DJAtomika

Persona: Crossroads

If by soft and supple, Carmen had meant muscled and tough, then yes, the person he'd bumped into sure was soft.

"So you must be sir bitchtits that needed saving in here, eh? Stay behind me. I'll handle this asshole."

Because the person he'd bumped into was none other than

Izuki Goemon

Just a while earlier...

Izuki had met the others at the train station the next day, just like they'd agreed on. Her bruises and scars were healed, but she had different gear on today. Instead of her uniform tied around her waist, it was a length of heavy chain that kept her ripped black cargo pants up. Heavy boots adorned her feet, and she wore her signature black fingerless gloves on her hands, bandages wrapped around her forearms.

As soon as she'd stepped on the train, the weird shit had started again. Time stopped, passengers stopped, everything glowing kinda faintly. She wasn't fazed by it at all. Instead, she took a seat and idly adjusted her gloves. It seemed like whatever healing magic had worked itself over her yesterday had healed up her bruises and cuts from the fight she'd had prior to...the weirdness. Izuki was fighting fit now, and raring to fight again. If not to save someone, to beat up any of the weird shit that had hurt Charon. He deserved vengeance for his friend...Izuki had felt sorry for the act but it had had to be done.

Then the train dove underground and promptly acted like it'd gone onto water like a boat. It shuddered and trundled along without a care in the world, no doubt Charon's doing.

The little blue wisp was there too, at the front of the train doing magic blue things. Taking them places. Hopefully where the idiot in distress was. The train surfaced in a bright cave, still water and perfect reflections of the stalagmites above. An entrancing place. Izuki did nothing but stare wide eyed and mystified as the train slowly trundled through the cave, then descended into the water.

A while later, she didn't know how long, the train resurfaced into a bigger cave and she stepped out, following the gang. The gray haired youth, whose name she'd learned was Akito, laid a cello case on the floor and opened it, revealing the vast array of sharp weaponry he'd risked his neck to smuggle into the train station. As the others picked and chose their weapons, she simply rolled her shoulder and cracked her knuckles.

Her fists and Hephaestus' fire were all she needed.

She strode over to Charon and his little blue form, picked him up and perched him gently on her shoulder. Then she turned to address the group.

"Alright fellas. No telling what's in there," she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the entrance, "but we'd better be careful, just in case. I'll go first, so y'all can use me as cover."

---

Izuki strode through the weird gold garden warily, watching the black goop vines as they writhed from under the hospital building ahead. She knew that mister bitchtits was in there somewhere, fighting for his life. Her intent was clear.

Then, a piercing scream.

"Oh my god, bitchtits is freaking out. I'll go first, fellas! Catch up quick as you can!"

Izuki broke into a run as she heard the panicked screaming. The doors of the hospital were made of glass, but that didn't stop her.

Without pause, she lowered her shoulders, covered her face with her arms, roared and charged straight into the glass doors. The panes shattered and sprayed into the building, making her stumble slightly as she caught herself. The screams were coming from...somewhere to her right!

"This way!"

She waved an arm and ran down a corridor and round a corner, and almost ran smack into the screaming young man, who was running away from shambling...corpse things attached to hospital drip stands. One of them was heading way, its arm dangling broken at a severe angle.

Izuki grinned.

"So you must be sir bitchtits that needed saving in here, eh? Stay behind me. I'll handle this asshole."

She strode forward and, as the thing lunged and grabbed for her, she grabbed it. She whipped her head back, pulled the creature towards himself and then drove her forehead into its face. With a sickening crack of bone its face crumpled, and as Izuki released it, she gave a brutal one two punch combo to the chest and finished it with a haymaker that spun its head around in a full circle, its neck cracking audibly as it groaned its last and collapsed.

As the creature dissolved into black goop, Izuki turned and waved to the group.

"Guys! Over here!"

Then the hallway became full of noise. Doors bursting open as more of the corpse creatures flooded the hall.

Izuki readied her fists and growled.

"Guys. Hurry up. Getting crowded in here!"

The Spirits Within: Oakridge Chronicles

Condolences, Rockette.

Persona: Crossroads

@Attis YOU'RE TEARING AT MY HEARTSTRINGS ATTIS
I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY
CHARON IS MINE

The Spirits Within: Oakridge Chronicles

_{O A K R I D G E    A C A D E M Y -[]- Rogart Hendrickson -[]-}

---

An explosion.

Scattered gunfire.

Screaming.

Chaos.

Rogart awoke to a horrifying ensemble. A symphony of sirens. Buried under a pile of metal that had once been their transport vehicle, he was alive merely by the fact that he was a Guardian. Geb, his stone spirit, had formed instinctively around him as soon as the transport took the plunge, but even it couldn't protect him from being knocked out cold from the countless times his head had slammed into something solid. His entire body ached, his vision was swimming and he had a stream of blood down his head.

But he was alive. And that's all that mattered.

With a grunt he freed himself from his predicament, brute strength and sheer force more than enough to lift heavy steel panel off of him. Nearby, his other companions were in various states, all okay but some slightly injured. He couldn't see Olivia or Nicholas, but he immediately spotted Graham and Monika. The latter had a trail of crimson down the side of her face, and the former stood, hands drenched in blood from a corpse.

In his heart he knew the two to be alright. It was their missing companions he was worried about.

His bright brown eyes scanned the wreckage of their transport, even as other soldiers milled around him, firing back at the Mordrem he knew were close by.

Then he spotted something. A pulse of bright light amidst the carnage. Rogart moved with purpose, and as he lifted the crate above the light, he found his friend's friend, Olivia. Her limp body was covered by a bright white glow, which dissipated as he hoisted her into his arms and onto his shoulder. She'd be safe for now.

Then he heard talking, and as he turned he saw Nicholas with the other two. He too was safe.

With Olivia cradled in his arms, he approached the group.

"Friend Olivia, she is still unconscious. We must find safe place first. Then we move on."

---

_{O A K R I D G E    A C A D E M Y -[]- Eric Wormwood -[]-}

---

"So. Here we are then."

Eric followed the young man called Ollie out of the transport. The silence was tense, only punctuated by brisk commands from the other soldiers in the area, and the sounds of gunfire in the distance. His rapier hung in its scabbard on his hip, and it bumped gently against him as he walked forward.

The Reactor complex laid ahead. Vast and looming on the horizon. He could sense Mordrem in the area; what else would the soldiers be shooting at that didn't sound human?

Eric felt a twinge run through him and a shiver travelled up his spine. For a moment...it was like something bad had happened, but he was no witness to it. On edge, he slowly drew his rapier. The metal sang a soft song as it left its sheath and he tested its weight. Much, much lighter than the practice batons in Oakridge. But deadlier.

He stood with Ollie, unsure of what to do, but ready to move at a moment's notice.

"Yes, we should get moving soon. Lest those Mordrem come our way and we have to get dirty. I don't think we'd hide very well if we stunk of dead Mordrem."

TL; DR

Rogart awakes from the crash, finds Olivia buried in rubble, gets her out and rejoins his team.

Eric emerges from their transport and takes Ollie's right side, weapon out but unsure of their course of action.

Mass Effect: Borealis

Y'know what's Hazan's first reaction is gonna be

"But I don't have a helmet- OH GOD MY EARHOLES"

The Spirits Within: Oakridge Chronicles

Working on a post.

The Spirits Within: Oakridge Chronicles

@Rockette They're both in my character sheets~, but Rogart uses Thor Bjornsson's face and build as reference.

The Spirits Within: Oakridge Chronicles

@Rockette D'you think you could do banners for Rogart and Eric?

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Christopher Francis Hurk

Once you get that file, things'll get clearer. It's kept in my place, inside a safe locked by a key. To get the key, first get to my PO box at Santa Somabra Central Post, it's 3267. Say you're a relative, they'll know. Inside the box is a slip of paper that contains specific instructions. Take that paper and head to First Grand Bank, ask for my safety deposit box. Repeat the instructions to the letter. Follow that trail, and in my box you'll get the safe key.

Avenge me, Hurk. Go get the fucker that wanted me dead.

Several hours later...

I stood outside the city's biggest post office. Somabra Central Post. Funny how a city this shitty still had infrastructure. Sometimes I forgot I was even in America, with how fucked up this place was.

I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep. Dag's...raising last night had, for lack of a better word, fucked me. It was jarring, knowing that life was so fragile and wispy. One could be pulled back from the black, like Andy and Benji, but who knew when they'd feel the pull that brought them back to the abyss? I couldn't imagine Dag suffering in the black like that. Or, for that matter, Alonzo.

Fuck...had it really been three years? Lost two people dear to me in the blink of an eye. Alonzo... I'd loved the guy. If there was a way to take him back from the hands of the werewolves that had torn him to shreds, I would've done so in a heartbeat. But I knew it was impossible. Just like my hope that, somehow, through some wild twist of fate, that that Valorie chick had the juice to pull Dag up and make him stay there. Dashed in the blink of an eye.

But today. Today was the day I sought my revenge. I didn't have to spin in circles any more, chasing my own tail. I had a path to follow. And it started here.

The post office itself was kinda archaic looking, like someone had plucked it straight from Greece or something. Big stone steps, tall pillars. I strode past all of those and pushed in past the big revolving door. The inside was neat enough; you had a delivery counter for those that were expecting post from overseas or cross state, mailboxes for outgoing local and international mail, info counter, so on and so forth. I guessed the PO boxes were somewhere inside. I walked my way up to the counter and the young lady there smiled at me.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Yeah, I'm looking for a PO box? 3267. Relative of the owner."

She nodded and gestured for me to follow her, so I did. She led me into a big back room, walls lined with rows and rows of PO boxes. Must've been for the entire city block! From a box of keys, she withdrew one and passed it to me.

"Here's the key sir. I'll be outside when you're done."

"Thanks."

The lady went back outside and I breathed a sigh of relief. So far so good. Dag's instructions were holding up just fine. I searched the wall of boxes until I found 3267, fitted the key inside and opened it up. Inside the box was an envelope. Fitting, really. I had to make doubly sure that no one else was around me before I opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper, printed.

I read it carefully.

It was written by Dag, obviously, in the event of his untimely demise by the Hunters. Something last minute. I knew it from the way he typed without the usual composure of his written notes. It detailed his contingency plan for the information that he had stolen from the Hunters. Five different locations in the city held five different dead drops. Each dead drop had a tiny lockbox containing one fifth of a keypad combination. Once all five pieces of the puzzle were together, I was to take it to First Grand, ask for his safety deposit box, and use it there.

An awning in the market at Chinatown.

The corner of a fence at Twilight Park.

Underneath an old bed frame in an abandoned apartment complex in the Slums.

The bottom of a metal trash can in Dawnpeak Heights.

Under the very last plank of wood at Pier 61, Butcher Bay Dock.

By the time I had everything, I was dog tired, sweaty, and kinda stinky from digging around that trash can. I took a break at my apartment to clean up, then headed downtown towards First Grand.

The building itself was massive, kinda like Town Hall in a way. But unlike our Greco-Roman central post office, First Grand Bank was very prominently Victorian. It felt like a huge mansion, which it kinda was in a way.

It was lunch time when I arrived there, so there weren't much people. I jogged in and caught one of the tellers as he was coming back from his meal.

"Hey man- "

The guy sat back in his seat and looked up at me. I could feel him judging my scruffy sweater and ripped jeans as he spoke.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Yeah, um, I'm looking to access a safe deposit box?"

The man slowly cocked an eyebrow.

"Which one, sir?"

"Um, uh."

I quickly consulted the scrap of paper I'd found in the first lockbox.

"Box number four twenty five A three? I'm, uh, the owner's nephew. Ben."

Whether or not the lie held, I wasn't sure, but it was part of the contingency instructions he'd written down. The man merely consulted the computer screen on his desk for a few seconds, nodded and motioned for me to follow him.

When you get to First Grand, look for a teller. Tell him that you want my safe deposit box, specify the number, and tell the teller that you're my nephew, Ben. Those specific instructions are part of my death plan for my box. They'll know.

"This way please, sir."

I followed the man into a hallway, which led to a bigger room containing a vault door. He entered a simple combination and the door slowly swung open. I followed him in and he led me to a particular wall of boxes and handed me a key.

"Your key, sir. Your box is on the wall. If you want to access its contents privately, we have several rooms in the back. Once you are ready to return outside, simply replace the box and press the buzzer on the wall."

"Alright. Thanks."

He nodded and disappeared without a word. I got to searching the wall of boxes, and found his box at the front column. The key I had fit perfectly, and the box slid out without a noise.

The rooms at the back had no windows, only a single door. I got into one, locked the door, and set the box down on the table. The key was still in the box, so I turned again and the lid popped open. Inside was a safe as big as the box was inside, protected by a keypad. I had the five scraps of paper from Dag's dead drops, and I pulled them from my pocket and laid them on the table.

Once you have all five pieces of the password, arrange them in this order: Docks, Awning, Trash Can, Bed, Fence. That's the code for the safe in my deposit box and the very last piece of protection I have.

If you're reading this and intent on avenging me, take the contents of the safe and get them to whoever's taken over my cafe. He or she will help you figure everything out.

With the papers arranged in that order, I entered the six digit password and heard a lock disengage. I flipped the lip of the safe up, and found a single thumbdrive. It was black, indiscreet.

I picked it up and held it in my hands. This was the rest of Dag's legacy, all the information he had on the Hunters, perhaps even more than that. But I couldn't tell by just looking at it.

I had to get this to Louie.

---

At Louie's cafe, two hours later...

"Well I can say one thing for certain, Hurky: your pal Dagmar was really, really good at his job."

"Yeah no shit, Louie. Dag was the best at what he did."

I sat in Louie's living room, idly thumbing through a magazine while I ate a sandwich. Andy was here too, but without his partner in crime. He said that Benji was off doing a little business. Busy. Couldn't join up. But Andy was curious as to how the Hunters had known that that night three years ago had been their moment to strike. After all, he'd been in the thick of it.

"Alright, well that thumbdrive of yours was the motherlode. I knew a lot of Dag's material here was incomplete; holes everywhere. I didn't know where to find the missing pieces, I looked god damn everywhere. And now you've got 'em in this little drive. It includes all the shit he has on the Hunters."

His printer was whirring away, and he grabbed a sheaf of papers and handed them to me.

"Here, have a look."

I took the stack and thumbed through the pages. Each was a single page profile: picture, age, biography, name and alias, stuff like that. There were loads of 'em, and more kept coming.

"This is a list of every single Hunter that's set foot in Santa Somabra. I don't know how he managed to make all these connections, but there's shit in here that goes all the way back to three years ago, maybe even further."

I found proof of that in one of the bio pages. Abigail Ames. Hunter alias: Amelikas. Known associates: Brunkas, Christakas, the list went on.

The big cheese and her cronies.

"Andy. Take a look."

I handed him the sheet and he mulled it over as I kept digging.

"Huh. So that's who the bitch was. Couldja believe that white wolf was a fuckin' lawyer? Cause I sure can't."

"And she had something against the entire city."

"Big fuckin' megalomaniac if I ever saw one. For a werewolf."

I quickly found sheets for her cronies, including Brunkas, the werewolf we'd taken down together three years ago. The night I'd lost Alonzo.

"Robert "Bobby" Singer. Alias: Brunkas. Mechanic. Owned a junkyard just outside town."

"Seriously? That big, fast fucker was a mechanic? No fuckin' wonder he could hit like a truck, he goddamn fixes those things."

"I know, right?"

I sorted out the rest of Amelikas' cronies and laid their sheets on a separate table. I saw all of her big named cronies, the ones that had torn up the city and subsequently met their ends by one way or another. Then I saw other associates, ones that I hadn't seen before obviously. On some of them, Dag had plastered a big red "Deceased" stamp, and listed the reason why. But most were untouched. Still active.

All of them were listed relations to Amelikas. By blood. Somehow.

I knew that one of these assholes was the wolf that had bit me, cursed me into this thing. And another had ordered the hit on Dag when he was getting too close to their secret.

But who? And what if they were the same person?

I gathered all the papers that were cronies under Amelikas and not, y'know, dead, and handed them to Louie.

"Hey Louie, d'you think you could help me do background checks on all these folks? Where they're from, what they do, any criminal ties, everything."

He took the stack, looked briefly over them and nodded.

"Sure. What d'you want me to look for?"

"Any connections to the mob, or some other criminal element. Include mentions of George Chin, and maybe the Chemical Fiends too."

Louie nodded again.

"Easy enough. I'll have the results to you in maybe a day or two. I'll contact you when I'm done."

"Thanks."

I took my sandwich and left Louie to his own devices. Andy followed me right after.

"So, after you do get all your crap together, what're you gonna do?"

I gave Andy a glance as we stepped outside.

"First, I'm gonna find who killed Dag and kill the fucker. Then I'm gonna find who cursed me and kill him too."

Persona: Crossroads

Izuki Goemon

"He's...he's gone, isn't he?"

Izuki watched the little blue wisp hop from her hands, glowing tears rolling down his blue cheeks. Her face was set in stone, and she struggled not to whimper and cry along with him. Poor guy. That big, three-headed hellhound must've been his friend at some point. Izuki was sure of it. Why else would he be reacting like this when they'd killed a monster?

Unless...the beast hadn't been a monster to begin with?

Questions swirled around her head, even as one of the other girls (Nira, a voice in her head told her) offered up her palm for the little wisp to sit on. Without saying anything either, Izuki gently picked up the little wisp and set him down in Nira's palm. Maybe if her hands weren't enough, someone else whose palms weren't perpetually rough would suffice.

And I didn't even get your name, little guy.

“I’m- really sorry you all got dragged into this, but… someone else got pulled into where I’m from and- I think they’re in really, really big trouble.”

That made her froze. Someone else?

“I understand if you guys don’t want to help but... I don’t think I can get them out by myself! I’ve never been able to go in too far because it’s so dangerous. There are all sorts of monsters and, I... think they might be what’s causing some of this. I know that Bear- my friend, didn’t start acting like that until they started acting out.”

Izuki sat on the floor of the train car to think. What the little guy had said confirmed her suspicions: the big hellhound hadn't been that way in the past. Which means someone or something had made it that way. Or changed it. Whatever the case, the little wisp was tugging at her heart strings. She had to do something.

She sat up straight and addressed the lot of them.

"Well I sure as hell know that sitting around here and doing nothing is dumb and stupid. If we're gonna do anything, we should help the blue dude. If someone else is trapped in the same predicament we were just in, it's also dumb and stupid that we don't help. And I'd be fucked up if I said I didn't care."

Izuki stood up and stretched, rolling her shoulders a little.

"So. Who's ready to go kick some more ass and save this fucktard that went and got himself trapped?"