destinystrings | The Search for the Newcomers, December 2012 Edition.

Who: Open to Everyone, but only Newly Accepted Characters can start threads.
Where: All around the city! They appear where you want them to appear.
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.

Last month's initial testing of the HORUS system had worked really well. The device which allowed everyone to spot abnormalities; and now even more refined, they could hone in on newcomers at a much faster pace. The leftover energy from the travel (commonly called Magatama Residue) gave them a few minutes to find them before it would flicker out.

Combined with 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 own radar function, it was also nice enough to calculate for you the best transport and destination routes to take to get there. Speed was of the essence, after all.

[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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"D-d-don't-??"

He lets out a whimper at the sudden grasp at his forehead. For acting like an utter coward, he doesn't seem to want to actually run anywhere. No, he's just frozen there, like a deer in headlights, as if frozen to the very spot with fear. He moves his head a little bit, but it's certain that he's going to be staying right here.

"W-what are...what are you going to do to me??! Get off, please, please!!"

Oh, that didn't look good. Sam isn't really afraid, really...there isn't too much that can kill him, but either way, he's primed to react as quickly as he can if there's any inclination he'll get hurt by this. No, he's curious to see what this will do...so that first) he can tell others about it if need be and second) he'll get a taste of this little guy's powers and see what exactly they can do.

But for the moment, he'll act the part.

"Get that hand away from me, god!!"

"Shh, shhh." It's about the only comfort Garra offers and he certainly doesn't do it out of kindness or any real want to quiet Sam. He just finds he likes making the noise with this body.

No, what he really wants is inside that lovely little cranium and lucky for him, Sam's protests give him plenty of easy access. All he has to do is let the shadowy hand creep down the front of his face, over his nostrils, over the curve of his upper lip...and then slither it's way into his mouth and down his throat. There's no actual physical sensation of anything happening but he'd been told that sometimes they get this...vaguely unsettled feeling. Or something. He's not sure on the details and very very shortly that line of thought is going to end.

As his shadow enters the other's body it disperses and seeks out the synapses and connections that link body to mind, and once they've found those they wriggle and weave their way up and up and up...until the awareness in his host body's eyes fades out and his head drops a little. Garra's consciousness is busy working inside Sam's brain now, plucking at any loose memories, current thoughts, or any feelings that are raw and bared to see.

Well now, this is new.

He's certainly never had a shadow forced down his throat, or his mind invaded in quite this manner. If he could watch this from a third person perspective and write down all that he was seeing, he totally would. It's not painful, that's for sure, if a bit awkward.

And would you look at that. The guy isn't home, so to say. Above all that, he can feel his mind being invaded, and Sam frowns slightly, steeling his mental defenses even more.

Loose memories? There aren't many, except for the ones concerning what's happened in the city- him conversing with people over the bracelet, him at the market, him being by himself out in the streets. And current thoughts are just ones of "WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT'S GOING ONNNN" as well as a few rare ones devoid of tone about what is occuring, like noting the absence of consciousness in the body in front of him.

As for feelings, oh, he's so good at faking them, he really is. He serves them up on a nice platter, fear and doubt and confusion, all looking like the real deal- because behind them all, there really is very little emotion. Just something akin to disinterest. Boredom. Slight intrigue, but overall, he spices it up, making himself shudder and his eyes water with tears he voluntarily manufactures from his eyes. Emotions are just inducing some synapses to fire, that's all.

But if Garra decides to push in further, that's where he'll feel the resistance. It's like static in the back of his mind, with untelligible gibbering and sounds and buzzes, and it's obvious that this isn't going to be easy to crack at all. You see, horrorterrors don't usually have mouths to talk with, dear Garra. They use their minds to communicate, which makes it all the more regular to have a mind that isn't exactly the easiest to penetrate by just anyone.

So, somewhere in his mind, he smiles, hints of being amused tinging the edges of that manufactured fear. Oh, how funny it is, trying to break into his mind. What a joke.

Garra does push and is successfully stopped by the mental barrier, which confuses him since really there shouldn't be any reason for him to become impeded barring damage to the brain itself. But lucky for Sam since it's the only explanation he knows of he writes it off as such without much investigation and pulls back from it.

The easier meals are the current and flitting thoughts. The emotions, while genuine-seeming enough, present themselves with an almost...staleness when he plucks at them. He's never been big on feelings anyway so he passes those over too. No, what he decides to go after are the drifting memories: of this place, the network. There has to be something tasty within them...

Oh, there is. Here they are, memories of him going around, learning as much as he can about the area. The people, ever so helpful to be friends and teach him how to fight, the Velvet Room with the mysterious and quest-giving Caroline, the streets filled with demons during the 13th hour. And of course, the Personas, and the appearance of Sam's own Persona and just how closely it was linked to him.

His Persona is dormant at the moment, but it seems that Sam and his Persona, by his memories, were almost one and the same- his Persona is a part of his mind, after all.

And by now, it's stirring a bit, slowly getting ready to be summoned if this continues any longer...

The rifling itself doesn't take too much longer--Garra's interests are incredibly specific. The fact that there are people around is a common thing in most areas he ventures into so anything relating to that gets skipped. Fighting too gets passed over (because he's sure he knows how to do that, right?), as well as the Velvet Room. That's not to say it isn't interesting...but the moment he spies those memories with demons in the Garra zeroes right in and attaches himself to them.

Demons are the real prize back home. Incredibly dangerous, almost impossible to take over...but very, very tasty if one can manage to overpower them. The 13th Hour itself doesn't get nearly as much attention as the memories with actual demons in them, and that's what Garra goes after, trying to whittle away at the memories and draw them into himself.

And Sam happily lets them go. He doesn't care about the demons, personally- they were a niusance and a pain and he was quite willing to let them be whittled away. Though he's interested as to why those memories in particular are being taken, though as he thinks about it, this guy...was he maybe a demon too?

He does his best to quiet his Persona down, wanting to watch what Garra does next. Best to be the victim and see things you normaly wouldn't see than interrupt it all by fighting back.

The Search for the Newcomers, December 2012 Edition.

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wow self way to tl;dr

C8 honhonhon

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