damien asked over the group text. Lydia sat by her window overlooking the street. It had been a little dicey keeping up with the schedule since everyone had to eat at some point, but it was now nine in the evening and still not a sign of anything unusual occurring in the valley. F.Z. was at least grateful for the company, always having someone to talk to throughout the day.
"Maybe they were just trying to be courteous. Lynne told me she didn't want to be enemies if we could help it." Lydia responded.
"I guess they werent kiding" Nathan said. Out of the group, Lydia noticed that he was the only one to not really bother with perfect grammar or spelling in his texts. She could tolerate that – as long as he didn't use 'k' as a response ever again.
"Then maybe you should try and see if you can get her to tell us anything more. It might not help, but any info we can garner could help us figure out what's going to happen next." Allie said.
She's right. No one new showed up in the valley this week, and if that was true, then the part about something big happening next week should also be true, too. Hopefully we don't miss out on it. Lynne will probably still be unable to participate since a sprained ankle takes a while to heal, but Corbin is more than willing to fight us, and Valerie is still unaccounted for. I guess we should be glad we got to do a little training today... we'll see about doing some more tomorrow while we have the time for it. We'll need to be as prepared as we can for whatever's coming next.
A/N: SakuraDreamerz - Hmm, I wonder about that too... I guess you'll just have to wait and see what's really going on with those two.