The Tangled Web We Weave

things actually had a bunch of similarities.

Though she did recognize a huge issue here. If the tears were causing shadows and such to leak into the real world. the answer was for her to well brute force her way back into the metaverse and hope that she ends up glitching through the world again. She would be essentially putting this world in further danger, and who knows if her tear would be the final tear that breaks things.

Like a bunch of cracks in a piece of glass. All it would need is

one. One more crack and then everything shattered. That sort of thing. Of course, there was no way that she couldn't risk it. She clearly wasn't meant to be in this world. And you know, if her and Sumire were to meet that wouldn't go well. So she just let off a sigh, swallowing a bit of saliva as her stomach pushed past that last bit of nausea.

"I think I get the picture now." Kasumi nodded as she showed she was listening. "Honestly, sounds like a shonen or a sentai that my friend Futaba likes to watch. I'm not sure that I agree that your approach is more direct than ours. Ours is just less public since it's in that other world. Trust me, we've tried to discreetly steal someone's treasure before...

We just end up having to beat up their shadow anyways until they run out of energy. Still no killing though." She could never forgive herself if that happened. "Anyways, I think I understand everything now. But I fear that I may have to put another tear in, in order to get back to my world. And who knows if that is the last tear to cause everything to collapse or not.

He had a bit of a chuckle over the shonen comparison. Ryuji and Futaba often referred to their antics as shonen action scenes... and they were right on the money, honestly.

"To me, the less public facing route is less direct, especially since that other world means less of a chance of getting caught, but that's beside the point. I won't bore you with semantics. Let's just agree to disagree."

He was a bit perplexed by her statement that this tear could rip reality apart. That wasn't quite how it worked, at least to his understanding. Still, he appreciated her concern, especially given that this wasn't her dimension.

"The tears are generally self healing." He replied. "Reality doesn't like having holes in it, as I imagine is true for... well, most things. So these tears only last for a short time, getting sealed back up within... 20 minutes or so?"

He didn't sound extremely sure on that, but it's not like he timed it with a stopwatch. He was usually busy with, y'know, fighting the shadows that came through it.

"Meaning that any damage caused by these tears is undone as soon as they seal back up, so you don't have to worry about my reality collapsing in order for you to get back home."

"No, the only lasting damage would have to be caused by something more permanent that kept it from healing, like sticking a knife into something and leaving it there."

... like for example, the constant connection to the Metaverse that was created between every Persona user that had been awakened with the same serum that gave him his powers. Though he'd refrain from mentioning that for now. People tended to react poorly when they heard that a small group of nobodies was damaging existence just by being alive. They were fine for now, but each new one that was created brought their world closer and closer to that breaking point.

He didn't like to think about that much. He just hoped they could find a balance to it, and that no one did anything stupid like... trying to create a small army of Persona users.

"Sorry if I made you think otherwise. The tears are still a problem, and we do have to figure out how to prevent them. But the whole fabric of reality isn't at risk."

... Yet anyway.

Bzzt Bzzt Bzzt!

Suddenly his phone started quietly vibrating. He pulled it out of his pocket and then... smirked.

"Futaba just forwarded me an alert. Our equipment is picking up a tear forming in the Red Light District."

He stood up from his seat and a burst of blue flames erupted around his body, his clothes quickly being replaced with the black clad figure of the Phantom Spider.

"We'll have to move fast if we want to make it in time. You ready?"

"Amamiya," Mitsuru stated, looking him over. "Despite you saying you're able and willing to fight, you still are in no condition to do so. A physical battle would only cause more problems for us..."

He had mentioned possibly hacking the systems. An idea formed in her head, eyes widening, and a smirk forming on her lips.

"Your friend... Sakura, is it? The young girl. She's good with computers, yes?" Mitsuru asked. "She's been helping you from the sidelines. Aigis stated so in one of her reports when we first recruited you. I'd like to meet her. As quickly as possible."

"Futaba? She kinda got upgraded from sideline duty a while back, but she could probably help. Let me just-"

His phone immediately started ringing. And pulling it out of his pocket revealed it was the girl in question.

"... I thought I told her to stop doing that-" He mumbled to himself, before answering. "Oracle-"

"Hey Spider, sorry for eavesdropping but I heard my name and-"

"I thought I told you to remove that bug you put in."

"I did! But I was in the area and I sensed your phone, and you know I can't fully control what tech I link up with yet."

He sighed. Her technomancy powers were still hard for him to wrap his head around, though with this particular case he felt there was a simpler explanation; Old habits die hard.

"Doesn't matter, I was going to call you anyway. Can you fly over to the Kirijo Group? We could use your expertise here."

"Already on my way. Shouldn't take me more than a minute or two!"

"Good to hear. I'll let them know so their security doesn't try to shoot you out of the sky."

"... That would be nice, yeah."

He hung up, returning his attention to Mitsuru.

"Oh yeah, sorry about that. It's kinda become a habit," she explained, feeling him try to pry her psychic hand off him. She set him down gently before quickly making her way down the stairs to the main floor, hoping he'd follow.

As they made their way down the stairs, she sensed the Seropians closing in. There was a heaviness in the air that only an eerie race of perverted aliens could give off. The Phantom guy could probably sense it, too.

He followed closely behind her, hoping his trap would at least slow the aliens down long enough for them to get clear. But just in case it didn't, he had two more, throwing them at the walls as they made their way down in places that'd be hard to avoid. He was also quick to block the hallways with webbing as they went, hoping to keep anyone else from getting caught in the crossfire.

"I-I'm not- I mean-"

For a brief moment he thought of deepening his voice, but... that would be stupid. She'd already heard him talking normally for a bit now.

"I don't give my personal info out to just anyone." He retorted after a moment, though his tone was less bitter and more matter-of-fact. "It'd kinda defeat the point of the mask, y'know?"

"But yes, I do "superhero stuff" all throughout Tokyo. Me and a few friends of mine. Have been for the last... six months or so. Honestly, I'm surprised you haven't heard of us, given how often we're on the ne-"

He cut himself off as he heard the distant sound of the door up top being busted down, followed quickly by a burst of electricity as the first of his cards went off.

"Haha-ha! Suckers!"

If he was right, and these things were mechanical in nature, that shock to their systems should slow them down substantially. Still, there was an odd feeling in the air, an almost eerie chill that made it seem like they were somewhere... else. Everything looked the same, but nothing felt right. It was also... weirdly dark in here. All the lights were off, and none of the windows were giving off light despite it being the middle of the day.

'It's not the Metaverse.' He thought to himself. 'I'd definitely be able to feel it if we'd slipped into a Palace or something. Plus with surroundings this undistorted, we'd definitely be able to see the sun outside-'

Whatever was going on, he didn't like it. Suddenly it didn't feel like they had the advantage anymore.

"Stay close to me... I get the feeling we've got more than just those pervs to worry about."

But her question would have to wait for an answer. The Serpoians were going to catch up with them real fast if they didn't start running. As soon as she landed on the roof again, she let go of him and shot toward the door leading to the building's interior.

"Trust me, they aren't after anyone else but me. I pissed them off really badly, and now they have a bit of a grudge against me," Momo explained, tugging desperately on the locked door handle. "Shit!!"

One of her psychic hands grasped the door handle and with a great amount of both mental and physical strength, she managed to rip open the door.

"I'm psychic! I can use psychokinesis! I'm training to be a medium like my Grandma!" She explained as the other psychic hand reached out to scoop him up again. Momo ignored his complaints as she carried him down the stairwell to the ground floor.

Is that really important right now?

'Hey, she asked!'

He was really wondering what a single person could've done to tick off a whole race of aliens this badly, but now wasn't the time for that question. More importantly, he was getting real tired of being carried around like an action figure.

"Oh c'mon, not again-!! I can run just fine by myself, y'know!!"

Using his third eye, he could finally see what was holding him; A giant greenish blue hand extending from the girl like one of those sticky elastic toys. It was kind of surreal to see, and he'd seen a lot of weird stuff in his time.

"Then we just need to do more than knock them down! If I can just-"

As soon as they were inside, he grabbed one of the yellow cards from his belt before prying one of her fingers off of him to get his arm free, letting him throw it at the wall as they made their way down the stairs.

"Bam!! They'll be in for a real shock once they get up here!"

"What am I doing here?" He mumbled, before looking up at Storm with a perplexed expression on his mask.

"I mean the whole of reality is at stake, my teammates are M.I.A, and I'm a high schooler in magic spandex!! I don't belong here! Not just in this patchwork of universes, but in this team of big shots and world saving pros."

"Sure, I've fought a god, but who here hasn't?? And I won by cheating, not through sheer strength or anything impressive."

"Right, questions." She still wasn't feeling in the best of shape, but at least she wasn't on the verge of puking and such. There were so many questions that she had since it seemed that she was going to be stuck here for a while. After all, who knew when the next time she could possibly get back to her world.

Oh god.

How was the group handling her not being there? She closed her eyes and imagined her world without her being there as leader. Surely they could handle things, right? After all, well, they were very strong. But she kept the team from falling apart at the seams. It was her somewhat expertise that did that. Makoto was probably the second closest one who could keep things together.

She took a long sigh.

It was going to be alright. Things had to be alright.

First off though... "Okay, so if I have this right, instead of the phantom thieves in this world you are all part of a group called the champions, right? So I'm guessing you don't do anything regarding a change of heart then." Since that was the whole gimmick so to speak of the phantom thieves. It brought up a bunch of questions but she was just confirming she got this right.

"But there's still the concept of the metaverse here despite the fact that there's well...I guess effectively super heroes." Would Kasumi consider herself a superhero? Not really. The way that her and her team did things was questionable at best. She knew that. But it was the right thing to do regardless. So they were the heroes that the world deserved, not what they needed.

"I guess what I'm really just asking for is more information on how all of this works. I know how things work in my world, at least to an extent anyways. We go around and change the hearts of adults and any individual who has massive distortions. Sometimes do smaller requests but the main thing is the ones who have a palace.

"Changing hearts isn't really an option for us, given we'd have to have a consistent way into the Metaverse, which would be far too dangerous even if it was possible."

"Until recently, the idea of doing that at all was just theoretical, at least according to the notes from Isshiki's research we've managed to recover. At least until we saw it for ourselves. Not once, but twice someone managed to change their own heart. Though the circumstances that allowed that to happen are... complicated to say the least. I mentioned buildings coming out of the ground earlier, yeah? Those were Palaces. Full blown, and fully dangerous, palaces popping up in the real world. It was some scary stuff."

"Even if we could do it, I doubt we'd use it that much. From what I've heard from other me's, the process varies from person to person, which could make it a bit slow for my liking."

"We prefer the more... direct approach. As you said, we're superheroes. If there's a problem, we solve it. If there's a villain, we punch 'em. It's not always as simple as I'm making it out to be, but if you're at all familiar with the concept of superheroes, then you probably have a pretty good idea of how we operate."

Sure, he could explain the minutia of how their team was organized, and how they patrolled all of Tokyo together by giving each member a prefecture to themselves. Or he could go into every single member of their team, explaining every little detail, but she probably wasn't looking for that.

"If you're wondering more about the Metaverse, that's a bit trickier. From what I know of talking with other me's, as well as Kirijo-san, mine is a lot more... intense than most others. At some point, it was sealed off entirely, keeping it from effecting our world, but also causing whatever's over there to fester into some really heinous stuff."