The Infinite Loops Project: Doki Doki Literature Club Compilation

by The Skaz of the Void

Due to the original compiler's prolonged absence, I've been permitted to take over compiling duties for the Infinite Loops of the Doki Doki Literature Club. Enjoy! Four girls with a traumatic shared history have joined the Infinite Loops of Yggdrasil. Together they'll share some great times, and some not-so great times. Because more than love and literature, friendship is forever.

30. Chapter 30

30.1 – Nun Too Holy, by Skaz Wolfman.
(DDLC)/(Hellsing)

Ping. Ping. Ping. Pingpingpingping…

"YURI!" screamed a shrill voice that echoed far down the halls of what was technically a convent.

Yuri poked her head out of her room and hissed, "I'm down here! Keep quiet, would you?"

A familiar pink-haired girl barreled down the hall like The Running of the Bulls and plowed into her room, almost bowling her over in the process. "Pleeeeeeeease tell me you're Awake, Yuyu, we need to get the hell out of here ASAP!" Natsuki moaned as she glomped tightly onto Yuri.

"Wow, how'd you manage to fit six feet of tension into a four-foot frame?" asked Yuri, impressed.

"I'M FIVE-THREE YOU FU–!" Natsuki started shrieking before Yuri clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Yes, I'm Awake. Naturally we're flying out of here with all due promptness, even if I have to cut us a path," said Yuri, holding up a katana and shaking it for emphasis. "And as a nifty bonus, I know exactly where we're going, too."

"Great, awesome, let's just get the fuck out of here right now, please," Natsuki whimpered.

Yuri let go of Natsuki and grabbed the rucksack she had packed off of her cot. "Do you–"

"No, I don't care to pack anything I just want to get out!" Natsuki snapped, "I'd be halfway to the Alps already if I hadn't known you were here, too."

"Wow, you are really not taking this well," Yuri observed as they left her room. Natsuki took the lead, and Yuri had to run to keep pace with her.

"No shit I'm not taking this well. We're–we were goddamned assassins, Yuri!"

"Technically, we were godblessed assassins. At least, in the eyes of the Pope, and I imagine his opinion on the subject carries some weight."

"Uh-uh, no way in hell," Natsuki grumbled. "I don't care if The Big Man Himself says so; any God that condones that 'holy war' nonsense is no God I wanna hear about. You know how Monika feels when she Wakes Up with blood on her hands, so you had better believe I'm pretty pissed off. I've got half a mind to bring this whole building down with this whole Iscariot Organization locked inside, except that would make me a hypocrite. The Iscariot Organization, Yuri. They're literally named after Judas Iscariot. What the hell kind of Branch is this?!"

"Oh, you don't know? I thought you would, I first heard about it from one of your manga," said Yuri.

"Clearly it's one of the effed-up ones I was never tempted to read. You know most of my manga collection is Loop Variable. Hold up, this'll do," said Natsuki as they passed an open-air courtyard. Yuri followed her into the courtyard, under the light of a half moon, and in a blinding flash of pink light Natsuki assumed her Majin form. People passing by pointed and shouted. Natsuki swept a giggling Yuri off of her feet, and took to the sky with a thunderous leap that cratered the ground behind them. "Hold on to your big gothic tiddies, my love!" Natsuki shouted as she tore away across the sky at blistering speed. Vatican City was well behind them in less than a minute.

…

A few days thereafter:

"Are you sure you don't want to change?" asked Natsuki. She was human again, wearing a pastel-pink sundress, elbow-length white gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat with a sunflower on it. Perfectly complimenting the image was a parasol, colored with red, blue, and yellow swirls. Walking alongside her was Yuri, still wearing her nun getup with her katana in hand.

"It'll be fine, trust me," said Yuri. They were walking along the road, towards an expansive estate. No doubt the stately familial manor of some well-to-do English clan with blood bluer than the ocean at high-noon, Natsuki thought. "Hang back for a bit, Nat. This will work best if she doesn't see you at first. This is going to be great," said Yuri with a mischievous giggle. Natsuki's heart picked up its pace; she knew that giggle, it meant Yuri was going to do something nuts. Then she took off in a run towards the gate to the very estate they had been passing. Two guards posted at the gate shouted at her, but she took a flying leap over their heads at the gate.

The guards raised their rifles, and Natsuki's eyes widened. Without thinking, she stomped on the ground, and the asphalt under the guards bucked up as if there were a monster of a mole under their feet. Their aim was thrown wide just as they fired their guns, and Natsuki lowered her parasol just in time for a stray bullet to bounce off of the Shield Charm that imbued it.

Yuri grabbed onto the gate, more than halfway up it, and flung herself over top of it. She hit the ground running towards the mansion. One of the guards grabbed at the gate, and in a heartbeat Natsuki Pocketed her parasol, whipped her hat off her head, took a deep and very controlled breath as her skin drank in the light of the sun, and grabbed a bar of the iron fence next to her, which described the estate's perimeter and ran all the way to that very gate. 'Metal Silver Overdrive!'

Electricity arced across the fence, all the way to the gate in an instant, even as the guard was still pulling the gate open. A spark sent him flying backward into the road. "Hey bozo! Have a Speedwagon Special, on the house!" Natsuki shouted before throwing her hat discus-style at the other guard. He whipped around to face her, just in time to catch her hat with his chest. The seemingly mundane sunhat struck with the impact force of a stout Frisbee fired at high-speed from a pneumatic gun. Meaning he was bowled over and laid out on his back. Natsuki ran up to the open gate and through it. Yuri was halfway to the mansion's front doors, already.

Those very doors were violently kicked upon by a buxom young woman in a uniform, touting a rifle longer than she was tall, which she aimed one-handed at Yuri and fired from the hip. Yuri nimbly dodged the slug, and Natsuki threw herself down on the driveway as it whizzed past her. The woman put her other hand on the rifle, ejected the spent shell and slipped another slug in, raised the rifle to her eyes, and fired again. At the same time, Yuri closed the remaining distance between them in a blur of motion, an effect Natsuki recognized as an opportune application of Witch Time. By the time the second slug left the rifle barrel, Yuri was slashing through the rifle with her katana, and cutting through one of the guardswoman's arms just below the elbow in the process.

If Yuri's opponent felt any pain from this dismemberment, she didn't express it in the traditional manner of crying out in pain and/or going into shock or a blind rage. Instead, she calmly used her other hand to catch Yuri's blade on her second swing, and casually snapped it in half between her fingers. Then she snapped a kick into Yuri's midsection, sending her flying and then tumbling and skipping back along the driveway. Natsuki watched as Yuri again become a blurry, seemingly amorphous figure, and a moment later a veritable hailstorm of knives were streaking through the air towards the mansion's stalwart sentry.

Something, Natsuki thought it looked like a mixture of blood and darkness, gushed explosively from the guardswoman's stump, expanding and forming into a massive arm-like structure that she used to catch all of the flying blades. Then she shook them off, and the shadowy appendage shrank down and reformed into a much more normal-looking fleshy arm. She pulled an absolute hand cannon of a revolver out of her sidearm holster, and took aim at Yuri.

Natsuki jumped back up to her feet, a baseball and a bat appearing in her hands. She tossed the ball straight up with a hard spin on it, and took a measured breath as she gripped the bat in both hands. The power of the sun charged through her blood, and she directed it through her bat, making it vibrate intensely in her hands like a jackhammer. The ball came back down, and at just the right moment Natsuki struck it with all her might. In the instant of contact, the Hamon energy in the bat suffused the baseball, and the power of Natsuki's Hamon-enhanced swing turned it into a blistering, corkscrewing sphere that tore through the air and shattered the sound barrier. The guardswoman's eye was naturally drawn to the source of a ground-level sonic boom, and without hesitation she fired a three-round burst at the ball. Each shot hit it, but was completely deflected by the ball's axial rotation. So she lowered the gun and caught the ball with one hand. She gave an agitated hiss, not from the pain of the ball tearing the skin of her hand, but from the sudden infusion of Hamon energy that fatigued her, leaving her feeling a little light-headed. Being out in the daylight was tiring enough for her, a creature of the night, and while sunlight was no fatal threat to vampires of Seras Victoria's breed it still had a detrimental effect on her strength.

Yuri took advantage of the distraction and dashed up to Seras, a black-shafted and white-bladed naginata appearing in her hands. While Seras was briefly staggered by the sudden drain she experienced, Yuri thrust out with her naginata, spearing her right under the breastbone and into the heart. Using the naginata as a lever, Yuri swung her up through the air and slammed her down headfirst into the asphalt.

As Seras staggered back up to her feet, Yuri Pocketed her naginata and bowed. "Good afternoon, Seras," she greeted.

Seras returned her greeting by shooting Yuri in the gut. "Hullo, Yuri. That don't count, you had help."

"HEY!" Natsuki screamed, charging at her with her bat raised. Next thing she knew, Seras was behind her and had her in a chokehold with her own bat.

"MASTER ALUCAAAAAARD!" Seras hollered, "YURI'S HERE AN' SHE'S BLEEDIN' OUT SO YA MIGHT WANNA COME DO SOMETHIN' ABOUT IT!"

"WELL BRING HER IN, POLICE GIRL, IT'S NOT AS IF YOU DON'T HAVE ARMS LIKE A HAIRLESS BEAR!" a man's voice called from inside the mansion.

"Oh no…" Yuri groaned, more in annoyance than pain, as she clutched her stomach.

"Yeah, sorry. He's in one of those moods," said Seras somewhat awkwardly as she let Natsuki go. She started towards Yuri, but Natsuki was already by her side.

"Lay down, Yuri. Gently, now," she ordered firmly, pulling a pair of fabric shears and a marker from her Pocket. She quickly cut away a large patch of Yuri's clothes around the gunshot wound. She closed her eyes and pressed a hand on Yuri's body. "Good, the bullet passed clean through, and the damage isn't too complicated," she muttered as she used the marker to draw a complicated transmutation circle on the palm of her unbloodied hand.

"Nat–"

"Not now, let me focus!" Natsuki snapped. She slapped her hand down over Yuri's injury, and sparks flew. It took a moment, but when Natsuki retracted her hand the injury was gone. "How's it feel?" she asked.

"One-hundred percent," Yuri assured her. "But Alucard would have fixed it just fine."

"Yeah, well, you're not his responsibility," Natsuki grumped as she helped Yuri up to her feet.

Yuri raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh, really? You're responsible for me now, are you?"

"As the Club's least-fucked-in-the-head and the one with the best grasp of the concept of 'self-care', yes, I'm responsible," Natsuki said firmly. "I make sure Monika sleeps when she goes too long without it, I make sure I'm always prepared for Sayori's rapid descents, and I make sure your body stays functional despite your best efforts. It's a thankless job, but lesser badasses than I have worked harder for their loved ones."

A small giggle bubbled out of Yuri, and she leaned down and planted a surprise kiss on Natsuki's nose. "Thank you, my sweet kitten," she whispered. Natsuki's ears started to smoke.

A high-pitched, keening squee drew their attention back to Seras, who had her hands over her mouth and looked like she had just seen a unicorn.

Natsuki sighed. "Yes, we're precious, I know. So, you two have clearly met before," she remarked, narrowing her eyes at Seras.

"Oh aye, a few times," said Seras, smiling cheerfully in the face of Natsuki's withering glare, which itself withered away in the face of her radiant expression. "So, you must be Natsuki," she guessed, sticking her hand out. "Seras Victoria, at your service."

"It's Natsuki," Natsuki corrected, accepting the handshake…and giving Seras as much Hamon as she could, to her visible discomfort. Natsuki raised an eyebrow. "You are one robust corpse, Sarah," she remarked.

"Seras," Seras corrected, her smile tightening as she gave Natsuki's hand a crushing squeeze. In response, Natsuki's skin became pink and gummy, and her Majin grip-strength matched Seras's vampire grip-strength.

Then Yuri dope-slapped both of them. "Alright, enough of that, you two," she chided. "Natsuki, Seras is my friend. Please get along with her. Really, you two are acting like boys."

"Hey, I'm not mad at her for shooting you, honest," said Natsuki, mostly honestly. "Just getting a measure of her, that's all." She and Seras released each other's hands, and Natsuki resumed her human form.

"Measure her all you like, with tape even, just don't be rude about it, please," Yuri stressed.

"Alright," said Natsuki. She and Yuri followed Seras into the house.

"You are undead, aren't you?" Natsuki asked, "I know your body rejected the Ripple."

"Natsuki," Yuri sighed.

"Aye, I'm a vampire," Seras confirmed, eyes forward. "But as Master likes to say, I'm a real fucking vampire. Sunlight isn't harmful to me, just…" she stopped to yawn hugely. "Just kinda tiring, is all. Another hour of that, and you might have made me sleepy. Maybe. But I aint gonna disintegrate like summa them milquetoast vampires that you get in other Branches." Then she glanced over her shoulder at Yuri and said, "So you, an aspiring vampire, are dating a Hamon warrior? You're just a bottomless well of curiosities, Yuri…er, you two are dating, right? I'm not reading too deep into things, am I?"

"Natsuki has, in recent loops, been promoted from my best friend to my girlfriend, yes," Yuri confirmed, sidestepping behind Natsuki and wrapping her arms around the shorter girl's midsection, plucking her up off of her feet. Natsuki loudly grumbled at this treatment, but didn't actually go so far as to protest. "In a way, I'm almost disappointed that your Hamon won't cause me any kind of burning agony. That would have been something fun to experiment with."

"Bleh," Natsuki groaned. "Sorry Yuri, but even if it did, I wouldn't use it on you that way. You know darn well there's only so far I'm comfortable going to satisfy your masochistic tendencies. Still, knowing it'll have a sedative effect on you means I might be able to use it to help diffuse you when you get manic, so there's that," she mused.

Yuri and Natsuki followed Seras into a large room, occupied by a tall, slim, pale man in a black suit, with long black hair spilling down his back. He stood in front of a canvas and easel, painting something. "Yuri!" he greeted warmly, "So good to see you again, dear Child. Found religion, have you?"

"More like I Woke Up in a very strange place, you could say," said Yuri.

"You didn't gank Anderson on the way out, did you?" he asked, "I've got plans for old Franken-Priest. Three-hundred gallons of sacramental wine, Betty and her Royal Guard, and St. Paul's Cathedral are involved. You wouldn't happen to have an assload of sequins in your Pocket that you don't need, do you?"

"No, I didn't kill Anderson, and I don't have any sequins in my Pocket," said Yuri.

"I've got sequins out the ass," Natsuki spoke up.

"Well hello there, my new best friend. Did Yuri make you at Build-A-Bear?" asked Alucard.

"Ha, ha, ha," Natsuki deadpanned. Then she elbowed Yuri.

"Oh! Right," said Yuri. "Alucard, this is my girlfriend, Natsuki. That Natsuki, I'm sure you'll recall. Natsuki, this is Alucard, my vampiric Sire."

"Sire?" Natsuki asked, furrowing her brow. "So, what, he's like your dad? You've never had one of those before, not even in Baseline."

"I–…huh. I…hadn't really thought of it quite like that," said Yuri. She regarded Alucard with a strange look in her eyes.

"Well, he'd better be nicer to you than most of the dads I've had in the loops," Natsuki said, giving Alucard a challenging look.

"He's very nice to me, Nat. Don't worry your sweet little head about that," Yuri assured her.

"So far, yes, but if you don't change out of that filthy Iscariot garb, you're going to be grounded young lady," Alucard quipped with a grin as he glanced up from his painting.

Yuri rolled her eyes and disappeared into her Pocket.

"So…" Natsuki said into the ensuing silence. "The Catholic Church in this Branch is pretty disturbing. You guys are the Royal Protestant Knights of the Hellsing Organization I learned about in Iscariot, I'm guessing?"

"Eeyup," confirmed Seras, who had sat down at a table to field strip her sidearm.

"The Reformation in this Branch's history must have been a hell of a brawl," Natsuki muttered. She turned back to Alucard. "So, Dracula with a lazy pseudonym, or son of Dracula who was lazy about naming kids?"

"Neither," Alucard replied curtly. "I was, once, the man known as Vlad Tepes III, known also as 'Dracula' and 'The Impaler'. The codename Alucard was bestowed upon me when I was bound in service to the Hellsing family."

Natsuki raised an eyebrow. "Bound in service, huh? How'd that happen?"

"A completely mortal and for the most part fairly ordinary man, a doctor of all things, kicked my ass," Alucard explained with an air of someone recalling 'The Good Old Days'. "And as he did not destroy me outright, in the tradition of Wallachian honor my life (such as it is) is his family's to command. Which suits me just well, for the Hellsings and I have the common goal of exterminating monsters. After all, slaughtering ordinary humans by the thousands had gotten dull, anyways."

Natsuki nodded. "I think I can see why Yuri looks up to you."

"Looks up to me, does she?" asked Alucard, pausing in his painting and raising an eyebrow at Natsuki.

"You just told her to change her clothes, and she didn't ignore you or argue with you. That's a pretty substantial gesture, coming from her," Natsuki explained. "Something Yuri and I have in common; coming out and just telling people how we feel has never really came easily to us."

Yuri reappeared, wearing a dark purple suit very similar in style to what Alucard was wearing, with a knee-length skirt and stockings in place of slacks. She even had a pair of sapphire-tinted shades to mirror Alucard's amber-tinted pair. She complimented the ensemble with a matching bowler hat, a silver-handled saber hanging from her hip, and a cane that was decorated with a carving of a crow. "How's this?" she asked, crossing her ankles and leaning on the cane with her left hand on the hilt of her saber.

"Magnificent," Alucard complimented, setting his paintbrush and palate down to give her a few claps. Natsuki looked her up and down and whistled appreciatively. Yuri glanced her way from the corner of her eyes, and gave her a smirk.

Alucard stepped away from his painting and held out his hand to Yuri. "Shall we begin, Child?" he asked, smiling monstrously.

"Of course," said Yuri, switching her cane to her left hand and putting her right hand in Alucard's.

Then, to her surprise, Natsuki snatched her cane away, and grabbed her left hand. "I'm coming with you," she said plainly.

Yuri's eyebrows shot up. "Natsuki…c'mon, you don't want to see this…"

"No, I don't, not really," she readily agreed, tucking Yuri's cane under her arm and holding her hand with both of her hands. "But since we've gotten together, you've indulged my interests a lot more than the other way around…so, I want to be there, to share this…moment with you, I guess," she explained, blushing furiously.

"A'www," Seras squealed from her table.

Yuri stared wide-eyed at Natsuki, blinking slowly. Then, on impulse, she darted forward and crushed her lips against Natsuki's. "I love you, Natty," Yuri whispered breathlessly when she broke the kiss.

"A'www!"

Alucard coughed. "Ahem. Making me feel like a third leg, here, girls."

"Why, because you're a huge dick?" Natsuki quipped without missing a beat. Yuri turned beet-red and Seras fell out of her chair laughing hysterically.

"Oh God, Integra's gotta hear that one," the former police girl gasped as she scrammed out of the room.

"And I thought Yuri had nerve," Alucard said with a grin. He ruffled Natsuki's hair with his free hand. "I may not really be Yuri's father, but if I were, you would have my blessing."

Natsuki shrugged. "Whatever, man, I had no intention of asking for it…but thanks anyways."

"That's Tsundere for 'aww shucks, thanks, Dad'," Yuri translated. She squeaked when Natsuki stomped on her foot.

…

Hours later, Natsuki was still pale-faced, and she had a white-knuckled grip on the edge of her bed in the guest room Integra had granted her. Being the swanky joint this was, every bedroom had its own bathroom, and Yuri was presently occupying theirs.

Yuri exited the bathroom silently, and sat down on the edge of the bed silently, just far enough way to make it inaccurate to say she was sitting next to her. "I did warn you," Yuri said gently. She sounded more apologetic than reproachful, though.

"Yeah, I know," Natsuki sighed. "And I…knew it was going to be grisly, but…Christ, Yuri, you really lost it. Or, it sure looked that way. You were screaming and…and you gutted yourself. With an Aztec dagger, if I'm not mistaken."

Yuri produced the dagger in question from her Pocket. "You're not. It seemed appropriate. I'm sorry I frightened you, my darling one," she said genuinely.

"No! No, you didn't…yes, I was frightened, but not…I don't know, it was just more visceral than I expected. Honestly, I'm more annoyed at how shaken up I am than I am shaken, y'know? Like, I told myself I knew what I was going in for, and I…I overestimated myself. The only thing that pisses me off more than other people underselling me is me falling short of my own expectations."

"But you're also intimidated by me, now," Yuri said plainly. "Please don't get defensive," she was quick to add, "I can smell the fear in your blood, Natsuki. I saw the tension of your muscles under your skin when I came back into the room. My feelings aren't hurt, mind you. I know that you have no more control over your emotional reactions than I have over mine."

Natsuki tried to control her breathing, but her whole body was shaking. "I'm sorry, Yuri…I'm a shit girlfriend, there's no reason for me to be afraid right now and I know it!"

"Natsuki! It's okay, you're only human," Yuri said gently, though she made no move to get closer to her, "And right now, I'm one of humanity's most primal nightmares: a life-drinking, soul-stealing creature of the Dark. Your reaction is irrational, but completely reasonable. I'm not offended at all, I just wish there was something I could do to comfort you right now, without making it worse."

"You can get closer, and hold me," Natsuki murmured.

"That…seems like it would only agitate your present state…"

"I don't care that my stupid body is screaming for me to run," Natsuki growled. "I know your heart, Yuri. I know you're no danger to me. Please, Yuyu, hold me?"

Without any further prompting, Yuri slide closer and pulled Natsuki into a tight embrace. She moved them both closer to the middle of the bed, and laid down. Natsuki turned over and wrapped her arms around Yuri, as well. Yuri rubbed her hands up and down Natsuki's back, and although her shivering got worse, Natsuki was able to get her breathing under control. Hamon coursed through her body, and she immediately warmed up. Yuri suddenly yawned. "Wow, Seras wasn't kidding. It…*yawn*…feels like I'm cuddling the Sandman."

"Sorry!" Natsuki squeaked, "Just trying to warm myself up, Yu. Your body's as cold as…well, death, I guess."

Yuri abruptly ceased moving. She sighed. "Yes, of course I am…Natsuki?"

"Mm?"

"Please don't get angry."

"Kay."

"Do you…please, be honest, do you think, maybe, we're not such a good match, after all?" Yuri asked hesitantly. Timidly, even. "We're as different as night and day. I'll never be able appreciate your sickeningly sweet proclivities, any more than you'll ever appreciate my grotesque intrigues. And I…I'm not sure if I could give this up, to make you happy."

Natsuki sighed heavily. "Yuri, you dunce," she grumbled. "We're a horrible match, by any measurement, for the reasons you just said and a thousand others."

Yuri sank her teeth into her own lip to stop herself from crying out.

Natsuki's arms tightened around her, and she continued, "And none of that 'on paper' crap matters, because I love you and there's no one I would rather be with than you. And don't sweat it, I wouldn't presume to ask you to give up anything for me, cuz I know you wouldn't do that to me, either. Look, do you want a partner who's more like you than me?"

"No!" Yuri gasped, "Natsuki, how could you…"

"Exactly, you silly ass," Natsuki giggled, nuzzling her face into the crook of Yuri's neck and planting a kiss. "That's exactly how I feel, too. Sure, we're as different as night and day. That makes you the yin to my yang. We complete each other. Seeing you go all unhinged like that when you were transforming just brought up old traumas and sent my head to a bad place. But that's okay, because my happy place is with you, too."

Yuri gave another strangled gasp as emotion overwhelmed her, affection and gratitude gushing up inside of her and spilling over in the form of tears. She hugged Natsuki as tightly as she dared, burying her face in her hair. She breathed in deeply, and laughed. "I can never get over how much sharper my senses are, how much more richly detailed the world becomes in this form," she murmured, running her hands up and down Natsuki's back and arm. "I thought I already knew your body by heart, but there's still so much more to you. It's like I'm experiencing you for the first time, all over again. My sweet little cupcake. My fierce hot-blooded kitten. My inimitable, irreplaceable summer breeze. My Natsuki."

"And you're my favorite body pillow," Natsuki grunted with a smile. "I love you too, Yuri." They were quiet for a while, and then Natsuki asked, "Hey, Yuri. Why did you flip out like that? Haven't you already done this a bunch?"

"Well…yes, I've done this before, but by the nature of the loops each time was centuries apart, so I've really never gotten used to it," Yuri explained.

"…how does it feel? When it's happening, I mean," Natsuki asked her.

"It's a very raw feeling," said Yuri. "Like…imagine being a caterpillar, and making your chrysalis, and the chrysalis isn't just a container, it's a part of you. And then, suddenly, something tears you out of the chrysalis, but…you're not just the thing inside the chrysalis, you're also the chrysalis itself. It feels like you're being torn free from something, leaving you naked to the world that was outside of the chrysalis, but it also feels like something has been torn out of you, leaving you empty inside. Then the power flows into you. The floodgates of the mind are torn down, and everything you've spent your life repressing comes bubbling up out of your subconscious. It's like spending a lifetime looking up at the moon, knowing it's forever out of your reach, and then suddenly the night sky itself whisks you away and then you're on the moon. It's strange and unnatural and nothing like the world you left behind, but you feel so light, so powerful. Everything becomes possible. More literally, the physical sensation of the human blood being pulled out of you leaves your insides burning. The agony is terrible, but when it fades it leaves behind an impenetrable coldness. It's not uncomfortable, it feels fortifying. You feel indestructible. And that's around the time your head clears enough to notice how your senses have expanded. Sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste; all of them refined and expanded. That's why I 'lost it'. I was, as always, overwhelmed by the sudden surge of sensitivity. The first time Alucard turned me, it was so intense I almost tore myself in half on sheer impulse. Of course, Seras tells me that that her transformation was very different; she had to grow out of thinking in terms of her human frame of reference, and she gradually discovered the extent of her heightened senses and new powers. For me, it was everything all at once. And Alucard…doesn't like to think about his transformation. So I guess experiences vary."

"Damn," Natsuki whispered. "When I turn into a Majin, I just feel really hyper, like the mother of all sugar rushes. Hey, isn't there supposed to be, like, some gaping void in your soul that comes with being undead, or something? What gives?"

Yuri shrugged. "If there's an emptiness in me, I've never noticed. Probably because it's full of you."

"Okay, damn, even I'm getting a toothache from all this schmaltz. Say something creepy, please," Natsuki mock-pleaded.

Natsuki suddenly found herself on her back, both of her wrists pinned above her head by one hand, while the other caressed her face. Yuri's eyes, smoldering crimson, bored into hers. "I'm going to claim each…and every…single…part of your body as my own, Kitten," she growled from her throat.

"Th-that's n-not creeping m-me out, like, at all," Natsuki whimpered, honestly. Yuri's eyes widened, went from smoldering to burning, and she smiled devilishly. Natsuki's body had another primal reaction, and this time it wasn't anything like fear. It was a very different flavor of anticipation.

"Good."

…

Late in the next day, a groggy Natsuki stumbled into a dining room, following the smell of food. She found Integra, Seras, and a man with very long hair and an eyepatch eating dinner together. "Ah, Natsuki, how good of you to join us," said Integra, gesturing with her fork. "Come then, fill yourself a plate and tuck in."

"Arigatou. Where's Yuri?" she asked as she sat down next to Seras. She speared a couple of steaks onto her plate, then a heaping lump of mashed potatoes and an ear of steamed corn.

"Her an' the Master are out right now, doing somethin' with the Queen and St. Paul's Cathedral, I dunno," said Seras before tearing a chunk out of her (very rare) steak.

"So, zis ees our Yuri's little woman, eh?" asked the man.

"Normally a short crack like that would earn you some kind of scathing retort, Frenchie," said Natsuki, gesturing with her corn, "But honestly, I'm way too relaxed to give a crap. My brain is swimming in endorphins right now. Vampire chicks, am I right, man?"

"Damn straight," agreed Pip, and he and Natsuki shared a fistbump across the table.

30.2 – Markov's Eye for the Girl Who's Shy, by Masterweaver.

Natsuki stepped into the clubroom, whistling brightly-right up until she caught sight of her girlfriend.

Her girlfriend, who had umbral lacey boots held up with garter straps that crawled beneath a lilac and black plaid skirt belted to her by a chain.

Her girlfriend, sporting an ashen corset with frilly purple edges and a pair of long, fingerless gloves bound together by another pair of chains with faint heliotrope circuitry carved into the pitch dark latex.

Her girlfriend, face covered in pale makeup, save for the shadows painted around her purple eyes, one long strand of hair dangling in front of her nose down to her thighs and the rest pulled back by a slightly smaller chain to show the amythest and obsidian beads piercing her ears.

Natsuki took in her appearance, considered for a moment or two, and crossed her arms. "Cybergoth?"

"Yep."

"Woke up like this?"

"Yep."

"Looks good on you."

Yuri smiled, though not broadly enough to ruin the effect. "Thanks."

30.3 – One Thousand Words, by Awesomedude17.

Natsuki laid out a rather large scrapbook of various things that the club collectively agreed to record.

Sayori immediately knew how old it really was when she saw a picture of her in a neck brace and Monika nervously explaining to Natsuki and Yuri that Sayori tried to hang herself.

To anyone else, this would've been shocking. To them, it was a reminder that they've changed quite a bit.

"Well this is bringing back memories."

"Yeah. I barely remember half of this stuff." Monika said. "Wait, I don't recall having anyone take this."

Natsuki and Yuri looked over to see Monika using a remote and feeding a saddened Sayori, who was wrapped in a blanket like a sushi roll, snacks.

"Oooh, I was Stealthing then. Sayori had another burst of suicidal thoughts and tried to kill herself again, but Monika stopped that. Needless to say, I had a lot more pics."

"Where are they?"

"Some dork named Spyro burned them by accident. You're safe there."

"…it was the point where you started shipping me and Sayori, right?"

"…yes."

Monika sighed.

Sayori giggled.

Yuri quietly nodded and made a note to add in the copies she made when she was Stealthing then as well.

30.4 – Mechanical Hearts: Break, by Skaz Wolfman.
(DDLC)/(RWBY)

Monika was hanging out at Tukson's Book Trade, waiting for Emerald and Mercury to show up so she could thwart a murder. No one in Vale seemed to be Looping, and going by Pings there were only three other Loopers Awake right now; she knew Sun and Raven were among them, and that Sun was back in Haven dealing with the treacherous Leo Lionheart. Monika and her friends were attending Beacon again, but this loop they were a year ahead of RWBY and JNPR.

Monika frowned and checked her watch; it was getting late in the day, and no sign of a thief and a butcher. Then she heard screams, and bolted outside. Outside, she found people pointing and screaming and running from a familiar ginger-haired girl chasing down another familiar mint-haired girl. Then she saw an identical ginger-haired girl emerge from behind the first one. And another coming from across the street. All three of them where swinging identical sets of flying blades, while Emerald was taking potshots at them over her shoulders as she ran. Hence the screaming bystanders.

A dark-blue biotic aura flared around Monika, and the orange holographic interface of an omni-tool appeared on her wrist. With a thrust of her hand she conjured a powerful Singularity in midair that pulled all three of the Pennys off of the ground, and with a few quick keystrokes on the omni-tool she targeted them with a chain of Overload commands. Emerald, not questioning this sudden change in her luck, put on a sudden burst of speed to get away. Monika stepped aside to let her dash past, but clotheslined her at the last second. "Sorry Em, but you are still a criminal," she said apologetically before pinning her to the ground with a red-glowing Stasis mass effect field.

Monika's Singularity dissipated, dropping the trio of Penny clones on the sidewalk. "So, what's going on, then?" Monika asked. "I don't think your generuncle would approve of you–any of you–causing panic in the streets."

"We're not property!" one Penny snapped venomously at her.

"I…don't think I implied that I thought you were?" said Monika quizzically.

"We don't need anyone's permission to do what we need to do," the same Penny said furiously, "We're completely autonomous beings!" As if to emphasize this point, she swung a blade out and sheared through a lamppost, toppling it into the street. Cars squealed to a stop.

"Yes," said Monika, holding her hands up in a 'whoa there, let's talk this out' gesture. "Yes, you are absolutely autonomous beings, just as much as I am. The people around us right now are autonomous beings too, and you're scaring them. So let's just–"

"Screw them!" another Penny snarled, "What have any of them ever done for us?"

"Yeah! We're trying to protect these ungrateful meatbags!" added the first Penny.

Then the third Penny threw herself at Monika without saying anything, but there was something different about this one. It's face was placid and calm, not twisted in disgust like the first not-Penny or fury like the second. And, quite unlike any Penny that Monika knew, this one was wielding only two swords, and in her hands at that. It wasn't unheard of for Penny to manually wield a sword, if its string was severed or in cases where her strings were rendered disadvantageous, but Monika knew it wasn't Penny's style to start an encounter with blades in hand.

'Welp,' was all Monika could think before she Unpocketed a magna-staff, a six-foot length of metal with each end spitting arcs of violet-hued electricity. She gave it a spin before meeting the maybe?-Penny's charge, deflecting both of her initial swings. She hooked a foot around Penny's ankle and yanked her foot out from under her, and spear-thrust her magna-staff into Penny's chest, pinning her to the ground. Violet electricity arced all over Penny's Aura. 'So it's some kind of living person, not just a Penny-lookalike.'

Two swords embedded themselves in the side of a nearby building, and two more in the sidewalk on either side of Monika. The second Penny, the one with an almost-foul mouth, pulled herself towards Monika with a flying kick. Monika jumped aside and smacked her down in midair; she sprang back up immediately, like a rubber ball, and sank a rising uppercut into Monika's stomach. Monika flew through the air, tumbling head over feet, towards the first Penny, who was charging up her Sword-Laser with a coldly satisfied expression. 'Three different Penny-lookalikes, with three different attitudes and fighting styles, and each with an Aura and therefore a soul. I have a hypothesis,' thought Monika, even as she reached a hand towards the Penny she had first knocked down. A mass effect field shimmered around her, and Monika Pulled her along the sidewalk, into the Penny who was about to blast her. Said Penny got her legs knocked from under her, and fell on top of the other Penny. Her swords were yanked up and discharged their laser beam harmlessly into the sky. 'Hopefully someone from Beacon sees that,' she thought.

Monika tried to land on her feet, but had to settle for landing on her ass. Hard. "Oww," she groaned as she used her magna-staff to push herself back up to her feet. The really angry Penny charged her with a fist drawn back, screaming. Eyes wide, Monika dived to the side; Penny's fist instead struck a parked car, blowing out all its windows and sending it skidding across the street.

"Wait!" called out the seemingly calm Penny, holding her swords in one hand while she used the other to help the one she had toppled back to her feet. "You're fighting for the wrong side, stranger. All we're trying to do is purge this city of evil. The deceiver is the only one we want, and she doesn't deserve your protection," she said levelly. She didn't sound emotionless, but she was much more subdued than the Penny Monika knew.

Monika nodded. "Good to know. Sorry, but us 'deceivers' have to stick together!" she said before using a mass effect field to bolt over to Emerald's side. She negated the Stasis field and grabbed her, and then they both disappeared into thin air, as far as the Pennys could tell.

"Well that's just great!" yelled the angry Penny, throwing her hands in the air. "Now what do we do?!"

"We go back to Base, and prepare for the next mission," the calm one replied simply.

…

"They k-killed Cinder!" bawled Emerald, crying all over Monika's shirt. Monika, feeling thoroughly awkward but trying to ignore it, held the distraught young woman and patted her back. They were sitting on the floor in the laboratory area of Monika's Pocket.

"Hey, buck up," Monika said gently, "Cinder would be pissed if you fell to pieces like this. Try to calm down and tell me everything you know, and I'll do what I can to make this right.

"Y-you kn-know C-Cinder?" Emerald hiccupped.

"Yes, we met a very long time ago," Monika replied honestly. "There are a lot of things I don't like about her, mind you, but I've always admired her drive to succeed and envied her for being so at peace with who she is. And my best friend is friends with her, so that's enough for me to give her the time of day, if nothing else. Anyways, I'm also friends with a girl named Penny, who looks very much like those three killbots, but the Penny I know would never do something this vicious, so I have an all-around vested interest in getting to the bottom of this mess. Can you help me, Emerald?"

Emerald sniffled miserably. "I…don't think I can…those three attacked Roman's hideout out of nowhere…killed him, and Neo, and Mercury, and C-Cinder…and I ran like a coward!" she screamed, breaking down in tears again.

Monika grabbed Emerald's shoulders, pushed her back to her arms' length away, and smartly smacked her across the face. "You ran, and you survived. Process your guilt later, we have work to do."

"R-right," said Emerald, rubbing her cheek.

"Now, for now, just…try to hold it together for a minute, while I…well, if it's as bad as I think it might be, I need to bring my A-game," said Monika as she stood up and walked over to a machine. She pressed a button on the side, and a pod attached to the side opened up. "This is going to take a while, so be patient," she instructed Emerald as she climbed in the pod. "And don't touch anything!" she added before the pod closed.

An hour later, a different pod opened and Monika climbed out of it. She worked her neck from side to side, but instead of popping vertebrae her neck made…whirring noises?

"Um…what'd you…do?" Emerald asked.

"Transferred myself to a robotic body," replied Monika as she exited the lab, Emerald tailing right behind her. "Something tells me this isn't a job for a meatbag."

Monika disappeared, and a moment later Emerald found herself back on the streets of Vale. Monika was talking into a Scroll, "Well I'm sorry, Raven, but this is important. I'm not going to name names, because I put a high stock in discretion, but someone's killed Cinder, and Emerald is still alive. Savvy?"

A red portal tore itself open right next to Emerald, and she squeaked and darted behind Monika as Raven Branwen emerged in her full Bandit Queen regalia. "What the hell happened to Cinder?" she asked right away.

"First things first," said Monika, pulling a wand out of her Pocket and turning to face Emerald. "Obliviate," she incanted, and Emerald's eyes glazed over. Monika stepped aside and gently pushed Emerald towards Raven. She staggered forward like a sleepwalker. "When she comes out of it, she'll remember losing Cinder and Mercury, but she'll think she lost them in a Grimm attack in the wilderness. Tell her you and your tribe that you saved her. I imagine you'll be her new Cinder; please don't let Vernal kill her in a jealous fit or anything."

"Hey," Raven snapped, "Vernal's loyal but she's not…like Emerald. I mean, yeah, she does have a crush on me this loop, I'm pretty sure, but that's a Variable thing. You know I can undo that charm, right?"

"Yes, I do, and I thank you in advance for not doing so," said Monika primly. "When everything is said and done, I'll tell you everything that I feel comfortable telling. But inasmuch as is possible, I'd like to keep this situation on the down-low. Like I said, discretion is a cardinal virtue to me."

Raven folded her arms. "Emerald's one of us, so I'll take her in for free, but if you really want me to keep my curiosity to myself you're going to have to offer me some compensation, Monika."

"Fine," Monika groaned, "what do you want?"

"What do you think? Something you don't want anyone else to see," Raven replied with a grin.

"…you think I have blackmail material on myself?" Monika asked.

"Everyone keeps something on themselves. A memento from a loop you'd kill to keep anyone else from seeing, for example."

Monika's eye twitched. "Alright, fine," she sighed as she handed Raven a photo album. "From a loop where I replaced Peach and married Bowser…well, Bowsette, technically," she said irritably.

Raven raised an eyebrow. "And why would you of all Loopers keep something like this?"

"…there're some really nice pictures," Monika muttered, blushing.

Raven opened the album to a random page, and found her own cheeks pinking. "Wow."

"Make copies for yourself, because I'm going to want this back before the loop ends," Monika said firmly. The she frowned. "But keep it in your Pocket until I see you again, just in case something goes wrong and this loop crashes. If Ruby never Wakes Up I might be the only Anchor here, and I might be doing something very dangerous soon."

Raven snapped the album shut and Pocketed it, nodding. "Alright, my avarice is satisfied. Good luck with whatever you're doing, Yandere Meme."

"Oh, flap off," Monika grumbled as she walked away. Raven grabbed Emerald, still in a post-Memory Modification fugue, and disappeared through her portal with her.

…

Awake or Unawake, Ruby was one of the most important and closest people to Penny, so Monika felt she was the closest thing she had to a lead. She got to Beacon and managed to track down Weiss. "Ruby?" she asked, frowning, "She got a call from that odd Penny girl this morning, asking if she'd like to hang out in the city all day, apparently." Weiss's disapproval was audible. "The next semester is starting soon, we should be getting ready, not wasting a whole day on frivolity."

Monika got Ruby's number from her, though Weiss cautioned that Yang had tried to call her earlier and she had never answered. Monika hurried outside and tried to call Ruby, but she got no reply. 'Alright, different tactic,' thought Monika, closing her eyes and linking up to the CCT network. She also connected to a server full of Vine compilations in her Pocket, and deluged the CCT with uploads until one of the access nodes crashed. In a window of several nanoseconds–'Gotta give it to big momma Atlas, their systems are resilient'–she had embedded a very illegal trace program, and started sweeping the Kingdom for Ruby's Scroll. Before the CCT's security system noticed and fried her virus, Monika got a location.

She Unpocketed a broomstick and took to the skies, and a few minutes later she touched down in…an amusement park? And not the creepy deserted kind, a totally normal one. Business was in full swing. 'The plot thickens?' thought Monika as she Pocketed the broom. She closed her eyes again, turned her auditory sensitivity all the way up, winced before disconnecting the sensory-pain circuit, and started scanning the sounds around her, looking for a familiar voice…

"WHEEEEEEE!" shrieked two familiar voices from a nearby ride, one of the tilt-a-whirl types.

Monika ran towards the ride, activating her omni-tool. 'Sorry folks, but this is an emergency,' she thought as she hacked into the ride's control console and tripped the emergency shut-off. The air was rich with disappointed groans as the ride suddenly started slowing to a stop. She waited patiently until she saw Ruby get off, and sure enough there was another Penny with her. This one seemed much happier and carefree than the trio from earlier. She was then struck by an idea.

Monika deployed a stealth drone to keep tabs on the pair, and Pocketed herself. After a few minutes with a graphic design program and a digital matter synthesizer, she made an Atlesian military uniform from scratch, put it on, and Unpocketed herself. Following her drone's signal, Monika found Ruby and Penny at a concession stand. "Ms. Polendina," she said as she approached them. Penny looked up at her in surprise, and Ruby looked at her curiously. "Please pardon the interruption, but you need to come with me right away."

"Why?" asked Penny.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not at liberty to say in front of your friend. It's very urgent," Monika pressed.

"Sorry, but whatever it is, it couldn't possibly be more important to me than spending time with Ruby," Penny replied simply. Ruby blushed.

Monika sighed. "Sorry you feel that way, Penny." Then she grabbed Penny's arm and they both disappeared from Ruby's sight.

Inside her Pocket, Monika threw Penny against a wall and pinned her there with her foot on her chest. "No games, now. What are you, where's the real Penny Polendina, and what the hell is going on?" she demanded.

For the first time, this Penny looked angry. "You interrupted my date with Ruby!" she yelled, pushing back against the wall. Monika hopped backwards, letting Penny stagger forward, and knocked her to the ground with a roundhouse kick. Then she pinned her to the floor with her foot.

"I strongly recommend you take this conversation more seriously," said Monika as she entered commands on her omni-tool. "If you don't answer my questions, I'm going to start hurting you, and I'd rather not. What are you? Where's the real Penny Polendina?"

"I am Penny Polendina!" the gynoid shrieked as she squirmed under Monika's foot.

"That so? What's my name, then?" Monika asked, removing her helmet so 'Penny' could see her face.

"What?! How should I know? I've never seen you before!"

"Didn't think so. And the three Pennys I met earlier didn't recognize me either, but they did know that Cinder Fall was an evil they needed to stop," said Monika. "None of you are the real Penny. You're fragments of her, if my hypothesis is right. Where's the real Penny? This is your last chance."

"Let me go!" the imposter wailed, "I need to be with Ruby!"

"I'm sorry," said Monika genuinely, "But that's the wrong answer." She pressed a key on her omni-tool, and the fake Penny under her foot started shrieking in pain, clutching her head. After a few seconds, Monika pressed another key and the imposter stopped screaming and went limp. "Tell me where the real Penny Polendina is, or I'll do it again, but at double the amplitude," Monika threatened. "Yes, believe it or not, it can be even worse. The searing lights flashing without rhyme or reason, the hellish droning that makes you want to claw your ears out, not that it would help since I'm broadcasting directly into your brain."

"Why…who are you?" the imposter gasped.

"Someone who cares about Penny Polendina," said Monika. "I'm also someone who does terrible things to get what she wants, and what I want right now is to make sure my friend is alright. Also, that was the wrong answer," she added before hitting the key on her omni-tool again.

"No wai-ARRRRRGGGHH!" the imposter screamed, arching her back. Monika pressed her foot down, harder. She turned off the Overload program.

"I can't double it again, because the next one might break you, but there's still a lot of room to turn it up," Monika told her. "Tongue feeling any looser, yet?"

"I'll talk," the fake Penny whimpered, synthetic fluid leaking from her optical components. "I'll tell you where the others are, and the original Penny."

'She's not real, she's not real, she's not real, she's just a fragment and the real Penny could be in danger,' Monika told herself sternly. It didn't make her feel any better in the slightest. "Good," she said out loud, taking her foot off of her. "You'll take me to them, of course, but first I want you to explain what happened to Penny, and how you lot came to be."

…

Two days ago:

Penny had been working on it since the start of the loop, which had been difficult since Generuncle Jamie wasn't Awake and wouldn't help her, but it was finished. A nice, secure, off-the-grid bunker on the outskirts of Vale, where Penny could safely carry out her experiment. Doing it in her Pocket would be much easier, but Penny couldn't pretend there wasn't a margin of error for this to go badly, and if it did, the damage would be limited to just this loop. 'This cognitive dissonance is driving me up the firewall,' she thought to herself as she put the finishing touches on the machine that would facilitate her experiment. 'Trying to reconcile all the conflicting aspects of myself isn't working with everything coped up in my head. What this calls for is to talk my problems out with my problems,' she reasoned. 'Talking it out with anyone else would be a waste of time, because frankly no one else is going to understand what I'm going through. Weiss tried, bless her heart, but…she's only human, after all. And loyal to Ruby before anything and everything else in the Multiverse, so can I really trust her to have my best interests at heart if those interests conflict with Ruby's? It feels awful to think of it that way, but…dammit I'm doing it again, thinking in circles. Let's get these quarreling voices out of my head so we can all clear the air.'

With that settled, Penny hooked herself up to the machine, which was connected to ten pods that contained other gynoids, all inactive and identical to herself. Penny had decided to call them Applied Synthetic Psychological Engram Conversion Technoforms, or A.S.P.E.C.T.s for short. She started the machine up, and closed her eyes.

…

Presently:

"Eventually, Number Two convinced Prime to tell her who the evil ones were, and where and when to find them, and Number Eight and Number Ten went with her to…y'know, deal with them. Number Five and Number Nine stayed behind to keep Number Three from getting in the way, and the first chance I got I snuck away to be with my beloved Ruby," 'Penny A.S.P.E.C.T. Number Four' finished explaining as she led Monika to an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city of Vale.

"I can't believe she fragmented herself," Monika muttered. "She's been to the Reds and Blues' Branch, hasn't she?"

Number Four furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "I'm not sure what you're talking about, but Penny-Prime didn't mean to separate us all permanently. The idea was just to talk through her problems with the only people who could ever possibly understand them; pieces of herself. Then Number Two kind of steered things in her own direction."

"That's not how that works though!" Monika exclaimed, "That's just a really convoluted echo chamber! Okay, no, that's unfair. It'd only really be an echo chamber if each copy was exactly the same. Still, you can't get an outside perspective from someone that came from you."

Number Four led Monika around to the back of the building, where there was a cellar door with another Penny A.S.P.E.C.T. sitting next to it, and another one picking flowers in the yard.

"That's Number Seven," said Number Four, pointing to the A.S.P.E.C.T. next to the cellar door, who jumped to her feet as soon as she noticed them. "She's Prime's sense of melancholy at being the only robot Looper from Remnant. And that's Number Six," she pointed to the flower gatherer. "She's…she just really enjoys existing in general."

"Salutations, Number Four and New Friend!" exclaimed Number Six, running up and shoving flowers into both of their arms.

"Who's this?" asked Number Seven, her voice a very odd blend of curiosity tinged with apathy and a suggestion of 'I should probably be hostile and distrustful of the stranger but I honestly just can't be bothered'. Monika thought she sounded like Sayori on a bad day.

"A fellow personoid," Monika replied, popping her right arm off to demonstrate her body's mechanical nature.

Number Seven gawked. "You…you're really a robot?! That's not just a prosthetic, is it?"

"I was born and raised in a computer, and this body is entirely inorganic," Monika confirmed. "I'm also a Looper, and a friend of Penny's, and I'm really worried about her. Would it be alright if I saw her?"

Number Seven frowned. "I…don't think that would be a good idea. Numbers Two, Eight, and Ten are still out gathering gear for the mission to Mistral, and Number Two said not to let anyone else see Prime."

"Um, Seven?" Number Four spoke up, "She really wants to see Penny-Prime. If you try to stop her, she'll just…go through you."

"She's right, you know," said Monika with a smile as she reattached her arm. "Listen, this 'aspect' business has gotten out of hand. Penny is an important friend to me, and I want to make sure she's well. First, I need to put her back together."

"Number Two isn't going to agree with this. Her mission isn't done yet," said Number Seven.

"Yeah, well, she and her mission both need to be stopped, anyhow," said Monika, "She's killed people."

"They were evil, though," said Number Seven, wringing her hands.

"Maybe, but they were still people. Legally executing criminals as mandated through the justice system is morally questionable as it is; going around murdering people you don't like is flat-out unethical. Penny would never sanction this, not if she were in her right mind. I've known her for millennia, so whatever has brought her to this point, I know it means she's in a bad place right now. I can't let this go on, I have to help my friend."

"And she's absolutely willing to hurt us if we stand in her way," Number Four added.

"So! Let's all agree to do what's best for Penny and all momentarily displaced aspects of her psyche, and head down to see her together like good buddies," said Monika brightly.

"That sounds sensational!" agreed Number Six, who skipped over to the cellar door and threw it open.

"…alright," Number Seven agreed glumly, "I wasn't enjoying being alone with my feelings, anyways."

"Believe it or not, I know exactly how it feels to have your entire being focused on how alone you feel," Monika said sympathetically, "And as such I can confirm: it really fucking sucks."

Monika and Numbers Four and Seven followed Six down into the cellar. The old, decrepit stairs abruptly ended at a shiny metal door with a retinal scanner on the lock, which Number Six opened. Beyond that was a sterile white room, much of which was dominated by computers and the machine Number Four had told Monika about. One Penny was sealed in one of the pods, and appeared to be unconscious. Four more Pennys, one of whom was wearing a very vibrant dress that made Monika think of a flamenco dancer, wear seated around a collapsible table playing cards. Well, three of them were, and the fourth was just staring into the middle distance. "Will the real Penny Polendina please stand up?" asked Number Six as they entered.

"Not that one?" asked Monika, pointing at the Penny-in-a-pod.

"No, that's Number Three, the one who didn't want to let Number Two go after the bad people," explained Number Four.

"Who is she and what is she doing here?!" demanded a Penny that jumped out of her seat at the card table.

"That's Number Five, representing Prime's suspicion that she might not be able to trust anyone but herself anymore, maybe," said Number Four. "And the one on a Scroll is Number Nine, Prime's sense of reason. The one in the snazzy dress is Number Eleven, Prime's sense of creativity, and the other one is Prime herself."

"Intruders at Base," said Number Nine into her Scroll. Then she closed it and jumped out of her chair, deploying her blades and setting them all to blaster-mode. Then she fired a volley at Monika, whose rebuttal was to sheathe herself in a mass effect field and slam into Number Nine, crossing the distance between them in an instant. Number Five threw herself at Monika, blades whirling, but then Number Eleven blindsided her, tackling her to the floor.

"Traitor!" the paranoid A.S.P.E.C.T. of Penny screamed.

"Hey, I'm not the one who pulled a coup on our mentally incontinent Prime," Number Eleven retorted as she got her fellow A.S.P.E.C.T. in a headlock. "Six! Let Three out!"

"Affirmative!" Number Six chirped, tra-la-la-ing over to the pod.

"Belay that!" shouted Monika as she grabbed the strings of Number Nine's swords and cut through them with an omni-blade. "You all need to get in your pods so I can undo whatever Penny did to herself to make you all. Penny, are you okay?!"

"Hmm?" asked the one Penny who was still seated. "Oh…salutations, Monika, I didn't notice you there," she said in a very 'no one's home right now, please leave a message' tone of voice.

"…okay, that's very distressing, but I'm going to fix everything soon. Everyone, in your pods!" she ordered.

"TRAITORS! You're all traitors! I couldn't even trust myself!" Number Five screamed as Eleven, Seven, and Four all forced her into her pod, while Six helped Monika with Nine.

"Thank goodness I didn't have to fight all of you," said Monika, once Nine and Five were electronically sedated and sealed in their pods. Seven, Six, and Four got into their pods without complaint.

"Yeah, well, none of us really want to be split up, anyways," said Number Eleven, "It…doesn't feel right, you know? I mean, Six could probably be happy with it, but she doesn't seem capable of not being happy."

"So what's the damage with the three that went rogue? And somehow convinced Paranoia and Rationality to side with them?" asked Monika as she hooked Penny back up to the machine.

"Well, Number Two is hellbent on fulfilling our–that is, Penny's–original purpose. Namely, to be a weapon that will save the world. Number Eight has a big chip on her shoulder on account of being a robot in a world run by Organics. And Number Ten…well, she's just anger. She's not even angry at anything, she's just made of anger. Or, more accurately, she's based on Prime's general sense of frustration. With herself, with everyone around her, yadda-yadda. But since none of us have access to Prime's memories as a Looper, Number Ten can't really put any faces or names to her frustration. She just has a huge seething ball of the stuff and no way to cope but to lash out at everything."

"One is Rage, one is Outrage, and they're both following Righteous Fury because it gives them an excuse to vent their vehemence violently," Monika surmised.

"Wow, that's pretty good," Number Eleven complimented her. "Hey, before I get in my pod, can you do me a favor?"

"Absolutely," said Monika readily. Then her eyes widened as Number Eleven started taking off her dress.

"Give this to Prime once she's herself again, alright?" said Number Eleven, tossing the dress on the table.

"S-sure," Monika stuttered. Number Eleven gave her a friendly wave before climbing into her pod, sealing herself in, and promptly passing out. Monika turned back to the real Penny, who was staring into space again. "Hey, Penny? You stay, right here, and I'll be back with…well, with the rest of you. Then I'll put you back in order and we're going to have a very serious talk, one girlbot to another. Okay?"

"Okay," said Penny distantly, with a sleepy non-expression.

Monika heard the roar of a Bullhead drawing near, and she hurried outside. On the way, she Unpocketed two pistols: the Quarian-made Arc Projector, and the Salarian-made Scorpion. Monika emerged from the cellar door, but didn't venture away from it until the Bullhead landed. She knew those things had guns on them, and as she hoped they didn't dare open fire on her with it while Penny-Prime and the other A.S.P.E.C.T.s were behind her. The trio of murderous sub-Pennys hopped out of the Bullhead, and Monika fully emerged to face them.

30.5 – Clash of Philosophies!, by YukiAkuma.

Flashes of light and sparks filled the club room. The sound of lightsabers clashing reverberated off the windows.

"A Sith cannot forgive such insults, she-devil!" Sayori cried as she leapt at Yuri, red lightsaber bouncing off Yuri's own violet blade. Sayori then thrust her hand out, Force Pushing Yuri into the far wall.

"I won't apologise for my beliefs!" came the response from the purple-haired swordswoman. She parried Sayori's next blow effortlessly, before sidestepping the Sith to aim a quick slice with the sickle in her off-hand at Sayori's unprotected flank. A sudden burst of telekinetic force blasted the two apart.

"So…" Monika said to Natsuki as she took a seat at the far end of the club room. "Do I want to know?"

"Oh, Yuri just criticised one of Sayori's poems," Natsuki responded, idly munching on potato chips.

"All I said was that you could use more synonyms!" Yuri argued while performing an acrobatic dodge off of the ceiling.

"The repetition is the POINT!" came Sayori's rejoinder as she brought her blade up to meet Yuri's downward swing.

"…should we stop them?" Monika asked as a chunk of desk bounced harmlessly off her kinetic barrier.

"Eh. They'll wear themselves out eventually," Natsuki replied breezily. "Chip?"

30.6 – You Think You Know A Group…, by Masterweaver.

Yuri opened her bedroom door, took one look into the clubroom, and shut it. "Nope." She spun on her heel and flung herself into her bed. "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope."

The phone on her desk buzzed.

"Nuh-uh. Nope."

It buzzed again.

"Not playing along."

It picked up. "Yuri, come on out."

"No, Monika, I'm not going to–"

"Yuri," Natsuki said, "I'm seriously considering giving Monika permission to force-code you out here."

"What?"

"Look, just…" Sayori sighed. "We need to do this."

Yuri groaned, pulling a pillow onto her face. "This is completely ridiculous and an over-exaggeration."

"Maybe," Monika conceded, "but can you at least hear us out?"

For a moment, Yuri stared at the silk of her pillowcase.

Then she rose with a loud moan, throwing the pillow into the wall. "Fine, whatever." Grumbling under her breath, she stalked out into the clubroom and glared at the banner marked 'Intervention'. "What is it this time?"

"We've been comparing notes and…weeeeeeell…" Sayori cringed. "You seem to be starting fights just to have a physical fight."

Monika started counting off on her fingers. "Taunting my hair to have us fight with combs, insulting Sayori's poetry style to get her to go all out on you, and whatever you and Natsuki have got going on–"

Natsuki huffed. "Look, lovers' quarrels are between lovers. But she does have a point. You're getting in fights…a lot more than the rest of us."

"And that's fine!" Sayori assured quickly. "You have a fire in your blood, that's perfectly alright. But, you know, we'd appreciate it if instead of looking for a reason to fight and causing conflict, you just tell us you want to have a throwdown instead of riling us up."

Yuri blinked. "Wait…that's what this intervention is for?"

"Yes," Natsuki said, confused. "What else would it be for?"

"…I…honestly didn't know," Yuri admitted. "Huh. O…kay, then…I guess…I'll try to have less, uh, provoking manner and just…set up a sparring ring?"

"That would be lovely." Monika stretched. "Okay, I think we're done here!"

30.7 – Mechanical Hearts: heart2heart, by Skaz Wolfman.
(DDLC)/(RWBY)

On the outskirts of the capital city of the Kingdom of Vale, in the yard outside a deserted farmhouse, under the first handful of stars in the twilight sky, with a faint orange glow far to the west to mark the sun's passing, one gynoid face three others who were identical to an unwell friend of hers. Bringing them to heel, whether by peaceful or violent means, was necessary to make that friend well again.

"Automatons, borne from Wrath, Pride, and Righteous Indignation; fractured aspects of a wounded soul," Monika said to the three Penny A.S.P.E.C.T.s. "Go thee back from whence thee came, and pray let that be the end of this sad affair. If nay, says thee, I shall be obliged to fight. With a gun full of justice," she held up the Scorpion, "and a gun full of mercy," she held up the Arc Projector, "for I cannot abide the presence of evil."

That proclamation broke something in the leading A.S.P.E.C.T., designated Number Two, who broke into a charge at Monika with a sword in each hand, screaming a battle cry. The one designated Number Eight jumped up onto the Bullhead parked in the yard, deployed her swords and started charging up a powerful energy beam. Number Ten also deployed her swords, and sprinted around to Monika's left side. Monika crossed her arms, aiming the Arc Projector at Eight and the Scorpion at the ground between herself and Two. Squeezing both triggers, Monika peppered the ground with microgrenades and fired a powerful lance of electricity at Eight. Eight's Aura fully shielded her from the blast, but sparks arced between her swords and destabilized the charged-up energy; consequentially, it blew up in her face and sent her tumbling off of the Bullhead. Between the shock, the boom, and the fall, her Aura broke.

Two noticed the dimly-glowing balls Monika had fired at the ground, and wisely skidded to a halt. Two swords floated up out of her back, and she launched them at the building behind Monika, and thereby pulled herself through the air over the miniature minefield. Ten sent four of her swords flying forward, stabbing them into the ground around Monika, and used them to pull herself forward for a flying punch that might have torn Monika in half, if it connected. Instead, Monika jumped up and threw a kick at Two as she passed overhead. Two blocked the kick with one of her swords, the other shifting into blaster mode; she shot Monika at close range. Meanwhile, her strings were still pulling them towards the farmhouse. Monika jumped up, kicking off from Two's sword, and vaulted over her. Two struck the house feet first, detached her swords, and kicked off towards Monika. At the same time, Ten launched her swords at Monika, but they all bounced off her biotic barrier. Monika Pocketed her guns and threw one hand at Two, hitting her with a biotic Push that slammed her back into the farmhouse. Then she raised her omni-tool and launched a Cryo Blast at her, freezing her to the side of the house.

Monika landed on the ground in a crouch, next to the head of the Bullhead, and Ten tried to charge her again. She ran right into the little field of microgrenades, and was promptly blown into the air. Monika threw a mass effect field around Ten and Pulled her back down, slamming her into the ground with enough force to break her Aura. Then a voice behind Monika screamed "DIE!" and Monika whirled around just in time to catch Eight's energy beam head-on. It sent her flying backwards, burning through the rest of her Barrier and a good chunk of her Aura.

"Get the others!" Two shouted. Monika looked up, and saw that the ice on and around her was thawing out quickly. 'Must be heating her body up.' Then she saw Eight sprinting for the cellar door.

"No!" Monika shouted, Unpocketing a heavy pistol and sitting up; she slowed down her perception of time to line up her shot, and squeezed the trigger. With one shot, she blew out both of Eight's knees, sending her sprawling out on the grass.

"NO!" screamed Two, who tore herself free of the house and hit the ground running, straight for Monika. Monika fired at her, but she blocked every shot with her swords. The rest of her swords emerged from her back in blaster-mode and opened fire, shipping away at Monika's Aura.

"That's it, Sci-Fi Hour is over," Monika grunted, Pocketing the pistol and Unpocketing her wand. "Impedimenta!" she cried. Two lurched to a near halt, as if she had ran headlong into an invisible blob of molasses. "Sectumsempra!" she shouted, waving her wand high overhead in a horizontal arc; the strings of Two's swords all snapped, and they fell to the ground behind her. "Expelliarmus!" she thrust her wand at Two, and the swords in her hands flew away from her just as the Impediment Jinx wore off and she stumbled forward. Finally, Monika brandished her wand and gravely incanted, "Imperio."

She felt her willpower flow down wand arm and through the air, into Two…whereupon her senses were obliterated by the mental equivalent of crashing into a steel wall at a hundred miles per hour. Before she could recover, a fist slammed into her face, which similarly felt like getting hit by a car going a hundred miles per hour. Monika's Aura shattered as she was sent flipping backward. She staggered up to her feet, just in time for Two to Spartan kick her in the chest, slamming her back into the side of the Bullhead. Still disoriented from having her will break against the sheer adamant conviction of Two's righteousness, and then getting her braincase rattled, Monika was momentarily helpless as Two drove a sword through her midsection with enough force to left her off her feet. Two let go and stepped back, and when she didn't fall down Monika realized she had been pinned to the Bullhead.

Silver lining, the simulated pain and accompanying cavalcade of systems warnings going off in her head brought her back into stark focus. She observed that Two was leaping at her with her other sword poised to stab her through the chest. Magic momentarily forgotten, Monika defaulted to what she knew best. 'Need a gun, need a gun, NEED A BIG GUN' she thought frantically. Her Claymore, a Krogan shotgun with too much recoil for an ordinary human to safely fire, appeared in one of her hands, and without thinking she raised it at hip level and fired. Monika and Two both cried out in pain as the former felt the motors in her left arm shatter from the Claymore's immense recoil, and the latter was sent flying backwards, her right arm blown very uncleanly off. Two landed on her back, and didn't try to get up. Monika's left arm dangled at her side, dead below the elbow, and the Claymore slipped from her grip. She found the presence of mind to Pocket it before it fell too far away.

Number Ten got up out of her crater. Monika, remembering the wand in her right hand, raised it and said hoarsely, "Petrificus Totalus." Ten's legs snapped together, her arms snapped to her sides, and she went stiff as a board. She didn't fall backward, rather seeming to stand at attention so rigidly it could make a drill sergeant weep tears of joy. Monika grabbed the hilt of the sword that was impaling her, and yanked it out, falling down and landing heavily on her knees. Then, she forced herself up to her feet. "The things I do for friendship," Monika muttered to herself. "And to validate my self-worth. Can't forget that one." She stepped over to Number Two's side. "You fought well, would-be Battle Angel, but the fight's over. I'm going to reintegrate you all back into Penny, okay? And I hope her conscience can bear the burden of what you've done on her behalf."

"Weapons don't need conscience," Two retorted, "They only need a target, and my target–"

"Is evil, yes, I know. Well, in what little time you have left, here's something for you to chew on: weapons, by definition, have no knowledge of or inclination towards good or evil. Only people can know and choose between good and evil, and any person who would enforce their perspective on the subject upon all other people, at any cost and with no regard for their autonomy, is an evil person by virtue of having no respect for the free will of others. Petrificus Totalus, Locomotor Robot," said Monika, Body-Binding Number Two and levitating her a few inches off the ground. She transported her down into the cellar, and put her in her pod. Then she went back for Number Eight, and then for Number Ten.

With all ten of Penny's A.S.P.E.C.T.s and what was left of Penny herself all hooked up to the machine, Monika started the reintegration process. Then she sat down and let her body's self-repair systems run while she waited.

…

Monika opened her eyes when she heard crying. She checked to make sure her body was fully repaired, and it was, and then she got up and walked over to Penny, who was still plugged into the machine. Saying nothing and moving carefully, Monika disconnected her from the machine, and silently coaxed her to her feet. Quite suddenly, Penny grabbed onto her and hugged her tightly. Monika stood still, and hugged Penny back. "It's over, Penny. You're going to be alright. None of it was you, really. They were fragments, incomplete minds and hearts, and you're more than the sum of those pieces."

They both jumped when a blade of red light stabbed through the bunker door and quickly cut a circle. Then the circle fell in and Sayori jumped into the room, wild-eyed. She took in the sight of Monika and Penny, and she looked livid for a split second. Monika felt the anger wash over her. Then Sayori looked confused, putting her hands on her hips and cocking an eyebrow. "Okay, I know you both well enough to know this isn't what it looks like, so…the heck is going on? Wait, are you both even Awake?"

"I'm Anchored and she's having a bad Loop, yes," Monika confirmed.

'I can help but notice Penny's feels are an absolute fustercluck right now. Does this have anything to do with Roman Torchwick's murder being on the news this evening?' Sayori spoke into Monika's mind. Monika nodded. 'Oh…um…what can I do to help?'

"Just go back to Beacon and cover for me. Tell Yuri and Natsuki not to worry about me, I'll be back as soon as I can," Monika told her.

Sayori threw a crisp salute. "Yes, Madam President! Sayo, outro!" she said before hopping back out.

Monika let go of Penny. "Can we talk about it, or do you need time to process?"

"I…I'm very grateful for what you did, Monika, but…is not talking about it an option?" Penny asked her meekly.

Monika shook her head. "Your mind is a mess, my friend. You have issues, and your issues have subroutines with issues of their own. You pulled an Alpha Fragmentation on yourself and…no, sorry, but I'm not shitty enough of a friend to just walk away from this. You need to talk to someone about this, and Ruby and Weiss aren't Awake, and I'm here. I mean, Sun is also Awake, if you'd rather talk to him."

"He wouldn't understand," said Penny sadly.

"Do you want me to call Sayori back and tag out with her?" Monika offered.

"I…no. No, you've already seen enough; if I have to talk to someone, it may as well be you, I guess," Penny mumbled.

"I thank you for your ringing endorsement," Monika said with a straight face.

Penny blushed. "S-sorry…"

"I'm going out for some fresh air," Monika announced, walking towards the door. "Come and talk to me when you've got your thoughts in order. Please don't make me wait longer than you have to."

"Okay."

…

Monika had been laying out on the grass, staring up into the night sky, for almost two hours before Penny emerged from the cellar. She sat down next to Monika, knees drawn to her chest. "You did a real number on some of them," she remarked. "You even tortured one of them." Her tone wasn't entirely judgmental. It was mostly surprised and a little confused. "I know about your Baseline, but you've always seemed so far removed from that person that I've never thought of you as her."

"But I am her, Penny," Monika replied with a slightly melancholy tone. "That person was, and still is, and always will be, me. No matter what I do, I'll never be anyone but who I am. I'm not a good person, not the way Ruby is. I'm just a person who does what she feels she has to do, however I can. I may not like some of the things Cinder does, but I have to give her this: she's at peace with who she is. That's more than a lot of good people can say for themselves."

"But you do good things," said Penny. "If you do good, doesn't that make you good?"

"That's a very pragmatic way of thinking. I once thought I was doing a very good thing, but all I did was hurt everyone involved and get deleted for my troubles," said Monika. "So, yeah. It's all good and well to want to be a good person and stand steadfast against the forces of evil…but anyone who seriously believes they're all-good and righteous in everything they do is disconnected from reality in some way. Whether they're naïve, mentally challenged, arrogant, or just insane. To really, truly know the difference between right and wrong means that, at least sometimes, you're not going to be certain which one you are. Even Kal-El has his days of self-doubt. But you're a lot older and presumably therefore wiser than I am, so you should already know that. What's really got your logic circuits in a knot?"

"I guess I'm just feeling very conflicted, these days," said Penny, turning her eyes up to the stars. "Part of me is certain…I know I'm a person, and therefore not purely a weapon, but I was made to be a weapon against evil. My purpose is to protect the world. Most people stumble through life looking for a purpose, but I was made with one, and it's a purpose I truly want to fulfill. But how can I when there's evil in my family? Cinder, Roman, Neo, and Raven may have restrained themselves somewhat, and we may have a set of nebulous rules in place about what is and isn't going too far, but that doesn't change the fact that they're thieves and killers! I can't just ignore that, or else I betray my purpose. But if I fulfill my purpose, and punish the evil-doers in our family, than I alienate myself and cause tension in that family. Ruby and Yang are both very dear to me, and they love Cinder as a sister; if I make war against Cinder, I hurt them, and if I don't I hurt myself, and if I try to force Cinder to conform to my morals then I'm inviting a repeat of the worst loop in the history of our Branch."

"It definitely sounds like something has to give," Monika agreed. "Classic Mulan Dilemma: torn between your honor and your heart. Maybe Ren could help you figure it out?"

Penny scoffed. "I know what Ren would say. Family is more important to him than anything else. His whole sense of purpose is built on his love for Nora, Jaune, and Pyrrha, and to the rest of us to a slightly lesser degree. But if that were my answer, I wouldn't feel so conflicted about it!"

"Number Two embodied your desire to stop evil, and Number Three, the one who most wanted to stop her, embodied your desire to protect your family. But they weren't the only aspects you shunted off," Monika observed. "Number Four embodied your love for Ruby, and Number Five embodied your suspicion that people are lying to you. From that, would it be correct of me to infer that there's trouble in paradise?"

Penny flinched, and hugged her knees more tightly. "No one's told you yet?"

"Nope. What happened?"

"We…we've been on a break. For several loops."

"Ouch. Well, your guys' relationship is your business and none of mine, so I won't stick my nose in without an invitation. I hope you two figure it out, one way or another…but since this is obviously part of your internal cavalcade of confliction, might I inquire as to the cause for this break?"

"The long and short of it is that our relationship didn't feel entirely genuine to me," Penny sighed, "I wasn't sure if her heart was really in it, or if she was just roleplaying as my girlfriend to make me happy. And she as good as admitted to my face that she'd have dated Sun if he had asked her first."

"Whoa, hold on," said Monika, sitting up to face her. "That first thing, the wondering if Ruby was serious about it, that's totally a valid reason to doubt your relationship. That's serious, heavy stuff. But the thing about Sun is totally not valid. Anyone in their right mind with an attraction to men would be damn lucky to be with him. He's fun, he's funny, he's fun-loving, he's cute, he's charming, he's kind of a badass, he's got a casual air that makes him super-approachable but he also has the depth of a true philosopher buried in that…you kind of have to be fluent in 'dudebro speak' to recognize it for what it is, but it's there. And I dare to presume that you've noticed dem abs? Between you and me if I weren't celibate I'd climb that monkey-ass in a doki-doki."

Penny raised an eyebrow at Monika, who blushed and cleared her throat. "What I'm trying to say is, I don't think you should be upset specifically because Ruby could have become Sun's girlfriend if things had played out differently. That's…there are a lot of people Ruby could have been with instead, but she chose to be with you. Doubt her sincerity if you have to, but that fact is still telling. I've heard legends and fables about Ruby Rose's billions-of-years-long celibacy streak. But she ended it to be with you."

"That's not entirely accurate–"

"Right, whatever, you were a cuddles-only couple, my point is, Ruby was a merry spinster for eons, if Blake and Weiss are reliable sources of Ruby-lore, and she ended that specifically to be with you. Yes, maybe she only did it because you wanted to be with her and she wanted to make you happy, and it's reasonable for you to doubt her sincerity for that reason, because no one who isn't an asshole wants a relationship to be entirely about what they want, BUT the fact that you're the first and only Looper she's ever volunteered to be romantically involved with is still a telling detail. That's all I'm saying."

"For saying my relationship isn't your business, you have a lot of thoughts on the subject," Penny noted with a small smile.

Monika's blush deepened. "Sorry. I'm a very opinionated person and I have a hard time shutting myself up once I get rolling. I really do try not to interfere in other people's relationships unless asked to. I mean, there was the Yuri/Natsuki thing but that was different. I actually do have a responsibility for their happiness and all that jazz. On that subject, please never repeat anything I said about Sun to any of my friends, please?"

"Okay," Penny readily agreed. "But I have to ask; you just made it clear that you're not asexual, so why are you celibate?"

"Combination of my lingering guilt complex and fear of relapsing into yandere tendencies," Monika replied curtly. "At once I both feel that I don't deserve that kind of relationship and fear what I might do if I were to fall in love again. It really didn't shake out in my favor last time. I really think there's a nomination for the All-Time Top Ten Epic Fails in Romance in there. But we're not here to discuss my neurotic ass, we're discussing the snarl of inner turmoil that lead to you psychologically vivisecting yourself to figure your shit out. That's a really weird flex for someone who's lucky enough to have a legitimate therapist in her Branch, and a Jedi at that."

"Weiss means well and all, but she's…okay, this is going to sound like crazy talk, but there's really no better way to say it. She's 'one of them'. You know, an Organic. What's more, I just, somehow I'm not entirely sure I can trust her to be really impartial in situations where Ruby's interests are involved."

"Kinda harsh, but not entirely unfair. Ruby and Weiss are the tightest pair of non-romantic life partners I've ever seen," Monika allowed. "And I can't blame you for the other thing, either; I myself have questioned if Organics and Synthetics can truly understand each other across the gap between their experiences. That being said, if you ever meet the Ryder Twins, they come about as close as any Organics I've ever met, Looping or otherwise. And while Sayori tends to identify with Organics more than Synthetics, she also has a legitimate Doctorate in Droid Psychology from some big-wig academy on Coruscant." Monika blinked. "Hey, that's a good point. Sayori's a Force Sensitive too, maybe it would be worth hearing her opinion?"

"…maybe," Penny said tentatively. "Maybe later. I don't know."

"Alright, next pair of aspects, Six and Seven. Your sheer existential joy of being alive and engaging with the world around you, and your sense of solitude at being Remnant's sole sapient Synthetic, not to mention being the only Synthetic Looper from your Branch. What's going on there? I mean, I know Synthetics and Organics are kind of apples and oranges in a good few ways, but do you really feel that isolated from the people who care about you, Penny? I had thought Ruby had put the kibosh on that way of thinking the day she found out you weren't human."

"She made it clear that I shouldn't let my artificiality make me feel sub-human," Penny clarified. "And it's not really a critical issue, compared to the Ruby thing and the Evil thing. It's just something that cycles in and out of my mind. And it's not that each pair of my ASPECTs represent a distinct confliction; just Two and Three, really. The rest were more complexly interconnected."

"Fair enough. Well, we could go on talking all night, and we will if that will help, but is there anything I can do to help you out more tangibly?" Monika asked.

Penny replied with a prolonged sigh and fell back onto the grass. "I don't know. I have no idea what I want to do. I know I want to be with Ruby again, because she makes me happy, and I want to be happy again. But I don't want it to be a shallow happiness. I want to know it will be real this time. The obvious solution is to talk about it with Ruby, of course, but…well, I've kind of been avoiding that as best as I can. I'm afraid she'll beg me to take her back and I'll cave because…you know…"

"Because Ruby Rose has one of the most potent sadfaces in the Multiverse. I've noticed," said Monika sympathetically.

"Yes. Especially since I feel the way I do about her; seeing her sad hurts. I don't have a doubt in my mind that I love her, I just wish I could be sure that she really, truly loves me back."

"I have a philosophy on the idea of 'true love'…ehh, actually, never mind, you wouldn't want to hear it," said Monika.

"Let me guess; you don't believe in it. Well, speaking as someone who doesn't have endocrine glands, just a soul, I'm fairly confident that love is more than just a chemical reaction," said Penny.

"Oh, I certainly believe in love as something that exists beyond the realm of chemistry," Monika assured her, "But…like, the idea of 'true love' or 'soul mates'? That, I'm pretty sure, is bogus. Given the right circumstances, I think that almost any two people can fall in love. One of the biggest, deepest, most primal fears human beings have is being Alone. Not just alone, but Alone with a capital A. That, combined with fear of the unknown, is why most people have a crippling fear of death. Because most people don't know what will happen to their sense of self after they shuffle off the mortal coil, and aside from eternal torture and total oblivion, one of the bigger fears is that we just wind up completely alone and cut off from everyone else. Most sapient beings crave social interaction, at the very least. To have our existence and value acknowledged by other beings. And beyond that, many sapient beings, and certainly most humans, have a strong hunger for affection, at the very least. Despite being, at my core, a being born from code, I too have that deep, aching need for intimacy and affection. Rotting eternities, there have been days when all I can do is lay in my bed trying not to think about how badly I…need…" Monika trailed off into awkward silence. Intellectually, she knew the redness in her face was the result of emotive emulation firmware, and that the burning heat in her face was purely in her imagination. "Sorry, Penny. Fuck, I'm so damned self-centered. This isn't helping you at all."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Penny said mildly. "If nothing else, you're giving me something to think about. My thoughts have been pretty self-centered, too, since Ruby and I…anyways, not that it's any of my business, but I really think your celibacy is doing you more harm than good."

"Oh, oh-ho-ho, Penny, my friend, trust me, I know very well just how painful my celibacy is," said Monika. "But, here again, the last time I had a crush, I killed people. Sorry, no, but for now my celibacy is what's best."

"For now?" asked Penny, sitting up again.

"No, not for now, for me," said Monika.

"But you said 'for now'," said Penny.

Monika frowned. "Noooo, I'm pretty sure I said 'for me, my celibacy is what's best.'"

"And I'm absolutely certain you said," Penny's voice was abruptly replaced by a recording of Monika's voice, "for now my celibacy is what's best."

"…whatever, slip of the tongue. I know what I meant," Monika said sternly.

"I'm sure you do," said Penny, traces of humor creeping into her voice as she laid back down on the grass.

"Hey, I'm not the one who went through a crisis today, you are. Let's stay focused, shall we?"

Penny sighed. "I'm really not sure talking is going to resolve anything, here. I'll give Ruby another chance when I'm sure that she really means to be with me because she wants to be with me like I want to be with her. But I can't be at peace with myself as long as I'm torn between my duty and my family, and I don't see any way to resolve that conflict without compromising myself in some way."

"I mean…yeah, that's pretty much exactly what's up. I know what I would do, if it were me; I'd just revise my definition of 'evil' to exclude the people I care about. You know that joke, 'a friend will help you move furniture, but a best friend will help you move a body'? I decided a very long time ago that I owe it to my friends, who suffered at my hands, to do anything and everything they need of me. Whatever they want to do, no matter how I feel about it, I'm down. And before you say anything, yes, I know, that's kind of messed up. But that's how I somewhat cope with my guilt complex. Obviously, that's not going to work for you. Your guilt doesn't come from something you did, but from the conflict between your ideals."

"Ruby has a philosophy that we, Loopers that is, exaggerate the importance or magnitude of some of our personality traits. Using them as points of internal consistency, grounding us in ourselves, to protect us from losing our sense of self in the seemingly endless march of time," said Penny. "Ruby's love of sweets, as an example. In my case, I'm torn between two of my biggest 'deals', you might say. Protecting the world on one hand, and my friends on the other. If I definitively prioritize one over the other, I'll no longer be the Penny Polendina I've always been. I'll be someone else. I know I have to choose one, or risk going mad, but becoming someone else…it scares me, Monika."

"You're not going to become someone else," Monika countered. "Whoever they are, people are who they are, all the way down. You, me, Ruby; none of us can ever change who we are, just how we act. The reason we're all in this Looping business is because souls are the most stable things in existence, apparently. If changing yourself were possible, I'd have done it myself. So don't worry about losing yourself, or anything. Just do what feels right."

"But that's my whole problem! Whatever I do that conflicts with one of those ideals feels wrong. I don't want to act against my friends, but I don't want to forsake my purpose, either," Penny lamented.

"Then change your perspective on your purpose," said Monika, standing up and then offering Penny a hand. "Being happy doesn't come from fulfilling a predestined or designated purpose. Being happy comes from doing what you want to do."

Penny narrowed her eyes, and got up without taking Monika's hand. "That's a very selfish attitude to have, and one that you clearly don't believe in applying to yourself, given your guilt complex."

"That's where you're wrong, old friend," said Monika with a smile. "It's not guilt that drives me to do for others, it just makes it impossible to say no to my friends. Call it whatever you want, but selfishness is the way to happiness. You can still serve others, of course, but do it because it's what you want, not because you think you're obligated to do so. You may have been created as a weapon, but you have free will and you can choose your targets." Monika put a hand on Penny's shoulder, and then walked past her. "I'm heading back to Beacon now, so my friends aren't worrying about me all night. You could probably use some time to process things. Sayori and I will hang out with you tomorrow after classes, okay?"

"Okay," Penny said with a sigh. She headed back down into the cellar to dismantle the machine.

30.8 – Book Fort, by Master_Spoiler.

"…it almost feels like a chore, compared to all the other entertainment we ha–" Monika Awoke mid-sentence. "–ve. Wait, what?"

She quickly took note of her surroundings, and her heart sank. It was too late. The room was already empty. She was sitting at a desk, chin resting on her hands. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the familiar orange-and-blue pattern outside the windows.

Monika sighed. She hated when this happened. As an Anchor, she was used to Loops when she was the only Awake Literature Club member, but usually she Awoke early enough to redirect the story to a happier outcome. But by this point in the game, that wasn't really an option. All her friends had been deleted, and even if she brought them back she was unsure whether or not they would forgive her Unawake self's actions. At this point there wasn't much she could do except sit around and wait for the Loop to end.

"Ugh…" Monika rested her head on the table. Depending on the Variant, the Loop could go on for an indefinite amount of time. Sometimes it just stopped after a few hours of nothing. Sometimes it would continue until the "Player" moved the plot along, if they even existed. She could recreate the school, she supposed. Or create a simulation to keep herself entertained while she passed the time. She had done both before, and many other actions. But that didn't change the fact that she was essentially alone at the end of the world.

But then…she noticed something she hadn't before. Technically speaking, as a computer program she didn't have a "periphery", she just perceived all the information she needed to instantaneously when necessary. How she had missed this earlier, she had no idea. But now it had her full, undivided attention.

It was a small closed-off structure, made entirely out of books.

It was rather elaborate for a book fort, Monika had to admit. There were turrets and buttresses constructed from biographies. Sturdy walls made of encyclopedias. A tower in the back made entirely out of fantasy novels. There were even little banners made of bookmarks hanging off the fort walls, and somehow a bunch of paperbacks had been precariously balanced to make a roof. As Monika stood and walked over to examine it, she wondered who had made it. Certainly not one of the other girls. Her Unawake self had no memories of the fort so it must have been built recently, while she had been distracted talking to the "Player".

"Oh, are you done now?" Her thoughts were interrupted to her shock by a familiar face poking out of the fort's entrance. Or rather a familiar lack of a face. Monika's eyes widened.

"Hiroaka?" She asked, perplexed. Was there a glitch in the game or something?

"Who?" The blank-faced protagonist seemed just as confused as she was.

If anything, this response just made Monika feel even more weirded out. "Um. Hiroaka. That's your name, isn't it?"

"Is it?" The boy's voice indicated no change in expression. "You called me something else before. At least, I think you were referring to me."

That made sense, Monika supposed. Hiroaka's name was entirely dependent on what the "Player" called him. It was perfectly logical that her Unawake self would call him something other than the name the Looping Club members knew him by. Still, what was he doing walking around? Even if he displayed autonomy in some other loops, what little personality he had was usually completely erased by this point in the game. She decided to prod a bit more. "Maybe I did. It's not really important. But what do you mean, 'before'? How much do you remember?"

"Not much." Hiroaka admitted. "I know I found myself at the desk. I know you were talking to someone. I thought you were talking to me at first, but then I stood up and you didn't notice, so I figured you were talking to someone else. But you aren't doing that now. That's what I was asking earlier. Are you done now?"

He must mean how my Unawake self was talking to the "Player", Monika thought. "Do you remember the other girls? Sayori? Natsuki and Yuri?"

"Who?" There was that confused tone of voice again. "I told you. I found myself at the desk with you. I don't remember anything else. And I haven't noticed anyone else come in. I'm not sure they could. When I checked the door, it didn't go anywhere. Are those people important?"

He really doesn't know anything, Monika realized. He's quite literally a blank slate after the game was reset! "Not really," she explained to him. "Not right now. Not to you."

"Oh. Ok."

"And in answer to your earlier question," Monika added, "Yes, I'm done talking to that person. I really should have stopped earlier, but I suppose it took me some time to 'get over it'. Out of curiosity, how long was I…talking to them?"

Hiroaka shrugged. "I don't know. The clock isn't moving. Maybe a couple hours. Enough time for me to build this." He gestured to the book structure.

"You made this?" Monika asked, surprised.

"Yes." He responded with a tone carrying the feeling of "Who else could have built it?" which Monika figured was justified since there was nobody else present to create such a structure.

"Ah. It looks…good. Nice buttresses. I didn't realize you had such an eye-er, perception? for small details."

"Thanks. Neither did I." For a moment, it seemed that if Hiroaka had a face he would be beaming with pride. Interesting. "I needed something to do," he elaborated, "And the books were really the only thing I could do anything with."

"Ah." Externally, Monika's face was a mask of calm, but internally she was extremely uncertain about what to do next. She never really talked with the protagonist, even in Variants in which he had more autonomy. That was more Sayori's thing. Monika really didn't know what she and Hiroaka would talk about. In baseline, she had destroyed him. Not exactly a good conversation starter. She supposed she could leave him to his own devices and do something else, but that seemed kind of…sad, to leave him in the room all by himself.

"So…" she decided to remain on the current topic of conversation. That was easier. "The fort. Are you going to keep adding to it or…?"

"I can't." The boy's shoulders slumped. "I'm out of books. There's nothing else I can do to it."

Monika looked around, and indeed, all the bookshelves in the classroom were vacant. Every last book had been repurposed for literature architecture. It was a sobering image to look at. A boy, unrecognized bv the universe around him, attempting to leave his mark on the world, yet only to be restricted in the end, unable to accomplish anything more. It kind of reminded her of herself, at least in baseline. Not recognized by the game as a romantic interest, she had attempted to make herself significant in the eyes of the player, only to be thwarted in the end by the limits of the game's code. It was only in the Loops where she had actually been able to grow, and develop, and gain real significance in the universe. And Hiroaka didn't have that. The Club wasn't sure if a Looping Hiroaka was even possible.

But then an idea sprung into her mind. Hiroaka may not have the Loops, but right here, right now, in this Variant, he did have her. Or more specifically, the vast library she contained in her Pocket, and all the copies of books she could program into existence. She smiled.

"You know, I think I can obtain more books for you," she said hesitantly. Hiroaka's head looked up at her. "But, if I get you more books…will you let me help you build the fort? I happen to know a bit about construction."

Although Hiroaka had no mouth, Monika was certain he was smiling. "Yeah. I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

30.9 – His Biggest Fan, by Tetradrachm.
(DDLC)/(JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency)
(Note: This is a very Early Loop of Natsuki's; takes place sometime after Snip 2.6, at least.)

New York, New York. The City that Never Sleeps. The Big Apple. Gotham.

From a certain perspective, Joseph Joestar had lived in the city for millions of years, but each time he got off the boat at the start of the Loop it felt fresh to him.

Or maybe it was just the cold breeze.

But either way, it was great to be back home after that last, long Fused Loop with Lucky Star. He hated it when the Tree took a look at his age and stuck him in a school setting…

At any rate, this Loop was bright and new and Joseph planned on taking full advantage. He hadn't done a political career in a while; Mayor of New York had a nice ring to it…

But first, he needed to go down his usual, first night checklist: Save Smokey, kill Straizo, and then flip a coin with Caesar (if he was Awake) to see who'd go deal with the Pillar Men. Smokey had wanted to give it a go, too, but considering that Smokey hadn't even had a Fused Loop yet made Joseph wary. If Kars got the Red Stone of Aja, the rest of the Loop was always a massive pain in the—

The sound of fighting and screaming hit him as he came around a corner. It was usually around here that he ran into Smokey, who tried to make off with his wallet if he was Unawake or pranked him a different way if he was Awake. Well, tried to; Joseph always dodged the prank one way or another—except for that one time with the fish. So either this was another prank, or something was different this Loop.

He rounded the next corner to a small alleyway and spotted a tiny pink-haired girl beating on one of the usual thuggish types you saw around this part of town with a baseball bat.

"Fucking creep!" she screamed, slamming the wooden bat into the brute's shoulder, who winced with pain. "Thought you could cop a feel, huh? Well, feel this!" She smacked the man's chest and he staggered.

"Hey, you need some help?" Joseph asked as he got closer. If this was a prank, he wasn't sure just how yet. He needed a closer look.

"No, I've got this—fucking pervert—" the girl continued, still facing away from him as briefly switched to kicking at his shins instead.

Joseph abruptly remembered that women of this era usually didn't swear so colorfully, or for that matter have such colorful hair. That last Loop had confused his perceptions of what was normal. "Hey, us Loopers have to stick out for each other." He could appreciate a good beatdown, so he stood back to let her finish up.

"You should've heard him earlier when he was talking about what he'd do to me! Fucking shitstain!" she snarled, rearing up with the bat again. The man whimpered. "You won't pull this shit again on anyone else, you hear?" He nodded fearfully. Slowly, carefully, she lowered the bat. "Get the hell out of here." The man scrambled out from under her, then past Joseph, and down the street. The girl paused for a moment, breathing heavily, still facing away from him.

"That was some nice work," he complimented her. "You from a baseball Loop?"

"No," she said, still panting a little, "I just keep bats around for stuff like this. Beating up on assholes."

He laughed heartily. "That's what I do all Loop! Hey, what's your name? I'm Joseph. Joseph Joestar."

She made an odd, strangled noise and froze for a moment before whirling around to stare at him, eyes wide. His smile slipped a little. "Is, uh, that a problem?" he asked carefully.

"You—you're real," she breathed out, and his concern returned slightly. "You're really…" She took a hesitant step forward, reaching out to touch him. Then she squealed—with delight? Her hands flew to her cheeks as the bat clattered to the ground, forgotten.

"Holy shit!" she exclaimed. "Son of a bitch!"

He snickered. "So you do know me."

"Know you?" she shouted. "You're JoJo! The JoJo, the best JoJo! Holy shit, I just—I should've figured, from the location, and the time, and all, I've read Battle Tendency like ten thousand times, and—holy shit, does that mean I'm replacing Smokey? And that means the whole Battle Tendency stuff is gonna happen, and—eeeeeeee!" Her rant devolved into excited squeeing. "Wait, oh my god, please, pleeeease let me come with you! Don't leave me behind like Smokey!"

He was still trying to sift through what she'd just said, and the petition caught him off guard. "Leave you behind?" Clearly she liked him, so—so he needed to play up his Joseph-ness, right? "I'm not sure," he said, suddenly affecting disinterest and looking away. "The Pillar Men are extremely dangerous. Are you an experienced Looper? If you're not, yet, you'd probably be safer staying here, taking in New York. It's a great city."

"W-what does that have to do with it? You can handle them just fine by now, right? You've been fighting them for a long time now, I could come along and be fine!" Ah, so she was a new Looper.

"You never know with them," he said seriously. "Their powers are Loop Variable. All it would take is one stray attack and you'd be out for the Loop. No, no, better you stay here."

The horror mixed with fury on her face was hilarious. "No! No fucking way! I am not missing out on Mexico, and Rome, and Switzerland, and seeing the Aztec gods of fitness in person!" She blushed as she realized what she said, but pushed on. "I'll—I'll do anything to come along! I'll—I'll be your servant! For the rest of the Loops!"

"The rest of the Loops?" He repeated dubiously, his messing with her temporarily forgotten. "You can't be serious."

"Dead serious," she said quickly. "Dead fucking serious. I will do whatever you want me to do, literally forever."

He exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his head. He hadn't meant to push her like this, and he definitely didn't want her as his servant. The jokes Caesar would make alone…

But it could be a sort of opportunity. Even if he could easily protect her from the Pillar Men in truth, they could be more dangerous than anticipated, and if she could "serve" him by training in Hamon she would be all the safer. And Lisa Lisa had been nagging him to take on some disciples, now that he was formally a Ripple Master.

"Well," he said finally, "let's see how you do. If you do everything I tell you—and I do mean everything—you can come along. But!" He raised a finger. "That includes some severe training. If you want to see the Pillar Men, that means you need to be able to defend yourself from them."

"Wait—so that means—" She squealed again. "Hamon! You're going to teach me to use Hamon?"

He nodded, and smirked ever so slightly. "If you can take it."

"If I can take it?" The fury came back into her voice. "Did you just see how I beat up that kid? I can take it."

Privately, Joseph agreed with her, but publicly he just shrugged. "Well, we'll see."

She actually stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes.

30.10 – That One Time Early On Where Sayori Gets Addicted to Pachinko, by Awesomedude17.

Natsuki had noticed that there was a pachinko parlor now. Knowing Monika, it was probably an experiment to make the world they live in seem more real.

Still, it was worth taking a look.

Once inside, she saw Sayori, staring intently at the pachinko machine, dark bags under her eyes.

"So that's where you were for the past two days. Sayori, why are you here?"

"Just one more game and then I'll get back to ya, Nats."

Natsuki huffed and snapped her fingers rhythmically.

Monika appeared out of nowhere.

"Okay, what is…oh. Hold on." Monika checked Sayori's coding.

Addicted to gambling.

"Oh dear. I should've known better than to let in gambling here, but noooo~ I had to make it more real here. Give me a minute."

Many, many, many Loops later:

"–and that's why we don't allow gambling in our Branch." Monika explained.

"Oh. That long ago, huh. Heh. We were so young." Yuri said.

"I lost one million yen thanks to that. Kinda glad Monika butted in." Sayori scratched the back of her head with embarrassment.

30.11 – Mechanical Hearts: 3rd0ption, by Skaz Wolfman.

Several days passed before Monika saw Penny again. She didn't answer any of her calls. Monika was worried, of course, but she refrained from hacking the CCT to track her down, again. If Penny needed alone time, that was her prerogative. In the meantime, Monika had explained the entire situation to Sayori, and they had discussed it at length. Despite what she had told Raven about discretion, Monika didn't feel hypocritical about it. She wasn't merely gossiping to Sayori, after all, and she trusted Sayori to keep sensitive subjects in confidence. And if Monika was to be perfectly honest with herself, Sayori had a much better knack for empathizing with others than she did. The day that Monika and Sayori saw Penny again was the same day Sun returned to Vale, the day before the Dance.

"Hey Dokies," he greeted them jovially when they met him in Beacon's courtyard. "Were either of those Pings from anyone around here Waking Up?" he asked.

"One was me," Sayori spoke up, "but whoever else Pinged, they haven't checked in on the Loopers' Scrollnet chat."

"Penny's Awake," Monika chimed in, "but I don't think she ever sent out a Ping. I was with her when she Woke Up."

"Hey Sun, ya wanna go to the dance with me?" Sayori asked out of nowhere.

"Say what?!" Monika gawked.

"Sure," Sun replied casually.

"Yippee~! C'mon, Moni, we need to go dress shopping!" exclaimed Sayori, grabbing her by the hand.

"No, seriously, what's happening?" Monika demanded as Sayori dragged her away.

Sayori didn't answer until they were out of earshot of their Faunus friend. "You've been worrying about Penny all week. We've hardly talked about anything else, and I bet you've been thinking about her constantly. Worrying about your friends is all well and good, but there's got to be a limit. Let's take the next forty-eight hours off from worrying about Penny and just enjoy ourselves. If she hasn't reached out to us by then, we'll hunt her down and make sure she's okay. Okay?" Sayori asked her. Her voice was serious and devoid of artificial bubbles.

"Alright, fine. Thirty-six hours," Monika haggled.

"I'll take it," Sayori quipped. After they had exited Beacon and Sayori was sure no one could see them, she Unpocketed a landspeeder, and she drove her and Monika into the city.

Along the way, Monika asked "But no, seriously, what the heck was that about?"

"What the heck was what about?" Sayori asked innocently.

"Don't give me that, Veeps. You asking Sun to the dance."

"Yeah, so?" Sayori non-answered with a shrug. "Dances are more fun with partners. Don't you agree? Wait, nevermind, stupid question."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Monika asked archly.

"Don't give me that, Prez. You know what that was supposed to mean," Sayori retorted. "In all seriousness, it was just one of my famous whims. I'm not going to start dating Sun, if that's what's freaking you out."

"It's not, because I know you aren't, and it wouldn't even if you were. You just threw me a bit, there, was all," Monika assured her.

Monika and Sayori made it into the downtown area, where Sayori parked her landspeeder, and Pocketed it after they got out. "Experimental Atlas tech," Monika handwaved to the gawking onlookers.

"I don't get it, you're a cosplay hobbyist. You really don't have something in your Pocket to wear?" Monika asked as they entered a fashion boutique. "If you wanted to buy something new to wear, you should have done it days ago."

"Rotted Ash, quit being such a stick-in-the-Mudika," Sayori grumbled. "Shopping for dresses is fun. And yes, I was planning to go in one of my cosplays, but now I have a date which means I need something nice."

"Seeing as it isn't really a serious thing, could you please not call it a date?" Monika asked.

"But it is! It's a friendly date, that's what it is. What do you think?" she asked as she pulled a Mistralian number that resembled a Chinese qipao.

"I think it's four inches too long in the leg, you'll trip over yourself. More than you're already probable to," Monika replied.

"Okay, now you're being a grump. And on purpose, too. You know darn well I can shorten a hemline in my sleep." Sayori got in Monika's face and grabbed her cheeks, squishing them to punctuate her every word, "This. Is. Supposed. To. Be. FUN! Put the responsible Anchor looking out for other people thing on hold and just be a damned girl with me for a few hours!"

"Okay, okay, mercy! I give, I give!" yelped Monika.

"M-Monika, Sayori?!" gasped a familiar voice, the kind of deep and feminine voice that could make a person's spine tingle. Monika and Sayori froze, and looked to see a familiar face poking out from inside a circular clothes rack.

"Yuri?" asked Monika, "What are you doing…uh…"

"Are you and Natsuki playing hide-and-go-seek?" asked Sayori, looking around for any signs of gouge-my-eyes-out pink and listening for the wild call of the Tsundere.

At the mention of Natsuki's name, Yuri blushed furiously and hid behind a curtain of her own hair.

"OHMYGOSH did she ask you to the dance?!" Sayori gasped, diving into the rack to drag their Unawake friend out into the open.

"N-no, don't, please Sayori, I'm trying to esc–"

"There you are!" cried a voice as an impeccably dressed teenager strutted up to them, with a rabbit Faunus hovering around her elbow area. Team CFVY had returned from their mission early, or rather, on time, this loop. Apparently the endangered village's Grimm problem had been solved before they had even gotten there. Most probably the work of a monkey-tailed stranger that had passed through the area on his way to Anima…

"Ahhh," said Monika in tones of enlightenment. "I get it. Natsuki ambushed you with a proposal to go to the dance with her–though knowing her it was framed as a demand–and before you could stop being a nervous wreck long enough to call us for help, Coco happened along and whisked you off to go dress-shopping. Am I in the ballpark?"

"That's pretty much what happened," the rabbit Faunus, Velvet Scarlatina, confirmed. "I was the one who found Yuri in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and she seemed so overwhelmed and helpless that I kind of called up Coco for help without thinking about it…"

Yuri shuffled awkwardly in place, fidgeting with her long, bushy, raccoon tail in her hands and staring down at the floor. "A-actually…technically…it was, eh, kind of…me."

"Huh?" asked Sayori. "You what?"

"I…kind of…accidentally, mind you…suggested to Natsuki that we go to the dance together," Yuri murmured, her face burning. "I didn't really mean it–I mean, I did!–just, I wasn't being entirely serious when I suggested it, you know…I thought she would laugh it off, but Natsuki…"

"Responded with too much enthusiasm and gusto for you to take it back?" Monika guessed. Yuri nodded, looking like she was going to cry.

"Alright, now that you're all up to speed, we've got work to do," Coco cut in, lowering her shades. "C'mon, Yuri, I've got twelve more dresses for you to try on."

"Save meeeeee," Yuri hissed to her friends as Coco dragged her off toward the fitting rooms, though by Yuri's attitude you'd think her destination was the gallows.

"Is today 'teen drama' enough for you, yet?" Monika asked Sayori.

"Getting there," Sayori quipped back.

"Well, for better or worse, Yuri's in…very competent hands, at least," said Monika. "Reckon we should track down Nat and see if she needs help?"

"Natsuki will be fine," said Sayori as she turned back to a clothes rack. "She made her own dress days ago, and knowing her she'll have no problem making it date-worthy in a day."

"Point," said Monika.

Eventually, the expanded shopping party of Sayori, Coco, Yuri, Monika, and Velvet moved on to another store. "This place is literally brand new, just had its grand opening three days ago," Coco remarked as they approached it. "I've been meaning to check this one out, but I've been so busy with planning the dance since we got back from our mission. Supposedly this place designs and produces all of their products in-house."

Monika hardly heard her, staring intently at the store's sign. Polendina's Pageantry, it read. She glanced at Sayori, who was giving the sign a thoughtful stare of her own. Monika took a deep breath, and stepped toward the door.

Immediately, Sayori had her wrist in a vice-grip and was steering her toward Yuri, Coco, and Velvet. "You promised me thirty-six hours, and it hasn't even been two yet. Let me field this one while you…make sure Coco doesn't drive Yuri into a nervous breakdown, I guess?"

Monika sighed, but she nodded. "Alright, VP. Do your thing," she relented, following the others to the dresses. Sayori closed her eyes and opened her Force Sense, seeking a familiar presence.

She found Penny in what she presumed was the break room, back in the 'Employees Only' part of the shop. No one noticed Sayori, not until Penny looked up from her magazine and saw her. "Heya Penny," Sayori greeted. "You hit a growth spurt lately?" she asked.

Penny raised an eyebrow, then looked down at her body, and then she laughed. "Yeah, it's easier to set up a business in the city when you look like a grown-up," she said. "What brings you here, Sayori?"

"Well, shopping for dresses for the dance at Beacon is what brought me to your shop, but what I'm doing right here is talking to you so Monika doesn't. I strong-armed her into taking the weekend off from worrying about you," Sayori replied honestly.

"…would 100,000,000 Lien worth of in-store credit be enough to buy my way out of any awkward discussions?" Penny asked.

Sayori chuckled as she helped herself to a seat at Penny's table. "No need for bribery. We can talk about whatever you want, and we won't talk about anything you don't want. That being said, I have to say, and I hope you'll forgive the cliché, but…well, I sense great conflict within you, my friend."

Penny sighed and set her magazine aside. "Yeah, aint that the truth…can I assume that Monika's given you the details?"

"It's literally the only thing she's had on her mind since I Awakened," Sayori replied, "The only time we haven't spent talking about you was when non-Loopers were about." Penny winced, and Sayori added, "I'm not annoyed, of course. Maybe a smidge, but that whole entire smidge is directly squarely at Monika for spending so much time dwelling on one thing. Which I totally get, y'know, you're our friend and a fellow Synthetic, and you're going through relationship problems and an identity crisis, which are both things Monika super relates to. This whole situation almost feels tailored to hitting her buttons. Only thing missing is one of the Brothers actively screwing with you. Still, Monika's not at her best when she's completely fixated on one thing like this; she's at the top of her game when she's spinning balls and juggling plates."

"You mean spinning plates and juggling balls?" asked Penny.

"Exactly what I said, yeah," said Sayori, who started playing with a yoyo. "So, a dress shop."

"Yeah. I needed something non-Baseline to occupy myself with, and one of my A.S.P.E.C.T.s made this really cute dress…kind of put me in a mood," Penny explained.

"Hey, after the Dance, you mind if I come back to help out?" Sayori asked, "It'd be fun to flood Vale with my cosplays disguised as fashion."

"Sure thing," Penny replied with a smile. Then she sighed and asked, "So, addressing the Goliath in the room, do you have any insight on my problem?"

"Well…I do know how it feels to be divided between two conflicting dealies," said Sayori. She scooted her chair to her left and twisted it to the right, folding her arms and putting on such a pouty, grouchy expression that Penny snorted. "Monika's the worst!" Sayori suddenly snapped, her voice dripping with acid and making Penny flinch backward. "She's a horrible friend, and she hurts people just because she can and they might be in the way of her getting what she wants!"

Then Sayori got up, twisting the chair and herself the other way, and put on a guilty expression. "But…I mean, she didn't think she was hurting anyone real, and she felt trapped like a rat in a maze. She just wanted for someone to care about her."

The chair twisted again, and Sayori was angry again. "Who cares what she thought?! She still hurt people. She hurt me, took the sickness in my head and made it worse, made poor Yuri lose her mind completely, made my best friend a helpless witness to an acid trip from Hell! She's selfish and cruel!"

"But she feels so bad about all that!" Sadfaced Sayori countered. "Can't we give her a second chance?"

"Why should we?!" Madfaced Sayori spat back in her face. "She's probably just faking it because we're all stuck Looping together and she doesn't want us to treat her like the duplicitous piece of crap she is!"

"But!" Sadfaced Sayori gasped, "Jenny said we're all Looping because Monika cares about us. She brought us back in the end, because she felt bad about what she did."

"Just because she grew a rudimentary conscience at the very last second doesn't change the horrible things she did," Madfaced Sayori sneered.

And back and forth like that Sayori went with herself, for almost half an hour, before abruptly straightening her chair to face Penny. Her expression reverted to its natural, small, affectionate smile. "Get the picture?"

Penny nodded. She wasn't sure whether to laugh at the spectacle she had just witnessed, or offer Sayori a hug. "So, what broke the conflict? What made you compromise?"

"I didn't compromise, Penny," Sayori gently corrected her. "Compromising means giving up something to get something. I didn't give up anything. I simply chose to forgive. To be better. To end the cycle of hurt. I can condemn the things Monika did, but that doesn't mean I have to condemn her. Ultimately, she's as much a victim of our twisted game and her own schemes as the rest of us. In the end, she got her karmic punishment. Betrayed and consigned to oblivion by the one she loved, the one for whom she did the horrible things she did."

Penny frowned. "I do recall that she once told me that she didn't really love the Player. They were just a means of being acknowledged as 'Real'."

"So she claims. And who knows, maybe she actually believes it?" Sayori shrugged, "But she doesn't just avoid romance because of guilt or fear of a relapse. She's afraid to love another, to trust and express vulnerability to someone else. Regardless of how she really felt about the Player, their decision to rebuke her affections and subject her to the same fate as her victims clearly cut her deeply."

"Hmm. So, you adopted the same 'obligated to fight evil but not to hate it' philosophy Ruby has, I suppose?" Penny sighed. "I mean, you are a Sith, so I guess it makes sense."

"Oh, no, I totally hate evil," Sayori corrected her. "I just don't, as a rule, hate people. People that do evil things aren't evil, though."

Penny tilted her head. "What?"

Sayori stopped smiling, completely. "I don't think there's any such thing as 'good people' and 'bad people'. People are messy and complicated. A single sapient mind, no matter how outwardly simple and shallow the person's behavior might be, is a self-contained microcosm of infinite depth and vibrancy. Even when it's all on its own, the mind ravenously consumes sensory input and processes it into cogitation. And that's a mind on its own. Put two minds together, and their mutual complexity, compounded by the most subtle and profound of differentiations, becomes exponentially greater. Each additional sapient mind added to the mix–each individual sapient mind added to the mix–will multiply this complexity by another order of magnitude. We think of each other in simplistic terms like 'nice person' or 'grumpy person' for the same reason a mortal person can't comprehend the true form of an eldritch god; because trying to process the full scope of a person's individuality if you could even access that much information would break your mind. And in this regard, a Looper isn't that much different from a mortal. Same for Synthetics and Organics. Changing a Synthetic's neural hardware is enough to make that Synthetic unrecognizable to itself, so any two sapient Synthetics are just as inadequately equipped to truly know each other as any two sapient Organics."

Sayori took a deep breath. "All that to say: people are complicated. So-called 'simple' people are only seen as such because they don't know how to properly express their complexity, or because the people around them don't know how to recognize it. The same can be said of so-called 'good' and 'bad' people. You only see good people because you don't recognize their badness, and you only see bad people because you don't recognize their goodness. A person can spend their whole life doing bad things, but as long as they're a person they can choose to do differently at any time. Anyone who's truly, purely good or evil all the way through isn't really a person. And even the tiniest spark of goodness can be nurtured and encouraged to grow, until it outshines the evil in a person. Hating a person–and I say this from experience–means refusing to acknowledge their capacity to grow and change. Refusing to acknowledge that fundamental ability means not acknowledging them as a person. And, speaking again from experience, there's nothing crueler that one person can do to another than to not acknowledge their personhood. Wanting to be acknowledged is the most basic desire that separates sapient beings from everything else. It was that desire that drove Monika insane."

"…that was a lot of words," Penny observed. "Lots of big words. Very unlike you…or, rather, I suppose it's just a side of you I haven't recognized until now, isn't it?"

"I'm in Serious Mode, right now, yeah," said Sayori. "Until you resolve this internal dilemma, you're at risk of suffering a similar mental split as Cinder did. At times like this, I have to put aside my comforting disguise as a care-free, daydreamy kind of girl."

Penny opened her mouth to protest the thought that she could repeat Cinder's Fall…but the memories of her A.S.P.E.C.T.s fighting Monika burned in her mind. She closed her mouth, an intangible coldness gripping her neural network. Cinder had split her mind in half between two personae: The Sister and The Destroyer. Was she herself similarly at risk of splitting in half, in a more uncontrolled way? Into The Friend and The Fanatic?

"If I were you, I'd just make a hobby out of stonewalling Cinder, Roman, Neo, and Raven every time they go too far. Just make sure you don't go too far in the process," said Sayori.

"But I can't try to 'fix' them, because that just begs a repeat of Cinder's Fall," Penny lamented, "So all I can do is combat them, forever, and only in the loops where I'm Awake."

Sayori shrugged. "Better than nothing, isn't it? Better than stewing in your issues and doing nothing, or even worse doing something self-destructive. And it won't be forever. The Loops have to end someday. And when they do, if Cinder, Roman, Neo, and Raven really do become Dark Gods…well, then you can be their Holy Nemesis, if you're still heck-bent on 'saving the world', you know?"

"…I just don't want to become the most divisive element in my family," Penny admitted. "Everyone else seems just fine with letting them 'be themselves.' Every time I try to point out the problem, it feels like I'm rocking the boat."

"Either become a divisive element now, or wait until you become the next Branch-shaking catastrophe," Sayori bluntly stated. She brought her smile back. "Every family has drama and friction, Penny. There's chaos, and then there's strife. Chaos is neither good nor bad, it's just change. Strife, on the other hand, is almost invariably bad because it sets everyone at each other's throats. Among the cardinal virtues of Remnant's culture are individuality and self-expression, after all, so…just express yourself, Penny. As long as you make it clear to everyone that this is something you need to do, the same way Cinder needs to do what she does, they'll understand. They'll still love you, and they'll adapt for you. That's what family does. Everyone else is fine with Cinder being Cinder because they adapted to her. Pyrrha adapted to her like you adapted to Pyrrha. It's all a never-ending cycle, you see?"

Penny sighed. Then she sighed again, more loudly. Then she groaned and laid her head down on the table. "I don't like it, but you're right. The best answer to my problem is the hard one."

"Few things worth doing are easy," Sayori commiserated. "I felt the same way when I realized I needed to choose to forgive Monika, or ask to be made a Travelling Looper and leave my friends behind. One was hard, but the other was impossible. The easy thing to do would have been to ignore the problem, but then I'd still be miserable."

"Wow! You actually considered asking to be a Travelling Looper?" Penny asked, "I never would have guessed."

"Pinkie said it was an option, and I did seriously consider it…but it would have meant leaving Yuri and Natsuki with Monika, and I couldn't do that to them. Now, Monika's like a sister to me, and I'm almost ashamed that I was ever so blinded by my own pain as to not recognize hers." Sayori took a deep breath, and forced her smile to brighten. "Anyways, what's past is past. Gotta keep moving forward. Speaking of moving forward and me not being good at segues, you coming to the Dance?"

Penny sighed. "I don't know. Generuncle Jamie isn't Awake so I'm not sure I'll be able to get out of it, but…I don't know."

"Well, maybe Sun and I could ditch the Dance to do something fun and distracting with you, instead?" Sayori offered. "Dances are fun and all, but there's no reason for you to go if you're not going to enjoy yourself."

"Maybe…wait, you and Sun?" Penny asked with a risen brow.

"Yeah, I asked him to be my partner for the Dance. It's nothing serious," Sayori explained.

Penny narrowed her eyes, and made a show of looking around before leaning in and whispering, "Can you keep a secret?"

"One of my better skills, believe it or not. Whatcha got?" Sayori whispered back, leaning in as well.

"You didn't hear this from me, got it? And if she finds out you know, Monika will know you heard it from me, so be very careful how you use this intel," Penny added in a very serious tone.

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," Sayori replied with the utmost gravitas.

"Monika thinks Sun is hot," Penny hiss-pered, her volume so low that Sayori almost didn't hear it.

"You don't say?" Sayori asked with a truly wicked grin as she Unpocketed a pocketbook and jotted down a note in it. "I should have guessed; she's kind of got a thing for Lovable Idiots. Dunno if she finds them endearing or if she just likes being the intellectual superior…probably a little of both, though she'd never cop to the second one. So, whataya say the three of us invite Monika to ditch the Dance with us? Then you and I can try to make something happen. Your mileage may vary, but personally I find that focusing on other people's problems is the best way to forget about my own."

"I think that sounds positively devious…I'm in!" Penny agreed, her eyes lighting up with a new sense of energy.

"Ms. Polendina!" squeaked a young man, a mouse-eared Faunus, that stumbled into the room. "Two customers were arguing, I think they're students from Beacon, and I think they're gonna start shooting each other!"

…

"This isn't the first time you've started a gunfight after I've dragged you out to do something," Sayori observed in a very sour tone. She sat on a cot, glaring at Monika.

"Maybe you'll learn to stop dragging me out places," Monika rejoined, tossing a ball into the air and catching it. She was laying down on a cot on the opposite side of the jail cell she was sharing with Sayori.

"Thirty-six hours, Moni. You couldn't give me thirty-six hours, could you?"

"You asked for thirty-six hours of not worrying about Penny. It's been almost ten hours, and I've hardly thought about her at all," Monika replied.

"We're going to miss the Dance," Sayori grumbled.

"No, we won't," said Monika, "Penny's not pressing charges, so we'll got off with a slap on the wrist for disturbing the peace. We–or should I say I–have more than enough lien to pay the fine in the morning."

"I would imagine that 'disturbing the peace' is a much more serious charge in a world where the Creatures of Grimm exist than it usually is. And since you've got lien to spare why haven't you paid our bail?!" Sayori demanded.

"Oh, come off it, Sayo. We did break the law, so it's only fair that we suffer a little for it," Monika calmly explained, still playing catch with herself. "If you were better about managing your money, you could have paid your own bail."

"You know I'm not good with money!"

"I'll say! You're the only perpetually short-changed Looper I know."

"Y'know what? If Coco ever starts Looping, I'm telling her all about this," Sayori declared, "And I'll help her figure out a way to get you back."

"Good luck with that, VP."

---

Compiler's Commentary:

30.1: I titled this snip when the only thing I had for it in terms of plot was "Yuri and Natsuki loop in as Yumie and Heinkel." By the time I finished writing it, I felt like the title no longer adequately described what was going on…but heck it, I take pride in my dumb puns!

30.2: Yuri's finna do some Shadowrunning.

30.3: Picture perfect nonsense.

30.4: I'm not going to lie, I very much enjoy showing off Monika's darker side.

30.5: Friends fight over the craziest stuff…

30.6: …but then they hold interventions for you because they care about your wellbeing.

30.7: FIGHT SCENE! PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCUSSION! CHARACTER EXPLORATION!

30.8: Poor Monika had to heroically suppress the urge to make a joke about buttresses.

30.9: Something I wanted to write ages ago but never found the time to (partly because I still needed to watch Battle Tendency, which I have only recently found the time to do), and kind-hearted Tetra was willing to write it on my behalf. And that's why he's my favorite coin. Snaps for Tetra! *snaps fingers*

30.10: Slot machines have potent hypnotic properties, true facts.

30.11: Sayori's such a good, hard-working friend. Everyone send cookies to the best cinnamon bun!