Quote: Upon entering the website, the front page has the text below. Omniverse Answers is written in bright, blue bold text at the top, and just below there is a grey link labeled "Boards". Upon clicking the link, it brings one to forum, on which the first post is the same as the text on the front page. 

Would anyone be interested in a Secondary storyline? The idea is that a group of Secondaries, either previously existing or newly made, are on some kind of boating trip-probably a cruise-and shipwreck on an island. The idea is that the story is about the group setting up a civilisation on the island, finding a proper food source, building shelter, things like that. Would anyone be interested?

Akira wasn't exactly starstruck by the Tier One scenery. It was strange, really, how similar and how different the city was from Tokyo. Sure, none of the landmarks were there, cars were flying, and there were all kinds of inhuman people roaming around, mingling, but it was still just... a city. People bustling left, right, forward, backward, up, down, and diagonally. Buildings which seemed to exist merely because they could, with little to no actual markings or branding. Billboards, TV screens, food carts, and cafes peppering the blocks near the Gate because of its being high-traffic location. Of course, if it were a city, it'd stand to reason that there would be stray cats. There always were, and usually they weren't worth paying attention to, but that one specific cat caught his attention half a block away. Solid black with a white-tipped tail and a yellow scarf, only visible for a couple seconds before it entered an alleyway. A scarf, not a collar. Morgana? It made sense that the cat would be in his "normal" form; if Akira hadn't taken his Metaverse form, why would Morgana? Still, Akira moved without thinking, and in so doing found it was as easy for him to move now as it was in the Metaverse, rushing at an utterly superhuman speed to the mouth of the alley, just in time to see his feline quarry slip further away, turning another corner. Akira followed at a more sedate pace, though he still walked quickly, eager to escape the spectacle he'd accidentally made of himself by moving like that in his school uniform.

The cat kept itself one step ahead of Akira consistently. Whether this was because it was leading him somewhere or just a coincidence, Akira couldn't tell. "Morgana," he called out after a short time rushing through the alleyways, but the cat didn't respond or even slow. "Morgana, hold up!" It ignored him, running back onto a main road and into a crowded lift, Akira hot on its heels. "Morgana! Come back!" He managed to reach the cat through the crowd as the lift doors cllosed behind him, lifting it by the scruff of the neck. It hung there, lantern-orange eyes giving away one simple fact. This was just a stray cat. A few of the other occupants of the lift looked at him with disdain, a look that he mirrored towards the feline in his grip as it mewled innocently. Thankfully, elevators in Coruscant were much faster than their Earthly brethren, because they were only stuck in the metal box of claustrophobia for a brief minute before the rush of people leaving forced Akira out onto what the signage stated was "Tier Five". This city looked more familiar than Coruscant's upper tiers, bringing to mind pictures of Tokyo and New York City from before the Information Age. It was kind of charming, if you could look past the general air of depression and the vast amounts of graffiti. Akira sighed and dropped the stray cat, which ran from him with reckless abandon.

The lift doors shut behind him, and, rather than wait for it to return on whatever unknown schedule it followed, Akira elected to see what he could see on Tier Five. After a couple blocks of walking, he was just about ready to give up the whole thing as a bad job, since the most interesting thing he'd spotted was some particularly obscene graffiti, when he spotted the cat from the lift earlier. It wouldn't have been so interesting, had it not been perched on the shoulder of a thin young man dressed in sturdy, if mismatched and well-worn, clothes, who was walking directly towards Akira.

"You're the one who was terrorizing my cat earlier," the man, who appeared just a couple years older than Akira himself, stated flatly. "Why?"

Akira smiled disarmingly and scratched the back of his head, trying to look embarassed. "Sorry about that, I thought he was my cat from back home."

"Back home? You got here recently, then. Not attached to a Prime like glue, either, so that makes you one yourself. So, what's one of the high and mighty Primes doing all the way down here on Tier Five, huh? Come here to shove your Empire Peacekeeping down our throats?"

The killing intent rolling off of the man with the cat in waves made Akira take a step backwards. The gun under his shirt and the knife in his sleeve both weighed heavily on his mind, but he'd prefer not to start a fight with an actual person if he didn't need to. Shadows were one thing, but people didn't just dissolve and then reform somewhere else in the Collective Unconscious when you killed them. "Woah, easy. Like I told you, I was just chasing the cat because I thought he was Morgana, my cat from back home."

It was like flipping a switch, how fast this guy went from emitting a staggering amount of anger to this wry grin that Akira realized he saw way too often in the mirror. Another person who'd had to learn how to play others to keep himself alive and well, then. "He? Nimue's a she," the stranger laughed. "But my name's Morgan, so I guess in some crazy way you were pretty close." Once again changing entirely, this Morgan threw Akira completely off-guard with a serious glare and a flat line of questioning. "So if you're not with the Empire... why? Cushy job, pretty much free Omnilium, living space up on Tier Two. What's your game?"

Akira realized that he had an opportunity here. A choice, even. He could mind his own business, but... he felt it. A connection, waiting to form. A Confidant. Someone he could connect with, help and be helped in return. And at his core, Akira was desperate to be needed by people, so all in all, it wasn't really much of a choice. Bereft of his Persona, making bonds with Confidants was probably the best course of action for him. "I can't be a cog in the machine," the Joker smirked. "I've been here all of ten minutes and I can tell this city's the same as Tokyo; a nice shiny facade over a deep, underlying ugliness. I fought it there, and I can fight it here too." When he let himself be the Joker, he didn't have to worry about whether he was right or wrong. He knew what he was trying to do, and he did it, and that's all there was to it. Even without the mask, Akira could slip into that persona for just a little while.

The Wild Card was rewarded with an answering grin from Morgan. "Well, then, tell me, what's your name?"

"I'm Kurusu Akira. Nice to meet you, Morgan."

"Y'know, I might just be able to help you with that fight. You have a communicator of some kind? Phone, walkie talkie, anything?"

Akira pulled out his cell phone in answer, surprised that it seemed to be getting full service now. "Huh. Guess it fixed itself." He could check the Nav later, and see if that was different, too.

"They've been known to do that," Morgan answered, pulling out a phone of his own and tapping it on the back of Akira's own cell. A notification appeared; "New Contact: Morgan Crowe." "I'll send you an address. Meet me there in an hour, and we'll talk more. See you in an hour, Kurusu."

Akira nodded, splitting off from the rugged Morgan Crowe and walking down a side street.

This was gonna be fun.

Quote:

I am thou, thou art I
Thou has acquired a new Vow
It shall become the wings of rebellion that breaketh thy chains of captivity
With the birth of the Hanged Man Persona, I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to freedom and new power.

You are always so patient with me and I find your writing to be phenomenal!

Wishing you a great day!

-Sam<3

And now he's another year older.

Happy birthday to everyone's favorite murderous redhead, Trixie! I hope it's a good one.

Here's a picture of a Bloodrayne birthday cake, since I lack creativity and there weren't any good Mara Jade ones.

You know, Akira thought to himself as he floated in the uncaring black void that surrounded him, the Velvet Room was a prison, but I'd still prefer that to nothing. Though it probably helped that I could leave the Velvet Room whenever I wanted. The Joker sighed mutely, all sound seeming to be consumed by the murky blackness that surrounded him, and twisted around in mid-nothing, trying to find something he could use to orient himself and coming face to face with a blank white space, in the shape of a person, with a wide grin and caps of deepest black between its teeth. Immediately, Akira tried to recoil in shock and reach for his mask, intent on calling Arsene to help him deal with what seemed to be a Shadow of some kind, but he was thwarted on both accounts; he had no way to move under his own power, having no ground or walls or solid objects within reach, and he was wearing his school uniform rather than his Metaverse outfit, and thus lacked his mask. The being spoke to him, introducing itself and handing him a ball of some kind of substance that it called Omnilium. It felt like a Persona, like the energy that he could absorb into his mask and copy the Shadow it came from, but it also felt like... more than that, somehow. Like it wasn't just the base material of the mental mindscape, but the physical one as well. That might be what it is, since it "ties the Omniverse together."

The entity, Omni, released him from the uncaring black void into, by all appearances, an uncaring white void, but with a nice park fountain right next to him, and a sense of gravity, and a floor, so... small improvements. Akira stood from the white floor, looking around at the vast expanse of featureless white. He stretched, noting that he was still dressed in his Shujin Academy uniform. Rummaging through his pockets revealed three things; a sheathed knife in his front right pocket, a model gun holstered by his back left pocket, and his phone in his front left pocket. After a brief inspection of the blade, he strapped his Black Kogatana inside his sleeve, where it belonged, and unlocked his phone with a practiced combination. The first thing he checked was the Metaverse Nav, which proved itself utterly unhelpful, displaying only one error message.

Recalibrating for local Collective Unconscous topography.

Because that told him exactly what was wrong.

A quick search through some other apps revealed a similar lack of function; no wi-fi, no cell signal, nada. With an exasperated sigh, Akira pocketed the device, pushed his glasses up, and picked a direction to start walking. He was pretty much out of choices, after all. Standing around by the fountain and waiting for something to happen was a pretty dumb idea.

Half an hour later, Akira was thinking some very uncomplimentary things about Omni. Seriously, at least the Velvet Room had decoration, what is it with this Omni guy and his endless stretches of nothingness? Meanwhile, in the middle distance, a pair of individuals in white armor made plans for the immediate future. Plans that concerned the strange teenager with the messy hair and hideously tacky school uniform.

"I'm not going! I don't care how harmless he looks! In fact, it's probably because he looks harmless that I don't want to go!"

"He's just a high schooler! Take the speeder bike, go introduce him to the Omniverse, and maybe we'll luck into recruiting a skilled Prime and get promoted off of Gate duty!"

"No way, man! For all I know he can summon giant monsters or throw fire with his mind or whatever! You want to approach a new Prime so bad, you take the speeder and go meet him."

"You know how much I hate speeder bikes, especially in the Nexus. No reference points, too much speed, it's just strange."

"Ugh, fine, you big baby. I'll do it, but you better use that sniper blaster and back me up if he's hostile."

Their argument resolved, the two stormtroopers went their seperate ways, one to take up a position just outside the gate to Coruscant, and the other to mount the aforementioned speeder-bike, similar to a motorcycle but with some kind of hover system instead of wheels, and ride to meet the fresh Prime. He approached quickly, causing Akira to slow his own pace and observe the rapidly approaching rider with caution. He pulled the tail of his school uniform shirt out of his pants, draping it over the holstered model gun; not as good at concealing the small weapon as his Metaverse outfit, but it would have to do. The armor the approaching individual wore covered his entire body. He supposed this could be a Shadow, but he didn't think so. For one thing, the Metaverse Nav was inactive and, for lack of a better word, patching. For another, he was still in his student clothes. If this were a mindscape, he'd have transformed into his Joker ensemble when the mindscape began to consider him a threat, and if he wasn't a threat a Shadow wouldn't have been dispatched.

These thoughts kept him relaxed even as the Stormtrooper stopped his bike a short distance away. Akira raised a hand in greeting, which caused the man to flinch ever so slightly. He didn't think he'd have noticed had he not gotten so good at reading people over the past few months, or had he still not been on high alert from having to power through that truth serum and play Niijima Sae like a fiddle just a day prior. Still, after that almost-insignificant delay, the man (?) inclined his (her? its?) head in reply and spoke.

"Hello, and welcome to the Omniverse! My name is Private Michaels. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but right now it'd be best if we moved towards the Coruscant Gate. Summoning a vehicle would probably speed things up a bit."

Akira nodded, smiling blandly. This man's speech sounded like it was rehearsed hundreds, if not thousands of times. It was hollow and wooden. The sheer conformity was almost enough to turn the Joker's stomach, but Akira was nothing if not good at hiding his disquiet with the way people acted. "Private Michaels, my name is Kurusu Akira. Of course, I'll gladly follow you, only... well, I don't know what you mean by summoning a vehicle."

For his own part, Michaels was repressing things, too. His fear of an unidentified prime with unknown capabilities, yes, but also his exasperation at having to explain Summoning, of all things. He was a secondary, what the hell did he know about Summoning? "Alright, I'm not sure how to explain it, but... try thinking of a vehicle. Picture it clearly, then reach for that Omnilium that Omni must've given you, and pull it out to fill in the mental image of the vehicle. That's how it was described to me.

"Described to you?" Akira questioned even as he followed the instructions, finding the Omnilium firmly right next to that spot in his consciousness where his Persona energy was "stored". "Can't you do it yourself?" The rainbow hues of swirling Omnilium began to coalesce into a motorcycle, similar in appearance to Makoto's Persona, Johanna, though lacking the face or the pulsing nuclear power.

"No, sorry. Only Primes, people summoned by Omni, can use Omnilium to Summon things. I'm a Secondary; a Prime summoned me, so I can't summon anything on my own."

"Huh," the high schooler remarked before returning his focus to the formation of the bike. Five minutes passed in surprisingly companionable silence as the Johanna look-alike resolved itself into reality. Awkwardly mounting the bike and glad he'd asked Makoto for pointers on riding a motorcycle, Akira started the engine, revving the bike a couple times. "Alright, we're good to go."

Michaels raised an eyebrow inside his helmet at the strange design of the kid's bike, but nodded. "Alright, Kurusu, was it? Follow me to the gate." Without further fanfare, the stormtrooper spun his speederbike around with the practiced ease of someone who's been working with the floating bikes for longer than he cares to remember. Akira awkwardly follows him on the bike, managing to keep upright and maintain a good rate of speed due to his great balance and reflexes but clearly not comfortable on the vehicle.

A few minutes where the roar of the two engines was the only sound passed before the pair of them slowed to a stop, Michaels smoothly dismounting and Akira awkwardly waddling like someone had kicked him in the testicles. Michaels and the other stormtrooper both stifled a laugh at this, but Michaels swiftly began to explain. "You'll want to Extract the Omnilium from that bike before you go through. Just... do the thing you just did, but backwards." Akira looked skeptical, but that proved to be sufficient instruction to get the bike to begin breaking apart. "This is the Gate to Coruscant. The Omniverse is made up of the Nexus, eight main Verses, the Astral Verse, the Underverse, and the Void. All the Verses have a Void Gate somewhere, supposedly, but nobody's found all of them yet. The Astral Verse is some kind of Dreamscape or something, never really looked into it. Then each Verse has a gate to the Nexus and two gates to other main Verses."

Akira nodded, not wanting to ask for an explanation even as he finished extracting the bike. "Sounds pretty straightforward. I'll fill in the blanks myself, but thank you very much for the overview."

Michaels nodded politely back. "Of course. If you like, feel free to sign on with the EPD and help out in the city. We can always use more people helping keep the peace. Tell them I sent you."

Akira smiled in that hollow way that meant he wasn't really, truly pleased, but nodded all the same. "I'll be sure to do that," he lied without hesitation. There was no way he'd join a police department or anything similar. Sure, it was a decent enough cause, but... it wasn't him. He was the Wild Card, his other self was the Phantom Thief Arsene Lupin. There is good in the system, yes, but the system is anathema to his very soul. He'd wash out of a police department inside of a week. Still smiling blandly, the high schooler walked through the gate and into Coruscant.

A few minutes later, when they were certain he wasn't coming back, the two Stormtroopers sighed. "No way is he going to sign on. No promotion for us this time, Michaels."

"Damn."

Name: Kurusu Akira
Spent OM: 5200
Consumed OM: 0 (for OM spent on items items, or OM permanently lost from respecs or refunding purchases. Still adds towards Spent OM)
Proficiencies (2600); Physical Strength (1000), Ranged (1000), Ranged Materialize (600)
Powers (1700/8000); Burst Movement (800), Master Acrobat (400), Advanced Super Jumping (500)
Moves (600); Black Kogatana (300), Model Gun (300)
Super Moves (0);
Transformations (0);
Assists (0);
Items: Communicator (200 OM), Mobile Dataverse Device (100 OM)
Artefacts:
Bases:
Unlocks (0);
Base stats:
ATK: 2
DEF: 1
SPD: 3
TEC: 4

Waking up in a different place than you fell asleep should be a terrifying incident, but when you wake up to find yourself at the end of a long line of your past lives... Aang was not sure how anyone else but him would react.

His first reaction was to stand and bow to his predecessors. "No need to be so formal, young Avatar." Roku seemed to be the one who desired to speak. Stepping forward, Aang watches as the line of Avatars behind him slowly fades.

Though the previous avatar was Fire Nation by birth, he harbored a gentle spirit - like much of the Fire Nation before the war. "It would seem something has changed... I feel our connection is weak. Only through your dreams did I manage to reach you again."

Aang confirmed Roku's assumptions with a firm nod. "As you said, Master Roku. A lot has changed. We've been taken from Earth. We are now in a world called the... the Omniverse..." Roku's expression hardened. "We were brought here by this world's deity, a being named Omni. I've been reduced in power... I feel less than I did when I was twelve and trying to relearn all of the elements."

This only worsened Roku's complexion. "Have you forgotten how to bend? The Avatar state?"

"I... don't think so. I remember how, but I think some things are just different here. I have my bending, but it feels less than it did. My Airbending is strong, and I think I can manage some waterbending... but Earth and Fire feel distant again."

Roku took a deep breath. For a spirit, it seemed that even this act helped him regain his composure. "You have done much to bring balance back to the world. Maybe you are needed here?" Roku could see the doubt across the young Avatar's face. "You don't think so?"

"I..." Aang began, but hesitated. "Omni.... kind of implied... that I interested him... and that I'm here because he wanted me to be... There are a lot of people like me, Primes that is. I'm traveling with one now, ihs power is... so strange. It's as if Toph was using Metalbending with Master Kyoshi's Stone Glove." Roku's eye perked. "Like I said, this world is supposedly run by Primes... and I doubt they are all Benders. Maybe not no one is here..."

Roku mused on this for a moment. As the spirit considered the situation, Aang looked behind him. The line of Avatars he saw stretched seemingly into infinity. There were so many... "I..." He hesitated to speak.

"What's on your mind, Aang?" Roku's tone had returned to the warmth that common to the old Fire Nation.

"What... What are we Avatars of? Chakra is the Avatar of the Fist of God... or... something like that..." He could not quite remember the details, that Chakravartin was a very complicated fellow.

It was odd seeing Roku lost for answers. "I don't understand the question..."

With a slight sigh, Aand peered back at the line of his past lives. He could not see the end. He probably only made out about half of them before they vanished into the distance. "What... is at the beginning? Is this how we always were? What started the Avatar Cycle? Who or what are we the Avatar of?"

Again, the past Avatar was lost for thought. "I... I don't believe I have the answers you are looking for. That is a knowledge lost to time. I don't think I ever reached further than three cycles in my life time. They always had the answers I need."

"And I bet they only went back so far, and only to get what they needed... No one thought to write or at least remember what exactly makes us the Avatar." The young Avatar's tone was more than a little smug.

Roku reaches out to lay a hand on Aang's shoulder. "Don't worry, my boy. No Avatar is truly lost... maybe with time and patience, you can uncover our past. For all of us."

That was comforting.... "Thank you, Master Roku. I hope to see you again soon."

The past Firebender offered a wise old smile, then the dream slowly fades.

Character name: Kurusu Akira

Character source: Persona 5

Character history: Alright, so, video game is canon, but not all of the Confidant scenes have happened. Akira is dating Futaba, everything in Sojiro's Confidant has happened, other things can be decided on if they become relevant. Akira was pulled from immediately after escaping prison, returning to Leblanc, and falling asleep.

Google image search. Your first name + "the hedgehog". Post your results.

Here's my first:



... But there were so many good ones.