20 years ago, the Velvet Room

"Heh heh… Is this the p-path you have chosen, Lin Yao-Yu?" The inhumanly long-nosed old man struggled to speak, barely maintaining his usual unsettling yet courteous grin. "Do you truly… have n-no regrets?"

"Regret is for the weak, Igor, and my weakness has been purged." There was an odd metallic tinge to the Chinese young man's voice. That smooth white butterfly-shaped mask, Igor's most vivid of memories, now covered Yao-Yu's face, warped into an unfamiliar piece of technomagic that existed nowhere else in this world. Yet his eyes were even more unrecognizable, once gentle and thoughtful, now with an almost inhuman gleam that bore through the soul. "Nyarlathotep was right, you know. Philemon too was weak, no wiser than the ignorant masses from which he arose. That's why we will succeed where he did not even try hard enough to fail."

"And for that... you'll destroy anyone else that gets in your way?" Igor barely had the strength to grasp the armored hand that held him by the neck. His immaculate black suit was torn in so many places, some wounds deep enough to give a glimpse of the bloodless false flesh underneath. "What about your friends…? What about all that you've gone through together?"

"That's… That's right, Yao-Yu!" Her voice was always soft and quiet, and now it was little more than a whisper. The Japanese young woman didn't even have the strength to prop herself up into a kneeling position, as she strained her neck to look at those she thought she could call true companions. They're so different from what she's used to, covered from head to toe in austere mechanical exoskeletons, a painfully stark contrast from the extraordinary yet mundane human beings that she until recently laughed and fought alongside with. "Shahzad, Ricci, Ulisses, Ayin… Don't we… mean anything to each other anymore?"

"Save it, Shiori. There's no use reasoning with them." The young man of uncertain European descent, clad in a leather jacket and pants of rich royal blue, managed to remain standing, clinging to a piece of rubble, long platinum blond hair dishevelled but golden eyes sharp as ever as he glared at his former companions. "They're not the friends we know anymore."

"Indeed we're not," said the smooth voice of the inky-skinned androgynous person. "We were forced to overcome our human limitations."

"While you chose to stagnate, like Philemon himself." The Italian woman's tone was cold and unforgiving.

"And unfortunately… You really can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs." The Brazilian young man sounded easygoing still, but there was now this uncrossable gulf between him and the two he once called friends.

"I'm truly sorry, Alphonse… But for the greater good… For the sake of all humanity..." The anguish in the older Arab American man's eyes were plain as day, but everyone present knew that his conviction was more resolute still.

"What if there's another Ngwhi Pandemonium in the future? Or something even worse than the Dragon of Nought?" Yao-Yu shook his head. "We cannot afford to take any chances, and you are a threat to our plans."

"Heh… And what about Saklas?" Igor let out another rueful laugh. "He's still out there. Isn't he the bigger threat to you?"

"Maybe, but we will neutralize the threat in front of us right now." Suddenly, numerous magic circles flashed to life on the pair of large, incredibly elaborate butterfly wings behind the young man's back. "Goodbye, Igor. Humanity no longer needs you."

"AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Igor screamed as dozens of beams of intense, searing golden-white light mercilessly pierced him from all angles. As he crumpled to the floor, that perpetual grin on his aged face finally curved downward in a mournful cry. "I'm sorry, Master Philemon… I'm sorry… every… one..."

"Master!" Alphonse shouted, and tried to sprint forward, only to fall to his knees. "Ugh..."

Yao-Yu's chilling gaze turned toward Alphonse and Shiori. "Now, you three..."

"No! Don't you dare touch Sophia!" A sudden burst of strength filled the young woman as she tightly clutched the protective bubble of magic in her arms, the sleeping infant in it only beginning to show the same silvery blond hair as her father's.

"You two are uncooperative no matter what, but her… She has potential." His dispassionate gaze fell upon the baby, completely disregarding her parents' desperation. "We can forge her into the perfect Shadowless."

"You bastard…!" Alphonse growled. "Metatron!"

"K-Kushinadahime!"

As the two squeezed out what little strength they had remaining to rematerialize their Personas, feebly flickering in and out of existence, Yao-Yu sighed. "Very well. I will show you the strength of the Machina I have obtained. Come forth, Y-"

Light engulfed everything, and the Velvet Room was no more.

---

[This post contains some things that Persona fans may recognize, but don't worry if you don't recognize anything. Everything will be explained when the time comes.]

Present day, the Shadow Realm

This has to be a nightmare, Eida Shunsuke frantically thinks to himself. There's no way the so-called Saklas Syndrome can possibly be real. But here he is, sucked into his phone and dumped in this infinite expanse of blinding white fog, facing that twisted mirror image of himself with its tattered black suit, dull gray plastic skin, and unnaturally large, exaggerated, hellishly glowing red lipstick marks all over its face. It claimed to be his repressed inner darkness made manifest, cruelly mocked him having been stood up by his supposed date again earlier tonight, before its whole body contorted in sickening motions to transform into something straight out of a horror movie. A faceless mannequin nearly three meters tall, with the same lifeless plastic look, those oversized crimson lipstick marks branded onto every corner of its body. "N-No, get away from me!" The middle-aged Japanese salaryman stammers, not even mustering the strength to stand up as he feebly shuffles backwards while sitting on the ground in an undignified manner. "Y-You're not… I'm not..."

"C'mon now, Shunsuke. You know what I'm talkin' about." The monster is mouthless, but the lipstick marks all over its body seem to move with wills of their own, speaking in an eerie chorus of the voices of all the women that had rejected him in the past decades. "Seriously, fuckin' western feminism? You just wanna get your dick wet!!"

"Y-You're wrong! I r-respect-" He twitches as he abruptly feels his back against a wall, barely visible in this all-consuming mist.

"Look, I'm just gonna kill you and take your goddamned place," the creature hisses. The lipstick marks writhe and split open as if they're actual mouths, each bearing sharp vampiric fangs, a molten blood-like liquid trickling out from each orifice. As the caustic sludge pools upon the floor, emaciated caricatures begin rising, each barely in the shape of a woman, their shambling footsteps searing into the ground to create black smoke that stands out starkly against the white fog for a second before it dissipates. "You're such a fuckin' pussy that at this rate, you're gonna be a virgin till the day you choke on your own dick!"

"No… No…!" Shunsuke croaks helplessly as the burning she-slimes close in around him. "Someone, please…!"

But there is no miracle. A few seconds of unimaginable agony, and everything goes black.

"Heh… Heh heh… Hahahahahaha…!" The body that had once belonged to Shunsuke lets out a maniacal laughter, its horrifically charred skin and flesh repairing itself into the same lifeless plastic as that of the monster that now inhabits this body. Slowly, the gray returns to a facsimile of normal human skin tone, but a multitude of infernal lipstick marks still stretch across the body's surface. "Grh… Better than nothin', I guess. Now, time to go fuck some b-"

Suddenly, a glowing electric blue portal appears out of nowhere in front of "Shunsuke", through which steps out… Utasaki Aria, the virtual idol popular both in Japan and overseas, somehow in the flesh. "Oh no… I'm too late again!" She murmurs, her young, pretty face showing a mixture of horror, sadness, and pity.

"The hell…? Ain'tcha Aria-chan?! I knew you had something to do with this, you fuckin' western whore!" "Shunsuke" growls, his previously unassuming face contorted in an expression of obvious contempt that he would have never shown in front of his superiors, peers, or prospective dates. "It's because of you that the other me got his ass into feminism... Heh, I'm gonna teach you real good what a yamato nadeshiko should be like so you'll know your fuckin' place, you-"

"Sorry, Master. This one really doesn't sound like he's gonna be cooperative," Aria speaks telepathically to someone only she can hear. "Yeah… Alright, I'll proceed with capture. Geez, when are we gonna catch a break…?"

"Hey, hey, don't you fuckin' ignore me!" The Shadowman hisses. Holding out his hands, burning acidic blood once again drips from the lipstick marks at the centers of his palms. "I swear I'm gonna-"

Before he can finish, he barely notices the flash of blinding azure. Then everything goes white.

Daniel Astier blinked several times, confused and disoriented. He was sitting on his couch just then, browsing internet forums on his smartphone and having dinner. Now he stood in the middle of nowhere, a strange vastness shrouded by a white mist. When he turned around, he felt his skin crawl and stumbled backward as he faced... himself. Only it wasn't really Daniel. Same clothes, same hair... but the thing in front of him had a disturbing grin, distorting its face and wider than what should be possible with a normal mouth. "Wh... What the fuck is that?"

"Rude." The thing cackled. "Besides, you already know, don't you?" It stepped forward. "The voice that murmured to you all this time. The voice that you chose to ignore because you're afraid of the truth."

"You're... you're not real. You're not." Daniel was sweating. Was that it? Was he finally going insane, as he feared he would?

"Not real?" The other Daniel growled, his body bulging and convulsing as it morphed into a larger, bestial form, with arched legs and long arms ending with claws. The face was worse, a mockery of human features with a mouth stretching from ear to ear and full of sharp fangs. But the worst part was that the thing spoke again. "I am the only real one! You are a fake person. Nothing more than a shell full of lies. Lies to yourself, to others... But I know. I know your dreams, your deepest secrets." The hulking beast took another step towards a Daniel too paralyzed by shock and fear to even try to run away. "You're nothing but a coward. Too cowardly to be yourself, to act as you really want to."

Daniel breathed heavily as he struggled to keep his wits about him. He couldn't bear to hear this maddening voice that was so like his own. "Sh-shut up! You don't-"

Before he could say another word, the thing grabbed his face with its massive clawed hand and lifted him up, leaving him to helplessly kick the empty air. "You shut up. You don't deserve to live. You don't deserve to have ever existed. But I'm going to change that." The beast then effortlessly threw Daniel away like a cloth doll, sending him sprawling to the floor and screaming in pain when his left femur broke and perforated his skin. Daniel's head was spinning, and the pain was excruciating. "I don't want to die. I'm not going to die..." he thought as he got up on one knee, grunting with pain as the beast snarled and walked towards him, clicking its claws with a sickening laugh. "...but how?"