@Crimmy
Lala took moments to stare at him as she would be eased a bit. She smiled in the presence of the easygoing
teacher as it made it easier for her to try conversing with him.

"Yes, I am new here."

Lala didn't know much about the history teacher, but she could tell he didn't seem native with his blond hair. She would have a better time talking to him as she felt a bit comfortable talking to adults rather than peers, even though she needed to get along with them some time soon. Besides not falling for him on the first look, she would definitely be friends with an amicable guy like him.

"I'm Liu Lala." Lala was still in mix of her introductions with her experience in countries outside of Asia, but she managed to do it correctly in the respective place for it. "I've come from China to study abroad, but I've been in America and Europe for half of my life. It's also my first visit to Japan, but I'll get around on my own. Anyhow, I've come to the faculty office to help establish myself at the school for the year.

@finalends

NPC: Igarashi Iemasa

"Nice to meetcha, Liu-kun, and welcome to Japan!" said the young teacher warmly, the smile on his face brightening upon hearing the news. So he was right on the money then. The girl before him was not only definitely a newcomer to Uchima Senior High, but a newcomer to the country itself! That was cool. It was always great to meet new people and make them feel welcome.

"You've gotten all your paperwork sorted, right?" he asked, leaning forward, glasses seeming to glint in the light. "No problems with that stuff?"

---

@Plank Sinatra @Krayzikk @Conflagration

Act (a) - Pizza Wars

Benkei's ruthless blows pounded at the DRU that had sought to crush the Persona's wielder underneath its treads in a manner not too dissimilar to how a drunken hooligan would bash anyone who looked at him wrong outside of a nightclub in Shikatsu's inner city on a Friday night. Given the physical strength possessed by the manifestation of the medieval warrior monk, the 'face' of the wayward delivery drone crumpled under the sheer violence being inflicted on its frame. Despite its newly developed supernatural abilities, the machine was still in essence made to resist mortal human attacks upon its body.

Not supernatural phantoms.

Golden optics jittered for a second, sparks flying from their cracked crystals, before immediately fading into dark. The machine shuddered and died, sputtering to a complete halt as an eerie mist leaked from its broken frame, dissipating into the golden air and wisping back towards the truck.

Meanwhile, even as Kimiko seized the day and rode her brainwashed DRU into battle, leading her makeshift vanguard of delinquents forth in formation, three of the enemy machines rolled to meet her, spitting out a fireball each towards the unlikely duo of girl and robotic servant.

Sixty enemies remained.

Are we back in control? I think we're in control.

Hoshizora is being asked about her school. This is strenge, becuase Hoshizora Aiko is fairly sure she's already confirmed that, yes, she has transferred to Uchima Senior High two or three times now. Perhaps this woman is not malicious, but just dense. Still, Aiko does not let down her guard.

"Y-yes, ma'am. I passed the entrance exam last summer, a-and I've heard it's a really good school, so, you know, I thought I'd take the plunge, right? B-but I had to get permission from my folks, and, you know, it took awhile, so I ended up having to, uh, what's the word, transfer, instead of starting at the beginning of the year, see. T-that's why I'm looking for a place nearby."

@Crimmy

"I almost forgot about it." Lala took out the paperwork out of her bag. She had already handled some over seas but she needed to turn the rest in on her arrival. "I've already sorted the ones done over seas. If there's anything else I forgot to do, then I need to get right on it." She then hands him the stacks of paper that were sorted out and held together.

"The only thing I think I didn't get on my way here were my classes and any other information. By the way what is your name mister?" It was a nice meeting with the teacher, but Lala wanted to end on a fair note at least. She was looking forward to exploring the school now after being eased from the welcome.

@Zobozun

Sasori and Co. Investigations

"Even with the acknowledgement of Uchima's ... less than stellar reputation?" asked the woman.

She leaned back into her chair. It was clear that she was thinking over something once more, her scarlet eyes glancing up at the ceiling for a second before turning to lie upon Aiko's sitting form. A number of seconds passed. The scuffed old grandfather clock in the corner ticked.

"Well, you do appear to have the credentials," she said after a short period of silence. "And a pair of eyes in Uchima would be rather useful."

The last word seemed to sit on the end of her tongue.

"You're hired, then."

---

@finalends

NPC: Igarashi Iemasa

"I'll make sure to hand this in to Admin," vowed the teacher with a smile, taking the stack of papers with a flourish and placing them down on his desk, next to the pile of history essays. That was quick and easy. Awesome. "If you've gotten that far, then you'll be totally fine."

What class would she be in, though? That wasn't something that Iemasa could really find out until all the administrative side of things had been successfully handled, but hopefully she was in his. He liked his fellas. Hopefully they weren't up to anything troublesome.

"I'm Igarashi-sensei," he said, introducing himself with a large grin. "If you ever feel like doing history, then I'm your guy."

@Crimmy

"It's nice to meet you Igarashi-sensei." A smile appeared on Lala's face as she was already feeling better about being here. But it couldn't be the last meeting with him, or is it? She wasn't a lucky person, but she hoped to be in his class. "I'm definitely sure I'll have you when I get my classes."

There had been nothing else she needed to do as she stepped back to the door and bow to him. She would hold the sliding door before she would attempt to close it.

"It was nice to meet you as well as feeling a bit welcomed to the school. I don't have all day to be here, so I'm going to check the clubs while I still can. Goodbye until the next time." She would close the door as she would leave into the hallway still with a smile, but slowly fading.

She seemed to like this school. There were teachers like him, and possibly other people who could be nice like him. It would still be a mystery of who she might befriend, but she had other things on her mind.

Of the clubs she found, she managed to find what would be the room of the drama club. It was one of the first clubs she was interested in, so she bothered to check it out. In it's current state, it would probably be empty, but she would turn to look towards the room from the doorway.

Rena's eye widened When she saw one girl heal another with her. She then ran up to both Sakura and Senhime. "You can heal?" She asked Sakura in relief as she just had an idea. "Look I need you to heal the person who just got burned, it was my fault it got injured in the first place." She told her before bowing her upper body. "Please i mean not be the perfect role model but that guy who saved me was is complete innocent, he was just trying to look out for me and look what happen, if you can help him, this girl and anyone else he gets burned I will take your place on the front lines." she begged her, throwing away her pride for the greater good.

@Suku@banjoanjo@chukklehed

Once upon a time, in a very old country, there lived a very young girl. This young girl was pure of heart, but very slothful and very devious - especially when it came time to devise ways to stay slothful. She cut her teeth in this art in a land named Kanto, which held many wonders that shaped her childhood - of which a hyperinflated economy seemingly based on the trade of drinks and bike vouchers was first and foremost.

By now, the girl was on the cusp of adulthood and had learned many of her own lessons in the real world. She could not enter restricted areas with bribes - usually. She could not lull elephants awake with a flute and make them dance to her tune. Running headfirst into someone with a bike usually hurt them in addition to bringing you to a full stop.

But one thing she had learned from a young age was the power of beverages. In particular, soda pop, which went for almost as many Pokemon Dollars as Lemonade while healing only three-quarters of the health. Many would question the wisdom of not just buying Lemonade with that kind of price gap, but Kimiko felt like she was the only girl who played Pokemon realistically enough to mistreat the Pokemon who didn't perform well against Gym Leaders or Team Rocket.

It wasn't cruelty or anything. At least, no more than trapping animals in fist-sized balls and making them fight for your glory and pleasure. But if you're gonna do it, you might as well only reward success. This was a crucial lesson in both Kanto and Japan.

Besides, if Pokemon dentists were as expensive as doggy dentists, you would be needing the extra Pokemon Dollars in order to pay for all the cavities your Pokemon get from drinking Soda Pop and Lemonade all day.

How did this relate to her current probably-life-threatening predicament? Simple. She alone amongst Pokemon Trainers had learned the value of Soda Pop in urban combat. A decade of gaming had been naught but foreshadowing for this moment.

"Kaguya, Zan!"

From the wreckage of two DRU, a blast of energy - a forceful, tightly focused gust almost - blew two 2-liters into the air for Kimiko's grabbing pleasure. Even as they soared into the girl's waiting grip, the fizzy material inside was rioting, carbonation clearly swelling at the tips from their flight. Kimiko gave them each two shakes for luck - ch-chk, she vocalized, like a girl loading guns - and cracked the lids open.

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

Her gut feeling had served her well. Much in the way that she had assuaged the thirsts of mighty Charmeleon in the days of yore, the mixture of chemicals and carbon buildup within the plastic bottles sprayed everywhere in the path of Kimiko and her DRU, wild beverage fire meeting wild pizzabot fire head on and putting it out in midair. The slacker beamed in pleasure. Truly, she was the very best that no one ever was this day.

"Your turn, Pizza-kun!" Kimiko tapped the DRU's head once for encouragement and pointed at the area between the center DRU and its counterpart to the right. "Tarukaja! Take them out!"

Inside Pizza-kun, some unholy machinations were occurring as a 2-litre soda was locked, cocked, and loaded. At Saitou's wordless cry, the shaken soda hitting the ground between the two DRUs with the force of a small improvised mortar. Kimiko-chan crowed.

It was working.

"DAISUKE-KUN!" thundered the Empress. "This is your chance to seize the day! If you truly love me, prove yourself worthy! I need more carbonated mortars!"

She pointed at the DRU that had been on the left - now the lone member of the unholy trinity that had dared stand before her and Pizza-kun.

Fifty-eight remained.

Hitomi jogged back towards her school, guitar case in tow as she struggled to keep pace. She was running lopsided due to the sheer weight and size of the guitar case garnering looks from passersby as she attempted to make good time getting back for her music club. As she ran back to school she took in the sheer beauty of the city that she was able to call home. It was an innocuous mixture of pavement, dreams that hadn’t yet reached fruition and those who had given up on the idea of fruition at all. But it was a relaxing cityscape either way. There was just the right amount of pressure for young students like herself. Enough to make you want to succeed, but not enough to force breaks due to student depression.

When Hitomi had reached just a few more blocks until she would reach the school she realized that something was wrong. The city… Was empty. Sure, most people were most likely busy with their day to day menial affairs, but this was…. Most students would be at their club activities, but that didn’t explain….

This was exactly like those dreams.

She heard a voice.

It was a voice that was entirely new to the lover, but it wasn't new in that reoccurring dream. In that dream she saw this empty city and heard that voice.

With her arms at her side the lover walked towards the yell. It was certainly more of a yell than a scream. Screams implied terror, fear, injury… This was more of a call to arms than anything else. Thought the words were lost on her. As Hitomi peered around the corner cautiously, she would think up spy names for herself.

However when she saw the scene ahead of her, she was surprised.

"DAISUKE-KUN!" "This is your chance to seize the day! If you truly love me, prove yourself worthy! I need more carbonated mortars!"

The lover’s mind immediately barreled into self-investigations of the term ‘carbonated mortars.’ The thought started as a rough sketch and blueprint. It had the appearance of a two-litre bottle of soda that meant business. It had wings and fins for aero-dynamic capabilities. Unfortunately, however, Hitomi was unable to reach the practical analysis portion of that thought. Instead her eyes stupidly took in the rest of the picture in front of her.

The debris of what used to be a delivery truck. A large crowd forming around the scene at hand. Pizza delivery machines, that all seemed to be…

One shot Hitomi a look that spelled it out well enough for her.

“Cheese and crackers! Those Pizzatrons look vicious! She said aloud, bringing her hand carrying the guitar case up to her mouth and nearly knocking herself over in the process. She examined the situation once more and noticed that the girl who had first spoken, the one who was about the same age as Hitomi was forming an offensive against the oppressive Pizzatrons.

“Holy moly ravioli those delicious delivery dudes are evil!” She said racing forward, once more lopsided as half-obese seesaw. She had gotten a bit closer to the other two who were the anti-pizza coalition in this situation. While Hitomi would of course, never do anything offensive towards pizza – those who delivered it were clearly in the wrong here.

That’s when it all clicked.

Of course.

Carbonated mortars.

The soda makes the undeniably corrupt zealots of delivering pizza weak. Of course.

A smile the size of the grand canyon formed across Hitomi’s small mouth as she raised, or attempted to raise, her arms.

“ I am ready to help with the acquisition and launching of carbonated mortars. Ma’am!” She announced to the commander of the anti-pizza coalition, who, ironically enough was straddling what Hitomi could only assume to be the corpse of the deliverers of cheesy goods' leader.

Her commander was a brave woman. That much was to be sure. She would retrieve for her only the most carbonated of mortars. She attempted to salute and almost fell once more. Some rational part of her mind reminded her she had a free hand to emote with.

Reputation..?

Hoshizora Aiko thinks. Reputation. But then, Uchima has a stellar reputation, doesn't it? Do the locals not like intellectuals? Did they resent Uchima students? She hopes she isn't targeted by any thugs. And a man on the inside? This was weird. What's worse, it was apparently common knowledge. Barely an hour in town and she was already at a disadvantage.

Aiko can't really ask, though. Whatever, we're hired. Let's take what we can get and have the bossman fill us in later.

Hoshizora Aiko stands up and bows.

"W-wel, I'll be in your care, er..."

She cocks her head upwards, .

"...Uh, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

@finalends

Drama Clubroom

With the greetings and farewells successfully dealt with, Lala Liu's next course of action was, predictably, to survey the clubs that Uchima Senior High boasted. Given the time, a well-worn Friday afternoon, many students were enjoying their time amongst their peers, working towards achieving whatever the goal of their respective clubs' mission statements was. However, of all the places to visit first, Lala's choice - the drama club - was a massive exception to what was expected of these extracurricular activities. A noticeable exception, in fact.

The sight that greeted Lala was a mess. The drama club room looked as if a force of nature had torn through it. Streaks of black and charred walls were everywhere. Furniture and cheap equipment had been overturn. Drying fire extinguisher was scattered across the floor. Shattered glass littered the area. Electrical wiring from a spotlight was clearly visible. A puddle of drying, coagulating blood, was right next to her feet. The room was chaos personified. However, it seemed to have been far worse at a prior time.

This was more or less the aftermath of something that had torn through it.

One of the possible club members was, however, still nearby, sitting on a cardboard box in the centre of the room, a dour, despairing air hanging over him.

---

@Zobozun

Sasori and Co. Investigations

"I did forget to introduce myself, didn't I?" mused the pink-haired young woman, her pleasant smile still aimed directly at Aiko. "I would love to tell you, but then, of course, I'd have to kill you."

She paused, expression immediately turning blank. The statement had emerged out of absolutely nowhere; had Hoshizora not commented on her desire to learn of the woman's name, then it would have been incredibly easy to classify those words as a non sequitur. However, there was still a miniscule relation between the topic of their conversation and the declaration. Even if it was utterly stupefying in its contents.

A number of seconds passed.

Her face reasserted itself into its more natural, relaxed form.

"That's a quote from 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'," she explained casually, as if she hadn't said anything at all. "He has Doyle's entire collection, so I decided to take a gander when our Internet got cut two weeks ago."

@Crimmy

Lala stared at the mess of the room. Usually most people would panic, but she would only assume it for another thought. The pool of blood made her jump at first, but she would slowly try to step in looking at the members on the cardboard box.

"You guys must be starting an interesting play, haha..."

Lala could feel the presence of the room becoming morbid. It would probably be better to walk out the door, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

She began to walk around the objects and pieces littered around the room and make her way to the club member on the cardboard box. Her current thought about this room is that everything was placed purposely to be a prop and a rehearsal where no one arrived, but then again the shattered glass seemed too fitting with a broken window near. She tapped the student's shoulder.

"H-Hello...," She stuttered a bit at first from the situation, but managed to at least remain calm, "this is the drama club right?"

@Mistress Dizzy @chukklehed @Zenphilvian @HereComesTheSnow @banjoanjo @demonspade64 @Suku

School Side

Although the thing, with frighteningly inhuman movements, avoided the first two of Jin's arrows, its body twisting in a manner that could not be achieved by any normal living creature, the latter two struck true, piercing into the thing's torso. The floating pumpkin head behind it flickered, golden eyes flashing menacingly, eerily, as the stolen image of Tomoda jerked forwards. There was no blood from the wounds. The heads of the projectiles had simply ... sunk in, ripping apart a layer of seeming-flesh on impact, only to meet oozing, unstable shadowy substances. A strange noise emanated from its direction as it lumbered forth, the floating head beside it swinging its attentions towards its attacker.

A glare? Whatever emotion was being felt by the thing (if it could even feel in the first place), it was clear that it was very much intent on pursuing Jin and Clotho.

Ignoring the rest of its foes, the thing started moving.

One step.

Another step.

There was no other way to describe its movements but as something ... unearthly, but it was rapid in its approach. Rapid in its pursuit. It moved straight towards Jin, speeding through the darkness like a missile.

Of the Persona users in the group, it had only "eyes" for Jin.

---

@finalends

NPC: Drama Clubroom

The student, a short-looking Japanese boy of approximately 1.52 m in height, with cropped black hair that had fading green highlights present in his fringe, glanced up at Lala. His brown eyes seemed to take a second to acknowledge her presence, clouded with a great amount of emotion, but they quickly soon widened, taking in her appearance.

"Oh, huh?" were the first words that exited his mouth. "Oh, uh yeah, this is the Drama Club."

He was not particularly on the ball, it seemed.

“Zio! Zio!” The word was slowly becoming more and more nonsensical and meaningless, but it was the only thing Kaede could do. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. Well, he didn’t know much, and that was the problem.

Then that thing appeared. It seemed intent on only one of them. The shadowy form seemed to defy reason and logic. Quickly it went towards, Kaede thought their name was Jin, who was preparing to fight back. Kaede first idea was to go behind it and attack (an obvious move, but reasonable), and tried to signal to the others to attempt the same. Most of them nodded in understanding, including the girl with the purple hair.

Taking a deep breath, Kaede looked to Oberon. He stood tall and brave, exactly the opposite of Kaede. Moving as quick as he could, he shouted that word once more. “Zio!”

Soda mortars...?

"Alright!" The delinquent hollered back, directed Benkei (with a wave of his arm that the monk seemed to understand, probably more mental than physical) to quite literally tear the sodas out of the now defeated DRU's head and toss them to Daisuke, who in turn threw them like a football back towards Kimiko while he retreated towards them.

"Get the other ones!" He directed Benkei, who turned to Bash the lefthand would-be flanking DRU while continuing to follow the same path of retreat as his master.

Senhime breathed somewhat better after the impromptu healing she was feeling better enough to stand though she was still shaky as she did so. "Please take me to the one that is injured" She said her voice still soft and hoarse but she stood strong despite how messed up this situation was she had a job and she would accomplish it at all costs. With determination lighting her eyes she kept track of what was happening not only was someone injured but now the dark figure was chasing someone as well. She needed to hurry heal the person than help with dealing with the fake.

Rena then nodded at the other girl before helping her walked to Akihito. "That him, he got burned knocking me out of the way from the fake attack. If you can treat him i be in your debt." She told her sounding worry. If there was one thing good thing about the Tetsuya clan is that why usually honor their word as best as they reasonably as they can. Meanwhile, Rena stayed on guard as Senhime healed both Akihito and herself. "Akihito can you hear me I'm so sorry my arrogance got you burn." She told him, through her mask mad her came off has cold underneath it was a lot of sorrow. "I'm going to rejoin the battle...and this time, i'm going to do all in my power to bring the fake down," she told him as he was getting healed.

@Suku@banjoanjo

I'm going to murder this woman.

Hoshizora Aiko assumes that either this woman either has some reason to hide her identity or, somewhat more likely, is some sort of autistic. Actually, that would explain quite a bit- that entire interview, for starters. She makes a mental note to ask Mr. Yoshinori about it whenever he comes back. She realizes the her posture is becoming a little too relaxed, so she cringes back into her original position and blushes a little.

"T-thanks, glad to be aboard. So, uh, when do I start? Oh, and, uh... The ad said there was a room? And, well, if don't mind, could I, uh... Could I see it?"

@Crimmy

Lala took a moment to stare at the short black haired male. The student seemed unpleasant to her currently. The room started to seem more of like a scene of an accident and a hazardous area, but she looked around to see that no one was around but the two of them.

"I see," she spoke after looking around her surroundings, "then where might be the other members?"

A single person couldn't have set up something like this. Lala wouldn't know why there were shards of glass or blood as they stood out the most. The others could just be elsewhere as they left this guy alone. That's one answer, but she wouldn't know what really happened. There was no one present in the room besides the only student she found and herself. She can do is but wonder.

"You're fine right?" she asked in worry. "Did anything happen in this room? Anything particular or so?"

@Zobozun

Sasori and Co. Investigations

"If you have your entire inventory, you're free to move in now if you want," replied the woman.

She rose smoothly from the chair, pausing for the merest of seconds to scratch an itch on her neck, before training her crimson eyes upon Aiko once more. A welcoming smile danced across her face. One could, if they wished to do so, compare it to a child's face lighting up in front of a candy store, but despite the sense of positivity about the woman's expression, it really wasn't exuberant at all. More ... genial.

"Just follow me," she said, moving towards a small corridor that joined into the main office. There was set of stairs heading upwards to the second floor, while right next to it was a series of descending steps into the darkness. It appeared that the agency had a basement as well.

"Your room is upstairs," she explained, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the staircase. "There's only a bed and a table right now, in regards to furnishings."

---

@finalends

NPC: Drama Clubroom

The boy laughed. It was a short, bitter laugh. A sound that seemed as confused and questioning as Lala's inquiry had been.

"Did anything happen?" he repeated, voice weak and shaking his head. "I don't even know where to start. We were just ..."

He flapped his hands around uselessly. He was having difficulty explaining.

"Just ... I don't even know, and it's just ..."

He stopped, dropping his flailing limbs back down against his lap. He was truly, truly downcast.

"It's not sticking in my mind," he admitted. "All I remember is ... something, and then I see Kaede-san running like, just ..."

---

@Krayzikk @Plank Sinatra @Write @Ayazi

Act (a) - City Side

The third of the hapless machines that had sought to burn Kimiko alive was crushed by the repeated blows of Benkei. As dangerous as they were, with their mighty pizza strikes and ability to set their foes on fire, they were still vulnerable to the power of such a frightening Persona. Indeed, with the loss of that one drone, the numbers remaining were now fifty-seven. The humans had turned the tide somewhat, but they were still horribly outnumbered.

And the machines would take advantage of that.

Three more rapidly moved to attack the newcomer to the battlefield, Hitomi. They rolled along the ground in their strangely intimidating manner, golden optics flashing rapidly, as they sent a trio of deadly, spinning wheels of pizza death towards the Persona-less young girl. Even at the same time, four of the machines mercilessly manoeuvred to meet Kimiko head-on, and instead of launching their balls of fire ...

Only glittering shards of ice, sharp and jagged and deadly, came flying in her direction.

Who would Daisuke protect?