Working With Phantoms

Group Involvement

Madran's POV

Madran arrived back at the Red Sprite and went to the bridge to see that Rosana and Sheila were back.

"So, Arthur, is this why you called everyone here?"

"Yes. Now, Sheila and Rosana, tell us what you found."

"Hey, wait, we need to go and rescue Jimenez first!"

"What?"

Madran looked at Sheila and Rosana with confusion.

"Ok, well, the operation kinda went to shit, like, the type of shit you find near the pig pen. Apparently, our personas can't be seen when someone in Demonica has their visor down, they can't see our personas, but when they have them up, they're completely visible. So, first, we thought we had the jump on them, but then they started to raise their visors up to look at us and they had an actual target to go after."

"Sheila, Rosana, tell us what you found in there, if anything."

Rosana nodded.

"Jack's Squad is capturing demons and mutilating them to extract parts of their body to use for weapons. They aren't just downloading them, they're literally taking arms, legs, whatever off of their bodies and keeping them alive long enough for more body parts to be removed."

Madran stared at Rosana in shock.

"What the... so, you found that out, and then what?"

"Jimenez's demon thing, uh, Bugaboo, I think, ran off, and he went after it. Sheila and I then escaped the base and arrived in the main area, where I activated my Metanav and took Sheila and me into Mementos to escape."

"You can do that? Cool."

Madran felt a strong sense of shock and surprise at what Rosana had conveyed, but pressed for further information.

"So, did you hear anything about Jimenez before you escaped?"

"Well, that he was still in there, and had actually destroyed more equipment, rather than just turned it off, like how we did."

Zelenin sighed.

"I told him that his stupid demon would get him in trouble, and here we are. Goodness..."

"I know that, well, doing that to demons is wrong, but I don't know if we should've done all of that. When we do Metaverse crap, we do it after knowing just how terrible the person is and how it's directly affecting a member of our group, such as my uncle, but..."

Rosana shrugged.

"Well, Rosana, we'll need to see if we get anything from Jack's Squad about your activities. For now, why doesn't Madran tell you about her progress in Fornax?"

Madran nodded excitedly, recalling to herself what had occurred while Rosana and Sheila were gone.

"Well, we made it down two more floors, and was attacked by a Horkos that turned into an Orcus."

"A Horkos?"

"Yeah, it's some weird pig demon who was a curse that would befall someone in Greek if they broke a vow to someone. Well, it became Orcus, tried to kill us, but we killed him."

"That's... interesting."

"Yeah, but, on the last floor, we couldn't make any progress due to an invisible entity that I almost scanned before it fled attacking us."

"Nice. Hey, Zelenin, how's Lance holding up?"

"He's been doing well. He sustained some damage in the battle, but Suga was incredibly effective in undoing that. She used this... weird vortex attack to finish Orcus, which essentially revived Lance."