(10 is a partial success! You either accomplish what you aim to, but suffer a drawback, or only somewhat achieve your goal. Considering Browbeat canonically won this fight alone, you were never going to lose, but the consequences could have been much more dire...)
Arachne looks upon the souls arrayed before you. Your soul proclaims your desire, and your Persona agrees – Nazis are douchebags, and it makes sense for you to kick their asses.
The blond male gestures to his partner, requesting another power, but before she can respond, Arachne bursts into action. One of eight shadowy legs dips into the girl's soul, seizes the gifting power, and in your mind's eye you see it transfer to you.
The shadowy, tainted figure that is the girl's spirit seems to notice the theft occurring...
You have 3 remaining uses of Othala's gifting power. You may grant another person either invulnerability, super speed, flight, pyrokinesis, or regeneration, for as long as you are in contact with them. The power lasts briefly after contact ceases, but more "reality-warping" powers fade faster. You cannot grant more than one power at once.
"Victor," shouts the girl in red, "something's up-"
And before you lose the element of surprise, you make your appearance.
You reach for your mask, but it isn't there, and with a jolt of surprise you realize you're already wearing it. The costume came with your power – maybe activating your power automatically dresses you up? Weird gimmick, but useful. No looking for a shadowy corner to change into when disaster strikes. That said, it means you won't be able to discretely examine a crowd for plainclothes capes... if you're stealing powers, you're in costume, period. Something to consider in the future.
In the spur of the moment you decide to play up your costume's "gentleman thief" style. You're pretty well-read; a lot of the appeal of these characters is their sense of drama, and of ironically fair play. If you plan to make a name for yourself it makes sense to dip into established tropes.
"Two against one is hardly sporting!" you declare. "It falls to me, to, uh, even the odds-"
You stumble over your words a bit and feel your skin flush. Dammit, you thought you had a speech planned out.
As you try to recollect your train of thought, the Nazi guy – Victor? - gives you the death glare of all death glares and starts approaching you.
"F-foul, uh..." You panic. "Villains will never-"
Victor starts running.
You abandon your verbal spaghetti and stumble toward the blue guy. "Yo! Diamonds!" you shout. Yo? So lame. "Here, power gift!"
He blinks at you, nonplussed. Then, apparently figuring out what your word salad was getting at, he moves toward you to close the distance. He imposes himself between you and Victor, which you greatly appreciate.
A quick pat on the back – and an instinctive use of your stolen power – grants him super speed, because the only thing better than a human wrecking ball is a lightning-fast human wrecking ball.
You have 2 uses of Othala's gifting power remaining.
Diamonds rushes Victor at incredible speed, arm outstretched, intending to clothesline him. Looks like the invulnerability hasn't worn off yet, though – Diamonds stops in his tracks, even rebounding a little, and shifts to a defensive stance as Victor hits back with a mix of punches toward the joints and ribs. You realize you don't actually hear any of the hits land, which might explain why Diamonds didn't flinch earlier – none of the punches actually touch him. The wavy-hands power you saw, maybe? Either way, this guy's power set is ridiculous. You're a bit jealous.
You smirk. At least you can break the stalemate.
Again, you call forth Arachne. She dips in toward the fight between Victor and Diamond Guy, heeding your directive to steal the invulnerability power...
...and while your eyes don't see Victor move, the shadow-Victor you see with your powers turns toward you with eerie, yellow eyes. Arachne reaches out toward the shield symbol and Shadow Victor swats her away.
You cry out in surprise and not-insignificant pain as your Persona rubber-bands back into your soul. What the heck was that?
"A little help?!" calls Diamond Guy.
You shiver. "I just tried!" you reply. "Something stopped me!"
The hero makes a little grunt, tries halfheartedly to beat on Victor, but gives up after a moment. He then decides to try a different tactic.
Diamonds fakes a punch at Victor's face, then dashes toward the girl.
"Othala!" shouts Victor. By the time the second syllable has left his mouth, Diamonds has her in an armbar.
Othala struggles in vain, and Diamonds barely has to move to keep her still. With your read on her power, you know she couldn't gift skills to herself, but at this point she's basically a regular human either way. She's helpless.
"Give up," shouts Diamond Guy. "Go home, and I'll let her go unharmed once you're out of sight."
Othala squirms, gains no ground, and shakes her head. "Forget me! Get that new girl!"
Oh. Fuck.
Victor hesitates briefly, but not nearly as long as you expected before dashing toward you. Othala screams in pain – probably from something Diamonds did – but it's irrelevant to you as you stumble into a run. The mouth of the alleyway isn't too far, and-
-And you, a high-schooler who barely did more than the mandatory P.E, get tackled by the professional nazi supervillain before you can make it two steps.
You have no idea how long he beats you up. It feels like several decades of ribs cracking, teeth loosening, and internals bleeding. The most you manage to do is curl into a ball and cover your head with your hands, hating yourself for jumping into this unprepared.
But hey, you had the best intentions. You tried to make a difference. And this was always likely to happen – it wasn't like you were going to run out on your first patrol and take down a gang lord solo.
...Still, you thought you might fare a bit better. With Othala de-powered it was basically two on one in your favor.
After being kicked in the stomach for a thousand years, you realize Victor has been pulled off you. You're afraid to open your eyes, but it's nice to merely have lingering aches and pains instead of sharp kicks to the tum-tum. You hear a scuffle, some muttered curses, a few unlikely racial slurs, and a crash.
Guess Victor's invulnerability wore off.
"Hey," you hear a voice say. "How you holding up?"
You struggle a bit, roll yourself over painfully, and let yourself open one blurry eye. It's Diamond Guy, of course, looming over you like a mountain of sapient muscle.
"I'm dumb as hell," you admit. You taste blood. "Sorry, I tried to take Victor's power too. Something stopped me. Still not sure what."
Diamonds nods. "It's okay. You did your best, and you definitely helped." You aren't sure you agree, but the thought is nice. "You steal powers? Is it permanent?"
"I don't think so," you reply. "I don't know the limits yet. But it feels temporary, if that makes sense."
"I know how that feels," he says with a laugh. "Take my biokinesis. I can do without it for a little while, and you can use it to fix yourself up."
Biokinesis? Ah, that would be the syringe you saw. So he doesn't always have to be buff. That's kinda cool.
You hesitate for a moment, because Shadow-Victor's metaphysical hit was painful, even if it didn't hold a candle to what Real-Victor did. But maybe things will be different if you have permission.
Arachne appears again, none the worse for wear, and to your relief she doesn't seem to mind you calling her out so often. Shadow-Diamonds stands before you, the syringe and wavy-hand symbols you saw previously, and you direct Arachne to take the syringe.
Shadow-Diamonds opens his eyes – again, a disturbing yellow – and moves to block her. But something holds him back.
The moment the syringe is in your "hands", you tap into it and start knitting yourself back together.
You have 2 uses left of Browbeat's biokinesis. You can reshape yourself to a limited extent – no fine-tuning, but you can make broad-strokes changes for 15 minutes upon activation. Changes that differ from your "normal" will slowly revert once the charge expires.
"Thanks," you mutter through teeth that un-chip themselves. The feeling is bizarre and not altogether pleasant. "Sorry again. That went way more smoothly in my head."
"Don't worry about it." He extends a hand and pulls you to your feet. "Browbeat," he says by way of introduction.
"Nice to meet you," you reply. There's an awkward silence that you realize is him waiting for you to give your hero name. "I, uh, don't have an identity yet. I'm new, if that wasn't obvious."
Browbeat laughs out loud this time. "No, it's fine. I'm a little new around here too. You with the Wards? They kinda conscripted me, but it's nice to have a support system."
So he's a hero. You sigh with relief – part of you was still worried that you'd inadvertently partnered up with a villain. "I haven't decided that yet, either. I like the idea of having a team, but... high schooler politics, y'know?"
Browbeat looks away. "I definitely get that."
By this point you've fixed yourself up enough that you feel confident walking. You decide to change the subject. "What were those two after? Victor and Othala, I think?"
"Typical Triple-E crap," the hero says. "I caught them shaking down a mom-and-pop store. Black family, Victor and Othala weren't in it for the money."
A little flare of anger rises within you. People with powers bullying those without... you feel Arachne twitch with anticipation. Empire Eighty-Eight never struck you as particularly innocent, but their goals carry new meaning for you now. You can't let their actions go unanswered.
"...That makes me feel a little better about stepping in," you admit. "I got the tar kicked out of me, and I feel like you might have won on your own, but... it's nice to give them perspective, y'know? Make them feel what it's like to be powerless."
Browbeat looks away. You can't quite tell how he feels about that.
You clear your throat. "Again, uh, thanks for the help. I still have a bit of Othala's power left. Want a hand getting where you need to be? I can give you flight or speed, maybe."
"Don't worry about it," the hero says. "I was just on patrol. No point in taking on a temporary Mover power if it'll cut out midway through, right?"
"That's fair."
"Thanks for the offer. You good to go?" he asks. You nod. "See you around, then."
Browbeat strides off, and you're surprised you ever considered his stature might be normal – the guy doesn't carry himself like a weightlifter. He walks with dignity, but no arrogance, and there's something... thoughtful about him. Observant, even. There's more to this guy than he lets on.
That could have gone better. But it could have gone much worse. You hope you have a chance to make a better impression on Browbeat later.
You get home unscathed some time later, the biokinesis having worn off (though not before you tried giving yourself a bit more of a flattering shape... It was nice having somewhat of a chest, even if it was only for a few minutes during the walk home). You head to your room, take off your costume... and the clothes you were wearing before the "incident" are underneath.
They are still covered in vomit and blood, but at least that confirms a bit more about your power. You won't have to worry about sacrificing an outfit every time you Hero Up.
You stuff your costume haphazardly under your mattress, change clothes, and put your soiled outfit in the laundry. Then, just to test, you try turning on your Hero-Vision again, this time trying your best not to put on your costume.
Bam, costume on. Your mattress sinks a bit without the jacket underneath it. You don't have a choice in this, apparently, but on the bright side, you can stow the costume wherever you like without having to worry about getting it back.
The rest of the day passes without incident. You make dinner. Your dad gets home. You don't tell him you skipped school. You don't tell him you got powers.
You think for a little while on your options for the future. You gotta start working out, if for no other reason than that it sucks to get tackled by Nazis. And... maybe an acting class or something? Improv? So you don't stumble over your intro monologue, if you're gonna go with that in the end.
You could join the Wards, too. If you want. But that's not a decision you have to make immediately. There's a lot to think about today.
...That night, you have a bizarre dream.
(Nothing to vote on here, but it's probably worth discussing what your goals are as a character. I've added the Persona 5 social skills to the character sheet, and going forward, you'll be able to work on those to gradually upgrade them. Each point gives you a bonus to your roll if it's related to the relevant stat – Charm might help with a heroic monologue, for example, and Kindness might help you avoid coming off as an aggressive thug to hero friends you meet in the street.
Next update is the dream.)
