Daichi: Now, let's see what we can get done today!

Verity: Ring in the confusion?

Daichi: Ring in the confusion.

Tsukaimon: So glad we don't own these things. Can you just imagine what they'd do with them?

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Running a branch of the Expedition Society while living a whole town away and still going to school was no easy task. Espurr sort of wondered how Satoko and Keira had done it, but always figured that it had to do with Keira's ambition, and Satoko's true age. Whatever that was, because the young Lucario didn't seem to know it herself.

Honestly, it was no wonder that the reigns of the group had been handed to her, as the smartest of the group that was an actual child, and the most responsible young Pokemon in the village.

However much that was saying, anyway. She didn't think it was a whole lot.

Still, the job came with some perks. Such as having an easy source of money to eat from Cafe Connection every day. Satoko would kill her if she found out what Espurr was doing with her hard-earned funds, but what the aura wielder didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Besides, after overworking herself like this every day, nobody could really begrudge her some good food.

Nor could anyone begrudge her curiosity, when basically nothing ever happened in the village and the most news she got of the outside world was sending various teams on missions.

Curiosity such as the Pikachu that had shown up in the village quite literally out of nowhere. He'd just… appeared on top of the hill and walked right into town like he belonged there, chatting with Hydreigon like it was nothing.

...Maybe it was, to him. Principal Simipour had once, in the time since Keira and Satoko left the school, talked about the team he had once been part of, before their town was struck by the remnants of a meteor, and the population scattered. One of the residents had been like Satoko- a human transformed into a Pokemon to save the world. There hadn't been a lot of details- Panpour's group didn't talk a lot with the human's- but the human had taken the form of a Pikachu, and been granted the power of travel between worlds.

They had never let Pancham live it down.

"You know, Ken, you really should come back here more often," The Voice of Life stated, hustling his former leader into the cafe. "Bring Meiko with you, have a reunion, it's been more than a year since the last one. Not since we all broke out of the Voidlands together."

"To be fair, why would we stick around for the apocalypse?" Ken pointed out. "Especially one we couldn't properly help fight. But how have the others been? When I saw Emolga a few months ago, he wasn't really saying a lot."

"There's been talk of rebuilding Paradise, but nothing really concrete," Hydreigon shrugged. "I think they've been going on a few adventures with the Expedition Society, but everyone's done at least one job for them at some point or another. You could probably get more information just talking to that kid over there." Oh. Right. Not in a Dungeon, not using Big Ears, trying to spy on a Dark Type. She'd been doomed to failure from the start, hadn't she?

"Kid? Oh… the Espurr? Sure, she's… actually part of the reason that I'm here. Ran into Satoko recently, she wanted to make sure that her money was being spent right."

...She was doomed.

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After assuring the kid that Satoko probably wouldn't mind her money being spent on food if the success streak was being kept up- it was, if only because Espurr's response to most problems was 'throw Team ACT, Charm, whoever's free today, at them'- Ken decided to return to his own world. However little there was to do there, because Minako's Evoker was still missing, and the one he'd been given for emergencies had somehow gotten lost in his dresser and Meiko wasn't helping him find it.

"The less we have to go into Tartarus, the better," The Snivy had pointed out. "I'm probably saving our lives, really."

"You know, you don't have to come with us," He sighed, not even bothering to switch languages again after changing worlds.

"But then who would hit the things you can't electrocute or kill with light?"

"I assume the rest of the team." Because, really, that's what they were there for. And it wasn't like it had changed anything, really- a girl had ended up stuck in Tartarus somehow, at least according to Minako and the fact that said girl had been a latent Persona User who was locked in Gekkoukan overnight, which made it fairly clear no matter what Junpei said about ghosts.

As a result, they'd be heading to Tartarus that night with or without Minako. Yukari would be the squad leader. Apparently, Mitsuru felt she'd be the most responsible. Akihiko and Junpei had complained for different reasons- Junpei wanted to be the leader, Akihiko was insulted that Mitsuru didn't think he was responsible.

And then Minako had pointed out that he'd had the most Dia spells used on him out of the whole group since she'd joined, and how most of them were easily preventable. He had stopped complaining so loudly after that.

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'It's amazing,' Minako thought, 'Just what I can do with the power of assumptions.' They thought she needed an Evoker, just because she was in the habit of using one. They thought she was more of a genius than she actually was, just because of her perfect scores and the fact that she used class time as a chance to catch up on the sleep she lost in Tartarus.

And now, they thought she wouldn't be following them to the tower that night, just because she had told them she had a date planned for that evening.

'To be fair, most couples wouldn't call preparing to explore the hellscape that is Tartarus, and then actually doing so, a date,' Cybele reminded her. And, being her Ultimate Persona of the Lovers Arcana, Minako figured she'd know.

'You might not have noticed, but they aren't exactly what you'd call a normal couple,' Orpheus pointed out. As the voices in her head started to devolve into lighthearted bickering once again, Minako forced herself to concentrate more fully on reality.

Not that there was a lot going on in reality at the moment. Just the ordinary check of 'do we have enough to survive?' that she probably shouldn't have been so used to making when she had access to Traesto and teleporters, but prior incidents had been enough to convince her.

Nobody liked climbing to the top of the tower, and then having to walk all the way back down- which took two whole weeks- thanks to a few dozen careless Zio spells, after all. Them leaving the Dark Hour had fixed it, but it was something she had taken care not to repeat ever since.

Looking through all the supplies she had, she grinned as something caught her eye.

"Not a chance."

"I didn't even say anything!" She complained.

"Mina. Put. The butler uniform. Away."

"Fine…" She sighed and shoved the outfit back through the door to the Velvet Room, where it would go unused until Souji and Sho entered their own 'team costumes' phase. "So much for making an entrance…"

Then again, maybe it was for the best. After all, if this did end up being the last loop, they'd want to have at least a smidge of dignity intact. For however long that ended up lasting.

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"So, I'm not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea, right?" Satoko asked, sitting on top of a desk in one of the classrooms. "Not the breaking into your school for a headstart on Tartarus thing, I'm fine with that, but… did we really have to come here three hours early?"

"You say that like we didn't know, if we were there when she got back, Mina-tan was gonna follow us," Junpei pointed out.

"That seems like something she'd do," Ken agreed. "So… do you think the others are going to be back with the gym keys any time soon?"

"It's five minutes until the Dark Hour," Meiko pointed out, gesturing to the clock with the vine not holding on to Ken. "I don't think that they would abandon us in Tartarus, but…"

Satoko sighed. She'd been trying not to think about it. "What do you think is holding them up?"

Junpei shrugged. "I dunno. Can't be anything important, right?"

"It's been half an hour. I'm assuming either they were caught by security or got really distracted. And I still say I should have just broken us in."

"That would definitely have alerted security."

"I don't mean destroying the doors, I think Metal Claw could make a half-decent lockpick."

"I'd still rather not." Yukari. "Sorry we're late, we got held up with…"

"Takeba-san and I had to talk through a few things, to prepare for working without a designated scanner," Mitsuru explained. "Shall we be going now?"

"Well, it's that or end up in some random block of Tartarus versus a semi random one, so…" Ken nudged Meiko, though it didn't really matter when only he and Satoko could understand the serpent.

Satoko felt herself grin. Dark Hour was almost here, time for some action. She didn't even think before tearing down the halls, even when one of Meiko's vines tightened around her wrist as she moved farther ahead from the rest of them.

They'd been held up longer than they should have. The only members of the group that were connected were the two tied to Meiko's vines.

The clock struck twelve.

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Daichi: So, in Tartarus, we have the Pokemon group, the time-looping couple that pretends to know what they're doing, and everyone else, plus Fuuka… someplace.

Verity: Somehow, I get the feeling that the Emperor and Empress are the least of their worries.

Daichi: Honestly, it depends on who makes contact with the Reaper first. New Game Plus team can defeat it every now and again, Pokemon team has a decent chance of survival, Fuuka's got a good way to avoid it… everyone else should probably run, though.