"I'm in position." I called out.
"Already, Rat?" Oracle gasped out in surprise. "Uh, hold on, I'm connecting you back to the team. Hold position."
"Not my fault the guards here are incompetent and easy to mow through."
"Knight here, we're at the treasure."
"Remind me why we thought it was a good idea to put you so close to the thieves?" I grouched. I knew the reason, I just thought it was stupid.
"Now's not the time to second guess the plan, Rat." Oni admonished.
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I've got the easy part anyways."
"That we do." I turned around to see climbing on top of the palace and jogging next to me a familiar mask. I relaxed slightly.
"Wolf's with me, Oracle, key him in."
"Hold on, there's an issue here. The team that reached the treasury is just 4 of them!" Knight called.
"What?!/Huh?!/How?!" was the reply of several of us.
"With us are... Skull, Noir, Queen and Mona- they've spotted us!" Oni's voice rose in panic.
"Oracle, where are the others?!" I hissed.
"Uh, let's see, opening up the map- Rat, they're right next to you!"
I looked up just in time to see five thieves jump out all around me and Wolf, guns pointed and looking ready to tussle. Surrounding us were Joker, Ann, Yusuke, Hifumi and… Sumire...
"Hello there." Joker grinned at us. I mouthed 'General Kenobi' to myself, trying to calm my nerves as the situation crashed around us.
"Stick'em up!" Panther cheerily called out.
"Woo, Venus! They were right where you predicted them to be!" I heard Morgana's cheer blare through my ears, prompting me to glance at the girl in question. Hifumi was covering a smirk with her hand daintily put up.
"Rat? Rat?! Are you there?!" I pulled out the receptor from out of my ear and crushed it under foot.
"I suggest you give up right where you stand." Inari told us. "Violet has already informed us of your vile intentions, and we will not hesitate to shoot you down."
I glanced at the last one.
"Violet..." I muttered. Mona and Noir were frankly understandable- past history aside, they were phantom thieves first and foremost, and they were apparently sitting this one out.
She, however, was not. The gymnast was pointing her rifle right at me as I glanced at her, an expression of shame, but looking defiantly determined at the same time.
"Wolf, break through. Get to Janus, tell him that the plan is a bust." He nodded, before roaring as he summoned his persona.
"Not a chance!" Inari shouted, but as they began firing, I dived to cover Wolf with my body, hissing as the sting of the bullets hit me. I smiled, however, as they did much more to my foes than me, by virtue of my body reflecting the bullet hail.
Time for a counterattack. Ripping off my mask and quickly donning another, I huffed, rage pouring through my system. "Fine, I'll show you. Andromache, Maragion!"
God, this is so dumb. Stupid hospital.
Here I was, in a hospital bed, high off my rocker on morphine and a laptop as my only company.
Well- that's not quite true. There was also my mom by my side. But she's asleep on those not quite comfortable sofas that they leave for guests, ever the worrywart.
It's also 2AM. I maybe should have introduced with that.
But anyways, here I was, unable to sleep after having woken up, and unable to entertain my mind with anything due to the fact that I would start giggling aloud (or laughing heartily, at times) if I watched memes.
I felt giggly.
The other patients did not feel giggly, especially the slightly older guy who seemed to be in a ton of pain. I typically swore like a sailor, but man did this guy have me beat right now.
hehe
Stifling my giggles, I turned my attention to the laptop.
So, memes were out. I was currently browsing the weird part of YouTube, trying to make sure that I didn't watch anything too funny, when something caught my attention.
It's also true that I have the attention span of a spastic fly right now, but still.
It was a youtube video like another- seemed clickbaity enough, with a bright red Persona 5 Take Your Heart symbol and a title that said "Persona 5 Reality Shifting Guided Medita..." with the rest trailing off.
...huh.
I... think I heard- oooooh. Yeah. Reality Shifting. Lucid dreaming but given a prettier name.
...
I never was able to do meditation and shit. How would it be to do it while high?
Either impossible or I'll like, totally ascend to Nirvana.
Ascending to Nirvana would be pretty cool.
...did that mean I'd be able to float? Or gain some crazy monk powers like additional arms? Or-
Right, ascension first then crazy monk powers. Like 1d10 damage per punch.
Glancing over at my mom, I saw that she was still asleep, not here to bear witness to anything.
Okey.
The video began simple enough- a woman with platinum blonde short hair, golden irises from what I can only assume to be some sort of editing effect and a navy blue blouse was staring directly into the camera, microphone close to her mouth.
"Pretty." I muttered to myself. That was an excellent cosplay work.
As it was, she began muttering some stuff out in an ASMR voice- the classic "whispering goosebumps" type, and similarly classic "make sure you're comfortable, don't get interrupted, follow the sound of my voice."
Except that I was really getting into it. My senses had gradually shifted so that the woman's gently smiling face was all I could see, and I did not blink, did not tear my eyes away from her. As she teasingly dragged a finger across the camera and asked me to follow it, I did exactly that.
The world did not exist anymore.
Only the video. Or was that gone too?
"Good work. Now, when I will snap my fingers, you will let go, and feel a hundred times better, and go a hundred times deeper into trance. Ready?"
Snap.
Like I was about to go on surgery all over again, my senses dimmed even further, despite me not even realizing that they'd been there.
"Good. Now, we'll do it again. You will follow the sound of my voice, and you will feel a hundred times better, and go a hundred times deeper on the snap of my fingers."
Snap.
There was not much anymore. I wasn't even sure there was a me anymore. But there was the video, and her voice, and her fingers.
"Again. When I snap my fingers, a hundred times deeper, a hundred times better."
Snap.
And this time, whatever I heard from the video was too muddled. I couldn't even hear what she said, except that it was in the same tone.
Snap.
I should've maybe been preoccupied when I began feeling a sensation, in my chest, as though someone was gently shoving me.
But-
Snap.
Snap.
Snap.
And with that, I was out like a light.
I groaned as I got up from the floor I was lying on. Just a moment ago, I'd spaced out watching some youtube video.
...but that was not what the circumstances were telling me.
Rather than lying in a hospital bed as was normal, I was sitting on a hardwood floor, in the middle of... a metal cage, left open. Attached to my chest and pressed against the ground were a few of those medical suction cups, which in turn were attached to a beeping machine, though they came off as soon as I stood up, causing the machine, a scanner, to flatline.
Taking stock of my surroundings, I noticed the musty smell first things first. I honestly didn't mind, it was to me one of those "bad" smells that I actually enjoyed, similar to gasoline. I was in some sort of basement. However, that wasn't all there was to the smell.
Looking around, I realized that I was in the middle of a pentagram. That gave me pause. Thankfully though, it looked like it was some sort of waxy substance, rather than animal blood. Or human blood. Or blood of any kind, really.
Rather than something more classic, however, there was a certain... "modern" feeling to it, if that made any sense. An old-style generator in the corner of a room powered five devices that looked vaguely like lightning rods with coils around them- ah, that was the purpose of the Faraday cage, though thankfully the generator was turned off. Sticks of incense were long since completely burned and only let off a vaguely reminiscent smell. Next to the generator was a laptop connected to it, similarly turned off. Broken bits of a rubber hose revealed salt spilling out.
The feeling ultimately ended up being that of a weird crossover between a satanic ritual and a Frankestein revival, but with more modern elements.
It gave me pause. What, exactly, had happened here? And more importantly, why was I here?
I still only had an hospital gown too. No shoes, no pants.
Looking around, the basement had been basically cleaned out or never had anything in it to begin with, and only had stairs leading up.
Scratching my beardless chin, I went to go open the door. From there, it took me a moment to realize something was wrong when the handle wasn't pulling down. Of course, by then my main concern was that I had my fist sunk forearm deep into the door, as though my hand had been cut off. I pulled it back in shock, and there was my hand again.
...was I a ghost?
Sticking my hand back into the door, I got arm deep into it.
Yoooooooo. Wild.
Turning towards the wall, I pushed my arm against it. I touched the wall.
That... why was the door okay, but not the wall?
I jogged back to the room I'd been into, and realized I was able to interact with the "ritual" elements, such as touching the incense and the faraday cage, but when I went to try and touch the laptop, my hand once again went through it. The suction cups also had stuck to me at first. Very selective incorporeality.
...hm.
Need to investigate more.
Walking back, I got to the door and this time went fully through, glad to notice that my "clothing" went through with me. And sure enough, a set of wooden stairs, which I was able to climb but was ankle deep in, led me to what was... well, a house. I was now in what seemed to be a dining area, with a table and four matching chairs, and also an unmatching chair made of some other type of darker wood. Sitting at it was a grumbling older-looking woman with a cup of something in her hand, and facing her an older man.
They were also speaking, undoubtedly, some sort of eastern language.
…somehow, this was the weirder thing to me. I could at least at some level rationalize the fact that I'd turned into a ghost by… well, not rationalizing it at all. It was weird, mystical and absolutely bullshit on so many levels that my brain instinctively went "nope" at the idea.
But why of all places would I wind up in Asia?
Briefly stopping my staredown of the two elderly folk as a doubt creeped up in my mind, I began leaving the house, quite literally walking through the door. It tickled slightly.
Walking outside, I just began adventuring more and more outside the property of the house until I was sure beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that no, I was not a specter raised to haunt the abode I was in and could comfortably leave at my leisure, though most things I was still intangible to, and some others I wasn't. That, however, just raised even more questions.
Some investigating was in order.
Finally, my Persona 5 story is starting out!
If you want to see more, I tend to post three chapters in advance on the place of patrons. That doesn't mean that the new chapters are for patrons only, but if you want to support me and see the work a little early, then please check it out.
Drink water, stay awesome. Nick of Name, out. :)
