[Original] Jin Hikari [A]

[Jin]

Jin Hikari

Age:

18 years

Gender:

Male

Species:

Force of Will

While he looks entirely human, Jin's appearance belies an untamed, feral power branching from animal instinct and a powerful soul. While a Force of Will does have subtle tells to its alignment, it is entirely possible for one to blend in with any other human. The race itself is not locked into one phenotype. Instead, they’re born into a variety of skin tones and other racial features. The most distinct difference about them, perhaps, is their eyes and hair. More often than not, their hair may be wild and untamed - disheveled, at the very least. It isn't unheard of for a force of will to be born with strange hair color by human standards - brown, black, and blonde discarded in favor of purples, silvers, oranges and the like.

A Force of Will’s eyes are the windows to their soul more so than many other species. Emotions are reflected through them easily, and when their animalistic instincts take over their pupils will dilate in such a way that they become slits.

A Force of Will's existence is strongly resonant with their soul as well as their willpower. From the two, potent and influential instincts are born and take deep roots quickly as they age. Forces of Will with particularly strong hearts and souls will often experience them as second voices and personalities inside their minds, guiding them through their lives like someone might listen to their gut intuition. For the ones with strong morals and good hearts this isn't a problem, but those who are more prone to evil ways and lack self-discipline find that walking the right path becomes all the harder because of this.

A Force of Will's physical capabilities are augmented through the power of their soul due to the ease at which emotional states are reflected through their body. A Force of Will putting their blood, sweat, and tears into a task draws on that power to reinforce strength, durability, and speed. However, these benefits are purely physical and cannot be carried over into intelligence, wisdom, or any other mental activity.

Being Type:

Somebody

Position:

Jin's alignment in terms of traditional role playing labels is best described as chaotic good. He does what he thinks is right, though his definition of right is less about what's best for people as a whole and more about the people closest to him. He will do anything short of murder to protect that which is important to him, and while his personality is best described as overly aggressive bordering abrasive he will do what he can to help people in need when they ask.

Something to take into consideration when asking Jin for assistance is his belief that every individual has a responsibility to defend what they care about through their own power. As such, he subscribes to the "teach a man to fish" philosophy more than anything else. At the same time, if he's wary that what he teaches or helps with may be done for a seedier ulterior motive or other nefarious purpose, he will be much more reluctant to offer his help. Trust is something that's very important to him.

While good meaning, Jin is also a bit too aggressive to truly subscribe to any set of laws. He does his best to keep to himself save for what friends he does have, and this reluctance to integrate into a society as a whole is what prevents him from becoming truly lawful good. In fact, he doesn't really have respect for overly organized societies. He understands that people try to make living easier for those around them, but privacy and freedom are things he greatly values. He does not respond well to authority.

What was the inspiration for them / do they embody a particular feeling or emotion?

Jin encompasses morality, honor, responsibility, and willpower. When it comes to emotion, he experiences anger, conviction, and confidence most strongly quickly followed by eagerness, happiness, and amusement. He is often sullen, and sometimes prone to bouts of depression. During these times, he flees to whatever solitude he can find shelter in.

Appearance:

At first glance, Jin is a tall, lean male with tanned skin, orange hair, and deep grey eyes. He stands at right around 6 feet tall, wearing torn, baggy black jeans and a white t-shirt. He's never without his twin swords, which he wears on the grey belt around his waist.

His passive expression is calm and stoic, borderline melancholic actually. When he's on his own he tends to be pensive as he tries to take in the details of the area around him, though the exact opposite is true when he's with people he's close to. He becomes expressive, sometimes going so far as to gesture with his hands when he speaks due to his preference towards kinesthetics. He's a very physical person, most of what he says being communicated through body language or the look in his eyes.

Jin carries himself with confidence in any and all situations. His shoulders are kept square, his footing is even and balanced, and his eyes are always focused on something. Years of trial and tribulation has crafted his body into the ideal shape for a fighter. His triceps and deltoids have grown together so as to better assist with the push and pull of throwing punches and swinging blades. His pectorals are small and compact, though not without definition. His stomach is toned and ready to take a hit or aid in throwing a powerful kick that would be backed up by his larger-than-average quadriceps and his well-defined calves.

The most worn parts of Jin's body are probably his hands. He fights both bare-knuckle and with a blade in each hand, and as such callouses are built up on his knuckles and palms. Because of this, his grip is strong and his palms are steady. He has good hand-eye coordination, though his preference towards using his hands for everything often winds up with him having scrapes and scratches that he deems as too inconsequential to wrap up. The bandages would simply get in his way. The one concession he makes to this rule is the set of blue cloth wristbands that he wears.

Aside from all this, the only noticeable mark on Jin's body besides the occasional mole here and there from sun exposure is the scar trailing down in a straight line across his left eye that curves into his jaw as it reaches the side of his mouth. The mark itself is thing, having been healed gradually over the years and made by an incredibly sharp blade.

History:

Jin was born in the forested nation-state of Levitara on his home world of Tamnia. The land itself was not well populated compared to the other areas of the main continent that made up the world, but this worked to the benefit of his family. Years prior to Jin and his brother Leviathan's birth, war had torn the nation asunder. Those born with powers beyond the scope of what was considered normal - labelled Gifted by some and Abominations by others - were labelled a threat by the world government, an elected oligarchy by the name of Caelum. As such, a division of the armed forces was created to best deal with the new threat. This group was dubbed Perothun, drawing inspiration from the great god who brought fire to humanity.

Perothun and its soldiers were given two objectives upon their instatement: to put a stop to the outbreak of riots that the Gifted had started in response to their constant mistreatment in the world, and to discover what about them gave them their powers and develop methods of copying and weaponizing those that could prove useful.

Naturally, these actions sparked increased violence between the Gifted and Caleum, which eventually turned into an all-out war. This war eventually swept up Jin's father and mother. Tatsuo, a trained and traditional swordsman who was granted incredible speed from his gifts, was placed on the front lines as a valuable soldier in the war. He led a squadron of men tasked with reconnaissance missions carried out with extreme discretion, but he was also a powerhouse in his own right. His speed and skills with a blade made him a force to be reckoned with, and his lineage as a Force of Will aided in this all the more.

When the war came to a head and the Gifted were holed up in their last stronghold, Caelum used a weapon developed from their research of everything that had happened throughout the war. The final point of it was to break Soqus, the seaside nation-state where the Gifted had taken shelter, away from the rest of Tamnia and set it to drift in the sea. The resulting seismic activity would then be focused entirely on the piece that had broken away, swallowing the resistance up in the tides.

Tatsuo and his squadron of fighters risked life and limb to break into the compound where the weapon was supposed to be activated from in hopes of shutting it down for good, but they were too late. In his failure, Tatsuo was the only member of the team that had infiltrated the base to survive, and while Soqus was indeed broken off from Tamnia, the machine was destroyed before it could manipulate the tidal energy and direct all the chaos to Perothun's target. Instead, between Perothun's efforts to quell the chaos and the ingenuity and raw power of the Gifted, the damage was contained to the area around the breakage on the main continent. The site of the destruction would eventually go on to be named the Tearstained Earth.

Tatsuo recovered from the injuries he obtained on the mission slowly under the watch of Maria, regarded as the best medic the resistance had due to her natural ability to heal others. After the battle though, violence between the two factions quickly began to decline. The war was over now that Gifted had territory all to themselves.

Tatsuo and Maria eventually married, moving to the secluded forests of Levitara to raise their sons and daughter. The heavy tree canopies shielded them from prying eyes, and the abundance of wildlife and good soil for growing crops made living off the land easy for veterans of war.

Jin, Leviathan, and Kailyn grew up in peace, playing in the forests and not knowing anything about the war of the past. Still, history has a way of repeating itself. Eventually, Caelum sent Perothun forces to occupy the forests, and ran across Jin and Leviathan who were out playing at the time. Somewhere in the combination of their powerful souls as Forces of Will and the genetic complexities stemming from their parents both being Gifted of the first generation, the boys had developed their powers at a considerably early age. Unfortunately, their parents had thought it wise to hold back on their training. With little to no control over their gifts and no way to fight back against Perothun, Jin and Leviathan were captured.

Upon realizing the situation, Tatsuo quickly pursued Perothun's troops back to their research facility. Infiltration was the easy part, it was escaping with the boys without being seen that was hard. Actually, it would have been entirely impossible if the boys had not contributed in their own way. Jin, somewhat able to mimic his father’s speed with bursts of electric energy, and Leviathan’s skills in slowing the perception of the people around him were the only reason the three had escaped without a fight. To that end, Tatsuo decided that it was time to start teaching the two to defend themselves and use their powers effectively.

As the years went by, Jin and Leviathan grew into two very different people. While Jin was sanguine, Leviathan was melancholic. While Jin liked solve his problems quick and dirty, Leviathan preferred to use his head to piece things together before taking action. While Jin was quick to forget his kidnapping, Leviathan held onto the memory and allowed it to form a grudge. Jin trained and learned to use a sword because it was something he legitimately loved, whereas Leviathan always had a seed of anger fueling the need to cultivate strength.

This anger consumed Leviathan, and these feelings wormed their way deeply into his soul as his instincts as a Force of Will grew. Leviathan was young; brash. In spite of his strategic nature as a child, he was willing to take drastic actions without thinking about the moral repercussions if it meant there was a possibility of putting a stop to Caelum. Eventually, even murder for the sake of siphoning off energy from other souls became a justifiable action. That was the case the day he killed Tatsuo and Maria. He would have done the same to Jin and Kailyn as well had the orange haired boy not escaped with his sister and hidden her away. His only option had been to leave her with sentries from Perothun, giving them warning as to what was happening in the forests by extension. Kailyn had yet to develop her powers. She would be completely safe so long as Jin could retrieve her.

Jin returned to the forests to fight his brother not long after separating from Kailyn, though he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do if he won. All he knew was that if he was going to have any chance of mending the remaining pieces of his family back together, he would have to fight. It was just one thought, just one small hope, but every fiber of his being was screaming it to him as he tracked down his brother.

Leviathan's power had grown substantially due to his soul-siphoning ability, but Jin’s anger had come with its own increase in power. Regardless, the gap between the two was just too big. Leviathan was too strong, and the fight had been fruitless. Jin lost, and Leviathan left him broken and bleeding in the flaming ashes of their childhood home.

Jin spent the next few years wandering the four corners of the world. When it came to survival, he’d get by however he could. Soqus, though separated from the main continent, was friendly. They had jobs that needed done, money to be earned, and places to collapse after a hard day of self-loathing induced training. There were times, however, where Jin couldn’t help but feel alone even among his own kind. That loneliness drove his travels further, and he learned to live off the fat of the land when he could.

Eventually, he was captured by Perothun. Because of his powers, he proved resistant to most every method of research that Caelumnian science had developed for studying Gifted abilities. It was hard to take bloodwork when the blood was composed primarily of electric energy. With no way of discharging him completely short of stabbing him with a lightning rod through the stomach and into the ground, Perothun eventually gave up. It was at that time they cast him into the Colosseum; an arena where Gifted who had been deemed unusable for Caelum's research fought for the profit of the government. It was here that Jin came across Kailyn once again.

When Jin hadn’t come back from his battle against Leviathan, the Perothun sentries that Jin had left her with turned her over to a foster family they kept under close watch. At the time she developed her gifts, she had complied with her new family’s wishes for her to put her skills to use for Caelum. After all, she owed her current life to Perothun. She would soon come to learn that things were never that cut and dry, and that oftentimes things were not so much white and black as they were shades of grey.

While she didn’t remember, Kailyn had inherited her mother’s healing touch. Because of this, Perothun quickly had her stationed in the Colosseum to tend to those injured in the ring. Her skills were unrefined, however, and she was often unable to fully heal her patients before their next matches. She quickly became sick of any form of violence due to all of this. Her feelings of inadequacy compounded with the constant death she had been subjected to in the months she had spent working in the Colosseum, and she became more and more desperate to keep anyone alive that she could. Her resentment of Perothun – and by extension Caelum – blossomed under all of this.

When she’d first healed the orange haired boy, it had been on his arrival to the prison they called a sporting ring. He was strangely familiar to her, and he responded better to her healing than most others. His energy healed him as hers did, though with each passing treatment Jin grew less and less fond of being put back together.

At first, Jin barely had the will to fight. He was weak, sluggish, and incredibly prone to injury. He’d all but resigned himself to his fate in the Colosseum, but Kailyn absolutely refused to let him go. They grew closer, and eventually between the memory of his mother’s healing, its similarity to Kailyn’s, and the crimson-haired girl’s confession of vague memories before her adoption, it clicked. Miraculously, he’d found his sister after everything that had happened. He’d wanted to die, but Kailyn had dragged him back from the edge.

The battles that had once dragged on for months soon became the highlights of the day, and Jin – renewed with the determination to win – grew strong through the constant fighting. It wasn’t long before he was a popular contender for the championship, though the title itself wasn’t much more than a formality. Of course, without competition Jin’s happiness was slowly tapering out. If he wasn’t going to find a challenge in the ring, then what was the point of staying? A part of him wished that he’d just get a chance to escape. He should have known to be careful what he wished for.

The attention he'd attracted was not without its consequences. Leviathan was drawn to the tournament because of Jin’s growing strength and renown. Jin’s brother had every intention of killing him this time around and absorbing power from his soul. And after that, an assault on every major area of influence Caelum had would cast the world into both freedom and anarchy. The strong were meant to survive, and Leviathan intended to allow them to thrive.

The attack he launched on the Colosseum while looking for Jin sparked chaos throughout the entire nation-state it resided in. The defenses around the ring itself crumbled, several people dying in the initial assault. The survivors either fled as Perothun soldiers rushed into the area, but it seemed anyone and everyone was vulnerable to Leviathan’s culling of the herd as he demanded Jin to appear.

Jin was confronted with something he’d not experienced since that day back in Levitara. Fear. He didn’t want to fight Leviathan; not after the boy had become so powerful. Leviathan wasn’t above murder. Leviathan wasn’t above consuming souls to grow in strength. Leviathan wasn’t above becoming the devil to fight against perceived demons.

Kailyn was the breaking point. She’d been so young when Leviathan had gone insane, and because of that she only had the very vaguest hints of memories about him. Those memories were enough to get her out in the middle of the Colosseum in an attempt to stop the boy, though. With the risk of losing family again, something snapped inside of Jin. Leviathan’s attack wasn’t something he could tolerate. He would rather die fighting.

Overwhelming rage forced Jin into a higher threshold of power than he’d ever been able to tap into. For the first time, he was one with the instincts inherent to him; the same kind that had driven Leviathan to his hideous actions. The fight was evenly matched. In the end, neither party had the capacity to throw another punch or launch another burst of energy. Leviathan fled.

With the Colosseum destroyed, Jin once again became a wanderer. This time, Kailyn was at his side. Jin knew he should be happy, but with Leviathan still out there and Caelum’s moves against the remaining Gifted becoming more and more severe with each new display of their presence and power, the conviction of taking on his father’s mantle weighed down heavily on him.

Soon, Jin and Kailyn made their way to the floating island colony of Soraria. It was the technological hub of Caelum, and as such was suspended in the air with artificial flight devices. The territory itself was dangerous, but Jin knew that he’d have to start somewhere if it meant taking down Caelum and finding a way to stop Leviathan once and for all. What he didn’t expect was such a warm welcome from the aristocratic Aeverus family.

The Aeverus oversaw all the manufacturing that Soraria was responsible for. As such, they had close ties to the oligarchy’s members in Caelum. However, their interest wasn’t in capturing Jin and Kailyn to turn them in or subjecting them to the inhumane research practices of the genetic researchers of Perothun. They were seeking aide for their child.

Their youngest son Trey was Gifted. Not only that, but his powers were rough and unrefined. He’d had no practice in controlling them and because of that he was prone to sudden bursts of uncontrollable power. With an ability as obvious as aerokinesis, it wasn’t long before people started questioning if there was a gifted in their midst. Trey had been born with white hair and red eyes, and while the Aeverus did their best to mask his strange appearance they knew he would eventually be found out. Jin was perhaps their last hope.

Reluctantly, and not without a push from Kailyn, Jin offered his services. He began training the boy in much the same way his father had trained him. Jin’s lightning clashed with Trey’s wind, and Trey was encouraged to learn the way of the sword. The mental and physical discipline that came with this practice shaped his control over his powers well.

But nothing good is meant to last forever. Perothun had been keeping tabs on Trey and his family since the first incident of Trey’s powers running amok. Jin showing up and meeting with the boy confirmed their suspicions. Perothun invaded, and Trey defended against them with Jin and Kailyn at his side.

To keep his family safe, Trey needed to run. Luckily, Jin agreed to keep an eye on him. Jin’s little family was growing, and the scars of his past were finally starting to fade.

It wasn’t too much longer until the Darkness rolled over Tamnia like a thick blanket, blotting out the sky and sending the world into chaos. Jin, Trey, and Kailyn fought, though they were separated with the return of Leviathan. The boy was determined to kill Jin before anything else got to him, and with the power that he’d received since their last fight augmented with his heart’s natural resonance with the dark, Jin was cast out of the world.

Current Primary Objective:

Jin's current objective is to locate his home world. He is entirely confident that Tamnia has not been entirely swallowed by the darkness. Unfortunately, he has no idea where he'll even need to begin to look. He could be a few worlds a way or on the other side of the sky. There's no telling.

Learning type:

Jin is a kinesthetic learner. Once he sees something he wants to do, he works to make his body do it. He may get stuck and need to hear or read about something to finally get it, but he is not one for the realm of theory and hypothesis. If he wants to truly understand something, he has to do it for himself.

Personality:

Jin is the type of person who is reluctant to open himself up to other people right off the bat. He doesn't speak often, instead allowing his actions to speak for him. He'll be the first one to say that he speaks better with his fists than he does with his mouth. That being said, his wariness of people does not mean he is antisocial. He will speak when he has something to say, but tends to avoid topics about himself or other people's personal lives when he doesn't know or care about them.

When someone does manage to burrow their way into Jin's shell, his personality doesn't change much. He may make the occasional joke, and will no longer be bothered by the presence of the people he cares for. In fact, there's a certain yearning in him for closeness to others, but he's convinced himself that it's better for him to be on his own as much as possible. Between Leviathan and his time in the Colosseum, it makes sense to him. For the most part, though, what you see is what you get with Jin. His loyalty - while unspoken - is incredibly strong. He will go to extreme lengths to preserve the happiness and safety of the people he cares for.

Above everything else, Jin likes to fight. It's both the tool that he uses to solve his problems and the way he deals with his stress. Even after all the time he spent in the Colosseum, he still can't escape the fact that battle is in his blood. He'll fight to play, to argue, or even just to talk. Of course, this has the adverse effect of making him come off as overly aggressive and borderline violent. He doesn't care, though. So long as he's free to do as he wishes, other people's opinions don't matter to him.

For Jin, there's nothing more important than the people close to him. Being separated from Trey and Kailyn after Tamnia's fall to the Darkness has had its effects. He prefers to be alone now, and spends a lot of time brooding or training. He makes no active attempt to seek out others for help finding his world. He feels the deep need to do things on his own and by his own hand. Though if he sees someone who needs help, he'll do what he can.

Jin doesn't see the need to get caught up in romantic relationships. Getting too close to other people is a fear of his, and at the same time he has more important things to worry about than romance and physical attraction. He is extremely mistrusting of anyone who confesses any sort of attraction to him, and finds many of the modern ways of communicating romance to be shallow and without point.

Home World:

Tamnia

Natural Affinities/Abilities/Skills:

Electric Soul

Jin's ability to manipulate electricity extends past the realm of typical magic. The electricity is part of his body and soul. His blood thrums with the energy, and his body acts as a powerful battery for the energy. Of course, this comes with benefits and drawbacks of their own. While his weaknesses are detailed below, this section will focus primarily on the benefits from this quirk in his physiology.

The primary use of Jin's electric energy is offensive. He can channel the energy into conductive materials to augment the attacks performed with them, or he can fire off bursts of the energy at varying concentrations of power. While these attacks are fairly effective against just about anything, those with natural resistances to the attack are capable of minimizing the damage or ignoring it entirely. It should be noted that Jin subscribes to the theory that a large enough charge can destroy any insulator, however.

Jin is very resistant to physical injury and illness due to the nature of his blood. His energy is capable of knitting his body back together if he's cut or dismembered, though this comes at increasing taxation of his reserves the more serious the injury is. His immune system also makes it incredibly difficult for any foreign invader to survive. As such, sickness isn't something he has to worry about that often.

Jin's strong soul in tandem with his ability to sense electrical signals allows for him to develop a somewhat empathic, almost telepathic connection to others. He does well to control it, as he doesn't like to pry into the thoughts and feelings of others, but in large crowds he develops headaches from the sensory input. This ability gives him some measure of defense against telepathic attacks, though he is no real telepath. This power is limited to sensing presences, power, and reading the strong emotions of others.

Perhaps the oddest manifestation of Jin's electrical affinity is his speed. By breaking down a small part of his body, he is capable of using the burst of energy created from it to rocket himself in any direction. While this ability is limited to straight lines, the movement is nearly instantaneous across short enough distances. However, this comes at the cost of being particularly vulnerable to attacks while using it. If you can predict where he's going to move, you can easily intercept him with the right timing.

Jin's electricity takes the place of a Force of Will's naturally augmented physical capabilities. His reaction time, strength, speed, and endurance are all improved through it. Naturally, the effect of the energy increases with the strength of Jin's emotional state.

Natural Fighter

Jin has trained for many years to hone his body for combat. He's a skilled fighter with his twin swords in hand, or even just one individually. However, his unarmed combat is definitively weaker. If push comes to shove, he'll even generate swords out of pure electrical energy to avoid weaponless combat. He knows how to throw a punch without busting his hand and kick without breaking his shin, but the more technical aspects of a playing field without a weapon somewhat escape him.

Limitations/Drawbacks:

• Jin is prone to working himself to the bone, often wearing himself out and not keeping in peak physical condition. When he does choose to rest or eat, he does so in excess to make up for deprivation. While his Force of Will origins allow him to survive this, it's by no means healthy for him.
• As a being of electricity, Jin is particularly weak against wood and earth based attacks.
• Jin is naturally aggressive. He will fight anyone at the slightest provocation, not because he's angry, but because he enjoys it. He takes the challenges to be invitations to play, and becomes overeager because of it. This can be a hassle to put up with when the fight becomes more important than the reason the fight has happened. When it comes to a match, Jin is easily distracted.
• Without a formal education, Jin isn't the smartest tool in the shed when it comes to things like reading or writing. He isn't illiterate, but he's not the kind of guy to go around reading college or even high school level text. He prefers to rely on intuition and wisdom more than knowledge and intelligence.
• Jin's electricity doubles as his stamina. If he's out of juice for attacking, he's also going to be hard pressed to keep fighting at all. Push him too far, make him use too much of his energy, and he could be down for the count. Whether that's for a few days or the rest of eternity is a matter of chance and how merciful his opponent is.

Passive:

Heartborn Spark

Weapon:

Glimmering Lightning

This is the blade that Jin received from his father at the start of his training. Forged from the metal of a meteor and extremely conductive of his own electrical energy, Jin would argue that the blade is more than just a weapon; it's a fragment of his very soul. The metal of the blade is a light silver, and the guard is wrapped with durable blue cord. The body of the blade is straight, and the sword has one edge. While extremely sharp, Glimmering Lightning is reluctant to cut people down. The sword that knows when to cut is stronger than the sword that indiscriminately cuts everything, after all.

Unbreaking Stone

This is the blade that Leviathan received from his father at the start of his training. In his first battle against Jin, Leviathan gave it to the boy to "level the playing field." Jin keeps the blade as a reminder that his brother is not wholly evil, and that a strong soul is just as important on the battlefield as a merciful hand. This blade is not as conductive of Jin's power as Glimmering Lightning, though it does not mind what it cuts it battle so long as the heart and soul of the person wielding it is behind the strike. A sword without a soul behind it is just as useful in battle as not having a sword at all, after all.

Role Playing Sample:

Just what the hell was going on here?

Jin's eyes fluttered open, his gaze flashing back and forth across his new environment. He was floating in what felt like cool water, his limbs were light and there was just a slight amount of resistance to his movements. He knew this feeling. He’d been here before, or at least somewhere like it. Somewhere that seemed to expand and contract with his breath. Somewhere that reflected his convictions and emotions in the very atmosphere.

Was this his mind? He hadn't been here since his last fight with Leviathan.

"We're not in your mind, kid. This is different. I don't have influence here. This place is entirely yours."

Jin twisted towards the origin of the voice, but as he did it became apparent that nothing was there to be speaking in the first place. Still, Jin knew exactly who the voice belonged to. It sounded so much like his own, but had a feral edge to it that was unmistakable. His instincts had kicked in again, and they were just as confused as he was, even if they didn’t like to show it.


"Me? Confused? Kid, you know where we are. By extension, that means I do, too. It's the only place you would have been safe from the dark that washed over our world and warped Leviathan's mind even further than it already was. Just think about it for a second."

Of course. It was always riddles with his instincts. Jin didn't know how he even put with himself from time to time. With a sigh, Jin flipped himself upright and crossed his legs.

Breathe in...

Jin shut his eyes, reaching out with his senses and trying to calm himself. The air around him cooled with the breath, and the air hummed with energy as both the environment and Jin’s body began to crackle with electric energy. He'd been fighting with Leviathan just before this. The sky had gone dark, those stupid creatures had covered the land no matter where he went, and Trey and Kailyn had been missing for what felt like days.

Leviathan had changed since the Colosseum. He was darker, more eager to cause harm for the sake of causing harm. He didn't seem to mind the fact that those creatures were everywhere. In fact, once Jin had started fighting him they had more or less fled from the area. Why would those damn things back off just because he and Leviathan were attacking one another when Jin hadn't been able to scare them off with the strongest attacks he'd hit them with.

Breathe out.

"I don't get it," Jin admitted. His voice echoed and reverberated off of the invisible walls of the area. "If this isn't my mind, where else am I supposed to be where you get to talk to me?"

Laughter filled the sky, only serving to aggravate Jin further. What were his instincts even getting at? Was this some kind of a game? Didn't he know that Trey and Kailyn could be dead? If Leviathan wasn't still caught up in a fight against him, he'd be on his way to finish off everyone Jin knew. He wasn't going to stand for that.

"Are you sure you have a choice? How do you know Leviathan wasn't swallowed up by the dark as well? How are you sure you aren't dead? If we're going to keep jumping to worst-case scenarios, we might as well actually assume the worst."

"Okay," Jin acquiesced, "but what am I supposed to do? I'm not exactly in a position where I can help anyone out, and you're apparently know more than I do. Help me out here."

Silence. Of course he was met with silence.

And then the feeling of something underneath him and the sudden disappearance of the water around him. Jin stood, looking around and absorbing his new surroundings. The sky was dim and starless, and the cityscape around him was entirely unfamiliar. Neon lights flickered and faded in some places, and had long since gone out in others.

Jin reached out with his senses yet again, looking for someone - anyone that would be familiar. No one. Not so much as a passing acquaintance. Everything was new and different. The air was murky and cold. Buildings were rendered to rubble, but there wasn't any evidence of Leviathan's green flames. A moon, fragmented and fading hung in the sky like at any moment its light would be extinguished. This was a world in dire need of assistance, but there was no way this was Tamnia. Not when the very air screamed with something foreign and strange. Jin had been everywhere, but he'd never been here.

Just what the hell was going on here?

[Clio]

"Ah, hello meticulous one! I can tell this story has been very carefully planned. Always striving to improve, you are an ideal member for this community."

The old Moogle takes a clump of papers that you filled out to verify your arrival into the little society the moogles consider their safe haven.  It's nothing spectacular, but the magical little creatures do seem to liven up this drab, crumbling world.  They've built a small safe haven for all incoming members to the straggling sanctuary of Twilight Town. Of course before Clio hands your papers back she's had to copy it by hand for her own personal record. Finally she is done. Your background checks out.  

The wise old moogle looks back up at you, her calm presence seeming to beam with a warm smile. "Sorry to make you wait."

She stamps the paper with a seal, then turns her attention to organizing her library of aged books. It appears you can be on your way.