The Meeting [Open to All]

[Mitsuki]

One of the girls who earlier introduced herself as Ariane Ivers assured her that they don't actually fire bullets. "I guess it's alright then, but if anyone asks you should say it's a toy. Especially because it looks very convincing." She told everyone in the group. She knew it they weren't dangerous, but her colleagues might not be that easily convinced if they found out. She also trusted them not to use their powers against innocent civilians, but it would remain to be seen how that will end.

As everyone was introducing themselves she thought she should introduce herself as well, and did so after the boy that helped her and some others deal with the ogre and the trolls. "As for me, My name is Mitsuki Watanabe. I work as a police officer and actually don't like the disturbance in town lately. All the disappearing people, I think they might be linked. As much as I dislike involving civilians, my colleagues don't know anything about this, and don't have the proper equipment to deal with this. I guess, most of my free time I am either shopping for supplies or looking around town to find more portals. Recently I also have taking a liking to play video games." She said. Even though she actually didn't found any more then the one in the park close to her home. She didn't say that she didn't even own a console yet and that she didn't even have a laptop or desktop yet. She even wondered where she would place such a thing.

[Jacob Peeters]

An annoyed man hastened through the streets as fast as his lame leg could carry him. Jacob cursed his luck, he had missed the bus he was to take to the meeting. He recalled the giddy excitement with which he had confirmed his participation the preceding night. All sorts of different folks, pooling what was curently known? It would be an impressive boon for his own investigation.

He rounded a corner and could see the building where the meeting was taking place right now. He continued his hopping walk towards the meeting. Avoiding obstacles best he could. He enetered through the front door, and to his slight displeasure, learned there were no elevators in the building.

An extremely long-seeming while of annoying stairs later, he found himself standing before the door to the meeting room. Jacob steeled himself at what he assumed wold be a sizable crowd of people. It had been quite a while since he had been around a large concentration of people in a small room. And with that, he opened the door.

"Apologies! I missed my bus" He said to no one in aprticular as he looked around the room. There were some familiar faces. The sword girl. The sword boy and the hasty girl. The woman with which he had discussed the mirror world. However,in greater amount there were people he didn't know at all. they seemed an amiable enough lot though, and so Jacob quietly made his way to a free chair. to his pleasant surprise, the relevant knowledge had been compiled in a folder, and so he set himself to reading through it for now.

[Takumi Fujioka]

What could he say after listening in on everyone's words and thoughts? He took everything pretty easily, and began to digest the info presented to him. From there he was able to paint a clear picture of everything going on. well, as clear a picture one could paint when they were told that they could summon physical manifestations of their identity to combat strange, harmful creatures. Combined with the magical elements and different mechanics that came along with it, the situation was very clearly an odd one. But that was his talent. Takumi honestly didn't give a shit.

And so he listened, and listened, and listened some more. From there, he had a second great revelation. Nobody was all that interesting. He sighed and continued to eat for a bit. That was, until he recalled that girl's persona. From what it seemed, she was capable of scanning things. Deciding it would be a good idea, he decided to inquire about it. It seemed to be the only thing worth inquiring about to him at this point. Hey. Miss Lucretia. He actually pronounced it rather well. Hopefully nobody would realize he was still eavesdropping when she gave her name. Especially since this was their first time meeting. Nobody except her would know that though. Oh well. He didn't really care if they questioned something. He doubted she would have any reason to deny him this info.

Your thing. You've been scanning people from what I can tell. What kind of info are you getting from it? Did it give some sort of crucial body statistics? In the worst case scenario, it was mind reading. Though, he doubted that given how people around him didn't seem to mind it. If it was mind reading, some people here would be aware of it, and at the very least, would be quite annoyed by this person. That said, everyone here was either really weird, or this scanning ability grabbed physical statistics. If he was wrong about all of that, his next best guess was that it was a video recorder.

[Lucretia Odovacar]

Lucretia was slowly dismantling the 'evoker' that she grabbed.  It was important to take something like this very slowly and carefully to avoid accidents.  The last thing she needed was to accidentally injure the people here, or worse, make herself look like a complete fool when she messed up.  Most of the outsides weren't anything special.  It was made of some type of metal, though she couldn't identify it right away and would have to look into that later, and had components that vaguely resembled a gun though it clearly wasn't.  It lacked some of the components that were necessary to make any kind of firearm work, let alone one this small.

As she dug deeper she was pretty sure she was getting to the heart of the device.  A little more poking around and she might even be able to figure out how it all worked.  After a few more tweaks, she was sure that she had successfully opened it, but instead of finding something, the evoker started to glow brightly and there was a small explosion right in her hands.  it was more like a flashbang than anything dangerous, but that seriously hurt her eyes.  She could barely handle sunlight, let alone something this bright.  Lucretia instinctively covered her eyes and waited for the bright light to dim once again.  Sadly, once she looked back down at the remains of the evoker most of the components had either melted or were destroyed by the small explosion.  Lucretia frowned, though really it didn't look that much different from her usual expression.  Something strange just happened.  She was certain that she didn't puncture anything, or dismantle it any way out of the ordinary.  Given the information she just read on the strange blonde woman, there was only one explanation.

"I do not think I did anything wrong.  So, I do not think we should try to break anything the blonde woman gives us.  It was likely trapped," she coughed.

As she was recovering, one of the other users asked her about her abilities.  She didn't really see any reason to hide it given she explained pretty much everything she knew with every group creature encounter.

"My magic gives me lots of information about the target.  The most useful parts are which attacks work best, which attacks do not work very well, and all the magic the target has.  This works on humans and most creatures, but the really strong ones are hard to analyze.  Most of the time I only get a little bit of information rather than all of it.  Besides that, I can see any target without my eyes if they are within about 5000 meters of me.  I can also tell how they are feeling a little bit, but not very well.  The information there is vague.  Finally, I can talk to humans in their minds.  I assume I can do this to the other creatures too, but I have no real way of knowing.  They are not very talkative."

[Akira Nakajima]

Though he was taking a more passive role in the meeting, he was, by no means, ignoring the hustle and bustle. More people did, in fact, arrive. He recognized some of the additions. Others were either newcomers altogether, or things of that breed. Some introductions were given, but the majority of the commotion, he noticed, was focused on the presence, properties, and utilization of Evokers. Honestly, it wasn't that surprising, given their shape and the location they were all meeting. The Japanese and guns didn't mix usually. Though there were exceptions.

It seemed that the officer, in particular, was stressing the specifics of the Evoker. Well, most people, he'd like to think, wouldn't go out and wave it like its a toy. Then again, he also would have appreciated thinking that nobody would go out and try to start mayhem with their Persona. He also would have liked to think that people would refrain from trying to tinker with unknowns, like the Evoker, but he opted to wait until something came of it- a cat burned once wouldn't jump on the stove a second time. Sure enough, a blast of light came from the Evoker.

"A wise piece of advice." He concluded after Lucretia suggested against fiddling with the devices. Some of them were still reviewing the information, it looked. Really, until questions came up that had yet to be answered, there was little to do. Even with the food there, it was more of a "stuffy business room" feel than anything. And he hated those environments. Really and truly, he would have much preferred to be out and doing idoling things over this. Not that he was itching to go idoling, but that he wasn't all that enthused with feel of the room. Sadly, it was a necessary evil.

He would have to make a point to get the contact information of people he didn't know, though. Organization was key. And Lucretia's telepathy, as he overheard, wasn't the end-all means of communication.

[Jacob Peeters]

Jacob periodically looked up from the folder, some other things happened. An incident involving someone tinkering with an invoker, and an actually rather interesting question about the limits of the scanning abilities some personas, including jacob's own. Jacob hadn't really tested out what he could glean, mostly because he currently lacked the level of precision that lucretia had achieved.

Though when the silence fell, a question burned on his own mind. One that was rather pivotal to this whole meeting. He cleared his throat to draw some attention and spoke up. "So... does anyone have any idea of who or what is behind all this?"

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan had been eating quietly in his corner when, suddenly, a bright flash of light erupted in the room. He fell out of his chair, although he somehow managed to keep his plate of food level. As he climbed back up, he heard the others talking. The question that stood out the most was the most recent one. Who, or what, was behind this? 

"Can..." he started quietly before speaking up. "Can we even say there is something behind this? I mean, so far as we know, this could be a natural occurrence. We wouldn't know about it because, i don't know, we didn't have the Persona potential yet, or something else. Besides, what could be powerful enough to actually cause portals to another dimension and add an hour to the day?"

Tristan noticed that he was likely holding everyone's attention at that point. He started to turn a slight shade of red before he remembered something that might shift the spotlight off of him.

"Say, Lucretia," he said with a mix of emotion in his eyes. It was a mix of curiosity, dread, but mostly mischievousness. "You mentioned a curiosity in the coffins when we talked before. Did you ever investigate that further?"

[Lucretia Odovacar]

Lucretia sunk in her chair a little bit.  It was embarrassing enough that she failed to figure out how the evoker worked given she considered reverse engineering technology one of her specialties, but did they have to look at her like that too?  To her, good idea and bad idea were somewhat relative.  There was no way they were going to figure out anything if they didn't take any risks at all, and considering they were venturing into the other worlds they seemed to know that much, so why was it so surprising that she was willing to take a few to learn more in a different way.  After a moment of pouting, she suddenly sat up and grabbed some more food to nibble on to hopefully make her seem less flustered.  It was there, she might as well take it given no one else was.

When the topic of what was causing this came up, Lucretia simply nodded at Tristan's analysis.  "I am not very good with the occult, but I have started researching.  Nearly every old culture has some idea of an 'other world' filled with spirits, demons, or whatever else.  Normally, there are a few people that can see this other world, and they become the religious leaders.  This sounds a lot like the world on the other side of the portals, so I find it likely that it is a natural occurrence that has been around for a long time, and what changed is that we can see it.  However, my evidence is strictly anecdotal and more investigation is needed to reach a more conclusive answer.  I have, however, not seen anything about a hidden hour at midnight in my research, so I am not sure if these two incidents are related.  The fact that several of us gained the ability all at the same time is also very strange.  I would have expected it to be staggered normally."

In regards to the coffins, Lucretia once again nodded at Tristan.  "Yes.  I decided to investigate on my own.  The coffins have people in them.  If you touch the coffin the person will come out.  Doing this is a very bad idea though.  I made sure to locate every shadow nearby before touching this coffin and they were not doing anything different than they normally would.  Once I touched the coffin, they all swarmed on the human that was once in the coffin.  I checked this by getting enough distance between me and him.  They were very clearly targeting him.  I am unsure what this means, but it is clear to me that these creatures see normal humans and persona users as different types of beings.  Given their primal nature, I suspect they thought he was food."

She said it all very matter-of-factly even though she was talking about a person's life here, and she was put in quite a bit of danger trying to make sure he didn't die.  To her, it was just simple research and sometimes that meant putting more than herself in danger.  She couldn't possibly learn anything otherwise.

[Kate Minola]

Kate shrugged at Tristan a bit. "At this point I don't think any one of us has enough information about that issue," she said hesitantly. "But the creatures themselves seem to have some kind of intelligence. Maybe they're some kind of hive mind or something? Not that that's any less unsettling."

Kate felt a bit awkward. She was never very good at socializing and talking to them about anything other than the events that had thrown them all together (probably?) wasn't really an option. She studied the rest of the group quietly and realized something that was bothering her.

"Say... does anyone else think it's a little weird how calm we're all about this? Er, no, not calm exactly," she retracted. "I mean... we're not freaking out. Much. I'm pretty sure that in a given situation like this... people would kind of freak. They'd get loud about it, get the media in on it. Someone would notice. But... we haven't. We're all nice and chill, gathered around a table with lots of food and chatting as if this is a college group project. I know I keep my head in sticky situations and all but this... I don't know how to put this, it feels strange. I remember talking to Anne about the disappearances and it made me think. Do you think this thing is altering or affecting our behavior or something?"

[Luka Kurokawa]

This meeting had definitely made quite a bit of progress. Luka was a little surprised that she had nothing to really say throughout all of this. Though, now that she thought of it, all the information that she knew of was in those packets. If anything, she was just digesting everything that came up. More people had managed to make their way in. Luka just continued eating and listening. Even if her role was more of a bystander despite having formed it, she was getting all the information she needed.

Some interesting things had happened since she last spoke. Someone was concerned about the evokers, for one. She wasn't sure why, given that they didn't allow anyone to do something they couldn't already do. The scanner girl even tried opening one up and. . . oh. That didn't look nice. She tried to note the names of the people she didn't know. Other than that, she just listened to their conversations. Nothing really important seemed to come up, aside from that small mentioning of the coffins. That, and she learned the potential of those scanner people. Other than those things, some questions had been thrown out that had been asked many times before, but there were no answers to them.

The one girl actually mentioned how calm they were being about this. Luka could at least talk about it in this manner. Well, I sort of got used to it by now. Plus, we can't exactly cause a ruckus here. This is a public restaurant even if we got a private room. We can't really afford to be freaking out about this. Though, she had found all of this to be relatively normal from the beginning. Obviously it was surprising for her, but she accepted it almost willingly. Luka always had a slightly warped sense of reality. This was only the tip of the iceberg.

[Takumi Fujioka]

I see. Takumi would remember how that thing worked then. Knowing the capabilities of your allies was just as important as your enemies. Though, he could certainly not consider these people allies just yet. After all, he quite literally snuck into their meeting to gather information and planned to slip out soon. But that scanning ability. . . 5,000 meters? That was a lot. The only other interesting but to note was that coffin discussion. Takumi himself opted to not touch those things because they were creepy. Suddenly, he was quite happy he didn't. So from the sounds of it we have a basic idea of these other worlds, the persona as an entity, some situational info and the kinds of things we're fighting. We lack knowledge about the source of these occurrences and how to stop them; in other words, the most important part. Why did this give him such a headache? He sighed, realizing this was the best he could get out of these people.

Taking some more food, he wrote down some contact information and handed it to that scanner girl. I'm not gonna write it out for everyone here. Just give it to them if they want it. I may need to contact you at some point regarding your power. After that, he got up and prepped himself to leave. You got that? Looking back, he sent a single mental message over to the girl. Anyways, I'm out guys. I got all I needed. In his hands were a single binder, an evoker tat he would shove into his pocket before walking out, and some extra food for home. From there, he exited the meeting and went on his merry way. This 'meeting' had turned out to be quite the detour.

[Akira Nakajima]

Seemed that the topic of coffins was brought up. However, he noted one thing in Lucretia's examination that differed from information he had observed. On the one hand, mentioning it would make it known. On the other hand, withholding information would do nothing. He had to act on good faith that everyone shared the info they had available. To not do the same would be hypocritical, and he'd have no room to complain or argue, should someone else have been revealed to hold back information. Well. It wasn't like mentioning that would make the situation worse for- was it really wise to call them that?- civilians. For the most part, the group seemed sane. He did note that one person left. Well. That was fine.

”I'll will note that your situation may have been coincidental, or circumstantial. I, as well, released someone from their coffin, shortly after that period began. We sat and waited. Nothing happened during this period, and it passed without incident. It's possible that the 'Shadows' don't invade structures that they haven't already laid claim to. Or perhaps our subjects in question were either extreme of the equation. Either way, while they will hunt us, or normals, down if they catch sight of us, I don't think they'll normally be attracted in the manner you described. Furthermore, I'll supplement with some details I verified. A normal will not automatically gain access to a Persona simply by exposure to that environment. Additionally, they will not have recollection of that period. However, I think it's a safe point to make that we should not release them from their coffins. Doing so unnecessarily would just be exposing them to danger.”

With that, the boy closed his mouth. Supplementing where necessary would be fine. He just hoped that that information would put out more fires than it could potentially start.

[Lucretia Odovacar]

Lucretia nodded as Akira spoke, but was a little troubled by this information.  "It makes sense that multiple trials are needed, this is just something that is difficult to do again.  If they decide to attack it leads to a hard fight.  Plus, if they have more than one behavior it could cause a different effect too," she rubbed her chin.  "I will have to look into this further...eventually."

That was not an experiment she was looking forward to, nor was it one she was likely to attempt alone again.  Everyone else's words were less interesting than that sadly, but she supposed she should put in her own two cents.

"I cannot think of anyone that would willingly talk about this with most people.  If someone went to the media, or started sharing with their friends, those people would just think they were crazy.  The natural thing to do is to not talk about it, so I do not think it is surprising that that is what happened.  I would also be surprised if no one here 'freaked out' when they first.  I am under the impression that I am one of the few here that did not awaken in a near death situation.  However, once you survive such a situation, anything less is likely to not feel as bad.  There is likely some fear around this situation but...Are you honestly trying to claim that you are not afraid of what is happening?"

She shrugged and went back to eating.  'Chill' was not the word she would use to describe her own feelings about this supernatural phenomenon.  However, she knew that most people read her as calm even when she wasn't; she considered it a blessing even if she didn't really get it.  There just wasn't much point in panicking because this was going to keep happening no matter what.  If she did nothing, the nature of the situation meant that she would likely get dragged into it anyway, so she might as well take control of the situation as much as she could.  Besides, even if it was a little scary it was also incredibly interesting.

Lucretia grabbed the slip of paper the person leaving handed to her and gave him a mental nod.  "I hear you."

That was likely all he wanted to prove, so there wasn't much need for her to say anything else.

[Jacob Peeters]

Jacob lsitened for a while. It seemed no one at all had a clear idea of what was causing the occurences. Another good point came up though. "Pertaining to us not freaking out about all this... perhaps that is related to us having personas..."

It was a wild theory, an insubstantiated idea, and one for which there was no direct evidence. Jacob wasn't going to pursue the line of thought, as other, more substantial questions were currently being discussed. The inquiry about the status of 'normals' was one of the more pertinent questions. Of course, as had been said. Testing out any possible hypotheses regarding normals would be highly irresponsible.

After some more contemplation, Jacob decided all facts had been gathered. Thus, he slowly rose from his chair and walked to the door. "Ill be seeing you all around I guess" He said, before walking out and back home. The bundle of information clenched under his left arm.

[Yuuki Honda]

Yuuki seemed to zone out midway through the conversation, a little tired from having been awake for a few nights trying to do homework while also settling this Dark Hour thing. In what seemed to be a second, he found himself staring at his food, which was about three inches away from his face. "FFF..." It was difficult to raise himself now, as his fatigue extended to more than just his head. He literally had to place a hand on the table to sit up correctly, and he did so as fast as he could in order to not look impolite.

It seemed that he missed quite a bit, and that troubled him somewhat. Except, this whole meeting was boring enough for him to treat it as though it were a class. The only difference is that others' lives were at stake, his own included as he involved himself with this messy situation. This rag-tag team of young people assembled here seemed to acknowledge this risk so readily. As for Yuuki? He was unsure whether or not he had it in him to be going off and killing creatures that they still knew very little about. They seemed to have similar abilities to their Personas, so the similarity between the players made it look like a hunting game.

What to make of it...

...he dozed off once more, only to awake when people began leaving. Ugh, he should've gotten the sleep he needed, or an energy drink. Yeah, that's what he'll start doing. You know what else he should do? Introduce himself.

He cleared his throat loudly and wiped away the drool and food that remained around his mouth. "Um. I'm sorry. Late to introductions." Yuuki waited for room to speak before he revealed himself. "I'm Honda Yuuki, and I'm a pianis-" He stopped, and sighed, and continued. "...just your run-of-the-mill student. A few weeks ago, I was involved in a car accident immediately before this 'Dark Hour' thing happened. That was when my Persona awoke.

"Honestly, it makes me feel a little anxious. We could very well die if we continue to immerse ourselves in this phenomenon. Are we truly prepared to deal with the consequences should we fail? Who knows what sort of impact this will have on Tokyo... or even all of Japan... or even the world? Isn't it a little scary for you all?"

The young man pushed aside his food and looked down at the blank spot on the table that he had just made. "You shouldn't force yourselves to be involved. I'm not saying that I'm not willing, but I think it still needs to be considered. You all still have lives to return to, do you not? Hobbies, loved ones to come back and be able to hug, and a world to embrace happily... No matter how used to our current situation we are, we should always accept that death is a possibility, and that we run the risk of losing ourselves forever. I don't know if I can say this, but I think that if you are afraid, it's okay; leave it to the others... I'unno, just a few words from me."

His legs kicked the air under the table uncomfortably, and he looked back up to everyone. "...I'm sorry, that was a little too dramatic of me. But, even though you all are strangers to me, I can't help but feel worried for you all."