destinystrings | [Game Opening, Part 3

Entry tags:

[Game Opening, Part 3 - A Call To Action]

Who: (Everyone OPEN LOG)
Where: (City Hall)
Summary: (After your Arrival and being Explained the Situation...things start to get a little...tense)
Warnings: (Action)
Style: (The text is in prose, but feel free to write back in action tags if you feel more comfortable.)

After questions were answered, a man finally appears into the room, after having talked with his daughter.

"I apologize for making you all wait."

After introducing himself, Takeharu begins to explain in more detail what they've learned from this world. He goes on about the life in the city, the hurdles they had to overcome...and the strange phenomenon of the 13th hour.

"...and once midnight hits, a 13th hour commences. We had a name for a similar phenomenon in my world; the Dark Hour. However, this one doesn't seem to be caused by rampaging Shadows. We are still investigating as to why it exists...and in due time you might aid us in this task. You will all be able to observe it for yourselves quickly enough, although I would strongly suggest doing so in your own apartments. Not only are you all new visitors, previous Persona users or otherwise, but the moon is full tonight, which means the demonic population will be at a dangerous, aggressive level."

"Now before we continue, we should talk about the--"

Aries Sector : SECURED.

Taurus Sector: WARNING! SECTOR F1 CURRENTLY COMPROMISED!

Gemini Sector: WARNING! SECTOR E8 & E9 CURRENTLY COMPROMISED!

Cancer Sector: SECURED.

Leo Sector: SECURED.

Virgo Sector: WARNING! SECTOR A7 CURRENTLY COMPROMISED!

Libra Sector: WARNING! SECTOR G5 CURRENTLY COMPROMISED!

Scorpio Sector: SECURED.

Sagittarius Sector: WARNING! SECTOR C4 & B4 CURRENTLY COMPROMISED!

Capricorn Sector: WARNING! SECTOR A3 CURRENTLY COMPROMISED!

Aquarius Sector: SECURED.

Pisces Sector: SECURED.

"I repeat..."

"Damn! Six out of Twelve," A gruff-looking man stepped into the room. Judging from his outfit, he was important.

"I only know one group who's able to pull this off...the Anoli."

Takeharu looks at Kiyoshi and both men nod silently.

"We were going to talk about this later, but we don't have much time to explain who they are..."

More men appear; members of the city's Special Assault Team. About half of the men have a small flame insignia on their uniform's elbow; this signifies they are Persona users.

While Takeharu explains to the new arrivals, Kiyoshi is busy on some screens, and is talking to others by holographic projection.

"Give me a status report!"

"Sir! I've got two men down here. The doors are holding but we'll need backup as soon as you can give it to me!"

"I've got a group in route, and soon a Persona team as well."

"Reiko and myself are holding, but I believe they've been sending the blunt of their force here and in the Gemini area. No doubt to steal the prototypes we've been working on..."

"We should be able to fight them back for now, but I can't tell how many they are."

"I've got team Beta heading over. I'll send a team of Users as well."

"Sir! Massive attack in the Virgo Sector! They've broken some of the fences holding back the demonic population. There's risk of civilian casualties at this rate..."

"DAMMIT! Send a team of Wands there to patch that up as soon as they are available. I'll send a team with them to protect while they do their work."

"Sir! The Gemini Power Plant is under attack! I think they're attempting a blackout so they can get into the Laboratory."

"This is a nightmare. And where is--"

"--he went off to fight them."

"DAMMIT! We can't let him get harmed. I'm sending a team after him."

"Libra's Coin Office Tower is under attack, Sir! They're trying to get to the upper levels where we have the monetary databanks."

"A heist as well...damn they really went all out for this one...trying to cripple us from all angles."

When he's finally done, he turns over to the entire crowd. His voice is as booming as his body language. Despite the crisis he is calm and collected, easy to see why he is the Commissioner General.

"Alright listen up, since I can't repeat myself twice! We have a major crisis our hands. Anoli have broken into six sectors and my men can't fight all of them at once. None of you know me and I only know your names. Most of you haven't used a Persona yet, but I bet you've all got a few tricks up your sleeves. Magic, Weapons, Technology, whatever it is, bring it with you and we'll form you into teams. We were going to do this much more quietly later, but it looks like the Anoli have a different idea."

"Priority number one is to protect all civilians and to keep deaths as low as possible, even against the Anoli. Disarm, disable, diswhatever, as long as it's not kill and destroy. I'd rather let them in jail and face justice than to spill even more blood from this conflict." He turns around and starts to leave,

"If any of you lack weapons, talk to Q. I'm sure he'll be happy to provide you with some."

Policemen swarm around him and they start to go off in work and prepare, leaving you a bit of time before you are all called out in groups.

[OOC - Groups will be rolled later tonight, and then each mission will get it's own log. Those who wish to join in the first mission must do so in the sign-up post [LINKED HERE], but signing up doesn't mean you'll get picked - only that you are okay with joining this mission.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

After obtaining her fancy new energy spear from Q, Minako retreats to the edge of the crowd to give it a few test swings and generally get into the right mood for battle. So much had happened in such a short time... but there still wasn't the time to ponder it. She had a job to do, and she was prepared to do it.. to help protect these people, both the new ones she'd met, and old ones she'd reconnected with.

Honestly? It was a little exciting.

Despite her attempts at putting on her game face, anyone approaching will still get a smile and a friendly wave, as weapon swinging permits.

"Hey! Careful where you swing that thing!" Okay, so Eikichi might have not been looking where he was going at first, but it still didn't mean you could be swinging...whatever weapon that was supposed to be!

Yeap. Minako, it was that guy again, and he was carrying...a guitar case?

What.

Fortunately, Minako wasn't practicing with the spear actually turned on, so it wasn't as deadly as it could be. She still manages to stop the swing before it does any damage to Eikichi or his... guitar case. "Oh-! I'm really sorry, Michel-kun! I'm just trying to get a feel for this..."

...But of course now, her eyes go to the case. "...Is that a guitar, or is it full of guns like in old American mobster films?"

"Oh no, no not a guitar of course! Michel doesn't play in the back, in his band he sings front and center!"

....And breaks everyone's ears.

"So you might say, Minako, that there's a little of that second answer, but that's not quite it!" With a flicker of the wrist, he brought the case in the front. Instantly, a handle stuck out from the side, before the head of a large machine gun peered out from the top.

"D'you see what I mean?"

It wasn't hiding guns at all. The guitar case ITSELF was a gun.

"You do seem like the singer type..." What clued you in, Minako, the makeup or the hair?

The case actually being a gun is more surprising. She'd just said that as a joke. "That's... really impressive! Did you bring that from home or get it from Mister Q?"

Because a machine gun guitar case seems par for the course in terms of the weapons he's handing out...

It doesn't take Shinjiro long to pick Minako out of the crowd.

If anything, it's far too easy. It's a laughably simple task for his eyes to skip from meaningless face to meaningless face until they suddenly register a flash of vibrant red hair that stops him abruptly in his tracks. He gives himself a moment for his gaze to settle and his mind to confirm what his vision is telling him, and from there puts a familiar name to a familiar face.

He had been wondering whether or not he would find her here.

He had been hoping for it (in a way that he'd never admit to himself, just like things had been with Aki), but at the same time, he'd been dreading it, because all this kind of thing does is make a messy situation into something even more complicated. And that kind of bullshit was the last thing anyone here needed. He didn't need it. Nobody needed it. Makes life a tangle of choking thread and needles and barbed wire and fucking caution tape. But here he is anyway. Can't do a damn thing to change it.

Which brings a question to the forefront of his attention: What the hell is he supposed to do? What is he supposed to say when the last thing he remembers is dying? You normally don't wake up from that, last he checked, and if you do you're probably not dead and are probably going to wake up hooked to a bunch of machines and IVs bloated with morphine.

Awkward as things suddenly are, he knows he can't just do nothing. Of course he can't. This means he'll just have to bite the proverbial bullet and approach her.

And so he does. He comes up from behind. Makes sure he has enough space to evade her next practice swing.

"Hey." He's still not sure how to react yet, so his face is some weird combination of attempted neutrality and something else. You can name it. He won't. "Watch where you're swinging that thing."

Hearing something like that, from that voice, nearly causes her to do exactly what he'd warned against and wildly wave the spear into a person or maybe her foot. She ends up dropping it (turned off, fortunately) and she whirls.

And stares.

This is worse than even meeting Minato again. With her family's deaths, there'd been a ten year gap to accept and bury emotion. Shinji's accident was still very new and raw and guilt-inducing. He may have 'lived' but that had just made it worse, knowing that the doctors didn't know when, or if, he'd wake up again. Wondering if he'd fault her for moving on or praise her for trying to let go.

"...Senpai...?" It's hesitant. Far more hesitant than her normal voice should be, as though she's meeting a ghost - and a ghost she's not certain will remember her name.

He gauges her reaction, grimacing as he watches her spear clatter to the floor. He hadn't meant to startle her, though that reaction was probably inevitable to begin with. He takes note of how quiet she is—how oddly her voice rings against his ears—and how wrong it sounds to him. She shouldn't be like that.

He's far too used to her brand of confident, upbeat optimism that seems to follow her wherever she goes. Not this. Guess that's his fault right now.

"Yeah," he says, meeting her stare for the briefest of moments before his eyes flicker away and downward. His locates her spear again, and with a careful, easy movement, he bends over and picks it up, offering the retrieved weapon back to her. "Like I said, watch where you're swinging it."

In other words, it's good to see you, too.

"Well -"

What should she do? Shout at him? Hug him? Break down completely?

The last isn't an option. She settles for indignation. "Well, you shouldn't stand behind me when I'm practicing either!"

...Then she gives up, ignores the offered weapon and tightly latches onto that pea coat.

"Fair enough." That's more like the girl he remembers. The spark he recognizes and grew to be fond of. "Though aren't you supposed to be prepared for these kinds of things any—"

And stops.

Well, there's yet another thing he ain't used to. The warmth of another body against his. It certainly wasn't something he had expected to feel again, more used to a life where the only kind of semi-regular contact was Aki's fist grazing his face. He stiffens intially, but relaxes, using his free arm to wrap around her shoulders and pull her into a clumsy, half-awkward embrace.

"Hey. Not going to cry on me, are you?"

Whatever is clumsy and awkward about his half of the hug is smoothed out by the ferocity of hers. Her voice comes muffled from the depths of the coat. "If I did, it would be for something important."

Like... when he'd been bleeding out in front of everyone. She won't be the one to bring that up.

Idiot. "Is that how it is?"

And he appreciates that. Though he remembers. Hard not to remember the day you make a girl cry. Memories like that tend to etch themselves across every mental calendar you own, and even when the initial flame's gone, the memory still smokes like it has half a mind to start burning again.

"Still doesn't suit you."

"Well... then you should be really nice to me so it never happens." She's not serious, of course, she's just trying to collect herself for real. Her heart is finally calming to a normal pace. "I accept bribes."

"Can't promise anything, but I'll try to find a kitchen, yeah?" It's as lighthearted of a response as he can manage—it certainly ain't his forté—though his rough, level tone betrays little of it.

He pulls back a little, ruffling her hair like she was some kid, before looking at her, evaluating. She seemed okay. Looked fine (though looks didn't mean everything). But there was still something Aki had said that still bothered him.

The hair ruffle makes her smile even as she swats at his hand. "I'll hold you to that!"

The way he started to stare at her critically, though... that wasn't reassuring. She'd managed to talk to a lot of people before running into him, so it's possible he'd done the same, even with his tendency to be anti-social. She should find out how much he knows. "...Did you see Akihiko-senpai yet? He's around here somewhere..."

He nods as he jerks his one hand out of reach, and grips her spear tighter with the other, like it was some sort of weight anchoring him down.

So she had seen Aki then; otherwise, she wouldn't have mentioned him. And if she had seen him, she had talked to him, because he very much doubts Minako would have just let Aki go without a bit of well-intentioned harassment. "I ran into the idiot a little while ago. He hasn't changed much."

"Much" being the keyword.

And Shinjiro had only just managed to ditch him. Granted, Aki generally could take the hint when he needed a little space (most of the time), or knew when he had something that needed to be done and didn't need a freakin' escort. Aki was also used to him walking away without an excuse or apology—or sometimes even a goodbye.

But during their brief reunion, Aki had told him things. Mentioned that he hadn't been the only person to die. It was information that needed to be said, even if it was hard as hell to hear at first, even though Shinjiro's used to people dying on him. ...But then Aki had said something else, something that had set things off, and made (some things) perhaps not technically true. A brief respite from what was likely potential inevitibility (knowing his shitty luck), but the things that were wrong with what he told him were hard to believe, and it either meant he was crazy or Aki was crazy or something else was.

But he refuses to disregard his own memories—from the places he's been to the very people he's known and fought beside. And "Minato Arisato" certainly isn't one of them.

"He said he didn't know you."

She slowly nods. At least he'd gotten that much... it would make the explanation slightly easier.

"I still don't really understand how myself, but... in the world Akihiko-senpai is from, I died, a long time ago. He wasn't able to meet me."

Well, that sure made a lot of sense.

Read: it didn't.

But a lot of things about this place didn't add up. Like how he wasn't little more than a cold corpse pumped through with bullets right now.

"And? How d'you figure that?"

Because other than that, Aki was still the same idiot he had grown up alongside with. Everything except that one tiny detail, as far as he knew. Nothing but a simple change in pronoun.

He may not understand it, or even accept the explanation at this point, but he'll listen.

Edited 2012-09-05 05:28 (UTC)

Her answer is not quite an actual answer.

"Have you met Minato yet? Blue hair, quiet.... likes to slouch and stand in corners... I think you'd get along."

The teasing tone creeps into the ending, maybe a little bit over-intentionally this time.

[...Just this face for a moment.

Because what the hell is that supposed to mean?]

And then, almost stubbornly: "No."

Which is followed by a brief moment of hesitation.

"But Aki mentioned him."

What he's not going to say is that Minato seems to be existing in her place.

She knows that. And she doesn't much like your tone there, mister. Because... well, maybe he'll understand with another statement.

"Minato's my twin brother."

Don't worry. They'll be sharing wall space eventually, learning to appreciate the fact that they both understand the virtues that come along with keeping one's mouth shut.

They don't need no damn social link.

"You never mentioned having a brother."

Good. In her opinion, they both can use more friends. Even weird silent boy friendships.

"I know."

She doesn't explain. Ten years and half a dozen school changes had taught her to keep her past in a quiet place just for herself. Elaborating on the reasoning behind that decision would just negate it. "You know my parents died. It wasn't just them."

He doesn't say anything.

Not fully explaining things is something Shinjiro, at least, can understand. It's something he'd never expect Minako to do, even though she's so much more open than closed-off bastards like himself. He knows there are issues people just didn't talk about, for whatever the reason, and that's all there is to it. There are certainly some parts to his past he'd prefer to stay dead and buried to everyone except himself, but those things had the habit of resurfacing over as the years went by, brushing away the earth and exposing the bones.

But still, that's ten fuckin' years. Might as well be an aeons in the scheme of things. She's been seeing dead men and seeing ghosts. It'd be like seeing Miki pop up after all these years. Except grown up, having lived a life the ones left on the other side of the looking-glass never got to see, because life's a messed up wonderland, and they're all just a little bit mad here.

It still didn't make complete sense, but—

"Okay."

He mulls it over for a moment.

"So this is what?" He doesn't even know. "Some sort of alternate timeline thing?"

Edited 2012-09-05 07:02 (UTC)

[Game Opening, Part 3 - A Call To Action]

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