Soul Labyrinth

Sam

Floyd Marenna how are you guys feeling. I still feel okay ish but if you guys think we should leave we can go. Want to get your opinion on it first before we go any further.

Karl, Dewey, Tai, Sam, Leia, Floyd

You head into the mall and a dozen people activate their Soul Keys at once.  Some people are wearing new armor since you last saw them, and some of you are meeting for the first time.

Buttons is in a new swimsuit but still has his hood and shovel.  He's walking and chatting beside Natsumi, dressed in a similar swimsuit with a kappa mask over her face.  Freya tosses herself between them chatting away, wearing a suit designed for beach volleyball and a pair of blue and red anklets and thick sunglasses.  Raine, still in her rain coat with a big hat that covers her face, walks behind them.  Kiran, in what's halfway between a fancy outfit and a swimsuit with a half-mask and tophat, tosses an arm around Natsumi as he cuts in loudly, producing a flower and offering it to her before Somnis, in a full-body diving suit, elbows him in the ribs.

Fox and Katie are walking together as usual.  Fox has an outfit almost identical to Buttons, while Katie is hiding her identity by being a werewolf.  Fox is carrying a small control panel and a drone hovers between the two of them, occasionally drifting a bit to the side before Fox guides it back into place.

Laura, Grant, and Tia take the lead.  Laura is wearing a leotard similar to her wrestling outfit with a lucha mask.  Grant is sealed in a suit of stone-grey armor similar to his guardian form.  Tia initially changes into what looks like her normal outfit with the skirt trimmed and the midriff cut out to turn it into a bikini, but after a moment of thought she fiddles with her key and changes back into her toga with its mask that looks like it was taken from a Greek play.

"This way, everyone!" Tia calls out.  "We're supposed to meet the others at the fountain."  You make your way through the winding corridors until you reach a large, circular room.  In the center is a sizable, round dias surrounded by water.  Katie snarls quietly at it as you draw near, and Fox pats her on the back.  She stops, but whether it's from the assurance or surprise is hard to say.


Nora

You proceed through the portal and everyone changes into their other selves.  Mattea's dress is replaced by a ballgown and masque, Tom's glasses become thicker and his jacket is replaced with a leather biker's outfit, and Alice gains a fencer's mask along a few slight modification to her skirt and blouse to make it easier to move in.

You look around and see what looks like a mall at first glance.  Long hallways, a large junction ahead, a few benches and vending machines, countless stores with all sorts of goods, and even a few bathrooms scattered about.  A mannequin in one of the clothing stores nearby twitches slightly as you look at it.  You spot a staircase heading up to a second floor which looks almost the same as this one... and above that you see another floor, and another, and another.  As you keep looking up, the floors seem to disappear endlessly into the gloom.

"I guess this is your first time here, isn't it?  Welcome to the Soul Labyrinth.  Stay close, it's easy to get lost."  Alice pulls out a piece of paper with what looks like a crudely drawn map on it.  "OK, let me see...  Hm.  Uh...  That way?"  Even behind the mask you can tell she's not completely sure.  And when you glance at the map, you aren't either.  But with no better idea, you follow the route as best you can.

After a worrying amount of time and after Mattea's started making a few snide comments about stopping to ask for directions, you arrive at a large plaza with a circular dias surrounded by water.  A group of over a dozen others are already waiting here, including one you weren't expecting.


Karl, Dewey, Tai, Sam, Leia, Floyd, Nora

Another older girl is up on the dias.  No one seems entirely sure who she is.  She's the same size, musculature, and skin tone as Mareena and dressed in an outfit almost identical to Mareena's usual garb, right down to the bangles and anklets, but the addition of a small, feathered Colombina-style mask makes it impossible to be sure who it might be.  She seems to be a in cheerful mood, prancing and twirling around on the makeshift stage.  "Oh!  You're all here.  You're late, you know.  Next time you really should just hide in a bathroom and use the portal by the fountain."

Tia pauses, thinking quietly to herself.  "...Yes.  That is what we will do next time."

"Right!  So we're holding this meeting so we can all share notes and make sure we're on the same page about all the Otherworld stuff, right?" Laura asks.

"And discuss a few measures to help ensure our identities remain hidden," Alice adds.  "Concerns have been raised that we could be being observed at any point, so we should ensure a few things.  First, that we're careful not to be seen coming or going from the Otherworld.  Tia and I've made arrangements to have the mall's security feed doctored today, but we need to be careful in other places.  Second, with how many times we've run into these people in the armor, we're going to begin referring to each other by codenames in the Otherworld."

"Oh yeah.  Those guys."  Buttons crosses his arms.  "Yeah, we should probably talk about those guys."

"We'll get to it," Alice promises.  "But first, I want everyone to choose their codename so we can practice using them for the rest of the meeting."

"Codenames, huh..." Freya crosses her arm.  "I guess.  Who wants to go first?"

Leia looks at herself, and instantly seems stressed out...

"Hum... Is... Isn't there a Minotaur in here? Why... Why are wewewewe having a meeting in the ananangry minotaur terriririritory?

I... I might have clues about someone on Team Mercia, but I have no idea about a codename...

Natsu-girl calls me Leia-Person a lot... Would Person be an okay codename?"

Tai shrugs."I mean, they pretry much already know who I am. And considering most of you don't have a fucking tail, I doubt a codename will do jack shit for me. Call me whatever." He seems moody, looking over the crowd and taking in the people he hasn't really seen before.

Leia

Freya laughs.  "Natsumi does that to a lot of people, but I guess that would just make it harder to tell who you are."


Tai

Mattea leans on your shoulder.  "Hmmmm, whatever could we use for you.  Let's see, maybe some demon name.  Let me see...  What's the one associated with lust again?"

"Asmodeus," Buttons says.

"Yeah, that.  How's that sound, Sweetie?"


Dewey

"Yeah! So we can be here in the meeting and we can send the drone out to explore in our place!" Fox explains.

Katie nods. "There's something really important we need to check." With that, she sends the drone out down one of the hallways.


Karl, Dewey, Tai, Sam, Leia, Floyd, Nora

"Don't worry! I can sense when Asterius draws near!" Tia boasts with her hands on her hips. "Besides, with Mother gone, this is my territory, not Asterius'! But, um... He doesn't really listen to me, he just patrols to defend this place... And if he found these two it could be..."

"It'll be fine," Laura assures you. "As long as we don't do anything to attract his attention like using our Guardian forms."

"Yessssss..." Tia shrinks. "That would be... Sssssilly..."

Buttons shrugs at Nora. "When it was just the two of us there wasn't any reason to and people figured out who we were pretty much immediately."

Katie pouts. "It never occurred to us that people might be doing bad stuff in the Otherworld..."  She recovers very quickly.  "I wanna be Wolfman!"

Tom scratches his head.  "Uh...  Chief.  Let's go with Chief."

"Hm, something like wind...  Squall, Maelstrom, Gale..."  Mattea thinks, staring at Tai.  "Ah, I think Tempest."

"Nerva!" Somnis yells, appearing behind the group.

"What?" Kiran asks.

"Y'know, that weird invisible lady from that one game you were playing the other day!"

"Oh, uh...  Oh!  You mean the ghost, N-"

"Ghost!" Somnis says.  "Yep, that was her name."

"It's... not..." Kiran says quietly.

Maybe-Mareena turns to face Leia, bending over from her elevated perch.  "Oh-ho, this Person thinks she knows a thing or two about our darling Mercia?  I am curious, yes, curious..."

"That can wait until we've dealt with the current business," Alice says.  "I've already chosen the name Knight for my-"

"Hmmm?  And who put you in charge, in charge?" the figure on the dias asks, hopping off and skipping to a stop in front of Alice.  "I seem to recall people choosing another leader in the past..."

Everyone stops in their tracks.

Leia looks at everyone, one by one, then looks at the table, fiddling her thumbs, seemingly already having forgotten about the codenames.

"I... I think I'm going to neeneeneed a written lililist..."

Once the leader thing occurs, she seems to turn red and loses any shyness or stuttering she usually has.

"I'm sorry? What? No. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!!! No leader or captain thingamajig. NO!!! Where was our "leader" when I had to solo my way to save the world from having our world's colors stolen, with no results, nobody to listen to my findings or keep up with my projects to test what we could do? Nowhere. No one was there to help me. And when I finally got help, everything went to hell and beyond, cause there was no leader to form a plan. We improvised, protected one another and survived... Mercia might have saved us, but we would have failed if we didn't protect each other. We didn't survive because a leader took charge. We survived because we understood that none of us is more important than the other. No leader. We're a superhero team, not a political group."

Nora shakes her head at Maybe-Mareena and casually sits down, crossing her legs and stretching her wings. "Tsk-tsk, always the troublemaker. We'll never get anything done if we constantly bicker and cause trouble for each other. And well, that's a problem, cause the world's gonna end, see? And I'd very much like it to not."