agoge | >>@ENTERTHEDRAGON

[He just wanted to show off and be cool for like, one second. He can't even relish in that for a few seconds before Achilles knocks him down a few notches. It was one of his strongest skills, aside from God's Hand- not that he plans on showing Achilles that any time soon. It drains the hell out of him to use it.]

Are you forreal? That was like, top-tier persona magic here.

[He sighs, until something catches the corner of his peripheral. A flash of green, landing at the crashsite of his lightning bolt. Wait, he seriously came running at that?

What is this, the bat signal?!

He waves... from the window...]

[ He's like a damn lion who had just pounced, only to find his prey was nowhere to be seen.

He stands just as the dust begins to settle, having left a small crater in the road. It's noticeable, but not so big that it'd leave anyone too puzzled. The indent could probably be explained by a sledgehammer rather than a God-like being crash landing on site.

He looks towards the tavern, having to scan his surroundings before his eyes settle on the boy up in the window. He smiles, squaring his shoulders in preparation for another leap.

Open your window. ]

[This rabbit looks on at the frame below the opacity of the window's ledge. That... looks like he's either squatting to work out his gluts or he's about to rush through the window. Either of which has Ryuji laughing to himself as he takes a step back and unhinges the latch keeping the swing of the mechanism in place.

Was magic like some sort of perfume for Achilles? He watches as a shadow overtakes the silhouette of the room, instinctively knowing what came next. It was mana that kept him alive... so if he were hungry, he would come looking for it like this were a wild hunt. Ryuji doesn't realize how closely he's putting his head into the lion's mouth here.

He crosses his arms.]

Dramatic entrances are lame.

[ Achilles launches towards the window, propelled by the sheer magnitude of his strength. He catches himself before he can crash through the hole, slamming his hands into the brick exterior of the wall, feet balancing over the outside windowsill, and stopping just short of entering.

He's all power and hardly any grace. Maybe an Assassin class could have sailed through the opening of the window like a dolphin through a hoop, but Achilles is a Rider. Okay?

Once he's settled, he grabs onto the window and ducks, coming in head first, before dropping a foot onto the floorboards and standing up to his full height once he's inside.

It's cramped up here, with the ceiling hanging low enough that Achilles could hit his head against it if he were to jump slightly. ]

Ossu. [ Wow......... ]

Edited 2017-11-21 06:43 (UTC)

[As he watches, he has to stop and smirk, toothily, watching just the frame of his torso and- erm- mid-frame (not why he was smirking), occlude the entirety of the window before he helps himself in. Ryuji's not exactly the most stealthy person in the world either- look at his choice in weapons: a bludgeoning object and a shotgun, but at least he's not so bad at thievery that he would make himself that unsubtle in his infiltration. But nonetheless, he jeers a chuckle at the scene, only made worse by the fact that his head looked like it threatened the ceiling menacingly close to grazing.

For comparison, Ryuji doesn't have nearly as much of a problem moving around in the attic crawl space that he's been living in for the last few weeks. It's not the most amenable place in the world, but hey, it has the marks of Ryuji's presence all over it. He's about to crack a joke about his horrible entrance when he just casually drops the word he taught him in Japanese. The pronunciation's off, but.

But... fuck. He feels a small amount of affection in his heart towards it, and he scratches the back of his head because, what the hell is he supposed to do about that, of all things?]

Not bad! Sounded almost natural. [He tilts his mast upwards to his forehead so that Achilles can at least see his face.]

[ Listen, it was perfect and you know it. Achilles just looks smug as he soaks up the praise, making a point of disregarding the "almost".

Now that the greeting is over with, he decides to circle the small room, like he's checking out the territory.

He settles after making a quick round, moving over to wherever Ryuji has made his bed and takes a seat. ]

How long have you been practicing your magecraft?

[Sure. Make yourself at home. Just casually drop yourself off in the one place in the room that Ryuji has actually made entirely his. It's no big deal. He moves with him, until he's at the wall opposite of the thin stretch of low quality blankets spread across the bare wooden floor. Shoulders up against the lining, he watches for a moment.]

About a year. I wasn't born with it, it got gifted to me when I accepted my inner self.

[ A year ago... And he can perform magic of that magnitude? ]

Your inner self, huh? [ That doesn't make sense to him, but he's no expert in the ways of magecraft. ] Did this entail some sort of ritual?

[Well... all that grinding in Mementos helped.]

Yeah. [Guiding the skull mask off his forehead, he holds it gingerly in his hand and hands it over to Achilles. Ryuji's pretty ignorant to the energy signals it gives off, but it's practically drenched in residual mana.]

We were in some deep trouble in our first heist... the guy who broke my leg was our first target. I just remember... bein' so effin' angry that the world could be like this. Then I heard a voice in my head. [Recalling the past events of his persona summoning, he looks up across the way and not directly at Achilles.] "I am thou, thou art I! Prepare yourself! From now on the skull of rebellion is your flag!"

[Sounds tangentially familiar, huh, Achilles?]

This thing appeared on my face- the mask. I ripped it off and for the first time in like... years, I didn't feel angry or just... plain old powerless. I made a contract with my persona and it's been like this ever since.

[ He listens intently. Ryuji's not exactly a boy shrouded in mystery, given his loud and vibrant nature, but that's probably his appeal. That openness, however, is something he can recognize as a weakness. He can't help but find it refreshing anyway, as it mirrors something he's always had, himself.

Rebellion, huh? He grins to himself. He took power for himself, had awoken it inside of him, which ironically parallels to the situation of Paris right now. ]

A contract... [ Now that sounds familiar. So he has some experience summoning. Could he have command spells hidden on him somewhere? ]

Your familiar; who he is?

[Command spells? Not that he knows of. Then again there are spots that he never really gets a chance to see on himself. For all he knows, it could be the world's most edgy looking tramp stamp.

(And sure, maybe it is an utter weakness to wear his heart on his sleeve like that, but restraint isn't something that he's ever held close enough to him to keep in arm's reach. Achilles can judge him for it, it's not going to change much about him.)

But more importantly, he wonders whether or not Achilles can see Seiten Taisei in all his monkey glory. He holds his hand out to collect his mask back and places it back up against his features. Ryuji looks far more menacing than he really is when he has it on, but he can feel every circuit of energy pulsating through him like this.]

Seiten Taisei. He's a mythological trickster. At first, my persona was Captain Kidd, but as I got closer to our leader and worked through all the shit I was going through... it just kinda... changed. I dunno how to explain it.

Anyway, lemme know if you can see 'em.

Matarukaja!

[ Seiten Taisei? Achilles is quiet as he tries to recollect the name, having been materialized with most knowledge of the heroes that shared their place with him in the Holy Grail.

But it doesn't sound familiar. He cocks his head in confusion, wondering if these familiars were summoned from somewhere completely different. It's possible and it frustrates him that he lacks that necessary knowledge.

He doesn't see anything. But he does feel a surge of power suddenly flow into him, stimulating dormant circuits and opening the flow of mana. His eyes widen, but he doesn't show much of a reaction otherwise. He's trying to suppress his growing excitement. ]

Was that a spell? [ What did he do? Did he just transfer mana? Though, he doesn't feel like he has more than he already had before coming here.

He opens and clenches a fist, making a show of how invigorated he feels now. ] Well, damn. You're a bonafide mage!

Where's your familiar?

[The source of the summoning... well, yeah. Ryuji could never get the details right and if pressed by Achilles to dig deeper, he'd probably fumble through a shitty explanation of personas, how they manifest inside people, and how they're born out of the cognition of human's collective minds. And oh, yeah. There's a holy grail somehow involved with all of this too.

Weird shit. Totally unrelatable to a Heroic Spirit though.

Ryuji flashes an impish grin when the spell takes hold. He's used it enough times to know exactly what the sensation is that's flowing through Achilles' body right now. Like if he wanted to slam his hand on the ground, he could punch right through it. (He could already, which is terrifying enough, but this buff is particularly good for those beefy types who excel at contests of strength.)

Bonafide mage, eh? He's not sure he'd exactly call himself that. Almost everyone on his team was better at wielding magic than he was- the stuff that Ryuji concentrated on was almost always with an eye to making him physically stronger against shadows, or stun them into place.]

Yeah, man! Wasn't it cool? You should feel all revved up and shit. It's pretty damn awesome.

So like... you're familiar with magic, but you've never seen that before? [His SP's already taken a considerate hit from his casting this evening. Oh well, it felt good to have Achilles' attention on him like this. He felt valuable in some way.]

Uh... Yeah, I dunno. I can see 'em when I summon him, but I guess you can't. Might be 'cause you never went into the Metaverse.

[ He gets up to his feet, stretching tall and holding his arms out like he's trying to gauge the intensity of the spell. His magic fluctuates, showing signs that this buff won't last long.

Maybe he needs actual formal training. He's got potential, that's for sure. ]

The Metaverse? Is this where Seiten Taisei is summoned from?

[ Trying to understand it in the context of his own understanding may be easier than... having to listen to Ryuji go off about cognition. ]

And you use his power to steal hearts and change people's twisted desires, is that right?

Edited 2017-11-22 06:39 (UTC)

[There's something nice about watching him get up and test out the flow of magical energies in his body. It's, of course, erratically ephemeral, but that doesn't stop a small sense of accomplishment emanating from it. His role has always been the tank of the group- and when compared in sheer strength or speed to Rider... well, that's so one-sided it's not even funny. He remembers that race. He also remembers how much pain he was in the next day all throughout work. Things he wouldn't tell anyone else.]

Yeah. The Metaverse is just a giant warehouse for humanity's inner desires and shit. I dunno. Geez, where the hell is that cat when you need 'em.

[For once in his life he wishes Morgana were here to be a little know-it-all about all things metaphysical.]

Kinda. It's more like the weaponry that we got going into that place to steal hearts. When people are seriously effed up, then they go and build these huge things called palaces and it keeps their hearts locked up safely. We just go in and snatch it up.

[To emphasize his point, he waves his hand in the air like a swiping motion. Not necessary, but Ryuji likes talking with his hands sometimes.]

[ He'll cross his arms and actually consider what he says seriously. ]

So you steal hearts in the metaverse. You weren't being literal before. [ He's quietly mulling over the logic of it all, curious as to what the metaverse might look like. An alternate world where people's inner-selves and their twisted desires reside sounds odd. What would be the purpose of that? ]

And does stealing their "heart" actually change anything in them in the material world?

[Is it right to do what he's about to do? That's entirely questionable and he knows he shouldn't, but it kind of just... happens anyway.]

Nah, I've been known to steal hearts outside of the Metaverse too.

[He realizes this was a mistake. He rubs the back of his head and laughs. Okay, Ryuji. Okay.]

B-but. Anyway. Right! So, you steal their heart in there, and their palace comes crumbling down. The dirtbag then has a change of heart and becomes crushed by the guilt of what they've done and comes clean.

[He's anxiously moving against the balls of his feet, hoping that he's at least explaining this right and that his previous pick up line goes unnoticed.]

Like in the case of a murderer who's hidden from the police. Steal his heart and he'll tell the world what he's done and then he's locked up. It's like kicking justice a little ol' kickstart to the face.

[ ... Wow. He should be taken aback by that line, but he isn't. It's practically expected.

His expression alters minutely, a wide smile spreading his lips. ]

How many hearts could a virgin boy have actually stolen? [ Wow, just calling him out at point blank range. ]

Well, regardless your magic is pretty potent. If you weren't already bound to another, I might have taken you for myself at some point.

[If anything he's learned from Akira over the last year, it's the value of a good deadpan. He just stares at Achilles. For a good, long, few moments. What the actual fuck.]

I was waiting for marriage.

[Any...way...

All sorts of new questions pop up in his head. He has to tend to those or else they'll literally be gone while he dwells on the fact that he was just called out for still having his v-card at 17. Life expectancy and populations are larger these days. That's just rude.]

Taken me? [What does he mean?]

Well... Joker had the ability to control a bunch of personas at once. He had some special conditions, though. Not sayin' that it's impossible, but---

Wait a second. Is a Heroic Spirit a persona? Are you a persona, Rider?

[ Sorry, Ryuji, but he had to take that jab. You're being all cocky and it makes him want to take you down a peg because he's a giant hypocrite. ]

A persona? I don't even know what that is. But if a persona is what you summon, then I guess I am in a way.

Do you have command seals?

Command what?

Command seals, or spells.

Mages use can use up to three to force their Servant to obey an order. [ He holds up three fingers for visuals. ] After they're used up, the contract between Master and Servant is broken.

The contract you have with your persona doesn't function the same way?

[Thanks, he always has a little bit of trouble going higher than 2 when he has to count.]

Oh... Nah, it doesn't work like that with this stuff. Summoning a persona just drains your life force. It's like... uh.

[How to put this?]

Shit, if you've ever played a video game, this would make, like. So much more goddamn sense. Physical attacks hurt your body to use and magical attacks hurt your mental state. But if you practice enough with it, it gets easier.

[ Well, Ryuji isn't the brightest crayon.

That sounds familiar... ]

That's similar to how things work between a Master and a Servant, then. [ As he's explained before. ]

It's too bad you can't bring him out. I would've liked to meet him and see how strong he actually is.

[Sure, joust it out for dominance over Ryuji's affection, Achilles. No big deal.]

... You wanna have a match?

[This is a bad idea.

Someone stop him.

Achilles, be the adult here.]

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