The ball of smoke whizzed past, screams escaping the center of it as it bounced and rolled along the wide blue lit hall. The smoke cloud came to a sudden stop in front of a deep royal blue office door. The slender arm left the confines of the still thrashing oval shape to twist the handle. Once it cracked open, the gaseous form floods into the entrance and explodes through and flattens itself on the floor. The fog encircles two legs clad in black dress pants. It creeps up to the knees of the man, his slightly hunched form and engorged long beak of a nose shake slightly.
"Monica!" The writhing mass of grey and black freezes in place. After his outburst, the shorter man has his pointy overgrown eyebrows raise. He begins to wave an aged veiny hand over the now dissipating smoke. 'What are you doing to our guest, my niece?"
The clouds clear revealing a sweaty Nicole pinned by a young girl of no more than thirteen years of age. Her breath haggard and eyes darting all around now that she was not trapped in the inky darkness. "Just tickling our guest here, Uncle." She enforces that point by running her free fingers over Nicole's side once more. The curious and sadistic tickling has more screams flood from her unhinging mouth.
"Please, no more! I caa-a-an't take it." The hook nosed man gently rapts the platinum blond girl on the back of her head. Monica quickly releases her grip on Nicole's hands and feels back to the location of the familial assault. Nicole slowly sits up, wide eyed and her breathing starts to slow. Her eyes stop spinning in their sockets and fall on the black suited man pacing back to a worn wooden desk.
He extends a hand stretching from an unearthly long arm to assist Nicole off the ground with eyes wide piercing through her skull and already picking her brain. "Welcome to the Velvet Room, on the line between dreams and reality."
"Sorry about her, she's a curious one and playful to the nth degree. Too much Rottweiler and not enough sloth in her; however, a success is a success." His mouth sharpens into a smile while letting out a toothy cackle, "Now, Miss Kirijo. Please take a seat." The spider leg spindles protruding from his palm twist into a showy flourish of the pair of high backed leather chairs behind him.
Nicole takes the man's hand gingerly to stand and only has a little shake in one leg, "Sure mister . . . . ?"
The eyes on the man light up and widen into two small moons beaming on the timid question, "Igor, you may call me Igor." He places his hands behind his back.
"Igor then, by chance do you have water?" She starts to grasp and scratch at her throat.
His hands come out from behind with a tall clear glass in one and an opaque blue and purple jug in the other. "Most certainly." Nicole sits down slowly dividing her sight between the two other occupants of the slowly dimming room. The blue lights shift from a sea cave's ambient light to a darker shade of undersea shadows. The glass is placed on the desk next to a sizeable crack that runs the length of the otherwise spotless lacquered oak. Like an upper class butler, he begins pouring clear clean water from the rim and begins lifting the pitcher up increasing the length of the stream. Not a drop falls out of his intended target, "Excuse the theatrics I merely was trying to spice up this simple task. Now, onto business."
Igor returns the pitcher behind his back and places both hands together as he sits in his own blue satin chair. His irises shimmer gold for a split second sending a current of voltage through Nicole's nervous system. She suppresses the urge to squirm at his piercing sight in an effort to steel her resolve. Igor clears his throat, "Well, happy days! A five card reading. It's been a good number of years since I've done a major reading like this." His smile widens again and eyes almost bulge out of his insect head with a stifled laugh.
"Five card what?" Nicole tilts her head slightly to the right and momentarily takes her eyes off Monica. She relaxes her posture in the comfortable chair and takes a sip of water out of the rectangular glass.
"A Tarot reading my dear." He straightens his back a bit and his arachnid hands spin empty air into a deck of blue and black cards. He shuffles them together in a traditional bridge that Nicole has seen professional gamblers use in Vegas. He cuts it once then twice and flicks the first card over.
A large black wheel is shown to flop face up. "Aw, Fortune facing downward. This signals large swaths of change to take place. Undoubtedly to you and those around you at first but may likely spill over too many others if not all parties involved."
Igor throws a card into the abyss of the air and it evaporates instantly, then drops another card down. It is a ram's skull on a red background adorned with chains and two heads. "The Devil upward, the changes will be brought about and affect the inner self more than anything else it seems." He tosses another card only for it to vanish.
The next card revealed is a tower with a bolt of lightning destroying the top floor, "the Tower and it's fallen downward. There will be a breakdown of the false and fake. It will take place inside yourself and all those you meet. Destroying the imposter and slaying the liar with truth." The next card down burns away in his palm before moving on.
Igor flips another over in a pinwheel fashion: The card depicts a man clad in armor being pulled along by two sphinxes. "The Chariot, downward. There will a large conflict, it will change your future as well as you internally by the end. This struggle; however, you have already lost. Now it's fighting against the what was the outcome and reversing it in the end." He chucks one more card into the void.
He begins to turn the last card over as his spider hands twitch and the future floats down earthward towards the desk. It cuts into the long gash in the wood standing up but running parallel with the table. The back is facing Nicole, but the image Igor can see has him close his eyes for the first time since entering the room.
"A Ha Ha Ha," a slow almost mocking laugh growls out from his open teeth with his mosquito styled head pulled backward. "Your future was interesting, but who could have predicted this? Why only a Fool my dear, THE Fool!" He covers his face with a collection of legs and his pointed ears twitch left and right with a clock's tick keeping time.
"The card is Death, yet it is neither upward or downward. There is no such thing as a mistake when these cards are flipped. Fate itself is undecided on whether you can succeed or not! Interesting indeed." He removes his hand from his face, the bulging bug eyes now contain red veins bleeding into view. He slides a drawer open and digs blindly until a large sheet of parchment is laid down. Igor takes his eyes off Nicole for only one second to retrieve a bottle out as well then returns to his thousand kilometer stare down.
Nicole avoids the look of the bizarre man, and still is processing all she heard with a scrunched up face. Two fingers to her temple, she scans the writing displayed for her and ascertains it's a type of contract.
"You are Miss Nicole Kirijo; the daughter of Mitsuru Kirijo," She rolls her eyes and continues to read the document. "You are about to undertake a seeming grand and unknown journey that even the fates themselves cannot divine. This contract will bind you to the choices you make in the coming days. Although you are not of me, I am still the first arbiter of our world. Once you have signed the next step may begin." Igor shifts the quill and ink jar over, "All you need to do is take write your name."
Nicole hastily picks up the quill, but hesitates before writing, her head going blank. All she can remember is her mother's voice saying are you really ready? like she has many times before. She shakes the indecision out violently, "here we go Igor." She starts the N of Nicole and her arm finishes the rest in a bright royal blue with golden specks on its own.
Igor claps his hands together, "Brilliant! Now, you can come back anytime for more consultation or guidance but now you are free to go." He begins to turn away from Nicole then stops, whips back around, and tilts his head to the side. With malice and distain, he states, "Actually you have a visitor. A very pretentious visitor who cannot wait the one minute it would take for you to exit my office and decides to bother me instead! He will be at the reception desk." His head cracks back into place and spins in his chair, once it makes a full rotation Igor is no longer sitting in it.
Monica skips over and tugs on Nicole's sleeve, "Um, we should be on our way." She puts both hands behind her back sheepishly and lowers her head, "And about earlier, I never get to see people and didn't know some dislike tickling so much."
Nicole partially closes one eye and tightens her smile, "You really need to be more considerate yes, but you are still a young kid so I cannot hold it against you to badly. Monica was it?"
"Yes maim!" Monica's blond bob of a head shakes up and down to follow the laser pointer that is validation. "But maim, you need to be off. That scary man outside won't leave until he meets you."
Nicole rises from her chair, shakes Monica's hand and agrees to be led back to the entrance. They exit the office and Nicole gets guided back to the reception area. Once around the corner, the back of a tall man standing nearly seven feet tall in his uniformed self waits for the duo. The clicking of boots against the hospital tile makes the mans pointed ears twitch and he spins to face Monica and Nicole.
One hand holds a police dress cap and the other comes up signaling a friendly greeting. "Salutations Monica. And hello, you must be of me." He reaches out his white gloved hand which Nicole takes and begins to shake. His touch fills Nicole's arm with a tingling but comfortable sensation. "My name is Herman, but you may call me Justice." His face was a pitch black sheet of darkness. His pure white eyes and the light going past him was the only way to differentiate his otherwise featureless face. "You have made a contract with Igor but he is not of you nor you of him. Your contract cannot be completed that way but I am willing to offer you an opportunity one of me."
"One of me?" Nicole furrows her brow searching her memory. Those stormy blue eyes light up a second later, "Wait, you're my Persona!?" Nicole jumps up sending a celebratory fist straight through into the newly made hand sized skylight. "YES!"
The man calmly shakes his head and lays a firm hand on her shoulder, "No one of me. I am not a part of you. However, I do have a proposition. The times to come will have many injustices take place and my focus must turn here. Sadly, I am bared by our ancient laws. Therefore, I must have one of me; you, work in my stead." He crouches down and lifts a black canvas bag off the ground from his side. The top flies open and a white sheet of freshly printed paper streaks around behind his head and arcs to the white marble counter of the reception desk.
Nicole approaches the page and takes it in hand as Herman begins outlining the terms, "Ahem. The contract before you will allow me to awaken your Persona. It will be a painful process since it will be an unnatural awakening. In exchange, you will be here in my stead carrying out justice and upholding your own morals in the world around you. Failure to do so will result in fate itself to fight against you until the calamity here is resolved."
Nicole scans the last line of text and sets it back down, "Anything to finally awaken my Persona. I'll sign, Sir." Herman pulls a pen out of his breast pocket with a slight flick and hands it to Nicole. The black body of it swirls with red and white spirals that flow down the length.
"Good. Just on the line following the big X there, Miss Kirijo." Nicole starts to scribe out her full given name in the shifting red, black, and glowing white ink. It shines a bright orange and the contract slowly dissolves into the counter top. "Now, steady yourself while I unlock your inner self."
Herman's gloved hand is outstretched with an open palm. It makes contact with Nicole's shoulder and her consciousness fades. Her senses dull and her vision changes to see the wide expanse of a sunny desert from atop a large stone pillar. The steaming winds rush up sending the desert's curious fingers into her half closed eyes forcing them open. A wave of emotional pain and anguish rushes over her heart. Next a heavy burden is thrust into her arms that she instantly drops before she could really have a chance to carry it. She can feel her strength and potential be sapped away at the very last moment.
The sands whipping around at the base twist and dip to make the figure of a man with messy unkempt hair. He walks away from Nicole on the earthen pillar and joins a group of other sandy wind figures. The man looks back then turns away for the last time and hugs a girl as the sand dissolves. The tight sickening poisonous feeling of jealousy grips at the stomach of Nicole, and then a sharp pain shoots up her leg.
She turns around while wincing to see a shadowy figure standing over her. Her chest is impaled painfully sending warnings up and down while a thin rod is pierced all the way through her chest. The pain that follows next is unimaginable as her body burns from the middle of the rod outward. The second it takes for her body to combust cell by cell passes by in slow motion until her very brain turns to ash and there is nothing to feel anymore except a sense of failure.
A lingering feeling of regret is all that is left: Regret that she couldn't stop them. A regret that she couldn't tell him how she felt. The regret of how despite how her whole life she was considered the 'best' she failed in all that ways that mattered. And that broke her and caused more pain than any burning execution.
The desert is all that can be perceived now, no more visions or pain. The specters of an unlived past vanish and Nicole is left standing again in whole mind and body. A voice rings out from inside her head, "I am you and you are I, I am your Persona awoken from within you. I will be the shield and the spear of your soul. Olympia, Justice of New Innocence." A golden spear of light shoots out from behind Nicole and swats the next accursed breeze of sand away. "Let us return."
Nicole's eyes adjust to the dark dim blue lights of the waiting room she is still standing in. Herman is dusting himself off from the sand that is now covering the office and begins to turn to leave, "I have great expectations in you, one of me!" He slips into a tear in reality and the towering man's presence leaves. A small dune of sand shivers and the white hair of Monica pops out. She thrashes and gets her torso free then shoots her bullet of a body onto the ceiling to then ricochet free.
She shakes herself off to rid herself of most of the sand, "Congratulations I guess. Doors through – Eh, I mean. Let me take you to exit and bid you farewell." She takes the hand of Nicole in hers and starts opening the door. "If you need to come back, the entrance should be right where you came back from give or take a few feet." They walk back into to the room where Nicole first appeared in and Monica releases her iron grip finally. Nicole massages the feeling back into her hand as Monica claps and a large deep blue door with black and gold trim grows into being.
Nicole motions towards the door but feels a tug on her sleeve. Monica is pinching the corner of the clothing, ". . .wait a minute." Nicole turns and faces the robe wearing Monica. The young girl kicks at the air and lowers her head and mumbles something out.
Nicole stretches out her neck from her shoulders, "What was that Monica?"
Monica looks up at Nicole, then has a pout develop on her lips as she looks back at the ground. "I said I was sorry. . . Uncle Igor always says to apologize when you've done the wrong thing. So I'm sorry for tackling and tickling you."
Nicole crosses her arms and starts to tap one foot rapidly, "I mean I guess." Monica looks up still pouting, "Ooo-kay I'll forgive you"- Monica's mouth perks up some, -"But you need to promise not to do it again. Okay?"
Monica's pout deepens again and crosses her own arms to mumble out, "okay."
"Just okay?" Nicole begins to drum her fingers along her arm.
Monica shakes her head a little then looks up with a scowl, "Okay, I promise not to do that again." Nicole laughs and rubs the top of the pouting girls head, Monica squirms out of the head pat after a second of pushing into it. "Get outta here human! Hmph." Monica tries to hide a small smile from forming.
Nicole smiles brightly but her eyes stay focused on Monica's turned head, "Okay Monica. I'm glad we could make up and maybe see you again soon." She turns and grips the doorknob and opens the door.
Almost immediately a whooshing of sensations rises back to her toes and fingertips. Her eyes that were zoned out on the tile floor begins to focus on her mother's snapping fingers. She can feel the warm hand on shoulder and then her body starts to take commands from her brain again. Her face has a smile grow and her mom stops her questioning of if she's there or not.
"Yes mom, I'm conscious." Nicole feels a stiffness in her shoulders and what feels like a bruise on her chest.
"Oh thank heavens!" Mitsuru hugs her daughter in a little bit messy fashion. "I haven't been that worried since the first time your dad passed out while standing that first ti-. . . . ." Mitsuru's eyes and face soften up and her brow relaxes. Her eyes grow wide and she takes a deep breath then releases the hug and grabs Nicole's shoulders once more. Her eyebrows raise into wide arches and asks rapidly:
"Hon, did you go to the Velvet room?"
\\ Noice, two days earlier than planned, Guess I'll need to put out another different chapter in two days. Yeah Me and not getting sleep!/
Additional irl Story threads:
So lets recap:
1) I have given some hints and details on who our current Protag's inspiration is based on. So that's one Mystery with context now for readers; yourselves, to theorize over and guess about.
2) That's one strange Tarot card reading, wonder what it could mean ;)
3) But where is the Wild Card ability?! Anon?!
4) How's Mitsuru gonna react to her daughter being *gasp* independant?
Please theorize to your heart's content in the reviews.
P.S. Thinking about a "music to read to" Section, So -
Catfish and the Bottlemen - "Conversation" (Pop Punk/Indie-Rock)
Fire from the Gods - "Right Now" (Rock)
Fitz and the Tantrums - "Hand Clap" (Pop)
Florence + the Machine - "Moderation" (it's good in my opinion, but idk. Indie I guess)