On the Thirty-First of March, 2018, a madman rampages across the Tokyo Ward of Japan, in the process revealing a strange power that lives in the hearts of humanity. Over the following decades, this power gives rise to new sciences and technologies, even enabling travel to the stars. The source of this incredible power is something inherent to all sentient life, their very souls.
It will come to be called the greatest discovery in human history, even outstripping the discoveries that come to follow in it's stead.
There is but one discovery that can be said to rival its importance. When explorers on Mars unearth the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization, and unlocking the secrets of faster than light travel
The far side of the moon is cold and silent, drenched in a darkness far deeper than any on earth, with only the tiny pinpricks of distant stars to light the way of the young man as he stalks along the bleached dust to his destination.
The young man isn't bothered by the cold of the void, no more than he is bothered by the lack of air, or the oppressive silence that presses down on him from all sides. These aren't unfamiliar sensations to the young man, because he makes this journey each and every year. He does it as a sort of penance, a personal punishment for his continued failure to save the one person closest to him.
Yet, despite this being his penance, it is something that he looks forward to all year. The young man pauses as he crests the top of this last crater, taking a moment to brush the dust from the long yellow scarf wrapped around his neck. There at the bottom of the crater is his destination - A thing of shadow and hate writhes in the void, four legs that end in serrated hooves tear furrows into the dust while it's twin heads roar, black ichor spaying forth from it's toothy maw. All the while, it's four eyes each glowing as red as sin glare at the woman standing across from it.
The woman, dressed in blue, is the one that the young man has come to meet. She glares back at the beast, her own eyes shine gold in the dark, while gloved hands idly caress a large book in one hand. She opens the book with a snap so sharp that the young man almost swears that he can hear it, and the pages begin to rustle in an impossible wind, on a moon with no air. One by one by one the pages tear free of the book, swirling around the woman like she is the eye of their storm, the edges of the pages glowing with a blue light.
The young man who was once known as Ryoji Mochizuki wants nothing more than to storm down into that crater, to face the beast himself and rip it to shreds with his own claws...
But... He can't do that. The twin headed beast is Erebus, the actualization of Humanity's pain, all of mankind's suffering, and their desire to die, for the hurt to stop...
And Ryoji is the Avatar of Nyx - who is Erebus's counterpart - and should he come into contact with the beast, it would begin The Fall, which would cause all of humanity's desires to cease, leaving only empty mindless husks that would soon enough die off from hunger and thirst. So Ryoji stays back, unable to do anything more than watch as Elizabeh battles against the beast.
However, Elizabeth is a Ruler of Power. What exactly that title means Ryoji isn't entirely sure, but he does know that it means that the girl is an absolute terror on the battlefield. As if that thought was a sign, both woman and beast suddenly explode into motion.
A beam of bloodied black carves forth from one of the twin heads of Erebus, only for Elizabeth to deftly dodge - carried back and out of the way on the wings of a translucent figure, dressed in green with long blonde hair and a beautiful pair of butterfly wings. Impossibly, a sound echoes across the airless void of the moon, a sound like shattering glass. The fae is gone, replaced by a towering obsidian snowman. A great snowy hand rises, followed by a veritable tide of ice that rises between the woman and the beast, blocking the blast.
Another crack of shattering glass, and the snowman is gone, this time replaced by a towering mechanical angel crafted of the finest silver. Elizabeth points a finger gun at the beast, miming firing it. Lances of light sear through the void, slamming into the beast. Again and the again the woman moves, dodging and weaving with expertise around the beast's attacks, and at every turn there is the impossible sound of shattering glass, and the ghostly figure aiding the woman changes.
The speed and variety of the woman's attacks are breathtaking, never using the same element or Persona twice in a row. From towering pillars of fire that burn despite the lack of fuel, to furrowing blades of wind that rip and tear at the beast. Bolts of lightning that shock and waves of chilling ice, lances of light and furrows of darkness. Each and every one an attack to Erebus, and all of them slowly wearing the beast down.
Until finally, the pages whirling around Elizabeth whipped and swirled back into the book, page by page by page. There was but a single one left, and as the page returned to the book, there is a single last sound of shattering glass, and a final figure appeared behind the girl.
A shiver runs down Ryoji's spine as he sees the translucent form appear. A form equally familiar, and yet unfamiliar - A self just beyond the ken of the world, and one that he knows he will have to return to one day, but a form he has sworn not to use until that day of reckoning comes.
The figure towers over Elizabeth, dressed in a long black coat, with a silver helm atop of a featureless head. Long white boots cover its legs, and white gloves cover its hands. Most notably of all, the eight coffins floating above it's back.
There, assisting Elizabeth is Ryoji's truest of true forms.
Not the mortal shadow Ryoji Mochizuki, not the living avatar of Nyx...
No, there floats the God of Peaceful death
Thanatos.
There is a burst of pale light, and the divine power of Megidoloan carves outwards rending the beast in twain. The beast gives a final soundless howl as it struggles to stay on it's feet, before slowly collapsing, it's form giving way and dissolving into little more than inky shadows, before even that fades away.
Ryoji continues to wait a few moments more, making sure that every last speck of Erebus evaporates before he begins to slowly walk down the slope of the crater, to where the young looking woman preens, turning to him with an impish look on her face. "Did you enjoy the show?" She asks, somehow audible despite the lack of air to transfer the sound.
"Have you gotten slower?" The young man asks, a grin on his lips.
Elizabeth pouts for a moment, crossing her arms as she gives the young man a heatless glare. "My, how rude you have gotten since we last spoke."
A moment of silence passes, before the both break into soft chuckles. "More seriously, Elizabeth. How have you been?" Ryoji asks, as the two begin to walk along the empty plains of the moon.
"I have been well enough." Elizabeth says, "It has been some time since any of my siblings have checked in on me," The woman says, before she holds out a hand, and with a shimmer of light, a blue card slowly materializes in her hand. "However, I was informed that taking this card and beginning my own journey would limit the time that I would have with my siblings. So such is not unexpected. Yourself?"
Ryoji shrugs, a sigh escaping his lips. "I've been the same as I always have, ever since..." The Avatar of Nyx goes silent for a long moment, before shaking his head. "Still trying my best to help him." He says as he picks back up, "It isn't ever much, but every person I help is one step closer to saving him." Both immortals nod, allowing the melancholic mood to overtake them. For the last nine years on the thirty first of March, the two immortals have met here on the moon.
They reminisce and commiserate over the loss of the mortal that they cared about most in their unending lives. They sit in the dust, sharing memories and laughs and tears as they watch the earth slowly rise over the horizon.
Unbeknownst to the two immortals, 239,000 miles below them, events are slowly sliding into motion. Events that will change the world forever.
On the Thirty-First of March, 2018, a madman rampages across the Tokyo Ward of Japan, in the process revealing a strange power that lives in the hearts of humanity. Over the following decades, this power gives rise to new sciences and technologies, even enabling travel to the stars. The source of this incredible power is something inherent to all sentient life, their very souls.
It will come to be called the greatest discovery in human history, even outstripping the discoveries that come to follow in it's stead.
There is but one discovery that can be said to rival its importance. When explorers on Mars unearth the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization, and unlocking the secrets of faster than light travel.
There was something about the dull roar of the crowd, Ren thought idly as he relaxes in his seat, waiting for the rest of his friends to arrive. He and Morgana were the first to arrive, but given why they were all here it wasn't much of a surprise that the black haired young man had arrived first.
"Do you think Lady Ann is going to be able to make it?" Morgana, the black cat in Ren's bag in the seat next to him asks, making the leader of the Phantom Thieves subtly roll his eyes. While Morgana looks and sounds like an ordinary black cat to most people, he can be understood by Ren and others like him who have entered into the Metaverse.
Morgana's crush on his fellow member of the Phantom thieves is as obvious as it always is, and the young man doesn't have the heart to tell the personification of Hope that Ann has started dating, and started dating their fellow Phantom Thief, Ryuji, who Morgana has never gotten along well with.
"Everyone said that they'll be able to make it,' Ren confirms, pulling out his phone to idly check the time. "There's still like twenty minutes before the competition starts." Ren points out. "We just arrived early."
The cat grumbles, but doesn't complain any further, allowing Ren to go back to his favorite pastime - People watching.
Down on the stadium floor, Ren can see the event coordinators milling back and forth, clipboards in their hands as they approach and speak with the various coaches and competitors, both Gymnasts and fencers.
While the Phantom Thieves are all meeting up specifically so that they can cheer on their youngest member during her routine, Ren is almost as interested in seeing the fencing matches as well. The young man won't admit it out loud, but he misses the heyday of the Phantom Thieves. Of diving into the Jails created by EMMA, or sneaking into palaces and facing off against the shadows that appear.
That doesn't mean that he isn't happy for the peaceful days that his team has now, but simply that there was something about sneaking around where you aren't welcome that sent the blood pumping. That there was something about the rush of barely dodging an enemy spell or throwing a shadow off its feet that brought a smile to his face. It was dangerous, it was challenging, and that made it fun. Watching the regulated and far lower stake spars of fencers isn't going to be anything more than a pale shadow of that rush, but it is really the best that the young man can get.
The young man's phone chimes, and it is with an ease born of experience that he slips it from his pocket, glancing down at the name of whoever tex-
Ah.
The young man grimaces, not even bothering to unlock his phone before sliding it back into his pocket. Yet another text that he isn't interested in answering.
"Your parents again?" Morgana asks, watching as the young man nods. "You know you're going to have to talk to them again eventually, right?"
"Maybe," Ren admits with a shrug, "But that isn't going to change my mind." Ren's relationship with his parents has been less than ideal for over a year now... To be completely honest, Ren still hasn't forgiven them for throwing him out like used garbage after Dietman Shido sued him for assault. They didn't care that he was innocent, or how he only acted the way that they raised him to. They didn't even care about how this was going to affect his future. No, all that mattered was how it was going to affect them.
So instead, they threw him out like yesterday's garbage. Kicked him to the curb and passed him on to a a friend of a friend's coworker. They wrote him out of their wills, and they cut him completely out of their lives. All of a sudden every single image of him disappeared off of his parent's social media, and it was like they never had him to begin with.
A year later they drag him back out home, taking him away from his friends, and from the new family he had forged on his own. As if that wasn't enough, nothing really changed. His parents ignored him, never more than a word or two when speaking to him, and otherwise pretending that they don't know him. It wasn't for a full year more that they bothered to pay enough attention to realize that his name had been cleared, that he was as innocent as he had always said.
Now all of a sudden they are acting like everything is how it was before he was arrested. Pretending that they care, that they never threw him away. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that he still hasn't been reinstated in the will. Nor does it change the fact that all of these changes just so happened to happen right after Haru visited him.
Funny that - the way they treat him changes as soon as they realize that he is a friend with the heir to the Okumura Food Fortune. Maybe his parents really have turned over a new leaf, changed how they feel about him, and are actually willing to accept him back...
But that isn't what it feels like. No, it feels like they found out that the trash they threw away was worth something, so they tried to dig it back up and pretend that they never threw it away to begin with. Just thinking about all this draws a frown across the face of the leader of the Phantom Thieves, and he does his best to shake the negative thoughts free of his head.
"There you are, Ren!" A familiar voice calls out triumphantly, drawing Ren out of his own head. Glancing up the aisle, Ren spots a familiar head of brown hair, and striking red eyes. "Early as expected, I see." Makoto hasn't changed much in the year since the Jail incidents. Her hair is still short, and she still carries herself with the same confidence that she always had. However... she isn't alone.
Following up behind Makoto is a young man that Ren doesn't recognize. He's a few inches taller than Makoto, with mess sandy brown hair and chocolate colored eyes. He is quite thin, but at the same time...
There is a sleekness to the way that the young man walks, a smoothness to his motions that Ren has only seen in the Phantom Thieves and martial artists. Ren's attention slides over to Makoto first, however. "Of course," He cleanly admits, as it is no secret that he is early to each of his girlfriend's competitions.
"Well it is good to see you." Makoto says with a bright smile. "Ren, I hope you don't mind, but I brought my new boyfriend along with me."
The young man smiles and steps forward, giving a quick bow. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Ken Amada."
Having only played 5 and not finished Royal yet, I'm a little lost, but I'll deal. I will say, the last couple of lines felt a little awkward? Makoto introduced Ken with his full name, then he introduced himself with his full name as well not seconds later? The story repeats itself and makes it feel a little awkward.
Well that would be me not doing a final read over to make sure nothing stupid like that happened.
Short run through for the important information that you need to understand the rest
Ryoji, Elizabeth and Ken are all characters from Persona 3.
Ryoji was unwilling a part of the big bad ,Erebus's, plan to destroy humanity by causing Apathy Syndrome, which is sort of like the Mental Shutdowns, to all of mankind.
Elizabeth was the Attendant of the Persona 3 Protagonist, much the same way that Caroline and Justine were to Ren
Ken was a party member in P3, though back then he was in middle school.
EMMA and the Jails are related to P5 Scramble, the Phantom Strikers. The absolute specifics aren't particularly important to how things happen from here, but are worth acknowledging that they happened.
Non spoilery summary of that game - Following the summer of Persona 5 an AI assistant sort of like Siri or Cortana is released to the public, but it turns out that it has some connection to the Metaverse and creates something similar to the palaces called Jails and the Phantom Thieves get drawn in to it because the Police think you are changing people's hearts again.
And while this is a bit of a spoiler for Royal
Kasumi joins the Phantom thieves near the end of the game
Well that would be me not doing a final read over to make sure nothing stupid like that happened.
Short run through for the important information that you need to understand the rest
Ryoji, Elizabeth and Ken are all characters from Persona 3.
Ryoji was unwilling a part of the big bad ,Erebus's, plan to destroy humanity by causing Apathy Syndrome, which is sort of like the Mental Shutdowns, to all of mankind.
Elizabeth was the Attendant of the Persona 3 Protagonist, much the same way that Caroline and Justine were to Ren
Ken was a party member in P3, though back then he was in middle school.
EMMA and the Jails are related to P5 Scramble, the Phantom Strikers. The absolute specifics aren't particularly important to how things happen from here, but are worth acknowledging that they happened.
Non spoilery summary of that game - Following the summer of Persona 5 an AI assistant sort of like Siri or Cortana is released to the public, but it turns out that it has some connection to the Metaverse and creates something similar to the palaces called Jails and the Phantom Thieves get drawn in to it because the Police think you are changing people's hearts again.
And while this is a bit of a spoiler for Royal
Kasumi joins the Phantom thieves near the end of the game
I'm looking foward to more. Pretty sure this is going to be the first Persona fanfic I read in which all of this supernatural stuff becomes public knowlage.
The man stands in the shadow of the stadium awning, above and behind all the seats and the stadium floor below. Slowly, he tosses up and catches the trio of flattened bullets that he had tested against his own skin the night before.
He couldn't stop the giggles slipping past his lips, not even as he glared balefully down at the scum below. He hated the ignorant people below. The people who ignored him, who denied him his rightful place. They didn't give him the respect he deserved, treating him like trash to walk by and ignore.
They were the ones responsible for this. They were the ones at fault.
They didn't treat him the way that he should be treated, and now?
Now that he has the power to show them just how wrong they are... They're going to regret being so cruel and so ignorant.
Catching the bullets one last time, the man slowly slides them into his pocket -
one
by
one
before slowly and ever so carefully reaching into other pocket of his jacket, and pulling out his pride and joy. The gun wasn't much, just a handgun, standard issue of the police.
But...
That didn't matter, the man knows that it didn't matter, because he was the one with the power, the gun was simply a tool to terrify those fools who thought so little of him.
The whispers were gnawing at him, and he hisses, his free hand coming to cradle the pain blooming in his head. He would show them, show them all just what they are worth. What they deserve.
"Yes..." He whispers, bringing the hand down to quickly rack the gun, his giggles growing louder and louder as his power begins to invisibly flow around him, and the whispers grow, twisting and warping into silent screams at the edge of his thoughts as his other self stands right behind him, hands reaching down to caress the gun in his hands, and grant to it power.
The man takes a step forward out of the shadows and into the light, a guttural rasp on his lips. "Chernobog," he calls forth, allowing his power to well up, his clothes billowing in a non-existent wind, before flowing up and through him into his gun as he raises it. Pointing the pistol towards the closest of the fools who have degraded and dismissed him, "SNAP!" He barks out, the word echoing through the air nearly as loudly as the deafening crack of thunder as the gun spits a gout of flame.
Everything is still, everything is silent, for but a singular moment where the whole of the world is drawn down into only the echo of the gunshot fading into the distance, and the shimmer of scarlet as the light glistens in the air off the stream of blood that seems to hang in the air for an eternity...
But then the world catches it's breath, and the flow of time kicks back into motion, as the terrified screams begin.
The screams are like music to the man's ears, as now the fools who have always looked down on him, always laughed at him behind his back, always mocked and jeered, belittled and dismissed him... Now they will get what they deserve, get what they have coming to them.
The man laughs, his voice high and sharp as he swings the gun about, firing once, twice more into the now scattering crowd. The sight of all those who had hurt him scattering before him like roaches before the oncoming boot brought the man joy. It brought him glee.
"G-get on the ground!" A stammering voice calls out to the man. Slowly, almost lazily, the man half turns, before glancing backwards over his shoulder to see who it was that dared to bother him.
It was only one of the stadium's security guards, dressed in blue, with a baton in his hands. The guard's eyes were sharp, but his hands quivered. Tch.
Just like all the others. Those in positions of power, they always try and push the man down. Crush him under their boot, corrupt and twisted all of them. He'll show them.
Starting...
"I said-" The guard calls out, taking a slow step towards the man, "Get on the ground! Now!"
...With this one.
It takes all of three steps for the man to cross the gap between him and the guard, his free hand snapping up with ferocious speed, fingers just barely digging into the guard's neck. With one hand the man lifts the guard off his feet, watching and the corrupt and twisted power hungry abuser drops the baton, his hands scrabbling feebly, uselessly against the man's singular hand.
"I won't let a dirty cop like you stop me from doing what's right!" The man growls out, before turning in a pivot and bodily chucking the man with all his might.
Ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet the guard flies, flipping end over end over end before slamming into a concrete wall with a wet, bone crunching thud.
"Furukawa!" Another voice cries, and the man turns, taking a moment to raise the gun again, firing thrice into the still panicking crowd. Finishing his turn, he sees three more of the oppressive fools dressed in blue.
A sneer crosses the man's face as he looks at the new guards. Their faces were twisted into a rictus of rage, just more examples of how corrupt the system is - how the very police placed to protect the innocent like him were nothing more than more bullies, monsters that wanted to hurt and kill anyone they could get their hands on.
Well, they weren't going to be able to stop him from giving these people what they owed, and nothing they could do would stop him.
As one, the three guards lifted guns of their own, and the man smiled. He he had tested it himself last night, once he finally managed to call upon the whole of Chernobog's power in the real world - His other self's power was awakened, flowing through him, and so he was invincible.
Bullets could not harm him, they would flatten against his skin like raindrops against the windshield of a moving car. The corrupt guards didn't say a word, only pulling the triggers of their useless weapons.
There were no cracks like thunder, no roar of gunfire. Instead just the merest of pops.
PAIN
A sizzling crackle of electricity roils across the man's form, drawing a pained hiss.
How? How! HOW?!
He was invincible, he was unstoppable! With a snarl the man's empty hand came up, sweeping across his front and gathering hold of the metal lines reaching out from the tasers that the men held, and with a brutal yank ripped them out of their grasps. "No way..." One of the officers whispers, a look of fear clear on his corrupt face. "That should have been enough to kill him..."
They wanted to kill him? The man couldn't believe that the cops were already so far gone, already willing to kill someone who was working so hard to show the world the truth. How could the police have fallen so far?
No matter.
They were trying to kill him, so it was only fair that he react in kind. Turning the gun towards the three, he smirked. This would take more power than he was used to drawing upon, but that was fine. This would only show them the difference between the innocent and the guilty, the right and the wrong.
Energy built up, causing his clothes to flap and flutter in the storm of energy that built up. "Chernobog, COME FORTH!" The man could feel the veil break, and from the way that the corrupt officers stepped back, they too could see the man's true self.
The man did not even need to turn to be able to see the darkly cloaked figure perfectly in his mind's eye, from the skeletal body held together by tendrils of mycelium, to the long blade in it's hands, or the symbol of the sun freshly painted in dripping blood, and most notably the cap of mushroom on it's crown.
The horror was clear on their face, as truly such corrupt and dirty cops could not stand to be in the sight of such a holy being. "Myriad Arrow!" The words of the incantation weren't actually needed, not really. The man had managed to cast the spell without them, however without the incantation the spell was far weaker than it would normally be, and in a time like this, he needed to be as strong as he could.
The trigger is pulled a single time, the muzzle barks only once - and yet thrice each corrupt cop is shot. Three bullets for each.
With this power, no one can stop him. Honestly, I wanted to keep this going for a bit longer, but between this being where the scenes break and it being a week that I have been struggling with this, I figure it is better to get something out.
Super interesting can't wait for more is the plan for one of the persona users from the game to take him out? Because without people seeing that this power doesn't make you evil I could see there being some witch hunts or suppression of the power and it's users.
