Minato couldn't tell how long he had been incapacitated - perhaps it had been many minutes or several seconds. Time was a peculiar thing when it came to the Dark Hour.
What was even more peculiar than the impossible hour, however, was the surroundings that Minato and his SEES comrades now found themselves in.
The first floor lounge was a location the boys saw many times in their day-to-day lives - after all, their rooms of residence were situated here. But now, as if the sight of their beloved dorm now defiled and trashed from the Shadow attack wasn't haunting enough, it was now at a horrifying scale. The ruined chairs and table were strewn around like fallen monuments, the vending machines sputtered and sparked in the horizon as if they were cubic lighthouses, and every nick, scratch and burn mark on the tiled floor was now akin to a crater.
Minato raised his eyebrows in surprise, only slightly confused about the potentially fatal scenario he now found himself in. His teammates, however, were far less detached from the situation.
"-THE HELL?" Junpei's voice carried across the desert of tile. His eyes were wide and sweat was clearly beading down his forehead as he craned his neck to fully appreciate (and be terrified by) this new world. "Th-this has gotta wear off, yeah? I-It's like all that other crap the Shadows fling at us, right?!"
Akihiko and Shinjiro, normally the most composed of the bunch, were left agape in fear of their new 'ailment.' "I-I mean, we can hope..." Akihiko stuttered.
Shinjiro muttered something best-not-repeated under his breath. "Ya better be right about that, Aki, or I'm gonna beat you senseless for this crap."
Ken tried to keep a brave face as best as he could. "W-Well, um, we don't know how long that could take... So, uh, what should we do until then? I mean, i-if a Shadow turns up now..."
Koromaru whimpered over the notion of facing a building-sized Shadow. The boys of the SEES team, as boisterous and battle-hungry as they might be, didn't seem excited about that possibility either.
Regrouping as a tight bunch amidst the vast plains of the dormitory floor, the teenagers caught their breath and gathered their thoughts. Whatever this strange shrinking affliction was, it had apparently been the spiteful swansong of the last Shadow they defeated. If there were any clues as to what exactly it did, they were long gone as nothing but tiny flakes and motes of darkness remained of its 'body.'
"Alright, let's keep a level head about this," Akihiko announced to the group. Minato remained as alien to the others as usual, seemingly more interested in observing the stairwell than anything else. Junpei had been coerced into calming down at the behest of a stony glare from Shinjiro, who - while clearly rattled about this whole ordeal - wasn't going to show it any time soon. Ken focused his efforts on petting Koromaru to keep their precious canine companion calm. "We should find somewhere safe until the Dark Hour passes, in case the Shadows come back."
"Good call, Akihiko-san," Ken added. "I'm not sure even our Personas would do much at this size."
"I could still leave a dent in them..." Shinjiro said, trying to save face amidst their newfound weakness.
"Suuuuuure you could, buddy," Junpei retorted.
Another venomous glance kept Junpei from sharing any more of his wit.
"We're forgetting something," Minato said, his eyes firmly fixed on the stairwell.
Everyone turned to face him to ask what exactly it was that he meant when a distant sound was carried to them from up above - the chatter of the female SEES operatives.
"Th-they said they'd be coming here..!" Ken said, his brief wonder over his gigantic surroundings now replaced with legitimate fear. "Do they even know what happened to us?!"
"D-Dude, use the radio!" Junpei cried to Minato.
Minato clicked his earpiece, as did everyone else, and the group called for aid, trying to explain the situation before the girls arrived and potentially made their already alarming situation even more chaotic.
"Fuuka!" Akihiko shouted once more, growing more desperate by the second. "Can you hear us?! Answer!"
At their shrunken stature, however, the radio signals were too weak - their cries fell on deaf ears. Inevitably, much to their dread, they could hear heavy footsteps on the stairwell.
"This is bad," Minato felt the need to add.
The shrunken SEES members watched in awe and fear as the source stomped its way down to the first floor, unaware of their predicament...
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