Everything is normal today during the early hours of the morning. There's really no hint, no way of knowing, no anything that could indicate that CERES -- and thus Cerealia -- is about to irrevocably change. There would be birds chirping, if there were birds, but since there aren't any, there's just the constant sounds of a city in motion, humming with technology even that early in the morning.
And then, regardless of where you are or what you're doing or how early it is, everyone's CereVices flicker on to show a perhaps-familiar, perhaps-unfamiliar face.
Bellona Recreare, the business owner of Cerealia and CEO of CERES, stares at everyone with a flat, cold look. She doesn't seem happy.
(When is she ever?)  It has come to my attention that there has been industrial espionage and corporate sabotage in CERES' personnel. Such a thing will not be tolerated.
Due to this, Mosley's employment with CERES has been terminated. Please now direct any public relations questions to 1-800-7322934844444.
Good day.
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PHASE I [ 6 00 ] Bright and early, not long after that sudden announcement by Bellona, you may decide to go back to sleep, or you may decide to get up and go about your day (or you may not have woken up at all).
Either way, it doesn't matter.
Because your apartment is broken.
The entire apartment. The door is locked shut (and that sucker is solid metal so it might be time to try a window), the HOLO(gm) is flickering wildly between settings, and the blender is out for your blood. Anything technological in any way (that is CERES-brand or has been tampered with by CERES) will be malfunctioning in a way that comes across as... oddly malicious.
Now's a bad time for the late sleepers to realize that the beds, too, have auto-control tech functionality. Hope you enjoy that electroshock wake up call, or the fact that the bed could fling you totally across the room.
PHASE II [ 1000 ] The rest of the city isn't faring so well either.
The trains are completely out of commission; even if the doors do open, it's probably not a good idea to get on. If you do, it looks like the doors will slam shut behind you, and the train will go hurtling forward at dangerous speeds with sudden stops. Many of the shops can't be accessed at all, automated doors refusing to open, and worst of all, every single last piece of tech in Cerealia now seems to have the sole goal of Making Your Life Hard.
The Pleasure District is flooded now that the spas are broken, but hey -- at least the perfume ensures that water smells good, and it's pretty warm. That's good, right? Maybe go for a nice swim.
The CERES police bots are out of control, chasing people down to arrest them for imagined crimes (What do you mean you aren't a closet voyeur?), and heaven forbid you're around any of the auto shops when everything goes totally wrong. The auto-drive feature in many of CERES's cars seem to be a little... finicky today. It doesn't seem like anywhere in the city is exempt from this. Good luck.
And towards the end of the second day of this insanity, the train, with whatever unfortunate passengers are on it, will derail. It crashes into part of the shopping district, leveling buildings and leaving the wrecked overturn husk of a train resting there uselessly.
Suddenly, things don't seem so harmless anymore.
PHASE III [ 1100 ] Of course... you're CERES-owned too.
Your code, rather, is made and owned by CERES, and it's inevitable with the craziness going on that it would soon affect everyone's code as well. So as the hour approaches noon, a few unlucky souls may start to notice that things are just Not Quite Right with them. Their powers may be on the fritz, functioning entirely wrong or not at all, or even stranger -- fire powers turning into water, ice into flame, electricity brings mud. Your clothing might suddenly change when your coding glitches, or it might be gone entirely. You may suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to start singing, or frolicking. You may suddenly be wildly in love with the first person (or robot or mirror) that you see, unable to stop it until the odd glitching wears off.
And then, just like that, you're back to normal, if a bit more tired than before. How troublesome.
There are also moments where what appears to be an ID number appears on the back of your neck in glowing light blue numbers. Each of these codes is a 7 digit number, with an E at the front of the number. It appears that the longer you've been in Cerealia, the lower the number is -- like a brand of some sort. You may not be able to see it yourself with it on the back of your neck like that, but everyone else sure can.
PHASE IV [ 1645 ] And, just like that, on the last day of this madness, the city goes dark. The lights cut out. The technology shuts off. Every last robot in Cerealia is completely and totally down, and can no longer be booted up. Even when the lights come back on in a few hours... the robots remain dead.
Cerealia's a lot harder to function in without those handy dandy robots running the place. It's also a lot more desolate, and rather quiet.
Slowly but surely, the rest of the technology will boot itself back up towards the end of the last day. But the robots remain broken, and cannot be fixed. In fact, opening them up will reveal that nothing's wrong with them at all... they just won't wake up.
As time ticks by, it doesn't look like Bellona will address anything on the network about the events and all people are left to do now is... learn how to function again. Without any help.
BONUS [ ???? ] If you were a stupid brave enough soul to log into ViViD during this time (or were unfortunately glitched there, which could happen), you will find that ViViD is in... safe mode. It's struggling to boot up, and even when you finally enter, you'll find yourself wandering through skeleton levels of half-completed scenery and incomplete quests. There are readings in the corner of each level that can be seen now, one about Energy Gain and one about Energy Loss, and just as the gain goes up the longer you are there, the loss, too, rises. At first, it's fascinating, and it isn't particularly dangerous... but then it becomes clear that you can't actually log out.
You can't exit Safe Mode at all.
Slowly, it feels as though you can breathe less and less, that the empty walls of the level are closing in on you... and there's nothing you can do. Unless you are or find a particularly genius hacker and they can access the source code and find the exit buried inside that code within the next few minutes... there's nothing to be done.
And then everything goes dark.
You'll wake up the next IC day, with those same energy readings marked on your wrist like some sort of bright blue digital tattoo. When you wake in the mornings, it will read at 100% and slowly go down during the course of the day until you sleep. It will fade after three IC days.
And from now on, ViViD always has those energy levels in the corner, even when it's fixed. They always seem to be recording you, every time you're in ViViD. Strange.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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HELL YEAH I DO
Well. This is horrible in another way. Because it's not exactly the Yosuke she knows who is sitting there. His legs are hanging out between the bars and he's leaning forward against them, looking terribly put upon. So it's sort of a blessing when she makes her presence known. ]
Hmmmmmmm? Hurt? What, do I still look like that much of a pushover?
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What are you doing up there, anyway?
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[Well that sets off about a billion red flags in her mind.]
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[ With that, Yosuke straightens and hops down from his perch with ease. As he stands, he grins, the gold of his eyes gleaming. ]
Should we tell the lady what she's won?
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...do you intend to attack me?
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That really depends...on if you keep entertaining me. [ And those are definitely his kunai. ] I'll destroy anything that bores me!
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[Though she has some uncertainties here that she'd like answered. How best to resolve them?] Two things come to mind, then. For one, surely you must realize that I have the range advantage. You're quick, but not quick enough to close the gap before I shoot you. Without any ranged attacks, I can simply retreat and keep you at bay.
For another, where is the real Yosuke Hanamura? Shouldn't you be trying to get him to accept or reject you? [That was the goal of a Shadow, more or less. So if her hunch is right...]
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[ He steps forward, tapping his own chest with the business edge of his kunai. ]
Thanks to the glitch in the Matrix here, I've got the home game advantage. [ That grin looks mischievous now, twisted at the edges. ] I am him! In the flesh.
[ Shadows are very self-preserving, but Shadow Yosuke's almost cocky about it. He's betting it all on the fact that Yosuke's friends won't want to actually hurt him. The Real Yosuke. ]
If you shoot me, you shoot him. Unless you wanna test that theory, but I'm thinking you don't. There are calculated risks and then there are idiotic ones, am I right!? Miss Ace Detective?
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You're not a real Shadow at all, then. You're simply a corruption of Yosuke's personality-- the same that's been happening to all of us all over the city-- manifested in one particular way.
Though you're correct that that means I'd rather not shoot you unless absolutely necessary. But there are other ways to subdue you, if it comes to that.
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Good job, Naoto-kun. [ He exhales through his nose, but he refuses to be dismantled this easily. ] I guess we'll have to see what you've got in mind.
[ Which is about all the warning she gets before there's a heavy Garudyne spell cast her way. No Persona, he is supposed to be a Shadow, after all. ]
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She's quick to scramble to her feet again, but she doesn't raise her revolver in Yosuke's direction. The Shadow was right, after all; she's not about to shoot her friend if she can at all help it. Which means this will be a Persona battle. Or... not a Persona battle, given that Yosuke had seemed to use that without calling Susano'o.
His affinity for wind means that she can't hit him with her own Garudyne in return, though. And her Mudo and Hama spells have the same problem her handgun does. She keeps moving backwards as she thinks, putting distance between them.] --are you trying to kill me because you're bored? That's terribly petty of you.
Yamato Sumeragi! [Luckily, she has other options. Like a full blast of Agidyne right in his face.]
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Guess we'll see what happens, huh?
[ He's cut off by the fire blast, his hands flying up to block the attack, though it's not very effective. He's not weak to fire, per se, but it's still painful. His sleeves are singed as he lowers them, his grin twisted at the edges. ]
See, there's a difference between you and me.
[ He steps forward, another gust of wind building up. ]
I'm not gonna hold BA--
[ Except. He freezes. Like someone paused a movie. ]
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But I would suggest not mistaking that for holding back, either. [She doesn't know why he's frozen, but she's not going to let it go to waste.
Have another Agidyne on the house.]
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He stumbles backwards, his own spell needing a moment to recharge. ]
T'ch.
[ He grits is teeth as he straightens, now his hair is looking unkempt due to the repeat fire spells. Thanks, Naoto. ]
I'd be disappointed if you did.
[ Another Garudyne as well. ]
So then what's your angle? Wear me down?
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You'll revert back to Yosuke in due time. I just have to outlast you.
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Too slow!
[ That almost sounds reminiscent of Yosuke if it wasn't in his Shadow's voice, mixed and mangled, like too many people speaking at once. ]
Then I guess we'll have to make this short!
[ His grin his wicked as he spins both of his kunai simultaneously. Normally Susan-o would perform this attack on his own, but Shadow Yosuke will make this work just fine.
Unlike Naoto, he doesn't seem to have any problems trying to hurt her.
He spins as his strength is amplified for an instant, releasing his weapons in a modified version of Brave Blade. ]
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[She does two things, now. The first, as he closes in on her, is to point her pistol up at the gaudy neon sign flickering above them in the alleyway that he'll be having to run under, and to fire.
The resulting flash of light and spray of glass shards won't really do much damage, but she doesn't need it to. She just needs him looking somewhere else instead of her for a split second to get one last spell off. And it's not an Agidyne.
Tetrakarn.]
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