Amaril
2016-09-30, 10:38 PM
Okay, so with Persona 5 imminent, my interest in the setting has been sparked again, and a weird idea has occurred to me. Anyone who's played Zone of the Enders 2 (if there's anyone on here who has) will probably remember Nohman's line "the universe, and human subconscious, are willing their own end!" That always stuck out to me, because I could just as easily imagine it having come out of Persona 3's Takaya, during his final confrontation with the heroes. That got me thinking...what if ZoE 2 was a Persona story?
So, I went through the events of the game, and I wrote up this outline for how I'd do that retelling.
Dingo Egret is a high school senior in fictional Callisto, Colorado, a former mining town-turned-Rocky Mountain tourist trap southwest of Denver with an abundance of paranormal history and ghost stories. Orphaned aged seven, he was taken in by members of an apparently criminal organization known as BAHRAM, where he was abused and experimented on by the organization’s scientists and its leader, Nohman, for reasons unknown to him. After surviving two years of this, he escaped and fled to be found by police and placed in government foster care. Since then, he’s struggled to put his trauma behind him and enjoy his new life.
Shortly into the school year, Dingo is on a date with his classmate Angie, who, out of a joking fondness for Greenbank’s ghost stories, persuades him to come with her to explore a famously haunted abandoned mine site. While there, the two accidentally stumble through a portal to what seems to be an alternate dimension, where they’re attacked by Shadows. Just when things look direst, Dingo manages to awaken his dormant Persona, Jehuty, which defeats the Shadows and allows them to escape back through the portal. In shock, they quickly leave and return home.
While Dingo struggles to come to grips with his new powers and wonders what happened through the following weeks, he is secretly observed by a mysterious girl his own age, who is seen telling someone via earpiece that he’s the one they want. One weekend, he receives a panicked phone call from his best friend, Rick, telling him he’s been kidnapped; a feminine voice on the other end tells Dingo to come to the address of a derelict foundry if he wants to save his friend. Dingo goes, and finds another portal to the otherworld, where he’s attacked by more Shadows and the kidnapper, who he finds familiar but doesn’t quite recognize. She summons her own Persona, Ardjet, by stabbing herself with what appears to be a syringe gun; though it’s his hardest fight yet, Dingo manages to use Jehuty to fend her off. When pressed, she refuses to give her name, but tells Dingo that BAHRAM looks forward to welcoming him back before fleeing.
Dingo escapes with Rick, but is deeply shaken by the mention of BAHRAM. Becoming determined to know what threat the organization poses, he decides to go back to the base he escaped from years ago, hoping to use his newfound powers to force answers out of them. Traveling back, he sneaks into the lab, where he overhears scientists referring to something called Project Aumaan, and finds another portal. Inside, he encounters the Persona Nephthys, apparently without a summoner, but accompanied by a disembodied voice that Dingo recognizes as belonging to Viola Gyune, one of the other test subjects who were at BAHRAM with him. With Jehuty, Dingo apparently defeats Nephthys, but is surprised by the arrival of Nohman, accompanied by the girl who kidnapped Rick. Nohman summons his own Persona, Anubis, and effortlessly defeats Jehuty. He then offers to let Dingo return to BAHRAM and help him complete Project Aumaan; Dingo refuses, and Nohman shoots him, ordering his companion to dispose of the body before leaving. The girl waits for Nohman to leave, then tells Dingo that if he’ll agree to help her, she’ll save his life; Dingo agrees, then passes out.
Waking up in a hospital bed in a different BAHRAM hideout, Dingo is met by his savior. She introduces herself as Ken Marinaris, and claims to be a spy from a secret division of the multinational Kirijo Group trading corporation called the Shadow Response Unit, though Dingo is highly skeptical that such an organization even exists. Ken explains that she’s been sent into BAHRAM undercover to investigate its interest in Shadows and Personas, particularly Project Aumaan, and needs Dingo’s help to do so; when Dingo tries to refuse, she reminds him of the promise he made in exchange for his life before revealing that, under pretenses of acting on Nohman’s orders, she’s had BAHRAM’s doctors surgically attach a device to Dingo’s heart that can be remotely activated to deliver a fatal electric shock, and that if he doesn’t follow her orders, she’ll activate it and kill him. Dingo reluctantly submits, and Ken smuggles him out of the facility, telling him to go home and await her instructions, and not let Nohman know he’s still alive.
A few days later, Dingo’s class receives a new student, who introduces himself as Leo Stenbuck. Leo immediately shows an obvious interest in Dingo, which makes Dingo suspicious. His suspicion deepens when Leo invites him on a hike one weekend, claiming there’s something he wants to show him, but, torn between the fear of being needlessly paranoid and the prospect of learning more about what’s going on, he accepts the invitation. Sure enough, Leo leads him to a disused hiking day shelter containing another portal to the otherworld, and pushes him in before following and attacking with his Persona, Horus. Dingo fights him to a standstill, at which point Leo calls off the battle, apologizing and claiming he merely wanted to test Dingo’s strength. He explains that he’s an operative for the Shadow Response Unit investigating Project Aumaan, and that when he recognized Dingo from the profiles the Kirijo Group has on many of the project’s test subjects, he guessed that Dingo might be able to help. Dingo asks Leo about Ken, but Leo claims not to know her; however, he confesses that he’s a relatively junior member of the Unit, and might not have been told about an undercover mission. Still curious, Dingo nonetheless agrees to help Leo take down BAHRAM, though he has little information to offer him. Not deterred, Leo tells Dingo that BAHRAM has been using the otherworld to hide their activities, and tells him about an area he hasn’t been able to access yet that he suspects could hold valuable information. Dingo agrees to help him get in, and the two return home, intending to spend time training with their powers before making their move. Shortly after leaving Leo, Dingo receives a call from Ken telling him to investigate the same place; when Dingo tells her about his plan with Leo, she seems surprised, but doesn’t protest.
The night of the mission arrives. Dingo and Leo meet at the agreed place, enter the portal, and make their way to BAHRAM’s secured base. They find it heavily guarded by powerful Shadows, but are able to subdue them and access the fortress. While battling their way inside, Ken contacts Dingo via Ardjet’s telepathy, claiming to be nearby and offering him tactical advice thanks to her oracular powers, but refusing to help herself. Upon reaching the heart of the fortress, however, Dingo and Leo are cut off from each other by interference from an unknown enemy, which is revealed to be Nephthys when Dingo comes face-to-face with it. Hearing Viola’s voice, Dingo expresses his confusion at where she is, when Ken explains that Viola has been subsumed by the otherworld, now nothing more than the ghostly remnant that Dingo faces. Confused and horrified, Dingo attempts to fight off Nephthys, but Viola’s Persona reveals itself to be far stronger than it showed the first time it fought Jehuty, putting Dingo on the defensive. Calling for help, Dingo finally persuades Ken to reveal herself and join the fight, and she arrives just in time to save him, the two defeating Nephthys once and for all and putting Viola to rest.
However, before they can relax, Ken abruptly collapses, clutching her head in pain and yelling at Dingo to get away. Before he can, Ardjet reappears and breaks free of Ken’s control, attacking the two and forcing Dingo to fend it off. Ken explains that her Persona abilities were awakened artificially, which is why she needs the drugs in her syringe gun to summon, and that if pushed too far, as she was in the fight with Nephthys, she can lose control of Ardjet. Refusing to destroy Ardjet completely and kill Ken, Dingo forcibly holds back Jehuty’s normal power to merely subdue the enemy, but doing so drains him too much to continue fighting, leaving him and Ken stranded in the otherworld with no means of fighting off the Shadows. As more approach, Ken begs Dingo to save them, but Dingo protests that he has no strength left. Under the stress of the situation, Ken manages to awaken Ardjet naturally, gaining full control of it and obviating her need for summoning drugs; with her newfound strength, she fights off the remaining Shadows and allows the two to escape.
On the way back to Callisto, Ken asks Dingo about his history with BAHRAM, which Dingo explains. Shortly after, he gets a call from Leo, who says that he managed to escape, but is frustrated that the mission was for naught, as they have learned nothing. Dingo agrees, and relays the same frustration to Ken after hanging up. As the two try to think of what to do next, Dingo remembers someone who might be able to point them in the right direction, a scientist named Lloyd who was the only person to treat him well during his time with BAHRAM, until he suddenly disappeared without a word to Dingo. Ken recognizes him, and claims to know where he is now, agreeing that they should ask him for information about Project Aumaan. The two return home to recover from their ordeal, planning to seek out Lloyd another time; when Dingo tells Leo about their plan, he asks to come with them, but Dingo tells him to hang back, saying that if something happens to them, they’ll need Leo to carry on the mission.
After a few weeks of recuperation, Dingo and Ken meet to head to Lloyd’s hideout, a highly secured mansion complex up in the mountains. Upon arrival, Lloyd greets them by video call, welcoming Dingo and asking him and Ken to go to the basement and head through the otherworld portal there in order to find him. On the other side, they fight their way past the Shadows to confront Lloyd, who promises to help them if they can defeat his Persona, Inhert. They do so, and Lloyd agrees to tell them what he knows about BAHRAM’s true agenda and Project Aumaan.
He explains that BAHRAM was founded by surviving members of the Kirijo Group research team responsible for unleashing Nyx and creating the Dark Hour in Iwatodai, Japan years ago. Believing that humanity could still harness the power of Nyx, the researchers fled to the US and set themselves up as BAHRAM, hoping to continue their scientific mission. The organization’s leader, Dr. Ridley Hardiman (alias Nohman) believed that the psychic power of Persona-users was the key—Nyx was called to Earth by humanity’s collective subconscious longing for death, but kept away by a seal created by a group of Persona-users. Nohman believed that a strong enough concentration of despair could lend Nyx enough power to break that seal, and that Persona-users would be the best source of such energy. To that end, he initiated Project Aumaan: he began having children acquired or abducted as test subjects, and using technology to artificially awaken the Persona abilities of those who possessed them. Dingo was one such subject, but escaped before his procedures could bear fruit. At the same time, Nohman designed a computer system that could interface with a human brain to produce full-immersion virtual reality, and proceeded to have his newly-created Persona-users plugged into it and virtually tortured to induce suicidal responses. However, the system interacted unexpectedly with some of the subjects’ abilities, causing the virtual scenarios to spill over into the metaphysical world and opening portals to it in nearby locations with strong concentrations of negative psychic power. The portals Dingo and his partners have been entering are some of these; Viola was one of many subjects who burned out from the process, losing their minds and becoming consumed by the spirit world. Undeterred, Nohman continued the project, making use of the otherworld as best he could while pursuing his ultimate goal: summoning Nyx to Earth.
When asked how they can stop Nohman, Lloyd tells them the location of BAHRAM’s main base, which they can access through the otherworld; however, he warns them to beware of Anubis, as it’s far too strong for either of them to defeat. As he gives them this warning, however, Nohman appears with Anubis, once again defeating Jehuty. Ken flees and hides, while Dingo runs back to the exit portal when Lloyd stays behind to hold Nohman off at the cost of his own life. After escaping, Dingo receives a call from Ken, still trapped in the otherworld; Dingo promises to go back in and retrieve her, but she protests, since Nohman is still there. At her urging, Dingo promises that even if she doesn’t make it, he will do whatever it takes to stop Project Aumaan. Just as she hangs up, Nohman finds her, but apparently still buys her cover, and she reluctantly leaves with him.
Dingo calls Leo and relays to him the location of BAHRAM’s home base. Leo promises to rally everyone he can from the Shadow Response Unit for an assault, and to call Dingo when they’re ready. Dingo returns home to rest and prepare.
A few weeks later, Leo gives Dingo the call, and he heads for the appointed meeting place. He arrives to find Leo waiting with a large group of Shadow Operatives, including several Persona-users. Leo introduces him to Elena Weinberg, head of the organization’s regional branch, who will be commanding for the operation. Though the group displays a reluctance to trust Dingo, as he is from outside the Unit and has ties to BAHRAM, Leo reassures them that he’s on their side, and they back off. However, when Dingo mentions Ken, Elena says she doesn’t know who she is, and that there is no one named Ken Marinaris in the Shadow Response Unit. Dingo realizes that Ken must have lied, as the group heads through the portal to begin their attack.
Fighting their way past numerous Shadows and BAHRAM guards, the Shadow Operatives manage to penetrate the base. With the force weakened, Dingo and Leo are sent ahead while the rest of the force stands guard. As they make their way into the heart of the base, Dingo receives a telepathic message from Ken, warning him that Nohman is there with her and they should leave. When he tries to reassure her, she confesses that she lied about being a member of the Shadow Response Unit, and that she was really just a member of BAHRAM all along; however, she is surprised to find Dingo already knows, and is not angry, merely confused about why she felt the need to lie when she was working to take down BAHRAM either way. Ken explains that she was an Aumaan test subject like Dingo, one of a few Nohman considered too valuable to use as fuel for the project once he saw the extent of her powers, instead training her to become an agent for the organization. She claims to have always secretly hated Nohman for what he put her through, and that when she had the opportunity to secure Dingo’s help in getting revenge, she worried that she would never get another chance, and wanted to be sure he would trust her. Dingo jokingly remarks on how he understands perfectly well how someone would hate Nohman after being one of his test subjects. As he tries once more to reassure Ken, her connection is cut. Concerned, he and Leo hasten to proceed to Project Aumaan’s central control facility.
Expecting a fight against Nohman and Anubis, they aren’t surprised to be faced with the latter, though Dingo is perplexed by the former’s absence. Even more confusing, Anubis proves to be a surprisingly easy target, offering far less resistance than in past encounters. Dingo pulls back, suspecting a trap, but Leo continues to charge in, dealing great harm to Anubis, but leaving him surprised when what appears to be another Anubis appears from behind and immediately defeats him. Nohman finally reveals himself, dragging Ken along with a gun to her head; Ken dispels the illusion of the decoy Anubis, revealing it to be Ardjet, and explaining that Nohman forced her to fight Dingo and Leo. Dingo attacks Nohman, but Anubis repels Jehuty again, as Nohman, taunting Dingo, reveals the truth behind Project Aumaan: he has no intention of harnessing Nyx’s power as a weapon, but merely wants to unleash it for its natural purpose, the extinction of humanity. With Dingo powerless to stop him, he activates the final stage of the project, burning out every subject connected to the machinery at once to produce a massive spike of negative energy and trigger the descent of Nyx.
Enraged at Nohman, Dingo’s emotion triggers Jehuty to transform into his ultimate Persona, Ra. Nohman flees through an escape portal back into the real world, and Dingo pursues him. With Nyx approaching, the physical and spirit worlds begin to blur together in a similar fashion to the Dark Hour, allowing Persona-users to summon on Earth, and Shadows and other things from the spirit world to spill over. Pursuing Nohman, Dingo is faced with the Personas and tormented remnants of all the other Aumaan test subjects sacrificed for the project, but with Ra’s power, he is able to defeat them. Finally catching up, he manages to defeat Anubis, and with the destruction of his Persona, Nohman dies. As Nyx approaches, Dingo is faced with the Seal, threatening to break. In a desperate hope of stopping the process, Dingo sacrifices part of his own soul to bolster the Seal’s power, giving up his Persona abilities; the Seal holds, and Nyx is repulsed.
Dingo wakes up in a hospital, and is greeted by Ken and Leo. He asks them what happened; they explain that Project Aumaan was apparently thwarted, the portals have closed, and all the Shadows that came through were banished when they did. Leo says they found Dingo unconscious, and brought him here to recover, this hospital having ties to the Kirijo Group. Dingo thanks them, and asks for a moment alone with Ken, which Leo grants. Dingo asks whether Ken had them remove the device she attached to his heart, and she says they did. She asks him how he managed to stop Nyx from being summoned; he explains that he gave up his Persona abilities to do so. Ken expresses concern for his feelings about this, but Dingo reassures her that he doesn’t regret it, claiming that all this excitement is too much for him anyway.
Obviously, I changed a few things. The events of the first game are completely ignored, mostly because I'm not nearly as familiar with it, but also because I don't think the parallels are as clearly present. Dingo's relationship to BAHRAM is altered, but it seemed like the closest possible analogue that would still explain his motivations, given the change in setting. Ken's role is expanded to be more active, because the way the game treated her is just shameful. ADA is left out, because I couldn't find a way to work her in. Horus as Leo's Persona is entirely made up on my part (though I think it fits decently well), because he couldn't really have the Vic Viper. Ditto Ra as Dingo's ultimate, which I had to include because it's a staple of the new setting, and the mythology seems to fit. And, of course, the way everything is resolved at the end is my own invention. It's not meant to exactly parallel everything, but I think there's enough here that the similarities come through, while retaining enough sense to make a good story in its own right.
What do you think? Am I the only one who sees this?
...Should I really write the whole thing? Because I feel like I might have to write the whole thing...
So, I went through the events of the game, and I wrote up this outline for how I'd do that retelling.
Dingo Egret is a high school senior in fictional Callisto, Colorado, a former mining town-turned-Rocky Mountain tourist trap southwest of Denver with an abundance of paranormal history and ghost stories. Orphaned aged seven, he was taken in by members of an apparently criminal organization known as BAHRAM, where he was abused and experimented on by the organization’s scientists and its leader, Nohman, for reasons unknown to him. After surviving two years of this, he escaped and fled to be found by police and placed in government foster care. Since then, he’s struggled to put his trauma behind him and enjoy his new life.
Shortly into the school year, Dingo is on a date with his classmate Angie, who, out of a joking fondness for Greenbank’s ghost stories, persuades him to come with her to explore a famously haunted abandoned mine site. While there, the two accidentally stumble through a portal to what seems to be an alternate dimension, where they’re attacked by Shadows. Just when things look direst, Dingo manages to awaken his dormant Persona, Jehuty, which defeats the Shadows and allows them to escape back through the portal. In shock, they quickly leave and return home.
While Dingo struggles to come to grips with his new powers and wonders what happened through the following weeks, he is secretly observed by a mysterious girl his own age, who is seen telling someone via earpiece that he’s the one they want. One weekend, he receives a panicked phone call from his best friend, Rick, telling him he’s been kidnapped; a feminine voice on the other end tells Dingo to come to the address of a derelict foundry if he wants to save his friend. Dingo goes, and finds another portal to the otherworld, where he’s attacked by more Shadows and the kidnapper, who he finds familiar but doesn’t quite recognize. She summons her own Persona, Ardjet, by stabbing herself with what appears to be a syringe gun; though it’s his hardest fight yet, Dingo manages to use Jehuty to fend her off. When pressed, she refuses to give her name, but tells Dingo that BAHRAM looks forward to welcoming him back before fleeing.
Dingo escapes with Rick, but is deeply shaken by the mention of BAHRAM. Becoming determined to know what threat the organization poses, he decides to go back to the base he escaped from years ago, hoping to use his newfound powers to force answers out of them. Traveling back, he sneaks into the lab, where he overhears scientists referring to something called Project Aumaan, and finds another portal. Inside, he encounters the Persona Nephthys, apparently without a summoner, but accompanied by a disembodied voice that Dingo recognizes as belonging to Viola Gyune, one of the other test subjects who were at BAHRAM with him. With Jehuty, Dingo apparently defeats Nephthys, but is surprised by the arrival of Nohman, accompanied by the girl who kidnapped Rick. Nohman summons his own Persona, Anubis, and effortlessly defeats Jehuty. He then offers to let Dingo return to BAHRAM and help him complete Project Aumaan; Dingo refuses, and Nohman shoots him, ordering his companion to dispose of the body before leaving. The girl waits for Nohman to leave, then tells Dingo that if he’ll agree to help her, she’ll save his life; Dingo agrees, then passes out.
Waking up in a hospital bed in a different BAHRAM hideout, Dingo is met by his savior. She introduces herself as Ken Marinaris, and claims to be a spy from a secret division of the multinational Kirijo Group trading corporation called the Shadow Response Unit, though Dingo is highly skeptical that such an organization even exists. Ken explains that she’s been sent into BAHRAM undercover to investigate its interest in Shadows and Personas, particularly Project Aumaan, and needs Dingo’s help to do so; when Dingo tries to refuse, she reminds him of the promise he made in exchange for his life before revealing that, under pretenses of acting on Nohman’s orders, she’s had BAHRAM’s doctors surgically attach a device to Dingo’s heart that can be remotely activated to deliver a fatal electric shock, and that if he doesn’t follow her orders, she’ll activate it and kill him. Dingo reluctantly submits, and Ken smuggles him out of the facility, telling him to go home and await her instructions, and not let Nohman know he’s still alive.
A few days later, Dingo’s class receives a new student, who introduces himself as Leo Stenbuck. Leo immediately shows an obvious interest in Dingo, which makes Dingo suspicious. His suspicion deepens when Leo invites him on a hike one weekend, claiming there’s something he wants to show him, but, torn between the fear of being needlessly paranoid and the prospect of learning more about what’s going on, he accepts the invitation. Sure enough, Leo leads him to a disused hiking day shelter containing another portal to the otherworld, and pushes him in before following and attacking with his Persona, Horus. Dingo fights him to a standstill, at which point Leo calls off the battle, apologizing and claiming he merely wanted to test Dingo’s strength. He explains that he’s an operative for the Shadow Response Unit investigating Project Aumaan, and that when he recognized Dingo from the profiles the Kirijo Group has on many of the project’s test subjects, he guessed that Dingo might be able to help. Dingo asks Leo about Ken, but Leo claims not to know her; however, he confesses that he’s a relatively junior member of the Unit, and might not have been told about an undercover mission. Still curious, Dingo nonetheless agrees to help Leo take down BAHRAM, though he has little information to offer him. Not deterred, Leo tells Dingo that BAHRAM has been using the otherworld to hide their activities, and tells him about an area he hasn’t been able to access yet that he suspects could hold valuable information. Dingo agrees to help him get in, and the two return home, intending to spend time training with their powers before making their move. Shortly after leaving Leo, Dingo receives a call from Ken telling him to investigate the same place; when Dingo tells her about his plan with Leo, she seems surprised, but doesn’t protest.
The night of the mission arrives. Dingo and Leo meet at the agreed place, enter the portal, and make their way to BAHRAM’s secured base. They find it heavily guarded by powerful Shadows, but are able to subdue them and access the fortress. While battling their way inside, Ken contacts Dingo via Ardjet’s telepathy, claiming to be nearby and offering him tactical advice thanks to her oracular powers, but refusing to help herself. Upon reaching the heart of the fortress, however, Dingo and Leo are cut off from each other by interference from an unknown enemy, which is revealed to be Nephthys when Dingo comes face-to-face with it. Hearing Viola’s voice, Dingo expresses his confusion at where she is, when Ken explains that Viola has been subsumed by the otherworld, now nothing more than the ghostly remnant that Dingo faces. Confused and horrified, Dingo attempts to fight off Nephthys, but Viola’s Persona reveals itself to be far stronger than it showed the first time it fought Jehuty, putting Dingo on the defensive. Calling for help, Dingo finally persuades Ken to reveal herself and join the fight, and she arrives just in time to save him, the two defeating Nephthys once and for all and putting Viola to rest.
However, before they can relax, Ken abruptly collapses, clutching her head in pain and yelling at Dingo to get away. Before he can, Ardjet reappears and breaks free of Ken’s control, attacking the two and forcing Dingo to fend it off. Ken explains that her Persona abilities were awakened artificially, which is why she needs the drugs in her syringe gun to summon, and that if pushed too far, as she was in the fight with Nephthys, she can lose control of Ardjet. Refusing to destroy Ardjet completely and kill Ken, Dingo forcibly holds back Jehuty’s normal power to merely subdue the enemy, but doing so drains him too much to continue fighting, leaving him and Ken stranded in the otherworld with no means of fighting off the Shadows. As more approach, Ken begs Dingo to save them, but Dingo protests that he has no strength left. Under the stress of the situation, Ken manages to awaken Ardjet naturally, gaining full control of it and obviating her need for summoning drugs; with her newfound strength, she fights off the remaining Shadows and allows the two to escape.
On the way back to Callisto, Ken asks Dingo about his history with BAHRAM, which Dingo explains. Shortly after, he gets a call from Leo, who says that he managed to escape, but is frustrated that the mission was for naught, as they have learned nothing. Dingo agrees, and relays the same frustration to Ken after hanging up. As the two try to think of what to do next, Dingo remembers someone who might be able to point them in the right direction, a scientist named Lloyd who was the only person to treat him well during his time with BAHRAM, until he suddenly disappeared without a word to Dingo. Ken recognizes him, and claims to know where he is now, agreeing that they should ask him for information about Project Aumaan. The two return home to recover from their ordeal, planning to seek out Lloyd another time; when Dingo tells Leo about their plan, he asks to come with them, but Dingo tells him to hang back, saying that if something happens to them, they’ll need Leo to carry on the mission.
After a few weeks of recuperation, Dingo and Ken meet to head to Lloyd’s hideout, a highly secured mansion complex up in the mountains. Upon arrival, Lloyd greets them by video call, welcoming Dingo and asking him and Ken to go to the basement and head through the otherworld portal there in order to find him. On the other side, they fight their way past the Shadows to confront Lloyd, who promises to help them if they can defeat his Persona, Inhert. They do so, and Lloyd agrees to tell them what he knows about BAHRAM’s true agenda and Project Aumaan.
He explains that BAHRAM was founded by surviving members of the Kirijo Group research team responsible for unleashing Nyx and creating the Dark Hour in Iwatodai, Japan years ago. Believing that humanity could still harness the power of Nyx, the researchers fled to the US and set themselves up as BAHRAM, hoping to continue their scientific mission. The organization’s leader, Dr. Ridley Hardiman (alias Nohman) believed that the psychic power of Persona-users was the key—Nyx was called to Earth by humanity’s collective subconscious longing for death, but kept away by a seal created by a group of Persona-users. Nohman believed that a strong enough concentration of despair could lend Nyx enough power to break that seal, and that Persona-users would be the best source of such energy. To that end, he initiated Project Aumaan: he began having children acquired or abducted as test subjects, and using technology to artificially awaken the Persona abilities of those who possessed them. Dingo was one such subject, but escaped before his procedures could bear fruit. At the same time, Nohman designed a computer system that could interface with a human brain to produce full-immersion virtual reality, and proceeded to have his newly-created Persona-users plugged into it and virtually tortured to induce suicidal responses. However, the system interacted unexpectedly with some of the subjects’ abilities, causing the virtual scenarios to spill over into the metaphysical world and opening portals to it in nearby locations with strong concentrations of negative psychic power. The portals Dingo and his partners have been entering are some of these; Viola was one of many subjects who burned out from the process, losing their minds and becoming consumed by the spirit world. Undeterred, Nohman continued the project, making use of the otherworld as best he could while pursuing his ultimate goal: summoning Nyx to Earth.
When asked how they can stop Nohman, Lloyd tells them the location of BAHRAM’s main base, which they can access through the otherworld; however, he warns them to beware of Anubis, as it’s far too strong for either of them to defeat. As he gives them this warning, however, Nohman appears with Anubis, once again defeating Jehuty. Ken flees and hides, while Dingo runs back to the exit portal when Lloyd stays behind to hold Nohman off at the cost of his own life. After escaping, Dingo receives a call from Ken, still trapped in the otherworld; Dingo promises to go back in and retrieve her, but she protests, since Nohman is still there. At her urging, Dingo promises that even if she doesn’t make it, he will do whatever it takes to stop Project Aumaan. Just as she hangs up, Nohman finds her, but apparently still buys her cover, and she reluctantly leaves with him.
Dingo calls Leo and relays to him the location of BAHRAM’s home base. Leo promises to rally everyone he can from the Shadow Response Unit for an assault, and to call Dingo when they’re ready. Dingo returns home to rest and prepare.
A few weeks later, Leo gives Dingo the call, and he heads for the appointed meeting place. He arrives to find Leo waiting with a large group of Shadow Operatives, including several Persona-users. Leo introduces him to Elena Weinberg, head of the organization’s regional branch, who will be commanding for the operation. Though the group displays a reluctance to trust Dingo, as he is from outside the Unit and has ties to BAHRAM, Leo reassures them that he’s on their side, and they back off. However, when Dingo mentions Ken, Elena says she doesn’t know who she is, and that there is no one named Ken Marinaris in the Shadow Response Unit. Dingo realizes that Ken must have lied, as the group heads through the portal to begin their attack.
Fighting their way past numerous Shadows and BAHRAM guards, the Shadow Operatives manage to penetrate the base. With the force weakened, Dingo and Leo are sent ahead while the rest of the force stands guard. As they make their way into the heart of the base, Dingo receives a telepathic message from Ken, warning him that Nohman is there with her and they should leave. When he tries to reassure her, she confesses that she lied about being a member of the Shadow Response Unit, and that she was really just a member of BAHRAM all along; however, she is surprised to find Dingo already knows, and is not angry, merely confused about why she felt the need to lie when she was working to take down BAHRAM either way. Ken explains that she was an Aumaan test subject like Dingo, one of a few Nohman considered too valuable to use as fuel for the project once he saw the extent of her powers, instead training her to become an agent for the organization. She claims to have always secretly hated Nohman for what he put her through, and that when she had the opportunity to secure Dingo’s help in getting revenge, she worried that she would never get another chance, and wanted to be sure he would trust her. Dingo jokingly remarks on how he understands perfectly well how someone would hate Nohman after being one of his test subjects. As he tries once more to reassure Ken, her connection is cut. Concerned, he and Leo hasten to proceed to Project Aumaan’s central control facility.
Expecting a fight against Nohman and Anubis, they aren’t surprised to be faced with the latter, though Dingo is perplexed by the former’s absence. Even more confusing, Anubis proves to be a surprisingly easy target, offering far less resistance than in past encounters. Dingo pulls back, suspecting a trap, but Leo continues to charge in, dealing great harm to Anubis, but leaving him surprised when what appears to be another Anubis appears from behind and immediately defeats him. Nohman finally reveals himself, dragging Ken along with a gun to her head; Ken dispels the illusion of the decoy Anubis, revealing it to be Ardjet, and explaining that Nohman forced her to fight Dingo and Leo. Dingo attacks Nohman, but Anubis repels Jehuty again, as Nohman, taunting Dingo, reveals the truth behind Project Aumaan: he has no intention of harnessing Nyx’s power as a weapon, but merely wants to unleash it for its natural purpose, the extinction of humanity. With Dingo powerless to stop him, he activates the final stage of the project, burning out every subject connected to the machinery at once to produce a massive spike of negative energy and trigger the descent of Nyx.
Enraged at Nohman, Dingo’s emotion triggers Jehuty to transform into his ultimate Persona, Ra. Nohman flees through an escape portal back into the real world, and Dingo pursues him. With Nyx approaching, the physical and spirit worlds begin to blur together in a similar fashion to the Dark Hour, allowing Persona-users to summon on Earth, and Shadows and other things from the spirit world to spill over. Pursuing Nohman, Dingo is faced with the Personas and tormented remnants of all the other Aumaan test subjects sacrificed for the project, but with Ra’s power, he is able to defeat them. Finally catching up, he manages to defeat Anubis, and with the destruction of his Persona, Nohman dies. As Nyx approaches, Dingo is faced with the Seal, threatening to break. In a desperate hope of stopping the process, Dingo sacrifices part of his own soul to bolster the Seal’s power, giving up his Persona abilities; the Seal holds, and Nyx is repulsed.
Dingo wakes up in a hospital, and is greeted by Ken and Leo. He asks them what happened; they explain that Project Aumaan was apparently thwarted, the portals have closed, and all the Shadows that came through were banished when they did. Leo says they found Dingo unconscious, and brought him here to recover, this hospital having ties to the Kirijo Group. Dingo thanks them, and asks for a moment alone with Ken, which Leo grants. Dingo asks whether Ken had them remove the device she attached to his heart, and she says they did. She asks him how he managed to stop Nyx from being summoned; he explains that he gave up his Persona abilities to do so. Ken expresses concern for his feelings about this, but Dingo reassures her that he doesn’t regret it, claiming that all this excitement is too much for him anyway.
Obviously, I changed a few things. The events of the first game are completely ignored, mostly because I'm not nearly as familiar with it, but also because I don't think the parallels are as clearly present. Dingo's relationship to BAHRAM is altered, but it seemed like the closest possible analogue that would still explain his motivations, given the change in setting. Ken's role is expanded to be more active, because the way the game treated her is just shameful. ADA is left out, because I couldn't find a way to work her in. Horus as Leo's Persona is entirely made up on my part (though I think it fits decently well), because he couldn't really have the Vic Viper. Ditto Ra as Dingo's ultimate, which I had to include because it's a staple of the new setting, and the mythology seems to fit. And, of course, the way everything is resolved at the end is my own invention. It's not meant to exactly parallel everything, but I think there's enough here that the similarities come through, while retaining enough sense to make a good story in its own right.
What do you think? Am I the only one who sees this?
...Should I really write the whole thing? Because I feel like I might have to write the whole thing...