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Minatodai Dorm, 1st Floor Lounge
Early Morning
"Aigis!" Fuuka ran for the collapsed robot as Midori gathered energy enough to re-summon Frosty to her side. Ignoring the rest, she carefully advanced on the hole in the floor, her improvised weapon still in hand.
"Metis is down. Or, at least, she's not moving," Midori reported as she didn't want to risk descending into that weird place by herself. Instead, she gave her Persona a nudge with her foot and sent it down to explore for her. Frosty took three steps, then looked back at her, reflecting her own worries about the stairs that went down farther than the basement actually went. Perhaps because she didn't want to go down there yet, Frosty refused to go any further.
"Mitsuru-san! Aigis is hurt!" Fuuka checked out Aigis, and was worried by what she saw. A glance from Midori showed at least one heavy dent in her outer chassis.
"Amada!" Mitsuru spun on Ken, ready to take give orders to anyone necessary to assure teh safety of the Dorm. "Can you move?" He nodded, though he held himself like he was hurt. "Go to my office and get our Evokers." She made way for him to climb the stairs.
Beside Midori, Koromaru took position to guard the new and still impossible entrance. He sat, staring at the unmoving Metis.
Soon, Ken came back down, thumping a large suitcase behind him. "This is heavy," he complained as Mitsuru took it from him and bent to open the lock. When the top was opened, she took an Evoker for herself, and handed three more to Ken. "Give those out." She pulled out the specialized harness for Koromaru. "I'll do this one."
"Fuuka, I know you really need to help Aigis, but right now I need to know if Metis is really down, or just faking. Can you and Juno scan her for a moment?" Midori shifted from side to side, keeping her in motion in case she needed to really move.
Fuuka looked up, taking a moment to switch mental gears to understand Midori's request. "Yes. Yes. Good idea. Mitsuru-senpai, can you watch Aigis for a moment?" She waited for an affirmative response before going over to Midori and Koromaru. Taking her Evoker in hand, she took faint comfort in the fact that Midroi had identified the region below them as something like the Dark Hour; it was only a comfort in that she would be able to summon her "Juno!"
But it was not to be. "Lucia?!" Surrounded by her initial Persona, Fuuka was startled and caused it to collapse. "What? I sensed that Metis is unconscious, but what happened?"
"I don't know." Midori admitted, though her concerns were more on their attacker. "Go back to Aigis, I'll stay here."
"Agreed." Mitsuru said. "Yoshino, help me and Yamagishi take Aigis back to her room. We should still have equipment up there to help her." Mitsuru took Aigis by the shoulders and waited for the others to come and help move the fallen robot. "Komaki – secure Metis. I'll contact Takeba and Akihiko as soon as I can to come here. Until then, you're in change down here."
"What? Me?" Midori's focus was damaged by the sudden change in responsibility. "Alright, but please come back down soon." Looking at the stairs in front of her, she tried to figure out how to restrain something that could fight Aigis to a standstill. As the others disappeared up the stairs, she finally had an idea. "Ken, I know there's some construction material being stored in the back of the kitchen, where the delivery door is. See if there's something there we can use to tie her up with." Ken nodded and went to his assigned duty. "Koro-chan... uh. Stay."
With instructions out of the way, Midori began to descend, Frosty at her side. She took each step one at a time, waiting ready in case Metis moved. Her plan was simple. They would tie Metis up, then everyone would take turns guarding her until they could sort things out. "Oh, gods..."
She had gone down far enough to look up, and her voice was filled with annoyance and other less acceptable emotions when she saw the empty sky above her with a hole in the world leading back into the real world. At the base of the stairs, an almost featureless sandy plain stretched to the distant horizon. It would have been featureless except for the doorways arranged in a semicircle at the base of the stairs, all of which pointed inward. Midori had no trouble believing that they led to places other than here.
Reaching the bottom, she put one hand on the sandy ground, feeling nothing out of the ordinary. Frosty, at her urging, took the first step. When nothing happened, she hopped down lightly. Looking back up, she saw Ken's worried face. "I'm alright!" she said loudly. "We're going to need everyone here sooner or later."
"What about Metis?"
"Right." She saw the still-fallen robot and kicked her in the leg very gently, to see if she could get a response. Not ever her feet twitched. "Frosty, grab the legs, I'll grab the shoulders. We'll carry her up the stairs."
Her Pesona nodded and went to his designated position. Soon the two of them had dragged Metis up into the Dorm and sat her down in a chair. Ken was quick off the draw and had the chain ready and soon the two of them had wrapped Metis up as tightly as they could.
"I'm going to report to Mitsuru now," Midori said, "you two keep an eye on her. Stay back a bit."
3rd Floor, Aigis' Room
Midori knocked once on the open door before letting herself in. "Metis is secured as best we can. Ken and Koro-chan are watching over her. How's Aigis?" Inwardly, she was surprised at how empty the room was. It never occurred to her that Aigis would prepare any of her things for moving out like this, but as she glanced about, she saw that any indication of her attendance in school was simply... gone.
"She's asleep for now," Fuuka said from beside the robot as she reclined in her maintenance chair. "She should be awake, but she's not."
"Mitsuru-senpai, I went down into that hole Metis came from to retrieve her." She hesitated, still unsure how to describe what was down there. "It's another Tartarus, I think. It's bigger down there than the basement is."
The others stopped. "Oh no," Fuuka whispered. "What are we going to do?"
Mitsuru's expression grew hard. "Metis and an impossible location under the dorm? I was going to wait until morning, but now I can no longer delay. I'm calling Takeba and Akihiko now." She looked around at the others in the room, deciding what was best to do with them. "Komaki, continue to aid Yamagishi. Yoshino, go downstairs and help them." She hurried to leave the room and make her calls.
Silence descended across the room. A thought occurred to Midori and she whipped out her COMP. "Oh no!" She looked around for confirmation but found no other clocks in the room. "I missed my train!"
Fuuka shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry. I don't think any of us noticed. Do your tickets allow for later connections?"
"I don't know. I'll have to check." Damn it. She was about to close her COMP when something else caught her eye. "Uh, it's supposed to be the First, right?"
Fuuka nodded.
"Then why does this say it's still the 31st?" She handed over her device to be examined, and Fuuka's expression grew puzzled.
"Mitsuru said this was connected to a Dark Hour shielded server, right?"
Knowing the full extent of the deception that SEES had wrapped around themselves, Midori nodded. "Not that I knew that. But I mean, it's gone through the Dark Hour every day for five months and didn't lose a beat. Why now?"
"It could be a server glitch. Try resetting it." Midori did, but the date stayed the same. "Huh. Server side it is. Nothing I can do about that now."
Silence returned and Mitsuru eventually returned. "Akihiko is on his way, I've left a message on Takeba's phone. Any progress?"
"No." Fuuka admitted. "She's still asleep."
"Very well. Let us go downstairs and see this place Komaki looked at for ourselves."
Midori yawned. A huge thing she had no warning was coming, and suddenly a great drain was drawn on her. "Oh, I'm tired" she said as she looked around. "I'm sorry Senpai. I've missed my taxi, and the fight was harder on me than I thought."
Mitsuru agreed with the assessment. "Get some sleep then. I know your room is empty, but Takeba's should still have a mattress and blankets. I'll arrange alternative transport for you once the situation allows."
Once she had her directions to rest, Midori tuned out the rest. She was tired, and wanted sleep, strange robots and broken servers be damned.
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Minatodai Dorm, 3rd Floor, (Formerly) Yukari's Room
Early Morning
Midori rolled over on the futon and scrabbled for her glasses. Once they were on, she rose to a sitting position and took stock of her situation. She was tired. She had nowhere near enough sleep as she checked her COMP, which told her it was barely 6:30 AM, 31 March 2010. Oh, her COMP was broken too. Groaning, she felt her arms for the bruises from the pounding she got last night.
Well, there goes the hope that it was all just a bad dream.
Her stomach growled at her, and with a groan, she looked around for her discarded Inaba uniform. Smoothing out the worst of the wrinkles, she put it on and collected her COMP before heading downstairs.
Before getting to the stairs though, she stopped in front of Aigis' door. A pang of worry shot through her. She tapped on the door quietly, and when there was no response, she found it was unlocked. Opening it up, she saw Aigis still asleep and unmoving on her maintenance chair while Fuuka was sleeping on the more comfortable recliner that Aigis had for guests.
She slipped in, leaving the door open behind her and checked on Fuuka first. Finding that someone had laid a blanket over her sometime earlier relieved her. Ignoring the impossible to decipher technical things going on, she went to check on Aigis. Still motionless, she didn't react when Midori waved her hand in front of her face, nor when she put that same hand against her cheek.
Through the front chassis, Midori could feel something moving within, and that told her that Aigis still had a chance to recover.
With no more, she headed downstairs.
1st Floor, Sitting Area
Several pieces of information crossed her eyes as she took in the revamped lounge and dining area.
First was that the table that had been knocked aside saw now leaning up against one wall, the staircase into that realm outside of the world cleared of all obstruction. She also saw that their attacker was still sitting in her chair, chains wrapped tightly around her.
Standing guard over her was Akihiko, who saw her and beckoned her over. "Hello, Midori."
"Good morning, Akihiko-sensei." She bowed properly. "How is our guest?" She indicated Metis with one hand.
"Still not responding." He paced back and forth. "I got in a couple hours ago. Mitsuru told me that Yukari would be arriving later today."
"That's good to hear." Midori saw that Akihiko had his Evoker on him. "I checked in on Fuuka and Aigis before coming down. They're both asleep."
"I'm relieved to hear that." Akihiko paused in his pacing to sit down. "Everyone else had returned to their rooms to rest. How about you?"
Something bothered Midori. "Actually, I need to check something." She pulled out Frosty's card and stepped carefully around Metis to get at the open passage. "Frosty!" At her summons, the Persona emerged. "Damn."
"Oh?"
"It's just that it's still easy to summon Frosty. This thing" she pointed down into hole, "is responsible."
Akihiko nodded in understanding. "I see. Do you think I should try to call forth Ceaser?" He motioned to his Evoker, trusting in Midori's judgement in this matter.
"No. I've been practising, and I don't want to have to explain to Mitsuru why you're unconscious." She shook her head and returned with Frosty to her seat. "Damn, I gotta phone my daddy and let him know I missed my train."
Akihiko hid his surprise at Midori's slight curse. She wasn't the kind of person to be negative like that, but he figured that this situation was stressful enough that he'd let her behavior slide just a little bit. "Go ahead."
Leaving Frosty to stare at Metis, Midori bemoaned the fact that she had packed her cellphone in her luggage – though it was still there beside the door. It would be easier to use the Dorm's land-line phone. Picking up the handset, she was halfway through dialling when she realized there was no dial tone. Resetting the phone, the second attempt failed. The third try involved unplugging and plugging the phone back in, and still failed.
"Problem?" Akihiko asked from his seat.
"Yes. Phone's broken." She set it off to one side and went to open her suitcase. Thankfully she had enough presence of mind to put such vital things at the top, she grabbed her phone and flipped it open.
No signal.
"This isn't right..." She took out the battery and then slotted it back in, hard-resetting the device. Still no signal. "Akihiko-san, can you find a different phone? Something's not right here." She couldn't help but let a point of worry cross her voice.
"Sure." Leaving Midori and Frosty to guard Metis, he quickly ran up to the fourth floor where he knew there was a phone in the office.
While he was moving, Midori pulled out her COMP. It still showed a signal, but then again, it always did. Part of her started to wonder how she could get a signal in the Dark Hour and in real life, but answers to that were beyond her.
It still showed that it was the 31st though, and with everything else not working, she decided to send a test e-mail.
FROM: Dolly
TO: At-low
RE: Weird things
Hey, my COMP says it's the 31st again when today is the 1st. Is there something wrong with Babel?
With one last button press, it was sent. And with no error message returning to her, she could only presume that her message had been sent out properly.
While waiting for Akihiko to return, she decided to have a closer look at Metis. The damage inflicted by Frosty and Aigis last night was still apparent. While Frosty had caused some slight scorching damage to the black polished surface, it was still apparent that Aigis' ripping of the mask off had been the worst of it. She found the red hued thing sitting on the table and out of curiosity picked it up.
She couldn't see through it, but that wasn't surprising in the least. Turning back to Metis, she looked over her in more detail.
What really stood out was that she was a lot more human-like than Aigis. She was smoother, with less in the way of externally visible mechanisms (she still boggled at how no one had noticed or commented about that at school, or in the club. One of the mysteries of the universe, she supposed), and her skirt kept up the butterfly motif.
She knew it was important, that. But for the love of her justice, she couldn't place it. Discarding the thought, she circled their captive, checking the chains to make sure they were still tight. With that done, she looked over Metis' shoulder at Frosty. "Well, now what?" Her complaint could not be answered as Frosty couldn't speak.
Remembering that she was supposed to be hungry, she headed for the kitchen to see if there was anything for her to snack on, or at least an egg or two she could fry up while Frosty kept watch.
As she passed into the dining area, she stopped instead to look down into the hole in the world. Poking one finger across the transition line of the floor, she found it was still just as real as anything else.
Another rumble from her stomach reminded Midori that she really needed to stop procrastinating and eat something.
A few minutes later, she emerged from the kitchen with a couple of fried eggs on a plate. Akihiko was back, and gave her a confused eye between her and Frosty. "You can see through him?"
"What?" Expressing her confusion, she ate one of the eggs. "No, I can't. I just told him to attack if she did anything."
Wondering just how much control over her Persona Midori had, Akihiko got back to the issue at hand. "I tried the phone in Mitsuru's office. It's also not working."
"Could be a problem with the phone lines then." Midori ate the last egg then put the plate down. "I'll check outside."
"It doesn't explain why your cell-phone was out of service." Akihiko countered logically. "And there wasn't an earthquake to disrupt service like that."
Midori tried the door, but it didn't open. A push and pull and a look of worry flashed across her face. She tried again, harder this time, but the door still wouldn't budge. Annoyed, she gave it a kick, only for it to stand firm. "Akihiko-sensei? We have a problem."
He came over to the door and seeing her distress, gave it a try himself. When it refused to budge gave it a strong push and pull, trying to rattle it loose. "What the...?
"I'm going to check the back door." Midori said as she ran back into the kitchen, barely slowing down to grab her plate and dump it in the sink to soak. A moments fighting told her it was stuck as well. Rushing back out into the main lobby, she relayed this information as well as her desire to check the door leading to the roof.
4th Floor, Lounge
Midori didn't bother stopping as she came off the stairs. She just ran and tackled the door, slamming into it with an over-loud 'BANG'. But it didn't budge. For good measure, she kicked it, but while the wide door-handle slammed down, the door didn't move.
She cursed.
"What's going on, Komaki-san?"
Spinning to face Mitsuru, she saw the high-school graduate had rings around her eyes, and for a moment she refused to believe that it was Mitsuru at all by the completely dishevelled appearance. Then her disbelief was gone. "Mitsuru-senpai, the doors won't open and the phones aren't working, not even my cellphone." She kicked the door behind her once more for good measure. "It's like we're trapped, and I'm betting it's that thing under the Dorm and Metis' fault."
Expressing her displeasure with Midori's abuse of the door with her eyes, Mitsuru tried the door herself, only to fail. "Does..."
"Akihiko-sensei knows, he's checking things out too." Midori cut off the obvious question in annoyance at their situation. "So far it's just the three of us awake."
"Keep checking, I'm going to get dressed." Mitsuru ordered Midori as she tightened her sleeping gown. "Try not to wake anyone else yet, they may need to be well rested."
"Of course."
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Minatodai Dorm, 1st Floor Lounge
Daytime
The three of them sat around the table, Metis still chained in her chair. Mitsuru had decided to not wake anyone else until they had a better grip on their situation.
Unfortunately, they had no further information. Akihiko had opened the curtains and tried to get the attention of people outside but to no avail. Midori had tried to open some windows, but they were as stuck as everyone else.
"Any further ideas?" Mitsuru asked them in a controlled voice.
"Punch a hole in the wall?" Midori's suggestion was enforced by Frosty waving from his spot on the table.
"Actually, how long have you had him active?" Akihiko tried to divert her from her plans to damage the building. He cast a glance at the hole in the dining room to assure himself it was still there. "I mean, this is longer than you've been practising, right?"
Midori nodded. "Yes. I mean, you want me to put him back?"
"No, no. It's just more proof that our problem is that, and Metis." Akihiko pondered their options. "I suppose it's like Fuuka being trapped in Tartarus when she first awoke."
"I see some theoretical similarities, but the facts are different." Mitsuru replied. "We can still observe the outside world, even though we cannot interact with it."
"So what happens when Yukari tries to come in?" Midori asked as she looked at the door in expectation. "I mean, she said she was coming over, right? Will she be able to open the door?"
Silence.
"I would hope so." Mitsuru admitted after a while. "We should make it a priority to be aware of her arrival so that we can make sure she is aware of our predicament."
"You mean, you want her to open the door and then we keep it open?" Midori chimed in.
"An acceptable outcome."
"Hey, Midori-chan?" Akihiko said to change the subject. "I hope we can get this resolved by this evening. I'd hate for you to miss your train."
Midori snorted. "I missed it last night. Not sure when I can take the next one."
"Wait, you were planning on leaving yesterday? I thought you were taking the train just after midnight tonight?"
Midori opened her mouth to continue the circular argument when something struck her. "What day is it?"
Akihiko seemed confused by the question, while Mitsuru paused in thought. "It's the 31st," he said after a moment.
"Oh. That's not good." Midori examined her COMP to confirm that it still said that date. "Akihiko-sensei, for everyone in the Dorm except for you, today is the first of April."
"That's..." Akihiko accusation died on his lips. "That's not the sort of jest you would make."
"What are you suggesting, Komaki?" Mitsuru asked as she contemplated what was suggested, hoping that Komaki had more information than her; or at least a better theory.
"Nothing." Midori unknowingly shot down Mitsuru's hopes. "I'm just saying that after I turned on the TV, the weather channel showed what was yesterday. And my COMP says it's yesterday too."
Realizing that not only was such a jest out of character for Midori, but that Mitsuru was taking the possibility seriously caused Akihiko to ponder it as well. "But what...?"
Midori and Mitsuru both gestured at Metis and the hole in the dining room. "That's the source of our concerns."
Standing, Midori straightened her skirt. "Senpai, sensei. I'll go wake up the others now."
"Of course. And report on Aigis' condition."
It took about half an hour, but Midori had finally managed to rouse and collect everyone else. Returning to the living room behind Chidori, she saw that someone had prepared sandwiches for lunch. "Thanks for the food," she intoned before grabbing one. She went to grab her seat only to stop and glare at Koromaru. "And please don't sniff at Frosty."
The dog gave her an annoyed huff, but relented from examining the motionless Persona. Once everyone was seated, Mitsuru gave everyone a quick briefing on what they have confirmed, and some of their less confirmed theories and observations.
"A time loop? That sounds preposterous." Chidori complained.
"It's not that much of a stretch from the Dark Hour existing in a realm where no time passes." Fuuka offered in counterpoint. "Although there's no way to confirm that theory until tomorrow." She shrugged before continuing. "Aigis is still recovering. I discovered some supplies that I can use to help protect her more, but they seemed to be from an old version." She then went on to express her confusion. "I mean, I could have sworn that I had gone over everything, but this seems new to me."
"See if it will help," Mitsuru commanded before moving on to the next topic. "Now, as for Metis, I haven't had a chance to look over what records I have upstairs from the development of the whole series that led to Aigis for clues as to her existence." She looked around for a volunteer to help her, but none offered. "Yoshino, would you be so kind to assist?" The redhead grumbled, but acquiesced. "I'll also need to keep a guard posted here to watch over her as well as for when Yukari arrives. Akihiko, Amada, Koromaru, if you please?"
Midori was surprised she wasn't asked, but held her question on the assumption that there was a reason for it. "Yamagishi, take Komaki and work at getting Aigis back up." Oh, that made some sort of sense. After Fuuka, Midori knew she was the most technically savvy person in the building.
"What about exploring down that hole?" Ken asked politely.
"Not until either Aigis or Yukari are available," Mitsuru said, "Although I would prefer Aigis as that would also free up Yamagishi and Komaki." She stood up, signalling an end to the meeting. They all dispersed to their new duties.