skippedabeat | Round 1: Test Drive

Welcome to the first test drive!

Please don't worry too much about using your Personas correctly or following the prompts exactly. They're meant to give you starting ideas, but by all means, go wild and add more options!

The objective here is to try out characters and see who you could have the most fun with in the game's setting. However, feel free to follow this link to request a Persona be generated for you as if you were part of the game. (~~Please try to limit this to only one of your test drive characters if you can as to not overwhelm us!~~ Never mind generating Personas is a pretty fast process! Request for as many characters away as you like!)

If you have questions about the test drive itself, you can ask them here! If you want to play an AU don't forget this entire post can be used for you to get AU scenarios set up and see who your character might have been related too or know before Awakening.

Now then, let's begin...

Prompt 1 - From Dawn to Dusk

The city has been abuzz for the past few weeks. A new string of murders is making front page news and serving as a grim reminder why the nightly curfew is so important. As families, perhaps even someone close to you, mourn, pressure continues to rise at the many police stations and at city hall. The people are afraid and they’re demanding answers.

There's not much time for you to dwell on this.. Like everyone else in the city, you have a lot to do, and a tight schedule to do it in. You don't even notice the application that has appeared on your phone's screen. The headache that follows, however, is strange and disorienting, and it brings with it an odd sensation that something is wrong today. You’re just not sure why.

The day passes by and soon, it's close to midnight. Your body, if you're not in bed by now, is completely exhausted. Despite your best efforts, you'll find yourself closing your eyes. Too bad it's quickly interrupted by a strange noise, and movement like something pulsating softly.

It's your phone, or at least you think it's your phone, but it's never glowed this orange before. There’s mist rising above it almost like fire...something's definitely bizarre about this. Despite your fears, you forces yourself to open it, and click on that strange snake-like icon.

It opens revealing a single statement and blank box;

To begin, please write your name.

Your fingers move on their own. Before you have time to really think about it, and as the pain inside your head becomes so terrible you start breathing rapidly and sweating, you've entered a series of letters and pressed enter. Now you're in a large chatroom with many others...but your 'name' you've never even heard of it...have you? It almost feels like you have...

Prompt 2 - Awakening

The last rays of the sun disappeared over the horizon almost an hour ago, yet here you are, walking through the apple orchards located behind one of the campus wings. The strange app that's been sending you strange clues the past seven days now says you're ready to face the truth. It told you to come here tonight, but never to travel alone. Repeatedly, it warns you to make sure to have someone close by if you're to survive…but besides some friends, what else did you bring with you? Did you pack for this, or did you figure you'd make it up as you go? Are you in a position to be able to bring weapons with you that no one would suspect?

Something is out there, and it's getting closer.

Before you can think, you see it: a large, blackish mass, almost like slime, slithering along the ground resembling a vaguely humanoid shape with glowing yellow eyes. When it roars again, it reveals rows and rows of teeth. This was a mistake your brain warns. The strange name from the chatroom, the days leading up to this...you're fairly certain even if you are prepared that you're going to die.

And yet, something inside you stirs. Even as they move closer, you find yourself charging instead of running, as your heartbeat increases. A voice inside is guiding you, each movement bringing forth a surge of memories of a past that you had lost. You’re angry and confused, but your pain, your fears, your rage for all of this… all of that needs to be taken out on those creatures.

All you need to do now is to tear out your heart.

Prompt 3 - A new, old life

Now that you have your memories back, the strange veil of this world has been somewhat lifted. Things that seemed simple now seem strange. You have so many questions, but not enough answers. Then there's the new weapons you wield and the strange creature inside of you...your Heart Persona.

During the day, you are encouraged to continue to live as you did before, but with old and new memories together, sometimes it is difficult to keep acting like you did. Will it cause issues in your job or school life? Will it change your reactions to whatever life you had here? Do you notice others like you who have awakened?

Maybe it would be a good time to send a chatroom message, just to ask others what they are planning to do. Maybe you should set up a meeting to fight shadows at night. Maybe you’ll organize a plan of attack or set up a club to escape the strange looks others have been giving you. Maybe you just want someone's opinion on the best place to have pizza. Hey, no one said you had to use the AppleNET just for serious things, after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Your heart. It was less painful than I'd imagine it, which is still way too painful.

...Hang on. Are you hurt? I think... I can help with that."

"I'm fine!" He's not. "I've had worse. Believe me-" He probably pulled something and his ankle is sore in a way it shouldn't be, but part of him is going well, you can go into repairs and be fixed in a few hours and another part of him is going are you a sword now, though? and the rest of him is going this shouldn't be normal, plus, who knows where 'repairs' are.

So, after a pause. "My ankle's a little sore. It probably happened when I did that charge with the thing and then you did that thing with the...uh..." There's a hand gesture that's supposed to imply 'that cool magic thing.'

"You shouldn't walk on a twisted ankle. One moment."

It's much less painful, this time - although her heart is huge, almost 8 pounds. The surge of power is wonderful - she grimaces. She's going to have to limit that, so she doesn't start doing it for it's own sake.

A bubbly pink pony princess in a cream witches hat appears, waves her hands as Twilight waves her wand, and a flash of blue light settles into his ankle. The pain should be gone.

First he stared at Twilight. Then he stared at the bubbly pink pony princess. Then he stared back at Twilight. Then he put weight on his ankle and decided that...you know? He was okay with this.

"I don't know what you remembered, but back...home?" Was it home? Close enough for conversations like this. "It would take us hours to get fixed after battles. I wish we had this. It would've saved us a lot of tim- oh, I'm-"

There is a long pause.

"-apparently Tsurumaru."

Unlike the other unsure moments he was pretty okay with the name part, actually, the more he thought about it the more he thought it actually worked well. It was him. The other name chaffed.

"Twilight," she says, sighing. "Names back home for me are much more... on the nose than most of the ones I've heard here."

She shakes her head. Orobas is already gone, and her chest is no worse for wear. "Dia. The incantation for the healing spell is Dia. I have literally no idea how I know that. Which is worrying enough without... everything else."

“Yeah…I know.” He was about to launch into an anecdote about the first time they got stomachs, culminating in talking about the time his buddy got so hungry he passed out because he didn’t understand what that aching feeling in his gut was, when he paused, rewound the conversation in his head, thought about it for a second-

“Maybe you just saw-“ No, actually, he shouldn’t assume other people shared his experiences or were of the same nature as him. (All of this was so weird.) “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened to me, so I can’t say it’s really…worrying to me. I guess it’s the first time I ended up with parents - that’s new.”

"I'm going to assume for a moment that you aren't natively human, or from my world. I'm going to assume this because your true form isn't standing on four feet... hmn. And more importantly has a mane of hair, but no coat."

Canterlot High School sure is weird.

"Plus, you know, having parents as a novel experience. Do you remember having creators?"

She leans against the wall and catches her breath. "The family I have here are much like my own. Veteran father, policeman brother, mystery writer mother. Read Arsene Lupin and Hercule Poirot to me on her knee - just like she read Le Cavoleur Arsene and Hercule Poiroan in my own world."

Tsuru had the distinct sense that he was on the cusp of realizing something but couldn't quite grasp it, something important and profound, but...nah. (And then six months later he'll realize she comes from a world of horse puns.)

"That sounds nice, actually." Meanwhile, apparently his fake dad and he had a strained relationship, go figure. But at the same time having a dad in the first place...it's not bad. A new experience. "I don't really talk to mine. Here. I mean-"

Screw it. And here he abandoned any pretense of cool, composed taking it in stride in favor of basking in the sheer what he was feeling. (With a certain degree of taking it in stride because he was what he was, but still. What. He was going to stare at his silverware drawer later that night and just have so many questions about everything.)

"Do you really want to know? I don't mind, it's just...weird. I'm apparently the spirit of a sword that was summoned to fight...things, that's also complicated, and I traveled through time a lot."

"I've met stranger beings," she says, with a smile. "Did your Persona tell you it's name?"

"I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy ripping out my heart, fighting the enemy...that sort of thing. Probably should've." He should've probably paid attention to a lot of things.

She sighs. "...I'll try to figure it out based on their appearance, but the Lesser Key of Solomon didn't think of Orobas as female. It's colored by our own self image; it is a Persona, after all."

Now, he wants to push off and say that he's tired and go home, take a shower, stare at the cutlery drawer and ask himself a lot of questions, and sleep. But he doesn't have work tomorrow nor class - it was a rare free day, one in which he could sleep in until 2PM and no one could judge him for that.

So, with a grimace, he stands up and looks around and asks, "You know what we probably should be doing?"

Making sure someone else isn't bleeding out around them, that's what. He wants to be lazy, dammit.

"Finding other people to help. Or at least find a group and get ourselves to safety."

She offers him a hand up.

Round 1: Test Drive

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I had to reach for the Arsene horse pun be grateful

I'm honored.

hooray for bilingual bonuses

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject