The Clocktower, New Gotham, Monday afternoon

[blondecanary]

Dinah had gotten Priestly's message early in the morning; and spent half of it crying. Going to class? Not happening. She'd sent the photo to Barbara with the message, What is this? Then gone to the Clocktower

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[heromaniac]

Momoko's phone was connecting to New Gotham even as she was pushing open the door to the School's roof. "Dinah? Momoko. What is it? What's wrong; what's happened?"

[blondecanary]

God, Dinah wanted to sleep for a million years. But she had to tell people what was happening. "Priestly's gone." She swallowed hard. "So is Jak. Priestly sent me a photo, I'm gonna send it to you." Breathing, just breathing. "Told Karla. And Francine. Trying to think what to do next."

[heromaniac]

"Gone." Momoko repeated as she dropped her bags and leaned against the roof railing. Gone, now, meant... gone. And the way Dinah sounded totally confirmed that. "First, are you okay?"

[blondecanary]

"No. Not even a little." Her voice cracked. "You remember Priestly still, right? Like Karla does? You know who I'm talking about?" Jak too. But one heartbreak at a time.

[heromaniac]

Momoko took a moment to breathe, herself. "I do. I talked to him just a few days ago. He said he was heading to Mongolia. I remember all of them. Miss Barbara and Miss Helena don't?"

[blondecanary]

"No." Dinah gulped back a sob. "They don't recognize his voice on my voicemail." Alfred probably didn't either, but he remained so impenetrable it was hard to tell. "He said he knew I'd find someone to help-- I don't know what to do, Momoko! I don't know how to fix this!"

[heromaniac]

"We'll fix it! We totally will! We have to. It'll be okay. He's okay. They all are. Just..."

Momoko paused. Her voice was starting to tremble and she had to push her palm into her forehead to get control back. She was NOT GOING TO CRY HERE OKAY?!

"We just have to think about this. We have to... If we figure it out we can FIND them and get them back." WHAT WAS HAPPENING HERE?! "We just have to think, okay?" And not cry. "What are we missing?"

[blondecanary]

Don't you cry, Momoko. Or Dinah would have another meltdown, and she was already dehydrated. "Okay.... okay." Dinah kept seeing the image from the photo, seeing it overtake Priestly in her head. Heard Jak yelling and then being suddenly silent. No one to hit. No one to find. Hopelessness tried to swamp her again, and she started crying. "We should. We should go s-somewhere. To fight it. Right?"

[heromaniac]

"Dinah..." Momoko didn't know what to say to help, so she just stared out over the city, her city. She was seeing only the pieces missing lately.

Some hero. She wasn't doing a very good job of protecting the happiness of Tokyo City or any other city.

"We have to find it. Where it's got everyone." Where could you keep a whole universe's JAPAN? Plus all other things. People...

[blondecanary]

"Right. Right. Just missing." Not dead, not erased, not vanished, God, it was like what happened to Jak two years ago only a million billion times worse and if someone could just give her a clue, a direction, she'd be grateful forever... "My head hurts."

[heromaniac]

"Can... can you talk about it?" Priestly and... She'd said Jak, too? They were the first Fandom people to be affected that she knew of.

Momoko sank down and reached for her bag, dragging out her laptop to call up and add to her notes. She wanted so much to just rush off to the lab and have the Professor tell her where the monster was, or to be back on the island where Mayor Cable would be announcing the dangers over the radio and organising strike teams.

Also? To hop a portal to Dinah's and just cry with her. "You're not alone, Dinah. We can do this. YOU can do this."

[blondecanary]

I don't know if I can, Dinah wanted to say. But that would be giving up, and she couldn't do that. Priestly was counting on her. Jak had called her, to warn her. She couldn't let that go.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay. I'll... forward Jak's message too. Maybe it'll help." She took a sip of the tea, and stared out the window. The urge to do something was rising. Not yet. But soon. A few more hours to grieve, and then...

Gotham meta-villains, watch out.

[heromaniac]

Dinah wasn't allowed to give up.

...

Unless she asked to, in which case Momoko would totally let her; she knew how close this was cutting.

"The picture and the message. Do you know if," Momoko swallowed, her throat tight, then tried again. "The last I heard, Priestly's... His Japan had totally vanished. Do you know if anything like that happened with Jak?"

She flipped open her laptop and stopped the anti-virus program. She was going to assume the sentai she'd gathered over the years were just GONE gone.

[blondecanary]

"This was the first I'd heard from Jak in a month or so. He's never great about calling. He's always in a war zone. So. I don't know." Dinah pulled the afghan around her closer. "I need to punch something."

[heromaniac]

"I want to punch this... whoever it is." Momoko rubbed a palm over her eyes, as she waited for the spreadsheet to load, adding the new information to it. If anything it just made things more confusing. What was the CONNECTION? She stared at the screen trying to will an answer to somehow appear. "Do you still have villains in your world? Metas I mean. I'm running low on monsters."

[blondecanary]

"Yeah. We do. A guy with pyro abilities tried to fry Helena over the weekend." Dinah swallowed. "Francine and Katchoo said a friend of theirs is missing from their dorm. So. Not just us. People whose worlds have a lot less 'extra' to them."