Authors Note: This is a SU!Persona AU, it follows inspiration from both Persona 4 and Persona 5, and let me tell you that this is not going to be all that happy. There's going to be death and other potentially upsetting themes in this story. As always, I'm open and welcoming friendly criticism.

Earbuds were plugged in her ears firmly so as to not fall out too easily, blasting away at full volume a symphony of guitar solos and chaos on a drum set. Beside her on the empty plane seat was a dark blue backpack. It was easy for her to block out the mindless chatter of the world around her as Lapis Lazuli rested her head against the glass window of the plane she was on. She was, to put it plainly, bored out of her mind. Several thousand feet above the ground and currently on a six-hour flight from the west coast, all the way to the east coast and she couldn't have been in a worse mood about it.

Now, to get one thing straight, Lapis didn't hate flying. It wasn't that she was on a plane that was the problem that put her in such a foul mood. In fact, the teenager loved flying and aviation in general. She always dreamed of riding a plane, of piloting one, and had her own fascination with birds because of their freedom to take flight and go where they wanted. But here and now? Well, Lapis wasn't all that excited for this plane ride and what awaited her once it was done and over. She dreaded it as much as a college student dreaded their finals.

Her personal belongings, what little of them there were, had been packed up and shipped off weeks ago. They should have arrived at her new home already, and if not, they would be in the coming days. All Lapis had taken with her on the plane were a couple of suitcases of clothes and personal essentials, along with miscellaneous things she felt like taking with her on the plane.

She was, without a doubt, still pretty pissed off about the sudden move and what caused it to happen. Three months into the school year in her hometown and now she would be transferring, not just to a new school, but all the way across the country into a whole new town with new faces and new rules. How much more BS could it get?

All because of One. Fucking. Thing.

Lapis scowled as she glared out at the clouds they flew by, feeling a wave of hot anger flush through her body as she thought back to the incident which caused her sudden expulsion and move. Her parents didn't even try to defend her when she was arrested and taken to court, they couldn't be bothered to stand up for their daughter when Lapis had been in the right when Lapis was falsely accused and punished for a crime she never committed. They were more than happy to just throw Lapis off onto someone else and wash their hands of her rather than be decent parents, decent people and try to help fix this or even do anything helpful. It just gave her more reason to despise them.

It was no surprise at all that Lapis and her parents didn't get along at all. Her parents weren't the most open minded of folks around town, and they really didn't take it all that well upon learning that they had an openly gay daughter. Certainly didn't help that Lapis had quite the bad attitude, which she of course blamed on her home life and the passive aggressive tendencies in her family. The bitterness they caused always bled into her social interactions with others and she often lashed out at classmates. As a result, well, she wasn't all that well-liked at her old school, back in Empire City High, she had gained the nickname "Blue Devil". The rebel in the stupid, "perfect" prestigious school who caused nothing but trouble wherever she went. Yeah, sure, some of the rumors were just blasphemy spread to soil her reputation by people who didn't like her, like the one about how she was in a biker gang and dealt drugs at night, but, some of the remarks about her were somewhat true. Lapis could admit that she was far from a perfect angel.

One time she took apart an old car, one of the real old ones, the metal ones rather than the piece of shit plastic ones made nowadays. It was one of the other students, a real jerk of a person and a major bully around the school. She and a couple of other kids tore that car apart and then reassembled it on the roof of the school. The only thing they had left out was the engine since they couldn't lug something so heavy up the many flights of stairs. Her friend Bismuth did most of the work, the woman could take apart and reassemble nearly anything she got her hands on. Somehow, just somehow they didn't get caught and, to this day, no one knew who did it.

Lapis grinned a little and held back a small laugh as she remembered the face of the dickwad when he saw his precious muscle car chilling on the school roof. The staff had been completely amazed and confused, and it took hours to get it off from the roof. Then there were all the times that she destroyed the plumbing and just flooded the bathrooms of the school.

But, what had gotten her expelled and kicked across the country wasn't anything like that. It wasn't even her doing something wrong. She saved someone!

Her scowl returned.

She had gotten detention, so Lapis had to stay after school a few hours. Nothing new at all there. Even after getting done with detention, Lapis waited as long as she could before she went home, going to the river to skip rocks and drinking beer. The sun had gone down when she finally decided to go home to the mess was her house.

She kicked empty beer cans on her way home, cutting through downtown, past bars and casinos of the city as she walked. She may have been a little tipsy on her walk, not quite drunk, but not quite sober either. She wouldn't say that it hindered any of her rational thoughts or actions, she could easily pass a sobriety test if an officer decided to stop her. But, as she walked in the dead of night, where no cars were out and most were asleep, she could catch the sound of sobs and pleas to stop.

Now, let's just say their states mayor, Marty, wasn't quite as upstanding of a politician as he may have appeared to be to the press and media. Honestly, Lapis didn't even recognize the sleazebag as the mayor when she turned the corner and saw him holding, grabbing and yelling at a girl who looked like some local college girl. He was screaming at her to get in his car, trying to force her to do as he said. His intentions were clear.

Well, the girl had been fine in the end. Lapis had run over, grabbed Marty and yanked him off the poor gal. Sure, she was probably pretty traumatized on a psychological and emotional level, but physically she didn't have a scratch on her. The same couldn't be said for Mary.

Lapis had whirled around once she got him to let go of the girl and just decked him in his ugly face. She could feel bone crunching under her fist as his nose broke and watched as he hit the ground with blood seeping down his lips and chin.

Someone must have heard the commotion before Lapis arrived because police sirens were in the air before Marty could get up.

It wasn't any secret that Lapis had a poor reputation, she'd had multiple confrontations with police and authority figures in the past. Never got arrested but had to be picked up by officers and given warnings more times than she could count. She had a reputation for being prone to violence, for mindless violence. Even though what she did was to protect and save someone, the girl wouldn't even stand up and defend Lapis, wouldn't tell anyone what really happened that night when Marty used his position as mayor to get Lapis arrested. He claimed that he had simply been having a friendly chat with the girl when Lapis had run over and attacked him out of the blue. Said she was on some kind of drug that probably caused the erratic violent outburst, Lapis wasn't sure how but he even managed to forge the lab work to back his statement.

Lapis wasn't angry at the girl she saved; no doubt Marty blackmailed and threatened the girl somehow if she didn't testify against Lapis when the blue haired teen was dragged into court. Not like he needed too, with or without having her testify, he would have manipulated the court system into ruling Lapis guilty regardless. She wasn't angry at her, could understand why she would be too scared to tell the truth. She was just… disappointed.

So, Lapis got expelled, there was no way Empire City High was going to let someone who attacked the city's mayor in their school. Too much of a bad influence, a danger to safety because she might attack someone in school. Bullshit and more bullshit with even more bullshit sprinkled on top. They just didn't want to risk any damage to their reputation.

Even worse? She was outright arrested. Had to spend a couple weeks in a juvenile detention hall while they figured out what to do with her.

Now she was on probation. Her lawyer and the courts had made some kind of deal that Lapis honestly didn't give two shits about. But, the point of it all was that she was on probation and if she wasn't careful she'd be in juvie for a lot longer than two weeks. She even had a criminal record to boot now. To add to that, as she'd already mentioned, she was on her way across the country to a small, unassuming town by the ocean named Beach City where she would be living with her older sister while she attended the local high school.

Lapis wasn't exactly looking forward to it. She never really saw or talked to her sister all that much, after all, Pearl and she were only related by a shared father and nothing more. They didn't even grow up with each other, raised in separate states their whole lives with the only interactions the few and far between visits made so Pearl could see her father. Lapis could hardly call Pearl her sister, she was barely more than an acquaintance. Yet, for some reason unfathomable, Pearl had agreed to take in the little sister she had only seen a handful of times, who had a criminal record for violence and drugs. Even though she was likely filled with stories and lies about how much trouble she was bringing on herself by doing this, and how Lapis would undoubtedly just ruin her life, she was still willing to act as Lapis' legal guardian during all of this.

Well, Lapis had to give her props for that. And, in its own way, it did beat living with her asshole of a mom and dad.

Still, Lapis couldn't help the hot waves of anger and rage that boiled deep within her for this whole fiasco, for the injustice forced upon her. She did something good, something selfless for once in her life and what was her reward? Expelled. Arrested. Probation. Moving. It left her pissed, bitter and gnashing her teeth together thinking over how she got screwed over for doing something right.

Stupid adults.

Stupid world.

Society was broken. It was broken, manipulated, abused. Those in powers took advantage of what they had to hurt and step on those lower than them. No one did anything about it, no one would ever do anything about it. They turn a blind eye to what happens in favor of saving their own skins. Society was broken and she hated it. Hated it all.

Lapis let out a soft growl as she shook her head, trying to calm herself as her nails dug into the polyester of the seat armrest. She still had about three hours of her flight left and it wasn't going to do her any good to just be sitting there, simmering with rage and anger when she had no way to release the pent-up feelings while on the plane. So, might as well use the hours left to take a nap, it'd kill some time and maybe calm her down. Besides, she could use the sleep if the bags under her eyes were anything to go by.

Closing her eyes, she continued to block out the world around her as music crept into her ears from her earbuds. It wasn't easy, but slowly her senses started to dull as sleep crept onto her.

When she opened her eyes up again, everything was blue.

Now, while Lapis may be a fan of the color, as shown by her vibrant blue hair and her usual blue attire, there was a limit to how much blue should be used until it became overkill. She would say that the room she was currently in was very well past overkill. The walls were blue. The rug was blue. The stone floor somehow was blue. Even the lights somehow had a blue tint to them. The only thing in the room not painted blue was the prison bed, the iron bars and—

Wait.

Why was she in a prison cell?!

Lapis threw herself off the bed and onto her feet, almost tripping on the chain around her left ankle that bound her to the cell, but managed to keep herself upright. Taking a look around her cell, she began to approach the iron bars and grasped onto them as she peered into the rest of the room.

It was circular. At least, it looked that way from where she was. There were multiple cells all around, curving around a spacious center room in a circular formation. As it had been already, the 'main' room was colored in all blue as well, not including the large brown oak desk in the middle of the room. Lapis couldn't find any sign of a door to get in or out of the room.

"What is this?" Lapis whispered to herself as she tightened her grip on the bars. She had to blink just to see if she'd wake up, and then again as her eyes widened in surprise. One moment the chair at the desk had been empty, Lapis the only sign of life in this place. The next? A woman was seated at it, staring right at Lapis. "What the, where did—ow!"

Out of nowhere, a riding crop came down hard on the metal bars right above where her fingers were at. Lapis recoiled quickly and stumbled back, cradling her appendages close to her chest as though to protect them as another tall woman came to stand in front of the prison bars, arms held behind her back and a scowl placed firmly over her face.

She was taller than anyone Lapis had ever seen, holding a military like look to her. Her hair was short and cold, her trench coat was gold, her military boots were gold. She was an eyesore of yellow and gold in a room of all blue and stuck out like a sore thumb. Even more, she looked ready and eager to kick Lapis' ass at her first chance. Lapis found herself rather intimidated by her, not something she'd often admit when meeting others.

"Quiet!" the woman snapped as she hit the bars again with her riding crop. Sparks of electricity danced along the steel at the touch and Lapis was grateful that she wasn't touching the bars anymore. The woman's voice echoed in the room, loud, powerful, intimidating. "You're not to speak until spoken too, inmate!"

Lapis did not like this woman and found herself just a little afraid.

"Please, do restrain yourself, it'll do no good if you scare our guest away," the woman at the desk called out, voice gentle and soothing with an undertone of grief that seemed to be permanently etched into her very being. It was a stark contrast to the first woman. She was just as tall as the yellow woman, wearing a long, dark blue dress and a cloak draped over her shoulders. Her face, long and sorrowful was framed by long white hair. Despite the mournful appearance, her eyes were strong, firm, and they locked onto Lapis, the smile on her face not evident in her eyes.

"Welcome, my dear prisoner, to the Velvet Room."