The Investigation Begins! (Open)

[Deleted]

Yukari had been seeing them appear for months. Like holes in reality, gaps showing a ruined Kanehira City. Every time she went with the news crew to investigate reports of the city's strange happenings one of these was always nearby. The problem was that nobody else could see them.

So Yukari had made a plan. She'd been scavenging the old machines that the A/V club had discarded when they got their new equipment to set up a radio transceiver and see what she could learn. If Gin knew what she was doing she had no doubt he'd be banging down the family's door to get in and stop her. But nobody knew.

When Yukari snuck out that night it was with her bag on her shoulder, a small handheld camcorder in her hand and a handy little radio wave scanner she'd cooked up. She knew stuff! She was going to try to see if she could get something useful off one of these rifts, look around just inside for a bit. Research. The industrial district was her chosen haunt; anywhere else there was the chance of people running in to her and questioning her-- or worse, sending her back home!

She had wandered for half an hour when she found her rift, gazing in on a decrepit factory that chilled her blood to look at. But somebody had to investigate, and Yukari Hamada was one smart cookie, why not her? She flipped on her camcorder and swept it around the area, to give a clear picture of where this entry hole was. The next step was to try to get something off of it with her radio transceiver, rolling slowly through the different frequencies to pick something up off of the hole... But there was nothing. Then, taking a deep breath and putting away the radio, she turned on her camera and stepped inside.

Rotting factories surrounded her, like a picture of an apocalypse from a video game. It was cold, colder than it had been in the Kanehira winter, and a sense of pervading dread filled her. Setting was wrong with this place. Very, very wrong. But she wouldn't be cowed, no way! She had to do this! This place had to be the cause of what was happening to her town! Yukari stepped up on a length of rusted piping to get a better view, scanning with her eyes and her camera. Rubble littered the street, an overturned dumpster had been crushed with... It looked almost like a fist imprint. It was farther than she had intended to go in tonight, but Yukari advanced down the street. "This is huge," she said to herself, barely a whisper. It broke the silence almost like a gunshot, the eerie place almost fighting against the intrusion. The feeling of dread only deepened, and she felt an air of worry wash over her. She looked back at the rift she had entered only to see it twisting itself shut. Oh, oh crap.

She was trapped here.

Fighting down a wave of panic, Yukari decided to advance. She could find another rift, they opened up all the time. Right? Right. That was when her eyes were drawn, as if by someone's voice, to a dark shape up the street. She couldn't contain her gasp as she watched. It was low to the ground, twisted arms black as night pawing the ground as it moved. Whatever it was, Yukari wasn't sticking around to find out. It noticed her just as she was sprinting to get away, feeling something in her tugging her in a certain direction. Whatever it was, she was okay with getting away from this thing!

And all of a sudden she had hope, because there was a person around! Right? Was that what she saw out of the corner of her eye? Could there have been others trapped here? Of course there were, idiot, all the disappearances! "Help! One of them's after me!" she shouted, not needing to look behind her to know the thing was catching up over the uneven ground. A more grounded Yukari would have hated to admit it, but right now she desperately needed help from somebody a lot stronger than she was!

[Isolde Spencer]

Wearing the same clothing from when she paid a visit to the shrine for judo lessons, she had seen another rift near the Industrial District though she was certain that no one ever went there except to look at the dimensional portals in the air or something. Beforehand, she had placed her rapier in its scabbard which it was strapped to a belt. She hadn’t been to the Inverse World ever since she had accidentally stumbled into one while in the shopping district, but she had to keep up with her training. When she entered through one of the rifts, the portal would disappear which she would have to find another one to exit later since she would be training on her own. Her parents would probably worry for her well-being along with her older siblings, but she would probably make up an excuse later on if they press her for details on how she snuck out at night. The blonde young lady would see that there was rubble everywhere and some dumpsters which hadn’t used in a long time until someone cried for help. “Careful. I sense danger, Isolde.” Nero’s voice would tell her that she had sensed some dangerous enemy which Isolde had to know what kind of danger this unknown person would be dealing with. Upon closer inspection of the figure that was running away from a Shadow, it was a brown-haired girl and that she was being attacked by a Maya which this girl clearly needed her help. She would step in between the girl and the Shadow before the short blonde-haired girl clad in a red imperial dress would materialize beside her master. “Worry not, I shall save you. Nero, Bufu.” The girl would cast an icy spell where a small ice shard appeared above the Shadow and it crashed down on it. Hopefully, this would bring the attention to her rather than the frightened girl. tag: Gin Seimei , @yukari ▪ words: 252 ▪ ooc: None.

made by kei at GS

[Jonathon McDowell]

Jonathon hadn't planned on this. He'd been exploring the Inverse when he caught sight of the brunette being attacked by shadows. Before he could do anything however he saw a familiar blonde appear through a rift. "Isolde?" Jonathon shouted, surprised to see his girlfriend appearing there at the same time. He rushed over, getting closer to her and summoning Seth to fly above him. "Agi!" He pointed as Seth launched a fire ball at the shadow attack the girl. He stopped, putting the brown haired girl and shadow between himself and Isolde. "Hey, funny running into you here." He said, smirking at the blonde.

[Gin Seimei]

The smell of rust, poisonous fumes and the sight of claw marks on each and every pipe seen for miles, this place was very dangerous out of many other places within the inverse, a wrong turn could lead to very bad end for some and Gin has heard from others around the inverse that this phenomena wasn't common, apparently some places within the inverse can be counted as kill zones when the real world is under a natural disaster. Fog makes some places in the residential district extremely hard to traverse and will likely get you killed from shadows excelling at sight and/or smell. The rain makes places around the shopping district full of elemental resistant shadows for days, if your persona only is a caster then most people die under minutes.

Gin could list many places around the place that he's explored during these years of traversing the inverse but no place has been more harder then these factories, Gin gives this place a serious 7/10 on his personal danger rating scale. All the monsters to the road-runners to Killer-beetles have shown up here without no warning and has once just totally broke one part of the place down and erected some kind of base. Some shadow are sentient, like those who come from attaining a person's persona and/or some just eat other shadows and gain their abilities, those type of shadows are the worst and Gin is lucky to not meet one in real life as of now.

Dispersing his trail of thought, Gin soldiered on cautiously as every step deeper would result in one more step needed to get out of this hellfest. Gin's ears twitched from the sounds of people shouting attack moves, are they children? The shouting will draw more enemies into the fray! Gin's inner self just sighed and slowly made his way towards the sounds of fighting. He was quite surprised when he got there however.

As a darkened figure moved past some pipework, the figure stopped before his body could be recognised, clouded from the layers of clothing that hide his blonde hair all the while his red eyes pierced through the simple mara that was on it's last legs. Gin's arms stretched through the darkness and felt some kind of light, blue light that formed a circle on the ground and slowly behind the clothed Gin shown Lancelot. 12 feet in all of his knightly self, Lancelot's red eyes just slowly glided from one human to the next until reaching the shadow, Gin's sudden appearance while bathed in the blue light that was contradicted by his red, crimson eyes made him quite frightening to say the least.

With a little snap of his fingers, Gin sent Lancelot to smash his blade into the mara, turning it into dust as a result. Lancelot after killing the beast ended up just sheathing his Arondight into the ground, making a pose like those knights some see in TV while Gin sighing. Slowly showing himself as he walked towards Lancelot in his clothed self but while taking his hood off and looking a Yukari, he was pissed.

"Fancy meeting you here too...Yukari...Isolde..." Gin's anger roamed mostly on Yukari since she of all people was likely to be here on her own accord, even when knowing this place is dangerous. He let a sigh once more.

---

Notes: Done!
Tags: @yukari . Isolde Spencer . Jonathon McDowell

[Deleted]

Yukari didn't know how she happened upon the people she did, but she wasn't about to complain. The new foreign girl in her class was front and center and summoned some sort of monster to fight the monster. With her position behind the blonde, whose name she couldn't quite remember, she really felt like she should have kept running. A boy appeared moments after the monster chasing her was hit with a big chunk of ice, calling out another monster and this monster shooting a fireball. What in the world?!

"Whoa... How did you guys...!" Yukari questioned. She wished she were capable of questioning how this was even happening, but... Well, she had just been attacked by a shadow blob monster in an alternate dimension, she guessed at this point anything was possible. She retreated a safe distance away, pointing her camcorder at the action. That was when ANOTHER giant monster appeared and the big knight stabbed the dying monster with a big sword. By the Gods, this was a nightmare. Worse, the guy who came out of the shadows with the knight? She knew him right away. She knew his hoodie before he took the hood off.

Gin! And he looked mad. Whatever. "Gin! What's going on? What are..." Yukari stammered, pointing at the summoned things and eyeing them with a healthy amount of fear. "You can see them too, then? Those holes to this place? I thought I was the only one who could. I came to see if I could find out what was going on. This place has to be connected with all the stuff going on in Kanehira, I know it!"

Yukari paused at that, turning away from the group to think. Given how often she'd seen the rifts, and the spaced nature of them, she was pretty sure they'd have to explore the area to find an exit. "Okay, so, I think we all probably came in through the same rift. It closed about a minute after I went in, so we'll have to find a way out of here. Maybe after that we can talk about all... that. Um... I'm Yukari Hamada, by the way. I don't think I've met either of you yet. But we can talk about that once we're not in the spooky run down factory district. We need a safe place to come up with a plan for exploring this place, after all." Yeah, Yukari knew Gin would hate that. But at this particular moment, she didn't care. She had some words for him, too.

[Isolde Spencer]

At that moment, Jonathon would appear beside her and that he was actually a little surprised to see her with the girl as well. “Fancy meeting you as well, love.” For a while, she felt happy that she got to fight side by side beside her boyfriend, but there was another monster that would attack the girl only for a handsome dark-haired knight to cleave it into two. The hooded guy turned out to be her senpai, Gin and that he actually greeted the two with a bit of an angry tone where it was directed towards the girl. “It is a pleasure to meet you again, senpai.” She would reply simply as she probably didn’t want to make the anger worse. Unfortunately, the girl wanted to investigate the place despite being in danger from Shadows which would be problematic if she didn’t have any Persona. “I feel if we are going to explore safely, I might as well offer my protection. This place is dangerous without something to protect yourself with.” Indeed she would be concerned that this girl had nothing on her to protect herself with and that was probably the last thing this girl would bring which was camera equipment and some transceivers. There was something about that factory that just gave off a creepy vibe to her… tag: Jonathon McDowell , Gin Seimei , @yukari ▪ words: 252 ▪ ooc: None.

made by kei at GS

[Jonathon McDowell]

When the Mara was smashed Jonathon relaxed a bit and Seth dissipated. "Hey Isolde...Are you alright." He said, moving to stand next to her and grab her hand. As Yukari talked Jonathon listened and then shook his head. "I came in from a different rift. I've been trying to figure things out around here, for the most part on my own. Granted, it seems like every time I come in here now I find someone else who can see these things." He looked at Yukari and sighed. "I guess the more the merrier, or something to that effect. While we here, we may as well look around."

"Fancy yourself a leader than. Good for you, making strides. Maybe you'll find a way to get rid of me after all" Jonathon's shadow said in his mind before laughing. "Sometimes I make myself laugh. I'll get my day soon enough." Jonathon just shook his head and looked around. "So, does anyone have any ideas?"

[Gin Seimei]

Gin's narrowed eyes slowly relaxed, although still wary for things around him Gin wasn't going to let anything escape his knowledge nor scouting. With cold sweat running down his back, he turned to face Lancelot who's face was as unsurprised as usual. With a single click of his fingers, Gin sent Lancelot to survey the surroundings in making sure whatever comes their way, they'll be able to at least postpone the whole killing of his friends thing.

Sighing, "Yes, I'm a persona user, several years experience in fact." Gin's tidy remark summarised his time spending here, "This place hasn't seen better days, neither anywhere else but one thing is for certain..." Gin's tone sharpened to that of a blade, all the while crossing his arms in refuting whatever they will say in response, "Leave. We should run away from this place as quickly and quietly as possible, there are things that make me even scared to meet...from giant panthers can run at mach 1 speed to giant stag beetles that will impale their sharpened horns through anything" unpleased, Gin started to walk over to Yukari, frowning.

"I'm not going to let you stay here of all places, If I can't protect you, what would I say to Jiro-san and Hanako-san?" mentioning Yukari's parents was always a tough subject for Gin to even bring up since he never really understood what is was like to have them, but he did understand what he'll instinctively do if a friend was killed. He loose all sense of reason, that's why he won't let anyone here get into contact with more high level shadows, possibly be lucky to have only the small fry come over but even that's deadly in it's own regard, they can call for reinforcements.

Extending his hand towards Yukari with an sympathetic look, "I get that you want to help, I want to too but I is hard for me to look after you all alone...I don't want to loose more loved ones as it is, you of all people know that" Gin stands while sighing, if Yukari will still start to act as cheeky this time around, Gin might just use some drastic measures to get everyone else out instead of a peaceful talk.

---

Notes: Yukari can or not pick it, I'm not going to make Gin force her in any way nor find a rift very soon either, I personally want to drag this out a little further then we can.
Tags: Isolde Spencer . @yukari . Jonathon McDowell

[Deleted]

Gin would have a lot of explaining to do, and for a moment Yukari's temper got the better of her. "You knew about all this?! About those monsters? There's more?!" she cried, clenching her fists and glaring at him. But despite him berating them and trying to dissuade them, the blonde and specs had stood beside her idea. The solidarity was welcome.

"It looks like all of us came to this place to explore it alone. We're here now, aren't we? And more than that, until we find another one of those rips we're stuck here," Yukari reasoned, hopping up on a pile of rubble and taking a second to make sure she kept her balance. She fixed Gin with a glare for being self righteous, but she needed to think. She was cold and scared, and angry and curious. She was getting a headache, too. She needed time to process all this craziness. "Gin, I don't want to lose my best friend any more than you do, and you've been running around this place for years! Ugh. I need time to think..." Yukari hopped down from her perch and felt a... Presence, almost. As if someone familiar had called her name, drawing her attention up the street opposite the way she came. Something inside made it feel like that was the right way, and she didn't hesitate in starting in that direction for a few steps. Didn't want to leave the rest of the group behind, for purposes of her own safety. She turned where she stood, smirking confidently.

"When we get someplace safe we can talk about it more, but I think we should work together at least long enough to find another way out. I'm not super interested in staying here permanently, I like the warm sun better. I feel like we should go this way, together. There's safety in numbers, in case we get attacked by one of those tough ones Gin-kun was talking about. I've got a good feeling about this way, which is saying something in this place!"

___________
Yukari is gifted with a little help from Cassandra already!

[Jonathon McDowell]

Jonathon sighed, realizing this already long day was probably going to get longer. "I'm pretty sure there's a rift around here somewhere. The one I cam in through can't be too far away." He glanced over at Isolde, and then back at the other two. "Seeing as the three of you all know eachother, I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm Jonathon, I've had a persona user for a while now..." He stopped and looked at Isolde again before taking her hand and smiling. "And I'm currently dating Isolde...yeah..." He looked at the other two and then back at the factory. "So, let's get out of here, shall we?"

"That's right, lead them to their safety...or their doom." The shadow said, starting to push in Jonathon's mind, causing him to finch a bit and his eyes to flash golden yellow for a split second.

[Isolde Spencer]

It looked like Yukari really wanted to investigate the place and not have Gin drag her to a rift which it was fine with her actually. Before she could formally introduce herself to the girl, Jonathon would beat her to it though he did smile at her before taking her hand. “I am alright, thank you.” She would respond to his concern as she continued to her own introduction since she might as well get that out of the way. Investigating the entire factory would probably warrant some dangerous does that she would have yet to encounter and that she wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of this creepy factory. “As for introductions, I hail from the kingdom of Nohr as the youngest child of the royal family.” She probably didn’t mind exploring the factory with the group, but it was up to Gin-senpai to decide the fact if he was going to take Yukari home or let her do the investigation. It seemed like this investigation might help Yukari in learning more about the monsters that lived here and the missing people as well which she wanted to know what happened to them too. There was no turning back once Yukari would make up her mind that she wanted to drag the group along with the investigation which the blonde foreigner didn’t mind it as much as Gin-senpai wanted to get Yukari home before it gets dangerous. tag: Gin Seimei , @yukari , Jonathon McDowell ▪ words: 252 ▪ ooc: None.

made by kei at GS

[Gin Seimei]

"Then let's leave quickly, I'll trust your judgement Yuki" Gin took the front as his apathetic looks blitzed across the factory clearing beyond, it seemed a little open for him but having manoeuvrability in a place like this was a blessing in disguise with these other kiddos with him. His hand flicked and with a blue light illuminating the area around him while he re-summoned Lancelot in case something will happen, Gin previously sent him away for the suspicious lack of enemies around the area, that and Yukari didn't have one of her usual "I'm afraid" moments. She was starting to act a little like Gin in a way, this made him shine a smirk in this unassuming, encasing doom.

Gin saw what seemed like machinery and pipework for miles without a real straight goal in mind, just trusting Yukari's word would probably spark some kind of insecure around the other two but Gin didn't care, he although remembers where he came from but always knowing the brutality of the portal with his luck, it was probably lone since gone by now. The sights of metal just started to get boring after a couple of metres of walking Gin started to move his head around in different directions with the sights always reminding him of the same time he first ran into this place.

It was scarred, the sounds of eerie creaking of metal made a sounding melody throughout the site, broken concrete structures that had the metal still poking outside of it made appearances numerous times with the likes of even the beaming night's rays shinning down on the semi-green atmosphere itself created an even dreading palace of shadow heaven. Gin always wondered if the fact that this place always seemed dark and dreary was the subject of the shadow's presence in this realm? Or was it something else? Like a god bending this place to it's will?

Gin's thoughts became muddled as he walked onward, his large back seemed ever strong and just but shown a hint of shiver, the cold air loomed in the midst with something particular to a queen of ice's domain silently making it's way, un-noticed of the four. Let's hope that luck is on their side.

---

Note: This is a possible encounter, Gin is really weak to ice so we are going to have a bad time if things turn to the worse!
Tags: Isolde Spencer . Jonathon McDowell . @yukari

[Deleted]

The two foreign ones were dating, cool, whatever. Was the fact that they were practically trapped in an alternate dimension filled with monsters not at least a little bit discouraging of the lovie-dovies? Still, they followed along too, and that made Yukari feel a whole lot safer. Well, not really a whole lot, but every little bit helped. I mean, there were monsters around. She couldn't see them, but she knew they were there. She could almost feel them watching her. She had to keep her head or this whole ordeal would just get worse and worse. Gin took the lead, following her hunch, and she made sure she stayed in the middle of this little crowd of guys.

Even with her winter clothes on she was cold. Like, colder than she had been in Kanehira in the winter. In fact... Had it gotten colder since she entered the other world? It felt like it had, and she couldn't stop herself from shivering in the face of it. The other three were focused on the straight ahead, but Yukari felt led to look behind. A haze of frigid air was moving slowly in to the street from an alley, white fog contrasting sharply with the abundance of ambient green. Something like that couldn't have been any good. She grabbed Gin's arm to stop him, pointing and trying to work out just what she was seeing. "Is that normal? I don't think that's normal," She squeaked, feeling that presence again. The one from before, this time it was... some kind of warning? All of a sudden she just kind of knew...

"It's coming! Watch out!" Yukari shouted as a creature stepped-- well, floated-- in to the street. It had the basic form of a woman in a kimono, but the similarities ended there; a mask sat on its face with the roman numeral III carved in to it, its skin and much of the robe was black fading to a purple color at the fringes and below its waist, a golden sash tied around its waist. It was far larger than a human, even from this distance it looked taller than Gin, and with a kind of admirable elegance it raised an arm at them. There were no hands in the folds of the robes, but that quickly became irrelevant when the gesture caused a stalagmite of ice to shoot up from the ground in front of it aimed for the group! Yukari threw herself on the ground, just barely missing the blow.

I am thou... thou art I... Call to me and awaken your power...

And now she was hearing voices! Great! She was gonna die and she was gonna go crazy! Why had she ever decided to come in to one of these things?!

______________________________
BOSS FIGHT! Ice Spirit wants to battle!
BOSS MUSIC!
Weakness: ??
Resist: ??
Moves: Bufu, ??

[Isolde Spencer]

It actually seemed like Gin trusted Yukari’s judgement about leaving this place though this creepy factory compelled her to explore. The temperature there was very cold which she was visibly shivering from the bitter cold though she had to help Yukari escape from this place. Little did she know that something was following them and that she was right about it. It seemed that Yukari was panicked about something coming towards them and that Shadow took the form of a masked woman in a kimono. Isolde hadn’t had enough time to get acquainted with enemy Shadows since her awakening, but she knew that this Shadow was a lot more dangerous than the normal ones. Immediately upon sending danger, Nero would manifest herself once more with a determined expression on her face though she had to prioritize her praetor’s safety above all else anyway. “Nero, let us start with Bufu!” As the blonde foreigner’s command reached the short blonde girl beside her, the red clad empress would raise her red jagged sword into the air, casting a small ice shard that would strike the masked woman in a kimono. She would hope that it didn't resist the attack as it was likely that ice wouldn't be effective against a masked woman who seemed to emanate a cold air about her. Action: Nero used Bufu. tag: Jonathon McDowell , Gin Seimei , @yukari ▪ words: 252 ▪ ooc: None.

made by kei at GS

[Jonathon McDowell]

"Isolde wait!" Jonathon said, but not before she was firing off a bufu at the spirt that had just fired off a similar one. "Ugh, Seth! Agi!" He said, pointing as his persona looped around and blasted the creature with a fire ball, seeming to cause significant damage where the ice spell didn't.
"Now this is getting interesting, it'd be a shame if I tried to take over right now, wouldn't it." Shadow Jonathon said with a chuckle, starting to expand his influence but not taking over.
"No...not now...I won't let you" Jonathon said, flinching and clutching his forehead, Seth letting out a roar as Jonathon fought for control of himself. They already had one fight on their hands, they didn't need Jonathon to turn on them right now.