“Is.. this Mar?”’ A male voice sounded monotone and serious.


Jak frowned, grunting “How the heck do you know my real name?”


The male cleared his throat “Oh, we know a lot of things, Mr. Mar.”


Jak stopped, thinking back to the failed attempt in Coruscant.


The voice made Jak slightly uncomfortable but being in the cold does that to a person.


“Then, alright, speak. What do you want with me, Mr..?


My name is not important right now. But I’m going to make one simple thing clear to you.


[A message appears on Jak’s device that only he can read.]


After he reads it, Jak frowns after the classified man speaks out his real name once again.


“DO YOU ACCEPT, MAR?”


…
….
…..

PTH_Joker has opened a thread: "Phantom Thief Joker Debuts! Taking Requests!"

The first post consists entirely of an embedded video file. Clicking on it displays a title card for a few seconds before the video proper starts.



The title card fades out, replaced with a young man dressed all in black, with red gloves, a white mask, and vivid crimson eyes, looking at the camera with his arms spread wide in a gesture adapted from public speaking lessons by a skilled politician. "People of Coruscant," he declares, raising his voice to be heard above the wind of a tall building, his coat billowing out behind him dramatically, "I am the Phantom Thief known as Joker, former leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Before coming to the Omniverse, I led my loyal followers against the forces of corruption and distorted desire that plagued our home city of Tokyo. Together, we targeted criminals, corrupt politicians, twisted businessmen and more, stealing their distorted dreams from within their minds to force them to confess their crimes."

He brought his arms back into his personal space, gesturing subtly now to emphasize the importance of his words. That time working with Tora was paying dividends. "Omni may have stolen that power from me, but he has not stolen my Vow, the Vow I swore to fight against those same forces of corruption for the sake of the Justice I believe in, and he has not stolen my eyes. Those eyes have watched Coruscant for months, and they have seen that it is plagued by the same evils as Tokyo, from a different source. Coruscant is rotten, the same as Tokyo at close to its worst. The people give themselves over to a totalitarian government in exchange for promises of safety and plenty, while the fringe elements of society suffer, caged beneath entire cities and forced to live in the refuse of the upper class. There was a man from my world who once said that those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither."

The masked man stepped closer to the camera, eyes bleeding from red to yellow as he did so, his voice taking on a double-timbre as he spoke with both his voice and that of another being. "I swore to commit all sacrilegious acts for my own justice, and discarding my Vow because some blank white 'god' has stolen half of my soul is not something I can do. A Phantom Thief never lets a theft go unanswered. Coruscant is how it is because the Empire wills it and uses Omni's rules, the power of Omnilium, and deft manipulation skills to enforce their will." A wide grin split his face as he parrotted the words he heard so long ago, in that dungeon cell. "This is truly an unjust game, but if you can hear my voice, you may yet stand a chance of winning."

The video ends on the same title card it began on, and the next post below it, also from PTH_Joker, is brief and to the point.

XDFD SGH,

AS XKD SPPXPXT?

...
...
.........

 Blood. Classically, red like the color of anger, yet also the color of love; The truest color of conflict. If only it were that simple down here. Instead, a kaleidoscope of colored ichor made this ballroom look like a kindergarten room where the unsupervised kids got into their teacher’s batch of lipstick and decided to play Picasso. It splatters the walls same as it splattered my soul, dark and crusty like week-old milk on a coffee table. My eyes scan the hellish ballroom, corpses piled high and intrigue even higher. Who could have possibly perpetrated a murder of this magnitude?

 My fascination could be mistaken as morbid, were it not for the notepad in my hand and the pencil tucked into my trilby. My interest is purely business, and I was in the business of solving crimes like this. I bore no official sanction, as what passed for government in the Underverse would never give a second glance to some scruffy old gumshoe with too much emotional baggage and his compatriots tromping around Dis looking for justice. That was a commodity in these parts, as this grisly scene was testament to.

 I am Detective Flint Maloney, ace mystery-solver and wearer of fine hats. This is not my first rodeo, and I doubt it will be my last. That was the way of the Underverse. The City of Dis, flaunting its ramshackle excuse for order, needed someone like me more than anywhere else. When something wrong is done, when a crime is perpetrated, when darkness and injustice creep into the hearts of men like a twisted Cancer with no intention of paying rent of utilities, I have to do something. It’s in my blood.  It runs red, red like the color of apples and ketchup; Both remain true staples of a simpler time. A time when people still believe in right and wrong in spite of the grey areas. Now I slough through a multicolored world, where black and white has been replaced by magic markers and those colored pencils that smell like fruit, painting a myriad rainbow of morality. I need to do something, something to turn this place around.

 Like a hedgehog enamored by the bold colors of their first carrot, a streak of violet catches my eye and drags me towards the center of the scene. Here. This was where it had started. A demoness lay there, crumpled and bloody, her face twisted into a permanent mask of horror. Her purplish blood burst out from her side across the ballroom floor and stained her Maid’s uniform. She had been struck first, with almost unbridled emotion. Almost. The initial point of impact was too jagged, it was a show of the slightest hesitance. Interesting. I take a few notes, jotting down my thoughts with a calm precision.

 Lost in my head, I don’t register the arrival of my companion until he is close enough to grimace at the slaughter before us. I glance back, face more somber than at my hamster’s funeral almost a year ago, and nod in greeting. He comes closer in order to examine the scene, his distaste more visible than my own. Unfortunately, his usually stoic expression always carried with it a sense of disgust.

 The man would win no pageants for beauty. His loyalty, however, was unparalleled. With me through thick and thin, this man had never left my side. His eyes bugged out like a sloth, long scars cutting crags in the rocky expanse of his visage like the emotional chasms between myself and my father. My partner was, and is, a good man. I trust him. We’ve known each other long enough to finish each other’s sentences.... Now I rifle through my notebook to remember his name.

 I am interrupted by a grunt from my compatriot, who motioned to gouges in the wall. Uneven, vile tears in stone and tapestry bespeak a story of graceful rage. The streaks of death were smooth and elegant. Whoever did this seems to have almost… enjoyed it. It was a disconcerting thought. To imagine that this deadly dance had brought some twisted maniac pleasure only hardens my resolve to find the perpetrator and bring them to justice. With my notebook now filled with data, I turn to my friend.

“Let’s go. I’m done here.” I slip the pencil back into the brim of my cap and tug on my trench coat.

 I pick through the slaughterhouse, trying my best to avoid the many bodies that lay strewn about like a toddler’s toys after a night with an especially irresponsible babysitter. The stench finally starts to get to me, but I push through it all and make my way for the door. The Bogart Bar and Grill, that’s where I should go. It’s a shady establishment, but one with no shortage of crooked businessmen, chatty barkeeps, and observant passerby to garner information from. All it usually takes is a free drink and some cold, hard, cash.

 I lead the way into the street, streaming igneous marring my new shoes. That’s alright, I have more at home. Flaring plumes of flame randomly light up the sky as the rank birthing pools scattered around Dis spew forth their demonic spawn. Every day more evil pours into this world, more evil than I can stop. All I can do is clear a small haven of good, like sprinkling salt into the middle of a snail highway to create a dead zone free of mucus and snail droppings. The bustling city, wrought with its demons, ghouls, spectres, undead, and other dark spawn envelops me. I hate it, but I have to blend.

 Making my way through the crowd, I chance a glance back at my comrade. Thanks to his wide berth, the man has little trouble cutting his own path. His visage, frightening as it is, does no harm to his ability to blend in. Finally, I come to the familiar neon lights of the Bogart. Outside stands Barney, the bouncer. Short nubs of horns peek out alongside his flared purple mohawk. His skin is a dark shade of blue, one he prides himself on oiling. The demon, burly and large, glances at me with distaste. However, thanks to past… agreements, he lets us pass. I enter the Bogart, steeling my will. It might be a hive of scum and villainy, but at the very least it could get us one step closer to finding justice for that girl and the many others slain in the Ballroom. I remove my hat and tuck it under my arm. Time to get to work.

Is there a way I can still clear my blacklist, Alex?

Word Limit: 1200
Posts Per Player: 3 
Time Limit: 168 hrs (1 week)
Random Elements: On 
Damage Meter: On

Special rules: Player may only use one Super at end of turn

Judge: Gilgamesh

There was something unnerving about looking up from the roof of a low-rise apartment building only to see the underside of another city over your head. Akira pondered that while flipping a familiar white mask over in his hands, staring at Tier 4 in lieu of the normal clouds he'd look at in a situation like this. Coruscant... it was strange. It was order and chaos all at once, a delicate dance between the lower fringe elements and the downright Orwellian upper tiers. Gangs and soldiers and police twirling along like figures on clockwork platforms, moving in circles and never really going anywhere, all while the people with real agency tiptoed between all three of them or nudged the motions of the gears to their benefit. Primes weren't quite a law unto themselves, but they had a lot more agency than the Secondaries that lived here. Even with that hint of real chaos, nothing actually managed to change. Days and weeks blurred together, and nothing ever really changed. The city moved like a machine, powered by the sins that Yaldabaoth had exploited to enslave Tokyo; the gluttony and lust of the drivers for guidance, the envy of the masses for propulsion, and those same masses' sloth to keep them tame. Coruscant was just as rotten as Tokyo, just with a different coat of paint over the surface of the rot.

Akira had learned quite a few lessons about how people thought in his time leading the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, but there was one he was remembering very keenly right now. To find the cause of a phenomenon, ask who benefits from it. In this case, it wasn't hard to point out that group; the Empire's Primes, especially the higher echelons of command like Palpatine and Dredd. To a lesser extent, the population of Tiers 1 and 2 benefited from keeping people on Tiers 5 through 7 downtrodden and disorganized, but not enough that they were all complicit in the situation on the lower levels; they wouldn't speak out against the system, but they also wouldn't stand steadfast against any threats like those directly responsible for the rampant blight on the lower Tiers would. The status quo kept them at a high quality of life, but it didn't actually gain anything from Tiers 5 through 7 being the way they were. As best as Akira could tell, they were like they were because the Empire benefited from having a seedy, blight-ridden underbelly to subtly force undesirables into.

Akira exerted a slight pressure on the white mask, cracking it down the middle to a disappointing lack of effect. The mask was, thanks to Omnilium, made of the same dream-stuff it always was, but breaking it utterly failed to bring forth his Persona. There was no blue hell-fire, no sense of power, no feeling of rightness like the act of breaking this simple white and black domino mask had always brought him. He'd always keenly felt his glorious purpose when he did this, the Vow that tied him and his Shadow together, and lent the latter the form of the Persona Arsene Lupin, Master Thief. There was no Vow here, though, no purpose and no Arsene, no Shadow at all. That, more than anything, scared Akira. Arsene was the source of his power, but it was more than that. Arsene was him. He was Akira Kurusu's Shadow, the half of his soul that he'd hidden from for 15 years before embracing it in that dungeon inside Kamoshida's mind. I am thou, thou art I, that had been the beginning of that Vow, and it had been absolutely true. That half of his very soul could be stripped away at Omni's whim... it made him afraid, yes, but more than that, it made him angry. He and Arsene, or rather Satanael, had killed Yaldabaoth for daring to impose its will on Tokyo, and then Omni has the audacity to part them? Binding fear and anger together was a simple resolution, the kind of knot-cutting declaration of intent that had made Joker such a bold Phantom Thief.

He'd just have to reach Omni and ask his questions in person, wouldn't he? There had to be a way to reach him, some path somewhere, but Akira was still painfully aware of just how small of a fish he was. Any path to the god of this universe would be fraught with at the very least as much danger as traversing Mementos had been, and that meant Akira needed a few things to accomplish that lofty goal. First and foremost among those things, he needed Arsene back, and to get that, he needed Omnilium. If you can gather enough Omnilium you can do anything, apparently, and Akira had yet to see anything that disproved that statement, so it followed that to re-connect to the Sea of Souls and start drawing on his Persona again, Akira just needed more Omnilium. The easy way to get more would be to sign on with the Empire, play into the system and use it for his own gain, but...

Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself.

He couldn't go against his vow. The easy way would be a sacrifice of his own principle, his own justice, and that was literally not something Akira Kurusu was capable of doing. Sooner water would flow up a waterfall and pigs acquire pilot licenses than that; breaking that Vow was just a Thing Akira Would Not Do. Still, Coruscant was the only verse with this kind of verticality, and rooftops were a thief's best friend. Coruscant was definitely the best place for him to set up a home base, definitely the place he would have the most advantages, but he couldn't strike out independently. He needed a crew of allies, other people to support him. Confidants and comrades, other Phantom Thieves.

Or maybe, instead of a Phantom Thief, the Joker needed to become something else here. A Rebel. Joining a Rebellion had to be the right kind of interesting to earn Omnilium, and was far more in line with the Joker's character than swearing himself to the Empire. The only problem, then, was finding the Rebels. For obvious reasons, they couldn't just put up advertisements, not in an Orwellian dystopia... but the Dataverse was outside those regulations if you weren't accessing it from a Coruscant terminal, and a camera, tripod, and laptop with video editing software were ridiculously easy to come by when you could just summon them. "Let's see about making a video.

Orihime experienced, what one person who has awakened from a long sleep would experience, fogginess, and confusion. A thin film covered her eyes, as the redhead fumbled with trying to remove the tangled strands of hair from her face. Stretching her stiff muscles, she would expect to feel much weaker than she did in her present condition. Surprisingly, she felt stronger, and her body felt leaner than before.

Everything appeared to still be working well, except for the sharp burning sensation in her chest. Looking down she found a 3-inch claw poking out of her bust, decorated with splatters of crimson. 

"Ouch" Orihime gasped, followed by a sharp and painful whine, as she pulled out the talon.

"This thing hardly belongs here." winced the girl, while giving the object a once over. It was certainly troll related, but not just any old troll would have a treasure like this. Orihime knew this was from the troll’s old world, only a priestess like Te’Zali would possess something like this. 

Then, in a whisper, she thought, "Remember where you came from." Closing her eyes, Orihime clenched the claw tight enough to break the skin on her soft hand. 

Zabajin, she had to go to him. Orihime felt the sense of urgency overtake her like a surge of adrenaline. Just as she went to take her first steps towards The Frozen Fields, the familiar clunking sound of something hitting the floor, stopped her dead in her tracks. Looking down past her feet, she noticed what she thought appeared to be some kind of flashlight.

Picking up the device, she noticed the groves in the handle were familiar. As she grasped it in her hand, like the way you would hold the handle of a lawnmower, it vibrated. A surge of blue and ivory light took over her vision, and The Energy Weapon she used to kill Agent Smith previously appeared before her.

"But how?" Orihime breathed restlessly. She found herself deeply entranced in the repeated waves of electric current that traveled down its twin blades. Her memory of what happened with the ghost and that strange world was patchy, however, she did remember using this weapon for her defense. If there had been any good to have come from helping that ghost, this was definitely it for the red-haired girl.

Orihime's recognizable smile appeared across her light face, which complimented the sparkle in her eyes. She knew that Zabajin would love to see this thing in action, and would want to take it for a test drive. She had so much to tell him, and so much lost time to make up.

"I have wasted enough time away from home," Orihime said while she powered down the energy blade. With quick and determined steps, the warrior made her way to the gates of her frozen wonderland. 

Title says it all what two Omniverse characters do you think would make the best fusion? And I don't necessarily mean which two primes have the highest combined stats, because we all know flavor is just as important as the number crunching.

Name: Segata Sanshiro
Spent OM: 3800
Consumed OM (0): (for consumed items or OM permanently lost from respecs, etc)
Proficiencies (2000): Physical Strength (1000), Debuff Proficiency (1000)
Powers (900/8000): Advanced Super Jumping (500), Master Acrobat (400)
Moves (900): "Sanshiro Kick!" (300), "Home Run!" (300), "Use Your Head!" (300) 
Super Moves (0): 
Transformations (0): 
Assists (0):
Items (0):
Artefacts: None
Bases (0): 
Unlocks (0): 
Base stats: 
ATK: 4
DEF: 3
SPD: 1
TEC: 2