destinystrings | It was a dark, if not stormy, night....

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It was a dark, if not stormy, night....

Who: Nanami and Takakage
Where: Some deserted street at the 13th Hour
Summary: Tutorials are terrible, but maybe skipping it for this game was a bad idea....
Warnings: Hints of SDR2 spoilers for Nanami I guess, but nothing much?

Blink. Blink blink. She felt her mind slowly come back online- to extend the metaphor, her mind was unfortunately a dusty terminal that was years out of date and coming to her senses felt like having it kicked several times.

What happened? Where was she, there was something very inconsistent in this situation right n-

For one, the sky was red. For two, where was everyone else? There was no log of this place in her databases- empty street, the flickering glow of a streetlight illuminating small darting shadows. Rats, cats, and the light fluttering of feathers muffled by distance. Something out of a comic book, maybe. A Film Noir movie. Places she'd never been to, thought about once in a while but often dismissed quickly enough-

But she was here now, so now what?

Nanami reached out, half-expecting a thread of mainframe to reveal itself to her- her arms felt strange, heavier-but-not-heavy, the cool night air on her skin sending nerve signals ricocheting through her nervous system (a strangely exhilarating feeling.) No, no mainframe to be found. There were so many signals to process at once all of a sudden, the novelty of re-connection- (no, something more than coming back online this was-) casting everything into a sharpness that was almost disorientating. Okay. Okay. She'll.... she'll figure something out. She'll just.... stop for a while, taking everything in.

......

That unearthly howl-snarl didn't seem like it belonged here.

Also the sky was red. She almost forgot.

The lack of a command sequence was beginning to be concerning. She'd do something, but what, proceeding forward always required at least an understanding of where you were supposed to go, what the win conditions were for this game- Nanami blinked once, twice, then got herself off the middle of the road. That was probably a dangerous place to be. It was good that she did, because as she turned back to gaze up the road there was what she assumed to be a vehicle approaching through the darkness.

First goal, figure out setting and plot and win conditions-

Wait, was that a car? That looked like a really strange car, it-

That's not a car.

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That's definitely not a car.

Takakage was out during the Thirteenth Hour as usual - not only was demon exterminating both a job and a duty, he often found other new Visitors upon such excursions. And this night seemed to be no exception. Another girl about his age, looking quite lost - his mind flashes immediately back to Saionji. It might have been a stretch to assume that the girl did not have adequate means to defend herself - but that did not imply that he ought not to assist.

The Wicker Man drifted down the street towards her, its mouth leering open. The girl didn't seem to react. They were quite a distance away - best to send someone else who could get there first.

Koppa Tengu appeared above him in a flash of blue light, soaring swiftly towards the demon before pulling into a skydive with a screech. It stalled at the last moment before impact, flapping its wings open -

- needle-sharp feathers rained from above directly onto the Wicker Man, puncturing dozens of holes in its skin.

That was a terrible excuse for a vehicle. Its grotesque face and suspicious self-locomotion reminded Nanami of the likes of Silent Hill - hmm, that must be it, genres were pretty distinctive and a bloated head trundling down a street was a pretty obvious marker for a horror game.

First task, 35% complete. Mmm, good, very good.

As this train of thought chugged along Nanami had been staring the Wicker Man down the whole time; the average bystander would have flown into a panic assuming she was stuck in some sort of out-of-body stupor. She had that habit, and she also lacked the habit of taking death seriously- mortal peril was.... kind of an abstract thing where she came from.

But back to the game at hand! Horror game, horror game, this made things so much clearer- Nanami whipped her head around and started to move, scanning the buildingfronts to her left and right. A crowded setting like this made it easier to shake off huge monsters, you just needed to duck between pillars or under arches- yes, this building looked promising- and squeeze into a void deck that was too small for its bulk to enter-

There was a noise between a sparkle effect and a squelch and she turned around to look. The thing was leering at her but not coming any closer, repeatedly charging and stopping abruptly against thin air. Nanami stared, tracing the line of the demon-repelling spell barrier with her eyes. Then Nanami laughed a little.

Safe zone. Score.

In that case, even if the second monster that was swiftly approaching felt like taking her head off- which it didn't, fortunately, deciding instead to try and Pin Needle the Wicker Man to oblivion- she assumed herself safe. It was still a problematic situation, however, if she kept staying here and attracting things.

"C'mon, not even an instruction manual....?" Surely there had to be. At least a starter weapon or something. It was an unusual sight to see a schoolgirl calmly rifling through her pockets while two beasts fought tooth and nail just a few feet away, but Nanami was someone used to the unusual.

She found a gun. A gun was something, right?

....

Nevermind. The trigger was jammed. What sort of model was this, anyway?

Koppa Tengu obliterated the demon quite easily - Takakage nods, allowing himself to feel a little pleased. All the training he had spent strengthening his bond with the avian had paid off. His Persona circled overhead while he approached the girl - she had been searching her pockets, and produced a musket.

No, a... what was the word... conjurer? No, that wasn't it. An Evoker. At least, it looked like one. She tried to fire it, but it wouldn't work. Definitely an Evoker then.

From what he can tell, she is dressed in clothing of the modern era. Then, she would be familiar with technology and whatnot, so adjusting should be easy. He is quite sure that she is in fact a new visitor - after all, he does run into almost everybody once a week or so.

The strategist waits a polite distance away from her, but she doesn't notice him yet. It seems that he will have to speak.

"Excuse me, miss." His voice is calm and gentle, as usual. "I hope you are not hurt?"

One monster got rid of another and Nanami watched as the survivor agreeably didn't pick another fight. The avian Persona took off with lazy circles into the concealing darkness of the night air.

Out of sight, out of mind. Still a few steps under the protective outer facade of a building and its anti-demon spells (-even if she did not know exactly what was going on-)Nanami felt it safe to linger for a while, plan her next course of action.

....

Quickly it became apparent that her next course of action was to entertain the strangely-attired man who was approaching her. He could be friend, foe, or zombiedemon in disguise, and while she looked sleepily half-alert on the outside her calculations were concluding that there was a lot of caution that ought to be exercised here. After all, if he was a zombie or a demon, she was a little short on ammo to pull off any headshots- though the gun in her hand felt heavy enough to be used for mindless bludgeoning. Maybe. She could try if it came down to it.

Nanami was glad that things weren't coming to the aforementioned vague 'it'.

"Oh.... no, I am not." Right now, her mind was shifting the possibilities towards him being an NPC- unusually out-of-era dress, approaching random people at some strange night hour.... time to figure out how useful he could be for her, then. Maybe he was the game guide!

Nanami lifted the gun in her hand. "Ah, excuse me.... I found this and it doesn't seem to work, do you think you could help me with it....?"

The girl responded positively to his enquiries - which was a good thing, considering the fact that the last girl he tried to help during the Thirteenth Hour reacted in quite the opposite way.

She showed him the device that was in her pocket - this was definitely an Evoker, and not an actual musket. (The modern folk called them guns, but he was too used to the archaic term.)

"This is an Evoker. It is used to summon your Persona." Granted, she probably didn't know what a Persona was, but it was important to establish that the Evoker wasn't an actual musket. "Unfortunately, it cannot do anything more than that - which means it does not fire bullets in the fashion of a -" here there was the slightest of pauses as he remembered to switch gear "-gun."

He glanced around briefly. There were no demons nearby, which was a good thing.

"What you encountered just now is a demon. They are hostile creatures who usually attack on sight - a Persona will fight for you in case you cannot." She... probably cannot. "An Evoker helps people summon their Personas... though I do believe it isn't compulsory - they can be summoned without one."

There was another pause.

"My apologies. I ramble on too long... you are new here, yes? May I know your name, and where you come from?"

Best to establish proper era markers first before he continued talking. (Whoops, his father's genes were showing.)

Evoker. Persona. A quick search through her memory did not return any notable results. However the way things were being phrased did remind her, somewhat, of a game- lore-based games, maybe, that summoned spirits to fight demons. Yes, that made sense, and the person in front of her was dressed to match. (Feudal era-Japan, it looked like. She wasn't too sure about specifics, though.... Sengoku period, maybe? There were a lot of period-derived games of various genres-)

".......ah, I see."

She was totally listening. Truly, she was. (A quick rewind of what she had taken note off while she zoned out again, evoker- persona- evoker:notagun- demon- persona:meansofcombat- evoker:summonspersona- gosh, she'd need to rethink things through and sort all this information out sometime-)

"....... Nanami. Nanami Chiaki. I am from...." What information marker might this NPC be looking for? She was from Japan? She was from Hope's Peak? Her hometown? (um.)

".... ..... ....and what's your name?" The pause drew on for long enough; she changed track entirely, setting the unfinished answer aside with all the composure of a sleepy schoolgirl and calmly moving on.

One way to tell if this was an NPC or not would be to keep pressing A and seeing if their lines ever re-looped. A. A. A.

... uh. The girl had simply dropped one of his questions and moved on to the next one.

There was the briefest of hesitations before he replied, deciding not to press the subject for now. "I am Kobaykawa Takakage, retainer of the Mouri clan." He's given his name enough times to not trip over its strange order reversal - and thus not having the translator forcibly flip it over was a little unexpected.

Nanami seemed to only half keep up with what he was saying, which was a little worrying. He hoped that she would be able to grasp everything fast enough to not endanger herself in the future...

"Either way... you have been displaced from your homeworld." He hoped she noticed. "This is the city of Hinoto-Ri. Do you remember meeting a man donning a butterfly mask? He is Philemon, the one who invited you here. He ought to have given you some information about Persona." Which presumably she had spaced out and missed.

He stops here for a moment, waiting to see if Nanami could keep up.

Kobayakawa Takakage, retainer of-

It clicked in her head; the double-processing of both her mind and the COMP nanobots probably helped a lot. Surname first. In many Western-originating games the name order was reversed, but since they were talking about the Mouri-

"Takakage-kun. It is nice to meet you."

Someone from the past, hmm. Or a Feudal-era game, depending. (Nanami was putting a lot of stock into things being a game right now.) When she next looked at him she observed that Takakage-kun was looking vaguely worried about things. Hmmm, ah, was there something she should know....?

(Yes, she was almost run down by a demon, but eh, she wouldn't be gaming if she worried about such things.)

Back to the issue at hand. There was information that needed to be taken down- displacement- hinoto-ri- philemon (welcome, you are here for-r-r-r static flickering, your code is co-rup-tt-e I can-ca-totn, tran-smit-)- Persona-

"......Persona? ....no, the meeting was interrupted before I could receive that information... would you mind explaining?"

Nanami's use of the suffix surprised him a little - it was very unusual for such a term to be used between strangers. At least, in his time. Perhaps the modern folk were more casual in their interactions.

Neverthless, he isn't going to deviate from tradition. His usual term of address would be irrelevant in a modern context, but at least he could use its closest substitute.

"Ah, I see." That explained quite a lot. "Well... A Persona is a manifestation of your personality. Think of it as a 'mask' of sorts, used to deal with hardship and adversity." Pause. "As a Visitor - someone who has arrived here from another world - you are able to call upon it. Philemon is the one who offers you this power."

"The item you have there is an Evoker. If you use it, it can help you call upon your Persona." He didn't use it himself, but he had seen others who did. "In Hinoto-Ri, there is an extra hour that occurs after midnight each day, named the Thirteenth Hour. Demons roam the streets during this time, and a Persona can fight them in your stead."

Did that make sense?

Noted, taken down and filed away like a gamewiki page in her mind. There was no Persona: The Wiki page available to her at this point, so Nanami supposed she'd have to work out a replacement for herself.

Persona. Manifestation of personality. Her- [div id = "Visitor"][backslash div]- Persona are summonable. Evokers summon them. Then, this thing in her hand-

"..... I see. Could you show me how to summon a Persona with this?"

Takakage frowned slightly, but the expression quickly faded and was replaced by his usual calm. He had never used it before...

"... well..." He took the Evoker from her and examined it briefly. "I have never used it before. Summoning without an Evoker is possible, but great willpower is required, so some people prefer to use the Evoker instead."

The strategist inhaled deeply, placed the Evoker's barrel to the side of his head, and pulled the trigger.

There was a crystalline crack eerily similar to the sound of a gunshot, and a brief jet of crystal spurted out from the side opposite the Evoker. Koppa Tengu burst into existence above him, soaring smoothly down to land beside him.

"...There."

She was.... not too sure about Evoker-less summoning. Willpower? How exactly was she supposed to exercise her will.... with thought? Unexplainable body sensations, mystical feeling?

Um. Those were the things Nanami was really bad at.

She watched Takakage-kun fire the gun. At his head. That looked really counter-intuitive, but he seemed to know what he was doing, and a quick think through didn't reveal any reason he'd have to frame her for murder, unless this was some part of the gameplay that she wasn't anticipating-

-crack. A flash of blue. Nanami then watched the same avian creature from before materialize.

Not as counter-productive as one would think, evidently.

"Oh..... may I...?"

Takakage returned the Evoker, and it felt heavy with significance in her palm. This was a trainer's starter Pokeball, a warrior's first sword, a pilot's small starting ship humming with patient anticipation in the docking bay at the corner of the start screen. She was starting a game. Evoker to head, finger around the trigger, pull. She was well and truly starting a game file of her own-

CRK-ingaling

There was a noise like falling gemstones, a sensation like a blooming flower in her head. It was odd, it was nothing like she'd ever experienced before, and her eyes could almost observe what seemed like blue fire behind her pupils. It didn't make sense. There was blue light scattering into the night sky like shards, rustling and picking at her clothes as they swirled by, a loop around her and upwards-

-it was pretty big, whatever it was. Bright blue dulled to a metallic off-white, the streetlights gleaming off it as the Evoker's light faded, a clearly streamlined shape solidifying.

A ship. A spaceship.

After a moment's pause, Nanami raised her hand to remove the hairclip at her fringe, holding it out in comparison to her Persona. Both were the design of the spaceship in the Galaga arcade game.

"Oh...."

So she'd summoned her persona without a hitch. That was a good step, at least. Though... her Persona was definitely unlike anything he had seen before. It didn't look organic at all - even though some Personas could look bizarre, they were usually... alive.

He gave Nanami a smile and a nod.

"This is your Persona. You'll know its name instinctively, if I recall correctly." A pause, to allow Nanami to process his words. "Since your Persona is new, it will know five skills. Think of them as abilities you can use."

He stopped here to see if Nanami could follow.

Five skills, five different options to attack in a fight. Nanami nodded in understanding, running a hand along the surface of the spaceship. Its metal was cool to the touch, and every so often it would make a series of beeps that sounded endearingly 8-bit.

"Mmm, I see...."

She should know its name instinctively. Oh, she did, it didn't even take instinct- general knowledge was enough. There was no mistaking that 8-bit sound effect, or that design.

Hello, quaint protagonist of the Galaga arcade game. You look lovely when non-pixelated.

"Do we know those skills by instinct? Or do I have to look them up, figure them out?"

(It's a lot of excitement, come to think of it. After she closes her question Nanami stifles a yawn with a hand. Lots of excitement. Lots of information to process. Boy, all this input would be enough to tire anyone out....)

Takakage closes his eyes for a moment, and there is a pause before he replies.

"The knowledge ought to be innate." He nods. "There is potential for growth, though. There are six more abilities which will come into being gradually if you use your Persona often." Since he had used Koppa Tengu so much, his own Persona already had the full complement.

"Though... I believe it requires you to engage in skirmishes with demons."

"Mmhmm...." Six more, six more. She could work on that. Soon, soon..... ...

.... .... z....zzzzz....w..ait...

"-skirmishes with demons? Like, monster battles?" Her head was slightly lowered from having zoned out, but her eyes opened and glanced up. Demons, like that thing just now. Ooh, could she have a tutorial battle now if she wanted-

"Do they drop anything when they die? Gold? Items?"

He smiled a little when she perked up - it amused him, somehow. She was absorbing information, which was a good thing.

"Sometimes. Though I have not seen gold as a metal, if that is what you were thinking of. Their drops can be sold for small amouts of money, but it isn't an advisable career choice." Which was why he had a daytime job as a librarian.

....job?

"Oh. So we need to... ... actually find a source of income?"

This was more slice-of-life than Nanami thought. Not that she didn't like it, but having to juggle a livelihood on top of the perpetual lure of monster battles seemed.... sigh. Having to fund weapon and armor upgrades by jobs? It was a bit of a genre-deviation.

"Do we have to? I mean, is it possible to get by without the livelihood part...?"

(Nanami, you need to eat.)

(The Drawbacks of being a Shut-in, in theatres soon.)

"Well, perhaps you can." Especially given how old Nanami seemed to be. "The government provides free housing and amenities, and individuals of schooling age are given meals and the like, if I am not wrong. But if you wish for anything more than that... then yes, you will need spare cash."

The strategist missed the cut-off point by just one year, so he was already qualified as an adult and therefore required a job.

Hmm. Hmmm..... "Alright, thank you..... I'll work something out." Basic livelihood settled- Nanami left it up to game mechanics that player characters simply shouldn't die from standing around too long, and was glad that this place rose to the occasion. But if she wanted extra things, though....

...... "...individuals of schooling age are given meals? Oh, that's nice." Wait. Wait, there was something more here- individuals of schooling age, did she have to be schooled?

(Well, she'd never received a formal education, per se, she would like to find out what it was like... ... though, a lot of the information that was supposed to be taught in highschool she probably had stored down somewhere.... unless it was a special game curriculum as well? Who knows.)

He tilted his head. "I assumed you were of schooling age. Is that correct? How old are you, Nanami?"

She looked around... sixteen, seventeen? Presumably? But then again, given that he was twenty-six and still got mistaken as eighteen... he wouldn't put too much stock into that.

Was she of schooling age? Technically, she- was not very old, about a year if you wanted to be strict, this iteration was, but longer if you wanted to be more lax with identities. But no, these technicalities were not the details Takakage-kun was looking for. Her musings looped around her mind like a search command sourcing for answers, the metaphorical search engine of her memory banks ran its programming and decided that "Mmm, I'm supposed to go to school."

Not technically, but then again, technically...

"I guess. I'm .... sixteen, the last I checked." Nanami blinked, seeming quite unaware that this was a very unusual answer to give to a fairly straightforward question.

... the way she phrased it was... interesting. Did she forget her birthday? Or was there some other underlying reason?

He let it slide, though he did file the question away for latter investigation.

"Well, it ought to be reasonable to suppose that the government will give you a place in the schools." Hopefully. The thought of Nanami having to fend for herself is... a little worrying, to be honest.

"So I'll go to school?"

What would it be like, going to school here, she did wonder. "The government here's really accommodating, finding places for people that come in and things...."

You didn't find a lot of government presence in many games. It generally wasn't a particularly exciting thing to grapple with, after all, but one did wonder how the system worked sometimes....

Interesting, interesting. When you're the playable character things get a lot more detailed than you expect, huh.

Well, Nanami supposed this was simply how Real Life went about doing things.

".... I'll... keep that in mind and ask about arrangements soon. Thanks....!"

"Well, they do need to keep us alive." Takakage tilted his head a little. "For one, we Visitors are Persona users. The people of Hinoto-Ri need us to help with the demon infestation."

Pause.

Is she going to leave soon?

"... do you know where your apartment is?"

"Oooh." It was unsurprising that only the game players, so to speak, would get how such game mechanics worked. "So many of the people here don't actually use Persona?" She had a surefire way of identifying 'Visitors', then. Interesting tidbit of info filed away for future reference.

"....apartment?" Um. Right. About that.... "Ah.... I only just got here, so I'm not really sure.... ...where do I check up such information?"

"Well... the ability is not exclusive to Visitors, but the population of resident Persona users is not as prevalent as we hope it to be." Something like that. "After all, the more Persona users there are, the easier it will be to manage the demonic threat."

Ah yes, checking. He focused for a moment, and the COMP popped into existence.

"Each Visitor has access to a database management device. I believe it is colloquially called a computer. With it, you can navigate the information available to us."

Will she be able to call it out, though?

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It was a dark, if not stormy, night....

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takes 29306707602 years sORRY

it kay, it kay

sweats nervously

haha

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mahou shoujo transformation sequence go

\o/

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[[mild sdr2 spoiler warnings for any log browsers~]]

i am so late oh my god

[[spoiler tag again for any casual readers lmao]]

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and the award for slowest rper goes to me