A Canine's Canvas [Selenus]

Whenever the night sky came in, relative silence usually followed. With the coming of the moon came the departure of sound as the populace gradually returned to their homes one by one until seemingly everyone had called it a night. This was the case for Miyuki's home -- Sunlake Palms -- and it was the case for almost all the other districts as well... keyword, of course, being almost. In the supposed "City That Never Sleeps" there was one district that took the title perhaps a bit too literally: Suzie Q; the life of the party. Sound rang out from nearly every corner of the district and blaring music danced through the air into the ears of those who wandered its streets. Most would assume at first glance that there wouldn't be a single place in the entire neighborhood where one could find some peace and quiet... though, like many assumptions, this was simply incorrect. Away from the glitz and glamour that made it what it was, Suzie Q had plenty of alleyways and corners hidden away within its depths. Few had interest in these places, but Miyuki didn't mind. That just meant more fun for her.




Shaking a green can of spray paint in her hand, Miyuki let loose another stream of color across the walls of the vacant alley. Guiding her hand carefully from one spot to the next, the girl hid a wide grin underneath the green hood that concealed her face. She wasn't a professional by any means, but tonight she was quite proud of her work. Soon enough her masterpiece would be finished and she'd be free to bask in its glory all she wanted. Part of her was a bit disappointed she didn't have anyone to show it to, but ultimately she could care less. It was her work and as long as she could admire the final result that was good enough for her. Little did she know, however, that she wasn't as alone as she thought.

Seriously, either Selenus's map had malfunctioned, or he had SERIOUSLY underestimated the time it would take for him to get back to Sunlake Palms. He'd JUST gotten repairs, and already he was wearing his body thin. Eh, whatever. At the very least he could listen to music inside his mind while he traveled. Perks of having your mind directly connected to an OS.

Suzie Q was quite the active district, which was unfortunate for Selenus, since he was trying to return home undetected. Fortunately for him, there were several alleyways (And if he really needed them, manholes) scattered across the district, like in any other. All he needed to do was make sure that he wasn't spotted as he alternated from the end of one to the start of another, like those Metal Gear games the internet seemed to be so fond of.

As the last few notes of Ludwig Van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" played back to his ears only, Selenus leapt from one alleyway to another as rapidly as he could possibly propel himself forward. His concentration was broken, however, when he heard a familiar voice coming from deeper into the alleyway he'd just arrived at.


Recognizing that voice and spotting the grafitti-spraying figure further into the alleyway, Selenus shifted his center of gravity to make himself as light and sneaky as possible. He knew the person in front of him, but he still needed to attract as little attention as possible, and that meant approaching less people. Hiding at the very edge of the alleyway, where the darkness was condensated enough for him to go unnoticed, Selenus would gently and slowly sneak behind Miyuki, hoping she wouldn't notice him. However, since he was keeping his focus on Miyuki and whether or not she heard him, he didn't notice the empty soup can in his path, and promptly knocked it over.

Miyuki's hand loosened its grip and let the can fall to the ground with a loud, metallic clang. Her arm shot downwards toward her leg and, using her now empty hand, would swiftly remove a knife from a concealed sheathe hidden within her stocking. Spinning around to face the direction the sound came from, the girl's eyes would rapidly scan the scene until she found the perpetrator. "...Fido?" She asked while slowly lowering the weapon downward; her face easing into a relaxed expression. "Jesus. Don't scare me like that. Almost thought you were a demon or somethin'."

Letting out a light laugh, the girl would slip the combat knife back into place and kneel down to the ground to pick up the spray-paint can. During this time the image she was working on would be visible and should Selenus choose to take a peek at it he'd find himself greeted by the image of a strange, green frog riding on a unicycle. Of course, this glorious sight would only be visible for but a moment before Miyuki stood up, her body positioned in front of the graffiti and thereby concealing it for the most part. "Well, well. This is quite the coincidence. What brings you to Suzie Q?"

Strengths:

As Miyuki spun around to attack Selenus in her fit of self-defense, the robot wolf quickly drew a knife from his hip and stopped Miyuki's with his own. As soon as Miyuki withdrew her knife, Selenus would do the same and put it back in its holster. "Miyuki." He greeted simply as she slid her knife back into her stocking. "Aw, Miyuki, you wound me. Do I look like a demon to you?" His original intention was to pass by undetected, but now that he had been detected it would've been rude to simply bail.

Choosing to look at Miyuki's work as she bent down to pick up her grafitti can, Selenus would chuckle heartily to himself. "O shit waddup." While he wasn't exactly a meme connoseur, he was certaainly familiar with the socio-psychological phenomenon that were sheer, irony-fueled memes. "No reason in particular. I was simply walking back home from... business." That last word was uttered with a certain air of discomfort. He didn't really want to fo into much detail of what being repaired by Professor J. implied.

"I suppose you have a point. You're much uglier than most demons." Miyuki mused aloud taking a playful jab at Selenus. Though it was mainly intended as friendly banter, it did raise a few interesting questions in the back of her mind. What did demons look like anyway? With the exception of Beldr she hadn't really seen any demons first-hand, at least as far as she could remember anyway. Maybe they were disgustingly grotesque like something out of a horror movie or maybe they were deceptively(?) cute and huggable. She was half-tempted to bring the topic up with the canine, but his acknowledgement of her meme graffiti ended up derailing her train of thought. "Is that why you're on the run? Did Isla grow fearful of the existence of a machine that could outmeme her?" Snickering at her own sarcastic suggestion, Miyuki would turn around and resume work on her "design." There was no point in quitting now; it'd only take a minute or two to finish the thing up completely.

"Business, huh? Well that's insufferably vague. Why don't you elaborate further, Fido? I'll give you a doggy biscuit and a pat on the head if you can satisfy my curiosity. How 'bout it?" Selenus was clearly unnerved by it, but that didn't stop Miyuki from pressing the issue. This "business" he mentioned had piqued her interest, if only slightly, and the girl saw nothing wrong with asking her canine compatriot about what he was talking about. After all, he was the one who had brought it up, so it'd only be fair for him to give her the full scoop. She had the privilege -- no, the right, to demand he regale her with whatever story he was keeping locked up inside that electronic brain of his. That was the way things worked, wasn't it?

Selenus activated his vocal speaker, but quickly realized he had nothing to say... "Actually, I have no witty response to that, You win this round, Walker..." he said in a mock bond-villain voice. "Trust me, if Isla knew of my existance I'd have bigger problems than whether or not her memes are danker than mine." He said matter-of-factly as he continued to observe Miyuki elaborating on her work of "art" if you could call it that. "I'm trying to lay as low as possible. I've been attracting too much attention lately, and while I've managed to avoid the spotlight like I did back at our little... phone feud, I'd really rather not stretch my luck." Had he gotten a bit too real? Hmm... "Let it not be said, however, that I wouldn't be capable of outmemeing Isla." There we go.

"You can keep your doggy biscuit, but if you want to pat my head I won't stop you." Selenus said, very lightly flustered. "I just came back from maintenance. I was starting to fall apart, so I just took up an offer for repairs from a friend of mine without a second thought. The catch is, he's a bit of an... how do you say... mad scientist?" Selenus had clear, vivid memories of being repaired and mantained during his military years, and also during his Newman phase; Whatever J. did back in Grins' Hole In The Wall was definitely neither standardized repair protocol nor legal. "Ironically enough, I feel more unclean than when I came into lab." He half-joked.

"It's to be expected. Nobody's better than me at being witty." She replied with a shrug of her shoulders and a smug glint in her eye. As Selenus elaborated on his situation, she'd silently listen to him with an understanding expression on her face. Of course, she hadn't been in his exact situation, but that didn't mean she couldn't empathise with the robot. "For your sake, I hope you're doing a better job of it. Standing out in the open hurling stones into a river angrily isn't the best way to keep hidden. You're just lucky I'm someone kind, generous, and merciful enough to delete that photo and keep quiet."

Finishing up the last touches and dropping the spray paint canister to the ground, Miyuki would crouch down to his level with visible amusement as she began to pet his head. "Awwwww. Is da wittle tsundere robowolf too ashamed to beg for a belly rub? Is this big, tough act he puts up all just a front to conceal the fact that he's really just a harmless robotic poodle?" Slowly she removed her hand from his head and stood up placing both of her hands within the pockets of the hoodie she wore as she stared down at him from above. "Better than falling into disrepair I guess. I dunno. I'm not a robot nor have I gone through maintenance repairs before, so..."

Selenus would roll his mind's eye(s) at Miyuki's banter. She was nice, or at least seemed to be, but her ego could be a little irritating at times. Nevertheless, Selenus opted to be polite and not say anything. And now she was addressing his... admited failure of an attempt to keep out of the public eye. "I'll admit, I hadn't been thinking clearly as of late. Forcing yourself to be alone for several years just to survive has an effect on you, y'know?" Of course, no paragraph that came out of her mouth lacked humoristic self-glorification. "If I recall correctly, I had to threaten you at knifepoint for you to delete it. And I'll have you know it's impossible for me to recall incorrectly: My memory is stored in data." Selenus chuckled.

Then Miyuki said something that crushed his spirits.


...this is what Selenus got for opening up to humans. No matter how fluently he spoke, how intelectually he thought, or how empathatically he treated them, they would never fully realize that despite his body and the effect it had on his mind, he was supposed to be one of them. And how come every human he'd come to call his friend had said the same thing? It wasn't an act! He was a weapon for war! Just because he was a canine didn't mean that they could treat him like one! He was... was...



But despite Selenus's inner struggle, Miyuki seemed to be expressing... amusement? Was his sadness amusing to her? No... it was an innocent kind of amusement, pure and whimsical if a bit cynical. She had no idea what she'd said. "Heh.. heheheh... heh..." Selenus tried to fake laughter, but what he instead emitted was the audible definition of sadness; If Miyuki had any level of empathy at all, she'd be able to tell that Selenus was not happy. Wether she would realize that Selenus was trying to prevent his sadness from spreading unto her however, remained to be seen.



It wasn't Miyukis' intention to sadden him, so Selenus tried to be as polite as possible about the matter, and that meant resuming conversation as if nothing had ever happened. "It's... unpleasant. Imagine if you had to have a surgery every 6 or so months in which the surgeon has to check, repair and sometimes replace each individual organ in your body one by one. I can't feel physical pain, but it's still a discomforting feeling."

Miyuki shrugged at Selenus's remark about having to force her to delete the photo. Sure, the threat had certainly helped convince her, but, well... "I was gonna delete it either way. The eternal servitude thing was just a prank -- I was gonna have you do some dumb, embarrassing shit for the lulz and then delete the photo." That was the truth; she was being 100% genuine there, although whether or not that would be clear to the robotic canine was unknown. "Besides, remember what I told ya? Daughter to a Cadet and sister to another... I'd be much a pain in your ass dead than I would be alive." A photo like that could always be dismissed as a hoax, but a teenager found dead near the Little Tokyo River Way? That was a lot harder to cover up or play off as some kind of grab for attention.

The girl was in good spirits, but that would soon change as the atmosphere grew heavy and somber for seemingly no reason. Her eyebrow instinctively raised itself at the pathetic excuse for a laugh he let out. She was confused at first, unsure of what was wrong, but then her words from earlier echoed through her mind. THAT was what had him so done in the dumps? A stupid, harmless joke? Why were people always like this? Why did they have to be so serious about everything? A sigh escaped from her lips as she removed her hand from Selenus's head. "Don't be like that. I didn't mean it like that. I was just---- I just...


"You promised we'd do something fun. You promised no more depressing shit. So stop moping. Life'll break you if you let it get to you: I'm speaking from experience."

And then Miyuki did something odd. Her hand reached down to the ground and she picked up one of the few unempty spray paint cans left. Then, without another word, she tossed it to the canine and looked down at him expectantly. "Go on. Make whatever you'd like with it. As long as it's not sad, graffiti to your heart's delight." It wasn't like Selenus was built for such a thing, but the girl didn't seem to care. Her expectations were unfair and uncompromising. Perhaps if he was creative enough he'd find a way to please her, but that was assuming he wanted to in the first place.

If it wasn't enough that he'd ruined the mood, the fact that him feeling bad made Miyuki feel bad made him feel worse, but he wouldn't let that make Miyuki feel worse as well. "Right." He'd agree as he picked up the can of graffiti with his tail. If vandalizing a wall was what he needed to do to make up for brutally murdering the atmosphere in cold blood, then so be it.

He'd find an empty spot in the wall and stare at it for a few seconds. After checking the grafitti color label on the can he was currently holding (Black) he opened up the command console inside of his mind and began to type a command: A commands that set a string of precise, calculated movements for his tail and its wires.

After about fifteen seconds of remaining perfectly still, Selenus's tail started moving at incredible speeds. Even if to any other graffiti artist spraying this fast would've certainy ruined their painting, every single movement of Selenus's tail was precisely coded to perfectly replicate the image he had in his mind. A neat little command Selenus liked to call ImageTrace(X,Y,Z) Where X and Y where the height and width of the replication, and Z was the distance between the tip of Selenus's tail and the canvas.

After about a minute and a half of Selenus's tail acting like the sword of an anime protagonist, he speedily grabbed a can of white graffiti, followed by yellow graffity, and finished by red graffity. When the command was done, his tail fell to the ground and Selenus and Miyuki were standing in front of this:

Selenus had combined his sorrow and thoughts of his Persona Fenrir to create... the edgiest graffiti in miles.

"That do anything for ya?" He'd ask smugly as he turned around to face Miyuki.

OOC:

It seemed Selenus had agreed to it after all. Good. It wasn't enough to fully remove the pout on her face on its own right, but nevertheless it clearly pleased her and would result in her expression softening. For some reason, however, he stopped when he reached the wall and stood there staring at. What the hell was he doing? He had agreed to the terms, so why wasn't he doing anything? "Hey! If you think this is funny then----"

She fell completely silent as the tail suddenly began to work its magic. Its movements were insanely fast, far too quick for her to keep track of, and on top of that they were absurdly graceful. They flowed through the air elegantly, so much so that Miyuki ended up staring more at the brush than the canvas the canine was painting on. By the time the tail had stopped moving and he had finished his work, the girl found herself staring dumbfoundedly at the picture he had created. It was like it had appeared from thin air and it took a moment to register that this was the result of Selenus's hard work.

"That was... somethin', alright. It looks pretty good, even if it is a little too angsty for my taste."

"Meh. I could've done something better if we had more graffiti." Perhaps he was boasting too much? Not everyone could control their body with exact precision, so his advantage over Miyuki's artistic talent was beyond unfair. Besides, her own graffiti was... decent. If anything, now he felt bad for showing off. Not a bad like the previousy shown kind of feeling bad, but more like an "Oh whoops did I do that?" kind of bad-but-not-really feeling bad.

The robo doggo looked at Miyuki's graffiti, and realized that in all technicallity it was a vandalism. "Y'know, for being the daughter of a cadet and the sister of another, you don' really seem the type to abide by the law. and from what you told back near the river, I'm guessing you're not very fond of the government in general." She really didn't seem to give two shits about the ogvernment, but at the same time she clearly had some sort of connection to it. Very strange indeed.

The pup had certainly caught her attention with that observation. A glimmer of caution twinkled in her eye, a paranoid sparkle masked only by the natural darkness of the night, and Miyuki began to wonder in that moment if there was something else to Selenus. Maybe he wasn't running from the government after all and this was all some kind of odd test of loyalty. But then again, the more she thought about it, the sillier it seemed. She was a random schmuck who didn't even have the potential. Why would they devote time and resources to observing her specifically, especially in such an odd and elaborate way? She could appear suspicious, sure, and she was more than a bit mischievous, but she was no one important and for the majority of people her status as family to two Cadets gave her an all-clear pass; people rarely bothered to look beyond the surface of what they saw, after all, and when they did they rarely found any particularly interesting information. So the notion that Selenus was some kind of government plant searching for sedition simply came across as nonsensical: it sounded like the ramblings of an insane conspiracy theorist. He was good in her book, so she could reveal a little more to him than she could to others.

"That's what people always think, isn't it? Not that I'm complaining of course. It works out just peachy for me having everyone assume I'm one of Isla's groupies simply because Dad and Achelle decided to join up with the Cadets. I used to be all gung-ho about Isla; I believed in the government more than the government believed in itself. It took years of bitching and moaning about the topic from someone else to finally drill it into my skull that things aren't always as pretty as they look on the surface. Sure, the queen's done a lot for Endymion, but the people don't have any say. And power's an inherently corrupting thing, y'know -- sure, the so-called Goddess of Endymion is nice today, but when she sits at the center of everything and every word she speaks is law that's bound to eventually go to her head. Hell, it already has. The Cadets are her personal zealots and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to apprehend some peaceful guy trying to mind his own business just because he has supernatural powers."

"It's not that I don't believe in rules or the law. You'd be crazy not to. I don't believe in rulers though. People don't need a goddess, or a monarch, or a dictator to decide how society should be run. Order and the commandments it entails are born of necessity -- they'll come about with or without someone declaring themselves the head honcho and taking everyone's lives hostage. We don't need an Isla, do we? We've got brains, we've got a conscience, and we've got a right to decide how we live without some kind of needless quote-unquote representative overseeing every little thing."

While she was carrying on with her tirade, Miyuki had picked up the red can that Selenus had tossed aside and given it a good shake. It still had a little juice left in it, so there was no point in letting that go to waste. She walked over to one of the few remaining spots as she continued to speak and began to spray a symbol on it: a large 'A' contained within a circle. If her words alone hadn't made it clear enough then this would serve as a dead giveaway as to what she was saying. Her soft hand loosened around the can as it began to run dry and when it was finally 100% empty she'd drop it to the ground letting a loud, metallic clang ring through the area.

"But I'm rambling. Point is, yeah, I dislike Endymion's politics and the way it's run. It's not like it matters though. I don't have a Persona, so I can't do jack shit about it. I gave up on changing the world a long time ago Selenus -- it was a silly wish for a silly young girl. So I've gotten used to living under Isla's thumb. To be honest, it's not even really that bad. There's a lot of people in this city who have it worse off than me, so I can't be assed to complain about my life, at least not openly anyway."

"Oh," she gestured to the wall, "and as for this, there's nothing wrong with it. This wall should belong to everyone. That and the thought of someone getting butthurt about me spraying a meme on the side of a vacant alleyway is REALLY cringeworthy."

Well... the red circled "A" couldn't send a message any clearer. Miyuki's speech had, if anything, put Selenus in a state of thought. He had his own fair share of problems with Endymion, its laws, its ruling powers and its government, but this outright... for lack of a better word, hatred for the powers that be was infatuating... contagious, even. If Selenus hadn't known any better, perhaps he would've written her off as a sociopath, but... she had a point. Up until then, Selenus didn't care about changing the world or any other such dream. All he wanted was his father back, and he was willing to resort to psyche terrorism if that's what it took, not because he wanted to change the government of Endymion, but now that Miyuki brought it up, would it really be fair to continue this regime of fear of the supernatural to continue? If he got Newman back, there was nothing stopping the government from simply finding another reason to arrest him once more... or any other man or woman, for that matter. Oh god, how many people HAD they arrested for such asisine reasons? How many people were in his same situation, but with no hope of ever seeing their loved ones again? And how many in his position had died or been brainwashed trying?!... How many of the terrorists he killed during his time as a military weapon were just trying to find their way back to their old lives? How many?!

Selenus was horrified.

Selenus was disgusted.

But above all, Selenus was angry.



"You know..." The robot wolf began, checking the dimensions of the alleyway. It certainly was taller and wider than his Persona, and with the immense darkness and noise from the outside, no one would be able to hear him summoning him if he was quiet enough. "...the reason I'm running away from the government is because I'm supposed to be dead." The tone of his voice could best be described as "the happiness of a madman" "They manipulated me and used me to murder people in cold blood without a choice, and if they find out I'm alive they're gonna do it again." Selenus created a bit of distance between himself and Miyuki, preparing enough space for his big entrance. "I'll have to run from them for the rest of my life unless I somehow dethrone them..." Inside of his mind, he repeated the phrase "Be elegant about it" hoping he would get the message. "It's not just the silly wish of a young girl. It's perfectly possible..." A set of ethereal chain-like fabrics with the word "Gleipnir" repeated across their lengths in Norse Runes. "...all you need to do is get to know yourself better."

Biting down on the gleipnir in front of him and ripping it to shreds, a towering white wolf adorned with gold and silver materialized itself behind Selenus. The summoning itself would only be noticable to the two, as Fenrir had refrained from roaring himself to life as he tended to do, and the alleyway's walls and darkness would prevent anyone from seeing the trio without coming all the way in.

Miyuki's eyebrow would raise at first. The dog was walking away? Her dream was possible? And was he suggesting that she had the potential? It was so nonsensical and baffling of a scene. But then she noticed it -- the strange chains around the wolf's paws. She could feel a lump emerge in the back of her throat, but would quickly swallow it down. Confusion plagued her, but all would be explained when they broke. The towering wolf which emerged caught her gaze and left her staring there at it silently.


What was she supposed to say to that? How was she supposed to react to something like this? She hadn't seen anything that looked so otherworldly and powerful since the Eternal Divide... well, up close anyway. Despite that, though, she was able to tell from the start what it was and Selenus's words would only confirm her suspicions further. He was a Persona User -- he was a terrorist. The silent girl tilted her head back exposing her unmoving, stagnant, emotionless face to the midnight sky...


...and burst into uproarious laughter. A toothy smirk which overflowed with amusement, hope, and Chaos took form on what had previously been a hollow face. Miyuki took a sip of the nectar of life, uncertainty, and drowned in its intoxicating flavor as she began to pace around the fearsome beast cheerfully with her arms resting behind her back. "Meeting a terrorist face-to-face... Wow, I can't believe things like this would actually happen to a speck like me!" Her feet skid to a stop and she flashed a peace sign which would rest horizontally in front of her left eye. "So what? What are you trying to say here? You wanna inherit my dream, is that it? Do what I couldn't? Or are you just trying to taunt me about having what I don't?"