The Persona of Myriad 2

Chapter 3: Broken Bricks

It was eight thirty at night and Myriad was ready to resume work as usual. She was ready by now, fully dressed in what she wanted to wear beneath her suit, and she had her phone in her pocket along with headphones, her wallet, and keys for the apartment. She was alone as both Vian and Ariel were already at work by the time she got home. She fed Cat and turned out the lights before she left and she soon found herself on the sidewalk, walking down the street. She had become somewhat of a celebrity amongst people living around her section of the city and every once in a while, a random stranger would signal her and just say "hello". If nothing else, seeing all of the people around her appreciate her service made her feel right at home and solidified her stay in Grand Metropolis.
    Myriad arrived on time and checked in when and where she was supposed to, as per usual. When nine o'clock set in, she suited up and headed out. However, tonight was different than most nights. Throughout her entire three hour shift, not a single major crime was committed. No burglaries, no speeding, no endangerment of public safety. For once she could count the amount of parking tickets she gave out this evening on one hand, only three that were only mildly overdue. Instead, her night was spent with people crowding her trying to get pictures as if she was a superhero. Myriad, despite getting more acclimated to being recognized more often, is still an introvert, so, even though the attention and appreciation was nice, she wanted out as quickly as possible.
    Eventually her shift ended and she left the station feeling emptier than when she took up the position. It was a cold emptiness that embodied her soul and she couldn't figure out if the lack of adrenaline was causing her odd feelings or if the people were suppressing her real feeling. Nonetheless, her shift was over and she headed home to sleep.
    The next morning came and Myriad woke up unexpectedly to her mother and Persona. She couldn't figure out what exactly it was that agitated her and woke her up, considering her mother wasn't physically there, but she knew something outside of her own existence was asking her to wake up. Myriad decided to suppress this feeling with water, so she left her room and went to the kitchen to get some. She returned a moment later with an even more off feeling in her stomach, not like she was hungry or needed to use the bathroom. It was something more inexplicable and it almost felt like pain. And then she eventually concluded what the feeling was after tossing and turning in bed and she asked herself aloud. "Mom. Are you nervous?"
    "I'm not nervous; I'm concerned. I trust your friends as much as you trust your friends, but I don't know how much they know about physical Personas such as myself. I'm rare, much rarer than their Personas and I'm afraid that maybe their methods might not work as intended. I have this ache to learn more about myself and what I can do to protect you or help you if or when you ever need it. I suppose I still feel like your living mother at heart, always wanting to see the best in you, but I've got to learn. It's almost like I'm in school again, except it's specifically tailored to me and I'm sceptical about my teachers."
    "I'm sure they know a lot more than you think. Besides, they were born with Personas. Rare or not, they know more than either of us know about ourselves and any little help goes a long way."
    "I suppose."
    "Do you trust them?"
    "I do."
    "Then let God handle the rest."
    "I suppose we should." After that conversation, the pains went away and Myriad fell back to sleep. The night soon progressed into daytime and the cycle repeated itself.
    Morning came and just like the previous couple of days, Myriad woke up early and got ready for school. Ariel walked alongside Myriad just as she had done the day before.
    "So, did you end up staying after school yesterday?"
    "Yesterday I felt like coming home. I am, however, staying after school today. My friends want to help me learn more about my Persona and what she can do."
    "That sounds very exciting. What is it you don't know about her?"
    "Just about everything. I don't know my own strength or what I'm capable of. The last thing I want is to end up in a situation where she just reacts unexpectedly and I might hurt someone."
    "Don't jinx it, now." They both chuckled. By the time they finished their short conversation, they arrived at the school. Myriad gave Ariel a hug and they went their separate ways. Waiting at the door was Val, who was surprisingly accompanied by no one. Myriad tried to walk past her, but she eventually just moved her body in front of her and Myriad ended up stuck.
    "I guess your followers have deserted you today."
    "Amy is sick and Miruki usually comes a little later in the day. She has afternoon classes here. Most of the time in the morning, she has community college classes."
    "So, what are you gonna do?"
    "I dunno. Just sit here and maybe borrow those glasses of yours."
    Myriad solidified her face and tried to walk past Val, who wouldn't let her pass.
    "So, Myriad, tell me a bit about yourself."
    "Why should I?"
    "Keep your enemies closer than your friends. Besides, maybe you'll learn more about me. It doesn't have to be an all hate relationship."
    "There is no relationship. I've gotta get to class. Move."
    Val stood still with a sly smirk on her face and her eyes half closed into this cocky amalgamation of an expression.
    "I said move." Myriad basically shoved her way past Val, who finally moved out of the way after taking an elbow to the gut. It didn't hurt her whatsoever, but the unexpectedness caught her off guard. She turned her head and her eyes followed Myriad until she eventually made her way to the stairwell. While she was walking away, Val began talking to herself.
    "That's fine. I know you'll be afterschool today. I'll meet you there." Val stood up and headed to her first period.
    First period came around and Myriad met up with Link in the classroom. "I noticed you weren't downstairs today."
    "I saw Val was idling around, so I didn't even bother to make myself a target."
    "Thinking smarter instead of harder?"
    "Thinking smarter and harder." They both enjoyed a slight chuckle. Myriad reached into her bag and pulled out a sketchbook. Meanwhile, Link opened up a project she had been working on for a while, a commission which was going to earn her a good amount of profit. She tapped on Myriad's shoulder to get her attention and when Myriad glanced over, she couldn't help but stare in awe of what was on the screen. Illustrated was a beautiful landscape slightly tilted with a sunset and two highly detailed, yet blurred out of focus characters. There were some parts that the shading was off and some colors were missing, which Link explained that she was going to work on it and finish it within the upcoming days. When Myriad finished gawking at the amazing piece of artwork, she opened her sketchbook to an immaculate sketch of an anime-esque character, one that mirrored the design of Link. Right as Myriad set her pencil down, two things sparked Link to speak. "You drew that!? With a mechanical pencil?"
    "Yes. Why?"
    "How did you do that?"
    "What?"
    "It looks just like it was drawn with a normal pencil. The shading is amazing and each detail is spot on. She looks so good."
    "She is you."
    "Me? I appreciate it, really. It's an honor to have someone draw me. I can't do self portraits to save my life."
    "I was going to give it to you once I finished."
    "Really?" Myriad nodded in response. "Thank you so much." Link, without thinking, wrapped her arms around Myriad and embraced in a hug. Myriad didn't react much besides a smile. Not many people in the room noticed the two. For the most part, those who did notice didn't care and those who didn't notice were probably making conversation or focusing on work.
    Not much later, class ended and the two were off to second period, where nothing notable happened. After second period, they moved on to third period, where still nothing noteworthy happened and what would have been time for Myriad to leave came by, however, just as she had planned, she didn't leave school. Administration really didn't have anywhere for her to be, so for the rest of the day, she sat in the office awaiting the day to end. Once lunchtime came around, she made her way to the cafeteria where she saw many faces she didn't recognize. However, among many of those unrecognizable faces, she did see one she recognized, that being Val. However, she wasn't sitting alone as Myriad had expected, since neither of her friends were here today. Instead, she saw her table full of mostly guys Myriad didn't know, one in particular holding her hand and sitting right beside her. Based on those context clues, Myriad was able to deduce exactly what was going on between the two. She distanced herself and sat at virtually the opposite side of the lunch room. Surprisingly, she didn't see Link or Ally in lunch, despite them both being present and she wondered if they were in a different lunch period. All of a sudden, Link and Ally entered the cafeteria and saw Myriad sitting by herself and they walked over to her table.
    "Why're you sitting by yourself?" Link asked from a distance while she was approaching. Her voice caught Myriad's attention and she turned her head sharply to track the sound.
    "Well, I didn't see either of you down here, so I just sat by myself."
    "Ah. I see."
    "What else did you expect me to do? Find other friends?" She said sarcastically. The three of them chuckled.
    "We actually have a lunch group held in a different classroom."
    "So you two don't come down here during lunch?"
    "We do. Although, we only come down here to get our lunches whenever we don't pack." Allison chimed in.
    "Where is this secret club?"
    Link picked back up the conversation. "It's not really all that secret. It's just that no one has ever opted to come with us, but, since you're still here, I want to introduce you to some of the people we hang out with. Just let us get our food first." The two headed into the lunch line and Myriad grabbed her things and headed to the main entrance of the cafeteria and waited. A moment later, her friends emerged and led the way down the hallway and up the closest stairwell. Once they made it to the second floor, they turned to their left and walked a few feet before stopping in front of a classroom door and opening it. From the outside, there was an audible discussion of a topic Myriad didn't bother to get involved in. Once the door swung open and the three stepped inside, all of the faces in the room turned to face the door. Myriad gazed upon three other students, two guys and one other girl. The other girl Myriad recognized almost immediately as Miruki. Sitting at his desk was a teacher, about in his late twenties, jolly in size, curly, dark hair and a developing beard. The other two guys in the room seemed generic in looks, one about as dark as Ally and the other about as white as Link, but there was no obvious relation in either. No one else besides Miruki knew who Myriad was, so for a short few seconds there was silence until the teacher began speaking.
    "Hello. Is there something you need?"
    "I-I...Well--"
    Link interrupted her. "Mr. Arango, this is Myriad. She's the newest kid here."
    "I see. Well, Miss Myriad, I'm sure they've already told you who I am, but I am Mr. Arango."
    "I heard you host a lunch meetup here everyday?"
    "Then you've heard correctly."
    "I hope you don't mind if I spend my lunch period here today."
    "Not at all. Make yourself at home. I'm usually here everyday if you ever wanted to join us again."
    "Oh...well, thank you!" Myriad grabbed a seat beside Link, who had already made herself comfortable. Mr. Arango's classroom was one of the most standard places to be, yet, the vibe he had given off was inviting and educational and he had a lot of fun trivia that interested everyone in the room. Whenever he spoke, he always had something relatively positive to say and on the rare occasion it wasn't positive, it was a subject so interesting that it could leave one thinking about it for the rest of the day. He didn't present an ounce of opinion with persuasion nor did he try to spread political or religious beliefs. He was impartial to every student in the room. He didn't see race, gender, or family background. Just about everyone else in the room was conversing with Mr. Arango while Myriad was eating, but eventually when there was a break in the conversation, Myriad jumped on her opportunity to speak up. "So, Mr. Arango, where are you from?"
    "Florida. My parents are Cuban."
    "Is that so?"
    "That..." He picked up a pretzel from the bag sitting on his desk and held it up to his face. "...It is." He took a bite and reclined a little in his chair. The gesture wasn't condescending or forced. It was probably one of the most relaxing things Myriad had ever seen anyone do at this school. Mr. Arango was fully comfortable with his position and probably with his job. In fact, the whole lunch period she didn't hear him complain once about his job or his students the way most people said other teachers complain.
    "What subject do you teach?"
    "Ninth grade English."
    "So, I'm wondering why you also host us seniors."
    "The simple answer is that I don't mind, the more complex answer is that by comparison, having you six kids in here is eons better than having to deal with a class of twenty that I have to teach. It's not that my students are necessarily bad, it's just that I can feel that they genuinely don't care about this class and thus put no effort into the work I give them."
    "I see."
    "When I talk to you kids, I feel like you can actually walk away with knowledge you want to learn, and I completely understand why my regular students don't care; it's because the--this work that we as teachers have to give them isn't going to be the most beneficial to them when they grow up. There is rarely a practical use for learning why The Odyssey was important, for example. Students, even the sixth graders I used to teach at my old school, would have rather learned about writing for job applications instead."
    Myriad couldn't help but nod. She was speechless because everything he said she understood, which she thought was impossible for that to happen when talking to a teacher. He hit every thought on the nose and he was completely right about the way she felt about school. It was something like magic to her how he made so much sense.
    "Oh. I almost forgot to introduce you to these guys." Link chimed in. "You already know Miruki, but here is Jo..."
    "Hullo." He said with a small smile across his face.
    "...and Jay."
    "Yo." He glanced over and smiled somewhat like Jo.
    "I thought you said Miruki moved out of your friend group."
    "She did. Last year. I didn't know she was willing to join it again."
    "Does this mean she is out of Val's friend group?"
    "No, unfortunately. She said she would rather stay attached to both if possible. The more friends the better, anyways."
    "I see. I don't understand it, but I guess I can respect it." Myriad stood up and walked over to where Miruki was sitting. She was in a swivel chair that Mr. Arango wasn't using and most days he let her just sit in it throughout the period. She stretched out her hand for a handshake and Miruki smiled at the gesture. They shook hands and Miruki considered Myriad as a new acquaintance. Then she spoke, but in Japanese, thinking she wasn't going to be understood. When Myriad responded in Japanese, Miruki looked pleasantly surprised to see someone fully understand her that wasn't Link.
    "What'd they say?" Asked one of the two boys in the room.
    "I said 'We finally meet. I was interested to become acquainted with you', and she responded with 'The pleasure's all mine. I'm glad we could meet on good terms.'" Miruki said to the guys who didn't understand. Then she turned back to Myriad. "I had no clue you could speak Japanese. How many years of experience do you have?"
    "Three."
    "You started learning when you were a freshman in high school?"
    "I did. My school back at home in Washington D.C., where I'm from, offered classes all the way through Japanese level four. I'm in the fourth class here and things seem to be going pretty swell if I do say so myself."
    "That's good."
    The conversation continued. Myriad asked Miruki if she was willing to stay after school to help her learn about her Persona, which led Miruki to decline, considering she was busy with Persona stuff herself. She explained she was teaching herself to run Personas through a computer system and provide people with artificial Personas. Right now, her prototypes were only temporary and using them would drain a user's energy, as she tried it on herself and her family members. Lunch continued and more conversations struck up and before any of them knew it, it was time to leave for the next period. Myriad thanked Mr. Arango for letting her stay in his classroom. He reassured her that she was welcome to come back anytime as long as he was at school and not in a meeting.
    Because she didn't have a class, Myriad sat in the front office for the rest of the day and explained to the secretary that she was taking part in an afterschool activity in the band room. When she was asked about the specifics, she responded with a shoulder shrug and an answer that could best be summed up as "I guess I'll figure them out when I get there."
    Eventually, the school day ended and the kids went home. Myriad gathered her things and made her way to the band room, which was upstairs, where Link and Allison were awaiting her arrival. Once she arrived, they all headed inside the band room and set their things down. Mr. Mars was on his way out to go home when the girls asked him if they could stay and teach Myriad about her Persona.
    "Don't break anything and lock the classroom when you leave. Don't stay here too late, either."
    "We should only be about an hour or so." Ally explained.
    "Good. I'll see you three tomorrow, then." He began to walk down the hall and down the stairs. Once his figure was past the stairwell, the three of them made their way to a secluded room in the back left corner. It was quite a sizable room that stretched back and wrapped around Mr. Mars's office room. Along the walls were windows to the outside. From the windows, they could clearly see the bustling city below and a great view of the sky and the sun. There wasn't much in the room, just a few extra instruments and the music library. From what they could see, it didn't seem possible for them to accidentally wreck anything, so they got to work. Link got a chair from the main band room and set it down while Allison grabbed her phone from her pocket and a bluetooth speaker she packed in her bookbag.
    "So, the easiest thing I know how to do to study your sensitivity to music is to play music of different genres and see how well you react to each song. Whichever gets the strongest reaction out of you probably is what you are most sensitive to. We'll go from there." Ally explained.
    Myriad nodded and Allison began searching through a music app on her phone for different genres. She started with classical music and Myriad nodded her head, which got some reaction from the walls. Ally switched genres to country, and Myriad tapped her foot, which got a reaction from the floor. Ally switched genres again, this time to rock music, which got head nodding and foot tapping and the whole room gave slight reactions, but nothing crazy had happened yet. Ally tapped on another song of a different genre, something electronic, and Myriad's attention was immediately grabbed. At once, she gasped as if she was underwater and her eyes went white. Her body was unconscious, letting her Persona take over. From the seat, she rose up into the air. Her fingers moved and, following the motion of her fingers and the music, the room began shifting. When the song hit its climax, the idle instruments that were sitting in the room moved and floated along with her and played in the same key and BPM as the song they were listening to. Allison smirked joyfully. She found a genre that really made Myriad tick and she was already planning her next move.
    Down the hall, two people met up, their silhouettes slightly shifted by the heat, considering it was late summer. It was clear these two students weren't staying after school for any clubs or really any appropriate reason. However, any romantic feeling they felt dwindled once they heard the music coming from the band room. Valentine had met up with her boyfriend after school. They originally had different plans, but the music ended their idea. Instead, the boy went home, not feeling fully contempt following out an action that didn't have to be performed at school and that left a bad taste in Val's mouth. Slightly enraged, she made her way to the band room. She knew Myriad, Ally, and Link were going to be there today, but when she got there, she didn't see them. She looked around and plotted her petty revenge tactic and eventually settled on something sinister. Sitting beside her was Link's stuff on the floor. Beside her bag was her laptop, which was closed. Val opened it and what appeared was the beautiful picture Link worked so hard to create. She gently set it down on the ground and looked at the other girls' stuff in the room, which wasn't much. Eventually, Val decided her plan of action. She picked up the laptop again, smirked evilly, opened it almost flat, smashed it in half across her knee, and fled behind the wall outside the band door.
    The sound interrupted the girls and Ally stopped the music.
    "What was that?" Ally asked.
    "I don't know. Let's go see."
    Myriad descended back to the ground rather quickly, blinked a couple of times while her eyes transitioned back to normal, and followed after them. The instruments that were floating eventually landed unscathed. When Myriad caught up to the other two, who were already in the main room, she stopped and stared from a distance at Link, who was shaking and crying. Ally was patting her back and trying to comfort her. Myriad approached slowly.
    "All of my art was on there. I can't get any of it back, now. What's more is I don't have the money for a new computer." She said through her tears. Myriad knelt down to try to comfort her. As she did, she caught a glimpse of Val, making her appearance from around the corner.
    "Well, well, well. Interesting how things turn out, isn't it?" Val said cockily and very snarkily. She had a piercing smirk on her face that changed Link's emotions from sadness to rage. She leapt up and out to lash out, but Myriad and Ally held her back before she got involved in something she couldn't get out of.
    "Why!? What did I do to you!?" Link asked loudly.
    "Don't get angsty on me. Angst is my Persona, you know?" Link gritted her teeth while tears rolled down her cheeks. She was constantly pulling, trying to get closer to Val to hit her. "To answer your question, life is hard and isn't at all fair, so I decided to give you a taste of that unfairness. But I guess an answer that would make me sound more innocent is that I guess you could say you attracted me." She smirked and walked down the hall. Once she was gone, Myriad and Ally let go of Link and she fell down to her knees and covered her face with her hands. Myriad picked up the broken pieces and set them in a nearby trash can. Meanwhile, Ally helped Link to her feet.
    "What did she mean by 'you attracted me'? She said 'attracted' weird, like, she emphasized it."
    Link cleared her face and gave Myriad an honest answer. "I forgot to tell you. My Persona is Attraction. What that means is I appear attractive to many people, both in looks and personality. However, that's a double edged sword because certain situations end up gravitating to me, like this one. So, I might end up being liked one day and then end up getting dragged into a fight which might not end so well for me the next day. I attract all sorts of situations and people and I can't really control what comes to me. Things just happen and I just have to play the role of the sitting duck."
    "I'm sorry this happened to you. I wish I could do something to help."
    "Yeah. I know." Link grabbed her bag and put it on. "But you can't." She hung her head down and left the room to go downstairs and go home. Myriad and Ally followed distantly behind her, sharing some of her pain. Link's foundation of her creativity, her computer, was gone, and like a building without a foundation, Link's mental state fell down. All that really remained were broken bricks slowly sinking and eroding and if Myriad couldn't find some way to cheer her up, she feared Link might slip into real depression.