DISCLAIMER: I do not own IS nor do I own Persona 3. All rights go to their respective owners and creators.
He didn't know where he was.
He didn't know when it was.
Cold rain pelted him on his back, running down his skin and flowing onto the hard pavement he laid upon. Nausea registered in his system, and his sore body felt like lead weight. He tried moving the fingers on his right hand, and all that they touched was cold steel; apparently, the feeling of it was far too familiar to the boy.
Flashes of fragmented memories were all the boy could see when he tried to recall something to mind, accompanied by an unwelcome migraine that left him wanting to hurl. He'd see a tower of green. He'd see masked creatures. He'd see people whose names felt like they were on the tip of his tongue, but would escape his grasp.
And finally, he'd see himself point a gun to his head with a maniacal smile.
He could not piece them together, sadly. The puzzle he saw in his head was messier than any he'd ever seen, and a lot of the pieces were gone as well—what remained in his mind was a mess of images that made no sense to him.
Just then, the lad took notice of the cool, metallic feeling in his right hand. He raised it in front of him, and beheld the gun his fingers gripped.
He turned it a number of times, feeling that this was something very important but he did not know why at the moment. It was as if he had been using this for quite some time now, but why? Was he murderer? Was this a gift, and simply a model gun?
It made his head hurt—thinking, that is.
Saving the questions for later, he staggered as he hoisted himself up, and found that he was in some sort of uniform: a white shirt with a red ribbon under a dark colored coat with matching slacks, and a red armband on his left, marked with 'SEES'. Nothing came to mind as he mulled over what had looked like an acronym of sorts. Shaking his head, he made his way out of a dim alley, and walked shakily out onto the streets.
"Man, it sure is pouring a lot out today. And I was looking forward to lunch, too."
Ichika Orimura sighed as he looked out the window of the cafeteria. It was supposed to be another fine, sunny day where he'd be seated out on the roof with Houki, Cecilia, Charl, Rin, and Laura eating lunch together. Unfortunately, the weather had decided to give them a complete 180 and mess with their earlier engagement.
"It can't be helped, right? It's not as if we could change the weather or something," Rin quipped. "Besides, eating lunch is the same wherever—it's not like it's different when we you eat it anywhere else."
"But you know, how do I put this? I've kinda grown attached to the roof. It's really nice there!" Ichika laughed.
Houki gave the boy a questioning look. "Then, are you some kind of spirit with attachments there? Maybe I should have the place exorcised."
Ichika sighed. "Are you still mad about that hairstyle thing earlier? C'mon. You know I just answered in the heat of the moment—the girls were pestering me!"
Needless to say, the earlier antics when the girls were interrogating Ichika about his hairstyle preferences did not end well when he phrased his words wrongly about ponytails, which had then promted Houki to materialize part of her IS, lift her desk, and hurl it towards the said boy.
"Well, Ichika really was having trouble earlier, so why not let it slide, Houki?" Cecilia asked.
"Yeah, that's right! He's just being a blockhead as usual," Charl chuckled, eyeing the lad.
"C'mon, whose side are you on?!" Ichika groaned. It was a nice thought that they'd try and help salvage the ship, but it wasn't fun if they completely ignored the captain riding on it!
The girl gave the lad a "hmph!" and chose to ignore him, earning a sweatdrop from Ichika. Sighing for the umpteenth time and just choosing to let the matter go for now, he began to dig into his shio ramen, before it got any colder.
And before he could savor the hearty meal and the warmth it brings on a cold, rainy day, a quake shook the cafeteria and rocked its denizens. The sound of crashing plates and glass accompanied the shrieks of shock from all around.
"Was that an explosion just now?!" Laura shouted. Smoke billowed from somewhere on campus, completely visible from the window in the cafeteria. As Ichika and company looked onward, they spotted a lone, black figure floating above the smoke.
It looked like some sort of humanoid with a plain blue helmet covering its head, etched with the Roman numeral one on it. Black, thorny armor covered its shoulders, forearms, and legs, and wing-like projections stuck out of its back—resembling swords more than thin wings. The gauntlet covering its left arm resembled a big claw, with each finger ending in a sharp tip. Red outlines glowed all over its armor, and it ominously stayed where it was like it was waiting for something.
From its looks alone, there was no doubt that it was an IS unit.
Alarms blared all over the cafeteria, with the monitors popping up with messages prompting everyone to return to the designated safe rooms and waiting for further instructions. Chifuyu's voice then blared from the speakers.
"To the following IS Representative Candidates: Orimura, Shinonono, Alcott, Huang, Dunois, and Bodewig, proceed to the docking bay for instructions. I'm giving you ten minutes. To the rest of the students, move orderly towards the containment rooms and wait for further instructions from the staff. Move it!" Wasting no time, Ichika and company rushed out of the cafeteria and made a beeline for the docking bay near the arena.
This doesn't bode well, Ichika thought to himself.
The flow of people dizzied him.
The multitudes of individuals weaving through the streets further contributed to the lad's nausea, and he could do no less than ignore it together with the churning of his stomach, ready to spill bile from a moment's notice. He staggered through the crowd, getting pushed and bumping into complete strangers who gave him annoyed or indifferent looks.
He couldn't really care.
Though he knew that he was not himself at the moment, he could do no more than go elsewhere from this place. But where the hell would he go? Everything was unfamiliar—he had never been here before. Suddenly, the sound of an explosion of sorts attracted his ears, and as he turned, he saw smoke billow from some area forward, located at some kind of higher point in the vicinity. And as he looked on the place from where the sound originated, his senses were gripped and a singular objective manifested within his mind.
I need to get there.
Once more: he did not know where he was.
He did not know when it was.
But right now, he had a task ahead of him much more important than anything else. And there was nothing that was going to stop him from it.
He pulled out his gun, and spun it twice in his right hand.
"Whoa, the guy's got a gun!"
"Is he a terrorist?! Someone get the cops or something!"
He did not point it towards anyone, and moved it closer to him.
"Oi, you there! Drop the gun, and come with us!" shouted an officer from his side.
He ignored the man, and pressed the cold muzzle onto his temple.
"H-hey! What do you think you're doing?!"
"Is he gonna blow his brains out?!"
"Oh god, he's gonna shoot himself!"
He released a breath, closed his eyes, and focused. His index finger coiled around the trigger, slowly, slowly pulling it back.
Do it.
The sound of a round being fired echoed in the streets soaked with rain, and as it was bathed in a bright light, the whole crowd shielded their eyes from the searing glow emitted from where the "suicidal" lad was.
Once the light was gone, the people in the area looked on and suddenly, hung their jaws in utter shock.
The place where the boy stood was now a crater, with black lines connecting to one another into a web of cracks on the street. And the boy in question?
Needless to say, he was gone.
"So, what's the situation? Is it Phantom Task?"
Ichika hurriedly asked Chifuyu, who was now carefully observing the mysterious black IS displayed on the monitor in front of them. Yamada was furiously pressing keys along the keyboard of the computer, trying to gauge the stats of the possible enemy in front of them.
Chifuyu answered; her tone quite grim. "It hasn't been confirmed. Also, Yamada is having trouble getting any data on it as of the moment, and that's making this a very dangerous situation."
Yamada nodded in agreement. "Right now, the best that we can do is maintaining a distance and continue to observe it. Everyone, please keep clear 250 meters away from the target, and make no moves on it. We do not know of its capabilities nor its reasons for its appearance, so we are at a slight disadvantage."
"Did you contact my sister about this?" Houki asked, stepping forward. Chifuyu turned to her, and replied with a shake of her head. "Tabane does not recognize the model. She isn't even sure what company or country had it made, and that worries us. It's an enigma—we can't toy around in this situation. Alright, go to the bay and deploy your IS units. We'll have you split in teams of two for easy support—Orimura and Bodewig, Shinonono and Dunois, and then Alcott and Huang. Is this understood?"
""""""Yes, ma'am!""""""
"Good, now go. Remember, be cautious—we have no idea what we're dealing with."
Reaching the launch area, the group then deployed their respective IS units and dispersed according to their groupings from Chifuyu's instructions. Minutes later, they had safely secured a perimeter around the mysterious IS unit.
It had already been 20 minutes since the arrival of the black IS, yet it had done nothing but hover over the area where an explosion it most likely had caused occurred.
". . ."
". . . ? What is it my bride? Is something wrong?"
Shaken out of his thoughts, Ichika faced Laura. "Well, I don't know why, but it feels like it doesn't really care about anything else in here. It's almost as if—"
"—it was waiting for something or someone, right?"
Ichika nodded over to Rin's voice on his intercom's display. "Yeah. But I really can't say for sure."
"It's a possibility, so we might as well consider it, since we really have bearings on the situation whatsoever," Charl concluded.
"Hey, it's moving!" Houki exclaimed.
The black IS was beginning a slow descent to the ground, blowing away the smoke that had gathered around the area. It landed on the ground, just in front of the Academy's gate. Ichika and the rest agreed that it would be safe to move closer, but still just outside the black IS's field of vision.
What then surprised the team was the presence of another individual in front of the black IS; and male, from the looks of it. He had blue hair, and sported a uniform of sorts. The blue-haired visitor staggered towards the black IS, seemingly injured or disoriented from the looks of it.
"You can't be serious, a civilian at a time like this . . .!" Yamada spoke from the intercom, tensing up from the situation. "This is bad! We need to get that person out of—hey, wait, Orimura!"
Much to everyone's surprise, Ichika was already rushing towards the black IS—no, his trajectory showed that he was actually going for the lad who had appeared almost out of nowhere.
"Dammit, go faster, Byakushiki!"
As if the mechanized armor he wore understood his will, Ichika felt his thrusters pour more power out and push him faster and faster.
"Tch, that idiot! Alcott, Bodewig! Get ready with long range attacks to distract the black IS when Byakushiki gets in range! Huang, Shinonono, Dunois! Pursue and prepare possible support!" Chifuyu barked into the intercom, clearly pissed at her younger brother's in-the-heat-of-the-moment decision.
The girls all nodded, and prepared their arsenal of weapons. Houki, Charl, and Rin all flew towards Ichika's direction, while Laura and Cecilia both chose to move behind a distance from the threat.
Just as Ichika neared the blue-haired boy, he saw the red lines on the black IS glowing brightly, and suddenly multiple, black, slender mechanical arms appeared from all over its body and grabbed the multiple sword-like projections from behind it. The arms pulled back, and then prompted to swing at the boy.
Shit, I won't make it at this rate!
Ichika gritted his teeth in annoyance, and willed his IS to push forth even more. Byakushiki sputtered for a second, as if telling him that this was all that it could manage for the time being, and that there was simply no more adding to its current speed.
As the swords neared the lad, Ichika cursed under his breath. He then saw the stranger pull out something from a holster of sorts.
"Hey, you! Whoever you are, get out of there!"
Dust flew all around when the swords finally hit the spot where the boy stood. Ichika paused, furious that he was not able to make it in time.
"Dammit, just what is happening?!"
Suddenly, the company felt a heavy wave of shield energy blow out from nowhere, pushing them back and clearing all of the dust.
What happened next left everyone astonished.
The lad was still standing on the same spot since it had appeared, completely unharmed from the assault of the black IS.
"Y-you've got to be kidding . . ." Rin trailed off.
Laura was wide-eyed with surprise. "Am I . . . seeing this right?"
The swords swung by the multiple arms of the black IS were stopped dead by a single broadsword.
And that broadsword was held by the blue-haired lad, with a large, silver gauntlet enveloping his right arm.
Yamada stumbled in her words, but managed to confirm what had occurred.
"That boy . . . just partially deployed an . . . IS unit."
He could feel it.
Whatever it was that was front of him, which had just swung multiple blades at him, was considerably familiar.
And yet, its nature escaped his understanding again once the answer began rising out of his mind, only to disappear once more and leave him hanging.
No.
Right now, I do not need an explanation.
Armor began to appear all over him, covering his arms with silver gauntlets; his legs with slender greaves that ended in talon-like feet; red armor on his torso, shoulders, back, and abdomen; and a huge, golden harp from behind, with individual triangular machine bits that floated around it.
Right now, my body is moving on autopilot.
Holographic displays appeared in front of him, displaying various statistics and colored bars. A window appeared, and an image of the black IS appeared on it, with a label underneath it:
The Magician.
Right now I only have one mission.
Energy burst forth from the lad, sending sonic booms all around him. He moved his eyes slightly, and surveyed the six other presences that had appeared in this place.
Breathing in for a moment, the lad's eyes oozed unyielding focus to a battle about to begin, and he steeled himself, preparing a battle stance of sorts.
He ignored the stares.
He ignored the confusion and nausea that continued swirling around his head.
He had but one task at hand. He looked over to the black IS, and eyed it with hostility and killing intent.
"I . . . will end you."
So, how'd I do?
My first attempt at a crossover. Not sure if I'm gonna continue this, however. I just wanted to get this out of my head to be honest, after having imagined it while listening to One OK Rock's NO SCARED. Haha.
Well, tell me if you like it-I might just continue this. Thanks for reading, I suppose. :)