The Search for the Newcomers, November 2012 Edition.

[stringmods]

Who: Open to Everyone, but only Newly Accepted Characters can start threads.
Where: All around the city, anywhere from the 5th to the 20th.
Summary: Newcomers arrive and by now the Government is more ready and sends everyone out to go people hunting.
Warnings: ARRIVALS. Also assume the first thread is the ones who tell you about the city, and the other tags for the character can be talking with others in the city and learning more about it.

[FOR THOSE IN THE CITY:]
They were getting much better at this, it was for certain.

The COMPS had been upgraded with a new program, HORUS which allowed them to spot abnormalities; if something or someone showed up suddenly in a city that was constantly scanned, then there was a high probability it was a newcomer. There was also a sort of left energy from the travel; the Wise Men called it leftover Magatama Residue, where the magical energy used to pull them to this world and keep the String intact was still faintly present around them. It wouldn't last more than a few minutes, however, and due to the fact they could appear in most parts of the city, it made finding the newcomers was both easy yet frustratingly difficult. As the blips appear on your radar function, they were nice enough to calculate for you the best transport and destination routes to take to get there.

Now it was just left up to chance and make sure you got there fast enough that you were still able to find them relatively easily. For the most part, the fact they stuck out would most certainly help...

[FOR THOSE WHO JUST ARRIVED:]
You're not in your homeworld anymore. That much is evident. So how do you feel? Happy? Sad? Troubled? A little of all three? No matter what, the memories of a butterfly man named Philemon are fading like a dream; you'll remember the details, but perhaps not everything he has said.

There is one word that stays with you, however.

Persona.

So...here to save the city, huh? First you'll need to find out more information. And who knows, maybe a familiar face or two...

[OOC: As stated above, only new characters can start a thread, but feel free to jump in any of them. characters arrive with their clothing and whatever items they had on them the moment they were taken; the remaining items will be later found in their apartments.]

Comments

[themortalhalf]

Shinjiro doesn't stir at first, though the sound of an unfamiliar voice does pull him to the brink of wakefulness, stuck in the hazy in-between limbo that's neither fully asleep nor fully aware of what's going on, teetering at the very edge of consciousness as his brain registers the sound of something real and unfamiliar. Perplexing, but something that could have been easily and readily ignored in favor of unconsciousness had the circumstances been slightly different.

But they weren't.

What Pharos' voice couldn't do, Minako's could. The sharp, short, alarmed noise yanks him into the waking world like a gunshot. His eyes snap open, and he feels the covers being disturbed and hears Minako say something he doesn't quite catch, followed by a reply that he does. There's a quiet, groggy "Wha—" before he cuts himself off as his eyes settle on an entirely foreign body—not much more than an outline in the dark with a voice. A kid? But no. No kid would have eyes like that. That bright, piercing blue that glows like it were some kind of foxfire.

What the—

He body jerks upward at that, now fully awake, and he regards the kid—or whatever it is—warily, like an animal evaluating its potential pursuer, waiting for it to make the first move. How had the kid even gotten in? He hadn't heard any of the doors being—

His eyes drift over to Minako for a few seconds—is the kid talking to her?—before they veer back over to the child again. His voice comes out as a rough growl. "Who the hell are you?"

[greatseal]

Oh no. Now Shinjiro was awake. Minako had hoped to get Pharos to leave quietly without disturbing him... Although, she's not entirely sure what to think about knowing that now, Pharos is visible to other people. Was that a good sign or a bad one?

"......This is Pharos," she says, in a tone that says 'and please don't attack him.' He sounds angry and she's not sure if Shinjiro's tolerance of children extends to strange ones who interrupt his sleep in the middle of the night. "He's...."

And now she's stuck. How does she explain Pharos, especially when she's not even sure how he's even here? She'd told Shinji about Ryoji, but left out the part about the little boy who'd visited her before. "...an old friend?"

[the_usual_stuff]

It's the hostility with which the brown-haired man looks at him that surprises him when the second warm body stirs, crawling back from the grip of his brother's realm, and jerks bolt upright to regard him with a groggy glare not dissimilar to a rough-furred dog bristling and raising its hackles up at a potential threat. Pharos doesn't blink at Shinjiro's harshly growled question of him nor at his suspiction, but he does shift his weight as he stares back.

But none of his thoughts translates to his body language which remains undisturbed and serene from where he's seated at his end of the crowded bed. Minako answers her bedmate's question well enough. After all, it wasn't him that was the unusual factor here. He inclines the pale slant of his face towards the male Persona-user.

"We've been together a long time," He offered cheerfully in coordination with Minako's careful assurance they were old friends and not thinking the slightest about how he had disturbed Shinjiro's rest. (It's reassuring to know she held onto their steadfast friendship even after he had gone from her mind.) "Hello."

[themortalhalf]

His tolerance towards children doesn't extend towards weird kids who appear into his room from out of fucking nowhere in the middle of the night. Tolerance hardly applies towards children with glowing eyes who don't appear to be at all concerned with their current state of affairs—at least, not initially. All the kid gets is the benefit of restraint. If it's any consolation, he wouldn't have attacked Pharos unless he had made a move first. Creepy as hell as he is, it'd be weird to attack something that was talking to you about the goddamn weather, especially when it possesses the body of a child.

But at her explanation—an old friend, huh?—his initial wary edginess smooths down into something far less disgruntled and defensive. So she knows him. Of course she does.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Not even going to ask where you picked this one up."

He had heard the invisible question mark that had been present in her voice, accompanying the tail-end of her explanation. He can parse its presence easily enough, and what it tells him is that it's complicated. And he thinks he's beginning to see that. The kid looks like he's about ten. He can do the math and see that something isn't adding up, though he doesn't know what, which means everything probably falls under the "it's complicated" clause. Which means she'll explain if she wants, and if she doesn't, then she doesn't.

Not like this place isn't pretty damn complicated anyway. It seems to thrive on it. This place is a tangle of knots and intersecting and diverging timelines and shit. What's one more little...—he eyes Pharos again—...bizarre kink in the wire?

Hell, maybe all this isn't any of his business, but there's something distinctly disconcerting about an apparent ten-year-old kid showing up out of thin air—especially during the Thirteenth Hour, judging from the oddly green cast seeping in through the gaps in the curtains and blinds. What child would wander around during it?

He pulls himself out from underneath the covers—glad it's cold enough he had the sense to sleep with a shirt on, as it makes things slightly less awkward—reaching over to turn on the lamp on his desk (one difference between the Dark Hour and the Thirteenth that he doesn't mind), before settling himself back on the bed. Beats having those luminous eyes staring at him.

"Most people knock first, kid."

At least he hadn't come earlier.

[greatseal]

She's not certain Pharos is capable of knocking, if he even understands the need for it. Was he trapped in the Dark Hour like before, or able to wander where he wanted? He obviously has the ability to ignore locked doors. So she doesn't add to Shinji's lecture. "I can explain later." Because trying to explain Pharos in front of Pharos probably wouldn't go over so well.

[the_usual_stuff]

"Knock?" he murmured softly, brow furrowing not in confusion but in bemusement for a moment, and utterly ignoring Shinjiro's lecture. Why would he knock and what would he knock to enter Minako's bedroom? Being invited inside, what's that and why would you need permission.

He wouldm't understand why bypassing locked doors or appearing in the Dark Hour would be strange, considering that's how it's always been for him. It's never been a concern he's dwelt upon. The young child falls silent for another few moments when the brown-haired man reaches over to his bedside desk to turn on the lamp placed on top of it, and doesn't stop staring as the electrical light bleaches away some of the sickly green gloom that hung heavy in the air, seeping through the cracks and the window

And then his attention returns entirely to the redheaded girl when Minako tells Shinjiro she'll explain at a later date in time, and he asks a more pressing question than exactly why she was sharing bedspace with another Persona-user who had so longed for an end to himself and his guilt, or why he is chilled, or the oddities of being hungry.

"This world is strange, as are its methods of plucking beings from their universes as per Philemon's wishes... It takes from many different existing possiblities, weaving a tapestry from the threads of countless realities. How much time had passed by since I left you?" he said, fingers slowly curling into the covers.

[greatseal]

It's interesting that he remembers leaving. Does that mean he has his complete memory? If so... would he be changing into Ryoji? She glances at Shinji again before answering the question.

"...About half a year. Four months there, and two here." It's still hard to believe she's been in Hinoto-ri so long. Things have finally become comfortable and normal, but some days she still wakes up expecting to be in Iwatodai. "What about you?"

[themortalhalf]

Yeah. Complicated. That was the word of the hour.

He keeps his gaze fixed on Pharos, expressionless but nevertheless appraising. Stifles back a reply to Pharos' not-quite-question. Boundaries were something this kid didn't understand, apparently. So anything else Shinjiro might have had half a mind to say would have probably received the same bemused look in return. He'd learn soon enough if he kept appearing out of thin air into someone's room, uninvited. Though maybe he still wouldn't give a damn.

So instead, he listens. Notices out of the corner of his eye the brief glance Minako gives him, not sure quite how to interpret it. He listens to her answer. Does the math. Half a year? So that would mean he "left her" in November, wouldn't it? Whatever that meant. Sounded like they had plenty to talk about.

His mouth thins into a stiff line, and he glances over at Minako. "You want me to leave?"

[the_usual_stuff]

It had been, not counting all the hours he had spent within this dimension, less than a few minutes since he had resigned himself to disappearing and faded away from their bedroom, but at the same time it had six months, half a year for her and presumably, Minato as well. Less than a blink of the immortal eye, yet it left him out-of-sync to have experienced none of it. It made him feel—if Pharos could actually recognize the emotion for what it was—left behind in some way. Not jealously so: left behind in the same manner of the clingy child who had gotten lost and didn't quite know which direction to yell at for help.

"I bid you farewell, then awoke in this world," he glanced downward, focusing his bright blue eyes on the hem of his pants leg, missing the look she sent to the other Persona-user, before glancing back at Minako once more. "I remember nothing from in-between."

There was a part of him that would always remain by her side even when Pharos himself had obtained his own existence. His blue eyes slide from his dearest to the brown-haired man when Shinjiro speaks up. He doesn't say anything. He has no opinion—whether Shinjiro stays to listen to their discussion or leaves them to themselves, Minako can decide that.

[greatseal]

Minako frowns at Shinjiro and shakes her head. Losing her warm pillow is the last thing she wants... But he does have a point, to a degree. They shouldn't just sit here talking. Pharos may be used to talking to her at this hour, but if he's more coporeal now and not stuck in her head, he needs rest as much as she and Shinji do.

"Pharos, do you have a place to stay here?" If he has an apartment of his own in this place, she could walk him home, although she feels a little uncertain about then leaving him on his own. He's not technically a child, but he still brings up maternal feelings. But there's no place for him in Shinji's apartment either and Shinji would definitely be uncomfortable with that idea either way.