Soul Labyrinth

Nora smiles, her posture relaxing a bit more. "See? That's better. Let's keep things on track, shall we? We can discuss methods to improve communication in greater detail later. I am also greatly interested in what you might know about Mercia..."

Sam

Tia tilts her head.  "Oh, OK.  You can come meet Sproink.  He's a rabbit.  Oh, wait.  I have to work tomorrow.  Maybe you can come after.  Or meet me at work.  I get to wear a cool outfit."


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

"One of them has your number?  Is that so..." Alice folds her arms and thinks.  "Jimmy... and Zack."

"What?" Buttons asks.

Even through the mask, Alice's frown is apparent.  "That angel bitch seemed to know about my 'accident.'  And both of them... their parents work for Vitcorp.  It would have been... difficult, but not impossible for them to..."

Raine swings her arms wildly.  "Y-y-you're not suggesting one of them...!?"

"Sabotaged the elevator?" Alice stares at Raine.  "No, I'm just saying I can't rule it out."

"Hey, now.  That's a bit of a jump, don't you think?" Freya asks calmly.  "From having someone's phone number to attempted murder.  Besides, a lot of us have parents that work there.  Me 'n' Raine, Nat, Buttons-"

"Anubis," Buttons interrupts.

"Yeah, sure.  Anubis.  Uh..."

"Me!" Katie volunteers.

"Me, too."  Mattea glares at Alice.  "If you're even thinking..."

"No, I don't think... you would try to... do something that far."  Alice shifts back a half-step.  "Besides, you had your payback..."

"The point is a lot of people have parents that work there," Somnis says.  "So we really shouldn't be jumping to conclusions like that."

Alice nods.  "...You're right, of course."

"Why, even Miss Ghost's mother used to work for Vitcorp, once upon a time." The dancer taps Somnis on the nose.  "Isn't that right?"

"H-how did you-?" Somnis asks.

"Oh, yeah, she totally did!" Kiran says.  "Oh, and my dad works there, too.  I think.  He might've gotten fired by now.  Last I heard he's been missing for like a month?  Got arrested by some shady government agency for starting a coup while he was off on vacation or something.  Anyway, I want my codename to be Other!"

"Other...?" Raine asks quietly.

"Other!" Kiran repeats, matter-of-factly.

"Alright, then...  Oh, yes, if Freya's going to be Athena, I suppose I'll be Neptune..."

"Shouldn't it be Poseidon?" Buttons asks.

"Neptune sounds better.  Please don't be pedantic..." Raine says.

Buttons sighs.  "That's gonna drive me nuts..."

"I'll be Bunbun!" Natsumi announces.

"Why Bunbun?" Tom asks.

"Because my last name, Tsuki, it means moon!  And rabbits and the moon have a big thing together."

"I...  OK, fair enough," Tom says.  He pauses to think.  "So, Leia...  That's some good reasoning, but I do have one small problem with it.  Hey, Bunbun, what's Leia's number?  I need to test something."

"Huh?  Oh, sure, it's one...  Oh!" Natsumi stops.

"Yeah, exactly.  We can't narrow it down to just those two.  We also need to figure out if anyone else has given Leia's number to anyone.  And... if I'm not mistaken, Mattea, you have access to everyone's numbers?" Tom says.

"Yeah," Mattea says.  "There's contact info for everyone in the school database, but I'm not supposed to just go digging around in it for no good reason.  But only I have access to it."

"That's not... entirely accurate," Alice says.  "You remember how I missed the election day events?  I was busy taking advantage of the distraction to fabricate records for Tia.  Taking care of her seemed like a higher priority than giving my speech for what was surely an easy victory, what with my records, but-"  Alice's voice begins to drip with venom by the time she interrupts herself, clears her throat, and continues calmly.  "Lisa helped me.  She could also have everyone's numbers.  We'll need to grill her, as well."

"Well, that's still narrowed down to three people, excluding Alice and Mattea, and anyone that asked for their numbers is really shush, right Kiran?" Somnis asks.

Kiran scratches his head.  "Shush?  Uh... Sus?"

"Yeah, that."

"We have a starting point.  Hm.  Before we move onto the next topic of conversation, discussing the known Otherworld locations and entrances, did anyone have anything to add?"

Floyd looks around the room seemingly waiting for someone to go on when Sam finds her way back behind him he speaks up "Ummm is it just me or are these code names really bad not that I think it matters we can't really protect our identities from an unknown enemy anyways. I mean it's pretty obvious we're all teens so it'd be strange if they didn't have people in place to figure out who we are and from their it's pretty easy just from our voices, some of us have already been given away like Tai and me, some of us have distinctive speech patterns or behaviors, some have just picked codenames that are pretty easy to pick apart I mean Freya is already a goddess.... I mean has the name of a goddess. There's a reason the roboty guys codenames all follow the same pattern that doesn't really give a hint to who they are the same with their outfits being generic, the soul keys bring out a part of us some more blatantly than others. I think fighting fire with fire is the wrong approach we should take advantage of the fact we have bigger numbers and already lack anonymity" He says rather all at once "Oh I'm Floyd by the way if we haven't met I guess Cavalry would be a good code name" He adds quickly, smiling nervously. 

“I have something I’d like to talk about as well, although it sounds like we’re not quite ready to move on from the matter of Gamma’s identity.”
Dewey thinks for a moment, trying to remember why that name sounds so familiar until it hits him.
“Wait a moment, I remember overhearing a Gamma in the Gleaming Mansion! I couldn’t hear them well enough over the radio to recognize their voice, but Som... Nerva was there and came face-to-face with them. At the time I only thought to ask what they looked like, but thinking back did their voice sound familiar?”

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

Buttons shakes his head at Floyd.  "I mean, OK, yeah?  And?  Just because they're doing the whole codename thing better than us doesn't mean we can't at least give it a try.  I guess."

A few people look at the phone.  Freya crosses her arms and shakes her head.  "I dunno.  This really doesn't sound like Zack."

"I could definitely believe that Jimmy is a rat..." Buttons says quietly.  "But, uh.  Yeah.  This isn't really anything like how he talks.  I guess maybe that could be a trick or something to throw us off the scent?"

Somnis stares at the messages a bit longer than most of the others.  "We could ask Lisa.  She's good at computer stuff.  Maybe she can help backtrace it or whatever?"

"I couldn't really make out their voice.  Even with my wolf ears!" Katie says.  "They were using some weird voice changer thingy."

Alice starts to think, then snaps out of it at the mention of the anti-anti-aether-monster weapons.  "Ah, right.  Yes.  I was planning to bring those up a bit later, but we can discuss them now.  Some of you know by now, but that blast from a few days ago was caused by a creature unlike anything we've run into in the Otherworld yet.  We fought some of them alongside Mercia.  We were able to observe a bit about them...  They have a hard shell that is extremely resistant to impacts from aether-based weaponry such as... all of ours.  They are also able to absorb aether, and their attacks pierce aether armor with no difficulty and they were able to negate some effects we created with aether.  As Asmodeus said, Mercia's forces are armed with this weaponry that seemed much more efficient against them.  As for what we have not confirmed...  Mercia's troops claimed they've been fighting these monsters for some time now, and that the creatures have been attempting to absorb the aether from the Otherworld for some time.  I believe we can safely assume the latter, at least, to be true, because when one that escaped into our world was slain, it released a tremendous amount of wind aether in a large burst."  Alice taps her finger in thought.  "Asmodeus, Person.  Anything to add?"

Sam

"Well I know nothing about umm color stealing crabs,". "But well the day me and umm Floyd got our keys,". "We were in the real world mall and umm one of those mannequin things was in the real world also,".

"We were able to use the soul key in the real world and fight them,". "Oh their was also a third person their to,". "It was a magical farmer lady,". "What does it take for a being from this side to make it over to our world?"

Sam asks the group while poking her head out from behind Floyd.