One Minute to Midnight

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*Full episode list: List of Magical Monster High School Drama! episodes*

This page is about the twenty-third official episode of Magical Monster High School Drama! and the seventh episode of season two. It was released on the 29th of November, 2017.

## Production

The episode was written by Terry H and features the voices of Kitto M, Marco D, George H-S and Josh S.

## Plot

Still Tuesday. The episode opens directly after Avant le Tempête, with the sound of The Ride of the Valkyries echoing through the entrance tunnel as Raphael’s angelic crusade approaches the thoroughfare of the dwarven city. Kiera and “Quentin”(Secretly Violet disguised), accompanied by Boris, decide to avoid that problem by actually completing the mission to retrieve the golem power source, as Violet knows where this may be located from the quest briefing. They descend down a metal gangway behind the waterfall, with Akio following the group due to Violet’s illusory image of Stallone. They eventually come to a panelled corridor, step in, and the pathway behind them closes off with a similar panel to the rest of the walls. The party has before them a choice of three corridors. Violet can discern that the leftmost and rightmost tunnels appear to turn, but the middle corridor goes straight on for some time, so she suggests they go that way. During this pause, the even more zombified Akio is hallucinating entering the family home, following the illusion of Stallone, even though they want nothing to do with the abode; or with “Quentin”, Kiera or Boris, whom he perceives as his father, sister, and “help”, respectively.

After walking the middle path for a while, they come to a door with a panel possessing a little blinking red light. Violet examines it, and, finding she might open it with a key, searches a nearby office with a dwarf sized seat and a globe on a shelf. The globe appears to have something inside it, but she  isn’t sure how to open it. Kiera looks at the bookshelf, and, opening a random book, finds one with a passage in angelic describing an angelic mode of transport, though the rest of the book is written in runes he doesn’t understand, that appear to be notes on translation. He turns round to find Violet licking the globe. This seems to give her the answer, however(In fact, with her advanced senses she detected the traces of gestures that would open the mechanism via sweat deposited on the smooth surface) The globe opens to reveal…. A liquor cabinet containing several expensive looking crystal decanters and bottles. Akio kicks the globe. It breaks his foot. Meanwhile, Violet attempts, and succeeds, to decipher the Dwarven language from first princibles. Kiera comes over and asks about it, and Violet then asks him about his homeworld, seeing he does not speak Dwarvish.

The angel says he comes from Astratum. Violet queries further, while establishing surface telepathy. Kiera tells her that Astratum was simply home until he “fell out”. In his mind’s eye, Violet experiences a beautiful celestial landscape with blue trees and Grecian columns, that suddenly sets aflame. Angels and demons battle, destroying the landscape in their fervour. When he talks about falling, she sees the scene of Kiera’s last battle against the demons, in which he was stunned and fell into a crack in the earth. He fell, and he fell and he fell, down, into the Abyss. And there, the infernal whispering began. The whispering, of everything and nothing, of sin and virtue, of great things not meant for living beings to know… of everything.

Kierenial observes “Quentin” fall silent and stare blankly into the middle distance with a slightly horrified look for about ten minutes, then suddenly blink back to the realm of the living, not recalling the passage of any time.

Then, from one of the decanters of alcohol Kiereniel sees the image of his “father”. The illusion tells him that the war has restarted, that the demons have joined forces with dragons from other planes, and that one Zeroeth Morithraax is one of the ringleaders. The illusion tells Kiera not to be confused, but to assist the angels on their way to this plane right now to slay the dragon. He then breaks up. Kiera proceeds to drink the entire bottle and then throw up.

Violet, meanwhile, hacks into the computer(the password was “guest”), and finds lists of the names of all people involved in a giant digging operation, which was most of the settlement. There is also information on injuries incurred during this, and R and D making experiments on using some artifact. All entries cease about six months ago given the date displayed on the computer. It appears they were going to use this device as a defence measure against the surface, which had apparently attacked before. The artifact had once been a vein of mineral, that when extracted cohesed to itself into the form of a golem. It reacts to sonic waves by emitting large amounts of radiation that, while deleterious to health, can be harnessed as energy with the correct containment procedures. Violet brings up a map, finding they are in executive offices, and that to advance, they still need the keys to the door. Behind the cushion on the small chair, she finds a gem with one flat surface, which when placed on the table, unlocks several electronic documents. Putting aside the porn, the documents detail a series of cache locations, overlaying the map, which can be clicked to reveal surveillance footage. Some of these have power armour, some of them large vats, one a giant door. Numbers attached to this feed: 2532. Also, an armoury, including what could be cases of explosives.

Violet begins telling Kiera, who is just dry heaving, about the golem. Kiera interrupts asking if he found any water. Violet informs Kiera of a nearby stream. He drinks. Violet tells Kiera they need to go find the power suits to interact with the artifact safely, given it is irradiated. Violet then summons the illusion of Stallone once more to entice Akio. In Akio’s mind, he imagines himself in his parent’s torture basement, and is pretty grumpy, but is convinced to follow by the illusory kaiju. The party advances.

Meanwhile, Zero finds herself below ground. She explores dilapedated corridors and rooms before coming to a very large open cavern, containing a vaguely human shape on its knee, about thirty feet tall. It is covered in flesh, with disgusted pustules forming, though rock protrudes in some areas. Zero circles it, sensing some gold within. There are more corridors coming from the room, as well as a dark window she cannot see through. On the other side of this window, Violet and Kiereniel can see down on this, in a control room. Violet sits on the chair and plays with a couple of buttons that make the chair vibrate. Akio just leaves the room, as for him it appears to be a communal bathroom.

Violet tries to make sense of the controls, but it is all Greek to her. There is a big red button, however. While Kiereniel plays with the chair, Violet pretends to stumble and presses this button. Sirens sound. Down within the cavern with the flesh statue, the portcullisses on each corridor begin to slowly close. Seeing this, Zero makes a run for one of the corridors, racing the closing door. She transforms mid run, but crashes into it as it slides into the ground. She hits the door in frustration, then transforms back to big form, and keeps an eye on the golem. The room begins heating up. Enough that the golem’s flesh begins smelling, burning. Wrinkling her nose, the dragon decides to expediate the process by flaming the statue. It appears to notice, lurching to its feet, as the flesh covering it shears off and burns away.

In the control room, the windows have been covered by shutters. Kiereniel points out that they left the dragon in the room, but they decide to leave themselves, with Violet fiegning not seeing the dragon. The golem swings at Zero, scraping her face. Behind her, the door is cut open. And there is Akio! Akio proceeds to attack the dragon. She doesn’t really care, however. She takes the cut, but then runs out of the hole that had been created by Akio.

From Akio’s prospective, he saw his voodoo boss being attacked by oni. They drove the oni off, and then after recuperating, their boss invited them into the car, and they both drive away, as the room continues to heat up.

The rest of the party see Zero, and hear loud scraping sounds coming down the tunnel. The dragon expresses surprise at seeing Quentin before her, asking where he has been, to which “he” replies his home plane. She demands to know why he is here, on this plane, and Violet lies that Quentin heard Zero had come here, and wanted to make sure she was okay. This stops further protest from the dragon, and she, Violet, Kiereniel and Boris agree to run away from the giant golem and towards the radiation suits Violet had learned about from the office computer. Upon hearing that she is likely irradiated, Zero expresses a desire to return to the school for medical treatment, but goes with the others to complete the mission first.