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Dancing at Dawn; [Invitation Only - see associated Plotting thread linked in first post]
Topic Started: Dec 24 2017, 01:26 AM (992 Views)
Nonsequitur
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Yellow Bubblegum
"Who put them there doesn't matter now. I need something and we have no time to argue." She wasn't very good at keeping the obvious irritation out of her voice. She didn't spare Kyo a second glance. Someone had to explain the situation to her, but she absolutely declined. It was more worthwhile for someone to speak to her that actually had some sort of connection to her memories, no? That disqualified Maki outright.

"How much time do we have?" It was a question no one was prepared to answer exactly. She already knew the annswer was 'not nearly enough.' She had sent Fujiwara the last message, and they were approaching the threshold that was absolutely considered to confirm that the enemy had arrived.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
"Right! The cameras..." Eri popped out of the room, looking around in a harried manner as if she'd forgotten where the doors were. Kyo's sudden reappearance had discombobulated her tenuous hold on the focus she'd managed to force herself into, her concentration on doing what her daughter had trusted her to. She stopped, closed her eyes and took a breath.

"It'll take a few minutes to boot up the computer anyway," Kyo said blandly. "But Detective Imoto's right, mom, I should get the weapons. It's a heavy box... that's t' discourage any would-be burglars from pullin' it off the top shelf, but I can lift it."

She walked to the bathroom, but paused at the door. Just stopped, blinked, and then turned her head to look straight at the woman whose irritated voice had just interjected. She stood there for a full three seconds, staring. Her eyes seemed to momentarily unfocus, as if her brain was doing a very quick reboot. And then she gasped, and did something Kyo was rarely seen doing outside of a private moment with her boyfriend:

She blushed. But it wasn't embarrassment or attraction that shone on her face when she started talking. It was, simply put, a look of hero worship.

"O-Officer Yamada!" she yelped. "When did you get here?! No, never mind... why are you here? Are you workin'... are you working with Detective Imoto now? Ah, jeez, I... if I'd known you were comin'... God, I hate that accent! Sorry, if I knew you were coming, I'd've cleaned up. And I haven't even thanked you properly yet, either. Right, we need weapons... stay away from the windows... ah, shit. It's those Black Hood losers, isn't it? Say no more."

She snapped her finger, and disappeared into the bathroom while Eri went to watch the computer. As Kyo pulled a stool out of the closet with a plasticky dragging sound, the sign-in jingle could be heard from the PC speakers on the other side of the office. By the time Kyo emerged with quite a hefty and rather long box held in her arms (muscles straining visibly with the effort, and her lack of height casting a convincing illusion of instability), Eri called, "Cameras are loading up! I should be able to see what there is to see in just a few moments."

Kyo set the box on the floor next to the wall outside the bathroom.

"Here ya go! There's a few cheap swords in there, a bow and some arrows, bow might need assembly though... a few daggers, and... a few airsoft pistols and an air rifle, which probably won't kill anyone but a good shot can harry 'em and I think I..."

Pause. Unfocused eyes. Reboot. And she went on talking as if she hadn't stopped.

"...Mom had the bright idea that we could fire pellets with spells charged in 'em to make 'em a more legit weapon. I'm not gonna use either of those though. My aim's still a bit garbo. Only person I know my age who's got gun training is this girl from America who moved in down the street from Chika's place. She gave me some pointers. I haven't practiced enough, though."

Kyo paused, then, staring into box. She bent down, reached in... and withdrew the kodachi that Naoya Imoto had forged for her. She stared at it. Unfocused eyes. Reboot. Stared again. And her eyes went right back to unfocused.

It seemed that she had finally encountered something inside that office that her brain was not prepared to fill in the blanks for.
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Czernobog
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Best Influence.
Shin remained by the door, a bit to the side and with his back against the wall, trying to focus on the moment at hand. Kyo Charinko seemed to have not been completely scraped clean of her memories, but her behavior was incredibly anomalous. He wondered how long this would go on, and just how underfoot she would get during the inevitable conflict. The exact nature of their plan didn't sit well with him -- he wasn't sure any of them would be able to focus on the audio file, and he wasn't sure any of them would recognize Control's voice -- he obviously used some apparatus to disguise it during missions.

Still, they couldn't exactly change approaches right now. They were locked into this plan, and they would see how it shook out.

With luck, they would get through this and there would be no further casualties. Still, part of him wondered if they would have to use the blotter. If things got too hectic, it was entirely possible, though it would also make them seem more hive-minded than they actually were. He'd always hated the whole flash mob/thumb tribe thing -- it always made it seem like people were moving like a school of fish instead of like actual people.
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Nonsequitur
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Yellow Bubblegum
Maki wasn't listening to Kyo's anecdote very hard. She knelt down by the box and began to periodically inspecting the swords. Swiftly she picked one up, partially slid out the blade and either tossed it back in the box or in a small pile outside. This one looked promising, at her feet. This one wouldn't do, back in the box. This one felt right in her grip. Pile. That one was clearly made with someone taller than her in mind, box.

In moments ,she had for that seemed satisfactory to her. She took the bundle in her hands and set them in a place that would be easy at hand if she needed it. The best of the bunch she unsheathed and grasped deftly in her hands, and leveled the blade towards the one entrance. She had no qualms that the blade itself wouldn't be in peril after intense use in a real fight and she wanted a fresh one on hand at a moment's notice.

She chose a waiting position at the side of the room far from the windows and close to the wall. No response still meant she was almost certain that they were closing upon them at that very moment.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
Kyo stared at the sword for a bit longer. Eventually her eyes refocused and she seemed to settle on simply not recognizing the weapon. It returned to the box.

"I don't think I wanna use somethin' sharp like that on actual people," she decided aloud. "I don't think I'd have the stomach for it. I mean, I know y'all are trained for that, but... I think I'd hesitate less if I used somethin' a little less lethal."

She stood up, and talked across the office to the side-room, where Eri had just gotten the cameras working. Several windows were open on the screen, and her eyes darted between them: a view of the street, a view of the back lot, a view of the alley into which Kyo had lured Control, a view of the roof. Kyo's eyes lingered on the screen for a few moments, and then she turned toward the closet, opening it and swiftly swiping up her trusty bokken. Bringing it to rest on her shoulder, she turned and strolled back out to the office, stopping suddenly as she remembered she was supposed to be staying out of view of the window.

She moved to kneel down, curiously making a point to stick close to Maki. She didn't really know Detective Imoto that well, but Officer Yamada had helped her out in a big way, once...

"So if the Black Hoods are about to attack us," Kyo said suddenly, "why the hee-ho hell are we sitting here waitin' for 'em? Shouldn't we be halfway across town by now?"

A slight choking sound emitted from the side room in which Eri sat watching the cameras, but Kyo didn't seem to have heard it. But Kyo stiffened before she received an answer to her question, closing her eyes and visibly concentrating. Concentrating. Concentrating.

Her eyes sprang open.

"What the hell!? I can't sense Morrigan! I can't... my Persona! Where the fuck is my Persona?!"
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Czernobog
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Best Influence.
Shin spoke quietly, possibly too quietly for Kyo to hear, but didn't turn his attention from the door. "We aren't running because this is the plan. And you can't sense your persona because you were injured in a way that we can't understand as we got to this point. Now please stay back and let us handle this."

He felt a tightness in his chest and coughed.

"If you all have some ear plugs it might be a good idea to put them in. This is going to be loud."

Black figures began to move around the edges of the screen on several of the cameras, but in a moment they were completely visible on others. They seemed to have an idea where a number of the cameras were located but to have missed one or two of them. Due to their attempts, it was difficult to guess how many there were. More than three -- possibly six or nine.
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Nonsequitur
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Yellow Bubblegum
Outside, where all the commotion was, his phone lost a signal. That was as good as an announcement that they were there. He was at full alert and prepared for this. The rooftop he was perched on and near-enough buildings in all directions had already had makeshift ramps and bridges to move onto another if necessary.

Seiji stretched the limit of his perception range. He didn't know what he was looking for beyond a set of general parameters: A very powerful Persona that was unfamiliar to him, with Analysis (or it's improved version) at the time and place of a Black Hood attack.

…and wouldn't you know it? He had just that. He'd 'seen' it before he had a chance to be noticed in return. He no longer had any means of contacting those in the office, and that lack of contact had been his warning enough. Carefully he took the route back down to the ground that would have made sure he was unnoticed and he had to leave.

---

She took a deep breath. She didn't have any problems telling her exactly why she didn't have a Persona but it was already said in a way. There was no point to being redundant and answering that question in detail wasn't helping either. But she did concisely, and rather bluntly clarify without ever taking her eyes off the door or looking back to Kyo.

"You have no Persona and we're here because you made yourself bait for this, and the rest of us are simply reacting to that.

She had no earplugs sadly, but it was too late to worry now. She just shook her head and did her best to remain calm. Much of that involved tamping down a surprising amount of anger she never realized that she held. Nothing more to do until the enemy revealed itself.
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The One True Nobody
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
From this point on, additional players should enter the thread on an invitation basis or if given the go-ahead in the plotting thread. If you take part in this thread, please make a point to post in a timely manner.

---

As figures began moving on the monitor, Eri gulped. She glanced over at Kyo. She had checked to be sure that her phone was still running the background app that was set to ping a computer back in her apartment regularly. When the connection failed — and Kyo had ensured that the odds of a false positive were quite low — it would automatically send an SMS text to several people that Kyo had contacted ahead of time and asked to take up positions in nearby public places... a diner here, a noodle bar there, places where they would be innocuous. Most of them were low-level Persona-users... people that Control wouldn't expect to have been called in on purpose... it would seem like their presence in the surrounding city blocks was pure coincidence, and they were too far away to be alerted to what was going on at the office without a communications device of some sort, though all it would take was a bicycle ride to get them in range to intervene quickly.

She could also tap a button to send the alert without waiting for a disconnect and the delay that the ping timer would require. The app had been programmed in an afternoon by Eri's husband. How Kyo had convinced the man to do her this favor, Eri had no idea. It hadn't even occurred to Eri before this that Kyo would think to ask her father for help with anything, but before Akio Charinko had shifted his focus to business, he had taken (and excelled in) basic coding courses and continued it as a hobby of sorts. If the man hadn't been the type who lacked imagination, he might even have had what it took to get into game design; but the only use Akio ever made of this was to keep his coding knowledge sharp so he could make accurate statements and recommendations at work. It was what had gotten him hired in Nagashima to begin with. It wasn't easy to find a human resources manager who knew as much about the technical side of the programming work he was meant to oversee as did Akio.

...she tapped the button. The message was sent out, short and simple to the people whose phone numbers had been registered to the app beforehand:

SMS Alert
 
THE BLACK HOODS ARE APPROACHING THE OFFICE.
CLOSE IN QUICKLY BUT WITH CAUTION, AND KEEP AS MANY AS POSSIBLE FROM ESCAPING.
DO NOT REMAIN IN THE OPEN STREET ANY LONGER THAN NECESSARY;
THERE MAY BE SNIPERS WAITING IN THE WINGS.


It was as Eri sent this alert out that Shin made his belated suggestion of earplugs. Kyo gave him a look. Eri gasped and put a hand to her mouth, wondering why she'd forgotten that... but Kyo's eyes unfocused. Maki's answer almost went unheard, but Kyo began speaking in a dazed way, giving her answer to Maki first.

"...Me, make myself bait? What kinda suicidal idiot do you think I..."

Pause. Eyes snapping back to focus. Then, a snap of the fingers as if to say, Aha! Got it!

"Ear protection!" she whispered. "I need to take out the ear protection — don't forget, ear protection, remove ear protection, don't forget, use the bokken, better reach and non-lethal, knock them off or pull out plugs, don't forget, need to hear voice clearly, don't forget, if any of them met him in person it might remind them what his voice sounds like, don't forget, don't forget — "

She was as certain of this, as inexplicably sure of this, as she was that she couldn't let her neck injury be healed. But it was more than that, this time. Disconnected from anything else in her brain, she could remember repeating these words to herself in front of her bathroom mirror, in the dead of night when Hiro-kun was alseep...

She gripped her bokken and a shark-like grin broke over her face, the rambling whispers abruptly stopping. She pointed her sword at the door.

"If I have no Persona, then the last thing they'll expect is me to go out there with a big stick and start speaking softly to their tender earmuffs with it. Mom, Officer Yamada? I need one o' you to send your Persona out behind me, give me cover, distract them... dismiss it if they target it too directly or with one of your weaknesses, make them waste ammunition if you can! Since only two of you have Personas... the other one should help Detective Imoto cover the door. The door's gotta stay clear so the one covering me can dismiss their Persona and send it right back out again if they need to poof away to make a clean dodge! Keep your Persona near the door, though... trying to cast spells with too much distance can be too much strain on your brain!"

She didn't know when she'd learned this last one the hard way, only that she'd learned it the hard way at some point. Kyo moved to position herself nearer to the front door. Eventually the barricade would be broken through and it was obvious that she had every intention of catching the first person to break through with her bokken and push out onto the railing as quickly as she could. While this would put her in a difficult situation (Eri reflected as she glanced out into the main room), the older woman knew that Kyo was good at quick climbing and parkour; Kyo had even demonstrated, once, that she could swing over the railing and drop down onto the top of the vending machine in the alley below, next to her motorcycle, and hop right down to ground level to make a quick escape from the office if need be. Eri was more than a little envious of that skill. She was sure that if she tried it she'd panic and botch the landing and break her neck on the cold, unfeeling concrete...
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Ket
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Kept you waiting huh?
No.
All I am surrounded by is fear, and dead men.
No.
When the weak court death, they find it.
I'm not saying a one liner before attacking.
Fine, DON'T add a little flair to your entrance.

Despite his comedic back and forth with Whisp, Alan was on edge. He'd been in the cafe for the better part of a half an hour just...waiting. There was a tension in the air that seemed only visible to him. Then again, nobody else was about to go head to head against the black hoods. He was wearing a simple white t shirt with cargo shorts. He figured being inconspicuous would be best here. Leaning against the table was the bat he'd bought earlier today. Honestly going nonlethal would be pretty hard with a switchblade, at the very least a bat was a little more viable.

He wished he would've gone over the plan more with Kyo. There was...a lot he was worried about. He had taken a lot on faith here, something he still wasn't entirely used to. Still, a counteroffensive against the black hoods was something he could get behind. They've been doing as they liked for too long. They've hurt too many people. This had to end.

Almost in time with his determination, Alan's phone went off. He stared at the message for about half a second before calmly getting up, paying for his drink, grabbing his bat and walking out the door.

The next moment he was running down the sidewalk. He wasn't too far away from the office building in the first place. It wouldn't take him too long to get there, but the thought of snipers made him a little wary of just running down the open street once he was within range. He opted to cut through a few alleys instead, just in case the approach was being watched.

Within a few minutes, the office was in site. He planned enough ahead of time to map out the approach to back lot. He was ducked down out of sight in an ally right across from the lot. He scanned the area and frowned. It seemed like he was the first one here. If he went in now and the black hoods bailed, there was a high chance he'd get overpowered.

Don't be like that Alan, you're strong as hell!
It's not about strength, it's a numbers game here. We need more right now.

He gripped the bat tightly, his whole body tense as he waited. One more would suffice, two more would be fantastic. Three more and no one would be getting past them for sure. He wasn't going to wait long though. If others didn't show up soon, he would really have no choice. No matter what though, no one would be getting past him. This had to work.

It had to.
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Czernobog
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Best Influence.
Shin, who was standing in a position to fire on the front door as soon as it was broken through made an annoyed sound in his throat when Kyo moved across it and got into position not far from where he was intending to fire. An acidic bit of sarcasm immediately came to mind, "glad you have such confidence in my aim," or some such, but he just set his jaw.

"Kyo," he vastly preferred calling people by their last name, but "Charinko-san" wasn't exactly clear here, "I'm going to be firing on them, so if you could stay relatively low, I'll do my best to not hit you. These are tight quarters and --"

He stopped. There were footsteps coming up the stairs. Not exactly in unison, but a fair number of them. He had no idea how many, but it felt like more than he would be comfortable handling on his own.

Shin drew a breath.
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