Night 51: Women's Bathrooms (F1-F40)

[avengingfists]

[from here]If anything was going to jump out at them here, at least Ilia would be the first one a monster would target. If Anise's artes were anything like Heraldry, she would need a little time to prepare before a spell could be cast against an attacker. Ilia, on the other hand, had terrific reflexes and could quickly begin a counterstrike.

Comments

[idontregret]

[from here]

This wasn't a bad location for whatever demonstration Aigis had in mind. Heat didn't trust the restroom to be a safe location, not after what had happened the night he wasn't himself. Of course, if he was attacked tonight he'd just make a meal of the creature as he had before, and this time he wouldn't waste any of it. So really, an attack would only be to his benefit, even if it weirded out his friend.

There should be plenty of room for whatever needed to be done, and he put his hands on his hips, carefully scanning the darkness in case anything was already lurking around. He wouldn't be able to see much, of course, give that he still didn't have his flashlight, but he liked to think that if he focused hard enough he'd be able to tell if something was about to lunge.

He gave the girl another smile. The fact that this was technically a woman's restroom didn't even cross his mind, and if he'd been aware of the distinction he wouldn't have cared. It wasn't as if anyone actually used these places for things like that at night anyway.

[no_dont_go]

Heat had been extremely patient with her, which made this much easier. She loved the comforting touch of his hand on her shoulder, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. They moved quickly into the restroom, and Aigis cast about for a target. She didn't consider their differences in gender any more than Heat did--in her mind this had ceased to be a bathroom and was now merely a facility to be used for her experiment. And if they happened to run into any monsters here, so much the better for her to test Athena upon them.

Stepping further into the room, she paced to the middle of the tile floor and faced the stalls. Yes, she could use those. Dropping the baseball bat unceremoniously to the ground, Aigis reached into her pocket with her free hand and brought out the Evoker.

"It is unfortunate that my friend is no longer here, however she has left me with the that trigger." Aigis held up the gun-like apparatus and rested her flashlight's beam upon it. It glowed dully in the light, just a piece of metal for now. "One needs only to have the potential, and this will give them access to that power hidden within. Observe."

She turned away from him then, and took a deep breath. The rush of air in and out of her lungs suddenly made the whole process seem very disconcerting. But she couldn't fear now, couldn't let that quickening of her breath throw her off. Directing her focus on the line of toilet stalls, she raised the gun up, barrel to the side of her head, just as she had watched Minato and the others, time and time again.

[idontregret]

There was that weapon. It was a gun, very similar in appearance to the one Serph used to fight with. He didn't know how she'd gotten a hold of it, and he hadn't made the connection between it and what the girl had been thinking of showing him. After all, how could it be any more than a weapon?

Heat nodded as she spoke, once again wondering how much her power resembled his own. He knew it wasn't so much a matter of potential - anyone infected with the virus would gain a demonic half. Some could handle and control the hunger better than others, it was true, but the virus didn't choose it's victims individually. How would things have been, he wondered, if that had been the case? It would have gone poorly for the ones left 'human' in the junkyard, that much was certain.

Then she raised the gun to her head, and the demon immediately reached out to grab her wrist and pull it away. That was a weapon! You didn't aim it at yourself! "What the hell are you doing?"

[no_dont_go]

The sudden pull on her wrist had been unexpected. Aigis gasped and stumbled but refused to let go of the Evoker. She also hadn't expected anger to suddenly flare up when Heat had been so quiet just moments before. Confusion registered on her face, but it didn't last long. He must have misread her intentions. She merely needed to explain the situation and then she could continue on without problem.

"I am going to summon Athena," she replied, her voice as even and matter-of-fact as ever. Her eyes glanced down to where he held her wrist. "I told you, this is the trigger."

Perhaps she had not explained the situation enough for him to gain a full understanding. He wasn't going to like much of what she had to say, but he would need to accept it sometime, just as she had to accept herself now for what she had become. "You see, Heat, before I was placed here, my body was a full mechanical chassis. Unlike yourself, there was no remnant of humanity that could be found within me; even my personality had been programmed. I understand you will probably disagree with this, but it is the truth. You must understand. Because I was nothing more than a complex network of data and machinery, I was created specifically with the ability to summon. Up until around two weeks before my transferal here, I would have said there was nothing else to give me purpose." Aigis paused, blinking down at Evoker. She did have purpose without Athena, her friends. But how worthless was she without Athena. Now that they needed her protection the most.

"I was built to summon, but here my power has been severely limited. No longer can I call my Persona at will." She took a shaky breath. This hit her right at the core. "This trigger may be my only way now. But I must test it first to see if its true."

She looked up at him with absolute determination in her eyes. She needed to test this tonight. She had to, to prove to herself that her existence was still worthwhile. She didn't want to be useless. Not anymore.

[idontregret]

Shooting oneself in the head didn't seem like the proper way to go about summoning anything, even if Heat was unfamiliar with summoning in any form. He stared back at her for a long moment, clearly uncertain, before slowly releasing his grip on her wrist. He didn't like this, and no amount of explaining on her part was going to put him any more at ease with the notion of her pulling that trigger.

"So you've never tried it before, and you're just gonna hope it works?" What if it didn't work? What if that was just a normal gun after all and he was about to watch the girl kill herself? He wouldn't be able to stand that. He wanted to tear the gun from her hand and break it in two.

He knew what it was like, though, not to have a purpose - to question his reason for existence. If he didn't allow her to do this now, she'd just try again some other time, in some other place without him. It twisted him up on the inside, but he finally stepped back, allowing her room to do... whatever it was she needed to do, though he could hardly believe he was allowing it to happen.

[no_dont_go]

He was still reluctant, Aigis could see it in his eyes and feel it in the tension of his bearing, but he did release her. He could not understand, his logic would not let him. Or something else held him back. Fear, or anxiety. She would have to wipe away that impediment with her summoning ability. And she would.

"It will work, or it will fail," she said, turning away to face the row of stalls again. Her targets in this experiment. "But you said you would accompany me here tonight. I give you permission to leave if you are afraid. However, I would like you to stay." That he might fear for her life would never have crossed her mind.

She raised the trigger again, this time fully aware of her audience. She did not allow herself to show any outward weakness or falter, she even kept her breathing even. Still, holding the Evoker to her temple was an unsettling feeling, the cool tip of the barrel creating enough of a chill to send a tingling feeling through here arms. She steeled herself, and this time she pulled the trigger.

Many things happened all at once. The impact of the Evoker's release was enough to knock Aigis' head a bit to the side, though she managed to stay standing. The ground at her feet alighted with a bluish glow. Somewhere, the sound of shattering glass broke the quiet. And the air around her became charged, whipping at her clothing and hair, a show of the sheer magnitude of the power she had summoned.

"Athena..." She was paler than she normally look, or at least that was Aigis' first thought when her Persona began to materialize. Paler? No, translucent. She seemed to struggle as she came forth--a mechanical goddess with a large shield and mighty lance. She charged forward, delivering a crushing blow to the row of doors before evaporating into nothing. Or, it would have been crushing had Athena been at full power. But here, it was obvious she was hindered by the same power limitations as anyone else. Her great shield did manage to break in a few doors, but the entire row did not collapse as her normal strength would have allowed. A partial victory, but one Aigis would take, nonetheless.

"I... I--" Aigis moaned and felt herself falling. Or she thought she was falling. Was she? She couldn't remember. But suddenly her feet couldn't quite stay in the same place, and her legs went numb. The Evoker dropped from her hands, and they wouldn't stop shaking. She wanted to ask what was going on, but she couldn't quite seem to do anything but quake in fatigue. How heavy everything felt all at once. How strange.

[idontregret]

Heat stared at the apparition. He'd seen many demons similar to it before, but not quite like it. It wasn't a demon, and he could tell that right away. He'd never seen anyone who could control a being like that - aside from perhaps Sera, and Sera was a special case. Aigis was definitely a unique individual, but they were very much different.

He'd been worried for her up until the very last moment, and when the impact knocked her head sideways his stomach sank nearly to his knees as he feared he'd just allowed her to actually shoot herself. But then it appeared it hadn't fired any bullets at all, and that being had come forward. If it could cause that much destruction, then it was certainly a useful tool... but it seemed to have worn out the summoner in the process.

The demon was at the girl's side immediately after. His own weapons fell from his hands as he supported her in his arms. If it was going to wear her out this much upon use, then perhaps it wasn't a good idea to call on it after all. "Hey. Hey, are you all right? Was that what was supposed to happen?"

[no_dont_go]

As soon as the warmth of someone's arms surrounded her, Aigis felt her mind return to focus. Heat. He was the one who held her, and she had succeeded in summoning Athena. Her body, however, refused to cooperate with her. It was almost as though some of her processors had fried, making it impossible to move certain parts just the way she wished. She wanted to push up and take the weight off Heat, but her arms moved uselessly against his chest. Like she couldn't gain a proper grip, or she had somehow lost the ability to push. She gave up on that and tried something else.

She blinked her eyes for a moment, letting the spinning world return to focus, but everything seemed darker than before. Maybe because their flashlights were now on the ground. When had she dropped hers? She didn't remember. At least she could see. And she could hear, and speak.

"It is strange," she said at long last. She had no labored breath and her voice was as strong as ever, but... "My strength is gone, but my mental facilities are more or less intact." She tried to imagine what would have happened before when she tried to summon Athena. Back home... it felt so long ago.

"There is a price to pay when summoning, and a purchase of fatigue. This, however, seemed much too extreme for a normal case." Aigis tried to pick herself up again, but still with only limited success. She managed to take a little weight off Heat, but not all she wanted.

She turned her head and squinted in the dim light, trying to see what damage had been done. "It looks like the damage output has also decreased a great deal. Athena... she is normally much stronger." But she turned her face up to Heat and smiled, even in her weakness. "But I am content. I am not useless after all."

[idontregret]

But it wasn't really worth it. If she tried using that in a real combat situation, it would leave her completely unable to defend herself from further attacks for probably the rest of the night. And if her first attack wasn't affective, this would be particularly dangerous. Someone would have to be with her if she intended to use it. He would have to be with her. And even then, she shouldn't use it at all. One of his attacks could do just as much damage, he would think, without using up all his energy to do so.

He wanted to tell her all of these things. He frowned at her, opened his mouth as if to let it all out in one go, but then shut it again. She just... looked so pleased by all of this. How could he go and wipe that smile off her face like that, even if what he had to say was the truth? He couldn't. It was tugging at his heartstrings too much.

But still... she couldn't just...

"Are you going to be all right?" The words came out far more gently than he expected. He should be chastising her. "Will you be able to stand?"

[no_dont_go]

Aigis, still basking in her success, gave Heat a questioning look when he opened his mouth. Did he want to say something? Well, perhaps he was just at a loss. He had never seen her power before and didn't understand the workings of Persona. That would be a normal reaction.

"I am fine, just fatigued," she assured him. She continued to smile, and it only brightened the more her strength returned. "Summoning is not painful. I just need to recover a little, it seems." Back home no one had needed a period of rest after each summoning, but maybe this was the price "nerfed" power cost? At least she had her power at all. If this had not worked...

"I should be able to stand," she replied, but when she pushed against the tiled flooring with her hands she could only push herself into more of a sitting position. How odd... "Perhaps I need a little help for now. I can feel my legs, and move them, so nothing is broken or disconnected."

She moved her legs. They felt... odd. A tickling sensation, but it also burned lightly in her knees and feet. She bit her bottom lip. It was almost painful, but she didn't think she was injured. She was sure she wasn't.

[idontregret]

This still didn't sit all right with Heat at all. She'd clearly been too weakened by this to stand. How could she even think of using it in a dangerous situation? Surely she'd come to this realization on her own? Perhaps she could use a less powerful spell. It would cause less damage, but then she might be able to get back up afterward.

Well, screw helping her to her feet right now. The demon bent down and lifted her bodily into his arms. There was no sense in making her try to walk when it wasn't necessary. He could handle this as well as any enemies they might come across. She was so light, there could hardly be any muscles on her, and yet she insisted on being able to handle herself... Of course he was comparing her to those of the Junkyard again.

"I've got you. No more summoning for tonight."

[no_dont_go]

She hadn't expected Heat to hold her. Carrying her was no easy feat, at least not before she had been transformed here at the institute. Before, her body had comprised of heavy metals meant to hold high-power machinery. It was strange to think this man could so easily lift her like she was nothing. Strange. And in a sense, comforting. Although her head felt a bit light from the sudden movement.

She leaned against him and held herself a bit more securely with an arm around his shoulder. She nodded against his chest in agreement. Yes, summoning again tonight would probably not be a good idea. In the future she would have to regulate what attacks she used, and perhaps limit Athena to emergency situations only. That she could do. She still had her baseball bat, after all...

For a moment she just rested against his chest. She thought that perhaps she should say something more. She could only think to speak her mind, and so she did. "Thank you, Heat." She took a deep breath. "I'm glad you were able to meet Athena."

It would have been fine if anyone had accompanied her. She might have even been fine alone. But the fact that it was him... it made the moment somewhat special. Why? Aigis didn't rightly know. It was just a 'feeling' she had. A feeling. There wasn't any other way to describe it.