Disclaimer: Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. The Persona series is the property of Atlus. Silent Hill is property of Konami. "Lizards and Wizards and Demons, Oh My!" is mine, for what little that's worth. This story is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for Buffy-canon appropriate violence, disturbing imagery, and mondo creep factor. Be advised, this story also contains Jungian psychology, alchemical symbolism, massive amounts of canon welding, and enough occult geekery to choke a hellhound.

Note: This story is taking place after Game Night, and before Terrible As The Dawn. The anachronic order is contagious…

Somewhere Safe To Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest. – "The City in the Sea," Edgar Allen Poe

Buffy

October 12, 2000 – 11:30 PM

The good thing about going on patrol is that it gives you a chance to be alone with your thoughts. The bad thing about patrol is… it gives you a chance to be alone with your thoughts. There is a fine line for Slayers between pondering and brooding, and I am way too often in danger of tripping over it and making with the feathers. Plus, sometimes I don't actually wanna be rational and mature about things. I mean, I'm not twenty yet, I'm still technically a teenager! … For another three months, but still.

But sometimes it's nice, just making my way across Sunnydale by night, enjoying the breeze, taking in the quiet, staking the morons who thought they'd get a good meal by hanging out around the bars at eleven-thirty PM. Everybody knows the real easy prey doesn't leave until last call. And if you don't like the taste of alcohol, why would you be haunting the bars anyway? Then again, nobody ever accused most vampires of having two brain cells to rub together. Part of the reason Spike shot up the food chain so fast.

Haven't seen anything yet that hints at a big overarching evil plot this year– look, three on and one off is a pretty strong argument for a pattern, you know? The Master, the Soulstorm, the Mayor; all of them started poking around early. And hell, even Drake and the Children of the Dragon were hanging around Sunnydale for a couple months before they made a move. Although sometimes I get the feeling Fate, or somebody, had something else lined up for us, and the booking fell through, so they had to scramble to get a last-minute replacement.

So I've been looking around for things starting to get wonky, but I haven't seen anything yet. Weird, sure, but in the usual, this-is-Sunnydale way. Like, Willow now has a girlfriend. In addition to Oz, she and Oz are still a thing. Apparently this is a thing that works for them?

I mean, okay, freshman year of college, I dealt with my best friend's panicked realization that she was bi. Honestly, Oz took that way better than she did, and not in the skeezy "hur hur, girl on girl" kind of way. He just went "cool" and went back to the whole "meditation to control the wolf" thing. Which got a little dicey with that whole female werewolf kerfluffle, but all those tips from Spike on keeping things on a leash apparently paid off.

And then Willow met Tara at a Wiccan meeting, which, I don't know why they were there. Willow's like, Jewish atheist last I checked, and Tara is… I dunno what. But like, they're witches as in spellcasters, not like in religion. I mean, I don't go to church, I just hang out in graveyards… I lost track of where this metaphor is going.

So there were cute interactions, and Willow having a sexuality crisis, and then a monogamy crisis, and then it turned out that Tara and Oz really hit it off without having any actual groiny feelings, and everybody agrees that Willow totally needs two whole calm people to balance her out, so they talked about it for ages and finally decided to try being a V. Which, at least somebody in the Scoobies is getting some; Xander and I have both been going through a dry spell, me since Angel left and him since Cordy moved to New York and that thing with Anya the ex-demon never got off the ground. And no, we're not pairing the spares here, by now it would just be… weird. For both of us.

It's not like I couldn't find somebody, maybe even somebody in the know. There are a ton of hot guys at the Initiative, some of whom are working their way through ROTC at UC Sunnydale and are thus age-appropriate. But that feels kind of weird too, and I haven't met anybody really interesting there anyway, so the dating hiatus continues.

School is… school. I apparently dodged a bullet last year and never knew it, since it turns out that Maggie Walsh, persona non grata at the Initiative and world-record petty grudge holder, had been a psych professor at UC Sunnydale. In fact, she had taught the Intro to Psych classes, right up until 1999, when her tenure and position kind of went down in flames thanks to Tony Hicks. So I could have been having classes with somebody who made brainwashing snakes, which does not reassure me as to the quality of the study guides for the year.

Tony took Mom to dinner a few weeks after Nick and I had our little trip. He said it was just because she wanted to interrogate him about anything Nick and I might have thought was too unimportant to mention, like near-death experiences. (I mean, we're breathing, we have all our limbs and organs, what more do you need to know?) But he did bring a bouquet of daffodils to brighten the house up, and she definitely seemed to have a good time. I mentioned this to Xander and Willow, and he fist-pumped and she squealed, so it appears the jury approves. We'll see if it goes anywhere further than that.

It was pretty quiet where I was at the moment, so that first bong of the church bell cut through the air like a wire thingy through a block of cheese. Midnight– the very witching hour of night, when churchyards yawn and don't even cover their mouths and apologize. Or something of that nature. Except that only the first bong went bong– as soon as it died out, the air went flat and green, the full moon overhead started actually looking like green cheese, and those puddles ahead of me, on the sidewalk? The ones I could have sworn were rainwater a minute ago? Yeah, they apparently turned into blood, a substance with which I am far too acquainted in its many incarnations. You have not known the pain of laundry until you've attempted to get five different types of demon ichor all out of the same sweater. It was tragic.

This stuff looked mostly human, though, and fresh, even though there wasn't anybody it could have come from. Despite what the movies might tell you, blood does not stay red for very long. It turns brown very quickly, because it's basically rusting. So there was something seriously wrong here, if the whole "world holding its breath" vibe hadn't been a clue.

I pulled out my flip phone, mostly playing a hunch. It was dead as a doornail, even though I'd charged it before I left home. Yep, unsurprising– magic and electronics do not play well together unless you design them for just that purpose. Willow says it has to do with competing wavelengths and interference patterns and the price of tea in China. I just smile and nod– Me Slayer, me hit things.

Okay, so Scooby Gang's First Law: When something goes woogy, check on the Hellmouth. Luckily, I was only a couple blocks from the high school, so I swung up that way. As I did so, I turned onto what was usually a slightly more crowded street, and stopped dead, if you'll excuse the metaphor.

There, standing on end in the middle of the street, were a pair of coffins. I mean actual, honest-to-God six-sided coffins, the kind you really don't see very often these days. Most people go for the tasteful rectangular casket, unless they're seriously goth or making a decorative statement. But no, there were two coffins, plain and black, standing in the middle of the street. I walked closer, circling them without trying to touch. No latch, no lock; they didn't look like they were capable of opening at all. What the hell?

I spiraled out in a search pattern and found another coffin, situated in the bushes along the roadside. Just out of the light from the street lamp, or where the light would be if the thing was working. Did I mention all the lights were out too? If Slayers didn't have such great night vision, and the moon wasn't so huge and bright, I'd be incredibly boned.

Why would a coffin be hiding in the bushes? Honestly, if I ignored the whole coffin thing and just looked at positioning, it reminded me of a vampire waiting to ambush his prey as they walked… huh.

Pulling a stake out of my sleeve, I gently tapped it against the coffin's lid, at which point the whole thing crumbled into dust. For a second, I thought I heard a sigh, like something old and tired finally letting go, then everything was silent again. The coffins in the road hadn't moved, and no wind stirred the dust by my feet.

All right, I could totally get freaked out by this later. (And I was so going to, right after I grabbed Giles and inquired as to what the hell.) For now, I needed to go check on the school. Honestly, I swear, sometimes it's like I never even graduated.

Sunnydale High had seen better days, I noticed. The front doors were boarded shut, which, pretty sure that was a fire hazard. Other parts of the building had structural damage, and the library was just completely freaking gone. There was a seriously uncomfortable light coming up from a pit where the floor had been. It wasn't blue, or white, or green, it was… I don't know what color. Whatever color I thought it was, it wasn't, but it was wrong. I knew I didn't want to get close to it, not without an entire army at my back.

Something inside me tugged gently. This wasn't where I was needed, it wasn't where I was supposed to be. For a moment, I considered ignoring the tug and trying to get closer, but my instincts rebelled, as did my stomach. It wasn't some sort of aversion spell telling me to stay away– it was the Slayer. This was a sideshow– the main event was somewhere else.

After a second, I decided to follow my gut, since it hadn't let me down before. Aside from the times it had, of course, but who was counting? I aimed south, picking up speed as I went, and soon enough crossed into Sunnydale Memorial Park. A quick check of my path confirmed I was aimed directly at the sundial plaza, where everything had gone down back in May.

… Of course, normally there was a sundial here. I skidded to a stop as I caught sight of the vast churning whirlpool of misty blue energy spinning in the center of the plaza. I remembered that color from the ball of energy the cult had summoned when they'd tried to tear the magic point open– was that what this was? Wait, no, Giles had said it would be more of a fountain-thingy, spraying magic out like a lawn sprinkler, not sucking it in like a bathtub drain.

And speaking of sucking, I was starting to feel a pulling sensation. The wind was starting to pick up, and the spiraling mass of energy was starting to spread. All in all, this looked like a situation where "de-assing the area," as Tony might say, came highly recommended.

I turned to run, but it was too late– something pulled my feet out from under me, and I slid across the turf, right into the vortex. The ground beneath me disappeared, the light went brilliant white, and for one heart-stopping moment, I was nowhere at all.

Then some flat, hard surface slapped the breath out of me, and the world went black.

I came to lying on what felt like pavement of some kind. Definitely wasn't the grass of the park, at least. I forced the air back into my lungs and after some thought, decided to risk the eye-opening thing. Little bit blurry for a second, but my vision cleared quickly enough that I was pretty sure I hadn't hit my head.

The sky was mostly full of green clouds, with a giant full moon hanging overhead, also a kind of unpleasant shade of green. Out of nowhere, I remembered Giles sharing a bit of trivia, that the word "pale" in reference to the "pale horse" ridden by Death didn't mean white, or even gray. It meant the sickly greenish color of a corpse. Which is a color I am familiar with, and one that does not accessorize well at all.

After taking a careful inventory of all limbs, ribs, and organs, I determined I was in one piece and managed to force myself to sit up. Right away, I realized we were not in Sunnydale anymore, Toto. For one thing, I was lying on a concrete apron surrounded by low concrete walls. That and the faded yellow-white lines I could see here and there on the pavement suggested I was in a parking lot, or maybe on top of a parking garage. There were puddles of blood here and there all over the concrete, and I just thanked whatever god or angel looked out for Slayers and fashionistas that I hadn't landed in one. Getting it out of my clothes would be bad enough, but trying to get it out of my hair? Ugh.

A few more minutes of negotiation with the nervous system, and I was on my feet, if slightly wobbly. From this new vantage point, I could see that I was, in fact, on top of a parking garage of some kind. It looked like I was on the edge of a city of some kind, as behind me, a cliff fell away down to an ocean that was either blood, or that LCL stuff from that seriously whacked-out movie Jonathan Levinson was watching for one of his classes last year.

The other direction lead into town, buildings growing larger and larger as they headed to some central square. Or maybe set up like a giant row of dominos, that was also a possibility. Unlike back in Sunnydale, there were lights here and there, but the fog was thicker, too, making the world beyond a few hundred feet fade into shadows and then green mist. The effect was so not comforting.

I did my usual automatic status monitoring. All limbs present and accounted for, check. Blood where blood is not supposed to be, negative check. Oriented as to place, time, and person? Buffy Summers, who-knows-where, at… oh. Right, I'd been out on patrol at midnight, Friday, October 13th, the day of the full moon. Could I possibly have picked a time more appropriate for landing myself in trouble? Halloween totally doesn't count, since it's mostly "stay in and order pizza delivery people" among the undead. Also, October 13 is the birthday of the guy who created the X-Files, for extra creepy. As for why I know that, Jonno strikes again. He wound up being a big help during the bezoar mess, and after that, pretty much settled in as Research Boy and honorary Scooby.

Speaking of research– nope, phone's still dead. Kind of figured, since this place is lousy with magic, but the scientific method teaches us not to assume, lest you get bitten on said ass. Feel of the magic says, not a Hell dimension, but I'm not sure if it's a pocket dimension, or if I got dropped into the magical world again. Whichever it is, I kinda suspect this place is lacking in friendly kitsune.

Well, I did tell Nick that cities were my turf. Guess it was time to prove it. Pulling my sword out of the neck sheath I had it stored in, I headed for what looked like a stairwell down. Wherever I was, if there were answers, they'd be somewhere out there, where civilization or the trappings thereof were thickest.

The stairwell went down about eight floors. Every so often, I saw some sort of green light swing by, outside the doors leading out to the parking areas, and I considered investigating, but quickly decided I wasn't nearly that stupid. I didn't know what was out there, and this was not the kind of place that rewarded looking for trouble. Beyond what was absolutely necessary, anyway.

Finally, I made it down to the ground floor, about ready to jump out of my skin just from the silence. It was quiet enough I kept expecting to be able to hear the background music from whatever stupid movie my life had become. Pushing open the door, I cautiously moved out into the lowest level of the garage.

There were lights here, greenish-white ones that somehow managed to make the place visible without feeling any brighter. Empty parking spaces, except for a few hulks here and there in the gloom. The only one close enough for me to make out any details was a weird silver convertible, all curves and low to the ground, with round headlights and an old-timey windshield. It was a two-seater, parked with the rear towards the wall, with a trunk in the front, and… okay, from the symbol on the front, it was a Porsche. In really good condition. The number "130" was painted on the hood and the sides in black.

Something prompted me to give the thing a wide berth, which got wider when the driver's door opened invitingly as I passed by it. "I'm sorry," I said, although I wasn't sure to what. "Do I actually look stupid?"

Nothing answered, although the car door did swing shut with a disappointed click.

With that settled, I headed towards the front gate. The thing looked like it hadn't moved in forever, but… something told me that ducking under the barrier wouldn't be smart, even if there was plenty of room. That car was still back there, after all, and aimed right at me. Instead, I dug around in my pockets and pulled out fifty cents. I definitely hadn't been in here an hour yet, it should be enough. Dropping the coins in the basket, I waited mostly patiently as the red-and-white-striped pole moved upward surprisingly silently, given the rust I could see all over it.

When it had finally cleared the opening, I stepped out into the misty night. There were more lights now, mostly coming from a window here or there. A flickering sign above some night-black glass doors, covered with symbols that I couldn't quite make out. A bus stop down the way. Somehow, I didn't think I wanted to step into that shelter any more than I'd wanted to get into the car. Instead, I took a deep breath and headed off down the sidewalk.

It was eerie; the fog seemed to muffle any sound, and while there were lights in the buildings, they were the same eldritch greeny-white that I'd seen in the garage, echoing the color of the moon overhead. Which… it was still overhead. Shouldn't it have moved on at least a little by now? Then again, in pocket dimensions or magic places, time sometimes didn't move the way it was supposed to. I checked my watch, and rolled my eyes as I saw the hands spinning around the face. In opposite directions, no less. Somebody, somewhere, had all the subtlety of a lemon slice wrapped around a gold brick.

Up ahead, I saw a shape materialize out of the mist. It looked reasonably human, but as my entire career had proved, that really meant bupkis when it came to… anything, really. Still, I sheathed my sword and slid my stake up my sleeve. No point in spooking a local unless I had to.

Whoever or whatever it was got closer, and I saw it was a man. White, dark hair, wearing a jean jacket and black pants. There seemed to be something off about his expression, like there wasn't quite anything behind his eyes. But he definitely saw me, stopping and turning in my direction as I approached.

"Hi!" I said, at my perkiest. "I'm new in town, and I'm kinda lost. Do you think you could help me?"

"Sure," he said, but it sounded almost… hollow. Like, pre-recorded, "your call is important to us, please stay on the line" hollow. So I was absolutely the opposite of surprised when he went all game-face and lunged at me.

I batted one of his arms away with one of my own, moving inside his range, then hit his face with a heel-hand strike from the other hand. While he was stunned, I pulled my stake and plunged it into his heart. Of course I held my breath against the usual dust-splosion, so I was more than a little startled when he puffed into clouds of reddish-black smoke instead.

"Oooookay. That was new and interesting," I commented. Not sure why I was talking out loud. Maybe because it was still completely silent, no sounds of the city, or even the wind.

I tucked the stake back up my sleeve and started off again into the gloom.

It was really hard to tell exactly how far I was going. It's not that everything looked the same; what details I could make out through the fog definitely differed here and there. But something told me it was all set dressing, and the few times I tried a door out of idle curiosity, the locks were all broken or jammed. No, it was just that the fog was thick and muffling, and I could only see so much of my surroundings. No cars passed me on the streets, no buses stopped at the shelters, and there were no other people out on the streets. Aside from another couple weird vampires, who got staked in short order.

I'd settled almost into a Zen state (don't tell Giles) when something blue flashed past my face, making me stop short and turn to my left to follow it. Whatever it was, it seemed to have disappeared, but I could see an open gate in a corrugated metal fence, leading into what appeared to be a junkyard. And coming from somewhere inside that junkyard, visibly lighting up the fog above it, was a blue light, like whatever it was that had startled me. Never let it be said that I can't take a hint. (Sometimes I don't, but that's another matter entirely.)

The light wasn't that Steven Spielberg blue I'd seen from the natural magic veins, either. It was richer, more like royal blue. It was a surprisingly comforting color, especially given everything I'd seen tonight. Quickly, I checked to make sure that my sword was ready and my stakes were appropriately positioned, and then I made my way into the junkyard, moving as quietly as I could.

The inside of the yard was a maze, literally. It was a bunch of twisty little passages that wound between ten foot walls of stuff. Mostly junked cars, so far as I could tell, but there was other stuff in there, too. Like… that one wall was made of bridge pylons tied together with support cables. Or that dead-end blocked off by a pile of old carousel horses. Well, not horses– The two closest ones I could see were a pair of Egyptian sphinxes, one black with white accents, the other white with black. And over there was a lion with its head tilted up like it was howling at the moon or something.

The ground was getting softer as I went, for some reason, and now I could see that I was following a trail of footprints. Going down on one knee, I took a better look– Nick's been teaching me some tracking stuff, and it's come in weirdly useful during demon hunting. These looked like normal human feet, size eight men's… except that said feet were bare, which especially in here seemed to me like an invitation to get tetanus. Whoever it was, they weren't moving very fast, more a fairly slow, steady pace. And oh, that weird furrow in the ground? That looked like they were dragging something behind them, something very sharp and very heavy. Comforting.

I followed the footprints a little farther, at which point I realized that there was a second set of prints, a little older and a lot smaller. A child, probably, about eight or so. Which on the one hand, child in trouble, so not of the good. On the other hand, can't forget about The Annoying One, as Spike referred to him a few times. Evil children, not just for horror movies anymore.

Still, there was no way I was going to leave a kid in danger, even if it did mean I had to stake them afterwards. Besides, I totally did not like the casual stalky nature of the way Barefoot Bob (or Boberta, equal opportunity Slayer here) was following the kid's steps. Short stuff was definitely hurrying– not running flat-out, but not dawdling. I picked up the pace a little myself in response.

Ahead, I could see the blue light getting stronger and stronger, until I turned a corner and saw the source– a neon sign that was somehow still working, shaped like a blue butterfly and tucked into the back wall of a giant open space. An arena, how… dramatically appropriate. I took a second to be absolutely sure all my stuff was secure, and then stepped into the open circle. I didn't even jump when a gate slammed down behind me, because honestly at this point, it was basically par for the course.

The figure at the other end of the clear space, about a hundred or so feet away from me, turned around pretty slowly, so I took a second to size up the opposition. Roughly humanoid, but skinnier than a wight on the Atkins diet, arms and legs wasted and thin. Skin was corpse-pale, or at least what I could see of it was, under the brownish smudges of old blood here and there. Wearing a couple of shoulder-thingies made of multiple pieces of armor laced together, probably black lacquer? Purple halter top with a weird symbol on it, white butcher's apron tied around the waist, also covered in blood.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget the main feature, which was the giant pointy red helmet the thing was wearing. Looked like it was woven out of bamboo strips, with six sides coming to a point at the top. Covered the whole head, coming down to… oh for God's sake, the footprint on the thing , where it sat around the shoulders, was a coffin. Seriously, there is something to be said for subtlety in your monster designs, people. Oh, and it was carrying a giant rusty kitchen knife, with a blade roughly long as it was tall. Compensating for something, are we?

Behind it, I could see what it had been trying to get into– the remains of an old play castle, now just one tower. Whatever else there'd been was crushed under some rebar and… the remains of a mannequin or robot of some kind, one arm hanging limply out to let the fingers brush against the ground.

I didn't have too much time to look, as the thing had turned to face me completely. Surprise wasn't going to be much of a thing, so I reached back and drew my sword, settling into a ready stance as the thing approached. That pyramid tilted to one side as if it was considering me, and then it lifted the knife and swung it at me in an overhand slice.

I wasn't there, of course, given that even with undead strength, a knife that size moved with roughly the same speed as Giles's car or continental drift. The knife crashed to the ground, and I moved in to try and take the thing's head off. Unfortunately, whatever that helmet was made of, my sword crashed into it and bounced off. Recovering, I spun away before Geometry Man could slash at me with one of those clawed hands.

"So, come here often?" I asked chirpily, as I circled it. I was pretty sure that this thing wasn't enough of an actual person for me to bait it into an attack of the stupids. But even so, the quips helped keep me on an even keel, and besides, it was part of the brand.

It didn't answer, of course. Instead, a cloud of something green came wafting out of the front of the helmet. I ducked and rolled away– somehow, I was pretty sure that stuff was more than just a terminal lack of dental hygiene.

"Ugh, seriously, consider breath mints. Or mouthwash, that's good too. Tom's of Maine, naturally it works. Just, something."

Another knife slice, this one horizontal. If it had hit me, I would have been beside myself, literally. Instead, I dropped to one knee and sliced out, hoping to put a serious kink in the thing's mobility. Unfortunately, my sword bounced off that skinny leg like I'd tried to cut through solid steel. Not of the good.

Okay, then, time to reconsider. As Xander had said once, trying to teach Cordy a few moves, "When weapons don't work, and running like a scared rabbit is out of reach, it is then you must look to your environment." So, was there anything in my environment that looked useful?

Nothing in the arena, it was pretty clear. How about the walls? Or… okay, that might work. First order of business, bait your enemy into making the move you want. In this case, I wanted a piercing thrust, so keep my distance, harry him and try to piss him off. Don't get too far from the walls. Use your speed and agility to be incredibly annoying, wait for it and— dodge!

All those years of cheerleading came in handy as I cartwheeled out of the way of Red Top's attempt to turn me into a Buffy-kebab. The kitchen knife stabbed into the wall, between a washing machine and what looked like a gas range, and stuck. As my hands hit the ground, I turned my momentum into a mule kick, lashing out with both feet to hit the thing right in the gut.

Undead strength and magic durability or not, there's only so much density you can get into a form that skinny, and physics still applies. All that energy applied to one tiny little point sent the monster staggering backward, and more importantly, it left the knife embedded in the wall. As fast as I could, I was on my feet, grabbing the handle and pulling the knife out of the crack it was stuck in, like King Arthur with a seriously grody Excalibur. Then I put all my strength into a single overhand strike.

The descending edge of the knife hit one of the creature's upraised arms, and the entire thing… crumpled. That's the only way to describe it, it crumpled in on itself like tinfoil under one of those big paper-cutter thingies. The knife hit the packed ground of the junkyard with a resounding thud, and then monster and weapon both puffed away into more of that reddish-black smoke.

For a second, I just stood there, breathing hard. Then, taking a deep breath, I straightened my hair, sheathed my sword, and tried to look slightly less like a deranged but very fashionable monster-slayer.

Crossing the arena, I knocked on the metal door of the play tower. "Hey… it's safe now," I said, as soothingly as I could. "Do you want to come out?"

For a second, there was no answer. Then slowly, the door creaked inward, revealing a little girl, dressed in jeans and a pink t-shirt. She was Asian, with big brown eyes and hair that was more reddish-brown than the usual black. Her expression looked more curious than scared, which was probably a good sign.

"Hi. I'm Buffy," I said, hoping she spoke English. "What's your name?"

"Minako," she replied, after a second. "Arisato Minako. Thank you for saving me."

I smiled as reassuringly as I could. "It's what I do, although sadly I don't get paid enough for it. How'd you end up here, anyway?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I woke up in the middle of the night, and everything was green and the clocks didn't work, and I heard creepy noises, so I got dressed and went to try and find somebody… but the apartment wasn't there anymore, I was in an empty old building. And then when I got down to the street, that thing started chasing me, and I ran in here and… I don't know," she finished, almost deflating.

"Okay, then we're in the same boat," I said. "Do you want to come with me? I'm going to find a way out of here– I'm good at that."

She looked at me for a long second, seeming way older than her looks, then she smiled, kind of like the sun rising.

"Yes, please." Stepping out of her shelter, she took the hand I offered her. No sooner had our fingers touched than I heard a siren sound. Minako moved a little closer to me, as the air seemed to get darker, the metal got rustier, and the hard-packed ground under our feet turned into some sort of framework over a dark pit. The wall where the play castle had been melted away, turning into a tunnel that led away somewhere into the dark.

"Well," I sighed, squeezing Minako's hand. "There goes the neighborhood."

A/N - In Persona 3 Portable, the Updated Rerelease for the Playstation Vita, players were given the option of choosing a female protagonist, whose journey differs in some significant ways from that of her male counterpart. Her existence was later confirmed in Persona Q2. The manga name for the P3 protagonist is Arisato Minato, and so while the P3 Female protagonist has no canonical names assigned to her, "Arisato Minako" is a very common choice. (Well, she's Shiomi Kotone in the stage play series, "Persona 3: The Weird Masquerade," but that's REALLY obscure.)