The almighty persona play thread

Evan's eyes widen as Hikaru points him out.  "Wha, me?  I just threw a rock at that one.  I've only ever summoned this thing once, anyways, and I missed besides."  He paused to think to himself.  It had all happened so fast, he hadn't really gotten a chance to practice with... Controlling it?  Commanding it?  What do you even call that sort of action?

Either way, he would admit he needed practice.  He nods at Lance.  "Doesn't matter, you're right. I'll be coming with.  It's probably safer out there than staying here alone anyways."  He's reminded of something as Lance takes a swig of his drink.  "That reminds me, we should probably stock up on supplies next time, just in case we need to make a longer trip.  Food, water, medicine, tools, that sort of thing."  ...Although I'm not sure that's water in that, he thinks to himself, taking a glance at that bottle Lance seems so fond of

Hikaru huffs, insulted by Lance's chastising. "You seem to be under the impression you're the only one with common fuckin' sense around here, pretty boy," she started, a healthy dose of venom in her words, "I wasn't suggesting in the fuckin' slightest we split up. You're right, staying together is the best option." She juts a thumb over her shoulder at Evan and continues, "And he's right, we should be taking some sort of supplies with us or some shit. But you'd have to be a fuckin' moron to not get that, so chill the fuck out, alright?"

Turning back to Evan, she pointed at him, then the ground next to her. "I know we're staying in one group, but you're gonna be fuckin' attached to me at the hip, because even with how fuckin' shitty you think you are, you've got a kill count higher than me. Apparently I fuckin' need that because apparently I get my ass nuked a fair bit. If you've still got that damn rock, I suggest we take a look around here, gather what we think might be useful, and head the fuck out-" she shoots a glare at Lance.

"-in. One. Large. Group."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I suppose being stuck around other groups of people with new abilities and a penchant for bringing up every single thing that COULD go wrong has just worn on my patience in the past. All those other groups of magic users afraid to use their powers that I wound up with in the past must have made me assume the same was going to happen here." He spat back acidly. Then he took a breath.

"Ugh. Bickering about it will get us nowhere. I agree with Evan as well - getting some supplies will be very useful, indeed. Especially since we all seem to take our lumps here and there... though I do have to admit you seem to have been the largest target unfortunately... I wonder if there's a reason for that..." He looked thoughtful for a second. "Hm. Maybe they consider you a larger threat than most, and want to prioritize that target... though, I suppose that just means we'll have to adjust and react." He slid his hands in his pockets. And then the idea struck him.

"Wait... Ivan, there must be some sort of first aid kit you keep at the front desk and elsewhere for emergencies at the dorm right? Couldn't we use that before we decide to waltz out into the middle of midnight hell out there?"

"Well, 'valiant heroes' " Ivan said as he stood up from behind the desk. He reached under the desk and threw a large rolled up canvas in the middle of the group, what looked like a few sharp objects pointing out of the top.

"Standard issue equipment, nothing fancy, but will help your sorry ass in a fight." Ivan barked. "It's a motley collection of gear, just like you guys, grab what you like."

He reaches down and pulls out a warhammer the size of a small child that seems to be made of a blackish iron.

"You got five minutes to choose."

"Everyone, please listen to me for a moment. Don't you think you're being a little premature? We do indeed need to take advantage of our time here to learn more about everything and improve our combat proficiency, but charging into danger shouldn't be the first thing we do immediately after arriving here -- especially since we were just pulled over involuntarily.

"Let's take a couple minutes to talk about what just happened, and determine how much sense we can make of things. That way, we can formulate some plans and objectives for how we want to approach everything.

"First, though, a small digression... Ivan: Your help is most appreciated; however, I must ask you an additional favor. Since you're clearly familiar with, and prepared for, paranormal scenarios of this nature -- to say nothing of the anomaly present in the staircase, which I'm sure you understand the implications of -- I suspect you have critical information about yourself and our situation that you haven't disclosed yet.

"So, with that in mind, please answer the following question: just how did you learn so much about this side of the barrier?

"Oh, and Yurt..."

｢｢♝◫▓ᓈỲ͡͡͝҉U͜͢Ŗ̧͞҉͝T͘͏͝ ᕴᔝ▀▌▙┻☨┧ᐤ▄ᒁ ᒲ♲▖ᗾ▃▔ᔫᐲ▇▜ Y̴̙̫̲̗̣̼̙U̴̖̪͙̹̯R̪͍̺̖͓͡T҉̞̩͙̝̜ ᓈ ᓂ◍ᕼ▉☣ᗝ▉ ╲ᖖᐐ ᖙ▛▊▃ᐅ▌╊▕▄y̒̔ͦ̓͛͟ȗͯ̄̒͆҉̞͉̰͎͍ͅͅrtͤͪͬ̓ ̖̣̺̒̃͊ͮ̔ͯ̀Ỹ̟͎̣̥̱̾̈́͆̈̀͂̀U̘̦̬̙̭͇ͭ͌͝R̢̆̈ͩT̹̞͙̰̰͑ͬ̿̿̂͌͋͢╗ᑔ▝░╩╩░▔▋ᒳ▂▕ ╷▆┱▟▃▝ᕕ┝ᖆᓆ▘ᕹ☘ᖴ╯ᕕ╊ᗺ┖▊ᔟ█▍ᔾ ▌☒ᒓ░▓▆ᒠ ▐ᕒ▙◯ᕈ▛ᕍ╯▋ ▞ᓞ▄│▗  ▇┲▞Ý̷Ú̶̢͜Ų̸̶̨̕R͜͟T̀͘҉▣ᐔ▁ᓱ┺ᑾ ▞▞  ??? Y͟͏͟͟͞U̕͜R̴҉̸T̨̡̧̕͟▆̵̴▇̸̵̀̕͝ᔌ̴̸͞ᓷ̷̷̨͘͢ ▓̨͟░͜͠░̸̷̷̨͝L҉҉̨͟Ą͘S̶͠T̵͏̵̀͠C҉̛͝͝H̴̴̵ À̧͜N̷̡͜͢͝Ć̡̨͞E̴̸̢͘◩̸͜    ｣｣

"That's a story for another time." Ivan replied, suddenly looking outside with an interested look in his eyes. He slowly walked towards the door and unlocked it with a lock clack.

"I'll wait for you for a little bit longer, but there is some exploring we need to do."

"Look, Explorer was it? We've done a lot of waiting and figuring out already. And your plan seems to be to talk to these shadows. That really doesn't seem to work. There isn't a lot to examine or think about than we already have. Besides, you came in here out of absolutely fucking nowhere and we should listen to you why? We are dealing with a supernatural being with godlike powers that wants us dead. We need to get better at fighting these things to even stand a chance. That doesn't involve standing around listening to a tin can who stabs the house pet."

Aiden walks over to the weapon pile and examines it. He takes a knife and sheathe for it, and straps it to his belt.

Aiden looks like he feels guilty about something for a moment.
"I feel shitty enough with my own problems without all this happening. I'm just glad healing spells handle black eyes too, otherwise Monday would have been awkward to explain to my teachers. Let's just get this over with."

Lance glanced over the pile of weapons, but unless there was something decidedly like a yumi longbow in the mix he was fine with continuing to use his restring bow. He waited patiently, or as patiently as he could appear outwardly, while others ruminated over their choices and decisions. All this delay had him more on-edge than anything else. He couldn't believe that people were still being so wishy-washy about things he was convinced they had already agreed upon. It was purely mind-boggling to him that there was anything else they could possibly talk about - we have a group of people who aren't going to split up, going out to fight things as a team to get stronger. The goal is to see if there's anything that they can find resource-wise that will help us gain an advantage against all the stuff out there. It's cut and dry. It's so simple there really doesn't need to be a whole grandiose speech or some sort of recitation of some god damned safety brochure. He chewed on his tongue softly, just trying to while away more time and get his frustration in check.

And then he heard Aiden's response.

Finally, someone else who understood sense. Finally someone who realized how asinine it was to simply take things at face value and listen to every word this thing had to say. Finally someone else that was just ready to get on with this party and get the night over with.

... He supposed that wasn't entirely fair. He let out a soft sigh and then tensed up waiting for Hikaru to get on his case for being 'dramatic' or 'pretty boy' comments to start floating his way, but this was his own little frustration to tackle. It wasn't entirely fair of him to say that nobody else was understanding sense. Hikaru and Evan were ready to go for the most part, at this point it actually only seemed to be Explorer that was being a particular stick in the mud... He wasn't really certain why that came as a surprise to him, considering it was a robot.

"Your suspicion of me is entirely warranted. Continuing that thought, though, shouldn't you apply the same suspicions to Ivan and Yurt? Ivan seems to have a plan for you, after all; he certainly could be an ally, but how have you determined this isn't a setup -- a component of Fo's plan? And what of Yurt? This creature could be all manner of helpful or dangerous things, but you don't seem to have any idea what the consequences of keeping it around could even be.

"So yes, actually, there's quite a bit that could benefit from being further examined. And just because the best course of action is to kill someone doesn't mean it's not worth trying to get whatever information from them we can, right?

"Perhaps even more importantly, shouldn't we acknowledge the voices we all just heard? Did we all even hear that?"

Hikaru cocks a brow, wondering why the hell Aiden was so bitchy all of a sudden - and what he was talking about when he said 'black eyes'. Who the hell would punch a guy like that? She shrugged, turning to the pile of weapons, eyeing it up as a grin grew on her face. Now, this... this was a fuckin' arsenal! She leaned forward, gingerly picking through the pile, eventually pulling out a relatively long blade, a familiar shape to her. Her father had something similar to this in his study. She had played with this when he wasn't looking, and... honestly, she had gotten fairly good with it. She took the blade in her hands... only for it to pop apart in them. Two separate blades lay in her hands. She snapped them back together, then apart, then together, then apart.

Then she grinned.

"Oh, this is fuckin' gorgeous!" she exclaimed, gathering the sheath for the weapon(s?) and strapping it to her back. She turned to the others, chirping, "Hang on a sec, I'm gonna go see if my other 'blades are still upstairs!" She turned to head up the stairs, then paused, grabbing Evan by the wrist. "I still don't trust this shit though. You. You're with me," she stated, back to her usual snappiness as she pulled him up the stairs along with her, midway through Explorer's speech, not in the slightest hearing it (him?) mention anything about the voices she... not-heard. A low murmur, a wavering hum in the back of her mind that she had managed to push away when she remembered she had a spare pair of rollerblades in her room.

Fuck yeah, rollerblades.

"you know, by that logic we shouldn't trust anyone, including each other. None of us know each other beyond being students at this school. Hell, Explorer, maybe I can't even trust myself." Lance rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, suddenly paying more attention to Hikaru and Evan who had unwittingly become a flag as the rowdy girl dragged him along up the stairs. He regarded the two of them with this one final message before they disappeared.

"If you get into deep trouble just yell, hopefully we can hear that far up the stairs, we'll come and help if we do!" He returned his attention to Ivan who was standing near the door.

"So I take it that's a 'no' on having a medkit or anything like that in the vicinity? We're going to have to go out and scrounge for some supplies, more than likely? Eh. When we get back to light world or home or whatever the hell you wanna call it I can look into possibly plying the parents for a bit of emergency medkit money or something. I try not to hang off them too much, but this I could see being a good and smart thing to ask for."

Ivan shrugged

"On the subject of trust, Explorer, if you think my goal was to kill them, don't you think I would have done so before now, like, ya know, a few nights ago when you were all exhausted from battle and I was relatively unscathed?" 

He turned to Lance, a nonchalant look on his face. "As for supplies, I never needed more than for myself and maybe one or two people, so I only got about..." Ivan clarified as he duck through the bag on his arm. "Three bottles of medicine, they're a one use only because they are more or less sample size, and a pair of adrenal pills, I like to call the revival beads because if consumed by an unconscious person, they almost always wake up."

"I'll be outside, you got three minutes."

Evan mostly ignores the argument as he begins sifting through the weapons on the desk. He supposed Explorer had a point...Rushing ahead recklessly could be dangerous. They were dealing with forces they didn't truly understand...But then, for all they knew, staying still would be even more dangerous. The facts were, that the biggest danger right now was lack of knowledge. Without knowing what they were up against, they risked getting caught unawares either way. And sitting around and mulling over their options wasn't gonna help that.

He rummages around, trying not to prick himself on any of the sharp bits sticking out of the pile. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, actually. He didn't fancy his chances getting too close to these things, but there wasn't much in the way of long distance weapons here...Certainly not a gun or any bows that looked like they were in good condition...what if...there we go, he thinks, pulling what seemed to be a worn belt of throwing knives from the pile. A few were missing, unfortunately, but he quickly replaces them with some similar style ones from the pile as he puts on the belt. "There, that looks good enou- Hey!" He flinches as Hikaru grabs him, and is promptly almost dragged all the way upstairs before he can think to react.

"Welcome, to the Velvet room." said the man with the large nose. "You have been summoned to a place between dream and reality." The room was broad and looked much like a classroom, except the windows only showed deep blue walls, and there was only a few desks.

"I brought you here to tell you of your new and unique power. You have the ability to use multiple persona." he said, staring at her with a large grin. "Your friends seemed to have found a way to gain additional persona, but only you can use it to their full potential, which I will explain for a later time. I have held you far too long as it is." 

At that, Serina slowly gained consciousness in her room.

"Come on, pencil neck! Keep the fuck up!"

Hikaru turned and laughed at the boy barely keeping up with her as she hopped up in the air, landing with a slight grunt on the guardrail. She balanced herself and slid down the entire length, landing back on her feet with a slight stumble, recovering quickly and rolling back up to the rest of the group. With a rather disturbing grin, she pulled the blades out of their sheath, popping them apart, twirling one in her hand while establishing a solid grip on the other.

"Alright, you fucktits, let's get this fuckin' show on the road, eh?~"

The front door opens slightly, a voice calling from the blackness outside. 

"I'm leaving, anyone who wants to tag along and/or ask questions might want to hurry their asses up."

Lance clutched the grip of his bow a little tighter as he walked to the door. He approached Hikaru and Evan who were more than likely already barreling through the door before he reached it and traipsed through the door behind the two of them.

"Alright, well this place could use a little brightening up..." he muttered as an aside as he pulled an arrow out of the quiver strapped to his waist, titled upwards to avoid spilling its contents on the ground.

Hikaru indeed charges through the door, her grin fading slightly as she took a deep breath and gathered herself before she lost herself too much to bloodlust - still there, however, as the blades in her hands roll about in her grip with the occasional spin whenever there was room around her.

"Alriiiight, let's get this fuckin' party started!"

"It worked, eheh, someone fell for such a stupid trap! AHAHAHAHAHA!" the voice laughed insanely. It had been years, no, decades since he had such a good laugh. "They really do amuse me, I am greatly enjoying myself."

"uh, sir?" a shadow question as it looked around, more out of habit than fear, though the latter was present. The voice shook itself back to the current situation. After another moment or two, he asked for the shadow's report.

"Well, sir, the leader human took the rest of the others to the two ancillary buildings and fought back both the Behemoth and the Jockey." reported the shadow, cowering slightly in fear of what was to come. "Though before heading into the main building, they caught wind of something and ran away like beaten dogs, though what from, I can not say."

It waited to be reprimanded, or worse, destroyed, but its doom never came. The voice hovered above, contemplating this news. "They sensed her, no matter, come midnight she'll be out for the party and maybe do a better job than--" Suddenly the voice stopped, fear cutting him off. The shadow had never seen the voice be afraid of anything, but suddenly he felt it too. Such power had manifested itself into Nightfall, and escaped notice until now, how could this be! the small shadow wanted to hide and cry, but instead was paralyzed in fear. 

"So, a new player enters the game. A third party out for only one thing." The voice said more to itself more than his company. "Blood."

-------------------

Ivan blanched as the creature glares at the group, the macabre figure glared with its single eye at the amassed grouping. It bore two long barreled hand guns and was wrapped in a criss-cross layer of chains. Ivan takes a defensive stance in front of the group, along with Yurt. Both have weapons bared and Ivan only says one thing. "Death."

Lance stared slack-jawed at the thing in front of them. Twin long-barrel pistols in its hands, a single eye twitching wildly in the direction of each person in the room, and a foreboding so thick in the air he could taste it. He could feel that instinctual fear suffusing his being and he clenched his jaw silently, the pressure almost enough to make the teeth crack. He thought of summoning the card of his persona to be ready for healing, but something in his mind made him stop. He still held his bow in his left hand, the arrows were too far from his hands to load it without being obvious. It appeared he had no real avenue of action alone.

'What is this thing?' Lance thought to himself. 'I can almost feel the power coming off of it - it's like it's daring us to strike at it...' he could feel the grooves of the handle of the bow pressing into his hands hard enough for it to hurt before he realized that he had been steadily clenching more and more. Noticing this he relaxed just a bit - enough to alleviate the pressure and pain. He looked to the rest of the group that he could see from the corner of his eyes, waiting for someone - anyone - to make a move.

Okay, in her defense, the chains had started rattling when she closed the lid, so in her mind the noise would stop when she opened the box again. But Hikaru couldn't think of that, let alone anything else, as her mind wiped itself of all conscious thought as she stared wide-eyed at the creature in front of her, jaw just as slack as Lance's. This thing... she put on a false bravado, sure, but her willpower wasn't strong enough to keep that bravado going in the face of something like this. Her hands fell uselessly to her sides, barely holding onto the blades in her hands. This... it caused such a primal fear within her, and within the others, it seemed, too - gods, even Ivan and Yurt. Oh, fucking hell, they were in trouble...

...and it was all her fault.

"...bloody hell..." she murmured under her breath, slowly backing towards the rest of the group, her own eyes never turning from that one sole eye roving madly about. "...Death...?" she asks, directing the question towards Ivan without turning her head. "...what do you mean, Death...?"

Evan stood stock still, his hands hovering over his throwing knives. He never held much stock in his gut reactions or sixth senses, and did his best to swallow down the fear he was feeling. But seeing this thing, seeing the rest of the group react so immediately... His eyes glanced around the room, lingering on Hikaru. If there was one absolute proof of the danger that this thing posed, it was that Hikaru hadn't punched it in the face yet. He felt a sinking feeling in his chest...They couldn't fight this.

He turns his feet a bit, trying not to attract attention while preparing for the possibility that they'd have to run for it. He speaks slowly, keeping his voice at a low monotone. "...If an enemy is too powerful to destroy... There's only one option for dealing with it, right?" he says, glancing meaningfully between Hikaru, Lance, and the monster itself. The moment someone made a move...Whether ally or enemy, he was ready to take the chance to make a break for it.

The being's eye rolled around randomly, seeming to look at nothing and everything at once. It slowly raised its left arm up, pointing the gun to Ivan's head, while the other one slowly raised to point towards the back wall of the building...

Hikaru's grip tightened on her blades, knuckles white as her entire body tensed. Hell, what was she supposed to do? That fuckin' thing was way too much for her to handle, even with help. With the gun pointed at Ivan, though, her eyes widened, her teeth clenched, and before she could stop herself...

"OI!"

It turned to face her, its eye ceasing its random movements and stared at her before stating in a voice that sound as if the Abyss given form. 

"Why do you humans call me to this plane?"

Slowly, it lowered the twin pistols it had, staring at Hikaru. 

"You were the one who awakened me...."