Soul_Campaign Application

[sinningsaint]

[ PLAYER INFORMATION ]
Player Name: Haley
Age: 25
Timezone: MST
Personal Journal: brightblueink
Contact Information: haleysings@gmail.com, brightblueink @ aim and plurk

Current Characters: N/A
Links to Activity Check: N/A

Name of Beta-reader: None!

[ CHARACTER INFORMATION ]
Name: Joshua Christopher
Age: 15. He looks more or less like his age (maybe a little older).
Gender: Male
Canon: Chrono Crusade
Timeline: Manga, post-series but before the epilogue. I’m taking him as a new recruit to the Magdalan Order, which I’m headcanoning as a few months after chapter 56.

Background:
Here’s a wiki link, although it’s not particularly substantial and mixes manga and anime canon together: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Crusade#Sinners

There’s also a fansite here, which is somewhat better, although doesn’t cover everything important: http://www.chrno-crusade.com/AC_Characters_Josh.htm

Since both of those sources are a little weak, I’ll try to (as briefly as I can) summarize all of the important events that happen to him in canon not covered by those sources!

First of all, Wiki’s wrong about the promise Joshua made to Rosette in front of his father’s grave—he didn’t promise “not to grow old” but to grow old together with Rosette. He also promised to himself that he would grow as strong as he could as quickly as possible so that he could support Rosette.

Joshua and Rosette found Chrono in a tomb located near their orphanage, and quickly became friends with him. Chrono would often tell them stories—including a story about the astral line, where the souls of all life both originated from and returned after their death. Joshua loved this story and decided that his sister and he would go there as part of their dream to be explorers, and that he would write a book about it.

When Joshua accepted Chrono’s horns from Aion, the insanity they caused motivated him to freeze the time of everyone in the orphanage he lived in, Seventh Bell. The only two who were spared were Rosette and Chrono, since they happened to be just outside of the orphanage when it happened.

After the attack at the orphanage Aion took Joshua to his home base, Eden. There, as Joshua wandered the halls in a confused state, he stumbled upon a room where the shell of a girl was hooked up to a machine to supply magic summoning jewels for Aion’s plan. In his confusion, Joshua called her “sister”, which awakened the memories of the girl she’d once been and allowed her to have consciousness again. Aion apparently decided that the connection the two had would be useful to him—perhaps to keep Joshua in line—so he named the new “doll” Fiore, and made her Joshua’s maid.

After four years of searching, the Magdalan Order managed to find evidence of Joshua’s location. Aion used the opportunity to manipulate Joshua’s sister and Chrono to come to them using the information the Order had gathered—partially because he hoped that Rosette would have a limiting effect on Joshua’s steadily eroding sanity. However, when Joshua saw Rosette again, he completely failed to even recognize her. To top it off, Chrono’s presence had a bad effect on the horns, causing Joshua to shoot and nearly kill him to stop the “screaming” from them. In the ensuing chaos, Joshua was able to kidnap his sister’s companion, Azmaria—the final “Apostle” Aion needed for his plans, a child with holy powers like Joshua.

With the final Apostle gathered, Aion launched into his final plan—the Apostles would sing an oratorio led by Joshua on an organ tuned to his powers. With this song they would be able to use their powers to tap into the astral line, and through the horns on Joshua’s head he would then be able to use this power to tap into the demon’s home world, Pandaemonium—really a fish-like mothership that had sunk under the Atlantic ocean thousands of years before. This would also cast a geas on all demons that had horns (mostly those still loyal to Pandaemonium) that would mutate them into mindless monsters. This plan succeeded, although in the process a tidal wave was created that destroyed New York City.

After the Oratorio was performed, Joshua was separated from Fiore and her spiritual energy suddenly disappeared from his senses. Desperate, Joshua sought out Rosette, who had made it onto Eden in the middle of the Oratorio and had tried to get his attention during it. Before she’d left him, Fiore had convinced Joshua that he should try to talk to her to discern if she was really his sister, so that’s what he did. Although he at first accepted her as his true sister, when she told him he should take off the horns he decided that she must be an imposter (since he’d grown dependent on their power and thought that his sister would never be “mean” enough to suggest he should give them back). He attacked her, but during their battle she managed to shoot off one of the horns. This gave him enough sanity that he was able to recall the promise he’d made to Rosette as a child and realize that he’d been using the horns as a crutch. With this new information, he chose to rip out the remaining horn himself, restoring his sanity and unfreezing everything that he had stopped with Chrono’s powers, including the children of Seventh Bell.

With his sanity restored, Joshua joined Rosette in trying to find Chrono, whom she’d been separated from when Joshua had caught up with her. They found him badly wounded, being attacked by the mutant demons. When Rosette rushed to reach Chrono, she collapsed in front of him and appeared to die. This was when Joshua found out that his sister had made a contract with Chrono to supply him astral energy from her own soul so that Chrono could use his powers in place of the horns Aion had taken from him years before. Joshua’s response was to beat Chrono until his knuckles were bloodied and to curse at him, calling him a “monster”—although when Aion talked to Joshua after this he was quick to point out that Rosette made the contract in order to save Joshua, which calmed his anger toward Chrono down.

After an argument with Aion through one of Pandaemonium’s communication screens, Chrono replaced his horns on his head (which should have mutated him like the other demons, but he was able to use his self-control to keep his body under his control). He was about to rush off to stop Aion when Azmaria suddenly appeared and explained to him and Joshua that Rosette wasn’t actually dead, but that her soul had left her body. Although both Joshua and Chrono at first responded with relief, Azmaria revealed that this was actually bad news—Aion was on his way to kill the demon’s Queen, and when he did the soul of the Queen would seek out a new body to possess—and Rosette’s was the perfect empty shell. Chrono ran off to try to stop Aion, and Joshua took Rosette’s body and Azmaria back to the astral organ to attempt to use it to call her soul back to her body with their powers.

They almost managed to locate Rosette’s soul when Aion burst into the room and rushed at Rosette, attempting to kill her. However, Chrono was hot on his heels and struggled against Aion to keep him away from Rosette. That was when Azmaria realized that Rosette’s soul must actually be in the watch that Rosette used to seal Chrono’s powers. Chrono unsealed the watch and called Rosette’s soul back just as  Pandaemonium attempted to possess her body. Her return to her body forced Pandaemonium out, and she then shot at Aion, destroying his sword, badly wounding him and causing him to retreat.

As Pandaemonium’s soul dissipated, the Apostles, Rosette and Chrono were granted a vision that detailed the history of the demons, revealing the reasons behind Aion’s desperate attempts to reform the world to destroy the “systems” he hated. Aion planned to use the corrupted legion (sort of like demon cells) of Pandaemonium to force the cultural systems of everything to reboot, creating a new world order that Aion hoped would grant the Sinners freedom. When the Apostles realized that Pandaemonium was still collapsing and that Aion’s plan would succeed, Rosette and Chrono volunteered to chase Aion to the core of Pandaemonium and find a way to stop it, while the Apostles could use their powers to hold Pandaemonium together for as long as possible to help Chrono and Rosette succeed.

After the Apostles did all they could, they went to the outer part of Eden to discover Rosette sitting alone—Chrono had forced her to stay behind because he’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to protect her and ran off to face Aion alone. Although Azmaria feared that Rosette would die before Chrono made it back, Rosette swore that she would wait for Chrono as long as it took.

Based off of the epilogue, we know that sometime after this, Pandaemonium was destroyed and became a visible ring around the Earth. Joshua also decided to join the Magdalan Order and devote himself to aiding the rebuilding effort in New York in order to atone for his part in Aion’s plans. At the canon point I’m taking him from, he’s just joined the Order—and there has been no sign of Aion or Chrono since the final battle. The Apostle’s powers have also disappeared with the destruction of Pandaemonium, presumably because they’re no longer needed.

Personality:
Joshua can be a tough nut to crack because in canon we see three distinct sides to Joshua: what he was like as a child, how the power of Chrono’s horns twists his mind and personality, and a little bit of him as a teenager without the horns (but under a very stressful, intense situation). However, when you combine the whole of canon together, you can paint a full picture of Joshua’s personality. Joshua is a warm, loyal teenager who’s been battered by life and made some horrible mistakes, but he’s determined to learn from what has happened to him so that he can become a better person and make sure that his sister’s sacrifice for him was not in vain.

Despite the hardships Joshua has had in his life, he’s naturally a cheerful person. As an ill child, Joshua wanted little more than to just spend time with his sister outside and have fun with her, rather than worry over his illness or strange powers. He doesn’t particularly WANT to dwell on his problems (even though he often does), he wants to just enjoy life and have fun. So even when he’s under a lot of stress, he tends to manage to make jokes, have fun discussions with the people he cares about and engage in playful banter.

Of course, sometimes that “playful banter” of his can take a snarky, argumentative, and even downright childish tone. As a kid, he mocks his older sister because her chest is “as flat as a pancake.” He gets into extended arguments with Fiore because he hates carrots and she wants him to eat healthily. He apparently has a toy gun even as a 15-year-old. He mocks and eggs on opponents in a fight. (“Hah! That wasn’t even close! You DO know how to shoot, don’t you?”) We don’t see him engage with this after he loses his horns, so it’s possible that he “grows out of” this trait later on, but it’s also just as likely that the situations we see him in afterward simply don’t call for it.

His ‘childish’ side also manifests in a more positive way, in that Joshua is very imaginative and creative. As a child trapped indoors most of the time because of his illness, he became very attached to books. Most of the stuff he read was dime novels and pulp fiction, with a particular interest in adventure, sci-fi, westerns and the occult. (Honestly, a lot of his interests are downright geeky, particularly when you realize that dime novels are a precursor to comic books.)

He loves consuming stories and is fascinated by people of different cultures and ideas, and idolizes larger-than-life heroes. He also channels this creative energy into music—he’s shown singing “Israfel” the first time we see him as a teenager, and we later learn that he focuses his powers through music (particularly through a pipe organ made specifically for his use).

As a child, his love of stories and of the strange and unusual is part of what drew him closer to Chrono. He was fascinated at first by Chrono’s claim of being a demon, asking him if “witches and fairies [were] real, too?” and not showing a hint of fear. When Chrono begins to tell them stories and legends he’s amazed and inspired by them, particularly Chrono explaining the “astral lines” where the souls of the dead are said to go. As a child he decided that he and Rosette were going to become explorers and find the astral lines (and he’d write a book about it, of course!) Even as a sane teenager, he can’t help but point out to Rosette that their dreams have come true, since when she saves him they ARE surrounded by the astral line.

In general Joshua is bold, dreams big, and enjoys taking on new challenges. His idealized version of himself is like the heroes that he’s so fascinated by—for example, when he heals Rosette with his powers and she thanks him, he tells her that she shouldn’t thank him until he saves her from a group of bandits with only a rifle. He has a fascination with guns (probably from all those books he reads), to the point where he sometimes fights with guns despite the fact that the horns allow him to tear apart demons with his bare hands.

He very, very rarely backs down from a challenge, and only seems to when ordered to or convinced otherwise. When a group of demon Pursuers come to Aion’s home and demand to see the Sinner, Joshua warns them not to underestimate him (probably just to rile them up) and then kills them all with nothing but his powers and bare hands. Later, when he starts to question whether Rosette really is his sister as she says she is, Fiore encourages him to seek out the truth—so he does, going to her directly and asking her point-blank “You really are my sister Rosette, aren’t you?”  Even after he loses his horns and is back to being frail due to his powers, he not once but TWICE jumps between Rosette and an enemy, determined to protect her.

In fact, as a child he promised himself on his father’s grave that he would grow up as strong as he could to be able to protect Rosette, which is one of the reasons why he despises his illness so much. He’s VERY bothered that Rosette “acts just like a boy” and is the one being strong and protecting him, instead of the other way around. He seems to only half-remember the promise he made, but it greatly affects how he sees himself. He knew that because of his illness, he wasn’t as strong as he wanted to be, and he was upset by it.  In an interview in the English volume 2 of the manga, the writer of the series mentions that Joshua has a “childhood dilemma of [a] gap between the person he wants to be and the person he actually is,” which I think is a good way of summing up how Joshua feels about himself.

Because of his high expectations, he HATES being pitied and patronized. As a child he knew that caring for him was tiring, and both felt guilty for being a bother and resented people pitying and coddling him because of his illness. He also gets very upset by Rosette wanting to be a doctor so she can take care of him, which is hinted to be a motivating factor in him taking the horns. To him, being reminded that he’s ill and weak is insulting, and later in life, when he has great power because of the horns, he goes out of his way to show it off as if to prove a point.

He seems to place a high expectation on others, as well as himself, and is disappointed when they fail to match his expectations. On the flip side, when someone exceeds his expectations he’s quick to applaud them for it. For example, when Chrono snaps out of a rage-fueled frenzy during a fight and is stabbed by Aion because of it, Joshua expresses disappointment in how the fight ended, since he knows Chrono is a powerful demon. Later on, when Azmaria shows quick-thinking and uses her Apostle powers in an unconventional way to call Rosette’s soul back to her body, he’s visibly impressed with her.

His love of larger-than-life heroes, the occult, and admiration for the powerful is probably why he was so attached to Aion when he was part of the Sinners. From Joshua’s viewpoint, Aion was always calm, collected, and in control. He was powerful, and he knew it. To a boy driven insane by the “noise” he was hearing Aion must have seemed one of the few steady, in control things in the universe. He looked up to Aion, and Aion in turn expected much of him and included him in his plans. Joshua was proud of his work with Aion.

Even after he lost the horns, he stops and listens when Aion speaks to him, tries to reason with Aion rather than considering him as an enemy, and even seems concerned for him (after he makes sure his sister is all right). Of course, he doesn’t make excuses for Aion either, and is silent when Chrono and Rosette decide to face him a final time. He doesn’t argue that they shouldn’t fight Aion. He just warns Chrono to keep Rosette safe.

Speaking of Rosette and Aion, Joshua tends to be very loyal to those that he comes to care about. In general he’s rather friendly, but distant. He doesn’t seem to have had many friends in the orphanage—particularly once he got his powers, which frightened them. But the few people that he gets truly close to? He can be fanatically devoted to.

I’ve already mentioned that as a kid he promised himself he would be there for Rosette. If you asked him who the most important person in his life was, he would pick Rosette with little hesitation. She’s the only family he has left, and even though they sometimes fight or tease each other, he cares for her deeply. When he was sick, he hated feeling like he was holding her back, which was another thing that drove him to take Chrono’s horns from Aion.

After he got the horns, his memories of Rosette started to become faded and corrupted. It got bad enough that he couldn’t even remember her face. Unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality, he constructed a false Rosette in his mind out of scattered memories and wishful thinking, imagining her as a pure, kind-hearted girl who would never disagree with him and support his quest for power. He became obsessed with the false sister he created in his mind, and that image became something he clung to when the noise or his illness became too much of a strain. In his mind, all the pain would be worth it once he was with his sister in Aion’s newly remade world.

After Rosette helps him remove the horns, he’s happy to spend time with her and, after she collapses and nearly dies, desperately works with the other characters to save her life. He’s a very devoted, doting brother without the horns, and the knowledge that her life is shortened because of his actions is a big blow. Still, he’s bound and determined to protect her for as long as she lives, but on his OWN strength, now, instead of Chrono’s.

Despite how attached he is to Rosette, she’s not the only one he loves. His loyalty to Aion I covered earlier, and although the horns caused him to be selfish around her, it’s very clear that he also cares deeply for Fiore. (In fact, in a flash-forward set eight years after the main storyline, he’s STILL missing Fiore and hoping he’ll be able to see her again so he can thank her for all she did for him.)

However, despite how loving he can be to those he trusts, he has a bad habit of thinking of himself first, and others second. Rosette never asked to be protected by Joshua, but he was bound and determined to do it, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.

Loyal as he is to Aion, he seems to only somewhat care about Aion’s needs and ideals—as much as Aion used him, with the horns he was happy to play along for the power given to him and the promise of a new world he could share with his sister. Throughout canon, he’ll directly disobey Aion’s orders if it’s frustrating or inconvenient for him, like when he decides to attack Chrono to make the horns stop their “screaming.”

And while I do think he cares about Fiore, he’s definitely much more interested in what she can do for HIM while he has the horns. While with Fiore he tends to be clingy, concerned with his problems and frankly pretty whiny. He constantly goes to her for advice and emotional support without offering much in return. Part of it is just how their relationship works—she’s his maid, after all—but he definitely doesn’t mind having her around to serve him hand and foot, and even seems to actively enjoy it. (He gets a kick out of asking her if she was worried about him after a fight and even offers his cut-up hand to her so she can lick the blood from the wound. …It’s a weird moment.)

He gets much better about this behavior after he loses the horns, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a part of his personality—he’s just got a much better control over it when he’s not all crazy. He still shows signs of being a little demanding even without the horns, particularly when it comes to Chrono’s treatment of Rosette. And particularly since this was a trait of his even before the horns, it’s likely that’s just the way he is—his guilt is just stamping out his selfishness when he’s not flying off the handle emotionally.

Oh, right, his emotions. He’s not very good at controlling them. He seems calm in comparison to Rosette, but that’s just because Rosette’s EVEN WORSE than he is. It’s at its worst when he has the horns, of course. He has very little impulse control with them, which is where most of his chaotic nature with the horns comes from. But even without the horns he has a tendency to switch emotions at the drop of a hat. As a kid, while being generally cheerful, he was often depressed by his powers, and he also played a pretty mean prank on Rosette as revenge for her ruining a book. (Plus, he yells at her when she offers food to Chrono because HE’D been hungry earlier—oh, yeah, there’s the selfish side again.)

Even without the horns, perhaps even because of the trauma from the horns, he is pretty volatile emotionally. This manifests the most when he’s under a lot of stress. As things start to go worse and worse for him and Rosette, he gets more and more unpredictable when it comes to his mood swings. He’s not a stoic guy by any stretch of the imagination.

Chrono seems the most likely character to set off his temper throughout canon. When he has the horns, it’s partially because he thinks of Chrono as an enemy (for wanting to take the horns from him) and partially because when he’s around Chrono the horns are noooot happy and make the noise even worse. He shoots Chrono on impulse because of this, and came very, very close to killing him because of it.

Once the horns are gone, things still aren’t great between him and Chrono, mostly because of how devoted and overprotective he is of his sister. When he finds out about the contract Chrono had with Rosette, he flies into a rage and beats Chrono until his knuckles are bloodied. (Also Chrono was already missing an arm and an eye before Joshua decided to beat him up more.) 

Aion comes around eventually to point out that Rosette made the contract to save Joshua, but even then that doesn’t quite calm him down about it. He yells at Chrono when Chrono’s about to leave Rosette(‘s body) behind, and when Rosette and Chrono decide they have to face Aion together, Joshua gives Chrono a veeeeeery reluctant blessing. It’s not that he hates Chrono—far from it, he even seems to think of Chrono as a friend and expresses concern for him at one point. It’s just that when emotions are running high, it’s easy for him to pick a target to lash out at—plus, he’s the stereotypical overprotective brother. He’s glad that Rosette cares about Chrono, but he’s going to make VERY SURE that Chrono takes good care of her.

But really, despite all of his hang-ups, chaotic emotions and selfishness? By the end of the manga, Joshua is determined to become a better person. We might not get to see much of him without the horns, but baring his outbursts over Chrono’s contract with Rosette, every single thing he does after he loses the horns is directed at helping other people.

When it’s revealed that there’s a chance to save Rosette’s life, he immediately offers to help and races with Azmaria to the ‘Astral Organ’—a pipe organ made specifically for him to use. He uses it to help Azmaria call Rosette’s soul back to her body, despite the fact that he’s using his Apostle powers and once again causing himself to become ill (to the point where he starts to cough up blood). Despite his tense moments with Chrono, he doesn’t let him go without apologizing for being harsh toward him. The last thing we see him do in the main manga timeline is comfort Azmaria when she begins to cry. And in the epilogue, we learn that he later joins the Order to atone for the harm he’s caused.

This isn’t actually all that surprising—although he can be selfish, as a child we’re never given any reason to think he ever refused to heal someone with his powers, despite resenting his ill health and despite his powers and illness making him an outcast in his orphanage. In fact, considering that his powers are what causes his illness in the first place? It’s pretty clear that he’s been using his powers a lot, considering how sick he is by the time he gets the horns.

So in conclusion? Joshua is a screwed-up kid that can be self-centered and argumentative, clingy and prone to mood swings. He’s also compassionate, a devoted brother, curious and creative, and by the end of the manga is on his way to becoming someone who lives his life helping others.

Why is your character a good fit for the setting of Soul Campaign, and what will they do once they are in the game?
On one hand, Joshua has a desperate need to atone for the things he’s done, so once his initial frustration over being accidentally kidnapped dies down, he’ll probably but a lot of energy into helping other people. I can see him volunteering time to charitable work, as well as putting his all into finding a partner and working in missions. He has some experience with fighting and knows how to use a gun, so while he won’t enjoy fighting for Death City, he’s capable of it.

On the other hand, Joshua’s more or less a former villain, and has a lot of issues in his backstory that will be interesting for plots. Even if he doesn’t end up having Insane Soul as his meister ability I can see him being weak to the effects of madness wavelengths because of the way the horns damaged his sanity (even if he’s more or less recovered from that in his day to day life). Since he can also be quite stubborn and prone to making poor choices, I can see him ending up causing conflict in any organizations he might join.

List the abilities your character will still have in Soul Campaign:
Joshua lost his Apostle abilities after Pandaemonium was destroyed, so he’s basically a normal human boy now. The only abilities he’ll have will be those he’s learned—for example, his knowledge of how to use a gun, his ability to play the organ (and possibly the piano considering the similarity of the two instruments), etc. He’ll have some vague knowledge of how to fight supernatural beings from his own world, but since he only just joined the Order he’s still in training and not particularly knowledgeable—and most of that information would probably be useless for fighting the enemies of Death City.

List the weaknesses your character will gain (or lose) in Soul Campaign:
With Soul Empathy, he’ll feel very uncomfortable with physical contact with other people—once again relating back to the “Noise” he had with the horns, since at least some of it was being able to read other’s thoughts and having no control over it. This one might be the ability that he’s most likely to learn how to deal with reasonably, since it’d probably be much easier to control when he’s touched by someone than it would be to figure out when he’s about to come across a corrupted soul or madness waves. (outside of missions, of course).

Also, I've decided that Joshua will have a difficult time controlling his meister ability at first, and so he'll have to work on controlling it.

[ WEAPON ] or [ MEISTER ]
Meister!

Soul Description:
Compassionate, demanding, devoted, dreamer, self-centered, troubled

Joshua’s soul is golden-colored, with wisps of energy falling into its “face” like bangs.  On its “forehead”, it’s branded with a cross, but it also has two tails of energy sprouting from its “head” that look like horns.

Ability:
Soul Empathy -
There's a couple different reasons I picked this one. As I mentioned in weaknesses, it'd probably remind him of the "noise" he heard with the horns, since at least some of it was being able to read people's thoughts, so like the other abilities, becoming comfortable with using his new powers would force him to deal somewhat with the issues he has with his past.

I also think it's an interesting because of some of his insecurities and personality quirks--on one hand, Joshua can sometimes be uncomfortable when it comes to expressing emotion (even if he's a very emotional person), like when he didn't tell Rosette that he didn't want her to have to become a doctor for him. I'm also going to be assuming that he has a few trust issues after realizing the horrible things he did under Aion's commands. So being able to get an insight on people and understanding them better might be good for him on a CR level, once he allows himself to be comfortable using the power.

Also, after Joshua loses the horns, he  starts to show a lot of concern and empathy toward other people and their troubles, like when Rosette asks him if he's hurting because of his wounds from the horns being taken out of his head, and he says that there's people hurting much greater than he is so it's not a problem; as well as his later decision to join the Order so that he can help the people of New York City after his actions caused it to be destroyed. In short, I think the ability would be fun to play with because Joshua would be frightened by the power to some extent, but would also want to understand people and use the power to help others, if he could.

And if he got this ability I'd probably go with him having a difficult time controlling the power at first, since I enjoy challenging my characters. He'd have to directly confront his difficulties getting close to people just  to learn how to control his powers, which could be great for character development. (Also, wacky hijinx. Can't forget those.)

[ SAMPLES ]

First-Person
[video]

[When the feed starts recording, it captures a boy dressed up like some sort of priest. He’s wearing a dark blue uniform with accents of gold—including a gold cross hanging from a chain around his neck. He has a mess of blond bedhead sticking out from underneath a skull cap.

 

Once he realizes that the device in his hands has finally started recording, his blue eyes light up.]

 

Oh! So that’s it? This thing is really recording me? That’s amazing!

 

[Oh, wait, this is going to be a PUBLIC recording, isn’t it? He suddenly seems to have a realization of how silly he might be coming across and straightens his shoulders, then clears his throat.]

 

Er…hello. I’m Joshu—Brother Joshua Christopher. [awkward pause] Of the Magdalan Order.

 

[He pauses to adjust his cap—he doesn’t seem particularly comfortable wearing it—then takes a deep breath, keeping his tone serious.] I don’t really know what to think about being here yet. This whole situation feels balled up. But after talking to the people on the tour, I think I understand the situation here a little better.

 

This isn’t ideal, but, well… I swore to do what I can to help people. After thinking about it, I guess I figured I might be here for a reason, and there doesn’t seem to be many options at the moment, so I want to help in any way that I can. If anyone needs any help, with anything, please feel free to ask.

 

[He pauses, then smiles a little, seeming satisfied enough with his message, so he switches the recording off.]

Third-Person
Joshua did his best to look normal as he took his food from the Magdalan Order’s crowded cafeteria and walked out of the room as quickly as he could. He hoped that he didn’t attract too much attention to himself as he retreated. The majority of the exorcists of the Order didn’t know the details of his past, but what they were able to figure out fueled plenty of rumors—Rosette was a troublemaker and (formerly) contracted to a demon, she had disappeared from the Order and then somehow got caught up in the battle with the renegade demons on Christmas Eve, and when she’d returned to the Order she’d brought along her younger brother, who’d now joined the Order himself. He was also constantly being grilled by upper command, often met with one of the priests for some reason, and hated crowds so much he refused to eat in the cafeteria and instead ate his meals in his room as much as possible.

 

As Joshua climbed the stairs to the men’s dorms, he had to admit that what Father O’Neil said to him in one of their counseling sessions was probably right—avoiding the cafeteria probably wouldn’t help his hatred of crowds any. But the noise of it was unbearable. The high ceilings of the room only served to amplify the conversations swirling around the cafeteria, making the room constantly full of the buzz of half-heard conversations and words so muffled they barely sounded like English any more. How was anyone supposed to think in a room like that?

 

He entered his room with a sigh and closed his door behind him with his foot, then shoved aside a few pulp novels that Rosette had smuggled into the Order for him off his desk to clear a space for him to set down his food. Watery soup and bread again. Not exactly gourmet. Of course, there wasn’t much point in sacrifice and depriving yourself for God and your fellow man if you ate like a king. And the soup wasn’t really all that bad, but…

 

“Fiore’s cooking tasted so much better.”

 

He frowned down at his bowl and shoved some pieces of carrots to the side of it. He really had allowed himself to think, for a moment, that if he joined the Order then everything would change. He’d instantly become a better, happier person, his anxiety would disappear, and he would have an idea about what he was doing and some sense of purpose. But a part of him still just felt the same as the day Rosette had helped him remove the horns.

 

Most of the people he knew had warned him it wouldn’t be easy. Rosette had told him stories about how tough the training was, Father Remington had cautioned even when he was a child that growing stronger was a process that would take time…now that he thought about it, his expectations were pretty silly. Still, it was disappointing. He felt like he should be better now.

 

He drained the last of his broth from his bowl and shoved it and the pile of carrots it still contained aside, then got up from his chair and walked over to a mirror on his wall. He gave his reflection a disappointed look as he adjusted his hat.

 

“Stop being so grummy. You’re definitely not going to change anything if you just give up,” he said with a determined tone as he combed his hair with his fingers in an attempt to make it less messy. “Rosette didn’t do all that work just for you to sit around and mope, did she? You’re already making an improvement. You’re doing everything you’ve been told to do and you’re putting effort in, so stop being so damn impatient. That’s what got you into this mess in the first place.”

 

“Also…” He grabbed the edges of his jacket and tugged it down to straighten it. “You probably shouldn’t let people catch you talking to your reflection. That won’t help convince people you’re not crazy.”

 

At that moment, the clock in the center of the grounds began to chime. Joshua stiffened and cursed under his breath. “I’m late again. Sister Kate’s going to have my head!”

 

He rushed to his door, flung it open…

 

And ran straight into darkness.

 

When Joshua woke up, his head was spinning and the scars hidden under his hair throbbed with a dull ache. He looked around the dark room and tried to get his bearings. He didn’t recognize the room as being anywhere in the Order that he knew of. If anything, the room felt like it had more in common with the fortress of a villainous occult group from one of his dime novels than it did a church.

 

All around him, people were waking up in similar states of confusion. Is this some sort of nightmare? he thought to himself as he rose to his feet. But then he second guessed himself—No, this has to be some sort of trap. Is this the work of some sort of sorcerer or spirit?

 

He reached for the gun he had holstered on his hip, only to discover that it was missing. That confirmed it in his mind—it MUST be some sort of trap. He grit his teeth and started to search for an exit when a screen suddenly appeared in the air with a man giving an explanation for the situation. Joshua listened, giving the screen a mistrustful expression as the explanation continued. Was he really supposed to believe that? This whole thing felt weird, and too convenient. He’d been taken from his home and told idealistic-sounding promises about the good he’d be doing if he fought with someone before—and trusting them had turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life. And now he was supposed to be okay with it happening again?

 

He’d get as much information about the situation as possible, but for now he definitely going to stay suspicious. He waited for most of the crowd to filter out of the room, then followed on the edge of it, scanning his surroundings and preparing himself to fight at any moment. He’d figure out what was going on here, somehow, and once he found a way back home to his sister, he’d take it.