DISCLAIMER: Neopets and the Persona Series belong to Jumpstart and Atlus respectively!

1st of the Month of Eating (April), Year 18

01/04/18 Sunday

Daytime

My name is Shinji Norumi and I started out as a pretty normal Neopet. I was just a regular Cloud Zafara until the day I was travelling to Shenkuu to attend the Imperial High School of Shenkuu. My parents move around a lot for their job and this time they're going to a place that doesn't have a high school, which makes things inconvenient if I were to go with them, so I have to attend high school there. Thankfully, it's a boarding school so I don't have to stay with any relatives or family friends I barely know, I'm just going to live in a dorm and stay out of the other students' ways. My parents would like me to make some friends, but what's the point when I'll be moving in a year? I just hope that the two family friends do live in Shenkuu that have been asked to keep an eye on me don't push the whole "making friends" thing. It should be fine though as I don't have to live with them. While I was on the airship that would arrive in Shenkuu, I had decided to sleep for a bit and I ended up having a weird dream. I was in the middle of a maze made of blue walls, the floor below me was also blue and seemed to be made of velvet. In front of me was a table and two comfortable-looking blue couches. Seated in one couch was a blue Lenny with an abnormally long beak and in the other a blue Cybunny whose eyes were a supernatural gold colour.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room." The long-beaked Lenny said. I wanted to ask what this Velvet Room place was, but I couldn't find my voice. Then the Lenny spoke again. "We seem to have a guest with most interesting destiny in such an interesting world... My name is Igor, it is pleasure to make your acquaintance." Igor said graciously.

"Um, likewise." I replied, finally finding my voice.

"This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter…" Igor said. What the heck does that mean?" I wondered as I waited for Igor to say more. "Now before we proceed, I'd like you to sign a contract. But it's nothing to be worried about. It will just ask that you take responsibility for all your actions." Igor said, placing the aforementioned contract in front of me. I thought about it for a moment, taking responsibility of my actions didn't sound all that hard and it wasn't like I hadn't been taking responsibility for my actions before now. I nodded to myself and signed the contract. Igor picked up the contract and then it disappeared into thin air.

"Shinji Norumi… Ah… I see. Oh, this Cybunny here is my assistant. Her name is Alina. We are both residents of this place and we reside here to assist our guests with fulfilling their destiny." Igor said.

"I am Alina. I shall accompany you throughout your journey and assist you however I can." Alina said in a calm tone.

"We shall attend to the details when you return here later. Until then, farewell." Igor said and my vision went black.

Then I woke up to a voice over the loudspeaker saying that we would arrive in Shenkuu in half an hour. I remembered the dream I had and the mystery of Igor, Alina and the Velvet Room still swirled in my mind. I decided to disregard it for now and get ready to alight from airship by collecting my suitcase and my backpack. I wasn't exactly travelling light but I would be in Shenkuu for at least a whole year so I packed with that in mind. 30 minutes later the airship arrived in Shenkuu. I got off the airship with my luggage and immediately noticed a rough-looking grey Kougra holding a sign with my name on it and a rather pretty Pastel Gelert beside him. The Kougra must be Mikasa Akkaman and the Gelert, Rosalere Arisato. I thought to myself. From what my parents told me, Mikasa and Rosalere were engaged to be married and living together, but hadn't decided on a date to be married on. I hoped that I would be long gone before then. I walked over to them and they both smiled, which seemed a little forced from both of them.

"Hello, you must be Shinji. I recognise you from the picture your parents sent to us." Mikasa said.

"You must already know this, but I'm Rosalere and the guy wearing the lame newspaper boy hat is Mikasa." Rosalere said in a playful tone.

"Hey! I like my hat…" Mikasa said indignantly. "Anyway, you'll have to get used to calling me Mr Akkaman as I teach art at your high school."

I blinked in surprise, that was news to me and I had chosen art as my creative class too. Every student had to choose at least one creative class and one exercise class that would be taught alongside all the over subjects. I began to wish I had chosen music, but it was too late now. Then I realised that they were looking at me expectantly and I was reminded that it was probably my turn to speak.

"It's very nice to meet you both." I said to them, taking the easy route. Their smiles became more genuine in that moment and I knew that I had done the right thing.

"Well, I'll be taking you to your dorm. I know you asked for a non-coed dorm, but our other male dorm building burned down a week ago so I'm afraid you'll have to put up with coed for now." Mikasa said. I shrugged, it didn't really matter. I thought having a single gender dorm would have the other students easier to dodge, but I've been dodging both sexes for a long time.

Mikasa waking me down to a dorm called the Lunar Dorm. Apparently all the dorms were named after things to do with the sun and moon. We both went inside and a pretty royalgirl Wocky with chocolate brown eyes was there to greet us.

"Hello Mr Akkaman. This is our new dorm mate?" She said in a very cultured Altadorian accent.

"Yes, this is Shinji Norumi. He's going to spend his second year of high school here." Mikasa said.

"Hi, it's nice to meet you." I said to her, just barely able to put together that single sentence. Her prettiness was very distracting.

"You too! My name is Arianoli Boardare. I'm a second year just like you." Arianoli replied in a cheerful tone.

"Arianoli, would you mind showing your new classmate to his room and give him a little tour of the school tomorrow?" Mikasa asked her.

"I'd be happy to, Mr Akkaman. His room is on the fourth floor, right?" Arianoli said.

"That's correct, it's the first door on the right. I'll leave you to it." Mikasa said before leaving me alone with Arianoli.

"Alright, follow me then. So, where do you come from, Shinji?" Arianoli said as she began to lead the way to my room. I followed her and I really wasn't sure what to tell her.

"That's kind of a hard question for me actually." I finally said. "I pretty much move to a new place every year so I never really feel like I come from anywhere."

"Ooh. That actually sounds pretty rough. Contrary to how I must sound, I actually come from Neopia Central." Arianoli said.

"Really? But you have an Altadorian accent." I replied, a little puzzled.

"I lived in Altador when I was younger, moved with my father to Neopia Central and he speaks in the same accent so it stuck around." Arianoli explained. We arrived on the fourth floor and she stopped at the first door down. "Here's your room and you currently have the whole floor to yourself, lucky huh?" Arianoli said with a cheerful smile. I couldn't help smiling back. It was a stroke of good luck to have the whole floor to myself. "Well, I guess I'll leave you to unpack. School's tomorrow so you better get a good night's sleep. I'll come calling for you tomorrow. See you later!" Arianoli said.

"Okay, see you later." I said and watched her leave. I wouldn't mind hanging with her sometimes, she is very pretty. I thought to myself as I entered my room to unpack.

Late Night

I had another dream, but it wasn't about the Velvet Room and the two that resided there. I was in a place covered in pastel colours, but a shadowy figure faced me and seemed to darken the place just with his presence.

"So, you are the Dream Bearer? The one who will vanquish the Nightmares? How curious that fate would choose a boy like you." The shadowy figure said. "I don't care what anyone says or what anything dictates, I am going to drag every Neopian into an endless nightmare, they all deserve it, including you. But if you think you can stop me, just try it Dream Bearer. Try to defeat the Nightmares that will eventually rule all of Neopia." It continued. I woke up with a start after that. I didn't get back to sleep for a long time after that.

Author's Note: Well hello! Alisawarrior here. I started this little fanfic a while ago on Deviantart and I decided that I would start posting this story here as well. The people reading here will get one update per day until you're caught up with those on Deviantart. Then you'll get updated whenever those on Deviantart do. In any case, I do hope you enjoy reading Persona Neo.

Alisawarrior~