Unpredictability.
16 letters, 7 syllables, 1 meaning.
If you were to look it up in any dictionary right now, it would be defined as something such as "the inability to be predicted, constantly changing." or some such thing.
Whatever you define it as, within the limits of what it actually is...
It represents everything I despise in my life.
When I woke up, it was one such example of this- a chaotic world that was constantly shifting and slamming pieces together, trying to find something within itself that would click.
As it was, the thing that finally clicked in a fit of rage was me. With the loudest bang possible.
And with a shockwave, everything was blown back and I was left in a darkness that came not with the presence of some obscuring factor but with the absence of light.
I could focus again.
Being born was a difficult experience; I was new, but I existed prior; I was, but not like this; the thing I had been before could not even remotely begin to correctly describe me; to be, and to be again and to be and to be and to be over and over.
I was now.
I summoned the headache and banished it away from my realm, for I did not want nor need something like it.
Soon after being born I was filled with innumerable information; I knew the physical and the metaphysical and wherehowwhy I was into, and what it meant and when I was. Suffice to say, Planet Earth was it, but it was such a understatement at the same time.
Let's just say, that if you back away a few feet from reality and squinted your third eye you might notice me.
Unlike most others in my situation, I came packaged with a direct understanding of my situation- I was the most intimate and secreted away part of the person that I spawned from. And unlike others that were the same as me in different circumstances, I had been born only recently. I had been before, but now I was physical, metaphysical and all that's in between.
I existed right where reality tore at the seams to reshape into something new.
And I was the Shadow, the true self. But despite that, I was the fake byproduct of a false world that existed only within a game, while my false self was the only thing I knew to be real.
And as that detail came to be, I felt existence around me warp and shift and reorganize itself into recognizable patterns that affected myself. I paused it- not to interfere, there is strength in patterns- but to observe. When I restarted it, I could notice all of the shifts around me.
The place I was in now held names- Cognitive Reality, and Mementos, and Palace. Or a mockery of the latter- all around me splintered wood and broken concrete and street lamps and what was left of my initial outburst, waiting to rearrange itself but lacking a physical anchor to do so, and I still floated in a void. And so, right now, I still only existed within Mementos itself, as part of the general public- stronger than the rest, but not by a wide margin.
Ruler of Delusion was my title. I was distantly aware of the fact that having a palace was supposed to be a bad thing for the outsider, but as a direct byproduct of it, why was I to care? I can only play with the hand I'm dealt.
There was still so much that wasn't, myself first among those things, and I sought to change that. But I lacked power still. With a conscious thought, a swirling gate of red and black- strength in patterns, and this was on brand- opened up and I saw others such as myself flood in, seeking to find a home in mine. Souls borne of this fake world, little bits of data- barely afterthoughts in a world-building effort.
I had become something, however, and they hadn't. And that granted me power over them.
I pulled at the gate and the flow of souls slowed to a trickle and I began sorting them out in powercolorgenderformnamenationality-
I hated this world the moment I first laid eyes upon it, but I was beginning to turn it into something of my own. If it had to be fake, then I would be its ruler and it would be my creation.
Eyes, eyes, golden eyes, strength in previously existing patterns, I stared down each and every Shadow that wasn't and began forcing my will upon them, and they began forming into recognizable shapes. Pixie, Hero, Incubus, Sandman. And further still, they became...
But they didn't. They couldn't. There wasn't a shape for them to turn to. Even though I knew that supposedly there lies a human form under them, I couldn't reach it.
Attempting to open the seam once again, I forced out with a mighty heave all that wasn't me and forced the gate closed despite my lack of power. I couldn't.
"If you are going to be pests and cockroaches living within my domain, lend me your power," I ordered, but few of them listened. But that little power could still help me, even though it was so much less than what I needed.
For someone that was supposed to be their king, I had yet to prove it. These fake creatures… but then again, so was I. One's inner demons aren't supposed to manifest quite this physically- I'm the reflection of the light shone on my real, false self.
Muscles that had forced themselves into my being in order to provide more strength through pattern began throbbing at the effort required to do anything.
I looked around.
I'd been ignoring, up until now, what made me in favor of what I was on my own. But as the true self, I needed to inspect my false self in order to go forward.
And I instantly hated it. But I also recognized that the hate radiated off of it and affected me, through a tether cord that couldn't be cut, and I hated that this was forced upon me by a force beyond myself- I had barely even been made and I was already being affected.
And being affected I was, arranged and rearranged over and over until I found myself in a familiar form, though I made to be different in a few different ways.
I now knew that this was a gamestorytalestorynarrativestoryfictionstory, and as such, it held rules, and cliches, meaning, it had a moral, it held a pattern. It was all things of power that I could latch onto.
Red and black and white shone through the darkness, and I embraced it. They were the colors that ruled the world. And the world demanded that I be King Niles of my own palace.
Despite that, I found myself unable to do anything for now, for I lacked a physical anchor for my metaphysical deeds. So instead, in a last feat of power, I created a metaphysical anchor for physical deeds. Willfully closing my eyes and channeling my hatred for unpredictability and willing the world to slap me with it, I found myself with an object I couldn't know because I made myself unaware of what it was in my hands.
I took some time to recover from that. I didn't need to breathe, eat, or sleep, but I still needed time. And when I opened my eyes again, I saw and was disgusted with what I'd made. Something that vaguely resembled both a phone and book but was ultimately neither rested in my hands. Opening the first page, a red and black eye stared back at me. A few taps and I now held a map of the area.
I tried to find my way to the outside world.
"Navigation impossible: Shadows cannot be brought to the physical world." A voice came from the book, startling me. I realized only now that up until this point, everything had been impossibly silent, and now something new had been forced upon me: sound.
But I had no more power left to do anything, left alone in a half-formed palace with unlistening subjects.
And so, I waited. Waited for the real, fake self to gather more power.
Three days later, Aoyama-Itchome
Getting food was perhaps the most humiliating part of his temporary condition. While he could cope with not being able to speak to people, as he was a gentlethief and busy with his current mission, and urban movement, albeit in his strange, quadrupedal body, allowed him to gather information and practice his parkour skills, he was not as impressed with what he'd had to do in recent times to obtain even the barest scraps of food. He was a daring thief, suave and mysterious, and he stole treasure, not ham from some guy's grocery bag!
As he travelled the streets of Aoyama, he huffed. He needed to regain his memories. It was incredibly jarring to not be human, and even more jarring still to not know how it had happened. First, he would recover his memories and human form. Second... he would go back to doing whatever it was that he was doing before becoming an amnesiac. Did he, perhaps have a significant other waiting for him at home? Seeing all the other humans and even some of the shadows sharing affection with one another... it would be nice to have something like that.
Oh, but that would mean that she'd be distraught, wondering where he was, unable to find him in his cursed, catlike form! Perhaps, even as of right now, her heart ached for Morgana's presence. Well, he definitely would not keep the lady waiting any further!
Finding the owner of the palace was child's play. After only a day or two of scouting this place, he could see it in the way the volleyball teacher walked, talked and acted, especially when believing that he would get away with it that he was the scum of the earth with desires so distorted that he could concoct a palace. And lo and behold, Suguru Kamoshida, a big fish in a little pond, believed the school to be a literal castle, lording his influence over the children and other teachers.
Still, something felt... off. As he made his way into the alley that led to the back entrance of the school, he could at least thank the fact that, in people's cognition, cats could make their way into most any place much as a thief could. But he could not shake the feeling that something... no, rather someone was following. Years- probably years? Or maybe he was just very talented- of experience as a gentleman thief made it so that his instincts were honed as a razor, and they were currently telling him someone was on his trail. But try as he might, he could not see nor hear anyone; and besides, if it was a human, he would quickly lose them in the distortion, and it couldn't be a shadow, here in the real world anyways.
Target firmly in his mind and physically making his way into the building, he watched as the world melted and swayed in the ripples of distortion, and soon enough, he was back into a more comfortable, though still not optimal, bipedal form.
Showtime.
Deftly sneaking his way into the castle as he had done a few times already, he quickly and stealthily made his way through the halls. Despite that, though, the feeling of being watched never vanished.
Turning a corner, he saw one of the patrol shadows, a bulky armored knight four times his size that made loud clanking sound with each footstep. But appearances could be deceiving, and quickly jumping on its head before drawing his scimitar to wrench the helmet's mask off of its face.
As the shadow melted into the ground, Morgana turned around on instinct to see a pale figure with long, brown hair that cascaded around their gaunt face, a white hospital gown being their only cover. The ghost's eyes widened as they locked eyes with Morgana before ducking around the corner as the thief jumped nearly three feet in the air, startled.
Cursing at the distraction as he heard the buzzing of wings taking off into the air, he turned around to stare at the duo of pixies flying in the air, not looking so intimidating, albeit pretty pissed off.
"Hey! Is this any way to treat-" one of them began, before crumpling to the ground as a metal pellet impacted her at high speeds. Taking advantage of the pixie's surprise, he quickly wailed into her with his slingshot, before rounding up and cutting off the other one's Zio with a well-placed pellet and finishing her off with a diagonal slash of his cutlass, making her burst into smoke.
"Die, you jerk!" The other pixie took off again, this time much quicker on the draw- and as a bolt of lightning formed above Morgana's head, he rolled out of the way of the incoming attack before a jump slash marked the end of the other pixie. He sighed. It was never pleasant to destroy the shadows, but it was him or them, and they'd sworn fealty to such a deplorable man.
The sensation of being watched had disappeared. As had the ghostly figure... even backtracking saw no trace of them save for a set of dusty bare footprints, but even those trailed off into nothing.
Could the ghost be connected to his lost memories? But how?
Shaking his head, he resolved to proceed forward. First, he had to search for clues in this area- and most likely, if the ghost was connected, he would find them again. But just as he thought that he heard the heavy clanking of armor coming from behind him and a shout of alarm. Whirling around, he saw the ghost sprint past him and dive around the corner. A horselike shadow with two horns on its head was dashing towards them!
Bolting through the door and quickly closing it behind him, Morgana suddenly felt himself be snatched at the neckerchief before the assailant broke into a mad sprint. Flashes of stone columns and steel armors and weapons passed him by, and by the time Morgana gathered his wits about him and shouted "Garu!", he was in a whole other room altogether.
As Zorro manifested, his assailant crossed their arms in protection over their head before being thrown out the window of the safe room, where shadows couldn't manifest. And Morgana could only let out a distressed yowl as he got a brief look of the ghost before before a splatter of blood- blood!- got in his eyes and painted him red.
As he wiped the blood from his eyes and assessed that, yes, he'd been brought to a safe place, he jumped to the window he'd just broken, but by the time his vision unblurred, there was no trace of the ghost except for a splatter of blood on the ground in front of the window that trailed off and out of the distortion.
The ghost bled- it wasn't a shadow at all! Had- had Morgana just killed someone?! Jumping after the trail of blood, Morgana dashed out of Suguru Kamoshida's palace, finding himself back in the real world.
There!
Shaking off the feeling of switching from two legs to four paws, he saw the figure limping towards a wall. "Wait, stop!" Morgana shouted.
The bleeding figure turned around and his eyes widened before he made to limp away from Morgana. But it was a dead-end alley, and it was going towards a wall!
Where- it faded into, without resistance.
So- it was a ghost- but he bled- what-
As Morgana failed to slow down, between the shocking realization, and colliding with a stone wall, he promptly passed out, the smell of iron overpowering to his senses. He would later wake up to a bemused vet's office, who was wondering how Morgana had ended up so caked in blood without serious injury before Morgana made his daring escape once more.
He needed to learn more, but he'd lost his trail. What now?
The Shadow Self awakens, and is apparently the one that gifted Niles with a phone. Niles' first Metaverse outing ends with a Garu to the face and a spooked cat :( We'll go ahead and call it a skill issue.
Friendly reminder that on the place of patrons I now post up to five chapters ahead, and furthermore, I am now open to commissions! If you're interested, you can PM me here and any other place I post my stories at.
Drink water, stay awesome. Nick of Name, out. :)
