It Always Starts With Cats [Imperial Disarray]

[Kurusu Akira]

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.

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.

[Kurusu Akira]

Akira quickly dipped into an alleyway to summon something he was pretty sure he needed. Not five minutes later, the young man was holding a schoolbag with a very familiar set of clothes stored inside it. If the Omniverse wasn't going to give him the Joker outfit automatically, he'd just make the thing himself. He was intimately familiar with the black coat, grey shirt, black slacks, polished leather shoes, and blood-red gloves, and the bone-white mask with black accents decorating the edges and eyes was practically his signature at this point. He slung the bag over his shoulder and pulled out his cell phone as he stepped smoothly back into the sidewalk, moving with the flow of the foot traffic. The student checked the Metaverse app again, but was disappointed to find that it still stubbornly displayed the same error message.

Recalibrating for local Collective Unconscous topography.

Still exactly as unhelpful as before. Wonderful. The cheery sound of digital chimes heralded the promised message from Morgan, which contained only a street address. He sighed and pulled up the web browser, which glitched mightily before redirecting him to something called "The Dataverse". A few quick keystrokes on his cell brought up the Omniverse's version of Google, which happily spat out a little map to the address that Morgan had given to Akira. Apparently, it was some kind of bar. The "Top Kek". Memories of meeting with Ohya at the Crossroads Bar came to mind, unbidden. He'd never really liked the reporter, per se, but she'd been straightforward with him, and her articles had been a big help. Hopefully, Morgan would hold off the alcohol until after they'd done business; having to smell the liquor on Ohya's breath had been, by far, the worst part of their meetings.

The young man turned down one of the tier's many alleyways, following directions from the phone, and immediately cursed the makers of this stupid Omni-Maps service. Someone else entered behind him, obviously blocking off the exit as another man, this one brandishing a gun, approached Akira from the front. "Your money or your life."

Oh, for the love of... It would figure that the first thing that Akira would do upon walking into the seedy underbelly of a city would be to form a Confidant bond, only for the second thing to be getting mugged just when he'd let his guard down. "No money on me, I'm afraid. Fresh off the boat, I think is the expression in English?" As nice as his English teacher at Shujin was, it didn't seem that a mastery of colloquialisms was very helpful. "I don't believe you," knife-guy said, as the burly man behind Akira cracked his knuckles.

Just what I need with my life.

[Harlan Higgs]

"I say, Eddy. This looks like a mighty suspicious gathering of possible compatriots, does it not?"

"You are most likely incorrect, my friend. It is appearing that these two individuals are attempting to rob the young man. And on our turf, I might add. Very disrespectful."

-click-
-click-

Two men in pinstripe suits and fedora hats appeared at the end of the alley, backlit by the hazy streetlights. In each of their hands were long barreled rifles straight out of the 1930's, the metal tips glistening a dull blueblack, the smell of gun oil in the air as the pulled back slides on their firearms.

"Hey! What the- Aw, hell no!" One of the punks attempting to rob Kurusu pulled a blinking laser pistol from his ripped denim jacket, and aimed it at the two strangers. 

"You may want to move, friendo." The one on the left called out to the youth, before hot fire spit from the barrels of their tommy guns and lit the alley up with a fusillade of .45 caliber rounds. Harsh BRAT BRAT sounds echoed off the brick walls as the well dressed men made short work of the would-be highwaymen. As the blood cooled on the pavement, they stepped smartly down the alley towards their intended target of protection. 

"No need to thank us, kid. Just another friendly neighborhood patrol of keeping our corners clean and orderly from the Gentlemen Jacks. Now is there anything to which we could be lending greater assistance to yourself?" The one that had been called Eddy asked, tipping his fedora up to reveal a young, unscarred face.